The Misbegotten

Flavia awoke sometime in the early afternoon, jumping out of the bed in a flash. She scurried upon the tips of her long toes, a frantic ghost.

Estefan knew in an instant, his long-time companion and protector, had to pee – bad. He smiled to himself. His Neuro-Nanoswarm continued to predict the next grouping of words he would write. He flicked the correct ones in mid-air, he and the million tiny processing units worked as a single unit after so many hours. A good portion of the nanites settled upon his temples. This was necessary to make the “solid” contact that enabled the Direct Delve software to work as it should.

“…from the corner of her mouth, I heard Katie say, “You don’t have to be such an asshole about it” were the last words to flash in the air before him.

The long-legged hellcat returned from the toilet, no more than a closet with four sides.

His ‘Swarm began to disengage itself from him, hundreds of motes fluttered about his head for a few moments. Then, they scattered. Some of them joined others, some flew to various corners of the upper reaches of the Null-unit’s inner walls. Another group merged with his sim-screen, returning it to its’ typical state.

She still wore only the Stym-sheath about her hips, butt and pelvis. Her firm breasts bounced as she came toward him in the low-level light. The luminance was enough to afford him comfort so he could write, no squinting needed. Of course, the program assisted, and did so without disturbing Flavia as she slept.

He spoke: “Save, full shield encryption. Have password set at level designate - Alpha-Omega 1, Priority Delta, Serial Number 01.” He tapped a knuckle on his left hand and made a swiping motion. Before him, the ‘Swarm and its’ accompanying screen dissolved into nothing.

“What’cha doin’ there, my dear?” she asked. She began to unfasten the high-yield healing cocoon from her mid-section, standing off to one side from where he sat.

He shrugged, feigning nonchalance. “Nothing.”

The word made her stop cold and frown at the ground. The Keeper never did anything without a reason. His time was too valuable. She turned her head to look at him with both eyes.

He crossed his arms over his chest, deliberately peering in the opposite direction. It was mighty effort to keep his face impassive.

She finished taking off the Stym-sheath, inspecting herself in a cursory fashion. She was glad to see most of the bruising on her body had diminished to faint, yellow-brown blemishes. The fact they extended along her thighs from her knees to her crotch surprised her though. There even some on her round buttocks as well. Yeah, Flavia, he nailed you hard, she concluded with an inner smile. Then, she remembered his evasiveness and stood straight, her hands on her hips.

“What do you want me to say? Nothing means nothing,” he said, still flippant, gesturing with a hand. It was, after all, a simple word. Was it not?

She walked to stand before him, placing her feminine “v” in front of his face on purpose. Hands still on her hips, elbows splayed wide. “You do know I could hack your password in minutes, right?”

He chuckled, reaching around her to smack her hard on the butt. “You do that and I’ll do a lot more than just slap you on the ass.” His voice was light, but the mild threat made a mischievous leer spread across her lips.

“Yeah, like what?”

“Just try something and find out,” he challenged his hand still on her rock-hard buttock.

She clicked her tongue.

He pulled her closer to him and kissed her with loud smacking sounds on her soft tuft of pubic hair.

In spite of herself, she giggled like a schoolgirl.

He smiled back.

An expectant hush fell between them within a few heartbeats.

After a while, she reached down and pulled his head upward toward her mid-section.

On instinct, he turned his head and placed it on her abdomen.

She ran her fingers over his scalp with her nails.

He reached around and hugged her across the twin mounds of her rear end.

They stayed that way for a long time, rocking from side to side. They swayed counterpoint to their breathing, but in concert with the beating of their hearts.

He closed his eyes and listened to her insides grumble and pop, churn and crackle, loving the sound of life within her. He luxuriated in the smell of her, the feel of her skin, the hidden strength in her body. Even though, they had been together like this for many years, he never tired of her. He never got used to the excitement she made him feel. He loved the way she made his blood boil with the slightest look or most delicate touch. Maybe it was because they’d grown up together. He had known her since she’d been nine years old, the only other of his girls he had known longer was Katie. But Katie was a whole different matter, a whole different history. Maybe he just liked the fact she was in his arms and he was in hers. Maybe that was all that was important – the “newness” of their embrace.

Above him, she stroked the skin upon his head like she was painting him – long, lazy up and down swipes of her hands.

He exhaled through his lips. “I decided to take your advice, Flavy,” he revealed finally.

She stiffened a little in his grasp. “Oh? And what advice are you talking about?”

“I’ve started a journal,” he said. There was no need to complicate with extraneous verbiage.

She wiggled out of his arms and squatted before him, her eyes only a few inches lower than his. “About our past?” she asked. She was enthusiastic now.

He nodded; distracted by the sight of her pretty pink folds stretched taut. The way she had positioned herself, her knees were set wide apart. He cleared his throat, feeling himself stir. My god, she is gorgeous.

“Will you let me read it?” she inquired, her voice tentative, but hopeful.

He pulled his eyes from the promising delights of her vagina. “Oh, I don’t know about that, Flavia. It’s sort of personal. I mean, I’m writing it exactly as I remember it, from my perspective. That’s the way the Delving works. To you, it would most likely read like a trashy, hump-hump novel. I don’t want to see the disappointment in your eyes.”

She reached out to stroke his cheek. It was as hard as granite under her fingertips. “I know how you are, Effy. We were kids together, remember? I saw you do some pretty nasty stuff back then. Why would that affect me now?

“Besides, I would like to hear what you have to say about the past, about us all, about… other things that happened. I would love to be able to read something from your mind. I never have, you know. None of us have, Estefan. You’re always so closed off about the past.”

“Can I think about it?” he queried. It was his turn to sound uncertain and encouraged at the same time.

“Sure you can, mi Amor. You know I’d never push you into anything you didn’t want to do. You know that’s not my way.” She kept her voice low.

He rumbled with subdued laughter. “Unless someone’s near me you don’t like…”

“I just move them out of the way, my dear,. If they don’t want to move - they die. It has nothing to do with you, Eff. It’s their choice if they wish to live or not,” she clarified with a shrug. Then, she came forward and kissed him lovingly on the lips. “I just want you to know, if you can stomach it, I’d like to read what you are writing, ok?”

“Ok.”

She stood and stretched, twisting half way to the side, her hands in the air, balled into fists. “We should clean up and see where this room has taken us,” she advised after she stopped screeching.

“Sounds like a solid plan, but we should eat first.”

It was a fabricated fruit salad they’d consumed to fill their stomachs. Then, it was a quick round in the Dermal-Cleanser, alone. Neither one of them wanted to lose time with yet another round of heated monkey sex.

About an hour later, Estefan walked to the rear of the Null-unit, approaching the unit’s input console. From a pocket inside his Grav-blazer, he pulled out the same Ident-card the unit itself had given him upon their arrival. He placed it in the correct slot at the top of the console. The card slipped into the machine and the console blossomed like a flower. Panel after panel opened, displaying a myriad of flashing sensors and projected LCD screens.

He flicked his fingers over what looked like a set of random lights, but they weren’t. Then, the console spoke: “Where is the plain?”

“In Spain,” he replied.

“Where does it mainly rain?” asked the console a second time.

“On the plain,” he answered.

“Please approach the holo-scanner,” demanded the machine.

He followed suit, but to the naked eye, it appeared as though nothing happened. In reality, the mechanism had scanned him, from head to toe – his fingertips, his scent, his DNA – all evaluated and measured.

After a short time, “Your command?” inquired the Null-unit’s central processing ‘Swarm.

“Initiate the deactivation sequence and open both inner and outer doors.”

“As you command, Keeper.”

They stepped back and waited. Ten seconds later, they felt a shuddering underneath their feet. A small part of the wall before them hissed open followed by another that swung outward. A passage formed through the three-foot-thick wall of the unit. Pale sunlight shone from the outside world.

Flavia was out first, having to turn sideways to negotiate the narrowness of the portal. He watched her with the eyes of a hawk. She glanced around, up, then around once more before her fingers flashed.

The way is clear, come.

He slithered through the tight fit of the doorway and stepped out into the open. It was still light out, but the reflected sunlight was waning. Its’ rays were more oblique than direct now, but Estefan had figured as much. He knew it was closer to late afternoon than mid-. From where he stood, he couldn’t see much. The giant vehicle they’d just stepped from blocked most of his view on one side. There was a sharp tree-covered incline blocking the other.

Before he did anything else, he stepped to the outer console of the beastly transport. “Resume Sentry Mode,” he said.

Almost at once the doors sealed shut, the huge Grav-lifts engaged. The ambling vehicle sped off in the same direction it had been going. Anyone tracking it would think it hadn’t stopped at all. It was continuing as it had before. It was just another Glide-hauler trucking on down the road. There were millions in Angel Free Town.

It was then Estefan saw the vista before him and he groaned aloud. It was the last place he figured they’d end up, an inconvenient place at that. He shook his head, irritated, as he continued to stare out at the monumentous superstructure of Angel Free Town. It spread out in all directions before him as far and as high as the eyes could see.

In his youth, this place people called Mount Wilson. Now, its’ name was less imposing. It the Wilson Vista Point. In this day and age, one didn’t consider any of the mountains of earth much more than small hillocks dotting the countryside. With every metropolitan area stretching high into the atmosphere, higher than Mount Everest, why would they think otherwise?

Still though, Estefan and Flavia found themselves standing four thousand feet above the basin of Angel Free Town. They gazed down at the sprawling second level of the city. This one was as much a replica of old Los Angeles as there could be with the passage of so much time.

“Wow,” began his wife, “I didn’t expect for the damned Null’ to drop us off way out in the boondocks.”

Estefan continued to stare at the multitude of buildings, vehicles and flying machinery before them, sucking on pursed lips. “Well, this puts a bit of a damper on our travel plans…,” he added rocking back on his heels. He stuffed his hands in the large pockets of his blazer.

Flavia watched him out of the corner of her eye, a brief stab of pain wrenching in her heart. It was the same motion her father employed when he was in deep thought. Though he wasn’t blood-related, somehow Estefan had inherited it from him. The most eerie thing about it was he did it exactly the same. Every time he did it, it was like watching a ghost. It was get-wrenching for her.

“In the old days, I would’ve just hailed a city bus or hover-train to come and pick us up. We’d be out of here as quick as a runny shit out of a drunkard’s ass,” he commented to no one in particular.

It made her grimace nonetheless. “Gawd, Eff, do you have to be so graphic?” she huffed, shaking her head in disgust.

He peered at her from the edge of his eye socket. “I get graphic when I need to make a point, so deal with it.”

“Well, you don’t have to make the point so unequivocally vulgar!” She walked a few steps away, calling her Neuro-Nanoswarm from Sleep to Active Mode. She didn’t call up a Holo-screen though. She motioned for the ‘Swarm to develop about her wrist. It was a more mobile configuration allowing her more freedom of movement.

He didn’t seem to have heard her. “I’m still amazed we made it through those first few years, scraped and scrounging just to stay alive. At times, we were only a step or two ahead of our enemies.” He paused to laugh to himself. “We sure showed them, huh, Flavy? No one ever would’ve expected a group of puissant Mutos could steal over a billion dollars and not get caught!” He laughed again. “We had those motherfuckers on their asses, especially after making the deal of the freakin’ millennium. That fucking deal put us on the map, made our bones – whatever the fuck you wanna call it. Things were never the same after that.” He rubbed at his scalp, his thick fingers massaging his head more out of reflex than anything else. “It was only a matter of time and a matter of gathering Mutos to our cause. Within a few years, we were untouchable. A decade later we were bigger than Microsoft, Wal-Mart and Apple combined.

“You remember, right, Flavia?”

She waved at him, distracted. She was still flicking various floating icons and applications at a terrifying rate. Her fingers were a blur.

He seemed not to care, and went on. “Now look at us, my dear. We own more land than old Russia and China together, the gross GDP of the Synod exceeds the entire GDP of Earth at the time of our births. We have more firepower, better technology than any one government entity in the Sixteen Worlds. And still, we're stranded here, above the very fucking city we once ruled, stranded like a pair of vagabonds!”

Flavia stopped what she was doing and looked at him like he had just sprouted a second head. “God damn, Estefan, do you have to act like a diva every time something doesn’t go your way?!?”

He rounded on her as if she'd prodded with a red hot poker. “What the fuck did you just say to me?”

She deflected the question with one of her own. “Why the melodrama? You act like we don’t have means at our disposal.”

“What ‘means’, Flavia? We’re fucking stuck on a god damned mountain.” He tempered his tone, more out of curiosity than fear of bad tact.

She sniffed at him. “You said it yourself; we’re bigger than this place, so why would operate as if we weren’t?”

He frowned, deep creases on his face, but stayed quiet. Then it hit him and his face flushed pink. “The orbital storage facilities, right?”

“Yeah, you mule-headed ass, the orbital storage facilities,” she concurred, harsh. She was talking down to him on purpose, admonishing him for his childish behavior. He should know better than to act like that.

He sighed. “I’m sorry, Flavy.” He gazed up at the heavens. “What’s coming?”

“I accessed the nearest Synod-owned orbiter. Our Skycar will be here in fifteen minutes,” she supplied her tone normal. It satisfied her to know he understood her message.

“I am sorry,” he offered.

“I know,” she mumbled, waving her ‘Swarm away, making her way back to his side. She took his hand within hers and gave it an encouraging squeeze. “All this shit has got you wired tighter than a preacher’s asshole.”

He laughed out loud. “Now who’s being vulgar,” he managed, but his heart wasn’t in it. He reached out and placed his arms about her shoulders, bringing her close and kissed her on the temple. “I love you, Flavia.

“I love you too.”

Together, they looked heavenward. The first stars were beginning to reflect through the massive construct of Angel Free Town.

Flavia leaned her head on his shoulder, her four inch heels making her only a couple of inches shorter than him. She watched in silence as the night deepened, content to wait, happy to stay quiet and enjoy the growing dark.

It was warm out, being summer, but it wasn't oppressive. The gigantic air circulators within the struts of the vaulted megalopolis made certain of it. They brought air from the upper atmosphere, moving it, without fail, throughout the entire urban sprawl. They heated when necessary and cooled when the temperature required it to be so. But, it was always on the move.

This is a good thing, she figured, because six hundred million people could raise quite a stink.

Then a strange thought occurred to her and she looked up at Estefan, unadulterated curiosity written on her face. “Hey, Hon?” she prodded to get his attention.

“Yes, babe,” he replied, though he didn’t turn to look at her.

“How come you always use lines from My Fair Lady for access codes with the Null-units?” She titled her head, the pretty way women do, her eyes squinting.

Estefan chortled as much as choked, her question being the furthest thing from his mind. He turned to stare down into her eyes. They had turned the color of black beans as the sunlight faded. He bent down and kissed her, a ginger touch. “How many people out there remember – word for word – any line from that old movie about Eliza Doolittle? How many do you think?”

Her smile was broad underneath the touch of his hard lips. “Excluding archivists and their ilk, no more than a handful I’d say. Most of that handful belongs to the Synod.”

“Exactly,” he said as he nuzzled her cheek, then went lower to her neck and began to kiss to delicate flesh there.

“How come My Fair Lady though?” she wondered, through hooded eyes. She was enjoying the fluttering kisses he was applying to her skin. His extra warm touch was leaving an erotic trail in its’ wake. She felt her gut clench. Oh my.

“It’s one of my favorites,” he mumbled against her.

She sighed and put more of her weight onto him.

“It was one of your mother’s favorites as well, wasn’t it?” she added. The memory of her long dead step-mother’s singing came to mind. She used to love braying, “I’m getting married in the morning”, as she made breakfast on the weekends. All Flavia had to do was close her eyes and open them again and she could see her with vivid detail. She could almost smell her famous drop biscuits and hear the sizzle of bacon.

For the first time in a long time, Estefan didn’t stiffen at the recollection of their mutual past. He exhaled onto Flavia’s shoulder, sending shivers up and down her spine.

“Yes, it was,” was all he said.

It made her wonder if he was thinking about the same thing she had been a moment before. She didn’t ask though, leaving it unsaid as she hugged her ward, holding onto him like his life depended upon it.

Ten minutes later, the calm of the night splintered. The resounding thrum of the Skycar’s Grav-propulsion system made their eardrums thrum. Its’ sleek form settled upon the road behind them.

“You summoned an Aegis IV?” he asked. His eyes danced over the arrowhead shape of the vehicle. He grinned at the vehicle that could take them from the surface of the planet into orbit in minutes.

It was one of their newest and fastest models to date, Synod-built. It had come from the guts of their sprawling factory in stationary orbit, on the dark side of the Moon. He hadn’t known of any of the Aegis IV’s passing certification yet. They were that new.

She grinned and broke their embrace. “I thought you could use a thrill after being cooped-up in a Null-unit for the last thirty hours with me.” Her eyes twinkled.

“If you’d’ve told me you and I were gonna go at it like we did last night, I’d been willing to stay thirty hours more for a chance to do it again.” His expression matched hers.

She actually giggled and twisted at the waist like an eight-year-old girl. “Really?”

“Absolutely!”

She opened the hatches at either side of the Skycar with a wave of her hand over the main sensory unit. They climbed in. Both took a few minutes to gawk at the state-of-the-art technology surrounding them. It was ultra-modern, but it was posh at the same time. He’d have to congratulate the engineering team at Chaz Motors in person on this latest feat of genius. The Aegis IV was a work of art!

“Where to, my love?” asked Flavia from the pilot’s next to him.

“Home, baby-girl, I want to go home,” he said. He immediately activated his Neuro-Nanoswarm, making a system-wide inquiry searching for intrusions. It was something he did at least once a day.

There were none.

At his side, Flavia cycled through the start-up sequence, punched in their destination coordinates. She let the Skycar’s ‘Swarm choose the best Grav-skyway to use, then glanced over at the man she loved.

“Very well, Keeper, Luna it is.”

He smiled, waving away his ‘Swarm, eager to see what the Aegis IV could do.

She hit the execute sequence and they ascended from the mountains surrounding old Los Angeles on their way to the Moon.