Black Steel pauses before he plugs my brain in. Today his body is standard human, a form he adopts more and more: plain features, fine cheekbones, thin silver hair. The need to emphasise the difference is over. He smiles but his reluctance is still clear.
“I don"t like this, my friend.”
“I have to hear, and soon my brain won"t be able to hack it. I"m not going to live forever like you.”
Still he hovers, undecided.
“Please,” I say.
“Very well. I"ll boot you up.”
I close my eyes while he works.
Once he wouldn"t have dreamed of adopting such a mundane body-form, of course. I think about that first Terahertz gig; the way he uploaded to body after body, each form more disturbing than the last. A flaming Satan roaring fire. An hermaphrodite dragging enlarged s****l organs across th
