Chapter 13
I think about Clem fucking her petgirl Pussy and make a retching sob sound. It’s so fucking unfair! I didn’t even get a chance to be with the one guy I’ve ever really loved because now he’s a freaky space woman who has a sex slave clone of me. A freaky sex slave version of me with a whole bunch of little tits and the ultimate yoga instructor body. How does a plain old Halley compete with that? And anyway what kind of scumbag has a sexpet!?
Fuck him. Her. “And fuck her Pussy too!”
A human couple sporting antlers and dressed in High Fantasy drag startle at my outburst and cross the street, their robotic pram crawling in their wake. Fuck them too.
Why did I ever decided that I wanted to be back with Clem? Why did I think it was going to work out? Nothing ever has before. Why would being in space help? Because aliens!? I snort laugh and snot leaks out of my nose. I’m a fucking mess.
It’s also getting kind of dark. I glance around, I don’t recognize any of the repurposed trash houses. I don’t even know where I am, really. I’ve just been crying and walking, at first just eager to get away from the scene of the crime, but then just wandering.
I bet Hank and Freya are fucking right now too. Assholes.
I stagger into a courtyard surrounded by vacant patchwork offices and sit miserably on a stone stoop. Wind chimes tinkle cheerfully nearby. Asshole chimes. I wipe my snotty face on the sleeve of my jacket, which I realize has grown warmer in the chill of the dusk air. Jacket is okay, I guess. I hug myself and sniffle.
“Halley, are you okay?”
I startle and blink my teary eyes. Hovering silently in the air above me is a reflective silver sphere of metal about the size of a basketball. A Grey drone.
“Do I look okay!? And what the fuck do you want?”
The drone drifts a little lower and suddenly I am joined by an ethereal projection of myself, Halley rendered in light, nude but for tasteful retro voxelation and smoothed over genitals. She looks at me with an expression of genuine concern, “I want to make sure you’re okay and maybe help get you somewhere safe.”
“What the fuck is this?” Why is a Grey drone projecting me. “Who the fuck are you?”
“I’m HAL-E, and I’m a gh-gh-ghost!” Then hologram does the creepy hands and smiles a perfectly Halley smile, watching to see if her goofy joke landed. It didnt.
“I’m not in the mood for corny jokes,” I grumble.
“Of course you are,” HAL-E replies brightly, “nothing cheers you up more than a goof. I sometimes think it was like, half the appeal of Clem.” The hologram shrugs, “Besides it wasn’t really a joke. I’m the digital ghost of Halley-8.”
I frown, curious despite myself “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Halley-8 died. I’m her uploaded digital consciousness, the ghost in the machine.”
“Fuck.”
“Yeah, it’s something,” HAL-E shrugs, “but it beats the alternative.”
I guess it does at that. “Why are you being projected by an alien drone?”
“I’m the human Interface Agent for the Grey administrative AI cluster.”
I blink my eyes.
“The Greys are bad at humans, and Blues, and well, most planar species. They have issues conceptualizing how our minds work. The administrative AI cluster, the supercomputers and sentient intelligences that monitor the planet for contraband and also, like, run the city, are basically super mathy Grey minds. They are also bad at people.” HAL-E rolls her holographic eyes, “So bad at people! But anyway, to help administer the city the Grey have uploaded minds from different species to basically serve as cultural translators. And I’m the human Interface Agent.”
“So you’re like, what? The Grey’s automated call router?”
HAL-E laughs, “I like to think of myself more as Help software. But maybe I’m just the supercomputer Babel Fish for our Alien Overlords?”
“So you’re Software? Jesus.”
“Well, I mean, it’s more complicated than that. The parts of me that are modeled on Halley-8 are a kind of program, but I am also the hardware Nodes in the AI Spercluster dedicated to HAL-E Stuff. Not to mention all of the networked drones and devices that are running some amount of my consciousness at any given moment. Which means I’m kinda the result of a complex adaptive algorithm network running on a particular cognitive strata. Which if you think of the human brain as a meat computer, means I’m basically the same as you.”
“But computers are artificial...”
HAL-E sticks out her tongue, “So’s the human brain, Earthling.” Touche, I’d forgotten about that.
“You sound really smart,” I sniffle while wiping my nose on my sleeve again.
“It helps when your brain is an alien supercomputer.”
“So you aren’t really human anymore?”
“No, I’m something else. I still have a human personality and can understand and emphasize with people, but I’m also loads smarter now. Plus I’m running on Grey technology and part of my mind is built on their AI framework, so I can understand and communicate with them too. I’m sort of a hybrid mind.”
“What’s different?”
HAL-E grins, “Well I’m a total Maths wiz now.”
I frowned, I’ve never been a slouch at Math. I was even top of the class at St Ursula’s. “But...”
HAL-E rolls her eyes in a perfect Halley emulation, “Inhumanly good at Maths now. I can also run in parallel, which means I can be in multiple places at once, with different instances of me doing different things, all sort of linked together by a central me. It’s like the ultimate multi-tasking.”
“So what else are you doing right now?”
“Well I’m checking up on you, keeping an eye on a little girl who is running her first errand for her dads, leading some medics to an elderly woman who had a fall, chatting with a Scavenger troupe while the AI inspects the weird thingy they found in the Junk Desert, keeping tabs on this shitbag drug dealer I kind of hate, providing spooky sound effects for a teen trying to scare her friends (which isn’t working because they know about holograms), having a movie day off with one of my girlfriends,” HAL-E smiles rakishly, “and having sex with a dozen sapients. Among other things.”
“You have sex?”
“Oh yeah! I’m networked with dozens of sex toys, especially dildos and fleshlights I’ve distributed around the city. I get sensations from whenever they’re used, just like the real thing.” She smiles lustily and I blush.
“Do people know?”
“Some sapients know I’m in the toy and think it’s fun and kinky. I even have some actual relationships where I’ll holographically embody for sex and hanging out and stuff.” HAL-E Winks, “And a lot of people need to be better about reading their End User Agreement!”
“That’s a bit intrusive...” I manage.
HAL-E shrugs, “Do you really think it’s any better on Earth? I’m only in it for the orgasms, not the Big Data and lube advertisements. Besides, I’m already up in everyones business: I’m pretty much constantly watching humans to help the AI decide if something is normal behaviour or a problem, like distinguishing between someone shouting for joy and someone crying out in pain. So if I’m already being a total creep, why not get laid too? Plus I give the sex toys out for free and they are very fancy.”
“So you’re happy then?”
HAL-E shrugs again, then nods, “It definitely beats the alternative.”
“Speaking of the alternative,” I say, feeling like a jackass, “how did Halley-8, how did you die?”
HAL-E makes a very serious face.
“Sorry!” I say, “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable!” Why did I ask that? Obviously you don't ask an uploaded consciousnesses how they died. Right?
HAL-E shakes her head “It’s okay. It’s just not a fun story, Halley.” The hologram takes a simulated deep, practiced breath. “I killed myself.”
I nod, not really all that surprised.
HAL-E frowns, “When I first woke up here, everything was great. It felt like a chance to start over as a brand new me. Literally even. But things got bad with Clem and then I had some bad experiences in the city and so I went to the Dark Place.”
The Dark Place, the name I have for the worst depression. In College I went to the Dark Place, feeling shitty and bailing on friends, then skipping classes, then locking myself in my dorm room for days at a time... Just too empty to do anything. It was like being filled with a kind of Soul Fog. It was this Dark Place depression that ended College and sent me hiding in the Trailer Park. I nod at HAL-E, feeling like I should hug her but not sure how that would even work with a hologram.
“Flotsam City isn’t a place with a lot of resources for mentally ill humans and Hank hadn’t set up his home for wayward Halley’s yet, so I ended up in a Breakyard. A lot of the most valuable salvage in the Junk Desert are components. A big broken alien flight computer is basically worthless, but the platinum wire or quantum memory crystals or whatever inside of it are pretty valuable. So Flotsam has factories where sapients spend their days breaking down weird space junk to pull out the best pieces. The Reptilian Syndicates run the biggest operations, filled with Indentured sapients working off their debts, and the Ürnaut penal camp has their prisoners Break as part of their punishment. But there are also tons of smaller workhouses that provide two hots and a cot in exchange for hours of taking apart weird salvaged tech. Down on my luck and depressed, I ended up in The Workhouse for Wayward Young Women.” HAL-E shook her head, “Every day I would wake up, eat some nutrient paste gruel, spend tennish hours mindlessly taking apart weird metal boxes in a fugue, eat more nutrient paste and sleep the rest of the day away. Repeated over and over and over in a total fog. It went on for weeks, maybe months. I lost track of time. I became totally robotic.”
“I was subsisting, but things just didn’t get better. I couldn’t see a way out of the Workhouse or out of my depression. And so I decided it was time to end it.” The Hologram winces, “I climbed the Mesa up into the Terraces and walked to a mansion I’d visited with Celm for a gala once. I remember that It had the best view of the city I’d ever seen because it stood on the lip of a good tall cliff. When I got to the Terrace mansion, I walked into it’s beautiful gardens, climbed up onto the little wall at the cliff edge, stepped out of my shoes, and threw myself off.”
HAL-E’s face is calm, “At first, as I fell, I didn’t really feel anything. Maybe relieved I didn’t have to go back to the Breakyard, but not really happy. But then, as the ground rushed up at me, something happened. I stopped falling... but no, it just seemed like that. I was still falling, just imperceptibly slowly, my hair lashing my face in bullet time, the world around me still and quiet, drones and fliers hanging motionless in the air, rotors and turbines almost static. And then a silver ball, a Grey drone, flew into view and matched its velocity to my glacial fall. ‘Halley, you have decided to kill yourself,’ a monotone male voice had said.” HALL-E’s voice modulates to match the pitch of the voice.
HAL-E’s voice returns to normal, “‘Yes’, I responded too calmly, able to speak normally despite my bulletime fall.”
“‘Why have you done this?’ The voice had asked, puzzled.”
“‘Because I am too unhappy to fix. I’m already broken.’”
“‘What if We were able to mend your cognition? Repair the fault in your brain/mind/psyche that causes this depression/unhappiness?’”
“I snorted a laugh then, falling to my death. ‘You make it sound so easy.’”
“‘We did not intend to. This repair will require great effort on Our part and will cost you dearly as well.’”
“‘It’s not as though I have much to lose,’ I had grinned despite myself, ‘I’m not really in a great bargaining position.’”
“‘We are aware.’”
“‘I accept whatever your terms are. Please save me!’”
“‘We do not intend to save your life,’ the voice had replied. The Voice laid out the bargain, explained that he was the liason between the Grey and Flotsam humans, but that he had evolved and become too removed from his humanity to effectively serve his purpose. He needed a replacement, and he’d been watching me because he thought I could make the transition. When he observed me throw myself off the cliff, he knew he had an opportunity. The fact he didn't recognize this was super shitty probably confirms he was right about being too inhuman. Ultimately, I accepted the deal.”
HAL-E smiled a tight little smile, “so my mind was scanned and recreated, molded and fused with the Grey AI core, and reconfigured to function in my new role while still being essentially myself. As a bonus my cognition was slightly altered to fix my anxiety and depression. I haven’t been mentally ill since.” The hologram chewed her lip and looked guilty, “I have no memory of the original me, Halley-8, hitting the ground. Sometimes I wonder what she was thinking right there at the very end.”
“Holy shit,” I say, tears in my eyes. It’s not like I, well, Halley-Prime hadn’t considered suicide before, about maybe climbing to the top of the brutalist waffle of the admin building and jumping. But to hear a clone of myself go through with it was like being visited by a time traveling holographic ghost. My heart aches for her. “I’m so sorry,” I say and hug at the hologram, almost falling over as I pass through her projection.
HAL-E giggles, “It’s okay. I’m still here and I won’t ever feel like that again. I think Halley-8 would have taken that deal even without the whole impending splattery demise thing. Besides, with my new role I can do a lot of good. I help people as much as my prerogatives allow and I keep a special eye out for humans in distress or showing signs of mental illness and try to intervene.” HAL-E gives me a meaningful look, “And I watch out for Halleys.”
“So you’re like my gaurdian angel?”
“I prefer digital spirit guide. But seriously, if you are ever in trouble or distress: you aren't alone. I love you and can help you, okay?”
I nod, “Okay.”
“So how about we get you back to Hank’s, hey?”
I sigh, I don’t really want to go back to my closet cot and maybe listen to people fuck loudly. “What can you tell me about Halley-Prime’s disappearance?”
HAL-E rolls her holographic eyes at my delay tactic, “Not much, really. Wherever she went, it happened before I was uploaded and my predecessor basically didn’t give a shit about humans so his observations were spotty. Plus Prime was surprisingly good at avoiding Coverage, almost like the Grey were turning a blind camera to her or she was being scrubbed out of the sensorium later.”
“Wouldn’t you know if the Grey had some sort of deal with her?”
“No, I might be a fully adultish human, but I’m still a baby AI. They only show me what I need to know for my job or what I can understand. Besides, even if the Grey did know something about Halley-Prime, I probably wouldn’t be able to tell you.”
I frown, “How come?”
“There are privacy rules that I’m unable to violate because of my, well, programming. Think of it as an NDA that is hardwritten into my mind.”
“That’s fucked.”
“The Grey take their seclusion seriously,” HAL-E shrugs, “it’s not all that different than what people sign on Earth in a tech company, just way easier to stick to. Plus, y’know the whole not being dead thing. So if you want to know what the Grey actually know, you’ll have to ask them yourself.” HAL-E frowns and pauses. She pinches the bridge of her holographic nose and sighs, “This really isn’t a great time for this, but I’m compelled by my programming to tell you that you are invited to the Grey Citadel...”
“Me? Why?”
“I literally cannot say,” HAL-E says, frowning in a cloud of angry voxels. “For the record, I don’t think you should do this right now. You are clearly upset and... I don’t think you should go.”
I look up the Mesa, just making out the edge of the silver globe at its top, reflecting the last rays of the sunset. A trip to the Overlords compound, something Hank says pretty much never happens. Maybe not since Halley-Prime visited them. It could be a chance to find out what the Grey know. And if nothing else it would be a distraction from, well, everything. “I can ask them about Halley-Prime?”
HAL-E nods, clearly displeased with the question. “You can.”
“And they’ll honestly tell me what they know?”
“I cannot say.”
“Okay.” A burp of anxiety, “And they won’t hurt me or hold me prisoner or anything?”
“You will not be harmed and will be allowed to leave at any time. Someone in the Citadel wants to meet you, and you will be treated as a guest.” HAL-E is scowling.
“Who are they?”
“I cannot say.”
I chew my lip, indecisive as the holographic woman stands and paces angrily. This is a terrible idea, but I want to go. Sometimes you just gotta keep moving. “I appreciate the advice and you looking out for me, but I think I want to go.”
HAL-E stops pacing and sighs, “I was afraid you were going to say that.” She shrugs her shoulders and dissolves into a cloud of voxels. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you...”
The grey drone swings up into the air expanding from a basketball sized ball of silver to a sphere slightly larger than me. “Go stand in the middle of the courtyard,” HAL-E’s voice instructs me.
I get up from the stoop and stumble into the middle of the space between buildings. The Grey drone hangs for a moment and then drops onto me. I yelp and throw my arms up, but the drone flows around me, and I find myself standing inside a perfectly hollow sphere, blinking stupidly at my wildly distorted reflection on the concavity of the mirrored walls. I feel a sense of momentum shift and I stumble on the curved floor of the sphere. It must be moving. Abruptly the walls of the expanded Grey drone become translucent, leaving me feeling suspended in the air above a sunset Flotsam City. I gasp when I see how quickly the drone is moving: it is really hauling ass. My ass.
I look up the Mesa as the Grey Citadel comes unto view. From below it looks like a giant blob of mercury, but as we crest the top of the Mesa I can see that it is a perfectly round silver sphere, sitting on the smoothed mesa summit like a marble on a tabletop. Despite being the size of an avante garde university library, I almost feel like I could get it rolling, push it right off the Mesa. The drone hangs in the air for a moment and then I yelp as it explodes into motion, racing directly at the Citadel. I drop to my butt and raise my arms, bracing for impact, and the drone smoothly merges into the wall of the Citadel leaving me sitting on the floor of a perfectly round tunnel with unsettlingly mirrored walls.
Shakily I climb to my feet, awkward with the curved floor, and stumble forward, since that seems to be the only way to go.
I walk for a few moments? Minutes? Time is hard to track in here...
There is a flash of bright white light...
***
(Hi there! If you skipped ahead it is safe to start reading again. To catch you up: Halley-24 was very upset and HAL-E, the uploaded consciousness of Halley-8 checked up on her. HAL-E is the human interface agent for the Grey and spends her time observing humans, piloting drones, helping people, and embodying sex toys. Through her, Halley is invited into the Grey Citadel, she accepts, and now here she is walking in an alien tunnel.)
***
I blink my eyes open and my clothes are gone. Instead I’m wearing a worryingly skintight outfit of silver material. Metal? Skin? It’s warm and slightly taut like good athleticwear and covers me from my throat to my wrists and ankles. My bare feet are cool against the concave metal floor. I know I should be upset by this, but somehow I’m not.
I take a deep cleansing breath, air cool and oddly scentless, and keep walking along the tunnel.
The air fills with a hum that I can feel but not hear, and it begins to syncopate with a resonance that I experience as a strobing light, even though nothing visually changes...
***
Cut scene and I’m aware again, still barefoot in a circular tunnel. The skin of my arms and legs is goosebumped since my silver clothing skin has shrunk to a swimsuit, leaving my limbs bare. I shiver, breath steaming in the abruptly frigid air. My mind feels fuzzy and I rub my face, surprised to not feel my hair. Fingers trace with profound tactile sensation up to my scalp and I learn my silver swimsuit has a tight hood, leaving only my face exposed. I hold myself, rubbing my arms for warmth and continue walking along the tunnel.
***
I slowly come back into focus, as if from a fog. Or is it fugue? I am now encased almost entirely in silver material, everything but my face coated in a mercury skin. I swear I can feel it slowly flowing over my body, like the tides of my own personal ocean. I find it comforting? I blink and I can hear sound again, noticing my deafness only upon its absence. What else am I missing that I don’t even realize? It is nice to hear again.
I look around and see that I’m approaching a crossroads, a place where another tunnel bisects my own. I hear footsteps, clicking cheerfully like a tap dancer. I stop and patiently wait while six Grey aliens march past, the first few without even glancing at me. They are kind of cute, short like children and wearing tight suits that sparkle purple, pink, red, blue, green and orange. Their heads are enormous, great grey teardrops of rubbery looking skin. The final one in the troop turns to look at me, its small mouth a grim line, its slit nostrils flaring. I look into its huge black eyes and see a perfect darkness that I could just fall int....
***
I am alone again in a tunnel, the air uncomfortably warm and humid, a small stream of bathtub hot water trickling in the bottom of the circular space. Sweat beads on my body, which is naked now, except for my arms and legs, which are encased in long gloves and tall boots of silver skin. My distorted reflection on the tunnel wall looks like a kinky carnival version of myself. I wink and giggle, strangely giddy. I skip along the tunnel, splashing, and snickering, until I find myself in a widening, a kind of antechamber lined with translucent bulges. I stop and peak into the first pod and see a sleeping form. It is a Grey, large eyes closed, silver tubes inserted into its nostrils, body held aloft by something that I can’t see but can feel as a vibration in my guts. Its jumpsuit, I notice, is a porcelien white, neutral instead of the joyfully gay suits of its wakeful compatriots. I tiptoe to the next pod and see another Grey in stasis, its own suit also neutral and white. I wonder if that’s a thing. I stare at this Grey’s face, so relaxed and peaceful in slumber. I reach up and touch the translucent membrane of the pod with my silver coated hand and the Grey’s eyes instantly snap open and stare into mine, stare into me, stare through me, and I feel a great pressure on my thoughts a buzzing in my mind and...
***
I am standing in the tunnel again, my silver garment reformatted to be thigh high boots, opera gloves, and a shoulderless evening dress made of brilliant quicksilver. My hair is pulled up in an elaborate updo, strung up with silver tendrils. I step forward, the heels of my boots clicking on the floor, and step into a huge, cathedral like space. The chamber is shadowy, broken only by streams of light from spotlights at the apex of high vaulted ceiling domes. A narrow, blessedly smooth catwalk fills the centre of the room like an aisle, while the surrounding floor is made of large bumps like the interference pattern of standing waves. As I watch, I can see the floor imperceptibly moving, undulating in slow motion. I take a few cautious steps into the room, my boots echoing in the space.
<Welcome, Halley-24.>
I startle and stop, look around.
<It’s quite alright.>
I realize that I’m not actually hearing the words out loud, but instead experiencing the voice in my mind. And this voice ‘sounds’ a lot like me. “Who is it?” I ask, aware of but not actually feeling dread.
A sense of mirth washes over me, <I’m Halley-7. I’m very pleased that you accepted my invitation.> A burst of bubbly happiness.
“Where is here, exactly?”
<As you’ve no doubt surmised, we are within the Grey Citadel. This is a kind of art gallery and cultural exchange. I am a kind of curator and ambassador... as well as artwork. We feel, the Artist and I, that the time is right to welcome others to view our project. We have decided you, with your freshest of eyes, would be an appropriate first guest.>
“I’m honored?” What does she mean by artwork? And why is she speaking in my mind? I should be completely flipping out, and yet my fear is held apart from me, wrapped in a kind of mental blanket.
<If you would step this way.> I feel a compulsion, a sense of where I ought to go. I nod and respectfully walk deeper into the gallery, heels clicking.
I stop at the opening of a side space, a smaller sphere forming a kind a chapel off of the central knave. At first it’s hidden by unnaturally deep shadows, but then a light beams down from the ceiling illuminating a bizarre tableau. I gasp and bring a silver gloved hand to my mouth. The chapel floor is a shallow wading pool, filled to the brim with an opaque white liquid that smells faintly of milk. Floating lazily in this saucer are two round spherical objects, but slightly oblong, deformed by the weight of gravity. They make me think of a racey poster belonging to Trailer Park Snakeguy of a naked woman laying in a bathtub of milk, her tits breaking the surface like islands. I realize I’m looking at giant breasts, creamy freckled tits, each the size of a large bean bag chair. At the apex of each giant boob is a wide red-pink areola, bumpy and wrinkled, but instead of a nipple, there is a woman’s face coated in areola skin. Instead of hair, milk streams over each woman’s head, but not straight down, instead flowing unnaturally to form bangs and the ringlets of impeccably styled hair, that then trickles quite naturally down the breast body into the milk filled wading pool of the chapel. The tit-women smile coyly at me and speak to each other in a gibberish that I can’t translate. “What the fuck? What am I looking at?”
<This is is our first artwork. It is untitled.>
***
I am seated in the throne room, mindful of my posture, ribs crushed by my ceremonial bodice. I straighten my back and adjust my skirts, being sure to align the green glowtubes woven into the matte black fabric. Who decided royalty had to wear such uncomfortable clothing? I should have them executed! Not that I shall ever hold enough of the throne for that kind of thing... I smother an unbecoming frown and glance at my twin sister. She peeks back at me out of the corners of her eyes, raises her auburn eyebrows ever so slightly, and I repress a giggle. Fuck the Sovereign, I love that girl. I don’t expect I’d be able to get through all of this without her.
A bass rumble of official music drops and the laser portcullis snaps off. The official business has arrived. How wonderful. The first through the gate is a harsh looking man, angular and scarred, wearing a spotless grey minimalist uniform. He is escorted by an honour guard of soldiers wearing sleek grey armour with black visors. Their jackboots click loudly on the black glass floor as they assemble into a tidy formation and snap into rigid martial attention. “Presenting,” the electronic courtier announces, “The AllCommander of the Iron Colonies!”
A second bass rumble sounds and a second retinue enters, this one lead by a nude woman wearing only a harness of bells who skips and tumbles and laughs. Plodding in her wake is a hugely obese man, dressed in a bright red doublet and hoes worn under a black ceremonial shoulder-padded blazer and long necktie. The rest of the group is a mixed entourage of rakishly dressed business dandies and intimidating war lawyers. The lawyers form a defensive ring around the fat man, while the dandies loaf about with terrible posture. The glowtube tapestries reflect gaily from their golden tie clips, cufflinks, and decorations. “Presenting, the Chief Executive Prince of the Outer Monopoly!”
I keep my face blank as my mind whirls: what are these two men doing here? The Iron Colonies and Outer Monopoly are at war! I know that my brother, the Monarch Alluvar-Glorious IX, has been negotiating with both parties since his recent ascent to the throne. He wishes for military assistance from the AllCommander and finances from the CEP to help undercut the Reptilian Syndicates greymarket... but to have them both here together is surely madness! Unless... no! He wouldn’t, would he? I glance at my sister, seeing the dawning fear reflected in her eyes.
The Monarch stands to the dub of a base drop, his glowtubes blazing blue for attention. “Dear guests, thank you for joining us on this happy occasion! We are overjoyed to welcome you into an alliance born of blood. AllCommander of the Iron Colonies, to you we grant the hand of our dear sister Maxel-Brilliant to you in marriage. CEP of the Outer Monopoly, to you we grant the hand of our dear sister Maxel-Celestial in marriage. May the ties of alliance now become the ties of brotherhood.” Our ruler brother smiles, “Welcome to the family.”
I stifle a scream of anguish, face still a regal mask. This is unacceptable! A political marriage was always our fate, but not to sworn enemies! My sister and I were to remain together, traveling together between our obligations, family to the end! But this could never be allowed if we were married off to these two. Even now, I can see our betrothed glaring at each other, their soldiers and lawyers fingering their weapons and battle motions. Breaking protocol, I look directly at my sister, seeing her stare back, rage and determination reflected in her eyes.
***
“Fuck the Monarch!” My sister snaps, pulling her pinched finger out of the scrap motor we are disassembling. I giggle at her and she pokes out her tongue.
We have fled to this filthy stye of a planet known as Flotsam, forsaking our titles and shirking our responsibilities. But Fuck the Monarch, fuck him for putting us in such an impossible situation. Our father, Preserve his Legacy, would never have done this to us. I entertain thoughts of a combined regicide-fratricide and...
My face is struck by a small metal fastener. I glare at my sister and she laughs. “Be in the moment sister,” She chides, “And get back to work!” I poke my tongue out at her and return to the task at hand.
We are working and living in one of the interminable Workhouses of Flotsam. Instead of gowns and glowtube jewelry, hocked for petty Currencies, we are clad in heavy synthetic coveralls and rubber coated cloth gloves. Our auburn hair, once elaborately braided now is gathered in tangled topknots. In place of subtle scents and shimmering makeup, our freckled skin is grubby and reeking of machine oil. We are two elegant princesses turned into twin laborers, pulling apart some piece of garbage for the catalytic platinum panels within. “Fuck the Monarch!” my sister yells, pulling out her once again pinched hand and shaking it. I laugh, so happy to be free and on this adventure with her.
***
I am laying on my bunk cot, exhausted from a day of menial work, fingers still throbbing from that Queen’s Cock of an engine. I stare at the bunk above me and the depression my sister makes in her cot. My mind is racing. “Sister,” I say quietly, “what are we going to do about... them.”
My twin hangs her head over the side of her top bunk, her loose hair hanging in a copper cascade. “I am not sure,” she admits in a whisper, lest she wake our slumbering coworkers. The man they bribed at the space port had sent word of the arrival of an efficient Iron Colonies Destroyer and a flamboyant Hostile Takeover Logistics Vehicle on Flotsam. Which meant that the mesa city was probably already crawling with Special Forces and Tactical Process Servers, the minions of our betrothed already hot on our trail. My sister and I had worked hard to keep a low profile, but Flotsam was a small world and we are, after all, identical twin redheads. “Maybe we could employ a Shaper, forsake being twins for a while...”
My heart sinks, to compromise our identity, our sameness, even in the name of practical security, felt like a defeat, a capitulation. “I’d rather we didn’t.”
“I know,” she whispers, “besides, I’m not sure we could really afford a Shaper right now anyway.”
“There simply must be something we can do?”
“What about the dream?” The dream we had both been having, night after night, where a warm voice that tells us it can offer us sanctuary, a way to be safe and together for all eternity. It seemed too good to be true, a contagious fantasy of our twin subconscious. Such a shared delusion was the only reasonable explanation. We might be princesses but this was no fairy tale. It just couldn’t be real, could it? My sister reads these thoughts in my eyes, “What if it *is* real?”
***
I am standing naked in a strange alien throne room and holding my sister’s hand. She smiles at me nervously and I smile back. The voice in our heads instructs us to stand in the center of the chamber, and we comply. Anything to be together, free and safe.
“I love you,” she says.
“I love you too,” I say.
And a blinding light drops over us and everything changes...
***
I blink my eyes and I’m myself again, Hayley of the 24th variety, looking at twin sisters turned into lactating breast creatures. Tears sting my eyes and I smile at them, happy that they’re still together. They smile back and say something I can’t understand while a psychic whiff of gratitude brushes my mind. They have become a living testament to love and family, if a truly bizzaro one. Why are they a huge pair of boobs? And how is this, what was the phrase, ‘Cultural Understanding’? This place is too weird...
<Please proceed to the next artwork.> I understand new instructions and follow my innate sense of where to go.
I walk past empty chapel alcoves, my heels clicking loudly on the smooth path which forms just ahead of me on the glacially undulating waveform floor. Instinctively I turn to face another side chamber shrouded in artificial feeling darkness. I pause there, smoothing the front of my silvery dress and wait. A light descends to illuminate a mass of flesh resting on a raised pedestal. I frown. It is a giant scrotum, wrinkled but hairless, large enough to fit a couch inside. I stare at it and notice it’s moving, writhing like there is something animate inside. The overhead light fades and is replaced by intense backlighting behind the giant nutsack. The harsh light makes the balls semi-translucent and silhouettes two humanoid forms within the pink envelope of the scrotum. They are fucking doggy style.
<This is is the second artwork. It is also untitled.>
***
I am perched invisibly against a concrete wall, the adhesion cleats on my shoes and gloves clinging to the building substrate. I am sweating inside the sheath of my stealth suit; this might be a temperate world, but thermal masking means stewing in my own waste heat. I silently groan in discomfort, my muscles ache and this stupid suit really pinches my balls. I try to subtly stretch within the motion limits of my cloaking field, but it doesn’t quite satisfy me at all. I genuinely hope the target arrives soon.
I am guarding the fortified Advanced Technology Research Laboratories, a stout concrete warehouse in a campus of glass walled offices and evergreens. My mission is to prevent the Target from capturing the Objective, a device discovered in orbit around the junkyard planet of Flotsam and brought to the ATR Labs for study. In my visor I review the sensorium of the security system, algorithms rapidly performing facial recognition checks. The Target could look like anyone, in effect be anyone, so human vigilance is required. I pause the cycle of faces on a handsome man with curly hair, a young material engineering professor entering the building. He is an approved visitor on the project, but at this time of day he habitually visits a pretty chemistry researcher with whom he is having an affair. A quick review of their private digital correspondence reveals banal sexts and a promise to meet in “the glass blowers workshop ;)”. I check the cam feeds, and spot the young professor, face pinched in pleasure as he receives a different sort of blower’s workshop. Nice. Which makes this young materials engineering professor a fraud. Excellent, Target acquired.
I spin around on the building, reduce the adhesion force of my gloves and boots, and slide silently down the wall. My executive control of the lab network fizzes out, attacked by a pack of viral infiltration programs. I trigger my own counter phage, aware that the ensuing digital battle will take minutes to resolve. Until then the network is out of play. I smile inside my cowl, I am dealing with a real operative. My feet strike the ground. The hunt is on.
I sprint to a fire escape door, the start of my preplanned route to the Objective. Every door, lock, lift, and camera along the route has been recruited, airgapped from the building network, and slaved to my own covert one. Flying up a flight of stairs, I check the feed from the inner vault, and find the Objective undisturbed. The Target must still be on route. Rounding a corner I launch my small fleet of cam drones, and I smile as I see a blur of motion in designate Route 3. I slow slightly, taking a moment to prepare myself for Hard Contact with the Target. I smile. Things are about to go Kinetic.
As I approach the Vault my feed of its interior suddenly dies. The Target has reached the Objective. I position myself for an intercept, and, idly curious, start a timer. Just how good is the Target?
Hardly twenty seconds elapse, a respectable time, and the Target emerges from the vault carrying a hardened steel case and wearing tactical goggles. They can see through my cloaking shroud. I launch a paralytic flechette from a wrist gauntlet, while the target simultaneously shoots me with an electrified bola. My dart is harmlessly caught by nanomesh armour hidden under their lab coveralls. The bola hits me, winding tight around my legs and shocking me with thousands of volts. I collapse, systems fried out, heart in cardiac arrest. Contingency systems activate, pumping me full of pain meds and deploying an emergency defibrillator, restarting my heart. I sit up and free myself from the bola wires with a diamond bladed cutter. The Target has the Objective and a 30 second head start. I grin. Things are definitely Kinetic.
***
I am sitting naked on the bed of a beautiful woman, still bleeding slightly from my wounds.
I am still wearing the body of the handsome engineering professor whose identity I assumed to reach the Objective, although now it is beaten, burnt, and lacerated from a three day running battle. Things had gone Kinetic, which is not ideal as far as covert operations go, but in the end I managed to get offworld with the Objective and bring it here to Flotsam for my scheduled rendezvous. I escaped despite running into much more talented resistance than I was briefed to expect. I smirk a little in pride. Although, the Adversary had allowed me to reach the Objective before intercepting; it was as if they wanted things to go Kinetic, like a game. I smirk again, it had been quite exhilarating.
The woman in the room with me, the Resource, is wearing an oversized cotton sweatshirt fastened in the front by an archaic metal teeth fastener and tights that hug her digitigrade legs and tail. Her beautiful face moues in concentration as she examines my injuries. She tucks her silver hair behind her ram-like horns. “You poor thing,” she says quietly, tracing her elegant hands over my skin, spreading warm tingles that smooth over my wounds and burns and replace them with healthy skin. This is not the first time I have experienced Shaping, but the casual ease with which the Resource repairs me is incredible. I must look agog. The resource giggles and springs my curly hair playfully, “I like a clean canvass before I paint.”
I lay flat and the Resource draws her sweatshirt sleeves up to her elbows and sets to work. A pleasant warmth fills my body as I am shaped into a new Identity. The Resource hums tunelessly but beautifully as she works, her tail twitching behind her. As the well muscled body of the engineer softens, my mind wanders, thinking about the Objective sitting safe in its steel and booby trapped case. It is a circlet of scratched, slightly oxidized steel containing an elaborate lattice of electromagnetic crystal and exotic tech. Despite it’s damaged appearance it still apparently functions, miraculously still intact despite languishing in orbit around Flotsam before being recovered and shipped offworld for study. Control, my Psychic Command Officer, did not brief me on what the Objective does or why it is in such demand, but I am a curious little Agent and it was a small thing to hack the records at the ATR Labs. The Objective is a psychic device, a machine that allows normal Humans to read the minds of others, even without the rare inborn psychic gift. I think of my time with Control, the uncomfortable feeling of him probing my mind to verify the truth of my Identity and to record my every action and thought. I frown and purse my now fuller lips, I am not convinced this device is a good thing, but I am just an Agent. My thoughts return to my body as the Resource remolds my genitals, the pleasant feeling of Shaping becoming intense as my now erect penis sinks into my body reforming into a clitoris and vagina. Despite my discipline I orgasm. The Resource grins at me impishly, “What do you think?”
I climb uncertainly to my feet, feeling the bounce and sway of breasts, cool air in the gap between my thighs. I examine my reflection in the holographic mirror. I am absolutely gorgeous. The Resource has remade into a ravishing raven haired woman, with long curly hair, and a truly improbable figure. I strike a sexy pose, chest out, and smoulder. Being this woman would be fun, but altogether too risky. “I love it,” I say in a breathy contralto, “but it’s a bit much for the Mission.”
The Resource pouts, “What were you thinking?”
I raise a perfectly sculpted black eyebrow, “I’m aiming for someone less attention getting and more anonymous. Picture the most competent person in an office, the woman who actually gets things done but is otherwise essentially ignored. She cares about appearances for the sake of professionalism, but is too efficient to spend too much time on it.” The Resource nods along and starts to gently touch me here and there, tweaking my body and features. My black hair becomes straight and sandy blonde, my angular face rounder, my breasts shrink and my unreal curves contract into the body of a single, middleaged woman with a begrudging fitness regimen. I frown severely at the mirror and relax into resting bitch face, pulling my hair back into bun. I am still too pretty, but it is nice to be attractive and maybe I can use that as an Asset. I nod curtly to the Resource, falling into character, “It’ll do, I suppose.”
The Resource sighs dramatically, ”And here I thought working with spies would be exciting...”
***
I am standing in a Terrace reception hall holding a glass of chilled green fruit wine. I pat my nondescript shoulder bag, feeling the Objective inside. According to my Mission Brief, I am to hand off the Objective directly to the Client, a certain Vice President of Flotsam Acquisitions for a semi-large technology company. I sip my wine and discretely watch the Client who is mingling and gladhanding various business associates. I frown a little harder, this handoff is terrible Craft, exposing both me and the Client in a needlessly busy environment. I wonder what Control had been thinking. Fortunately, my guise of competent-woman-at-a-work-event-she-isn’t-enjoying is so far proving quite effective.
I keep my eyes moving around the crowd and try to look bored. The Client formalizes another business interaction with a handclasp, and wanders over to another associate in need of attention. I silently groan. Maybe I should violate the Brief and initiate contact? I take another look at the Client, calculating how best to casually bump into him, when I notice the date of the man he is talking to. She is outrageously beautiful, a flame haired woman with improbable curves wearing a strapless sparkling green dress. She is unrealistically attractive, a clear product of Shaping. This woman’s sculpted, angular face doesn’t match anyone on the guest list, or any of the known mistresses or escorts whose appearances I also memorized. My scalp prickles, could this ravishing woman be my Adversary after pursuing me to Flotsam? Would they really pick such a reckless and obvious disguise? The red haired woman sweeps the crowd with a professionally wary gaze, eyes locking with mine. Oh FUBAR me! She is the Aversary and she just Made me! I have to get out of here.
***
I am staring at the Target. She is here wearing a very Craft appropriate disguise as a wallflower: dirty blonde hair pulled back in a severe bun, wearing a scowl and a safe but nice black cocktail dress. Perhaps she is a little too pretty, but who am I to judge while wearing this outrageous sexpot body? Although being so glaringly obvious worked pretty well despite the risk. Take that Control! You mind reading leech.
The Target calmly makes her way to the toilets. As she walks her practical heels lose height, reforming into atheletic shoes, and her dress becomes shorter and looser, affording her better range of motion. She is getting ready to Bug Out and critically she still has her bag with the Objective. I smile, the chase is on. I kiss my date on his wrinkly bald head, “Sorry baby,” I bubble, “I have to visit the powder room.”
I set off calmly after my Target, my sexy dress reforming into a romper and practical shoes. The Target pushes through the restroom door. I count to three and push in after her and am immediately kicked in the face!
I stagger, instinctually slipping into a guard that buys me moments to reorient. The Target presses her attack, but I managed to stay just ahead of her defensively, my System preventing any crippling blows. I try and counterattack, to win back the initiative, but the Target is able to repel enough of my attacks that I cannot seriously injure her either. As we exchange glancing kicks and blocked blows in the women’s bathroom, it is obvious that the Target is very well trained. In fact, judging from her choice of strikes, the style of defense, and how well we are intuiting each other, the Target is trained in the System. Which means...
“AGENT!” I snap with all of the authority I can muster.
The Target goes rigid for a split second, reacting as though scolded by Control.
And in that instant I land a debilitating blow to her head.
The Target crumples to the floor, the Objective falling next to her.
***
I come back to myself laying on cold metal paneling, my head pounding. “Glughhh,” I groan, wincing.
A beautiful face smeared with bruises smiles at me. “Good, you’re awake.”
“Waugh?” I say through swollen lips.
“Why?” The Adversary laughs and pokes the Objective, worn over her red hair like a crown. “Because we are being played, Agent.”
I sit up, surprised that I am unrestrained. I lick the inside of my mouth and spit blood on the floor. “I take it you are also an Agent,” I rasp, reworking my hair into its bun.
“Yes,” she says. I frown, this is not supposed to happen. There are Protocols to ensure Agents are not working against each other. It is unproductive and a bad look for the Organization. I rub my sore head, not to mention a fine way to get Agents hurt or killed. The Agent reads my thoughts with the Objective and explains “We have the same Control.”
The same Control? Then he has sent two of his own Ring after the same Objective, in direct conflict. Almost like he doesn’t want either of us to succeed. The red haired Agent taps the Objective on her head again, the mind reading device. It dawns on me: Control is psychic and a mind reading device significantly compromises his position. The Agent nods her head. “FUBAR,” I say.
“SNAFU,” she agrees.
“What do we do?”
“Give him exactly what he wants,” the red haired beauty says with a most unattractive smile.
***
I am perched on a steel superstructure in the Flotsam Junk Desert looking through the scope of a magnetic rifle. In the far distance I see a sleek needle shaped flyer skim over the junk and land by the hulk of a red painted derelict space tug. A figure climbs out. I sweep the target graphic over the man and enhance. It is the bald head and mirror shades of Control. “Contact.”
Standing rakishly behind me, her red hair streaming in the breeze, the Agent grunts. “Amateur.” I glance back and we smile at each other, a little giddy. What we are about to do is insane.
We had discussed several Strategies, boggling at the freedom of choice. We could sell the Objective on the black market and try to disappear, attempt to outrun the Agents who would pursue us. We could keep the Objective for ourselves, use it to sniff out other Agents, maybe hunt them and try to take down the Organization. But that would be suicide, and our conflict lay with Control himself and not the entire Organization. The beautiful Agent advocated revenge against him personally, and I found myself agreeing. Even knowing that it was forbidden for an Agent to kill their Control, we both felt such betrayal that we felt justified going against ingrained Protocol. So the Agent contacted Control claiming to have dispatched the Target and acquired the Objective. She was instructed to arrange a dead drop in the Junk Desert for the Client and Exfiltrate offworld. And so the trap was set.
That night we fucked, not because it was tactically expedient, but because we wanted to. I almost cried for the novelty of pleasure for its own sake, and companionship directed at my own core identity. Afterward the Agent handed me the Objective and helped slip it onto my head. She sat across from me and gave me an earnest look. “I read your mind while you were unconscious,” she said. “It was the only way to see if we were both Agents, to prove we shared the same Control. But, I saw more than that... I saw you.” Passion flashed in her eyes, “I want you to read my mind too, to know me as completely as I know you.” I closed my eyes and concentrated on the Agent, my mind filling with vivid memories of being recruited as a child, of years of brutal training, of wearing hundreds of identities on missions, of calculated sexual encounters, of killing sapients many different ways, and of eventually ending up here on Flotsam. Throughout the memories is a familiar sense of loneliness, a yearning for something missing. Something that maybe we both finally found? I open my eyes and see her watching me intently. I understand her and she understands me. I wondered if this is love? I kissed her and we made love for the first time.
I am still smiling as I look back into the rifle scope. Control is cautiously approaching the red tug, touching his forehead and probably doing a psychic sweep for observers. We are more than far enough away that he can’t sense us. I drop the target graphic over his head and release the safety on the rifle. My finger tenses on the trigger and I hold my breath; it would be such a simple thing to kill him. Instead I watch him squirm through a hatch into the red tug. I know that inside the derelict sitting in plain sight is the Objective. I look up at my lover, “Target is inside.”
The Agent smiles at me, finger stoking the trigger of a handheld device. “I love you,” she says to me.
I flush, delighted and hoping that it’s true. I think I love her too, even if I’m not sure I really know what love is. “I love you too,” I say anyway.
We share a complicit smile and the Agent triggers her device. An explosions blossoms in the distance, the red painted tug disintegrates as the explosives we had planted detonate. The thunder of the blast eventually reaches us. Control is dead. I safety my weapon, stand, and press myself into the Agent’s arms. “No going back,” I say, kissing her fiercely on the lips.
“No going back,” she agrees.
***
I am standing in a strange alien space, guided by the mental instructions of a mysterious curator. I am holding hands with my erstwhile Target, now my lover. I glance at her, her severe but pretty face broken with a look of wonder. She notices me looking at her and smiles encouragingly. This is madness, but maybe it’s a way to stay together.
It had started in our dreams, a mental voice that we both recognized as a powerful psychic contacting us in our subconscious. The psychic voice promised us that we would be together forever. They promised us safety from Control’s other Ring Agents, now honour bound to kill us. Part of me wanted to run, wanted to test my cunning, but my lover just wanted to be together, to put aside Objectives, Missions, and Protocol and find meaning in ourselves and each other. And so we accepted this strange offer and came here, to the Grey Citadel.
Hand in hand, we walk into a circular chamber and stand in the appointed spot. My lover kisses me. “I love you,” she says with ever more confidence in her voice that it was true. “I love you too,” I reply, certain that I do.
Above us a blinding white light flashes and everything changes....
***
I blink my eyes and I’m myself again, staring at a huge scrotum filled with two people fucking. “What are they like in there?” I ask in a dull monotone.
<They have become testicles, mostly. Their bodies were reduced to featureless heads and limbless, narrow hermaphroditic torsos made mostly of glandular tissue. These bodies produce a semen analogue which is animate, allowing our two Agents to mold bodies for themselves based on any of their previous Identities. They also share a mental link, allowing an unsurpassed level of empathy. They are now an artistic statement about intimacy, about focusing on our lover in a quest to find meaning.>
I blink rapidly, I can certainly see the artistic intent, but also I see two jizz people trapped inside a nutsack. A part of me is sad that the Agents traded their freedom for this new, stranger prison and disappointed that they didn’t go out in a blaze of glory Thelma and Louise style. I hope they’re happy in there.
<Please proceed to the next artwork.> I get a tingle of nervousness, <Which is... me.>
A new sense of where to go appears in my mind. I swallow and obediently follow the path. I’m trying to process the memories of four other people, trying to understand the bizarre forms of these tragic humans. I’m aware of a roiling mass of fear and anxiety, but one that is still held apart from me, orbiting my mind like my own stormy Venus. What has Halley-7 done to herself? Without experiencing my fear, my curiosity dominates.
I walk past several more empty alcoves and ascend to an altar like landing in something like the knave of this gallery. There is a raised platform here crawling with impossible inky shadows. I try to take a few calming breaths.
<I present myself, another untitled artwork.>
The shadows are replaced by a bright light revealing what must be Halley-7. The dais rotates slowly, showing me her body from every angle. Her naked body is covered in a reflective silver covering, much like the mercury dress I am wearing, but I suspect it’s literally her skin. Her feet stand lightly on the platform and her legs seem longer and more elegant than mine, her ass more tight, her labia more trimly elegant. Above the waist she is a giant penis. Instead of arms, a torso, and a head with a familiar face, it has all been replaced by a tube of erect cock flesh capped by an enormous glans. I can see fluid glisten in her dickhole and veins pulse softly along her shaft. Hanging in her lap is an enormous hairless scrotum, filled with humongous head sized balls. Halley-7 has made herself into some sort of psychic alien cockwoman.
I feel my fear twist and writhe around me! This is just too fucked up! Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck! It hits me all at once and I feel my heart hammer in my chest! What the fuck is happening! And...
I faint.
Floor 2 - Halley 0.
***
I become aware again, except I’m outside, on Flotsam, wearing unfamiliar clothes. I just learned that I made myself into a monster cockwoman! No... wait, that hasn’t happened yet. I’m just me, Halley-7, and I’m running late for a meeting. I shake my head to get a hold of myself, an important meeting! One I’ve spent weeks working to arrange.
Since waking up in Clem’s apartment I’ve been trying to track down Halley-Prime. Initially it was just something to do while Clem was busy with her Shaping gig, but now I’m obsessed with figuring it out. I’m totally onto something too! I know Halley-Prime got inside the Grey Citadel, that she made contact with the elusive alien overlords. I’m convinced that they know what happened to her, or at least why she disappeared. Actually learning what the Grey know has proven difficult... but ace investigator Halley-7 is intrepid and dogged and brassy.
My keyband chirps to alert me that I’ve reached my destination. It’s a derelict derelict, a poorly constructed space junk building with a collapsed roof on the outskirts of the mesa. I’m wearing one of my nicer outfits: dress, jacket, and heels, so of course the meeting is in a shithole. I roll my eyes, it figures. Awkwardly I shimmy into the building, hands filthy and a smear of rust on the sleeve of my nice jacket. So much for making a good first impression. I slip under a sagging I-beam and into the hollowed out core of the building and see a basketball sized silver sphere hovering. “Greetings Halley Number Seven.”
“Hello Dorian” my name for the Grey-Human liason AI agent. “I hope you’ve got good news for me.” Really hope, really really really! Be cool Halley.
“I am not sure I would qualify the news as ‘good’, since that contains a value judgement,” the sphere responds cryptically. “I do suspect you will be pleased with the outcome.”
“You can finally tell me what the Grey know about Halley-Prime?” So that I can finally stop harassing you.
“No, I cannot answer that.”
Just like every other fucking time! I swallow a growl of annoyance. Use the calm voice. “Why would I be pleased?”
“One of the Grey wishes to meet you, to attempt communication. You have been invited to the Citadel.”
Holy fuck! No one is invited to the Citadel! My heart hammers in my chest. This is my chance to get answers! “When do we leave?”
“Presently.” The silver drone sphere expands and engulfs me.
***
I am standing naked in The Gallery, excited and too nervous to speak. This moment is the culmination of months of study and agonizing attempts at communication with the Artist. Despite all my progress and the Artist’s unique perspective, we can still convey so little. But it is enough for this at least. Enough to remake me into the first piece of his Artwork and to change me so that, with time and study, we can truly communicate. I don't really know what he has in mind, but from what we have been able to share, I know it will be radical. I’m afraid, deeply afraid, but the path towards understanding is fraught and demands confrontation and sacrifice. I take a deep, deep breath and quell my anxiety. The time for fear is in the past. I am here and I am willing to forgo my humanity for this cause. I feel a benign questing in my mind, the fractal integration of a question or request. I smile bravely, “I am ready.”
I am blinded by light and everything changes.
In a step of time that stretches to eternity, but is far too quick to measure, I am destroyed and remade. Gone is Halley-7 the awkward Earthling woman. In her place stands an untitled artwork. At first I am not graceful, longer legs bent inelegantly for balance, unfamiliar with the heft of my new form. I try to stick out my arms for balance and nothing happens. I am blind, but I have a new sense, a kind of universal proprioception. I can sense myself in relation to everything else in the room. In my mind’s eye I can see the contours of myself, see what I have become: the lower body of a beautiful woman joined seamlessly to a giant cock and balls; an expression of fused feminity and powerful masculinity. I am a testament to my commitment to the Cultural Understanding. I am far too strange, too alien. I am beautiful. I am.
A query appears in my mind, an abstract concern tinged with satisfaction. I realize it is the Artist soliciting my opinion, a level of communication we have never managed before. I am overjoyed, perhaps this plan will work after all. Using capabilities I didn’t formerly have, I transmit a sense of my pleasure back to the Artist. <I am well.>
A transcendental joy washes over from me from the Artist. I feel my body, my giant cock thrum with blood, becoming almost painfully rigid. My legs buckle, knees weak. I feel a whole body pleasure like being struck by lightening, an intense unfamiliar pressure in my new immense testicles. I transmit ecstasy, the psychic equivalent of a moan. Suddenly I stand completely rigid, mentally blinded as if the transformative light has fallen over me again and narrowed me to an infinitesimal point of existence... and then... like a supernova I expand while something clenches and opens within, my legs go taught, feet to their tip toes, and then something is rhythmically surging through my entire body, erupting from my glans in a great geyser of spunk. I am a giant cock and I am coming! I stagger, still spraying cum and mentally scream in joy, my pussy clenching in a complimentary female orgasm, slick fluid leaking down my leg. I am electrified and splattered with my own semen. My mind is a broadcast of satisfaction and bliss. Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes, this plan will work! Yesssss.....
***
I come back to myself as Halley-24, and I’m deeply fucking disturbed. I can feel everything, experience the entire alien abduction horror fucking movie of this place, and yet the fear is mostly gone, maybe burnt off in my own emotional supernova. “What the fucking fuck fuck fuck!” I yell. Super articulate.
The silvery cock with legs is standing with an uncertain posture that is incongruously very Halley. <I fear my attempt to protect you from your fear may have been a mistake. I apologize. I just... I needed you to see this place, what we are trying to do. It is important.> Contriteness and worry are communicated.
“What’s so important!? What is Cultural Exchange!? What is this place even!?”
The giant cock starts to pace. <The Grey do not exist as we do. Humans, Blues, Reptilians, we are all Planar; our bodies and consciousness exist within a single plane, a single universe. The Grey have evolved to span the multiverse: their minds simultaneously experience multiple planes of existence. Their bodies here are just part of their physical manifestation, maybe their original one, but their minds are mostly engaged elsewhere. The reality that we experience is so different that not only is a common language impossible, but the actual concepts we wish to communicate do not correlate. This is why communication is so difficult between Greys and Humans.> Halley-7 pauses, cock body swaying a little. <I initially came to the Grey to learn what happened to Halley-Prime. I was met by the Artist, a Grey who was damaged so that he notices more of our universe and has developed an unusual interest in Humans. He was the one who met with Halley-Prime, curious about this strange Earthling for some reason I still do not understand. He was, I think, remorseful that he could not be more helpful to Halley, and wished to try to explain himself to her again. Since she was missing, he met with me instead and tried to communicate. We failed miserably, but this time we kept trying. We spent months working together, and got almost nowhere, except to cement just how different our minds are. So we decided on a radical approach to increase our understanding. This Gallery.>
“By transforming people into sex-freaks? How exactly does that help you communicate?” I don’t get this place at all.
<The... forms... that are chosen are tied to the Artist’s vision. I do not understand it, but the Artist is fixated on human reproduction and sexuality as an aesthetic. Being sculpted according to the Artist’s obsession is the price of being here. For me it was the price of having my mind reformatted so that I can start to understand the Grey. For the princesses it was the price of being free from their obligations. For the Agents it was the price of safety and intimacy. This is... not a form I would have chosen for myself, but my physical form is somewhat immaterial now, since my purpose is psychic.>
“So losing your humanity was worth it? Are you happy?”
Halley-7 shifts her hips thoughtfully, and then wags her cock body in the affirmative. Which is actually kind of an hilarious gesture. <Yes, I am satisfied with this. In my time here I can already almost communicate effectively with the Artist, I can send my mind out into the city and into the dreams of others, and I can at least sense some other planes of existence, even if I cannot journey there myself yet. I am discovering things no human has ever known before. And one day I will teach it to others.> The cockwoman somehow looks bashful. <And the feeling of a whole body ejaculation is also pretty spectacular...>
I blush, having experienced that... memory? Sensorium? I know how amazing it feels to come as a giant cock. I shiver and try to put the sensation out of my mind. I gesture around, “And the Gallery, what is the point of this?”
<It serves a few purposes. The first is aesthetic: the Artist is proud of his vision and work and wishes to share it. The Grey do not understand or approve of his art, so the Artist wishes to show it to planar Sapients. This is being tolerated because of his... injury? His sacrifice? You are our first such guest.>
“I’m honored?” Although I don’t get or like his art...
<My hope is that the Gallery will over time increase the mingling of Sapients and Grey and serve as a cultural bridge.> Halley-7 turns her body and sweeps her left foot around somewhat elegantly, despite the jostling of her huge balls. <Also the other artwork have had their minds expanded as I have. For now they are content to revel in their forms and freedom, but in time some of them may also become disciples and join me in study of the Grey. It may take several human lifetimes, but I believe this project is worthy.>
I close my eyes to stop seeing Halley-7’s phallic body for a moment. It’s still fucked right up. One of me voluntarily becoming a huge cock will never be okay to me. My mind flashes again on the memory of a whole body ejaculation, and I shudder, but also feel an embarrassing warmth in my belly. Blah. That is gonna be a thing now isn’t it...
I realize that I’m not afraid of the Gallery anymore, now that I understand it. It’s still super creepy and the perverse creation of a demented artist, but the goal of bringing different aliens together is pretty cool. I can’t imagine handing myself over to be sculpted by the Artist, but I can understand Halley-7’s passion for her role here. I open my eyes and take in the silver, sleek lines of her legs flowing smoothly into the cylinder of her erect cockbody, there is a certain alien beauty to her. There is even a kind of artwork there. I take a deep breath, in and out, this is a passing moment. “I’m glad you found your thing.” Even if your body is too fucking weird.
<Thank you.> The sensation of pleasure and gratitude strokes my mind and Halley-7 somehow manages to look like a happy cock. <Before you leave, the Artist would like an audience. I promise he won’t do anything too weird, he just wants to express his gratitude!>
Oh, shit. Directions appear in my mind. I kind of don’t want to do this. The products of this alien’s imagination are deeply unsettling, and I don’t imagine meeting him will be especially fun. What are the chances that someone who turns people into cocks and tits is a fun guy? I sigh. Based on the nervous expectation that Halley-7 is beaming at me this is super important to her. It would be rude not to. I fucking hate meeting people. My heart starts to beat faster in my chest, it seems my social anxiety is alive and well. I adjust my fancy silver dress and walk where directed. Deep breaths, just pull off the bandaid and get the fuck out of here. I plaster a smile on my face.
In a part of the Gallery I had previously perceived as empty, I now see a raised dais made by a cresting wave of silver floor. Perched atop this is an egg shaped throne containing the Artist, who doesnt so much sit on the throne as is embedded within it. His lower body and abdomen are completely contained within the silver substrate of the throne and his scrawny naked grey chest has a spiderweb of silver filling in deep, ugly scars that trail across one side of his body. His arms are folded pharoah-style across his chest and I can see the left one is coated with, or maybe entirely made of silver material. The left side of his head is a ruin of scars, some that are filled in with silvery amalgam, others open and glowing faintly with a blue light. His face is sunken and thin, almost skeletal in the jaw, and one side of the dome of his forehead is misshapen and patched with silver. His left eye is a cloudy white ruin, bifurcated by an enormous blue glowing rent in his flesh. The Artist has obviously been through some shit.
The Artist looks into me with his remaining eye. My mouth goes dry and my bare shoulders prickle. I feel a pressure on my mind, at first like a gentle tide, but then growing into a crashing wave and building again into a violent surge. The silver threads in my updo melt and trickle down my face like mercury. I gasp and my bones vibrate like I’m a human tuning fork. My skin feels charged and suddenly my silver dress erupts off of me in a splash of silver liquid and my muscles all contract. I would scream if I could, am screaming in my mind. Blood trickles out of my nose as the mental pressure shifts, probing around like someone solving a mechanical puzzle. My teeth chatter and tears fill my eyes. I feel naked in a way that has nothing to do with my nudity. My consciousness begins to strobe. And then...
And then for a crystalline moment there is a connection spanning universes.
And then nothing.
***
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