he wears is tangled on the ground, and on it is a little piece of metal. She doesn’t know what it is, but it’s the only thing on his person, so Myrha grabs it and follows Lynne out the door.
Silence reigns outside, except for the slow shuffle of feet against sand.
“They’re coming,” Myrha whispers.
She thinks she hears the click of hungry teeth.
“Run,” Lynne softly commands.
They leave Bartin and Werna to their fate.
They sprint across the beach, the tips of waves shining in the moonlight. The jungle is silent and the wind is still. In her mind, Myrha can still hear the clacks of teeth and the ripping of flesh. As they run, it feels as if the island is a lot bigger than it seemed from space; Myrha just hopes it’s big enough to hide them from those things.
The cave is right up against the beach, nestled in a long line of cliff-like features that rise up from the sand. They dive in and Myrha sags against the cave wall, gasping for breath. She’s never run so much in her life (well, except for that one time with the punch and the authorities). Surprisingly, Lynne sits down as well.
“What, do androids get tired now?” Myrha breathlessly jokes.
She figures the radioactive things will take at least a night to catch up to them. They have time for jokes.
“No, but we do run out of power.”
“Oh shit.”
“I did not anticipate having to do so much work,” Lynne admits.
Myrha gets to her knees and takes a closer look at Lynne. She’s not sweating or out of breath; she doesn’t look tired or frazzled or like she’s been fighting and running from an evil radioactive army all night.
“So what happens when you run out of power?”
Lynne gives her an ‘are you an idiot’ stare.
“Right. Dumb question. So you just like, shutdown?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t like, die or anything?”
Lynne looks at her with sympathy and Myrha bristles because it’s not like she’s worried, she’s just…concerned. Curious. Whatever.
“I would simply need a charger to reanimate.”
Charger. Great. The thing they don’t have.
“So basically, after you shutdown, I’m going to have to lug your body around until I find a charger?”
“Lug me…? You will not lug me anywhere. You will leave me here and find means of survival or escape.”
“You want me to just leave you at the mercy of those things?”
That does not sound cool to Myrha. Not fucking cool at all.
“I’m sure they will leave me be. They seem compelled only towards human flesh.”
But Myrha doesn’t like the idea of leaving Lynne lying in a cave forever, uncharged and dead to the passing of time. Myrha scoots closer and presses their sides together.
“I never thought this is how I’d be spending my vacation,” Myrha says.
“Of all of the disasters that could befall a Starline flight, this is something I never considered.”
“Yeah, it’s pretty crazy.”
And Myrha figures they’re about to die, so she gives in and lays her head on Lynne’s shoulder. She sort of just wants to cling to her.
“I also never predicted I would share a bed with a human,” Lynne says.
“Yeah? I never thought I’d share a bed with an android, so I guess we’re even.”
“I never thought I’d ever have cause to lie in a bed at all.”
“Well, I never thought I’d have cause to invite an android in my bed. And then not have sex.”
Lynne doesn’t respond.
“I mean, that’s not a bad thing,” Myrha says quickly, “that’s actually sort of an accomplishment for me.”
“You’ve engaged in a lot of sexual intercourse.”
Lynne is so jealous.
Totally and completely jealous.
Myrha tries to play it off, “Well, yeah. Not that it meant anything.”
“So you frequently engaged in anonymous, meaningless sex? Why?”
Myrha’s never justified her behavior to anybody, but she shrugs and answers, “What else is there?”
“You don’t believe…how do humans phrase it...you don’t believe in love?” Lynne asks.
She has her ‘science voice’ on again, but Myrha thinks she can sense something else, something in the fragile way she says ‘love’.
“I don’t think of love as a belief. It’s more of a…state of mind.”
“So you don’t debate its existence.”
“It’s not some sort of mythological creature. It’s something one can experience.”
“You haven’t experienced it.”
“No, and I hope not to.”
“You are afraid of it?”
Yes, Myrha thinks as she snuggles against Lynne’s shoulder. She’s afraid of what love will do to her.
“The only thing I’m possibly more afraid is an evil radioactive army.”
“I see.”
Lynne plays with the edge of Myrha’s jacket, an oddly human gesture.
“They are not evil or radioactive,” Lynne corrects, “they are contaminated with a substance.”
“A substance that makes them mindless except for the desire to kill living beings.”
“Yes, like in a horror story.”
“Yeah, they’re kind of like…zombies.”
“Zombies?”
“Yeah,” Myrha grins so hard her cheeks hurt, “zombies in space.”
“This thought amuses you.”
“In a very morbid fashion.”
“I am not amused, morbidly or otherwise.”
Lynne’s voice is distinctly sour.
And Myrha thinks that she isn’t really, either. She slides her arms around Lynne’s and gives up and clings. Lynne rests her cheek on the top of Myrha’s head.
It’s a beautiful night, muggy and warm with only a little wind. Nothing that screams ‘zombie apocalypse’. The light from the distant moons and stars falls at the edge of the cave’s mouth. She sniffles a little and wonders if one of those bright dots is the Sun.
“I must go to the stars again, to the lonely constellations in the sky,” Lynne says softly.
Myrha jumps a bit. Lynne doesn’t continue. Myrha wets her throat a little.
“And all I ask is a clear night and a prayer to get me by,” Myrha says.
“And a good wind and a glowing moon and a finely tuned motor.”
“And a last kiss from a pretty girl for this wayward boater.”
Lynne shifts against her, just slightly.
“I find it interesting,” she says, “that the last thing Turobeck would ask for before exploring, is human contact.”
“I thought it just meant he was looking for a little pleasure before setting off for months on his own, you know?”
“I would not know,” Lynne says slowly, carefully, “I have never experienced physical pleasure.”
Myrha wants to sit up, to look into Lynne’s eyes and see if she’s telling the truth, but she’s too comfortable clinging.
“So you mean you don’t have…?”
“I am not a pleasure droid,” she says, “having genitals would be…illogical.”
And that’s the saddest fucking thing she’s ever heard.
“Then you haven’t – you’ve at least kissed, right?”
“No,” Lynne sits up, voice attentive, “I have not.”
Myrha’s face warms and she sits up slowly, nose just a hairsbreadth away from Lynne’s chin.
“Oh.”
She can’t look her in the eyes, just concentrates on her synthetic skin and thinks: it’s the one thing I really haven’t tried.
Lynne sits there, patient and silent, until Myrha can meet her eyes, can see that she wants this.
Lynne’s eyes are green.
That’s all she really has a chance to see before Lynne leans in very close, like she knows how this dance is supposed to go, but never learned all the steps. Myrha, a ve
teran, decides to help her out…and kisses her.
Her skin is different. It’s soft and dry and cool. There’s no heat, sweat and saliva. She has a tongue. It simply feels like rubber. It’s nothing like Myrha’s ever had. It should be like kissing a very silky calculator.
Myrha pulls back, and it’s her own spit that dots Lynne’s lips, and there’s no hot breath on her face, but Lynne’s looking at her and her lips are moving, as if testing out kissing maneuvers.
It’s a little funny.
Lynne gives her a calculating look, but she’s not computing numbers, and Myrha feels a flare of heat because that is one damn sexy look. This is nothing like kissing a calculator.
“I think I understand how it’s supposed to work now,” Lynne says and then leans forward, “let us try again.”
Myrha lets Lynne take her mouth, cool tongue plunging inside and sweeping her mouth as if tasting it. Lynne can’t taste, but Lynne doesn’t really taste like anything, so she supposes they’re even. Myrha grasps Lynne’s arms and pulls her closer and gets a lapful of android and thinks of all the things Lynne doesn’t have and can’t experience. She’s intelligent. She’s gorgeous. But she’s just a glorified piece of eye-candy, probably designed by some horny scientist who heard from the advertising team that sex sells. But they never gave her the ability to experience sex for herself. It’s so fucking shallow.
Myrha wraps her hands in Lynne’s hair and is determined to make it good for her. No, fucking fantastic. She feels out Lynne’s mouth with her tongue, until it is wet with Myrha’s own saliva, and rubs her tongue against Lynne’s teeth and the roof of her mouth, until Lynne shivers.
“I can register the sensation, the pressure. It sort of tingles,” Lynne mumbles.
Myrha runs her fingertips very lightly over Lynne’s arms, up her neck and finally over her cheeks. Lynne strains forward as to chase the sensation, to fully experience it and analyze it. Myrha brushes against her sculpted nose and over her pink lips. Lynne shivers.
Myrha grins and locks eyes with Lynne (and they’re so fucking human); she pokes her tongue out, and traces the path her fingers made.
“I like that,” Lynne says immediately.
Myrha hums a little, pleased, and then makes trails over Lynne’s cheeks and finally, her lips. Lynne, like the learning and adapting android she is, takes the opportunity to give Myrha a kiss, sweeping her tongue against Myrha’s. Myrha is the one who shivers.
“I like that,” Lynne says again, quieter.
“Me too.”
Her throat is a little clogged. Shit. She’s an interstellar playgirl, but it still feels like too much too fast. She’s very sure she’s never felt so much during sex before. Surely, surely, surely she can’t be having feelings for an android because androids aren’t unique, loving, lovable beings…they’re programmed machines.
Lynne tangles their fingers together, initiating a new kind of contact, and Myrha’s thoughts are becoming all jumbled.
“May I touch you elsewhere?” Lynne asks.
Myrha has difficulty swallowing as she imagines Lynne’s hands on her, touching her in intimate places and she wants, she wants so bad, and they’re probably going to die anyway. It wouldn’t mean anything.
Lynne patiently tucks a piece of hair behind Myrha’s ear, as if it was obscuring her view of Myrha’s face.
The little gesture makes Myrha weak in the knees. Fuck. It would mean everything.
Before she can give any type of answer, Lynne’s suddenly standing up and grabbing a weapon and Myrha doesn’t know what’s going on, but she scrambles to get one as well. She can hear it now, a pathetic shuffling, a slow slide-step against the beach sand.
“Please,” a tortured whisper comes from the dark.
“Who’s there?” she demands.
And then Spinner falls into the cave, a gasping lump, and Myrha jumps into the air, cursing. Lynne’s HeatWave presses against Spinner’s skull. He cringes and weeps.
“Please,” he says again.
“Spinner,” Myrha says, nerves tingling, “what the fuck! We thought you were dead.”
“I’m so – so sorry,” he sobs.
Lynne backs up a little, enough for him to lift his head and blink at them, terrified.
“You lousy piece of shit,” Myrha sighs and lowers her weapon, “you scared us.”
For some reason, that makes him laugh. In a very miserable, horrible fashion.
“Yes, yes, that was my intention,” he says.
And then he cries some more.
“Cut the waterworks,” Myrha kneels next to him, “what happened to you?”
He pulls himself together, taking a fortifying breath, before getting to his knees. He’s covered in dirt and blood and has a distinct unwashed smell about him.
“I had to find you, to tell you what happened,” he says.
“Great,” Myrha says encouragingly.
“I’m so glad someone survived,” he says, and he looks at her with such hope and regret that Myrha wants to shake him.
“Start making sense, please.”
“What happened in the jungle?” Lynne asks.
He bursts out laughing, quickly curbs it, and then confides, “I found it.”
“Found what?”
He bites his lips. Myrha gestures for him to continue. Whatever Spinner might have found, it clearly wasn’t sanity or eloquence.
“I did a bad thing,” he whispers.
He leans forward so that his breath washes over Myrha’s face.
“A horrible thing,” he continues.
Myrha kind of figures where this is going.
“You’re somehow responsible for all of this, aren’t you?”
Immediately, Lynne’s weapon is once again trained on Spinner’s skull. Spinner doesn’t look surprised or scared, just a little sad.
“I didn’t mean for it all to get so out of hand,” he says mournfully.
“How can any of this be in hand?” Myrha scoffs.
“Explain yourself, Spinner.”
Lynne’s voice is like ice.
“Are you responsible for the condition of the other passengers?” she asks.
Spinner gulps and wrings his hands, and maybe he’s just realizing he’s up against the cold fury of an armed android.
“Yes,” he says meekly.
“How?”
He closes his eyes, whether in regret or simple remembrance, Myrha can’t tell.
“I’ve been visiting Lieval constantly since the planet has been reopened, hoping to find the Newfall Lieval Research Center.”
“The facility was condemned, what could you hope to find there?”
“Anything! Anything that would help me recreate their experiments.”
“Those experiments were concluded to be dangerous to life forms, why would you hope to recreate them?”
He licks his lips, “I thought I could…restore the Universe to its rightful order.”
“Rightful order?” Myrha says in disbelief, “What the fuck?”
He glares at her, “Not that someone like you would understand!”
“Spinner,” Lynne says lightly, butting the edge of her weapon against his head.
He immediately cowers and Myrha snorts, of course he’s afraid of her.
“The Universe is sick…sick with a plague….”
“How can the Universe be ill?” Lynne asks with careful patience.
Myrha makes a strangled noise and turns away, “Shit, I knew you were one of those Dellylee types!”
“Explain,” Lynne says tersely.
“He hates humans and other life forms,” Myrha says, “we’re the plague, aren’t we Spinner?”
Spinner snarls at her and wheels his arms around, as if to stand. A quick jab from Lynne’s HeatWave has him quieting down.
“You can’t argue that the Universe wouldn’t be better without us!” he cries, “We’re destroying it, infecting it.”
“How? We are the Universe, you idiot! We’re created fr
om it, part of it. Holy shit,” Myrha paces, agitated. She’s always hated Dellylee-wannabes.
“We’re the agent of cacophony in an otherwise peaceful, balanced Universe,” he laments.
“Now you’re just plagiarizing! Leave the poetry to the poets, will you?”
“Poetry?” he asks, momentarily bewildered.
Myrha throws her hands in the air, “You don’t even know the poet you quoted?”
“That’s not – it’s not – it’s a statement of our movement—“
“There are more of you behind this?” Lynne cuts in.
He quails under her gaze, “I acted alone.”
Lynne’s gaze says she’s not inclined to believe him.
He sucks in a large breath, “I heard of the experiments. I visited as much as I could afford, and attempted to reconstruct the findings of their research. From the sparse remains, and the rare piece of literature released about the center, I think I…managed to recreate their chemical weapons.”
“What for?” Myrha looms over him, not so sure she wants to fight the urge to smack him.
He looks desperately between the two of them, “The substance was uncontrollable. I wanted to just – to just test it. The effects were more radical than I predicted.”
“What was it supposed to be?” Lynne asks.
He’s practically hyperventilating now, “The chemical was created from the deliriant present in the tree bark. It was supposed to induce such a strong hallucination in a person, that they couldn’t feel pain. They’d be trapped in a nightmare, where everyone is the enemy, and their goal is to destroy them or to…to infect them and make them an ally. They’ll continue to fight until they’re forcibly killed or until…there’s nobody left, after which they’ll turn on each other.”
“How does it pass from one being to another?” Lynne asks.
“Side-effects of the deliriant include bleeding in the gums and nails. When one infected being attacks another by biting or scratching them, the deliriant is passed from their bloodstream to their victim’s.”
“It’s basically supposed to make humanity destroy itself,” Myrha says in awe.
“But the research was halted,” Lynne says.
“Yes. The chemical is volatile, and highly effective in even small doses. Something happened, whether on accident or on purpose, one of the test capsules was mishandled and a leak occurred. Several researchers inhaled the gaseous chemical and…began attacking the others. By the time someone had called for help, most of the scientists were dead or infected. When agents from The Interstellar Alliance of Scientific Regulation and Control finally arrived, they decided to shut the entire facility down, and close off the planet. Eventually the facility was gutted, the chemical was recycled through Lieval’s biogeochemical cycle, and the planet was deemed safe again.”
“You sure know a lot about this,” Myrha puts her hands on her hips.
Spinner juts his chin out at her and doesn’t say anything else.
“But there’s a cure, right?” Myrha asks.
“Well, no.”
He looks at her like she’s pretty stupid.
“Well, why the fuck isn’t there one?”
“It’s a weapon, it isn’t supposed to have a cure,” he snaps.
Lynne places a calming hand on Myrha’s arm, “I doubt efforts were put into finding a cure for a weapon that wasn’t fully developed, or even supposed to exist.”
“So, the infected researchers, what happened to them?”
“They eventually...died.”
The way Spinner hesitates when he says ‘died’ makes Myrha a little nauseous.
“You mean they were exterminated or something, right?” she asks.
“It was merciful,” he shrugs, “sedatives didn’t work very well and weeks without proper nutrition and water didn’t affect them at all.”
Myrha and Lynne share an alarmed glance.
“And you,” Myrha points an accusing finger at Spinner, “wanted to recreate this weapon and what, bring