Now that fans have gotten a chance to meet all of this season’s contestants, what sorts of chatter are we seeing on the network?
This is the most excited that User Battle League fans have been in years, Crockett! There’s no denying that viewership has been down in recent seasons. The fans have been demanding something new, and this season is poised to deliver! We’re already seeing numbers rivaling the peak of season two, and we may even might break the all-time record!
And the contestants?
The community is being very vocal, and reactions are mixed. Some fans are frustrated that their favorites won’t be competing. Others are excited by the fresh faces and the chance to discover the League’s next breakout talent.
We’ll take a quick break, and then return with a deep-dive analysis of what the prediction markets are saying!
“Isn’t there anything else that I can wear?”
“Not anything that is going to work with your tail, dear. It’s proving to be a challenge to work your outfit around.”
“I just… I’m worried people will get the wrong idea.”
“You look great, and remember: this is show business. A little controversy is only going to help you. There is nothing worse than being forgettable.”
The stylist gave me an encouraging pat on the shoulder.
“Okay, hold still and look up for me?”
I did as I was asked. They had me look up, then down, then close my eyes as they made a few final tweaks to my makeup. A producer or director or something stuck their head in the door and announced, “Five minutes.”
The stylist and makeup artist who had been provided to me handed me a large hand mirror to review their work. There was a moderate amount of magnification, so my face filled the entire frame even at arm's length.
I had asked them to keep it subtle and natural; I didn’t want to look like I was all glammed up for this interview.
They had somehow managed to tame my wild mane of hair and had done my makeup in a way that enhanced my natural features. The results were dramatic: I recognized my face in the mirror, but it was a me that looked downright amazing. She wasn’t just pretty; she was stunning. Light linework and a satin-finish lipstick emphasized the cupid’s bow shape of my lips. Foundation and bronzer made my skin look even clearer than it normally was, and a light application of blush brought warmth to my fair skin.
Mascara enhanced the volume of my lashes, and liner made the contrast of the pale amber glow of my eyes all the more striking.
I clenched my jaw because my eyes were getting misty and I didn’t want to ruin what they’d accomplished.
I angled the mirror downward some to double-check I was decent. Tape prevented the buttons on my blouse from gapping, but there were visible stress lines around the buttons of my shirt. It looked tight, and I was worried that if I took too deep a breath I’d wind up sending a button flying across the room, but so far there hadn’t been an issue.
They’d had a beautiful brocade shirt in the right size, but my gigantic tail made it impossible to wear without leaving the bottom half unbuttoned and the back loose. I wasn’t given the option of looking like a half-dressed slob for this interview. A produce had raided wardrobe for alternatives, and this had been the best of the bunch: a plain white top, very well made and clearly expensive, from some designer I didn’t recognize.
It was a small miracle I was able to squeeze into it. The me from a few months ago, before undergoing daily hell mode training, wouldn’t have been able to wear it at all. Now it pulled not only across the bust, but across my shoulders, too. I wouldn’t have picked the shirt for myself, but looking at the full effect in the mirror, I had to admit the stylist knew what they were doing. As tight as it was, the fit worked.
The stylist packed up their kit, wheeled the garment rack off to the side, and left me sitting alone, perched on my tall stool with my tail dangling off the back. The studio lights were incredibly bright and left very little in the way of shadows in the room.
I barely had the chance to wonder when my turn would be when she strode in along with members of the production crew.
Leora Hawthorne, The Bright Knight, or Sunspot, depending on where you knew her from. A retired tier five Diver, and winner of three UBL championships. Now she was a media personality who was mostly associated with the UBL.
I would say she’s radiant, but I’d never forgive myself for that kind of pun.
Nerves aflutter, I went to get off my stool to greet her, but she strode over and extended her hand while I was still partially dazed from being starstruck. Her handshake was gentle and her skin soft. I knew she could tear my arm out of the socket as easily as opening a door.
I blinked rapidly. I was looking… down at her?
“I’m glad to see that I’m not the only one who’s vertically challenged. I love your eyes; what an unusual color!”
My pale amber met her shining gold.
She’s taller than I am, but not by much. Maybe five to seven centimeters?
“I er–” I cleared my throat. “Thanks. Short club members only. Make coffins feel spacious with plenty of leg room.”
She smiled a dazzlingly bright smile. Golden blonde hair, golden eyes, a warm skin tone, and full lips were burned into my retinas as surely as if she’d used her solar aspect. She had a trim, petite figure, but I knew that looks weren’t reliable, especially with more heavily tempered users like she was.
While she stepped up and took a seat on the stool opposite me, the production crew piloted near-silent camera drones and lowered a boom microphone down into the air above the two of us.
There was a brief blue glimmer over the glow of her eyes that caught my attention.
No optical implant; she’s wearing smart contacts. Interesting.
“We’ll get started here in a minute, but before we do, I’ll give you a quick rundown of what to expect, okay?” she asked me.
“Some of the UBL hosts like to do easy, mostly social chit-chat interviews. I like to do ones that give you a chance to show people who you really are. I personally can’t stand those sorts of interviews; nobody really cares about what your favorite brand of snack or favorite clothing brand is.”
“Yeah, I have to agree. My brain sort of automatically tunes those sorts of things out as background noise.”
She pointed a manicured fingernail at me and said, “Exactly! Boring. So, we’ll start with a few basic questions and move along by some categories. I’ll ask you some easy questions and some tougher questions, but I promise I won’t browbeat you with any of them.”
I wasn’t convinced that she didn’t have a rack of diabolical questions lined up to verbally fillet me with.
“Now, I’d love nothing more than to have you all to myself; however, our parent company has signed a deal with Box Media, so we are required to ask questions users submit while watching. VI finds what’s trending or controversial and forwards it to us. I’ll be entirely honest with you here; it’s usually a shit-show. Sometimes it’s the usual sorts of questions; sometimes they’re honestly nasty. You know how people are on the matrix.”
That gave me pause for a moment. Pseudo-anonymity really brought out the worst in people.
“Okay,” I agreed, just a touch reluctantly.
“I’ll be sure to mention if it’s a viewer question; please don’t judge me too harshly,” she commented with a soft laugh.
The half-dozen professionals working just outside the scene suddenly felt impossible to ignore.
I’m not made for this shit. This isn’t me.
Like she’d read my mind, or perhaps had just done a whole lot of these interviews over the years, Leora leaned forward and patted my knee. “Ignore them; they’re like duct scuttlers. They’ll fade into the background the moment you look away. Hair and makeup did wonderful work; you look amazing, Kiera.”
I couldn’t help the warmth that rose in my face. It was one thing to think that I looked good; hearing it from her was something else entirely.
“Ready to get started?” she asked after a beat. I gave her a firm nod.
She turned to look at the drone directly.
“Leora Hawthorne with User Battle League News. I’m interviewing one of the last entrants to this season’s league, Kiera Voss.”
She turned to face me, and we made eye contact. The rest of the room around us seemed to dim and fade away, just as she’d said it would.
“It’s a pleasure to have you here today, Kiera. Please, would you mind introducing yourself to the fans? How old are you, and where are you from?”
“I’m twenty-seven, and I was born and raised in 6-3.”
Leora smiled with an ease that made me twinge with jealousy. She had a scar she’d left on her face that ran down the outside of one cheek, and her smile somehow made it look like it was enhancing her facial features.
“What did you do before entering the League?”
There were a few things with my story that had to be fudged, but this wasn’t one of them. “I was a consumer electronics tech. Ergonomics, performance tweaks, customizations, that sort of thing.”
That got an eyebrow raise from her.
“Anything that might surprise a viewer to learn about you that you’d like to share with us?” she asked me, hot on the tail of my last response.
“I guess I’d say I’m a bit of a nerd. I used to enjoy gaming quite a bit.”
Her contacts glimmered, and I wondered if they had filters set up to remove the effect on the video feed. Probably. I didn’t watch UBL stuff, but I think I would have noticed someone using contacts like she was at some point.
“So when you joined the UBL, we get a copy of your medical records and Dive registration. It’s mostly used to avoid any potential accidents when administering lifesaving medical attention, but when reviewing your files, I noticed something odd. You only recently registered as a Diver. That’s a bit odd for someone your age. Did you decide on a late career change, or did something else come up?”
This was one of the first subjects that I’d had to workshop with the assistance of Min, who was a stringent tutor.
“I had a late Awakening, actually,” I told Leora without hesitating. “I was a happy tech one day, and then the next day I was having the worst headache ever, and my eyes started glowing.”
Leora nodded and tapped a fingernail on her slacks. “Yes, I’ve heard that late Awakenings can be more difficult depending on the person and situation. Still, I’m glad that you’re with us! For the viewers who don’t have a spectrum chart hanging on their wall, do you mind telling us what your aspect is?”
I was fighting against the urge to fidget with my fingertips where I had my hands folded on my lap. “I have a vitality aspect,” I said, then added after a moment’s hesitation: “It’s one of the less common life aspects.”
“Well, I have to say that the yellow looks good on you, but I might be biased!” Leora laughed, and I wound up joining her. It was a dumb joke, but I needed the distraction.
“So, a life aspect. How would you describe your fighting style? Are you a backline bolster lady, or do you prefer being a more hands-on healing sort?”
A murky, ugly thought bubbled up in the back of my head, but I stomped on it like it was a protein vat escapee.
“Err, maybe it’s a bit unusual, but I’ve trained in martial combat, actually.”
Something clicked for my interviewer, and she leaned forward, interest piqued.
“Obviously don’t spoil any trade secrets for us, but what made you decide to follow that path?”
I sucked in a half-breath. I didn’t trust the tape on my shirt all that much.
“If I’m being honest? The thought of being a member of a support team really bothered me. I always enjoyed playing a combatant in World of Divers, so I had pretty strong feelings about what I wanted to do. I was lucky to find people who were open-minded enough to help train me.”
That got a grin out of Leora that had a distinctly predatory tint to it. I felt like I might have just stepped into a trap without realizing it.
“We’ll come back to World of Divers in a moment; I’d like to ask you about your training while we’re on the topic.”
My stomach sank when she mentioned WoD. I really hoped she wasn’t planning on asking me questions about it.
“You trained under House Sul’Vethik, and they are sponsoring your entry into this season. Our deep dive fans have questions about that, because there’s been a good amount of chatter on the matrix since your registration was confirmed. Some people think it’s some kind of a practical joke. What’s the story there? How did you come to associate with them?”
“I had met a member of Sul’Vethik while living in X-3. When I awakened, she was the only User I knew who could provide me with advice at the time. I met the matriarch later, and she took an interest in me and offered me training. It felt foolish to refuse.”
“By ‘the matriarch,’ you mean Lael’Mira Sul’Vethik, correct?”
I dipped my head in agreement.
Leora straightened up on her stool and pursed her lips. Data was flashing on her contacts. “Lael’Mira is as much of an enigma as she is a legend. One of very few Defenders here in the city, she’s rumored to have a near-obsessive level of dedication to Diving. What makes one of the leading Users take on a late Awakening student?”
I hesitated because I was extremely tempted to give the plain, unfiltered truth: boredom and capriciousness. But I wanted to remain a good daughter to the house and not throw my teacher on the mag lev rail, no matter how much I wasn’t enjoying being in the spotlight right now.
“I think she saw a challenge in training me. She doesn’t really take students, and there I was, freshly Awoken and trying to figure out up from down. She could have taken on basically anyone she wanted, but I think she made the offer to me precisely because I was a little bit of an oddball.”
Leora hummed a note under her breath and seemed to mull that over a moment before asking her next question.
“What was training under her like?”
I rubbed the back of my neck. “I call it my personal hell. She expects nothing less than absolute dedication to training. I try my best to live up to those expectations. I push myself to the extreme edge of my limits daily, then rest, and do it all over again the next day. Like that guy who has to roll boulders up a mountain every day.”
“A viewer has asked this next question: Is your entry to the UBL a publicity stunt?”
“A publicity stunt?” The question had caught me flat-footed. “To what end? If I immediately fail, she’s probably going to go back to chain Diving.”
“Well, some might argue that there’s a lot of money to be made on the prediction markets. Having a virtual unknown factor as your candidate has the potential to be a very lucrative venture,” Leora responded.
I just shrugged. “I don’t think she’s terribly motivated by financial markets and gambling. At least not from what I’ve seen.”
There was a barely audible beep in the background. Leora straightened up and turned to face the camera drone directly again. “We’re going to take a quick break, and then we will return with part two of the Voss interview. This interview series is brought to you by Nutrient Brick. A Brick will break a window, but it won’t break your bank account. Now available in Fudge Explosion, available city-wide.”
There was a double-beep, and Leora waited a moment, then rolled her neck and shoulders. “Not too bad so far, I hope?” she asked me.
“Is it okay if I ask you a question?” I glanced up and made eye contact with Leora. She hiked one eyebrow and grinned.
“If it’s quick, sure. This is a short ad break, and then we’ll be going back live.”
I dropped my eyes back down to my lap and picked at my thumbnail. “Why did you retire? The real reason, I mean, not the PR one.”
I heard her pull a lungful of air in through her nostrils, then she let out a deep sigh. “I loved the competition, and the feeling of growing stronger. Learning new techniques.”
“But?” I prompted.
“But all the blood starts to weigh on you after a while. You lose people. It’s hard to have a life outside the Dive scene and other Divers. I thought about starting a family sometime, if I ever meet someone who can put up with me long-term. I tried to cut back, and kept getting sucked back in. So I decided to retire and shift my career to something related but not active.”
I looked up, and this time she was the one who glanced away.
“I think you made the right call. You’re tier five, so you have all the time in the world to see and do other things. You can always go back and dust off your Diving gear in a couple of decades.”
She looked back, and we locked eyes. She smiled, and I swear it felt like she lit the room up. She’d made a good decision to get into media after retiring. She had an incredible personal charisma and magnetism. I respected her decision to keep old battle wounds visible the way she did. I didn’t know if I could do the same if I was in that position.
Or if my body and aspect would give me any choice in the matter.
“Fifteen seconds,” a producer called out from the side of the room.
I stretched quickly, then settled back into the posture that’d been drilled into me. The tail really helped; the weight hanging from my lower back made my spine naturally want to straighten.
My interviewer turned her attention to the camera and smiled. “This is UBL News, and we’re back with part two of the Kiera Voss interview.” She turned to me. “Viewers have been hotly engaging with the first part of our interview, and they’ve got quite a backlog of questions. Ready for a lightning round? These will all be viewer questions.”
“Sure, fire away.”
“This camera, that camera, or that camera- take your pick. I’ll give you the trending questions; you tell the viewers your answers directly.”
I chose the one hovering to my left side and made eye contact with the bot, which lit a bright red LED once I looked at it.
“Here we go! First question, do you have a modelling site?”
I wasn’t sure what I was being asked, but my brain eventually concluded that it was probably about porn.
“No, it doesn’t really interest me.”
“Opinion on bitter paste?”
“It’s hard work to enjoy it, but it’s slowly growing on me. I’m starting to understand why some people are devoted to it,” I replied.
“Are you single?”
“I…” I paused the automatic reply. Popular opinion mattered, and this was something Min had coached me on. But I also wanted to be honest, too. “It's complicated? I don’t really do single partnerships.”
“Open poly?” Leora offered.
“Yeah, I think that’s right.”
“Last question for the lightning round. Your tail is huge; is it bothersome?”
I laughed. “Yeah. I had quite a growth spurt. No, not at all. I use it for all sorts of things; it’s handy. Well, metaphorically speaking.” I brought the tip up and waved it at the camera, then let it slide back down to rest on the floor.
“Okay, let’s get back to our interview. Our next topic is the UBL itself. First up: What do you think of the prizes? Anything in the pool catch your eye?”
“Money is always good; the earnings payouts for the later rounds get pretty wild. I’d be lying if I said that the grand prize wasn’t enticing.”
The grand prize was a custom order from Ilham. Whatever you could think of when it came to Dive equipment, more or less. Ilham money wasn’t slang for being unfathomably wealthy without a reason. The money would be nice. Having a handcrafted artifact custom-made? Daydream material.
Leora smiled; I think she caught the momentary fantasy on my face.
Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.
“You’re an amateur, no Dive record, and first tier. Do you think you can win?”
It was a really good question. And one that had been on my mind for no small amount of clock cycles.
Every season of the UBL was different, and this one was supposed to be more than just an iterative change. An all-new challenge, according to the adverts. Regardless of the season, one thing was true across the decades it had been running.
Raw brute strength could take you a long way, but actually winning was complicated. Being more tempered and skilled than the opposition certainly helped, but the challenges were multi-faceted and designed to allow for any variety of strange and unusual tactics and strategies to thrive.
In terms of tempering and combat ability? No. Not by a long shot. But there were other ways to compete.
“I don’t know. I’d say that my chances probably aren’t as good as most of the other competitors, but I’m going to do everything I can to get as far as I can.”
Leora gave me a slow, thoughtful nod. “That’s a good outlook to have. My mentor once told me, ‘minimal assumption, maximum effort.’ It worked well enough for me to have the title of User Battle League Champion.”
“Thanks for sharing; I’ll keep that in mind while I’m in there,” I told her.
“This is a two-person team event season. Only one of you needs to be able to buzz in for the team to proceed to the next round. Your partner is a Wildland native with a unique personality, who you’ve only known for a few days. Can you trust her with your life if it comes down to that?”
Oof. This must be one of those questions she warned me about. Any way I answer this, I either look like an asshole, an idiot, or delusional.
“Griff has given her word that she’ll do her best to compete in the event, and I believe her. Since this is a team event, it’s only logical that having a partner with you to help watch your back is in your own best self-interest. I don’t care where she’s from; I care if she’s serious about her commitment. I think she is.”
“Knowing who to trust, and more importantly, when to trust them will be key to success and survival. It’s easy to talk about logic and discuss strategies, but know that when things become chaotic, people often don’t think clearly or act rationally.”
***
I arrived back at Vael’s apartment feeling strung out and frustrated. The interview had ended more than an hour ago, but the later parts had been stressful. They had gotten their hands on information about my World of Divers identity and interviewed people about my online persona, as if that was relevant.
The portrayal hadn’t been kind. A murderous psychopath. Someone who abandoned her friends when they needed her the most. A walking, talking obsessive personality disorder, and more.
I’d explained that I’d developed IRS and that abandoning my friends and allies hadn’t been my decision.
Of course, follow-up questions had been asked: If you were concerned about your guild members, why didn’t you use immersion hardware to reconnect?
I’d thought about it. I really had. I just didn’t have the time like I once did.
Every answer I gave seemed to produce another probing question. Why hadn’t I gone back? Couldn’t I have contacted my friends to tell them I had a medical issue and couldn’t play anymore? Did the way I’d handled leaving World of Divers say anything about how I might perform in the League?
Now that I was out from under the lights, I mostly just felt pissed off. The whole thing had left me feeling like everything I said was going to be turned against me.
I had the next couple of days off to rest and socialize before I had to report in for tournament prep. I planned on making the most of it.
The smell of Vael’s apartment was the first thing that struck me when I walked through the door. Takeout with scorch-your-flesh-off levels of spiciness. High-quality, freshly brewed coffee. And something else, resinous, slightly bitter, and grassy. My nose was twitching as I dropped my heavy bag by the door, and then I saw where the smell was coming from.
The scotch bonnet I’d been tinkering with before leaving to train over four months ago barely resembled the plant that I remembered. In its place, a veritable dwarf tree stood, taller than I was, and much broader, too. The old tank had been replaced with a purpose-built metal reservoir, with a thick polymer window across the front revealing a thick, dense mass of pale white roots. Roots that had quested over the edges of the tank in a few places.
The original stem had transformed into a woody trunk, with the major branches thickening to support the enormous crop of peppers. It might have looked strange, but what I was seeing with my sixth sense was breathtaking. I walked closer to get a better look-feel-taste for it.
To my aura senses, the plant’s underlying structure was familiar, but now I could smell and feel activity hidden beneath the surface. The plant pulsed with a rhythm eerily similar to a heartbeat, drawing nutrient-laden water from the tank and pumping it upward through the trunk and branches before diffusing it through the leaves. The leaves were a dark olive green, densely packed with the machinery to convert the energy of the grow lamps into biomass, which was then diverted down and into the fruit.
The plant had continued the flavor experiments I’d started before leaving. Some clusters were bright yellow and packed with citrus sweetness. Others had ripened to an ominous red and might have crossed the threshold into weapons-grade levels of capsaicin. The orange peppers were both fiercely hot and sweetly citrus-laden, and made up more than half the crop.
For all its growth, something was wrong. I could feel the plant struggling. Outer branches were drier and less productive. My tail rustled through the lower foliage and looped around the trunk, and I leaned forward to place my palm on the upper half of it.
It’s running out of resources. It’s trying to grow more while still producing so much fruit, but there isn’t enough to go around. This is a pretty easy fix; I just need to…
I reached out through my palm and connected my circuit to the plant. With the direct connection, the problem sharpened into a clear picture: I could feel exactly where it was beginning to falter and starve. What would have been a struggle for me once had become almost effortless–intuitive. This pepper plant had a lot of biomass, but it was tiny in comparison to my mega-vines on Lael’s estate.
You’ve done so well while I’ve been away, but you’ve grown large enough. Any bigger and you’ll make yourself wither and die. Just focus your time and energy on being as healthy and happy as possible, and producing lots of fruit.
Decay had begun creeping into some of the weakest branches, along with the first signs of disease. I isolated them with my circuit, sealing off their pathways and rerouting the flow of vital nutrients elsewhere. At the tips of the branches, I switched the mechanisms driving new growth off, like transistors on a circuit board. It would stay the same size from here on, which was good. Any larger and it couldn’t continue living in Vael’s apartment, and there was no practical way to transport a small tree rooted in a hydroponic tank to Lael’s estate intact.
Something in the plant seemed to ease. Maybe I was anthropomorphizing it, but it felt like relief.
I opened my eyes, grabbed the pruning shears from the end table beside the tank, and got to work. The branches would wither and die on their own, but I wanted them gone now, before rot had a chance to set in.
My tail seemed perfectly content slithering through the foliage while I worked. With each branch I cut, I ran my thumb over the wound and sent a tiny pulse of mana through it, sealing and healing it in one go.
The apartment door opened behind me. Vael was home. I was nearly done, so I kept working. Some of the branches that I trimmed were still loaded with peppers. I fed them, peppers and all, to my tail, which seemed to enjoy both fruit and foliage.
Vael’s warmth slid up behind me, her arms looping around my waist, and a moment later her nose was pressed into my scalp. My tail unwound itself from the pepper plant-turned-tree and curled around both of us, squeezing Vael firmly against my back.
“I’m glad you’re back,” she murmured into my hair. “Rui’s been keeping your plants fed while you were gone.”
My hands were sticky with sap, so I gave them a quick scrub in the nutrient bath and dried them on a towel beside the tank.
Then I turned around and greeted Vael properly.
“Rui’s out restocking food and snacks for the weekend,” Vael murmured when her mouth was less occupied.
We made good use of the time.
***
I wasn’t nearly as confident about my choice of clothing now as I had been when I’d picked it out.
I twisted and turned in front of the mirror, checking the dress from every angle.
The black-and-gold skater dress I’d picked out when Vael had told me she wanted to go to a dance club had been one of Min’s suggestions, and at the time, I’d thought that I’d looked pretty damn hot trying it on.
“Kiera, they’re about to arrive; we need to go,” Vael urged from the other side of the master bathroom door.
Makeup… check.
Dress… check.
Polish… check.
Strappy heels… check.
There was a hint of cheek if I spun too quickly or bent over too far, but all things considered, the dress worked surprisingly well with my tail. Every outfit decision had to account for the thigh-thick extra appendage growing from my lower spine and upper butt. It was an awkward place to design around, because the odds of a wardrobe malfunction putting my whole ass on display were decidedly non-zero.
“Okay, okay. I’m coming.” I stuck my slate and emergency makeup recovery kit into the pouch belted around my waist. I still wasn’t a fan of handbags and other overly girly accessories, but Gen–now apparently one of my core fashion consultants–had suggested adding a belt to my dress. Finding a small pouch to go with it was a simple matter.
I opened the door and caught Vael’s eyes at least a full second before they made it to my face. Her eyes widened, eyebrows rising in surprise.
“Too much?” I asked her.
“No, no, you look incredible, Kiera. I didn’t think this was what you’d be wearing, is all,” she said quickly.
“I had outside help. I still need to introduce you two properly, but anyways, you said we’re out of time?”
Vael nodded and took my hand, leading me into the living area.
The door was closing behind the trio who had just entered: Ellen, Geel and Imir. Rui slipped around the side and gave Ellen a hug. The difference in build between the two was almost comical.
Rui looked much better. She’d gained several kilos and was now merely very thin instead of skeletal. Ellen looked like a human garbage truck. Wide, built to take a beating, and full of shit. She wore something similar to what she’d had on the first night we met. Booty shorts, a triangle bikini top, a bolero jacket, a pair of accessorized guns, and knee-high gutter stomper boots.
Rui wore shiny, stretchy pants with a reflective scale pattern, high-top sneakers, and a rich blue halterneck top. She had on a bunch of wristbands on each arm. It was a simple outfit, but flattering in a way that made her recent weight gain more noticeable.
Imir had to duck to keep her horns from clipping the doorframe, which always reminded me of just how damn tall she was. Standing next to her–or sparring with her during training–always made me feel kid-sized. She had on a very simple dress in a cream color with a black leather belt. The fabric was thin and flowing, making it fairly obvious she wasn’t wearing much–if anything–underneath. It looped around the back of her neck and left her back entirely uncovered down to the base of her tail. The color of the dress contrasted nicely with her violet skin. Strappy flat sandals completed the look, the outfit somewhere between Lael’s taste for archaic clothing and modern design.
Geel was wearing a lace-up vest, side-lace leather pants, and ankle boots with a low heel. She looked about ready to burst out of the vest and the pants at any given moment. She must have applied a little lotion or oil; her cobalt skin carried a sheen that highlighted the powerful muscles of her bare shoulders and arms. I made a conscious effort not to stare too closely at how the clothes fit. Geel was already wearing that knowing, arrogant smirk when our eyes met. I hated the fact that she always had this shit-eating smirk on her face. Or rather, I hated the fact that I liked it.
We exchanged taste greetings–hugs in Rui’s case–and when everyone had settled, Vael pulled out a tiny black box the size of a pack of cigarettes.
Flowing red script covered the box, and Ellen let out a low whistle.
“You went in and got the good shit, huh, chica?” Ellen asked Vael.
Vael’s near-permanent grin only widened. “I figured tonight is a big night for all of us; why not make a few memories while we’re at it?”
“Fuck yes,” Rui said in a near-hiss. “This is why we get along; you know how to have a good time when it’s time to kick back!”
Vael flipped the box open, pulled out a row of thin red tubes, and passed them around. Mine came last. I recognized what they were, besides being really damn expensive.
Flare.
A high-end designer drug compatible with both Sul’vari and Humans. It was considered one of the premier party drugs because it gave long-lasting energy and a sense of euphoria with few dangerous side effects. It was also a notoriously pricey upsell in the sex work industry because it made your nerve endings sing and made you insatiable in bed.
I rolled the thin red polymer tube in between my fingertips.
I’d never really been much into recreational drugs. My drug had always been cybernetically-stimulated brainwaves. Flare had a reputation for being awesome, but class politics clung to it. It was routine party fare on X-1, but far too expensive for most X-3 residents. Down here it was a niche luxury, mostly seen and used in 5-3.
I heard a series of pops as the others snapped their tubes in half, tilted their heads back, and dripped the contents into their eyes. Rui had a massive grin on her face as she dosed herself.
“You don’t have to use any if you don’t want to, Kiera. I just thought it would be a nice treat for tonight.” Vael wrapped an arm around my shoulder and squeezed.
"I don’t…” I rolled the tube between my fingers. “I’m just worried that it’s a waste of money and won’t work on me.”
“Because of your aspect?” Vael asked.
“Yeah.”
“User tempering doesn’t interfere with it much. Your body doesn’t usually recognize it as something harmful enough to filter out. As far as I know, your aspect shouldn’t be a problem.” Vael said after thinking briefly.
That interview pissed me off. Tonight is going to be fun; a little social lubricant on top isn’t going to hurt. I really need to be able to blow off some steam.
A faint score line ran around the middle of the tube. I took it in both hands and cracked it cleanly in half. The liquid inside was slightly oily and clung to the broken ends instead of spilling.
“Two half doses, each dose extends the–”
I tipped my head back while Vael was still talking and squeezed both doses into my eyes. It felt oddly greasy and warm against my eyelids and tear ducts, but was otherwise unremarkable.
I felt Vael’s tail twist around mine behind us.
“I’m ready to party,” I said. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
***
Vael and I made our way off the dance floor to our reserved booth. Some kind of electronic drum and bass musical epic had just finished playing; I swore it had to have been half an hour long, with different movements, peaks and lulls.
I didn’t give a single shit about the music. Not really. I had one of the most beautiful women I’d ever met dancing against me, hands, claws, and tail all over me as we bounced and shook.
Vael was wearing knee-high boots with stiletto heels and one of those stretchy, paper-thin bodysuits of hers that covered all the important bits in a way that didn’t really. She was all laughter, flashing fangs, and glowing orange eyes. Claws teased and grazed, teeth nipped whenever we pressed together.
I wanted her, and she wanted me, but there was no hurry. We were having too much fun teasing each other and making shout-whispered promises for later.
The two of us were dripping with sweat. The club’s aircon blasted us with gusts that felt downright arctic, which was good because the Flare had kicked in and my body felt like a slow-boiling furnace.
I tapped the service call button in the middle of the table and unclipped my half-finished beer from my belt. The pouch collapsed as I sucked down the remainder of my drink through the integrated straw. A little bite valve kept it from making a mess when you were dancing, which was nice.
Rui was sitting on Ellen’s lap and running her fingertips over one of Ellen’s arms. Ellen took a drag from the massive spliff, then held it to Rui’s lips. Rui drew deeply from the joint. Smoke rolled out from between Ellen’s lips as she winked at me. She held the joint out to me when Rui was done.
I shook my head. I was doing quite well enough on the Flare. The funny part was that I didn’t really feel high. Not altered, not exactly. I felt hot, both literally and figuratively, and my dress clung damply to my chest, back, and underarms. But I just felt… good. Good and energized.
And also really damn hungry and thirsty.
A scantily clad waitress with a dangerous figure appeared at our booth a minute or two later. The service was fast enough that I assumed that Vael paid for VIP service. The staff at the club seemed to treat her as if she had.
“How can we be of service?” the waitress asked. Rich purple lipstick contrasted beautifully with her dark skin and heavy gold blush.
“I fucking love your makeup!” I told her, perhaps a bit louder than strictly required.
Her grin flashed metallic teeth. “Thanks!”
I fished out my slate and tapped it on her reader, which blinked and beeped. “They have Tokh chefs here serving authentic food. If you’re hungry, try it. You won’t regret it,” Vael whispered into my ear before giving it a nip. I slapped her on a bare thigh, and she laughed.
“Okay. I want one of those dip spreads with the flatbread, I want a whole tray of carbon char potatoes, and a whole freaking pitcher of that beer you suggested,” I told the waitress.
“How hungry is everyone?” Vael asked everyone. Thumbclaws and thumbnails went up all around the table.
“Chef’s special, please,” Vael purred. “Four adult and two kid servings.” She glanced at me. “Actually, make that five adults. Electrolyte packs for everyone, and fresh drink pouches. Put it on my account, please.”
The waitress dipped her head to Vael in an unusually respectful gesture for the setting, then disappeared as quickly as she’d arrived.
“Why is she treating you like that?” I whispered into her ear over the bass thudding through the club.
“Like what?” Vael asked.
“Like fucking, I don’t know, bowing and shit. I’m used to seeing it in other places with your mom, just not someplace like this.”
Vael pulled back a bit to give me a long side-glance. “Mother hasn’t spoken about the estate’s business, has she?”
I shook my head. “Mostly yells about doing more reps or how I’m holding back by half a percent, or something.”
Vael chuckled and squeezed me against her side. “Another time, not the conversation for tonight. We’re here to have fun.”
I kissed her, then slid from my seat at the booth, grabbed Imir’s hand, and dragged her to the dance floor.
***
Imir was a much more restrained dancer than Vael or Geel. Geel’s idea of dancing was borderline dry-humping or trying to shake her ass off. Imir preferred holding hands and doing a back-and-forth, side-to-side spinning thing that was fun but aggressively space-consuming. A few sufficiently severe glares from her lofty height bought us more room to dance. It helped that we were on one of the upper-level dance floors. The lower levels were like a sea of bodies bumping and grinding on one another. Up here there were merely hundreds of people instead of thousands.
Things had been mostly chaste between the two of us during training. Imir seemed to have some firm ideas about mixing training with anything more personal. Tonight we weren’t instructor and pupil, so I took every opportunity to steal a kiss when I could actually reach her. She was so damn tall I was mostly dancing with her abdomen, which was funny and embarrassing in equal measure.
At least it gave me an excellent view of what all her training did for her figure.
As soon as the song ended, I spotted platters of food arriving at our booth and hustled back.
***
I don’t know what kind of mad science was taking place in the kitchen, but Vael’s order for The Chef’s Special was a game-changer.
Training with Lael had meant eating a lot of meat, most of it freshly gathered from portal wildlife. Lael and her staff were good cooks, but they had a Sul’vari palate that wasn’t exactly friendly to human senses. If it wasn’t so bitter or sour that it made your face want to turn inside-out, then it was spicy enough to boil your innards alive. So I mostly ate with my tail at the estate, and I’d developed some strong opinions on the texture of various meats.
A lot of it was mildly off-putting even if it tasted nice. I’d grown up on nutritionally robust but heavily processed food, with very specific taste and texture combinations that real meat didn’t really fit into.
This though? This was radically different.
Big slabs of meat that were charred and crisp outside but steaming and tender within. Sauces that were smoky and savory, sweet and spicy, tangy and sour–without any of it tasting like industrial-grade chemicals.
By my third bite, I’d accepted that my makeup was doomed and just dug in. The grilled meats were so good I didn’t want to share with my tail, which kept peeking up over the edge of the table and giving me this wounded look. Well, more like a wounded mannerism, since it didn’t have a face so much as a near-bottomless maw.
“I gave you peppers and tree branches earlier,” I growled at it between gnawing on a bone like a feral animal. The damn thing had the nerve to open its jaws slightly and shiver at me like it was about to pass out from exhaustion. I all but shoved the bone, still loaded with half-eaten meat, into its hook-filled mouth.
“You two seem to have grown quite a bit,” Vael whispered to me. She’d been smoking, and the peppery scent of weed was heavy on her breath. Having spent enough time cultivating and tinkering with the stuff, I’d grown to appreciate the smell.
“You mean it grew, and I got thicker,” I said while reaching for a carbon char potato.
“You are not fat, quit it,” she said and poked me in the ribs.
“Tell that to the security VI that keeps thinking I’m smuggling weapons or am secretly a human-model borg who presents a heightened security risk classification.”
I unwrapped part of the foil the potato was wrapped in and checked the temperature wasn’t hot enough to liquefy my mouth. Then I bit into it with a terrific crunch. A spice rub was crusted on the outside before it was charred black, and it was salty and spicy with a lemon-citrus flavor. The inside was buttery and flaky and mouthwatering.
“Oh my fuck,” I mumbled around a mouthful of culinary bliss.
I peeled away the rest of the foil, fed the potato to my tail, and grabbed another. This one was all for me and my taste buds.
“Does Flare make stuff taste better too, or what?” I asked Vael. It was just the two of us at the booth for the moment. Imir and Geel had stuffed themselves silly and disappeared to the facilities, while Rui and Ellen were out on the dance floor slurping from drink pouches.
“No, that’s just having a good chef, look–”
She reached across the mostly picked-clean platter and plucked a business card from beside the bones.
The card carried the names of the chef and two other cooks who’d prepared the meal.
“I could eat this every single day for the rest of my life, I think,” I muttered.
Vael laughed. “Better get back to training soon then, because Tokh aren’t cheap employees.”
I answered her by taking another enormous bite of potato.
***
The night ran into the early hours of the morning, and the Flare kept everything sharp in the same way it kept everything simmering.
I danced with everyone, including Rui, who was all blushing and giggling on the dance floor. I knew she wasn’t into open relationships and was very happily enamoured with Ellen, so we kept it platonic and more than a little silly.
I also drank what felt like ten liters of beer, but never caught so much as a hint of a buzz off it. The club issued chipped wristbands for ordering drinks, coded with different alcohol-tolerance levels.
Cybernetics and User tempering often came with enhanced toxin and waste processing, so getting drunk off ethanol took deliberate effort on the part of the cyborg or User. Ellen’s combat suite included toxin filters, and despite the fact that she said she switched them to passive mode, she was still drinking whiskey like it was cheap algae beer.
Vael had asked if I wanted to try some User drinks. I didn’t really want to order any of my own, so I sampled hers instead.
Of the three I tried, one tasted like what I imagined rubbing alcohol would taste like: virtually flavorless except for setting my mouth and throat on fire. The second was bitter and smoky, but equally hot. I could maybe see myself learning to enjoy that one. The last one was Atomic Fire, cinnamon-flavored and fully deserving the name.
Two of the three had me scrambling for my house beer to wash the taste out. I didn’t really want to get shitfaced and sloppy, but it was an interesting experiment. I wondered if I’d get drunk if I poured a couple bottles of fire water down the tail hatch.
Final call rolled around, and the six of us crammed into an autocab. Rui decided to go home with Ellen, who was a couple of blocks and a stratum below Vael’s place.
That left the four of us alone back at Vael’s place. She made a few cups of coffee, three to Sul’vari tastes, and an Americano for me. There wasn’t much talking, but a whole lot of touching going on while we drank our coffee. Flare made fluid balance tricky; both dehydration and overhydration could become problems. We’d been slurping on fruit-flavored electrolyte paste pouches all night between guzzling down drinks. Vael had visibly paced herself throughout the night by cycling between beer, tea, and hard liquor.
She was still a little giggly, but wasn’t tipsy as she had been a couple of hours earlier. I think the bubbly laughter was mostly the flare. I volunteered to be the responsible one and put everyone’s coffee cups in the dishwasher, though I had ulterior motives.
When I came back, I placed Vael’s hand in Imir’s, then Imir’s in Geel’s, and then took Vael’s free hand for myself. She lifted one eyebrow at me, and I simply smiled, turned, and led the chain along behind me into the master bedroom.
We didn’t get around to sleeping for quite a few hours. When I awoke much later in the afternoon, I felt tired and a little fuzzy-headed, but mostly in a still-waking-up way. I was half-buried in a pile of tangled limbs and crusty skin. One cautious, exploratory sniff to my armpit sent alarm bells blaring in my head.
I don’t think I was quite at the being forced to ride in the AV with all the windows down territory, but I was certainly quite ripe.
This was a very good start to a much-needed weekend before the tournament started. I’d feel better when I’d had a chance to get out of bed and clean up, but for right now? I was perfectly content to keep snoozing in a pile of multicolored radiant body heat.