Voices in the Stream: Phase 02 (The Eighteenth Shadow) Read online

“You keep telling me that. You want a towel? You’re nippin’ out somethin’ fierce.”

  Tara looked down at her breasts and stuck her bottom lip out, “Oh, guess I am. No, I’m good. It’s hot in here, I’ll dry off. Where are the boy folk tonight? Church?”

  The girls giggled.

  “Yes, William is officiating as Goran and Cat renew their vows. Dax and Hugo are witnesses. No betties!” Dorothy glanced off-handed at the touchscreen interface on the wall, which was dark except for a small green circle in the upper right hand corner. “Naw, super quiet. Even Joan’s offstream. The only boy on site is THOR. Dax took everyone into town with SIEGFRIED to interview some new recruit at The Lady.”

  “New recruit? Is he cute?” Tara smirked.

  “Hell if I know. He’s some idiot who’s been itching to get into the biz.”

  “Hmmmm… If he wants to be in the shine business so bad, that’s not a good sign.”

  Dorothy shrugged, “I don’t know. Dax will do his mind voodoo on him to be safe. I’m sure Joan’s crosschecked every event in the kid’s life, you know? If they think he can handle it, the boy’s gonna help Hugo mule shipments down the gauntlet.”

  “Alluring,” said Tara.

  “What?”

  “Alluring is what we do. Not mind voodoo. See, like this. Look into my eyes.”

  Dorothy watched Tara’s pupils dilate and instantly began to feel a pleasant warming pass through her belly into her thighs… then Tara closed her eyes. When she reopened them a moment later, her pupils had returned to normal. The feeling slipped away.

  Dorothy slapped Tara’s knee, “Stop it! You know you’re not supposed to do that.”

  “You didn’t like it?”

  “You’re not that cool.” Dorothy stood and walked to the bedside table. She grabbed her vaporjoint and returned to the mat, “Blend with me? Got a new strain from Purple Tree called The Riptide. 70/30 indica-sativa hybrid. It’s absolutely divine.”

  “Hey, when in Rome,” Tara smiled. “Just don’t tell my mom.”

  An hour along found the girls well buzzed. The early evening thunder continued, occasionally drowning out the bright sounds of their laughter.

  “Oh shit, shit!” said Dorothy. “I totally forgot! Yes, William does look cute in a suit, doesn’t he? That was the only time it’s happened! I wonder how Dax would look in jeans and a cowboy hat?!”

  Tara took another hit off the vaporjoint, trying to suppress a stoned giggle, “Geeky as fuck is how! I don’t think the old man’s ever even worn boots.”

  “Actually, not true,” Dorothy grabbed Tara’s hand, “The day you came to us, Dax put on some brand new insulated overalls, and boots. He took the Solar Mule into the field with William and Hugo to get you, remember? Well, of course you don’t, but you’ve heard the story how many times? I watched him personally carry you home in the Solar Mule!” Dorothy wrapped her arms around herself and looked at Tara with puppy eyes, “Awww… he was so spun up. It was seriously sooo romantic.”

  “Oh golly gee!” Tara feigned a modest expression, looking slightly uncomfortable, “Yeah… they’re good boys. For sure.” She looked up, “Did you know Dax was my first true love?”

  “Oh, come on, you must have a thousand notches in your gun.”

  Tara shrugged coyly, “Well yeah, getting laid maybe. But a relationship? Love? No… he’s the first. For real.”

  “Well, you landed the big boss. And Dax is hot.” Dorothy took another hit off the vaporjoint and passed it back, watching Tara put her lips around the smooth cylinder and inhale, “I’d say we both picked some fine fellas, handsome too. In very, very different ways.”

  Tara pretended to be serious, “Hey, good betties too. We’re fucking awesome.” She looked straight at Dorothy, “You know, I lost my best friend, Layla back in California. A long time ago. You’re all I’ve got now. I seriously don’t think I could do this without you.”

  Dorothy felt her face flush, “You know, I love you too.”

  They held up their glasses and finished off their third pint each, still holding hands.

  Dorothy set her glass on the Oriental rug. She looked into Tara’s eyes and felt the swoon once more. Tara was painfully attractive. Dorothy had thought it before. That evening, as Tara sat before her in a blouse dampened by fresh rain, the thought was no different. Like Dax, her loveliness seemed to transcend gender.

  “Tell me about your star tattoos,” said Dorothy. “They start big at the top then get smaller and smaller at the bottom until they’re just dots.” She reached out and traced the illustration with her finger down Tara’s neck to her shoulder, “I love how they fall like that.”

  Tara looked momentarily sad, then raised her luminescent green eyes, “It’s a drawing Layla did when we were kids. She gave it to me before they sent me away. When I came back from the hospital that first time, her family had moved on to New Miami. It was to keep us apart, I think. I never saw her again. Layla used to say that in the end we’re all just stardust. So I got the tattoo to help me remember that.”

  Without knowing why, Dorothy squeezed Tara’s hand, “I want you to make me.”

  “You want me to make you what?”

  “I want you to make me want it.”

  She pulled Tara close and kissed her, surprising even herself.

  Tara’s response was fluid, elegant. She tasted like raindrops and wind. She relinquished any resistance, parted her lips and let Dorothy’s tongue find hers. Their kissing was sudden and passionate. Dorothy put her hand on Tara’s firm breast and squeezed, eliciting a moan of soft pleasure as her fingers found the nipple and held it tight. Dorothy pulled Tara on top of her, fell back on the oriental rug and opened her legs. The candlelight threw yellow shadows across their skin as they kissed, streaming acid jazz and sounds of thunder mingling perfectly with the fleeing light and the rhythm of their bodies. Dorothy gasped with pleasure. Tara’s hand moved down beneath her tights, between her legs. Her fingers massaged gently at first, moving in a deft circle. Then the wetness came and Tara pushed two fingers inside easily, holding Dorothy’s head to the floor and kissing her exposed neck. Dorothy started to flow, her hips grinding in rhythm, gasping with pleasure. After only a few more seconds the shudder came. She let loose, relaxed completely, covered in a delicate sheen of new, sweet sweat.

  At last Dorothy opened her eyes, feeling surprised as she pushed away and sat up, “What the hell was that?” she said, breathless. “I just said make me want it! You weren’t supposed to allure me!”

  Tara sat back on her heels, putting a finger in her mouth, “Doesn’t taste like I allured you.”

  “Stop it!”

  Tara’s emerald eyes followed every move that Dorothy made like a cat watching its prey, “Oh, relax. I didn’t do anything to you.” She crossed herself, “Cross my heart and hope to sky! It was you this time. Last time we made out it was definitely me. But this time…”

  Dorothy drew her knees to her chest, closing her eyes and shaking off the delirium, “But no, no. I don’t even like girls…” She looked at Tara with a pouting smirk, again reaching for her hand.

  Tara said, “Oh, don’t give me that. Pretty blonde like you? I’m the only betty? Ever?”

  Dorothy shook her hair out of a ponytail and dropped Tara’s hand. She picked up the vaporjoint and took a hit to distract herself.

  “I mean, I’ve kissed girls. I went to college.”

  Tara giggled, “Right. Well, I didn’t. But hey, I promise, the rest of that, beyond the kiss… wasn’t me.”

  Dorothy felt exposed, vital. She crossed her legs and sat up straight, eyes darting around the room at nothing in particular, “Well, we can’t. I mean, we shouldn’t. If the boys found out, they’d freak.”

  Tara rolled her eyes, “Shit. I’m pretty sure the boys would be fine with it. What’s the big deal? Who’s to say we shouldn’t?”

  Dorothy was drunk. She didn’t have to admit anything.

  “We work together. Your boyfriend is
my husband’s boss. My husband is Dax’s best friend!”

  Tara stood effortlessly and sashayed over to the toilet, “Semantics.” She peeked around the glass block half wall while peeing, looking like a lady devil, “Dory baby, someday you’re gonna have to stop being such a piece of carbon. People are gonna tell you what to do forever if you don’t. Drink this, smoke that, float this way. Don’t kiss betties cause you’re not supposed to like it!” Tara grabbed a square of toilet paper and rolled her eyes as she dabbed herself, “Sometimes you just gotta be in the moment, say fuck it. Live and die by the desire of the present. Let nothing else guide you.”

  Dorothy looked at the yoga mat beneath her, “Why? Is that what you do?”

  “Absolutely,” said Tara.

  “So you’re a hedonist?”

  “No. I’m just not afraid to die,” said Tara, standing up.

  “Then why did you fight so hard to escape from Bmod?”

  “Cause going through the slaughterhouse and coming out the other side would be worse than death. Besides, I…”

  Tara’s expression melted away. She stopped talking and pulled her pants up. With vagueness in her eyes, she turned, stared at the north wall, reaching out a hand as though touching an invisible apparition.

  Dorothy frowned, “You alright?”

  Tara walked slowly to the center of the room and brought her index finger to her lips, “Shhhh… Can’t you hear that?”

  Dorothy looked around the apartment. The steady patter of raindrops on the staircase continued outside the door. Lightning flashed beyond the window. Acid jazz still streamed through the com.

  She looked back at Tara, whose expression remained transfixed, “Honey, I can’t hear a thing. You’re freaking me out.”

  Tara slowly turned until she was looking Dorothy in the eye, “Oh shit.”

  “What!?”

  “She’s dying!” Tara said.

  Dorothy exclaimed, “Who’s dying?”

  Tara opened her mouth to speak when a peeling klaxon split the air. A flash of lightning filled the apartment, followed by a sledgehammer of thunder that shook the house. When the thunder abated, the music had muted. The klaxon bleated loudly. Every light in the room burst to full illumination. Tara walked towards the window and looked out, intent, a vague smile turning the corner of her mouth. Then she opened the door and walked out into the rain.

  Dorothy leapt from the floor, ran to the window. She nearly choked. On the far side of the lawn, between the house and woods, sat Coyote One. The cyborg’s single, glowing, blue eye was fixed on their apartment. Tara was already halfway down the stairs.

  Dorothy whispered to herself, “You gotta be…”

  She winced as William’s gruff voice peeled into her combud, “Baby! You okay? We just got an L4 proximity alert!”

  Dorothy snapped from the daze at the sound of her husband’s voice, “I don’t know… we’ve got Coyotes in the back yard! Tara’s in some kinda trance! I gotta get Joan!”

  “Calm down,” said William. “There must be static on the…”

  Dorothy screamed back, “Don’t tell me to calm down! There’s a Coyote in the yard! Just get here!” She tapped her combud, switching streams, “Joan, of all times, don’t be dark now! Please! DOGS units! Help us! Help!!!”

  It had been thirty seconds since Tara walked to the window. Only a lone floodlight on a utility pole between the house and barn illuminated the yard. Dorothy could no longer see Tara through the window. The Coyote, however, remained motionless in a seated position on the far side of the grass near the edge of the woods. Dorothy threw open the door and ran into the rain barefoot, practically flying down the metal stairs.

  There was Tara, walking straight across the lawn as if magnetized to the creature.

  Dorothy screamed, “Tara! Tara! Stop!”

  As Dorothy began to run, Joan’s voice popped into her com, “Dorothy Marie Nichols, please halt. You are in danger. Feral cyborg proximity alert.”

  Dorothy stopped running, aware there was nothing she could do to from that distance, “No shit, Joan! Where the sky are the borgs?”

  Tara was just five meters away.

  “We are here,” Joan said.

  The side door of the barn opened. Seconds later, a howling, black blur erupted from it. FREYA ripped up divots of wet turf as she tore across the lawn towards the Coyote. Even with her speed, she would never make it. Behind her, two more black blurs appeared, SNOTRA and LOFN, red, glowing eyes forming tracers as they accelerated. The DOGS units moved so quickly their forms would have been invisible were it not for the rainfall waking around them as they galloped. Behind them, two security drones buzzed out of the barn rafters, cameras sweeping, sensor arrays coming onstream.

  Dorothy fell to her knees, terror clutching her throat, “No, no, no…!”

  As soon as FREYA had appeared from the barn, in the moments before Tara made contact, Coyote One rolled onto her back. The small gray cyborg tucked her tail between her legs and bent her paws passively forward.

  Dorothy wiped her eyes in disbelief. Tara knelt over the prostrate cyborg and put one hand in its mouth. The Coyote appeared to bite down. FREYA was almost to them.

  At the last second, Tara held up her free hand and screamed, “STOP!”

  FREYA, unable to contain her momentum, leapt over her target. Seconds later, SNOTRA and LOFN skidded to a nearby halt, tearing shallow divots in the wet bluegrass. FREYA circled back, moving faster than Dorothy had ever seen. All three DOGS units encircled Tara Dean, heads titled in confusion, processing conflicting data as she knelt protectively over the Coyote’s body.

  Dorothy ran to them, rain soaked grass sloshing between her toes. She was shocked to see Tara now cradling the animal’s tattered head. One of her fingers was impaled on the Coyote’s incisor. FREYA, SNOTRA and LOFN paced and circled, snarling and confused.

  Dorothy heard Joan’s voice again, “The Coyote unit is no longer a threat. I have a partial relay with its neural net. I repeat, unit is secure.”

  As Dorothy walked up, FREYA, SNOTRA and LOFN turned to face her, forming a line between her and the Coyote.

  Dorothy tapped her combud angrily, “Joan, get these mutts out of my way before I have them melted into routers!”

  The computerized transcription of Joan’s voice was clear and steady, “Dorothy Marie Nichols, as you are fully aware, cyborgs gamma, delta and epsilon function independently. If they are not behaving according to your wishes, I would recommend communicating with your selected mate, William Thomas Angevine. He is the teth…”

  “Oh shut up, Joan!”

  Dorothy cut the com and shouted over the DOGS units, “Tara! Look at me!”

  The rain made a deafening sound pittering against the forest leaves before them.

  Slowly, Tara looked over her shoulder smiling, eyes as black as the space between stars, not even a hint of green.

  She kept her pierced fingertip on the Coyote’s tooth and spoke as if from the far end of a dream, “It’s okay, Dory, it really is… it’s beautiful. I can see their hearts working.”

  Dorothy couldn’t tell in the darkness if it was rain running down her friend’s face or tears. All the same, Tara looked blissful. Blood from her pierced finger reddened the long metal tooth. Coyote One remained on her back. The cyborg was completely motionless with her blue eye now glowing a gentle violet, closer to the pure red of their own Rottweilers’ vidorbs.

  Dorothy was furious that the DOGS units wouldn’t let her pass, and frightened that her friend was acting insane.

  “Are you sure you’re alright? Please, Tara. I’m so scared!”

  Tara closed her eyes and turned her face to the stormy sky, “I’m okay. I promise I’m not insane. She’s come home, Dory. She needs our help.”

  Dorothy tried to go to Tara’s side. The DOGS units again blocked her path, predicting her actions.

  Frustrated, she finally gave up and answered her pinging combud, “I’m here. Yes! I know! Tara let it bite
her! I know, but I’m looking right at her, she’s fine. Joan says it’s under control, the thing’s just laying on its back. Will you please just get here? Yes, I’m fine. No! They won’t let me get close! They’re being very, very bad girls. Just get here, okay? K, you too…”

  She cut the com and looked at her friend, “Tara, honey? Talk to me.”

  Tara kept her face to the sky, “I’m so fine,” she said deliriously.

  “Great. Well, I’m freezing my tits off. I’m going to put some dry clothes on. I’ll get a blanket and bandages. I’ll be right back.”

  Tara’s voice was ethereal as she turned back to Coyote One and began petting its stomach, “No problem…”

  Dorothy ran across the wide open yard back to the farmhouse. SNOTRA and LOFN followed her dutifully all the way up the outside stairs into their apartment. Only FREYA remained outside, protectively circling Tara Dean and the Coyote, unable to suppress the storm of dark, rainy snarls shivering through her chassis.

  March 2081 – One Year Seven Months Before Event.

  “The whole thing stinks,” said William, spinning in the control chair.

  The dolphin’s voice was steady and reassuring, “The individual known as Virgil Benedict is twenty years of age, born in Olathe, Kansas, on January 13, 2061. Facial recognition results adjusted for surgical rebranding: negative. Standard subdermal combud frequency of 5,900 MHz, Ipv7 address 2071:db9:7:3137:9:567:4:2 locked and mirrored for the last 389 days. This individual is an alcohol consumer who publicly supports decriminalization, while simultaneously functioning as a low level CNED informant. However, for those 389 days, his reports have been made to me. Virgil Benedict is psychologically unstable. His original assignment, as directed by CNED, was to gather intel on potential campus recidivists freshly discharged from Greystone Behavioral Modification Hospital. This led to him establishing a friendship with Spencer Robert Hotshine.”

  “This boy needs a swift kick in the dick,” said William. “Who the hell is Spencer Hotshine?”

  “Spencer Robert Hotshine is a custodian at Greystone Behavioral Modification Hospital. His hovcar was stolen by Tara Dean the night of her escape from that facility.”