I led her back across town to the spot where I’d come in. Her dress morphed as we walked, gradually turning into something a lot less eye-catching. The floating ribbons that hovered around her merged into the fabric, the strategically placed cutouts closed, and her plunging neckline rose to something a lot more modest. The high-heeled shoes melted into practical boots, the gloves extended up her arms to fuse with the sleeves of her dress, and then the skirt started to get shorter. By the time we got where we were going she was wearing a skinsuit that covered everything from the neck down, with a short skirt and a light jacket that kept the tight garment from being too revealing.
I’d never seen smart matter clothes in action before, so it was kind of cool to watch. But I thought Naoko was more interesting.
She was beautiful, of course. Spacers always have enough money for cosmetic mods, and what kind of weirdo wouldn’t make herself look good when it was so easy? But it was a different kind of beauty than anyone I’d seen before. Her face was pure aristocratic elegance, with high cheekbones and dark eyes. She was taller than any of the matrons, pushing a hundred and seventy cems, which left her towering over my puny hundred and fifty. Her hair was two-tone, dark red woven with pure black, like a smoky flame cascading over her shoulders and down her back.
She was slender, but her figure was much bolder than anyone I’d seen on Felicity. Something about the way she moved kept drawing my eyes along sculpted legs and swaying hips… darn it, I didn’t know whether to be embarrassed or jealous.
Maybe both. I resolved then and there that someday I was going to have breasts like hers. I’d never realized that big ones could make a woman look so sexy.
She caught me looking, and raised an elegantly sculpted eyebrow. “Is there a problem, Alice?”
I flushed. “I, um, no. I just, well, no one on Felicity looks like you. You’re really pretty.”
She smiled. “Thank you, Alice. But do try not to get distracted. You can gaze in wonder all you like once we return to the ship.”
I gulped, and looked away. “Sorry! I didn’t mean to stare. Oh, look, we’re almost there. Just down the alley here, and up the wall…”
Her knowing smile made me feel like a little kid. Thank Gaia she let it go at that.
I was more in my element once we started our sneak. I found the spot with the overhanging branches easily enough, and scampered up the side of the building. Naoko stared up after me for a minute, and shook her head.
She made a throwing motion, and something smacked into the side of the building near the roofline and stuck. I took a closer look, and realized it was some kind of grappling device attached to a thin cable of woven carbon fiber. I guess it had a motor on it too, because Naoko just held her arm out and the cable pulled her up. She swung herself up onto the roof with a nimble acrobatic maneuver that caused enough bouncing to pull my eyes right back to where they weren’t supposed to be. Darn it, was she doing that on purpose?
I turned around, and made my way to the branch I’d used to get in. It was easily within jumping distance, although Naoko used her gadget again for some reason.
“Hold up, please,” she said when I turned to go. “My drone will be here with the boxes momentarily. It’s best if it doesn’t try to cross the fence.”
“Alright,” I said.
We waited quietly for a moment.
“Alice,” she said hesitantly. “Will you be offended if I ask what you are?”
“Just a girl with a lot of enhancements. Why?”
“May I see your hands?”
I didn’t see a reason to say no, so I let her examine them. “What are you looking for?”
“The way you climbed that wall looked like setae gloves,” she explained. “But your skin feels completely natural now. That’s very impressive engineering, Alice. Well beyond what one normally sees in civilian hands here in the Federation.”
I shrugged. “The navy found me in a pirate base when I was a baby. I’ve always wondered who my mom was, but I don’t know anything. Maybe there’s a clue there?”
“Perhaps,” she agreed. “We should talk to Doctor Misra about it when we get back to the ship. He might be able to tell you something.”
“You have a doctor on the ship? Like, an actual medical doctor who’s a person, and not a bot? Wow, that must be expensive.”
“You’d have to ask the captain about that,” she said. “But yes, Doctor Misra is human, and certified to work on a wide variety of morph types and cybernetics.”
“Sweet. Maybe she can tell me what’s up with some of these malnutrition warnings I keep getting. Oh, there’s your drone.”
The little messenger bot was a lot like the ones that sometimes made deliveries to the orphanage. A sticklike body with four thruster pods mounted on it, and a cargo bundle slung underneath. Naoko waved it down and unpacked the boxes with brisk efficiency, then sent the bot back to her shuttle.
That was the last thing she did efficiently.
I swear, the moment we passed the fence line it was like she lost thirty points of IQ and turned into a complete klutz. She had no idea how to climb a tree, and I had to take the boxes and hold her hand to get her down without falling. She tripped over a tree root before we were even into the forest, and then she walked right into a bush.
“Alice, help! Something’s got me!”
“It’s a bush, Naoko.”
She flailed aimlessly at the branches, and somehow managed to trip herself. “It’s eating me! Help! Get it off!”
“Naoko, it doesn’t even have a mouth. Ugh. Fine, stop panicking.”
I pulled her out. She stumbled backwards, falling on me and knocking us both to the ground.
“Eep!” She threw her arms around me and hung on like I was a life preserver. “Is it gone, Alice? Are we safe now?”
I groaned. “Great galloping consumerism, what’s gotten into you Naoko? It was just a bush. You do know what bushes are, right?”
“Bushes don’t jump out of the dark and grab you,” she objected. “It’s a monster. Is it gone now? Are we safe? What do I do? I don’t know what to do, Alice!”
“Naoko, calm down. It’s alright. You’re safe.”
I hugged her, because it seemed like the thing to do. Was she trembling? Wow, why was she so freaked out?
After a minute she stopped shaking, and seemed to get herself back under control.
“I’m sorry about that, Alice.”
“Are you alright, Naoko?”
She pulled away, glancing around at the dark forest around us. She flinched, and buried her face in my chest again.
“I hate it when this happens,” she said, sounding exasperated with herself.
“What’s wrong? You’ve got night vision, don’t you?”
“Of course I do. But I’m not programmed for this kind of environment. I’m getting buffer overflows in my visual processing, and every time I try to make sense of that vegetation my situational awareness module crashes. I’m sorry, Alice, this was a bad idea. I’m going to be completely useless out here.”
“It’s going to be okay, Naoko,” I reassured her. “Look, can you trust me? I can get around the woods just fine. All you have to do is follow me, and don’t make any loud noises. Can you do that?”
She nodded, still looking a little shaky. “Yes, I suppose I can. Are you sure you can find your way? We’re almost out of sight of the fence. Without a navgrid I’m going to be completely lost.”