There was an auburn-haired slave girl named Anya 37948 undergoing public punishment on show in the lobby of the building.

She was being made to serve a useful function while at the same time suffering in public for whatever crime she had committed.

The sight of her made Jane feel sick, which was of course the intention.

'Look at her,' her master said. ‘She knows her proper place…'

Bound by metal straps and cuffs and braced by an expanding pole, Anya had been turned into a living signpost: truly a fusion of flesh and metal that must have been pleasing to steelmaster eyes. She was perfectly presented, standing on top of a cubic plinth that proclaimed the new rule on earth.

FLESH SHALL SERVE METAL.

That was the rule the machines had imposed on humanity. And Anya was an unwilling but perfect example of its power.

Her right foot was clamped and her heel wedged and securely fastened to the top of the plinth. A metal sleeve was bound about her ankle keeping it rigid. Another sleeve prevented her right knee from bending, so that her shapely leg supported her rigidly upright. Angling inwards between her legs was a sprung pole that pressed tightly into her groin, bracing her body against her burden. Her left leg was extended sideways at right angles. From it hung a heavy metal sign reading Public Discipline Cell 21, with an arrow pointing the way.

Steelmasters did not need physical signs, of course. With their mechanically perfect memories, they knew their way about their city without any such aids. Perhaps they simply enjoyed the sight of naked female flesh on show in such humiliating circumstances while reminding other slaves of the penalties for disobedience.

As they got closer to this macabre living sign, Jane saw the discharge trickling down Anya’s stiff right leg.

The bulbous tip of the telescopic bracing pole was pressing hard into the girl’s naked groin and spreading her sex lips. No doubt there was also a dildo extending out of the ball that penetrated her vagina locking her firmly into place as if she was impaled on the pole. Helplessly Anya was responding to the stimulation by lubricating this shaft of metal with her bodily juices. How else was a slave girl to respond? Her left arm was extended stiffly downwards and the cuff on its end was tethered to the one about her extended left ankle, forming a living brace to take the weight of the sign hanging from under her leg.

Her supple spine was twisted to the left by its weight. Her posture accentuated her small neat breasts which stood out firmly from her slender chest. Her right arm was doubled up behind her back and strapped to her collar. A cruel studded metal gag band was bound across her lower face, shutting her lips.

How long had she been standing there, Jane wondered?

Now Jane could smell the sweet aroma of Anya’s intimate discharge as it ran down her leg and dripped onto the plinth on which she was mounted. She could imagine the girl’s vaginal sheath clenching tight about the rod on which she was impaled, so much like a steelmaster’s living metal cock, which she would have been conditioned to prize and pleasure above all else.

For a moment her eyes met Jane’s and, although they had never met before, they passed a look between them of sad understanding from one slave to another. They knew there was no escape from their bondage until their Masters were finished with them. Then, exhausted by their ordeal, they might be returned to their homes among other humans. They would be free once more to cover their naked bodies and try to recover their pride and dignity, but they knew they would never be the same again.

For the rest of their lives, however many human cocks they pleasured, they would always secretly yearn for the feel of metal within them.

Anya’s head sagged and her eyes closed as if from exhaustion or total despair.

M13 turned down the corridor that the living signpost indicated, leading Jane after him...