990 lines
51 KiB
Plaintext
990 lines
51 KiB
Plaintext
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: Earth's Dreamlands : Info on: RPG's, :(313)558-5024 : area code :
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:RPGNet World HQ & Archive: Drugs, Industrial :(313)558-5517 : changes to :
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: 1000's of text files : music, Fiction, :InterNet : (810) after :
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: No Elite / No porn : HomeBrew Beer. :rpgnet@aol.com: Dec 1,1993 :
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:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:
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THE GIRL OF THE MONTH CLUB
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by
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Colin Campbell
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I was already late for work but when I opened the door a
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Transcontinental Courier delivery driver was in the hall
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about to knock on my door.
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"Are you William Wood?" said the courier.
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"Yes," I said. "What's going on?"
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"This is for you." He pushed a handcart into my
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apartment and expertly flipped an ovoid shell of
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thermoplastic off the cart. It slid on a flattened bottom
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side and stopped at my feet just inside the door. It was
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about the size of a beer barrel
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"Please sign here." He held a clipboard toward me.
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"What is it?" I said.
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"Are you William Wood?"
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"Well, yes, but I didn't order--"
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"Then it's for you." The courier grabbed my right hand
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and pressed my thumb onto a print plate before I could react,
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then trotted away down the hall.
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"Hey, wait a minute," I said, but he'd rounded the
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corner pulling the handcart. "I didn't order anything like
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this," I yelled after him.
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The building manager came around the corner in his
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electric golf cart just as I yelled. He squinted down at the
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shell, then pointed at a label. "It's got your name on it,"
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he said. He was an Oldie and he could read.
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I looked at the label and it looked like my name--I know
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the letters of my own name, WILLIAM MNEMONIS WOOD. "What does
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it say?"
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The manager read the label aloud for me: "William N.
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Wood."
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"My name is different from that," I said. "Wait a
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minute, let me use my reader." I have a great reader, a
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Mitsubishi that's only four inches long and a quarter inch in
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diameter and reads 76 languages, and I rubbed it over the
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label until my ear implant pinged. Then I touched the pointed
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end of the reader to the printed words, and heard them
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spoken. "Okay, my middle name isn't N., it's MNEMONIC," I
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said. "There's some kind of mistake."
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"You kids," said the oldie. "Shit, N. is just an
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abbreviation, you kids don't even know what an abbreviation
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is any more. Your middle name starts with N, you just said it
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yourself."
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"But what is it? I didn't order anything."
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"I hope not. You were ten days late with the rent this
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month. If you can afford this kind of stuff, you can afford
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the rent."
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He rolled away and I said "But I didn't order it, I
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don't want it."
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"Do whatever you want with it," the manager said. "If
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you leave it out in the hall and I have to get rid of it
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myself, you'll have it charged on next month's bill."
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Then he was gone. I ran the reader over the rest of the
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label, then touched the eight biggest words.
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"Congratulations!" my ear implant said, "Here's your first
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Girl of the Month!"
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It was some kind of mistake, but I was already late for
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work. I had to move the shell to close the apartment door.
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It must have weighed a hundred pounds.
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I pulled off the shipping label and there was a brochure
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and an instruction manual under the label. I thumbed through
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the brochure: it was full of pictures of naked women, and the
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pictures were not only 3D, but motile and audible: the girls
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writhed erotically on the pages and little moans and squeals
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of pleasure escaped.
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How the hell had this happened? I'd heard of The Girl of
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the Month Club, but I'd never ordered it--first of all, it
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cost a megabuck or more, and only an Oldie could afford one.
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But mainly, it was such a geriatric idea--nobody but an Oldie
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would want to screw one of these synthetic, non-human clones.
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I mean, even a <20>moner like me has standards.
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I paged through the instructions folder but it was
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almost all in writing. Well, I was already late for work...if
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I was late one more time...I closed my door and went up one
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floor to street level and hopped on my bicycle.
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In the old days you had to lock your bike or somebody
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would steal it. I can't imagine a Los Angeles like that. What
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a barbarous world it must have been. The world the Oldies
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made...only an Oldie would prefer a fantasy clone cobbled
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together from dog and cat and kangaroo DNA.
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I pedaled to the freeway and rode down the ramp and into
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the slow lane. The freeway's magnetic field grabbed hold of
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my bike's transducer and accelerated me up to a steady 55. It
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was against the law, but it was faster than pedaling.
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The transducer was one I'd pried out of a wrecked truck
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after the cops left the scene of a crash. I welded it to the
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frame of my bike and I was going to keep using it until they
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caught me: the less time I spent out in the open on the way
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to work, the less radiation I'd get.
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I could have had my pick of any old-time car in the
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city, of course, but gasoline is definitely out of my budget
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class, and I've never had any practice driving on the freeway
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in a car among the trucks.
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Today was clear and sunny for a change. I could see the
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mountains all around, and I took off my hood and enjoyed the
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naked wind in my face. The pace of traffic slowed and I began
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slipping between the trucks and I enjoyed the annoyed honks
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from the truck drivers as I whipped past them. I hoped they
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were Oldies, but not many Oldies had to take jobs as truck
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drivers.
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Only Oldies were able to afford things like the Girl of
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the Month Club. You couldn't afford it if you were working
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for the minimum wage at the Megalith Corporation, like I was.
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In ten minutes I was at the Wilshire Boulevard exit, and
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in another 5 minutes I was parking my bike at the surface
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entrance of the Monolith Building. That's when Skizz tapped
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me on the shoulder. He can really sneak up on you unnoticed.
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"Hey, Billy," he said, "Need any <20>mones?"
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"What do you have?" I said. Sometimes Skizz has the
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neatest stuff--rhino adrenaline, mutant insulin, tailored
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testotesterone--but his older brother makes the stuff and
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he's an experimenter, you never know if you might be the
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first-time tester of some zappy <20>mone. Skizz himself took a
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big dose of schizoprine a couple years ago and still hasn't
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really come out of it yet.
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"Got some new pituitary," he said.
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"Nah," I said. I'm already 6'8" and I'm not like those
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Get HiGH freaks who aren't satisfied until they're seven feet
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tall. I only do it once in a while.
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"And some new thyroid you just won't believe."
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"Yeah? What is it?"
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"Kind of like an upper, gets you really going."
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"No, I mean is it human, or what?"
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"Well, it's panther thyroid, actually."
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"Wow." I gave Skizz a gold dime and swallowed the <20>mone
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and went into the Monolith Employee Entrance. I announced my
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name and employee number and pressed my thumb to the print
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plate and the elevator opened. I started the long ride down
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and wondered if that package was really from the Girl of the
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Month Club, or if one of my pals was trying another stupid
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joke...was there really a girl inside it? I remembered the
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girl's face from the brochure. Felina was her name.
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* * *
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Twenty miles away and thirty levels underground in a
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luxurious apartment with a delivery code only one digit
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different from Bill's, William N. Wood, age 104, studied an
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invoice and punched out the phone number of the New York
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offices of The Girl of the Month Club. When the prosthebot
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answered, he said "Hiya doll, we got some kinda fuckup here,
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I got the bill but not the merchandise, lemme talk to a
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human, okay? Yeah, I'll wait."
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He knew it would be a long wait for a real human.
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William N. Wood owned Albuquerque, New Mexico, through a
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quirk of the Urban Homestead rules, and he made a comfortable
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living by sifting through the homes and stores and factories
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and warehouses of Albuquerque and removing valuables and
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transporting them to Los Angeles for sale.
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He had to do the work himself, or at least supervise it,
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because unsupervised labor would simply remove the stuff for
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their own profit.
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There was no local labor to be had in Albuquerque, of
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course. Nobody lived there, not since World War III. Vast
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expanses of American urban area had been wiped clean of life
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by neutron bombs, but the cities themselves were virtually
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undamaged. Several parts of the continent were devastated,
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true, but there was so much property left over, and so few
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people, that everybody was rich. Sort of.
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* * *
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It was a long ride down the elevator to the offices of
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the Megalithic Corporation. At ground level I was the only
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person in the elevator. The elevator stopped about 20 levels
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down and another passenger stepped in. He looked like another
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<EFBFBD>moner to me, but he must have had a good job if he lived 20
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levels down.
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I thought about the Girl of the Month Club package. Back
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before the turn of the century they thought Virtual Reality
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would be peddling the whores of the future. Virtual reality
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had TV eyeglasses and earplugs and handgloves: that was it.
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No tactile feedback devices. They assumed a breakthrough in
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which a brain/computer interface is developed that allows
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people to "jack in" and experience full-sense transcription.
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That breakthrough never surfaced, but genetic engineering
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blossomed and made possible the sale of living, breathing,
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moaning fuck dolls.
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Hey, maybe I could sell it to some Oldie. It had to be
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worth a megabuck. Sure, it was some screwup and they'd catch
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me eventually, but I could jolt the apartment and be 50 miles
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away in another unregistered apartment, and what could they
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do?
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The elevator stopped and two people got on. They looked
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at me disdainfully as we started down again. I have a real
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stupid job, and I guess they could tell. Megalithic Systems
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Optimization, Inc., has the federal contract for the moon
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mines. Six hours a day I sit in front of a video plate and
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control a boreworm in Mare Serendipt on the Moon. All day
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long I sit in front of a flat video screen and control the
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flow and interaction of complex colored shapes, according to
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the instructions of the day, using the various controls. It
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paid the minimum wage, a hundred bucks an hour, and there was
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virtually no hope for advancement. But it paid the rent.
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And it was an underground job. If you want to be a
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player in LA, you have to be underground. Skizz works above
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ground, and makes big cash, sure. His brother Rovar also
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makes big money salvaging from LA homes and businesses, but
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he has a secret gasoline cache and how can you plan to find
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that?
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Surface work is a dead end, that's what I think. The
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real world is Downstairs. So I was enduring the minimum wage
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life while trying to get a clue for advancement.
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The elevator halted at my floor and I stood up. I felt
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the <20>mones starting to come on already. There was a
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glittering edge to everything, and motion and time seemed to
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be slowed down. The door opened and I stepped out into the
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giant underground mall. Many stairways led to levels further
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below. I got on the slidewalk, and rode it about half a mile
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to the Megalithic offices.
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At the office they were having some kind of ceremony. I
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was embarrassed at being late, but hardly anybody noticed
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when I came in. I saw a couple of my pals, but the only
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person I really noticed was Mandy Feather, the best-looking
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woman in the company. She's a year younger than me but she's
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already assistant manager of the process implementation
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department. I was embarrassed to be thinking about Felina in
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front of Mandy. She has really nice tits and today she wasn't
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wearing a top: instead she had a new fur job, short blond
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hair that covered only her breasts. "Hi, Mandy," I said,
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waving; she smiled bleakly at me and sat down next to Mr.
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Gardner, the Oldie in charge of my department at Megalithic.
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He whispered in her ear and rubbed her fur job, and she
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giggled.
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Hair cream is easy to get if you have enough money--just
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rub it on and it changes the DNA in your skin cells and hair
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starts growing. It's awfully expensive--but Mandy made a lot
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more money than I did.
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Then the ceremony was over, employee of the month awards
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or something, and Mr. Gardner was helping Mandy stand up, and
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I pushed forward past them and let the crush of the crowd
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make me collide with Mandy, and I gave her a hip thump as we
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touched and she caught my eye just before I surged away.
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I don't know if it was the <20>mones, but it seemed like
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she was staring right into my soul. I had this big urge to
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bite her on the back of the neck.
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Then I was in my cubicle and the Lunar substratum was
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rushing toward me at 30 feet per minute and I opened the
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inhalers when properly dense rock appeared ahead on the
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sonar/radar plate and I steered toward denser rock further
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ahead and I kept a lookout for patches of water to gobble.
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I made the minimum wage of a hundred dollars an hour and
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there wasn't much chance I'd ever make more than that--I
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graduated from high school but that didn't count as a
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credential any more. I've got my skills but they are
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equivalent to pool-hall skills. Playing pool takes
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mathematical insight, but not mathematical training.
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Intuitive mathematics. I control the moon robots by shuffling
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shapes and colors on the screen. When I touch an outline on
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the screen I can change its size and color and shape; if I
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drag my finger across the screen, the image will follow
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along.
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A pulsing yellow barrier line appeared on one edge of
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the screen. It represented a bunch of hypothetical dimensions
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that I didn't know anything about. In the rules it meant I
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couldn't go in that direction with a blue cube or a rotating
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dodecahedron.
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I felt the <20>mones roaring up in me. I could sling those
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cubes and dodies easy as can be. Then the break signal
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chimed, a tone signaling the first break. I put my controls
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in neutral and got a cup of coffee and went to Fred Metz's
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carrel.
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"Hey Fred, did you see Feather's fur job?" I said.
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"Yeah, please don't ask me to stand up."
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"Maybe you should ask her if you could borrow some hair
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cream," I said.
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Fred was caught outside during a Stage 1 radiation alert
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last summer, and all his hair fell out. He was too cool to
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wear a rad suit until then.
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I liked Fred because he was like me--He grew up in the
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Midwest and came to Los Angeles because that's where the
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action is. We found out that every young man in North America
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had the same idea.
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"Skizz has some great thyroid, panther thyroid. You
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should try it. Sharpens your senses."
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Then when I was looking at Fred's screen I suddenly saw
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that his screen was just like mine except the barrier line
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was on the other side. "Hey, Fred, our machines must be right
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together, we're both in lOO-meter diversion."
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"I wonder what the mining robots look like," Fred said.
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"Hey," I said, "Wouldn't it be cool to drill into each
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other's tunnel and see what we look like?"
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"We might get in trouble," Fred said.
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"Oh, I bet I can turn the robot the way I want without
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using any blue cubes or rotating dodies. That's all the rule
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is about."
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"Okay," Fred said. He studied the screen. "I'll bet I
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can cross in front of you."
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"Oh yeah? Okay, loser buys <20>mones."
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It wasn't that hard to do. I went back to my carrel and
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slapped and tickled my screen and made my miner cross into
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Fred's path. I programmed for a visual simulation. At first
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it was normally boring, nothing but a dark rock face and a
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jumble of broken rock, but then the rock face shattered apart
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and I saw Fred's miner, face to face. A fifty-foot diameter
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of lasers and a central structure for grinding and conveying
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the ore. Big deal. It looked just like the pictures.
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I shrugged and returned my miner to the right path--just
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in time because Mr. Gardner and Mandy Feather came back in,
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and Mr. Gardner was preeny and stalked around finding fault
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with us.
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Near the end of the shift I saw Mandy standing alone by
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the transmutation monitor and I stepped up behind her.
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"Mandy, we're going to Hauser's after work for a couple of
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drinks,would you like to join us?" I said.
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She whirled and gave me a disgusted look and stalked
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away without answering.
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There was a radiation alert at quitting time, so I was
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able to take underground transportation home for free instead
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of bicycling. When I got to Hauser's Bar after work, Skizz
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and Fred had a table and I got a beer and sat down with them.
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Hauser's is near my apartment and is one story underground,
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so it's fairly safe, even if it's a cheap and sleazy joint.
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Fred and Skizz and I were part of the Boy Imbalance. A
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few years before I was born, they invented a way to make sure
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your kid was a boy or a girl, and my mom and dad decided they
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wanted a boy.
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So did everybody else. It was just a couple of years
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after the Fuckup War, and as in every previous era of human
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history, parents favored the production of male children.
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When cheap, reliable methods of determining the sex of your
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offspring came on the world market, suddenly only boys were
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being born. In some countries 85% of births were boys at the
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height of the fad. I was born late in the cycle, when the
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oldest of the Boy Bulge were 16, and then the Big War started
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when I was 6, and is still going on, although not in the
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fearsome style of the early days. Today it's a worldwide
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armed truce, but we still average five or six nuclear
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incidents a year.
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I had a lot of friends. They were all guys. Oh, there
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were lots of women my age, too. Somewhere. But it seemed like
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they were all taken by Oldies. "The one I want is Mandy
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Feather," I said. "That girl in the Throughput Implementation
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department."
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"Yeah, I'd use my implement and give her some
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throughput," said Fred Metz.
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Then Skizz's brother Jim showed up. Jim was a surface
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worker--a guy who harvests material goods from the ruins of
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the old world above. He had a heavy radiation tan. "You
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should have seen what we found today," he said. "We cracked
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open this office building and every skeleton was wearing a
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Rolex."
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Then an Oldie came in with two beautiful girls who
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couldn't have been older than 18. You can do a lot with
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cosmetics, and god knows the Oldies have been trying a long
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time, but there's still something about a girl who's really
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only 18 that is beyond the grasp of the cosmetic art, despite
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genetic engineering and all.
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We watched them for a while and talked about Oldies.
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"Why can't that old fart join the Girl of the Month Club or
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something," said Fred, "and leave the real girls for us?"
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"You have to have big cash to join the Girl of the Month
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Club," Skizz said. "And you can't just join, you have to be
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nominated."
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"How do you know?" I asked,
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"Hey, I make money, I tried to join once."
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The Oldie got up and went to the Men's room and I said
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"You can have your Girl of the Month Club, I'm going to try
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some live flesh.I went to the Oldie's table. "Hi, girls, I'm
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Bill Wood, and I wonder if you'd like to have some company
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more your own age."
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They looked at me the way you look at radiation
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blisters. The big runny putrid ones. "Grav out, goldless
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one," said the redhead. The brunette with the full-body
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scintillation film said, "Oh, please tell us all about
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processing," real sarcastic, and then they acted like I
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wasn't even there.
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I went back to the table and Fred and Skizz and Jim
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razzed me for a while. That's when this Oldie woman sat down
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and started hassling us. She had these wrinkles you wouldn't
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believe and her ears and her nose were so big and hairy, eck.
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She tried to buy us drinks, offered us some psychotabs--Skizz
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was interested at first but I think he just wanted to buy
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them for resale, not use them.
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The Oldie put her arm around me and tried to pull me
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toward her and her breath was awful. "Come on, honey, all I
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want is your cock for a little while, okay?" and she reached
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down and grabbed me.
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"Hey!" I said, and that made Skizz and Fred laugh, and I
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jumped up and ran out and went home to my Cube.
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The shipping shell from the Girl of the Month Club was
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still there. "Fuck it," I said. I pulled the release tab and
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the shell whooshed and a waft of chill air came out as the
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internal suspended animation circuits shut off. I put a meal
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in the microwave and looked through the instruction manual.
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It took about an hour for the shell to cycle through. I
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sat nervously waiting for the girl to start poking through
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the shell. I'd been looking at the brochure and using my
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reader to listen to the words but it was awfully complicated
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and there was a lot of writing. I was starting to worry...the
|
||
brochure warned about how expensive the girls were if you
|
||
damaged them, because they had to be returned at the end of
|
||
the month. You had to feed them a special nutrient syrup or
|
||
they would die.
|
||
I decided I would just keep the girl one day and then
|
||
call in and let the mistake be known. That would be the right
|
||
way to do it.
|
||
Suddenly a circular piece of the shell popped loose and
|
||
a girl's nose poked out and inhaled deeply. I hastily thumbed
|
||
through the manual and found the picture of the nose coming
|
||
out and when I looked at it the rest of the shell in the
|
||
picture peeled back like artichoke leaves. "Be sure to save
|
||
the leaves for return shipment of your girl at the end of the
|
||
month," said the reader.
|
||
I pulled the leaves off. There were twelve of them and
|
||
after just three were off the girl's head was exposed and I
|
||
could see she was beautiful, half asleep but fearful and
|
||
anxious. Her hair was wet and matted and her skin was covered
|
||
with fluid--as I pulled back more leaves a quart or two of
|
||
liquid gushed onto the floor. When I pulled the last leaf off
|
||
she opened her eyes and looked right at me and moaned and
|
||
darted her eyes around and struggled to move. I touched her
|
||
hand and she flowed onto me, a huddling frightened girl
|
||
hugging me for life, wet and bawling.
|
||
According to the manual this was the "imprinting" time.
|
||
They'd grafted duck DNA into the clones so that they bonded
|
||
with their owner as baby ducks bond to the first moving thing
|
||
they see after hatching. The bonding was pheromonic: the
|
||
girls were imprinted by the owner's smell factors, and no
|
||
embarrassing incidents would result if a non-member were to
|
||
encounter one of the girls.
|
||
The girl was dripping wet and naked and clamped herself
|
||
against me, burrowing through clothes to press her flesh
|
||
against mine. The manual suggested that I sit and hug and
|
||
soothe her for an hour while she adapted to her new
|
||
environment and absorbed my pheromones. When the pheromonic
|
||
imprinting was completed, she would be ready for whatever
|
||
sexual gymnastics I had in mind.
|
||
But the way she was sobbing and moaning and clinging to
|
||
me... she wasn't even 5 feet tall, and couldn't have weighed
|
||
85 pounds, but with tits that wouldn't quit and a tiny waist
|
||
and the cutest ass. All just as advertised.
|
||
I was really turned on but I followed the instructions
|
||
and just held on to her. I was kind of afraid of her,
|
||
actually. She was wet and I tried to pry her off so I could
|
||
get a towel, but she fretted and clung to me. I stood up to
|
||
get a towel and she rode me like a leaf plastered to a
|
||
windshield by the rain.
|
||
I toweled her back but her front was clamped against me.
|
||
I had a hard-on that was starting to be uncomfortable, but
|
||
after a half an hour she began a sniffing ritual, nuzzling
|
||
against my chest and licking me and crawling up my body to
|
||
lick my face--it wasn't really like kissing--and then she
|
||
moved down and sucked me in and after long bliss I gave her
|
||
the final pheromonic imprint, a long jet of my own personal
|
||
DNA files. The rest of the night was an endless exploration
|
||
of orgasm, and I didn't have any moral qualms.
|
||
But in the morning I did. I woke early and couldn't go
|
||
back to sleep. She looked cute snoozing in my bed...but she
|
||
wasn't human, she was just an artificial construct cobbled
|
||
together from dog and cat and kangaroo DNA.
|
||
She was so sleek and trim. Part of the reason was that
|
||
she didn't have much in the way of internal organs. In order
|
||
to make a clone with the narrowest waist, the bioengineers
|
||
had left out intestines, for the most part. I looked through
|
||
the brochure again until I found the "FEEDING" section. The
|
||
girls needed a couple ounces a day of nutrient solution--a
|
||
half liter flask had been included inside the egg.
|
||
I poured her a little glass of it and shook her awake.
|
||
She drank it with a slobbering gratitude.
|
||
We did it again before I went to work.
|
||
|
||
******************************************
|
||
|
||
William M. Wood dialed the Girl of the Month Club again.
|
||
"Dammit, you said I would have my shipment by today, and
|
||
there's no sign of it."
|
||
"I'm sorry, sir," said the prosthebot. "Our records show
|
||
your shipment has been received."
|
||
"Let me talk to a human."
|
||
"I'm sorry, sir, all humans are out of the office at the
|
||
moment. May I help you?"
|
||
"Look, I'm leaving for Albuquerque. I wanted to take
|
||
this month's girl with me, but now you've wrecked it. Now you
|
||
make sure she's here when I get back, you understand? The
|
||
shipment hasn't arrived. I don't care what your records show.
|
||
Send it now." He broke the connection, then programmed his
|
||
computer to repeat the complaint.
|
||
When the realtime clock in William Wood's computer
|
||
dialed the Girl of the Month Club and repeated the message,
|
||
it was three in the morning in New York. Just at that moment
|
||
in Times Square in front of the offices of the Girl of the
|
||
Month Club, a mugger slipped up behind a pedestrian and
|
||
pressed a gun into his back. "Gimme your dough or you're
|
||
dead," he said.
|
||
The pedestrian whirled and pulled an ion gun. The mugger
|
||
fired two shots from his .44 Magnum into the pedestrian's
|
||
chest, to no effect.
|
||
The pedestrian pulled the trigger of his ion gun once,
|
||
and then again.
|
||
One charge from the ion gun went through the office wall
|
||
into the computer of the Girl of the Month Club and scrambled
|
||
several memory banks during William M. Wood's call.
|
||
The mugger slumped to the ground without a mark on him:
|
||
the ion gun's charge coagulated the flesh in a three-inch
|
||
wide path through his body, like hard-boiling an egg.
|
||
The pedestrian plucked two slugs from his bulletproof
|
||
vest, put his ion gun away, and walked on.
|
||
*************************
|
||
In the morning it was raining sulfuric acid and I had to
|
||
wear my pH 10 raincloak. There were cops all over the freeway
|
||
where a freight van's mag field transducer had failed and
|
||
left a 30-foot crater and only one lane of traffic was
|
||
trickling through and I , couldn't grab a ride and had to
|
||
pedal all the way. I was really tired--I hadn't slept more
|
||
than two hours. I looked for Skizz at work, I wanted to get
|
||
some more panther thyroid, but he wasn't out there in the
|
||
rain. I probably didn't need anything. Hell, my testosterone
|
||
levels were on a natural high and my cock wouldn't go limp
|
||
all day. I could hardly wait to get home again.
|
||
I churned the colors on my screen half heartedly most of
|
||
the morning thinking about Felina. I didn't even notice if
|
||
Mandy Feather was there. Well I hardly noticed.
|
||
Later Fred and I snuck away and he had some dreamazine--
|
||
a zappy <20>mone that triggers a REM state while you're wide
|
||
awake. Cool.
|
||
Then the pulse alarm sounded. Any time there's an atomic
|
||
explosion a big electromagnetic pulse blasts away and it can
|
||
wreck a computer and zero the magnetic memory in a blink. So
|
||
when the EMP alarm sounded we were all supposed to shut down
|
||
& protect our assigned machines, and we were three minutes
|
||
later than anybody in the company. If there had really been
|
||
an H-bomb all our files would have been gone.
|
||
Later in the day they called me and Fred in to get
|
||
chewed out. I sat in the Big Boss's waiting room and hoped I
|
||
wouldn't get fired. I didn't know what the big deal was
|
||
about because it was just a drill and there hadn't been any
|
||
detonations for two or three years in orbits that were
|
||
dangerous to us. We were in a nuclear war, of course, but not
|
||
nuclear war in the way the Oldies grew up dreading--the
|
||
massive exchange between the US and the USSR, thousands and
|
||
thousands of H-bombs going off everywhere on every land mass
|
||
on the planet.
|
||
After the breakup of the USSR, nukes became a commodity
|
||
on the world black market. Once a state owns a nuke, though,
|
||
it becomes impossible to use them except in defense, or as a
|
||
terrorist weapon.
|
||
The only thing nukes are really good for is to nullify
|
||
an army in the field. Massed troops at borders are the
|
||
handiest targets, and satellite surveillance in a free market
|
||
gave every nation information about its neighbors' troop
|
||
movements.
|
||
Today the United States has a population of 62 million--
|
||
about the same as in 1890. Foreign immigrants are welcomed,
|
||
except there aren't many--the rest of the world is a
|
||
smoldering ash-heap and there is little international travel.
|
||
Incongruously, there is plenty of space travel.
|
||
Rather than buying raw materials from 3rd world
|
||
countries, the US now mines most elements on the Moon, and
|
||
nanoassemblers in orbit are making more and more of the goods
|
||
used on Earth.
|
||
There haven't been any actual nuke attacks on LA for a
|
||
long time, but there's plenty of fallout from a nukes in the
|
||
Far East. World opinion says using nukes is okay as long as
|
||
you're striking massed troops, or other acknowledged military
|
||
targets. But nuking cities isn't cost-effective for anybody.
|
||
The news reports a nuke attack a couple times a year. Nations
|
||
are using nukes for engineering purposes--Thailand blasted a
|
||
50-mile-long sea-level canal from the South China Sea to the
|
||
Bay of Bengal at the Isthmus of Kra, and took away a lot of
|
||
the shipping business from Singapore.
|
||
Anyway, the automatics shut down my work station in time
|
||
if there'd been a real pulse. And there hadn't been a real
|
||
pulse, so there was no damage. But that's not the way the
|
||
company saw it.
|
||
If I lost this job I would be in big trouble. I didn't
|
||
want to have to live on the surface again.
|
||
Fred and I sat there and waited, and waited. The only
|
||
good part was that Mandy Feather was called in there, too.
|
||
"What were you doing when the alarm went off?" I whispered to
|
||
her.
|
||
"Hmph!" she said.
|
||
"Fred and I were doing <20>mones in a secret place we know.
|
||
Maybe you could come up and do whatever you were doing with
|
||
us, huh?"
|
||
Instead of giving me a snappy answer, she turned bright
|
||
red and wouldn't say anything. Then they opened the door and
|
||
took me and Fred in front of the Boss and I had two REMS
|
||
added to my radiation tolerance ration. Fuck. More extra duty
|
||
whenever there was a radiation hazard, and I wouldn't get
|
||
hazard pay until I was two rems higher. Oh well, radiation
|
||
work gives you a nice tan and you get used to it. The more
|
||
radiation you get, the more you can stand. They've proven it.
|
||
After work, Fred and Skizz wanted me to go to Hauser's
|
||
again but I wanted to go home. "I've got a big date," I told
|
||
them. I got into a crowded elevator and took the long ride to
|
||
the surface--by the time we got to the top, I was the only
|
||
rider. I got out of the elevator and climbed onto my bicycle
|
||
and headed home.
|
||
The radiation tolerance thing has to do with underground
|
||
transportation. There is little subway system in LA, and what
|
||
there was privately owned and very expensive and jealously
|
||
guarded. During Stage 1 radiation alerts, I could use
|
||
whatever subway was available, for free, as long as my
|
||
radiation badge showed I was exposed up to my ration.
|
||
I'm forced by penury to travel on the surface, and so
|
||
I'm exposed to more radiation than undergrounders. There's
|
||
never any sunshine in southern California, it's perpetual fog
|
||
or rainstorms; it's the old Seattle climate moved south.
|
||
Redwoods are prospering despite the radiation, and that's
|
||
what's kept Los Angeles alive: the healing rains have swept
|
||
the radiation away time after time.
|
||
Radiation turned out to be not as lethal as they thought
|
||
in the 20th century. Sure, hard radiation kills, but it also
|
||
toughens. It's bad for individuals, but it hardens the
|
||
species. It's Ma Nature saying "Oh yeah, try that again and
|
||
see what happens."
|
||
When I got home there was another thermoplastic shell
|
||
from the Girl of the Month Club at my door.
|
||
I couldn't help myself. I'd always wondered what it
|
||
would be like to have two girls in bed at once. I pulled off
|
||
the seal and the shell began to cycle. I took Felina into the
|
||
bedroom and dallied with her until it was time for
|
||
imprinting.
|
||
When the nose circle fell out of the shell I went back
|
||
to it and pulled the leaves off and there was another perfect
|
||
Felina. She clung to me and trembled for an hour and then
|
||
repeated the sequence of the night before.
|
||
I was a bit disappointed; she was exactly like the first
|
||
Felina and there was no sense of having had a different girl,
|
||
there wasn't a cunt's hair difference between them. But then
|
||
later when the two of them were in bed with me together they
|
||
were kittenishly competitive in trying to please me, trying
|
||
to be the one who received my sperm. According to the manual,
|
||
they were programmed to desire sperm above all else, to
|
||
hunger and lust for it, and the Felinas certainly proved it
|
||
was true.
|
||
I drifted out of consciousness surrounded by hugging
|
||
flesh.
|
||
|
||
The next day Skiz was outside as usual but I didn't buy
|
||
anything. Then as soon as I sat down in front of my video
|
||
screen, Mr. Gardner appeared on it. "Woods, report to Systems
|
||
Analysis immediately."
|
||
Nuts. It sounded like they weren't going to be satisfied
|
||
with just giving me the extra radiation units. "What's wrong,
|
||
sir?" I said.
|
||
"Woods, report to Systems Analysis immediately." It was
|
||
just a recording.
|
||
This time they had Mandy Skizz as well as Fred and me in
|
||
the same meeting, and we were questioned by Mr. Gardner's
|
||
boss. "Woods, I understand you were consuming drugs in
|
||
unauthorized cubic yesterday during the EMP drill."
|
||
I gave Mandy a gigavolt burn with my eyes. She looked
|
||
away.
|
||
"Oh yeah?" I said. "Well, I wouldn't have been away from
|
||
my station except Mandy Feather was sucking off Mr. Gardner
|
||
in the Gigahertz Fourier department again. If he was there
|
||
supervising like he should I couldn't have snuck away."
|
||
Now I didn't know anything of the sort but I always
|
||
figure a good offense is the best defense.
|
||
"Bill, you don't seem to understand," the Boss said.
|
||
"This isn't about the pulse drill per se. We reviewed all
|
||
tapes after the drill and we discovered the reckless game of
|
||
<EFBFBD>chicken' you and Fred played."
|
||
"So we paced along side each other, so what?"
|
||
"You ruined one mining robot and seriously disabled
|
||
another."
|
||
"What? How?" I said.
|
||
"The damage has been repaired and the units are now back
|
||
in functional order," the Boss said, "but it was very
|
||
expensive. This meeting is about your future employment
|
||
career, and how you're going to repay the $28,000,000 your
|
||
little game cost us."
|
||
Half an hour later I was on the surface and out of a
|
||
job. They didn't fire me: they told me that I was now locked
|
||
into Megalithic, they would deduct from my pay until the debt
|
||
was paid off, which would take approximately the entirety of
|
||
my working life. Instead, I quit.
|
||
Well, there was more than one place to work in LA, I
|
||
told myself as I biked home. Megalithic had competitors. West
|
||
Hemisphere Molybdenites, for instance. They ran robot mining
|
||
machines at the bottom of the ocean. I knew guys who worked
|
||
at WestHemis. I was confident of finding a new job--I'm
|
||
skilled, and labor in LA is a seller's market.
|
||
When I got home there was another thermoplastic shell in
|
||
front of the door. I stared at it a moment. A neighbor walked
|
||
by and said "What's that, Billy?" and I said "None of your
|
||
business" and hauled it inside. My two Felinas were curious
|
||
about the new shell but they were more eager to taste me
|
||
again. I pushed the shell into a closet and took the two
|
||
Felinas to bed. I wasn't tired but I sure was horny.
|
||
The Felinas were just as intoxicating as they'd been the
|
||
night before, and they turned out to have several tricks I'd
|
||
never expected. I didn't watch a bit of TV and I hardly ate a
|
||
thing.
|
||
I poured each of the girls a glass of nutrient, and they
|
||
gulped it down, and they looked at me so pleadingly that I
|
||
gave them another glass, and then they were pleasured and
|
||
sleepy. There wasn't another glass of the nutrient left for
|
||
them.
|
||
The next morning the manager woke me with another
|
||
jangling message: "There's a package here for you.
|
||
I was confused and muzzy from sleep. I sat up and gently
|
||
moved a sleeping Felina so I could sit up; I said "I picked
|
||
it up already,"
|
||
"It's another one," the manager said.
|
||
I went to the door and got the new shell and put it into
|
||
the closet with the other unopened one. I stared at the
|
||
shells a while before shutting the closet.
|
||
I looked at the two Felinas. They were starting to seem
|
||
a little eerie. I decided not to wake them up--I needed to go
|
||
out and find some work. But they woke up while I was dressing
|
||
and they clung to me and begged mutely for more nutrient, but
|
||
there was none left.
|
||
I didn't know what kind of nutrient the girls drank. It
|
||
was probably some highly tailored broth--the girls were
|
||
crudely engineered and needed a specific set of chemicals as
|
||
fuel. Unlike natural life forms, they were unable to
|
||
synthesize their own needs out of random forage the way real
|
||
animals are able to.
|
||
Well, I had to buy another jug. The smart thing to do
|
||
would be to look for some in the black market, but that would
|
||
take time. For now I'd just buy some at an Oldie market at
|
||
the retail price. But first of all, I should look for
|
||
another job. Rent was more important than nutrient for the
|
||
Girlclub clones. Sure, I could have my pick of 100,000 vacant
|
||
apartments, free, as long as I didn't care about water or
|
||
electricity. You could get phone and cable service anywhere
|
||
through satellite links. But surface housing had no
|
||
protection against radiation and no connection to the
|
||
underground majority.
|
||
The cause of the separation between underground and
|
||
aboveground was economic. My apartment building was on a
|
||
subway
|
||
path. All I had to do to ride an underground slideway to
|
||
Megalithic was a gold dime each time I crossed into the
|
||
Under. This time I thought it might be worth it if I went
|
||
Under to look for work. Also, only Oldie stores carried clone
|
||
nutrient.
|
||
So I went to a supermarket in the Oldie part of town.
|
||
I'd never been in an Oldie market before and when I asked for
|
||
nutrient fluid they all looked at each other and I said "It's
|
||
for my grandfather" and I was sure they were going to call
|
||
the cops but instead they gave me this one liter bottle of
|
||
clear pinkish stuff.
|
||
I felt funny standing in line with all these Oldies
|
||
staring at me, god they must have all been over a hundred
|
||
years old. A bunch of them were in wheelchairs or powered
|
||
walkers and they all were bald and wrinkled. It made me feel
|
||
sick.
|
||
Then the cashier robot said, "That will be $2250."
|
||
"What?" I said. "For one stinking liter?"
|
||
"Plus tax," said the robot.
|
||
I thought about just going home and calling the Girl of
|
||
the Month Club and ending it right there. Hell, for $2250 I
|
||
could have bought ten cases of beer and a six quarts of Wild
|
||
Turkey. But then I thought about the way last night was, and
|
||
I used my credit card even though it wiped out my credit
|
||
limit.
|
||
Then I saw Mandy Feather come into the store and all I
|
||
could think about was hiding from her. What would she think
|
||
if she saw me in an Oldie place like this? Later I started
|
||
wondering what SHE was doing in an Oldie place, but at the
|
||
time all I could think about was my two Felinas.
|
||
They were awake and anxious when I got home but after a
|
||
couple of ounces of nutrient they were all smiles and we did
|
||
it again before I went out looking for work.
|
||
I found Skizz's brother Jim and found some surface work
|
||
for a day. Jim and his crew harvested a highrise in Encino
|
||
and I discovered there's a lot less gold on the old corpses
|
||
than you'd think, despite all the stories. The guys who made
|
||
out on highrise intrusions were guys who had zoned out their
|
||
own turf on the infonet. Any boob could smash open doors and
|
||
ransack skeletons for gold, but there just wasn't that much
|
||
gold around, no matter what you heard, no matter if you crack
|
||
a virgin building. But there are all kinds of other things in
|
||
the rooms, and we collect them.
|
||
Maybe one guy knows about books and magazines.
|
||
Collectors pay big bucks for certain items. Other guys know
|
||
about art, or kitchen items, or certain furniture. With so
|
||
many neutron bombs used in the final flareup, thousands of
|
||
square miles were sterilized without much damage to the
|
||
structures. Now the sterilized areas were the lushest areas
|
||
for wildlife: opportunistic scavengers were invading on every
|
||
biological level, because biological competition had been
|
||
destroyed at every level. Greater Los Angeles was the home
|
||
grounds for giant new coyotes and mountain lions, for
|
||
instance, battled by domestic dogs and cats mutating up in
|
||
size. Giant parrots abound, too, partially because they're
|
||
able to evolve into useful adjuncts in the human
|
||
communications system.
|
||
Who are the prey animals feeding all this. I don't know.
|
||
Chickens and cows are too stupid to survive without humans.
|
||
Maybe it would be giant rabbits.
|
||
There's lots of stuff on the surface if you want to
|
||
collect it. However, the pay isn't that great. Sure, you
|
||
could make a living collecting Seikos off of corpses. But
|
||
it's about like collecting beer cans back in 1982.
|
||
I looked for something extra I could sell, but there
|
||
aren't many things left lying around in LA any more. Not
|
||
above ground, and below ground everything is organized and
|
||
neat and there's nothing lying around. The only thing that's
|
||
valuable is your time and talent. You can barter with found
|
||
goods, that was about it. Nobody was going to pay cash for
|
||
ordinary stuff like diamonds or gold.
|
||
Not only that, all I had to carry stuff with was my
|
||
bicycle. I pedaled to the ocean at Venice but there was
|
||
nothing obvious washed up on shore. Leaden skies and vicious
|
||
winds and houses tumbling into the sea. They say before the
|
||
Fuckup War people would go there to stand on the sand wearing
|
||
underwear. It doesn't seem possible. Of course, there wasn't
|
||
any radiation back then.
|
||
Nobody I knew had any money. You couldn't find nutrient
|
||
above ground, you couldn't barter for it.
|
||
The problem with surface foraging is that there is too
|
||
much of everything. The only way to do it is to first have a
|
||
client who wants something, and is willing to pay for it.
|
||
Then you have to go out and find one. If the guy is willing
|
||
to pay, that means the item is really hard to find.
|
||
Anyway, I spent two days on the surface and then I came
|
||
back with substantial credit (although not gold). The girls
|
||
were near death so I went to the Oldie market again and tried
|
||
to buy another couple of jugs, but my credit had been
|
||
intercepted by Megalithic. I was defeated. I called the
|
||
Club to turn myself in, but the prosthebot declined to speak
|
||
to me because I don't meet Club criteria. Also, the penalty
|
||
for not returning Club girls in good condition after 30 days
|
||
is a million bucks. "That doesn't bother me," I snarled, "I
|
||
already owe $28 million. Another couple of million mean
|
||
nothing to me."
|
||
I switched off the phone, stood up and shrugged. Fuck
|
||
it. I had three unopened shells, and each one had a full jug
|
||
of nutrient. I rolled one of the shells out of the closet and
|
||
pulled the tab. I didn't stay to watch it thaw out: I reached
|
||
in and pulled out the jug of nutrient and poured a couple
|
||
glasses for the active Felinas. The longer they were out of
|
||
the shell, the more nutrient they needed. They were famished
|
||
and they drank deeply now and then fell asleep.
|
||
There was a knock at the door, and it was the building
|
||
manager. "Where you been, Bill?" He had two more
|
||
thermoplastic shells in his golf cart.
|
||
"I want to refuse shipment on these," I said.
|
||
"Sorry," said the manager, rolling the shells into my
|
||
apartment. "I have no storage facilities. Your deliveries are
|
||
between you and your supplier. I still don't see how a punk
|
||
like you can afford cross-continental special delivery." He
|
||
whirled around on his electric cart and whizzed away down the
|
||
corridor.
|
||
I put the two shells into the closet. Now I had two
|
||
active Felinas, one more that would be peeling out of its
|
||
shell in an hour, and four more still in their shells.
|
||
Enough, I said.
|
||
More than enough. They climbed all over me as I put away
|
||
the four new shells and rubbed and stroked me. They were
|
||
revived by the nutrient. They were petulant: they were
|
||
supposed to get fucked a lot, they were programmed for it,
|
||
and I'd been away for two whole days.
|
||
They were starting to wear me out. I screwed both of
|
||
them, or I thought I did--there was no way to tell them
|
||
apart--and then I gave them each a glass of nutrient.
|
||
The jug was 2/3 gone. How was I going to buy more?
|
||
After the third one hatched I herded all of the girls
|
||
into the bathroom to make sure they took a shower, as the
|
||
handbook suggested, and as I sloshed around with them I found
|
||
myself screwing another time, but I couldn't tell if it was
|
||
one I'd already done or not.
|
||
After I got them dried off they were still after me and
|
||
I left for Hauser's Bar, where I found Skizz and Fred and Sam
|
||
and Hindi. I also found that I was in a confessional mood: I
|
||
needed money, and I told them the truth about what had
|
||
happened. I didn't have enough money to buy nutrient for the
|
||
girls.
|
||
I finished telling them. They stared at me. "Well, come
|
||
on--can you guys help me out, or not? "
|
||
I looked at them. They were probably astonished that I
|
||
would be a sucker for the Oldie crap.
|
||
Then Fred said, "Come on."
|
||
Skizz said, "Look, you want to borrow, you can borrow--
|
||
why this bullshit story?"
|
||
"I told you--I have to get nutrient for these girlclub
|
||
girls."
|
||
Skizz looked at Fred and Sam and Hindi. They looked at
|
||
each other. Sam said "I don't think he's kidding, you know
|
||
that?"
|
||
They came to a nodding agreement and looked at Sam. "Tell you
|
||
what," said Sam. "You prove you have these girls, and we'll
|
||
buy you a jug of nutrient."
|
||
They must have been convinced: they decided we should
|
||
take fast underground transport to my apartment, rather than
|
||
risking a trip to the surface. I didn't know if it was the
|
||
radiation up top, or the time factor: these boys seemed
|
||
eager.
|
||
Sam was the first one in and a Felina was on his neck as
|
||
soon as he entered. Skizz pushed forward and another Felina
|
||
enveloped him, and Fred and Hindi too. But within a few
|
||
minutes the girls were pushing away from them and the party
|
||
seemed to be over. "They're pheromonically programmed to
|
||
respond to me and nobody else," I said. "It's a safety
|
||
factor."
|
||
Fred had a frown of great intensity. "But you said there
|
||
were four more shells--four more that haven't been imprinted
|
||
yet."
|
||
"Yeah," said Hindi and Sam. Skizz was only a few neural
|
||
impulses behind the others.
|
||
Before I could forestall them the guys rushed my closet
|
||
and pulled the seals off the four shells. Sam was sent out
|
||
for booze and pizza and Skizz put credit into the TV for full
|
||
satellite input. We drank and ate and Skizz had some smoking
|
||
mones up for inhalation.
|
||
And then the girls started to hatch. We were too late:
|
||
the awake Felinas were crouched over the nose-holes of the
|
||
newly hatched ones, kissing them and helping peel the leaves
|
||
off. The pheromonic imprint stage was already preempted.
|
||
The girls crowded around me and shrank away from the
|
||
other guys. Eventually the guys grew disgusted and left. "But
|
||
wait, you guys--you see what it's like, I have to buy
|
||
nutrient, you said you'd loan me money--"
|
||
But they faded away and I was left with 8 Felinas
|
||
|
||
The next morning the girls were hungry again. I knew
|
||
because there were two of them on my neck, two on my chest,
|
||
two on my waist and two in my crotch. I struggled up away
|
||
from them and they mewed in hunger. I checked their shells
|
||
but their nutrient pouches were empty, and so was the jug I'd
|
||
brought home.
|
||
And they were hungry. They clawed and sucked at me like
|
||
voracious animals and I started to get scared. Finally I was
|
||
able get into the bathroom and lock the door.
|
||
|
||
********************************************
|
||
|
||
At Megalithic, Mandy Feather was talking to the boss.Mr.
|
||
Gardner, gray-faced, explained to Mandy Feather that Bill
|
||
Wood's escapade has uncovered a trillion-dollar lode of
|
||
corium, and by the same rules that made him liable for
|
||
damages, he was entitled to a significant share of the
|
||
discovery.He stands to be a billionaire. Important not to let
|
||
him find out.
|
||
The path Bill's robot took went right through the middle
|
||
of a mass of corium, the collapsed matter formed only at
|
||
planetary cores and previously found only in the asteroid
|
||
belt. This was the remnant of one of the big asteroids that
|
||
collided with the moon long ago. The mass is only a hundred
|
||
meters in diameter and would have never been found using
|
||
standard search patterns. Bill's robot and the other guy's
|
||
robot were at the closest they were allowed to be and the
|
||
space between them would never have been inspected.
|
||
Unless it could be kept from him--the Company would
|
||
never file in his behalf, of course, and would never notify
|
||
Bill of the matter. Maybe he'll fall off a cliff doing
|
||
surface work and this will all blow over, he said nervously.
|
||
She held him close and rubbed the wattled old skin on
|
||
his neck. "Don't worry, don't worry," she said.
|
||
|
||
******************************************************
|
||
|
||
My phone rang and it was the building manager. "There's
|
||
another one a them shells here for you," he said. "Open your
|
||
door."
|
||
"I can't," I said. "I'm--" I stopped. I'm locked in the
|
||
bathroom and 8 sex clones are in my apartment, that's why I
|
||
can't come to the door, I didn't say. "I'm in the bathroom,"
|
||
I said, "just leave it and I'll get it later."
|
||
What was I going to do. The Girl of the Month Club
|
||
wouldn't talk to me. My friends wouldn't help. My boss had
|
||
already fired me--forced me to quit, I mean.
|
||
I called Megalithic to talk to Mr. Gardner--maybe he
|
||
would know what to do. But when I called, Mandy Feather
|
||
answered.
|
||
"Well, hello, Bill," she said.
|
||
"Mandy, I'm in trouble, I need some help. I know you
|
||
hate me but please let me talk to Mr. Gardner. I need
|
||
somebody to call a company in New York and have them reclaim
|
||
some merchandise--the company won't talk to me."
|
||
But Mandy didn't put me through to Mr. Gardner; instead,
|
||
she wiggled the whole story out of me and I was embarrassed
|
||
as hell. She said she thought she could get through to the
|
||
Club.
|
||
Within an hour I heard my front door being opened and
|
||
shrieks from the girls and calming voices and then there was
|
||
a tap on the door and Mandy said "You can come out now."
|
||
I stepped out and saw three technicians placing the
|
||
sedated girls into their shells. They were gone in another
|
||
half hour and it was as though they'd never been there.
|
||
But Mandy didn't leave. She just kept staring at me
|
||
while the technicians were there, a funny glittery look in
|
||
her eyes. She looked like she was on <20>mones. She put her arms
|
||
around me and said "Show me what it was like with them."
|
||
|
||
|