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Ecstasy or Oblivion - Session 12
🕑 Added 2018-10-28 22:30:59 +0000 UTC
Kamehameha Station, Asteroid Belt
I was back in a corner of the FCAT repair shop on Animsys's grounds. Kwame was there with a robot that reminded me of an owl. It was built into the wall next to the table I was on. The stereoscopic visual sensors were mounted on a little pointy head. Multiple arms with multiple purposes were folded against the wall. The one with the laser cutters was my least favorite.
It cocked its head. "The damage to your neck is extensive. The FCAT must have been trying to destroy your nervous connection to the rest of your body. Please do not try to speak." At the same time, I received schematics that showed how deep the damage had gone.
I included Kwame in the conversation. It didn't take it long to decide that I was a top-level threat.
Kwame sent, FCATs have a flight or fight instinct, but when they're alone, they're supposed to hold their ground for as long as possible until reinforcements arrive. Of course, they make this decision depending on the situation, though.
That one held its ground well. It noticed I was synthetic and went all out. Are we going to have to take off my head?
Yes, the robot sent, I believe replacing most of your neck is the fastest way to get you back in operation. Not all of the necessary components are available. Sourcing materials and fabricating your replacement will take three hours.
Kwame sent, Please make a full set of replacement parts for Saanah.
Authorization received. After the neck segment is done, the fab will prioritize a full replacement body.
Thank you! I sent smiling at Kwame.
Can't have you running around with irreplaceable parts, can we? He shrugged. Don't thank me, it's common sense.
Thank goodness for common sense! I sent a sparkly heart emoticon.
Kwame laughed. I should go back to my office. That is unless you have further need of me.
Nope, I'll be fine.
Okay, see you later. Kwame walked past a three-meter-high stack of crates and turned toward the door.
The robot's head was over my leg and then a t-wave scanner lined up and inspected. While replacements are being manufactured, I'll remove the shaft of the harpoon and repair the damage to your leg. Most of it can self-repair, but that would take thirty-six hours or more due to the electrical damage. It sent me a list of the fixes it wanted to perform on my leg and laser holes in my flesh elsewhere.
The robot was right, the electrical damage was more severe than I'd thought.
Do you consent to my treatment plan? the robot asked.
Yes I do. I sent back.
Thank you. I shouldn't need input from you for the next forty-five minutes. Feel free to distract yourself.
What should I call you? I asked.
Wham is what Kwame calls me. My full name is FRB Mod 5.6.
How often do you repair sentients? I watched as Wham carefully peeled back the heat-vane-feathered skin of my leg. It had to use ultrasonics to get the skin edges loose.
Rarely, but I've been given the capacity of bedside manner for their sake.
Are any of the bodies you've worked on as advanced as this one?
I can't talk about patients even in a generalized sense. Apologies.
I knew the answer was yes, but I was trying to segue into getting more specifics. Damn. If I ever had to go up against Animsys, I wanted to know what I'd be dealing with.
Hey, I've been having trouble calibrating the max energy density of my laser pulses. Could you give me the range? I knew that Wham couldn't give me access to the actual specs of my laser and cooling system, but a question like this might work.
Wham sent me a range that had too many zeros at the top. No laser the size of my arm had ever had numbers as big as the ones it just showed me. Are you sure about this? I don't think my body's power system can sustain that level of energy. That would be a couple shots at most. Probably just one.
The highest range requires the connection of a power cable to activate.
I stared at Wham's response. Just to make sure it was giving me the right numbers, I said, At that level, it's like fifty kilos of TNT. The shockwave would be horrendous.
Yes, I don't think your weapon is meant to be used in populated areas. It could destroy infrastructure.
Wham clearly didn't understand the ridiculous implications of me having a laser that powerful. I couldn't imagine a good use for it other than taking out an FCAT in one hit. It wouldn't even be a test, it would be an FCAT exploding the moment I shot it. Battle over. The FCATs weren't allowed to operate at that power level. It could endanger everyone on the station. Perhaps I really was made out of experimental parts.
One pulse at that level would probably bring all the components in my arm near their thermal limit. Or melt my arm off. No wonder I wasn't allowed to see the specs. Cramming that much energy into such a small laser was wizardry. Animsys had made a breakthrough. This was the biggest leap in laser technology since we introduced Paitishek lasers to humans.
Clearly my body wasn't made to fight FCATs, it was made by some reckless scientist as a joke, or something. But they'd let me keep it. Strange.
After that revelation it took me a while to buckle down and fill out forms considering my benefits.
I was interrupted by Wham sending, Here's my treatment plan for your neck.
After looking it over, I said, You have my consent.
Would you like to shut down before I detach your head?
No thanks, I have more paperwork to do, I sent.
I cut off sensation to the rest of my body in preparation for the detachment of my head. When the time came, I heard the ultrasonic arm working around my neck. Then the laser cutter came in and cut away damaged parts that wouldn't come off. A polishing arm went in and smoothed jaggedness caused by the laser cutter. The high-speed motor made it wail like a banshee from a cheesy horror film.
A welder repaired some of the nanograin metal linkages and then a sewing arm rebuilt some of the nanograin ceramic weave. After that, my new neck was affixed to my torso and my head was linked back up with it. When it it was all done, I said, "Thank you!"
"It was my pleasure. You're free to go." Wham undid the restraints that were keeping me from moving during surgery.
I got up and looked around at the FCAT parts strewn around the repair bay. Turning back toward Wham, I said, "What parts of FCATs need the most servicing?"
"The cooling system and the ankle joints."
"Could you give me data on that?"
"I'll compile data on our current models and send it to Kwame for approval."
I knew it wouldn't be that easy. Or would it? Kwame would likely let me see data on the FCATs if I asked nicely. If my job truly involved helping Kwame make them better, I'd be given access to data on them. Thanks, I'll await his approval.
You're welcome.
The repair building had lots of robotic arms and cranes. In fact, eight meters above my head was a grid of robotic manipulation. The ceiling was an A-frame with a questionable kink in it. It was meant to look stylish, but to me it looked as if a giant had stepped on it.
Blocky thigh-high hedges with leaves that were green on top and red on the bottom lined the path back to the circus tent office building.
Once I made it to my office, I strapped into the wall and began planning my presentation for tomorrow's meeting.
An hour before my workday ended, Nonah sent, I won't be home until late tonight. I have dinner plans. You can stay at my place tonight. I was trying to help you by looking for an apartment, but I realized I don't know what you want. Could you go to the apartment finder tab on the Animsys app and take a look?
I feel bad. I didn't mean for this to happen.
We'll talk later. The short of it is: I think you need your own place because whatever sparks we have, we can't explore them properly if you're under my roof.
The thread of the anxiety that had wound its way through my back and shoulders loosened. I apologize for earlier, I shouldn't have pried.
Please don't, not now. I promise we'll talk later.
I wanted to challenge them. For me, social anxiety was like pine pitch—it clung to me no matter how much I scrubbed at it and only came off with the right solvent. If I was on a job where I had to use my social graces to get something, I was far better off. What got to me was my personal life. The early clumsy stages of friendship were especially harrowing. Because that was when both parties ran into each other's boundaries to figure out where they were: kind of like a blind knife fight. If both of you survived, you had a friendship. If one or both of you didn't, you grieved over all the could have beens.
The boundary that Nonah was hitting: Avoiding talking about a fight. It was fine if they didn't have enough time to fully address it now, but at least taking a moment to accept my apology would've helped me. By putting up a wall the moment I tried to address what had happened, they increased my anxiety over it. And they'd done this multiple times today.
I worked the rest of the day detailing the fixes I'd suggest in the meeting. As I left work and rode the elevator down, it stopped and opened the doors to the second floor.
A short Paitishek with long ears and a nice seafoam accent color was talking to a tall red-haired woman. They were talking so exuberantly that I wondered if they'd rather not catch this one. Just as the doors started to close, the short Paitishek said, "Wait!"
The elevator opened its doors for her, but the bing it gave sounded far less happy than the one I'd heard when it arrived on my floor.
The Paitishek said, "Sorry, I gotta go. I'll call and tell you the rest after dinner."
The red-haired woman, whose name I didn't bother to look up, said, "Sure, okay."
The Paitishek dashed into the elevator and then stood close to me. When I turned toward her, she looked into my eyes. Our ears turned toward each other and our crests rose; we got closer. We got to the first floor and she grabbed my hand as we left the elevator. Her burnt orange dress was form-fitting, but it fluted out to a flower shape starting at her hips and ending at her calves.
This is what I needed. Care-free interaction with a stranger. Something I'd only done a couple times with humans, but many times with my own species. She stopped in front of the FCAT sculpture and looked into my eyes again. We drifted closer. She reached up and touched the side of my breast, I did the same to her. We kissed and I started to feel warm. She pressed her crotch against me and I started to feel heat radiate to my extremities.
We were blushing, we were making out, and we were loving it.
She pulled away and said, "My place, yours, or Trenlii's."
The name did mean something. It was the last name of Emba Trenlii, a Paitishek sexual film icon. Lots of stuff was named after her.
"What's Trenlii's," I asked.
"An authentic Paitishek sex bar," She said.
"Hmm, I'd love to do that sometime, but I'm already overwhelmed by all the people I met on my first day at work."
"My place?" she suggested.
I nodded and looked at her public profile. Her name was Jaahkah, she was in quality assurance and had been working at Animsys for two years. She twenty-six.
If she was human, I would've made sure she knew I was over two hundred. But we'd been functionally immortal for a long time and as long as we were both adults and consented we rarely cared about age. That said, I wouldn't fraternize with anyone under twenty-five if I could help it. I felt like people younger than that were still discovering their own personalities.
I could smell her excitement as we got on the air tram together. Her scent was similar to a fruit from my home world. Kaaphwan was the name of it and it tasted like a lime, but was as sweet as an orange and structured like a pomegranate.
The air tram was a two-person pod that hung from a maglev track. They were automated and swift and allowed one to look out over the bizarre cityscape that was the .80 shell of Kamahameha.
She pointed down at a triangular park that looked like an unkempt garden. "I planted a fig tree in there before I looked up what fig trees need. I've asked if we can get the wasps that pollinate them for when it's big enough to bear fruit, but I don't think the parks board wants to deal with that. They gave me a very firm maybe."
"Why can't you get artificial pollinators?"
"Because the wasp that pollinates figs gets trapped inside and becomes part of the fig. Artificial pollinators aren't made of stuff the figs can process."
"Whoa, I never thought about that."
She laughed. "I'm still surprised abou—Oh! This is our stop."
The pod opened and we stepped onto the arrival platform. As we traversed the steps, I said, "So, do you have a juusoi?"
"Nope, I'm not sure how long I'm going to stay here, so I'm keeping things simple."
"Oh, don't like your job?"
"It's okay, but I'm just doing it so I can save up money to go find my destiny in the outer solar system." She used a deep hollow voice for the last part.
"You sound just like the ad."
She bounced. "Yep! I can't say it didn't get to me."
We were in the thick of pedestrians. The bush-lined boulevard ended abruptly in some sort of market or festival. We'd only gone a block toward it by the time she pulled me onto a side street forcing e-vello riders to stop abruptly.
I'd been too distracted wondering what the festival was to notice she was dragging us into traffic. Perhaps she was too horny to bother with trivial things like not getting run over. I could relate.
The angular porte cochere outside her building reminded me of a giant beak. The building itself leaned away from us with a fold that went diagonally across its face. This gave the illusion of movement as you walked up to it. It took up a whole block and looked more like a crumpled box than high-end architecture to me. But it still managed to look cool.
As I was swallowed by the strange beak, Jaahkah's tail groped my butt. The foyer of the building was done completely in shades of red and silver. The sharp angles stopped it from looking like I was in the stomach of a giant bird. Which was comforting, but far less awesome.
What was awesome was Jaahkah's voluptuous back end which I was groping with my free hand. Her tail was now between my legs making me excited enough that I had to stand directly behind her to hide my erection.
The elevator was trying to look modern. It looked like a poorly-polished metal box. The hallway tiles were in a silver and taupe pin stripe pattern that continued into her apartment.
It was nice to be in humble surroundings for once. This apartment was much like a hotel room. A lot of the furniture was built in, the living room was directly ahead when you walked in. The kitchen was to the right of it as part of the same room. I saw a bedroom through the open silver-colored door at the far end of the kitchen.
Whoever built this living space was extremely into the silver, taupe, and sandstone color scheme. All the upholstery, curtains, and counters were taupe. Doors, cabinets, appliances, and tables were silver. Sandstone for the walls and accent pillows.
This wasn't the sort of apartment that showed off wealth. This was the sort of apartment that made it clear that one was just starting out in their career. There was no room for one's own belongings. The space discouraged personalization. It was always ready for the next tenant. Much like a college dorm.
Such was the life of most Silver Consumers just starting out in space colonies. I'd lived that life myself. It had been a long time ago. Before I met the CCAI or switched to a synthetic body.
I felt safer with Jaahkah already. She simply saw me as a fellow Paitishek needing to get off. She didn't have an agenda beyond that, she didn't need me to stay at the company, and she was completely tangential to whatever scheme had put me on this station.
Nonah and the C-whatever-whatevers I'd met hadn't passed that test yet. It was in their best interest to manipulate me.
Jaahkah pulled me to the bed not even bothering to close the bedroom door. Guiding my hands, she made me remove her dress. Then her bra, then her boxer briefs.
I tried to start undressing for her, but she grabbed my head and pulled it down to her erection saying, "Please! I can't wait!"
I took her into my mouth and sucked. She bucked her hips like she was trying to push me off of her. It was the perfect sort of vicious. True to her word, she couldn't wait. In thirty seconds, she had a microorgasm and in a minute I had her essence in my mouth.
Then she pushed me off and cried out, "More," as she relieved me of my clothes.
"Whoa, when was the last time you—"
"Shut up and get inside me," she growled.
I chuckled as I grabbed her hips. After pulling her to the edge of the bed, I grabbed her ass and pulled her up off the bed. She put her hands on either side of her head and braced herself as I lined up to her oh-so-wetness.
Purring deeply, I entered her. The angle added a spice to every thrust. I got to watch her breasts flail in her face. And oh did I make them move.
I fucked her right into the bed. Hard enough she got a workout. I had three microorgasms and two big ones before I let her up. She squealed, purred, and moaned the whole time feeding off of my lust with a hedonistic delight that made me feverish. At the very end, I locked her exuberant heat against mine with that wonderful Paitishek knot-like bulge at the base of my shaft.
The moment I freed her, she grabbed me and threw me toward the headboard. "You better get a good grip or I'll slam you right into it face first."
I gripped the headboard. And when I looked back at her, my sex tingled. Anyone unaware of the context would think she was furious, but I knew the fury was more like a sexual tempest that had taken hold of her. I felt it too. I was being tossed in its winds and soaked to the bone by its ecstatic torrent. And I still wanted more.
The deeper we went into the tempest, the more I forgot who I'd left behind, my isolation, and that I was trapped on this station.
Every bit of force I'd deposited upon her flesh, she returned in full. Small and large, my orgasms piled on top of one another until I no longer cared about counting them.
The tempest ended with both of us collapsing onto the bed. Neither of us knew where our limbs had ended up. We didn't care. Comfort had become our state of being and the burdens we'd lost in the storm had yet to find us.
