Biohackers: Cybernetic Agents

by Dean C. Moore

  “You’re lucky I’m more about the beauty inside than outside,” he said. “Because you ain’t looking too good.” Remembering he had to get the dragon off her without killing it, he settled upon a strategy.

  Roman blasted himself to the top of the dragon’s head, reached with his hands until he was covering its eyes. From there, he let his bodysuit nano grow over the eyes into a pair of blinding goggles. The creature shrieked at having its sight taken away from it and immediately reached to tear off the blindfold. Having no such luck with its talons, it flew down to the ground in a rage. Clawing its way up the center of the street, it bashed its head against skyscraper walls, hoping to peel off the blindfold.

  Unnerved by sounds the dragon couldn’t discern without its eyes for guidance, it blasted fire at hapless pedestrians simply trying to get a hot dog from a hot dog stand, or walking the avenue to get to work. Of course, the residents of the district had their body nano upgraded to insure against fire blasts. But it was still quite the annoyance, as the dragon was not meant to come down to street level and interrupt the affairs of the day.

  Little kids ran out in the middle of the street, determined to feed it their hot dogs or their hamburgers. The dragon took them up instead and chewed on them before spitting them back out. Their body nano once again made them indigestible and too tough even for the dragon’s beak.

  The ice cream vender pushed his cart in front of the creature who unwittingly melted the ice cream before deciding he liked the taste of the sugary sweet. From there on out, the kids were lining up so it would lick their ice creams.

  “Now where were we?” Roman said from atop the skyscraper. Proceeding to mount Elsa, guts exposed and all.

  “Seriously, Roman?”

  “Sorry, babe. But getting your saliva into me to keep me from oblivion’s gate takes top priority over your smelling a little ripe.”

  She stood him up and kept his mouth glued to hers with her hands so she could get more DNA-saturated saliva into him with her latest calculations on how best to slow the effects of his neuronet. But in the process of taking their lovemaking perpendicular to the ground, she was stepping over her own intestines, tripping both of them up, and sending both off the top of the skyscraper again to the ground below.

  Roman refused to be deterred or distracted.

  They landed hard enough to rupture the asphalt. No big loss. It was a self-healing roadway. As to their temporary paralysis as their body nano healed their shattered spines, their time spent together would be all the more exquisitely extended.

  When he could move again, he commenced to shove her intestines back inside her. “I’ve really got to stop treating your body like a piñata I need to burst to get to the candy inside.”

  She smiled, arrested his hand in hers, took over the healing for him.

  When they finally got up, they received an applause from their audience on the streets, thanking them for providing a way for the dragon to interact with the kids in a more subdued fashion. The creature had ceased fighting against the blinders until they could be removed. Roman had seen to it that they would self-dissolve within the hour. Perhaps they were getting some applause for the grandstanding with all the lovemaking, but he was too modest to put too much stock in that.

  Roman flew them both back to Elsa’s penthouse suite. Upon landing, bowed to her and said, “Thank you, my lady.” He pretended to doff the hat he didn’t have and exited the room.

  Elsa waived her hand and the self-healing penthouse suite set upon restoring itself. It was like watching an old fashioned film rewind. The hand gesture was irrelevant; all the restoration efforts would have taken to commence was a pulse from her DNA-computer brain. But she needed to feel the magic, preferred the act to feel more like wizardry on her part. Why? Because when once her and Roman’s lovemaking was filled with magic, that magic was long gone. Perhaps the neuronet’s ongoing evolution of his nervous system and every cell in his body had seen to that. Maybe Roman as the man of war couldn’t get in touch with the same magic that Roman as the man of peace could. Whatever the reason…

  She plopped herself back on her chair as depleted by their little encounter as Roman had been charged up by it. With a tap of her finger, she brought up the holo version of the latest retrovirus she’d zapped him with. The battle between its attempts to infiltrate the cells in his body and the neuronet’s attempts to keep it out was well underway. The nanites swarms in his body were broadcasting the feed to her, giving her a grimly detailed picture. Each time the virus penetrated the membranes of the cells to enter the cytoplasm, the neuronet extended tendrils into the cell and zapped it into oblivion. The virus that replicated itself faster than the best generation nanites was just slightly outpacing the neuronet, for now. How long would this fix last?

  She dismissed the holo with a swipe of her hand and an angry groan. Rubbed her temples in an impotent attempt to ease the pounding migraine. Stared at her reflection in the smartglass, thinking, “This was the face that drove you to do this to yourself, you fool?”

  He just needed her anymore to heal him enough so he could get back to doing what he did best, stalking and killing the most dangerous prey. The talks about the way things might have been had long subsided; it was as if he really didn’t yearn for that life anymore.

  She, on the other hand, seemed to be retreating into it more and more. She wanted to find her way back to the old Roman even if he couldn’t be bothered to resurrect him. To a life she saw now was far more desirous.

  It was where she went now. Thank God for the download he’d sent to her mind so long ago. He’d created a virtual world for them during the taxi ride to Sabrina’s citadel to rescue her then from a fate she didn’t want to be rescued from. And he’d given her the gift the moment he planted himself in the cockpit of Sabrina’s jet to fly the Sexy Six and Elsa off on their first mission. It was as if he meant to send her on a different destination even back then. It had been a last ditch effort.

  Now, that virtual reality they shared together was her only refuge from this world, so sublime for so many, but so ugly for the two of them.

  ***

  They were hiking Mt. Kilimanjaro. The land of Hemingway. At first, Elsa didn’t appreciate the aspersions to the literary character that so loved to hunt and kill. It was not the direction she wanted Roman headed. But then something more curious…

  He’d taken the lead, balancing himself on his poles and digging in with the cleats even as the ascent grew more vertical and more treacherous. “You didn’t think to wear anything more than your Bermuda shorts up here?” she said, throwing her voice against the wind.

  “How better to drive you out of your mind with lust, my sweet?” He glanced back at her and twitched his eyebrows.

  One chuckle escaped her, passing itself off as a grunt. “Yeah, right.”

  “And your idea of dressing for the occasion was to wear some vestment out of Victorian England that you can barely cross a ballroom floor with?”

  She became conscious of her outfit for the first time and blushed. “I’m sure the hoop skirt will make a perfect tent for us, come time to settle out of these winds.” She felt herself nearly blown off the mountain by the latest gust, and was glad for the cleats she realized she was wearing and the proper boots, even if she couldn’t see either under the dress.

  He took a break from his relentless hiking pace to look back at her and say, “Actually, my neuronet told me to dress this way, to give it a chance to run my body hot for a while. Allow it to tweak my genetics on the fly.”

  “But this is a virtual reality escape for both of us. Which means what you say makes absolutely no sense.”

  He shrugged. “Maybe this is less of a virtual world for me than it is for you. If the neuronet loosens my tether to any one world and any one timeline, maybe for me, over time, this virtual world we share is as real as anything else.”

  Could it be true? No, that would be too easy. Had his neuronet actually left the door open for her to w
alk right through? Give her the chance she needed for anchoring him more to this old self than to the new?

  Could she, moreover, use this backdoor to his neuronet’s reprogramming of his mind to rescue him from oblivion? Even if she could get him to want this former man of peace for himself more than he wanted to play warrior, what would that mean? Instead of being lost to oblivion eventually, this would be his new tether? Caught in an ivory tower of his own making, never to see the real world again in any timeline, just to know the warmth of her in this virtual world?

  Her genetic cocktails alone weren’t working, but maybe by attacking the problem from both ends? Could she then draw him back into his body in this timeline and into a future they both wanted for themselves?

  Maybe he’d written this sim not to give himself a way back home, but to give her some part of him that she still loved that was real, knowing it was as close as they were ever going to get to having quality time together anymore.

  The thought brought tears to her eyes that quickly froze her eyes shut. She peeled the ice flakes off to free her eyelids but had to keep doing so as she resumed her hike up the mountain behind him. For the time at least, she was stuck in a visual metaphor for his reality, bleeping in and out between oblivion and the here and now.

  “I’m freezing,” she said. “I’m sweating under this backpack, and its flash freezing on me and…”

  He stopped, turned to face her and twitched his eyebrows playfully.

  She laughed. “You’re such a manipulative bastard.”

  Roman collapsed where he was and let her find her way into his arms. He held her between his legs, his arms wrapped around her like a hot water belt, and her back leaned against him so she could feel the heat off his torso. Together they took in the eye-dropping view of the distance. “Feel me now?” he said, kissing the top of her head.

  “Soften your muscles so I don’t feel like a snake coiling up on a hot rock.”

  “Soften them? Their hardness is supposed to turn you on,” he said whispering into her ear and sticking his tongue in it.

  “Maybe not too much softer, just a little.”

  “How’s that?” he said, lying back then rolling on top of her. “Now, let’s see how impenetrable these hoop skirts really are.”

  She laughed. “If you think I’m going to lie barebacked on this ice,” she said as he peeled the dress off and weighted it down beneath their poles and cleats to keep the wind from blowing it away.

  “Relax, it’ll be a hot tub soon enough for you to bask in. When I said I run hot, I meant I run hot.”

  A short while later they were making love and splashing one another from inside their pool of hot water as promised. “Pity you’re so damn beautiful,” she said. “Just ruins the whole thing for me.”

  He laughed. “How’s this?” He distorted his face like the Barrymore brothers of old who refused to use makeup in depicting their Jekyll and Hyde and Wolfman personas.

  It wasn’t long before he had her laughing. “Much better,” she said. “Now if you can just hold that expression, I think I might actually come to orgasm for once ahead of you.”

  “Ahead, behind, what does it matter, when the explosions keep coming?” He was sucking her neck now like a damn leech, determined to give her a hickey to immortalize their little moment together. Maybe she’d let him.

  Later, he was standing nearby fiddling with the frame of her hoop skirt. “You know, I think you’re right. This would make the perfect tent. We can use it as a frame for the igloo.” He set about carving out the chunks of ice for the igloo to lay against the frame. She set about relaxing into the sight of him flexing his muscles as he undertook all the hard work. “See how far you’ve progressed already?” he said, after sneaking a few glances at her admiring him. “Now you can get all hot just watching my hard body. You don’t need the dress anymore. From now on, all you ever have to do is remember this moment and you too can hike Kilimanjaro without a stitch of clothing. The ghosts of the dead mountain climbers will thank you for it.”

  She laughed.

  Elsa yelped as the wind picked up and pelted her with ice crystals. “This wind will whittle me down to the bone!”

  He gazed at her pensively making little more than a “hmm” sound. Then he held out his hand and started whittling her body for real with the pelting snow. He soon had her looking like a Giacometti sculpture.

  “All right, buster. You asked for it.” She held out her hand and did the same to him in turn. He laughed as he trudged his way back to her, as gangly as any stickman, only a lot gnarlier.

  The New Age music dialed up and they made a thing of fighting to keep their balance in their new ungainly bodies as they moved to and away from one another, fighting also to keep their footing on the slippery ice, and make it all look as if they were just doing some weird jig to the soundtrack.

  As they kissed one another, finally able to bring their lips together despite all resistance to the contrary, they morphed back into their original bodies, both laughing. Collapsing back into the snow along with her to rest up, he reached into his backpack and broke open one of his protein bars. He fed her morsels of it as she broke off pieces to feed him.

  He let out a fart that blasted him clear of her. She laughed so hard she had to put her hand up to her mouth before being blasted by a similar gaseous discharge. She ended up digging a deeper trench for herself and a longer one than he had. “Oh, yeah, that’s my Elsa, all right, never to be outdone.”

  ***

  Elsa’s laughter brought her out of the virtual reality world she shared with Roman. She was still giggling when she heard a knock at her office door.

  Svena let herself in. “It’s the President of China,” she said.

  Elsa sighed. Gone in a flash was the incredible lightness of being she’d felt in Roman’s presence. Replacing it was the weight of the world times two. “I swear the more powerful China gets, the needier they get. Send him in.”

  THIRTY-TWO

  Roman met up with the Sexy Six in the airplane hangar of Sabrina’s downtown skyscraper, on one of the subbasement floors, technically Elsa’s skyscraper now that Sabrina was out of the picture.

  “Where the hell have you been?” That remark was directed at him by Darya, working as part of the pit crew on the Phantom, their private plane. She had been screwing with the wires. Of course she had. She was always screwing with the electronics on whatever device she was near. She pulled her head out of the plane’s underbelly long enough to stab at him with those accusative eyes.

  “Ah,” he stammered. “Don’t really know actually.” It dawned on him that he might have been caught up in oblivion’s loving arms once again and this time had no recollection of it.

  His body felt as if a two ton car was planted firmly on his chest. Trouble breathing might have to do with nervous system atrophy in that area, or severe lactic acid build up due to over or under stimulation. Perhaps the sensations accompanying popping back out of the void could not be expected to be the same twice.

  The girls eyed one another warily.

  “Don’t be giving one another those looks,” he said. “It’s not like I’m not standing here and can’t decode them for myself. Best we get on with saving the day. You can fawn over me later.”

  “You’re a little late to rescue the world, Romeo.” Svena grabbed him by the ear and dragged him over to the big screen monitors against the far wall.

  “Hey, no ear pulling! Doesn’t go with the superhero outfit. It’s hard enough to pull off manliness when my tits look nearly as large as yours in this one-piece.”

  “It’s called being ripped and you should be proud. Get ready for your brain to be every bit as shredded.” She flicked on the monitors.

  The big reveal of their world showed post-apocalyptic scenes on the various monitors of downtown Chicago. Mangy humans in ragged clothes with mold growing out of the corners of their eyes and noses and mouths and the many cracks in their skin were staggering about, looking more
undead than alive. They would strike out ravenously at any cockroach, firefly, or rat that crossed their paths. But quickly returned to their languid, listless, lilting gates, leaning like ships to the wind, their eyes locked in million mile stares. “Yeah, I remember playing this video game,” Roman said. “I was pretty good at it too. Maybe you should let me take over.”

  “This is what the entire planet looks like right now,” Darya said approaching the screens and flanking him from the other side. She was wiping her hands of synthetic grease on a rag.

  “How come it’s not like that in here?” Roman asked.

  “Give us some credit,” Svena replied.

  “Especially me,” Darya said, indicating she had the most to do with procuring their island sanctuary.

  “Just how long have I been gone?” Roman asked.

  “A couple of days,” Svena explained.

  “And for a second there I was worried I’d been gone for decades.” Roman sighed. Despite the glib remark, the fact was he was becoming more dysfunctional by the minute and he was no longer just a threat to the team, but from the looks of it, to the entire world. “We have a global mind trust to draw on now. Not just you girls. There’s got to be…”

  “Whoever released the plague,” Darya explained, “did so to sabotage our mind trust. The mold grows between the DNA-computers, spread like mindcaps over the minds of the majority of humans, and the grey matter. Prevents the neuronets from doing their job. The mold permeates their entire bodies, short-circuiting the caps’ ability to send tendrils into each and every cell to reclaim control that way, as goes on inside your body.”

  “Relax, big boy,” Svena said, squeezing his nipples popping through the suit teasingly, mostly to rib him about his “you see how hard it is to look manly in this outfit” remark of earlier, “we’ve got this. We’re working on neutralizing the mold’s effects. Besides, there’s not much you can do about it. You can’t go back in time, remember?”