Re: log: hannah and ren
There were terrible places in the world. Originally, Hannah had believed the bad and terrible things existed only in Amy's husband. She'd believed he was an anomaly, because she'd been programmed to trust and be receptive and naive and all the things bad men believed girls should be. But she'd learned, and really quickly, that there were bad things everywhere, and now she sought those things out. Gone were those early and early days, when people made fun of her naivete at work. Now, she was learning all the bad, and just so she could know it existed.
She knew she wasn't going to like the result. She knew it was going to be terrible and worse, but she needed to know just how bad things were out there if people knew, if people were open, if people were people, and so she squeezed his fingers and nodded her agreement when he said he'd felt something similar before. "You're going to need to tell me when the last time was," she told him, and then she raised free fingers, the hand that wasn't all twined up digits with his, and she touched them to his lips. "Not now, because I won't be able to focus at all, but sometime."
Honesty lived in the press of those fingers to his mouth, and she dropped them and turned to look at the empty space in front of the bleachers. They were dragging things out now. A few tables with straps and tools, and Hannah didn't like it at all. She shook her head about food, and she gave him a look that was cornflower blue curiosity as he said that it would be weird if they made the AIs look human for this. "I think they just happen to look human, but they probably sell for more because of it," she said, and then the lights flashed and people around them applauded, and she squeezed his fingers tighter.
The lights went down and they came up, and a line of AIs were lead out. They all had bracelets on whatever parts of their bodies would accommodate them, and Hannah leaned in and whispered, because it was easier than sitting there in silence. "Those will short them out if they try to run, but it only affects whatever controls their mobility." Perhaps she didn't need to clarify that, because there was a boy at the front of the line of AIs. He looked to be just out of his teens, though he was already missing an arm, an eye, and the better part of a leg. But he tried to run, and the bracelet on his remaining ankle lit up and he stopped moving a few feet away from the others.
Hannah pressed her eyelids closed until she saw stars, and by the time she opened her eyes the boy was tied to one of the tables. They'd stripped him naked; he had no genitalia, and the two men who were emceeing the event were currently mocking and laughing into their microphones, calling the young man all manner of slurs due to his lack of male genitals. They were readying an electric saw, and the line of AIs still waiting, ranging from creatures that looked entirely like machines to more lifelike creations, were huddling together. From this huddle, three of the least-human looking AIs were pulled. Two of these mechas resisted, but one did not, and all three were set on fire in front of the boy on the table.
The crowd cheered, and the rowdy men behind Ren and Hannah stood up and screamed profanities that encouraged terrible sexual things for the boy without genitalia. "Some of them can feel things," she said, though she didn't look at Ren when she spoke. It was musings and terrible things spoken aloud in a crowd that was loud enough to engulf the words. "The military keeps trying to buy some." That last bit was for Ren's benefit. "The papers come across my desk all the time for filing."