She stood before him, bent, it seemed, from a crushed hope, looked up and whined, “I just want a hug! The linemen are afraid to even come in to visit, think the Auditor up above is watching. Travis, I’m worried about Travis. He didn’t come for his dinner or his breakfast two days now. Please, check on Travis when you’re done with me. He’s a good man.”
Ted nodded, “yes” and opened his arms so she could give him a hug, which she did, crying on his armored chest.
She then whined, “This is a two person act, you know, a hug?”
Ted kept his hands raised and looked into her face, “How?”
She seemed shocked, opened her mouth and said, “Put your arms around me, loose, hands open, like I’m doing—on your armor—and squeeze light, to let me know you care.”
Ted did his best. Eventually she looked up at him from within his arms, “This is kind of nice, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“What do you do to me if I choose Remission. They never told me and never used that marooner term, never heard it until I was here.”
“I use a Remission key to remove your Uplink and insert it in the belt buckle you are grinding against.”
She pushed back in a kind of fright and looked at the belt buckle, like a rodeo buckle for an astronaut. Ted continued, “You may suffer an hour of nausea and disorientation, might faint, and will be deprived of any more Uplink dreams, nightmares you call them.”
“Okay,” said Brie, as she pulled her hair back and then smoothed her hands down over her sweater and jeans to show the curves of her body and pursed her lips, “Ted, I’m only 33. You are famous—I like older men, really, I do. My husband was 40. I know about you, we all do—you’ve been the talk in these parts for 20 years, I’m told, ‘When is Ted the Fed goin’ to get us.’
“Oh, sorry, Miss Brie.”
“Ted, don’t call me that. I am Brie. I could give you children. I want a family, a husband—I know I’m pretty, Ted. I see you looking. Please, grant me Remission and then come back and be my man. The other men have already gone, I bet, or are gonna do something stupid and get whacked by Ted the Fed.”
Ted was looking at her and was attracted. He could even feel the demon in his pants growing and wanting Brie. That’s when “Psycho Girl” the Uplink in the base of his head, got jealous and zapped him. Ted’s right eye almost exploded and he went to his knees with a groan. Brie, who had been looking pleased at Ted’s expanding groin, covered her mouth in horror and stepped back as Ted reeled on his knees, drooling, “Sorry Psycho Girl,” and caressed the evil computer chip bitch planted in the base of his brain.
Ted came out of the haze of pain, staggered to his feet, and asked, “You ready, Brie?”
She was aghast, “You are old as dirt and never known a woman, ‘cause those sickos that took my husband into lead vapor clouds put a jealousy chip in your brain—what the hell!”
“Brie, do, you, want Remission?” drooled Ted, still weaving.
“Yes,” she swallowed hard.
“As you can see, Uplink chips can get jealous of their subjects. I suggest you sit in the cozy chair while I remove it.”
She did so and pulled her hair around in front. The sent of her hair made him warm with desire and Psycho Girl zapped him to his knees, where he held the chair back and mumbled, “Sorry, Brie, you smell lovely.”
She actually laughed, “Wow, keep it together back there, Ted!”
He laughed as well, drew out the Remission key—the pliers, really, inserted the top and bottom head into their respective slots, squeezed gently with his hand, like a micro-hug, waited for her to gasp slightly in relief, then turned the Uplink chip to 6 O’clock. She whimpered, which was the sign that the Uplink was no longer active, and then extracted it easily.
Brie sighed a deep sigh, her head lolling a bit.
Ted walked around in front of Brie, inserted her blue chip in his black Uplink belt buckle, in one of the three empty slots, causing the buckle to activate and speak, “Widow, Brie Olsen removed from inventory of Solar Ark, Saturn, free to remain, free of APM sanction so long as not congregating in excess of ten.”
“You are free, Brie.”
She looked up at Ted, absently cupping her sweater covered breasts in her small hands, “I want a baby, a baby that will grow to be the baddest man on this bad planet. Ted, you are the baddest man, but you won’t be around long.”
He grew visibly sad, “You seen what she does to me.”
“I seen,” she said, you drop to your knees and drool. I can work with that. Please Ted, let me undress you, your choice, knees or back. I’ll do the work. When I’m old I’m gonna need a man like you to take care of me, and since these sick creeps won’t lest us build communities—Ted, I’m gonna fuck your seventy-year old virginity into a coma—then beef stew, already in the kettle.”
“Beef stew!” said Ted, in a daze from the zappings and the proposition.
Brie then gently disarmed and disrobed the wiry old man with all the scars, who was as pale as the moon, eased him down in a nurse-like way, onto the small bed, and turned to her own undressing. Just watching that got Ted zapped by Psycho Girl. He would come too during the course of Brie doing things that were the acts of a young man’s dreams, and was repeatedly rendered unconscious. At some point after dark, noted through the single east face glass window, Ted woke, numb with residual pain, naked and kind of glowing, Brie hugging him in a kind of soft victory pose.
“Ted, you were great—my legs are done. So your safe from any more pain until morning. Look, Ted, if that cruel hardware in your head, or one of these Mountain Men doesn’t kill you, please, come back to me.”
“Yez Ma’am” he mumbled and drifted off to sleep, for once in his Pyreon life, not anxious about being detached from his gear, not even worried about Baby Girl freezing her batteries off in the sub zero snow outside this storybook door.
She giggled and did more of that hug thing.
…
Debriefing
Ted has been out of sorts, to say the least, a sixty year old virgin seduced, compromising his APM uplink. I had no idea that an internal self-hatred “jealous” implant had been implanted on this or any conductor. I do understand it as a means of preventing abuse of APM powers by male conductors upon female subjects, as well as being a guard against seduction. “Little Miss Brie,” has possibly achieved what hundreds of survivalists and earth criminals have not, the compromising of THE Conductor, Ted the Fed.
The subject of the encounter, such as Ted has been able to relate it, is contained above in the conduction report. Ted is currently having a crisis, expressed in his continued apologetic manner towards his gear, particularly “Psycho Girl” which is his pet name for his, master, his Uplink port, which I have already been briefed, and have not informed Ted, will not serve for the purpose of Uplift. Additionally, I have just discovered that Ted is illiterate, that he memorizes spoken words and APM policy and commands, cannot even read the HDR packaging he is so fascinated with.
-M. Styer, Acting Auditor General, to Uplift Steward
