Chapter 3: The Time Has Come

One evening, during the children’s bath time, Scud stepped up his grooming. While washing a giggling youngster, he played with his little penis, then stuck a finger first-knuckle-deep into his pucker, eliciting a squeal. “Gotta be sure you’re clean,” he explained.

When there was no reaction from the AI, he tested by vigorously ‘washing’ the pussy lips of another child, and then dipped a digit past the lips of her vagina until he encountered and pressed her hymen. Again, he got a squeal, but there was no comment from the AI, and Scud assumed he had deceived the AI into thinking his sex-play was just washing.

Feeling he had made enough progress for that night, Scud - for the first time - summoned all three of his concubines to his bed, and envisioning his future grade-school conquests, he screwed their pussies raw.

When he finally slept, Katie nudged the others awake, then gathered them in the other ‘adult’ bedroom and held them close. “Tomorrow,” she whispered, “stay clear of me.”

She kissed each one passionately; she then left to consult with the AI on the lesson plan for the next day.

The AI, fascinated by the prior creativity of the students, listened eagerly to Katie’s proposal based on reading Edgar Allan Poe’s The Pit And The Pendulum. “They read the story,” she started, “and the challenge is to design and build a full-sized weapon capable of killing a Sa’arm unit.”

They spent over an hour discussing what materials to provide, keeping the children safe, and how to determine effective killing power. The AI agreed that to prove concept, the ‘weapon’ needed to be full sized. For the purposes of the challenge, it was decided that halving a melon in one pass would be sufficient. Under modified Destination Imagination rules, the children would research and plan, the AI would replicate parts, and the older children on each team would assemble the contraption. The AI was beside itself with anticipation and asked for a rule modification to allow it to use a replicated repair-robot to assist in assembly if that should prove necessary.

The day was a rousing success. Divided into two teams, the children researched known details on the Sa’arm and designed two very different machines. Both used very sharp blades. Melons were split, juice was splattered, squeals were loud, happiness was expressed, and baths were taken.

For the first time ever, Scud missed the baths!

In a celebratory mood and anticipating the true start of what he deemed his sexual journey, Scud overindulged. Katie fostered this by handing him his favorite alcohol combination as soon as he returned from his training exercises. He chugged it gratefully and accepted another. As he drank, Katie increased the alcohol proportion with each glass. Scud was soon more than tipsy - more even than Katie would have expected given her recent experiments.

Overly warm from drinking, Scud took off his shirt, got through the evening meal, and then dozed off. Katie and her sisters, together with Sandy and the preteens, hurried the youngest kids through their baths and into bed. Then she told her assistants to stay with the youngsters - but did not explain why. Having shielded her children and friends as best she could, Katie moved to look once more at the projects designed by the children and built with the AI’s assistance. There was some Rube Goldberg in them, but they were surprisingly simple - AND they both worked!

Katie positioned the first instrument at the entrance to the children’s work and playroom. She considered this one to be her best hope. She moved the other to inside the entrance to the bath-shower room. When she was ready, she thanked her lucky stars that Scud still slept, snoring away. She took a deep breath, and began executing the next stage of her plan.

She fetched Sandy, led her first to the shower and then to the playroom, showed her the positioned contraptions, and whispered, “You know how they work. I hate involving you, but I must. I love you more than I can say,” and she hugged the puzzled girl.

Then comprehension dawned, and Sandy set the triggers, then following Katie’s pointing finger and earlier instructions, she returned to Betty and the youngsters.

Katie went to Scud, still asleep in this chair. Using bright red fingernail polish replicated for the little girls with Scud’s enthusiastic approval, Katie painted the sleeping man’s forehead with the words CHILD RAPIST and his bare chest with PREDATOR PEDOPHILE.

She waited an eternity for the polish to dry. When she thought the time was right, Katie stood at his side, took a deep breath, and screamed into his ear, “You bastard! You are planning to rape my children. You are a stinking piece of shit.”

Scud snorted awake, confused and disoriented, and heard Katie scream again, “You flaming asshole! You stay out of the children’s playroom, you raping monster!” Then softer, “It’s rigged and dangerous.” Then screaming as if panicked, “The kids, my kids, stay away from them! Stay away from Sandy in the playroom!”

Drunk, confused, and mad at the screaming concubine, he leapt from his chair, yelling, “They’re mine. You are all mine. I’ll screw whichever of you I want to! That bitch has been teasing me - she’s first.” With a roundhouse swing, Scud knocked Katie unconscious, sprawling on the floor. Shaking his buzzing head, Scud lumbered for the playroom.

So far, Katie’s plan was going well.

As he entered the playroom doorway, Scud triggered the kids’ Sa’arm killer, and a razor-sharp blade swept across his throat, nearly decapitating him. Blood spouted, Katie’s email ‘Master is HURT’ exited on its way as addressed, and the AI sounded a medical emergency.

A med-tube technician had once bragged that if he placed a severed head into his tube within three minutes, he could save and repair the individual. It turned out that he was right.

The marines and corpsman, summoned by the AI, found Katie lying unconscious next to Scud’s lounge chair and Scud’s body across the room, half through the doorway into the kid’s playroom. The spouting blood seemed to have covered the room. They puzzled for a few seconds at the words on his forehead and chest, then a marine slung him over a massive shoulder and ran for the nearest med-bay, Scud’s head flapping on its strip of flesh, and his body leaving a wet, red trail. They were just in time.

While a medic was bending over the still unconscious Katie, Betty emerged, motioning to Tabbi to stay. She looked over at Katie’s body, but still under Scud’s prohibition, could not inquire how she was.

The prohibition and privacy block proved highly frustrating to everyone, the AI included. Scud’s concubines and dependents were prevented from speaking to anyone else, and the AI could not reveal anything occurring in their quarters up until the time it had summoned help.

On the surface, Betty and Tabbi were innocent of wrongdoing, but there was no corroboration. Likewise, the distance of Katie’s senseless body from Scud’s created a puzzle of if and how she could have done the deed.

The words on Scud’s body created another puzzle.

Scud’s commander was beside himself, and the marines? A CONK had nearly killed one of their own. They wanted her dead. Recycled. Obliterated. All in all, they were so desperate that Scud was pulled from the med-tube before his healing was fully complete. Katie, being a highly suspect conk, received minimal medical attention.

A grim collection stood in the large upper level airlock. The place was chosen so a quick execution could proceed once Katie was determined to be the killer.

When Scud was brought in, he screamed. It hurt him to even whisper, but he screamed, “The bitch killed me. I renounce her. Recycle her!”

Into the airlock strode a man and two women, all three clad in Civil Service Gray. No rank insignia were visible. “Concubine Katie Wyoming Knott, you have been released into the concubine pool. Do you consent to become my concubine?” asked the man clearly.