by Myles, Eden
When William stepped into her quarters a few moments later, he found her studying the pictures on the display. “What do you have there, Snow?” he asked. His voice was softer and warmer. They had shared intimacy; now they were connected, however tentatively.
“William,” she asked, turning, “would you please bring me an apple?”
William looked sad. “I’m sorry to say they went extinct on earth thousands of years ago, during the last Great War. It lasted a hundred years, and during that time, no one cultivated them. The pollution and debris of the war killed off the few remaining.” He pressed his lips together in that way of regret that he had. “I wish I could say we had at least gathered the genetic material to clone the trees, but by the time we had the technology, their DNA was corrupt.”
“They’re gone forever,” she said, not without sadness.
“I’m sorry, Snow.”
She shook her head to clear it of this silly fancy. She had more important things to concern her at present. She looked up at him hopefully and said, “Have you found out anything about the computer?”
He consulted his tablet even though she knew the answer wasn’t on there. She could read it from where she was standing. “There’s been some complications,” he began.
He went on to explain that he had put in a request for a new system after deciding the computer had been wrong about Snow. Helix had responded that they would be sending a technician to look at the computers. If something was found amiss, then the computers would be replaced. “I have a good friend in the communications office,” he explained. “A man who owed me a favor. He said Helix red-flagged my request and an agent of the corporation has been asked to look into my past.”
“Why are they so concerned about your request?” she asked.
For the first time, he looked really frightened. He immediately went to her viewer portal and looked out at the vast darkness of space. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the computer,” he admitted. “I think it’s programmed to read the brainwaves of the sex toys a specific way.” He paused then. “The last time an agent was issued from Home Office, it was because of a corporate spy.”
She moved toward him, then stopped. “They don’t suspect you’re a spy?”
“No. I mean, I don’t think so. But they have no reason to do this unless they feel I’m being a threat of some sort.”
“I see. What happened to the spy?”
His shoulders slumped and she had her answer. “This goes deep, Snow. All the way back to Home Office. I think maybe…maybe it would be best if we got you someplace safe.”
“Such as?”
He looked at his reflection in the glass. “Do you know what a jump star is, Snow?”
“That’s a star with a powerfully negative magnetic pull. It pushes articles in space far away, like reverse gravity.”
He nodded. “We use them to slingshot ships that must traverse long ways. It saves on fuel and it shortens the trip. We are coming close to the jump start that normally slingshots us toward Osiris. I think it would be best if we got you off the ship before then.” He paused, then. “If we don’t, the agent they send will likely hunt you down, and even if he doesn’t, I’ve decided. I don’t want you going to Osiris.”
She didn’t want to go to Osiris, either. “Because of the Queen,” she guessed.
“That’s part of it, yes.”
“But what about you?”
“That’s not your concern.” He swung around toward the door, but Snow stepped in his way and said, “William, please. There’s something I need to tell you.” She worried her bottom lip. Why was she doing this? Acting so foolish? She was putting his needs above her own when she was so needy!
He looked down at her with concern.
She lifted her chin and said, “The only reason you’re doing any of this for me—this information gathering, this help, putting yourself in mortal danger—is because I’ve bewitched you.”
“You haven’t bewitched me,” he said. “Don’t be ridiculous, Snow.”
He tried moving past, but she put her hand on his arm. He felt her power. “No, it’s true.” She started explaining about the pheromones. Again she wondered why she was doing this when she was the one in danger. But the truth was, she could not bear to see him hurt because of her request.
She did not like this sense of self-awareness at all. It made her do foolish things.
He bent his head long before she finished her explanation and kissed her soundly. It was a warm, wet kiss. She kissed him back. She could not not kiss him back. “I know all about that, Snow,” he said when they finally came up for air. He saw her confusion and brushed his thumb across the plain of her white cheek, pushing aside long black spirals of her hair. “Don’t you think those of us on staff at Helix are inoculated against such things?”
She stepped back, her mouth tingling from his kiss. “You aren’t bewitched, yet you continue to help me?”
He looked like he wanted to say something about that, then changed his mind and said instead, “Yes, of course. You’re unique, Snow. Something’s happened in your development. Apparently, nature truly does abhor a vacuum. And when you remove the prefrontal cortex, something new develops, something that allows the creature to evolve completely different abilities such as you have demonstrated.”
“I see,” she said. So she was merely a curiosity to be dissected? A puzzle of science to be solved? A source of amusement and satisfaction to him?
“In any event, there’s something else going on with Helix, and I want to know what it is.” He narrowed his eyes with indignation. “There could be other toys like you, Snow. Others who were not developed the way they should be. Others who are self-aware as you are. Others who should be freed.”
She felt a spike of anger. So he did not love her. He merely pitied her. Desired her. Was fascinated by her. And she had given herself to him. That was the saddest thing of all. “Shouldn’t all of them be free, William?” she cried.
He said nothing as he ducked out of her quarters looking sad and angry.
* * *
Shouldn’t all of them be free, William?
He thought about Snow’s words even as he unenthusiastically pushed forkfuls of soft brown Nutrimeal around his plate. He sat in the ship’s cafeteria as he did on most evenings, looking over his day’s work on his tablet, but his mind could not focus on the medical reports he was perusing. It kept going back to what Snow had said, and the admonishing timber of her voice.
He had disappointed her. Not that that was anything unusual. He had let Moira down as well.
He had left his country practice on the colony planet of Aries so he could be with Moira when she was promoted to head of security aboard a military cargo ship. It seemed an ideal situation, a way for them to be together, but very quickly he was overwhelmed with responsibilities as part of the onboard medical staff. One particularly hectic night, he’d spent hours in the ER as the victims of a chemical leak poured in. His auto-communicator had gone off several times in his pocket. Each time he checked it, he saw it was Moira. Paranoid Moira (as he sometimes thought of her) often checked up on him, afraid he might be spending time with one of the pretty nurses on his staff even though he’d always been loyal. That night, he worked on not resenting her, though of course he did.
He did not pick up her call until she’d rung him seven times. By then it was too late. She’d contracted a fast-acting alien virus only a few hours earlier and had been steadily burning up with fever. By the time he reached the sick bay, she was already dead. What’s more, the autopsy revealed that she’d been three weeks pregnant with their first and only child. He hadn’t known. And now, Moira never would.
Why was he thinking about these things now, anyway? Snow was nothing like Moira. Moira had been dark-eyed and dark-skinned, with a commanding presence and a confident smile. Snow was white, with a trembling, childlike demeanor.
She needs your help, he reminded himself. She needs someone who ca
n protect her. From Queen Grimhilde. From Helix.
His co-workers were watching him again. It wasn’t that they were overtly staring at him, only that they seemed less preoccupied with each other’s conversations or the news scrolling across the room’s vid-screens, like they were straining to see something in his face, or hear some admission of guilt.
Disgusted, he picked up his tray of uneaten food and took it with him back to his quarters. There he promptly recycled it, glanced at the picture of Moira on his desk, and snatched up his tablet as he headed for the fourth floor. It wouldn’t be so unusual for him to visit Snow; she was scheduled to be delivered the following morning, and last-minute examinations were not only acceptable but encouraged at Helix. Besides, he was the eccentric ship’s doctor who talked to sex toys. The manager of the nursery department did not so much as blink when he checked his clearance at the door and proceeded down the now-familiar twist of corridors to her room.
“William,” she said, standing up from the divan where she’d been lounging until he’d stepped into her quarters. She always looked so sedate, almost lifeless, but he knew she was cleverer than she seemed. She could sit for hours, listening to datawaves, learning about the world she had been born into only a few weeks ago. “William, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” he said, moving forward so they met halfway across her quarters. He had meant to only take her hands in his, but the moment she was close enough, he slid them familiarly around her hips and jerked her soft, perfumed body against him. He marveled in how well she fit against him, like they were two halves of the same creature. Dipping his head, he kissed her, kissed her again, tracing the seam of her lips with his tongue, raking his teeth over her bottom lip before kissing her breathless once more. “There’s nothing wrong, Snow. I have it all under control.”
She groaned her response against his lips.
He didn’t wait for her to will her gown away this time. He wanted her too much. He ripped at the front of it, freeing a breast. He snagged the sensitive nipple in his teeth and Snow’s sweetness poured into his mouth. It was like he’d died and gone to heaven. He sucked and sucked while she writhed and threw her head back, her fingers nesting deep in his hair as she gave herself to him. He pushed her back toward the narrow bed they had given her, pushed her down, and pinned her to the thin mattress. He suckled her until she climaxed beneath him, then raised his head and kissed her, pouring some of her sweetness into her own mouth. Snow swallowed it down and he kissed her mouth and inside her mouth.
He stopped just long enough to tell her his plan. “I’ll inject you with a number of carefully programmed nanobots. They’re designed to act in a series of specific way. First, they will put you in a deep, controlled sleep. When your handlers find you unconscious tomorrow morning, they’ll naturally come and get me. Since the nanobots are specially programmed, they will respond to no treatment and you won’t awaken no matter what they do to you. Then it’ll be a simple task to prepare the return shipment of your body to earth.”
She writhed in the aftermath of her orgasm, but then grew still beneath him. “You’re sending me to earth? To them?”
“No,” William told her, a smile on his face. “I’ll use the jump star to accidently shuttle your body off to one of the moons around Osiris instead. Sirius, perhaps. It’s a lawless colony, still developing, someplace the Queen would never go for fear of being killed. But you’ll be safe there. Safe and anonymous.”
“Oh William…” she began, but he quickly cut her off.
“There’s more. The same nanobots who will put you in suspended animation will also be rewriting all your programs. Or rather…unwriting them.” He paused dramatically, his mouth a severe line. “When you awaken, you’ll be completely human and in complete control of your own body.”
She touched his face. Her eyes grew grave, as if she detected his sadness. “Then why aren’t you happy?” She thought about that. “You are coming, aren’t you? You’ll come with me?”
He touched her hand touching her face. “No, Snow. I can’t risk it. If I disappear with you, Helix will become suspicious. They’ll know what I did, and then their agent will hunt us both.”
She sat up beneath him. She looked grief-stricken. “You can’t leave me on my own.”
“Of course I can,” he said, affecting more joy in his voice than he actually felt. “You’re the smartest person I’ve ever met. You’ll blend in seamlessly. You’ll learn their ways. No one will ever find you.”
She looked like she might protest further, but then he saw reason come into her dark, almost black eyes. “So this will be the last time we’ll ever be together.”
He nodded once. “Yes, Snow. It will.”
* * *
The last time…
Snow lowered her head so he wouldn’t see the tears in her eyes. Then she spread her hands possessively over William’s broad chest. “If this has to be, can we be together one last time?”
He stared down at her with tears in his eyes before lowering his mouth to kiss and suck at her soft, full lips. His tongue darted into her mouth, quick like a lizard, licking inside as if she were as sweet as he seemed to think. Meanwhile, she worked his uniform shirt open and gloried in his masculine beauty. He wasn’t like her. He was flawed. He had scars and imperfect human skin. Spare blond fur matted his chest. She loved every inch of him. His musculature was sleek and human, nothing like the cold perfection of the male sex toys she remembered developing alongside down in the Helix nursery where she was born. She started licking and sucking at his nipples. He groaned at the sensation and she felt the hardness of his cock twitching and growing against her lower pelvis.
He had given her so much pleasure. She wanted to return the favor. She pushed him over and climbed atop him, pinning him to the mattress. Then she went back to suckling him before working her way down his body, over his abs and the flat plain of his belly. She paused to tease her tongue into his navel while she worked his pants opened, found the warm weight of his balls, fondled them.
She moved her lips toward his now fully erect cock and he growled out his pleasure and sank his fingers in the heavy, shining black mass of her hair. She drew her tongue over the dripping head, then swallowed him down an inch at a time while William bucked his hips up and up, until he’d hit the back of her throat.
She squeezed his balls and drew his cock out of her mouth seconds before precum jetted from the head, hitting her lips and chin. She smiled at the desperate look on his face.
“Let me fuck you, Snow,” he pleaded.
She halved her eyes like a cat. “Yes…but only on one condition.”
He waited, heart thumping rapidly under her hand. “Yes.”
“Take my virginity.”
“Snow…”
“I want you to,” she pleaded. “If something goes wrong, and I have to go to Osiris, the Queen will do unspeakable things to me. I just know she will.”
“And if you aren’t a virgin, she’ll sell you. Or worse, kill you.”
She moved back up his body so they were face to face, his hard, twitching cock pressed between them. “If that’s the case, I’d rather die. Please, William,” she said with tears in her eyes.
He thought about that, his hands gripping her hips. He lifted her up, and then with one mighty thrust, sheathed himself deep within her. Snow arched her back and screamed as he penetrated her maidenhead and a spike of agony ripped through her body from bottom to top.
He waited while she acclimated herself to the pain and stretching, waited until she trembled and returned to lying still atop him. He looked like he wanted to cry. She said, “Thank you,” and leaned down to kiss him softly on the lips. Despite the pain, she liked the way he felt there.
He tried to shift her off of him, to give her time to recover, but she gripped him tight with her inner muscles. “Don’t,” she said. “Not yet.”
“Snow, please…”
“Make love to me, William. It’s our last time.” Surely he wou
ld not deny her?
It took him a moment to gather himself, then he started moving again, holding her while moving in and out of her, slowly but deliberately. She moaned and rocked her hips, meeting each of his thrusts with a thrust of her own while his hands traveled over her white, fragrant body and cupped and milked her lush, ripe breasts. Her milk flowed freely down over his hands and her inner wetness poured over his balls. He thrust up and up inside her, finally hitting her sweet spot so she thrashed her head and cried out in release as they came together, as one.
After the last tremors left their bodies, Snow curled into his side and said, “Promise me you’ll come with me to Sirius. That you’ll find a way.”
“I promise,” he said, kissing her gently. He reached for the sleek, silver syringe in the pocket of his lab coat lying on the floor and pressed it into the crook of her arms. She was asleep in seconds. Then he kissed her goodbye. “I’m so sorry, Snow, but sometimes promises have to be broken.”
* * *
The following morning, he was called down to the lab as he had expected he would be. The other medics had already worked over Snow’s body for over an hour, without luck. She was as still as the dead, and yet her heart beat. He quickly went about the task of preparing her body to be shipped back to earth, including filling out the required paperwork and setting up the containment capsule. But while several of the nurses went to fetch Snow’s body from the examination room, William used his tablet to reprogram the capsule.
While the nurses set her body inside the capsule, William thought how very much like a coffin it looked, with its sleek, silver torpedo shape. There was even room for him, should he want to join her, he realized. But he could not.
“Is everything ready?” the navigator asked over the intercom system in the room.
“Yes, I think so,” William said, looking over the capsule sitting in the launch cradle. All he had to do was close the capsule; the rest of the system was automatic. The capsule, with Snow’s unconscious body, would be launched into space, toward the jump star. The only difference was, once the capsule reached the star, its slingshot trajectory would be altered to send it onto Sirius instead of back to earth.
