Pornopsychedelica

by Chris Johnson

  He hit the floor spitting blood, feeling his lip swell, his left eye starting to close. He staggered to his feet, shaking the dizziness from his head, raised his fists again. He took a step and she moved forward on her toes to meet him. She ducked, twisted, hammered a punch into his side.

  It was a pain like he'd never felt before and it took him all of his strength to stay on his feet. 'Fuck.'

  'Come on, Martin. You want to give up?'

  Martin ripped his gun from its holster. 'Fuck you.'

  Before he could level the gun Tomoko had moved, her leg raised high and her foot snapping twice into his face. Then she kicked him off the porch and landed on top of him, her finger jabbing hard into his shoulder. He felt his whole arm go numb. She had her mouth close to his. He didn't realise what she was doing until she had her hand in his pants, his belt open. He grabbed hold of her wrist and she pushed his gun under his chin.

  'Why do you have an old fashioned gun, Martin?'

  'I'm an old fashioned kinda guy. Get your hand off me.'

  'Don't you like you it?'

  He could feel her warm breath in his mouth. She kept the gun under his chin when he moved his head. 'It's not what I intended doing right now.'

  'What did you intend?'

  He gritted his teeth, feeling the numbness he felt in his arm travelling across his shoulders. 'You really know how to push all the right buttons, Tomoko. I was going to push yours one last time.'

  Her mouth brushed his, lips becoming red with his blood. 'You don't know if you want to fuck me or kill me.'

  'I think my life would be easier if you were dead.'

  'Then why are you getting hard?'

  He kissed her and she sucked his tongue into her mouth, pulling his pants loose and using her foot to push them down to his ankles. She straddled him, tossing the gun across the lawn. He blinked away the rain from his eyes, watched her in the light from the cottage wipe away the hair stuck to her face, then he got his hands around her neck.

  She made a sudden gasp, his fingers squeezing through the softness of her flesh to the harder tissue of muscle and sinew. She didn't react immediately and Martin had a thought that this was how it was going to end for Tomoko Iwamoto, passing out on top of him - rolling her lifeless body to one side. She pulled back the middle finger back on his left hand, a sudden jerk that made him cry out from the pain, then she landed a punch square into his nose that left him stunned.

  She moved her body, arching her back and taking hold of his wrists. Her breasts brushed against his chest and he felt his cock touching the wetness of her pussy. She lowered herself and he slid inside her. Blood dripped from his nose and ran down his cheek, but all he could think about was how she felt, sliding her pussy up and down him like she knew exactly what he was feeling. He broke his wrists free from her grip and grabbed hold of her ass, squeezing hard, hurting her and seeing her teeth flash white in the darkness.

  He flipped her over onto her back and she wrapped her legs around him, wiping quickly at the blood on his face, clouding his eye. He thrust down into her, hard and deep, his heart racing. Her thighs squeezed against his sides, her nails in his back and dragging across his flesh.

  'Come on, Martin.' She pushed up against him. 'If you're going to quit then get off me.'

  And then her body shuddered and he felt her pussy squeezing him, forcing his own orgasm to flood into her.

  16

  Drive My Car

  'Drive,' said Tomoko.

  Martin did as she told him, taking the driver's seat and using the navigation hub to find the list of the vehicle's last routes. He found the hospital and hit the 'display map' option, thinking if the journey was going to take a few hours he'd rather do the driving himself than let the computer take him there.

  Tomoko didn't say much. She'd placed a bunch of flowers on the backseat, where Jess sat with her nose in a book.

  Nothing was said about the previous evening. He was glad of that. He'd slept well, in the chair next to the bed where Jess slept, despite the cuts and bruises from the night before. He ached like he'd been on an assault course. the signpost for the hospital appeared and he turned into a long driveway.

  They waited. Tomoko seemed tense. After ten minutes she decided to wait outside. He told Jess to move onto the passenger seat, where he'd told her to sit before, but she'd insisted on sitting with Tomoko.

  One of the doctors appeared, holding an umbrella over a woman's head. Martin couldn't make her out until she moved closer and Tomoko moved away from the car. Short hair, a red-brown colour, pale complexion. She was tall, judging from Tomoko's height. She looked refined, like a business woman or the young wife of a millionaire, wearing a knee-length skirt and a matching jacket. Martin figured she was attractive, though he couldn't see too well from the rain streaking down the passenger windows.

  Morphogenica

  17

  Sim Hospital

  Teja's room smelled of starched sheets and phenolic disinfectant. As she opened her eyes she became aware of another, familiar smell. Chewing gum. Dr. Foster stood at the foot of her bed, reading the data on a chart and chewing furiously.

  'Good morning,' he said, almost managing to speak and chew at the same time. He clipped the chart to the bed frame. 'How do you feel today?'

  She'd felt every pinprick, every probe, parting and penetrating the orifices of her body like a lubricated plastic worm. The autodoc next to her started to wheeze, drawing yet another sample from the sensor attached to her finger and the needle stuck in her arm.

  'Feeling better?' he asked. Teja thought he asked the question like he already knew the answer. 'Gave me a bit of a scare yesterday when you took a bad turn from the drugs. Sometimes happens. You seem all right now.'

  Concern barely registered in his voice. If she died it would be no great loss. They'd have to pay Tomoko her money back, no doubt a compensation deal would have to be made. Teja wasn't a patient, she was a product of bio-engineering. Top of the line. At least she used to be.

  She raised herself higher on the pillows piled behind her. She felt better, stronger. She was being restored to her mirror image, the one she remembered. If only they had a sim drug to repair emotional scars, burnt and decayed bridges of confidence. Confidence in humanity.

  Right now she needed Tomoko more than she ever had.

  The fluorescent light bouncing off the pale walls hurt her eyes. Teja could see better in the dark than humans. It was another useful feature engineered into her, like her ability to resist disease and infection, the ability to regrow limbs like a newt. The best of Nature's crop. She took a sip from the straw the autodoc held out to her. Its metal sides shimmered like scales. 'Are you growing my arm today?'

  Dr. Foster seemed pleased with himself. 'Yeah. It'll take about sixteen hours. All you have to do is lie there. Dr. Thomson is also going to start work on that nasty gash on your head. If you were human you'd have died from that. I sometimes envy you sims.'

  'You envy sims? Would you like to be one?'

  He exhaled a breath through pursed lips. 'No. I was just saying I envy your biological abilities, your immune system.'

  'Do you have children, Dr. Foster?'

  'I have a son.' He tapped one of the pens in his breast pocket. 'A self-replicating product would be counterproductive.'

  She sank deeper into the pillows. 'The procedure to regrow my arm will take sixteen hours and forty-nine minutes.'

  She could tell he wanted to say something, but all he managed was to stifle a cough with his fist.

  'You have a visitor,' he said.

  His coat flapped as he made his exit. Tomoko eased past him in the doorway, gliding into the room. Her bruises were healing quickly. Teja thought she must be using drugs and nanobot therapy.

  Tomoko dropped a catalogue onto the bed beside her. 'Pick whatever you want,' she said. 'I'll call back tonight. I can't stay, I have some people to see.'

  18

  Memories

  Teja didn't remember anyt
hing about the hospital in India where she'd been born. The womb may have been artificial, but the principle of coming into this world was the same, though quicker and less traumatic for the dripping infant. She had no parents. Simulants had genes, strands of DNA carefully chosen and spliced to create a person human only in appearance.

  She'd stayed at the hospital until she was a year old, then, like a harvested crop, she and the other sims were taken to a hospital in New Delhi. School, hospital and home, it was all of these things.

  When the sims would walk in the city in pairs, people would point at them in their purple uniforms, the Gentech logo embroidered across the jacket pocket. Her friend was called Vanaja. They used to hold hands, skipping when the supervisor wasn't watching. They knew they were different. Other children weren't guarded and attended to night and day.

  Teja could talk before she could walk, found advanced mathematics undemanding before puberty. By the time she was seven she was asking questions the supervisor couldn't answer. Why am I here? Why can't I leave?

  You are a simulant, the supervisor would say.

  Teja knew, like the others, what she was. At eleven years old she knew exactly what that meant.

  She awoke into darkness. The autodoc shuddered as a car turned around in the road below, the shadow of the Venetian blinds crawling across the ceiling. Newly-grown fingers twitched.

  Time on the autodoc in luminescent green said 4.17 am. Teja groaned. She could feel the bedsheet underneath her new index finger. She scratched the material, listening to the sound it made.

  The car reversed, Venetian shadow laddering the wall, reflecting from the square head of the autodoc and rippling across the bed. The machine watched her, metal sides, glass optics, cold tubes and plastic capillaries. She supposed she had to be thankful for flesh.

  The darkness swallowed the ceiling and made the corners of the room black wells. The darkness had been her friend, a place of refuge.

  •

  Teja wanted to roll over onto her side, curl up. Force the memories away. She had to sleep on her back, keeping her arm straight and the wires and glistening tubes undisturbed. The ceiling moaned hollow breaths.

  Tentacles oozed down the walls like black-treacle fingers, feeling their way blindly toward her. Sometimes the memories came for her, sticky residues that remained in her dreams.

  The man's breath smelled of beer and cigarettes. His stubble scratched her face. Fingers, moist with sweat, lifted her dress and probed the elastic of her panties.

  Lights blinked and tiny monitors flashed data from the console behind the autodoc. She shifted position slightly, feeling the probes and intravenous drips pulling at her flesh. The blanket felt heavy, pressing her into the bed. She lifted the blanket with her good hand, allowing the material to fall freely and create a draft that blew over her torso, under her arms and around her throat.

  She closed her eyes. She would try to sleep.

  19

  New Sim

  'Do I look okay?'

  Teja turned from the mirror. Dr. Foster had a strange expression on his face, his mouth open like he was expecting birds to fly in there and clean his teeth.

  'You look great.' The hair stylist was packing her scissors and bottles of gels into a foldout case. 'Never seen a simulant with red hair before. Can't you change the colour just by thinking about it?'

  Teja had turned back to the mirror. She'd used the make-up Tomoko had supplied sparingly, adding only slight enhancement to her cheeks, eyes, and lips. She thought that was all she needed. 'I can, but my old colour still has to grow out naturally. My hair grows at a normal rate.'

  'Human rate?'

  'Normal for humans.' Teja watched the hair stylist for a moment, wondering if a human's attitude to simulants had changed during the three months she'd spent living with Tomoko. Then there had been the three weeks hiding in the dark, cowering in the ruin of a building in an abandoned village. 'Everything that applies to you is the same for me. We're not that different.'

  'Simulants live longer,' Dr. Foster added.

  Teja was aware of his eyes following the curve of her calf as she slipped on one of her shoes. 'A nice trade-off, wouldn't you say?' She placed her hand on his shoulder while she slipped on the other shoe. A manicured finger gently brushed the short hair on the back of his neck. She moved to the hair stylist and lightly squeezed her arm.

  'You're welcome,' the woman said. 'Just as well we can't do that trick with our hair, could put me out of a job.' She laughed, big round earrings swinging.

  Teja checked herself in the mirror one last time.

  'Can you get my bag, Dr. Foster?'

  He did as she asked, following her down the corridor and into the lobby. A holographic butterfly fluttered over the receptionist's desk. Teja approached the glass doors.

  Through the rain, she could see Tomoko leaning against her car. She wondered what she was thinking, if she was nervous. Teja pressed her nail into the palm of her hand, trying to remember her old confidence. Behind her, Dr. Foster was struggling clumsily with a big umbrella. She pushed open the door. Warm air rushed into the air-conditioned interior.

  'Pretty as pie,' said Dr. Foster, moving with Teja so the umbrella stayed over her head. 'You're starting to look better yourself,' he said to Tomoko. 'Those bruises have virtually gone.'

  'Thanks,' said Tomoko.

  Teja tried to stop herself from becoming breathless, from grinning like a school girl. She could tell Tomoko liked what she saw. She had to remain calm. She focused her attention from Tomoko's face to the small box she carried.

  'What's that?'

  'Just something I picked up.' The box disappeared into a pocket. 'Do you feel well enough to meet someone?'

  'Why wouldn't I be well enough?'

  Tomoko raised her face against the rain for a moment, droplets glancing off her cheeks and nose. When she spoke to Dr. Foster her eyes never left Teja's. 'Put the bag in the car.'

  Sat on the back seat with Tomoko, Teja took a last look at the sim hospital through the rear window before the man driving made the turn onto the main street. The car pitched as the wheels on one side splashed through a deep puddle, then they were picking up speed, the sun reflecting off the wet road.

  Teja slipped her hand into Tomoko's, the touch soothing her a little. It had been a long time since Teja socialised with humans, though seeing her restored face and body in the mirror at the hospital reminded her of how things used to be. This time she would be free, she would be loved. She would act on her own decisions.

  The man driving turned his head to cast Teja a glance. 'I'm Martin.'

  'Yes, I've heard all about you,' Teja replied. She was gently stroking her thumb across the back of Tomoko's hand.

  'I'm Jessica.' The teenage girl's head appeared between the seats. She grinned and slipped headphones over her ears.

  'Were you in there for a check up?' asked Martin.

  'Repairs and maintenance. I'm a simulant.'

  'Yeah, I know. You said that like you were making an apology.'

  She noticed his blue eyes watching her in the rear view mirror. He had broad shoulders and thick wrists, hair brown and unkempt. 'Apology?'

  'For being a simulant.'

  'I'm not sorry for what I am.'

  He made a right and Teja saw his face for the first time as he checked the junction for on-coming traffic. Strange beard, like an old paintbrush. Late forties perhaps. 'Why should you be? Mankind's fucked the planet over so many times now it's like a big sore ass in the middle of space. Been better if we'd have put sims in charge. You're a much nicer bunch of people.'

  Tomoko groaned in her throat. 'Shut up and drive, Martin.'

  The road, that had been long and straight, lined with the remnants of dipterocarp forest, split into three lanes. They took the one that followed the signs for Kuala Lumpur, taking them south over a narrow bridge. Teja watched the muddy water below surge and boil.

  For the first time in what seemed forever Teja felt n
ormal. She could look at the world and not be afraid of it looking back. Air could pass through her nose and mouth and into her lungs with ease, she could walk straight without her spine feeling like it was trying to push her shoulders into the floor.

  There was no need to hide in the dark any more, to dissolve her ruined face into the shadows. Confidence couldn't be built back up as quickly as Dr. Foster and his team of technicians had restored her physically. She'd seen and endured far too much for emotional pain to be drugged and sutured. She would try to restore faith where there had been hatred, though only slowly, cautiously. Tomoko would help her to function as a simulant again, and as a woman.

  She watched the traffic, the people on the sidewalks. They seemed trapped in a never-ending circle, the same vehicles and humans on every street. Faceless people on a dying world, spiralling into oblivion. Nothing would be the same again. How could she view the humans and their world with the same eyes after what had happened? And her new eyes saw clearer than the old ones.

  Tomoko squeezed her hand, as if she sensed Teja's thoughts. Teja looked from the view outside to the Japanese woman next to her. She saw no decay in Tomoko, only a female that, like the cherry blossom, went through stages of growth and withdrawal.

  Martin parked on a quiet street in the shade of a tall factory, steam churning from huge silver ducting. The doorway they approached was plain, darkness beyond. Teja followed the girl, who walked with her hands in the pockets of denim dungarees, a white T-shirt underneath. She didn't seem to know where they were going, following in the steps of Tomoko and her father.

  The place was a bar for working men. Western men. Teja had never been in one of these places before, but she knew all about them from TV and conversations she'd overheard. Plain chairs, bare floorboards stained by years of alcohol, blood and dirt, tables that wobbled and a jukebox full of forgotten songs. Two men played pool, drinking from bottles between shots. The owner had given it the Americana feel, a taste of home perhaps. Mirrors on the wall advertised Coca Cola, license plates for Cadillacs and Buicks, a black-and-white photograph of cowboys posing with their guns. Behind the bar was an old rifle and a painting of a buffalo.