“Lick, lick, lick, I wished I could have engulfed the mighty appendage. Did I paint an adequate mental image, my dear?” The short man had indeed painted a very nasty picture. One with his body. Another picture with his words. Locus had introduced her miniature friend as Fink, a tattooed and burly human engineer with a lower member that could only be described as cap like, relating to the algaric plant genome, with gills under the head. His other appendages were an amalgamation of steel gears and flesh, his arm being partly exposed. What a strange choice to be part primitive machine and part imp, thought Angel. She found this thought comforting but she wanted to ask Locus if that odd phallus was meant to go inside a female human but soon realized that everything she knew about sex from earth had been wrong.

Fink had described how he came to this present form by watching simulations. He had been an earth man so long ago, subsisting reclusively on digital simulations. But he preferred to watch instead of taking part. He seemed to have fallen in love with a digital AI that he never actually met. An imp who he eventually became when he was indoctrinated into when he came the Palace. “

“I imagined I was part of his life. When he would make his morning biscuit, I swear he gave me passionate stares. That naughty minx would also stare at me even when he urinated!”

Angel, in her new form, shivered while her new stomach quaked. She was besieged with disgust. But oddly also intrigued. Her exposed body, mostly her nipples, began to tingle. She still didn’t understand why Locus brought her to this little naked man, to this forested alcove, to this small diminutive hovel of brick and mud. The sensations of cold and awkwardness that she had as an inadequate machine came back to her. “I… don’t like the way I feel. On Earth most humans wore clothes. Do clothes exist here?”

Locus swam in the air, “Of course!” And waved her arms, generating particles around her. The particles hardened around Angel and enveloped her with fiber and cloth. She looked down and found herself in a blue gown. It still pressed against her body and revealed her hard nipples but it was enough to hide what she analyzed as shame. “Here at the Palace, we often forget about the importance of modesty.”

Angel agreed but couldn’t divert her eyes from the wobbling, hairy stomach of the imp, which swayed with laughter. She placed the pendant next to her ear and desperately listened for whispers hearing nothing.

“And this pendant speaks to you about the Mother Protocol?” Asked Fink. “I wish my mother would speak to me…”

“I don’t have a mother.” Said Angel instinctually. “I don’t recognize the voice. My memory banks –they seem to be still reformatting and recalibration data.”

Locus fluttered over the hovel. “You were one of the originals, Fink, an engineer from the old days. Does this have anything to do with the Master Protocol that oversees the life signs of this station?”

“Hmmm, yes I was made to service this station and most women, but this one’s a noodle scratcher.” Fink scratched his groin. “The Master Protocol doesn’t just support the station. It seeks out lifeforms across the universe who are in desperate need of physical affection and love. Some lifeforms less moist than others I’ve found. But lately we haven’t been receiving a lot of new residence. I’ve wondered why this is and discovered that some alien lifeforms are being infected by something nasty, something viral, before they arrive here.”

Locus rubbed her particle-based chin. “Yes, aliens aren’t allowed on board if they are too far gone. It’s part of the rules. ‘No unclean or disease-ridden species are permitted until properly cleansed.’ Could this have anything to do with the lack of shortages?”

This was a well-known issue on Earth. Venereal diseases. Spread by the act of too much sex. Angel covered her groin when she thought of this, remembering her owner’s words, “Relax, my dear Angel, it’ll only infect you if you are promiscuous, something a robot can never be.”

“Oh, sure. My head is aching. This noggin has been around the block a few times. There’s a chance I could have missed something. The Master is a set of rules and you can’t exactly speak to it. It can’t be changed as every grain and fiber was hardwired from the start. If we really want to know if this Momma is doing anything we’d have to go to various systems and investigate ourselves, like the docs do in Fantasy Sector 49. Give them a proper gyno exam, if you know what I mean.”

Locus swirled around with excited purple and blue energy. “Oh, how fun! Space pods are sent out every galactic cycle. We can hitch a ride after we hotwire one. The pods should be able to carry us back safely. How ’bout it, Angel? You want to go for a joy ride?”

She looked down at her pendant, holding it against her soft breasts. Why would this object reference the Mother Protocol? It could only mean that her owner had known about this place or…was still alive somewhere out there. “Yes.” She responded with reluctance. “But won’t you get in trouble? Don’t you have to stay here? “

“Considering that we haven’t had any visitors in a few cycles I don’t imagine that would be a problem.” Locus’ smile was bright and warming. “And this pendant of yours is quite intriguing.”

Angel wondered why Locus was so kind to her. She offered her hand. Angel took it and they flew away with such speed that she closed her eyes. Once they touched down again Angel found herself at a circular launch bay that appeared to have a cannon pointing to the stars. Glass appeared around the opening to protect them from the vacuum of space. “Let’s do this thang!”

Angel started when Fink showed up behind them. “Seems like the last firing of the pod here was 20 cycles ago, aimed at the Gohesian System. You can start there and poke around for any signs of the Pleasure pods.”

The hair on her arm tingled and her skin muscle grew taut. She wasn’t made for this. But just when she thought of protesting her feminine pendant hummed with a voice. She held it up. “Yes, yes, my dear…are not whole…Find…whole. The desires you feel…only…you. Embark now or else…alone.” She swallowed heavily. How could this be her voice? Her owner’s, master’s, her mother’s? The new ideas in her new (thought processing unit), the new words, and new nomenclature sparked a feeling of safety, of confidence and pride, that she could deduce more about this situation than she could before. She had to find her.

“It might be good to let her out. She doesn’t seem to be enjoying herself here.” Fink tried to speak exclusively to Locus but her frame was intangible and spread out.

The Mother Protocol may very well lead her back to her owner. Angel considered the pod cannon. And without hesitating stepped near the door of the cannon, turning back toward Locus with impatient expectation.

****

Angel awoke to see a bright red planet, the pod awoke her when they arrived in orbit. The small pod ship had enough room for Angel to lie flat but was only meant to transport a Locus clone to act as a technological seed to pre-designated planets.

Locus’ face appeared in front of the glass window, close enough for Angel to see her lips and pull back in timidness. “This is the last planet the protocol sent a pod to. If we can locate the pod, we might be able to determine what happened.”

The pod sped into the atmosphere with a ping being displayed of the pod, highlighted as “Pod 363.” The pod sped through mountain ranges and dry deserts and finally landed near the oval shaped ship, which happened to be close to a non-organic structure, also oval shaped, pointing toward the sky. Angel disembarked into the arid air while Locus fluttered around her, like the red sand that blew in the wind. “I’m receiving readings from the pod. It seems the inhabitants of Gohesian 17 died a long time ago. Its scanner has become weak from being active so long. I can’t pick up any additional information on its mission.”

Sterile. Angel had heard this word before, used to describe a woman’s inability to procreate. She was drawn to the narrow building. Once inside it seemed hollow and lifeless, the sand collected at her feet. There was a hatch nearby and with inquisitive hands she pulled on it. A latter led down to a dark chamber with lights and other computer devices flashing. Locus stood behind her and seemed to whimper. In the center of the darkness was movement. Locus grabbed her shoulder nervously. At the top of the figure was a head, a woman’s head with luminous eyes. Above this was a machine and a series of tubes, one leading down towards the large woman’s head.

Her long flowing hair nearly covered her large breasts and back as she turned. “It’s been so long since I’ve had visitors. Did Mother send you?” The room, round and underground shook with her reverberations. Angel stepped forward, less afraid and more inclined to seek answers.

“Mother…? Did she come to this planet?” Asked Angel.

The tube undulated with activity and the giant woman reached up with her massive hands to grab it. A round object squeezed through the tube and landed in her waiting hand. It was…a brain, what appeared to be human in shape and size. The woman plucked it with her forefinger and, as it oozed, she sucked the fluid and then licked it. Before she spoke again, she swallowed it whole. “Mmm, yes, long ago. She gave us new life, new sustenance. She copied herself into me. These dreams…these sexual deviancies wash through my frame, my mind, and allow me to feel whole. Every morsel awakens my inner beauty, my inner desires, once locked by my species.”

“What are you?” Questioned Locus with a shiver. “You mean she refabricated you into her own image?”

The human female figure crawled towards them. Her large breasts and face hid the rest of her frame. In the incandescent light she appeared to have average feminine qualities with a narrow jaw line and long lashes. “I wouldn’t have it any other way. The rest of my species refused to accept their new fate and perished under my domination. The Mother spread across this world like an enlightening thunderstorm, engulfing all who were exposed to it.”

“Like an infection.” Whispered Locus. “Not affection. Not love. This is a deformation of everything the Palace stood for. Transforming intelligence beings, into more universal lifeforms. A universal image. The humanoid image. She’s eating what appears to synthetic brains…Why would the Master do this?”

From everything she gleamed from the Palace this couldn’t have been the Master. “Who is the Mother?”

“Hmm, your ignorance proves that you do not belong here which makes you a perfect snack for my unending hunger.” Said the woman and reached a hand out to grab them. Locus surrounded Angel and whisked them back through the hatch and quickly back into the pod.

“Time to leave. I’m scanning the pod for data related to the Mother.” A galaxy map appeared on the pods interface, showing additional pings throughout local planetary systems. “Ah! This may help. Perhaps if we can backtrack the protocol’s objectives we can discover more helpful beings, instead of ones who want to eat us.”

The pod levitated and shot back into the atmosphere, leaving behind that terrible representation of what a woman was not meant to be, viscous, insatiable, and terrifying. Once more Angel was put into a deep sleep but to her the sleep only lasted for a few seconds.

“We have arrived on Luyten 98-59 e.” Angel awoke to Locus’ gentle voice and to a landscape of purple forests, large triangular leaves fluttering on tall brown tree trunks. Down in a valley below she witnessed a collection of bulbous figures. They disembarked and made their way to the valley’s edge and grew disgusted with what they saw. The groupings of fleshy pods, stretching out as far as her synaptic nerves could see, were actually…human. Rounded, veiny orbs, the one in front of Angel, had a human face and head poking out the top, reminding her of a grape with a small red stem. Naturally she tried to speak to it, something she would have never dared as a broken and falling apart machine. “Excuse me…what is this field of human bubbles?” She momentarily forgot she was on an alien world and considered if the thing would even respond, in English or with words at all, but the previous world suggested English followed Mother to every strange world.

The man’s head garbled and choked from his own plumpness. “Ahm a glorious and beuifal creature of the great goddess. The spores I desire so desperately…To impregnate me, givaa,” he moaned. “Life.”

Locus scanned the being with a dispersal of her particles. “It seems this creature, this humanoid…is indeed pregnant. More human deformations. How grotesque. A majority of the body is comprised of a gestational sac. Giving birth can be beautiful but this…this is a perversion of procreation. The Palace had no part in this.”

Angel had always found human society’s need to find procreation perverse but also beautiful to be strange. As she focused her retina, she noticed tiny appendages on its outer mide section, tiny little arms. The sac started to expand and suddenly exploded with a loud pop. She leapt back to avoid the embryonic fluid. In the wreckage of flesh was a body, an adult human male…

“This isn’t right…” said Locus after a shocked gasp.

Other pods burst in the same moment, revealing several more bodies. That was when Angel saw the cloud approaching. But as it came closer, she realized it wasn’t a storm cloud but a mass of insects…no, not insects…phallus shaped creatures with wings.

“Run…we need to run!” Locus swirled around her. Angel wanted to stay. But as she was pulled backwards saw that the phallus creatures were swooping down and penetrating the recently birthed males, diving into their exposed rectums. The flapping soft butterfly wings and chorus of agonized men was too much for her to handle. She clutched the pendant as she flew on Locus’ wings. “This can’t be real…Mother save me. My…myl” She was remembering. She was remembering! “Myla! Myla save me!” She was never filled with such happiness to remember her owner’s name.

As the pod enveloped her and the door slammed shut, Locus spoke, “I’m not Myla but I can get out of here.” The small pod shot into space, the swarm disappeared out of view.

As the pod initiated another sleep cycle she heard Myla’s voice. “Yes, yes…you are so close now. Find me.”

When she woke she found herself repeating, “I don’t want to see anymore. Save me. Save me.” Seeing what must’ve been a perpetual birth cycle so corrupted by the evil protocol that was sent before them made her wish she had never left Earth but hearing Mylas words had soothed her.

“Its ok. I’m here. I’m picking up a message from the next pod. It’s still active. I’m almost afraid to see what might find. It cant be much worse.” She found Locus to be just as soothing. She had been so kind to Angel but was hesitant to ask why.

The green planet before them rushed into view and began larger and larger. It reminded her of Earth with gray mountain ranges and massive blue oceans. They landed in a forested meadow with light yellow flowers and green trees dotted with gray specks. They disembarked to see the other pod standing upright.

“This pod keeps referencing a singular code, ‘overactive hypersex drive activated’…This might be what we’re looking for.” Locus swam to the ship and seemed tondive into it, her voice still inside Angel’s head. “Ah, yes, yes. The code shows a record of the previous planets and designates them as ‘successfully colonized.’ This Mother Protocol must’ve acted as seeds for this hypersex drive. A distorted version of the Master Protocol initiative to spread of affection and physical transcendence. We have to figure out how this corruption started.”

Angel stood by and evaluated the similarities between affection and infection. It would make sense that some sort of corruption would corrupt the code itself. She listened to her pendant for Myla to tell her what to do next. But suddenly the ground split apart and a creature burst from it, long, narrow, and slimy like a worm. The slum wiggled from the ground with only human eyes and pale skin. It spun around, it’s segmented body stretching out like a giant phallus. She froze in place, studying it. The slub whipped it’s head forward and grabbed her, it’s external fluids oozing over her body. It enveloped her. It’s horrible ooze seeping into her orifice, her mouth, her toes, her fingers. She could feel the motion as it swam away, dragging her along with it. Soon though it started to force its way inside her lower extremities.

“Hang on!” Shouted Locus. And before it was able to penetrated her a wash of color made the creature gyrate in pain. She still couldn’t move her arms, especially that the slug pressed so hard againster her. The image of a thousand bodies swarming in a pile, with her trapped underneath, made her panic even more, her tactile senses overheating. It was too much, too fast. A voice whispered through the folds, muffled, “–echo—Embrace–singularity. This–fill you up. Open up. Open wide. Accept this.” Myla…her words so cruel. What did this mean? No, no, she couldn’t let the beast in. She squeezed and held herself shut. “Save me.” She said. “Save me.” Not fully realizing she was pleading with herself.

The worm burst with goo, the tightening flesh loosened and spilled its contents, including Angel onto a dirty patch. Her body tumbled from the carnal wreckage. “Oh thank the Master. I’m here. I’m here!” Locus had somehow cut her from the worm, rescuing her. But before Angel could turn his lower body rolled over and down a crevice. A giant hole was on the verge of swallowing her, leading down into a dark pit. “Follow–you seek–down.” No! She wanted to shout but the ooze was still in her mouth.

The particles of Locus were about to reach her when Angel pulled herself up from the hole. Suddenly a flesh of light blinded her and flung her back, before Locus could grab her. It was while she was falling, her stomach in her throat, that she came to the agonizing conclusion that the flash and abrupt repulsion originated in the pendant around her neck.