Earth Seven

by Steve M

  “There we go” said the small man with a smile. “It shows you are somewhat of a traditionalist, but with a healthy level of curiosity.”

  “That’s good isn’t it?” she asked expectantly.

  “Indeed. It’s prefect. You profile suggest that you begin in one of the TR rooms.”

  “TR?”

  “Traditional Romance” he replied. “But only for the first half of your time here. It recommends you spend the second half in one of the Ten Thousand rooms.”

  “Oh my” she said and raised her hand to her face.

  “If I might offer a word of caution, please be very careful which TT room you enter. From your profile I’d choose one of the CONSENT rooms.”

  “Consent rooms?”

  “The people in those rooms come up and ask if its ok first” said the man.

  “And in the other rooms?”

  “It is assumed that you gave your consent when you chose to enter the room. Anything that happens while you are in the room is considered fair play.”

  “Oh goodness. I’ll avoid those for certain.”

  “Advisable Heuris. Maybe on a later visit…if you are curious. We have special 20 tox packages that are popular with the curious but undecided.”

  “Yes, maybe next time” she said with a giggle.

  “Shall we?” asked the man and motioned for her to take his hand.

  She took his hand and they walked deeper into the building until they reached the elevators. They went to the fourth floor. It was very pretty blue on the walls of the building. They stepped out and the elevator changed from an elevator into a solid blue wall like the rest of the hall way.

  “It’s just down here” he said and looked up at her and smiled.

  Heruis spent many tox with one of the men in the TR room. He was incredibly handsome. And that was the thing about VR, it takes the real image of the person and morphs it into a VR image of how we all want to look. You know that really good looking actress or actor that looks like you a little? In VR you look a lot more like them than you normally do. If you look at yourself while you in VR you will still recognize yourself mostly, but you will be more busy admiring how damned good looking you are. Robert was so damn good looking that there was no way he could possibly be ugly in real life. And best of all, he weighed nothing in VR.

  I won’t share the details of her time there but will merely remark that she more than made up for her experience with that bastard Stanley. She spent a total of 200 tox at Aphroditto. And that was the source of the problem.

  By her own reckoning and careful planning, she had only spent 150 tox in VR. When she was asked to sign off on the charge for 200 tox she refused. The manager mentioned that there seemed to be a lot of that sort of thing happening lately. Still she refused to authorize the charge.

  Fortunately there was a complete and full record of her time there and it was available to her at a reasonable price for review later in her own home. In this instance it was used to prove to her that she had indeed spent 200 tox in VR.

  “What is that? I don’t remember any of that?” she said as she watched her naked self.

  “It’s called the Puppy Rooms” said the small man manager that had replaced her small man guide. He smiled at her. “It’s very popular lately.”

  Heuris watched herself naked in the corner of a room filled with other people. They were all on their hands and knees and barking like dogs. Two men walked around and handed the barking people nice soft pieces of candy. They pet them on the head as they gave out each one.

  “Who is that man?” she asked and pointed to a man standing naked in the doorway that had his eyes glued to Heuris.

  “I don’t know. A secret admirer I’d bet. It happens a lot.” replied the manager.

  “Destroy that” she said emphatically.

  “Right away” said the manager and he pressed invisible icons in front of him and the video showed the progress of a delete bar. “There, all gone” he said when it was finished. She approved the 200 tox charge.

  Heuris was in shock. What happened to her? Why didn’t she remember any of it? Who was that man?

  Her boyfriend Carl had asked her to marry him right before she left for Ag duty.

  Maybe it was time for her to settle down.

  Or maybe just settle.

  ‘Never make major decisions under duress’

  - Elanor, the Wife of The Final McGee upon her arrest for murder

  I hope you like the first chapter of Mortuis Luna and the History Department at the University of Centrum Kath

  Remember to leave a review.

  Thanks

  steve