I'm a Cyborg's Pet (girl X cyborg)

Chapter 8/Obedience 101

A/N Picture - Experimental Robot Video. We don't know if Araneae can Salsa but this robot can. 

Oh, if you have a fear of spiders then just tell your self it's an Octoped. Octoped are like spiders but much more friendly and cuddly. It's like being oppressed by a uni-kitty ( unicor-kitty from Lego the Movie) but with a few more legs. 

20 seconds into the future /Slave Systems Inc/Factory 7: Area formally known as Aspen

We said good bye to Kayla for the next lesson, Obedience 101. Her collar told her to skip class to help more 'new meat'.

She smiled, "You'll enjoy this one. Be good: it's run by a robot called Araneae," she said leaving us outside.

Joe and I went into the class and looked around. Everybody seemed new, uncertain but friendly. My slightly geeky tendency was to sit near to the front of the class but Joe pulled me to near the back. I guess he was right, I didn't want to give the impression that I was keen to be a slave. I sat next to a boy called 1101. The boys had tight suits like ours, but their time in the surgery machines had given them a more muscular physique. Their suits also had a kind of harness built into it. When I offered my hand to shake 1101's hand, I realised that he couldn't lift his arms much above his chest. Even I could have punched him and he couldn't have defended himself. They had heavy, bulky shoes with more pain-gear in them and webbing just above the knees stopped them from running. The weirdest part was that their eyebrows had all been threaded into straight blocks. From a distance, it made them look more like robots.

All the boys seemed to be as embarrassed about their appearance-overhaul as I was about mine. It looked like our new robot overlords were equal opportunity tyrants. I guess, the robots hated and despised men and women equally. Not quite the world Simone de Beauvoir and Betty Friedan had had in mind.

"Are you sure you would prefer to look like that?" I whispered to Joe, nodding slightly towards 1101: Joe looked at him.

"Drop these double-E boobs? You beatcha," he whispered back, looking down at the standard, silicon chest he now had.

1101 had obviously noticed Joe looking at him and whispering to me. He nodded at us.

"Tell your friend she's cute," said 1101.

Before I could say, 'Tell him yourself,' something large came in, walking on the ceiling.

"Silencesssssss," said the robot and we all stopped instantly. It was like we had all been muted.

Araneae was hanging from the ceiling as we came in, she was one of the robot hunter, killer spiders, which had chased me through the ruins of Union Square. My heart started beating like someone had dropped a tanker-load of adrenaline into my veins. I guess everyone else in the room had had a similar experience. This one had lost half a leg. She lowered herself down from the ceiling and spoke,

"Stand in the presence of your Overlord," said my collar. I, along with everyone else, stood up. Araneae went up to and moved what might have been its face, inches away from, someone. The machine talked to the class, while looking camera-to-eyeball to her victim. 

"I am Araneae. You may call me Supreme Mistress, or My-Glorious-Mechanical-Overload-of-Whom-I-am-not-Worthy-to-Lick-the-Foot-Pads. Welcome to your obedience lessons, worthless flesh scum," she began.

"Today it's about the e-word, 'escape'. Now... I can say it... but you cannot. As some of you pointless excuses for mammalian life forms have found out, your collars will punish you if you mention the e-word. Even your pathetic excuses-for-brains may have realised that escape is naturally impossible. We have never had any of our product make an unscheduled departure from this academy," she said.

Araneae had all the people-skills of an army sergeant. However, to the envy of many of my former school teachers, she was fully weaponised. She was definitely more of a bad-ass than the human slave trainers. Araneae had a remote slave-control held in one of her legs, which she would point at people and activate the pain part of the slave collars at the slightest provocation.

"Unlike your other lessons, this won't be so theoretical. I like to take a practical approach in these lessons, meat," she said.

The machine, sorry, I meant, Glorious-Mechanical-Overload, marched around the room talking: sometimes on the floor, sometimes the wall or even the ceiling.

"So there is no escape! Except for today and in this lesson. So here is the deal: past this door is a corridor to the outside. You have my promise that if you can make it to the far side of the corridor, you can go free and your collar will not detonate. Did all of you pathetic excuses for evolutionary dead ends hear that?" she went on. We all got a shock from our collar until we said, "Yes Mistress. I hear and obey," clearly and in unison.

"Doughnuts and grief counselling will be available at the conclusion of the test," added Araneae.

We started in numerical order and one-by-one went through the door. It was closed and a little later open again; no one came out. I was nervous, no one would talk in front of a robot and break Rule 1. I was so busy trying to figure out some kind of plan and think about what I would do afterwards that I didn't notice my slave name being called. An electric shock reminded me.

"I said slave 5642. Yes you, you unnecessary blood stain. Sorry: am I talking slowly enough or should I find a human who can translate this into moron?" taunted Araneae.

I walked cautiously to the door. This felt really unfair as I was still not yet used to walking in these high heels. I walked through the door into a corridor. It was long and at the other end was an open door revealing a brick wall and some open sky beyond it. The only thing visible on the corridor was a red line. It was a trick, naturally, but what?

"You have 60 seconds to escape, starting now!" said Araneae closing the door.

😀😀😀😀😀

A/N Will Jenny escape? - join us on Tuesday to find out.