Bound Together by Corinn Heathers Page A

itself while I was getting dressed.
    While Misaki busied herself in the kitchen, I started field-stripping the pistol for cleaning. There was a kit nearby in a small, battered cookie tin; I opened it up and pulled out a bottle of gun oil, a bore ram and a few cleaning wipes and set to work. I did my best to keep the weapon scrupulously clean. Inconsistent care could lead to a jam at the worst possible time.
    As I had the weapon disassembled, cleaning out the barrel with a cleaning wipe attached to the end of the bore ram, I turned my attention to the girl in my kitchen. She didn't seem to know where half the utensils and cookware were kept, but I decided I'd let her figure things out herself. Misaki seemed to be put off balance every time I refused to let her perform some manner of mundane task for me.
    It's not like I could really blame her. She'd been created to be female and spent most of her existence during a time period when women were little more than domestic servants and fuck-holes on demand. I felt a slight shiver go down my spine, trying very hard not to think about what other possible indignities Misaki might have endured.
    I turned my attention back to my own work. I kept my gun clean, so there wasn't a lot of residue to take care of. I'd only fired a single magazine's worth of ammunition since the last cleaning. This was nowhere near as bad as the mess I'd end up with after an afternoon at the range with four boxes of ammo to shoot off. I started fitting the various pieces back together—the guide rod and spring went back on along with the barrel, then the slide went over those. It was still really pristine on the inside, so I could probably make it another few months before I had to do a full teardown.
    I dropped the magazine out and checked to make sure it wasn't loaded, slapped the empty mag back in and hit the slide release. Keeping the weapon pointed well away from either myself or Misaki, I pulled the hammer back and pulled on the trigger, checking the safety. Everything seemed to check out, so I removed the magazine again and opened up a fresh box of fifty nine-millimeter rounds.
    “It'll be finished in a few minutes,” Misaki called out.
    “Okay, I'm putting this thing away once I get it loaded.” I didn't have an automatic loader, so I had to do this the hard way. It was a rough process on my thumbs, and I had to be careful because the magazine spring was strong and the edges were sharp enough to inflict some pretty nasty cuts.
    After a minute or two of struggling and cursing under my breath I'd gotten all twelve cartridges into the magazine. Into the pistol it went and I cycled the action once to chamber a round before checking the safeties again. Everything seemed in order so I stuck the gun back in its holster and set it on a nearby shelf.
    I walked into the bathroom to wash the gun oil and residue from my fingers. When I came back into the common area of the apartment, Misaki had already arranged the dishes, artfully presented on the small table. What she'd made looked very skillfully prepared: a steaming bowl of rice, stir-fried vegetables and some fish left over from the day before yesterday, raw, sliced thinly and arranged in concentric circles on a plate. It didn't escape my notice that she'd only set one place at the table.
    “You're not going to eat, too?”
    Misaki's eyes went wide. “Would that not be disrespectful? I would always eat in the kitchen, at the maidservants' table—”
    I raised a hand to stop her. “No, Misaki, it's not disrespectful. Come, sit with me. Don't eat your food standing up in the kitchen.”
    “I suppose that makes sense.” The girl obtained a second plate and a pair of chopsticks from the vase I kept on the counter. She sat these down across from me and reached out to take my plate.
    “You don't have to—” I stopped myself, but it was too late. Instinctively her ears flattened again. I was really bad at this, apparently. It just felt so alien to let