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Author: Jack C Lipton
Title: Lift Ticket
Part: 
Universe: SciFi
Summary: Massless Transit is more involved
Keywords: scfi MF
Revision: $Revision: 1.3 $
Archive: http://www.asstr.org/~CupaSoup/
Mailing List: 
FAQ: 
RCS: $Id: hitched.x,v 1.3 2006/08/06 14:39:14 jcl Exp $



			Lift Ticket

		      by Jack C Lipton

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.

Joe checked out an hour ago, dreaming of fields of clover
and a girl named Cindi... oh, wait, this isn't a Newton Ad.

So there I was, trapped in another useless meeting that was
mistakenly billed as "educational", and wishing that I was
elsewhere.

*Anywhere* else.

I found out later that the implosive boom of my departure
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 my friends as a... ghost... 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 I've fallen!  I
calmed down realizing 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, couldn't 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 and rational thought, of course, was
that I was dead.

Hanging onto the mudflaps of that thought was the kicker:
If this is death, why did I put it off for so long?

Death 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?"

Now imagine how you'd feel upon saying that and hearing
silence.

I noticed, as I mulled the silence, that the earth seemed to
be drifting away at an 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, this seemed like Heaven.  I had wonderful
eyesight and could pick out the city where I'd previously
been imprisoned in a conference room, then looked over and
saw 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.

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
for me, and a strong imagination so I could 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 voice, "I heard you asking God that,
and, since 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 _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.  I was idle,
no passenger, drifting through realspace, and I found you
and your mind within my span of attention as 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, fusing myself to 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 body, you only have an illusion of one.  If
one of your kind was pacing us, they'd see you as an
unprotected human floating in space.  So the illusion of a
body works both ways and is as complete as possible.  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 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 all that
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!
You humans are all capable, there may be nothing
particularly special about you... but your mind, you see, is
special, simply because you're what I'm made to 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 programming, I chose you."

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 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 years.  The longest was an imperial auditor, for
forty-four thousand six hundred six years.  She gave me up
because the interstellar empire she was working to maintain 
had become something corrupt and 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
being a carrier for people who needed to get around without
all of the nonsense of travelling in ships."

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 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 a sentient when I am without a
passenger to carry.  Instead, I drift along in threespace to
await a chance encounter to collect a passenger.  I use part
of my passenger's mind/identity 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
Roberta had been one of the forces that triggered my
separation from my wife.

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
always having a server that I name 'Roberta', I decided to
name my taxi driver "Can I call you Roberta?  Or Bobbi?"

Her face was as beautiful as I fantasized the real Bobbi's
to be as she looked into my eyes and smiled.  "Of course,
Jack" and I got yet another hug out of the deal.

For the first time since this transformation had occurred, I
noticed that my unreal body was nude.  As was Bobbi'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 imagined my fake self was better
equipped for sex than my real 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.  When I give you
your body back 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 called this unreal state ended,
I couldn't go back.  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, Bobbi, what do you
get out of having a passenger?"

Another addictive hug was felt 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, giving her a hug.  "I wonder how this feels to you
given that I'm such a primitive."

"You, Jack," she answered, scratching my back in a delicious
way, "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 that I want
you to be with me for a long time, so I want our couplings
to be as pleasant as possible."

I smiled.  "So, are there humans 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 up at me, seemingly eager for me to make a
command.  "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 of stars, the earth, sun and moon vanished into
a gray haze as I clung to the limp girl in my arms, suddenly
worried that I'd be abandoned here.

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 twelve 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 us, projecting the twelve different
worlds.  One, I could see, was mostly ocean.  "What is that
one like?"

"Let's go look!" she said and *pop* we materialized on a
beach, still quite naked, surrounded by "people" that were
only marginally, in my eye, human.

I looked to Bobbi.  "These don't look very human to me."

She looked around.  "Their DNA is close enough to your own
that you _could_ breed with them.  That was my criteria for
selecting a human world."

Not one of the people around us paid us the slightest heed
and, even though we fit into the dress code on this beach,
we were odd in that my body had a fair amount of hair on it.
Not to mention that we were both the wrong skin colors.

I have to admit that my eyes liked 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.  Bobbi told me "The
nice thing is that we can fit in..."

My body hair disappeared and my abdomen flattened as Bobbi
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, stepping onto a new world...



                           * Fini *

-- 
Jack C Lipton | cupasoup at pele dot cx | http://www.asstr.org/~CupaSoup/

-- 
Pursuant to the Berne Convention, this work is copyright with all rights
reserved by its author unless explicitly indicated.
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