Presume Not That I Am The Thing I Was
Riding West, chasing the dying sun, Tyton, the only place Kerr had ever known, shrank and disappeared behind them. In its stead lay a vast expanse of short, brown grasses, the occasional boulder, and mud. So much mud.
To her surprise, the bike seemed to be designed for tearing through wet earth. Hunks of sod flew behind them until Lusa slowed and finally, brought it to a stop.
Kerr wasn’t sure what was so special about this spot. It looked identical to the last several kilometres. The shadow of a long dead turbine could be seen to the East if you squinted hard enough.
“Here we are.” Lusa dismounted. The bike wobbled precariously in the unstable earth “The ground is softer here than you’re used to,” she warned.
Lusa hadn’t been joking. Murky water welled up from the ground around her boots. She pulled off her helmet, only to find the wind deceptively cool. Her Thermabulle hummed to life.
Unclipping the hard cases from the bike Lusa placed them according to some strategy Kerr didn’t understand. “We’ll set up over there.” She pointed to a large, flat-looking green rock a few paces away. Retrieving a can of insecticide, Lusa tossed it to Kerr.
“What’s this?”
“It’ll keep the bugs away.” Lusa returned to the cases of equipment. “Mostly.”
Kerr was about to ask about the bugs when she felt a sharp stinging on her arms. Slapping it hard, Kerr found a wet splotch of blood littered with mosquito parts.
“Close your eyes before you use it.”
Squeezing her eyes shut, Kerr sprayed insect repellent everywhere but herself. Lusa stood and shook her head. “Give me that.”
Moments later, Kerr had been sufficiently doused in chemicals. “This smells awful.” Blinking several times, the fumes coming off of her skin made her eyes burn. “Why aren’t they coming after you?”
Lusa glanced over her shoulder. “They don’t like me.
” She picked a mosquito off her arm and let it fly away.
“It used to drive Pinga nuts.” She handed Kerr an armful of light metal poles while she carried a bundle of fabric to the rock.
“My mom told me that if you kill a mosquito, it will tell all its friends where you are. Pinga never listened.”
“Which mom?” Kerr followed awkwardly, trying her best not to trip.
“Sesi.” Lusa spread the fabric and took one of the poles from Kerr. “She’s the outdoors expert.” Bending over, Lusa threaded the pole through some tabs Kerr hadn’t seen and then held out her hand for another.
Kerr obliged. “You seem like you know what you’re doing outdoors, too.”
On all fours, Lusa turned to look at her. “How would you know? You’re staring at my arse.” She threaded a second pole through the fabric. “Aren’t there enough girls in Tyton to stare at?”
Feeling like she was trying to soften the inevitable blow, Kerr knew as well as she did that this couldn’t work.
She also knew there wouldn’t be enough padding in the world to make it hurt less.
Finding someone who didn’t care what Chalice thought had been like pulling an undamaged targeting chip out of the Junkpile.
And though the end couldn’t be avoided, letting whatever this was slip away didn’t feel right.
“I like yours better.” Kerr handed Lusa the last pole. “Also, we’re not in Tyton. You’re the only girl here.”
Giving a lopsided smile, Lusa finally accepted the compliment. “Hold on to this and then we’ll get the fire started.” Lusa bent the pole and looped a strand of rope around it.
Stepping back, Kerr stared in amazement. A large, four-sided cloth house stood in front of her. “What is this?”
“A tent.” Lusa’s forehead wrinkled. “You’ve really never seen one before?”
Kerr shook her head, mouth still open.
“Help me gather wood. There should be some driftwood near the stream over there.” Lusa pointed to a slow-moving ribbon of water to the north.
Kerr tried to hide her confusion, but it wasn’t enough. “It’s from trees,” Lusa said. “It’s where they get Hexcel from. Kind of.”
Kerr had heard of trees, but had never seen one. Lusa continued. “Trees are like big grass. You can burn it to make fires.”
“Why would we want to make fires?” Kerr was trying her best, but nothing had prepared her for this camping thing.
“Don’t you make fires? I’ve seen groups of you standing around barrels on fire,” Lusa said.
“So we can see where groups of us are from far away, yeah?” Kerr’s frown softened. “Oh, I get it. That’s how your aunt is going to find us.”
“No, she knows where we are. It’s how we’re going to stay warm.”
“Oh.” Kerr turned away and walked toward the stream feeling stupid. She returned a few moments later with an armful of what she hoped was driftwood.
Lusa’s smile erased her worries. Moments later, the driftwood was piled and a fire blazed.
“Normally,” Lusa started, “I would have brought a survival suit to stay warm.” Removing her jacket, Lusa draped it across the rock.
Kerr bit her lip. Her shirt still looked obscene. She hoped she’d wear it forever.
“Can I ask you something?” Kerr asked.
Lusa let the question sit for a moment before answering. “What is it?”
“Why don’t you have a Thermabulle? Or an Opti? Or any other cyberware? What’s so important about a biosig scrambler? Wouldn’t it make your life easier?” Kerr had sort of asked before, but now things between them were different.
Lusa scoffed and looked away. “You needed me because I had no cyberware, remember?”
“But doesn’t your biosig scrambler need to vent excess heat? Where does that go?”
Lusa held out her hands to the fire soaking in its warmth. “No venting needed.”
Kerr picked up on Lusa’s tone. “Sorry. I know your tech is a big secret. I was just curious.”
Firelight peeked between Lusa’s fingers. She looked like she could grab it, as if the heat could be tangible. As if she could close her hand around it and hold it for a moment if she concentrated hard enough. Sad, but precious at the same time. Like whatever this was.
“Stand up,” Lusa said out of nowhere.
Kerr arched an eyebrow.
“Just do it.” It was phrased as an order but sounded more like a request. “And come over here.”
Kerr rose to her feet and approached cautiously.
“Turn off your cyberware.”
Kerr pulled her head back. Aside from the initiation, turning off your cyberware wasn’t something you did. “Why? So, you can kill me without a tracker activating?”
“The only thing that can track you out here are the geosats and I don’t think your Opti connects to those.” Lusa held out her hand. “Do you trust me?”
The no signal flashing across her cornea confirmed it. “Not after telling me that.”
“Will you do it anyway?”
Kerr didn’t know what it was about the way the light reflected in Lusa’s eyes that made her throw common sense out the window. It’s not like she had a good track record when it came to that anyway.
Deactivating her Thermabulle, the rush of cold air prickled at her arms first, then the tip of her nose. Her strength amplifier and hormone regulator sent temperature warnings to her Opti, but it was cool enough outside that they weren’t in danger yet.
“Haven’t you ever wondered what life would be like without it?” Lusa added.
She’d gone too far to back out now. Kerr disabled the rest of her cyberware before she overheated. Her body cooled and trembled. Slipping behind her, Lusa wrapped her arms around her waist. Kerr leaned her head back against her chest.
“How does that feel?”
The waves of heat from the fire radiated over her front and with Lusa at her back like a blanket – Kerr could sink into her and live in this moment forever. The last time she had let her body feel something without her hormone regulators compensating had been so long ago and much less pleasant.
“I’ve deactivated my cyberware before.” Kerr’s voice sounded far away. “It was nothing like this.”
“Oh?” Lusa rested her chin on top of Kerr’s head. “Why?”
Kerr didn’t answer. She only let herself be swayed by the invisible rhythm of the flames.
“Sorry,” Lusa apologised. “I shouldn’t be prying either.”
Kerr shook her head, mussing up her hair under Lusa’s chin. “You have to turn it all off for the initiation I mentioned.”
Lusa squeezed her waist. “You don’t have to tell me.”
“I want to.” Kerr craned her neck upward and kissed the edge of Lusa’s jaw.
“It’s sort of a rejection of the ChemTec corps got us hooked on – that a lot of us are still hooked on, I guess.
A rejection of all the corpo shit we can’t live without anymore.
An EMP takes out all your cyberware and you have to navigate the tunnels – no Opti maps, no lowlight compensators.
Your hormones are all over the place. Then they blindfold you and drop you off at a random access hatch and you need to make it to the Junkpile. ”
“Junkpile?”
“Exactly what it sounds like. A giant pile of discarded tech we gather and eventually sort for parts. Some people get there in days. Some take weeks. What matters is you get there without re-enabling your cyberware.”
“And how long did it take you?”
“Three hours.” Kerr beamed.
Lusa gave her a quick squeeze. “What happens when you get there?”
“You reach in the pile and pick something out. That becomes your new name. I grabbed a sprocket, but there was already someone named Sprocket, so they named me after the type of sprocket.”
“I have no idea what a Kerr sprocket is.” Lusa placed a soft kiss on her temple. “What was your name before?”
“Caoimhe. It’s an insult to call someone by their previous name, though.”
“It’s a pretty name.” Lusa kissed the top of her head. “Both of them.”
“You can call me Caoimhe.”
Lusa hesitated. “You’re only saying that because your hormone regulator is turned off.”
This was rapidly becoming too intimate. “I can make you,” Kerr tried to lighten the mood.
“Your strength amplifier patch is offline too.” Lusa kissed the top of her head. “Unless you’ve been secretly doing a lot of push-ups, I doubt you can make me do anything.”
Kerr sulked, but it only made Lusa hold her tighter, shattering Kerr’s attempt to lighten the mood. “I want you to,” she whispered.
Being overcome by lust in a closet confirmed their attraction to one another. The roleplay this morning had been hot, but they weren’t themselves. They took on personas to give into desires they weren’t supposed to have. This was a casual relationship with an end date.
And Kerr still found herself asking “Please?”