Periphery (23 page)

You can think of better things to do with her bony ass than kick it. Since you’re her interrogator, you’ve got discretionary powers. You take a little mental journey, you and her on a desert asteroid.

You haven’t been saying anything for the last little while. Harrah’s a typical prisoner. She can’t take the silence. She says, “Like the underwater dancer, you are. No hair—you have hair where it is counting?” Her eyes make it clear what she means. They linger at your crotch, as if she knows you’re wet.

You just stare at her, like the camera that might not have anybody behind its silver lens.

Harrah says, “I am offering to tell you about my officers, if you are keeping me here. I am not going to the prison.”

You could make her tell you anyway. You could make her scream and not leave a single mark, and it would save lives, on your side, that is. But you’re horny and she looks like a virtual reality sexbot in her shiny silver suit. You walk over to her and pull her hood up over her head. Her eyes and nostrils show, where the goggle and breather attachments would go, but that’s all. Her eyes look like blue jewels in silver settings. You kiss the shape of her mouth through a layer of mecha, and pull back. She doesn’t move.

You’ve never touched mecha from the outside before, not with your bare skin. Troopers brag about doing this kind of thing, but none of them have really done it. In the barracks, there’s no privacy, and getting caught misusing government property is a court-martial offense.

You run your hands down Harrah’s arms. The suit feels cool and hard and a little slippery. It feels like it should leave a greasy residue, but it doesn’t. Your body heat reacts with the mecha’s surface layer, and you get a weaker version of the ozone smell the blaster damage causes. Harrah’s nostrils flare, taking it in. You’re close enough to feel her ribcage moving up and down as she breathes faster.

You know she can’t feel your touch on her skin; inside her mecha, she can’t feel anything except maybe patterns of warmth and cool, if she’s skilled enough to read the suit’s transmitted signals. She’ll maybe feel a little heat, but no pressure and no friction. You get all the pleasure. The thought excites you. You kiss her—the mecha—again.

The silver stings your lips. You can smell ozone and yourself. You sweep your tongue over the indistinct movements of Harrah’s mouth. Your tongue fizzes. The barrier of the mecha makes you hungry. You suck hard and get a static shock that resonates in your cheekbones. Your tits bump against her and the shock then almost makes you come.

You’re greedy now. Your hands are all over the cool, silver body. Your clothing is intolerable. You want that fizzing all over your skin.

You step back, back, dragging her with you. She goes willingly because you both know she doesn’t have a choice. You fall back onto the cell bench and she lands in your lap, straddling you. It’s like you’re wearing a harness, one that can knead your tits.

You’re trying to mold unmalleable flesh with your hands. You shove your tits against the hardness. She’s undone your coverall and the cold makes your nipples swollen and tender and burning. They hurt. Your cap is pushed off. Harrah’s gloved hands smear electricity across your skull. You can feel it effervescing in your sinuses. You’re in an ice storm with sleet pinging off your bare skin.

It’s like trying to fuck a statue. This statue steams hot breath out its nose. Its frozen mouth writhes against its confinement. “Fuck me.”

You want to fuck yourself on her. You also want to see what you can do to her while she’s trapped inside her mecha, stronger than you but still your prisoner. You grab her waist. She clenches her knees on your hips and she leans backward, her back arching. Her hands brace herself on the deck. She wouldn’t be able to do that without mecha.

Her cunt’s right there for your inspection. It’s just a smooth curve, like a doll, but you know she’s under there. You cup your hand over her shielded cunt. She pushes up into your palm. There’s a spark, like the one when you were kissing her, but stronger. It happens again. She’s doing it. She’s making it happen.

You remember she’s done this lots of times. But you don’t feel cheated. The sparks are coming faster now, penetrating your skin and muscle and bone through the palm of your hand. You rub and press her mound through the suit, as hard as you can. She bucks up and moans and this time the body shock makes your cunt lips throb. Your free hand plunges down your open coverall to your hot, tender clit. Yes, you have hair where it counts. You’re not smooth at all. Your hands, one on her, one on you, writhe in tandem. The contrast makes you crazy.

She’s doing something else to you. You can feel a buzz all over your skin. The faster you stroke yourself, the more she moans. Her knees are crushing your hips, squeezing out little pre-orgasmic flutters. You look down and see her fingers leaving dents in the deck.

You lean forward and lick her smooth shiny cunt from end to end. She surges up and shoves her gloved hand down your coverall. Heat jerks through your body. It’s like you’re being electrocuted. Harrah’s gloved finger thrusts inside you, cold, hard. It’s exactly what you crave. Her thumb hits your clit. Zap! You come so hard you black out.

When you wake up, your cheek is smashed to the cold deck. Your eyes are a little blurry. The cell door stands open. Harrah’s gone.

You’re fucked.

*

Report from the captain of the Federated Worlds ship Parthena:

Prisoner C-16 blitzed the observation cameras in her cell and set a timed blast at Blue Command before her escape through an emergency launch tube. Unfortunately, network damage was sustained in the battle and her record was never transmitted from temporary storage at Blue Command. It seems clear destruction of her record was her object in this seemingly random act of destruction. This officer’s successor will no doubt investigate further to locate possible additional acts of sabotage.

In collaboration with Intelligence, Sergeant Riesel Flood produced a likeness of Prisoner C-16 before being remanded to custody on charges of Negligence of Duty and Suspicion of Subversion. Affinity match utilizing this likeness identified Prisoner C-16 as Commander Harrah Kassavetes. Intelligence tried and failed to subvert Commander Kassavetes in Year Six of the War (report is blacked to level one-beta). Intelligence subsequently issued an Order of Mortality, now upgraded to With Prejudice. No further contact with Commander Kassavetes has been reported on any front since she escaped the Parthena. This officer theorizes she did not survive expulsion from the launch tube. Her body might never be recovered.

Sergeant Flood was dismissed from the service, sentenced to Swan Aleph, and Wired. Replacement to arrive 1600 Third Day Standard.

Harrah elbow-crawls through oily black mud on a planet called Swan Aleph. There are two giant people-eating turtles having sex fifty meters to her left, skidding and squelching away. Harrah watches, hidden in plain sight. They’re kind of sexy. She likes the way whatever they’re feeling makes their beaks snap open and closed and their tiny tails flutter.

She’s wearing mecha, a sleek silver suit needling into her body via nanoprobes. Her mecha keeps the turtles from sensing her, if she’s careful to stay out of their direct line of sight. The mecha also hides her from sensors around Swan Aleph’s prison compound, the only structure on the whole planet. Harrah takes advantage of the enhanced strength and agility mecha provides her and scales the first wall inconspicuously as an ant. She creeps across an open area that someone is supposed to be watching but isn’t. Then she scales a mundane fence and pops neatly into the back door of the prison.

Prisons really shouldn’t have back doors like that.

There’s a soldier from the Other Side in the prison. Her name is Riesel Flood. Harrah escaped from her custody once, which is why Flood is here. Harrah has decided to get Flood out. Rescue her enemy from her enemy. It’s a fun vacation.

Flood will be surprised to see her.

There aren’t any guards because everything is remote. Harrah suspects nobody really watches. There are no executions, but if the prisoners get out, the turtles eat them. The Other Side isn’t sorry if that happens.

Still, she takes precautions. Harrah’s mecha blurs the sensors in here, too. Anybody watching would just see glitches.

There aren’t any cells. There are just tables, spaced out, with prisoners strapped to them, one per. The prisoners don’t know Harrah’s there because they’re hooked up with wire. Harrah takes her time, ambling along the rows of naked bodies. She’s not much interested in the men with their flaccid little dingles, but the women, well.

She sees Flood. Flood’s hair has grown out some; small black curls, each ribboned with silver, cling to her scalp. Her dark skin looks more sallow, but that might be the light, which is poor; the hood sensors in Harrah’s mecha amplify available light or she wouldn’t be able to see at all. Flood still looks strong, though, and her arms and legs have muscle tone. Harrah isn’t too late.

The next trick is to get the wire out. Mecha soldiers all have a little port behind one ear or the other, where the original wetware download happens. After Initializing, soldiers stick plugs into the ports, made out of gold or platinum, or sometimes diamond, for decoration. But when a soldier’s mecha is taken away, the plug comes out and wire goes in.

Wire puts a brain on hold. The bad thing is you know you’re on hold. Not fun.

Harrah commands her hands and the mecha ripples like a disturbed pool of mercury until tools form over her fingers. The table straps will have to be enough to hold Flood still. Harrah sets to work. She has to stop when Flood’s body twists in pain, then resume.

The wire smells burned as she finally withdraws it from Flood’s port. The smell is illusion, her mecha letting her know the job’s done. She lets the wire slither to the floor and steps on it while her gloves go back to normal. With her mecha, she’s able to crush the wire to dust.

Flood’s face muscles twitch ever so slightly. Harrah is pretty sure Flood is awake; she makes a decision and peels back her hood. She can barely see now, but she can smell again: bitter tang of metal, and greenish scent of disinfectant mist overlying human skin. Harrah says, “Hey, Flood! I am here to rescue you. You are remembering me?”

It’s comical, the way her eyes fly open. “You,” Flood says. “Fuck you.”

Harrah laughs. “You are not getting deadbrained, then.”

“Dream.” Flood’s voice is stronger now.

“No. You are not getting so lucky.” Harrah reshapes her mecha gloves and rips open the table straps. “Time to move. I am wanting to get out of this nasty place.”

“Turtles. Mecha. I don’t—”

“You are talking too slow, almost-deadbrained. Have a see.”

Harrah springs up to the table and sinks to her knees, straddling Flood’s waist. She’s a little person and isn’t afraid of crushing her. She takes Flood’s left hand and places it on her waist, then the right. Flood’s hands tighten automatically.

Harrah opens her mecha’s pubic flap. She’s depilated bare as metal beneath. She can tell that Flood has no idea why she’s doing this and it makes her grin. It’s strange to grin without feeling her mecha stretch over her face. Harrah says, “I am not going to all this nuisance so turtles can eat you.” Flood looks confused. “I am having mecha. For you.”

Flood asks, “Where?” Her fingers are digging into Harrah’s hips. If it weren’t for the mecha, Harrah might get bruised.

Harrah sighs. “I am showing you.” She uses both hands to hold open her own cunt lips and rubs her clit with her thumbs. She says, “Mecha is rolling up small, you know?”

Flood laughs. Harrah feels it shake her belly. Flood says, “Crazy.” Her eyes roll to the cameras that stud the ceiling.

Harrah says, “If anyone watches, it will be taking them only seven months to reach Swan Aleph.” She looks down and is distracted for a minute by Flood’s big tits. Harrah likes them naked and spread out below her. She reaches down and plays with Flood’s right nipple. It stiffens up quickly. That’s still working, then. But Harrah has other things to do. She continues, “No other way of carrying mecha hidden. And sex will loosen you up so you can be walking out of this nasty place. Two birdies, one rock.” She stops and takes a breath.

“Crazy,” Flood says, but her skin temperature rises a few degrees; Harrah feels a rush of warmth along her skin as her mecha translates. Then Flood’s big hands slide around and cover Harrah’s, and her breathing changes.

Harrah wishes her hands were naked. Too bad there’s no time for that. She can peel her hood back without much trouble, and the pubic flap where there are no nanoprobes, but everything else is more complicated. She settles for pressing the backs of her hands against Flood’s palms before she pulls free.

Flood’s thumbs take over where Harrah’s left off. Her hands are hot and the whorls of her skin still have that slight roughness mecha soldiers get. It’s been a long time since Harrah’s had any sex, especially not skin to skin. Her clit is so sensitive it feels like the top layer of skin was ripped away. Three swirls of thumbs across her clit and Harrah’s chest is heaving and she’s forgotten she meant to stroke Flood’s breasts while her ass grinds into Flood’s mons.

The little sealed cylinder inside her passage feels unyielding, unalive. Harrah wants fingers inside her instead. She works her suited fingers into her cunt and teases out the package, letting it drop onto the table. The impermeable wrapping is wet with her own fluids and smells like sex. In case Flood gets the idea they’re done, Harrah says, “Keep going.”

“What about my mecha?”

“Shit!” Harrah yells. She picks up the cylinder and fumbles it before she can unseal the seam. Silver spills out, expanding, rippling onto the floor. “Satisfied?” Harrah says.

“Not yet, but soon.” Flood grins. Harrah realizes she’s never seen Flood grin. It’s startling. Flood must be reading Harrah’s mind because she grins bigger, showing sharp canines.

Harrah wants more action, and now. She drops forward and presses her whole self to Flood and does a thing with her mecha that isn’t in the manual, brushing Flood with a hot furry brush, all over, all at once. Flood makes a sound like nngh and hooks one leg up around Harrah’s ass. This is more the thing. Harrah grabs Flood by her shoulder and waist, shifting them over onto their sides in one easy movement because she’s as strong as six people with her mecha on. Then she grabs Flood’s arm from where it’s pinned between them and puts it where she wants.