Coral-600 (8 page)

“I'm planning on going to the cabin. Beyond that, I don't know.”

Quinn walked to the side of the building and flipped three switches. The first two made my mechanics twitch a bit, and the last was obviously a generator.

Quinn pointed to the first two large metal boxes. “Those are scramblers. They will impact and disorient any tracking device they use to try and find us. Don't get too close. They irritate my legs in particular when I use them, but it's the only way to make sure, if they do look for us, they can't track us with traditional methods.”

We walked into the house and Quinn flipped on lights as he went. He opened up a cupboard and there were silver and gold foil pouches with the letters MRE on them. He flipped a package over and nodded at the date printed on the back.

He held one up to me. “I'm in luck. Still good. Not tasty, but not expired.”

“That's not helpful for me.” I could go for a week or so without my lubrication drink, but it wasn't pleasant to be without.

“I don't have the mix you had, but I do have this.”

Quinn went to the other side of the kitchen and pulled out a solid beige bottle labeled with writing similar to that of the envelopes he had in the cupboards.

“What does MMC mean?”

“Mechanics Maintenance Consumable. I don't have the stuff they added for your sea life tissue, but this will help with your bio-metal functions.” Quinn tossed me a bottle.

I turned it upside down and looked at the bottom. It was still one hundred and fifteen years from expiring. That was good. I opened the lid and sniffed. The tang of metal and oil hit my sensors.

“I said it was consumable. I never promised you would enjoy consuming it.” Quinn took the bottle from my hands and gulped half of it like he was taking a shot of alcohol at the bar. He shuddered like it was alcohol as well.

I mimicked his move and instantly regretted it. To say this was less palatable than my maintenance drink was a gross understatement.

Quinn took the empty bottle and rinsed it in the sink. The water that ran from the faucet started out a bit dirty, but after it sputtered to life, relieving the lines of the air and sediment, we had clear water. He tossed the bottle under the sink.

“I would say we could get some rest, but neither of us needs it. Let me show you around.”

Quinn gave me the tour, which consisted of the kitchen/living room/bedroom we were standing in, and a small bathroom with a shower that Quinn probably had to duck under to get clean.

“Why did you bring me here, Quinn?”

The man who had seemed completely sure of himself as we rushed away from the palace put his hand into his hair and tugged the strands.

“This is my safe house. I set this up before I went to the palace. I knew my cousins told me I was welcome in their home, but there was still this part of me that felt like a freak. I figured if they decided I was a freak too, I needed a place to go and hide.” He waved his arm around to the four walls that held us from the outside. “This is that place.”

“So we are in hiding.” This was not a large house. “For how long?”

“I haven't gotten that far in my thought process yet.”

“Your brain needs to reboot faster. We can't stay here.” I looked at the bed and images of the last time I was on a bed with Quinn went through my mind. I didn't want to recall those images. If only the injectable still in my hand could be used for selective memory deletion. I could delete Quinn's head and just recall his hands.

“What are you doing?” Quinn's voice sounded fearful.

I looked around, but I didn't see any danger. Then I noticed his eyes were trained on me. Oops. Guess my memory was having an impact on my body. My hands had begun to remove my pants. These pants were the same ones I removed when Quinn gave me my orgasm.

“Do you expect me to stay clothed the entire time? I don't enjoy clothes.”

Quinn pulled a chair from a small half desk against a wall and sat down. “This is going to be the very definition of roughing it. You are not going to make this easy.” He ran his hands through his hair again. It was good that he seemed to have reasonable control over his stun capabilities. It would be a shame if he released that current into his own brain. Although, that might be preferable at the moment. I wanted to take off my clothes so I could relax, and it was obvious Quinn didn't approve of that idea.

“I could stay in the bathroom and you could stay out here.” I opened the bathroom door. It was a small room, but I could put some blankets in the bathtub, and it should be fairly livable.

“I am not making you stay in the bathroom. We can make this work.” Quinn sounded like he was trying to convince himself and failing miserably.

Rather than discussing his obvious lack of a plan more, he stood up and nodded to himself. “We can make this work. I am going to walk the perimeter and check the generator and the camouflage that I use to make sure animals haven't disturbed anything. You make yourself comfortable and I will be back in a few minutes.”

When the door closed behind him, I did just that. I took off my clothes and pulled the top comforter off the bed. The blanket underneath was quite soft and pleasant to the touch of my skin. I spread my arms and legs and stretched. This place was definitely not a palace, but I didn't need a palace. I wondered how we would deal with each other when we didn't have separate wings of a castle to retreat to. I guessed we would find out. Either Quinn would realize this was a mistake and take me in to the Department of Mechanical Affairs himself, or he would use those stun fingers on me when I drove him crazy. Either way, I had the opportunity to acquire more data before my systems were shut down for good.

I put the syringe in the single small night stand drawer. I increased my volume reception. If someone came close enough I could hear them and get the syringe in time. For the moment all I heard were the animals outside and Quinn pacing back and forth behind the cabin.

Chapter Seven

Over thirty minutes passed before Quinn returned. He carried in firewood and began loading logs into the hearth and in the basket next to the stone mantle. He never strayed far enough from the cabin that I couldn't hear him. He even spoke to himself out there.

He was worried about both of us. I found it odd that he argued with himself, but, as he had pointed out, we were abundantly different. I tried not to listen in, but when he started telling himself that he could live like this for a bit, I wondered how long he considered that timeline.

We would both survive on the rations he had stashed here, but we wouldn't be very happy. His food seemed to be extremely subpar, and my lubrication stash would definitely not have me performing at optimal levels.

“I will get a fire going. The temperature is moderated a bit by all the trees, but it does get chilly at night.” Quinn grabbed what looked to be a wax-filled piece of toilet paper roll and began to light it on fire among the smallest of the logs. “We can talk about what we will do in the morning. I think I need a good night's sleep before I try and reason out what we are going to do for the long term.”

I sat up and crossed my legs over each other to give my body proper stability. “So you do not wish to discuss anything tonight?”

“No, I…” Quinn stopped talking when he turned around to look at me.

I looked down at my body. I wasn't leaking anywhere, and after the incident at the bar, I found myself much less tingly around Quinn.

“You told me to get comfortable.”

Quinn looked up at the ceiling and put his hands on his hips. I looked up at the large beams. The cabin was very solidly constructed. I don't know why he was checking on the structure. It would most definitely hold for hundreds of years.

“Coral, comfortable does not mean naked.”

“So you wish me to get dressed again?”

“Please.”

Quinn really needed to get more comfortable with nudity. His mechanics makeup would be far better maintained if he used a regimen like mine. I told him so.

“I might be mechanics underneath, but my skin is still all human.” He thought about it for a second, while looking at the ceiling. “I think. They did inject me a lot and I was unconscious for most of the operations, but they didn't tell me about any alterations to my skin.”

“They would need to strengthen it to contain the amount of mechanics you have. Didn't you say your legs and arms were replaced after amputation in battle?”

Quinn thought about that and frowned.

“I'm dressed. No need to crane your neck to avoid my nudity any longer.”

Then his frown was aimed at me. “I wasn't avoiding your nudity. I was attempting to be a gentleman.”

“I am not asking you for an orgasm. I find myself less aroused around you after your comments. I am simply more comfortable nude. My skin gets marks on it from clothing, and I try to abrade the surface as little as possible to ensure good maintenance.” I looked around. There really was nowhere for me to go and get out of his way.

“I guess I deserve that.” Quinn walked up to me and took my hands. “Coral, I didn't mean what I said at the club like you think I did. I know you are not a pleasure bot. I was trying to tell myself it wasn't right to want you like I do. I shouldn't want to touch you as much as I do, and keeping my hands to myself is not easy when you feel so good beneath my fingers.”

Then my skin wasn't quite as unresponsive to him.

“I am not that different from you. One organ does not make up a person.”

“Can we not talk about my genitals?”

“I meant your brain.”

Quinn looked back to the ceiling for a moment. “Sometimes for men it's pretty much the same thing.”

“Your brain is in your genitals?”

Quinn let go of my hands and grabbed my face. The sensors didn't care that I was upset with his assumptions and comments. My data collection seemed to go off the charts when he was near and my systems just shut down. I couldn't gather any more input than his touch on my skin. I didn't want to. There were a lot of things we should discuss, but Quinn didn't want to talk about that until morning, and when his thumb brushed over my lower lip, all I wanted was his kiss.

“Coral, I don't think you are malfunctioning. I think you have advanced beyond the mechanics you began with, and I want to be with you in all kinds of ways I shouldn't.”

“What kind of ways? And why shouldn't you be with me?” I found my internal cooling system failing at his words.

“You know any relationship between human and mechanics, other than that of possession, is illegal. I'm not usually one to break laws.” The iris mechanism in his eyes widened. He showed me more of himself with just a wind of a gear than I'd ever imagined could be viewed from a person. “You're worth breaking laws for, Coral. You're worth creating new ones for, and you're worth running away from it all if we need to.”

Because my creation was documented, my identification paperwork listed me as a mechanical citizen. I was to be owned for the rest of my existence. I was an asset to be left to other humans in wills. I would never have the rights to be paid a salary, or given a chance to live on my own. That was just the way it was.

If Quinn believed me to be more than a mechanical being, if he believed that I had advanced beyond what was normal for a machine to do for itself, he was required by law to send me to the very place he had stolen me from today.

“You want to own me?”

“I want you to be human.”

“You shouldn't want things that are impossible.” I pulled away from him before he caused my eyes to leak again. This was all Paisley's fault. I knew I had begun to change, and I knew that I had the desire to be more and to experience more, but I never knew the pain when I would come so close to getting those things and have them ripped away.

“Coral, you are not just mechanics.” He cocked his head to the side and looked me up and down. “There is some kind of grey area between human and machine inside you. You're straddling a line that I don't think anyone understands is possible to straddle. I think I might be in that grey area with you.”

“What do you mean? You are human. Your birth gives you that status.”

“The way we come into this world is not something we control, Coral. I was born. I had a childhood and grew up. But after all the alterations to my body,” He pointed to his head, “and after all the equipment that had to be installed in my brain to run it, I don't know if I can call myself human any longer.”

“Is that why your body is attracted to mine?”

“My body is attracted to yours because you're sexy.”

There was no standard definition of sexy. There were no dimensions or quantifiable points that could be used to determine if someone was sexy. It was all in the eyes of the human using the word. I knew I met standard cultural norms for attractiveness, but it took more than that for someone to be sexy.

“Paisley told me that if a guy thinks you're sexy it is because his body is responding to yours on a base level. On a level that is an evolutionary need to procreate. I cannot have offspring.”

“I can't either. There was too much damage to that area of my body. Tubes tore, things burst. It was a very unpleasant thing, but I have come to terms with it.” Quinn pulled me towards him. “You are a bit of the reason I have.”

“What did I do?” I asked, because I seemed to have impacted this man on a very deep level. Usually the only help I offered someone was a clean towel and a scrubbed baseboard. To help someone with their life? That gave me a satisfaction that I had never felt from work. Whatever I did for him, I wanted to keep doing it, or do it again.

“You showed me the grey area.”

“The east wing?”

Quinn laughed. “No. You showed me that there is more than one way to be alive.”

Then he kissed me. His lips pressed against mine, and all my circuitry went haywire. His tongue slipped between my lips and he pressed it forward until we were both trying to caress the other harder.

Quinn was breathless when he pulled back. “I don't have to temper myself with you. I'm stronger than a normal human, I am faster, and I have a bit less control at times. Mostly, when I'm around you.”

“Quinn, what's going to happen to me? What are you planning on doing?”

He released my face. “You're right. I shouldn't try and use you to forget about what I need to do. We should talk before I…”

I am not skilled at reading emotions and intentions in humans. Paisley tried to educate me, even Miss Matilda attempted to explain certain emotional expressions to me. I never understood what people wanted from their faces. But here, in this cabin, I didn't even need Quinn's whole face to know what he wanted. I saw the desire in his eyes as the gears in his irises widened, and I recognized the need for physical contact. That was what I had portrayed in his room when I couldn't help but want him to touch me.

I wanted to touch him, but I needed to know that I wasn't touching someone who thought me just a machine. I didn't think of myself as one anymore. Desire to be something more, desire to achieve a goal, even desire in itself was a human emotion. I had desire inside of me. It might not make me fully human by itself, but it made me human enough.

If Quinn wanted to touch me again, and I really wanted that, he needed to recognize that. Otherwise, when he touched my body he wouldn't be giving me a gift, he would be taking advantage of one I gave him. Huh. I guess I did understand what he meant when he mentioned being taken advantage of.

“Am I human to you?” I looked at Quinn and he didn't seem to be able to form words. “I will never be human to the rest of the world. I will never have the same existence as other people you will interact with. I know that.”

“Coral, I don't even know if I am human anymore.” He pulled my body against his and he had an erection, but it was his arms that fascinated me. The way he held me wasn't keeping me prisoner, it was as if he was clinging to me. It was like he needed me to hold him up. “I know that you make me feel more human than any person I have touched in the last decade. I don't know what to do about that.”

“You could touch me again.”

“It's so hard thinking differently than the very government I fought for. I'm going against some of the very laws I fought to protect.” He looked up at me and I could see that he was struggling. “I care about you, but I don't know if I can be enough for you. I'm trying to find where I fall on this spectrum of humanity. If I let myself be with you in that way…I have to admit that you're human, or that I'm not.”

“Why does the terminology matter if this is what we both want? And I really want to do this.” I let him consider my words. What if he was attempting to back out of sex and I was making this awkward? “But only if you want to have sex too.”

He apparently wanted to. Quinn's lips found mine. Parts of his body seemed to move independently of his consciousness at times. I could feel his heartbeat beneath my hands. I could hear the faint click of his mechanics as he wrapped himself around me, and I could feel the hardness against my stomach. I wasn't soft in very many places, but I wanted to feel that hardness in the one place I knew was soft for him.

I was getting wet again. It was attraction, it was arousal, and even though neither of us was human enough in many eyes to properly use the term, I thought it was damn sexy.

Suddenly his arms released me and he stepped back. I was about to argue, until he took off his shirt.

“You are so beautifully symmetrical.” I frowned as I looked down his body. “Except when you wear pants. Your penis is too big for your pants and you don't look as symmetrical when you wear pants.”

Quinn smiled. Then he took off his pants.

His penis bounced against his stomach muscles before leveling itself my way. I reached forward and touched him. My hand wound around him and the feel beneath my fingers was fantastic. His skin felt soft and velvety, but beneath the surface was such hardness. I slid my fist back and forth over him and enjoyed the feeling of the dichotomy in my hand. It made him even harder beneath the skin, and I loved it.

Quinn's hand grabbed mine. “Coral, you have to stop that.”

I frowned. “Why? I am enjoying it. I thought when a man's penis becomes erect it means he is experiencing pleasure as well.”

“Coral, if I experience any more pleasure, I won't be able to give you any.”

“Oh, I highly doubt that.”

My confidence made Quinn smile. Then he made me let go of his penis and placed my hands down at my sides. “Can you keep your hands here for a minute? Or if you want to touch me, just keep them above my waist?”

“Of course. But I will get to touch your manhood again, right?”

Quinn groaned. “Fuck. Yes. But can you call it something else?”

I scrambled to find the words to please him. “Paisley calls them lots of things. I can start asking to stroke your cock instead. Is that more pleasurable for you?”

Quinn's cock bobbed at my words. Did his cock just agree?

“It's no wonder people haven't asked you to expand your vocabulary. It makes you even sexier.”

Quinn found my talk about his body sexy? Very interesting data.

“So,” I definitely needed to test this theory. “If I were to say that I want your cock to slam into my pussy…if I were to tell you that I wanted you to fuck my body and make me come, would that increase your arousal?”

Quinn decided words were not needed any longer. And truly, they weren't. His cock slapped his stomach with his sudden increase in blood flow. I knew that he was sexually excited by my words.

My line of sight was interrupted for a moment as Quinn slipped my shirt over my head. I hadn't bothered with the bra. He kissed my neck. My sensors nearly exploded at the sudden increase of pleasurable sensations.