"Converge"
By Viridian5
8/11/02

RATING: NC-17; Harper/Dylan. If m/m interaction bothers you, walk on by.
SPOILERS: "The Widening Gyre," "Into the Labyrinth," "Bunker Hill," with a vague spoiler for "Harper 2.0."
SUMMARY: When Dylan’s trapped in a virtual world, it’s up to Harper to get him out and off.
ARCHIVAL/DISTRIBUTION: Anywhere, as long as you ask me first.
FEEDBACK: can be sent to Viridian5@aol.com.
DISCLAIMERS: All things Gene Roddenberry’s Andromeda belong to Gene Roddenberry’s estate, Tribune Entertainment Company, and Fireworks. None of them are mine at all, and I’m putting them back when I’m done with them, though I can’t promise that they won’t be disturbed in the process. "Everything That Rises Must Converge" is by Shriekback. No infringement intended.
NOTES: This is actually the hybrid child of three plotkittens. It all just fell into place.
Thanks to Riv for beta. This valve’s for you.
While harper-sentryv1 made a first appearance in my gen story "Harper Times Two," the watchdog program’s part in continuity follows a different path here, so the stories aren’t really related.

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"Converge"
By Viridian5
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Dylan opened his eyes to surroundings that didn’t look anything like the ones he’d just been in. Lines and arcs of blue, white, and gold defined an open plain, and he stood in the midst of it. In the distance, rectangular shapes suggestive of a city in the same colors and energy loomed. When he lifted his hand to look at it, it appeared to be ghostly, vaguely transparent and shining white. Somehow he’d been transplanted into a virtual world.

A sudden crunching sound disrupted the regular hum. He turned to see creatures made up entirely of planes, sharp angles, and spikes converge on him, like geometry turned deadly. They burned blue-white.

Dylan’s virtual body didn’t have any of his weapons on it, so he started to run as he tried to think of strategies to beat the creatures, pausing to look back only when he heard a sharp crackle immediately behind him. "Hey, boss," Harper said as he appeared in a blaze of electrical fire, dressed in pants, boots, jacket, toolbelt, and shades that seemed to be made out of a shiny, liquid black. He also looked ghostly, but far more solid than Dylan did.

"I have a situation," Dylan said.

"I see that." Harper reached out, gripped some nearby lines of blue and gold light, and pulled. The whole scene in front of them, reality itself, whipped as if he’d yanked on the end of a rug. The attacking creatures bounced and hit one another, loudly cracking apart into lines of code. The sudden instability threw Dylan to his knees, and he held on to the "ground." Harper remained standing, his area staying sound.

Harper smiled, let go, and blew on the tips of his fingers as if they were antique gun barrels. "Deus ex machina, baby."

Dylan shook his head. "What happened?" He could see his own reflection in Harper’s shades, and he looked upset and a bit afraid, so he made his face as blank as possible.

Harper helped him to his feet, his touch leaving a tingly buzz in Dylan’s arm. "We still can’t find your body, but I picked up your signature in the low-res section of their ‘net. The badlands, to be precise, thus the sharp, snapping thingies. Government has a thing against people going on certain places on the ‘net or gathering there in large groups. Rich folk go to the high-res end and don’t have as many restrictions on ‘em."

"Because they’re rich." He hadn’t found any records of any of this before he’d opened negotiations.

"Duh. I like the low-res better, though. Much more interesting to look at. Good thing for you, since I found you by accident. Don’t look at me like that. I’m on my off time. I was searching the raw data sections of the ‘net for any news, but if you do that long enough you start to lose the ability to differentiate and it becomes this big blur. I seriously needed a break for my eyes and head. ‘Sides, it turned into duty anyway, since we were looking for you and I just found you. I actually got drawn over here when I noticed the attack bots changing from standard guard movement to focused, ‘got us a bogie’ mode." Harper closed his eyes, then said, "I just sent out a pulse to Beka and Tyr that I found you in here and now we have to find your physical location and I’m working on it.

Dylan tried to keep abreast of the high-speed whirl of words. "How did you bend our surroundings?"

"My tech kicks their tech’s ass. Even the rich guys here can’t match my rig. I’m the original one-eyed man in the land of the blind, the king one, not the one where he’s stoned to death. I never got that version. Even though I understand what it’s saying, the metaphor doesn’t make sense because how could blind people stone anybody? They can’t see! Maybe if they held the stones in their hands and punched you to death, but they’d hurt themselves pretty bad with that."

"Harper."

"What? C’mon, I have a point."

Frightening thought that Harper’s body slowed him down. He fit in far too well in the energy of the ‘net.

"I do," Harper said, then started to grope him, causing more tingly buzzing.

"What the hell are you doing?" Dylan asked as he squirmed.

"Trying to read your code so we can figure out where they have your body stashed. Signature has to be in here somewhere. Hey, you can feel me?"

"All too well." And it felt too good.

"Huh. I can tell. High-end suit they must have you in. The better for you to feel all the nuances of snappy things attacking you, so the better to kill you with. Slick. Nasty, but slick." Harper suddenly wore coveralls and a different hairstyle, with no shades.

Dylan knocked him away. Harper yelled, "What?" then looked at himself. "Oh. I’m me, okay? I’m changing my log-in signature once in a while on automatic. Figured it would be good for me to instantly know when my tech just recycled me, so I have it changing my appearance each time too. You’re too excitable. Okay, still have doubts? Dylan, do you really think anybody could pretend to be me this well?"

"You’re trying too hard to be him," Dylan said.

Harper looked pissed off. "I was just jazzed, okay? It’s cool being a god. Besides, it’s a break from feeling the frigging larvae wiggle around in my gut."

Guilt stabbed Dylan. It looked and sounded like Harper, and they hadn’t told anyone about Harper’s problem with the larvae, so.... "All right."

"All right, you’re convinced?"

"Yeah." Dylan sighed. "Why do I keep getting attacked like this?"

"Because you keep walking up unarmed to people, wanting to be buddies."

"Can you get me out of here?"

"Until we find your entry source, no. I’m working on it. I can work on it faster if you let me keep a hold of you."

"That sounds like such a scam."

"You can trust me or not, Dylan. Trusting me gets you out of here."

Dylan put his arm out again. Harper held it in a gentle but firm grip, returning that tingly buzz, and said, "Thank you. Now let’s move away from the scene of the crime." He shut his eyes and seemed to be concentrating. Then he opened them and said, "Hunh."

"‘Hunh,’ what?"

"That should have moved us away from this spot. It didn’t. I think that whoever’s projecting you here won’t let you blink away."

"I can walk away."

"Yeah, but we’re too far out in the badlands, like a big, blinking target. We need some other bodies around." Harper’s hair turned spikier, and he wore cargo pants and a T-shirt. "Got it." Harper let go of Dylan and started to touch the blue and gold lines of power, drawing shapes with them. The longer he touched them, the taller and more detailed his buildings became. "Add the right codes and...." he murmured to himself. Music started to play.

"You’re creating a club?" Dylan asked as he tried to figure out why he would miss Harper’s hand on his arm.

"My own little party district. If we can’t go to people, let’s make people come to us. This is so cool. Now I know how Harold felt when he had his purple crayon." When Harper saw the look on Dylan’s face, he said, "Obscure reference #1,342. Let it go, Dylan."

"I intend to."

Ghostly people started to appear. Some of them looked like regular Zaiads, but others were garbed in fantastical outfits involving feathers, fur, or paint, while still others wore exaggerated physical features and geometric shapes, taking advantage of their virtuality. Dylan couldn’t be certain, but he thought that some of the butterfly-like creatures fluttering and small animals scurrying around were Zaiad avatars too. They filled the blue and gold room, raising the temperature with their body heat, which made him feel more... restless.

Dylan had never received so much sensory detail while in a virtual world, but he’d never worn an interface other than a visor either. It seemed strange to him that people would leave the real world to go to one with replicated real world conditions. He could see why Harper would prefer the alien qualities of the low-res section over the more realistic high-res.

Harper watched the dancing, socializing, slowly growing knot of party people with glee, bouncing and swaying along with the beat, his hip sometimes brushing Dylan’s. He grabbed Dylan’s arm again, vibrating. "Just like a hit ‘n’ run from back home. They were these parties with no fixed location...."

"We had some version of that."

Harper now wore a battered leather jacket and torn clothing and looked younger. "Yeah, but you didn’t have the threat of torture or death if the authorities got ya. We didn’t look as rad chic as these folks, either." A small, sleek, furry creature leapt onto his shoulder and chittered. "Sorry, I’m here with somebody." He held up Dylan’s arm in illustration. "But thanks." It nosed his neck and leapt back onto the nearby bar.

Minks weren’t the only avatars looking for companionship. People seemed to be hooking up all over the dance floor, some of them going at it very publicly. Harper said, "So that’s how a square gets it on. Jeez."

"What does that feel like?" Dylan wondered aloud, the sight and Harper’s vibrating presence making it harder for him to stay smart. Sensations kept distracting him.

"Only one way to find out."

"What?"

"Look, don’t feel weird about getting horny."

"I’m not--" Dylan started, but the smirk on Harper’s face stopped him. "All right, fine. I am."

"Full-body suits are usually worn with the idea of getting the full, virtual nooky sensory experience. Having virtual sensation wrapped right around Mr. Happy would have an effect on anybody. Out of the noble generosity of my heart, I could... help you." Harper grinned. "It’d play havoc with our signatures for sure, and I need to be touching you to get a bead on your location anyway."

This would be using Harper, but it seemed that Harper wanted to be used. Which would mean that he wasn’t using Harper, really?

"It would be... practical." Maybe he’d regret this later. Right now, it sounded good.

"Cool! Let’s find a nice corner, huh?"

He followed Harper’s lead and the tug on his arm, squeezing between people, each brush against his skin only increasing his lust. When they found a small spot near the corner and Harper turned and grabbed him, Dylan grabbed back and felt the insistent thrust of his body and each, individual spiked hair on the back of his neck. It felt real, but realer than real, more somehow. Amplified.

As they kissed, Dylan murmured, surprised, "You taste blue."

"Synesthesia. Your suit’s failing the taste test," Harper gasped.

Sense of smell only picked up a sharp scent on everything and everyone, but the suit sure as hell wasn’t failing the touch test. Harper’s skin was warm and soft and had a faint grain, like real skin only more. Dylan could feel the bones under it and the pounding of Harper’s heart. How much effort had to go into an avatar to replicate bones and the rapid heartbeat of desire? He could feel calluses on the fingers that slid over his ribs, pinched his nipples, and rubbed against his abs as they unfastened his pants.

"That’s good, Dylan," Harper whispered in between small, breathy sounds of pleasure. "That feels good...."

When Harper pulled off his sweater, he had an entirely different hairstyle instead of mussed hair, reminding Dylan that this wasn’t real, wasn’t Harper’s real body. Somewhere in the real world Harper was plugged in, slumped in a chair or against a wall, Magog spawn hibernating in his torso.... Dylan held him tighter as they ground against one another, rocking, thrusting.

When Dylan got his cock free of his clothing, it rubbed against what felt like leather as Harper’s pants changed again, making him moan. At least the automatic log-ins didn’t re-dress him in items he’d taken off.

"Dylan, you can fuck me if you want to."

Dylan bucked. "Harper--"

"I want it. We’re virtual, so you can just thrust in." Harper just... disappeared the last of his clothing, achieving full, provocative nakedness.

Harper felt real and good, and Dylan’s body screamed at him to thrust. Harper climbed him, wrapped his legs around his waist, and then sank down on his cock, briefly making him wonder if Harper could do that in the real world too before his body took over. His cock registered its new home as being hot and tight and right and even slick, the real world rules suspended in this case. Sensitive beyond real world conditions, he also felt the slick, wet heat of Harper’s cock painting patterns on his stomach. The top of his head should have blown off from the overload of sensation. Yeah, he understood why someone would put on a full-body suit and visit the virtual world.

Pounding Harper into the wall made him feel guilty, so he found a couch for them, somehow maintaining his balance despite his new appendage and all the mad giggling his efforts inspired in his partner. The giggling stopped once he had Harper underneath him on the couch as he thrust in and out, gaining speed and force. The whimpers and breathy exhalations of his name excited him far more, as did the hard force of Harper’s clenching fingers and knees along his back. He tasted blue....

When Harper clenched and pushed down hard, yelling "Yes, yes...." Dylan fell into orgasm, bursting bright sparks of pleasure seeming to whirl in his head. As they panted together, trying to regain the ability to think and speak, Dylan ran his hand through short, brittle hair that had been blanched to a yellow-white. "Did you ever really do this to your head?" Dylan finally asked.

Harper laughed. "Seemed like a good idea at the time."

"You were saying something. At the end."

"You kept murmuring about blue, and this old lyric popped into my head: ‘Yeah, blue, blue, blue / Color and the surge / Everything that rises must converge.’ Which you did and we did, yeah?" Harper beamed. "And I got your address. Found you! Excuse me for a second?" His eyes closed and his head lolled into Dylan’s hand before it fell through Dylan’s hand. His whole body started to fade away, untouchable.

"Harper!"

Coming back to his own body--tired, infested, medicated--felt like a major letdown. Sticking to the inside of his pants didn’t help, though it wasn’t like he wanted to take back the sex. Hell no. "Beka." His throat was too dry.

"You got him?" she asked, as Tyr loomed at her shoulder.

"Yeah. I can place him on the grid." Harper whipped through the computer directories, then laughed as he got an ID on the space. "They’re holding him in a frigging bordello. A house of ill repute." How appropriate.

"Only Dylan would be lucky enough to be held captive in a whorehouse. We’re rolling."

"Wait. Let me...." Harper unplugged, wincing more than usual since he felt after-sex sensitized, then replugged into a small, new system and attached it to his belt. It had an ether connection, which would let him be mobile and keep one foot in the ‘net. "I’m gonna keep Dylan company on the ‘net, at least until we get to the best little holdhouse on Zaiad and I have to unplug him."

"We’ll need your full attention for that," Tyr said.

True. But Dylan didn’t like being left defenseless, and who could blame him? He needed something to guard and protect him.... Harper knew what he could do. "Beka, I need a few minutes and a line to Andromeda to get something." This could be a job for the harper-sentryv1 program. "And a few minutes of privacy." To change his pants and clean up. It annoyed him that Beka and Tyr were giving him amused, knowing looks, but screw it if they’d been there during some of that. He just hoped they’d enjoyed the writhing and moaning.

When Harper logged back in fully, he was dressed again. Dylan grabbed him, probably too hard, but Harper only smiled, seeming to be pleased by it. "Dylan, we’re on our way to your body. I’m sticking with you for now, but when we reach you I have to help out in the real world, so I’ll be giving you a smart program for company in here when that happens. It may look like me, and it may even sound like me, but it won’t be me. Got it?"

"You’re saying that you don’t want me to make any sexual overtures to it." Dylan decided that it was better to laugh than cry. He also decided that it would be better, psychologically, to be dressed, so he did it with a thought. The virtual world had some advantages.

"Pretty much. Unless you’re into that."

He couldn’t read the expression on Harper’s face, but he didn’t have to. "Not even close."

"Good." Harper’s smile came and went like a sun revealed and then hidden by passing clouds, but it was almost as bright. "I’ll tell you when we have to make the switch. Be back again in a moment." Harper went intangible again, becoming a mere place-holding image.

Dylan waited. He hated waiting, but he’d learned to live with it long ago.

"Wow, you’re a big program." The sentry was bigger than it used to be, so using harper-sentryv1 in applications other than as a simple pre-recorded response watchdog was building the program up a lot faster than Harper had expected. No matter how much of a pain in the ass the sentry had been while performing its original function during the mess with Satrina, Harper hadn’t been able to bring himself to delete it afterwards, so he’d started to use it for other things, and somewhere along the line it had changed from an "it" to a "him" in Harper’s thinking.

Harper’s upgraded self had done a bang-up job designing the program’s original template. A shame he couldn’t have stayed upgraded without destroying his brain.

"You really know how to talk to a guy," harper-sentryv1 answered. "It’s size and knowing what to do with it."

"Are you talking to yourself back there, boy?" Tyr asked, while Beka just shook her head and kept talking to their official government driver. Rommie, sitting next to Harper, didn’t pay much attention, probably out of worry for Dylan and being used to him talking to himself.

"In a manner of speaking, yeah." Harper loaded harper-sentryv1 into the system clipped to his belt, so he could talk to him via the port connection instead, where no one else could hear them, and said through the link, "I’m trusting you here."

The program smiled. "Oh yeah. Rommie just thinks I’m a really large utility program in your ‘saving Dylan’ toolkit, but it’s all about trust. Oh, don’t get like that. I’m cool. This is cool." He bounced on his toes. "You have a job for me?"

"Dylan’s gonna need a babysitter in the ‘net while I’m outside freeing his body. He was on the run from some ‘net attack fauna when I first got in there. You think you can handle it?"

"Hell yeah."

"This isn’t just about babysitting Dylan. This is about doing no harm. You don’t mess with anything in there unless it’s trying to attack you and him."

"Didn’t these people steal Dylan?"

"They claim it was terrorists."

"Riiiight."

"I know. But you have to be on good behavior anyway, okay? No messing with the ‘net and no messing with Dylan’s head no matter how much fun you might think it is."

"Aw!"

"No. You promise me."

"What are you worried about? And that blush is really fetching. Glad I can’t blush."

Harper sighed. "Bite me. I don’t have time for this. Dylan is alone and unprotected--"

"Okay, okay. I promise. Tell me when you need me. I’m ready to upload at any time."

"Thanks." Harper went halfway back to the ‘net while keeping an eye on his real world travels too. It gave him a headache.

When Harper re-logged in and became solid, he just about fell backwards into Dylan’s arms. He looked dazed, and his head lolled back against Dylan’s shoulder. "Almost there, boss."

"Are you hurting yourself?" Dylan asked sternly as he stroked Harper’s hair, enjoying the buzz of each strand against his fingers and the way Harper relaxed under it.

"Just doing too many things at once. You know, the usual. Aw, crap. We’re there. I have to go. I just got here...."

Suddenly another Harper, with the craziest hair yet, stood nearby. It wore a charcoal-colored T-shirt and pants. "I’m not interrupting anything... personal, am I?" It sure as hell looked and sounded like Harper and shared his big, evil grin.

"Be nice," the Harper in Dylan’s arms said. "Dylan, this is your sentry program. Don’t let him give you any crap."

Dylan shook his head, even as he wondered at the program being called a "him" no matter how much it resembled Harper. "I won’t."

"Good. See you on the outside." Harper blinked out.

The program gave Dylan a big, winsome, Harperian smile. "So, we could just do what you and Harper were up to before he had to leave."

"I really don’t think so."

Its smirk looked far too knowing. "Or we could play cards."

"That’s a conviviality house!" the driver protested.

"And someone’s inside being far too convivial with our captain," Beka answered as the hunting party got out of the transport. "Our expert found him there."

"You won’t use your weapons."

"Why do you think we have them on?" Beka’s light tone turned to steel. "Look, get in our way, and we’ll start to wonder about whether terrorists are really responsible for his disappearance, okay?"

The driver, smarter than he looked, backed down fast after that.

The door refused to open when they tried, but Harper stopped Tyr from blasting it down with a "Real subtle, Tyr." It was so low tech that he didn’t even have to plug in to figure out the unlocking code. Amateurs.

His crew walked into the building like death on the move, weapons in hand or hands on their weapons, faces set into "don’t fuck with us" expressions. Tyr moved the protesting madam aside with the barrel of his gun, but she kept talking anyway. "I have no idea what you want, but we can get you whatever you need." She gave Harper’s port and cord a good hard look, but otherwise tried to pretend that she saw them as regular customers and ignored the drawn guns and force lances.

"Cram it," Beka said. "Harper?"

"This way."

The whorehouse looked pretty upscale, straddling the line between luxurious and overdone. It had nicely perfumed air, thick carpeting, glossy imitation wood furniture, very solid doors. Harper tried not to let the scenes visible through some of the open doorways--exhibitionists?--distract him. Focusing on the job at hand became easier the closer he came to Dylan’s room, since Dylan’s presence pinged louder and louder.

Harper sentry program was as lousy at poker as Harper was, but Dylan kept losing anyway. Too distracted. Then he heard a familiar crunching sound approaching. "Harper--"

"Shit," the program muttered, then yelled, "Everybody out! We got incoming!" Nobody listened; they just kept dancing. "Damned...." It grabbed Dylan’s arm--a different, less provocative feeling from when the actual Harper did it--and pulled him to his feet, cards falling to the floor in arcs before they vanished completely.

"Can’t you yank things around like Harper can?"

"As a program I have some advantages, but if I can’t, I’d really rather find out while we have some distance between us and them. Got it?"

"We run?"

"Oh yeah. And I scream for Daddy."

Harper stopped in front of the right room and danced his fingers over the lock’s buttons. Rommie grabbed the madam none too gently before the woman could try to fling herself between him and the door. He wouldn’t mess with Rommie right now, wouldn’t be healthy.

"Holy shit," Harper breathed once he opened it and looked into the room. As much as he’d expected something like this, actually seeing it was still a shock. A large glass tank with machinery at its top and base dominated the dim space. A male figure wearing a full-face breather mask and a skintight dark bodysuit floated gently in the clear fluid inside. Circuitry threaded the suit material like spider webs. Harper didn’t need to see the brown hair drifting around the head like a corona to recognize Dylan.

"Shooting the tank would be a bad thing," Harper said to Tyr. Tyr snorted. Beka looked like she wanted to kill something and the lack of immediate targets was only pissing her off more.

"Harper!" harper-sentryv1 shouted, making Harper’s head ring and nearly staggering him. "They’re on to us!"

"Harper?" Rommie asked in concern, still holding the madam in a ruthless grip.

"Gotta unplug his connection now."

Harper’s head just about whipped around as he tried to figure out which of the plugs connected to Dylan were life support and which log-ins. Oh hell, he didn’t have the time. Power cutoff? Couldn’t find it. He scaled the ladder to the top of Dylan’s prison at great speed, popped the lid off the tank, unplugged himself, tossed aside any gear on him that might electrocute him under wet conditions, and cannonballed in.

The hazy fluid hit him like a slap and was as warm as a living human body and saline enough that it stung his eyes. Finding the suit’s power cutoff involved fondling Dylan at great length and in great detail again--oh, the chores of his life--before he found the right button and pressed it. Dylan jerked and panicked, but that was a good sign under the circumstances and suggested that the crunching, snappy things hadn’t gotten him. Offline, Harper didn’t know for sure. Knowing that Dylan wouldn’t be able to see him through the opaque mask, Harper did gentling touches with one hand as he quickly yanked out cords and tubes with the other. If he didn’t get air soon, his chest would burst.

Finally he had Dylan freed, and they kicked up to the surface, Dylan following his upward motion. He breathed in again with a loud gasp and vaguely heard Beka taking his name in vain even through the tank’s polymer casing. Dylan ripped off his mask, gagging a bit as the tonguepiece came out, and breathed deeply too.

"You okay?" Harper asked.

"Yeah. I don’t know about your program, though. It was turning to fight them as you pulled me out."

Damn. Well, there was nothing Harper could do about it at the moment. Besides, the sentry was a tough little program. Took after his daddy.

Tyr, who must have climbed up to the rim while Harper had been doing his underwater bit, reached in and pulled Dylan up and out by the arm. Harper got hoisted with a little too much energy and nearly flew off the top of the tank. Funny, Tyr.

"We have company coming," Rommie said. "Soldiers."

They all drew their weapons and waited. Rommie tossed the madam over to Beka and opened the door, revealing a soldier who was in the middle of readying himself to kick the door down. At least his pose suggested as much.

Harper watched the guy change his script as he took in the scene. The head guy settled on "We’re so glad you found him alive and unharmed."

It made Harper wonder what their original plan had been. Maybe something involving finding Dylan dead in a whorehouse, with what had looked like a kidnapping turning out to be a perverted foreign visitor who had gone out for a good debauch and hadn’t been up to surviving the native vigor. Or some shit like that, a besmirch and discredit thing.

Beka had her "I’m tasting something rotten, and that rotten thing is you" twist to her mouth. "Us too."

"I’m fine, thanks to the efforts of my crew," Dylan said, sounding pretty dignified for a guy wearing a skintight virtual-sex suit that had a special sleeve for his dick and left only a millimeter-thin layer of fabric and circuitry between his ass and the world. "When I look presentable again, I’ll be reporting the details of my experience to your High Council."

"Excellent," soldier boy said weakly. "We can take the operator of this establishment."

The madam looked terrified. Beka must have noticed that too, because she said, "I think I’ll keep an eye on her for a while instead." The madam didn’t look that much less terrified in response.

When Harper started down the ladder first, he noticed Dylan giving him a speculative look. And that Little Dylan was paying attention--and almost standing at attention--too. Maybe they hadn’t done a one-time, virtual thing after all. Harper smiled and did a controlled slide down the ladder.

As he retrieved his gear and started to plug back in to the ether connection system to check on his sentry, Harper noticed the madam staring at him. He said, "You might want to check the sensory systems on your suits. They’re a little off. Unless your clients enjoy synesthesia."

Beka smirked. "And you might want to change into dry clothes at some point, unless you want everyone to look at your goodies."

He hadn’t put underwear on when he’d changed his pants. "I have nothing to be ashamed of." Just ignore the blush, people, nothing to see here....

"I am so not going there, especially not when your nipples are telling me that you’re either cold or happy to see someone and I can tell which side you dress on." She walked on with the madam.

As soon as Harper slid the plug into his port, sentryv1 greeted him with a hearty "Hey, boss!"

Relief. It would have hurt to lose the little guy. "I worried about you."

The sentry beamed. "Aw, thanks! I actually nailed one of the watchdogs before you pulled Dylan out." He did a left hook, bob, and weave. "I kicked ass. The rest of them vamoosed once Dylan disappeared, so someone was gunning specifically for him. Left some holes in the club doing it, but the folks actually seemed to think the holes add character. No accounting for taste."

"Ready to come home?"

"Yeah. Beam me up!"

"You’re not funny. You didn’t touch anything?"

"Me? Nah. Take me home."

When Harper returned fully to the real world, he was dangling over Tyr’s shoulder. "Hey! I only needed a few minutes!" Harper protested.

"A few minutes too much," Tyr answered, sounding imperturbable. Harper could feel that deep voice rumbling through his skin.

"I’m gonna rust your chain mail, just watch me. So put me down."

Tyr did so, with far less than his usual grace. Harper flipped him off, but he just smirked in response.

They followed the circus out of the bordello. Tired, damp, Harper hoped that they could go home soon.

harper-sentryv2 leaned back on the couch and watched the party going on around him, enjoying his new home. He’d make a great king of the low-res. Dad and Granddad would be so proud.

Okay, this was embarrassing. Dylan opened the door to the can a crack so only his face would be visible and yelled to the nearest crewmember, which was Beka, "Could you get Harper?"

She raised an eyebrow. "How come?"

He would not go into detail. "I need some help."

"I’m sure you do." Her smirk made him worry that she’d torture him a bit longer, but instead she walked off. Hopefully to find Harper.

Thankfully to find Harper, who trailed behind her when she returned. "What do you need, boss?" Harper asked. He’d changed out of his wet clothing, which had draped around him in ways that had revealed everything, into a dry shirt and pants, but his hair still looked damp and had none of its usual lift.

"Come in here?"

Beka failed to turn a snigger into a cough. Harper elbowed her. She must have been near him while he’d been plugged in and seen him react. Dylan suddenly saw it in pornographic detail in his mind: Harper’s body writhing and moaning as his self was fucked in the matrix, Beka watching....

This wasn’t helping Dylan get the damned suit off.

"Sure thing," Harper said as he walked in and shut the door behind him. "You can’t get out of the suit, right?"

"You thought this might happen?"

"Keyword is ‘might.’"

"I can’t even find the fasteners." Not being able to feel much through the suit’s gloves didn’t help.

"Okay, Dr. Harper will fix everything."

"Fixing everything" seemed to involve groping Dylan again and gave him a good view of the top of Harper’s head. Fortunately, the suit insulated him from most outside touches, but he could feel himself getting hard again, and in this suit anybody looking at him would be able to tell.

"Why is it that every time you’ve helped me today, it involved feeling me up?"

"Because I get all the shit jobs?" Harper skimmed his fingers and palms across Dylan’s chest before snagging on something. "Got it." He gripped one bit and pulled a disguised fastener down, pushing the sides of the suit away at the same time.

Feeling silly and a little too aroused, Dylan said, "I can do the rest." He didn’t have the time to lust after Harper at the moment, not with his showdown with the Zaiad officials coming.

Harper lifted his hands up and away. "Okay, but I don’t think you’re gonna be able to get the lower piece off without help. I’d suggest removing the gloves first, especially before you try to get out of the cock sheath."

Damned.... "I just had a frightening thought. Somebody had to put me into this thing, and I’m not sure I want to know how. I also came in this thing and--"

Harper leaned against the door and looked away, giving Dylan the illusion of privacy. "There’s an outlet piece at the tip that you’ll see when you take the sheath off, and it used to be attached to one of the tubes I pulled out of you. Just count yourself lucky that they gave you an unrecycled single-use suit. Some joints save money by reusing them. It’s safest to own your own instead of renting one."

"Uhm." Dylan would have been much happier not thinking about that.

"Better not to get upset over things that have happened and you can’t change. Thinking up vengeance is good, though."

Aside from the drunken suicide attempt a while back, Harper had faced his recent problems with a surprising and sometimes unsettling cheerfulness. He also didn’t discuss those topics, and Dylan had to admit that no one had encouraged him to talk about them. Thus, Harper could make statements like that and Dylan wouldn’t know if they referred to the Magog larvae inside him or the debacle with the revolution on Earth. Perhaps they hadn’t been meant to reference either.

They didn’t have the time to get into it now.

As Dylan pulled the suit away, he noticed that the circuitry had left temporary indentations in his skin. Unsettled, he tried to get the thing off faster, but as Harper had predicted, the bottom part was not as easy. Even with the gloves off, the tight cock sheath resisted his efforts, and those efforts only made him harder and the sheath more difficult to remove. Standing up, or sitting down on the toilet cover made no difference in leverage; the thing would not come off.

"Need some help?" Harper asked, only the slightest edge of an "I told you so" in his tone.

"Yeah, dammit."

"Okay." Harper started to fondle him. Again.

"I asked you to help me get this off, not jerk me off."

"Wow, unwanted erections make you bitchy. Dylan, I’m looking to see if maybe there’s a fastener so we can peel instead of pull. Ah, here we go. And there’s the outlet, see?"

The process looked a lot like peeling a banana, a thought that disturbed the hell out of Dylan, but at least he was free. Hard and pointing right at Harper, but free.

Harper smiled, his eyes dangerous. "Want me to do anything about that?"

Dylan swallowed. "I’ll get back to you on that later. I don’t want to be mellow and sleepy when I face off with the Zaiads."

"That’s practical."

Dylan found that thinking about the Magog tended to kill erections, and that course of action worked well again. With the sheath done, the rest of the suit peeled off fairly easily, and Dylan started to put his dress uniform on.

Harper, who was ostentatiously not watching, said to the wall, "You’re lucky you didn’t get a suit with a butt plug attachment on it. That might have taken a while to get out of you."

"You’re kidding me."

"Nope. Sends the sensations right up your ass, or so I hear. Never had the money to try it, and I’m not sure if I need any new addictions anyway. Besides, you don’t get much done if you’re lit up like a Christmas tree, since work doesn’t seem anywhere near as important."

Dressed, Dylan felt more comfortable and a little chastened. "Sorry I was so quick-tempered with you. I’m a bit of a control freak, and I hate being put in this kind of situation."

"A control freak? You? Nah!"

"I take back my apology."

Harper stuck his tongue out at him.

Dylan ruffled his currently fluffy hair. "And I don’t have the time to molest you."

"Damn. Later, right? Let’s see what kind of lies the Zaiads have for us now."

Dylan’s reporting went on for hours, until even he got tired of the sound of his voice and the false ring to the representatives’ shock over what had happened to him. Harper had only relayed information for an hour--going into how he’d found Dylan and the way the attack fauna had only been intent on Dylan--and was dismissed after that. Questioning the madam had only led them to an errand boy who likewise knew nothing. There was a lot of knowing nothing going around. The representatives stayed with their story of terrorists.

Finally they let Dylan return to the Maru to get some rest. Maybe tomorrow he’d have the strength to deal with them again.

Rommie remained as his militant shadow even in the Maru. "I’m safe in here," Dylan said.

"Given the circumstances, I think it’s wise to maintain alertness," she answered crisply.

"Is anyone else here?"

"Harper is sleeping in his bunk. The others are wandering or monitoring the real-world party circuit, looking for more information."

"Harper’s asleep instead of partying?" It seemed wrong. Though Harper had looked tired earlier.

"He gets tired faster since--" Rommie stopped. "He had a lot of work today."

Dylan sighed. The serum. Harper had once said, "You can’t party with it, can’t live without it," then covered the moment by making an awful pun and an obscene overture to Rommie. "I understand."

It still amazed him that Harper had leapt into the tank for him, and he’d been the one to come to with his engineer yanking cords out of him. Fortunately, he’d recognized Harper’s touch, since the mask had prevented him from seeing anything. The shift from virtuality to reality had been so abrupt and his confusion so extreme that he’d almost grabbed Harper and done something inadvisable.

"If you’re worried about any further assaults, you could guard the hatch," Dylan said. "I’d like to see Harper alone."

She opened and closed her mouth, then finally said, "Yes, sir," and marched away.

When Dylan walked into the bunk area, he heard soft breathing and saw Harper’s hand dangling from his top bunk. He couldn’t see any other part of his engineer, not with the covers and the edges of Harper’s... nest camouflaging him. It was a very attractive hand, and Dylan couldn’t resist the urge to lightly stroke its fingertips. To his disappointment, it jerked away and out of sight under the covers. But what had he really expected?

Harper pulled the covers down a bit, yawned widely, smiled sleepily, and said, "Hey, Dylan." He looked mellow and endearingly mussed and rumpled, his hair wilder and more random than usual.

Aside from the affection, Dylan felt a powerful curiosity. What did Harper really feel like, really taste like? Now that he didn’t have a pressing engagement and confrontation ahead of him, he really wanted to find out.

"Hey, Harper. How are you doing?"

"Overdid it a little today, but after a little more naptime, I’ll be good as new."

"I’m glad your program survived."

"Thanks." Harper’s smile widened. "Wanna nap with me? You look like you could use it. It’s a big bunk."

Before today, Dylan would have asked if Harper really meant that invitation. Now, he took off his jacket, boots, and belt and climbed up. Up here it smelled like sleep-warm Harper, his scent a little sharper lately from the serum, and Dylan realized that the sense of smell had been off for the suit too. Then again, what decided an avatar’s smell in a virtual world? Dylan settled in against Harper’s side, burrowed a space for himself in the soft nest of sheets and clothing, and put his nose against Harper’s neck, getting an odd sound in response.

"Was that a giggle?" Dylan asked.

"Hell no."

Harper wore boxer shorts and a loose T-shirt, far less revealing than the virtual bare skin and soaking wet, draping clothing Dylan had already seen him in today, but they inspired the same response. "I have a problem."

"You don’t feel like taking a nap anymore either now?"

"‘Either’ sounds encouraging."

Harper quivered as Dylan’s hand wandered up his chest under his T-shirt. "‘Either’ means that I’d be really annoyed if you went to sleep right now."

Harper’s actual body felt more solid than his virtual one, while simultaneously having more give to it. He groaned at having his nipples pinched and sighed when Dylan licked a spot under his ear, tasting him. Salt and skin instead of blue. Virtuality may have approximated the grain of skin, but it had missed the fine, soft hairs along Harper’s arms and the way his skin started to flush a bit when he was turned on. It had failed to copy the separate pressures of his clever fingers exploring Dylan’s body with the same vigor and thoroughness that he used on every new thing that came into his clutch. Virtual Harper had been a vibrator cloaked in human form, but real Harper was a complex sensory treat of a different kind. Disrobing had been a hell of a lot easier in low-res, but watching Harper wiggle and struggle out of his clothing had its own appeal.

This felt rawer, more spontaneous, than what they’d done on the ‘net. There, thinking had told them how their bodies should be reacting to the touches, creating minute delays in response, but here their bodies reacted instantly, instinctively. They thrust against one another in a slow, luxurious rhythm that gradually gained speed.

"Harper, I want to fuck you."

"To compare and contrast?"

"Yeah, and that I want to fuck you."

"I’m not going to argue with that." Harper fished under the sheets, wiggling enticingly, until he pulled out a tube.

Dylan slicked his fingers and teased a bit first, circling the rim in slow circles as Harper moaned and squirmed and twitched. When he paused to lick Harper’s trembling balls and the underside of his hard cock, Harper said, "You’re killing me here! Can we get on with it?"

"I don’t know. Are you ready?"

Harper’s dilated pupils and the sweat on his skin said yes, but Dylan felt the need to tease anyway. If Harper could dish it out, he should be able to take it.

"What have I ever done to you that you could be this frigging cruel?"

"How long do we have?"

Obviously frustrated, Harper rocked, then pushed down on Dylan’s fingers. Although he failed to get them in, the sight of him doing it made teasing feel counterproductive. Dylan slid a finger in and knew he’d hit the right spot when Harper surged against him. Harper made the most incredible sound, breathy and high-pitched, when he crooked that finger.

"Want it now," Harper said.

"So do I."

"Then work with me here."

Dylan pulled out and started to line himself up, though his brain kept blanking out as he watched Harper fold and arrange his body in whatever ways he thought might be most helpful to getting it. He really was remarkably flexible.... As Harper murmured "C’mon, c’mon," Dylan thrust in smoothly, finding no resistance, and started to move. Although he was on top, he felt more like Harper was riding him, as Harper pushed into each stroke for maximum penetration and set the tempo.

Wrapped in Harper’s heat and solid strength, Dylan set aside the frustrations of the day and let his body take over. He dissolved under the pleasures of friction and connection, of fingers scrabbling at his back, of the hard brush of teeth along his chest, of the slick thrust of Harper’s cock against him. It was an escape, and it ended much sooner than he wanted to, even if the feeling of release was wonderful. Hitting his head on the wall didn’t please him as much, but at that point it didn’t even hurt much. A whimper punctuated Harper’s breathless babble--it didn’t surprise him at all that Harper was a talker, of course--when he pulled out.

Harper hadn’t come yet, but Dylan had to only lick his cock once, hard, to set him off, bucking and yelling. They cooled down together for a while, then Harper wiped them up with a shirt pulled from the nest beneath them, balled it up, and shot it at a basket on the floor, sinking it. "Five points," Harper said, then curled in against him, radiating heat and musk. He’d been tempted to play with Harper’s crazy hair many times before, but now he had license to, so he twisted and teased the fine, blond strands around his fingers, making them stand up more.

It was all very cozy and comfortable. Dylan wondered what it would be like to have this as a regular occurrence.

It would be pretty damned good.

"So," Harper said sleepily, "how does the real thing stack up against the virtual thing?"

"There’s nothing like the real thing."

Harper groaned, then elbowed him.

**********************THE END***********************