Of Dusk and Dawn, page 1
The Roman Empire stood on the verge of conquering the stars, if Pullo could torture an innocent girl for the secrets of FTL travel. But when he fell in love with her beauty and courage , what then? Could he betray his Empire for a girl who was less than human?
OF DUSK AND DAWN
Gerard Whittaker
Of Dusk and Dawn.
By Gerard Whittaker
Smashwords edition.
Copyright by Gerard Whittaker, 2010
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
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Of Dusk and Dawn
From:
Department of Cosmic Guardians.
TIME, Aeden
To all Guardians.
Regarding: TERRA
World classification: Terra Alpha Prime.
Date: 3611 AUE. (From the founding of Rome) Ten years after the Earth- Aelder War.
Advice to all Agents: Leave this world the hell alone, we're in enough trouble as it is.
“For a few extra Credits she'll love you to death.”
Pullo was distracted, he glanced through the window looking down over Rome. Some of the scars left by the invasion could still be seen, despite ten years of reconstruction, surprisingly the Colloseaum had survived almost unscathed, but most of the government palaces had been razed to the ground by the totally unexpected attack by an unknown race of aliens.
He arrived bright and early for his first day at work in the Advanced Physics Research Unit only to be told that he needed help for his project. None human help. There were some tasks that mankind was too ill equipped to handle, and trying to reverse engineer a captured alien Faster Than Light drive was certainty one of them.
The Genesis Institute had a reputation for producing first rate Biroids for almost any task. While some were undeniably just glorified sex toys, most were personal assistants to high ranking politicians, scientists and bureaucrats. It was de rigour for all successful people to have a pretty little girl hanging on their shoulder, giving advice from her built in computer database. While modern computers were very powerful they were not sentient, so the garbage in garbage out equation had been raised to the highest power. The more powerful the machine the grater the damage caused by faulty programming. However, Biroids were truly sentient, were aware of what they were doing, and were subject to a rapid reprogramming from their master's belt if they made a mistake.
The building was only ten stories high, the highest permitted by Rome's antiquated building regulations. It had rank upon rank of arched windows overlapping around the circular tower, each window bay held a gilded statue of a long forgotten Emperor dating back to Marcus the First.
Pullo had landed his prize bioengineered racing bird on the tower's landing bay, thanking the giant swallow before going for his appointment. The stables he passed were half full of oversized birds and beasts, a by product of Biological Android technology. Although not all the stabled creatures were animals, at least one team of Biroid porters could be seen cleaning the trapp they had been bred to pull. Half a dozen pretty and very well muscled young women polished the light carriage with loving care. Four very tall and sturdy men lumbered into the stables, carrying a sedan chair that held a proud young woman, she directed her mounts to stop as far from the girls as they could. She had no intention of any fraternising between the two sets of porters whilst she was shopping. Pullo sighed in disgust on seeing four Centaurs pulling a light carriage from the institute, he had doubts about mixing human and animal genes.
“For a few extra credits she'll love you to death,” the salesman repeated.
Pullo snapped himself back to the present, and the comfortable office he shared with the salesman. “Sorry, I'm a bit out of sorts, jet-lag I suppose, I was in orbit this morning.”
“On the Daedalus ? Yes we keep up to date with the news,” he laughed at Pullo's surprise. “You can call me Jarle.”
“So you know who I am?”
“P. Marcius Rex, a young and surprisingly gifted scholar of FTL physics, from a rather ordinary backwoods province. Britannia wasn't it? ” Jarl reiterated. “I believe there is talk of a rank somewhere in your past. The Clan Rex has a venerable lineage.”
“Some chance, my family is old nobility, very old. But when my Pa passes on I've five older brothers in line before me for a parcel of land barely bigger than this office.”
Jarle chuckled in sympathy, "That is usually the way with old families."
"And don't I know it."
“So the Daedalus is nearing completion, and they need you to tell them when it's safe to activate the FTL drive, without killing the crew,” Jarl continued. “And for that you need a Biroid to do the fine tuning. Have I got that right?”
Pretty close,” Pullo admitted.
“Right, first things first. You'll be wanting a girl right? No offence but you would not believe some of the things we've been asked to create.”
“Just a normal every day human girl,” Pullo admited. “With an exceedingly high IQ.”
“Sorry, but we don't do Humans here!" Jarle snapped in outrage, "Never, ever think that a Biroid is human, they are not and can never be.”
“Sorry! I meant human looking.”
“Then that is something we can help you with,” Jarl said with a grin. “But remember, everything you decide here will be with her for the rest of her life. There are no second chances. Have you thought of a name yet? It might seem silly but the name can sometimes define the character.”
“I understand, I want a bright sunny character, so I thought of Dawn.”
“Good choice. Height?”
“A few inches shorter than me, say 5 foot five. Long blond hair down to below her bottom and the deepest blue eyes you can imagine.”
“OK. Personality, we can go from very submissive to dominant. I'd say submissive, do you want her to enjoy lengthy periods of punishment, or one that will faint at the sight of a whip?”
“Mildly submissive, I'll need her to stand up for herself at work, but be compliant at home.”
“Understood. You will want the usual domestic and recreational package? Cooking and sex.”
“If she's living with me, she'd better be able to cook,” Pullo insisted. “And the other thing. She'll need to be able to monitor the full sensor spectrum a thousand times faster than I can."
“If they are paying, you'll get the best scientific package," Jarle assured him.
"When the Institute told me to come here I half expected them to insist that she was kept in a cell at work."
“She wouldn't be much use to you there,” Jarl laughed. "Of course there is nothing stopping you keeping her in a cage at home."
"I only found out an hour ago that she was going to be my property; so we could still work at home, I suppose.”
"No, she will belong to you twenty four hours a day for the rest of her life, so you might want to think of adding a few luxuries. How about phobias? We could fix it so that she's very claustrophobic, you could punish her by just threatening to lock her in a small room. Or alternatively, agoraphobic, you could keep her in a cell with the door open and she would be too terrified to leave.”
“No phobias,” Pullo insisted.
“Quirks? A bit clumsy, or as graceful as a ballerina?”
“Graceful sounds good.”
Ok, we are making progress. I'll activate the screen and you can doodle designing her graphically. There are thousands of shades of eyes and hair colour that fit you rather basic description. Also her figure needs fleshing out as it were,” he laughed. “I once heard this described as designing her from her genes to her jeans, meaning that you could pick every part of her including how she would like to dress.”
Pullo sighed, “And I used to think Atomic Physics was difficult.”
“Physics obeys known laws, but this is meddling with life, it's more art form than science.”
Pullo started on the 3D design program, and quickly found out that there was far more to growing Biroids than he had ever realised.
A life sized figure sprang into existence before his eyes, projected on a holographic field , it was blank of all detail, just a computer generated manikin. A row of control dials appeared on one side, with the option of flicking between various parts of the body; there was even a dial for the little toe. He twisted that slightly and the toe extended into a razor sharp claw, he rapidly dialled it back into a human digit. "I really don't need to be sleeping with that," he sighed.
Jarl asked, “There is a choice of body types, just flick through until you find the one you want.”
Pullo browsed through the database of body types, finding that there had been many customers before him who had wanted far from human variants. “A mermaid,” he gasped in shock. “And I thought the Centaurs were in bad taste, you can create beings that have never existed in the real world.”
“And your Dawn, has she ever existed?” Jarl sighed. “We don't ask questions, but compared to some of the creatures I've been asked to create, your girlfriend is a pleasant change from depravity.” He dialled the computer to a list of things that sickened even him.
Pullo took one look and rapidly
"Then it must have been a very rich drunken spacer who commissioned them."
“Have you ever created children?” Pullo asked in anger.
“Not on my shift, but I'm sure it has been done. Look, the line between good and evil stops at the front door. How can you draw a line between a Biroid who looks eighteen, but is only eighteen minutes old, and a child who looks about eight but could be eighty years old? If I worried about the morality of this business I'd go insane.”
“I understand your confusion, my family used to deal in slaves,” Pullo admitted. “What age limits are there?”
“Most are birthed looking sixteen, we can stretch it to twenty five or so, but the younger the better for safety reasons. It's not good to leave them cooking for too long.”
Pullo turned back to the holo manikin, selecting a young, slim body of about eighteen. Every little detail could be modified at will, even her eyes could have a thousand shades of blue. He settled on large eyes of aquamarine with golden flecks that would glitter in the sun, long black eyelashes framed them to perfection. Delicate eyebrows swept over the eyes. Her nose would be cute and slightly upturned, her mouth warm and built to laugh.
Her body would be slim and graceful, with medium sized breasts that had large nipples that stood up proudly. Dawn's fair body would be free of genital hair forever, rich blond hair would be plaited into a long pony tail hanging down below her dainty bum.
Jarl gave advice on keeping Dawn from being lopsided, pointing out that it was time consuming to redial every part of her individually, when clicking a box on the holo screen would ensure that her symmetry was perfect. It took most of the day to polish the proto Dawn into a workable personality, with likes, dislikes, habits and phobias, she would hate untidiness and love to be loved.
“Ok,” Pullo sighed. “That's her. How long will it take?”
“About a month to grow her, and another month to program her skills and personality." Jarle stood to shake hands, "I'll give you a call when Dawn is ready.”
“I was expecting sooner than that.”
Jarl sighed, “Sorry, but we are not a fly by night company, we have a reputation to uphold, Dawn is not just for the next few years but for life. If you wanted one off the rack you could have saved us a lot of work.”
“No, I've heard great things about your company. I'm sure she'll be perfect.”
“Don't forget that Dawn's programme commands her to love you, and when you marry... She's bisexual in that way. When you have children she will love and care for them as if they were own.”
“I know,” Pullo said gently. “My farther has had a Biroid for years, not a top range model like Dawn, but one who'd been through a dozen owners over the years before he bought her. She always wanted to be a mother.”
“Even we can not do that,” Jarl laughed. “No Biroid has ever had children, not with her master or even another Biroid. They are not built for it.”
Pullo signed the documents and was escorted around the gleaming establishment on his way out, seeing the stasis vault where completed orders were awaiting collection. Very few were sports, mainly young woman and men grown to do tasks that no human would, or could, do. One row of fifty identical blond girls was on the way to the orbital defence satellites to work in the brothels. Ten men, who towered over Pullo, had been bred immune to radiation and were built to work in fusion reactors, whilst they were still running.
He saw one girl having surgery, with implants being fitted inside her body. Both her hands had been sliced open and the surgeon was removing her finger bones and fitting them with cybernetic replacements. "One of the new Doctors," Jarle said with pride. "She'll be equipped with enough diagnostic sensors to find any ailment just by shaking your hand. Her stomach holds a life-support system that will keep you going while she fixes you with inbuilt surgical lasers. Hell, she could probably perform a heart transplant on a battlefield."
"This is more like it," Pullo sighed. He glanced at the girl's docket to see she would be called Zandra. "At least she will save lives, and not be just a whore."
There was an argument from ahead, two technicians were arguing over a dark girl who stood naked in the hallway. “I told you to check the nutrient level,” the oldest was shouting.
“I checked it last week,” the junior technician replied. “How was I to know maintenance was running a systems check and forgot to turn it back on?”
“Because we pay you to look.”
Jarl hurried over, “What the hell happened?”
“This idiot has just ruined a perfectly good specimen,” the senior technician sighed. “Take a good look at her, she's near-sighted, can't even read!”
Pullo glanced at the Biroid, seeing a dusky skin, short black hair and large black eyes. She was still dripping nutrient fluid from the maturation tanks, and glanced around like a newborn.
Jarl snapped, “Then we can't sell her. Take her to the recycling chamber, whilst I call the owner to apologise for the mistake.”
Pullo interrupted, “What will happen to her?”
“Right now she's worth more as spare parts,” Jarl snapped. “We can't sell her, the owner won't have her, and we have a reputation to keep.”
The senior technician grabbed the Biroid's arm and proceeded to drag her away. She glanced at Pullo with sudden understanding and fear of imminent death. His mind did a double take as a spark of pure inspiration struck him like a sledgehammer.
“Wait a moment,” Pullo snapped. "I'm thinking. She's totally blank right? Never been programmed? No implants? To all intent almost human?"
Jarle sighed, "That's right. What's on your mind?"
"I think we can use her to test the FTL drive," he laughed. "She can't be worth much as she is."
Jarle objected, “We can sell almost every part of her for transplants.”
“How much are we talking?”
Jarl snapped a figure that took Pullo's breath away.
Pullo called his boss at the institute, “That problem we have with the residual radiation, I've just figured out how to test the boundaries, we use a Biroid to calibrate the effects of long term exposer. Not one weighed down by programming and implants, but a pure virgin test subject. We wouldn't dare do that with volunteers. Yes sir, I'm at the Genesis Institute now and we have a likely test subject.”
Pullo listened for a few seconds and shut his communicator down. “He's agreed to rent her for the experiment, if she dies we'll cover the full cost, but if she lives then we'll send her back.”
“Not with an irradiated body,” Jarl snapped.
“It's not that kind of radiation it manly affects the mind. It either kills you or not. Look, we can do this.”
“I'll draw up the documents. From now until the end of the experiment she belongs to you, and then she will be returned for recycling.”
“Fine. Has she been named yet?”
“Give us a chance,” the senior technician laughed. “She's only ten minuets old.”
“She's kind of dusky,” he mused. “I think I'll call her Dusk.”
“Don't get attached,” Jarl warned him. “She's already dead. This is just prolonging her agony.”
“No, her agony is just about to start,” Pullo said sadly.
Dusk was showered and fitted with a crystalline webbing at her throat, waist, knees, elbows, wrists and ankles. “Standard restraining device for hazardous Biroids,” Jarl explained. He forced Dusk's wrists together behind her back, and the crystalline bands locked together. Then he pushed her elbows together, sealing her arms in an unbreakable bond behind her back. She gasped in pain and shock. “The bands will adhere to just about anything, including wood and plastic. And the collar has a proximity security device, you'll find out what happens if she ever strays more than twenty feet from you.” He handed Pullo a tiny remote, “This will deactivate the collar and track her down if she runs.”
“Follow me,” Pullo snapped at Dusk. She followed him, scampering rapidly to escape the Genesis Institute, escaping one death sentence for another kind of torment. He led her to his bird and strapped her into the tiny rear seat, then climbed on before her, fastening his flight straps. At his command the Swallow took flight, soaring into the air.
