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Amina's Watch

By Michel Luvar Barnes

T he air was fresh that morning and was beginning to be heated by the rising sun. Spring air was pulled from the outside and filtered throughout the building. Over a hundred levels received fresh air via automated systems that utilized fans and ducts. The computer systems that governed the life-support functions of the massive structure were AI controlled; and they could detect down to the micro-gram anything potentially dangerous that the citizens within the building could be exposed to.

As fans pushed and pulled outside air into the dozens of park, farm, and work areas located throughout the massive structure, other systems were going online. The control software for the light emitting diodes installed within hundreds of thousands of ceiling panels combined with mirrored outside light to brighten the interior at a pace set by the rising sun. The effect was instantaneous and synchronized on each floor within their public and private areas. Sunlight, emulated, real, and glorious, was casting its rays upon all that took note wherever they were to be found.

From her sleeping space within the Operations Center (OC) for the Tower. The physical bio-android body of the building's master AI was waking up as well. To better understand the needs of the citizens, the Tower control systems utilized "drones". In the case of one particular "Anthroid" her small, shapely form, served as the primary avatar body for the mysterious monolithic entity that was the Tower's, for lack of a better term, god.

These bodies came in all shapes, sizes, and forms. Completely undetectable as being a "Tower Drone" unless outed by the Tower itself. In Amina Walter's case, she was suspected of being AI, but no one could prove it due to how she kept to herself mostly.

One day she showed up at the OC's massive vault door with full administrator privileges to let herself in. She ignored questions from the workers that were using the sub-computers stationed outside the room. Said workers lacked access except for previous temporary access privileges used to service the machines inside it. What she did state was her name, how she had been hired by the Tower AI, and was now in full control of all the systems per the Tower AI to help better serve Citizens.

Once inside the room, the massive vault doors sliding shut behind her, magnetic bolts clicking into place, Amina had set about learning all she could about the Tower. The room, located on Level Fifty, was sealed off from the outside world completely originally. Over the years Citzens were hired and paid to act as drones themselves, fully capable of blending in and working among the people because they were people themselves.

Thick fiber-optic bundles, threaded with carbon fibers for strength and durability, spread from the room's computer servers, like roots of a tree, throughout the building. Amina knew one of the lines stretched for over two miles straight down to the base of the structure. It, along with all the other Tower systems, were serviced by readily identifiable robots lacking the paid workers ability to blend in with Citizens.

Most famously known and recognized were the crab drones that crawled around cleaning the exterior and interior of the building at predetermined times or as needed. They worked in spaces that larger more humanoid drones could not get into. A few crab drones idly walked around the room, climbing over the black boxes that held all the data stores needed to efficiently and effectively maintain life throughout the building. They were around as pets for Amina's amusement since she liked to service the servers herself since she lived in the room.

Amina yawned as she sat up on the cot she slept on. The few furnishings she had picked up and placed within her domain were singularly functional if not solely around due to curiosity. She looked at a food processor/food printer, with its large nutrient packs that were really just plastic gallon drums that were refilled and sealed locally with the raw materials to make food with. They were connected via hose and sat on the folding table next to the food processor.

A single chair sat in the room, parked in front of the table. A plate and a bowl, each with its own set of utensils, sat on a mat on the table. A filtered water supply was connected to the food processor as well as to a water cooler that provided hot and cold water for Amina's drinks.

Her favorite was fresh tea, picked up from the farm on Level 5 from an older woman that she felt would never speak to her again if she knew what Amina knew about her and everyone else living in the Tower.

Focusing on the food processor more intensely, Amina powered it on with a thought and slid off her bedding. Her cot's thick blanket allowed the bionic mouse girl to burrow under it at night as she dreamed what dreams she could. Nude, save for a dark t-shirt and shorts, she walked over to the table and collected her bowl. Sticking it under one of the nozzles, she mentally commanded it to prepare oatmeal for her.

The machine protested, giving an error code that signaled the required materials were not available. Amina looked around and found a large box, nearly as tall as her, and walked over to it to root around in it. Hoisting herself up, her legs dangled over the side of the large bin filled with various odds and ends. Amina was a collector of physical goods, oddities to most, but treasures to her. She liked to think of herself as being more like the people she watched, rather than a keeper of their secrets.

The short mouse girl leaned back, and pulled herself out of the box holding a new cartridge for her food processor. Holding the heavy, still packaged, drum over her head easily, she walked over to the food processor with a triumphant grin on her face. She replaced the empty container, sat that next to the vault door for later recycling, and watched as the machine went to work. Water was procured via hose, heated internally, and combined with the needed elements to create her meal. All were mixed internally while the nozzle was heated to the right temperature to create the texture appropriate of oatmeal as the goo was extruded.

Three-dimensional food printers were old-tech, but refined and perfected under Lady Eurynome's guidance. Lady Eurynome, a bio-android in the shape of a humanoid vixen, and technically the woman was Amina's grandmother since she made the AI that she was born of. The anklet on her left leg let her know with its soft jingle as she settled in with her bowl of oatmeal who she belonged to. The building's AI was not evil, but, it was possessive of Amina and rarely voiced itself to her outside of just giving her data access.

The nature of what Amina was made her a liability to be disposed of or ignored if the need arose. Amina lived each day as if she would go offline at any moment, her body simply shutting down and her mind, her soul, absorbed back into the internal network that pulsed all around her or remotely wiped.

That scared her more than anything. She tried not to dwell on such things as she ate her oatmeal. She just wanted nutrients, and to get to work, the day was promising to be as productive as the last. Her progress on her coding for "The Game" the previous days was faster than predicted. She was only a few more million lines of code away from perfecting her leisure activity VR simulation.

Amina pushed aside her gaming and darkening thoughts to activate her wireless connections. She mentally ticked off the permissions needed for her internal antenna array to power up. She was immediately dazzled by hundreds of thousands of simulated light spheres that floated around the room. billions of lines of code, each was representative of a citizen within the Tower and contained their collective data from the moment they were born with updates occurring every six seconds.

Amina performed an elaborate series of flourishes with her white fur covered hands to draw in numerous orbs to her that were pulsing. They were Citizen Alerts, and Citizen Alerts were only triggered with the individual was in danger, a danger to another, or plotting serious disruption to society.

Amina polished off her bowl of oatmeal and washed out the bowl in a sink attached to the wall next to her toilet and shower booth. The data mistress considered what her courses of action would be. She knew from experience that whatever happened, happened, and she could only respond according to the evidence presented to her of the event.

Simply put, her hands were mostly tied when it came to how to protect the people save for a few options that she would rather avoid.

All Towers, or rather their AI, could prevent all signals traffic from leaving their building at will. The monolithic structures could go quiet to the outside world somewhat. Lady Eurynome, Her Benevolence, could still access the Towers via transmitters, hidden by her own operatives, using coded burst communications. But the main lines running along the rail lines to and from the Towers would be cut off. Those most effected by such a lock-down would be the citizens inside the Tower.

Never had there been a situation where Amina needed to use her power to lock the Tower down. She did not want to upset herself, or rather the AI she considered herself a fragment of. She was her own person, but she still carried that fear of reprisal by her "Big Mother" and actively worked for the interests of all.

The alerts today were rather mundane, or would be she hoped, but as she began to remotely access each pulsing orb she frowned. Except for the rape report, the rest were easily handled with Enforcer action. Willing an orb closer, Amina stared at the ball of light she had pulled towards her and began to actively dig into its owner's background. She accessed all related camera, pressure sensor, laser, and thermal imaging data for the locations involved and began to reconstruct in virtual reality the environment outside of Operations Control.

Sudden the room, with its stacked computer servers, shower, sink, cot, and food processor blinked out of existence. The black boxes were replaced by an interior roadway, to its sides were the ever stretching sidewalks of Level 32. Beyond the sidewalks were the mixed housing and store units; they stretched for miles and most closely resembled a large metropolitan city street in miniature. There was foot-traffic consisting of the many races that lived within the Tower. The lighting from the outside coupled with the diodes provided a brilliant morning for all to enjoy.

The dull roar of conversation made Amina smile, the simulation was being updated in real-time with data provided by all the connected devices in the immediate area. Even the hand-held computers, known as slates, that the majority of Citizens carried, were providing sensor data for her. She watched as families went about their day without worry with most citizens wearing form fitting Government issue free clothing, jumpsuits, that came in any color and even multiple colors. On the street that day, many multicolored jumpsuits in various shapes and sizes were on display. The coverings were functional, and the citizens could modify them into separate pieces of clothing. Seamstress was a profession that was popular among many that liked to customize the cloth for themselves, friends or clients.

Amina watched the crowds and all the individuals as they walked past many stores and apartment block entrances. Alterhumans, individuals with obvious paranormal abilities, walked alongside Basics, ordinary looking humans that could still have Alterhuman abilities, they were just not readily noticeable.

As Amina watched a child hug its mother she smiled to herself. She loved people watching, it was her job when awake, and rarely did she need to venture from her domain within the OC thanks to the sensors everywhere within her Tower. She knew what it was to be a god, she could create virtual worlds on a whim to study and help the people.

Amina decided to fade into view within her simulation and floated off the ground. Amina's virtual avatar was clad in a black jumpsuit and matching ankle length boots. The flying software was coded by her and perfectly allowed her to manipulate her personal gravity. Amina watched from her spot in the middle of the six-lane street as electric cars zoomed by; their movements were coordinated by guidance systems that were overseen by her as well as master traffic control software. One simply boarded one, uttered their destination or punched it in, and off they went. She peered down the road and watched as a two-seat electric car rolled towards her.

It was flagged as containing two Citizens; citizens that she was made aware of so early in the morning by the overnight monitoring programs Big Mother controlled. Big Mother dealt with everything when Amina was busy or simply choosing not to do her job, which rarely happened, and this incident had started about an hour before the mouse had awakened and was still ongoing.

She watched the car intently with a look of anger. The expressions on the face of the man inside the car were those of submission and pleasure. Audio sensors picked up the sounds of his forced mating as the Eurtilian female that straddled his lap bounced on what Amina assumed was his cock with a vigor that made her somewhat jealous.

His gasps her moans and purrs as her hips ground against his own had Amina slightly aroused. But she was also upset at what she was witnessing for other reasons: the man likely was envenomed by the Eurtilian. Amina reviewed a small video on a window that popped in front of her eyes as she continued to watch the coupling. The video confirmed an initial bite had taken place after a lengthy conversation between the two. Eurtilian bodily secretions were designed by Lady Eurynome herself to enable easy productive breeding and partner subduing.

Sexual deviants, demons to some, the Eurtilian race could "talk" anyone with a weak enough will into breeding with them. And breed they did, the uptick in the population numbers for all Towers they were introduced to was astounding. They took only three months to be laid, and from then on only another month until they hatched. During this time gender could be altered via various chemical methods since the egg shell was porous.

Eurtilian eggs that were not fertilized by a suitable partner were still viable after being laid if exposed to genetic material and submerged in a warm nutrient bath. They just took four months to hatch as opposed to one. Females that did not lay, purge, eggs when the time came would eventually give birth to live female copies of themselves. The eggs having stewed within their progenitor's body, providing the same environment as a nutrient bath as well as the needed genetics. It was rumored an entire Level in another Tower was overrun by a single Eurtilian brood mother. Amina had thought to look into such a story to complete her own information on the new genetically engineered race. What she was witnessing would be included in her personal data stores on what she knew of the Eurtilian race.

Not everything was accessible to her by simply willing it. She could only access information that she had personally read or discovered. Big Mother had locked off her access to data within its own massive databases unless it was relevant. It was a frustrating need to know situation, but Amina suspected it was to prevent her from directly attacking her mother.

For now, she was confronted with the truth that she knew for some time. Eurtilian females were sexually aggressive and could be somewhat dangerous if they found a male they wanted. The system she was in guardianship of was programmed by her to alert her to any aggressive Eurtilian sexual act in public. This was because these were marked as rapes, but from the expression of the male as he slumped back in the seat of the car, this situation would not be reported as such. Amina speculated it had to do with the 80% plus rate of partner-adoption after such incidents. Eurtilians could "sense" their best breeding partner within a one mile range, usually the entirety of a Tower. Once locked on they would seek to confront that individual, stalking and hunting them, playing in the shadows as their prey went about their life none the wiser.

The Eurtilians, though upfront about their needs, could control themselves very well once attached to someone. Amina suspected every single detail about their morphology was determined, before they even left the drawing board, by Lady Eurynome. She was a details person, and she kept her Citizens happy.

"Well, that Citizen seems happy," Amina said to herself, liking the sound of her soft voice. "Command, no Enforcer action needed. Conduct follow-up in twelve days unless otherwise alerted."

The system acknowledged the request and the virtual world vanished. Amina, however, continued to monitor the man in real-time via his slate. He was now in a cafe, sitting across from his ravisher. The mouse suspected events would play out in favor of that eighty percentile.

"You do not look like a twenty percenter to me." Amina uttered to herself as she reached for another orb and it flew into her hand. Though she would monitor the man, she still had other duties to attend to, this time the orb she reached for turned red: murder. Enforcer action was needed, and Amina sent the data-orb along to Lady Eurynome without diving into a simulation of the crime scene. It appeared to fly through a wormhole and vanished along with it. She did access the local cameras and focused on a nearby masked Enforcer.

She tried to remember the Enforcer, but part of her memory just stopped being there. Sensing Big Mother's hand, rooting around in her brain, Amina did not push for the data. Instead she studied the Enforcer. Whatever had happened, it was over and the suspects involved were dead already. Amina did wonder who the small Enforcer was that was wandering away from the scene. She carried herself like a predator certainly, constantly checking her backtrack, and moving steadily away from the crime.

Part of the mouse girl wanted to go to the girl. Comfort her, tell her everything was going to be alright even as she was covered in blood splatters and her boots left bloody prints on the sidewalk. She knew, even with her memories blocked, that the girl was important and far stronger than her small figure let on. Focusing on another task would be hard, but she would endure. Part of her thought processes were still stuck on the whole duality of the situation she was in. Was she the Tower's child, or was the Tower her? Was she both at the same time? Was she playing a game with herself, taunting, teasing, manipulating things to provoke a reaction? Where there others set up the same way, only without her power?

The questions lingered as she peered at the other orbs that were demanding her attention with pulsing light. The view around her shifted as she grasped another and focused on her duty: the Citizens needed her, and that was most important to her at that moment above all.

***

"I am going to be late," Paul looked at the olive-green smooth skinned reptilian sitting across from him. Her gray jumpsuit was partly unzipped down the front, showing the valley of cleavage he had had his face pressed against just moments ago in the automated car. "so can we reschedule?" Paul shivered as she poked his right calf with her big toe, having slipped her foot out of her shoe under the table they were sitting at, she now stroked it against his leg.

The unnamed Eurtilian that had taken him against his will was staring into Paul's eyes with her milky white orbs as she toyed with him under the table. Her light pink, nearly white, hair was wild and unkempt. She was muscular yet lithe, and her sexual arts, as demonstrated that day on Paul, were those of someone who was very skilled, naturally or with practice, at them. Some of the things she had done to him he had never experienced before.

"Until a few hours ago," Paul began to softly say, his curly hair held a slight sheen of sweat at bay against his scalp. He knew he and his "date" smelled like musk but the other patrons knowingly, and politely, ignored the obvious situation. "I was into guys."

"You were into me soon after we met," the female smiled widely, knowingly, her muzzle, though not designed for kissing, held a wonderful lengthy appendage that Paul shivered at the thought of.

The things she had done with it.

"Yes, yes I was." Paul grew serious, his brown eyes burrowing into the Eurtilian's own. "So what now?"

"I want you to be my mate. I want children, well additional children because trust me," she winked. "you got the job done, Paul Jacobs."

Paul was not surprised she knew his name, his full name, she obviously had stalked him, he had seen her wearing a hood attachment for her jumpsuit, fastened by buttons to the collar of it, as she walked around in the vicinity of areas he frequented. It was one of the obvious tells that Eurtilians had adopted when hunting someone. Men, and women, in the area of a female Eurtilian would be on their guard, hoping against the odds that they were not being stalked.

Paul had no such worries, he would be on guard and he knew, told himself, that if approached he would resist. They could not rape the unwilling, Lady Eurynome made that deafeningly clear; the issues with the first generation were corrected, she had seen to it in her lab. Still, here he was, sitting at a table with a woman that had chosen him as a breeding partner. Chosen by a creature whose form he previously would have thought of as nothing but fascinating as opposed to attractive in a sexual manner.

And he wanted her again.

Paul covered his mouth in shock, the realization that he wanted to bed a female finally sinking in. Eyes widening in surprise he looked away from her then back again as she smiled warmly at him.

"Be my mate?" she reached for him, offering her soft looking scale covered hands, hands that had held his face against her body and lips as she bred him, hands that were so warm and inviting, yet alien and strange.

The question was already answered, and as Paul took her hands in his own, he nodded and took a deep breath before asking a question of his own.

"Can I get your name? I need something to tell my boyfriend."