System Overclocked 3 -ch 14-

Chapter 14

“And… you should be waking up now. It’s honestly almost amusing how easy it is to tell when it’s about to happen,” Squeak said with a high-pitched giggle. She sounded excited and happy at the same time.

Wrench grunted at that and just focused on breathing. He felt heavy and his body felt a bit odd, but not wrong.

It didn’t feel damaged or broken.

“How bad?” he asked after a short time.

“Pretty bad, actually. You had quite literally burned off all your skin all the way down to the muscles,” Squeak said and patted him on the shoulder. Her hand felt cool as it then rested on his shoulder. “You’re, as ever, back to normal. As if there hadn’t been any issues with you at all. You’ve taken in… a stupendous amount of calories. I don’t even want to try to calculate it.

“Before you ask, you have testing tomorrow morning. This is the morning on your second day off. You were asleep for roughly twelve hours.

“No one thinks there’s anything wrong with you and that you’re just tired. Everyone tends to think you’re always working endlessly so… you suddenly taking a long sleep isn’t outside of normal.

“I just told them that you were doing it here so that you could get extra calories even while sleeping.”

“Good story,” he mumbled and worked at forcing his eyes apart. They felt rather gummy and strange. Slowly, he got them open and found he was indeed in Squeaks domain. Covered in several blankets with at least four IV drips hooked into his left arm.

“Isn’t it? I plan on using it in the future just to get some alone time with you. Now that it’s happened once, I can make sure it happens again,” Squeak stated and then appeared above him. She was peering down at him with a wide smile. “Now, how about you pull up that special power of yours and help me do some systems checks. Outwardly you seem fine, but it’d be good to go through your internals and see if we can’t confirm it all.”

Wrench sniffed, blinked, and then reached up to push at his nose. There was an odd smell that he couldn’t place.

Squeak tilted her head to the side, still staring down at him.

“Alright,” he said, realizing she wasn’t going to take no for an answer.

He called up his systems in front of himself.

Only to realize he needed to pull a number of them back down to a normal level.

Each of his systems read off as a blue state and functioning normally. That everything was, surprisingly so, as it should be.

“Everything’s listed as optimal,” Wrench reported, gingerly moving his thoughts through his systems and giving them a once over. There really wasn’t anything wrong at all that he could tell. “I’m also running at the baseline at the moment. I try not to change anything above what it should be as you asked me to.”

“Hm. Alright. Just give me a moment then please,” Squeak asked and leaned in even closer. There was a click and a pop and then the table he was on shifted.

It moved around till he was seated upright and facing her directly.

Squeak then set something that looked a lot like a silver disk in front of her right eye and somehow it stayed there. Her left eye closed and he found himself staring at the disk.

Using both hands she gently tilted his face more toward her. Her fingers had gained some warmth since she touched his shoulder or he had cooled down, he wasn’t sure.

There was an odd feeling in his eye as if she were shining a light into it. He wanted to close his eye but he also realized that was probably exactly what she didn’t want him to do.

A thumb was gently pressed to his lower eyelid and he felt her draw it down.

Only to slowly repeat the process with his other eye.

“Look up for me please,” she said in a soft voice. It gave him a strange feeling and his skin prickled.

He looked up as she’d asked. Finding her closeness somewhat overwhelming.

Realistically, he knew he was attracted to her. That wasn’t really even a question.

Right now he was feeling a bit odd having been away for two months without any real intimate contact. Now being as close as he was to Squeak it left him with a response he wasn’t expecting to have to deal with.

“Please follow the projection without moving your head,” she asked.

Blinking, he looked to Squeak’s face again.

A small blue dot had appeared in front of the silver disc. She had also moved partially away from him.

He followed it as it moved in each direction without moving his head.

The dot vanished after several passes.

“I looked into myself, by the way. Just as you wanted me to,” Squeak murmured and laid her hands to each side of his head. Her fingers were gently pressing and pushing at his ears and jaws. After several more prods she moved to the side of his head. Her fingers delicate moved his ear around. “I found that I do indeed have a driving instinctive response to you. An overwhelming one, in fact.

“Except, even upon dosing myself to counteract that sort of thing, it didn’t actually change my wants and desires. Because at a base level, I just really want to breed. I always have.

“I feel like motherhood was my original calling and being a Mender springs from that. A desire to care for others and mend them.”

She let go of his ear and moved around to stand in front of him.

The circular object was still in her eye but she had her other eye open as well.

Her hand came up under his jaw and her fingers pressed into him. Gently pressing and pushing at several places along his throat and under his jawline.

He imagined she was checking for something, only for her hand to go still over what felt like where his veins pulsed in his neck.

As she did so, her other hand laid a small device against his wrist.

He felt it rather than saw it.

It felt cold.

“So, you’re going to have to help me out with my need to breed, I’m afraid,” she said, staring at him but not seeing him. “I know I’m not exactly what your normal preference is but I think I’m quite attractive.”

“I think you’re attractive, you know. Beautiful,” Wrench assured her. “I’ll gladly throw you into a bed, Squeak. That’s not an issue at all.”

Squeak smiled briefly at that, then put her hand on his neck.

“Swallow for me,” she asked, to which he did so.

Then she lifted her hands up to touch his face. She gently moved the tip of his nose back and closed one of her eyes again.

“Stripe came by as well, you know,” she murmured, then let his nose go and tapped his chin. “Open wide and say ‘ah’.”

Doing so, Wrench wondered about Stripe and what she might have wanted. If she might have perhaps gone crazy in the end.

“She apologized to me. For threatening me. That she was glad you had talked to me about her and that she didn’t have to hide it,” Squeak continued. Then tapped his chin as if telling him to close it. She then pulled something out and placed it against his chest. Moving the circular device in her eye, to hear ear. “Then we had a frank conversation about what was wrong with her, possibilities, and a number of other things. As her Mender, it was quite productive. As a Hab-mate, it was quite… comfortable. She even smiled at me. A real smile.”

“I’m glad to hear that. I told her she needed to accept the fact that you were part of my life. That likely we’d end up in a bed at some point,” Wrench stated.

“She mentioned that. I paused the experiment I was running to inspect myself far more deeply. I wanted to have an answer for you today,” she said a she moved the device around his chest. “Because at the end of this exam, you’re going to give me a sperm sample.

“The test I’ll perform will only take a full day to complete as it’s also a genetics test. If I find it to be active, healthy, and what I expect, you’ll be giving me another sperm sample.

“Directly to my cervix.

“Admittedly it might need to wait till you come back from the next testing session, but so be it.

“I’d like to attempt this in the missionary position and I’ll bring my ankles up as far as I can. That way you can put it to the back of me.

“Then I plan on inverting myself onto my head to make sure it can only flow in one direction.

“It sounds ridiculous, but I’m willing to try the ridiculous.

“Also, you must do this with as much copious volume as you can. While turning that system of yours as high as you can for your reproductive side. I expect you to give me the best quality sperm you can. I want your genetics to overwrite my already amazingly superior genetics and produce a new species of Hume.

“We’ll repeat the procedure until I’m satisfied I’m pregnant for as long as it takes. Stripe has agreed and she has stated she expects to help me raised my children as an aunt.

“To be fair, as a Deme, I’m not too different than her. She didn’t mention it but I suspect that’s your doing.”

Wrench nodded his head. It was indeed his doing.

He was also up for the idea of giving Squeak a run through until she was satisfied.

That sounded fun to him.

He also knew Seventh would likely want her own turn if he was doing that with Stripe.

Squeak gently tapped at his chest several times. As if listening to the sounds it’d make.

Feeling quite warm at her rapt attention, he merely watched her. Feeling quite well cared for in a way he hadn’t really considered before.

“How many kids do you want, Squeak? Pretty sure you’ll only end up with one. Maybe two, at a time,” Wrench murmured. “You’re Hume, after all. Deme are still Hume, too.”

Squeak paused at that, an odd look crossing her face.

“If I wasn’t innoculated at the moment to push my drive down, I’d probably have responded with, ‘there won’t be a time I’m not pregnant’,” she said in an odd tone he couldn’t identify. “At the moment, I’d be satisfied with about nine. Mm… maybe ten. Eleven. Make it eleven.”

Shit.

***

“Wrenchie?” called Goodie.

Halting mid turn on the bolt, Wrench paused.

He was fairly certain he’d heard Goodie but he wasn’t quite sure.

“Mom?” he asked instead.

“Yes dear, could I talk with you real quick?” she asked. She sounded strange to his ear but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

“Sure mom, just give me one moment,” Wrench muttered and then worked to quickly lock the bolt into place.

Once it was seated, he grabbed the baseplate of the food dispenser and gave it a shove.

It didn’t shift at all.

“There we are. All tightened up,” he mumbled to himself.

It’d been a request one of the School had put in after having bumped into it. That it was loose and she was concerned she’d damaged the dispenser itself.

Without even asking them about what happened, or why, Wrench just fixed it.

He didn’t see a reason to bother them since their request had been filled with apologies.

Smiling to himself, he shook his head.

Somehow, the School had adopted the entirety of the Hab.

It wasn’t uncommon to see the School swarm over several Grae and end up carrying them off somewhere. Forcing them to play, chat, and be with them.

As if they were School.

To which the Grae responded openly with smiles, laughs, and immediately joining in.

“Kat said they love talking about dresses,” he said to himself as he put his tools away. Then froze as remembered the promise Oz had made to him. “I need to check the assembler and see if there’s new things there. That’s everything I earned, I should make sure I got it and tell the Hab.

“Because if Stripe suddenly starts wearing dresses I got for her… I better well be sure to make sure she knows I’m the reason it’s there.

“That and… some of those clothes… mmm.”

Nodding his head at the memory of some of the things humans wore, he definitely wanted to see Stripe in them. He also wanted to see Seventh wear some other things in particular.

Now that I think about it, I’d love to see my Grae wear it all, too.

Even… even the School… and Popsicle… Pistol.

Errr, I need to go see Seventh or Tickaht, see if they’d be up for a tumble.

Letting Squeak personally get that ‘sample’ from me with her hand really didn’t help me at all.

Ugh.

By the time he made it down to his conversation rock, there were more than twenty people all talking with Goodie. Who was somehow responding in such a quiet way that her voice wasn’t carrying at all beyond those she was speaking to.

Wrench couldn’t hear her.

“Ahh, there he is. Alright. I’m sorry sweeties. I need to talk to Wrenchie,” apologized Goodie. “Once I’m done talking with him, I’ll come back and we’ll talk more. Cuddles as well if anyone wants to cuddle. I promise.”

“Promise?” demanded a voice Wrench recognized but couldn’t place.

“Yes dear, I promise. You little snuggle monster. You, Popsicle, and Pistol, are so cuddly,” Goodie said with a laugh.

The group as a whole trooped off, though Tickaht moved to him, rather than away.

Wrench didn’t see any other Grae in the group or he imagined they would probably have come with her.

She was dressed in a top and dress that really belonged on someone like Stripe, but Tickaht filled out nearly just as well.

“Hello, my Wrench,” Tickaht said, bouncing right up to him with a smile and a purr in her words.

No sooner than she reached him, than she kissed him, her arms tightening around him and holding to him. Then she broke the kiss and pressed her face into his neck.

“Carry me,” she demanded and then held to him, lifted her legs up, and wrapped them around his waist. “Spoil me. I’m your Grae. You look at me and long for me. You love me.”

Wrench only grinned, put his hands under Tickaht’s rear, and held onto her. Walking toward Goodie once more.

“I do love you, Kat. Very much,” he answered and laid his cheek to her head. “And who’re you kidding. I’ve spoiled you since I met you.”

“True. You have. I should spoil you in return so you spoil me more,” she said and then suddenly went quiet, just holding onto him.

Wrench made it to his stone and stood there, looking up at Goodie.

“Hello Wrenchie. It seems our dear Tickaht wasn’t going to let you go,” Goodie murmured with a chuckle. Her voice felt odd to him. As if it was around him, rather than reaching his ears. “Considering she was just telling me she hadn’t seen you in too long, I suppose this isn’t a surprise.”

Well… hm.

I suppose she’s gotten used to how much attention I was giving her.

Her, Seventh, and Stripe.

“She’s my precious Grae. I love her,” Wrench stated with a small nod of his head. “It’s harder on her since I’m gone all day and don’t come home till late. She’s an early bird. The most she sees me is when I kiss her before I crawl into bed.”

Dialing up his strength just a smidge, he allowed himself to hold her with one hand and arm only. The other coming up to begin to lightly glide through her hair.

Tickaht nodded her head and then growled.

“Nunnkish and Zntik are also pushing more,” she grumbled. “Zntik’s boobs are huge and Nunnkish is just prettier and more Hume-inine.”

“Good thing you’re the Grae I personally ran down, hm?” Wrench asked and poked her in the back of the head. “Came after you and kept coming back.”

The prod at the back of her head wasn’t that firm but he wanted her to know he was making a point.

“I-yes. You did long and look at me. You chased me. Me. They chase you, but you chased me,” she muttered, only snuggling in tighter to him.

It was very unlike her and he wasn’t quite sure what to think of it.

Other than to ask Squeak to take a look at her.

“You two are so sweet together. I’m still rather sad you two can’t have children together.

“Though… that’s part of why I wanted to talk to you dear, because I saw the upcoming testing that they want to propose. During this upcoming Hume week, that is,” Goodie said and then sighed. “It’s insulting when I consider what they what. Insulting and genuinely a bit gross.

“But… but I think it’d help a lot. It seems like most of them can get a general idea of what you’re saying and what you’re responding with now. Communication has begun.

“To that end, they want to move into testing more of what you are as a Hume. What you see, hear, and taste. All the senses that you have that we don’t.

“Everything that… that Hume or Grae do, that we don’t.

“Like… that… that is… ugh… they really want to see Hume copulation.”

Copulation.

They want to see me have sex?

“Hume copulation,” Goodie repeated as if wanting to make sure she said it. “If possible, they also really want to see a Hume become pregnant and then monitor it from the moment of inception to finality.

“They’ve carefully, and I do stress that word, carefully selected four other pairs of Hume to be part of this testing. They all agreed to be part of the testing for rewards but they agreed.

“Which is good but… but the scientists are quite insistent that they want you to be part of it. For you to be part of it with someone you’re willing to mate with. Additionally they want to watch you copulate with a Grae to see if there’s anything different there.”

Tickaht had lifted her head up at that last part and was now staring at him.

A stare that told him exactly what he would be saying to Goodie.

Because that stare was a simple request for him to accept and that he would apparently be having sex with Tickaht while Tongsta watched.

“That’s fine,” Wrench said finally. “It’s definitely weird that they want to watch but I suppose I’ve been watched before without knowing it.

“That and Squeak wants me to impregnate her. Tickaht wants attention and that’ll give her some of that. Everything else will work out. It’s just weird but-it’s just weird.”

“Oh good. They asked for a few partners for you so I’ll make sure to grab one or two more from your Hab. Do you want to pick them out? I wouldn’t pick anyone that didn’t volunteer for it obviously but I’m not sure if you genuinely mind who,” Goodie offered.

Sighing, Wrench wasn’t really surprised at this. Given the Tongsta curiosity so far, it made sense that they’d want him to repeat it a few times so they could look for variation.

He only shook his head to Goodie’s question.

Stripe wouldn’t be happy but realistically this was part of the deal they’d made with the Tongsta.

“It’s fine so long as you run whoever it is by Stripe,” Wrench relented.

“I’ll make sure to do that. I already know who to ask,” Goodie said excitedly and then laughed. “I’m sorry Wrench, but I admit I’m really eager to-to see you have children. There’s more than a few that I really wish you’d have children with as well. Like Popsicle and Pistol. Children with them would be just-just-well, I just think you’re so special Wrench that there needs to be more of you.

“An amazing Hume like you should populate multiple Habs with your children. It’d drastically change the Hume gene pool with each and every child you put into it.

“You’d fix it with every single one of them.”

When put like that, he had a much harder time arguing her point.

Doubly so when he couldn’t argue her point either.

According to Squeak’s preliminary testing on the current sample, and previous samples, his DNA had broken beyond what she would have considered perfect.

He was rapidly moving into a new type of Hume entirely.