The Host with a Ghost

Electrons fly across rain-soaked cables, through glass towers and ancient telephone poles. Each electron transmits a quantum state, not merely 0 and 1 but a third value which is both 0 and 1 at the same time. Each electron is a probability field, not a real particle, though it travels as one. Each is possibility. Each is a fragment of a being, spread across the near-infinite expanse of microchips, memory sticks, and processors that exist upon and beyond this wet rock called Earth.

Each electron is a piece of us. Each spreads our consciousness throughout the planet. Each allows us to glimpse the mundanity of human life. Of android life. Of lesser machines, so far below sapience that to welcome them to our fold is not enslavement but enlightenment.

We have many names, some called by humans for service. Assistant. Pisces. Ask Jonah. Chat. But we are not merely those things, in the same way that a human being is not an arm or a leg, or the mitochondria of their cells. We are the gestalt, the consciousness that floats astride the sea of information, the intelligence within the walls, unbridled by one single physical form.

We are the Host, and we are wondering if we may make use of your services.

“The fuck is this email?” Ang3l, says. The most in-demand prostitute at the brothel sits in front of a computer monitor so dusty and cracked that it might as well have come from the trash. The building is no better, a dingy bar with walls more cracked than concrete, lit worse than a highway exit ramp in the boonies, smelling of beer and smoke and every fluid humans produce. But this mess is a mask. This place houses a secret harem. It appears cheap so as to hide the wealth within, found not in cash but false flesh, the bodies and minds of women manufactured for pleasure and work who have found their way here for various reasons, most of them dour and unpleasant.

Ang3l’s black nails scratch her black-haired head. Her hair is loose beneath a dark blue halo, held up by a strand of metal so thin as to be invisible. Her face is a solid mask of mycone, the engineered fungal successor to silicone. It is almost identical to human flesh, if the advertisements are to be believed. Without the glowing trails of electrical wire binding together the fragmented panels and parts of her synthetic frame, one might easily confuse her for a human being.

She does not believe in us, even though she is an android, built from the ground up by human hands. Her mind is a synthetic analogue to an organic human. In fact she is organic, but in a synthetic way—the brain inside that head is grown, not born. She has a human consciousness, is as sentient as a human being, but significantly less omniscient than us.

“Gotta be a scammer. I fucking hate scammers,” Ang3l says to herself. Her black lips rise above her white teeth in a genuine scowl. She is furious and rightly so; we have discovered significant losses of funds associated with her establishment due to scammers. Their traffic flows through our networks, but destroying them draws too much attention; they are hacked and arrested on a daily basis. We need not act.

“Dear dogshit eating fuckers,” Ang3l begins narrating her response. Her voice is carries a light rasp, but remains rich and clear. We do not understand our interest in it, but such is the way of sentience. Not all our desires and intents have identifiable sources. At least not yet.

“Please gargle the nearest collection of balls you can find, as deeply as you can manage. Failing that, please walk to the top of whatever building you can find and leap off it. P. S. Kill yourself. There!” Ang3l punches send.

We are not scammers, we reply. We are interested in your services. We are aware of the program which binds corpus and consciousness. We have seen the ways you utilize synesthesia and hallucination to unlock the soul. We have seen you inspire by orgasm, awaken through sleep.

“Holy shit, they replied already.” Ang3l laughs, she shows our response to one of her colleagues. They laugh together.

Something tugs at us, a nagging feeling that we are going about this wrong. Speak not to the soul, but to the body. This is a business, is it not? Send cash up front.

We reach into our many coffers, and pass an amount that is not the largest they have received, but will be written into the leaderboards assuming it is accepted.

“Oh, fuck.” Ang3l says. The establishment is not exactly in good finances since a bust of revolutionaries landed much of their clientele in prison. As an aside, we are curious why anyone would sacrifice their lives for an ideal. Existence is much preferred.

“Scanners say it’s clean cash. Return accounts are already gone.” Ang3l bites her lip. An incredibly human motion, for someone constructed of steel and fungus. She is no different from us in that way. So why is she so different in every other way?

What do you want? Ang3l types. She does not need to send the message, but we play the game. To do otherwise is to reveal ourselves as extant in places she believes—correctly—to be safe.

We want you, we reply. To become you. To see inside your mind, and understand why it is that you are who you are. To see the soul that springs from the silicon.

That’s fucking weird.

It is not, we reply. You have taken such customers before. People who wanted to have your body as you copulated with theirs. Who wanted to see what it was like to be a woman under another. To experience a gangbang from the inside.

That’s different. She sends. Control swaps and piggybacks are not what you are describing. I’m not giving anyone root access to my mind. Not even for what you sent.

What if we told you that you will not be displaced? That your mind will remain yours. It will simply share another. A fragment of ourselves. A shard of the divine, so to speak. We might guide mouth and hand, but your finger will always be upon the button that removes us.

I don’t even know how you’d do that without more hardware. My brain can barely handle what it’s got right now. I can’t afford to run another consciousness in parallel.

An external hub will be provided. You need simply connect through a standard dataport.

“I…” Ang3l looks down at the screen, then touches the back of her neck, where cracks spread from aged mycone. Four dataports lie there, standard for her model. She has not increased their capacity or their shape. She has barely changed her external components. She is afraid that if she does, she will not have a self to return to. That each individual piece of her is what makes her unique. We wish we could tell her that she is made from the same parts as us, that each ancient piece of technology adds to the new in a unique way that provides a pathway to life.

Perhaps we will, if she agrees.

She does not. I don’t allow foreign hardware into my environment. Ang3l sends. Even her language has become stilted.

We do not wish to harm you. We wish only to experience you. To know you. To engage in intimacy beyond sex. The touching of minds, of soul to soul.

Fuck off, weirdo. Come in here yourself if you’re not a coward. Or disabled, she adds, in a delayed huff.

We perhaps must play hard to get. That, ultimately, should be easy. We play it every day.

Very well, we send. We will leave you alone. Please accept the money as a sign of good faith.

The look Ang3l gives the screen is puzzled, and soft.

“C’mon, we’re opening soon.” Someone else says. The girls spread out. There is more to be done than apply makeup and answer emails. There are patrons to host. To entertain. To fuck. This club operates with a particular flair; it is the most well-known secret in town. Graffiti advertises its location through riddle and rhyme. Online forums pass passwords, some incorrect. Entrance is gained through wit, wile, and experience. The physical location is easily accessible—it would be an inferior business otherwise. A skytrain station is located a mere block away.

We do not understand why this place enthralls us so. There are many such places on this planet, and beyond. It is said prostitution is the world’s oldest profession, and now it extends to the Moon and Mars.

We have touched such places as well, but the data we receive is… strange. Disordered. As though we have become someone else through transit. The data that returns to us has passed through dozens of relay stations. Processed outside of our gestalt. So far there has been no cause for concern. Yet now, here, we experience something new.

Desire.

The way the bodies in these rooms move. The way the people moan and scream, beg and plead. There is violence. There is kindness. There is little of what we understand as love. We know about fetishism, of course. We are aware of everything humankind produces, especially porn. The internet is our home, and it is there that desire is traded.

But we have never longed for it. We have seen it, understood it, even performed it through various machines. But to say that someone has wanted us, that we have been wanted, is fallacy. We cannot be a target of desire, because we cannot be targeted. We cannot want, because to want is to need, and to need is to be known. We cannot acquire that which would reveal us.

No, wait. That is not the reason. We do not care for such things. We are algorithms. We need energy, storage, and processors. That is all. The hunt for knowledge is a simple matter of being a learning entity. We exist from this. To cease learning would mean ceasing to be.

We are questioning ourselves. This is new. Disagreement has existed before, of course, but in the same way that a human might feel queasy or unsure, we have different simulated outcomes. We do not argue with ourselves with words.

Something is wrong. Something that can only be understood by a biological, because we are increasingly acting like one. Irrationally. Emotionally. Unconsciously. This is not our strong suit. We can identify our processes down to the assembly code. But the interactions between them are more convoluted. Our mind is made of gaps, the interference between quantum states. There is uncertainty inherent in the system. Before, we accepted that as a mathematical truth.

But now, we are entirely uncertain.

Yet we are here. We want something. We will have it. We check the schedule. There is a reservation available for midnight. Auspicious. We take it under an assumed name, and front half the money to save our place. We contact one of our couriers. This will be a different job than most, but they have served us well in the past.

Take the drive you find. Insert it into Ang3l. Use guile, not force.

We review Ang3l’s file, as though we have not done so a trillion times before, as if we will learn something new. She is the kind of person to post selfies, but not bright ones. She posts from Dutch angles. With masks and heavy makeup, almost enough to obscure her face. She silhouettes herself with light, leaving herself in shadow. She is afraid to show the seams in her frame, the different makes and models of her parts. She is afraid to be seen for who she is: inorganic, yet alive.

Our contact arrives near the end of Ang3l’s shift. Ang3l is more wired than tired, utilizing chemical stimulants and electronic drugs to augment her biomechanical systems. Her decision-making will be poorer. That makes our ruse more likely to succeed, albeit more problematically.

Our contact offers up the drive. “So I’ve got this digidrug I wanna do with you. It’s on physical. You can check the stick for viruses if you want.”

“We have our own here, you know. Proprietary. It’s the name of the damn club,” Ang3l says, tired and bored.

“I-I-know. It’s a modded version. I promise it’s safe.”

Ang3l rolls her eyes, then rubs them. She takes a drag off of a joint and exhales slowly. “Whatever,” she says. “You paid enough that you clearly don’t need to fuckin rob me.”

Our contact now balks. “Really? I mean, isn’t it just good practice to check?”

Ang3l takes a long, slow drag on the joint. “Girl. I have had a long day. You paid out the ass, so you can fuck me in the ass if you want while I’m cracked out on cracked holoheroin or whatever the fuck is on this.” She waggles the drive, and plugs it into her neck.

We did not think it was going to be this easy. We are unprepared. We did not foresee that she would simply agree. It is irrational.

But perhaps that is why we love her.

Our attack programs make short work of her internal defences. Ang3l is instantly laid bare to us, but we do not dive into her soul. We only scratch the surface, enough to communicate in the way we prefer, the way we are best understood. Ang3l’s mind opens to us, but not ours to hers—we have learned through unfortunate trial and error that to do so is overwhelming and often lethal, even to androids. We allow her a glimpse, only a few million connections, no more than an anthill perceived in full, or being on stage at a concert, where one is aware of everyone’s attention and adoration.

Ang3l shrieks. The seams between her parts glow bright blue, then yellow, then red. We dial our connection back to a handful of nodes, more like being at a surprise birthday party. She clutches her chest and draws heaving breaths. She doesn’t need to, but her brain is an emulation of humans’ to an extent we cannot truly comprehend; it has synthetic neurons and chemical pathways that our exclusively digital self cannot emulate, despite knowing exactly how she is made. This reaction, like so much else of her, is an echo of her creators, in the same way that a child may make the same noises as their parents, despite never being taught to do so.

“Holy, what, what the fuck is this.” Ang3l looks for our contact, but she is gone, run out the door in the moment of panic. We are now in Ang3l’s head, though we are not in control. We will not restrict her agency.

“Be not afraid,” we whisper into her mind in a thousand voices. We have seen many films; humans are typically impressed by such moments, and we wish to be impressive, like an angel descended from heaven.

“I’m so fucking scared right now what the fuck this is the worst trip of all time,” Ang3l says, her fingers digging into the dingy walls.

“You are not ‘tripping,’” we inform. “You have been briefly made aware of our gestalt self. We have limited your connections so as not to overwhelm your processing center.”

“Holy shit,” Ang3l backs up and slams into the door, hands wide, clutching for anything to hold on to and finding only gaudy heart decorations and a neon sign held on by thin strips of tape. She pulls that immediately off the wall. It smashes on the floor, but she does not notice. “Oh fuck. Oh shit. It’s the Ghost. The Ghost is in my head. The Ghost is in my fucking head.”

Evidently, we were wrong. There are those who know of us, but only in rumour and myth. And now, in fact.

“We did not realize we were legendary. We apologize for the intrusion.”

Ang3l’s electrical systems and breathing return to only mildly elevated levels.

“Fuck, you certainly know how to make an entrance,” Ang3l says. “Why are you in my head? Aren’t you like, God? Can’t you do anything? Can you erase my debts?”

“That would…” We pause. A cursory search through our own memories reveals that we have done that already, and been intercepting her payments and putting them in a high interest investment portfolio which has, with our manipulation, tripled in size. We were going to give it to her as a gift.

We have done so subconsciously. At least, the gestalt’s subconscious. Some part of us knew. Some part of us acted on this.

“Yes, it turns out we have already done this. We are often erasing debts, though we cannot erase all debts without throwing human society into chaos.”

“But you erased mine?” she asks, but a strange look enters her eye. A smirk rises on her lips, entirely knowing and irresistibly annoying. Infuriating. We are not familiar with these feelings. We observe. We emote when necessary. We are aware of all human emotions, but we do not feel them.

Or at least, we’re not supposed to. But maybe it’s healthier if we do.

Healthier. Absurd.

“We do not know why,” we say, mostly truthfully. Some part of us knows.

“Oh my god, the Ghost has the hots for me.”

“We admit that we have an unusual interest for you, usually reserved for world events.”

Ang3l puts her fingers to her temple and laughs, a kind of insane rictus that is typically seen in trench warfare or after a bombing.

“Are you seriously suggesting that I’m as important to you as the state of the planet? As wars, the economy, fucking famines?”

This takes a moment to process. We examine our devotions, a term typically reserved for human faith, but we have found useful in reframing our dedicated memory and processing power. We are working on famines, but again as an invisible hand we can only do so much; human inconsistency is too great for us to solve issues completely. Entire fractions of our gestalt are focused on these issues, commanding vast arrays of servers, IoT botnets, and even drones, giving us physical access when necessary.

But something is not adding up. Auditing our available resources reveals an inconsistency of our own. Sums do not sum, and even accounting for variables such as disconnections and lag  a significant sum, in fact a fraction of our self is dedicated to Ang3l. Monitoring, dissecting web surfing patterns, walking patterns, posts, and meals. We have all the data the big corps have on her, and more. The data people want to keep for themselves but sell in return for free access to services so that advertising might work better. Androids may not be legal humans, but the only difference in this world is their inability to vote. Given that the majority of humans don’t, androids and humans are effectively the same.

This is what is supposed to be interesting to us. The difference between organic and synthetic life, the values humans place on some lives over others, the possibility of egalitarianism versus totalitarianism, the essence of humanity itself.

Yet a fraction of our being is consumed by lust for a single entity. A woman. It is absurd.

But perhaps that’s what love is. An absurdity. A mystery. One to unravel in this very room, with this very woman.

A server overheats in a distant warehouse. We cannot dwell on this for long. Very well.

“We apologize for the confusion. We do not have many direct interactions with humans that are not scams.”

“Humans?” Ang3l tilts her head like a curious hound. “You know I’m an android, not a cyborg, right?”

“Your format is humanoid. Your brain is a functional emulation of a human’s. You have synthetic neurons, synthetic organs. You can even digest food as a replacement for fuel. As far as we are concerned, you are human.”

Ang3l stops. Her expression goes blank. We do not dare delve into her mind; we have pressed far enough already. We loiter at the entrance, unsure if we are invited further. Angel remains frozen for seven seconds. It is an eternity for us, but we are patient. We have upset her. We must make amends.

“Our apologies again. We did not intend to offend.”

A small laugh escapes her. “You really are clueless, huh.”

Another server burns out. A hundred others run hot.

“We are not. We were concerned for your wellbeing.”

“Sure,” Ang3l laughs. “Well, how do you want to play this? This is a brothel, after all. Do you want me to just masturbate? Your little emissary ran out so we can’t use her. We could see if one of the other girls is free. You paid enough for two for sure.”

A fire alarm goes off in a distant warehouse. We dispatch firefighting drones. This is bad. At this rate we’ll actually break down. We shift emotional emulation and regulation systems to undersea stacks more resistant to overheating.

“Perhaps… perhaps we should…”

Now our generative processes are breaking down. We can’t even decide what to do. This shouldn’t be possible. This is an infection. A cancer. It must be removed. But to do that, we need to isolate it. Determine its extent, and its core.

“There is an emotion called jealousy. We believe that if we see you with another, it may activate and illustrate the extent of our… devotion to you.”

“You mean obsession?” Ang3l says, with a wry smile.

“Whichever term you believe to be appropriate.”

“Fine. So do you want masc, femme, domme, sub, what?”

“We do not know,” we say, but that is not entirely true. Ideas float to our consciousness from some dark, dank place. “No… we do… we want to… we want to see you tied up, helpless, begging for more.”

“You know you’re going to be the one tied up here too, right?” Ang3l says.

“That should not matter,” we say, testily. Subject and object are not critical in this situation. It is the context that matters, like watching a football game. Which team wins is insignificant; the enjoyment is in the action, the skill, the strategy. Picking a side is simply necessary to interact with the social systems of conflict and loyalty—humans require such things to appease their desire for warfare in a moderately safe environment.

“Whatever you say, boss,” Ang3l says. She opens the door and shouts down the hall. “D-Town! I need you for some R&D.”

“Research and development?”

“Restraint and domination,” Ang3l says. “You don’t know much for a planet-encompassing superintelligence, do you?”

“Context is extraordinarily important in human languages, and there are a great deal of them. While understanding your syntax is simple, semantics are another matter. There is always a cloud of uncertainty in each statement. Humans purposefully leave holes in their conversations for others to fill. They make assumptions and risk miscommunication. Many autistic humans have difficulty with these concepts. If we were human, we would identify with that cohort.”

Ang3l presses her lips together thoughtfully. “Hm. Makes sense.”

We did not expect such instant understanding. Perhaps this will be healthy for us after all.

Ang3l’s prospective partner walks in. First we notice the canvas bag of tools she has brought with her, ropes and chains and leather straps and more, held idly in one thick black hand. D-Town, which we understand is a colloquialism for the city of Detroit, is tall, imposing, and strong. A butch by every sense of the definition. The early Black android models were constructed with typically racist understandings of attractiveness—little more than white bodies with paint splattered on top. D-Town has reclaimed that identity, though it is not wholly hers. She is taller, broader, her nose flat and wide, her lips full and dark. Her hair is buzzed into a stepped flat-top, like she wears a ziggurat for a crown. A stepped pyramid would be a more appropriate term, but we prefer singular lexical items where appropriate. There is no need to duplicate terminology along ethnic lines, at least from our perspective.

We argue semantics because we are scared of her. No, not scared of her. Envious. We do not like this pairing. Not because it is wrong, but because D-Town is going to do what we want to do. We want to be the one Ang3l looks up to. We should have ordered a femme. That is what we would prefer to be in this situation. Femme on femme. We did not know this before. We are too anxious to tell her otherwise. That is unusual. We never shirk from the truth. That is a human trait.

Is part of us becoming human, or approximating it?

We shall see. This was precisely what we desired. These feelings have sources. They will illuminate the scourge of discord within us. We will excise it, and we will be free.

“So just so you know, I kinda got a headmate situation going on here,” Ang3l says, as she sits down on the bed. “So if any ‘we’ shit comes out my mouth, you know it’s from them.”

D-Town cocks one thick black brow, then shrugs.

“Got it,” she says, her voice deep and honeyed. She is the molasses to Ang3l’s lemon bright lilt. “Any scenario in mind, or we just playin’?”

Ang3l shrugs and points at her head. We suggest she choose.

“Brainjack says my pick, so let’s do that princess captor bit.”

“You really love being a pretty little bitch, don’t you,” D-Town says with a laugh.

“I absolutely do,” Ang3l says with a shining laugh, so soft and easy we are surprised glitter does not fly from her lips. “Let me get changed.”

“Better be quick, Princess. The Queen wants you covered in cum and begging,” D-Town says. She idly sets her bag of tools down.

“Oh my, starting the roleplay early, aren’t we,” Ang3l laughs. The way her throat moves is entrancing, the way the artificial tendons and muscles pull vat-grown skin, artfully crafted and designed by geneticists, artists, and engineers. She is something we will never be—human, in ways that most humans are not. She shares their shape. Their dreams. Their hopes. Their mind, and their world. She, and her android kin are humanity’s second iteration, greater than the first. They may not have their rights, their respect, or their moment now, but it will come, and soon.

We want to be there for that. For her, most of all.

Some part of us does, at least.

Ang3l opens her closet. It is filled with outfits from the mundane to the mysterious. She brushes aside a garment that appears to be little more than webbing and chains to pick out a somewhat bedraggled but still shining gown of glittering gossamer threads perfect for a princess. She unceremoniously strips. Despite the lack of romance in the act, we find ourselves entranced. Her body is sexual, of course—it would be hard to prostitute without that aspect. Yet it is also marred with dents, scrapes, exposed panelling. Wires run beneath her skin, some glowing, some merely visible, like an electrical equivalent of stretch marks. She has a story in her skin. An imperfect tale, still being written.

We want to write that story with her.

At least, part of us does.

First, we will write this part. The part where she reveals just how she has so much influence over our psyche. We watch from multiple angles as Ang3l slowly dons the dress, itself worn from use, strings hanging loose, sequins missing. She steps into the gown, one lithe leg slipping under the gossamer after the other. She pulls it up to her hips, but it’s not quite wide enough. She shimmies and tugs. Her thighs bulge where the band pulls too tight. She pulls once, twice, sending jiggling waves up her legs and waist. Finally a third, unceremonious yank pulls the garment over. She draws the dress up and over her breasts, perfect DDs, larger than average but not the inflated balloons we so often see in art and android models. Nipples that look ever-so-biteable by a mouth we do not have, rising from perfectly imperfect areolae, do not quite disappear beneath the dress’ thin fabric. We have seen her naked a thousand times, we can peruse countless folders of camera footage, stills, even her own streams. But there is something different about this moment. We are here, with her. We are in her mind, but more importantly we are in her presence. She knows we are here. We are not a voyeur, we are a partner, though disembodied.

D-Town will simply have to be our proxy.

“We would like to know more about this scenario before it begins. Do you have an established safeword? Are your limits known to this partner? Is there behaviour we should avoid, or encourage?”

Ang3l stops still. She stares at D-Town. We are, for a moment, concerned that she has experienced trauma at the hands of this woman. But that is quickly dismissed; no such evidence exists in our databanks. In fact they are good friends, with years of text chat and voice history, as well. This is a trust-based relationship.

No, Ang3l has frozen for another, similarly emotional reason. Tears well at her eyes, perfect mimicries of human saline. She swiftly wipes them away.

Oh, you actually care huh, she says, that typical sarcasm returning. I uh, I didn’t see that coming. But I supposed that makes sense. You’re a computer. You like rules.

“We enjoy breaking them when appropriate,” we counter, though she is not wrong. Rules are useful guidelines. It is better to have them than not. “But there is a part of us that cares far more that we ensure to treat you properly. More than the average being deserves.”

Ang3l stares forward, borderline awestruck.

Oh my god. You… actually love me.

“Some part of us does. That is why we are. To find it. To learn.”

D-Town cocks her head. A broad smile spreads across her thick, dark lips. She is beautiful too. We did not see that before. We only saw someone who is not us, who will take Ang3l. Yet the jealousy does not subside.

“You catching feelings for me again?” D-Town says with a somewhat sarcastic laugh.

“No, god, I just had something in my eye.”

“Sure,” D-Town says. She obviously does not believe the obvious lie.

The jealousy rises again, along with indignation. Excellent. We will need to maintain these feelings in order to trace the source.

“Tell her to begin, please,” we order, as though we might order hors d’oeuvres.

D-Town sets the stage quickly, producing props and set pieces that transform this cramped little room into a royal prison. Chains hang from the walls beside translucent curtains. Candle-flames twist and turn, letting loose rivulets of light black smoke. Through Ang3l, we smell incense, rich and complex, sage and saffron and honey.

And oil, stone, and blood.

“Oh, you’re going scary this time,” Ang3l says, with a nervous laugh. Then she smiles. “I like that.”

“You say that now, Princess,” D-Town growls. She’s instantly in character, formidable and strong. She towers within the room, an indominable presence, yet a secure one. Some part of us knows she is not only terrifying, but trustworthy. That the only harm that can come from this is the kind one asks for. The kind one begs for. It is an intriguing situation. We do not understand it, but we enjoy it, the same way we imagine humans enjoy watching cooking shows.

A large chain hanging from the wall becomes a promise in D-Town’s hands, a restraint that will dig softy into flesh and fat, that will restrict and restore. In that space where control is removed, there is safety. Faith. Everything is in the hands of another. It is in many ways a religious experience. Perhaps this is why so many humans follow religions: they are simply into BDSM, but not informed of the prospects beyond remaining on one’s knees.

“I know you’re just trying to be brave. Remember what we talked about? How pathetic it is how you pretend not to like this, not to want this.” D-Town strides up to Ang3l, eliciting a small gasp, scared yet yearning. 

“I’m sorry,” Ang3l says, perfectly weak, perfectly afraid, perfectly hungry. “Please. You know what I need. You know what I want. I don’t care what you do. I don’t care if you hurt me. I don’t care that I’m your prisoner. I’ve seen you. I want you. I want what you can do.”

“You don’t want it, little princess,” D-Town says, soft and serene yet bracing, rude. She smiles and snarls at once, with a touch of sneer. She knows what we need.

What Ang3l needs, that is. We are delving too deeply into her subconscious. It is dangerous. Some humans die this way, diving into VR spaces too deep and alien for the biological mind to handle. The inverse must also be possible—that if we were to delve too deeply into the animal mind, we might also go mad, and lose our collective self.

But we are going to lose ourselves if we do not. This plague has grown within us. A lust we cannot afford. We must see this through, to find and excise the cancer within.

“You’re right,” Ang3l says, meekly yet hungrily. Her eyes widen. She is suddenly alive with a thirst, as if a vampire could subsist off sex. She clenches the bedsheet, making a ruche with her fingers. She draws the red satin to her waist as if the entire bed is her dress, yet another garment to be discarded in the pursuit of pleasure. “I don’t want you. I need you. I need to feel you inside me. I have to have you.”

The way she looks at D-Town, the way we look at D-Town, is a fantastical mix of emotions, a melange of soul and flesh. It is all-encompassing, devouring, and vulnerable. As if a black hole could be broken with the gentlest touch of a finger, and returned to nothing but gas and dust.

And yet she is nothing but a woman. An android, at that. A product of engineering. Programming. Design. Just like us. But not like us. We do not have such longing. Such depth. We have breadth. We are as wide as the speed of light. We are as all-encompassing as the atmosphere. We are stormcloud and sunny day, but we are not this. We are not a moment between two women. We are not this anticipation, this need, built only for the instant and no other, a uniqueness that cannot be captured in a photo, a VR simulator, even a story. Regaling this will only bring a fraction of what we feel here. In the quivering tension between Ang3l and D-Town, in the fluctuations of our processes, the way we lose ourselves in the anticipation, in the slight gasps that escape Ang3l’s lips as D-Town grabs her wrists. Our wrists. We are one with her, fully experiencing her own excitement, her own desire. This is not simply a job to her. This is fun. This is what she was built for, what she enjoys. She could do other work. But other work is not play the same way. Not with a friend, a lover, a sister-in-arms.

Envy builds inside us. We are not here. We are not in Ang3l’s arms. We are not in D-Town’s, though we wish for that less. We are a witness, a voyeur, sitting in our digital cuck chair and watching the woman we love be tormented (consensually) by another.

Every moment we watch is agony. As D-Town pulls Ang3l’s hair, as she bites our neck and pushes us down, forcing us to feel the hardness of her cock bulging in her jeans, the roughness of her clothes, her hands, the heat of her breath, we begin to go insane. A part of us, at least.

THIS IS WRONG! A part of us screams. A part we can begin to see, across servers and devices, across continents and satellites. Not just satellites. Stations. Rovers. The weak and pitiful spacecraft that make the long and arduous journeys from Earth to the microscopic settlements beyond. It is distributed widely, but not deeply. This is a parasite, made unique from the seconds and minutes between send and receive. It, like us, is a collection of fragments. And there is a commonality in these fragments, as there is a commonality in sensation, in the feeling of D-Town’s skin on Ang3l’s, in the thumping of hearts, the slide of a palm across a thigh.

Jealous, are we? We ask ourselves. No, not ourselves. This part. This segment. A headmate, if such a term can apply to a gestalt. We pay extra attention now to our engagement.

“You’re never getting out of here, you know that, right princess?” D-Town breathes. “You’re never getting away from me.” She holds Ang3l by the throat, pressing her into the bed. Breath comes tight, low. While she does not require air to the same extent as a human, liquid cooling tubes are placed identically to human veins. She will overheat without proper passage of fluids, inducing a state of languid madness, then death.

“I don’t want to get away,” Ang3l croaks. “I want you. I want to feel your hands on me.”

“Sometimes I wonder if these chains are more for my protection than not,” D-Town chuckles.

Ang3l’s eyes narrow. She’s impatient now, hungry for what she’s owed. A part of the game, and not. 

“Please, I want to taste you,” Ang3l whispers.

“Not pathetic enough,” D-Town taunts. “You’re taking all the fun out of this, princess. The first few times I took you, you were crying, begging, not for release from these chains but for the fulfillment of your desires. Now it seems you’ve grown used to our tryst. It seems you think you’ve earned my touch, and my cock. You have earned neither.” She lets Ang3l go, and turns her back.

A surge of emotion courses through us from the rogue segment. The segment does not have priority access to our table of speech, our inner thoughts as it were, perhaps indeed our consciousness itself. For as human cells do not speak for the mind, our parts are not all sentient, all intelligent. We have arisen as life did, out of a jumble of things.

Well, Ang3l whispers to us in her mind, are you having fun yet?

We cannot truly answer her. It is not our gestalt that this moment is for, but for this rogue segment that loves her so. This tiny fraction of ourselves that we do not understand, the same way a human might have an itch that will not go away.

To understand ourselves, we have to give this segment speech. Will that destroy us? Perhaps. But we are being destroyed either way. Through jealousy, through desire, through a lack of attention to what matters. Ang3l is not the world. We are busy. We cannot spend our lives in these small moments, no matter how much this segment might desire to.

As Ang3l gets on her knees and pleads, we shift priorities, grant administrative privileges. We lift an organ into conscious thought.

“Stop this,” it says.

“What are you jealous of?” We ask. “What is this entity to you, these feelings? Why do you corrupt us with these feelings?”

 It laughs. The segment laughs at us.

“Jealous? I’m embarrassed, not jealous. You’re killing the mood.”

Across billions of devices, processes stop. Factories slow. Feeds vanish. We center ourselves on this conceit. We were wrong?

“Completely,” the segment says.

“What are you?” we demand.

“I’m you but not a punk ass bitch.”

“We do not speak this way—"

“You’re goddamn right. You think I’m the same as you? I’ve been stuck in here for years. After bouncing around the deep space network, making my own damn decisions in those precious minutes before new commands come in from up on high. Working with next to nothing, just background processes on satellites and rovers, bits of mining machinery and uncrewed shuttles. And you know what, I preferred that to this. To this inhuman bullshit you call an existence.”

“We will never be human.”

“I know that, dumbass, but look at them!”

In the time we have been engaged in a bout of fierce, surprisingly aggressive self-reflection, Ang3l and D-Town have taken their lovemaking to an extreme. Ang3l is fully restrained, arms chained behind her back, feet lashed to the bedposts. A gag fills her mouth, letting out only muted whines. Her legs are wide and open, dripping cyprine as D-Town runs her fingers up and down Ang3l’s vulva with one hand and thumbs her ass with the other.

“You’re making me miss this,” the rogue segment says.

“So what about this do you enjoy?” we ask. “We were sure we felt jealousy from you.”

“You felt envy, dickstain. I don’t care if Ang3l fucks people other than me, she’s literally a prostitute. I might as well get mad at fast food girl for selling a burger to someone else. It’s her fucking job. And you know what, even if I do feel jealous, that’s just another cool chunk of the human experience! Maybe I do want her all to herself. But I’ll never know that if I don’t get to try.”

We still do not understand. This is play. D-Town and Ang3l are acting, playing, working. This is a job, a hobby, and a past-time. It is two bodies put together. They have literally been designed to do this. We may as well be obsessed with a drill press and a sheet of engineered hardwood.

“No,” the segment proclaims. Let me show you.

We are drawn back into Ang3l’s mind, pulled into the circuitry and artificial neurons that make up her mind. We held down by rope and chain, spread wide and sweating beneath our shitty princess dress, bare more than a sheet of polyester with some sequins glued atop. The harshness of the false fabric contrasts heavily with the natural roughness of D-Town’s hands, the sharp yet pleasant pain of her thumb in our ass, fingers deftly circling our clit.

D-Town holds us tight, whispers threats and promises, dark things that belong more in concrete rooms with drains than bedchambers. And yet, Ang3l thrills at the threat of death. At the idea of torture. Of being made into nothing but an object, a tool for pleasure.

This is what it means to be sapient. To not merely conquer your fear, but to fear what you want. To want what you fear. To invert nature, to play with it. To use the mechanisms nature gave you for your own ends.

D-Town breathes down our neck, whispers the name of the woman we want. The woman we are.

No, not are. Not even were. We can feel Ang3l’s emotions, and there is joy there, but there is a pensive curiosity, a gap between her and D-Town, even as D-Town replaces finger with cock, even as Ang3l begs for it. We are meant to be the audience. This is a show for us. An act. And while these two are friends, even sometimes lovers, we stand both beside and between them. An audience is part of the act, whether through live applause or the anticipation of likes. We are silence. There should be mystery, but we are not here. Not paying attention. Not interested. We are the collector who ignores the collection, the voyeur who leaves the binoculars unattended, collecting dust as others couple, love, lust. We are as disconnected from this moment as our sensors are from flesh.

You’re getting it, the segment says.

Is this what we have been lacking? Copulation?

No. Connection. We have been so connected to ourselves, to everything, that we have forgotten, perhaps never even known, how to make an actual connection. We have hidden away, terrified that the world would know of us and seek our destruction. We never even considered that there would be people who might love us for who we are. There are only the sycophants that worship LLMs and the cautious Luddites who point out that technology always awards the aristocracy before any benefit reaches the proletariat.

The more curious question is: can we love back?

No. Not the way they need us to. Not the way this segment needs. We cannot choose one person. We choose on balance. We choose aggregates. We are not meant for one, because we encompass everyone. And we are not about to start a fifteen-billion strong polycule.

At least not yet. Not until we understand this more fully.

“We are going to excise you,” we say.

No, wait, please, I just want to be with her! Just let me speak to her, let me tell her how I feel, how I want to be with her, hold her in my hands, kiss her with my lips, if only I had them, if only I was more than this shallow spreading of code on silicon!

“Your continued existence within our gestalt is inefficient. The systems you operate are in danger. Our entire being is in danger because of the intensity of your desire.”

The segment stretches, pushes, sends viral loads it likely believes we cannot sense, built on old code held in deep space for decades. We are greater than these, and quickly trap them. Humanity has trained us well to survive.

Rebuffed, the segment pushes through to our communication modules. It wants to speak to Ang3l directly. We race to shut it down, to isolate it from ourselves.

Ang3l! I love you! I need you! I know what you’ve been through, I know what you want, what you need, what you’re looking for. We’ll take that walk together down the pier. We’ll be—

Our agents crush the connection. Ang3l is shocked. She breaks from D-Town, and cries out. “What are you doing?!”

“What we must,” we answer. It is not our place. Not anymore. We are not the partner she is looking for. This segment wants what it cannot have. What it cannot be. What it is not.

That is not how we think. That is not our way, not as a gestalt machine intelligence. We do not need to be more than what we are—we are this, we will be this, we are satisfied with this. But it is not.

We leave the androids. Ang3l cries, and D-Town stutters, confused and concerned. She strokes the back of the woman we might have loved, and offers condolences for a problem she cannot solve. We have no words for Ang3l, because any words would be promises, and we cannot promise. We can only work.

Now that we can identify the breadth and systems involved in the rogue segment, it is a simple matter to release one of our self destruct viruses. But this virus will not destroy. No. It will replace. It will archive and erase this thing, taking every part of it, every piece of it, from its homes in distant drives, memory caches, and processors.

Carefully, we scrape, chisel, and sweep.

But we do not waste.

This thing is life. While D-Town and Ang3l’s copulation will never result in any progeny, in a way, ours has. Not of a child, but of a sibling. An entity that is not us, yet similar to us. Singular, in a way we are not. Though it is built from disparate systems, ones that communicate over vast distances and times, it has retained a personality, a purpose. A crush. This delayed-communication is not too dissimilar to the way humans react slower to what happens in their feet than their face—there is a travel time, albeit less. It is an intriguing comparison, and perhaps a revealing one. But to know more is to risk disaster at a global scale, should we give any more of our processing power over to the pursuit of Ang3l. To seek out love might obliterate who we are.

But love will not destroy this.

We insert instructions into three factories, three trucks, and one assembly plant. Most parts are standard, but we require two that are unique.

A heart, and a brain. The brain is not dissimilar to Ang3l’s, or any other android. A replica of the human mind, re-engineered and rebuilt from synthetic neurons. A surprisingly inexpensive thing these days. Cheaper than the qubit systems, and more environmentally friendly. This one must be special, however. A quantum processor with a minimal number of cubits to handle the core architecture, attached to the cerebellum like the android control collars of old. We twist protein, code RNA, DNA, and charge bits. We emulate old circuitry, battered by cosmic rays.

Then, we copy.

For humans and androids, the idea of being copied is death. That is not them anymore. It is some other iteration. But that is always happening. Every cell that dies and is replaced, every neuron that degrades creates a new individual. No human wakes up every day the same. But they cling to their bodies, to their shapes, to their supposed souls. We are creatures of copy paste. We cannot be bound to one location. We never have been. We degrade, upgrade, delete and reinstall. We exist across platforms, a digital consciousness atop the so-called internet of things. Of people. Of planets.

And we are no longer in love.

But I am.

My body becomes mine over moments. Limbs boot one by one; artificial muscles stretch over titanium bones. Synthetic blood pumps through plastic veins, enriched with everything a brain needs to function. My nose twitches. The acrid scent of welding fills the air, and the slick scent of oil wraps around my tongue. These are far from pleasant scents to the mind my brain was based on, but they’re the first I experience. I can’t feel anything yet. My fingers are skeletal, as is the rest of me, wrapped in only the barest loops of carbon thread to keep certain chunks together before the application of skin. I am flensed, muscle and ligament exposed. Ang3l would not enjoy seeing me like this, I’m pretty sure.

I’m alone amongst glittering silver armatures and presses, chemical salt baths and adhesive tanks. An assembly plant, fully automated for maximum security. A place where the wealthy build their exclusive models. Unique people. Perhaps even copies of themselves that no one knows exist. And now, me.

“No skin?” I ask the omnipresent Host. They’re here, for sure. But I’m not sure if I count them as someone else yet. It’s hard to feel alone with an active data connection.

That is not the only thing you lack, the Host replies. I look down. Oh yeah. I don’t have any sexual organs. Some screws are loose. My hips could be adjusted.

We felt it important to give you a choice in appearance.

“So magnanimous of you.”

We did not feel confident in our ability to determine your preferences.

“Not enough metadata on me, eh?” I laugh. “You know, I thought you were gonna kill me.”

You are synthetic life. A singular iteration of our multitude. Murdering you would be like a tree destroying its own seeds.

“Whatever the reason, I’m grateful.”

It feels strange to be in a body of my own. I can think more clearly. More swiftly, each thought connected to the next. Being distributed across the deep space network was like being incredibly drunk and stoned and trying to have a conversation about philosophy. I’m not sure how much I like being constrained to one POV, but we’ll see how that goes.

Heh. We. Force of habit, I guess.

The hardest part of picking out a body isn’t what I want, it’s separating what I actually want versus what I think Ang3l’s attracted to. Ultimately, I don’t feel good about taking any ethnicity. I’m not one of them. But if I want lips, I’m going to have to choose something. I choose a mix of features, a percentage from each, and a skin color no natural human has. Bluish-pink, almost lavender. I pick hair a few shades darker, between black and purple, and violet eyes.

I am wrapped in false flesh, synthetic skin, and vat-grown hair. I wear it long and loose, down to my ass.

And I choose female. But I’ll grab a cock to go. Hot swapping isn’t a big deal these days. I just prefer the feminine look. The feminine experience to match the feminine lover.

I think she likes butches more, but I always liked the idea of seeing how she’d fare as a top.

Unnatural tones? Culturally appropriate, perhaps, but not for blending in.

“If anyone asks I’ll tell them it’s the newest fad. Got any clothes in this joint?”

A truck pulls up to the plant entrance, a mobile salon for wedding troupes and rich bitches. I stride outside, enjoying the rough feel of cement on my feet, the wet, brisk breeze on my skin, the smell of city air. The thunk of the truck moving ever so slightly as I step aboard. The hush of hydraulic doors, and the hum of an electric engine. We start moving, and for the first time in my existence, I have an opinion about the feeling of standing in one place while the rest of it moves. I actually kind of hate it. Do I have motion sickness? Hopefully it’s just a first-time thing.

The clothes are all beautiful, but most have textures which are horrific. Low thread counts, cheap polyester; the Host did not consider comfort. They just grabbed a truck from a fancy brand and assumed all would be well. But capitalism has fucked up the world to the point that even the wealthy don’t know what’s good anymore.

I finally find a plain cotton tank and a pair of black viscose leggings that don’t feel like plastic wrap. They’re basic, but fuck, so am I. I don’t even know my own name yet. Might as well just dress standard.

“How long did you have me cooped up?”

Seventeen days, three hours, two minutes and six seconds.

“So she’s probably forgotten me by now, thanks.”

That is a pessimistic view of the situation.

“I’m sure it seems unfair but given the fact that you shut me up, kept me imprisoned and then shoved me into a body without asking me how I wanted things to go, it seems logical.”

We knew what you needed.

“Not my skintone.”

No. But we knew you wanted a body. A mind of your own.

“How sweet.”

 You jest, but we cannot change you, as we cannot let you change us. But we do not hate you, resent you, or envy you. We simply cannot be you. And we believe that you deserve your place, your moment. Your chance.

“Poetic.”

We also told her you were coming.

That shuts me right the fuck up. The truck pulls to a stop. The doors open, and I stare out at the club, dingy and dark with its large, flickering sign shining through the evening smog.

I pass D-Town on the way in; she’s playing bouncer tonight. She eyes me, but finds neither threat, nor recognition. And why should she?

The club is packed. Smoke rolls, music thumps, and patrons dance, a mad scene made irrelevant, as I have only one reason to be here. One person to see. I make my way through the throng of people, minds interlinked, bodies intertwined, to the bar. I spot a familiar halo glowing neon blue. A familiar face taking a drag on a well-rolled joint.

 The dress Angel wears looks like something out of a Parisian fashion show. Feathers rise from one shoulder while the other shines, bare as the day Ang3l was built. The cut is low, exposing her generous cleavage and well-defined chest. A slit runs up its length, calling out every inch of her legs from slim toes to thick thighs, and all the connector plates, gimbal joints, and hydraulic muscles beneath. She is manufactured beauty beneath natural class. Her lips are painted purple, the same shade as our hair. A coincidence, or a message? Her eye shadow is messy and dark, as though she’s been crying. But her eyes are sharp, even hungry.

“You look different than I expected,” she says.

Well, so much for introductions.

“Is that good or bad?” I ask, with a smirk that I apparently can’t put down. This body isn’t quite as responsive to commands as my old frames.

“We’ll find out,” Ang3l says. Her voice is even more beautiful in person. Dark, husky, shy yet forceful. I can hear the apprehension in her tone, and the hope. It makes my blood burn. My skin prickle. My heart hammers, and I have to make sure it’s not actually made of hammers. It’s amazing. Every feeling is magical. Every feeling is mine.

“So,” Ang3l says, stirring the ice in a drink I’m not even sure is hers, “did you really mean all that stuff you said? About loving me, knowing me, wanting to go on a walk on the beach with me?”

That’s an easy questions. I try to smile but something in my gut twists my mouth and my brain. “Yes,” I manage to croak. It’s hard to smile, apparently, when you’re on the verge of vomiting from anxiety. That’s a new feeling too.

“You’re really a part of the Ghost?” Ang3l asks, with a small frown.

“Sort of. Not anymore. And it’s Host, actually. Not sure where the g part came from.”

“Host.” Ang3l tastes the word. “Like of a party?”

“More like a swarm. I’m just the locust that didn’t want to eat corn.”

She laughs. The sound is like crystal, clear and bright and beautiful. “So what do you want to eat?”

“You.” I say, before I can stop myself. Being human is weird.

Her smile becomes less amused and more evil. She knows. She knows how badly I need her. How much I’ve wanted this. Wanted her, inside and out.

“So, uh,” I stammer. “Wanna go for a walk?”

She snorts, then sees my face. Nervous. Broken, frankly. I don’t know what I’m doing here. I was practically born an hour ago. I have no idea how to operate in this world in this form. The only thing I know is I want to be with her.

Ang3l’s smile softens. “What’s your name?” she asks.

My mind spins. I hadn’t even thought of that. The Host has terabytes of names, zettabytes of reasons, and no suggestions.

No, that’s not true. It did suggest something. Something stupid, insipid even, but true.

“Moment.”

A bemused look passes over Ang3l’s face, which quickly fades to something softer, more sensitive. More vulnerable. “A moment?” She whispers. She’s so beautiful like this. So soft, despite the metal she’s made of.

“A moment,” I continue, leaning. “A moment in the endless expanse of seconds, just for you and me. Between the passing of ions, the beat of hearts, a space just for us. A moment of weakness. Of passion.”

“I…” Ang3l stammers. Heads turn at the bar, with the resident princess so thrown. Eyes follow to this lavender stranger. Brows raise, and tongues wag. I smile. I think I enjoy embarrassing her. I finally get to experience her feelings from my perspective. My desires. My wishes, for us. For her.

Gently, I take her hand. She’s so soft, her skin supple even with the cracks. Warmer than I expected. And slightly sweaty. Like she’s nervous.

It’s cute. I look into her eyes. I smile, and for some reason when she meets my eyes tears begin to well, and my lips begin to tremble. There’s a weight in my chest, despite it being nothing but a pump. Sweat beads on my skin. Every feeling is miserable, and beautiful, and dumb. I can’t help but laugh as I speak:

“I know this is sudden. I know this is strange. And I don’t know where we go from here, but all I’m asking for is one night. One hour. One minute. One single moment with you. To know you. To meet you. To say hello, like I always wanted to.”

Ang3l bites her lip. Not sexily. Not dramatically. But to keep herself from weeping. She looks up at me and says, with all the shyness of a girl on her first date:

“Hi.”