Marie was a
little in awe. Teresa Martins was not quite as well known as her
father, but she was prettier and she seemed to be determined to
enjoy herself. She had decked herself out in a plazkin top which
showed off her cleavage and a pair of shorts which barely covered
anything, and a pair of six-inch platform pumps finished off the
look. Marie was not used to meeting famous people, especially not
half-naked ones, but she had turned up in another flare of neon
plazkin, this time a glossy, turquoise tube dress with random
patches of transparency.
Dillan had
gleefully accepted an offer of a night out and had turned up in
jeans and a cropped T-shirt, just as usual. The shirt had a lot of
mesh in it and the jeans were tighter than usual, however. Fox had
found a new design of bodysuit which worked better as outerwear:
long-sleeved and high-hipped, but not as tight, with a leather-like
finish and an oval of open space to show off her own cleavage. She
had teamed that with thigh-high boots and a flouncy little plazkin
skirt, and she had dispensed with her traditional purple to go with
black, with a red tribal design on the suit.
All this meant
that Sam, dressed in one of his suave, shirt-and-slacks outfits,
the shirt open almost to his navel, was getting more reproachful
looks than lustful ones. It did look as though he had collected
something of a harem, even if only the members of it could see the
last of his supposed concubines, Kit.
‘There is some
low-level hostility among those nearby,’ the AI observed. Her
avatar appeared to be perched on the bar beside Fox’s shoulder,
swinging her booted feet absently.
‘Sam has four
attractive women hanging around him,’ Fox replied. ‘No one’s going
to get iffy about it. They’re too busy having all the blood rushing
into their cocks to think about violence.’
‘You have a
jaundiced, if accurate, view of the male of the species,’ Sam
commented. ‘I think you’re a bad influence on the younger members
of our group.’
‘That’s all of
them. Helen’s four years younger than I am. Marie’s practically a
baby compared to us.’
‘Speak for
yourself. I may be entering my fourth decade, but I’m young at
heart.’
Fox grinned.
‘You’re not. You’re really quite delightfully old.
Gentlemanly.’
‘That,’ Sam
replied, sounding resigned, ‘is the training.’
‘I don’t think
so. I think there’s a load of natural talent.’
‘Agreed,’ Marie
said. She took a second to suck the glowing, pink cocktail she was
drinking through a narrow straw. Fox had considered pointing out
that she was going to get drunk faster that way, but it was Friday:
what the Hell. ‘But I am
not
a baby. I’m nineteen and I look
older, and I’ve done two casting calls now even if I didn’t get
anything.’
‘Do you think
she’ll remember us when she’s famous?’ Dillan asked.
‘Oh, us
plebeians will be entirely forgotten by then,’ Terri replied,
grinning brightly. Fox suspected she was already half-cut.
‘I don’t think
you’re plebeians,’ Marie said. ‘You and Fox are kind of famous
anyway, and I doubt I could forget Sam.’
‘So it’s just
me then?’ Dillan asked, grinning.
‘I didn’t mean
that! I’m not going to forget anyone. I mean, I doubt I’ll end up
being famous. Miss Bournville was pretty clear on my chances and
I’ll be quite happy with making enough money to live on.’ She gave
a firm, serious nod. ‘Marie Shaftsbury, jobbing actress, that’s
good enough.’ She looked up, eyes flicking over Terri’s chest to
her face. ‘Miss Martins, now that you’re back, does that mean
Palladium can finalise the modifications to the house?’
‘Terri,’ Terri
said, again. ‘Poppa mentioned he wanted to put a small prototype of
“that which shall not be named in public” into Sam’s house, and
that’s actually possible now. I think we’re doing final plans next
week.’
‘So we can
actually go ahead with this,’ Sam said. ‘We’ve solved the August
problem and the technical issues are resolved.’
‘We’ll let
Alice Vaughn know when the final blueprints are ready, then it’s
just a matter of doing the work.’
‘And I’ll need
to find somewhere else to live while it happens,’ Marie said,
frowning.
‘We’ll arrange
something,’ Fox told her. ‘I’m pretty sure we can find somewhere to
put you for a couple of weeks while the work gets done.’
~~~
‘Can I steal your
detective?’ Terri asked. Her voice was low but right beside Fox’s
ear. The party had moved into a booth at the far end of the top
floor, though right now Sam, Dillan, and Marie were leaning against
the nearby rail watching the dancers below.
‘She’s not “my
detective,”’ Fox replied, ‘and I’m going to check with Sam and then
see where I can get with Marie.’
‘Thought so.
You and redheads. Though there’s a bit of the strawberry-blonde
about Helen, so I thought I’d ask. You think Sam might be
interested in Marie?’
‘No, but it’s
polite to ask. He introduced us, more or less, and she fancies him,
though I think it’s turning more to friendship.’
‘Who doesn’t
fancy Sam?’
‘Good point.
You cracked the communications problem, I assume? Something to do
with Kit’s routines?’
‘Yes and yes.
I’m not going to go into detail here, even with all this noise, but
Kit somehow managed to resolve the synchronisation issues using a
rather unique mechanism for handling the data collection. She’s got
a method of determining differences in complex data structures
which I’ve never seen before.’
Fox frowned.
‘You programmed her, Terri.’
‘Yes and no.
She’s a class four, a unique build of one class four codebase.
Class four AIs can tweak their own code and it seems the trick Kit
came up with to resolve her memory syncs is something none of the
other iterations have come up with. I’ll take a look at
generalising it. It’ll be useful for this police investigation
system you want me to produce.’
‘Jackson told
you about that?’ Fox grimaced. ‘I suppose we’ll need to get serious
about that soon.’
‘You’ll do
fine. Kit can handle a lot of the admin. Can’t you, Kit?’
‘I can,’ Kit
said, appearing on the opposite side of Fox. ‘It occurs to me that
the first time I attempted the memory reconciliation process in
anger was after visiting Vali the first time. He served mead which
induced a rather odd sensory disturbance.’
‘The first time
you did it, you were drunk?’
‘In a manner of
speaking. Or one copy was slightly impaired.’
‘You seem to be
faster at it now,’ Fox observed. ‘I mean, I noticed it that time,
but now you seem to handle it far faster.’
‘Yes. I believe
that that first time was when I was attempting to get the process
working properly. I put down the difficulty then as being the
result of Vali’s mead, but perhaps that actually assisted the
situation.’
‘I am
really
going to have to talk to this Vali,’ Terri said.
‘I’m sure he
would enjoy meeting you,’ Kit replied, smiling.
~~~
‘I don’t generally get
involved recreationally, you know that.’
The dance floor
of 27Lex was an interesting place. Fox was not entirely sure what
she was doing there since she did not really dance, but Sam had
persuaded her to go out on the invisible floor, and it was slow so
she did not feel like a total idiot. And it had given her a chance
to ask Sam about Marie. ‘I know, but you did spend a night with
Alice.’
‘Which was
pseudo-business, plus you did ask if I’d seduce her.’
‘True, but
Marie’s cute, and she
definitely
has a crush on you.’
‘She’s spent
most of the evening entranced by breasts. Yours and Terri’s.’
‘Terri has good
breasts.’
‘Terri has
quite spectacular breasts, large and well-shaped, but don’t sell
yourself short. Yours are very good.’
She could feel
his warm skin through the thin fabric of his shirt. His hands
shifted over her body, sliding across the fabric covering her back
and, occasionally, slipping over bare skin at her hips. He had a
firm, strong, kind of reassuring body, considering that it had that
‘sexy as Hell’ quality about it too. Sometimes, just once in a
while, Fox wondered why she had never just decided that sex with
Sam was probably worth a little embarrassment and the pain of
working through the aftermath. She had no doubt he
would
be
worth it, but there was always a risk that it would change
something too much. One day she was going to have to risk it…
‘Well, thank
you, Mister Clarion. That means something coming from a man who’s
seen quite a few.’
His lips
twitched. ‘After a while, they start blurring together. If you can
persuade Marie to go home with you, it won’t be a problem for
me.’
‘Just remember
you said that when it turns out she’s some sort of sexual
prodigy.’
‘I will.’
22
nd
May.
‘I think I’m a liddle
tipsy,’ Marie admitted. She was slung between Sam and Fox as they
made their way down the corridor to Fox’s apartment. Dillan had
been considerably less tipsy, and she had headed off to the MarTech
tower with Terri. Fox had been pretty sure that Dillan knew where
that was going, but she was not entirely sure about Marie’s state
of mind. ‘Where are we?’
‘We’re going to
my place,’ Fox replied.
‘Oh good. Is
Sam coming?’
‘Just as far as
my door, which is next door to Fox’s,’ Sam replied.
‘Okay. I may be
slightly drunk.’
‘You’re not too
bad,’ Fox told her, though she was tending to the idea that her
potential conquest was a little too far in her cups to be
conquered.
Sam carried on
helping to Fox’s door. ‘You’ll be okay getting her into bed?’ he
asked as Fox opened the door.
‘Police
training does cover handling semi-conscious people. I’ve had a fair
bit of practice on Helen, actually.’
‘I’ll leave her
to your ministrations then, tender or otherwise.’ He turned and
started back toward his own apartment, leaving Marie leaning on the
wall.
Fox glanced at
her. ‘Think you can make it in under your own power?’
Marie looked
back, green eyes alive, sparkling, if a little unfocused. ‘I think…
Could I use your shower? Shower’d clear my head a little.’
‘Be my guest.’
She stepped into the apartment and Marie followed, stopping to take
off her shoes just inside the door. ‘Kit, run the shower for Marie,
please.’
Kit looked
across from beside her server and smiled. ‘Of course, Fox.’
‘Make it hot,
please, Kit,’ Marie said. ‘Where am I going?’
Walking through
to the bedroom, Fox pointed. The shower was behind a polyglass
partition on one wall, a fairly large space which had several heads
to provide a real deluge. Absently, Fox made a note to be sure the
shower in the new house was as good. The toilet was hidden away
behind the same partition, though that section was coloured to
opacity. ‘You can darken the screen if you want,’ Fox said.
Marie took the
hem of her dress in her hands and peeled it up over her body,
tossing it aside. ‘Why would I want?’ Fox gave a shrug and,
grinning, Marie skipped over to the shower, pulling the partition
open and stepping under the jets with a sigh.
Fox sat down on
the bed and began pulling off her boots. Behind the screen, the
redheaded girl picked up a tube of cleaning gel, squeezed out a
measure, and began running her hands over her body. Fox slipped her
skirt off and watched the play going on in her shower for a minute.
Then she undid the seam on her suit and slipped it off, and looked
back to see Marie’s hands working smoothly over breasts which were
now topped off by sharply pointed nipples.
‘Yeah,’ Fox
muttered to herself, ‘she’s not as far gone as she seemed.’
There was not
even a hint of surprise in Marie’s eyes when the partition slid
aside and Fox stepped into the shower. No surprise, but there was
something else. Heat, desire, maybe hunger. Any would do, Fox
decided. Marie turned, leaning back against the wall, bracing
herself there as Fox approached, and she slid closer until skin met
skin. Fox felt Marie’s hands slide over her hips and smiled.
‘I thought you
were feeling tipsy,’ Fox said.
‘Just enough
that I don’t feel self-conscious showering in front of you.’
‘You really
need to work on that confidence.’
Marie pushed
forward, stretching up on her toes, and her mouth covered Fox’s.
Fox felt a second of surprise at the action, and then went with it.
Marie’s tongue slid between Fox’s lips, hot and urgent. She broke
the kiss. ‘I’m working on it.’
‘So I see.’ Fox
dipped her head, bending down, and Marie let out a sharp gasp as
Fox’s mouth latched onto a nipple. Fox’s hand slid up between
Marie’s thighs, cupping her mound, one finger slipping between wet
labia. Marie stiffened, her chest pushing out as her back
arched.
‘Nnn… oh
that’s… I thought I was seducing you.’
Fox
straightened up, slipping two fingers smoothly into Marie and
bringing their faces to the same level. Fox nuzzled Marie’s cheek,
kissed along her jaw. ‘If you think so, you were a little drunker
than you thought.’ The fingers began to move, pressing up and in,
quickening as Fox’s thumb found another target. Skin slid against
skin and Marie’s breath began to come in pants.
‘I… I’m going
to…’
‘Yes, you are.
You’re going to come for me. Right now.’
Marie’s back
arched as Fox pushed her over. The pressure of Fox’s body against
Marie’s was the only thing holding her up as her knees weakened and
her eyes glazed, and the climax exploded through her, a sudden
release from the anticipation that had been building all night.
As the haze
began to lift, Marie heard Fox’s voice whispering in her ear. ‘And
in a minute, you’ll be doing it again.’