Page 69 of The Fall

Deactivating her Thermabulle, the rush of cold air prickled at her arms first, then the tip of her nose. Her strength amplifier and hormone regulator sent temperature warnings to her Opti, but it was cool enough outside that they weren’t in danger yet.

“Haven’t you ever wondered what life would be like without it?” Lusa added.

She’d gone too far to back out now. Kerr disabled the rest of her cyberware before she overheated. Her body cooled and trembled. Slipping behind her, Lusa wrapped her arms around her waist. Kerr leaned her head back against her chest.

“How does that feel?”

The waves of heat from the fire radiated over her front and with Lusa at her back like a blanket – Kerr could sink into her and live in this moment forever. The last time she had let her body feel something without her hormone regulators compensating had been so long ago and much less pleasant.

“I’ve deactivated my cyberware before.” Kerr’s voice sounded far away. “It was nothing like this.”

“Oh?” Lusa rested her chin on top of Kerr’s head. “Why?”

Kerr didn’t answer. She only let herself be swayed by the invisible rhythm of the flames.

“Sorry,” Lusa apologised. “I shouldn’t be prying either.”

Kerr shook her head, mussing up her hair under Lusa’s chin. “You have to turn it all off for the initiation I mentioned.”

Lusa squeezed her waist. “You don’t have to tell me.”

“I want to.” Kerr craned her neck upward and kissed the edge of Lusa’s jaw. “It’s sort of a rejection of the ChemTec corps got us hooked on – that a lot of us are still hooked on, I guess. A rejection of all the corpo shit we can’t live without anymore. An EMP takes out all your cyberware and you have to navigate the tunnels – no Opti maps, no lowlight compensators. Your hormones are all over the place. Then they blindfold you and drop you off at a random access hatch and you need to make it to the Junkpile.”

“Junkpile?”

“Exactly what it sounds like. A giant pile of discarded tech we gather and eventually sort for parts. Some people get there in days. Some take weeks. What matters is you get there without re-enabling your cyberware.”

“And how long did it take you?”

“Three hours.” Kerr beamed.

Lusa gave her a quick squeeze. “What happens when you get there?”

“You reach in the pile and pick something out. That becomes your new name. I grabbed a sprocket, but there was already someone named Sprocket, so they named me after the type of sprocket.”

“I have no idea what a Kerr sprocket is.” Lusa placed a soft kiss on her temple. “What was your name before?”

“Caoimhe. It’s an insult to call someone by their previous name, though.”

“It’s a pretty name.” Lusa kissed the top of her head. “Both of them.”

“You can call me Caoimhe.”

Lusa hesitated. “You’re only saying that because your hormone regulator is turned off.”

This was rapidly becoming too intimate. “I can make you,” Kerr tried to lighten the mood.

“Your strength amplifier patch is offline too.” Lusa kissed the top of her head. “Unless you’ve been secretly doing a lot of push-ups, I doubt you can make me do anything.”

Kerr sulked, but it only made Lusa hold her tighter, shattering Kerr’s attempt to lighten the mood. “I want you to,” she whispered.

Being overcome by lust in a closet confirmed their attraction to one another. The roleplay this morning had been hot, but they weren’t themselves. They took on personas to give into desires they weren’t supposed to have. This was a casual relationship with an end date.

And Kerr still found herself asking “Please?”

Did Ever Dragon Keep So Fair A Cave

Acloth house with two puffy blankets draped across an uneven floor. Caoimhe turned to Lusa, who crouched in the cramped space. “I don’t understand.”