WeirdTrack: While He Slept Ch. 01

Celty hopped into the room. Her leg squeaking with every little movement now and leaking a blue trail of lube behind her.

"Ah, no. Stop right there." The Marquis held up a finger. His eyes flashed a sickly yellow.

Celty did. Without thinking of it.

"So, you come into my house and shit on my rug. Who do you think you are? El Presidente." The Marquis stood up now, shimmying out of his golden pajama pants as he did so. "Do you know how much it'll take to summon Sylph and Salamander again. Not a lot, but it's something I don't like doing."

He approached Celty. He wrung his hands with palpable anticipation. "And Alclysia, I'm gonna have to fish her out of space. Do you know how much of a damn pain that is? Gonna be a whole thing. You just come in here and wreck my shit. And worst of all you don't even do what you came here to do. You fuck it up. You got far, farther than most, but here we are. I'm still kicking, and you've become my newest bitch."

He stepped forward, a wild dog cornering a baby rabbit. A yellow gaze. "Raise your hand bitch."

And Celty did. Her body no longer hers.

He smiled a gap-toothed smile "And do you know why my little bitch? Why I win and you lose. Do you wanna know?"

Celty nodded. The Marquis's licked his lips. He began to masturbate, stroking his cock like it was his favourite sport.

"Kneel. Then I'll tell you."

Celty fell forward. It was hard to kneel with only one leg. She pulled herself onto a single knee, stabilizers working hard to keep her balanced.

"Because," He brought his cock so close to her that it reflected in the Celty's helmet. "You are a dumb bitch. Seriously, every time one of you drops in it's always some of the dumbest preparations. Either you only bring enough skills or equipment to deal with one of my guards, or if you bring enough game to take them out, then whenever you get to me you underestimate me. Like I'm a bit of nothing without my summons or golem. How does that even make sense. Why would the eight families fear a measly summoner. How's that even possible. You bitches don't even stop to consider that maybe the reason I scare the eight families is because I'm equal to them."

He whispered this, "Maybe they're scared of me because I own something of theirs."

Celty stayed still as she could, her helmet reflecting the acts of the Marquis back to him.

"Hey, want to see the future." He pointed at the woman who'd just finished sucking him off a few moments ago. Cum still dribbled from her chin. "That's you in an hour. She was just like you, some uppity little shit who thought that I was just some notch for her. A target. It's good you came along. I was getting tired of her."

He began to quicken his pace, his hands blurred as he pulled at his dick. "Now, do daddy a favour and take off that stupid helmet. And take the top off. I want to see your titties."

Celty's single chrome hand reached towards her helmet.

Execute~: HAYLEY<3.Override(CONTROL:Override.Full(SAMSON)); HAYLEY<3.Override(User.Summon(CYBER));

Celty flipped.

She watched from her Cybermind as Samson took her hand and stretched the palm straight toward the Marquis's crotch.

"What the-"

A sword telescoped out and stabbed straight into the Marquiss' genitals. Whatever control he had seemed absolute over humans and non-existent in AI. A wonderful theory proven correct.

"You bitch!" He howled. Samson sliced across his belly; intestines squirmed out of the incision in such a rush. Angry worms crawling out of his belly.

The Marquis fell over and with small pop from her knee, Samson landed Celty's body atop the Marquis, Sword pointed at his throat.

The woman in the corner looked up. Her eyes still far away, but her lips began to twitch.

Execute~: Suit::Helm.Say(queryMarquis.txt);

"Where is it?" The helm read.

"What?" He wailed. His eyes were flashing like warning lights. From his dull brown to angry yellow.

Samson hopped, Celty's foot landing with a thud and a crack on the Marquis's hips. He wailed.

"Null's Gift. Where?"

Blood trickled from his lips as he smiled. The Marquis's last words were, "I don't have it." And then his face caved in.

It didn't happen by itself. Human faces don't tend to implode. It came from the hand of the woman, cum still drying on her face. She'd grabbed a statuette of a woman, bent over to offer her ass to some unseen suitor, and bashed it into the Marquis's face. Then she did it again, and again, and again. Over and over. By the time Samson registered this well enough to back away, the Marquis's face looked like it'd been put through a shredder and stepped on.

She kept screaming, though whatever control the Marquis had was gone madness had eaten away most of her sanity.

The world began to shift and shake. This planar dimension's owner was gone now. No owner meant no dimension, which meant that this place was about blink into nothing.

Celty resumed control of her body and began to hop towards the planar-port. The world around her shimmered into translucent nothing and shook back into a solid plane. Part's the ground fell away like rocks tossed into a white void. She jumped as a large section fell away in front of her. Her single foot landed at the edge and she kept hopping forward. The walls began to peel away like aged paint exposing more cold white underneath. She flung herself against the main doors, rolling into an already disappearing main room. The ceiling and walls were gone. The floor was shattered with large strips of it peeled away. Couches and decorations fell, falling into the abyss.

Celty was tired. Her chrome protested with every move, but more importantly her meat was waning. Her core muscles flared with every jump. The port was too far.

Execute~: trinkets::ChemMod.dispense(.5);

Note— ChemMod Empty

The world slowed. Her emotions dulled. Fear, anxiety, and pain all fled leaving only a sense of control. She Hopped across the small platforms of ground left one after another. Hop. Hop. She didn't even stumble.

She deployed her space suit and ran the portal sequence as she neared the port. Her suit still included limbs which she lacked. She jumped. The floor was gone now, entirely. She landed half on the port, her leg off. A light swallowed her and spat her back into the real world. Marquis's den of pornographic nightmares winked out of existence.

Her suit had been cut. The spatial shift had not included her leg, leaving a massive hole in her suit. Air was suctioned out leaving the suit air tight against her skin. But the other functions such as fresh air being deployed to her lungs failed. Cold. She felt an icy cold around her.

Celty grabbed the crystal, holding it tight in her trembling hand. It was a dull red; a sign of its current void. Consciousness was a struggle. While on whiteNoize she'd been awake, alive, but now her body was catching up with her. Celty gripped the side of the pod with one magnetized hand. A dark silent shape cast its shadow over her.

"Cel? Holy shit," Alia received the long list of notifications regarding Celty's condition. "Dammit." She sighed.

A long cord stretched like snake from the ship's underside and attached itself to Celty with a magnet. It began to reel her in, a half dead catch.

She found herself alone on the spaceship floor. Voices arguing all around.

"How the hell did you let her keep going?" Alia spat. A pair of her tinkerbots already scurried forth to grab Celty, dragging her to medbay, otherwise known as the kitchen/living room/bedroom/brooding space.

"What was I supposed to do, huh? She just kept going. I tried stopping her, but she was so determined." Samson sounded like his mouth was full, he was busy stuffing himself on virtual chips.

"She was on one leg, you dingus. One leg and one arm, that's fifty percent of a Celty. That's when you hijack her and bring her home. Speaking of hijacking, you! Hayley, you literally pulled her out mid-fight."

"Wasn't my fault. They were turning me into swiss cheese in there. I needed to or else we'd all go down."

The tinkerbots set her on the floor and began to remove her limbs. Drills and hammers working at the scrap, bending it back into place enough to detatch with a twist.

"Well, maybe you wouldn't have needed help if you'd practiced more instead of watching Anime."

"I practice a lot."

"Well, bright side. She's still alive." Samson noted.

"I'm gonna take the bright side and shove it where the sun don't shine if you don't shut it Sammy boy."

Some tinkerbots began to suture her cuts and fresh limbs were pulled out of storage, these more all-purpose than her now ruined combat set.

"Sammy is not a nickname for Samson, Ali."

"Call me Ali again you two-byte hack!"

And Celty began to laugh. It was honest laughter, like when you slip and fall and realize how silly you must've looked. The AI stopped their arguing and listened.

She was smiling, content.

"Target not found guys." She said it simply. What they all were avoiding. The pain and sacrifice was acceptable, expected even, but the true surprise and true pain came from the fact that for all of this effort and struggle, there was nothing to show for it. "I failed."

All the AI stayed silent. Celty took a deep breath, then sat up. She stretched like a cat, long and savoured motions. She clapped her new hands together and bounced up to her feet. She winced, stopped, and continued, slower this time.

"Welp, looks like we've still got work to do. But that's for later." She opened her fridge and rifled through it's sad remains.

Samson was the first to speak. "Celty?"

"Samson?" She grabbed a box of dried oats from her pantry, "Can you start up the next episode of 'Martian Wife'?"

"Of...of course."

"Oh and open my chat too. I wanna catch up with my peeps" and she made herself a bowl of yogurt and oats.

Stop(WeirdTrack_BadDay(A_Side));

Start(WeirdTrack_BadDay(Interlude));

Crimea, the knightess lapped the blood off the three perfectly crafted fingers that remained on the hand which she held. She was hungry. Her tongue made quick work of it, savoring each lick of the ambrosia. Once cleaned she suckled a finger in her mouth and bit. She relished it as she chewed. New rivulets of blood streamed from her bite, sending her once again on a quest to lick it all up.

Their eight naked bodies laid there coated in blood and oil. Eight of my friends sliding and slipping into one anothers arms, gorging themselves on debauchery of the highest tier. Their eyes a haze of lust and hunger. A mass of writhing bodies touching, kissing, and fucking one another. Every depraved fluid covered them too, slick and rich. Art in the form of carnal delights.

The blood followed every touch and every kiss. It slid and painted every inch of skin and tainted every act of debauchery. It was everywhere. It was even in the air, a thin red mist clinging to hair and to the skin.

The body it had all come from was torn apart in a joyous act of celebration. Like fools tearing apart a pinata and spilling its delicious candy everywhere, along with bits of paper mache and sticks. Colorful confetti raining down from the sky. The deviants rolled around in their mess like content little piggies, gorging themselves on the goodies.

The head was thrown. It hit the ground and cracked in two. A woman fell to all fours and pressed her mouth against one half. She attacked the head with an animalistic hunger tearing chunks of meat and swallowing as quickly as she could.

Scargeille knelt behind her and pushed his way into her. She threw her head back and screeched blasphemies to a god that didn't hear. Her lips stained with sin.

And all I could do was watch. My eyes taking in the horrors before me. They danced and cheered through a hellscape of death. They caroused and fucked all the while oblivious to the world around them. Oblivious to me; rather, they were oblivious to my absences. I always was the spare wheel, so it shouldn't be that surprising. Still, I thought that at least she might've noticed. Annabelle, my darling Annabelle. But she hadn't, though in her defense, she had more pressing matters to deal with at the moment. Such as Scargielle trying to fit the entirety of the club he called a penis into her rear while she tried to finish licking up the frontal lobe that was splattered in front of her.

Still, she was my darling Annabelle.

Stop(WeirdTrack_BadDay(Interlude));

Start(WeirdTrack_BadDay(B_Side));

"Press one to save your message. Press two to delete."

John stared at his phone.

"Press one to save you-"

John tapped a number.

"Your message has been deleted. To leave a different message press-"

John hung up. He tossed his phone aside. It landed on a bag of freshly folded laundry.

He grabbed a small cylinder container and poured its contents into his hands.

The pills were smaller than John had expected. Tiny white circles with a stylized 'G' inscribed on them. The name of the game was Glitch and intense mind-blowing hallucinations was how it was played. That was the case in small doses. John rolled five of pills in his hands. He'd wanted to be sure, but this was all he could afford.

Yesterday had been the icing on a My-Life-Is-Sad and My-Only-Relationship-Is-With-My-Hand cake, and today was the cherry. John Reicher had gone from an unknown nerd in the background of everyone's high school story to a school wide villain overnight.

His family was an American family in every way except in spirit. A workaholic father who was disappointed in him, a self-medicating mother who loved the idea of children more than the children themselves, and Geo, a twin who was smart, charming, and loved by all. Geo was everything he was not. Contrast, success:failure.

When John tried out for mathletes in high school Geo showed up to his try outs and casually did calculus while John only did algebra. When John decided to try Dawn-Ball, he got to warm the bench while Geo got put on first string because John could barely jump and whistle at the same time while Geo could sing ballads, run, and dribble the ball. When John finally got the courage to ask his first crush to the Frost-Night soiree, she said, "I'm sorry. I'd say yes, but Geo just asked me out. And even if I didn't have a date and you had all the money from the beanstalk, there's no way I'd ever go with an absolute loser like you."

John may have imagined that last part. But that was the total sum of his life, save for one aspect.

"How's my favorite sperm-bytes."

Their mother hated it when he called them that.

"You can't talk to kids that way. What are they going to grow up thinking?"

"I'm preparing them for the world Grace. Rich ain't so I might as well. And it's better than calling them cunt-muffins."

And she'd scold him again. And he'd say something crude and she'd laugh. They did this every time. She hated how he talked, but she tolerated him. She loved him. She Loved Him. She Loved Him, too much.

Out of all of them only Geo didn't like him.

"He's not good." She'd say, always looking at the floor when she said it, "Can't you tell. Look at those eyes. He's crazy. He's..he's..." But she'd never say.

Geo's dislike of him only made John love him more.

Uncle Raccoon was what Geo and John called him, a left over from when the they couldn't pronounce Rangoon. A fellow member of the Reicher clan, their father's brother. He dropped by at least twice a week, seeing them more than their own father ever did.

His job was his family; his family was his burden.

But to Uncle Raccoon they were royalty. He'd come by adorned with fruits and candies and the cheapest of toys which brought immeasurable joy for an hour before their cheap Chinese plastic broke, but it was okay because more would come soon enough. And all was good.

But his last day eventually came. Life took him from them. Father came home early. Brotherly fighting ensued. Uncle without pants, but with a cigarette. Mother without excuses, but with socks.

They never saw Uncle Raccoon after that, he left. He started a cult. That cult made some waves. That cult was sent far away.

Geo was happy and she was the only one. Their father was home more, which only made them appreciate the days when he was never home. Fortunately, this only lasted a year. Unfortunately, it ended only when their Mother died. The newspapers said she'd accidently taken too much of her medicine. She'd taken fifty pills on accident.

Their father was gone again, work swallowing him. But he did not leave them alone. They needed a mother. And like any good upper middle-class American father, he bought one. She was human in every way except for in reality. Her name was Keera- it was actually K-$3342-AO3, but Keera was easier to remember.

John and Geo stayed at home. John was angry. Geo was not. John stayed in his room. Geo threw parties. John gorged himself on food and games. Geo feasted on life and friendships. John learned to kiss on hard metal using Keera. Geo learned to kiss on real lips. Neither grieved. Worst still they grew quiet with one another. Conversations ceased to be. Living in the same home they drifted further apart.

John knew that once he moved it would all get better. Once he was away he would grow and change, and all the things that held him back, that made him a pained disgusting thing, that were slowly killing him, would be gone. He only had to leave.

That came the day. He won the lottery. It had been another regular shitty day, but then a red notification appeared on his I-Screen. An email from 'ARC Academy' arrived. An email that read that out of all the applicants into a random lottery John had been chosen for a free ride to ARC. Four years of the best education at the revolutionary school that was ARC, all while in orbit aboard the Virtui-SoBo station, and, best of all, away from Geo.

John told Keera. She cheered and played celebration music from her mouth. John packed. It was a good day. Then Geo came home.

"You won't believe what I just found out." She slammed the door behind her. "I just got accepted for a full ride to ARC Academy"

More cheers from Keera. Their father even took the time out of his busy day to call and congratulate them. Both Reicher children had been allowed into the halls of learning excellence; one by merit, the other chance.

John had had only an hour of a Geo free future.

Two seeds grew. Tangled.

One green. One strong. One prospers.

The other browns. The other weak. The other fails.

The Other pulls away. The Sun, warm. Growth shall come.

Lies.

The Sun turns cold. Shade. Above the other, a leaf. The one.

She follows.

She kills.

He dies.

After the majesty of Arcs faded —the gourmet meals, the automated buildings, the lack of pollution, and the gigantic space city next-door— the school felt like any other. John was still a nobody, the occasional target for the bullies, but otherwise ignored. He'd made one friend, but even that wasn't a huge triumph.

"I'm telling you man, she's a two-penny whore. All of them are. If you don't have abs or money then you're nothing to them. Nothing." Bits of food fell from Leonard's mouth any time he emphasized.

"But as soon as you got that then they'll drop their panties at the snap of your fingers." Leonard shoveled another scoop of mashed potatoes into his food hole. Mouth now full, he continued, "That's why flesh girls are trash. As soon as I get myself a bot I'm not going to waste my loads on a fleshy ever again. Those femoids are trash sluts and they know it, yet they don't even bother appreciating real treasures like you and me." He laughed, snorting.

John pushed the peas around his plate and wondered if he'd choke. If he did would John have to give him CPR? No, that's what the janitor was for right. Janitors are trained in CPR, right?