Her Body of Muscle: Winter vs the Nanobots

Chapter 28

Only a couple hours later, Winter was awake and silently maneuvering around the kitchen.  Carefully moving the coffee cup in place under the slow-drip, trying to leave a slumbering Jackson in peace.  Wearing the same loose fitting baggy grey sweatpants and a white tank top over a naked torso, she couldn't remember a moment in her life when she felt more at peace, at home.  Her casual dress magnified the sinewed curvaceous strength, the stubborn round soft curves of her breasts outlined fiercely by the tight cloth.  Something struck her in the soft quiet of the morning both obvious and startling.  Winter felt the deep, humble ownership of her own presence.  Something beyond satisfaction, a sense of self-worth and significance.  That she belonged in the body she possessed and more! That her place was here, in the presence of her friend – not a lover, at least not yet, a friend.  Her heartbeat quickened and softened somehow simultaneously in quiet joy. The idea of just two souls occupying that tiny apartment again, after years of solitude, yes, this was home.

She sat at her dining room table observing tiny beams of light escape the window shutters, slowly migrating and striping the blue blanket draped over Jackson on the couch.  That man, that cute slumbering man.  She sighed, remembering like it was part of an easily forgotten cloudy memory, the endless indecision he had caused her.  Even last night, such a big part of her had just desperately wanted him to take her, just have her.  Kiss her, undress her...  lick her... "pumpff, ugh." Winter whispered softly to herself, shaking her head.  Quick satisfactions at the expense of something real, something that could last a lifetime.  Like a harpist's melody, she heard the words last a lifetime, flirt across her mind, she couldn't believe she was thinking like that again.  She shook her head, embarrassed in the morning light by the foggy memory of her ridiculous attempts to arouse Jackson the night before, she kind of liked that she still had those hell-with-it horny schoolgirl moments.  After a couple hours sleep, there was no question Winter was past that instinct, for now at least. 

Thankfully, they'd escaped the previous evening forgetting about the liquor in her cabinet.  She wanted Jackson in her, in every respect, but starting with her thoughts, feelings, desires, ambitions.  Letting Jackson in, truly opening that door, Winter wouldn't let it be motivated by loneliness or lust or, or... the insecurity of torturous self-doubt and insecurity.  She wanted a friend, for once, above all.

Reaching her right hand up to her neck she softly rubbed morning tightness away from her powerful traps, leaning her head away from the massage, relaxing.  Her head fell to one side as her hair sparkled in the slanted morning light.  This body, a fortress dedicated to hypotrophy. It was her stubborn determination that had forged it over years.  But it was more than a physique or a testament to aesthetic magnificence.  As the caffeine continued to liven her senses, she felt the knowledge that the last several years were more a reflection of her own maturation.  What Winter really wanted was a stretch of time where it wasn't about the physical.  Could she, on the one hand, hold Jackson in a way at arms length, but on the other, let him make a home and occupy, to slowly carve out larger chunks of her hopes and dreams.  She wanted Jackson to know her, the real her.  The indecisiveness and hurt of the past, and the hardship weathered fierce determination of the present.

The light shimmered on an overlooked flashdrive as the sun migrated across the floor.  On an impulse, Winter got up and reached down to pick it up.  Wow, her chest was sore, absolutely blasting with throbbing painful soreness.  The flashdrive had permanent fine point black marker stenciled across the top in Phillip's handwriting: failsafe instructions in case of forced DNA resequencing.

Winter strode to the computer and jiggled the mouse, lighting up the screen.  Inserting the memory stick into the USB port, a folder popped up.  A single .txt file.  Huh, that's a little strange.  Winter thought, an entire memory stick for a 5 kb text file?  She clicked the file curiously and a single paragraph followed by multiple bullet-points livened the screen.  Reading the file through, she sat in silence, head down staring blankly at a spot on her carpet.  Lifting her eyes back to the screen she squinted and read the text again.  Then a third time she read it through deliberately focusing on each word.  Could this be real?

As she focused, Winter failed to hear Jackson softly wake up, stretch and stiffly walk over behind her.

"I've seen that look before!"  He said happily.
Winter started.  Had she read it a couple more times without even realizing it?  She felt like she was in a trance, Winter shook her head back to alertness.

"Sorry, oh hey, good morning!  Wait, what did you say?" She asked.

"Oh nothing, just that you looked pretty focused, sorry didn't mean to disturb you."  Jackson said apologetically.

Winter jolted up from her chair and motioned for Jackson to sit down.  He obeyed.

"Just read this." She said urgently.

Minutes ticked away.  Winter could see by following Jackson's pupils that he read at lightning speed.  She wasn't the only one that had read and re-read the text on numbing repeat.
Finally, he leaned back in his chair and looked up at her, pale and exhausted.

"Oh fuck."  Jackson said.  And visibly shivered.  "This is bad."  He paused, his eyes shifting inadvertently to the left right as if mapping out their options.  "We need a plan." He said.

Winter thought for a moment.  "How much time do you think we have?" She asked.

"I mean," Jack began, he looked back at the file.  "Based on what we know?  Probably 9 to 12 months?  At the most?"

Nodding her head, Winter folder her arms in front of herself, under her chest.  Her boobs perked, supported by sinewed forearms.  In that posture, as the morning sunlight slanted across her body, it magnified the stark proportionality between her broad shoulders and narrow waist.
"Hmm, I think I have some ideas..." She offered.  "But I also think we had better figure out exactly what this technology can do, and fast."

"And we're going to need a way into Vantic."  Jackson added.  "I mean all the way in.  We've got to find access."  He looked at Winter in concern.

"I know."  Winter said, "was thinking the same thing.  I have some ideas."  She repeated.
"Ideas?" Jackson asked.

Dave.  That was the answer and she had been prepping him inadvertently for the last two years.  Could Winter really leverage a gorgeously dumb bodyguard?  The harmless puppy dog stalker's symmetrical face flashed across Winter's mind.  If she could just find a way to wrap him up...
"I mean, are you thinking of breaking in?"  Jack asked as Winter realized she'd spaced out, strategizing a path forward.

"I don't think we'll have to break in, give me a couple months."  And she looked at Jack with a wink and immediately regretted it, so juvenile, a wink?  Really?

Despite himself, Jackson laughed and sighed.  "OK?!" He said patronizingly and very deliberately and painfully slowly gave an exaggerated wink back.  "I'll leave it to you."