"Well, mostly. But, I don't know... I should go."
"Go?" She turned around and came back to him. She went up on her toes and leaned against him where he still stood, within the doorframe, her breasts pressing into his chest. "Go?" she repeated, a mildly devious challenge in the way she dragged out the word. "This isn't a fear of the unfamiliar, is it?"
He couldn't help but smile, keenly aware of the persuasion enacted upon him by her breasts.
"Okay," he said. "Here's a deal. You get ready for bed, and when you turn out the light, chances are I'll come in."
She dropped from her toes and shifted her weight away from him. "Oh, chances are," she said dryly. "Chances are? If you don't want to stay, you can just say so."
Raymond heaved a sigh and looked off to the side. He felt like an ass. "No... I'm sorry. I... I'm just not sure I'm—"
"That's okay." Anya took his hands in hers and gave them a squeeze. "I shouldn't rush you. But I really want you to stay. We'll just sleep. I really feel like we connected tonight, and I don't want the connection to end. Okay?"
Raymond nodded. She gave his hands another squeeze, then left, closing her bedroom door behind her. Raymond watched longingly after her, then wondered how it was that he had ended up so entranced by this woman. He redirected himself to the love seat and plopped into it, waiting for the lights to go out in her room. He felt at once duped and victorious. More than that, he was anxious. He had never slept with a woman, in the literal sense, even in v-space. There were places where you could do that, designed for real couples who wanted to remain virtually close through the night, but Raymond had never had cause to rent a v-room of his own. Now Anya, a real woman with a body of flesh from head to toe—and a beautiful, well-cared-for body, at that—was enticing him to sleep with her. What would it be like to wake up in another person's bed?
He looked at his wrist relay again. Still, there was nothing. He touched a small button on the face of the relay, to make sure he could still communicate with HQ; Scorpio responded with an image of a checkmark.
Raymond was surprised by how long it was taking Anya to get ready for bed. What was she doing? His mind drifted back over their conversation about uploading. He pondered the possibility of volunteering his body for Bob Wells' other project. His body could be scanned at a pretty high resolution without any harm. His physiology could be monitored and replicated in simulation, such that he might gain some useful details on the nature of his hormonal existence. The scan would even include most or all of his neurotransmitters, if he understood it correctly. The model provided would be of limited history and not of perfect resolution, but it might be of some use if he did manage to upload himself.
Anya's bedroom light went out. Raymond sat on the couch for a moment, staring at her door. He faced the decision of whether to stay or go—her influence could not be blamed now. He looked to her entry hall and thought of his bike, outside in the cold October night. He looked at his wrist relay yet again; comm indicators blinked, confirming his connection with the array of computers in his motor home.
"What a fool I would be," he said, shaking his head. And he stood up from the love seat, took the few steps to her bedroom door, and opened it softly. Noticing that no light came on in her room and that the light behind him did not go off, he sought a switch. He found one on the wall of the living room, beside her bedroom door, and turned it off.
In darkness, he undressed to his boxers, leaving his clothes in a heap near her door. He heard her breathing and moved toward the sound, reaching out in search of her bed. A damask comforter cover crumpled beneath his touch. Soon he had found his way under the covers. The sheets had a sweet, floral fragrance. He lay on his back, not touching her, eyes wide open. He felt her hand touch his, and she interlaced her fingers with his. He felt flannel against his forearm—she was wearing pajamas. He took a deep breath and smiled.
"Good night, Raymond."
"Good night, Anya."
He lay awake for a very long time. Eventually, Anya released her grip and turned away from him, curling up on her side. Her breathing grew heavy. He scooched up behind her, nesting his knees against the backs of her thighs. She moaned softly, and he took this to be an acceptance of his closeness.
Chapter 6
Tuesday, November 12, 2069
Raymond stood in his office, his eyes closed, smiling. He was watching a retinal feed of Bento eating some grapes on the floor of the jungle habitat Raymond had built, digital Bento's first meal in his new home. The scan had taken place at noon, and scientists had been performing basic tests on Bento throughout the afternoon, between his naps. The tests were duplicates of tests Bento had undergone in the months leading up to the scan, designed to verify the accuracy of the transfer. So far, aside from greater exhaustion than expected, the results were spectacular.
Raymond's wrist relay vibrated. He opened his eyes and glanced down at it. He had a message from Scorpio, flagged as important but not sensitive.
"What is it, Scorpio?" asked Raymond.
"A new version of your physio data was just dropped off in your inbox. Do you want me to do anything with it?"
Raymond had been gratefully accepted as a volunteer for Bob's brain sustenance project. They wanted to accumulate as many physiological histories as possible, and they were especially pleased because Raymond had agreed to submit himself to any scan, procedure, or probe they could come up with. In return, he was given copies of all the resultant data.
"Sure," responded Raymond, after giving it a moment's thought. "Plug it into both sims and let me know if there are any changes outside of tolerance."
He had already installed the team's physiology simulation software on machines in his motor home and his bunker. He had also installed copies of the software used by the brain sustenance team to substitute for a real human brain. The simulated copies of his body, connected to the simple brain-substitute programs, churned non-stop through 24-hour cycles of training and testing.
He closed his eyes again. Bento had advanced to the phase of his meal wherein he lazily, playfully plucked grapes from the bunch with puckered lips, one grape at a time.
Anya's voice came through the speakers in Raymond's office. "Are you watching this?"
"I am. This is fantastic."
"He nailed all the visual recognition tests, all the hearing tests, he's been up and around—I hadn't seen him up and around all week! And did you see when Doug first picked him up, to carry him into his new habitat? His eyes lit up! He recognized Doug's avatar immediately. Where are you? You have to come here!"
"I'm in my office."
"Come on!" urged Anya. "We're in Suma's office."
Raymond walked through the stark white halls of the lab to Suma's office, grinning the whole way. He had wanted to be with Anya, but he was so used to doing things on his own that he didn't know how to go about being included. Suma's office door was open, as usual, and Suma, Alfonso, and Anya all stood watching Suma's 3-D wall display. Raymond stepped in next to Anya and slid his hand across her lower back. The gesture felt awkward to him, but he had spent enough time with Anya in the past couple of weeks to know she would welcome it. And she did—she turned and kissed his cheek.
"We did it!" exclaimed Anya, utterly aglow. "Last night, I wasn't sure he would even be strong enough to withstand the anesthetics. Now look at him! We saved him! We saved his life!"
She cheered and hugged Raymond from the side. He wrapped his arms around her and hugged her back.
This gorgeous, popular woman just kissed me in front of Alfonso and Suma, and now she's hugging me.
"Oh, hey, Raymond," said Alfonso. "I have to say, I am so glad you had Bento's habitat ready ahead of schedule. Being able to take him into a v-chamber and introduce him to his new habitat, before the upload—it's just been huge. It basically eliminated the adjustment period."
"Sure," responded Raymond. "Yeah, it was really pretty easy."
Bento finished the last grape on the bunch and tossed
the remains aside. They stood and watched as Margaret carried Bento over to his favorite toys, a collection of colorful boxes of various sizes, which Raymond had replicated for him. She set him down on the ground next to the boxes. He stood looking at them for a moment, then turned and held his arms out, wanting to be picked up again.
"Looks like he's still a little too tired to be playing," said Margaret, aware she was being recorded.
"I just can't believe this," said Suma. "This is so amazing. You guys, we should really celebrate."
"Yeah," said Alfonso, "it's already 6:30. We should cut out and go for dinner."
"There's this Indian place I've been wanting to try," recommended Suma. "It's a ways out, but it's supposed to be amazing. We could catch a glider."
"Sure!" said Anya enthusiastically. "You'll come, right, Raymond?"
Everyone turned to look at him, and he realized the significance of this moment.
"Sure," he said with a shrug. "Why not?"
o-------------------------------o
Raymond sat next to Anya in the forward-facing seat of a four-person glider, and Suma and Alfonso sat across from them, in the rear-facing seat. Raymond sat looking out the window while the other three compared notes on all the Indian restaurants they had ever been to. There was a joyous energy among them that was foreign to Raymond. It stirred mixed feelings in him; he was excited to be a part of it, yet he found himself looking out the window. The only Indian restaurant he had ever been to was India Express, his default choice for takeout, and it was dismissed with derision within the first thirty seconds of the conversation. They had moved on, naming over a dozen places he had never heard of, leaving him to relive the countless hours he had spent looking out the window of the Workbound shuttle.
I was so alone. I was even happy to be alone—I thought it was better. But I never learned how not to be alone.
He saw the lights of the Matthias Botanical Garden. He loved Matthias. He would bike there on weekends sometimes, to learn about the plants and get ideas for new species for Nurania, or just to get out of his motor home.
There's somewhere where I know how not to be alone.
Most of the docents at the garden were volunteers, and he had discovered early on that he knew a good deal more about botany than most of them. As he wandered the pathways, he would overhear curious comments made by visitors, and sometimes he would offer answers to their questions. He was reserved in his approach, careful not to annoy anyone, but once in a while he would find someone with a real thirst for knowledge. They would ask him question after question, eventually landing on one he couldn't answer, giving him a little research project to add to his list.
They flew right over the lot where he stored his motor home. He sat up in his seat to look down, to see if the roof of his pole barn was visible through the treetops. Most of the leaves were still on the trees, obscuring the dark rooftop.
"What are you looking at?" asked Anya.
"Oh, uh..." Raymond stalled. "There was a... weird light." It was the best thing he could think of. "Hey, I was just thinking we should go to the Botanical Garden some time."
"That's a great idea!" exclaimed Anya. "I love the Botanical Garden. How about this Saturday? Are you guys doing anything this Saturday?"
Raymond's relief at dodging any reference to his motor home was displaced by sheer terror. He had meant Anya, not the whole group.
"No, I don't think so," replied Suma. Holographic displays popped up as she and Alfonso checked their wrist relays. "I'm free," confirmed Suma. "I'll ask Tony if he wants to come."
"Oh, that's right," said Alfonso. "My cousin's baby shower is Saturday. But I should be free by three, if that's not too late."
"No, three's fine," said Anya.
"Hey, Tony," said Suma, talking to the floating head above her wrist relay. Raymond gathered from the way they talked that Tony must be her boyfriend.
Anya prodded Raymond playfully. "What a great idea, Raymond."
He smiled and waved her off, trying to hide the fact that he was actually mortified. Before he knew it, a five-person trip to the Botanical Garden had been planned, with dinner and bar-hopping to follow.
"Maybe we can go dancing!" proposed Anya.
"Oh, no," said Raymond, "I don't know how to dance."
"I'll teach you. We'll go to this salsa club I know in Detroit."
o-------------------------------o
The Botanical Garden idea thrust Raymond into a stream of activities he couldn't possibly have anticipated. Anya convinced him to join her clothes shopping after work the next day. "You'll need something... sexier, more going-out," she said, inadvertently causing him to call his entire wardrobe into question. They shopped together in v-chambers at the lab, bought a stack of clothing two-feet high, and Raymond had it all shipped to Anya's, to avoid giving any details about his living arrangement, with the excuse that she should see him try them on. Shopping together led to dinner together at La Sevillana, which led to drinks with some Columbian friends of Anya's at a wine bar, which led to a slightly unstable Raymond helping a rather drunk Anya get home, which led to the two of them making out on her couch until they both passed out. They had coffee together in the morning, Raymond showered in a girlfriend's shower for the first time, and they took a gridcab to work. They did yoga together that evening in Raymond's dojo-turned-yoga-studio, and again the following morning, this time with Suma. Thursday evening, Raymond joined Anya and Suma at a dark old bar called Del Rio, which was reportedly a revival of an even older bar, and spent most of the evening listening to them discuss family traditions, which led to Raymond's having to confess that he had no Thanksgiving plans, at which point Anya insisted that he join her for Thanksgiving dinner with the family of a professor friend who would be delighted to include him, she was sure. Friday morning, Anya joined him mid-way through his yoga session, at the end of which she invited him to join the science team for a lunch outing. By Friday evening, Raymond was exhausted, immensely relieved to learn that Anya had plans she couldn't cancel, leaving him on his own for an evening.
o-------------------------------o
Raymond stepped out of Anya's bedroom and into her living room, looking down at himself in the outfit Anya had recommended for their Saturday outing.
"You look great!" exclaimed Anya. "Turn around." She made a sexy growling sound. "See, now that's how pants should fit. You've gotta get rid of all your baggy-butt pants."
"Okay," said Raymond without reluctance. "You see me wearing pants that don't fit right, let me know, and I'll toss them."
"Recycle," she corrected.
"Right, I'll recycle them." He glanced at his wrist relay. "It's almost three. We should get going."
They spent the afternoon at the Botanical Garden, Raymond impressing everyone with his knowledge of botany. He even managed to get a few laughs with his story of the docent who kept telling people to make sure they saw the giant "sequoia", which was actually a giant saguaro cactus. From the garden they piled into a gridcab and went to an ultramodern restaurant downtown, where they were joined by three more people, making eight. Raymond ended up across from Tony, who, as it turned out, had also done a lot of gaming in Agakhan, and they regaled each other with stories of their fights and adventures there. Dinner was finished with a round of Red Tridents, a wickedly strong, cinnamon-flavored, three-staged drink served in trident-shaped glasses, each tine stronger and more intense than the last. By the end of the third tine, Raymond felt like he could breathe fire if he tried.
"Detroit?" proposed Anya. "We can start at Pegasus—stick with the ultramodern theme."
This was immediately accepted by all. Everyone put their coats on and headed outside to catch cabs. Raymond and Anya ended up in a glider together with Alfonso and his girlfriend, a tall woman with a shaved head decorated with rhinestone spirals, who immediately proceeded to make out with Alfonso. Raymond watched out the window as they rose above Ann Arbor and entered the stream of airborne traffic headed east.
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He felt a nibbling at his ear.
"You aren't going to stare out the window the whole ride, are you?" teased Anya.
Her breath smelled of cinnamon. She ran her fingers up the back of his head and started kissing his neck. He melted, his eyes closing. She breathed in his ear and whispered something in Portuguese. Through his tight new pants he felt her hand, feeling for his hard-on, and he opened his eyes, afraid that Alfonso or his girlfriend might see. They were too involved to possibly have noticed, but he shifted nervously all the same.
"Something about you," whispered Anya, "makes me want to be so sexy for you."
He smiled and looked away.
She affectionately rubbed his thigh. "I've been having so much fun with you," she said. "This week has been great." He put his hand on hers and met her dreamy gaze, and they cuddled the rest of the way.
The glider started to descend. Raymond glanced out the window and saw the lights of Detroit ahead.
"Isn't it beautiful," said Anya. "I love flying into the city."
"Have you ever done it on a hovercycle?" asked Raymond.
"No. Oh my god, have you?"
"Yeah, not long after I moved here. I used to rent a hovercycle on the weekends." He turned and looked at her. "We should do it some time."
The glider slowed to city traffic speeds, shifting right and left until it was in line with the top floor of the tallest of the old skyscrapers. It slipped smoothly alongside a docking station, then shifted left and locked in place.
"We're here, lovers," said Anya.
o-------------------------------o
The group made their way through what felt like an ancient fog-enshrouded crypt, down crowded plaster-walled corridors, ethereal female voices whispering eerie bits of poetry. Raymond leaned forward, over Anya's shoulder.
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