CollisionWithParadise Read Online Free Page A

continued. “They came on to strangers and became sexually aggressive when touched. They masturbated or fornicated in public. Everywhere — on street corners, in malls, stores, transit stations, lifts and moving transit cars, oblivious to the appalled people staring at them. They caused disturbances, even riots.” He’d leaned forward and Genevieve saw herself stiffen, knowing what he was going to ask her next. “So, how does your jack suit differ from the original virt suit?”
    Not much, she thought wryly.
    “I admit that we are definitely more sensitive to touch when we come out of jack -time,” Genevieve on screen said. “That’s because our skin has been stimulated by the nano-sensors for so long.”
    “And the skin is your largest organ,” Trip said enthusiastically.
    Genevieve on screen agreed with the energetic reporter and added, “But it in no way interferes with our duties.”
    “A lot you knew back then,” Zac snorted.
    Zac was right. She was pretty much an idiot for the first few hours after emerging from jack -time, especially coming out of extensive jack in hibe.
    After another awkward pause, Trip leaned back in his chair and tried a different approach. “Don’t you all get out of shape, lying in the suit for so long during hibernation?”
    “No, we’re in hibernation, but we’re not comatose,” she countered. “Like I said earlier, we’re pretty much just dreaming, more like sleep-walking. So we act out our active dreams with the guidance of jack , and get a really good workout, running and walking, etc., while actually floating in negative G in a well-padded room. Zeta’s stats suggest that on average we use up five hundred calories a day during hibe sleep. Sometimes we emerge with bruises from bumping around so much.”
    “I can’t believe I said that with a straight face!” Genevieve snorted at her image on the screen. “It’s called sex, sex and more sex!”
    “Wow! Pretty energetic dreams.” Trip raised his brows for punctuation. “Have you ever bruised yourself?”
    “On occasion,” she answered coyly.
    Genevieve barked a sharp laugh and Zac joined her.
    Trip grinned slyly. “You mentioned that the suit monitors your dreams and guides you in them. Do you mean it can choose what you dream about? Even how you enact your dream?”
    Bingo. He hadn’t missed it. Genevieve remembered having hoped he had. He’d just stored it away for the right time. She’d been warned. That was his modus operandi . He never stuck to a topic, but drifted as if aimlessly, then struck at the most vulnerable moment.
    “No…well, yes,” her image on screen faltered and deferred, “You’ll have to ask Doctor Amanda Kidd, our psychologist and ship’s physician, about that.” It was a lame answer, but she wasn’t about to divulge that it was both. Zac’s way of providing the crew with an energetic workout was by delivering a virtual sex experience, tailored to their unique requests.
    He shifted gear with a stretch of his legs. “So, tell me about this mission. What do you hope to achieve that a hundred scientists haven’t?” he quipped in a voice thick with sarcasm. “What will be meeting face to face with these bright pillars of the universe, these purple baldies give us?”
    She remembered thinking he ought to talk to Mission Commander Bragg, who seemed to speak the same language of prejudice.
    “Is it the same old story? Looking for that elusive elixir? The fountain of youth? Eternity, like the baldie said? Or is it their environmental technology? Wisdom? Maybe some answers to help us fix what we’ve fucked up? For all their boasting and promises, those baldies haven’t given us anything yet. I’m really not sure why they contacted us in the first place. To brag, then spit on us? That head baldie made it clear in all his transmissions to Earth that they don’t respect us, so how do you expect them to share their greatest secrets with us?”
    “Like you said,” she countered,