I-Toys
By William Lee
IX—
My hands were sweating again as I floated up the half-lit shaft—watching Gurney’s feet and five other pairs a hundred feet above me.
The ultra-attractive blonde hadn’t been alone. There had been three more of her—I mean exact copies—waiting for the first to saunter down the accessway with the dark-haired girl.
“Kinky!” Is all the dark-haired girl had said as she’d been pushed inside what was probably her own quarters and the blondes followed her in.
“What do we do?” Gurney had whispered to me as we lightly crouched in a side alcove.
“Nothing,” I had said, “there’s nothing we can do. We have bigger fish to fry and we’ll get fucking caught. Want to suck your own cock?”
Gurney was streetsmart. He knew not to argue.
So, instead, he bounded down the curved hallway and hit the door’s entry chime.
I pushed my back against the hard alcove surface, cursed him silently, and listened intently.
“Can I come in?” He said. I could imagine him rubbing his cock through his shorts to show his true interest.
A sultry, syrupy voice replied, “Sure.”
And the door closed and the hallway was silent except for the sound of filtered air hissing into the space through unseen ductwork.
I just didn’t know what to do—I’ll admit it, I froze. Stark fear bleeding through my brain and into my body with paralyzing juice—like I’d been Neuroned.
In the back of my mind I briefly wondered if Gurney was so much of a pussy-hound that he’d effectively sell his soul for the fuck of his life. Fuck the girl—he wanted fucked. It would fit his profile—always looking to build better Stim, augmentation so he could stay hard longer and come violently, animal nature and all that shit.
But he wasn’t stupid, so I figured he must’ve had a plan.
He didn’t have a plan, I knew, when the door to the girl’s quarters slid open and the blondes escorted Gurney and the girl out and they walked between them away, down the hall.
“Just follow me, Gurney,” one of the blondes said—simultaneously with another blonde saying sweetly, “Just come with me, Diane.”
So they didn’t use the I-toy—the blondes had Neuroned the pair instead. There was hope, it seemed, but not really. Just a delay in the action.
So now we were floating upward together and my hands were sweating—I had remained unseen although I was completely exposed. Being merged with an I-toy, it seemed, didn’t raise your perception of external events. But maybe those protocols just hadn’t been loaded yet.
All six people came to halt in the dimly lit shaft and a moment passed while they waited. I closed in a bit—but not much. I wished I had my StealthSuit and sweated, imagining its closeness on my skin.
The heavy airlock door pivoted back and in and the entourage moved inside. Moving quickly, I followed, careful not to get my legs removed below the knee by the closing door. That would completely ruin my already ruined chances of success.
They had moved into a much larger space, a stories-tall cylinder with many doors set in its inner surface, still zero-gee. One of the tens of doors slid upward and the group floated inside.
Nobody else was in the cylinder—and I hadn’t seen any security.
I moved upward to the unmarked door where they’d taken Gurney and the girl.
It wouldn’t open.
I felt like the jaws of some twisted animal were closing on me.
I was up to my ass in its spit.
But there wasn’t time to contemplate how fucked I was—not yet—because a shadow hit me from below, knocking my body off balance and to the top of the cylinder, against a closed airlock door.
This was it. Dead and not Meat: What a final fucking relief.
“Go inside,” the shadow said in a sultry voice—its shapely feminine curves clearly visible in the bright light of the cylinder.
“Fuck you,” I said, shaken and brave with the strength of the already-croaked.
“Please,” it said, “go through.” As the airlock behind me slid open—and the shadow with a female form pushed me through into darkness—I swore that I’d remember my full name whether I was made into a corpse or into Meat.