Page 45 of Her Alien Boss

“Will I feel it?”

“Yes,” he says. “When you are in sync, you will know.”

I sit and I wait for the thing to happen. At first there is a faint humming, sort of like a deee doooo dededelidooo doooo dooo deeeeeeee reeeeee bongily bongily bong sound that reverberates across my skull and fingers. It feels like an old handshake, an ancient incantation of connection.

And then I am connected. It’s just as he said. I know it instantly, and I feel it in every part of my body. It feels like being at the very peak of orgasm, though there’s nothing overtly sexual happening.

“You can move,” he says. “Though do so carefully. Flex a finger first. Point at yourself, in your new incarnation.”

I do as he says, flexing my hand. On the screen I can see the fingers of the Fematrix stretch out, each one of them the size of an island archipelago.

I can feel the size of this thing, this body that is auxiliary to mine. She moves as if she is me. Is she me?

It is uncanny, how fast my body accepts this new augmentation.

“It will be even more powerful when you see through her eyes,” Drak says. “But you are doing very well.”

“Good girl.”

I feel a flush of excitement as Arkon’s voice emanates from near me. He’s back from wherever he went with the juniors. I immediately feel safer. The chair I’m sat in is facing a monitor with the Fematrix displayed on it. When I look around, I can’t see him exactly. But I know he’s there.

“Don’t get up,” Drak says. “We don’t want her doing too much in space right now. You’ll see your boss soon enough.”

“We could turn the transmitter off for a moment and fit her with the ocular interface,” Arkon suggests.

I feel the invisible line go dead, and I know Drak took the suggestion. I get up and go and find Arkon, who is just around the corner. In an act of impulsive affection, I wrap my arms around him. He’s so tall I’m pretty much head high with his second set of shoulders, but those lower arms wrap me in a very warm embrace immediately.

“You’ve met the machine.” He smiles down at me.

“She’s beautiful,” I say. “Why didn’t you tell me what I was doing, and why?”

“Because we didn’t know if you’d be suitable,” Drak cuts in. “We’ve had several dozen humans try before you, and though some of them came close to being appropriate, none of them were able to maintain responsiveness and connection the way you have.”

“There were others?” I draw back from Arkon. “You trained others? Before me?”

A bolt of something like jealousy has just shot through me and is threatening to set me and everything else on fire. The notion of some other woman having been in the machine I was in, feeling those suckers, maybe having Arkon spank her…

“I did not,” he says, his smile broadening. “But you are adorable when you are territorial.”

“Isn’t she,” Drak snorts. “I trained the others. Arkon suggested it might be better if he chose and trained the next one. It seems he was correct. He’s done well with you. With the choosing of you, and with your training.”

I try not to feel pleased at what I know has to be rare praise from Drak, but I can’t help but feel a glow, both of praise and of relief. I did not like the notion of being one of dozens of women who went over Arkon’s knee and perhaps slept in his bed.

“Have you been with other humans before?” I ask him the question directly.

“And we are now risking getting wildly off track,” Drak says. “Let me answer before we lose all the momentum we’ve gathered today. No, he has not been with any other humans. He’s barely been with any females of our kind. He has spent far too much of his life at war. Now he has decided to use his brain to try to advance our cause, and he has become fond of you because you are a unique mixture of fighter and vulnerable little rabbit. You are prey who has mistaken herself for a predator. He adores you, he is far too attached to you, and if he were any other than Lord Arkon, I have no doubt the matter would come under more scrutiny, but he has station and funding to do as he pleases. Now. Please. Can we get back to work?”

“Is that true?” I ask Arkon.

“It may not be how I would have said it, but fundamentally, yes, it is true,” Arkon says.

“Have your little love affair later,” Drak says. “I want to give you the eyes of the Fematrix, human, if that is not too inconvenient, of course. If you would not prefer to ask Arkon if he loves you very very much or just very much?”

His snide sass is actually much more reassuring than anything Arkon said, which is probably an indication of something wrong inside me. I don’t have time to worry about that now, though.

I want the eyes of the Fematrix.

I sensed her before. I felt access to power beyond that which any human ever gets to experience. And now I get to see what she sees? Yes. Absolutely yes.