Fishing for complements

Cy floated in his staging area. His tank, powered by his modest array of computational power, fed reality directly into his awaiting mind. His avatar was a perfectly chiseled version of Ben Affleck when he was voted in an ancient contest called “sexiest man alive”. He had purchased it last year after saving up for a few years under Kane’s employment. It was modestly unique and he only bumped into other Ben Afflecks a few times a day.

He walked over to his perfect 1965 Ford Mustang Shelby GT350. It was all he could afford, but he only used it for work. Kane would not permit fast travel to his domain; therefore, Cy needed to drive there from his spawn point. The car rumbled to life and played “danger zone”, the classical music, on the radio at full blast. Cy wished he could turn it off, but the car came like this and he was saving up for a mod to fix it. He estimated the car maybe had a few billion polygons total; therefore, the windows in their frames rattled over any bumps.

The car drove through crime city where his spawn point was located. Cy’s spawn point was very inexpensive and was generally safe when your avatar presented a typically male gendered skin. Nevertheless, he cracked open his sawed-off side-by-side shotgun and noticed the fire dragon loads were ready. Cy was a good driver and he always made sure he had the recommended safety equipment. Nothing is more annoying than having a car jacking attempt while commuting to work. Then, it’s just a catastrophe if you miss a day of work over some hit and run situation that could have just been solved with, well, fire dragon loads judiciously applied.

Just as you might expect, some dude grabbed Cy’s side door and well, fire dragon loads made for crispy dudes. He hoped that it was an NPdude or dudette. That said, he didn’t feel bad about needing to get to work on time. If you don’t have a car, well, is that society’s problem or yours?

The road led to another gateway into the Japanese feudal area. He stayed on the back roads as people hated to see cars in there. It always ruined the immersion for these poor folks and you didn’t need to make their lives any worse. He stopped as five villagers were brutally murdered by roaming ronins. After watching the work crew go through their charges’ belongings, Cy helped them up to their feet quickly by smacking each by his car door as he sped by. The villagers thanked him as they popped back in place. He didn’t know what to feel when the ronins came back and repeated their murders.

He stopped at a small overgrown hut and covered the car with foliage to hide it from prying eyes. No one would dare steal it, but not due to Cy’s reputation; the car was pretty tacky and was now offered in the tubmail for free if you didn’t mind signing up for AOL again.

Cy qua Ben walked into the hut and found a small key. He was careful not to look at the key too closely as the key was exceptionally detailed. Fine lines of rust and corrosion ran through the kwikset logo. This key was a bespoke object and his processing could not handle the load. He was able to feel it well enough, but averted all other senses away from it to avoid a system reset. He slotted the key into a lock that could not be viewed at all by someone like him by touch alone.

The key opened a new staging area and he started his preparations for work. His clothing changed and he was careful not to look at it. He assumed it was appropriate for the occasion, but he had now turned his senses down to a lower frame rate and resolution maximum. He pushed his hands down across his body just to get a sense of his current gender presentation and costume. He could tell it wasn’t a ghillie suit; therefore, he wouldn’t need to dive flat anywhere and plenty of hiding spots would be available.

The world was now fuzzy and indistinct, but he could make out people, shapes and colors. He turned on his metadata layer and objects were now well labeled in English. This permitted him to work in Kane’s space without overloading his processing. His job did not involve anything detailed.

As a fleshman, he was there to watch Kane’s biological KPIs and, if needed, adjust his brain chemistry or, worse, handle his flesh directly. He was also generally in charge of Kane’s tank and supplemental systems. It was grunt work, but he did it well. Cy slapped out a tablet and tapped his feet as he reviewed Kane’s biological dashboard. He snapped it shut when he saw that everything was in reasonable order. He continued confidently to where the court was gathered for a beach party.

“Hey, Cy! Glad you’re here. Kane was acting a bit funny and we were worried.” said Lin, who handled Kane’s conversation teams. Cy’s communication buffers showed massive interactions between the forces of conversation agents among Kane’s guests. Kane’s employees had their own buffer and Cy watched as his staff leads kept him well ahead in wit and easy banter. He was coming off a bit argumentative and the team was triaging how to smooth that over. Cy’s face popped in surprise as Juni flashed in from a cloud of rose mist. Her modest swimwear was only fashionable on the mythical french riviera before it sank into the sea.

Kane was dressed, as far as Cy knew from metadata, in an old Mexican poncho. It had silver threads running through it and said “Jalisco” on the back. He didn’t try to find out more as it would have taken too long for him to perceive it. Kane was using sticks to broil some fish he had caught using a bamboo fishing pole. Juni whispered to Cy, “he’s looking ok. I don’t know why we need to mention long gone cities like poor Jalisco, it just makes me wistful somehow and not really very hungry. Well, if I tell you something, Ras told me Kane asked for a bit of sand in the fish? You know, like you are careless with the food you present your guests? I mean what kind of manne—”

Cy looked at Juni kindly but interrupted, “I can’t do this right now, Juni. I think the main attraction has arrived.”

“That looks absolutely divine, Kane” said the new voice from the main attraction’s avatar. Cy saw the metadata over a blob that read “Elira/she is and you are” and by the complexity of her outfit, he knew she was very rich. There was a mysterious set of violet eyes that hovered near where he believed someone of a woman’s eyes might normally be located, but somehow were not at the right location. Juni turned her face towards Elira’s avatar and her entire body froze in place.

Fortunately, Cy expected something like this might happen and quickly moved Juni safely in hiding. He had expected Juni would just look fully at the new woman’s outfit and, well, her tank was now buffering for, Cy didn’t really know how long, but Juni would be safe in this crevice until she could act again.

Cy kept his filters up very high and lowered resolution to the bare minimum to fend off the pure data assault. As such, he could barely make out Elira’s face, but it wasn’t something he had ever seen before. Elira had a bespoke face that he imagined was lined and carefully marred with acne scars and sun spots. At least, the fifty page PDF that was linked to her metadata suggested some reasonable amount of effort went to her face alone and he scanned the key points section quickly.

Cy’s face was spotless and perfect and somewhat common in comparison. You could find one at any DisneyStore or tubnet retailer. Sometimes, on holidays, they would throw one in for free with any purchase of Disney Smokes Goofy’s Coughin’ Nails. He reached out to Pip, their sysadmin, “Are the taste loaders prepped for the taste data inbound from Ras? It seemed like a heavy file for fish, but this seems like Napa so, I can never tell what’s right for fish here.” Pip qua TARS from Interstellar drolly answered, “Fish like Ras’ data. It’ll be fine.”

“Wait until you taste it, Ellie” said Kane in response. Cy watched as his friend Ras started loading up a complex file into the environment for the fish eating that was sure to come next. Cy told Lin, their social lead, “Keep people and Kane away from the fish until the load is done. Last thing we need is a segfault on some dude’s teeth.”

Ras noted in the support channel “Here goes nothing. I hope she likes a surprise”. Cy watched the load progress via tqdm and the progress bar hit one hundred percent in a few seconds. Cy pointed up at Lin from her perch in the DJ booth. She started up the throbbing beat that signals that food is ready to chow, chow, chow. The masters popped in at each beat and grabbed a fish from the skewered array.

Elira flashed in and snapped up an impaled fish from the dozen or so that were well cooked over the fire. She took a bite and grinned “It tastes a bit overdone and dry. Needs salt”.

Ras let out a sigh in the support channel. “Phew, I was worried that it’d be too boring”. Cy congratulated her on the success, but noticed that Kane’s KPIs were now trending poorly. Cy broke the bad news to the group: “Kane isn’t happy for some reason. Self satisfaction is cratering”.

Kane brought some salt over to Elira and she sprinkled it over the broiled fish flesh. As far as anyone could tell, Elira enjoyed her food; however, the support channel now heard from Kane himself.

“Unacceptable. Ras: leave now.”

Ras pleaded for mercy, “No. Please. It’s just salt. They can add as much as they wa…”

Kane snarled his command through the ether while dancing to the music: “Pip, EJECT RAS NOW!”

Cy whimpered to himself as he felt Ras was ripped from Kane’s domain in a tearing motion. Pip sobbed, “Sorry…”

Kane smiled at Elira as they danced under the moonlight. Someone named Jonas was slotted into the support channel for taste management leadership without fanfare.

The party continued without further incident all night long with Lin’s waving hands keeping the beat.