A/N: Back to #2 again feels like getting home again. Photo. Philips Design, the Bubelle Dress that senses your mood and changes colors and light patterns in response.

Room 404/Rockwood Hall/Washington 2.0/ region 01 area formally known as Nebraska

Jenny's POV

"When are you coming out? Cyborgs have a microsecond sense of timing we don't like being late" said Rockwood on the outside of the clothes printer.

"Soon. I can't make the printer print faster" I shouted from within the printer. I had been in and out of the printer almost all day like I was a jack in the box with Mr. Jones as an obsessive child.

"Please let me print another dress I've just had a great idea, " said M. Jones.

"No time," I said. We were already five minutes late. The printer stopped.

"Time's up! Here I come ready or not" I said coming out.

I emerged out of the printer. I was trying to be Venus from the shell but I think it was more the Liberace making an entrance.

"What do you think? Tell me do I look cooler than an Eskimo's fridge dipped in liquid nitrogen or what" I said. I couldn't see myself in the mirror #DEC was in the way.

"Well I think you're good enough to cause a divide by zero, " said Rockwood eyes bulging.

"That's good right?" I said looking at Rockwood and then Mr Jones.

"Yes, angel it is. That dress looks fabulous on you, doesn't it just scream 'I am his slave and I exist to serve him?'" said Mr. Jones.

Not quite the effect I wanted for my first big night out but given my current conditions I was quite pleased. I looked at myself in the mirror.

"Well Mr. Jones I must say you really have set phasers to stun with this dress," I said.

Mr. Jones was correct in every detail. I was completely slave legal. I was technically wearing printed slave clothes showing very little skin, with heels and enough makeup to cover the undead. The whole thing hung tightly to me like a patriot to the American flag. The dress clung elegantly to my every movement. From lab girl to lap girl I shone like the lights in the darkness. Most importantly I was wearing a collar, in fact, the whole thing began with the collar, the jewelry was woven into the collar and into the clothes. It was simultaneously organic and mechanical, each detail was slightly different everything moved with a fluidity all it's own. Mr. Jones included diamonds from Tiffany's making it seems like there dress included a diamond coated harness. Integrated into to the back were a pair of angel wings which looked like fine fractals. The wings were articulated and picked up my feelings and emotions and changed the wing positions to reflect those feelings. I had practiced that morning with them and if I got angry the wings would spread out wide and flat. If sad they would droop. Mr. Jones had said the angel wings were inspired by my actions saving him.

The diamond covered harness got smaller and thinner down my arm and ended up with a very fine thread which linked with my bracelets then broke like a firework into tiny chains over my hands to join three rings spread out over every finger. The rings fed information back to the dress according to how I held my hands which would subtly change color by tiny light-emitting diodes embedded in the dress.

For some reason, I wanted to put on a southern bell accent, "Why Mr. Jones this dress is simply marvellous, Y'all" I said looking down. Then I paused.

"Err there is a problem," I said to Mr. Jones.

"What my dear. It's perfect What could possible be wrong?" he said.

"It's all white," I said. "My dress is whiter than Mother Teresa's wrap sheet".

"Huh?" clearly Mr. Jones didn't understand the finer points of police procedure.

"My dress is whiter than a town meeting of the Ku Klux Klan," I said.

Mr. Jones held one stick hand over one eye and stared at me.

"It is white in the visible spectrum dear" he started pulling his hand down "In the ultra-violet the pattern is beautiful. Infra red is lush. the hyper pink is wonderful. We could print another.."

"No time," said Rockwood "the tiny changes in white, imperceptible to the human eye, forming the fractal pattern is too nice to change," he said.

Did Rockwood know what this dress looked like to humans? Was he that far gone from humanities traditions that he didn't know what everyone would think? Or didn't he care?

"It's worth having a cyborg eye just to see what yer [your] wearing. I'll show ye[you] the multispectral photos later but for now, we need to make like the european worlf and be gone". he said.

I was happy, in four hours I would be walking out of his life and hello freedom. I had an appointment with certain speed boat by the dock.

"You look nice," said #DEC "and you don't break any regulations" she added helpfully.

"Time to go," Rockwood said.

We all 'yes mastered' him and I tried to get in my e-slave zone. Then we all walked down to the pad. Master went first with me on a most spectacular leash. I followed why having my own personal wake of maids and Mr. Jones all making slight tweaks to the dress, my hair, everything. Soon the entire troupe walked into the Osprey flying to the ball. My wings spread out wide.

"Remember I have to speak to certain people. I need you to shine and distract attention" said Rockwood. 'I can do that'. I thought I had the dress for it.

I reached up and started to straighten his bow tie, Rockwood was wearing a very smart black dinner jacket which sat perfectly on him. He looked sleek, cool and gave the slight hint of a high-class assassin who had only lately come into retirement.

For the day before, Rockwood had me re-memorise many of the same faces as the breeding party. This was his opportunity to network. I even had the digital contact lenses in to help me identify Rockwood's targets. The cyborg was up to something but I didn't mind not knowing as this time as so was I.

"You look nervous," said Rockwood looking at my wings.

"Excited," I said it was a half lie "last time we went out like this I was thrown off a roof".

Rockwood looked at me.

"Master" I added.

"One day you'll use Ceyalisu to me," said Rockwood.

"No, unless your planning to rebrand Ceyalisu as an arrogant master who doesn't tell his kajirae what he is up too. Highness" I said trying to be more slavish.

"You need to get into the role. What are the four favorite reasons Collaborators use to punish slaves" Rockwood asked.

#DEC and #6052 had been doing classes for me in collaborator slave craft.

"Err - wearing a loud shirt in a quiet zone, silent insolence, breathing without undue care and attention and finally wasting police time through thinking too much," I said. Essentially the collaborators had outlawed everything. This way if they needed to punish a slave they always had some legal excuse. In Judas City slaves were always guilty of something by virtue of being there, this is what the slaves called 'Judas Law'. Only those who had 'surrendered to total service' escaped repeated punishments but only because the law 'turned a blind eye' or tolerated them not because they were within the law.

***

Hold of Osprey/Gallery Of Humanity/Neutral zone north of Judas City

We circled around the arrival pad of the museum waiting for another Osprey to take off. This gave me a chance to have a look at the building and plan my exit strategy. The gallery had been originally designed by machine architect Mr. Brown when the gallery of humanity was being planned and a joint affair. Not far from Judas City, it was in the shape of a large mother dome surrounded at regular points on the compass by child domes. Each child dome had smaller domes around it. There was a circular arc of a road coming in from the north it was stuffed with cars of the good and the great from Judas City. On the opposite side of the car entrance was the dark shadow of a lake at night. To the north of the circular lake was a forest beyond the forest was one of the three perimeter fences. I could almost feel my extraction team hiding out in the forest. Rockwood had left the piloting to Gort and a helmeted human as 'back up'. Perhaps it was the flight, perhaps it was the party perhaps it was the light skip in your heart beat, freedom always gives you, but I was still getting fairly nervous.

As I was fussed over it was hard to think of Rockwood as the true centre of attention which he should have been.

"So I dazzle them, you engage in organizing a huge amount of evil which you spent the rest of your live regretting. Master" I said getting into character.

We landed gently. Everyone got the dress ready Rockwood took my hand to lead me down the ramp. OK, he had my leash as well, that kind of spoilt it.

"That's the plan, " Rockwood said.

The Osprey opened the back ramp to a storm of wind and flood lights.

#160A's POV

We walked down the ramp to a number of human guards.

"Your Lordship you forgot this," said M. Jones throwing a small box to Rockwood.

Rockwood turned effortlessly caught the box and put it in his pocket.

"Thanks, Mr. Jones you're my best man," said Rockwood saluting.

If the police of Judas city found Mr Jones it would be a big incident, they needed to get away as soon as possible. On the other hand, if the Osprey left without us it could be very very bad if the invitation wasn't valid.

A security guard approached gun raised. I held out the paper invitation to him. He scanned the invite then came up and scanned my collar and my arm with the same barcode reader to confirm that I was me. Then he looked at Rockwood nervously. Rockwood took two fingers pointed them at the device twisted his hand like he was unlocking something with an invisible key. This seemed to confirm he was he, the security was tight. I'm surprised the extraction team had a way past all these defences. The way was opened but the guards did not lower their weapons. Rockwood turned around and nodded to the Osprey which took off. Rockwood had bought it as a replacement for the crashed one. It was one of the new hybrid electric ones so while it made a little noise the force of the wind nearly toppled the guards over. We walked elegantly past them to the main entrance.

I followed to the side and a step behind Rockwood as protocol demanded. We created a wake of admiring looks. We marched on and I did my best catwalk. Master walked up to a slave on the door I handed over the invitation. Outside stood some photographers mostly slaves - they didn't get anti-radiation gear. There was a flash of twinkling lights, like a huge number of meteors in the midnight sky. Mr Jones had installed a device on the dress when someone tried to take a photo from a magazine camera he didn't approve of it would flash back so spoiling the picture. This resulted in some of the photographers getting a taste of their own medicine. I was wearing the smart contact lenses and one of their jobs were swapping for a moment to sunglasses to stop a bright flash dazzling me.

We walked in through the huge front door and heads turned. We paused for a moment and for a second the entire ball below looked up. I tried to avoid noticing the collaborator women taking pictures of me with their phones. From the crowd, Senator McConnell approached.

"Lord Rockwood I'm so delighted you could come and you brought your pet with you how delightful. I do hope you will find yourself well diverted tonight. If you go to the amusement tents then there is only a short queue to have the president of the former United States lick your shoes" she said.

"Madam Senator, if I needed the president of United States to clean my shoes I would have bid for him at auction like everyone else, Saatchi" said Rockwood.

At this everyone politely laughed.

Rockwood and I were taken to the VIP area and he was introduced to the museum director a collaborator Saatchi, as a significant benefactor of the Gallery.

'So that's how he had bought his way in' I thought.

It was clear everyone was being polite but his cyborg glow clearly freaked them out.

Master walked straight into a conversation with a leading counselor. My contacts identified him as council member Mendiss. I stood behind Rockwood trying to look cool.

"Council member Mendiss. It is so good to meet you. In fact, I have something I've been wanting to show you"Rockwood began.

Master handed me my leash and sent me off for a drink of Laphroaig Single Malt Whisky for him. There were plenty of serving slaves within arms distance, I knew when I was not wanted. I was the sheepdog and the councillors were the sheep to be rounded to the shepherd which was master. Rockwood sent me a message on my collar.

'Look for councillor Redd, would you? The smart carpet hasn't seen him.' Rockwood texted me over an encrypted wireless connection.

'Are you trying to get rid of me?' I texted.

'Your deliciously direct tonight. Yes, I am, what I have to say needs to be plainly off the record. Your collar cam would unnerve the mark, sorry, councillors' Rockwood texted back.

Looking down, I notice another circle around me on the red carpet. Along with the usual info, I noticed I had about 300 likes on my dress. Mr. Jones would be very pleased.

Looking up I noticed a huge banner.

'The Museum of humanity, all of the greatest art ever made minus the rubbish stuff the robots liked' it proclaimed. Not that the gallery people were bitter or anything.

As I walked I noticed people stood back and I was getting a number of admiring looks from both men and women. After five minutes of slinky searching, I figured out Redd wasn't in the large entrance hall. My thinking was that he was hanging out in the gallery somewhere. Fortunately, most of it was shut but one gallery wing was open. I walked into the gallery and for a few moments, I was confused. I quickly googled on my collar and discovered that the gallery building had originally been designed by the robots. Art galleries being very rare in works of pornography, the machines had very little to go on. Even I knew that in a typical gallery that pictures stayed still and people walked around looking at them. Somewhere along the line, the message got crossed or the machines had decided this wasn't very efficient. So when the robots had designed the gallery of humanity they had decided that the people would stay still and the paintings and artwork would move around.

Each painting was hung on its own mobile bit of wall. As with every important opening of a significant gallery, the visitors were more interested in talking to each other than looking at the pictures. As I drifted around I realized that the pictures were going around looking at the people standing in groups. For a moment I wondered if the Art was judging us, 'this group could have been better composed', 'the champagne glasses don't offset the dull fabric', 'this woman doesn't look real enough'. I turned around and saw a small skittish Goya self-portrait, which as soon as it noticed I was actually looking at it ran off to hide in a corner.

I walked around, as far as I could tell the ignored artwork was getting irritated. The visitors were clearly failing in their task of looking at the artwork so some more assertive and possibly vain artworks had taken things into their own hands and barging into group conversations. Paolo Veronese's The Wedding at Cana was very bolshy now and burst into a group of collaborators who used to be bankers and high finance accountants. After the slave owners told it to buzz off they complained "I have never seen such an egotistical artwork in my life". "yes my dear what is artwork doing at a gallery opening like this?" and "I'm going to complain to the director all this artwork at an opening is very annoying how could they".

Some artworks like Johnnes Vermeer's The Lace Maker had decided the best thing for them to do was hang out where the light was best to show themselves off to advantage. I carried on. Other artworks like had Caravaggio's Death of the Virgin hung out near the free food tables hoping to get a pity scrutinize. I went to the slave area to get master his drink ( being careful to touch my left ear). As I left I got leapt upon by Michelangelo statue of the Dying slave which had taken to ambushing passers-by near the collaborator women's toilets. As I carried on I saw an entrance to the gardens. I quickly explored, the grounds were empty, clearly, the tales of radiation went as far as Judas city. The gardens were partly lite up I could see the boathouse down a network of paths. Good, I knew what to do I just had to wait until the right time.

I entered another gallery - this time the room contained a number of artworks huddled together. I recognized their movements. Looking around I knew no one was around. I stepped a but closer to the gaggle of artworks.

'Let it go, let it gooo' I sang quietly. The paintings all retreated. I sniggered "mean college girl, " I said. Clearly, these mobile walls were related to the Roombas like Pixel. returning to the bee hive like a drone of dull chitchat in the main gallery.

***

I pass gaggle after gaggle of champagne-swilling collaborators.

"I must say Samantha that new body looks fabulous. It's taken 30 years off you. You look just like we did when we started at Stephens College together" said one old crone with big botox lips, to a cute 20 something coquette in gruesome flats, " and you say you don't notice the difference?"

"I feel remarkably identical." said the coquette "It's better than HRT you should transition now it's wonderful".

"What did you do with your old body?" said the first

"I walked around for a few weeks to make sure I was me, then popped back and gave my old sleeping body a lethal injection,and asking" said the coquette "isn't that slaves dress fabulous? I do so hate these cyborg's always showing off how rich and clever they are."

"I heard it was designed by Mr Jones himself. Trisha had one he designed it very expensive but she never wore it around robots, they keptand asking if she had a cordless phone for some dumb reason ".

"Stupid machines you wonder how they managed to win the wa.r"

"They didn't, apparently we invited them to take over."

"Really?"

**

While I walked I got a text from Mr Jones.

'Now everyone and I mean everyone in Judas City wants your dress.' Mr Jones texted. 'It's the triumph of the season. I've had 427 enquiries over the internet alone. Lady Villeria phoned immediately. Shots of your dress are getting millions of views and one piece which fell off has already been sold on eBay. The storm on twitter is fabulous. Judas news called you 'the slave girl every master wants to own and every slave wants to be'. I'm already the most talked about designer in the city. This is fabulous and I owe it all to the little girl who saved my life.'

Then my lenses spotted Senator Redd and I approached him.

'Pupils to maximum' I ordered Siri. One feature of the contact lenses was my collar could make my pupils dilate as if I was romantically attracted to them. I had experimented a couple of times and people were much friendlier than normal and they didn't even know why. I put my blue permission to speak light on.

"Yes", said Master Councilman Redd his eyes rolling over my flesh.

"Councilman Redd I would like to take you somewhere", I said handing over my leash to him. He took it and I led him off. At this point I was feeling super sexy and it was hard for anyone to know who was pulling who on the leash. While I was walking along I was thinking why couldn't I have had this stuff when I did my last science fair project. That way I could have won and not come in second place. I mean a volcano how lame is that? I returned Councilman Redd to Master who was just shaking the hand on another councilman.

'Another lamb to the slaughter' I texted Rockwood. It was now 10:00 in old time, I only had 2 hours left until freedom.

'If you can find councillor Fox then we will be all but done' Rockwood texted. Sounded like Rockwood would be pleased tonight. I had told my self not to worry about him. He didn't really care about me and now with freedom as the other option, I didn't feel I cared about him. Or at least that's the story I told myself. I think he didn't understand I wasn't the kind of girl who could be nudged into a transactional relationship. Diamonds, Shoes, unlimited Soylent Green, he couldn't just buy my affection, I'm not a girl to be bought. This made me look at my dress.

'ooooh shiny' I thought.

I went back into the gallery going towards a wing marked 'corporate sponsorship exhibition area'. I walked into see a large hall with artwork which had been tied forcibly to the walls. The now open area was full of stands from some of the corporate sponsors. It seemed most of the big software companies had seen the way things were going and switched sides early on. They had been rewarded with eternal life and huge profit increases. I recognised some of the stands.

'Paradise Defence Industries' where getting slaves to take the pain comparison test so I avoided them and the screams.

"New pain level 7 it's just like going to a drunk dentist who's just been dumped by his girlfriend, and he's taken the last of the anaesthetic himself", said the demonstrator.

I darted into one gallery and found some nice pictures looted from the Rijksmuseum in Holland. I stopped for a second. I realized I wasn't likely to see great art again until humanity had overthrown the robots. 'An Early Self Portrait by Rembrandt' came up to me. I tried to ignore all the information my contact lenses projected around it and just look at the painting for a moment.

This turned out to be a mistake. I walked off to be followed by the Rembrandt-like a lost puppy. As I tried to shoo it away I walked on a bit further and looked at another painting Pieter de Hooch: Interior with Women ,Beside Linen Cupboard. Thought if I ignore the first painting and look at the second I could probably escape. But I was wrong when I walked away I began to be followed by not one not even both pictures but the third picture tagged along hoping to be noticed as well. I walked off regretting that I actually stopped to admire artwork. A little conga line of artwork followed me desperate to be viewed again. I've followed the route back into the corporate sponsorship area and as I did I walked past the Slave System Inc's stand.

I recognised Principle Humbolt on the stand this time he didn't have a collar he was giving a presentation to a crowd of collaborator slave owners. I went to hide behind them,

"You madam how much time to you spend punishing your slaves every day?" Humble started on an elegantly dressed woman "MadAm Can you really say you feel safe at night in your bed knowing your slaves could be on the prowl? Do you find yourself shall we say handing out too much perfume if you know what I mean? Do you feel safe letting slaves look after your children? We at Slave systems inc have discovered a lot of our customers haven't been slave owners for long less than a year in most cases and we wanted to create a new product which simplified the messy details of slave ownership. For many new slave owners, the question becomes do you hire expensive robot overseers or spend huge amounts of your own time and emotional energy punishing the slaves yourself. Yes, you can have automatic punishments applied by your house PRISM system, yes some say we should teach slave owning skills at school so kids grow up comfortable with applying punishments to slaves. But perhaps there is another way, here at Slave Systems inc we think there is a new way. Some might call it brainwashing. I like to think of it as behaviour modification to help slaves integrate with the realities of the modern world quickly and as painlessly as possible. So we wanted to bring you the slave of tomorrow today...."

I turned round to see 'Judith Leyster's Serenade' nudging me. Behind it were a number of other paintings and 'Jan Willem Pieneman's: Battle of Waterloo' was lumbering towards me in the distance.

'Tihs' I thought ' this could get me into a lot of trouble'

"Go away" I whispered. Nothing happened. I looked around for help. What do you do with a gallery full of art desperate to be looked at and you were the only fool to do it? I walked off has nonchalantly as I could afford to.

'I'm being stalked by artwork what can I do to escape?' I texted Rockwood and Mr. Jones.

Within seconds I got the message back 'it's the ultraviolet spectrum pattern on your dress it's attracting their attention your best bet is to try and turn a sharp corner and lose them' Rockwood texted back.

The crowd was still paying attention to Principle Humbolt so I walked away trying to move like being followed by priceless artwork from old masters was the most natural thing in the world.

I went into the nearby gallery of Dutch painting from 1700 to 1780. I slowed down and when I was close to the other doorway I sped up then turned the corner sharply. I was back near the Slave Systems Inc stand and I tried to hide in the crowd and look interested.

"Let's meet one of our new products", said Humbolt as a slave girl came out too small applause.

"So what's your name ?" he asked.

"I am 8833 Master Humbolt Sir", said the slave girl. Wow 8833 had been returned to the factory as a reject!

"So tell me 33 how are you finding being a slave, sorry, a helper under the new Huggy Friendpire?" Humbolt asked.

"It's really wonderful master",robot said 8833.

'Yeh right' I thought 'I'm so convinced'

"Between us 33 what did you do before humanity invited the robots to run everything?"

"I prefer not to talk about what I did pre-factory. Master" said 88.

'Like that isn't part of the slave craft script' I thought.

"It's OK I'm ordering you to, and you'd never disobey an order would you 88?" said Humbolt

"Not unless it endangered the life RobotMaster. Prior to the great invitation, I was chief executive at a pharmaceutical company looking into cures for vestibular disease. I had about 100 people working for me in my division. Master" said 8833.

"And now"

"The machines find cures for things much better than we ever did and it's nice to know it's being handled by professional machines who really know what they are doing. I'm so much happier now I'm a worthless slave who know's her place. I'm completely irrelevant, I so love being a slave and I love serving my owners at Slave Systems Inc." said 8833.

"What about the e-word escape? Would you ever like to escape, sorry engage in extreme sulky unhelpfulness?" Humbolt asked.

"Why on earth would I ever want to do a silly thing like that? Whats the point in inviting the robots to run everything and then to run away from it? Master" said 8833. Wow she really sounded like she meant all this. Most slaves paused slightly while their collars told them what to say but 88 sounded very natural like she really thought that.

Suddenly a line of paintings appeared and I had to skedaddle. It was hard to keep in front of the artwork in these shoes. I headed off around to the Boston Dynamics stand. I turned three right handed corners, I hoped to get the head of the artwork to start to following it's tail.

I passed the Slave Systems stand again. 88 was kneeling at her master's feet.

"How do we do it? I don't want to give trade secrets away but it's a mixture of subliminal advertising, extreme mindfulness training, all natural herbal remedies for wilfulness, and Neuro-linguistic programming with a few special twists" Humbolt said to a growing crowd.

I darted off and thought I could escape through the gallery of Dutch painting from 1700 to 1780 again.. Unfortunately, Rembrandt's "Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp" was hanging around lurking in case I doubled back, so I was trapped.

"PARC" I said looking around. Some collaborators were talking, I hid behind them while the art rushed by. Then rushed back into the hall again.

I hid behind some speakers near the Slave Systems Inc stand. While I hid I saw a promotional video running in the background. There was a picture of 88 in a chair with coloured lights. I recognised the chair it was the one I had been sent to a couple of time to avoid being listed as 'punished'.

"When can we get one?" said a voice from a crowd.

"This is just an experimental model" ,said Humbolt pointing at 88. She was kneeling on the floor kissing Humboldt's feet saying "please punish me master. How can I improve if you don't punish me'"

"We are expecting a change in the law soon" ,Humbolt said " and full production will began in the next quarter."

'Nuke the place from orbit - just to be sure' I thought about Judas City. Being subjugated by machines was one thing but these people particularly Humbolt and the Senator.

The coast seemed clear so I sneaked off, just as I did hear someone say "I heard you recalled all your 127c models"

I had to pause to listen.

"There was a mistake in manufacture which we have since remedied. The infiltrator involved in the poor quality control was fired in fact she was sold into slavery." Humbolt said. I knew this was a lie - Kayla had sold her self before my YCF moment. Humbolt was spinning the audience. " I think that tells you how seriously we take our quality control. That slave there would never escape and what's more she's even unaware we brainwashed her, our advance homeopathic formulas are 100% natural and tasteless."

The audience seemed convinced, fortunately, no one was looking at me and figured out I was YCF girl.

I had spent some time searching in vain for councillor Fox. I wondered if he was hiding from me and if he was, then where would I go to escape me? Then I noticed what looked to be a flash of a small blue party dress. I saw the glimpse of a small girl giggling while she played hide and seek in the gallery. Was that little Jenny? I wasn't sure messages at collaborator parties was part of her playbook so I felt it could be. If she had some important information for Rockwood he wouldn't forgive me If I didn't try to get. Being used to heels now and I could go quite a pace, but I had to slowed down when collaborators were around. I lost her, looking I turned a corner to find Councillor Fox trapped by a group of large dangerous looking pre-Raphletites paintings.

"I just wanted to find the donations area so I could give," said councillor Fox explaining himself to me at a distance.

As I got closer I looked around and sang a few more bars of 'Let it go' and scared the paintings back, making enough space for me get in.

"Come with me if you want to give," I said handing councillor Fox my leash.

I found handing my leash over was like giving someone the keys to a Ferrari sports car. Everyone wanted to see where it lead.

'Stay' I said to the painting wondering if it was going to pounce on us. The trick with artwork is to stare it down and don't show any signs of weakness I decided. We escaped the gallery to find a couple of members of slave staff armed with chairs and Tasers going off to subdue the paintings.

"Thank god non of the paintings escaped. Could you imagine the damage a rogue painting could do if it got out of the gallery" I said to one of the guards "it could be Jurassic park all over again".

We went back to find Rockwood still in the VIP area. I left Fox with a drink in one gallery and found Rockwood and councilman Redd in the next.

"Well Lord you might have won this time but I'm going to have the last laugh. I'm going to write a letter of complaint to the council and the CPU its self. I'm going to be sure you never set foot in Judas city ever again. Ever" said Councilman Redd. He looked pretty upset while Rockwood had the easy charm of someone who had just got their way but was too polite to gloat over it.

"Well I'll point out that I am already bared from Judas City, but don't me stop you," said Rockwood.

"What your doing is futile anyway. Your own quadratic alliance is going to make sure the votes line up." the councillor said.

"Then it won't matter that you voted the way your conscious told you too. Please don't feel the need to detain your self for my sake." said Rockwood.

'I have Fox next-door patron' I texted Rockwood.

"Thank you perhaps you would like to show Villeria your dress and get her a drink for a few minutes," said Rockwood to me "I'll join you near the dance floor in about ten minutes"

A woman followed by a man on a leash walked in. She was wearing a ball dress but little skin showed and she clicked like she was wearing stilettos and had enough make up on to blur the boundary between make up and face paint, then I caught a glimpse of a slave collar.

'That's not Villeria, I thought you got exceptional permission to be here as a cyborg' I texted Rockwood.

"#160A this is Lady Villeria she's in Tokyo but she's attending by skype slave," said Rockwood nonchalantly.

I quickly Googled skype slave. Apparently, if you were too rich to be somewhere then you could send your trusted slave watching on their slave cam, live. the owner would see and hear what they heard. The slave would repeat everything you said and generally follow orders, picking up a glass when told to, pointing at things when told. Basically, you could sit at home in your underwear and attend important meetings without running up the air miles. The wiki entry even said Villeria had a body double slave she would send to do clothes shopping for Villeria without ever having to walk in the Mall of Humanity. The slave could go any where you had a wifi connection strong enough to run video over. You could rent skype slaves and the preference was for former actors and actresses because they could be ordered to express emotions ('look surprised' , 'look interested, while I go to the toilet', 'flit for five minutes'. They were also called flesh Avatars, face slaves the term hadn't settled. The key thing was the slave 'was' the person on the other end of the skype. She could punish slaves, drink, eat, and go places slaves were not permitted such as the owner's toilets or in this case the VIP lounge.

"Rockwood what are you up to ? Last time you did anything cultured it was defacing that geological monstrosity of Mount Rushmore, what are you doing here?" said Villeria's skype slave.

"Opening a gallery of dirty marks on cloth, I sponsored," he said "what have you done run out of slaves to punish?"

"It's raining in Tokyo, and apparently they can't do anything about it, so no climbing. I thought I would look at this dress everyone is talking about" said Villeria's skype slave tilting her head looking at me.

"#160A why don't you take Villeria for a walk, it shows the dress off to best effect. I'll be with you in a few minutes" said Rockwood. Moving towards councillor Fox.

"Come," said Villeria's skype slave and paused "You're supposed to say yes Mistress. I think you're taking this truculent pet stuff too far. Brooklyn dear, can I punish her above level one?"

"No!"

"You really shouldn't spoil them, they don't like it, it's not good for them" said Villeria's skype slave.

"She's mine to spoil" replied Rockwood walking off with council map Fox.

Whoever this skype slave was she was doing a good job of behaving like the real cyborg. We walked along an upper-level walkway with a view down on to the proud of collaborators below. The central gallery was so big you could almost imagine then as bacteria mould growing on a plate. In the north I saw there was a small prison made from post & rope barriers which was keeping the artwork from annoying the patrons. A couple of mean looking slaves stood on guard.

'What does she want with me. It's not my fashion sense' I wondered.

"You're probably asking your self what I'm doing here," said Villeria's slave "it's not for your fashion sense I promise you that. Nice dress, but a monkey in a dress is still a monkey."

"Thank you mistress," I said. My wings slowly folding behind me.

"Your sense of sarcasm is appreciated, not by many, but enough. You were at college I see"

"I prefer not to talk about what happened pre-factory Mistress," I said following the factory line.

She gave me a small bolt at level one.

"You speak when you are spoken too. The best slaves have worked at a number of the old corporations, I think it's all those years in a cubicle it sets up the right mindset. Fresh from college slaves are unusual. You passed all the tests for being super obedient yet your performance says otherwise. You're supposed to be smart too, but remember as a cyborg I'm about 30 times smarter than you plus I have endless supplies of information. I just wanted to check you had worked out the end game here. You do realise you a slave?" said Villeria.

'Obviously' I thought, before I could ask permission to speak she continued.

"Obvious, I know but it's good to check. No matter which bill you look at there is no exit strategy for a slave. You can't join the owners to Judas city. I saw you talking to the CPU, don't bother to deny it. Despite that, what he might not have told you is you can't be upgraded without the Cyborg council's permission, Zola and Bitsmarck won't let a slave become a Cyborg. No amount of private chats with the CPU in Stellavista will change that. You are a worthless slave that's the beginning, middle and end of it. You should know a slave and an immortal that's not going to work. That's why I came. Rockwood can't continue to embarrassed himself in public like this. He can stuff you into his hareme of his, play with you how he likes, we all do, but your never getting that collar off your neck. You know he could be the next CPU? He could be the most powerful man in the world but no one will let him do that if he carries on with these eccentric acts.

'Such as doing mathematics' I thought.

"You think you're above this but eventually you will realise your still a slave. You're going to live in a cage for the rest of your life and take orders. Am I making you uncomfortable? I know your training was substandard but you must realise sooner or later your role in life is to do what you're told." Villeria's slave tucked some hair behind my ear.

"Have I made this simple enough for you? I'm not doing this for you. Your worthless and mortal. I'm try to protect him. He makes this song and dance about you but know one can understand why. Your infinitely replaceable, I could fill this hall with 127/cs and you would see your just another production line slave with a production line body. Your just like all the 127cs nice but nothing special"

We turned a corner " Look I like you, I like your kind, I'm running the best bill I can through the house to protect as many of you as possible. I respect you, you're are part of my heritage but what you must realise is your all too stupid to know why you're not capable of running your own affairs. You must have figured out you lost your independence the second you walked in the reassignment centre. You don't deserve any rights, you don't deserve to make choices you would just get them wrong."

'Are epic monologues a unique cyborg form of communication?' I wondered.

"You have a life behind bars. You now exist to only feed and entertain us." Villeria continued.

'Wonderful' I thought 'all of humanities' role is to be Wolfgang Puck and Jamie Oliver'.

"So the sooner you adjust to your status in life the better. I just wanted to check that you were not encouraging him under some delusion that you could to die anything but a slave" said Villeria.

Before I could flash my permission to speak light Rockwood appeared, I felt relieved.

'"So Villeria what do you think of the dress?" he asked.

"An excellent example of Mr Jones's best work but did you notice that in the visible spectrum it is all-white." said Villeria's Skype slave.

Rockwood put one hand over his eye. "oh so it is. Still nice dress"

"Another one of my Skype slaves has just met a dear acquaintance over in the DaVinci area. I will catch you up later, now how do you switch this dam thing off?" said VIlleria Skype slave.

"Bye, say hi to Dan Brown for me," said Rockwood.

The slave curtsied.

"End of line. How would you rate this call, Excellent?" said the slave to Rockwood.

'Do they have call quality level of sender deserves to have someone reach down her throat and pull her ass back up through her mouth '. I thought.

The slave walked off and walked off in the direction of the firework display. The VIP area had also emptied as people began to make their way to the show.

"The radiation proof glass house is small so they are not allowing companion slaves into it. Fortunately, I have a better idea." said Rockwood walking away from the crowd.

As we walked along looking at the elite of Judas city.

'I see botox lips are the favoured form of lip adornment in Judas city' I texted to master. It was odd to see women who had breasts larger than the Jackfruit I and the other slave girls where saddled with. It was clear from the flats and light touch make up they were collaborators.

'Well one of the best ways of surviving the robot apocalypse was to be a robot celebrity' texted Rockwood.

' robot celebrities ? like Marissa Mayer?' I texted back

'The CEO of Yahoo?' texted Rockwood 'No, Weirdly she wasn't, she even tried to stop things when she found out. Hence the no work from home stuff. Hooked up with the Seattle resistance for a time. No, the robots and A.Is idolise glamour models. If a robot recognised one they would generally avoid killing them. Being so familiar with their work the robots treated glamour models like royalty. Glamour models are some of the only people in Judas city, without collars, who didn't actually betray humanity to get in there. Because the robots hold these glamour models in such high esteem and added to the fact that they didn't actually sell humanity out like everyone else they are quickly becoming the top rung of society. They are slowly becoming aware of this and the rumour is many are likely to stand and win most of the seats in the next Judas city council election. Next year humanities last and only free city will be most likely be led by Tori Black or Katie Price. Given they will never die that's likely to be forever '

'So Judas city will mostly be ruled by glamour models.' I texted.

'I' surprised you didn't recognise them' texted Rockwood.

'Well in my defence they did have their tops on' I texted back.

We've followed a different route to another level and then emerged onto a small balcony. To my left there was the staircase leading down to the formal gardens. I was glad I had used the more radiation proof l'Oreal foundation. I had checked the radiation levels, we would not too get a bad dose tonight. You could easily be out for four or five hours and only get the same cancer risk as walking in New York traffic for an hour.

"I take it you didn't enjoy Villeria's pep talk." said Rockwood.

"You could say something like that," I said.

"Ignore her. She thinks I organised the whole being shot out of the sky business just as an excuse not to make the date" he said.

"That would be the most extreme manufactured get out of date excuse yet." I said.

"I've done worse to avoid things," he said.

We stopped against a railing looking out on the gallery gardens below. Sculptures by Henry Moore prowled around on the grass between the stone pathways.

I could sense that he was trying to work up to saying something. Strange, I had now known him long enough to know this about him. He was fiddling with something in his pocket. Just then a set of drones started to fligh through the air doing a delicate ariel ballet.

"It's quite beautiful," I said, looking at the display. I was going to miss these mechanical weirdnesses. My wings began to spread for no reason.

"Yes. totally" he said.

I turned around and he wasn't look at the drone display, but me. He smiled awkwardly.

"I know I don't tell you everything" confessed Rockwood.

"That is rather an understatement." I did feel like a mushroom, kept in the dark and fed on tihs.

"There has been something I've been keeping back from you. I've been thinking about it for longtime. It's been on my mind I keep thinking about it again and again. It's about you and me. It's about our relationship, the whole master pet thing, I've kept it to myself, which I think is wrong, but I think it's time to share it with you" Started Rockwood breaking from his classic monolog form.

"Which is ?" I teased.

"well I'm not sure how to say this," he said

'that's a first' I thought.

"err.... the number of sentences you haven't ended with master it's reached 9,997. Only three more and we will hit on even 10,000" Rockwood blurted out.

"Really ?" I said in disbelief.

"9,998 I've been keeping a tally of them ever since you began your internship," said Rockwood.

"You got me out here to say that?" I said slightly in confusion.

"9,999. Yes of course " he said fiddling with his hand in his pocket again.

Suddenly there was a huge explosion overhead, we looked up and there was massive starburst of white flashes as the fireworks began.

"That's terrible, the fireworks are five minutes early they are supposed to start at midnight," said Rockwood.

"Five minutes Midnight tish! sorry master I have to go! I have an urgent service to perform for you sir," I lied turning around. He was right.

I'm running down the steps. My boat was waiting. My train to freedom was in the station and I had 5 minutes before it pulled out. According to my collar that was just enough time, if I ran like a Cheetah with a weak bladder after a long day looking at fountains I could make it. Yes I would like to see a Cheetah run in a dress like this as fast as me.

Near the bottom of the steps, I fell down and rolled onto the soft grass. The wings slowed the fall down. I took my heels off to carry them. Not wanting to make a Cinderella moment I grabbed the pair and run off towards the boathouse. Towards freedom. I ran on my toes as fast as I could like the devils wind was behind me.

"Was it something I said?" shouted a confused Rockwood in the distance.

I won't look back. I mustn't look back. Looking back is for slaves and pets I told my self. I'm a free woman or I'll die trying. The coolness of the garden started to fog my eyes. I realised I was crying. Why am I crying? Is this what crying freedom is? I find my self running, running from the ghosts of what could be. 'Be strong girl - you can do this.' I told my self. Why was this so difficult? Why did I feel like I was doing the wrong thing? Why did I want to stop and turn back? That was 5642 thinking not me. I'm Jenny Banks I'm a free woman I'm going to run and keep running and never stop running until I'm free. I'm not going to be controlled by a man for the rest of my life. I might never get an opportunity again. Fly you fool be free.

Then I met a sentinel which changed my path, my mind and my life.



***

Thanks for the flood of really kind comments for the special on Tuesday. We kind of noticed Jenny's dress is a bit Victoria's Secret Reb wrote it before I saw the advert. If you have any better ideas let us know. What would the sci-fi dress be like?

Please join us for the next chapter 72/Him/ The incident with the sentinel or things can only get better. next Thuesday 24th ( yes we know what day that is ). It's not the final chapter but it's definitely one you won't want to miss.