Chapter Twenty-Five – Sneaky Ghillie Lemon Squeezy

Chapter Twenty-Five – Sneaky Ghillie Lemon Squeezy

“The pornography industry is nearly always at the forefront of technological changes. Video playback, online streaming, VR, augmented reality […] it’s not surprising that when new tech became available, alien technology at that, it was immediately put to carnal uses.

Also, alien porn was an interesting development for the industry.”

–Excerpt from an article on TheHub.com, 2023

***

I knew I didn’t need to move stealthily in order to not make any noise. My armour’s boots were silent, and it wasn’t like I was wearing some of those cheap nylon clothes that make swishing sounds when they rub together.

Still, it would be wrong to casually walk in while stealthed.

I kept low, eyes and ears peeled for any trouble, and it didn’t take much for me to find some.

There was, as Myalis had warned, a guard in the room. He was sitting behind a desk, head bent back, looking towards the ceiling. I could have imagined that he was taking a nap if it weren’t for Myalis’ telling me what he was watching at that moment. The jerky movement of his forearms didn’t help any.

“Weirdo,” I muttered.

“At least he’s all alone,” Rac said.

“Close your eyes, you,” I said. Didn’t need her seeing any of this. “Myalis, can we just shut off all of his augs?”

Not being able to see anything might calm the idiot down a notch.

Certainly, but shutting down all of them would terminate him. He has respiratory augmentations, and some that assist with blood circulation, likely because of the way his arms and legs were disconnected.

“Can you be selective?” I asked. I navigated through the menus of my cyberwarfare suite, and found a way to connect to his augs. Then I saw a flash of what he was looking at before I shut it off in a hurry. “Wow,” I muttered.

People living in sewers were pretty dirty.

That should be easy enough to do. Shutting down all nonessential augmentations in three… two…

My new pal jerked on his chair, then looked around. It was pretty clear that he couldn’t see anything, though, judging by the way he moved his arm around as if searching for stuff. He bounced to his feet, did up his zipper, then stumbled towards the door at the back. “John! John, my eyes have fucked up again!” he shouted.

I followed him.

According to the map I had, the next area over was a wide passageway that overlooked another corridor one floor down.

I kept close to my blind masturbator buddy as he moved in. There was a catwalk that ran all along the corridor, with some passages leading off of it to the left. A rail kept people safe on the right, and below that I could see down to another corridor with crates and boxes. There were some tables with games, a few TVs on the wall, even a bed tucked in a corner. It was a living space.

“Davie, you stupid fuck, close the fucking door!” someone shouted from below. “You’re letting the good air out.”

Davie stumbled backwards, swearing under his breath the entire time. “My arms are all screwed up,” he said as he tried to find the handle. “My fingers are numb, I can’t feel my joints, and my eyes are off.”

“What were you doing?”

The dude talking walked out of one of the side rooms. He was a tall guy, with a good chunk of his face from cheekbones up missing and replaced with a set of embedded augmentations. His arms and legs were prosthetic as well, the sort I’d seen on plenty of Sewer Dragons, though maybe a notch nicer.

“C’mon, John, you know I was just checking my media feeds,” Davie said.

“Uh huh. What kind of porn were you watching?” John asked.

I stepped to the side so that I was next to the wall and out of the way.