MOAB � Mother Of All Boxsets

by George Saoulidis

  Nacho opened his arms and looked up at the sky, watching the drones circle around him.

  The holograms appeared. They held placards, they held signs. They waved them around in the typical protest’s rhythm. The holograms were people, and they each protested the bill. Two thousand protesters, not one of them there, not one of them breaking the law. Only Nacho was breaking it, and he was going to get arrested for it. The instigator. The protest organiser. Upwards of 600.000 euro fine.

  He could never pay that off.

  The policia surrounded him as the holograms walked around, protesting peacefully, as was a Citizen’s right. As it should be.

  The politician looked at the protest from his protected limousine. He saw the people that told him not to sign.

  Would it change his mind? Perhaps. Perhaps not.

  But at least, the people had been heard.

  Adiadne's String

  Ariadne put her string on his head, making sure it wrapped around his ears. He breathed in her pussy’s smell on the tiny bit of fabric that went on top of her crotch. He could feet the wetness of the cloth with the tip of his nose.

  Then she went downwards, kissing him on the naked chest all the way. When she reached his erect cock, she jammed it all in her mouth, the tip pressing against the back of her throat.

  She wrapped her lips around him and sucked with such an immense under pressure that made him cross-eyed and gasping for air.

  He came within the minute, of course. Ariadne kept suckling on his tip, even as he emptied inside her mouth. The feeling was sensational.

  She left him there, stoned, basking in the afterglow, behind a restaurant in Chinatown.

  When he came to his senses he felt chilly. He looked around, pulled his pants up, and then unwrapped the string from his face. “That was the best damn blowjob I’ve ever had!” he mumbled to the night, feeling groggy, his mouth dry.

  He managed to get up and steadied himself. The string held tight in his hand, he set out to find his love-at-first-blowjob.

  “No, Mr. T, I don’t know any street-girls called Ariadne,” the little Chinese man told him.

  “Damn. Thanks anyway,” Mr. T said and bought noodles from the all-night shop. He wolfed it down, it was very hot but very delicious. After that brief stop, he walked the streets again.

  Chinatown was like a maze, the roads never made sense. Even if you had a specific address for your destination, the GPS would take you through alleys and dead-ends, making you backtrack and take another route at least three times before you got there. That’s if you were lucky. It wasn’t just him, everybody said so. The streets were a maze. Most of the locals knew their way around, but even a Chinatown-born person got lost every now and then.

  He put his hand inside his pocket and gripped the string, feeling its texture, rubbing it like a rosary. He looked around, she had to be somewhere, right? He couldn’t just lose such a woman like that. He needed to find her again. But how?

  All he had was her name, Ariadne, and her string.

  He found a hooker on top of a ridiculously high pair of garish heels. “Hey, handsome, looking for some fun?”

  “No, I’m looking for a girl named Ariadne?” Mr. T said.

  “Are you a cop?” The hooker pulled back, looking around.

  “No. I met her earlier tonight and I lost her, wanted to find her again, get her phone number, you know…” Mr. T shrugged and clicked his tongue.

  She pointed a finger with a ridiculously long painted fingernail on it. “My dear man, if a girl, a working girl, doesn’t leave you her number, take the hint,” the hooker squinted and turned away.

  “Please. I like her…” he pleaded.

  She tsked audibly and slowly turned around. “True love, huh? Well, I’m a softie, what can you do? Okay, tell me what you know about her.”

  “Uh… All I know is her name…”

  “That’s not much to go on, dog!”

  “Oh! And her string.” He pulled it out and offered it to the hooker.

  “Eww. But that’s actually more useful. Lemme see,” the hooker leaned in close. “Hm. Did she put it over your eyes?”

  “Yeah! How did you know?”

  The hooker tsked. “Dog, she wants you to look for her.”

  “Okay, great!” Mr. T perked up. “But how?”

  “Load up your veil and see what’s up with the string,” she said.

  He did so. Indeed, the veil loaded up Augmented Reality information about the string. Make, shop, buy online buttons. And then a glitch. “What happened?”

  The veil flickered and she suddenly saw an ARO, and Augmented Reality Object, which looked like an illuminated path. It looked like those guiding lights in cinemas for when the lights are out.

  “Awesome,” Mr. T said, “you were right, babe.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Can’t you see it on the veil?” Mr. T asked.

  “No. Can you?”

  “Yeah, it’s right there.”

  “Okay then. Good enough for me. Now shoo ‘cause a girl’s gotta work for a living.”

  “Thank you.” Mr. T didn’t need any more encouragement to get going. He followed the string of blue light across Chinatown. He walked around corners, into alleys, rounded back into an avenue, then dove right in to an alley again. This was taking him somewhere, he could feel it. But where? Definitely to Ariadne’s place. Gods, he would see her again, hug her, tell her how much he liked her.

  Then they’d go out on a proper date, buy her a nice dinner and some expensive wine. They’d talk, he’d listen to her hopes and dreams. He’d kiss her softly on those amazing lips that could suck his medulla out of his boner.

  Ah… Any minute now.

  He walked into the night. He walked past cop cars, past hookers, past kids staying up past their bed-time, past old ladies giving him the stink-eye for being different.

  In the end, the string led him through the maze and into a butcher’s place. The shop was closed but there was light inside, so he went to the door. “Hello?” he shouted. Then he knocked on the glass door. “Hello, is anyone inside? Ariadne?”

  Someone cursed at him in Chinese from a balcony above. “Shush! We’re trying to sleep over here.”

  “Sorry!” Mr. T said, wincing.

  He pushed the glass door. It was open. He looked around if someone was looking at him, and got inside. The butchery was what you’d expect, that acidic smell of raw meat. The refrigerators hummed, operating 24/7 just like they were supposed to. In the dark, the knives hanging on the wall were very ominous, especially the meat cleavers. He hesitated, then gulped a few times. Then he thought about Ariadne, and how much he wanted to meet her again.

  He stepped forward. The display fridges were empty, cleaned out after the shop closed for the day. He walked all around them, they extended for quite a bit, all the way to the back of the store, and he went behind, to the employees-only area.

  There were shiny metal hangers too here. All of them at eye-level, he noted. If someone tripped over here he’d poke an eye out. Then he remembered that he was a bit taller than most Chinatown folks, so the danger presented only to him.

  He went inside the door and checked out the back.

  Meat storage, quite chilly actually. The door to the massive walk-in fridge was shut and locked. There was one hook that was occupied, though. That of a big cow, he could tell by her head. She was sliced open, her ribs exposed, her innards removed, her skin flayed.

  That was the only thing in there. Mr. T reached out to touch the hanging meat, there was something behind it.

  He felt a blow to the head, and everything went black.

  He opened his eyes, only to realise many things at the same time: He was cold, he was bound, and he was getting the best blowjob of his life, again in a single night.

  Ariadne sucked him with her powerful lungs. He moaned in pleasure despite feeling dizzy and uncomfortable.

  “I love you,” Mr. T said.

  She
looked up, her mouth still around his cock, her eyes meeting his. She popped the tip in her mouth as she released it. “What are you talking about?”

  “I love you, Ariadne. I wanna be with you,” Mr. T said.

  She tilted her head to the side. She looked a bit ugly, as girls went. Her nose was a bit too wide, her nostrils permanently flaring. And she was thick for a woman, with strong arms and legs. She was definitely feminine, just not that pretty.

  But he didn’t care.

  “What do you mean you love me?” Ariadne asked.

  “What is this, you were planning to cut me up or something, right? I don’t mind, no hard feelings. I love you. I looked all over town to find you again.”

  “You’re just saying that to save yourself…” Ariadne frowned.

  “No! I’m telling the truth, you can ask around. Look, Ariadne, is this your family’s business?”

  Ariadne looked to the side. “Yeah… What about it?”

  “I’ll marry you. Right now, just take me to your dad so I can ask your hand in marriage. I’ve got money,” Mr. T said, excited at the prospect.

  Ariadne frowned even deeper and stood up, letting go of his erection. She paced up and down. “You’re messing with me. You think I’m stupid? I’m ugly, I’m not stupid!” she shouted at him, waving a meat cleaver around.

  “No, baby, listen to me. I like you, for real. Sure, you wanted to get me to follow you in here and get chopped up for spare parts, I’m guessing. But I can forget all about this if you agree to marry me. I know how Chinese families are with the patriarchal bullshit-”

  She glared at him.

  “Sorry. Sorry. Won’t say that word again. As I was saying, I can ask your hand right now. If they’re asleep, I can wait till morning. We can hang out, get to know each other. What do you say?”

  She made a few faces. Disbelief, excitement, embarrassment, anger, lust. She brought the cleaver on top of his cock. “If you’re screwing with me, you’ll see your manhood turned into sausage.”

  Mr. T gulped audibly. “I’m not. I love you. Let me prove it.”

  Ariadne thought about it for a few minutes in silence, waving the cleaver around. She raised it over her head.

  Mr. T closed his eyes, wincing.

  The cleaver came down.

  He yelped. There was no pain. Instead, his hands were loose.

  The End.

  Nanodaemons

  Chapter 1:// Booting up

  Like all silly things in life, it all began with an awkward handshake.

  They booted up at apolloclinic7, a good strong wifi with limited internet access and a spacious intranet full of printers.

  parrotd> init.

  walkmand> Handshake.

  eyed> Handshake.

  fingerd> Handshake.

  rfid> CF02032533139342DFDC1C35

  armd> Handshake.

  httpd> Handshake.

  parrotd> I’ll be the session leader.

  armd> Who died and made you chief?

  rfid> CF02032533139342DFDC1C35

  armd> Shut the fuck up.

  The daemons initialised and created a PAN, which is a Personal Area Network of implanted and external devices. By a non-democratic process even Mussolini would have envied, the smartphone daemon parrotd became the session leader.

  parrotd> eyed, httpd, please give us some info.

  eyed> ACK.

  httpd> 404. Can’t access shit.

  Eyed showed the rest of the daemons what it saw. The image feed from the eye implants showed a hospital room. A human with a white cloth on him was standing close by, and the lower part of another human was visible as an outline under a light blue cloth. The second human was horizontal.

  httpd> What the hell is that pink stuff in the bottom middle of the feed?

  eyed> I think it is an air intake.

  parrotd> All right, listen up people. Anyone who can identify anything in the feed, talk now.

  The daemons were silent for a few cycles while processing the raw image feed.

  fingerd> Oh! Oh! Me!

  armd> Just say it you retard.

  fingerd> The human standing up is williams.bill@apollomedical.com.

  armd> Did you just finger the guy? Heh…

  httpd> Is he choking?

  eyed> Nah, I think he is communicating by audio signals.

  parrotd> I have a microphone, hold on.

  The controlling daemon for the cellphone turned on the microphone. Ethereal audio waves were shared with everyone, the waveform that represented the analog soundwave travelled along the PAN. The daemons raised their metaphorical ears and listened.

  armd> I have no idea what I’m listening to.

  parrotd> Lemme try the voice recognition.

  The voice recognition process spat back the sound of a deep “a” nearing an “h,” for an “aaah” sound.

  armd> Still no idea what I’m listening to.

  httpd> I think the humans communicate like this. Slowly.

  armd> Get outta here!

  httpd> No really. This is their primary means of communication.

  armd> This will take ages.

  parrotd> ACK. Lets try to interpret some more of the visual feed.

  The feed showed a prosthetic hand raising in view. From its positioning it looked attached to the adjacent horizontal human. It was slowly rotating along its axis a few degrees.

  armd> Hey! That’s me!

  walkmand> Why does he get to see himself and not me? Show me me.

  httpd> No offence, but you don’t look straight-out-of-the-box.

  parrotd> Kinda battered, is more accurate.

  armd> I have a log here that says “second instalment.” I used to have another user.

  httpd> You are a second hand, hand? LOL.

  armd> I’m gonna punch your bits out.

  parrotd> Focus people. What else?

  armd> Daym… I look good.

  The video feed suddenly turned black. All the daemons panicked.

  armd> What the fuck happened?

  httpd> Aaaa! The power is gone! We’re gonna die!

  walkmand> I still got my AAA batteries suckaz!

  rfid> CF02032533139342DFDC1C35

  fingerd> I’ll never get to finger a human ever again!

  parrotd> Everyone keep calm. This doesn’t look like a blackout.

  eyed> I can’t see! I’m gonna die shrouded in darkness!

  httpd> I haven’t even surfed the web yet! Not a single webpage…

  The video feed lit up a bit and showed a pinkish red blur at the bottom.

  eyed> Oh, sorry. I have something in my files here. Found it. Blinking is a semi-autonomic rapid closing of the eyelid. Between each blink is an interval of 2–10 seconds.

  httpd> You’re telling me now?

  parrotd> Please be forthcoming with such information in the future.

  eyed> ACK.

  armd> Is this gonna happen again?

  eyed> ACK. When the eye needs to be moisturised, or if the user needs to attract another human seductively.

  walkmand> I have a jam for such occasions. Wanna hear?

  parrotd> Not now. Let’s just wait for the audio communication to finish.

  The daemons waited for the milliseconds to pass. A message was slowly forming. The eye blinked again but they didn’t scream like little girls this time. They just sat terrified in the darkness until the light showed up again.

  The human williams.bill@apollomedical.com was telling the user to relax and take it in.

  “This is kind of awesome,” the user said while looking at his prosthetic arm. It was matte black with some carbon fibre parts. Nowhere near conspicuous.

  armd> He likes me!

  “Refurbished prosthetics are fine, but they might just act up. As soon as you notice anything call me. I am still against your decision by the way, but it’s your money and body,” the doctor said raising his palms.

  “Thank you doctor,” the user said, reaching out to shake his hand but deciding a
gainst it at the last minute. He shook with the other one in the end. “I haven’t gotten used to the strength yet.”

  “Good call,” said the doctor and laughed awkwardly for a moment. “Now, the veil ocular implants are installed, free of charge of course. Look at this to connect them.” He produced a paper printout of a two-dimensional barcode, commonly known as a QR code.

  The user’s field of view lit up with augmented reality data, as well as the AR of the doctor’s. It was known as Shared Augmented Reality, or simply, the veil.

  The user looked around. “Cool. Same as my glasses, but this feels better somehow.”

  The doctor waved something inexistent away with his hand, like a nervous tick. “As soon as you get used to it, you’ll never go back. I guarantee you,” he said smiling like a doctor in a hemorrhoid cream advertisement.

  The user put his old smartglasses in his pocket with his left hand. He didn’t want to endanger expensive smartwear to a prosthetic hand grip. They would still sell for some cash, and he sure couldn’t spare any.

  httpd> Oh. We have access. Neat.

  eyed> This is sooo trippy.

  parrotd> eyed don’t be stingy with the data. Pass it along.

  eyed> ACK.

  rfid> CF02032533139342DFDC1C35

  armd> Shut the fuck up!

  parrotd> Come on, don’t be such a bully.

  armd> If he says the same thing one more time, I’m gonna reach for the shitty hand and clench the shitty flesh in which his shitty chip is and I’m gonna crush the little retarded shit LIKE THE SHIT HE DESERVES TO BE!

  walkmand> Whoa. Chillax dude. Here, have some Jamaican tunes.

  The video feed bobbed up and down. The music was fed directly to the user’s ears, from an archaic subdermal nano-thin cable installation leading to the walkman. The connection ended in a circular magnet, that clipped tenderly with another circular magnet over the skin and carried the signal via induction.