Imnir Ark Vol. 01 Ch. 04

The alien woman opposite him poked at the delicacy with the fork, which she held like a dagger. She suddenly turned her gaze up to Isaac, a questioning look on her face. "So this is... pie?"

"You did ask me what it was, back on the ship. I figured it was better to just show you."

Isaac Butler and Ävhip-ñall Solclaá -- whom he simply called Nall -- were sitting in a corner booth at a coffee shop downtown. After waking up in the morning, feeling refreshed, Isaac had once again taken in the sight of Nall's transformed body -- while she'd been externally shaped almost exactly like a normal (though very good-looking) human female, the differences between humans and Nall's progenitor race -- the imnir -- focused mostly on the internal organs and neural structure, plus the imnir's skin ran a variety of shades of red through yellow, with spots of yellow, orange, and some teal.

After using her experimental quarkware abilities on his dick the previous evening, Nall had made him come inside her, and his semen transformed her to look indistinguishable from any other human in the world. She was still quite striking to see, but nobody would be carting her off to the dermatologist when she appeared in public. After seeing he was awake, Nall had made him come in her mouth again (it being "necessary for the process", as she often cryptically stated) then sprung out of bed, asking him to take her on a guided tour of the city.

"You'll need clothes." He had given her perpetually nude body a once-over, the rich sun-brown skin and flowing black hair pleasing to his basic male brain, but he'd known her imnir-derived nudist lifestyle wouldn't fly in downtown Raleigh. Nall had shrugged and poked her head into his closet, fingering through his clothes, eventually picking a pair of khaki shorts and a black undershirt. He had nothing for her feet that was even close to her size, so they settled on his running shoes, which laced up tightly. "That'll do for now, we can shop a bit while we're out." Isaac tightened the belt on the shorts, and let the shirt fall back down to cover it. The outfit was baggy and not particularly sexy, and made her look like a gawky high school girl that wanted to be cute but with no real clue how to do it.

She admired herself in the mirror. "Is this standard female clothing for your strata?"

"I don't even know what that means. Yes. I think. Let's go."

Nall ambled on with him, looking curiously in all directions as the two walked together down the hallway and reached the elevator. Riding it down, they'd exited the building into the parking garage, Nall stopping to look around again until Isaac pulled her along with him until they reached his green Sonata. They'd driven around for a while, giving her the drive-by tour first; she mostly just watched, occasionally asking him things -- some utterly mundane, some incomprehensible. After two hours of leisurely driving around, she informed him that she was hungry, and made it clear she expected him to resolve the issue.

He'd picked out the small coffee shop since it was close -- ironically, one of his favorite second-date spots -- and had been reminded of the odd moment they'd shared on her spacecraft, after she'd laid eggs for him, when she'd suddenly used the expression 'pie-in-the-sky' without actually knowing what it meant. She'd learned English forcibly, by copying his brain's entire language center and overwriting her own with it, but the meanings, cultural ideas, and values behind the words in English and those in her native Sõrlacc often didn't match up. It led to his dimly remembered promise to show Nall what pie was.

"It's food, right?"

"Just eat it." She peered at him, searching his face -- and probably his thoughts -- for any hint of ill intent. "Goddamn it, Nall. Stop looking into my head." Isaac grabbed the fork out of her hand and stabbed the slice of pecan pie, taking a bite and handing the fork back. "Satisfied it's not poisonous?"

Nall took a small bite herself, but didn't seem to have any taste for it. She pushed it away, and took a long drink from the coffee he'd bought for her. At least we can agree coffee is good stuff... Looking around the shop, from the corner booth they were in he could see the place had a sizable weekday lunch-time crowd. Leaning one arm over the seat cap, his eyes slid over the many women in the room, with a new appreciation for their beauty. His recently sex-laden life had somehow made him feel even more libidinous, when in the past he'd always been a one-woman man. He attributed the change to Nall's attempts to modify his thoughts into something more agreeable to her mission, though he was beginning to question whether or not she was actually any good with the mind-control powers he knew her experimental quarkware abilities gave her.

"See any you like?" Nall's voice drew him back to the woman he was sitting with. She'd noticed his drifting eyes, and had known exactly what he was thinking. His new, expanded cock that she had granted him was a hungry beast, only ever sated for a couple hours at a time.

"Do I get a choice?" Isaac rolled his eyes while burying his nose in his cup, taking a sip of his own sugar-saturated coffee.

"Maybe." She looked around too. "I'm not actually that picky. I figure if you're on board with the choice of female, you'll just come that much harder, and more eggs for me."

Isaac gave her a glare. He'd never liked the casual way she talked about his forced role in her mission. The way she said 'female' bothered him too; it was like she didn't see herself as being the same as any other woman present, as if the other girls -- each talking, laughing, working, reading, or whatever else occupied their lives for the moment -- were just targets or tools to her.

*Actually, I'm sure she thinks she's different.* He recalled the events of the previous day afterward, and the tenderness and affection she'd shown for Jessica when the two had made love, and later while Jessica had laid a large number of eggs for them. Late at night, she'd helped him put Jessica's clothes back on and he had used the younger girl's keys to quietly place her back in her own condo, where she would wake up a couple hours later -- the events having been carefully painted over in her mind by Nall. Even as he walked out, he'd caught a glimpse of a long face on Nall, like she'd miss Jessica. *She might think she's different, but I think maybe she doesn't want to be as crazy about her mission as she believes she needs to be.*

He finished the coffee, and crushed the insulated paper cup in his hand. It barely satisfied his frustration over his own conflicted feelings. On the one hand, he believed that on a basic level, Nall had no right to do what she was doing. On the other hand, even if he didn't like that she did it, he understood her reasons, and he couldn't pretend that it wasn't the hottest thing he'd ever experienced. Even the distant glimmer of the thought of making one of the varyingly good-looking women present fill up with imnir eggs sent a wave through his cock, and it responded with a slight rise of its own. He could feel its length down the inside of his upper thigh, stretching the fabric of his underwear. If he let his mind dwell on the subject, it would turn into a raging hard-on, and even the loose shorts he'd chosen might not be able to hide his mammoth dick at full erection.

Isaac shook his head, clearing his mind before he could get too lost in his sex-laden imagination. "Let's go." Nall only smiled knowingly, the two leaving the coffee shop after paying up. Isaac noticed that the purchase had left him almost bereft of cash in his wallet. They were halfway down the block and he noticed a branch of his bank two blocks away.

"You said I'm a fake inventor now, right?"

"The inventions are real enough." She put her hands on her hips. "I *am* a flight engineer, you know. One of the best. I taught whole classes of up-and-coming engineers after I retired."

"'Flight engineer'? Like on an aircraft carrier?" The two continued walking down the street together, Nall's black hair occasionally catching a light breeze.

"What's an... oh, I see. Big military boats with atmospheric craft on them. The imnir had those too, in earlier times." She'd mentioned once that imnir history was basically a lot like human history, a long-winded recollection of the strong crushing the weak, plague and misery, and the escalation of technological warfare. Unlike humans, though, the grand finale of the imnir story had already been written, a tragic mistake causing the whole world to be bathed in torrents of deadly radiation. *Except she wants to write the sequel, with my dick as her pen...*

He laughed snidely to himself at the metaphor. Nall looked at him. "What?"

Isaac felt a slight relief within, knowing she couldn't read his *every* thought, at least. "No, I was just thinking of a dumb joke. You said you were a flight engineer?"

Brightening, Nall gladly returned to talking about herself. "Right. A flight engineer, um, it translates badly; it's more like, ah, spacecraft mechanic -- slash -- engineer." Nall was thinking hard, trying to find the right words to express Sõrlacc ideas in English. "Flight engineers run the engines on small or commercial spacecraft. They're also typically responsible for repair and maintenance for ship systems, and on long haul missions that can mean shop work to make replacement parts from scratch. So we flight engineers had to have a pretty wide range of training, and the ones who did it for a while, like me, also knew how to build or jury-rig just about anything. That freighter up in orbit was the only serviceable ship the project could get its hands on. I had crewed another in the same class years ago. That was one of the reasons they picked me out of all the volunteers."

He could see the bank on the next corner. Straggling through Nall's story, he realized something didn't add up. "How long did you serve in space? Sounds like a while."

"Earth years... um, thirty years, I think. Might be closer to thirty-one, thirty-two." His eyes went wide. She looked like she was twenty-five years old at most.

"Nall -- I could have sworn that you weren't even thirty years *old*, let alone had a thirty-year career." He didn't say it like a compliment, more like he'd just had his mind blown.

"Oh. That was something that happened when they made me a quarkware vessel. I turned young and sexy; actually, sexier than I probably ever was before, by imnir standards I mean. I had a wicked hook nose and a lot of scars. They all went away. But now...." She cupped a hand under her breast, a wide smile forming. Isaac batted her hand down, though not quickly enough that the pair didn't get some strange stares from other people on the street. She looked around and seemed to realize she'd crossed a line. "Oops. Anyway. I was just over sixty in Earth years when I became the Ark, so... late middle-age for a woman."

Isaac should have been more dumbfounded than he was, he realized. Instead, he just kept on walking with her, as if she'd just told him she was exactly as old as she looked. In a way, knowing she was an older, experienced woman whose body had been reverted to youth made sense; it explained her even temperament, and often callous outlook. Reaching the ATM, he pulled out his card and punched the numbers. "Well. That's weird to know, but okay, whatever. So you used all that, posed as me online, and sold some 'inventions' on the market." He summarized what she'd told him earlier, in his house, after unceremoniously informing him that she'd quite intentionally used her mind-control powers to lose him his job. Isaac asked the machine to print a balance inquiry.

Thin paper spat out of the slot into his hand, and he held it out in front of him. Nall leaned against the designer brick wall next to the ATM.

"Nall."

"Darling." She said it with no real passion.

"What am I going to do with $280,000?"

"Is it not enough?" She seemed concerned. "I researched how much you would require to secure everything we'd need for the mission, but I had several other deals set up to complete in the next couple days which should add another order of magnitude, to be on the safe side."

*Three million bucks? What the hell was she going to have me 'invent'?* Isaac could barely keep himself from yelling at her. "It's *too goddamn much!* How the hell am I going to explain to the IRS if they audit me? I wasn't some stupid rich playboy like in the movies, but I was well-off enough before! They're going to ask where my invention shop is, what kind of education I had to be able to invent goddamn spaceship parts, where I studied, and when I can't answer any of that, who I stole all this stuff from! I don't think they'll buy that I got it all reading library books in my spare time. I'm not going to have anything, and they'll probably think I'm blackmailing people or I'm a front for some Chinese ripoff factory or something."

"The Eye-aress? Who?" Nall's expression was blank; she clearly hadn't thought of it, or probably even known the possibility existed. He put a hand over his face, and pulled her away, walking back towards his car. She looked increasingly worried as he led her back into the car, shutting the doors and starting it up. "Is it really like that on Earth? I would have thought you'd be well-received, adding back to the economy or something."

"Maybe. Maybe not. People can't just make enormous amounts of money overnight and not have someone ask questions, okay?"

"Oh." She seemed to think to herself. "On Avoch, financial transaction records were more detailed and everything to do with money was absolutely required to be public. Every transaction was data-based, hard currency went obsolete a long time ago. The records were detailed enough that people couldn't economically break or hack the system, so there wasn't anyone going around 'asking questions' since it was all right there anyway."

"And that would be fantastic if we were on Avoch. We aren't. I need you to explain to me everything you did, and to call off the deals you're making."

"Okay, fine." She folded her arms, looking out the window, almost petulant.

"It's the smartest move. If you sell off your biggest and best inventions all up front, then that makes a huge pile of money. That many more people will notice it, and I'm sure there'll be plenty trying to steal it. If it gets stolen, I'm already out of a job thanks to you, and you're out of inventions to make more money with." She tilted her head, pondering, then accepted the explanation.

"That was hardly everything I know." Nall shrugged, letting her arms down. "But okay, your planet, I'll let you handle the details as long as I think we have enough to satisfy the mission. What did you do before, again?"

"Officially, I *was* Vice President of Projects." He put extra emphasis on 'was'. "Puffed-up bullshit title, the whole Projects department at Grand Courier was just myself and Clara. Still, whatever. I was a market strategist. Every company has a different name for it. Marketing, positioning, project development, realignment..." He rattled off some more, and she was already looking bored.

Nall interrupted him. "Makes sense you'd be a strategist. I like thinking men. You're correct, this is the right way to play our cards." She paused, looking down and to the left. "What are cards?"

Isaac didn't answer, driving on in silence, accepting her compliment without reservation. He was heading back to his condo complex, and when they passed by the city art museum, on a whim he turned in and parked. The place had been one of his favorite first-date spots, and he figured he might as well complete the bass-ackwards metaphor by bringing his slavemaster and alien companion there, as well. She got out also, looking up at the designer building, white and imposing.

"Oh! A museum. I haven't been to one of these in forever." He saw another guy walking in, girl on his arm, playing the same game Isaac had himself here several times. Ineptly posing as his own date, Nall offered her own arm with an evil grin. Sighing, he took it and led her within.

The exhibits actually did seem to fascinate her, more so than the tour of the city. She had endless questions, both engaging and confusing the hell out of several docents as they walked from room to room. He'd seen most all of it before, but it was still interesting, if not quite as shiny and new as it was for Nall. Most of the rooms were more modern art and sculpture, typically the more formal 'true artistic' pieces than the haphazard and chaotic assortment of 'folk art' he'd seen elsewhere. Nall demanded his attention at times, and utterly ignored him at others.

Halfway through, his urges were getting to him. Nall's ass, shapely and magnificent, was drawing his eyes like a magnet. He noticed that she caught many stray looks from the other guys touring the place, and many of the other girls; he couldn't blame them. His alien fake-girlfriend had not only an amazing body, but with her energetic and bright-eyed interest in the sights and art surrounding them, he could almost forget her hard-edged focus on her mission and her willingness to mess with people's minds to serve it. *Almost.* Regardless, he was fighting a losing battle, trying to rein in the growing arousal in his body, his cock calling to him to let it ride once again. The beast was more insatiable every hour.

As they reached the end of their tour, she seemed to notice his distracted tension. She walked closely, arm in arm like the other couples she'd seen. Speaking lowly enough that nobody else could hear, she glanced down at his dick and wrapped her arm around his waist as they walked. "I can tell, you know."

Isaac had figured she would eventually notice, but it didn't make him any less frustrated. On the final leg of their trip, they passed by the gift shop; his eye caught an unusual sight, a woman working in the shop that grabbed his interest. She was standing behind the counter, four large earrings in her ears and a thin red ribbon tying up her long black hair, with a shiny bauble holding the ribbon tight. Her face was thin and a little angular, but still lovely, marred only by a somewhat miffed expression. He couldn't see her lower half, but the upper half was a sight to see, a medium waist outlined by a company t-shirt that couldn't begin to hide her huge breasts -- D-size at least. Her skin was pale, like a girl that got little, if any, sun. He could see she wore multiple rings and bracelets, and an indeterminate number of necklaces. She was the 'unique' type that made him hard in high school, but he'd eventually moved away from in favor of the wholesome girl-next-door. For some reason, the sight of this particular girl went straight into his dick, and in an instant he knew the battle was lost and his erection would be almost painfully upright for a while.

"Her, huh?" Nall's voice came from his side and down, where her head came to rest on his shoulder. "I like her too. She's... distinct, from the other humans. Is there any significance to that?"

"We're all distinct, Nall." He closed his eyes, trying to shut out the images going through his mind of the girl, imaginations of her nude body, his cock entering her, the sight of those big breasts pressing against Nall's, trying to guess what her pussy would taste like or how good she was at sucking dick, and finally the image of her on her back, her belly swollen and laying small eggs with his and Nall's help. He fought, but it was no use, the ideas were already ingrained deeply into his mind. "In her case, though, she's probably a little more distinct, so you're right. I bet imnir had the same thing. Some kids just... stand out, they have to be different. Most grow out of it, but some don't. Some are straight-up crazy, but some just keep a few trappings of their... difference." He nodded toward her. "I'm guessing she's the latter... at least, she's not overtly crazy, and she has a job."