Paradigm City - Fan Fiction

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Belonging

Part 7

Roger paced the room in frustration. She really had no idea of the effort it took to restrain himself. If she had managed to land that fourth kiss, he would have done anything she asked him to do and to hell with the consequences. She was so damn beautiful! It had gotten to the point that the unexpected sight of her could hit him like a punch in the stomach and reduce him to babbling incoherence in a matter of milliseconds.

As his anger faded, it occurred to him that he wasn't being entirely fair. The reason she had no idea of the effort he was making was because he had been careful not to let her see it. He preferred that she continue to think he was unmoved by her efforts. If she caught even a hint of how he really felt, she would likely push harder, and the moment she did, he knew his resolve would crumble into dust.

It was also probably not very fair of him to accuse her of trying to manipulate him. She was likely just lashing out because his words had been hurtful. What he ought to do was give her a little bit more time to calm down, and if she didn't come to him, he would go to her and explain why he had reacted the way he had to her words.

He grinned as another thought struck him. This was the first time that they had ever had any kind of an argument where she had held on to her anger instead of bursting into tears or becoming fearful. Although he considered himself a reasonable man, he was no more immune from acting like an idiot than any other human being. It was nice to think that she would one day be able to tell him so if the need arose.

He waited another few minutes and went into the hall. He would go to her rooms first and if she wasn't there, he would look for her downstairs. As he neared the bend in the hall, he heard what sounded like a low moan. Curious, he stepped around the corner.

Nothing could have prepared him for the sight of Dorothy and Alex locked in a passionate embrace in Alex's doorway, her nightgown puddled at her feet and his hands roaming freely over her exposed skin. She moaned again as Alex lifted her off the ground and braced her against the door jamb. The sound of a zipper being undone was enough to break Roger's horrified paralysis. He turned and fled back the way he had come, the sounds of Dorothy's cries as his brother claimed her echoing in his ears long after he had closed his door behind him.

***

Alex smiled as he heard the fading footsteps of his brother's rapid retreat. It couldn't have worked out better if he'd choreographed it. The only difficulty had been in keeping his mouth in constant contact with Dorothy's as he'd lifted her off the ground. It had been worth the effort--it had not only rendered her pleas for help unintelligible, it had hidden the tears that were still streaming from her eyes. Roger's reaction told Alex that he believed Dorothy had been an enthusiastic participant in their activity.

He released her and let her slide down to the floor, kicking the discarded nightgown into his room. It hadn't taken him long to figure out that, although she wouldn't obey a direct command, as long as he kept a hand on her, she was effectively incapable of denying him anything. He had waited and watched, and when she had literally run into him in the hall, blindly storming away from her argument with his brother, he hadn't hesitated.

Roger was an idiot for not erasing her and starting fresh in the first place. Any pleasure-bot whose owner refused to repair damage of this magnitude didn't deserve to keep it. Alex didn't intend make that particular mistake. He was going to wait a few days before he wiped her in order to get look at what had happened in order to keep it from happening again, but he had a pretty good idea that he'd been largely responsible.

He pushed Dorothy into the room and followed behind, closing and locking the door. The first order of business was to finish what he had started. Hopefully, this would increase his control over her. His brother's reaction would also work to his advantage--he would be hurt and play the jilted lover, as if Dorothy had the capacity to prefer either of them.

She was too damaged to obey his verbal orders, but the pleasure-seeking/pain-avoidance routines seemed intact. Perhaps some good old-fashioned conditioning techniques would do the trick. He stood over her, smirking. "We can make this as easy or as difficult as you like," he informed her. "You know what I want. Do a good job," his hands caressed her until she quivered with pleasure, "and I'll reward you. Disobey," he cruelly pinched sensitive flesh until she was whimpered softly, "and I'll make you wish you hadn't. Now get on the bed."

***

Dorothy remained in the shower long after the hot water was gone, trying to scrub the feeling of Alex off of her skin. If only she had taken Lisa's advice and told someone! While there might have been no way to entirely prevent it, the minute she had turned up missing, someone would have gone looking for her and she wouldn't have been forced to spend the entire night with him. She shuddered in disgust and lathered up the soap yet again. She was never going to feel clean no matter how many times she washed.

Horrible as the experience had been, when she forced herself to set her reactions aside, she had discovered two things. The first was that Alex wasn't particularly interested in hurting her. Pain was simply one possible means to an end, not an end in and of itself. If he could achieve his desires without it, using it never crossed his mind.

Once she had forced herself to obey, he had been true to his word. She shuddered again, unable to stop the reaction. Physical ecstasy at the hands of someone who completely repulsed her was an experience she never wanted to repeat. She had tried to be just uncooperative enough that she could avoid her "reward", but he seemed to be able to immediately detect the least hint of resistance.

The second discovery was simple and yet profound. He didn't know she was there! The same actions that had convinced the rest of the family that she was indeed conscious had only proved to him that she had been terribly damaged and was in desperate need of repair. When he had casually mentioned his intent to have her mind wiped clean in a few days and she had pleaded with him to not to destroy her, he had spoken to her in a gentle, even comforting fashion.

He had assured her that the process wouldn't hurt, that in fact, the damage was causing her a lot of unnecessary pain and conflict, and that he had no intention of letting her continue to suffer. It was obvious that he regretted the carelessness that had led to the current situation, and he had promised her that once she had been repaired, he would take much better care of her and that he would never damage or punish her again. He was quite sure that his actions had been the primary cause of what he referred to as her "underlying instability", and he was resolved to change his ways.

She wondered if he could see the irony in the fact that he was explaining himself to an inanimate object, but, to his mind, if his conversation kept her calm and obedient, he would talk to her all night. It was much like the time she had seen Roger pat the dashboard and say encouraging words to a car with a balky starter. As long as the car started, it cost him nothing to do it and for all he knew, it helped.

If she had had any doubts of this at all, the proof arrived when Alex was finally finished with her. He had sent her to her usual chair and instructed her to suspend her processes until 8:00 the next morning. She had activated the suspension as she was told, knowing that he would likely pinch her again to make sure he had obeyed his wishes, but she set it to end at 4:30 instead, giving him just over an hour to fall asleep.

When she awoke, she discovered that he had been so sure that it would never occur to her to set the time to something other than 8:00 that she hadn't been restrained in any way. She forced herself to sit motionless in the chair for another few moments just in case, but he was deeply asleep. In fact, he was snoring so loudly that she probably could have sneaked an entire herd of elephants past him without him noticing a thing.

She had wrapped the torn nightgown around herself and headed straight to her own rooms and the shower even though logic told her that she should probably seek help immediately.

Two hours later she still didn't feel clean, but she didn't dare remain any longer. She reluctantly stepped out from under the cold water and dried off, quickly dressing and putting on her shoes. She walked quietly down the hall and entered Roger's room, locking it behind her. She put a hand on his shoulder and lightly shook him. "Dorothy, what have you been doing? Your hand is like ice!" He sat up, rubbing his eyes sleepily. "Why are you here?"

"Roger," she burst into tears. "Alex..."

"I know all about Alex," he said. "Dorothy..."

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you," she sobbed, putting her arms around him and burying her face into his shoulder. "I was so afraid you would be angry with me."

"I can understand that," his voice was almost a monotone. Why wasn't he hugging her back? She needed to hear him to say that he would protect her and that everything would be all right. "You should always tell the truth for things that are this important. I'm not mad, though."

"You aren't?" Something was terribly, terribly wrong.

"No," he said. "I had... hoped... that in time..." He took a deep breath. "I'm sorry, Dorothy. I didn't understand how important it was to you. If I had realized... I don't know if I could have done anything differently, but perhaps I would have tried to explain better, or we could have reached some kind of compromise."

"Roger?" she looked at him in fear and confusion. He couldn't possibly think...

"At first I was upset, but I've been thinking about it all night, and I realized I only have myself to blame." It was as though he was talking to himself, not her.

"Please, Roger," she had to make him listen!

"I hope you and Alex will be very happy," he went on as if she hadn't spoken. "I... I'm going to need some time to get used to it, Dorothy, but I don't want you to that think I'm avoiding you because of anything you did wrong. I still want you to work for us, you've done a great job with Big O. It's my own fault for assuming you'd do whatever I told you to do." He gave her a sad smile. "I'm always telling you to make your own decisions, so when you do, I have no right to complain. I'm sorry you felt you couldn't tell me about Alex from the beginning. I had no right to act the way I did--you never made me any promises, and it's not like you belong to me or anything."

The words fell on her like a blow. "Roger?" she gasped, the sudden tearing pain in her head doubling her over.

"Are you all right, Dorothy?" he looked at her with concern. "This must have been awful for you, feeling that way and thinking you couldn't tell me."

"Please..." she reached out her hand. "I need...help..."

"Wait right here, I'll go get Alex," he was on his way to fetch him before she could say anything more.

She had to get away. She knew Alex wouldn't give her a second chance to escape. He might even override her right then and there. She staggered to the door and then stopped. If she went this way, she'd run into them trying to get to the stairs.

She needed to buy herself some time. She closed the door and locked it and pressed her hands to her head, trying to ease the pain enough to be able to think. She went to the windows. She might be able to jump to the ground, but she couldn't risk damaging her legs and not being able to run away.

"Dorothy!" she could hear them at the door. One of Roger's windows opened close to the roof of the back porch, it was only a couple of feet away. Even in her current state, she shouldn't have any problem.

Her decision made, she opened the window and climbed to the sill, jumping down to the porch roof with no difficulty. They would see the open window, of course... was there a place on the grounds where she could hide? Her favorite tree was one of the first places they would look, as were the tool sheds and the cars. She looked longingly towards the woods at the edge of the mansion's grounds. If she could get to them, it would buy her some time, but they were almost a half mile away, with no real cover between them and the house.

She looked around frantically and realized that one of the attic windows was open a crack. That must have been from when she and Mrs. Tanner had gone up there looking for furniture, they had opened several windows to keep the dust from overwhelming the human woman.

She should be able to get to it from here without too much effort, but she had to do it now before Roger or Alex thought to try to get into his room from outside. She went to the other side of the porch roof and jumped up, successfully gripping the bottom rung of the upper floors' fire escape ladder that was three feet above her head.

She climbed as quickly and quietly as she could. The open window was only two dormers away from the top of the ladder. She carefully climbed up to the shingles and made her way over, bracing herself in the "V" formed by the slope where the two dormer roofs met and reaching around to push the window upward. The sash was sticky, which is probably why it hadn't been completely closed, but after she had shifted to get a better angle, it yielded.

Now came the difficult part. She climbed to the peak of the dormer above the open window, lay down on her stomach and slid back until her legs dangled over space, feeling for the window frame with her feet. Once she was in the proper position, she let herself drop down over empty air for a few frightening seconds, and then her feet were making contact with the windowsill. She reached through and gripped the bottom of the window to brace herself and crouched down.

She teetered dangerously for a few seconds and caught herself, sitting down on the sill at last and sliding into the attic. Her head... she had just enough presence of mind to return the window to its original position. She had to find somewhere to hide. Even if they had no suspicion that she had gone to the attic, when they didn't find her on the grounds, they would look here.

There was a heavy armoire against the wall that had once belonged to Roger and Alex's mother. The upper portion, if she recalled correctly, was more or less empty. She went over to it, careful to walk quietly so that no one below would hear her footsteps.

Her memory proved correct, there were a couple of small boxes in it but still plenty of room for her. She climbed in and pulled the doors closed behind her.

***

"Where could she possibly have gone?" Roger exclaimed in frustration. The two men were standing at front of the house, looking around for any sign of the android.

"I have no idea," Alex said. "I think the strain has caused more damage than we realized--I had already promised to bring her to the service center for maintenance, and I think I had better do it the minute we find her. They'll wipe her completely and install new memory if it seems warranted."

"Wipe her?" Roger turned to his brother. "What are you talking about? Surely they can repair her without erasing everything?"

"The damage is pretty severe," Alex told him. "Her reactions are completely aberrant. It would be much faster to just start from scratch."

"But won't that... kill her?" Roger asked.

"What are you talking about?" Alex frowned. "She's just a collection of ones and zeros. A very clever and responsive set of ones and zeros, I'll grant you, but there isn't anything there to kill."

Roger looked at the other man in dawning horror. "Did you... tell her this?" he managed to keep his voice casual.

Alex frowned. "Of course I did," he said. "She's terribly conflicted and in a lot of pain. I promised her that I'd do something about it. I'd appreciate it if you would get me the manual as soon as you have a chance, I think that I'd better run the main override as soon as we find her."

"I'm going to tell Dad and Grandfather," Roger said, heading back towards the house. If he stayed here for even another second, he was in grave danger of doing permanent harm to his brother. He couldn't shake the memory of Dorothy's desperate hand reaching for his. I need...help... If she hadn't managed to escape, he would have delivered her straight into the hands of her enemy.

***

"Everything seems just as we left it." Dorothy froze when she heard Mrs. Tanner's voice.

"Was that window open like that?" Alex's question dashed any idea she'd had of appealing to the housekeeper for help.

"Yes, it was sticking," came the reply. "It's on the repair list, they're going to do it sometime next week when they're up here to re-caulk the other windows."

"Nothing's been moved since you brought down her furniture?" she heard his footsteps coming closer.

"Nothing," Mrs. Tanner replied.

There was a sliding sound and Alex grunted. "You're right, that window is definitely very sticky." There was a thud as he forced it completely closed. "I doubt she came this way." His footsteps came closer and paused in front of the armoire. "This is a nice piece," he said.

"It was your mother's," the woman said. There was the muffled sound of another voice from the floor below. "Your father is calling us. Maybe they've found something."

To Dorothy's relief, the two immediately left the attic. If only the pain in her head would go away, she could plan what to do next. Now that the attic had been checked, she was safe enough here for the moment, but if Maintenance was going to be doing work up here soon, she couldn't stay indefinitely.

She needed an ally. Roger wasn't going to... tears ran down her face as the pain got stronger. She knew she shouldn't think about him, but it hurt so much that she couldn't gather her thoughts, and the more she thought about him, the more it was increasing. A whimper escaped her despite her efforts to remain silent, and she knew if she couldn't get a handle on it, she was going to scream.

In desperation, she activated suspension.

***

"This is my fault," Lisa was in tears. "I told her she needed to tell one of you what had almost happened with Alex, but she didn't want to get everyone upset if she could handle it a different way. I should have just called you and to hell with my promise!"

"You had no way of knowing," Roger patted her hand reassuringly. Listening quietly to Lisa's story had been the hardest thing he had ever done. He felt sick inside at the thought of how Dorothy must have felt. "If anyone is to blame, it's me. She tried to tell me. She asked me for help, and I went off to get Alex!"

Felix shook his head. "She hasn't called," he said. "We've got to find her before it's too late!"

Roger looked at him worriedly. "What do you mean, too late?"

"I had a chance to examine the pleasure routines carefully when I was getting ready to install them," Felix said. "There's a... I don't know what you'd call it, a... a...contingency plan? A security program? It's to guard against her being subverted."

"That doesn't seem that ominous," Roger frowned.

"Ordinarily, no," Felix said. "With a pleasure model, though, the program is very sensitive. It's made that way because the bot has access to her owner in a variety of...vulnerable... situations. Obedience is imperative."

"What are you driving at?" Roger didn't like the direction of this conversation.

"That program hasn't gone away," the android told him, "and I don't think you've uninstalled it. You didn't even do a formal transfer of ownership, did you?" When Roger shook his head, Felix continued, "With Alex able to command her, even if that command is limited, it creates confusion as to whom she should obey. If she's not sure who she really belongs to... it will activate the security features in reaction to a possible attempt at subversion."

"What do they do?" Roger asked, his expression concerned. It's not like you belong to me or anything.

"First the program tries to determine the true owner and strengthens the imperative to obey. If the disobedience continues...there's several steps between, intended to alert the owner to a possible problem, but ultimately... the program closes the conflicting pathways by burning them out." Felix said.

"How long do we have?" Roger's face turned white.

"I don't know. A few days... a week if we're lucky?" Felix told him. "I'm not even sure that's exactly what will happen. Needless to say, I didn't install that part--there's too much I don't understand about it yet.."

"We can't chance it," Roger said. "If you're right, the program is active--I told her directly to wait while I got Alex, so she's continuing to disobey for as long as she avoids me. Do you have a piece of paper?"

"For your pager? I have the number," Felix said, repeating it to Roger. "If she calls, we'll get in touch with you immediately."

"Thank you," Roger rose from the table and crossed over to Lisa, crouching down so he was at eye level with her. "You did what seemed right at the time," he said firmly, taking her hands in his. "There was no reason to believe she was in any danger, and I know you would have kept trying to convince her until she did tell us."

"I was thinking that when I saw her next week, I would offer to help; maybe by inviting you both over for dinner. I was hoping that if I was there with you, it would make her feel safe enough that she could talk about it." Lisa said. "I wish I hadn't waited! I should have just called and told you."

"We're going to find her," Roger hugged the elderly woman. "This isn't your fault." He rose and extended a hand to Felix. "Thank you."

The android accepted the handshake and turned to Lisa. "Do you think you would be all right alone for about a half an hour?" he asked. "There's someone I can get in touch with that might be able to help."

"Sheldon?" she asked. "Yes, I'll be fine. I have that book I'm reading, I'll get that."

"I'll hurry," Felix said, kissing her cheek. "Do you have any cash?"

"There's a couple of twenties in my purse," she told him. "Why?"

"I want to leave some money for her with Sheldon, just in case she doesn't have any, then she can get a taxi here," Felix said. "If she's in the city, he'll find her."

"I've got cash," Roger said. He took his wallet out of his pocket and dug into one of the credit card sleeves, bringing out two tightly folded hundred dollar bills. "My emergency money," he explained. "You never know when you might need it." He handed them to Felix. "Can I offer you a ride?"

"Yes, can you bring me down to the Poseidon?" he asked. "That will speed things up."

"Sure," Roger said. "Let's go."

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