The blue square flashes by in the hazy edges of my vision, whirling as the dust billows around me. In another life, I'd be exhilarated at the sheer sense of speed blurring my eyes, the scream of pistons encasing my legs meeting the roar of steel and lightning at my back. The world is a mess of dust and wind, the whipping orange clouds around me sheared through by phantom lines leading me in. Blue and blazing, shot into my optic nerve by the jack at the base of my skull.

It's been twenty minutes since I'd found myself plummeting earthward from one of the birds. Or ten. Or thirty. Time has a way of slowing quickly, my heart a measured thump inside me, the shell of metal around me regulating the metronome pulse. Then and now are just part of the same streak, every detail - the beads of sweat on someone's arm, the glacial creak of their finger on a trigger, the faint, urgent whispers eight hundred meters out.

The sensation. It's like gold and lightning, honey and fire and everything.

With a tensing jolt, I launch myself skyward, legs springing free of the ground, light as a sparrow inside the half-ton machine.

The adrenaline mixes with the jack's magic, a blazing swirl of thoughts and actions that might not be my own washing through me as I see the landing pad inside the berm, tiny figures swarming clear. Something blue is arcing across a radar, sailing over the compound walls. A satellite flashes its eyes on mine; another man, an hour ago, sends the smell of a burning cache through the mesh. Someone whose name means the world to me dances like nameless lightning through an alley, almost back to a pad.

My body is screaming, the unhurried beat of my heart and the surging adrenaline, the metered thoughts at a breakneck pace, the swathe of images and sounds and results stabbing at my mind like painless needles.

I'm on the ground, at last, and someone's approaching, a blue silhouette.

My brain is lit up like fireworks, every nerve firing hard.

Something is hissing, unbolting, on the front of the machine.

My blood sings.

A voice is yelling through fog. Calm. Down. Sir.

Fingers that smell of oil and sweat cradle my skull.

And then the feed disappears, the lancing pain just above my neck replaced by calm, still silence, the mechanic's bay almost dead and still.

There's no feed. There's no mission. There's no world, practically, the dull flit of time against my naked eyes like watching a candle melt. There are no colors, now, just the flat tan of your coveralls. No icons, no lines, no data, just a name stitched in brown thread.

There's not enough sensation.

I can hear the ports below the jack pop free, like a cold kiss from far away, but I can't even feel it. There's not enough. There's not enough sensation. There's not enough against me. Too much air around me, a pulsing hammer of blood inside me, now.

And you.

My hands are on you before I can think about your wry smile, the start of a joke on your lips before mine are on them. I'm drinking your breath. Food that came in a package. Soap. Recycled water. Sweat. Something salty. Us. Before.

I can't stand having just my hands on you, and I stumble free from the machine, the world spinning around me as unsteady legs carry me towards you, chest pressed against yours, hips coming together as the wall of the bay slams up and makes your breath escape in staccato heaves.

Fuck.

I can't even tell if it's a curse or a command, the part of my mind still soaring above the ground like a voice from God Almighty. Your coveralls are soft under my hands, the cloth bunching against my fingers, the weave against the ridges of my fingerprints like a jangling, discordant song. I can feel you, underneath. Warmth, softness, firmness, the thud of your heart pounding in my ears, the sound of your breath coming faster. Your eyes are like a target, the last dregs of the machine making my vision pick out every last thread of color in your irises. Black and wide, I can see, the color rising in your cheeks as I press my body to yours, my stubble on your neck.

In another life, I'd be embarrassed, but there's not enough sensation. Not yet. I'm hard, pressing it against your stomach, fingers finding the zipper down your front and yanking it down, fast enough to make the zipper spark. There's something wet dripping against your thigh, something soft underneath where I'm sensitive, every nerve like fire where we touch.

My skin is hot, simmering against you, and I can feel the wall bow outward as I haul you closer, just feeling you as you stare back. Every last bit of you I can touch, I feel. Heartbeats. Skin. The ragged lace edge of something against my chest, the cold metal of a zipper sliding down and falling. Hair, wrapping its way around my fingers, your lips closing on my thumb, the sheer, heated sound of your body shifting, muscles straining, and-

Fuck.

It's not enough sensation.

Not yet.