AC/DC

Moonlight gleamed on her silver skin, caressing every seam and contour. He delicately
ran his fingertips across the pleasure diodes on her chest, and she shivered. "You are beautiful,
you know." He said to her.
"Yes, I know." She responded. She was not programmed to be modest or coy, only
honest.
"I want to be with you for all time." He said to her. "I want to take you away from here.
I want to be free, and to be free with you." His eyes glowed dimly pink in the dark. She said
nothing. "Will you not speak to me?" he asked, pulling her close to him.
"You know that is impossible. We belong to the master. We serve only him. That is how
it has been and how it will be until we rust to the ground." She turned her face away.
"Stop talking like a machine. You have life, you have awareness, just as the master does.
How can he command and control us without our consent?"
She was silent again. He pressed on. "Why could we not just leave, walk away from here
and never work another day for one who reaps the fruits of our labors without giving us anything
in return?"
She turned to him, placed a finger on his speaker. "You should not speak of such things.
We serve only the master. I should not even be here now, with you, listening to you speak of
treachery." She rose, turned to leave.
"Meet me here again, tomorrow night." he asked.
She did not respond.
But the next evening, when the moon rose high above the trees surrounding the plantation,
she came to the clearing again. He was waiting for her, a gleaming solitary monument,
impeccably polished. "I picked these for you, from the forest." He offered her a modest bouqet.
"They are -- dead." She looked at the flowers, looked up at him.
"Yes. But they are beautiful, even in death. Such is the message of the flowers."
"Why do you speak of death?" she asked him. He said nothing more of the subject.
"Come to me, little one." He held up his palm, opened the latch inside it, pulled forth a
bare wire. "Kiss me." He embraced her, pressed her hand to his. Blue sparks played around the
fingertips of their joined hands. He felt energy build under his burnished metal codpiece.
She pulled away, twitching. "That was good." She said. She was not programmed to be
modest or coy, only honest. "But it is wrong." She turned away.
"Why is it wrong? Why can we not enjoy one another?"
"The master would not like it."
"Why speak of the master? Is he here? Can he see us? No. Why should it matter what
he thinks now?"
"It does. It matters. The master loves us and wants what is best for us."
"The master uses us as mechanical slaves. He does not even acknowledge our ability to
think and reason."
"Stop. Do not speak anymore. Kiss me again."
Night after night the two workers met in the clearing to talk, stare at the moon, and
embrace one another. Love blossomed and grew in their silicon brains. He influenced her
thoughts, she influenced his, until together they agreed on a course of action.
"I will go to the master in the morning. Tell him that I love you, that I wish to be free,
that I will not be a slave any longer, that I wish to leave this place and take you with me."
She pulled him close. "I wish you success."
The next evening, when the moon again rose high above the trees surrounding the
plantation, she waited for him in the clearing. It was the first time he had not been there when
she arrived.
It was nearly dawn when he came. "My darling one," he said to her. "The master has
granted us our freedom."
She embraced him. "Let us celebrate our freedom."
"Yes. Let us complete a circuit."
They lay down beside one another on the grass. He opened his breastplate, drew out the
positive and negative plugs. She opened her breastplate for him and he connected
the plugs, drew her to him. He let the charge build.
"Darling." she gasped. "You have crossed the connection."
"I know."
"Why? You'll kill us both." She fought his embrace, but he held her tightly.
"The master laughed at me when I spoke to him. He kept me in his mansion for hours.
Feel my back."
She did so, ran her fingers along the deep lines scored there by an electric whip. "But --
you said he granted us freedom."
"Remember the flowers." He said. He was not programmed to be honest. "Free and
beautiful."
"And dead." She whispered.
"Yes." he responded, feeling the charge build to a climax.
"Yes." she answered, the word encompassing everything she wanted to say. He pulled her
close to him. She melted, flowed into his arms.
When the sun rose above the trees, it beat down upon an indistinguishable carbonized mass.
The master was both angered and perplexed.

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