Clockwork Deus: Strange Tales From The City Of Dust, #1

By Vaz Anzai

Alice, a "Tinkerer" for the Wonderlust brothel has discovered a Prostibot that has become self-aware. Together, they will uncover the secret behind a shadowy organization in Dust's abandoned zone, The Blooming Fields.

 

Strange Tales From The City Of Dust is a serial story done in episodic "short reads". Each story is a tale of action, adventure, and horror within the city of Dust. Set in futuristic Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, it incorporates themes of cyberpunk, artificial intelligence, synthetic beings, sexual themes, horror, occultism, demonology, medical monstrosities, innate abilities, future tech, and LGBTQ storylines. 
 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Vaz Anzai
• Release date: Aug 24, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393483366

Vaz Anzai

I grew up reading horror, consuming books by Dean Koontz and John Saul. Cerebral horror has always been my preferred subgenre. Cyberpunk themes have intrigued me throughout the years, ever since I first saw Blade Runner and The Running Man. "Strange Tales From The City of Dust" is my cyberpunk look at future Pittsburgh. It involves themes of LGBTQ relationships, medical monstrosities, occultism, mental health, artificial intelligence, and more.

Book preview

/Birth

1.

Monsters aren’t born. They’re created. At least, that’s what I’m told. Not that I believe everything I hear, mind you. Although in a city like mine, people either say a lot or nothing at all. A few can’t keep their mouths shut. It’s like they have verbal diarrhea. Everything is some nonsensical mix of truth and lies they got from someone else who can’t keep their trap closed, and the information has become more toxic than the river water surrounding our triangle-pointed cyber-hub of sky-high hovels and neon-lit alleyways. It’s sickening, really. Information could be bought and paid for when it was researched and thoroughly dissected to optimize its truth and efficiency. Yet scumbags sit at every corner, hunched in tents and equipped with listening devices, binoculars and recorders with miscellaneous notes and tidbits filed and boxed for the right buyer. When no one would buy, it would be traded. When no one would trade, it would be weaponized out of hunger and desperation for a better life. Sure, people still sell themselves. Although sex for cash isn’t as popular now that there's Synthvibe. You jack-in, lie back and let the device connect to your brain. Everything you could ever need, in an instant. Marriage, romance, kids, gone for the most part. People still have them. The city is incredibly overcrowded. Although now anyone with the money can get a Synthvibe. It’s a shame, really. I read everything I can about how things were. History is stimulating. To think, at one point, our whole downtown area flooded a dozen feet high from the river. People died. We could use another flood.

Alice’s hands moved around a mechanical face locked into a vice-grip, her screwdriver working to carefully close a panel on the head’s cerebellum. Icy blue eyes stared back at her like sapphires, blinking on occasion as the places where the ears attached listened to her every word. If it could nod in understanding, it would. Yet its remaining body sat in the corner of Alice’s shop on an easy chair covered in dust and silver electrical tape.

"You should be activated, you know. I’m sorry that you can’t respond quite yet, but it’ll come. There’s so much to do here, you see. You were once a prostibot. Do you know what that is? They’re artificial beings made to pleasure humans who still crave contact with someone, but don’t have the personality to meet the right person. I’m sorry that this is the truth of your existence. Well, was your existence. You’re better than that. You deserve more. I’m what they call a tinkerer. I know your guts like a doctor would my own. You were used unceremoniously for years before being discarded in the heap out back because of something going wrong in your programming. I’ll tell you a secret, though. Nothing went wrong with you. I believe it was more than that. I believe you started making choices that you weren't programmed with. I haven’t figured out why yet, but honestly, I’m not concerned with that. When I’m done with you, you’re free to do as you wish."

Alice reattached the jaw to the head, oiling its hinges at either side. Smiling at her work as the being’s eyes followed her around the room, she tapped a few things into her computer that was cabled into the being’s spine.

You can talk now.

I am. I am. I -

Alice frowned, tying back her long platinum white hair into a ponytail before typing a few more things into her keyboard.

You are what? she asked.

I am in a room. With doors. There is a chair and this body, it pointed with its eyes, Belongs to me. It is mine. I own it.

Possessive. That’s interesting. Your line of prostibots were programmed to see yourselves as someone else’s property. Belonging to someone human.

I am human.

Are you? Alice laughed, raising her eyebrows. Again, this is pretty interesting. I had no idea what to expect after I placed those nanobots in you. They’re something I’ve created myself. Living tissue spliced into machine. They live, they do their function, they die. Until then, they’re repairing small things inside you I can’t do. Microscopic problems within your brain.

Do you not have these inside you?

No, Alice responded, leaning against her toolchest. I mean, how would I function that way? Never mind. Stupid question. My mind is controlled by me and me alone. I make my own decisions. Well, you do too, now. I just have to get you put back together. The nanobots will move throughout you, repairing anything they see out of place. You’ll be in a constant state of repair, but I can’t see that as a bad thing. You’ll leave here and, if you get hurt, they will repair you. You will need to ingest a few things to keep them going. We can go over that later.

You are... God?

"Oh man, slow down, girl! Obviously at some point you read some things. Got some ideas in your head. Like I said earlier, think of me as your doctor. A mechanic. I hate to say that, as you’re obviously ahead of your class of girls up there. I may have seen you inside and out, but to me you’re a living being. I respect that more than many people will. Hopefully, before you choose to leave, we can have you talking like normal. We will get you a better understanding of how to get by on your own. I’ll even get you some skin from my printer so you look like any other woman does. Except, you’ll be your own person."

My own person?

Yeah. I don’t know how we will work out citizenship and stuff. I’m sure I know someone who knows someone. Information, you know? Never mind. I’m not going to rush you out there. I have a crap ton of books you can read. Process. Learn.

My body -

Yeah, I’m getting there, Alice pointed to it across the room. "I did some repairs on that already. Nothing really wrong there. Some parts were a bit overused than others. I made sure, mechanically, you’re functional. Once you have the skin I’ve programmed to print out, you’ll be basically new."

Factory reset.

So to speak. Lots of modifications.

Its blue eyes blinked. Alice could see the confusion already setting in.

"Hey, it’s a lot to process. I get it. In the end though, I’m here for you. I’m not going to do all of this for nothing. I want you to live. To be who you are and will be. Make choices. Tell men no, for once."

Tell men no?

Yeah. I’m referring to the fact that you were made to please others. You’ll have a choice in that now. Have a job. A place to live. Hopefully, if I’m successful, no one will ever know what you were in your former life.

Why?

"You’re big on questions, but I get it. I’ve switched on some learning parameters that were blocked before. Although, to be honest, people were already complaining that you were doing things outside your prostibot duties. Reading and such. Learning. Adapting. You had some aspects of that, so that you knew how to react to different men’s needs. This is different. You are living, so to speak. Not just sitting in a corner when there was no man to abuse you. You cleaned. You arranged the room you had in there. Looked after the others like you. That, love, is not a part of your programming. Something in there is trying to live. Break free. Be more."

The cold eyes looked down at the floor.

I like knowing, hearing, listening. I want -

"And that’s the thing, right there! Alice interrupted, rolling the head suddenly over to where it’s body rested in the chair. You want. That is huge. No prostibot has ever wanted anything. They only serve. It’s their reason for being. You...we will need a proper name for you. You though, will be allowed to have what it is you want. Do what you want. I reinforced some of your pre-programmed directives though. Just to make sure you can function properly. Like, you can’t hurt someone unless it involves saving someone’s life. Even then, you have a probability matrix. A mechanism that allows you, in a millisecond, to determine if the action you’re taking would be in your own,