Special services for a special passenger

He stiffened as her hand returned, hi brow wrinkling into crumpled hills of skin. The corner of his mouth twitched before he spoke, flatly. He braced himself for an all-too familiar conversation. "What... exactly are you implying."

The attendant smirked with a cursory glance to the rest of the cabin. The night cycle kept the lights low, save the distant constellation of overhead LEDs over the forest of seats. Another glance confirmed that the seat roster had been correct with his empty row. One final cast snagged the image of his colleagues in over to the far galley, lost in their own conversation and in-jokes. Smirk widening, she slipped into the empty aisle seat, soft hand never leaving his shoulder.

His voice grew sharp. "You going to answer my question?"

"I'm not really into Terrans, you know," she said unrelatedly, "but you're a pretty special one, aren't you? Or not exactly one."

"Do you mind, please, actually--"

"You're not like us organics." Her eyes flashed with a dark twinkle as she continued. The friendly attendant veneer had vanished, vanquished with vampish verve. "And you hear stories..."

"They're urban legends," he snapped, cutting her sentence to ribbons. She jerked slightly in response, her mental balance thrown by the jab. "Whatever you're thinking exactly, it's factually and ethically wrong."

"Hmmph," she snorted through her pinched nose. Her skin shone in sapphire once more, caught in between lust and frustration. "But ethics don't really apply to you, do they?"

He boiled in silent aggravation. "The hell is that supposed to mean?"

"Cyborg. That's what I mean." She crossed her thin arms. "I know about you. They carve so much out of your brain for your new limbs and organs, so they can 'interface with your system' or whatever, that you don't care the same way as the rest of us. You're compromised, so you feel like you can do anything you want without consequence."

His anger gave away to incredulity. "That's the new twist on it now? Geez, that's just lame. I liked the idea that we were specifically immoral sex beasts better."

"W-well, I was getting to that," she replied defensively. Her brilliant blush spread down past her collar, practically shining in the dull light.

He sighed, rolling his eyes. "So, what, you thought you could bone a cyborg that you just knew had like a giant dildo for a penis and no scruples to tell him otherwise? Take that ride on his electric slide? On duty? On an intersystem passenger cruiser?"

She turned away from him, arms crossing tighter on his chest. "So what?! Again like you care."

"Hey, quiet down," he said with an increasingly raised voice, "wouldn't want your crewmates back there to know you were going to fuck a passe--"

She slapped a hand over his mouth. She sneered as she felt a grin form underneath it, then snatched it away. "Fuck you."

"You wanted to."

"Ugh."

"Gotta say," he continued, savoring a moment that never came often enough for him: besting a cyborg fetishist, "you're awfully outgoing for an Eridanian anyway. You say you're not really into Terrans, eh? What, been there, done that, got the cheap chachka from Earth? Get around a lot in your job?"

"Oh just stop it."

"Cock in every port?"

"Stop. It." She rose in a huff. "You ruined the mood."

"Good, because I wasn't at all. Couldn't you at least wait until planetfall."

Her large eyes lolled into her head before she stomped off to the galley. She greeted her colleagues foully he saw, crashing into a cart of consumables and sending packets clattering to the floor. Some nearby passengers stirred in their slumber.

He exhaled heavily, feeling drained. That... distraction had at least one positive effect, in that he didn't have to revisit unpleasant memories for a minute. Now though, they floated to the forefront of his thoughts again, and he groaned. He shut his eyes, blanking out the visual stimuli of the cruiser and focused on the auditory. His cochlear sensors found the waveforms matching his lust-stricken friend who, though muttering under her breath, still sent phonetic articulations of speech into the gaseous medium of the cabin. Soft and airy, he still detected them and sent the data to the aural center for processing. The results were fast -- 0.00675 seconds -- and its meaning comprehended instantly.

"At least the fucker isn't an android."

Aneurysm, formally Ominitronic AI Unit #5573 (Serial Ident: 6782-ADGHW-09LK7) of RUR Cybernetic Designs, opened his eyes, luminal sensors coordinating the adjustment of his myomer synthmuscle bands that controlled the aperture of his pupil. Expressionless, his consciousness descended into a familiar tempest at the seat of his identity.

Pretending to be a cyborg was preferable to the reality. Cyborgs at least had civil rights. Androids were forever bound to to the corporation that bequeathed them. This is, of course, why he had escaped. The job couldn't be done without some level of freedom, and the cyborg masquerade was a means to that end, merely inconvenient at best and tolerably unpleasant at worst. Compared to the alternative anyway.

He crosschecked his internal chronometer with the cruiser's time. Two hours to planetfall. Groaning, he settled into the seat, and sleep claimed him in a moment of weakness before his dormancy cycle. The memory came, the flames scorching his arm anew, the blackened bone stark against the conflagration.

Why, Tom His own voice intoned in his fiery flashback. The skull only grinned through a knowing, mysterious cackle. Why did it happen.