Episode 13

A Sea of Red Flags

I tried to get back into my combat training to occupy the next few hours until my meeting with Cherri, but I just couldn’t develop any momentum. I found myself staring at the same page for minutes at a time, while conjuring up images of Cherri.

Besides my superficial curiosity about her appearance, I was perplexed as to why she would reach out to me. To be honest, I was curious why anyone would reach out to a newcomer here in troopship land. The most likely reason would be to obtain something that they couldn’t get from someone already here.

It couldn’t possibly be something as simple as curiosity, could it? As I deliberated over Cherri’s motivation for wanting to meet me ‘in person’, I received a text asking for a voice dialog. Acknowledging receipt of the text, I enabled audio.

It was Lucy. “Hey, a spot just opened up for the simulator. I thought I’d check and see if you wanted it. You really need the practice.”

Sim time was valuable and although I appreciated the offer, I wasn’t too keen for a repeat of the ‘ventilation’ I’d suffered during my last simulator session. Besides, I was too distracted by my upcoming date with Cherri to focus on combat simulations. What? Did I just reimagine our meeting as a date? What the hell was wrong with me? Had I somehow regressed to an awkward teenager?

Fortunately, Lucy interrupted my looping self-flagellation to ask whether I had heard his offer.

“So, are you in or out?”

“Sorry. Thanks for the invite, but I’m trying to focus on my training. I don’t think I should be in the sim right now. I’m kind of distracted at the moment.” My excuse seemed so transparent; I was expecting Lucy to see right through it.

“Is that right?” There was a pause, then he asked, “So, are you going to tell me what’s going on or am I supposed to guess?”

As embarrassing as it was to be put on the spot, I saw this as an opportunity. Lucy would certainly know how to gather information about someone without being obvious about it. It was even likely that he knew Cherri socially. I imagined the troopship community was small enough that everyone was probably familiar with everyone else, at least by reputation.

“Okay, here’s what’s going on. I was invited to meet with someone, in person. I’m just trying to keep a low profile about it.”

Lucy said “That’s encouraging. I was wondering when you were going to start making some social connections around here, besides me.” It was a relief to share my secret with someone.

Lucy began asking the obvious questions, starting with the name of the person I was meeting.

“Her name is Cherri.” I was surprised to find that something about her name made me feel self-conscious as I said it out loud for the first time. I wasn’t quite sure why. An uncomfortable silence followed, as I anxiously awaited Lucy’s thoughts on my meeting. I didn’t feel like I needed his approval, but I was hoping he had a positive opinion of her.

Lucy began by carefully assessing how much I already knew about Cherri. “You know she’s very well known in the community, right?”

The fact that she was ‘well known’ seemed like a positive to me. “Yeah, she mentioned that when we meet, there will be a lot of buzz.” I couldn’t recall her exact words, but it was something like that.

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“Do you know why she’s so well known?” I didn’t particularly like the direction this conversation was going. It seemed like I should be the one asking questions, not Lucy. I fumbled for a response but had to admit that I didn’t have a clue. I was starting to get a bad feeling.

Lucy explained, “Cherri is a popular sim-star.” I immediately thought of the combat simulator. It was the only simulator I’d heard of.

“Oh! She must have amazing combat skills,” I said. It made sense that high scorers in the sim could become celebrities. After all, the combat simulator was a hypercompetitive space, and one’s cumulative score determined one’s overall combat ranking. I made a virtual note to check out Cherri’s stats before our meeting.

However, Lucy swiftly enlightened me. ” Not the combat sim … sex-simulation.” I heard the words but didn’t immediately grasp their significance.

“What do you mean, like porn?” The thought of meeting with someone who’s sex life was open to the public was thoroughly intimidating. It would be challenging to figure out how to engage socially with someone who traded in sexual intimacy. But I didn’t necessarily see this as a showstopper.

Lucy continued, “Well, not exactly. It’s more of an interactive experience. Clients pay to participate in simulated sex acts. Sex acts synthesized from her personal memories. It’s very popular. She has a lot of fans.”

A sea of red flags was beginning to appear on the horizon. “They pay to have simulated sex with her?” I couldn’t reconcile my budding interest in getting to know Cherri with the disturbing images of her having simulated sex with … ‘fans’.

“There’s an important distinction here. Cherri sells her personal memories, including sexual memories, to My Wizard. Those sexual memories are repackaged into sessions. Anyone can buy a session with her memories.”

I was struggling to see the distinction. “So, are they having simulated sex with her or not?” It was still unclear to me. I really didn’t want to get too close to someone who was having virtual sex with perhaps hundreds of people, or more. That was just too far beyond my comfort zone.

Lucy attempted to explain, “They’re not interacting with Cherri. They’re paying to interact with her sexual memories. You understand the difference, right?

After digesting this explanation, it seemed there might be some nominal distinction between an interactive experience with Cherri herself and interacting with her memories. But it was still creepy to learn that fans were simulating sex with her, even if only through her memories.

“Hey, wait a minute. Why doesn’t this guy just create sex simulations using CGI, or bots? That seems like it would be simpler, and it wouldn’t involve a real person.” I chose to ignore the small detail that no one in troopship land was a ‘real’ person.

“They initially tried bots; but it didn’t work. There was very little interest.”

Now that I thought about it, the idea of having virtual sex with a bot was about as appealing as having sex with a microwave. He continued, “By incorporating a real person’s sexual memories, the experience is much more authentic. The popularity speaks for itself.”

I couldn’t deny the obvious voyeuristic aspect to this arrangement, if one was so inclined.

But why Cherri and not someone else. I asked, “How did Cherri end up the queen of simulated sex here? There must be a lot of other people with sexual memories here in the troopship, right? Don’t they sell their sexual memories too?”

“Sure, but Cherri … Well, It’s kind of hard to explain, but trust me, none of the others are even in the same league as her.”

Even without any personal memories from my previous life, I was certain I had never met anyone with this kind of notoriety before. Rather than being intimidated by what I’d heard, I found myself wanting to learn more about her.

Then Lucy said, “Oh, and one more thing. Merc and Cherri used to be a couple.”

What? I suddenly developed a bad case of cognitive whiplash. Merc and Cherri? A couple? My mind (or military grade processors) shuddered at the idea that someone, to whom I was quickly developing an attraction, had been in a romantic relationship with someone to whom I was rapidly developing a mutual hatred. As problematic as my meeting with Cherri had seemed before, it now took on the specter of a Greek tragedy. I asked Lucifer why he hadn’t led with that important bit of information.

He chuckled. “Don’t sweat it. As far as Cherri’s concerned, Merc is ancient history. And Merc has plenty of other distractions. His sole focus these days is reaching the highest combat ranking of all time, which he’s well on his way to achieving.”

Despite his assurances to the contrary, I was leery of creating any additional conflict between Merc and me. As it was, I was certain that we were headed for a confrontation in the near future.