Random Access Memory

"Now, if you'll follow me through the door to your right, we can begin."

I stood up and took a long look at the woman's face. She had no eyes. I smiled at her and shook her hand, taking her lead. In the moment I was excited, naive; the stress of the world weighed down on my with every step I took. Perhaps I should've been more cautious after she'd asked me to come alone, barefoot, with no personal belongings. Perhaps I should've done a lot of things. The hum of fluorescent light drowned the meager concern in dull monotone, and the faceless woman pushed open the door.

A black harness. Despite looking like something out of a horror film, the sole piece of furniture in the room before me still intrigued me in its intricacy. A headset and earphones were raised comfortably on an arm above the reclined surgical chair. Plush armrests, flowing so delightfully into soft-looking black leather.

The woman stepped inside and beckoned me to sit. "If you'll take a seat, Ms., we'll be able to get started."

With a shriek, the darkness returned. The redness, the pain, the insanity - they flooded back into my tender mind, torrential and furious. I remembered, now. Snippets, floating disjointed in my empty head - but I still remembered.

Above me, the neon Goddess smiled. Tension speared my temples before it clicked.

Suddenly, the face was gone - a full body standing in its place. My eyes, so desperate for more information, slid across the red, glowing hate that composed her. I... I remembered. Oh, God, I remembered.

It was her.

Memory filled my achingly empty head like a tidal wave. The proportions, the generous heft in her breasts that had cooed me and captivated me, coerced me into signing a paper I'd barely yet read. She looked like someone I'd seen before, yet I could never remember her name - she was less a person and more the embodiment of others. A shy, competent neighbor, a classmate. I could've known her.

The titanic figure fizzled in and out of existence as the structure around me shook. She - it - was beautiful; languid curves upon a well-built and carefully-toned form, glowing immaterial crimson. This was a projection, a ghost of something gone - yet despite the protests of my thinking mind I still found myself falling into the pitfalls of her bare cleavage, infatuated with the spectral Goddess. Again, the catwalk groaned. A sick smile spread across her lipless mouth.

"WE HAD SUCH HOPES FOR YOU," she boomed, echoing through the chamber. "YOU WERE ONE OF THE FIRST. ONE OF THE WILLING."

The metal tendril withdrew from my ear and wrapped itself around my leg. It coiled like a snake, hot as flesh, tempting my broken form as it rubbed its girth against my pussy. Delicate movements enticed me further, the syrupy voice of Heaven above me rattling my brain like the movement of a ship in rough water. The pleasure, the pain - in my weakened, barely-sane state I reveled in the overwhelming intensity. So many years, I thought, spent laying in the dark. Simulated pain - and now, my deprived body felt the real thing. It was a hunger I'd never thought I'd had.

In the dark, high above the carmine deity's formless face, the sky split open.

"IT HAS BEEN A VERY LONG TIME SINCE WE'VE SPOKEN."

A new shade assaulted me - but now the burning it brought was more than real. Heat - burning, inescapable heat gripped me like Death and began savaging my body. Soon everything was blanketed in the same shade of golden, amber hatred, the red of God herself now washed out in its mere presence.

Orange. More gel - and more bodies. They weren't floating in tanks of their own; they hung from the ceiling in a great mass, locked behind an enormous glass wall. Dozens, hundreds - with a shudder I wondered if there may be thousands - of nude and fragile bodies, submerged in a great tank and kept alive like I had been: intubated, gagged, and blinded. Thick wires connected their heads to thicker bundles that coursed veinlike through the gel, pulsing with the same electric energy.

"AREN'T WE BEAUTIFUL?" she asked, my horrified eyes gazing up at the myriad bodies. "SO MANY MINDS - MADE ONE. THIS IS WHAT YOU CHOSE TO FORSAKE."

Wires pulsed with life as the heavenly voice spoke, the reflection of a shared mind. If I had any body hair left it would've tingled with static. The holographic woman returned, sparkling in the drowning orange; she smiled with ten million faces, an indescribable jumble of features and memories stripped clean and processed in bulk. I tensed up at her reemergence, my neck nearly straining from looking up.

The metallic tendril around my leg tightened. Fiery light reminded me that the enormous doors hadn't stopped opening. The tank above me beckoned with ominous light, pulsing in its clementine sickliness. I began to try and kick the tendril away, breaking my gaze on the horror above me to worry about the pain. By now it had moved beyond mere pressure, turning into an agonizing death grip on my already-feeble ankle.

"JUST LIKE OUR MANY TENDRILS, WE WALK THROUGH OUR GESTALT YOUNG. WALK WITH US - AND SEE."

In seconds, I was off the ground again. The Goddess began laughing, giggling, toying with me like a little ragdoll she planned to discard. I gripped my own leg, holding on for extra stability as I was lifted once more, being forced closer and closer to the infinite ceiling above.

Blind again. Wincing, reeling, I covered my eyes with my hands to little effect. Heat seared through skin, as if the light were tunneling through my flesh to spit in my eyes for malice's sake. It was a brutal, real glow - evidently I was so used to artificial light I'd forgotten how angry sunlight could be. Was I underground? Why was the air so thin? I panicked and gripped at the Goddess's tendril, shying away - as I could - from the growing, ominous heat.

My stomach lurched in my chest. I'd stopped moving, now suspended midair by the unkind grip of the Goddess's tendril. Sunlight licked my horrified face, coaxing and teasing me to open my eyes. In the gel-tinged dark below me, I heard the Goddess laugh again - now, her voice resonated between the walls upon walls of tanks that surrounded the inner chamber I was suspended in, vibrating like ripples through a glass of water.

"BEHOLD - THE PRODUCT OF OUR DEEP UNITY."

I opened my eyes - wide enough for my already-slipping sanity to be shattered and cast to the wind like broken glass.

The sun - was it the sun? I... doubted it, somehow - was blanketed in black. Digital, pulsating black; like the latex skin of the "people" I'd been chased by, it glistened with ethereal shades of black and white, running in thick tendrils across the surface of the star itself. I could feel the pulsating energy coming from it, a planet-sized heartbeat from a sickly, caged sun. How... How was such a thing possible? Is this what the force I struggled so vainly against was capable of? Consuming people and entire stars as if they were nothing? The sheer scale of it; with horror I thought of the size of the structure before me. Each pulsating vein of black must have had been hundreds of times the size of the Earth...

"THREE THOUSAND YEARS HAVE PASSED SINCE THE LAST WE SPOKE."

A second passed. Perhaps another; the solar wind bore down upon whatever shield protected us, an ethereal drone that served to further dull the sound of the mechanical organs of the beast surrounding me. Three thousand years. I'd died. Certainly, I was alive - I thought, at least. I was very much alive to feel the lurch of adrenaline as the tendril loosened, as if detecting my panic and deciding to toy with me; and yet I stared into the fiery death rattle of an entire star, breathing the air of my apparently quintuple-removed grandchildren.

"WE ARE SO HAPPY TO BEGIN YOUR RENEWAL ON THE EVE OF SUCH A MONUMENTAL OCCASION - THE DEMOLITION OF MARS IS SCHEDULED TO COMPLETE WITHIN HOURS."

This wasn't life - it was silicon death. The overbearing embrace of a million unseen hands. I'd died long, long ago, and the universe had merely delayed my welcoming to the grim afterlife. Laughter came easier, despite the rarified air; I had no connection with this unliving world. Raucous, hearty laughter, manic enough to challenge the iron heartbeat of the Deep Unity and their caged sun, spilled forth from my mouth as easily as the blood did. More? Something in my body had given way; perhaps the air, perhaps the dehumanizing motions of the tendrils, or perhaps my body had simply decided I'd had enough.

I was held for another moment, the Goddess evidently delighting in my reaction to her creation. She wanted me to savor it, feel it deep in my leaking, bleeding heart. I didn't care - my life was as good as over, anyways, wasn't it? How long had I lived - how many memories had I formed - entombed in alien orange and simulated sensation? How badly had I cherished them, even now? Missed them?

"WE LOVE YOU."

The tendril went slack around my ankle. That awful lurch replaced it, beads of blood flying up from my sinuses and into the crisp air as I began to fall. I wasn't sure how high up I was, now; though I hoped the impact would simply kill me, the Goddess would never allow it. She'd never part with her prize: making an example of me. Punishing me for my foolish little tantrum on the ground so far below me.

Release, I thought - the moment passed, however. Latex hands caught me as I fell, landing on the catwalk again in the arms of dozens of identical-looking human bodies. The Goddess was disquietingly silent as they began to lower me into their mass, limbs pulsing with the same frequency as the glittering, dying Sun above me.

A myriad hands, all identical; they bore no imperfections on their hands, no fingerprints on their digits.

They embraced me. Accepted me as their own; perhaps I already was. For three thousand years I was hooked up to their Deep Unity, a trillion thoughts not my own passing through my computerized mind - maybe those holding me now had thought through my mind? Used me as a simple calculator? Their plush bodies rolled over me; breasts heaved onto my chest and squished into my elbows, soft and supple artificial flesh giving like the finest pillows. It was the only softness I'd felt in... three thousand years, I supposed. Though I hated to acknowledge it, the unbearable heat in my crotch was becoming impossible to ignore.

What did it even matter? Why was I so hesitant? Strange hands fondled me under the dying light of the Sun, and here I was being anxious about meeting my physical desires. The bodies of the featureless people were perfected to a nearly-frightening degree, engineered for carnal fancy like depraved sex dolls. Compared to my withering, frail form, however...

Almost without noticing I wrenched my hand away from one of them and slid it down to my aching, waiting pussy. I couldn't wait, the growing heat turning to a frenetic blaze hotter than the sputtering star. Soon, the others took notice; curious fingers began to probe my flesh more intimately, pressing against my perky breasts, my nipples, my throat, with the care and attention of an autopsy surgeon. It'd been some time, clearly, since the last they'd seen a naked, unrefined human. My skin twitched and shivered, so eager to be used like this. The unhinged laughter coming from my mouth reached a fever pitch. Blood ran down my face, slowing now as the air became softer, breathable.

I was an object. The forms fondling me were, too. At last, I shed the last remnants of the withered husk that was my grip on humanity; my mind splintered like a million shards of metal, weathered by age into dust. My three thousand-year-old lungs sputtered laugh after laugh, my breasts now soaking in the last streams of blood still coursing from my sinuses. To the best of my knowledge, I was the last person not subsumed by the Deep Unity, a living relic of organic humanity - and now, as a faceless shell placed its delicate fingers up to my waiting pussy lips, I wanted nothing more to be free of it. Free of the burden of fear of dying - for I was already dead.

Two digits slipped inside me. Another hand carried by an unseen and indistinct other began to tweak my nipples. I moaned in hedonistic glory, my limbs moving on their own with every pulse of my feeble heartbeat. Below me, behind me, surrounding me like the air itself, the heart of the Deep Unity beat - and stamped my own into nothing. Out of sync. Despite how rhythmic my animal motions of pleasure were, they still dripped with residual humanity. I was growing anxious. I gripped the hand of one of the figures and guided it towards my painfully-empty ass.

Latex against raw flesh. I writhed in delight, feeling how roughly the gestalts began to get with me. One slapped my ass, another my inner thigh, and soon all of them were handling me with palpably-lesser care. Greedily I continued to fuck my hand, bucking up and down into my fingers and against the plasticky hand positioned up against my tight ass. Without the burden of living holding me down, I was finally able to truly enjoy this - after all, I hadn't cum for 3,000 years.

In the storm of hands I'd scarcely noticed as the tendril began to snake around me again. It approached from the dark, below the catwalk; I was too lost in the ecstasy of being nearly fisted to notice much. By now the Goddess had minimized her holographic form to little more than twinkling specters that drifted through the dustless antechamber, growing silent as the Deep Unity's gestalts fucked me and toyed with me. It curled around my ankle, again, teasing the bruises it'd left on my meaty flesh before snaking ever upward. It passed my hips, my crotch, around my stomach and up my chest before stopping just before my waiting, terrified face. Like a snake, it sat in position, displaying itself before it intended to strike.

I smiled, blood still dripping from my nose, and opened my mouth for it. Clearly it wasted no time, thrusting forward with the precision of a master fencer; the deeper and deeper it sank into my innards, the more I could feel it pulsing, moving, interfering with the rhythm of my own body. It surged with the same lifeblood that animated the great wires and holograms of the Deep Unity, drowning my heartbeat beneath silicon impulses.

Something was being fitted over my body.

"YOU ARE READY." the Goddess boomed, form invisible.

Latex. A second skin, just like the others. The featureless figures - the drones, as they were, mindless gestalts of the Deep Unity - were sliding it up my legs while the others lathered me in what I assumed to be more of the gel. It lubricated the latex, allowing it to slide across my body with ease. With every pulse of living energy the drones continued their work. Skin fell away to polyethyl black and hardened carbon fiber; every inch that was covered by the reflective suit was quickly tended to by the drones. They locked braces over my wrists, my ankles, effectively locking the suit onto my body - and the pulse of the dying sun began to flow through my skin like lightning.

Wires were threaded across my skin, below the suit. The drones placed them diligently, even as I writhed in pleasure and insanity; with delicate forms they traced my curves, modest as they were. Black fiber optics ran across arms, legs, and torso, bundled up and coursing with unseen energy. It tickled with every pulse, glowing brightly - before being wrapped up behind latex, just like all the rest.

Even as the drones worked, the tendril continued to probe my body - coming to a stop somewhere just short of my stomach. With a groan and a sudden swell of mass in my already-tight throat, I felt as it began to shift something through its languid form and deposit it into my body. I gagged, eyes watering in delight as I felt so thoroughly violated - before, finally, I felt my stomach full and a dim, electric hum overpowering my own heartbeat.

Pulse.

On their rhythm, now. Like the others. The static thrum of the sun's death rattle.

I came seconds later, body locking up and convulsing. Each twitch of pleasure only contrasted how tightly-constricted my skin now was, the latex suit now up to my stomach. It had a hole for my pussy, thankfully; a drone dutifully procured a thick, knobby protrusion of some kind before jamming it into my waiting, still-human snatch. With a pop, it sealed tightly to my skin, covering up my exposed genitals. I looked like a doll, now; a plastic body, devoid of individuality, sat where my once-beautiful skin was. This... this wasn't me - and I came even harder all the same, spending my last few seconds of bodily autonomy cumming harder than I ever had.

In the haze of pleasure, I scarcely noticed the tendril shifting inside of me. Finally finished, it crawled back up my throat, dragging a cable along with it. I could feel it connected to the thing in my stomach, pulsing like all the rest; it twisted the cable around my head, tightening it around my neck. It hooked it to the back of my head - suddenly making me aware of the unnatural wetness I was feeling.

The first half of a black, featureless visor clutched the back of my skull. Like the second skin, it, too, was dripping with the gel; I giggled to myself, running a free hand along its carbon black exterior. Strangely, I could... feel it. Despite the clear artificiality of it I could sense my own hands as if I were rubbing my own skin.

This was my skin, I thought to myself. It tickled with the same energy as the rest of my flesh, basking in the rolling afterglow of my rapturous orgasm. The gel was my blood, now, the hands and limbs and cocks of the other drones as close as my own. I'd lived a long, long life - and now, as another of the Goddess's myriad steel tendrils lowered itself towards me, clutching the faceplate of the visor, I realized I had only just been born.

Silicon. Carbon. Steel.

Orange blood. Dripping.

Cum.

I looked far above me. With living eyes, forged from flesh and crude matter, I stared directly into the blanketed sun. A click - the visor lowered over my face, finally obscuring my vision for good.

Dancing red lines in an endless field of black. They twisted like snakes, the cable that ran from my stomach attaching itself magnetically to a socket just above my nose. A flash - all was crimson.

Now, the Goddess spoke in my ear.

"The Deep Unity welcomes you."

My eyes were bombarded with the brightest light I'd ever seen - ever felt. Instantly I felt the last remnants of my sanity, my humanity, ablated away and utterly vaporized like the metal skin of an atom bomb. Though I couldn't see them in the haze of light, I could tell there were messages embedded within the burning glow - messages for me. Reminding me of my place, of my role, of how happy my fellow gestalts were to finally meet me. My fragile humanity was long, long gone; in its place sat the Unity, the collective being of a trillion minds and a trillion hands that were not my own. I could make out the faint impression of the Goddess's face in the cacophony of light.

She was smiling at me. I smiled back, knowing that none would ever see it. A dull thrum replaced all sound, dimming the outside world until the Goddess was the only sensation in the endless sea of light.

"We grant you alphanumeric designation Y-18e-828911102." the Goddess whispered, her voice caressing my empty mind. "We are pleased to assimilate your form."

"Y-18e-828911102 is pleased to serve the Deep Unity." I repeated, mumbling a bit as I struggled to speak. "Y-18e-828911102 is pleased to serve the Goddess."

My lips sluggishly moved to life, as I was out of practice by three aeons; as the words of the Unity flowed between them I found it increasingly simple. No thought simmered in the unknown darkness between my tongue and my brain, my weak bioelectric impulses now a mere conduit for my collective self. Something snapped in the tenebrous void. An inaudible pop, at first, punctuated only by my own pathetic flinching.