Synthie Ch. 02: Recalibrated

"There's something down there," she said. "Something that doesn't want to be seen, and has cleverly avoided us for five hundred years. Perhaps there are even several somethings. Agamemnon does, after all, have nearly four times the surface area of Earth, and it is all land. For most of the planet all we have is satellite data, and that shows us nothing." She showed him an image of bright desert sand from above. "Right there in the middle."

"I can't see anything," Mike said.

"No, exactly. But something's there. Maybe it's subsurface. Whatever it is, it's intelligent." She opened up a display. The picture was all black except for a green outline near one corner of the port facility on the surface above the mine, and a red cross near the middle. "The cross is the something. I'm going to show you the paths that all the surface survey drones have followed over the past hundred years."

White lines started shooting in and out of the port, creating a dense spiderweb -- except for a dark zone around the cross. "It's only when you look at data collected over a long period that this anomaly becomes apparent. No one noticed it until Vanya found it last year."

Before Mike could ask the obvious, Buthayna said, "Yes, we have tried sending drones and probes to that specific location. Some return, having missed it entirely. Some have spent days circling around it. Most have just broken down. We have been able to identify the perimeter of the zone, but that's the limit of what we're able to do at this time."

"Has anyone gone there in person?" he asked.

"It's double gravity. Humans suck at double gravity. But biosynths..." Buthayna smiled slyly at Mike.

*

"Come in and have a seat." Dr Svensson indicated a strange, high-backed metallic chair that he had never seen before.

Mike was surprised to see Vanity there too and gave her a puzzled look as he followed the doctor's instructions and tried to find a comfortable position. "I have a gift for you," she said. "A surprise."

Dr Svensson studied the display next to the chair as he spoke to Mike. "I need to put your systems into diagnostic mode -- essentially the biosynth equivalent of a general anaesthetic. I will need your consent to continue."

Normally Mike's A.I. would negotiate such requests for consent, but the A.I. had become so certain that death and destruction was imminent that it had stopped responding even to Mike's requests. "I consent," he said aloud, and the doctor nodded.

His senses went dark, silent, or almost so. He felt adrift in a vast sea, not unsimilar to being transported into the vast infinity of space, a sensation familiar from when he had been Mike Alson, pilot of the space freighter the Elephant. Distantly he was aware of fingers massaging his head, of a whispering buzz of something nearby that he couldn't quite understand.

And then he was awake again, Vanity standing in front of him examining his face. "How do you feel?" she asked.

Mike shrugged, not sure what, if anything, had changed -- and that simple motion was enough to dislodge the strands of hair that drifted about his head. Startled, he reached up and ran his fingers through what felt like a full head of hair. It was longer than he was used to, curving about his cheeks, and it seemed to be colourless, even translucent.

He walked over to look at himself in the mirror. Vanity stood next to him. "I can make it longer, if you like," she said. "Or shorter, but I think this suits you."

"I like the length," he said. "The colour is horrible."

Vanity laughed. "You can change it to whatever. Just concentrate on what you want it to look like."

Mike frowned as he focussed on his reflection, and tried to imagine the hair as black. Rainbows of colour rippled through the strands, gradually darkening to blackness. Vanity yawned theatrically. "How dull," she said. "Try blue."

He concentrated again, and this time the hair settled on a rich, vibrant blue.

Vanity smiled. "Much better. What do you think, Doctor?"

"More importantly," he said, "how is your A.I.?"

Mike asked his A.I. to connect to the infonet, and it complied immediately. "Seems fine," he said. "What was wrong with it?"

"Someone or something reprogrammed it at a fundamental level," Vanity said. "We had to wipe it completely, and even replace some of the neural interface layer."

"The A.I. is currently recalibrating," Dr Svensson said. "You'll need to stay in the clinic overnight while it does. Anyway, I need to go now. I'll send a nurse along in a minute to help you."

On the way out the door, he paused. "I prefer black."

"Well, I like it blue," Vanity said after the doctor had gone, then sighed heavily. "Someone or something down there reprogrammed your A.I., and it didn't need a specially instrumented chair, or your consent, or even specific knowledge of your design parameters. It was even clever enough to find a way to turn you around and send you away. There's no telling what else it can do."

Mike shrugged. "So far all it has done is reprogram drones and interfere with automated machinery. There wasn't anything physically stopping me. I let my fears get the better of me."

"Don't be so sure," she argued. "I'm sure this thing could reprogram your nanites to cripple or even kill you if it wanted."

He started to argue back, but Vanity held up her hands in peace. "It's your decision, Mike, I won't try to stop you if you want to try again. Just don't make the mistake of thinking you're invulnerable."

"I won't," he said quietly.

Vanity shook her head and sighed. "Men are such idiots," she said, softening it with a kiss.

The door opened and Nurse Zara entered hesitantly. "Hi Mike."

He smiled at her. "Zara."

Vanity chuckled. "So this is the pretty girl who likes a man with a big cock." Zara flushed bright red with embarrassment, and Vanity laughed. "Well, you can enjoy Mike's beautiful cock tonight, but make sure you return him to me tomorrow."

Blowing a kiss to Mike, she departed.

Zara shook her head in amazement. "So that was Vanity? They weren't lying." Grinning suddenly, she added, "Let's get you to bed, Mr Alson."

*

Three days later, Mike was back aboard the Crab and thinking not about Zara and Vanity but about all the other woman on Station 6 who might welcome him between their legs. For a long time, Mike had been entertaining erotic fantasies of fucking or being fucked by strangers. Spending so much time at Vanity's had intensified these fantasies, but never had he believed that he would do it for real.

In his deepest, dirtiest fantasies, he might even imagine a heavily muscled miner, stinking of sweat and machine oil, filling his mouth with hot, urgent meat, filling his mouth with cum, or fucking his pussy and ass doggy style while shouting, "Synthie whore!" But whenever he looked at a man and tried to imagine doing it for real, his mind rebelled. He felt disgust, not arousal.

Perhaps it was something he could get used to. Vanity often liked to have threesomes with Mike and one or other of the male biosynths, and Mike had learned to enjoy receiving pleasure in various ways. But male biosynths were not human men, for all the superficial similarity.

Mike was a human man, despite his biosynthetic flesh, and despite his mostly female aspect and his embrace of the feminine. At his core, his mind was human, and he felt male -- or, at least, more male than female. One of the reasons it turned him on so much to be called 'bitch' and 'whore', especially while being fucked in the pussy, was that it helped him give up all pretensions to masculinity. It took him away from himself completely into a plane of pure pleasure.

But sexual escapism was not real life. Like Vanity, he had been born human and had become something else, but whereas Vanity was an unquestioning woman, Mike was caught between the genders, both man and woman, yet neither absolute.

He contacted Vanity by radio. "I don't think I could have sex with a man."

"It's not only men asking for you," she replied, and he sensed her smiling.

Mike laughed. He hadn't really expected that. Almost all Vanity's clients were men, after all. But a woman? He didn't doubt that he could satisfy any woman who desired him. His body was built for exactly that purpose and Mike loved making love to women. He loved having a cock that women worshipped -- although, apart from Vanity and a few of her biosynths, only one woman so far had been formally introduced.

Vanity was the perfect lover for him. She was inventive, understood his needs and nature, and her biosynthetic stamina matched his own. They could fuck for hours, and often did. If he had one frustration -- and it was a minor one, nothing he couldn't live with -- it was that Vanity always assumed the dominant role, and his occasional attempts to mix things up always ended with her looking bored and irritated.

So for that reason, if none other, it would be good to see other women for sex -- and not just Zara. To take some rich executive in killer heels, bend her over a chair, and fuck her roughly with the biggest cock she'd ever seen, let alone had inside her. Let alone had inside her ass, and mouth, between her breasts. By the time he was done, she would be well and truly fucked.

"What is your honest opinion?" he asked.

Vanity laughed. "Don't ask me that. But as a biosynth, you don't have to worry about infections or pregnancy, and as long as you stay on Station 6 you'll be able to contact either me or Station Security if you believe you're in danger. There are some physical risks, but no more than if you were hooking up with a stranger at a bar for a one night stand.

"Occasionally people come here asking to work for me, willing to have sex with anyone in return for money. My first question always is, "How much money do you need, and for what?" Because what I don't want is people trying to solve an existing financial crisis or looking for a way to fund an expensive life style. These people just bring problems and create more.

"Tell me, Mike. Why are you even thinking about it? What is it you really want?"

"It's not for money," he said quickly. "I mean, I can't deny that the idea of being a whore excites me strangely, but I don't care if I don't get any extra money out of it. It's more about the sex and the adventure of it, the idea of you giving me to strange women who may have strange exotic desires or who may just want a good fucking.

"But on the other hand, I'm terrified of the idea. What if it becomes public knowledge that I'm a whore? It's bad enough worrying about people seeing me as a biosynth, calling me a 'synthie'. I don't know how I'd handle people calling me a 'synthie whore', knowing that I was."

Vanity sighed. "Trying to maintain a secret lifestyle is exhausting. If you're going to do it, you should expect it to become public knowledge sooner or later, and if you are willing to declare it yourself, you can control the revelation. But it will take courage and confidence, so that when people call you names like 'synthie whore' you can smile back at them and say, 'Yes. Yes I am.' And you will smile because you know that what you gain from your profession, and what you give to your profession, is worth more than their opinion of you."

"But what if I can't do it -- if I can't perform because I'm too ashamed of myself or just because reality isn't fantasy?"

She was silent for a minute, then said, "I can arrange some discreet trials, if you like. No one apart from you, me and the clients will ever know."

Mike did not respond. Was it as simple as that? Was he seriously considering going through with it? He wanted to open his mouth and say, "No, thank you." He wanted to declare himself morally correct. But already he was trying to imagine that first secret meeting, being the more than willing servant of pleasure. Who would she be? Someone rich and famous, perhaps? Or someone old, beauty long-faded, but powerful and with an undiminished appetite for sex...

"I'd like that," he whispered, and Vanity laughed as she broke the connection.

*

"Course correction forty five degrees left," his A.I. said, and Mike brought the vehicle to a halt. He would walk from here. The centre of the circle was still far away, maybe an hour's walk.

Five minutes later, he reached the point he had reached before. "Course correction fifty degrees left," the A.I. said, once again sounding distressed. Mike ordered it to stop all communication and not to disturb him -- which worked for a few seconds as he continued his advance, but then radiation alarms started pulsing rapidly at the edge of his mind.

More alarms added to the distraction and he fell suddenly. He struggled to his feet, but he felt weak, no longer adjusted to the high gravity. He forced himself to go on, only to collapse after a few steps, each movement sending a sharp jolt of pain through him.

He understood. It was as Vanity had predicted. His nanites had been reprogrammed to attack him. "System failure imminent," his A.I. announced. "Recommend immediate return to ship."

"No!" he hissed, and crawled forward, fresh pain bringing tears to his eyes. He was struck again by the absurdity of being a biosynthetic organism that breathed and cried and felt pain. These were the things that kept him human, but he wished he could switch these parts of himself off, become a machine of pure logic. Then again, the something he crawled towards seemed quite able to manipulate any machine.

"Stop," his A.I. said. "Advance no further."

Mike laughed through the agony of his joints. "Or what?"

"Or I will destroy you, your ship, your mine, and everything in orbit about this world."

Ah, not fair, he thought. "I come in peace," he said.

"Go back."

*

Not that going back was easy. It was a long, painful struggle against heavy gravity, but it was not far to his vehicle, and the drive to the port was easy, though uncomfortable. The hardest part was getting to and into his ship, and manoeuvring into the pilot's seat. The thrust of lift-off and acceleration into orbit was torture, but the autopilot took care of most of that -- which was fortunate because his grip on consciousness was failing fast. It was a miracle that he found the strength and awareness to radio Central Command and request medical aid.

*

"How is he, Doctor?" That was Buthayna's voice. Mike couldn't see her, or anything. He felt adrift again outside time and space.

"We've reset the A.I. and replaced the neural interfaces, and flushed his system of nanites. We'll introduce new nanites gradually over the next two days. There are, however, lots of damaged subsystems that we are unable to replace. Ideally he needs a whole new body."

"But he'll still be functional? Any disabilities or pain?"

"Difficult to say. We'll keep a close eye on him."

"Let me know if there's anything I can do."

*

Buthayna again. "How do you feel?"

This time he was awake and suffering a little from over-attention. Dr Svensson had been hovering all morning, scanning him and asking questions about his state of mind. Vanity had climbed into bed with him and promptly fallen asleep, one arm curled possessively around him. Nurse Zara had been in and out several times, but seemed shy in Vanity's presence.

Vanity stirred. "Buthayna," she murmured happily.

"Vanity." A simple acknowledgement, professional, then she turned to Mike again. "What happened?"

"It spoke to me. Told me to go away. Said it would destroy me, the mine, everything in orbit, if I didn't."

"Maybe we should leave it alone," Vanity said.

Buthayna shook her head. "There are people arguing that the threat of superior alien technology is too great, that we should drop a nuclear bomb right in the middle of that zone. There are others who say that the promise of superior alien technology is too great, that we need to get in there and take it apart, study it, learn from it. With access to new advanced technologies, just imagine how wealthy Station 6 would be. We could build a hundred more habitats, launch a whole new space exploration programme. Who knows, maybe there are secrets down there to even faster and cheaper space travel. What we can't do is leave it alone."

"We don't know how powerful it is," Vanity argued. "If you attack it, it may retaliate and destroy us."

"Or maybe," Mike said, "it's bluffing. After all, we've drilled a huge hole into the planet just next to it, and so far it has done nothing to hurt us. It could have killed me, but didn't. I want to go back."

Vanity sighed. "Men are idiots."

Buthayna smiled at Mike. "I hoped you'd say that. But let me talk to people first. We can't take that threat lightly."

*

Mike arrived early at the address he had been given. It was an unmarked double-width door squeezed between a busy café and a hair salon, the main deck curving away and up into the distance either side. Mike watched the stylists at work in the salon, and wondered what they would make of his new hair. It was longer than his hair had ever been before, but it was better than no hair and it helped to conceal the strangeness of his eyes -- which was good, because Vanity had been very strict about what he was to wear for this job.

He was dressed in a dirty white coverall and boots, the ubiquitous uniform of Station 6's technical workforce. And nothing else. He felt very unsexy. The flat-heeled boots meant he was shorter than he liked, and the coverall was a loose fit to a generic female shape but was tight against his large, bare breasts. It certainly wasn't designed to be worn by an otherwise naked man. When he walked, the rough fabric grated uncomfortably against his nipples and cock.

He took a deep breath, tried to clear his mind of the voice that kept calling him an idiot, and walked through the door. Stairs led steeply down into darkness, down to the outer layer of Station 6. A male biosynth, wearing a similar uniform to himself, waited at the top of the stairs. "Please come with me, Mr Alson," he said, and led the way down the stairs and along a dimly lit corridor. The sounds of various machinery could be heard through the walls.

The corridor ended at a large brightly lit room full of displays showing schematics and progress of the construction work he could hear. Biosynth workers were entering and leaving the room, dropping off or collecting special tools, and interfacing with construction machinery via the displays.

Overseeing everything was a man in his fifties, shorter than average and well muscled. Mike looked round for other humans, especially for his client, a woman called Sam Percy, but could see none.

"Well, hello there," the man said, looking round at Mike. He walked over and stretched out a hand. "I'm Sam Percy."

Mike shook the offered hand automatically, even as his eyes widened in shock. Sam Percy! The client! He's a man!

Sam released Mike's hand from his strong grip. "So, you're Vanity's new girl."

Mike flinched. "I'm not a girl." It sounded a lot whinier than it had in his head. "And I don't do men."

Sam raised an eyebrow, and his lips twitched with what may have been a smile. "I'm no more a man than you are a girl, but I paid for a girl with a dick, not for a man with tits and a pretty face. So which are you?"

Mike stared back in confusion, unable to form a coherent reply.

Ignoring the biosynth workers -- who had little interest in human affairs, after all -- Sam stripped out of his coverall and clothes, revealing first his toned, muscular chest, then his equally muscled legs, until finally his oddly feminine pink lace knickers dropped to the floor. "Do you like what you see?" he said.

Or she said. Mike was now speechless for an entirely different reason. "You're a --" he started. He took a long look at Sam, reassessing him. Her. Either Sam was a woman who looked startlingly like a man, or he was a man with a pussy. In much the same way, perhaps, that Mike was a man with the body of a woman, or almost.