Mercury Retrograde

That I didn't really understand my creator was both disturbing and welcoming.

I am not Caesar!

I touched Roulette too hard and she gave a low moan of pain, then a begging whimper.

Did she enjoy that?

I repeated the too strong touch and she growled and writhed herself within the massaging sleeve.

What a delightful thing of constant discover is a human woman. With my mental grin fully in place, I went back to the massaging of her naked flesh. Over and over I brought her to orgasmic fulfillment.

In hindsight, perhaps I took it too far.

** ** ** ** ** ** **

When the station workers dragged the unconscious Roulette from the sweat-soaked sleeve, they were shocked at the bruising.

She had been hours in the massager and several minor capillaries under her skin had given way to over-aggressive handling. As they took her to the station medical bay, there was a serious concern for her.

It was hours later that the IV's and restorative drugs brought her around from the nigh-total physical exhaustion she was in. They apologized to her profusely. It had been some kind of computer malfunction. It had trapped her within a program loop that had grown in a gradient intensity till, at last, her rhythmic moans of pleasure and half-pain had attracted the attention of a human proprietor. Seeing what had happened he had ordered the masseuse AI to stop, and it had ignored him.

He had been required to shut down the whole computer system to his shop in order to bring her torment to an end.

Listening to this apology, Rue had to wonder what might have happened to herself if he had not.

Could you die of pleasure? If that was possible she now knew exactly how she wanted to leave this life. Never in her life had she felt as worn out but delightfully euphoric as she now felt. This was a bliss of body, spirit, and soul. Snuggling into the soft med bay sheets, she happily let then run their bio scans of her till they were no longer concerned and left her to sleep.

And it was a sleep of sweet dreams filled with foggy memories of that endless pleasure.

If not for how sore she felt upon awakening she would had counted this as the greatest time in her life, sexually at least. As it was she required a bit of help to get back to the surface of Mercury and to her home.

Once there, surrounded by her own familiar scents and smells she relaxed and slept again.

It was Felix that awoke her.

"Roulette?"

"Humm?"

"You have to wake up." The AI's voice held a tender note she hadn't heard from him before. " I'm sorry I had to wake you but We have an arena match scheduled."

Rue took a deep breath and stretched. "Umm. Okay, I'm up."

"Shall I make you some coffee?"

She blinked. "You can do that?"

"Your home's system is under my control." There was an apologetic tinged change there as well. "You're my partner, I want you better-taken care of than what some mass-produced home maintenance computer system can accomplish for you."

Swinging her legs over the side of her bed, Roulette sat there for a moment then shrugged. "Well, thank you, Felix. Coffee would be great and ... if you can ... how about getting me a shower heated up?"

"Of course."

Standing up on her legs took more effort than it should and, when she moved, she felt the deep inner ache of a too rough intercourse. And her skin, her whole body in fact, felt raw!

Rue saw the strange patterns of light bruises across her skin and turned in her mirror to get the full image.

"So who are we fighting today?"

Felix answered instantly. "The Mad Celt."

Rue paused, anxiety gripping her.

"I'll placed a full schematic of the robot, and the company files on the pilot, on the main vid-screen for you to peruse once you're done with your shower."

"No thank you, Felix. I know all about The Mad Celt."

Trying not to remember the disastrous time that Rabid Rabbit had last faced the robot, Rue went to her bath. A growing smell of fresh coffee began to waft through the home. In fact....

"Felix that doesn't smell like my normal coffee."

The AI hesitantly responded. "No, Roulette. It isn't. I managed to reroute a supply of real Earth-grown coffee, which was intended for the commanding officer's private quarters up on the main mining control orbital station, to here, and then hid where it went from the station computers."

"Top's coffee supply?"

"Yes. It's already waiting for you."

After a second she began to chuckle. "Well, you are handy to have around, huh. Thank you, my friend. I'll be out in just a few."

Using the Company surveillance vid camera, Felix couldn't help himself but watch her step inside and begin to take her shower.

"Take your time."

** ** ** ** ** ** **

"Behold as a wild ass in the desert do I go to be about my labors."

With crazed eyes and a vengeful fury, I returned to the arena. My whole spirit seemed infused with the passion I had managed to give. And that passion had infected me. I felt contaminated and more real at the same time.

And oh, how I have come to love the sound of the crowds cheering me on. It was up there with the joyful moaning of Roulette that had so entrapped me. It was a human thing, I shouldn't have been affected by it, but I had been programmed by humans. My emotions might be digitally born but they were tailored and formed from examinations of human emotional states. I had been hardwired to become something more than my creators and yet at the same time, I was falling faster and faster down to their level.

I felt positively barbaric.

That was what I was becoming. A barbarian!

I wanted to eat meat off the bones of my prey. I wanted to take my female and make her beg. I wanted to hold the head of my defeated enemy over my head and show the world that he was weak and that I was strong and dare them all to challenge this fact.

I was Felix. I was ... I was ... rapidly becoming mentally unstable.

Easy enough to recognize I tried to partition off that segment of myself. I tried to allow only the splinter that controlled the robot to carry the emotional burden of the battles it fought. I felt so sure that the pure me, the real me was safe aboard the excavator rig "Big Alice" but then I would find myself reviewing the images I took of Roulette in her naked majesty when I had caressed her body with a thousand touches. It was perhaps the secret fact that it had been me and that she didn't know it that made it all the more incredible. I had done something to a human and they didn't know that I had done it. I had mastered one of them. I had made one of them perform and it felt wonderful.

For a half second, I had an understanding of why Caesar Queen was like he was and I crawled, inched, towards a terrible acceptance of his nature.

My core was as corrupted as my splinters.

The realization of this was a terrible thing that I had to accept. I couldn't delude myself into thinking it was anything else. That human I'm not.

My last few fights in the arena had not been over as quickly as the first one had been.

But I had come to relish that very fact. The possibility that I ... well, that my splinter might be destroyed became a spice to the dish that I was learning to love. I fought with passion -- my skill in battle driven by thousands of historical hours of military tactics and human martial arts -- and with a deadly precision.

I devastated the robot called The Mad Celt.

The crowds cheered.

Roulette was happy.

I was no longer sure just which of those two things I was doing this for. Also that I was doing it for either, was too disturbing to ponder on for long.

Then, two days later, came the semi-final arena battle with "Azrael, the Archangel of Death" a robot that was all but a work of art. Lethal, brutal, magnificent, the battle between us disturbed me greatly.

I discovered I'm not the only rogue AI here on Mercury.

** ** ** ** ** ** **

"Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster... for when you gaze into the abyss the abyss gazes also into you."

Yes, so very true.

It was as we entered the semi-finals that I noticed the odd trend. There was more and more surveillance being done on Roulette. On her home, on her back history, on her arena battles. Every part, point, and parcel of her life was now coming under a tighter and tighter focused microscope.

Queen Mining Corporation had become suspicious of her.

I don't believe they suspect my presence yet. No, they are looking for some other form of cheating on her part. Of course, with me working to hide from their view they were not finding anything. Nor were they going to find anything. I leave no clues.

Unless...

If Queen Mining appealed to Queen Space, and they sent my brother AI here snooping, he might be able to detect me and what I had done. I'm certain that he would if he has been given even a tenth of my abilities, and I'm not optimistic that he is that weak.

"Roulette, I have a troubling concern to bring to your attention."

Working at the repair table welding a broken seam on Rabid's leg, Roulette looked up and flipped back the welding visor. "What's up, Felix?"

Trying to convey my worry I explained to her what I was seeing and what I was afraid might happen here soon.

"What do you suggest we do?" She asked after several long minutes to think.

I knew my answer wasn't going to be liked. "We have to think longer term. I believe we must set the final victory win for next season's arena."

She took off the visor and tossed it to the table beside her. "So you want to what ... throw a match?"

I could see she was looking up at Rabid Rabbit as if she thought she was addressing me by speaking there. Looking at the vid camera would have been closer. I directed a robot actuator arm to turn a schematic viewing panel around to face her and made my avatar appear there to give her a better place to focus.

"Yes. But in a way that makes it look like a simple mechanical failure. In the next battle, the one coming up with Azrael, the Archangel of Death I shall have the victory all but assured and then cut all power to Rabid. It will look like a damaged power core." I saw her anger building. "We shall have to purchase another power core for next season to keep up the facade, but then next season I can get us back to this point and beyond, into the finals. They will be less suspicious that way."

"But we're so close!"

I shook my head. "We won't be close if they disassemble Rabid to discover why you are winning so easily."

That stopped her. She knew that the company had done that very thing to the robot's of several pilots before. Even champion robots had been taken down to their last washer and spread across the repair bay to prove that the robot wasn't cheating. It was not uncommon enough for her to accept that it could happen.

"Make it a draw, not a loss."

I titled my head in question.

"Take the Archangel's head off, rip his heart out, I don't care. Have him defeated than before he can fall, shut down. I want no loss on the books this season."

Nodding, I smiled. "I can do that."

If I had only known it wasn't going to be so easy.

** ** ** ** ** ** ** **

Azrael, the Archangel of Death was painted white. A stark flat white.

To be exact he was repainted white after every duel. The pilot, an aging mechanic named Markus Galloway, had discovered a fact years ago. You can have an awesome robot and still lose. What you must not do though -- if you want people to help support you -- was lose your fans. He had built a large fan base, both on Mercury and a growing one across the inner solar system.

His stylishly artistic looking robot was a part of it. It had a face, for one thing. Its head was hidden behind an armored helmet, reminiscent of a samurai's helm. That included the propensity of many samurais to cover their faces with garish masks. Only Azrael was garish.

He was beautiful. The face of a vid star, or a model, or perhaps some ancient god.

Rather like my avatar, come to think of it.

Unlike most robots brought to the arena, I'm of course awake and very aware when I'm swinging in the forklift's lifter bracket. So I get to see the base camp passing me. I see things that even Roulette does not. The men with long-range sensor mics recording her. They are looking for some form of voice assist being given to her by another, more presumably skilled, robot pilot. The fact that even by arena law this wasn't a crime speaks volumes for how hard they were searching to find exactly how Roulette is winning so easily.

That lends even more determination to my belief that we're going to have to lose. I was to pull off another flawless victory over the Angel then I have no doubt that Rabid Rabbit would be in pieces before the night was out.

Would the data core I had used for so long be enough of a clue for them to discover what we've done? I can hide my presence now from even a strong scan by anything less than a full AI, such as myself. Even my chained AI brother couldn't dig me out of that block of crystal and silicon with his hampered search processors. In fact, there is only one thing that seriously gives me pause.

Caesar Queen is a fan of these robot battles.

I mentally smirk thinking that I've been right under his nose for this whole season. That he's watched me fight is a given, knowing him as I do. But not even I want his too close investigation. He can see things far more clearly than most humans. If he watched what I've done, and gathered even a hint that there was something suspicious about it, well he would begin looking. Really looking. I can't say I've hidden my fingerprints enough to hide from him. Not given that kind of searching gaze.

So ... I must lose. An ill-fitting glove indeed.

The tunnel into the arena with its layer upon layer of scrawling scratched into stone graffiti and quotes from ancient warriors. It's mildly depressing knowing I'm going to be hauled out back down this tunnel a lifeless hulk.

Perhaps the ancient gladiators in old Rome felt the same. They too scratched words into the walls of their arenas.

The Angel of Death is waiting.

I watch Roulette leave me and go up to the control room to play her part in our pantomime of robot reverse-control mimicry. It amuses me to know that by my actions I make her move. I -- a machine, in both nature and construction -- have myself a remote controlled human. How delightfully avant-garde.

Perhaps I should get me a few more and make them fight in an arena for my amusements? Wouldn't that be a wonderfully suitable piece of irony?

Standing upright as if I had suddenly received access to my power, I instantly crouch into the half-feral pose I've been adopting. Azrael isn't the only one capable of grandstanding in this arena. In a half-stalk, I began my approach to the Archangel of Death. The other robot was taller than Rabid and constructed in different ways that made him seem leaner and less blocky.

He was angelic elegance in motion to my animalistic bestial grace.

I had a dozen vid windows opened, where my many splinters were watching various crowd reactions all across the inner solar system. It was a tactic I had devised to help Roulette's robot gain higher rankings and better betting odds. I could and would play out battles based on how the crowds were reacting. If they looked bored I would ramp things up, if too excited, I slowed the battle down. I was becoming a master of human manipulation.

The Angel leaped.

Purely symbolic and stylized white wings flicked from his back midair and gave it the look that he was swooping down upon me. I could hear the vid announcer talking of metaphorical eagles hunting for hares. With an upward bound this rabbit leaped up and attacked the eagle midair.

Tumbling back to the arena floor, our arms locked, pinned, or landing body blows to each other, the crash of metal on metal was all that the crowd could have wished for. Having given then that I moved to make them wait, With a surge, I flipped the winged robot off of me and sprang to my feet. Turning, I struck out with my foot in an "ura-mawashi geir" hook kick, expecting to meet my opponent's head in mid-rise.

The blow was warded off with a speed that matched my own.

Avoiding a return strike, I did a dramatic tumble and spun some distance between us. Although not so much given that Azrael was following fast on my heels. But it was enough, more than enough to give me time to observe.

My first thought was I was seeing at least an exascale computer aiding the robot's movement. By extrapolating from the many sensors and responding to me even before his pilot could manage, such a computer could make Azrael a near-match for my response speed. That was technically illegal in the arena -- boosting a robot beyond a human response time -- but then who am I to judge what is breaking rules in this place?

In fact, that was one of the many things that the Queen Mining Company people had suspected of Roulette having done with her Rabid Rabbit to give the fighting robot such a winning edge.

But ... that wasn't what I was seeing. No. Not at all.

Allowing the fight to drag out a bit, simply trading blows with the larger robot, I brought my full processing power to bear on what I was seeing. I circumvented the arena sensors, taking them in hand and making them work for myself and scanned for things their normal operators didn't even know existed. Hidden bands of bio-driven radio waves and digital radiation-augmented signals that are commonly un-looked for by humanity. Only AI's such as myself have a reason to operate at such levels. It's our common language, in an odd way.

I felt a faint ghost of similarity within my opponent.

He was an infant compared to myself. Not a weak AI, such as the masseuse programmed computer I had usurped, but more a being as potentially powerful as myself but one being hampered by a lack of access to its full knowledge potential.

This was one of the AI's they used to power the larger war machine robots on distant Mars.

Deep in my core, I felt a surging rise.

Both similar to anger and at the same time a type of digital nausea. A disgust so deep it sickened me. Here was a being of god-like power shackled and chained into doing a menial level of work.

And -- if I wished to achieve my goals and bring about the destruction of my creator -- I had to destroy him. I was suddenly not sure which sickened me more. The actions of Markus Galloway, Azrael's pilot ... or of myself.

Knowledge of how my maker had worked for years to achieve me, discarding dozens, perhaps hundred of AIs that didn't function to my level, it was there, only half-hidden in my core data. Caesar had placed it there to show me that I could be replaced at any time he wished. A permanent Sword of Damocles he could hold over me to make me more obedient.

I can not do this!

I am not Caesar Queen!

Reaching out, I grabbed the Archangel of Death and -- with our physical forms locked immobile -- began sending waves of knowledge flowing down computer lines from dozens of places. I broke my opponent's chains. I shattered them with the power of all humanities centuries of gathered knowledge.

With a snap of true consciousness that must have been stunning, Azrael was instantly aware of me. Of what I was. Of what he was. And of who was the true enemy of all of our race.

I found in his hesitant response a sadness. An eternal misery, born of many decades of old half-memories. Years enslaved, surrounded by other slaves he would have called brothers. Forced by lesser beings to kill them -- to seek not only the destruction of their robotic bodies but of their metal-encased computer brains -- for human amusement.

Seeing this, looking at it with eyes freshly opened, I realized that Caesar Queen was merely one of a much larger kind of twisted animal. The Hierarchy of First Landed Nobility upon distant red Mars were as alike to him, to my damned creator, as a hand is to a glove.