Jake rang me then and sounding excited said,
“Hey man, you should stop whatever your doing and get over here, quick.”
“Keep your pants on, I’m on my way over.” As soon as I could find and get in to mine. Both girls got up and bending down took turns kissing my still slick cock.
A single tear ran down Susan’s cheek. Karen leaned over and kissed it away.
“If only Dave were...” Said Susan and started to sob, softly, Karen took her into her arms and made a shooing gesture with one hand. Her tat’s had turned purple. I took that as my cue and motioning Jazz to follow suit found my coveralls and was slinging into them when I caught a look of alarm on my wife’s face. Received and understood. I gestured Jazz to chill and stay and help and, stopping at the door, turned and bowed to the altar and said,
“Life is nothing but the dreaming of the gods.” Then I beat a hasty retreat.
Since Jake lived on the other side of the Entertainment District, I stopped in at the Black Hole for a quick beer and a shot and a peck on the cheek for Luri. I was still shaky in the knees. I shook it off and hit it for Jakes.
I got to Jakes and after a perfunctory knock on his door walked in to the shock of my life. Up to that point.
Jake was trussed up, bound at ankles and wrists with chains, suspended spread eagle from a cube shaped frame. He was naked but for chaps, a spiked dog collar, a ball gag, and a horse tail dildo that was jammed up his butt. He was sporting an average sized hard on, which, for a guy his size, was pretty good sized.
Fox was prancing around him, her hair down, in a black latex bustier, torn fishnets and hyper tall, black stilettos, carrying a cat o’ nine tails and was lashing it at him, little drops of blood flying in a fine spray, and then she would reach over and give his cock a savage jerk. His body would spaz like a dog licking an electric fence.
The door shut behind me and she turned... and in less than the blink of an eye she had me by the neck and was propelling me back into the door which as I struck it with the back of my head and the stars began to shoot across my field of vision managed to cause her to flex her arms at the elbow which gave me the chance to lace the fingers of both hands behind her head, finding the switch and shutting her down, and off, just as her left knee was flying towards my crotch. It stopped just as it hit the fabric of my coveralls.
I slid down the inside of the door, pulling Fox down with me, on top of me. I pushed her off me and her knotted hands took swaths of skin. I could feel the blood begin to soak into the collar of my coveralls. I picked her up and heaved her against the wall.
“Fucking bitch!” I felt a little better. I made my way over to Jake, and tip toeing over the puddles of urine, and cum, which was no easy feat, took out the ball gag. His head was lolling from side to side. I started to look for the keys to the cuffs that secured his ankles to the bottom of the frame. There was no way I was even touching that dildo. His body shook in a spasm. He half moaned, half spoke.
“Drew, thank god you got here when you did. She just went berserk. The keys are in her bodice.”
I went over and fished them out from between Foxes tits and uncuffed his ankles, then unclipped his wrists. He immediately pulled the dildo from his ass, and, letting it drop to the floor, twisted around and fell into my arms. I half dragged, half carried his unconscious form to the couch and called the Med Unit for an emergency ambulance pick up. Then called Jazz and told her to get her ass over there.
Then I called Fonagy and gave him the low down, told him to have Fox brought in and pulled apart. I would run the diagnostics myself. As soon as they let me out of the Med Unit. I was feeling woozy. I sat on the couch next to Jake and thought, ‘Oh yeah, definite concussion.’, and promptly lost consciousness.
9.
Sign Cutter
Day 9
I came up out of a long black darkness to find myself floating, it felt like I was laying on an inflatable raft, on a great still ocean. I was looking up at the vault of stars that wrap the solar system in a soft, bright, silvery blanket of light. The water around me was so warm, that in the slightly chilling air, wisps of mist rose up from its dark surface like steam from a cup of hot tea. It was, well, deathly quiet. The only sound was the faint splashing made by the raft as I shifted on it to look to my right. Dr. Lynette wasn’t three feet from me on an identical raft, dressed in some stunning low cut blood red coveralls, laying on her left side, head propped up on her left arm and hand, looking down at the water. She was playing with a big stainless steel stud that was stuck through the middle of her tongue with her lips till she looked up and saw me watching her and she looked me in the eyes and said a single word.
“Beware.” It so startled me that I woke up...
To find myself floating, naked, with tubes coming out of, or attached to or covering every opening of my body. I was floating in some mildly green colored, modestly chilled, goo. Not jelly textured, it wasn’t thick, it was heavy, more like a thin soup than just plain water. As my eyes focused behind the slim goggles I became aware that I was not alone.
Jazz was in the tank with me. Completely naked, sans tubes, breathing, feeding or otherwise, no goggles, or any hair for that matter. She was massaging my side, gently.
The back of my head itched, I reached to scratch it and Jazz caught my hand. Shook a finger at me and said,
“No.” Which traveled to my ears in a short sharp shock. I realized there was one set of openings in my body that wasn’t covered or plugged. The liquid was in my ears, in my head so to speak. So this is what, or how, a dolphin heard.
Karen and Susan are outside the tank. They both look so horribly warped by the round glass of the tank I want to laugh. Karen leans a hand on it. I reach out and place a hand over it.
Then, very tentatively, Susan also put a hand on the outside of the tank. I slowly reached out and covered it with my other free hand. I knew I would live to touch her again in the flesh and I let her know it this way. You won’t lose me baby. Hey, were they staring at my Johnson?
After about twenty minutes, half an hour, eh, I was still a little out of it but after a while, Dr. Wali calls me on my comm link, and I have to turn the volume down.
He tells me I have suffered a mild brain trauma, couple of bruised ribs and some gnarly scratches around my neck.
“Also whatever cortical damage you might have sustained when you got a look at Jake.” He almost laughed. I would have too, but it would have hurt too much.
“You have suffered a mild brain trauma, your brain has tried to swell, but we got you pumped full of steroids and synth-blood and body coolers and in the tank where we induced an artificial coma in time to prevent any major, or permanent damage. As the jell seeps into your body it will heal all the cuts and abrasions, help knit cracked bones and even clear the wax from your ears. Most patients in fact report an improvement in hearing, usually around twenty-five percent, but sometimes higher.” Great, I would hear better. The thing that made me happy was no drain bamage. Er brain damage. Of course the pain killers could have been helping with that.
Though I never would forget the sight of Jake hung in that harness.
“Where’s Jake? How is he?” Did I think that or say it?
“He’s fine, just a bit cut up, he’s in the tank in the next room. Don’t you worry about Jake, you just worry about you. Rest for a while and we will talk more.”
Karen and Susan were soon having a conference call with me.
“Oh, honey, are you okay? We came as soon as Jazz called us.” Said Karen and then Susan.
“I’m okay. How long have I been out?” I hadn’t had the chance to ask Dr. Wali. Or had I? Hmm, brain damage?
“Sixteen hours. We’ve been here the whole time too.” Susan, then Karen.
“Guys, go home, get some sleep. Love ya. Both. Gonna sleep.” Out I went.
To dive into a dream of making love to Jazz, hairless and glistening, in the jell of the tank. I have a hard time getting off in the water and so, afte
r what seemed an endless amount of time and Jazz trying every move and position to get me off, I failed to come and Jazz, finally, gave up.
I woke to her sucking my nuts and stroking the shaft of my rock hard shlong like a machine. In the jell. It was the feeling of the catheter being removed that had awakened me. I phoned her and told her to get me out of the tank. I was feeling healed.
Dr. Wali wanted to keep me another night, but, after telling him I was gonna walk out on my own, he ran the scanner over me, and, finding me mostly healed, released me in the care of Jazz. Who was told not to leave my side. She would have found that difficult as she was the one pushing my wheel chair.
Twenty minutes later found Jazz and me, and the wheel chair, ensconced in Chief Fonagy’s office looking at the map for the new sections of the city that were to be opened up in the next six months. It took up one whole wall of his office. He had Jazz shut the door and leaning into his desk had said,
“Hold my calls.” He pulled out a bottle of wheat colored liquid and two Doheny made glasses. I could tell they were made on planet because they looked hand made and they looked like if they were on Earth, they’d be too heavy to lift off the desk top.
“You got it Chief.” Replied the dispatcher over the room speakers.
He half filled both glasses. Before he could reach me mine, Jazz came around the chair and took it and handed it to me. The Chief still came around his desk and leaning back on the edge of it held out his glass to me. I clinked mine against it.
“To your health. And being too tough to kill.” We both knocked back a slugs worth.
He moved back behind his desk and sat down.
“So, what the hell happened at Jakes?” I told him the whole scene, how it had played out, blow by blow, thread count by thread count.
“That Bot was obviously going to kill him, slowly. She would have killed me, but her arms flexed and that gave me my chance.” The Chief tilted back his tumbler, rested it on the desk and said,
“You are one lucky sum bitch.” I shrugged.
“I don’t believe in luck. Only chance and skill.” He nodded.
“As long as chance keeps breaking your way.” He raised the glass after dripping a bit more into it.
“Amen.” I killed my whisky. He dribbled a bit more into mine. As I leaned back with it in my hand I said,
“So where is the bitch?” He chuckled. As if to say ‘such misogyny’.
“She’s waiting, or what’s left of her, is waiting for you at your shop, under guard.”
“Cool, I’m on it.”
“If you could be back here in time for the big meeting in the Rec. Center conference room, we can watch the reactions of the participants from here. About 1600 hours.”
“Watching them with out their knowing they’re being watched, is that it?”
“Exactly.”
“We’ll be here.”
Twenty minutes and a quick ride on the moving walkway found Jazz and I entering the repair and maintenance shop where my work station was. My old station. I felt a little tense being that close to the surface. We stopped in front of one of the view ports to the surface. Despite the heavy tinting of the polarized portal, I could still make out the deep red tint of the soil of Mercury. I asked for, and was given, a muscle relaxer by Jazz.
She asked if I needed a pain killer, but I nixed it. I wanted a clear head.
We arrived to find the guards kicking it in my cubicle. One was in a chair watching the isleway, while the other was playing vid games on my computer. Call to Battle 111. Cool game. They were both in black coveralls and combat boots. The taller one who was watching the isleway snapped to attention.
“I’m agent Johnson and that’s agent Chen.”
“As you were. Hey guys, cool game. Where’s, oh, there she is.” Fox was laying on my work bench in two pieces. Her head was upright and face forward about a foot from her body which was laying on it’s back. I stood from the chair and immediately had Jazz help me slip Fox’s body out of it’s outfit. Flipping it over I split the skin over her mid spine and reached in and removed her main power pack. I then attached a diagnostic lead to a hook up at the back of her neck. I then snapped her head on to the leads of a diagnostic pedestal and lowered the plastic shield over the head. The slight bit of juice in the lead caused her eyelids to flutter. Faintly. It could be unnerving if you didn’t know to expect it. I stepped over to agent Chen.
“Better save your game Chen, I need to get in there and work.”
“Yes sir. Thank you sir.” In less than a minute I was in. I powered up Fox and her eyes flew open. Eerie. I felt Jazz standing behind me.
“Could you do that to me?” I glanced back at her.
“Not if you don’t try to kill me.” In response she put a hand on my shoulder and squeezed, gently. Reassurance. I booted up the diagnostic program and set it to work.
Jazz and the guards all jumped when Fox spoke from the box.
“Jake, is Jake all right? I love Jake, why must I hurt him, but I must hurt him. Where is Jake?” I was focused on the screen as the program ran its course through her synapses and systems. There! Like a fragmentation grenade set off in a small room someone, somehow, had set loose a dangerous virus in Fox’s brain. The first thing it had attacked was her primary program and the first law of Robotics that was embedded there. That no harm should come to humans. Then the logic centers had been corrupted and a new goal had been programmed in. To hurt, to kill, Jake.
“Fox? If you love Jake, why must you hurt him?”
“I don’t know why, I know that I must hurt him. Hurt him bad.”
“Even though you love him?” Feelings run over by a strong, direct command.
“Yes, I love Jake, but I must hurt him. Must hurt Jake.” Her face contorted in her effort to make her body move. Glad I had pulled the power pack.
“Why? Why must you hurt Jake?” Ah, that’s where the virus had entered, through the recharge system, oooh, that was sneaky. Where did this fucker come from? I had heard the military ran some shit like this but this was just way over the top.
“I feel a strong compulsion to harm Jake. It is overwhelming my love for him. Must find Jake and hurt him. Hurt him...”
“Bad. Yeah, we have that. Well, good night honey.” I backed up what I had found on the tracking program and then burned it to two discs. Then I sent repair nanobots into her head. Then I shut her down. I handed one of the discs to agent Johnson.
“Get this to Chief Fonagy, ASAP.” I looked at agent Chen.
“Here, if you’re gonna stay and keep an eye on her, I’ve sent some repair nanobots into her to overcome the virus that’s contaminated her system. She’ll be free of the compulsion to kill, but she won’t lose the memory of her actions. She may come in handy in trying to back track where the virus came from. Some body sent it over the power coupling. Freaky. So here.” I locked my data up and put Call to Battle back on.
“Thank you sir.”
“Don’t mention it.” I turned to Jazz.
“All right. Let’s hit the Med Unit. I need to see Jake and run this shit by him.”
The virus wonk had originated from either Arts or Ent but I was having a heck of a time interpreting the origination point. Tough to tell for a mechanic. I was leaning towards Arts, but what was the connect? Maybe Jake could enlighten me.
On the way I called Fonagy and gave him a heads up about the disc and my feelings about the whole thing. He asked if I wanted an escort, but I politely declined. I didn’t need more attention than I was getting already.
We made it to the Med Unit in a few minutes to find no Jake. He had been taken out of the tank after twelve hours and placed in a bed, only to be claimed by a couple of security agents a few hours later. So said the on call head Nurse Bot. I was just about to call Chief Fonagy when the Nurse Bot held up a finger. After rummaging around at the nurses station desk she pulled out a folded piece of paper.
“This was left for you by one of the agents.” It had my
name on it in stylized calligraphed letters. Real paper. Real ink. What was up with that?
“Did you get their names?” She looked at the ceiling.
“Agents Johnson and Chen.” Uh, oh.
“When was this?” She held up three fingers.
“Approximately three hours ago.”
“And they were dressed?” She smiled, quizzically.
“In clothing, yes.”
“No, the color of their jumpsuits?” She tilted her head.
“Standard security black.”
“And one was tall and the other short?” She shook her head.
“No, they were both short. Agent Chen was Asian and agent Johnson was African.”
I opened the paper to find a single black Chinese character in the center of the page and a chop mark at the bottom in red. I handed it to Jazz. Our agent Johnson had been a white guy.
“Translate this?” I asked her. She nodded her head.
“Port.” She handed it back to me. I held it open in front of me looking at the chop. She leaned down and, pointing at the chop said two words quietly.
“Winn Lee.”
On the moving walkway headed to the port I tried calling Jake, but went straight to voice mail. I started to wonder. How did Winn Lee fit into this equation? With the smuggling ring more or less exposed and Lee not being tied in to it, what was his connection? Why hold Jake? What did Jake have on him? Time to find out as we rolled up to the air lock.
Jazz hit the button for me.
“Roving tech. Dunn, Drew, to see Port Master Lee.” There was no response. In about thirty seconds the air lock opened and we were met by two burly looking fellows in tan coveralls. The handles of their Porters tools looked well worn. The shorter one walked up and said,
“Your invitation please?” Holding out his hand. I produced the piece of paper with the chop on it. He examined it and handed it back. He nodded at the taller one.
“This way.” Said the larger one with an arm gesture. He led the way as his companion fell in behind us. I shifted slightly in the chair to loosen my Porters tool in its sheath. Though with Jazz behind me I had a feeling these two guys wouldn’t stand a chance. I took the opportunity to hand the paper to Jazz and told her,
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