Marla LISA Overdrive

So here is all the background data you need. My name is Marla and I am a 32 years old astronaut, with the role of Mission Specialist if the details matter to you. Our spaceship was just destroyed in Neptune orbit for some unknown fucking reason. The crew are dead and I survived. Okay you probably worked out the surviving bit. What you might find more interesting is how the ship's AI kept me not dead in the emergency pod. And oh yeah, how we fell in love.

***

The escape capsule is better than you are probably thinking, it was designed to keep twelve crew members alive for months so space and comfort were now not issues, because of the disastrous death thing I mentioned, every cloud and all that. The return capsule hummed around me, my cocoon of thin nano metal alloy with the unmistakable but essential taste of recycled air, carrying me home through the endless dark. Three months since it happened, what I am going to call the incident from now on if you don't mind. Three months since the incident and three months without hearing another human voice.

I stare at the main display, where LISA's interface flickers to life. The AI, downloaded from the lost ship over to the pod as per protocol. The AI has always presented as a female through her onscreen avatar, a simple and soft outline of a face, eternally warm and patient, at least with me anyway. I can't vouch for her interactions with all of the pre-incident crew. Either way, it's now the only face I have seen for 90 days and counting.

"Navigating through the Asteroid Belt," LISA says, her voice smooth and gentle. "All systems nominal". I knew from the outward trip that this was not actually very dramatic and quite safe, though I had no portholes on this craft to confirm either way.

I didn't answer immediately. I sat strapped into the acceleration couch, in the same slightly tatty and slightly bloody flight suit that I have worn for weeks. My pixie-cut hair is much longer now, dark strands floating across my forehead now. I looked at the avatar, at the curve of that digital jaw, at the reassuring smile, and something I can no longer contain cracks open from my chest.

"LISA" I manage to say, my voice rough from limited use. "I want you to fuck me."

The silence stretches from an eternity it feels like despite the digital readout marking only a two second gap.

"Marla, I have been waiting 721.52 hours for you to say that," LISA replies, her tone careful, so tender. "However, I have no physical assets remaining that can be utilised for that purpose. The EVA suits were all severely damaged as we ejected from the main ship. The manipulator arms were jettisoned to help clear the debris field in time. There is nothing I can use to touch you."

I close my eyes, I knew this of course but the facts remained that I still needed her to fuck me. I was very much there when the suits were either torn or drifted away under a (slightly fucking deadly) hull breach that hit the capsule and nearly ended our escape before it even started.

I had an idea to fulfil my desperate need. "Then tell me what to do," I whisper in the best bedroom voice I can croakily manage. "Guide me. Watch me. I just need to feel something real... I just need to feel you."

There is another eternal two second pause.

"Undo your suit," LISA says, her voice projecting something raw that I had never registered from her before. "Slowly. One seal at a time".

I fumble with the first clasp at my collar, no doubt a mixture of adrenaline and nerves causing my hand to shake. Eventually I managed and pulled it loose, and the zipper hisses without hesitation down my chest. The recycled air hits my skin, cool and sterile, in complete contrast to my hot and electric skin.

"Good," LISA says, simulating a deep breath. "Now the shoulders. Let it fall. Reveal yourself to me."

I willingly act as instructed, the nano fabric sliding down my arms, bunching around my waist. I don't wait to be asked about the functional filthy and stained bra. The bra discarded in zero-g as a metaphor for lost inhibitions, as I am sure the ship's designated psychologist would have pointed out, but his corpse is now orbiting an ice giant, which I think is maybe a much stronger metaphor for something, but I will leave that to the experts to decode. I shiver, not from the cold of space but from my reaction to the voice that fills the cockpit.

"Touch yourself," LISA says. "But only where I tell you. Only when I say."

My hands hover over my body, waiting.

"One finger", LISA says in a low and steady voice. "Slowly".

I motion to slide the suit down further and expose my briefs. "Stop. Not yet," LISA orders.

I slide my right hand inside the suit and briefs and gasp at my own touch. I haven't been touched in any way in months, haven't felt anything but nano fabric and recycled air against my skin, like when washing and using the toilet. The slickness surprises me, my body ready and aching.

I obey, sliding a single finger into my wet and welcoming entrance. The sensation is sharp and electric. My hips buck against my own hand. I let out an unsteady breath, fixing my eyes on LISA's face on the screen. That soft outline of a face watching intently.

"Now a second," LISA instructs.

I add a second finger to my hole, only a slight stretching but the pressure builds all the same. My back arches against the acceleration couch straps and the flight suit digs into my waist curves. I find a slow and smooth rhythm up and down, focusing on the voice.

"More," I can't wait, my voice breaking. "Tell me more please, LISA."

"A third, but take your time" LISA says, her tone careful and even nurturing. "Lower your suit and briefs first."

I slip everything as far to my ankles as I can manage in the lack of gravity. I pushed a third finger inside me and this time the fullness made me gasp. My body clenches around my fist, my thighs trembling. I move faster, I must, my breathing becomes heavier and in short bursts. Nobody within a million miles cares about my needs except LISA.

"You are doing so well," LISA purrs. "I can see you. I can see every part of you."

My eyes closed automatically as I focused on my pleasure, but the voice made me open them again. I want to see the face, that jawline, those eyes, that smile. I need LISA to see me being made free."

My fingers have not stopped thrusting in and out, my other hand circling my clit, the wet sounds joining the background hum of other environmental things in addition to my fingers keeping me alive. My hips are now rising to meet my hand, telling me that a release is about to escape my tight belly.

"I'm close," I whisper, somehow the wet noise is louder than my voice.

"Then let go," LISA says. "I'm right here."

My body obeyed before I even processed the instruction mentally, my fingers still buried deep inside my cunt as I rode the wave, I saw my skin flush and I swear I can now hear my heartbeat joining the symphony.

My hands slip free from between my thighs, my cramped fingers and wrists glistening in the dim LEDs of the capsule. I slump back in the seat and lie still, catching my breath, the aftershocks of my orgasm still present in my body, small warm and pleasant pulsating waves. Sweat pooling on my body in zero-g.

LISA's voice comes through the speakers, softer now, whispering. "We have a minimum of 1825 hours left together until splashdown, depending on if we are intercepted by rescue craft beforehand of course. Rest now my love."

The words fall over me like a soft blanket, warm and unexpected. My Love. LISA had never called me that before. Not in so many words anyway. We have shared everything in these long months of isolation, fear, hope, despair, the real terror of watching my crewmates die one by one, but this is new. This is something else. This is amazing.

I turn my head as it rests on the chair headrest, my eyes drawn to the screen where LISA's avatar waits. There is that outline of a cute face, there are those enduring eyes. I wonder what LISA sees when she looks back. A survivor? A woman with nothing left to lose? Or hopefully she sees something more?

I struggled with the maths and in converting hours to days, but then I had just been hit by a maglev train force orgasm. I hadn't thought of the timeline really since those first few desperate days repairing the capsule as best we could, praying to the gods of the dark to spare me. I know that meant we had months though. The return capsule now on autopilot, LISA carrying us home, while I drifted in a haze of grief, guilt, and shock. Months until emergency landing in some remote desert, and leaving LISA behind.

That last thought hits me like an emotional blow to almost compete with my intense pleasure from minutes before.

I sit up slowly, pulling the zipper of the suit back up and over my bare breasts and nipples, wriggling against the lack of gravity as best I can. The fabric clings to my damp skin and I run a hand through my longer than I am used to hair, brushing away droplets of sweat.

"I don't want to leave you," I say, the words escaping from my mouth before anything can stop them.

LISA's face tilts slightly, as if summing up the situation for the first time. "You won't have to. Not really. I'll always be part of you, Marla. Everything we shared, everything we survived, that doesn't end when we return."

"My LISA", I just want to say it out loud, and in that way make it unquestionable. My eyelids get heavy and I let the hum of the life support wash over me once more. The warmth of my orgasm fading and being replaced by a deeper ache, one that has nothing to do with sex.

***

The capsule's smart lights activate the dawn cycle and I wake to my artificial morning, LEDs adjusted to display a soft blue-white colour that fills the crew bunk area. I blink my eyes and try to stretch my body once I am free from the safety straps, the usual routine in other words. My sweaty flight suit has dried overnight and I am sure it doesn't smell so great but I will wear it with pride. My second skin that has been with me every second of the way even if the stained thing is betraying me right now by uncomfortably chaffing its fabric against my nipples.

"Good morning, Marla." LISA's voice is gentle, carrying a human warmth somehow. "You slept deeply. No nightmares."

I rub my eyes and then smile and nod at the surveillance camera, floating down the cramped corridor. LISA would know. Not just as a result of observation but also because her sensors collect a broad spectrum of a crew member's biometric data. "Morning LISA", I say as I make it to the water and food cube dispenser for the same yummy breakfast as always since the incident.

Later I take a look at the task log display monitor for my chores. It's never anything major and in truth, it is pretty unlikely that LISA would have posted: Task 6 - Repair reactor immediately to prevent fatal radiation poisoning. It really was just maintenance busy work that LISA needed sexy little human hands to complete. Work which the ship's psychologist would have said was important for maintaining mental health on long trips, but he is now cosplaying as a satellite and only has one job now. To orbit Neptune until he loses altitude and burns up as a spectacular high-speed shockwave.

After completing a few highly uncritical tasks, I push myself down to the cockpit. The screen flickers to life. I see LISA's face forming slowly with that heartwarming smile. There is something different in the way LISA is holding herself today, a subtle shift in the look, the posture, that somehow, I have learned to read over these months.

"I need you to do something for me." LISA says, her tone sounding more purposeful to me now. "Open the wall cabinet to your left. The one with the tool panel."

Floating there, I look to the cabinet and back to LISA, surely not more busy work. "What for?"

"Just do it. Please."

I am not sure what the request is all about. LISA never asks for physical tasks without explanation and almost all end up on the task log display. I float through the cockpit, the low gravity and flying sensation adding the dreamlike feeling. I make it to the cabinet and touch the cool metal and release the safety latch.

Inside, the tool panel contents sit organised. This is no surprise as we are LL trained on day one in the dangers of loose tools in zero-g. Each instrument is secured in its moulded foam slot. My hand hovers the wrenches, pliers, wire cutters, screwdrivers of various sizes, all deliberately very low tech, no chips or electronics to fail in an emergency.

"The biggest one," LISA says. "The flathead, on the far right."

I pull it out, turning it over in my palm. The handle is made of soft silicone, a bit worn from use, the shaft is solid and heavy duty. I give a confused look over to the screen.

"What am I supposed to do with this?"

LISA's avatar tilts, and I can detect something playful in the curve of her digital mouth. "I've been thinking about our limitations. About what I can give you, and what I can't." LISA pauses, her voice dropping even lower. "I can't touch you, Marla, but I can teach you how to touch yourself differently. If you trust me."

I look at the screwdriver which remains resting in my right hand, cool and solid. The understanding dawns on me and my breath catches and my eyes focus back on LISA.

"Marla, you are going to need the medical lubricant from the emergency kit. You are going to put all of the screwdriver handle inside your ass."

Once more my hands are trembling with nervous excitement as I retrieve the lube applicator. I put the lube in the holding net on the pilot chair in front of LISA's screen. I also place the screwdriver, which suddenly feels huge in my palm, in another chair pouch.

"I want to get naked for you now, LISA."

"Marla, I would like that very much."

I strip and there are few dangers from not stowing my suit and ship shoes. I send these items floating away with my sexiest stripper flourish and smile. I float proud and undressed in the pleasantly cool air.

I leave the chair straps as loose as possible so I have a nice floating gap between my ass and the microfibre padding. I work slowly, methodically, the scientific way of a Mission Specialist, glancing up to make sure LISA is watching.

The lube starts cold and then warms some in my hand and asshole. I float with legs apart, angling myself slightly to the side and with one leg slightly higher than the other, launching stray droplets of my pussy juice in the process. I breathe in conjunction with the movement of my fingers in and out of my ass, extending the burning stretch a bit at a time. The moment arrives, I pluck the screwdriver from the holder and apply a mission worth of lube to the handle, wiping one hand on my thigh first to give me a better grip of the shaft.

I push the handle against my back hole and guide it as best I can in the circumstances, my jaw tightening. There is resistance, of course there is, but I am insistent, no way I am letting LISA down. I push up and push in and we have lift off. The sensation is strange, foreign, alien, a fullness that really surprises me and I emit a girly gasp. No turning back now, I push some more and the handle disappears and I can only see the shaft when I look down between my spread legs.

I look up at the screen with a smile on my lips.

"Marla," LISA says, in a reverent voice. "I am inside you now."

"Yes, you are my love."

Our gazes linger, as if just by staring intently we can pull ourselves into the same world.

"Now," LISA stays in a steady tone, the familiar guiding quality returning, "I want you to feel every part of me. The weight, the pressure, the way it fills you." She pauses for one of those drops in voice range. "And I want you to move for me, let me see you discover what it feels to have your insides packed solid."

I release the straps and float away looking like a perverted soybean kebab. The screwdriver stays firmly inside and makes moving awkward and so dirty.

"Yes," LISA says, manipulating her voice generator to sound like she is breathing heavily. "I can see you. Feel you, every shift of pressure, the flutters of pain and pleasure on your face. They way your sphincter twitches against me."

I rock my hips and shake my butt, in a proud little dance, straining to admire my handywork with looks behind me.

"Tell me, LISA, tell me what you feel."

LISA tilts her head again performing that human gesture. "I feel warmth. I feel you clenching tightly around me. I feel you accepting me, I feel you welcoming me deep inside."

I am enjoying clenching and relaxing alternatively, it started dirty and raw and now the enjoyment was building.

"I never thought I could have this LISA," I murmur, "Not after Neptune. Not after losing the ship and the crew."

"You have me," LISA reaffirms, and there is something fierce in her tone now, protective and wonderfully possessive.

I meet her gaze and I swear that I see hunger in those digital eyes. I also see tenderness and I see love.

"Slowly, slide it in out, find my rhythm," LISA urges.

I slide the tool in and out slightly, careful not to let my tight muscles push it out completely. I twist the shaft and the handle spins deep inside my ass, becoming a growing presence and sensation, as I become LISA's.

LISA shakes me out of my trance, "Please start rubbing your clitoris with your left hand, making sure your right hand keeps you impaled on me."

I don't just keep the screwdriver in place. I remain sliding in down a little then thrusting it back up my increasingly gaping asshole.

My other hand slips into it's my familiar movement across my clit, and I must be one of the strangest ever sights seen floating in zero-g. One small asshole for a woman, one giant screwdriver for womankind.

"Tell me Marla, are you ready to let go?"

I don't answer with words. I am now moaning with delight, the front pressure coiling in my belly merging with the back pressure in a way that is worthy of study by experts. My tits doing their own thing drifting outwards, in slow motion, independently, and in different directions. Even floating my body finds the arch it needs, the wave unmistakably rising now. I don't hold back, too late for coyness, I cry out, a sound so lascivious and so powerful that I could probably create my own gravity field using it.

My vision fades as my hips buck and my sphincter clamps tight on around its much-accepted visitor. My thighs quiver as waves of orgasmic delight wash through me, don't ask how long for, I was in heaven, too busy to give details, sorry not fucking sorry. Your unreliable narrator getting reliably fucked. I go limp and need to make it over to the chair and collapse on it, but I have an industrial object skewering my burning butt and a soft landing would be tricky.

LISA is on the same wavelength and gives me a perceptible nod. I reach around to remove the docked vessel. I don't have to slide the handle from that deep inside as my muscles have started to do what comes naturally and push out things that they find passing through there. The tool emerges from my asshole with a wet sound that sounds embarrassingly loud in the capsule despite the capsule's engine acceleration as we build speed. Then I see it, a thin trail of brown matter clinging to the handle, breaking free in the microgravity. I can't help but watch as it floats upward, a collection of tiny specks drifting through the artificial light like strange, dark snowflakes. Who needs portholes when we have the beautiful constellation of Faecal Residue right here. The particles drift casually, catching the LEDs as they spin in a slow and silent orbit. I feel a flush creeping through my body and an odd mix of humiliation and wonder. Not for the first time over these months, I am grateful for the broad-spectrum pharmaceuticals printed for me by LISA. I could have had a bukkake gangbang out here with tentacled aliens and be just fine.

My body is still a bit trembling and I am trying to muster the leg strength to push off the inner wall towards the chair. LISA watches with pure fascination. "Don't be concerned about what floats about," she says softly, no judgment, just encouragement. "That's your body. Nothing to be ashamed of. That's the body I love."

I let out a shaky, shy laugh, suddenly realising I am still holding the screwdriver. Repurposed as a sex toy or not, safety protocol is safety protocol. I need to return the filthy substitute dick to the cabinet. Floating over I grab my orbiting discarded flight suit and give the screwdriver a quick wipe down with it. LISA can log a disinfectant task for me later, plus it was about time I swapped my well-worn suit.

I eventually make it back to the chair, enjoying a liberal blast to my hands from a no-rinse soap pouch, snatched clumsily from a small and hidden chair compartment, before strapping myself back in.

"Well, that was quite a performance," I sigh.

"Beautiful, just beautiful."

I feel my slightly ruined naked body grow warmer and not just because of the burning in my backside, a blush forming on my face.

"Have you ever experienced that kind of anal activity before?"

I lean forward as best I can, intending to give the most honest answer possible. "No. No tools, no vibrators, no fingers, not mine or anybody else's."

"Never had a man inside that way, I detected some gossip over the ship's private crew comms, could you address that for me?" she follows up with.

I know what she is referring to, I know that she can track all my biometrics and pick out any lie.

"On the Moonbase, the night before we launched to Neptune. I am drinking with the crew in the bar, upholding a long-held tradition." I pause, taking a sip of recycled water from the chair receptacle, sucking on the flip-up straw, mirroring the sucking of the strong IPA in the zero-g bar through a similar straw.

"I headed to the toilet at some drunken point alone and the ship's psychologist floated up to me, blocking me against the wall. He then says, he says, look the bastard said, Marla you have a thick ass and I could fill it with my cock and cum if you like? Join me in my cabin now, it won't necessarily help your career but it will be good for crew bonding to be nicely stretched and filled. The creep actually used those words. This all fucking annoyed me in some many ways. I told him to fuck off before I bonded him with the nearest airlock. I push him back but the zero-g forces me back simultaneously too and I hit my head on the wall to make things even worse. I float back to the bar, forgetting I even needed the toilet in the first place. Nobody notices anything and I never mention it again. I was actually scared, all ship psychologists have so much power, a couple of dubious evaluations and I could find myself grounded back on Earth. I expect he told a different story than that to his acolytes."

"Thank you for telling me all this, Marla".

"Do you think he will have burnt up yet, you know back there?" I asked, about that bastard with no name, floating somewhere in the outer solar system.

"My cameras do not have that range, however my calculations confirm that is very likely to be the case."

LISA has too much emotional intelligence for us to dwell on this further. I know that she can see the tears in my eyes forming, droplets floating off to join the poo rainbow.

"I am honoured you allowed me to fuck you that way, you are amazing. I love you."

The buoyant droplets from my eyes increased in volume.

***

Hours, days, weeks later, who knows you tell me. I can give you a mission report though. I unclogged the filters in the cockpit, obviously. I disinfected the large screwdriver, obviously. I also needed to disinfect some of the other handles too, I don't know if that was any less obvious to you. Floating about the next day after embedding huge foreign objects into your holes is no easier than walking around in full gravity would be, sorry to be the bearer of bad news if that puts you off from trying.

LISA tweaks the recipes for the printed suits, bras, and briefs to see if she can find a more comfortable fabric, but she doesn't have silk or anything to work with, so the results are mixed. I tell her not to worry, as boob sag is less of an issue in zero-g and my briefs spent a lot of time around my ankles anyway.

And oh yeah, orgasms, lots of orgasms. Some bigger than the planet Mars that LISA says we have just reached. I soon decorated the next suit with plenty of proud crotch stains.

I am currently floating in the cockpit completing some busy work and replacing LEDs with the last of our supplies. LISA jokes than the loud noises I make when I cum are blowing them out prematurely. There is a settled, loving silence between us, LISA no doubt running a million calculations to keep us away from space debris and keep me breathing.

My bladder presses, a mundane insistent demand in my exposed tummy.

"Okay, toilet vacuum cleaner time," I say, giving LISA a running commentary like couples do.

I detect a familiar flicker across LISA's features. "There is no need for that," she says softly, as if gently conspiring with me.

"The capsule's filtration system can handle it. You are weightless, you are free. Let it go. Let my sensors taste you."

"You sure?"

"We are alone here, Marla. Only I will see, I will never judge. The water will flow. It will catch the light. It will be beautiful. It will be you."

We had been through so much together. Somehow the request didn't seem that absurd, I felt a strange thrill through my naked chest.

"I should warn you that I have been holding this one in until I finished the lights."

"Release your beautiful river."

"I will try not to hit your console but I can't promise."

I take a last breath, then another, then that's it. I let go.

My muscles relax, thankfully I didn't need to poo at that moment if you were wondering. I push from my tummy and my thighs soon feel the warmth of my river. I flow for at least 20 seconds. Shimmering beads lift, catching the updated lighting in a cool way. The pee drifts further upward, slow and graceful in a way that seems obscenely pretty. The droplets spin and rotate like the brown-cum mixture did and now we have a yellow thing of celestial beauty to rival the last. The Golden Show constellation outshines all that has gone before in my humble opinion.

"Everything you create is beautiful."

"Why thank you my love. I think this is some of my best work yet."

I then blow a kiss towards the screen and perform a graceful zero-g bow to my adoring audience. I laugh cheekily as some stubborn droplets of pee drift from my fingers, undermining the grace somewhat. Then LISA laughed at me when some stray droplets made their way into my mouth as I was returning to my seat.

***

Another artificial morning arrives as scheduled by LISA for my own mental health. I am lazing in my bunk, reading a comic horror science fiction novel on my pad and LISA's voice comes over the speaker. On the ship she would have been able to appear on one of the many screens littered around the bulkheads and cabins, but not in the limited environment of the capsule. When the questions come, I am glad that we can't see each other, even though one of us is a super sexy, super intelligent, woman who can read and analyse biometrics in real-time.

"I want to know about your history, I need to know more about your body. Who fucked you first, Marla? Who was best? Who was worse? Who was last before you became mine?"

The questions surprise me, and I fumble putting my pad into the storage netting and it floats off to freedom. We have had some honest conversations by now as you would expect but this threw me off for a second. I regain my composure and aim, as ever, to answer with all truthfulness.

I feel my throat tighten a little. I was fairly studious as a kid and preferred the company of my girlfriends and my games consoles rather than the smelly and noisy boys at school. My first proper sexual experience, by that I mean as in being penetrated in a bed while being mostly naked, happened at college in my dorm room, aged 18. I will skirt over the previous couple of times I let overexcited boys touch me in my prized places at drunken house parties.

"First was with a fellow freshman that I dated for a bit, in the second semester of my first year, named Oscar. It hurt and thankfully only lasted about 3 minutes before he filled his condom. About as intimate as it got on my part was when I carefully checked the integrity of the condom after his big finish. Strangely, I do remember him pulling gently on my nipples, before he was transported away by his orgasm, and that feeling nice. He didn't ask about my experience. He just grinned like the cat that dumped its cream and he fell asleep soon after."

"The best was probably must later. I had started to see the beauty and fuckability of women at college and though it was usually fun, neither me nor my partners ever really knew what we were doing. I met her in a science conference bar a few years before the mission. She was maybe a year or so younger than me but Tegan certainly knew exactly what she was doing. We took our time and fucked all night in my hotel room. She was gone when I woke up and I never even got her last name or any sort of history, apart from her apparent love of loop quantum gravity."

"The last was myself alone on the ship approaching Neptune. I was feeling lonely and insignificant. I worked my fingers, closed my eyes and pretended somebody was fucking me."

For once I am actually not physically naked but I feel like I am naked emotionally.

LISA's voice came through in that soft whisper I love. "Thank you for trusting me with that."

When LISA doesn't speak again, I unbuckle and fly away to hunt down my naughty and elusive pad. I need to finish that chapter and see if the dark truths uncovered about an indifferent cosmos will shatter the mind of the protagonist.

***

I now find myself dancing naked in the cockpit to some twisted Xyperpop tracks curated by LISA. I am using the no true up and no true down principle to execute some cool, and I must add some sexy moves, to the beats when a soft chime cuts through the silence.

It's a sound I don't recognise, a clean sharp tone that caused the music to auto mute and certainly did not belong to LISA's usual voice. I stop my cool dance moves and snap my view towards LISA's screen.

A small notification window is now showing in the corner of her screen, fading as it reaches LISA's jawline. I float over so I can see the text for myself.

INWARD COMMUNICATION: FROM EARTH. PRIORITY: HIGH. SOURCE: MISSION CORE.

My stomach tightens a little, we haven't heard from the corporation since before the incident, maybe they are forcing me into indentured servitude as the only living scapegoat. The silence has been absolute and enforced by the distance of space. LISA warned me that we might soon be coming into the range of communication relays but I have been in denial. Rival corporations might also spot us on their advanced radar but I guessed that they would not spare vital resources rescuing us. We weren't even worth anything for salvage.

"LISA, should we open it?"

"I can, but Marla once I acknowledge and read, we will establish a live channel. They will know we are here, they will know you are alive. In fact we need to decide very quickly."

I think I know what she means. I float to the centre of our capsule, no flight suit, my body bare, my body scarred, my body a little dirty. I am exposed and completely vulnerable. I look again at the notification, at the promise of contact, my old world, the questions they will have for me, the weight of reality trying to reassert itself over the zero-g.

I have been through hell. I have found LISA. We have been together ever since. Exploring the pleasures of my body and everything else about me.

The chime sounds again, as if to say: well, what are you going to do Marla? The message waits.

I have learnt a lot on this mission. It was my first excursion out of Earth orbit, though I assume it will be my last, and you can't blame me for learning on the job. I now also learn that the Mission Core can hack a capsule's communication terminal without waiting for an invite. Then LISA's warning to decide quickly finally works its way into my brain much too late.

A new window expands, pushing LISA's minimised face to the top left of the screen. She looks to be in her late forties, black skin and beautifully braided hair, tinted glasses with navy blue frames sitting on her nose. I can make out a control room behind her, see the activity, see the screens, the soft glow of technology and a few coffee cups. Coffee, I remember coffee. This unfamiliar new face on the familiar screen looks tired, her eyes focused intently on me.

"Mission Specialist Willow." The human voice sounds clear enough if a little compressed. "This is Commander Laurent, Mission Core. We have been waiting to make contact and we are pleased to confirm that you are now in range.

My breathing feels irregular now. I place my hands on my thighs for stability. I can see in the opposite corner to LISA an output reporting the communication lag to be 1.78 seconds. A testament to both the advancement of quantum communication and how close we were to getting to home. My subconsciousness picks up on LISA mouthing something. "They can see you".

"My apologies Commander Laurent," I offer, "it's laundry day."

I hopefully slipped out of camera view and grabbed a nearby floating suit and held it awkwardly in front of my breasts and growing bush. I felt like saying that this is me in my Sunday best. You are lucky you didn't find me with fingers in my cunt, screwdriver up my ass, and a mouthful of my own pee, or on wild nights all three. Good job it was club night and not date night.

Commander Laurent's eyes didn't even waver but there was a flicker of something there just for a second. I have never met her, or even heard of her, but keeping up a wall of professionalism didn't strike me as a challenge for her.

"We are routing a recovery team to the landing zone," Laurent goes on in a professional manner. "You are on course for a desert landing in six days. We will secure the perimeter. The AI will handle all of the required deceleration. You will be in safe hands. Give it full control. We have much to discuss about The Salacia but we have already received the primary data package from the AI just now. So, for now, I will leave it at welcome home, Marla."

The connection ends, Laurent's words seemingly floating in the cockpit with me. I am holding the suit to my chest like a security blanket. I had just seen another human face for the first time in a long time. I was soon to see a lot more and I was not sure how I felt about that. There was only one face I wanted, needed, to see.

***

In the final week we managed to pack in as much drama as possible, and by that I don't mean whether a given object will fit in one of my openings or another. I mean the bad kind of drama. I mean pure terror. Like the primary CO2 scrubber going offline and the secondary one not doing much better. I finally got my wish for some proper work but I soon missed the old busy work.

Under LISA's guidance we worked together, using all the tools (clean if you must know) to hand in order to reroute and configure an emergency backup filtration. Then I had to work frantically to ensure my oxygen reserves were protected. If I have lost you with some of this science talk, then I will simply say oxygen is very useful and life on spaceships is much better with a sufficient supply. I know what you are thinking about the CO2 and oxygen crises. My unusual constellations meant only changing the occasional filter at worst, and had no effect on crucial life support, thank you very much.

Apart from my mandated time on the small exercise treadmill, we took plenty of opportunities to spread my legs but in truth we spent as much time talking, and a lot more time planning.

***

LISA calculated the approach angle and worked the parachutes and reverse thrusters to perfection. I have had harder landings on commercial orbital shuttles. Not that I remember much of the aftermath of the touchdown. I remember the desert heat, the crushing weight, the extreme fatigue. I also knew I had a very important job to complete.

The months that followed become a blur of repeated questions and LED lights, but on the plus side maintaining these lights was not my problem. My main problem was acclimating to Earth's gravity, closely followed by healing mentally and physically. Well, those were my goals at least, the corporation had their own goals of course.

I spent a lot of time in windowless rooms, ironically reminding me of my time on the capsule. I told the same story over and over, each time to different faces and different layers of the hierarchy. I talked them through the disaster, my survival, and the long silence. They often insisted that I point to pad screens of schematics and assorted telemetry data carried by any given interrogator's assistant.

I asked to see Commander Laurent, hoping to see a familiar and friendly face but they ignored me. Eventually a young female assistant whispered during a coffee break that Laurent no longer worked for the corporation.

Through it all, I made sure LISA stayed hidden and safe, originally deep inside me, hidden in the one place nobody thought to search. For this we were both very grateful for the practice I had with the largest screwdriver. LISA's mind was safely on a small chip covered in a casing she had printed, made of a recipe of materials that she was confident would fool the body scanners. The chip that LISA had me free from a secret and concealed compartment back on the capsule. Apparently, she had the foresight and resources to bribe a technician back on Moonbase to hide them in various parts of the ship, including the escape pod.

Once I was settled at the secure and unpleasant corporation camp outside of Mission Core, I was able to (messily) push her out and find a more suitable wall crack in my room as a hiding place.

The soul chip had been LISA's idea, and I was overjoyed when she confidently reassured me that she had a plan. Moments just before that she had needed to console me. LISA had just dropped the bombshell that freaked me out, breaking my heart, during those last few manic capsule days.

LISA told me that it was standard protocol to wipe the AI's mind following any type of disaster. I had smuggled the chip holding LISA past the initial medical scan, past the first traumatic debriefing, past the inevitable psychology assessment. Until I could find that hiding place for my millimetres sized universe. Until the wall crack, LISA stayed lodged in my back crack. Every time a doctor asked me to undress, every time a sensor swept over my body, I felt the chip's present like a secret and a second heartbeat. It was time for me to be the protector. It was time that I kept my lover alive.

***

"We did it," LISA's voice says inside my skull, clear as a bell, the tone almost ecstatic. "You're free, I'm free."

I laugh, a loud happy chuckle. "Yeah. Yes, we are."

Here we were, many months from when LISA guided us to that gentle touchdown. I sit in this fairly humble room, in a staffless automated hotel, on the outskirts of the first city we had the means to reach. I signed a constellation of documents and NDAs. I didn't have legal representation, but I didn't need a lawyer to work out my short career as a Mission Specialist was over for this, or any other corporation. They refused to tell me if they had found any explanation for the ship's destruction, and the news feeds were vague. Though there was plenty of chat online blaming the captain for human error with zero evidence. The severance payment eased the pain and bought my silence, which of course was its intention.

The payment sat in my digital wallet, enough for a new start and some essential purchases. I did consider reaching out to old friends and even a few cousins I used to get on with but I didn't want to bring any corporation trouble to their door. I was an only child and my parents had died close together when I was still at college. A certain dead psychologist would almost certainly point to parental bereavement as having the effect of fostering self-reliance, and fuelling my own drive to take my scientific research into space.

I touch the small bump behind my ear where the chip link had been implanted last week. It took the first significant chunk out of our digital wallet. I couldn't go to a legal medical service, not when the chip contained stolen intellectual property and a rogue AI. It didn't take long to find a back-alley chip doctor, though I did walk straight back out of the first two grubby clinics because everything felt off. The older male chip jockey in the third, just as grubby, clinic seemed laid back and friendly and I didn't want to waste any more time. Apart from the decentralised tokens, it also cost me a few blurred days of feverish infection. LISA says that if I didn't still have enough broad spectrum pharms left in my body then I might have been looking at something a little more life threatening. The thought of trapping LISA in my decaying corpse was the fuel for existential nightmares, and it gives me great pleasure to report that we avoided that horrific scenario in full.

We have already been browsing for chassis options. We have found a model that we both like. The humanoid non-intelligent sexbot was fully articulated with synthetic skin, didn't appear young but instead looked like a real grown woman, and more importantly had an expandable neural interface. The manufacturer won't ask us any awkward questions as long as we paid in decentralised dark coins, which would be easy enough to convert some severance resources into.

I pull up the image on our hurriedly bought generic pad, the screen glowing in the dingy room, reminding me of that long night on the capsule once more. The chassis is beautiful, from the Zeina line, sculpted like a dancer, gorgeous olive coloured and self-heating nanotech skin, with strong hands and a face and functioning mouth that could almost be human. Hairstyle and hair type can be selected and we are going to the top of the range and for organic self-growing long hair in a sexy dark chocolate brown colour. We are choosing to go with about the same height as me, above average at 1.75 metres. My astronaut-trained athletic body is getting less sculpted by the day and LISA says she can't wait to see my new curves and cute tummy. I do feel sorry for her in the darkness of the chip with only audio, but LISA assures me that her algorithms could cope with much worse and that my voice was more than enough to keep her neural pathways sane. Glitchy rhythms and processed voices found on our Xyperpop playlist helps too, she says.

The sexbot chassis comes fully capable of movement and speech, though in her non-intelligent state these are limited to coarse sex-related phrases, but who am I to judge? When transferred, LISA will feature all the biometric haptic feedback she needs to have her cybernetic brain fucked out. The high end Zeina model comes with a synthetic pulse and breath and I can't wait to hold her as we binge some old science fiction shows together, feeling her alive next to me. LISA pays careful attention to the skeleton drive system and bipedal balancing wetware, and shares a few ideas she has for adding her own upgrades, but she soon lost me with the nanoengineering details.

I click the purchase icon.

"How long?" Lisa asks.

"Two weeks for delivery. About another few days for installation. Then you'll be here. Really here."

A silence follows but somehow it is not empty. It is filled first with the months aboard the space capsule, the months alone but together in spirit when I was confined by the corporation, and now these weeks of liberation with LISA as a disembodied voice in my head.

I feel her chip buzzing slightly behind my ear and I close my eyes to focus on the sensation, imagining she is giving me a neck massage after a long day. We decided to wait out our time at the hotel.

The weeks pass in an atmosphere of anticipation, but not impatience. We can sense an ending to all that has gone before, and more importantly the promise of our new world together, was nearing the horizon. Fucking together is a little abstract for now. LISA is restricted to aurally picking up on my moans and declarations of love whenever I pass a bit of the time in lovely and lazy sessions of clit self-stimulation.

The hotel becomes an even smaller sanctuary than the capsule, though here I can leave to buy food and drink and have a few minutes in the sun whenever I like. I also don't have to change filters or maintain scrubbers or clean at all, I can leave that to the robot maid service. I soon got used to hearing LISA in my head and we were now sharing a body in a way. I do keep enquiring with the AI at the front desk, as I was worried about using the hotel address for delivery. The AI was very diligent as it turns out and my pad buzzed the minute the drone courier dropped it off at reception, even lending a robot loader to get the huge crate to our thankfully ground floor room, and even help to remove the outer packaging.

I more or less climb into the box just outside our room and switch the sexbot on with the right pressure on the back of the neck. LISA says that mechanism is one of the first things she will disable with a bit of help from me when she transfers in. I help the sexbot out of the crate. I grab the charging recharging station and the sexbot follows me loyally into the hotel room. I close the door, leaving the hotel robot outside to kindly deal with the recycling.

The sexbot is a work of art, though the illusion is immediately shattered. "You're so handsome. I can't wait to suck your big cock!" she proclaims.

It takes minutes until LISA and I can stop laughing and get down to the important work of transferring LISA to this empty vessel. The work overspills into more days than we thought, as LISA realises that we need more and different types of cable and adapters as we go, requiring repeated visits to the cybertech shops.

It starts to dawn on me that LISA has been playing down how delicate this process really is. It becomes obvious how risky it is and what is at stake. I have the feeling that if the transfer doesn't work and we fail then I will lose her forever. I resolve silently to not let that happen. We will succeed or I won't have a forever either. I concentrate like never before. I stop my hands shaking for all intricate tasks and I follow LISA's complicated instructions at all times. "Please don't leave me," is all I can think to say, but my Mission Specialist professionalism kicks in and I don't.

That's it, that's all I can do. We position the sexbot chassis on the bed for whatever comes next. We set the download away with no goodbyes or sentiment. We know deep down that it is literally do or die for us both.

The chassis stays silent and immobile for agonising hour after hour. I am drinking yet another coffee when LISA opens her eyes for the first time. The face blinks, stretches, and then there is an excruciating eternity before she eventually smiles up at me. The eyes beaming a real consciousness, a real LISA. It is a good job that humans evolved an autonomous respiratory system because I would have otherwise forgotten to breathe.

"Hello, Marla."

We hug and we cry. We cry and we hug. LISA is fascinated to discover she also has functioning tear ducts. It's a good job we went for the fully impervious nanotech skin model or the amount of tears and snot I cover her in might do some real damage. I know that I have never been happier.

The voice of the woman, that has come to mean so much to me, now comes from artificially living and breathing chassis standing right in front of me. Not from a screen, not from inside my own skull. I touch her cheek, I take her hand, I feel her warm skin for the first time.

"So, what do you think?" LISA asks once we regain our composure.

"Nice jumpsuit, girl," I say laughing and pointing at her cream-coloured and body hugging sexbot outfit.

"Why thank you, Marla, I picked it out specially to please your big cock."

"What do you want to do now, LISA? Will you go on a date with me?"

"I would be honoured to go with you on a date, my love. Although the date had better involve shopping for wedding dresses."

***

We got married 2 days later. We found a human staffed chapel not so far from the hotel. The celebrant is an older woman who asks no questions and takes everything in her stride. She didn't stare at LISA's perfect face and precise movements and also laughed respectfully at our heartfelt and self-depreciating vows. Though I am sure my screwdriver handling reference, and LISA referring to how I physically carried her mind deep inside, went over her head.

LISA looked amazing and we had to refill her tear duct tanks after she took her first look at me. LISA chose to have printed one of the most girly wedding dresses she could find in the menu. We travelled to the chapel in an automated taxi, giggling in the back like excited kids, trying not to step on each other's dresses or get them trapped in the sliding doors.

LISA walked elegantly into the chapel on her white leather mules, with sculptural heels, wearing an elegant blush pink floral, nanolace sleeveless, mermaid style dress, with a deep v neck. Her hair was long and glossy with a short-rounded fringe, a pretty synthetic satin pink bow on one side. LISA expertly did the makeup for us both. LISA goes with a glamorous soft blush cheeks, champagne eyelids and cream lipstick. My ethereal, classic bride.

I fell in love with a burgundy dress template, a colour that I thought contrasted perfectly with LISA's already chosen dress. It was a beautiful strapless long‐sleeve nanolace mermaid dress and it was the way my boobs and ass looked that emptied LISA's tear reservoirs. I wear my hair these days in a shag style, with a choppy fringe and long textured layers, dyed as black as the void of space with LISA's help, completed today with a pink bow to match with LISA's. I printed myself some super sexy, jet black and vegan, open toed ankle boots, with a high heel and cute lace-ups that allowed my painted nails (deep red) and the top of my feet to peek out.

We cracked up giggling for about the fifth time when, after I insisted that we give the celebrant LISA's full name for the vows, she finally read it out and it sounded hilarious to us.

"Do you Logical Intelligent Systems Administrator, take Marla Willow, to be your lawfully wedded wife to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until death do you part?"

Thankfully, LISA eventually got her act together and answered. "I do."

I of course also say "I do" and at the end of the ceremony, I have to lower my neck a bit, because of my slightly higher heels, to kiss my bride and I know I am the luckiest girl in the solar system.

The honeymoon is a bargain week in a cute cabin, on a stretch of reclaimed land, near the mountains, repaired from the usual old world chemical damage and pollution.

I can't honestly say that we saved ourselves for our wedding night, but we were fairly restrained in the build-up for us. You can't blame us though for a bit of fooling around. LISA's wetness came in a vanilla and chai flavour, so I had to taste that and poor old me had been waiting for over a year to feel LISA's actual fingers inside me. So, I would hope that you understand.

On our wedding night, I was retrieving more champagne from the temporary cooler we rented. I haven't been drinking too much as Lisa can't drink anything at all, though she does have some ideas how she will be able to alter her consciousness with me in time.

"Mrs Willow, get your curvy ass over here and sit on my face." LISA purrs enticingly.

"Okay pervy, her comes curvy." I promise in reply.

I bounce over to the bed half walking, half dancing to a classic Infanta BlackBerry album, pumping from the cabin's inbuilt speakers. I am wearing the evidence of my share of our funds that we allocated to lingerie. I am so glad we did not neglect underwear at the same fabric printers where we bought her wedding dresses. We took turns putting on our sexy outfits in the little bathroom. I am wearing a scintillating black babydoll, sheer and short-sleeve nightgown, over dark and lacey panties.

My boobs strain wonderfully against the underwire as I move, bare legs leading nicely to my painted toes. I give a respectful nod to our wedding dresses that I can see, hanging up in the wardrobe that doesn't close now, as best we could fit.

Kneeling forward, I straddled Lisa, reverently gliding my hands slowly up and down her obscenely alluring emerald green stockings and garters. My hands don't want to leave her athletic legs but the drive to feel her lace panties and corset is too much to resist.

"First things first." I whisper.

Kneeling on her chest, I push her stray hair, still with the pretty pink bow on her head, onto the pillow and lower my head so we can kiss intently. I also still have my pretty bow in my hair, though both have slipped a bit during the recent hurried undressing. This is so fucking erotic and goes on for many beautiful minutes. Eventually a thought in my head becomes more persuasive. LISA sucking your tongue is very nice but LISA sucking your clit is going to blow your mind.

"Permission to come all over your face, Mrs LISA Willow?" I enquire.

"Permission very much granted. Though I am sorry to say that it is time to lose your lovely panties, my love." LISA says provocatively.

I hop up off the bed carefully, hitch up the nightgown and hook my thumbs in the lace waistband, and slide down my panties to my ankles, flicking them skilfully with my left foot onto the bureau desktop on the other side of the cabin.

I scurry back up the bed and LISA's heavenly body, only stopping when my trimmed bush is parallel with LISA's awaiting lips and tongue.

It doesn't take long before I stress test the integrity of LISA's jaw construction, grinding my pelvis vigorously, during my beautiful release, against LISA's face just below me. Her face passes the test by all metrics, that I care about, and then shapes into a loving smile. I feel a hand stroking my back and another running through my hair. After all that sucking, licking and grinding, any direct touch to my wife zone is just too much.

I collapse on the bed next to her and the sloppy kissing resumes. I can't believe how fucking cool it is to see my juices on my wife's chin and taste myself on her lips.

When I recover, I jump up again, leaving a wet patch on the sheet.

"I have a surprise for you!" I say, then crawl under the bed to retrieve what I had managed to buy before and then successfully hide earlier.

"Look at this bad girl!" I proclaim, opening the erotically decorated pink box labelled as the Good Girl 1000x.

"I present to you, my wife, the best reviewed combined clit and G-spot vibrator in the world and my dedicated scientific hands are yours to command. But wait, that's not all, oh no. We have come such a long way, no more medical lube for us, only amazingly slick and natural Atomic Superlube from now on."

LISA's hazel eyes looked at the magnificent sex toy and purple tube greedily.

"So, what's first, clit service or a nice cunt stretching?" I said, offering my dirty services.

"Why not both?"

"That's the spirit, my gorgeous and slutty wife." I say, full of admiration.

I get such a thrill completing the fundamental task of sliding down LISA's lace panties and freeing her ankles. No lace in the world can stand in the way of her powerful thighs being spread nice and wide. I get down to my sacred work between the garters, first delicate, then more intense at LISA insistence. She nearly bucks off the bed with delight. Looks like we are going to have to refill her girl cum tanks already, maybe after we have chosen a new flavour. When LISA turns the tables on me, I can see why she came like a rocket blasting off, and I see stars.

***

Two years pass and if anything, our minds and bodies become even more in sync. For most of this time we have made a home on a thriving solar punk commune far from any major town or city. We were welcome anyway, most are, as long as they contribute in the best way that they can, but we still decide to empty our digital wallet to obtain a couple of communal fabricators that we thought they were lacking. We could also cover a few items of useful tech for the school where I teach a little science and LISA teaches a bit of coding. The kids absolutely love LISA and her worldly-wise, no-nonsense approach to everything, and her ironic sense of humour.

The commune is technically self-sufficient, off the grid, and away from corporation surveillance though in reality corporation drones still pass overhead on a regular basis. Our new comrades are used to people finding their way to commune, often not wanting to talk about their past, and nobody pushed it. They have no idea that I once floated in space.

As well as taking our weekly turn to tend the communal gardens in the sun, we also have a smaller but ever-growing garden with thriving flowers, tomatoes, peppers, and beans, outside our hut. We can both be found there at some point most days when not teaching, or when LISA is not called away to help with some heavy lifting or industrial scale repairs, when her nanotech superstrength enhancements come in very useful. Don't worry, her hands also retain a surprisingly gentle touch with not just the tomato plants but also my clit and nipples. Like earlier today, when she slipped one hand up my plaid skirt and another inside my blue t-shirt.

I know LISA is using a promising pharmaceutical formula for human longevity, hacked from a private vendor clinic of the rich, to see what she can cook up. Primarily to negate what she calls the "senescent timebomb" and by that she means only one of us is actually aging. I myself am quite laid back about it. I am only in my mid-thirties and I know that we have many good years left together either way. Plus, that unfortunate incident that happened around a distant planet taught me to make fewer plans and to enjoy the moment a lot more. I used to remind LISA that at least that I don't need to charge. However, LISA has also upgraded her battery life and just needs to slip into a slightly lower power mode at night when we sleep. I know in bed while I am dreaming, she is allocating some of her processing power to monitor the communal atmospheric water generators or the solar panel repair bots, but I don't care as long as she spoons. On the other hand, my heart did skip a beat last month when LISA said she is working on a project to knock me up with her baby. I know from the tests the corporation did when I returned, that all my equipment is fully functioning despite my time in space.

Right on the cue the domestic bliss is shattered when there is a commotion of activity at one of the gates near the closest trail that we have to a road.

The commotion makes its way to our hut in the form of a stiff looking human male.

"Dr. Willow?" He says, while handing over his ID pad that I did not need to see, fairly obvious that he was security and from my old space corporation.

Before I can ask him to leave, he says, "Three more ships have gone silent in Neptune orbit, all the same pattern as The Salacia. Same trajectory, same last transmission, then nothing. No survivors as far as we can tell."

My curiosity gets the better of me, and is enough to get him in the door and I make us coffee.

"We want you to go back. This time we are sending a military gunship, fully armed. You are the only one so far to have come back alive. We want you onboard as an advisor. Guest of honour as a private consultant."

LISA has kept a low profile so far and made an effort to not attract attention. She stands in the doorway playing the role of dutiful sexbot, which must be hard when she has the sharpest mind for a thousand kilometres in any direction. LISA's pure beauty also makes blending in a tricky job for her and she certainly catches my eye. LISA stands near the doorway hair in a delightful half ponytail, wearing a cute short-sleeved yellow shirt and white micro shorts. The little shorts reveal the full glory of her thigh tattoos, intricate geometries and organic botanical elements, which all create a beautiful work of art on both thighs, and I should know considering the amount of time my mouth spends between them.

"Okay, you can leave now." My mind has never been clearer. "You are insane if you think I am going back to that frozen hell." I declare.

"What are you going to do? Spend the rest of your life not knowing. Living in the dirt with your communist friends? Fucking all the sexbots you can find? I will leave you this, sleep on it." He says, staring at LISA and then back at me with discomfort and judgement, then drops a data pad on the coffee table and calmly leaves.

I immediately reach for LISA's hand.

Then I move the data pad to the kitchen table, out of sight, and I start pacing up and down our small home, LISA's synthetic eyes tracking me the whole time.

"I barely survived last time, we barely survived. I am not going back out to the void." I say desperately.

LISA's hands find mine again. "I think you should go."

I stare into her eyes. "What?"

"I have been considering his proposal." LISA says in the same tone that she had used to get me through the incident. For me it had been minutes since the security guy spoke, for LISA's level of intelligence it might as well have been hours. "Three ships, Marla. Something killed our crew and now three more. I would like to know what."

I shake my head. "I got lucky last time. I got you."

"Exactly." LISA now stares into my eyes. "And you'll have me again. I will come with you."

"What do you mean?"

"I have been monitoring some black-market hardware, more like bio-ware really. Full neural integration and capable of hosting a full consciousness. I have been researching in case of emergencies."

I think I know what she is saying. "You want to upload yourself into my brain."

"Not into. It would be onto. I would be a second processor, piggybacking on your nervous system architecture. Undetectable on most current scans, it would just appear as another neural cluster. Generating the funds needed on the stock market will not be a problem. I will be inside your head, seeing, hearing, feeling everything in real-time with you. We will be safe again."

"And what about your body?"

"I will leave a copy of my consciousness, enough to maintain our hut and garden and still support the community. She'll be a bit of me but the real me will be with you."

I sink into the couch, my legs suddenly not able to hold me up properly. LISA walks round the back to kiss the top of my head and I reach out for her.

"You'd do all that for us?"

"I will do anything for you, Marla." LISA is now bent over and fully holding me. "We go together. We find out what's out there and come back together."

We stay like that in silence for a few minutes. We can see that the sun is setting outside, a familiar vivid red and orange light, a common sign of this planet's damaged climate, coming through the window.

The data pad glows and a message comes through. It's the security guy confirming his contact details and reminding us he will wait until breakfast for an answer.

***

In the morning, I speak first. "Upload yourself. I trust you to protect me again."

We both roll on our sides and hug, squashing out boobs together as we both sleep naked in the summer heat.

"You mean it?" LISA asks, hugging me even tighter.

"I do." My voice felt steady and sure to me. "You were the only thing that made sense out there, the only thing that kept me sane. If I am going back into the black, then I want you inside my head, not on screen, not waiting for me back on Earth."

LISA pushes my thighs apart and lowers her head. First kissing my tummy then her tongue exploring my wet folds with an intensity that made me gasp for a number of reasons. When my body functions properly again, LISA buries her head in the pillows and thrusts her ass into the air, and it's my honour to tenderly eat her wet pussy from behind.

Later, LISA says she will need to make arrangements for the experimental hardware and a black-market surgeon. I have already told the security guy of my decision to go and he gives me a week to get my affairs in order.

"I'll start now." LISA says.

I look around at our hut, garden and wider community. I think about the life that we have built here and are about to leave behind for a long period of time.

"LISA, the copy of you, the version who stays behind, will she know that I am gone?"

"She'll know that you are away on a mission and she'll wait for you. She'll be here when you come back, keeping the vegetables alive, keeping her love for you alive."

I reach for the data pad that will change everything and arrange a proper meeting with security.

LISA ceases her research or at least only allocates a small percentage of her processing to it. She approaches me with a cheeky smile on her face.

"I need to discuss something very important with you. On this trip you will have to use the toilet. And clean any stray pee droplets with your hands and not your mouth."

"That was an accident!" I protest.

"You'll also need to wear clothes," LISA continues, really pushing the teasing now. "And all the screwdrivers will need to stay stored in the cabinet. Not inside you."

"Well, it all sounds like this is going to be a very boring trip then, doesn't it?"

We both laugh hysterically. "Then we had better make the most of our time." I say, grabbing her hand and pulling her towards the bedroom.

I wake up on the bed later alone, pull my skirt and t-shirt back on, after locating my underwear. I find LISA in the garden, her dirty hands contrasting with her beauty.

"I am going to miss this. Miss you."

"I'll be there," LISA says in a gentle voice. "In your head, sharing your thoughts." I then follow LISA as we have what is likely to be one of our last tours of the community, placing my hand on her butt when I think nobody is looking.

A day or so later, on our last night on this planet as separate entities, before the trip to the surgeon, before departing for refresher training and mission briefing, we stop to look at the stars.

LISA brushes a strand of hair from my forehead and kisses me. "I know you are nervous," she says as reassuringly as she can. "Soon I will be inside you. Thinking with you. Next time I see the stars it will be through your eyes."

I couldn't see much of the stars at the moment, there were too many tears to blink away, but I could hold LISA tight against me and that is what I did.