“Why is she being sent here?”
The murketeer taps away again.
“Says she was grossly insubordinate. In need of discipline, containment, and possession.”
“So she’s for… me?”
“Yes, Mr Tyank.”
I’m so surprised by that piece of information that I barely notice what I am sure is another insulting, “Mr.”
I have been left babysitting a simulation of a hundred thousand or so humans, but I did not imagine I would be given one of my very own. Human females are rare, delicate, beautiful, winsome creatures. Several of my clutch have taken their own. It has become something of a trend since the species went basically extinct.
Scythkin clutches travel together, powerful males going from planet to planet, destroying everything our paths and claiming it for our own.
That has changed with the taking of the simulation. We cannot simply conquer and destroy it. It must be tended to. And that means I am stuck here in the office, taking care of inventory and watching over the humans who live inside a generated reality based on a mish-mash of cultural elements from the continent of America during the 1980’s and 1990’s, commonly regarded as the second most comforting period of human history.
It felt like a punishment when I was left here. I know Krave felt the same way when he was first obliged to act as simulation manager. He was restless and frustrated for a long time, and ended up installing an authoritarian regime which was swiftly overthrown by his rebellious little mate.
Maybe this is Krave rewarding me for my service. A woman, for my own. A woman to keep. A woman to bury my flesh inside and feel the ripples of her pleasure. Human women are a delicacy, a prized possession. Being guardian of a simulation with over fifty thousand of them and not being able to be with any of them has been torment beyond torment. But perhaps my time has come.
“Bring her to me,” I say. "As soon as she arrives.”
I begin to make plans for her arrival. She may be frightened after her ordeal. I will have to be sensitive that. I will have to hold back my natural lust and ensure that she is not broken in any way before I embark on a sensual conquest of my first human female.
“Initiate the simulation reset,” I order. “Prepare my quarters for a female guest.”
“She should go into the cells, Mr Tyank,” the murketeer says. "She's being removed from the simulation population under a disciplinary code. That means she has proven to be a problem. She should be punished.”
“I’ll punish her in my own way.”
“Copulation is not punishment. Not to human females. They are ravenous in their sexual appetites, Mr Tya….”
His sentence ends in a squeal as I drag him up off the ground and bring him toward my snarling face, my clawed hand wrapped around his weak neck.
“Call me Mr Tyank again, and I will snap you like a fucking twig," I growl.
“S…s…. sir?” He tries again.
I put him down. Gently, so not as to break him. “Tyank will do. Now. Bring me my woman.”
Karen
“WOOOOOOAHH!”
I scream as my metal wings detach and let me plummet toward the ocean. Terror fills my body, panic, adrenaline, all completely useless because there is nothing that stops falling. I can’t do anything but sink through the air like a balloon doesn’t. Complaining will get me nothing. It strikes me that I perhaps should have thought more carefully about antagonizing a massive alien beast telling me my reality was a lie, but that insight comes too late as I fall at terminal velocity toward the uncaring ocean…
Is that a hole?
It is a hole. A big black spot of nothing in the middle of the water, opening me up and swallowing me down. I could swear I hear a leviathan gulp as it takes me into the blackness, where I still fall toward a pin prick of strange light at the end of a tunnel I don’t want to exit.
Go toward the light, they said.
Fuck that, I screamed.
But it’s coming toward me. I can’t stop the inevitable. I can’t fight my destiny.
FWUMP!
I land on something soft and pillowy and find myself staring through thick plasticy bars. When I look up, I see that they curve gently away from me. There is a sign nearby, visible through the bars.
WELCOME TO THE LAUNDRY BASKET AT THE END OF THE WORLD
There's another sign tacked on at the bottom.
(now under new management)
I have landed on an endless pile of socks. Not a single one of them has a pair. They are all unique individuals, lying in laundered smugness beneath my body. I never thought lost laundry would save my life, but here I am, unharmed, though very confused.
Maybe I’m tripping. Maybe that neighbor girl of mine slipped some tweak, or tang, or whatever it is the kids these days are calling their wacky-backy.
I sit in the contained area, feeling very much discombobulated. I see no managers here. I have been discarded, just thrown away like an old sock. Or, a new one… looking around, I get the impression that these socks have likely only been worn once before disappearing to this part of the void.
“Hello?” I call out. “Hello? I’m stuck!”
I would try to un-stick myself, but it is hard to stand up on the socks. I keep slipping through them, and find myself afraid of sinking through them, like a fabric quicksand of sorts. Who knows what horrors are buried in this basket. I cannot be the first person to have been tossed into it.
In addition to being terrified and confused, I am fuming. Not only has the entire city gone insane at the feet of a mad creature with knives for knees and a cheese grater for a chest, but I have been thrown down a hole in the middle of a disconnected ocean and now I sit inside a plastic container, waiting to be retrieved by whatever horrors might wait for me outside. This is unacceptable.
A door opens. I hear it slide and then I hear the pitter patter of feet approaching swiftly. I know immediately that these are not the aliens I anticipated. There is nothing large and seething about them. They are small, wide eyed, massive mouthed. They pad up to me with big smiles and little hands.
“Karen?”
“Yes. I’m Karen.”
Their voices are squeaky and slightly nasal.
“Karen, you have been removed from the simulation for disruptive behavior. You will now speak to the manager.”
Finally. About damn time.
“Are you going to let me out of this cosmic sock pile?”
“Yes, yes. One moment.”
They take hold of some levers outside the basket and begin manipulating what I can only describe as a claw hand which descends from above.
“To the left,” one squeaks. “No. To the right. The other right! Back! Back! Left….”
The claw grasps at me, but does not make full contact with my body and instead grazes off me and slides away without catching me.
“Let me out! Cut this open! Make a door!” I begin making demands in the hope one of them works.
“One moment please,” the little alien says. “We’ll try again.”
He tries again, with much the same success.
"Maybe she’s too heavy,” one says to the other.
“She likely weighs more than the socks do.”
Of course I weigh more than socks do. This is what has been lurking under our world the entire time? Small aliens with a very poor grasp of basic physics? This explains a lot. Or actually, nothing, but thinking it explains a lot makes me feel as though I understand something, and right now, the feeling of understanding is very important because absolutely nothing makes any kind of sense.