Page 1 of Elanie & the Empath
1.ELANIE
I heldthem in my hands, my internal sensors detecting a precise 498.264 grams each. I measured their shape: equal 41.6-degree slope angles from my chest with identically arching curves underneath. They were, as far as breasts were concerned, optimal. They’dbeenoptimal since the day I’d been commissioned by LunaCorp. The biggest megacorporation in the entire Known Universe didn’t spend billions of credits creating hyper-intelligent organic/robot hybrids just to give them lopsided breasts.
So why did my boyfriend insist that they were?
I groaned at Sunny’s bright voice through my neural viewChip comms. Ever since my mainframe malfunctioned and I installed the LunaCorp hormone upgrade—because there was no other explanation for such a catastrophically bad decision—Sunny had started talking to me like I was a fussy baby who needed constant soothing. In fact, all my fellow crewmates aboard theIgnisar—the KU’s premier luxury (if one thought live sex shows and well-catered orgies were luxurious) interstellar pleasure cruise—treated me like I was one mood swing away from scuttling the ship. Even Rax, the grumpy, giant, green-skinned Aquilinian who headed up security alongside his twin brother Morgath, had startedsmilingat me.
I used to have precise control over my life. Over every breath. Every blink. Every emotion. Every nanosecond of my bionic existence had been meticulously balanced in perfect homeostasis. I was calm. I was focused. I was prototypical. Now? Now my eyes made tears at the drop of a hat, I had pimples on my forehead, and my breasts were apparently lopsided.
I missed the old me. The pre-upgrade Elanie. Life was so much easier when I felt…less.
I commed while reaching back to reclasp my bra.
Sunny said, sounding offended.
My stomach sank, because I’d just hurt the feelings of our ship’s hospitality specialist (and probably my only real friend). But my statement was accurate. I was never late, and Sunny was always late. Truth. Facts. Verifiable data. This was the stable and reliable framework of my existence. Or at least it used to be.
Sunny went on.
I said, even though I was. Because I was always hungry now.
Sunny asked.
I straightened my bra straps and pulled my sweater over my head. The backs of my eyes stung for no reason whatsoever.
Stuffing my inexplicable emotions as far down into my operating system as possible, I made my way to my door and smacked my palm over the sensor. And because tea did sound nice, I commed, while the door slid open.
Not only were my breasts apparently asymmetrical, but, to add insult to injury, they also ached. With each step toward the staff room, bright impulses of pain traveled from my nipples deep into my ribs. I’d finally let Blake touch them last night after he’d begged me for weeks. He’d cupped them, then dropped them, watching them bounce. He’d pushed his fingertips into them, kneading them like he was about to bake something with them. None of it had felt particularly bad while he’d examined my breasts like a scientist finding a new species and trying to learn what might provoke it. But none of it had felt good. And now they hurt.
Sunny had implied that having my breasts fondled would feel nice. That most beings with breasts enjoyed it. Which made me wonder, and not for the first time, if there was something faulty with my programming. I ran another systems scan, then grumbled. All my programs were running optimally, my upgrade integrating according to schedule. But that last word I’d use to describe the way I felt wasoptimal.
I didn’t like to manipulate my sensory thresholds. Ittended to make me feel more automated than human, which was something my core programming resisted. But I couldn’t function like this. And I needed to function. It was what bionics did. We functioned. We worked. We were productive and efficient. So I modified my sensory perception until my breast tenderness faded to a faint, dull signal barely worth processing.
When I reached the staff room, I scowled at the laughter seeping through the door as it slid open. What did everyone have to be so happy about?
“Good morning, Elanie.” Chandler, theIgnisar’scruise director, waved his hand over the tray of macarons perched in the middle of the table. His white-toothed smile was suspiciously bright. “We have pastries.”
My scowl deepened. “I know. Sunny told me.” Scanning the room, I noticed that none of my crewmates were laughing anymore. And that would be because of me. I had never been a cheery bionic; not one for smiling or small talk. But these days, I was a dark cloud sucking all the laughter out of a room when I rolled in. A dark cloud that had, apparently, started making metaphors.
I sighed, which was another thing I’d rarely wasted computing power or lung capacity on before the upgrade. Because what was the purpose of a sigh? What was the point? It was just a breath. A breath withdrama. Pre-upgrade Elanie never felt the need to breathe dramatically. The thought alone made me sigh a second time.
Across the table, Rax and Morgath leaned back in their chairs, their muscular arms crossed over their broad chests. Raising his brows at me, Rax dipped his chin toward the macarons, his lips pulling into an encouraging tilt.
I tried to tilt back while I took my seat, giving up when what my lips did felt more like a grimace.
Sunny slid the tray of macarons my way, and I noticed Tig, our pink-haired head of IT, sitting beside her, avoiding eye contact with me.
Sitting on Sunny’s other side was her new partner, Freddie the Venusian. Freddie was the ship’s languages and customs expert, and he welcomed me with an expression I could only describe as aggressively pleasant. In fact, everyone at the table aside from Tig was staring at me. Watching me. Silently.Pleasantly.
Why couldn’t they just be normal? Why couldn’t everything just go back to normal?
“What?” I snapped.
Freddie winced.
