Looseleaf's Diary - 22 / 04 / 2120, cont'd

Looseleaf's Diary - 22 / 04 / 2120, cont'd

What is the line between Orc and machine? I wondered as, I set my analytic programs to work on the generic avatar before me. Data fed back toward me: the neural jack gave me direct access to her body's cyberware, and to a lesser extent, her wetware. Mithril wires bonded with nervous tissue, her brain and body part of the machine.

I approached it like I would hacking a car. In the simulated world of the Matrix, it looked like I raised my hands to touch her avatar's face. Layers down, I was initiating my standard cracking program. The external reality was all a simulation generated by my deck, helping my brain to process the complex data in a way I could interpret and manipulate. I let the simulation carry my consciousness into the complex computational node that was a Uruk-Hai's augmented grey matter.

As Rowethasdottir's home system faded from my version of the simulation, I found myself in a dark, cavern-like structure. An approximation of the data in the Uruk-Hai's headware, and the more I looked, the less natural the cave seemed. There were tool-marks on the wall, straight, smooth columns carved out of the living rock, like naked Orcs frozen in unnatural poses, their bulbous stone breasts stiff, their full figures caught in moments of agony or ecstasy. A mixture of natural and artificial that reflected the mixed system I was accessing.

Pale light glowed from runes that crawled over the edges of a doorway carved in stone, each glyph bright as moonsilver. Not Elf-script, but something else. One of the coding-dialects of Black Speech. I took a deep breath. How much IC that a megacorp might install on the internal systems of a science project, I had no idea. Yet it was time to find out. I touched the door. Like quicksilver, the Black Speech flowed, then reformed into words in Westron I could read:

There is a house. One enters it blind and comes out seeing.

"A school," I said, recognizing one of the oldest riddles.

The gates cracked and opened. Beyond, red light pulsed in veins along a corridor that had an unnervingly vulva-like appearance. My whole body was on edge as I stepped inside, accessing deeper portions of the Uruk-Hai's system. The erotic imagery was stronger here, stone images of a big-breasted, full-hipped Orc on each wall, reflective of her uppermost programming—the sex-**** that they had made her out to be. A weird, sensual heat seemed to fill me as I stepped deeper into her brain.

There were sealed doors on either side of the corridor, each bearing a sigil in the Black Speech script, carved into the naked breast of an Orc woman. My interface struggled to translate them properly, so I tried each door in turn, my avatar's hands pushing against hard tits set into the center of the door. Some swung open, unlocking parts of her system functionality, sealed memories. I left them ajar. Others remained stubbornly shut, not even offering a riddle. Those would require root access.

The corridor ended at another portal. Except this one was almost circular, and appeared to be made out of black glass, semi-transparent. A carved stone dragon formed the frame of the doorway, its head at the top of the arch, like a stiff clitoris. The red, pulsing veins all ended at the doorway, and even though I knew it was all a simulation, I could almost feel the heat and humidity, the closeness of the air. A sensual tingle filled me, and I wondered if that was the neural feedback of Aubert eating my pussy in the real world, or something else.

Then the dragon's eyes opened. Pale light spilled out on my form. Before I could even knock, the code-drake's jaws opened and closed. A bright spike of coldness seemed to slide up my cunny, though I couldn't look down to see what it was.

Proactive IC. Never a good sign.

Why is a raven like a writing desk?

I blinked, brain suddenly blank beneath the hypnotic light from those eyes. Whatever was in my pussy was moving, shifting, searching for my g-spot, and the stimulation was maddening, making it impossible to concentrate on the riddle. Tense seconds passed. The stone scales of the dragon began to move. Alerts suddenly went off in my deck, and my feet felt rooted to the floor. The air around me grew as hot and thick as tar, and a jolt of unnatural pleasure ripped through my brain.

Shit. Black IC. It was already trying to lock me in, cutting off access to my own cyberdeck's systems.

Why is a raven like a writing desk?

I knew that it was all a simulation of the Matrix. My body was not here, these feet were not my feet. My cunt was not being speared open, unnatural tendrils of lust piercing through my body, tracing routes to my heart. The glowing eyes came closer, extended on a long, sinuous neck, and the thing spoke its riddle again.

WHY IS A RAVEN LIKE A WRITING DESK?

Black venom dripped from those fangs. I **** myself to access the basic functions on my deck as the arousal built and built. It was like trying to fight an orgasm, my rational mind desperately trying to recall the right sequence for a quick and dirty logout, as my frozen knees quivered and something began to thrust steadily in and out of my sloppy slit, pushing deeper and deeper with each thrust, my heart hammering in time.

Log out log out log ou—

Reality snapped as the quick and dirty logout sequence cut me off abruptly from the Urak-Hai's internal system. Returning to the placid home office so quickly was jarring; I could already feel the headache, heart hammering as my body sought to stabilize itself. I ran a quick self-diagnostic and grimaced as the cyberdeck told me what I had already figured out: while I was infiltrating deeper into the Uruk-Hai's brain, her internal security systems had been hacking me right back. If that code-dragon had touched me, I might have cum to ****, heart and brain seizing up.

Like being stepped on by an oliphant during the moment of climax.

Rowethasdottir's avatar reached out for her lover. The Uruk-Hai's avatar glitched momentarily, then resumed normalcy.

"Precious!" the ex-Ranger said. "Are you alright?"

There was a coppery taste in my own mouth. Blood. I couldn't spit, so I swallowed.

"Careful," I warned, then told them what I had found. There was more to this Uruk-Hai than just the sex toy. She was something else. Something they'd locked down deep, her innermost self trapped behind the blackest IC I'd ever encountered or even heard about.

"She's right," The Uruk-Hai said. She turned to me. I wasn't sure how much of what had happened she was consciously aware of. "You tried. I appreciate that. You'd better go now. We'll call later to coordinate."

So I logged off. Gracefully, this time.

Aubert wasn't fucking me. That was the first sign things were bad. He was naked, the scars under his nipples strange pink lines against his too-pale chest, my head rested in his lap. Electrodes were placed against my breast and temples. Tears ran down his face, his normally impassive face now twisted as he struggled to contain some unfamiliar emotion.

"You flatlined. Ten seconds. Almost went into cardiac arrest," he said, visibly shaken. "I thought it was just supposed to be a phone call. What in the Hall of Mandos happened?"

I closed my eyes, tasted blood, found where I'd bitten my cheek.

"They asked me to hack the Uruk-Hai's brain," I said, voice thick. "Some unexpected security in there. Drake Industries doesn't fuck around."

He pulled me up and hugged me like his own personal teddy bear. Pressed his face into my shoulder, my tits spilling out over his forearms as he held me close as if afraid to let me go. For all that Aubert had saved my life, he seemed to think this fat little Hobbit woman had saved his. I wiggled in his grasp, stumps flailing. Not to get away but just so that I could hug him, pressing my breasts against his chest, my head against his heart.

"I know this is scary," I told him. "But we can't stop now. There's so much bad shit in the world—slavery, ****, crime, black IC—and I can't do nothing. I can't."

"Then what can I do?" he asked, in that very special way men do when you give them a problem that's so big that even they admit they don't know how to solve it.

I wiggled my hips against his.

"Make love to me," I whispered.

He was hard in an instant. Short and squat, the head like a halfling's fist as he grabbed my ass, lifted me up, and slowly lowered my dripping snatch down. I moaned deep into his shoulder as he filled me, and we rocked back and forth, slow and gentle, neither of us in a **** rush, drawing out the moment.

Sex wasn't the answer to everything. Maybe to almost anything. Yet it was a connection between two people, something that brought us together, at least for one hot, passionate shared moment.

Right then, that was enough.