Spider-Man 2114

"Brenda," he announced, the name hitting his mouth not at all familiarly. "She's even better than anticipated, no?"

"She's a star!" Max proclaimed instantly, sweeping his hand through the hologram. Brenda giggled, awestruck at the size of his fingers, and feigned nervousness. "Your best yet, Otaka. A few more like that and we can open up our Vegas branch. You'll be paid as before."

Otaka ejected the BHD from the rendered, holding it away from Max, almost shielding it with his body. "She is not for sale. I desire to make a trade!"

"Otaka, Otaka, what's gotten into you?" Max held out his hand expectantly. When Otaka still clung to the BHD, he reached for his cigar and took it smoldering from his mouth. "We need each other, remember? You may create the personality constructs, but without the bodies me and Goldblum came up with, they'd just be chatbots! Worthless!"

"Goldblum... that addled fool. He has no vision. Placing my constructs within his machinery is like displaying a masterpiece within a frame of shit-!"

"You won't have to worry about him for much longer," Max assured him. "I've hired a new kid that makes Goldblum look like a piker. As soon as he's learned the ropes, we can move him up the chain."

"Why bother with another? Give me the rendering program. Anything Goldblum did, I can better!"

"Don't rock the boat, Otaka. Our mutual dependency makes us strong."

"Strong? You are a partner. I am nothing. I deserve better than being forced underground-"

Max's hands raised like a wave crashing against rocks. "That's impossible! You don't exist, remember? If the public knew you worked for us, they'd want to know what you do. If they knew what you did, we'd all be out of business!"

"Work for you? Work for you? You work for me! Providing a set of gloves for me to hide my bloody hands in! Work you lack the stomach for! Work you lack the brains for!"

Max was fed up. He snatched the BHD from Otaka, the little man spun away from the force of the pull. "I'll pay you double for this one, alright? Everything else is done for-hire. Enjoy your slice of the pie, Otaka. It's not the whole thing, but it's better than nothing."

***

The superintendent of the Cybersex Arcade was Johann Goldblum, one of those nebbish guys who really worked the accent, sounded like a cartoon pig. He already had the security gate down when Peter arrived, and there was already a line forming, three guys joking around with punchlines that would make your average mother of two drop dead of a heart attack. Goldblum himself was running a quick broom over the floor. When he saw Peter, he unlocked the gate and pulled it up as far as it could go without the mechanism taking over and hauling it to the ceiling. Peter had to stoop to get through. Goldblum closed it up again and locked it once more.

"Hey, why's he get to get in?" one of the scabs asked.

"Private party?" asked another.

"We got money, man, we got good paper money—this ain't Constitutional."

"He's da maintenance!" Goldblum said, poking a finger at them. "That is why he is allowed in! Shoo! Shoo! We will not open for another fifty minutes!"

One gave Goldblum the bird, another followed suit, the third was too spaced out to do anything. He just kinda stood there, looking average.

Inside, the 'bots were already lined up for inspection. Peter's tablet was synched to his wrist-mounted tablet. As he walked in front of each, he checked their read-out. One, 'Darlene', had either had a bout of rough sex too rough, or just been overworked. When he played her sample vocal—'Wanna come inside, cowboy?'—it sounded like he was playing dubstep. He reached into his toolbelt, took out a small scalpel, and made an incision in the Simskin at her throat. With pliers and tiny screwdriver, he went to work repairing her vocoder. He'd fix the epidermis later. It seemed to sag on her facial chassis anyway—too many slaps.

"Kid, you must have the best job in da city," Goldblum said, sweeping up nearby.

"How's that?" Peter asked.

"Working with these lovely ladies—up close and personal—like applying sunscreen to the Swiss bikini team."

Peter played the sample again. W A N N A C O M E I N S I D E—The thing was fried. He began unscrewing it. "They're not women, Goldblum. They're sex toys."

"Have you tried one? It's just like the real thing!"

"I'll take your word for it." The screws out, Peter began prying the vocoder free. It didn't want to come out. The mount was slightly bent. Peter got out his WD-40. "You think we're making the world a better place?"

Goldblum had wandered off, spritzing the walls and wiping them clean. Stains were the last thing you want in a place like this. "Is this about the United Way?"

"No. The johns—customers. You think we're training them to see women as objects or—are we giving them an outlet? If a guy's going to do this to a woman, or something shaped like a woman, is it better he does it to a machine? Or should he not be allowed to do it at all? Even think about it?"

No answer. Peter supposed he hadn't been expecting one. He got the mount back in shape, got the vocoder out. "Goldblum, where do you keep the spares? Goldblum?"

No response. Not even the spray from his bottle. Peter looked around. His spider-sense wasn't going off. Why did that worry him?

Nothing around him but women that weren't women—dolls. Mannequins, only they weren't selling clothes, they were selling... what? James Bond's sex life?

"Nobody here but us chickens," Peter said aloud. No laughter from the crowd. In the distance, he heard thunder clear its throat. A night like this, he wondered—if they were alive, what would they think of him? Patching them up like he did, would they appreciate it? Or was that like thinking of himself as a nice slavemaster?

He heard the click of high heels. Not a frightening sound—neither was a chainsaw, when it was being used on trees...

"Are any units active?" he demanded, raising his voice. Around him, the bots stood in stand-by mode. A parody of life—chests rising and falling, but that was all. No fidgeting, no preening, comatose patients standing idle. "Any active units, respond to my command now!"

Nothing. No one. Fucking fine. Peter cued his tablet to every bot present, sending wake-up commands to all of them. In a split-second, it was like going from the dressing room of a strip show to on stage. They primped, they preened, flashing thighs, breasts. None of which Peter looked at. "All units, identify any presence in the vicinity besides myself."

As one, they turned and pointed—giggling, whispering innuendos, nudging each other like they were alerting each other to the big secret of his masculinity. Everything had to be seductive...

Pulling a wrench from his belt, Peter went in the direction of their pointed fingers. Darkness swirled in front of his face. He took out his phone, lit up its screen, and still nearly tripped over Goldblum's body.

***

Nisa took only one thing from her brief employ as a police intern: a scanner. She put it in her cab, where it annoyed just about every passenger she picked up. Still, she was the first to hear the report of an assault at the Cybersex Arcade. Someone had broken in and taken out the super. The weird part was, there wasn't a mark on him. He was just... blank.

***xxx

The cops came, and the ambulances, and the press. Peter talked some to the cops, some to the EMTs, and not at all to the reporters. They found part of the security grid shut off. Either someone was a really good hacker or someone knew the code. Peter didn't know which was scarier.

As the police canvassed the area, Peter got a call from Max. He'd been expecting that. Got the usual harassment, like it was his fault, Max wanting to know why he'd gotten the cops involved, Peter wanting to know what else he was supposed to do, Max finally saying fine, come back to headquarters, we'll talk there.

Peter wanting to know why it was that Max didn't seem surprised, hearing that someone had wiped Goldblum's brain.

He locked up the Arcade—another shouted compromise by Max, who'd wanted to open it back up, but there was no way Peter was sticking around the place with Goldblum a headcase. Outside, some reporters were still shooting B-roll. Peter ignored him, scanning the street for a cab. He'd been expecting to work a longer shift, catch the bus home. He spotted that shade of yellow that was only used to mean school buses or go fast, darted between two parked Coupes, and pulled open the backseat. "Hey, you taking fares?"

The sign was off, but maybe the Parker luck was finally about to turn. The girl nodded at him. Cute thing, Hispanic, bit of a Brooklyn accent: "Might as well. Hop in. Where you headed?"

And just like that, the other backdoor was opening, a leggy black woman piling in beside him. "M&G head office, Level 1, Block A, Suite 46," Virus said.

"Vi—how'd you know all that?" Peter asked, not sure what she was doing here, not sure why she was pinging some button in the back of his head.

"I know everything about you," Virus said, as the cab took off, its hover-tires spooling out smooth acceleration. The driver was good—a nice, level ascent. "And I want to know more."

There wasn't much of a backseat in the cab, but she took up all she could while Peter crammed himself against the door. Virus laid on all fours like a cat clawing the carpet. She looked up at his face—her hand brushed his crotch—fingers outlined his cock. Peter thought of all the times she'd offered, all his flimsy reasons for refusing, whatever cosmic joke had spun them back together while he wasn't in costume and she wasn't a hooker anymore. Was she?

She bent her head down, brushed her lips over the fabric of his pants. He felt himself throb. Watched as her fingers undid his fly—her warm hand inside his pants—fingers scratching through his underwear, looking for the opening—then her fingertips on his prick, sending an electrical surge straight down to his balls. He gritted his teeth; her fingers curled. She had him in her hand now. She stared up at him, her eyes curiously blank. A doll's or a shark's. She watched his reaction as her fingers went up and down, her thumb went across...

"I'm going to take your cock out and get a nice, long look. Then I'm going to kiss it. Would you like that, Peter?"

"How do you know my name?" some vestige of Peter's reason asked.

"I told you, I know everything about you. Everything about everyone who works at M&G." She bent lower, her bodysuit cut so deep that he could see almost the entire swelling curve of her cleavage. She took him out of his pants and her hot breath blew all over him. "Look, Peter. Look down here. It's leaking. It wants to come. It wants to come right in my mouth."

***

Nisa felt herself getting horny. She felt her panties getting wet like drop after drop of boiling water was being dripped onto her crotch. She felt her nipples cutting against the cups of her bra. She felt her clit stiffly begging to be touched. She heard her fare groan, his voice becoming low and gravelly.

"You're good..."

"I'm the best," Virus replied. Then she started to gurgle and Nisa instinctively knew that her mouth was wrapped around Peter's cock.

It wasn't the first time someone had fucked in the backseat of her cab. If she wasn't too hard up for a fare, she'd pull over and kick them out. Her passengers weren't generally the kind of people who she'd want to see fucking. But the guy was so handsome, and that girl was downright beautiful...

Nisa found herself looking into the rear-view mirror, but not at traffic.

His cock was huge. She'd seen a few pictures online, and a very few in person, but nothing had—or maybe could—prepare her for the sight of an enormous rod, its root thick and gorged with blood, ready to start shooting at any minute. His knob was fat and purple, when it wasn't in Virus's mouth, and Nisa could see it oozing clear fluid freely.

If only Virus were naked too, the view would be just perfect.

***

Virus jerked on Peter's cock. She worked it from side to side, slapping it against her cheeks, her nose, her chin as she jacked it off, taunting herself with it, then she'd glided the whole thick hot thing into her mouth, her throat. All the way. Peter watched it disappear into her lips five times. He didn't know if he could see it vanish anymore without coming. All his power was in his balls; they pounded like church bells. When he felt her fingers squeeze his balls, pump them into the warmness of her palm, he gritted his teeth hard. It did no good at all.

He exploded in her sucking mouth, Virus pulling back slowly, still sucking as he bombarded the inside of her cheeks. When her mouth came free, he kept coming, pumping gobs of hot jism over her face like white camouflage. She took the marking serenely, only moving to lick her lips. Her tongue was a pink as hot as a sunset.

Then her mouth was against his, her tongue between his lips with a metallic tinge. Peter felt a sharp, frozen pain and as everything went dark, he thought that this was why men didn't like being kissed after they got a blowjob.

***

Nisa caught sight of the fireworks show—a flash of blue that turned her rear-view mirror silver, the rest of the cab underwater. Peter was shaking and Virus was still as a statue, then she was pulling away from him with a click, her tongue retracting into her mouth, Peter ashen-faced, blank-eyed.

Nisa pulled off the hover-lane onto the nearest rooftop—it wasn't even cleared for landings. She skidded to a stop, almost hitting a pigeon coop, and turned back around to see Peter slumping to the side, Virus disappearing out the door. She watched the prostitute run to the parapet and jump right off. By the time she'd unbuckled her seatbelt, gotten out of the car, and ran after her, either the building she'd landed on had the fastest clean-up crew in existence, or that hooker had managed to survive a forty-story drop.

Nisa went back to Peter. He was starting to drool. She waved her hand in front of his face. His eyes let it pass without comment.

"Okay, good news, I think I found the chick who aced Goldblum... maybe she has something to do with the disappearances..." She quickly checked Peter's wallet, finding a keycard for Max & Goldblum Robotics—creators of the Cybersex Arcade. She patted him down again, feeling something under his clothes, and unbuttoned his shirt.

On his chest, a black spider stared at her. In his pocket, a red and blue mask.

"Oh crap..."

***

Nisa liked Spider-Man. She liked him a lot. Thirty thousand cops in the city, so few of them did their job with any professionalism, any compassion, but there was Spider-Man. Just some guy. Dressed in red and blue and helped people, just because he could. She didn't know why your average patrolman couldn't do what he did, a fraction of what he did, when he did it for free.

So she didn't want to let a hospital have him. Not find out his identity and put his family in danger. She buttoned his shirt back up and wiped his chin off and laid him down across the backseat. She kept the keycard with her. She started back for the address Virus had given her. M&G Robotics. It all had something to do with them.

Half an hour later, taking a shortcut between skyscrapers, she'd made it to M&G Robotics. She landed on the roof, checking on Peter again before she left. His pulse was steady, his breathing deep and even. She left him to his—sleep—and let herself into the building through the roof access, using Peter's freshly laminated keycard.

It was almost deserted except for a night crew of janitors, busily jabbering over each other as they cleaned up. One had the unfortunate task of binning the rat corpses the exterminators had missed. Nisa walked right through them, head held high like she was supposed to be there, and none of them questioned her.

In all of M&G headquarters, she'd only noticed one lit office, on the seventh floor. She decided it would have to do. She went down the stairwell, arriving to the sound of a late-night jazz band earning their keep on the radio. She poked open the door and saw the deserted office block, the corner office lit up and blaring out music through the open door. Inside, Bobby 'Max' Maxwell was on the phone.

"Damnit, Parker, pick up! Where the hell you gotten to? Argh!" He slammed the phone down in its cradle, took a deep puff on his cigar, stubbed it out, then quick-drew the handset and dialed again.

That was when Virus walked by Nisa, her bodysuit shooting high up her hips and supporting her breasts. Dried cum ran over her face like war paint. She reminded Nisa of a Terminator, walking right by her, face front, eyes dead—like she'd been wound up with a key. But as she approached Max's office, her legs drew out into a sultry slink. She wiped off her face and began to jiggle with each stride. Even Nisa felt her eyes go to Virus's hydraulic ass as she stepped through Max's door. She got out her phone and pressed record. Whatever was happening, she would catch it in the act.

Max saw her. "Wha—wait, how'd you get up here, gazongas? What are you doin' here?"

"I've got something for you," Virus drawled, falling to all fours on Max's desk. "And I think you've got something for me too..."

She grabbed him by the lapels. Her mouth fell open. She jerked his to her's—this time Nisa caught it on tape. Her tongue retracting from a hard steel core, something insectile and electric. As soon as she kissed Max, he went slack. Virus held the kiss for a few moments, her body swaying—then she let him drop. Max sprawled across his own desk, his eyes wide open. Blank.

Guess he's not a suspect, Nisa thought to herself, slipping back from the stairwell door. It closed automatically.

Squeaking.

A split-second later, she heard high heels clicking toward her. Nisa ran down the stairs. Next second, the door was off its hinges. A second after that, arms were wrapped around her midsection, as firm as the safety harness on a roller coaster. Nisa dug her nails into the bare flesh, drawing blood from the left arm—the right arm, her nails tore through into cold metal.

The metal arm was enough to hold Nisa tight as Virus's organic one plucked her phone away. Nisa was able to look over her shoulder far enough to see Virus tuck it into her bra. "You're soft," Virus said, with a dreamy savoir faire. "Want some?"

Nisa laughed nervously. "I don't know," she said, thinking with an odd desperation that it was good to know she was equally hopeless with all sexes.

Virus chinned her sweater's neckline out of the way, kissed her where her shoulder joined her throat. Nisa felt a shiver go through her but wasn't afraid.

"Are you sure?" Strong hands cupped Nisa's breasts from behind—her nipples jolted to life like they'd gotten a jump-start from a car battery. Nisa felt her excitement rush through her swelling head straight down to her cunt.

"Very nice," Virus said, her voice soothing, honeyed. Her irresistible hand ran briskly up the slope of Nisa's throat, took her head and twisted it to her shoulder, where Virus's warm lips could meet hers. As they kissed, Virus's hands roamed her body, dipping into her pocket—slipping her ID card out of her wallet and coming up with it.

"Lolita, huh?" Virus mused. "Sure you're old enough for this?"

Nisa found herself nodding. She guessed that was enough. The next thing Nisa knew, she was against the wall, Virus's near-nude body trapping her, big breasts almost in her face, that all-powerful hand down in her leggings.

Nisa panted out gasp after gasp as Virus held her tight, dappled her finger tips along her labia, then worked a finger inside. "Mmmm... you kept it nice and warm for me, didn't you?"