ramblingpillager-blog

[ramblingpillager-blog]

Fragged Empire: Holding onto the dark

It would be cliche to say that one moment changed everything in her life, but when the cliche is true you have to wear it, even if it’s tired and worn. 

BlazeTM couldn’t have told you what exactly had transpired during the few confused moments of shouting and grabbing and hauling and running that happened around her after the Admiral’s bullet exposed into her left eye socket and past the rest of her head. A forgivable oversight given the pain and ringing in her ears and fireworks inside her brain.

The loaner gunship they’d hauled up to the northern wastes of Centauri Prime for this goddamned mission came with standard vid surveillance installed, and Mo had kept the cameras running during the gunfight.  Later, once things were a little calmer, the crew had crowded around and watched the silent footage in equal silence. Billye backed it up and watched it twice more, not for his own heroics - which were beautiful in their simian fluidity - but because first, he wanted to confirm the actual timeline of events, and second, because he wanted to confirm with his own eyes the actions of a man he would have otherwise considered someone to admire. 

Griffen and the other Kaltoran who had only recently found herself among their crew watched once. Once was enough. They’d seen enough fighting not to need confirmation of the details they’d lived through. 

And briefly, the details were this: a routine drop job had turned into a sidewars shit-blizzard, and the person who’d born the brunt of the bad luck of it was normally the one who could talk or buy her way past Lady Fortune’s whims. 

It’s not like they were a particularly cozy team, but one thing could be said for anyone who decided to crew up under Blaze’s headship: the money was good, the tech was great, and the outcomes assured. But the dice rolls of the Universe always evened themselves out. Good luck never lasted forever. You just didn’t expect all the dice rolls to go ass over heels on your at one time. 

The medbay at the Castra field hospital was well-staffed and well-stocked. CORP entities liked to hire Legion to be their muscle, so plenty of credits poured into the facility to ensure everyone was feeling like working whenever they were needed. Thus it was that Dr. Barin, a CORP man with a solid medical school history and more than a few years of emergency care on his resume, found himself in charge of one of the worst battle wounds he’d seen in a long time. 

“Rebecca....” The doctor waited while BlazeTM swam slowly toward consciousness. He’d put her into a coma while they assessed the damage and got the slug out of her shoulder. Plus, he wasn’t entirely sure she’d respond to her birth name. “Rebecca, you’re in a hospital. My name is Dr. Frank Barin. Please lie still, there’s no point in trying to move around. We’ve got you sedated, but you should be able to think clearly for the next few minutes.” A hiss of a stim let BlazeTM know that her consciousness was at the mercy of a standard combat medicine drug that would wear off as soon as her pain threshold got too high. 

She struggled to form words around the thick slab of her tongue which didn’t seem to get the message that the upper was giving to the rest of her mind. The doctor motioned for an orderly to give her some water, and waited for her to find her bearings. 

“So I guess that shot to the face was as bad as it felt? ... Oh, and don’t call me Rebecca. I haven’t heard that name in 15 years and I don’t intend to start using it now.  BlazeTM is the only name that matters.” 

“Fine. BlazeTM, you suffered two significant injuries. The first was a bullet to your shoulder, which amazingly did less tissue damage than it should have. Your body armor was good tech. It held together, for the most part. But you took a critical shot to the face. The assault round entered your skull on from your left side, shattered your left eye and socket, broke your nose, exited in front of your right eye, and then exploded. Just like the delay-shells are supposed to do, which is why any sensible planet should ban them. 

BlazeTM was still. Very still. She heard blood in the veins next to hear ears pound like rivers. She started counting backwards from twenty, forcing herself to match her breathing to the slow pace of her counting. Dr. Barin waited till she exhaled at “one.” 

“BlazeTM, you should know a couple things. First, I’ve watched the vid from your ship’s cams, and you owe your life to the Legion who picked you up and hauled you aboard your ship. I think you should know that. Second, you are victim to perhaps the worst luck I’ve ever seen in a battle wound. You turned your head at the last second, perhaps because someone shouted, and that sent the projectile through your left eye and past your right. I couldn’t save your left eye - the tissue was shredded and burning. In fact, you suffered a severe burn to that side of your face, but we have excellent skin graft tech installed here, and the scar will be minimal after you heal. 

“Nevertheless, I’m afraid your natural sight is gone in that eye, at least for now. I believe it may be a good candidate for an advanced synthetic implant, if you’re willing to go cyber. Your crew tells me you have no cyber implants that they know of, and your medical records and scans confirmed this. So you might be inclined to reject this offer, but I’d like you to hear me out first. You can’t use a chop shop for this - your left optic nerve was too badly damaged to accept any of the basic implants. But at a mainframe hospital on Alabaster -- they’re doing some amazing work with augmented reality and sight. I think one of the deeper brain implants would give you a ‘sense of sight’ on that side.”

He paused to see if BlazeTM had anything to ay. She didn’t. She’d always been one to take her bad news straight. Besides, the doctor’s account had triggered her memory. Those weren’t nightmares she’d slept through, she realized. It was reality. The ringing in her ears, the smell of burnt flesh, the hammer of pain that had throbbed through her skull just before everything went black and she couldn’t remember any more. 

“All right. That was the worst news. Moving to your right eye, you have a decision to make. It is because of this that I wanted to wake you. I realize this wasn’t the conversation you’d hoped to have, but we need to act fast if there’s something we should do. 

“I am optimistic that you could walk out of here in a month with cyber-sight, if you are willing to choose it. I’m also duty-bound to tell you that there could be an option for regrowing your right eye via Nephilim biotech process. However, the nearest Nephilim installation is a full weeks’ flight from here, even on the fastest ship, and almost no one is willing to turn down the chance to cyber sight now to become one of those ... experiments.”  BlazeTM felt the projection of the taste of the word in Dr. Barin’s mouth. To him, the idea was foul, bitter.

But the mention of the Nephilim jolted her toward something.... important.... that was near the edge of the back of her brain...  She fought the drugs to access all of her thoughts. 

Lying, on the snow, cold. Dark. Blood sticky on my face. Skin on fire. Resignation. Whole job had gone shit sideways and the dump fell on me. Ironic but justified, maybe, in some twisted view of the world. 

Wait. That voice inside her head. Clear, distinct, and deep. That wasn’t her. A buzzing in her ears. Telepathy. What? ‘Child, you are dying. I warned you this would happen - that you would come to a hard place, and I would give you a hard choice. That time has come. No one will fault you if you give up and die. But I will see you as the coward you are. Or you can accept my offer of life, but the price will be dear. You will repay me with interest such that even your Corp ancestors would blush.’

‘So, Rebecca Blazer, what shall it be?’ She felt the hand before her mind saw it, unnaturally formed but reaching toward her. It took her only a moment to decide that she’d live, if only to see Maximilian grovel at her feet before she ground her boot in his face. 

Dr Barin had moved beside her, checking bandages and wraps. “BlazeTM, I just need you to give me the okay and I’ll schedule you for implant surgery in two days. It’ll take some work to adapt to the cybernetic sight, but you’ll learn fast. Some people even find that --”

“No.” She managed to catch his arm and held it with as firm a grip she could muster. “No, doctor, I do not want implants. I want to go to the Nephilim.”

“Look, BlazeTM, I realize you’re not a fan of cyber, but this is foolish. There’s zero guarantee that the Nephilim process will work. And what’s more, this is a crossroads. If you opt for the biotech, I will have to lay in skin grafts over your eye sockets to leave them something to work with. There’s a strong chance your optic nerves will simply whither in transit. Once they’re gone, the only implants you could use will leave you nearly sightless, locked into a flow of low-grade optical data. You cannot be serious.  

“Not to mention, if you cannot reach the Nephilim installation in time, the skin grafts will heal and you’ll be left... well.... without anything where your eyes used to be. And most species don’t handle that very well.” 

“I have my reasons,” BlazeTM answered. Her voice was flat, emotionless. Resolute.

“I have to insist on a second opinion. Perhaps you should consult with your crew. They know you, know your history, maybe understand why you are unwilling to take the obvious step.” 

“No. Tell them I have good reason for my decision. Tell Billye... tell him I saw The Prophet. Tell him exactly that. He’ll understand.  And tell them to get ready to jump to hyperspace as soon as you can get me off this godforsaken hellhole excuse for a shit-ass mortherfucking planet. Make sure you use each of those words in exactly that order.” 

[ramblingpillager-blog]

VRC: Brandon

Brandon swaggered, as only a VR avatar could swagger, through the crowded bar. How stupid that VR bars were nearly impenetrable. It’s not like you could drink real alcohol in a VR bar. 

His ID twinkled above his head, RecklessABrandon. That made him swagger too. He was proud of that one. Took him three days to think of it, and then he had to totally redesign his avatar to match. His avatar, like Brandon in the flesh, was muscular, fit, and attractive. He spent as much time running at the gym as he did in his VR headset.

Unlike many, VR didn’t suck Brandon in for days at a time. He liked being outdoors in the Minneapolis sun. Climate change had made the central US weather pretty erratic, but Minnesota had lucked out. The winters were milder, and the lakes and parks helped make the summers a little more bearable. Plus he had hockey practice three nights a week most of the year. His VR time had to pack a lot of entertainment for each minute, since he had so little.

The hot chick at the bar watched him cross the dance floor and worm his way through a crowd of cheering sorority sisters who’d gotten wasted and come to the VR bar to fuck shit up. But this girl wasn’t into that shit, and Brandon nodded approvingly.

Of course, everybody in VR looked great. It was the risk you took, building relationships with these projections of people’s illusions rather than their physical beings. “Outing” avatars had become a pastime for a whole sector of Internet trolls, members of the jealous class who hacked into less-secure VR networks and stalked social media for any clues that might link an avatar to its owner. The fact that RecklessABrandon wasn’t afraid to have his name in his handle meant he was either too solid in real life to care what people knew about him, or he was part of the troll gangs who loved to out their victims.

Of course, it was easy to dump one avatar identity and pick up another, so almost no one knew Brandon led the r/outage board for “kills,” as they liked to call them. It was all meant to be base human cruelty, but sometimes the cruelty hit its mark too hard and victims took themselves out of VR permanently, usually via suicide. If you couldn’t VR, you struggled to get anywhere in life. Unless you were Amish. Some of the outed people moved to Amish country, no joke.

Trolling had gotten so bad, Congress haggled over two bills, one banning the use of anything but real names (it got shot down immediately by privacy advocates and domestic abuse victims groups) and another to apply a 5 year Internet and VR ban to anyone caught outing someone else. The second bill almost passed, but some of the Internet freedom groups drummed up enough fear that the government couldn’t be trusted to identify trolls unless it also had access to everyone’s usernames, profile information, and location data, something the Privacy Act of 2027 had banned outright thanks to Senator Snowden’s efforts to reform the US’s privacy laws.

Brandon loved Senator Snowden. In fact, he donated money to his re-election campaign every six years as a quiet token of gratitude. Privacy laws had bolstered security around everyone’s account information. As someone who understood those systems too well, RecklessABrandon felt little fear that his side hobby would get him busted.

The girl at the bar was still watching him. Hm. Was that an invitation? Might as well knock on this door while it was available. Maybe she had one of the new suits that let people experience in the flesh what they were doing in VR. Because he sure did, and VR sex was way better than the original. If you had the right person. And a little daring.

Brandon nestled himself into his VR rig, moving gracefully in real space within a full 360° harness that allowed him to act out every motion he was performing within the virtual environment. His swagger may have been exaggerated a bit in virtual reality - a man’s got to represent, after all - but anyone who really knew him in VR could pick out his gait as he strolled IRL.

“Hey. What are you doing in a dive like this?” he opened, hoping a slight nod to film noire might score him some points with this woman who radiated confidence and allure. Mmmmm. He didn’t need his mesh suit to tell his body parts what to feel. She generated everything he needed. 

She tipped up her chin in a manner of greeting. Too chill to be bothered to speak, he noted. “Want to join me in some whiskey and then some sex?” Brandon didn’t beat around. He’d learned that people in VR tended to be more upfront about their goals, since they had a level of anonymity to protect them. And he had to consider that this gorgeous model might be piloted by some dude in a half-assed piece of shit rig in a slum in Oklahoma City. You had to take risks, if you wanted to gain any glory. Besides, he loved outing the cross-gender VR avatars. Absolutely made his day. 

“Hello, Brandon.” Her voice came through his headset as an alto, smoky with an undercurrent of bourbon and danger. She stood up and slid over a seat so he could have the stool. He noticed her incredible figure, her size D breasts, her dress slit up the thigh allowing him a glimpse of black lace panties. If she wasn’t here for sex, she sure was hanging out the wrong shingle.

“You mean RecklessABrandon,” he responded with a wink. Gotta make sure the bitches are clear about his self-confidence. Plus the wise ones would heed the warning: This guy is fine with you knowing his real name. Don’t fuck him over, or he’ll destroy you IRL.

“Fine. Then I guess you’ll have to call me PollyM0th, if we’re going to be all formal about it.” She swigged the last of her bourbon and set the glass aside. “I’ve got a room booked upstairs, and I’ve been itching to try it out. Are you wearing a suit?”

“Yeah. Top of the line Nike 2689, just came out a month ago. If you so much as brush a fingertip across my arm, I’d feel it.”

“Excellent. Let’s see how much it can take.”

***** One benefit of virtual sex was the avoidance of pounding and shouting in the flesh, which always had the risk of generating threats from the people next door or below. Brandon followed PollyM0th up the stairs to a room at the end of the 3rd virtual floor. VR had spawned an entire industry of virtual real estate, where brokers bought and sold virtual apartments and houses for real money. It made little sense to the aging Millennials but nobody gave a shit about them anyway. Whoever hadn’t made the jump to VR got left behind, as far as most VR residents were concerned.  If you were the type to spend most of your time online, what did it matter how shitty your apartment was in real life?

This woman clearly loved her space. The oak door opened at a touch - virtual fingerprint lock technology, he noted. It wasn’t enough that the door probably recognized her ID; this was an additional security measure meant to ensure no one could hack their way into her VR space. Wise move.

The interior, as was common in VR apartments, vastly overflowed the physical “exterior” of the apartment. In virtual space, rules of geometry were irrelevant. Renters could pay for as much interior storage as they wanted. PollyM0th clearly paid for a lot.

She grabbed him by the tie (Brandon always dressed up to go clubbing; only slobs didn’t) and pulled him toward her for a kiss that was shockingly passionate. His Nike suit did not disappoint him; these models included a comfortable lightweight face mesh that enabled the wearer to experience exactly something like this, a kiss. He mentally praised his foresight in refusing to skimp on quality where it mattered.

A small file chimed in his vision. His hands were occupied though with this vixen chewing on his lip while she groped for his trousers. He put his hands to better use, feeling around her shoulders to unzip the back of her dress. It fell away revealing her naked torso. God, she was beautiful.  He didn’t even care that she was probably a 250 pound middle-aged woman from some godforsaken corn town in Iowa. He’d hack her tomorrow to find out for sure; right now he wanted the sex.

PollyM0th maneuvered them both toward a spacious bedroom appointed with a variety of chains, hooks, and posts. Ah. A BDSM junkie. Of course. He’d been a little lax lately in checking out the women he banged in VR; and as a general rule, he avoided the kinky ones unless he had some reason to believe they were good at it. Hopefully, this one would let him handcuff her, bang her, and then leave her till the cuffs expired in an hour or two. Virtual BDSM was actually pretty dull even with a good flesh suit.

As if she’d read his thoughts, PollyM0th stopped kissing and groping and looked him over. “You probably think this is dumb, don’t you, my lair of sexual fantasy and bondage. Most men do.  They just want to handcuff me to the bed, and walk out once they’re done. I hope you’re not so dull.”

He eyed her, letting his eyes wander over her gorgeous form. “For you, madam, I would do anything tonight.”

“Anything?”

“Absolutely. Do your worst. I can’t wait.” He pulled off his tie and threw it on a chair. Arms spread wide, Brandon dared her to make it worth it.

Oh, she did. Brandon lost track of time as they tumbled, groped, banged, sucked, whipped, tied, and teased their way through a pair of orgasms each. She showed little signs of slowing down, though he was getting pretty tired. His Nike suit transmitted every experience perfectly, though now he understood why the salesman had emphasized repeatedly that his suit was machine washable.

PollyM0th eyed Brandon up and down, his naked avatar reclining lazily on the bed. “I bet you’ve never actually done anything really interesting in VR,” she challenged, narrowing her eyes at his virtual penis with a questioning look.

“What? God, woman, you don’t even know me. I’ve done everything with this penis, both in the flesh and in pixels.” Brandon found himself genuinely offended.

“Are you willing to put that Nike 2689 through its paces one more time? Or are you done for the night?” She got up, turning her lucious rear view toward his appreciative gaze.

“I can take anything you can dish out. Tie me up, do what you will. I’m ready.”

“Did you notice I sent you a file awhile back?”

No, he hadn’t. His hands and brain and penis had all been busy when it’d arrived, and he’d completely forgotten to see what she’d sent. He flipped the file onto his virus checker and frowned. Yellow bar. That meant the file would execute a program. “What is this? I don’t run programs from strangers.”

She turned around, holding a metal bar and a pair of handcuffs. “If you want to put me in these, you’re gonna have to open the file. Look, my dad runs a company that writes VRware for suits like yours. That’s why I have such a great suit myself. My dad programmed the software to perfectly fit my body.  And he wrote an enhancer that works with any top-line suit. You’ll feel things you’ve never experienced before, I promise.”

He flipped the file open without a pause.

***** Oh god, oh god. This is horrible. He couldn’t say it, but it was all he’d been thinking for the past ... how long had it been? He had no idea.

If anyone had walked into Brandon’s actual apartment at that moment, they would have seen him frozen motionless in his $2500 VR rig, his ankles and knees and wrists suspended in front of him, in alignment with his head. On his screen, they would have seen the whole picture: his virtual body was locked in a steel frame, ankles and knees and wrists handcuffed to a bar that ran all the way to a metal collar around his neck.

He’d discovered some things about his Nike 2689 that the salesman hadn’t mentioned, or perhaps the girl was telling the truth about her dad’s programming abilities. Either way, once she’d locked him in place with what he thought were self-timed handcuffs, his face mesh had hardened into a mouth piece that blocked his ability to speak. The material covering his eyes went opaque, blocking his vision. And the suit otherwise responded realistically to being handcuffed to a metal bar and suspended from the ceiling.

But it wasn’t the physical pain that tore at him right now, though if the bitch was to be believed, she’d kept him cuffed for two hours already. His body suggested she was telling the truth, and his full bladder was beginning to force its way into his consciousness with urgent warnings. If I piss myself, and my girlfriend finds me in here in what looks like a whorehouse covered in my own urine, she’s going to walk out and never come back.

No, it’s what she’s saying.

“Well, Brandon, I’m glad you dropped by tonight. You know, I’ve been waiting in that hell-hole of a bar every night for four weeks hoping to find you. You’re a real piece of shit, you know that? How many people have you outed? One hundred? Two hundred? Your profile on r/outed suggests it might be closer to two-fifty.”

This is when he realized she wasn’t role playing anymore.

The virtual cuffs were made only of pixels, but his Nike suit squeezed even harder around his body, stifling his breathing and holding him rigid in places that weren’t meant to be immobile at this angle. His back ached, his neck muscles burned, his tongue felt wooly since it’d been probably 4 or 5 hours since he’d had a chance to drink any water.

“Two hundred and fifty people, lives opened up and smeared all over the Internet, for your pleasure. Dick move, Brandon. Brandon Lewis. Brandon Lewis of 365 Sycamore Street, Minneapolis.”

Underneath the mesh suit, beads of sweat formed on Brandon’s face as he blanched. If she outed him....

“Oh yes, you’re fucked. The only question is whether I’m going to fuck you and crush you, or just humiliate you.  What’ll it be?  Oh, right, you can’t say anything.” She waved a finger toward a menu and Brandon felt the mesh around his mouth loosen.

He panted and tried to lick his lips. “Please, I don’t know what you want, but this is genuinely painful. Please let me go.”

“Of course it’s painful, asshole. Why do you think I did it?”

“These cuffs are going to expire soon, right? Like, I get your point, ok? You think I’m a total dick because I outed people. Yes, I did it. I’m Brandon Lewis. Con-fucking-gratulations on your google skills, bitch--” A sharp pain shot through his back as she grabbed his virtual ankles and twisted them one way while turning his wrists and the bar in the opposite direction

“Look, Brandon, here’s the situation. These aren’t timed cuffs. I have total control of your suit. Also, while you’ve been hanging there, I’ve dumped your hard drive data and located your complete activity log for the past four years. One, I can’t believe you’re still using the same crappy hardware. Guess you put all your money into your fancy experience suit. Two, I’m about to doxx you into no tomorrow on r/outed. I know your troll buddies won’t care that you’ve been outing, but the FBI watches that board daily for clues, and I’m about to make sure they find you.

“Hopefully the FBI will figure it out soon, because I have no intention of releasing a piece of shit like you back into the wild. I’ve locked your door -- thanks for installing smart locks, by the way -- and posted the code along with your address and list of outings on the r/outed board. It’s currently 5am. Assuming the FBI checks the board first thing in the morning, you can expect someone to show up and release you by noon today. I’ve also texted your girlfriend that you were with me all night having hot sex, and she’s pretty angry with you. I think I watched her storm out the door via your security cameras. So I’d say you’ll be all alone until the feds come to lock you up.”

Brandon swallowed. He was numb all over, unrelated to his uncomfortable position. He raced for ideas, hoping to hit on something he could say that might work as a bargaining chip.

He didn’t even get to take a full breath to speak before the facial mesh tightened across his mouth, mirroring the gag PollyM0th crammed into his mouth in her virtual dungeon. She smiled. “I don’t want to hear it, Brandon. Save it for your lawyer.” She waved her left hand in the farewell menu gesture, but instead of disappearing from the frame, Brandon watched as her bedroom faded from his view. He was left looking at the grey grid of a blank program in his own developer software, watching the clock in the corner blink slowly toward sunrise.

[ramblingpillager-blog]

VRC: Jess

The air was cold, colder than she’d expected given the soft mesh covering her skin, form-fitting and constantly reminding her that she hadn’t made much progress in losing the 70 pounds her mother continually reminded her she needed to lose “before you get us thrown off Medicare because we won’t be able to afford your obesity rider!” Her mom was brutal when it came to health expenses, and they weren’t rich enough to afford the bariatric gene therapy that was rapidly making obesity a disease of the past for the wealthy.

Jess fidgeted in the VR harness, waiting for her appointed time in the game lobby. She was stupidly punctual for a 15 year old in a world where “making plans” had evaporated with the arrival of hyperloop public transportation and the iPhone Infinity. Shit, most of her friends didn’t know what they would be doing at any point in the next 3 years, aside from the hours they were required to be logged into school.

Nobody shows up to their virtual reality appointment five minutes early. She rolled her eyes though no one was around to see the gesture. It’s not a fucking job interview, forchristssake. 

Though really, it was. And Jess was nervous - legit twitchy, as the kids would say. A successful run today would mean keeping this nice neoprene VR experience suit. And beginning to earn the VR rig she’d been dreaming of for more than a year: a suspended model that allowed full 360° motion on all three axes. True, real-to-life virtual reality. It was way beyond her price range, far beyond what she could dream to earn babysitting for the next few years even.

So Jess counted herself lucky, worried that she wouldn’t be good enough, and praised the gods that her host would see only her chipper avatar, a careful Photoshop construction of Jess’s self-imagination. Not the overweight, clumsy adolescent who had to lie to her mom just to get time in the Headset outside of school hours. Jess shied away from the trend toward copying the body of a celebrity and used her editing skills to mashup some photos of models and a couple Olympic athletes. She wanted a nod to her Latina heritage without having to haul around her actual hips, thighs, boobs, and butt.

God, there’s no telling what her mom would say if she saw Jess wearing the $200 VR suit. She hadn’t been able to come up with a convincing lie, so she simply added a full layer of clothing overtop the suit: jeans, socks, long-sleeved shirt, and hoodie, plus VR gloves and full VR helmet with integrated audio and microphone. Her mom knew about the helmet and gloves already; and since it was March, her outfit wouldn’t arouse suspicion. Jess noted again how thankful she was that the advanced suit was made to wick away sweat and keep the wearer comfortable, all while stimulating the skin to “feel” an outside temperature corresponding to the VR simulation. Pretty amazing, really.

The Commons was a little out of the way in VR social terms, despite its name, and Jess (here known as GlimmerDrax39, presenting as 19 years old and a waitress by trade) wandered around the simulated park, noting initials carved into virtual park benches that felt as real as the ones that used to be downtown on 16th Street, before the cops tore them out so the homeless couldn’t use them as beds overnight.  Guess it was a good thing the early VR world architects were old enough to remember park benches and open areas with nostalgia and not the agoraphobic anxiety that tormented most Americans these days. Wide open spaces meant breathing a lot of toxic air, plus the possibility of identity theft, digital mugging, or straight-up terrorism. That was the story anyway, and her mom stuck to it. And had the gall to chide Jess for being overweight when she’d barely let her step foot outside the house.

A tall, fictionarlized blonde walked up to Jess, looking her up and down as if sizing up a piece of furniture. “GlimmerDraxx39, I presume?

“Yeah. Are you PolyM0rph?” Jess did her own appraisal, noting PolyM0rph’s size D breasts spilling out of a tight corset; her wasp waist sitting above a tight leather miniskirt and thigh-high boots, and waist-length blond hair. Everything about the avatar must’ve been ordered off the Playboy store and dressed in Vogue’s spring fashion line, down to the tight metal choker at her neck and heavy smoky eye shadow. 

“Great. How’s the suit?” PolyM0rph sent over a file, too, as she spoke; it chimed in the upper corner of Jess’s vision.

“Oh my god, it’s amazing! Thank you so much. It means so much to have--” Jess meant to open the file but her attention poured into PolyM0rph’s eyes instead.

“I don’t care. You’re welcome. I’m glad you like it. I charged it to my dad’s account; he won’t notice the expense till his accountant sees it on the bill next month, and anything under $500 doesn’t hold his attention anyway. But I’m not kidding myself. You’re here for the rig.” She waved her hand to cut off Jess’s reply. “It’s fine. I know that’s why you’re here and it’s what I banked on, really. Because you’re going to have to earn your rig, Glimmer.  Is that what people call you?  Or Draxx?”

“Glim. And thanks for asking. What do I need to do for you? And is this legal? Like, I thought paying people to do stuff for you in VR was illegal?” Jess hated to bring this up. She felt like a little kid who had to beg her big sister to let her tag along and do ‘big girl’ stuff. But she had read enough about the meat market to know anyone who talked to strangers in VR was asking for it.

“Well, it depends on the ‘stuff,’ of course.” PolyM0rph shrugged as if this was standard conversation for her first encounters. “And how smart your VPN is, and how snoopy your ISP wants to be. I did a little background research on your tech setup, and you appear to have followed my instructions. I sent you a file a minute ago -- would you run it?”

Jess flicked her eyes and head upward in the universal gesture for menu access and grabbed the file with her hand, flipping it open in VR which triggered her computer to execute the program. Her VR headset blinked, flashed, and went dark, then immediately rebooted. “What the fuck?”

PolyM0rph’s voice came through her headset. “Sorry. I should have warned you. That’s my security sniffer, running in the background to make sure your encryption is active. And I wanted to check on your suit - it’s amazing how much you can do with it, if the suit is properly calibrated for your system. Your visual and controls will be back up in a sec.” And true to word, they were. Jess bit her lip inside her helmet while the visuals were still coming online, before PolyM0rph could read her emotions mapped onto the face of her avatar. Did PolyM0rph have control of her suit now? Her headset? Her Internet connection?

The dark visor sprung to life, prompting an involuntary exhalation from jess. She hadn’t realized she’d been holding her breath. PolyM0rph had shifted position to sit on one of the park benches, facing the afternoon sun. She’d draped her body for maximum effect: hips turned at an angle to accentuate her waist and boots, one shoulder dipped to offer a sight line into her cleavage, head thrown back in the warming sun. Jess was firmly heterosexual but found PolyM0rph’s body rather alluring. It nearly vibrated with physical appeal. Her skin tingled with a sensation of excitement.

Wait a minute. One. Fucking Minute. The tinging sensation hadn’t come from her stimulated pussy. Jess was a virgin, but she’d sneaked enough pornos to know what arousal felt like. No. It was the suit. The mesh suit had warmed in strategic locations, and the tingling feeling had probably been a very low-grade electric current.

“What the fuck, PolyM0rph! You just hacked my VR rig, and now you’re buzzing my vagina like some porn star?” For a moment, Jess wondered if the one or two other people hanging around in The Commons noticed the short Latina apparently yelling at the very attractive cover model on the park bench.

PolyM0rph’s grin was wicked. Sharp. Mischievous. “Glim, unless you’re asexual, and nothing about your browsing history suggests that you are, I expect you’ll find the next few months to be some of the most pleasurable you’ll ever encounter.”  Jess’s cheeks burned on top while she blanched beneath. Good god, I’ve got to stop this. She’s already nabbed my browser history? Fuck. Fuckity fuck mcfuckerson. I’m a fucking idiot.

PolyM0rph went on, ignoring GlimmerDraxx39′s mediated signs of discomfort. “Look, you might as well sit down, calm down, and hear me out. I’m not here to rape you, mug you, rip you off, steal your identity, or hurt you.

“You came to me, remember? I posted in my CragsList notice that I wanted VR avatars to work for me, and that it would include voluntary co-op. Voluntary. I meant what I said. We’re going to do some amazing shit, and in the meantime you can watch all the porn you want and enjoy it as it was filmed to be. Okay? Or are you some kind of religious nut. Because if you are, I’d prefer you stop and strip off that suit right now before I don’t want to touch it again.” Her avatar gaze was piercing, and Jess found herself transfixed by the woman’s very presence. She sat in total silence as the explanation flowed around her and through her and into her.

“I’m hiring you to do jobs for me. Some of... most of ... those jobs will be crushingly dull. You’ll need to take items to other avatars. You’ll need to search the ‘net to find avatars that I don’t have time to track down. Mostly I just want you around as background radiation when I meet with clients. I run several businesses in the flesh and having a VR component to my client relationships makes me a lot more effective.

“As far as I’m concerned, you’re a VR secretary. That’s it. Think you can do that? I’m not going to steal your money or blackmail you. I don’t have to”

Jess stared at the woman, this goddess of sexuality and power. She wanted to touch her, to see if somehow PolyM0rph’s avatar was solid instead of pixels. The feeling in her crotch wasn’t generated by the suit this time. It was genuine.

The words came slowly, because Jess had to force them out through the rush of illicit fantasies that had just filled her mind. “I’m --   I’m glad --  I want to accept this job. Thank you.” Her flesh eyes teared up, and a beautiful teardrop rolled down the face of her avatar. “I am honored to work with you, PolyM0rph. I can’t wait to see what we’ll do together.”

“Agreed, Jess. I’ll be in touch” PolyM0rph flipped the L sign with her left hand, the common gesture for goodbye which also triggered someone’s exit from a VR session.

Jess froze. She wanted me to remember that she knows exactly who I am.