She stopped in her tracks and nearly dropped her half-empty glass of soda. Something had changed in the room—something small and almost unnoticeable, a constant that she’d hope would remain constant. The number at the bottom of the spacefaring species list had changed. The depressing, but stable, three hundred eleven number had plummeted to three. That was it. Humanity was done. It wouldn’t matter if Bi-MARP succeeded, at least not to humans. Electra stared at the three, willed it to change, cried when it didn’t and became catatonic shortly after. All her efforts to distance herself from the hope the three hundred eleven number represented had failed. She’d been given a taste of humanity having a future, albeit a brief and tenuous possibility, but she’d cherished it. Humanity would die out. The concept was so much harder to get used to a second time.
That was how Treasure found her, sitting on the floor, staring off into space, spilled Cherry Coke spreading across the cabin.
“We went extinct today,” Electra said.
* * * *
Electra slipped out before Treasure woke up. She headed down to the facility without a specific goal in mind. Everything she’d thought and believed when she’d been a resident of Transition Island seemed so quaint in retrospect. She wasn’t going back to the flotilla. She’d been right about that, at least. Send money back to her parents—that had been her plan. A complete collapse of her species hadn’t even occurred to her as a possibility when she had been young, in love and becoming what she’d always wanted to be. The writing had been clearly on the wall, considering the steep decline in Embarker fleets to that point. She simply hadn’t allowed herself time to think about it. She’d wanted luxury, excitement and she’d gotten it, albeit at a hefty price. When her flotilla had failed, when every known human besides her had died, she’d thrown herself into hedonism and found it comforting for a time. A libertine lifestyle could conceal a lot of pain, she’d discovered, but even then she’d known it couldn’t be her life, not the whole of it. When Ivy had found the old census records, Electra had clung to the three hundred eleven number. Someone, somewhere, knew where more humans were, and that had been all that had mattered. They were out there, even if she never met them. She figured she could live her life the way she wanted, hopefully with Treasure, and leave the survival of her species to the other people she’d probably never meet. It was a silly, selfish, stupid dream and it collapsed in an instant with the simple change of a number on a screen—a number that might have been wrong all along.
“Knock, knock,” Treasure said, knocking lightly on the open door of Electra’s old dormitory room. “Why do people do that? Say ‘knock, knock’ and then knock anyway? Do people still do that?”
“They do, since you just did it, but, yes, that’s apparently a human thing. Both my parents used to do it too,” Electra said.
“How are you holding up?” Treasure asked. “I’m personally going with shocked into numbness, but I can understand why that might be easier for me to manage with the help from Ivy’s mood pills and the fact that everything has been a pretty big shock to me lately.”
“I’m trapped in my own head with a storm. We’re probably not going to know what happened, either,” Electra said. “Maybe they were all frozen like Bort and finally crashed into a star. Maybe they were a long-lost tribe of Embarkers who had a life support malfunction on their ship. Maybe it was always a technical estimate that was finally updated. Maybe I’m an overly optimistic idiot for ever asking Ivy to look for more. I guess it doesn’t matter now.”
“I can’t believe that,” Treasure said. “You sought out hope, found some and lost it. That’s powerful and meaningful.”
Electra tried to force a smile. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
“More bad news?”
Electra nodded. “You’ve probably pieced together that I’m in debt. Otherwise, what would Letterman be doing here, right?”
“I’ve got student loans, maybe twenty grand worth,” Treasure said. “I figured it was something like that. Hey, wait! I don’t have student loans! I’m sorry. We can get back to your bad news in a second. I’m so weirdly relieved knowing all my student loans were simulated. Sorry… I’m not meaning to rub my debt-free state in your face. What do you owe? I figured we were doing so well on getting Bi-MARP stuff and you seemed so calm that it must not have been that big of a deal. I kind of had to abandon that theory when Letterman tried to eat me.”
“I owe about sixty billion units,” Electra said, resting her head in her hands. “Probably more now with interest and the damage to Letterman.”
“Wow, shit, okay… Even with what we’ve got, we’re still well short,” Treasure said, her eyes going wide enough to show white all the way around her irises.
Electra loved that she was talking in terms of ‘we’, even though the debt was very much owned by Electra. Treasure’s motives had somewhere along the way gone from being about rebuilding Earth, and probably not having much else to do, to actually hitching her future to Electra’s.
“We’re not as short as you might think,” Electra said, expecting the shift in the conversation to go very badly for her. “The list I gave you had an item missing. One I’d left off on purpose.”
“What is it?”
“You.”
Silence hung thick and heavy between them. A knife twisted in Electra’s heart with every passing second that Treasure didn’t respond. She choked back the urge to say more or ask Treasure for her thoughts. The tension was horrible, but she couldn’t imagine how what could be said after would make it any better.
“You meant to sell me?” Treasure finally said, her voice halting, despite massive effort expended to keep it steady.
“No, never!” Electra leaped to her feet, but held herself back from crossing to Treasure when she folded her arms over her chest. “I’m technically on the list too. I talked my way out of being held and had no intention of ever letting them take you…”
“What about Bort? Did you sell him?”
“I…yes, kind of.” Electra deflated and sat back down. “He was in a stasis chamber. I didn’t know what was inside when I retrieved it. I didn’t knowingly sell him, but I also didn’t do anything to rescue him after I did know.”
“So, when Letterman tried to kidnap me—?”
“He was just doing his job as he understood it.”
“And when you stopped him?”
“I was… I… I love you,” Electra said. “I was saving the woman I love from…being taken away from me, I guess. I’m sorry I don’t have an altruistic reason or plan or…” She couldn’t expect Treasure to say it back and she didn’t think she was even owed a reaction or response to her declaration of love, halting and awkward as it was.
“Shut up,” Treasure said.
They stood in silence again. This time, Electra cherished the quiet moments, believing the next words out of Treasure’s mouth would be ‘goodbye’ and ‘I never want to see you again.’
“I assume there is no amount of letting the heat die down that will make people forget about sixty billion units of debt,” Treasure said. “So, what do you intend to do now?”
“I’ll transfer the lien entirely off the ship onto me, put the Cadillux in your name and you can go live your life,” Electra said.
“And you will…?”
“Stay here until the Lien Enforcement bots find me, the scientists come back to the facility and throw me out or I die of old age.”
“That’s a stupid plan.”
Electra shrugged and forced a smile. “I’m starting to think all my plans are pretty stupid.”
“Then I suppose I’ll have to come up with another plan.” Treasure exasperatedly threw up her hands and shook her head. “So far my plans have landed us the original recipe for Coke, a vintage Volkswagen and a screwdriver.”
“You’re not mad?”
“Oh, I’m furious, but it’s not all directed at you, and being angry doesn’t change the fact that your plan would leave a third o
f the remaining humans marooned on a planet until they die or get captured,” Treasure said. “I’ll figure this out. In the meantime…” Treasure reached behind her back and removed a red, satin bag that obviously contained something heavy. “I made something for you. To cheer you up, I hope.”
Electra couldn’t remember the last time she’d received a present. She’d certainly been paid for services and received bonuses from time to time over the past few years. Nobody had had anything on Transition Island to give anyone else, and Embarkers viewed the act of gift-giving as bizarre and frivolous. Not wanting to seem ungrateful, and still thoroughly bewildered by Treasure’s handling of so much awful truth, Electra accepted the bag, slid open the drawstring and peered inside.
“It’s lovely, although I have one of my own already.” Electra drew out the bright pink phallus.
“It’s for you, but not for you to wear.” Treasure took the phallus from her and held it in front of her own crotch. “I’ve got the harness part, and the fabricator said it is patterned after the Whippomorph, um, Ivy kept referring to it as a ‘dong’ when I was researching it, which was crazy off-putting. Apparently, I don’t have the user permissions to change her word choices.”
“I’m not sure I do either,” Electra said. “I set her up while blackout drunk and can’t remember the override code I used.” Electra cocked her head and studied the toy. It had the perfectly spherical end, slightly bigger in diameter than the rest. It had three defined, lobed segments along the shaft rather than the four Essala’d had, it was pink instead of blue and more translucent than opaque. Still, she guessed it was probably pretty representative of the majority of Whippomorph dongs.
“It’s good, a nice likeness,” Electra said. “Is that something you’ve wanted to do or try or whatever?”
“Yes and no and I’m not sure,” Treasure said. “I thought coming back here might make you nostalgic. But really, it’s something you only did with Essala, and it seems like it made you happy and sad at the same time because it’s tied to such a bittersweet memory. That’s kind of how losing virginity works, except most people continue to have sex, so they get new memories, hopefully happy ones, and it becomes more of a part of them rather than a lone, defining moment.”
“I’ve had sex since, with you a bunch of times, if you’ll remember.”
“And I’ve enjoyed it all, but you haven’t had that kind of sex since.”
“I also haven’t felt the urge or need to.”
“You also haven’t taken blue pills in quite a while, nor have you told me what the red ones do,” Treasure said, “which has made me crazy curious. Come on. Satisfy my curiosity. Tell me about the red pills. Not to play the ‘you owe me’ card, but you do owe me.”
“Okay, I’ll try. Firstly, they’re not even for humans. The scientists here repurposed a lot of medications and techniques rather than research and develop their own,” Electra said. “They’re Appdurpin meds to assist in relational understanding. Appdurpins have three vaguely distinct sexes and any combination of the three can result in offspring, but there does have to be three individuals involved. So the concept of gender in other species, most specifically humans, always fascinated them since they didn’t define their own genders. To that end, they started working on relationship-enhancing pharmaceuticals to capture some of the animal instincts they envied in humans and other similar species that created societal gender expressions to go along with inherent but often-defined gender identities. Depending on which sex of the three takes which color, a bunch of different stuff happens, but the basic goal is to create supercharged mating situations that will drive reproduction increases in their species. I guess they came really close to going extinct at some point in their distant past from lack of fucking.”
“Pandas had that same problem in my time,” Treasure said. “What happens when humans take them?”
“I don’t know about all humans…”
“Fair enough… When you take them?”
“The blue pill gives me erections and an undeniable urge to use them,” Electra said coyly.
“And the red ones? Why are you making me drag this out of you?”
“Because the red ones make me lose all higher function, they take a really long time to get out of my system and I pretty much have to be fucked and told I’m beautiful and loved then probably fucked again over and over and over,” Electra said. “It’s long, exhausting, I lose my appetite for several days and I typically have a hard time sitting for a week after—not to mention that being clingy, needy and sex-starved has scared away partners.”
“Partners? You mean Essala.”
“Fine, yes, one partner. After she left, I stopped taking the red ones.”
“If I took a blue one and you took a red one…”
“We’d get married wearing purple,” Electra joked. “I don’t know what would happen. You’re the only human I’ve slept with and I’ve never needed the pills with you.”
“Do you want to, though?”
“I’m scared.”
“Because I want to. I really want to. And, not to be ‘that girl’, but I’ll require favors to make your apologies about lying to me feel valid.”
“Okay, okay, we can, but only because you really want to and because you’ve made some valid points…and a lovely enhancement to wear,” Electra said. “I’m up for it, but not here. I don’t want to be in this room anymore right now.”
They returned to the Cadillux before the light drizzle turned into a downpour. Instead of the all-white bedroom they’d started to share, they decided on the old-school lounge with the sectional couch, fake wood panel walls and hi-fi phonograph. Electra changed into her black silk robe with nothing underneath to cut back on opportunities to chicken out. She waited on the very edge of the red sectional couch, staring at the two shot glasses she’d taken from the bar to hold a red pill and a blue pill. She watched the pills just sitting on the coffee table, making her question things and began to wonder why she’d kept the red ones in the first place.
Treasure emerged from the guest room off the side of the lounge. She was dressed in a floor-length white satin robe with something of a comical tenting at the front over her crotch. “Okay, I’ve got to open this to show you and for another reason I’m kind of concerned about,” Treasure said, undoing the tie on her robe to let the front slide open.
The pink Whippomorph phallus jutted out from the usual place, but it seemed to be held there by a tiny bit of pink mesh cloth dangling from a dainty black belt. The whole rig was lovely, delicate and looked more like jewelry or lingerie than anything else, but it also looked really flimsy.
“Is that going to stay on?” Electra asked.
“That’s what’s worrying me. I’m not sure it’s ever coming off,” Treasure said. “Check it out.” She first waggled her hips back and forth to send it swaying. “It actually feels like I’m the one swaying.” Next, she grabbed it and gave it a good yank. She immediately recoiled and started giggling somewhat painfully. “And that hurt like…”
“Like you pulled too hard on your own dick?”
“I don’t know what that would feel like, but, yes, exactly like that.”
“Give it a few strokes…for science.”
Treasure quirked an eyebrow before sliding her hand far more gently up and down the lobes of the shaft. Her bemusement quickly turned to surprise. “I can feel this in my clit,” she said. “Like really, really feel it.”
“That must be transitive mesh,” Electra said. “It’s mostly used in prosthetics to move sensation from the remains of a missing limb to an artificial leg or arm. Don’t worry. There’s a tool to take it off when you want.”
“Actually, the origins of transitive mesh were in the sex industry, Miss Electra,” Ivy chimed in. “It was only later implemented in amputation replacement when the original patent lapsed.”
“Ivy, we’re going to need you to not listen in on this room for a while,” Electra said.
“Ivy list
ening in on us never occurred to me,” Treasure said.
“She’s a virtual intelligence. She doesn’t have consciousness or emotions or motivations or even the processing and storage power to develop them. I just didn’t want her interjecting information based on what we’re saying during,” Electra said. “She’s programmed to seem real, but she’s not. Letterman, on the other hand…”
“Right, I’ll keep that in mind for who I’m embarrassing around.”
“Come here, quick, and let’s take the pills before one of us loses her nerve.” Electra lifted the shot glasses, one in each hand, and held out the blue pill to Treasure.
Treasure practically hopped over and accepted the glass. She shook out her free hand, bounced a little then threw back her head to swallow the blue pill in one quick gulp. Electra faltered, closed her eyes and downed the red pill as well.
“How long do they take to kick in?” Treasure asked.
“I’m usually super drunk or high when I take them, so I’m not sure.”
“Wine, great idea. Yes, let’s do that.”
Treasure rushed to the wet bar, which was actually just a small, mobile fabricator that only contained schematics for beverages, and returned with two glasses of something approximating white wine. After the first glass went too fast, they each had another then sat together on the edge of the couch and waited.
“Do you feel anything yet?” Treasure asked.
“Your hand on my tit,” Electra replied, looking down to Treasure’s right hand that had made its way into the front of her robe to cup a breast.
Treasure looked down as well. “That is trippy. I did not consciously do that. It does feel really nice, though. Your breasts are so perky and responsive.” She began randomly caressing and kneading Electra’s chest.
“I’m glad you like them, because I love yours.”
“Show them to me,” Treasure demanded. “I want to suck on them. No, I need to suck on them.”
Electra Rex Page 17
