by Juno Wells
And yet…here she was. Asleep? Could I wake her? I had to try.
I moved to right beside the coffin-like cryo-sleep chamber. The monitors beeped rhythmically, like the sound of a metronome.
She was dressed in an all-white, skin tight body suit. Her feet were bare. I inspected the lid for a latch or button. After a few moments searching, I found it.
The lid gave a hiss as compressed air was let out. The lid rose up and was able to be pushed to the side, still connected by hinges. I pulled my face covering off.
She lay motionless. I checked to see if there was anything…inserted into her head. I sighed with relief. They were only stuck to her. I pulled them off one by one. The machines gave loud beeps in protest, the heart monitor flatlining as I pulled it away from her skin. Finally, she was free of all wires. I reached down into the chamber and gently scooped her up, minding not to hit her head on anything. I then sunk to the floor with my arms folded around her, her beautiful face resting on my metallic forearm.
“Aurora?” I said, giving her a little shake. “Aurora?” I tried a few more times, careful not to jolt her too strongly.
I saw her face stir, but she did not wake. I sat there considering for a moment, my analyzer in my eye looking for traces of blood, poison, etc., and finding none. A sudden idea came to me—risky, but it might work. I leaned in, laying my lips upon hers. Hopefully, our love could spark something in her, like a beacon back to the realm of awake.
She shuddered in my arms and then, with a scream, pushed herself away. She backed away across the floor, hitting the wall, her eyes wide and fearful.
“Whoa! Whoa!” I put my hands out as a sign of peace. “It’s okay It’s okay! It’s me!”
She was looking at me wildly, her legs moving as if she was desperate to kick me away.
I stared at her, utterly bewildered. What was going on?
Then I heard the door behind me open, and Aurora screamed again, but instead of pointing at whoever had come in, she was pointing at me…while looking at them…
I whipped around as quick as I could, barely in time to duck. A man shot at me with a blaster. I was behind the cryo-sleep chamber, breathing wildly.
I peeked out and aimed a few shots at my opponent, a man in all black, with shaggy hair and two big black things behind his back. Wings, maybe?
I didn’t have time for a full inspection. He shot back almost as quickly.
I threw myself up again, shooting at him, but he ducked and rolled to the left, towards the computer wall. I followed him, shooting until…click click.
FUCK.
My blaster was out of power. I hurled it and hit him in the back with it, striking one of the folded black feathery wings, but other than leaving a bruise, it didn’t do much damage.
I tried my other blasters, but had to duck again as he aimed another few shots, one grazing past my earlobe. I could feel blood trickling down from where the skin had been hit. The mechanism in my ear fizzed at me as a little alarm went off in my internal wiring, my eye lens displaying a blinking symbol, telling me what I already knew.
I shot with my backup blasters, but the little blinking lights on the cartridges told me they were almost out, too.
Aurora was still on the floor, looking terrified and trying to back away from where I was.
I heard the man speak, “Come now! AI is compromised! Need backup!”
Fuuuuck. I was really screwed. My blasters were almost out. I couldn’t take another bunch of fighters by myself, let alone this guy.
I had to think of something. Then I heard my saving grace. A couple of clicks.
I breathed heavily.
“Hey!” I called across the room, to where this dark angel guy was ducking.
“What?!” He yelled back, and I could tell he had an accent.
“Are you out?” I asked. Silence. “Look, I can tell you are. So am I.”
“So, what? We fight like men, hand on hand?” he asked.
“Yeah! I win, I take Aurora and go. You win, you kill me, sound good?” It was a gamble, but I didn’t have any other choice currently. I didn’t have long before this place would be flooded with reinforcements. My heart was beating quick and hard against my ribcage.
“All right then,” he said. I stood up and moved out from behind the pod. He was moving into the middle of the room, his messy black hair in his eyes.
We squared off, sizing each other up, my eye scanner reading out diagnostics and trajectories, weighing all the options.
I waited and so did he; seemingly, we both intended the other to make the first move. I was less calm than I wanted to be, my attention on how the hell I was supposed to get out of here with Aurora, who seemed terrified of me, and through a herd of gang members.
I decided to end our turning about each other. My leg swung around in a wide arc, foot aiming at his head, but he suspected it and ducked, grabbing my ankle and twisting.
I hit the floor hard and rolled out of the way as his knee slammed into the spot my head had been moments before.
I scrambled to my feet, dodging another kick.
I swept my leg and knocked him off his feet.
Making a split second change, I ran for it, charging out of the door as fast as my legs would carry me and trying to ignore the pain in my shin from where I’d been hit. I didn’t even turn back to see if he was following me.
I knew I only had minutes, maybe, before this place was besieged.
I flung myself back out of the domed building and pelted full tilt at my ship. The door opened as I got nearer, sensing my return from the antenna I’d added.
I slammed the door shut behind me, ran to the cockpit and jammed all the buttons to liftoff. I didn’t even bother checking my radar for the approaching ships. I blasted off from the moon’s surface, and the moment I was outside the atmosphere, I hyper-jumped, away from the moon, away from Aurora.
Chapter 7
Aurora Intelligence aka A.I.
The sounds assaulted my hearing receptors. The brightness of the room hurt my lens, or camera, or whatever I had that was seeing. I felt a pounding in my chest as it rose up and down and up and down rapidly, and I looked wildly around. I could see screens and wires and technology. I was shaking, I literally could feel myself shaking. What the hell was this? What was going on?
“Hey.” Ben. The only real thing in the room. The only thing that made a lick of sense right now. He bent down to me and touched my face, his eyebrows creased inwards in that look of concern he wore sometimes.
I could feel. I. Felt.
His hand upon my face was warm, and though his palm and fingers were very calloused, it was comforting. Water started coming out of my eyes.
Holy shit, am I sad? Am I actually crying? What the hell is happening to me?!
“B-Ben,” I stuttered, looking up into his face, pleading him to help me, to make all this go back to normal. “Wh-what is this? What’s happening to me?” I did my best to speak through the sobs, though my voice box felt unused.
He gave me a pitying look and shook his head. “Here, come with me. We can’t stay here.” He scooped me up like a doll, my head resting in the warm space where his neck and shoulder met. The machinery of the room we were in was broken in the fight, and sparks flew from broken wires. He carried me out of the room, through the halls, his black feathery wings wrapped around us both.
“Eh, boss,” I heard the voice of Goblyn approaching.
“Torch the place,” Ben ordered him. “Leave nothing.”
Goblyn must’ve nodded or something, because he didn’t say anything back, and we kept walking. My limbs lay across my chest and over Ben’s arms, flopping frailly. Something hot and pulsing kept running through me, making my heart beat quicker and my breaths shorter. This must be adrenaline. Senses bombarded me, assaulting every point in my physical form I now had as well as my mind. And, I guessed, emotions.
I prayed Ben had some answers for me. Why was I suddenly in a body? Was this real? And if they mad
e this body for me, then why the fuck didn’t they tell me they’d be putting their most valuable software inside it?!
I hadn’t been paying attention, but Ben’s feet were now clomping along the metal bomber door to a ship. We walked in, and it closed behind us. He brought me through another hall, then another, and finally to some bed chambers. A black bed with a rumpled black pillow was against one wall and took up most of the space. He pulled back the covers and lay me under it.
He leaned in and kissed my forehead comfortingly. “I’ll be right back, gotta get us off this rock.”
I nodded, still breathing quickly, my eyes wide.
He left, and I could hear him walking away down the hall, then the sound of his ship’s AI as it turned on and the feeling of the whole ship shuddering and moving. Then, after a minute or so, it got easier, smoother, and I heard Ben returning.
I’d rather focus all my attention on him right now. I couldn’t even look down to inspect the body I’d been given. Instead, I stared at a corner of the room.
He reentered the room and gave me a smile. “It’s all right, luv, I’m here. We’re safe now.”
He sat next to me and took my hand in his, while touching my forehead again, his eyebrow furrowed.
“Ben…What is this?”
He smiled. “And I thought you were supposed to be the smart one.”
Despite feeling, and feeling very freaked out, I smiled.
“There we go,” Ben said, noticing that. “Well, this is your body.”
“My body?” Umm….what?
“Yeah, you had one…lying around, I guess. Ms. Zellman had procured it/you herself,” he said.
“Procured?” Ew. Did she harvest this body from some planet?!
“Yeah, you know, recruited you, more like. Then I think there was paperwork involved, and you became the AI. You’re still you, but you know, with a body now.”
I nodded. “I don’t remember anything about having a body.”
He nodded sadly. “Yeah, it was a known side effect that could happen if you underwent the action of becoming the AI system. It was all discussed beforehand. But you remember everything recently, right? Being AI and all that?”
“Y-yes.” I said, feeling a little more like myself. “Huh. And who the hell was that guy? He…” I broke off, remembering all of a sudden being in the computer, watching the man in black break in, and then some guy kissing me…I touched my lips.
Ben seemed to sense what had happened. “Did he hurt you?” He sounded stern.
“No, not really. I guess. He just…” I touched my lips again. It really was strange. I’d always seen people do it, through the course of my AI observations, networks searching and such, but I’d never been kissed. My lips had a lingering feeling on them.
“I think he was that thief—remember, you called me and told me to come keep you safe? You thought he had found where you were?” Ben asked, stroking my hair.
“Oh that’s right!” I said, and instantly felt grossed out. “Ben, he came to steal the CPU of the AI, aka, me, and when he saw that it was not a CPU, he kissed me!”
Ben’s face flushed.
I hadn’t noticed it until now, and my detections and calculations were a little different now that I wasn’t inside a computer, but I thought, judging by his facial expression, that Ben was really pissed off by this. Like, he was jealous.
I had stopped shaking as much and my breathing had calmed down, but I still didn’t want Ben to leave my side. I didn’t want to be alone with my thoughts now.
“Ben?” I asked, looking into his beautiful dark eyes. “What’s up?”
He shook his head.
I felt an urge come over me. All the “checking him out” and “playful-sometimes-flirty-banter” over the course of our working together, and now Ben was in front of me and I, me, had a body and a body flooded with feelings. My heart rate was still beating rapidly, but the fear that had filled it was gone. A new, hot and overwhelming feeling had rushed in. I managed to sit myself up.
Ben looked worried, his brow furrowed, and his hand outstretched as though to help me.
He was fairly close. His black wings tucked in, his black eyes not leaving me for a second, his thick curled and messy black hair all over his head in a wild, hot mess. I never fully appreciated how gorgeous he was.
His black shirt was loose enough for me to make out the hair on his broad and muscled chest, and his pants were tight, shaping out the muscles in his legs.
He perceived the shift in my mood and was staring at me like he’d never seen me before. And hey, maybe he hadn’t. Ages of talking to each other every day having built up like this had given new meaning neither of us had thought of.
His lips, not very full but still very sexy, parted. He moved closer to me, and I didn’t take my eyes off his, and nor did he off mine. His hand that he’d outstretched reached up into my hair, gripping the back of my neck as though to pull me closer.
We were millimeters apart. I could feel his warm breath on my skin.
He gave me one last look, deep into my eyes, and then closed the gap, pulling me forward gently as he pressed his lips against mine.
I wanted him close, I wanted to feel his body against mine, so I pulled him nearer. He responded well, and now I was pressed against his huge chest, warm and strong. His hands were in my hair, his lips devouring mine.
His scent was like firewood, as though he’d stood upwind and the smoke had engulfed him. He kept kissing me, moving down my neck, his stubble tickling me.
He kissed down and across my neck and back up to my jawline, his lips burning my skin with every touch. Then he was kissing me, his lips on mine, ever more ravenously.
I’d never imagined I’d be able to do this someday. I couldn’t remember what it was like before being the AI. And as the AI, I didn’t really feel…anything. I didn’t long or want or lust. There was no one to pine over and nothing to miss. It didn’t feel lonely or sad at the time; it was simply the way it was. But now, with Ben clutching me, his hands on the small of my back, the other at my waist, feeling the sway and curve of my body, I couldn’t bear to go back to feeling nothing, and so I held on to him tighter, pulling him into me even though he was as close as he could get.
We fell back on the bed, and I longed to be closer to him. I kicked the covers off and wrapped my legs around him, my white body suit extending down to each ankle and wrist.
It was almost funny. Ben, my work companion, all that time of easy banter that flowed between us effortlessly, good humor dripping in every sentence that even as an AI, I appreciated.
He moved his hands across my midriff and to my chest, and I gave a sharp intake of breath. Ben made to pull away from my lips to look at me, but I pulled him back in, an invitation to continue, a sign that, though this was very new to me, it was okay.
His hands gripped my breasts and squeezed lightly, awakening new sensations which shot up and down my body like a light electrical spark in my wiring.
I moved my hips upwards, grinding into him, and he responded in kind.
He moved one hand down between my legs and pressed into me, moving his fingers around in a slow circle. Little explosions erupted in me, and I felt unsure of whether or not I should go on. I wanted him, I wanted to connect with him like I’d never connected with anyone. And I knew, or I hoped, he felt the same.
He pulled away from our kiss gently and gazed into my eyes in a soft and tender way, as though I were the thing he wanted most in this world.
And somehow…I felt I’d done this before. Like I’d been looked at like that, before…
And the little nagging sensation that had plagued me when I was the AI grew louder from the shadows of my mind.
He leaned in for another kiss, and I pulled away. His eyes widened, a quizzical look around his brow.
“I’m sorry…” I said, thoughts stirring in my mind, contradicting themselves.
He shook his head. “No, it’s all right…”
I had to
look away. I couldn’t make sense of this feeling, but I knew, somehow, I couldn’t continue. What the hell? I searched my mind for any reason why not to, but the stirring thoughts and feelings moved like a tornado, and my head was spinning trying to think about it.
“I guess…I think I just need to rest,” I said, scootching back on the bed.
He nodded again, fixing his expression to one of empathy and understanding, though his eyes held sadness. I could see the hurt of rejection. He forced a smile and stood up. “It’s fine, really. I know you’ve been through a lot.”
He touched my forehead and then left the room, leaving me to my very confused thoughts.
Chapter 8
August Wood
This had all gone horribly wrong.
I gritted my teeth, moaning in pain as Flora poured a white liquid onto my wounds, which stung and fizzed and smoked as soon as it touched my skin. I pounded my fist against the wall, closing my eyes tightly.
“So, you going to tell me why, on top of being utterly riddled with holes, you come back after all that bullshit empty handed!?” she yelled, her voice cracking so it sounded like thick branches snapping.
I couldn’t speak yet, and furthermore, I didn’t want to explain to her exactly what happened. All I knew was that everything had gone horribly wrong.
On one hand, I should feel relieved. After a whole year of searching, I found her. I thought I’d found the perfect system to help me find her. How ironic that it actually was her.
But I didn’t feel any of that. I didn’t feel relieved or happy or any of it. Instead, I felt like I’d been slapped in the face unexpectedly.
The look of horror on Aurora’s face as she looked at me…why was she acting like that? Did she hate me now? Had she really been running away from me earlier? And if so, why the hell did she lead me on like she did, if all she was planning was to get rid of me? But that didn’t add up either.
I had to stop. I was going to think myself into a thorough confusion and despair. I knew one thing for certain: I didn’t know what had happened. I didn’t have the information. It was a mystery. And sitting here trying to figure out a puzzle without all the pieces would only make it worse, and at best, not do any good at all.