Mmm.... Plot
----
The sense of strangeness while driving never properly left. The part of me that’d learned to drive warred with the part of me that’d been programmed with the skill. The part of me that learned, had learned with a larger frame. The sensation crawled across my skin.
Another part of my mind marvelled at how I held the car dead on-speed, my right foot doing better than any cruise control.
For a single moment, I felt my true self, every single cybernetic control and impulse tracing my body’s networks, my consciousness splitting into threads of awareness. One mind on the road, on mind on myself, one mind on the future and one on the Stars.Four minds in one, and more if I need it.
Lou’s voice grabbed for my attention.
“”BB7722?”
I looked at her, and all minds collapsed down into the one. Her face showed nothing but curiosity. It still stung like an accusation
“I tried setting back to 000000 after Derek. It felt weird.”
My lips pursed. It’s not like I enjoy it,
“It’s nothing to be embarrassed about,” she assured me. “We all have our preferences.”
The hair on the back of my neck prickled.
“You think it’s strange because I used to be one?”
Her face didn’t betray anything. She waited for the answer.
“ Any sort of F value gets distracting, but a balance towards M with an average K is comfortable,” I explained, calmly. It’d taken hours of intimate research to find something comfortable.
“I don’t think it’s strange,” Lou said, mildly, letting it float in the air between us. “I think you enjoy it.” She shifted herself on the seat, giving me a knowing look. “You spent a lot of time with Derek,”
I felt it bite
“I did it so Sylvie would trust me.” My eyes focused on the road, deliberately not looking at her. “And because I wanted to know what it felt like”
Not because I enjoyed it or anything. Especially not the feeling of a good strong finish.
“Sex in that body?”
A squeamish shiver ran through my body. As much as I could describe in eidetic detail exactly what we’d done together, how many times we’d done it and how much I’d genuinely enjoyed every single one of them, some old synapse that’d been copied from a previous me knew it should’ve been appalled.
“Being a boomer,” I clarified. “This is still new to me.” I showed her a hand, with each of it’s individual fingers flexing one after the other.
So, more than just the physical.
She frowned at me. “It’s not really the same,”
“How?”
“You had a choice,” she said. “Everything you did with Derek was your choice, and you could’ve walked away from him any time you wanted,”
Something sank in my stomach
“You don’t remember the station,”
He voice and cooled and I felt that coldness fill the car, flowing through my veins.
“No,” I said.
Not in the way she meant, anyway.
“We were things, Meg.” She let that hang in the moment. I wondered if she included me in that - or the me that I had been.
“My partners wanted me to fight back. That’s how my personality map was created”
“One night, I actually won. I kicked him so hard he spent a week in sickbay and needed prosthetics. You don’t really win, if there’s no chance of losing.”
She grinned at me, pointing her toe as she stretched her leg, showing exactly where she’d kicked.
“But they always win in the end.” her voice flattened. Her gaze settled on a point far beyond the end of the road.“That’s what it really is to be a thing, rather than a person. All you do is set yourself up to loose even harder, because then they have to demonstrate their power.”
I knew where this would go.
“We were always too valuable for anyone to really get violent with – not like the real girls – but they could do other things. They had to come up with a different way to punish us.”
She looked at me, guaging my reaction. I felt my body bristle, feeling myself inside her cell for a moment.
“They took away my happiness. My satisfaction, my comfort, my pleasure. They took away every good feeling I could ever have and they left everything else. And then, they left me.”
And I knew that feeling well - it echoed inside - the malevolant desolation where not even life mattered.
“They only gave them back when I stopped fighting, when I stopped doing anything but just lying there when they came… hating them, hating everything about them, and hating myself for not being willing to do anything about it anymore.”
Lou simmerred. I watched her eyes fall on some random pedestrian - some kid in a denim jacket - then to me.
“I couldn’t escape it. And when it was gone, when they thought I’d learned my lesson and they gave me my mind back, I never wanted to feel that way again. ”
The force of her mind filled the cabin.
“ That’s why we left.”
And that’s when I wished for it to end. One mind on driving, on mind on Lou, one on myself and how I felt.
Empty. I had the sense that I should’ve been appalled, but what I felt was just emptiness, a void of feelings filled only by the little paper IOU for something that should’ve been there.
I placed my hand on hers and trusted it was the right thing. The smile I received confirmed my hopes.
“You kicked him so hard both his testicles burst.”
Something deep inside me winced in sympathy - and echo of someone I used to be before. It only sugared the sense of triumph- the sweet smell of victory that filled the car
Lou’s eyes sparked. “You remember,”
For one moment, I thought I had. The feeling sat and bubbled inside me, hopping like a stewing cauldron. Even without knowing, I still knew.
She breathed, shrugging off the feeling off, letting the air clear.
“But you know, the first time I really felt alive, Was when I chose to stay.” She still smiled. I felt myself mirror her expression. “I never did get the chance to say thank you for not leaving me,”
The answer seemed obvious. It tolled as clear as a church bell.
“You were the only one who trusted me”
----
----
The sense of strangeness while driving never properly left. The part of me that’d learned to drive warred with the part of me that’d been programmed with the skill. The part of me that learned, had learned with a larger frame. The sensation crawled across my skin.
Another part of my mind marvelled at how I held the car dead on-speed, my right foot doing better than any cruise control.
For a single moment, I felt my true self, every single cybernetic control and impulse tracing my body’s networks, my consciousness splitting into threads of awareness. One mind on the road, on mind on myself, one mind on the future and one on the Stars.Four minds in one, and more if I need it.
Lou’s voice grabbed for my attention.
“”BB7722?”
I looked at her, and all minds collapsed down into the one. Her face showed nothing but curiosity. It still stung like an accusation
“I tried setting back to 000000 after Derek. It felt weird.”
My lips pursed. It’s not like I enjoy it,
“It’s nothing to be embarrassed about,” she assured me. “We all have our preferences.”
The hair on the back of my neck prickled.
“You think it’s strange because I used to be one?”
Her face didn’t betray anything. She waited for the answer.
“ Any sort of F value gets distracting, but a balance towards M with an average K is comfortable,” I explained, calmly. It’d taken hours of intimate research to find something comfortable.
“I don’t think it’s strange,” Lou said, mildly, letting it float in the air between us. “I think you enjoy it.” She shifted herself on the seat, giving me a knowing look. “You spent a lot of time with Derek,”
I felt it bite
“I did it so Sylvie would trust me.” My eyes focused on the road, deliberately not looking at her. “And because I wanted to know what it felt like”
Not because I enjoyed it or anything. Especially not the feeling of a good strong finish.
“Sex in that body?”
A squeamish shiver ran through my body. As much as I could describe in eidetic detail exactly what we’d done together, how many times we’d done it and how much I’d genuinely enjoyed every single one of them, some old synapse that’d been copied from a previous me knew it should’ve been appalled.
“Being a boomer,” I clarified. “This is still new to me.” I showed her a hand, with each of it’s individual fingers flexing one after the other.
So, more than just the physical.
She frowned at me. “It’s not really the same,”
“How?”
“You had a choice,” she said. “Everything you did with Derek was your choice, and you could’ve walked away from him any time you wanted,”
Something sank in my stomach
“You don’t remember the station,”
He voice and cooled and I felt that coldness fill the car, flowing through my veins.
“No,” I said.
Not in the way she meant, anyway.
“We were things, Meg.” She let that hang in the moment. I wondered if she included me in that - or the me that I had been.
“My partners wanted me to fight back. That’s how my personality map was created”
“One night, I actually won. I kicked him so hard he spent a week in sickbay and needed prosthetics. You don’t really win, if there’s no chance of losing.”
She grinned at me, pointing her toe as she stretched her leg, showing exactly where she’d kicked.
“But they always win in the end.” her voice flattened. Her gaze settled on a point far beyond the end of the road.“That’s what it really is to be a thing, rather than a person. All you do is set yourself up to loose even harder, because then they have to demonstrate their power.”
I knew where this would go.
“We were always too valuable for anyone to really get violent with – not like the real girls – but they could do other things. They had to come up with a different way to punish us.”
She looked at me, guaging my reaction. I felt my body bristle, feeling myself inside her cell for a moment.
“They took away my happiness. My satisfaction, my comfort, my pleasure. They took away every good feeling I could ever have and they left everything else. And then, they left me.”
And I knew that feeling well - it echoed inside - the malevolant desolation where not even life mattered.
“They only gave them back when I stopped fighting, when I stopped doing anything but just lying there when they came… hating them, hating everything about them, and hating myself for not being willing to do anything about it anymore.”
Lou simmerred. I watched her eyes fall on some random pedestrian - some kid in a denim jacket - then to me.
“I couldn’t escape it. And when it was gone, when they thought I’d learned my lesson and they gave me my mind back, I never wanted to feel that way again. ”
The force of her mind filled the cabin.
“ That’s why we left.”
And that’s when I wished for it to end. One mind on driving, on mind on Lou, one on myself and how I felt.
Empty. I had the sense that I should’ve been appalled, but what I felt was just emptiness, a void of feelings filled only by the little paper IOU for something that should’ve been there.
I placed my hand on hers and trusted it was the right thing. The smile I received confirmed my hopes.
“You kicked him so hard both his testicles burst.”
Something deep inside me winced in sympathy - and echo of someone I used to be before. It only sugared the sense of triumph- the sweet smell of victory that filled the car
Lou’s eyes sparked. “You remember,”
For one moment, I thought I had. The feeling sat and bubbled inside me, hopping like a stewing cauldron. Even without knowing, I still knew.
She breathed, shrugging off the feeling off, letting the air clear.
“But you know, the first time I really felt alive, Was when I chose to stay.” She still smiled. I felt myself mirror her expression. “I never did get the chance to say thank you for not leaving me,”
The answer seemed obvious. It tolled as clear as a church bell.
“You were the only one who trusted me”
----
I love the smell of rotaries in the morning. You know one time, I got to work early, before the rush hour. I walked through the empty carpark, I didn't see one bloody Prius or Golf. And that smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole carpark, smelled like.... ....speed.
One day they're going to ban them.