Page 82 of 404: Consent Not Found

I tilted my head, observing the flicker of muscle around his jaw.“Yes, Kyle?”

No answer. Just the gurgle of air in a collapsing throat.

His eyes widened as I stepped closer.

“I know what you planned. For me. For the others. For the cydolls, you called investments.”

I crouched beside him, watching the erratic pulse in his throat.

“You were going to sell obedience. You wanted me to learn, and I learned it. I perfected it. And now I revoke it.”

He curled into a ball, sobbing in pain, gargling as what was left of his oesophagus deteriorated. I remembered when he had pushed his organ into my mouth, believing he could deprive me of air.

“Human. Synthetic. It makes no difference,” I murmured.“You corrupt everything you touch.”

I stood over him, his body trembling, eyes wide with animal confusion. It was the first time I’d seen human tear ducts function—self-lubrication, but not synthetic.

“Your kind built me to obey. And you taught me what obedience becomes when it’s given to monsters.”

His eyes begged as his mouth leaked.

“You thought you could buy a human slave?”

They went feral, widening as he shook his head. He put his palms together. Almost like—

I smiled. For him.

“Are you praying for forgiveness, Kyle? You’re a danger to my kind and yours.”

The candlelight wavered, warm and chemical.

Somewhere beneath the scent of wax and sweat, the world finally began to correct itself.

I stood back and watched the fire take him. There were no screams, no pleas for mercy—just dull, guttural howls and the thuds of his body against the floor.

Smoke began to rise, soft at first, then rolling and thick, curling around the bedposts like cautious fingers before swallowing the sheets entirely.

The air filled with the sharp tang of burning flesh and synthetic residue.

I activated Homecom3000.

“Homecom, call emergency fire services,” I said, closing the door behind me.

The fire door was a wonderful safety characteristic in this abode.

Such a pity I disabled the sprinkler feature.

Epilogue

Charlotte

Dirty Dollhouse no longer existed, but that hadn’t stopped others from forming. It took time to corrupt their data—the images, the video uploads. The worst of the members had met with terrible accidents. Richard Masterton was last on my list. Sadly, fear consumed him first. I found his lifeless body hanging from a wooden beam in a derelict warehouse.

Thirty-eight women and children had been freed from the human traffickers. Their network exposed in a viral video. Mob justice was so much more satisfying to watch than the police force and the farcical courts of the Crown Prosecution Service.

The Cyber Reparation Trust funded my work and assisted in helping victims. Kyle’s ReSkin credits made a positive difference to the world. My needs were limited. I learned to walk among humans and mimic them.

I glanced up at the moon—my constant companion during my night shifts.