Act II
6.
Hive designation AMBR-712, laid out in sixty-one three-mile hexagonal sectors, spanned an area of four-hundred seventy-five point one-nine miles upon the eastern seaboard of the former United States of America. Sunken cities could be seen in the distance, great concrete plinths of glass and concrete that rose from the oil-shined seas, monuments to mankind's failure to self-preserve.
Hex Nine was an older sector of the Hive. Its streets were a little narrower, superstructures a little taller, walls and skyways a little dingier, a little rougher around the edges. The cracks revealed themselves to those who knew where to look.
Citizens and hostform circulated through the streets like lifeblood, talking, laughing, enjoying themselves beneath the electric twilight sky. Going to clubs, or homes; meeting friends, holding hands, living lives at the end of history.
Peddlers worked in the alleys, hawking baggies of hand-rolled cigarettes and synthetamines, nanite inhibitors, dazzle paint, old music on physical media -- things not quite permitted in the Hive, but not quite forbidden either.
"How much for the Foucault?" Jack asked one pinched-faced peddler, pointing at a ragged copy of
The History of Sexuality
sitting on a threadbare blanket beside old romance novels, like gold amongst dross.
The peddler grinned at Jack. His chin was stubbled; he was missing a tooth. "Two twenty-five. In liquor, if you can."
All unauthorized trade in the Hive was conducted through barter. The Hive was the only source of credits, and credits could only be spent at registered businesses. But one
could
buy two hundred and twenty-five credits' worth of booze and trade that for an old book, if one were so inclined... and if one had two hundred and twenty-five credits to begin with.
Jack did not. "That's absurd."
"Two ten, then?"
"One ninety."
The peddler narrowed his eyes. "Come back when you got two ten. In liquor."
"Oh, for fuck's sake! It's a fucking treatise on repression and power dynamics, not a goddamn stroke book! Who the fuck else is going to buy it?"
"Someone who's got two ten," the peddler laughed. "In
liquor
. Now piss off, egghead."
Inside the pockets of his jacket Jack clenched his fists. He clenched his jaw. He took a deep, slow, ragged breath in, and then slowly out. He unclenched his jaw. He unclenched his fists.
This man was not his enemy. This was not the fight.
"I'll have it in a week," Jack told the peddler in carefully measured tones. "You'll hold it for me?"
"As always, Prof- "
Jack shook his head. Sharply. "No names."
The peddler nodded. He was, briefly, admonished. He knew better. As did they all. "-
friend
."
Two-hundred and ten credits -- more than three weeks' wages for a book that would sit until its owner could understand it, alongside the Rosseau and the Rolling Stones, the Pliny and the Picasso, in a secret library built for one boy.
As Jack returned to the crowded streets, to the crowd meandering from one indulgence to another, he wondered if it was worth it. To place so much hope in a child...
Osiris.
Pree had laughed, and agreed, when they named him. The God of Death, and of Resurrection. Of new beginnings. How optimistic they once had been.
He needed this to mean something. He, Jack, was a piece of shit; a cheater, a fraud, yes, he
knew
this -- but he would not let his life end without having made a difference. When he'd decided to teach, he'd thought making a difference would be simple. Now he knew it was hard goddamn work -- but the
doing
of the work had value in and of itself. It
had
to mean something.
A Priori
, as the French had said, back when the French were even a thing.
His train of thought was suddenly derailed as he saw, coming out of a discotheque, Amanda -- dressed up for a night on the town, like a teenage wet dream, all hips and tits and plush lips and big green eyes and that wavy blonde hair that fell
just so
over her eyes, intentionally failing to hide their open invitation to come over, come hither, and
fuck
. She was swaying a little bit, laughing, and leaning into her companion so she did not fall.
As surprised as he was to see her, Jack was more surprised by her companion.
A drone.
Clad head to toe in shiny, skintight black latex that reflected the sector's dancing neon lights, this drone was presumably female, going by her small-but-proud breasts and the graceful sweep of her hips. But with a drone it was impossible to know. A drone was a hostform that had further debased its existence, that had allowed -- or been forced to have -- its mind overwritten by AMBR's architecture. It was action without thought, existence without agency, a creature for which the very concepts of resistance and obedience no longer existed. It was merely an object.
And of course, it was built to fuck.
Or at least that's what it looked like to Jack, as through the moving crowd he caught glimpses of Amanda's fingers pressed into the cleft between its legs, her lips kissing and tongue flicking over its neck, as it sinuously swayed and shuddered against his former student's body.
He caught himself thinking that Pree had never moved like that,
couldn't
move like that.
He shuddered in disgust.
And he was rock hard.
Amanda whispered something to the drone -- her words, whatever they were, accompanied by a playful little nibble at its ear, just like she used to do to him, all those years ago. In that moment he suddenly wanted her again, ferociously so. He wanted to go to her again, and drop to his knees, again, stare up at her with pleading eyes and let her put the ball-gag back in his mouth while the drone cuffed his wrists behind him and slid its lubricated latex finger down...
Amanda was watching him watching them.
They
were watching him. She smiled, wickedly... invitingly.
He wasn't thinking about the Foucault, or Pree, or even Osiris anymore. Only that he had to get the
fuck
out of there.
"Do you want it, Professor?" he remembered her asking him, so long ago. "Nod your head. Say yes. Be a good boy and I'll let you lick my clitty," she had laughed as she sat on his desk, legs spread wide, during office hours. "You
like
being a good boy, don't you?"
She had known the answer. They both had.
7.
"
Great
work, Rashid!"
The Fuckvoice praised the men and women of Supplemental Workforce as an endless queue of machine parts came down the conveyor belt. A bell chimed.
"Keep it
up
, Amanda! You're being such a
good girl
today!" A bell chimed.
"Don't get discouraged, Jack! Let's not dwell on our mistakes!"
He couldn't focus on his work. It was difficult to think about making sure each part went into the correct bin when he couldn't
stop
thinking about slick latex bodies, sliding and groping, stiff nipples atop proud breasts, cocks and cunts encased in warm slippery prisons that kept turning the arousal
up
while turning the ability to do anything about it
way down
. He thought about Amanda's eyes, sensual, smoldering, knowing he was watching.
"You're doing
amazing
