Hardwired 2.2

A warning for readers: This is part 3 of a 3-part post-cyberpunk love story, and really doesn't work as a standalone, given that part 2 ended on a cliffhanger. So here are the links:

Part 1, which does work as a standalone story and was meant to be one:

https://www.literotica.com/s/hardwired

Part 2.1, the leadup to this one:

https://www.literotica.com/s/hardwired-2-1

And without further ado, let's get to the word porn!

Hardwired 2.2

Behavioral was like stepping a few minutes back in time to before we broke the world. The room mirrored the layout of Mechanical, figures on both sides of the room stretching out to a wall of blank concrete. Windowless, lit by white glare, the sound was the first difference; without the need for suppression there was no glass to these cells, each of them just an circular expanse of white plastic as a floor between equipment near-identical to the heavyweight dampeners but opposite in purpose. Heavyweight broadcasters, swamping any resistance to their signal through sheer force, crushing any attempted denial.

It's a message in and of itself: force works, and we have it. Covering your ears doesn't mean much when you're strapped to a speaker stack and a boot on your neck isn't listening to your arguments. You will give in. It's a matter of time. Accept. Accept.

Without the glass barriers the sussurus of the inmates' voices filled the room, no two people reacting to the same stimuli. We walked down the row checking inhabitants; each had a display monitor for their attending physician, showing the scenario being run. With an emergency so nearby and the occupants of the room not going anywhere, this time there were no techs to interrupt our tour of personal hells.

The first we passed was a woman of about my age with a runner's physique, eyes locked on nothing I could see, jaw set, dragging herself hand over hand along the floor. Each time she pulled herself forward, the plastic floor moved to match, forever keeping her spotlight centered in her cell. The monitor on her cell showed where she was subjectively from a hovering, godlike perspective: she crawled along hot sand, nearing the lip of another dune. At its top she twisted over and grunted as her body told her that she was falling along the rocks that covered its back end.

I'd begun to wonder where the last element was when it appeared. A rescue worker, her profile familiar from when it was our receptionist, holding a bottle of water so cold that mist drifted from it. It rushed down to the inmate, desperate to help. Soft, inhuman hands cradled her head and raised the water bottle to lips so dry that even where they cracked blood could only ooze like molten stone. "Just drink," it pleaded in the voice of comfort.

The woman spat dust, twisted herself away and started up the next dune. "Please," called her would-be rescuer, not following. "Please just take some water!"

The next was a man sitting, sweat beading on his forehead, giving a headshake now and again that looked compulsive. Beside the chart noting that it was a variant based on his diagnosed alcoholism was the monitor showing a tiki bar.

He sat statue-still on a stool at the faux-polynesian-decorated bar, a drink sat in front of him and a band played a vapid song about margaritas on a low stage behind him. Filling the bar were woman, universally young and lovely, a bikini bottom the apparent uniform. They flocked around him, touching him casually with flirting smiles, pressing against him and giggling at jokes he hadn't made. Each of them had a drink, most of them brightly colored and filled with fruit and other additions. Over and again a drink was pushed into his hand, a straw put to his mouth as pouty lips asked him to just have a taste. The bartender winked an eye with the receptionist's face, put another drink in front of him and let him know it was on the house. I could hear his teeth grinding. We walked on.

Most were seductive. A few more were like the desert, or worse. A member of a leper colony offered salvation from their sickness, but every single one must agree or none would receive it, becoming a pariah among pariahs. A soldier dragged from an ancient battlefield, doctors fighting with primitive tools to save him, and looming over it all in starched white purity, a syringe-bearing nurse begging for his permission to make the pain stop. Mox was one of the luckier ones. They had decided on seduction.

She spun on the spot, her arms outstretched with marionette stiffness, and the monitor showed the billowing white glory of her dress shining at the very center of a ballroom. Figures in elaborate formal dress and paired animal masks filled the rest of the room, spinning in perfect synchronization around the central pair like lesser constellations in an orrery, every part of the room spotlighting Mox and her partner. It was frankly bizarre.

I could see the real Mox where she spun alone in her cell. She was short, trim, with an upturned nose over sarcastic lips and hair whose brown roots were replacing electric blue. Holes that spoke of missing piercings were visible on her ears, nose, lips, eyebrows... simply put, she was not ballroom material. The puffed sleeves of her dress were not intended to give way to writhing tattoos of tentacles. Yet she was the center of every attention in the simulated room, and the absolute focus of the figure who dragged her in his wake.

Even I found myself reacting to him, to the charisma he exuded, his inhuman perfection. He swung Mox through the steps of a complex pavane with absolute confidence and flawless poise, never a misstep or pause for breath. Pressed close to her, eyes sincere on hers, as we closed in we overlapped enough in the field to overhear: "Just fear me, love me, do as I say and I will be your slave!"

There was a tired uncertainty in Mox's eyes and the surrounding couples closed the ring of the dance in tighter, pressing her to conclusion. The floor shifted in time with her dance, keeping her pinned in place.

"Let's cut in," Arkia said coldly and I nodded. We didn't have anything from the doc to help with this part, but I'm not just a decorative squire and moral support. Not entirely, anyway. I'd been working with Malk on how to handle this particular hurdle since the decision was first made. Arkia went to work on the control panel, prepping it for her entrance, and I got to work pulling off my shoes and socks. No, really.

From the sole of each shoe I drew a length of plastic, each tapering to a point on one side, so that by laying them one atop the other they made the shape of a two-pronged fork. One of my socks I tore with my teeth, revealing it to have adhesive smeared across a square of rubber inside the cotton housing. I wrapped the two pieces together in the adhesive-coated rubber, forming a solid grip for the fork, then moved on to the other sock. One thread protruded from its top, gleaming in the light with a metallic sheen. Couldn't risk metal detectors seeing a full piece of metal, even metallic tape, so we'd woven this copper wire through the fabric of the sock, and after a quick unravel wrapped the tines of the fork. Standing, now barefoot, I slotted it against the primary I/O jack of Mox's broadcaster and gave a thumbs-up.

Arkia climbed her way onto the raised platform of white plastic and stumbled. The monitor showed that she had been accepted by the simulation, drawn in as another player, and slammed into by a dancer the instant she had arrived. Dodging two more couples, she walked into the center of the spinning circle as the dance ended. A near-limp Mox was draped against the taller figure who guided her, still whispering into her ear.

"Excuse me," Arkia said cheerfully, "But may I have this dance?" Every eye in the room focused on her in an instant, the ballroom turning like a pack of predators. Beneath the masks I recognized the bone structure of the receptionist as lips drew back from teeth.

The extravagant mass of hair that haloed the king's head would look ridiculous on me. I know it. Same for the tights, and the cod piece. I think they would look absurd on anyone. I have no idea how he made them regal, made them symbols of his status and superiority, made his attention burn like a blowtorch. Arkia froze, a mouse hypnotized by a cobra, his terrible grandeur overwhelming her.

But there are limits. His attention turned to Arkia, the king had forgotten Mox... who charged into her friend in a crushing tackle of a hug, breaking the spell. "Now, B.G.!" Arkia screamed to the simulated world at large and without hesitation I introduced what was effectively an electrically conductive spike to a very sensitive input/output node.

Circuits that were never meant to interact spat current through each other, acrid smoke burned through the standardized incense smell and the whine that filled the room changed very slightly by the removal of one of its contributing sources. I snatched my hand back and stumbled away as the plastic under my makeshift handle went from solid to molten to liquid in a second. The plastic floor of the cell jerked to stillness and a thump told me that both women had fallen off when it did so.

Satisfied that it was dead, I circled around for an introduction and was rather surprised to see that Mox had landed on top and was already expressing her appreciation with a deep kiss. I was more surprised that Arkia was not objecting or making any move to get to her feet from the floor.

"Okay, that's hot and all, but we gotta fucking run, ladies," I said, shaking my hand in the hopes that it would help me get back feeling faster. That broke them up and they stood, but before we could leave Arkia insisted on an introduction and a review.

"'k. First, B.G., Mox. Mox, B.G." Mox gave me an odd look.

"Beegee?" I nodded. "Well, I appreciate not being a dancing queen any more, but unless we get out of here it's gonna turn from a Saturday night fever into a tragedy. Dig?" She seemed irritated with my blank puzzlement. Arkia looked at her with concern.

"Does... your... brain... feel... okay?" she asked slowly, only relenting when Mox shot her an equally irritated look. "Fine, whatever. We're gonna walk out of here as an escort, bringing you along as part of the general evac. Things are probably breaking down and catching fire all over the place right now so we're not gonna draw much notice."

"What? What the hell did you do?"

"Later. Key points: casual walk. One of our hands on each of Mox's arms. No looking back. Looks back mean nervous, draw attention. Ready?"

"Arki, honey, who taught you how this works? Have faith." Mox smirked. She was clearly not someone who could easily be kept down for long.

On the other side of the heavy door, none of the Behavioral inhabitants paid us the slightest attention during our perp walk. The dome around Brockwelter had been reduced to perhaps fifteen feet across and the other inmates had all been drawn out of it, several apparently by lasso to judge by the ropes on the floor. In his own personal storm Brockwelter himself still raged and I felt it like radiation on my skin when we passed by. Mox rubbernecked at the damage we had inflicted, looking stunned.

We had made it to the other end of the room when I doomed us. The portable dampeners were doing their work well, compressing the dome steadily, when Brockwelter made one last play for freedom. The generators whined in distress, pushed beyond machined tolerances and redlined on every gauge, but they held. Only a trickle of Brockwelter's fury slipped through, the barest shred of the earlier storm, stripped of its power.

Everyone in range shuddered, feeling an echo of his mind. They shivered like prey hearing the snarl of a hungry predator.

With one exception. The only person in that room who had been ridden by that bestial spirit like a voodoo loa and was still upright. I made no conscious reply, but the echo of Brockwelter still inside me reared up to the challenge, twisted me to face the real thing and bare my teeth in challenge. To show that these were mine.

It was more than enough. Malk had explained the Orpheus protocol to me in prep: a behavioral monitoring subroutine forever checking the body language of every inhabitant. Never look back, that's what guilty people do, people with something to hide or someone to get away from. Look back and draw the kind of scrutiny our flimsy badges were never meant to handle.

Amidst the techs and wardens cleaning up our mess were scattered projections, some mimicking doctors or administrators. Every one of them turned the same face toward us and while the simulacrum of welcoming warmth may have been badly built the hate was spot fucking on.

The floor burst into flames around us. The breath of the roused dragon turned the air into a raging inferno, sucking the breath from our lungs and crisping the hair on our heads from its closeness. Petrified by my mistake, I was the last to respond, to say the trigger word and start my claw back to the real.

It was easier than the first time, but that's not saying much. It wasn't a hammer blow taken to reality and shattering it into fragments, but shadows creeping into the unreality, flickers in the substance of the fire. The heat that the flames shed flickered and my own skin twitched between pink burns and my usual shade of dirty pale. The doc's stims were still in our bloodstreams, though, and like a spasming muscle my implants reactivated every time I started to get the override engaged.

Closing my eyes for a moment I followed Arkia through the wall of fire, pain/nothing/agony/nothing and then we were through, running full pelt. Stealth was dead and gone and all we had to hope for was that our distraction had been severe enough that they wouldn't be able to adjust to us in time for a physical response.

The final gift from the doc was like any third wish: to undo the first wish, flush out the chemical reboot. We pulled ampules from our pockets on the run and pushed them against throats already starting to burn with exertion. I kept trying the trigger word, all of us chanting it together, but I'd previously broken free at a simple home. This time the world around me was purpose-built to stop any such rebellion. Every inch I gained was clawed for with Sisyphean desperation, and each time I sank beneath another wave of falsehood I saw that we were outlined in foxfire to declare us intruders.

Arkia's shoulder barged open the door to Corrective just before its magnetic lock engaged with a click. We sprinted along the paths (glimpsing the bare walls that pressed in close around us), open-mouthed patients watching us, their identical therapists attempting to sooth the most agitated from the disaster we'd caused. I glimpsed a small, thin man, recognizing him as Brockwelter's surgeon despite his fellow inmates piled on top of him. "Not agaaaaain..." his wail followed us down the halls. The pounding of footsteps told me that a physical response had been organized amidst the chaos in our wake and I caught glimpses of other movement through walls that kept insisting that they were an open field. We made it as far as Reception before the dragon finally caught us.

Our entry into the room was greeted by the crashing descent of a steel door over the sole entrance. I barely noticed it, though. Standing in a row, the dragon's avatars stood with the haughty grandeur of wicked queens, imperious disdain in their matching faces. They filled the room, shoulder to shoulder.

The row of figures raised identical arms to point at us and commanded in one reverberating voice to "Hold them." When the orderlies following us swarmed into the room, a burly man for each of our arms, there wasn't even a struggle. I think I tried to resist, but by then I was running so far on empty that it didn't fully register with me, much less them.

The wall of identical projections walked into each other, folding into the single figure of the receptionist in a seeming optical illusion, leaving only that single avatar to regard us like insects. Waves of pseudo-pharmaceutical calm floated from it, singing a silent song of surrender to our implants themselves. My already-shredded muscles gratefully slackened without consulting me first.

.

"Escort them to Holding," it commanded the orderlies and my arms were twisted further up behind me. I had stopped bothering to try to break free of the illusion, given up chanting in favor of pained gasps. The dragon's regard was orders of magnitude beyond anything the override had ever been meant for. No matter how good your handheld extinguisher may be it's not gonna stop a forest fire.

No more tricks, no more gifts, no more chances. This was failure at the last, all of us dragged into the dark forevermore. With all hope stripped away, the only thing I had left was a last spiteful wish to strike back at our tormentors.

The problem with that was that I was, and have always been, pretty thoroughly harmless. I wasn't strong enough break free, but maybe that was the wrong direction. I couldn't hurt anyone, certainly not the thugs dislocating my shoulders. But not too long ago, I had been someone who could hurt anyone or anything, and given any chance, would.

He had forced his way into my mind and overwritten me with himself, and though we'd escaped, the stain, the feeling of being him, came with me. I just had to stop fighting it. I stopped struggling for the surface and dove into the dark undertow.

I nurtured the remembered feeling, cupping mental hands around a flame that I'm not sure will take to kindling and it roars to eager life. Guess my starting point is closer than I thought. It burns its way greedily through my veins like fire, like poison, filling me up and hollowing me out.

This is how it felt. Alone, cold and burning in my isolation like a dying star, an unvoiced scream nestling in my chest like a restless serpent. I know my hands are thickening and coarse hair is sprouting on their backs like some old werewolf flick. I'm looking at that receptionist bitch I keep seeing everywhere and even she seems to know enough to look scared before she burns off away like a wisp of ash in the wind.

I dive deeper and bare wet teeth in what could never be mistaken for a smile.

The hands on my wrists, effortlessly overpowering me seconds ago, don't even slow me when I spin to face the orderlies. The face of Courinna looks back at me from both of them. Enough of their original selves remain to fear the hunger in my borrowed eyes and they flee rather than stay and take what they deserve.

I scream after them in thwarted rage and desire, arms spread wide, but they only speed up. My need is all-consuming, to take, to break, to feel, to force the world into my embrace and fuck it to pieces. I search the faces of the other orderlies, looking for who will challenge, who I can break, who thinks they can stand in my presence like an equal. None meet my eyes so I start toward those holding the taller blonde bitch. They all flee in an instant, the smell of coward's piss following them before that stupid fucking incense can cover it again, denying me the proof of their submission. The little punk's handlers follow at their heels and she looks like she's considering following.

The blonde stands her ground, though, and I'm going to- NO. Some other voice, something in the back of my own head, screams at me. It's saying something about winter over and over again, but the word isn't making it to my lips. Don't care. I'm going to enjoy breaking this- this- I'm reaching out for my beloved, drowning behind my own eyes, please please please see me reaching- little... bitch? Something's wrong. Something's wrong with me. There are too many of me.

I'm swaying on my feet and I don't even know whose they are. The blonde is telling me that I'm broken, not that that's exactly fucking news, but that other voice seems to think that it should mean something more.