SAINT

Last updated: Monday, 21 January 2002.  Word count: 29,085

 

WWW.CULTURESHOCKONLINE.CO.UK

 

 

ONE
 

  Senhi was fifteen when she bought her Trance helmet.  At the time, the machines were new, primitive, and legal.  There were no viruses, no corruption, and only respectable family entertainment programs – harmless fun, designed as a break from the stress of real life, just like most games.

  She bounded up to the counter, russet hair bobbing in a ponytail behind her.  Joss gave her his usual weary grin, his usual cup of tyn resting predictably in one hand, the other propping him up on the counter.

  “Hello again,” he yawned, his mouth snapping shut with a wet chopping noise.  “And what can I do for you today?”

  “FireSoul six,” said Senhi, leaning close over the counter, her grin wide across her face.  “Today’s the day, yeah?”

  Joss’ eyes rolled towards the ceiling, his lips pursed into deep contemplation.  “Yeah,” came the dramatically sighed answer.  “And the delivery came through yesterday, so yes, we do have it in stock.”

  Senhi grinned.  “I don’t have to tell you twice, do I?” she said, sticking her tongue between her lips.

  Joss chuckled despite himself.  He reached below the counter and brought up the reading gun.  An inch away from Senhi’s tongue, he suddenly stopped short, his grin spreading wider.

  “What?” lisped Senhi, her tongue still poking towards the reader’s probe.

  “I think I have something else you’ll be interested in,” said Joss.

  Senhi’s tongue slipped back inside her mouth.  “I know that slippery, Dodgy Geezer tone.  Unfortunately, on this occasion I might have to turn you down…”

  “Oh, I doubt that,” said Joss, shaking his head.  “Not today”

  “I’ve been waiting for FireSoul 6 for months, Joss!” wailed Senhi.  “I really doubt anything you can show me will make me change my mind”

  “Then you won’t object to me showing you what I was going to offer, then, will you?”

  Senhi smiled, bespectacled eyes narrowing slightly.  “All right,” she agreed, “let’s see it.”

  Joss put down the reader gun and reached below the counter with both hands.  “I anticipated you coming in today,” he said.  “I wanted to give you first refusal on this…”

  He brought up a slightly battered cardboard box, thumping it down onto the counter.  “I haven’t got the original box, but it’s got its manuals and cables and everything…”

  “Is that what I think it is?” murmured Senhi, awe creeping into her hushed tone.

  “It certainly is,” enthused Joss.  “My old X-450.  Served me well over the past few months.  You know, if I hadn’t gotten a new X-675 for free, I would have kept it”

  “You’re selling your old Trance helmet?” mumbled Senhi, reaching for the box.  “Can I have a look?”

  “Yeah, sure.  Go right ahead,” said Joss, curling a finger around the handle of his tyn mug.

  “I’ve never even tried one of these before,” said Senhi, lifting the helmet from the box.  A satisfying weight; light enough for comfort, heavy enough to feel satisfyingly complex and expensive.  It was a gunmetal grey, the manufacturer’s name imprinted in polished silver.  Nothing more than a dull silver band that hugged around her head like a crown, with a bridge over the top and some ports hidden behind a sliding panel.

  “Go on, try it on,” urged Joss, smiling.  “See if it makes you look just as much a fool as I did”

  Senhi smirked, resting the helmet on her head.  Pads of soft, black foam rubber rested between the metal and her hair.

  “I replaced the pads and stuff, ‘cause they were a bit worn-out.  So it’s pretty much like it was straight from the factory.  All right, hold it still”

  “It’s too big, Joss”

  “Just hold it still for a moment”

  There was a faint whirring sound, and the helmet hugged Senhi’s head, the fit suddenly snug.

  She laughed to cover her surprise.  “That’s so freaky!  So, um…  How much?”

  “Well, put it this way.  I’ve played FireSoul 6 – and if I let you buy that game today, you’re gonna lose faith in the whole FireSoul series.  That’d be a terrible thing, ‘cause apart from this latest one, they’re all excellent games.  I’d wait for FireSoul 7, which is already in development, and maybe pick this one up when it’s in the bargain bin for twelve and a half credits.  But I know you’re not gonna want to walk away empty-handed.”  He smiled.  “So today, just so you’re not disappointed, I’d like to give you my Trance hat, plus all the dozens of games I’ve downloaded for it, and all the accessories that came with it, for the same price as FireSoul 6.  Sound funky?”

  “Very funky,” said Senhi, sticking her tongue out.

  “No, mate - no tongues, no DNA scans – private sale.  Nothing to do with my little shop.  We’ll do it the old-fashioned way, if that’s okay with you”

  “Fine by me,” enthused Senhi, holding out her hand.  Joss extended his.

  Their fingertips met.  Their watches let out two short bleeps.

  “Thanks very much,” said Joss, glancing at his watch’s display, while Senhi checked hers.

  “No, thank you,” said Senhi, putting her helmet back in the box.  “Well, I’m gonna try this out!  See ya later, Joss…” she grinned, turning around.

  “See ya, Senhi,” murmured Joss, watching her denim-clad tail sway with her footsteps, an appreciative smile on his face.

 

  Grinning, Senhi stepped out into the street.  A fresh breeze ruffled through her cream fur, playing in her chocolate hair.  The electric tang of threatened snow rushed through the air, and Senhi breathed it in, smiling.  She began to walk towards the next stop on her New Year shopping list.

  Something made her hesitate.  No, not just something… The mysterious, inviting weight inside that smooth, white carrier bag.  She wanted to… try it out.  As soon as possible.  The gifts for her family could wait; right now, she wanted to treat herself.

  She decided that she had done enough shopping for today; it was a little early to be buying New Year gifts anyway.  So she turned and set off for the bus stop, conscious of the comfortable weight of her new toy.

  The sight of other people gradually became a rarity as she reached the outskirts of the town centre, away from the shops.  She sat down on one of the hard, plastic fold-down seats at the bus shelter and slid the sides of the carrier bag down over the edges of the box.

  There it lay, in her lap.  She looked around.  The street was almost deserted; a few chip wrappers danced along the pavement on the opposite side of the road, attacked by filthy street birds.  Some strangers walked by, most holding carrier bags and paying her no notice.

  Senhi turned her amber, bespectacled eyes back to the box that lay in her lap, the open top flapping a little.  She laid the box on its side and dragged out the block of polystyrene, some fragments falling like warm, chemical snow to her feet, rolled and tossed by the wind.

  There was a little clear packet with several instruction manuals inside, and an unmarked, probably even untouched warranty card – Joss never bothered with those.  She put it down on the seat beside her and lifted the top of the block, parting the two halves of polystyrene.

  It lay gleaming in front of her.  With great care, she lifted it from the polystyrene.

  The weight was perfect.  The coldness of it – that was somehow perfect, too.  She turned it over and over in her hands for a moment, before setting it like a crown on her head.  Pieces stuck out from the side like wings, with miniature speakers embedded in them.  They folded in easily over her ears.

  A sudden voice made her jolt in alarm.  “What’ve you got there, Senhi?”

  Senhi’s heart began to pound.  She knew that voice.

  Her name was Arrma.  Senhi didn’t have to turn around to know that the others would be there, too.  Ihama, Lemi, and Felt.  They always travelled in packs.

  She hastily took the helmet off her head.  Trying to keep her voice level, she choked out a terrified “Hello” as she turned around.

  Arrma was extremely popular with the guys.  Her long, thick tail, swishing provocatively at the boys when the teachers weren’t looking, made sure of that.  The word “SLUT!” made an appearance in the one part of Senhi’s soul that still had some strength, and she tried her best to suppress it.

  Her hair was shoulder-length and blonde, and her fur, the same colour as Senhi’s, shone with a healthy gloss; unlike her own, which had dulled with stress over the past few years.  Arrma stared at her with cold cobalt eyes for a moment, before shifting her gaze downwards.

  Arrma stood with her three usual friends, staring at what lay in Senhi’s lap.  “Oh, Senhi…” she began, her tone dripping with arrogance, “Don’t tell me you’ve bought one of these awful things” she continued as she took the helmet from her.

  Senhi didn’t protest.  She knew what would happen if she did.

  “What is it?” asked Ihama.  “A bike helmet?”

  “No, this is worse,” sighed Arrma, turning it over and over in her hands, “They call it an Immersion Helmet.  It’s a toy for people who don’t have real lives” she said dismissively, grinning wickedly.

  “Oh, like Senhi, you mean?” offered Lemi.

  They began to laugh.  “Yeah, exactly like Senhi!” chuckled Arrma.  “Senhi, why the hell did you buy this?” she said between giggles.  “Do you realise how stupid you look?”

  Senhi was silent, a pressure aching in her throat.

  Arrma stopped laughing, her expression hardening along with her tone.  “I’m talking to you, Senhi”

  “No, I didn’t,” offered Senhi, feeling the tears welling up, her voice small and vulnerable, quavering slightly.

  “So, what should we do with it?” said Felt.  “You’d be even more of a sad case if you ever used this”

  “I think this would be the best thing to do, Senhi, for your sake” said Arrma, pitching the machine into the bin next to the bus stop.  “Come on then, girls, can’t waste time.  Leave her to her computer stuff”

  They strolled off, chuckling.  Senhi felt a line of dampened fur begin to appear down her cheek, and struggled to suppress the sobs.  When she was sure they were gone, she stood up and plucked the helmet from the bin, dusting off the cigarette ash with her sleeve before cradling the machine to her chest.

  She realised her bus was coming around the corner.  Hastily, she repackaged the helmet and removed her glasses to wipe her eyes.

 

  Senhi was bullied to the point where even the slightest confrontation could reduce her to tears.  At that moment she lay on her bed, her glasses on her bedside table, tears dampening her pillow.  Soft rock from her stereo drowned her sobs.

  Everything about Arrma was perfect.  She had just turned sixteen, whereas Senhi would have to wait another two months.  Her body had changed so much faster than Senhi’s, and it wasn’t like Arrma ever tried to hide it, or was ever shy of her physical maturity.

  Senhi was what her mother would call a late bloomer.  The single thing she came to hate the most about high school was getting changed for games lessons; unlike the other, confident girls who thought nothing of strolling around in their underwear, she would always turn to face the corner while struggling quickly into her P.E. kit, hiding herself from the others.  She usually avoided showers after games lessons, but there had been a couple of times when it was necessary… Talk about a nightmare.  The memories of the other girls’ taunts still kept her awake some nights.

  Senhi’s watch let out a few quiet bleeps.  Sniffling, she let her tearful eyes up from the pillow and pulled out a drawer in her bedside cabinet.

  She removed the case that lay inside, glaring in a hard shade of white.  Setting it down on the bed, she shrugged off her jacket, exposing the tiny shaved area on the inside of her elbow.

  Senhi released the catch and the case yawned open, the auto-injector gleaming inside.

  She gripped it tightly, setting the point against her bare flesh, and clicked the button.  It only took a quarter of a second for the machine to pierce her vein and flush the chemical into her, allowing her to cheat death for another day.

  The pain was familiar; every day at five o’clock, she would rupture her skin with the machine, fearful of what she knew would happen if she didn’t.  The disease had been with her since birth; her earliest memories involved the clicking of the machine in her mother’s hand, and the sudden bolt of pain.

  It wasn’t so bad, really; the needle sliding into her flesh every day didn’t taunt and humiliate her first, trying to make her cry.  It simply injected its serum into her - in complete privacy, unlike the public humiliation Arrma delighted in putting her through - and then cleaned itself and went back into the drawer, ready to meet her again tomorrow.

  Senhi wished she could pack Arrma away in a little white case and put her in a drawer somewhere.

  Arrma had lost her virginity at fourteen.  At the time, this had shocked Senhi.  That was far, far too young.  What made it even worse was the open way she discussed it in lessons when the teachers were out of the room, much to the appreciation of the hormone-crazed guys.  Senhi knew she was doing it just to make her feel inadequate, and it didn’t really work – she knew, she would save herself for someone whom she really loved, unlike Arrma who would sleep with anyone she got the chance to.

  Arrma, however, had thrown her opinions in Senhi’s face, telling Senhi that she would never get the chance.  That no boy would ever want to sleep with her.

  Senhi knew, and told herself on many occasions, that it shouldn’t have upset her so much.  Sex didn’t matter to her; she held different values to Arrma.  But nonetheless, she had prayed for the teacher to come back into the room, to save her the humiliation.

  The whole class was watching.  Waiting for her reaction.

  Her throat was burning, her eyes filling up.  Nobody would ever love you enough, Senhi…  Nobody would even want you as a one-night stand, you disgusting skank…

  Although Senhi always thought that it wouldn’t, something about what Arrma had said had really hit a nerve.  She had left her desk and ran out of the room, laughs and taunts echoing in her ears.

  What was worse, were the complications that arose afterwards – the teacher had returned to find her sobbing outside the room, leaning against the wall with her hands over her face, and had naturally wanted to know what had happened.  Senhi couldn’t tell him…  It would be too hard to repeat the things they had said to her.  And she knew what they would do to her if she did.

  She knew she should have taken it calmly; she knew, deep down, that she shouldn’t take any notice of anything Arrma said, but…

  After being told so many times that she was worthless, she began to believe it.  She was strong at first, but after so much bullying and taunting, she began to think that perhaps they had a reason to hate her – why else would they be so cruel to her?  After all, Arrma was beautiful.  And Arrma was loved.

  And Arrma was right.

 

  Data transfer cable…
  Senhi went through the equipment checklist, mentally ticking off each item.  She picked up the black cable from the box and glanced at the connectors.

  She turned her gaze back to the contents checklist.  Mains adaptor for recharging, Warranty card…  Software on Solid State Data Cartridge…  She tugged out an SSDC, glanced at the label and checked that it was set to read-only.

  Game option controller…
  She picked out a small handset, with several buttons and a small display screen set into it.

  She reached the end of the list.  Right, now what?

  She turned the page.

 

  Chapter One - Introduction

  Thank you for Purchasing an Entertainment Arts X450 Immersion Helmet.  All of Us at Entertainment Arts hope that Your new Helmet will provide You with many years of Quality Entertainment…

 
  Geez, these guys like their capital letters…
  Senhi flicked through the manual, trying to find something less patronising.

  Aha!  Right, what games do I get with this thing…
 

  Chapter Six – Included Games

  Your Immersion Helmet comes with several Games pre-loaded.  You can Download new Games from our Web Site, or Purchase them from Licensed Retail Outlets…

 

  “So, “Shops” is what you’re saying, yeah?” muttered Senhi, pitching the manual back into the box and picking up the helmet.

 

  Senhi lay in her bed, her eyes closed.  Speakers folded in over her ears, and the helmet adjusted to a snug fit, she was quite comfortable.

  The safety warnings in the manual (and her own common sense) had recommended a prone position, so, being already in her bedroom, Senhi had changed into her pyjamas and snuggled into bed, the only place she really felt truly safe nowadays.

  She felt her heart pounding faster as she became more aware of the fresh, damp caress of dewy grass around her back.  Taking a deep breath, she realised with sudden awe that she could actually smell it.

  A voice in her ear told her that the adjustment period was over, and that she could start the Immersion program now.  Senhi grinned, trying to find the game controller.  After a few moments of blindly fumbling around beneath her quilt, her fingers closed around it and she pressed the Activate switch with a satisfying click.

  She knew her eyes were still shut.  That’s why she was so scared when a bright blue sky flashed in front of her, and long grass suddenly surrounded her.  The speed with which it had appeared was a little disturbing, but the scene was tranquil.

  Perhaps… Although it did feel strange to think this… A little too tranquil.  Unnaturally so, in fact.  She propped herself on her elbows, looking around.  She lay on a hill, overlooking…

  More hills.  Nothing else.  No trees, no rivers…  This looked like something a child had drawn.  Bright green hills devoid of rocks or muddy patches, sheer blue sky with fluffy white clouds floating perfectly still…  She got to her feet, noting that her pyjamas had been replaced with the T-shirt, jeans, trainers and denim hinnai[1] she wore during the day.

  Becoming aware of a sudden presence behind her, she turned around.

  Red-eyed, pony-tailed and fur of muddy green, a tall and professional-looking guy of about sixteen stood before her, a gentle smile on his lips.  She blinked once or twice.  She knew this boy.  She knew him better than anyone else did – because nobody else knew him.

  “Are you…?” began Senhi.

  “Yeah.  Your tour guide,” he said charmingly, bowing to her.  “At your service”

  Senhi blushed a little beneath her fur, a shy grin appearing.  This was the boy who had kept her company on the tearful nights after terrifying school days; lying in her bed crying into her pillow, he would hold her and whisper comforting words into her ear.  She already knew his name; she was the one who had given it to him.

  “My name is Retarka,” he said.  “What’s yours?”

  “Senhi” she said, a little nervously.

  “Nice to meet you, Senhi.  So, let’s make a start,” he said cheerfully.  “For the past ten minutes, you’ve been gradually becoming more and more aware of your Immersion world.  You’ve noticed the feel of the grass against your back, the warm sun on your face.  The helmet comes pre-loaded with a world that would put you at ease, as a loading scene”

  “Like an operating system?” offered Senhi, still a little shocked at his appearance.

  “Yeah, that’s right.  You’ll notice you can still feel the pillow against the back of your head, and the sheets around you.  That’s because the shift from reality to total immersion is best taken slowly, so for safety reasons this helmet will take up to thirty minutes to put you into a deep Trance”

  “Uh huh… What’s a deep Trance?”

  Retarka hesitated for a moment, before continuing.  “A deep trance is like a dream, where in reality you remain conscious.  The helmet will gradually remove the feel of your sheets and pillow, and any background noise, so you don’t get distracted.  However, if the status of what you can and can’t feel actually changes, like if someone gives you a shake, then the helmet will allow you to feel it.  It works by remembering what you’ve been feeling for a long time, and then deleting those sensations so that they don’t distract you when you’re having fun.  The same goes for sound; if you hear something new, like someone calling you, the helmet won’t block it out like it does with background noise.  Unless you fall asleep, that is”

  “What happens if I fall asleep?”

  Retarka performed the same curious, frozen hesitation, before speaking once more, a more serious expression suddenly crossing over his face.  “You must take precautions to ensure that you do not fall asleep when using your Immersion helmet.  It’s a good idea to have a cup of Tyn before you play”

  “Why?”

  Retarka hesitated.  His eyes seemed to stare with an unnerving coldness, although his tone was still charming.  “Could you rephrase that, please?”

  “Why mustn’t I fall asleep?” asked Senhi, uneasy now.  The boy was the same Retarka whose chest had been simulated with a pillow, the same Retarka she still needed to imagine every now and again, just to take her mind off her misery, to help her sleep - but he was being told what to say by a machine that wasn’t doing an absolutely convincing job of making him seem alive.

  Senhi suddenly began to feel rather lonely.

  “If you fall asleep while playing a game, for safety reasons you will not be able to return from the game until you awaken naturally,” said Retarka.  “To ensure that you stay conscious, and help you to keep track of how long you’ve been playing, the speakers next to your ears will sound a brief alarm once every half an hour.  The alarm sounds like this”

  Three loud bleeps pierced through Senhi’s ears, making her jump.  She cringed.

  “That’s bloody loud, Retarka!”

  Retarka grinned.  “I know,” he chuckled.  “It’s for your own safety, Senhi.  Oh, by the way… One of the most commonly asked questions is: what happens if, in reality, my body needs me?  What if I’m in danger, or get hungry, or have to go to the bathroom?”

  Senhi blushed.  But Retarka had a point – the possibility of slaying vicious dragons and saving defenceless hunks in cyberworld didn’t seem quite so romantic if, back in real life, she’d wet her PJ’s, half-starved, and her house had burned down around her.

  “And the answer is,” continued Retarka,  “you’ll feel inner sensations like hunger just like you would when you’re awake.  So you don’t have to worry about that.  Now,” he said eagerly, “What would you like to play?”

  Senhi paused.  “What have I got pre-installed?”

  Retarka turned around and shifted his gaze upwards.  Senhi followed his stare.  “The pre-loaded games are…  Adrenaline Bike” said Retarka, as a picture of a powerful-looking full-fairing race bike appeared against the sky.  “That’s a motorcycle racing game.  You can race sleek power bikes up to 1500cc around the world’s most famous racing stadiums, or tackle the most demanding off-road courses on powerful scramblers from 125cc to 400cc.  All the bikes are authentic, just as in real life”

  Senhi grinned, allowing a small impressed “Hmm!” to escape.

  “Or, there’s Test-Pass,” said Retarka as a picture of a tiny metallic yellow hatchback sporting “L” plates appeared in place of the motorcycle – “Learn to drive responsibly and carefully in this safe, controlled environment, and pass your driving test quicker”

  Senhi hesitated, a vaguely disgusted look on her face.  “Perhaps that’ll come in useful someday, but… It’s not really what I bought this helmet for.  What else have we got?”

  “Power Chess”

  “Ugh…” she muttered, shaking her head.  “I can play that anytime I want.  This is supposed to be about stuff I can’t do in real life”

  “Jetski Rampage”

  “Yeah, what else?”

  “Clay Sky Bird”

  “That some kind of shooting game?  It sounds foreign”

  “Yeah, and… yeah”

  “Next,” muttered Senhi, her eyes narrowed.

  “Olympic Sporting Challenge”

  “I’m not really the athletic type”

  “You could be, Senhi.  That’s what this whole experience is about.  Discovering your hidden potential, and making it fun and safe”

  Senhi paused for a moment, considering.  “Maybe.  Perhaps not today, though,” she sighed.  “What else do I get?”

  A picture of a flaming boxing glove appeared in the sky.  “Super Bash-Bash Boxing Hunk”

  Senhi snorted out an abrupt laugh.  “I can’t really see myself boxing,” she giggled.

  “Fishing Frenzy?” offered Retarka, hopefully.

  Senhi raised one eyebrow[2] in a dubious stare.  “How can you apply the word “Frenzy” to something like fishing?  What else?”

  “Eternal Quest.  That’s a fantasy RPG, from the creators of…”

  Senhi held up a hand, her eyes widened.  “Wait, wait – did you say RPG?”

  “Yes”

  “Right,” she began, ecstatic, “I’ll have a quick go on that motorbike one, and then I’ll make a start on Eternal Quest”

  “Just as you say, Senhi” grinned Retarka.  “One moment, please”

  The Adrenaline Bike logo disappeared from the sky, and the world seemed to flicker a little.

  A black, rectangular hole, about Senhi’s size, appeared in the air beside Retarka with disconcerting abruptness.  Senhi shrank back, nervous.

  “Don’t worry,” said Retarka.  “Just remember; when you want to get out, you only have to press the Exit button on your handset and you’ll awake in your bed as if from sleep”

  “What handset… oh!”  Senhi was suddenly aware of the game controller handset pressing against her palm.  “Where on Earth[3] did that come from?”

  Retarka smiled.  “Don’t question the practicalities of this world… Just believe”

  Senhi looked down at the controller in her hand.  “What if I lose it?” she said, in a voice small and concerned.

  “You can’t.  Don’t worry about that.  Don’t worry about anything, Senhi.  You’re in good hands.  Just have fun”

  Her heart pounding, Senhi tucked the game controller into her pocket and peered into the black hole that had appeared in mid-air beside Retarka.  Hesitantly, she put out a hand and extended it into the darkness.

  “Get ready for the ride of your life,” whispered Retarka.

  Senhi stepped forward.

 

  The machine growling beneath her, Senhi felt much more confident than she would have done if it was real.  She had always wanted to ride a motorcycle, but was afraid to – but in an environment where nothing could hurt her, she had nothing to be scared of.  Plus, she always loved the clothes you get to wear as a biker; she had imagined herself wearing shock armour a few times, but had never really thought it would suit her, or she would ever get to try it on.

  She was wrong on both counts.  Soft, black, rubbery material hugged her body in a skin-tight one-piece suit, protecting her from any impact.  As an experiment, a few minutes ago she had placed her shock-armoured hand flat on the tarmac, picked up a wrench borrowed from the pit crew, raised it above her head and pounded the back of her hand as hard as she could.

  The wrench had bounced off the suddenly rock-solid armour, broken free of her grip and skittered over the tarmac.  Almost like a blood-blister blooming below skin, a crimson patch had appeared over the area she had struck, quickly fading back to black and becoming flexible again.  She had made her small, impressed hum, pleased with the protection that this suit offered in an accident.

  Not that there would be an accident, she reassured herself.  This was just a test lap, on a little 125cc bike used for training.  A practice run on a less-than-frisky machine, to get used to the controls and the handling.

  She’d taken a few minutes to have the controls explained to her by a game character; she had ridden a pedal-bike before, but she was assured that a heavy motorcycle was very different.

  The lights turned green.

  Remembering what she had been told, Senhi pulled in the clutch and pressed the tip of her calf-height armoured boot down against the gear lever.

  Wobbling a little, she opened the throttle, let the clutch out slightly and began to bunny-hop forwards, the front wheel jumping a few inches as she tried to get the machine’s revs under some sort of control.

  After a few more bunny-hops, she leaned forward, putting a little more weight on the front wheel, and pulled in the levers on both handlebars, applying the clutch and front brake.

  The machine pitched forward on its suspension as Senhi put her boot down, panting.

  “This is hard,” she muttered inside her helmet.

  Valiantly, she made another attempt.  She went through the same procedure, going a little easier on the throttle.  The bike pulled away quite smoothly, if a little wobbly, and Senhi felt a smile twitch at the sides of her mouth as she found her balance.  She opened the throttle a little more, accelerating along the straight section of track.  The time came to change gear, and she performed the change quite comfortably, although the machine did scream when she forgot to roll the throttle off.

  Second gear.  Senhi laughed.  She couldn’t believe how much fun this was.  More so than she had ever imagined.  Third gear.

  Forty miles per hour.  Fourth gear…

  The wind rushed through the fur on her neck, naked between her helmet and the collar of her shock armour.  It felt so much better than being in a car.

  Fifth gear.  She felt so liberated, so free… So excited.

  Senhi got into sixth gear, just less than eighty miles per hour.  She saw a bend in the track coming up; what had the man said about the brakes?

  Co-ordinate both brakes.  Twenty percent rear, eighty percent front… Or was it the other way around…?

  Senhi pressed hard on the rear brake.

  Something felt wrong immediately.  The back end of the bike began to weave, the wheel locked, tracing a line of smoking black rubber.

  Senhi panicked.  She pulled in the front brake as hard as she could.

  In response to the sudden application of the powerful twin disc brakes, the wheel stopped dead.  The tyre lost its traction on the tarmac, leaving a short black mark before natural physics laws dictated that Senhi be punished brutally for her mistake.  The front end snapped uncontrollably to the right, and Senhi kept going forward, her arms whipped sideways.

  The bike was horizontal before Senhi even knew that the wheel was locked.  It cartwheeled headlamp over tail-light, pieces of metal spinning off like a firework as Senhi screamed along the tarmac, tumbling and flapping like a rag doll.

  She spun in every direction, eventually going backwards as she smacked into the barrier on the outside of the corner.  There was a moment of blackness before she opened her eyes.

  With renewed terror, she noticed the heavy motorcycle still hurtling towards her, still spinning over and over on every axis, by now a lethal chaos of jagged, twisted metal.

  She opened her mouth to scream, but the air inside her lungs was knocked out as the bike thumped into her, a sickening crunch from her rib cage, the momentum of the machine pushing her backwards through the splintering barrier, pieces of wood and metal crunching apart.  She felt the presence of something cold inside her throat for a moment.

  She kept rushing backwards, the bike on top of her, wet ripping noises from her back mixing with metallic screeches, gradually slowing down.  A second or two later, she lay still, the dripping clutch lever sitting right in front of her.  Twisted but erect, the metal that wasn’t splattered with red was gleaming in the mid-afternoon summer sunlight.

  Senhi felt warm liquid dribble down her chest.  She reached up a gloved hand to her throat and felt it cautiously, then brought her fingers up into her field of vision and looked at them.  Her fingertips were bloody.

  Senhi became dimly aware of the black mist creeping around the edges of her vision.  She coughed feebly, splinters of rib slicing against her rapidly filling lungs.

  Crimson splattered inside her visor.

  She passed out.

 

  Senhi opened her eyes.

  She stared at the ceiling for a moment.

  Then she reached up to her neck.  A tentative feel told her that it was intact.  Soft fur whispered against her fingers where there had been a horrific, jagged opening, ripped by the tip of the bike’s clutch lever.

  Her heart raced as she contemplated whether it had actually hurt.  She had felt everything; the cold metal inside her throat, the splinters of wood hacking at her neck, the blood streaming down her mangled chest, and even the jagged shards of broken ribcage scratching wounds in her lungs… But none of it had actually hurt her.  She had never felt any pain.

  She lay with her hand on her throat for a little while longer.  Then, her fingers quivering and a nausea setting in, she reached up and removed the helmet.

 

Saint: I’ve bought a Trance helmet :)

Dodgy:  _WOW!_  How much did _that_ set you back?

Saint:  Not much.  I got a great deal. :)

Dodgy:  What’s it like?  Is it just how they say?

  Senhi leaned back in her chair.  

  How to put this?
  After a moment’s contemplation, she reached forward again and rested her fingers on the keyboard.  Another moment of thought, and her fingertips began to dance over the keys once more.

Saint:  It’s better.  I played one of the motorbike games today and I had an accident.  I crashed and got _really_ badly injured but it didn’t hurt, and I just woke up in my bed like it was a dream.

Dodgy:  Is it realistic?

Saint:  It’s more than realistic.  It’s real.  I mean, it feels totally, totally real.  Except without the pain.  It’s a bit scary, how real it is. :/

Dodgy:  Have you got any new games yet?

Saint:  No, not yet.  There’s an RPG you get with it for free, called Eternal Quest, so I’m gonna have a go on that first.

Dodgy:  I’ve heard of that.  They say it’s not much good.

  Senhi frowned, typing irritably.

Saint:  Well, what _do_ “they” say is good these days?

Dodgy:  I’ve heard of an online, multiple-user job called Utopia.  It’s supposed to be really good.

Saint:  Oh really?  And how much does that cost?

Dodgy:  I could get it for free. ;)

  Senhi smiled.

Saint:  You really live up to your name, Dodgy.  Yeah, of course, I’ll violate international law and download a cracked version, risking prosecution from lots of big corporations with expensive lawyers. ;)

Dodgy:  That’s my girl. ;) I’ll send ya the FTP link in yer E-mail.  Hang on…

  Senhi tutted.

Saint:  Hey!  Maybe I should start using <sarcasm> </sarcasm> tags with you!

Dodgy:  Are you sure?  MH says it’s the dog’s b0110©k$.

  Senhi’s eyebrows rose almost off her head.  Her fingers flew over the keys.

Saint:  MotorHeart has a Trance helmet?

  She waited impatiently for Dodgy’s reply.

Dodgy:  *sigh* - yes, your dear sweet MH has a Trance helmet. ;) How romantic.  You gonna go into Utopia and meet him?

Saint:  I’d be too shy!

  Senhi waited a few moments for Dodgy’s reply.

Dodgy:  Yeah?  You know, M8, one of these days I’m gonna mail him and _tell_ him you fancy him.  Then what’re you gonna do?  You’ve _got_ to get yourself more self-esteem, girl.  He thinks you’re gr8.  He told me himself that you and him get on really well.  Why not meet him in Utopia?  It’s not like it’s actual RL or anything.

  Senhi read Dodgy’s reply.  Then she grinned.

Saint:  What’s the link? :)

Dodgy:  Check yer E-mail.  See U L8R, M8. ;)

Saint:  See ya!

“Saint” has logged off chat.

 

  Senhi waited impatiently for the Utopia software to download.  She checked her mail in the meantime.

  A message from MotorHeart!

  She opened it immediately, a smile spreading across her face.

 

Subject: Trance?

Body:

Hey, Saint.  I hear you’ve just got yourself a Trance helmet! :)

Do you have the Utopia software?  Want me to show you around the place? ;)

~MotorHeart

 

  Senhi let out a tiny yelp of ecstasy, her eyes wide.

  Thank you, Dodgy!

  She hastily logged on to her instant messenger service.

  He was online!

 

Saint:  MotorHeart!

MotorHeart:  Hi, Saint!  Something told me you would be online right now. :)

Saint:  I’m just waiting for Utopia to D/L.

MotorHeart:  So… do we have a date?

  Senhi let out another tiny yelp of delight.  A date!  My first date!

Saint:  Yes!  Of course!  :)

MotorHeart:  Great!  :)  When do you want to meet?

  Senhi glanced at her watch.

  She stared at it for a second or so, to verify that she wasn’t mistaken.  It was far later than she had thought.  She laid her hands on the keys again.

Saint:  How about tomorrow @ six?

MotorHeart:  Fine by me. :)

  Senhi felt a tingly rush, closing her eyes and hissing an almost inaudible “Yesss!” before letting her fingers jump back onto the keys.

Saint:  Fantastic.  So what’s this Utopia like?  Is it realistic?

MotorHeart:  Oh GOD yes!  You wouldn’t believe it.  There are a few things here and there that don’t work properly, but it’s early days yet.

Saint:  I’ve had a go on that motorbike racing game.  Seems pretty real to me.

MotorHeart:  Yeah, it’s weird.  The little things here and there that aren’t quite right are really scary.

  Senhi frowned a little.

Saint:  How d’you mean?

MotorHeart:  Well, y’know, everything’s just like it is in rl.  And when you come across something that just doesn’t feel right, it’s a bit frightening.

  Senhi shook her head.

Saint:  I still don’t follow you.

MotorHeart:  It’s hard to explain.  It’s like you’ll be walking down the street, and everything’s perfect, and totally real.

MotorHeart:  Then,

MotorHeart:  You’ll see something that isn’t perfect.

MotorHeart:  Something that you wouldn’t think twice about if you saw it in a VR game,

MotorHeart:  But since everything else is so real,

MotorHeart:  It just shakes you into remembering that you’re not really there.

  Senhi bit her bottom lip.

Saint:  What kind of imperfections are you talking about?

  She waited a few moments for MotorHeart’s reply, a sense of trepidation gradually invading her fantasy.

MotorHeart:  I’ve seen animals walking around…

MotorHeart:  With only three legs.

MotorHeart:  The scary part is,

MotorHeart:  They move as if they’ve still got four.

  Senhi shuddered.

MotorHeart:  They’re still ironing out all the bugs.

Saint:  Sounds delightful. :P

MotorHeart:  It is.  Just so long as you don’t fall asleep in the game. ;)

Saint:  You know, the manual said that.  And my guide said that.  But they didn’t say why. :/

MotorHeart:  I’ve heard that if you fall asleep and start to dream, you can really screw up your helmet.

MotorHeart:  And your head, too.

Saint:  I’ll have to remember that. :(

MotorHeart:  Don’t worry about it. ;)  You’ll be fine.

Saint:  Ick.  Quickly changing the subject,

Saint:  What’ve you been up to today?

MotorHeart:  Not a lot.  Just doing coursework, really.

Saint:  I’ve been shopping.  Ran into Arrma again. :(

MotorHeart:  Why don’t you just slap her? ;)

Saint:  ‘cause she’d batter me.  She’s stronger than I am, MH.  And she’s got loads of m8s who would beat me up too.

  Senhi let out a gentle sigh.

Saint:  Certainly wouldn’t be the first time.

MotorHeart:  Why don’t you get the police out?

  Senhi’s eyebrows rose slightly.

Saint:  That’s the last thing I’d expect *you* to say!

MotorHeart:  They’re useful for some things, Saint.

Saint:  Not for this.

MotorHeart:  Okay.  I know how you feel, so I won’t poke that sore anymore.  But what *are* you going to do?

  Senhi’s fingers lay still on the keyboard for a moment as she contemplated.

Saint:  I’m going to…

Saint:  Meet you in Utopia tomorrow @ 6, and hope you’ll take my mind off that bitch. ;)

MotorHeart:  Sounds good to me. :)

 

  Senhi yelped quietly, choking back tears, as she felt the pellet snap against her back.  She prayed for the teacher to turn around and see what the others were doing to her – and her hope died as she saw him busying himself with another student.

  Elastic bands were the school’s rifles; carefully prepared paper pellets their bullets.  She didn’t have to turn around to know that it was Arrma, or one of her friends, who had stretched the band, taken careful aim at the back of her thin white school shirt, and let go of the paper.

  She closed her eyes, lest the tears begin to fall down her cheeks.  She couldn’t cry.  Not in front of the bullies – she had learned from bitter experience that showing emotion would only make it worse.  They’d only exploit her weakness, just like they had done so many times before.  They wanted a reaction.

  She tried to ignore the screaming in her back, and turned her attentions back to the project at hand.  This would have been one of her favourite lessons, had the rest of the group not made it such a misery.

  The transparent plastic shell of a toy touca[4] lay on the desk in front of her, in two halves.  The end result would be something she could give to her little sister, Menaha.  But first, she had to put it together and bring it to life.

  Senhi touched her soldering iron to the wire, heating it before applying the solder to “tin” it.  The soft metal melted against her iron in a curiously satisfying manner, and bonded readily to the copper wire.

  This was something she enjoyed.  The room had the sweet scent of fresh sawdust.  Working with electronics was so delicate and peaceful; and the end result infinitely pleasing, even more so when it would bring happiness to the ones she loved.  She could imagine Menaha’s reaction now; six years old, she would love this.  Perhaps she would give it to her as a New Year present… or maybe just a nice surprise out of nowhere, for no reason other than that she loved her.  That would be sweet.

  Senhi glanced up at the clock.  Not long, now.  This was today’s last lesson.  Just a few more minutes, then she would be able to go home and play with her Trance helmet for a while… Then, her date with MotorHeart.  Her first date ever.

  She sighed, content.

  The teacher’s voice.  Asking the class to settle down.  Asking for quiet.

  Asking for last night’s homework.

  Panic.  Senhi was supposed to have completed a paper on different types of resistors; instead, she had played with her Trance helmet and talked with Dodgy and MotorHeart all night.

  If Alders could sweat, she would have been doing so by now.  Mister Tubasci strolled along the desks, receiving papers, until he got to Senhi.

  Senhi sat with her hands in her lap, peering up awkwardly at her teacher.

  A brief pause.

  “Can I have the paper, please, Senhi?”

  Senhi looked down.  In a voice barely more than a whisper, she sighed, “I haven’t done it”.

  Mock gasps went around the classroom, along with several cries of “ooooh!” - the sound that comes when someone else is in trouble.

  “Quiet!” exclaimed Tubasci.  “That’s enough of that!”  He turned back to Senhi.  “Senhi, this isn’t like you” he said, disbelief evident in his voice.

  Senhi could feel his surprise, even from here.

  Senhi looked up at him.  Behind her glasses, her amber eyes glistened.  “I just… forgot”

  Mr Tubasci stared back.  “Uh… Well,” he sighed after a contemplative pause, “you know I can’t bend the rules, Senhi, so I’m afraid it’s…”

  “I know,” murmured Senhi, her voice quavering despite her best efforts to control it.  “One hour detention”

  “I’m afraid so.  Senhi, I’m surprised at you”

  Senhi looked up again.  “So am I,” she whispered.

  Tubasci shook his head, before continuing with the collection of papers.

  Couldn’t he feel it?  Couldn’t he feel how miserable I am?  Wasn’t he wondering why?

  I know it’s rude to comment on another person’s emotional vibes unless they’re someone very close to you, but…  Does he even care?  Is he afraid to acknowledge the pain I’m in?

  Or does he just think I’m upset because I forgot to do my homework?

  He reached the back of the classroom.  “Arrma, need I bother asking?”

  “Probably not,” she replied, smirking, her arms folded.

  “You know the drill”

  “Yup.  One hour after school.  With Senhi”

  Senhi felt the fur on the back of her neck stand on end, a chill running down her spine.

  Tubasci spoke.  “Honestly, Arrma… It’d take fifteen minutes for you to do this paper.  And now you’re kept behind for an hour.  I just don’t get your logic, sometimes…” Tubasci let out a sigh.  “Okay, the rest of you can go”

  The class packed up their belongings and began to file out.  Senhi turned her eyes downward, and felt a couple of secret thumps in her arm as the class went past her desk; filing past, silently taking it in turns to punch her.  Tubasci didn’t notice.

  The physical blows didn’t hurt nearly as much as the emotional aftershocks.  She couldn’t defend herself against the petty violence; she knew what would happen to her if she tried.  She felt like nothing more than a punch-bag.  Just a thing for everybody to take out their aggressions on.  Helpless and inadequate, she suffered alone – and the people hitting her right then didn’t even look at her.

  The workshop eventually empty except for her, Arrma and Tubasci, Senhi rubbed the colourful rose blooming beneath her fur on her upper arm, and turned her attentions back to the toy touca that lay on her desk.

  She had to apply soft, white fur to the outer casing, and pad it a little, to make it look and feel like an adorable baby touca.  But first, she would attend to the various electronic and mechanical aspects that would surprise Menaha when she picked it up and cuddled it; the nose would twitch, the ears would wiggle, and her sister would squeal in delight.  She didn’t think it was possible to make her little sister giggle with some wires, circuit boards, motors, sensors and a soldering iron, but Mr Tubasci, in his infinite wisdom, had proven her wrong.

  Senhi felt Arrma’s eyes on the back of her head.  For a moment she toyed nervously with her tie, before shutting her out and picking up her screwdriver.

  She concentrated on the touca.  She was nearly ready to put it all into the casing and add the finishing touches, whereas Arrma had barely even started on hers.

  Tubasci sat at his desk, marking the homework papers.  He busied himself with his red pen, while Senhi caressed the wires with the soldering iron.

  There were a few minutes of peace.  Senhi, her fingers playing lightly over the tiny ear motors, listened to the faraway sounds of the other kids around the school as they met with their friends to make their way home.  Laughing, shouting.  Relating jokes and gossip with their friends.  She had never been that happy.

  She felt a lump in her throat as she reflected on this.  But she stifled the feelings, pushed them deep inside like she had done for so many years.  By now, she was an expert on misery.

  A few more minutes, and then the workshop was silent, but for the ticking of the clock, the rustle of papers from Tubasci’s desk, the drumming of Arrma’s fingers on her bench and the occasional tiny whirr or click as Senhi delicately manipulated the wires and circuit boards, occasionally causing a motor to spin into motion.

  She prodded the mechanics into position and carefully fixed the two sides of the casing together.  Then she picked the touca up, bringing it to life.

  Tubasci looked up, alerted by the faint but unmistakable whirr of all three motors running in a toy touca.  The inimitable sound of a completed project.

  Senhi was holding it at eye level, a satisfied smile crossing her lips, her eyes sparkling behind her glasses.  It was running beautifully; the ears wiggled, the nose twitched.  Menaha would love it.

  Tubasci smiled as his eyes met Senhi’s.  She smiled back.  Then Tubasci turned back to the stack of papers on his desk.

  A few more papers; a few more minutes of almost perfect silence while Senhi’s fingers fondled the soft, artificial fur, carefully applying it and the padding to the outer shell.  Arrma’s feet scuffed against the floor as she swung them back and forth, bored.

  Tubasci reached the bottom of his pile.  Satisfied, he leaned back in his chair.

  The workshop was silent, and Senhi’s eyes, sparkling amber jewels set in cream velvet behind glass, were fixed intently on the project at hand.

  She was doing something odd, though.  Something he hadn’t seen before…

  “Senhi?”

  Senhi looked up.  “Yes, sir?”

  “What’re you doing, there?”

  “Whiskers” replied Senhi.  “I found some strands of some kind of plastic, they feel just like touca whiskers”

  Tubasci leaned forward in his chair, peering at the extra, personal touch Senhi had added to her project.  “I’m impressed,” he commented.

  “Thanks,” said Senhi, before turning once again to the whiskers.  She glued the last one into place, then held it to let the glue dry.

  Tubasci watched her for a moment.  She held the whisker in place for the required few seconds to let the glue set, then, after picking up the completed touca and jiggling it a little to make sure it ran smoothly, she put it down on the desk, rested her chin in her palms and gazed at it, immensely satisfied.  Proud of what she had accomplished.

  Not like the other student.  Tubasci looked over at her, now; she idly scanned around the room, searching for something to catch her attention, while the basic touca components lay untouched on her desk.

  Tubasci reached a decision.

  “Senhi,” began Tubasci.  Senhi looked up.  “Do you have the homework paper with you?”

  “No, sir.  I left it at home”

  “Hmm… This isn’t at all like you.  Can you think why you forgot to do it?”

  Arrma spoke up, smirking.  “She’s got herself a new sex toy…”

  Tubasci flew up out of his chair, slapping his hands onto the desk.  “WHO WAS TALKING TO YOU?!” he raged.  “I’m getting pretty bloody sick of you, Arrma!  If you don’t do something about your attitude, you’re never going to amount to anything!  I keep you back time after time, but it never makes any difference!”

  Arrma shrank back in her chair, frightened and astonished.  Tubasci, normally a cool, liberal teacher, had never lost it like this before.

  Senhi stared, her eyes wide.  She’d never seen any teacher this angry, let alone Mr Tubasci.

  Tubasci sat back down with a thud, his shoulders slumped.  His voice came again, but quiet, depressed.  “I just don’t know what I’m going to do with you, Arrma…”

  There was a long pause.  Tubasci looked at his watch.

  “Senhi… I’m going to go and get you a replacement paper.  Do it when you get it, and you can go when you’re finished”

  Arrma spoke again, quieter this time: “But, that’s not…”

  “It’s more than fair, Arrma,” growled Tubasci.  “Senhi just got sidetracked, whereas you didn’t even bother to try.  You’ve got to learn.  And you’re going to, one way or another.  I’ve never given up on a student yet, no matter how hard they test my patience,” he sighed, getting up and taking a set of keys from his drawer.

  What are you doing?  Don’t upset Arrma and then leave me alone with her…

  “I’ve dealt with worse than you before now.  You can take a leaf from Senhi’s book, or you can go through life as a failure,” he muttered as he strode past her, towards the door at the back of the classroom.

  Please, no!  Don’t do this!

  “I’ll be back in ten minutes.  Senhi, don’t forget to unplug your iron”

  Senhi heard the door close behind Tubasci.

  Her spine chilled, waiting for the inevitable, spiteful insult.  Waiting for Arrma to call her a repulsive bitch, or a hideous freak, any of the other colourful insults she had thrown at her over the years.  Or perhaps Arrma would just get out of her chair, walk over and slap her in the face as hard as she could, kicking her violently in the shin for good measure.  It wasn’t like Senhi hadn’t gone home with bruises before.

  Neither of those things happened.  Instead, a small, timid voice made itself clear.  “Senhi?”

  Senhi turned around in her seat, ready to taste the bitter poison from Arrma’s tongue.

  Behind her glasses, Senhi’s eyes widened.  Arrma looked… different.

  So small.  So vulnerable.

  “Yeah?” breathed Senhi, disbelief tainting her voice.

  Almost like me.

  Arrma looked down at the touca on her desk.  “I know we’re not exactly the best of friends,” she sighed, “but… Do you think you could show me how to put this touca together?”

  Senhi turned her back on Arrma, an expression of disgust pasted over her face.

  “Please.  I want to…” Senhi was shocked to hear a sniffle.  “I want to go straight.  I want to be good.  At least try to be good”

  Senhi turned around and looked at her, still sceptical.

  Tears were forming in those light blue oases, shining under the harsh artificial light.  “Mister Tubasci was right” she sniffed.  “Please…  I’m sorry.  Help me, Senhi.  I’m so sorry for all those things I’ve done to you…”

  Senhi felt a pang of compassion.  She sighed.

  All these years of hate...  She could show Arrma she was above all that.  She could show herself.  If it meant leaving the hatred behind her, then yes, she would help Arrma.

  “Come on, then” sighed Senhi.  “So long as you promise to live up to what you said”

  A weak grin made an effort to spread itself across Arrma’s perfect lips.  “Thanks,” she squeaked, gathering up her project.

  She made a few trips back and forth with various components, the first one with her soldering iron, plugging it in to let it heat up - and the last one carrying her bag and jacket.

  She rubbed her eye as she sat down opposite Senhi.  “Thanks…  Thanks a lot, Senhi” she sniffed.  “After all the awful things I’ve done to you… You’re a good person”

  Senhi smiled.  “I’m just glad we can call a truce, after all these years.  So what’s giving you the most trouble?”

  “Soldering,” sniffled Arrma, her voice returning to normal.  “I just can’t get the hang of it”

  “What aspect of it?”

  “Well, uh… soldering the wires to the board, for one thing”

  Senhi paused.  “Uh… Well, show me how you do it and I’ll let you know where you’re going wrong”

  “All right…” Arrma picked up her iron and reel of solder.  She set the circuit board flat on the table.

  “Now, I put some solder on the edge connector…” commentated Arrma, touching the iron to the board to heat it up before melting a drop of gleaming solder onto it.

  “All okay so far,” offered Senhi.

  “Man, this stuff stinks…”

  “You’re right there,” chuckled Senhi.  And it was true, molten solder did stink.

  “…and then I put the wire to the solder, and put the iron to the wire, and…”

  “Whoa…  There.  You didn’t tin the wire first”

  “Tin?  What’s that mean?” asked Arrma, her brow furrowing.

  “You have to coat it with solder first”

  “Ah!  Is that what I’ve been doing wrong all this time?” sniggered Arrma, picking up the piece of wire.  “I feel such a dolt…”

  “This is the tricky part,” said Senhi.

  Arrma was struggling, trying to co-ordinate the wire, the reel of solder, and the soldering iron at the same time.  “Yeah…” she murmured, concentrating.

  Senhi watched her for a moment.  A nagging curiosity rose to the surface of her mind.

  “Arrma…  What did you mean by “Sex toy,” just then?”

  Arrma looked up, a mischievous grin appearing.  “Uh… I heard some programmers are developing sex programs for Trance helmets”

  Senhi was shocked to find herself giggling rather than cringing.  “What will they think of next?” she chuckled.

  Arrma laughed too.  “Just like the real thing, apparently”

  “Well,” sniggered Senhi, blushing beneath her fur, “I don’t plan to use my helmet for anything like that…” she murmured, her eyes turning away from Arrma’s, a little embarrassed.

  “You’re right… Somehow I don’t think “Trance Sex” would be really you,” sniggered Arrma, turning her attentions back to the confusion of tools in her hands.

  Senhi watched her struggle for a moment, still grinning.

  “It’s much easier if you have a friend to hold the wire for you” she eventually offered.

  Arrma looked up.  She paused, and smiled.  “You’re right,” she agreed, offering the wire to Senhi.

  Senhi smiled back, taking it.  She held it still, the exposed copper pointing towards Arrma.

  Arrma gently pressed the point of her soldering iron against the wire, heating it.

  “Careful,” said Senhi.  “You know how hot a soldering iron gets?”

  Arrma looked up.  “No, how hot?”

  “About three hundred and fifty degrees”

  “Wow…”

  Arrma prodded the solder between the iron and the wire, a wisp of smoke appearing as the gleaming silver metal coated the copper.

  “That’s it,” encouraged Senhi.  “That’s just right”

  Thank you.  Thank you, mister Tubasci.  She grinned.  This is it.  This is the end.  If I can be friends with Arrma, then nobody will hurt me.  I can get on with my life.

  I can be happy.

  “I’m so glad we sorted this out, Arrma” said Senhi, looking into Arrma’s eyes, a smile on her lips

  Arrma smiled back.  “Me too, Senhi.  This could be the start of a beautiful friendship.”  Then she looked down, and pushed the tip of the soldering iron forward, watching it slide into the soft flesh of Senhi’s finger.

  Senhi’s shriek echoed around the workshop.  She yanked her hand back, a blinding scream of pain and the sickening stench of burned fur already assaulting her senses.

  She stared down, at the bleeding, molten gash that Arrma had burned in her skin.  The iron had seared her flesh instantly.

  She brought her eyes upwards, locked in an expression of shock and disbelief.

  Arrma was laughing.  “Whoops,” she snorted sarcastically in between giggles.  “Oh, Senhi, the look on your face right now…”

  Without even thinking, Senhi’s fingers immediately found the grip of her own iron, still plugged in, still heated to a temperature that would melt skin on contact.  Her lips curled into an outraged snarl as she thrust the iron forward without a moment’s hesitation, her whole body running on passion rather than thought.

  She caught the briefest glimpse of Arrma’s eyes as they widened, her expression quickly changing from sadistic amusement to surprised, mortal terror, before Senhi slammed her eyes shut and let out a scream that had been building inside her for five years.

  Arrma, with her crocodile tears, with her lies, had turned her into this - this shy, withdrawn girl, expending all of her anger in a single, devastating action.  Senhi had been one of the most popular girls in primary school.  Then she had reached high school, and Arrma had decided then to devote herself to making Senhi miserable and afraid…  For what reason, Senhi never really found out.  Arrma had turned her into someone who never questioned what she was given, who didn’t speak much, who preferred fantasy games to real life.

  Arrma had made her world miserable and terrifying.

  Arrma had scarred her for life.

  Arrma had brought this on herself.

  Senhi felt a split-second of soft resistance.  Arrma’s chilling, agonised shriek cut through her ears.

  No.  Not enough.  That isn’t enough!

  Senhi pushed harder, leaning across the workbench and pressing the iron into Arrma’s flesh as she screamed, trying to scramble backwards.

  THAT ISN’T ENOUGH TO PAY HER BACK FOR WHAT SHE DID TO ME!

  Senhi felt her iron scraping against bone, and she pushed to the side, ripping the wound wider.  Arrma’s scream cut off abruptly.  In response to the warm droplets she felt spattering against her hand, she yanked the iron back, her eyes still screwed shut, as she heard the crash of Arrma’s stool hitting the floor - and the thump of Arrma herself following.

  She hesitated.  Then, cautiously, she opened her eyes.

  Emotion abandoned her for a few moments.  Arrma was just on the other side of the desk, on the floor.  She wasn’t screaming or crying.  In fact, she wasn’t making any noise at all.

  Senhi shivered, adrenaline coursing through her veins.  She looked down, at her soldering iron.

  Molten flesh and strands of bloody fur adorned the tip, blood sizzling along the length of the metal.  Thick grey smoke curled from the iron, the stench already making her queasy.

  Senhi stood up, putting her iron down.  Numbly, she leaned over the workbench, scarlet spots soaking into the plywood.

  A pair of perfect, light blue moons stared up at her, the pupils slightly dilated, making her already widened eyes seem grotesquely huge.  Arrma’s face was frozen in an expression of mortal terror.

  “Oh, no…” whispered Senhi.  “What have I done?” she squeaked, the full realisation of what had just taken place washing over her.

  This couldn’t be happening.  It felt somehow unreal.  Like a nightmare.  Maybe she was still in some kind of Trance world.

  Senhi blinked once or twice, hoping for the feel of a controller in her palm, or sheets around her body.  But she knew, deep in her heart, that it was useless; this was real, and Arrma’s lifeless corpse still stared up at her, her lips slightly parted.  A little smoke still curled skywards from the blackened, trickling wound, as though it were her life itself escaping her body through the opening that Senhi had burned in her perfect flesh.

  The blood and charred skin still sizzled, with a quiet hissing, on the soldering iron on her workbench, reminding her ears and nose of what she had done.

  And Senhi was a murderer.

  She picked up her bag and her touca, and ran, leaving her jacket on the coat hook, swinging in a rush of air from the slammed door.



TWO
 

  The thump of Senhi’s footsteps echoed around the empty streets.  Everybody would be at home now, having their tea with their families.

  Of course, Arrma wouldn’t do that, ever again…  Her corpse lay on the workshop floor, her perfect cyan eyes staring blindly at the ceiling, still widened in mortal fear.  Her blood spilled over the tiles.

  Senhi tried to force the image out of her mind, but the same moment kept ripping into her, again and again…

  The feel of resistance, coupled with the hiss and the ear-splitting scream as her iron slid so easily into Arrma’s flesh.  It was a small mercy that she hadn’t opened her eyes, but given the freedom brought on by the deprivation, her imagination was running wild…  The pointed tip of the iron was burning Arrma’s fur, melting the skin underneath, screeching against the bone…

  And Senhi couldn’t stop it.  Nor could she ever make it better again.  Even as she ran, she couldn’t dispel the image of the blood spurting from the smoking tip of her soldering iron buried deep in Arrma’s flesh, matting her fur and splattering along the length of Senhi’s iron.

  The toy touca in her arms wiggled its nose and ears as she ran.  The wind whipped her thin white school shirt around her chest, chilling her to the bone, her calf-length black skirt doing nothing to protect her from the elements.

  Her heavy rucksack yanking on her shoulder with every step, Senhi blinked back the tears in an attempt to see where she was going.  Tubasci, having heard the screams, would be back in the workshop by now…  He would be calling for an ambulance, and of course, the police.

  She had been such a promising student…  Now her entire life was ruined.  She still couldn’t believe she had actually stabbed Arrma – that she would ever do anything like that.  It was so unlike her.

  Maybe she hadn’t done it at all.  Maybe she had imagined the whole thing.

  Then why would I be running?

  Senhi hugged the touca to her chest as she ran into her empty driveway, and up to her front door.  She scrambled her key out of her pocket and stabbed it against the metal, tears coursing down her cheeks and hysterical sobs stuttering from her trembling lips, until it finally slid into the lock.  She twisted roughly and threw the door open, before stumbling in and slamming the world out behind her.

  Only silence greeted her.  Nobody said hello, nobody asked her how her day had been.  Senhi tried to remember what her mother had said, the previous night…

  Her parents would be sitting in the waiting room, now…  They would have picked Menaha up from her colourful, happy primary school and taken her straight to the dentists for her routine check-up.

  Senhi let out a dejected moan, relief and despair of her parents’ absence clashing into an emotion she didn’t know how to deal with.  She felt more tears join the ones already matting her fur, and she went into the living room.  She sat down heavily on the sofa, bringing the toy touca up to her eye level, and stared at it, through the blur of her salty tears.  Whimpering, she jiggled it gently.  The ears wiggled, the nose twitched.

  She hugged it to her chest and stroked the soft fur as she tried to calm down.  Tried to think.

  What kind of daughter was she?  What kind of sister?  What kind of friend?

  The same soldering iron that had been used to create this charming toy was now splattered with sizzling flesh and bubbling blood.

  Senhi couldn’t face it.  She couldn’t bear her parents’ reaction.  She couldn’t accept Menaha’s tears as her parents tried to explain to her why her beloved big sister had to go away for a long, long time.

  She had to escape… She had to get out.  She couldn’t stand the idea of a life in prison, or a day of emotionally scarring torture at the hands of the demons in cyber-hell.

  A tear fell onto the touca’s head, and sank into the fur.

  Wherever she was going to go, whatever she was going to do, she had to do it fast.

  Senhi sat and thought for a few moments.  Then she hurried upstairs with the touca and upended her bag, dumping the contents unceremoniously onto the middle of the floor.  She stuffed her Trance helmet in as a replacement – whatever was going to happen, she wouldn’t miss her first ever date.  It meant too much to her.

  The hard white case from the top drawer of her bedside table went in after the helmet, rattling quietly.  She unfastened her skirt and let it fall to the floor, searching for a pair of jeans.  She found a pair, and struggled into them.

  Moving hastily though distractedly, as if drugged or dreaming, Senhi picked up the touca and carried it to Menaha’s room.

  Senhi opened the door.  She looked around.

  Fluffy, cute cartoon toucas on the wallpaper.  Teddies.  Dolls.  A mess of books and toys.

  She hesitated, stunned.  The vibes in here… They were happy.  Not like the ones in her own room.  She could feel that Menaha was content with her life right now…

  Now she realised why Menaha never wanted to go into Senhi’s room.  It was because the vibes in there were scaring her; she didn’t want to think of Senhi being unhappy.

  Senhi felt a new wave of sobs struggle to escape her lips, and she didn’t hold them back.  She left the touca, with a stroke of its delicate fur, on Menaha’s pillow.  She wanted to leave a note, but lack of time prohibited it…

  She wanted to wait until Menaha came back, but lack of time prohibited that, too.  She wanted to pick her up and cuddle her one last time.

  No, not one last time…  Senhi never wanted to leave.

  But she knew, all too well, that to stay would be impossible.

  Feeling another surge of tears rain down her cheeks, Senhi went downstairs, her rucksack slung over her shoulder.

  The depression was replaced with panic once again.  The police would be here any minute.

  She had to go.  She had to get out… Where she would go, she had no idea, but she knew that it would be an escape.

  She reached into a cupboard and threw a tube of antiseptic rapid-healing gel into her bag, then went into the garage and stole her father’s motorcycle.

 

  Senhi rode for hours, always conscious of the possibility that she was being followed.  Even through the studded black leather gloves, her fingers first became cold, then numb, then screamed in agony with every manipulation of the levers.  Her father’s leather jacket was too big for her, and let the wind rush in around the neck and waist.  Her chest felt like it was being ripped with shards of ice, her neck and ankles freezing and in a similar agony.  Inside her father’s ill-fitting helmet, tears ran down her cheeks.

  The power of the machine frightened her more than Arrma ever had.  It was nothing like the 125cc bike she had ridden in the Trance world; she only had to open the throttle a little too roughly and the front wheel would leap into the air, almost causing her to lose balance.

  The bike handled differently, too; she had ridden a full-fairing race bike in the Trance world, which felt tiny and light compared to this ancient hulk of a machine.  The handlebars were wider, the footrests further up and forward… She sat upright rather than almost lying on the tank like she did with the race bike.  It couldn’t take a corner without slowing down for fear of sliding out and low-siding, but on straights it could accelerate so swiftly it was frightening.

  She had never driven any vehicle in traffic before.  She didn’t know where the indicator switch was, or the horn, or anything that she wouldn’t use on a racetrack, so she had gotten out of town as quickly as she could, taking to the rural roads.  Cars and other bikes frightened her, making her feel vulnerable and lost.

  She still couldn’t believe she was doing this.  It felt so unreal; she had to keep reassuring herself that she wasn’t in the Trance world.  Always wondering where she would go, or what she could do, she tried to think of a way out of the situation.

 

  Yamagata looked at his watch.  The time was almost upon him.

  He set the Trance helmet on his head, folded the flaps in over his ears and lay down on his bed.  Taking a few deep breaths, he felt the smoothness of the Engage switch against his finger.

  A little pressure, a satisfying click beneath his finger, and the sudden sensation of air rushing through his fur.

  He opened his eyes.

  Clouds flew past beneath him, his hair flailing behind.  The sky was pure blue, the sun a blinding white sphere; and no matter how many times he did this, the sensation still took his breath away.  After a few moments of intense wind, Yamagata felt his feet make contact with soft earth, perfectly still while the clouds apparently rushed below.

  The cloud scene faded, and was gradually replaced with a setting sun.  A few at a time, trees came into focus, followed by the ground beneath his feet.

  Yamagata grinned.  Utopia had loaded.

  He sat down on a handy rock, and looked at his watch.  Saint would be here any moment.

  A sudden thought occurred to him.  He still didn’t know Saint’s real name; and she still knew him as MotorHeart.

  Apprehensive now, he realised that perhaps he should have asked her before they agreed to meet.

 

  Senhi realised with horror that the bike’s power was falling.  The motorcycle was running out of fuel, and she was on rural roads in the middle of nowhere.  Hastily she reached down underneath the tank and turned the fuel tap to the reserve position, the heat from the engine not felt through her thick, studded black leather glove, her other hand gripping the throttle so tight that her knuckles flashed white beneath her fur.

  The power picked up again after a moment.  Senhi struggled her other hand onto the grip, a new realisation hitting her like a slap across the face.

  Even if she got to the nearest garage on the few litres of modified, “enhanced” water left in her fuel tank, she wouldn’t be able to buy any.  If the police had a trace on her, she wouldn’t be able to walk into any shops or garages – the DNA scanners used to monitor what she was buying and debit her account would give away her location in an instant.  Her every purchase, her every move was logged on computers buried deep beneath the earth, and if necessary, those records could be turned over quite legally to any relevant authorities.

  She was a criminal – and she would be caught.  There was no doubt about it.  She had only ever experienced a fear of buying once before - the time she had to buy her first pack of tampons - and since then she had accepted the system; after all, only top-security computers which nobody had access to were allowed to look at those records.  Privacy laws and security programs were in place to protect the consumer from prying eyes.

  But of course, under circumstances like these, the police would have access to those files. They would see every shop she had ever been in, everything she had ever picked up and taken home with her, and most worrying of all, if she stopped off at any shops on the way to wherever she was going, even just to use the bathroom or ask for directions, they would see where she was right now…

  A new flood of tears blurred Senhi’s view of the road.  She could buy no fuel, no food, no provisions - and she had packed nothing in her bag but her Trance helmet, her auto-injector, and the tube of rapid-healing gel.  She was banned from society, and if she dared to ever return, she would be imprisoned straight away.  There was no way to say she was innocent, or she had been framed; if she didn’t do it, what was she running away from?

  She cursed herself for being so stupid.  Why?!  Why didn’t I just invent some explanation, instead of incriminating myself by running away?

  She felt something new; a blinding rage, directed towards her own idiocy.  She screamed inside her helmet, letting her emotions have their say just as they wanted to, lest they ripped their way out of her system of their own accord like they had in the workshop.

  She knew she had to get off the road.  She was becoming weary, her stress taking her over, gnawing at her body and her soul like the hunger gnawing at her belly.

  The sun was becoming a bloody orb peering over the horizon, and she needed somewhere to hide.  Somewhere to go so that she could collect herself, calm down, warm up, treat the still-screaming burn on her finger, inject her medicine, maybe find something to eat or drink – berries, a few sips of metallic-tasting water from the bike’s tank, whatever she could find, really…

  This 750cc bike was no scrambler, but then, it was no real full-fairing racer either.  Senhi began to wonder how well it would perform across those fields.

  If she had enough fuel, of course.  The tank was on reserve right now.  That would be enough to get her to a garage – but of course, she couldn’t do that.  And she couldn’t use rainwater, either; she didn’t have the right additives, and the fuel would turn out too weak to start the bike on.  She could run the bike on plain water, but starting it would be impossible.  The stuff they sold at garages, although drinkable, had much more of a kick to it…

  She decided to turn off the road as soon as she could, before her water ran out, and find somewhere to hide.

 

  Yamagata looked at his watch for the third time in two minutes.

  Where the hell is she?

  He hummed softly, leaning back against the rock.  He jumped, swearing, as three excruciatingly loud bleeps sliced through his ears.

  Half an hour.  I turned up a few minutes early…

  She wouldn’t stand me up.  I know her better than that.

  I’ll give her another ten minutes.

 

  Senhi struggled with the heavy motorcycle in an attempt to lean it against a tree.  She couldn’t leave it on the prop-stand; it would just sink into the ground and fall over, so she tried to wrestle the bike into position – she knew, even before she was punished for trying, that it was going to be difficult.

  Even with the tank almost completely empty, the bike was just too heavy for her to manoeuvre.  Straddling the machine, she leaned it a few degrees towards the tree before it escaped her grip.

  In reaction to the sudden weight increase, a bolt of pain shot through Senhi’s biceps, and the bars dropped from her hands.  The next thing she noticed was the ripping agony in her thigh, sandwiched between the tree and the bike.

  Senhi screamed.  She squirmed, she wriggled, she pushed, but the bike stayed where it was, still pushing itself into her flesh.  She shouted for help; but she knew even as she did that nobody would come, of course.  She had deliberately put herself where nobody would find her.

  As a consequence of her panicky wriggling, the tyres slid outwards, gouging two thick lines of ripped turf.  The bike ripped down Senhi’s thigh as it crashed to the ground, provoking the next barrage of screaming, how hysterical.

  Senhi didn’t want to look down, but she knew that her thigh had been ripped wide, just like the grass.  She could feel the blood running over her skin.

  She gritted her teeth… And looked at what she had done.

  A horrific gash smiled at her, extending almost down the entire length of her thigh, her skin torn and flapping like the rip in her jeans.  She pulled her ankle free of the bike, and sat down heavily, a new wave of tears filling her eyes.  She whimpered a little, inspecting the injury.

  The crimson slash stared back at her, and her whimpers turned to sobs.  Close to break point, Senhi fell onto her back.  She screwed her eyes shut tight and screamed a dejected howl.  Screamed at her pain, at Arrma’s crocodile tears, at her father’s ruined motorcycle, at the blood pumping from the jagged opening in her thigh, at the cold wind rushing into her father’s jacket and whipping around her shirt, at her hunger, her frustration, her hopelessness… at everything that was wrong with the world.

 

  Yamagata sat with his chin resting in his palms.

  Have I ever asked Saint where in the world she lives?

  I haven’t.  Perhaps she lives in a different time zone.

  He looked at his watch again.

  Maybe she came in through the wrong way.  Maybe she can’t get the Utopia program to work.

  Maybe she just hates me.  Maybe she just wants to humiliate me.

  He sighed.

  She lives in a different time zone.  Must be.

 

  Senhi wiped the tears from her eyes, sniffling.  Her head swimming as her blood pumped between her fingers, she sat leaned against the tree, shivering.  She shivered from hunger, from cold, from loss of blood, and most of all, a fear that was now becoming more and more serious – not fear that she would be caught and imprisoned, but fear that she would die right there in the forest.

  She winced as she hastily pulled her gloves off, the burn in her finger reminding her of its presence.  She reached into her rucksack for the rapid-healing gel, before beginning to ease out of her jeans, trying to hold the two raw, slippery edges of the wound together.  She flinched as the fabric whispered against the jagged opening in her thigh.

  Her hands weren’t clean by any stretch of the imagination, and neither was the wound; but her blood was dripping to the ground, and she knew that if she didn’t heal herself quickly, she could easily die of this injury.

  She opened the tube, squeezed out a little onto the tip of her index finger, and gritted her teeth.

  She touched her fingertip to the side of the warm, sensitive opening, the gel cold against her flesh.

  Senhi gripped her other thigh and growled, her lips drawn back exposing her canines as she gently stroked her injury, every movement bringing a new stab of agony.

  She pressed the two sides of the bleeding tear together, allowing the chemical to begin its work.  A sticky element of the gel held the wound closed while the healing agents adjusted themselves to Senhi’s blood type, and the wound slowly began to seal.

  She leaned back against the tree and moaned, her fingers dripping.  The pain would fade, but domestic rapid-healing gel was only designed for emergency use; and without expert treatment, she could be left scarred for life.

  She screwed her eyes shut.  She didn’t want to think about that.  It was too late now, anyway.  There would be no point in worrying about it.

  There wasn’t anything she could do right now.  There was no way she could lift that bike upright, and walking would be agony.  She had to wait until her wound was healed.  Shouldn’t be more than a couple of hours or so.

  She looked at her watch, while a nagging thought lurked at the very back of her mind, refusing to go away.

  There was something she should be doing now.  Something that would distract her from the pain.

  It would be the first time she had ever done some particular thing…  Something that other people tend to do a lot of…

  She dismissed the thought, replacing it with a desire for warmth.  She shuffled over to the fallen bike and lay down next to the engine, warming her chest near the exhausts.

  After a few minutes, the pain wasn’t so bad anymore.  With the agony out of her mind, she had remembered what it was she was supposed to be doing.

 

  Yamagata’s eyes opened wide.  Saint was coming.

  He watched a wire-frame 3D model appear.  It was too early to tell quite what she looked like, although the shapes were intriguing…

  From her point of view, clouds would be flying past, and ground would be appearing beneath her feet.  From Yamagata’s viewpoint, her fur was being coloured in…

  For a split-second it appeared as though she stood in front of him completely naked, and Yamagata’s heart began to pound.  Then he realised that she had no eyes, no mouth, and nothing of interest below the shoulders, either.  Just shapes, like a plastic doll.

  At least he knew the colour of her fur, and her hair.  Solid blocks of colour began to appear, along with more wire-frames showing her clothing.

  He watched as she gradually became whole, the textures of her fur at first appearing as shading in the solid colour, and then standing out in three dimensions.  She wore jeans and a T-shirt…

  For the briefest moment, he thought he could see a splatter of red over her thigh.  But when he looked directly at it, he realised it was just a trick of the light.

  Saint looked around a little, her eyes eventually settling on Yamagata.

  She looked at him for a moment, before speaking.  “MotorHeart?”

  Yamagata felt a rush of chemicals inside him.  Hers was the sweetest, softest voice he had heard in a long time.  He made a mental comparison to the caress of velvet against his throat; that, he decided, is what her voice is like.

  He swallowed, and replied: “Saint?”

  Saint’s eyes lit up.  “Yeah!”

  Yamagata stood up.  “Hi!” he said, delight evident in his voice.

  “Hi!  I’m sorry I’m late, I got held back”

  “It’s okay,” said Yamagata, smiling.

  They looked at each other for a moment.  Saint eventually spoke:

  “You’re taller than I expected,” she told him.

  “Really?” asked Yamagata.  “What did you expect me to look like?”

  “I dunno… It’s a nice surprise, though”

  Yamagata grinned.  “It’s a nice surprise for me, too”

  Beneath her fur, Senhi blushed.  A grin appeared; “Really?  I know I’m no Adrel Mianna…”

  “No, I mean it.  Really.  You know, this feels really strange…” he said, walking over to the rock he had been lying against.  “We’ve been talking for months now, and I still don’t know whereabouts in the world do you live”

  “Yenama.  And you?”

  “I live in Yenama too!”

  “Really?  Great!  North or South?”

  “I’m in the North,” said Yamagata, reaching down behind the rock.

  “Same here!  Hey, whatcha got there?”

  Yamagata lifted out a tangle of straps and heavy-looking metal cylinders that looked almost like…

  “Hey,” said Senhi warily, “is that a jump pack?”

  Yamagata turned his face towards Senhi and grinned, his canines exposed and eyes sparkling.

  “It is, isn’t it?” she enquired once again.

  “It certainly is!” he enthused.

  “Why?”

  “This is just an arrival scene.  The only way to get to the city itself is by jump pack”

  “Yamma,” began Senhi, her tone a little concerned, “I don’t know how to use one of those”

  Yamagata turned around to face her, the jump pack in his hands.  “Don’t you?”

  “No.  I’ve never tried it before”

  Yamagata hesitated for a moment.  “I’ll show you sometime… I’ve got a game that uses them”

  “But what am I supposed to do now?”

  Yamagata hesitated.  “It shouldn’t be too much of a problem…”

 

  Senhi’s hand snuggled inside Yamagata’s, her heart racing.  The moment she set eyes on him, the troubles outside of Utopia were forgotten.  Even the pain in her thigh and finger, and her hunger, didn’t seem quite so bad now.  She gave his hand a gentle squeeze.

  Before them stretched a long, open clearing in the forest.  She was a little nervous at what she was about to do… but she trusted him.

  She looked up at him.  A good seven inches taller than her, he was built quite well for a guy his age.  He looked about her age, perhaps a little older… Seventeen, tops, but probably about sixteen.  His fur was black with an indigo sheen, as was his hair, long but masculine.  His eyes were the two K’tekki moons visible in winter, shining red as blood against the night sky.

  The bare palm of his hand grasped hers tightly as they prepared themselves.  He was in the year at school above her; that was to say, he had left school, and was now in his first year of technical college.  He was an engineer.

  He had told her in one of many, many E-mails of how he longed to go into space; holding his hand now, she knew that he would make it.  One day, he would be chief technical officer on a spaceship somewhere light-years away, in charge of important things like the engines and life-support systems.  Gyrodrive technology was advancing, and it wouldn’t be long before they would be able to check out that planet they suspected of being home to intelligent life.  Ten years or so, he would be on that mission.  He would be amongst the ones who first talked with the aliens.  She knew it.  In his background vibes, she could feel it; she could feel his confidence, his charisma, his intelligence.  He felt to Senhi like he could do anything.

  He gave her hand a slow, soft squeeze, in response to the one she had given him.  She could also feel how excited he was right now.

  “Are you ready?” he breathed.  The machine strapped to his back vibrated gently, the a-grav powering up.

  “I’m as ready as I’ll ever be,” murmured Senhi, squeezing his hand again.

  Yamagata tensed himself.  “Let’s go!”

  They started running.  Senhi pumped her legs as quickly as she could, pounding over the grass.  She got out of breath quite quickly, but Yamagata didn’t seem to lose it at all – and he had a heavy jump pack on his back.

  He shouted to her, a grin on his face, his eyes sparkling.  “Here it comes!”

  “I’m ready!” shouted Senhi over the sudden roar of the jump pack.

  “JUMP!”

  Senhi leapt into the air, her eyes closed.  The roar became a THUMP, and then there was silence, but for the wind rushing around her.  She felt herself fall a few inches, before Yamagata’s arms hugged around her, bringing her into a sudden embrace.

  She opened her eyes.  She was staring right into a pair of blood-red moons, slits of black eclipsing in the centre of each.  They stared back, while the wind whipped the couple’s hair into frenzy.

  Senhi wrapped her arms around Yamagata, their eyes still locked together.  She squeezed him, perhaps out of fright, perhaps out of passion… She never could remember which it was, but the important thing was that he squeezed back.

  The wind rushed through Senhi’s fur.  Her heart pounded.  Nothing else existed, except for them; there was no ground beneath their feet, nobody else around… No ceiling above them, no walls around them, nobody to push them around… They were all that mattered.

  Yamagata was holding Senhi tightly, lest she fall out of his grip.  They were reaching the top of their arc.

  Hesitantly at first, but gaining a little confidence after a few agonising seconds, Senhi reached her neck around, and rubbed her cheek against Yamagata’s.  He rubbed back, their eyes closed.

  Senhi’s heart quickened.  She had never felt this before; but he was nuzzling her, there was no doubt about it.  She wanted the moment to last forever, but natural physics dictated otherwise.

  They began to fall.  Senhi opened her eyes, alarmed.  She tried to shout to him, but she couldn’t even hear herself, so there was no way that Yamagata would be able to…

  What’s he doing?

  He was picking her up the way a husband carries his bride over the threshold of their home.  She floated around for a moment, allowing his gentle hands to re-position her in mid-air, and then there was an almighty roar…

  She fell into his arms a few seconds before his feet touched the ground, already running.  He ran a few steps, then, with a loud thump and a little G-force, they were rising again.

  Senhi looked into his eyes, her arms around his neck.

  He’s so strong!

  Senhi had never been more truly happy in her life.  This was the first time she had ever been held by a guy…

  There’s a first time for everything.

  She inclined her face up to his, closed her eyes, stuck out the very tip of her tongue and gently ran it through the fur on his cheek.  She let out a whimper as she felt him return it, his soft, wet tongue delicately ruffling the fur on the side of her neck.

  And for the first time in five years, Senhi was content.

 

  Menaha held the touca to her chest, looking up into the eyes of the policeman.

  He had asked her questions she didn’t know the answers to… Had Senhi said anything to her about running away?  Had she ever said anything about a girl called Arrma?

  Menaha sniffled, hugging the touca tightly, her lips trembling.  “I don’t know,” she whimpered.  “I only saw her this morning…” her whimpers turned once again to sobs, her eyes narrowing into tearful slits.  “What’s happening to her?” she screeched, her tears matting her fur.  “Where’s my sister?!”

  She held the touca even tighter, turning her back on the policeman.  You won’t take this…  Never.

  She felt a hand on her heaving shoulder, before she ran out of the room.

  Adrel looked over to her husband briefly before she went after Menaha, her expression weary and helpless.

  There was a suggestion of a pause, before the policeman spoke again.

  “Mister Motaku…” he began, before Lespen spun around on him, his canines exposed.

  “What?” he hissed.  “You’ve just made my youngest daughter cry – now do your fucking job for once,” he snarled, his blood-red eyes filled with hatred, “and find her sister.”  The last words were spoken in a deep-throated growl, low and threatening with his canines exposed.

  There was a pause.

  Lespen felt his rage building inside him.  This man had better say something.  The police had been only too quick to bust him for chewing maudis leaves twenty years ago; now the time had come for them to do something important.

  And they weren’t doing it.

  Arrma was in hospital right now, having the wounds repaired by tiny machines.  In a few minutes her heart would begin to beat again, and in a day or so she would tell the police how a man had burst into the classroom, stabbed her with a soldering iron and abducted Senhi while she lay bleeding on the floor.  The last thing she had heard before she died had been Senhi’s hysterical whimpering, begging the man not to hurt her.

  He was sure of it.  The other explanation, the very thought that his quiet, well-behaved daughter had murdered Arrma – that she was even capable of something like that - was so unlikely it was laughable.

  He had told the police to find his daughter, before Arrma’s friends did.  He had no doubts that Senhi was in danger, wherever she was; she was in danger from those who thought she had killed Arrma, and from whomever had kidnapped her.

  He was sure of it.

 

  Saint held on to MotorHeart, running her fingers through the soft fur on the back of his neck, twirling them in his shoulder-length hair.

  They stood in the same opening scene in which they had entered initially.  A private place, hidden by a canopy of trees, in which Saint could feel, just for once, what it was like to be cared about.

  The forest scene was perfect; the setting sun filtered softly through the trees, bathing them in mellow relaxation.

  She could feel his heartbeat.  She could feel his attraction to her; and it was genuine.

  There had been a few times when she had been tricked… She remembered that one time when a popular guy in school had asked her out.  She had arrived at the cinema on time, dressed in her best.  She had taken hours to get ready, smoothing over her fur and making herself beautiful for him.

  He had been there, all right – but it wasn’t to be with her.  It was to watch his friends appear from out of nowhere, and quietly hurry her, terrified, into a nearby dark alley, where nobody was likely to see what they were going to do to her…

  Shut up, we’re not gonna hurt you…  We just want to have some fun…

  The memory was forced from her mind by a new feeling.  Something she had never experienced before.

  Realising what was happening, she shuddered in sudden ecstasy.  She had longed to feel this, for so long… She had lay in bed and fantasized about this moment, cuddling her pillow and wondering what it would be like to feel someone yenning her…

  At first, she felt MotorHeart’s vibes strengthen, until it felt like she was running her hands over his soul.  Then, the physical sensations came…

  The warmth… The electric tingling feeling…

  She rubbed her cheek against his, a gasp escaping her lips.  Everywhere she touched his bare fur, she felt a warm, buzzing sensation, his vibes drowning her.

  Saint opened her mind to him and began to yenn, pushing her emotions into his.  Her eyes closed, she felt him shudder at the initial mixing, and he held her tight to his chest.

  Saint still couldn’t believe what was happening.  She let MotorHeart feel her happiness, her contented pleasure – and he let her feel his.

  It was a pleasure that had nothing to do with anything physical; this, she knew, was the one intimate act that she would always be better at than Arrma.  That girl was a mean-spirited little wretch, and her vibes revealed her personality in all its repulsive glory.

  But she could tell, MotorHeart thought her vibes were pure, as sweet as her soul itself.

  It was all over too soon… But they both knew that they had to go and look after their real-life bodies.  They were both hungry, and much as Saint would love to stay with MotorHeart for just a few minutes more, her body was telling her that more important things were happening.

  MotorHeart let his head back from Saint’s, and looked her in the eyes.  They smiled at each other, still yenning.

  “Same time tomorrow?” he asked.

  Saint stopped yenning immediately to try to hide her emotions, but even so, he still felt her panic, her sadness, as a new memory surfaced.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, but Saint just shook her head.

  “It’s nothing,” she breathed.  “I’m just sad we have to say goodbye”

  MotorHeart grinned.  “We’re going to see each other again, though, yeah?”

  “Of course!” exclaimed Saint, her eyes sparkling.

  “Yeah… So, how about the same time tomorrow?”

  Saint hesitated, the same feeling coming to MotorHeart through her fur.  “Um… I don’t know about tomorrow.  I’ll E-mail you later and let you know”

  Except that I don’t have any way to E-mail you.  Nor is it likely that I ever will again.

  MotorHeart smiled.  “Okay,” he breathed, the very tip of his tongue peeking from between his lips and running along Saint’s cheekbone just one last time.

  Saint shuddered, a telepathic sigh emanating from her.  MotorHeart felt it, and gave her a quick buzz.

  She buzzed him back.  Yenning was such a selfless act; the only person feeling pleasure was the one receiving the yenning.  The one giving it didn’t feel anything, unless the receiver yenned them in return.

  I’m never going to see you again.  I’m never going to touch you again.  I’m never going to feel the way I’ve felt about you, ever again.  In a few days I’ll be dead or in prison… And you’ll be the last person who’ll ever hold me.

  And you don’t know it.  It’s better that way…

  They kept on yenning, until MotorHeart became a wire-frame model and vanished.

  Saint’s arms closed around empty air, as she released a sigh.  It was time for her to go, too.  The pain in her thigh was subsiding, and her hunger was growing.  She would have to find something to eat soon.

  Time to face the real world…

  She concentrated for a moment, and the game controller appeared in her hand.

  She felt a lump in her throat as the Exit switch clicked beneath her finger.

 



THREE

 

  Senhi stared towards the gunmetal sky.  She had been staring for hours, now.

  Her throat was open by the time the police found her, lying naked in a ditch by the side of the road like a discarded toy – played with, broken, and emotionlessly thrown away.  Her glasses were long missing, and her eyes, wide and bloodshot, stared blankly at the clouds overhead.  Dried blood stuck to her corpse here and there, the naked fur chillingly cold and damp to the touch with morning dew.

  Her lips were slightly parted, a pale shade of blue.  Dust was settling gently on her eyes.

  Her hair was matted with filth and blood.  The quiet breeze whipped it around her face, the playful motion contrasting hideously with her lifelessness.  Bruises bloomed beneath her fur all over her ruthlessly defiled body, a crimson splash clinging to the soft fur between her thighs.  Three of her fingers had been snapped, either in a struggle or for the thrill it brought.

  The police had assured Lespen that they would find her murderer; traces of semen had been found during the post-mortem, which could be analysed by forensics to find out whom it belonged to.

  But that wouldn’t help.  Not now.  His daughter lay broken on the autopsy slab – abducted, raped and tortured, her throat split wide with a razor blade before he was finally satisfied.

  Lespen was jolted out of his daydream by a hand on his shoulder.  He turned his head to face Adrel, who was sitting down next to him, her eyes filling with tears.

  She had been brave…  She had been a little too brave.  It was almost comforting to see those tears, now.  A sign that, inside her, everything was happening just as it should.

  Lespen curled his arm around Adrel’s shoulders and held her close to him, giving her a chest to cry into.

  “It’ll be okay,” he whispered, for himself as much as Adrel.  Adrel’s shoulders jumped as her breathing shuddered, and he gave her a squeeze, scolding himself mentally for daring to have such thoughts as the ones he was contemplating before.  “It’ll be okay,” he repeated, knowing even as he said it that, even if Senhi did come home alive, it wouldn’t be okay.  He wouldn’t let it be okay.  He wouldn’t be able to bring himself to just let it go – the anger was inside him now, taking him over, giving him thoughts he wouldn’t normally have…  He’d dedicate his life to hunting down whoever had abducted her, and tearing them to pieces…

  He knew it.  And he knew that, try as he might, he’d never be able to sleep until someone was dead.

 

  Senhi emerged into the real world feeling like she had been stabbed in the heart.  Yamagata would never see her again…  There was no way for her to E-mail him, no way for her to contact him at all…  And she felt, now more than ever, that she needed someone to talk to.  She had to tell someone what she was going through, what she was feeling…  How much it hurt…

  Actually, the pain in her thigh was little more than an ache, whereas earlier it had been a scream.  The patch of molten skin on her finger still snarled at her, although not quite as much as when it was fresh.

  She sat up, easing the helmet from her head; the metal was cold, and glistened with dew.  The fiery orange sunset had been replaced by two of the three K’tekki moons; Kuji and Relth, bone-white and blood red respectively.  They gleamed against a canopy of stars in the indigo of night.

  Senhi felt okay, until she tried to stand up.  Weakened with hunger and exposure, her legs gave way underneath her and she sat down heavily, her head swimming.  She let out a soft grunt-moan, more of a brief “uh” than anything.

  The bike’s engine was now cold to the touch.  Senhi shivered.

  It was far too dark, and she was far too tired, to search for food now.  Her throat dry, Senhi squirmed her mouth around to the bike’s engine and blindly felt around the fuel tap until she found the tube leading into it from the tank.  In the darkness, she disconnected the water line, pinching it closed with her thumb and index, and slipped the tiny black tube between her lips, sucking gently.

  She grimaced.  Salty.  Metallic.  And somehow… organic.  But, no matter how bad it tasted - it was drinkable, she was thirsty, end of story.

  She took a few sips, before replacing the pipe, only spilling a few drops in the blackness before it was reattached to the tap.

  Senhi zipped up her jacket to her throat, shivering, before curling up into a foetal position and falling into an uncomfortable, dreamless sleep.

 

Dodgy: So, how did your date go? ;)

MotorHeart: It went great.

Dodgy: Is that all?

MotorHeart: Yup.

Dodgy: C’mon M8, give me some details!  Did ya nuzzle her? *romantic sigh*

MotorHeart: Yeah.

Dodgy: Did ya yenn her?

MotorHeart: Yeah.

Dodgy: Then what’s the problem?  Why you so surly tonight?

  Yamagata sighed, his head in his hands.

MotorHeart: I think I’m in love with her.

Dodgy: Awww! :) :) :) That’s so sweet!

MotorHeart: No… No, it’s not.  Can you keep a secret?

Dodgy: What is it?

MotorHeart: A really *big* secret?

Dodgy: What is it?!

MotorHeart: I… saw her on the news tonight.

  Yamagata had to wait a few seconds for Dodgy’s reply.

Dodgy: Does that mean… what I think it does?

MotorHeart: Yes.

Dodgy: Saint is Senhi Motaku?  THE Senhi Motaku?

MotorHeart: Yes.

  There was a long pause.

MotorHeart: Say something.

  Yamagata was met with another pause.

MotorHeart: SAY SOMETHING!

MotorHeart: Anything!

MotorHeart: Please.

“Dodgy” has logged off chat

 

  It wasn’t long after Senhi woke up that morning that she realised something else had gone wrong with her life.

  She felt seriously ill; something bad had come of being outside all night without so much as a sleeping bag.  It felt like some kind of ‘flu…

  Perhaps pneumonia, said her inner pessimist.  Whatever it was, the hunger was only making it worse…

  Her bike on its side, she wasn’t strong enough to pick it up by herself.  She let the tears stream down her cheeks as she realised that she wouldn’t be able to get out.

  What can I do?  I can’t buy anything, I can’t go back… Senhi’s lips quivered, as she choked back sobs.  Can I?

  It might be okay…  They might understand…
  Senhi sat and contemplated her decision for a little while.

  Prison, perhaps…  Or this forest?
  Senhi let out a defeated sob.  No matter which way she looked at the situation, it was all over.  Prison, or death from starvation and exposure, awaited her.

  She pulled out her mobile phone, and turned it on.  There were several messages…

  A weak grin appeared over Senhi’s lips, as she sat listening to them.  It felt so good to hear her family’s voice again…

  It’ll be okay.  Soon.

  She had only been away from her parents for one night; but even as she sat listening to their voices, it was starting to feel like an eternity.

  The last message on her answerphone was another familiar voice…

  But not quite as friendly.

  “Senhi, we’re gonna kill you!”

  Senhi almost screamed.  That was the voice of Arrma’s current boyfriend.

  “Do you understand?  You’re gonna die!  We’re gonna hang you from a tree and tear your fuckin’ guts out!”

  Senhi felt sick, an adrenaline shiver rushing through her.  They would.  They really would.  Him and Arrma’s friends.

  “You’re dead, Senhi.  We’re gonna find you, and we’re gonna kill you”

  “You have no more messages.  To replay and delete each message individually, please press One.  To listen to each…”

  Senhi stabbed the End button.  Just a few seconds later, the helmet was on her head, and she was Saint once more.

 

  She ran through the streets, tears streaming over her cheeks, shouting for MotorHeart.

  He must be here somewhere.  He’s got to be.

  MotorHeart lived in the North, with her.  If she could find him and tell him she was in trouble, then perhaps he would let her stay with him for a few days.

  “Hey!”

  Saint stopped.  She turned around.

  “Yeah, you!”  He was a tall, dark grey man, middle-aged.  “What’s wrong?”

  Saint walked over to him and looked up at his face, sniffling.  “Do you know a guy called MotorHeart?”

  “No…  What does he look like?” said the man, not unkindly.

  Saint’s voice quavered.  “He’s about six feet tall, red eyes, black fur with a blue sheen.  Long hair, same colour as his fur,” her next words were spoken as if pleading - “Have you seen him?”

  The man shook his head.  “I’m afraid not, kid.  I’ll ask around, though – is it urgent?”

  “Yes,” replied Saint.  Her voice cracked, turning into a squeak, as her tears began to fall once again.  “Very”

  “Hey, hey,” he hushed, his voice kind and gentle, “Don’t get into a state.  Why don’t you just E-mail him?”

  Saint’s eyes were closed now, her shoulders convulsing.  “I can’t get to my computer,” she sobbed.

  “You can E-mail from here,” he told her.

  Saint’s eyes, bloodshot and tearful, opened wide.  “Can I?”

  “Of course!” the man chuckled.  “We have an E-mail server inside the Utopia frame.  There’s a cyber-café just around that corner”

  “Thanks!” exclaimed Saint, before she turned and ran.

 

MotorHeart: I can’t, I’m in college.

Saint: Please!  This is important!

MotorHeart: Senhi, I’m in the middle of an assignment!

Saint: Then why’re you online?

MotorHeart: I’m doing research.

Saint: Please, MotorHeart, I’m begging you.  This is life and death!

MotorHeart: Whose?

Saint: Mine!

  Saint’s fingers rested on the virtual keys, waiting for MotorHeart’s reply.  She reached up a hand and wiped her eyes, trying to control her breathing.

MotorHeart: I saw you on the news last night, Senhi.

  Saint felt a shiver down her spine.

  This can’t be real.  It can’t be.

  She suddenly couldn’t breathe.  She shut her eyes and tried to relax, but it was no use; panic had gripped her, and it felt like it was slowly squeezing her windpipe closed…

  She sat her fingers on the keys, swallowing and shivering.

Saint: What did they say about me?

MotorHeart: That you had killed someone, and you were missing.

Saint: I *am* missing.  She stabbed me, and I stabbed back.  I’m dying, MotorHeart.  Please help me.

  There was a long pause.  Saint’s breathing, now shallow and erratic, began to shudder.

Saint: Please.  Meet me in Utopia and I’ll tell you everything.

  There was another, shorter pause.

MotorHeart: Okay.  Lucky for you my Trance helmet’s in my car.  I’ll see you in a minute, okay?

Saint: Thank you.

“MotorHeart” has logged off chat

 

  Saint sat with MotorHeart, on the same rock by which she had yenned for the very first time the previous night.

  “…And then she stabbed me in the finger with it”

  Yamagata flinched.  “Ouch,” he hissed.

  “Yeah.  I dropped the wire and went like this,” said Saint, gripping her finger.  “And you know what she did?”

  “No?”

  “She sat there…  And she laughed.  And she said, “Oh, Senhi, the look on your face right now,” and without even thinking about it…” her voice cracked into a squeak, her eyes narrowing.  “I… picked up my iron, and…”

  Her squeaks turned to sobs, her lips drawing up into a snarl as she reached a hand up to her face and leant her forehead into her palm.  MotorHeart put his arm around her shoulder, drawing her close to him.

  She cried for a few seconds, then she continued, her voice unsteady, choking out the words.  “I didn’t even think about it.  It just… happened.  I looked over the desk and she was on the floor, just staring up at me.  Her blood was hissing on my iron.  I ran out of the room, and home.  Nobody was there.  So I took my dad’s motorbike, and I ran away”

  “Where are you now?” breathed MotorHeart, numb.

  “I don’t know,” whispered Saint.  “I wasn’t thinking where I was going, I was just panicking.  I’m in a forest somewhere, that’s all I know”

  There was a pause of a few seconds, before MotorHeart spoke again.

  “What can I do to help?”

  Saint closed her eyes, her lips trembling.  “Nothing,” she whispered.  “I was going to ask you if I could stay with you for a little while, but I can’t drag you into this…”

  “No, that would be okay,” said MotorHeart.  “I’ve got plenty of room…”

  “NO!”  Saint’s protest was a screech, startling MotorHeart.  “I’m sorry,” she breathed, “but… you haven’t done anything wrong.”  The words were choked out one by one, as if each one pulled a dagger back from her heart an inch at a time.  “And if I got you involved, I’d only ruin your life as well as my own”

  Yet another pause.

  “MotorHeart…  Please, go”

  “Senhi, I can…  I can help you…”

  “No!  MotorHeart, you have to go…  You’re associating with a criminal”

  “Senhi, what’re you going to do?”

  Saint looked at the floor.  “I don’t know what I’m going to do,” she sighed, knowing precisely where the next few hours and days would lead her.  “It’d be easier to just give up…”

  “You’re going to give yourself up to the police?”

  Saint almost shook her head.  But she thought better of it, and nodded.  He would only get upset if she told him what she was really going to do.  “It’ll be okay,” she said, making an attempt at a smile.  “I’ll just tell them what happened, and how I didn’t really mean to do it…  They’ll understand,” she turned to him, and smiled weakly.  “It’ll be fine.  Don’t worry about me, Yammy.  At least I’ve proven to Arrma that I’m strong – and she’s out of my life.  From this forest, even prison would be an improvement”

  MotorHeart smiled weakly, although he didn’t really feel like it.

  He took hold of Saint in a tight hug, and buzzed her.  She buzzed back.

  Saint let out a sob.  She knew she was running her fingers over his soul for the last time, feeling his heartbeat for the last time, his warmth…

  She was glad she wasn’t hungry or cold anymore.  And that the pain in her finger had disappeared.  At least it meant that she could feel him without any distractions, even though the very fact that these sensations was gone suggested that something terrible had happened.

  He played his fingers in her hair, nuzzling his cheek against hers.  She let out a soft gasp as the tip of his tongue flicked out and caressed her neck; she returned the affectionate licking, ruffling the fur over his cheek.

  She never wanted this moment to end…  But she knew that it had to, sooner or later.

  And, sooner or later, it did.  MotorHeart said his farewells, wished Saint the very best of luck, and – and this is the part that felt to Saint like a bolt of lightning to her heart – told her that he loved her.

  She had said the same.  They yenned for just a few minutes more, showing each other their love, and then MotorHeart had left.

  Saint sat on the rock, already feeling alone.  That was it – that was goodbye.

  Not just goodbye to MotorHeart, not just goodbye to Yamagata – but goodbye to everything.

  Goodbye to hope.  Goodbye to reality.

  The sky was turning red; not just the fire of a setting sun, but the scarlet flood of something new, something dangerous.  A new threat growing inside her – something that was stronger than she was.

  There’s no more fun for me to have…  I have nothing left.  Even what I had before I started is gone…  It’s all over.  There’s nothing left for me to do…

  Saint closed her eyes.  …but cut my losses.  And get out now.

  Saint sat silently on the rock for a few moments, then stood up.

  Get out right now.

  She strapped the jump pack to her back.

 

  Walking, detached, through the streets of Utopia, Saint looked at her watch.

  It was exactly as she expected – she hadn’t heard the alarms ringing at the half-hour mark.  And what was even more frightening was that the pain in her thigh and finger had faded to nothing.  She was no longer hungry, or dizzy.

  Saint let out a sigh; she knew exactly what had happened to her.  The combination of hunger, shock, exposure and blood loss would eventually finish her – for now, she lay unconscious in the forest, the device gleaming on her head, slowly killing her.

  And that’s the way it’s got to be.  There’s nothing left for me, now…

  At least I’ll feel no pain.  It’ll be slow, but I won’t feel a thing…

  Saint saw a familiar face; that was the man she had talked to earlier.  She made the decision to go and talk to him when she saw his expression - his confusion, his panic.

  The worry was replaced with a glimmer of recognition as he saw Saint approaching him.

  “Did you find your friend?”

  “My boyfriend.  Yeah,” said Saint, with a grateful smile.  “Thanks”

  Even though she had put Yamagata out of what remained of her life, it felt so good to be able to say those words for the first time…  My boyfriend.

  “So, what’s wrong?” she asked.

  “Have you seen the sky?  Look up there, kid”

  Saint looked upwards.  The sky was still blood-red – but the sun wasn’t setting.  In fact, she could see it now; a dull orange sphere, staring down at her from miles above.

  “I don’t know about you, kid, but to me, this spells bad news”

  “Really?” breathed Saint, confusion evident in her own voice.  “I thought this was normal for Utopia?  Just something that happens every now and then?”

  “Well, it ain’t.  You new here, kid?”

  “Yeah.  My name’s Saint”

  “Mine’s Terral.  Nice to meet you, I’m a Utopia technician,” said Terral, never once taking his eyes from the sky.

  Saint looked up at him.  He was about six two, perhaps six three.  Middle-aged, with grey fur and blue eyes, filled with fear and still staring intently at the sky.

  “I’d probably better go inside, have a look at what’s going on in there…” he muttered, walking over to a manhole cover.  Something shimmered in his hand; a hook-like tool appeared from out of nowhere, and he hooked it in the cover and pulled, sliding the iron over the concrete with an awful metallic scraping noise like the growl of some ancient mechanical war beast.

  Saint watched, curious.  He must be able to do different things, being a technician.  He has more control over the program.

  Just before Terral’s head disappeared into the darkness, he called to her.

  “Come along if you want, Saint.  You might be interested.  All the stuff that makes Utopia tick is down here”

  She considered for a moment, before following.

 

  Terral jumped off the ladder, closely followed by Saint.  He shone a torch into the darkness, dimly illuminating a corridor about twenty or thirty feet long, with a heavy steel door at the end.  Something cold dripped down the concrete walls, making them glisten.

  “Come on,” said Terral, and began to walk towards the door.  Saint followed, with a little trepidation.

  The corridor wasn’t that long.  Saint knew, it couldn’t have been as long as it felt.  But as they walked, the door seemed to fall back from them, as if the corridor itself was stretching.

  “Is that normal?” asked Saint at one point; Terral’s reply was in the affirmative, reassuring her and telling her not to worry about it.

  Saint worried nonetheless.

  Just before they finally reached the door, Terral stopped, motioning to Saint to do the same.  He pressed a switch next to the door, and a fluorescent light buzzed and flickered into life.

  He raised his hand; reality shimmered for a moment, a slight distortion in the air around his hand.  A knife appeared, the tip glinting in the light.  Saint let out a yelp, backing up against the wall.

  “This is going to feel a little weird,” said Terral, holding the knife in a stabbing position, “Try not to panic, and it’ll be easier.”

  Terral moved so fast that Saint didn’t get the chance to realise what was going on; before she could even scream, he had lifted her T-shirt up to just below her rib cage, exposing her navel.

  She stared in horror at the knife, the metal gleaming in the light, before he thrust forward and, with a sickening wet tearing sound, stabbed it into Saint’s belly.  She felt a coldness sliding into her, and tried to double up; he pushed her back, thumping her against the wall.  She screamed and tried to punch him; he didn’t even flinch when her knuckles connected with his face.  He didn’t even move.  Saint’s hand stopped dead with a bone-shuddering jolt, as if he was made of iron.

  “Hold still,” muttered Terral, looking down at the knife.  Saint kept on screaming, her arms flailing, trying to scratch his eyes from his sockets; but they were as hard as steel, and she could still feel the icy metal inside her, moving with every panicked motion she made.

  “Please, Saint, hold still!” growled Terral.  “Look, it doesn’t hurt, does it?”

  At that remark, Saint realised; it actually didn’t.

  She stopped struggling, her eyes narrowed in hatred.  “What are you doing?” she hissed, trying to keep her breathing steady to avoid moving the blade around inside her.

  “Just relax, Saint,” he said, his eyes staring downward.  Saint looked down, tracing his line of sight – she was ready to slap him, before she realised that he was looking at the handle of the knife.

  It was huge, and black, and had a small display mounted in it, at this moment lit and displaying some menus.

  She turned her gaze to the blade: clean.  The blade disappeared into her body without a trace of blood.  She closed her eyes and let out an uncomfortable moan, trying to be as still as she could.

  “That’s better,” murmured Terral.  “Not long, now”

  “What are you doing?” hissed Saint through gritted teeth, her eyes screwed shut.

  “I’m trying to look at what’s going on inside you, Saint.  I don’t want to alarm you, but there’s something very wrong”

  “What do you mean, something wrong?”

  “Try not to talk too much, Senhi.  I thought I saw it in you when you came back; I’ll let you know when I find out for sure”

  Saint felt a chill down her spine.  “How did you know my name?” she growled, incredulity creeping into her voice.

  “It’s all on my little screen, here.  Please, enough questions!  Hold still, keep your breathing shallow, don’t speak!”

  Saint leaned against the wall silently for a few more seconds, before Terral spoke again.

  “Okay… all done” he said cheerfully, then pulled the knife out of Saint’s stomach and let her T-shirt drop.  This time, she really did double up, and fell to one knee.  She reached down and felt under her shirt; the sides of the injury felt moist, but there was no blood.  She lifted her T-shirt and looked down.

  Brilliant white light poured from the opening in her belly, shadows moving too fast for her to see them properly.

  “Don’t worry; it’ll heal in a few seconds,” offered Terral, taking a small cloth from his pocket and wiping the blade.

  She caught a glimpse of what he was wiping off - not blood, but some clear, viscous substance, clinging in strands between the rag and the blade; it looked an odd mix of synthetic and organic, almost like a gear lubricant.  He spoke as he rubbed the blade, his tone deadly serious:

  “You’ve broken the rules, Senhi.  Just like I thought you had”

  “What?” exclaimed Saint, disbelief tainting her voice as she clung to her belly.  “What have I done?”

  “You’ve fallen asleep – I could see it in your eyes, up there.  I just had to make sure”

  There was a brief pause, Saint’s wound sealing.  Her expression changed from one of anger, to one of confusion.  “Why is that a bad thing?”

  Terral sighed.  “When people fall asleep, they dream.  When people dream in Utopia, their dreams get mixed in with the program, and really freaky things happen.  You’ve put a lot of people at risk, Senhi”

  “I… I didn’t realise,” she pleaded, getting to her feet.

  “Not a lot of people do.  They just let themselves fall asleep, and they start to dream…  Next thing we know, we’ve got to evacuate everybody and do a complete reset, ‘cause there’s no way to get rid of… whatever appears… until the person wakes up”

  “What do you mean, whatever appears?”

  Terral shrugged.  “It’s different every time…  Depending on whether they have nice dreams.  We could be talking rivers of chocolate, marshmallow clouds; or bloody chains and shambling monsters running around the streets.  We set this suite up to stop it from getting outside.  That’s why the corridor feels longer than it looks; it’s a kind of insulation.  I just hope you have nice dreams,” he grinned.  “Through here, please”

  Terral opened the door; it swung open with a metallic screech, and it was then that Saint noticed what had happened to it.

  The door, clean and shiny a few moments ago, was beginning to rust.  Terral had noticed, too.

  “Looks like I got here just in time,” he muttered, frowning at the rust.  “In you go, Senhi”

  Saint took a few steps into the room - it was quite a nice place, actually.  Modern styling, and all the conveniences of a high-class hotel suite, mixed with a teenager’s bedroom; there was a computer, a bed, a TV, an upright games machine…  A few doors leading off into other rooms…

  She heard Terral’s voice behind her.

  “I’m sorry it has to be this way; but as you know, you can’t leave the Trance program until you wake up, and as I know, this is the only place that’s insulated from the outside”

  Saint felt a realisation wash over her.  “You’re locking me in here?”

  For a moment, she thought she saw a flicker of genuine emotion.  “Just for a little while,” he said.  “Until you wake up”

  Saint opened her mouth to speak, but she stopped herself.  Behind her glasses, her eyes began to shine.

  “It’ll only be a few minutes, hopefully,” said Terral, noting the tears appearing in Saint’s eyes.  “The half-hour alarm should wake you up”

  Saint turned her back on him.  “Okay,” she choked.

  She didn’t feel him leave.  She could still sense his presence; he was standing in the doorway, one foot in, one foot out, his hand on the door.  Watching her.  His mouth was opening, as he looked for something to say.

  “Don’t cry,” he offered feebly.  “It’s not for long”

  Saint tried to choke back a sob.  “I’m okay,” she quavered.  “Just go”

  There was another brief pause, before Saint heard a sigh, and the heavy steel door closing behind her.

 

  Yamagata…

  I don’t know how to say this.  I’ve never been very good at expressing myself.

  But in the few months I’ve known you, you’ve been the single most important person in my life.  I love you, Yammy.

  I love you so much it hurts.

  I’m not giving myself in to the police, Yammy.  There are so many people who want to hurt me – and they would find me eventually.

  There’s no more fun to have, Yaz.  This is the end for me.

  I knew you would find out eventually… I just wanted you to hear it from me, while I’m still alive, than on the news, when it’s too late.  I’m staying in Utopia.

  I don’t know how long I’ve got… My finger doesn’t hurt anymore, and I’m not hungry or cold.  So I probably don’t have much time left.

  But… This is nice.  This is the least painful way.

  Words can’t express the happiness you’ve brought me, Yamagata.  You made my life almost worth living.  But I’m tired, Yammy.  So tired of people who want to hurt me and those who are close to

 

  A sudden metallic screech slashed through Saint as the door behind her opened.  Hastily, she minimised the window.

  She turned her head to see Terral, standing in the doorway.  He smiled.

  “You still here?” he asked.

  Saint regarded him coldly.  “Yeah,” she said, wiping her eyes and trying not to show emotion.

  “Listen, Senhi…” he began, stepping inside and closing the door behind him, “something odd showed up in the scan I did…” he looked around the room, noticing the differences.  His tone took on a suggestion of suppressed fear.  “Hey…”

  “I know,” interrupted Saint.  “I’m dreaming, aren’t I?”

  Terral looked around himself, at the shadows flickering around the walls.  The darker areas of the room that weren’t there before.

  The rust creeping around every metallic surface, the colour of old dried blood.  The wooden furnishings growing vein-like roots, twisting out into the room.  The sheets on the bed, stained yellow.  The bed itself, now constructed from pieces of drainpipe crudely welded together.

  He swallowed.  “Yes,” he murmured, “yes, you are, Senhi.  Um…  Let’s not let that bother us.  Would you come over here for a moment, please?”

  Terral gestured towards the bed.  With a weary sigh, Saint stood up from the computer chair and walked over to him, sitting down.

  “If you could just lie down, face up, and lift your T-shirt a little…”

  “You gonna stab me with that probe again, Terral?” asked Saint, lying down on the bed.

  Terral hesitated.

  She had changed.  There was something about her that was different to when he had left her.  Somehow… less vulnerable.

  More dangerous.

  “Yeah,” he eventually agreed, “but now you know what’s coming, and that it doesn’t hurt, I won’t have to take you by surprise to get you to agree to it.  Will I?”

  Saint shrugged.  “Pain is pain…” she said, lifting her T-shirt to just below her breasts.  “I’ve had far worse”

  Terral looked at her for a moment.  Behind her glasses, those eyes were cold.  Devoid of any emotion…  Or perhaps, any emotion she wanted to show to him.

  He brought the probe into his hand with a brief shimmer of the air.  He set the tip of the blade just above Saint’s navel, burying it in her soft fur.

  Saint felt a cold point pressing against her skin.

  “Okay, just relax,” he said in a comforting tone.  “Here it comes”

  He applied a slight pressure to the blade.  Saint’s flesh resisted for a moment, then parted with barely a whisper.  She grunted, screwing her eyes shut and baring her teeth.  A little fluid dribbled from the rupture – clear, thick, and with a curiously synthetic quality, almost like some kind of motor oil.

  “Hush,” he whispered, as he slid the blade into her.  “Won’t be long”

  Saint whimpered.

  That was somehow comforting.  At last, some emotion.  He was surprised that the room itself wasn’t scaring her.

  It was certainly scaring him.

  “Hurry up,” growled Saint.  “Get it over with”

  Terral pushed the knife into her body, up to the hilt.  He glanced at the screen, reading the program’s serial number and checking it against those already registered.

  Just as I thought.

  He let out a disgusted “Huh!”

  “What’s your damn problem now?” muttered Saint.

  That did it.  Terral had some sympathy for the girl, up until now – but she had stolen the Utopia software, and now she was developing a real attitude.

  He put one hand on her belly, and pulled the knife from her with alarming speed.  Saint let out a gasp and opened her eyes; strands of sticky fluids extended from the opening in her belly to Terral’s knife.  She closed her eyes, disgusted.

  “Do you have to be so rough, pal?” she snarled.  “Is this any way to treat a customer?”

  “Certainly not.  It’s an ideal way to treat a thief, though”

  Saint opened her eyes.  “What?”

  Terral wiped the blade with his rag.  “You’ll be pleased to know, Miss Motaku, that head office have been informed of your illegal installation of the Utopia software, and will shortly begin to take legal action against you”

  They stared at each other for a moment.

  Then the corners of Saint’s mouth curled up into a smile.

  “Oh, so you think I’m joking?” snarled Terral.  “You can expect a letter from our solicitors soon, miss.  And I can expect a nice bonus for catching a criminal”

  Saint began to giggle, pulling the bottom of her shirt down into its proper position.  “This is too funny!” she chuckled.

  Terral smiled too.  “And why might that be, Senhi?”

  “Because by the time your letter reaches my house, I’ll be long gone!”

  “Oh?  Why, where do you think you’re running off to?”

  Saint stopped laughing abruptly, and the smile fell from her face.  She stared at Terral, whose grin had begun to show weakness.

  Her smile was replaced with a snarl, her eyes wide and staring with an intensity Terral had never seen before.  “Your letter won’t reach me,” she hissed, “because I’ll be dead by the time it gets to my parents”

  Terral’s expression changed to one of confusion.  “What?”

  “Terral, don’t you recognise me?  Haven’t you been watching the news?”

  Terral stared into Saint’s eyes for a moment.  Then his own opened wide as the memories finally floated to the surface.

  “Senhi…  You’re the one who killed that girl!”

  Saint stared into the black slits in the centre of his eyes.  “Yes,” she said.  Nothing more.

  “The police are looking for you,” said Terral.

  “Terral…  Did the people on the news mention why I stabbed Arrma?”

  Terral’s reply was a whisper.  “No,” he breathed, unable to take his eyes from Saint’s.

  “I did it because she stabbed me first,” growled Saint, “and then she sat there and laughed in my face.  Prior to that, she had made my life a living hell for five years.  So, Terral, you can understand why I did it”

  “Yeah” he murmured once more, his voice unsteady.

  “I’m killing myself,” she murmured.

  Terral’s eyes opened wide.

  “What?”

  “I’m killing myself,” she said again.  Her voice showed no emotion.  “I’ve been unconscious for hours, and I’m not going to wake up”

 

  Terral sat on the bed with his knife hanging limply from his hand.  He simply sat on the bed, and shook his head.  Sat on the bed, and shook his head, and stared towards the floor.

  Which, even as he stared, was changing from soft carpet to cold, filthy stone.

  He looked away, turning his stare towards Saint.  She sat at the computer, typing an E-mail.

  The sound of her fingers clicking against keys was mixing with the louder cracks and clicks of the rusty machine that was once an upright video game.  It sat in the corner of the room, making those terrible sounds…

  Terral shivered.  The last time he had the courage to look over at it, he had screamed.  It was a huge, terrifying thing of rusted cables and spinning gears and exhaust pipes, and two long, spindly arms where the joysticks had been, extending into the air and lurching back and forth in an obscene mechanical ballet…

  He screwed his eyes shut.  He could hear them now; those arms, those horrible arms…  Rusted and screeching with every motion, they were jerked around by steel cables disappearing into the depths of the machine, pulled and yanked by heavy wheels.  They manipulated things in between them on the shelf-like control deck…

  Bones, screamed Terral’s senses, It’s putting a tiny little skeleton together, it’s pushing the balls into the sockets, it’s wrenching them around trying to get the pieces to fit, and it sounds like an arthritic old man with a hundred spindly fingers, cracking his knuckles all at once…

  But his mind wasn’t taking any of it in.  His mind was concentrating on Saint, as he stared at her.  She was the one familiar thing in the room.

  He sat, and shivered, and stared at the back of Saint’s head.  She was having an online chat with her boyfriend.

  A part of him raged at her: HOW CAN SHE BE SO CALM?

  It’s because she’s talking to someone she loves.

  Terral put his hands over his ears, rocking back and forth.  But still, the sound of those bones clicking together was loud and clear…

  BANG.

  Terral sat bolt upright, his eyes swivelling towards the source of the noise.

  The door.

  BANG.

  It shook, bulging inwards with the sound, as if something huge was trying to force its way in.

  BANG.

  Silence.

  Saint, who had turned to look at where the sound was coming from, now stared into Terral’s eyes.

  “That must be what the half-hour alarm is like,” she said quite calmly, “when I’m like this”

  Terral stared back at her.  He shouldn’t have been able to hear that.  Her nightmare was shaping the world around her.

  To take his mind off the things that were happening around him, he asked her a question.

  “What are you two talking about?”

  Saint hesitated.  “I don’t think that’s any of your business, Terral”

  Terral heard something new.  There was a wetness to the clicking that wasn’t there before.  Terrified to think what he might see, he turned his head.

  The machine was slipping soft, glistening organs into the skeleton.  Disgusted, Terral turned his back on it – but not before he realised, with a terrifying chill down his spine, that the skeleton was… moving.

  It was twitching.  The tiny heart being fondled by the rusted mechanical claws was beating.

  He lay down on the bed; the pillow stank of old sweat and decay.

  “Senhi,” he said, his voice tinged with revulsion, “I think your body’s trying to tell you something…”

  “I know, Terral” she muttered, her eyes locked on the screen.

  Don’t think about it, she told herself.  There’s no point.  There’s nothing I can do about it, except ignore it and hope it goes away.

MotorHeart: Please… Please, Senhi, let me help you.

Saint: I can’t drag you into this, Yamagata, I’ve told you.

MotorHeart: Senhi – I’m sitting in my car, with my laptop, crying.  My friends are tapping on the windows – they don’t know what’s happening.  I love you, Senhi.  I don’t know what I’ll do if you die.

Saint: Yamagata, it’s hopeless.  I don’t have anything left to live for.

MotorHeart: At least let me talk to you face-to-face.

Saint: No!  Yamagata, really, that is a *bad* idea!

MotorHeart: Why?

Saint: I’m unconscious, with a Trance helmet on my head.  I can’t get out of Utopia.  Really strange things are happening, because I’m dreaming.

MotorHeart: You’re unconscious?

Saint: Yes…

Saint: I’m sorry.

  Saint’s lip trembled, and her view of the screen began to blur.

Saint: Yammy, believe me, this isn’t how I wanted it to be.  If I hadn’t killed Arrma, then we would have just gone on our date like we wanted to, and we could have gone out again…

Saint: We could have been happy…

  Saint wiped her eyes, a whimper forcing through her lips.

  “You know what, Senhi?”

  Saint turned around, to face Terral.  The compassion that he once displayed was gone; replaced with fear, and indifference to her pain.

  He shook his head…  “Fuck this,” he whispered.  “It isn’t in my job description…  I don’t have to stay here, Senhi.  It was my decision.  But…  Your mind…”

  He stood up.  “It’s just… too screwed-up.  I hope the cops find you fast, Senhi…  I’d stay here, I really would, but…”

  “Just go,” whispered Saint.  “You don’t have to stay here…  I’m scared too.  I’d leave if I could, Terral”

  Saint saw a glimmer of emotion in Terral’s eyes.  She didn’t dwell on it, though…

  She simply turned back to the screen, finding a message from Yamagata.

MotorHeart: We can still be happy.  I’ll help you.  I’d do anything for you, Senhi.  We can make it okay again...  So please…

MotorHeart: Please…

MotorHeart: Don’t do this.

  Saint closed her eyes, choking on her sobs.  They came freely now, as she heard the door slam shut behind Terral.

  This really was the end.  She let her tears out, along with a dejected howl, burying her face in her hands.  After a few seconds, she rested her fingertips on the keys, and began to type once more.

Saint: I love you, Yammy.  I love you more than life itself.

Saint: But…

Saint: It’s over.

Saint: It’s all over.

“Saint” has logged off chat.

 

  Saint pulled her glasses from her face, pitched them over her shoulder, and rested her head on her arm, on the computer desk.  She sat and cried, until her arm was soaked, and the computer was rusted, and the desk was rotten, and her tears turned to blood.

  The machine behind her was sliding needles into the heap of twitching, glistening bones and muscle between the base of its arms.  The tiny legs kicked in protest while the blood and fluids were pumped into it through tubes leading to bags suspended on rusty steel frames above the machine, and then the touca lifted its head and began to squeal as the machine used a whirring, screeching device of stabbing needles and motors to patch skin and fur to its bare muscle.  The empty eye sockets stared around the room, black and sightless as it screamed.  Scarlet blood leaked from its squirming body and dribbled to the floor, bright and vivid against the dark, filthy stone.

  And Saint lay weeping on the computer desk, her blood dripping from her eyes.



FOUR

 

  Saint lay motionless on the computer desk, her bloody tears staunched and drying on her cheeks, while MotorHeart ran down the corridor towards her.

  The corridor stretched even as he ran, repeating those hysterical syllables as though it were a mantra; “It shouldn’t take this long, Damn it, it shouldn’t take this long!”

  But MotorHeart knew, even as he screamed the words into the darkness of the passage, tears running down his cheeks, that his enemy wasn’t just exposure; it was shock, it was blood loss, it was starvation…  Almost like the Four Horsemen.

  The thump of his feet against stone echoed around the corridor, until he finally reached the heavy steel door at its end.

  MotorHeart gripped the wheel and spun, releasing the lock with a heavy crunch.

  He hesitated.  The sound of the lock opening was eerily similar to that of a bone splintering.

  Unease surged through him, from the spine outwards.  He steeled himself for what he might see, and pushed.

  The door stuck, before eventually screeching open.  MotorHeart’s eyes scanned around the room, and eventually settled on Saint.  Resting her head forward into her forearm, she leaned on the desk on which there sat the rusted remains of what looked like a burnt-out computer monitor.

  He took a few steps forward, before his eyes opened wide.  He had noticed the blood; the blood all over the desk, all over the floor.  Dripping from below Saint’s eyes.

  He opened his mouth to scream, but could only manage deep, squeaking rushes of disbelief.  After a couple of seconds which seemed like an eternity, MotorHeart was finally able to let out a tiny yelp, which turned into a soul-torn scream, turning his throat to fire and his spine to ice.

  Saint’s head jerked upwards, as if yanked by a wire, and she turned to face him.

  MotorHeart’s scream had cut off just as she raised her head.  But now it was threatening to return; dried blood clung to her fur, from her eyes downwards.  Her expression was dazed, stupid.

  She stared at him for a moment, her eyes tired and half-closed, her lips parting.  Then she gripped the armrest and, shakily, pulled herself to her feet.

  She stumbled, and reached out for the support of the computer desk.  MotorHeart ran to her and enveloped her in his arms, his eyes screwed shut and sobs escaping his lips.

  They stayed like that for a minute or so, simply feeling one another’s heartbeat.  MotorHeart curled his fingers in her hair, gently stroking his cheek against hers, while tears ran silently through his fur.

  Eventually, he had to break the moment.  “Senhi…” he whispered, his voice shaking, “What’s happened to you?”

  Saint squeezed MotorHeart just a little tighter.  “Nothing,” she sighed, her voice trembling just as much as his, “it’s just a bad dream”

  MotorHeart pulled back, his hands on Saint’s shoulders, his eyes burning into hers.

  He sniffed once, then spoke:  “Senhi, you’ve got to tell me where you are,” he quavered, his voice cracking.

  Saint closed her eyes, her face angled towards the floor.  “I don’t know, Yammy,” she whispered, “I told you…  I didn’t know where I was going, I just ran”

  “Senhi, I’m not going to let you do this!”

  Saint’s eyes opened, her face inclined to MotorHeart’s.  “I know,” she said, her tone soft and weary.

  “I love you, Senhi,” breathed MotorHeart, hugging her to his chest.  “I love you too much to just let this happen”

  Saint’s lips quivered and her tears finally made their way out once more, still bloody, staining MotorHeart’s shirt a deep scarlet.  “I know,” she shuddered for a second time.  “I love you too much to do it…”

  MotorHeart’s arms enfolded her, squeezing her tight to his heart.  “So you’ll let me help you?”

  Saint coughed out a feeble laugh, followed by a sniff.  “Yeah,” she sobbed, “Anything’s better than this”

  MotorHeart felt a realisation sink in.  He lifted his face from Saint’s hair and looked around himself.

  Something had happened here.  The room couldn’t have been like this before Saint passed out.

  Some parts of the walls were rusted metal, the colour of dried blood.  Others were black, and glistened with something viscous and organic…

  Wires and cables protruded here and there, jutting out a few inches into the room.  Some had collected and twisted together, almost like branches of some warped tree.  What furniture remained was barely recognisable; the computer had rusted into scrap metal, the bed was pipes and chain-link welded together with shiny black leather restraining straps criss-crossing over the top… and there was some machine in the corner that MotorHeart had no idea about; a tall cabinet with what looked like arms, folded over each other in front of it…

  He shifted his stare back to Saint.

  “Is this because you’re dreaming?”

  Saint nodded.

  “Let’s get out of here…”

  MotorHeart ushered Saint towards the door, trying not to look around.  A few steps away from it, something soft and warm curled around his calf.

  He shivered, looking downwards.  Something white…

  It made some movement, and just before MotorHeart realised what was happening, he was staring into a pair of jet-black pits in the centre of pools of scarlet; eyes that burned with raging hatred.

  The touca’s ears were flattened against its skull.  Coarse black stitches tracked over its body and face, a vicious pair of incisors descending from the foaming muzzle.

  MotorHeart stepped back, his steel-toe boot swung behind him, ready to kick the touca into oblivion.  Saint’s arms wrapped around him from behind, and she screwed her eyes shut.

  A rush of air, a wet thud, a squeal, and droplets hitting the floor.  She buried her face in MotorHeart’s fur.

  “Thank you,” she whispered.  “I wanted to get rid of that thing, but…  I just couldn’t bring myself to…”

  “Don’t think about it,” murmured MotorHeart.  “Let’s just get going.  Don’t look, okay?”

  Saint nodded.  She didn’t open her eyes until MotorHeart had realised that the door had no handle on the inside.

  A muttered profanity forced between MotorHeart’s lips.  “Senhi, how’d the technician get out?”

  “I don’t know…  How did you know he was in here?”

  “I saw him coming out of the manhole, so I asked him where you were”

  “So what are you going to do?”

  MotorHeart was silent for a moment.  “I’ll think of something…  There’s software out there, stuff that’ll let me find out where you are…”

  “Yammy…” breathed Saint, “I’m getting weaker.  It’s getting really hard to control my body.  We don’t have much time”

  MotorHeart hesitated, before turning to look at Saint.  “Do you think you’ll be okay for a few minutes?”

  Saint stared up into his eyes, her own weary and half-closed.  “Yeah,” she breathed, her voice barely more than a whisper.  “Just be as quick as you can, okay?”

  MotorHeart nodded.  He flickered for a moment, becoming a white silhouette devoid of texture, then a green wire-frame model – then Saint’s arms closed around empty air.

  She sighed, her eyes closed.  

  A moist writhing sound, from just inches away from her feet…  She screwed her eyes shut and ignored it.

  A supple, slippery mass, crawling over her foot…

  She pulled her foot back from the heap of twitching, writhing chunks, and looked down – the touca was slithering over the floor, leaving its intestines trailing behind.

  She raised her knee, and slammed her foot down onto the wriggling mess, shutting her eyes just before she felt the bones crunching beneath her heel.

  She took a few steps over to the bed, flopped down onto the hard, cold steel mesh, and began to sob.

 

  Hane stared.

  “You want me to what?”

  Yamagata’s eyes narrowed.  “I don’t have time for this, Hane.  Just do it”

  Hane sighed.  “You can’t just hack into Utopia.  I can’t just wave a magic wand and…”

  Yamagata’s fist slammed onto the table.  Several students in the cafeteria turned around to look.

  “Hane,” he growled, staring into him, “Listen to me.  Someone very close to me is going to die unless we do something about it.  I’m not asking you to hack,” he continued, trying to keep his voice level, “I just need you to find me one of those scripts that would give me a technician’s probe”

  Hane grimaced.  “That’s really illegal, Yaz.  I mean seriously illegal”

  Yamagata scowled.  “I defended you when those wankers from Chemical had a go at you for being from Leola, right?”

  Hane hesitated.  “Well, it wasn’t so much ‘cause I’m from Leola, but ‘cause I go to Fleet College too…”

  “No,” interrupted Yamagata, shaking his head.  “They were just looking for an excuse to have a go at you, ‘cause you’re from what they saw as some fucked-up caveman country on some fucked-up caveman planet.  The whole college rivalry thing was just a sideline that other idiots could understand…” he hesitated.  “That’s beside the point!” he continued, his tone more urgent and less threatening.  “The point is that you owe me one, Hane”

  Hane looked down.  His amber eyes were very dissimilar to Yamagata’s; not just a different colour, but also featuring perfectly round pupils, as opposed to vertical slits.  His incisors not so pointed or sharp.  His rust-coloured fur was coarser, shinier – a trademark of his home planet, Jahl.

  “Bloody favours…” he muttered, then looked up.  “Okay,” he said, picking up his bag.  “Get in the car, we’ll do this somewhere private”

 

  Saint looked up.

  She wasn’t totally surprised at what she saw.

  “Arrma…”

  The apparition grinned, the wound running as muscle shifted underneath.  “Hello again,” it giggled.

  “You’re not real…” whispered Saint, looking back towards the stone tiled floor.

  The response came with a smile.  “I’m as real as I need to be, in this place”

  Saint turned her eyes back towards Arrma.  Her voice cracked as her lips began to tremble.  “Why are you doing this?” she squeaked.  “Why did you do this to me?”

  Arrma smiled.  Smoke curled from the hole in its face.

  “Because you deserve it,” it hissed, its voice akin to the sound of blood sizzling along the length of a blackened soldering iron.  “You’re worthless, Saint.  You’ve always known it.  You’re an easy target.  You deserve failure, for being so vulnerable.  For being so damn helpless.  You know it.  Deep inside, you know it was always in you…  You’re designed,” it whispered, leaning close to Saint’s face, “to be a victim”

  Saint’s shoulders jumped.  Her breathing turned to shuddering, a coal burning in her throat.

  “You want it this way,” whispered the apparition, its lips only inches away from Saint’s ear.  “You’re so laughably sad…  So horrendously ugly…  So despicably weak.  You have no place in this world, Senhi.  You’re beyond being pitiful.  You’re an embarrassment, and you know it.  You deserve to be punished, simply for your existence…”

  Saint buried her face in her hands, her sniffles turning to sobs.  “Please,” she quavered, “leave me alone…”

  “You think Yamagata loves you?” continued Arrma, with breath tinged with the acrid stench of solder and burned fur, “He’s probably just going to take a picture of your body in the forest while you die, so he can sell it to the media.  And you know what?  Nobody will even notice you’re gone!”

  Arrma laughed.  Saint’s eyes came up from her hands, her stare sliding up Arrma’s legs, the scandalously short skirt, the un-tucked shirt, the raunchy off-centre tie, to greet the hole in Arrma’s face, widening as it threw its head back and cackled.  Smoke poured from the wound, a steady trickle of blood and other fluid running down Arrma’s fur and dripping onto its shirt.

  “You know what the funniest thing is?  It’s that you’ll die without ever making love with him.  You’re going to die a virgin, Senhi.”  Arrma’s grin spread wider.  “And you don’t know what you’re missing”

  Saint’s eyes swivelled towards the door as it swung open, hitting the wall.  MotorHeart strode in, a knife in his hand.

  “Here he comes now,” giggled Arrma, narrowing her eyes.  “You here to rape her, Yazzy-waz?” she licked her lips, pouting her chest towards him.  Blood from the wound on her face tracked a scarlet line over her breast, a vivid contrast with the white of her shirt.  “Or would you prefer some of this?”

  MotorHeart thrust the blade towards Arrma.  Saint screamed, slamming her eyes shut and clapping her hands over her ears.

  Arrma laughed hysterically even as MotorHeart cut her.

  “Take me, Yammy!  Oh God, that hurts so good!”

  MotorHeart was screaming, the knife ripping forward again and again.

  Arrma giggled.

  “Deeper!  Oh, Yaz, yes!”

  Saint pressed her hands harder against her ears, her screaming mixing with MotorHeart’s.

  “You really know how to show a girl a good time, big boy…”

  “SHUT UP!”

 

  Hane looked over at Yamagata, alarmed.  He was twitching in the passenger seat, the helmet gleaming on his head.  His lips curled upwards in a snarl, his eyes narrowed.

  He watched him for a moment, then turned his attention back to his laptop, running from the car’s cigarette lighter.  That technician’s probe would probably be detected soon…

  Hurry up, Yaz… Just get it in her, then we can get going…

 

  MotorHeart sat down on the bed next to Saint.  Tears gleamed in his eyes.

  “Senhi…  We’ve got to get you out of this place”

  Saint nodded.  Arrma’s remains lay in the bathroom; MotorHeart had to cut her to pieces before she finally stopped moaning and laughing.  But there was no blood, or internal organs falling to the floor, just smoke.  Thick, black smoke, billowing from every slash, until Arrma’s empty skin flopped lifelessly to the ground, a grin slashed over her face.

  She shut the image out of her mind.  She knew what was coming next; that knife was going into her.

  “I know what you want to do,” muttered Saint, looking down towards the knife in MotorHeart’s hand.

  He followed her stare, realising.  “Yeah,” he breathed.  “It’ll get the location of your helmet”

  Saint’s mouth twitched into a weak grin.  “So it’s not hopeless, then…”

  “It’s never hopeless, Senhi” offered MotorHeart, a smile playing over his own lips.

  “Let’s get this over with”

  Saint lay flat on the bed, lifting her shirt a little.  “I’m ready”

 

  Hane watched the status bar fill, his smile broadening.

  He leaned over, inclining his lips to Yamagata’s ear.  “It’s done,” he said.  “I’m gonna drive us there, okay?”

  Yamagata lay motionless, the steel band gripping his head.  A smile twitched at the edges of his mouth.

  Hane turned the key.

 

  MotorHeart withdrew the blade, evoking a quiet, uncomfortable gasp from Saint.

  “Okay,” he murmured, smiling.  “We’ve got you, now”

  Saint smiled, sniffling.  She sat up, and threw her arms around him.

  MotorHeart buried his nose in Saint’s hair, sobs mixing with laughter.  She squeezed him, feeling his heartbeat, his vibes.  MotorHeart opened his soul to Saint, gently showing his relieved elation to her; and she returned the yenning, letting him feel her love for him.

  “My friend’s driving me to you,” murmured MotorHeart, his voice shaking.  “I can hear the engine”

  Saint laughed, tears coursing down her cheeks.  “Am I far away?”

  “No…” breathed MotorHeart, licking the sweet spot where the curve of her jaw met her neck, “We’ll be there before you know it”

  The warm, electric tingling began to surge through their cheeks as they rubbed against each other.

  It was time.  She could feel it; and she had ached to do this from the moment she first saw him.  It was right.

  Saint opened her eyes, pulling away from MotorHeart for just a moment and taking a grip on the bottom of her T-shirt.

  MotorHeart watched, his heart pounding, as she pulled her T-shirt over her head, a sudden flash of white lace contrasting against her sandy brown fur.

  MotorHeart smiled, before putting a hand on the neck of his T-shirt and giving it a rough yank.  The fabric tore with a satisfying ripping noise, before he enveloped Saint in his arms.

  The feeling was almost instantaneous.  Just moments after he put his arms around her, MotorHeart felt the buzzing, the tingling, the warmth.  Every part of his bare chest in contact with hers was burning in an intimacy that had nothing to do with sex; a pleasure that Arrma could never understand.

  Saint gasped, the difference in the strength of the yenning taking her by surprise.  She ran her fingers through the fur over his back, feeling the muscles shifting underneath, rubbing her cheek against his neck.  Her tongue snaked out and delicately caressed his cheek, as she drowned in his transmitted love.

  They stood in the middle of the rusted, decaying bedroom, lost in each other’s embrace; a nuclear fire of love in their hearts.

  Yamagata let out a quiet yelp, his grin spreading wider.  Hane chuckled.  “Having fun, are we?”

  MotorHeart smiled.  “I must be smiling in real-life.  Hane’s asking me if I’m having fun”

  Saint laughed, her tears, now as clear as glass, still running down her cheeks.  “Are you?”

  MotorHeart buried his face in Saint’s hair.  “This,” he whispered, “is the single most amazing feeling I’ve ever had”

  Saint squeezed him just a little tighter, a surge of chemicals rushing through her, transmitted to MotorHeart in her yenning.  “Me too,” she whispered back.

  Yamagata squirmed in the passenger seat, letting out a contented sigh.  Hane burst out laughing.

  “I love you, Senhi,” murmured MotorHeart.  “No matter what happens to you now, it’ll be happening to both of us.  I’ll be right there with you”

  Saint let out a sigh, her lips fondling MotorHeart’s ear.  “What’re we going to do?”

  “We’re going to go one step at a time,” he breathed.  “Let’s get you somewhere warm, first.  Get you something to eat and drink.  Sort out your injuries”

  “And then what?”

  MotorHeart sighed.  “I don’t know.  We’ll think about trying to make everything go back the way it was, try to clear your name, perhaps…  But if the worst comes to the worst, then would it be too unbearable if we just ran away, hand-in-hand?  I’d follow you to the ends of the Earth, Senhi.  Hell, I followed you in here, didn’t I?” he chuckled.

  Saint opened her eyes, looking around.

  “Yammy!  Look!”

  MotorHeart opened his eyes.

  The rust was fading.  The areas of shadow were returning to normal.

  “I’ve stopped dreaming,” whispered Saint.

  MotorHeart laughed through his tears, the relief almost too much to bear.  “Let’s get out of here,” he whispered, leading her towards the door.

 

  “We’re almost there,” said Hane, pulling his car up by the side of the road.  “She’s inside this forest somewhere.  So wake up, and let’s go and get her!”

  MotorHeart sighed.  “We’ve found you,” he murmured, hugging her tightly.  “Time for me to wake you up”

  Saint smiled.  “It’s going to be okay,” she breathed, snuggled close to MotorHeart, “isn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” he smiled.  “It is”

  They stood enveloped in each other’s arms on the beach, the sun setting, the sky on fire.  Alone, together, in their favourite place, with no distractions from the love in each other’s hearts.

  “I’ll see you in real-life, okay?”

  Saint’s smile broadened.  “Be quick,” she murmured, “I still feel a little weak”

  She closed her eyes and squeezed.  After a few moments, her arms closed around empty air.

 

  Hane and Yamagata stared at Senhi.

  She lay in the grass with the Trance helmet on her head.  Her lips were a pale blue, and dew glistened against her fur.

  Yamagata felt a chill run through him as his eyes scanned down her body; her fur was ruffled and matted, the flesh on her finger molten and blackened…  Further down, the crotch of her jeans was soaked from when her body had lost control.  Further down still, and the fabric over her thigh was ripped open, displaying matted fur and an ugly jagged tear, inexpertly sealed with rapid-healing gel.  Her jeans were soaked in blood.  Too much blood.

  Hane wasn’t saying anything.  He had nothing to say that would make any difference; this was far worse than they had anticipated.  It was too awful for words.

  Yamagata couldn’t stand to see her this way.  He steeled himself, knelt down beside her and gently run his hands underneath her, scooping her up.

  Her eyes flickered, opening slightly.  Her lips parted a little, and a soft moan struggled out.

  “I’m here, now” whispered Yamagata.  “It’s okay,” he quavered, sobs trying desperately to escape, forced back for Senhi’s benefit.

  Senhi’s eyes opened halfway, staring up at him.  The sudden light was almost too much to bear, her saviour a black silhouette outlined against the setting sun.

  She was weak and her head was swimming, but she tried to make out what was happening.  Concentration was next to impossible, but she picked up some details.

  Birds singing.  A gentle jiggling as Yamagata carried her through the forest.  A nagging pain in her finger.  A sickness in her stomach.  A wetness around her jeans.  An agonising coldness.

  She opened her mouth to speak; her voice came as a breathy squeak.  “Yammy…” she whispered, “My injector…”

  “Hane has it,” he said, his voice soft, comforting.

  “Need it”

  Yamagata looked into her eyes.  “Now?”

  Senhi tried to think, through the weakness of her mind and body.  The light increased and the canopy of trees disappeared, replaced by a setting sun.

  Did I inject myself yesterday?  Did I forget?  How long ago was that?

  “Never mind,” she muttered.  “Too late…”

  “What do you mean?” asked Yamagata, a little alarm creeping into his tone.

  Senhi sighed.  It had looked okay, up until now...  “Yaz…  Hospital”

  Yamagata stopped as Hane opened the door.  He looked into her eyes.

  “Senhi, that means giving yourself up”

  Senhi nodded, excruciatingly slowly.  “I know…  No hope unless…  Too late for injection…”

  Yamagata started to panic, as he lay Senhi in the back seat of Hane’s car.  “What are you saying?” he stuttered.

  “Need…  Drug…”

  “Hane, drive!”

 

  “Are you sure?” stammered Yamagata, lying with Senhi on the back seat.  “Are you sure you need to go to the hospital?”

  Senhi nodded weakly, the helmet still gleaming on her head.  “Die otherwise,” she breathed, her voice barely more than a squeak.

  Yamagata looked at her for a moment, tears glistening in his eyes.

  Her expression was so tired…  So weary.  So pleading.

  He sighed, sniffing.

  “Hane,” he said, the hope gone from his voice, “drive us to the nearest hospital”

  “But I thought you said…”

  “Just drive,” he muttered, rubbing his cheek against Senhi’s.  “Senhi…  What about this?” he said, picking up her auto-injector.  “Won’t this help, now?”

  Senhi shook her head.  “Need recovery drug…  Too late…  That stuff…  prevents, need…  cure…”

  Yamagata’s lips trembled, his eyes closing.  He yenned her gently.  “Hush,” he whispered.  “We’ll get you there”

  Senhi yenned back.  She opened her eyes, reaching out her arms and hanging them limply around Yamagata’s neck.  “Love you,” she whispered.

  Yamagata let out a sob.  “I love you too,” he breathed, putting his arms around her and holding her tight to his chest.

  “Yammy…  I hate this”

  “Me too,” whispered Yamagata, tears running down his cheeks.

  “Let’s…  go somewhere else”

 

  MotorHeart stood with Saint on the beach.  They held each other, tears running down their cheeks.

  “It’ll be okay,” shuddered MotorHeart, “We’ll get you to a hospital…  I’ll get you a lawyer, it’ll be okay”

  Saint clung to him, yenning.  Showing him her love for what she was beginning to realise would be the last time.

  It won’t be okay, Yammy…  There’s no more fun to have.

  “They’ll understand,” continued MotorHeart, his love spilling into her.  “It’ll be okay, ‘cause it was self-defence, Arrma gave the first blow…” he sobbed, stroking her hair delicately.

  Saint felt a numbness surrounding her.  She sighed, her muscles weary.

  It’s happening.  It’ll be any second.

  “You’ll see,” sobbed MotorHeart, squeezing her.  “We’ll live happily ever after, you’ll see”

  Saint looked up, opening her eyes.  Tears ran down her cheeks.

  Black mist was appearing around MotorHeart.  She could only make out a pair of burning rubies, staring toward her through the darkness.  “I love you, Yammy”

  MotorHeart stared, a realisation washing over him.  “Don’t say that,” he quavered.  “Don’t say it like this is the end”

  His voice found her as a barely recognisable bass-heavy throb, a low-definition mumbling, like a copy of a copy of a copy.  His touch was a tingling icy numbness.

  His eyes, a vague, dull crimson, stared from the blackness surrounding her.

  “Happily ever after…” she murmured, her own voice sounding muffled and far away.  She choked out a sob.  “I love you…  I’ll always love you”

  Saint felt… cold.

  She stepped back from him.

  MotorHeart stared.

  “No!” he breathed, his eyes wide, his head shaking.  “Please!”

  Saint looked at him for a moment, swaying.  “I,” she began, but the words caught in her throat.  She flickered for a moment; flashing black, freezing white, starving to a wire-frame skeleton, shifting back to herself.

  Senhi’s heart stopped beating.

  Something black shimmered in Saint’s eyes.  The world seemed to jolt a little.

  She stood for a moment, her eyes staring blankly towards MotorHeart, her expression quite calm.

  Then she fell backwards.

  “NO!”

  It appeared to MotorHeart as though it happened in slow motion.  The background of the beach seemed to fade away, the sound of waves quieting to nothing.  As she hit the ground, hairline fractures coursed over her fur and clothes; then she split like porcelain, a brilliant white light shearing through MotorHeart’s eyes, blinding him.  A sudden burst of burning, humid air rushed through his fur, along with a few drops of something warm.

  When the heat and light had faded, he was left staring at the pieces of her body.

  There was no blood.  Apart from that light, Saint’s virtual body was hollow inside.  She had smashed like pottery, shards of her clothes and fur now hard and cold, spread over a few feet.  The sand was soaking up little splatters of clear, viscous fluid.

  He stared, unfeeling, for several seconds.  The background sounds began to slowly filter back into his world.  His emotions exhausted, leaving nothing but numbness, he knelt down and, with infinite care, picked up the left half of her face.

  Her expression was calm, her one remaining eye staring blankly into his, lips slightly parted.  The other side was cold, and smooth, and a hard shade of white.

  MotorHeart still stared, unable to believe.  He dropped the piece of her face onto the sand in front of him, falling to his knees.  Brittle, it broke in two.

  All at once, the horror struck him.  He took a deep breath, and began to scream.

 

  “What’s wrong?” cried Hane, looking back towards Yamagata, who was pulling off his helmet and sobbing uncontrollably.

  “She’s dead!” he screamed, trying to find a pulse on Senhi’s neck.  “Put your fucking foot down, now!”

  Hane turned back to the road, flushing white underneath his fur.

  Yamagata whimpered, opening Saint’s mouth and putting his lips to hers, blowing air into her lungs, pushing on her chest to try to start her heart again.

  He sat with her for several minutes, trying everything he had been taught in the Medic section of the course.  Her lips icy, she lay in front of him, her heart resting dead inside her chest, her lungs flat and motionless.  Her eyes were closed, her lips slightly parted.  A few stray hairs had found their way into her mouth.

  After a few minutes he realised, it was all over; he simply put his cheek to hers, hugged her, and sobbed into her fur.

 

  “Mister Servichae?”

  Yamagata looked up, tears in his eyes, his expression numb and weary.  His hands rested weakly in his lap while he sat waiting for the news, Hane trying to comfort him.

  The nurse looked down at him, her expression awkward.  “I’m sorry,” she said, softly.  “We couldn’t save her”

  Yamagata stared dumbly, an icy chill running through him, a nausea in the pit of his stomach.  Hane’s arm hugged around his shoulders.

  “We were too late,” murmured Yamagata.  “It took too long for us to get here…”

  Hane sighed.  “Hang in there, man…” he offered feebly, not sure what else he could say.

  “I loved her, Hane,” he breathed.  “I don’t know what I’m going to do”

  The nurse sighed.  “I’ll get you a cup of Tyn…”

 

  From: Utopia Administration

  Subject: Temporary Shutdown

  Body:

  Dear valued customer,

 

  We regret to inform you that the Utopia server will be shut down indefinitely, pending an investigation by the police concerning the actions of deceased schoolgirl murderess Senhi Motaku, who was known to be using the program shortly after committing her crime.

  One of our technicians is being interrogated by the police, along with one of our customers.  We ask that if any of you have had any contact with people known as “Saint” or “MotorHeart”, that you could please contact us immediately.  Security of our patrons and customers is our top priority, and we hope to have the Utopia server up and running once again in no time – in fact we’re taking the opportunity to add some new attractions while the systems are offline.

  We appreciate your patience and will of course be crediting your accounts in compensation for the downtime.  Please direct any questions to feedback@utopia.com, and we will be happy to help you in any way we can.

 

  Yours Sincerely,

 

  A. Leaoll, Utopia customer service director

 

  There really isn’t much else to say.  It should have been “Happily Ever After,” but it wasn’t.  Arrma was revived and her face reconstructed.  I only saw her once, to tell her what I thought of her.  She was frightened, much more timid than the way Senhi had described her; nobody’s ever the same when they’ve been killed and revived – a part of them is lost forever.  But Arrma really took it hard.

  Senhi’s remains were claimed by the Medical Council for research, something to do with the effects of Trance helmets or something… You can’t argue with the MC so we had a ceremonial funeral with a coffin full of bricks.  I remember watching her coffin lowered into the ground, and trying not to cry.  I couldn’t keep the tears in, though.  It was just impossible.

  I left flowers by her grave every week until I was assigned this mission.

  I still think of her, from time to time…  It helps so much to have Kaneta around to help me.  But I still wake up screaming some nights, watching her shatter over the sand again and again in my sleep.

  I mourned.  I mourned for months.  But I eventually pulled myself out of my pit and got back into college; Senhi would have wanted it that way.  She knew I was meant to be on this mission, she told me herself.

  I got my technician’s certificate, and followed it up with a degree.  Hane’s our systems analyst; he’s just down the hall now, in bed.  Kaneta’s our medical officer.  It still hurts when I think about Senhi, but Kaneta is so good to me…

  I don’t think the pain will ever go away.  But her death really did spur the schools into anti-bullying programs; I still think it’s obscene that it took something this major for the Government to acknowledge that there was a problem.

  Trance helmets were banned in my country shortly after what happened with Senhi.  You can still get them imported, but there are only sex programs available now; Utopia is gone.  I’m glad, myself.  I spent too much time online anyway.

  I… loved her.  I still do.  But she’s gone now, so I have to move on.

  I just wish it didn’t have to be this way.  If we had gotten to the hospital just ten minutes earlier, then she might have had a chance of being revived; but we didn’t.

  I miss her.  I miss the way she felt, the way she smelt.  The way she smiled.  The way she would bury her nose in the fur on the side of my neck.  And her vibes.  I’ve never felt vibes more pure than that, even to this day.

  Her glasses.  Her cute little nose.  Her eyes, like jewels set in cream velvet.

  Her heartbeat, thumping against my chest.

 

  Yamagata let out a sigh, and closed the lid of his laptop.

 

 

SAINT

 



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[1] Hinnai – a fabric sheath covering the tail for warmth and modesty, secured by a strap around the waist, fastened usually at the front.  It is an offence in most countries for a woman to bare her tail in public.

[2] Such eyebrows as an Alder has, anyway.

[3] This is a direct translation – The word Senhi actually used was “K’tekki,” the name of her planet.

[4] Touca – small, rabbit-like mammal, renowned for its suitability as a pet due to its cute looks and friendly disposition.