Chapter 17: The Crush — Part 2

“I will encourage Orchid, against her better judgment, to armor both of you for battle.” Pearl said, “Now you two must consider how things have changed, and whether either of you can adapt to those changes. Sissy is my lover now, and if it can be, she will be by my side until our breath leaves our lungs. I doubt there will be room for either of you in our hearts, or on our bed.”

Pearl rose, taking Sissy’s hand in her own. The two were so naturally a part of each other as they walked that Chen and Quet both realized there would be no hope of taking one from the other, just as there had been no separating Pearl from Chen those many thousands of years ago. Chen ordered two pitchers of beer, setting one in front of Quet, and the two of them drank quietly, afraid to speak — afraid even to think — of what might have been had both of them been less possessive.

Orchid explained the sudden urgency in her tone. “Yoshi has issued coordinates for a drop point for the children, one week from now. It is much further from their base of operations than we suspected them capable of traveling in one snap. I suspect a trap. In fact, I suspect they are trying to force our hand, but I think the children should be safe if we send the right people, with the right equipment, and act now on the information we have gained.”

The suits, as they turned out, were aggressive on the body during activation, slamming tightly into the skin and forming a barrier against the environment. The noise of the transaction sounded a little like metal cubes and spheres bouncing around the inside of a denim sack, quiet but jarring just the same. A small variation of the suit, designed for banders, slid out from the main unit and enveloped Spunky. Pablo and Frank, having never experienced Orchid’s advanced bender suit designs, had no idea what to expect when they were fully enveloped in the outfit. Pablo tested his motions cautiously, each finger coated to the edge in carefully layered armor that gave him the look of an armadillo. He stared with considerable awe at the back of his hand, smiling slightly at the complexity of the nanotechnology used to produce such an item.

The suit adapted itself to Yap, Chadwick, and Blue quite nicely, despite their diversity of size and mechanics. Sissy, accepted her suit, and Noed was upgraded as well. Sissy smiled as it worked its way over her groin and bottom, Orchid guessing that the girl’s highly sexual nature responded positively to the suit’s rather invasive processes. Joanie, Chen, Quet, and Pearl activated their suits simultaneously. Orchid paused, once her crew was ready, surprised at how the suit adapted itself in exterior design to the fashion needs of the user. Chen and Quet’s bender suits looked more like medieval armor, while Pearl and Sissy’s suits matched in design, taking on the role of more fashionable but modern clothes. Within a few moments, it proved impossible to tell that any of the androids were wearing them at all. Bamboo’s suit was a basic technician’s design, only with extra large dark eyeglasses covering his empty sockets. He moved his head as if looking around the room, smiling.

Bamboo held his head, a look of pain crossing his face, passing with a smile. “You didn’t tell me I would be able to get such vivid impressions in this thing.” Bamboo said, half surprised.

“You mean see like you saw in your old suit, right?” Orchid queried.

“No, I mean see, like in dull shades of color and gray. It’s not like I remember seeing as a boy, but some of the detail is there, even if the colors aren’t as vivid. I still can’t read…” Bamboo turned his head, looking at faces and forms. “Pearl’s eyes are green, almost like yours. Jun is as blue as the sky, only a little lighter in shade, but darker in tone, like she has a murky cloud cast over her.”

Orchid put out a hand, and a series of wires shot out from her fingertips, integrating with Bamboo’s suit, so when she closed her eyes, she could get a hint of Bamboo’s impressions. “Yap, did you augment his suit?”

“I conveyed to the bender suit information specific to Bamboo’s vision centers. I also conveyed to the suit information on constructing the eyewear that would interpret data in such a way that it would allow his memory of sight to act in response to the information being transplaced. This isn’t true vision, Bamboo, and you can’t trust it, entirely, because it is relying on impressions, not on actual hard physical data. Your memory of sight is all you have to create the new information, and in time it will strengthen your perception, but not its accuracy. Letters you don’t remember visually, so you can’t see them.”