Page 17 of Leviathan

FIVE

MARIA

I was a trap.

I'd brought a computer virus on board.

The spot on his neurofilament was the same color as the gunk that had been on the data storage device, which had been all over me. He had been poisoned. The research data was the infected carrot to lure him in, and I was the blanket that carried the pox to weaken him.

"I see another spot," I said as I pushed my hand between two larger filaments the size of my arms. I shifted my weight forward from where I crouched on my knees, hovering my upper body over the area. His neurofilaments were in all different sizes, from the thickness of a tree trunk to slender strands no thicker than my hair. They completely filled the walls around me. We started at the airlock and made our way down the hallway, following the path I had traveled.

The goo had dripped off of me while I walked... and it spread quickly.

It had taken me four sleep cycles to make it this far. He had a drone remove all the hallway panels except for a thin strip of metal, like a small plank walkway against the side of the glowing white ribbed walls and floor, so that I could inspect everything. Every drip that had fallen off of me had spread out, expanding, falling through cracks or carried to new locations by drones. His filaments shifted and moved a little bit like unmoored kelp in a sea, and in rubbing against each other, transferring the contamination deeper into his territory. He used them to move hallways and rooms around, and had done a great deal of that since I came on board.

They would move on their own, but he could also move them on purpose.

As I pushed my hand between the warm filaments, grabbing onto the one that had the spot, they shifted, moving to allow me better access. I took the pad and began scrubbing at it. It didn't require any force, just the lightest amount of friction. My back hurt, and my thighs trembled with the effort of keeping my upper body lifted so I didn't put any weight anywhere but where my knees connected to the metal. Once I couldn't see any sign of the spot, I shifted my weight back to my heels and let out a soft groan, putting my hand on my lower back.

"You're tired," Lyrien said. "Why don't you take a break?"

"I'm alright," I said. "I can keep going. It's just hard leaning out in that position."

I stretched my arms up in the air, arching my chest forward as I tried to stretch out the kink in my back.

"What position would be easier?" he said.

"I don't think there is any position that is going to be easier if I'm going to stay on this flooring," I said, shaking my head and standing up so that I had a better vantage point. "But it is alright, don't worry about me. Let's just check this area and make sure that was the last of it."

He began shifting his filaments in the manner we had worked out, moving one at a time to methodically expose the layers beneath.

"There is another one," I said with a sigh. I moved back down to my knees, bracing myself for another session leaning over him.

"If you need to put weight on me, you can," he said.

"You said it made you uncomfortable?" I asked. I had put a knee down on one of his filaments earlier, and he had asked me to remove it, saying the sensation of my clothing against his filaments was irritating. They were sensitive and fascinating. He could make rooms out of just his filaments. The structure of the metal rooms and hallways was really a protective barrier to keep the friction of my moving inside of him from bothering him, along with piping for other things he didn't want to come in direct contact with. That piping protected him from the runoff from my shower when I first arrived.

"It is important to push through some discomfort," he said. "You are helping me, and I can easily support your weight. Do what you need to do to make this easier on you. I will bear it."

I rubbed my back again.

"Let me know if it is too much," I said. "I'm going to lie down."

I crawled my hands out towards the opening in the floor where the spot was and carefully lay down on my belly. My pelvis and legs were still on the metal, but my hips, belly, and chest were on his soft filaments, like lying on a bed of gentle hands cupping my body, with my face out over the opening. His filaments shifted slightly underneath me, but they remained firm, supporting me. I reached down into the hole he had created and began to carefully work on the strands that had the spreading spots on them, wiping them off with careful strokes.

I felt something shift against my belly, like the gentle stroke of a finger against bare skin. It was his filaments, shifting underneath me, but the bottom edge of my shirt had ridden up when I lay down, pressing my stomach against him directly.

There was another soft stroke, and it felt good, like the gentle caress of a single finger.

It felt too good, and I felt heat pool between my legs.

I cleared my throat as my stomach tightened, my lower belly muscles clenching in response to the featherlight touches. The heat grew, soft and sudden, and I became hyper aware of how my chest was cupped in the filaments.

"Lyrien," I said. "Are you doing that on purpose?"

"Doing what?" he asked.

Another stroke, and I bit my lip and flushed. It felt exactly like someone trailing their fingers across my lower abdomen with the intention to seduce, but that couldn't be his intent.