‘Not really,’ Aneka replied. She was still in bed, the sheets pulled up to her waist.
‘We could go shopping?’ Aneka made a face. Well, she was never that fond of shopping… On the other hand, she had not been very fond of anything for the last couple of days. ‘For food. We could go to the market. Stay in tonight and have a nice meal…’
‘I’m not really in the mood, love.’
She had not been in the mood for much. Even sex that morning had been lacklustre. It was like she was doing it to keep Ella happy, which it did not, of course. Ella was fairly sure she knew what the problem was; Aneka had been getting worse ever since coming back from killing Quint, but it was Delaney who had really pushed her over the edge. ‘You did what you had to do, Aneka.’
‘I blew a man’s head apart.’
‘A really bad man.’
‘I watched the blood exploding over his bodyguard’s back. I turned a woman into a sex addict…’
‘To get the information you needed to save another one. Shannon would be…’
‘Shannon is a vegetable. I didn’t save her.’
‘She’s going to recover, Aneka.’
Aneka looked at her. ‘Not because of what I did. All I did was destroy a woman’s mind.’
Ella sighed. This was going to take an intervention.
17.1.525 FSC.
‘Someone is requesting entrance to the apartment,’ the flat’s computer announced.
Aneka looked up at the ceiling from where she was lying on one of the cream-coloured sofas. ‘Who is it?’
‘Unknown identification.’
Unknown identification? Right. There was only one person that could be. ‘Tell them I’m not taking visitors.’
‘Confirmed.’
Aneka settled back on the couch, closing her eyes. She had let Ella go in to the university alone that morning. There was no danger now with Quint dead and Delaney en route to an orbital prison around another planet. She wanted to be on her own, alone with her thoughts, or so she thought. The problem was that her thoughts were full of blood and Delaney’s screams.
‘But you told me I could come here to study any time I liked.’
Aneka jerked upright, her head turning fast enough that she should have hurt her neck. Winter was standing in the doorway clad in the same ‘schoolgirl’ outfit she had worn at the university. One hand was on her cocked hip.
‘Whatever it is, I don’t need it right now, Winter,’ Aneka told her.
The schoolgirl act vanished in an instant. ‘Yes you do. On your feet and get dressed. We’re going out.’
‘Where?’
‘Need to know. Move.’
Capstone Hospital.
‘Shannon’s on the tenth floor,’ Aneka said as they rode a lift to the twelfth. ‘Why are we going up there?’
‘You’ll see,’ Winter replied. She had put on her naive student act the whole trip on the subway, but alone in the elevator car she was back to being serious. It was something of a relief; people had given Aneka some odd looks on the train. Like they had never seen a woman escorting what appeared to be a younger one before. Age was not supposed to be a factor in relationships these days, but maybe Winter looked too young.
‘I hate cryptic intelligence operatives,’ Aneka commented.
‘Luckily I’m not an operative. It’s been a few years since I did field work.’
‘Huh. How exactly does someone become “Winter?”’ The name was more of a title, like ‘M’ and ‘Q’ in the James Bond books. There had, apparently, been a Winter running the Federation’s security agencies since their inception.
The doors of the lift slid open. ‘An answer for another time,’ Winter replied. ‘This way.’ She led out onto a corridor and turned left under a sign which read ‘Neuro-cognitive Treatment.’ Ten metres down she stepped up to a door marked ‘Authorised Personnel Only’ which opened for her, of course, and Aneka found herself in a large room with comfortable sofas dotted around it. There were a couple of nurses in there, but they remained standing near the walls. The main occupants were women, fifteen of them, all blonde with large breasts.
One of the blondes turned her head as they entered, smiling at Aneka. Her eyes did not have the blank look that Shannon had, but somehow what was there was worse. ‘May I serve you?’ the woman asked, her voice soft and husky. The look in her eyes was begging Aneka to say yes.
‘Uh, no, thank you, I’m fine.’ The woman nodded happily, not disappointed despite the beseeching look that had been there a second earlier.
‘We took them off Quint’s yacht,’ Winter said, her voice low. ‘We’ve matched four to missing persons’ cases, but the rest remain unidentified. They don’t know who they are. Some have been surgically altered, mostly breast enhancement, but some other alterations. Quint apparently liked them to look a certain way.’
‘This is what he was planning for Shannon.’
Winter nodded. ‘Their minds were wiped and then reconstructed into perfect, subservient sex dolls. Living robots. The doctors say they can be restored to almost normal function with proper treatment from a skilled psychic and a lot of psychiatric help. The current argument is about whether that should be done.’
‘I’m sorry? You can’t leave them like this!’
‘It’s not my decision, Aneka. However, I understand the problem. One of them matches a woman who went missing over thirty years ago. They’ll probably never be able to erase thirty years of memories entirely without leaving her virtually comatose. Thirty years of memories of whatever that twisted bastard has been doing to her, or she can stay like this and be cared for. Neither is exactly a perfect option.’
The spy mistress turned to face Aneka. ‘This is what you saved Miss Patton from. I’m told her treatment will be relatively easy. Full recovery will take longer, but she has a strong mind or she wouldn’t have survived being a telepath for as long as she has.’
‘I killed a man and tortured a woman. I don’t torture people, and I’m not an assassin.’
‘Quint has ruined more people’s lives than these fifteen women, and he would have caused far more damage if you hadn’t stopped him. Sometimes we need to use extreme measures to protect ourselves, our world. And you know that, Aneka.’
‘Delaney…’
Winter waved a dismissive hand. ‘Mistress Delaney is a sadist. She delights in taking innocent people and twisting them until they break. What you did to her was necessary, and it could even be considered poetic justice. I’ve said this before, but I’ll repeat it now. This world isn’t perfect and it needs people like you and me. People who know that sometimes you have to do bad things to bad people so that all the good people can go on living their happy, oblivious lives.’
Aneka sighed. ‘It doesn’t mean I have to like it.’
‘No one should like it!’ Winter snapped. ‘If you like it you’re one of the bad guys. If you like it then you’re no better than Quint or Delaney. What I won’t have is you beating yourself up over it. It was necessary and, whether you believe it or not, you saved Miss Patton from a fate far worse than the one she has been dealt.’
Aneka looked out across the room, trying hard not to succumb to Winter’s argument. ‘Ella spoke to you?’
‘Miss Narrows was concerned about you and contacted me, yes.’
‘I’m not going to get over this just like that.’
Winter smiled and turned towards the door. ‘Good. You wouldn’t be the woman I thought you were if you did.’
Part Six: The Future Ain’t What It Used To Be
University of New Earth, 24.9.525 FSC.
Aneka stretched, getting an appreciative but also sympathetic look from Gillian. ‘We’ve been at this for a long while,’ the archaeologist commented, ‘perhaps we should take a break.’
‘Sounds like a plan. I’ll go get some coffee. Stretch my legs.’
Gillian gave her a smile and a nod. ‘I think that would be generally appreciated.’
When they had dis
covered that Aggy had practically the entire Internet in her data stores, Aneka had assumed she would be basically off the hook for providing information about Old Earth. It had turned out that she was no longer really needed for providing data, but that data needed someone who had lived there to turn it into information. Aneka had spent much of the last nine months providing context for all that wonderful data.
She had also managed to get in a little training with Delta and Monkey. Bashford had been keen to use the time to get his younger subordinates trained up in some of the aspects of the job they had less experience in. All three of them had been involved in running courses for the university too, but that had finished with the end of the academic year. As she walked out across the sunny courtyard at the bottom of the building towards the coffee shop, Aneka grinned. Right now the three of them were out doing a refresher on survival training. Bashford had decided that she was quite well acquainted with that kind of activity, and Gillian needed her handy, and Aneka had never felt happier to be stuck in an office.
There was no queue. Aneka smiled at the man behind the counter as she ordered the drinks. He smiled at her chest hidden behind a light mesh halter top which Ella had bought for her the previous weekend. For once, Aneka did not feel like inwardly complaining; everything was going well and why shouldn’t Kelvin the barista get an eyeful if he wanted one.
Any day now they were expecting the full ratification of the agreement with Negral. It had taken a long time, but it was happening. All in all, things were looking really bright for the Lorenti Federation and Aneka had had a proper chance to settle into her new life.
About the only cloud in all the silver linings was Shannon who was still not really back to the way she had been. Her mind had been reconstructed, very successfully, but she had been left with less control of her telepathic abilities than before and her confidence had taken a massive hit. Drake had been worried about her, very worried, but he was confident enough in her abilities that he was out of system with her, taking a geology team on a survey of an unexplored planetoid in one of the nearby systems.
With three cups of coffee in a little tray, Aneka started back across the quad, smiling as the sunlight blazed down. Later she would bring Ella out here to sit in the sun for a while. Things were looking good and they might as well enjoy it.
Yorkbridge Mid-town, 26.9.525 FSC.
Ella was screaming now. Strong hands held her wrists and ankles, but only barely as she bucked and twisted against them, throwing her entire body into breaking free. She had been in this position for five minutes now and was showing no signs of stopping. That was when Aneka decided enough was enough and turned off the neurostim.
‘How…’ Ella got out when she could breathe again, more or less. ‘How long… was that?’
Aneka slid the thin probe of the nerve stimulator out of Ella and gave her a grin which still held a tiny bit of worry. ‘Five minutes, seven seconds. With the probe too.’ The extra point of contact seemed to quicken the speed with which the gadget took control, and heighten the effect; Aneka refused to use it more than once a month, but today was a celebration…
Part of the cause of the celebration clapped enthusiastically from beside the bed. Katelyn and Dillon had been holding Ella down during her exertions; the little robot they kept around their apartment to film their sexual exploits was still filming, its remit being to record her reactions as well as the event. The robot had been busy tonight since Ella had wanted a full recording of her first proper sex session with a man since Odanari. It had taken a lot longer to get to that stage than she had thought it would.
‘That was amazing,’ Katelyn said. ‘Are you okay, Ella? I mean, you didn’t strain anything?’ Katelyn was a fit, active woman with dusky skin, a throaty voice, and long, black hair which she wore plaited carefully into thin cornrows. When Aneka was in the city they went running together once a week on one of the nearby beaches, so they had had a lot more time to get to know each other recently.
‘She’ll be fine,’ Dillon said, grinning lasciviously. ‘She had plenty of warm-up beforehand.’ He was a big man who knew a lot about exercise because he spent much of his free time pumping iron in the lounge of the apartment. When he was not pumping iron, he was usually pumping Katelyn. He reminded Aneka of a young Arnold Schwarzenegger: solid, masculine features and a huge amount of muscle mass. Still, he could move fairly quickly for a big man, his face was softened by the long, dark hair which framed it, and his brain was not a total loss either.
Ella giggled. ‘I’m fine, really.’ She looked up at Aneka. ‘And you can stop looking worried. Of course I want it again now, but the craving wears off quickly enough if I don’t get it.’ Which was true enough; it had taken Ella over two months to get Aneka to experiment with the neurostim again. In the end it had taken Ella getting Cassandra on side to do psychiatric evaluations after each session to get Aneka to relent. They were planning to publish a paper on Ella’s reaction to the device. Aneka had suggested, sarcastically, ‘Coming for Science’ as a title, but apparently that one had been heavily overused.
‘So how was it?’ Katelyn asked, chuckling. ‘Come on, we’re documenting this for science.’
Ella drew in air and looked over at the stereo cameras of the robot. ‘I honestly don’t remember much of it. It always starts the same, kind of nice, like someone’s blowing on my skin. That gets more intense, more like a tingle, just where it’s pressing. That spreads out across my whole skin and it just feels great, but if it’s over my pussy… It just gets more and more intense until I can’t feel or see, or anything. It’s just pleasure, ecstasy.’ She gave Katelyn a grin. ‘You could try it and see.’
Katelyn blanched slightly. ‘Oh no. I saw what it did to you. There’s no way I’m going to let someone do that to me…’
‘Grab her, Dillon,’ Ella said, giggling, and Katelyn let out a yelp as her big boyfriend grabbed her wrists and lifted. He seemed to put almost no effort into it, but a second later Katelyn was pinned to the wall, her toes an inch or two above the floor.
Aneka looked at her and leaned over so she could whisper to Ella. ‘I can’t… Not if she’s putting up a fight like that…’
‘She’s been begging Dillon to buy her one,’ Ella whispered back. ‘That’s one of the reasons we’re down here. And you need to see that you’re not going to hurt anyone with it.’
Tensing despite herself, Aneka crawled across the bed. She could see the anticipation in Katelyn’s eyes even as the woman wriggled in Dillon’s grasp. Ella was right, of course. Dillon was holding her, sure, but she could have broken free. Her legs were not bound; she could have been kicking at him, or Aneka, but she was not. She was putting up a token fight, playing at being reluctant. Activating the neurostim, Aneka placed it flat on Katelyn’s left thigh and began to move it slowly upward. By the time it reached her hip the struggling had stopped and she was making little cooing noises.
‘How does it feel, Kat?’ Dillon asked as Aneka slid the pad over Katelyn’s ribs.
‘Feels rilly nice,’ Katelyn drawled. ‘Wan’ more.’
Aneka slid the device up, over the lower slope of her left breast, circling in towards the nipple. Katelyn’s breathing began to quicken, soon turning into panting. They had discovered that the effect was more pronounced and a little faster if the gadget was applied directly to the pubic area, but it worked on any erogenous zone.
‘Oh…’ Katelyn said, her eyes widening. ‘Oh Vashma… Oh!’ Her eyes rolled back and her body tensed, beginning to shake. ‘Ahnnngggg…’
Aneka swept the neurostim down again, crossing Katelyn’s stomach while the effect was still at its highest. It stopped moving over Katelyn’s mound, and the panting grew louder and more rapid. She started screaming.
‘How long should I give her?’ Aneka asked.
‘Your call,’ Dillon replied. He gave her a look which said he had every confidence in her skill with the device.
Katelyn’s hips began to buck, making it hard to main
tain contact. Aneka pushed herself closer, sandwiching her hand and the neurostim between their bodies. Sweat from Katelyn’s breasts trickled down onto Aneka’s, the scent of sex heady in her nostrils. She looked up, seeing the chords in Katelyn’s neck straining, her gritted teeth. Enough was enough, Aneka backed off taking the neurostim with her.
‘We… we need… one of those,’ Katelyn panted once her body was left to hang limply in Dillon’s hands. He lifted her down and wrapped her in his arms, sliding onto the bed beside Ella.
‘We’ll get one, lover,’ Dillon told her.
Aneka was about to say something when a message appeared in her vision field. ‘I’m sorry to disturb,’ Al said, ‘but this came through from Winter. It’s marked urgent.’ Aneka took in the text. You need to be at the university conference room as soon as possible. Drop whatever you’re doing. Bring Ella. Winter. Fine, but how was she supposed to know about the message?
‘Have the flat put this through to us here,’ Aneka said, silently. Aloud she said, ‘You’re sure you’re okay, Kat?’
‘I feel great. A little worn out, but fantastic.’
‘Good, I…’
‘Urgent message received for Aneka Jansen,’ the apartment’s computer announced. ‘Personal ident required.’
‘At this time?’ Ella asked, frowning. It was about two in the morning. Aneka was actually hoping that whatever it was Winter wanted would not take too long or she would get no time offline.
‘I’d better take it,’ Aneka said. ‘Sounds important.’
‘Use the console in the other bedroom,’ Dillon suggested. ‘If it’s personal ident only then whoever it is wants you reading it alone.’
Nodding, Aneka started out of the bedroom; not a difficult trip since there was no door or wall between it and the lounge. The guest room had both for a little privacy, but Katelyn and Dillon liked their sex out in the open. Going in was a pretence, she did not need to do so, but her friends did not know what she was. She hated not being able to tell them, dreaded the day they might find out from someone else, but that was how it had to be.
The Cold Steel Mind Page 31
