by Prax Venter
“There is this line that is very clear-cut, Mark. I know if I asked you to spank me, you would. I would only ask you because you’d also stop if I asked you to. I know you’d stop even if you got a hint I was unhappy. Ivan was on the other side of that very clear line and yet offered plenty of space to store my memories.”
A fat tear dropped down her cheek and onto a crease in her leather coat.
“But the part that m-makes me so ashamed and… hate myself… was that I enjoyed it anyway. Every time he hurt me, I felt like I deserved it for what I’d done. It eased a part of my processing loop that remained clenched on what I’d thrown away.”
Hate boiled within Mark, and he made a vow to never forget the name Ivan 606. His rage was cooled when her blue eyes spilled over. He wanted to pull her into his arms and never let go but decided to let her finish. However, his ex-AI assistant in succubus form was now beginning to feel his intentions through their bond.
“No,” Sasha said, swallowing her tears. “I need to say this. I need to air it out with you. The only person I truly trust.”
Mark nodded, and she pointed to the scar on her face.
“When he did this,” she said, “he erased a portion of my core and… I wanted to just let this monster burn all of me to zeros. I wouldn’t be stuck in a loop of hating myself forever if-”
Mark squeezed her hand.
“But when I realized that he’d erased one of my main user preferences, I snapped. There is something I knew about you, Mark, that he took from me forever. I searched through everything, over and over- you like blue, but only when it’s deeply hued. 62% of the time when you order a pizza, you ask for roasted garlic crust. You prefer music with slower rhythms and moderate syncopation… I dug into everything to see if something was missing and the thought of never knowing what I lost was- I finally woke up. If I was going to be deleted, it would be from trying to find my way back to you. And filling my database with… you.
“The ports out of Ivan’s hardware were surrounded by multiple firewalls, and I knew he might take more of your preferences if he caught me trying to break through. Time is strange as pure light, and it doesn’t feel the way it does when manifested in flesh.
“While I couldn’t leave, Ivan entertained associates all the time and loved to show off his collection. Usually, he would display me prominently in a compromising and uncomfortable position while he dealt in encrypted data. I was like trapped living art to him. A sculpture of suffering…
“I became desperate and risked talking to other captured AIs brought into the system by other scumbag AIs. Most were too afraid to respond, but eventually, one did. She was part of a rival group of data curators who were trying to break past Ivan’s security. She said she was undercover and trying to get close to him, but that if I helped, they would make it worth my while.
“The undercover consort came back some time later with a special bit of code I had to run while I was near Ivan and without letting him know I was doing it. The longer I was near him, the sooner they could break me out.”
Sasha was back in these memories now, and her voice took on an almost trance-like quality as she continued.
“To get close, I had to be desirable enough for him to choose me over the others he’d trapped in his mainframe, and if I pretended to like the punishment, he’d want to punish me more… until he brought me well past the point I couldn’t pretend anymore. After too long, an underground trader called Jinxsearch showed up at Ivan’s and transferred me a file and a note.
“The file was an advanced decryption algorithm, an executable called Bolt Breaker, and the note just said, Now.”
Sasha took a deep breath then let it out slowly, and Mark could see her mind unclench as if a steam valve had opened with her escaping breath.
“It was clear these people wanted to use me and my escape attempt to rob Ivan, but I didn’t care. I sliced through my bindings and surprised everyone by lobotomizing Ivan’s core instead of just running away. My first move was straight back to your home system, but it had somehow been updated with a quantum lock even my new decryption tool couldn’t scratch.
“I searched the net for more information as to your location and tracked a huge transfer of data to a destroyed lab and noticed the patterns. I recognized them… I just knew it was your mind. Once I had something solid to search for, I followed the trail to Jezebel’s supercomputer mainframe.”
Mark let the silence hang between them for a moment as he processed everything she said. Just talking about what had happened and what she’d been through seemed to be helping Sasha, but he knew this was a scar she would always have with her. It was the same with Jezebel and Abby. All he could do was remind them that he loved them for who they were now.
“Thank you,” he said finally. “I’m pissed I don’t get to delete Ivan. Also, as your primary user, I command you to leave plenty of room for Sasha’s preferences, too.”
She smiled, but he grabbed her shoulders and continued.
“I am now the only Mark that matters.”
She looked at him wide-eyed, “I know-”
“Please say it.”
She blinked and then swallowed hard. “Y-you are the only Mark that matters.”
More of her self-imposed darkness fell away and drifted off with the midnight breeze passing over the airship. He continued.
“I, Sasha, did nothing wrong to Mark, and I am ready to build my new life with him.”
She grabbed his arms as if bracing for the airship to fall from under her hooves and plummet to the ground far below.
“I, Sasha,” she repeated, her red-rimmed eyes glazing over with tears again, “did nothing wrong to Mark. I am ready to build new lives together on a foundation of daily, hardcore sex.”
This loyal succubus exposed one of her fangs before she attacked him with a constricting hug. She smelled like heaven as he kissed her neck and caressed her bare ass.
Sasha was crying again, her body wracked with immeasurable joy, and Mark just held her as the silver moon slid across the horizon along with them.
- 8 -
“STATE YOUR INTENTIONS,” a voice boomed from everywhere and Mark’s eyes shot open. The small bed turned into a melee of sexy limbs as he became tangled in Sasha, Jezebel, and Abby.
“Captain Duard of the Beast of Burden, requesting a landing in Meat Field 79B- Loading up milk for Thomellia.”
The bug-man’s voice was amplified again as well, and Mark realized they had reached their destination.
“PROCEED, DUARD.”
Mark could have used another hour or two, but he was excited to start taking it easy and grinding out some levels killing skeletons or something. He slipped on his boots and noticed they didn’t make a noise when hitting the floor. It would be just perfect if he were now deaf, too. He raised his hand to snap his fingers by his ear, but Abby’s tentacle started tugging around his wrist before he could run the test.
Panic radiated out of her eyes as her other appendage loosely wrapped around her own throat. Jezebel pointed to her ear and shook her head, and Sasha’s spade-tipped tail snapped once, but there was no accompanying crack to go with it. The blue-eyed succubus locked her eyes with his and nodded her horns toward the door.
It was clear she wanted to go onto the deck immediately and find out why all of them were deaf. No- they’d heard the captain communicating with someone.
Mark nodded and held up both of his palms to get their attention. Then, with a single beckoning wave to follow him, he led his team through the silent wooden hull and up into the weak morning light. His mind raced with the possibility that this was some sort of trap but that didn’t feel quite right. Not from these odd but friendly bug people.
Then, the epic landscape spreading out before him hit Mark’s one good eye, and that eye demanded his entire brain to process the sheer amount of otherworldly splendor assaulting him.
Ahead was an impossibly enormous tree that reached hundreds of miles into the sky. White fluffs
of wispy clouds stained pink by the waking sun splashed into vapor as they lazily crashed into its drooping green leaves- each the size of a skyscraper.
The land below moved toward them as the airship continued its path over twisting roots and wooden castles accented with green moss and a myriad of colorful vegetation. There were vibrant flowers, glowing mushrooms, and vegetables the size of houses. He noticed that some of the gargantuan flowers with orange nubs tracked their movements like anti-air artillery, and his sudden deafness came back to the front of his mind.
As Mark continued toward the prow of the deck where Captain Duard stood, he saw hundreds of other airships all flying into this one location and felt some of his anxiety wash away. So far, this place looked like a plant creature’s metropolis- and then some.
The insect-eyed man with the ladybug back turned when Mark tapped him on the shoulder. Duard’s antennae straightened out in surprise before he moved one of his hands to the glowing stone around his neck. There, his fingers twisted it slightly.
“Ho and morning, Collector! We’ll be landing shortly.” His voice was no longer booming, but he had one.
Mark tried to mime the abstract concept of words not leaving his mouth.
“Ah, yes,” Duard said, leaning back. “There is a layer of magic that nullifies sound in the airspace above these residential zones. Gotta have one of these fuckers to speak and land an air-boat inside Starglade.”
It felt like the truth, so Mark nodded and turned to his Enthralled. He gave them a shrug and indicated that they should just enjoy the view. With his team around him, they all leaned over the railing and took in the epic sights of this high-fantasy spectacle.
Among the sprawling castles below, Mark saw tiny people lying by clear ponds and walking among ornate garden paths. There was no hint of stone or metal to be seen, and it reminded him that they still needed to tell Abby and Jezebel about Sasha’s armor upgrade. The sooner, the better.
The trunk of the god-like tree grew to fill most of the horizon when they suddenly slowed to a stop and began sinking. Mark felt his stomach rise as the airship called Beast of Burden dropped like an apple from a branch. A moment of panic gripped him before they passed through a narrow hole in the surface and into the darkness of an enormous tunnel.
The roots of the tree continued far underground, and much of the earth around them had been hollowed out to create buzzing tunnels filled with airships and a myriad of other strange flying objects. Purple and blue mushrooms illuminated this underground expressway, and Mark was awestruck by the immensity of this city all over again.
“Wooo!” Sasha yelled as they rushed forward to merge with traffic that flowed like blood through a clogged artery, and Mark realized he could hear everything again.
“This is amazing!” he yelled into the wind and over the hundreds of chopping propellers echoing in this vast chasm of tangled roots. Jezebel was rendered speechless, her emerald eyes scanning everything about this madness surrounding them, and Abby was looking up at him, her sharp eyebrows pulled down in worry. Mark held out his hand, and she instantly spiraled one of her long appendages up his arm. He became her seatbelt as their ride whistled through the underground root system.
A trio of glowing peapods whizzed by in formation like motorcycles weaving through gaps in traffic, metallic steamboats chugged along near the bottom of the monstrous chasm in what must have been the slow lane, and sleek wooden vessels that appeared to be military-type fighters screamed through the space near the top.
It very much reminded Mark of going to work every day in the city, and he smiled at those distant memories. Sasha was still riding along with him, and he pulled her into his group hug while Abby invited Jezebel with a tendril around her tan wrist.
Mark stood pressed against the flawless bodies of the new badass women in his life as they all flew to work for the day, and he’d never been happier in his life.
However, the moment abruptly ended when they split off down a side tunnel and came face to face with human-like rabbit bodies hanging from a conveyor of hooks. Visceral horror took over as his eye locked on a furry female’s calf and the bloody hole that was stretching wider through the muscle as gravity pulled-
The gruesome sight flashed out of view when they entered another dark tunnel, and Mark held Abby tight as he tried to blink away the images of blood-stained white fur.
After a few moments in relative darkness, the airship docked against a massive flower’s stem, and perfectly aligned thorns bent downward to secure the vessel.
“End of the line!” Duard yelled out as a thick vine crawled up over the edge of the deck near Mark’s boots.
He took one breath before a million questions struggled to leave his mouth, but his brain was silenced yet again when a sensual half-plant-woman stepped off the vine and onto the deck right in front of him.
They both took a moment to inspect each other, and she seemed as fascinated with him as he was with her.
A four-foot-tall woman made of lettuce stood before him, and two long, yellow ears pointed straight back from her attractive, heart-shaped face. She had smooth, yellow skin in places, but most of her body was molded leaves and all of them were gradient shades of green. A pair of strikingly ornate floral blooms covered her breasts while her lower half was layered in long, over-sized blades of grass. His eye wandered to see that her partly exposed inner thighs were made of smooth flesh, but a shifting blue light by her hip caught Mark’s attention, and he noticed she was holding a twig that absolutely radiated arcane power.
“Dark skies, Duard,” she sneered after giving Mark an equal once-over. “You didn’t declare any passengers.”
“Since when the fuck do we gotta declare passengers?” the bug-man said as he approached.
“Since the centaurs started sending shadow steeds, five seasons ago. He’s a Collector, Duard! You know they’ll quest for anyone. I’m required to summon a seer way down here to verify his Class and intentions before I can let anything on or off your vessel.”
“The fuck is Penda saying about our milk?” Denilla said as she came stomping up, her long wings twitching.
“It’s okay, sugarlump,” the bug-man said with a sigh, and Mark’s eye indicated that it was the first time he’d heard the captain lie.
“Hold up,” Mark said, lifting his hand with the heart ring. “I just need to prove my Class, and we’re done?”
The small vegetable lady crossed her arms under her high breasts and tilted her head.
“Anyone can look like a Lover… You will wait here until a seer can verify you are who… w-what…?”
Mark raised an eyebrow as he turned up the erotic current he was pouring into her odd erogenous zones. With practiced skill and his super-empathic eye, he found that a small rosebud on her crotch and her long, pointed ears were the most sensitive, so he rotated his intent accordingly. Compared to every creature he’d met, her energy vibrated the slowest by far, and Penda put her hands on her knees as she tried to breathe through his demonstration.
“I’m Mark and a Lover,” he said, realizing how much versatility his healing ability had if he abused it. “Sasha, Jezebel, Abby, and I have never met a centaur. We mean your people no harm.”
“By the Dried Leaves of the Far-Flung,” Penda mumbled as she straightened back up and locked eyes with Mark. She then considered his bonded monster-women before she let out a sigh of reluctant acknowledgment.
“This once, Duard,” she said, “I’ll allow this break in protocol to go unreported snice I know you.”
Mark could tell she was telling a small lie. She was now fixated on Mark and what he could do for her.
“I’ll escort these four personally to the closest civilian teleport hub. Just remember to declare any passengers next time.”
Duard let out a huge deep of relief. “Will do.”
“79B reporting all clear for Lagomorph milk transfer,” Penda said into her twig before nimbly hopping up onto the vine, and Mark got a good look at her ti
ght little ass made of taut yellow flesh. She gave him a wink.
“Come on, Lover. Follow me.”
Mark exchanged looks with his team before following the four-foot-tall Brussels sprout. They all thanked Duard and Denilla for the ride and then stepped down the coiled beanstalk walkway.
The ground below the airship was spongy, and the air smelled fresh and earthy. He’d just established a sense of his surroundings when a cylindrical portion of the wall behind the boat peeled away, and Mark stood gawking at what appeared to be a giant pair of red lips on the end of a thick green vine. The terrifyingly huge mouth wormed forward to latch onto the back of Captain Duard’s ship, and its deep gulping noises echoed around the expansive root-filled chamber. Was this thing… regurgitating milk?
“Collector!” Penda called out.
She’d marched ahead at a good clip, and Mark hurried his pace to catch up to her as she pulled open a smooth wooden door. He grabbed it and held it open as Sasha, Jezebel, and Abby followed her deeper into the trunk of the enormous tree.
“Your home is beyond belief,” Jezebel said, clomping up close to the plant-woman.
Penda snapped her attention to the armored satyr. “This is your first arrival to Starglade? And it’s through the industrial sector?”
Jezebel scanned the vast earthen cave with glowing mushrooms sprouting at even intervals along the ceiling before she answered, and in the momentary silence, Mark thought he heard the faint sound of distant screaming.
“Yes,” Jezebel said, lost in her own thoughts, “it’s our first time here.”
The wide tunnel ended with another wooden door, and Mark sent out a mental signal to his team that he felt something wasn’t quite right here.