by M Arbon
"Argh," Lewis said, unable to manage anything more coherent, suddenly fed up with this whole stupid pretense. The evening abruptly soured. He headed away, down the sidewalk.
Cam followed a metre behind until they reached the bullet station.
"I'm ending the appointment early," Lewis clarified.
"Thank you, I needed you to verbalize that. Same time next week?"
"Fine, whatever," Lewis said, and went through the turnstile without looking back.
The next week, over take-out shepherd's pie, Lewis said, "I'm sorry about last time."
"So am I." Cam reached out as if to touch Lewis' hand, checked himself, and picked up his ginger beer instead. "You're under a lot of stress right now."
"I shouldn't have taken it out on you."
"Thank you for saying that."
They ate in silence for a few minutes.
"What did you write in your report?"
"Pretty much what happened. We went out to see a show, had a spat, and called it a night early."
Lewis dragged his fork through mashed potatoes. "Is that going to affect my score?"
"Not badly." Cam stopped eating and looked at him. "People do have arguments, you know. It's not unknown."
"I...have difficulty with interpersonal conflict."
"It was a tiny little interpersonal conflict. A nanobot. A snack-sized serving. Couples do it all the time."
The tension across Lewis's shoulders eased. "Yeah?"
"Then they have half-naked, panting, up-against-the-wall make-up sex."
Lewis coloured. "You're just going to keep saying things like that, aren't you?"
Cam lifted a shoulder and let it drop. "It's part of my programming."
Air Lily's production company invited Lewis in for an interview. After a review of his education and his work history, he and one of the production staff went into a tight, thirty-minute conversational clinch over season twenty-nine's daring time shift and its continued implications for in-series continuity. On the bullet home, Lewis had the sudden realization, like a flamethrower to the chest, that he had demonstrated himself to be unprofessional, socially incompetent, and weird, and that not only was he not going to get this job, he was never going to get a better job of any kind and was doomed to spend his life writing algorithms correlating mean daily temperature with people's inclination to linger in the pull-tab-to-heat section of the grocery store.
Three days later, they called him in for another interview.
Lewis spent the week in a jitter of anxiety and distraction.
"This time it was necking and handjobs on the couch," Cam informed him.
"Mm-hm."
"I love how you shivered when I rolled my hips down against yours."
"Mm-hm?"
"When I slowly slid my knee between your thighs, you arched up against me and begged me to touch you."
Lewis pushed his plateful of samosas and stuffed naan away. "Do you want these? I'm not hungry."
At the end of the following week, Air Lily offered him the job.
After he'd finished jumping up and down around the narrow space between bed, couch and wall in a spasm of elation, it occurred to Lewis that this was the type of occasion that called for going out and celebrating over drinks with friends, at least for people who drank and had friends.
After waffling for while, he messaged Cam. He got back boilerplate from The Mercantile saying that Cam was fully engaged this evening, and that another hybrid would be gratified to assist him as long as he was willing to pay the weekend and rush order premiums.
He ended up doing what he usually did on Friday nights: ordering a pizza and then falling asleep on the couch watching the week's episodes of Long Gone Again in one melodramatic slab. It was fine.
His first few weeks on the job were a feverish slog. During the first week he cancelled his appointment with Cam, and stayed late on his own time three nights in a row to increase his comfort level with the show's (extremely) custom analytics software, which had a colour scheme too ridiculous to be believed and ran reports with titles like Why Did They Have to Die? and Fuck, Marry, Kill. He ate nothing that didn't come in a thermal cup or a foil wrapper, and had exceedingly bizarre dreams. Every morning he woke with a thrill.
The second week he was yanked into a problem that had been gnawing at the entire cast and crew for the last several episodes. Ship Librarian Kartal's scene-by-scene Charisma scores were on a gentle slope downwards, and no one could figure out why or what to do about it. Aga Yilmaz, who played Kartal, and Wilhelmina Brody, who wrote most of her dialogue, were severely spooked.
After wrestling with the software and watching Yilmaz's most recent scenes on a loop for a day and a half, Lewis posited that the new acid-green shawl that Wardrobe had hung off the back of her mobile chair looked, from some camera angles, like a snake sitting on her shoulders, and was freaking out a certain portion of the audience without their being able to articulate why. The shawl was changed digitally from green to orange in the episodes still to be released, and soon after they went out, Kartal's score began to recover.
Wilhelmina came up to him at the coffee generator, hugged him wordlessly, and ran away. Yilmaz sent him an enormous gift basket filled with her signature line of cookies, including the limited-edition ones with the shreds of gold leaf on the top.
"Oh my maker," groaned Cam, through a mouthful of chocolate-cinnamon-hazelnut shortbread.
"Yeah, they're pretty good," Lewis said.
"If I wasn't programmed to think that sex was the best thing ever, these would seriously compete. In fact, we might not have sex tonight. We might just sit around eating these cookies until we pass out."
"Be my guest." Lewis had distributed cookies to the cast and crew and admin staff, dropped off a couple of packages at his former workplace, and eaten far too many himself already.
Cam reached over and snagged a chocolate-covered ginger snap. He looked up at the wall. "Isn't that Lieutenant Ogawa?"
"Yeah. Hajime Sasaki got offered a film, and the producers want some numbers to help decide whether they're going to kill him off, replace him, or put him on the shelf for a while. I thought I'd refresh my memory on his story arc this season."
"Look who's bringing his work home."
Lewis shrugged. "It's what I'd be doing anyway."
"True." Cam eyed a lemon crisp. "You know, I've been wondering. What kind of exit strategy did you have in mind for this?"
"For the job?" Lewis frowned. "I just started."
"For me," Cam clarified.
"Oh."
"Your Social score's been almost up to seventy recently. Your Skill and Intelligence scores are well above average. And you've proven you can do the job. They're not going to just fire you if your Social dips again."
"Probably not."
"You can't leave this module in my head forever. It's small, but it's shiny. Someone's going to notice it eventually."
"That's probably true."
"So what was your long-term plan here?"
Lewis paused the screen. The lack of sound settled into the small room.
"I thought, after a while, I'd unlock it and replace it with a camouflaged blank. It's not perfect, but it'll be overwritten after a while, and chances are no one will ever see it."
"A blank? Ugh! Do you have any idea how disconcerting those things are?"
"Disconcerting?"
"Until they get rewritten it's like periodically realizing you've lost something valuable, but you can't remember what. Then you forget again, until the next time." Cam snapped a peppermint crunch cookie in two.
"I could try to come up with another option," Lewis said after a moment.
"I'd appreciate that," Cam said.
Lewis had his three-month job review following his supervisor down the corridor outside the lunch room. It took about two minutes.
"One more time, nice catch on the snake thing," Macy said. "Let me just sign this and-- Okay. Let's pull up your ratings. No, Frank,
by today. Jenn's finding that Ogawa report very useful, by the way. She may ask you to start including that algorithm in the weekly stats for every character. Intel good, Skill right up there. The only dissenting opinion we have on file about you is from Wardrobe, and hey, there's always somebody with their knickers in a twist about something, don't worry about it. Looks good, Patel, but can you make sure to run it through the accessibility checker before we release it? Mark forgot last time, it was embarrassing. Social's on the rise, too. I see you started seeing a hybrid a while ago. Good for you. Nothing like new relationship energy, is there? Let an old man give you some advice: Make time for it. I'm sure this is your dream job, everybody says that at first, but the job will eventually eat your life if you let it. Sammy, wait up! Keep up the good work, Lewis, I'll catch you later."
The series finale of Here Be the Mountain came out on a weekend, but Lewis saved it to watch with Cam.
As the theme song played for the last time over the scrolling credits, Lewis let out a long breath and leaned his head against the back of the couch. His eyelashes were a little damp.
"It's different, watching it in real time," Cam said. "That was nice."
"It was."
"I always thought Bihai and Hao would be good together."
"Yeah."
"They're pretty different from one another, but I think it works for both of them."
"Yeah."
"Was that from the new place on the corner?" Cam asked, stacking empty trays and carrying them to the recycling hatch.
"Yeah. I thought it wasn't bad."
"Good sweet potato rolls. Very good miso soup."
Lewis thumbed through his queue. "There's another Air Lily out. Or I've got the premiere of that new series from Scrapjob, if you're interested."
"Speaking of which," Cam said, washing his hands in the tiny kitchenette sink, "tonight we also enjoyed watching a different kind of serial."
Lewis focused on his screen.
"I let you choose the clip," Cam said. "You sat between my legs, my arms warm around you, your back to my chest, and I put my teeth gently against your neck and watched you get hard. I didn't let you touch yourself for a long time."
Lewis swallowed. "Is there seriously no way you can stop saying things like that?"
Cam raised an eyebrow at him. "Why, do you secretly like it?"
Lewis chose a show entirely at random and pulled it up on the wall.
"Lewis?"
He stared at incomprehensible opening credits.
"...Lewis?"
"Well, yeah," Lewis said.
"...What?"
"I told you I wasn't asexual."
"...All this time?" Cam looked considerably more nonplussed than he had when he'd realized he'd been hacked.
"Not right at first. But you keep talking like that, and we go on dates, and you're practically made to order to be the kind of person I'm attracted to, and, and, how am I supposed to react?"
"By jumping my bones and fucking me into next week!" Cam said incredulously. "Obviously."
"Like that's a thing I can do!"
Cam took a measured breath and let it out again. He sat down on the end of the couch. "I said those things on our first meeting to poke you with a stick. You had just hacked me, after all. I wouldn't have kept teasing you for so long if I thought it really upset you. Does it?"
"I'm not sure upset is the right word." His face was aflame.
"Turns you on. Gets you hot. Makes you want me to--"
"You're still doing it."
"Reflex. Sorry." Cam ran a hand through his hair. "You do remember what it says on my tag, right?"
Lewis frowned, trying to remember. "I think they took it off before I picked you up."
Cam's lips twitched. "There isn't an actual tag."
"Oh."
"Lewis, you're not by any means the first person who's ever hired me and not slept with me." Cam shook his head. "I absolutely understand wanting to avoid having sex you don't want. I can even see choosing not to have sex you do want. I'm having a little trouble understanding choosing not to have the sex you do want with the Personal Services hybrid you hired who says things to you like fucking me into next week."
"Um," Lewis said.
Cam titled his head.
"Okay. On analysis, I can see how that doesn't make sense," Lewis said. He scrubbed his hands over his hot face, lightheaded. It had made perfect sense up until this moment. He couldn't remember why. "I...might need you to make the first move," he confessed.
Cam reached over and put a hand on Lewis's wrist.
He was as warm as a full human. Lewis wasn't sure what he had been expecting.
Wait.
He stared down at Cam's hand.
"Lewis," Cam said gently, "I think it's time you took a look at that module of yours again."
His hands suddenly shaking for a new reason, Lewis thumbed over to the functions screen and pulled up the network.
There Cam was, a solid pink cube, free of any gold sparkle whatsoever.
"Don't panic, The Mercantile doesn't know. It's an off-book job," Cam said.
Lewis blinked at him. "Really? You can do that?"
"I can, yeah. I've been around the block a few times, and I'm not exactly factory spec anymore. I've been upgraded, hacked, patched, you name it, not to mention the weird stuff that can happen with the wetware interface. It's impossible to lock a hybrid down completely. I have some wiggle room." He held up finger and thumb, a centimeter apart. "I'm programming, sure, but I'm not one hundred percent programming."
"How long has it been gone?"
"Oh, only a few weeks. It was a tricky problem to solve."
Lewis shut the screen down. "Who'd you go to?"
"A former client of mine. We have an arrangement."
Compulsively, Lewis pulled the screen up again. "How'd were you even able to tell them you'd been hacked? Everything else seemed to work fine."
Cam made an amused noise. "You know, there are ways to tell someone you've been hacked without actually saying the words I've been hacked."
Lewis turned the pink cube around, examining each of its flat sides. There was really no evidence he'd been there at all. "How'd they do it?"
"She tickled open the lock and wedged it open with a smoke-and-mirrors sub-routine while she dissolved the module--that was the tricky part--and replaced it with something else."
"Blanks? I'm sorry."
"Well, no. I had another idea."
"Oh, yeah?" He hoped it wasn't detectable to an official diagnostic. "What?"
Cam looked away from Lewis. He seemed...embarrassed? "As it happens, there's a, shall we say, Previously On part to this."
He wasn't sure whether he should laugh or not. "Okay."
"I have a confession to make. You know the client session reports?"
"Yes." Lewis generally tried not to think about the things Cam had described being on file somewhere.
"They don't actually require details about the, as you put it, sexual component to our relationship."
"Wait a minute, what?"
"As I say, I was poking you with a stick. Oh, they want to know the generalities, mostly so clients aren't trying to pilfer specialized services they haven't paid for. But even then, what gets passed on to your ratings agency is the pilfering, not the sex. What your agency sees is, you went out with your hybrid boyfriend and a good time was had by all. The rest is assumed. I thought you'd go read your actual reports online and figure it out, but you never did."
Understanding broke over Lewis like it was shattering the sound barrier. "So you're saying...."
"I'm saying that you jumped to a pretty interesting conclusion when you read the contract and saw the words client session report."
His entire body felt scarlet now. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"Would you have believed I was telling the truth?" Cam asked.
"...Probably not."
They sat in silence.
"I, um. I should have
said this before. I apologize for hacking you," Lewis said. Excuses crowded into his mind: I didn't think you'd be so...You're different from...I didn't mean to... He grimaced at himself. "And I should have removed the module on my own, a long time ago. I'm sorry."
"I accept your apology."
After a few moments, Lewis cleared his throat. "So what did she replace the module with instead of a blank?"
"Well. That first evening, while we were watching Air Lily, I actually did write an explicit version of my report. The one with me on my knees. I was fully prepared to read it out to you." He looked sideways at Lewis. "I still am.
"Believe it or not, I had never done that sort of thing before. Oh, talking in bed, of course, but not that kind of...sustained creative endeavour. I found that I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it very much.
"I didn't know anything about what you really desired, so I imagined you liking what I like. What I really like, when I'm choosing it, not just things I'm programmed to enjoy. And, Lewis..." He ran a finger down the tendon of Lewis's wrist, a small touch that made a shiver run the length of Lewis's arm. "I didn't want the hack discovered. Not because it prevented me from telling anyone, but because I didn't want your client privileges ended.
"I needed a patch that looked plausible. So I told her to put those reports in where the module was.
"And now, when I remember our dates, I remember those things too."
He made a rueful face. "The joke's on me, really. I know they're not real memories, but they feel real. I know what you taste like when I lick your skin. I know what you look like when you're desperate to come. I know what it feels like when you put your mouth on me." He met Lewis's eyes. "Maybe I'm right, maybe I'm wrong. I'd really like to find out."
Lewis swallowed past a dry throat. "Is this the first move?"
Cam smiled. "This is the first move."
They slid their hands under each other's clothing. Cam licked a hot line down Lewis's neck. Lewis dug his hands into Cam's hair and made him moan. Cam slid off the couch and knelt between Lewis's legs. He slid his thumbs up the inside of Lewis's thighs, and Lewis canted his hips forward helplessly. Please touch me, he begged in the privacy of his own head. Please.