Phobetor

[Bloodthirstybutcher]

Phobetor

By BTB



Part 1-"Bad Dreams"




Slept like shit again.

The dreams. Same ones I have every night. Same one, I should say. Horrible, and suffocating. The details change slightly from one night to the next, but it's basically the same nightmare. It always ends the same way.

I find myself in some small, dark, nondescript room. That part never changes, it's always the same blank, black walls. The same dingy floor. The same dim, buzzing light overhead. I don't know how I got there, but I do know I'll never leave it in one piece.

All of my body modifications, tattoos, and scars are gone. I wonder how that's even possible. Like my dream-self only manifests as some unblemished version from an alternate, better universe. I can tell this because I'm not wearing much. Nothing but enough stuff paper to hide the stuff that needs hiding. At least my subconscious respects my modesty, if nothing else.

In this latest dream, there's a bulky wooden chair, oversized to the point that my bare feet don't make contact with the floor. My ankles and wrists are secured to the arms and legs of this chair with what looks like thick cable. It's impossible to wiggle free. My abductor had to have used a machine to bend and twist the cord around my extremities. There's no way anyone on earth had the strength required to do so by hand. I'm not going anywhere, and I feel lucky, despite my growing anxiety, they didn't crush my bones in the process of restraining me.

I sit there in a daze. How long have I been there? Minutes? Hours? Days? Who can even tell in dream time? The way there's never any true narrative to your nightly journeys. How things just come at you as your brain tries to make sense of the previous day's events in a way that frustrates any attempt to find logic in what it creates. If you find a beginning, a middle, and an end to a dream, it's because your waking, logical mind has decided to piece one together. Humans see patterns where there are none. Humans like structure. That's what scares the most about these nightmares. Once they start, there too much structure.

Early on, the suspense of what I know is coming has me sweating in my seat. It's been so long now, weeks turning into months of having these nightmares, that anymore my dream-self just seems...bored with it all. These dreams never end well for me and I just want to get the really bad part over with. I suppose that's why my brain makes the waiting period stretch on, longer and longer each time. Just squirming and sweating and wishing for my tormentors to get on with it already.

A familiar, husky, domineering voice erupts from nowhere in particular... and somehow everywhere at the same time. Who are they? I still don't have an answer for that question. My own superego? Some manifestation of guilt stemming from a relationship gone sour in years long gone past? That's what my therapist tells me. Could be. God knows I've burned more relationships than General Sherman burned cities during the first Civil War.

Not that any of it really matters. It's only a dream, right? Again, what my therapist keeps telling me. Easy for her to say. She isn't waking up in the wee hours of the morning screaming at the tops of her lungs. My downstairs neighbors must love me.

"Good evening, Ms. Crandall. I trust you slept well?" The disembodied voice asks dryly.

"How many times do I have to tell you? Ms. Crandall is my father's name." I don't know why I think the joke will land this time when it never has before.

"My name is SuperVixen!" I tell him for what feels like the hundredth time. I know it sounds ridiculous, and yes, that's exactly the point. Sue me.

As usual, the voice's owner ignores my correction. Their cadence slow, deep, emotionless. Distorted slightly by the staticky audio system. I wonder why they still use such outdated tech, shit left over from the early twenty-first century. Maybe it's to obscure his voice, but one could easily do the same with a novelty voice modulator, bought from an arcade vending machine. Does my unconscious world not have vending machines?

Or maybe ... as I keep telling myself... it's all just dream logic, and it only has to make as much sense as I want it to. I'm the one who's obsessed with antique tech. That's why it's coming through in my subconscious.

Why do I sit around pondering these things so much? Well, it's the sheer lucidity of these dreams. When I'm having them, everything feels as real as if I'm actually experiencing it. I can smell the heat and moisture in the air. I can feel the pain of my restraints crushing my joints.

I can feel.

Before a couple of months ago, I don't remember feeling much, if anything, in my dreams. Hell, I barely remembered them once I woke up. If I was falling, I woke up before I hit the ground. If I was having sex, I woke up before I got to cum. No imaginary satisfaction for this girl. Shit. It goes to show you how much deep-seeded self loathing I must harbor if these are the reoccurring dreams I have to suffer through and not the ones where I get to a have a rucking orgasm. What do you think of that, Dr. Langtree? I think I made a breakthrough!

What follows the mystery voice's initial, ominous greeting is what turns these dreams into so much more bad dreams. Night terrors would probably be more accurate. This isn't some kinky fetish that I'm only recently learning has been scratching away at the back of mind. Trust me, I've explored. The reason I wake up at four in the morning, every morning, bathed in sweat, my heart racing like a hummingbird on Speedy Gonzalex, is the interrogation.

(For those reading this in the distant future... or distant past if we somehow develop time travel... who I guess would also be from the future. Fuck, time travel makes no sense... Speedy Gonzalex is a combination of crank, cocaine, caffeine, and a touch of fentanyl for flavor. Many don't survive the first dose, but those who do are never quite the same afterwards. Nothing can match the high. So I'm told, anyway. I micro-dosed once and immediately blacked out and woke up in the hospital. Sorry, kind of a pointless tangent, I know.)

(Also, I’m aware just how scatterbrained all this reads. It should give you a good idea of my state or mind these days. Just bear with me. Anyway, where were we?)

What I'm trying to get around to is... I know... inevitably... I'm going to be tortured. Without question and without mercy. And I am going to die.

The moment I become aware of where I am, I know it's coming. Those black walls can only mean one thing: that the kind of pain that can drive a person mad is well on its way. And oh yes, those who want to argue that you can't feel pain in a dream, I would beg to differ. I too thought you were supposed to wake you up the moment that pursuing monster sinks its fangs in. Just your meat computer's way of sparing you from the sting of the imaginary bite. But not me, not anymore, and never in that awful, dark place.

"Tell me about the Triad Dimension," the voice demands.

He starts out calm. Calculated. Almost friendly, in a twisted sort of way. But the more I resist them, the more the interrogation intensifies. The less patient he gets. He gets louder. More demanding. I pretend I don't know what he's talking about, but that's an outright lie. I know exactly what he wants, but I give him absolutely nothing.

And I don't know why.

It's like... I realize we've done all this before. This is just... our thing. And because of that, I know whatever they are about to dish out I can handle. That's the thing about torture, after a while... you either break... or you kind of just get used to it. In my waking hours, I wonder why I never just give them the answers they want. It's not like it matters if I feed my own id.

"Fine," I tell the faceless voice, "I'll tell you if you just let me go!" Would the dreams stop if I just told them?

"I'm listening," the mystery man says, gruffly.

"The Triad Dimension is... Tridi! The girl who does my hair! You like it?" I've been at this so long that I'm running out of witty false names to give this asshole.

"We grow tired of your games, Ms. Crandall. Just answer the question."

While the torture is an inevitability, the method in which they do so is where my mind really shows off its creativity. I'm starting to think I keep holding out because I'm curious to see what I come up with next... what they do to me.

In this most recent nightmare, their newest method begins as a low, almost imperceptible heat beneath me.

"Who are The Triad Dimension?" He demands again.

"It isn't you?" I snark back.

Warmer.

"What does The Triad Dimension want?"

I shift in my seat. "Isn't that some old new wave song?"

Even warmer.

"Who are The Triad Dimension?"

"Ronald McDonald!"

I feel hot. Sweat tickles me as it drips down between my thighs.

"Who are The Triad Dimension?!"

I'd been waiting to whip this deep cut out, "Michael McDonald?"

Why don't I just tell him?

Hotter still.

"Who are The Triad Dimension?!"

"Old McDonald had a farm, ee-eye-ee-eye-oh... oh OH OH OH HOLY FUCK!!!"

With each dodging reply, the heat intensified. At first a slight discomfort, but even that was short lived. The very chair I'm tied to actually bursts into flames. The burning sting of licking flames envelope me whole. I feel my skin bubble and split from the devouring blaze. The smell of propane and smoke fills the air, then mixes with that of my own cooking flesh. The noxious fumes my own body is producing make me choke.

The pain is... excruciating.

This time, I almost tell them the truth.

Anything to make this stop.

Why don't I?


And then I wake up. Chest heaving, bedsheets soaked with sweat. Feeling like I might have a heart attack. A sense a hint of sulfur still lingering in my sinuses before it quickly fades away like wisp of smoke from a struck match.

4am. Just like always. Gotta get up for work soon.

My therapist has been little to no help. I tried a physician, hell, even a fucking cyberhypnotist. In case you're curious about the latter, don't be. That shit is absolute fucking nonsense. All I got out of it was hefty bill and single decent nap. I'll call him back if I ever need a novelty act to perform for a fucking birthday party.

As far as my actual doctors are concerned, neither seem especially worried. They just prescribe me a new cocktail of weak prescription drugs to try out after each holocall. So far none of them have helped. Not even getting black out drunk, something I'm especially talented at, has saved me from these nightmares.

I've got to get a handle on this before...

...before I go insane.





End Part 1

[Bloodthirstybutcher]

Part 2-"Office Politics"




Found myself dozing off at my work station again. Anyone who's been there knows the feeling, like being drunk with none of the buzz. The lines of code whizzing by on my computer screen kept fading in and out of focus. I wondered how long I was out, and if anyone else had noticed. No drool stain my my blouse, so at least I hadn't been too obvious. Honestly, I was surprised my supervisor hadn't said anything to me yet. Knowing that cunt, she was probably too preoccupied flirting with the new hire to notice. I swear to god that woman has no boundaries.

Thousands of glowing green digits scanned across my screen, like any other day. Some increasing slightly in value, some falling. Nothing too worrisome. Things were oddly stable in the market that day.

Thanks in no small part to the cryptocurrency boom which occurred early in the twenty-first century, completely destabilizing the US dollar, this was how we kept the economy afloat. The British Pound failed too... then the Euro followed after that. When the Yen finally crashed, all that remained were digital funnybucks. Once powerful nations no longer had a true monetary system to back up their wealth, so most collapsed. Needless to say, things went to absolute shit after that. First came the Bank War... then a pair of Water Wars not even a decade apart followed after that. Who would have guessed water rights would become so valuable?

Things were bad. Very bad. As awful as the world is now, I count my lucky stars I'm not old enough to have lived through that shit.

Economically speaking, the current world is like the Wild West of old. A handful of multi-trillionaire robber barons are the closest approximation to a government. That means if a city needs anything done, infrastructure-wise, the proposition has to find its way up the corporate ladder. You can imagine how fucking inefficient that is. Unless it benefits their bottom line, the world is left to lie in stagnation.

Still, even with their unimaginable power, their wealth is fragile. With no government and no standard of currency, one week the world's economy can rest solely on the shoulders of Bortcoin. Then, within a matter of days, Bortcoin is absolutely worthless, replaced by some new, equally embarrassingly named medium. In Bortcoin's case, it was Fuckdollar that did it in... and so on and so on. Seriously, this is what you get when a bunch of dipshit techbros, half your age, get to name the very thing you use to buy food and tampons. Just a week ago, I was banking on rumors that Bun-yen was going to crash and had to be ready to make a big move on Blumpcoin. It's preposterous.

Why the long info dump, you may be asking? Because that's what I do for a living. Me and a small army of fellow coders are employed by the Ford/Microsoft/Lego Banking Group to keep the money "healthily" circulating. Crypto mining. If we fuck up, not only does the board stand to lose billions in the blink of an eye, but that money is just gone. Evaporated. Like it never existed. That's what happens when there's no actual wealth to back up this stupid system.

The anarchist in me says, good... fuck 'em, let 'em starve, but that's where these anonymous oligarchs maintain their hold on peons like us. If that funny-money goes bye-bye, then so do any helpful social programs, charities, or low income housing they fund. Remember, there is no congress. No president. No Supreme Court. These fucking people are in charge. It's their world and we're just living in it.

Back to the day in question, I'd spent my entire morning monitoring that week's latest embarrassingly named crypto, Dildollar, just in case I needed to swap 500 billion $wizzlerupie$ into that or Cannabi$. Needless to say, it's a shitty fucking system and doing this work day in and day out is absolutely soul-crushing.

So, when I tell you that I'm dozing off at my desk, you should now understand that losing focus in my profession is a little more serious than most jobs. One false move and hundreds if not thousands of people could be out on the street.

You know, no pressure.

Now, I'm sure you're thinking: no wonder she's having nightmares! Trust me, that's what I thought too. The thing is, the dreams were relatively new. I'd been working for the Group, as we called them (because Ford/Microsoft/Lego is a goddamn mouthful), for ten years, and only within those last two months or so had sleeping become a problem.

"I like your mods," an unfamiliar male voice jolted me out of my trance.

"Uh... huh?"

The gentleman in question was African American with a cleanly shaved head and kind eyes. He was quite handsome, with a big smile full of pearly white teeth. He'd put more effort into his outfit than most of the people I work with, wearing a white shirt and tie. It honestly made me feel self conscious about my leather boots and bright plaid skirt.

The new guy.

He leaned over the edge of my cubicle, casually resting his head on his folded arms. "Your mods, I think they're frosty."

I rolled my eyes, "ok, boomer... who the hell says frosty anymore?" Water Boomer, more properly. It's what my generation calls the previous one, those who were born after the Water Wars. Turns out a lotta people had the urge to fuck once they could get clean H2O without getting gunned down in the street by corporate assassin drones.

"Sorry," he chuckled, "never been real hip with the lingo."

I couldn't help but laugh myself, "you're a trip-," I suddenly realized I only knew him as New Guy.

"Dax," he completed my sentence for me, bailing me out. He extended his hand and I accept his greeting with my own, "Dax Loritone."

"SuperVixen," I replied.

"No really," he scoffed.

I shrugged, "what it says on my ID tag."

Dax still seemed skeptical, but the look I gave him quickly made him realize I was being serious. I held my name badge up for him to see for himself.

"I don't use my birth name," I explained. "Doing so would imply that I have anything in common, or to do with my parents. Most people just call me Vix... when I let them."

"Yeah, sorry... uh... nice to meet you, Vix." Dax nervously laughed, rubbing the back of his neck with his palm. "Is SuperVixen something your friends call you?"

"Nah, just an old movie I like."

Dax was even more surprised by my answer, "movie?! Who watches movies anymore?!"

"I do."

He realized another nervous laugh, realizing he'd put his foot in his mouth again, "heh, I'm givin' a real great first impression, aren't I?"

With a slight grin, I told him not to worry about it. The dude was just awkward and it was his first day. I get it.

"You just pegged me as the kind that spends all their free time hacking into every nook and cranny of Neurolinx," Dax continued, "not a film buff."

"And just how much time do you spend on Neurolinx, Dax Loritone?" I crossed my arms over my chest, waiting for his answer.

"I... uh... you got me. I ain't some Mindrider, but I'll admit it's pretty addictive."

"What can I do for you today, Mr. Loritone?" As much as I was enjoying making this dude sweat, I still had work to do. You know, fate of thousands of people and all that.

"Oh... uh... boss lady over there says I'm supposed to shadow you for the day, I hope that's alright?"

I shot the bitch an angry glare. God forbid she should have to do her fucking job and train the newbie. As much as I was not in the headspace to train someone, I still answered Dax politely, "yeah, of course. Grab a chair."

Dax disappeared for a minute around a long wall of cubicles, each identical to my own. This gave me an opportunity to through the miniature bottles of booze away that I'd carelessly left out on my desk. And I know what you're thinking... no, that's not why I can't keep my eyes open. Dax returned, rolling an office chair in front of him like it was a baby's pram. He plopped himself down next to me at my console, perhaps a little closer than I'd usually feel comfortable with. There was an instant charge between the two of us, at least I know I felt it.

"Alright, I'm ready! What exactly are we doing?" He blew into his hands and rubbed them together like he was preparing for a day of manual labor.

I looked back at him with slight confusion, "you... you don't know what we do here?"

"Nope."

"How exactly did you get hired?"

"Just my boyish charm," he replied with a shit-eating grin. He was such a dork... I couldn't help but like the guy.

"Well," I began, "we mine crypto. See these columns of numbers?" I activated the holograms on the sides of the monitor, showing more nearly-impenetrable data scrolling by than most people have the time or patience to read.

"Ok?"

"Well, our job is to monitor the flow for anomalies. Say this column starts to peak or this one starts to dwindle, we simply want to move as much money as we can into the first column from the second."

"Oh... that's it?"

I shrugged, "more or less, it's a bit more nuanced than that, and it doesn't require much attention, but things can go off the rails in if you get too lazy with it. You should have seen what happened in 2096."

"Oh yeah," Dax raised an eyebrow, clearly intrigued, "what happened in 2096?"

"Gareth Lonsdale. Dude got a little too chatty with the snack cart girl and ignored his screen for over an hour. Started a whole chain reaction. Nearly caused another Super Depression."

"Fuck. That... that's a lot," Dax looked genuinely concerned that he'd bitten off more responsibility than he could chew. "I assume he hit fired over that?"

"He'd be lucky if that's all the bigwigs did to him," I had no desire to get into details about what happened to Gareth Lonsdale afterwards. I don't know the whole truth myself, but what I'd do know is that the cleanup crew were picking pieces of the man out of the carpet for months afterwards.

Dax swallowed hard, "um... is it safe to work here?"

"Eh, it's not so bad. Just make a habit of checking on your assigned allotment every few minutes or so. Do that and you'll be just fine."

I leaned back in my chair, beginning to feel kind of glad that Dax was assigned to me that day. Someone to talk to to help keep me awake. "So, what about my mods do you like so much," I asked, finally acknowledging his initial compliment.

"Huh? Oh... yeah! Your ocular unit! I don't think I've ever seen one like it before."

He was, of course, referring to my cybernetic body modification, a prominent feature on my face. A custom Enhanced Ocular Modification unit, or EOM. Without drawing you too much of a gory picture, I lost my right eye as a child thanks to some especially lovely parenting. After saving up for years, I was finally able to afford an off-brand model through a friend with connections.

Finally, after years of second looks and whispers, the gaping hole in my face had been filled. It's not just an eye though, but a small super computer, patched directly to my frontal lobe. With it, I can link directly into the internet, operate infrared night vision, and access Neurolinx without a headset or spinal implant (more on that later). Those conveniences, as well as a few other novelties I won't get into just yet. Other than a slight purple glow in the iris and a trio of subtle electrical conduits protruding from the side of my head, the changes are barely noticeable.

"Did it hurt?" Dax asked.

"Anything worthwhile usually does," I replied. "I'm not exactly a stranger to pain." I cringed at my own response, "sorry, that was a bit of an overshare."

Dax was nothing but polite, "hey, no worries! I still think it looks pretty damn frosty!"

Oh, Dax Loritone, I think to myself, if you're not careful, you're gonna charm your way right into my pants.

He continued, "especially with your bright red hair. You must turn a lot of heads... right before you kick their asses, right?" He laughed again. It was infectious.

"Why, Mr. Loritone, if I didn't know better, I'd think you were flirting with me," I teased. He was making it so easy to do so.

Dax froze, "oh... uh... I'm sorry... I didn't mean," he stammered.

"I'm just fucking with ya, dude," I assured him. "And thank you, I really do appreciate the compliment. Most people gawk at me like I'm a freak show."

"Fuck most people," he exclaimed a little to loudly. Both of us recoiled in amused embarrassment.

I caught myself grinning back at him. Like I said, it was hard not to like this guy.

"Alright, well, we should probably get back to work. Be a shame if the global economy crashed because you couldn't stop staring at my frosty robot eye."

"Hey, I was just...," Dax paused, "wait... what was that last part?"





End Part 2

[Bloodthirstybutcher]

Part 3-"Home Sweet Shipping Container"




A ten hour day. That's too much time to spend in front of a computer screen.

I tossed my digikeys on the kitchenette counter and begin the process of unlacing my calf-high boots. The walk up the twelve flights of stairs to my DSC unit following yet another long day made even a task as mundane as taking off my shoes feel like a chore.

Sorry, you're probably wondering what a DSC unit is. It stands for Domestic Shipping Container, super imaginative, I know. There were millions of them left over after the various wars of the last century. It became more cost effective to stack the things up and refurbish them into living quarters than to actually build new apartments. I do own my DSC outright after a decade and a half of mortgage payments, so I guess that's something.

Once my feet were liberated, I padded over to the refrigerator to retrieve a can of Sex Offender energy drink and a couple of protein cubes for dinner. Chicken flavored. I don't know why they even bother with the "flavoring." They all taste the same, bland and slimy. Plus, I'm not sure any of us forced to live on the things has ever tasted an actual chicken, so the comparison is mostly pointless.

The gelatinous cubes slid out of their plastic packaging with a wet plop onto a somewhat clean plate, jiggling a little as they settle into place. They're not exactly the most appetizing looking things. I usually dowse them in salt and toss them into the rapidcooker. Anything to help them taste like... well... something other than poverty. After about thirty seconds, the dense little cubes are piping hot and have a crispy crust on them. Only slightly more appealing than before.

Before sitting down to eat, I changed out of my work duds and slipped into my comfy green bathrobe. I couldn't believe someone had just thrown the thing out. Definitely one of my best scavenging finds. With my nightly ritual complete, I could finally sit my ass down on the couch and begin to unwind. My smartplate having kept my food nice and warm for me in the meantime.

I propped my bare feet up on the coffee table, thankful to be free of my binding shoes. I can always feel the residual warmth on the table beneath my heels from where the smartplate was sitting. Lifting the plate up to my face, I took a nice long whiff...

Mmmmm... smells like... burnt nothing.

My EOM allows me to flip through my film collection before actually placing a disc in the machine, so I searched for something to entertain myself with while I took my first bite. I was fortunate enough to come across an old Bluray DVD collection when a friend of mine and I went scavenging through the landfill sectors a few years back. Hundreds of films and even a player just laying there, ignored and forgotten beneath a pile of old bloody mattresses.

There was even a VHS player, if you can believe it! An actual, honest to god VHS player! Sorry, when you're a tech-head like me, you tend to get excited about weird old forms of media. It's unfortunate that I'll never get to use the thing though. After all the EMP attacks in the first half of the century, anything stored to magnetic tape had pretty much been wiped clean of any data. Anything like cassette tapes or reel to reel were rendered completely useless. Entire swaths of culture, gone in an instant. Anything like that that still worked would be worth some serious Dildoin.

It's uselessness didn't stop me from taking the tape player home though, if for no other reason than to keep it as a conversation piece. It sits next to the Bluray player, collecting dust and looking neglected. As for the DVD player itself, it wasn't in the best of shape and I was forced to rebuild some of its guts. Now it plays like it had just came out of the factory.

There were so many genres among the DVD collection to dig through. Romance, horror, sci-fi... but the ones really fell in love with were the westerns. Not so much for the cowboys and Indians stuff, but because of all those picturesque, wide open spaces. A long dead America, free and untamed, before the corporations just filled what they deemed to be useless, empty land in with radioactive waste and war surplus. To think, there was a time when you could travel across this country for days and not see another human being. No one tied into a vast social network. No bombardment with neon advertising holograms at every turn of the head. Just... you... and nature.

Even my namesake, Super Vixens, was a perfect encapsulation of this aesthetic. It's director, an eccentric man named Russ Meyer, seemed to be best known in his time for casting dim-witted actresses with gargantuan tits. And trust me there's plenty of that, but his films offer so much more. There are still plenty of articles about him to read in the old internet archives, but no one ever brings up his use of the desert as the backdrop to so many of his works. To me, it was as much a part of the man's entire auteur aesthetic as his love for well-endowed women.

I thought about picking one of my favorites that evening, The Searchers featuring John Wayne in one of his miserable bastard roles that seemed to suit his miserly personality better than his heroic ones. Unfortunately, this was not to be. As I forked at my pathetic meal, I sighed, instead choosing to shuffle over to Neurolinx. I know, after all this talk of auteur theory and defunct media, I just gave up and fell into what can only be described as mental comfort food. I can be such a basic, boring bitch sometimes. Dax was right in his assumptions about me... I do spend a lot of time in the network. I opened the Neurolinx mainframe and selected one of my go-tos, a cooking show, of sorts... which is probably the easiest way to describe it.

Neurolinx. The great distraction of our time! Imagine all of humanity, hooked into the same central hub, allowing them to access every corner of the globe through someone else's experience. It's like a social network on steroids, and makes the Internet look to us like the radio must have looked to the internet's inventors.

Instead of just posting Nazi propaganda and cat memes online like some waterwar boomer, Neurolinx allows one to actually access another human being's mind. For example, the "cooking show" I frequent is actually run by this wealthy woman. She has access to real food, none of this cubed ration shit the rest of us are forced to suffer through. Meats, vegetables, sugar, wheat. She spends all day just cooking and tasting what she's made, using her platform to share it with the world. I still can't make up my mind as to whether it's as a service... or a taunt.

That night, the woman, Mary Sweets she calls herself, had roasted a pork loin. I don't even know what the fuck a pork loin is, but it smelled absolutely intoxicating. Mary's a content creator, like so many others on here. A Host, as they're referred to. Other Tourists or Passengers, as the users are called, were just logging on as well.

Other than the headset or implant needed to run Neurolinx, the system has remained free for public use, one of the few things corporate America has allowed to remain free. If they didn't get shit loads of ad space out of the deal, that certainly wouldn't be the case. At least that's the official reason these corporations give. My opinion is that, with any sort of fascism, keeping the people distracted with vice helps to prevent them from turning on those in power. You take Neurolinx away, then the people will suddenly have a lot of free time on their hands to think about how much their being fucked.

As far as Hosts are concerned, they earn money through sponsorships, which is a nice way of saying lazy corporate marketers who pay to leach off their popularity and viewership. One can make good money doing it, but comes at the price of losing any kind of privacy you might hold dear. Hence why I don't Host, I enjoy my privacy. Mary Sweets had six million four hundred and three viewers other than yours truly logged on that night, which sounds like hell to me. Her entire countertop and kitchen cabinets are plastered with glowing corporate logos. The one for Shitstream Laxatives always makes me chuckle, sitting there so close to all that great looking food.

I can't say that I've ever even seen a pig, but here this woman was, basting a chunk of one in its own delicious looking juices and sprinkling various herbs and spices over the mouthwatering meat. Thanks to Neurolinx I could actually feel the heat of the kitchen and smell the sizzling meal. I could hear the same sounds she could, boiling pots rattling their lids, timers dinging, etc. As Mary carved off a slab of sizzling white meat, she raised it to her lips. I could feel the warmth of it on my fingertips and it radiating towards my lips. As she took a bite, I too slip a forkful of protein cube into my mouth. It's grainy texture rolled around on my tongue and fell apart before I could even swallow.

It's a strange feeling to the uninitiated. You feel this other person's reality as well as your own at the exact same time. I can taste what she's tasting, but I can also taste the disappointing slab of processed meat substitute in my own mouth. I can feel her hands dive into a wad of dough, but also my own scratching an itch on my leg. Its a trip, and It's easy for some to get lost in it.

Those Dax referred to earlier as Mindriders. Individuals who have given up on their own existence and have chosen to live out their lives entirely through someone else's mind. Permanently. They don't play a role in this story, but I think it's important for you to know they exist. That's the kind of power that Neurolinx can have over someone if they're not careful. Thankfully, I'm not that bad.

Speaking of Dax, I found myself thinking about him quite a bit that evening. I don't really think about guys much... or girls for that matter. I'm mostly a solitary creature, not that I don't enjoy the occasional roll in the bed sheets. I couldn't get that sexy smile of his out of my head. What was his last name? Larsen? Lorn? Lori...Loritone! That's it! I logged out of Mrs. Sweets feed and opened the Neurolinx user search engine.

One added benefit to having a receiver hardwired into my brain is that it allows me to simply think about a desired prompt instead of having to verbalize or key it in. After simply imagining his name in my brain, Dax Loritone's name appears within the EOM unit's information display. There's a profile headshot, which he obviously paid to have done. The photo looks too professional to just be a selfie. He was 29, single, not registered as a host. Which was probably for the best. Might have made it a little awkward around the water cooler the next day if I knew what he jacked off to at night.

Instead, I just sunk into my sofa, starring at his picture. Wondering what he looked like naked. Wondering if he'd like to see me naked. I mean, he's a guy, so I assumed he probably wanted to see anything on two legs sporting a pair of natural tits naked. I thought about flicking my bean solely to his profile pic when suddenly and rudely interrupted by an incoming message:


victor_victorian: we need to meet.

I replied,

sprvxn: we don't meet irl. You know that.

victor_victorian: do you think I'm fucking with you?! Something is happening. It's not safe to talk on here.

sprvxn: of course it is. I've quintuple verified the privacy network. No one can access this chat except us without at least a saliva sample. My code is sound, that's why you approached me in the first place, remember?

victor_victorian: you don't understand, NO network is safe. They're watching us right now. I'm sure if it.

sprvxn: bullshit.

victor_victorian: it's not bullshit! I'm sure we're being targeted. Look, I've already said too much. We need to meet. Somewhere public. Somewhere crowded.

sprvxn: you're being paranoid.

victor_victorian: you're only fucking paranoid when they're not actually out to get you.

sprvxn: how cliche. Chill the fuck out, dude. Any spyware would be automatically red-flagged in my system. All incriminating files would be dumped immediately. Nothing has happened. You. Are. Being. Paranoid.

victor_victorian: been having bad dreams lately?

sprvxn:_


Victor had my attention.





End Part 3

[Bloodthirstybutcher]

Part 4-"The Dark Room"




Somewhere miles away, the following morning...


Hmmm. What a pleasant dream.

I was at work, training the cute new guy. Went home. Watched a woman cook a delicious meal on Neurolinx. It doesn't sound like much, but the mundaneness of it all sure beat the waking reality.

I opened my eyes and was immediately met with the panic of an unfamiliar space. A sharp pain at the base of me skull informed me that I'd slept in an awkward position. Where the fuck was I?

I didn't remember going to bed actually. Just walking home from work and then waking up in that... place. A small cell barely large enough to stand up in, white walls all around me. No windows. No doors. A few rags to sleep on. No toilet to speak of, though I couldn't actually remember the last time I'd eaten anything. The hunger was there, but my captors never feed me.

That's right, I thought to myself. This wasn't the first time I'd woken up here. Far from it actually.

I'm not given much to cover myself. Just a rectangular paper gown of sorts that I'm able to slip my head through. It always ripped and tore the more I moved in it. The only mental stimulation afforded was a transparent ceiling. A window into a world of giants.

Giants, you ask? I know, I probably should have led with that part.

It wasalways shocking to see at first. Huge beings looking down at you with nothing but an analytical stare. Each one indistinguishable from the next, their faces covered with surgical masks and goggles. In my early haze, it always took me some time to realize that this was just the norm. They were always there. Observing. Making their notes. Experimenting.

Every time I wake, it's like I'd just arrived, but as the amnesia began to fade, I realize that isn't the case. It was difficult to believe any of it was real. For one, I still had both of my eyes. None of my childhood scars, gifted to me by my loving parents, were anywhere to be seen actually. No mods. No expensive tattoo sleeve stretching down my arm. Even my hair was its natural color, boring old brown. It was surreal, like I'd been... fixed, somehow. I'd always find myself wondering if that room was the real dream.

Those beings who held me there, as much as I tried to deny myself of the truth, were not in fact giants. I'd tried to convince myself they were aliens or the figments of a particularly potent acid trip, but I knew the truth in my heart. People can't be grown or shrunk, that's just sci-fi, make-believe nonsense, but that didn't change the reality of my situation. I was smaller. Much, much smaller. So were the others being held there. Yes, there were others. Men and women both. We aren't allowed to socialize, but I could hear them screaming through the walls. I found it better to remain silent... and observe my observers.

The daily fog of my memories faded more and more as the hours went by. Somehow, I didn't think my captors were aware of this... and given the lack of any advantage I had, I sure as shit wasn't going to let them in on it. I didn't speak to them at all, just sat in my claustrophobic little chamber and waited.

For what? I'm getting to that...

The more I thought about it, the more I became convinced... and it makes me sick to even go there... that I was a clone.

It was the only thing that made sense. I still bled, trust me I checked, so I knew I wasn't a robot. Physics wouldn't allow for my to shrink. And the fact that there wasn't a mark on me. Perhaps I was still... made somehow. Grown. Printed. Who the fuck even knows? If this was in fact the case, then why make me... finger-sized? Why did I still have memories from before I arrived? What exactly did these people want?

Who was I kidding... there was only one thing anyone could have wanted from a nobody lie me. If I had indeed been targeted, that meant those people knew about The Triad Dimension. And since I was being treated as a prisoner, then they weren't exactly fans. There was no other reason to abduct me... or duplicate me, as the case may have been.


The Dark Room.


More was coming back to me. Every day I was being taken out of that cage by a massive gloved hand. It carried me over to a counter area, one larger than multiple football fields from my perspective, then placed inside some kind of a box. The Dark Room. My fear escalated as I was strapped to a table... or sometimes a chair... or simply left on floor. Depending on what they had in store for me.

Just as I expected something terrible to happen, everything would go black. I'd up back in my cell. Again, feeling as though I was about to climb up the long flight of steps to my DSC. The disorientation would return, as would the amnesia. An endless loop of nightmarish impossibilities.

As the days went on, clarity would find me sooner and sooner. All except for what happened inside The Dark Room. That remained a perplexing black spot in my mind. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't remember what went on inside that awful room. Perhaps I didn't really want to know. It was just that terrible.

The sharp pain in the back of my neck often got a worse by the end of the day. I'd reach back there to rub it, always finding a large bump that wasn't supposed to be there. The pain wasn't a crick in my neck, nor was it a tumor. It was an implant. A Neurolinx transmitter, I assumed. The thing was miniaturized to fit inside someone as small as I was, but it was still to large to go unnoticed. It created a constant pressure under my skin, vibrating slightly when I'd scratch at it. It still does.

If it was indeed a Neurolinx transmitter, then it occurred to me that my dreams were not a dreams at all. They were memories. The new guy, that day at work, the night at home... this happened to me... or rather... it happened to the real Vix. Which meant we'd been tethered somehow, even without registering as a Host.

They had to be using me! To get inside her head! That had to be what they were doing inside The Dark Room! Of course! They'd wait until she was asleep, when her subconscious mind was at its most open and vulnerable, then... enter her mind through me!

This felt like an enormous breakthrough... until a few minutes passed by and I realized that I'd come to the same conclusion dozens of times already.

How were they doing it though? Neurolinx wasn't capable of complete mind transferral. When engaged with a Host, you could only experience their life as a passive participant. You couldn't control the Host or influence their decisions. Not unless... unless those bastards had found a way to do so.

The implication that any of these things could be true was terrifying. That your mind could be entered without your knowledge and used as a living meat puppet, a zombified slave. No one should have that kind of power.

What was worse, I didn't know what they're getting out of me... err... out of the real Vix, if anything at all. I could only hope that I... that she was staying strong. We're stubborn and and contrarian, qualities that most lol down on, but may in fact save our lives. The work we... she was doing through The Triad Dimension was too important.

By the end of the day, I knew what would be coming. The ceiling would be lifted away. Those massive hands would come for me again. I'd be ushered away from my tiny cell to, well... you know where by joe.

That black pit of mystery. The Dark Room.

I didn't know how I was going to do it, but I had to try and get through to the real me. And above all, I had to try and remember what happened inside The Dark Room...





End Part 4