Shards [Book Two] Page 10

  As I strolled away from my little corner of the puterverse, the barriers began appearing. I left them alone, unworried by their oppressiveness. I had come a long way from my first explore of this world with Susie and Raul. It had been dark and depressing and very intimidating then, though I wouldn't admit it. I remember how frustrating those walls had been then. Now that I was accessing at unlimited level, they didn't exist for me. One day, they wouldn't exist for anyone.

  But I had little interest in them now. It was Mike I wanted to see. I had missed him this last week. I missed his wit, his flippant attitude and his banter. Most of all, I missed his frank openness. He called them as he saw them, which was pretty typical of a teenager with a high opinion of himself. Typical teen characteristics I could also apply to myself. He was always a challenge. I enjoyed challenges.

  I lost patience with walking, so I opened my arms out wide and jumped lightly into the air. My arms poured out light trails behind them, stretching down my sides and sweeping in toward my feet, where they joined before tapering off further along. The light trail caught the atmosphere, then crystallized and became wings. Since the atmosphere of the puterverse was not air but instead ambient energy, my wings were solar, not aerial wings. Lifting myself by will power and the energy sources now at my command, I rose to several hundred meters above the surface.

  I knew where I was and where I wanted to go. A good five kilometers ahead and a little off to my right, I spied the Quantum River, its vast width such that the opposite shore could only be imagined. I swung over for it and let my wings push me along quietly on the electron breeze. Below me, I saw the hazy outlines of the black barriers that chopped the plain into small pieces. Here, they were only smooth blotches on the floor of the puterverse. At lower levels, they formed an unsolvable maze. I'd long since learned it was no accident. The barriers reached up about fifty meters. If they became aware of my presence, they would rise up even higher in an effort to cut off my progress. But they never did, for I had UTC, and they were useless against me. I had been moving with impunity for just over a year now.

  I doubled the length of my wingspan so my newly formed arms now reached two meters on each side. Sharpening the edges of my feathers a little, I increased efficiency of electron collection. My rate of speed quadrupled and I shot off toward the Quantum. As I approached the river, I turned downstream, putting the river on my right. I flew toward a hazy landmark, at least twenty kilometers away. It was a partially completed span, arcing out a small distance over the river. At the base of it was our spot, where I knew Mike would be. Even at this great distance, I could make out a slight green glimmer. Anxious and impatient to greet him, I pushed myself even faster.

  I angled down two minutes later, coming in for a landing. He was reclining on a bench beside the river, staring into its depths, but jumped to his feet when he saw me. Five meters above the ground, I abruptly altered back into my normal form. My wings silently exploded like fireworks, and the released energy dissipated in the electron breeze. I fell to the ground, landing lightly on my feet. In the puterverse, you can do pretty much whatever you've got the imagination, know-how, and guts to do. I didn't really even need the wings. But they were pretty and gave a visual manifestation of what I desired. I straightened and ran to Mike. I stopped just short of him, and we faced each other at about two meters distant. He smiled, a bright burst of light escaping from his mouth.

  “Well, it's about time!” he complained lightheartedly, more joy and relief in his voice than annoyance. “You've been driving me crazy."

  “Short trip,” I giggled.

  “Wow! That's quite a hot body you've got! Hubba! Hubba!” he observed with his normal crudity. “You must be packed with code.” He laughed and held out his arms.

  “Pervert. Ready?” He nodded and closed his eyes, the turquoise gleam in them disappearing.

  I lightly tapped, then brushed my fingers along the diamond at my chest. It started to shine. My body glow went from gold back to its normal bright yellow, my mature form returning to its normal state. The diamond began pulsing, matching my heartbeat. I waited until I could actually hear the pulsing, then threw my arms wide and pressed my hands against Mike's.

  Upon contact, our bodies began to meld together. In the puterverse, I didn't have a physical body of course. No one did. So an energy form was used instead. As such, my appearance was quite different than my real body. I kept the same height and dimensions as normal. (Okay, so maybe I fudged a bit on my bust, upping it a few centimeters. A girl has her vanity.) But that was about the end of the similarities. I was complete energy top to bottom, and glowed. My toes were gone, having become part of my feet, as though I was wearing a pair of twenty-first century pantyhose. My hair stayed in its braided pigtail, but looked no different in texture than the rest of me. Since my intimate features, except for the general outline of my hips and breasts, were also gone, there was no such thing as physical modesty, so I wore no clothes. But I wasn't naked. There, confused enough?

  Our forms began blending together. Wherever we touched, our colors folded together into brilliant lavender. First our hands, then our legs and arms, then our lower torsos. The entire landscape had taken on a purple hue, soaking up our excess energies. We were almost touching at our chests, both of us staring at the diamond still embedded in my chest.

  The diamond began pulsing with my heartbeat. The bits and bursts of data were cascading and bubbling inside. Slowly, the light grew brighter. The raging cauldron of trinary code eroded the diamond casing from the inside. Without forming a single flaw, the diamond took on a look of fragile splendor. The pulse of the diamond quickened, as the beauty of it excited my heartbeat.

  I looked around, feeling dazed and lightheaded, but happy. The landscape had become a sea of purple, with flashes of white lacing through it. Mike was leaning back, trying to contain my energy as well as his, preparing both of us for the final moment, which had nearly arrived. I felt our bodies tighten, and his head snapped forward. His eyes, blazing with the sharpest violet, looked into my eyes, waiting for my approval.

  The diamond had now reached the moment of disintegration. Its surface was webbed with thousands of fractures, all in an exquisite, perfect pattern. Inside was a deep glow that had begun building, as though it was the beginning of a new star. I looked back up at Mike and nodded. He closed his eyes and pulled my body into him.

  We slipped into one form, neither him nor me, yet both. I felt two heartbeats. I looked at my hand, his hand. I jumped into the air, the action coming just before the thought. I looked down at my-our form. Our curves and feminine form had diminished, but were still evident. Deep inside our translucent form was the diamond. Even as I watched, the glow suddenly surged. We now had one heartbeat. The moment of sharing had arrived.

  But it didn't explode. Instead, the diamond shrank for a moment, then expanded quickly out, filling every square centimeter of my-his body. I slipped to my knees, then his hands, and then slumped completely to the violet ground as the sensation of billions of pieces of trinary code enhanced and intensified his-my existence. I-He twisted and writhed on the deep purple carpet. He-I moaned with a delicious pain as everything I-he understood about life and the puterverse was explained to me-him, then doubled. The event was becoming too much for me-him. He-I had to separate. I-He remained another moment though, drawn by the exquisite agony of having his-my very being laid completely open to him-her.

  Finally, when I-he could stand it no longer, I pulled gently away from him-her. As I struggled to my feet, he remained on the ground. The lavender washes and liquid purples of the area began showing flecks of green, and bolts of yellow. I eased my foot clear of his, breaking the bond, and the landscape snapped abruptly back to its normal coloration. My yellow glow returned, as did his green glow. But it was a little brighter now, with a hint of white in the middle of his chest.

  I fell to my hands and knees, gasping and exhausted by the experience. Cool needles of electrons tickled in my throat as
I deeply sucked in the energy atmosphere. I resisted the temptation to lie down and instead waited out the recharging.

  Mike was lying on his back, spread-eagled. He was staring up into the void of the black interface, gasping from our efforts. I crawled beside him and lifted his head onto my lap. He looked at me, then closed his eyes, temporarily weakened by the experience. Since it was my code that we shared, I always recovered faster than he did. We had been using this method of programming for some time now. Trinary code not only bestowed judgment on the program, it constantly modified itself, using its container as a model. I didn't want either Mike or Kiki to be robots, so I always transferred the code to them by bonding our energy forms, holding the trinary code the entire time, allowing it to use me as the model for its modifications. By becoming one being during sharing—download was too impersonal—there was no risk of outside contamination. It was also a very intimate time to communicate and know each other.

  Mike's eyes fluttered open and he smiled at me. He said something, but his voice was too low. Worried I may have given him too much code, weakening him to a dangerous point, I bent my ear to his mouth.

  “Thanks, honey. Was it as good for you as it was for me?"

  I gasped and threw him off. He laughed and rolled over to his knees. That smirk was too much, so I belted him across the face. I got to my feet and glared down at him while he rubbed his jaw.

  “You ... you ... pervert! OH! I can't stand you sometimes! What we had was beautiful! And you have to go..."

  “Hey, hey! Abby, don't blow your RAM. I was just kidding. Geez, you can be real touchy sometimes."

  “Well, why shouldn't I be? I gave you some of my best code ever. And Kiki almost worked herself into a head crash, trying to get it perfect for you. And then you have the gall to talk about it like it was sleazy cybersex! Of course I'm mad!” I stamped my foot, the floor fracturing with fissures of blazing yellow. If I could cry, I would have been on the verge of tears. He must have heard that in my voice, for he became very contrite.

  “I'm sorry, Abigail. You're right. It was crude of me and I apologize.” He looked at me directly in the eyes. He peered as though he knew exactly what he would find. “It's that shard thing, isn't it?"

  I stared back at him for a minute, then went into his open arms. You could cry in the puterverse, after all. I sobbed and sobbed, sad that he had ruined our time, and sad that I had ruined our time, too.

  He didn't know quite what to do, so he just waited, patting me on my back.

  “How did you know?” I asked quietly. He held me by my shoulders at arm's length and gazed into my eyes, smiling a crooked smile.

  “How did I know? Goose! Everything I am is because of you. You know better than I do how much of you is in me. That's why it's so easy to get your goat.” His voice softened. “And why it's so easy for me to know what's bothering you. You're mad at yourself for not seeing me for a week aren't you?” I nodded, casting my eyes down.

  “Well, don't be. I understand. I like to bug you about your weird guy/girl life, but I won't ever be mean about your sharding. I promise. I do have some tact, after all I just like to save it for special occasions.".

  “Thank you, Mike. I appreciate that. And I'm sorry about blowing up at you."

  “Hey, that's okay. I'll be a little more careful next time. Do you want to talk about it?"

  Surprisingly, I did. So we strolled down the riverbank and I told him everything that had happened while she was me. Unlike my other friends, even Susie, I told Mike everything. Why not? He was made by me to be a helper and confidant. Originally, he was a puter version of me in every sense. Unbound trinary code was changing him, though, and he was more his own being. But we were still as close as identical twins. Closer, maybe.

  I finished telling him about my episode, and he remained quiet. It's difficult to read facial expressions on energy beings. Their features are blurry and have the same color patterns, eddies and illuminations as their general forms. But he looked upset. When he spoke, I knew I was right.

  “Why would anyone turn a Flesh into a trained idiot, good only for sex? It doesn't make any sense."

  “Some people get a false feeling of power by turning others, very often women, into playthings. By turning lovemaking into an act instead of an expression, they think they can have the enjoyment without the commitment."

  “I don't understand. Why wouldn't you want commitment? That's the whole point of intimacy. Without commitment there can't be real enjoyment."

  “You're absolutely right. Not everyone sees that, though. You see, Mike, in my world, there are many flawed people. In fact, we are all flawed. And sometimes..."

  “You're not flawed, Abigail. Except for that sharding stuff, and that's not—"

  “You're wrong, Mike. I'm flawed just like everyone else. More so, in some ways."

  “But you created me, Abby!” he protested. “That makes you my—"

  “Don't say it, Mike! I'm not your god! I refuse to be called that!"

  “But you made me! Kiki, too!"

  “That's true. But that doesn't change the fact that I'm not God. God is a very specific, very loving being, perfect in every way, and our Creator. Yours, too, though He used me to make you, just like he uses other women to bring life into the Flesh world.” I giggled. “I guess that make me your mother!"

  He laughed. “Mommy! Does this mean I get an allowance now?” His brow wrinkled. “Say, doesn't that make our little rollarounds kinda like Oedipus Rex?"

  “Hey, put a sock in that stuff or I'll slug you again. No, it doesn't! Those ‘rollarounds’ bring us very close, even intimate, but I've never thought of it as sex, and you shouldn't either."

  “Sorry. I guess it's my hormones."

  “You haven't got any hormones. I do, and I sometimes wish I didn't. They can mess up your head pretty bad. Now let's get off this tangent. You're making me a little uncomfortable."

  “Ha! I knew it!” he exclaimed triumphantly. “That's because you are worried about them, aren't you, Abby? You're thinking maybe they really are something more than you say. Admit it!"

  He had me pegged. I thought exactly that. I was tempted to slug him again, but I didn't. Partially because doing so would prove him right, and partially because of the smile on his face. He wasn't smirking because he had me figured out. He was happy because I was thinking about it. And that meant, to him, that he was worth considering. It struck me that I had should have seen this coming, but I had never really thought that much about the relationship between us from a boy/girl point of view. Our relationship had started out as maker and product. It had progressed quickly with the trinary coding to teacher, student, then helper. For months now we had been friends, but had it crossed the line? Did he see me as a woman? He really did have feelings for me. Romantic, loving feelings. And now he was daring to hope that perhaps I had them for him.

  It was impossible. I was flesh, he was energy. But impossibility never deterred emotions. How could I even think about having those kind of thoughts? Aaron was the one who filled my thoughts. Aaron! Just his name made me warm and weak. But Mike? I just didn't know. And that was a little scary.

  I didn't have to tell him that, though, so I changed the subject.

  “Let's scrounge up a fight, Mike. I'm aching to see you try out your new programming."

  “Unfair!” he whined. “You can't change the subject like that!"

  “Yes, I can. I'm a girl and girls can change the subject, their minds, and their hair whenever they feel like it. It's called woman's prerogative, and I'm using it."

  “Are you sure about that?” he asked suspiciously. “Seems like guys should get the same freedom, too."

  “Sorry, but it's girls only.” I smiled wickedly. “But if you want me to, I can change your programming, Mike. Maybe you'd be a little nicer as a girl. We could call you Michele. Kiki wouldn't like it at first, but—"

  “No! No way!” he waved his hands. “You're not touching my energy imprints! Unlike yo
u, I get a choice in this, and I like it just the way I am. Okay, I give! You can change the subject any time you want."

  “How chivalrous of you, Mike! Now, what's going on around here?"

  * * * *

  We spent the next couple hours raising a ruckus around the puterverse. Mike and I knew as much as we did about the puterverse because we weren't afraid to poke around where we weren't supposed to. As I said, you can do whatever you've got the guts and know-how to get away with. That was the problem with adults. They saw the puterverse as an artificial environment, created by a man centuries ago to provide easy and coordinated access to data.

  Fortunately, Mike and I weren't adults. We had a ball. He had explored a lot when I was gone, but saved the really good stuff for our times together. With our use of UTC, we could go almost anywhere with impunity. Strike that. We could go absolutely anywhere with impunity. And we did, too. Private files, local government, credit banks, you name it. Even a few risqué places Mike knew about. I don't think he really liked them; he really meant it when he said he didn't understand enjoyment without commitment. But I know he got a kick out of watching my glow turn pink when we “stumbled” into someone's red light district. I didn't tell him that I had added that pink blush to my aural programming to please him.

  But the main target of our fun was NATech. I took savage pleasure in—I won't use the word I'm thinking—messing them up. NATech employed fully ten percent of the world's population, so we had lots to choose from. With the reckless abandon of youth, we gave lower servant-status employees massive raises, then tied the files back to the main bank, causing hours of downtime while they chased bugs. We rewrote critical memos, fired hotshots, scheduled quadruple shifts for attack units just about to go on leave. My favorite stunt was patching secured lines into the news media. The fourth estate wasn't gone, but it was strictly controlled. I had always seen the media as amoral: neither good nor bad, just in existence. It could be used, even manipulated, for one or the other. I gave it an opportunity to use itself for good.