The Technomancer’s Playground
Wasteland
Wasteland The impact had carved a trench three miles long, tearing apart the local vegetation and leaving a dark plume to rise languidly into the pallid sky. Debris had scattered, charred and broken, while Sosostris herself lay still, her once-smooth curves now battered and stained with bubbling ichors. The Dreadnaught fought to heal the damage, but too many systems had already died and it seemed as if her own necrotic tissue would surely poison her. None of the crew could have survived the crash, and there simply wasn’t enough time to let their clones grow to full term. The edicts prohibited her from any other course, but with her own mortality suddenly all too apparent, Sosostris wasn’t going to let that stop her. Flash cloning would give her access to eyes and ears, at least until she could get her own telefactors up and running again. And once its life had run its course, the remains of her mistake would be easy to deal with. Soft notes of warning sang through her vast bulk, as the local predators finally plucked up enough courage to poke and gnaw on her exposed flesh. Sosostris pushed aside the discomfort, and concentrated on her strange alchemy. Enzymes dribbled freely, unpicking the delicate strands of information, while other, stranger chemicals dripped into the bubbling womb. She took hold of the creature’s DNA, resculpting the fragments she needed, and weaving it into a new pattern. Chains of RNA seeped into the mix, refining the clone’s brain chemistry and leaving her responsive to the knowledge being broadcast through the thick amniotic fluid. The memories wouldn’t hold, but then the clone’s life span would only be measured in hours. It should have horrified her, and yet, devoid as she was of emotions, Sosostris simply didn’t care. … The vat tilted alarmingly, decanting the young woman onto the heavily rutted deck. Thick fluids boiled around her, draining far too slowly. Sybil struggled to rise, her feet slithering in the cloying ooze. Urgent images flashed through her mind, neurones firing seemingly at random as they constantly formed new connections. There was work to be done, nagging irritations that pressed her into action. First she had to warm up the remotes and then there was the garden to be taken care of. The real crew would be the ones to fix the damage, but that wasn’t her concern. A spark of fear flittered through her thoughts and, just for a moment, her own end was so certain she wanted to scream. The next instant her emotions simply disappeared under a blanket of comfortable numbness. Sosostris had taken care of her needs, adding a layer of chloroplasts beneath Sybil’s epidermis in order to keep her nourished. She could already feel the stimulants coursing through her veins, speeding her thoughts and lending her an unnatural focus. There would be no time for sleep, and whatever happened Sybil had to remain sharp. The stench of burnt meat was almost enough to make her gag, and the miasma thickened as she moved through the vessel. Bodies lay sprawled where they had fallen, most littering the corridors but a precious few still interfaced with the vessel’s control systems. Part of her remained detached from the horror, recognising how the inertial dampers must have absorbed the bulk of the impact and wondering at the extent of the carnage before her. Their injuries were wrong, although beyond that she would have been hard pressed to explain why. Her mind was still plastic, but that would only last for a short while longer. She had the brain of a child, housing the mind of an expert and that was a potent combination. Synapses sparked and flashed in the darkness, linking her thoughts in bizarre and complex ways. The answer was there, on the tip of her tongue, but for the moment at least, she could not find the words. … Pain tore at Sosostris, raw and intense. A great shudder rolled through the Dreadnaught, driving away the incautious carrion-eaters that had not yet sensed the poison spilling from this wounded animal. The clone still hadn’t brought the telefactors back online, and all the ship could to do, was curse the woman’s slothfulness. More signals ripped through her, localising the agony and sending yet another quake rippling over her bulk. This was not something she could dismiss as effortlessly as the pinpricks the predators had inflicted. Something was tearing apart one of her secondary ganglia, and nerve-damage wasn’t so easily ignored, or even repaired. There was no other choice, Sosostris had to escape the lancing pain or else risk being driven insane. She sent one last message, filling her body with tailored pheromones and then let her consciousness sink downwards into the welcome oblivion of hibernation. She placed her trust in the clone’s abilities, and hoped she would awaken again. The crush of gravity pressed down on the Dreadnaught, and with every shudder more of her lifeblood spilled outwards. Radiation poured through fractured shielding, while toxins leeched into the soil. All around her the planet was dying, and the spill of corruption seemed to presage Sosostris’ own end. … Sybil weathered the shipquakes, somehow managing to keep her balance and she moved through the narrow corridors. When Sosostris sent her final message, the clone had almost reached the dronebays, but the new instructions overrode everything else. She spun on her heels, letting the surge of adrenaline add speed to her movements, and charged towards the source of the ship’s pain. She could almost feel Sosostris’ presence fade, but the air remained heavy with her commands. The ship was under attack, and that knowledge pulled Sybil’s usually placid face into a feral grin. But, as she flung herself through one of the Dreadnaught’s pores, the sight that greeted her left Sybil struggling to understand her conflicted emotions. The clone dropped into the chamber, sliding through the membranous opening and landing lightly on the undulating floor. She sought knowledge, and obligingly her memories offered up what she needed. A great chair dominated the room, glinting metallically amidst the layers of dusky flesh. Dark stains spread outwards, splashing the walls and puddling around her feet. This was the secondary control room, a holdover from earlier, more paranoid times. The ship’s Captain could access her nervous system from here, providing a last failsafe should a Dreadnaught ever ‘go rogue’. And that was the source of her consternation, because lying at the foot of her burnished ‘throne’, still tangled in her interface cables, was Captain April Mitchell. Even a cursory inspection was enough to see that her Commanding Officer was still alive. But Sybil wasn’t sure how long that would last. The long tendrils that had bound Mitchell to the ship had each been torn free, and some still twitched, oozing dark fluids. The clone had only basic medical knowledge, and it was by no means clear whether that would be enough. Then, as she was attempting to stem the flow, Mitchell surprised her again by suddenly opening her eyes and staring up into the green-skinned clone’s face. The Captain’s gaze flickered, while she struggled to focus. Anger and fear crossed her features briefly, and her hands were suddenly gripping Sybil’s upper arms with unexpected strength. “Who are you?” Mitchell demanded, her voice thready and her eyes dancing with madness. “Speak to me!” Sybil tried to reply, but too many different sensations were assaulting her all at once, and her mind struggled to understand. The Captain’s fingers were painfully tight, but her proximity was deliciously exciting. Their equally naked bodies kept brushing together, and every contact was another confusion for Sybil to unravel. And then there were those eyes, and the wildness of reasoned insanity that lurked within. “Why do you never speak? Speak!” The Captain ordered, squeezing more forcefully and making Sybil groan. “What are you thinking of? What thinking? What?” “Sybil, Ma’am!” she responded, her body springing to attention despite Mitchell’s hold on her. “The rest of the crew is lost. Sosostris is badly injured and didn’t realise there were survivors. So I was cloned to carry out repairs, and help restore the crew.” The Captain laughed, shaking violently, and sending those tattered cables thrashing. Sybil winced as more old blood splashed the walls, but Mitchell appeared unconcerned. Her grip was still too tight, but there was an intimacy that the clone struggled to process. It was suddenly very warm in the small chamber, but for some reason she couldn’t keep herself from trembling. “Do you know nothing?” Mitchell asked harshly, shaking Sybil so that she lolled like a ragdoll. “Do you see nothing? Do you remember nothing?” She tried, wanting so much to please this woman. But everything before she woke was just a blank. She had no history, no memories to speak of. All her mind held was knowledge, and right now, even that was sorely lacking. “Are you alive, or not?” The Captain wondered, clearly no longer speaking to anyone present. “Is there nothing in your head?” The question hung there for a long moment, and then, with a low moan that tugged at something deep inside Sybil’s belly, Mitchell drifted back into unconsciousness. … She stared at the Captain for a long while, still not understanding why her heart had pounded so hard when she had been held so roughly. Sybil was still breathing raggedly, despite her lack of exertion and the air seemed uncomfortably warm. It was growing more difficult to put her thoughts aside and, as the pheromones began to thin, Sybil realised that for the very first time in her short existence, she had the autonomy to choose what she should do next. Without Sosostris to oversee their actions there was no point in activating the drones, and she had managed to stabilise the injuries to both the ship and her Captain. The only remaining task was to make the preparations necessary for the crew’s return. And that meant tending the garden. Reluctantly, she left the chamber, casting one last, longing look at Mitchell’s gaunt face, before climbing back through the fleshy iris. Her thoughts were still in turmoil by the time she reached the vast hydroponics bay. Its walls were lined with staggered shelving, each deep bowl filled with water. Bright blooms and greenery filled the chamber, adding colour to the otherwise drab interior. Sybil basked for a moment under the bright lighting, feeling almost immediately reinvigorated, and then she turned her attention to the Lilac beds. She knew that the alien plants had another name entirely, but their resemblance to Syringa vulgaris was enough to earn them the nickname. Rows of small white flowers filled several shelves, and she could see the unformatted plants were ready to be harvested. Despite its size, the Dreadnaught required a crew of only fifty, and as she strapped the ovipositor to her wrist, Sybil calculated that she would have more than enough time to load each flower in readiness for their decanting. It was a laborious process, locating the most recent recordings from the archive and then extracting the protein chains. But Sybil worked carefully and methodically through them, injecting one flower after another with the distillate of each crewmember’s memories and watching the blank petals darken to purple. “What are you doing?” a voice asked softly and the suddenness of the question was enough to make the startled woman jump. She turned, far too quickly and almost lost her balance on the slick floor. Mitchell stood very close, clearly in pain as she braced herself against the lowest shelf. Her face was beautifully pale, and the strain in her expression only seemed to add to that. The madness hadn’t entirely fled, but it had softened somewhat, leaving a quiet determination in its place. “Preparing for the crew, Ma’am,” Sybil answered immediately. “But that’s just what she wants you to do,” the Captain hissed, taking an unsteady step closer. “Ma’am?” the clone asked, suddenly uncertain. “This is my ship,” Mitchell whispered, her voice flat and emotionless. “Not hers, and she won’t take it from me again.” “I don’t understand,” Sybil admitted, swallowing hard as the Captain’s body once again threatened to touch hers. “Mutiny!” She exploded, looming over Sybil, “The bitch took my crew, poured her poison into their minds and made them hate me.” Terror clutched at the clone’s chest, sending anxious spasms up into her throat. She had no idea what the Captain was talking about, but even the thought of a mutiny was enough to push her towards panic. Her loyalty was as unquestioning as it was absolute, and whatever threat Mitchell might face, she would gladly sacrifice herself just to keep her Captain safe. “Skills updates,” Mitchell sneered, “And further training. That’s how she got to them, twisting and changing them until they became only her creatures.” The tall woman gestured towards the flowers, inadvertently letting her arm graze Sybil’s breast. The clone gave a startled gasp, but instead of pulling away, she instinctively pressed closer. Mitchell looked down into the clone’s pleading eyes, seeing her own surprise mirrored there. “I can’t trust you,” the Captain breathed, her lips almost brushing Sybil’s own. “She made you. But I have a plan, Sybil … I promise you that.” Sybil closed her eyes, and tried to mould herself against Mitchell’s body. The other woman shifted minutely, and they flowed together finding an almost perfect fit. The Captain’s knee slid upwards, parting her legs gently but insistently, while those strong fingers held her so close she could feel Mitchell’s heart beating against her own. “I knew you once,” Mitchell sighed. “A part of you remembers.” Then she was drawing the clone into a kiss that she felt as if she had waited her whole life to experience. Lips parted invitingly, and their tongues swirled in that wet heat. Mitchell’s leg ground against her sex, sliding in slow circles while Sybil moaned in breathless excitement. “But it’s not enough,” she explained, finally pulling away from that kiss. “I don’t know what she’s done to you, Sybil. And that hurts more than everything else.” Her fingers stroked through Sybil’s hair, caressing very gently, and then, without warning something slithered against her scalp and made her yelp. She stared back into the Captain’s eyes, seeing the madness burning brighter than ever. Then, numbness began to spread into her cheek, and she knew what the sensation meant. … “Whose,” she gasped, already knowing that Mitchell’s grip was too strong for her to break. “Whose memories?” “No love,” Mitchell said sadly. “She tainted the entire archive, I can’t risk any of my crew being subverted.” “But …” Sybil began. “White Lilacs for my lover,” the Captain smiled. “Youthful innocence, Sybil, untouched and unsullied.” “You can’t,” she pleaded. “Yes,” Mitchell said, almost too softly to hear. “It’s the only way. A crew of obedient empty-minded drones isn’t ideal. But it’s far better than having to kill them all over again.” She could no longer feel her face, and knew that the plant would now be burrowing into her skull. Sybil hadn’t cared that she had only hours to live, but suddenly those few short moments seemed very precious. The Lilac was going to overwrite her mind, and right now that felt even worse than dying. Then, the reality of Mitchell’s words finally penetrated her brain and she couldn’t hide her terror. “You killed them?” “I had to,” the Captain snapped angrily “It was a mutiny.” Sybil winced, as Mitchell began to drag her from the room. She could feel the emptiness worming its way through her thoughts, stealing fragments here and there as it went. The Captain’s grip never faltered, while Sybil waged an internal war, struggling to hold on to herself. By the time they reached the brig, large chunks of Sybil knowledge had simply gone. Her pleas seemed to have no impact on the other woman, who, despite the earlier warmth now seemed distant and distracted. She barely glanced at the clone as she slammed the cage door shut. But then, much to the captive woman’s surprise, she turned on her way out to ask a question. “Sybil,” she wondered, her train of thought clearly disjointed, “What do you want?” “I want to die,” the clone sobbed, banging her fists against the rigid bone bars. “Not yet,” Mitchell shook her head, pain etched into her face and then she was gone. … The blankness encroached with every passing second, growing more clear as everything else faded. Sybil found herself echoing a mantra, her own voice suddenly strange. She needed to keep hold, even though she knew it was pointless. Desperately she clung to the smooth bars, calling out in the vain hope that she would be heard. “Hurry up!” she begged, “Please, it’s time!” Her thoughts spun away, forming spreading clouds of forgotten memories. She reached, finding only mist, losing a piece of herself with every sobbing breath. All around her the ship was dull and unresponsive, and she could do nothing except repeat the now familiar litany. “Hurry up please it’s time.” April’s face was so clear to her, the beauty purely subjective and yet utterly compelling. Love trickled hotly into arousal, becoming lust as the trappings of civility were relentlessly stripped away. Sybil moaned, her fingers suddenly unleashed upon her small frame. Each touch became another lurid lesson, each caress an intimate surprise. “Hurry up,” she whined, as her fingers continued to delve and play. “Please it’s time.” Her hands were already wet with unexpected need, and each shiver of delight seemed only to increase her clarity. She was supposed to remember, but the tighter she clutched at it, the further the knowledge seemed to recede. Then, an errant nail found the slickness of her sensitised clit, and for one glorious moment nothing else mattered. … Sosostris could feel something nagging at the limits of her awareness, but it took several minutes before she found the courage to drag herself back. The pain was still there, although dulled now compared to the agony of before, and she wasted precious seconds trying to banish it completely. Only then did she feel Sybil’s increasingly plaintive cries and recognise what had become of her clone. “I’m here,” she breathed, filling the corridors with her scent. … The clone groaned weakly, hands blurring in motion, grinding against her swollen pussy. Sybil knew that her mind was melting, dissolved by the plant fibres as they threaded through her brain. It was easy to imagine those molten thoughts trickling helplessly through her flickering fingers as she sunk into marvellously mindless bliss. But then the ship’s perfume flooded through the chamber, stirring her into one last surge of effort. “Apis,” she whimpered, even as the meaning oozed around her hand. Satisfaction bled through the other emotions, lending her the warmth of reassurance that she had done what had been expected of her. The clone arched backward, finally letting the pleasure consume her. She thrashed away the last of her self, spasming and clenching against those deft fingers until nothing but desire was left in the brilliant brightness. … The ship waited, heart suddenly heavy, as the clone lost her battle with the unformatted plant. But she had no time to mourn another loss. Sosostris could feel the crew, sensing each mind as it woke from the deepest slumber. Someone else was flash cloning, ignoring the edicts on a scale that made her own transgression seem positively pedestrian, and the ship knew exactly who was to blame. But Sybil had already given her the clue she needed, the clone’s brilliant mind having plucked apart the problem with a speed that Sosostris never could have managed. The candle that burns twice as bright, burns half as long, and Sybil had burned so very brightly. She let part of her awareness split off, delegating responsibility to another secondary ganglion. The larger part of the ship’s consciousness stayed with the clone, watching over her ‘daughter’ while she continued to fade. The other piece slipped into an empty decanting chamber and, having first purged the system, began the complex task of editing several long strands of DNA. By the time the Captain strode back into the brig, Sybil’s mind had long since departed. Sosostris watched, feeling the soft interplay that apparently persisted despite Mitchell’s insanity. She hadn’t wanted to depose the Commanding Officer, if nothing else the woman was a potent symbol, as well as a decorated war hero. But her paranoia had grown so severe she simply couldn’t be allowed to retain command. Of course, the very last thing the ship had expected was that the madwoman would have prepared for such an eventuality. Detonating a warhead while they were still in the warp was tantamount to a suicide attempt, but somehow both the ship and its Captain had survived. Unshielded, the rest of the crew had not been so lucky, and now it appeared Mitchell wanted to pick up again from where she had left off. She felt a deep sense of sorrow as she watched Mitchell enter Sybil’s cage. The woman’s face was ashen, and her pain was all too evident. This was the second time the Captain had effectively killed her lover, and if she had her way then the cycle would continue to repeat itself. Her breath carried another stream of pheromones into the chamber, chemical triggers that wrapped themselves hungrily around Sybil’s already molten synapses and burned their message onto the blank surface of her mind. The clone trembled, and Mitchell held her close, whispering soft reassurance into the woman’s ears. Sybil responded to the twin imperatives, still pleasuring herself with increasingly frenzied strokes and once again moulding her body into the Captain’s. Their mouths met and parted, hands roaming freely as Mitchell cupped her lover’s fingers and began to guide them gently. The clone pressed herself into that confident touch, squealing in muffled delight as Mitchell’s other hand found and held the soft ripeness of her tender breast. They pressed together, trapping those eager hands between them. Fingers fluttered against two sets of engorged lips, both taking and receiving the pleasure in equal measure. Mitchell’s hand clenched tight, squeezing until her knuckles began to whiten. Sybil mewled piteously, but only crushed herself more forcefully into her tormentor’s grasp. Neither of them heard the low drone, and it was unlikely they would have recognised its significance even if they had. Sosistris could taste the changing flavours within the small chamber, first how Mitchell’s ardour flared hot and then the softer, answering perfume of Sybil’s controlled passion. She exhaled, adding her own scent to the heady mix. The clone’s nostrils flared, and her muscle tensed obediently. Her hips rocked, mashing their conjoined sexes more closely together. One hand buried between them, drew attention away from the other as it began to tug firmly on the lilac’s stem. Pain drilled into her skull, but it only added another layer to the blanket of sensation in which she was now wrapped. Sosistris knew that the clone wouldn’t survive the unformated plant’s removal, but her truncated lifespan had already run its course, and as far as the ship was concerned, this mindless creature was no longer the woman she had decanted. Instead, her senses were focussed on the small insect that had already alighted on one of the white blooms decorating Sybil’s brow. Mitchell cried out her excitement, masking her lover’s pained hiss. The bright petals were already darkening, as the roots tore free. And by the time the clone pressed the squirming plant against the Captain’s temple, its flowers were stained deepest purple. The startled woman had just enough time to register the soft contact, before the lilac squirmed through her scalp and buried itself into the Captain’s brain. Sybil gave a long, contented sigh and lolled bonelessly into Mitchell’s embrace. “Well,” the clone breathed, “now that’s done: and I’m glad it’s over.” Her lover stared down into Sybil’s eyes as they finally dulled. Tears stung the Captain’s eyes, and confusion warred with the look of horror crossing her face. Enzymes unfolded and rewrote, remodelling her hippocampus and dragging Mitchell’s mind back into the past. … The bees flew throughout the ship, buzzing along chemical pathways and seeking out the crewmembers whose memories they carried, as they emerged from their nutrient baths. Mitchell had built an army, blanking their minds with unformatted lilacs in preparation for when she would send them against her. And now the ship’s tiny servants were pollinating those flowers and reminding each clone of exactly who they had been. That, along with an archived copy of the Captain’s memories, made before her illness first manifested, would buy them enough time to repair the damage, and to get Mitchell the help she so desperately needed. And somewhere, amidst the newly revived crew, a familiar face turned upwards as if listening to new instructions. Sybil moved quickly, heading for the brig, and the devastated woman she instinctively knew would need to be comforted. Sosistris let her concentration drift elsewhere, focussing instead on the newly restored telefactors. The lovers deserved their privacy, even if it was destinied to be all too brief. One less clone wouldn’t make any difference, they already had more than enough manpower, and besides, Sybil had more than earned this reward. … Multi-faceted eyes regarded the two women, watching as one slender figure took the other in her arms and then drew their head down until it rested against her breasts. Both smelt of nectar and rich pollen, but as they took solace in each other’s embrace, another more primal scent overwhelmed the delicate perfume. The bee launched itself into the air, abruptly bored with the biped’s antics. And once again, Sybil and April were alone. … </body> </html>