Authors: Jade Allen
****
She pushed away from
him and ran from the pyramid, gathering her skirt higher so that it didn't
tangle under her feet. He growled as he came after her and she squealed,
picking up speed so she could elude him. They ran throughout the pyramids,
sliding from the dark shadows into the dying light of the gradually setting sun
and back as he chased her.
Finally she ducked
into one of the pyramids, turning to the entrance as his silhouette appeared
against the darkening sky. He stepped toward her and she stepped back, catching
herself on the wall as she stumbled over something she had not seen on the
floor. Her fingertips touched the stone, dipping into the grooves of a
hieroglyph, and in an instant the chamber around her was gone.
Liora felt the pull
deep in her stomach and a scream tore through her as she realized what was
happening. In the next moment she lay on the ground in the pyramid in Egypt,
the voices of the crew filling the space around her as they gathered around
her.
"No!" she
screamed, pulling onto her knees and clawing at the wall, trying to find the
hieroglyphs that would bring her back to Amasis.
"Liora!"
Ethan's voice broke through her own frantic screams and she turned to him.
"What the hell happened?"
She let him bring her
to her feet and as she looked around she realized she was not in the small
chamber behind the false wall, but another, larger chamber she hadn't seen
before.
"How did I get
here?" she asked.
"I don't know.
You were beside me one minute, and then the next you were gone. We've been
searching for you for hours. Where did you get that dress?"
Liora gathered the
dress in her hands, balling as much of the skirt into her palms as she could
and pressing it to her face. Sobs racked through her body and she felt like she
couldn't hold herself up. She couldn't get back to him. Amasis himself had said
he didn't understand how she had managed to use the portals that had been
sealed for thousands of years.
Ethan wrapped an arm
around her shoulders and she let him lead her out of the chamber and along the
corridors until they stepped out of the pyramid. She was still sobbing as he
guided her into her tent, the pain threatening to crack her chest in two. His
hands eased her down onto her sleeping bag and she heard him mutter to someone
who had followed them to get the doctor.
"I don’t need a
doctor," she said, her crying now quieted and replaced by an aching
emptiness. "I need Amasis."
"Who is
Amasis?"
"The descendant
of one of the extraterrestrials who came thousands of years ago and helped
build these pyramids."
"Please don't
start that again, Liora. This is serious. You were missing for hours. Something
must have happened to you."
Liora shook her head
against the pillow, curling into a tight ball.
"I am serious. He
has been waiting for me."
"Where?"
"I found a hidden
chamber in the pyramid and it transported me to his planet. He showed me the
ruins of pyramids that have been there for thousands of years, since they
decided that the people of Earth weren't worth their alliance and left."
Before Ethan could
reply, the doctor came into the tent. He instructed Liora to sit up and poured
water down her throat, insisting she was suffering from heat exhaustion.
"She should leave
tomorrow," he said over his shoulder to Ethan, "We can finish this
investigation without her. We have enough of her notes on the hieroglyphs to
get through."
His words sank in and
suddenly Liora was on her feet, running back toward the pyramid. She leaned
down as she passed the tool tent, scooping a chisel off of the ground without
stopping. Behind her she could hear Ethan and the doctor screaming at her, but
their words were drowned out by the pounding of her heartbeat and the rush of
her blood in her ears.
Liora ran down the corridor
into the chamber and through the false wall into the smaller space. Lifting the
chisel, she began pounding at the wall, desperately trying to engrave a symbol
into the stone.
"Stop! Liora,
what are you doing?" Ethan shouted, climbing through the false wall into
the chamber with her.
She continued on,
screaming with the exertion of each movement, frantically hitting the wall
until her arms gave out and she couldn't lift the chisel again. Her body
crumpled to the ground, the tears pouring again, and Ethan dropped to his knees
beside her, gathering her against him as she cried.
Suddenly she noticed a
flicker of light out of the corner of her eye. She looked up and saw a new
hieroglyph glowing in the stone. A moment later, another appeared, closer to
the false door. She touched it and in an instant, another appeared, this one
right outside the false door in the main chamber. As she followed them, more of
the glowing symbols appeared, guiding her along the wall of the chamber to the
opposite corner.
Light pulsed along the
seam of the corner as she drew closer, and Liora touched her palm to it.
Instead of another false wall, she felt the entire wall shift slightly and
blinding light poured into the space. The stone beneath her hand gave way and
was replaced by soft, warm skin. Strong fingers intertwined with hers and she
stepped back, helping Amasis step through the wall into the chamber.
As soon as he was
standing beside her, he gathered her against his chest.
"My light,"
he whispered into her hair, "I thought I had lost you."
"Dear god,"
Ethan said from behind them, "You were telling the truth."
Liora raised her head
to respond, but she heard the commotion of the rest of the crew racing down the
corridor and she looked up at Amasis desperately.
"Go," she said,
pushing him back toward the gap in the wall, which was starting to ease closed.
"Not without
you," he said.
"Take me with
you."
Amasis tightened his
grip on her hand and stepped back through the wall, pulling her along with him.
She felt a hand close around her wrist and she screamed, yanking against the
doctor's grip so he could not pull her back through. Amasis tugged hard on her
and finally she ripped out of the doctor's hand and stumbled into Amasis's arms
just as the wall sealed behind them.
****
Liora and Amasis
tumbled backwards and landed on the dusty floor, him on his back and her
sprawled on his chest. They both lay still for a few seconds, their hard,
uneven breath the only sound in the isolated chamber, before Liora dipped her
mouth down to his.
Amasis kissed her back
with intensity, using one hand to hold the back of her head so he crushed their
mouths together. Their tongues tangled, drawing unchained sounds from deep
within them as they put every moment of pain, anger, and fear of losing each
other into their kiss. She felt his hands come to the backs of her thighs and
pull her forward, causing her to straddle his hips. The skirt of her dress
caught and he reached down to gather it out of the way so she could settle onto
him.
Her core cradled
against a surging erection and she rocked her hips against it, her lack of
panties allowing her to feel the friction of his soft pants against her body.
She knew he could feel her wet heat through the fabric and she pushed down
harder, coaxing him to touch her.
Amasis whisked the
dress the rest of the way off of her body, exposing her completely to him. He
moaned and reached up to cup her breasts, filling his hands with them and
kneading his fingers into the supple flesh. In one movement he sat up, wrapped
one arm around her hips, and flipped Liora onto her back so that she landed on
her discarded dress.
The sun was completely
set now but she could see him in the light from the moon flowing into the
pyramid as he sat back on his heels and untied his pants again. Once they were
loose, he raised up and pushed them off, kicking them aside so that there was
no longer anything between them. Liora reached for him and Amasis came forward
over her, catching himself with his hands on either side of her shoulders so
that he could kiss her before pushing back onto his knees again.
She complied with the
fast guidance of his hands as he pushed her legs apart, positioning them on
either side of his. He grabbed her thighs and pulled her forward so that her
hips lifted slightly off of the ground. Suddenly he was inside her and Liora
cried out with the fullness of him burying himself deep within her body.
He didn't pause, but
withdrew slightly and slammed back into her, bringing another sharp cry to her
lips. The sounds seemed to spur him forward and Amasis held onto her hips for
leverage as he thrust into her so hard and fast she felt like she could barely
catch her breath. The feeling of him stretching her walls, plunging further
than she thought possible, was glorious. She clung to his arms, digging her
nails into her skin as he arched back, roaring with release and bringing his
hand between them so he could touch her. The combination of his thumb swirling
into her swollen, aching bud and the pulsing of his cock within her sent Liora
crashing over the edge and she gasped, breathless at the intensity of the
climax that milked him.
When their bodies
finally relaxed, Liora straightened her legs and opened her arms so that Amasis
could rest down on top of her. He buried his head in the crook of her neck and
trailed lazy kisses along her skin.
"I thought my
light had gone out forever," he whispered against her.
She felt tears
threatening her eyes and she cuddled him closer to her, desperate to feel his
skin on every inch of her.
"Never," she
whispered back.
"I could feel you
so close. It was almost like you were just on the other side of the wall."
"How did you know
how to find me?"
"I could hear the
chisel against the stone and I followed it until I got here. Every time you hit
the wall, it sent a little spark of light in here to me. I knew you were
there."
"When you
engraved the symbols back to me, they were glowing."
Amasis raised his head
and looked down at her.
"I don't think we
will ever be able to use the connector transport again," he said, a hint
of hesitation in his voice, "It only worked when we needed to get to each
other. I think Seker planned it that way when he sealed it. He foretold this in
that message. We are the civility, the union he dreamed of for our
species."
"I don't want to
use it again," she reassured him, touching a kiss to his lips and feeling
his erection pulse back to life. She smiled and ran her tongue along his bottom
lip, easing her thighs apart to welcome him, "I want to be right here with
you. I need you."
Liora sighed as Amasis
sank into her smoothly and slowly, taking his time so that she felt him
intensely as he stroked across every inch of her. As frantically as he had
moved before, he moved tenderly now, using his whole body to envelope hers and
kissing her languidly as he rolled his hips against her.
Liora wrapped her arms
around him and held him close, returning his kiss softly. Her body held him
closer, fitting around him as though she was made for him. She smiled as she
shifted her hips, sending him deeper and eliciting a groan of appreciation. At
that moment, she knew she was safe and that she no longer had anything to fear
about the darkness. She had her own moonlight to protect her and guide her way.
THE END
“And then we had to
run all the way back because I’d forgotten my goggles, can you believe that?
Anyway, I saw one of the humans in my corridor and I asked them if they have to
wear goggles when they get that close to the sun, and do you know what they
said?”
They never get that
close to the sun,
Ada thought, amused, but she knew Pili wouldn’t let her
get a word in before she started to talk again. Instead of answering, she
smiled at her younger sibling, waiting for her fill her lungs with air so she
could continue speaking.
“They said they never
get
that close to the sun! I can’t
believe
I never knew that. I always
forget that humans are so soft, we never see them, and we probably
won’t
for,
I don’t know, twenty or thirty years?” Pili turned and looked up at Adofo, who
had been holding her hand and listening as silently as Ada had been. “What do
you think?”
“I think---“
“I guess thirty,” Pili
cut in, undoubtedly never realizing Adofo had begun an answer in the first
place. She tugged at the neck of her violet jumpsuit as she spoke. “I’m only
25, but I feel so much older sometimes. Maybe it’s all the couplings I’ve seen.
Hey, did you hear about Ulu and Ari, they’re officially coupling soon!”
Coupling was similar to marriage, but since cyborgs couldn’t reproduce, it was
always for what humans called love, although cyborgs couldn’t feel love in
exactly the same way as their fleshier cousins did.
Adofo smiled at Ada
over Pili’s head as she plowed through her news, amusement plain on his broad
face thanks to the shining white light emanating from the corridor’s walls.
With his sonorous voice, heavy frame, and layers of protective, foam-like
muscles, Adofo wasn’t used to being walked or talked over; luckily, he seemed
as fond of Pili as Ada had ever seen a cyborg become of another being, and her
exuberance only endeared her to him. Most cypeople in the maintenance
department were so busy they didn’t bother to pursue anyone romantically until
their 40th or 50
th
year, after they started to form stronger attachments
outside their family units, but times were changing---at least according to the
culture evident in their dorm station. She couldn’t be sure about the other
stations, but it was hard to imagine life on other stations clearly at all when
she could hardly keep track of hers.
“You okay, Ada? You
always seem nervous before missions! But I mean, we don’t get nervous, so,
what’s up?” Pili took two whole breaths, signaling she was waiting for an
answer. Ada shook her head, sending a loose curl flying from her ponytail. She
frowned as she pinned it back into place, trying not to picture her elevator
pod being hurled into the sun instead of locked into her ship. She decided to
lie instead.
“You know, I always
forget to eat before these things. I’m just hungry; I’ll grab some gel or
something before I dismount.” Ada took a slow, deep breath and hoped Pili would
buy it. They were nearing the boarding bridge---she could see the dark red
double doors just at the end of the curved hall. Their dorm, like most other standard
cypeople dormitories, was built like an enormous cylinder, with 25 levels for
work and 25 levels for living and entertainment.
Pili nodded in
response to her older sibling’s words, pale green eyes thoughtful. “Whenever
I’m gardening, I can get pretty wrapped up in things and forget to eat, too. I
can’t
wait
for my first mission.” A grin lit up her features, and a pale
pink flush warmed the tint of her tawny skin, lighter than Ada’s own shade of
mocha. “I wonder if I’ll get to fix complicated things, like you! Or just stuff
I already do, like prune space bushes, or something.” Pili seemed so distressed
by the latter possibility that Ada laughed and patted her cheek with one hand.
“It’s not that
exciting, really,” she said earnestly. “Once you actually finish learning about
all the things that can go wrong, that’s pretty much the last you hear of it.
And then you get out there in your ship, spend one minute on the problem, and
ten minutes on the return trip. I’d rather be pruning space bushes; at least
then I’m
sure
I’m doing something useful.”
Pili giggled and
touched her palm to Ada’s, and Adofo averted his brown eyes---it was an
affectionate gesture between cyborgs fashioned from the same genetic source, or
“siblings”, like them. Ada felt a tingling surge of warmth move up her palm and
spread through her body to envelope her heart---
love,
she thought--- and
she tried to control her reaction as the alarming, exhilarating sensation took
over… and faded away just as quickly as it came. Like always, it left her
partially mechanical heart beating furiously hard and fast, but she focused
until she was able to reign it in. Pili took no notice.
“Good luck,” she said,
smiling. “Bring me something cool! See you at lunch?”
“Yes,” Ada said, and
she was comforted to find that her voice sounded normal. She closed her hand
and touched her fist to Adofo’s much larger, ivory colored one---a less
intimate but still affectionate gesture to the man who was becoming like a
brother to her---and when she only felt the cool press of rubberized flesh, she
sighed with relief.
“Good luck,” Adofo
said, smiling gently.
“Thank you,” Ada
replied. She wasn’t bothered when he simply turned and started to walk away,
slipping his hand into Pili’s as they moved back down the hall; since Pili
started dating him two years ago, he’d rarely spoken unless he was first spoken
to. This was something that still tended to be true of older cyborgs or cyborgs
with traditional caretakers; Ada and Pili’s parental units had both been warm,
radical-leaning females who were as close to Pathoborgs one could get before
actually turning.
“I just don’t have
it,” Jada would often say. “Pathos have to be born, not made---in a manner of
sorts.” Nat would laugh at her joke no matter how many times she told it, and
she still did, even though they were both now eighty years old and had surely
shared the joke hundreds of times.
The joke was that
no
cyborg was born; not traditionally like a human, at least. They were grown in
dishes and then transferred to artificial wombs to grow in a vat of nutrients
for three to six months, depending on what you needed them for. Jada and Nat
were grown to work with numbers, and chose to work in the dorm’s core, fixing
problems in the giant computer system as they arose; Pili was grown to care for
living things, small animals and plants in the greenery rooms in the dorms, and
later down on Earth, when she was finished with her service here; and Ada was
rare, a Jack-of-all-trades that was often dispatched to deal with more dangerous
issues on all fronts, due to the abnormal strength of her skin and organs. Her
dorm’s technician told her that it was abnormal, but not unheard of, and it
simply meant she’d mutated a little more than most of the other cypeople. That
simply meant she was different, he assured her. She’d been ten, and had been
sent to be examined after dunking her hand in a pot of boiling acid, coming out
unscathed.
“Shouldn’t this mean
I’m a Pathos?” Ada remembered asking, feeling something inside her for a moment
she knew wasn’t supposed to be there.
The tech had chuckled
as he arranged his tools in his apothecary bag. “No, if you were a Pathos,
you’re be experiencing bursts of emotion that you couldn’t control, having
meltdowns...it wouldn’t be pretty.”
“I’ve seen cypeople on
the video screens that are Pathos,” little Ada pressed. “The ones trained for
call centers and therapy. They seem okay.”
The tech removed his
glasses and smiled patiently. “Yes, because after years of humans teaching them
how to experience and deal with pure emotion,
those
cypeople can handle
the extreme ups and downs that being Pathos comes with. Without human aid,
those cypeople would be lost.”
“Is that why some of
us are burned instead? They couldn’t learn to deal with it?”
The tech looked
nervous. “Uh, no…those are cyborgs who experience what we call phantom emotion.
That means something is wrong with their circuitry and the illusion of emotion
is present. This drives us past the point of functioning, unfortunately. We can
handle basic fear and things like disgust and fondness---the vestiges of what
our human ancestors evolved for survival, essentially--- but nothing stronger.
Their circuitry changes, and it eventually it changes their genetic pattern, so
they are no longer cypeople, and their ships won’t recognize them as such.
That’s why the elevator pods will be shot into the sun---to minimize their
future suffering. There isn’t a cure for that kind of thing.” He caught the
look of apprehension on Ada’s face and seemed to realize his mistake.
“But it’s exceedingly
rare that a cyborg without an empathy board can experience spontaneous phantom
emotion. Unless you’re planning to give yourself a bunch of powerful electric
shocks, I wouldn’t worry, Ada.” And with a pat on her head, he’d dismissed her and
her concerns from her office.
But it hadn’t
completely dismissed her concerns. Twenty years later, she’d started to
experience those seemingly random bursts of strong sensation beyond her scope
of knowledge or control---and it seemed like it was only getting worse. Over
the last three years, swarms of energy---the tingling, warm kind she got around
Pili, Jada, Nat or her old partner, Tod; the confusing and dizzying kind that
seemed like an amplified version of what she felt during her occasional, almost
mechanical sex with Tod; and the icy, piercing kind, like the sort of feeling
she got before missions when she imagined pressing her palm to the activation
screen of her ship and seeing it flash red before the transport tube turned and
launched her, terrified and screaming, toward the massive star in the sky. She
couldn’t shake the feeling that the “for their own good’ rationale was
wrong---even if she was decaying past the point of functionality, she would
still feel the crushing grip of fear as she was hurtling to her death. It was
the only reason she hadn’t brought her fears up to Jada and Nat; as
understanding as they were, they were bound by law to report any suspicions of
a lost Pathos---or a decaying cyperson.
Ada shook her head
roughly, snapping herself back to the present as the unsettling feeling she
thought to be fear faded away. She stretched her palm out and touched it to the
cool red door. She didn’t flinch as the microneedles stabbed at her skin to
sample her DNA and confirm her identity, pulling up her mission as it
electronically called her pod to the bottom of the transport tube. She heard
the sphere lock into place just before the doors opened and showed her the
inside of her familiar elevator vehicle. Ada knew that her ship was being rotated
through the vehicle carousel above the dorm, picturing the disc shaped ship
locking right into the top of the long transport cylinder. She could picture it
so clearly because of years of watching Tod take off on the same route, rising
up the slim cylinder until his pod connected with the floor of his ship. Ada
saw him take the trip hundreds of times, until the day he was moved to Earth to
train as a safety officer. She’d felt her heart rend as they’d said their last
goodbye, but a single glance in his eyes told her he was feeling a sadness far
more distant than hers. She’d been 27 then, and that had been the first sign
that something was wrong.
Ada climbed into the
pod and started to buckle herself in as a voice spoke to her from the speakers
in the ceiling. “Welcome, Ada from Level Twenty-Five. Your mission objective is
to repair a force field that has been damaged by debris outside an
alien-controlled planet. Conditions are described as optimal, but wildlife may
be present. Be mindful of the shock you may receive while repairing the force
fence, and remember to report any out-of-the-ordinary sensations. Do you have
any questions or comments?”
“No,” Ada replied,
fastening the last snap from her shoulder to her waist. The material
automatically shrank, pressing into the firm curve of her breast.
“Excellent. Thank you
and have a safe mission.” A low tone sounded, and the doors closed in front of
the pod. Ada couldn’t feel the motion of the vehicle, but after a moment, she
saw the enormous pearlescent sides of her dormitory building zipping past her.
It only took a few seconds to move past all twenty five floors, and then the
huge, spherical hub of their command center was visible, as well as the three
other dorms connected to the sphere by horizontal transport tubes. Finally, Ada
saw the curving face of Earth stretching below the floating hubs. It always
filled her with an indescribable feeling, like someone was reaching into her
chest and gently squeezing her heart as it beat. Fear chased the feeling, because
she knew it wasn’t normal, but this sensation was too overwhelming to be
extinguished by her panic. It eclipsed her fear of being rejected by her
equipment, her fear of her lies being discovered by her parental units and
siblings, and the fear of a fiery, airless death. She’d read about feelings
once in a human magazine she’d found in a trash bin, and looked up some of them
in one of the libraries during a trip to the main hub. Her favorite was a word
she’d never seen before---
awesome; inducing an overwhelming feeling or
reverence or fear.
That certainly came close to what she thought she was
feeling, so she often repeated the word as she gazed at Earth on the way to her
ship.
Awesome.