Chapter 14
She awoke from her deep sleep with a start. Everything around her was foreign and odd. With her mental state now recovered from the acute fatigue from before, she began to take stock of her life. She was on the lam from a dangerous corporate espionage firm, and the band of well-trained thugs hired to do their bidding.
It had been ages since she last spoke to her friends back in the states. She would have to ask Caleb later on if there was a way to do it without raising any red flags to the folks at Allied Biotech. As she thought things over, her emerging coherence made her take notice of Caleb next to her in the small bed. She had been so out of it, she hardly noticed that she had wrapped herself around him like her was giving her a piggy back ride! He stirred, and she carefully attempted to remove her arms and legs without waking him up.
She failed miserably, and he turned over and smiled to her. The thin blanket that was pulled over them fell away as he moved his arms and legs to work out his kinks. He was stripped down to only his tan cargo pants and bare feet, and she felt just a little naughty catching this candid glimpse of him.
“I didn’t mean to wake you. Did you sleep well?” She asked him quietly.
He cleared his throat and sat up slowly. “Yeah, I mean, wow! I slept great! He realized in some kind of epiphany. “How about you?”
“I feel better now.” She stood slowly and rubbed her arms together up in the cold loft. “I'm sorry I was so grouchy before. I've never done so much stuff in such a short period of time.”
She sat down again on the bed, and Caleb placed his hand on the small of her back. It was a pensive, thoughtful gesture that suggested way more than just idle human contact. Kelley relished his touch, and secretly wondered where Yukio was in this little house.
As if he had read her mind Caleb said, “Yukio is at the university teaching until this evening.” His tone was more suggestive that he realized.
She quietly reached behind her to grasp his hand. Finally, after all that they had been through, she was here in a soft, warm bed with the man she had always fantasized about. He moved his hand up to gently touch her breast. Kelley felt her eyes close in anxious arousal. She had dreamed of this for so long. What would he be like? How would he act? He had never done this before. Would he just be comically bad at it like some kind of horny adolescent?
Caleb sat up and ran his nose along the back of her neck. Every touch from him was like a small electrical shock. A real , honest to goodness little jolt of electricity! Not unpleasant, but it gave added texture to what he was doing. He propped himself up on the bed and raised her white tank top up over her head. She could feel his fingers caress her skin as he did so, dragging the backs of them along her sides. When he reached around to unbutton her shorts, she turned to savor the sensations of his strong chin against her neck. He was a little more bristly than when he first came out of the tank, but it was still a welcome experience.
“Kelley..., I've never done this before. I've studied it immensely, but I'm afraid I'll muck it up somehow.” He admitted to her. Warm breath on her bare skin was making her bite her lip and squirm restlessly.
She turned to him on the bed. He was already stripped to his boxer briefs, and she was left in only her underwear. “I'll be gentle.” She said with a little laugh.
Seeing him before her in all of his perfection was almost too much. She had hired a team of computer animation specialists to design his rendered appearance. It was almost comical that he was as perfect as he was in his virtual appearance. Now, he had made himself into that same perfect rendering. This time, he was all too real.
Caleb reached behind her to rake his fingertips over her body. With a gentle giggle, she followed suit by wiggling out of her undies and tossing them away.
Now, as she sat there naked and wanting in front of him, he looked at her with awestruck curiosity. His bright eyes were lit up with fascination while he ran his warm hands all over her body.
“What do you want to do?” He asked her with quiet reverence.
Kelley smiled lazily and said, “It's your first time babe. Why don't you decide?” Instead of waiting for his response, she tackled him to the bed and grabbed his underwear. With one quick tug, they came off. Now, he was lying there in the perfect white bed waiting for her to do what she had always wanted to do. His impressive, rock hard manhood laid across his abs as he looked up at her with anticipation.
She straddled his legs and slowly climbed from the foot of the bed. Once she was at his waist, she lifted herself up and pushed his rod inside of her. Her shuddering sigh was echoed by him, and he reached over to place his hands on her hips as she slowly began gyrating against him. The sensation of him inside of her was enough to make her mind fade a little. If it were not for his quiet moans, she would have thought that she was dreaming again. The little jolt of electricity from his touch were like pleasure nodes wired right into her nervous system. His rock hard manhood seemed to reach through to her very center, triggering every dopamine response in her writhing, shuddering body at once.
She could feel every bit of him. His impressive size was just right for her. Not too big, but just right. While her mind took in this wonderful encounter, Caleb took the opportunity to grab her and flip their position.
In one smooth motion, she was now underneath him! It wasn't like when she was with Evan. Where Evan was only interested in his own frantic fulfillment, Caleb was ever the considerate lover. He moved in a manner that suggested he wanted to please Kelley in every way. As they both began a simultaneous climb towards climax, she felt him grab her hips with force. Her mind raced with apprehension and joy, like someone skiing atop a giant glacial avalanche. With her body clenched in anticipation, she wondered in the back of her mind what would happen when Caleb came for the first time.
She got her answer.
Everything in and around the small house seemed to come to life. The light fixture above them began to glow, and get brighter and brighter. At the moment of his release, the bulb burst in a radius of sparks and fragments. A low, thrumming sensation seemed to emanate from their entwined forms, and radiate outward in a pulsating manner that was impossible to ignore. This was like no orgasm she had ever experienced Her body jolted and quivered with ecstatic joy while she grabbed Caleb’s sides under his shoulders and screamed with enthusiastic release like never before. She could hear car alarms going off in the streets, and there was a screeching crash, followed by a few more, that could be heard through the open window as Caleb thrashed to his blissful finale.
She laid there, the picture of feminine contentment. Caleb got up and wrapped the comforter around his waist and went to the window. Outside, the street was filled with chaos! Car alarms still bleated and beeped. There were three different sets of car accidents, all with their own little arguments among the drivers. The street lights up and down the block had all blown out of their fixtures, and glass fragments littered the street and sidewalk like celebratory confetti. Caleb felt bad for the mess and confusion, but he knew that everyone was alright nonetheless.
“What's going on out there?” Kelley asked from the bed.
“Oh, nothing! Everything is just fine.” He said with a guilty smile on his face.
Boone and his two flunkies were getting off the plane in LAX when he got a call. He stood in the middle of the disembarkation isle and talked with a nonchalant air about him as annoyed passengers angrily went around him.
“Ivanna, what good news do you have for me today?” He asked in a slow, mocking tone.
“Please tell me you and your two lackeys are off the plane.” She said in a tired voice. She hated it when Boone provoked people.
“Naw, I'm getting to the terminal now. My two cohorts are in tow. What have you found out?” He asked again with annoyed, deliberate insistence.
Ivanna walked around the room of her hotel. The accommodations at the “W” Hotel were fine for this last minute trip, but she preferred better. Handling the wet work of her company norma
lly afforded her better things in life. She sat down in a chair overlooking Westwood Avenue and rubbed her temples.
“We're getting on a flight and heading to Yokohama, Japan. My sources found a news story about some kind of electromagnetic event that disabled a power station and caused half the city to lose power. I'm guessing it had something to do with our Caleb.” She said in a tired voice. She would have liked to rest, but she knew her own psyche would not have allowed it anyway. Completing the mission would be her only key to slumber.
“Well, you get us a plane, and I'll brush up on my Japanese.” Boone said mildly.
Evan and Charles followed behind Boone as they made their way to the terminal.
Back in Yokohama, Caleb and Kelley decided to go for a quick walk. Just getting outside would be heaven for the both of them, and Caleb could see and feel any threats coming a hundred miles away in this interconnected place. They strolled quietly down the sidewalk, taking note of all the beautiful foliage and scenery. Kelley blushed a little when Caleb took her hand and swung it back and forth with his while they walked.
“Caleb?”
“Yeah?” He replied.
“What are we going to do after this?”
“After what?” He asked with a confused smile.
“When you get done with..., whatever you're doing here. Where will we go after this?” Her concentration was causing her to slow down, and Caleb slowed to beckon her on.
“I would like to be recognized as a citizen somewhere. I'm not really picky where, but some country that doesn't want to treat me like a freak of nature. Then, I would like to help people. All of that data that Evan and Charles wanted to steal was going to advance tissue regeneration and neuroscience by twenty years. But, it would have happened overnight. It still will. I just need a strong, high bandwidth connection to access the data and send it.”
Kelley felt so proud of him! As a completely synthetic human, he had managed to capture all of mankind's good features, while eschewing the bad ones. “I hate to say it sweetie, but you're going to get lots of attention wherever you go.”
“I kinda figured,” he paused to kick at a pebble on the ground, “I just want a country to see me as a person eventually. When all the attention dies down, I can just be normal. Go to the movies, get ice cream. Oh! Coffee! I can get coffee all of the time!” He said with gusto.
“You know, you can get coffee almost anywhere, anytime.” She said with a laugh. His youthful enthusiasm was as entertaining as it was contagious.
“How about here?” He queried.
Kelley looked around the block they were standing at the corner of. “Well, we're in Japan babe. I think coffee will be limited to-”
“FOUND IT! There's a little cafe about a block from here.” He said, cutting her off.
She kept forgetting that Caleb's entire life was one big augmented reality. He had access to layers of information that no other person did. “Coffee it is.” She smiled.
In the little cafe, she and Caleb could have been any other young traveling couple. They still would have stood out, but no more than any other tourists would have. As Caleb swirled a spoon in his comically large cup of coffee, Kelley nibbled on a scone.
“I'm glad you came out when you did.” She admitted candidly to him.
“I would have come out eventually.” He said, after taking a long sip.
Kelley thought over her words carefully. “No, you don't understand. I was really depressed when you began your process. My student loans were through the roof, I had a tainted job history that was keeping me from doing anything real with my education. Ugh! It was just..., everything was bad. Now, everything is just crazy and it’s still great because you're here and-”
“I love you.” Caleb said quickly. He looked at her with his big, honest eyes as she fumbled for words.
“What!?” She blurted out.
“ I. Love. You. I don't know how you didn't see it before. I breached the confines of the electronic, virtual world to be with you, Kelley. You were my drive. I would love to say that it was God's will or whatever, but it wasn't. It was my will and mine alone. I wanted to be with you, and no boundary was going to stop me.” He said. His voice held a sort of polite intensity that Kelley found scary and romantic at the same time.
“Oh please, like I'm even worth all of that work.” She scoffed in defense.
“Yes, you are. You made me who I am. Literally, and in every sense. I wanted to be with you, in ways that I never could as a software construct in a database.”
Kelley couldn't help but feel a welling of emotion as Caleb continued his explanation.
“When I began researching how to make the jump from the virtual world to the real world, I came across Yukio and his work. He was doing things with artificial intelligence that no one could believe. He was so far ahead of his time that his peers wouldn't even take him seriously. Now, he just lectures at the University and does his work on the side like some kind of otaku hobby.” Caleb's mood turned dark as he recalled his feelings about Yukio's treatment.
“Otaku?” Kelley asked.
The question brought Caleb out of his tailspin. “Otaku is a Japanese word for 'enthusiast'. It usually is reserved for those that are very passionate about a pastime or hobby. In the USA, it gets misused to describe anyone with a fascination for Japanese culture.” Caleb took another long sip of his coffee and motioned for another one. “Yukio's work is so much more important than that. He deserves to have that school named after him.” He finished.
“Well, maybe with your work, he can finally get his due recognition.” She offered.
Caleb brightened at that idea. “Hey! You're right! Speaking of, I have to meet him this evening at the school to go over some training ideas he has.”
“Training? Like, exercises and stuff?” She asked.
“Sort of. It's more to help me focus and control my abilities.” Caleb gave her a knowing smile, and she thought back to their literal earth shattering experience from that morning! The local news was still reeling with damage totals for everything.
“That might not be too bad...” she said shyly.
“Caleb?”
“Yeah?”
“I love you too!” She said excitedly.
He took her hand and smiled.