I was on a business trip.
Again.
Sitting in an oxygen-deprived conference room listening to yet more useless yammer from people who still believe that intracorporate politics is more important than performance left me dreaming of travelling somewhere else.
Anywhere else.
Joe checked out an hour ago, dreaming of fields of clover and a girl named Cindi... oh, wait, that's an old Newton Ad.
So there I was, trapped in another useless meeting that was mistakenly billed as "educational", and wishing that I was elsewhere.
Oh, wait, of course it was educational. First, the whole conference room was ensuring that I acquired an aversion to conference rooms and the security theater-- ummm, I mean, "screening"-- at the airport was teaching me to have both an aversion against travelling by air and surrendering my privacy to the bunch of arrogant goons in charge of the people trying to be nice in the airport.
So, yeah, I guess the whole rigamarole of being here, much less getting here, qualified as "educational". I was really beginning to believe that corporations have more and more meetings in their own form of the "shoe event horizon".
In any case, I did get to escape.
I found out later that the implosive boom of my departure did hurt quite a few eardrums and cracked the windows of what I had come to think of "The Conference Room from Hell". There was no question on anyone's mind that I was missing, and, if I hadn't visited one of my co-workers I wouldn't have known about the problems of returning and might've attracted unwanted attention to myself.
I wasn't around to see what happened at the time simply because I was far more busy discovering that not only wasn't I still trapped in that damn meeting any more, but that I was "elsewhere".
For a moment, just a short moment, I had a feeling of panic. That panic retreated almost as quickly as it arrived when I realized that the panic had me wanting to go back to that meeting.
Back to that meeting? Good God, how far have I fallen! I calmed down with the realization that death was a step up from the torture I'd been experiencing. Once I stopped my emotional oscillations, I got my wits about me and started to take stock of my new situation.
Well, to start off with, I didn't feel particularly dead, but, having no practice being dead, I could not be sure of how I should feel. For the moment, it felt like I was still within a body. Opening the eyes I'd earlier slammed shut in utter disorientation, I looked around and saw the sun along with stars in almost all directions, except for the earth below my feet.
Well below my feet.
My first post-panic rational thought, of course, was that I must be dead.
Hanging onto the mudflaps of that thought was the real kicker: If this is death, why had I put it off for so long?
Dying of anoxia whilst trapped in a meeting seemed to be the logical explanation for this whole bizarre situation, right?
Well, yes and no.
Yes, in that I was apparently merely imagining that I was still alive and breathing air when I should have been exploding due to decompression, and, No, in that I wasn't even uncomfortable.
So I mumbled under my breath, saying, for posterity's sake, "Oh, God... am I dead?"
Yes, no matter how agnostic you may be, there's that sudden desire that a Supreme Being has you in hand and is caring for your soul.
At the same time, imagine how you'd feel upon asking that particular question when all the evidence seems to point in that direction and then hearing silence.
I noticed, as I mulled the silence, that the earth seemed to be drifting away at a rather appreciable clip. I was getting further and further from the world of my birth and the scene became even more eye-catching as I watched the moon rise from behind the planet.
For a sci-fi fan like myself, this seemed like Heaven. Even without my glasses, I found I had "perfect" eyesight and could pick out the city where I'd previously been imprisoned in a conference room, then looked over and recognized the city where I usually worked and where my family was living.
My family.
My estranged family.
My wife and children and grand-children who didn't have much room for someone as inept as I in their lives.
Well, I'd always been fairly isolated in an emotional sense, so, in effect, this was likely to be a relief to them. Even with my wife and I avoiding each other, I knew she'd be very happy with the insurance settlement, especially given that I'd died on a business trip, which would boost the money she would get.
I sighed, still feeling like there was air to be breathed, and wondered, aloud this time, "I wonder where I'm going?"
Sure, it was a rhetorical question given that I gave up on expecting an answer, but I got one, a voice in my ear saying "Wherever you want to. You wanted to leave, you wanted to escape, and your mind was both open enough, had enough spare room for me to climb into it, and includes enough of an imagination for me to carry you."
That the voice was somehow exotically feminine at the same time it was precise and clear was almost seductive, but I set that aside as I looked around me and decided to ask again "Am I dead?"
"Oh," came the calm and sweetly feminine voice, "I heard you asking God that, and, being that I am not God, I didn't think it was my place to answer. No, you're not dead. I picked you up, or, in truth, you pulled me in and we fused. Since I'm a part of you, for now, I can use all of your experiences and language to explain things. Consider me to be a sort of taxicab, able to take you almost any place in the Universe, except that I have no meter. I was idle, no passenger, drifting through realspace, and I found you and your mind within my span of attention while I drifted to and through your world. Given your desire to travel and to escape your home world and the traps you saw, I picked you up, merging myself to match you in order to carry you."
I waved my hand at the universe exposed to my eyes. It was odd that the laws of angular momentum meant nothing as my body did not attempt to rotate, and I tried to not pick a fight with my, well... designated driver? I asked "Then how am I breathing?"
A wonderfully feminine laugh echoed in my ears. "Because you don't have a physical body, you only have an illusion of one, a projected illusion, if you will. So, should one of your own kind be nearby and pacing us, or we drifted close enough to that weather satellite over there, they'd see you as an unprotected human floating in space. So the illusion of a body works both ways and, in the right environment, can be very complete, both for you and for those you interact with. While you and I are fused to allow you to travel around the whole universe, your physical body is held in a timeless state where it is available for you to get back when you choose to leave me."
I sighed. "So... what is our relationship, here? Who are you? And, to you, who am I?"
For the first time I sensed confusion in the voice as she told me "I am your transport. I take you places. I am made to carry a sentient around, I was created over seven billion of your home-world's years ago, enough years to make an accurate count difficult to estimate, and I have been the transportation for two hundred thirty-six million five hundred forty-four thousand nine hundred fourteen passengers, not counting you. Yet. You are the first passenger I have ever had that didn't know what I am."
I could swear I heard a sniffle in there before her voice returned to it's normal confident state.
"When I found you, your mind was calling out for escape. Other minds were also calling out but they weren't quite compatible enough with my programming for me to choose them."
Whatever 'compatible' meant I wasn't sure I wanted to know. The question in my mind continued to hover, with "But why me, and not someone else? I really am no one special, you know."
The disembodied voice laughed, a sweet sound in my ears, and I felt I should recognize the voice. "Oh, you have no idea! In the time I had to analyze you and others before selection I learned that almost all humans are capable of being merged with me. While there may be nothing particularly special about you, your mind, you see, is special enough, simply because you're what I'm made to best carry: a dreamer. You are open to your imagination, open to love, and your xenophobia, while existing, is managable by me. So you were a good pick. There were other fairly good picks in the scope of my capabilities, but, through some strange bit of my design, you were chosen."
Well, that answered that. Now for the next question, which, if I had still been in a biological body, would've triggered a LOT of sweat: "How long do I get to keep you with me? And taking me places?"
It's funny, but I felt a hug as the voice said "As long as you want to keep me."
This didn't make sense. "How long can that be?"
More bell-like laughter that hovered on the edges of recognition showed me that my "carrier" was amused easily. "Jack, on average, the sentients I have carried have tired of travel in this form within a span of fifty-seven hundred thirty two of your years. The longest was an auditor of a galactic empire who stayed with me for forty-four thousand six hundred six years. She had me drop her off because her species was all but extinct and because the empire she was working to preserve had become something corrupt enough that she could no longer, in good conscience, work to support it."
Wow. "Why do you exist?" I decided to ask, certain that any answer would likely be incomprehensible.
I heard her sigh. "I was created for the sole purpose of transporting sentients who needed to get around without all of that nonsense of having to travel in little cans of air. Or water. Or whatever."
As I drifted there in space, the earth-moon system still receding quickly, I felt the oddest sensation against the front of my body, almost as if I had a woman cradled in my arms, her head on my shoulder. It was one of the most comfortable and comforting sensations I had ever known, triggering a contented sigh. "So, who are you really? Do you have a name?"
A giggle heralded the answer as my invisible taxi driver told me "I have no name, or, at least, none that I can remember. You see, I'm not sentient when I am without a passenger to carry, and my sentience is limited by how much of my passenger's brain power is, well, left over for me to fit into. So, when I have no passenger, I drift along in threespace to await a chance encounter-- like I had with you-- to collect a passenger. So, I hope you understand, I am made to use part of my passenger's mind/brain to become sentient for as long as my passenger stays with me."
Wow. As she spoke it seemed a body was taking shape in my arms, a tall, thin, beautiful woman, slender, dark skinned, with a face much like the one woman I still lusted over even though I hadn't seen her in six years. She still had a place in my dreams and day-dreams and sleep-talking with Bette had been one of the forces that triggered my current estrangement with my wife. Some people take dreams far too seriously.
I suspect that we humans are an odd lot in this galaxy and I've been considered by many of my co-workers over the years to be odder than most. This is partly due to my preferring to name computers and discuss issues with these systems using human-sounding names, so I'm one of those who gets annoyed by those who do not anthropomorphize. So, like my preference to always having a server that I name 'Bette', I decided to name my taxi driver after her. "Can I call you Bette?"
Her face was as beautiful as I fantasized the real Bette's to be as she looked into my eyes and smiled. "Of course, Jack" and I got yet another hug out of the deal.
Hugs are good. I'd suspected, on and off, that I qualified as a "cuddleslut", given how much I wanted to just spend time snuggling with my wife... and how strung out I've been without it.
For the first time since this transformation had occurred, I finally noticed that my unreal body was nude. As was "Bette's", and what a glorious body she had. My own was older, over-weight and nowhere near as attractive as my new driver.
Another thought intruded, right after she impaled herself on my simulated erection, which sure felt a lot like the real thing, only better. I was wondering if I was imagining my fake self being better equipped for sex than my "real" biological self, but I managed to gasp out as we reached full penetration, "What limits how long we can stay together? And what can you do with my real body?"
We spent the next minute coupling with our unreal bodies, the sensations feeling more real to me than reality had, and my orgasm seemed to be mirrored in the projection of my driver.
As I took time to wind down from that mad coupling, she told me "Once you decide you want to be left somewhere, as soon as we arrive where I can safely place you back in your real body, we part. What happens to me then is that I lose my mind and drift awaiting my next passenger. However, in the process of returning you to your body, I can make any edits you want to it."
Oh, so I couldn't have my real body and be able to travel at the same time, and, when I chose to end this unreal state, I couldn't go back to it. So, if I had her pop me back into my body on the other side of the galaxy, I'd be stuck there.
Ouch
OK, I could cope with this. Especially since I didn't feel hungry or tired in the slightest. "So, Bette, what do you get out of having a passenger?"
She gave me another addictive hug before I got the answer of "I get to have a mind and identity, that's what I get. If I am very lucky, I have a passenger that is open to all of the things I can do. You, I suspect, are perfect for that."
I nodded, returning the hug, feeling like I was in heaven. "I wonder how this feels to you given that I'm probably very primitive, compared to your previous passengers?"
"You, Jack," she answered, scratching my back in a delicious way, something I returned and heard her purr before continuing, "provide me the ability to feel things because I'm a part of you, using a portion of your mind to be me, so, of course, I know what you want and can enjoy what you want to give me. Don't kid yourself, either, sexual contact is very common between my passenger and I. I will admit to the desire to keep you with me for a very long time, and sex helps me to feel a bond with you. You know, now, that I am bound to you, because of how I'm made, but, now that I have a mind of my own, I want to keep it, so I admit to wanting to bond you to me. I'm not given a choice about this, I do have to be honest with you about my motivations."
Well, I could understand this, and, given that she was using a piece of "my mind" to be herself, I giggled at the stray thought of "to thine own self be true". She giggled so I knew she was reading my mind. "I don't have any real privacy from you, do I?"
She shook her head. "I'm sorry, Jack, but, no, you don't. I can read and understand every thought you have in order to serve and protect you. I have a degree of autonomy in my thinking but my makers were very careful in my design to ensure that I'm programmed like a robot with those Asimovian laws and some additional safeguards to ensure that I do what you mean, not as you say. There are abilities that come to you while part of me, but there will always be safeguards to ensure you do not abuse my capabilities. If you abuse these limits too often, I am programmed to return you to your home world and go idle, something I do not want to be, again."
I nodded. "So why do we talk?"
She sighed and squeezed me. I squeezed her back. I liked this feeling and could likely do this for days if not weeks. "Jack, we use speech primarily to maintain your sense of autonomy. I understand a lot of how you are put together and, for you, telepathic conversations would, for now, likely 'creep you out'. Some day you will likely be a lot more comfortable with being an active telepath, but, for now, the illusion of normalcy is required to minimize shock. You understand?"
The vacuum seemed thick enough to fill my lungs before I sighed, nodding. "Yeah, you're probably right."
She smiled up at me. "So, Jack? What would you like to see? Where would you like to go?"
Hmmmmmm...
I wasn't ready to "think big" and there were sights I would have liked to see, with, well, "my own eyes" (not that they were really mine, right now), so...
I have to admit that looking over each of the rovers on Mars was fun, as was "walking" around the Apollo 11 landing site. While I was tempted to have Bette allow me to leave my own bare footprints in the lunar soil, I managed to resist that bizarre desire to vandalize such an important historical site. The temptation to draw a "Kilroy was here" in the lunar soil was also successfully resisted.
That doesn't mean I didn't leave footprints well outside the landing site. Footprints of bare feet, too. At least in my aetherial form I didn't feel heat or cold unless I wanted to. The marks we made making love on the lunar surface, I think, will likely confuse anyone who followed.
I had fun brushing dust off the solar panels on Spirit and Opportunity and, again, didn't leave any other trace I was there. I didn't want to give the space conspiracy whackos any ammunition. Making love on the edge of Olympus Mons was exhilarating, too, though, given the winds, I knew the impressions we made in the dust would be scoured away soon enough.
Cassini didn't see us but I enjoyed the sights of the rings. Titan did not impress me and so I didn't press on to look around there much. Making love to Bette on one of the small moonlets shepherding some of the rings was awesome.
Bette then decided to teach me something about the form I now thought I wore that I hadn't expected, so, to teach me about how untouchable my form was, she showed me the center of Jupiter, slowly sinking through the cloud layers. I felt nothing during this and we talked about what we were "seeing". Finding more than an earth-mass of diamonds near the center of Jupiter left me amazed.
The sun, however...
Now if only I understood more about the nuclear furnace of a sun. A physicist instead of a dilletante would have gotten more from the experience of travelling through a star and seeing what it was made of.
After several days of bouncing around my own back yard, the planetary system I had been born within, I had a pang of home-sickness.
Ha! I suspected that Bette wanted to make sure I knew where I belonged... or, given my experience, where I no longer belonged.
I stayed invisible as I walked around the home I'd shared with my wife. She was already cleaning my books out of my bedroom and turning it into a guest bedroom. As I watched her, she seemed surprisingly up-beat considering that I was as good as dead.
My former workplace was also an interesting sight, given my apparent demise, as my co-workers had raided my cubicle for anything they found worth scrounging. I couldn't blame them much, of course, having been a major scrounger myself, though it did drive home the belief that I really couldn't go home again. I'd have to make a new home if I could ever really settle down.
Through these sights, Bette held me. She was one up on me given how she knew what I needed, and that was a sensation of being close to someone.
Of course it felt funny that my virtual body was still nude as I "walked" around in the cubicle farm, looking in on my co-workers. Bette and I made love in a lot of different places that would, well, qualify as kinky.
We then travelled to one of my co-worker's home while she was telecommuting. Sally was one of the people I'd been sitting next to at that damnable "education" meeting. I was surprised to see she had bruises on her arms, though they looked to be fading.
Bette knew what I needed to do. Sally was one of the few people at work that I ever really trusted, so, without warning me, my virtual body took on some density, standing near the door of her overly neat office.
I checked my shadow. Bette, standing next to me, didn't cast any kind of shadow, so... It was just me. Bette told me "You need to do this. You need to say good bye, to someone who'll listen. You also need to know where you stand, too."
I sighed. Sally heard something and looked around... and saw my not-fully-solid form. Her eyes snapped open, her office chair got pushed back away from me, as she looked so scared, and then she seemed to relax. "Jack? Is that really you?"
The nod I gave her seemed to be enough, but she seemed to be frightened at the same time as she was curious.
Looking down, I realized that I was still mostly transparent. "Sally, I hope you don't mind me visiting you and you really shouldn't be anxious."
She nodded, jerkily, still anxious. I went over to an empty chair in the room and tried to sit down.
Sally laughed, surprised, as I fell through the chair and landed on my butt, my torso in the midst of the cushion. I got back to my feet and tried to glare at an "invisible" yet giggling Bette, and my form solidified before I sat down again, this time with the chair holding me. This seemed to calm Sally down.
My host stared at me and I looked down. I was still naked, so I used my hands to cut down on the view my hostess was getting.
"So, Jack, why are you here? Are you haunting me? What happened to you?"
Forgetting my nudity for a moment, I raised my left hand and pointed to her arms, asking "What happened to you? You look like you got beaten up?"
Sally glanced at her arms. "The sonic boom when you vanished did this, I got thrown across your seat and other folks landed on me. It was not fun. Are you dead?"
Smiling, I said "Not really. I'm... well... able to travel, though. I'm in a strange state where I can go places and not get hurt because what you see isn't my body but only the illusion-- to you and me-- of one. I had some mixed feelings about being away, and, had to look around. I was upset to discover that I've been declared dead, now."
She frowned. "It might be a bad idea to be alive again, you know. We got interviewed by all kinds of people, including one pair from the FBI. I swear, it was like I was in the X files. I overheard words like 'teleportation' and the like bandied about, so I don't think you want to come back any time soon."
I nodded and sighed, saying "Figures." I realized that the so-called "powers that be" were still more than a little bit paranoid and I didn't feel like I'd want to be a lab rat any time soon. If anything could really have convinced me that I'd be better off staying in this aetherial form, this stab of paranoia certainly brought it home.
Sally apparently noticed my pensive expression, and, to get me back on track, she asked, "So, where have you been for the last week?"
"Damn," I said, starting to laugh, "I wish I had a camera! I've been to the Moon, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, some notable asteroids, all over the Solar System. There are some great sights to see out there..."
Bette interrupted me, asking "Do you want her to see where you've been?"
I looked over and nodded... and the room disappeared and Sally and I sat in chairs which, to all appearances, seemed to be on the lunar surface. Bette stood there with us, it seemed, but none of us cast a shadow within this image. I recalled this scene from looking at the Apollo 11 site. I watched as I saw my image-- and Bette's-- walk across the scene, still quite nude, holding hands. Sally seemed stunned as she watched me walk to the flag and put it back up from where it had fallen, slapping it to get the moon dust off of it.
"Jack, why did you fix the flag? Heck, why was it on the ground?"
We watched as my image looked at all the foot-prints and examined all of the instrumentation left there, as I spoke to answer her question "I recall it was reported that the flag fell down when the ascent stage took off-- it was too close to the blast. Now, realize, I decided not to leave my footprints mixed in with Armstrong and Aldrin's, but I could not resist picking up the flag, just to freak out some people in the future."
I think Sally was a bit edgy as she watched me and Bette's image start coupling on the Sea of Tranquility. "So who's the girl?"
The current Bette apparently popped into Sally's vision to answer that question, with "I'm the avatar of Jack's transportation. I took the face from inside of his mind and built a body for myself based on his preferences. I act as his guide."
Sally looked at both of us again as the scene switch to Mars and the Opportunity rover. "All right, why are you both naked?"
Bette smiled. "There's no real point to clothing, you know, but, if pressed..." a pause and I watched as both her body and mine appeared to be clothed in some shape-hugging form that wasn't really any different from our bare skins, except that her outfit was white and mine was an electric blue.
If anything, this made us look even more naked than we were before.
Bette smirked. Sally frowned and told her "That wasn't much of an improvement."
Bette started laughing and so did I; I was reassured when Sally joined in, then we all calmed down and Sally got to see a lot of the best views that I'd seen across the Solar System.
Watching the scene of Bette and I going at it on one of Saturn's moons, she sighed, asking "Is there any place you haven't fucked each other's brains out?"
Bette smiled and answered "We haven't done it everywhere , you know. And I really want him to be with me for a long, long time. I also can't stay in the same place for very long, either, since my programming compels me to move on after just short of fifteen earth years."
This was interesting. My "ride" was dropping information I really needed to know but hadn't considered asking about.
Sally asked her "So, where will you be off to next?"
Bette turned to me... and then Sally looked to me.
I looked back at Bette. "So, hon, are there other worlds with humans on them out there in the galaxy?"
A shrug introduced the answer of "I've been idle-- in effect asleep-- for two hundred fifty-four thousand seven hundred sixty-five of your earth years, drifting through interstellar space, so I don't know where they'd be. You want to go looking?"
She was smiling at me, seemingly eager for me to make such a demand. "Yes, hon, see if there are any humans outside this solar system."
With a quickness that should have been like a "snap!" the whole vista Sally and I had been sitting in the midst of turned into a gray haze as we looked at an amorphous Bette.
There was something happening in the grayness as currents seemed to eddy, changing the colors so quickly that it kept the appearance of colorless grayness, and then points held color in various spots and the woman in my arms squeezed me.
"Jack, I have found ten planets where humans appear to be the primary sentients and five hundred forty-four where humans are mixed into the population. Which are you more interested in?"
Gawd, she was like wikipedia, looking to cut down on any ambiguity. "Let's consider the twelve mainly human worlds. What are they like?"
She leaned her head as the grayness broke into the image of a sphere surrounding the three of us, projecting the twelve different worlds. One, I could see, was mostly ocean. "What is that one like?"
"Shall we go look?" she asked. I turned to Sally. "I hope you won't mind if I visit you, now and again. Will that be all right?"
Sally gave me a smile. "Some day, I'll want to be able to travel, myself. I'll see you when I see you, OK?"
I nodded, got up, and gave her a hug, then went for Bette's hand, then kissed her. "Let's go, hon!"
With a soundless pop we materialized on a beach, naked again, surrounded by "people" that were only marginally, to my eye, human.
I looked to Bette. "These people don't look all that human to me."
She looked around. "Their DNA is compatible enough that you could breed with them. That was my criteria for selecting a human world."
My mouth must have hung open. "Why that particular reason for selection?"
Bette smirked. "As near as I can tell, biological life, no matter how advanced, always thinks, to some degree, with their gonads. Realize that you can impregnate females here, even in your current form, since I can replicate your sperm cells."
This was a revelation... but I'd just heard that I couldn't stay on one world long enough to watch any of my offspring reach full maturity.
It was with this thought in the back of my mind that I took another look at the surrounding people on this beach, many in the surf.
Not one of the people around us paid us the slightest heed and, even though we now fit into the dress code on this beach, we were odd in that my body had a fair amount of hair on it along with incorrect skin colors.
I have to admit that my eyes liked some of what I saw of the females on this beach. My virtual body's response told me that I was definitely a 'tit' man since the four pairs of nipples and teats on the women was exciting. Bette told me "The nice thing is that we can fit in..."
My body hair disappeared and my abdomen flattened as Bette grew an extra six nipples that rubbed into my chest which had somehow popped up a total of eight little nipples of my own. Our skin colors adjusted.
"Language?" I asked.
She smiled as she answered "It's covered". I was looking down at the sand when I saw our shadows slowly form and felt the warm sand under my feet and wet surf run across my feet.
It sure felt like this was real, even if I had gotten a hard-on more than once in the last hour.
My first time, under a sun not my own, stepping onto a new world...
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Author: Jack C Lipton Title: Lift Ticket Part: 1 Universe: SciFi Summary: Massless Transit is more involved Keywords: scfi MF Revision: $Revision: 1.5 $ Archive: http://www.asstr-mirror.org/files/Authors/CupaSoup/www/ Mailing List: FAQ: RCS: $Id: hitched.x,v 1.5 2007/10/06 21:47:41 jcl Exp $