21:21, February 7, 2295

  Booth K21, The Quantum Pour, 1820 Maple Avenue, Evanston, IL 60201, Terra Alliance territory

  Lorna lounged on a gray sofa, propped up against a black marble table as she gazed at the nearby wall in the booth.

  A gentle chime preceded Emmanuel's arrival, his face materializing on the table's holographic display. "Hey."

  "Come in," she called, smoothing the dark blouse beneath her blue blazer as the white door slid open with a whisper.

  Emmanuel entered with the easy grace of a soldier who'd learned to move in high society. His gray suit fit perfectly, highlighting his athletic build while speaking of taste and wealth. "Nice night for plotting international espionage," he said with a grin.

  Lorna returned his smile, patting the sofa beside her. "I just wanted a drink with good company before we risk starting World War Four tomorrow."

  "Always the optimist." Emmanuel settled beside her, close but not too close. His cologne carried hints of earth and spice. "Shall we order?"

  Effortlessly, Lorna tapped her fingers on the marble table and a holographic menu appeared in the air. She selected an item and within moments, Emmanuel did the same.

  Shortly after, their drinks were swiftly teleported to their table with a soft hum, ready for them to enjoy.

  Lorna’s drink, a glass of Italicus Spritz, shimmered invitingly under the neon lights, the pale liquid sparkling with effervescence. The floral cocktail exuded an enchanting aroma, blending the scents of lavender and rose with the zesty brightness of ripe citrus. Ice cubes clinked softly in the glass, while two green olives skewered on a sleek metal pick floated elegantly, enhancing its cool allure.

  Emmanuel’s glass of Sobolo, by contrast, was a deep, luscious crimson, rich and inviting. The drink, made from hibiscus leaves and infused with the spicy warmth of ginger, exuded a heady, aromatic blend that teased the senses.

  "That's new for you," Emmanuel noted, nodding at her choice.

  "Thought I'd try something different." She lifted the glass, letting the floral aroma of lavender and rose mingle with bright citrus notes. "Like this mission ahead of us. No Radi-Mons to kill this time."

  Emmanuel leaned back, draping one arm across the sofa. "Just Imperial Bloodtroopers, dead-eye Peons, shy civilians who could turn out to be spies, and any nasty surprise we don't know about yet." He made a shooting gesture with his free hand. "Almost makes me miss the predictability of Diabolisks."

  "Please," Lorna rolled her eyes, tucking one leg under herself as she turned to face him. "You're just upset you won't get to show off your cloaking spells."

  "Hey, I still think I should be the one going in." He sat up straighter, his expression growing serious. "The Main Server Room is—"

  "Unknown to us, I know." Lorna cut him off with a playful poke to his chest. "But the Director is right. If something goes wrong, talking works better than shooting."

  "And you think your..." Emmanuel gestured vaguely at her entire form, a knowing smirk playing on his lips, "natural advantages will help?"

  "Are you calling me pretty, Mister Boateng?" She raised an eyebrow, fighting back a smile.

  "I'm calling you dangerous, Miss Weiss," he replied, reaching for his Sobolo. "Those Imperials won't know what hit them."

  "Good. That's the plan." Lorna took another sip of her spritz, then set it down with sudden intensity. "But seriously, Manny – this Crystal. If what Otis says is true, if it can really control the Radi-Mons..."

  "It could change everything." Emmanuel's playful demeanor faded. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "No more reactive missions. No more watching cities fall while we chase shadows. We could finally take the fight to them."

  "Or the Imperium could use it to build themselves a monster army." Lorna's fingers found her pendant unconsciously. "After what they did in Scandinavia..."

  "You sound personally offended," he said as he shifted on the sofa.

  "Anyone with a conscience would be." She forced herself to relax her fingers. "Did you know they used to have these amazing fusion laboratories in Oslo? The architecture alone – these beautiful crystalline spires built right into the fjords..."

  "Interesting details for classified sites," Emmanuel mused. "I don't remember that being in our briefings. Ever."

  Lorna shifted. "I do my research. Know your enemy, right?"

  "You seem to know a lot about that part of the world." His tone was casual, but his dark eyes held curiosity. "Especially the northern regions. Last week, you were talking about Svalbard like you'd seen it firsthand."

  "My upbringing was... unconventional." She set her glass down, fighting the urge to touch the pendant hidden beneath her blouse. "Also, being a Psi Lynx means you learn weird knowledge while traveling across planets and moons."

  "Speaking of knowledge," Emmanuel's tone remained casual, but his eyes were sharp. "Wie ist dein Deutsch? Most Valorans I meet, especially with a name like Weiss, they can't stop showing off their German."

  "I... prefer English." She took another sip of her Spritz .

  "Really? Not even a little Guten Tag?" He was teasing now, but watching her closely. "No favorite Schiller quotes? No strong opinions on whether Bremen or Hamburg has the best Christmas markets?"

  "You seem to know a lot about it," Lorna deflected, forcing a smile.

  "My time in Europe was educational. Did you know there's this fascinating tradition in Bavaria —"

  "Tell me more about the mission," Lorna cut in, perhaps too abruptly. "The Amber Moon Spire's security systems—"

  "Now who's changing subjects? But alright." Emmanuel grinned as he leaned back, studying her. "Remember President Harrison's birthday gala last year? When you somehow knew exactly where the best viewpoint was in the White House East Room?"

  Lorna smiled despite herself. "That was a good night. Harrison and Victor looked so happy together."

  "They always do," Emmanuel nodded. "Fifteen years of marriage and they still look at each other like newlyweds. Makes you believe in something lasting."

  "Victor's toast was beautiful," Lorna said, grateful for the momentary diversion. "All that stuff about finding home in another person, no matter what planet you're on."

  Emmanuel's expression softened. "I noticed you were quite moved by that speech."

  "Maybe I was," she admitted. "But we were talking about your cultural observations."

  "Right," Emmanuel's serious gaze returned. "You can describe the exact layout of pre-war Lund's university district, but you don't react to German cultural references, or basic French. Not very Valoran of you."

  "Maybe I'm not like most Valorans," Lorna said, her voice carrying an edge she instantly regretted.

  A heavy moment passed between them. The way Emmanuel seeped his Sobolo was thoughtful, analytical – the look he got when piecing together intelligence in the field.

  "No," he said slowly. "You're definitely not."

  Lorna felt the weight of her pendant against her skin, the metal suddenly cold. She needed to end this line of questioning. Now.

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  "You know what I am, though?" She let her voice drop to a sultry whisper, shifting closer as she put her drink away. Her hand then found his thigh. "In the mood for...something hot."

  "Lorna — ?" he placed his glass on the table.

  "I can think of much better uses for that analytical mind of yours." Her fingers traced higher.

  She saw the moment Emmanuel decided to let it go, though something in his eyes told her these questions weren't forgotten, merely postponed. But that was a problem for another day. Tonight, she had other ways to keep him from prying too deeply into her carefully constructed identity.

  "You're impossible," he murmured, but his hand was already sliding around her waist.

  "That's why you like me." She moved closer, letting the heat between them erase the tension of their previous conversation. Some mysteries, she decided, were better left unsolved.

  Emmanuel's resistance melted under her touch, though questions still lingered in his eyes. "Whatever you say, Fr?ulein."

  Lorna hid her lack of reaction to the German endearment by closing the distance between them, her fingers finding his neck. Some truths were better left unspoken, especially on nights like these.

  She shed away the blue blazer, placed down her pendant on the table, and kicked her heels away on the floor, the dark blouse hugging her curves in all the right places, promising untold delights beneath its sleek surface.

  "Sex, Manny," she whispered in a husky tone, her breath tinged with the scent of alcohol and her lavender perfume. The space between them crackled with electric anticipation. Her hand found its way to his groin, her touch insistent.

  "Hey, Lorna, I love doing it with you. I really do," His voice was a low growl, fighting against his overwhelming desire. "But…I want us to be more."

  Their proximity blurred into a dance of power and vulnerability. Lorna's hand, still lingering, promised solace in a reality where pleasure and pain often wore the same mask.

  "Manny," she purred, tracing her throat with her other hand before resting it on her thigh, "I just need to blow off some steam. Don’t you want to?"

  Emmanuel’s response was lost in his thoughts, "But…I want it to mean something."

  "What's the point? We could all die or catch the Nucleus Virus tomorrow. Why complicate things?" Lorna shrugged nonchalantly, leaning in closer.

  "You know, I asked Doctor Nikki. She told me that Hot Fusion feels a lot better when it's with someone you truly care for," Emmanuel countered, his voice a mix of stern warning but disarmed by the proximity of her irresistible charm.

  In response, Lorna's hand moved boldly and unabashedly, pressing against him through the fabric of his pants, her voice a velvet caress against his earlobe. "Stop thinking, Manny. Just feel."

  "I feel it," In that moment, the last bastion of Emmanuel's restraint crumbled beneath the onslaught of her insistence. He rose on the sofa, as the primal part of him roared to life.

  The dance of undressing was charged with the urgency of their quests. His hands moved to undress her pants and underwear, peeling away layers of protection and pretense. The fabrics yielded, revealing the ivory expanse of her lower body.

  Lorna’s movement was quicker than his, her nimble fingers making quick work of the armor that shielded him. As each piece fell to the floor, a symphony of clinks and whispers, she beheld the chiseled sculpture of muscle and sinew on him. She licked her lips, savoring the scent of warm musk emanating from his torso.

  "Beautiful," she breathed, running her hands across his six-pack abs, the ridges and valleys of his strength.

  Emmanuel's hands, steady and deliberate, traced the curve of Lorna's waist, his fingers slipping beneath the hem of her blouse. The fabric peeled away like a second skin, revealing the pale luminescence of her breasts, unconfined by lace or wire.

  "Still not wearing a bra?" Emmanuel said as his eyes drank in the sight of her bare flesh.

  "No. Never much liked it." Lorna bit her lower lip as she caressed her own breasts.

  "Mmm," he murmured, his voice a low hum that vibrated with primal need. Emmanuel descended upon her, lips finding the rosy peaks of her nipples, tongue swirling in fervent worship. Each suckle was punctuated by Lorna's sensual moans, echoing back from the walls around them like a choir of carnal spirits.

  Lorna's back arched as she pressed her mounds into the heat of Emmanuel's mouth, her breaths coming in short, rapturous gasps. Her hands tangled in the locs cascading over his shoulders, urging him closer.

  "More, Manny…" she whispered, a command cloaked in velvet.

  But Emmanuel ventured. He lifted his head and sought her lips, aiming to fuse their breaths, their essence, in a kiss that would transcend the boundaries of mere pleasure.

  But Lorna pulled back, a sudden flinch on her features. The feral glint in her eye dulled, replaced by a glimmer of unease — a fleeting glimpse of the vulnerability she so often masked.

  "Emmanuel?" she reminded gently, the sway of intoxication lacing her words, "No quantum bonds."

  "Yeah, that’s fine," he soothed, his disappointment swiftly banished by concern. His touch gentled, a feathery contrast to the fervor of moments before. "So, Bone Fiend Dive?"

  "Bone Fiend Dive," Lorna nodded, her consent a silent pardon. With care, he guided her onto her hands and knees, the leather of the sofa cool against her skin. To her, the position was one of raw power, of instinct — qualities Lorna wielded like weapons, even as her body yielded to the thrust of his passion.

  With her Psi Lynx instincts tingling, she leaned forward on all fours, her knees and ankles sinking into the cushioned sofa, as Emmanuel positioned himself on his knees behind her, his engorged member entering her womanhood from behind, eliciting from Lorna a throaty moan that resonated within their soundproof booth.

  Emmanuel's broad ebony palms anchored Lorna's hips as he aligned himself with her. The world outside faded into irrelevance as they succumbed to the primal cadence of flesh against flesh.

  "Your Aether, Manny," Lorna panted between moans, sensing the intensity of Emmanuel’s thrusts. "Put it on my skin."

  "Yeah," Emmanuel replied in a guttural tone of bliss, matching Lorna's coarse breaths. "I will, Lorna."

  With every powerful thrust, Emmanuel's hands molded Lorna's form, a tactile sonnet composed upon the canvas of her waist and arse.

  "Yeah," she gasped as her eyes now fluttered shut, lashes casting feathery shadows upon her high cheekbones, sculpted in the half-light like the most polished marble. "That’s the spot…"

  A primal excitement overtook Lorna, awakening her inner beast and igniting the most innate rawness of her being. Her breath hitched with every movement as she approached the edge of ecstasy. There, Lorna's moans crescendoed, an ode to her untamed nature.

  "Deeper, E," she commanded, her voice laced with the intoxication of power and pleasure. "Go deeper!"

  His response was not in words but in action, his body a relentless force driving into hers, the sound of flesh meeting flesh punctuating the air. Each movement carved out a space where only they existed, two beings intertwined in the paradox of dominance and surrender.

  "Freiheit," she whispered into the void, the German word for freedom, a talisman against the shackles of a world too eager to impose its will.

  "Freiheit," Emmanuel echoed back, also closing his eyes.

  For several minutes, their coupling continued without any further speech. Emmanuel's deep moans harmonized with Lorna's crystalline cries as they lost themselves in a raw symphony of flesh and desire, inching closer to their shared climax. No words were necessary; they both knew exactly what this was.

  Just before reaching climax, Emmanuel pulled away from Lorna's velvety depths and spilled his seed onto her backside, filling the room with the scent of citrus and chlorine.

  Some droplets landed on her dark blouse, making it damp, while others trickled down onto her round buttocks. A few even reached the back of Lorna's head and tangled in her blonde hair, blending with the golden strands like white sauce coating spaghetti. She could sense the warm traces of his release trailing down her bare thighs, leaving a tingling sensation in their wake.

  From within Lorna’s womanhood, thin streams of Emmanuel’s sticky essence mixed in with her own fluid, dripped down, staining the sofa beneath her.

  Lorna sighed contentedly, her icy blue eyes flickering open as she relaxed into the post-coital glow. Dilated pupils reflected her pleasure as she exhaled sharply, gradually slowing down until she whispered. "Your Aether smells different. Been eating fruits?"

  "Yeah," With a tender yet possessive strength, Emmanuel shifted, flipping Lorna onto her back as he pulled out. His ebony form enveloped her, the weight of his body grounding her flighty euphoria. He nestled into the valley of her breasts, his head cradled by the supple curves, eyes closing. "Oranges…lemons."

  "Hmm…" Smiling, Lorna's fingers lazily traced patterns through his locs, finding comfort in the familiar texture. With her keen sense of smell, She could always tell what someone had eaten by the scent and taste of their semen — where a man’s Aether is contained.

  "You know," Emmanuel steadied his breathing, his voice deep and steady. "Last month, I did Hot Fusion with Jessica. We went Deep Core."

  "Jessica. Director’s secretary?" Lorna’s voice was husky with satisfaction.

  "Yeah, but she's not the secretary anymore. Director Otis caught her funneling funds to the Imperium and fired her," Emmanuel raised his head to look into Lorna's eyes

  "That’s unfortunate." Lorna tilted her head slightly, feeling their sweaty bodies pressed together. "So, you went Deep Core?"

  "Yeah, the whole way," Emmanuel nodded, his locs brushing against Lorna's bare skin. "But last week, she came to me with proof of pregnancy. Made me feel bad, but I told her to get abortion. Paid for it, too. Couldn't see myself starting a family with her."

  "Well, you both made your own choices," Lorna said calmly as she ran her fingers through Emmanuel's hair.

  "There's one person in SIMU I would want to start a family with, though." Emmanuel's eyes reflected hope as he gazed into Lorna's cerulean eyes. "I've even thought about how we could both have careers and be good parents. I could apply for an Advisor position and she could teach at Boston Psionic University. I heard they’ve been looking for someone skilled in the Lunar school — "

  "I'm sorry, Manny," Lorna interjected firmly, sadness creeping into her tone as she met Emmanuel's gaze. "No bonds."

  Emmanuel let out a resigned sigh against her skin, understanding their unspoken agreement. "No bonds," he echoed, sealing it with his words.

  When midnight struck, they would sober up and return to separate homes, but until then, nothing would disturb their uninhibited freedom.