Aberrant Sentimentals
Sacraments for spawn
Zuri left the lab in a daze, her mind swirling with emotions too complex to untangle. As she trudged home, her steps heavy and her eyes focussed afar, she was oblivious to the three hooded figures moving from shadow to shadow behind her.
She had become increasingly melancholic on the days of the spawn harvests – which was why the Elders had ordered that she be watched – but today her sorrow was palpable, a dark cloud that shrouded her every thought and movement.
The shift that day had started uneventfully enough, with a notification of the date set for her bicentennial cardio-refresh—a routine procedure, but a reminder of her synthetic immortality.
Yet, it wasn't this that troubled her.
Nor was it the lab work involved in that day’s harvest.
In fact, for quite some time now, she’d been able to perform the necessary microsurgery and isolate the spawn’s pluripotent stem cells virtually on autopilot. And she found it an equally mindless task to transfer the separated cells into culture vials and transport them through to the adjoining tissue differentiation and internal organ fabrication labs.
It was only after she’d reached the final stage of the procedure, homogenizing the depleted spawn, and then pumping the resulting slurry through to the Nutri-supplements centre, that the weight of her actions struck home. When she’d logged the details of that day’s batch, batch E-26, her eyes had caught the second label attached to the neck of the flask, which gave the provenance of the cells as sector VX-105.
She was suddenly then overcome with nausea as she registered that the stem cells she’d just harvested had come from spawn created using her own cryogenically preserved ova.
She had always known and accepted that her contributions to the lab's work were part of a greater good, but she had never before appreciated the full implications of her actions. Not only did she now feel remorse for yet another batch of spawn that she’d terminated, she also felt an unbearable sense of personal loss. Wiping away tears, she forced herself to focus, reciting the secret prayers that she would offer later.
***
Back in her living quarters, Zuri changed into her grey uni-dress, still unaware of the hooded figures lurking outside. She prepared and ate her Nutri-meal mechanically, her thoughts drifting elsewhere.
When the ambi-lights along the external walkways later transitioned to evening-blue, she remained fully dressed, waiting for Orren to call.
Orren was a lux engineer responsible for maintaining the sol-lines that ran down from the surface. He and Zuri had first met some twenty-five years earlier while queuing for their third replacement eye fitting. They had straightway hit it off and quickly became close friends, but the stronger bond between them – and the reason for their clandestine evening meetings – had come about only recently.
Together they left Zuri’s quarters and walked hand-in-hand, following the main passageway down toward the pleasure block.
As they passed the Maglev transport hub, however, they each looked about to ensure that no one saw, and quickly ducked down the narrow side-way that led to their local air-scrub facility.
At the facility, Orren keyed the entry code, and they joined their small covert worship group. The group met only after the spawn harvests, each time drawing strength from their forbidden faith.
Tonight, it was Zuri who led the vespers.
“Let us kneel,” she said softly, and the coverts then knelt before a makeshift altar set with two tealights flickering beside a green quartz spawn figurine. “We are as ever grateful, Unseen One,” she began, the others echoing her words. They gave thanks for the science that perpetuated their existence and prayed for the peace of the harvested spawn.
As the coverts then gave their final response and fell to silent prayer, the facility door swung wide, and an inrush of air caused the tealights to extinguish.
In the brief few moments before the Somex darts took effect, the coverts remained conscious just long enough to discern the raised epaulettes and winged faceguards of the three Wardens silhouetted against the soft evening-blue.
***
There was no announcement made of the coverts’ arrest or detainment, and there were very few who knew of their subsequent processing. The Elders simply requisitioned an out-of-cycle supply of neuronal stem cells from the Council of Primes, and Zuri, Orren, and their fellow worshippers were then fast-tracked for a pre-term frontal lobe refresh.
“The offending neurons have been successfully replaced,” the neurosurgeon reported after the operation was done. “And the interconnecting synapses have all been micro-surgically modified to excise all traces of emotion relating to spawn.”
“That’s good,” the Senior Elder said. “The ‘faith’ borne of their aberrant sentimentalism will likely not surface again for another century or so.” He then made to leave but out of idle curiosity looked over the surgical records.
He smiled as he read the record relating to Zuri’s procedure, and the neurosurgeon frowned and quizzically cocked his head.
“It’s nothing of any importance,” the Senior Elder explained. “It’s just that the neuronal stem cells you implanted to correct the female aberrant turn out to have been engineered using the harvest got from batch VX-105, E26.”
Poppets for Kepler
The night would likely get lively later
Snitch-74 had reported that Kepler was now operating out of a Wild Cuisine franchise down in the Red Zone.
The guy had been top of our most-wanted list for as long as I can remember. He was a shape-shifting crime lord, originally from Gliese 12b, with a string of open warrants longer than my inside leg. His green sheet also noted, however, that he was a sucker for a shapely bod.
Naturally, therefore, the case was assigned to me, and JV ordered that I go dressed to kill.
I happily obliged and put on my new figure-hugging electric-blue bodycon that I got from Borkan the Blade; it has a deep diving V-neck that affords an unselfish view down my upper frontage, and a leg slit that stops a touch shy of my g-flaps.
* * *
I took a Zuber over to the Red Zone and instructed the onboard to drop me out front.
When I went in, the maître d’ slithered across the floor to greet me.
“Welcome to Chez Johannes, madam,” he drooled. “Do you have a reservation?”
I told him I didn’t and asked for a table for one.
He gave me an obsequious little smile, briefly consulted the table planner, and then led me across to a corner booth. As I turned and edged in to sit, I could just feel his lecherous little eyes roam all over me.
I said nothing, casually brushed them off, and sat down.
He smiled his obsequious smile again, and left me with the à la carte menu.
* * *
A translucent Lethereen came to take my order, and his umbilically tethered flank rat brought me a complementary Serusian Surprise. I gave them both thanks, but surreptitiously moved the drink to the far side of the table: the spikey-toothed little black things that were moving up and around the drinking straws were clearly amphibious, and looked positively evil.
I did enjoy my main when it came though. The nematode steaks were beautifully bile-green and crispy, and the accompanying Uranian swamp bat guano balls were spiced to perfection.
Given that the night would likely get lively later, I passed on dessert and ordered a mescal caffeinate.
* * *
I was still nursing the last of this, when a tall, craggy-faced humaniform in a cream double-breasted came in through a side door.
“Good evening, sir,” I heard the maître d’ say, and the tall guy just nodded and took a high stool at the bar. As he cast his eyes over in my direction I made great play of stretching and crossing my legs, shaking my hair off my shoulders, and leaning forward to allow him a better view down my V-neck.
After a few repeats of me looking about to admire the decor, then turning to smile at him and him smiling back, he eventually gestured that I go join him at the bar. I took a last swig of my hot toddy, settled the check with the Lethereen, and sashayed over.
We then sat and drank several Pan-galactic cocktails together, with him talking mostly about himself, and me hanging on his every word and giggling at all the appropriate junctures.
Before long he had an exploratory hand on my thigh and a hopeful look in his eyes.
When he suggested we go through to his apartment, I made a pretence of giving thought to his proposition, slowly circled my tongue around to moisten my lips, then coyly followed him over to the side door.
It was a risky play but I had no other option: I needed to be up close and personal for long enough to do a full contact-read of his phenoform to check that he was Kepler.
Our body contact came a lot sooner than I’d expected though because I was barely through into his apartment hallway when he did a quick about-turn, closed the door with his foot, turned me about, and pinned me bodily against the side wall.
I took advantage of the move, pressed my arm into my side to close the axillary mole switch and initiated the contact-read. It wasn’t ideal, of course, given that we were both still wearing clothing, but it would have to do.
In order to maximise the contact and speed the read, I let him run his hands down my back while he nuzzled into my neck, kissing and nibbling my ear lobe.
When his hands then shifted down and went up inside my bodycon, I was too slow to head him off, and he was quick to realise I was wearing a femme-suit – covering appendages not normal on a lady.
He yelled to activate a voice alarm, slammed my head into the wall, pulled back, and drew a proton beam semi-automatic from his waistband.
I sprang forward and knocked him off balance just as he fired.
When he hit the deck, I braced myself against the side wall, squatted down with my legs splayed, parted the g-flaps, and gave a brace of C# whistles to fire out a couple of poppet grenades.
The first whizzed past his head and demolished the hall stand, but the second blew the right side of his face off.
What remained of his head hit the floor with a thud.
I lifted myself up and turned to make my escape just as the maître d’ burst through the door brandishing a ZC60.
I moved back a few paces, simultaneously making a half-turn of the pendant in each of my drop earrings.
As my retractable bra cups then slid back along the underwires, I pulled my V-neck wide, exposing the femme-suit’s pseudo-pups, each of which I squeezed to fire off incendiary streams from the nipple jets.
The maître d’ rapidly went black and crispy.
* * *
Leaving the restaurant, with my “breasts” exposed and deflated, my “nipples” charred and smoking, and a strong smell of cordite rising from my groin, the diners in the window seats stared open-mouthed.
“When my boss says to go dressed to kill,” I said, “I go dressed to kill”.