Braddon flew through the simulation, expertly heading down towards the small landing pad amidst the heavy storm raging around him. Gusts of gale force winds threatened to throw him off course, nearby lightning provided occasional bursts of electromagnetic interference. The small outpost he was attempting to land at had lost all power and so there was no homing beacon, not even any lights to help guide him. It required all of his concentration to make the flurry of adjustments needed as he made his approach. After 20 harrowing minutes he touched down safely, clearing the simulation. He let out a sigh of relief and looked through the results. The time taken and fuel consumed were both slightly higher than average, but they were still well within the pass parameters. Might give it another go later, he thought, I think I can improve my scores. For now he needed a break, his adrenaline levels were slightly elevated, he adjusted his feeds to compensate while he disconnected from the simulation terminal. It was always a little off-putting going from the sensory inputs of a full brainship back into the tiny chair he operated at lab school. Only 6 more months, he reminded himself, and I'll never have to return to this thing. He was a bit worried about his final assessments, and adaptability scores. He had constantly underperformed when compared to his peers. Multitasking was the main thing he struggled with, he had only managed to clear the most basic of city and manufacturing sims. Eventually after a string of repeated failures he had noticed those sims had completely fallen off his recommendation list. He knew this meant his future career options were limited, but he didn't care, he had always wanted to be a brainship, and it gave him more time to perfect his control over his body of choice.
Cinders on the other hand excelled at everything she put her wonderfully charming mind to. He had asked to see some of her scores once and had been both surprised and very impressed. As children he had never managed to beat her at meteoroids, a simple computer game where you had to blast meteoroids heading towards a spaceship at ever increasing speeds. That is unless she was going easy on him. Despite this he enjoyed her company and they still spent some of their free time together discussing art, music, politics, you name it. She had been making things in the school's workshop a lot recently. One of her hobbies. She had shown both proficiency and interest in manufacturing techniques, and already had a number of offers of employment for when they graduated. She spoke to him over the shell-person frequency. "Braddon, done with your sim? Want to see something cool?" She sounded excited.
"Sure, I'll be right over. MF5?"
She sent a delighted chirp of colour as an affirmative.
When he made it to the manufacturing room he saw her using one of the robotic arms to delicately attach a number of wires to something that looked like a simulation plug.
"Whatcha working on?" He asked over his speaker. No point using the comm when they were in the same room.
She giggled. "I said it was a testing interface for one of my toys." She had made a bunch of custom attachments for her shell to help her easily make even more such devices. "But I had a brilliant idea!" She was whispering excitedly. He moved closer so as to not miss what she was saying. "Do you remember our human physiology lessons? In particular the section on sexual intercorse?" Ah, that was why she was whispering, such a taboo topic around soft-people. She continued. "It is meant to be extremely pleasurable."
"Are you trying to make your own Moto prosthetic?" He wouldn't put it past her, they were outrageously expensive.
"Oh no, nothing like that. I'm not thinking of sex with a softie, but rather between two shell-people." He gasped as she connected two of her 'test leads' together such that there was a direct connection between the two simulation plugs. Point made, she quickly separated them. "If you think about it, sex can be summarised as an intimate sensory connection between individuals. I would love to give it a try, and, well, we are not going to have these plugs for much longer."
"What?! With me? Is it safe?" He whispered loudly. A direct connection to Cinders mind, her seeing directly into his… The thought was both terrifying, and enticing.
"Well, I don't think anyone has done this before, we would have to be careful, take it slow. Either one could disconnect at any time."
"I dunno Cinders, it's just so… unexpected."
"Don't decide now, think it over. I still have a bit of work to do on the plugs anyway."
Back in his room Braddon was watching some, er, educational videos about foreplay that he had managed to convince the net terminal that he should have access to. He got a buzz from Amik requesting entry, and he quickly switched the video to a nature documentary.
"Hi Amik, what's up?"
"That is an interesting search history you are acquiring." The Headmaster stated gently. "Thought it might be worth checking in."
Oh damn, the embarrassment was real, he should have been more discreet. "Um, it was, I was doing research. Human anatomy." That was not at all convincing…
Amik called his bluff, "You completed Human anatomy two years ago, so why are you doing further research now? Do you need your hormone levels checked?"
"Rude, my hormone levels are fine. I was just a bit curious, something I heard got me thinking is all."
"And what did you hear?"
"It doesn't matter, it's not important."
Amik sighed. "You are not in trouble, really. Curiosity is natural. However I did want to warn you, that a few more videos along that line may land you an extra psych session. Curiosity is one thing, obsession is another, especially over something you will never have."
Braddon sighed. "Amik, I'm sorry, thanks for the warning, I just, well, I just wanted to understand it, it is such an important part of softie culture… sex for pleasure rather than procreation. I'll stop, I promise."
"You will have much less restrictions when you graduate, alright? I don't think there is any harm really, just, be patient ok?"
Oh Lord almighty, he thought I was trying to masturbate? Well whatever gets him off my back.
The next day after class Braddon sent a message to Cindy.
"I want to try it, that toy you are making. Just so you know, for best results it would be better to avoid these pins." He sent the schematic of his simulation socket with red Xs through each pin that had been deemed inoperable, or intermittent.
She sent back an excited chirp, "Can do buckaroo!" If he had shown that diagram to anyone else, they would have followed up with a bunch of panicked personal and inappropriate questions, not Cinders though, she had always accepted him as he was. One of the reasons he really liked her. "How about tomorrow evening, during stand down?" She continued. "Come by my room?"
The stage was set, he was excited, and nervous, and so gosh darn curious.
Her door whizzed open, and he rolled quietly inside.
"Thanks for coming" Cindy whispered excitedly. "And thanks for not ratting me out."
"There is no way those stiffs would let us try this is there?"
"0% chance." She giggled. "I checked the rules and regs, nothing saying we can't."
"Sly." He couldn't help giggling as well.
"Shall we get started?"
They both grabbed one end of the lead with a servo arm. Either one could pull out at any time, that was the rule they had set. They were to carefully withdraw from the simulation plug during connection, to minimise shock, as was the standard procedure for sims. Unlike in a sim, they were to reach out to the link very slowly, gently, and listen carefully for feedback. The initial connection went well, gentler even than the sims. She had only connected together a very small number of links for this first test. Input to output, 8 lonely pairs among hundreds. She reached out along one and he saw bright flashing lights, "Oooof, loud."
"Hows this?" The colour dulled, and swirled into a mix of gentle blues and greens.
"Better."
They went through each of the 8 one by one, trial, error, feedback, improvement. Over the course of an hour they quickly learnt what felt good, what felt less good, and what felt even better. They went from randomly poking each other to smooth longing caresses. It was like being on the comm, but soooo much more vibrant, and much more tactile involvement, like a shiver up his spine, or the storm raging against his hull, they slowly started ramping up the pace, combining the movements they had learned into an intricate waltz. He was wrapped up in a whirlwind of colour, music, touches, Mmmmm, he reached out to her and she responded warmly. They dove through rustling leaves, and danced upon crashing waves, whispers of his name flashed by, overcome by symphonies of sound, not quite music that tempted him to draw in closer, deeper into her embrace. Where are you? "I'm here, I'm coming!" Like dancing singularity equations, and laughing spiraling galaxies, a choir of fireworks drew him closer. Braddon! He increased power slightly as he reached out through a flurry of warbelling embers when suddenly the world exploded into a blinding white light and a high pitched squeal.
"Argh!" He called out in pain and quickly withdrew, the link must have been broken… It was like his ears were ringing, synapses tingling, head spinning. Someone was calling his name, but it sounded distant, distorted, foggy. He tried bringing up his sensors, but everything felt laggy and dull. He saw Cinders' servo arm holding the disconnected plug, that made sense, he groaned, the room felt like it was spinning. "Braddon! Cindy! Speak to me!"
He realised that the voice calling him had been Amik.
"Oh, oooh, my head." Came Cindy's gentle voice, she seemed to be suffering the same after effects that he was feeling. He tried desperately to remember how to make his speaker form words. "Amik, what?, ohhh" The effort and sound had made the ringing stronger. This was like being disoriented after waking up, but 1000 times worse.
"ARE YOU OK?!" Amik's volume was not helping things.
"Yeah, Amik, we're fine." Cindy recovered more quickly, although her voice was lacking the usual control. "Right Braddon? I didn't hurt you did I?"
"No, yeah, just a bit woozy, all good." The room was slowly taking on a cohesive form.
"All good? ALL GOOD? Cindy, why is your door jammed shut, and what on Terra do you two think you are doing?"
"Shhhhh" Braddon whispered, "Please, no shouting. Surely you remember how it feels when an active nerve is disconnected?"
"And ours were, very, active." Cindy added smoothly while beginning to giggle. Braddon couldn't help but join in. The euphoria from their encounter was yet to completely wear off.
"Of all the hormonal nonsense!" Amik had started to mutter.
"Why did you stop?" Braddon whispered.
"I heard Amik screaming at me." She said quietly, no longer laughing.
"You two were PROJECTING!" Came Amik's frustrated reply. Braddon had never felt so embarrassed.
"At first it was just Braddon saying things like, "Oh" "hmm" "Yes" Like he was deeply involved in a, er, video, or one of his projects and had accidently left the comm on. I quickly cut it off from all the other children and was politely trying to inform you of your mistake, when Cindy here starts making similar noises! Now leaving the comm on is something that a young one might do, but not a near graduate, and definitely not two at one time! Neither of you were responding to any of my hails, AND, you were getting louder. I find you unresponsive trapped in a locked room, with some strange cable connecting you together, HOW WERE YOU EXPECTING ME TO REACT?!"
"You locked the door?" Braddon was shocked, and embarrassed, oh so very embarrassed.
"Yeah, sorry, I didn't want to be interrupted." She raised her volume slightly. "That was all me OK? Braddon didn't have anything to do with it."
"Well would you mind unlocking it now?" Amik was irate.
"Only if you tell me what's going to happen when I do. We have a right to our own bodies Amik, We didn't break any rules or reg, well, except for the door, and we are both completely fine!" She paused.
"Yup, totally fine." Braddon jumped in. Dazed, but fine.
"So I don't expect to be punished unduly, for a little, er, experimentation. If I'd have left the door open, the med techs would have been in here with our panels popped before we'd have a chance to say 'stop!'"
"THIS, is not experimentation. THIS is some gosh darn risky and dangerous behaviour! You both lost complete control, if you had been installed, people could have died!"
"But we weren't installed! No one's lives were at risk!"
"TWO very important lives were at risk!" Amik roared, stunning Cindy into silence.
There was an awkward pause before Amik sighed and said "I'll give you two 5 minutes to get your clothes on so to speak, then you will let the med techs in who are going to check your acid and hormone levels. They will confiscate that 'magical' cable so that you are not tempted to have further lapses in judgement. Understood?"
"Understood." They both said in unison. There were no comments about reductions in privileges, or other punishments, so they were getting off easy.
"Do you think he is gone?" Braddon whispered.
"Oh probably not."
"That was, um, incredible."
"Amazing"
"Worderous"
"Enchanting"
"All-consuming."
She paused. "Yeah, I kind of, well, it's a little scary just how much I lost myself. Amik, well, when I heard him, I was brought back just a little, and I was shocked by what I saw, by how deeply entangled we were."
"So much for taking it slow, sorry, I should have been more restrained."
"No, I reciprocated just as strongly…"
"If we had finished, the disconnection, probably wouldn't have been as bad…"
"Oh Decom! That stung like all hell, I wasn't expecting that!"
"I wasn't expecting to start projecting!"
They giggled, and after a moment of silence Cindy whispered "If Amik hadn't interrupted, do you think we would have stopped?"
"What? Of course we would have, er, eventually."
"But, we don't have the same, um, endurance limitations. I dunno, I feel like I could have got lost in there for a while…"
"Hmmm, maybe you are right, oh I don't have the right words to describe it! They are never going to let us try again are they?"
"Probably not, and after what I saw, well, it is probably for the best. Thank you. I'm glad it was you."