The Virtual Man [The Virtual Reality 1] (Siren Publishing Classic) (8 page)

“Captain, we are being hailed by a Galactic Alliance Law Enforcement cruiser,” reported the Communications Officer “They have ordered us to drop out of hyperspace and prepare to receive a Space Marshall, sir.”

“They’re not giving us much room to refuse, are they? My hunch is that this surprise visit is probably related to the strange transmissions. Acknowledge the request and provide them with docking instructions. Helmsman, drop us out of hyperspace. Commander, bring me my sidearm, I don’t like this breach of protocol. As soon as the good Marshall is aboard, I want us back in hyperspace and on course. Let’s attempt to keep to our schedule. I’ll go down to the shuttle bay and receive our new passenger.”

Making his way through the brightly lit, metal decked service corridors, the Captain pondered the puzzle before him. Unauthorized communications were one thing. He could easily envision a paranoid passenger not trusting the ship’s on-board communications system for conversations of a discreet nature. But now, somewhere on board there was a homing device that on a daily basis transmitted a purposely scrambled and cloaked signal. To make it harder to locate, each time, after transmitting for a few minutes, the beacon would shut down. The ship’s itinerary and flight plan were well documented and available for public review, so it made no sense to plant such a device to track the ship itself. It was simply not necessary. The device was targeting the location of one of his passengers. Someone on his ship, either knowingly or unknowingly, was being tracked and reasons for doing so were rarely honorable. Which one of his 1,200 charges was being targeted, he wondered. And, more importantly, why?

As he walked into the shuttle bay, the smell of exhaust and the sound of the giant external bay doors locking shut alerted Captain Maverick that the shuttle bearing his uninvited guest had already docked. Before he could search the faces moving about, a distinguished-looking middle-aged man approached him with an extended hand.

“You must be Captain Maverick. I am Marshall Troy Delaney.”

“Marshall, welcome aboard. Your hail and order to stand down was most unusual. I don’t mean to be short, but what the hell is going on?”

“Please accept my apologies for interrupting your flight, Captain. I would not have done so had it not been deemed necessary. I have reason to believe that an escaped convict is hiding aboard your ship.”

Captain Maverick’s eyebrows rose fractionally. “What are we dealing with, Marshall? How dangerous is this person?”

“Fortunately for all involved, I don’t believe he’s dangerous at all.” Delaney took out a picture of Derek Hart and showed it to the Captain. “He’s a white-collar criminal. Actually, at one point in his life he was a bit of a celebrity amongst the eggheads in the scientific community. Seems he’s some kind of a genius in the field of holography. Probably owns the patents to a good portion of the components used to design the holographic suites on this ship.

“The guy is loaded, yet it wasn’t enough for him. Seems he programmed a Trojan horse into the higher-end home-use holographic chambers his company was selling. Customers would pay through the nose for one of his chambers, and innocently install them at home. The chamber’s AI would watch the occupants, determining by their actions when they would be gone for a length of time, communicate the fact to him and, having learned the home’s security codes, would unlock it when his cronies showed up to ransack it. Every job, in essence, was an inside job.”

“If he was that smart, why did he bother with petty theft and breaking and entering? Why not something more challenging? I assume he didn’t do it for the money since it sounds like he already had plenty.”

“That’s a good question that was never answered during the trial. Maybe he just wanted to experience power over his customers. Who knows? The point is that he was found guilty and computer crime being what it is these days, he and the moon are going to become very well acquainted during the next twenty years.”

“Marshall, something has been going on that perhaps is related in some way to the search for your escaped convict. Since we left Earth several days ago, my Security Officer has detected several unauthorized transmissions over the galactic-net between our ship and Earth. As you can imagine, that in itself is not so strange. During my tenure as Captain of this vessel, I have encountered such transmissions before and relatively easily traced them back to their source. This time, however, the transmissions are untraceable. Whoever is riding piggyback on the ship’s communications network is cleverly hiding their location. My security people are very, very good, yet they are no closer to finding the source of the signals. In addition, a homing device has been activated and is intermittently issuing its signal. We are currently assuming, or at least hoping, that the two separate anomalies are in some way related.”

“Well, if my man is the one issuing the signals, rest assured you will not find their source. He’s that good. We’ll have to find him directly through more conventional means. He is a master of technology.”

The twin suns showered their rays upon Tiana’s skin. She had never experienced anything quite as freeing as sunbathing in the nude before. She had simply mentioned to Derek that she had always wanted to vacation on Sundes II, a tropical ocean planet with a smattering of islands where the indigenous population worshipped the planet’s two suns. Next thing she knew, he had written a holographic simulation of the planet for her. She tried explaining to him that even her generous expense account didn’t cover customized programming but he had insisted it would be complimentary. Who was she to argue?

He had done an admirable job. She could feel the cool breeze caressing her sun-warmed breasts. The gentle roar of the waves came and went as they, in typical sporadic fashion, rolled upon the beach. She could even smell the vast ocean’s salt and seaweed.

Tiana slowly opened her eyes. Men and women, all as naked as she was, wandered to and fro along the wide expanse of beach. Looking at the ocean, she watched a familiar figure slowly walking out of the water. With every step, more of his body became exposed to her gaze as it rose out of the water. The pads of muscle over his shoulders and chest were unmistakably Derek’s. Another few steps brought his tight abdomen out of the water for her perusal. Her patience was finally rewarded as another few steps revealed the blackness of his curls followed by his manhood. Tiana watched mesmerized as drops of water made their way down the length of his body flowing in free-form patterns that she imagined tracing with her tongue.

As Derek approached his lounge chair, adjacent to hers, his eyes diverted from the chair and fixed upon her body as the look of a man who had not eaten in days filled his handsome mug. Tiana just watched him looking at her, saying nothing for fear of breaking the spell of the moment.

“Nice outfit,” he finally said.

“Glad you approve, particularly since you wrote the program void of bathing suits,” she retorted tartly.

“I simply wrote the program as true to the planet and its customs as possible,” he defended. “The Sundesians are sunworshippers. They believe that the rays emanating from their two suns carry their gods’ messages to them. For this reason, their laws forbid the covering of their bodies. That way they can be as in tune with their deities’ desires as possible.”

“How convenient. I’ll bet they are a male-dominated society, aren’t they?”

“Quite the opposite. It is their women who govern and legislate most of their laws.”

Typical snotty AI
, she thought,
thinks it knows everything.

“Cut out the history lessons and pass me the sunscreen nanos,” Tiana told Derek abruptly.

“Sorry, we are on Sundes II. Nanos are not allowed because—”

“No, no, don’t tell me. They interfere with the sun gods’ ability to communicate their will to their people.”

“Right. Now you’re getting the hang of it.” Derek smiled.

Oh no! The smile,
she thought.
I’m melting, I’m melting. If clothes are going to be outlawed, then that damned smile should be outlawed too.

“Derek, I am a fair-skinned redhead. I don’t tan. I burn and I freckle, but I don’t tan. I need my nanos.”

“No you don’t. What you do need, however, is milk from the cuidian aloe plant. It grows in most tropical climates except for Earth.”

“I am not drinking some plant’s milk. That sounds gross.”

“No, silly girl, you don’t drink it. You apply it to your skin,” Derek corrected her and chuckled. She was such a provincial city girl.

“Oh yeah, well, how am I going to get it on my back, huh? Nanos are way easier. You just need to …”

“No, Tiana, you just need to relax and I’ll apply it to your skin.”

Unconsciously squeezing her legs together, Tiana felt an agonizing twinge between her legs at the thought of Derek’s hands rubbing her body. The memory of what had happened the last time he had massaged her was still fresh in her mind.

“I’m naked, I’m not going to let you rub some gooey plant crap all over me,” she reasoned.

“I’m an AI, it’s not like I am going to enjoy it or anything. My purpose is to see that you are well cared for, and allowing you to burn while in paradise would not be caring for you. Besides, if you don’t like the way it feels you can always stop running the program. You’re not scared of me touching you, are you?”

“Of course not. I don’t know why I’m even discussing this with you. You don’t exist. You are a set of ones and zeros on the chamber’s active memory. You will do the part of my back that I can’t reach.”

“Computer, materialize a bowl of cuidian aloe milk,” Derek ordered.

A bowl containing a thick, white-green substance materialized in Derek’s hand.

Smiling as he bent down to her, Derek handed the bowl to Tiana and warned, “Make sure you don’t get any on your beautiful hair because—”

“I know how to apply lotion to my skin without messing up my hair, I don’t need some stupid computer program to tell me what to do,” she curtly cut him off.

A little self-consciously, Tiana started applying the concoction to her unclothed body as Derek watched.

The stupid hologram is staring at me with a stupid grin on his stupid face.

Quickly rubbing the aloe milk into every square inch of the front of her body, Tiana stopped, quite satisfied with herself.

“If I need you to do my back, I’ll let you know when I flip over later on. In the meantime, please notice Mr. Human Wanna-be, that I didn’t get any on my hair or anywhere other than those parts of my body that actually required it.”

“You rubbed it into your pubic hair,” he stated, as if pleased he’d caught her on a technicality. AI’s were so darn literal.

“Yes, but I meant to do that. That part of my body has never seen the sun and I am not about to burn it,” she retorted snottily.
Why am I even bothering to explain myself to this thing?

“Well, if you had allowed me to finish what I was saying earlier, I would have explained that aside from protecting the skin from the rays of the sun, the milk from this particular aloe plant disintegrates hair upon contact.”

“Disintegrates hair?” Tiana looked down at her now totally bald pussy. “Shit! You are a dead man!” She jumped out of her lounge chair and swung an angry fist that just missed Derek’s face. “And don’t go making yourself disappear, either, or so help me I’ll delete your sorry ass.”

Derek ran as fast as he could straight for the water and, taking a few steps into it, dove in and disappeared under the surf. Tiana followed just a second or two behind him.

Where the hell is he? I’m going to tear him apart limb by limb, starting with his dick.

She stopped all motion, neck deep in the refreshing ocean water. Tiana listened intently for any sound that would give away Derek’s position. He wasn’t human so he could probably stay underwater as long as he needed to without having to come up for air. Still, she would find him. He had made a fool of her and she would make his electronic body pay. She was mad as a hornet. She was so angry that she couldn’t see straight. She was so … very … horny. The stupid program seemed to have that effect on her. No matter what either one of them ever did, it eventually made her hot for him.
Not him, it. It is not real.

“Ungh!” Tiana cried out as she felt a pair of hands reach from behind her and caress her breasts, holding each nipple between a thumb and index finger. The hands simultaneously pulled her back into a rock-hard chest.

“Damn you, Derek,” she half whispered and half cried out. Tiana tried to extricate herself from Derek’s hold, but with each squeeze of her breasts and each pinch of her nipples, a portion of her energy fled her. Her body was too weak to fight. It was as if she was under a magic spell and her muscles refused to obey her.

Tiana closed her eyes as her legs relaxed and ceased to hold her up. She was kept from sinking into the water exclusively by the hold Derek had on her now aching and extremely sensitive breasts.

“Don’t try to get away or I’ll stop pinching your nipples. Or worse, I’ll take my hands away from your breasts,” he whispered hoarsely. The heat of his breath on her ear made her even hotter.

“Don’t take them away,” Tiana begged. She reached down with her hand and rubbed her now smooth mound. Finding her clitoris, Tiana flicked at it with her middle finger hard and fast. She needed release.

“Oh no you don’t,” she heard Derek whisper softly in her ear as he removed one hand from her breast and directed it down to keep her from touching herself.
How did he know what she was doing? Was he that in tune with her? There had to be a way to tone down the holographic chamber’s sensors.

Much to her relief, he slid the intruding hand around her hip and took over the job she had been doing just a moment ago, from behind. Tiana spread and stretched her legs wrapping them around the back of Derek’s thighs as she gave herself up to the buoyancy of her body in the water. Her center desperately searching for his manhood. .

She felt Derek’s teeth nipping at her neck, each nibble followed by soft gentle kisses that soothed her.