Still, she thought of asking Simran afterwards if there were wipe-clinics in the hi-secs. Wipe-clinic surgeons were unlisted. They worked in no Compound and answered no buzz-calls from modules. They were people of the digital dark, living in null-space. Using wipe-clinics was illegal for chasers. The risk of being injected with poison code that could corrupt the Flood and create wild traces was yuge. It was a danger to the self and mind as well – but it was the only option she had.
Celeste read off the module number and designation from the access strip: 2X4B-523P.
She found Simran’s module after following directions that ran up her periphery, streamed in through her soulwire. There was no getting lost in the Crawl, only misaligned, and never for long. Celeste slid the access-strip into the module’s entry-port. It chimed, and she stepped into the airlock. Inside, as the pressure adjusted, a female voice said, “Please undress and await completion of decontamination sequence. Your co-operation is appreciated.”
Once her fibe-suit and boots were to one side, a golden holograph presented her with a robe, which she put on. It felt like real silk, but it couldn’t be. She’d never felt any true Real before. She was relying on Flood-memory of how it might feel. Couldn’t be sure. Either way, it was better than the fibe-suit. It also felt good to be out of her over-tight boots.
“Thank you for your patience. Decontamination sequence is complete. You are clean. Enjoy your evening”
The airlock’s inner door opened, and she stepped into Simran’s module. Faux-wood panels lined the walls and a holo-fire flickered away in the construct of a traditional hearth. Two luxury comp-couches were aligned in the centre, recliners with mood-texture by the look of it. Celeste estimated the module’s contents equalled five years of her current share. The atmos-generator must be super hi-tec as well. There was no unpleasant smell of human habitation, rather a filtered odour that simulated flowers on a summer day in a world where there were no more summer days.
“It’s mood-atmos,” Simran said from behind her. “A prototype. I got lucky. It works wonderful-good with the mood-couches.”
“You were a companion, then?” Celeste asked, more bluntly than she should have. The sight of a HR drone living like this bypassed her courtesy filter.
Simran coloured and nodded. “Before HR, yes. I did well.”
“What changed?”
“My… provider died. He had no family. He left me his share rating. I was all he had.”
“You must’ve been good to him.”
“Kinder than the n-borns in his life ever were,” Simran said.
“Sorry,” Celeste said. “I’m just not used to all this. It’s almost too much.”
Simran’s tone softened as she slid into companion mode. “Never mind. It’s the past, and I asked you here because I like you. Here, try some wine.”
She picked up two tall, thin-stemmed wine glasses. Celeste took one between thumb and forefinger. The rose-coloured liquid inside smelled good, an aroma of apples and honey.
“Is this real wine?”
Simran nodded. “I only have a little to spare, but this is a special occasion.” She raised her glass and chinked it against Celeste’s. “To us.” She smiled.
“To us,” Celeste said, more muted.
Simran didn’t seem to notice her reticence.
Companion mode must override detection of negative mood-shifts.
“Lie down on the couch and we can get started.” Simran gestured. “This is only the beginning of the night I have planned.” She disrobed and lay down on one of the two couches. Celeste did the same on the parallel one, but slowly and uneasily, looking around, expecting a cam-drone to materialise from behind an ether-field at any moment. This could still be a deception. A trap. There were no guarantees.
As she reclined on the couch, the mood-atmos changed. The definable odour vanished, replaced by a light scent that caught at the back of her throat.
Something chemical. Airborne pheromone-stim to create sex-mood, she guessed.
“I have a private connection,” Simran told her. “My provider’s. It will all be very discrete. No channel-hoppers, no data-spies allowed. We can do as we please, and no-one need know of your indiscretion this morning.”
At least she admitted Celeste’s late arrival was an excuse for the rendezvous, although how much of that was true and how much programming, she wasn’t sure. Companions were designed to please, which made honesty difficult for them.
Simran handed Celeste a pink filament-cube. She held one between her neat, perfect teeth for a second before biting down. Celeste heard the crunch of it being ground down to sweet dust. She did the same with hers. The taste dislodged all lingering flavour from the wine. The rush from the cube started to make her pores sing. Her forehead ached and pounded. Celeste touched the nodule under her earlobe, letting the soulwire do the rest, reaching out for contact with the private connection.
Simran didn’t do the physical, it seemed. She was a touch-voyeur: that much was clear from the couches. She wanted Celeste, but not in a basic sex way. Celeste wondered whether too much sweat and fluid would ruin the expensive shim-polish on Simran’s skin. Those things cost by the square inch. Or, whether she was hardwired to do the physical only with her provider and she’d not found a hack for it. Perhaps she wasn’t willing to risk the change it could trigger. Granted, she could also have loved her provider true and not want to touch another and thereby sully his memory. It was known that v-borns could be that way. They were sentimental creatures.
The Flood surged in, as it always did, and Celeste’s ruminations were lost in the purge of sensation as she connected. This was going to be a deep and powerful trip.
A very different part of the Flood to what she was used to came into focus. It burned with an amber underglow – a personalised overlay that must’ve cost yuge sheckles. From the electro-static flow-feel, Celeste could tell it was hi-qual. There was an aftertaste to it she couldn’t deny. Tears prickled at the corners of her eyes as she struggled to absorb its crystalline perfection. This was above overlay, beyond trace. This was better than life.
And there was Simran; carved from fluctuating patterns of code shifting between ice blue, saturation green, and midnight red. She writhed like a snake across a black silicon beach that ran on into infinity, bordered by rushing waves of subspace-foam.
Simran opened herself up to Celeste’s binary-code tongue and unreal touch as a lotus flower might, spilling streams of data-fluid. She made sounds of pleasure from a far-away meta-space, and their lovemaking resounded deep in the under-void of the Flood.
For Celeste, the experience still felt weird, cold and hollow – time and space without friction. Everything slid along as oil over water: separate and together, never mixing, never becoming one. This was how Simran saw herself and wished to be it seemed: untouched by the world. A fantasy of nonfulfillment. No-one in the Crawl survived untouched, yet she wanted to see whether it was possible. Was this desire, or v-born malfunction?
Celeste wasn’t sure, as they contorted their bodies into sub-routines that triggered a multiple orgasm feedback loop. It was like coming up for air and then hanging there – suspended with the sun in your eyes, the burning sensation building and flowing, building and flowing, again and again, until the body could not go on and collapsed, utterly spent.
Too much. Way, way too much. Over. Done. Enough.
Celeste disconnected, slick with sweat, feeling well-drained and unsteady. She could’ve stayed in there interminably, letting the loop send her body into overdrive, but she knew there were limits for flesh and blood. Life was not the Flood. A stream of silver-pixel info flickered before her eyes. It was the data-read of their time together: an itemised breakdown of adrenaline spent and hormonal shifts processed.