Checking out Luciana

Not long after that, Nocturnal informed us that I needed to pay a visit to the Clockwork City again. She confirmed what I'd suspected, that Sotha Sil had made Luciana a new body with skin. That was how a sense of touch worked. It needed a surface to act on, and he'd do the job properly and create a complete one. Naturally the skin would need to be in the right place, so her new body would be woman-shaped.

Divayth Fyr had told me how Seht had made her metal body match her armour, in weight, balance etc., so she wouldn't have learn how to use it. So logically, her new tactile body would be as close a replica of her original natural one as could be achieved. And Luciana has indicated that she'd hoped for some exitement, so he'd probably have included all the required details.

I'd given Varuni a small collection of toys before she left, as I'd anticipated that Luciana would need to calibrate her new sense of touch. By using the same item that Varuni had used to make the recording, she'd know the right levels for the adjustments.

The remaining problem, as Nocturnal described it, was that Luciana only knew how she felt, and had little or no idea how any partner might react to her. She'd wany my opinion.

"Besides, she owes you a proper hug," Nocturnal added.

"She'll want to wrap her legs round you, too," added Seryn. "I know I would."

The assumption that I'd go to the Brass Fortress was based on Luciana being tethered to it by her need for regular maintenance while she slept. But now Varuni knew the way here, she could make a brief trip, and be back in enough time. So the next day, the two of them were at our door. Varuni was wearing her "hot climate" outfit, but Luciana was still clad in her full heavy armour.

"But I can take it off, now," she pointed out. "This is actually the outer layer of my prior body, made back into armour, so I look the same, including the dents and scratches. Sotha Sill wants everyone to discover the new me at a pace I decide.

"And since you already know what's going on, I can take it off here," she continued. "I'd like to give you that hug - without the armour - that should have happened before."

She wasn't wearing \i anything\i0 beneath the armour. She was centuries old, with a brand-new body, and looked about thirty.

"We're escalating straight to 'naked hug'?" I asked.

"Yes, sorry if I'm in a bit of a rush, but I need to return to the Brass Fortress for my overnight maintenance, and I need to cram as much into the day as I can."

We strolled out to the beach at the back of the house, and Luciana paused to savour the difference between stone and sand beneath her feet. That prompted her to recount some of the events we'd not been there for.

"You remember that Seht gave me a rudimentary sense of touch at the end of the Shadow incident. That's when the notorious 'armored hug' happened. Well, that was just the first step of what he had planned. Now he'd established that he could reconnect my ability to feel, he wanted to see how far it could go. So the next step was to replace my hands, with the new type of touch sensors. When I woke up one day, the maintenance factotum asked me to touch the back of my hand. So I did, and not only did my fingertips have a better idea of what I was touching, but the back of my hand could feel it, too! Then they had me touch my face, so I could compare natural to artificial senses, and that went well. So it was confirmed that they could do the whole thing."

"While they were doing the reconstruction, they put me in a dreamstate. I didn't usually dream much, but this was like a week or more of continous vivid dream. Essentially, I was getting Varuni's recordings played back, so I could dig out matching memories of my own. I still can't get over just how much she managed to capture at just one evening's party!"

"I suspect that may have been a very long evening," I suggested.'We did have a number of Daedric Princesses playing with the time, and a lot of restoration and regeneration spells were being cast."

"Well, there was a lot of material in those recordings that I didn't have matching memories for. Let me know when you have another party like that, won't you? Even then, since I have no circulation, I'd give the tingly stuff a miss, even if Varuni liked it.

"They brought me awake gradually. At first, I could see, and hear, but those were senses that hadn't been changed. My head was propped up on the pillow of a soft bed (well it looked soft; at that point I couldn't really tell.) I could see my new body, and my first impression was that the breasts were smaller than I'd hoped. The factotum pointed out that they were flattened by gravity. My body wasn't rigid any more.

"Then my touch sense was enabled, slowly ramped up until I could feel that the bed was indeed as soft as it looked. Then they restored movement control to my arms, so I could use my hands to check out everything in reach. I could compare my natural cheek to the artificial skin and they felt similar enough.

"The only thing that felt a bit strange was because I have no muscles. The skin everywhere felt like it should, but the padding underneath felt inert. Not unreal; the gels and foams gave a good representation of fat and muscle, but it just didn't move the way I expected when I moved my arms. Where there wouldn't be muscles anyway, it felt very real.

"They told me my basic framework was the same as I'd had under the armour skin, except that just about all the pieces of brass and bronze had been replaced by lighter ones of mythril and titanium. Those weight savings had gone into the contour layers. So when I wore my armour, I'd be the same weight, and the distribution of it would stay the same. The contour material put my tactile surface just where I'd expect it to be, so I wouldn't bump into things, and I'd know where anything I touched was in relation to me.

"When they let me stand up and move around, I was surprised at how I moved. No rigid shell any more, and I was experienceing 'elastomeric inertial effects', as the factotum described it."

"What are they?" Isobel wanted to know.

"Jiggle," I translated.

"It wasn't an unfamiliar feeling, although I obviously hadn't experienced it for a very long time. I could get used to jiggling again."

"OK Clark, time for that hug. And I want you naked too, so I can evaluate my ability to distinguish your skin from, say, Varuni's. I expect to feel muscles, even if you don't."

Because she'd prompted me, I was consciously feeling for differences when I hugged her. Yes, she felt different, but it didn't feel wrong in any way. And since they normally have no muscles, her breasts were the most natural-feeling part.

She drew my attention to the way her nipples had perked up from that contact. "The controls for that are all in my brain anyway, so it was a matter of making the right connections for a little pump to do that. And the same sort of thing is required for other parts to work properly."

"Other parts?" I queried. "Is that what you're calling them?"

"I don't have a womb, and my power system doesn't produce solid waste, so nothing down there is doing quite the full job it would have. Perhaps I should refer to my 'social interfaces' or something like that? There are lots of vulgar terms that apply, but I'd rather not use those.

"One that is relevant, although not fully descriptive, is 'places my fingers can't quite reach', so I was really glad that you sent those toys with Varuni. And they also let me determine that I'm neither insatiable, nor on a hair-trigger. Again, the controlling connections are all the original ones in my head, so they're working normally. So in summary, I'm feeling that everything's working fine from my perspective, I'm just not sure if my partner would think the same."

Seryn interrupted at this point. "Isobel, why don't we go off to Snugpod, and see if there are any dailies we need to do?"

Isobel was reluctant, as she'd figured out that there was about to be some fun going on.

"And that's why we need to leave them to it," Seryn added. "If we stay, everything will take twice as long, and Luciana doesn't have unlimited time before she needs maintenance."

I understood that Luciana specifically needed my opinion, as she couldn't get an unbiased one from anyone in Clockwork City. Even Varuni, who was trying to be truthful, and scientific, couldn't believe that anything Sotha Sil had made could be anything short of perfect. I wasn't expecting perfection, but I really was impressed by the results so far. Given the constraints of Luciana's mechanical basis, nobody could have done better.

Varuni suggested that I should be blindfolded, but the idea wasn't that I should find the two of them indistinguishable, and besides, I liked to watch them both jiggle. I expected them to be different, and my hope was that I wouldn't have a preference.

I deliberately chose positions where Luciana's lack of muscles could be noticed, but it turned out that I was sufficiently distracted elsewhere, that it made no matter.

"Were you being diligent, or did that all take so long because you were enjoying it as much as we did?" Varuni asked.

I just grinned.

"There are a couple of other small items that are helped by visiting here," Luciana began. "Varuni told me about Aderene's orgy patrol outfit, and I'd like to get some pointers from her. I'm a Proctor these days, rather than a combat battlemage, and I could use the punishment or reward alternatives a lot better now. That was rewarding, wasn't it, Clark?"

I had to agree that she'd got that right.

"The other relates to that Yokudan rope art. I know that it was based on a practical technique for securing prisoners without harming them, and I'd like to get hold of any books on the original skill. I'd like to discuss the possibilities of that with Aderene, too, while I'm here. She has the right background as a Mazken guard to know how restraint can be used for maximum effectiveness"