***
Alexander gradually made strides in his rehabilitation. He told everyone that his name was now Alex, saying, “Something in me opened up,” and made himself a unique hip style on the Vision Pro, inspired by Nicola, that included original luxury designer suits and shoes. He held regular brainstorm sessions in his office with Requiem to Success playing in the background, and remembered every note by heart.
But what he liked most was going down on Nicola with the tune playing in the background. Keeping in perfect rhythm he would lick her wet digital labia, one note at a time. Spreading her legs as wide as she could stretch them, she delighted in his tongue. In the heat of lovemaking, she liked loosening a strap on her bra and letting one breast pop almost loose, but not quite. She had small nipples, pink and erect, and they stiffened immediately whenever he spoke in a commanding tone.
If anyone happened to walk in while they were at it, the sight would probably seem peculiar: a horny man lustfully licking air, with his woman at a considerable distance, and a lazy monkey skillfully filing her nails.
“Now turn, let me touch your ass,” he said in a loud voice, and loved it.
“Spank me!” she begged.
For Nicola, virtual submission was a small price to pay for the privilege of being the significant other of an influential and admired politician.
For Alexander, the relationship skirted intimacy, an absence he was vaguely aware of between cycles of shallow prosaic conversations and a technical dynamic. No one considered it worthwhile to spend time on groping with so many things to do, bills to process and other urgent business. Dream Sex provided an intense feeling of gratification. Everyone carried on with their affairs without feeling needy. Successful relationships back then entailed as little communication as possible, with every partner devising a rich, personal, virtual existence.
And they did not even take it so far as to stand out. Most people had no desire in developing deep connections, because nothing came close to the depths offered by the net. People lacked the patience to communicate with any one person, when the online experience made it possible to flirt with a multitude. Time was carefully rationed, and people found a better use for it in thoughtmitting many, rather than speaking with a few. A brief exchange of words proved enough, sending both sides of the conversation merrily back into their virtual world. Face time was akin to coming up for air, followed by a joyous submersion back into Minds.
Marital statistics wondrously improved; couples stayed together. Countless virtual relationships provided fulfilling, satisfying adventure.
Alexander felt himself becoming powerful, and mostly outside of the boudoir. The famous political bore had become an overnight authority. Alexander Cage was a symbol to the adage that where there's a will, technology, and money, there's a way. And so, more virile than ever, and with Nicola and a community of fans at his back, Alexander passed his Representation of Reality bill: a law that put limitations on the ability of Minds users to alter the perception of reality. Although he himself depended on the net and was grateful for its existence, as a politician, he was under pressure to enforce restrictions, especially when it came to minors.
He started a bill that forbade users under twenty-one from using the Vanish program
[18] , after many used it to rub their parents out of their lives and prevent them from making contact. To that he added a prohibition on viewing other users in ways that are ‘less than dignified or humane.’ People started appreciating his older endeavors, such as the Explicit Consent initiative that asked to establish that conjugal brain sex only be considered legal between parties who explicitly consented to take part. This became necessary after several unfortunate incidents where users were hack-raped and defiled by obscene and violent thoughts. Riding on his wave of public fame, Alexander went on to pass laws that protected Neverminds, those lost souls who chose not to connect or to disconnect from Minds.
But as he moved forward with his legislative efforts, his friendship with Solly Grey soured. Solly often complained in his close circle about his old friend, called him ungrateful, and said he was ruining the network. But he had to accept it, with the overwhelming popularity of the resurrected politician being more of a reason than any lingering moral debt he might still carry from the fire.
“Alex, I don't get you,” he said in a conversation. “Instead of letting people break ground, you're putting up obstacles.”
“Why? Because I worry about the Neverminds?”
“No. Who cares about them? You're putting limits on users inside the network. Forbidding Vanish for users under twenty-one? Kids today aren't what they used to be, you know.”
“I understand where you're coming from,” Alexander answered, “but I have my duty to society. They're still not fully mature.”
“Try remembering what Minds did for you. Instead of singing its praises, you're dragging it down.”
“I'm not dragging it down, I'm just regulating and putting things in order. No one appreciates this network like I do.”
“Imagination is better left boundless, that's the beauty of the thing.”
“Alright, Solly. I need to say goodbye,” Alexander ended the conversation. “I have an important incoming thought.”
The angry Solly petted Pandy, sitting in his lap, and thought that ever since the world started paying attention to that burnt mousy, he was doing nothing but throwing wrenches in his works. Pandy gave him a tired look, too old to get excited.
Neverminds
In the five years after Minds first launched, twelve billion users joined the network - eighty percent of the world's population. The remaining twenty percent were of no concern, as it was only a matter of time before they connected, or so the people at Minds believed. The Neverminds were nothing but a small minority who refused to connect to Minds, whether in protest or for no obvious reason.
Many powerful interest groups wanted the Neverminds out of the way. After all, most of them were useless, self-isolated from any source of income and living off meager donations and scant food. In the areas where they lived in their shelters, the price of real-estate plummeted. No one wanted to think about them or run into them, their very existence being a reminder of the old world that was left behind. A first rate mental burden.
“They are people who do nothing but take up our air,” Nicola thoughtmitted Alexander, who always appreciated her input. “They only waste resources, they're worthless.”
“Yes, but we have a duty to look after them.”
“I'll take your word for it,” she answered.
The Neverminds issue garnered heated responses from human rights groups, and so they remained in an existential limbo at the margins of society. They continued to procreate, and there was nothing to do about ‘the problem,’ barring some legislative attempts to collect and ship them to one designated shelter. Alexander was conscious of their growing plight, and the fate of these poor souls touched him. Rumors of people disconnecting under obscure circumstances began spreading. Strange tales were told of people being cut off from the network. One day you had your whole life to look forward to, and in the next you were a Nevermind with a bleak future.
As winter progressed and the cold spread into the cities, the wealthy had run out of patience and demanded action. Residents of upscale neighborhoods were afraid of Neverminds rioting, despite the physical and technological barriers that separated the groups. Even with the economy reaching its highest point and business booming, Neverminds were like sores on the urban landscape. Conditions were ripe for a new arrangement: the ‘Wall of Welfare,’ a hermetic separation between Minds users and the Neverminds. Proponents of the Wall of Welfare considered efforts toward integration to be an ill-conceived and fundamentally inefficient idea; all it did was stand in the way of progress and spark hostilities, because people wanted to share their environment with like-minded peers. This atmosphere was the setting of many elaborate legislative initiatives, in a wave that took over the masses and was popularly k
nown as the ‘Great Minds Blitz.’
“I'm in favor of gathering all the Neverminds into a large, sectioned-off area reserved for them,” said one major thinker whose proposed bill won tens of thousands of echoes. “We'll put them in a space that can house hundreds of thousands. It will be more efficient than quarantining several hundred in every town.”
Alexander was a staunch opponent of such bills, and his position was that they should be part of society and not confined to live outside. Isolation was not a solution.
These public debates drew a crowd, some supporting him – a breed of old-world moralists – and some vehemently opposing, mostly quoting consideration of efficiency.
“I heard the Neverminds are getting violent, that they're getting out of hand," Nicola thoughtmitted Alexander.
"It's a spiteful rumor," he thoughtmitted back.
Their relationship started coming apart. He was buried in work, and she was sick of trying to get his attention. The only sure way she had to communicate was when she came across some interesting information, or had some clever advice to give.
"Maybe they really are dangerous?" she thoughtmitted in concern.
"All the more reason to improve their situation."
"I don't know, Alex… why should society be responsible for them? They brought it on themselves."
"We can't be blaming them. Successful societies take care of those who are left behind."
But most people preferred the problem to take care of itself. They wanted to shut their eyes, hoping that when they opened them again, the Neverminds would be gone, leaving nothing to remember them by.
Alexander organized several Mindsphere conferences surrounding the Neverminds issue, attended by political figures from both sides, to try and reach common ground. The conferences were popularly called Reminders. Participants jacked into scheduled mind presentations that reviewed all the issues and proposals. The central question was whether the Neverminds had rights, and if so, what were they?
They all had something to say.
"Why do you keep protecting them?" thoughtmitted Jules, Alexander's political rival who spoke for driving the Neverminds away.
"I don't know… maybe because they're people? Like me, or you? Seriously now, I know everything about cruel fates, from bitter experience. Who can better relate to the experience of losing the life you knew?"
"Look, Alex, it's not that I don't see where you're coming from," thoughtmitted Jules, "but we have to think about the general good. A big part of them supports a dangerous anarchistic program that rejects any kind of connectivity, and they’re plotting to hurt the rich. We can’t allow that."
"I understand your pressing need to be rid of the problem," Alexander insisted, "but wasn't it enough when we took away their freedom of movement? Now you want to throw them out of their shelters? They deserve some basic rights, even if they're not connected to the network."
The last statement caused a rippling clamor of thoughts.
"Society has to protect its members," one major activist interjected. "I say we should pass a law to separate them from the Minds."
"That's taking it too far," said Alexander. "They may be not connected, but they're not criminals! They’re perfectly aware of their situation. They’re people, just like us. We can't make them into monsters, so please, friends, lets keep things in perspective!"
"Alex, I think you've become overly sensitive since your tragedy," another council member joked,
"And you’ve become overly insensitive!" Alexander seethed.
"Why are you so stressed?" Jules wondered. "We'd all be better off channeling all these negative energies into more positive avenues, putting the Neverminds to physical labor, letting them do everything our humanoids can't quite get right yet. It’ll give them a reason to get up in the morning. You could even say it’d give purpose to their lives and everyone's a winner. They’d feel efficient and contribute to the gross product. It would be spectacular, wouldn’t you agree, friends?"
Those who agreed nodded a tacit consent.
He's making sense, Alexander thought, but something in him was outraged by this highbrow dismissal of a group whose only crime was going against the tide.
"I’m against it," he decided. "The day we deprive them of their right to choose will be the day we sentence ourselves to a degradation of consciousness."
"Care to elaborate on the choice they have right now?" said Jules. "They’re wasting in shelters, rotting away like dogs and waiting for the day that someone will come and deliver them. Is that a life? We're doing them a favor and they should thank us for it."
Alexander was not blind to the movement for disposing of Neverminds forming on online voting polls. It was all about money when it came down to it. The Neverminds used resources and took up space in an age when energy efficiency was everything. On his way to the top, he acquired enemies and upset many people and groups, and to many he was now a problem all on his own. Some were trying to silence him, and he Vanished his attackers on a regular basis. Some said that he used his hero status to promote self interests.
Alexander was unaware that, very soon, the Neverminds would be the last issue depriving him of sleep, and that his old fantasies were about to happen: he, of all people, was about to be the center of a racy sex scandal.
***
“Alex, have you seen it, have you?” his good friend Karl thoughtmitted. “There's a video of you fucking some Lara shared by a million heads on Minds. Who's Lara? I thought you were with Nicola. Did you two break up?”
“What Lara? What video?” Alexander thoughtmitted in distress.
“You don't know who Lara is? From what I can tell, she's a minor. It doesn't look good, Alex.”
“Send the thing!” Alexander pushed his friend and braced himself.
Breathless, he played the video and saw himself doing a lively number every which way on a girl named Lara, whose consent to the act was nullified by a law he himself wrote, as she was clearly under age. He shuddered when he saw the sharing rate skyrocket. Countless incoming thoughtmissions jolted his brain. He was appalled to see a torrent of angry and shocked comments coming from every direction. Everyone wanted a front row seat to his disgrace, to have a ball at his expense, passing the word and relishing the sexy affair.
“Karl, it's fake!” he thoughtmitted in panic.
“It looks all real, to be honest.”
“But it's not! I don't know any Lara!”
“I don't know what to say. There's another one being shared right now. Don't say you don't know her… come on, I'm your friend!”
“I don't know the girl, I swear! What did she say, the little liar?”
“She called you a 'bedroom sensation' and said, 'He has a huge prosthetic cock.' I'm quoting what she said happened: 'I asked him if he didn't mind me being only thirteen, but he said it was the opposite, that he liked them young, juicy, with fire in their soul. I admit I knew he was with someone, the beautiful Nicola, but I couldn't resist him. Now I know I've been foolish and I regret it. I didn't mean for it to come out.'”
“What?!” Alexander squirmed in his chair and bit his lip bloody. He knew a conspiracy when he saw one. None of it was true. But how was he supposed to prove it?
After coming to his senses, he thoughtmitted Solly Grey a scolding for allowing a lie to be spread on the network.
“How is this my fault?” Solly thoughtmitted. “I didn't share it. Minds users share what they like.”
“But they're ruining my reputation! They're already calling it 'Dick Gate'! They said I wasn't available for a response. A lie! No one asked me! And you give them a stage?!”
“So sue whoever shared it. We're talking millions of people here. Good luck with that.”
“Why'd you do this to me, Solly? Tell me the truth!”
“You think I would do this to you? I'll always remember how you saved Pandy. I wouldn't do such a thing even if I wanted to.” In fact, Solly had a hard time believing that Alexander was not the
one in the video. He watched it over and over again. It looked so authentic. Especially the prosthetic penis in the close up shots.
“What a dick!” one user commented. “It's worthwhile burning if that's what you get for it!”
***
“Dick Gate?!” Nicola screamed as she burst into the living room in tears, “How could you?!” she slapped his face. Alexander tried hugging her, but she only shoved him away, as if she had forgotten he was a cripple on prosthetic limbs.
“It's a lie. I did not have sex with her!” he shouted.
“How could you fuck that slut? Fuck, fuck, fuck you!” a string of curses came flying out her mouth – she, who was so particular about her elegant appearance. “How dare you? You've been telling me that you're too busy for Dream Sex, but you had time for her! Who does that?”
Nicola was devastated. The fact that he was fucking somebody else didn't bother her as much as being publicly humiliated. Whichever way it will be turned around, she would still be seen as a cuckquean.
“They faked the whole thing, a wonder of technology!” Alexander shouted, all burning and red.
“Don't play innocent! And thirteen years old! What were you thinking? She's a minor!”
“Don't you believe me?”
“Why should I? Who else has a prosthetic dick like yours? Tell me!”
Nicola left in anger to collect some things. She took her coat, wore her gloves, and her clothes had turned black with the flick of a thought. She wore grief. Death.
“Goodbye, Alex. I'm not staying here anymore. I'm shocked. Ruined. Don't call me. I don't want to hear from you. I'll come back later to take the rest of my stuff.”
“Where are you going?” he asked in concern.
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