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“What?” Phil demanded. “Without any clothes on? What the fuck?”
I turned back to my phone and saw the alert Marianne must have been talking about.
Possible brush fire. Priority 1. Visual surveillance required to confirm video feed AI analysis.
I tapped on it and saw the map—the handheld version of what Marianne must have called “the big one”: our real-time geolocation feed. The dot indicating the approximate place a video sensor had picked up something that looked like it might be a fire lay about eight hundred meters northwest of the station, about fifty meters into the wooded perimeter of the plant.
“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Phil said, looking over my shoulder at my handheld. “You don’t think…”
I pulled up my contacts and tapped the thumbnail of Marianne’s gorgeous face that Selecta had automatically put there to go with,Marianne Givens, Sexual Relief Device, in the personnel section of my dashboard. Instantly the map returned, with a new dot, attached to an even smaller version of the thumbnail.
“Dammit,” I muttered.
“What the hell?” Phil asked. “She’s like twenty meters from the fire.”
“Let’s hope it’snotactually a fire,” I said grimly.
Probably fifty percent of the things the video feed AI detected were just tricks of the light. They all had to be investigated, obviously. I told myself that maybe Marianne knew that, and that she’d decided to go out there just to get eyes on it. Not really a terrible idea, if it hadn’t also violated every single fucking rule for her role at the firehouse. Worse, her position meant she had gone outside the plant’s fence—without, of course, calling it into Selecta, which absolutely had to happen every time one ofusleft the premises, let alone an SRD.
Plus, had she gone out there naked?!
Like the icing on the cake, my handheld chimed, a bright red notification popping onto its surface.
SRD Marianne Givens has left the plant premises. Priority 1. Severe disciplinary measures required.
I would have heaved a deep sigh if my legs hadn’t already engaged, running in the direction of the possible brush fire. Phil was next to me, his feet pounding the asphalt just as hard.
I turned to him, still running. “You wake up Ned and Paul,” I told him. “Get them out here in gear in case there’s a fire.”
Phil slowed so he could fish out his handheld. As I kept running, I heard him a few steps back, yelling, “I’m right behind you!”
Dammit, Marianne, I thought as my body’s movement at least kept the worry at bay. Please don’t do anything stupid. Not stupider than what you’ve already done, anyway.
* * *
Marianne
There was a fire, where the map said. It wasn’t very big, but I knew from pretty much every communication from corporate that crossed my screen that putting it out, and making sure it wasn’t going to flare up, was the most important thing in the world. I looked at the fire extinguisher in my hand as I jogged towards the little blaze in the underbrush, trying not to think about how strange Daddy Jacob’s huge turnout coat felt over my bare skin—or how many rules I had broken.
I knew I would never have done it if I hadn’t had the shameful thoughts about my daddies sharing me, and fucking Ashley, in the back of my mind, demanding some little rebellion as an outlet. Well, I had found a way to challenge my daddies while still looking like I meant to help, hadn’t I? Fire to the rescue, I guessed.
I concentrated on that way of looking at it as I approached the little fire, which looked like maybe someone had thrown a lit cigarette in there. One of the emails I had seen, three or four days ago, had said something about vagrant activity around the plant, hadn’t it? And how because of the thickness of the woods past a certain point, the video detection systems couldn’t really see the unauthorized campers, who seemed to know that Selecta’s cameras were trying to find them and stayed out of sight.
As I approached, the fire spread a little, another small bush suddenly lighting up. My eyes went wide. I looked again at the extinguisher I had grabbed, one intended for use in the firehouse—not, I knew, to put out brush fires. I backed up a step.
The fire jumped to another bush, and suddenly it seemed to race towards me. My lips parted and my breath started to get fast, while my heart rate jumped by what felt like a hundred beats a minute. Another email, I remembered as if it would help me now, had said that conditions in the woods had gotten very dry.
I turned around and saw how incredibly stupid I had been. Somehow the fire hadn’t just started to spread towards me: it had also gonepastme, and the flames had suddenly started to get higher, almost to the level of my waist. Only then did it occur to me that I had no way to communicate with my daddies.
I started to run back towards the gate in the chain link fence that surrounded the plant.
I tripped over a root and fell, sprawling in the dry leaves and needles, more terrified than I had ever been in my life—more frightened even than I had felt of Daddy Phil’s belt… more frightened of the onrushing fire than I felt of the punishment I would get if my daddies managed to rescue me.
I pushed myself painfully up to my knees. I could feel the heat of the fire on my bare calves and the back of my neck. I tried to rise further and stumbled.
Then I saw Daddy Jacob, running towards me from the gate.
* * *
