8. Sannon

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La'Rio floated, her body was powered down into a sleep cycle, cozy inside her puffy cloud, again horizontal, in the alcove area of her apartment. At the massive, curved galactic bay window an occasional noiseless private craft darted by. And in the distance, trams could be seen, snaking around structures, leaving blue tracers in it's path.

At her kitchen table the outlines of two strangers were taking shape as they digitized into her flat.

La'Rio's face rotated into view under an odd blue light that grew brighter somewhere in the kitchen area. With her eyes half opened watched the strange flashes.

"Now what?"

At her kitchen table was an ad that had somehow by-passed the filters. A couple was nude and fucking in rhythm. The girl had straddled him and was leaning into him now kissing him deeply, her hand at his chest, she resumed to bounce upon him even faster. She yelled and then chirped, climaxing. La'Rio watched them.

I told Tuner to keep the filters on maximum.

Once every few months they hacked through her apartment screens. She made a note anyway to check the ledgers for charges. After a minute however her attention was fully on the couple.

These two are fucking like mad at my table.

On the hyper-sculptured girl's arching back appeared a pair of highly detailed butterfly wings that glowed in a greenish hue and into deep blues. She was on the cliff,

Again already?

Her short high pitched cries suddenly stopped. Her wings were fluttering wildly. The guy under the fairy girl had turned now, to look up at La'Rio, up there in her floating cloud. The winged girl motioned her over.

"Gravity." La'Rio whispered.

She lowered to the foam and rolled off the landing bed. She walked carefully towards them. Wearing only Carbontele black cut panties, and a smoky black cellophane see-through top.

An alert pierced the cell.

The tones repeated. La'Rio took a deep breath, and then took a step back from them. The coupled went back to each other.

"Okay you two. Goodbye. Goodnight."

Their bodies digitized out into smaller rectangles. In all of five seconds they simply weren't there anymore. A calling card was left behind. Of all things it was the girl's white panties, with a printed black label at the seam; InterBliss Controls.

The alert tones sounded again,

"Tuner... Tuner will you get that? Tuner?"

She glanced around her cell.

"See - your not even here."

She straightened her cloths then waved a finger over actuators answering without any visuals.

"Hello?"

"La'Rio... do you recognize my voice?"

"No."

"I'm a friend of Viks."

"I was sleeping. What do you want with me I want to go to sleep."

"May I ask you a question?"

She frowned. Wondering if this was the person that had sent the ad.

"Make it quick okay."

"Before waking up in your bed what's the last thing you were doing, consciously?"

"What? Why do you ask that?"

Her eyes trailed to the main view. The star field slightly moved to the left with the city's rotation. She remembered the descent, the bizarre room - the pod, she had been there, the Reticulum.

Oh fuck. I cycled in.

On the counter top in front of her was something odd. She picked it up. It was paper. Real paper. Something a class zero civilization would have. It was a restaurant menu. A rare brown stock, with red and black printing. The letters in Earth script. There was also a well drawn picture. A man with a carbine rife.

La'Rio felt that the huge sun behind him looked something like a nuclear detonation.

Where did I get this?

"Why... why do you want to know?"

"Something was done to you. I only want to know, if you remember what happened before you cycled in."

"I... cycled in?"

"Yes. You Cycled in, yes... The Reticulum. You remember that. Good, and do you remember the reason for that?"

A slow phasing tone of static filled up the seconds.

"You're supposed to go, once a year."

"We all are yes. But do you remember your plan? You had a plan to complete after you cycled. There was someone you wanted to return to."

The voice through the com.  But why? She wanted to ask. Her mind drew a blank. In that moment she held her head in both hands. She kneeled. She began to whimper lightly.

"I... can't remember anything!"

"It's what they do, when they want to keep you away from certain places La'Rio. Now you know. There is a place you wanted to go back to. A life with someone you were supposed to share."

She wiped herself with her own sleeve.

"Lucky you, you came to me, before the Reticulum, before you cycled in. You asked us to contact you to set up a reload time, which is now. You gave us data in the deal. So your ship is ready. Or... would you rather not have any memories at all?"

"My ship?"

"Yes."

"I don't have the credits for any ship. Anyway where would I go?"

"You won't need any credits, it's taken care of. You will want back what you were doing. Right? To know, to remember where you wanted to go, to remember, who you wanted to love."

She waved her finger over the light. Snow appeared on a curved screen above her. The scarred BR 5364's cylinder head and golf ball blue sensors appeared. Then, behind the mecca, Viks stood, his arms crossed.

"Viks? I call you back."

She stabbed at the disconnect. She heard the hatch to her cell open. Tuner darted in and passed by her with it's two collision lights flashing.

"Ah. Three in the morning and your sneaking in."

"I need attention too."

"What are you doing out there anyway so sneaky-like?"

"I'm looking after you like I always do."

"I want you to investigate something for me."

"Finally! something! What took you so long?

"Pull up all the information you can on the WJW one-nine six-seven series."

"You have to connect serial and specs first to access, then I'm allowed in."

"It's done."

"Search is ready when you are."

"I'm looking for delation trails. Categorize them for me please.

Tuner replied with series of cute little beeps that made La'Rio smile.

_ _ _

When the enforced hatch parted, Viks stood there with BR 5364 behind him. Viks spread his arms.

"What took you?"

La'Rio walked in frowning at Viks. She pushed her finger into his chest.

"This is a hell of a thing."

"Were a bit rushed here."

BR 5364 walked in front leading them toward the pod, into the other cell, it's robotic voice steady and calm.

"Do you remember any of this?"

She looked around, her eyes found BR5364, she frowned.

"I don't."

"Not to worry, it will all be back with you in a few moments."

"What in hells going on Viks?"

"Lala trust me. When the sessions over you will know why your here."

"I'm not going in."

_ _ _

La'Rio gasped as she sat up in BR 5364's pod. Tears rolled down her cheeks. She looked to Viks and then to BR 5364.

"They said they don't take things from you... they said..."

"Now you know."

Viks placed a hand on her arm helping her out of the pod.

She held him tight. The paper menu in her cell, a Chinese diner she had been to - on Earth. The spicy dim sum she ate, the happy conversation with Keane, the friendly people at the next table. Why did they remove those things? She let Viks go then stepped over to BR 5364 touching it's shoulder.

"They will be coming for you La'Rio, and you too Viks."

"I want them to come, I've got a little gift."

BR 5364's metallic fingers gestured to her bag.

"I've modified the program in your Earth communicator, the cell phone. It will receive encoded messages from my banks via the main tachyon dish here on Daytmoos. I noticed you have a com. cat.

"Tuner... I can't leave Tuner, she will..."

"I have Tuner's frequency. Tuner is to stay hidden and always travel veiled on Daytmoos. I will keep you updated on her whenever possible. You will need to boost any reply signal back to me. From here, go directly to the departure bay. You've been cleared, but that will only be temporary. It was a hack, it will be discovered so you must leave now. We will all be hunted from this point on."

She grabbed Vik's hand.

"Viks?"

"Don't worry about me sweetie, you know I got friends. Maybe not the ones you want me to have.

_ _ _

La'Rio stood in front of the Daytmoos' main docking gate. A reinforced circular hatch of shiny brushed bronze four feet thick at the entrance. A deep scan hummed, hidden beneath its plating. Across the corridor she spotted Knights, around eight in all, a defensive line, always present for any androids getting the wrong idea or not getting approved by the scan. Several of them watched her. She turned back to the entrance trying to act normal, not wanting to remember those faces. She stepped past an arcing indentation installed in the floor, an activation. A deep green crisscrossing lattice of lines instantly surrounded her, trailing over and into her flight bag then slowly and deeply into her own body. She felt its energy, probing, dissecting her, component by component, chip by chip, the beam stopped. A woman's voice;

"Welcome La'Rio Arai."

The hatch spiraled open. She walked in. In front of her was a sub-station, a tram boarding area. This would take her closer to the ship. Her name flashed red above a far left oval frame about fifteen gates down. An eye scan let her in the tram. She stepped in and small sliding door revealed a pressure suit.

"Please change into the flight suit provided for safety, do not wear any under garments for they will hinder the efficiency of the flight suit..."

The female voice went on, an automated bodiless program boxed-in from some area in the tram. La'Rio set down her bag then pulled apart the seals on her white carbon flight suit. Like most ships one could atomize and transfer digitally by computer due to it's massive calculating powers, or, manually glide through the airlock. The former was for operating on planets where one's identity could not be compromised, handy, but she choose the airlock, having had enough recent mind blowing sessions with the pods. She sealed her flight suit sliding her hands along liquid seams that chemically gelled under the weight of her fingers. She carefully twisted her helmet in place, a standard chime of a sealed suit came from the system, then;

"Hello La'Rio, I'm Sannon, the ship's A.I."

"Oh...Hello."

"Why didn't you let me digitize you?"

"I'm... I wanted to see the ship from the outside."

She stepped through a shield and off of Daytmoos' artificial gravity well.

She floated for a moment, remembering the sensation then spun herself into a horizontal position.

Floating along she glanced through the clear retractable corridor. Outside, the ship was of a clam shell-like shape, except uniform in gentile curves. She smiled, it's shape reminding her of an old black an white Earth movie she had seen once, the classic saucer design. Looking closer at the shell a deep liquid silver color absorbed light, recycling it, the shell almost seemed alive, organic even.

"Sannon what's the name of the ship?"

"The Sentinel's Ghost."

"The Sentinel's Ghost? What's that supposed to be?"

She said to herself with a raised brow.

She maneuvered under the saucer and watched a glowing emerald-green light, rotate around the lower half of the ship in a hypnotizing circle.

Why did that android single me out - handing me the chip out of all those passing through Blueshine... that symbol on his hand. But nows my chance. I can get as far away from Daytmoos as possible. I'm coming back to you Keane  I'm keeping my promise.

"I was told it would only be you on this trip?"

"Yes."

"Well. There is certainly a vast amount of interior for only one. I will do my best to entertain you."

"Umm, a... Just be yourself."

She was only a few yards now from the entrance. The silver of the ship saturated her eyes, a slight ripple could be seen in it's surface drawing you in. She brought up her knees, rotating herself to a vertical perspective. The sole of her boot touched down and the ships gravity engaged. She adjusted and walked through a side entrance hatch that was barely as tall as she. The hatch closed behind her pressurizing. That cramped space was quickly erased when the next hatch opened up into a massive, wide, polished oval corridor. A curved ceiling of reflections in orange fading to white. A wide strip of yellow light, flush with the curvature of the corridor trailed alert lights from the open entrance. Beautiful she thought, and turned looking through the helmets view. She quickly broke the seals and removed it with a twist.

"Would you like a quick transport to the bridge?"

"No. I want to walk through actually... maybe just wander a little."

"Alright. I'll be here of course."

Was Sannon a woman's voice or a man's she wondered. Somewhere in between, purposely that way no doubt.

In a small dressing compartment she removed the pressure suit placing it in an automat opening for sterilization. A folded white, multi-pocketed jumper rotated out from a slotted drawer that moved back into the wall after she removed the clothing. She felt the warm air in the ship against her naked synthetic skin. The white clothing was the thinness of a balloon. Her fingers found raised black lines, pockets. She pulled on knee high, multi-buckled white boots. Standing up straight, she stretched then arched her back twisting slightly and checked her figure looking at either side of her waist - she glanced around.

"No mirror?"

Only feet away, her image appeared, moving in unison with her movements. She turned, and her three dimensional image turned slowly, anticipating her, all the way around - she turned again in the opposite direction. It turned three sixty in that direction. She raised her brows satisfied with the style of the gear. She looked away from the three D image and it vanished. She knew she could never have stepped foot on a ship like this if not for Viks and BR 5364. It was clearly for the very well off but what exactly are they getting out of this? Don't great rewards require great labor? She walked down the corridor.

"Are we away from the city yet?"

"Ninety one meters. Very slowly drifting away. That looks good on you."

She smiled openly, looking briefly up at the corridors ceiling as if she would see a lens or something.

"Thanks."

"Is there a garden?"

"I can direct you there, at your present speed it would be less than thirty minutes."

"Oh... alright. Maybe later."

She paused looking over the large lettering above a round hatch:

THIRTY SEVEN

She waved her hand past a quarter sized foggy yellow light. It changed to orange and a pleasant note resonated as a white hatch parted in two sections of a half circle. The hatch disappeared into the hull and she stepped inside. An enormous bay of small personal ships all silver and featureless, like giant pin-balls waited to be launched. The hulls were identical to the Meteors, liquid like and animated. A launch bay. She felt her mood changing. She wanted to have a look inside one but decided to look later. She walked back into the corridor, the hatch moved quietly back into place behind her. She swung her square white flight bag around and unzipped a corner pocket. She slid the halves of a small round narrow sphere apart and popped in a Dreamtrain thinking she may as well make a party of her departure, even if there was no one to party with.

"Sannon?"

"Yes?"

"Can you play some music for me?"

"What would you like to hear?"

"Lucette Bourdin Sarga."

"Ah. That's an Earth composition."

"Yes."

She stood in a circular yellow lit tube quickly ascending, the floors flashed by then slowed, she looked up, a white hatch parted and she found herself in the middle of a bridge nearly thirty yards across. Soft strings floated in and carried her along. She felt elated. A three hundred and ninety degree view of space - and there, in it's massiveness, was space station city Daytmoos. Sannon had maneuvered the ship into a horizontal view, a distant star reflected against the citys' polished structures sending flashes of multi-colored lights into the bridge. The ever present construction areas at the outer perimeter of Daytmoos swarmed with robotic mecha, looking like bees, but in slow motion at this distance.

A warm sensation from between her legs began to slide up, holding her there, her lips parted, crimson red light gently changing to blue against her face from the bridge, the Dreamtrain kicking in. A wave of slow electrical nerve caressing energy slid up her neck. A long slow whimper that she tried to control leaked out from her mouth. The charge reached her head - her hand came up to her forehead, its weight and movement cloud-like yet pulsing with sex-sense plasma power. Her eyes glowed lightly in diamond green as ocean waves of code scrolled up inside.

"La'Rio are you ill?"

Sannon's voice had a parent's concern, and held her there, somewhere between bliss and reality. She forced herself to respond and cursed herself for not doing the Dreamtrain in private somewhere, anywhere but here.

"I'm fine, just a little fun you know."

The Light-Interior controlled the motion and direction of station Daytmoos, normally keeping the nearest star somewhere overhead for maximum energy absorption. Millions of tiny pin points, colored lights from outreaching sliver structures, the center of the metropolis, blanketed the city. It reminded her of a holiday experience on Nala and something about a tree, but the drug prettied-up everything. She felt a nostolgic urge not to go. She stared at the muti-colored lights in a foggy haze. There was an array of circular lighted manual controls, glowing display screens, and twenty six encompassing white and orange flight seats. She was certified and you had to be for any flight but it didn't interest her as long as an A.I. could fly for her. With all the calculations and formulas required she'd rather not spend her time there anyway, still, she found the design easy on the eyes.

"Would you like to see a different angle?"

"No, this is fine."

"Daytmoos is beautiful."

"I love the ship Sannon, it's really something."

"Ah... yes they did a fantastic job on it. Should I say me? I'm not really sure how to relate..."

"Yes of course it's you, you are the ship right? You control every aspect."

There was a silence, well calculated by the A.I. No reason for it to believe it wasn't the ship she concluded, but then again... it let me say that.

"I've been trying to fathom my relation to the hardware, after all, I am a program installed after the ship was completed, but... I guess I am the only self aware part of the ship."

She turned, smiling, looking over the bridge.

"I feel very lucky to be traveling with you Sannon."

"I, have had several test trips, but you are the very first assigned mission. I want you to be aware that I have an ability to be more intimate. That is, if you don't mind me suggesting."


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