The Initiative Inhibitor Dilemma

(This story contains graphic sexual depictions, including m/f mutual masturbation with gentle femdom overtones. It also contains an abstract sci-fi dilemma surrounding valid consent, but all participants in the acts depicted are enthusiastic and over the age of 18. For the reading pleasure of interested adults only.)

***

"You're sure he's ready?" Delia asked when Captain Philips gave her the assignment.

Her question was less a question than a stalling tactic. She knew perfectly well that the captain of the Prospector wouldn't have begun this briefing without careful consideration.

"It's been seven months," said Philips. "Cog453 has made impressive strides adjusting to life on... a different sort of team."

"A third of his brain is still made of Crupp tech," said Delia.

"Which is disturbing," Philips acknowledged, "and unfortunate. For him. But it poses no threat to you. In fact, if you're concerned about his loyalty, or his stability, think of it as insurance. You'll be the one holding the controls."

"Me?" Delia put a hand to her chest, first to emphasize the word, then to pound her airway clear when she choked on it.

"Of course," said Philips. "No one else will be within range to use them during the mission."

"You want me to use Crupp tech?"

"I trust you to treat the task with sensitivity and respect," Philips told her seriously. "You'll have complete control over Cog453's actions. He'll follow your commands, and if you deem it necessary, you can use the full override mode and pilot him like a shuttle, but I really don't believe you'll need to for security purposes."

"I'd prefer not to have that option at all, sir," said Delia.

"It's not for you," said Philips. "So far, Doctor Kellan hasn't been able to fully deactivate Cog453's initiative inhibitor. The poor guy still needs to be ordered to eat. That's why, at least for now, someone has to be responsible for the controls at all times. If carrying them has the side effect of making you feel safer around him, fine. If not, find another way to deal."

"Do you think this is fair to him?" Delia reached for her last objection.

"Nothing about the last twenty years has been fair to Cog453," noted Philips.

"I know," said Delia, "But I mean, sending him back out into the same asteroid field where the Crupp kept him for all those years...?"

"He insists that he wants to help, and that it doesn't bother him," said Phillips. "If we really want him to live as one of us, we're going to have to start honoring his choices sooner or later, even if they don't make sense to us."

Delia nodded, accepting the truth of this, preparing herself. "Yes, sir."

#

Cog453 arrived in the docking bay of the Prospector at the appointed time, climbed into the starboard pilot's seat of the scanner ship, and looked to Delia, already waiting in the matching port seat.

His awareness of her encompassed three main points:

Firstly, she was to be his only source of new orders for the duration of the mission, and she suddenly looked terribly small to rely upon for that purpose. Yes, she was wearing the wristband with the controls for his implants. But she was just one person with one body, even shorter, narrower, and softer than his own, with all the usual organic vulnerabilities. If anything happened to that body while they were out in the field alone, she would be gone, and he would be completely alone. Lost.

Secondly, her face and posture were fixed in an expression Cog 453 had recently learned to recognize as discomfort. There were many reasons, Doctor Kellan had told him, why his new colleagues might experience discomfort around him — his inexperience with social interaction, his association with the Crupp, even the very nature of his existence. Most Humans didn't like being reminded how much of their identities could be boiled down to the physical workings of their brains, and how fragile they could therefore be.

Thirdly, Cog453 found himself observing that Delia was very pretty, with strong cheeks, dark hair that looked silky to the touch, and an intricate eyeliner design that must have required significant patience to master. He had been taught better than to mention this sort of observation at work, especially to a woman who was already showing discomfort, but he made a mental note to report it to Doctor Kellan in his next progress assessment. Just last week, he had not been able to distinguish the quality of "prettiness" in anyone or anything.

Delia entered the takeoff sequence, set the course, and then drummed her fingers on her side of the control console, as the scanner ship left the Prospector behind and headed for open space.

"So... how are you settling in?" She winced as if her own question had increased her discomfort.

"I have no frame of reference to judge the experience by," Cog453 answered. "It has been difficult, learning to tolerate unpredictability, but the difficulty decreases daily. I've found I enjoy interacting with other feeling minds. I hope to improve my skills in that area."

"Other feeling minds?" Delia isolated his wording. "So, your feelings are coming back?"

"Some," answered Cog453.

Delia's chewed on her lower lip.

Cog453 decided to ask. "Is there anything I can do to make this experience easier for you?"

Delia made a sound that would have to be categorized as a laugh, but was not consistent with humor. "Easier for me? I should be asking you... I just, I don't know how you can be feeling anything right now and not want to burn the universe down with everyone inside it."

"I don't know why anyone would want that," Cog453 told her in as comforting a tone as he could generate.

"This," Delia said, gripping her wristband. "This is why. I'm so sorry about this."

"Why are you sorry?" Cog453 asked. "You're preserving my life with that device."

"You shouldn't need me to," insisted Delia. "We should have done something to stop this from happening to you, before it happened."

Cog453 thought this over carefully. With so little experience, he was probably wrong, but it certainly sounded like something he had already been taught.

"Doctor Kellan says I had no control over what the Crupp did while I was under their rule," he said. "Or over what they did to the rest of my colony when I was a very small Human."

"Of course you didn't," Delia agreed immediately.

"But you did?" he asked. "When you were, I estimate, a comparably small Human?"

"...No," Delia sighed, with heavy resistance. "I guess not."

"So, there was nothing you could have done?" Cog453 confirmed. "And therefore nothing you should have done?"

"I get it," said Delia.

"Perhaps Doctor Kellan could help you as well," Cog453 suggested. "To better internalize the concept."

Delia's next vocalization sounded more like humor.

"Maybe," she agreed.

As they approached the Glittering Claim asteroid field, strewn with abandoned Crupp equipment, Cog453 became aware of Delia looking at him more frequently, with concern.

For most of Cog453's life, this field had belonged to the Crupp, and functioned like a massive machine, built from abducted and modified living cogs like himself, with a single Crupp administrator assigned to maintain the system and handle any rare glitches.

Now that the field was officially in Human territory again, all the mining equipment lay silent. Most of the cogs had been killed in the retreat, and others were being rehabilitated on Earth.

Only Cog453 was here now, out of tens of thousands, to help prepare the mines for very different management.

"Do you feel anything?" Delia asked eventually. "Being back out here, I mean?"

Cog453 hadn't expected to. He had been unable to feel anything during his captivity here, not even boredom or despair, so he had thought there would be nothing to reexperience when he saw it again.

"I feel... relief," said Cog453. "I think it's relief."

"To see that they're really gone?" Delia guessed.

"No," Cog453 said, then added, "Maybe, partly. I believe I'm most relieved that the work I spent my life on is not gone. It's all still here, ready to be put to a different use."

"Not a bad way to look at it," said Delia. "Once we get some solid readings on what's left in these rocks, we can start prioritizing which machinery to salvage. We're going to start with the largest one along the near edge of the stabilization array."

She looked to him, and Cog453 recognized that she was expecting him to do something.

"I need you to order me," he reminded her.

"Right, sorry, the initiative inhibiter," she said, and pressed the activation button on her wristband gently, as if she thought it might break. "Is this okay?"

"I am receiving your commands," Cog453 confirmed.

"Okay, then. Initiate the separation sequence and land on the outward turned side of the target asteroid. Once you're in position, activate your sensor node and watch to make sure it connects with mine. If it doesn't, or if anything else goes wrong, establish radio contact."

She touched one of the two-way radios mounted on either side of the split control console.

Cog453 nodded, entered his half of the separation command, and stifled a sigh as one of his implants released its reward chemical into his brain.

A partition closed between Cog453 and Delia, there was a shift of air pressure, and the ship split itself in two down the middle, allowing them to diverge and land on opposite sides of the asteroid.

The chemical kept flowing at a steady drip with his continuing obedience.

#

Delia anchored her half of the scanner ship to the asteroid and ran a check on its sensor node, confirming a complete circuit with the one on Cog453's side. She set the scan to run, reclined her seat, and took a moment to breathe.

In a way, Cog453's apparent indifference to his own ordeal was comforting. Blankness and a clean slate to build a life on was far preferable to the suffering she had imagined for victims of the Crupp. And it spared her having to figure out how to respond to the sort of feelings she would have expected to come up.

At the same time, his composure made her feel all the more inadequate. The Crupp had taken him, not her, and he wasn't letting it slow him down. What business did she have getting lumps in her throat at the mere thought of them?

It was bad enough having to imagine Crupp machines out there full of strangers. The longer she spent around Cog453, the more times she had to look at that cute smile he got whenever he discovered something new, or the wrinkle in the middle of his forehead when he was trying to understand other people, the harder it was to accept a universe where anyone would ever want to hurt him.

Her radio crackled.

"Delia?"

She pushed the button to answer. "Yeah, all good on this end, how's it looking for you?"

"Delia, I believe I am experiencing a medical event."

Delia startled upright. "Can it wait, or do I need to abort the scan and come pick you up? It'll ruin the memory chip, but I can be there in thirty seconds."

"I'm not certain," Cog453 answered.

"What's wrong?" asked Delia.

"I'm experiencing sudden, pronounced swelling."

"Did you hit yourself on something?" she asked.

"Not that I'm aware of."

"Is it warm to the touch?"

There was a pause on the other end of the line.

"Yes."

"How painful is it, on a scale of one to ten?"

"One," answered Cog453.

"One means no pain, ten means the worst," Delia clarified.

"I know," said Cog453. "There's no pain, but it feels strange."

"Strange how?" asked Delia.

"Strange... is the word I default to when I don't know how to describe something. I've never felt anything like it before."

A suspicion began to dawn on Delia, and she moved her hand away from the abort button.

"Where is the swelling?" she asked.

"My genitalia," Cog453 answered, perfectly matter-of-fact. "Could it be a pressure failure in my side of the ship? Or a parasite native to this field, capable of infiltrating our seals? My body has undergone drastic changes since the last time I was here. There could something in the environment I've lost my resilience to. If so, it could start affecting you next."

"Cog453, listen to me, you're okay," said Delia, wishing he'd remembered or chosen another name already, one that was easier to say quickly and comfortingly. "You're having an erection."

"A what?"

Delia pinched the bridge of her nose, cursing Doctor Kellan's slow and steady rehab schedule.

"It's a normal physiological function," Delia emphasized. "One you're going to be glad came back, in the long run."

"What kind of physiological function?" Cog453 asked. "Do I need to do anything about it? What is it for?"

"It's for sex," she told him, trying to mirror his straightforward tone, stick to the facts he needed. "So, no, you don't have to do anything about it right now. Just ignore it, and it'll go away eventually."

"Are you sure?" he asked, with a hint of panic. "It's so rigid."

"I'm sure," said Delia. "Try to relax."

"What if I've regained the capacity for this function to start, but not for it to stop?"

"Then..." Delia took a breath. "Then we'll know in a few hours."

"A few hours?"

"I promise, you're not in any danger until then. If it hasn't gone down by the end of this first scan, we'll stop there and head back to the doc, but it probably won't come to that."

"Understood." She could almost hear him nodding reassuringly to himself on the other end. "Would you stay with me? On the radio? While we wait to find out?"

"I'm not sure if that would be...."

She started to say helpful, but it sounded presumptuous in her head.

"Never mind. Okay," she said, not wanting to picture him sitting alone and scared in the dark. "I'm here."

Cog453's end of the line was silent for a long while, and Delia began to wonder how this version of sitting in silence on opposite sides of a rock was any different from what she'd been doing before he'd asked her to "stay with him."

Then, another crackle.

"This would be an expected circumstance for a person to feel embarrassed, would it not?" Cog453 asked.

"Are you feeling embarrassed?" Delia replied.

"I'm not sure," said Cog453. "What does embarrassment feel like?"

Delia thought about it. "Hot in the face, unsettled in the stomach."

"Both of those symptoms apply," Cog453 confirmed. "Is that all?"

"Uh, it makes you worry that people are unimpressed with you," Delia went on. "Or that they would be, if they knew more. It makes you want to either hide or hear that you're not alone."

"Also accurate," said Cog453. "Am I mistaken, or are the recognized symptoms of embarrassment extremely similar to the symptoms of infatuation?"

"Shit, they really are, aren't they?" Delia realized out loud.

"What is one supposed to do about them?" asked Cog453.

"I... uh, I'll tell you if I ever figure that out," answered Delia. She blew on her bangs with a sharp gust of breath. "Um, let's see. Feeling not alone. Feeling normal. Do you want me to tell you an embarrassing story about me?"

"Yes," said Cog453. "Very much. Does that make me a bad person?"

"Not at all," said Delia. "I offered. Okay, did I ever tell you about the time I vomited inside my helmet during flight training? It got everywhere. I had to wait two hours in decompression before I could even start cleaning up."

Cog453 chuckled politely on the other end of the line.

"I'm sorry," he said. "That's awful. But somehow it doesn't quite feel like a point of comparison."

"No, I guess it's not," Delia sighed. "Fine, okay, last year, I was getting tired of the lack of personal space on the Prospector, because... well, because of the exact physiological function you're experiencing now. It's not easy to find a quiet spot to take care of it, let alone actually connect with anyone."

She listened to the silence of the radio for a moment, the silence of Cog453 listening to her. This was easily the most private moment she'd experienced in months.

"So, I made some modifications to my hand probe, you know, the one for extracting surface samples? I fixed it so that I could switch out the drill attachment for this molded piece of polymer clay I made, and it would vibrate if I double-tapped the 'on' button. I thought it would, I don't know, help me finish faster? Whenever I could steal a minute somewhere. But of course, for the same reason I made it, I ended up getting caught. The captain wandered in the first time I was testing it, in the lab."

Delia let go of the button, hoping Cog453 would send her a laugh, or any kind of reaction. Something to soothe the feeling that she never should have started telling him this. The radio remained silent, and she pushed ahead.

"I had, like, two and a half seconds between hearing the door open and Captain Philips actually stepping inside where he'd see me. So, I pulled the probe out, zipped up my jumpsuit, and proceeded to give him a twenty-minute demonstration on how the modified vibrating end could be used to pulverize soft minerals, hoping he wouldn't ask me why it was so sticky. And the whole time I'm feeling, well, about the same kind of hot-faced embarrassment that you discovered today. And the same strange swelling. Just a little less visually obvious on me."

She released the button, and the silence returned. Delia couldn't tell if she had actually alleviated any of Cog453 distress, or only spread it to herself.

"Could you say something?" she asked, realizing too late that that might count as an order.

The radio crackled as he pressed the button on the other end. "When you say, 'take care of it...'" he paused. "Does that mean there's something to be done, about symptoms like these, other than waiting?"

Delia put her face in her hands, realizing how much new information she'd piled on him without even thinking about it.

After collecting her thoughts, she pushed the button. "Yes, there is. But like I said, it's sexual. Intimate. It's not like putting on a Band-Aid."

"I apologize," said Cog453. "I did not wish to impose an unwelcome degree of intimacy upon you."

"You didn't," said Delia. "I'd actually... I'd really like to do that for you, if I could."

"In that case, would you walk me through it?"

"I'm in a position of extreme power over you," Delia tried to explain. "I think it would be best if you leave me out of this and try to figure it out on your own."

"I can't do that," said Cog453.

"People figure out their own bodies all the time. Feel free to take advantage of the privacy of this mission. I'll just forget you ever mentioned it to me."

"I meant to say that I can't try," said Cog453. "I'm incapable of committing time or energy to any pursuit with the objective of increasing my own comfort or happiness, without explicit orders."

Delia's heart squeezed for him. "Because of your initiative inhibitor?"

"Yes," answered Cog453. "You have the power to instruct me to relieve this discomfort, or to withhold that option from me. Either way, my physical state is in your hands. I regret that I cannot release you entirely from that duality of responsibility."

"You regret?" Delia sputtered into the radio. "No. You have nothing to apologize for here, do you get that?"

"I believe so," answered Cog453. "However, do I understand correctly that, unless my inhibitor can someday be deactivated, anyone who has the power to explore this function with me will be honor-bound not to do so? And therefore, I will never be able to experience it?"

"Fuck, I don't know, man," Delia answered, resting her head against the control console.

She came to a decision and crossed her fingers that it was the right one, informed by compassion and reason, and not by the hot, embarrassed, infatuated feeling running through her body, causing swelling and rigidness in hidden places.