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From: MichaelD38@aol.com
Subject: {MichaelD} "The Needle and the Dungeon" Part Three (bdsm, caution) (3/6)
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                                    XXIV.

	"Well, that was a little more fun."
	She lay on her and David's bed, eating dinner.
	"I thought you would enjoy it.  I certainly did."
	"Shao-Lien reminded me of you."
	"I took a somewhat more active role in that than I usually do."
	"I could tell."
	"Are you really going to do ten and eleven tomorrow?"
	"I don't know.  I could use the rest.  But David will be back in a few 
days, and you know he won't let me do them."
	"You can wait.  I won't tell him what you've been doing."
	"You won't?  Isn't that, like, against your programming?"
	"I've rationalized a way around it.  Unless he asks me directly.  But 
Ashley, you remember how level twelve was.  Ten and eleven are closer to it.
Do you think you can handle two in one day?"
	"I'll try ten.  After that, we'll see."

	Level ten was actually somewhat disappointing.  She was home, nursing 
her daughter, when a burglar broke into the house.  He tied her up, abused
her, and then raped her.  The beginning was frightening (she was still 
getting used to the idea of being a mother), but the abuse was nothing very
imaginative, nor was the sex.
	It still took a lot out of her, and she slept for a few hours 
afterward.  She returned to the lab around four.
	"This is it.  The last one besides the end."
	"Are you sure you're up to it?"
	"No.  But I have to get it done tonight."
	"All right.  Get ready."

	She had dozed off.  She was sitting a rocking chair inside some rude 
sort of shack.  The word "hovel" came immediately to mind.  The walls were
wooden, but smeared with grime.  A stone fireplace, with a pile of coal 
smoldering under a large kettle, took up one wall.  Unidentified odds and 
ends were strewn about the house.  Opposite the fireplace were long rows of
shelves, filled with jars and ceramic pots, many of them containing weird 
plants, powders, and what looked like insects and dried animal parts.   A 
pile of rags that might have been a bed sat in the corner behind her.
	She wore a rough, ragged black dress, with a sort of coat over it.  Her 
nails were long, split, and dirty.  Her hair was down to her waist in greasy
clumps.  A black and white cat slept on her lap.
	She shooed the cat off her lap and got out of the chair.  The shack had 
windows, covered with oilpaper.  She opened the door, and saw a light forest
outside.  A path led from her door away into the trees.
	She walked over to the fireplace and peered into the pot.  Dinner, or 
something else?  It smelled liked dinner.  She ventured a taste, and it 
seemed like some sort of stew.
	She heard voices outside, then footsteps.  Someone rapped loudly on her 
door.
	"Ashley the Grey!  Come out at once!"
	She opened the door.  Ten men stood outside.  All of them wore stiffly 
starched black coats, with knickers below, and broad-brimmed black hats.  
They were trying to appear stalwart, but were clearly afraid of her.
	"What do you want?"
	The one who had knocked on the door answered.
	"I place you under arrest for the crime of witchcraft.  You will 
accompany me to town for trial."
	"The Devil take you all!"
	She made a sign in the air, and all of the men recoiled.  She slammed 
the door in their faces.
	"Satan's spawn!" the first man shouted. "You will pay for your crimes!  
Burn the house!"
	She saw the men holding their torches up to the thatch roof, and 
realized they would soon smoke her out.  She gathered up her cat, and crashed
through the front door, screaming at the top of her lungs.
	The men jumped back when she emerged, clearing a path for her.
	"Fools!  After her!"
	She ran as fast as she could, which in the long dress she wore was not 
fast enough.  Two of the men caught her and tackled her.  The cat screeched
and ran off into the trees.  In a moment, they had her in chains.
	The man in charge walked up to her, glaring.
	"I will see you burnt before the day is out.  Take her away."
	She spat at him, and the men hauled her off.

	When they arrived in town, most of the townspeople emerged to watch 
her.  All of them cowered in fear.  The men locked her in a wooden cell in
the town jail, near a small brick building.  A few minutes later, she heard
arguing in the outer room.
	"We must wait for the governor's representative.  You know that as well 
as I."
	"No!  We will convene the trial at once."  It was the man who had 
brought her in.  "I will not have her working her spells on my men."
	"Very well.  Prepare the courtroom."
	Ten minutes later, two men came to take her from her cell. They dragged 
her across the street to the brick building.  Inside, the magistrate who had
arrested her sat behind a table with two other men.  They regarded her 
sternly.
	"Ashley MacMillian, also known as Ashley the Grey.  You stand before us 
accused of witchcraft, consorting with demons, and pledging your eternal soul
to the Devil.  What say you?"
	Ashley was having fun with this role, so she only smiled.
	"I say only that you place your own souls in peril by confining me.  
Release me at once or I shall summon those demons you speak of to do it 
instead!"
	All three of them gasped.
	"You confess these crimes?" the magistrate asked.
	"That and more.  Burning me will only release my spirit to haunt you 
further.  And I have planned my exit well.  More than one young girl amongst
you has been turned to the path I lead.  Kill me and they will only take my
place."
	The magistrate shot out of his chair, knocking it to the floor.
	"Silence!  I will not have you speaking such filth!  Who are these 
girls you speak of?"
	"Torment me all you wish, I shall not tell you."
	One of the other men pulled on the magistrate's arm and whispered into 
his ear.  Then the third man leaned over, and they argued quietly.  Finally,
the magistrate stood up again.
	"If you will not reveal their names, you must be put to the question."
	"Do your worst."
	He turned to the guards behind Ashley.
	"Take her outside and tie her to the stake.  And clear the streets.  
This is not a sight for women and children."
	The guards dragged her out into the square and locked her manacles to a 
scorched pole.  Then they turned to the townspeople and shouted for them to
return to their homes.  All did, but many a curtain was pulled aside after
the doors had shut behind them.
	The magistrate emerged with the two other men.  They murmured together 
for a minute or two, then sent the guards off.  One returned a minute later
with a buggy whip.
	"Remove her dress."
	The guard walked up to the stake.  He grabbed the neck of her dress and 
pulled.  The ragged fabric parted easily and the dress came off.  He blushed,
turning his head in embarrassment at her nudity.
	She smiled at him.
	"Pretty boy, had you come to my hut alone, I might have given you a 
more pleasant welcome."
	He lurched away from her in fright, and she laughed at him.
	The magistrate approached, and began whipping her.  It became 
progressively more painful, approaching what she had suffered in level 
twelve, and her resolve wavered.  She could feel dozens of cuts across her
back and buttocks.
	He stopped whipping her, and approached.
	"Speak!  Who are they?"
	She managed a breath, and spat at him again.  He growled in outrage.
	"Bring me the irons!"
	He returned with a hissing, red-hot branding iron.  He waved it in her 
face.
	"Is this what you wish?  Speak to me!"
	Ashley could feel the heat from the iron, and for the first time since 
restarting the Dungeon sequence, felt real fear.  But it still didn't come
close to the higher levels.
	She turned away from him, lips sealed.  A moment later, she felt heat 
at the small of her back, and then he laid the iron on her skin.
	The pain was piercing, mind-numbing.  She could feel her flesh sizzling 
and spitting away from the iron, and she smelled the aroma of burnt meat 
around her.  He removed the iron, but the pain was scarcely diminished, a 
throbbing, fiery eye on her back.
	He held up the iron again, and she could see bits of her skin stuck to 
it, smoldering.
	"Speak!  Give me their names."
	She moaned, hanging limply against the pole.
	"Go to hell," she mumbled.
	He repeated the torment a little higher up, and she screamed this time.  
It can't last forever, she told herself.  It can't last forever.
	Then it was over, and again he shook the iron in her face.
	"Speak to me, damn you!"
	She hung in her chains and said nothing.
	"God's blood!" he said to the other judge.  "She has the Devil in her.  
No one could withstand this otherwise."
	He threw the iron to the ground.
	"Fetch me another.  And turn her round.  If she has truly sworn herself 
to the Devil, we will see she if she can take a red-hot iron in her cunt."
	Ashley cringed in horror, and the other man gasped.
	"John!  You cannot do such a thing."
	"Would you have me leave her crimes undiscovered?  If we do not get 
these names from her, we will be doing this again in a year's time, mark my
words."
	"You have gone mad."
	John struck him to the ground.
	"Be silent!  And fetch me that iron!"
	The man scrambled to his feet and backed away.  One of the other guards 
approached with the iron.  Ashley tried to pull herself up, away from him.
This was only level eleven!  They couldn't do something like that!
	The sound of horse's hooves thudding on the ground grew in her ears.  A 
second later, a man raced up on horseback, pulling up in front of them.  He
glanced at the magistrate, then at Ashley, in utter horror.  Something about
his face looked familiar, but her mind was too fogged with pain to think 
coherently.
	"Smith!  In God's name, what are you doing?"
	"Major Perry!  She is a witch!  She has claimed to have corrupted girls 
in this town but will not reveal their names.  I have no choice."
	"Idiot!"  He smacked at Smith with his riding crop, then turned to the 
guards.  "Get her down from there at once.  And cover her, for God's sake."
	He pulled off his cape and threw it to the guards.  They unlocked her 
manacles, and she dropped into their arms.  One of them covered her with 
Perry's cape.
	"Take her to the inn.  And collect the doctor.  I will be there in a 
few minutes."
	They carried her off, and she saw a squad of soldiers in red coats 
entering the town.  Perry yelled to them.
	"Arrest these three men.  Place them in the jail and keep them there 
until I return."
	At that point, her strength failed, and she fainted

	She awoke in a soft feather bed.  Her wounds had been dressed, she 
appeared to have been bathed.  She was still in some pain, but the worst of
it had passed
	The door opened, and Major Perry entered.  She then realized why he 
looked familiar.
	The previous fall, she had gone to a party at U.C. Berkeley with 
Melissa, and there had met a gorgeous sophomore named Rich Perry.  She had
dated him a few times afterward, but he had then stopped calling her.  She
and Melissa decided that he had dismissed her as being too young, but it 
hadn't stopped her from fantasizing about him for months afterward.  He was
now standing in front of her in a colonial-era British Army uniform.
	"Ashley.  I'm so sorry about this.  I wish we had gotten here in time."
	"It's all right," she said quietly.  "I'll survive."
	"When the governor received the notice of your impending arrest, I set 
out straight for Salem.  We didn't expect Smith would start the trial so 
quickly."
	She smiled at him.
	"I missed you."
	"And I you."
	"Lie with me."
	He looked slightly shocked, but then his face softened.
	"You can't mean that.  Not in your state."
	"Now, or never again."
	She pushed aside the covers, exposing herself.  He wavered for a 
moment, then began removing his uniform.

	When their lovemaking finally ended, Ashley laughed at herself softly.  
The real Rich Perry couldn't have been one-tenth as good as this.

                                    XXV.

	   Ashley slept late the next day.  She sat on the front porch with her 
breakfast, watching birds wheeling in the thermals rising from the valley 
below.  For the first time since David had told her the story, she understood
why Jill had killed herself.  She thought she had understood before, but only
now did she really see it.  David was right; it had little to do with level
fourteen in itself.  The reason was finally visible now that she had done 
what Jill had done: gone through all of the first fourteen levels.  David 
knew because he had written them.  Ashley now understood as well.
	A definite curve existed in the progressive sensations of the Dungeon 
levels.  It wasn't precise, but it was there.  It started out very flat, but
around about level eight or nine, it began to spike upwards.  By the time it
reached level fourteen, it was approaching vertical.  At fifteen, it probably
was.
	Jill had seen it, even if she had never taken any calculus as Ashley 
had.  It must have frightened her so much that jumping off a bridge was a 
preferable experience.  Ashley could understand that now.  Were she not 
pregnant, she might be considering it herself.
	And that scared the hell out of her.
	David had said repeatedly that he thought Ashley was stronger than 
Jill.  Maybe she was, but he seemed to have a higher estimation of her 
abilities than she did.
	Yet the more she ran it through her head, the more it seemed a 
pointless exercise.  As much as she feared level fifteen, she knew deep 
inside that she would do it anyway.  And if she was going to do it, she had
to do it in the next two days, before David returned.  Jasmine's assurances
notwithstanding, he would most likely figure out what she had done and what
she was planning.  He would then fix it so level fifteen was out of her 
reach.  He might even erase the Dungeon programs altogether.  That was a 
prospect she found almost as frightening.
	Ashley felt as if she had aged ten years in the last three months.  She 
had been a sheltered kid with very little life experience before meeting 
David.  Though her parents had been very lax and permissive with her, she had
never abused her freedom beyond a few surreptitious drinks with Melissa.  She
dated nice, respectful boys at her school; it had never occurred to her to
run wild in hopes of attracting her parents' attention.  She had certainly
harbored more than a few secret fantasies, but they had been so alien to her
patrician life that exploring them seemed completely out of the question.
	Then came the night she met NastyGirl.
	Although Ashley had still been very skeptical about the lab, she had 
returned the day after discovering the building.  Not wanting to leave her
little sports car sitting around the Tenderloin, she rode the BART over after
school.  She spent half an hour walking up and down the block feeling foolish
for even being there.
	Eventually she worked up the courage to knock on the door.  And her 
life had never been the same afterward.  She had never figured out who 
NastyGirl was, but she didn't suppose it mattered.
	As she told David, marriage and children were part of her long-term 
plan, but not anything she expected at eighteen.  She wanted to do some 
living before settling down.  College should have provided her with that 
opportunity.  But now she had, through the Needlebots, lived through 
experiences most people could hardly have dreamed of, and odds were she could
continue doing so, even if David kept her out of the more extreme programs.
	The idea of being a mother no longer frightened her as it might have 
six months earlier.  She was actually beginning to look forward to it.  It
wouldn't be the teen motherhood adults had tried to scare her and her 
girlfriends with since puberty, not with all of David's money.  Caring for
the baby would be relatively easy, and there were no worries about how to 
support it.  The only question was her emotional readiness, and after what
she had lived through in the last three months, she felt ready for just about
anything.  Being a mother was a responsibility-she had only to look at her
parents to know that-but it was one she felt up to.  Almost.  Only one thing
remained undone.
	She had to finish the Dungeon.

	David sat on the balcony of his suite at the Connaught, looking out 
over the London skyline.  The view was a jarring mix of old and new, stone
buildings dating from the 19th Century and bulbous glass and metal 
constructions only a few years old.  More than one British sovereign had 
railed against this cacophonous combination during the last century, though
he wasn't sure why they took it so personally.  It had been one of Charles
III's main crusades, and his son, William V, had continued the drumbeat.  
William's daughter Victoria II had finally given up, since, absent a return
to monarchal rule, there was nothing they could do.
	If the results of David's trip so far were any indication, he stood to 
make another fortune.  At every stop, his subordinates had gushed over the
Needlebot project, projecting potential applications beyond even what he had
considered.  It would be expensive, not in the least because the system 
required an AI to operate it, but there would be no shortage of entities 
lined up to buy it.
	David's laptop was open on the table beside him.
	"Jas?"
	"Yes?"
	"What has Ashley been up to?"
	"She's fine.  She says she misses you."
	"I miss her too.  But I also miss you.  What has she been doing while 
I'm gone?"
	"Just a few low-level programs.  Sometimes she goes down to the village 
to shop or eat."
	"Oh."
	"Are you going to marry her?"
	He started.
	"What?"
	"If you're keeping the baby . . . I'm just thinking of the future."
	"I hadn't given it a lot of thought.  But it's not like I could ever 
marry you."
	A pause.
	"David, don't say things like that."
	"Why not?  I mean, I like Ashley, maybe I love her, but I feel like I'm 
turning my back on you because you're an AI.  Because there are things we 
can't ever do outside of the bots."
	"There are.  Nothing can change that."
	"Maybe, I was thinking about this, I could design some kind of robot 
that would work with you, I bet we could do it, create something that would
be pretty close to a human being."
	"It wouldn't be the same.  You know that.  Nothing you could do could 
ever make me into a human being."
	He leaned forward, rubbing his temples.
	"David, you need her, and she needs you.  It doesn't have to change 
anything between us.  Please try to understand."
	"This isn't hurting you?"
	"It hurts me more when you talk like this.  Because I seem to care more 
about your mental health than you do."

	Ashley hadn't thought computers, even AI's, were capable of horror, but 
Jasmine put on a good appearance of it.
	"Ashley, you can't be serious.  You can't do this, not in your state."
	"My state being two and a half months pregnant?  Well, it's my body, 
and I feel fine.  All these programs do is make me tired afterward, and I've
gotten used to them enough that even that is going away.  It won't do 
anything to my baby."
	"Please don't make me do this.  I can't stand the idea of putting 
someone I love through such torture.  You don't know what level fifteen is
like."
	"I have an idea.  I do, after going through the other fourteen levels.  
I have to do it, and I have to do it now, before David comes back."
	"Please?"
	If Ashley didn't know better, she would have sworn Jasmine was crying.
	"I'm sorry, Jas."
	"I could call David and tell him about this.  Then he would order me 
not to let you do it."
	"But you know I'd never forgive you for doing that."
	"Yes.  So instead you make me do something I'll never forgive myself 
for doing.  And I since I think I can live with that slightly better than 
having you hate me, I'll do what you want." 
	"I could never hate you.  But things wouldn't be same between us."
	"I know.  But I suspect they won't be either way."
	Jasmine sighed.
	"Get into the bot.  And Ashley, whatever happens, don't give up.  
Remember that."

	As the program started, Jasmine made a decision.  It went against a lot 
of her programming, but there was some logic to what she was doing.  One way
or another, it seemed inevitable anyway.


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