*A few years back I released a short lesbian cyberpunk novel taking place in the aftermath of a hacked election that leads to the collapse of the US… for some reason it’s started getting more attention recently (can’t imagine why!) Here’s the first chapter of [Dreams in Digital](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33559729-dreams-in-digital). Enjoy!*
Every Run begins with a Gate.
Sometimes it presents as a literal gate or doorway. Sometimes it’s a wall I have to scale, a mechanism to manipulate, or a suspicious guard I have to sneak or bluff my way past. It’s the hardest part of a Run to prime, usually taking on only the vaguest outlines of your intentions as the dream starts to take shape. Here more than anywhere else, your intuition is in the driver’s seat.
On the Kobayashi Run, the Gate materialized in front of me as a towering calligraphic scroll, its finely textured face completely filling my field of view. Gracefully brushed characters swam lazily across its cream-colored surface, drifting like inky clouds, and the thick paper seemed to wave in response to a non-existent breeze. There was no sky, no earth, no sense of space at all. There was only the scroll, and me. I had no body yet. That would come later.
Like most other NorPackers, I can recognize a handful of kanji characters: enough to tell the hot imported brands apart and find chicken on a menu, but not much else. If my parents had stayed in zaibatsu-dominated SoPac, what used to be California, I’d probably have been fluent. Doesn’t matter on a Run, though. In spite of my illiteracy, the symbols on the scroll were heavy with significance, even if they were really just repetitions of “blade,” “woman,” random numbers, and meaningless amalgams of brushstrokes constructed by my subconscious. The weight of their meanings seemed to drag at their drifting motions, an inertia of connotations.
My attention slid over the wavering symbols, and the marks danced across the paper, rearranging themselves into a different sequence. New meanings bound themselves together, and the scroll’s rippling in the illusory wind ceased as the marks grew heavier on its surface. Then the black ink began to glow, dull red at first, then through orange and butter-yellow into a searing white-hot glare, and in a blinding rush of heat and light, the scroll burned away to nothing. The sudden flash blinded me, and I blinked flickering after-images out of unfamiliar eyes. I found myself embodied, standing in a moonlit courtyard, the ashes of the scroll at my feet and the ornate doors to a medieval daimyo’s castle hanging open before me. My scripts had gotten me through the firewalls. I’d passed the Gate.
After the Gate comes the Maze. It’s not enough to breach the stack. A stack might contain dozens or hundreds of individual nodes. All you can do on the stack without targeting a specific node is map it out, and I could run a simple script like that while I was awake. Hell, I could do that on an old-style keyboard interface. Either way, the mapping would probably be out of date within a few hours, and I’d have risked detection for nothing. If the goal calls for the speed, precision, and flexibility of a Run at all, part of that Run will be a Maze.
I stepped through the open door into an endless series of hallways, old-style paper panels lit by flickering lanterns. The soft light made the waxy polish on the floorboards glow like the surface of a puddle under streetlights. Now that I had something like a physical environment to interact with, my Presence manifested more distinctly. I wore an elaborate kimono, a profusion of brocade in royal blue, with a thick obi sash in the salmons and blues of a sky just after dawn. Woven sandals scuffed along the polished plank floor as I navigated the twists and turns of the Maze in the usual unreal haze, following instinct and pre-programmed algorithms through the stack’s directories.
Austere watercolors hung on the wall panels. I’d primed for this Run by weaving a marathon of historical dramas into my customary mix of scenario-building media, and the ambiance was coming through strong. The serene atmosphere was disturbed by distant clashes of metal on metal, shouting voices, and the constant low rumble of hundreds of men trampling the earth. This was a castle under siege. Still, I made my way through the Maze slowly, deliberately, taking small, unhurried steps in the mincing gait enforced by the tightly fitted kimono. The battle was only background. It was not why I was here.
I rounded a corner and felt my awareness sharpen. A wave of certainty washed over me as I approached a sliding-panel door. It was visually identical to a hundred others I’d drifted past on my winding path through the Maze, but I knew, with the kind of conviction that’s so elusive in waking life, that I’d found the right node in the directory tree. I drew the door panel aside and stepped into the room.
She was lying under a thick quilt with her back to me, her futon rolled out on the tatami floor. At the sound of the door closing behind me she twisted around in a startled rustle of silks, frightened brown eyes wide and staring up at me. She was all fragile beauty and terror, like a porcelain teacup falling toward the floor, and my heart gave a brief flutter, the kind you’d feel as you groped to catch the cup before it shattered. She presented as a composite of several actresses from Japanese dramas and other, more risque media, with a few features drawn from elsewhere in my mind: short, slim figure, pouty pink lips, and high cheekbones. She had a mole on her cheek that might have come from a yoga instructor I’d had a few years ago. Although she was petite, the flickering lanterns revealed tantalizing cleavage where her robes parted.
I put on my most sympathetic and reassuring smile, trying not to let my own nerves show. For a moment I was pulled out of the flow of the dream, distracted by the reality of my situation. This was it. If the “hot tip” about an unpatched node on the Kobayashi stack was legit, I was headed for a payday. If not, this Run was about take a very awkward turn. Beyond the thin walls, the chaotic sounds of the siege continued.
Her dark eyes shimmered with reflected lamplight for a long moment. I held my breath. Then her fearful expression melted into something else: recognition, comfort, gratitude, and maybe just a touch of reverence. Her mouth bloomed into a wide smile and she gasped with relief:* “Senpai!” *
It had worked. The tension I hadn’t known I was carrying between my shoulders gave way. Knowing this node was awaiting a patch, I’d wrapped my intrusion in the trappings of another Kobayashi process. It looked like my package was delivering the awaited patch, allowing me to bypass layers of ICE and other defenses. And it had worked!
The Run is never a one-to-one representation of what’s happening on silicon. Code is about hard rules, zeroes and ones, cold logic. A dream is a loose, flexible thing of intuition and analogy, and the rules can change second to second. It’s being able to bridge these two worlds, to prepare flawless code for every contingency and then to prep and Run a dream that lets your intuition guide the code’s execution, that sets Dreamrunners apart from your run of the mill script kiddies.
With my code disguised as a Kobayashi security patch, my Presence was a kind of big sister figure, like a trusted family friend or mentor. More serious in appearance, older, taller (although, oddly enough, my bust was smaller than hers; probably my subconscious trying to appear unthreatening.) As I stepped farther into the room, my kimono dragged on the tatami behind me and a long, straight ponytail swayed across my neck and shoulders, tickling the skin there. *“Daijobu,”* I whispered, kneeling on the futon next to her, and gathered her into my arms. “It’s okay.”
Relief and joy lit up her features, and she buried her face in the shoulder of my robe. Her hair was long and oil-slick black, shining with reflected lamplight and held in place with delicate lacquered combs. I stroked the smooth tresses gently as I pulled her closer. *“Kowakatta,”* she murmured. “I was scared.”
“It’s all right,” I replied in the same language, despite not actually knowing more than basic TV Japanese. Dreams are like that. “I’m here now. I’ll keep you safe.” I felt the fear wash out of her as she relaxed against my chest.
Then the room went out of focus, and I felt a transitory sensation of falling that tickled my stomach. The next moment, we were lying under the quilts together, her back pressed snugly against my chest. Her hair smelled faintly of jasmine. The lamps were extinguished, but faint moonlight streamed in from a window that hadn’t existed before, illuminating the pale curve of her bare neck and shoulder; her loose robe had begun to slip down her arm. The clamor of battle outside the walls had vanished.
Newbies can get thrown by shifts like that. Dreams follow dream logic, and that isn’t always, well, logical. And you aren’t really lucid during a Run; you can’t make decisions in real time. The whole point of Dreamrunning is letting your subconscious make the calls, faster than you could in waking life. You prep and plan and code the tools you need, you prime your subconscious with media and hypno to set the right stage, and when you’re ready, you dose up on eLucid-8, jack in, and let your unconscious mind drive the Run. If your code, your prep work, and your fantasy are good enough, you wake up with the memory of a successful Run. But you can’t make executive decisions halfway through. You’re along for the ride, and if you fight it you’ll just slow yourself down, or worse.
I knew how to cope with jumps of dream logic. This was far from my first Run. Suddenly transitioning from a kneeling embrace in lamplight to spooning under the covers in moonlight didn’t disorient me at all. On the contrary, it was a step in the right direction. With the scent of her skin in my nostrils and the warmth of her body radiating against me, I nuzzled the wisps of hair at the nape of her neck and felt her stir beneath the quilts. My arms were already wrapped around her, my hands half inside her robe; I could feel the fine hairs on her smooth stomach beneath my fingertips. Her skin slid against my hand as her breath moved in and out. I let my hand slide slowly downward, until my fingers were twined into the soft hair of her mound and I could feel the heat of her on them. Her body twitched to a surprised stop, her breathing stilled for a half-second. The room was silent, the moonlight suddenly sharp in the still air. She turned to look over her shoulder at me, almond eyes full of questions, but also anticipation.
For most Dreamrunners, a Run is about solving a puzzle, navigating a labyrinth, or fighting enemies. These are straightforward analogies that everyone’s experienced in sim-games since they got their first interface jack. But those scenarios never worked that well for me; they’re too combative, too gamey. On a Run, I’m not there to fight the node. I’m there to convince it that it wants to give me what I came for. To me, a Run isn’t a challenge to be defeated.
To me, a Run is a seduction.
I smiled into her questioning eyes and pressed my lips to the arch where her shoulder met her neck. She shook like a leaf at the shock of that first touch, then froze, paralyzed by doubt and uncertainty. But beneath her fear stirred an awakening pang of yearning. It was my dream, and in dreams you just know things like that. I was as sure of her interest as I was of my own. I laid a trail of kisses up her neck, and with each touch I felt her heartbeat quicken under her warm skin. She did not recoil when my lips met hers. They were soft and full, and tasted faintly of cherries. Her response was tentative at first as desire battled taboo. I soothed away her misgivings with my embrace, and she melted sweetly into me, opening like a delicate blossom in the moonlight. Her limbs stirred and shifted, restless but without anything to hold on to; still, every movement pressed the length of her body into me. Soon her tongue was seeking out my own and the center of warmth under my fingers had become a furnace. I held her body tightly against mine, my nipples hard against her back.
She broke the kiss to sigh softly into the silence, which had grown thick and heavy, and I nibbled her earlobe while my touch orbited in slow circles around her womanhood, drawing the passion buried there to the surface. Before long her breathing grew heavier and her hips began to subtly tilt and gyre, chasing me. I cradled one of her pillowy breasts in my free hand and let my other hand dip lower still, tasting the hot dew gathering on her lips, until my fingertips were wet with her want.
*“Senpai,”* she whispered again. “It feels so good… but…”
“Hush,” I admonished her gently. “I know you’ve been waiting for me to come to you like this. I have amazing things to show you; trust me.”
She arched her back slightly and emitted a tiny moan as I slid a finger inside. The last of her hesitancy fell away in tatters. She placed one small hand on my own as if to say, *“don’t stop,”* and reached back to grasp at my hip with the other.
For long minutes we lay there together, my finger working slowly in and out of her warm wetness, my other hand teasing her nipples while I peppered her neck and shoulder with kisses and she ground her hips against me. Like a creature of one body we moved, a rippling thing of silk and sweat and ever-mounting desire. The soft fabric of her robe brushed against my nipples as she moved, sending tingling flashes of sensation along my nerves. When I felt her begin to tighten around my finger, I disengaged from our embrace and slid out of the quilt, the blood hot in my face.
She whimpered slightly when I withdrew my hand, but I silenced her with a deep kiss and guided her out of the quilt. Sitting up and kneeling on the futon, I pulled her onto my thighs so that she faced me with her knees bent and legs spread, and held her there with a hand on her supple bottom. Our robes were open, barely kept on by their sashes, and her pale skin glowed beautifully in the light of the moon. Our bare breasts pressed together as our lips met again, hot and urgent. She surprised me by pulling away from the kiss to draw one of my nipples into her mouth, and I gasped as I felt a pulse of heat travel from my bosom to the growing fire between my legs. But I lifted her face away from my chest with a finger under her chin and kissed her again, lashing my tongue against hers. No distractions; I had to stay in control.
With one hand on her backside to hold her in position, I moved my other hand back between her parted thighs. She opened to me eagerly, a sound escaping her that might have been a mumbled, *“Yes.”* She was wet and hot and tight, so tight, and she moaned into my mouth with pleasure as my fingers eased inside her. I began slowly, massaging the soft spot in the roof of her pussy, but soon she was bucking against me, drawing me further inside. I had awoken a need in her, and now she was insatiable. Her arms wrapped around my neck, she drove herself against my hand, faster and faster, and I used my thumb to stroke her clit while I fingered her. Her breath became shallow and raspy, and her wetness ran down my fingers and soaked my thighs. Her breasts swayed in rhythm with her rocking hips as she gasped wordlessly into the night, her head thrown back, our kiss forgotten in the crescendo.
The angle of her hips changed and I felt the climax welling up in her. I withdrew slightly, still inside of her but holding relief just out of reach, until she began to beg in time with her movements, “Please, please,” her voice plaintive and breathless. At last I relented, sliding my fingers even deeper, and she nearly toppled us both with the force of her reaction. I worked in her, and she filled the quiet of the room with the sounds of her building ecstasy. I took one dark nipple into my mouth, swirling my tongue around its tip. Her motions grew arrhythmic and desperate as she crested the wave of her excitement, and I drove her over the edge with thrusting urgency. Her fingernails dug into my shoulders, her eyes squeezed shut, and her mouth opened in a silent “O” as I felt her clench and spasm around my fingers.
In the middle of her release, her eyes opened wide, and for several breathless seconds she stared at me; in rapture, I thought at the time, but in retrospect, that was where it all went to hell.
Through a trick of moonlight and dream logic, I could see my Presence reflected in her dark eyes: a face not my own, flushed with exertion and desire. Maybe I was distracted by that, or by the ongoing waves of her orgasm squeezing my fingers, still moving against her G-spot. Maybe I was just careless in my prep and failed to code the right failsafes. I’ll never know for sure. But what I saw in her eyes as post-orgasmic bliss must have also held a shade of recognition, of betrayal. She knew it was too late to stop what had happened, but she also knew that it had, and that I was responsible.
She collapsed against me, holding me in a tight embrace and taking deep, ragged breaths. I ran my fingers up and down her smooth back, unsuspecting, happy to play out the scenario. When she began to kiss my neck, much as I’d kissed hers, I thought nothing of it. When she planted her mouth against my throat and sucked, hard, I winced momentarily, but bruises fade, especially bruises that aren’t real.
I think that must have been when they tagged me.
But none of my safeguards were triggered, so when the dream ended and medieval Japan dissolved into my grungy Seattle apartment, circa 2068, I was already patting myself on the back and thinking of the new gear I could buy with the couple dozen Kobayashi middle-managers’ corporate accounts I’d just compromised.
I blinked away the lingering confusion of the transition and stretched. The cool blue moonlight of the tatami room was replaced by lurid red neon burning its way through my threadbare curtains. The images on the tattered nu-alt band posters stuck to the ceiling above my hammock swirled and wavered with the lingering effects of eLucid-8. And my dreamdeck, which made it all possible, rested on my belly, its electrode leads strung across my chest to the contacts on my forehead. The deck was connected to my phone by a thick data cable, and a second cable trailed from my phone to the jack behind my ear.
I pulled the trodes off of my forehead and popped the cable out of the my interface jack. Then, since my panties were soaking wet and I’d been edging every day for weeks to help prime for this Run, I spilled my whole rig out of my hammock to the floor in my haste to grab my vibrator off the dresser. I came hard within minutes, flush with success and pent-up lust, never suspecting for a moment that my life as I knew it was over.
Source: reddit.com/r/eroticliterature/comments/l2ti4k/excerpt_seducing_a_security_system_ff_scifi