My thanks to MormonJack for edits and crits.
Chapter 4
While Avery napped with her head in my lap, I retrieved my phone to check on the moles. Mole3 had found something. I carefully slipped out from under her and put in a pillow in my place, and then got out a blanket to cover her. I knew she'd be out for a while.
Mole3's logs were very suggestive, but also curious. Mole3 & Mole5 had been backtracking in time from the event Mole1 had found. There was a track, spotty but readable, heading back to the source. I gave the two moles more cores. I also redirected Mole4 to analyze the continuing data from Mole1, which was still running IRT. The signal seemed to have stopped but maybe Mole4 could pick up the trail forward. Beaver5 was still logging attacks. I stayed busy just watching the volume of data flow in.
** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** **
She walks into the kitchen, rubbing her eyes with one hand and yawning, her other hand holding the so-called Transporter. After the fact maybe well-named, given where it sent her. She stops briefly at the counter where I've set up shop with my laptop to peck me on the cheek, then goes to the sink where she carefully washes and inspects the device.
With the toy dry and lying on a towel, she comes back over to me. I turn when she glides the back of her hand against my cheek. She indicates the Transporter and spreads the most beatific smile. "What do you think?"
"I think you're a genius."
Perhaps only the slightest nod, which I might be imagining, escapes her smiling face, and perhaps that smile somehow becomes a little more radiant. She's not denying my compliment. "I'm in the mood for Thai. Can we order in?"
** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** **
The first results came in while she was in the shower. There was a clear signal before the Mole1 detection, but the signal, if it was still there, became extremely noisy, almost not there. Almost. Mole4 saw something. I have some sophisticated software, originally designed for toothpaste demographic studies, believe it or not. I got it cheap. I was sure the hackers I monitored would be mortified to learn they'd been trapped with a toothpaste consumer a/b tester.
I sicced my moles on the source of the signal. They have the capacity to turn themselves into the digital equivalent of naked mole rats, a species I'm theoretically fond of. That is, they're aggressive and territorial, very sensitive to the slightest sense of wrongness, resistant to viruses and worms, and they live much longer than anyone would expect.
** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** **
She comes out of the bedroom wearing my clothes, a T-shirt and sweatpants. I'm bigger than she is so everything's a bit baggy on her. They give her a comic look that somehow fits her. Comic yet potent: a superhero who is just beginning to understand her full power. What if Tony Stark has, all this time, actually just been the front man for Stark Industry's advanced tech and Pepper Potts has been the brains behind it all? I begin to wonder if I'd underestimated the odds against finding a woman like Avery.
Over green papaya salad she quizzes me on the device. We go back and forth on the interface but as the conversation continues the words grow more difficult to come out.
"The extender," I mention, "That worked."
"Is that what you were doing when--" I offer my hand. She takes it. "I think I knew when you did that."
The elephant in the room is the Everest-level peak experience we shared, and especially her, since she experienced all but one of the several orgasms that occurred. Not that I had any complaints. Women can always come way more than we men. She's clearly still feeling it hours later, I can see it in her, still something coming from way down underneath that shows in a peaceful demeanor compared to her usual somewhat nervous energy. She's not a talkative woman, which suits me, but we need to communicate about what happened.
"And then the speed."
"I can't take the speed."
"Maybe a finer control."
She nods.
"How are you feeling?"
She sits back, slouching, her form almost lost in the oversized, soft loungewear. She keeps some underwear here but somehow keeps forgetting to bring extra outer clothes. I'd put her shorts and other items in my washer; they were now in the dryer. She takes a breath and opens her arms to stretch. "I feel satisfied. Part of me. Part of me, the part that really needed this, that part feels satisfied, maybe for the first time. Feels great. Like I don't have to suck anything again."
That announcement didn't worry me. "And the other part?"
She sits up, takes my hand back. "The other part of me wants to give you a blow job, another one, soon, tonight if you want."
Balancing. I understand. I glance over at the device.