512 A Typical Day Healing

I had to admire Gloria's resolve after she left. She had desperately wanted to take me and her sheer professionalism had stopped her. Barely. It was commendable, actually. In fact, she had been much more open and flirty during our date meal than yesterday, since she knew what it was this time and had openly agreed to it.

She was smart, sexy, and had a body that any woman would have killed for. She was fit and also curvy, in all the best spots, and she was confident in ways that only a woman that had earned her independence could have.

I didn't try to poke too deep into her mind to get more of her background, though. If she wanted to tell me about herself, then she could. Cheating like that wasn't fair to her or to our budding relationship. It was a little surprising that she really was developing genuine feelings for me, despite only knowing me for a brief time.

Then again, she practically held my brain in her hands and helped put me back together. If something like that didn't form a connection between two people, nothing would. Of course, that made me think of my ripperdoc and what he was up to.

A ping of an incoming call hit the cyberdeck in the bedroom and I routed it to my vidscreen. It connected and Victor Vektor appeared.

“Speak of the devil and he shall appear!” I joked and Vic laughed. “How's the biz?”

“Always busy, V.” Victor said. “As your registered cybernetic doctor, I finally got the notice you bailed from the hospital two days ago.”

That made me laugh in return at how long that took. “Yay for bureaucracy!”

Victor laughed, too. “I called to see how you're doing.”

“I got near 24 hour nursing care, choom. I'm nova.” I responded.

Victor nodded and looked pleased. “Good, good. How's the head?” He asked and then glanced down at the rest of me. “And everything else?”

“I'm not even sore.” I told him and he looked surprised, so I gave him the same pile of bull I gave Gloria about how the dorphs and stims worked even better with my immune system not dragged down by the excessive amount of metal in my body.

Victor looked thoughtful for a few seconds and nodded. “It could be a side effect of your immune system working overtime through the anti-rejection medication you were on, too.”

“That's what I figured.” I agreed. “I don't even need the splints to keep my arms and legs straight anymore, just the wrappings.”

Victor shook his mead. “Damn, choom. I didn't think the chrome you had was putting you down that much. I would have held off on installing the last two updates on you if I knew.”

“No one knows how much chrome impacts you until it's gone, and by then it usually doesn't count, cause they're flatlined.” I said with a chuckle. “I'm the exception here, not the rule.”

Victor smiled and nodded. “You're looking much better than the last time I saw you.”

“I can't say the same about you.” I joked and he smiled. “Anyone interesting come in this week?”

Victor gave me a knowing look. “You can't even move your hands to type. How're you going to handle coding?”

“Copy and paste, of course.” I said and held up the temporary clicker he had given me. “Unless you wanna help me come up with something better?”

Victor smiled and plugged a connection cord into his neck port. “Hook me in to your cyberdeck and let's get to work. With a little luck and a bigger clicker, you won't have to veg all day on the couch and can catch up on your missed homework.”

“Nova.” I said and pretended to use the clicker to do what he wanted and brought the view up on the vidscreen. I pretended to run basic commands with the clicker by choosing and executing them, which let me work at a snail's pace and Victor worked like lightning as I shared some of my code tricks and hacks with him.

*

Synapse checked the apartment's security camera feed from last night while on her lunch break. She skimmed it at a fast speed, since she knew she barely did anything besides feed him supper and then she gonked out.

She barely saw her hands moving with her head in the way and had to stop it, rolled the feed back, and watched it in real-time. To her immense relief, she hadn't taken advantage of him and given him a blow job or a hand-job. Even a quick one would have lasted a lot longer than the few moments her hands had been under the towel to tuck him away.

She still felt guilty about being paid for a full shift after she had gotten drunk and slept through most of it, though. Unfortunately, she really needed that money and couldn't offer to pay it back. She also knew that if she did offer, he wouldn't accept it anyway.

An errant thought made her wonder if he had seen her playing with herself and she skimmed back to when the show was on and she saw him fall asleep almost right away. He did kind of see her breasts for a moment, although she had them almost completely covered by her own groping hands.

Maybe a little personal bribe could settle things?Syn asked herself.

She browsed through her extensive collection of selfies and vids of her showing off to both guys and girls, and a few of her in some club's bathroom mirror with a broken strap on her top. Her blue hair really accented her bright red nipple and that dress barely covered her ass.

That's the one.She thought and marked it as 'payment done', just so Veder didn't expect her to do anything like that for real. He was cute with the shaved head giving him that dangerous look, even with the bandages covering most of him. He wasn't even close to her type.He's due for a bath, too.

Synapse checked the logs at the apartment and the quick medical report Gloria filed. She was a little disappointed that his day nurse had already washed him by herself and she couldn't use that as a way to give him a little thrill with a few teasing touches near certain places. Younger men were always so easy to tease like that.

She finished eating and went back to work. She had a long way to go before her shift ended and then she could enjoy another top rated meal for free and could spend even more time in that preem apartment. It wasn't corpo luxury; but, it was a damn sight better than her own place that was barely half the size and she had her whole family living there.

There was her, her mother, younger sister, and a very young little brother were all squeezed into that tiny place. Her mom was too worn out to work much these days, her sister was still in school, and her brother was too little to do more than go to school, eat, and sleep. That put most of the responsibility for the family on her shoulders and she couldn't move out, even if she wanted to.

Despite her lucrative job, things were a bit too expensive for her to enjoy it much. Keeping four people going on a single salary was difficult at the best of times, so she really needed to be more aware while she worked. Sometimes her shifts could bore her to tears, which was terrible in this day and age. Hospital policy to not access the net while at work really sucked.

*

Victor Vektor promised to do what he could to have the new device ready by tomorrow. I just laughed and told him to never make promises he knows he can't keep. He was much too busy to take six hours off from work to put that thing together. I didn't really needed it until I was done healing in a few days, anyway. He agreed to definitely have it by then, working through his lunch and dinner to get it done.

“Have a good night, Vic.” I said and wiggled my fingers at him. “Syn's about to arrive for her shift.”

Victor waved back. “Later, V.”

He disconnected the call and I changed the television station back to the one Syn had left it on. If she asked about her thank you and apology note that was no longer on the screen, I'd tell her Victor had cleared that for me when he called. I doubted she would, though. Most people assumed someone else did it if they went somewhere and things had changed since the last time they went there.

Syn came in and was almost her usual bubbly self. The look in her eyes gave away that she wasn't as enthusiastic as she had been the day before. A quick poke to her mind let me know that she felt guilty about what happened the night before and had a surprise for me.

“Hey, Syn!” I said and grinned at her. “How jealous were your friends when you told them about the latest episode of 'For The Love Of Money'?”

Syn's guilty look disappeared and her face almost lit up with happiness. “They nearly overloaded my receiver with how many messages they sent during my breaks!”

I chuckled and she walked into the kitchen to grab two more meals, the mains the same as last time and the sides different. She didn't grab another bottle of alcohol, though. She came back to the living room and regaled me about sending still images of the parts of the episode her friends couldn't see and the demands for her to send more were clogging up her datalines.

Despite having access to loads of porn on the net, seeing their favorite stars perform similar acts on network television, acts only hinted at usually, had made Syn instantly horny and all of her friends wanted to share in that experience. They'd have to wait for the weekend, though. Sending something like that over an open dataline would have Syn instantly caught, charged with theft, and possibly arrested for creating a braindance that violated the network's copyright.

“How's the bladder?” Syn asked after cleaning up.

“Taken care of for now.” I said and she nodded.

“I saw the logs.” Syn said and motioned to the bathroom. “Gloria gave you a bath today.”

“It was more perfunctory than necessary. I can't move much, so the sweating was minimal.” I said with a small shrug, which was all I could manage with my shoulders held immobile. “She did a good job, though. Everything but under the casts was done.”

Syn nodded. “She did message me about what to do to protect them. I didn't think she'd try to tackle you all by herself, though.”

I laughed. “Tackle me? I'm trussed up like a gonk mummy. She barely had to do anything to move me around to get everywhere.”

Syn's eyes dropped to my waist. “Did she get everywhere?”

I knew what she was really asking, so I answered with what she wanted to hear. “Completely professional and didn't take any liberties, despite me being harder than steel.”

Syn barked a laugh. “The first time a woman washes you like that is always the most memorable.”

I didn't correct her on Gloria being the first to do that, since she wasn't. The first on this world, sure. I'd also put it into her head that week two would need another bath, especially after removing my casts.

Syn's happy face changed slightly and she gave me a look that was intense and also a little scared. “I'm sorry for what happened last night...”

I shook my head. “I know what it's like to let go when the mood hits you and just enjoy yourself sometimes, Syn. There's no shame in it.” I said and them smirked at her. “I was young once, too.”

Syn looked surprised and then laughed and laughed. She kept giving me searching looks and I'd give her a superior or smug look, and that just set her off again. It took her a few minutes before she calmed down enough to speak without breaking into laughter again.

“I felt guilty about it... and thought I could bribe you with something private to keep quiet about it.” Syn said and her eyes went blank for a second and she nodded at the television screen.

I turned my head to look and caught my breath. It was a picture of her with one breast exposed, standing in front of a large mirror, and her dress was hiked up enough that half of her ass was hanging out the side. It was a pretty provocative pose and that was not a private bathroom.

“I'm glad you appreciate it for what it is.” Syn whispered.

I nodded, because the 'payment done' was a clear indication that she was not going to do anything else, either visually like this or physically. “You didn't have to...”

“I know.” Syn said and patted my foot. “I also don't want you to take my begging to let me come over all the time at face value.”

I raised my eyebrows at her. “What do you mean?”

Syn blushed and looked away. “I can't be visiting your apartment every week on a certain day for several hours, then leave with my clothes dishevelled and hair messed up.” She said pointedly. “Everyone'll think I'm a joytoy.”

Oh.I thought and then mentally laughed. If she did come over, she was fully prepared to enthusiastically masturbate just as much as she had the first time. “We can't have that.”

“No, we can't.” Syn said and looked back at me. Her face flushed red again at seeing my disappointed face. “Even if it would be fun.”

“Preem fun.” I said and decided to tease her a little. “Don't you have a couple friends who'd like to watch the show instead?”

Syn's eyes widened and then she laughed. “Ch-choom... you just... haha!”

I laughed as well and she relaxed, the nervousness and guilt gone from her posture and her mind. Making it into a joke and accepting her gift without freaking out about it, or making a big deal out of it, reassured her that I wasn't going to hold her behavior against her.

We talked for a while about different things, mostly about her friends and family, and the rest of her shift passed by almost before we knew it. She left with a pep in her step and a smile on her face, after I promised to never show anyone the picture she had sent to me. That was for me and no one else.

I waved goodbye to her and chuckled. She had a lot more pictures and vids than that, if her thoughts were any indication. Telling me it was only for me, was her way of teasing me without me knowing. Calling her Syn was definitely fitting.

I laid back on the couch and relaxed. I had been awake for a lot longer than I probably should have been and needed to get some actual sleep. I could forgo it for a long time if I wanted to, and I didn't want to. I had more than enough time to make plans as I pretended to heal and then I could start working at implementing them as soon as I was declared healthy.

Like always, I'd start small at first. Spread around some influence, maybe hire a few people as guards and security, then I could show the people here what cybernetic technology could really do. After I was established, a certain someone sitting in my inventory might make an appearance, too.

People here thought they knew what true AIs were like? They had no fucking clue.