Chapter 6

And then Emma's luck took a turn for the better. The weather improved and there was a month of wall to wall sunshine.

The only drawback was that the supply of water for ablutions was being used up rather quickly and Emma was reduced to using only one quart daily for washing, but she found this was enough to clean herself. Then after six weeks there was a heavy storm which filled up the tank and she was back to her daily showers.

Her studies went well, except that the book of Greek poetry was forbidden her. The sensor picked up on its erotic content very quickly and Emma was told to leave it alone in future. She got a bad shock for the obvious enjoyment the reading of it gave her.

After her stint on the dynamo machine she was able to sunbathe for the rest of the day until the sun finally went down and had developed a totally, but totally, fantastic suntan by the end of three months, but she knew that her mind was as depraved as ever.

Her periodic outbursts were getting worse and so were her punishments. The long warm spell that ended the summer put her into a good mood and she avoided punishments for much of that time, but at the back of her mind was an awareness that she resented this all seeing machine and could see it for what it was, an evil intrusion into the human psyche, whose dangers to freedom of thought and speech were immense. She felt that the Count, if he knew of all this, would order the project to be scrapped.

And this brings us to the point at which we first met Emma, three months into her stay on the island, naked, tanned and totally unreformed.

Towards the end of the afternoon as the skies became dark and the hail started to sting her bare body, she had her worst outburst yet, storming and raging for thirty minutes, oblivious to the agony as the current surged and kept her jumping and twitching. Finally the system closed down and she raged and swore with impunity, gradually becoming calmer. Finally she stopped and the horror of what she had done gradually sank in.

Was she ever in for it now?

The Professor was watching on his monitor in the research station. He frowned. This was not going the way he had hoped. Emma could be kept in line with more and more painful punishments, but she kept bouncing back every time, seemingly no better than before. He picked up the microphone and read out a message to be relayed over the public address system.

"Subject to report to Punishment Room immediately."