Pirska-2, Chapter 3

Hana felt the line surge in her hand, felt the balloon it connected to twitch and bulge, struggling to find a home for the new fluid being forced in.

"But no one designed me that way, I’m not a collection of pre-fabricated pieces.
I did it myself and I’d do it again”
---

Chapter 3

After they’d halved the remaining Pirska-2, and while the world seemed to make a little bit of sense, they talked.

“You’ve got a socket. I saw it. Everyone else on earth would have just plugged the vial right in, but you didn’t” said Candy, doing her best to sit up straight and affect a serious appearance, as much as her obscenely large breasts permitted.
“This way is worse, that's why I’m…” she trailed off, contemplating the back room of The Bottom, which may as well be her whole world.
“Whoever they made this stuff for, it wasn't us. The… miasmic death that comes out of a vape is not the way. They don’t make ANYTHING for me any more.”

Now, for the second time today, Hana knew the explanation must rear its head. She felt another gaze stare right through her.

So she tried to explain, tried to explain something she was only on the cusp of being able to remember.
She spoke about thieves, the big score. About the 4th generation nanotech they all ran. Her dislike of bulky coats.

“I haven’t been able to talk about this. I would try to remember, then... I wake up hiding somewhere like a rat, or robbed blind. I can’t stop it,” Hana said.
She breathed out slowly and deliberately, both unfamiliar actions.

Pulling her hair to the side, Hana showed her socket.
“It’s burned. It’s all gone. Nothing fits. Just a big hole in my brain that I keep falling into.”

Candy opened her mouth to speak, but stopped herself.
Hana saw the expression on her confidante's elegant face fall.
“They… they say if it fails then… you’re called back home…” said Candy, slowly and carefully.

Hana didn’t know what to say. She’d heard the same thing about nanotech. But there hadn’t been much time to process its implications since waking in Vladok.
“Yet here I stand,” she said, the words coming out bone-dry.
She mustered a smile, but one equally bereft of hope, as the invisible pincers of hysteria had already begun to constrict her.
—


“Oh hon…how about you ask me instead? I’m easy!” Candy said, cutting through the silence with a kind smile, again showing an acuity that remained hidden until needed.

“Why have I got two of these and none of those? It’s deceptively simple,” begun Candy, her eyes flicking over the still exposed socket on Hana’s neck.
Candy ran a hand down the curve of her breast, all the way to her armpit, where it paused, lingering around what appeared to be a strip of tape securing one of the numerous tubes.

Hana should have used her fleeting moments of clarity to make peace with herself, but something in Candy’s sudden performative movements had monopolised her attention.
It wasn’t pure curiosity anymore either, something about Candy was luring her in.

With exaggerated, elegant movements, Candy’s other hand reached behind her back and produced a small remote control.

After it was gently placed into her hands, Hana observed the single unlabelled button and rotary dial, numbered 1-10.
Before she could ask, Candy’s warm hand reappeared and slowly rotated the dial to the right, until a soft click was heard and the marker rest on #6.
A bewildered Hana felt the weight of the anachronistic control in her hand, and heard the omnipresent whine of background machinery increase.
She saw an orgasmic expression on Candy’s face join the rest of the woman’s performance.
“Ask…” Candy whispered

All thoughts of fissures and mortality were gone, Hana was once again in a powerless orbit around the incongruous woman.
She may have deemed it preferable to another episode, she may have had no choice.


“OK. Maybe I do want to know. Because I can’t figure you at all Candy,” she began, after taking a moment to collect her thoughts and place the enigmatic control on the floor, just within reach of its owner.

“Maybe I’m young, but I’ve been around. Vas I get, his heavies I get, me and my crew I get. We’re archetypes, we fill a role.
Corporations, thieves, fighters, con-men; these are the opportunities that are provided. We get the gear and we go use it” said Hana, simultaneously impressed at how coherently this was coming out and wondering if her rare cogent moment would fall on deaf ears.
“Where do you fit? Who manufactures those ‘implants’, and why? What are they for!?”

Candy took a long moment, riding out a wave of something, then scrunched her brow with tremendous effort.
“Credit where it is due hon, you’ve almost hit the nail on the head. I’ll give you a push” she began.


“That is everything I cannot stand about this new world. Do you see? The grey banality that has infected it all? And where did it come from?
I bet you’re familiar with most of the major nanotech that have ever been produced.
You can categorise the ‘heavies’ and reduce them down to a list of likely modifications, you know what they can and likely WILL do.
“They look the same, for that’s what effective heavies look like.
“They all wear the coat you hate, because it’s the best of the four astronomically expensive network-centric coats.”

Suppressing a moan, Candy composed herself and searched in vain for a sign her point was landing.

“So you were a thief. Looks like it. Thin build, head on a swivel, thiefs haircut, but oh it's a different shade of neon!” she laughed.

“Don’t take this to heart. Do I look very reliable?” she said, tracing the path of a huge vein on her bloated chest as she spoke.

“But I *saw* the nanotech roll-out, I saw people get put into their box. They got to choose which box, but they are in it.
People like me? We’re done. We can’t compete, can't even scratch a living.
I’m nothing compared to the other girls here, we all know it.
But if those girls ever had a choice, they don’t any longer.
They’ve got neural links? What now? Live their entire life as working girls, inside the box. They simply can’t do anything else”.

“So, what am I for, where do I fit?” Candy said, looking down the space between her breasts that might be called cleavage on someone else.
“I don’t. I’m useless”.

“You asked who makes these implants” she said, giving one an ineffectual squeeze.
“The design is ancient. A reconstructive device from a world that no longer exists, before they could just cure cancer. They were to make the unfortunate feel better about their disfigurement, I think”

“I … I don't understand,” said Hana slowly.

“I’ve repurposed them. They’re just a plastic water balloon inside my breasts. All analogue. I didn’t wait for a corporation to rationalise and build a product for my use case. I sourced the largest water balloons, the ‘dumb implants’, and I used them to change myself until I was happy,” said Candy

“You can call me vain, or stupid. You may be right. But these are what I said to the regressive ‘choice’ I was offered. I pick something else.”

“They’re not supposed to be filled this way. I don’t think anyone in a lab coat ever imagined that a crazy woman would pump her tits up until she could hardly move, until her nipples were stretched to nothing. Well here *I* stand.. or sit.
“My nipples aren’t even in the original spot anymore.
"But no one designed me that way, I’m not a collection of pre-fabricated pieces.
"I did it myself and I’d do it again”.

“Turn it up… a special occasion” Candy continued, blinking slowly as she spoke.
‘You see now don’t you… water balloons. They’re full to bursting, but I love to feel them try. All the way...” she cooed, watching the control move beyond her reach in Hana’s shaking hand.

As the pumps peaked, Candy held each line in her hands and felt them tremble, felt them complain about the impossible task of pumping more saline into her giant implants.
Moaning loudly, Candy finished her performance.
“They're… so huge. I can’t… fill like I want to” she gasped.
“I’m just.. Giant. 50,000cc hon. Each…weighsmore ‘n you”

She inaudibly gestured Hana in closer, guiding a line into the girls trembling hand before placing it face down on the huge stretched remnants of an areola.
Locking eyes with the amazing creature called Candy, Hana felt the line surge in her hand, felt the balloon it connected to twitch and bulge, struggling to find a home for the new fluid being forced in.
She felt Candy’s hand on her waist, felt her warmth penetrate through the hidden pocket sewn into her pants, but was too enchanted by the display to resist.

“They’re… 2 litres… it was on the box” Candy stammered, the time between her gasps shrinking rapidly.
“Be… huge on you. But … keptgoin … overfilled…”
Candy’s hand was a moment too slow to muffle the ecstatic scream.

Finally gaining the wherewithal to find the remote, Hana contemplated the button, but instead opted to turn the dial back to 1.

Watching Candy slow rouse, Hana released a breath she didn't realise she'd been holding.
“I’ve taken some… wrong turns” Candy eventually said, casting her eye to the vaporizer and the room that contained it.
“My girls weren’t one of them. I only regret that they’re full.
“I’ll never let them put that shit in my head and trap me in a box.
“No matter how stuck I am…”

They sat in silence for a good while.
Hana tried to reassemble all she had heard with what she already knew.
‘Stuck’ is a bit different to working here.
But Candy sat with a smile and her eyes shut, no explanation was forthcoming.

Suddenly, as if a relay had just now energised, Hana rotated the ideas around in just the right way.

Thieves boots, for fucks sake, she thought, looking down at her legs that poked out from lace up boots.

Muffled, sturdy, active noise cancellation when networked.
She understood the point that the crazy woman was making, but what to do with it?
—


“I think… I think I’m running out of time Candy. When it wears off… I can’t be here”.
She was starting to notice the pulse of the display had quickened, not a good sign.

“I won’t be able to reason with him. I’m useless, remember. Especially in 10 minutes.
“And.. I doubt you ‘get Vas’.” Candy said quietly, looking away and taking a sudden interest in one of the many exhaust fans on the wall.

Finally rousing herself, Candy turned back and looked her dead in the eyes.
“Hon.. You’ll figure things out.”
”But don’t come back.”

To Hana, it felt as if no one had shown her real kindness for a long time, or through the survival mode she just couldn’t see it. But something kind had happened on the cold floor by the lockers.

She hugged Candy, spilled tears onto her exposed flesh, then stood up.

Got the money, there's the exit, now just don’t think about it. Ever.
Back to the biting cold of Vladok, and the minefields of static.