Pestilence

by ÆGEON DAVIS

  5

  Bump in the Night

  I lay in a bed by myself due to my size. My skin was back to normal, save for the craggy lower half that wasn’t changing back. I was still soft to touch, however the girls liked to snuggle with each other. Sometimes with me, if the mood was right.

  Ari made a makeshift nest out of some pillows and linens he found in the closet. Poor fella. They really botched him up.

  I wondered if he could still be trusted. Hera would have to turn him eventually, but the chances of her doing that were slim. It would force her to have romantic relations with him and she wasn’t one for lizards. For now, the inoculation of her genetic cocktail would have to do. It was strong enough to ease the evil, but it wouldn’t fully convert them to good. That would take a full dose of Hera via intercourse.

  I heard a rustle as a figure rose from the other bed. As the obviously female form passed by my bed and into the moonlight, I could see that it was Crystal. Her gemstone pattern shined like a star in a ballroom as she turned away from me. She was looking for something. Probably a loved one.

  I rose from my bed and slipped off the mattress, approaching her from behind.

  “Can’t sleep?” I asked.

  She turned her head cautiously toward me and then glanced back out the window.

  “Yeah,” she said. “It’s my sister. Sometimes I can hear her at night.”

  “Hear her?” I asked to clarify.

  “We’re twins,” Crystal admitted. “After we got infected, we each experienced incredible abilities. We worked the brothel for months, having sex with men for money, only to get them to bring in their wives. My sister, Nyx, was taken not long after. Just like how I was taken by you.”

  “You are with friends,” I reassured her.

  “Is that what you are?” she asked. “Last time I checked, you were kidnappers.”

  I chuckled. “We are trying to help you and your kind.”

  “Why can’t we just be who we are?” she asked and then argued, “Sometimes doing the wrong thing is the right way.”

  “Sometimes it is,” I agreed, stepping closer behind her.

  She caught my eyes when I said that. I could smell her fragrant blonde hair, shimmering in the pale moonlight. She was small for her size, yet the warmth of her skin radiated like a furnace. She was hot.

  “Listen,” I said. “I know better than anyone that the world isn’t black and white. All we ask is that you try to change.”

  She slowly turned her body to face me, her eyes gazing at the size of my chest. She raised her hand and traced a finger down the hardened muscle that was flesh as of now.

  “You are strong,” she said.

  “We are all strong, Crystal,” I affirmed. “It’s what we choose to do with our strength that makes us who we really are.”

  Her eyes fluttered and her full lips puckered over her resplendent teeth, forming a kiss. I leaned in and tasted all that was her. Strawberries and mint came to mind. A few kisses later, she pulled away from me and looked at the others, sound asleep.

  “Don’t they care?” she asked.

  “We have an understanding,” I said. “We are all here by choice.”

  “What about me?” she asked.

  “You’ll have that choice too, when you are cured from the villainy,” I said. “All I ask is that you help us in our hunt until you are ready to take the cure.”

  She thought for a moment. Her look of worry was blanketed over by passion, and then she kissed me again. I could feel her warm arm wrap around my back. She lowered her hand to my buttocks and then my thigh.

  It would be any moment now; the moment every woman waited for upon meeting me. Was it metal? Was it soft? I was always humble and liked to keep them guessing until this moment.

  “I will help you if it helps me get my sister back,” she said.

  Then she went for it, kissing me harder, feeling my hardened cock under my shorts rise up to my belly button. She ran her hand down, getting a lay of the land, and then fingered her way up. Before she reached the tip, I pulled away from her enchanting kiss and motioned her toward the bathroom.

  I hadn’t felt this way before. Sneaking around at night to fool around with a gorgeous blonde. I mean, this thing didn’t happen to a guy like me before I was infected.

  Some things do change, and I like it.

  I hit the lights in the bathroom. I tried to ignore the broken capsule in the shower and quickly pulled the curtain over it. As I turned around, Crystal closed the door and jumped into my arms, wrapping her small legs around my waist. She pulled on my neck and kissed me.

  I gripped her small, tight thighs, carrying her with ease. She felt as light as a feather. I sat down on the toilet as she planted kisses on my cheek and then my neck. I watched her abdomen, the small pudge of belly, roll like a stripper’s would on a pole. I was her pole.

  She rose off me and pulled off my shirt. She moved her fingers along the cracks of metal on my hardened six-pack. She pressed on the abs, and could feel it was soft and yet metal-like in texture. She eventually noticed the tip of my dick bulging from my waistline, hardened to metal as well. Her eyes widened and she slowly pulled my shorts down, releasing all that was me.

  She wrapped her small hands around my cock and pulled it toward her face, her expression showing she was astonished at how shiny, how hard it was, yet still soft and flesh-like.

  “Amazing,” she breathed, putting her lips around it.

  She felt like heaven. I reached over to her sheer, studded, nude suit and pulled it down over her perky breasts. They were smaller than Hera’s and Jess’s, but still looked amazing, christened with two gumdrop-sized nipples.

  I fingered each one while she slobbered more on my cock. She could hardly take the whole thing. Her mouth was burning hot on my cold, metal shaft.

  She worked it with both hands and seemed to hum and moan with every gulp as if it were a signature. I could feel every vibration, every noise on my cock, and the sensation was insane. She popped her mouth off me with a hard suck and pressed her breasts around my shaft. She was giving me the full treatment, and I loved it. Up and down she slid her breasts, with each stroke, licking the tip of my head.

  I could feel the sensation building. It was going to be showtime any second. I hope she’s ready for my hot, gushing fountain.

  I grabbed her shoulders, helping her with the movement. The feeling was captivating. It was only when I caught her eyes, the look of loyalty deep within them, that I let all of me go. Ropes of silky white strung across her chest. A second gush made it to her chin, and she promptly licked the batter, still pushing hard on my shaft. One final throb filled the rest of her cleavage with spunk, decreasing in volume with each thrust as I finished.

  She pulled her tits off my cock and squeezed them together, rubbing them like they were coated with cream she would get at a spa. She gracefully stood up and bent over the sink to lap the semen off her chest.

  I was still caught in the moment, trying to catch my breath.

  And then I heard a crashing noise, and the bathroom went dark.

  I grew the hardened metal over my skin. I could see Crystal’s gems sparkling in the faint moonlight creeping in from the window. I kicked the door off its hinges and saw Hera, Jess and Ari scrambling out their beds. Gem was slow to follow.

  “What happened?” I yelled out, walking to the front door.

  “I don’t know,” Hera said, coming up behind me. “Do you think they found us?”

  I checked the peephole and saw nothing. Only darkness. The chances of it being the government agency were slim, but not impossible.

  I looked back at the girls and Ari. Gem sat on the bed with towels knotted around her stomach. We were going to have to run and get her out of there.

  SMASH! SMASH! SMASH!

  The shattering of glass could be heard from each room around us. They were making their way through the hotel.

  “Hera, you carry Gem,” I ordered. “Get to the van. I wil
l cause a diversion and hold them off.”

  I kicked the front door off its hinges and into the wall across the hallway and pointed for Hera to go. Jess kissed Gem on the cheek, then Hera picked Gemini up in her arms and met me at the door.

  “Let’s roll,” I said, stepping out into the dark hallway.

  My super vision was faulty at times like this. While it was great for zoom capability, it didn’t do well in the absence of light. I was about ten paces ahead of Hera; she was waiting till we hit the T-junction in the hallway so she could bolt out the doors and get to the van.

  SMASH!

  The door ahead of me broke open. What stepped out was larger than me, breaking its head through the doorway. I could hardly catch the grimacing teeth and the burning red eyes of the beast through the debris.

  Another doorway smashed from across him. A sleek, golden figure cartwheeled out in front of it. Blue fire lit from this smaller one’s hand. I could feel the warm energy on my face.

  I readied for their attack, but then was bedazzled with what I was looking at. The two, standing there in a guarded stance, each one contrasting each other.

  The one holding the fire in her hand was a woman wearing a black mask around the lower part of her face, like some two-bit ninja. Her curvy figure was tight in form and neatly wrapped in hexagonal carbon fiber weave over golden metal skin. She was petite but lethal.

  Behind her, the smug beast was something of a woman. From her lower jaw protruded two large tusks as large as her breasts. Her arms were bigger than mine. It looked like a damn walrus had fucked a rhino, giving birth to this monstrosity of a woman.

  Two doors smashed open behind us. I looked back just in time to see Ari hiss in fury as two odd characters stepped out. One held a hammer the size of my chest. Another unfurled a pair of whips that bolted with electricity.

  “Stop!” the small woman yelled out, her mouth muffled under her mask. Her purple eyes glimmered in the reflection of her telekinetic violet fire.

  “Who are you?” I demanded, waiting for someone to pounce on me.

  The small one took a step forward and bowed slightly, dancing her violet fire above her, illuminating the hallway. She made a ritualistic move, placing one hand over the other, as if commencing a friendly gesture or greeting.

  I felt Hera stop short behind me in surprise, still holding Gem.

  “We are the Acolytes. A group of villainesses training to hunt you,” the small, golden-skinned woman said. “I am Aulani.”

  Training to hunt us?

  The notion was absurd. Who would want to stop the infection from spreading, stop the cure from extinguishing evil? But here we were, hunted and caught by four villainesses. Perhaps they were good at their job after all.

  She pointed to the tusked woman. “This is Blitzkrieg. Behind you are Aeropounder and Slipstream.”

  I was less than thrilled to hear their names. It was obvious that the one clad in thick armor and holding a large hammer was Aeropounder. She was a brute, her black hair pulled back tighter than her facial expression. The girl next to her was smaller. I couldn’t help notice her hair was made of wires and parted in three quarters with some kind of port socketed cipher device integrated into her head.

  By the absence of sirens screaming in the air, I knew they’d already killed the hotel clerk.

  “Well, that fucking explains a lot,” I said. “Now that you have found us. What do you want?”

  “We are here to offer a truce,” the larger one said, her voice as deep as mine.

  A truce?

  While it did sound tempting, these villainesses had something coming to them if they thought I would agree to that. Sure, I hated the hunt, but it was my responsibility. If weren’t for my creation, none of this would have happened in the first place.

  “We don’t bargain with villainesses,” Hera said.

  “And what of your humans?” she asked. “Do you bargain for them?”

  What is she talking about? “You already infect humans,” I said.

  “It was you we feared, ever since the events in San Diego, but now, something worse than you, something far more…infectious has evolved.”

  The words slipped off her tongue like a snake. I looked to Ari and my girls, but it wasn’t till I caught Hera’s eyes and the sight of Gem in her arms that I knew who the woman was referring to.

  “The jumper,” I said, my eyes widening, giving them an owlish look.

  “Yes,” she said. “Tessa has sent us here to ask you for help.”

  “Tessa!?” I yelled out at the top of my lungs.

  Ari was quick to charge at them when he heard her name. My thoughts went rampant, after not hearing her name for some time.

  The A.I. that killed my brother.

  “That fucking bitch? Pardon me, beautiful,” Ari hissed, trying to claw at the Acolytes in front of us with his long, reptilian nails. “I hope she burns in hell.”

  “Tame your lizard, grey man,” the large, tusked woman named Blitzkrieg said. “Tessa has shown us the way to the light.”

  “The only light Tessa knows is the fire upon the world she wants to watch burn,” I said.

  “You must speak with her, Mantium,” Aulani pleaded. “If we don’t stop it now, there will be nothing left of the SubSpace.”

  The SubSpace.

  I looked to Hera, her dark eyebrows squeezed together in dismay. We hadn’t gone into the SubSpace since the event. Since San Diego. And now we would have to help the one that caused this misery, this infection? Tessa, the woman responsible for taking James, my older brother, the man I’d looked up to all my life.

  We would have to watch our backs, for the knives would be sharp when they entered.

  6

  SubSpace

  The SubSpace was the medium that had once allowed game designers to create worlds upon worlds. Hera, Ari, and I were some of these creators, however, since the bankruptcy of Iconoclast, the SubSpace had been divvied up and split apart. A large portion went to the public sector. Here, people could enter into the SubSpace for free and without constraints set upon them by a corporation.

  One of the first liberal corporations to make a large stake in the public property was Enconn. While most of their profits were from 3D printing and software that uploaded consciousness to the real world, they had expanded their sights to the SubSpace infrastructure. In particular, holding public events, such as election parties and popular conventions.

  We had heard of these and even experienced our first SubSpace convention in San Francisco, where we had first met Gem. But that was peanuts to what was happening now. Cosplayers could completely change their identity. No longer were they confined to the rules of the real world.

  I stepped into a muggy old hotel room that stank with the tinge of chemical cleaner and young sex. The crotch rot filled my nostrils, and I could tell it put Hera on edge. Dirt was exposed, showing the rotting construction materials on the floor.

  Looks like the Nevada building codes are up to date.

  Behind Hera was the rest of my misfit crew: Crystal and Jess, holding Gem, who was looking better than before. Ari was behind them, his stitched together, reptilian face shrouded in a hoodie Jess had given him. I couldn’t help but chuckle, seeing the large letters displayed across his chest: ‘PINK’.

  It was ill-fitting on him, to say the least.

  “This place is wretched,” Hera said.

  “Yeah, that ain’t shit,” Ari said. “Just remember, my nose is ten times as sensitive as yours.”

  Crystal and Jess gave him disgusted looks while covering their noses.

  Inside the musty room, the Acolytes showed us to the beds. The chairs and sofas had been converted to SubSpace projection stations.

  I recognized the ’T’-shaped rig called the Augmented Reality Materialization Output Rig, or ‘ARMOR’. It had been outfitted with makeshift pads so one could lay on it. Developed by Enconn, this rig would project one’s bodily self into the SubSpace. The user would feel everything
that happened in there, and everyone feel what the user did. It was a bridge between reality and the other dimension.

  “So, what is the the SubSpace exactly?” Crystal asked.

  “The SubSpace is a folded dimension injected with digital code from our dimension,” Ari explained. “In this case, DNA gets encrypted and sent to that folded dimension. We call this Gatica.”

  “Wait, a different dimension?” Crystal asked. “So, there’s more than one?”

  “Well, you mean more than three. We live in a three-dimensional universe. Four, if you count time as a dimension,” I said. “So far, super string theory has postulated there being up to twenty-six, but when Iconoclast Games was in its heyday, it had only found one. The SubSpace. Gamers can access it from anywhere in our dimension. Or our universe, for that matter. This is how Iconoclast built their massive MMO.”

  “MMO?” Crystal asked.

  Ari rolled his eyes at her naiveté. “Massive Multiplayer Online game.”

  The tusked woman now stood behind me and gave me a slight shove onto the bed. Her power was immense. I noticed Aulani spare a concerning look for my well-being at that moment.

  “Easy, Blitzkrieg,” she said.

  “Get on there, grey man,” Blitzkrieg said, ignoring Aulani.

  I watched the other two Acolytes, both outfitted in distinct, blood red armor and padding. The one with the whips and wires for hair, Slipstream, gave a wink and stuck out her tongue, wiggling it in a sexual way. Blitzkrieg was quick to slap her head from behind.

  “He’s Tessa’s,” she growled.

  Jesus. This is a trap.

  By the look of Jess’s worried face, she knew it too.

  They laid each one of us down and then took to their own ARMOR rigs. As I closed my eyes, I felt a surge of energy building upon my body. I couldn’t help but get nostalgic about all of it.

  “Just like old times, eh?” I said to Hera.