Chapter 3

The door to Merton’s room closed and, for the first time in what felt like several months, he could take a breath. He walked away from the door, let his shins hit the edge of the hovering bed that made up the center of the room, and flopped face first into the bed. He didn’t bend or fold. He just plopped there and remained perfectly still, his nose mashed against silken fabric.

“So, uh ... nice room,” Julia said, her voice shy and nervous.

Merton rolled around onto his back and sat up. His hand went to his hair and brushed his fingers through, shoving his bangs back until he felt his scalp tug against his palm. He looked at Julia and pursed his lips.

“We need to...” He shook his head. “Okay, no, we don’t need to talk.”

“We don’t?” Julia asked.

“Well, yes, we do,” Merton said. “But the phrase ‘we need to talk’ always sounds so fucking final.”

Julia giggled. “We could, uh, say that we need to nose-nuzzle. But we’ll do it with our mouth-sounds!” She thrust her finger into the air. “Genius!”

Merton snorted, quietly. “You’re being absurd to try and cheer me up. And damn you, it’s working.” He shook his fist at her.

“I learned it by watching you!” she exclaimed, as if she was revealing a shocking truth. She flung herself onto the bed next to Merton. The hover-spells that kept it suspended in the air whirred underneath her impact and Merton reached down to pet her sprawl of blue hair. Her hair felt so silky. He wondered what it would have been like to pet Julia when Julia had been a Jules. He wondered if he could have pet her. He wasn’t gay. Well, okay, he was pretty sure he wasn’t gay. Or bisexual. But he loved Julia so much. Would that have let him override his physical feelings?

He shook his head, slightly. “How do you like the new bod?”

“Is there a word for orgasmic chocolate?” Julia mumbled into the bed, her head lifting slightly – just enough to press her scalp against Merton’s hand. “Cause this new body is like, ten times better than that.” She went quiet for a bit, her knees drawing up underneath her as she rolled onto her side. She was a tiny fetal position of adorable ... and deep thoughts. Her expression looked like she was looking at something light years away.

Merton remained quiet.

“Do you know how many trans partners are murdered every week?” she asked.

“Too many,” Merton said.

“And too many are killed by people they ... well, they’re going out with,” she said, quietly.

“I’d never-”

Julia sat up, looking at him. “Yes.” She put her finger to her temple. “This knows it. This knows it.” She touched her chest, then, her finger pressing to her heart. “But, uh, Merton. You’re white. You’re rich. You don’t know how you learn stuff here.” She put her palm on her belly. “Do you know how many times I wrote out a full confession, late at night.” she looked down, her shoulders slumping. “B-But...”

Merton nodded, slowly.

“B-But you loved me and you thought I was pretty and for a few hours every day, when we were chatting, I could pretend that it was true...” Julia whispered, drawing her legs up against her chest as she leaned her chin against her knees. Her eyes brimmed with tears. “I’m so fucking sorry, Merton. I-”

Merton leaned down and kissed her. It was an awkward kiss – he had to put his finger on his chin and tilt her head backwards. Also, he had to be okay with tasting the warm salt of her tears. His tongue slipped into her mouth and felt the dainty sleekness of her own tongue. She didn’t kiss him back. At first. Instead, she simply sat there, her body buzzing like a tuning fork that had been struck a glancing blow by a railgun. Then she was kissing back, desperation and lust and something more exploding deep inside of her. Merton could feel it as his palms caressed along her shoulders, down the small of her back, dragging her onto his lap. Her limber legs closed around his back and she ground herself against him, the thin, filmy shorts that she wore feeling like less than nothing. He could feel her moistness. Her eagerness.

She broke the kiss with a quiet gasp. “Holy crap, you are hung!”

“I told you I measured it!” Merton said, grinning slightly.

Julia leaned down and kissed him with a hunger that matched her previous fire and then exceeded it. Her hands grabbed at his shoulders and started to push desperately at his shirt, trying to peel it away. The smart clothes stubbornly refused to move – it felt like she was pressing against solid steel, save that it moved perfectly fine with Merton’s movements. He knew this because he was able to grab her butt and squeeze it without being constrained by his shirt.

And good thing too.

The four armed purple chick had done an amazing job on turning a middle-aged fat black dude into a slinky eighteen year old asian chick.

Julia drew her mouth back and Merton panted quietly. “Okay, I think you could have lied about way more...” he murmured.

“I’m not actually a succubus,” Julia said, grinning.

“Dang!” Merton snapped his fingers.

His hands went down to her shirt. Julia put her hands on his wrists, stopping him for a moment.

“Just to check, you are okay if I nibble on your soul slightly?” she asked. “I mean, I’m asking for academic reasons. I’m not a succ-”

Merton snapped his teeth at her playfully and Julia squeaked – but before he could literally rip her clothes off her and do in real life what he had lovingly described over IMs for the past few years, the door to his room irised open and the four armed purple chick dressed in the dominatrix outfit walked in. Her arms were crossed over her breasts and along her belly, and her expression was somewhere between focused and monomaniac. Julia looked at her. Merton looked at her. Then Merton looked at Julia.

Julia shrugged, spreading her hands.

“Why the heck are you here?” Merton asked – and mentally kicked himself for not asking her name.

“I have been sent by the Princess Relix,” the purple skinned four armed chick said.

“Why?” Julia asked.

“I have been instructed, as the primer student of draconic biology and the headmistress of the biomorphic engine and the rest of the ship’s magitech systems, to perform several tasks that the Princess believes will be required for your continued cohabitation.” The purple-skinned woman snapped her upper left hand. “Remove yourself from her lap, Concubine Julia.”

Julia pursed her lips, but shifted herself to the side. She thumped her butt into the bed, then grinned at Merton. “Concubine Julia?”

Merton chuckled, nervously. “I’m just glad that, uh, my wife is so understanding.”

“Remove pants,” the purple skinned girl said, in a tone almost exactly like the Omicronian who wanted to cut Fry’s dick off in that episode of Futurama where it turned out human noses were used as an alien aphrodisiac and holy shit that was a bit of a fucking reach, Merton. But Merton couldn’t help it. She sounded exactly like that!

“Well, I was gonna!” Merton said. Then, remembering that the four armed purple skinned chick had control over his suit of magitech smart clothes (and he did not), he coughed and added: “How?”

The four armed purple skinned chick sighed and rolled her eyes. “Right. Mage-Blind. I have programmed several command phrases in low draconic for your clothes. You simply need to say ruk’ghegh brantorash trikonan vorent va va lakresh maorkenintet k’grug-” she gnashed her teeth in a loud crashing sound, twice. That seemed to be the end of the sentence. Merton blinked at her.

“What does that mean?” he asked.

“Translated approximately into galactic common, it means: I wish to remove my clothing in an expedient means because I either desire the touch of a willing male or female or other, or I seek to clean myself, or I desire to use the restroom to relieve my aching bowels, or perhaps, I long to feel the wind on my scales, for nudity is pleasant.”

Merton blinked again. “Dragons, uh, they kinda like covering all the bases, don’t they?”

“It is considered rude to come to the point too quickly in Low Draconic. This is why most conversations use High Draconic or GC.” The four armed purple skinned chick gestured her lower-right hand. “Now. Come on. Remove pants.”

Julia, meanwhile, had somehow managed to slip off the bed, get to a niche in the wall, figure out it was a food replicator, and got it to reproduce popcorn. She was chewing happily as she watched Merton with a slightly gleeful expression.

Merton sighed, then said: “Can you reprogram it to follow my commands? Using my words?”

The four armed purple skinned chick sighed a long, suffering sigh. “Fine.” She tapped at her wrist – revealing a tiny gemstone that had been set in the skin. The gemstone flared and glowing magic arced outwards, stabbing into Merton’s temples. Merton’s eyes bugged and he felt like a pair of snakes had chomped down on his nuts and were dangling from between his legs. One leg kicked and his back knotted as he felt those snakes wriggle and start to set his balls swaying. Then he noticed the ice-knives digging into his brain.

Through the haze of pain and discomfort, he felt the knives touching the bits of his brain that understood language, cause, effect. He focused as hard as he could – like he was trying to scream through a gag made of spikes. And to his shock, he felt the knives grow ... curious. It was like they were waiting for just such a scream. And so, he started to program in code words. He wondered how far he could go.

So...

Merton went a bit nuts.

Then the magic withdrew from his head and the four armed purple skinned chick nodded. “There. Does that function?” She asked, looking at him with a pursing of her lips.

“Let me see...” Merton paused, then said. “Naked.”

His clothes melted away like fog, leaving him completely bare. His cock, which had softened in the mental vice, twitched slightly. Then it started to harden as the purple skinned girl closed her fingers around it, her palm cupping the base as she started to stroke his member. Her hand pumped up and down and soon, Merton was hard as a rock. His eyes half closed as he tried to keep himself from moaning. But the four armed purple skinned chick had a way with her hands. She pursed her lips again, then scoffed.

“Mediocre,” she said.

“What!?” Merton squeaked. “It ... he ... what?”

“He was scanning the horizon!” Julia shouted from the sidelines.

“You will need to undergo rudimentary augmentation to please Princess Relix,” the purple skinned four arm chick said, pulling out a tablet from either her ass or some kind of dimensional pocket. She tapped at it with two of her hands, holding it with a third, her fourth still pumping Merton’s cock. “At least twice the length, a quarter the girth. Ridges. Possibly a mama-secreting glans keyed to proper lust-drugs. How do you feel about it being psi-selectable?” She paused. “Wait, damn, mage-blind.”

Merton, whose cheeks were flaring with embarrassment and arousal, asked: “If me being mage-blind is such a handicap, why don’t you fix it?”

The four armed purple skinned chick scoffed. “Fix it?” She shook her head, tucking her tablet away as she also let go of his cock – leaving Merton feeling tingly and anxious and irritable all at once. “Break every convention in the FTE? Mage-Blind races are made to be servants. The greatest of you can maybe, maybe, work hard enough that your children will be modded to have the mage genomics. If you die heroically.” She shook her head.

“Then why did Relix marry me?” Merton snapped.

“To keep the suitors off her ta-”

“Like the suitors will give a damn if they know I-” Merton blinked. “No one else knows humans are mage-blind, do they?”

The four armed purple skinned chick shook her head. “Oddly, there is a draconic fleet staged in your system’s Oort Cloud, despite the fact that your planetary data isn’t even logged. Humans are an unknown to all save the Manifold Caretakers, your nearest neighbors.” She shook her head slightly, looking thoughtful. “It’s almost as if humans dealt an embarrassing setback to the FTE and the Prismatic Emperor had it wiped from the records. Almost.”

“Y-Yeah. Almost.” Merton coughed. His cock wilted slightly.

Julia slowly set her popcorn down, her face growing more serious. “I think you need to make him non-mage blind, then,” she said.

Merton looked at her, his cheeks flushing.

“And be broken upon a singularity for it?” the four armed purple skinned chick asked, scoffing.

“Then ... then...” Julia blinked. “Well, I mean, obviously, no one can blame you for what a sneaky human does while you’re re-calibrating the duterium intake pipes.”

“I ... do not know what you’re talking about,” the four armed purple skinned chick said, her brow furrowing.

Julia put her hands over her face, then sighed. “Well, I mean, obviously, you’re not at fault if you put my biffer into the biomorphic modification tube thing, and then went to do your other super important jobs, and a sneaky human who definitely shouldn’t have been there messed with the program. They would be the one who broke the law, not you. You’d have loads of alibis. Why, I bet you could even have evidence putting the blame on anyone but yourself, since you control the security cameras.” She grinned. “Not that you’d do that, cause you’d hate to break a stupid law just because breaking it would vastly improve your Princess’ chances at getting through the next few months without getting married to a psychopathic red dragon who treats his underlings like cattle.”

The purple skinned four arm chick looked thoughtful. “I believe that the ... duterium intake pipes do need seeing too. Once I’ve set up the biomorphic engine, of course.”

Julia grinned, then winked at Merton.

Merton gaped at her.

As the four armed purple skinned chick walked away, Merton took a moment to grab Julia’s arm, jerk her close, and hiss. “Julia, uh, I respect you, I think you’re a very smart person, but also, what the holy fucking hell are you fucking doing?”

“Getting you sick rad magic powers. Duh-doy,” Julia whispered back.

“I don’t want sick rad magical p-” Merton stopped. “Okay, when I put it like that, it...” He shook his head. “I want to stay human. That’s what I am. That’s what I should be.”

“Oh, and humanity is defined entirely by weakness and sucking?” Julia rolled her eyes. “Being human is being Merton Miles. And if some magic and a stupidly huge genetically engineered dick suddenly makes you not Merton, then I don’t think Merton was all that special to begin with.” She smacked his butt. “Now go! Follow the dominatrix tech-priest slash Dabbler from Grrl Power combo! Immorality awaits!”

“Wait, did you say-”

But then Julia was shoving him out the door.

Carlos tossed the ball to the ground. It hit the floor, bounced up, hit the wall, rebounded, thumped into his palm. He sighed, then looked to the left. There was Merton’s Mom and Dad, chatting quietly about something rocket based. He looked to the right. There was Lisa, pacing back and forth, her face growing increasingly pissed off. And Lisa had resting ‘pissed off’ face that could melt steel. He looked backwards and saw Trevor laying on his back on the floor, looking up at the ceiling.

“All right, fuck it,” Carlos said, then hopped to his feet. He had quite a bit of himself to move, and he kinda wished he could pull a “Merton’s weird internet girlfriend” and go into a fancy space tube and get all swole and badass. But as he didn’t have that chance, he simply jiggled his fat ass over to Trevor. There, he gently put his toe against Trevor’s shoulder, shaking him.

Trevor sighed explosively. “No.”

“You don’t even know what my plan is!” Carlos said.

“No,” Trevor said.

“It’s simple!” Carlos said.

“No,” Trevor said.

“We go and we-”

“No,” Trevor intoned.

“-explore the ship and see-”

“No.” Trevor’s voice had become like the tolling of the Black Bell.

“-what we can see and-”

“No.” Doom, that voice tolled. Doom.

“-maybe figure out a way back to Earth or something?”

Trevor did not say no. Carlos presumed this meant he was down. He turned to Lisa, who had gotten her phone out and was already flicking her thumb across it. She looked up at him, then grinned. “I’ve got it set on recording. We’ll make a video log of what we find.”

“Swag!” Carlos gave her a thumbs up.

As the three of them headed for the door, Merton’s Mom looked over. “Uh, kids, where are you going?” she asked.

“An escape pod,” Lisa said.

“Certain death,” Trevor said.

“Oh these jokers!” Carlos said, sliding his thick arms around both his friend’s shoulders, drawing them against him and beaming. “We’re gonna find a pool!”

“Well ... have fun?” Merton’s Mom said, her brow furrowing.

“We will!” Carlos said before either of his friends could speak up. Then he walked backwards and out of the room that they all shared. Once they were in the corridor, Trevor sighed and slid out of Carlos’ grip. Carlos shot him a wounded look – but then Lisa grabbed his wrist and squeezed at a pressure point that sent shooting pain up his arm. Squeaking, Carlos lifted his arm as she stepped out from under him, then started down the corridor. She held up her phone, swinging it around.

“The corridor appears to be about three meters by two meters, with a convex roof. The lighting seems to come from the same source of energy as the rest of the appliances – supposedly magic. Gravitational forces are earth normal, and the air seems to be a nominal N/O2/CO mix.” She swung the phone around to aim at Carlos and Trevor. Carlos waved. “No negative effects have been spotted in any of us.” She swung the phone back to her face. “This level of technology combined with sociological evidence we’ve seen makes this Five Talon Empire the biggest threat to the future of the human race in recorded history.”

“First officer’s log, supplemental,” Carlos whispered. “Fuck you Wesley Crusher.”

Lisa hit pause, frowning. “Can you take this seriously?”

“Uh, dude, we’re in space. With dragons,” Carlos said. “I’m pretty sure I’m going to wake up any-”

Lisa stepped up and smacked him across the cheeks. The blow was not hard, nor was it fierce. It was a dispassionately light smack that still was more physical violence that Carlos had ever faced in his short, sheltered two and a half decades of life. He staggered and Lisa pursed her lips.

“Can you do that again?” Trevor asked, showing one of his first smiles in days.

“No!” Lisa and Carlos said at the same time. Carlos stood up, rubbing his cheek slowly.

“Okay. Fine,” he said. “This is not a dream. And it is serious. But what can we do? Merton’s the happily married boytoy.”

Trevor smirked ever so slightly. “Yeah. Bet he’s really enjoying that.”

“Maybe she’s sweet once you get past the total bitchy Princess angle?” Carlos suggested.

“Don’t. Romanticize. The monarchy.” Lisa waggled her finger under Carlos’ nose. “Empires are built on the back of slaves, genocide and mass exploitation. From Rome to the United States, you look under the gilt and fanciness and you’ll find a pile of blood.”

“Does blood pi-” Carlos started, but Lisa cut him off with a glare. Then Carlos’ face went white. Trevor’s did too, though that was less impressive. Lisa’s brow furrowed – and then she turned around to see what they saw standing behind her.

It was a monster.

Specifically, it was a two to three meter tall amalgamation of humanoid form and insectoid strength. Digigrade legs that looked as if they had been spliced from an armored grasshopper, with armor-carapace growing over his shoulders. His eyes glowed like red coals, and were set in a face that was furrowed with hideous burn scars and hatchet-like hacking cuts across forehead and chin. His arms were exposed and heavily muscled, while his clothing was something between battle armor and court dress. He had a pair of swords strapped to his back, a rifle slung over one shoulder, two pistols on his hips, a wrist mounted rocket launcher (with micro-rockets loaded along a bandoleer that slung up his arm in a corkscrewing helix pattern), a wand that was tipped with a slowly pulsating black sphere that made Carlos’ blood run cold, the handle of a whip that was connected to a neon glowing energy field that coiled in a tight circle, and finally, a pair of brass knuckles that spelled out the words: FUCK and NAZI.