Robot Adept

Fleta flung herself back at him, clasping him tightly. “Thee, thee, thee!” she cried, her bravery abolished.

There was a ripple around them. Then the exchange happened. There was something strange about it; this was no ordinary event. But it was too late to reverse it; whatever was to happen, was happening.

Chapter 2 Proton

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They took their places on either side of the console. Bane’s screen showed a grid with sixteen boxes. Across the top was written 1. PHYSICAL 2. MENTAL 3. CHANCE 4. ARTS, and down the left side was written A. NAKED B. TOOL C. MACHINE D. ANIMAL. The numbered words were highlighted, which meant that he was supposed to choose from among them.

But his mind drifted, conjuring different interpretations for the terms.

Physical: He looked across at Agape, who was naked in the serf mode of Proton, as was he. She was beautiful, with curling yellow tresses, wide-spaced eyes with yellow irises, and erect breasts. It was hard to believe that she wasn’t human.

She met his gaze. Her hair lengthened and turned golden, then orange. Her eyes nudged closer together, as did her breasts, and her nipples brightened to match the new hair and eye color. She smiled.

Mental: “Thou hast no need to change for me,” he murmured, smiling back. “I be smitten with thee regardless.” But now it was easier to believe that she was alien. Agape, accented on the first of the three syllables, meaning “love.”

Her hair continued to grow, becoming red, and it curled down across and around her breasts, which were gaining mass. “Make your move, Bane,” she said.

He looked again at his grid, pondering. His mood was lightening, as perhaps she intended, but it was not easy to set aside the gravity of their situation.

Chance: Bane was with the creature he loved, but he had little joy of it, because she would soon be leaving the planet and his life. Citizen Blue had made it plain: as long as Mach and Bane represented the only contact between the frames of Proton and Phaze, and the Contrary Citizens and Adverse Adepts desired such contact, the boys were probably safe. But their girlfriends were at risk, because they could be kidnaped and used to put pressure on the boys. Therefore the relationships had to be sundered, lest much worse occur. It was risky for them to maintain their association.

Agape had agreed to return to her home planet, Moeba. But the Contrary Citizens were watching, and would surely try to intercept her at the port and take her captive. So for the nonce she remained with the experimental group, and Bane had the benefit of her company. Every day might be the last together, so they did their best to make it count.

Arts: Today they were playing the Game. They had had a bad experience with it on the estate of Citizen Purple, but now they had the chance to play it as it should be played, unrigged, for fun instead of for life. It was fairly new to each of them, because Bane was from another frame and Agape was from another world. Neither was what either appeared to be; each was fashioned artistically to be on the appealing side of ordinary.

Her breasts caught his eye again, just above the level of the console. Now they were huge and purple.

He laughed. “Thou be trying to distract me!” he accused her. “So I may make a bad choice!”

“Curses, foiled again,” she muttered. She had studied hard to learn human idiom as well as custom, and seemed to enjoy showing off her increasing mastery of both.

“I want to make love to thee,” he said, experiencing a reaction.

“You did that this morning,” she reminded him. “Have you forgotten already?”

“Nay, I remember! That be why I want it again.”

“Well, defeat me in the game, and you can do with me what you will.”

“But what if I lose?” he asked.

“Then I will do with you what I will.”

He reflected on that, and his erection doubled its growth. A passing couple noticed. “I’d like to know what game they’re getting!” the man said.

Too late, Bane remembered that he was now able to control such reactions. He thought the correct thought, and his member subsided. But his desire remained, for he could not control his mind as readily as his body.

He touched the number 1. PHYSICAL. He wanted to get physical with her, in or out of the game.

She had already made her selection. It was B. TOOL. Was she teasing him with another idiom, because of the reaction he had just quelled?

He grimaced. The way his thoughts were going, he would have preferred A. NAKED. Of course that wasn’t literal; it simply meant that the players were relegated to their bare hands. All serfs of Proton were unclothed; that had no significance here. It had taken him some time to get used to this, but now he accepted it.

A new set of boxes appeared on his screen. This was the Secondary Grid, and its numbers across the top were labeled 5. SEPARATE 6. INTERACTIVE 7. COMBAT 8. COOPERATIVE. Down the side were E. EARTH F. FIRE G. GAS H. H2O. The letters were highlighted for him this time.