Mark looked around outside. New New Orleans nightlife never died down. Quite the opposite, the city came alive at night.
New Orleans sucked when he was a kid, the rising waters and constant hurricanes battered the city down. It looked and smelled terrible, a mixture of horse manure and urine gave the city an air that could be described as “Earthy” if one were being generous. After the robots took over, he had to admit that the city looked completely different from the scene he’d known as a kid.
New New Orleans was buoyed by influxes of Japanese immigrants who built the hyper loops that adorned the streets, in place of the street cars he’d known as a kid. The Cajun restaurants and seafood stores still adorned the area, but restaurants were just as likely to have yakitori grilling as they were to have Cajun spiced burgers and shrimp. Corporations ruled the Earth now and they were multinational.
After losing money to repeated repairs from hurricane damage and levee expenditures, a group of Japanese businesses bought out New Orleans in exchange for its access to the sea and ports up and down the Mississippi. They redubbed it “New New Orleans” or just “Neon Orleans” to the natives. Even though the Creole architecture persisted, the majority of Creoles were now part of the Proxima Universe, sitting in their liquid chambers somewhere in the building. The city transformed in short order to looking more like Shinjuku in Tokyo than the Lower Wards he’d known as a child.
The broken lamps and darkly lit alleys, known affectionately as “Rape alleys” when he was a kid, were gone. They were replaced by pulsing neon lights that lit up against the 18th century Spanish architecture. With the horse manure gone, and police robots and androids policing the area looking for people too drunk to pee in a toilet, the air cleaned up considerably.
He walked past the restaurants, bars, pool halls, tattoo parlors, and pachinko parlors to get to his destination. He could have taken his car, but dealing with yet another automated, robotic system wouldn’t do him any good in his mood. Besides, he needed to stretch his legs.
He knew that technically wasn’t true. His VR Pod was a military grade version, one of the original designs. Since they were meant to enhance real-World skills, everything he did in the game was simulated in his capsule. Part of the reason he didn’t like to actually train in the game, outside from his natural phlegmatic nature, was that it left him sore and unable to move when he got out the pod.
The newer pods only did enough to keep the person inside technically alive, but spend a year in one and you’ll come out looking like the Crypt Keeper. This dramatically lowered the life expectancy of someone who spent their time in a Proxima World, freeing up resources by removing the “surplus population” from the equation.
He passed groups of teenagers on break, drinking from the enormous cups and boots that still populated the Bourbon street area. Some were making out, some were barely able to stand, but all of them had the party atmosphere. “Good for them”, he thought. “Party it up before life comes crashing down on you.”
His first stop was a Rouele’s Deli, run by an Indian man who somehow knew how to make excellent Cajun food. While his crew could get stuck eating protein rations and other less-than-tasty rations, he could enjoy real food in the real World. “Rank brings privilege”, he thought to himself. He enjoyed his double-burger with melted American cheese, homemade toasted burger bread, medium-cooked double-patties of beef seasoned with paprika, salt, black pepper, thyme, and cayenne. He washed it down with a large set of cajun seasoned fries, a chocolate stout beer, and a milk shake. Perfect relaxation food.
He knew that if he’d signed up for a life chip, an alert would be telling him that his caloric intake was hazardous to his health, but he was free from that problem. The nanny-state wouldn’t get him today.
He ate slowly, savoring the food in mouthfuls. He liked Rouele’s Deli because Rouele was a real person, not some generic cooking android, and he could talk about the latest news with Rouele and stay at least somewhat current on the latest goings-on in the real World. Mark had the startling realization that intergalactic politics inside of Eternity Online were more important to him than real-World politics. With the 1% having taken over fully, the Proxima World’s version of panem et circuses had truly become the politics he cared about.
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He finished his lunch and tapped his sim card on the way out, making the automatic deduction from his bank account. Then he head out of the deli towards his real destination.
A few blocks away, he spotted his target. The place he wanted wasn’t a bar or nightclub, but a pleasure lounge. The neon lights of the lounge lit up the entire street in a wash of pink lights that moved about in a heart shape. Inside of these pink hearts were holographic videos of the women inside, promising a night of pleasure and relaxation. That was where he wanted to go.
Before he stepped in, he spotted two men waiting outside. They wore black long black coats clearly designed to prevent weapon bulges from showing, bright red long-sleeve silk shirts with popped collars that were unbuttoned down to bottom of their rib cages, and thick rings on each of their fingers. Their bare chests revealed intricate herringbone tattoos in vivid colors, a clear marker that they were Yakuza. Their brown eyes had a reptilian predator look, hungry for violence. Mark knew they wouldn’t do anything to him unless he did something to the girls or picked up a tab he couldn’t pay, but the two thugs still put him a bit on edge. He pushed past that feeling and stepped inside.
The inside of the pleasure lounge was brightly lit, with hostesses waiting to take his coat and make him feel welcome. A video display allowed him to select his girl from the menu on offer. Even though he perused the entire menu, because it’d be plain rude not to, he knew that he would pick Mai Tanaka as his girl for the night.
She greeted him after coming out of the lounge area, and pulled him into one of the rooms. She had thick, black hair, a massive set of clearly augmented breasts, and a doll-like face coupled with big, brown eyes.
They both stripped down naked, and he admired her soft, curvaceous body. As opposed to Luciana’s firm and strong legs, Mai’s legs were more soft and less muscular. Why the hell was he thinking about Luciana? He pushed the thought away as he prepared for the warm bath and body scrub, a strange ritual for a man who had literally just showered a few minutes ago, but this all part of the performance.
After the bath and body treatment, they moved onto an air mattress on the floor, and Mai began massaging him with her hands and breasts across his body. She made small talk with him, telling him about her college classes. Mark knew that these “classes” were every bit fictitious, and she’d be working in this brothel until she was replaced by one of the sex bots that many people were flocking to, but he kept up the pretense. Likewise, he told her about his “job” as a day trader, something she likely knew was fictitious as well. But this banter-talk was also part of the ritual.
Once she saw that he was fully aroused, she dipped her hands into a bowl of clear liquid gel, known as Nuru. She made soft, circular motions across his body and spread the warm, slippery substance across his body. After massaging him fully with her naked body, she began to mount him and slowly ride him. Her motions were smooth and practiced, very slow and gentle, holding at the top of penis for a brief pause before slowly sliding back down.
This was different from the wild, enthusiastic sex he had with Luciana. She used her muscular legs to clamp down on him and ride hard and fast. He grabbed Mai by the hips and began thrusting into her in the wilder, more passionate lovemaking that he had with Luciana. He grabbed both of her breasts in his hand, squeezing on her pink areola, and shoved her right breast into his mouth, hungrily sucking and licking on it.
Mai squealed in delight, riding him faster. Why the hell couldn’t he stop thinking about Luciana? She was nothing more than a combination of binary digits, ones and zeroes, a damn computer program. But even as his pelvic thrusts ebbed away at his conscious mind, the pleasure of warm flesh and tingling sensations over his sensitive body eating away at his rational thought, he couldn’t help but doubt that.
Everything he did with Mai was far more robotic than his lovemaking session with Luciana. Every part of what Mai did was rehearsed, robotic, and ultimately emotionally shallow. He had no idea who she was, and she didn’t care who he was, as long as his credits were good. What he had with Mai was far more fake than what he had with Luciana, digital or not. Maybe she was just using him to step up the IIOs bureaucratic ladder, but maybe there was something more there too. Maybe the concern she showed him wasn’t like the idle small talk he did here, but a real, deeper emotional connection.
He gasped as his orgasm racked his body, a final descending light that killed all of his self-doubts, worries, and frustrations. He blissfully gave himself to that nihilistic void, letting pleasure take away every damned thought that rattled about in his skull. When it was finished, he felt Mai kissing him on his chest and neck.
He gently pushed her off of him and they went to a shower to clean off the gel, she kissed him in a genuine fashion. But he knew that what she was feeling right now wasn’t anything he had for her, but his imagination for a woman that could never join him in this World.