“OMG, that noob slut is on stage,” said Sweet_Ting, her voice metallic with irritation.
Djoser sank back into his CumfiMoss™ chair as he slid his pelvis beneath the table. “What an entertaining surprise,” he declared.
Lyra frowned and looked about nervously. “What the frag is she doing? Her veil is down! Is she trying to get caught?”
Being that there were many stages in the groksta, the nobles instructed their familiars to zoom in on the one stage in question. Two performers, a man and a woman, had been singing a duet, but having seen that the celebrity was asserting control, they quickly retreated back into the shadows.
Lily took her place on stage, swaying slightly, and adopted a serious, perhaps pensive look. “I want to dedicate this performance to the feeder fish of this lake,” she announced, her voice amplified by some unseen device. “You know the fish I’m talking about,” she teased. At this she puckered her lips and put her hands up against her chest and flapped them, simulating the feeble pectoral fins of the feeder fish.
Unsolicited music emerged from nowhere, a rhythmic, deep bass vibrating the floor. Lily’s eyes opened wide as she heard this cue, and she belted out in a clear melodic voice, “Because the fish…” The bass
cut out and then a slow, heartfelt strum of an electric guitar played as Lily paused for a long moment and then belted out, “…are splendid!”
The simulated guitar went wild, and the bass picked up again, ascending to a torrent of deep beating. It was at this point that Lily launched herself into the air. Jumping high, seemingly suspended in flight, she wiggled her body in the air like a great salmon jumping out of the water to make the next watery ledge. She leaped again and again, undulating in the air as the music continued at a frenetic pace.
Perched upon a catwalk that overlooked the stage and the crowd, the generous mime fired his gas gun liberally upon them, causing a pink mist to settle over the entire area. The now LoveGased™ groksters nearest the stage, arms waving high in the air, crushed in tightly and screamed with pleasure.
Lyra was speechless-almost. “Is this embarrassing to you?” She nodded toward the stage.
“No, I’m good,” Djoser replied in a tight voice. Amanda was sitting beside him, and judging by the rhythmic movements of her shoulder, she was up to something under the table.
Lyra sighed deeply and cringed at the sight of Lily. “This performance is bizarre, even by groksta standards.” She squinted her eyes a bit, unable to tear herself away from the odd performance, but also unwilling to commit her full vision to the spectacle. She then let out a terse chuckle despite herself, a chuckle that turned into a sudden gasp. “Oh frag, now D_Light’s getting up there! Someone tell me this isn’t happening!”
Lyra turned her attention to Brian, who stood at attention at her side, his eyes glued to the performance below. “Brian, they’re making fools of themselves! This is not desirable. Go down there and…well, see what you can do.”
Brian nodded in confirmation without removing his eyes from the stage. Then, like a menacing wind, he began deliberately dodging and pushing his way down the catwalk stairs toward the stage.
Brian had no plan. None. In fact, he wasn’t even clear on the expectations of his mistress, but he did have an inexplicably strong urge to get closer to Lily. The style of her dance was not sexy, to say the least, but there was something about the way she moved that was alluringly innocent. Not innocent in a naive way, but in a way that assured the spectator that she was both good and uninhibitedly true to her goodness. Indeed, that seemed to be the effect on the crowd that gathered to watch. Some were laughing, which was obviously the intended effect, but many more were just staring slack-jawed or smiling unselfconsciously as though finally realizing something they had long been trying to work out.
Like pink cotton candy, the LoveGas™ emanating from the mime and his bear on the catwalk above fell down over Treva and the rest of the crowd. If Treva had been a pharma grinder, she might have appreciated the significance of this. Not only was she being drugged, but the effects of LoveGas™ were not necessarily the same for humans as for products-products like her.
All she knew was that she had a hunger, but not the typical hunger she felt on the hunt; rather, it was more intense and…strangely euphoric. She wondered if it was like sexual desire. Treva knew she had no interest in sex. In fact, her designers had not bothered to provide her with a vagina, only a narrow urethra for the purpose of urination. She had no clitoris, of course, as there was no point. Even the hypothalamus, the peach-pit-sized lump of brain tissue that was the key to sexual libido, had been altered to free her of any sex drive. And so this feeling that was growing in her, this titillation, this aggressive sensuality, was all the more bewildering.
She wanted more.
Treva followed her prey toward the stage, pushing her way to the front. Not wanting to attract attention, she did not use her formidable strength for this task, but instead she slowly wove through the frenzied groksters. She was drawn along toward the stage as inevitably as a leaf floats down a river, toward her destiny. And with each and every step, the seed within her grew. Her eyes locked on the girl, the one making the singing noise and the silly, exaggerated movements-movements that attracted Treva to her like a kitten drawn to a dancing string.
Treva was a seeker, and as such she was trained for restraint above all else. Since seekers were born with the innate desire to hunt, they had to be trained in the discipline of self-control. Indeed, without restraint such products would be a dangerous liability. A world where products ran around chasing people and consuming them out in the open would be terrifying and would sow the seeds of fear and discontent, none of which were optimal to productivity among the populace.
Treva knew what she should do, just like she always had. She would simply continue to watch her prey and wait for her opening. It was best to take the target when they were alone, where there was less likelihood of witnesses. Although dispensing with demons was perfectly legal, the Authority did not wish to see a slew of seeker-attack videos being published on the Cloud for their shock and horror value. A seeker who did not show proper restraint was punished appropriately, the punishment being simple yet effective. They were suspended from duty for a time commensurate with the infraction, a truly arduous punishment for one engineered for hunting. They were allowed their typical rations of intravenous food, but nothing more-not even feeder products used for training purposes.
It was because of this conditioning in restraint that Treva now felt fear mixed with the thrill. As the traces of LoveGas™ continued to work upon her nervous system, her desire heightened, her inhibitions began to shut down, and all the layers that covered up her true nature were stripped away. Somewhere in the back of her mind she knew she would be punished, but when that girl-that meat puppet-sprang up, flipping in the air as though teasing, it was more than Treva could stand. It was then that the dam that held back her appetites shattered wide open and the floods came rushing in.
Treva’s lips parted like they were attached to springs and she snarled, baring her long, deadly canines. She vaulted up onto the shoulders of a stocky grokster and launched off him onto the stage before he even realized he had been used as a springboard. With two leaps Treva closed the gap between herself and her prey; she pounced, but Treva was too confident and Lily too fast. Lily twisted in midair, and Treva clawed at her as she sailed through the air. The seeker scratched the meat with her steel-hard nails but was unable to get a grip on her prey, and Lily crumbled to the stage floor with a crash. Using the momentum from the tumble, she rolled back up on her feet just as Treva, now snorting with excitement, came back at her. Like a bull and a bullfighter, Lily dodged and swept aside the claws as her attacker flew past again.
The crowd roared in a chorus of startled shrieks, gasps, and cheers.
Judging by the fangs and the creature’s movements, D_Light immediately identified it as a product, which meant that it could legally be dispensed with. However, that was beside the point. The lovely Lily, the mistress of his soul, was under attack, and that thing wished to rend her flesh and sink its filthy teeth into her flawless bronze skin. The very moment that the creature was clear of Lily, D_Light threw a disc at it. The throw was hard and true, but the creature somehow ducked it and the disc sliced on through the air out into the groksta, perhaps to an innocent’s detriment. Never mind the discs anyway. The thing moved too fast, and he might inadvertently strike Lily. D_Light shouted as he unsheathed his dagger and charged at the seeker with the intent to kill.
Treva saw D_Light coming. Normally, Treva would have swiped the throat of an attacker and let him bleed out in a whimpering pile, but she did not wish to take the time for that. Instead, charging at Lily for another pass, she leaped up and sent down a mighty kick that struck D_Light in the thigh and swept him off his feet. The impact spun Treva around, but she landed well and continued the charge. Rather than dodging to one side or the other as Treva expected, Lily ran straight at the seeker and, at the last moment, dove into a somersault, tucking herself into a compact ball that smacked Treva in the leg and knocked her off balance. As Treva struggled to keep her footing, she shrieked with rage. Several people from the audience taunted and threw food at her, but her instinctual hyper-reflexes denied the jeerers any hits.
D_Light was on the ground. The kick had been like a sledgehammer, and unbearable pain streamed up his leg. It was not broken, but there was something out of place that prevented him from standing up. D_Light looked desperately over at Lily and her attacker as they danced around the stage. Lily was not running, but she was not fighting either, merely evading. Perhaps she knew that if she retreated into the throng around her, the product would be on top of her. At least here on the stage there was room to maneuver. D_Light might have thought this to be true except that he suddenly realized that Lily was laughing. Laughing! And not the half-crazed kind of laughter belonging to someone whose stress response had overloaded. It was genuine, unabated amusement. She was amazing! Someone pelted D_Light in the back of the head with something soft and watery, but he did not care. He needed to save that wonderful girl!
Treva’s prey was proving to be more of a challenge than expected. The hungry seeker had come on the stage to rip this human limb from limb with her bare hands and fangs, but the little girl was staying out of reach. Treva pulled out her stun baton, and the corrugated shaft extended with a rapid series of clicks. Appearing to be a simple rod, there was nothing remarkable about the weapon, but with one hit Treva could bring down a man far larger and stronger than this little fawn of a girl. All seekers had permits for modern weapons, specifically a “low-efficacy modern weapon permit.” That meant that Treva could legally use any weapon that fit the requirements of not being deadly, having limited range, and having a limited area of effect. Her baton fit the bill, but Treva soon wished she had a more potent weapon as the taunting little meat puppet continued to duck and weave, avoiding the seeker’s wild swings.
With Lily in danger, Brian intensified his push to the front of the stage. It was his time. His time to do what he had trained all his life to do, and he was not about to miss this opportunity. He used the butt of Tiffany, his mace, to prod people aside and, upon reaching the stage, leaped up like a man clearing a high jump. The guard landed on his side and rolled up onto his feet in one graceful move. He heard cheering behind him. They think this is a theatrical performance, he sneered. A blink came in from Lyra, but he ignored it so that he could keep his focus on the task at hand. Although the woman swinging the baton at Lily had no product tats on her cheeks, Brian immediately recognized her as a combat-ready product, having fought so many in his training sessions. He knew how they moved, inhuman in the physics of their actions, although this one lacked the precision of most of her kind. Then a thought hit him: My Soul, Lily is a product too!
Seeing Lily in action left no doubt. No human could move that fast. Nothing else could have evaded such an intense onslaught for even a second, much less for the duration that Lily had already survived. But there was no time to lose. Lily was now driven into a corner, and the one who meant her harm was slowing her approach, making sure not to overextend herself and allow Lily to escape. This lovely creature only had a second or two left to live.
Brian charged and leaped at the product like a lion ambushing an unsuspecting gazelle. However, when he landed he set his feet and bent his knees to absorb the impact so that he could stop dead in his tracks. His ploy had worked. The product had heard him, as he knew she would. As he landed, she turned and swung her long baton back at him, the tip of the weapon whistling just millimeters away from his chest. She had expected him to be a little closer, but he had anticipated the swing. It was a trick that hypersensitive products liked to play on humans-act as though they don’t know you are coming, lull you into thinking you have the element of surprise, and then bam! hit you like they have eyes in the back of their head. It was a move that Brian was all too familiar with.
Having swung her baton with the confidence that she would deliver a decisive blow but then missing, Treva was now open. Brian knew his opportunity would last only for the briefest of moments, which is why he was already swinging good ol’ Tiffany. Only a moment ago he had been swinging at empty space, but now-right on cue-the baton was there in the path of his swing. Brian’s preference would have been the product’s arm or, better yet, its torso, but the savvy guard settled with slamming the heavy, bulbous tip of his mace into the stun baton with a mighty crack.
Treva, not expecting the blow, lost her grip on the rod, which smacked against the hard stage and clattered off into the roaring crowd. She was enraged. She had been watching this new meat puppet in her periphery, the one with the club. Relative to a being like herself, the human guard seemed to attack slowly and recklessly. She had expected to neutralize him with a single strike with her baton, but the seeker had underestimated this one. Now she had lost her weapon. Normally, she would have enjoyed the challenge of a worthy opponent, but now all she desperately wanted was her prey. And this guard was interfering!
Treva turned toward the man as he aimed another blow at her head, but this time she was watching and dodged it easily, and as the club sailed past her, she launched herself on him.
Love_Monkey, the watcher of the lounge, gazed down at the stage from her throne high above. This will not do, she thought. Due to the nature of their work, seekers were never a welcome sight, but Love_Monkey had never witnessed one unleashing itself in public. Sanctioned by the Divine Authority or not, Love_Monkey would not abide such violence on her watch. Without hesitation she leaped off of her balcony into empty space, eighty meters above the groksta floor. She fell rapidly at first, but the nanothreads gradually slowed her descent. It was at times like these that Love_Monkey was grateful for the groksta’s safety matrix, the web of threads so thin that they were invisible to the human eye.
Groksters were not allowed to use the safety matrix for fun (although they were often tempted); rather, it was there to avoid the stiff point penalties imposed for wrongful death. However, Love_Monkey was not just a grokster, she was the watcher, and as such she would do what she pleased. This was a true emergency. Falling toward the groksta floor, billions of nanothreads crisscrossed across her small body, stretched, and then, unable to withstand her weight, snapped. Although the threads broke, each one absorbed a tiny amount of her kinetic energy, the collective influence causing her to decelerate as she neared the floor. The damage to the safety matrix was of no concern to the hostess, who knew the threads would self-assemble again.
During her fall, Love_Monkey had withdrawn an emitter from a QuickPocket™ in her dress. Her familiar had called up the blood profile of the seeker, but Love_Monkey was too far from her target for the emitter to work properly. As the floor zoomed in, she readied the kill switch.
The human male was adept with his weapon, and so Treva endured some solid blows, one of which nearly broke her arm. But seekers were built to take a beating and Treva had no time to play, so she took her licks and then proceeded to rip into Brian. She tore at his flesh indiscriminately with her sharp fangs and steely nails, and his body quickly became slick with blood. Astoundingly, the girl-the one Treva had hunted all this way-jumped on the seeker’s back, grappling with Treva and screaming. Treva felt the dull sting of a blade as Lily stabbed into her shoulder and neck. Lucky for the seeker, her prey was less adept at attack than it was at evasion, and Treva estimated her wounds to be nonthreatening.
Treva bit down into the throat of the troublesome man and then snapped her head backward, effectively severing Brian’s carotid artery. He crumpled to the floor in a dead heap, blood spurting from his neck. With the nuisance now disposed of, Treva turned her attention to the little girl on her back, the one Treva had been imprinted with. The scent of her prey pressed up against her was overpowering. Soon she would feed. And when she had satisfied the worst of her hunger, she would then feed on the other one, the man limping toward her with his pathetic little knife.
The bloodthirsty seeker snatched a handful of Lily’s hair, and just as her brain was sending the signal to her muscles to pull the prey off her back, Treva felt the most wonderful feeling of her life. She threw back her head, moaning in ecstasy. She then fell to the ground. Her back bowed and she started to pant. Lily was still on Treva’s back, cutting into her wildly, but the hunter did not feel the knife; rather, the seeker writhed on the ground sensuously. The quiet from the audience was deafening. Then, all at once, Treva’s body convulsed in an explosion of haphazard movements and then went limp. The whites of her eyes turned pink as the blood vessels ruptured under pressure. Lily was still on top of the seeker, hacking away like there was no tomorrow. Blood spatter now covered Lily’s body, but no one could see it behind the illusion of her skinsuit. Treva’s limbs started twitching violently.
D_Light, dragging his injured leg and clutching his knife, then fell on top of the seeker and joined Lily in the grisly task of butchering the downed hunter.
Love_Monkey bent her knees slightly to absorb the shock as she landed on the stage. She looked down at the emitter’s clearly lit readout display. It was targeting the D-bots in Treva that carried the pharma MaxiDrive™. This drug was often used as a well-being pharma, but it was also a very effective pep. No doubt the seeker carried MaxiDrive™ in her bloodstream for those times when she needed an extra kick of adrenaline. Love_Monkey had set the emitter to an infinite loop, which meant that it sent the release signal over and over very rapidly. This emptied all of the MaxiDrive™ available into the seeker’s bloodstream over a fraction of a second. Her pulmonary and circulatory systems were overloaded, or at least that was what it was supposed to do. Love_Monkey was unsure if her emitter had killed the seeker, or if it had merely incapacitated her while the other two stabbed her to death. Either way, her objective had been met.
“My Soul, it’s like the murder of Julius Caesar down there,” Djoser said as their party watched the show from their pillbox. Lyra’s mouth hung agape, and speaking to no one in particular, she muttered, “We are all going to be reformatted for this.” Sweet_Ting said nothing, her lips pursed tightly and her eyes bulging more than usual.
Lily and D_Light, as though waking from a trance, ceased their butchery. The great hall was nearly silent. With expressionless stares, they looked up at each other and then out into the audience. Suddenly, the hall erupted in deafening cheers. The point reader above the stage shot up as the audience ratings began streaming in. By now, several guards had taken positions along a railing overlooking the scene, their crossbows leveled down, uncertain where to point as hundreds of rabid groksters rushed the stage to embrace the talented “performers.”