Authors: Jade Allen
She bucked her hips
against his slow, incredibly long strokes, aware that she was emitting a single
low, continuous moan as Jax pushed his body against her. She wrapped her thighs
around his muscular waist, gasping as his thick shaft pulsed inside the
dripping walls of her pussy. His hips started to move faster, and his eyes
closed as the pleasure moved through his body in waves. Ada started to grip her
breasts again, drawing pinpricks of blood as ecstasy swept over her.
“Ada,” Jax panted, and
pulled her hands from her body. “Ada, I’m going to come soon, you feel
incredible!” His hips moved forward vigorously, slipping past the sensitive
button inside her pussy that Tod used to have to try so hard to find with his
fingers. Jax’s length meant he met it easily, and Ada’s body was so embroiled
in bliss that for a moment she forgot to breathe. Then the Hyppo’s strokes
started to increase in speed, and Ada cried out, desperately taking in air as
her body was pounded into the soft soil. Jax was repeating her name as he
thrusted inside her hot, wet pussy, frantically pumping toward his own apex of
desire.
The sounds of his body
slamming against hers mixed together with their lusty moans, filling the cave
with a chaotic, carnal symphony. The light from his lamp made his body glisten,
and the pureness of his beauty seized her heart and brought tears to Ada’s
eyes. An odd sensation---like a key turning in a lock inside her---flooded her
and filled her with boundless joy as his brown eyes met hers, and Ada screamed
as the soaking wet walls of her pussy contracted around Jax’s heavy cock.
For a moment, their
bodies seemed to meld into one, and she saw and understood everything he did:
what she really was, what the Hyppo people had seen inside cypeople---what
she’d really been all along. At the same moment, she saw a deep well of
fondness for her from Jax, a well nearly as fresh as the bruise Ada sustained
when she’d fallen backward; she saw that as he’d healed her, his energy had
been mingling with hers, tasting her as she was now tasting him. She saw his
kindness, his desire to help her unlock her innate ability to experience the
full richness of life, and the overwhelming nature of the feeling he got when
he gazed at her emerald eyes against the milk chocolate of her oval face---that
gigantic, trembling sensation she knew so well:
awe.
She’d never seen
herself look so terribly beautiful, and as she felt herself return to her body,
she realized she was tearing up again.
The Hyppo threw his
head back, letting out a long, passionate cry as his cock twitched and then
grew still inside her. Ada felt another surge of heat as her body seemed to
absorb his energy, even as he pulled away and collapsed on the ground next to
her, panting. His beautiful features seemed too calm and blissful, especially
since Ada’s own mind was reeling with the shock of the truth he’d shown her the
moment before. Ada drew a shaky breath as she watched his body return to its
brilliant golden honey tone.
“We
all
have
empathy boards?” Ada whispered.
“Yes,” Jax answered
immediately. He seemed to hear her heart hammering in fear, because the next
moment he’d grabbed her hand and was pulsing a gentle energy into the skin of
her palm. It cooled her terror, and she could breathe again. Ada asked the next
question that sprang to her lips.
“Why don’t they tell
us? Why don’t they let us
all
be Pathos?”
“Well, they claim it’s
for your own good,” Jax answered, and his voice made it clear that he didn’t
agree. His third eye blinked, irritated. “But our people think it’s because it
made you something more human than they could be…or something simply
more.”
Ada tried to wrap her
mind around the pronouncement, finding it exceedingly difficult. “So what did
it for me? The furry thing?” She tried to remember what he’d called it, and was
surprised to find it zoom to the front of her mind: “A Bezoar?”
“Yes,” Jax said again.
“Electrical activity stimulates the empathy board. A large enough shock will
awaken it, and for Pathos, it’s usually done at birth. But for you, and
cypeople like you…even the simple act of thinking, living, and learning
generates enough electricity in the soft part of your brain that it can jostle
the empathy board.”
Ada laughed darkly as
bitterness washed over her for the first time, acidic and invigorating. “So, we
don’t have undersized empathy centers?”
Jax laughed sadly.
“No, just deactivated ones. It seems that cypeople like you are happening more
and more, though---both naturally awakening very slowly, and through accidents
like…” Jax stretched one of his golden arms toward the dead Bezoar.
“And the ones they
kill?” she asked as anxiety gripped her heart again. “Are they just…waking up?
Why won’t the ships recognize them?”
Jax hesitated. “The
ships recognize them, but they really are corrupted. Because of the capacity
for natural activation, there’s also the capacity for the board to be
activated…inefficiently.”
An icy sheet of dread
settled over Ada, and she whimpered involuntarily. Jax squeezed her hand again,
and calm rolled through her muscles and slowly melted her fear. “So they are
suffering,” she said through gritted teeth, “but it’s the humans’ fault?” Jax
didn’t answer, but because she’d already tasted all of his knowledge, she could
see the
yes
clearly in her mind.
Ada locked eyes with
Jax as they both sat up on the soft floor of the cave. “What will they do now
that I’m…like
this?
Will they kill me?” Her heartbeat sped up. “Will you
report me?”
“They likely already
know,” Jax said, and Ada saw in her mind that it was true. It was unsettling
having access to someone else’s information---it was like having a giant
library in her head. It would take some getting used to.
“But they’ll want to use
you as a poster child, most likely, and claim they didn’t know it was possible
to the public. They’ll try hard to do anything that would upset the population,
and once the population finds out you’re more identical than they thought---”
Jax shrugged, and Ada answered for him.
“They’ll want the
engineers to answer for it. Maybe not now, but eventually.” She didn’t know if
wars were started over things like this on Earth, but she didn’t want to find
out. “Come on, we have to get back to the hub.” She sprinted to the mouth of
the cave, and Jax followed.
Jax stopped her with a
hand on her shoulder, surprise clear in all three of his eyes. “Why me? I mean,
I would like to tag along,” he said bashfully. “But why do I have to accompany
you?”
“You can back me up,”
Ada said urgently as she dropped to her hands and knees and pushed through the
hole. “Also…I kind of don’t want to be without you. Is that weird?”
“Not at all,” Jax said
behind the sheet of aluminum.
There were no weighted
boots to hold her down, so she hesitated as she stood outside the cave. Her
alloy frame was far heavier than a human’s, but this planet’s gravity was also
very different. Jax frowned at her when he slipped through.
“What’s wrong?”
Ada pointed to her
ship. “I need to get over there quickly, but…” she pointed at her naked body.
Jax laughed in understanding and grabbed her hand.
“Why didn’t you just
say so?”
Ada turned to ask what
he meant, but a wave of nausea knocked her focus askew. She doubled over,
gasping from the strength of it; it took her a few seconds to catch her breath.
She stood up---and nearly fell over again when she saw she was standing right
beneath her ship. Jax was grinning at her foolishly. It suited his handsome
face, somehow. She felt warmth squeeze her heart, and she let herself enjoy it
this time.
What is it?
She shook her head roughly.
“I forgot you guys
could teleport, but I didn’t realize you could bring passengers,” Ada admitted.
She looked up. “Just a second.” She looked around in the dirt, and sure enough,
she found the bubble she’d dropped earlier. She pressed it and waited for it to
spring around her.
When it did, she
dropped into a squat and jumped as high as she could; Jax let out a low
whistle, and she felt her whole body blush as she rose gracefully into the air,
floating harmlessly above the force field. Her palm pressed the ship’s access
panel, and for the first time in her life, she forgot to feel fear as she
waited for it to open---and for the first time ever, it stayed closed. Ada had
a moment to register what had happened before she went sailing back to the
surface of Oro and into Jax’s arms.
She realized she was
crying again just as he caught her. She wiped her tears away angrily as he held
her in his strong arms, cradling her to his broad chest as she the bubble’s
field dropped away and she finally broke down. Oddly, most of her tears weren’t
sad; the first feeling she’d felt when the panel blinked red was the same
boundless joy she’d felt when Jax’s energy locked with hers---the feeling of
knowing, finally, who and what she was.
As the sea of emotions
quieted inside her, she made a decision. She’d go back---and force them to
activate the other cypeople. She didn’t know how, but he had more knowledge
then they were counting on. She was determined and felt reinforced by the
limitless energy of the new bond she’d formed. She took a breath and focused on
Jax’s words.
“It’s okay,” he was
saying. “I can teleport us; we’re not far from Earth’s hub. It’s okay… it’s
okay.”
“Jax,” Ada cried.
“Shut up and take me home.” His body rumbled as he laughed.
“Fine,” he said
warmly, and kissed her forehead. “Hold on.”
His lips left an
unbearable tingle behind, a gentle, velvety warmth that squeezed her heart and
had nothing to do with their nakedness. It grew to a burning heat, and she was
still trying to name it when he started to teleport them. She had the sensation
of being pressed through a hole the size of a marble, but she felt so full of
the feeling that it blocked out everything else; her last thought before her
lungs started to pull in air was a single word, and her mind screamed it as
sure as it new her own name:
Love.
THE END
Allie looked down at her worn tennis shoes as her
right foot tapped against the spotless tile of the ship’s cafeteria. She was
waiting for her best friend, Carter, to come back with her lunch so that she
could dash back to her quarters and eat alone before her mission— and not have
to talk to her ex-boyfriend before he came swaggering into the place. Allie
knew that dating a fellow shipmate who was infamous for his emotional side was
a bad idea, but she was willing to risk the fallout considering how good
looking he was. It shouldn’t have been surprising to her that their break-up
hadn’t gone as smoothly as she’d hoped. She even tried to spare his feelings by
telling him the main reason was their incompatibility, even though the truth
was that his strange emotional outbursts were more boring than anything else.
“We fight more than anything else,” she remembered
saying to him in his apartment the month before. Allie was sitting on her
couch, staring pleadingly at Bobby, who was pacing the floor. “And about
pointless things—you get upset over dry cleaning, and the color blood-orange,
and bicycles. I just can’t be moved by any of those things, and it’s clearly
upsetting you. It’s been half a year, Bobby, and the only time we seem to like
each other is during sex. ”
Bobby had thrown his hands up in exasperation,
showcasing the natural flair for drama Allie had grown so weary of. “That’s
because that’s all you ever want from me! Sex! You’re never interested in my
knots! Or my workouts! Or my model planes!”
Allie resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “I
wasn’t interested in that stuff to begin with, Bobby. I told you we were going
to be more…casual…from the get-go. You got a little too invested. That’s
exactly what I told you not to do.”
But Bobby didn’t want to hear about what he’d
promised not to do, only what he felt he deserved from Allie. Though they were
incredibly physically compatible, she couldn’t find enough common ground to
keep the relationship going for more than six months—and she was unashamed to
say that even this was a triumph. Six months was actually rather long for
Allie, who preferred to keep labels away from her partners, less they try and
bind them together with it, and being in the Navy made this preference even
easier. Deployment was an easy excuse to not get close to someone, and no one
bought this excuse more quickly than other Navy officers—until Bobby.
Now that he was insisting they have a third
heart-to-heart, Allie knew the best course of action was complete avoidance. He
wouldn’t be back from his appointment for another hour—plenty of time to eat
and get down to the bay in time for her own solo submarine mission. As she
bounced from foot to foot, her jet black hair swung from side to side like a
horse’s tail, bound with an elastic tie and still damp from her shower.
Finally, Carter pushed open the door the kitchen’s back entrance and held out a
brown paper bag that was bulging at the seams with goods.
“I threw in a few extra things,” he said in a low
voice. “I know how hungry you chickens get.” He winked his real eye, and his
glass eye twinkled under the fluorescent lights.
Allie smacked him on his beefy arm as he laughed.
“I’m not a chicken! I’d just prefer not to be cried on right now. I didn’t join
the Navy to have my emotions exhausted.”
“No, you joined to you have yourself
physically
exhausted, and possibly killed.” Carter crossed his arms over his apron and
leaned back against the door, eyeing Allie’s wiry frame nonchalantly. “Have you
figured out what you want to do yet, by the way? About your next go around?”
Dread started to pool at the bottom of her
stomach. “No,” she admitted, and left it at that, hoping Carter wouldn’t press
the issue.
But she’d spend so long dodging the subject that
he wouldn’t let it slide. “It’s been two weeks. You’ve always been so decisive
about everything in the past—you know what color toothbrush you want even if
there’s fifty options— yet you’ve let this decision sit this long. What’s
changed?”
Allie shrugged. “I guess things are just…different
now.”
“Yeah, but what things?” Carter asked.
She shrugged again, but she knew the answer:
she
was different now. When she’d joined the Navy five years before, no task ever
failed to come with a rush of exhilarating adrenaline and a host of new things
to learn; what was better, this excitement bled over into other areas of her
life, until she was eagerly pushing herself to experience everything to its
maximum potential—and having the time of her life while doing it. No rescue or
retrieval mission was too difficult, because it always brought a rich new
square of experience to add to the quilt of her life. New countries meant new languages
and fresher, bolder cuisines than the ones she’d sampled before. Even the
people she met seemed better than the ones in her old life: kinder, wiser, more
open and honest, beautifully vibrant and unique in a way she’d never noticed
before. But in the last year, she started to realize she was feeling stuck. The
same things that used to move her failed to keep her attention; the same foods
weren’t as flavorful as they’d once been; even sex was different somehow, less
meaningful, less alive. The melancholy mood had, strangely, coincided with the
start of her submarine missions—what should have been an opportunity to explore
a whole new world was now just a bi-monthly chore.
“I guess I just need different things,” Allie said
finally. “I don’t feel fulfilled anymore. I don’t feel challenged. I don’t feel
that rush of excitement, that dizzying high, that…spark.”
Carter laughed. “You sound like you’re breaking up
with the Navy, Allie.”
Allie was shocked to find that it was true; it
did
feel like she was winding up to back away from the whole thing. Had she already
decided for herself? Was this the end of her marriage to the Armed Forces?
She groaned and covered her eyes. “Carter, what’s
wrong with me? I’m literally sent down to the bottom of the ocean twice a month
to check on ancient ruins and potentially dangerous wreckage. It’s the coolest
job in the world. Why don’t I love it? Why isn’t it blowing my mind? Why don’t
I want to do this for the rest of my life?”
Carter moved away from the wall and brought her
hands away from her eyes, holding them in his own as Allie took a deep, shaky
breath. “Maybe you just need some leave. It’s ok to take a break if you’re not
ready to…break away. Then you’ll be ready to make your choice. I know you’re
not going to relax about this, but just trust that the decision will be clear
when it’s time. And then come talk to me, and I’ll tell you that you’re crazy,
and you’ll do it anyway. And everything will be fine.” His blue eyes shone with
love, even though one was a little glassy.
Allie laughed and felt a little of her dread drain
away at her best friend’s reassurance. “Thanks, Carter.” She pulled her hands
away and picked her bag of food up. “I have to get going, though. I have less
than an hour to get down to that sub.”
“Ah, yes, I heard you’re still scouring the seas
for the treasure-strewn Spanish ship. Have fun!”
Allie blew him a kiss and trotted away. She waited
until she rounded a corner to break into a run, letting the sudden sprint
relieve a little of the tension in her long legs. The halls were deserted, so
she made it into her room without a hitch, and it only took her ten minutes to
wolf down her sandwich and the greasy curly fries Carter piled on top. Allie
saved the cookies and stashed the carton of milk in the mini-fridge in her
dorm, happy that her best friend knew her habits so well. Carter had been the
closest thing to a sibling she’d ever had; Allie had grown up the odd girl out,
and hadn’t developed close friends until college. She’d been by Carter’s side
since their second year when he had the surgery to remove the mass in his
ocular cavity, and talked him through his depression when the Navy insisted he
take on a domestic task, and leave active service for the remainder of his
time. He helped her through her first major heartbreak, and helped her stay
calm when she thought a fist-fight might end her three-year Navy career. They’d
both been through a lot in their five years, and he was the main reason Allie
wasn’t considering walking away; without Carter and the stability that being in
the Navy gave her, she didn’t have much reason to be anywhere at all.
I’ve got to try to be more positive about
myself,
she thought as she changed into her submarine gear and slipped on
her backpack.
You’re your own person, you know.
She forced a smile for a
shipmate who was strolling by as she started down the hall to the submarine
bay, hoping that her cheeks didn’t look as stiff as they felt. Allie was used
to being seen as odd and unpopular, but few people ever said she was anything
but nice. This had been a concentrated effort from the eighth grade onward, but
by the time she’d enlisted at the age of 21, Allie’s warm, peaceful nature was
so reflexive that she had to try harder to put people off. Bobby was one of the
two people on the ship who didn’t feel positively about her, and this was more
than fine for Allie; drama was usually refreshing, in fact, except when it was
romantic. You could never make everyone happy, but she would gladly settle for
99 percent.
Her boots clunked against the floor as she finally
entered the loading bay and signaled to the tech and that she was ready to
depart.
Collin nodded and pushed his wire frames up the
bridge of his nose. They never seemed to slip, but he always fidgeted with them
anyway, and Allie guessed it was a nervous tic he could never let go of. “Hey,
Corporal Hames. I’m ready to resume mission
Isadora.”
“Hey, Sargent Roberts.” Collin grinned, lighting
up when Allie stopped to log herself in for the mission. She wasn’t sure what
she’d done to endear herself to him, but he seemed to like her, and that meant
he didn’t mind if she took a little extra time to herself. “You’re all set,
just follow protocol to seal the hatch before trying to start up this time.”
Allie felt heat rush to her cheeks, and chuckled
weakly. “Gotcha.” The last time she’d been down to look for the sunken Spanish
ship, it had been the same day she was informed that she could now select from
one of three new positions in the Navy, one of which meant less ship time and
more pay. Allie was so shocked at her sudden invitation for promotion that
she’d bungled the whole take off, and she was delayed for an hour.
Collin seemed to notice he’d embarrassed. “I’m
sorry, Ma’am, I meant no offense.”
She groaned inwardly;
see what happens when
you’re not positive all the time?
“No, Collin, it’s fine! I’ll be sure to
keep my eyes open this time.”
He laughed, and relief swept over her. Allie
walked over to lower herself into the hatch of her sub, annoyed at her constant
urge to people-please. It was never enough to not offend—she had to make every
interaction the best possible. It was part of the reason constant drama was so
exhausting, but it made life, exhausting too. Sometimes she felt like one of
those wind-up toys—tiny animals in circus hats crashing cymbals or banging on
drums.
Maybe I just need a new battery.
She made sure to pull the hatch tight and seal it
before turning to the control panel of the sub. Allie turned and stowed all of
her materials beneath her seat and strapped herself in tightly, relishing the
heavy sense of peace that always washed over her at the start of submarine
missions. They’d been looking for the
Isadora
for three months, but
Allie never cared especially about the reason they sent her down, just that she
was allowed to man the partially-automatic ship as it crawled the ocean floor,
slipping past the strange and terrifying beauty that lived around the sea
floor.
Allie slipped on her communication device, and
Collin’s voice came into the cockpit as the heavy ship started to detach from
its dock, dropping slowly through the crystal blue waters until the engines
clicked on with a faint
hum.
“So, what do you think’s in there?”
Allie smiled; that he’d waited this long to ask
about the ship meant he was specifically asked not to. “I assumed it’s gold, or
something equally valuable. Why else would we care so badly?” The waters around
the ship were darkening, a school of silvery fish slipped by. In the distance,
Allie caught of a glimpse of something nebulous and ghostly white, with long
tendrils like smoke trails in the sky.
“I don’t know,” Collin said finally. “Something
historical. Some books, somebody’s skeleton, an artifact—“
“That they can sell,” Allie said. “Or otherwise
profit from.”
When Collin spoke again, he sounded surprised.
“Wow, I had no idea you were so cynical.”
Allie laughed, and when she spoke again, the sub
had started to move forward, its SONAR and other detection fields sweeping the
waters in search of the galleon. “Not cynical. I just know what drives people.
It’s always money and power, and power always comes back to money. And vice
versa.”
“I guess you’re right,” Collin allowed. “Picking
anything up yet?”
Allie watched the field, but there was nothing
significant. “Nothing yet,” she said. “I thought I saw some jellyfish, but they
must have swam out of here by now. I hope I see a whale again, they’re so—”
something caught her eye on the screen, and she froze.
Collin waited a beat before speaking again.
“Allie? Are you okay?”
“Fine,” she said, shaking her head. “I just
thought I saw something on the screen.”
“The ship?” Collin asked, his voice hopeful.
“No, something moving.” Her eyes scanned the
detection screen, and a few blips of movement were indicated below the ship.
There,
she was about to say, but something bigger appeared just in front of the
ship—something wide and heavy, and much bigger than the ship itself. Allie
gasped, fear coursing through her body as she braced for whatever it was to hit
the submarine.