"Oh, you're a juicy one, aren't you?"

The guy sported a lab coat with glasses, neatly cut hair and a clean-shaven face. He seemed like any ordinary scientist, but he had the voice of a turbo-creeper. "Unh, yeah, you're a naughty one, trying to sneak out like that."

I shuddered internally. This dude was clearly fucked up in all the wrong ways, and as he stared down at me with wild, lustful eyes, I knew this would be trouble.

Hummmm.

"Oh? Are you going to make me something? A peace offering perhaps, or a gift?" He was practically drooling over himself as he knelt down in front of me. He raised his hands as if he were about to grope some big ol' tiddies, but instead, he groped... me. "Phhhh, so sleek. So pure, yeah."

Though I had no blood, I could feel the heat rise in my face. I'm not into dudes, goddamnit! And even if I were (which I'm totally not), I wouldn't be into a creeper like you!

His hands were ice cold. He bit his lower lip. His caresses turned riskier, more aggressive, more thrusting.

Oh god. He was fingering a trash can--and enjoying it! This lunatic's hands were exploring my most sensitive places! He was tracing the edges of my coin slot! That’s my butthole! He was poking at my butthole!

I had to act fast to save my sexual trash can purity. Click.

As if the molester scientist had Pavlov'd himself to getting aroused by clicking sounds, he suddenly stood up straight and reached for his groin. He was unzipping his pants! Oh no no no no no. I flung out my arm in a hurry to grip my newly crafted anti-creeper spray (a low-level sleep potion in a spray bottle) and hit him with a refreshing mist.

"Dirty boy," he groaned. Then, his eyes rolled back, eased shut, and he slumped hard onto the tiled floor.

After a moment of calm, I gathered myself again and looked around for any witnesses. There were none. This guy wasn't just your ordinary crazy. He was on the final frontier of batshit insanity, and that was coming from a guy who liked getting coins slipped into his ass.

I tried to move his body. It wouldn't budge. I tried rolling, lifting, shoving, but the guy was simply too heavy for me to hide, so I left him there. With a few more sprays of the sleep spell for good measure, I clanked and rolled away to explore where I was.

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This was a prison, no doubt, some type of dystopic experimental fairy tale land where they did horrible things--like turning people into trash cans. The entire place was dressed in sterile white grids that glowed with clean light. As much as I tried to be subtle, my rattling can body still tapped and clinked across the floor as I moved from room to room.

Office spaces with cubicles. A pristine medical room with creepy instruments that held an array of needles and prods and little dildo-shaped things. Wide screens that projected images of the real world in real time--holoscreens they were called. An empty cafeteria with wet floor signs and chairs turned upside down on the tables.

I heard the whir of machinery muffled through the walls, and I headed toward it to find the factory floor.

It was an assembly line behind a wall of wire mesh. On the other side, massive machine arms pounded and shaped and built can-shaped objects, which were taken by conveyor belt to the next arm that then dropped bits of electronics and boxes and cubes inside. The next arm injected a glowing blue liquid, then the next inserted the "core". When one arm finished with its job on the current trash can, it waited for the next to fall into range, then it worked again and again.

They were creating a fleet of these things, an army.

I wasn't sure if they contained human souls or AI souls, and I was a little unsettled at the thought, and even though I had done technically worse things to other people, I certainly considered this to be a kinda fucked up way to punish somebody.

The freshly minted trash cans were carried to the end of the belt, around the bend, then slipped through an entrance concealed by heavy strips of plastic to disappear from sight. One after another.

Jack shit I could do about it. So I soldiered on, wandering around the facility like a newcomer, a tourist, and inspector general, and I soon found the actual prison.

I only needed to follow the sobs.

They were bunched together in rooms locked behind bars, people shoved together like animals--and that they seemed to be. It was as though some giant just scooped up a handful of people, dusted them with dirt and muck, then tossed them in. And the people themselves had submitted to those postures--spread out on the floor, leaning over each other, some with legs up the wall or curled up in the fetal position.

These were entirely underage kids. Those who were awake or conscious enough to realize my presence flinched at every tap and clank of me as I marched along the hall. I could only stare back at awe, continuing my quest for the weak crying that beckoned to me, calling for me, summoning my presence, my salvation, my rescue.

It was her.

Jenna sat facing me with her knees pulled to her chest. Her arms were bruised and scarred, bandages wrapped across her in spotty places, scarcely holding in all the wounds. She had a black eye, dried tears down her freckled little face. She seemed tired and pale and defeated and hopeless.

My blood boiled, and I didn't know why.

The far door clacked open. Voices and footsteps cut in.

I could not pull my gaze from her. This young daughter I never had, this child I somehow felt the need to protect, this innocent soul in a world of trash.

"Ey, ain't dat ta rubbish bin from before?" one man said. They stomped closer.

"No markings, but it looks different now, yeah?"

"Got's ta be da same, innit? I oughta know, I took a shit in dat wee one."

"Aye. Ya did." They stood beside me.

Hummmmm.

Finding a new body would have to wait. I now had a different quest to complete.

Click.