Story Slivers

Celeste got her first spot on impulse. She had been wasting time in the mod shop watching freaks debate the latest cyborg accessories when a sales bot sidled up to her and said in hushed tones “A bit gaudy aren’t they?” The bot was streamlined silver in a style that Celeste liked to call chrome dildo. Very tasteful.

“It really is too bad that they can’t appreciate some of our more traditional offerings. Some of the most creative work to come out of the shop is very discrete. Pink scales from head to toe, how gauche. Embedded jewelry, passé. Blue fur, so last cycle. And it’s mostly mere cosmetic changes which really isn’t very interesting. If you’ve got something really fantastic do you really want everyone to know about it? Isn’t so much more fun to share your surprises with a select audience?”

Celeste was wondering if her age and level of boredom was showing. Select audience was slang from eons ago when it was first fashionable to become wired. Celeste was sure that this bot came with some special attachments because that phrase implied a situation that could still be considered naughty.

The bot waited, its impending sales pitch hung on her reaction. She considered carefully and finally asked “What do you have that doesn’t need to be shared at all?”

Later, she felt as if she had a pulsing neon sign on her wrist. The new skin matched the original perfectly and nothing showed up in her metadata that would give away her secret. She wanted to have an explanation ready but that would be pointless. John wasn’t much on meaningful conversation.

“You seem jittery tonight,” he said, scanning her slowly.

“I was over at the commerce domes today and I saw the most awful mods. Just the thought that people would do some of those things to themselves disturbs me. I’m having trouble getting those images out of my short term memory.”

“Poor baby,” he chuckled. “That’s the price you pay for slumming. Let me try to give you something else to fixate on.”

John was a bore, but he had the required biological purity level for intimate interfacing and he had been willing to seal a contract with her. Potential partners with those qualifications were in short supply so Celeste did not complain. She merely braced herself for what was coming. With John there were no surprises, merely variations on one theme.

Twenty minutes later she had managed to get into a position where he couldn’t see her face.

“Tell me again!”

“Oh, oh John you are so good at that! Oh, God, you are so big. Oooooh!”

“What do you like, bitch, what do you like?”

“Oooooh, I like it when you’re rock hard.”

I am in dialog loop hell, thought Celeste. We’ve been saying the same things for 15 minutes. And thanks to that implant of his we may be repeating ourselves for the next 45 minutes. Maybe he won’t notice if I experiment.

She pressed down on her wrist with her other thumb. The sensation built slowly. It was as if her nervous system was buzzing and vibrating. All of a sudden John’s activities were much more interesting. She felt her whole body heat up and start to shake. How many nerves had the mod shop crammed into that small patch of tissue? And all of them only had pleasure receptors. She started to fumble the dialog because she was unable to concentrate on the words. She lost all sense of time and gave herself over to the experience.

John left her shortly after he finished. If his goodnight was more terse than usual she did not notice. She barely stopped touching her wrist long enough to see him out.

The next day the mod shop was almost empty. The chrome dildo style bot glided directly up to her and said “So, how was it?”

Celeste may have blushed.

The bot gently took her hand in one of its pinchers and rotated her palm up. Another appendage that ended in a smooth oval caressed the new tissue. Celeste started to object and pull her hand back but the oval started to vibrate. Her heart rate went up and her breathing quickened. Just as she thought she would embarrass herself the bot slowly withdrew its appendages.

“You want another one to match.” It was not a question.

John did not visit that night. Celeste lay on her bed with her arms stretched over her head. Her thumbs were moving lightly over her new skin. She was teasing herself as she planned out her evening. Maybe something to drink or smoke first. Then a dip in her whirlpool. And to finish with, an interactive holo fantasy. As she ran through her selection of holos her thumbs applied more and more pressure. By the time she made a selection she was beyond needing it.

She did not remember falling asleep.

John reduced the frequency of their interfacing and she did not miss him. She was preoccupied with her skin mods and it was increasingly difficult to hide her extra activities from him. She had devised a number of ways to stimulate the spots without drawing attention to them, but she was always on the verge of being too obvious. John was self absorbed enough that he didn’t notice what she was doing physically. He had noticed her lack of verbal interaction with him. He did not seem to care that she was enjoying herself a lot more lately. When she received the notification that he had breached their contract it was almost a relief.

Eventually she became bored. Her ecstasy was predictable. Even when she went back to the mod shop for an expertly administered “checkup” from the chrome dildo bot the sensations were incredible, deeply satisfying and always the same.

She began to wonder what else was available. Her bot displayed all manner of traditional and experimental neural configurations. She was not interested in having her life disrupted that much. Her bot showed her how some discrete mods could enhance sports and extreme adventures. She wasn’t interested in those abilities. She finally settled on two new skin spots on the insides of her ankles and some aural and visual input filtering.

At first the input filtering was extremely amusing in public places. She could see people talk. She could hear what they were wearing. It was hilarious and disorienting. Just as the filtering was beginning to feel normal she started hearing the occasional look of interest or disapproval when she rubbed her ankles together or massaged her wrists. Other people knew what she was doing and it seemed to be mildly controversial.

The next time she was in the park she began idly rubbing her wrist. She was discrete but it did not take long to start hearing disapproval and interest. Her nerves sang and she let pleasure wash away the discordant disapproval. She focused on a man who was broadcasting low, persistent notes of desire. She heard him raise his hand to rub his elbow. She heard his body shift and shift again, almost creating a melody.

She sat on a bench and put her ankle on the opposite knee. She casually draped her hand over her ankle. She made sure he had a good view and began slowly stroking her spot with her thumb. She heard him put his hand on his knee and mimic her motion. After a while she leaned back on the bench, legs crossed at the ankles. Her hands were wrapped around each other, thumbs on wrists.

His face made the sweetest noises as he looked at her. His body was starting to move rhythmically. If anyone was still broadcasting disapproval she did not hear it. She was too busy listening to him approach a crescendo.

Shai knew she would get caught. It was inevitable. But she would not get caught immediately. She still had time to enjoy her little secret as she wandered through the ornate airy halls of Kamera, her chosen labor contributions for the day complete. None of the elegant people in this elegant place would ever guess she was a cloned vat grown infiltration operative. If she were to announce that fact at a formal dinner her dining companions would merely change the subject. Intimate personal information was never part of polite conversation in kysia culture. Besides, it was her other secret that would eventually surface.
Humans and kysia mingled in the elegant courtyards and visiting rooms. The lush cream color of the carved stone and subdued greens of the manicured foliage formed the perfect background for the gorgeous residents. Social mores restricted humans to body modifications which enhanced their beauty. The slender bipedal kysia needed no enhancements, they had been selectively breeding for beauty since they were capable of sentient thought. Elaborate social rituals played out around her with the grace of a formal dance. Shai had mastered the steps of that dance during the long journey from earth while she had still been committed to her master’s cause.
In addition to her other mission objectives she had been sent to locate the three operatives who had been sent before her and had disappeared. She had never failed to complete a mission. Before her perspective had shifted she would have felt shame and guilt. Now, withholding information from her masters seemed like a child’s game, slightly naughty, but not that important. All that mattered was pursuing her private endeavors.
Shai was careful not to take a direct path to the tunnels. All Kamera was public except for the individual sleeping pods over the living spaces. Many eyes glanced upon her as she skirted the open living areas and baths and kitchens and gardens. Each individual equal to all others, that was the illusion so carefully created in kysia culture. Each individual has the right to freedom as long as the individual acts and speaks peacefully. As long as Shia was peaceful none would stop her, none would question her. But some may take note how she spent her time. Shai mused upon the reality that lay under kysia illusions as she climbed to a hilltop garden above the sleep pods. Kysia hosts and human guests were not equal. This world did not belong to the humans. There were limits to peaceful freedom. Some actions were forbidden.
No one else was enjoying the view from the manicured lawns. Shai paused for a moment to arrange her deep red skirts and fitted bodice. Kamera lay between her and the ocean. Seen from above the sleeping pods formed snowflake patterns around the towers which led to the lower level. Graceful arcing transit tubes linked the towers. She might be visible from some of the nearby tubes, but she doubted that anyone would be able to identify her. She wandered a while, admiring the beauty of the place. Then she disappeared down the door behind the winged statue. As she descended into the darkness zafir wafted around her in an ephemeral embrace. She walked down the dry stone stairs for an eternity, trailing one hand against the wall. The spicy, musky smoke went to her head and she existed only in the immediate moment. She had no need for light. She moved in complete safety. The stairs ended and she followed the tunnel for another eternity, toward a soft white light.
When she stepped into the small cavern Amuna was waiting for her. Delicate and soft, wrapped in black silk, skin tinted an exotic blue, Amuna held her hands out to Shia. A gold amulet softly glinted between her breasts.
“What do you offer?”
“I offer myself.”
“What do you seek?”
“I seek freedom from isolation.”
“What do you desire?”
“I desire transcendence.”
The words were dark ritual, forbidden ritual. Shai knelt, staring at Amuna, baring her throat. Amuna dipped a slender forefinger into a depression on the back of her gold amulet. It came out tinted black and strangely glistening. She touched the base of Shia’s throat and then her own. Shai knew the shiver that rippled through her body was the nanoparticles of the drug being absorbed, but it felt like anticipation.
For a while she was only aware of black silk and soft, blue skin. Then she became aware of pale skin and red silk, from Amuna’s perspective. Sensations poured through her two bodies. She was no longer an individual, alone. A hole in time opened and Shai-Amuna slid through it. The past slid by in streams, intertwining. A child ran carefree on a beach. An opulent formal feast was eternal and then ceased to exist. A lover’s hand cupped her breast as his lips brushed hers.
Slowly she expanded. The river of the past continued to surge sinuously below and through her, but now she was expanding in the present as well. A midnight tryst in the garden, her back pressed against cold stone, her belly touching warm flesh. Kamera was buzzing lazily. Energy flowed and ebbed on the surface of the planet. Energy flowed through her as she rose and fell in the warm ocean, a lover’s hand on her vulva. Light sizzled through the satellite grid. She was part of the grid, then she was flowing through it. Warm hands rested on her electric thighs and data flowed through parted lips.
And then she was lost in the sparks of light beyond the void. She was moving faster and faster, caressing distant life. Alien life, alien joy, alien beauty, all offered to her as she offered herself. Her speed warped time and she was staring into the beautiful future where she was never solitary again. Parts of her future self writhed and slid against the other parts of her future self. She was enormous. She teetered on the brink of becoming infinite for eons. And then she transcended all limits.
Slowly she became smaller. Shai-Amuna became aware of Ti-Amuna and Ara-Amuna and Koma-Amuna. Tendrils of their selves stroked her as she shuttered in the aftermath of her expansion. Later she would remember her masters, the people she had killed, the relationships she had faked, but for now she was aware of only joy and pleasure. Some of the pleasure was the past relived, some of it was future potential, some was present echoed through space. A few joyous moments Shai had lived in her body alone, most she had lived only while merged. All of it washed away pain and guilt and anger and left her renewed.
Finally she was Shai-alone, entwined with Amuna-alone. They laughed and played as they readied themselves to reenter proper society, all formality between them dissolved. Although she was now alone, Shai still felt traces of Amuna and Ti and Ara and Koma touching her. Ara showed her how she lost the ability to interact with the kysia, forgotten to pretend she was alone and how they had guessed her merging was advanced. Ti showed her how they had come for him, surrounding him, not speaking, waiting for his exile to begin. Koma let her know he was waiting for her, between the stars, beyond the reach of the kysia and the humans.
Shai walked through the tunnels, alone and not-alone. Eventually she would be caught. Eventually she would be exiled and fail her mission and her masters. Every proper member of kysia society would turn their back on her because she had become a monster to them.
Shai walked forward, without fear.