The Winter War

by Niall Teasdale

  Part Four: Tomb Raiders Wear Shorts

  Yorkbridge Mid-town, 7.6.527 FSC.

  Even if they really wanted to stay in bed engaging in every form of mutual pleasure they could think of until they had to go back to work, the practicalities of the matter were that Ella had to go to the toilet aside from anything else. Once they were up there was the urge for food, and Ella started pottering around the kitchen while Aneka slumped into one of the couches in the lounge and flicked through channels on the wall screen.

  ‘Anything interesting on?’ Ella asked, not looking at the screen. Aneka had piped the sound through her internal system to avoid disturbing her.

  ‘Uh… sex comedy, sex comedy, sitcom with some sex in it, sex comedy, sex…’

  ‘A lot of the usual then?’

  ‘Uh-huh. I figure you can eat and then we can fuck on the lounge carpet.’

  Ella giggled. ‘Sounds good to me. I’ll go for a high carb intake. Added stamina.’

  Aneka found a news channel and stopped flicking. ‘You’ll need it.’ Her attention was drawn to the screen as she saw a familiar figure getting out of a car and heading toward a building. The commentary, however, made her frown.

  ‘Following the recent bombing of an Administration building,’ the announcer was saying, ‘a conference was held yesterday morning on the growing problem of terrorist activity on the core worlds. Winter, head of the Federal Security Agency, gave a briefing on the situation to key members of the Administration, including…’

  ‘Isn’t that Winter?’ Ella asked.

  Aneka cut the sound and looked around. ‘Yeah. Some anti-terrorist briefing she attended yesterday morning.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘Except that yesterday morning she was wearing a bright red wig and one of your mother’s stripper friends was between her legs.’

  Ella paused her food preparation, staring at Aneka with wide eyes. ‘That was Winter? I mean, she looked kind of familiar, but I couldn’t place… Gopi! I think she had me at one point!’

  ‘Yeah. She seemed to enjoy herself. I know she turns up in places unexpectedly, but being in two places at once is good, even for her. She must have doubles.’

  Ella frowned. ‘And she sends one to a conference so she can attend a friend’s party?’

  ‘She was acting a little funny. Like she was half-expecting one of these assassination attempts to succeed.’ Aneka shrugged. ‘Anyway, if you had the option, which would you have gone to?’

  Walking over with a plate of sandwiches, the naked redhead sat down on Aneka’s lap, grinning. ‘The party, without any qualms at all. I’m not the top Federal spy though.’

  ‘She does seem to like getting out from under her bodyguards.’

  ‘And under Dillon instead, if memory serves.’ There was mutual giggling. Aneka flicked the channel over to one of their library files; up on the wall screen Dillon could be seen employing his talents on Ella. She glanced up, grinned, and snuggled closer to Aneka. ‘There’s something I want to ask you, and you’re going to argue.’

  ‘And that brings it to mind?’

  ‘Uh-huh. I want you to use the neurostim on me. Tomorrow at the latest.’

  ‘Ella… You just got over Yrimtan addicting you to that sort of device…’

  ‘And that’s why I need you to use it on me. I need to know whether the addiction kicks back in, and I’d rather do it now, while I’ve got some time to recover and the only person I need to worry about seducing is you.’

  Annoyingly, she was making a certain amount of sense. ‘Are you really sure you want to try it again?’

  ‘Yes. Look, I admit I’m a pleasure junkie at the best of times and that thing is amazing. I mean, I wish it worked on you so you could feel what I feel, but whatever, I don’t want to miss out on it unless it really is a danger to our relationship. Plus… Well, if I can be easily hooked on it again because I have been before I think I should know.’

  ‘Okay. We’ll do it once your lunch has settled. If you’re going to be a horny little minx for the rest of the week, we might as well start sooner rather than later.’

  Ella giggled. ‘Bit late to worry about that.’

  Aneka laughed. ‘You know, there is one way I could feel what it’s like to use that thing…’

  ~~~

  Aneka lay back on the bed feeling unaccountably nervous. They had done things like this before and it had been interesting to say the least, but something about this time made it feel like she was taking a risk.

  Ella’s computer implant, like Aneka’s brain, allowed her to record her sensory input and replay it. The main difference was that Ella had to want to record the data; Aneka’s brain did it all the time. Once that data was in her memory she could save it to an external store, or transmit it to a suitable receiver for playback. Aneka was a suitable receiver. They had transferred over the data from Ella’s latest experience with the neurostim to Aneka’s memory, the touch components anyway, and now she was going to replay that through her own synthetic nervous system. It was the reverse of what she had done to Ella on the flight back to New Earth.

  As far as either of them could tell, Ella was fine following the experience. She was cuddled up at Aneka’s side, being very affectionate, but she often got that way after an intense sexual experience. An hour after the device had been removed from her skin, she was not craving it the way she had during her addiction. So what did Aneka have to worry about?

  ‘Okay,’ Aneka said, ‘here we go…’ She started the playback.

  It started as a warm sensation over her stomach, as though someone was breathing warm air over her skin, and that quickly grew into a tingling sensation. The tingling spread until it was encompassing the skin at the base of her breasts and her lower stomach.

  ‘That’s… kind of nice.’

  ‘Wait until it moves up,’ Ella said. ‘You went up toward my boobs next.’

  Sure enough the tingling shifted upward, the sensation receding from her stomach and shifting up to encompass her nipples. They hardened almost immediately and she let out a soft moan. What had she done next? It was getting a little hard to think straight. Up over the chest…? Yes, it had been up the valley of Ella’s cleavage, quickly so as not to overload anything yet, and then hovering…

  ‘Oh… wow… That’s really… It is distracting isn’t it?’

  Ella giggled. ‘You haven’t even got to the best part yet.’

  And there was the slide down to cover her right nipple. At first it just seemed to be a more intense version of the same tingling, warm, pleasurable sensation, and then…

  ‘Oh… Oh shit… I can’t… Ah!’ Aneka thought she saw messages flickering through her vision field, but they were lost almost instantly in the white heat of pleasure rushing through her body. She was on fire. She was burning up in the intensity of it. She was… She was vaguely aware of the centre of the sensations shifting to between her legs, and then she was aware of nothing.

  And then she was looking at a message that said Sensory overload detected in flashing red letters. She opened her eyes to see a worried-looking Ella staring down at her.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Ella asked ‘You just… stopped.’

  ‘Uh… believe it or not some safety system cut in. I think I went offline for a bit.’

  ‘Approximately ten seconds while I halted the playback and your nervous system recovered,’ Al supplied.

  Ella giggled nervously. ‘Sorry. I figured if I enjoyed it your body would soak it up no problem.’

  Aneka laughed. ‘You enjoy a form of stimulation which makes a robot body run and take cover. Shows there are some things an organic body is better for.’

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  ‘Okay… Famous psychologists from your time. You must know some.’ Ella grinned across the table at Aneka, who looked back dubiously.

  They had decided to take a couple of days to just go somewhere on New Earth that was not Yorkbridge. Since Aneka had moved there they had never gon
e out of the city except to visit the city where Janna had been living. Having been all over Old Earth in her own time, Aneka felt like she had barely seen any of the new one. Ella had found a town on the west coast which had some pretty countryside around it, and they had got there only to discover that it was very quiet and there was little to do in the evening except eat, talk, and fuck. Currently they were on the eating and talking stage.

  ‘Psychologists… Well, Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung were probably the most famous names. Uh…’

  ‘We still use the Jungian archetypes in some models of the mind,’ Ella said, nodding.

  ‘Oh, Philip Zimbardo. He did the Stanford Prison Experiment, which basically proved that people are shits and being a prisoner is depressing. And Mary Whiton Calkins I remember because Harvard refused to give her a degree, despite meeting all the requirements, because she was a woman. And Ivan Pavlov. He taught dogs to salivate when a bell rang…’

  Ella giggled. ‘I’m aware of Pavlov’s work too. Behavioural conditioning. An advanced form of it is used in the education system. What about famous archaeologists?’

  Aneka forked some of the pasta from her plate into her mouth; it gave her a second to think. Famous archaeologists?! ‘Uh… Howard Carter, though he was as much a grave robber as an archaeologist. Gertrude Bell, Richard Leakey, someone once told me Thomas Jefferson, who was one of the US Presidents, was an archaeologist… Oh, Henry Jones Junior and Lady Lara Croft…’

  ‘Hold up, wasn’t Lara Croft fictional?’

  Aneka giggled. ‘A video game character, and there were a couple of movies. And Henry “Indiana” Jones was a film character. Raiders of the Lost Ark. You can’t beat Nazis and biblical mythology. Maybe Aggy has a copy we could watch. It’s a bit… Well, the hero shoots a lot of bad guys, but it’s a lot of fun, honest.’

  ‘What about Lara Croft?’

  ‘From the Tomb Raider game series. She was an attempt to make a game with a feisty heroine as the main character instead of some muscle-brained man, but they had to appeal to a male audience so she charged around in a tiny pair of shorts and a tank top, and she had huge boobs. Angelina Jolie played her in the movies. I think you’d have liked her.’

  ‘Big breasts?’

  ‘No, they had to pad her out to look right, but she was a stunning woman.’

  Ella grinned. ‘Nah, I’ve got you to look at.’

  ‘Suck-up. You’re not going to get any more from me using flattery than you’d be getting anyway.’

  ‘I’m quite well aware of that, sheelee. So obviously I meant it.’

  Aneka blushed. ‘Am I getting a pet name now we’re sort of married?’

  ‘I wasn’t thinking of it like that, but now you mention it, “beautiful” would be appropriate.’

  ‘So what do I call you?’

  ‘I don’t know… Pang foo, Lan foo, fangdang…’

  ‘No, I’m not calling you a slut in any form as a pet name. Stop putting yourself down or I’ll spank you.’

  ‘Promise?’

  Aneka rolled her eyes. ‘We’ll stick with “love” until something better comes along.’

  Ella beamed. ‘I can live with that.’

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  Olderbarn Township was a fairly small place that ran primarily on fishing and a little tourism. It had one main street, four shops, including a general store and a fish shop, the hotel that Aneka and Ella were staying in, and a port, which was more like a marina in which the small fishing fleet was moored, along with several boats that looked like private yachts.

  It also had several kilometres of very nice beach, and it was a very hot day; they had decided that walking on the sand would be a nice way to spend the morning. The beach at Yorkbridge was generally fairly populated, but here, even as the summer was coming to its peak, there was no one else to disturb them as they walked.

  ‘It’s definitely more romantic than Yorkbridge beach,’ Ella commented.

  ‘Personally, I think for it to be romantic it should be night, and there should be a full moon.’

  ‘We don’t have a moon here. Though they’re planning on putting one in.’

  Aneka blinked. ‘They are?’

  ‘Uh-huh. It’s not for the romance. Old Earth’s moon held the axial tilt of the planet steady. Right now it’s about two degrees, which is one of the reasons we don’t really get seasons, but there’s plenty of evidence that it can drift pretty wildly. I mean, no one alive now is going to see it, but in the past it’s been damn close to spinning on its side.’

  ‘So they’re going to… just put a moon in orbit.’

  ‘Take one of the bigger ones from the outer planets and ferry it over, yeah. It’ll take years, decades, and they’ve been planning it for ages, but they say it’s going to happen soon. We might get to walk along here under a full moon sometime.’

  ‘Huh… wow. I mean, I guess compared to the stellar engineering the Negral AIs got up to that’s pretty easy, but still. Wow.’

  ‘Oh, it’s pretty amazing. Doctor Wallace is part of the team setting it up. He could tell you more about it if you wanted to know.’

  Aneka grinned. ‘Maybe. Not right now.’

  Ella grinned back. ‘Other plans? Aside from walking along this beach.’

  ‘Yeah. You know how you’re always nagging at me…’

  ‘I don’t nag.’

  ‘…to have sex on the beach?’

  ‘Okay, I’ll admit I nag as long as you’ll do it.’

  Aneka laughed. ‘You really are a pang foo at times, you know?’

  ‘Always. But only for you.’

  ~~~

  Ella was wriggling. She was walking along the beach back toward Olderbarn, but there was a definite wriggle in her walk.

  ‘I told you the sand gets everywhere,’ Aneka said.

  ‘I know it does. It was still worth it.’

  ‘Well, luckily, the first-aid kit we’ve got at the hotel has some cream that’ll help the abrasion heal faster.’

  Ella gave her a coy look. ‘Will you rub it in for me?’

  Aneka grinned back. ‘Thoroughly.’

  ‘You’re so nice to me. I’ll have to think of a way to repay you.’

  ‘Ella, love, I have absolutely no doubt that you’ll think of a way.’

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  Ella had been looking more than usually gleeful on the way home from the university; Aneka was suspicious. When the little redhead was that happy and was not giving a reason for the upbeat mood it usually meant she was up to something, but they still had another day of work before the weekend, and she was pretty busy at the moment with students nearing the end of term. Generally she was conscientious about her job and did not do anything that might leave her regretting the previous evening when she was going to be in the office.

  The reason for her glee, it appeared, was the package waiting in their delivery box in the hall outside their apartment. Aneka frowned at it, but Ella was not giving anything away. She just giggled and started up the stairs carrying the black, adanymax container, which looked like it had been shipped from off-world given the sturdiness.

  Once in the flat she placed the box on the kitchen counter and turned to Aneka. ‘I said I’d come up with a way to thank you for being such a gorgeous, caring, wonderful person, and this doesn’t even come close, but it’s for you, and I hope you like it.’

  ‘Uh… What is it?’

  ‘Open the box and find out.’

  Sure enough, the box opened at her touch and receipt of her identity code. Aneka lifted the lid and, at first, could not make out what she was seeing. Whatever it was was made of Ultraskin, so it was probably clothing. She lifted it out, turning it in her hands until it resolved itself into a leotard of some sort.

  ‘I designed it,’ Ella said, ‘and then I got Aggy to fabricate it for me. It’s got the same laser-resistant properties as your old leotard, but I thought… Well, I thought you could do with a change.’

  Aneka said nothi
ng, but gave Ella a smile and headed off toward the guest bedroom to change. Stripping out of the jeans and T-shirt she had worn to the university, she climbed into the new suit, closed the seam at the left shoulder, and then checked herself in the mirror. It was different; just as exposing as the old one since it was largely translucent Ultraskin with high hips, but then Ella had designed it. Her left arm was bare while the right had a sleeve with an opaque strip around the bicep and some slightly denser panels with a little padding at the forearm and shoulder. The high neck was opaque and there were strips of solid black around the seams. Still smiling, she padded out of the room on bare feet to where Ella was waiting anxiously.

  ‘What do you think?’ Ella asked.

  ‘What do you think?’ Aneka asked in return, turning slowly to show off the suit.

  ‘I think you look beautiful.’

  Aneka grinned. ‘You usually do. What about the suit?’

  ‘It looks great. Just how I imagined. Do you like it?’ There was that eager look on her face; a desire for approval from her lover which she never lost, even as her personal confidence grew.

  Aneka walked across the carpet and pulled Ella into a kiss, letting it linger long enough that when she spoke Ella already knew the answer. ‘I love it. Thank you, love.’

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  ‘Someone identifying themselves as Xenia is requesting admittance,’ the apartment’s computer announced.

  Ella looked around at Aneka, frowning. ‘Do you know a Xenia?’

  ‘Maybe. Computer, allow access.’ Aneka got to her feet and headed for the door of the apartment. She waited at the top of the stairs as a woman with bright red hair walked up from the ground floor. ‘Hello again, Xenia,’ Aneka said. ‘What brings you here?’

  ‘Inside,’ Winter said. She was dressed in the same swimsuit-style outfit she had worn to the party with a short, red, Plastex skirt over the top to make it a little more decent. Dressed for pleasure, but her face was serious. Aneka turned and walked back into the flat, curious now.