The Saphirine

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say.

But a scream can move at the speed of light through the proper medium.

********************

On an unnamed private asteroid, with its own biocities and manufactured atmosphere:

A tray of frosted rings glinted in the harsh fluorescent light. Occasionally, one would give off a wisp of gaseous emission that trickled towards the floor like a ghostly headless snake.

A cluster of older men in well-tailored suits tried to chat with a knot of artisans in loose-fitted work clothing, but the conversation was strained and quiet. All of them kept glancing at the rings. Even the scattered technicians and scientists looked nervous. They were new at their jobs - and they all knew what had happened to their predecessors.

Another set of techs set up a video camera. They were less nervous, but only because they were far, far away from the tray of rings. They had gone through this before, and though they expected some action, it wouldn't be from the camera. Then they put a clear plexi wall between the camera and the rings - just in case.

After a low-voiced "We're agreed?" and nods from the artisans, the oldest of the bunch looked directly at the camera: "The other tapes have recorded our previous failures. This time, we stand on no ceremony.

"The jewelers here helped us create new parameters for the rings, and they've entered a lottery to determine who picks first. Susan - "

A tall brunette with a face known to the world as one of the top jewelry designers swayed over to one of the couches that were half-hidden on the other side of the room. The cameramen swung around to focus on the new area. As a tech hastily donned gloves and tongs and picked up the tray, she settled back and immediately picked up the ruby ring - and juggled it from hand to hand till it warmed up enough. She put it on, lay back, and everyone held their breath. After a few gasping moments, she looked over and shrugged, opened her mouth to say something - and her eyes and mouth lit up with a delighted smile, and she passed out. Techs swarmed her couch, but everyone could see the monitors, and every light stayed green. As they watched, tendrils of bright crimson seemed to paint themselves over her wrist, coming from the ring on her finger. They crawled like animated vines over her wrist, grew again, and spiraled in lazy curls towards her elbow.

Everyone exhaled at the same moment, and tense shoulders relaxed. Did the room seem brighter?

The suits seemed most relieved. "Jase? You're next, if you wish - "

"You better believe it!" Jason was also well known, but for finding some of the biggest and best emeralds seen in over a century in a dozen new mines he helped locate. He aimed straight for another couch and snagged the emerald ring on the way by. It didn't take him long to get the ring up to temp and put it on. His eyes closed, with darting movements like he was in REM sleep, and the hand weakly rose to give a thumbs-up before flopping back onto the couch. Everyone had seen green streaks like a spiderweb on his fingers. And his monitor lights were also green, pulsing in time to his heartbeat.

Another collective sigh. The third was already walking towards a couch, and the rest trailed along. The fourth artist muttered, "I bet she'll take the diamond away from me," but she threw an arched look over her shoulder as she sat. A tech attempted to urge her into lying down, or at least leaning back, but she shook her head with a smile as she picked up the sapphire ring.

She cupped it in her hand, and they could see a bright blue radiance already shining through her fingers.

Circuitry glittered under the filigree dome, and even the soft overhead light couldn't hide the six-point star in the cabochon. It slipped onto her middle finger, and she held up her hand so they could watch the circuitry rotate and clamp down. She barely felt the prick as it penetrated.

"What, no diamond for you?" mocked the last artist. Always a pain, she thought, but smiled as she felt the filaments work their way through her bloodstream, watching her veins turn glittery blue in their wake. "Sapphires are every color but red," she whispered, "Your diamond has no color. Always, you need color, for contrast." The tech caught her as she slumped sideways, and he settled her onto the couch. The lights stayed green.

Most followed the last artisan as he claimed his diamond ring, but three of the suits stayed behind to watch the deep blue color creep up her arm. One of them perched on the edge of the couch, and after very carefully putting on a thick pair of gloves the tech offered, took her ringed hand in his own. Blue glow shimmered off his leather-covered palm. It did not take long for the blue strands to reach her shoulder, pulsing and glittering.

They were still watching her sleep peacefully when the alarms went off on the fourth couch. Everyone near him flattened themselves to the floor. The lights were flashing bright red before they, and the circuitry around them, and the circuitry in the couch, and the wall monitors, and the rest of the wall, exploded.

***************************

The Saphirine walked along the dark corridor. The faint blue radiance emitted through her skin showed her enough detail to walk confidently, and if she chose, she could shift her eyes with the embedded circuitry to show each detail in walls, floor, ceiling - so much so that she could detect flaws in the metal, or even in the concrete beyond.

When she and the other volunteers finally recovered, each ring and its components had integrated with its human subject. Each individual could sense their specific gem, whether it was in someone else's jewelry, in a mine, or even a synthetic compound in the labs. They could evaluate uncut pieces, and detect weaknesses in mine shafts. Useful, accurate skills, just like the company wanted.

There were also other benefits. All senses were heightened. All were healthier than they had ever been, and the techs were taking bets as to how long they'd live. At least one was saved from injury from a knife, and another was saved from being burned alive.

There were drawbacks. You were never alone; you were like a queen bee constantly swarmed by techs, testing everything from breaths per minute to nutrient absorption to "coital symmetry". The Saphirine had no lovers with which to test that last parameter, but Jase - now calling himself the Smagardas, and Susan, now calling herself the Rubine - more than made up for her lack. Even the very-new Diamant had a double handful of friends with benefits that he called on regularly.

The problem? All the lovers were girls. Even for the Rubine, which surprised everyone but her. "We were tested for compatibility with gems, not with mates," she once marked acerbically. "Whomever I decide to take to my bed is still technically MY business." When her techs got too pushy, she'd pulled the plug on all the recording machines, then fired her techs. Her new techs treated her with much more respect. The other sets took the hint and dialed back on measuring every single miserable parameter they could think of.

The pressure to produce - er, reproducible results - had been constant till the company had produced a second set of rings: garnet, amethyst, citrine, onyx. The Amethystine and the Citrinine were near-identical twins, the Onicine was an ex-Goth who delighted in glowing black, and the Grenadine was fond of wine and poetry - and all happened to be bi. All sorts of biometric feedback was now being studied.

The suits who had first founded the technology were long dead. Ironically the research had started as their longevity plan. There hadn't been enough time left in their lifetimes to explain to them that the gems weren't just cyborgs, they were symbiotes with rocks that had seemed to be inert, but were no longer. The gems are waking up, they'd said. They are incredibly inquisitive, and they're using our bodies to interact with this new organic world and beyond. And developing personalities...

So while the old men frittered their last time away thinking up more and useless experiments, the living gems learned about themselves and each other. Circuits implanted by the techs and interwoven with their own gem-fiber bodies allowed them to talk to each other and computers. Techs wore impermeable gloves, because skin-to-skin contact always led to fibers emerging from a living gem to burrow under others' skin, with various interesting results. Even the people who tolerated sex with the living gems had rash issues that kept them away for days, or weeks.

The suits, and the following set, and the subsequent set, were now long gone, but they had provided for their strange offspring. A subdivision of the company held enough money for component upgrades in perpetuity, plus tech salaries and retirement plans. Each gem supplemented their own stipend with jewelry-making and mining advice and other services, making them independently wealthy. And by creating new interfacing circuitry inside their own bodies to help others. The company had tried to keep that for themselves. The gems gave it away for free.

Each gem had only one living symbiote. The third wave of attempts were the last to succeed, and their hosts were just as strange as the host gems. Sure, they'd always had problems with the Diamant (the fifth person to try on the ring finally stuck the landing, so to speak), but who didn't? Anyone arrogant enough to want that gem also had to compromise with a just-as-arrogant gem, and hold that balance.

*********************

When the techs finally arrived, the scene should have been an unmitigated disaster. The place was shredded: electronics and furniture and pieces of the drywall were thick on the floor, and whatever was left was hanging from destroyed components or pieces of the ceiling itself. Only two things looked untouched: the Saphirine, who was holding on to the Opaline, in the middle of the aftermath. She looked like letting go might kill them both, and the Opaline was howling her unhappiness to the whole asteroid. In her case, that was more truth than euphemism; the lights throughout the asteroid were pulsing in time to her ragged breathing rhythm. Saphirine was rocking her, cooing to her, and though both tech sets could see skin touching skin, everyone's touch pads showed green.

It took hours to get Opaline to sleep, and only then did everyone's screens light up - in blue, on both sides. /Yes, I'm temporarily superimposed on Opaline's symborg patterns/ the message said. /Just to keep her asleep for a while. Only working because her gem agrees with mine. Ideally she should wake up in Australia, can we accomplish?/ Half set about prepping a nearby spaceship while the other half conversed quietly with touchpads. /Yes, we're organically interfaced, some of my fiber implants in her and vice versa. Move us like we are one unit. Perhaps the whole couch?/ Pillows were stuffed anywhere they were needed as the entire apparatus was strapped in for a long flight. /Need to shut down for interface realignment, hold deeper conference, please hold-/ The Saphirine's transmission went blank, and her vitals indicated sleeping, but her EEG reading stayed active, and her hold on the Opaline didn't so much as twitch. The techs worried, and a few took discreet pics of the two intertwined bodies - pale-white skin, blue glittering streaks following her blood vessels, blue-black hair interwoven with pure blue sapphire strands, against golden-honey hair, and golden-tan skin, and shimmering patches of color that changed as light played over her skin.

Travel back to Terra was very, very quiet. And unnerving. Neither body moved a muscle. Techs took copious notes, and whispered in the eerie unnaturalness.

Their touchpads activated as soon as the shuttle left the airlock. /Need shelter approx 50km into environment. Possible?/ Techs scrambled to make preparations, and still the Saphirine didn't move. Nor did the Opaline. /The interface will start to break down as soon as we land. Be ready for wild readings.../

And wild they got, soon after they were installed in a vehicle and speeding to a small house on the outskirts that they'd rented. Bursts of energy they couldn't explain, equpiment overload, reboot, re-scan, energy echoes that seemed to bounce off outside sources. The Opaline began to shiver a bit, and finally the Saphirine could move arms, then legs. Some techs got hot feelings, and excessive sweating, and heavy breathing, and the Saphirine suggested full particulate masks for comfort. /And fans, large ones for air circulation. Supplies.../

The Opaline was trying to sit up by the time they got to the house. Finally both could settle into separate beds with small sighs of relief. Some food, some drink, some elimination, stretching, massages - small comforts, along with a very large fan blowing air over the Opaline and out the open door and windows.

/The largest moth to flame ratio ever,/ the Saphirine replied to what they were doing here. /Opaline needs a mate. Is desperate for one. Though our techs are ever here/ she threw an adoring glance at her own set, who blushed, /Opaline needs more contact. So we attempt to draw one out, who already loves the land her gems are embedded in. So we wait./

And they waited.

Weeks later, in the middle of the night, the Saphirine snapped awake at a whining sound that was coming closer. They had not advertised their location, so whoever was approaching was following a different trail. The whining was interspersed with low rumbles, coughs, and a discordant pop that indicated the vehicle finally broke down. Silence, curses in a lovely accent, and a slam that was definitely a tire getting kicked. Footsteps approached, and the Saphirine silently motioned for all the techs to get into another room and out of sight.

She opened the door to a ruggedly handsome man caught in the middle of saying "G'day, mate, my car seems to have - oh." His eyes went very round; everyone knew the face of each living gem. But she just smiled, put a finger to her lips, and reached for him with a gloved hand. She gently pulled him into the room, closed the door behind him, and led him over to the Opaline's couch.

The Opaline was just waking up and looked adorably tousled. The Saphirine had a twinge of jealousy, but it vanished when the other lady said "Safi? I just had the most strange, erotic - oh." No one believes in love at first sight anymore, do they?

No one was watching her anyway. She laid Handsome Stranger's hand into the Opaline's, monitored to make sure the thread interface did no harm, then slid out of the room to let the lovers "talk". If this works, I'm next, she thought.

It took much longer than she thought.

They had lucked out. Oliver had no significant other when he answered the Opaline's pheromone call, but what if he'd had a life that would have caused complications? The other gems were happy with multiple lovers that came and went, but the Saphirine herself wanted something more...permanent. She checked on the lovebirds frequently to see for herself if Oliver would develop a reaction to the threads - to find he'd upgraded to some cyborg implants of his own, developed inside the Opaline, which kept him stable and healthy. Bets were already on as to how long he'd live. The techs had no clue why.

So she visited various cities across the globe, and let her pheromones fly while there, and checked in on regional towns all around while waiting to see if someone showed. In a few months she'd move on. Whereas before she'd avoided crowds, she was now looking directly at people - which made more than a few of them uncomfortable, meeting her symborg eyes.

She gave up, and boarded a ship to the populated asteroids.

Eventually she was invited to an art exhibit. She'd agreed as a lark, knowing full well her techs were beginning to worry about her mood. Some of the digital pads were showing telltale green-yellow indicators, and though her face was still serene, she'd admitted that her hormone suppressants no longer worked since she'd started creating the pheromones instead. Hormonally, she'd been frozen for over three hundred years, and now she had the libido of a rampant 16-year-old. Distracting! She wondered if scream therapy was considered art if she could do it in the middle of the exhibit, and one of her techs started choking on surpressed laughter when he read her thought on his screen.

She tried concentrating on the job at hand, but a spicy smell kept pulling her head towards the entrance. Most of the artwork had been hung in transparent static panels that had been placed in a circle, with gaps between the panels for people to mingle. Maybe one of the exhibits was scent-based? The people allowed into the center had paid well to meet her, and she dutifully made the rounds to chat with each and every.

The last of the must-meet-and-greet - he'd hung back deliberately, a rather jolly older man who made her feel young, even though he was only 60-something - suddenly chuckled and nudged her toward one of the exits. "Your eyes keep sliding over my shoulder. Someone has caught your attention, and I will escort you while we find out whom," and laughed again at her discomfort. "Saphirine, I have watched you on vids since I was a toddler, and you've ever been the social host at these soirees. Till now. This is momentous, and I will be front and center to see you meet this wonder."

She was clothed in clear plastic with discreet opaque panels, as always - so others could stare at her sparkling "blue blood" without actually touching her and getting the awful rash. So she didn't flinch when he took her well-wrapped elbow and slipped through one of the gaps, and began to circuit the outer hall as people froze and gawked at seeing her close-up.

Two thirds of the way around, she saw them. Such young things, barely out on their own, staring at one of the abstracts and rolling their eyes. How they had gotten in, with no formal clothing, was a bit of a mystery; even those on the outer circle had to fork over some cash and fancy duds to view the gallery. The one with the blond pony tail had seen her first, and elbowed his buddy with the dark dark hair and hollow cheeks. He brushed some of that touchable hair out of his eyes as he turned, and he took her in, and his lovely hazel eyes grew large. One of her hands crept up to touch his jaw, finger those kissable lips. She'd forgotten what touching skin to skin could do, but no rash followed her touch.

They didn't see the cameras, the videos being taken, the look between Pony Tail and Jolly Old Guy as they slid behind their respective victims and deliberately pushed them together. A collective gasp came from the crowd when their lips met, but the kid's face didn't redden or swell up. More pictures, cheering, more video. Her techs were babbling in ecstacy. They had seen it happen, live streaming to the worlds.

Where were you when the Saphirine fell instantly, head-over-heels in love?

*****************

"Un-bee-LEEV-ah-bull!"

Each syllable echoed in the small room after the show. Pony Tail was agitatedly waving his arms and glaring at his friend. "So, let me get this straight: one of the richest women anywhere proposes to you, she's got access to tech we can't even BUY yet even if we had the budget which we don't and won't in a million years, you'll probably live longer than anyone you know, offers to PAY you for it, and you wanna run home to Mommy? A mommy who's crazy and wants to ruin your life? And has said so on numerous occasions?"

"But-"

"NO BUTS!! This is your future, a future I would gleefully KILL you to get, and you're my best friend and I'd STILL kill you, but I don't fit the bill-" here he waved his extra-rashy arm around, even as a tech was trying to apply more salve to a section that looked burned.

"But-"

Even as distressed as she was, the Saphirine marveled that she could lay a bare hand on his arm. "You are afraid," she whispered. "It is understandable, that this fairy tale ending is suspicious. More so, considering your mother sounds...less than supportive."

Pony Tail - no, John, he'd introduced himself much earlier - suddenly deflated and slumped in the nearest chair. "He's a freaking genius, when it comes to computers. He's too good for his family, too good for this whole planetoid. Do him a favor and give him a chance, and any computer he touches will sing!"

"I am a computer. Partially. Well, technically. And I have offered for him to touch me. Delightfully, in many places. I'll sing for him, if that's what he wants."

John just glared at him while his friend blushed. And stared at his own arm like it had betrayed him.

She took a sip of leftover wine; she hadn't talked this much in decades. Her voice sounded husky from the disuse, even in her own enhanced ears. "I have given him a chance, it is simply his choice to take it, or not. I will not compel." But she took his hand in her own, again struck by the ease of touching real skin and not having to jerk away. "So, a different proposal, one less emotionally charged: come and live with me and my techs for a month. See if you like this lifestyle. Get to know me, and what life with me is like. During that time, see if you like me. If so, if the life is agreeable, stay another month. Then another. After a year, if you are still here, we'll re-negotiate. Deal?"

She could feel his hand shaking. She held up her other hand; it was shaking too. "The last time I was this afraid," she said quietly, "I was named MaryAnn, and I was the third person to try on this ring. The previous volunteers had died graphically during their attempts. I knew the risk, their blood was still on the walls under layers of fresh paint, and yet I did it. But even with all that fear, what I gained was worth it." She nodded at the computers. "A chance to try fun things, and even if you think this a setup, you can leave a rich man. It will set you up for life. Is it worth it to try?"

Still uncomfortable, he nodded. Her smile quite literally lit up the room. He reached out to stroke her cheek, and John huffed out of his chair and towards the door. "I'm going home - ALONE - and don't you dare try to follow or I will KICK your ass all the way back here!! And I cannot WAIT to tell your miserable mother that you'll be in the company of the really REALLY rich and famous-" and he was gone down the hallway.

He frowned after his friend. "He didn't mean that."

"Oh, yes he did. All of it. He's wanted to tell your mother off for a long, long time. If it keeps her away from us, I'll send him a vid copy of the kiss myself, to show her on repeat!"

***********************

Where were you when the Saphirine's lover was targeted on Luna?

Screaming. Echoing, never stopping, a crescendo of sound, discordant cacophony, like nails on chalkboard if anyone ever remembered what chalkboards were.....

There was blood everywhere. Techs were passed out, and no one could get close enough to see if they were dead or not. Even medics couldn't reach past the last barriers to get through. It was as if a force bubble of solid air prevented anything from coming in the room.

The poor medics couldn't see straight enough to get through anyway, since their implants were giving them so much static they were blind and collapsed in pain-filled puddles in the corridor. The closer they'd gotten, the worse it got.

By the time someone thought to contact the Diamant, luckily nearby on Terra, and have him personally come to shield the medic's implants, who then started dragging the poor affected workers away from the room to where they could get treated, the Saphirine was just about indistinguishable from the sapphire threads that had erupted from her body. There was just enough video feed left to piece together what had gone on.

The living gems were rather protective of their symbiotic hosts from most methods of assassination. Not so much their lovers or partners.

But for the fanatics, who were either jealous of status or fame, there were ways to get attention of another sort. Someone decided to take her lover out of the equation. There were enough implants embedded in the poor kid to slow things down when the deranged guy burst in with a low-tech knife - emergency message gotten out, time slowed, but couldn't be stopped entirely -

She'd been a room away. Later, the techs swore she'd teleported back.

Not in time to save him from the knife embedded in his chest, but in plenty of time to completely disintegrate the attacker. And she'd screamed, and that scream hadn't stopped echoing in their heads, and now there was a filament-covered statue in the center of the room. They knew that Safi and her lover were under all that, but they didn't want to disrupt whatever-it-was she was doing, fearful to suffer the same fate as the assassin.

There was a shimmer at a corner, and her hand peeked out. Her head tech was suddenly snapped out of the feedback loop keeping everyone immobile. "Circuitry. NOW. Implants..."

Right. He dizzily scrambled to obey. All the tech kept random modules lying about, mostly to give away, since theirs and hers hardly ever went bad, maybe once every hundred years or so? He grabbed some randomly and shoved them into her hand, and he watched in terrified wonder as more threads pulled themselves right out of her wrist, prodded them all, and tossed some to the blood-soaked carpet while others were wrapped in blue filaments and pulled back behind the rippling curtain. "More, pleeeeease...."

He grabbed more, repeated the process, watched the choosing repeat itself. When he could detect patterns, he'd grab more of that type. He wondered if anyone was recording this, as slowly the electronically-fed screaming lessened in volume and intensity.

Time. Much time passed.

Reports came back - of all the sapphire jewelry on the moon vibrating and cracking, of energy being sucked out of power plants and unessential appliances to feed into...well, whatever she was doing. Essential equipment wasn't touched, though.

The techs? They recovered, they healed, and still no one got near a blue-wrapped sculpture in the middle of a blood-crusted room. Her chief tech stayed, and a few brave medics kept him company. The other gems and their techs arrived and also kept vigil, from rooms down the corridor. The living gems could stand being in that room; their poor techs could not.

It took weeks. The last piece that she asked for was a particular large star sapphire from her personal collection, 50 carats and internally flawless, so rare and beautiful for a natural gem. She'd collected it herself from the mine. Not quite pure blue, because most sapphires color change, this one was more a teal color in the right light.

Oh. OH. The tech paled. He finally figured it out. She was doing this without the backup equipment, the labs, another set of techs? Madness born of pain and so close to ultimate loss, or could she really pull this off?

Her hand pulled back into the shimmer, and after a bit of rustling, something emerged. The knife, still bloody, point first. It clattered on the floor.

He took that as a sign, and summoned techs from all the teams. They hated being in this now-smelly room, with the carnage and the violence still quite literally painted on the walls. But when the threads started rippling like they were in a high wind, and there were gaps, and someone belatedly thought to start filming...

The threads seemed to split. They parted and receded like a strange sentient waterfall, flapping like a frayed curtain. They saw that the Saphirine had entwined herself on top of her lover. Half the threads pulled back into her, and the other half - pulled back into him.

The star sapphire was embedded in his chest, right over where the knife had entered his heart. His veins showed the telltale teal glimmers through the skin in the same patterns as hers.

Her head tech was amazed, and someone shoved a scanner into his hand before he thought to approach. And he wasn't thinking, they weren't thinking, he just reached out to touch her to make sure she was okay, her breathing was so shallow he couldn't detect it at first. He touched her shoulder, then her cheek...and nothing happened.

No filaments emerged from her skin to penetrate his.

His scanner lit up with soft light. /Tired. Hungry. I'm so sorry, I panicked. I couldn't lose him. Take us home, please?/

They went home.