Author's note:
This is version 3. I edited it once for inconsistencies, continuity errors and really embarrassing editing mistakes, but then I worked out what the rules of the world were and so now I've gone back to "fix" things that don't quite work so that they do.
Original note:
I had a plan for this one. Production notes. Didn't happen. Oh well, these characters have lives entirely independent of my plans for them. Much more interesting lives than I've got, too, damn them.
There's a bit of lovey, emotional, relationship stuff in here. Deal with it. Blame the characters.
Now: This started out as a parody, satire and piss-take. It evolved (thanks to said characters) into something a little more serious, but it is, fundamentally, not to be taken seriously by anybody who doesn't want to get into serious debates about the nature of reality.
I don't want you to think I'm being at all serious about the Superhero genre, or willing to respect its conventions.
This is also such an interdependent set of stories you will really get very little value at all if you haven't read the prequels yet. Go on, this one will still be waiting for you when you get through the first five.
There may be a seventh by then, as well. Yes, there will be at least one more. After that it's up to who's stronger: Me or a bunch of fictional Superheroes. There'll probably be more.
####
Siobhan found the Engineer in a side lab of his new and sprawling workshops. He was dressed in his tailored lab coat and sitting on a lab stool against one wall with knees spread, elbows on knees and chin on palms, staring moodily at what was either the core of a tokamak nuclear reactor, a space-sized laser, or a time machine.
She was moving with all the stealth a maid was capable of in 4" heels and he appeared completely lost in thought, but before she cleared her throat to speak he said, distantly, "What would happen, Siobhan, if I blew up the world?"
She went very still as she realised he was probably capable of it and she had no idea if he was joking or not.
"Master?" That seemed the safest response.
"Assume this world exists for a reason. Assume that we're it. To the best of our knowledge, there are four real humans in it, and four only. There are probably more but hey, we've only found us.
"What happens if we attack the world? If it exists for a reason, someone or something will object to an attempt to blow it up, correct?"
"Someone or something will probably use Super rules to stop you in the nick of time," Siobhan said, her mind racing so fast she was dizzy. She felt she should stop him, distract him, use whatever sexual wiles she had ever learned to redirect him, but she was frozen in horrified fascination, wanting to find out almost as much as he did.
"The thought has occurred to me."
"Or, it just wouldn't work."
"That has also occurred to me."
"Or the designer would be annoyed, throw everything out and start again with a new cast."
"That one I was hoping to avoid, frankly."
"Maybe this is a test and we have to solve it."
"Which puts the onus back to me to work hard instead of having fun. Shut up now, Siobhan."
Siobhan was an obedient slave. She shut up. She was aching, however, to find out what the machine actually was.
The Engineer shook himself, reached out and, so casually Siobhan couldn't have shrieked a protest even if she hadn't just been ordered not to, pressed a very large and intimidatingly red button.
There was a warning tone, a rising whine, a fierce smell of ozone and then a gentle background humming that stayed gratifyingly stable.
"This puts out enough electricity to power the whole city," the Engineer said with satisfaction. "Including the electric transport systems I haven't built yet. Serve coffee in the observatory please, Siobhan."
The maid was so weak-kneed with relief she could barely courtesy in acquiescence as he left the room without looking at her, still deep in thought.
#
The observatory was a plant-filled room at the top of the modest mansion the Engineer had decided to move into. It already had baroque furniture from a previous owner.
Felony was standing to attention dressed in a transparent latex page's uniform and crotch-high boots, and two girls who had answered a personals ad for "professional dancers to be completely brainwashed live-in sex slaves and harem girls" (the Engineer had been in a flippant, challenge-the-world mood when he had placed that ad, and nobody had been more shocked than he when he received five applications) were perfectly still and wholly naked in traditional fountain-centrepiece poses.
As she walked across the tiled floor, Siobhan had to try very hard not to stare at the stretched crotch of one of the statues as it passed her line of sight.
The Engineer roasted his own coffee, creating a rich, complex, aromatic, chocolatey blend. As Siobhan set her silver tray on the small garden table, the Engineer clapped his hands and said "Attend!" sharply.
Two more naked dancers faded into view from the background (well, there had been five applications).
One began lovingly massaging his shoulders while the other bent down on one knee, picked up the plate of small pistachio biscuits off Siobhan's tray, and held it just where the Engineer could comfortably reach it without moving.
Siobhan sternly forced herself to focus on her job instead of the elegant naked lines and small, firm, perfectly shaped hanging breasts of the girl's perfectly held lunge.
She slowly plunged the coffee and poured, aware all the time of her Master's brooding introspection.
She was torn between the conflicting desires to slap him out of it and fuck him out of it.
He didn't stir again until she proffered him the rich dark brew, a glass cup on a glass saucer.
He took the saucer, placed it on the second outstretched palm of his living side-table, took the cup and sipped, carefully.
The effect was almost magical.
He smiled, for the first time that day, put the cup back on its saucer, and patted his lap. "Come and sit, Siobhan."
She almost leapt onto him, curling her legs sideways under her and leaning against his chest with her arms around his neck, displacing the masseuse, who faded quietly backwards.
He picked up a biscuit and popped it into Siobhan's mouth.
"Now," he said, slipping into the tone of voice that immediately switched Siobhan into conscious subspace, receptive and utterly obedient. "Would you like to go back to happy ignorance and life as normal, or tear the world apart to find the strings?"
"I want to know, Master," she said, sincerely, not even needing his control to be honest.
He smiled, warmly. "Good," he said. "I have been struggling with myself, Siobhan, and I needed your agreement, and Catherine's, to be satisfied I was doing the right thing. I think Sable and I already have an understanding."
He broke off to sigh. "We're the only four humans I know about, and it changes everything." He popped another biscuit into Siobhan's mouth as she opened it to speak. She chewed and settled into his chest to listen.
"I don't know if I can keep treating you and Catherine the same way. It turns out I'm not a natural capital-M Master. I've been playing with toys, Siobhan, not thinking further than the rules of the game, assuming that all the little characters I didn't assume were human were just dolls, and all the humans had signed up for the same thing I had."
Siobhan, sensing his need to vent, stayed silent although she ached to reassure him. She rested her hand on his chest, protectively.
"I need you to keep reminding me you want to be my slaves, Siobhan. I might get used to it one day."
"I'm your slave, Master," she whispered into his chest, in a tone of voice even his rusty ears picked up.
His arms tightened around her in an uncontrollable surge of affection. "Thank you," he said warmly, and slipped his hand between her legs. They opened immediately for him as he slid over her stockinged thigh up to the halter tops and onto bare skin, stopping just an air-molecule's width from her white panties.
"The question is," he said, kissing the top of her head, "what now?"
She raised her head to look at him, feeling her entire body tingle with lust for him but floating above it, not detached but controlled enough to think because that was what he needed, right now.
"How do we find other humans, Master?" she asked, tentatively.
"That's the million-dollar-question," he said softly, looking into her eyes with an almost unreadable expression of mingled deep thought, apprehension, troubled self-doubt and pleasure at his servant's perspicacity. "That's exactly it."
She suddenly grinned, lighting up the entire observatory. "You'll have to build something, Master!"
His hand moved the final step, pressing into the already moist silk of her panties, the bare and puffy lips of her, making her eyes flutter closed and her throat moan huskily as she melted against him.
"I am, aren't I?" he replied, the grin spreading to his voice as he slowly began massaging her through the insubstantial lace barrier. "I'm going to have to be busy. You'll have to help me relax."
"Master, I'm yours," she whimpered. "Whenever you need me."
He pressed more firmly into her and she sagged bonelessly into him, whining a helpless plea.
His other arm, wrapped around her, slipped down and onto the top of her breasts, where they were pressed up into creamy half-moons by her corset. He teased at the flesh, insistently lifting until one nipple poked over her corset's frilled edge, the simple bar through her already engorged flesh gleaming in the sunlight.
She moaned again, piteously, as his fingers found the metal and rolled it in a slow, circular motion, twisting and bending her nipple in unhurried, gentle torture.
He shifted the hand between her legs, bending his wrist, pressing into her hard, crushing her flesh with the first knuckle on the base of his index finger jammed into her clitoris.
"AAAAAhhh!" Her head twisted back, her eyes flying open, staring, her entire body convulsing.
He dipped his head towards hers. "If you love me," he whispered, in his commanding voice, "roll onto your back and open your legs."
She immediately twisted around in his lap, driven by her soul not the needs of her flesh, her thighs parting wide either side of his, her barely-there skirt ridden up high above her sopping white lace panties as his palm pressed down upon her.
"Felony!" he commanded.
She moved immediately, coming around in front of them, kneeling down between their legs, lying forwards on his knees, her mouth descending towards his hand over her groin.
