Earth Seven

by Steve M.

  And Heuris came. She turned on her VR. She checked her image in the reflection on the glass as she stood outside of Aphroditto and watched the long line of people go inside. And she stood there all night, despite the strange looks from the patrons and the bouncers. And then the next night she was outside again. And then the night after that. But the following day she was very tired and slept all day and all night. Stanley never showed up and eventually she stopped going.

  Heuris became withdrawn for a long time after, living alone inside of her own head. Alone was safe. Alone didn’t hurt as much. Alone was a hole and the hole was her friend. It didn’t ask for anything. It didn’t demand her be something she isn’t. No, alone was not like her parents. Alone didn’t abandon her. No, alone was not like Stanley either.

  Now a psychologist or psychiatrist would probably tell you that Heuris clicked the Aphroditto ad as a result of her subconscious interest being manifested consciously. However, she believes it was just a stupid accident.

  But either way, a tix (second) later she was in VR standing outside Aphroditto watching the people lined up on the blood red carpet outside of the high rise tree-shaped glass building. She stopped for a moment and looked over at the place where she used to stand and wait. Then she saw her reflection in the glass. Had to hand it to Aphroditto, they made people look good.

  She was just about to turn off the lenses when she saw him out of the corner of her eye. She stopped breathing for a moment in the shock of recognition. Then she spun to face him.

  It was Stanley. Her Stanley. Her beloved one. The man she dreamed of most nights. The man who flooded her pillow with tears.

  Wait a minute! He was with someone else. Another woman. Slutty looking bitch. And he had his hand on her ass. What the hell, Stanley? What part of love at first sight is this?

  Stanley saw her and pointed at her, his long slender index finger aimed at her face.

  “I almost got banned because of you. Stay away from me” he called out angrily to her. The bouncers recognized him and motioned for him to come in quickly. He got into the building and through security without ever taking his right hand off the left butt cheek of the woman he was with. Slut!

  Heuris felt like a holiday turkey being carved, her heart cut out and stomped into the ground until it was just a red jelly stain.

  “Fuck You, Stanley” Heuris finally yelled out.

  That is when the two men appeared behind her.

  “Ma’am, if you’re not going in then we need to ask you to leave. It makes customers feel uncomfortable and that damages our business. I hope you understand. We really don’t have anything against you as a person. You seem like a lovely woman. But you’re yelling at our customer outside of our business. This could significantly decrease our door sale conversions. And please let me say that I don’t have any problem with you yelling at him. That’s not the issue here. I think you should be able to yell at him as much as you want. Just not right here. Its bad for business.” The man stopped and took a breath.

  “So what’s it gonna be” he asked her.

  “OK” she held up her ID.

  “A pre-paid VIP pass. Thank you for spending time with us. We hope to see you again soon” he now said with deference and respect.

  She pushed the revolving glass door and entered into the reception area of the building. But by that time Stanley was gone with his bubble-butt bitch. A very short man approached her. By very short I mean the top of his head only came up to her waist.

  “Good evening. Let me show you around. My name is Metris” he said. “May I call you Heuris, Ms Carter?”

  “Of course” she replied.

  “Have you ever been here before?” he asked.

  “No” she lied.

  “Well, we have everything no matter your interest. How would you like to help us by answering a few questions. It really will make things so much easier for us and much more fun for you.”

  “I didn’t know you have questionnaires” she said.

  “It’s a new artifact in order to get a better relevance match. And customer satisfaction has gone up because of it.”

  What happened next was a long list of very personal questions. Heuris blushed more than once at the very direct nature of the questions. Then on more than one occasion she had to have something explained to her in detail. Several times she responded with the same question: “someone really finds that exciting? You’ve got to be shitting me.”

  Did she prefer this or that? They asked that question many times over. If she didn’t know she said she liked it anyway. They stopped for a couple of tox in the middle when she became thirsty. But then they resumed and pressed on until they finished. And the diminutive man pointed to the space between them. It filled with a matrix of numbers and match percentages.

  “There we go” said the small man with a smile. “It shows you are somewhat of a traditionalist, but with a healthy level of curiosity.”

  “That’s good isn’t it?” she asked expectantly.

  “Indeed. It’s prefect. You profile suggest that you begin in one of the TR rooms.”

  “TR?”

  “Traditional Romance” he replied. “But only for the first half of your time here. It recommends you spend the second half in one of the Ten Thousand rooms.”

  “Oh my” she said and raised her hand to her face.

  “If I might offer a word of caution, please be very careful which TT room you enter. From your profile I’d choose one of the CONSENT rooms.”

  “Consent rooms?”

  “The people in those rooms come up and ask if its ok first” said the man.

  “And in the other rooms?”

  “It is assumed that you gave your consent when you chose to enter the room. Anything that happens while you are in the room is considered fair play.”

  “Oh goodness. I’ll avoid those for certain.”

  “Advisable Heuris. Maybe on a later visit…if you are curious. We have special 20 tox packages that are popular with the curious but undecided.”

  “Yes, maybe next time” she said with a giggle.

  “Shall we?” asked the man and motioned for her to take his hand.

  She took his hand and they walked deeper into the building until they reached the elevators. They went to the fourth floor. It was very pretty blue on the walls of the building. They stepped out and the elevator changed from an elevator into a solid blue wall like the rest of the hall way.

  “It’s just down here” he said and looked up at her and smiled.

  Heruis spent many tox with one of the men in the TR room. He was incredibly handsome. And that was the thing about VR, it takes the real image of the person and morphs it into a VR image of how we all want to look. You know that really good looking actress or actor that looks like you a little? In VR you look a lot more like them than you normally do. If you look at yourself while you in VR you will still recognize yourself mostly, but you will be more busy admiring how damned good looking you are. Robert was so damn good looking that there was no way he could possibly be ugly in real life. And best of all, he weighed nothing in VR.

  I won’t share the details of her time there but will merely remark that she more than made up for her experience with that bastard Stanley. She spent a total of 200 tox at Aphroditto. And that was the source of the problem.

  By her own reckoning and careful planning, she had only spent 150 tox in VR. When she was asked to sign off on the charge for 200 tox she refused. The manager mentioned that there seemed to be a lot of that sort of thing happening lately. Still she refused to authorize the charge.

  Fortunately there was a complete and full record of her time there and it was available to her at a reasonable price for review later in her own home. In this instance it was used to prove to her that she had indeed spent 200 tox in VR.

  “What is that? I don’t remember any of that?” she said as she watched her naked self.

  “It’s called th
e Puppy Rooms” said the small man manager that had replaced her small man guide. He smiled at her. “It’s very popular lately.”

  Heuris watched herself naked in the corner of a room filled with other people. They were all on their hands and knees and barking like dogs. Two men walked around and handed the barking people nice soft pieces of candy. They pet them on the head as they gave out each one.

  “Who is that man?” she asked and pointed to a man standing naked in the doorway that had his eyes glued to Heuris.

  “I don’t know. A secret admirer I’d bet. It happens a lot.” replied the manager.

  “Destroy that” she said emphatically.

  “Right away” said the manager and he pressed invisible icons in front of him and the video showed the progress of a delete bar. “There, all gone” he said when it was finished. She approved the 200 tox charge.

  Heuris was in shock. What happened to her? Why didn’t she remember any of it? Who was that man?

  Her boyfriend Carl had asked her to marry him right before she left for Ag duty.

  Maybe it was time for her to settle down.

  Or maybe just settle.

  ‘Never make major decisions under duress’

  - Elanor, the Wife of The Final McGee upon her arrest for murder

  I hope you like the first chapter of Mortuis Luna and the History Department at the University of Centrum Kath

  Remember to leave a review.

  Thanks

  steve