The fox peered out of the undergrowth just long enough for Kyle to spot it before darting away again. It was playing with him, as Rook was now, too, in his bed. He followed it, ignoring the scratches inflicted by the thorns. Their game of hide and seek continued, ratcheting up Rook’s physical participation and Kyle’s enjoyment. He wanted to catch the creature before he fucked Rook again, to be fully in control of her pleasure. The fox stopped and looked back at him with golden eyes, daring him. Reaching for it, Kyle brushed away a tangle of dark vegetation and discovered something far more interesting than the libido-fox.
On a large flat rock like a pagan altar, stood Rook. She was magnificently nude, except for tendrils from the berry thicket encircling her wrists and ankles. A black velvet gown lay at her feet like a puddle of ink. Her shimmering blue eyes watched him intently, a sultry smile playing at her lips.
Lust coursed through Kyle as he took her in, mitigated only a little by curiosity. He had never encountered a representation of Self inside someone’s mind, and from his stolen knowledge he knew Shaw hadn’t either. Another sign that Rook was special.
The black fox leapt up into her arms and licked her cheek. Rook stroked it, smiling, her pale fingers disappearing into the downy-soft, ebony fur, emerging to plunge in once again. The animal swished its bushy tail languorously across her breasts and stiff nipples as it reveled in her attentions. Rook bent her head and nuzzled the fox between its ears, sparking unaccustomed jealousy in Kyle. He set aside all intellectual concerns about what she might represent, and stepped up onto the stone slab to stand beside her. Around him he saw torn vines and creepers, evidence that until recently this Rook had been bound. That thought made him even hornier.
He took the vixen from her, tickled it under the chin, and set it down. He swept Rook into his arms and laid her down on the flat stone.
Kyle’s senses were overwhelmed. Simultaneously he entered the Rook in the physical world and the mental one as well. The fox circled them as they fucked, rubbing its warm, sleek fur against them sensuously, licking them with its hot velvet tongue. The mental Rook, a sort of offshoot of her libido he decided, was a direct conduit to the physical Rook’s pleasure. By using this copy of her he dictated what the real Rook enjoyed, and in that way remade her. No longer would she be a hesitant lover, inhibited by her ideas of decorum, her own likes and dislikes, or even her lingering hatred of him. She could hate him all she wanted but would be unable to resist him.
Through manipulation of her pliant double, Kyle planted further seeds of desire for himself throughout her psyche. He made her eager to please him and easy for him to pleasure. To prove that last he brought her to a rapid series of orgasms that left her limp in his arms before allowing himself to finish.
Now she was truly his.
Once he had recovered he sat back and studied her face. “We’ve got to fix your hair and get you some clothes.”
Kyle took Rook to the shower and kept tabs on her mental state while they cleaned up and she shook the last effects of the sedative. His fix was holding. She hadn’t thought about Fin since waking up. She was confused about her feelings toward Kyle and the events of the past day, but wasn’t wasting any energy trying to work things out.
The slippery bliss of lathering her body came close to another roll in the hay, a distraction Kyle couldn’t afford. Like it or not, he was head of a corporation that required a lot of hand-holding. To keep the gullible masses eager and willing to finance his lavish lifestyle here in the penthouse with his new pet, he’d need to spend the afternoon holding the proper hands and nodding sagely at the proper times. After his trip to the mall with Rook, of course.
He dressed her in some of his own clothes, making sure she left the shirt open down to the fourth button. She didn’t have a bra, and easily acquiesced to going without her panties.
Kyle’s head felt like a frat-house carpet, and he gave up monitoring her on the way down to the parking garage.
*** *** ***
Rook sat on the sofa, surrounded by shopping bags containing all the new clothes Kyle bought for her. He spent about twenty five hundred dollars all told, with the clothes, shoes and salon bill. Lunch cost another hundred. Rook had never been spoiled like this, except it wasn’t really spoiling because she didn’t like any of the stuff she got. It was the sartorial equivalent of a mullet, demure dresses over Victoria’s sluttiest secrets. And the hair! The stylist stripped out the dye and managed to get it pretty close to its natural color, a reddish-brown, and cut it to look like some sitcom bimbo. Kyle liked it, but Rook thought it was stupid. She looked like everyone else. Kyle assured her she didn’t, that she was special.
Now here she sat, in a luxury apartment with a grinding headache and Gary, her ‘bodyguard,’ while Kyle took care of some business. He couldn’t take her along, but wanted to be sure she wouldn’t do anything stupid. She might have been tempted to try, but didn’t see any options. She couldn’t get an outside phone line. With the elevator locked, the only other way out was off the balcony, which let out into an atrium. Even if she jumped the eight floors or managed to climb down a palm tree, she’d still be trapped. Down the hall from the bedroom was a locked door. She couldn’t hope to get in without Gary noticing, and found she didn’t want to. Snooping had lost its appeal. She settled into her new life with a shrug.
There were worse places to be held prisoner, she supposed. A rerun of Cheers came on and Rook let her attention be drawn to the TV.
*** *** ***
Halfway through a bottle of whiskey, Kyle got his headache under control and was left with a warm tingle near the base of his skull that felt just like Rook tasted. He examined the damage he’d done to his own mind in his rush to smother Rook’s memories of his asshole brother. It didn’t look bad, just itched and seeped. Next he turned to Rook’s skeletons. Beyond noting that touching them felt like touching her delicious, warm skin, not slimy dead bones, he had no insights. Later, when he was better able to focus, he would try to figure out what to do with them. So far she was functioning well enough without them.
They weren’t what he needed to Complete himself, because he was still the same. Fucking, though greatly enjoyable, didn’t do it either. What did that leave? Did she need to consciously decide to Complete him? If so, why hadn’t she done that for Fin?
A thought occurred to Kyle. He dismissed it out of hand, but it nagged at him. Maybe she had Completed Fin. His brother never struck Kyle as the marrying type, and yet got hitched to this girl he hardly knew, this Completer. Kyle seethed at the thought of his Rook being used by Fin. That damn tattoo on her finger was a symbol of it he had to look at every day. So did she. It would remind her of Fin.
He buzzed his secretary. “Eleanor, get Spitz on the phone.”
Kyle was unsure how Spitz would react, but anticipated some kind of judgmental rebuke about impropriety and impulsiveness. Probing questions about the lack of a license, why they must get married the next day. But Spitz went on at giddy length about being so honored, although he seemed disappointed over such a small ceremony. The paperwork didn’t worry him. Pronouncing them in the cathedral would make it “legal in the eyes of the Lord.”
Kyle was pleased. The ceremony would allow him the freedom of having Rook with him without raising eyebrows. It was for show. Additionally, “in the eyes of the Lord” they’d be married. Hence, he would be Complete.
What if the powers governing this whole Completer business were sticklers? It might be necessary for him to perform the ritual, down to its last detail. Besides, Spitz might ask awkward questions if never asked to sign anything.
Kyle made a call to Documents and ordered new ID for Rook. Kyle didn’t want to lose due to a technicality. He’d get her ID, and they would get a license.
In the meantime, he would go ahead with the ceremony. If it did the trick, he might skip the rest. But probably not. Kyle liked the idea of having a legal claim to Rook.
Chapter Nineteen
ASTEROID
from Local Phenomenon by Brandy Moon, CTP, 09-01-2000
The white noise felt like someone attempting to create a sand painting on Fin’s brain. A steady chaos of sound granules trickled through his ear canals and ricocheted off his eardrums.
Couch and television in their familiar places, but Fin didn’t remember there ever being a chalkboard in the living room before. Rows of empty desks surrounded him. No one else had signed up for this class, probably because there was no teacher but the TV. The show was some educational thing about neural nets, but the sound wasn’t coming in. Loud static over an image representing how brain cells interconnect. It looked like gooey wads of damp lint, with frizzy strands of snot linking them all.
That he must be dreaming had occurred to Fin several seconds ago, but he didn’t feel asleep. The weird classroom tableau wavered, but the noise persisted.
Fin opened his eyes. Some kind of pale green veil blocked his view. He tried to evade it by moving his head, but discovered a spiraling sensation of vertigo. And that he was tied up.
He waited for the dizziness to subside. It was mild compared to the disorientation caused by some of his favorite pharmaceuticals, so being tied up quickly became the more important aspect of his situation. His arms were pulled away from his sides. He felt suspended by his bonds.
The restraints proved rather feeble and Fin easily worked one arm loose. Using the freed hand, he pulled the fuzzy material away from his face.
He was swaddled in the stuff, cocooned in filthy pistachio cotton candy. Several taut lines led off to other cocoons like his, all strung on a huge web filling a gigantic chamber.
When he dropped the torn hunk of shroud it didn’t go anywhere, floating where he released it.
The situation now far exceeded the effects of anything Fin had ever inhaled, injected or ingested.
The hissing grew harder to ignore. It reminded Fin of a modem, scratchy and echoey. He completed the task of freeing himself, careful to retain a handhold on the web so as not to drift away. For the moment, he would take this experience at face value.
Fin clawed through his memories. The gig. His wedding reception.
His wedding.
His wife.
Rook was there of course, during the performance. They had dispensed with all formalities and lunged into a party. Nicotine converged in the bed of someone’s pickup. The invited guests numbered about fifty, but as soon as the music started at least 200 more people showed up.
The first set went smoothly, unusual but not enough to base a conspiracy mythology on. Things went wrong during the first song of the second set. He remembered people running and freaking out, some unscheduled light show effects, and a weird kind of interference coming through the amps...
The white noise. It wasn’t quite white. It had reverby qualities, and subtle risings and fallings. It started during the first song.
Where was Rook at that point? Fin could recall people drifting away from the pit area up front and congregating closer to the picnic tables. Rook had been back there with them. Ever since their sabbatical in the bomb shelter he’d felt a pleasant little tingle that gave him a fair idea of how near she was, and in what direction. At the time, he’d thought it was the feeling of being in love.
Where was she now? The tingle-signal was silent. Fin looked despairingly at the gangrenous cocoons. There could be a thousand. Was everyone from the reception here?
No. Fin didn’t know why, but he knew that most of the concertgoers weren’t here. It was like a voice in his head, and he habitually trusted the voices in his head. There was a furtive aspect about this, though. It felt like eavesdropping. Fin concentrated and began to trace it to the irritating hissing noise. Imagining it as a babble of whispers, he could detect even more patterns in it.
Was Rook here? No.
Was she safe? Unknown.
What was this place? An asteroid.
Fin couldn’t be sure if this information came from some outside influence, or if he was just making it up. The asteroid thing didn’t seem like something he would come up with. And it would account for the lack of gravity.
But it was impossible.
That assertion drew heavy fire. It was certainly possible. Moreover it was accurate.
There was that sense to the protest, ‘accurate’ as opposed to ‘true.’
Fin struggled with such an enormous revelation, couldn’t accept something so shocking on sheer sincerity. There could be simpler explanations. He needed proof.
A cacophony of proof flooded his mind but he got none of it. The surge was too strong, an overload at first painful then numbing. Instinctively, Fin let himself go with the current rather than fighting it.
Fin came through the brief spike with continuity and recall, but it skewed his sensory matrix. Sight and sound traded places somewhere in his head, which had happened to him before. He’d done it on purpose a few times. Rather than freaking out he patiently started trying to put things back in order.
With the hissing noise channel-shifted into his visual cortex, things made a bit of sense. The tail end of the information surge showed him a lingering image of Gaspra, the asteroid he now inhabited. The asteroid’s orbital distance, mass, composition, surface area, temperature and uncountable further bytes of useless trivia were also in there, like a hangover from an astronomy exam.
Fin took care not to revert all this incoming data to auditory irritation as he put his head back on track. A strong flavor of approval, a warm kind of pride, now permeated the images. He was learning to understand.
Now that he could see the images, he started picking up on ways to focus on the ones he especially wanted to study. He could navigate, find what he needed instead of asking questions. Encouragement came from an unknown source.
It was thrilling. He found exhaustive compilations about every significant orbiting body in this solar system, and in others. Comprehension of space and time, matter and energy — Air and Water, Earth and Fire. It was that simple. Wondrous crystals of biological and psychological insight.
Too much.
Fin crashed back into the moment. He had just been told he was on an asteroid. In an asteroid, he corrected as he looked around at the cocoons. And not alone.
But he was very special.
That was another thing. The voice in his head seemed quite fond of him, bordering on smarmy. Fin’s trust for it weakened as his innate cynicism weighed in about all the positive regard. The voice told him so much, but nothing about itself. He was being watched, being led. Accuracy wasn’t the issue for him anymore. He wanted truth.
Which meant, evidently, he would need to go back to asking questions. The data he could readily peruse seemed limitless at first, and it was huge, but finite. A set of facts expressly tailored for Fin, for this moment. Something lurked outside the boundary, regarding him intently. It was of this evasive presence that he demanded his answers.
Why was he here? Nothing comprehensible.
Who was responsible? Again, the answer didn’t make sense. No sensible answer would be possible if he insisted on such provincial notions.
Okay. Fin decided to start with something more concrete. Who or what constructed the webs? A spider image, but with something indefinably askew about it. It felt hedged. It wasn’t the whole answer.
Let’s go out on a limb, Fin thought. Were they aliens?
They had been waiting for that one. He triggered another gusher, but was much more ready this time. There were landscapes and cityscapes and vibrant mother-of-pearl skies and milky seas. Postcards from a slew of world
s. With the images came reams of incomprehensible statistical and navigational data. The spider forms were not dominant. There were as many shapes and sizes of aliens as habitats on all those worlds. In addition to the many that were grotesque and unlike any life Fin could compare them to, there were slugs, worms, shrubs, squid, penguins and throbbing exposed brains. These many shapes, and himself as well, were One.
The forms of all these alien organisms were diagramed in glowing green silhouettes, with lines connecting them. The layout had a general correlation to the arrangement of their homeworlds. It became more complex, growing and increasing in density. Layers accumulated rapidly, and the individual details shrank as the whole thing zoomed out. Positions of the various races began to shift, and the interconnections took on greater prominence. Little clusters tended to twirl, twisting their strokes into lazy spirals.
The whole thing arranged itself into a pinched oval, a new image built from all the others. The critical thing. How all of these disparate forms of life had been united. It was a microorganism.
The germ divided over and over again, the new cells arranging themselves into smooth, glowing lines. The multiplying microbes created another image of an alien being, soon joined by others, all interconnected.
Comprehending that infection with these microbes brought different alien races together was another significant step, and earned Fin more praise. More comments about him being special.
They were trying to tell him the microbes were, collectively, the true self. They wanted to give him a place with them. To give all humans a place, but humans were simply unresponsive. Except Fin.
Miss Brandymoon's Device: a novel of sex, nanotech, and a sentient lava lamp (Divided Man Book 1) Page 24