HUMANITY 2.0
YEAR 012, DAY 098
"Ben, I'll have you know that you are a big dumb idiot."
Twelve years, or twelve hundred years – I'd still know that low, self-assured voice right away. 15226 stood in front of me where I'd awoken, as gorgeous as the day I'd met her. Her body was toned and fit, breasts round and perfect, her shiny, straight black hair falling in a cascade down her back. That beautiful oval face of hers that drew me in like she was a living sculpture. Her body was wrapped tightly in a form-fitting black suit crisscrossed in indiscernible shapes and patterns, and her near-black eyes still had that knowing, dark, mysterious sparkle that was probably the most enchanting thing about her.
"I... uhh..." I was slowly beginning to remember – and damn, she was right.
The last thing I recalled, we'd been tantalizingly close to figuring out what exactly it was that the Foot Clan was trying to do with my DNA. Oh – Foot Clan, that's the name Hannah came up with for the people who were after us. It was from some TV show with turtles. Those clowns had been chasing us around the world relentlessly for years by then, but we'd never gleaned much specific information as to what they intended by doing so. They seemed to want to capture us, but if that wasn't an option, it didn't stop them from trying to kill us.
We'd only begun to make progress once I brought Melody and Hannah into the fold. Those two were – still are – amazing. They'd been finding and infiltrating the facilities used by the Foot Clan for some time, however, we'd been finding they tended to just outsource things, and we rarely were dealing with our opponents themselves. The people they hired were usually given nothing than our descriptions, probable locations, and recommended tactics for capturing, disabling, or, if necessary, killing. I was beginning to think that the enemy, whoever they were, probably wasn't military or government at all; it seemed like all they had was information and money, both of which they leveraged well.
Best I could figure at this point, the 'treasure trove' in Berlin we'd located this time had been a trap. Hannah and Melody had gotten away clean when the place turned out to be empty and they realized it was a setup – I remembered that clearly – but suddenly, I'd heard a crash behind me in the hotel room I was running their communications and intel from. They wouldn't let me actually go with them – in many ways, those two were more protective than Nina was, though they tended to brush off Nina as some kind of amateur.
My memories were fuzzy after that – I dimly recalled men in black getup, like SWAT team members, a failed attempt to use a taser on me, a brief physical confrontation – then an enormous smack as I was struck hard in the back of the head with something heavy and probably metallic, like an aluminum baseball bat.
I hung my head low as I gave a chuckle. "Don't I know it." I sat up, looking around – and noticed that, aside from 15226, there was nothing to see. Literally – nothing. We weren't in a room, or indoors or outdoors at all – aside from the bed I'd awoken on, we were apparently floating in some endless, empty soft-white space, with 15226 standing on some invisible surface. I inventoried my situation, and considered for a moment. "So am I dead?"
"No, just unconscious from a solid blow to the head." My hand went to the back of my head, memories triggering a phantom pain. She was right – I'd felt the sharp crack of something large and heavy crashing into the rear of my skull, hard, then it had all gone black.
"Okay..." I thought for a moment. "I mean, if we're here..." I gestured out into the empty space. "... and you're also here, and I just got my skull busted open, well, you have to admit it's not a bad first guess that I would be dead."
"If this had happened under other circumstances..." She sauntered over toward me, one slender-fingered hand pressing against my chest – I dimly noticed that I was naked – and pushed me down onto my back. The bed was massive, fluffy, and seemingly warm; I instantly felt relaxed. She straddled my waist, and I could immediately make out the tantalizing shape of her camel-toe in the skin-tight outfit.
She continued as she ran a finger over my chest in a random pattern. "... then maybe I could trust your deductions. But again, you are a big dumb idiot, compounded by also being an idiot who just took a blow to the head. So let's not put much stock in your logic for a while."
I grinned for a moment, laughing silently to myself. I had to admit, she had a good argument. My smile faded as I thought further. "Seriously..." I let my hands approach her thighs, this time caressing them with the tenderness I wish I'd shown when I'd first met her, instead of the animalistic, teenage fuck-frenzy I'd worked myself into then. "You said you were leaving the planet. Did you come back?"
"You wish." She snorted. "Ben, do you really think the only thing I downloaded into your head was my memories of sex in a human female's body?"
I laid there silently, staring up at her as I wracked my brain. To be honest, I'd had no reason to think otherwise, so I'd never really considered it. "Well, if you say it like that, I guess I don't anymore. So we're where, inside my head?"
"Pretty much." She sighed. "I'm not really here, you know. This is just a fragment of neural coding, activated when you were knocked out and captured. I was left behind to teach you something."
"Teach me what?" That she was impossibly hot? I didn't mind being reminded, at least.
"Your skull is repairing some hairline fractures, and you lost a fair amount of blood. In about an hour's time, you're going to wake up. Before then, you're going to learn a new trick which should help you get yourself out of the jam you're apparently in. Which you got yourself into, I might add... again... big dumb idiot."