by S. E. Smith
“Well, I guess that’s all I can do for now,” he said. “I’ve got a shipment of carnium to deliver.”
“Ok, guess I’ll see you in a couple months.”
“Yeah. Oh, hey, can I talk to Ru?”
“Not right now. I need to limit the stimulus while the neural lace develops. Once the first phase is complete, I'll be able to interface with him again and I can give him access to our com systems. I’ll let you know when he's ready.”
“I’ll be seeing you, then.”
“See you.”
Back on No Commitments, he fired up the engines and waited for his departure clearance. It didn’t take long, and he was back at warp speed within the hour. Once he set the nav system up, he went to the galley for some lunch. The meal was fine, the beer was better, but the ship was empty. Too fucking empty without Ru and Zara.
Six
Nearly two months later, Marco arrived at Earth in the middle of the night Italy time, where the Cavacent Clan had their base. He took the station’s portal directly to his den in the Maldives, where his home was. He hadn’t been here much in the past year. It felt good to be back, but oddly empty.
He had a few days here, then it was back to Xycor.
He grabbed a beer from the fridge and walked out to his back patio. A warm breeze carried the salt from the ocean beyond. It was a calm night, and the moon reflected off the ocean’s surface. He took off his boots and socks and followed the path down to the beach. Although dimmed by the light of the moon, the stars were still brilliant in the night sky.
Zara had once told him she loved the beach, but they’d never had the chance to go together. He’d surprised himself when he’d mentioned his home to her. Maybe someday he could bring her here. Strange thought, given that he’d never brought a woman here before. Still, this place was perfect for lovers.
Lovers.
A truth settled over him like a childhood blanket. It should have astonished him, but it didn’t. He smiled and raised his beer to the stars above. He knew what he had to do.
Zara leaned over the chest-high table and visually inspected the com unit. Or what was left of it. The casing had been removed, and the circuitry was encased in a growing lattice of neural lace, all of which was suspended in an opaque gelatinous stabilizing material. It was a beautiful structure, embodying an elegance only nature itself could create. “Ru? Can you hear me?”
The monitor, registering clear signs of neural activity, increased agitation when she spoke, just as she’d expect. But he wasn’t responding yet.
“Ru, I’m going on the assumption that you can hear me because of the activity I can see on my equipment.”
The screen lit up and she smiled.
“I’ve got you almost fully integrated with your new biological brain. You should be experiencing some pretty interesting phenomena. Nothing compared to when we get you into your body, but it’s a first step.”
Another pulse of activity.
“I’ve got you connected to a new voice synthesizer. You need to experiment with your processes until you can find the one that’s connected to the proper output. We’ll hear it when you do. From there, you’ll need to remap your logic patterns. It’ll be just like activating the speaker on the com, but it’s going to be controlled via your neural network. You’re literally going to be creating neural connections within the new brain. Everything you do is going to be like that. It will take time and repetition. The synthesizer itself is bio-mechanical, so it’s a little different than the speaker was. Just keep trying until you figure it out.”
The monitor rippled with activity in multiple areas of the brain. What was Ru going through? A machine trying to integrate with a fully-functioning brain? They were in for some pretty fascinating conversations.
She left him to work it out. The equipment had a direct feed to her com, so she’d know of any changes. She grabbed her sweater and headed outside. Marco had been gone nearly two months. He’d been able to talk to Ru for a while, but the latest phase had been silent as she attached the vocal apparatus. The only thing left to do was insert him into the owl body, which was now fully formed. Nanites would merge the portion of the brain he was integrated with into the core of the medulla that was in the owl’s body.
The procedure was scheduled for the following day. Marco was due to arrive in the morning. She’d managed to find some clarity in his absence. She missed him, that was true, but she couldn’t go back. Not to the way it was. If she did, she’d be devastated when he left. Like it or not, she’d developed feelings for him. Dangerous ones now that her psi was involved. When they’d dated before, nothing had gone on with their psi. It wasn’t a bonding thing at all, but something had shifted. For her, at least. Marco was Marco. Whatever was going on, she needed to contain it.
Summer was over, and there was a biting cold to the wind. She wrapped her sweater tighter and summoned an AV. Once inside, she activated the nav and set her destination for home. Tomorrow was going to be a long day, and she was tired.
The vehicle lifted vertically from the parking spot and slipped into the flight path for her condo. She busied her mind with a review of the following day’s procedure. Once home, she’d shower, grab a bite and go to bed early. Her body tensed when she thought of Marco. It was difficult not to go there, but she needed to stop. She’d already purged his image from her VR library. It had been fine before, when he wasn’t an option, just a great memory, but not now. Now the possibility was far too real, and pleasing herself while seeing him had become a bitter-sweet pill. One she didn’t want to take anymore.
Zara woke to find a message from Marco waiting for her. He’d arrived at the spaceport in the middle of the night. She dressed in a hurry and grabbed a bite to eat on the way. She wasn’t usually nervous during these procedures, but this was unlike anything she’d ever done before. Theoretically, everything was solid. It should work. But theory had a way of bending under application. What if she’d missed something?
Crap. Stop it. Second guessing herself wasn’t going to help. She’d done everything possible to make this a success. She’d reviewed the neural activity through the night. Ru had been active, but hadn't yet made a sound. Not unexpected.
Marco was waiting for her in the visitor’s entrance. He wore tight jeans, black boots, and a button-up shirt. Standard Earth Protector attire. He looked good. Really good. “Hey,” she said, going for detached cool.
“Hey, yourself.” The sheepish grin he shot her made her insides go all gooey.
“How’s our boy?”
He’d used that phrase before, and she wished he’d stop. There wasn’t a “we” here. Just him and her. She brought him up to speed on Ru’s condition.
“Should he be talking by now?”
“Not necessarily. This is all new. He’s got to figure out how to integrate with the brain to control the synthesizer. Like a child learning how to control their body. I think once he’s able to do one thing, talk or move a body part, the rest will cascade into place. It’s like a child learning to walk.” At least, that was her theory.
They made it to the lab and she took him over to the incubator. The tiny owl lay motionless inside.
“It’s so cute,” Marco said, leaning down for a better look.
“Adorable. Super soft too, but those talons are razor sharp. Come on, let’s move this in with Ru.” She activated the battery back-up and unplugged the cart, wheeling it over to the clean room. “You can come in now. The nanites are fully functioning, both in the body and here. He’ll never get an infection of any kind.” She paused outside the door. “It might be a little gross for you.”
“I can handle gross.”
She laughed. “Boys.”
On the table lay the current form of Ru. A small brain was fused to the neural lace that encased Ru. Snaking out from the stem of the brain were dozens of glistening tendrils, the thickest of which was connected to the bio-mechanical vocal synthesizer. She found the entire thing stunningly beautiful. Those ten
drils would connect to the spinal cord of the bird, as well as the eyes. The nanites would complete the fusing process within minutes of it being placed into the body. It had taken her decades to perfect the technique, and made her an extremely rich woman. Zero Sum had faired pretty well too.
Marco stood transfixed by the sight. “I can just make out the com’s circuit board. That’s so insane. Can you hear me, dude?”
The monitor lit up like the night sky during the Summer’s Ball on Mitah. “He hears you all right. Look at the monitor.”
A strange sound emitted from the synthesizer.
“Ru, that’s it! Keep working on it.”
A series of sounds filled the small room. All of which were human-sounding.
“I’ve got the synthesizer set for a male’s voice, but we can tweak that.”
Within minutes, Ru had some basic speech ability. The volume, cadence, and flow were all awkward and halting, but it was excellent progress.
“Take a break for a minute,” Zara said, trying to calm her elation. “We’re ready to finish this, Ru.”
“Yes.” The pitch rose at the end.
“Ok, I want you to stop trying to talk and just remain calm. Once I insert you, the nanites will do the rest. Don’t expect too much too soon. The usual development for humans being integrated with the cyborg tech is a few hours. You’ll start to feel by degrees, and eventually you can work on control of your body parts.”
She took a deep breath and looked at Marco. His deep brown eyes mirrored her concerns.
The small body of the owl was warm to the touch as she placed it face down in the cradle next to Ru.
“The back of the head here,” she pointed to the skull, “is grafted with synskin. This will allow for fairly straightforward removal of Ru if needed, and of course, it’s how we get him in.” She retrieved her com from her pocket and pulled up the monitoring program. “Ru, I have a kill switch of sorts for your integration. If anything goes wrong, or you’re out of control, I can have the nanites disrupt the spinal signals. Just a precaution while you figure out how to work everything.”
“Yes.” The voice was deep and slow this time.
“Ok, here we go. Hang on. Figure of speech, of course.” On the com, she activated the synskin and alerted the nanites to the pending process. They would keep the blood away from the tendrils while they fused. A seam opened from the tip of the head to a third of the way down the spine. She waited a moment for the nanites to soften the skull, then she pulled the flesh apart and marveled at the interior. She loved this part the most. Pulling on some surgical gloves, more to keep her hands clean than anything, she picked up the brain and synth. Gently, she placed the mass into the skull cavity and laid the synthesizer along the throat. The nanites had the hard work. The tendrils began snaking their way to their predestined access points. It was like watching a ballet you’d spent months producing and directing. All her dancers were performing to perfection.
When she was satisfied, she pulled off the gloves and activated the closing sequence. The feathered skin slid back into place, and the head reformed within minutes.
“And now we wait,” Zara said. Not since the early days of developing the implementation of neural lace had she worried so much at this stage of the procedure.
There had been failures.
“Zara,” Marco’s voice was almost a whisper.
“Yes?”
“Is that supposed to happen?” He nodded toward the monitor.
“Oh, gods.” The neural activity was minimal. “Ru, can you hear us?”
Nothing.
The four minutes it took to run the diagnostics were some of the longest of her life.
“What is it?” Marco hovered next to her, close enough for her to smell that musky scent of his.
“Um,” she hated the crack in her voice. She cleared her throat. “The brain is fully functioning from the point of respiratory and pulmonary support activity. Everything looks fine.” Except for the nearly flat-line neural activity. She hadn’t expected that. She reached out and stroked the soft feathers. “Come on, baby.”
Marco blew out a long breath and spun. “I’m going for a walk. Call me if anything changes?”
She couldn’t look at him. “Of course.”
The outer door clicked shut a moment later.
She was glad she hadn’t scheduled any other research here today, as that left her alone. What had she done?
Marco returned almost an hour later with food and drinks. Neither of them ate more than a few bites, and they did so in silence. She felt horrible, and watched the monitors nonstop. It was like waiting for your lover to call: painfully frustrating.
She wanted to say something, but she didn’t know what. Then the words just poured out of her. “Marco, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I don’t know what happened. I never even considered failure. Maybe I’ve gotten too arrogant, too sure of myself. I should’ve...should’ve run more tests, more analysis.”
“Zara, stop,” Marco said.
“I should have listened to you. You didn’t want to do it.”
“But he did. It was his right to make that choice.”
“Did I just destroy the first sentient AI?”
Marco held his fingers to her lips and shushed her. “Don’t do that. This isn’t your fault. You did everything you could do. Even if it doesn’t work out, you took it farther than anyone else could have. And it was his choice, remember that. He wanted to take the chance, wanted to have a body. And we’re not done yet. We’re not giving up.”
“You’re right. This is new territory. It took him longer than usual to find the speech center. It could be days. As long as that little body is functioning, we’ll wait and see.” For how long, she didn’t know. She didn’t know if she’d ever felt this lost. “I need a drink.”
“That is an excellent idea,” Marco said.
Zara went into the small office at the back of her lab, and pulled a bottle of whiskey out of the cabinet. She’d had it in there for almost two years now, and had only taken a few drinks. Grabbing some paper cups from inside her desk, she went back to Marco and poured them both a healthy amount. She prayed she was just being paranoid, prayed to the gods Ru would come back.
“Zara, I mean it,” Marco said. “Stop thinking this is your fault.”
“That’s easier said than done. No one else would’ve even taken this chance. No one else could have screwed it up.”
“No one else could have succeeded either,” Marco said.
The tone of his voice soothed something inside of her. The whiskey was going down fast, and doing its job well. She poured them both another glass. There was nothing to do but wait, and if Ru did wake up there was still nothing for her to do other than monitor the output of his attempts to control his body. And with the fail-safes, she didn’t even need to do that. Getting drunk was a pretty good option right now.
“What are you thinking, beautiful?” Marco asked.
His voice had always gotten to her, especially when he was in this kind of mood. He could turn on the charm like no one else. That’s why she’d worked so hard to get the voice right in her VR feed. Tried and failed. There was nothing like the real thing. Heat pooled between her legs and she let herself remember those nights together. Days, afternoons, mornings. She shut her psi behind a mental door and looked at him. “I’m thinking how much I want to kiss you.”
He didn’t waste any time as he claimed her mouth with his.
She let the passion flow through her. They were a tangle of arms and legs. She wanted this more than she wanted to breathe. She undid the buttons on his shirt in record time and he had her lab coat off and blouse over her head in the next heartbeat. It felt so good to be touched by him again.
He bit the chord in her neck, and her whole body shivered. He trailed his teeth downward sucking, biting, licking. The need in her was a living, growing thing.
They managed to get out of the rest of their clothes, shoes, socks, and underwear flew in
every direction. He picked her up and placed her on the counter.
“Cold!” She squealed as her bare skin pressed against the metal.
“Don’t worry, beautiful, I’ll have you warm in a second. He was hard as steel, the curve of his abs pointing the way to what she craved. What she needed.
He devoured her with his eyes.
“Touch me.” It came out a whisper, a plea. She spread her legs wide, she was so close.
He ran his hands up her inner thighs, and when he reached her heat, he circled, stroking, teasing.
He stepped closer and kissed her, gently, probing her entrance with his erection.
She wrapped her legs around his waist and pulled him inside. She moaned as her psi struggled to get loose.
“Gods, woman, I missed this.” He moved with a steady rhythm that played the strings of her soul.
So good, so damn good.
He took her legs and unwrapped them, hooked his arms under her knees and grabbed hold of her ass. The angle was perfection, and she came in a blinding orgasm. Her head spun and her body tingled as he found his own release.
Remaining firmly seated, he leaned back and gazed into her eyes. He cupped her face in his palms, his thumbs stroking along her jawline. His psi caressed her, and she let hers wrap around his for just a moment.
They both moaned as the pleasure mounted.
If he were anyone else, some other man, she’d think there was something more in those brown eyes. Something more than lust, but this was Marco. Had to remember that. She restrained her psi again. Didn’t mean tonight had to end.
“That was nice,” she said reaching for her cup.
“We’re not done yet.” He flexed inside her, sending pulses of delight radiating outward.
“Better not be.”
They went at it with passion and hunger, like college kids on spring break. Several times they let their psi meld, dance, and caress.
It was after 1 o’clock in the morning before they dressed. Marco insisted on seeing her home, so they shared a transport back to her place. They kissed all the way, just like they’d done all those years ago. She wasn’t sure how long they’d been sitting there when the AV politely let them know they had arrived.
