Chapter 18
Eve was right; the lower deck was nothing like Nathan had imagined and there was no orgy going on anywhere he could see, just a normal social party.
“Ah, Nathan, you finally decided to join the party,” Pierre said. “Where is Amy?”
“She is talking to a new friend about Three Men in a Boat,” said Nathan.
Eve led Nathan through the noisy crowds towards the tail end of the deck. “So do you believe me now?” asked Eve.
“It seems that way, but are you telling me that there is nothing going on here?” said Nathan.
“Well, Nathan, these are all adults and they decide what they want to do; of course there is plenty going on here, you just can’t see it.”
“Really? But where?”
“Nathan, this is a digital world. Let me show you the secret.” Eve took him to another flight of stairs and went down to the lower deck.
The scene took Nathan by surprise; a hundred men and women were crowded in the large hall, talking, hugging and kissing; some were one-on-one but many were involved in a multiparty embrace. Frequently, these entangled bodies would bump the panel door opening and disappear inside. So here was the comrade love-sharing party.
“Sorry, Eve, it’s too crowded for me here and I need some fresh air…” Nathan was cut short by Eve’s lips. She held his neck tightly and sealed his mouth with a true French-style kiss.
“Oh…please stop…” Nathan tried to get free from Eve’s embrace, but her grip was quite strong, and then she pushed forward, sending both of them crashing through a door on the panelled wall.
Inside the door, there was a room like a hotel suite. Nathan hadn’t had time to survey the surroundings because Eve was still holding him tightly and kissing him passionately. Their bodies crashed forward, bumping into the wall; the wall opened up another panel door. Before they fell inside, to his surprise, the corner of his eye caught two other people in the room. They were tangled together, kissing each other the same way he and Eve were doing, but that wasn’t the surprising part. The surprising part was that these two looked exactly like Eve and him, a copy of each of them.
Nathan didn’t have time to think. Their bodies landed on a double bed in another hotel suite-like room. As soon as they were settled on the surface of the bed, Eve pushed Nathan down and straddled him. She put her hand to her face, and pulled her facemask off. Nathan couldn’t believe his eyes: in front of him, the blonde Eve had suddenly changed into the red-haired girl in his dream. She was Mary O’Brian.
Mary didn’t give Nathan much time to think. “Take your mask off,” she commended with a throaty voice.
Nathan did as he was told, showing no resistance at all; this even surprised himself. Before he managed to take a deep breath, Mary sealed her lips over his. Staring at her blue eyes just an inch above him, Nathan felt heatwaves starting to boil up inside him; he held her cheeks with both hands and kissed her back with equal force, and soon they had both sunk into their own world.
Nathan lay on the bed, still in a state of shock; he couldn’t believe what had just happened. The girl he had dreamed about since he had seen her in the bar in Amsterdam was actually right in front of him, in the process of putting her clothes back on her naked body. She was the most beautiful girl he had ever met in his life, with an almost Barbie-like body, full breasts, thin waist, long legs, but not her face. The piercing blue eyes under the red hair emitted toughness and determination, absolutely nothing like a doll.
“Hi, Mary.” Nathan felt a bit awkward speaking her name for the first time. “That was a wonderful experience, the best in my life.”
“Me too; I also enjoyed it very much.”
“You know what? It’s also my first sexual experience in the last fifteen years.” Nathan knew it wasn’t completely true, because from his personal viewpoint, it’d only be a couple of weeks, despite the fact fifteen years had passed for the rest of the world. He said it to impress her.
“Really? How?” Mary just put her jeans back on.
“Well.” Nathan thought for a moment. Although desperately wanting to impress her more, in the end he decided not to tell her about Master Wuwei; he told her the same story as he had told everyone else.
“Oh, that’s why you are an OBU virgin,” Mary said thoughtfully while putting her last piece of clothing on.
Despite the fact that they had just made love, the atmosphere had changed, not like the romantic aftermath Nathan had imagined. Looking at Mary, who was now fully dressed, Nathan rolled off the bed, and put his own clothes back on as fast as he could manage.
“Sorry, Nathan, for being so abrupt,” said Mary. “What just happened was not part of my mission; I just couldn’t restrain myself. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Of course not. As I just said, it’s the best thing that has happened to me in my whole life.”
“All right, Nathan, I assume you know something about who I am and what we are doing.”
“Yes, I have done some Internet research, so I have some rough ideas.”
“Yeah, right, trust your little Internet research to tell you the truth,” Mary said.
“Well, of course I don’t completely believe what I found but it’s a starting point.”
“Nathan, do you want to know the truth?”
He didn’t say anything, simply nodded.
“Nathan, tell me what you have found out about me.”
The question made him feel a bit awkward. “I searched and they all said you are…”
“A terrorist, right? Please don’t feel awkward about it; I am used to people calling me that.”
“All right.” He felt the words flowing more easily. “You belong to an organization called Salvation of Humanity, or SOH, that claims OBU will eventually destroy humanity, so the only way to save the human race is to totally destroy OBU.”
“Go on,” said Mary.
“SOH has carried out terrorist activities around the globe to sabotage OBU utilities, and has caused innocent casualties along the way.”
“What about me?” Mary gazed at Nathan.
“Well, it seems that your group’s methods are quite different from the old bombing and shooting tactics. Instead you employ high-tech attack strategies, such as releasing computer viruses into OBU, and those have appeared to be relatively successful.”
“Anything else?” Mary stood up, pacing a bit in the confined space.
“Well I found thousands of threats, but those are the main points.”
“Okay, what’s your view on me?” Mary stopped pacing, coming to a stop standing right in front of Nathan.
“Well, it’s rather difficult and awkward to say.”
“All right, this may make it easier for you: tell me your opinion about OBU. Do you think it’s good or evil?”
“As I mentioned, I have only really known about OBU for the last couple of weeks, so my experience is very limited. However, from what I have seen, heard and experienced, although OBU is not a perfect world, it has solved the biggest threats to modern society, such as global warming and other environmental disasters.”
“That’s totally understandable, particularly from your background. So you think it’s wrong for us to try to destroy OBU?”
“Well, from an environmental and especially pollution-focused point of view, I think OBU has done a marvellous job.” Nathan avoided answering her question directly.
“All right, let’s discuss that more later. Nathan, do you think that people now have more freedom than before?”
“It seems that people are free to go anywhere and do anything as long as they are within the boundaries of the law.” Nathan didn’t look Mary in her eyes while speaking these words.
‘Illusions. What you perceive is what they want you to perceive; none of that is the truth but distorted and censored information.”
“Please explain.”
“On the surface, OBU is a paradise that gives people ultimate freedom to say and do anything they like; wh
ilst most people are using OBU to realize their sexual fantasies, and I have to agree it’s the biggest sexual revolution in human history, fewer and fewer people know or care about what is going on behind the scenes.”
“Behind the scenes?” asked Nathan.
“Yes, everyone is being closely watched and monitored. OBU is like Big Brother, it’s the perfect world to get everyone in check.”
Nathan thought about it for a moment. “I suppose that it’d be necessary to monitor unlawful activities.” He looked away from her.
“But it’d be a different story if they were using OBU to censor different opinions and crush freedom of speech.”
“I haven’t heard about that.”
“No, you wouldn’t have, and that is exactly the point,” said Mary.
Mary sat down next to Nathan, so close that he could smell her body fragrance. Nathan was embarrassed to sense the reaction from his body, so he adjusted his position to hide his awkwardness.
“It’s true that people are free to say whatever they like anywhere in OBU without bearing any consequence for two reasons: one is that freedom of speech guarantees people this right; the second and the real reason is that it is impossible to monitor everyone’s activities and every word they speak—the amount of data required would make that task unattainable. As a result, OBU would only be able to check on some limited targets, not the general population.”
“So we do have freedom in OBU after all,” said Nathan in relief.
“Don’t be so fast to draw your conclusions,” Mary said. “When you talk in a bar, at a party or in a gathering, you are only able to speak to a limited audience, but when you put your opinions or ideas on the Internet, news sites, blogs, or any of these mass message sites, Big Brother can flex its powerful muscles. They can filter and censor every single thread, news article and conversation on these sites. Which is relatively easier compared to people’s personal interaction data in OBU.”
“Are you telling me that people can say whatever they like in OBU to other people but are unable to spread their messages to a large-scale audience?”
“Yes, that’s exactly what has happened in the OBU age.”
“What would happen if someone tried it?”
“Depending on the seriousness of the message, the message would be eliminated immediately and the person would be interrogated, imprisoned or even assassinated if required.”
“Assassinated? Are you telling me the government would assassinate their own citizens?”
“Who would know the truth? Every day there are thousands of people who die of drug overdoses or in various other accidents, so it’s not so difficult for the secret police to kill a few dissidents and hide the deaths among those incidents.”
“Do you have any evidence to support your claims?”
“It’s difficult to collect evidence from others, but we do have firsthand data related to our organization. I know you would say it’s a different story because SOH is a terrorist organization, but doesn’t every citizen have the basic human right of a fair trial and presumption of innocence? I can tell you countless cases where the secret police killed first and asked questions afterwards.”
“Were the people attacking you in the bar the secret police?” asked Nathan.
“Yes, they were OBU field agents, elite assassins who are equipped with the latest deadly weapons and technology in OBU.” Mary paused; Nathan didn’t ask any questions so she continued. “That’s why you haven’t been able to see or hear anything from SOH, the reason why we are trying to destroy OBU. Anyway, the lack of freedom of speech and the censorship are not our main reasons to launch this war against OBU.”
“What’s the reason then?”
“Nathan, OBU is slowly destroying humanity; if nobody does anything to stop it, in a few decades, the human race will be wiped from the surface of the earth.”
Out of Body Universe - Part One Page 20