Abomination by A.J. Cole (best ereader for pdf and epub .txt) 📖

me, Morta. I may not have your talents, but I do have several abilities of my own.”

Was that a threat? “Who, then?” And what kind of pleasure? Now that was a good question…

“One of the staff, I should think. Who has been especially nice to you?”

“Nobody.” Didn’t even have to think about that one.

Another Gideon frown. “Come on, Morta. Surely someone has treated you well.”

“Frida.” She never looked at me, treated me like a pariah, but had never actively tried to harm me. Maybe after this she would soften up a bit.

With a nod, Gideon put a hand to his ear. Bluetooth. What a strange name for that kind of technology. “Send Frida into the practice area. Tell her she is needed to clean something up, er….” He glanced out the mirror-window, nodded. “Some kind of liquid needs to be mopped up. I believe it’s urine.”

I came as close to laughing as I ever had – Pruitt had wet himself? How delightful! And how had I missed that?

Gideon was gesturing at me to join him by the window. “She should be here in a moment. I want you to make her feel joyful. Nothing more. But joyful enough to immobilize her.”

“Joyful. Okay.” I nodded, determined to disobey. Someone like Frida had most likely never really enjoyed the company of men. Why not let her enjoy the unique of ecstasy of being with one? Not that she couldn’t do such a thing to herself, but I doubted she was the sort who would ever touch herself that way. Pity.

“Morta, I mean it. Just joy.”

That surprised me. “Is one of your abilities mind-reading?”

“No, but I do know how to read micro-expressions and general body language. I’m also adept at summing up a person’s predictabilities. So leave her alone – make her joyful, without the physical euphoria, all right?”

“And if I disobey?”

“You’ll find out I’m not as nice as you seem to think I am.”

How disappointing. “That’s okay. Neither am I.”

“I never thought you were. As I understand it, being nice is a state that’s been more or less programmed out of you.”

I shrugged. “You – ”

He raised a hand. “She’s here. Wait until she’s about halfway across.”

I watched Frida’s progress, noting for the first time that she had a left-sided limp. Since the only time I ever interacted with her was at the door of my room, I wasn’t surprised at my ignorance of her disability. Curious only.

“Now.”

“NO SHIT. I KNOW WHAT ‘HALFWAY ACROSS’ LOOKS LIKE.” Ignoring the sense of anger radiating off Gideon’s body, I stared at Frida, allowing my new neuro-friends to move, this time along a different path.

Music. Sweet, brilliant music bathing her innermost being…light…a thick envelope of love, adoration, hope. All hers. Everything good bathing her soul in waves of magnificent, gentle, pleasurable light. There you go, Frida. Embrace it.

Below us, the woman had stopped dead. With her back to us, I couldn’t see her face, but didn’t need to. She raised her head, then her arms, and began to turn in a slow circle. At 180 degrees, her smile came into view; eyes closed, tears dribbling over colorless cheeks, smile growing larger. Her arms came down and she hugged herself. A moment later, turned away from us again, she went to her knees, head still raised. And for the first time since meeting her, I heard her laugh.

Like Pruitt, Frida’s vocalizations were loud enough to make it past the thick glass in front of me.

“Enough for now, Morta.”

“Jerk.” The poor, pathetic woman was experiencing what could well be her first moments of real happiness…

“Now, Morta!”

“Go to hell. Fine.” Stop, worms, stop. Go back into your closet. I turned away, not wanting to see Frida’s reaction.

Instead I heard it.

Wailing. Awful, drawn-out wailing. The sound of outrage, of sudden, deep loss. Of course – what else would she have been feeling right then?

Morta the hormonal teenager wanted to leave the room and try to forget. Morta the abomination turned back, fascinated, wanting to see what Frida would do next.

By this time, the woman had made it to the other side of the room where she stared down at the wet stain on the cement. Her shoulders drooped and she shook her head. I allowed my eyes to magnify her figure and saw her hands were trembling. A moment later, she turned to the left, went to a supply closet in the adjacent wall, and returned with a mop and a bucket.

“I’m bored, Gideon. May we go now?”

We didn’t return to my cell as I had expected, but took the corridor leading to Victor’s office instead. Was Gideon required to have me with him to confirm all that had occurred? I failed to see why, knowing cameras would have been recording everything. Those intrusive electronic eyes even lived in the corners of my cell, in the bathrooms, everywhere except (I had come to realize) Victor’s office.

Gideon opened Victor’s door and gestured for me to enter first, then shut the door behind us.

Without look up from whatever it was he was doing with his iPad, Victor told us both to have a seat. “I take it things went well?” He still hadn’t looked up.

“They did.” Gideon, not me. I had nothing to say.

“Good. I’ll need to adjust her failsafe, but that’s not a problem.” Victor raised his glance and stared at me.

A second later, the door opened again and two men who I had dubbed Ogre #1 and Ogre #2 several years ago came in, one of which jabbed me in the arm with a hypodermic.

The word “jackass” was the last thought I threw into Victor’s mind before oblivion struck.

 

<<<<<<< 

 

I awoke to darkness. From the familiar smell of whatever detergent they used to launder my sheets, I knew I was in my cell. From the lack of light, I knew I had been out for a long time, the daylight gone. A moment of introspective communication with my internal clock and I knew it was nine in the evening. My brief visit with Victor had taken place at four-thirty-six…about four and a half hours. What had they done that required so much – ah. The failsafe chip.

Smart, really. I could have destroyed Victor at any second, so of course he’d had to move quickly, get me sedated before I could use my new “weapon” against him. The severe headache I’d experienced when afflicting Pruitt told me that killing Victor would have killed me, too, but maybe I’d been wrong. After all, failsafe’s design involved physical action on my part, not mental. So why the intense pressure?

That may have represented the worst of it had I gone through with Pruitt’s destruction, but now I’d never know. Still, what dear Victor didn’t seem to understand was that other thing – “talking” into his mind involved far more than accessing the verbal centers of his brain. While speaking to him in that way, I could also speak to the place that controlled muscle commands. The heart was a muscle. Stupid Victor. Shutting him down would be like shutting a window. That easy, that simple.

But not yet. Too many things still needed to be learned, and besides, with his death would come my permanent eviction from this place. So much to discover about that world out there…When I knew how to survive among others without attracting attention, Victor would find not only his heart come to a slow, painful stop, but every nerve and muscle in his body would simultaneously be twisting, melting. His would be a vile, horrific end. I came as close to smiling as I believe I ever have.

Food. The next thought after all that – food. I stood and removed my outfit. Being unclothed represented the only freedom I knew. Undoing my hair, I shook my head, letting the thick, white-gold waves fall about my shoulders, past my breasts, down to my waist. No mirrors existed in this place, so I had to rely on the distorted reflection of my face in the dark vehicle windows to tell me my probable looks.

I wasn’t ugly. That was it. Because of the curve of the glass, my features were spread sideways a bit. So were Victor’s; by accounting for how the window glass widened his facial details, I was able to surmise my own.

One afternoon when I was six, Pruitt had made a snide remark about my eyes. He called them “creepy.” Of course I had to know why.

“Because they’re not a real color.” He had sneered and turned away.

“What do you mean? How could they not be a real color?”

I remember that when he turned back to answer, his expression reminded me of the face Victor had made when someone – one of the few women who worked in the building as cooks and maids – had put salt in his coffee instead of sugar. “Because. Amber isn’t a real eye color. Now go away.”

Amber. I’m still not sure how that translates to human iris pigmentation. But at that point, having woken up after the sun had long since gone, and not at all sure if I was going to be given supper, I used the mental pattern I’d been taught to make those amber eyes of mine emit enough light so I could see in the darkness.

The door opened, light flooding in and negating my ocular illumination. I switched it off and crossed my arms.

Victor, accompanied by Gideon, stood on the threshold, the former looking at me as if nothing were unusual, the latter gaping.

“Polydon…she’s…”

“She never wears anything in her cell. Does that bother you, Gideon?”

His eyes widened for a second before being averted. I recognized the tiny muscular reactions – he liked what he saw yet was afraid to let me see his pleasure.

“Would you like me to get dressed?” I had spoken to Gideon. What Victor would have liked was unimportant.

“Please.”

“All I have is what I was wearing before.” I only mentioned this because the blue one-piece garment fit so close, almost no distinction could be made between being dressed and nude. Well, except for my nipples and pubic hair.

Victor was shaking his head, irritation oozing from his aura. He took out his com. “Frida, bring Morta a dress.”

Her voice, barely audible, whispery, asked if I needed undergarments.

“No. Just the dress. Our guest is uncomfortable with her current state.”

We waited, no one speaking, Gideon staring at the floor. Laughter would probably have felt good but I had no ability to do that. I smirked instead. Of course.

Victor filled the last few seconds by explaining that there was no lighting in my cell, that it wasn’t necessary, to which Gideon muttered something that sounded like relief. I hadn’t bothered to intensify my hearing to catch his exact words. Why bother?

And then Frida had come and gone and Victor was tossing a flimsy green frock at me, one with a soft under layer of lighter green, the outer layer sheer but darker with small sprigs of lavender splattered all over it. Not my favorite. I slipped it over my head, wishing I could be left alone.

Perhaps Gideon’s? As I passed him on the way out the door – Victor announced that we were going to go have a meal together – Gideon told me I looked beautiful.

Beautiful. Me. The abomination. No.

“I didn’t realize your hair was so…so long.”

I shrugged, wondering what we would be eating, especially since my diet was exclusively raw. Sushi, perhaps. That way, even Gideon could partake, assuming he didn’t hate the stuff.

Wrong. So sorry. Steak. So rare that it was purple in the center, my portion was larger than theirs. At least that concession had been made. However, the vegetables were steamed, and I nearly gagged. They tasted like sodden paper with salt and garlic. Nasty.

“The vegetables are delicious,” Gideon told Victor after several mouthfuls.

I began to dislike him again.

“Is the steak cooked to your liking, Gideon?” Victor sounded like he cared. Uh-huh.

“Perfect. But I, er, notice that Morta’s is barely cooked.” He nodded at my