Blurring Lines
24 Mar 2024Ryuko Ntsikana
Blurring Lines
Colonia Region
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The glass of local liquor in my hand had a smooth burn to it as I stared at my data tablet sitting on the table in front of me. My balance sheet was tilted against the wind. While I had plenty of credits, the outgoing was more than the incoming, and that was becoming a habit I would need to course-correct. Another thing that was starting to gnaw at me was the silence from the one holding my leash.
Aby sat at the table, looking at me with those creepy eyes as I poured some more of the local swill into my glass. “I haven’t heard anything from my benefactor or his agents. Is there something I should know about?”
“No, you are performing within the defined guidelines. He is pleased with the information I have sent.”
“Cut out the cryptic and give me a straight answer. I would have thought he would have been curious about the one-in-a-million stroke of recent good fortunes, being rebuilt in the hangar outside,” I almost growled, taking another pull on my glass, looking at Aby.
“He was amused, if that is your concern. The defined parameters you can operate inside of have not changed since the last time. The only restriction I have been made aware of is avoidance of any legal entanglements.”
Tara walked in, sitting down at the table next to me, as I stared at my data tablet once again, taking another drink. An odd numbing warmth began filling my body and head, as I narrowed my eyes at the bottle.
“No questions about my personal expenditures, intentions, or the run-in with that petty pirate lord?”
“None that I have been made aware of,” Aby replied, shaking his head. “But, as you require a more definitive answer, his mannerisms did suggest one of curiosity. There is a high probability that he is waiting to see how you would handle the different situations.”
“You can do better than that,” Tara said, looking at Aby with eyes as creepy as his own. I stood up, feeling the rush of the liquor in my head, as I walked over to one of the lounge's viewing ports. From up here, I could see a horde of maintenance automatons crawling over and through the Krait.
Aby did not reply to Tara directly, instead raising his voice to speak directly at me, even though I had walked less than ten feet away.
“You are aware at this stage of your contract that his intents are not always discernible. The concepts you apply as a measurement of his desires are biases of your own perception and not one that he himself uses. As you have tried to understand him before, all I can say to help is to think of the larger picture. He plays the long game, while both of us are operating in the here and now.”
“Who is this… person?” Tara asked with a sharp tone, leaning across the table, and glaring at Aby. She didn’t sound happy.
Aby remained silent, looking at me. At least he was learning, I thought, wobbling a little as the liquor made more of its effects known. “She’s read’n the same chart.”
That sounded good in my head before I said it, but it didn’t come out that she already knew the reasons why I was out here. Tara turned her head, looking at me with a smirk on her face, as I held up the bottle in my hand to inspect it. I didn’t remember bringing it with me, but since it was here, I couldn’t let it be lonely as I took another drink.
Those droids looked like fuzzy little angry insects, crawling all over that pretty blurry object with sparks falling onto the hangar floor. I felt bad for them, working so hard and not having anything to drink.
***
I could feel the warmth of the body snuggled up behind me and the arm draped over me. Blinking a couple of times to get my bearings, I'd almost forgotten I had landed at the planetary starport as I reached over to unclip the magnetic edge of my blanket, only to discover it was already unattached.
I lay still for a moment, not remembering coming to bed, or really anything leading up to it. I knew that I had been drinking some of the local blend of liquor, and was surprised at the smooth burn and the numb feeling I had, but everything else was a haze.
Turning onto my back, I looked over at Tara. Her bare chest was rising and falling as if she were breathing, but I knew she was in her maintenance mode. The shallow breathing, while looking natural, was her body's way of supplying her synthetic biology with its oxygen requirements along with keeping her cybernetic systems cool. The biomorphic tagline of ‘better than nature’ played in my head once more as I lay there, staring at her.
Now I just felt stupid, sliding out from under the covers and walking into the attached lavatory. The one small blessing of being under gravity was that I didn’t have to spin the ship to create centrifugal gravity to enjoy the sensation of hot water falling over me.
I was startled as Tara stepped into the shower with me. While the shower was big enough for two, it was not a requirement for her, but it didn’t hurt either. All I could do was stand there and look dumb for a moment, trying to ignore the water cascading over me, as she stared at me with an odd look in her eyes.
“Listen, if I said anything stupid last night…” I didn’t get a chance to finish as she pressed me to the wall of the shower, her lips locking onto mine, her hands running over my shoulders, down my arms, and across my hips. While this aggressive move was surprising, it wasn’t unwelcome as my own biochemical responses began to assert themselves, pushing out whatever it was I had said the night before to the furthest reaches of my mind.
***
I sat on the corner of the bed with my business remlock suit on, staring at my onboard cabin door. Tara was dressed in a nice matching uniform, accenting her curves a little too nicely. The shower had caught me off guard, but I had no complaints. Apparently, part of the missing gaps in my memory from last night was part of round one, the shower being round two. I still couldn’t shake the random thoughts going through my mind.
“Tara, listen, I have a question or two.” She turned around with a little smirk on her face. “The same ones you had last night?”
“I have no idea what I asked or did last night, but did I dismantle Aby, somewhere in the process?”
Tara laughed. “No, he was still functional last I saw him. Plugged into the ship’s computer, trying to reference the change of weird languages and phrases you were blathering on with.”
“I know being my companion is all a small part of what you were designed for, but you don’t need to provide me with those services. I understand it is all mimicry.”
Tara walked over, sitting down on the bed next to me, gazing into my eyes with a strange intensity.
“Answering your questions last night was probably not the best time, as you don’t remember much of that conversation, but I did remind you of my requirement for needing one hour to pair with you after you picked me up. That was necessary for my adaptive sentience to bond. So now it comes back to your question. What is the line between sentience and synthetic? Is all of this programmed mimicry, or does it evolve?”
I know I had a stupid look on my face as she patted my knee and stood up. “Give it time, then decide on what you think it is. Until then, we have clients that need transporting, and your Krait will be ready sometime tomorrow.”
Great. Between Aby trying to figure everything out, my elusive benefactor being silent as a wind in space, and now Tara running the gauntlet between erotic and cryptic, this day promised to be delightful. Damn if I wasn’t getting too old for this. I needed coffee.