Imponign Ch. 03

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CHAPTER 03

The Other Imponign

#

I lie in my bunk, staring through the darkness at the underside of the one above, wanting nothing more than to fall asleep but unable to push aside the horrors of my first day.

My first day…

Not just in this tower, but of life — of existing. I can hardly wrap my head around the concept. I feel like I’ve known myself for decades, but in reality, I’m just an imitation of someone who, by now, has been dead for about two hundred years.

My mind is plagued by persistent ruminations of my so-called brother. As well as dread — and even more disturbingly, elation — at the prospect of my future defilement.

What was that thing Sorovan said about getting a good night’s sleep? Was he messing with me, or is it truly important that I do? What happens if I don’t? Will my mind not wire itself right? True or not, the bastard knew this information was going to keep me up. Fortunately, my spite for the man is stronger than my neuroticism and I’m able to use that to forcefully disregard his message from the forefront of my mind and focus on sleep.

I let the tension drain out, starting at my toes. Then, into my feet, ankles, up through the legs, feeling the muscle fibers of my calves slacken… Up to my thighs… My abdomen… I focus on my breath… I make sure each is even… Inhaling for five… Holding for five… Letting the tension drain from my shoulders, down my arms… Exhaling for five… I let the tension in my face ease away… Inhaling for—

Without warning, the door to the small bunkroom hisses open. I snap my eyes open just in time to see something scurry into the darkness with me.

Silhouetted by the bright lights in the hallway outside, I see a pair of huge figures, not dissimilar to the two I met in my physical analysis, blocking the doorway with their massive bodies.

“Close it already! She’s gonna slip between our legs!”

The other figure clumsily thumbs the panel on the outer side of the door frame. “I’m trying! These buttons are too damn small for my—” The door slides quickly shut.

I am left alone with whoever — whatever — they let in.

I sit straight upright in my bunk, back pressed against the wall and bedsheets clutched to my breast. My heartbeat quickens. A moment passes. I wait for something… nothing happens.

I swallow nervously. “Hel—”

“Hello!” responds a nasally, birdlike voice coming from someone no more than an arm’s length from my face. I release a shrill scream and fumble in the darkness, trying to find the switch for my bunk’s reading light. I do, and my surroundings are dimly illuminated in a dull orange glow.

A nude girl kneels at my bunkside, with huge pale-blue eyes, and crazy strawberry-blonde hair that almost touches her bony shoulders. Her physique is nimble and light with almost ghost-white skin. Her breasts are practically nonexistent, with oval-shaped soft-pink nipples. With thin eyebrows, a small, pointed nose, and sinuous lips, her face is elfish, but her expression suggests no mischievousness. She continues to just silently kneel there, her hands placed upon the topside of her thighs, staring at me with an expressionless face and those big blue eyes.

“Hi…” I hesitate, trying to determine whether I should be afraid or annoyed.

“Who are you?” she asks point blank.

“I… um… I guess I’m Skoeli,” saying it out loud feels particularly strange. “…And who are you?”

She stares at me in silence for a while with that unchanging neutral expression on her bug-eyed elf face. “They called me Vecordia,” she says quickly. “I like it, but I don’t think it’s my real name.”

“How much did they tell you?” I ask her.

Finally, her pupils leave my face and dart around the spacious whites of her eyes as she recalls. “They put me in a room and had men chase me with big sticks. I was too fast, I made one hit the other.” A shimmer of an impish grin parts her lips. “They told me they’d never seen that happen before. I meant to do it, too.”

“So, you just finished your analysis?”

“I ran. Hid behind a machine. Took them a while to find me.”

I narrow my eyes at the strange girl, not sure what to make of her. “You seem a little… skittish,” is what I say, but the word I really want to use is somewhere between weird and insane. She ignores my observation. “How much do you know about what’s happened to you?” Her eyes drift slowly down from my face. “Did they explain why you can’t remember—” Before I can finish, Vecordia grabs the bedsheets at my waist and yanks them from the bunk, exposing my privates to her. She stares at them. Her eyes have somehow gotten even bigger.

“What are we?” she asks in an almost dream-like manner that is not at all in tune with her erratics. She parts her thighs, allowing me to see her penis too. Aside from my slightly warmer skin and the color of our pubic hair, our packages are almost Cihangir travesti identical in size and shape.

“They call us Imponigns,” I explain, huddled into the groove of my bunk, feeling self-conscious as her eyes insist on scrutinizing my naked body. “At least, that’s what they told me.”

“Tell me more?”

Vecordia and I spend the next hour sitting cross-legged on either end of my bunk as I tell her, in detail, the very little I know. She goes for long periods, just listening and staring, but every now and then she pipes up with a torrent of frantic and redundant questions. I have to tell her three times that, like her, I cannot remember anything about who I was. She makes multiple requests to inspect my privates with her petite hands. I put up little resistance the first two times she abruptly leaned forward to poke and pull at my stuff, but on the third attempt, I grabbed the bedsheets and pushed them down in a bunch over my lap. That didn’t seem to upset, or have any effect, really, on my new bunkmate.

I finally manage to convince her that I’ve told her everything I have to tell. She tilts her head and blinks for the first time I’ve seen. She looks at me expectantly but I’m not sure what else to say. “I… think it’s perhaps time we get some sl—”

“Goodnight!” She springs from her cross-legged position and shoots silently up to the bunk above, like a startled cat up a fence.

“Goodnight…” I murmur up into the darkness. I hesitate for a moment before I turn off the reading light. Knowing that she’s up there is like seeing a curled-up fallen leaf in the center of a web — you just know that if you lightly touch one of the nearby threads, a creepy spider will spring out.

On the bright side, she’s exhausted me enough so that I have no problem sinking into sleep. This is — after I’ve convinced myself she’s not about to dash back down.

#

I wake to the sound of an unpleasant buzzing before the bunkroom’s door opens to reveal Taabia accompanied by one of those huge men. She can’t be more than a third of his weight and doesn’t even come up to his shoulders. She is wearing her official white coat again.

“Careful,” the man whispers. “That Impo’s a slippery one.”

I hear scuffling in the top bunk. Vecordia pounces to the floor and nimbly backs herself into the corner farthest from the door. Taabia steps slowly in, her palms spread at her chest, showing that she means no harm. “It’s just me,” she says gently.

When Taabia’s eyes meet mine, I’m overcome with a horrible sense of guilt and awkwardness. Her naturally dark eye sockets are an even deeper shade. It doesn’t look like she’s slept a wink. Inexplicably, her eyes look to hold no disdain nor anger toward me. That only makes me feel more guilty.

“It’s time for your first Imponign Etiquette class, Skoeli.” She turns to where Vecordia huddles beyond the entrance to the bathing chamber. “You too, Vecordia.” Vecordia twitches abruptly, as if about to make a run for the door, causing the man to jolt reactively. The sudden movement of his massive body puts her even more on edge. Taabia looks back at the man, who wears a fed-up expression, then back to Vecordia. “This is Martilign Eiron. He’s only here to ensure we all get to the auditorium safely. He means you no harm.” She looks at me and gives me a look as if to say “Show her.” So I slide out of my bunk, step into my jumpsuit, and zip it up to my neck. After putting on my boots, I walk right up to the Martilign and stand casually under his armpit. “See?” Taabia encourages.

Cautiously, Vecordia steps out of her corner and slowly approaches the three of us. She eyes the Martilign skeptically. He just wearily stares back. Before too long, she is right in front of the man. Taabia rubs her hands together with a hopeful grin on her tired face. “Eiron is one of the nicest orderlies in all of Deatuercaste Transpositions.” Eiron rolls his eyes. Vecordia holds out her hand to touch the giant. He waits, still and patiently, for her to place her tiny hand on his barrel of a chest. As soon as she does, it’s like all the nervous-rabbit energy drains out of her. Her shoulders slacken, she stops standing on her tiptoes, and she allows her eyes to dart around between the three of us rather than staying fixed on Eiron.

After coaxing her into a jumpsuit identical to mine, Taabia corrals us through the door.

#

I walk alongside Taabia, about five steps behind Vecordia and our Martilign escort. We travel into a new part of the Imponign Processing block, passing others like us wearing the same yellow jumpsuits. Some walk about freely. Others are escorted.

Taabia appears to be an outlier here, given that she is thus far the only Imponign official I’ve met. All the others seem to be taller women — Fertiligns, I think — like Noonus. Every now and then we pass a man, but none as big as Eiron. He seems more than a little Cihangir travestileri overkill for the tiny Vecordia… Then again, I’ve seen how quickly she can move.

I try to think of some way to break the silence between Taabia and me without outrightly apologizing for the horrible trouble I got her in yesterday. “Looks like they’re friends,” I say, gesturing forward. Ahead of us, Vecordia has practically joined herself with Eiron. As soon as we left the bunkroom she wrapped her slender little arms around the man’s rotund forearm and has not let go since. Eiron doesn’t seem to mind either way.

“I was worried we were going to have to resort to the stun rod and carry her out in manacles,” Taabia replies. We look at each other and she gives me a baggy-eyed smile as if to let me know that there are no hard feelings. It puts me at ease.

“So, what’s her story?” I ask.

“Noonus transposed her while we were on our little misadventure yesterday evening. If you haven’t put it together already — she is the other Imponign in your subordination contract.”

Ahead of us, a member of staff backs out of a doorway pulling with him some sort of tall contraption mounted atop tiny wheels. He gets too close, and Vecordia dashes to Eiron’s opposite side, putting him between her and the strange man with the strange machine.

“Why is she like… that?” I ask.

“She is what we call a negative-two-deviation transposition, Skoeli,” Taabia explains. “She managed only a seventy-one-percent archive likeness — barely over the acceptable threshold. If she were two points lower, we would’ve had to atomize her.”

I give a small whistle. “So what’s the other twenty-nine percent of her personality?”

“Transpositions are an incredibly resource-heavy procedure,” Taabia starts. “None of our computers are capable of parsing through an archive’s neurological code and adapting it to the biological medium of a corpus. Therefore, we rely on The Arbiter to do all the heavy lifting. Whenever a transposition is performed anywhere around the world, whether it be by AoH or an intercontinental equivalent, a direct link is established between one of The Arbiter’s axons and the site of transposition. The Arbiter will decrypt the archive and transpose as much of it as it can into the corpus. However, unpredictability in the physical structure of the corpus’s brain matter results in imperfect archive-likeness scores, meaning that The Arbiter cannot transfer that information from the archive into the corpus. In which case, The Arbiter will glean compatible elements from its virtually infinite memory of prior transpositions until it has filled the neurological deficit.”

“So…” I say squinting, “nearly a third of Vecordia’s personality is just a mix of who-knows how many other people’s minds?” Ahead, an elevator opens for a small crowd. The dinging sound the doors make is enough the scare Vecordia halfway up Eiron’s body.

“Does the person buying us know she’s like this?”

“Matter of fact — I overheard Patholign Sorovan tell Dr. Noonus it was the primary reason they bought her.”

After passing through a few more doors, the four of us reach a small auditorium. It features five curving tiers of seats, each with an unbroken bench in front. Along each row, Imponigns in pale yellow sit. Some with company, some without. Nearly all of the seats are occupied. “That attack in Dubai yesterday really took a toll,” Taabia mumbles to no one in particular.

“What do you mean?” I query her.

“The Arbiter has to replenish the population, of course.” But before she can elaborate further, she notices a tall and slender woman making her way to the auditorium’s center stage. Taabia quickly rushes us up the stairs to the only vacant row of seats at the far back, on the topmost tier. Eiron has to crane his great body forward to avoid hitting his big square head on the ceiling as we shuffle across to our seats. We sit down, Taabia next to me, next to Vecordia, who is still clutching Eiron’s forearm.

The tall woman steps to the lectern to introduce herself. She wears a very elaborate outfit — It looks half dress, half suit; half charcoal black, half glacier white. Her cheekbones are high and prominent and her eyes thin.

“Welcome,” she begins. Her voice seems to be amplified by the lectern. “I am Etholign Leppia Argon of Clan Sitari. I will be your Imponign Etiquette instructor for the duration of your seven-day acclimation.” Her voice is brassy and imperious and her words are well-enunciated. She looks around at her abnormally full auditorium. “We’ve quite the room of promising new Impos. All of exceptional beauty. I suppose you must be from that new Alavastra line of corpora.”

Behind her, a large screen as tall as the back wall turns on to display that symbol I keep seeing — the one Taabia has tattooed on her wrist. It’s the symbol of Venus, but rather than a circle, its body is triangular Travesti cihangir and features the bold letters, IMPN running vertically down the stem to a smaller circle in place of the cross.

“As I’m sure many of you are aware by now. You are Imponign — In illa deliciae morantur — in she, delights linger,” she almost sings the peculiar phrase. Behind her, the screen changes to an anatomical image of a nude Imponign upon a white background. “The Arbiter created caste Imponign on the first of June, 2175. 114 years after the beginning of The Redux — hardly more than a half-century ago.”

Leppia continues to talk, slide after slide, about the events of the last two-hundred years. About the decline of the world, and its rescue through The Arbiter’s wisdom. Much of it is stuff Taabia’s already explained to me, like how transpositions work, and what the axons are. But other things, I learn. Taabia sinks down in her seat beside me, using this time as an opportunity to catch up on some much needed sleep.

I learn about the three categories of castes — Deutercaste, Protocaste, and the most revered Magnacaste. In my caste, Deuter, resides the majority of the world’s population. Over sixty percent of Deutercaste consists of Agronigns and Labornigns. Agronigns are responsible for the world’s food production, working in rolling fields of genetically optimized wheat, corn, and other cultivars of high-yield crops. Labornigns are responsible for manufacturing. On levitating platforms they construct the world’s towers and fill labyrinthine factories, producing everything from aircars to toothpicks. Imponigns are considered a luxury caste to own and only make up a small portion of Deutercaste.

In Protocaste are the likes of Virilign and Fertilign — the closest equivalents to the old world’s male and female. All the castes in Proto are transposed as free citizens and have relative liberty in their choice of life pursuit. However, the Martiligns’ imposing build and slightly lower general intelligence compared to the rest of Protocaste disposes them to careers in law enforcement and defense.

Magnacaste make up the smallest part of the population. Similarly, they also have the fewest castes. Wherever there is a hierarchy, a Magnacaste almost always sits at the top of it. The incredible problem-solving and leadership abilities of Logoligns make them the ideal administrators. They inhabit the roles of CEOs and presidents, university deans, and Navy Admirals. The superb charisma and social ability of Patholigns and Etholighns make them ideal psychologists, politicians, negotiators, lawyers, and news anchors.

To my left, Vecordia watches the presentation intently. She sits askew on her chair, practically fused to Eiron who props his head up with his elbow on the bench. He looks bored out of his mind.

“Like all Deutercaste,” Leppia says, “Imponigns are required to serve petenta — fifty years of subordination to a proprietor, whether this be to an individual or an organization such as the Archive of Humanity, for example.” Leppia gestures a hand over to our group. “Just like our own Imponign Taabia up the back there.” A handful of people turn their heads to look up at us. Taabia startles when she realizes she’s being referred to, having fallen asleep. She nods courteously a couple of times, not really knowing where we’re up to.

Leppia continues her lecture.

Eventually, she reaches the part I’ve been both dreading and eagerly awaiting. “‘What services does an Imponign provide her proprietor?’ You all must be wondering. Imponigns are a quasi-able caste, therefore they can be expected to competently handle tasks of mild to moderate complexity. For this reason, many of you will serve your petenta as secretaries and personal assistants. But Imponigns feature certain attributes that make them desirable for much more than just bookkeeping.

“Imponigns are graced with the aesthetic forms of femininity, yet are not burdened with the systems of reproduction. Making them — you — the perfect companion for not just emotional connection, but physical — carnal — connection, as well. You are agreeable, meek, and trusting, yet intelligent enough to remain emotionally interesting to even Logoligns. You should all feel very fortunate to have been transposed Imponign. While Agronigns and Labornigns must toil in fields and factories to earn their keep, the most important thing you need to do is remain obedient and satisfying to your proprietors.

“I think it’s time for a demonstration,” Leppia says as she turns to usher someone unseen onto the stage. A casually dressed man — a Virilign, I believe — steps onto the stage and stands next to Leppia. To my left, Eiron groans. I turn my head to look at him, causing Vecordia to covetously tighten her grip on her new best friend.

“What is it?” I ask him.

With dejected eyes, he looks at me and says, “This is the reason we pull straws for Imponign escort duty.” I tilt my head, still not understanding. “She’s showing you how to pleasure you proprietor. I know this Viri, every orderly in the tower does. Viries are naturally very… insatiable. This guy especially, and he’s painfully loud about it. We think it’s the only reason the AoH keeps him on Retainer.”

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