D_Light was grateful to be living in a day and age when artificial lights were unnecessary, when you could just patch into a skin to navigate in the dark without spraying photons everywhere-wasting them. He was grateful to be living in the age of nanosites, the technology that made this possible.
Indeed, nanosites were the only thing more ubiquitous on earth than dro-vine. They were far too small to be seen with the naked eye, but they were everywhere. Although these simple bots had limited capabilities, what they could do they did extremely well. Nanosites coated everything on the planet-every plant, every rock, every wall, every surface of everything. They climbed onto animals and people and then embedded themselves in the living tissue. As they travelled, looking for a place to plant themselves, they would listen to the tiny, short-range signals that emanated from brethren. Once they found a spot that was neither too close nor too far from others of their kind, they would plop down and stick to the surface on whatever object they had chosen. Once they had found a permanent home, they would send out their own “I am here” signal over and over until their energy source finally exhausted itself.
Nanosites spontaneously formed a regular pattern whereby every nanosite was exactly 0.694 millimeters apart from one another. Although this spacing might seem miniscule to a person, it is like an ocean of distance to a nanosite, which consists of a mere few thousand molecules itself. Together, their intensive global coverage and their talent for announcing their existence created a three-dimensional map of the world that software could easily understand. And they did this with greater precision than any satellite. More importantly, they marked moving objects in real time, whether outdoors or inside.
Hence, there was no need for artificial light at night in this contemporary world. The tiny, invisible chips implanted in D_Light’s eyes when he had his mind interface kit installed could “see” the nanosites and rendered for D_Light a perfectly accurate representation of his world in total darkness.
And it wasn’t just the ability to see, but also the ability to hear. By focusing his attention on a location covered with nanosites, it was likely that there would be some audio output there along with the visual. Even now, as D_Light scanned the vista below him, he heard a male’s voice calling, “Fighter needed. Join the Orc Slayers. Preferably a tank.” There was an icon next to the message hot spot indicating to inquire within. As D_Light’s eyes roved to the right of that message, a video of an armor-clad party of heroes battling a small army of nasties popped up, which arrested his eyes for a moment. This pause encouraged the pop-up to zoom in so that D_Light had the opportunity to see the action up close. This message was just a brag, a spanker willing to spend a few paltry points to display his proudest moments over his doorstep.
Messages like this, ones aimed at other spankers, had been barraging him whenever he was skinning, and since he was not there to spank, it was getting more than mildly irritating. It fact, it had become downright overwhelming, and he felt a slight headache coming on. Jacking out of the SkinWare, he let the world go dark again, save the meager glow of the moon and surrounding stars. He then picked up Smorgeous and held the cat up above the flowers so he could get a good look around. Smorgeous had better sensory hardware onboard than D_Light, and the familiar would not only be able to see everyone in sight, but he would also be able to get a good image of them for the purpose of grokking.
No longer using SkinWare, D_Light was now “realing,” meaning that now he saw only what his natural eyes could see, a meager vista of shadow and silver provided by the moon and stars. This was a little unsettling, but he fought his urge to immediately jack back in. Is this how the demon sees this place? he wondered. Demons typically did not have mind interface chips and therefore would not be able to jack into SkinWare. Maybe seeing the world like the demon did would yield a clue.
After a minute of staring down the mound at the gloomy landscape below, he shook his head and sighed. How depressing, he thought. He wondered how people years ago could stand such bland and colorless monotony. Just plants, rocks, and dirt. Can’t even see those things clearly at night. What did they have to think about?
Master, I have detected the emotion you’ve in the past labeled “sad and pointless dwelling.” Would you like me to take countermeasures?
No, D_Light answered as he jacked back into the base skin. The view sprang to life again, and he felt the pit that had been forming in his stomach ease.
D_Light was tired. He had been grinding hard through the night, and the peps he had been taking were beginning to wear off. The very moment this thought occurred to him, Smorgeous offered to give him another bump, but D_Light declined. He had an overwhelming urge to sleep. Just a tiny nap, he told himself. It was as good a time as any to go unconscious since he had time to kill before he could re-spawn into NeverWorld. He ordered Smorgeous to awaken him in twenty minutes, just long enough to feel refreshed, but not so long as to fall into a deeper slumber. Leaning with his back to the poplar tree, he slumped down in a heavy heap. His eyes closed before he even hit the ground.
Master, awaken. You have slept exactly twenty minutes. The voice was soothing, and it was as though it was coming from his own mouth. A sharp but not quite painful ping echoed in his mind, bringing him to a fully awakened state. There was soft pink in his vision, and so he opened his eyes as slits. The sun had just begun creeping up from behind the mountains on the horizon, a sliver of fire that straddled the distant precipices as though it wished to consume them. The glow warmed his face ever so slightly.
He had been dreaming, as he always did, of sailing on Terralova on a brilliantly sunny day, the wind just perfect. D_Light always looked forward to sleep because his dreams were always relaxing-a welcome respite from the intensity of the Game. He very much wanted to just close his eyes again and let the sun’s warmth ease him back to that place. Maybe just for a few more minutes.
Master, you still have a quest to finish. Do not let your teammates down. As his familiar relayed these words in D_Light’s mind, he hated the machine and its ability to read his thoughts. However, the hatred began to subside and give way to mere irritation as the pep Smorgeous had just given him began to work its chemi magic. D_Light had not asked for the drug. It was the sort of thing that made Smorgeous worth all the points D_Light had spent buying and maintaining his on-sale, higher-end familiar. Smorgeous knew what his master needed, as opposed to what he wanted.
D_Light stood up slowly but did not take a step, instead allowing himself a minute for the fog and heaviness of sleep to lift. The shadows cast by the multitude of flowers around him were long and getting deeper as the sun continued its ascension. A few more spankers had filtered out while D_Light had slept. It was rare for D_Light to be around spankers while not jacked in himself. Watching the drones as they careened about, intent only on their game, reminded him of a horror spank game he once played, a game that featured zombies. The similarity was eerie and a bit unsettling. He found himself breathing as shallowly as possible so as not to attract their attention. Reminding himself that they were not, in fact, zombies, he took in a series of deep breaths and let them out slowly. His uneasiness, however, did not leave him, and so he pushed himself off of the tree he had been leaning against and turned around in a circle, surveying the area with a heavy dose of paranoia.
He spotted a woman only one tree away. Her face was tilted up toward the sunrise, and her eyes were shut-not pressed shut in concentration as one communing with her familiar, but merely to avert gazing directly into the sun. D_Light realized that he had not seen her earlier because the trunk of the tree on which he had been leaning obscured his view. He assumed that she could not see him behind her closed lids, so he did not hesitate to stare. She was beautiful, fair, and there was an innocence about her that D_Light found alluring. Her long, blond locks, illuminated by the sun’s early light, shimmered like corn silk, and they commenced to slow-dance with the flowers and poplar branches stirring in the morning’s gentle breezes. Entranced, D_Light
could not take his eyes off the creature.
Master, as you have pointed out, a female in this male-dominated region is uncommon, and so I took the liberty of attempting to match her to an individual in the demon database. Result: no match found.
Still studying the mysterious woman, D_Light was about to ask Smorgeous to expand his search when the dutiful familiar informed him that he had already performed the task and had found no matches for anyone in the Cloud.
D_Light was perplexed. It was rare to come across a “nobody,” someone who had managed to remain completely anonymous to even the Cloud. Indeed, even a run-of-the-mill sideliner could usually be found somewhere in the Cloud. He scrutinized the woman again and quickly determined that she was no sideliner, as her face was entirely too perfect to be a descendant of a “native” bloodline. She must have had engineering in a recent ancestor-perhaps the last generation before human genetic engineering was banned.
He immediately thought that perhaps she was a concubine. That would explain why she was not found in the Cloud. In most cases, the owners of high-end concubines would spare no expense to scrub their property out of the Cloud or to give them fake identities. It added to their mystique. But something in his gut told him that that theory was incorrect, so he quickly discarded it. D_Light had rented his fair share of concubines, and this woman simply did not fit. First, the lines that framed her face were just a tad softer than they should be. For example, the Thesies line (a well-established concubine family that D_Light favored patronizing), although absolutely stunning, had defined, almost cruel lines which projected a nearly predatory look that declared, “I’m going to rock your world, little boy.” Of course, there was a variety of concubines to keep even the most jaded client interested, and this included more innocent-looking choices like this girl. However, D_Light had spent many hours over the years scouring catalogs and had never encountered one quite like this one. She must be custom built, he thought. She bore no visible product tats, but that was to be expected. Only the most ghetto rent-a-body products wore tats.
D_Light tilted his head and leaned further to one side in hopes of catching some clue as to the girl’s identity. He determined that while her looks did not completely rule out concubine, her body language certainly did. A high-end rent-a-body would not be caught dead carrying herself like this girl. Her back was arched like a bow, her arms hung loose and downward as though pulled by gravity with more force than the rest, and her face was turned upward into the light. In contrast, concubines always had a stock posture, which they vigilantly maintained-a tall and straight stance, chest lifted slightly, face tilted only a few degrees upward, and vacant eyes that were always fixed straight ahead. This was not so much a matter of training as it was instinct. Training cost resources and could be botched or unlearned, while DNA offered far better quality control.
She could be a human concubine, D_Light thought. They were much less common than their engineered counterparts, but they offered a uniqueness and spirit that their cloned competition could not. But what the hell is she wearing? She wore a long, black cloak that opened in the front to expose a cheap synthetic blouse with far too many flower imprints on it to be considered tasteful. No concubine, whether human or product, would wear that atrocity. Period. Still gawking at the hideous blouse/cloak combination, D_Light could make out a slender but athletic torso with somewhat larger than proportionate breasts. Clothes aside, this woman was striking-so striking that it had taken him far too long to notice the blouse.
A member of the Bergstrom family? Although typically not concubines, they were uniformly attractive, and most-for family branding reasons-had remained Northern European in their ancestry. They also happened to have a large house not fifteen miles from this location. D_Light furrowed his brow. The Bergstroms seemed unlikely. Again, that clothing! The Bergstroms were very socially conscious, and any family member who dressed like that would have been disowned without hesitation. Unless it’s some sort of hazing ritual, D_Light thought. Every family had its own entrance requirements for new player draftees. An interesting thought, but still not likely. The Bergstroms were devout and thus rarely idle; this woman was just standing there. Also, D_Light had never seen a Bergstrom without a familiar nearby.
It was all very mysterious, and D_Light felt frustration at the realization that despite all of his scrutinizing and hypothesizing, he was still no closer to an identity for this girl than when he first set eyes on her.
D_Light decided it was time to take a different approach. He thought it would be useful to initiate a conversation in order to gain some additional clues. He was then about to spout off some inane remark about the weather when he stopped himself. He had a better idea. Smorgeous, publish a new game challenge to my usual contacts. The challenge is to correctly guess this girl’s family. If no one gets it before she tells me, I win. Ante-in is a thousand points. Give ’em a real-time feed from me, but limit it to audio and visual only.
Smorgeous pinged confirmation, and D_Light leaned back against the tree and waited quietly. The girl remained still.
Yo, Dee, count me in! D_Light heard a familiar voice in his mind.
The generic game mediator followed this with, K_Slice has joined the game.
Easy points, Dee, K_Slice chimed in with a Taunticon™. I say there is no family. She’s a sideliner for sure. I mean, what the hell is she wearing?
I’m on this bitch, relayed another familiar voice.
TermaMix has joined the game, intoned the artificial game mediator.
Come on, K, you got no judge of character, declared a cocky TermaMix. Sideliner? That bitch is way too raw to be one of those crack hippies! She’s gotta be sellin’ all that lushness to the spankies. That cloak she’s wearing, whew! That’d turn them on for sure. TermaMix sent the blink and followed it up with a micro-archive of him doing a stupid, taunting dance that resembled running backward in the air.
The debate continued over the next few minutes as D_Light peeked around the tree at the woman in question. Additional players joined-C, Flava_God, Boo_Girl, Blitz, and Sugar_Papa. Players anted in and additional bets were made. When D_Light thought enough interest had accumulated and the pot was sweet enough, he decided it was time to break the ice. He pushed off from his tree and came out into the open.
“Is there something I can help you with?” she asked. The girl did not move, nor did she so much as open her eyes.
D_Light was caught off guard, completely shocked and speechless. Soul knew for how long she had been aware of his surveillance of her. She must have a familiar nearby. Maybe she was a Bergstrom after all. If so, D_Light decided it was best to be direct, logical, and honest.
“Um, because you are beautiful, I prefer to look at you more than anything else currently available. I apologize for staring. I meant no disrespect. I, um, I didn’t think you would notice.” D_Light scrunched up his face and smacked himself lightly on the forehead for stammering and sounding like an idiot.
As he finished speaking, the girl’s eyes shot open and she turned her head to look at him, hard. Only her head moved. Her body remained slumped as though so content with its current position that it refused to obey its mistress. She seemed surprised, puzzled even.
Wow, creepy and stalker-like, Dee. Way to work it, K_Slice said over the game chat, finishing off the remark with a nOObicon™. D_Light put the chat on mute.
There was an awkward silence. Then, all at once, the wrinkle in her brow dissolved and her lips relaxed, although she did not smile. Her body straightened, and she took a slow step toward D_Light. The dawn’s light colored her face pinkish, and her skin glowed. Now that she was fully facing him and a touch closer, he could see her with greater clarity. Yes, her features were indeed soft. Soft, but not weak, like a torch’s flame that gently flickered to entrance an onlooker-just before burning him.
“So I’m about the best thing around here, huh?” The woman casually stretched out her languid arms and swept them about, looking back at him pointedly w
ith large, unflinching blue eyes.
D_Light felt stupid now. That’s what I get for gawking, he thought. Oh well, e veryone comes off as a fool from time to time. Since he did not live here, chances were he would never see this woman again anyway. So why not play the idiot? He had nothing to lose and everything to gain, especially all those points floating around in the guessing game he was hosting. He noticed more bets were being placed. Apparently, the players were excited by this first exchange.
D_Light took a breath and nearly shouted, “Yeah, you are! I mean, don’t get me wrong, these are great!” He waved to one of the vacant-eyed zombies who stood several meters down the mound. The spanker to which he motioned was a man who was crouching down, apparently spying intently on an unseen menace.
A silken laugh suddenly erupted from the amused girl. “Fine then, you don’t look so bad either, I suppose, for a-” Her voice had been confident and smooth, but then she stopped suddenly like a sprinter at his finest hour rushing full into a stone wall. Just then her smile, a byproduct of laughter, vanished, and her nose crinkled. Her eyes flashed.
A moment passed, and then it was D_Light who was puzzled. “For a what?” D_Light leaned in inquisitively. He saw what could be a look of disgust on her face. He repeated the question. “Don’t leave me hanging. Not bad for a what?”
“Well, for a male, I meant to say. Your kind is not exactly what anyone would call beautiful.” She shook her head as if in mock sadness.
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