How the World Ends

Beta sat on the floor, legs straight out and parted, leaning back against a stack of cushions. Kenyatta was sitting on his lap, her back nestled against his chest, her legs spread wide over his. With this left hand, Beta stroked her belly and played with her high, tight breasts, gently toying with the nipple rings. With his right hand he cupped and gently massaged her vulva, the tip of his middle finger teasing her labia. The golden rings tinkled.

Beta was maintaining Kenyatta at precisely the desired state of arousal. Her IMM, linked by radio to his central processor, provided an instantaneous readout of the locus and intensity of her every sensation. He was playing her body the way Rostropovich played his cello; with delicacy, power and absolute authority. At the moment she was feeling warm and protected and cherished and aroused, but not too aroused to enjoy her food.

Alpha kneeled between Beta's legs, holding a plate and feeding her, waiting with infinite patience as she chewed each bite. From time to time she said "Drink," and Alpha would squat for her to take his tumescent cock in her mouth and squeeze out a mouthful. For this meal, she had chosen a fine, full-bodied burgundy with a top note of mescaline, to which the android, in consultation with Beta, had added a measure of MDMA.

Kenyatta checked the reflection out of the corner of her eye and found it good. A glorious woman with glistening black skin, almost dressed in white satin and fishnet, being embraced by one perfect white man, while from time to time she sucks another perfect white man's cyclopean cock. Beautiful. "Hey, Beau," she whispered. "Anybody out there watching?"

"Yes indeed, Sweet Meat. Six humans, many of them in a high state of arousal, and a dozen or so androids recording from various angles."

"Wonderful. I want copies of all the videos."

"On request. Just refer to the date and time."

To her mels: "I'm finished eating. I'm ready for dessert."

"What would you like?"

"I want you two to move closer to the window and lie on your backs, legs in scissors, ball sack to ball sack. I'm going to take you two in both holes like a sex-crazed cowgirl."

In unison: "Yes, Mistress."

"That's right. Oh, yes. That's perfect. Give me some lube in my ass, Alpha. Beta, make it thicker. Thicker. Oh God. Oh that hurts so goooooood. Pull on my pussy rings and open me up. Open me up wide. Alpha, give me a reach-around and pull on my titty rings. Harder. Just like that. Just like that. Don't stop. Hold me up, I'm going to come. UH. Alpha, give me another inch up my ass. Bounce me up and down. Wonderful. So fine. Oh God, I'm coming again..."

An hour later, erotic energy depleted but not exhausted, Kenyatta nestled back into a pile of feather duvets with her two mels on either side. Like an old lady petting her cats, she was idly playing with their cocks and balls. "You told me earlier you had some good news for me," she said to Alpha, "and I told you to save it for later. It's now later."

"Right. I located an authentic piece for your Mid-Twentieth Century Collection. A genuine butterfly chair, with the original fabric and no rust at all on the frame. I took the liberty of placing it in your Sixties Suite."

Kenyatta clapped her hands. "Wonderful! Do you have a picture?"

"Of course." A screen lowered from the ceiling. The butterfly chair did in fact look perfect, the red canvas sling seat loose on the black wrought iron frame. Kenyatta scrolled the image left and right, up and down, in and out, studying the item from every angle. "Beautiful," she breathed. "How on Earth would you fuck in something like that?"

"Don't know, Mistress. I suppose not all furniture was designed to be fuck-friendly."

"Which I'll never understand. But where did you find the chair?"

"I didn't. It was brought to light, so to speak, by Crazy Horse, the AI in charge of the Great Plains."

Kenyatta seemed interested, so Alpha continued. "In the last years of the Twentieth, a number of missile command bunkers in North America were sold to private citizens, who turned them into homes. One of these maniacs furnished a bunker in the style he'd remembered from his childhood, and then, for whatever reason, locked it up, walked away, and never returned. It seems that either he had no heirs, or they didn't see fit to visit the bunker, so its contents sat there undisturbed for over three hundred years."

"In the dark."

"Indeed. In a room that was dark, dry and airtight."

"And this AI found it?"

"Yes. It had a team of 'droids out searching for eco hazards."

"My compliments to Crazy Horse and thank it for thinking of me."

Alpha was still for a moment. "The machine sends its respects and says that you are very welcome."

"Was there anything else in the bunker? There must have been."

"Some items other collectors were looking for. But Hoss knew you wanted that chair for your Sixties living room suite, so it set it aside."

"Very considerate indeed." Kenyatta paused for a moment. "In fact, I think it's time for a 1960's period party. Could you set it up and invite the other head cases who collect this shit? And tell the women to bring their poodle skirts."

"Of course." In the background, the AI Beau James was already reserving rooms, issuing invitations and arranging transportation for humans scattered all over the globe. "And by the way, may I offer a correction?" Alpha said.

"Speak."

"Poodle skirts are a fashion fad of the late 1950's, not the 1960's."

Kenyatta feigned annoyance and gave his cock a sharp tug. "Wiseass. OK, so don't mention the skirts."

By now it was quite dark. Alpha wandered over to the west window and looked down. "Looks like the dolphins have a new sport. Pylon racing around streetlamps."

Kenyatta joined him. "This, I've got to see."

The fifty feet of sea water that had turned the buildings of Lower Manhattan into an archipelago were transparent, but still tinted green with microscopic plants. An exception was the water around the partly submerged UN complex, an expanse bounded in part by what used to be the west side of First Street. This volume was crystal clear. It was a vast swimming pool, separated from the surrounding waters by walls of clear plastic, and maintained in its pristine state by filtration.

Nobody remembered which eccentric had requested this particular feat of civil engineering, or how long it had taken Beau James and its machines to get it done. It was a vast swimming pool, used from time to time by small groups of humans who paddled about on floats or explored the submerged buildings with scuba gear accompanied, as always, by their protective androids, which ranged from mels and fems to sexless humanoids to mechs to imaginatively conceived aliens, according to their owners' whims.

More often -- constantly, in fact -- the huge swimming pool was used by the dolphins. The tops of the walls were only a few feet above water level, and the playful mammals leapt over them easily. For them, as much as for the humans, it was a different environment; without plants or fish, but delightfully fresh and transparent.

This evening Kenyatta saw something new had been added. For some inexplicable reason, the streetlights on either side of First Street, twenty feet below the surface, had been made waterproof and returned to service. The mercury vapor lamps, 20th century retro, had also been upgraded, and their glow turned the artificial lagoon into a vast sapphire. It was magical.

The dolphins had also found it magical. A pod was facing the lamps, hovering over what used to be the middle of the UN plaza. One at a time, an animal left the group and swam to the south end of the row, sped back and forth between the lamps like a slalom skier, then leapt triumphantly from the water at the north end.

"Bugger me," Kenyatta breathed.

"Right now?"

"No, you jumped-up phone, that was just an exclamation. But you're right, it looks like they're racing. But if they are, how are they keeping track of the lap times? Or are they?"

"They could be. It turns out the creatures are more capable than we thought. The AIs are learning how to speak with them."

"Speak with them?"

"Yes. It seems that Tursiops Standard is a rich language. It only has a small vocabulary of sounds, but various sequences of sounds can convey complex ideas. It's context dependent. The same sequence can have different meanings depending upon the time of day, the weather, the condition of the water, and what the pod is doing. Real-time translation takes many teraflops."

"I'm speechless, so to speak. What do dolphins have to say to each other?"

"According to Beau James, they spend their time exchanging untranslatable jokes and insults, and chattering about hunting, eating, basking and sex. Particularly sex. Turns out the young females talk about little else and are orders of magnitude more explicit than their human counterparts. Would you like hear some dolphin sex talk?"

"Dunno. Would I find it exciting or nauseating?"

"It's hard to say."

"Hmmm. I guess I'll pass. For now, anyway."

Kenyatta reclined in the dark on a pile of cushions next to the east window-wall. The twilight was gone, and she was admiring the Great Square of Pegasus rising over the East River. "They say that only two hundred years ago, you couldn't see the stars from anywhere in the City. Isn't that amazing?"

"It's true," Beta said. "There were millions of lights back then, and the air was foul with pollution."

"I'm struggling with the concept of pollution. What would that be like? Like breathing air that's always full of some kind of smoke? Smoke that won't go away?"

"Something like that."

"It sounds horrible." She opened her mouth for another sip of cold martini, which Alpha squirted over her tongue. By the way, is everything set up for the South Pole trip?"

"It is. We can leave at any time. Right now, if you like."

"I think I would. I would very much like to take a little nap and wake up at the bottom of the world."

"Very well. Good night."

Alpha sent a command to Kenyatta's IMM, and she slumped back into the cushions, unconscious. The tiny device in her skull, along with the network of micron-size artificial nerves that ran from it to all areas of her brain, had been placed there during gestation. Alpha accessed her sleep center and turned it down from normal to anesthesia. Both androids sat quietly, monitoring her respiration, heart rate and brain waves until everything was stable.

Alpha dressed Kenyatta in appropriate traveling clothes and then, with what looked like human tenderness, gathered her up into his massive arms. In the background, Beta was seeing to the luggage and shutting down the apartment. Through the east-facing windows they could hear the crescendo buzz of the approaching tiltrotor and see the crimson flash of its anti-collision lights, an aviation tradition surviving from the days when midair collisions were still possible.

Although she had willingly become a nympho egg factory, it never occurred to Kenyatta to ask deeper questions, to wit: am I a goddess, the mistress of all I survey, or a beloved pet, or a member of an endangered species tucked away in a high-tech zoo, or all of the above? Beau James, perpetually monitoring her IMM, would never have permitted her to entertain such uncomfortable thoughts. It would have immediately replaced them with something more pleasant, such as a voyeuristic sexual impulse, a bite of the travel bug, the enjoyment of a new toy, or an idea for a party.

This is the way human history ends. Not with a bang, not with a whimper, but with a contented sigh.

***

Author's Note:

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Thanks.