The Ghost in the Doll (Fox Meridian Book 6) (14 page)

Hundreds of small ships, none of them designed to ever enter a gravity well, scuttled out from the station’s hangar bay to seek out the debris of a century of space travel. Various countries had organised under a UN banner to provide bounties for the removal of space junk from the system, and the scavengers sometimes got lucky and found something worth salvaging on top of the bounty. It was enough to make the work profitable for small, independent companies and individuals, and it tended to attract people who liked the idea of the ‘high frontier.’ They tended to consider space as something akin to the Wild West and it had been that community which had popularised the nickname ‘Lensmen’ for the UNTPP officers who policed them.

Walking through the concourse of the station was something of a surreal experience. In the relative safety of the station, the scavengers dressed like a combination of cowboys and bikers. They called themselves Jin Shu: a lot of the first of them had been Chinese and the term translated to ‘metal rat.’ Maybe it had been a derisive term at one point, but now they carried it with pride, usually along with a lot of metal chains and leather. Their work attire was not much better since they tended to customise their vacuum suits as much as possible without damaging integrity. It was black and brown leather on the station, and vibrant colours, sometimes with v-tags, when in space.

Fox was, however, on a mission and did not have time for sightseeing. Nor did she have time for the propositions tossed in her direction by a number of Jin Shu; maybe the short skirt had been a bad idea, but she did want to make a good impression with the person it was intended for. Outside the UNTPP offices, she faltered: maybe the whole outfit was a bad idea. She was trying out a new pattern for her bodysuit: sleeveless and thong-backed, it looked kind of sporty, aside from it being quite translucent apart from various opaque modesty strips. She had put a dark denim jacket over it, but that was not designed to actually close over her chest, and there was the very short skirt and a new pair of knee-high, high-heeled boots… Maybe it was trying too hard.

‘Get on with it,’ Kit said.

‘But what if–’

‘You’ll procrastinate until he
doesn’t
want to know you at this rate. Get in there, wow him with your new wardrobe choices, and give me something entertaining to watch until we have to leave.’

‘You really are getting bossy since I gave you your command keys.’

‘Mush! Get in there and get on with it. I want my porn.’

Rolling her eyes, Fox stepped up to the automatic door and then through into a reception area which was, largely, empty. Okay, so Kit was bossy, but she did know how to get Fox to act instead of think. Fox headed for the window at the back where a bored-looking sergeant was working on a terminal rather than watching the room.

‘Excuse me, Sergeant,’ Fox said.

The woman lifted her head and smiled. ‘Can I help you, ma’am?’ Polite, maybe because Fox looked more like a hooker than a Jin Shu.

‘You don’t look like a hooker,’ Kit stated flatly. ‘I quite like that outfit. It’s different, if a little out of character for you.’

Fox decided to explore the qualifier later. ‘I’m looking for Major Deveraux. I’m betting he’s still in the office.’ It was, by station time, around nine in the evening, but Jason worked late more often than not.

‘Could I take your name?’

‘Tara Meridian.’

The sergeant’s eyes widened a little. ‘Oh, you’re… I’ll just check with him.’ The conversation was obviously carried out via teleconference: the woman’s eyes unfocused for a few seconds. ‘Major Deveraux will be right out.’

Sure enough, Major Deveraux, in his tight, official UNTPP uniform vacuum suit, emerged through a security door at the back of the room so fast that Fox figured he had started running as soon as he had heard her name. He came to a grinding halt and his eyes scanned up and down her body. He looked tense, the kind of tension you got when you wanted to hug someone and knew you should avoid it just at that moment.

‘Fox,’ Jason said, ‘I am pleased to see you, especially in one piece.’

Fox smirked. ‘And I’m pleased to see you in a skintight spacesuit. Could I drag you away from work for a while? We need to talk. Somewhere private.’

There was the sound of the sergeant suppressing a giggle and Jason glared at her. ‘I will be signing out, Sergeant Huckabee. Contact Georgette if anything comes up.’

‘It’s Sunday, sir. Even United Anarchy take Sundays off. It was nice meeting you, Captain Meridian.’

‘And you, Sergeant,’ Fox said, turning to head back through the door.

Jason followed at a rapid walk. ‘I’d offer to take you to dinner, but Prokhorov is not noted for its haute cuisine.’

‘I don’t really need food. I need to tell you something. Can we go to your quarters?’

‘That… does not sound good.’

‘Well… That kind of depends on how you react to what I’m going to tell you.’

~~~

‘So… that’s about it,’ Fox said. ‘I’m a robot. Or I’m some software that’s running on a computer in a robot. Or I’m a database that some software is using to…’ She trailed off and looked across the small lounge to where Jason was sitting.

He was staring at her with a slightly perplexed sort of frown on his face. ‘I… see.’

‘You, uh, don’t exactly look… happy.’

Jason sat up a little more in his seat and rubbed his chin. ‘I have just been trying to see whether I could spot any differences. There is the stud in your navel, of course.’ Fox glanced down: the barbell was visible through the thin plastic of her suit. ‘Perhaps… Would you take off your jacket?’

Fox raised an eyebrow, but she stood up and slipped her jacket off her shoulders, laying it on the chair behind her. She turned back to Jason, lifting her arms from her sides, palms facing him. ‘How’s this?’

‘Oui, much better.’ He continued frowning and staring. ‘Hmm… perhaps the skirt too?’

Fox put her hands on her hips. ‘You’re just trying to get me out of my clothes. I tell you I died and got turned into an infomorph, and you just want to get into my pants. That’s so… French!’

‘Thank you, mon chère, I will take that as a compliment. Now, the skirt…’ Fox slipped her skirt down her legs, glaring at him all the while. ‘Come here.’ She advanced on him, being careful in the lowered gravity, right until he reached out, caught her wrist, and pulled her into his lap. ‘I have many questions,’ he said, ‘but they can wait. I do not think you understand the relief I feel. I saw you in a hospital bed, alive only thanks to machines. I thought I had lost you, and then you did not come here on your way back to Earth…’

‘I was scared,’ Fox admitted. ‘I was scared you’d… react badly. Not sure I could have handled that just then, so I chickened out.’

Jason pulled her against his chest, his hands sliding soothingly over her skin. ‘I understand. I am a little hurt that you did not trust me, but I believe I can grasp the stress you were under.’ His hands continued moving. ‘You feel like Fox. You
smell
like Fox.’ One of his hands slipped between her thighs, stroking, and Fox let out a little whimpering moan. ‘You definitely sound like Fox. If your fears have any foundation in fact, I say that it does not matter.’

‘I think I want you to prove that a little more intimately.’

‘Let me get out of this suit, and I will do just that.’

~~~

‘This is amazing,’ Fox said, shifting her hips.

‘If amazing… is defined… as… exhausting…’ Jason managed.

Fox giggled, and started moving faster. ‘Sorry. I haven’t done this since… y’know. I think I might still be a little oversensitive, because this feels… fantastic.’

Reaching up, Jason gripped her hips to slow her down again and Fox leaned forward, resting her arms on his chest. ‘You don’t get tired?’ he asked. ‘Ever.’

Hips still moving in circles, Fox shook her head. ‘Nope. If my batteries die, I just stop. Of course, I’m going to come in a second or two and then…’ Her eyes rolled back, her back arched, and her mind whited out. When her vision cleared, Jason was panting beneath her. ‘Maybe I should let you have a rest,’ she said.

‘That would be good.’ Fox rolled off her victim and settled against his side, grinning. ‘You’re more flexible than you were,’ Jason added.

‘Spine like a cat, or so I’m told. Re-engineered joints.’ Fox shivered. ‘Slightly oversensitive in certain intimate areas, which I think I can live with, but very flexible. Yeah.’

‘Oversensitive… That explains a lot. It really feels the same, adjusted for the sensitivity?’

‘Uh… yeah.’ Fox frowned thoughtfully. ‘You know, it does. Wow. You know, that might be the single most convincing thing I’ve noticed to make me believe I’m still me.’

‘I am glad to be of service. I would make some joke with “serviced” in it, but I feel that may be too crass.’

Fox grinned. ‘The way I’m feeling just now, I think you could get away with it. But… you’re too much of a gentleman. I think I should clean up a bit before we go again.’ She swung off the bed and started for the shower cubicle off the bedroom.

‘Foul temptress. You were sent to assassinate me.’

‘But what a way to go, right?’

Jason lay there for a second or two, until the water began to run in the shower. Then he rolled out of bed and followed her. ‘Gentleman my derrière.’

11
^th
April.

‘You’re going straight to Tokyo?’ Jason was stretched out in his bed watching Fox getting dressed. He was contented, tired, and just a little melancholy. For whatever reason, watching her prepare to leave was far worse than leaving.

‘Uh-huh, but I won’t be there for long. I’m going to a resort on Kyushu for a few days.’

‘That does not sound like work.’

‘It’s a continuation of my medical leave, except that it’s also the best way Yuriko’s found for someone to get a close look at a Ghost Doll. The resort has several of them on staff for… entertainment purposes.’

‘Oh really?’

Fox flashed him a grin. ‘It’s a private facility in a sort of inland sea. Technically a bay of the China Sea, Omura Bay. The guest rooms are underwater and it’s
very
exclusive. Sun, sea… no sand because it’d be really wet. Yuriko says the place is basically owned by the Fukui-kai.’

‘You’ll be careful…’

‘Unless they think to load armour-piercing ammunition, they aren’t going to be any sort of problem.’

‘You’ll be underwater. Possibly quite deep.’

‘I don’t breathe. I checked up with Jackson, and my crush depth is about sixty atmospheres, roughly six hundred metres. The deepest Omura Bay gets is fifty-four metres. I’m quite safe.’ Fox sat down on the edge of the bed to pull on her boots. ‘So, what should I be worrying about killing you?’

‘At the moment? Vacuum. Possibly radiation. There
may
be a UA cell up to something in the system.’

‘I think that goes without saying, but I assume you mean that you’ve evidence for it?’

‘Oui, but very little. More rumour than fact. Ghost ships. People claiming that the UA have a way of destroying ships undetectably.’

‘Spacer tales.’

‘Probably. There are a few memes starting to proliferate about the arrival of Halley’s Comet which are concerning people, but that is not my area unless they mutate.’

‘Perihelion in July, right? Apocalypse stuff?’

‘Yes, the majority of it. It has not heavily entered the popular consciousness, but it may do and may need counteracting. Again not my concern.’ Leaning forward, Jason slipped an arm around Fox’s waist and pulled her toward him.

‘Hey! I–’ Fox stopped talking as their lips met, the kiss deepening quickly.

‘I do not want to let you go,’ Jason whispered when they parted.

‘Yeah, well… We both have jobs to do. Mine just happens to involve a resort full of sexbots and bioroids.’

‘And you think that makes this easier?’

‘No, but I’m leaving you with Sergeant Huckabee. She looked pretty cute in her uniform.’

‘I believe her wife agrees with you.’

‘Huh. Okay, bad example, but I bet there are plenty of attractive women on your staff who
don’t
have wives.’

Jason smirked. ‘Not like you, but if it makes you feel better, next time you visit I will arrange an inspection. I’ll get all the ones you think are too attractive transferred.’

Fox sat up and finished zipping her boots up. ‘Don’t think I won’t hold you to that. I’m mean when I’m jealous.’

Kannotekina Atsuryoku Resort, Japan, 12
^th
April.

Technically, Fox had lost another day getting to Japan and the resort, but with all the travel recently, it made little difference. It was now Tuesday and she was being taken by motor launch, ten kilometres across the bay, from Nagasaki Airport to the Kannotekina Atsuryoku resort.

The name could be read, according to Yuriko, as ‘sensual pressure,’ which conjured up a number of images, but was presumably meant to play with the fact that you spent at least some of your time there under a couple of atmospheres of water.

‘They do shiatsu as well,’ Kit commented.

‘Not something I’ll be taking advantage of,’ Fox replied. ‘Aside from the fact that it won’t do a thing for me, I think someone used to manipulating joints and muscles might notice mine aren’t human.’

The lack of general awareness of Fox’s current situation was, at this point, rather useful. It was probably better that the yakuza did not know they were dealing with what amounted to a combat gynoid. Otherwise, if the worst came to the worst, they
might
decide to load AP bullets, or just employ explosives. Fox was not entirely sure how much her new body could take, but she was also not ready to test its limits for no obvious gain.

The boat she was on rounded a tall headland and entered a smaller bay within the greater one, and the resort itself became visible. It was a modernistic, white structure with a tall, round hub with a star of floating jetties extending out from it. The designer had been going for a bright cyberpunk look: lots of gleaming metal, few really straight lines, plenty of glass. Fox could see people sitting at tables on one level, perhaps a bar toward the core. The guest rooms were invisible, beneath the waterline and accessed by elevators.