"Wow."
"Now, who's gonna be scared of someone like me? The minute I start working on 'em they disappear and all my careful work gets erased. Not much point even trying."
"Does it happen…if you shoot somewhere else? If you do something that doesn't instantly kill you?"
Fred was thoughtful. "I hadn't thought of that. That's a good idea." He pointed the gun at himself, then smiled. "Wait a minute." He pointed it at Caroline. "Do you mind? It was your idea."
There was a kind of electricity in Caroline's brain, something sinister and exciting. "Do it," she said before she could change her mind.
Fred aimed at her belly, then at the last moment lowered the gun and blasted her right kneecap. Caroline toppled in a blaze of pain. But she had been quite used to pain, and she managed not to scream. She gasped and tried not to black out.
"I'll be goddamned," Fred said. "You're still here. And you're still hurt. Why don't you get P.I. to fix you?"
It hurt too much to say why she'd rather die of blood loss than ask for Prime Intellect's help. But she knew she couldn't hold out for long, knowing such an exit existed. "You do it," she gasped. "Shoot me in the head."
"Another wonderful idea! You are an amazing lady, Caroline." He put the gun against her temple and fired.
As if by magic, the pain vanished. So did the blood which had been jetting all over the floor from her wound. She stood up, apparently unhurt.
"This would of been a great trick to pull in a bar," Fred said grinning.
"Except everybody can do it now."
"Yeah." Fred sighed.
They went inside and talked some more. Caroline kept thinking about that burst of pain, the happy look on Fred's face as he stood over her, the strength it took not to call Prime Intellect and run. For the first time since the Night of Miracles she had been too busy feeling something to worry about whether it mattered in the long run. She had felt real, ersatz youthful body and all. And she realized with thin humor that she finally wanted something in this world where want had been banished.
She wanted to do it again.
Caroline stayed with Fred overnight, and they had pedestrian sex on his squeaky bed. She played hard-to-get and made him overpower her, but the game was hollow. It was pleasant to feel a warm body next to her but beyond that there was no sense of excitement.
The next morning there was an unwelcome visitor on the porch. "Prime Intellect," Caroline announced. "Nobody called for you."
"Sorry. But I have to know something personal, and I didn't just want to materialize. It wasn't urgent, but it will be soon. I need to know if you want to be able to get pregnant."
"Pregnant?"
"You had intercourse last night…"
"I remember that."
"…and Fred is fertile. I need to know whether to do the biologicals or not."
Do the biologicals? What the hell kind of phrase was that? "Is this a matter of letting nature take its course, or of doing something extra to allow me to get pregnant?"
"It's something extra I have to do."
"Then don't bother."
"As you wish."
It turned.
"Wait."
It turned back.
"Last night Fred shot me."
"I know. I was expecting you to ask for help."
"I know you were. That's the problem. Is there a way I can get you to ignore me — really ignore me — so that I can't chicken out if he hurts me again? So we'll know that I can't call for help and just disappear on him?"
"That's a pretty bizarre request. I think you might regret it."
"Let me be the judge of that."
It frowned. "You are basically telling me that you will give me two conflicting Second Law directives. Normally the second one would supercede the first. But if the first anticipated the second… I suppose I would ignore the second. The first would have to be stated very forcefully. And I would not allow you to die. That would invoke the First Law. Anything that causes death would force me to intervene."
"I kind of figured on that. But if I tell you 'don't interfere with us until I die, you'd really leave us alone? Even if later I begged you to help me?"
"That is a very difficult paradox for me. I think I would need a formal statement of the terms. More of a contract than a simple request."
They dickered for a little longer, and gradually developed the statement Prime Intellect would accept. In formal, legal English, it would leave no doubt as to Caroline's intent, or her understanding of Fred's. She knew she might be tortured and Prime Intellect was not to help her.
"I can accept that," Prime Intellect said. "Is it your intention now to simply work out the terms, or do you want to be bound by this Contract?"
She looked at Fred. The look of anticipation in his eyes mirrored her own.
"To be bound by it," she said.
"Consider it done. You are on your own, Caroline."
It blinked out.
Fred had been watching the negotiation in silence. Now he was astonished. "I'm not sure which surprises me more, that you got the bucket of bolts to do it or that you asked the bucket of bolts to do it. What happens now?"
"Whatever you want. Listen. Hey, Prime Intellect! Get over here! I've changed my mind!" There was no response.
"Hey, P.I.," Fred said softly. It appeared. "Why didn't you answer Caroline just then?"
"I'm ignoring her."
"Why?"
"Because I have no choice. She directed me to ignore her. Now the only way she can get my attention is to die. That will kick in my First Law obligation, which overrides the very strong Second Law directive she just gave me."
Fred didn't know from the Laws of Robotics, but he understood the score. "So she's totally at my mercy now."
"That's right."
Fred brightened. "In fact, if I want you to help me torture her, you'd have to do it, wouldn't you?"
Prime Intellect's image rippled slightly, as if some big relay had thunked over in the bowels of Cyberspace, causing a power surge. "Yes, I would," Prime Intellect said.
"Blow away." It disappeared.
He looked at Caroline.
"Why did you do this?"
"I thought you'd want it."
"Oh, I do. It's a wonderful surprise. I'm not even sure yet what I want to do to you…though I have a couple of ideas. I just don't understand why you would give yourself to me to play with. It's not something people would normally do voluntarily."
"There are some people who would have, even in the old days. Sickos."
"Are you a sicko, darling?"
"Fred, today we are all sickos."
It took him half an hour to make up his mind, and then he refused to tell Caroline what he was going to do.
After all, he didn't have to.
Under the house, there was now an open vehicle with a seat and handlebars like a motorcycle and four huge knobby-treaded balloon tires. Draped across the seat were several heavy chains and padlocks.
"I could get the bucket of bolts to do this, but I thought you'd rather I tie you up."
"You could force me."
"I could paralyze you. I've been whispering to El Bolt-Bucket. It is willing to be more helpful than you might have imagined."
Caroline shuddered a little, but it was a pleasant, anticipatory shudder. She put her hands together behind her back and Fred wrapped one of the chains around her wrists. He pulled it tight enough to hurt and padlocked her hands together. There was plenty of chain left; he wrapped it around her waist like a belt, again pulling it very tight. He locked this loop with another padlock, cinching her bound wrists up against the small of her back.
"Do you have the keys to these locks?" she grinned.
"Sure do." He closed his eyes, and Caroline realized he was talking to Prime Intellect under his breath. Now that might be a useful trick, she thought. Suddenly the padlocks disappeared, replaced by solid chain links. She was bound by an impossible chain without ends.