MetaGame

by Sam Landstrom

  Shut it, D_Light replied.

  D_Light chuckled. “You want him to live with you, huh? Well, if he had any taste at all, he would take the trade. Fortunately for me, he’s just a stupid computer.”

  D_Light rested his head against the cool plexi floor and watched Lily’s delicate hand caress the cat’s faux fur for what seemed like an eternity. The LoveGas™, true to its color and name, was having a wondrous effect. Lying there beside the magnificent creature, D_Light was suddenly consumed by an overwhelming awareness that Smorgeous was beautiful. And not beautiful because of his advanced engineering or elegant design, but from the mere fact that he was Smorgeous and Smorgeous was intrinsically beautiful. Or maybe it was the graceful, supple fingers that meandered through his fur that made this picture so exquisite, or the dainty, welcoming hand to which the fingers belonged. The arm, perhaps? Muscular, yet soft and curvaceous. Certainly, that was beautiful.

  Countless millions of years of evolution culminating in the finest intersect of form and function. My Soul, the shoulder and the face…No, that is not her face, D_Light realized.

  D_Light moved in closer to Lily and whispered, “Take down your veil.”

  “Hmm?” Lily asked absently, still absorbed by the task of stroking the robot as though, with enough concentration and a refined technique, she could magically bring pleasure to the machine.

  Smorgeous pressed into D_Light’s mind, his voice warping slightly like an audiotape losing integrity. Master, the female is displaying unprecedented behavior. There is a high probability that she is under the influence of-

  Shhhh, D_Light sent back absently. One hundred and eighty thousand points for that cat and all its upgrades, and it tells me this? he thought.

  D_Light leaned in even closer to Lily and lowered his voice. “Your veil-take it off. I want to see your real face, your real hair.” He gently stroked her hair, winding a silky lock around his finger. His lips slowly wandered toward her ear, and he whispered, “Pleeeease.”

  Lily turned her head to face him, their faces only inches apart. “What about my disguise? I’m a demon, remember?”

  “Yes, you are a demon,” D_Light said slowly, using his best seductive voice, “a wonderful demon. I want to see the demon, the real demon. The one I saw under the tree this morning.” He ran a finger across her cheek, down her neck, and along one shoulder.

  Yesterday morning, Smorgeous corrected.

  “Lower yours and I’ll lower mine,” Lily answered coyly.

  D_Light lowered his veil before she had even finished her sentence. His dark, wavy hair was disheveled and sticking up in tufts. His chiseled olive-toned face appeared relaxed and free of worry. His dark eyes, fully dilated, resembled large glass marbles.

  Presently, Lily lowered her veil. Her long, blond locks suddenly seemed to free-fall from a net as the illusion lifted. Her big cobalt blue eyes resembled crystal gazing balls of old, and D_Light could not break free from their stare. They were dazzling, mesmerizing, and suddenly appeared much closer. His breath stopped. Neither of them moved, but Lily finally spoke. “They’re coming for us. We should run.” The words emerged softly, but with certainty.

  “Don’t care,” D_Light replied nonchalantly. He did not want to talk. He did not want to think. He did not want to run. The only thing he wanted to do at this very moment was indulge in this all-encompassing feeling of being pulled toward her, into her. He fell closer still, their lips nearly touching. He could feel the warmth of her sweet breath pass by his lips. His hand ascended to the crown of her head, and he gently ran his fingers through the beautiful locks that flowed down her side.

  Lily closed her eyes and stroked D_Light’s cheek with the tips of her fingers, leaving behind trails of a subtle but intoxicating scent. Now free from the enchantment of her eyes, D_Light was ensnared by her tranquil smile that highlighted her plump, luscious lips. “I think we should run now,” she repeated.

  Lily rose to her feet, pulling D_Light by the wrist. D_Light followed her lead and would have done so even without being physically coaxed. All he wanted right now was to be near her, and he would do whatever it took to keep her at his side.

  The couple floated toward the door as though carried along by the few remaining wisps of LoveGas™ that hovered low near the floor. Outside, people immediately gathered near them. Some of them murmured while others shouted, but D_Light could barely hear their congratulations. Such beautiful people. My Soul, the humanity! That thought echoed in his brain again and again, and while under normal circumstances he would have chastised himself for thinking such drivel, tonight he would congratulate himself for thinking it. Right now, in this very moment, he wanted to revel in the noise, the warmth, the sweat of his fellow man…and woman, yes, particularly the women. And although loveliness was spread out in all directions, it was the loveliness of Lily that he continued to follow. She was his siren.

  Meandering through the madness, Lily briefly let go of D_Light’s wrist to fend off the unwelcome advances of an intoxicated grokster, and in doing so she was suddenly enveloped by the crowd. D_Light shouted something unintelligible and, like a madman, scratched at his arm in anguish. He then launched himself at the human wall, ripped it apart at its seams, and shouted her name. There was laughter, shouts, and screams from those groksters he pushed aside. He found her almost immediately and grabbed at her wildly. She twisted out of his grip easily, caught his wrist again, and twirled him around. His back was now against her soft but strong frame. He could feel her moist lips, so full and so soft, slide across his ear. Whispering, she asked, “Do you remember this? Do you remember when I had you just this way? Should I have killed you then?” She gently bit the lobe of his ear.

  He heard an intoxicated shout from the wall of groksters around them. “Hey, me too! I want a biting!”

  D_Light’s mind was humming now that the effects of the LoveGasTM were nearing their peak. “You can kill me now if you want,” he said. He turned his head so that his cheek was against her lips. D_Light felt pathetic, but he did not care. The only thing he cared about at this moment was making Lily happy. Bodies forming the sea of groksters pressed into the couple from all sides.

  “Oh, never mind.” Lily’s eyes shimmered with tears as she laughed and pushed him away. “What were we doing?”

  “We were about to kiss, I think,” D_Light answered.

  “Oh, we were about to have some fun!” She grasped a handful of hair on the back of his head and pulled, forcing his face to tilt upward. Apparently, they had made their way to the front of one of the stages. Several performers were present, but the spotlight’s attention was on the two of them. Lily, as though it were perfectly natural, lifted herself up onto the stage.

  CHAPTER 25

  “OMG, that noob slut is on stage,” said Sweet_Ting, her voice metallic with irritation.

  Djoser sank back into his CumfiMoss™ chair as he slid his pelvis beneath the table. “What an entertaining surprise,” he declared.

  Lyra frowned and looked about nervously. “What the frag is she doing? Her veil is down! Is she trying to get caught?”

  Being that there were many stages in the groksta, the nobles instructed their familiars to zoom in on the one stage in question. Two performers, a man and a woman, had been singing a duet, but having seen that the celebrity was asserting control, they quickly retreated back into the shadows.

  Lily took her place on stage, swaying slightly, and adopted a serious, perhaps pensive look. “I want to dedicate this performance to the feeder fish of this lake,” she announced, her voice amplified by some unseen device. “You know the fish I’m talking about,” she teased. At this she puckered her lips and put her hands up against her chest and flapped them, simulating the feeble pectoral fins of the feeder fish.

  Unsolicited music emerged from nowhere, a rhythmic, deep bass vibrating the floor. Lily’s eyes opened wide as she heard this cue, and she belted out in a clear melodic voice, “Because the fish…” The bass

  cut
out and then a slow, heartfelt strum of an electric guitar played as Lily paused for a long moment and then belted out, “…are splendid!”

  The simulated guitar went wild, and the bass picked up again, ascending to a torrent of deep beating. It was at this point that Lily launched herself into the air. Jumping high, seemingly suspended in flight, she wiggled her body in the air like a great salmon jumping out of the water to make the next watery ledge. She leaped again and again, undulating in the air as the music continued at a frenetic pace.

  Perched upon a catwalk that overlooked the stage and the crowd, the generous mime fired his gas gun liberally upon them, causing a pink mist to settle over the entire area. The now LoveGased™ groksters nearest the stage, arms waving high in the air, crushed in tightly and screamed with pleasure.

  Lyra was speechless-almost. “Is this embarrassing to you?” She nodded toward the stage.

  “No, I’m good,” Djoser replied in a tight voice. Amanda was sitting beside him, and judging by the rhythmic movements of her shoulder, she was up to something under the table.

  Lyra sighed deeply and cringed at the sight of Lily. “This performance is bizarre, even by groksta standards.” She squinted her eyes a bit, unable to tear herself away from the odd performance, but also unwilling to commit her full vision to the spectacle. She then let out a terse chuckle despite herself, a chuckle that turned into a sudden gasp. “Oh frag, now D_Light’s getting up there! Someone tell me this isn’t happening!”

  Lyra turned her attention to Brian, who stood at attention at her side, his eyes glued to the performance below. “Brian, they’re making fools of themselves! This is not desirable. Go down there and…well, see what you can do.”

  Brian nodded in confirmation without removing his eyes from the stage. Then, like a menacing wind, he began deliberately dodging and pushing his way down the catwalk stairs toward the stage.

  Brian had no plan. None. In fact, he wasn’t even clear on the expectations of his mistress, but he did have an inexplicably strong urge to get closer to Lily. The style of her dance was not sexy, to say the least, but there was something about the way she moved that was alluringly innocent. Not innocent in a naive way, but in a way that assured the spectator that she was both good and uninhibitedly true to her goodness. Indeed, that seemed to be the effect on the crowd that gathered to watch. Some were laughing, which was obviously the intended effect, but many more were just staring slack-jawed or smiling unselfconsciously as though finally realizing something they had long been trying to work out.

  Like pink cotton candy, the LoveGas™ emanating from the mime and his bear on the catwalk above fell down over Treva and the rest of the crowd. If Treva had been a pharma grinder, she might have appreciated the significance of this. Not only was she being drugged, but the effects of LoveGas™ were not necessarily the same for humans as for products-products like her.

  All she knew was that she had a hunger, but not the typical hunger she felt on the hunt; rather, it was more intense and…strangely euphoric. She wondered if it was like sexual desire. Treva knew she had no interest in sex. In fact, her designers had not bothered to provide her with a vagina, only a narrow urethra for the purpose of urination. She had no clitoris, of course, as there was no point. Even the hypothalamus, the peach-pit-sized lump of brain tissue that was the key to sexual libido, had been altered to free her of any sex drive. And so this feeling that was growing in her, this titillation, this aggressive sensuality, was all the more bewildering.

  She wanted more.

  Treva followed her prey toward the stage, pushing her way to the front. Not wanting to attract attention, she did not use her formidable strength for this task, but instead she slowly wove through the frenzied groksters. She was drawn along toward the stage as inevitably as a leaf floats down a river, toward her destiny. And with each and every step, the seed within her grew. Her eyes locked on the girl, the one making the singing noise and the silly, exaggerated movements-movements that attracted Treva to her like a kitten drawn to a dancing string.

  Treva was a seeker, and as such she was trained for restraint above all else. Since seekers were born with the innate desire to hunt, they had to be trained in the discipline of self-control. Indeed, without restraint such products would be a dangerous liability. A world where products ran around chasing people and consuming them out in the open would be terrifying and would sow the seeds of fear and discontent, none of which were optimal to productivity among the populace.

  Treva knew what she should do, just like she always had. She would simply continue to watch her prey and wait for her opening. It was best to take the target when they were alone, where there was less likelihood of witnesses. Although dispensing with demons was perfectly legal, the Authority did not wish to see a slew of seeker-attack videos being published on the Cloud for their shock and horror value. A seeker who did not show proper restraint was punished appropriately, the punishment being simple yet effective. They were suspended from duty for a time commensurate with the infraction, a truly arduous punishment for one engineered for hunting. They were allowed their typical rations of intravenous food, but nothing more-not even feeder products used for training purposes.

  It was because of this conditioning in restraint that Treva now felt fear mixed with the thrill. As the traces of LoveGas™ continued to work upon her nervous system, her desire heightened, her inhibitions began to shut down, and all the layers that covered up her true nature were stripped away. Somewhere in the back of her mind she knew she would be punished, but when that girl-that meat puppet-sprang up, flipping in the air as though teasing, it was more than Treva could stand. It was then that the dam that held back her appetites shattered wide open and the floods came rushing in.

  Treva’s lips parted like they were attached to springs and she snarled, baring her long, deadly canines. She vaulted up onto the shoulders of a stocky grokster and launched off him onto the stage before he even realized he had been used as a springboard. With two leaps Treva closed the gap between herself and her prey; she pounced, but Treva was too confident and Lily too fast. Lily twisted in midair, and Treva clawed at her as she sailed through the air. The seeker scratched the meat with her steel-hard nails but was unable to get a grip on her prey, and Lily crumbled to the stage floor with a crash. Using the momentum from the tumble, she rolled back up on her feet just as Treva, now snorting with excitement, came back at her. Like a bull and a bullfighter, Lily dodged and swept aside the claws as her attacker flew past again.

  The crowd roared in a chorus of startled shrieks, gasps, and cheers.

  Judging by the fangs and the creature’s movements, D_Light immediately identified it as a product, which meant that it could legally be dispensed with. However, that was beside the point. The lovely Lily, the mistress of his soul, was under attack, and that thing wished to rend her flesh and sink its filthy teeth into her flawless bronze skin. The very moment that the creature was clear of Lily, D_Light threw a disc at it. The throw was hard and true, but the creature somehow ducked it and the disc sliced on through the air out into the groksta, perhaps to an innocent’s detriment. Never mind the discs anyway. The thing moved too fast, and he might inadvertently strike Lily. D_Light shouted as he unsheathed his dagger and charged at the seeker with the intent to kill.

  Treva saw D_Light coming. Normally, Treva would have swiped the throat of an attacker and let him bleed out in a whimpering pile, but she did not wish to take the time for that. Instead, charging at Lily for another pass, she leaped up and sent down a mighty kick that struck D_Light in the thigh and swept him off his feet. The impact spun Treva around, but she landed well and continued the charge. Rather than dodging to one side or the other as Treva expected, Lily ran straight at the seeker and, at the last moment, dove into a somersault, tucking herself into a compact ball that smacked Treva in the leg and knocked her off balance. As Treva struggled to keep her footing, she shrieked with rage. Several people from the audience taunted and threw food at her,
but her instinctual hyper-reflexes denied the jeerers any hits.

  D_Light was on the ground. The kick had been like a sledgehammer, and unbearable pain streamed up his leg. It was not broken, but there was something out of place that prevented him from standing up. D_Light looked desperately over at Lily and her attacker as they danced around the stage. Lily was not running, but she was not fighting either, merely evading. Perhaps she knew that if she retreated into the throng around her, the product would be on top of her. At least here on the stage there was room to maneuver. D_Light might have thought this to be true except that he suddenly realized that Lily was laughing. Laughing! And not the half-crazed kind of laughter belonging to someone whose stress response had overloaded. It was genuine, unabated amusement. She was amazing! Someone pelted D_Light in the back of the head with something soft and watery, but he did not care. He needed to save that wonderful girl!

  Treva’s prey was proving to be more of a challenge than expected. The hungry seeker had come on the stage to rip this human limb from limb with her bare hands and fangs, but the little girl was staying out of reach. Treva pulled out her stun baton, and the corrugated shaft extended with a rapid series of clicks. Appearing to be a simple rod, there was nothing remarkable about the weapon, but with one hit Treva could bring down a man far larger and stronger than this little fawn of a girl. All seekers had permits for modern weapons, specifically a “low-efficacy modern weapon permit.” That meant that Treva could legally use any weapon that fit the requirements of not being deadly, having limited range, and having a limited area of effect. Her baton fit the bill, but Treva soon wished she had a more potent weapon as the taunting little meat puppet continued to duck and weave, avoiding the seeker’s wild swings.

  With Lily in danger, Brian intensified his push to the front of the stage. It was his time. His time to do what he had trained all his life to do, and he was not about to miss this opportunity. He used the butt of Tiffany, his mace, to prod people aside and, upon reaching the stage, leaped up like a man clearing a high jump. The guard landed on his side and rolled up onto his feet in one graceful move. He heard cheering behind him. They think this is a theatrical performance, he sneered. A blink came in from Lyra, but he ignored it so that he could keep his focus on the task at hand. Although the woman swinging the baton at Lily had no product tats on her cheeks, Brian immediately recognized her as a combat-ready product, having fought so many in his training sessions. He knew how they moved, inhuman in the physics of their actions, although this one lacked the precision of most of her kind. Then a thought hit him: My Soul, Lily is a product too!