Then one day, chance had sent her walking across the matcher’s field of view. He’d seen the flaws, the loneliness her trust fund money brought, the hidden loss of self-esteem inflicted by both husbands leaving her, compounded by a string of indifferent lovers. An absent, uncaring family. Chinks in the glossy armor that Tronde could pry open to worm his way in, before allowing the specially mixed hifli to do the rest. Claudette Gizelle d’Voy Beaumant was vulnerable; a life empty of goals and filled by sameness had left her yearning for something new, something different, something with edge. A young stud worshipful of the body she’d devoted herself to keeping supreme—because that’s what the right people did with their endless golden days. A kid whose poverty allowed her to be completely in charge this time around. And a kid who also had the secret codes to a darker, more exciting, level of pleasure.
How lucky she’d been that the agency had sent him around to repair one of her home printers when it unexpectedly flatlined. He knew his job well, so he wasn’t stupid. A tight t-shirt showed off firm pecs as he gave her some cheeky banter. His stories of a rough childhood and running with the wrong crowd were fascinating to someone of her background. But he was turning things around now, with a job he was good at—so not a danger, every instinct told her. And that torso…Appearance was everything to Claudette, to her world.
Tronde had stripped by the time she emerged from the bathroom. The stuff she was wearing now…He didn’t have a clue if it was supposed to be lingerie or a bikini. It was made of black wet-look leather strips, stretched taut over what little flesh they did cover. All very nice pretend slave girl. He guessed one of her husbands must have gotten off on it.
She gazed down eagerly at his groin. Two years ago, Tronde had spent a couple of days in a clinic getting Kcell implants in his dick, not just to increase size, but to give him complete control through Nyin. He could stay erect for as long as he wanted, when he wanted. Like now.
“Come here,” he told her.
Claudette moved like a hostage following orders, quick and awkward so she didn’t disappoint her captor. He enjoyed the display of urgency; it was a sweet preview of what was to come, providing he played this perfectly. It wasn’t a new scam, but it was one her artless rich-girl brain would never think to watch out for. This simply didn’t happen to her. Nobody would do such a thing, not in real life. Some people were bad, but not to this degree, not outside a Hong Kong gangster virtual, because everyone she met was fundamentally decent.
The hook was in already. The interesting man, naughty but nice. She’d try him out and brag about it amid wild giggles with her girlfriends. Once she got him into bed, he’d sheepishly conjure up a couple of pads. “I’ve got some hifli; let’s try it together.” And who hadn’t heard of hifli, one of the few restricted narks the authorities still took very seriously, on account of the human wreckage it left behind? The nark that scrambled nerve impulses, so the brain interpreted every sensation as pure pleasure: heat, cold, touch, pain, taste, some even said sound…Because he wanted them to take it “together,” the risk was obviously negligible.
She found that sex with a hifli-befuddled brain was good. Really good. And that first time he only gave her a weak load.
But he’d confessed it was the best ever for him, too, even though his pad was blank.
Can we do it again?
A couple of times later, with the dose slowly increased, he couldn’t get any. I’m out of money, sorry. That was okay, because she had plenty. So can you bring some, I’ll pay…
Claudette sat on the bed with breathless anticipation, smirking at his tireless erection. Tronde held up the two pads, careful to place his blank tenderly in her eager hand. “Look what the bad boy brought you.”
“Lucky me.” She moved to apply it on her neck, above the carotid, so the hifli would be carried quickly into her brain.
“Wait,” he commanded.
There was a pout, but he leaned forward and kissed her. Trust; it was all about trust. He was her lusty young rogue who wanted her for the hot, dirty sex her fantastic body could perform and nothing else. Certainly not her money. He was validation that she remained a highly desirable sexual animal, justly yearned for on those terms alone. Proof she had gotten this so very right.
“We’re doing this together,” he’d say, so full of reassurance. And put his pad on her neck. She’d press the identical little white hemisphere to his skin, and they’d squeeze in unison.
Most times, the scam would last a few weeks, until the girl’s credit was gone and she was a broken husk. But it could be played harder if you were brutal enough and the reward was worth it. If you could find the right victim, one who would give you everything.
Tronde watched the face he found so abhorrent grow slack, pupils dilating as the hifli sluiced into her synapses. He was pretty sure they didn’t need to use Jade’s special version. The mild doses he’d given her so far had rendered her pliable and hungry for more—but it never hurt to be sure. So the benzo-mix it was.
It worked, too; she took off her saucy black straps without a qualm when he ordered her to. Breath juddered out of her mouth in jubilant gasps as the fabric slithered over her skin, conjuring up delectable sparkles of bliss.
If hifli made that feather-light stroke euphoric, sex was devastating.
He observed her helpless squirming with detached interest as he refined the sinful indignities that proved the most physically stimulating for her.
Again and again she wept and convulsed as she climaxed on his machine cock, each time leaving her craving more. She was so delirious she never realized the joy wasn’t shared, that they weren’t together after all. It was the implacable Kcells providing him with all the time he needed to overload her nervous system until, at the end, she simply collapsed into a fugue state.
Tronde walked calmly around the bedroom, opening boxes and drawers so Nyin could catalogue the contents and produce a valuation. Tonight he simply helped himself to a couple of diamond rings; he knew a fence who could get him a decent price, and there was no need to be greedy. She would wake in the morning and, without the nark charging her bloodstream, the world would be dry and bland and numb. She’d clamor for more, pester him to bring her the glory that came only from him and the nark.
Twinned with the dopamine boost, she should start descending rapidly into full-blown addiction, with a strong side effect of mounting neurosis. Paranoia would creep in to bond with the dependency. And he would supply an eternal quantity of himself and the nark, quenching her all-consuming needs. It would cost her. Satisfaction and relief weren’t cheap, but there were millions in her trust fund. Played right, he could drain most of that out before her inexorable total breakdown. By then he’d be gone, a name known only to impotent therapists from her tearful screams.
Tronde stood over her inert body with its unnervingly open empty eyes, watching the twitches that still afflicted her limbs, and for the first time that night he managed a genuine smile. The future was going to be a grand place to live.
Callum Hepburn walked through the newly threaded portal from the Nkya research base with no idea what was on the other side. A smug Yuri hadn’t volunteered that detail.
Straight away he found himself face-to-face with a five-person security team. All of them were tall and dressed in dark energy-absorbing armor, their contoured helmets like outsized silver skulls. Small stub nozzles had risen out of their forearms and shoulders, making them bristle like nervous porcupines. Several small delta-planform drones hovered silently in the air above them, black glass lenses aligned on everyone coming through the portal.
The security team waited until Jessika crossed the threshold, then formed up around her—a development she treated with complete equanimity. Kandara, who walked beside her, gave the team a significant look.
“Treat her with extreme caution,” she told them. “We have no idea what she’s capable of.”
Then she paused and tipped her head to regard Jessika quizzically. “Are you a she? An it?”
“She,” Jessika replied. “That’s how I was created.”
“Did you Neána steal humans, too?” There was an edge to Kandara’s voice, something that told Callum she was itching for an excuse to unleash violence.
“Good grief, no! I was developed inside a biologic initiator during our voyage to Earth. We all were.”
Kandara shook her head in disapproval. “Whatever.”
Callum looked around curiously at his new surroundings. It was a large cylindrical airlock chamber, he decided, not much different from the setup he’d just left behind: the same basic metal tube with a composite grid floor, every surface gloss-clean, with no expense spared on the ancillary equipment ribbing the curving walls. A sleek portal-threading mechanism sat at one end, while the opposite end had blacked-out windows on either side of a circular hatchway. So although it looked like an airlock, it could as easily be a high-security reception cell, and his inner ears could sense the tiny but definite aberration of spin-induced gravity. They were in space somewhere, on a station or habitat. His altme, Apollo, informed him that the local network was restricted, and he wasn’t on the access list.
“The node interfaces are very sophisticated,” Apollo said. “It’s a high level G8Turing in charge. But—”
“Yes?”
“I have encountered this key structure before, when accessing Level One Utopials networks.”
Callum took another look at the tall security team, then glanced at Yuri, who had just stepped through the portal. The Connexion security chief had been carrying the initial micro-portal through which the others had threaded, allowing them to leave Nkya; so Callum had assumed they were going to a Connexion facility.
“Where are we?” he asked.
The answer came from the last person he was expecting.
“Kruse Station,” Jessika said. “In the Delta Pavonis system.”
Callum stared at her in surprise. All he could see was her swinging the fire axe, its blade shattering Feriton’s skull to cut into his brain. Except it wasn’t his brain; there’d been an Olyix brain nestling in his cranium instead, one that was quantum entangled with the other four in its quint. The aliens had seen and heard everything that’d happened on Nkya; they knew they’d been exposed. In fact, Callum reasoned—given the Olyix had that ability—their spies probably knew every dirty little secret the human race possessed.
“Kruse?” Kandara queried. The corporate mercenary sounded both startled and pleased.
“Yes,” Jessika said. “It seemed…appropriate.”
“And you know this how?” Alik Monday asked.
Jessika gave the FBI agent a sad smile. “I’m the deputy director of the Utopials’ Olyix Threat Assessment Bureau.”
“You’re fucking kidding me!”
Her smile turned wicked. “Who better? Once you get over the irony.”
The hatch opened at the far end of the chamber, and three more omnia entered. They all wore pale gray uniforms with purple piping along the jacket and down the trouser seams, while slimline overskirts came down to the knee. Also shared was a hairstyle: They’d chosen cornrow-braiding, arranged in complex curves. Despite living in the Delta Pavonis system for the last ninety-two years, Callum still felt slightly perturbed by the level of conformity running through the Utopial culture, and it was becoming more prevalent among the younger generations. As if to emphasize it, the trio shared the same uneasy expression, none of them able to meet Jessika’s gaze.
“I’m Captain Tral,” the oldest said. “Welcome to Kruse Station. I’m afraid we will have to run some basic scans before anyone can progress farther.”
“Basic?” Alik said.
“The captain is being polite,” Jessika said. “Sie means as thorough as our technology can provide.”
“Oh, yeah?” Alik folded his arms and stared at Tral.
“Just go with it,” Yuri said in a tired voice. “We need to get through procedures and start deciding what to do next.”
“They don’t care about your weapon peripherals,” Jessika said. “They just have to make sure you’re not Olyix, or have any Kcell implants. The scanners are good enough to detect a single Kcell in your body. I know; I helped draw up the specifications.”
Alik’s strangely rigid features remained impassive, yet Callum suspected that he was badly tempted to use one of those peripherals to shut her up. The tableau was broken by Lankin and three of his medical staff coming through the portal, escorting a gurnez that carried the unconscious body of Lucius Soćko. The Neána looked so perfectly human that Callum still couldn’t quite believe Jessika’s claim that they were both aliens. Behind that came another gurnez that held Feriton Kayne’s dead body in a transparent biohazard container.
Lankin looked around, slightly confused by the antagonism tainting the chamber. “What now?”
“Now,” Alik said with forced cheerfulness, “we follow procedure.”
* * *
—
The scan was nothing, of course. On the other side of the hatch was a short corridor with pearlescent walls. You walked down it unencumbered while a multitude of ultra-sophisticated scanners analyzed the thirty-trillion-plus cells that made up your body, alert for a very specific anomaly. Kcells had a similar biochemistry to human cells—good enough to function symbiotically with human organs and immune systems, but not identical.
Callum knew he didn’t have any Kcells, but for some reason he couldn’t help the feeling of apprehension as the hatch shut behind him and he began his solo walk down the short corridor. A whole file of what if scenarios kept playing out in his mind. And if the Olyix had set him up, innocence would be hard to prove.
A door opened at the far end of the corridor, and Callum stepped through into Kruse Station, letting out a shaky breath as he did so. The surroundings continued to remind him of the research base he’d just left behind on Nkya. Less of a pioneering outpost here, perhaps, but it shared the same efficient, utilitarian appearance.
A couple of Utopials in the station’s gray uniform were waiting and deferred respectfully as they escorted him along more corridors. Apollo was still locked out of the local network. Callum wound up in a conference room that could have belonged to any part of his life. There was a big table down the center made from some claret-red rock and polished to a shine, comfortable leather executive chairs around it, and even a crystal vase of white lilies giving off a sweet scent. The only thing missing was a window. Conference rooms, in his experience, always had a view—across cities or nature (gorgeous panoramas of jungles, mountains, and oceans) or even the astonishing vistas of space, from gas-giant rings to alien planetscapes.
The only reason you wouldn’t have a window was security. Heavy security. Callum’s shoulders quivered as if an Arctic specter was slipping along his spine.
“I got this, chief.”
“Huh?” Callum turned around then to see that Eldlund had followed him into the conference room. The young omnia was giving him a concerned look, and for a moment Callum felt insufferably old.
Eldlund held out hir hand, opening hir fingers. A small snow-white pad rested in hir palm.
“What the hell…?”
“It’s the same for me,” Eldlund said in sympathy. “Look.”
Callum realized his assistant’s hand was shaking. He looked down at his own hands to see even more pronounced tremors. “Oh, bloody hell.” He didn’t want to admit it; that was the problem. Didn’t want to acknowledge the terrible violence Jessika had unleashed—and, worse, the shock that the Olyix were implacably hostile. That the human race was being manipulated, the helpless, hapless victim of a superior species.
“Here,” Eldlund urged. “The nark’s mild, I swear. It’ll blunt the edge, but you’ll still be able to think okay.”
&n
bsp; Callum just took the pad and pressed it to his neck. He didn’t bother asking details, impressed—in a strange way—that Eldlund would even be prepared for such an eventuality. Sie was the perfect assistant, supportive and concerned, with plenty of compassion thrown in. Just like every Utopial omnia.
“It’s not just the shock,” Callum confessed. “I’ve known Jessika for getting on twelve years now, and I never suspected a thing. She’s a fucking alien! And…nothing. No hint of anything odd, no giveaways. For Christ’s sake, she knows more about popular culture than I do! Smart, good sense of humor…How can she not be human? And how could I not see it? Twelve fucking years. Holy shit.”
Eldlund gave him a moderately sympathetic grin. “If it makes you feel any better, Yuri’s known her for a lot longer, and he’s security. Better: security that was supposed to be watching for alien spies.”
Callum smiled weakly. “Yeah, he is, isn’t he?”
“Absolutely. So stop beating yourself up over this. Now—take a moment, and I’ll get you a coffee.” Sie went over to the drink dispenser and fussed around.
Watching hir busying hirself with the coffee, Callum felt obscurely grateful that his grandkids were all omnia. We did the right thing coming to Delta Pavonis.
He felt the nark starting to soothe his hot nerves, allowing him to relax, and returning a comforting level of lucidity to his mind. The way he liked to think, the way an engineer observed and analyzed the universe.
Alik Monday walked into the conference room and gave the two of them a curious glance. Callum was quite envious of how calm the FBI special detective appeared, but then he guessed Alik must deal with violent scenes on a regular basis. Whereas he hadn’t encountered physical conflict since Zagreus, and that was over a century ago now.
“I guess you and I are both in the clear, then,” Callum said cheerfully and took a seat at the table.
Salvation Lost Page 4