The Harmony Paradox

by Matthew S. Cox

  His eyes widened. “Kidding…”

  Nina grinned. “Me too.”

  He reached up and caressed her face. She slid closer, pushing him over on his back and lying on top of him. His hands explored her body, slipping under her purple satin bathrobe to the nothing underneath it. She moaned into his mouth, and nibbled on his lip when his erection stiffened under his pants.

  “Ngh…” He shifted. “The Peacemaker wants out.”

  “That’s what you get for wearing such tight pants.”

  He moved his hand from her breast to cradle the back of her head. “They’re not that tight. I’m that big.”

  Nina pushed herself up, straddling him. “Oh, really now? I think I should take a closer look.”

  “Open at your own risk.” Joey winked.

  “Maybe I should be careful,” she purred, and lay flat atop him again. “Wouldn’t want to hurt myself.”

  Nina rubbed her thigh back and forth over his bulging interest, trapped against the side of his leg. Joey groaned, biting his lip to keep himself quiet. The sudden worry that Elizaveta might wake up and walk out into the living room made her freeze. After peering back over her shoulder to make sure the hallway remained child free, she scooped Joey up and carried him to the master bedroom.

  “Guess you’re tired of waiting.” He chuckled as she tossed him to the Comforgel pad.

  She climbed up on the bed and lay on her side, draped half on top of him. “That, and I didn’t want to get caught.”

  “Cau―ohh.” He chuckled. “Right.”

  Nina bit her lip. “Are you sure you’re okay with this? With me taking Elizaveta in? I know I didn’t talk to you about it at all first, but if you’d have seen her…”

  “It’s fine. She’s good enough on the Yume.” He winked. “Only real downside I see is that you’re not naked all the time anymore.”

  Nina laughed and slid her hand up under his shirt. He grinned like a fool and let her pull it off over his head. After he opened his belt, Nina pulled off his boots one after the next, and tugged his pants down. He sprang to life.

  He struck a pose, flat on his back, and flashed a cocky grin.

  Nina let her robe slip off behind her.

  Joey glanced at his erection, to her, and back to his manhood. “This is where you gasp adoringly at its magnificence.”

  Nina gave him a predatory smile and pounced. They rolled over each other once, winding up with her on her back. Joey kissed his way from her lips to her neck before tracing the tip of his tongue down over her breast to her stomach. Nina squirmed in delight and emitted a series of faint squeaks. She lifted her head, making eye contact. Joey stared at her, utterly entranced by her presence.

  Dread that he’d comment about her looks came out of nowhere. Her fingers clenched the sheets. If he called her beautiful, if he again told her how he loved every curve of her body, she’d feel like a high-end motorcycle. Something an engineer thought up and put together, and he the driver who couldn’t wait to get his hands on the machine.

  Machine.

  “I see your face whenever I close my eyes.” Joey kept staring into her eyes as he leaned down to kiss her near the navel. Hot breath and beard scratch triggered a tightening of muscles, the way a human body should’ve reacted. “As soon as I saw you in that dark corner… your beauty haunts my dreams.”

  Nina leaned her head back and surrendered to the pleasure of his tongue between her legs. Her face… that hadn’t changed much at all. Her parents didn’t even notice anything different until she got out of the chair and towered four inches over her mother. They had been the same five-foot-four height. Joey finding her face intoxicating evaded her fear. Her face had always been hers.

  Her insecurities of humanity, worry about the case, and even the fear that the child would walk in on them gave way to the explosion of blurry flashes of color in her mind, and ecstasy. Joey’s tongue, the breath huffing out of his nose onto her sex, the scratch of stubble on her legs, everything pushed her to the edge.

  “Joey…” she wheezed. “Joey… I’m….”

  He slid up, dragging his entire body over hers. She grunted in deprived frustration, but he didn’t seem intent on teasing her. Nina opened her mouth to protest his stopping, and gasped as he entered her. He undulated back and forth, making soft grunts, echoed by her gasps and squeals. When he began to slow his rhythm, she grabbed his shoulder and pushed him over before straddling him.

  Joey’s hair spilled across the pillows, an inky waterfall of black. He slid his hands up her front, caressing her hips and sides and holding on as she moved up and down. His face reddened; all the veins in his forehead and neck swelled, and he convulsed. Seconds after his muscles relaxed, Nina reached climax, her mind swirling among flashes, abstract shapes overhead lights painted on her closed eyelids.

  She moaned a little too loud, and collapsed beside him.

  Their noses less than an inch apart, Joey grinned. “We should pull a sheet up or something. She’s going to wander in to ask what you’re screaming about.”

  Nina grinned.

  “The people two floors down are going to ask what that noise was.”

  She gave him a light slap on the chest.

  “Ow. My tit.” He cradled the spot.

  “I’ll get you a Narcoderm.” She snuggled at his side.

  He put an arm around and held her tight.

  Eventually, the post-coital glow faded to comfortable closeness, and she tugged the maroon satin sheets up. Joey stroked her hair, his eyes half-lidded, and kept smiling at her like a little boy who’d just gotten away with something bad.

  “Sorry if I got a little active. I really needed this.” Nina smiled.

  “Case that bad?”

  She exhaled. “It’s got the potential to be. It’s not ‘bad’ yet, just the waiting for a lead and nothing else to go after. It looks like the ACC managed to add nanobots to a street drug, Harmony, and these things are creating cybernetic implants in people that turn them into spies.”

  “Whoa… mind control?”

  “No.” She squeezed him tighter. “At least I don’t think so. The one we found seemed to be only audio/video transmission.”

  “Oh, did I tell you about Katya?”

  Nina traced her finger around in circles on his chest. “Only that bit about her needing a legit identity, registering as a defector, and taking in that… girl.”

  “She called me yesterday.”

  I thought they couldn’t stand each other. She kept jealousy at arm’s length… for now. “Wasn’t she getting cozy with Masaru?”

  Joey snickered. “He doesn’t ‘get cozy’ with anyone. Two or three girls two or three nights a week, and never the same one twice. Besides, he had to go back to Japan. I guess being the son of the CEO isn’t all fun and games. Last I heard from him, he was bitching about boring meetings. Kinda misses it here.”

  “Okay, so what about Katya?” She stopped drawing circles on his chest and reached across to hold him.

  “She took this sneakernet job, handing off some data from this place… and a guy followed her. Guess she got a little sloppy on their network, but the guy probably figured he could extort sex out of her for not talking.” Joey shook his head. “That poor, poor, unfortunate man. Medusa doesn’t put out on the first date… unless venom counts.”

  Nina smiled. The gorgon of jealousy crumbled to dust. “What’s the punch line?”

  “She seems to have found an ACC spy.”

  “What?” Nina shot upright. “Where? Who?”

  Joey laced his fingers together behind his head. “These really are awesome pillows. Suck the wakefulness right out of me.”

  Nina reached down and grasped a pinch of hair.

  “And that’s ball hair.”

  “Wanna keep it?” She winked.

  “Touchy, touchy.” Joey sucked air through his teeth. “The guy was operating under the identity of ‘Zack Martin.’ Real name is Anders Becker. I sent everything up the food chain.
Guy seemed like a complete amateur.”

  “Obviously if he blew his cover for a chance at sex.”

  Joey laughed. “Don’t underestimate the power of the P.”

  “Especially when it’s connected to a microfusion reactor,” she said, deadpan.

  “I’d have sex with a full sized fusion reactor before I let the Peacemaker within five feet of Katya.”

  Nina laughed.

  “I got the feeling his parents had some influence and pulled strings to get him in the OOI. I haven’t seen any useful information come out of him, so maybe they just sent him over here to get rid of him. I can’t imagine people making the tactical decisions were happy about this guy being thrust onto their roster.”

  “Possible.” She curled up at his side again. “Any idea what he was up to? Where did they have him embedded?”

  “It had to be a dumping ground post. The place had nothing to do with military equipment or intelligence operations. Ol’ Zack was working cyberdefense at Laughlin-Reed Innovation.”

  Nina closed her eyes. “Fuck.”

  “Again?” Joey kissed her cheek. “If you insist.”

  “No, ass.” She grumbled. “LRI is the company that manufactures Placinil.”

  Joey rolled on his side facing her, his head propped up on his fist. “And about seven hundred other drugs, as well as all sorts of medical equipment.”

  “Placinil is the prescription form of Harmony… I’m no chemist, but they said a couple drops of synthetic cannabis on it and it goes from being an anti-anxiety med to producing an incredibly long sustained high where the user is blissful.”

  “Hallucinations?”

  “No, just happy.”

  “Enhanced sensory experience? Vivid dreams? Stamina? Munchies?” Joey raised his eyebrows a little bit in time with each question.

  “Nope. Just happy, like nothing can bother them. Stress-less.” She shook her head. “Maybe I should take a hit.”

  “Wow. Sounds boring. Why would anyone bother with it? Pinky won’t touch a chem unless it allows him to taste time.”

  “Pinky is going to die before he’s twenty-five.”

  Joey raised his arm, pointing at the ceiling. “Fair point.” He let his arm fall limp.

  “At least I know what I’m going to do now.”

  He smiled. “Have sex again?”

  Nina grinned. “You’re impossible. I mean I gotta chase this Becker guy down.”

  Joey looked at his crotch. “Down boy. She said Becker.”

  “That was fast.” Nina raised an eyebrow.

  He raised two fingers. “Peacemaker’s reloaded if you want it.”

  She glanced at the dark hallway outside and sent a mental command to the house computer that closed her bedroom door. After setting a motion alarm to ping if anything moved in the hallway, she reached over and grasped ‘The Peacemaker.’

  “A quick draw is probably not the best metaphor yanno.”

  Joey stared into her eyes. “I could lie here and gaze into your eyes forever.”

  “You can do that a little later.” She winked, and killed the lights.

  atya let her head sink back against the sofa cushion, clenching her jaw to weather the two burning spears through her body. She kept her left hand clamped over the bullet hole in her right shoulder while Eve held pressure on the thigh wound. Blood seeped between the girl’s tiny fingers despite her effort.

  “He missed the artery,” said Eve.

  The concept of speech remained distant. Katya managed a grunt of affirmation.

  Eve nodded toward the gun she’d left on the coffee table after pulling it out of the bear. “Guess you want me to act like a kid huh? I can try. I was never real emotional in the compound. 102 cried her eyes out every night. Everything scared her. 104 wasn’t much better, but at least she didn’t cry out loud. None of ’em really liked me ’cause I was all gung ho.”

  Katya chuckled, and regretted it.

  “Here they come,” whispered Eve. “I hear them.”

  A few seconds later, roughly four minutes after her Emergency Services vid, the rattle of armor emanated from the hallway. Eve’s white hair flashed blinding under the glare of a small spotlight. The girl narrowed her eyes.

  “In here,” yelled Eve. “Mommy’s shot.”

  “Female juvenile, female adult,” said a male voice behind her with a quality suggesting electronic speakers. “Confirm resident ID.”

  Another spotlight glided over the window wall in front of Katya, heading left.

  “Clear left,” said a female voice, also crackling with an electronic tone.

  “There’s no one else here.” Eve bounced on her toes.

  The muted thumping of boots on carpet moved to the right and left. A man and a woman in blue Division 1 armor rounded either side of the couch, handguns out but not aimed at either Katya or Eve. Two other officers moved deeper into the apartment.

  “Ma’am…” The male officer holstered his weapon and took a knee by the sofa while his partner walked around the bodies. “Come on, stay with me.”

  “I’m here.” Katya cringed. “Pain.”

  The female officer approached, put her weapon away, and gathered Eve. “Come on, sweetie. Come with me, okay?”

  Eve looked at her hands. “If I let go, she’s gonna bleed.”

  “She’ll be fine.” The male officer sounded reassuring, but his silver-visored helmet blocked all view of any facial expression. He took two stimpaks out of his belt. “These will stop the bleeding. Medics are less than a minute behind us.”

  “Clear,” said a man from the hallway.

  “Clear as well. Firearm on the floor in here. Blood on the cabinet. Projectile impact in the counter.” Another woman exited the kitchen and headed for the bodies. She holstered her sidearm and plucked some manner of scanning unit from her belt. “What a mess.”

  As the other female officer carried Eve off to the kitchen, the man in front of Katya administered the stimpaks to her thigh. The breath she’d been holding to mitigate pain erupted in a scream as the previous agony changed from simple burning to an army of fire ants inside her leg. Reflex tears ran down her face, but the flare up faded to cold numbness before her lungs emptied.

  She blinked a few times to clear away the white spots and stared at her reflection in the man’s visor. He held her hand, though she didn’t remember him taking it… or pressing the second stimpak into her shoulder. Neither wound closed completely, though her shoulder ceased bleeding and the thigh wound had slowed to a trickle.

  The soft murmur of Eve’s voice emanated from the kitchen, no doubt answering the officer’s questions of what happened.

  Katya tried to pull herself up to sit on the sofa rather than drape across it, but yelled at a sensation like a sword impaling her thigh. “Gah!”

  “Easy, ma’am. Don’t try to move.” The officer hit a button on the side of his helmet, causing the silver part to slide up and over the top to the back, exposing most of his medium-brown face and black eyebrows. “Take a breath or two and if you feel up to it, can you tell me what happened?”

  “I escaped from the ACC about a year ago. Yesterday, this man who called himself Zack Martin sees me and recognizes me. He is one of their spies, and not a very good one. Thought I was still active, and would be interested in him. I have a friend in Division 9. I contacted him and a van picked this Zack up.” Katya nodded toward the corpses. “These three came here to ask how I found Zack. More spies.”

  The officer, Delacruz according to his nameplate, whistled. “That’s a heck of a story. So what happened in here?”

  A pair of women in white armor that looked much lighter than what the Division 1 officers wore hurried in from the hall. Delacruz waved them over and moved aside to let them closer. A slim woman with deep, dark skin and a blonde bob knelt in front of her. Below an Ancora Medical logo, a nametag read: Nelson, R.

  “Hi… Well, I guess I won’t say it’s nice to see at least one person’s having a day worse th
an mine.” The medtech winked. “I’m Rachelle, and my partner is Courtney.”

  The other medic, pale with lush black hair and elven features, smiled. Her nameplate read: Santos, C. She set down and opened a large white case, from which she pulled out a bundle of clear plastic while Rachelle sliced open Katya’s pant leg.

  Katya cringed at the sensation of fabric pulling away the sticky mess around in the wound. The medtechs removed one leg of her sweatpants and replaced it with a giant plastic sock, which they sealed around her thigh above the wound with an adhesive strip. Peach-colored gel flooded in from the toe end, pumped out of the case.

  “A portable… I feel special.” Katya smiled.

  A Division 1 officer examined the bodies, scanning and taking image captures without touching them, while the other woman hunted around the walls with another scanner. Green laser grids covered the walls, making dust sparkle.

  I’m going to be seeing lasers in my dreams.

  Courtney hovered over her shoulder with a handheld scanner projecting a turquoise laser pattern. “If we can patch you up onsite, it’s both less disruptive to you and less expensive.” Her aqua-tinted face shifted bright when the contents of the little viewscreen changed. “Good news. The projectile only nicked the bone in your shoulder, and I don’t see any nerve damage.”

  While Rachelle monitored the control panel for the ‘gel sock,’ Courtney plugged an autoinjector similar to a stimpak but larger into the scanner. Ten seconds later, it chirped, and she applied it to Katya’s arm. The expected flood of coldness under the skin followed.

  She’d never seen the equipment before, but assumed the scanner programmed the nanobots within the large autoinjector with the specific details of her injury. Another rush of pins and needles filled her thigh as the gel reached the opening and entered the wound channel. The medics held her hands as she let out a startled yelp and her whole body clenched up. Courtney eased her forward to sit on the edge of the cushion so the gel could reach the exit wound on the bottom of her leg.

  “Mom?” yelled Eve, peering in from the kitchen.

  The female officer tried to tug her back, but Eve clamped onto the wall.