Published on Dec 1, 2009:
Introduction
The winning story of 2009 SF Contest [1]. Bold, set in a future close enough to be recognizable, charged with the promise of sex, and an ending that will leave you... well, read on.
The pulsating strobe lights smell of the new breed of East Asian flowers that seem to have taken the underground circuit by storm. If you're equipped with the right set of receptors ('loaded right'), you should also feel a mild sexual arousal, since the flowers are also touted to be the next-gen aphrodisiacs. The full scale integration of the flowers' olfactory effects with The Strobe Environment is a high-maintenance, grimace-inducing, titty-twisting expense for even the most upscale clubs, but then again, The Establishment, as the saying goes, is no ordinary establishment.
The dance floor groans under the weight of all those human bodies grinding against each other, swaying in slow, graceful arcs to the tune of rhythmic, libidinous, mildly intoxicating, synesthetic music that sends periodic bursts of sonic booms reverberating through the packed dance floor, bouncing off bodies in motion, winds of sound ruffling well maintained hairdos, triggering haptic stimulation of erogenous zones set on collision courses, interfacing with holographic glowsticks and evoking that near-optimal set of semi-euphoric, aroused responses that regulars regularly shell out obscene amounts of credits for. Being part of such an upscale clique means that you're almost always loaded right. Ready for any experience; prepared for all adventures – all of which are, according to the customized settings you prefer, just a click, or for the historically inclined, just a mild turn-of-the-knob away.
There are Ghosts too – those holographic, near life like, three dimensional simulacra programmed to dance flawlessly, keep step with their partner(s), anticipate their movements, dynamically adapt responses and dig deep and extract from their collective libraries of advanced heuristics (Note #0: cf. 'Collective Consciousness' in the latest issue of Tech-Slang Five Point O), the exact set maximally compatible with their partners' dance moves. The popularity of these bots is high, for they can adjust well even in mixed genres, fusion-based dances and anything short of complete arbitrariness. Manufactured in a variety of customized settings, you can see ghost bots of Limp Member, Fake Sheikh, Mr. T and Chuck Norris bobbing up and down, moving left and right on the dance floor tonight. A while ago you could've seen a Jesus-Bot too, grooving to the funky tunes just like the others, its precision timed pelvic thrusts and provocative, affected mien not conjuring your standard Jesus-Christ-Son-of-God-and-therefore-destroyer-of-evils-type image. Fittingly, no one got down on their knees, swapped the zen-fusion track with “Hallelujah” or crossed themselves. They were busy getting titillated and/or stroked while the periodic aphrodisiacal bursts went right through the bot – its engineers not having installed anything resembling the human sex drive in it yet.
I am The Stalker and I am not a regular of The Establishment. I used to frequent it once with an old girlfriend but let's just say that that was a long time ago. Real long.
The girl you see there sitting quietly at the side, ensconced deep in the warm embrace of the recliner, with her head tilted slightly at an angle, a strange, hard-to-place smile pasted on her heartbreakingly pretty face, her eyes closed, head swaying gently to the tune of the music, the sonic waves fondling her erogenous zones – she is tonight's Subject.
...
It was eleven o' clock at night. The smog hung heavy over the city, obscuring visibility and providing cover. Heavy snowfall'd occurred last night and the cold air of night was the feel of shiny steel up your nose. Every breath was a veritable exhibition of fortitude. She walked a few feet ahead of me, one hand in her jacket-pocket, the periodic emission of vapor in front of her face making it difficult to judge whether she was smoking or was it simply her breath. Her gait was light, quick and urgent. She took a right turn and entered the alley.
A huge, dark figure whisked her away from sight. I followed stealthily, but the large, upturned, putrid garbage bin obscured my range of vision. A ragged figure lay supine next to the trash heap, its head and torso occluded by wastes of all kind – needles, syringes, food in various stages of decomposition, excrement, alcohol etc. and fortified it with an ineffably foul smell. I covered my nose to prevent myself from gagging, neither knowing nor caring for the state of the lain figure who in all probability was dead, rotting away, on the hitlist of scavengers on the prowl.
Soon enough, the two of them emerged, surely having consummated some not-so-kosher transaction. There was a new glow on The Subject's face and one could detect she was high. She beamed a euphoric, ecstatic smile at the black man, rose on her toes and kissed him. During the liplock, as he lay his hand on her shoulder, my attention was drawn to the fluorescent tatt (Note#1: Commercial name – Bio-Tattoo – from the commercial division of Bio-Art Inc. - pioneers of Wetware and Biological Fashion Accessories. However, see also their atrocious marketing campaigns – especially uncool, geeky slogans like “biologically engineered for utility maximization” etc. See Tech Review 2.0's July-August Centennial Edition for coverage of their eventual debacle in detail.) that revolved around his forearm and flashed something in Spanish with a footnoted English subtitle: “Bug me more and I'll bugger you sure”. I'd learned Spanish and located the obvious grade-school-level mistake in the translation (the 'sure' should've been 'sore'), smiled involuntarily and withdrew quietly, to be aprowl again.
I am The Stalker and I stalk pretty wenches that catch my attention. I'm into girls only. Nothing exotic. Not for me anyway.
I kept following The Subject around at some distance. Her pace had quickened and she crossed the desolate, snow-clogged footpaths and intersections with long, purposeful strides, her long, shapely legs crushing the snow underfoot with a sharp 'krunch' sound; her eyes on the ground, her head bent, her tight, compact tits vibrating around a mean position with every step.
It was important not to lag behind too much in the pursuit of The Subject since the smog made things difficult to follow. The tarry particles of soot, particulates from the adjoining industrial wasteland, carcinogenic smoke, sulfur dioxide, dust and temperature inversion combined to create a perennial blanket of an all-engulfing, fog-like aerosol that made you blind. On bad days, gas masks became a necessity, transforming the city into a Darth Vader fan zone. However, the lens in my left eye could be counted on to keep the prey in sight even in the worst of smogs. These red Jap miracles went by the name of Mangekyou Sharingan and caused a dent in my bank account bigger than the size of an island in French Polynesia. I invested in this luxury only after deciding to go pro. (The previous one was a solar-powered Carl Zeiss lens. But what's the use of a sun-sucker when you don't see the sun for months on end? I yanked those lenses away when I was blinded in the left eye due to low battery and lost track of A Subject a few years ago.) My new lens is powered by the pressure differentials in my blood. Very appositely, I've chosen its color as red.
Before The Subject had ventured out into the streets, I'd seen her in a restaurant ten blocks away. The Environment had been dim-lighted, in an upscale mimicry of the chronic low voltage problem in the old parts of the city. She'd been spaced out, sitting alone, all by herself, her blue-green eyes ready to piss out rivers of tears at a short notice. What had been the cause? A break-up? The death of a loved one? Or simply a clichéd existential crisis? I didn't know the answer to this question; but the image stayed with me, my will was bent and I was somehow compelled to follow her, as if under some imperative behest.
...
She stopped midway to stare at the pellucid, mid-sized building with a dilapidated, blinking neon sign supposed to flash the name 'Hello There Hotel'. Funnily enough, the letters 'o' and 'T' refused to light up, in effect, renaming the 37 level glassy structure as 'Hell here Hotel'. The place was famous, in a somewhat non-standard way. The outside of the building was a series of conjoined fenestrations of once high-quality, transparent glass and offered sex shows all through the night totally free of charge. A voyeur paradise, many an eventually famous porn stars' careers were launched from the windows of the hotel. A small crowd always gathered around the place, cheering on the performers, choosing among the ones they'd want highlighted on their personal light-screens and amplifying their orgasmic cries of delight. The show was free and in principle, anybody could come along and display their sexual prowess through the windows to the hungry-for-any-kind-of-spectacle public. All modes and forms of sexual conduct were kosher here (think of all possible permutations and combinations of males, females, animals and even some freaks nowadays (Note#2: 'Freaks' – Commonly used name for body modificationists – think of Cyclopean three-breasted women and four armed sporting-an-extra-penis-on-the-forehead-type punks, not to mention insane, inter/intra-sexed transsexuals of all possible kinds.)), the worth of their performance determined only by the intensity of the cheers of the crowd below.
She didn't stay long enough to look and left for The Establishment, with me at her heels.
I am the Stalker and I wear an imitation rexinish, polyurethane based synthetic coat which blends in with the surroundings when in the Camouflage Mode. This Subject is #17. The prime number ones always get a special treatment.
...
So now she sits there nodding away dreamily at the latest techno-punk-fetishist hit single “The Destroyer Shiva's my man!”, her eyes rolled up under the influence of all that DMZ she must've soaked through the patch that I saw her stick (and later rip out violently) in that tiny depression at the base of the throat, right in the region between the clavicles (Note#3: Tech name – suprasternal notch), just before entering the serpentine, umbilical tunnel-like entrance of The Establishment. Look at her face perspiring freely, her eyebrows furrowed and pupils dilated, her breath coming in short, sharp gasps, her legs joggling hard, her position frequently changing on the recliner, her drink untouched, her eyes shut tight, unable to withstand the information-heavy, overwhelming sensory overload that their opening will subject her brain to. Her eyes are blue-green (the right one blue and the left one green) but in the club tonight, with the interior of the lounge drowned in serious polychrome wavelengths with nasty attitudes that wreak havoc with the augmented, finely tuned, oversensitive nervous systems of the denizens of The Establishment, they take on a cerise and maroonish tinge (again, the left and the right ones respectively). When she blinks, her pupils react to the environment, bob around their centers, contract and expand to the tune of the music. The snake-tatt on her forearm gyrates madly, flashes its fangs and explores her flawless, perfect body as it slithers languorously on her skin.
All this drowns me in waves of ferociously intense passion. I take a quick puff of smoke, inhale it deeply and throw away the stubs. Yes, I can see the DMZ taking effect on her now. Soon it will be time for The Stalker to taste her flesh in the throes of passion. Let me dress up in the diaphanous bodysuit, its snug encasing like a body stocking, only with an added intimacy of a condom; the sexperience augmented a millionfold by minute tactile sensors jacked directly to my brain, amplifying the incoming signals and channeling away the noise, dimming my senses to anything but the act at hand; my eyesight totally high definition, my sense of smell as sharp as a dog's, my sense of touch fed on by a variety of jacks and sensors well attuned to my likes and dislikes, turn ons and turn offs, embellishing little haptic sensations with creative, ad hoc signals of their own. DMZ plus The Establishment chases your sex drive way up the hill from where the only way down is a fearless plunge – giddy, breathless, reckless and totally carefree. She's ready to take that plunge now (look at her violently joggling legs if you don't believe me). Now's the time when The Stalker makes an entrance.
I still remember my previous experiences – in HD, better than what they were at the time of performance – all of them, much more detailed, the moans much more heartfelt, the jostling, intimidation and force erased from memory, the sexual satisfaction coefficient much more close to the perfect hundred; the memory of the act harmonious in a very Eastern way, almost like a religious experience. The slight distortion that the memory map undergoes as you back it up in some drive doesn't bother me as it does some. Isn't this what the 'natural' memory acquisition system of the human brain does anyway? So notoriously unreliable, confabulative and primitive this mechanism is – so often concocting experiences, conjuring up scenes that never happened – simply making shit up. It's not without reason that no self respecting court accepts 'natural' memory as admissible evidence. So what if programs modify such digital records a little bit? So what if you have armies of kids convinced they were Stalin in their previous life? So what if you can auction the most intimate moments of your life over the web? (In principle, you can always erase the additive details and extract the original memory. But that's so boring!)
I am the Stalker and my preferred machine is the Shibuyo 5.0 version, manufactured by Hogyoke – the zaibatsu with the controlling share in the running of this country. Watch me as I select the EPL (Note#4: 'Enhanced Personal Pleasure'.) mode. Now.
...
The music has segued into a modern jazz synth piece whose complexity would have driven Mozart to suicide and is made to be played only by polydactylic musicians trained by the famed, autistic, inbent, heavy set music gurus from the East (rumors have it that their anal-sound-range variations span four octaves) and their apprentice AIs for over tens of years. On the fourth floor gallery, you can see the famed Siamese Twins copulating to the tune of the music. A couple of teenagers reeling under the weight of all those hallucinogens activate the 'share' mode on their machines and project their keenly felt, highly introspective, extremely personal hallucinations as 3D holograms for all to gawk at. (Kids these days!)
The Subject opens her eyes abruptly, gets up from her recliner and approaches the Jesus Bot a few tables from her. The Jesus Bot looks at her lecherously and gives her the trademark wink that's supposed to mark approval of the thunderous sexual appeal of whatever woman's happened to approach it. This one's more advanced though. Its wink has more subtlety, more of an otherworldly Jesus Christ aura that hints at some transcendental communion – sort of like a cosmic, orgiastic sex dance invitation, more in keeping with the approach favored by some advanced, hypothetical Shiva bot. (Upgrade?) It puts his arms around her waist, nibbles at her ear delicately and moves its lips over her jugular notch. She swoons, eyes half closed and laughs her small, pearly-white-teeth laugh.
It's her turn to take control now. She fondles the bot's hair, holds its arm and glides across the isles to approach its pimp-programmer. The programmer is a hunchback, his ugliness a throwback (perhaps in fond tribute?) to old times when it was fashionable to don grotesque, ugly get ups to spite the newly beautified gentry naively ecstatic at the revolutionary cost reducing technologies that made ugliness a thing of humanity's atavistic past. He huddles in the dark recesses of the Machine Section, the massive machine structures shadowing his deformities and giving his diminutive, lordotic pose a ghostly, lurking-on-the-sidelines-type aura. He has only one eye – a state-of-the-art cybernetic implant that would've cost The Establishment a fortune. He accepts the credits offered by The Subject nonchalantly, scans her pupils and hands her the access codes to the fourth floor room.
“Hallelujah”, he cries, in mock reverence.
She spanks the Bot with her left hand.
“Amen”, she says, in mock delight.
...
The rest room mirrors' view is panoramic. I see a middle aged figure in front of me, eyeing me, its shoulders hunched on the sink, its eyebrows furrowed, a slim rivulet of watery substance originating from the red, left eye. A neutral observer could've described this figure as crushed.
I see its sagging boobs and feel the stamp of all those years of suffering on its withered, no longer beautiful face – the gaudy lipstick beginning to dry up and leave creases of dry skin at its extremities. I see the figure in the mirror take out a patch of DMZ, stick it up on her jugular notch, moan pleasantly at the effects of the drug, feel her withered breasts with her left hand, swoon a little and smile at me with a nudge-nudge-wink-wink sort of an insider/all-knowing expression. I smile at her in return.
I am The Stalker and I stalk pretty wenches that catch my attention. I am into girls only. Nothing exotic. Not for me anyway. This Subject's #17. The prime number ones are in for a special treatment.
Think I'll use my strap-on tonight.
END.
