Cheat, page 15
The only thing that showed that they’d been there was the messy bed.
“Which I won’t have to launder, if I burn the sheets.” It was tempting, since bodily fluids were probably all over the things now. It was gross. He slept there, and those people had just… Befouled it with their slime.
That reminded him to sanitize his VR unit too. It seemed clean, but he couldn’t tell who might have done what with it while he wasn’t looking. Since he was alone, having nearly an hour before people might show up, if anyone did at all, he worked up a plan for a simple three dimensional printer that would make most things, and could be converted to a nano level set up by simply pulling the control and report card. It was built in, so you had to snap it out of place.
That way, when they were printed the first time, even Watch might not get the idea. People would be able to put them in their homes, and even use them normally, for months or years. Then when it came time to throw off the shackles of the government, two minutes and a hammer would upgrade the machines into something that would be able to do almost anything that was needed.
Including make power capture devices, and disassemblers. There were some issues to work out with the whole thing, but by the time a gentle tapping sound came at his door, at about ten before four, he pretty much had the basics ready to go. If not for actual printing, then at least for the computer based simulation portion. That would need to be done offline. The portion that needed to be tested was the removal of the reporting card.
Watch wouldn’t need to know about that option, or what the machine could actually do, otherwise.
The screen to the left of the door showed a rather normal looking woman on the other side. Her hair was pulled back and she had on gray sweats. The kind that people used to exercise in, when no one was looking. That, plus a small bag in her right hand was all she had though. No assistant, or anything like that. She was lean, and pretty enough in a pale way, but didn’t seem special.
Part of that would be all the people that had been there the night before. She didn’t seem very large, and when he stared hard enough it was clear that it was his friend from the night before. Shiny dress.
When he opened the door he smiled.
“You know, I never did get your name? I’m Mason, by the way. Mason Sims.” He put his hand out, which was taken. People in his world didn’t shake a lot, but the people the night before had. That, and hugged.
“Carry Samson. I wasn’t sure if you’d remember me…”
He nodded, “free makeup imbed, four o’clock. You get to help me with my back, since I’m getting the same thing. There should be some other people coming. Maybe. I told them about it. We can go first, and then run the others through in batches. It won’t take too long. They’re all the same this time.”
The woman looked at him and grinned, seeming happy to be recalled. That or the idea that she was really getting it for free worked in her world.
“Thanks. I can help, if you want? I scheduled the whole day for it, until this evening. There’s a party. I also got an invite to spend the week with Lexi Horn, at her beach cottage. It has a plus one… Would you like to, I mean, you’re probably busy?”
He fought a blink, and looked at the woman, who didn’t seem like she’d be one of the first draft for an underground rebellion to his mind. She did seem nice, and friendly enough, but not exactly like a person willing to face a firing squad when they failed. That wasn’t the plan, but being smart he knew that most of the time things like what he had in mind would simply fail. That had to be the truth. Otherwise the world would already be different.
Still, it was a way for him to get into the whole beach trip without Sam inviting him directly, which might work. They could pretend to get together as for setting up the other things they needed there, as if they had just become buddies.
“I’d love to go with you, if that was the question?” It would most likely mean sleeping with her, which… Honestly he wasn’t ready for.
That was the other side of the VR problem. Mason was used to selecting a woman, or on occasion, though rarely, two, and pretty much doing whatever he wanted at the moment. That was how it worked. You just did things, and what felt good to you was fine.
Real people probably expected to be treated with respect and dignity. The only thing there was that he wasn’t totally certain what that meant anymore. His entire sex life had been done in a certain way, and now, possibly, he needed to know how to change that up.
Thankfully the remedy for that one was probably the same as the problem. Unlike information on how to fight, sex lessons were pretty easy to find. Mason just hadn’t bothered, since his virt partners hadn’t cared.
The woman smiled, her face pale and a bit bland at the moment.
“That’s perfect. I didn’t know if you’d want to go with me. I’m not all that famous.”
He gave her a funny look and then shook his head.
“You know, all those people here last night? I really don’t know them. You got that, right? I think someone had the wrong apartment, and then people just stayed.” More to the point, John had come, probably to pick up the disassembly device, and then they’d gotten distracted by Adam and his handy nano hive problem.
At four, almost exactly, a load of people came, nearly ten of them. More than he’d invited, since a few people had brought others with them. Shaking his head, he shrugged.
“Carry and I are going first, and, um, why not you three?” It was two women, dressed sort of like Carry had, and a man that looked a bit familiar from the night before. He’d gotten the bio-baffler, but was missing the woman he’d been with. The one that looked like him.
“Then we’ll do up the rest, all at once. You can stand in the living room if you don’t mind the casual nudity?”
It seemed very likely that the only one that might would be him. Everyone else just started to strip down like it was the most normal thing in the world. He tapped into his imbed system and darkened the windows across the room, so that no one would be able to see in. It wasn’t illegal to be naked in your own apartment, but some of these people would be spied on.
Probably with the claim that they’d been at an orgy.
It was way more efficient however, so given that no one was shy, he ran them all through at one time. Carry, being good to her word, used the roller on his back. The others weren’t shy about helping out either, even if they were used to people waiting on them.
Then, these were the people that couldn’t really afford things like this, so maybe it was less the case for them than it had been for the people the night before. The other people.
Everyone here had pretty standard inskin computer systems, making it easy to link them all in. The program for the makeup was simple enough, but had some neat options that mimicked the higher end products. For instance, if you looked into a mirror, the program would give you the best application for your features at the moment, and match it to your clothing. There was, once that was established, a feature that would change things depending on lighting.
It was possible, using this imbed, with the program that he’d provided, to look your best twenty-four hours per day. You could even swim in it and look good. It had a hair color portion too, which allowed for ninety different pallette choices.
He was about to explain that to Carry, who was right next to him, when his phone rang. Two calls in one day was a lot for him. Deidre was in the other room too, naked by his sofa, so it probably wouldn’t be her. Instead it was Sam.
His buddy.
The face was white and blue again, with pretty swirls on the right hand side.
“Sam! You won’t believe what I’m doing right now. Things have gotten strange since I saw you last.”
Without missing a beat the mild tenor responded.
“Really? See, I turn my back for half a minute and you go and get yourself in trouble. What is it, did you come up with a new way to remove plaque from teeth?”
“Nope. I’m standing in a room with a bunch of really attractive people, totally nude. I’d say I felt underdressed, but… Yeah.”
He noticed that Carry was looking at him, her eyes slipping down his body. He had okay abs, but she kept going downward, her eyes lingering there. That part of him, well, honestly, he’d never thought about being self-conscious that way before. VR men were sometimes bigger, and sometimes smaller, that way. He figured that meant he was in the middle, more or less.
The woman seemed friendly enough when she made eye contact, so he probably wasn’t some vast disappointment. That or she was a good enough actress to fake being interested in him when she didn’t need to be. Smiling back, blushing a bit at the same time, he went on with Sam.
“So, why did you call? Are you coming over to dinner later? Or we could go out? That last thing was, um, let me pick this time?” That got a laugh, which seemed real.
“One scene of horrible fear and violence and you get all skittish on me. Sounds good though. I got a job. Out of town, for a few days. Can we do that tonight? My friend will drive us, he has an electric van. It isn’t pretty, but it works.”
“Sure. What time is good for you?” It was getting weird, talking to Sam like he wasn’t also Lexi. Spy rules were in effect, if only in his head, however, so he had to do it.
“Call it seven? I’ll meet you out front of your place. Near the brown building?” That was down the street a bit, and near one of the rare spots where the Watch cameras had a blind spot. He’d noticed that before, all on his own.
“See you then.” When he broke the line, Carry was looking at him, making eye contact this time, like she was curious.
“Te’s just a friend of mine. Sam. You two should meet. Te’s actually into famous people, I think.”
She looked hopeful, then had to shake her head.
“I can’t. Not tonight. Soon? I don’t know a lot of gender-neutral people. Are they a man or woman?”
He grinned.
“Te is te. That’s kind of the point. Messing with the rest of us in order to screw up our perception of what we can expect from others. I think that’s it, anyway. Sam is nice. Smart, which is one of my favorite things.” It was, but the woman sighed and shook her head.
“Do you like pretty too? I can do that. In fact…” She brought up her makeup, and ran through a full body color change, looking down. “I think we can both do that now. Let’s play in front of the mirror?”
About five minutes later half the people there were trying to get in front of the thing, which was meant for one person at a time. Mason put his clothing back on, personally. It wasn’t chilly in his apartment, not with all the bodies, but he was starting to get a little uneasy. More than half the people had taken to checking him out, like they were with each other. Sure, he wasn’t that bad, but the distraction of the people around him should have been enough.
No one tried to bend him over a sofa arm, so he was good.
That started a trend, and ten minutes later not only had most of them gotten dressed, but they’d started to leave. It was much better than the night before that way. The only thing that was truly different was that most of the people, men and women, stopped to give him a hug first.
“Thanks Mason!” This came from Deidre, who kissed his cheek. “That really helped earlier. I was freaking out, I can still call you, if I need to?”
He nodded, trying not to be annoyed with the slightly damp contact on his cheek. Her huge eyes made it easier to think of her as not being totally real, for him. Probably other people too, which might explain why so many things scared her in the world. If that was the case, then he’d just made it even worse, since simply taking her makeup off now wouldn’t leave her invisible. That was the point, making her good looking all the time, but the program had decided that her personal best look was in slightly cartoon like, and unreal, colors.
She looked good, but like a virt, at the same time.
Which meant she was going to be vulnerable. Really, a lot of them would be.
“Um, hey, can you all come back, in about a week? I’ll, I might have something for you. Next Sunday?” He didn’t want to tell them what, but most of the nodded. A little distantly, but they did it.
Carry nudged him, her gray sweats suddenly looking like they weren’t on an attractive mother of two, but rather a super star in a movie pretending to be one.
“Is that when you’re extracting payment for all this? Well, I’ll try to leave you too tired out for that, if I can. I have all week.” If anyone else understood what she meant, they didn’t let it show.
“Nope. Just a new imbed. I don’t want to give it away yet, because having a thousand people at my door will annoy my neighbors. So, just you people, and a few others. I’ll go over it with you in a few days, Carry.” Because she was going to be a captive audience, if he had time.
Mason ended up getting more hugs, and a few pecks on the cheek, before the place finally cleared out.
“Alone at last.” He glanced left, and saw that he had a full hour to get ready for his hang out time with Sam.
Being dressed well enough already, unless they were going someplace higher class than he wanted to pay for, he was set up that way for the evening. That left him with time to work up a very basic, and cheap to make, disassembly stripping unit. It pretty much just chopped stuff apart and sorted it all. It was simple enough, but wasn’t allowed for use by the public. Now that he thought about it, he understood why that was.
If people could do that, they could build a good life for themselves out of trash, rocks and the occasional tree branch. His nano disassembler was pretty interesting, but you could really do a whole lot at a much lower level of technology.
The reason you couldn’t have disassemblers was real enough, of course. If you could take things apart you could get the materials for guns and bombs, without anyone else knowing about it. He supposed that you could also drop a gun into the device he’d made and make weapons vanish without a single trace.
That was a bit of an issue, really. He could make it so that people had enough, in a world that was increasingly run by an ever smaller and more powerful elite, or he could leave it being safe. If people could make untraceable weapons, they might use them, after all.
Mason didn’t think they would, if they had pretty much everything they needed. There might be some that would get angry over not being loved back, and that kind of thing, but VR had taken a lot of heat out of things of that nature. If the blonde down the street didn’t like you, some other blonde in virt that night would. If no one wanted have you in real life, again, they would in a simulation that was so close to reality it could be hard to tell the difference some days.
He was about half done with the new plan when he let himself out, and locked up behind him. Too many people had come the day before for him to be comfortable leaving things open now. Even if they didn’t steal, he could see his neighbors going in just to ruin his stuff, in retaliation for all the noise.
So locking up tight was the order of the day. Which reminded him that he had things in the wash still. He jogged down the stairs, three flights of them, and changed the loads to the dryers before he needed to dash out to meet Sam and whoever te was bringing to drive.
That still meant waiting though, standing near the brown brick building that had seen better days about a hundred years before. Picking the right spot, he cuddled right between where the street cameras would be able to see him, slightly behind a decorative tree.
An older model van, gray and white in color, and looking as sketchy as hell, started to pull up, the driver looking over at him from behind a painted face mask that matched the one that the passenger had. Lisa and Sam. Even with all their gear on, he recognized them
Then they suddenly pulled away.
He stared at them, with an open mouth as he tried to gesture for them to come back. It wasn’t happening on the one-way street, but Sam did put ter head out of the window, so it was clear Mason was noticed. Not knowing what to do he watched them turn right and vanish around the building. Feeling a little baffled he wondered if running was in order.
Lisa was some kind of security expert, and had aborted the pickup. Glancing around he tried to figure out what was happening. He was in the right spot. Using an angle map that showed what each camera should be able to see, he realized that there was a small chance that one of the things down the street might be able to make out his face. Not that Watch wouldn’t know it was him, given who was standing there.
Trying to act casual, he repositioned himself, so that even if it caught him, it would only get the back of his head. Then he stopped moving, since there were gait recognition programs that would be able to track him that way.
Coming back around, the van whirred up and stayed stopped this time. The sliding side door opened quietly, as Sam’s painted face was exposed.
“Want a ride?” There was a playful tone to it, but nothing else was explained. Not until he was pulled inside, into an old and well worn composite seat. It had cracks in it and the yellow foam interior showed.
It was Lisa, in the front, who laughed and explained.
“I pulled up, and then didn’t recognize you. You look… Hot. So much so that I couldn’t make instant ident. Sam realized it was you from your body language. Good disguise.”
That was confusing for a few seconds, until he realized that he’d left his new imbed running. It was tempting to turn it off then, but Mason didn’t. There was no harm in looking good, after all. His skin was a bit more tan, as far as he could tell, but Sam actually stared at him, her face close enough he could smell te’s makeup.
“Very good. Why the change up? Because of what Adam said?”
“In part. I’d told some other people that I’d hook them up, and had it planned anyway. I look all right though? It isn’t what I’d normally do.” He started to feel really self-conscious about it, but Sam patted his arm, being reassuring, rather than flirtatious.
“Yeah. It’s a good look for you, actually. You fit in with the rest of us now. The party people. You can be our celebrity tech specialist. Now I just have to find you a girlfriend, so no one will put you and me together too much. Not outside of business.”
