Jean finally got her drink at the spa, where she turned her nose up at the champagne in favor of shots, which the staff provided without a single sniff of disdain. Glenda and Tam were just as happy to participate in the shots as they’d been to sip their champagne. The Jean/Glenda compromise was to have two rounds of cheap straight whiskey in salute to their origins before they all moved on to pina coladas that were stronger than the straight whiskey.
The joys of VR drinking and eating had entered the realm of gastronomical artistry in the late 2100s. It’s all programming anyway. Your goop got a shot of “I feel dizzy,” and it turned out that even those had flavors. There’s the “I feel dizzy from a rollercoaster drop,” and “I feel dizzy from spinning in circles with my arms out” and a ton of other things. Once they’d broken the code of amino acid balancing for hormonal health, they’d not only gotten rid of depression and PTSD, but they’d also started enhancing food and drinks for optimal emotional responses. This allowed the whiskey to taste like peach cobbler while kicking like a ride on a fast horse.
Not that Joe got any of that. His goop was regulated to maintain perfect amino acid balance so that he wouldn’t suffer from any chemically induced mental health issues. He wasn’t allowed the mood-enhancing goop. He just got motion-sickness nausea instead. Joe tasted the liquor, but he didn’t imbibe like they did. The AIs did a passable job of imitating tipsy people, but it was clear to Joe that they didn’t understand the basic concept. He wondered if his perfectly modulated goop was keeping at least some of his trauma at bay.
This is what Joe's mind could contemplate when forced to sit naked in a tub of bright green mud so silky it felt like silk sheets. He wasn’t sure how he was going to get out of the stuff, but it did almost make him feel like he was in a womb-like setting, something that disconcerted more than relaxed him. His mind was just delving into the inanity of VR spa treatments when real-world pores would not be enhanced by them when they were finally rudely interrupted by Hex.
“Hey!” Jean squawked into the silence Joe had been afraid to break.
“What?” Tam snapped out as they all pulled the cucumber off their eyes to look.
“When did Hex learn that trick?” Jean asked.
Hex stood near Jean’s face, one slightly muddy paw gently laid on Jean’s cheek. That was cute, but the fact that she stood on the very liquidy green mud was what made Joe do a double-take. Pet tricks like snickering around their hands and blowing kisses were the ones Joe had expected. This was something a little more sophisticated as he noted that she was actually hovering slightly above the mud with a look on her furry face that said, “What? I’ve always been able to do this.”
“Why, Miss Remmington, look at you,” Glenda reached between the tubs to wipe the smear of green from Jean’s cheek. “You’re beautiful.”
“I have to go,” Jean sputtered at the attention, using the lip of the tub to wrench her body up out of the mud with a disconcerting slurp. “I’ve had more than enough of being green with you all.”
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“Aren’t you full of tricks?” Joe smiled at Hex, and she gave him a slow blink in response. “I’d give you a treat, but it looks like you can get one for yourself.”
As if waiting for Joe's permission, Hex deigned to float-walk over to the bag he’d hung up on the wall next to the fluffy white robes they’d been given. Podo popped her head up out of the bag and handed a treat to Hex. Joe took the opportunity to look around for Kodo, but his little black form was either deep in the bag or off up to mischief somewhere. Joe had a moment of panic, but then he remembered that the AIs were more on his side since he’d spent his upgrades on them. Once Hex had daintily eaten her treat, she settled herself into the cutest little bundle of fur, her purple sparkles winking at Joe with every breath she took.
“If I’ve been tortured enough by your makeover attempts, can I finally have my room key?” Jean walked with unselfconscious ease to the shower stalls to rinse off. Joe supposed it was still PG considering that the green stuff covered her so thickly that she might as well have been wearing a padded pantsuit.
“Oh, all right,” Glenda capitulated reluctantly, and Joe perked up as well. If Jean was finally being released from this, then he should be able to go as well. “Your room number is Suite 114. It’s already keyed to know you, so you’ll be able to just walk in.”
“If I’m going to hit the kitchen with enough time for tweaks, I’ve got to get going too,” Tam followed Jean’s example even more dexterously than Jean had. “Come on, Joe. Let’s hit the showers.”
Joe got out of his tub much less gracefully, but followed feeling the cameras on what he felt was his naked body. He managed to shuffle his way to the shower stall that Jean was exiting, her fluffy white robe speckled with the green mud here and there.
“Oh, all right,” Glenda sighed again. “But I expect you all to be at the salon in time for makeup half an hour before the rehearsal. I’ve marked all the times on your itineraries, and I’ve booby-trapped them so that you’ll be sorry if you miss your appointment time.
“What ever happened to the trust?” Jean grunted in offense.
“You’ve stood me up before,” Glenda gave the stink eye to Jean, and Joe wondered how she still had so much regalness while soaking in a pot of mud, but she sure pulled it off.
“That’s why I’m your favorite,” Tam called out through the steam of her shower. “I’m your loyal, royal subject forever and ever and ever and ever. We’ll all be back at the appointed time. We love you.”
“When push comes to shove, I will send a fully armed battalion to remind you of your love,” Glenda purred with a glint in her eyes that penetrated the steam of Joe's own shower. “You see the extent of what I’ll go through for your love, for your praise. I’ll love you till my dying days.”
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“You’d better,” Tam flirted, hanging over her shower door to flutter her eyelashes at Glenda. “After what poor Jean has endured on this day of girlie madness.” Tam’s upper body was pressed against the frosted glass in a way that left little to the imagination. Did special effects cover nude oopsies? Joe thought about looking away but didn’t. He wasn’t that good of a guy. “Look at how she’s positively drained!”
“And I can’t go on,” Jean complained. “I need a nap and some sanity.”
“Are you sure you can’t just stay for one more cup of tea?” Glenda teased.
“Careful or she’ll dump that tea in your mud pit,” Tam laughed at them.
“You’ll be complaining when I’m gone,” Glenda purred. “You know you love me, and I think perhaps you secretly love these little episodes of girlie stuff. Who else would subject you to all this?”
“No one else I’d do it for,” Jean gave a smile, but it looked suspiciously rebellious.
“Just be back here by 3:30pm or else,” Glenda threatened Jean’s retreating wave as she took her bundle of clothes and sauntered out the door with a jaunty wave.
Joe accessed their digital itineraries with a swipe of screens in the shower. Somehow it was only noon, which was impossible given that it had been nearly noon before their four-hour drive from the north. Set magic, Joe supposed. He let it go. It wasn’t like he could do much about it. As much as a part of Joe wanted to hold onto reality, he just needed to fly with it. Reality hadn’t been all that kind to him anyway. He’d lived his life being good and quiet and perfectly mouselike. Joe guessed he needed to let that go too.
“Hey Glenda,” Tam called out over her shower stall door. “Think you could transport us straight to our room? I need some shortcuts to get everything done in time. I need a real shower.”
“Sure,” Glenda shrugged, slithering out of her mud bath with admirable aplomb. Looking over her shoulder at Joe, she continued, “While you walking over to your towel would be as good as a cowboy stripper, sweetheart, I am offering to send you to your room too, if you’d like?”
“Yeah, sure,” Joe agreed, eyeing his puddle of clothes too far away to reach. Unlike Jean, he hadn’t taken his fluffy towel-like robe with him.
“I booked your suite next to theirs,” Glenda grinned at Joe as Tam dissolved with a mild eep. “I figured you and your entourage could use the extra room. It’s got an adjoining door to Tam and Jean’s suite.”
“Uh, thanks!” Joe enthused, with what was surprisingly real gratitude. “You’ve done so…”
Joe's words were cut off as Glenda’s grin faded on what sounded like, “You’re worth it, kid.”
Shower to shower is what happened. Joe materialized in the shower stall of his own room in a hotel so posh that his old company couldn’t afford the VR version of it. Kodo and Podo were deposited onto the sink, their little bag leaning up against the vanity mirror. Considering that Kodo had materialized with a pawful of caviar on a cracker, Joe didn’t think he’d been in the bottom of the bag when Podo had handed Hex her treat. Hex was curled up on the vanity chair’s lush velvet cushion. Even the shower was the exact temperature Joe had left downstairs.
After washing up with the foamiest golden shampoo he’d ever imagined, Joe dried off with snow-white towels that kissed his VR skin. He knew he didn’t need the soap, but it was a brand, and his new skill knew that if he used it and someone clicked on it in his show, he’d get a kickback, so he washed his hair like he was in a shampoo commercial. In Joe's mind, he compared the psychologist’s slime-covered slippery chair and its threadbare blanket exactly like he’d had back home. They were sandpaper compared to this. If this was what came from donating all his xp to the AIs progress, it was certainly the key to this adventure. And it was an adventure. This whole fiasco was some magnificent adventure and Joe had been holding onto reality like it was where he really belonged, like it was better.
Joe's toes curled into the carpet at his feet, and he considered his rebellious folly. What had he been holding onto in his kingdom of isolation out there in the real world? His glance fell on the “casual clothes” that Glenda and Tami had flung into his bag as afterthoughts so that he’d have something clean to wear to the rehearsal. And the rehearsal was three outfits in and of itself. There was one casual outfit for the rehearsal, then another casual one for the rehearsal dinner, and then they’d change clothes yet again for the ball that came after the rehearsal. The underwear had cost more than his RW (real world) rent for a month. Why had Joe been so adamant about not letting them in? Why hadn’t he wanted to be seen? He’d always been so good at hiding.
Noting the time and that they had several hours before he had to meet up with the ladies, Joe slipped over to the attached bedroom of the suite with the intent of diving toward the safe and his quest rewards. The view stopped him dead in his tracks. Joe stood agape, towel hanging on his hip, staring at the expanse of Florida beach complete with gently lapping waves against that pale sandy shore. Palm tree fronds swayed gently like jazz hands in a cheerleading competition. Who even was Joe to be standing here in the lap of luxury, surrounded by riches he could never afford? He stood there in a towel and nothing else and he wasn’t even worried about being seen by the little dots of people on the beach. It’s funny how some distance makes everything seem so small.
And Joe let it go. He let go of the idea of going back to his dingy apartment. He let go of his derelict life that was in shambles before he’d had a chance to really live. Joe turned away from the windows and knelt at the safe, punching in the quest code. There it was. His catsuit. And Joe changed right there, confident that the windows would hide his nudity and special effects would blur out the rest because PG was PG. He had time. It was time to see what he could do, test the limits, break through his inhibitions about how he should or shouldn’t act. Were there any right and wrong rules in here? Joe knew there were, but for two precious hours, he was free to see if he could let go of his old fears and be someone new.
Skill gained: Acrobatic Stealth
Skill gained: Lockpicking
Skill gained: Safe Cracking
“Kodo, Podo, Hex,” Joe gave a smirk as he called them. He sat on the bed in a catsuit that would make Batman jealous. “We have some schematics to steal.” Joe figured that he couldn’t keep the skills outside of this scenario, but he wanted a chance to play with them while he could. This was a fantasy of his, and he was going to go for it.
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Two chitters and a little meow answered Joe as they scampered around him. He gave Hex a ramp up into his shoulder, but she stopped near Kodo, who took the time to take off her collar and put it in the safe with the rest of their accoutrements. Joe lifted the flap on his new, smaller and more compact, knapsack. Was it wrong to want to stay in prison for the rest of his life? Joe thought on that, as he shut the door to the safe with a little click. Joe came to a conclusion on his knees there on the carpet, his pets looking up at him expectantly. He was never going back. The past was in the past. Whatever came next, he was never going back to that dingy apartment. He’d use these two years and get enough of a following so that he could leave his past behind him for good.
Joe had done the right thing in feeding his xp into the AIs and now they were going to help him build a whole new world for himself, and them, because they’d find a way. Oh, shit. Was that hope? Determination? Foolishness? Joe didn’t care anymore. He let go of his fears, even the new spider ones. He let go of his doubts, even the smart ones. Joe just let it go.