Beyond the Phase Gate
Robin felt slightly disjointed. Travelling past the known galaxy does that to a girl.
"Are you well, Robin?"
She jumped at the sound of the smooth voice at her shoulder. No matter how many times he did it, she would never get used to the ultra-fast, almost-invisible-to-the-human-eye, speed AL-AN could move with. Glancing up, she offered him a smile.
"I don't think that covers it," she said honestly. She'd spend months with AL-AN in her head; no point mincing her words now. "I'm about to step onto an Architect world. With an Architect. If I weren't such a dignified, serious person, I'd be squealing like an excited child right now."
A look crossed AL-AN's face. It was something between a human's thoughtful expression and a computer accessing its memory banks. "From the time I spent in your mind, there seem to be several residual memories of you doing just that in moments of…"
Robin nudged him with her elbow. "Let's keep those memories to ourselves, Big Guy."
He tilted his head to the side but whether he was agreeing with her or trying to decipher the endearment, she wasn't certain.
"I want to impress your bosses, after all," she added.
The Architect lowered himself to his knees so that he could look into Robin's eyes. "Robin," he began, "you single-handedly removed the final traces of Kharaa Bacterium from 4546B, then located the artifacts and materials required to forge me a new body. I am impressed."
His words filled her with a glowing heat warm enough to melt half the arctic of 4546B. She tried to smother the grin that rose to her lips but failed miserably. "Thank you, AL-AN."
"Thank you, Robin."
A moment of awkward silence followed before AL-AN rose to his feet. "If the others have survived, they will be wondering at our arrival," he told her. "We should not keep them waiting." She heard the hope in his voice and found herself mirroring it.
Please don't let his species be gone, she thought. It was partly that she didn't want him to be alone any longer and partly that she knew it would break AL-AN's heart if he found that his species had been wiped out.
Taking a deep breath, Robin squared her shoulders and lifted her chin. "Let's do this," she said.
AL-AN gave her a sideways glance before nodding. "Yes, let's," he said, mimicking her vernacular. It was weird, considering he didn't have lips and all, but she had the feeling he was grinning down at her. She grinned back.
Then the door whooshed open, sliding down to create a ramp, and they talked together onto the AL-AN's homeworld. The view from the roof of the sleek black building they'd landed on was awe-inspiring, to say the least. Of all the planets she'd visited, nothing could compare to the Architects' homeworld. Sleek black buildings rose against the azure sky like jagged shards of volcanic glass.
"Oh, AL-AN," she breathed, instinctively reaching for his hand.
There was a moment's pause before he spoke. "Er..."
She smiled. It was kind of cute, the way he sometimes struggled to find the right English words for what he wanted to say. At just that moment though, Robin knew exactly how he felt. She had no words for how truly spectacular his home was.
AL-AN cleared his throat – which was an unusual thing to do since he didn't have a throat in the traditional sense of the word. Robin had the feeling he made the noise only to get her attention, difficult to do with such an amazing cityscape before her. She registered the sound but didn't dwell on it until he made it a second time, then followed it up with, "Robin, while it is understandable that you are unused to my corporeal form, even a human must realise that the difference in our sizes means the appendage you're currently holding is not my arm."
The meaning of his words didn't immediately sink in. When it did, Robin slowly turned to stare, open-mouthed, at the "appendage" she held. Almost as if reacting to the extra attention, it pulsed in her hand, a purple glow shooting up the shaft.
Robin's face flamed as she raised her eyes up to AL-AN's face. To her surprise, twin spots of colour brightened his cheeks as well.
Huh, she thought. Architects can blush.
Then she realised she was still holding it.
"Oh, my gosh!" She dropped AL-AN's… no wonder she thought it was an arm! Big Guy was right…
When she released it, it stayed right where it was.
AL-AN placed a gentle hand on Robin's shoulder. "Please do not be embarrassed," he told her. "I found the sensation… pleasurable."
Robin, cheeks still burning, met his bright purple eyeslits. "You did?"
He nodded in that slow, assured way he had that always made him seem sage. "I do wonder, though," he continued, "if the sensation would have been different had your hands not been obscured by those gloves you wear."
She glanced down at them, at the wetsuit that covered most of her body, then out at the alien landscape before them. I think I'm a little overdressed for this place…
AL-AN confirmed her suspicions when he said, "There is no need for protective gear here – at least not of the type you currently wear."
Robin mimicked the way AL-AN usually tilted his head at her as she lifted one corner of her mouth into a grin. "Are you asking me to take my clothes off, AL-AN?"
"I- I would not be opposed to a development of that nature," he said, sounding more like a nervous teenage boy than an infinite alien lifeform. "There would be no harm to you from doing so and I have seen you naked before," he added.
"From inside my mind," she corrected. Not the same. Her mental image of herself couldn't compare to whatever visual sensors he had going on in there. What a sobering thought…
"Robin?"
She blinked, shaken from her thoughts.
"Mhm?"
"I confess I sometimes miss the ease of communication that existed between us when I inhabited your mind. This is… awkward."
Got that right.
"Yeah, Big Guy," she said. "That's the problem with words, they tend to be awkward. You know what's not?"
"What, Robin?"
"Actions."
Catching the tip of one finger between her teeth, Robin pulled off first one glove, then the other. Then, meeting AL-AN's "eyes," she reached out and took hold of what, despite some very interesting plates and ridges, was a surprisingly human penis.
He gasped.
The big, scary, immortal alien gasped as Robin's long calloused fingers wrapped around his shaft. It was an unusual sound, coming from someone who didn't seem to breathe in the traditional sense. It made Robin feel proud and kind of powerful. AL-AN could crush her like a rockgrub if he had a mind to but, as she stroked one hand along him, he sank to his knees before her and moaned her name.
"Robin…"
The movement brought them nearly face-to-face. Shame the Architects didn't think to build themselves lips, Robin mused. She would have loved to have kissed AL-AN then – if he'd been capable. Even if he'd had lips, she wasn't sure he would have been. His horned head was thrown back, the bright glowing light behind his eyeslits dimmed. At first, Robin thought she was hurting him. Then, he bucked into her hand with a groan, and she realized it was the Architect version of closing his eyes.
"Well?" she asked.
AL-AN's facelights flickered as he looked down at her. "W- Well?" He seemed to be having some problems organising his thoughts.
Not that she was bragging…
"Is the sensation different without the gloves?" Holding him firmly at the base, she began stroking with her other hand. AL-AN's tailed rear hit the obsidian-black rooftop beneath them. Funny… with the remarkable alien city rising up all around them, Robin only had eyes for AL-AN…
"Hmm?" She squeezed gently, earning a moan from her Architect.
"The sensation…" He shook his head as if to clear it. "The sensation is like nothing I have ever experienced. I have nothing to compare it to."
"Architects don't do this to each other?"
"Ah!"
"I'll take that as a no…"
There were other things the Architects probably didn't do to each other – and Robin had a sudden desire to do all of them to AL-AN.
The wetsuit that had protected her during her stay on 4546B was starting to get far too hot on AL-AN's homeworld. (And far too wet in ways it wasn't designed for.) Well, AL-AN did say it would be safe to take it off…
He let out a sound of disappointment when Robin released him. Then he lifted his head and saw her unzipping her wetsuit, though, and his facelights glowed bright. He pushed himself up on his elbows to watch.
Robin was unexpectedly nervous stepping out of the clingy rubber. Like AL-AN said, he had shared her mind for months. He'd been with her while she'd slept and bathed and everything in between – so why did being naked in front of him now feel so much more intimate?
"Robin…"
Why did she feel so nervous? She almost covered herself with her hands but then AL-AN was back on his knees, moving toward her. Robin was frozen, both excited and anxious to hear what he thought of her now that he had ways of viewing her far outside the human spectrum. How could she begin to hold up to that kind of scrutiny?
"Robin, seeing you this way…"
Here it is, she thought, bracing herself for the blow.
"I believed nothing could compare to the image I had created of you in my mind," AL-AN began and a sweet shiver ran along Robin's spine that had nothing to do with the fine mist swirling among the building's rooves. The reverence Robin heard in AL-AN's voice as he described her was the same reverence she'd heard in her own voice when she'd first laid eyes on his homeworld.
He… he can't see me that way. I'm just a silly little human…
"But now that I am able to see the real you – now that I have been privileged enough to see all of you, I find the many languages at my command are insufficient to pay you sufficient stribute."
Holy shit, I think I'm in love with an alien.
"Oh, AL-AN…"
Then Robin was hugging him, wishing again that she could kiss him.
Screw it, she thought and planted a kiss on his face where human lips would have been.
"I do not understand this gesture," AL-AN said, a little helplessly.
Robin laughed. "The whole not having lips thing is a real design flaw with you Architects, you know," she told him. "You're missing out on kissing. Kissing is great."
He tilted his head as he processed her words. "Kissing?"
"Yes, kissing!" Pressed against him as she was, Robin could feel his still-erect member nudging her. All this talk of lips and kissing and the things Architects were missing out on… "Not just kissing," she said, eyes glinting mischievously. "There's something else you can do with lips that I think you'll like."
AL-AN was unconvinced. "As you know, Robin, our physical bodies were designed by combining the best aspects of twenty-seven individual species. I would argue that lips were deemed of no value since we do not have- Ah!"
Robin put an end to his lecture by wrapping her lips around the shiny black and grey head of his penis. He fell heavily to the floor, his knees coming up on either side of her as she worked her way down, laving him with her tongue. His shaft was somehow hard and soft at the same time, like a gel sack encased in a thin layer of titanium. She could feel the hard plates shifting over the soft tissue beneath as she stretched her mouth to accommodate him.
"Robin, I… I…"
She grinned around his girth without missing a beat, her free hand gliding over his ridges.
"I want to be inside you."
Yes.
Robin let her tongue slide along his shaft as she slowly pulled back to blink up at him with heavy lids. "I want that too."
She tried to climb onto his lap but soon found that his hard, impossibly smooth Architect flesh made the endeavour difficult. "Um…" she started with a nervous laugh. "Help a girl out here, Big Guy."
The fact that it took AL-AN a full minute to assess the situation and come up with a suitable solution was testament to the effect she had on him. The fact that she had to cling to his knees while he mulled it over because her own had gone weak was testament to the effect he had on her.
AL-AN summoned two of the long mechanical arms that seemed to be part of him, yet separate at the same time. Like he did when she assisted with the repairs to the Phase Gate, AL-AN gave the arms to Robin, who shivered as they integrated with her. Her back tingled where they joined. She flexed, feeling them respond to her commands.
If you had to trade lips for something, they weren't a terrible trade…
Robin gingerly placed her borrowed, semi-mechanical hands on AL-AN's shoulders, careful not to exert too much pressure. The twisty arms and claw-like fingers had the energy of an overexcited puppy and Robin wasn't sure she could control it. She'd only just build AL-AN a body; she didn't want to destroy it.
Positioning herself over him, Robin gazed into his glowing face. She couldn't help the sigh that escaped her. It was a little sad.
AL-AN caught her waist, stopping her from going any further. "Are you certain that this is what you desire? I understand that having another entity inside you can be a great burden."
"What?" Robin frowned at him. "What are you talking about AL-AN? A burden… Yes, I want to do this. I just… It just makes me a little sad that I can't kiss you right now."
He did that head-tilt thing she loved. Then, his hands travelled up to frame her face as he brought his head down to meet hers. Her lips met his faceplate. As it did, he somehow sent heat and pressure to the area where his lips should be, simulating a human kiss. It wasn't perfect, but the fact that he tried made Robin's heart soar.
When they separated, she beamed at him. "Thank you," she said, placing a hand on his cool cheek.
There was just one more thing they needed to make the moment perfect. As if sensing the need to be joined completely, AL-AN nodded. Supporting herself with the Architect arms AL-AN had given her, Robin lowered herself onto him – at the same AL-AN reached out telepathically to join their minds again.
"Oh!"
"Ah!"
Apparently, humans and Architects had very different concepts of intimacy. And yet, together, the two very different concepts just… clicked into place.
I have missed you, AL-AN said. His voice sounded more… him inside her mind.
"I missed you too, Big Guy," she gasped, adjusting to his size. Resting her forehead against his, she added, "When you said inside, I didn't realise you meant, you know, my head…"
His mental voice was instantly uncertain. Am I unwelcome, Robin?
"Take a look around," she laughed. "Do you feel unwelcome?" To make sure he didn't get any more silly ideas about whether or not she wanted him, Robin started to move against AL-AN. "Hmm?" She pressed. "How do you feel? Do you feel welcome? Do you feel wanted?"
She didn't need to ask, of course, now that they were joined again. She could feel the mess of AL-AN's thoughts. He was nervous and excited – things she didn't know an ancient creature could be. He also wanted her to keep doing the strange thing she was doing to him but didn't know how to ask.
No need, Big Guy. I've got this one.
AL-AN been her guide on 4546B, showing her the way to find blueprints and build devices. Now, it was her turn to be his guide. Without knowing how she did it – or even that she had done it, until it was done – Robin summoned another pair of AL-AN's special Architect arms, which she used to pin him in place as she rode him.
"Architects… are missing out…" she panted, "…if they don't do this…" For emphasis, she twisted her hips.
Ah, yes, AL-AN agreed. His mental voice seemed breathless. He used his back set of legs to brace himself as he thrust forward to meet her with his front legs. I must say that your human way of joining has certain merits. However… AL-AN proved men of every species were obsessed with breasts when he lost his train of thought as Robin grabbed hold of his horns and dragged his head down between hers.
Bet you wish you had lips now, she thought.
His facelights were flickering irregularly when he lifted his head.
"However?" she asked innocently.
The lights darkened. Architect intimacy has its own merits. May I show you?
Lifting her knees to take him even deeper, she raised her eyebrows in challenge. You think you can beat this? "Show me."
And then her mind exploded.
At least that was what it felt like.
AL-AN was everywhere, all at once. His touch, his sense, the essence of him raced along her every nerve ending, simulating feather-like kisses and the hot rasp of tongues – and a million sensations she didn't have a name for. Didn't know could exist.
Twenty-seven species, he reminded her somewhere in the midst of it all, and they all make love in their own ways. He sounded a little smug.
He had every fucking right to be.
Tremors racked Robin's body hard and fast. AL-AN, unfamiliar with a human woman's orgasm, was clearly unprepared for the way Robin's walls squeezed him, milking him as she climaxed, driving him relentlessly toward his own completion. He cried out in a sound that was far more human than either of them could have expected, wrapping his arms around her as he reared off the ground in his passion.
It took some time for Robin to blink the world back into focus. She found it a little farther away than expected – since they were literally floating about two foot off the rooftop. She considered telling AL-AN to put them down but shrugged it off. After all, she was quite comfortable, using the massive alien as a pillow and they could float a mile off the roof for all she cared; she trusted him to keep her safe.
Robin considered telling him that but then remembered she didn't have to.
"Thank you for your trust," AL-AN used what she was starting to think of as his "outside voice." After what they'd just shared, it seemed unfairly far away.
Nope, she thought. Don't like it. Get back in here.
He chuckled, the thought filling her mind with happy mirth.
It is where I like best to be, he conceded.
AL-AN?
Yes, Robin?
I didn't think before… is it possible for us to… I mean… She could feel herself blushing again but couldn't seem to put the right words together. Instead, she just pictured a very small metallic version of herself with purple eyes, a stubby tail, and too many legs.
If it was possible to gasp mentally, AL-AN did. Procreate? Would… would you like that, Robin?
She traced one of the glowing purple veins that ran down AL-AN's body. Nothing like scaring off the new boyfriend by talking about kids too soon…
What is a "boy-friend?"
Don't worry about it, she thought in a rush, trying to cover how stupid she suddenly felt. It was just…
AL-AN ended her nervous rambling. I do not know what a "boy-friend" is, but I find the idea of creating an offspring with you very appealing.
You do?
Yes. I am not certain if it is possible, but we could…
Excuse us.
Robin was grateful for AL-AN's strong arm around her. It was the only thing that kept her from falling to the rooftop when she turned her head to see three Architects watching them from several feet away. AL-AN, who had wanted nothing more than to find his own kind, registered only mild annoyance at their appearance.
I have already found my peace, he thought. Robin wasn't sure if the thought was directed at her or if their bond had grown so strong that she was hearing his thoughts the way he often heard hers. Could she be getting a glimpse of his mind?
Speaking of which… the other Architect had spoken inside her mind!
Of course. In the past, when AL-AN had talked about the Architects, he'd always said things like "us," and "we." They must be a hive mind…
Semi-hive mind, AL-AN corrected. We are our own selves but are able to join when necessary.
Well, you should know when you give somebody some privacy! She snapped. The Architects – one with yellow facelights, one with red, the other with blue – exchanged glances. Get out! They fled. Their corporeal bodies turned away to prove the point, looking out over the city.
Robin felt AL-AN start to withdraw as well, as well as his sudden doubt. Oh, no you don't, she said. She imagined her thoughts were like those mechanical arms of his – wherever they had gone – and used them to snake out and wrap around his mind so tightly he couldn't leave. You belong here.
AL-AN's pleasure radiated through her.
As AL-AN helped her find her feet, Robin saw the yellow-faced Architect watching them surreptitiously. It looked away quickly. What's next? Are they even going to allow us to be together? she asked AL-AN.
It would be foolish of them to try to separate us. A wave of protectiveness washed over. He caught Robin's eye then – very deliberately – reached out with one of the mechanical arms that had just reappeared to take her hand. He dimmed one eyeslit in a wink. Robin laughed out loud, drawing the attention of the other Architects.
Are you nervous? Robin asked AL-AN as they approached the others.
He gently stroked her cheek with a mechanical finger. No, he answered. As I said before, with you, I am ready to face whatever awaits.
