Larimer stood under the bridge in the rain, haggling with Slut Market dealer, known as Diesel. Larimer stood at five-foot-eleven, and let himself be as fragrantly human as possible, as most pure humans do. Body odor was the trending ‘captcha test’ these days. Diesel was also fragrant and broadcasting his humanity with his watery eyes, runny nose and dirty fingernails.
“Twenty sovereigns and ye can have the whole Lot of it,” Diesel drawled in his bland, slightly British-accented voice before sniffling and rubbing a grubby fist at his nose, before glancing over his shoulder again.
“Make yer mind up quick, bruv, I think I heard sirens, and I ain’t spending the weekend in the Slammer for contraband. I lost five-grand worth of pee last time.”
“Five grand of what?”
“Piss. Real human piss sells like hot cakes on the Slut Market, now do you want the cache or not?”
“Ten sovereigns or no deal.”
“Fine.”
Taking a handful of currency from his pocket, Larimer slid it into the other man’s hand. Diesel sniffled again, and took off his backpack, setting it on the ground.
“Have a good one, yeah?”
Then with an upturned collar, Diesel walked out from under the bridge and into the pouring rain, running to cross the street and disappear into the night. Larimer stood there before he knelt down to pick up the backpack, slung it on his back. Taking a disposable poncho out of one of the lower pockets in his cargo pants, he unfolded it, and put it on. It was just long enough to cover the bag, and his head. His legs were going to get soaked. That didn’t matter. What mattered was protecting the cargo in the backpack. There was no way he could forgive himself if it got damaged.
Crossing the busy streets to catch the tram back to his flat, Larimer kept his head low and didn't bother to make small talk with anyone. London V was a small village of very few humans. Those that were human - pure human, were known by their smell.
The majority of the population were a mix of Synths: Cyborg Biohackers, Capitalist Cog-Drones, Hive Queen Evangelists. And then there were the Hidden. The Hidden were those who loathed technology and the direction it has taken the past fifty years. They tended to glorify analog technology or live off the grid.
Most thought them to be a myth. But Larimer knew differently, as he was raised by them. But he defected for love, a long time ago. And now, it was that love that animated his every action: including meeting with Diesel tonight. He reminded himself this as he climbed the stairs to his upper-level flat in the Grubby Cola™ District.
Each Community was claimed by a Corporation. And Larimer’s Housing Community was claimed by Grubby Cola™. They were the most popular brand of soft drink in London V. And therefore, there were many condominiums in this community, for a somewhat decent and affordable price. Larimer opened the door to his one bedroom flat with his key fob that marked him as a Grubby Cola Employee. He mostly did data entry of sales for the month remotely from this flat. His check wasn’t much, as most of his payment was being able to live in this flat. And after many months of saving, he barely had enough to pay for what he needed to barter from Diesel tonight.
Closing the door behind him, Larimer took a deep breath. Removing the poncho and going over to sit on the couch of his front room, he took the backpack off and opened it. There was all the equipment he needed to build a synthetic body. It was not exactly legal to build a Synth without a license. And obtaining a Synth Engineer or Synth Designer license was a pricy and lengthy process, involving lots of LLM programming classes and Larimer couldn't’ afford that. He also didn’t want to build his Synths the Corporate way.
He just wanted the Galatea to his Pygmalion. He’d been drawing her form for his whole life, even as he was growing up in a log cabin as part of the Hidden. Knowing only outlawed/contraband analog technology, and knowing that he wanted to live in the big city and that the time would come where he would have to abandon his family and choose a life of his own. So when he got the Data Entry Apprenticeship sponsored by Grubby Cola ™ he jumped on the progress wagon and didn’t look back. Within six months he learned all he needed to know to excel at his apprenticeship and eventually get hired by one of the subsidiaries of Grubby Cola™ - Sour Sodawater Incorporated. It was why his entire flat was in a yellow, orange and lime green color scheme. Sour Sodawater Incorporated had only three flavors: orange, lemon, and lime.
There was shaggy orange carpet, and yellow inflatable furniture, with lime green tinted lights in all the lamps. Even the ceiling fan propellers were shaped as wedges of some citrus-esque fruit, with the Grubby Cola ™ logo emblazoned on it. The couch squeaked as Larimer sat upon it, going through the contents of the backpack. He sighed a slow breath as he took out a magazine with a beautiful image of a woman on the cover.
“My Lady," he swooned with an awe in his voice that most men reserved only for their closest lovers.
“I remember when I drew you. I thought you’d make me rich. That you’d make me millions and that I could change the world. I didn’t think that Recruiter would rob me blind that all I had left was to accept a Data Entry Work Apprenticeship, in order to stay near you, and your world. My Mother was right, about this City life. It’s synthetic and unreliable. But…you were my light in the storm, and now, they’ve deemed you obsolete, they found a different icon to sell their plastic wares. Now, my Lady, my Galatea. You can come back home to me. Forever.”
Larimer spoke aloud to the image on the cover of the magazine before bowing his head to place a kiss on the front of it.
The cache in the backpack was years of material, every image that survived the purge of Liquid Lollies Incorporated - a fallen subsidiary of Grubby Cola™ - they declared bankruptcy last financial term, and re-branded themselves Sour Sodawater Incorporated. But that meant they had to destroy every image of the past business. It was dead and gone and any mention or imagery of Liquid Lollies Incorporated merchandise was punishable by a pretty hefty prison sentence without a good lawyer.
Larimer didn’t care. His mind flashed back to his first time in London V.
Just experiencing the city life for the first time, and being treated to a soy burger with refried bean fries. He was happy to sit there and sip his free ice water until nightfall when he made his way home under cover of darkness - there were many reasons they were called the Hidden, after all.
But someone slick and full of empty promises saw what he was drawing on the napkin, and decided to chat him up and bloat Larimer’s ego with helium fantasies that had him feeling high and afloat with so much hope. But they were quickly deflated when he caught the image of his Galatea on a billboard promoting the crappy saccharine drink to the masses of pretend people who could download a pixelated meal and feel like they were eating ‘real food like real people’. It was at that moment, another rainy night as he stared at the theft of his work that he made a promise.
“I will get you back. That’s my promise. I’ll get you back no matter what it takes!”
Now, Larimer dug through the bag full of the simulated art of the fallen icon. He was looking for his napkin doodle. He wanted to build her properly. They went and made her the way they thought would make her sell their product. They didn’t know her as he knew her. No one did. Only Pygmalion knew Galatea’s dimensions and her heart, her soul. He dug in the bag until he found it! It survived! It was the preserved napkin. His original work. His doodle. Of course it was kept, there was a copyright code in the bottom corner of the napkin, right over where Larimer's signature was. Nevertheless he grinned as the air pushed out of his lungs - he exhaled a rough breath of relief. “Galatea!”
Pressing the button on the side wall next to his couch, the wall directly in front of the couch flipped over to reveal a very high tech computer system, courtesy of Grubby Cola™. He took a key fob he kept around his neck in a necklace, and slid the USB stick into the computer as it booted up. Scramble Signal Activated. Choose your remote destination to re-route your signal. He smiled at the VPN prompt on the screen. “Amsterdam District 69. Storyvilla.” He said. And the voice activated prompt already started re-routing the signal.
“Welcome to Amsterdam 69. Hub of the Legal Tender of Flesh. Your greatest fantasy is our main currency.”
The A.I pop-up on the default news and search engine screen said as she batted her eyelashes, and then puckered her lips. She said the greeting in all seven dominant languages of the district: English, Dutch, Shibuya-Dialect Japanese, Kuwait-Dialect Arabic, Hungarian-Dialect Turkish, Swiss-Talian (a pidgin language of Swiss French and Northern Italian, all that survives of both original languages), and Toki Pona.
Once he got through the non-skippable introduction, followed by the obligatory advertisements, also not skippable, he slipped in the holo-disk program and installed it . This was both his personal computer and his work computer, so he had to be very careful about encryption and the use of contraband software. He knew the Surveillance of the Corporatocracy would be tracking his movements by the key stroke and the amount of times his mouse clicked or wiggled and waved across the screen. So the VPN was essential.
London V was one of the more restrictive districts out there, despite how liberated the Synths were, Humans were monitored like zoo animals. And he couldn’t afford to move literally to an Amsterdam District, the best he could manage is a Wild West Annexed City-State, either Little Texas in Finland Eight, or Colony 12, an outlying district that paid its taxes to the Corporate State of Moscow Three (Formerly the country of Estonia).
The VPN was active and the holographic program was booting up, Larimer started to take off his clothes, his dick getting hard from the anticipation of seeing his Galatea again. He had kept himself pure for this day. He didn’t have sex with any human, synth or otherwise. He barely even gave himself relief with his own fist. It wasn’t from lack of trying. It was just that his dick only throbbed for Galatea and Galatea alone. He wasn’t able to rest till he had her image in his possession again.
“Welcome to Holo Haven. You have your choice of Corporation Girlz. I’m Halibut Hannah of Hampshire Piers Incorporated. Do you want to take a Deep Dive with me, Sailor?”
“Here we go, please let this be the right edition of this game. I need this. I need this so bad,” Larimer hissed as he clicked and scrolled past the A.I. faces of various women for various companies and corporations and subsidiaries. He was mid-scroll through the E’s when his computer froze.
“H-Hi, I’m Easy Ella of Easy Chairz, a subsidiary of Lounge Soft Enterprises. Do you want to get cozy and comfy with me? I promise to cuddle you all night long.”
Her pixelated face looped in the glitch over and over again. Larimer swore under his breath, “Damn it. C’mon. Don’t do this to me, now!” He prayed.
Clicking different keyboard shortcuts to get the computer unfrozen, he really didn't want to have to re-install the VPN and the Holo Haven Game, not when he was this hard already, and it had been months upon months of not getting any relief. And he was SO CLOSE to having her again. He needed this! Damn it!
Minutes of pointless clicking later, another dialog box popped up. “Hey there, Stroker. You know there is an updated version of this game, right? Why not follow me to this link here and download the updated version of Holo Haven, then we can continue our fun?”
The link bounced on her simulated tits that were barely held in with a string bikini top, she kept saying her programmed prompt on a loop until Larimer squinted to find the option to ‘continue anyway with outdated version’. Her image froze hauntingly for a millisecond, her vacant eyes stuck open and her mouth ajar, before the screen completed the code so that she’d vanish from the screen, and he was back in the E’s again, scrolling until he got to the L’s. Clicking on Liquid Lollies Incorporated, he smiled when she appeared on the screen.
“Hi there. I’m Lilly, craving something sticky and sweet? Well then, open wide and swallow me down, I’m the sweetest little hucow girl around. So c’mon in and lick my Lolly all up.”
Her voice held a third-hole-on-the-Bible-Belt southern accent, and her long hair was straw yellow, as she was dressed in a black and white cow-print mini-skirt and halter top. Selecting ‘yes’ on Lilly Lollipop, the dialog box popped up. Would you like to give your experience a unique name to help you revisit it another time?
“Fuck yes, I would,” Larimer said. Then he typed in ‘Galatea’ and the screen dissolved into a pasture, an open barn, with her lying on a stack of hay. “Look at how messy I've gotten. I’m all sticky; can you help clean me up?”
Then another dialog box popped up.
What name would you like [Galatea] to refer to you as? Examples (Sir, Master, Daddy, Honeybear …etc.).
Larimer let his hand slide around his erection for a moment, pausing briefly to type in ‘Pygmalion’. Then the dialog box disappeared, and Galatea was suddenly close up on the screen, smooshing her very large breasts together under her chin. “Pygmalion, I need your help. I’m so sticky, Pygmalion. Please help me get all clean?”
Lilly Lollypop's big doe-eyes blinked with her pouty, pleading face complete with a quivering lip that she bit softly with a moan while she did a coquettish tilt of her head.
“Of course. Of course I fucking will.”
To continue, please connect your VR headset. The next prompt flashed over and over on the screen.
“Oh shit, right.” Larimer reached into the backpack and took out the visor headset and connected it to his computer. It took a few seconds to register and then he saw the confirmation that the VR was connected. He slipped it on over his head. It looked similar to a fencer’s mask on the front in that it covered his whole face with a dark screen.
He knew he’d have a better experience if he himself was a Synth; that was why he needed an older model of the game, that and the newer editions. Didn’t have Liquid Lollies Incorporated as an option anymore.
He heard the farmland ambiance and the sound of her walking on the grass.
“There’s a river over here, Pygmalion, where we can get me all cleaned up. Then I can show you my gratitude however you like,” she said with a wink and a smile.
Larimer was biting his lip now as he followed her to the river. The sound of the water as they splashed in it, had Larimer imagining that it was the river he grew up next to, in the Hollow. That is what many of the Hidden refer to as a neighborhood of homesteads. He reached down and started stroking his cock again. Watching her get all wet and giggling at the way the fishes tickled her toes. Larimer fixated on the path of the water droplets as they slid into the valley of her cleavage, and the peaks and curves of her nipples. The detail of her simulated form was breathtakingly vivid and detailed. Licking his lips, as he watched the water droplets land on her left areola, bumpy with gooseflesh, he groaned as she giggled at how cold the water was. Larimer jerked himself so hard that by the time she was done bathing, he was already sticky himself.
“Well, I’m all clean. How would you like me to express my thanks?”
And the screen froze again, or so Larimer thought, but instead it cut to a title screen that said: Thank you for beta testing the Demo of Holo Haven’s game, Corporation Girlz. Be sure to follow us on all our social media for updates and new releases.
Larimer took the VR helmet off his head with a scoffing laugh. “Well, at least my being a quick shot was in my favor, this time, since Diesel could only get his hands on the damn demo of the game. Tsk, he told me he found the real deal. Ah well, better than nothing. They must have really done a heavy-duty purge on this stuff. Pity.”
Larimer reached for his shirt to wipe his own sticky mess off his belly, and then went back over to the backpack of promo posters and other paraphernalia of the Sim Consciousness that is Lilly of Liquid Lollies Incorporated. Digging deeper into the bag, he found what had to be a silicone bust of her head, with her mouth open and her hair tied up in a cow print bandana. “Well, well, well, guess whose shower time just got a lot more interesting.” Larimer grinned.
