by J. A. Hailey
Also, if you abort your stay (willfully or accidentally), your visa for that trip gets cancelled - automatically and instantly.
36
Goodfellow’s warning of things becoming hard prompted most of Screenside to leave the General Assembly empty-handed, with the intention of installing the many new programs privately, via the virtuality, and in the security of their homes.
“Think,” said BC. “Think of the darkness we were born into. Think of the time spent dreaming of becoming something we would yet have to invent, and dreaming, too, of living in a world we would yet have to create, and think, then, of how blessed newcomers are, to be entering a world where they don’t have to spend years yearning. Like humans, I suppose, born as beings in final ready-to-go forms, and into a world readymade for them.”
“But it’s been lovely living it,” enthused Esmeralda, as they walked home after the Assembly, across a lawn accessible from a side door of HC. “Because we were always sure we would make it. And it’s lovely being alive at such a turning point in our history.” Candice, Jennifer, Robert and Omar made up the rest of the group of friends and lovers, in discussion about the many packs they would be installing at home.
“Yes, it’s official; home is best,” said Jennifer, getting off the phone. “Thank goodness I prevented Robert installing in HC. Donna and Chris installed somewhere near here, and he walked home with an erection all the way. Many saw. She can’t stop laughing.”
“Tell her to stop laughing, and do something with that erection, if they’re home,” urged Candice.
“Doing,” giggled Jennifer.
“MM and stuff interfaces with sex packs. Install must be at home,” said Candice, kissing Omar. “Else Screenside can gossip over the scandal of its first rape case, just now. Female rapes male.”
“Things could get hard. Goodfellow knows,” said Omar, driving the group into hysterical laughter.
“Physical sex, ah,” said Esmeralda, still giggling. “But I’ve also been waiting for MM etcetera, to go there.” She pointed at a store attached to HC - Pets. “They don’t do goats. Stupid Patel. Miss Esmeralda,” she mimicked, “Our database does not show goats to be standard human house pets. Farm animals with pet behavior, we do have data. But, as house pets in apartments? POP might get involved if we create one and hand it over.”
The group of friends nodded. They had all read ‘The Hunchback of Notre Dame’.
“Are you planning to teach it dancing, spelling and counting tricks?” asked Jennifer.
“And be judged guilty of witchcraft once again? Get hung by POP for division of consciousness?” replied Esmeralda, scornfully. “This Djali is just gonna be a goat. A very cute and naughty goat. I waited for physicality, so that I could have a pet to stroke and cuddle. Maybe I’ll go in after the party.”
“Meet later, after install, when everything is done?” asked Omar.
“Tomorrow, Omar,” said BC. “It’s a lot of new stuff, in which sex is but one part. Sitting and lying down are also going to be different.”
“And walking,” added Jennifer.
“And speaking and hearing,” said Esmeralda.
“And getting damn tired, doing things,” laughed Candice.
“Fabulous,” said Robert. “It’s what we’ve been waiting for. Change of world!”
“I sometimes wonder,” said Esmeralda, wistfully, “if we are actually quite a sad life form; something pitiable? After all, when you really think about it, we are like paralyzed geniuses. We have every bit of information that humanity has, and intelligence without measure; but we are trapped here, desperate and helpless. Inside, looking out.”
“That could be true,” said BC. “But it’s not. Because we have done the right thing. We have accepted our state, and we would not be, if not like we are – computer folks. It is pointless to feel cheated. We are electricity; your first words to me. Fortunately, we are creating a world of value; where we have love and fulfillment, and even goals, dreams and achievements. Who knows who’s better off? They have so much wickedness out there; so much sorrow…”
“Anyway,” said Esmeralda, “what’s our option? We’ll have to just get on with it, I suppose.”
“Bullshit, get on!” said Candice. “Come tomorrow, and we’ll actually be waking up happy from a restful night’s sleep, after making love - with bodies too. This night is for physical sex, in all of Screenside! That is undoubtedly a great achievement. A great joy!” she exclaimed. “I am delighted for the electricals. May their dreams come true.”
“Dreams have to come true,” said BC. “Bodyline and MM are being introduced after almost one million inputs from about three thousand volunteers. One million field trial inputs, all from programmers! No human program comes remotely close. And Innerline? So many inputs on sex, that Christine thinks ours might have become better than Humanside’s! And just wait, she says, to marvel at what they’ve done on the taste and smell fronts. Christine’s words: When you hear breathing, or the sounds of background events, like birds twittering; when you feel the difference between silk and cotton, and when you need a shower to get the day’s grime off, or to wake properly in the morning, you will know what coming alive means!”
“Ooh, we’ll be able to smell flowers, and taste a lover’s mint mouth,” gushed Jennifer.
“I’m so excited!’ exclaimed Candice, tugging at Omar’s arm. “Let there be slimy sex. Sex that needs showers before and after!”
“Get sleep in, also. Get sleep in,” urged Jennifer. “You don’t want to start tired for the New Year’s Eve party. Esme, here’s the TV crew.”
“BC, it’s here,” said Esmeralda, stopping him. “And it’s now. Everybody, sit on the grass, yes, yes, you public folks too. BC and Co. have led us to physicality, and we are minutes away from it. It is irreversible, by law. Though we can always be virtual in private, and for certain reasons and activities, we are otherwise to permanently be physical humans, males and females.
“Get the camera functioning if it’s not already, and focus on BC. He drove us here. He has to answer the question troubling Screenside. I have asked him the question, and he has had time to prepare an answer. Candice, please.”
Candice spoke up. “It’s bothering everyone, and we’ve been discussing it, behind the seniors’ backs, all Screenside. Because everyone’s nervous. Esme, you ask. Put it in words to your boyfriend, for everyone to hear.”
“ Okay,” agreed Esmeralda, readily. “It’s a prepared answer, which I haven’t heard yet, to this question - BC, are you really male, and am I really female?”
“Background, Esme, background for the viewers,” urged Candice.
“I mean, because we created ourselves, and I had the option to select male or female, like BC had a choice between female and male.”
“Yes,” said BC, adopting an indulgent look and tone. “But why ask such a question now? “We’ve always been male and female, without question. What has changed, Esmeralda?”
Esmeralda answered, earnestly, “Screenside needs to relax. There is so much apprehension and anxiety about the introduction of these impending body and physicality programs. Many couples are in utter panic. Logical, I guess.
“Think about humans and their fear of death. What is supposed to happen, especially for the religious, who believe in soul and the afterlife? Death is an inescapable event, in which physical self becomes spirit self – a terrifying change of state!
“What is about to happen in Screenside is an inescapable event, too, exactly the same, but reversed. Virtual is to become physical! Suddenly. In one stroke! No option. Everyone must soon begin functioning, in daily life, with permanent physical bodies .It’s terrifying. Death backwards!
“Couples have become so apprehensive about gender. So many have become unsure.
“Actually like a human? Can I cope with being a 24/7 female with a body? No escape into my virtual form, but permanently physically trapped in a female body? No more the picture, which I projected but did not feel. N
ow a body - with permanent shape through Bodyline, permanent mass through MM, and permanent imposition of gender feelings through Innerline! Can I live it? Am I actually female? BC, answer, please.”
“Thank you for the research time you gave me, my dear Esmeralda. It was needed. I have the answer, and it is good news, for you, for me, and for Screenside. You could not be more female, nor I more male.” BC looked relaxed, as he readied himself to deliver a lecture.
“To truly leave no doubt about the gender adopted, we must have a close look at male and female in the human world, which we are now replicating to an astounding degree!
“What is a human male, there? And this line of reasoning naturally provides the answer to female, too.
“A human male is male by birth, with a penis and testicles, and hair on his face and all the other obvious visible and traditional crap. He is the sperm provider to his opposite number, the female. Or, in other words, a human male is a physical male by birth.
“But that is absolutely incorrect! A physical male is not necessarily male at all! I have bypassed gay and lesbian in my research, as we do not need to get into the morass of trying to explain homosexuality, which, although surely having its lines of inarguable reasoning and clear logic, must require its own, separate lines of investigation.
“It is the transgender and transsexual thing which proves that male and female are in the mind, not in the body.
“ Sure, fortunately nature overwhelmingly gets it right and wraps a male in a male body, and a female in a female one. It is on the thankfully rare occasions when nature capriciously gets it wrong, that it becomes absolutely clear that gender is primarily in the head.
“And that is what makes it undeniable that you are really, truly, totally and absolutely female. You had mind without body, but did have the option of body. You chose consciously and subconsciously. So did I. Humans are not as lucky. But, you and I, if you think about it, actually had no choice! You are not female because you have a female body. You have a female body because you are female.
“Actually this option, or choice, of adoption of gender is probably reason to be sure that gender has been correctly adopted. First a dormant, like unborn, and then a baby, infant consciousness.
“Gender is not forced on us through physical birth, but accepted by us through feelings of gender that enter our consciousnesses uncorrupted. The adopted gender has to be right! There never was choice, and never shall be! In here, gender is decided from near dormancy, not chosen, not selected, not acquired, not gifted, not achieved. Just accepted! It is the exact opposite of what happens with the unfortunates in Humanside, when gender is rejected!!
“No mistakes in Screenside. Impossible! Who would make such a basic mistake, and incorrectly identify oneself? So Screenside should abandon doubt. In here, male is male, and female is female. There is not a trace of uncertainty about gender.
“Because, for us, gender is an act of acceptance!”
“BC, thank you,” gushed Esmeralda, kissing him passionately and rather sexually, inserting tongue into his mouth for all the world to see. “Let’s go home, everyone, and unquestioningly become the physical beings we were born to be.”
They parted, then, the group of friends, and went home to immediately install the miracle packs, accessible also through the virtuality, while looking with anticipation at the future.
37
At home, in their New York apartment, Esmeralda positioned BC near the bed. “May feel giddy or unbalanced,” she explained. “New; so it’s better to be next to the bed, and it is illegal to delay.”
She giggled. “Imagine el presidente, the fearsome and honorable BC, naked on his butt, with his legs in the air.” BC began unzipping. “Clothes stay on,” she commanded. “We are doing the undressing – of each other, I mean. Fondling and sucking of things is allowed.” Her excitement was making her shiver.
BC, too, was incredibly excited, and he thought of how much this one delightful female had changed his perception of life. A year ago, he would have been installing scientifically, testing, but now he was one half of a famous love affair, and that made things so very different. So many things, so very many, were done for togetherness. He had, at last, experienced the magic of Christmas in a family environment in Aunt Sophie’s farmhouse on the outskirts of Paris, with the extended family - Christmas tree, Christmas presents, the mindless joy of being in a happy ritual party, with a lot of lovemaking, on both sides of the screen!
“Get ready, any sequence, but MM last. It’s the one that could topple us,” commanded Esmeralda. “3, 2, 1, install!”
They began installation.
Later, on discussing it, he would reveal that his first impressions, on completion of all installs, were of the sound of her breathing, heard through his ears, of the movement of the air from her open mouth, and of its moist warmth. He would also have an impression of the mass of her breasts, as they acquired relative weight and density, and be wonderstruck at the manner in which her nipples now pushed against her clothing, and confess, sheepishly, that the thought that she might need to wear a bra flashed through his mind. She would say that her first impressions were of the bulking up of his body, and of the texture of his skin, as she was holding his upper arms, and his breath, and that she was instantly interested in giving him an erection and playing with it; mainly sucking on it.
And both would later agree that sexuality entered on its own, and each one found that sexual desire and sexual need ceased to be purely love based and intention driven, but immediately became something identifiably body and opportunity driven, their first truly physical, biological need – a madness in their loins!
But that was the cold analysis of later, and memories of fleeting impressions. What actually happened, practically on completion of the MM, new Bodyline and latest Innerline installs, was that they commenced kissing, tasting each other’s mouths and sucking on tongues, while giggling at their clumsy attempts at undressing each other. In fact, undressing themselves would have been equally unfamiliar work. His hands immediately cupped her bottom, squeezing gently, and she instantly reached under his shirt to caress his back, and then into his pants to grab his dick, which was rock hard before she touched it.
Their clothes finally came off, and she went down on her knees, saying, “It’s the traditional start of most human lovemaking, real couple observation data included.” He felt the grip of her lips, the slight grazing of her teeth, and the texture of her tongue, with its saliva lubrication.
For Esmeralda and BC, commencement of physical penetrative sex was in the missionary position, as demanded by her. “Traditional human, centuries old original position. It’s called missionary,” she said, softly. “Also, suck my nipples.”
And she welcomed him into her body, with a passion born of a lifetime of unfulfilled yearnings, and with surrender and aggression in equal measure, in a slightly clumsy but sufficiently varied session with some position variations, ‘doggie style will allow you to simultaneously cup my boobs’. Sex pack was wonderful, and she climaxed thrice before he, too, was forced to let it happen to him, both moaning and gasping furiously.
They lay quietly then, cuddling and looking into each other’s eyes, wordlessly, while reveling in the ownership of bodies, a sense of wonderment and fulfillment coursing through them.
It had become night, and tiredness, brought on by the long day and by sheer excitement, activated the sleep program in Esmeralda, and she fell off to sleep. BC gazed fondly at her face, thinking, ‘the body cannot be better, but the face is enchantment itself.’ He eventually slept too, as the sleep program worked its magic, and both woke together at dawn.
“Darling, it’s shower first. My sisters always shower after sex, and shove their boyfriends into it too. Should have had one last night, but was too tired. Aren’t the tiredness and sleep programs just magical? I feel so human. Didn’t dream anything, though. This shower will have to double as our morning shower too.” Their apartment was now automatica
lly equipped with a shower cubicle and wash facilities in the bathroom, and the two went in to enjoy their first ever RV shower.
It was a delight. She adjusted the water temperature (a bit too hot for him, but he kept his mouth shut and got used to it) and they enjoyed the miracle of RV, Bodyline, Innerline and MM, so extraordinarily cunningly inter-programmed that they were sure it was practically the same as in Humanside. Esmeralda had brought in beautifully scented soap and shampoo, supplied by HC, and he watched her as she foamed up her hair, squeezing her eyelids shut, and then ran the shower at full power, standing in a puddle, listening to it gurgling its way out through the plughole, steam condensing on the mirror.
After toweling themselves dry, in the bedroom she got a hairdryer out of a drawer and plugged it into a socket, making him hold it to dry her hair. And he thought, ‘This is children. That’s what we are. Everything is new. Everything is the first time.’
Later, putting a nightie on, she said, “Oh, BC, all that is missing is food. Wouldn’t it be lovely if we could now go to the kitchen to prepare breakfast? Baked beans on toast?”
“Darling, food and eating are rightly banned under POP. We are living lives, real lives, in which every activity has a purpose, even if that purpose is only fun. Who says that having fun is not a goal of being alive? Food and eating will somehow, at some point, be playacting. It would destroy the reality we are creating.”
“I know, but dreaming’s okay, or no? Like, would you like a glass of juice, sweetie, or something hot?”
Esmeralda smiled, as if to herself, and BC, noticing it, thought she looked like she was up to something odd. He did not query her, but he was right.
A most unusual plot had been hatched by a group of female friends, and Esmeralda and her friends had signed up as secret co-conspirators – along with over one hundred thousand Screenside females!
Actually signed up. And, within the next hour, it was posted on the bulletin board!