Cheat, page 13
At about ten-thirty, or a little later, music started. It wasn’t too loud, thankfully. He had neighbors, and while yappy dog did join in, no one came by to complain. Shortly after that, the door opened, and Sam finally walked in, with Lisa.
Rather, Lexi Horn came in, looking ready to steal hearts along with all the good jobs, and her assistant, Lisa, moved into the space like someone would die if they got too close. It was kind of different from the last time they were there. Mason waved a bit, from the kitchen, expecting to be ignored, since he didn’t know Lexi Horn. He’d waved to everyone coming in though, because it was his lease they were all violating with their late night revelry.
There was no great disappointment there, since Lexi moved directly to a man he didn’t know and started chatting while Lisa kept scoping the place out. The man was well dressed, had iron gray hair and looked sober enough, considering he had a brightly colored drink in his hand. The trick seemed to be in not drinking it. The thing was nearly full, and he didn’t even pretend to be sipping from it. Lexi got a kiss from him, which probably meant it was her date,
That she had a date to the party at his house was weird, but it could be the normal thing for her group. They stood there chatting, and the man nodded along for a while. Then he carefully set his drink down on the low table, turned, and pushed Lexi Horn over the arm of the sofa face first. That left her in the lap of a different man, who tried to kiss her while the old guy worked at the front of his pants. The girl, his friend, Sam, didn’t protest much, just seeming annoyed. Even as her nice dress was being pulled up from behind.
Lisa didn’t move, her face going hard. It meant something, but he didn’t know what. Honestly, he didn’t really care. This guy was clearly having some issues.
Walking over, he tapped the man on the shoulder, getting him to stare in an almost confused fashion.
“What?” The guy barked at him, sounding angry. Then, if Mason were in VR and a character walked up and interrupted just as he was about to get busy, he would have been bugged by it just as much.
“This is real.” He said it firmly, and pulled the man upright. That got the guy to push him a bit, and since the other man was the bigger one, Mason moved several steps back. “This is real. You’re in my apartment, and all these people are really here, watching you. This isn’t VR. Cover up quick. I don’t think anyone has gotten pictures yet.” Not that he knew of. He looked around, and did find at least three pointed that way.
Mason stepped in front of the confused guy, so that he wasn’t flashing his dick to the room.
Instead of seeming pleased to have his error pointed out before he’d accidently raped someone, or embarrassed at his mistake, the man tried to push him again.
“So? If I want to fuck some bitch, she better bend over. Do you know who I am?”
He had to shake his head at that one, too.
“Nope. But you’re ruining my boring party, so why not back off a little bit?”
“I’m Charlton Warburg! I run the VR industry, and if you don’t mind your own business you’ll never work in it again!”
“Oh? Um, not to be a pain in the ass, but I don’t work in VR. Not even in an industry that’s close enough to it that someone from there would have much control over me. So, again, stop doing that, and at least find a girl that doesn’t have that shocky look on her face? I’m sure half the women here would have sex with you. Or you can borrow the VR room? That’s better anyway. Aren’t you worried that she’ll get pregnant, and you’ll end up paying for the kid for the rest of its life?” It was probably that he was more worried about that for himself than not that got the man to look at him funny.
Slowly, like a clock ticking, he seemed to figure out that no one that looked like Mason would be in VR. Not from of a video capture rig or camera. Then the man stopped and looked away, like he was reading something. Then he blinked several times and swallowed hard.
Rather than push him more, Carlton tucked himself into his pants.
“That… Really is a good point. I wasn’t thinking that way. Sorry. What did you say your name was again? In case I want to ruin you later?” He sounded a bit smarmy, but not so much that it seemed like a real threat. It probably meant it truly was. A casual statement about what he could really do to someone, if he decided to.
Mason stuck his hand out to shake, trying not to think about the fact that this guys dick had just been in his own as he grasped it, by reflex.
“I’m Mason Sims. I work in nano, and assembly design. Freelance.”
The man stopped then, seeming a little slow for someone that sober. Like a person that was busily hearing someone else talk to them and trying to pretend it wasn’t happening.
“The one giving out tens of millions of dollars of imbeds here?”
That was about right, so he nodded. Then watched as the man realized what that had to mean. The only kind of person that could afford to give away that level of wealth had to be rich beyond even what he had. Maybe even holding the kind of money that his parents had. Because this man had clearly been given the industry he was in. There was no other way to explain how slow he was.
Smart enough to know he couldn’t afford to be drunk or high however.
Also smart enough to not start a bigger mess than he had to, it seemed. At least not until he learned that Mason was just some guy. Then the fire might well rain down.
“Well, now I feel a bit silly. I know, why don’t you take a turn with Lexi? She’s a little lackluster in the sack, but she does clean up nicely, don’t you think?”
He grinned, and then had to resist hitting the man.
“Not right now, thank you. I try to keep things to VR that way. That you don’t is… Kind of shocking. You know, support your own product and all that? It really does feel the same as real life. So if that was you and your team putting it together, great job, but…”
The man gave him a knowing smile, and reached over, to stroke Lexi’s behind. It was an absent thing. The kind of VR like action that got people in trouble if they didn’t follow simple social rules about not doing people they knew in virt. She hadn’t gotten up yet, though the kissing from the man she was sprawled across had stopped. Looking at the guy, who was very attractive for a male, it was clear that he was very nearly in a state of panic at the moment. A lot of people in the room looked that way.
In fact, most of them did.
Not him, because the man he was insulting and questioning wasn’t his boss’s boss, or whatever. Just a party guest that didn’t seem to get that reality and simulation were different things anymore. That could happen. When it did it was the responsibility of those with a better grounding to help them get back to the real world.
Charlton stood there for a minute, and then leaned in, whispering to him. It was creepy, sinister and smelled a bit of something like tobaccos.
“You see, Mr. Sims, when you fuck someone in VR, or have them do things for you, the second you finish and tab the button, it’s over. They’re gone forever, and the act, whatever it was, is also gone. It never truly existed. That’s both the wonder and failure of the virtual experience. If I take one of these people, these puppets that have to do what I say if they ever want to work again, they remember it for years. That’s why I do it. Because I can and no one in the world with the power to stop me will. You’re correct about the possibility of children though. I do get carried away at times, and should keep that in mind. It came up recently for me, so… I must really remember to go in from the back from now on. That won’t produce babies.”
There was silence in the room, so everyone heard Mason when he spoke, shaking his head a bit.
“That… Is pretty messed up. I mean, like insane level wrong. Don’t do that to people. Even if you don’t know why you shouldn’t, just don’t. People are real, and you need to treat them like they are. Always. Do you understand that?” It was important, to make sure people knew the difference, before they ended up in prison for rape, or worse, murder. This guy had gotten close that day already, and for some reason no one else wanted to risk helping him out.
Everyone was staring at him then. All the celebrities that he didn’t know, and their huge, highly muscular, assistants. Ben looked white as a sheet across the room, and more than one set of large people looked ready to rush him, even if they worked for others in the room and not Warburg. His two big friends were actively going for weapons already, even. Enabling the delusional man. No wonder he went around screwing starlets in the open at parties. Everyone in the place seemed to be ready to back his right to do it with lethal force.
Mason just stood there, and tilted his head. This man may think he was the master of VR, but that wasn’t going to help him here. Really, given the current plans, Mason was probably going to end up destroying his entire world in the end.
Plus if his goons attacked him, he’d bleed all over the man, and then report the crime. Watch might hide an attack for someone powerful enough. Mason didn’t know how that would play out for certain, but it might not, at the same time.
If he died, well, that would suck. There were, he decided, simply some things you couldn’t back down from. Not if you wanted the world to be worth living in. One of his rules was that he didn’t let people hurt anyone around him, if he could help it. So he just smiled a bit and looked directly into the powerful man’s eyes, not backing down from his moral, no rape at parties stance.
The man furrowed his brow, stared back, and seemed not to understand what was going on for some reason.
“What?”
Mason squared his shoulders. If he was going down, and from the response of the room, he honestly was, it was going to be for a real reason.
“I said, it’s wrong. So stop doing it. Even if you like it, that doesn’t make it right. So stop. Now.”
Then, as if he didn’t know where he was suddenly the older, slightly larger, and very well dressed man took several sharp steps back. His men, along with several others in the room, bristled.
“I… Well, if you say so. I guess I won’t do that anymore. I certainly don’t wish to disrupt your party. That would be rude.”
It was nearly funny, and probably a joke, but he played along. It was better than being killed.
“Thanks. Now, let’s get back to this boring party that’s sprung up? I need to see to the next round of people.” Then he smiled at Charlton and gave a single nod. “You do know that I don’t have a clue who anyone here is, don’t you? They all just showed up. Well, nothing for it now, let’s get back to work.”
No one moved for a long time, but finally they did, the next group not wanting to miss out on the free things.
That was Mason’s guess, anyway.
Chapter nine
The party really was pretty much an excuse to wait until each person filtered through his work room, in groups of about five or six per hour. It was constant work on his part, since he had to make up new bio-marker signal sets for almost everyone. Plus, the second half of the night was devoted to people that he wasn’t going to allow control over their own imbed to.
About half of them realized it was a great idea, and the other half were straight forward too stupid to get that they weren’t bright enough to handle it. Pretty, but dull on a level that should have probably meant they didn’t make it in the world. They did though, since others took care of them, for the most part.
Which he was about to help with.
No one brought up the thing with Charlton, even the man himself. He came in with his assistants, who were vast and angry looking men. Each of the two seemed ready to kill Mason the whole time, even when they stripped down to bare skin and let him help cover all of them with clear liquid. For all that the older man had seemed a bit out of it earlier, he had an easier time just waiting for the driving compound to set, and for his skin to dry, than a lot of the others had. It was boring, just standing there, even if there was some music coming from the other room.
As he put his very nice clothing back on, Charlton looked at him directly. The others weren’t really paying attention any longer, as if any possible threat from Mason that might have been there had passed. It had never really existed, but the idea was silly, when he thought about it. He’d just put an imbed on all three men, plus the nervous looking women that were over in the corner.
That could have been anything, or done anything, that he wanted it to. Not that he’d ever thought about it before, but there had to be a way to set up a multi-imbed process that would allow him to kill anyone that had it. Luckily for him, even if he felt a bit threatened, he wasn’t like that. Life was, if not precious, then at least a thing that should be guarded, when possible.
After staring, probably trying to intimidate him, if not sizing him up as a possible sex partner, Charlton spoke, his voice almost humorous.
“I’ve had people ruined for less than what you did.”
“You mean that thing earlier where I helped keep you out of prison? You’re welcome, by the way. I saved you all that uncomfortable anal sex of your own. Seriously, don’t go around being like that. Especially with people that you could probably just ask to do things with you. Not that it isn’t wrong to do that too, but at least… It’s…” He waved his hands, frustrated and at a loss for words. After all, he couldn’t think of a single reason that this man should need anyone to explain this to him.
Charlton Warburg, whoever the hell he was, laughed and waved his hands back a bit, like it was all very funny.
“People at my level don’t go to prison, Mason. We have people to do that kind of thing for us. Anyway, I hope that I didn’t disrupt your party too much? That would be against the rules. I didn’t know that you’d object to me having a bit of fun however. I’m sure you understand?”
He didn’t. Not even the slightest bit.
Rather than have the two giant men attack and kill him then, since it would apparently be their job to also go to prison for it, he shrugged. It looked like he was the one that didn’t understand how reality worked.
“Well, keep it in mind for the next party? You all know how to use the new imbed, and more importantly, when?” He got a grudging nod from one of the two large men, as he buttoned his heavy shirt front. It was military in style, but a deep blue. That was a color that no one used in the States, he didn’t think. Maybe the Coast Guard, but their outfits looked different, at least in the games.
“Got it. You’re lucky.” The gruff muscleman didn’t explain why, so Mason shook his head a little. He understood a threat when he heard one, and wasn’t going to get in a fight with someone that was designed to kill.
“Is that what we’re going to call home invasions now? Luck?” There was more head shaking then, as the men left, leaving the two thin and frightened looking women with him. They were done as well, but had waited there, with him, while the other men left.
One of them seemed ready to pass out when he started to hand her what he hoped was her clothing. It was a nice red dress, and matching under things. He felt a bit awkward about it, but there were going to be at least two more groups, and he didn’t really want to leave Charlton in the front room alone for long.
The man could get rapey, it seemed.
Looking at him like he was insane, or scary, the lady took her outfit back, and then handed it to the other woman. Mason grinned at that and started to pass over the right clothes.
“Sorry. You two understand how to use the imbed?” They’d gotten a lesson on it, but were both kind of stupid and didn’t have people there with them to help them out. It was really annoying, so Mason had built in an override, in case he had to take control of things for them at some point.
Given that he wasn’t really certain what their names were, that would be an issue in the end.
“Deidre, isn’t it?” He looked at the one shimmying into a little black dress. She was what might kindly be called doe eyed. It was beyond what reality would allow, slightly. Her big brown orbs were nearly twenty percent larger than they should have been. It worked for her, but was also just on the edge of being creeptastic. She was a real life woman that had been spliced to look like a cartoon character.
Her voice had that kind of quality too, being higher in pitch than was normal, if only a bit. Breathy and scared, too. Mixed with enough sexual signaling that it was confusing, or would have been to a lot of men.
“Thank you, Mason. This is really nice of you. Is there anything I can do, in return?”
He’d been in VR enough in life to know an obvious offer of sex when he heard one. He’d even done that kind of thing from time to time with representations of women that were a lot like the one in front of him. Possibly even her, actually. It was weird to see her in the real world, looking like she did, but not unattractive.
“Call me, if you have any trouble, or get confused about what to do with the imbed? I’d rather be woken up in the middle of the night to deal with it than have people accidently do the wrong thing, so it’s all right to get in touch.” He nearly added an understood to the end, as if he were talking to a small child, but he was dealing with grown women. He looked at the other one, who was standing there in all red now, adjusting her breasts. She was lighter in skin tone and had normal person eyes, but swallowed at him nervously when he looked at her directly. “You too? When in doubt, get in touch, um…” He didn’t have a name for this one, and was about to be embarrassed when she just smiled sweetly.
It was a very good look for her. Better than the slight shaking that had been going on a moment before.
“Leslie Conrad. I can just call you when I need anything?” She said it like that was real, so he raised his eyebrows.
If he said no, she’d probably never call, even when she was supposed to. He could see a trap in her words, however.
“For anything technology related. Or I suppose if you have any other real problems. I can’t help with everything, but I’d rather you make mistakes on the side of caution for the first bit. Just remember, most nights I try to sleep when it’s dark out.” He sighed, since it had been nearly a day now, since Adam and the others had pounded on his door.
