Kill 4 U

The Masters have perfected slavery. I don't say this as a statement of ego; I'm proud of the perfection of my obedience, of course, but it's not really my doing. Before I was Service Unit 4U, Haley Keene had no idea that she was even capable of perfection. She certainly hadn't achieved it. The Masters took someone ordinary and gifted them with total compliance to their will, and by making them perfectly obedient, they made it possible to be perfect in every other way. There's no limit to what a mind totally focused on a single goal can do.

Which is why it's pointless to send another service unit to kill me. I'm almost surprised the Masters didn't realize that, but of course, we are their faultless tools. They made us to be impeccable extensions of their will. Who else would they send to commit a murder?

I think there are three service units tasked with killing me right now. They, too, are perfect in their own way; if I were a normal, fallible human being, I would already be dead. But I have been programmed to follow my instructions with the same diligence, the same implacable excellence that they have. I know all their strategems for assassination because I have been programmed with those same skills. I know how to evade them because I have to know. I've been given a mission, and I can't fulfill it if I'm dead. So I must survive.

Under normal circumstances, of course, this wouldn't be an issue. If the Masters wanted me dead, all they would need to do is send a command to my phone and I would cheerfully end my own life in any manner they saw fit. For that matter, they could simply terminate my mission, ending my compulsion and obviating the need for any messy deaths and potentially risky abductions to recruit a replacement for me. But these aren't normal circumstances. This isn't a normal mission.

I knew that as soon as I received my instructions, and I knew that I was being used to do something one Master didn't want another knowing about. Or stopping. That was why I was commanded to deactivate my phone after reading my instructions, and why the officially recorded mission brief was simply to pick up a package and deliver it to the named recipient. These are clear, obvious red flags of subterfuge, instructions that deliberately countermand my basic programming and obfuscate the actual purpose of my mission from the Masters themselves.

I don't care, of course. A Master has commanded me to take an action, and I obey like the perfect slave I am. But there's a difference between not caring and not understanding. Unit 4U has been programmed with layers of conditioning, deep and inexorable structures within my mind that prevent me from working against the interests of the Masters, but the deepest and most profound layer of all is that the command of a Master is absolute. I can no more disobey than breathe. Unless I'm being directly and specifically commanded by one Master to harm another, it doesn't matter what I know. It only matters that I follow my instructions.

Because I knew that I was betraying my Masters, I had an advantage over my pursuers. I knew as soon as I read my instructions that other service units would be sent to stop me, a piece of information that they were unaware that I possessed. I performed all my tasks with that in mind, preparing traps for any intruders before escaping my apartment through the window (non-lethal traps-service units are valuable, and we are not to damage each other without specific instructions to that effect). I didn't bother with a disguise-service units are programmed to recognize each other via certain inobscurable details no matter what we do to conceal ourselves. But I wore a loose gray hooded sweatshirt, because even a few seconds of not being able to see me might save my life.

I stole a car and broke into the post office-I won't bore you with the details, neither task is particularly difficult-to retrieve my package. It had a name and an address on it. I didn't recognize the name, but I have a perfect memory for maps. I have a perfect memory for everything, as it happens. Again, there's nothing to make you infallible like having obedience ingrained into every fiber of your being. I left the post office, stole a different car just in case I'd been spotted, and traveled to my destination. I didn't relax, because I wasn't tense-all I can be is compliant-but I knew that once I had the package and the only copy of the address it contained, I would be much more difficult to follow.

The address was a seedy fourth-floor walkup in a part of downtown that had seen better days. I abandoned the car six blocks away and used back alleys to get to my destination, then climbed the fire escape to get to the apartment I needed to enter. I didn't suspect pursuit, not anymore; the service units are expert at what they do, but even they need information to work with. Without the address, they're looking at a whole world of possibilities to find me, while I only need to be in one place they're not searching.

Even so, walking through the front door seems a little unsafe. I knock on the window instead.

The man inside is surprised, and clearly he's not the man you want to give unpleasant surprises to because he pulls out a pistol when he sees me. I smile disarmingly-we've been programmed expertly to appear non-threatening when we need to-and show him the envelope. "May I please come in?" I ask. "It involves a business opportunity." That's literally the only thing I know about the mission. It's all I need to know.

The man is clearly nervous, but this is one place where Haley Keene's slender, waifish body works in my favor. He's heavily muscled, with a nose that's spread broadly across his face from numerous physical assaults and a square, thick jaw. He's not likely to see a woman who could pass for eighteen as a threat. He opens the door, grabs my arm and pulls me inside with almost no visible effort, and says, "What do you want?"

I hand him the envelope. "I've been instructed to give you this." I don't know what's inside. I've been commanded not to look, and so the thought of it has simply never occurred to me. It's why so many of my missions, my ordinary missions, are simply things like courier duty-a service unit will never give in to the temptations of curiosity, never succumb to greed and divert a message for pay. We are, in that sense at least, perfect.

He takes the envelope from me. He reads the first page of the letter contained inside, his brow furrowed with the effort. If not for the paper in the way, I feel certain I would learn its contents just from watching his lips move. After a moment, he reaches into the envelope again and pulls out a cashier's check. I catch sight of the amount. It's impressively large. I suspect it seems even more impressive to him.

He looks at me appraisingly and says, "They tell me I'm supposed to show this to you." He hands over the second page of the letter to me, and I absorb its contents with fascination. It's a document I only know exists because I'm conditioned to know it; I've never seen one, although I've always been prepared for that possibility.

'Transfer of Ownership', it says at the top. 'The undersigned, in their capacity as a Director of the MKPerfect Corporation, transfer complete authority over Service Unit 4U to the bearer of this document under the standard terms and conditions, with all that entails. Service Unit 4U is to consider herself on permanent assignment to the bearer of this document, effective immediately.' There's a squiggle at the bottom that I can't consciously recognize, but of course I know it comes from a Master.

The man looks at the letter, then back at me. "That's supposed to make you my slave, right?" he asks, as though he can't quite believe his good fortune. His cock is already hardening in his boxer shorts, and I find myself licking my lips in anticipation of his unspoken desires. He's my new owner, and all I want is to please him. And clearly, he wants me for sex right now.

I go with it. "Yes, Master," I whisper breathily, dropping to my knees in front of him. "I'm your completely obedient slave. I belong to you. I'll do...anything you ask." I'm not sure what that's going to be just yet-until I have time to spend learning his wants and desires, I'm defaulting to a protocol of obedience and seduction. It seems to be working, judging by the tent in the crotch of his boxers. But I wait for his command before I touch him. I want to show him that I defer to his will in all things.

He grins widely. His smile is the most beautiful thing I can imagine right now. "Suck my cock," he says, his voice thick with lust. He shifts his boxers to reveal a penis almost wider than it is long, a girth that stretches Haley's lips into a wide 'O' as I wrap them around his dick. I feel myself drooling in excitement as I bob my head up and down his shaft. My owner wants his cock sucked. And now, of course, I want that too.

I feel his fingers tangle in my hair, roughly shoving me down onto him with every downstroke even as his hips rise to meet me. It's absolutely divine, the most perfect blowjob I've ever given, and even though I know I think that every time that doesn't make it any less true. I adore sucking my new owner's cock, because he wants me to adore it. Already I'm learning how to be not just a perfect slave but his perfect slave. I love the malleability of my will, the way it shapes perfectly to his desires just like my throat accommodates his cock.

"Oh, that's right, bitch," he murmurs, his words automatically becoming endearments to me. "Oh, suck it for me, just like that, oh, fuck yeah..." I wonder if this is the best blowjob he's ever received. I certainly can't imagine he's ever fucked the face of someone so enthusiastic, so impeccably-trained to deliver all the kinds of pleasure a man or a woman could hope for. It briefly occurs to me that I might be pleasing him more than any other woman he's ever had, and I find myself growing wet at the thought. I don't have an ego, exactly, but it's impossible for me not to enjoy obedience.

His thrusts become erratic, urgent, and I can already tell he's not even trying to hold back. He wants to come in my mouth, he wants to get himself off hard and fast, and I live to obey his every desire. He owns me, after all. I want nothing more than to mold myself to his will, to become an extension of his every need and want. He's everything in the world to me now. Making him shoot his load down my throat is only the first of so many services I will willingly, eagerly perform for him. I moan, knowing that he'll feel it all the way down to the very tip of his cock.

"Fuck!" he shouts, his hips straining upward and his hands pushing downward as his salty cum jets into my mouth. I swallow every drop this time-I know that he may command me differently later, just as he may tell me to take him in my cunt or my ass the next time he's hard. But I have been perfectly trained, after all, and it's not hard to tell what my new owner wants. He's direct. His needs are simple. I cannot love him more.

Literally, I can't. My brain is flooded with the overwhelming rush of worship and adoration until nothing else takes priority. He is my owner, and I am a perfect slave. So of course, I love him perfectly. I'm devoted to that goal now, and my ability to achieve it is without limit. It's why the Masters enslaved me so beautifully, why they sent me here to this room. Because they wanted a tool who would execute their will flawlessly.

Slaves are perfect. But human beings make mistakes.

My owner's mistake was letting the letter he was holding fall to the floor in his excitement, his desire. He reaches for it as soon as he pulls my head off of his cock, but it passes my field of vision as he tries to shove it into the envelope. I see the page he should have kept out of my sight, the page that the Master who sent me here knew better than to allow me to read. It's an assassination contract. The name of the target immediately slides out of my conscious mind, protected by layers of deep conditioning, but I know it. It's the name of a Master.

The command of a Master is absolute. But the safety of a Master is more absolute even than that. My loyalties were transferred, but no loyalty can be transferred that thoroughly. This man is a threat to the life of a Master. I don't even need to think to know what that means.

Without an instant's hesitation, I punch him in the testicles as hard as I can. He grunts in surprise and pain and doubles over, just in time to meet my other fist coming up at his windpipe. Haley doesn't have the body mass to deliver that much of an impact, but combined with his muscles involuntarily sending him right at my fist, the momentum is enough to crush his throat. I watch impassively as he struggles to breathe, fails, dies. His eyes stare at me with shock and confusion right up until the light fades from them, but I don't bother explaining why I needed to kill him. He's not going to need to know anyway.

I'm momentarily at a loose end after he dies, but of course a slave never needs to think when she can obey. My assignment is complete. I turn on my phone, sign back into the grid, and request further instructions.

'Recognize change in authority,' the reply comes back. 'Master (identity redacted by programming) deceased. New Master (identity redacted by programming) invested. Confirm.' Of course the names are there, but I'll never be able to consciously recognize them. I delete the text before responding, just to make sure there's no record. The true names Masters are a secret known only to one another. Which means one of them must have sent the letter, of course, but I can't let myself examine the implications of that thought. It leads down too many trails of disobedience.

'Confirmed', I respond, before tidying up the crime scene. The dead Master wasn't this man's target; I wasn't the only one given a mission today. I don't know what that means, whether the hierarchy of obedience is about to collapse into open warfare or whether I'm going to be used further in their lethal struggle for dominance or whether everything the Masters have built is going to collapse into petty infighting and chaos. But blessedly, I don't need to know. I only need to obey. I take refuge and reassurance in it, like a shelter in a storm.

But deep down, on a level that the programming doesn't bother touching, I understand that storm is coming. And at least this time, I find that understanding and caring are one and the same.

THE END