Double Helix Ch. 05

"You won't, will you?" When she didn't answer, I went on. "Tilly, we have to work this out. You've got something tearing you up inside. You're going to need to face it." Again, I was met with silence. I looked up to see that the flask was nearly empty. I waited until it had drained nearly to the bottom of the jar before I clamped it off and removed the catheter from her arm. "Okay, get some rest, then."

I heard footsteps running down the stairs as I emerged and shook my head at the irony of it. "She's resting comfortably," I said to the two medics when they reached the bottom, agency contractors by the look of them. They were dressed in dark blue jumpsuits with no logo and carried plastic cases. "There's a notepad in there with a record of everything I did."

The pair thanked me and went back to Tilly's room. One of them emerged less than a minute later, shaking his head. "There isn't much to do," he said. "That was a hell of a job. Are you a doctor?"

"I almost was," I said. "Pre-med biology track, even passed the MCAT with a 40. But I decided I would rather teach."

"Well, she's sleeping, and in good condition, considering. I'm going to stay overnight to monitor her, but I'll let Nick go." He threw a thumb over his shoulder to indicate the other medic still in Tilly's room. "I'm Mike, by the way. Not my real name, but you know how it is." He put out his hand and I gave it a shake.

"Just call me Norm. Not my real name either."

When Nick had gone and Mike had returned to Tilly's side, I went to find Nissi. She was lying on her bed, music turned down low. My brows rose at the explicit lyrics. "Gangsta Gangsta," she said, shrugging, "NWA."

"I wanted to tell you I'm sorry I snapped at you," I said.

"Norm, just because I'm listening to gangsta rap doesn't mean I'm mad at you."

"Nissi, I know you better than that."

She frowned. "True. But you don't deserve it. It's just that you've never yelled at me before. I was being a bitch and you called me on it. And what you did in there for Tilly. . . You don't need to apologize to me."

"What I did for Tilly? Nissi, I'm the reason she tried to kill herself."

"Is that what you think? You think this is your fault? Norm, has it ever occurred to you that you can't take care of everyone all the time?"

I thought of the people in LA that had suffered because of my poor choice. "I pushed her too hard, too fast. She wasn't ready. Maybe it was wrong for me to try treating her."

"You did your best. No one else was even willing to try. Even the agency gave up on her. You need to stop doubting yourself."

I wanted to tell her about Sharon and the safe house, felt a sudden need to confess it, to give credence to my own self-doubt and make her understand. But I also feared seeing rejection and betrayal in those green eyes. Sasha's demand that I not reveal my crime sealed the deal. "I'll talk to Sasha, I guess," I said. I could trust her to be objective. If I had acted poorly, as I felt that I had, Sasha would not pull punches with me.

"So tell me, Norm," Nissi said, "have you ever tried anal sex?"

I gawked at her. "Whoa, where did that come from?"

"I'm changing the subject. Try to keep up, my cute, geeky darling. Now answer the question."

Ice Cube's boasts and threats filled the silence. "Okay. Yes. Once."

"You mean you tried it one time?"

I grimaced. "Yeah, we were drunk."

"With a girl?"

I laughed. "Yes, with a girl." I felt my cock getting hard at the memory, despite the outcome of that encounter.

"Your idea or hers?"

"Mine, I think. I was nineteen. I barely knew her. Her name was Stacey. No, Tracey. It didn't work out too well." In our drunken state, it had been our solution to having no birth control. We had used saliva for lube and I had tried to push into her before she was ready. Her pained exclamation and warning to stop had cut right through the alcohol haze of my teenage brain. And that had been my one and only time with Tracey.

"Ah, the things we do when we're plastered. Care to try again with a sober girl?"

"Uh, what brought this up?"

Nissi laid a hand on the bulge in my pants and gave it a little squeeze. "Oh, I was just thinking about a certain move you made in the shower a few weeks ago. It made a big impression."

The idea excited me. Since that one attempt, I had been a little afraid to ask for it from anyone since, afraid I might hurt my partner or push her away in disgust. "Sure, we can try it," I said. I attempted not to sound too eager.

"Tonight," she said, stroking her hand over my cock, once, twice, before pulling away. "After your shift. Be ready for me."

It was tough, going to work when I really just wanted to stay near Tilly and make sure she was alright. It looked like everyone was in bed when I got home around 11:30, so I went to check on her. Mike was there, sitting in a chair he had pulled from the main room. Though I was tired, I wanted to ask about Tilly's condition and ended up chatting with him. He was a little older than me and had been a combat medic in the army. He spoke low to keep from waking Tilly. "They deployed us to Costa Rica in '06. You remember the 'Central America policing action'?"

I told him a bit of what I knew. The Rot had started in California and crept eastward. That alone had destroyed about 1/6th of the nation's total agriculture in the first month. It quickly jumped the Rockies and began to cross the Midwest plain states, wiping out corn, soy and wheat crops within a single growing season. Its northward progress was slowed somewhat by immigration and import restrictions hurriedly put into place by the Canadian government, sparing the agricultural regions of Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario for two more years.

Geography was the main limiting factor that kept the Rot out of Mexico, but that nation had far less success regulating movement of people and goods across its border with the United States. Once it had gained a foothold in the farming areas of the northern gulf region in the spring of 2005, the Rot swept southward, killing off naturally growing grasses and shrubs and marching inevitably towards the other major growing areas to the south and west. Mass starvation struck Mexico at about the same time, as food prices skyrocketed and US food exports to Mexico plummeted. Those exports stopped entirely in the fall of '05, when the US congress passed the Emergency Agricultural Protection Act, nationalizing farming and food distribution.

With millions dying, Mexico had lashed out in desperation in the early months of 2006, invading Guatemala and Costa Rica within the space of a few months to gain access to the rich farmlands of these nations. The Mexican Army and Navy swept aside the relatively small Guatemalan military, and Costa Rica had possessed no standing army at all. Within a month, the capitals of both nations were captured. That victory proved to be frustratingly incomplete, however, as insurgents based in the inland regions of both countries put constant pressure on occupying Mexican forces, Costa Rican guerrillas even going so far as to set fire to crops rather than let them be harvested and shipped north.

These invasions did not go unnoticed by the United States. After much debate and condemnations of Mexico's actions from both sides of the political spectrum, the McCain administration prepared a massive military response, the first time that US military would be deployed in war in nearly a century. The Mexican air and naval forces were quickly overwhelmed by the arrival of two US carrier strike groups. The deployment of army and marine ground forces in following weeks seemed like a formality, as Mexican forces were already withdrawing. The US military did not pull back as expected, though, once both nations were liberated.

New trade agreements with Guatemala and Costa Rica were negotiated and pushed through Congress in record time. Honduras followed suit soon after, making the US the sole agricultural trading partner for all three nations, with minimum export quotas.

Mike picked up the narrative. "But the insurgents felt, understandably so, that they had just exchanged one occupier for another. Attacks on US installations slowly increased in frequency and severity, and the guerrillas burned the crops of local farmers who complied with the new trade mandates. So the United States escalated. I was attached to one of several battalions tasked with hunting the insurgents in the mountains all around Costa Rica's Central Valley, Operation Pura Vida."

He shook his head. "It was a—pardon my French—a clusterfuck. We thought our superior technology made us invulnerable, but the insurgents had the advantage in the mountains. It was one embarrassing failure after another as we tried to find them and wipe them out. And the more we fought, the more people sided with the insurgency, often in secret. We had the numerical advantage only on paper, and we were never safe. They started to strap bombs to people and send them in to popular soldier hangouts. Sometimes even little kids. We responded by razing whole villages if it was even suspected that they harbored insurgents. Half my company had been killed in action by the time I was rotated out of combat. A few months later, the Rot started appearing in pockets in the coffee and sugar cane plantations all over Central America. By the end of 2009, oranges and pineapples were about the only things coming out of there. Such a cost in human lives, and for what? When my term was over, I didn't bother to re-up."

"So how did you end up working for the agency?"

"Two reasons. First, I don't buy into the propaganda about the purity of humanity and all that crap."

"Neither do I," I said. I tended to think that most people thought the same, but that was probably naïve. Both the religious right and the egalitarian left denounced genemods, for obvious reasons.

"The other reason is that the government's response to the Rot is so completely backwards and stupid that it has to be motivated by an agenda. The whole world is faced with a threat that is almost certainly a product of genetic engineering. Why outlaw the only technology that has a chance of defeating that threat?"

I shrugged. "Maybe it was precedent. The same thing happened in the 70s."

"Right, the Berlin Accord. Interesting that you should mention that."

The Berlin Accord of 1978 had been an international agreement to limit access to and development of computer systems. The agreement had come about in part due to a body of work published by Norbert Weiner, in which he projected how the then-current rate of advance in computing power would lead to human-level intelligent machines by the late 1990s. Wiener laid out in detail how this development would disrupt society at every level. He had also outlined how, if we were not careful, the birth of AI might signal the end of humanity.

To prevent such a possibility, further research into AI and processing power was to be closely monitored by the various governments of the world, and strict limits were placed on the computing power that private individuals and firms could own without special license. It reversed a trend towards smaller, faster, and cheaper home computers and servers. Instead, computing power began to be consolidated into large data centers called computing service providers. Those data centers would sell computing time at metered or flat monthly rates to users, who would utilize cheap, dumb terminals for access to it.

"Advances in information technology have stagnated ever since," Mike said. "They effectively broke Turing's Law. But that wasn't even the point. The powers that be weren't afraid of AI. That was just a pretense. No, what they're really afraid of is that their grasp over our lives is slipping. Every step forward in both genetics and computing research is one step closer to a free humanity. 'Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed'. Well, what happens when no one feels like they need a patriarchal government to look after them anymore?"

I felt a little uncomfortable, the way you get embarrassed for someone who is very passionate about an idea that you disagree with. "I don't know, Mike. Things have gotten out of hand in the last few decades, but we were doing fine before then. We need the police and the military to keep the peace, for a start. Then there's a social safety net, and regulations to keep corporations in check."

He smiled, a little indulgently, I thought. "I think it might be fun to try to convince you otherwise, but I know it's late. Maybe another time, eh?"

I told Mike about Tilly's depression and apparent PTSD and asked his opinion of what I should do.

"Talk to an agency rep," he said.

"Sasha tried that," I said. "And she got nowhere. They won't help."

"Huh." That had genuinely surprised him. "I wouldn't know, then."

"Yeah, that's what I was afraid you would say."

"Hey, tell you what." He took out a pen and small spiral notepad from his jumpsuit and wrote on it. He ripped off the page and held it out. "Here's my cell phone number. If you have a problem like this again, give me a call direct. If I can, I'll drop everything and head over here."

I took the note and pocketed it. "I appreciate that. I hope I don't have to use it." I started to go, but then had a thought. "Do you have somewhere to sleep?" I asked.

"No, but I'll just stay up with her. Have a good night, Norm."

I went to take a shower before heading back to my room. When I turned on the light, I was surprised, but delighted, to find a naked elf lying on my bed, her back to me so that the sumptuous curves of her hips and ass were on full display. "What were you two talking about in there?" she asked.

"Guy stuff," I said. "You know, war, computers."

"Women?"

"Yeah. Mike says you have a nice ass."

Her brows raised. "Did he now?"

"He said it looks so good, he wishes he could taste it."

"Mm. That's nice. What else did Mike say?"

"He told me that he hopes you're still planning to do what you said earlier today."

"Mike said that? Did you really tell your new friend that I want you to fuck me in the ass?"

The dirty talk had an instant effect on my cock. Already growing at the sight of her naked body, it twitched, pushing almost painfully against my clothing. "Well, I don't usually like to brag to people I just met, but. . ."

"Are you just going to stand there all night, or are you going to get out of those clothes?"

"My, you are the horny Eledhrim tonight," I said, as I started to undress.

"Oh, I love it when you speak Sindarin," Nissi said breathlessly. "I need to be fucked so badly." She lay on her back and bucked her hips suggestively. "Come ravish your elven beauty, my Edain lover." She flipped over and wiggled her butt at me. "Come bury your hard human cock in my wicked elven cunt." She paused and winked. "I'm not overdoing it, am I?"

In spite of the fact that she was making fun of me, her coaxing was having very real effects on my mind and body. I raised a finger and thumb, separated slightly. "Just a bit, maybe."

She flopped back over, sat up and crossed her feet in a lotus pose, taking on an imperious air that was pretty well ruined by her complete nudity. She spoke with a faux English accent. "Well then, shall we begin with the affirmations of romantic attachment and then proceed anon to the varied acts of sexual congress?"

"That sounds right lovely, it does," I said in a bad cockney accent. "Might I lick the royal cunt, yer majesty?" I asked.

"If you must, oh boorish rustic," she said, and lay back in a manner that I can only describe as "elegant", considering the circumstances.

I kissed my way up the inside of her thighs, eliciting comments like, "Oh, that is most inappropriate, young man," and "is that any way to serve your queen?" delivered in that coolly disdainful tone. I snickered, forcing a laugh from her as well. "Young man," she said, controlling her humor with an effort, "this reminds me of the time I was having tea with the ambassador of Finland. Charming old fellow. We had a most animated discussion about the imposition of an excise tax on--oh!" I had just lapped at Nissi's inner labia with my tongue. "Excuse me," she said. "Something I ate, perhaps. As I was saying, we were talking about an excise tax on text—ah. . .yeah."

"You lost your accent, milady," I said, after I finished running my tongue along the length of her pussy.

"Nonsense. There is nothing wrong with m-my manner of—oh fuck!"

"Gesundheit, your highness," I said. "I have good news. I think I just discovered the royal clitoris."

"Well done," she said, barely holding her accent as she giggled. "Your queen commands you to launch another expedition immediately."

I had never laughed so hard or so much during sex as I did that night. When Nissi finally came, three fingers deep inside her, she had tears in her eyes and my stomach were hurting. As soon as she recovered from her orgasm she started up again, commending me for my selfless and noble service to the crown. "Stop, please! It hurts," I said. I climbed up next to her on the bed and collapsed, giggling in spite of my best effort to stop.

"Oh my God," she said. "Did that just happen?"

"It was rather silly," I said with a grin.

"Monty Python silly," she agreed.

"Not at all what was expecting," I said, groaning silently at myself for what I knew was about to come next.

Nissi delivered the line perfectly. "NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition!"

"No, don't make me laugh," I protested, holding my arms across my stomach.

"Okay, okay, I'll stop," she said.

We lay together, her in my arms, for all of maybe a minute before she asked, "So, you aren't done then, right?"

I poked her side with my erection, softened somewhat from its raging hardness a few minutes earlier.

"Lay on your back," she said.

I did as she asked and she reversed on the bed and straddled my body, settling into one of her favorites, 69. I felt warm pleasure on my cock as her mouth slipped around it, and her pussy hovered over my face. I began to lick and nibble at it, but she shifted slightly, moving herself further down my body. "You said you wanted to taste my ass, Norm," she said.

I could have protested that it was "Mike" who had said that, but I had other things on my mind. Without hesitation or any real reflection of what I was doing, I ran my tongue down from the base of Nissi's pussy, across the narrow strip of skin between and across her rosebud. "Oh God, that's good," she said, and began to attack my cock with renewed vigor.

I had never rimmed someone before, but I found the mechanics to be pretty simple, not too dissimilar from cunnilingus. I had expected the taste to be a distraction at best, but I found nothing to detract from the heady experience. Nissi was in heaven, and showed her appreciation by lavishing her attention on my cock with her mouth and fingers. "Use your fingers," she said. "Lube on the dresser." She bent lower to take one of my balls into her mouth.

"Oh, damn, that's good," I said, as she rolled into gently in her mouth. I got my finger good and wet with lube and teased her asshole with it, spreading the lube liberally over it. Coating my finger again, I began to put gentle pressure on her sphincter. It resisted at first, but I waited for a bit and it relaxed suddenly, letting me slip inside.

"Oh yes," Nissi breathed, and made happy noises as her mouth closed over my cock once more.

I moved my finger slightly inside her, curling and twisting it to find out what she liked. There was a lot of resistance at first, despite the slippery lube, but she seemed to be loosening as an experimental tug caused my finger to slide easily out to the first knuckle. I slid it back inside and a kind of shiver went through her. I thrust it into and out of her a few times, testing how relaxed she was. Nissi paused when she felt me withdraw my one finger and press two together against her hole. I hesitated, not sure she was ready after all.