The Night City

He climbed - marveling at how real the dream felt. He climbed and climbed and then stuck his head up and over the lip of the canyon. His eyes widened as he dragged himself up, standing there. The wind was dead up here, leaving the air empty and silent. He felt as if he was wrapped in cotton - but not nearly as comfortable or as warm as they implied. No, no, the closer thing that he thought was that he felt like he had been sealed in a crate and tossed into the emptiness of space.

There was no sound at all - not even his breathing - and that made the Night City all the more grotesque. All the more beautiful.

The Night City - the name leaped into his head unbidden - wasn't a city. Not really. There were no sidewalks, no orderly grid of streets. There were buildings but their purpose and their rationality were lost in translation. They weren't even building-like. They were immense biomechanical limbs, reaching from between railing free catwalks that stretched over vast emptiness. They were pyramids of black basalt that were ringed with thick tubes that themselves were veined like a male shaft - and yet the sides of the tubes were graced by doorways whose slick, smooth curves reminded him of...of...

He started to walk along the surface he stood on - it was a plateau of gray metal, featureless. He came to the corner, looking at a spire that twisted on itself impossibly, and wondered how he might get there.

There was no song.

But there was a call. It had hooked underneath his breast-bone so subtly that he hadn't noticed until he came to the edge and realized he could not keep going. Now, he felt the mad urge to run forward into the emptiness. But then salvation - of a sorts. The ground to his left rippled, then spread. A pair of lips opened and a head emerged from it. It was feminine and hairless, with black, rubbery skin. Her eyes were closed and - no. No, they weren't closed. They socket-plugs, and curving tubes went into them, connecting to her face. Her mouth was closed and curved up in a slight smile. Her breasts were full and large - perky and jiggling faintly, tipped with matte grey nipples. But her belly and her hips smoothly merged with a basin-like structure that looked like she had lifted her legs and made a circle with her thighs and her knees.

In the bottom of the basin was a pale white pair of pussy-lips, with a gleaming red gemstone where the clit would be.

He slowly reached out. He caressed her sex-lips. Her lips did not move. She did not even twitch. But the edge of the roof started to ripple, then stretch outwards. He slid his fingers against her sex, then pushed forward. He felt her coldness, and her moistness. He thrust his hand into her sex up to the wrist. She did not smile.

But the bridge did extend outwards.

He drew his hand out and started forward. He padded across the bridge and came to the catwalk that ringed around the building. A trio of...things...were pressed into the wall. It took him a few moments to realize that they were people. One faced him with her side - tubes connected to her breasts, coiled around her head. Her eyes were closed and she looked amazingly peaceful. Another was...well, he could only see the curve of her thighs. The folds of her cunt. Even her knees were impossible to see, she was so smoothly merged with the wall. The last faced him directly, her arms spread crusiform style, her eyes closed.

They opened and they were the deepest black he had ever seen.

Something dark and clawed and bladed closed around his throat - squeezing-

###

Gabriel woke up, panting. His body glistened with sweat and he put his hands to his throat, feeling. He heard a soft groan - Hailee? He looked and saw it was Tabitha. She was nothing more than a pile under the blankets. Gabriel shook his head and emerged from his bed. He walked to the bathroom, panting heavily and turned on the light. He started backwards, his eyes widening. He leaned forward, reaching up and spreading his eyelids.

It was true.

His left eye had turned dark black.

###

The elevator door opened and Dr. Gabriel Judd and Dr. Hailee Sutton emerged into the darkened corridors beneath Dynacore and tried to not look suspicious. Gabriel reached up and adjusted his glasses, while Hailee smoothed out her collar. They hadn't, unlike last week, made out in the elevator. Part of that was that Gabriel didn't get close to Hailee, and part of that was that Hailee had spent the entire elevator watching the numbers tick down. They wordlessly went through the process to get into the laboratory - though Gabriel cupped his head to hide his eye from her.

"Sleep well?" Hailee asked.

Gabriel grunted.

"Cause I had..." Hailee stopped herself.

Gabriel grunted again.

Hailee looked away as the door opened.

They opened the Horizon, and they sent in their next subject - this guy sobbed the whole way in - and then they waited. As they waited, Hailee frowned quietly. "I missed my period," she said.

"What!?" Gabriel snapped his head around so fast that his glasses almost fell off. He jerked and desperately shoved his glasses up and over his face. But it was too late - Hailee reached out, grabbing at them. Jerking them away. Then standing up, her eyes wide. Gabriel looked back, his bichromatic eyes wide.

In the darkness and silence of the lab, Hailee's fingers shook as she reached up to the collar of her shirt. For an insane moment, Gabriel wondered if she was going to ride him in the lab. They had never gone that far, but the excitement surged through his body like an electric charge. Her fingers rubbed at the button, then slowly, carefully, undid the first button of her shirt. The second opened, revealing even more pale white flesh. Then she pushed her shirt open and revealed that her skin had...changed.

There, right under where her shirt collar had lain, was a thin collar of greyish metal that fused with her skin as smoothly as if it had always been. It flexed against her throat as she breathed in and out, and she stood there.

"Y-You were there too. Weren't you." Hailee's voice was quiet. The two of them ignored the thin spray of red liquid shooting from the portal, their focus on one another only.

"Yes," he said, quietly.

Gabriel reached up - his fingers gently pressing to the greyish metal that ringed around Hailee's neck. She gasped, her breath loud as a gunshot in the chamber. Her eyes fluttered shut and she opened her mouth in a silent O - unable to make more noise as Gabriel's finger traced the line of the fused metal. Her skin didn't feel roughened or scarred - merely improved. She stepped forward, her knees shaking, and fell into his lap. It was stupid - bordering on suicidal to do this here. Dynacore was filming them - security cameras were watching as Hailee grabbed the filmy shirt that she wore and tore it open, buttons flying and pinking.

Gabriel leaned forward and licked the connection between metal and skin again. Hailee grunted - low and hot. An animal in a trap. Her fingers caught and squeezed on the back of his neck, fingernails digging in.

"I want to go back," she whispered.

Gabriel bucked up, shoving her forward. Her back and her ass pressed to the console - pressing buttons that whirred and chirruped. Gabriel ignored them. He slid his own shirt off, looking down at her. Hailee was unable to tear her eyes from his eyes. Or maybe it was his eye? He didn't know. All he knew was a need - a burning need that surged inside of him. He shoved his pants down and his cock bounced free. He flipped Hailee's skirt up as her hands groped along the control console. She a red light started to glow behind her ear - Gabriel wasn't sure what it was, but to be fair, he could barely remember his own name.

Everything said: Fuck. Connect. Mate. Rut. Animal.

His cock ground against her panties and he felt her wetness squelch against him. She was soaked through. He grabbed her panties and tugged them aside, revealing her moist, hairless sex. Quietly, Hailee whispered.

"I want to go back..."

He slammed into her. Hailee made a quiet groaning noise at the back of her throat. It sounded like she was disappointed. She rolled her head to the side, her eyes closing. She reached up and started to rub the gray metal that looped around her neck. She stroked it with the same loving care and attention she normally showed her clit - and with the same reaction. She gasped and quivered and came, her sex clenching around Gabriel's dick. He thrust into her with the same frantic urgency he had felt in the...

The other place.

The need to reach it.

And at that moment, he felt the same keen disappointment that had filled Hailee's face.

When pleasure coursed through him and his balls clenched and he released a blast of hot, thick cum inside of her waiting womb, it was tinged with bitterness. He remained inside of her, panting for a few moments. Wordlessly, he drew out of her sex - relishing the slickness of the noise, then tugged his pants up. She slipped her shirt forward, not even swearing when she saw how many buttons she had torn off. Within less than five seconds, they had both returned to their seats and were watching the consoles again - the only hints being the tiny puddle of his seed that dripped between Hailee's legs. She ignored it - her face robotic and focused as she adjusted the dials and switches on the Horizon control monitor.

"So," she said after five minutes.

"Yeah?" Gabriel asked.

"You..." Hailee looked troubled. She shook her head - reaching up to adjust her collar. "Nevermind."

###

She knelt in an alcove, her head ducked forward. She knew that she should not be here - except I belong here, this is where I was meant to be, I've waited my whole life for this - and she knew that she had to go. But she also knew that remaining still was, by far, the easier and pleasant option. Her bare feet were pressed to a pair of perfectly carved niches that even had tiny sockets for her toes. Her thighs were spread ever so slightly by a pair of gray metal braces that smoothly recessed out of the ceiling and floor. And her sex...

A tube of ringed metal emerged from the ground - it had always been there? - and plunged into her sex. She didn't know how far into her it reached, but she felt warmth coursing through her whole body. Her mouth, too, was opened and another tube had entered between her lips. The two met and from them came- life, oh glorious life - warmth. Her eyes could see half a world - on the right side, she could see nothing but blackness. But on the right, if she craned her head around, she could see a smooth, organically curved corridor. Water dripped from the carapace-ceiling, and another niche was sat across from her, another woman there...

She was gray skinned and beautiful, with white hair that reached to the base of her ass. Her head was slightly too large to be human - her forehead high, her eyes warm and delighted. Her mouth was opened, her throat bulged, like a woman deepthroating a-

Life

-the other woman hadn't moved since she had become aware that she was in the niche.

Then, with that awareness, the tube slid from her throat. She felt every ridge of it bumping against her - and gagged with this awareness - as the tube slipped forward, then popped from her mouth. She coughed and gasped, spittle dripping down her chin. Her arms moved - leaden and heavy, as if they hadn't moved for years. She moaned as she shifted her hips, the movements grinding the tube against her most sensitive places - and she clapped her hands over her mouth. No, no noise-

Not yet.

Reaching down, she pushed at the tube. She bit her lip hard enough that black blood dripped onto her thighs - shining and obvious against her milk pale skin - to keep from screaming as the ridges bumped and ground against her G-spot. When the broad lip of the pipe forced its way out of her sex, she arched her back and shoved her wrist into her mouth to keep from moaning as whiteness filled her eyes and her spine curved into almost a C within the tiny niche. Her head bumped against the blackened walls and her slick juices pattered softly onto the recess where her rump had rested for-

Forever.

-and then...

The pleasure passed. She set her ass down and felt her moisture cooling against her rump. Delirious, she rolled to the side and thumped onto the ground as she fell from the niche. The wall beside her made a quiet whirring noise - and looking at it, she saw the entire portion of the wall that held the niche was recessing into the floor. Sliding into place, like the chamber in a revolver, another niche came into being. This woman was pregnant and smiling, her eyes closed as tubes fed to her larger breasts, into her mouth, into her sex.

She stood, her knees quivering, and started down the corridor. Now that she moved - and breathed through her own lungs - she became aware that the entire place smelled inviting. She scented the flavors of the feedjuice, of the manifold ozone. She could taste on the tip of her tongue vibrations along the inner dimensions - a curvature that her skin buzzed with. She smiled broadly as she looked from side to side. Niches that held what could have been seen as horrors were recolored with hues and shadings that no human could ever see. A bloom of goodthought hazed around them - rainbow and glittering.

They were at peace.

She was at peace.

She came to the end of the corridor and pressed her whole body to the slick sphincter of the passage. The moisture of it clung to her as she stepped through and felt an entire layer of falseness was stripped away. She looked down at her claws and grinned a toothy grin. She knelt down, her tail flipping from side to side. She opened her receptors and felt the quiver of not-here that was walking through home. She started to move now, crawling along the wall, claws working between bone-protrusions that had been helpfully laid down by the Builders.

Her cock was eager.

She hadn't had a cock, had she?

He had one now.

No, she?

She wasn't...

He wasn't sure.

It was something beyond gender. But the not-here that was bumbling around above, it was definitely of a gender. It thought of how it might scream and it almost drooled with anticipation. It paused, its ribcage exoskeleton grinding against the wall, its dark, curved dick catching against a protrusion. It bucked slightly and hissed as it felt pleasure tingle through its body. Its tail lashed from side to side and it crawled up through a narrow passageway that wasn't visible to anything that merely saw in the mid-electromagnetic.

It emerged onto the planar top of the Factory. There, it saw the figure standing there - caught in the middle of acclimation. The figure had their hand jammed into the recesses of a console, and had started to extend a bridge outwards.

It prowled forward, then closed its clawed hand around her throat-

###

Tabitha sat up, gasping. She was seated at her desk. She had been working late - again - on the impossible discoveries that were coming up from Gabriel's laboratory. She had fallen asleep. She could feel the mark of the keyboard buttons on her cheek. She reached up to rub her cheek and tried to think straight. But the memories of the dream - of the strange feeling of rightness - still bounced around inside of her mind.

Then she noticed she was bleeding.

She jerked her hand away from her cheek - hyperventilating as fear jolted through her. Her hand had twisted into something no human would ever recognize. Oh, there were fingers. Four of them. There was a thumb - hook, curved, bladed - and there were knuckles. Knobby, bone-like knuckles. Skin? No. Exoskeletal chitin, black as the night, smooth and polished. Blood dripped from each claw-tip and she felt no pain as heat and wetness dripped along her chin. Her breathing slowed as she looked at the fingers.

Shocked into analysis, her thoughts were almost dreamlike.

Double jointed. Those claws were so sharp, I didn't even feel the cuts. And the armor...

Her tongue lolled out. Lapped at the blood.

Quietly, Tabitha smiled. "That tastes good..."

A screech rang out. Tabitha stood - her instincts at war. She felt the urge to hunt run fight kill. She could grab and tear and fuck the holes and- no. She wanted to help. To keep someone safe. Her brow furrowed and she went back a few steps in her mind: To fuck? The hell? But then her legs started to carry her. She paused by the door to the bathroom, opening it to grab a towel. She pressed it to her cheek as she came to the doorway where the screaming had come through - the feeling of surreality compounded by what she walked past.

Empty cubical. Farms of them - a few lit by the lamps that people had left on when they went home to rest. The eerie uniformity of each of the farms was reinforced by the parallax she saw as she walked past them - lines intersecting and becoming grids, then intersecting again.

Looking through the door, she saw the scream had come from Mika. Somehow, she had known. Mika looked...smelled different. His face was slightly more curved, and his throat seemed more narrow. It was a subtle thing - but he simply looked more feminine. And more dangerous. It was the slight curve of his lips. The sharpness of the teeth that Tabitha could see - the way his tongue darted out to lick his mouth nervously. And the way his shoes seemed to be too tight. What had he jammed in there? Hmm?

"What's wrong?" Tabitha asked.

"I...I had a dream - but that's not it," Mika said, hurriedly. He turned the screen around to show her a series of numbers of files and names. Tabitha spent a few minutes looking at it, moving her towel behind her back. She wasn't bleeding anymore. Why? She didn't want him to ask questions about her hand, too. She felt her dark hand pressing against the small of her back, and felt its chill through her shirt.

It excited her.

Her nipples became harder and puffier with every second.

"I don't, uh, what is this?" Tabitha asked.

"Prisoners," Mika said. "Transfers, I mean. I've noticed something really weird in the food - and the personal being moved around. I tracked one down - their name got inputted by accident, I think. They're being sent down to-" he gulped. "To Lab-1369."

"You're sure?" Tabitha asked - feeling oddly non-shocked.

"Positive," Mika said. "Someone in Dynacore is moving people - I think they're prisoners from the local compound - into 1369. And unless there are fifteen extra people down there, and they're not bringing enough food and water for that, then those prisoners are-"

"Meat," Tabitha said, quietly.

"Meat," Mika echoed her. It was the right word.

"I want to find out what's going on," Tabitha said. "Why are we dreaming about it?"

Mika's head snapped to face her. "W-What? I'm not-"

Tabitha felt a sudden urge to grab him and shake him - to snarl at him. The urge was subsumed within another need - an urge to go down. To see what was going on with her own eyes. To wring out answers. But instead of either of those things, she knelt down, grabbing Mika's feet with her hands. She yanked his shoes off and Mika squeaked - then hissed softly. It was the hiss of someone letting blood flow back into a limb that had been pinched and scrunched underneath a sleeping form.

His feet were elongated. Arched. Bone-pads and sharpened claws, like a raptor crossed with an insect crossed with a nightmare. They were feet for climbing and leaping and tearing with long claws that had almost cut through the soles of his feet. The black carapace-skin that covered them moved smoothly up his thighs - and Tabitha traced the length of the carapace with her nose as she slit his pants up with one finger-claw. She kissed each inch, shuddering with happiness as she revealed that the carapace reached up to Mika's knee.