Chapter 23

Flotsam

Chapter 23: Gan Ceann

I hear excited barking as I step through the rusty metal gate into the little courtyard. Sceolàn appears, bounding to me like a joyful rocket, tail wagging furiously. The blue and lavender doggirl skids to a stop and jumps up at me, happy to see me, paws kicking, tongue lashing, frantic for affection. “Down girl,” I laugh, gently warding her off, hand accidentally grabbing one of her eight tits in the process. “I’m happy to see you too! But down! Sit!” Sceolàn obediently relents and I ruffle her floofy ears. “Good girl.” I guess I’m in the right place.

“I don’t know if this means anything to you, but mission accomplished.” Sceolàn tilts her head and looks at me with somber blank canine attention. The Agent isn’t home yet. I pet her neck and think about what to do next. Should I just walk in?

The instructions told me to come here, up into the Terraces, to this house in one of the most desirable tiers on the Mesa. The house, or small mansion really, is handsome and made of smooth stone blocks with patinated metal accents. It’s quite modernist, with precise clean lines that scream Architectural Opinions. The small courtyard is smart too, filled in with crushed slate shingle and flanked by planters with precisely arranged flowers in golds and oranges and purples. Nothing about the house is flashy, but it’s all obviously expensive in a restrained way that I’m finding a little intimidating. Sceolàn licks my fingers and I blow a breath through my pussy. “Oh girl, what am I doing here?”

Sceolàn sits up and blinks at me with sudden human intellect in her eyes, “Finding answers I hope.”

I yank my hand back, surprised at the sudden switch from doggy to agent. “Oh, hi.”

“You don’t have to stop petting me,” Sceolàn says, “I still really like it.” Her tail wags and she butts her furry head against my hand. “And it makes for good cover.”

I roll my eyes sensing a con job, but oblige, scritching her ears and neck. “I think I found what we were looking for in the Sexbox, but it’s complicated.”

Sceolàn shakes her head and touches me with a forepaw to stop me. “Don’t tell me. My Master wishes to debrief you personally.”

“Your Master?”

Sceolàn nods, “Gan Ceann.” She points with her snout like a hunting dog toward the mansion. “Just head inside.” 

I take a calming breath, “Okay.” I give Sceolàn a big farewell pat, “It was nice to see you again…” but the agent is already gone. Sceolàn the dog barks and rolls onto her back, presenting her tits and cock, and wiggles impatiently for belly rubs. “Sorry girl.” She whines and rolls back over, sadly watches me walk away. 

As I approach the heavy steel door to the mansion I look myself over, straightening my grey dress and checking for muddy pawprints and stray dog hairs. I push my hair back into place and make sure my grey facemask is seated right. The door slides open silently as I approach. “Okay, Halley. Okay.”

I step into a posh foyer with marble floors and stone columns and thoughtful recessed lighting. The walls are a clean white and hung with articles of scrap, striking examples of salvage that are discolored by corrosion and oxidation. It’s extremely tasteful and a flex, worthless objects found and elevated, treasured for their beauty instead of their value. At the end of the hallway a chrome femmebot waits for me, its fetishistic metallic body in a pose of idealized patience. The black visor on its face watches me approach passively, embossed lips sensually neutral. “I’m here,” I say.

The robot nods its head and beckons me to follow. It turns elegantly and struts down a hallway, its metal heels clicking brightly on the marble. I stumble after it, trying to keep up with its immaculate long legged stride. We turn a corner and bump into a well dressed man who gives me a long, scrutinizing look. He is tall and thin and has severely slicked down black hair. He’s wearing a black tailored jacket, something like a marching band blazer, and a severe white shirt with an upturned collar that hides his throat. He's also wearing silver metal eyeglasses, the first I’ve seen on Flotsam. The lenses flash with sourceless reflections and the man smirks at me knowingly, like he’s in on a joke and I’m not. The femmebot marches us past the man and down another hallway to a pair of inlaid wooden doors. The doors silently open and the silvery robot woman gestures for me to enter. 

I step into a large room that has to be some sort of library. The chamber is lined with beautiful wooden shelves filled with leather bound books and the floor of the room is done in a lovely parquet pattern in contrasting wooden planks. I’m shocked, this is the most wood I’ve ever seen on Flotsam and must have cost a fortune to import to a world without trees. Or at least trees that aren’t also parasitic biological computers full of nymphomaniac minds. Even if the books aren’t actually paper, this room is a real show of wealth. I’m suitably wowed. The femmebot walks away and the door shuts behind me. 

I take a few cautious steps into the library looking for someone Gan Ceann shaped. I frown, not immediately spotting anyone. Large windows at the far side of the room provide natural light and a killer view out over the Mesa. Near the windows is a pair of tall leather chairs and a wooden end table, the only furniture in the grand room. I slowly walk over to the chairs, still searching for my host. The chairs are fancy oxblood leather and the polished wooden table has a decanter of blue liquor and a pair of crystal tumblers. There’s also an open book on the table, which is actually made of paper and oddly blank. Some sort of journal? I look around the library at all the identical volumes and wonder. What kind of library is this? I shake my head, curious but uncertain. I seem to be alone, which probably means I’m stuck waiting. I sit lightly on the edge of a chair and smooth the skirt of my dress, fiddle with the earstraps of my mask. It’s okay, I can wait.

I sit for a while, trying not to fidget and resisting the urge to go leaf through some books. That seems like it’s probably frowned upon. I tap my hands on my thighs. The decanter of booze might be a safe bet. Maybe I could pour myself a couple stiff fingers? A bit of liquid courage? I could make myself comfortable, casually swirl my drink when Gan Ceann finally appears, and then lift the drink to my exposed facial vulva and dribble hooch all down the front of my dress. So probably not that either. I gaze out the tall windows, take in the panorama of Flotsam unfolding below and the Junk Desert on the horizon. At least the view is nice.

I notice sudden movement and turn frantically! Someone is in the library with me! That quiet door! My heart starts to race. Fuck! I search the room in a hurry and spot them, or maybe it, since it seems to be another kinky automaton, a different type than the chrome femmebot. This new robot looks like a headless nude woman made of seamless black latex. The robot body ends smoothly at the shoulders without the hint of a neck or head, just a smooth cutoff above the clavicles. Below the shoulders the body is lean and lithe and seems almost organic, its muscles and pert breasts moving as if it’s alive. The kinky robot minces around the room on extreme stiletto ballet heels and is brandishing a feather duster. I guess it's some kind of maidbot? "Hey, hello," I try with a wave, but the headless body ignores me and starts dusting the bookshelf as if it were an extremely porny roomba. 

Okay, I’m still waiting but now I’m sharing the room with a sexy maid. That’s weird, but at least I've got something to watch now? I track the headless maidbot as it works its way along the shelf dusting books, taking tiny steps and stretching coquettishly to reach the trickiest places with the feather duster. Which has to be made of dust snatching future fabric, right? Space-swiffer. Unless this is all for show. The maidbot turns its back to me and bends way down low to clean a bottom shelf and I’m given provocative proof that the robot is anatomically correct. It obliviously wags its ass as it works, giving me quite the view of its black latex pussy, complete with black latex vulva and black latex clitoris. I shiver, it seems this particular kinky robot is built for more than one kind of service. What kind of pervert has a headless maidbot plumbed for sex? Or trots out their sextoy for their business guests? I think of the smug man in the hallway and frown, what kind of bullshit have I gotten myself into? I look at the door to the library, “Fuck this, I should just go.”

“Why is that?” Asks a too familiar voice. I hear the clatter of the feather duster hitting the parquet floor and turn to see the headless maidbot walking towards me with a newly confident strut. “We haven’t had a chance to talk.”

I blush, feeling duped. “Gan Ceann, I presume?”

“Naturally.” The headless woman sits gracefully in the empty leather chair and leans back, casually crossing her long legs. “But you can call me Halley-12.”

I sigh, because of course she is. Yet another weirdly altered Halley, with no doubt another sexy misadventure. I suck on my face pussy thoughtfully, how is she even talking to me? No, how is she even alive!? What the fuck happened to her? Did she choose this? “You must have questions,” headless Halley-12 purrs somehow.

Okay, one thing at a time. “Why Gan Ceann?”

Halley-12 sets an elbow on the armchair and tilts her hand as if she were about to rest her non-existent head on it. “Do you remember when we had that Irish Folklore kick?”

I frown, and yeah, I kind of do. It was when I was still a girl in the Catholic Orphanage. I somehow got fixated on fairies and one of the nuns, an Irish one, Sister Mary O’Something, lent me a book about folklore. Of course when the other nuns learned I was reading a pagan book we were both punished, but I remember secretly cherishing the stories of magic in it. Gan Ceann… “that means ‘without a head’, right?”

The headless body claps her hands. “Bravo!”

“Clever.” Gan Ceann was one of the names for the headless horseman, so it was pretty apt. “Why not Dullahan?”

Halley-12 clutches her armrests and leans forward, giving me a great view of her tits and prominent black latex nipples. “Because there are too many wayward Earthling girls running around who might recognize it.” Her empty shoulders tilt, “It’s a dead giveaway.”

I nod, yeah I probably would’ve caught that one. Okay, now for the bigger question, “What’s your deal? Why are you…?”

The body somehow looks amused. “Why did I lose my head?”

“Yeah, that.”

“The short answer is I’m a prisoner.”

Prisoner!? I think of the man in the hallway and Halley’s sexy maid routine. Was she being held against her will? Was I? I look at the heavy doors out of the library and feel a pang of anxiety. “Are you trapped here?” I ask too urgently.

“In a manner of speaking.” Halley laughs, “But not in the way you’re worried about.” She leans forward conspiratorially, like she might be about to whisper somehow. Her voice murmurs, “I’ve actually escaped. I’m on the lam.”

I frown, “I don’t understand.”

Halley-12 sits up, “It’s more fun if I show you.” She holds out an arm wearing a Keyband, a seamless silver bracelet perfectly encircling her wrist. The silver band blubs off a mercury bubble that rises into the air and I realize it’s Grey technology, like the HAL-E choker that let’s me talk. The blob of floating mercury becomes a donut that stretches into a wire thin silver circle. The object floats over and lands in my outstretched hands. It feels cool and too solid for how delicate it looks. “Put that on your head,” Halley-12 instructs.

I look at the headless woman skeptically. “Please,” she says, “I entertain so few guests these days.” 

I begrudgingly slip the silver circlet over my head and feel it contract to snugly fit my skull. “Okay…” And suddenly I’m somewhere else, behind a desk in a nice looking lobby. My hands rest on a polished stone desk and fidget in a way that I can feel but not control. “What is this?” I ask, the sensation of speaking at odds with this reality where I’m silently manning a front desk.

“It’s a memory,” Halley-12's voice appears like a narrator. “A byproduct of my condition is that I can share my sensorium, so you can enjoy the highest fidelity Halley-vision.”

“Great…” I mutter as I experience the thrill of being a bored receptionist. “Where am I exactly?”

“Welcome to my old day job: the receptionist for a Flotsam-based importer-exporter called Nodal Logistics Innovations.” In my vision I drum nicely manicured nails on the desktop and then adjust my silky cream blouse. I can feel myself resisting the urge to hum. “It was honestly not very interesting, but the pay was okay, and it was a good starter job for an Earthling without a college degree.”

I hear a digital chime and look up filled with excitement. Finally someone! A dorky looking human man with slicked down hair and silver rimmed glasses. I recognize him, both in Halley-12’s memory and my own. It’s the smug man from the hallway. He walks up to the reception desk and shyly says “Hi.” I blush and shyly reply “Hi”.

“This is Samonavar Thalk,” Halley-12 narrates, “A business associate of my boss, some sort of specialized brokerage consultant that we hired for sensitive cargoes. It was all above my pay grade and interstellar logistics remains very dull to me.”

My borrowed sensorium cuts like a movie to Samonavar bringing me a bouquet of unfamiliar flowers. “We started to date,” Halley-12 reports as my vision cycles through memories. A nice dinner with a view at an upscale Terrace restaurant. An intimate stroll in a Blue wind chime garden. Sipping tea and enjoying live music, something like jazz played by a big band of sapients I don't recognize. A dressy evening at an art gallery. “It was nice. Sam was a perfect gentleman and had money. He took me on grown up dates to fancy places, and he was always such a sweetheart and adorable dork. He reminded me of a more successful Clem.”

“I feel a but coming…”

I get a brief, intense flash of intercourse. Me lying on my back in a luxurious bed with a man fucking me missionary style. It feels good, but I can tell from the memory that I’m a little bored by how vanilla it is. “The sex was just okay,” Halley-12 confirms, “straightforward and fine, but not very exciting.”

The memory cuts out and I gasp, feel my pussies both flush in sudden arousal. “Fuck, warn a girl,” I say while hoping my facial pussy doesn’t start to drool under my mask.

“Sorry,” Halley-12 says unapologetically. “There was also another guy.” The memory shifts to a rough looking apartment block assembled from crudely stacked starship hulls, like mismatched building blocks arranged by a giant child. I enter through an old airlock and trudge up a flight of rickety steel stairs, fumble out analogue keys to unlock a weathered bulkhead door, and enter a tiny studio apartment with a cot and a hot plate. I sigh and feel a weird mix of relief and disdain to be home in my rented shithole. I step out of my kitten heels, drop my purse to the floor, and hear a knock on my apartment door. I cautiously open it and see an albino pale man wearing a black spacers jacket and dark welding-goggles over his eyes. His angular face is strikingly handsome and his mane of undercut white hair is glorious. I feel a thrill of excitement and arousal and pull him inside for a passionate kiss. His mouth tastes like a drug I don’t recognize and he smells like machinery. I very much want to fuck him. “This is my neighbor Jakk.”

I experience another dating montage of memories, this time starring Jakk. Getting drunk together on the tenement steps over a box of ricey takeout. Doing Bliss and watching something like a B-movie, giggling our asses off. Going to see his band play in a shitty bar, then fucking him backstage like a groupie. Having rough sex in his top floor apartment, giving anal underneath a domed skylight, pain and pleasure mixed together. Coming hard in the faint red light and feeling deliciously dirty. “Jakk was a Spacer who did something shady up in orbit and spent his time planetside partying. He was beautiful and bad news and the total opposite of Sam and Clem in a way I found intoxicating. We partied and did drugs and fucked like savages. I knew it wasn’t going to end well, but I was totally in lust for him.”

I can feel the echo of that lust in my body, a growing ache of my own. I try to calm down, focus. “Since I passed Sam in the hallway I assume the wild ride with Jakk didn’t last.”

“No,” Halley-12 said with a sigh, “It really didn’t…”

***

I’m cuddled up with Samonavar on the roof of his house waiting for the lanterns to launch. We’re drinking wine, actual-made-from-grapes vino, something basically rosé. I know it’s expensive and that it had to be imported from off planet. I suspect it’s actually a really nice vintage. I take a sip and since my past experience with wine was either sacramental or boxed, I really have no clue. It tastes nice? Notes of rose petals and honeydew? Fancy grape juice? It’s definitely a nice gesture. I snuggle up to Sam under the blanket and take in the strange view of Flotsam blacked-out at night. It’s spooky seeing the usually brightly lit city in total darkness, even if it is for a once a year festival. “What’s the story behind the lanterns?”

Sam snuggles me back and loops an arm around my shoulder, “No one entirely knows how it began. The best we can do is speculate.”

“Okay,” I say, disappointed.

“I do have a favourite version, though.”

“Tell! Tell!”

“Lantern Night began with a Child, or so it’s told. No one knows if it was a boy or a girl or a Blue or another sapient, but all the versions agree they were very young.” Sam fiddles with his glasses, “The Child’s Parent was a Salvager, or maybe a Scavenger, but definitely someone who worked out on The Junk. The Parent would go out on expeditions, would spend weeks traversing the desert, and the Child would miss them terribly.”

“The Child started to make flying lanterns to send to their Parent, really just simple polymer bags fitted with a candle for light and just enough hot air to float. The Child would paint the lanterns with simple messages of love and maybe drawings of animals. At night they would launch the finished lanterns from high up on the Mesa; give birth a single low flying star carrying a child’s love.”

“That’s sweet.”

Sam smiles and blushes, “Quite. I’m sure the Parent rarely ever saw them, but I’m sure they indulgently lied and cherished the thought of it.” Sam clears his throat, “Regardless, the folklore says that one day there was a terrible Rust Storm, the worst the planet had seen in generations, and too ferociously sudden to avoid. They say half the Salvagers on the planet were caught in it, including the Parent. Some Salvagers returned, battered but able to limp home. Others died, torn apart by a wind pregnant with razor-sharp debris, claimed by The Junk. Yet many others were lost, their equipment too compromised to wayfind a route home. The City organized search parties, but fears about atmospheric uncertainty and another Rust Storm kept everyone hunkered down.”

“The Child was terrified and was desperate to help the Parent. The Child started to frantically build flying lanterns: ten, twenty, thirty, and launched them every night to guide their Parent home. The Child's closest friends joined in, and then their classmates, and then their neighbors. Soon the night sky was filled with hundreds of lanterns. Strangers started to join in from all over the city, from all different backgrounds and species, all building lanterns. The night sky filled with lanterns, thousands of them, rising together like a distributed beacon and drifting lazily away from the Mesa.”

“The lost Salvagers and Scavengers of The Junk started to notice the lanterns at night and began to use them as lodestars to find their way home.” Sam smiled, “And of course the Parent made it home safely and was reunited with the Child.” Sam blushes, “It’s fanciful and sentimental, but I rather enjoy it.”

“It’s very cute,” I agree, meaning him as much as the story.

“These days Lantern Night is about honouring all the Salvagers who never made it home and wishing safe travels to everyone who still works in The Junk.”

“That sounds like a great tradition.” I give Sam a peck on his cheek, “Thanks for telling me the story.”

“Of course.” Sam points to the city where dozens of little lights are appearing. “I believe it’s time.”

We untangle from our blanket and scramble to set up our lanterns. Sam carefully lights the candles while I hold the decorated plastic bags up so they don’t burn. The lanterns start to inflate and glow which shows off our designs: a shitty jack-o-lantern smile on mine and an uncanny owl on Sam’s. He’s never seen an owl before and tried to draw one from my description, making up something charmingly wrong like a medieval etching. The lanterns start to float away and Sam and I hold our lanterns by strings as if they are kites. I look around and see everyone else in the city has launched their lanterns too, that the Flotsam Mesa has sprouted a constellation of tiny lights. I smile at Sam and he smiles back. I’m having such a great time. The lanterns, the rooftop picnic, the afternoon doing arts and crafts, the gently pleasant lovemaking, it’s been a total hoot. But I always have fun with Sam, he’s really grown into my best friend. I gently bite my lip, I think I might be in love with him? Oh Jesus, should I tell him? Is this what I want?

So what if the sex is just fine? Not bad, just fine. Lots of people settle for a happy life with a good partner and a less than totally toe-curling, mind-blowing, finger-nail-scars-on-the-back exciting sex life. Sam makes me feel happy and safe and secure. Shouldn’t that be enough? A life spent with him would be comfortable and affluent in a way I’ve never had before. Isn’t that worth trading some orgasms for? I could maybe teach him to like some kinky stuff, get him to talk dirty and spank me when I’m a bad bad girl. I could settle down with him and try living a conventional normie life. Cohabitate in his beautiful home. Maybe even start a family. 

Do I even want kids? Does he?

Sam clears his throat. "After you," he says with a gentle smile. I grin back at him and we both let go of our lantern strings, sending our little hot air balloons skyward and free. All around us other sapients are releasing their own lanterns in bunches, clusters of lights rushing up and away like flocks of glowing birds. The sky fills with lanterns, some with warm yellow candle glows, others with weirder blue or green or vibrant red light, some small and simple, others large and creatively shaped, but all of them drifting up, up, and away. It’s like watching a universe being born into existence. I gasp and clutch onto Sam, feeling a true sense of wonder, maybe for the first time in my freshly cloned life. “Wow...”

“Indeed,” he says giving me a squeeze.

We stand and quietly watch the lanterns drift skyward, get caught in a breeze, and start to float away from the city and out over the Junk Desert in a lazy disorganized cloud. “You’re going to have to make a choice,” Sam says quietly.

“Hmm?”

“Between me and that other bloke you’re seeing.” 

Oh fuck. How does Sam know about Jakk? I open my mouth to say something, to deny or protest or apologize or plead.

Sam smiles cooly and raises a hand, “It’s not a problem. Obviously, I’d rather you were only courting me, but we never agreed to be exclusive.” He takes his glasses off and looks at me seriously, “I really like you, 12th Clone of Halley Rochelle Houston, and I think we could take this to the next level. But to do that I require a commitment from you.” His face is completely focused, with an unexpected intensity that I find myself a little turned on by, “We are past the time for half measures.”

***

I’m laying naked on Jakk’s bed puffing on a vaporizer. My pussy and asshole ache in the best way and I’m floating on post coital hormones and the mellow high of Jack’s favourite blend. To be honest, I don’t usually like it. I find it’s bitter wintergreen and mineral taste unpleasant and the high a bit too introspective and melancholy. I preferred the idiotic giddy thrill of Bliss or the warm silliness of canabis, but Jakk says this rock lichen stuff reminds him of home. Tonight it feels like the right chemical mixture, the perfect pharmacological beat for saying goodbye. 

I prop myself up on my elbows and look at Jakk, who is seated on the bed, his albino white skin bright like a beacon even in the dark red light of his room. I smile wistfully and look over the lean musculature of his back, his wiry arms, his long fingers. He notices me watching and smiles, thin cheeks dimpling, and I feel my heart skip. Fuck, I love this asshole! This delicious mess of a man, all chaos and party and fuck tomorrow, followed by half explained absence. He makes me feel fun and crazy and breathlessly turned on. He fucks me like a demon. I wet my lips and savor the pleasant soreness radiating from my cunt, I could just stay on this carnival ride forever. I frown, but that isn’t the plan. This was meant to be a goodbye fuck. I know there’s no future here. Jakk lives too hard and too in the moment for us to build a life together. Sure it’s fun right now, but what happens in a year? Two? Will a rockstar lover still be fun when the times get leaner or the drugs get harder? The thing about rollercoasters is that they inevitably go downhill. Fast. Leaving Jakk is the right thing to do. Even if it sucks.

I take another hit off the vape and feel gritty bitterness in my lungs. If only there was a way to like, merge Jakk and Sam, create a man with Sam’s kindness and stability and Jakk’s edge and cock. Invent a perfect creature for me to love and fuck instead of a compromise. Halley wants her cake and her outrageous orgasms too! Is that so much to ask? I exhale a cloud of chalky fumes. Maybe I can circle back to Jakk in a few years? That’s what bored rich housewives do, right? Be a good girl for a couple years, give monogamy with Sam a serious shot, and if the sex stays boring, try out an affair. Jakk has got to have fucked a spouse or three in his day, what’s one more? Am I a total slut for thinking this? I should probably get this over with before I commit to something dumb: “Hey, Jakk…”

“Yeah?”

“I think we need to talk…”

“Uh oh,” Jakk says with a grin, “I recognize where this tunnel leads.” He shakes his glorious mane of white hair. “What if we fuck instead?”

I giggle nervously, “You can’t possibly be ready to go again.”

“Are you really calling my bluff?” He puts a hand to his chest, wounded. 

In a way, I guess I am. “Jakk…”

He sighs, looks up through the dirty domed skylight of his shitty little studio, and snaps his fingers. “Hales,” he says with a playful grin, “Have you ever wanted to fuck in Space?”

***

Jakk is holding my hand and guiding me through the Spaceport airfield. We are surrounded by parked spacecraft! Spaceships! Close enough to touch! Fuck me! I want to be cool, but I’m almost vibrating with excitement! Holy shit! I’m going to space! Ahhh!

I gawk at all the spacecraft. The vehicles are parked in rows, all lined up as if for presentation at an air show. There are Blue ships, smooth and organic like sea creatures, painted in dappled technicolor, no two exactly alike. There are Reptilian shuttles and traders, sleek arrowheads or fallen obelisks of reflective black onyx. We pass a long row of dull metallic dodecahedron pods resting on struts like banal moon landers. I watch a shining white disk ship that looks way too much like a UFO swooping in to land next to a human-crewed pewter craft shaped like a cigar. There is a ship seemingly made entirely of sharpened crystals. The spacecraft are mostly relatively small, the size of a private jet or tugboat maybe, but they are a crazed mix of technology and origins, like an eccentric prized collection. I grin stupidly like a tourist and Jakk tugs on my hand to move me along.

We have to stop though, pause while a long train of carts zips by like airport luggage. Nearby a pair of humans weld and tinker inside the open cowling of a ship, a triangular craft made of sharp angled planes, like an extra large stealth bomber prototype. A troop of Ürnauts stomp along in precise formation, their armoured bodies kitted out for combat patrol, improbably large futuristic weapons in hand. One of their number blankly regards us with its smooth metal face. Huge cubes of semi-compacted scarp metal trundle along on a gigantic conveyor, carried towards the huge silo-like scrap Lifters on the edge of the Mesa. Quicksilver Grey drones race through the air, a diffuse but watchful customs service. Something like a giant robotic beetle marches to a waiting Blue ground crew holding out an umbilical from their manta ray spacecraft. With a loud rumble I can feel in my bones one of the huge Lifters lifts off, its tail a sun-bright cone of plasma. I shield my eyes and watch it climb up and up and up and up forever into Space. Fuck! That’s going to be me!

Jakk leads us to an area of the airfield dominated by human ships. I rubberneck at a heavily armed wedge-shaped craft that makes me think of an attack helicopter crossed with an army landing boat. It's scarred and scorched and decorated with brightly painted runes. A group of four-armed humans wearing battle armor are loading it with supplies, so it must be Nordic. A rogue dissonant thought intrudes and I think about Freya and wonder what her ship looks like. But we’ve already moved on, past a row of increasingly dilapidated ships, until Jakk stops and gestures like a crooked showman, “Yo! The Condor!”

I blink, the Condor is a piece of crap. It looks like an Earthling space shuttle: a boxy aircraft fuselage mounted to wide delta wings. The craft is painted an unattractive grey and is filthy and charred in spots, showing the wear and tear of age and frequent use. On the stern where a NASA shuttle would have rocket nozzles, The Condor has a weird inverted-Y shaped contraption, some sort of futuristic drive, but otherwise it looks like something that could be from Earth. I feel a little disappointed. “Is this it?” 

Jakk shrugs, “Eh, what were you expecting? A Reptilian Matron’s pleasure yacht?” 

I frown at the rusty grime on the nosecone, “Is this thing safe?”

Jakk gives me a look, “Do you wanna go to space or not?”

“Okay, sorry.”

“Then climb aboard,” Jakk says merrily, showing me to an open airlock and helping me up a short ladder. He pulls the ladder up after us and seals the airlock door. Then he leads us through a tight corridor and into the cramped cockpit. 

“Yar, you’re late,” Says an incredibly fat human. The man gurns with yellow teeth and his cybernetic left eye glows a dull red. The man is heavily scarred and his left hand is a mechanical prosthesis. I blink and realize that the man also has no legs, that the chair he's resting on is actually built into him, a kind of crabby robotic walker. The fat man is hunched over a nest of holographic interfaces and mechanical controls so he must be our pilot. The pilot leers at me, “And ya brought another poppet…”

Jakk sighs, “This is Aggie”

“Agamemnon,” Aggie corrects.

“What do you mean ‘another poppet’”? I ask, playing up being offended because obviously Jakk’s used this trick before.

“Uhhhh…” Jakk says, scratching his mane, welding-goggled eyes aimed elsewhere. 

“Oooh Jakky! How could you?” I wink at Aggie and he roars with hearty laughter. 

“Yar, yer alright missy!”

“Halley.”

“Alrighty then Missy Halley, why don’tcher fasten yerself into a seat and I’ll get this tub up into The Black.”

“Aye aye,” I say and skeptically climb into a battered chair bolted to the floor. Jakk comes over and helps strap me in, copping a feel while he does because we wouldn’t want my tits injured in a crash. I blush and we share a smile. The Condor meanwhile starts to hum alarmingly and vibrate. Jakk quickly hops into his own chair and thoroughly buckles himself in. Aggie smacks his ragged lips and I feel my stomach drop suddenly and our momentum shift. The world moves alarmingly beyond the small dirty cockpit windows. I feel a grumble of anxiety and start to sweat. Fuck, what am I doing here? I clutch the arms of my chair so tightly my fingers start to hurt. Shit!

Aggie grunts, “Nervous?’

I bite my lip and nod.

“First time?”

I nod again. 

“We got ourselfs a virgin!” Aggie laughs.

“Sort of,” Jakk purrs and I blush. 

“Well dont’cher worry Missy Halley, just hold on tight and it’ll be over afore ya know it.”

“I bet you say that to all the girls,” I gasp with shaky bravado.

Aggie guffaws and smashes a control making the Condor abruptly leap forward. I feel a sudden kick of acceleration on my chest and the unpleasant sensation of being squeezed into my chair. Aggie's pudgy flesh hand calmly grips a control stick while his mechanical one dances across holograms. The Condor shudders and shakes hard enough to make my teeth rattle and the background hum becomes a roar. I gasp and choke back a whimper, and then feel Jakk's hand on mine, giving it a gentle pat. "It's okay!" he shouts over the racket, the opaque black glass of his goggles levelled at me, "It's always like this!" I let go of my chair and desperately grab his hand, crushing it with my deathgrip. The force pressing on my body gets stronger, almost painfully so, and the cabin is growing warm. I squeeze my eyes shut and practice my calming breath routine. In and out and in and out. I feel sweat trickle down my back. I feel like I’m being crushed! This was a mistake! Fuck! Oh fuck! Oh fuck! And then the roaring stops and the force dwindles and my body is trying to drift out of my chair. "What?" I rasp, panting and damp, loose hair floating wildly. Aggie works the controls and Condor rolls over and I see the planet Flotsam spread out below us, a giant arc of brilliant horizon stretching to infinity. I gasp in wonder, awestruck. 

"Welcome to space, babe."

***

I peer out the cockpit window and watch as we approach a swirling cloud of space debris. "Yar, hold ontah yerselfs," Aggie scolds as his hands work the controls and bring the Condor sliding into the shrapnel, nimbly weaving the little ship through a constellation of wreckage, and somehow finding a safe route through into an empty pocket. “Thar she blows,” Aggie says proudly as we approach a large structure floating in the eye of the debris storm. 

The unidentified floating object looks like an ad hoc combination of construction cranes and spacecraft. It has a large modular bulge on one side, what appears to be the hull of a big freighter with two or three smaller ships grafted onto it, as well as an improvised hanger structure. Attached to this is a complex gantry, a kind of cylindrical collar of scaffolding studded with crane-like arms. Cradled in the gantry is a starship, something sleek and dart shaped, and I see the running lights of tiny drones or ships moving around it. I guess it’s some sort of hidden space station? “What is this place?”

“It doesn’t really have a name,” Jakk says, “But it’s where I work. It’s kinda a retrofitting operation, but y’know, a real private one.”

“Circumspect,” Aggie agrees.

Jakk nods, “Sometimes sapients want a little work done on their ship, quiet-like. Or maybe some Orbital Salvagers find something cool that’s maybe not entirely kosher, and we help get the doohickey onto a client’s ship.”

“What kind of doohickey?”

“Weapons mostly,” Aggie says, cyborg eye flashing.

“Weapons?”

Jakk gives Aggie a look, “Look, maybe a Trader wants to pack a little surprise. Space isn’t always safe, right? And adding military spec to a civy freighter isn’t always officially allowed. So we offer an affordable alternative.”

“We also cater to Pirates!” Aggie growls happily. “And brigands!”

Jakk smiles a little apologetically, “Yeah that too.”

Okay, so it’s an illicit shipyard. That sucks a little, but tracks. My hot date in space would absolutely be to a dodgy chop shop. Whatever, it’s still space! I laugh and coo, “Oooh Jakky, you bring me to all the nicest places!”

***

“Hurry up Hales!” Jakk laughs as he flies up the ladder ahead of me.

I laugh and try to go faster, but this whole weightless thing is harder than it looks. I try to mimic Jakk and float up the narrow tube, gracefully pushing off the odd ladder rung for speed, but I keep getting twisted around, bumping into walls, chaotic hair stuck in my eyes and mouth, and fall further behind. It seems stupid to cling to a ladder without gravity, but I think I might have better luck. “You really suck!” Jakk teases from above.

“I’m new at this!” I whine with a giggle. I’m floating! I’m experiencing weightlessness! I’m flying! It feels like something from a lucid dream, but it’s real. Halley Houston from the dang trailer park is having an actual fucking space adventure! This is so fucking cool! 

“Hurry up slowpoke, you’re almost there.”

Jakk disappears from view and I work my tongue out the corner of my mouth, grab the ladder, and concede to my clumsiness. I start to climb, which actually goes pretty quickly. Ladders are pretty great when you don’t have to lift your fat ass. I reach the top of the tube and launch myself into a little chamber. “Okay!”

“Look,” Jakk says with a smile.

I gasp! The walls of the chamber are transparent and gaze out into space. I press my nose to the glass and stare, watch the light twinkle off the swirling cloud of debris, spot the distant starbright albedo of the planet Flotsam in the distance. Up close I can see the belly of the starship in the gantry, a dark backlit mass filling the horizon. A raised section on the belly is brightly lit and I can see tiny figures, sapients in spacesuits standing at odd angles working. Construction drones maneuver in the vicinity and a huge crane assembly slowly moves a large glowing orb to rest against the starship hull. The orb is filled with a roiling, tumbling light like a storm encased in glass. It’s kind of mesmerizing. I realize we’re somewhere in the gantry structure itself, and that this must be some sort of observation deck. "Wow," I breath, misting on the window.

“It’s something, right?” Jakk says, drifting away from me.

“What’s with the orb?”

Jakk shrugs, “Something we found? It seems to power itself and warp gravity, but we’re not really sure what it does yet. We're putting it on the Salamander to take it out somewhere quiet for a test.”

“Okay.”

“It’s not really my department. Exotic shit is for the boffins; I just weld and tinker.” Jakk pushes himself gracefully off a wall and floats over to me in a spiral. We collide and I’m gently crushed against the window. Jakk kisses me hard, clutching my body. “But forget that, I’m not here to talk about work.”

“Forgotten.” I’m not here to talk about work either. I kiss Jakk hungrily and he pulls at the analogue zipper of my jumpsuit, baring my tits because I’m not wearing anything underneath since I’m a dirty naughty girl. Jakk squeezes a breast and bites my neck hard enough to leave a welt, making me mewl happily. He drags his rough thumb over my nipple and I see my reflection gasp in his goggles. Jakk smiles roguishly and launches off me to float back to his bag. “What?” I gasp.

“Hold on,” Jakk says, slipping out of his coveralls and tugging something free of his rucksack. I’m floating naked to the waist, horny and impatient, hands on my hips. Jakk lifts up a black something, like a tangled rubber hose, and tosses it into the air. I feel a warm tingle in my belly, did he bring restraints? I imagine myself hogtied and horny in space. Jakk pokes his keyband and the rubber tangle rapidly expands, snapping taut into a hollow rigid dodecahedron made of black rubber bars. “There.”

“What is it?”

Jakk leers at me, “Zero G sex cage.”

“Oh!” Oh fuck yes! I slip out of my jumpsuit and launch myself at the cage, bouncing gently on its springy surface as I grab on. I grin at Jakk and try to squeeze through the bars with all the awkward grace of a cartoon bear stuck in a honey pot. I wiggle and pull and kick my legs uselessly! I'm stuck! I blush furiously and try to struggle harder. My desperate flailing makes the entire cage spin, somehow making the situation worse, until Jakk stops it and I finally manage to wriggle inside. I push my cloud of hair off my face and collect my wounded dignity. I hang off the cage bars and try to look sexy, stretching out a hand to beckon Jakk, “Come here spaceman…”

Jakk laughs and effortlessly slips into the cage and suddenly we are kissing again, clutching each other, fumbling and teasing, weightless. We drift and bump into the bars, make the cage rotate and float around the room, gently colliding with walls. My heart is racing and I’m panting and holy shit I’m going to have sex in space! Jack throws my legs over his shoulders and starts to eat my pussy, holding me at an impossible angle. I moan and we are doing a barrel roll while he sucks my clit. I writhe against his face and start to whine and twitch, I’m so close to coming, but Jakk abruptly stops, leaving me squirming near the edge. He kicks off and pins me to the cage, pushes my hands against the rubber tubing, tucks my feet through bars. “Hold on tight,” he growls and I gasp and brace myself. Jakk presses his body against me, gets a strong grip on the cage for leverage, and presses his cock inside me. I feel him part me and push into my pussy, so big and hot and hard inside my hungry cunt. I moan and brace myself, flexing my limbs and core, try to grind back against him. Jakk starts to thrust, using his arms and legs to slam into me, making the sex cage spin and bounce across the room. I gasp and breathlessly laugh, and Jakk grins and groans, as we careen and fuck. Jakk thrusts harder and faster in a relentless steady motion that ohhhh, ohhh fuck, is oh yesssss, that’s it! Fuck! Fuuuuuuck! I spasm and whimper and so close and ahhhhhhh! Fuck! Fuck yes!!

I want more.

I dizzily let go of the cage and push Jakk, knocking him loose and making us float. I climb aboard my lover’s lap and straddle him, wrap my legs around his waist, reach down, guide his cock back into me, and try to fuck him. Without gravity I almost launch myself right off him, and I have to use my legs to pull myself back against his body. I growl, it’s hard to bounce on a cock when you’re weightless! I try to orbit my hips a little, to find that little extra, but it just makes us twist in the air. Jakk grunts and grabs the cage, steadies us with his hands and feet. Suddenly I have a solid platform to work with, a fulcrum for my lever, and I can grind my pussy against Jakk properly. I sit up and arch my back, feel up my tits, put on a show for Jakk. Except my breasts don't have their familiar heft in zero gravity, they flap and float instead of bounce, are distractingly amorphous. I play with my boobs, wiggling and prodding, less fondling than exploring. It feels so weird! Jakk gets impatient and grabs my hips and starts to thrust into me, stands us up by his footholds, and we’re fucking face to face, aloft. We have nothing but our bodies for leverage and so we wrestle, grinding and humping, less thrusting than slamming our junk together, growling and sweaty in the increasingly muggy chamber. I’m panting and my heart is hammering and we’ve found the right rhythm and oh god oh fuck I’m going to come again and Jakk clutches me so tightly that it hurts and I feel his cock pulse inside me and a sudden wet heat as he comes and oh oh oh “Ffffffffffuuuckkkkk….” I gasp through clenched teeth. “Fuck.”

***

I’m drifting naked and weightless, sweaty but satisfied, curled around Jakk in our space lover’s cage. I feel smug and euphoric and boneless, a sense only amplified by the lack of gravity. I want to fuck Jakk again, maybe try out something terrestrially impossible or suck his cock and watch Jakk geyser in zero G. I imagine swallowing a floating globule of cum like an astronaut chasing an errant grape. I grin, this sex in space thing has possibilities. I gaze out the big window and look at the docked starship with its weird glowing alien orb. This still feels so unreal, like I’m a character in some particularly horny science fiction story. Who would have thought that an agoraphobic trailer park shut-in would be having a post coital cuddle in actual fucking space? I see a flash of something and a construction drone veers weirdly. I perk up and squint. I think I see something moving… no, rocketing toward us! It’s going to hit our chamber! “Jakk!”

“Huh?”

“Jakk!” I almost scream and point. The thing is flying rapidly closer! It’s a person! They’re falling right at us! Are they hurt!? What is going to happen to them? Will they smash through the window!? Fuck! “Jakk!”

The person is tucked in tight like an arrow, leading helmeted head first, racing towards us like a skydiver. Jakk curses and starts to wiggle out of the sex cage but it’s too late and the person smashes into the window! Except they don’t! They pass right through it! As if the barrier doesn’t exist! The figure lands heavily and stands on armoured feet. It’s an Ürnaut and it regards us blankly with its smooth armoured head. “YOU ARE UNDER ARREST. THIS IS AN ILLEGAL INSTALLATION. COMPLY. OBEY. RESISTANCE IS FUTILE.” Jakk curses and launches himself at the Ürnaut, one naked man against a cyborg supersoldier. The Ürnaut slaps him heavily aside and Jakk smashes into the wall. I scream! “YOU ARE UNDER ARREST. COMPLY.” The Ürnaut pins Jakk to the wall by his throat and Jakk kicks at the cyborg. “Fuck you! Fuck!” The Ürnaut snatches something off its belt and slaps it against Jakk’s face. It’s a black ball! It adheres and starts to expand, flowing around Jakk’s face, growing into a hood that engulfs Jakk’s whole head and neck in a black featureless sphere. Jakk’s body goes instantly passive and he stops resisting. The Ürnaut releases Jakk and he floats obediently. “COMPLY.”

“Jakk?” I whimper in fear and huddle against the back of the cage, trying to get as far from the Ürnaut as I can. “YOU ARE UNDER ARREST. THIS IS AN ILLEGAL INSTALLATION.” The cyborg walks calmly towards me. “This is a mistake!” I screech, “I don’t work here! I’m just visiting…” The Ürnaut phases through the rubber sex cage like a ghost and pulls another black ball from it’s belt. “IRRELEVANT. YOU ARE UNDER ARREST. OBEY.” I scream and the Ürnaut presses the black ball to my forehead and everything goes dark….

***

…I come back to myself in a strange round chamber. Everything is white and very bright. The walls glow, the ceiling glows, the floor glows; I am bathed in light, exposed. In front of me looms a twelve foot tall, perfectly black monolith. “HUMAN FEMALE YOU STAND ACCUSED.”

I look around frantically for help. I’m naked and I have a thick black band around my neck like a Shakespearian collar made of rubber. Two Ürnauts stand flanking me, passive but menacing. I feel tears sting my eyes. “There must be some mistake…”

“WE DO NOT MAKE MISTAKES. WE ARE LAW. YOU STAND ACCUSED OF TRAFFICKING IN STOLEN GOODS, TRAFFICKING IN STOLEN VEHICLES, TRAFFICKING IN FORBIDDEN TECHNOLOGY, WEAPONS VIOLATIONS, RETROFITTING VIOLATIONS, ILLEGAL SALVAGE, PIRACY, TAX EVASION…”

“But I was just visiting! I didn’t work there!” I’m crying and shaking and about to completely freak the fuck out! “It was just supposed to be a stupid goodbye fuck!”

“CALCULATING… UPDATED. YOU STAND ACCUSED OF BEING AN ACCESSORY TO TRAFFICKING IN STOLEN GOODS, TRAFFICKING IN STOLEN VEHICLES, TRAFFICKING IN FORBIDDEN TECHNOLOGY…”

“What!? No! This isn’t fair!”

“IT IS THE LAW. VERDICT: YOU ARE SENTENCED TO TEN YEARS OF HARD LABOR.”

I gasp, completely stunned. Ten years!? I’m going to prison for ten years! A whole decade of my life! Gone! I feel my knees go weak and I nearly faint. All because I wanted to fuck Jakk? To visit space!? Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! I feel a wail building that never makes it past my lips because the black collar around my neck starts to flow down my body with a feeling like sharp pinpricks. I hold up an arm and watch in mute horror as it becomes coated in black rubberlike material. The pinpricks race over my torso and down my legs and even up into my pussy. I must be totally encased. “W-what?” 

Then the collar flows upward, black swallowing my head in another spherical hood. My body goes rigid but my mind is still racing. I’m terrified! One of the Ürnauts steps forward, grasps the black globe containing my head, and lifts it off my body. Mentally I scream! My body doesn’t have a head! My head doesn’t have a body! What the fuck!? How am I alive? But then a sense of calm washes over me and the world goes hazy. Distantly I note my body obediently following one Ürnaut while my head is carried away by another. My consciousness drifts…

***

Time loses meaning and becomes vague and disjointed. I exist in a void. Brief glimpses of motion. Sight without seeing. I feel my hands busy at work, metal and tools, prying and unfastening. The proprioceptive sense of machinery and components. Endless disassembly. Activity. Dormancy. Routine. A swirling fugue. A trance. And then…

I’m myself again! I open my eyes, except that isn't quite right? I see, except it isn't really vision. Sam is here though. "Sam!" I vocalise somehow. 

"Halley," he says, looking relieved. 

"What happened? The last thing I remember..." I was being decapitated by a black plinth for fucking another man in a criminal space station.

Sam nods, "Yes. You'd been picked up by Ürnauts and brought before the Archon for punishment. I believe the sentence was ten years of hard labour for being an Accesory to a Criminal Enterprise."

"But I was just visiting!"

"The Ürnauts are not fond of liniency or nuance, I'm afraid."

I'm propped up on a chair and I feel strange. I'm naked, I think? But maybe somehow not? I raise my hands and... regard them? Sense them. They are coated in a black smooth substance. Oh no! Oh fuck! My hands fly up to my shoulders, feel around, travel all the way across without encountering my head or neck, just a long smooth decapitated line. My head! I've lost my fucking head! Fuck! Fucking fuck! I'm starting to panic! "Fuck!"

Sam crouches down and gently takes my hands in his, "Halley, listen to me. It's going to be alright. I did what I could and got your body out of that dreadful breakyard and unlocked your mind."

"But my head!?"

"Is still imprisoned in the Ürnaut Oubliette. I pulled some strings to rescue your body and HAL-E helped jailbreak your mind, but your head and, well, brain are still detained. Technically, in the eyes of the Archon, you're still serving your sentence." Sam squeezes my hands, "The Ürnaut gaurds I bribed think I've taken your body as a trophy and that you're here as a mindless plaything."

"Oh."

"It's important that we maintain that illusion. If the Ürnauts discover your mind is free there will be consequences for both of us."

I would sigh and tilt my head back if I still had all the necesary parts. Instead I just let my posture droop. "How did you manage to do this?"

"I'm afraid I haven't been completely forthcoming with you about my profession..."

"You aren't a specialized brokerage consulatant?"

Sam chuckles, "In only the most euphemistic sense. I'm a smuggler, Halley. Or rather I'm the Director of a smuggling enterprise, a rather successful one. Which gives me access to resources and a certain amount of clout."

"Oh." It seems my nice vanilla boy was the real bad guy after all. "Well thanks."

Sam smiles, "Of course."

"So what now?"

"That is the question, isn't it? Obviously you'll have to stay here with me, at least until we figure out a safe alternative, but what that looks like is up to you. I'd rather hoped we could pick up where we left off..."

I wish I had eyes to blink, "What? You still want to be in a relationship with me?"

"Of course." Sam raises a hand, "I recognize that there's a problematic power imbalance at play here, so I want to emphasize that your continued freedom is not contingent on being romantic with me. We can be friends or just roomates if your prefer." Sam looks at me quite intently, "But I was serious about taking things to the next level with you, and that hasn't changed."

"Even though I'm a headless rubber sexdoll now?"

Sam looks at me with a hunger that makes me shiver, "I actually rather like that part." He clears his throat, "My tastes are rather... singular."

Oh my, it seems my not so nice boy is also kinky. I sit up straight in the chair, push my rubberized tits up, and lean forward. "Tell me more about this 'next level'..."

***

Memories rapidly unspool. I'm naked on my hands and knees while Sam rests his feet on my back like a footstool. He's entertaining a Blue Culture Leader with an extremely sensitive shipment of highly illegal aphrodisiac musk and discussing business terms. I hold perfectly still, curious and aroused, but playing at being a mindless toy. I'm hanging spreadeagle from a steel rack with electrodes glued to my body and remote controlled dildos inserted into my pussy and ass. Sam sits in a chair across from me, clothed in a  plush robe, a look of intense focus on his face as he works a holographic interface. Pain and pleasure spark and arc around my body, making me twitch and moan. I'm carrying a tray of fancy cocktails around a party filled with important sapients with a running vibrator hidden in my pussy. Waves of intense stimulation flare through my cunt, but I fight to maintain my composure. Everyone at the party thinks I'm just a kinky slave and I can't let them know I'm aware. I take careful mincing steps, perfectly posed, pausing to hand out drinks, while inside I'm almost screaming in pleasure. Fuck I'm so close that if I had teeth they'd be chattering! The pleasure builds and builds and I, I can't keep it together much longer! Fuck I'm going to come! I veer for the kitchen, fighiting to keep the same placid flirty gait, forcing myself not to dash or wobble or just gush right where I'm standing. I step through the door, push it closed, and then AHHHHHH!!!! I'm coming and I've dropped the tray and the glasses, my legs have gone numb and I've fallen to the floor in a silent writhing twisting orgasm that seems to go on and on and on. The door pushes open, but I'm too far gone to hide, but it's only Sam and he's smiling down at me in total delight. I’m back on a different floor. My hands and legs are bound and I'm being fucked doggystyle by Sceolàn. I moan as the doggirl thrusts into me harder and harder. I feel my cunt stretched wide by her canine cock, and even  wider by the bulge of her knot as it forces itself into me, welding us together. Sam watches from his armchair intently, fingers steepled. Sceolan barks and yelps and I'm not sure if it's the woman or the dog fucking me. I feel dirty and defiled and so filled and...

***

"Fuck!" I yank the circlet off my head. I'm panting and turned on and disgusted and captivated. My facial pussy is engorged and drooling into my mask and I'm sure my sodden panties have left a wet spot on the chair. I squirm and yank the mask off my face, reaching up to wipe fragrant pussy juice from my chin. "What the fuck!?"

Halley-12 leans forward in her chair, "Exciting isn't it?"

"Fuck." I gasp and try to calm down. There is nothing to be afraid of and no you will not be having sex right now. Let's get this business meeting back on track. “S-so you’re an Infobroker now…”

Halley-12 doesn’t have a head, but I can tell she’s staring at my face. I blush. “I am.”

“H-how did that ha-happen?”

Halley-12 shrugs her empty shoulders, “A shut-in needs hobbies and there are only so many sexy games a girl and her master can play in a day. So I decided to try and figure out what happened to Halley-Prime.” She makes a dismissive gesture, “I couldn’t exactly chase down leads, but I could do the internet sleuth thing and put together some theories. Maybe eventually write a nice little True Crime novella.”

I blow out a deep humid breath, “Okay, but how do you get to ‘Gan Ceann’? Having a pet Agent?”

Halley-12’s headless body looks smug. “One thing led to another. Sam has tendrils into all sorts of business and you’d be surprised what sapients will say in front of sexy naked headless girls with featherdusters. I started to learn things, facts and secrets, valuable intel. At first it was just the means to learning more about Prime, tokens to trade with other Infobrokers or leverage to get sapients to talk, but eventually I knew enough to start playing the game. I decided to market what I knew, to swap and sometimes sell, more for the reputation than Currency, to build a network of clients and informants. I became someone who knows things. A real player. I created the Gan Ceann alias to protect my identity and foster some mystery, although I suspect those in the know assume I’m really just Sam having a laugh, which also suits my purposes.” Halley-12 folds her hands in her lap and sits straight, “I’ve become very good at my trade.”

“And you’re still chasing Halley-Prime?”

“It’s good to have a hobby.”

I nod and think back to my worst agoraphobic days and the hours spent beating video games and repainting Clem’s nerdy miniatures. I understand the appeal of little obsessions.

Halley-12 steeples her fingers and taps them in a silent clap, “Speaking of which, what did you learn for me?”

I rub my facial clit thoughtfully, “Halley-18 was a Reptilian gangster and is hiding out in the Sexbox.”

“I’d surmised as much,” Halley-12 says, gesturing for me to continue.

“Or maybe she wants to be there too? The Serpent dosed her with some kind of brainwashing pattern that made her want to shrink away to nothing. She got an antidote, but it only partially worked, so now she’s living as a limbless sextoy…”

“Sounds sexy,” Halley-12 purrs, “Perhaps we should compare notes?”

I blush, oh to be a fly on the wall for that conversation. “Right. Well, before she became limbless, Halley-18 was sent by the Serpent out into the Junk Desert to retrieve the Memory Crystal from a crashed starship. She told me it was the Black Box from the ship that abducted us from Earth. A Tall White Corsair, I think. Halley was told the Memory Crystal contained information about who paid to have us abducted.”

“Interesting.” Halley-12 sits up, body attentive. “Did she review the contents?”

“No, she never had the chance.”

“Unfortunate. Where is the Memory Crystal now?”

“The Serpent has it in her Pyramid.” I shake my head, “So I have no idea where you go from here…”

Halley-12 body sits still, thoughtful, her fingers dancing on her armrest. “I guess we’ll have to go and retrieve it.”

“What? You’re joking! How are you going to steal it from inside a crime lord’s fortress?”

“Not me. You.”

“What!?”

Halley-12 gestures at her headless body, “I can’t infiltrate a party; I’m rather conspicuous. Plus the whole escaped fugitive under house arrest thing.”

I gesture at the cunt on my face, “I’m don’t exactly blend in either.”

“Oh that shouldn’t be a problem,” Halley-12 waves her hand. “I have a plan.”

“You have a plan?”

Halley-12 opens the decanter of blue liquor and pours a generous amount into the tumblers. “Tell me, have you met Halley-15?”

***

Chapter 24