“I was trying not to think about that.” Suko poked her playfully.
“Sorry.” Sigrid chuckled softly. “When they do, I hope they send us to Crucis—maybe they’ll send us to the Naval Academy. That’s what Chesna thinks. That might not be so bad. Maybe we’ll all go.” As long as we go together—she didn’t have to say it.
Neither of them spoke for a while, both were lost in thought. Sigrid didn’t know what the next day would bring, but for the moment, Suko was next to her and that was all that mattered. She began to feel she might finally get some sleep and succumbed to the softness of the mattress…
Suko leaned on her elbow. “Well, I should get back—I just wanted to…” She was looking down at Sigrid, her hair hanging loose over her face, brushing against Sigrid’s. “I just wanted to see how you were doing.”
Suko made it halfway to the door before Sigrid stopped her. “Wait. Stay. I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep in here by myself.”
Suko’s relief was accompanied with a smile. “Me too. I mean…if it’s all right…unless you think we’ll get in trouble.”
“Come. There’s room.” Sigrid lifted the blanket and patted the mattress beside her.
Suko stared down at her; she paused, looking almost shy for a moment, but then she pulled off her T-shirt and slipped in next to her.
Sigrid flinched as their bodies met under the covers. She laughed. “You’re cold.”
Suko laughed back. “You’re warm.”
Sigrid covered them both with the blanket and wrapped her arms around Suko, pulling her closer. This was much better than being alone in her empty room. They lay there facing each other, eyes open. Suko brushed the loose hair from Sigrid’s face, tucking it gently back behind her ear, stroking the soft hair of her neck with her fingers. Sigrid breathed deeply and felt her eyelids grow heavy. She was almost asleep when she felt Suko’s lips touching hers; kissing her softly, Suko whispered, “Goodnight.”
There wasn’t much room in the small bed. Suko was perched slightly on one elbow, her other arm rested between them, which Sigrid could feel pressed up against her. Suko still felt cold so she pulled her closer, sharing the warmth of her body. As she moved, she felt Suko’s hand slip between her thighs; her fingers were ice-cold and she shivered at the touch. The two girls stared at each other, eyes wide open, barely breathing.
“Goodnight,” Sigrid whispered back, finally returning the kiss. She let her lips linger there, not pulling away. Her mouth parted slightly and she felt the tip of Suko’s tongue flick over her lips, then a kiss on the tip of her chin and the soft spot on her neck. When her lips found Suko’s a second time, her mouth surrendered to the open intensity as she felt Suko’s tongue dart deeper into her mouth.
Sigrid slowly lifted her leg, freeing Suko’s hand, but Suko didn’t pull away or withdraw it. Slowly, nervously, Suko inched her hand higher, pausing as the tips of her fingers brushed the seam of Sigrid’s underwear.
A wave of delight mingled with terror swept over Sigrid, and her heart pounded, sending butterflies coursing through her body. Both girls froze, stared at each other. And then Suko kissed her again, tracing her fingers over the soft material of her briefs. Sigrid’s whole body trembled under the delicate touch. She pushed up against her, and, finally, she thought, Suko reached into her underwear, touching her very softly with the tips of her fingers.
Sigrid took in a sharp breath as she felt Suko’s fingers slip inside her. She wrapped her knee around Suko’s waist, squeezing her gently.
Suko stopped; she looked at her anxiously and withdrew her hand. “Are you okay?”
Sigrid nodded vigorously and whispered, “Yeah—more than okay.”
Sigrid reached down and quickly pulled off her underwear before redirecting Suko’s hand. She covered Suko’s hand with her own, guiding her with her own fingers. As Suko began to caress her with more urgency, Sigrid felt the warmth blooming within her, a tingling that stretched from her spine to her toes. Her arms coiled around Suko’s neck—she kissed her deeply, pressing her body hard against her. Sigrid moaned softly and shuddered as her orgasm surged quickly into a rushing, sweeping climax. She flopped down into the mattress, fighting to steady the excitement in her breaths.
It took a moment for her head to clear. She was still grappling with what had just happened—she hadn’t realized anything could feel so wonderful, so intense, so sweet. She wanted more.
Sigrid sat up and nudged Suko onto her back. She kneeled over her, tucking her hair back behind her ears. She felt the softness of Suko’s skin beneath her hands, the curve of her breasts. Suko shivered as Sigrid drew her hands slowly down the length of her stomach, pausing just below her belly-button. Suko raised her hips to help Sigrid as she pulled her underwear off. She kissed the tips of Suko’s knees, her lips traced a line up the inside of her leg; her cheek brushed against the soft warmth of Suko’s thigh. She kissed her lightly, first with her lips then her tongue, until Suko responded in ecstasy, shuddering softly against her.
As they gathered their senses and breath, Sigrid became very aware of Suko staring at her. Suko beamed brightly, her eyes twinkling like never before.
“What?” Sigrid asked; suddenly feeling quite self-conscious. Blushing, she held the edge of the blanket over her.
Suko laughed. “What do you think?”
Sigrid blushed hotter still. “Oh…right.”
Still flush with excitement, Sigrid lay back down next to Suko, pulling the blanket over both of them. They shivered, as if suddenly cold, then held each other close.
“Now—I think I’ll be able to sleep!” Sigrid said, snuggling fully into a much warmer Suko.
“You…you don’t suppose anyone heard, do you?”
Sigrid looked around and pounded the hard stone wall with the back of her fist. “I think we’re safe.”
They kissed again—a brief struggle with the blanket ensued as they fought playfully to get the blasted thing to cover their toes. Within minutes, they were both snoring soundly.
* * *
February 22, 2348
Suko had been gone all morning; she’d been called to the Treatment Room to be Activated, as they called it, leaving Sigrid to pace the lengths of her tiny quarters while she waited for her own name to be called. There was no schedule because the doctors were not entirely sure how long the procedure would take, but that only fueled Sigrid’s anxiety toward the whole affair.
Finally, her turn came. An orderly showed up at her door and led her to the Treatment Center. Dr. Garrett greeted her and waved Sigrid to a padded chair surrounded by an array of terminals and displays.
Dr. Garrett smiled warmly. “Hello, Sigrid. How are you feeling today?”
Sigrid was too nervous to answer, but Dr. Garrett, focused on preparing the procedure, didn’t seem to notice. She brought the data-uplink module over to hook up to Sigrid, who flinched and pulled away.
“It’s all right, Sigrid. This won’t hurt.”
“I know, ma’am, but…” She swallowed. “What will it be like?”
Dr. Garrett considered the question before answering. “The clinical term might be, a heightened situational awareness.” Sigrid heard a pronounced click as Dr. Garrett slipped the data-uplink into her access port. Dr. Garrett smiled. “You’re going to feel great.”
Sigrid gulped.
“Now, I’m going to put you out for just a moment,” Dr. Garrett said. “Can you count back for me?”
Still not quite convinced, Sigrid nodded and began her practiced count backward from ten. She remembered getting as far as seven this time, and then nothing. As with her other treatments, it felt as if only a moment had passed when she blinked her eyes open. Doctor Garrett was leaning over her, looking at her expectantly.
“How do you feel?” she asked.
“I feel…” Sigrid was about to say fine, but she suddenly became acutely aware that something was very, very different.
She felt a rush—a surge of sensation, a hyperawareness o
f…everything; smells, noise, the touch of the fabric on her skin…color…she could smell color. When Sigrid looked at Dr. Garrett, she could feel the woman’s heart beating. The sound was deafening. Her PCM fed streams of data to her, displayed in her HUD: pulse, heart-rate, respiration, perspiration. She could even smell the woman’s breakfast on her: orange juice, coffee, two slices of rye toast—and something else…
“You had sex,” Sigrid said. Then looking at Dr. Mitchell, she said. “With him.”
Sigrid giggled, but the laughter shook her violently inside. She could feel the blood moving through her veins—and count the corpuscles. Her skin, her hair; everything crawled. She could see her entire self; not as a whole, but as every individual composite. Heart, pancreas, brain, bionics; even the billions of nanomites that scurried through her system. She could identify each one individually. “Hello, little robots,” she said and laughed, as if tipsy with sensation.
Her attention was drawn to the two orderlies in the corner; the men fingered their stun batons, eyeing her suspiciously. They registered as minimal threat. One of them leaned on his left foot, as if wondering if he should attempt to restrain the girl. Sigrid had already calculated seven ways she could take him down and incapacitate him if he tried as much.
The walls had been recently painted; the stench of its solvent filled her lungs. Worse were the acrid aromas of sterilizers and cleaners, all mixing into a toxic stew, along with Dr. Mitchell’s cologne. Sigrid threw up what felt like an endless gushing stream. In slow motion, she watched as particles burst from her mouth; she found herself analyzing the content of each particle as the memories of her breakfast came flooding back.
Dr. Garrett was holding her by the shoulders, shaking her. Sigrid could see that she was talking, but the words hadn’t yet left her mouth. The Doctor’s stress levels had elevated dramatically. Sigrid didn’t know why this was so—she felt fine. In fact, she felt so good, she thought she’d go tell Suko.
In a flash, Sigrid was at the door of the treatment room. This seemed to increase the general state of agitation in everyone around her. Two of the technicians lunged to grab her. Much too slow. She tripped one and knocked the other on the head, causing them both to fall into a heap. She burst through the door and into the hallway. Four security officers were rushing toward the Treatment Room—toward her. Sigrid didn’t know what they wanted, but they clearly had something on their mind. She braced to strike before they could bring her down.
Then came a stabbing sensation in her buttock. She spun and saw Dr. Garrett holding an empty syringe. She felt the cold lorazepam enter her bloodstream. Sigrid wondered why she’d done that. As she pondered the question, she felt the nanomite swarms coursing through her system, already working their magic to break down the drug and nullify its effects.
Sigrid laughed. She couldn’t remember ever feeling so good. She was about tell Dr. Garrett how wonderful it all was, when one of the security guards hit her with a shock-round. What a curious sensation. “Hey!” Sigrid protested.
“Sigrid!” Dr. Garrett grabbed her shoulders, shaking her. “Sigrid! Can you hear me?”
Sigrid’s ears were buzzing and her rear smarted from where the guard had zapped her, but, yes, she could hear her now.
“Ow,” she said.
She felt the euphoria recede, her control flowing back. Her senses were still being bombarded from every which way, but she could make sense of things now. It was a question of focus—she just needed to focus.
As her vision cleared, she became aware of everyone gathered around her, staring at her. The ties on the back of her hospital gown had come loose during the melee. She reached around to hold the gown closed.
“Are you…okay?” Dr. Garrett asked.
Sigrid thought, and nodded, “Yes.” She took a few careful breaths, feeling the air rush through her lungs before blowing it out in a long exhale; it sounded like a gale-force wind in her head. “Is that…normal?”
Dr. Garrett didn’t need to answer; Sigrid could read the woman’s body-language and biochemistry easily enough; the way she gripped Sigrid by the shoulders told her this certainly wasn’t normal.
“Your reaction was rather…extreme.” Dr. Garrett said finally. Her eyes were darting all over Sigrid, as if worried Sigrid might freak out again. “How do you feel?”
How did she feel? Like some giant, ravenous, predator-cat that’s just been rolled in catnip, is how I feel! Sigrid thought, but she couldn’t tell the doctor that—could she?
“May I go to lunch now, please?”
“Ah…I’d like to do some tests first.”
Sigrid hoped the tests wouldn’t take very long.
* * *
The tests took far longer than Sigrid liked, but once Dr. Garrett was satisfied that Sigrid had adapted to the treatment adequately, she released her from the hospital ward. Sigrid walked back to her room slowly and carefully. If she didn’t concentrate, she became quickly overwhelmed by the sounds of her own footsteps reverberating in the halls. It was worse when she passed through a group of people—breathing, sweating, talking, hormones raging. There was a growing hunger lurking in her, and it practically growled.
Suko wasn’t in her room when she looked so she went back to her own, closing the door quickly behind her. The silence proved too much and she found herself calculating the volume of blood distributed by each heartbeat—she wondered if she could manipulate the flow and the rhythm? Yes, she could.
She needed to find Suko. The memory of their night together—stored in perfect detail in her PCM—came rushing back. Sigrid fell back against the wall, closed her eyes; she could still feel Suko next to her, the touch of her hands.
Gah—she had to get out of there.
She decided to change into the long-sleeved, one-piece suit that had become their new uniform. The jet black fabric was emblazoned with the red Kimura logo and had a zippered front culminating in a stylish high-collar. Tall lace-up boots and her twin Markov pistols completed the outfit.
She finally found Suko sitting in the cafeteria with Leta; both had lunch trays in front of them, although neither plate looked touched. Suko’s eyes shot up to meet her gaze as she entered and walked quickly over to the table. Sigrid’s pulse quickened and her temperature rose; Suko’s closeness filled her with a rush of excitement. She found herself involuntarily scanning Suko; her pulse and adrenals were elevated too. It was obvious that both girls had received their treatment, and their senses were firing on all cylinders as they regarded each other with the same hungry intensity. All of Sigrid’s skin tingled; she reached out a hand, half expecting sparks to leap from Suko’s skin to the tips of her fingers.
“Oh, get a room, you two,” Leta said.
Sigrid tried her best to look innocent, but felt her face flushing hot. “What? What do you mean?”
Leta laughed; a few of the other girls were looking over and grinning too. “You think we can’t sense it? It’s written all over the two of you.”
Suko chuckled. “I guess there’s not much we’re going to be able to keep from each other.”
Apparently not, Sigrid thought, somewhat chagrined.
Sigrid tried to keep appearances by taking a lunch tray, but she couldn’t eat either. She tried a spoonful of her soup, but found herself lost, calculating the volume and ratio of the various ingredients. And Suko kept looking at her. It was very distracting.
Suko had dipped the tip of her finger in her water, running it over the rim of her glass in slow circles; her foot gently grazed against Sigrid’s leg, sliding up the length of her calf. She swallowed, and wet her lips with the tip of her tongue—
“Oh, dear God,” Leta said.
Suko shot her a guilty look. “Sorry.”
As casually as they could, Sigrid and Suko walked out of the cafeteria. Suko’s room was closer and they slipped quickly inside, grabbing for the zippers of each other’s jumpsuits before the door had even closed. Suko threw Sigrid onto the bed and dived on top of her. As much as la
st night’s tryst had been cautious and tender, this afternoon’s adventure was purely carnal, enhanced further still by their newly modified sensory-receptors.
They had no idea how much time had passed when they collapsed, side by side, on the bed.
“Rock walls or not, I know someone heard that,” Suko said.
Sigrid laughed. “I guess this is what she meant.”
“What?”
“Dr. Garrett. She said we’d experience a heightened situational awareness.”
Suko chuckled. “Definitely. That has to be it.”
Chapter 9
Graduation
February 23, 2348
A few of the girls were still having difficulty dealing with the effects of Activation, so Dr. Garrett had prescribed a period of rest for those still feeling overwhelmed.
The period of respite left Sigrid free to spend all her time with Suko. Each minute alone seemed a chance for Sigrid to explore every inch of Suko’s soft, warm skin. Suko teased her, saying that she was mapping her, charting her like one of Rosa’s bloody survey exercises. Sigrid was indeed on a mission, loosing herself in each of Suko’s eager embraces.
For the next four days they only left her room at mealtimes and for their daily consultation with Dr. Garrett. Sigrid had been mortified when Dr. Garrett cautioned her not to overly stimulate herself. Dr. Garrett hadn’t said it outright, but Sigrid figured out the staff was monitoring the girls’ activities—all of the time—collecting data for analysis from their telemetry sent to the main servers.
Sigrid and Suko had both been a little embarrassed to learn they were being so closely monitored, but there was nothing they could do.
After not seeing them for days, Leta decided to drag the lovers from their nest and take them on an outing. The new girls had just arrived at the Academy and she proposed a trip down to meet them. She’d finagled one of the Starlings from the motor pool. Sigrid and Suko jumped at the chance to accompany her.
As they entered the hangar, Sigrid noted that Leta was making a point of sticking to the shadows, peering around corners, beckoning them to follow when no one was looking.
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