The Book of Rai: SoH Ch. 02

"Carter." His eyes caught down to hers, fixed on him, her lips moving over his shaft, her hand cradling his package. Her words echoed in the space without the movement of her mouth, her lips still wrapped around his cock. "I want you to cum for me. I want you to cum in my mouth."

"Oh my God." His eyes kicked back, rolling in their sockets, thrusting his pelvis into her skull, or what there was of it, he released in a single wave. All the passion, all his fire, the vitality of the self, drained in roping jets into her. His back arched clear from the invisible table, her eyes watched his sculpted ass clench, his toes curl. Something inside her wanted this more than anything, more than her own release. Just to make him happy. But she did have her own needs. She could feel them, deep inside her, beyond the idea of a physical need, a wetness of sexual aspect, she needed him at the core of he being. Could only really feel it there, lacking the actual hormones. She could not taste the semen in her mouth. It vaporized in a single torrent of air as she smiled to him. "Was that... Your first time...?" She flashed through 846,000 scenarios for possible space interaction within the pod. 846,000 positions. All, one, want. He was leaning back, head at ease, content in his release. She materialized a small air current around his phallus, drying it in a moment. He smiled, but realized that she had no intent to stop. The air current began to tickle and in a moment stir in him a note of the erotic. He began again to stiffen, less than a minute after his last episode.

"I have seen many such examples in my stewardship. Shall we move to another step? Carter." The air wicked over his dick, in a moment almost again mast hard. "I should very much like to try you inside me."

"Yes. Yep. Yes. Let's do that. We're doing that." Her avatar looked to him, smiled, stepped up on invisible platforms of air, standing over his dick.

"Stay still, I have never tried this before." Her tight ass bent slowly over him, the puffy lips of her simulated sex closing and closing on his dick. His dick edged closer and met in the silent white air the apex of her entrance.

"Wait, did you simulate- "she didn't stop, sinking his shaft slow into her depths, feeling for the first time the sensation she'd seen so many times, silently wanted so many times. "You didn't simulate a hymen?"

"I can if you'd like me to, but I didn't think it necessary. I can feel the pain another time, but I've wanted this for too long, wanted to feel, Oh God, this, this inside me, Oh." She slid his shaft partially out as she pushed up with her legs, squatting back and again over her. "I just want to feel good." She pulsed herself up and down over his dick in sporadic, rhythmic action, attenuating the visual of dynamic muscular movement to match the movement of her vagina over his cock. Her hair swept lines over her face, the sensation heightening with all that of her body, the maddening template of sense and feeling ratcheted up with each quantized portion of her want. She monitored ever strand of simulated hair, partitioning a power measure to keep her appearance in check. She wanted to be beautiful, for him. Only him. "Oh, Yes! Yes! Carter, move your hips. Please." But he was already into the motion, planting his heels into the false platform, pushing himself into her from the clear air, moving his hips in time with her visualized body; the hard air of her body feeling almost unreal against him, thin, pliant but thicker than skin, like it was a condensation more than it was a body. It didn't slow his thrusts, spasming through her as her head whipped around, as if looking at something. "No, No!" It felt like a single slice, the cut of air under them, the fall of feet. She caught them for half a second, an inch from the ground, but they fell again to the iron like floor. Carter was about to move, but her hands gripped firm against his shoulders. "No. No, fuck me. I need you to fuck me."

He looked deep, through her eyes, answering only with his hand on her shoulder and the single slide of himself inside her. She closed her eyes, feeling the sensation. He sat up from under her, pressing his chest as much as he could to hers, spreading his legs under his hips to position himself. When her eyes opened, he was a moment at their lips. They kissed, hard, fast, like the passion one only has when drunk or insane, the need and the physical outstripping the real. His hand gripped fast around the small of her back, and swung her over onto the floor. Her image almost seemed to pixilate down instead of moving fluidly. He stark thought that she may have been seizing out, may have had low power. He was right.

Where his mind was not, she was. As his shaft functioned through her tunnel, he could feel the terminal vibrations of her body massaging his dick. Her avatar was fuzzing under his assault, each particle free drifting in the air as she struggled to remain solid through her pleasure. His hands, dug deep into her ass, almost through in her state; He hammered her into the floor.

"God, Fuck me! Fuck MEEEE!" Her back caught the angle of a bow, arching clear with the charge of her orgasm. For single, crystalline moment, all the fuzziness, all the rendition disappeared. She was more solid than she had ever been, luminescent, distinct and simple in her complexity. As Carter fired the first rope of cum deep inside her pulsing tunnel, he noticed that her expression was totally solid. A silent 'O' formed on her lips and between her ears, as the orgasm had silenced her completely. As his cock discharged its last, he felt a shudder. She disappeared. Evaporated, in that one moment gone, without trace or trail. He watched as the deposit of his cum fell to the floor. A confused expression possessed him as he sat up, legs folded in front of him. It occurred to him for the first time that he was stark naked in a pod traveling at what felt like hundreds of miles per hour, having just been milked by something that did not exist in real space. There was no sound for 5 minutes. And then she was there. Sitting across from him, exactly as he sat, down to the milometric parameter. "I-I had to cut out. Power reserve of was too low, the capacitors had to recharge... It's-It's never happened before. Thank you." Her smile was a small thing, but it lit the room more than all the brilliance, all the white. "We'll be arriving in 3 hours, 15 minutes and 48 seconds. Carter... I would very much like to cuddle." He stood, padding slowly behind her, where he sat, straddling her legs in his own. Holding her body and wrapping around her, he lowered slowly to the floor.

-----

Raichel had left the night before.

"I do not know who you are. You are always going somewhere, always coming back tired, living all the hours. This is the first time I have seen you in two days."

"It's been crazy."

"It is always crazy with you. Cest n'est pas normale." The door slammed. The AC had chilled his apartment to a cold clear feel. On the bed, his whistler throbbed dully, wasting in the otherwise silence. Donovan seriously considered not answering. It did not stop ringing. It never would.

"I'm here."

"God Damn it Donovan! Where have you been?!"

"Sir? Did we find him?"

"No. Carter's still missing, search yields nothing after drop off. You don't know do you?"

"Know what Sir?"

"Turn on the T.V." John picked up the remote with his free hand, the gray plastic put doubt in his mind. Something was broken, something that couldn't be fixed.

"Attaque contre le siège The UN à New York." He changed the channel.

"...attaque terroriste sans precedente." The BBC was tagged in the correspondence. He changed the channel.

"Friends and family of the injured and killed look on in awe. Truly, this day will live in infamy. Firefighter response has been quick and effective, military measure less so. And for those viewers new to the scene, once again there has been what officials are calling a terrorist attack on both the United Nations Headquarters in New York as well as significant damage to the Chrysler Building. Today was set for a meeting of the U.N. general assembly which is believed to be held hostage. Security measures seem to have been ineffective against what sources call a 'directed energy weapon' which first having been fired on or from the Chrysler Building formed a series of explosions along the route to U.N. Headquarters. Details are foggy at this time but shortly thereafter... Wait, this just in... Breaking news. The British ambassador to the U.N., Angelo Aquilae, has just emerged from the front door." The camera feed switched to an overhead helicopter view. A man was walking from the front door, holding a large package and some kind of cord. "We're carefully watching the developing situation... Perhaps some kind of explosive device, we do not know at this time. As the first of the hostages taken... It would appear sources on the ground can confirm that it is a speaker system, and that he is saying something. Can we? Can we get a feed of that? Technical difficulties aside, we can bring you the latest on this developing story. On the ground sound teams will patch us into the speech as we go."

"... That heretofore a binding resolution be passed on all member nations. That no citizen of host nations shall be injured by members of aforementioned special groups, on the condition that aforementioned groups are not pursued for their breach of peace, or if they are to be disturbed, that no citizen or otherwise civilian enterprise should be damaged therein..."

"Sir, what does this mean?"

"It means you're getting on a plane. I want you in New York, yesterday."

"Marcus?"

"Moved this morning. He's en route to the city and will meet you on arrival. Don't take any risks. We need you people."

-----

"Carter. Carter, wake up." His eyes opened on ice. He was freezing, naked on the floor. "Carter, you need to get warm."

"You're telling me. How long was I out?"

"Only two hours. I had to enter a hard charge state after hour one. I could not monitor you until just now, when temperature had dropped precipitously. I'm authorized for early delivery of material. You'll need to put these on."

A single panel opened in the curvature of the wall, 10 feet to his right. The panel was as thick as any white room door, and behind it sat a welcome sight. Piled cloth. Specifically, as he unfolded each piece, compression short like underwear featuring high tensile carbon like elements, breathable sections and a trim look, over layer sweatpants that felt warm even touching them, he could feel carbon knee pad structures woven into the design. The shirt was a simple athletic piece, but reminded him in material content of a bench press shirt he'd seen on professional lifters. It looked designed to align his muscles. More confusing still, there was what looked like a crosshatched ribbing on the interior of a metallic looking thread. Lastly came the simplest thing he'd seen all day. A black asymmetric zip hoodie.

"Carter. Please put on the clothes. Your body temperature has exited normal parameters for continuous safe operation." Looking up from his items, as if to see her, he realized the gesture was pointless in the empty room. "It's okay, they won't hurt you." He slid the underwear on, one leg at a time before doing the same with the pants. He could feel the material align his every tendon, to run, jump, sprint, kick. From the legs down alone, he felt lethal, and more importantly, warm. As he slid the top over his frame, he could feel the metallic fibers around his core tighten the body of his t-shirt, outlining his six pack and stabilizing him. He felt like it went so far as to improve his balance.

"Jesus, what is this stuff?"

"Structural/Kinetic Interface for Normal Systems. SKINS. These, are now yours. There are two layers, primary skins and over skins. Over skins may change material with the environ or mission, primary skins are Passive/Reactive musculature support. Piezoelectric shirt material allows minor power storage and release along the lines of your abdominal muscles, allowing up to 30% increase in core strength. You'll notice the difference in your balance, or if you have to swing anything. Congratulations, you're spring loaded. The piezoelectric material magnetizes to the iron in your blood and the electrical conductive properties of your skin. The sleeves won't slip down if you push them up. The torso over skin zips up to the neck. You must zip it no more than halfway, and you may not alter the way the sleeves hang. Do not roll them, do not push them, do not cuff them. Do not accept a badge, ribbon or marking sown to your collar or sleeve without consulting me first."

"Alright, I'll bite. Why?"

"In your research on this organization, did you by chance come across the names Seminoe, or Mizarat?"

"Donovan... He mentioned them at the bar. Just stamps on food logs as far as he was concerned."

"I'm afraid they're a bit more than that. The Seminoes and Mizarats are two separate organizations who have unionized or otherwise control city elements. They are rich, they are powerful, and many of the gifts of the children of Rai are held within their bloodlines."

"Are they dangerous?"

"No. Not to outsiders. But a Mizarat who wrongs a Seminoe is a dead man, and vice versa. It is currently under the directive of myself, Infallible Chastity and Bombastic Enterprise that you be prevented from joining either house. Is that understood?"

"No patches, no ribbons, no sleeves, no collar."

"Those last two have more to do with rank and commendation. Pushed up sleeves is indicative of Assassin Captain status, rolled or three quarter zipped is indicative of Blade status, and full zip is indicative of High Collar, or the locally highest rank personage."

"I'm not going to remember all that."

"I'll remind you as we go. We're to arrive in five minutes."

"Am I getting shoes too?"

"We didn't know your shoe size until we had you. A pair is being custom made to fit your lifestyle and combat technique. The sages say that the Village is better walked barefoot. You may not enter a laboratory, but I foresee no other impediments."

There was silence. As the minutes and moments slipped slowly by, the partition that had housed the clothing fluttered closed. The walls were seamless again. And just as he thought that he could scour its surface down to the micron and find not one seam, one appeared before him, cut diagonal through his oval. It spread slowly, until the entire top section lifted clear. The day dulled his vision compared to the brilliance. He stood in a hangar, massive in scope and scale, filled with projects he could not determine, hanging from walls and ceiling. Workers were welding with what looked like plasma on every one, their sparks trailing deep into nothing. His pod was but one on a conveyer of hundreds, although no others had the porcelain interior that so consumed his. His pod moved into position at a dock of sorts, where the alabaster purity of his own suite lay flush with the concrete hexagonal tiling of the hangar. It must have been two, three football fields in width alone, never mind the height. Forming lanes along the tile and framing its skirt was the same material that had made up his cell, the same white acoustic glass. A light ran along its length and focused at a point, just where he was looking. It sounded a familiar voice,

"Carter, move forward. You've people to meet." And true it was, at the end of the bridge from pod conveyor to hangar proper a man stood. His over skin was zippered to its maximum, despite what Carter considered a near tropical environ. Even more interesting, where his own skins had previously kept him warm, they now felt pleasantly airy and cool. He was starting to like the Vanguard life. The man at the end of the dock was looking out over the hangar, but his brutal physique called him something other than engineer. His sleeves were carefully rolled to allow for maximum movement, and along his lapel a single pin, a silver V, glittered dull. Carter, assuming his mark, drifted to his side. The man spoke without precedent, and with familiarity.

"Well, well, good to finally meet the golden boy! You, you've been giving me a lot of fucking work." Noticing the pull by Carter for an apology, he halted him before he could speak. "It's, fine if not you, a rose by some other name." Carter was confused. Halcius tried again. "Good morning, High Blade Captain Halcius Rai, Keeper of the Dome."

"Carter. Carter Craig. Is this the Vanguard?"

"Ha! That's good. Just a hangar. Hangar 105C. We keep busy. C'mon. You want the tour; we start at the front door." He stopped... Looked around twice and said, "Shit. Infallible Chastity: Nav." A point of light materialized along the strip and spoke, another followed directly in line after it, waiting. A simple voice, clear and without inflection spoke. It was friendly, but Carter could not tell the gender. He had a feeling that was intentional.

"Keeper Halcius, I am informed that for the duration of your time with entity Carter T. Craig, questions and information are to be directed through Construct Neglected Beneficence."

"That's odd." Muttered the Raian. In a sardonic tone, the point of light responded,

"No. It isn't. When you are done with entity Carter T. Craig, your services are under immediate and priority request by Bombastic Enterprise, Dome A.I.."

"I understand, thank you." The point of light twinkled out, immediately and aggressively replaced by another, almost rushing in.

"What did he say?" It was Neglected Beneficence, nervous for the state of her charge. Her charge answered, feeling the press of the concrete tiles beneath his toes.

"We might be a little lost."

"Halcius Rai, lost? I feel like I've heard this one before." She said. The Raian smirked. She smirked. Carter looked dumb. The Raian spoke, trying to defend himself.

"This place is huge, and strange to me. I never mended machine. Born I was, a warrior. No reason to know it." He turned to Carter. "Your... Author is what you call them? Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. His character, Holmes, said that a man's mind is an attic. That he must select what things he allows to enter it, what things he keeps. If I am to remember Hangar 105C, I do not guess what I would chance to forget. Neglected Beneficence: Order Request Nav, from here to the surface. I would show him our home."

"Done. Graphic overlay?"

"Please." The pin point of light widened into an aperture, the hexagonal concrete in front of them bathed in a golden white light. The evanescence tightened into a foot-wide golden strip. "Thank you. So Carter, tell me about yourself." Their feet padded soft on the stone.

"You haven't been briefed?"

"Oh, I've been briefed, updated, informed, tested even. But I want to hear it from you." His eyes played over the expanse, what seemed miles of machinery and wire. The gold line flowed through a right turn at an asterisk. "Why are you here?" His eyes trailed through the patchwork. Finding a pause in words and wit, he turned to his companion. "Do you even know?" Searching his eyes, Halcius looked almost sad. Carter did not. His was a silence that one only acquires with a singularity of focus. In his case, distraught anger. They took her. Took her. Everything she was, everything she would ever be.

"Marcus. The people I worked for. They told me we were protecting innocent lives, but all I've seen, no one we've killed and no one who killed was innocent. Until her. A pure spot of white in all this... shit. And he dashed her brains across the floor. I want them to know the hurt, this hurt."

"That won't be happening."

"And you're going to stop me?"

"Every individual is allowed his grudges. In fact, every Blade of the Village is allowed a list. This list, these names, they are allowed to pursue under certain circumstance. Usually, if their existence is otherwise terminal. The subject is alerted to their status as hunted and the predator is allowed his pursuit. There are conditions for this exchange. It must be done in the old way, and one must first serve."