by Ginger Booth
A greying man in coveralls approached and stood staring at her performance, arms crossed.
“I was going to tell you about an incident on the way here,” Kassidy continued, raising an eyebrow at her closeup drone. “But I have an onlooker. Hello, sir! Mind if I talk to you on camera?”
“No.”
Of a naturally buoyant disposition, Kassidy took that as a yes and sent the closeup drone zooming toward him. He flinched away. “What the fuck?”
“I’m Kassidy Yang. Video star from Mahina Actual. You’ve seen me on the…no?”
“Left MA six years ago. While you were in high school.”
“College actually,” Kassidy corrected. “Want to say hi to friends and family back home? Just talk to the camera.”
He flipped his middle finger at the drone with a glare. “I said no, bitch. Get your camera out of my face.”
“What does it take to connect with these people?” Kassidy murmured. “Hey, sir! I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you.”
He didn’t bother to glance back, but offered another middle finger over his shoulder.
Kassidy swallowed. OK, no closeup cameras until after she’d established rapport. Which might be after the heat death of the universe. She instructed the two cameras to film only her. Her forehead dot camera captured her viewpoint.
She approached the first bench facing the atrium with a friendly smile. Two men sat there, possibly a gay couple, both brown-skinned, one gray-haired, the other looking MA-normal like herself. A hall-mopping cart stood beside him. No cleaning bots?
“Hello! I’m Kassidy Yang.”
“Oh, wow,” the younger said, Vandam according to his name tag. His dull khaki outfit looked custodial to go with the wet mop set. “She’s got a following rego-side. Stunts and crap,” he explained to his companion, Washington. “Rah rah Mahina.”
The elder Washington snorted. “What do you want?”
“I was wondering how to make friends and get to know people here. Do you have bars? Places to go play?”
Vandam leaned forward on his thighs. “This here’s the gay side of the atrium. Girls hook up over that way.”
Washington frowned. “I don’t think that’s what she meant. You want to make friends. Not friends.”
“Little early for a drink, huh?” Vandam returned.
“The mess halls turn into bars at nineteen hundred,” Washington allowed.
Vandam sized her up. “You want to be safe in your own rack by then. You hope.”
“She’s not a member, sweetie,” Washington argued. “She came on that skyship. A visitor.”
“Oh. Then you really, really don’t want to visit the mess halls after nineteen hundred. Not alone.”
“Not exactly safe alone during the work day,” Washington concurred. He rose, with a stretch and a yawn. “Speaking of which.”
“Yeah, I ought to get back to work. Nice to meet you, Kassidy Wang.”
“Yang.”
“Whatever. Bye-bye.” Vandam twiddled his fingers in a cutesy wave.
Kassidy stared after them, then stared her camera in the eye. “I’m thinking granny Sass may have given good advice.” She paused and decided on a retake. “Granny is a bad joke. I’m thinking Captain Sass may have given good advice.”
To Kassidy Yang, this was a novel and gut-wrenching sensation. She was afraid to walk back to the ship alone.
10
Symptoms of radiation poisoning include vomiting, diarrhea, nausea, loss of appetite, feeling unwell, headache, and rapid heartbeat.
“Wow, this is small,” Benjy said, clambering into Mossman’s rack. “But nice. I like your posters.”
The coffin-like ‘rack’ was allotted an orbital crewman to the end of his days. Except for a handful of officers, this was all the cabin they got. It measured 1.25 x 1.25 x 3 meters, which allowed a fair bit of personal storage behind a privacy curtain. The half meter wide passageway between bunks was claustrophobic. The bottom compartments were floor level. Each provided a screen, and a VR hookup.
Benjy hadn’t spotted anyone he knew down in recycling. Crew on the engineering deck pointed out that station personnel were taking leave today just like he was, exhausted from the grueling marathon to clean the food cycle piping. But someone contacted Mossman for him. D’Onofrio was ‘jacked in,’ he was told, and couldn’t be reached. But her partner Mossman seemed alright.
The small posters along the inside edge of the bed featured a fantasy battle scene and two gorgeous landscapes from Earth. One showed deep orange canyons, the other white surf and turquoise waters from a pink sand beach. From what Benjy understood, gorgeous vistas like those were long gone before his people left the old world. The facing side of the rack was a heavy grey drape, which Mossman yanked closed.
His host faced him cross-legged at the foot end of the claustrophobic bunk. “Home sweet home. We’re not supposed to have guests in our racks. So you’re into me?”
“I – what? D’Onofrio offered to hook me up in VR here. She’s not available.”
Mossman sized him up. “Yeah. Got it. You need a handle. That’s going to be your deepest darkest secret here, who you are in virtual. But I’ll know, if I’m showing you around.”
Benjy considered briefly. “Costly, as my handle.”
“Damn, man, you shouldn’t have said that out loud.” He used a cable to load software onto Benjy’s system. “Jack in over here.”
The younger man donned his tactile gloves and plugged in his visor. Awkwardly, both of them managed to sit up against a back corner, with their legs angled across the bed, feet kicking out the privacy drape just a little.
“You really get lost in this VR, huh?” Benjy said. “Normally I use it in overlay mode, still have the real world peeking through.”
“No, this is wholly immersive,” Mossman assured him. “None of the baby wheels and restrictions down on the regolith. Set the timer for 2 hours?”
Benjy narrowed his eyes. He got a weird vibe off this guy. “Maybe a half hour for the first round. After that I can jack in from the Thrive, right?”
“Yeah, whatever. Login and I’ll find you at the training grounds. Hurry it up on character creation, alright? You can change it up later.”
Benjy conceded the point. A connoisseur, he tended to spend hours sampling every variation on offer when creating a new avatar. This time he opted out of the introduction sequence – Mossman was waiting – and rolled three random avatars before he found a toon he was willing to play for a half hour. Some of the other races available looked boss, but Benjy preferred playing human. He liked to grab exercise in virtual during his study breaks. That worked better as a human male than some weird body plan. He flipped only a few more options to make his avatar appear mostly like himself. Of the first 10 random outfits suggested, the black leathers looked tough.
He named himself Costly, chose the generic character class ‘adventurer,’ declined several more tutorial offers, and exited to the training grounds. Where he immediately received an offer to team with Shorteyes.
“Took you long enough,” Mossman muttered in stereo, both through the VR gear and in life beside him, confirming Shorteyes was the right player. “I don’t use this toon often, so don’t go thinking you got something on me.”
Benjy wasn’t sure what to make of that. “OK. Now what? Weapons?”
“Nah, do that on your own time. This way.”
Shorteyes led Costly across a lush rolling field of penny-ante practice mobs – level 1 rats to hack and slash. Benjy was surprised at the haptic sophistication. He felt the muscles in Costly’s legs, the pull of the leather as he moved. This was a whole different league of sensation immersion than he’d experienced in VR before. He even felt the grain of the wooden gate as they stepped out of the training field into town. He never knew his VR rig was capable of such sensory realism.
“Whoa.” He wasn’t in Poldark anymore, that was for sure. Rather than the typical medieval theme village, they entered a night
-time city that reminded him of old movies of New York. Dangerous neighborhoods, oily dark streets crowded with tough characters. He quickly saw how to distinguish players from the NPCs – the characters operated by the game artificial intelligence. As they passed a corner populated by NPCs named ‘Hooker,’ one grasped his crotch.
With a shock, Benjy felt that, too. “Uh…”
Shorteyes replied, “Taking you to the PvP action.” He meant player versus player. “Though the hookers aren’t bad.”
He went on to recommend several specialized Hooker characters to keep an eye out for, such as the male hookers named Hooker Feller Tio.
This discussion sailed over Benjy’s head. “I don’t know how to fight yet. In PvP, I’d just get slaughtered, wouldn’t I?”
“Not that kinda PvP,” Shorteyes assured him. “In here.”
He led the way into a nightclub called ‘Meat Market.’ The facade featured glowing neon tubes showing sexual motifs, male and female, and martini glasses. “Gay action across the street. And variations. Just look at the pictures on the windows.”
And suddenly Benjy – Costly, really – was inside a dark nightclub engaged in a full-scale orgy. Shorteyes blithely continued on, pointing out couples copulating on the tables to left and right. He explained how he kept female and male toons, younger and older, to attract what he was in the mood for. He pointed out a number of doors leading to specialized pursuits young Benjy had never dreamed of.
Not in Poldark anymore… The young man’s small town on the moon dust offered a couple sluts he didn’t like. Nothing like this.
“So what do you want?” Shorteyes concluded the tour near the bar.
“Um, beer is fine.” A well-endowed topless NPC bartender nodded and drew a beer for him on tap, the foam wetting her breasts. Benjy found this entirely distracting as she pushed him the mug. He took a deep gulp. The sensory immersion wasn’t as realistic as touch, but he did taste beer, and cold running down his throat. Damn!
He’d lost track of what Shorteyes was saying until the other character grabbed his crotch.
Benjy immediately jacked out of the game world on reflex. He yanked off his VR goggles. He glanced at Mossman for a split second. He very much did not want to be here anymore by the time Mossman could disconnect.
He grabbed his stuff and fled the rack module, heart pounding.
What the hell?
He gained the relative safety of the public passageway. But he stared at the passers-by and swallowed. During his days as a plumbing assistant, everyone – everyone – assured him that they spent their downtime in their racks, jacked into virtual.
The young man had a sudden radically different perspective on these people shuffling along their daily business. A couple guys paused to look him over and sneer at him.
Player versus player indeed.
Heart pounding, he checked a locator map on the bulkhead. Hydroponics, atrium – maybe he’d find Eli there. Not that Eli felt ‘safe’ exactly. Benjy was still a bit leery of the scientist ever since that unfortunate incident in his Mahina Actual lab, when Benjy got a snoot-full of burning caustic dust and started bleeding everywhere.
But he was fairly sure Eli didn’t want to molest him. Worst case, he might have to wash algae slime off some glassware. Benjy had learned his lesson about sticking his nose into unknown chemicals.
He hurried off toward the atrium.
“Benjy! Thank God!” Kassidy hollered, as the haunted-looking youth stumbled into the atrium area. “I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you!” She seized him by the arm.
The feeling was mutual. But Benjy wanted Eli, not Kassidy. His unwelcome new perspective on the private lives of the station crew suggested an attractive young woman was the wrong protector here. “You seen Eli?”
“No,” Kassidy admitted. “He said he was going to retrace his steps from his tour to measure his radiation exposure.” She’d forgotten all about her dosimeter in the face of more pressing threats. Getting raped here was a real possibility.
Benjy pulled out his pocket communicator, on speaker. “Eli, it’s Benjy, with Kassidy. Are you on level 6?”
“Back on the Thrive,” Eli replied. “What do you need?”
“Um…”
“We could use someone to walk us home,” Kassidy broke in. To hell with acting brave.
“Did you consider the captain? Abel?” Eli returned dryly.
Benjy and Kassidy exchanged moues of irritation. “Fine,” Benjy growled, and pressed the disconnect.
“Don’t,” Kassidy said, hand on his before he could make another call. “They’ll lock us on the ship. I mean, I don’t want to give up our freedom now. Just…”
“I’d be good with staying on board,” Benjy declared in heartfelt decision.
“Please?” Kassidy crooned. “We have each other. We’ll be OK. Here, let me interview you at the atrium!”
Feeling conspicuous as hell, Benjy allowed her to pose him by the jungle railing. “Downtown Mahina Orbital. Where everything that’ll bite you is hidden from view,” he quipped.
He took out his dosimeter morosely and checked it. The reading was a little higher than he expected. He waved it for Kassidy’s benefit. “Don’t hang out in engineering.” He shoved the device back in his pocket.
“Did you find your girlfriend?” Kassidy asked. “Isn’t he adorable, fans?”
Benjy’s eyes met the overhead instead of hers. “No, she wasn’t available. I found another guy to help me lose my virginity in local VR.”
Kassidy laughed nervously. “We’ll assume he’s speaking figuratively! What’s your favorite part of MO so far, Benjy?”
He gulped. The EVA was terrifying. Days of slime and plumbing supplied the grossest experience of his life. The food was horrifying. The whole place smelled about how you’d expect, maintained by a bunch of porn addicts who’d given up on life. “The view. Yeah, the view of Mahina is breathtaking. This atrium is nice. You, Kassidy? What do you like?”
“Always fascinating to meet new people,” she assured him. She tried to think of something else and gave up. “Have you eaten in the mess halls again? To check out how different the food is after cleaning?” She digressed to fill in Alice and Josh, Beauregard and Eliza, on Benjy’s recent adventures with pressure hoses and icky pipes. “Does it taste better now?”
“I haven’t checked,” Benjy admitted. A thousand percent improvement couldn’t lure him to eat their food again. He craned his neck back to peer into the upper reaches of the atrium. “Maybe we could jump up there?”
“I got chewed out for using my grav on station,” Kassidy confessed.
“Uh, yeah, the natives don’t carry personal grav generators. The whole station is at one g. I guess the night life is supposed to be pretty wild. In the evenings after dinner, the mess halls are left open to socialize. Drinking and gambling and stuff.” He had a sudden vision of them staging a live action version of the VR meat market. Without Sass and Abel to hide behind, he wouldn’t dare check it out. Kassidy was bait, not protection.
“I think that’s a wrap for here,” Kassidy concluded. “Should we cut through the crop hydroponics back to the stairs?”
They both considered the narrow access aisles between gurgling crops. Somehow brightly lit corn and beans never looked so sinister.
“Main passageway, I think,” Benjy declared. “That way. Oh, hey, there’s a gym! On deck 4. Yeah, they play handball and stuff there. For exercise they climb the stairs, I think.”
“Let’s do it!” Kassidy exulted. “Handball! That sounds wholesome.”
Benjy dolefully wondered how long it would take for anything to look wholesome to him again. But arm in arm, they set off on the main thoroughfare. Kassidy told the camera drones to stick close and highlight them, clearly recording.
Benjy allowed how shaming the natives was worth a shot. But he bet the local degenerates would try to cop a feel anyway, especially on the pretty girl. There sure weren’t many women here. The few fem
ale crew looked hostile or tended to cringe away.
Offices and medical made deck 4 seem a little less sinister. The two of them even managed to play a few volleys of handball. Joking around, Kassidy managed to restore her native showboat charisma for a few minutes. But they drew all eyes like a magnet in the open space.
Benjy missed the ball and let it roll. A guy dove for it and kept it, tossing it in the air one-handed. “Want it back?” he called.
“No, we’re done, thanks!” Benjy returned cordially. “Kassidy, time to go,” he muttered.
They ignored everyone who yelled at them not to run in the halls. They didn’t stop until they were back safe in the Thrive’s hold.
Hearing them come in, Sass stepped out of the engine room and racked her black goggles. “Back already? Did we have fun?” She beamed at them.
Benjy and Kassidy traded glances. “Yeah.” “Great!” “Fascinating.”
“Oh, look at the time!” Kassidy said firmly. “I have work to do.”
Benjy hustled up the ladder to the cabins right behind her, eager to escape into the privacy of his bunkroom. With Copeland in the auto-doc, he had the whole 8-bed suite to himself. He shut the doors to corridor and bath.
He flopped onto his day mattress, hands behind his head, and stared at the underside of his night bed above. Step by step, he reviewed how he found himself in that rack with Mossman. He wondered if ‘Shorteyes’ meant something. He relived the brief and lurid stroll through the nightclub orgy. His imagination stuck again on the NPC bartender’s bust.
I shouldn’t do this. I’ve got finals soon.
As a straight-A sophomore at Mahina University, distance education branch, Benjy was equipped for a full semester and a half abroad. He could stretch that another semester with a few text messages to his advisor. Eli and Copeland supervised his lab assignments. A student of regular habits, he rarely let himself get a single day behind on his studies. But he’d fallen to bed exhausted at night during the great plumbing adventure. Today Sass gave him the day off.