Mind Games Page 8

  I focused through the pain, and drove a psychokinetic pulse out through my palms. Where before I had manipulated gravity and the strong/weak force to swing a plastic chunk into my hand, now, I shoved with electromagnetism. Lightning surged along my body, crackling and popping and then roaring outwards in a blaze of blue-white light. Jules whole body tensed and the hair of his goatee stood out like porcupine pins. He tensed, then fell backwards, the bleeding tip of his cock flecking my cheek with a mixture of fluids I tried to not think about too hard.

  But I was slightly too focused on the pain of the lightning surging through me . Some of it had pulsed through my muscles, transmitted through the hand on my scalp and the cock in my ear. That connection was gone, and the pain faded as I wiggled my fingers, then slumped forward. I gasped. Jules was sitting up, groaning.

  My psi points had dropped from 29 to 28. Good. I had plenty of-

  Ticktickticktickticktick !

  The sound was receding. Though it was hard to tell - I could only hear out of one of my ears.

  The Telepath was fleeing. But as I tried to get my body to rights, I saw the three other stand up and march towards the back of the coffee shop. As they walked mechanically towards the back, Jules managed to rasp out. "Stop them."

  I pushed myself to an swerving, almost drunken stance. My inner balance was entirely fucked . I took a step and the whole world spun around me. I staggered to the back of the coffee shop and I saw the three other controlled people were standing before a blender. The older Asian woman had already turned it on and was calmly reaching for it - her fingers so close to the blades that skin was coming apart and blood flashing against the edges of the glass. I lashed out with my left hand. Lighting surged, then shot outwards and smashed into the lot of them. They writhed, twitched, then collapsed to the ground, smoking slightly. As they lay there, I gasped softly, trying to ignore the pain aching through my ear. The warm fluid dripping down my cheek.

  The fact part of me was still kind of horny was really fucking with me.

  As I focused and the nanites flowed along my neck, cupping my cheek and trickling into my ear, the old woman of the group began to whimper. She put her hands over her face.

  "Why did you stop me?" She gasped between wracking sobs. "Why did you stop me?"

  ***

  Blocking off the entrance to the TempleSoft Game Stop for Entertainment store was as easy as upending a tacky plastic statue, pushing a few metal shelves around, and finally, closing down the blinds.

  "If it can't see us," Jules said, panting as he stepped away from the covered window. "I don't think it can control us. But you scared it the fuck of. I've never seen anyone other than corporate and Cadre Omega using that kind of power.”

  I smiled at him, then cocked my head. "What?" I asked, play-loud.

  It was a terrible joke.

  Everyone burst out laughing.

  When I sat down next to the others, the pink haired girl (she had clarified that by introducing herself as Marisa) was sitting next to Amanda, the older Asian woman, and rubbing her shoulder. The white girl was Tracy, and she had drawn her knees to her breasts, but was keeping herself from crying by whispering under her breath.

  "First, I'm going to find out how many legs it has. Then I'm going to break then. One at a time. I'll let them heal. Then I'll break them again . Different this time. Then it starts on the death march..."

  I looked from her to Jules. He had gotten his collar back on and used one of my nanite tubes to rebuild a suit. Simpler that the three piece suit - just a white shirt and jeans. He looked...I wasn't sure how he looked. It was a mixture between completely devastated and faintly amused. He forced the devastation away, a wry twist to his lips only accentuating his handsomeness. He had the most curiously angular face I had ever seen. It was all planes and lines.

  I wanted to lick him. I wanted to lick him a lot .

  "So, we've told you our name," he said. "What's yours? You from AzteTek?"

  I shook my head. "Cryonics. My name's full name is Beatrice."

  He whistled softly. "You're one of the corp...er...one of the cryogenics? What is your deal?" He looked curious. “I thought everyone down there was one of the hyperelites, not a working schlub like us.” He chuckled. “Definitely not someone with a nanite outfit like that and Cadre Omega powers…”

  "I don’t know what to tell you," I said, shrugging. My finger went to my ear, gently. The nanites had flowed inside and fixed it up. The downside was that I had gone from 89/100 armor to 86/100 armor - meaning that the small hole before my breasts had swelled ever so slightly wider, revealing just a bit more of my skin. I noticed Jules’ eyes flicking down towards my silver clad, nanite supported breasts and felt a tingling buzz run along my spine. “A-Any other, uh, nanite tubes in this place?”

  Tracy cut out of her increasingly detailed monologue about what she was going to do to the telepath and looked at me. "Why?" She paused. "Oh. Right. You must have a combat rig with medipatch properties…” She moved forward and then looked at my ear - I had jammed a chunk of cloth from my backpack and wrapped it into place with a bit of nanites. I wasn't sure why the healing side effect of my nanite suit hadn't kicked in. But Tracy leaned close to my collar and tapped a switch on the back. The nanites on my shoulders shifted slightly against my skin, then projected out a holographic interface. Tracy worked quickly, tapping buttons and moving symbols around.

  "I worked as a doctor," she said. "I’m just checking to make sure that the nanites actually fixed it or if they just slapped a patch job on you."

  I smiled. "Thanks Tracy."

  "Don't thank me," she hissed, her face twisting with rage. "You couldn't have showed up a fucking week ago when I was feeding my kid crushed glass ?"

  I flinched away from her.

  Jules put his hand on Tracy. "It's not Beatrice's fault," he said. "It's that thing."

  I nodded. "Lucas, you still there?" I asked.

  "Oh holy shit, you know Lucas?" Jules asked, sounding shocked. “Lucas Astra?”

  I frowned. "He seems to be incommunicado. Maybe hacking into the security camera footage got him caught or something."

  "The Telepath doesn't work through computers - but the station's AI was co-opted by the Tesc when they broke containment," Jules said. "By the way. The full name is Dr. Jules Verne Delecroix. I work in Heresy."

  "Heresy?" I asked.

  "Sorry, in joke. I work in physics. We were disproving so much accepted scientific maxims - general relativity has been taking a beating, that if we had released any of this shit on the open networks," Jules said, chuckling softly. "Well, we'd be branded as heretics."

  "How can-" Tracy's eyes bulged. "How can you fucking laugh, you-"

  Jules shot a glare at her. "I can laugh..." His face twisted. "Because goddamn that fucking thing isn't going to break me. I'm going to laugh and enjoy life and I'm going to mourn Jeremy when it's dead and I can dissect it." But despite his words, his eyes brimmed with tears. His voice grew choked. He put his hands over his face. I was about to say something when I felt the nanites - which had been quietly creeping towards my ear - flow into my ear canal like a flood of ice cold water. I gasped, kicking one leg.

  “Sorry, it was just a patch,” Tracy said. “You may lose some extra to make sure the damage isn’t permanent.”

  I'd have accepted far more pain for the effect it had on Marisa and Amanda - apparently, my face was hilarious enough to make both smile. But then I felt the coolness on the small of my back. I craned my head backwards and saw that with my boob window I now had a circular hole that spread along the space between my shoulder blade and my rump, accentuating my curves. It was like I was in a stripper outfit now.

  Jules slid his hands from his face. "Still. Where the hell did you get fucking Cadre Omega superpowers, Beatrice?"

  "Or are the megarich really able to buy anything?" Tracy asked, her voice sour.

  I shook my head. "I don't- I got them from WepTec," I said. "The labs in engineering."


  Jules' eyes widened as he looked at me. "You were in the Weaponized Tesseract Labs?"

  My eyes widened right back at him. I felt a sudden urge to vomit. My hands rubbed together. My heart pounded . No. That couldn't be right. Those labs were Weapon Technology. Right? But Jules looked at me with growing horror, and I saw that he realized what it was too. I scrambled to my feet, walking a quick five paces away - this brought me to a smiling poster of a store employee, the conversation bubble coming from his mouth telling me that I could buy anything I wanted half off using TSPM. I grabbed the poster and ripped it off the wall with a snarl.

  "I didn't inject fucking Tesc shit in me!" I said, spinning around to face them. "I didn't! It was just...artificial Ambrosia. Right? Right?"

  Amanda looked as if she thought I was going to start ripping her to pieces. The fact she looked fucking hopeful for that made my belly clench. My skin turned clammy. I closed my eyes. I would not throw up. I shook my head and then started for the back of the store. "Wait here." I snarled.

  Once in the back, I looked for the inventory - not my virtual one, but rather, the physical inventory of the toy store. My fingers needed to reach into some mechanical guts - and a cool, contemplative part of my brain was working through what I'd need to stop the Telepath. The only problem was that there was no inventory, no piles of boxes, no game consoles for me to pillage. Instead, the rear of the store had a pair of fabrication machines and a single computer terminal. I tapped it on. A password screen balked me. My fingers shook as I tried to tap out a request for computer components.

  The computer screen turned red and informed me in a polite but firm way that another attempt to hack the computers would call station security. I snarled and felt lightning buzz along my fingertips, the urge to just blast this fucking thing into pieces almost overwhelming. But just as quickly as the urge came, it passed. I ducked my head forward, my eyes closed, my palms resting on the desk. I shuddered and felt hot tears burn along my nose and cheeks. They dripped onto the keyboard and I whimpered.

  I was scared.

  Weaponized Tesseract.

  I had injected that...into me...

  It was just one more fucked up thing I’d done to my body without thinking. I felt a crawling fear, sliding along my spine. What if this whole rig that had been forced into me was...something like that?

  What was I?

  What had I been made for?

  I didn’t have any answers. And Lucas wasn’t about to pop in. INstead, I was left with my gnawing doubts, by slowly buzzing arousal, my fear. All of it mixed together into an emotional cocktail that left my head spinning.

  "Hey."

  Jules voice - a soft, male burr - made me jerk my head up. I wiped off a smeary mass of tears and snot from my face, sniffing furiously. I tried to look presentable as I turned to face him. He looked like he was trying to be calm - but that just drew my attention to how tense he had to be. He stepped over to me.

  "It's okay," he said.

  "No it's fucking not," I whispered.

  His dark hand cupped my cheek. I remembered the feel of him slapping me and forcing me to my feet. No. Not him. The Telepath. I trembled like a deer, ready to leap. But whether I was going to leap forward or sprint away wasn't clear in my head or heart. I looked into his warm, dark eyes as he murmured.

  "It'll be okay. We'll get off this station."

  The tone of his voice drew a shuddering sniffle from me. I breathed up and felt my nostrils clear ever so slightly. I hung my head forward, letting his palm caress through my hair. The simple human contact eased some fears - but accentuated others.

  I had put the needle to my skin. I had pressed the plunger down. Was I going to become like Maria? All bits and pieces and seductive intensity? The mental image of my body - twisted and made exotic and beautiful and terrible - straddling Jules face flashed through my mind. My cheeks darkened and I stammered.

  "W-w-we will."

  "And I have five hundred TSPM," Jules said. "What do you need? I'll buy it from the kiosk."

  I lifted my head. He drew his hand away from my head. I felt the ache of its absence. But that part of my brain that knew how to rip open key panels and rewire their innards started to whisper out components I needed. I did have 1 rank in the Modify skill, after all. I licked my lips and then stepped backwards. I looked at the dispensers and then looked at the part catalog some helpful corporate employee had hung up. Just in case they had to fix one of their machines. I rattled off a few machines. Jules smiled and opened his mouth.

  Then he stopped.

  He looked desolate. A deep, dark desolation that crossed over his face and remained there for some time. He looked down, then turned and walked out of the room. Quick stepping. I wanted to grab him and hold him. Tell him the same lie he told me. It was going to be okay. When he came back, the fabricators were already whirring away. Whatever they did was hidden behind sheet plastic and blackened glass. The only thing I felt was the warmth of the machines when I put my palms on their sides. But then the first game consoles came out. Ripping them apart was therapeutic. Jules handed me screw drivers and collected parts and listened as I let the words flow .

  It was all technological babble that I only half grasped. But listening seemed to keep that wry smile on Jules face. And working on the new problem let me not think about the problem after that one and the one after that and the one after that...

  "Tell me about where you're from," I said, picking up a clump of wires, realizing that I needed two hands for this, and tucked the wires gently between my teeth. Jules shrugged slightly.

  "France," he said.

  I opened up a component, then tilted my head. The wires were firm enough that I could at least get them settled. I looked at him - awkwardly, considering I was stooped over a mass of computer components. I grunted and he leaned forward, placing a single black finger on the wire tip, keeping it grounded. I let go with my teeth.

  "You don't sound French," I said.

  "Ah, do you want me to speak wiff an outragious french axscent, hua hua hua hua?" Jules asked, drawing himself to his full height. I snorgled. Which was a noise I had never known I could have made - it was somewhere between a snort, a giggle and a sob. Jules laughed and shook his head.

  "Ever since the Caribican Wars, there's been a lot of American expats in France," he said, casually. "Best way to get away from the killing fields. My family adapted, but Dad never did learn French." He winced as I picked up one of the soldering tools. The acrid smell of burning metal wafted to my nose, as sweet as perfume compared to the stench of the rest of the place. I smiled at Jules.

  "Everything I hear makes Earth sound so much nicer," I said. "I just remember..."

  My mind flashed to it. The beautiful woman. Her bikini top slipping away. Her mouth pressing to mine. My cheeks flushed.

  "What?" Jules asked.

  I coughed, picking up one of the fifteen batteries I had managed to yank from the handheld systems I had forced Jules to buy - emptying his account. There was something grotesque in dropping months of work onto entertainment devices that I was going to immediately rip apart and rebuild...while both of us were trying to not think about how fucking hungry we were.

  "A girl," I admitted as I slotted a battery home.

  "A cute one?" Jules asked.

  "Uh, I mean, do big tits count as cute?" I shot back, trying to sound casual - my cheeks growing darker. Jules smiled at me.

  "Girlfriend?"

  "I have no fucking idea," I admitted. "I hope not. Or if she is a girlfriend, I hope she's open minded."

  Jules chuckled, quietly. "If she's anything like my Marie, then she's seen at least one episode of Star Trek." His face fell, his mirth fading. "What you do while under the influence of mind - or, ah, body control in this case - isn't your...fault..." His voice grew soft. I put my hand on his shoulder. I felt the strength underneath and the past few hours of near death smashed into me with the strength of the fist of God.

  "It was
n't that I was worried about," I whispered.

  Jules looked up at me. His eyes were confused. My hand slipped along his bald scalp, drawing back to his neck, and I dragged him up and forward. The soldering gun slipped back into its wire holster as my mouth and his met. His tongue filled mine and for a moment, I didn't taste the scent of rotting corpses. I just tasted him . His black hands cupped and squeezed my pale, white ass - and for some reason, that excited me even more.

  Before I knew it, we were on the ground. his hands were tugging at my nanite uniform, tearing chunks aside. The nanites flowed off his fingers and back into the mass of clothes until I broke the kiss and rasped a quiet order. "Turn them off..."

  The collar, it turned out, didn't need any additional instruction. When Jules' desperate, seeking hand tugged the nanites off my breasts, they tore away like sticky paper, revealing my glistening, sweating skin and my diamond hard nipple. His beard tickled me as his mouth closed around the hard nub and he sucked . Hard enough to make me hiss. My back arched and I whimpered. "Oh Jules ..."

  His mouth drew back and he panted. "We shouldn't, but-"

  "Fuck it," I snarled, grabbing his neck again. I drew him to my neck, then pushed myself forward and down, so that my mouth and his pressed together again. His tongue was even more insistent now, and my hands reached down to his hips. I tore at his nanites and they fell aside, revealing more dark skin. I had felt his cock in my mouth - fuck, I had felt it in my ear - but it still took my breath away when my palms caressed and cupped his black dick. I squeezed it and his mouth drew away from mine.

  "Beatrice..." he crooned.

  "Fuck me, Jules," I begged. There was no other word for the desperate, hungry tone in my voice. My thighs spread as wide as they could, my hands grabbing onto his shoulders as I settled myself under him. There was no foreplay, no hesitation. Jules pressed his dick to the thin slit of my pussy - and while I was sure I wasn't, I felt like a virgin. I couldn't remember anything before - and the sensation of a married man plowing into me, filling me, fucking me, was so intense that it made my eyes fill with a white haze. My fingernails dug into his back and shoulders as I closed and locked my legs around his hips.