by Marcus Sloss
“The next are your synthetic bodies. These are rental or purchase, you become a kerbian for instance and no one knows you’re fake. These range in price based on many factors. The costs really soar here on the high-end. For example bigger bodies to disguise yourself in cost more. Better models to compete with that require detailed construction cost more. There are patents out there too which affect costs,” Osguad said, waiting for Everly to exit last. “Follow me, you will go into a new room and be administered into a sleep. When you wake up you will be given the option of a standard platform or an advanced body and your available balance will dictate what you do.”
I frowned and asked, “We can rent from you if we chose to later correct?”
“Easily. We even will hit you with advertisements to do so. Our synthetics can be moved around the city in short timeframes. To remove the advertisements, upgrade into a body,” Osguad said and I restrained my sudden urge to strangle him.
No! Stupid evil advertisements. My life had been so much better since their demise!
Longoria who had been mostly quiet smacked my bum to jolt me forward. Osguad gave an odd look but continued leading us to a new room down the sleek hallway.
“If we choose to buy the body and take it home?” Longoria asked.
“Ah, I see you realize how amazing this option is. You need far more than a simple body. Visit our market and shop away. There are many sellers of this technology both here and in the grand market. You will be surprised what you find on a planet like this. Using this technology can be addictive. A great way to return that money you pay your citizens with. You can be just about whoever you want and do riskier things than normal,” Osguad said entering a new room. “And we are here. When you’re ready, ask for immersion and an operator will facilitate your transition.”
Osguad turned and exited the room. I was a bit miffed he bolted, but he was an alien. They tended to be odd.
“Orbs for now, unless you object?” I asked my lovely naked ladies. A finger waved me up from Willow’s delicious tits.
Willow shimmied her boobs to send them crashing into each other. My eyes never lifted when she said, “We’re not here to have sex in other bodies or to steal secret or attend a random gathering without our identity known. We want to spend zinc, and learn how a megacity operates. I vote for orbs.”
“Orbs,” Everly said.
I moaned with displeasure wanting to get kinky.
“I agree, and we can always compete with very specific replicas later, we should at least understand the costs associated before we leave for Koor,” Longoria said. “I am curious as to how the process works.”
“I guess, freaky sex later. And only one way to find out how this works.” I shifted my gaze to what was undoubtedly a double mirror. “Should we lay down?” I asked the room.
“Yes,” an echoing voice replied
We laid down and next thing I knew I was asleep.
∞∞∞
I awoke in an under hang with sunshine fighting through tall buildings all around us. My body was here but when I touched my legs my hands passed through. At my feet was a disk, not an orb. It was set to a bigger size than my body was. Maybe to project my arms. Hmm… I validated that thought with an arm twirl.
“What? I was thinking we would be blue renderings like on our Gpads. Not a copy that is only see through,” Willow said, waving at me. “At least we are in clothing.”
She looked like Willow, same cute smile, jet black hair, and yummy double ds fighting a tight shirt. Everly walked forward for quiet alleyway and paused. “I think it is good for us to go, but where?”
“I will be going to see if I can acquire these building items the sluggeros wanted. And then to see if any of my children are here,” Longoria said with longing. She gave me a gaze before departing. “I will wait for you to go to the hiring market and contract sales. What is my budget? We have additional zinc at home.”
“We will explore while you shop, use it all. If the siblings need things to build Stronghold Castle then we get it. Especially when the Xgates are letting us have some quiet time. Somehow I think bringing more funds to dump in the economy will not be hard to get done. Let me call Toth,” I said.
“Ah, Eric, I am right here,” Toth said from a stool behind me. I cursed myself. Even in a digital form, I should be more aware of my surroundings. “I have updated a map for you Lady Longoria. The rest of you follow me for a city tour if you would.”
“Good luck Longoria,” I said to the departing fairy who waved goodbye. I shifted to Toth. “And getting zinc here from Earth?”
Toth chuckled slowly and said, “You presumed correctly. Normally a worthy foe for the kerbians are sent trade rules and enticing offers. We generally want other societies to visit and stimulate our economy instead of combat a foe neither sides gains much from. There happened to be a rash young commander that you soundly defeated. Again, we do not apologize for our ways.”
“Well, how about that tour,” I said and Toth stepped off into a quiet walkway. “I think we will be developing sleds with trading advertisements to follow the Xgates.”
“We do something similar for those closest to our cities,” Toth said validating my idea. “The raiding gates are generally for raiding. If your society grows prominent expect the need to be diverse in what you achieve. We have to placate our raiding factions. They’re vital, yet, we force them to poke and prod portals away from our cities.”
There was some themes I was picking up on as he shared the Koovorin ways. I tested my orb by moving the projected disk. My legs responded precisely as I wanted. My senses were metered exactly like my body. There was no suddenly fantastic hearing or sight that let me see further. This led me to conclude that my mind projection included some form of consistency. When I followed Toth the additional movements gave a natural feeling.
We walked down a narrow corridor. The buildings that blocked us from the crowds and the sun appeared to be made with sheets of rock. Almost like plywood except crushed stones. The colorations were random, beautiful, and yet utilitarian.
Our small path opened up above. Suddenly we were in the heart of a city. Tubes shot across the sky moving aliens and materials at speeds so fast they were hard to track. Aircraft in the thousands shifted from one location to the next. Most buildings were a few stories tall but every one of them had stacked landing bays atop of them. I was perplexed by the city's operation until we stepped onto a sixty foot wide marbled road.
There was not a single vehicle on the road. There were aliens of all shapes and sizes going about their business. I did see sleds pulling creatures, and the occasional disk like I was on. The population was indifferent to us, meandering to enjoy the walk or hurrying to get business done.
My enjoyment of the moment was short lived when advertisements bombarded my senses from the walls, balconies, and directly over the road. I groaned with a head roll of displeasure. I ran up beside Toth.
“If I get a cheap rental, all these… these… go away,” I said in a frustrated huff.
Toth gave a gentle laugh and said, “No, those are revenue generators for the city. No amount of bribery, even by me, gets them turned off. Upgrading will turn off your internal ads. We’re passing a casino you should get one about -”
A voice shot directly into my mind. “Gambling, gambling, gambling. Three percent rake, great exchange rate. Come on in.”
I wasn’t the only one to grunt. Everly and Willow stared at the building opening with contempt. The store was not like an Earth casino in any way. A dollar store, yeah that was closer. There were patrons standing inside various size booths, zoned out as they were connected into an invisible system.
“Told you, you can’t mute it, but you can lower the volume and ignore it. How about we take a flight over the town? You can avoid proximity advertisements. Follow me,” Toth said without waiting for approval. We ducked into a side alley, up a random ramp, and a floating carriage awaited us at an elevated platform. “These are so effic
ient.”
The aircraft had a flat bottom with a clear cutout in the center. There were minimal structural bars holding the see through contraption together. The roof was a tarp that Toth peeled back with the press of a button. There was seating for a dozen giving the four of us ample room. I let the ladies cut ahead of me and plopped down between Willow and Everly.
“I heard a mention of a pit?” Willow said, containing her excitement. “Everly and I were interested in that.”
The aircraft gently rose into the air to join the stream of traffic. There was no driver or input from Toth. We glided over the city and I was able to see the crowded population of Koor from above. My view of below and above was one of organized madness. So many vehicles shifting the air, so many aliens meandering the streets below.
Everything was done here in the sense I saw very little upgrades or new construction. This was the utopia of the universe. A well defended city with ample protections. Jobs for everything and almost everyone. Ample living space and entertainment you would never tire of. I almost wanted to move here instead of building our own. Yet, Earth. I was tied to her. My heart will always long for my home and I don’t think my first journey to something greater should mean I give up. I knew the community could build this but better.
Toth pointed at a building that resembled something akin to a casino. “So that advertisement earlier was for a digital euphoria store and that is the deluxe version. They take you into virtual worlds where you can do just about anything. There is a fee for times used and then a tax from us on transactions and a fee added on for gambling. Nothing too drastic but we get our hands in the pot,” Toth said with an uncaring shrug. “Under the surface there is far more crowding. In the last million point three years, we have only been raided above ground a handful of times. It takes a large army of large monsters willing to die for minimal loot to breach our defenses. Still, it happens. That is the upper market.”
Toth indicated a flea market of sorts. The tall buildings stopped in a massive square of cleared space. There were multiple sizes of vendor booths that aliens were cruising by. Again I saw holographic displays instead of actual goods in the majority of the booths. I could not find Longoria in the crowds of thousands, but I did try.
“Your friend will have good luck finding machinery here. We have a lot of manufacturing and a large contingent of aliens proficient at the task. This is not a good place to find warriors, but for workers it is. Mainly they come out of contract and stick around, then start hunting for new work,” Toth said, ending his sentence when a massive structure entered our view. I saw the outer wall for the first time.
My eyes shot to the exterior defenses. We never entered the thousand foot wall on the horizon which meant the vault was hidden somewhere else. There were towers every ten meters giving the wall a spiked look. I viewed random defensive emplacements between the wall and the homes. There was a kill zone at least two miles long. Roving bands of military units dotted this landscape with as much rhyme and reason as the bunkers.
“Yes Eric, one day you will have all of this. Then you will be the one vetting aliens into your metropolis. You will have to tax visitors and citizens to maintain order, peace, and a solid defense,” Toth said catching me studying the defenses.
“I hope we make it to this point. How do you handle unruly citizens?” I asked, not seeing a police force.
“Your Gpad is not on you. If you were to have come directly in, which your citizens can, you would have been forced to wear an anklet, bracelet, or choker. If you’re a species that cannot fit a device, or refuses to wear our security enhancer, you go to a common vault and exit on a disk. Let me be transparent with you Eric. We rule with an iron fist so tight that our citizens complain endlessly. However, we persist and survive through our doctrine. We need no police force because the police force is attached to you. So if you were in your regular body and attacked a pleasure worker you would have your body locked and imposed a fine for your transgression.”
“No prison time?” Willow asked and Toth gave her a confused look. “Dungeon, jail, confinement?”
Toth let out a deliberate and slow ah. Then he snickered and said, “Why? That would cost us money. There is no reason. People fear fines more than confinement and a fine unpaid or unable to be paid leads to a contract of servitude. The device we impose results in a near-instant lock-up for offenders so there is little actual violence. We even allow weapons to be carried. Mind you, they are on a safety lock. But if we get invaded the locks come off. And yes there are murders at that point but we remove the offending parties as everything is tracked. There are a billion tiny recording monitors everywhere on top of the actual body devices. That right there, the chance of an attack and then you being killed in the heat of the moment, was the reason you’re in the vault.”
“So you're telling me this society is safe to visit for my people, assuming they get through the Xgate and into the wall,” I said, watching the citizens of Koor peacefully cohabitating.
“There are always risks, Eric. But you are seeing something for yourself that words cannot explain. There are old rivalries living amongst each other everywhere on this plant,” Toth said gesturing below.
“Indeed, I even see a human down there,” I said, knowing our kind was despised.
“Rare, but yes. Oh look,” Toth said, gesturing at a large circular building.
There was a colosseum not too different from what the Roman’s built. The difference was this one had landing pads, platforms shifting aliens in and out, and was made out of rockcrete. “That is the upper pit. The smallest of the bunch and least crowded. Which means the fees are the lowest. There are events throughout the day and then random fights as time goes by.”
“Are real bodies allowed?” Everly asked with a raised brow. She was intently staring at the large building.
“Life is fickle and cheap. If we let real people into the pits they would die with mountains of debt on the chance they could win. Their opponent would probably be in the same boat. At one time yes, we allowed death by combat. That tends to only lead to problems on top of problems. So now we do not. There are a half dozen bouts before a random royale,” Toth said knowing we were interested. “Want to watch some fights? Maybe gamble a bit? I don’t need to try to sell you on it. You paid your fee for the vault, honored your word, and will likely spend money. So we can just enjoy our time. There is the garden of the universe one floor down. A very nice walking tour with a minimal fee. Or some synthetic death games?”
“Death games,” the three of us answered him at once.
Toth input some commands and we landed at a tower perch on the edge of the arena. When we stepped out of the vehicle it was onto a platform. I was starting to see a pattern. There were zero stairs anywhere. Every device was shaped to fit diverse alien types and there were zero species over twenty feet tall.
“I take it there is a big city?” I asked and Toth tilted his head in confusion. “Let me clarify. A city for larger beings, like Divine-Apes. Koor has a height limit if I were to guess.”
“Ah, so you're an anti Xgate zealot, your secret is safe with me,” Toth said and I went to reply when he held up a hand. “I tease, we have all sides here. The divine-ape have declared a holy war, their edict without question, their cause unwavering, and if you are not on their side you perish. Neutral places like Koor are left alone and traded with since we officially harbor all; that is good enough for them. As to your question, there are cities defined by size and subsections under them that have fewer height restrictions. Other places are confined by entryways. Hard to squish the four foot cook when the sixty foot flowmora can't fit in the burrow.”
“Yeah, I noticed there were only beings of a certain size here,” Everly said tapping her chin as if it were there.
The arena platform picked up rapidly without a jerk and we went over the arena wall. The view of the inside of the circular stadium showed it was able to hold around ten thousand or so. The interior pit was not some gr
and location where thousands could battle. My brief observation was halted when we were deposited by a ramp that Toth led us down. After we vacated the platform it shot back towards its point of origin.
The interior of the observation booth had a front bench with numerous view screens that were tucked below a large pane of glass. I knocked on the surface to learn it was a clear plastic of some sort. The screens were actually tablets you could walk around with.
I hefted the tiny disc into my holographic hand. Science was magical at times. My fingers tapped a few buttons and sure enough, a new screen populated. My finger slid through the menus until I stumbled upon an option for seating rentals. Umm yes.
I selected some elevated chairs that were thrones; they were even padded. I was given a delivery prompt of seven seconds. Huh, that must be -?
The ceiling above our booth folded back and we parted as chairs fit for a human Viking King were delivered. Score, this is what I was talking about. I went for the largest seat in the middle. Even Toth snagged a chair I ordered. The cost had been fractions of an ounce of zinc with a five-ounce retainer. Umm… We were pulling up almost a ton a day already. I had only brought a couple of hundred pounds. Hmm. We might be bringing more zinc later.
A long sigh of comfort escaped my lips when I plunked down into the throne. I knew I was not really sitting in this chair but it felt marvelous. Almost better than a tavers rocking chair. I adjust the angle of the seat to look down.
Toth cleared his throat, saw he had my attention and said, “The time conversions will be displayed when thought about or viewed on a tablet. There will be three more matchups before a mock battle of three on three. Then another three matchups and a five on five. Every bet is taxed four percent. Two to the house, two to the competitors. One point five to the winner, point five to the loser. In this arena that is not a lot of money so we normally have open slots to compete. Lower arenas will backfill this one just to keep the fighting going. If you want to -”
