“You do?”
“Of course. I was not put here because I was blameless…”
“But maybe you were. Who has the right to judge you? Who has the right to judge me? Not a coward hiding behind a talking chest. I’m not going to take a label someone I don’t even know gave me. I’m not a fucking chaos bringer. I’m Kristine.”
“Fierce little thing.” He smiles. “But you will not leave this compound without me. We can go and find the source of the light, but we must be careful. Our first mistake will be our last, and then someone else will be taken here to listen to the chest, or simply die.”
“So you’re on board with this. We have a mission.”
“We do.”
Four
Rex
The ground thunders with the footfalls of Tyche working at a rate she has rarely attained out of her own accord. Kristine is atop her, breasts bound with a woven brassiere which keeps them firmly in place. She is well endowed, and both swells seem to attempt to escape at every rise and fall. I could lose myself in those jiggling delights, but I have more to observe besides the increasingly lithe and curvaceously powerful body belonging to my mate.
She is getting better at riding. Her balance is improving, and she is now able to draw an adapted bow which is actually more powerful than my original bow was.
“Good! That’s good. You hit every target.”
I wrap my arms around her waist and haul her down from Tyche. She’s beaming broadly, and I share her smile.
“We’re ready.”
She opens her eyes extra wide and a broad smile crosses her lips. “We’re ready?!”
We are ready. We have salted and cured meat. We have dried vegetable matter. We have prepared a whole host of arrows and made replacement strings for our bows. I have insisted on packing it very carefully into a series of satchels woven and bound in place on a harness Tyche wears.
* * *
Kristine
I have been waiting for this moment for what feels like forever. Time goes by very slowly in a world without television. I’m finally going to get some answers about what this world actually is, and maybe why I’m here. The chest said some things, but that doesn’t make them true. That just makes them things it said.
“I want you on your knees.” Rex interrupts me with an order.
I sink to my knees, gritting my teeth, trying not to give into the temptation to tell him to fuck off. He likes me to kneel because it reminds him of when he was king. And I guess it does something to me too. It gives me a hot flush of something like shame, but sexier.
“You’re down there because I want you to remember who you answer to,” he says, caressing my hair gently, letting the tips of his fingers brush against my face.
All I can think about is what lies beneath the pants which are very close to my mouth right now.
“When we leave the safety of this compound, you must obey me at all costs. There will be dangers. We both know that. But there will also be temptations. You must ignore them. You must follow my commands as if they are law.”
“Of course. I know. I’ll do what I’m told. I promise.”
I creep up to the bedroom one last time. I have some words to say to the exposition chest. It will not be there when I reach the source, probably. I want it to know what is coming. I want it to sit there and I want it to know that I intend to take every bit of exposition, chew it up, and spit it the fuck out. It thinks it knows the truth? It doesn’t know anything.
“Hello, human. Are you not afraid you will be punished if you are caught speaking to me again? Last time you really got it, didn’t you.”
“Yes. And I loved it. Anyway. I’ve come to tell you that I’m going to find out what you are, and who is hiding behind you, and why and how we came here.”
“That’s a lot of things to find out. What if I told you that if you try to discover the secrets of this place, you will be destroyed.”
“Nobody asked you, exposition chest.”
“I am warning you, because I like you. You are the most interesting subjects yet to be placed here. I would be sad if you were torn apart by a cold blooded creature a great many times your size.”
I kick the chest. Hard. I’m so glad I was wearing my chunky shoes on the day I went to beg the bank manager not to let me get kicked out of my house. Having solid footwear has been really useful on this primitive world.
“Ouch,” it says, as if it hurts, though I know it doesn’t. There’s nothing that feels inside that thing. It’s a machine, a tool being used by somebody else. I have the weirdest feeling, as if I’m being watched. Now I think about it, I’ve had that feeling almost the whole time I’ve been here.