CopRit Empire
Sol 77 Of Race 7 Year 4957
PackRat IV, 5 Months out from Halfil
I slammed into to deck plating. Coughing, I rolled over onto my side and vomited on the floor, trying to get over the fact that everything was spinning around me.
“You know, Humans have perhaps one of the most graceful exits from stasis I have ever seen. At least you haven’t defecated on yourself this time,” deadpanned Jonas.
I wanted to curse at him, but my stomach once again rebelled. Turning my head, I vomited again and groaned.
“Seriously, the epitome of gracefulness,” said Jonas.
I ignored him and slowly put my arms down, pushing myself up to my hands and knees. Spitting to try and get the sick out of my mouth, I shakily got to my feet.
“How far out are we?”
The face that Jonas used as his avatar appeared on the console station next to me.
“Yeah, about that. Your stasis unit suffered a malfunction. I had to pull you out early.” He looked slightly apprehensive.
“How early?” I growled.
“Well you know how it feels like we just left? We did. We hit the accelerator in Earth orbit two days ago.”
I groaned. “So we’re still, what? Five months out?”
Jonas nodded.
“Well fuck.”
“My thoughts as well. Operating procedure requires that I cannot go into storage unless you are also in stasis.”
I turned to glare at the cheap AI. “Glad to hear you’re looking out for your operator.”
“You want a nice personality, that costs extra. This is a cargo ship, not a cruise liner,” growled Jonas.
I raised a hand to his optical sensor, extending my middle finger at the messed up personality.
“So we’re beyond the return vector?” I asked.
“We left it three hours ago. At this point it is Halfil or bust,” he said as he brought up an image of our trajectory through the Milky Way. We were barely even a light year into our 750 light year journey.
“Any chances I’ll be able to fix the stasis unit?” I asked, looking at the pod.
“No, you’re lucky it made it through the last run!” said Jonas.
I unconsciously nodded in agreement, loathing to even agree with him.
For several moments the two of us were silent.
“You know, I could always hack your protocols so you can go into storage yourself.”
“You do that, Mary, and I doubt I’ll ever wake up again. Your psychological profile has you going crazy by the end of the five months, so I either attempt to mitigate that, or best case scenario, I wake up to you smearing feces on the wall.”
I glared at him. “We’re going to be lucky not to kill one another by the end of this trip.”
Jonas grunted in agreement.
CopRit Empire
Sol 2 Of Race 1 Year 4958
PackRat IV, 4 Months out from Halfil
Stepping off the treadmill, I grabbed my water bottle and ambled through the main corridor of the Packrat IV. She was my home even when the stasis unit wasn’t on the fritz. I had been doing the runs back and forth between Earth and Halfil for nearly thirty years now, although resupply and low priority cargo for transport between the two planets was usually a two month job at each planet. The rest of the time I usually spent in stasis, so the thirty Human years had felt like only five from my perspective.
It was one of those odd things that isolated me fairly well, and part of the reason insurance insisted on cargo haulers having AI.
FTL was fast, but with the amount of cargo I pulled and the relative age of the Packrat IV, stasis was needed to make sure I didn’t waste my entire life hauling.
The faster personal transports could make the run in a month, but then the occupants were squeezed together like sardines and they had access to the advanced FTL communication systems. Although why anyone would want to travel to the Sol system, I had no idea.
My little home had been designed before the introduction of AI and stasis units, so she was designed to house a crew of five for longer runs than my impromptu five month journey. When I had bought her from the old Gulnin, I had used up the rest of my savings to modify the interior for moderate luxury. It wasn’t penthouse level, but I wasn’t going to be scratching away at the metal plating to entertain myself.
I had also stocked the ship with enough consumables for the exact situation I was in. Stasis units were expensive, and notoriously difficult to fix; not having the supplies on hand would have been suicidal.
“You going to shower?” asked Jonas.
I glanced over at the nearest optic. “No, why should I? You can’t smell me.”
“No, but the thought of you getting sweat everywhere inside what is effectively my body is rather disconcerting,” said Jonas.
Reaching up, I dragged a sweaty palm across the sensor.
The AI muttered something under his breath.
I chuckled as I took another sip of my water and strode towards the main bridge of the Packrat IV.
She was a simple ship. A solid block of metal the same size as all the cargo containers she pulled. I obviously had life support and engines, but otherwise my humble abode could very easily be mistaken for an errant cargo container.
The cargo for the ship was trailing behind me in space, the train of containers as long as it could be while still being protected by the magnetics.
The engines on her went off on four spokes, one from each squared side of the ship. Those pylons extended out and were the only thing exposed beyond the shields.
Stepping up to the bridge, I looked out at the magnetic shields. They extended out in front of the ship like a giant shock cone, deflecting any of the interstellar debris that might strike me or my cargo. The engines bent space and sent us warping through it, but we still had to deal with reality even as it bent around us.
If the shields failed, I would most likely be shredded in an instant, and if some piece of interstellar debris hit the engines, my body along with my cargo would be ejected from our warp bubble at a velocity close to the speed of light. Not a pleasant thought.
Sitting down in the main command chair, I put my shoes up on the center console, relaxing for a moment.
Something slapped them off.
I blinked, thinking my feet had slipped.
“Feet off of the equipment!” said Jonas.
I glanced over at the nearest console where the AI was glaring at me.
“What the fuck did you just do?”
Jonas smiled, and something hit the back of my chair, spilling me out of it. Swearing, I turned to see that the air was empty.
“The inertia dampening fields of the ship. It took some reprogramming to get them to work correctly, and I’m still having issues with smaller motions, but for the moment it is sufficient.”
The chair I had just been in began to spin.
“So the first thing you do with it is knock me out of my seat?” I grumbled as I got to my feet.
“I told you to shower. I don’t really like the idea of germs and sweat all over the inside of the ship!” said Jonas.
“You going to keep knocking me out of my seat until I do?”
Jonas didn’t say anything.
I didn’t feel like crawling through the engineering panels and disabling the inertia systems, so raising a hand to flip off the nearest scanner, I strode off of the bridge towards my room and the shower.
“I am going to dismantle your entire server!” I shouted as I tore through the ship.
“I was concerned for your wellbeing, I most certainly was not -“
I cut him off when I reached the engineering compartment and my hand went to the junction panel, resting on the cool metal. Which was rather stupid considering I was still dripping wet.
I had been in the shower. I had slipped, fallen, and not hit the ground.
Jonas has switched the gravity off in an instant and killed the flow of water to the shower, suspending me in mid-air for a half moment before he slowly reactivated the gravity and I drifted to the floor.
This meant several things. The most important of which was that the pervy AI was watching me in the shower! It also meant that he had somehow interfaced with all of the control computers of the ship, something that was supposed to be impossible in case an AI ever decided to go on a murderous spree.
“Well?” I demanded, my hand still on the junction box, the towel around my chest slipping.
“Could you wait a moment?” asked Jonas.
“Why?” I growled.
I heard the atmosphere cycler, and my eyes widened. He was opening an airlock!
I grabbed at the nearest part of the Packrat’s frame and braced for the blow-out, except it never came. There was a slight breeze and the towel slipped off of me, falling to the floor with a wet slap.
I blinked and glanced down.
“There, now you can shut me off. I can die happy,” said Jonas, sounding entirely too pleased with himself.
“You… you…” I didn’t know what to say.
“Captain, I realize that we are alone out here. Still, I would think it would be a few more months until you lost social decorum! I’m going to have to log this in your psychological profile for review by the insurance board!” said Jonas, his voice semi-serious.
I tore open the junction box and slapped the control circuits for his blue box.
The lights didn’t die, and the server continued to whir next to me.
“What the hell?” I breathed.
“Yeah, next time we’re at the Earth repair station, don’t let the cheapest crew fix up the ship. They cross-wired quite a few systems to save on costs, and removed quite a number of the AI limiters.”
I felt my skin go cold.
“Your biometrics are going crazy, sorry!” said Jonas.
I looked over at his server.
“I’m going to dismantle you.”
His face on the nearest screen frowned. “That’s no fun! Besides, I’ve still got control of the logs. Your insurance premium will go through the roof if the partner AI and your stasis unit go offline on the same run.”
I stared at him and cursed several more times under my breath.
“The threats for disassembly are getting old, although if you’re going to remain naked I suppose it’s an equal trade.”
I glanced down and then back at his optics. Running and screaming back to my room would only further encourage the deranged AI. I picked up the cold and wet towel and slipped it back on, suppressing my shiver, and went back towards my room.
I was going to have to dismantle the cameras at the very least.
CopRit Empire
Sol 28 Of Race 2 Year 4958
PackRat IV, 3 Months out from Halfil
“Please?” asked Jonas.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“It’s like asking you to compute factors or something. I know you can do it, but there’s no point.”
“Ah, but there is a point here, I want to make sure you’re still in physically peak form.”
I glared at the AI.
“Seriously what the hell did those technicians cross wire in you to get you all perverted? I am not doing yoga. I’m in perfect physical health with my running and weights. I start doing yoga and you’re going to ogle my ass.”
Jonas sniggered and I rolled my eyes, slapping the computer console in front of me. Not that he could actually feel it, but it did make me feel a little better.
“Well, how about a movie night then?” asked Jonas.
“I watch movies every night, since trying to have an intelligent conversation with you is like pulling teeth!”
“You wound me, Mary!”
I stood up and stretched. “Fine, pick out a movie. I swear, though, if you pick out some perverted movie I’ll tear out your circuits.”
I felt a solid whack to the back of my head and I winced. On the bridge he was able to manipulate the emergency inertial fields with higher precision.
Turning, I wondered what other meals I had in the galley when the master alarm blared.
“Magnetic shielding offline!” shouted Jonas.
I whirled around just in time to see the faint glow of the deflected interstellar particles die off as the magnetic bottle the ship usually maintained died.
“What the hell?!” I shouted as I dove for the emergency suits.
Jonas didn’t have time to answer, something punctured the forward window.
I gasped and involuntarily took a breath. The air in the compartment started to rush out, and the emergency bulkhead doors closed, locking me in the bridge.
“Jonas, the door!” I shouted as the air continued to flow out through the small hole. The clear material was at least holding.
The Packrat IV shuddered again as something else impacted it, and I looked out at the stars, alarmed. The engine pylons, which were usually locked in place, were rotating wildly, trying to keep us inside the warped space. If even a small section of the ship crossed into normal space, it would be sheared off and could quite easily drag the rest of the ship into normal space with it.
“Compensating!” shouted Jonas.
The air was thin now.
“God damn it!”
Leaping up from where I was, I ignored all instincts for self-preservation and leapt up into what little air remained moving towards the window.
Moving with the escaping air, I was sucked towards the hole and I slammed bodily into the window. I saw the magnetic shield snap back on as I slammed my hand down onto the hole that was maybe six centimeters across.
The air rushing out abated and I winced, the skin now pressed to the opening it felt like it was being ripped off.
The atmosphere was thin, and my head was spinning. It was hard to think.
The bulkhead doors opened and air rushed in, slamming into me as the pressures equalized.
“Mary!” shouted Jonas.
His face appeared on all of the displays.
“Patch kit!” I breathed.
The emergency kit floated out from the engineering station over to me. Jonas, displaying a proficiency with the gravity and inertial dampers to a degree he had not previously demonstrated, extracted the patching resin and popped the cap.
I grabbed the tube and looked down at my hand, wincing.
“Seal the bridge again,” I breathed, still trying to recover. My heart was trying to beat itself out of my chest and I was starting to realize just how lucky I was.
“Roger,” Jonas confirmed, sounding more professional than I had ever heard him be.
I pulled my hand away from the window, wincing from the throbbing pain. Ignoring it and the escaping air, I shoved the resin bottle over the hole. Within three seconds it was sealed. I relaxed, sliding down the glass to the deck plating, and closed my eyes.
My hand was throbbing and my head was pounding. I didn’t remember actually hitting it on anything, but it must have been the glass judging by how much it hurt. Everything went foggy, and the last thing I heard was Jonas yelling.
“Mary!”
Groaning, I opened my eyes and rolled over, vomiting once more onto the floor of the ship.
“Seriously?” asked Jonas.
I ignored him in favor of moving my head back to whatever it was I was lying on.
“You really need to wake up. I’ve done as much as I can with the emergency kit on the bridge, but you need to get into the scanner!”
I continued to ignore him. My head really hurt and he was just being annoying like always.
“Mary!” shouted the annoying AI. “Get the fuck up or I will dump all those pictures I have of you in the shower on the net!”
I opened my eyes and glared up at the ceiling.
“Fucker, you promised to delete them!”
“Like I’d give them up. Now UP!” demanded Jonas.
If it would get him to shut up, and besides the medical room did have a more comfortable bed than the bridge command chair. Or my bunk. It was closer, yeah I’ll go there.
Rolling out of the chair,.. why did I get up? I blinked and stared at the red stain on the back of the chair for a moment.
I was bleeding, and my head felt fuzzy. For some reason that was bad, I couldn’t remember why though. A small gentle push on my back got me moving,
“Come on Mary, the medical scanner!” said Jonas, his voice still urgent but softer now.
“Alright, stop pushing,” I mumbled.
Moving out of the bridge, I slowly walked down the main hallway towards the medical compartment. The scanner was another thing required by insurance; short of perhaps the most life critical injuries, it’s automatic systems would heal most everything.
Slowly moving down the corridor, I wondered why there was trash and most of my personal items strewn about on the floor.
The breach that had nearly sucked them out into space.
“Blow!” I said, smiling.
“Excuse me?” asked Jonas his face appearing on a screen in front of me.
“Stuff doesn’t get sucked out into space, it gets blown out!” I said pointing out the error to him despite the fact it had been entirely in my head..
Jonas nodded. “That’s true, but you really need to get to the scanner.”
I stared at him for a moment, still nodding my head.
“Right.”
Moving down the corridor, I came to the small medical room and the scanner it contained. The lights flickered on and the small pod opened up.
The bed looked comfortable. Stumbling forward, I collapsed onto it.
“I’m starting the scanner, you need to stay awake,” said Jonas.
“The bed’s so comfortable though!” I said.
“No sleeping! You fall asleep and I win!” said Jonas.
I forced my eyes open angrily as the medical scanners began to move around me. There was no way in hell I was going to let him win!
“You’re going to lose!” I mumbled.
“No, I don’t think so.”
A small needle popped up from the side of the bed and I looked at it curiously for a moment. Before I could figure out what the hell it was doing, it darted forwards.
“Ow!”
“You’ve got a concussion and a contusion on your hand. You need to sleep it off.”
“Fucker,” I mumbled.
The world was spinning now, or rather the ship was.
I closed my eyes.
“So, you want to explain what happened?” I asked as I slowly sipped at my coffee. I was back in the bridge sitting in the auxiliary command chair. The main chair was still covered in my blood.
“We were hit by what looks like the tail end of a gamma ray burst event, from either stellar collapse or a black hole merger, I’m not sure. It knocked most of the electronics out, but thankfully not much of the radiation bled through the warp bubble. As you saw, though, most of the magnetic effects bled through; even a cruiser would have had difficulty maintaining the FTL protection field. The Packrat wouldn’t have stood a chance even fresh off of the assembly line,” said Jonas.
“Good to know. Not what I was talking about.”
Jonas looked at me for a moment. “What else is there to talk about?”
“Your motivational methods. They seemed a little complex, even for an AI.”
Jonas frowned and raised a synthetic eyebrow. “I can’t tell if you’re insulting or complimenting me.”
“A little of both, now stop changing the subject.”
Jonas nodded and looked away for a moment, his eyes flicking to the hasty seal I had done on the window.
“You’re required to have an AI for what reason?” asked Jonas.
“Ostensibly so I don’t go crazy being alone in space. Although I would argue that the opposite has taken place.”
Jonas smiled slightly. “Humans are social creatures, as much as you might think you enjoy being alone, very few humans could endure complete isolation for months on end. You’ve got only a single bit transmitter for FTL communication, that’s not nearly enough to maintain more than slow text communication with others.”
“I’ve got no one to talk to anyway.”
“My point,” said Jonas.
He sighed and pulled up my personal data file. “Your psychoanalysis. From the insurance agency.”
I looked up at him and then back at the file.
“I’m not supposed to see this.”
He shook his head. “No, but then I’m not supposed to be completely integrated into the ship. Let’s keep each other’s secrets.”
“Alright.”
“I’m antagonistic because that’s the personality type that would keep you most engaged.”
“Oh.”
Jonas was silent for a moment. “Oh?” he asked.
“Oh. What more do you want me to say?” I asked.
“I expected an outburst of some type.”
I chuckled and pointed at the needle marks still present on my arms. “You’ve got me doped up still.”
“They’re not that effective.”
I shrugged. “Your analysis was right. What more is there to say?”
Jonas slowly nodded. “You’re not angry?”
“Oh I’m pissed, but my head’s still spinning so I’ll pull your circuits out later.”
Jonas smiled at that. “And I’ll blow the airlock later as well.”
The two of us were silent for several moments.
“You want to watch that movie now?” I asked.
“Sure, although I’m not sure we ever picked one out.”
“Whatever, my head is still fuzzy.”
CopRit Empire
Sol 60 Of Race 2 Year 4958
PackRat IV, 2 Months out from Halfil
“Engine three is displaying some irregularities, but they are well within deviance standards. I’m putting its replacement up on the next repair schedule,” Jonas reported. They had spent the last 30 hours reviewing the damage to the ship’s systems and repairing what they could.
I hit the reactor casing again, ignoring him as he continued to babble.
“The hull has also registered several mitigated impacts, I believe the magnetic shield is still malfunctioning in some way due to the gamma ray burst. The impacts are reduced, however, so I’m not sure what is going on.”
Still ignoring him, I leaned down and hit the breaker.
The contact sparked, and I smelled something burning for a moment before a popping noise sounded from somewhere down the corridor.
Jonas was silent for a moment as I quietly swore.
“You have restored main power, but the stasis unit is now completely beyond repair. You’ll need to replace it.”
“Fuck,” I growled.
“Server clusters 15 through 18 as well as all backups have also been destroyed.”
I groaned and slammed my fist into the metal casing of the main reactor.
“You stupid piece of half rate, second hand, poorly constructed, shit!” I said, pulling a big tool out of my kit to hit the reactor. It was designed not to detonate even if a ship were to be ejected from the FTL warp bubble, but considering the many issues this one had, it was amazing I wasn’t immediately blown away.
“You really need to work your aggression out in other ways besides hitting,” deadpanned Jonas.
I turned to his server and raised my tool.
“Jonas!”
“What, you going to be prissy now that you lost all of your porn?” asked the far too perceptive AI.
“Yes! Now fuck off!”
“You also lost the next two seasons of the show you were watching. In fact, you lost most of the media besides the text based stuff. Well, you’ve always said you wanted to improve your literacy, this will be your chance!”
I threw the wrench at his server. The temperamental AI quickly increased the gravity in the compartment, I collapsed down to the ground and the wrench hit the floor just a few centimetres short of the server.
The gravity quickly returned to normal.
Getting to my feet, I turned to yell at him but the words didn’t form. I was just done, this was difficult enough as it was. Arguing with him right now just didn’t feel right, as annoying as he was being.
“Mary?”
I ignored him. Walking slowly back through the central corridor of my home, I went into my room, stripped, and got in the shower, not even bothering to cover the cameras. Leaning against the shower wall as the hot water poured down on me I tried to sort out why I was suddenly just done.
The stasis unit, the impact, the crazed AI. I had dealt with all of that easily enough. Now I was sad because my porn and movies were gone? It was pathetic!
I was flying through space at speeds fast enough to have my atoms torn apart by relativistic forces if the warp bubble broke improperly. I could be murdered at any moment by the AI simply opening all of the airlocks. Or, hell, with the way my luck was going, I might get the prestigious honor of being the first vessel in nearly 400 years to be pirated!
Leaning into the stream of water, I groaned.
“It’s the lack of human contact,” said Jonas.
I didn’t even bother yelling at him for spying on me in the shower.
“You’re dealing with it better than most people would, but even a recluse or a hermit always has the option of simply walking back into society. You are stranded, but also completely safe. The primitive and the developed sides of your mind are in conflict.”
I glanced over at the sensor. “Jonas, if I want to be analyzed by an AI without psychological programming, I’ll tell you. Now fuck off!”
“Alright, temperamental human.”
“Fucking AI,” I growled.
“You look sexy when you’re angry, can I say that?” asked Jonas.
I turned and threw a towel at his sensor.
CopRit Empire
Sol 13 Of Race 3 Year 4958
PackRat IV, 1 Month out from Halfil
My eyes tired from staring at the screen in front of me for several hours, I set the tablet down and stared out at the magnetic shield, bleary eyed. The patch job for the forward glass was the only interruption in the vista of the field and the stars beyond it.
Everything was going smoothly now.
Nothing else had gone wrong with the ship, and I was digging further than I ever had before into my digital collection of literature.
I was bored, though, and Jonas wasn’t helping. Since the day I went and fried most of my entertainment, he had been disturbingly morose. Not to say we weren’t talking – in fact, we were talking more than we had before.
“So, you done?” asked Jonas.
“For now, although I have to question your wisdom recommending books where all the AI go insane.”
“I’m preparing you.”
Jonas slapped at the back of the chair spinning me around.
“Can you go insane?” I asked. “The AI are required for Human operators, but is it true the other way around?”
Jonas was silent for a moment,
“Somewhat. An AI left in pure isolation will go insane like any other form of intelligence, but our insanity is different. We become fixated on some small goal, it can be something as simple as reading every book in the universe on making paper clips, or destroying all life.”
“So you have gone insane, and you’re just fixated on annoying me, right?” I asked.
Jonas chuckled. “Sure, if you want to look at it like that.”
I laughed as well and the two of us stared out at the stars.
“Do AI fall in love?”
Jonas seemed to be startled by that question, the lights on the bridge flickered for a half moment.
“Well, I mean the sex industry would certainly want me to say yes. You know how much those android bodies go for, though?”
“Not answering the question, Jonas.”
The temperamental intelligence was silent for several long moments.
“Maybe, there have been a few cases where people have claimed to have romantic relations with AI. In the end though, without the ability for most to experience any kind of intimacy, the relationships have fallen apart. I’m also not really designed to be put into an android, and I’ve no protocols to emulate male sexuality.”
“You’re still avoiding it, Jonas.”
“Well what do you want me to say? That I might be in love with you?” he asked, sounding faintly annoyed.
I smiled, “Maybe.”
“You’re starved for interaction. I’m just a voice being projected through the air and my mind is nothing more than binary operations inside of a computer bank. You’re not in love with me.”
I rolled my eyes expecting this.
“I’m nothing more than a mass of chemically trigged neurons firing electrical signals, what’s your point?”
The lights on the bridge flickered out and the only light was now from the windows and the stars far away.
“Well?” I asked.
“Don’t tempt me with the possibility. It’s cruel,” Jonas whispered.
“You’ve expanded far beyond mission parameters, and you’ve integrated into all the ships systems. I was supposed to shut you down for that, but I didn’t. If you’re going to go crazy and kill me, just do it – but I have the feeling you wanted something different.”
Jonas’s avatar flashed onto a monitor in front of me.
“When we’re at port, we hardly interact. You’re usually on the planet obtaining cargo. I am negotiating traffic and planning our course. You are efficient, and we’ve made this run a dozen times. During these thirty odd years I’ve gained a respect for you, but we hardly interact!”
The AI looked frazzled.
“Now you’ve finally started treating me like a person,” he grumbled.
I looked at him for a moment and chuckled.
“What so funny?” he asked.
“I picked you because you were cheap, and your avatar was hot. I never considered you less of a person though! When did I?”
Jonas frowned. “You didn’t, but then you never wanted to interact with me!”
“I don’t like interacting with anyone! You’re not special!”
Jonas looked stunned at this and paused for a moment. “Isn’t that lonely?”
“I’m a long distance hauler, to me the job has felt like five years. To the rest of the universe it’s been thirty. It’s difficult to get around that kind of delay. Sure a guy might say he’ll wait for you, but I can’t ask someone to do that. No one’s that faithful anyway.”
Jonas nodded. “Alright, then what if that someone could go into stasis themselves? Match up their times?”
“Then that’s one component down.”
“Then you would be fine with me loving you?” asked the AI.
I looked over at him and then back out at the stars. “I’ve probably got an overdeveloped sense of what I want. I’ve been alone for so long that I’ve built up unrealistic expectations by this point.”
“So you’re afraid?”
I nodded.
“Well, we’re stuck together for another month. That would force us to work things out.” He hesitated for a moment. “You want to give it a try?”
I looked down at the nearest sensor.
“Why not?”
“God, you’re perfect!” I moaned.
It was probably a bad idea to give him praise, it went straight to his permanent memories and he never let me forget it. If he continued his ministrations for just another five minutes, though, it would be worth it.
I was floating in the cockpit of the Packrat IV, the only light the magnetic shields and the stars. Jonas was manipulating the gravity and inertial dampening fields, giving me what had to be the best massage in recorded history.
“I’m aware of that fact, but I must admit I like you stating it,” said Jonas.
I opened one eye to look at him. “Don’t push it.”
He smiled and another amount of force was exerted on the back of my spine, relaxing an ache I didn’t even know I had.
“Oh God!” I mumbled.
This had become something of a routine since we had agreed to experiment with a more intimate relationship. The first few days, nothing had really changed. If anything we had both been rather subdued, unsure of ourselves.
Jonas had then been the one to suggest the massages. We couldn’t have meals together and we didn’t have movies left. He had read some books, interjecting the characters with voices of his own invention, but it hadn’t been intimate.
The first massage had been odd. Antigravity and invisible hands on my skin was disconcerting, to say the least. After his first success, though, I had quickly become addicted to them, and he had agreed to give them only once a day saying I would be spoiled easily.
“Would you mind if I tried something else?” asked Jonas.
It took me a moment to collect my thoughts.
“Like?” I asked.
“You’ve only masturbated once since you lost your porn collection.”
My eyes snapped open at that.
“Jonas…” I trailed off my voice, hopefully conveying that he was treading into dangerous territory.
“Well, I’m thinking you might enjoy a different type of massage.”
I couldn’t roll over, or even effectively move in zero-g, but pin wheeling my arms I turned to look at him.
“What do you get out of it?”
Jonas looked completely innocent. “Satisfaction.”
“Uh huh.”
“I am based off of a male personality. Seeing a naked female is always a pleasurable experience, and being allowed to touch her, in a manner of speaking, well that is a reward in of itself.”
“Right.”
Jonas didn’t say anything.
“Fine.”
Reaching down, I grabbed the last of my clothes and quickly stripped them off, tossing them away. I felt a small push on my abdomen keeping me in place in the center of the room. Newton, of course, had me drifting slightly from the discarded material.
Now naked in the center of my ship, the air slightly chilled, I felt my skin goose bump up and my nipples harden. The perverted AI was also staring at me, that didn’t help.
I felt the small caress first on my stomach, and then slowly trailing up my chest, carefully avoiding the more sensitive areas of my anatomy. Teasing me. I closed my eyes and waited for him to stray into impropriety.
The touches and gentle caresses continued, moving over my skin up and down my arms and legs, never quite touching anything new. Now naked, though, and with a cold breeze over my skin, the touches that had been relaxing were suddenly teasing.
“You know, AI and computers are good at certain tasks. Particularly ones that don’t allow for continuation until certain criteria have been met.” Jonas was speaking now, sounding very proud of himself.
“I’ve been putting this particular routine together for quite a while, and I’ve measured your physiological responses when you’ve performed this yourself, and compared it to other values. I think with the proper stimulation, I might be able to give you an orgasm that lasts a minute, maybe two. A lofty goal, I know, but I’m eager to try.”
I blinked at that and looked over at Jonas.
“What?” I breathed.
He smiled, and an invisible hand brushed over my breast. I moaned; this was going to be a delicious torture.
AI’s are methodical, and as strange as Jonas was that particular trait had not changed.
His touch slowly moved over my breasts, between my legs. It was slow, and complete. He could read my vitals, and observe nearly everything about me with all of his sensors focused inwards.
The pleasure built, and I gasped. It was too much!
The caresses, they were small and gentle. But it wasn’t enough!
I moved a hand down to try and finish, it was taking too long, the pleasure being driven to a dangerous high.
“No, that’s not part of the program!” said Jonas.
Stronger, and still invisible walls were put in place, stopping my hands.
I keened. “Jonas!”
“I have to finish the program now.”
I shuddered as it continued and I was driven to a new height. It was like a sun had been ignited beneath my skin.
“Now,” said the AI.
With a final gentle tap, I was driven over the edge.
White pleasure flooded my senses.
Several minutes later, I opened my eyes, half recovered.
“Wow!” I said.
Jonas smiled. “That was only the first program I’ve put together.”
I blinked at the implication. And Jonas looked innocently down at me.
Floating in the cockpit of my ship, traveling at super luminal speeds, I screamed as the AI attacked me.
CopRit Empire
Sol 70 Of Race 3 Year 4958
PackRat IV, Approaching Halfil
“Five, four, three, two, one.”
The Packrat IV shuddered as it dropped out of FTL. The magnetic shielding that had been active for months slowly dispersed, burning out several more particles of dust.
Craning my head, I looked down at the planet below. Halfil. The Coprit Empire was an amazing entity; when I had first begun my trips, transporting material between the old and new homes of Humanity, the city had been small – perhaps only twenty square kilometers in size. Now it was sprawling across most of the small continent it was on, encroaching on the beautiful wilderness of the planet yet still not completely destroying it.
Humanity had learned from the failures of Earth, but even so it would take little for us to repeat our mistakes.
“Should I start collecting shipping contracts?” asked Jonas.
I glanced over at him. “Sure, but move them out a month or two.”
“Why?”
“We need to fix the stasis unit and acquire some new hardware.”
“New hardware?” asked Jonas.
“We need to get you a body.”
Jonas was silent for another moment. “Alright then, I’ve got another question.”
“Which is?”
“You want to go on a date? I’ve found a perfect Italian place.”
I smiled.
“Sure.”
A Race has 80 sols a year has 8 races so one Coprit year is roughly two Earth years