by John Benson
"Oracle 12.2 restarting... ready," the Old Thing said in a young woman's calm but thrilling voice.
Finally. Finally it had absorbed enough sunlight into its decrepit power cells so she could try again. Brianna swallowed hard. "I'm tired of my life," she said. "Tired of being a party girl. I want work. A sense of purpose. But when I bring it up to Papa, he brushes me off. He doesn't think I'm ready."
Why did she bother, really? The last time the Oracle had rebooted she'd told it the self same thing and it had said 'How nice for you,' and turned itself back off. But still she waited, breathlessly, heart pumping double time. And this time the Old Thing answered.
The Wizard paced the three by three meter hovel he called an office, hands behind his back. "It's somewhat of a misnomer, you know," he said. He reached a hand's breath of the far wall and wheeled. There was something a bit disreputable about the Wizard, but there aren't any reputable Wizards left, these days. And the Oracle had been quite clear: you know what it is you're missing, it had told her. Go tell it to a Wizard.
"Beg pardon?" said Brianna, trying to be polite.
"An artificial conscience," the Wizard said. "Conjures up the idea of some great moral calculus we could embed inside your head so you'd become an expert in philosophy. Isn't that way at all. More just self-awareness, really. You won't have any moral qualms you wouldn't have had otherwise. Merely be more aware of them. Have to come to grips with them, couldn't pretend they weren't there. Are you sure that's what you want?"
What she wanted was to convince Papa she was ready. "I think so," she said. "Help focus the mind, at least."
"There's side effects to self-knowledge," the Wizard said. "You could become so indecisive you were dysfunctional."
That made her smile. "If I'd started out too thoughtful," she said. "But people say I'm impulsive. Slowing me down a bit isn't going to hurt."
"And you sure there's enough credit in your account to pay for the process?"
"Not a problem," Brianna said, now grinning from ear to ear.
It was dark. She felt a tickling inside her mind. "Pass one complete," a woman's voice said. "Calibration complete. Please select mode." It was the same voice as her Oracle. The voice of the Old Things.
"Default mode," she heard the Wizard say. "Give her what she needs most and don't be gentle."
"Commencing pass two," the Old Thing said, and Brianna smelled fear and tasted regret and felt helplessness and lust.
"A Wizard?" Papa said. He was looking straight at her and hadn't touched his wine. For once she had his full attention. "You went to see a Wizard? What, cure your lack of a love life, finally?"
Brianna flinched. "No. An augmentation of conscience, Papa. I want work. You think that I'm not ready. Well, dammit, I'm trying to make myself ready, okay?"
He blinked. He noticed he was still holding his fork and set it down. "And how's that working out for you, my dear?" he asked.
Not good, really. Instead of increased moral clarity it had led to fitful dreams of discipline and rape. "Maybe he wasn't a very good Wizard," she said. "But I can cope. And at least I tried, all right?"
"Yes," said Papa. "Hadn't realized it meant that much to you. It's a crummy job, you know. Solving disputes means you're seeing people not at their best. And the most you can hope for is often the least bad option. A really crummy job."
"A crummy job I'll wind up with someday, unless you opt for immortality or I let myself get raped into slavery," Brianna said. "So don't you think I should start learning while you're still around to help me fix my fuckups?"
"And is that something you're contemplating?" Papa asked. "Letting yourself get raped into slavery?"
He'd gone all quiet. She wished she was a better people reader. "No, not really," she said. "I know it's a really crummy job, but if I don't take it it may fall to someone who's even less qualified. So I don't have any choice."
"All right," he said. He smiled and picked up his wine glass and drank deep, then addressed his plate and tore into the antipasto.
"All right?" Brianna asked. Was that it? Had she won, or was he blowing her off again.
"All right, I'll find you work," Papa said. "Take a few days to set it up. But I warn you, girl. I'm not giving you the easy ones."
Relief. Anxiety. "No. Of course. You're not teaching me to be a clerk. They'll have to be hard ones."
"Ones I have been putting off because there's little upside," Papa said. "And now finally whoever loses can have someone else to blame."
It took her breath away. I'm not ready for this, she thought. I'm going to screw it up. Why do I even want this? I should be punished for even asking.
"Try the shrimp," said Papa.
Instead Brianna took a gulp of wine, surprised when it tasted sour.
She hadn't been in Papa's work room since she'd snuck in there when she was little. Funny, Brianna thought. Back then the exciting part was getting away with being naughty. Or had it really been the risk of being caught and punished? It was fun to play the game and win. But had part of her really hoped that she would lose? Be caught by an angrier, more physical version of her papa, spanked until she cried? And why had she managed to forget those feelings until now? Why had her mind been dredging up that crap now, since she'd gone to the Wizard and asked for moral clarity? Ancient history didn't clarify anything. It only made it worse.
Papa looked up from whatever he was doing. "Oh, there you are," he said. "Good. We can get started. I've collected a few things you might need on your assignment, including Richard."
A man was seated near some boxes a little ways away. A fairly young man, and not bad looking. "Hello, Miss," he said.
My babysitter, Brianna thought. "And exactly what's he for, Papa?"
"Whatever you choose, dear. Companion, secretary, confidante, adviser, you decide. But even though his advice is often worth taking, let me warn you. He's not in the chain of command. You can't dodge responsibility merely by accepting his suggestions."
Not babysitter then, exactly. She walked toward him, looked at him directly, made eye contact. Interesting. He didn't flinch. "I get it," she said. "You're a spy."
"For your father Miss?" Richard asked. "Hardly. The complaint lines are wide open. Anyone and everyone who feels he got less than he deserved will contact your father's office and vent at length. I'm not his spy because he has no use for one."
She hadn't thought of that. "Oh. And if there's too many complaints, he'll know I'm doing a piss poor job."
"More like if I don't hear any I'll know you aren't doing the job at all," said Papa. "Now here's a few things I can spare to aid you. This package is a privacy field, so you can have conferences off the record."
A few of his precious Old Things. Great. "Thank you sir," Brianna said. "And what's in the long case?"
"Why don't you take a look?" said Papa.
She opened it. A black rod. She reached out to touch its smooth surface and suddenly she knew. A punish stick. It's what I need, she realized. It's what should happen to me for being a bad girl. It should be used on me, to paint slow-healing, nasty, calibrated welts on my behind.
"Sometimes all that's needed to make people see reason is the threat of a short sharp shock," Papa was saying. "Especially the upper classes who go to such great lengths avoiding pain."
But Brianna barely heard him. She was busy wondering if a punish stick could be self administered. If she could use it to inflict a whipping on herself.
Three horses plodded up a road whose cracked and pitted pavement had once supported whizzing ground cars, before they all died from lack of spare parts and shortages of go-juice. Leather creaked, Brianna swayed on her perch. She'd thought herself a good rider, but she was used to the saddle an hour at a time, not the three days it was going to take to reach the Plain of Smith nor the one more to Jones Mountain. Boredom brought with it naughty daydreams, needy thoughts. Self knowledge, Brianna thought to herself. What's the point of self knowledge if all it teaches you is you're too big for your britches and wish someone'd take you down a peg or two. What's the point of self awareness if it meant you were aware of wishing you could experience disciplinary slave rape, if only it wasn't permanent.
Plodding, boredom, horse swaying, leather creaking, girl horny, damn. Do it, Brianna. Take a risk. The fact that it might actually happen is what makes it so exciting. Do it. "Say Richard?"
"Yes, Miss?"
He sat so easy in the saddle, as if he'd been born to it. Brianna's dirty thoughts strayed to the third horse, to the items her papa had inadvertently provided. The privacy field. The punish stick. "You're to be my assistant, and I'm at liberty to decide exactly what that means, right?"
"Within my abilities, yes," he said.
This was so dangerous, so sexy. "And what if some of the assistance I required was, uh, deeply unconventional? Would word of it travel back to my father?"
"Depends, Miss. Does it involve treason?"
He sat so calmly on his horse. She wished she was a better people reader. "Good grief, no. Not treason. Just a certain amount of embarrassment. I'm trying to decide how far I dare trust you."
"Well, I can tell you one thing straight off," he said. "If it involves your sex life, he explicitly doesn't want to hear about it."
"Well, it's not about my sex life, so don't get your hopes up," said Brianna. But maybe she'd spoke too quickly. If it didn't have anything to do with sex, how come thinking about it was getting her so horny?
Wind buffeted the tent, which shuddered but did not fall. Dry dust was everywhere, of course. On their clothes, in their lungs, the dust that had been good farmland once, before the dry winds came. They sat facing each other on a mat, Richard and Brianna, sipping reconstituted broth. Shyness fought with neediness in a girl who had too much of both. Shyness fought with neediness, and lost.
"Speaking hypothetically," she said.
He might have smiled. "Should I fire up the privacy field, Miss, just so you can speak more freely?"
He's encouraging me, she thought. That's a good thing, right? "Might as well test it," she said. "Just so you know it'll work when we really need it."
He nodded and futzed with the little box in the corner, then returned. Sat down, waited for her.
She tried again. "Speaking hypothetically, let's say there's a friend of mine. She's gotten herself into a job that's way to big for her. Not that she's so bad, really. Job might be too big for anyone. But somehow... this is hard to explain, bear with me?"
"Of course," he said.
No sarcasm, no boredom. That's good, right? "Somehow she's gotten it into her head that painful discipline might calm her down, make her pay more attention and do a better job. If she really must sit in judgment, she wants to be sitting on a painfully welted hind. Does that make any sense? Would you be willing to help my friend?"
An awkward silence. Brianna could feel her pulse thud in her crotch. She was asking for pain. Pain hurts. Why did she even want that?
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