'Totally depraved, maybe,' Kester said, half to himself.
Gerald repeated Kester's comment and let out a burst of simian laughter.
'And they're coping OK with the quarantine?'
'They're coping so far and they've not got long to go. Here we are,' Gerald announced as they approached the locked sliding door to isolation suite 12. The door recognised him and hissed open, welcoming them both.
The isolation suites were fitted with infection locks, smaller versions of the lock at the lab entrance, making them suitable for any type of experiment Kester might want to do.
'If we find we need the infection lock, something's gone wrong, right?' Gerald asked.
'Yip.'
Kester followed Gerald through the secondary room.
'We'll think of more interesting names for them as we go. Not very catchy is it? KL02? Sounds like a virus for robots.' Gerald said it again, this time in an old fashioned robotic voice, 'K-L-0-2.'
Kester laughed. He was pleased that Gerald shared his enthusiasm, even if it manifested itself in peculiar ways sometimes. It was strange. He had appeared such a smooth character when they met.
'Here we go. KL02. K-L-0-2.' Gerald led Kester into the testing suite. 'It's…I won't tell you what to think. You can see for yourself.'
They entered the testing suite. The suites were more like hyper-modern hotel rooms than laboratory rooms, but then the models did have to live there while the experiments were running. The suite was the size of Kester's own and had a one-way wall that looked out onto the building opposite. The windows across the way had their blinds down.
A couple of the subjects were lounging on the white couches that sat along the walls. Two more seemed to be hard at work keeping up with the outside world at the terminals that had been provided. At the sound of the door closing, the remaining two appeared from behind the examination screen. Kester snorted quietly, noting their flushed faces. There was a dorm room through the way, but he guessed it didn't make such a good setting for playing doctor and nurse.
The whole place looked like a photoshoot. All the models were beautiful, fine-boned creatures. Many of them, Kester was aware, had come from long lines of models. He suspected they were more closely related to coat hangers than humans these days. They were masters of self-abuse, picking up and over-wearing any virus that surfaced, so they were the perfect candidates for testing.
'As you can see, all subjects are in good health.' Gerald checked the display projected on the back wall. 'No unexpected visible side-effects; no physical damage at this level of wear. And the best thing is it can be maintained at a wearable level for quite some time – perhaps indefinitely.'
'I'm still itching, Gerald,' one of the models said. She was short and blonde and looked like no-one had ever said no to her. 'I can't see how anyone would wear this ridiculous invisible itch. Look at me.' She held out her arms for inspection, turned her head about so that they could see her from all angles. 'Boring as hell!'
'Indefinitely.' Kester ignored the model and responded to Gerald's comments. 'Yes, because there are no other adverse symptoms.'
'You said it. Now, do you want to see it?'
'Yes.' Kester swallowed.
'Uh, hello? Itching,' the girl said. 'And Gerald, Rio's cleaned out the mini-bar again.'
'OK guys, drop 'em!' Gerald said.
The subjects stripped down to their plain white lab-issue underpants. They gathered in a loose group in the centre of the room as the back wall misted up behind them, a self-consciously cool perfume ad.
'Ready?' Gerald asked and hit the lighting control.
Kester could feel a smile coming up, right from the bottom of his gut. Here it was: the beauty.
In the place where the test subjects should have been erased by darkness stood six luminary beings. KL02, Luminescence. Their lymph nodes were glowing under their skin. The deeper the node, the softer the glow. The locations of the nodes mapped out their figures with an instinctively pleasing focus around the face and groin.
'Give us a twirl,' Gerald said and before their eyes the subjects rotated in the darkness, the glowing ovals mapping out their contours, appearing and disappearing as they turned.
'I never thought…' Kester's words tailed off. 'Buzz Alexis – buzz Farrell. Get her down here.'
While Gerald was waiting for Farrell to pick up, Kester stood staring at the figures.
'I love it,' one of them said out of the darkness, finally. It was a young man's voice, deep and smooth.
'Suck-ass,' came the nippy voice of the blonde model.
'I do – I really love it. Look at me, look at yourself.' The nodes around his jaw moved as he spoke. 'We're glowing – we're beautiful.'
'We were already beautiful.' The blonde model turned and slumped down on the couch.
'He's right,' one of the others said. 'You think you looked beautiful with those scabs all over your face when you came in?'
'You could see it.' She got up again and paced amongst her companions. 'And you know full well those weren't just scabs – that was Aiko's Revenge, direct from Bosch himself. It hasn't even hit the catwalk yet.'
One by one, they joined the discussion. All of them were impressed except the blonde girl.
'Doctor Lowe,' one of them said eventually.
'Yes?' Kester thought it was the same one who had spoken first, but they had been moving around the room so he couldn't be sure.
'Ignore her – I've never heard her happy with anything.'
There was a slapping noise and the shortest of the glowing figures rushed through the curtain into the dorm room.
'Thank you,' Kester said.
Suddenly the lights came up.
'Sorry,' Gerald said, 'I just want Mrs Farrell to get the full effect. Hera, get back in here.'
'It's got to be tough stuck in here together all the time,' Kester said.
Hera raised her eyebrows at him as she walked back into the room. 'Tell me about it.'
There was a whisper as the doors opened and Kester felt Alexis enter the room. He glanced round at her, smiling.
'Mrs Farrell.'
'Doctor Lowe; Gerald.' She greeted them each with a nod and stopped a few paces behind where Kester stood.
With Alexis standing next to him, Kester became more aware of Hera's attention. She had been staring at him unnervingly since she walked back into the room and had ignored Alexis' arrival.
'Perhaps you could rescue me from here and take me for a private consultation,' Hera said, wandering towards Kester.
'Gerald,' Alexis said, 'you wanted to show me something?'
'I have a thing for white coats,' Hera continued.
Kester tried to breathe steadily. She was moving like a cat, posing her lithe body at every possible opportunity.
'Into position please, Hera,' Gerald said.
Hera held Kester's gaze steadily over her shoulder as she walked back to the group. Kester imagined her creamy flesh against his red throw, her blonde hair spread out like rays on his pillow. As she looked away to turn round, his eyes fell to her curvaceous buttocks. He looked away sharply at the ceiling, composed himself, and then looked round at Alexis again. He didn't see her face; as he turned his head, Gerald flicked the lights.
There was silence for a long time. Then Kester felt Alexis draw close behind him.
'It's…' Alexis paused. 'It's beautiful.'
'Just like the man promised.' Gerald's grin was practically visible in the dark. After they had watched the models for a few more moments, he asked, 'Enough?'
'No, wait,' Alexis said. 'A few more minutes.'
'OK. You forget when you've seen it a few times. Last Friday I had these poor guys standing in the dark in their pants for a full half hour.'
'Move around,' Alexis said.
They watched in silence as the models milled gracefully about one another. Kester started as he felt Alexis' hands on his cheeks. With deliberate stealth, she pulled his face round to meet hers, and kissed him lik
e a teenager, as if she was tasting a toffee apple. Leaving him burning, she pulled away, her kiss lifting off from his lips like a bubble of syrup.
'OK – enough,' Farrell said. 'I want it.'
There was a moment of silence. Kester could see the models looking at one another.
'OK,' Gerald said, bringing the lights up. 'Kester?'
'Kester, I think you should have it too,' Alexis said, 'or you, Gerald. One of you. I want to show this at the next strategy meeting.'
'What good is a designer who won't wear his own clothes?' asked Gerald, smiling at Kester. 'I'd love to try it, but I really don't want to go to the strategy meeting.'
Kester was surprised by his forthrightness.
'Gerald has been burned by previous board level experience,' Alexis said. 'But don't worry. He's a coward. They don't bite.'
'They bite,' Gerald said in a stage whisper.
'Kester will be joining us at the next strategy meeting regardless,' Alexis said. 'What does the next stage of the trials involve?' she asked Gerald.
'Vector and virulence testing,' Kester replied before Gerald could, 'human-to-human transference and the rate of spread.'
'Perfect,' she said, stepping forwards with intent. 'We can get started.'
'Before I go,' Gerald said, turning his attention to the models, 'I need you all to record your non-disclosure statements before you go on shore leave. You'll be wiped at the weekend and you can go out as soon as the symptoms have cleared, but you won't be going anywhere if you haven't made your statements.' He turned back to Alexis. 'That's all.'
'Some privacy please, Gerald?' she said.
In a moment, the security cameras were retreating behind their shutters. Gerald left, a wry smile on his face, hitting the lights behind him.
'Long time no see, Rio.' Alexis spoke into the darkness.
Kester could hear the rustle of her clothing falling to the floor.
'You don't come to the Stud Farm any more,' said one of the male subjects.
Kester barely had time to be disgusted. Hera's mouth was on his, her lymph nodes glowing at the corners of his vision. Her hands were on his chest, unbuttoning his labcoat – no, they were at his belt – no, those were someone else's. When he escaped her kiss, there were three glowing bodies around him. Across the room, he could see a writhing mass of glowing nodes suspended in the air where the couch must be. Suddenly there was a hot mouth around his cock.
'Get off!' Hera exclaimed.
There was a mumble and then the velvet-voiced youth replied.
'You insult the man, then you expect him to let you serve him?'
The caressing continued.
Shocked, Kester tensed, but the overwhelming feeling of six hands and three mouths all at his service, of the surreal dark, dispelled any reservations. He was up in the air, suspended. They carried him to the couch, weightless, and laid him down like a treasure chest. He saw an insistent head pushing its way towards him. Hera was muscling past the others to climb on top of him. His eyes flicked over to the other couch. He couldn't see Alexis, except where the glow of a group of nodes lit her hip-bone, then her arched neck for a moment.
'Doctor Lowe.' Kester heard Alexis' voice through the muffle of kissing noise.
'Yes.' Kester pushed himself up on to his elbows, eliciting a shriek from Hera as he unsettled her. She righted herself and pulled her knees in close to his sides.
'Careful,' Hera growled in his ear, 'or I'll let Leon have his way. He may talk smooth, but he's rough.' She gave a little bark.
There was a soft growl and a giggle from the youth. The third mouth, belonging to another woman, though Kester had no idea which one, continued wordlessly to work its way down his right leg. Kester groaned as she bit the back of his ankle gently.
'You will be attending the next strategy meeting,' Alexis said.
'This is really –' Kester dodged Hera's mouth as she tried to get in the way of the conversation and her toothed kiss bumped off his jaw. 'Really not the time to be talking about this.'
'This is exactly the time.'
Distracted, Kester fell into self-focus, forgetting to wonder whose hands were whose, exactly what they were doing, only feeling heat, buzzing pleasure. He let his hands wander. He felt the four of them knot like a mural, a Celtic fertility charm, each beginning and ending inside another, snakes swallowing one another's tails. The ritual sensation lifted him.
'What's the infection rate like?' Alexis' voice invaded Kester's fantasy, snapping everything back into context.
'Should be 60, 70 per cent, higher for anal,' he said, this time his lips dodging an insistent nipple, 'if the models are right.'
'Mmm?' a voice came to attention.
'Not you,' Kester said, giggling. 'The statistical models.'
'You –' he heard Alexis say, 'let's up my chances.'
Kester couldn't help but look over. They were standing now and the girl was sitting on the sofa, watching, it seemed, from the angle of her head. Face to face, side on, the patterns of glowing nodes from the standing bodies were almost symmetrical. Alexis' form was lost in the middle, a dark no-man's land, every man's land. Kester lay watching. He imagined himself into one of their skins as Hera moved on top of him. He put out his hands and guided her hips so that she moved in time with the figures across the room.
When it was all over and the lights came up, everything looked hyper-real. The models were pottering about as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Perhaps it hadn't.
'How long?' Alexis asked, as she pulled her culottes up and knotted them beneath her navel.
'48 hours until full potency,' Kester said.
'Promise me you won't upload.' It was more of an order than a request.
'What is the "Stud Farm"?' Kester asked under his breath, straightening the pens in his labcoat pocket.
'Oh.' Alexis laughed. 'It's an old exchange venue down near Rimfords. We used to go there when I first joined the division. Rio was one of the only boys worth going for, but mine wasn't the only eye he caught. He's been modelling for five years now. Hasn't changed a bit.'
'Really.' Kester tried to sound disinterested, though Rio was back at a terminal, engrossed. He looked up at Alexis. 'Let's get into my office. I want to do some early indicator tests on you.'
Alexis smirked and then, seeing that his face was straight, swung on her jacket.
'OK,' she said, 'but I have a meeting at three and I want to shower.'
-o-
'That was an excuse about the Strategy meeting, right?' Kester asked once the doors to his suite were closed. 'We can take the subjects in.'
Alexis wandered across the room to the leather couch by the window and flung herself down, letting her legs swing up casually beside her. Her flushed cheeks made her look younger.
'I haven't decided yet.'
Kester was still wary of Alexis. She flicked like a machine between cold businessperson, shamelessly oversexed woman and playful child. He still had no idea who else she carried on like this with and, so far, he had been too afraid to ask. She might see it as him being too forward and back off. She might prefer that her sex toys play it cool. He remembered how after his interview he had been concerned about her, how he had treated her like a fragile goddess until the moment he left. But it seemed though she had everyone, she needed no-one. Even though it wasn't just sex any more – they talked, they went to the PlayPen – every encounter was at her instigation.
'Do you really have a meeting at three?' Kester asked.
'No,' Alexis replied after a few moments staring out of the window.
Kester walked to his fridge and opened the door.
'And later?' He poked around the shelves, peered about a bit. 'What are you doing later?'
'Working.'
'Is that all?' Kester asked, to no reply. 'All night?'
Alexis stayed still on the couch in her relaxed posture but she looked curiously stiff, like a posed mannequin. She didn't reply.
Jealousy, Kester
thought. Should he have felt jealousy? Why did she insist on getting the virus from the models like that – to please him? To please herself? To annoy him? Had he said something stupid the last time he saw her? He had been drunk, he remembered, and had been surprised to hear her in the shower when he woke on the couch the next morning. He needed to grow some balls.
'Go back to your office, then come back up by the outside entrance at seven. Don't have any dinner,' Kester said.
He held his breath, staring into the fridge again, trying to stand in a relaxed way. Just how long could he stare into the fridge without becoming ridiculous? Soon his trousers would start to hoop around his waist, his nose would grow red, his shoes would become bulbous, and fat make-up tears would rise to the skin on his face.
'We'll see,' Alexis said.
-o-
Kester's apartment was bright, like his office, with floor to ceiling windows all down one side. Though the next building was only a few feet away, the angled mirrors that sat at the foot of the windows stole plenty light and sent it his way. The top third of the wall which faced onto his personal office could be demisted to let light through from the front of the building.
He'd had the room decked out to make it feel as little like the office as possible. The designers had managed to find him an old oak carved four-poster, which sat in the middle of one wall, draped ostentatiously in silk blankets and velvet throws. It was a nod to the creative in him, he liked to think.
The bathroom he had left as it was, though he was considering extending it and adding a sunken bath the next time he was allowed budget to redecorate, or when he saved up enough money. The wet room was wonderful, but he liked to soak and think once in a while.
To balance out the decadence of the bedroom side of his suite, he'd had the other side made super-modern, with long low apple-green Bauhaus couches in a c-shape and a projector facing onto the window. When he misted it out it made the perfect screen. At the foot of the window was a long low integral unit comprising his connect box and his airtricity transmitter.
He had been confident it was all cool until now. Alexis had been in there a few times during work conversations, but the prospect of entertaining her there was rather different.
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