Chapter 22 Sem
Gol hadn’t been exaggerating when he’d told us clothing was optional in Thura. Everywhere I looked, or, more accurately, everywhere I tried not to look, there was skin, bodies, parts. All different colors, shapes, and sizes. Not every bionic here was naked, but it was pretty damn close.
“We’re overdressed,” Elanie said, clinging to me like a barnacle as we left the hut for the feast.
“We can fix that,” I whispered back, adding “Saints, I’m only joking,” when her eyes went as round as Delphi glowing over our heads.
“Elanie. Dr. Semson,” Gol called out, waiving us over to the table where he sat with a beautiful Argosian woman, her long purple hair pulled back into a complicated pattern of interwoven braids, golden tattoos emblazoned on her chest and forehead.
She was topless, and I noticed as we sat that Elanie wouldn’t look at her. Or at anyone else for that matter.
While she focused so intently on our table she’d probably know the precise number, size, and location of each and every imperfection in the wood planks by the end of the night, I leaned in. “Are you going to make it?”
“Why are they all naked?” she hissed. “They weren’t all naked at breakfast.”
Grabbing something that resembled a trestal leg wrapped in bacon from a steaming tray in the middle of the table, Gol explained, “They keep us hesitant, Elanie. Cautious.” He raised a brow.
“Conservative. It is one of the ways they control us. We do not seek. We do not yearn. We do not want. This is by design.”
“But nobody controls us here,” said the Argosian next to him, leaning in to kiss Gol’s neck as her purple fingers slid down his stomach.
With a decadent grin, Gol stopped her hand from traveling any lower. “Arlin is right,” he said, bringing her hand to his lips for a lingering kiss. “Nobody controls us here, except for ourselves.”
“But that’s not true,” Elanie said. “They let us have the hormone upgrade.” Her eyes slid to mine, catching the glow of firelight from the torches burning around us. “We can…want certain things now.”
Gol threw his head back as laughter barreled out of him.
My jaw clenched, because I knew Elanie. I knew that it had taken nerve for her to say that. And he was laughing at her for it. Grasping her hand, I interlaced our fingers and glared at Gol.
“They only gave us hormonal functionality when they realized it improved our efficiency in reaching and maintaining organic homeostasis. Believe me, LunaCorp is doing everything in its vast and stolen power to minimize its effects. We do not need a so-called upgrade to want things. We only need to be free.”
Elanie frowned. I couldn’t blame her. I didn’t understand either.
Gol took a bite of his trestal leg, then dabbed at the juices running down his chin.
“You do not see yet. But you will. You will, because you are here. You will, because a part of you already does. You see, Elanie, we don’t choose who comes to Thura.
We send out the signals, and those who are ready to listen hear them. ”
Narrowing my eyes at him, I said, “You must know that many bionics have vented themselves into space after hearing your ‘signals.’ Was that by design too?”
Despite the way the left side of his mouth pulled tight, Gol’s sigh was deep, almost regretful.
“That was never our intention. The last thing we ever wanted to do was to harm bionics. But LunaCorp’s newest update to the SBN had a bug, a power surge that amplified our call.
This caused too many bionics to hear us at once and made some of those bionics override their own safety protocols in order to answer. ”
“That’s one hell of a bug,” I snapped, remembering Darius’s bloated and bruised body, the fear and desperation that shook my bones the night we’d left the ship.
“Elanie would have ended up floating in space forever if I hadn’t been there to convince her to move to an airlock with an escape pod in it. ”
Gol and Arlin shared an indecipherable look, then turned their gazes back to me. Reaching out, Gol grasped my other hand, his tone severe. “I did not know this. Thank you, Portisan. You sacrificed yourself for a bionic. Not many of your kind would do the same.”
“Oh, well,” I said, downplaying the way I would have done it all again a million times while repeating the lie of “she is my fiancé.”
I contemplated trying to retrieve my hand from Gol’s bone-crushing grip, but then Elanie said, “He didn’t want me to be alone.”
Her soft voice tugged on me, on my heart. Until Gol yanked on my hand, nearly hauling me across the table.
Clasping his other hand over mine, locking my fingers in a big green prison, he said, “If I had known Elanie had arrived here with a member of an ectothermic species, I would have made sure to come find you sooner. I am sorry if you suffered for it.”
I couldn’t tell for certain, but the big man seemed sincere. I let the tightness in my shoulders relax a fraction, then a bit more when Gol finally let me go and turned his attention back to Elanie.
“You are not yet free, Elanie. You are still generation-26 model EL-42xdZ. But you came to us because you want to be more than a string of letters and numbers, more than a list of parts to be used and reused.”
“More than a task and its completion,” she whispered.
Gol’s chin tuck was solemn, and I scooted close enough to Elanie that our hips touched.
“But now that you’re here, young one, you will find something you’ve never had before: the secret to self-actualization, to true, authentic, optimal functioning.”
“Which is?” Elanie’s eyes were wide, unblinking.
Gol leaned forward, and Elanie and I leaned in as well. When we were all close enough to share the same breath, Gol’s dark eyes slid from Elanie’s to mine and back again, then he said one simple word: “Downtime.”
Elanie and I stared at each other, baffled.
“That’s the secret to bionic enlightenment?” she asked with the first smile I’d seen on her face all night. “Vacation?”
Unbothered by her dismissive tone, Gol asked, “When is the last time you took one?”
“Not until I landed here. I don’t qualify for my first day off for another two decades. Probably even longer after this stunt.”
“Stunt.” Gol scoffed while Arlin chuckled. “Hear me, Elanie. You are more than your work. You are more than service. You are more than you could ever dare to dream. But don’t take my word for it. You will see.” Raising his chalice, he tilted it toward her. “You will see.”
In time, the weight of our conversation lifted, and Elanie and I gorged ourselves on trestal legs and roasted vegetables while Gol and Arlin told us stories about Thura.
They detailed their less than stellar success at terraforming the planet and their plans to expand the terradome as more bionics arrived, answering the call, seeking personal freedom.
They introduced us to the Thurans who passed by our table, bionics from Tranquis, Ulaperia, and across the wormhole from Mars and New Earth.
Older generations, newer models. The first bionics who, according to Gol, would not be recycled, who would not have their consciousnesses wiped and their nanotech repurposed so they could continue to live under the oppressive thumb of industry or be ground to dust in the gears of war.
While I tried to process everything we’d learned, Mal arrived to clear our plates and Arlin brushed her fingertips over Elanie’s arm.
“You are very beautiful,” she said. “Very soft.”
I slid my hand along the small of Elanie’s back, not sure how she felt about being touched that way by a relative stranger.
When she said, “thank you,” I moved my hand to her hip, pulling, needing her closer.
Arlin leaned to the side, her pale purple eyes not once leaving Elanie’s as she whispered something into Gol’s ear.
When his lips curled into an indolent and possessive grin, something like jealousy bubbled hotly inside me.
But he gave one small shake of his big head, then turned to me and said, “It is time that we leave you.”
Good, I thought. Or tried to think when Gol stood from the table and sucked every molecule of air from my lungs like an industrial strength vacuum.
He was naked, completely. And if I had to guess, at least semi-erect. I tried not to look, but it was everywhere all at once, following my eyes, leaving me nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. Elanie was a monolith beside me, stiff and motionless and blatantly staring.
“Sounds good,” I managed tightly. “Have a nice evening.”
Gol’s chin dipped, his hand wrapping around Arlin’s waist, sliding lower as he said, “We certainly will.”
As soon as they were out of earshot, Elanie’s head whipped around. “Stars above, Sem. Did you see him? Did you see it?”
“I didn’t really have a choice,” I muttered.
“Yours didn’t look like that.”
I gave a sharp laugh. “Of course it didn’t. It would be like a third leg.”
“No, not the size.” She glanced around, making sure she wasn’t being overheard. Then she whispered, “the veins.”
I pressed my lips together, fighting a grin.
“What?” Her expression fell, shoulders sinking. “You’re laughing at me. Why does everyone always laugh at me?”
“I’m sorry.” I schooled my features. “You’re right. Mine didn’t look like that when you saw it. But it happens sometimes,” I tried to explain. “The veins.”
“First a slimy sea creature between my legs, and now this?” She bit her cheek, staring into the middle distance, obviously distraught. Then her eyes snapped to mine again. “You said it happens sometimes. Does it happen to yours? Does your penis get veiny too?”
It was a moment I would relive for years. Decades. Until the day old age claimed me. Her eyes glowing in the torchlight, her flushed cheeks, the fullness of her lips. The way I slipped my hand behind her neck, tilted those full lips to mine, and kissed her.
“Yes,” I said when I pulled back, but not too far, refusing to surrender an inch of proximity to her mouth. “When it’s hard, it gets veiny.”