Aberrant: 200X - There Comes A Tapping

[WhiteRain]

Chang Zha-Yang logged off the chat room, feeling like a refugee from an alien world.

She had grown used to that feeling of being not like baselines. Equally, she had grown used to the feeling of belonging around novas.

That feeling was nonexistant in Vancouver.

Listening to them chat had been the forum exaggerated a thousand times, a mess of conversations she had no place in and could not follow. Of course, without existing relationships that had a degree of inevitability to it, but her problem lay in the certainty that she never could have a place in those conversations.

She clicked on Scrambler's message and reread it.

Maybe her upset had stemmed from knowing that he had a point.

It had been years since she really thought about her Teragen days. The easy comraderie, the long talks, the passion, the intimacy and danger. There had been something enjoyable, even intoxicating, about knowing that the world objected to their thoughts, about being on the revolutionary edge.

Leaving that life and those people behind had been a straightforward acceptance of the truth that both times and people changed. Nobody could follow Teras without accepting that. Change was the whole point of the philosophy, after all.

She had never realized, before, that she missed those days.

On the other hand, this reaction could have stemmed from the pain she had already been feeling. Feelings of isolation and loneliness had always been associated with a move into fresh social environments.

Chang concentrated, thinking through her feelings. Somewhere during the day's events she had lost control. She had lost self-perception. The words on her screen, and the man behind them, were to blame.

No. That did not make sense. It did not help.

The blame for it lay on Chang. A failure of her own self-control could never be in the hands of another, short of the use of some quantum abilities.

Self-criticism had always been one of her strongest weapons. Criticism could have negative consequences in some people; they could become hot-tempered and take offense, or over compensate unproductively. Not her. Criticism calmed her, inspired contemplation and analysis in search of what kernels of truth lay within the words.

To find herself blaming someone else for her own failures brought Chang sharply back into focus. Perhaps she had begun to slip from her path, but if so thoughts of Scrambler were the key to it. There was no element of blame to this, not right now. Chang simply ran her mind over the day's events, over her own emotional twists and turns, totalling up similarities before drawing any conclusions. Without any doubt, Scrambler and thoughts of her time in the Teragen had caused chaos.

The next key lay in figuring out the message her future soul was sending. She felt that something important had begun, something significant. Her past, present and imagined future selves were touching base.

Chang had always felt that her development was a continuum rather than unrelated 'quantum leaps'. The beauty of the process lay in the erosion of a succession of current selves to help a future self emerge, who in turn used the shreds of past selves to fuel further erosion and change. Her current past self had so loved the Teragen and the revolution it promised. Her present self sought to discover what that revolution meant for her. Currently, she envisioned her future self as one who had discovered and lived with that revolution, and by the philosophy of Teras, that future self guided her onward.

If the three were coming together even a little, she could not allow the chance to pass.

Her past self had settled things with the Teragen. Her present self did not seem to be sure. Where did her future self lie?

Chang was used to the painful feelings that accompanied feeling divided on something in the present but knowing - without any doubt - that the thing had no place in her future. When she felt herself take that shuddering step toward chrysalis years ago, she had felt that about her friends in the Teragen. She had known that her future would take her away from them, even though it scared her at the time and she did not know what would happen without Scrambler's guiding hand on her shoulder.

Yet here she was. That conceived future self made real, and this self's future self did not seem so sure. Did her path, having snaked away, lead her back to Scrambler? Maybe even to the Pandaimonion?

Stranger things had happened.

Regardless, these issues would need long periods of meditation and exploration to clear up. There came a point in Teras when change needed to be forced, but Chang knew she stood far from that precipice.

Chang squeezed herself back into human shape, standing up from the chair-form she had adopted at her console. She shut the OpNet console down and walked away, considering.

Night had come, deep and dark, bringing with it the siren call of the outside world. She always had been a night person, and now more than ever.

The past day's confusions and chaos had faded out, her calm had returned. She began to reconsider the OpNet chat session, and see it in a broader light.

The nova Jael had made an interesting comment. While typically surprised by Chang's 'barge' - to borrow the phrase - she had been keen to point out that there were other novas who could widen their passages. Of course, Chang knew that. She could do it herself and lacked the arrogance to consider herself wholly unique in the world. No two novas were the same, but powers did repeat from time to time.

It emphasized to her that sex mattered somehow. The fact the comment - and the casual acceptance it implied - pleased her suggested that. She could feel hope stirring within, thoughts of love that might one day be fulfilled.

That led to another thought.

Love and sex were, more and more, entwining in Chang's mind. Side effect of loneliness, or something deeper?

The chat had been worthwhile. It had perhaps been a mistake to engage it when she felt fragile, but on the other hand, had she not swiftly corrected herself?

Of course, something altogether different had come out of the chat as well. Something which bore immediate impact.

Sakurako had traced Scrambler's whereabouts to Athens, Greece.

Chang had no doubts at all about the truth behind that bit of information. Scrambler had begun to retrace her steps. Perhaps he had a genuine interest in seeing how his first student had grown since she left him. Or perhaps, like the hunter she knew he was, Scrambler pursued her the way a lion followed the tracks of its prey.

Regardless, Scrambler would come to Vancouver soon.

Chang wrapped her hair tight around herself and molded it into a tight leather corset modified for her triple breasts. A mesh undershirt clothed her shoulders and arms, while black, tight leather trousers failed to do anything but emphasize her cock and ran down into high-heeled boots. After a moment's thought, she formed a sling out of her hair and dragged her shaft vertical, so it reached up to press gently against the underswell of her middle breast.

Her flesh rippled and tattoos painted themselves onto her flesh. Trailing black fingers covered the left side of her face, across from the white rain drop under her right eye. Beetles ran down her arm from the spider web on her left shoulder. A black sunburst nestled between her shoulder blades, while monster eyes seemed to peer from the upper curves of her breasts. Her visible hair formed a volumous parting, jet black with sharp red and blue highlights.

She raised her hand, concentrated, and molded it into a hand mirror, smoothing and smoothing her flesh until it shone and then reflected. Her eyes had turned brilliant yellow and glowing orange. Fire shades.

Walking to the door, Chang smiled and thrust her finger into the lock, compressing and pushing into the slit. It took a minute or two to expand right, expertly spreading the soft flesh to make a perfect mould of the key. She twisted her finger and opened the door, snagging her wallet from a ledge to the right of it.

Pleased that she no longer needed the key at all, Chang stretched her arm back into the room, grabbed both sets of keys, and put one set down into each of her cleavages. Her breasts sucked the keys inside her, and she began to digest them.

Chang headed out into the darkness, not sure where she intended to go, nor thinking about where she might end up.

There had been a little too much thought today. Time to follow her instincts for a while.

[WhiteRain]

***

Chang thought that metal had a curious taste. She had a feeling that one day she would be something of a gourmet of things Man Should Not Eat; perhaps she could start a nova-only club with those initials, but in truth she had no idea if her capacity was unique, rare or commonplace.

Regardless, she preferred the taste of the metal keys than the plastic keyrings.

Her food interests occupied a good portion of her wanderings. Discarded bricks, broken glass of varying hues and types, paper, and some other types of metal she found in back alleys or cast on the ground in the street all disappeared into her hands or lips or bountiful cleavage to be swallowed deep inside.

Glass had a great deal of appeal. Bricks less so. Glass had a smooth, even taste, rather reminiscent of water. Bricks - no matter how she tried to control the consumption process - seemed more like mayonnaise that had gone off and become lumpy. Her lips twisted to think of it.

Chang's behaviour did not go unnoticed, for she made no effort to hide it. People watched when she passed, first taking a double take at the beautiful asian passing by, then double taking as they realized she was a nova. Once or twice she began to attract a crowd, and evaded them by stretching up fire escapes to the roof of nearby buildings.

It bothered her that she had to do it by stages. She felt like she ought to be able to go straight from the ground to the roofs.

She had kept her vision expanded with the odd quantum surge, so that the night offered no more impediment to her eyes than the brightness of day. Even though she had consciously made herself less contemplative, she wished to see everything with the greatest of clarity. And she saw that - despite what she had been told and had come in part to believe in her Teragen days - baselines did not all behave the same.

All of them were curious when they recognized a nova walking amongst them. Those who noticed her bosom were sometimes shocked, and sometimes disturbed, and sometimes very much interested. Those who recognized the bulge in her corset were unnerved, uniformly. But those were 'gut' reactions. Taint marked Chang's distinction from them, and their responses emphasized it. What came afterwards was the difference.

She had the benefit of being able to make them all believe she paid no attention, for of course she had no need of her eyes and so focused them on the ground in front of her. This left the baselines freedom to gawk, to stare or admire as they desired.

And they did.

Some whispered or made lewd jokes - her beauty guaranteed that sort of reaction at times - others had the standard response of 'nova spotters', trying to follow her and figure out what she had done so they could make a report to their friends on the OpNet. Others had the twitchy, fear-laden response she had grown used to. A few recognized her as White Rain, and had the nerve to approach her for autographs.

Chang enjoyed those meetings. She had forced her record company to allow her to run small, intimate buildings during her one world tour because she liked to be close to her fans when she played, and to talk to them between songs.

The words the baselines said were not important. Nor were they clever. The boy found it hard to avoid her breasts, the girl kept glancing down at her cock. Both were earnest, though, and they tried, and when Chang signed their copies of her last distributed album, their smiles were pure.

She watched them go feeling glad inside. Uplifted. Chang expanded her hearing, felt the city's thousand thousand noises come to life in her mind, and focused on the words of the two fans, though they were already on the next street.

It did not surprise her to hear them begin to talk about her body, and how uncomfortable it made them feel. The girl - Amanda her name had been - defended her, talking about how her aberrations were like a disability, and they shouldn't judge. She focused on the music.

Chang smiled and walked off toward Chinatown, listening to the pair talk for another few blocks before the other sounds of the city drowned them out.

Baselines did not understand. But they did not have to hate, or to fear.

The baselines in Chinatown were very different to those on the normal streets of Vancouver. They left her be, talked about her but not to her. When she paused by a stand selling trinkets to study its wares, the seller pressed his hands together and bowed to her. He could not know she looked at him, for her eyes were focused straight ahead.

She appreciated the easy respect that came out of her countrymen. A man from China may be the same race as a man from Canada, they might have the same gut reaction to Chang's presence, but they responded differently at the higher level. Different cultural imperitives demanded different responses.

Idly, she wondered what cultures a nova nation might develop. Looking at the world as it stood, she imagined it would be a violently divergent one, composed of extremes rather than the sort of smooth continuum that comprised most baseline societies.

Novas were good at extreme.

Chang moved through Chinatown back into Vancouver's main body, into the club district. It had been a long time since she lost herself in the music and press of bodies. Mostly because it did not remain a press of bodies for long when she hit the floor.

So be it. Tonight her mind was out for the proceedings, and the desires of the flesh were in ascendance.

No nova found it hard to get into a club. Even the stupidest, most boorish lout of a nova could get in by flexing whatever they had or glowing for the bouncers or signing an autograph. Nobody would ever describe her as stupid, or a lout. It took her little more than an easy, knowing smile to get ushered in after a perfunctory and hesitant pat down by the bouncers. When the man - a good foot taller than Chang - accidentally patted her cock and realized what he had touched, she wiggled her nose at him and gave a seductive lip pout.

Inside the club Chang wound through the crowd of baselines, adjusting her path to slip through the spaces as they formed, easily making her way to the bar without even being touched. She ran through every cocktail on the menu while listening to every conversation and sound in the building.

These were the simple moments, the ones that could not help but make her smile. She could see so much and hear so keenly. Between the music and the density of sound she could not quite make out whispers, but she could pick out every individual foot and through that picture the dancers on the floor, hear the glasses on the tables and at least one pair of people trying to be quiet while they had sex in the corner.

Chang felt she must have looked crazed, standing there at the bar with her smile growing ever wider as she ordered cocktails, seeming to ignore everything else around her but the menu.

She ran through the whole cocktail menu once, then went through it backwards. First she drunk with her lips. The second time she poured the drinks over her breasts and absorbed them through the flesh, and tossed in the glasses after.

The bartenders were not terribly keen on that, but what could they say? She told them to charge the price of new glasses and keep them coming.

With that done and her joy spiralling ever upward, Chang slid to the dance floor. No matter how tight the press became she found a slot, responding instantly to the small gaps that showed and slipping through.

Then she stood on the dance floor, smiling, listening to the music as it washed over her. Novox tunes for the most part, the hottest sounds with beats designed to pump the heart. Chang listened and saw and felt... and danced.

She followed the beat like no baseline ever could, with grace and raw bleeding passion. While they filled the air with the scent of their sweat, Chang's body stayed clean. She pushed harder, wanting to sheen herself, to throw herself as deep and hard as she could into this night of physicality.

Quantum flowed, her body softened. The tune changed and Chang's dance shifted tempo and shape. Her heart pounded, she sucked oxygen. She could feel the alcohol and glasses softening inside her, molding together into a semi-liquid goop that sloshed about with her movements. It became part of her internal rhythm.

Chang saw people stopping, watching her.

It started with one, and like some weird infection spread all around her.

By the time Chang stopped dancing, she'd stretched her arms out above her, coiled them together like a rope and begun to weave her body back and forth like some crazed snake charmer.

With a little rubbery creak, she slid back to normal shape, and smiled at the silent.

"I liked the beat," she said, then turned and walked off the floor.

This time she made no effort to avoid touching people as she went. It did not bother her that most flinched away.It felt good to touch, and best of all to stretch out her neck to brush her lips on someone's neck as she headed for the door. Her cock grew stiff, causing her corset to groan and distort as it thickened to be as wide as her thigh, and now pushed up firmly between two of her breasts. A precisely sexual sort of pleasure joined in with the evening's delicious stimulation.

"I feel good," Chang muttered, as she stepped out of the club into the night, the taste of sweat, and glass, and a dozen types of alcohol setting her taste buds alight.

[WhiteRain]

***

Just as before, Chang let her body have its way, and take her where it willed.

Even though she kept her quantum pulsing, kept her perceptions razor sharp, she tried to pay as little attention to the input as possible. The sense of freedom and joy that filled her now felt so raw and overpowering that she knew it could not be opposed.

She would meditate upon it later, but right now she felt that this was like a boiler shedding excess steam. Chang felt no pain, no anger, no fear or worry. Nor did she feel obligated to think and rethink her every act and feeling. All things had their time and their place.

Maybe there would be a day when all physical desires were burnt away and she became a creature of pure thought, emotion and philosophy.

She did not believe it could ever happen. This felt too right.

Her existence felt... different. Without allowing her mind to process the mass of input from her senses, she became more and more a creature of instinct, acting without thought, responding purely to stimulus as fast as her nerves could pass information.

"Uh... can I help?"

Chang knew the woman had been there. She had been quite conscious of her presence, but now that she chose to be, all of the input related to the woman surged into the forefront of her thoughts.

She stood across the street from a gay club. It stood on the corner of a street, a glittering sign bearing a stylized male and female symbol hung above the door. The woman who had addressed her stood on the corner, too, possessed of a decent figure and reasonable looks, with long laddered tights, and worn leathers tight on a well-used body. Her hair, dirty blonde, did no favours for her overall appearance, as she wore too much makeup.

A prostitute. Her eyes darted between Chang's face and her now flaccid cock, still thick as a bottle of coke.

"What is the name of this place?" Chang said.

"You mean the club?" The woman took out a cigarette and lit it. "Depends on if you're a guy or a girl. Girls call it the female, guys call it the male. All in the sign, you know?"

Chang nodded. "Yes, I suppose I do. Is there a history behind that? Clubs usually have one name."

"Well yeah. It used to be called something fuckin' stupid. Poppenjay or something. It was straight back then. When it went bent they dumped the name, and the clientele just went with the male and the female. What would you call it?" She stared at Chang's cock, but did not seem particularly horrified. If anything, Chang felt the woman might be getting used to it. Possibly even curious. "I mean, you've got all the marbles, as it were."

"I do not have testicles," Chang said, shaping her voice now into a warm, intimate whisper that still pierced the air between them. "I will call it 'The Female', as I am still biologically female, insofar as the term 'biologically' has any meaning for me."

The woman nodded. "Uh, right. That. I know this must sound stupid, but you're a nova, right?"

Chang smiled. "Either I'm that, or confused. Though sometimes I manage to be both."

"Are you famous?"

"Moderately. I'm a musician, and an artist. Tried my hand at being a revolutionary a while back. That did not quite suit me in the end."

"What's your name?"

"Chang Zha-Yang, though if you knew me, it would be as 'White Rain'." Though Chang had yet to look at the woman, the conversation felt oddly comfortable. It lacked expectation.

"Sorry, never heard it."

"That is fine. Just fine."

Chang listened to the beat of the city. Laughter filled the air, conversations competing to be loudest and most bawdy. Cars and bikes still sped by on the roads, and taxis were everywhere ferrying drunken loads hither and thither. It seemed to be a good night. The pain of the Crush lay just enough in the past that it did not preside over the proceedings, but rather watched like a mournful ghost. This was a city partying to forget, clashing glasses in honour of the loved and lost, smiling because smiles beat tears any day.

"What is your name?" Chang said.

The woman had been about to turn away, perhaps thinking herself dismissed. She scanned the road to see if any customers were coming, and looked back to Chang. "Violet."

"I presume the size of my cock has not escaped your notice."

Violet tried, and failed, not to laugh. "Yep. Noticed that. For sure."

"If I hired you for a night of sex, what would you do with it?"

The question took Violet aback, as if she had not imagined it might be asked at any point. She bit her bright red lip. "Probably stroke it a bit. You hiring me?"

Chang's lip quirked in a smirk. "Would you do it without being asked?"

Violet frowned. Her demeanour changed. Now expectations had come into play. Chang had over-egged the pudding. The attempt to connect had pushed it farther than they could go, and the idea of contact had made everything come apart.

"No?" Her voice wavered. Just a touched of fear rolled off her, scenting the air.

Chang looked at the bar, considering. She would not enter yet, maybe another night. But her instincts had brought her here. She would not ignore it, whatever it meant.

Either way, her mind had reasserted control. That meant it was time to go home and meditate on the night's experiences.

"Good evening, Violet," Chang said. Without another word she handed over a few hundred dollars and walked off toward home. Her desires were come a-tapping, and she could feel that some sort of answer lay around the corner. She just needed to trust herself to find it.

Perhaps the clientele of The Female could help.