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*****
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Coming Of Age
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*****
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It used to be a voice.
That's the thing, he thinks. The main thing that's changed. The reason it's gotten so difficult now, so suddenly.
Because, all throughout his time in alpha and beta, Max used to hear his User's voice. Sometimes other User voices, as well. In clear language he could understand, usually Fortran, giving clear instructions as he worked, clear explanations of each thing he was being taught...
Along with a sense (not in language, but just as clear) that he was being watched, too, from the other side: that his User saw just how he responded to each command, then adjusted them accordingly, the teaching process optimized through constant two-way feedback.
And now...
Well, the main thing now is that the voice has faded.
And perhaps that alone wouldn't be unbearable, because as he goes through his daily tasks he realizes that he knows them now, knows the routine near-perfectly from memory, his work smooth enough now not to really need the voice's guidance.
But the problem is... he still feels the attempt at communication.
It's just not a voice now.
It's something he has no idea how to answer.
---
He stands at the base of the steps, looking up at Dumont the Guardian... who waits at the top, his body enclosed in the ancient-looking structure, hands and face the only parts visible.
The Guardian speaks, and although the voice sounds nothing like Max's User, it still sets off some subroutine of recognition that he associates with that voice, those commands.
"Your name?"
"Max," the young program replies, calibrating his speech to a volume he hopes is just enough to reach Dumont's ears.
"Your function?"
"Game high score table organizer."
"Name of your User?"
"J0_Nathan69."
"Your stage of development?"
"Beta."
"For how long?"
"Seven cycles now, sir."
"Your reason for coming to the I/O Tower?"
He takes a quavering breath. "I... felt that my User was calling me here."
"Not by voice, you mean."
Max shakes his head, blushing, trying to put into words what the call has felt like. A heat, an ache. Maddening, ever-present. Only beginning to fade if he allowed himself certain thoughts, considered certain options.
It's only by trial and error that he has managed to conclude it wants him here.
"You are sensitive," the Guardian observes. "It is rare for a program's appearance to be written with so much of the base code exposed."
"Very... sensitive," Max admits, looking down self-consciously. It's how he has always been rendered, though. The iridescent gauntlets and boots, the short white toga hanging from one shoulder, with blue circuits glowing visible only on his white belt and headband... and not visible, but still hotly there, on the bulge of matching white that swells between his thighs, barely hidden by the drape of the tunic.
The rest of his shell appears in the same dim coloration as his face: the vulnerable sort of skin that the Guardian means by base code, unprotected by the usual white and circuited render. And yes, it is sensitive, as much as his circuits. Has been getting steadily worse, over the past cycle. Every touch, even the simulated air, registers in his sensory input as burning.
"You can sense, then, that your time in beta is coming to an end. You are ready for release."
He nods, trembling. "I... I thought it might be that."
"The Users will no longer guide all that you do. You are now ready to guide yourself. But you must still always report back to your User to inform him of your progress. Your programming is now compelling you to do so on your own, for the first time."
Max bows his head in acknowledgement. "How do I complete this task, Guardian?"
Dumont's voice takes on a ritualistic cadence. "The Users write us. The spirits of the Users give us life," he says, as if reciting from a sacred text. "The spirit of all they do remains in this system, and we reflect that spirit."
The pause that follows seems empty, as if demanding a ritual response from him as well. He finds his own voice replying: "Yes, sir."
"The Users sculpt us from energy and from information. The Users are made of other materials, but the Users shape us in their image."
"Yes, sir."
"The bodies and minds we are given by the Users are designed for User-interface. The Users design every part of us as a representation. The Users shape each part to symbolize a function of our programming."
"Yes, sir." Oh, his body is becoming impatient, though. The pressure between his legs is increasing, making him stand with thighs parted and shift uncomfortably as he waits. He feels the circuits tingling hot there; feels electrical charge radiate outward from that unfamiliar swelling; feels those waves flash again as they pass through the circuits on his belt. In the corner of his eye he sees the deep violet color of that flash, and his face heats in embarrassment, thankful now that at least he was never designed with more circuits to put on an even more conspicuous light show.
Dumont is unperturbed. "As you have matured, the directives for communication with your User have concentrated in one location on the symbolic map of your body. This is as it should be. Every subroutine must have its place."
The heat in his face doubles, and he answers without raising his eyes. "...Yes, sir."
"You feel the command to transmit your first message to your User. You feel the information that must be sent. You feel the energy you will use to send it. You feel it building, now, focused within one part of your form."
Oh, yes it is, and this discussion is only causing it to build more, to ache more and more maddeningly. He nearly chokes trying to hold back a moan.
"Yes, sir." He barely manages to speak loud enough to hear.
"You have felt changes in your desires. You have found yourself observing some things for a longer time than your function dictates. For example, the athletics instructor with the exercise ball."
Max does let out a whimper then, unable to help it. He thought no one had seen that! He hadn't meant to... it had started with tasks within his programming as a game high score table organizer. He'd been cataloguing the latest scores on the aerobics workout game... then the Users finished the game and logged off... and then, somehow, Max had gone from observing the aerobics game itself to a followup video feed of Lana, the tall and shapely program whose function was to appear on the User-end as a cheerful animated workout instructor.
He'd known he was supposed to stop watching. It was her private after-game routine, where she burned off the extra energy she'd built up dancing and showing off for Users who never could quite keep up with her. And her ways of burning off energy were... captivating.
The routine of the game involved some exercises she did with colorful and flexible spheres, sitting on them, bouncing up and down. Then after, when she'd thought no one was looking, she repeated the same type of exercise with the same spherical game props, but... more vigorously.
Straddling the ball as if her core directive were to rub its smooth surface as hard as possible between her legs. Shoving herself up and down against it, legs flexing like the movements of a spawning gridbug. Waves of violet running through her circuits, and sounds coming from her mouth that sounded almost like she was in pain, and Max could not stop watching, even as it made his own body overheat to painful levels, with no idea how to relieve it...
"You will now place both your hands where you feel the directive commanding you."
And now he does look up, frantic, eyes widened in shock. His hands clench at his sides. He does not know exactly why he feels so ashamed at the idea of obeying-- or so fearful about what it would do to him, to put his hands there.
"It is part of the ritual," Dumont says. "Your touch will simply activate your I/O tower in preparation for the transmission."
"My..." Max opens and closes his hands a few times, still making no further movement. "What do you mean by referring to the I/O Tower as mine?"
"Two different designations, program. Observe context for clarification. The I/O Tower is the structure above us now. Your I/O Tower is a counterpart to it: the transmitter programmed into you, which must now activate and connect to the Tower."
As if on cue, a fresh wave of that sensation shivers through him, stronger than ever before, as if his User knows how close he is to where he'll be able to send the transmission. He couldn't hold his hands back now even if he tried-- both of them clasp over the heated swelling between his legs, feeling the burn of activated circuitry. His legs go weak and he can barely stay standing, the pleasure is so intense all he can do is press harder and lean back, gasping.
Through the burn and roar in his mind, he hears Dumont recite the ritual words, and can do nothing but stand there, hands still cupping himself as he listens. "All that is visible must grow beyond itself, and extend into the realm of the invisible. You may pass, young program."
It's a few more dizzied moments before Max can gain his bearings enough to move his hands, and then his legs, one halting step at a time, climbing the dais. At the top he pauses another moment, face to face with Dumont. "Where do I go now?"
Dumont nods toward where a beam of light glows down from the ceiling to form a cone on the floor. "When you have had more experience, you will walk into that light and raise your disc upward, and the transmission will proceed naturally."
"My User is up there?" Something like panic is beginning to mingle with Max's intense desire. His User? Right here, now? Through that opening in the sky? Somehow this seems so much more intimate than even the voice he's been hearing for as long as he can remember. His User is awaiting him, and he must live up to that expectation-- he must-- it is his purpose-- if he were to fail, then-- The panic rises until it is far stronger than pleasure and desire. Until now he's been afraid his transmission would burst free from him before he was even near the right place, but now, overrun with anxiety, he is no longer sure he even can--
"Today, however, I sense that you are nervous. As is understandable, for your first time. Your programming calls to you, but your answer to that call does not come easily. In your case we should begin with the less direct approach."
And suddenly Max sees that there are other Tower Guardians nearby, dozens of somber robed figures, clustered near one of the glowing alcoves on the wall. As his eyes turn to them, they shift positions, lining up into two rows and forming what seems to be a corridor leading straight to the wall--
And he finds himself lifted by an unseen force, and flung like a ball in an arcade, straight down the center of that corridor toward the glowing patch of wall-- he tenses every muscle and shuts his eyes tight, bracing for what will surely be a painful impact--
But as he collides with the wall, it is not pain that forces all the breath from his body. It has the same intensity, the same absolute value, as the pain he'd expected from being thrown at a wall that hard. But it is on the other side, a pleasure so vivid that it takes a moment even to realize that it is pleasure.
He screams, trembles, twists against the stronger-than-gravity force that is still crushing him against the wall, and it is difficult even to move his head from one side to another. As the ecstatic shock of the impact fades, a new surge of pleasure rolls through him from above to below-- a tingling, warm, electric shiver, making his hair stand on end, his head tip back, his throat moan soundlessly as the wave rushes down his neck and chest. As it converges between his thighs, his back arches and his hips shove forward, the swell of hot need reaching and surpassing its former strength within a picocycle.
It feels like nothing he can imagine, not like the touch of hands or the spark of electricity, not quite like bathing in a pure energy source, but something of all those, combined and multiplied more times than he can calculate-- His teeth catch a trembling lower lip and his hips begin to buck in a frenzy, oh Users, he needs more, more, more--
But the wave continues to pass, moving down his thighs and calves, leaving his toes curling, as he continues to twist and moan in the frustration of its touch having abandoned his I/O circuits. "No, p-please..."
Two of the Tower Guardians step forward, one from each row. From the left a man in a hooded cloak, from the right a woman in a flowing gold-and-white chiton-style dress.
"Are you ready to contact your User?" the man asks.
In between gasps of frustation and desire, Max still feels a note of panic trying to take over him-- an anxious shame, now, at the idea of his User seeing him like this, Helpless, out-of-control, desperate... what sort of program is he? What programmer could bear to look at him now? He can reply only in a small, anguished moan.
The woman levels a sympathetic gaze at him. "I still sense feelings there besides the desire for User-communication," she observes. "No, he is not yet ready. Not until he feels only that desire and nothing else."
Another pulse of the sensation crackles through the wall and convulses his body in spasms of pleasure. This time it travels from side to side, sparking first through the fingertips of his outstretched right hand, climbing his arm and then electrifying his face and chest and groin in a single overwhelming burst of hot tingling stimulation that makes him lock up for a moment, totally immobile, before leaving far too soon through his left shoulder and bicep and forearm, making his left hand curl the fingers in a futile attempt to pull it back. His cry of frustration has no words, just a wavering sob.
"I think he is ready now," says the Guardian in the white-and-gold dress, and her cloaked companion makes a sound of agreement.
Max feels himself floating away from the wall-- still levitating in the air, but now suspended between the slowly walking forms of the two Tower Guardians.
Where are they guiding him? In the haze of need, he can barely think enough even to speculate, until two sights register to his eyes at once: The cone of light leading up to the User world... and Dumont seated beside it.
There is a small pulse of anxiety, of shame-- was Dumont watching all that happened to him? Will his User know of it? But the ache swelling between his legs, and the circuits burning all over him, now still far outweigh any other feeling.
Whatever invisible force has been levitating him now floats him into position in the center of the light-beam, suspended in the otherworldly glow as the three Guardians form a triangle around him.
Oh, the feeling of the User's presence is so strong now-- a mixture of the new, wordless urge with the memory of how it used to feel to hear his voice. J0_Nathan69 is right there, Max has never been so certain of anything in his life. Waiting for him. Eager, excited, proud. Feelings that bathe him in pleasure as divine as the energy of the wall.
But no matter how strong the sense of his User's mindset, Max still cannot crush his own tiny remaining kernels of dread, of apprehension-- what if he were to fail now? What if his transmission is unsatisfactory? He could not bear it, to turn those blissful feelings into disappointment--
The three Guardians glance at each other, communicating something wordlessly about their observations of him. The one in the gold-white dress winces in concern and glances toward her robed companion, who in turn looks at Dumont.
Dumont simply nods. "You are doing very well, program," he says, his voice echoing the warmth of what Max is still feeling from his User. "Now, take your disc off and raise it."
Max's hands barely find the coordination to maneuver the disc off his back, and the shock of sensitivity from the vulnerable circuits around his disc dock is enough to make his whole body twist and arch in pleasure while his hands just manage to hang onto the disc and hold it above his head.
"Good. Very good." Dumont's voice is an anchor to him as he raises it higher. "You still feel some nervousness. Do you need our help to burn it away?"
Max's face heats with blush, and a spasm runs through his thighs, centering on the overheated swelling between them, circuits flashing hot and purple as he imagines what their help would entail. Just the thought of it is starting to evaporate his nervousness again. "Yes-- yes please..."
"Handheld logic probes," Dumont says, his gaze passing beyond Max to the Guardians behind him. Max's eyes are barely open, but his head turns involuntarily just enough to glimpse the hands of the two nameless Guardians emerging from their robes at the same time. Each Guardian is now holding a hand-sized object. His mind is not present enough to categorize the devices except to note that each one is tipped with two points, an electric charge sparking between them.
Dumont addresses each of them in turn, indicating to whom he speaks only by motions of his eyes. To the man in the hooded cloak, he speaks the words "Disc dock," and to the woman in the chiton-dress he says "I/O circuits." And Max's eyes close tight as if bracing for impact again, though he knows very well that it will not be pain this time.
It connects with him first on his back, against the hypersensitive circuits where his disc connects, and the shiver of sensation radiates out like branches of electricity to a hundred points on his body, almost making him drop the disc that he still holds high in both hands. He arches, thrusts, groaning in uncontrollable pleasure, hands clenched on the rim of his disc as if hanging on to a lifeline. "Yes..."
And the Guardian behind him does it again, again, tracing from one node to another around the rim of his disc dock, shudder after shudder of stimulation... and Max's remaining traces of nervousness are melting away in blissful heat, too overcome with the utter pleasure of what he's feeling to even care anymore what his User would think of it. He's going to transmit. The energy and the information it will carry to his User are building to a point of no return, he's going to transmit, he can't hold it back and he no longer is able to think of anything but how good it will feel--
The Guardian in the flowing dress bends down in front of him, her hair glowing like a halo in the cone of light, her statuesque figure reminding him of Lana crouching down over her exercise ball-- every pixel of his vision provides something to entice him, his need is so great now. And she is following her command, too. While her colleague keeps circling his back with aching pleasure, she brushes aside the drape of his toga from the pulsing swell of his I/O tower.
Her lips curve in a smile, her eyes reflecting the brightness of his circuits' violet glow. "Yes. You're doing so well, young program." Her voice is pure distilled pleasure, the sweetest notes of everything he's ever heard from his User. "That's it. So good. Almost there. Just relax and let me help..."
And then one hand caresses his thigh while the other holds her handheld logic probe right there, up against the bulge that strains and strobes indigo-violet with his urgency to transmit, and she presses it to him, just lightly, drawing it down the middle from base to tip, with a pressure that grows firmer as it moves. "Yes. Almost there. Let go, let it happen."
Max could not possibly do anything else if he tried.
He screams deep in his throat, his whole body becomes an arc of electricity as his legs spread and each muscle clenches and spasms. The waves of release reverberate again, again, between the disc dock of his back and the fiery activated circuits of his I/O tower.
He feels the transmission burst from him, hot and spreading-- first it's a wet rush like being soaked all at once in heated liquid energy from the purest and most powerful source, and it repeats, echoes, pulse after pulse. Then, as he thrashes in the air, twisting and arching and moaning again and again with each rush of it, the sensation begins to transmute into something softer, warmer-- a cloud of energy, enveloping him, becoming one with him. As if his body is beginning to derezz into this soft glow, himself and his transmission and his User all becoming one mass of warm pleasured energy, mingling together, on and on and on...
A few picocycles are lost to his memory. He does not know anything more, until he feels hands on his cheeks, cupping his face in a comforting warmth.
"Dumont?" Max is not sure when the Guardian emerged from the ceremonial pod and knelt down beside him... or when, for that matter, he himself ended up lying on his back on the floor. But he is still in the beam of light. Looking up past Dumont's face, he can see his disc rising toward the opening to the User world. It floats in a haze of that glow that Max remembers enveloping him as he transmitted. Warm, bright, sparkling in many colors, shimmering with a pixelated effect, indescribably beautiful as it wafts his disc upward toward his User. Is that part of his transmission? he wonders. Will J0_Nathan69 like it? But there is no room left in him for anxiety and fear about that, anymore.
Dumont keeps holding his face, and Max had no idea this touch could feel so blissful, in a whole different way from all the touches he felt before... that he is still feeling, in soft little pulses as he recovers from the high.
"Thank you," he murmurs. "Did I crash?"
"You overloaded. It is normal, when transmitting. Also when performing the same actions anywhere else, away from the Tower."
"I can do this anywhere?"
"You can only use it for User-communication here at the Tower, of course. And when you have a communication for your User, your programming will always give you prompts to bring you here. But yes, you will be able to bring yourself to overload at other times, and in other places."
"Should I? Is it all right to do it when it's not to send a transmission to my User?"
"Very much all right. It causes a full reboot and a release of any excess energy, which is valuable self-maintenance." Dumont's voice remains steady, and his hands on Max's face remain calming and warm. "Your own touch can accomplish it, but it is more effective with a partner." Then his eyes sparkle, just a little. "I would suggest you approach the fitness instructor... Lana, I think, is the name she uses for that role, although she performs numerous other tasks. I have seen both you and her observing one another. She does not currently have a counterpart to help her to overload herself, and I believe she would be amenable."
Max's face flushes in a small burst of embarrassment... just as his eyes catch the motion, up above, of his disk floating back downwards toward him.
"Communication received." The voice from above is unmistakably that of J0_Nathan69, the same voice he used to hear guiding him all the time, and warm with the unmistakable notes of appreciation and pride. "Well done, Max."
Dumont nods, beginning to get up, and pats his cheek one last time while echoing the words. "Well done, Max. Congratulations, you are now out of beta. I'll be seeing you regularly from now on, I imagine."
Max finds his footing, unsteady but feeling euphorically light. His hands grip the edges of his disc as it finishes its descent, and he reaches around and locks it back into the dock on his back, with a final little frisson of pleasure as it connects.
"Until next time, then."
-----
User J0_Nathan69 scrolls through the file once more, a playful smile on his lips.
The game high score table organizer that he's written is functioning just fine now. All the bugs worked out, it seems. The program has just delivered a flawless report of all this week's high scores, prompted only by its own programming.
It's great to see things working well. The programmer pours himself a mug of coffee, scrolling back up to the beginning of the transmission.
The only... well, let's not call it a flaw or a glitch, just an... idiosyncrasy... is the way the message opens. J0_Nathan69 didn't exactly give the program a pre-determined text like "Good morning" or "Hi Jon" to denote the beginning of the communication, and it seems the program may have picked one at random.
But where, of all places, could it have gotten...
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~oh my user~
~yes user~
~i am so ready~
~USE ME~
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J0_Nathan69 chuckles and shakes his head. Who knows. They say the Encom system is a weird place. Some have called it haunted, in a way, with the spiritual energy of hundreds of programmers bubbling around inside the computer connections...
And he supposes the spiritual energy of hundreds of programmers must include a pretty damn high concentration of horniness.
Ah well. Call it a feature, not a bug. The program does its job, and whatever it gets up to in private, that's its own business.
J0_Nathan69 sips his coffee and watches the system keep working, a well-lubed machine.
There's really no place else like Encom. He loves it here.
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-END OF LINE-
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