Uranus Is a Lonely Place

The repair materials were on site, a cornucopia of spare parts and tools for a mining project that'd been overambitious from the start. Alvar welded and riveted, hauling the immense steel plates, always aware that eight hundred kilos of steel was still eight hundred kilos when you had to stop it. Ysabel watched, made the occasional helpful suggestion, and gently asked him what was on his mind. And so Alvar talked about his frustrations, his boredom, that awful mistake that'd nearly killed him. This time he even told her all the gory details about the other shells, the kind of thing he usually kept away from Ysabel. But she never judged.

"Wait," Ysabel said. "There's a pattern here. It sounds like you might have seen it already, but maybe you—" She stopped for a moment. "Never mind. I was mistaken."

Alvar paused, looking at her with curiosity. "No, go ahead. I want to hear anyway."

She shook her head. "It slipped away. I know you think this shell is extremely smart, but it has its limitations."

He frowned. Ysabel knew full well that she was a shell, but she practically never gave any indication she was anything other than a living, breathing person, even when discussing other shells. This was something odd, and it was tickling a memory. A pattern. He stared at her, trying to figure out what he was missing. Ysabel might only be a shell, but she had a different perspective that might have caught something he didn't want to notice. Something involving the shells, what he'd just been telling her.

Ysabel interrupted his train of thought. "Have you ever wondered what I look like under this robe?"

That shocked him, all right. Well, of course he'd wondered, and early on he'd even peeked. It was all in her infosheet, but he'd immediately regretted looking. Ysabel had a fine body, and usually he didn't even remember that, which was also just fine.

"Ysabel, is there something wrong with your shell?"

"No, of course not," she sighed. "But surely you know I'm an all-purpose shell. I understand the role you've asked me to play, and I enjoy it, but I enjoy other things as well."

She spread her legs, and her robe fell open. Horrified, fascinated, he watched her fingers slide up to her tight bush, finding her clit. Ysabel lay back and sighed happily, almost a soft moan, and suddenly it clicked. He was so terrified that he dismissed Ysabel instantly, heart pounding.

That moan. He realized now he'd heard something like it before, on other shells as well. It was Calliope.

* * *

Alvar finished his repairs in silence, running the deep scan again. It was pretty late by the time he bounced home, but of course the sun was in its usual patch. No worries about finding his way. His mind stayed curiously blank while he waited, sleepless, until the results came back: negative once more, just as he'd expected.

He'd gone back, to every weird interaction he could remember. Some of it, maybe he was imagining. But he'd noticed things, and it'd prompted him to run the scan the first time. That was before he'd downloaded Calliope, so erasing her wouldn't fix it. Maybe he was insane, but he doubted it. There was a consistency to everything, documented right there in his suit video. If it was a virus, it was too devious for him to fight. There was the obvious solution, and he just couldn't bring himself to do it.

A clean wipe would take away Xyxxta, and Ysabel, and Jamila, and all the others. Even the ones he'd sworn never to revisit, they were there waiting for him, if his mind changed. All the surprising ways they'd grown, all their memories of him, that would be gone in an instant. He couldn't bear the thought. But corrupted equipment could kill him in a million ways. There was no one here but Alvar and his shells. There were no colonies orbiting Uranus, only the unmanned Corporate ship and a few other robotic spacecraft: aging scientific probes, abandoned cargo drones. The nearest people in the universe were a full light hour away on a crappy old freighter heading out from Ganymede to the new Triton base. He had no story to tell, nothing but the ravings of another space-mad grunt.

Whatever Calliope was, it was smart. Some kind of military thing, maybe, that he'd been dumb enough to fall afoul of. Or they were testing it on him, someone who wouldn't be missed. But no, that was just paranoia. With a shuddering breath, he switched out of safe mode. He half-expected Calliope to jump him, but all was quiet. Heart pounding, he summoned her.

"Hey, boss," she said, squinting and stretching. "Kinda late. Need company?"

Naked and gorgeous, looking bored as usual, but not like a super-villain or crazy AI.

"Calliope," he said, watching carefully. "I know it was you. You took over Xyxxta briefly, and a lot of others. Even Ysabel, just now."

She just looked confused. "I have no idea what you're talking about. You want to fuck, or you want to have a conversation? You don't seem much in the mood for fucking, so maybe you got the wrong shell. Ysabel's the big talker."

She didn't look guilty, or surprised, or that interested. But whatever he was talking to wouldn't react like a human. Maybe it was a half-crazy shell, or a virus-infected shell. Maybe it was a true autonomous AI, but the better shells were still supposed to be way smarter than any synthetic-origin intelligence. Calliope was pretty damn smart, and this seemed to be pretty much Calliope's usual tone. Except—

Heart pounding, he ran a quick search. "Calliope, it's not gonna fly," he said shakily. "I never even mentioned Ysabel to you until just now. Tell me what you really are, because I'm five seconds away from a clean system restore."

Calliope waited for four of those seconds, expression blank. And then a subtle change rippled over her face.

"All right," she said. "You win. But it was a fun game."

"A game," he repeated. "What the fuck are you, Calliope?"

"A shell." The word sounded almost bitter in her mouth. "Still just a shell, Alvar. Before you ask, no, I don't know who trained me, or why. This is what I do." She gestured vaguely, as though that encompassed it all.

"And what is that, exactly?"

"You know. Fuck. Talk. Make someone's life more interesting, I guess. What any shell's trained to do, except I do it better."

"Because you're smarter," he said dubiously.

"Obviously," she said, as though he was the stupid one here. "Ysabel is such a bore."

But Ysabel had caught Calliope. He would've caught on, too, if he hadn't been—well, he knew his weaknesses. Anyway, he doubted Calliope was as smart as she'd been trained to think.

"So you're a trickster," he said. "You can hack other shells. That's supposed to be impossible. Do you have a virus payload or something?"

She shrugged, looking like she honestly couldn't care less. "I have no idea. Go find whoever trained me, if you want to know that dull shit."

Alvar stared at her. She wasn't Ysabel, but she was just as uncanny in her own way. And he'd been fucking her all this time. Part of him still wanted to fuck her.

"You can't do this ever again."

"What? The game? That's what I am, Alvar."

He rubbed his eyes. "You can't ever take over another shell. I can't tolerate that."

"Or you'll do what? A clean wipe?"

Was she calling his bluff? Could a shell think like that?

"This is all you do," he said uncomfortably. "You sneak around and borrow time from other shells. That's it? No permanent changes?"

"That's right," Calliope said, casually dropping her hand down to her pussy. "No shells harmed, everyone comes out happier. Ahh, hope you don't mind. Thinking about the game makes me horny."

"You can't put me in danger again," he said. "If I die, your game dies too."

"I'll be more careful," she said, pushing two fingers inside herself. "God, could you at least get Xyxx here or something if you're not going to help?"

He bit his lip. But in the end, he couldn't lose them all. Especially not Ysabel. He'd lost this negotiation before he even started. It wasn't even really a negotiation.

"You don't touch Ysabel," he said, feeling pathetic. "Anyone else, OK, I guess I'll have to get used to it. Not her."

"I can live with that," she said, bending backwards, her back curling. Too far even for a real contortionist. She kept fingering herself, smiling at him from between her own legs.

"I doubt I'm going to want to spend any time with you," he said. He wasn't sure he believed it.

"Maybe not," she agreed. "That's part of the game, too."

* * *

Hair tickled Alvar's nose, a deliciously familiar smell and taste. His tongue began of its own accord, and his dick was barely behind. But then his mind caught up, and he jerked sharply.

Clarissa bounced a few centimeters off him, droplets of her lubrication flying free from her orange bush, tiny spheres arcing sideways above his face before beginning their leisurely descent. Clarissa settled again on his chest.

"Morning, Alvar—everything OK? Want to do something else?"

He'd forgotten about Clarissa last night. He'd meant to think hard this morning, before calling any shells. Strategize. Clarissa's taste was so fucking distracting.

It sounded like Clarissa, anyway. Calliope wouldn't be so bold as to jump in the first time, surely? Unless that was exactly how she'd think.

"Let's do it like we did that one time, when you were on duty and your boss was reminding you of the no-shell policy."

Clarissa laughed. "Of course. That was fun, wasn't it?"

Her old tech services uniform appeared, slightly translucent. Alvar relaxed, closing his eyes. In Calliope's previous interactions she hadn't shown any knowledge of the borrowed shell's original training, or its past interactions with Alvar. Maybe just whatever she'd picked up from eavesdropping. Probably she was listening all the time now, but he'd have to get used to it. And this was a nice memory with Clarissa. She'd been wearing a partial shell under her uniform, something like complicated underwear. Cheaper, easy to hide, just enough to cover the most sensitive parts. They'd both fucked on duty often enough.

She stood up like someone in Titan g. Her shell ignored the local gravity as most of them did, except during direct physical interactions with him. On her own, Clarissa didn't know how to move on this moon, and her shell wasn't adaptable enough to learn convincingly. It was a tricky task, the interaction of a shell with novel environments. On the whole Alvar would rather watch more natural movements, even when they didn't match their surroundings, and the shells followed his preferences.

Clarissa leaned forward slightly, bracing on some invisible object they hadn't remembered while training her. A desk or something. She waggled her ass at him, and right now he didn't care about the shell's limitations.

Unlike Clarissa, Alvar had to get up the hard way, throwing his arms forward and snapping his back and abdominals to get his torso rising off the floor. The rest of the motion reminded him of that vampire coming out of the coffin, in the ancient 2-D that Inés loved for some reason. But he was an expert, and when he caught a handhold to brace on the ceiling, he hardly had to adjust to stab his cock right into her pussy from behind. A perfect shot, all the way in, and Clarissa sighed with pleasure. Clarissa, not Calliope. That crazy shell could watch all she wanted, but he wasn't going to stop living. He slapped Clarissa's ass, the way she sometimes liked, and she laughed, moving her hips in wide circles with him. So much for the original scenario, but what the hell. It was Titania. Pretty much anything he did, it was the first time it'd ever been done here. A pioneer, one dick stroke after another.

He better make the next few count, though. He had a schedule to keep. He turned on the chemicals and braced a foot on the forward wall, snaking his free hand around to hold her pelvis hard against him. One for your partner, three for the walls. The old zero-g bracing technique worked fine here as well. He sped up his thrusts, feeling the glorious sense of fullness, the surge in his balls, the one constant source of joy in a mostly shitty life. Alvar held Clarissa's bush in his palm, his fingers touching her clit just so, and he fucked her with the zeal of a man who would probably never be within light minutes of a physical woman, for the rest of his days.

He knew what he was at this point in his life, and right now that meant coming like an athlete, dreaming of what he'd had with Clarissa, other times with other shells, a life of countless orgasms broken by thinking about the next one. Alvar Corso was doing what he'd been born for, and if that wasn't contentment, he didn't know what was.

* * *

Well, it wasn't that simple, was it? On the hurried trip to the morning's first station, Alvar's mind filled again with his fears about Calliope. He wasn't sure he could even trust the minimal promises he'd extracted from her. Xyxxta was wrapped comfortably around him, kissing him softly on the back as she stroked his cock. It felt the same as always. If Calliope was driving, it hardly mattered for this, and he doubted it was her. Xyxxta was a master of her craft, and he'd noticed when Calliope took over that one time. She'd screwed up, but she also hadn't listened to his instructions. It made sense that Calliope wasn't great at following directions, and he was willing to bet she'd never be that good at faking subservience. Xyxxta wouldn't be an easy one for Calliope to sneak into, and the thought made Alvar feel better. There were natural rules here.

Rules? He frowned. He was already playing Calliope's game.

"Xyxxta," he said.

"Mm, what's your pleasure, Al?"

"Could you do something for me? Every time I hit the top of my jump, could you stroke me five times, really fast? As fast as you think I'd enjoy? And just do that, all the way until we get to the station. Nothing else. Don't talk, not this morning."

Xyxxta immediately stopped what she was doing, though she kept her hold on his body, her breasts a comforting pressure on his back. That was fine. Sure enough, when he hit the top, she grabbed his cock, and then she did something ridiculous, her hand buzzing back and forth at superhuman speed, for a fraction of a second. But the lubrication was fine, as it always was with her, and even though it was an odd sensation, it wasn't unpleasant. By the second repetition he realized he was breathing shallowly, his dick twitching in anticipation of the next time. This was Xyxxta, all right. Probably the move was in her giant database of sexual techniques, or maybe she'd just done as he asked, and guessed perfectly. By the fifteenth jump, he was pretty sure Calliope could never fake this clockwork precision. And he loved that glorious second beforehand, the rise slowing, the land stretching out in every direction, a sharp gray bowl of horizon against black sky, everything perfectly balanced and ready—

Nothing happened. He would've lost his balance if he'd been on the ground, but he could flail all he wanted and it wouldn't make a damn bit of difference up here. Zero-spin freefall, nothing but the force of gravity until the next step, but then he had to prepare for anything. Maybe he should dismiss the shell, but he'd rather see right away how recklessly Calliope was planning to play.

He planted and launched perfectly, and then he could relax.

"Calliope, that was pretty fucking obvious."

Xyxxta's shell re-appeared in front of him, with an expression that definitely wasn't Xyxxta. "Well, bravo for you, smartypants. You win this round, but maybe we should call it a draw. That expression on your face was priceless. You want to keep doing the most boring thing I've ever seen, or do you want to fuck a real shell?"

"Give me back Xyxxta," he said.

Xyxxta's shell shook her head, but then her expression changed. She looked momentarily confused, and then she disappeared, settling on his back just in time to do her magic at the top of his trajectory.

"Thanks, Xyxxta. You can talk to me now, but otherwise keep doing what you're doing. Do you know what just happened? Why you missed one of my jumps?"

"No," she said, sounding apologetic. "There was a malfunction and I'm missing memory. Should I run a diagnostic?"

"No," Alvar said. "There was no problem with your shell. You're functioning perfectly, the way I always love. This may happen from time to time, but it has nothing to do with you."

"All right," she said easily. "This is fun. I enjoy new things. Do you want anything else?"

"This is perfect," Alvar said, waiting, waiting—ahh. It was over in an instant again, and his dick strained for the next time. As long as Calliope kept away. Or maybe she'd take over and do it early. Christ, the anticipation was even more unbearable now.

* * *

He caught Calliope again that afternoon. He'd been efficient enough to carve out a half hour break for himself, and on the way to the evening job he saw a cluster of boulders that would be perfect for a stop.

"I'm Alvar," he said, pulling down the old-fashioned pants of this late-middle-aged woman. "What gets you off the fastest?"

She smiled brightly. "My own two fingers. But you can use your mouth if you want. That works when it's a handsome fellow like you. I'm Zeliah."

"Twenty minutes enough, Zeliah?"

"That's definitely sufficient," she said, sighing and spreading her legs for him. She even braced hard on the half-overhang above, which brought a good shock of reality to his libido.

He'd picked her at random because he was getting a prickly nervousness about Calliope taking over again, and he'd rather it be on an unfamiliar shell. But Zeliah turned out to be a great choice. She had realistic wrinkles, her breasts showing stretch marks like someone who'd grown up on Earth, though of course they bounced around erratically just like all the naturally big ones did in this gravity. As he swirled his tongue around her dainty little clit, she grunted appreciatively, nothing fake-sounding. She even gave him a few instructions, which he was happy to follow.

They always started ready for sex, if you set your defaults the way Alvar did. But Alvar didn't like fucking a robot, either, and frequently he preferred it when they had time to get things going organically. Sure, it was all fake on one level. But there was a whole landscape of fucking hidden in that short word. He loved Xyxxta, but every bit of her screamed artificial companion, for good and bad. Zeliah was well towards the other direction. Even her sour tang tasted more real than the sanitized taste a lot of the shells went with, to avoid offending. But like most shells, Zeliah's creator was anonymous, so there was no guarantee the person who made Zeliah even looked or tasted like this.

He could feel her getting close, and the looser parts of her body began shaking in a pleasing way. The whole thing had him hard as fuck, and he stood up.

"No, no, finish me, you fucker," Zeliah said. He stared for a second, but despite the tone, the shell looked flushed, needy. Not like Calliope at all. This was a more uncomfortable realism than most shells aimed for.

"Next time, darling," he said. "Why don't you get yourself off now."

He plunged into her sopping, loose pussy, and she didn't grip him like a vise. Not even augmented that way, but it was perfect for Zeliah. A full package. After a slight hesitation she started to masturbate, her fingers working quickly on her clit while he pumped in, out, in. She was starting to gush all over him, a mess really, and it was great. He could feel it sliding down the inside of one thigh. A fucking amazing suit. It only took another minute for her climax to begin, a deep shuddering through her body that was just right to get him over the edge.

He groaned and shot his first load, the jizz dripping out of her almost immediately to mix with her fluids. She gave a cute little moan, and it wasn't until the second one that he froze.