       



A Perfect World

Chapter 7



The office, only six square meters total, was actually somewhat modest
considering its occupant was the most powerful person on Mars. The desk,
made of synthetic material, was no different than any other desk found in
any other office in the Martian capital building. There was no luxurious
couch, no wet bar, no real trappings of power such as what would be found in
a head of state's office in Ken's day. A computer monitor sat atop the desk
with a printer next to it. The carpet was standard pile, not exactly low
quality, but certainly not as nice as what Karen Valentine enjoyed in her
home. The plainness of the office was deliberate, symbolic of the fact that
the woman who occupied it was considered no better than any other Martian on
the planet.



Governor Mitsy Brown was 21 years old. She was marginally attractive, with
pleasantly styled brunette hair, piercing brown eyes, and the dark skin that
indicated a considerable amount of African-American and Oriental blood in
her ancestry. Like any Martian who worked in an office building for a
living, her clothing was very skimpy, not the least bit elitist. As she sat
behind her desk, sipping a cup of coffee brewed from WestHem beans, she was
dressed in a pair of brief tan shorts and a bright blue half-top that showed
off her cleavage, which was her most impressive feature. She was not a
representative of the ruling class, for there was no ruling class on Mars.
She was a high school teacher by trade, her subject political science. Her
career in Martian politics had begun only seven years earlier, when she
received notice that she had been selected for planetary legislature duty
for Eden's district 19.



The lower house of the Martian congress was, at any particular time, filled
at least one third full of conscripts to the job instead of elected
officials. The Martian constitution stated that participating in government
was not just a right of every citizen, but a responsibility. Positions in
the legislature were filled in much the same manner jury duty had once been
filled on Earth. Each legislative district consisted of approximately
200,000 people. Any adult in that district over the age of eleven, who
possessed a bachelor's degree or better and who had no criminal record, was
eligible for conscription. The term was for one year of service and very few
excuses for why a person could not accept the duties of office were
accepted. After a person served his or her year he or she could then retire
from politics for life and go back to his or her job (the Martian
constitution demanded that the job be held for them during their service),
or they could run for re-election to the office for another term. If they
chose the latter option, as Mitsy Brown had, their name was put on the
ballot for their district in the next election, their opponent the unknown
new conscript. There were no political parties or platforms on Mars, only
individuals. If the legislature member had done a good enough job that their
constituents felt they were a better bet than the unknown new person, they
would be re-elected. If they weren't re-elected, they were banned from
politics for life. The limit for the planetary legislature was three terms.
At that point a candidate was eligible to run for a position in the senate,
the upper house of Martian congress.



The senate, where most of the important decisions were made, consisted
entirely of elected officials who had maxed out their legislative terms.
Only those who had gained the respect of their districts as well as the
surrounding districts were voted in. Each Martian city was allowed two
members of the senate, for a grand total of 26 members for the entire body.
Martian citizens had learned since the revolution to research their choice
for senator very carefully before voting. Gone were the days when ten-second
sound bytes during political commercials or who was the most attractive on
television swayed the average voter. Martians now voted based on the record
of the individual running and whether the politician's views agreed with
their own.



Mitsy Brown, like most of the post-revolutionary Martian governors before
her, had not grown up with the ambition to one day administer policy over
the entire planet. Instead, she had found that she had a flair for the job
of politician, a natural leadership ability, and so, after her first term as
a conscript, she had steadily moved forward, impressing enough of those who
voted each time that she was always overwhelmingly elected to each higher
office. She was now eight Martian months into her first term as governor and
had already been touted as one of the most effective at the job since the
great Laura Whiting herself. She herself found the job much lower key than
she had expected. In truth, there was not all that much turmoil, not all
that many agonizing decisions to be made. By this point in Martian history
the government and the citizens had both evolved to the point that things
practically ran by themselves.



Today, however, things were just a little different. Today the first major
crisis of her governorship had been placed before her, a crisis that could
potentially damage the planet in ways worse than a fully armed surprise
attack by EastHem and WestHem forces. It was a crisis that had been many
years in development, spanning the administration of three previous
governors but that was now coming to full-blown worrisome status during her
tenure. Didn't she just have all the luck?



Sitting before her desk was Roscoe Reamer, the Planetary Security Advisor.
He was twenty-five years old and had spent the majority of his working life
in the intelligence business, steadily rising through the ranks due to his
almost uncanny efficiency at the tasks of gathering and analyzing
information. He had been in his current position for almost seven years now
and had advised two previous governors on how to keep the planet safe from
WestHem or EastHem encroachment or influence. Unlike in the Earthling
systems, past and present, his was not a position that changed with each new
administration. It was simply part of the government apparatus.



Also present in the room were Diana Mingus, a senior member of the senate,
and Reef Haverty, a senior member of the legislature. They were here for
observation of the briefing she was to receive since the classified
information clause of the constitution had been invoked for the matter at
hand. Secrecy in government operations was forbidden in the Martian system
except in grave matters of planetary security where public knowledge of what
was being discussed could potentially jeopardize lives. In the rare instance
that a discussion was declared classified, congressional oversight by one
member of each house was mandatory.



"Computer," Mitsy said. "This is a classified discussion. Invoke clause
seventeen-assfuck-nine."



"Fuckin' aye," the computer replied. "Confirmation is required."



"Legislature Mingus is down with it and confirms," Mingus said.



"Senator Haverty is down with it and confirms as well," Haverty added.



"Fuckin' aye," the computer said cheerfully. "I'm down with the
confirmation. Seventeen-assfuck-nine is in effect in this room until ordered
terminated. Recording devices are still in operation but no public release
of the transcript will be allowed unless authorized by legally prescribed
means."



"Good enough," Mitsy said, taking another sip of her coffee. "Roscoe, lay
the briefing on us."



"Fuckin' aye," he told her, leaning forward over the desk. He took a deep
breath, his expression grave. He was obviously not very happy about what he
had to report. "We have just received conformation that the Sythro particle
accelerator lab facility in Mexico City has gone into full production of
anti-matter."



Mitsy winced as she heard the report. Though she had been expecting just
such affirmation of her fears, it was still a shock to hear it come out of
his mouth. "This is certain?" she asked.



"Fuckin' aye," he said solemnly. "We have numerous assets in Southern
WestHem, including two reliable contacts inside the Sythro facility itself.
My analysts assure me this is solid information. Sythro is now working three
shifts at double capacity on all three particle accelerators on site. We
also have preliminary evidence that the Sythro Lab sites in Calgary and
Tulsa are gearing up for greatly increased production as well. WestHem is
planning to produce a shitload of anti-matter, much more than normal or even
abnormal weapons production would call for."



"I see," Mitsy said softly, pulling a cigarette out of box on her desk and
lighting it up. She took a deep drag and then exhaled the smoke slowly into
the room. "And you are certain that this anti-matter is not for an advanced
propulsion drive for a new spacecraft?"



"Absolutely certain," he replied. "We have every shipbuilding facility in
WestHem and EastHem thoroughly infiltrated by men and women loyal to our
ideology. If there was an advanced spacecraft project going on in any of the
existing facilities, we would have gotten wind of it long before they
reached the point of producing anti-matter for it. In addition, neither
WestHem nor EastHem has the technology available to them to produce the
amount of anti-matter needed for such a ship even if they were building one.
We are at least a decade ahead of them in quantum physics technology and we
are still nowhere near being able to produce anti-matter on that sort of
scale."



"Assuming a worst case scenario," Mitsy asked, "how much will they be able
to produce? And how fast will they be able to produce it?"



"Our knowledge of their particle accelerator specifics is quite detailed,"
he said. "If every particle accelerator in WestHem ran full-speed ahead, 24
hours a day, with only routine maintenance shut-downs made, they will be
able to produce approximately 250 kilograms per Earth year, or about 500
kilos per Martian year."



Mitsy whistled softly. "Oh Laura," she said nervously.



"That's a worse case scenario," Beamer reminded her. "A more likely scenario
is of only half that amount. I seriously doubt that WestHem would commit all
of its particle accelerators to such a project, no matter how compelling
their reasoning is."



"They're still producing an awful lot of anti-matter though, aren't they?"



"They are," he agreed. "Which forces us to ask ourselves why the WestHem
government, an institution thoroughly corrupted and motivated only by profit
margin, would expend vast amounts of capital to manufacture this material in
this amount."



"And only one explanation seems to make sense," Mitsy said. It was not a
question.



"Correct," Reamer said, taking out a cigarette of his own. He paused to
light it, took a quick drag, and then looked at his boss. "They're incapable
of producing enough to power a propulsion system but they are producing many
times more than is required for weapons needs. There is only one anti-matter
application that requires the amount they could conceivably produce. I'm
afraid our worst fear is going to come true. WestHem is preparing to utilize
the knowledge they acquired on Project Lemondrop."



"Project Lemondrop," Mitsy said angrily. "Those flapping physicists at the
University of Triad. They should have never been allowed to pursue that line
of research."



Reamer kept his face neutral. The last three governors had all said the same
thing every time they'd been briefed on some aspect of Project Lemondrop or
the aftermath of it. "That is unfortunately a moot statement," he told the
current governor. "The drive in the early post-revolutionary days was to
pursue every conceivable avenue of physics and medicine that had not been
allowed under the WestHem system because of funding problems. The superior
education our students received at the new universities provided the
brainpower for the research to take place. Lemondrop was only one more
intriguing aspect of quantum physics that demanded exploration, just like
the research into teleportation and anti-matter production. Those scientists
and engineers probably had no idea they would actually come up with a
functioning system. They thought they were just going to prove that
Lemondrop couldn't be done."



"But did they ever consider the ramifications of what they were doing?"
Mitsy asked. "They had to know that WestHem would copy their research and
try to duplicate it."



"Sadly, the thirst for knowledge often drowns out such concerns. In any
case, what is done is done. The research was done, was perfected, and
WestHem did manage to get their hands on a copy of it. And now it very much
appears that the so-called deep space research station they've been
constructing beyond the orbit of Pluto is exactly what we've always been
afraid it was."



Mitsy nodded solemnly. That an ambitious construction project of some sort
had been taking place in interstellar space beyond Pluto had been evident to
both Martian intelligence and EastHem intelligence for the past four Martian
years. The suspicious nature of the project had been quite evident as well.
The WestHem navy had declared the site a military exclusion zone with a
perimeter of more than half a million kilometers. 22 California class
superdreadnoughts, 35 Owl stealth attack ships, and 50 long-range
destroyers, nearly half of the WestHem navy, patrolled this perimeter. Any
EastHem or Martian vessel attempting to enter this perimeter was immediately
challenged and driven off. This was a particularly aggressive and expensive
method of protecting a deep-space research station, which is what WestHem
claimed the structure was. That the structure was actually a Project
Lemondrop application had been suspected from the start. Now, with the
anti-matter production intelligence, the suspicion was as good as confirmed.



"It is truly frightening to think what WestHem will try to do with this
application," Mitsy said. "For Laura's sake, don't they realize the possible
consequences?"



"The consequences could be far-reaching and quite vast," Reamer said. "And
there is truly no way to predict what they may be. That is why we outlawed
further research into Lemondrop and further testing of the application. It
was only common sense."



"Exactly," Mitsy said.



"But with WestHem, you're not dealing with people who utilize common sense.
They see a possible advantage by utilizing Lemondrop and, once those in
power appear to be in favor of it, those who advise them will twist and
distort their analysis to support the use of it instead of giving a fair and
impartial report. Any scientist or engineer who disagrees with what the
powers-that-be want done, anyone who will try to say, "Hey, maybe we'd
better think about this a little," will be discredited and dismissed from
their position. That's how things work on Earth. That's the way things have
always worked on Earth."



Mitsy sighed again, hiding the fear she felt inside. "Can we prevent them
from carrying out the project?" she asked.



"If you're talking militarily, that is doubtful," he replied. "Our navy is
technologically more advanced than theirs, but much smaller in size. We have
enough ships and weapons to prevent invasion of our planet or of Rhea, where
our fuel gathering facilities are based. We have enough stealth attack ships
to hit their supply lines very hard and to protect our own. We do not,
however, have enough firepower to force our way through the exclusion zone
around that research station and still guarantee its destruction. Even
attempting such a thing would require enough ships that we not be able to
protect Mars and Rhea from counterattack. That, as I'm sure you're aware, is
a direct violation of our military doctrine and I'm quite sure the commander
of the Navy would refuse such an order as the constitution demands she do."



"So we can't directly attack the facility," Mitsy said.



"Correct," he confirmed. "The other military option would be to try
attacking the supply ships carrying the anti-matter itself as they delivered
it to the station. This is not really viable either. The WestHem navy will
undoubtedly utilize numerous heavily armed escorts for each shipment and
will probably use dupe supply ships within the convey itself. Finding the
exact ship that carries the material and successfully destroying it will be
extremely difficult to accomplish and would probably result in unacceptable
losses."



"So you're telling me there is no way to prevent WestHem from utilizing
Lemondrop," she said.



"You're down with it," he confirmed. "That is totally the shit. In
approximately two years, maybe a little more, they will have enough
anti-matter produced for a single utilization of Lemondrop and there is
really no way for us to prevent it."



"So what are our options?" Mitsy asked him, although she already had a
pretty good idea.



"We need to initiate Operation Counterdrop," he said simply. "And we need to
initiate it as soon as possible."



"That's what I was afraid you would say," she said. Counterdrop was one of
the few secret military plans that had been formulated by the Martians since
the revolution. Its details, its very existence in fact, was known only by a
few people in the planetary security department, a few scientists and
engineers, a few top military leaders, the governor, and the two members of
the executive oversight team. Its inception had been a direct result of the
possibility that either WestHem or EastHem would try to utilize Project
Lemondrop technology for their own means.



"There is really no other choice," Reamer said. "We have to construct our
own Lemondrop reactor in order to counter theirs. And we have to construct
it in secrecy, in order to keep them from learning we plan to counter them.
Fortunately, we have all of the components, including that of the reactor
itself, pre-fabricated and in storage at Whiting City in orbit around Rhea.
It's just a matter of transporting these components and a construction crew
to the assembly location."



"You say that like it's an easy task," Mitsy said. "You're talking about
moving six hundred thousand tons of materials and more than eight hundred
construction workers from Rhea to interstellar space without EastHem or
WestHem detecting it."



"There is a plan for doing this. We'll use stealth attack ships with
skeleton crews to transport everything little by little and keep the project
supplied. It will take fifteen months to complete delivery of the components
and another three months to assemble them. We are confident this can be done
without detection."



"And what about the other aspects of the plan?" she asked. "The anti-matter
production comes primarily to mind. We will need to produce twice as much
anti-matter as WestHem, will we not?"



"Fuckin' aye," he agreed. "We will have to utilize Lemondrop twice where
they will only have to utilize it once. But as I told you earlier, our
particle accelerator technology is much more advanced than WestHem's. The
numbers have been crunched many times. We can produce enough in the time
allotted to carry off the operation. Of course, there is the matter of the
explanation for the increased production."



"Yes," Mitsy said, distaste clearly audible in her tone. "We have to lie to
the citizens. Something I took an oath never to do."



"I find it as repugnant as you do," Reamer told her. "I myself took that
oath as well. But in that same oath was the vow to use our common sense in
all official decisions and matters. The common sense of keeping the project
secret overrules the demand for honesty in this case. We simply cannot hide
the increased production of anti-matter. Nor can we give a vague explanation
for what we want it for. Mars is rife with WestHem and EastHem spies, Mitsy.
You know that as well as I do."



"Yes," she said. "I do." And it was true. Each year EastHem and WestHem sent
dozens of intelligence agents to Mars mixed in among the thousands of
legitimate immigrants. Though well over half of these spies decided after
less than a year that they liked the Martian way of living better and
defected, turning over their equipment and giving up the names of their
contacts to Martian authorities, the other half was infiltrated far and wide
throughout Martian society. This was how the Project Lemondrop information
had gotten to WestHem in the first place, by a WestHem spy on the research
team.



"You can bet your ass they have agents within the particle accelerator
facilities," Reamer said. "The moment we increase production, they'll know
about it, just as we knew about their increased production. The cover
project is an integral part of Counterdrop. We have to have, not just an
explanation for why we need the anti-matter, but an explanation backed up by
concrete facts that they will actually believe. That's why there really is
an interstellar ship project. That's why we really are working on an
anti-matter drive. Not just so we can explore Alpha Centauri, but so, if the
time came, as it now has, we could explain why we suddenly need to produce
two tons of anti-matter. It isn't enough for a full-blown drive of course,
but it's a plausible amount to test a prototype engine in laboratory
conditions. The fact that we are actually close to producing such a
prototype drive, and that there are undoubtedly WestHem spies on the
research team who can confirm this, will set the WestHem intelligence
services at ease, especially if they catch no hint that we're constructing
any large structures in deep space."



"I understand the concept, Roscoe," Mitsy said. "It doesn't mean I have to
like it. It goes against the Martian grain. It's a very Earthling thing to
do."



"But you'll order it put into effect?" he asked.



"Yes," she sighed. "I'll order it put into effect." She looked at Mingus and
Haverty. "This order will require oversight confirmation," she told them.
"Do both of you understand the ramifications and specifics of what is being
proposed here?"



"Fuckin' aye," Mingus said softly. "I don't like it either. It makes me feel
skanky just to contemplate it, but I confirm the order."



"As do I," Haverty said. "The order is confirmed."



"Fuck my ass then," Reamer said. "I'll start making the preparations
immediately."



+++++



"Really, Marcella," Ken said nervously, looking down at his naked crotch, "I
don't think I can do this. This is starting to look like one of those videos
they used to show us in aviator survival school about what the enemy would
do if they captured you."



Marcella seemed to think this was a joke. She laughed dutifully and
continued attaching the electrical connection to his rapidly deflating
penis. Just a minute before he had been as turgid as steel in her hand, as
he always was when she touched him in intimacy, but now, as she clamped the
VED, or "virtual enhancement device" to him, the blood was rapidly fleeing
to other parts of his body. The VED was an evil-looking plastic thing that
fit over his entire cock and was connected to the computer plug-in via a
cord that looked like a coaxial cable. It was, according to Marcella, the
means by which most Martian men and boys masturbated these days.



"Has anyone ever been injured by one of these things?" Ken asked her.



"No," she said simply. "Although there are those who become addicted to them
and never leave their house. Trust me, you'll like it."



"But what exactly is it going to do to me?" he wanted to know. "You told me
it works electrically. In my day, guys did not like having the word
'electricity' and 'penis' mentioned in the same sentence."



"It's not exactly electricity," she told him. "At least not in the way
you're thinking about it. All it does is stimulate your nerve cells
artificially, so they're fooled into thinking you're really feeling the
sensations that occur inside the VR fantasy. So, if you're in a fantasy and
the computer woman is sucking your cock, the cells will be stimulated in
such a way so your cock actually feels like it's in a mouth. If you're
fucking a pussy, it'll feel like you're in a pussy. You see? Very simple."



"Very simple, huh?" he asked, dubious. "This thing is sending electrical
charges into my nerve cells, manipulating them, and it's very simple?"



"Fuckin' aye," she said, making one last adjustment. She picked up two more
attachments, each of which looked like a thick woolen mitten with coaxial
trailing out of the end. "The same principal applies to the nerve cells in
your hands. You put these on and, when you touch the computer woman's tits
in the fantasy, you'll feel like you're touching real tits. When you slide a
finger in her pussy, you'll feel like you're doing that too."



"And this doesn't cause cancer or anything like that?"



This truly made her laugh. "Cancer?" she cackled, shaking her head. "Spread
my cheeks and lick between 'em. There's no such thing as cancer anymore.
That's like asking if fucking will give you AIDS."



"I see," he said slowly. He still wasn't quite used to the fact that things
that had been deadly serious issues back in his time-cancer, AIDS, heart
disease, strokes, spinal cord injuries-were nothing but examples of how
primitive the twentieth and twenty-first century Earthlings had been to the
Martians. They worried about such things about as much as people in his day
used to worry about scurvy, or blood poisoning, or polio.



This was not the first such revelation he'd had in the two weeks he'd been
awake about how the advanced Martian medical science created entirely
different outlooks on life. In a society where no contagious disease
existed, where no debilitating medical conditions lurked in the shadows,
where virtually the only things that caused death were accidents and
extremely old age, the entire psyche of the populace was on a different
plain.



The biggest example of this he'd noticed was how sacred the Martians
considered the sanctity of life. In extending their lifespan to levels
unheard of in human history, the Martians had created a fear of accidental
or unnatural death that bordered on the psychotically paranoid. Martians did
not engage in any sport or hobby that conceivably could cause death as a
result of simple malfunction or miscalculation. There was no drive to build
fast vehicles for the purpose of racing them. There was no skydiving for
fun, no bullfighting or bull riding, no hang gliding. The word daredevil was
simply not in the Martian vocabulary.



This paranoia extended into the workplace as well. Martian factory workers,
construction workers, pilots, agricultural workers, and other occupations
that were inherently dangerous worked under the strict guidelines of an
occupational and safety administration that demanded enough safety equipment
and procedures to all but guarantee a worker could not be killed by
misfortune or negligence at his or her worksite. Spacesuits for those
workers who had to go outside the safety of the city environment contained
multiple failsafe and back-up systems so no one could suffocate or
decompress in the event of a problem. Construction workers were outfitted
with magnetic boots and tethered with unbreakable hemp ropes at all times.
Agricultural machinery was outfitted with computer-operated proximity
detectors that would shut everything down if a worker came into a zone where
he or she could be placed in any danger of death. Even the military, as
dangerous a job as that was, had been outfitted with enough safety devices
and protection systems to make accidental death during flight, or armored
exercise, or infantry training, to be all but unheard of. In the event of an
actual war, Martian military doctrine itself was designed with the
preservation of the lives of the soldiers its prime directive, even at the
expense of losing territory and key positions.



Since awakening, Ken had been following closely the Martian newscasts on the
Internet stations in order to help acclimate himself to their culture. In
the past two weeks one of the top stories had concerned a twelve-year-old
woman in the city of Libby who had been killed accidentally while working in
the city's water recycling plant. Apparently a piece of steel debris had
become lodged in a compressed air line somewhere, creating a build-up of
high pressure. While trying to clear the line, the debris had come loose,
shot out of the line at high velocity, and struck the woman in the head with
enough force to kill despite the helmet she'd been wearing. In Ken's day,
this would have been considered just one of those quirky events that
occurred, worthy of no more than a few lines of print in the back of the
local section of the newspaper. On Mars, it was planetary news on the order
of the Challenger disaster or the Oklahoma City bombing. Expressions of
sadness, horror, sympathy emanated from every city on Mars. Martian citizens
were demanding answers as to how such a thing could have happened and how it
could be prevented from happening again. The Martian OSHA-an agency with
broad police and subpoena powers-was pulling out all stops in its
investigation. Engineering experts from all over the planet were examining
everything and everyone involved, from the supervisory staff of the plant to
the composition of the helmet and the pipe itself. Every day updates were
given on the discoveries of the previous day. On the streets, in the bars,
and in the coffee shops of New Pittsburgh, the incident was the main topic
of conversation. Karen had told him that any industrial accident that caused
death was treated with the same gravity and, as such, incidents of this sort
were extremely rare, occurring no more than once every two Martian years or
so on average.



In stark contrast to this fear of premature death, the Martians had a
recklessness toward mere injury that seemed contradictory on the surface
but, with some careful examination, actually wasn't. Martians absolutely
adored physical sports, both on the amateur and professional level.
Football, a little different from what had been played in Ken's day, but
still the same basic sport, was the planetary favorite. Their version of
football was played without much protective equipment save a helmet and
knee-pads. There were no rules regarding roughing of the quarterback or the
kicker. Clipping, holding, and face-masking were all perfectly acceptable
methods of blocking and tackling. Late hits were still against the rules but
the interpretation of what exactly constituted a late hit was much more
liberal. Every city on the planet supported a professional football team
that consisted of the best players from among the city residents. In
addition, each city had dozens of organized amateur leagues where men and
women competed for pleasure in their off-time. Broken bones, torn ligaments,
concussions, even paralyzing injuries were very commonplace in all levels of
the sport. But, since actual death was not likely to occur as a result of
the sport, the Martians played it and cheered it on fanatically. There was
no fear of the injuries that could and did happen because such injuries were
easily fixed by Martian medical science. Broken bones, torn ligaments, even
spinal cord injuries, could be mended in a matter of days by means of
accelerated cell stimulation. The medical care itself was completely free,
one of the constitutional rights. Even the specter of income loss as a
result of recovering from the injuries was not a concern since the
government compensated any worker who could not physically perform his or
her job until such time as they could return. The fact that the injuries
were suffered during a leisure activity was not considered the least bit
relevant.



Another significant change that had been forged by the Martian medical
science was something that Ken was still having a difficult time getting
used to. Since infectious disease, both viral and bacterial, had either been
wiped out completely or was easily cured, the Martian people had no fear
whatsoever of germs or microbes. The botching experiences Ken had
participated in three times now were perhaps the best example of this
indifference. Men and women, most total strangers to each other, touched,
groped, slid their tongues in and out of each other's mouths, even copulated
in an environment where other total strangers had been doing the same before
them. In Ken's day this would have spread gonorrhea, syphilis,
mononucleosis, AIDS, hepatitis, the common cold, influenza, and a dozen
other things far and wide. On Mars it was just taken as a matter of course
and the only thing done after a night of botching was a simple shower to
cleanse the sweat and bodily secretions off.



But sexuality was not the only place this fearless attitude towards germs
manifested itself. Martians had no qualms about another person's saliva,
even a stranger's, coming into contact with their mouths or hands. People
who hardly knew each other would share drinks in a bar out of the same
glass, or use the same marijuana hose or pass cigarettes back and forth.
Martians didn't wash their hands routinely after performing such tasks as
using the bathroom or cleaning something up or playing with a pet. If
something was accidentally dropped into a garbage container and needed to be
retrieved, they would plunge their hands in unhesitantly, grab it, and shove
it in their pocket with only a brief wiping of any clinging material. Nor
was Salmonella a concern. Ken had watched Marcella prepare dinner on several
occasions and had been astounded by how she would carelessly cut up raw
chicken on a cutting board and then cut up lettuce for a salad on the same
surface, with the same knife, five minutes later without wiping either down
first.



With these thoughts in mind, Ken suddenly had another reason to be nervous
about the devices Marcella had attached to his genitals and hands. "Has
anyone else ever used these things before?" he asked her, not sure he really
wanted to know the answer.



She looked at him and shrugged a little. By now she was used to his strange
questions. "I suppose Manny might've used them a few times before," she
said, referring to Dr. Mendez, who was indeed romantically involved with
Karen. "Sometimes he stays over for a day or two. Jacob probably uses them
when he's in town too. Is that a problem?"



"Uh... well... no," he said, feeling a little queasy at the thought that his
cock was resting in something that Mendez or his grandson had ejaculated
into. "Just how well do they clean these things out afterward though?"



She chuckled a little. "You and your germ obsession," she told him. "How
many times to I have to tell you, that's nothing to worry about?"



"Uh... sure."



"But in answer to your question, the cock-piece is rinsed out with water
when you're done. The hand-pieces are just left as they are for the most
part but they're run through the washing machine every ten or twelve uses to
clean the sweat out of them. Does that make you feel better?"



"Sure," he said slowly, although it really didn't.



Marcella gave him a smile and kissed him gently, though sensuously on the
cheek, her tongue just touching his skin. "Just chill your shit out," she
said softly. "I promise you, you'll like this."



A little bit of the blood flow returned to his penis at the contact, as she
had no doubt known it would. By now Marcella knew him very well, perhaps
better than Karen herself. Karen, after all, had gone back to work a few
days after his awakening and saw him only in the evenings when she returned
home. Marcella was in and out of the house all day, cleaning, cooking, and
doing laundry. Ken had been out on several excursions by himself and with
Karen and had even spent three days in Eden with Jacob, but for the most
part he tended to stay in the house most of the time, browsing the Internet,
catching up on Martian history and modern society. He and the "bitch" of the
house had spent a lot of time talking about anything and everything. She had
been his best source of helpful information on Martian etiquette and morals.



She had also been his most frequent sexual partner, displaying an appetite
for fornication that would have been considered quite slutty in his day but
that was merely the norm for a 10-year-old Martian woman. Every night before
he retired she treated him to an enthusiastic blowjob, always unhesitantly
swallowing his offering at the completion. At least once during the daytime
hours they retired to his or her bedroom for an extended session of steamy,
lustful fucking in just about every position imaginable, and even a few that
weren't. There was absolutely nothing she wouldn't do in the bedroom. She
loved anal sex most particularly, seeming to prefer it to the vaginal
variety. She also had no qualms about putting her tongue on and in his ass
and would spend half an hour giving him a slow oral massage of this part of
his body before jacking him off until he came all over her face. In return
for all this sex she expected nothing at all. To her, it was just an
enjoyable way to spend her break periods.



By no means was he the only one she had sex with. On the contrary, she had
two steady boyfriends who came over to visit her on the weekends. More than
once he had come into the living room to find her copulating with one and
even both of them on the couch or the dining room table. These interruptions
were extremely embarrassing to Ken but Marcella had treated them no
differently than if he had walked in on her watching television or reading a
book. She had even invited him to join in once, an offer he had respectfully
declined.



Most shocking however, was what had happened just two days before, about an
hour after bedtime. He'd been having trouble falling asleep so he'd gotten
up to get a bottle of beer from the refrigerator. He'd entered the
entertainment room and there, on the couch, had been Karen, her shorts off,
her legs spread wide, her head thrown back, an expression of bliss on her
sweaty face. Between her legs had been Marcella, lapping contentedly away at
her pussy, her face smeared with secretions. Ken had actually gasped at this
sight, making enough noise to prompt both of them to look up at him.



"Oh, hi, Ken," Karen had commented nonchalantly. "What are you doing up?"



"Yeah," Marcella had added. "Didn't my blowjob relax you enough?"



He'd stammered out some sort of reply and bolted immediately back to his
bedroom, closing the door securely behind him. He had no idea why the sight
of this shocked or surprised him. After all, he'd been out botching with
Karen twice now, had seen her affinity for affection with both males and
females. Marcella too had hinted on more than one occasion that such things
went on between her and her employer. Still, actually seeing it in the
flesh, actually witnessing the casualness with which being interrupted in
such a manner was treated, was astounding. He had no doubt that after his
exit from the room they had simply shrugged in that puzzled way they had
when dealing with his ancient morals and had gone back to what they were
doing.



"Okay," Marcella said now, smiling at his now hardening cock. "Let me show
you how the poor people and the adolescents do it first."



"Uh... sure," he said.



"Computer, open standard sexual stimulation program for male."



"Fuckin' aye," the computer replied. "Program open. Default preference is
heterosexual encounter. Are you down with this?"



"Well?" she said. "Are you down with it?"



"Yes," he told the computer. "I'm down with it."



"Fuckin' aye. You want pre-set stimulation or manual?"



He looked over at Marcella. "Which one do I want?"



"Try manual first," she advised. "Then you just tell the computer what
stimulation you'd like to feel and it will provide it."



"Really?"



"Really," she confirmed.



He told the computer he wanted manual and it told him to fire when ready.
Again he looked to Marcella for advice.



"Try touch first. That's what most people like to do. Tell it you're
touching tits."



"Okay." He took a deep breath. "Computer, I'm touching tits."



The computer did not acknowledge him in any way but a second later it became
obvious that it had heard him. His hands suddenly felt as if they were
resting against a soft set of breasts. The sensation was very realistic. He
could feel the smooth, feminine flesh, could feel the press of nipples
against each palm.



"Wow," he said, impressed, his cock taking another lurch beneath the probe.



"Nice, huh?" Marcella said, smiling again as she watched the wonder on his
face. "Now move your hands like you're squeezing them."



He did so, moving his fingers as if he were squeezing the invisible tits. He
could feel the flesh squishing and pulsing under his hands. The nipples
actually seemed to get harder against him. He tried moving his hands back
and forth and, sure enough, the sensation of sliding over the tits was
transmitted to him. He was starting to see the appeal this form of
masturbation had.



"Now tell it your left hand is feeling pussy," Marcella suggested.



"My left hand is feeling pussy," he said.



The sensation of the breast flesh against his left hand was immediately
replaced by the feel of his palm lightly touching a slippery, warm wetness.
He could feel each individual lip, the smoothness of the mons, even the
slight protrusion of the clitoris. He moved his hand a little and the
sensation changed, as if he were putting pressure on the unseen vagina. He
twisted his hands and curled a finger inward and it felt as if he'd just
inserted his finger in between the two lips. It felt hot and wet in there,
indistinguishable from a real pussy.



"This is really static," he said, curling another finger inward and giving
another squeeze of the breast with his right hand. His cock was now fully
erect beneath the sheath.



"You haven't even tried the one on your cock yet," Marcella pointed out.
"Tell it there's a hand stroking you."



He was still a little nervous about having electrical impulses applied to
his cock but he did as she suggested. He was pleasantly surprised by the
sensation. It felt just like a soft, feminine hand had gripped his shaft and
was stroking softly up and down. So authentic was the sensation that he
actually looked down to see if Marcella had gripped him while he was
occupied with the feel sensations. She hadn't. There was nothing on his cock
but the sheath.



"Try sucking," Marcella suggested.



He told the computer that his cock was being sucked and the sensation
instantly changed to a wet, teasing mouth, bobbing up and down upon him. It
was here that the unreality of the device first became apparent. The feeling
of the mouth moving up and down was incredibly real. He could even feel the
slight chill that came from wet flesh meeting the air. What was missing
however were the other sensations that were associated with a normal blow
job. He could not feel hair tickling his stomach, could not feel the press
of a feminine body against the inside of his legs, could not feel any
sensation at all on his testicles. Still, the sucking mouth feel would be
quite enough to bring him to orgasm if he let it continue.



Instead of waiting for that to happen he took some initiative and told the
computer that he was fucking. The mouth sensation was replaced with the
feeling of a wet, tight vagina sliding down onto his cock. It began to move
up and down, gripping him rhythmically every stroke in that way that Martian
women had (Marcella had confirmed for him that this was a skill taught to
Martian girls in early sexuality classes in middle school). Again, though
the sensation was very nice and would easily lead to orgasm if allowed to
continue, it would never replace the real thing. There was no press of a
female body against his anywhere but his hands. There was no mouth to kiss,
no neck to suck, no arms around him.



"Okay," Marcella said. "That's the free program you're using there. Let me
show you the really nice way to do it now. Tell the computer to end
program."



Ken was reluctant to end the sensations but, being curious about what the
"really nice way" might be, he obeyed her. The moment the words left his
mouth the sensations stopped, leaving him a little breathless.



"Karen subscribes to a couple of static porn services," Marcella told him.
"They have custom VR porn."



"Custom VR porn?"



"Fuckin' aye," she said, opening a drawer on the desk. She reached inside
and pulled out a medieval looking black helmet. There was no opening for
eyes to look out either in the front or the back. Dangling from the bottom
was another length of coaxial cable. "I think you're gonna like this little
piece of modern technology."



+++++



Ken had seen quite a lot of Martian technology over the past two weeks, some
things that had been vague science fiction ideas in his time, some things
that had been completely unimaginable. His ride-along with a patrol unit of
the New Pittsburgh Police Department the week before had been liberally
filled with technological wonders.



The cops he rode with were Armand Woo and Denise Jackson, both five year
veterans of the department, both friends of Belung, Jacob's husband. At
Karen and Jacob's suggestion, and after being assured that they would keep
the information to themselves, Ken had shared with the partners his origins
as well as his former occupation. This served to make Woo and Jackson as
fascinated by Ken as he was by them. A good portion of the idle hours of the
shift had been taken up by discussing the differences between law
enforcement then and law enforcement now.



Much of the equipment the two cops wore on duty was the same in function,
yet fundamentally different. They carried guns on their waists but instead
of the bulky 9-millimeter pistols the San Jose PD had packed, theirs were
tiny 3-millimeter models, constructed almost entirely of plastic, which fit
quite neatly into the palm of one hand. Woo told Ken that the 3mm was a high
velocity weapon, relying on the speed of the projectile instead of the mass
of it to inflict damage on a human body. The miniscule bullet traveled more
than four times faster than a pistol bullet from his day, which gave it
better stopping power than a .44 magnum at close range and better
penetrating power than an M-16 round. They allowed Ken to fire a few
magazines at the holographic targets in the police station's basement pistol
range and he had been quite impressed by the experience. Instead of aiming
through fixed sights or even using a laser designator, a targeting rectical
was projected on a small heads-up display, or HUD, that hung down from the
patrol helmet. When the weapon was moved up or down, left or right, the
rectical moved as well, showing where the bullet would strike if it were
fired at the particular moment. Woo told him that the patrol computer, which
is what generated the rectical, took into account all environmental factors
such as distance to target, bullet drop, and movement of the operator. In
addition, the pistol could not be fired by anyone but the operator, which
prevented a common cause of police shootings in Ken's day, that of a cop
being killed by having his own weapon wrestled away in a fight and used
against him.



The New Pittsburgh Police carried no mace or pepper spray on patrol. Such
things had gone out of fashion late in the 21st century. What they did carry
was something called a tanner. This was an extendable aluminum rod capable
of delivering an incapacitating electric shock to a combative suspect with
the simple push of a button. It could shock through clothing and even body
armor but would not affect anyone who happened to be touching the person at
the time. The shock would render the suspect completely inert for the better
part of five minutes and caused no lasting physical damage. Like the pistol,
the tanner could not be used by anyone but the operator.



Searching a suspect by hand was something that was no longer done in the
course of a cop's duties. Instead they carried an electronic scanner the
size of a cellular phone from Ken's day. This was passed from head to toe
over a suspect's body from a distance of up to two meters. Using a
combination of X-rays and a miniature phased MRI it would quickly-with 100
percent accuracy-inventory every single thing in a person's possession and
display a list on the officer's HUD. A danger signal would be generated if
the scanner detected anything that could be used as a weapon.



The handcuffs they carried were very similar to the ones Ken had carried in
his own patrol days. They were stainless steel, adjustable bracelets
attached together by a metal chain. It seemed technology had precious little
to improve upon in the area of wrist restraints. The only major
technological difference here was the manner of unlocking them for removal.
Instead of a key, a command from the arresting officer was used and the
patrol computer would disengage the mechanism, allowing them to fall free.



The Martian fear of accidental or violent death was very much in evidence in
the way patrol officers dressed for their duties, Ken found. They wore dark
blue pullover shirts and long, cotton pants, but that was just the bottom
layer. Over the torso they wore thick, Kevlar armor, capable of protecting
their vital organs from everything but a military rifle round. On their
heads they wore heavy Kevlar helmets with bulletproof face-shields. They
looked like troops manning a skirmish line against rock-throwing rioters
instead of cops out on routine patrol.



"Are you shot at a lot?" Ken wanted to know when he saw all of the armor.



"No," Woo had told him. "Hardly ever happens anymore. Private ownership of
guns has been against the law since just after the revolution. There hasn't
been a cop killed in the line of duty on Mars in more than nine years."



"Then why all the protection?" Ken had asked. "I used to work patrol in the
worst ghetto in San Jose and we only wore a simple vest over our chest area
for protection."



"It's still possible that someone might try to shoot at us," Woo told him.
"There were millions of guns out on the streets before the revolution,
literally millions of them. Since we outlawed the manufacture and possession
of firearms for public use, we've gotten rid of most of them but there are
still some out there. It's still conceivable that some criminal somewhere
who is looking at a long stretch in prison might try to shoot it out. If
that happens, we need to be protected."



"I see," Ken said thoughtfully. "But that hasn't happened anywhere on the
planet in more than nine years? Nine Martian years?"



"Fuckin' aye. Most of the people who have the remaining guns are just
keeping them as collectors. They don't dare take them out of their hiding
places. If you're caught in possession of a firearm out on the streets,
that's an automatic five years at hard labor. If you use a firearm in the
commission of a crime, including just threatening someone with it, you're
looking at ten years hard labor tacked onto whatever the original crime
was."



"And that serves as a good deterrent?" Ken asked.



"You bet your hard-on," Woo assured him. "Would you risk it just to pack a
piece out on the streets?"



"I guess I wouldn't," he said.



One thing about the NPPD that was not very technologically advanced was
their patrol cars. Ken was actually a little disappointed when he saw one
for the first time. It was basically an electric golf cart, painted
traditional black and white, with the police emblem stenciled on the side.
The cab was enclosed with bulletproof plexiglass and Kevlar and there was a
small, caged area in the rear for transportation of prisoners. There was no
siren, only a horn, and the only light was a small blue flasher mounted on
the roof. The inside was nothing but seats and storage space. There were no
radios or computers since the patrol computer each cop carried served these
functions by themselves. The top speed of the cart was a whopping 40
kilometers per hour.



"Our patrol area is not very big," Jackson explained to him as they climbed
in for the first time. "Our primary beat encompasses only six square blocks,
so we usually don't have to get very far in a hurry."



"Six square blocks?" Ken asked incredulously. The beats in San Jose had been
an average of three square miles apiece.



"We're not a sprawled out city," Jackson reminded him. "Remember, each one
of our residential buildings, particularly down in the public housing area
where we work, contains about 10,000 residents and ten or fifteen commercial
establishments. There are four patrol units assigned to each beat and we
keep quite busy. We run an average of six calls per eight hour shift."



It turned out that during the course of Ken's ride-a-long, they ran only
five calls, but it was a very eye-opening experience nonetheless. The first
major difference Ken noted between cops in his day and cops on Mars had less
to do with technology than it did with attitude. Woo and Jackson, as well as
the other cops they encountered in the course of the day, had a much
different outlook toward their job than Ken and his co-workers. In the
United States in the twentieth and twenty-first century, the average urban
police officer of any experience was a cynical and, frequently, burned-out
individual. The feeling that one was shoveling shit against the tide, that
one was making absolutely no difference to the city, the county, the
environment in which he or she worked, was strongly prevalent. Cops in his
day would throw dangerous thugs into jail only to have them released on
their own recognizance the next day so they could commit more offensive acts
they wouldn't be punished for. They would see the same sad crimes, the same
sad people, day in and day out, year in and year out, with no hope for any
meaningful change to take place in the system. They got to feel that they
were only barely holding back reversion to complete and total savagery, that
they were surrounded by a public that hated and feared them, by politicians
and journalists who loved to make sensational examples of them and who
refused to support them.



The Martian cops, on the other hand, felt none of this. They carried an
enthusiasm toward their work that was unmatched in even the most gung-ho
rookie from the SJPD. The reason for this was because the Martian criminal
justice system worked. When a Martian cop put someone in jail it was with
the knowledge that person was going to stay there and was going to be
punished for what he or she had done and that this punishment served as a
fairly effective deterrent to others who might come after and contemplate
the same act. As a result, the entire focus of what constituted a serious
crime had shifted wildly on its axis.



Woo and Jackson's beat was the Martian version of a ghetto. It was where
those Martians who elected to live in public housing made their homes.
According to Woo, only twenty percent of those who lived in public housing
were unemployed. The majority of those who paid nothing for their residences
were college students trying to stretch their 200 credit per month stipend
to the maximum; men, women, or families who were saving their credits to one
day purchase or open a small business of their own; or those workers who
were employed in the more menial professions out of choice-agricultural
pickers, janitors, laborers-and wanted to make the most of their small
salaries. But it was with the twenty percent of the populace that were
habitually and by choice unemployed that eighty percent of the police calls
originated from.



"These are the dregs of our society," Woo told Ken as they cruised slowly up
and down the beat, weaving their way between buildings and through alleys.
"It's not that they can't work, because on Mars there is a job available
somewhere for anyone who wants one, it's just that they don't want to. They
say they're content without an income but they're really not. What ends up
happening is they have far too much time on their hands. Most of them end up
becoming addicted to intoxicants. The problem here is they're not given any
credits by the public assistance system so they have a hard time buying the
intoxicants. Some of them will work for a day or two at various things until
they have enough to buy a few bottles of booze or a few grams of smoke, and
then they'll quit. Others will steal things from other people and try to
fence them for credits. Others will try to strike up a fuck-buddy
relationship with someone who does have a job so they can use their credits.
And then, when they do get their booze or their smoke, they fight about it
with each other. All of this leads to assaults, domestic fights, shit like
that. We go in and try to mediate things, try to solve the theft crimes, try
to take care of the assaults. That's the majority of our job these days."



These problems in and of themselves were not terribly different than what
Ken had dealt with in his own patrol days, although on a much smaller scale.
The major difference was in how the police handled the situations.



The first call of the day was a perfect example of the contrast. It was on
the 48th floor of a 136 story residential building. There, in a public
housing apartment that was at least twice as large as a welfare apartment
from Ken's day, they found a drunken man bleeding from a small cut that had
been opened on the side of his face. Ken discovered that a drunk on Mars
looked and smelled much the same as a drunk in San Jose. His clothing,
though briefer, was disheveled, dirty, and smelled of old sweat. He told a
story of an argument with his next-door neighbor. They had both worked
refinishing some furniture for another apartment resident earlier in the day
and had been paid two credits apiece for their efforts. They had pooled
these credits together and gone in on a case of beer together. They had
spent the afternoon drinking the beer and then the neighbor had accused him
of drinking more than his share and had then assaulted him with his fist.
After hearing this story, Jackson and Woo went to the neighbor's house and
got his version of the events. The neighbor, they found, had also been
struck in the face, which had knocked two teeth loose and cut open his lip.
His story was that the argument had occurred as told, but that the accuser
had struck the first blow, hitting him in the mouth with a beer can and he
had merely been defending himself.



In Ken's days on street patrol, this was what was called a mutual assault.
What was generally done was nothing. Each person involved would be advised
that he or she could pursue misdemeanor assault charges against the other by
way of placing each other under citizen's arrest. Rarely did the combatants
elect to take this option, especially since the police officers would
actively try to talk them out of it. Even if they did elect this option,
nothing but a citation was issued and the district attorney would generally
drop each case if it reached his desk. The role of the police officer in the
situation was to restore the peace of the neighborhood, at least
temporarily, not to administer justice. The criminal justice system was far
too overloaded with serious criminals to waste time with bullshit assaults.



Woo and Jackson however, took this call very seriously, carefully
questioning and interrogating each individual for every last detail of what
occurred. They then tracked down and interviewed the three witnesses to the
scuffle, questioning each of them just as intently until they had a clear
idea of the exact sequence of events. This sequence of events turned out to
be that the first man had in fact been the first one to strike a blow by
bashing his beer-buddy in the face with the can. The first man was then
placed under arrest for aggravated assault and they transported him to a
nearby police station for processing. The man begged and cried the entire
trip, obviously fearful of the fate that awaited him.



"What will happen to him now?" Ken had asked after the booking process had
been completed.



"Now he'll be tried for the assault charge, probably tomorrow sometime. The
case is pretty clear-cut so he'll more than likely be found guilty."



"And then what?"



"He has a prior assault conviction on his record, so my guess is he'll get
six months in jail at hard labor. That should hopefully teach him not to be
so quick with his fists the next time he gets fucked up on booze."



Six months in jail at hard labor for a simple assault. That was almost a
year's worth of jail in Earth time. And on Mars, six months meant six
months. There was no time off for good behavior, no early release because
the jail was full. Yes, that would probably teach the man to think the next
time he balled up his fists in anger.



As amazing as that call was to Ken, the next one easily topped it. They were
sent to another public housing building where they found a 25 year old woman
on the 58th floor who claimed that her diamond pendent, a gift from her
husband, had been stolen. The person she suspected of the theft was a
ten-year-old man who had been fucking her daughter of late.



"He's a no-good piece of shit," the woman told the two police officers.
"Never held a job, never been to college, just tries to mooch on all of my
smoke all the time. I work hard down at the loading docks so I can afford my
own smoke and I'll be fucked if I'm gonna let that asshole have mine just
'cause he's cunt-slappin' my daughter at night. When I came home from work
today my motherfuckin' pendent was gone. Cindy-that's my daughter-keeps
tellin' me he didn't take it but she admitted that dickwad was in the house
today!"



Again, there was a sharp contrast to how the situation would've been handled
in Ken's day and the way the New Pittsburgh Police Department handled it. At
the San Jose PD, such a call would've been considered a nuisance by the
responding cops. A report would have been taken for insurance purposes and
then filed in some detective's box, more than likely never to be looked at.
The suspected thief would never be questioned and there certainly would've
been no chance whatsoever of recovering the pendent.



Woo and Jackson behaved as if the Hope Diamond had just been stolen instead
of a piece of junk jewelry worth 25 credits. Within ten minutes of taking
the report, a complete forensics team was in the apartment, pouring over the
mother's bedroom with scanners, small vacuums, and digital imaging devices.
They were able to recover two fingerprints on the jewelry box that did not
belong to either the mother or the daughter. A check of a database indicated
they belonged to one Jogan Mallard, the boyfriend in question. In addition
to the fingerprints, two skin flakes were found inside the small compartment
where the pendent had rested. These flakes were put into an analysis machine
the forensics unit carried and instantly DNA typed. Again, the database was
consulted and a match was made to Mr. Mallard. Meanwhile, Woo and Jackson
located the daughter, took her into one of the bedrooms, and spent the
better part of twenty minutes interrogating her about what had taken place
that afternoon. She reluctantly admitted that her boyfriend had been asking
her all day to get some smoke for him, seeming almost desperate at times.
After a fucking session he had left the room to go to the bathroom and had
been gone an inordinate amount of time. Shortly after this he abruptly said
he had to leave and disappeared.



"We have enough probable cause to pick him up," Woo said after a discussion
of the evidence with Jackson and the forensics team. "Let's get a tracking
warrant."



Woo used his patrol computer to send a transcript of all of the evidence
that had been gathered to a judge. The judge gave permission to track the
suspected thief and pick him up for interrogation. The means by which he was
tracked was his personal computer, which, like a cellular phone, gave out a
recognition signal when it was turned on so incoming communications could be
received. Within ten seconds of asking the patrol computer for the current
whereabouts of Jogan Mallard, five different cellular antennas triangulated
this recognition signal and a red blip appeared on a mapping display. He was
eight blocks away, in the basement of a housing complex.



When Woo, Jackson, and Ken arrived, they found him inside a pawnshop, the
pendent in his hands, trying to convince the pawnbroker that he really was
the legal owner of the jewelry despite the fact there was no record of it
having been sold or given to him. Mallard tensed up at the sight of the two
cops and put on a brief act of defiance when they told him he was under
arrest for theft. His resistance ended the second the tanners were pulled
from their holsters. He turned around and put his hands behind his back as
told and a few moments later, he was in the back of the police cart. Like
the assault suspect before him, he cried all the way to jail.



"How much time will he do?" Ken asked them after the booking process.



"For a first offense theft," Woo opined, "he'll probably get 18 months at
hard labor." This translated into almost three Earth years in prison.



"Enough to make him think twice about stealing something after he gets out,"
Jackson added. "If he does it again, he'll get four years, he does it a
third time, and he'll get ten."



"Do people ever become institutionalized in your prisons?" Ken asked.



"Institutionalized?" Woo asked, confused.



"You know, where they learn to like it and don't want to leave? And when you
release them, they commit another crime to get back in?"



The two police officers looked at him in disbelief for a moment and then
burst out laughing. "No," Jackson said, still chuckling, "we don't have much
of a problem with that on Mars. You see, no one wants to be in our prisons.
It doesn't matter how long you've been in there or how used to it you've
become, you would rather be on the outside. Hard labor means just that, hard
labor. Our prisoners work eight hours a day, four days a week doing the
kinds of things no free person wants to do. They clear land for new
construction, they raze magna-track beds when those are being built, they
work in the solid waste recycling plant, they do a dozen other menial, labor
intensive jobs. In addition, within the prisons themselves, there are no
luxuries nor any means of acquiring them. They don't get intoxicants or
tobacco or pornography or free Internet access. When they're not working,
they live in small cells with three other people and their every move is
watched by camera. They are allowed no sexual contact, not even with each
other. They can only masturbate by hand and only after lights out beneath
their covers. They can have visitation once a month if they can get someone
to come see them, but this right is subject to revocation if they become
discipline problems and it does not include face to face contact."



"That does sound pretty miserable," Ken had to agree, especially in
comparison to the country club atmosphere that American prisons had become
in his day.



"Do you ever get on Earth Internet and look at some of their news programs
about Mars?" Woo asked.



"Yes," Ken said. "I have done that a few times." And indeed he had. The
Earthlings, both WestHem and EastHem, had been allowed by the Martian
government to place communications satellites into Martian orbit and their
complete public Internet was available to any Martian who wished to see how
things were portrayed on the mother planet. Their news reports,
entertainment shows, and even their pornography was accessible to anyone
with a personal computer or a desktop in their home. The WestHem and the
EastHem services were under the impression that they were enlightening the
average Martian with 'the truth' about their planet, their government, and
their system of economics. The average Martian however, if he or she
accessed it at all, treated it as gaudy entertainment, somewhat like the
average American had once treated supermarket tabloids. The Earthling
Internet declared that the Martian system of government was brutal communism
and referred to Governor Mitsy Brown and her predecessors as ruthless
dictators. They talked of the need of the Martian citizens-who they
maintained were really WestHem citizens being held hostage-to be liberated
from the evil regime that ruled with an iron fist. This regime was accused
of rounding up and imprisoning dissidents, men and women who dared to
vocally oppose the corrupt Martian leaders. Martian prisons were reportedly
full of such political prisoners.



"You know those dissidents we're always accused of rounding up?" Woo asked.



"Yes," Ken said.



Woo gave a smile. "Those dissidents are the people we've thrown into jail
today. Jogan Mallard-political prisoner. The jails are just full of 'em."



+++++



The work ethic Ken observed in officers Jackson and Woo was impressive to
behold. It was also, he'd come to discover, quite typical for most Martians,
no matter what their job. Martians revered their ability to contribute to
society almost as much as they revered gross intoxication and sexual contact
with each other once the workday was done. And on the job itself, no matter
what that job happened to be, a typical Martian performed his or her task to
the very best of his or her abilities.



Every employed Martian-from the lowliest janitor to the occupant of the
Governor's office-worked under a mission statement and was expected to
completely dedicate his or her working hours to the fulfillment of that
mission. The mission statement was more than just a job description or a
listing of duties, it was a declaration as to what purpose that particular
job held in society. The janitor's mission statement, for instance, would
read that the purpose is to provide a clean environment to building X or
floor Y or room Z and to insure that all workers and/or visitors would be
able to enjoy the environment without clutter or hazardous conditions. And
that was what the janitor in question's focus was expected to be dedicated
to, to the exclusion of all other concerns. In the case of Jackson, Woo, and
every other police officer employed by the NPPD, their mission statement was
to provide fair and impartial enforcement of all planetary and municipal
laws and to keep the city safe from those who profaned the laws. In the case
of Karen and all the other doctors on the planet, the Hippocratic oath-with
a few modern updates-served as their mission statement. With Jacob, his
mission was to fly Mosquito anti-tank aircraft under the orders of the
Martian chain of command (as long as those orders made sense-Martian
military personnel were expected to disregard orders that didn't) and to
train and perfect his skills to the best of his ability. Failure to be
dedicated to one's mission statement, to act in a manner that showed
disrespect for your mission, was a terminable offense at all levels of
Martian society.



Karen and Jacob were perfect examples of the shift in personality from
working Martian to off-duty Martian. Ken had spent a great deal of time with
both of them over the last two weeks, including accompanying both to their
jobs on several occasions. In their off hours, both were as depraved and
wild as anyone Ken had ever met. They started off their mornings with a cup
of strong Earthling coffee and a couple of bonghits. By ten o'clock in the
morning, they would be drinking beer or some other alcoholic beverage. By
noon, both would be quite intoxicated and would spend the majority of the
day in that state. On workdays however, they would forego all intoxicating
substances-even the coffee. They would get up early in the morning, eat a
balanced and nutritious breakfast, and then time their commute so they
arrived at their respective duty stations at least thirty minutes early.
Though they would joke around with their co-workers during light moments,
when the conversation turned to a work topic the atmosphere would turn
deadly serious, the words geared toward solving a problem or conveying
information in a way that was concise, accurate, and efficient.



Ken remembered standing with Jacob and the crew chief for his aircraft just
before Jacob took him up for his first Mosquito flight. Jacob, a Major, and
the crew chief, a Sergeant, were good friends and were apparently in the
habit of going out partying together on their days off. While Ken had
listened, the two men had gone on and on for nearly fifteen minutes about a
married couple they had picked up at a botch club and had sex with several
weeks before.



"I'm telling you," Jacob said, shaking his head, a lecherous look in his
eyes, "that guy sucked my dick so fuckin' good he had to of been a
rump-ranger in disguise. He sucked me all the way down to the balls and even
stuck his tongue up the old exhaust port. He smoked the control stick better
than Belung, and you know how rankin Belung is at it."



"Oh fuckin' aye," the crew chief had agreed, his jaw working on a big plug
of chewing tobacco. "I remember the first time you had me and the wife over
for dinner. Remember? We had that bet that my wife could make you blast off
before Belung made me blast off?"



"Belung beat your old lady's time by almost three minutes as I recall."



"My point," the crew chief conceded. "Guy must've been pretty fuckin' good
if you think he's better than Belung. Although his old lady was no slouch
herself. She could suck-start a hydro-generator without a petroleum
infusion."



And then, a second later, the talk turned to the maintenance routine the
aircraft had just undergone and it was almost like two different people were
standing there. Jacob took on the role of the tough, unforgiving pilot and
the crew chief took on the roll of the highly skilled but subordinate
technician.



"Did you adjust the burn ration down a little?" Jacob asked him, his eyes
now serious, without a hint of the jovial look Ken had come to know in them.
"The range on this thing needs to be at least a thousand kilometers and it's
been coming up at only 950 lately."



"Adjusted it and replaced two relays that were showing wear," the crew chief
answered. "That's probably what was causing the low mixture. If you don't
get at least a thousand out of it today, I'll go back in and revamp the
whole oxygen delivery system."



"You'd fuckin' well better," Jacob advised. "I need to be able to hit the
WestHem armor 350 K out, with oxygen left over for maneuvering. If we can't
hit the columns at the LZ, we might as well just hand over the fuckin'
cities to them when they touch down."



"I'm down with it," the crew chief agreed humbly.



Jacob ended up taking Ken up for three flights on two consecutive days
during his trip to Eden, and behind the controls of the aircraft this
serious attitude was consistently displayed. Jacob did not joke when
strapped into the Mosquito or when lecturing Ken on its features. His voice
was dead serious and commanding and he made absolutely sure that Ken
understood everything he was saying at all times.



"Ejection procedures," he would say. "They're completely automatic. If the
computer reads a critical failure in any system or series of systems that
will lead to a crash, it will automatically kick you out. The mechanism for
doing this is similar to that used in fighter aircraft of your day, namely,
a rocket-powered ejection seat. The difference in the Mosquito is that there
is no parachute and you do not separate from the seat once you're clear of
the aircraft. You remain strapped into the seat and the retro-rocket pack on
the bottom will drift you neatly down to the surface. You don't need to
steer or adjust anything. The internal computer system will automatically
pick a suitable LZ for you. Once you're down, the bio-suit you're wearing
will support you in the atmosphere indefinitely, or at least until you run
out of food gel."



The bio-suit of which he spoke was a form-fitting, head to toe suit made of
synthetic material. It kept the human body at a precise temperature and
pressure so the wearer could venture outside into the lethal Martian
atmosphere. Weighing about thirty pounds and computer operated, it provided
oxygen by extracting it from the thin air and storing it in a small tank. It
also provided drinking water, food gel, and a place to both urinate and
defecate if that became necessary.



For all the high technology of the bio-suit however, the Mosquito itself was
about the most simplistic machine Ken had seen on Mars so far. Shaped like a
giant boomerang, the Mosquito had one hydrogen-burning, semi-rocket engine
that provided thrust. The controls were no different than that belonging to
a crop-dusting biplane in Ken's day. There was a control stick between the
pilot's legs, a set of rudder pedals, and a throttle lever. The heads up
display was provided by the bio-suit. There was no artificial gravity or
inertial damping in the aircraft since the machinery required for such
things was too heavy and created too much heat, which was the primary method
for detecting military aircraft these days. Thus, when they went through the
airlock and out onto the Eden Military Base's taxiways, Ken experienced the
sensation of "lightening" for the first time.



"It's a bit unpleasant," Jacob warned him, speaking through the biosuit's
communications link. "Try not to get sick in your suit though. The rule is,
if you puke in it, you clean it out, and I'm here to tell you it's a bitch
to do."



Unpleasant turned out to be a bit of an understatement. The moment the
airlock was depressurized, the gravity conduits were switched off, instantly
causing Ken, Jacob, and the entire aircraft to weigh about one third of what
they had a moment before. The sensation this caused was of falling, as if he
were plunging downward uncontrollably, although his eyes could plainly see
he was sitting still. He didn't puke, but he came awfully close before his
equilibrium was able to stabilize a few minutes later.



"You get used to it after you go through it a few times," Jacob advised.
"Although, to tell you the truth, you never learn to enjoy it."



What he did enjoy however, was the flight. As a man who felt he had been
born to fly, Ken was exhilarated to be strapped into an aircraft once again,
to feel the 2G's of acceleration as they shot down the runway and leapt into
the pink Martian sky. Jacob took them up to 7000 meters, or about 22,000
feet, much higher than a Mosquito typically operated but ideal for
initiating a new pilot to its controls.



The scenery as seen from this height made the lightening sensation
worthwhile. Eden was Mars' largest city, home to more than fourteen million
people. The high-rises here, including the old Agricorp Building at 263
stories, were quite impressive to behold. But the city itself was dwarfed by
the greenhouses that surrounded it. Each one was two kilometers square and
there were literally hundreds of thousands of them. They were set up in
geometric grid patterns and stretched beyond the horizon in every direction.
Jacob told him that the Eden area greenhouses had reached the point where
they were nestled up against the greenhouses in Libby, which was 1100
kilometers to the west.



"A lot of fuckin' farmland down there," Jacob said as they cruised over the
top of it. "And what you can see from here is only about one percent of the
whole thing. I'm sure Karen told you that agriculture is Mars' reason for
being."



"Fuckin' aye," Ken agreed, awed by the sight.



They cleared the greenhouses a few minutes later and came out over
mountainous terrain about 200 kilometers north of the Martian equator. Here,
Jacob's serious attitude became as serious as Ken had ever seen it when he
prepared his grandfather for the task of doing some basic maneuvers in the
Mosquito.



"Now you've flown fixed wing aircraft before, right?" he asked.



"Yes," Ken answered. "Most helicopter pilots are fixed wing pilots too. I
never got my commercial rating but I had more than a thousand hours in a
Cessna 150."



"Not sure what the fuck a Cessna 150 is," he said, "but I assume the
controls were the same."



"Fuckin' aye."



"Okay then. Let's see what you got. We'll start with some basic turns and
banks so you can get the feel of it. Remember, we're going a hell of a lot
faster than any aircraft you've flown in before. We're at mach two up here.
The Mosquito is very responsive and the thin air makes stress on the
airframe low, but don't go trying to put us in a ninety degree bank at this
speed. Forty-degree banks are the max at this velocity, and remember, the
altitude will drop sharply in a bank in this thin air. Compensate a lot more
than you did in Earth atmosphere."



"Right," Ken said, and he took the controls. For the next forty minutes he
happily turned and banked, accelerated and decelerated, dived and climbed
over the wastelands of equatorial Mars. Jacob never let him descend lower
than 5000 meters, citing safety concerns with having a new pilot flying the
aircraft too close to the ground. Ken didn't care. He was thrilled enough to
be behind the controls of an aircraft again, to feel a machine responding to
his touch. He quickly got the feel of the aircraft's controls and
idiosyncrasies.



"You did pretty fuckin' static," Jacob told him on the flight back, as they
were descending towards the Eden Military Base's landing pattern. "Now I
know where I get my flying genes, if not my rump-ranger genes."



Ken laughed. By now he was quite used to Jacob's frequent references to his
sexual preference. "It felt good to fly again," he said wistfully. "It's
what I've always wanted to do. I want to do it here too."



"Fly for a living?" Jacob asked.



"Fuckin' aye. I have to start thinking about getting a job soon, don't I? I
can't go on living with Karen forever. What do I have to do to fly one of
these things for a living?"



"Well, unfortunately," Jacob said, "you won't be able to fly a Mosquito. You
see, the Mosquito is a military aircraft with no civilian counterpart. You
would be allowed into the military but, since you're a recent immigrant from
Earth, you would more than likely not be allowed into a sensitive position,
such as attack pilot."



"I wouldn't? How come?"



"We get a lot of WestHem and EastHem spies coming over disguised as normal
immigrants. We've found it best over the years to exclude immigrants from
sensitive positions in the military. You have to either have been born on
Mars or brought here as a child for consideration."



"I see," Ken said slowly. "Isn't that discriminatory?"



Jacob shrugged, something that wasn't easy to accomplish while wearing a
biosuit and strapped into an aircraft. "Of course it is," he said. "But its
discrimination that makes sense, so it's allowed."



"I see," Ken repeated, his mind taking a moment but finally finding logic
there.



"There is another aircraft you'd probably enjoy flying though," Jacob said.



"Oh?"



"The Hummingbird," he told him. "It's a pilot's aircraft, like the Mosquito.
No computer controls except for navigation and the fly by wire system."



"The Hummingbird?" Ken asked, thinking that was a pretty pansy-ass name for
an aircraft.



"It's a vertical take off and landing capable aircraft," Jacob explained.
"Quite a bit bigger than the Mosquito. It's similar to the jump jets your
military used to employ in the pre-World War III days on Earth. It's a
twin-engine atmospheric craft with thrusters that swing up and down for the
VTOL effect. In the military we use them to transport special forces teams
out into the field and supply them. You wouldn't be able to fly them for us
for the same reason you can't fly the Mosquito, but there is a civilian
counterpart that is used for transporting work teams out into the
wastelands."



"And I would be allowed to fly the civilian model?" Ken asked.



"I don't see why not," he answered. "There's a training class you can take
here in Eden that will get you qualified. It takes about seven months, I
think. After that you can go to work for the construction industry."



"How much does the training class cost?"



Jacob laughed, shaking his head a little. "Still not used to the Martian
way, are you?" he asked. "The class doesn't cost anything. In fact, you get
a standard college stipend for attending. All you have to do is qualify for
admission. Since you've already been a pilot, I'm sure you wouldn't have any
problem with that."



"No shit?" Ken said, interested. "Do you have any of these aircraft lying
around at the base?"



"Bet your ass," Jacob told him. "As soon as we land and get our gear off
we'll take a walk down to the hangar."



Ken fell in love with the aircraft at first sight. Sitting atop four landing
wheels, the fuselage was about the size of that on a Blackhawk helicopter,
only a little longer and narrower. Inside was space for a pilot, two
gunners, and a fully equipped ten-person squad. The passengers entered
through a ramp that extended from the back. Attached to the fuselage were
two sets of extendable wings that were currently folded into the storage
position. The forward set was mounted on the bottom of the fuselage, the
rear set was mounted on the top. There were four pivoting thrusters to
provide momentum, one attached to each wing/fuselage junction.



"Exactly like the civilian version except for the guns," Jacob told him.
"The wings extend outward to a span of 15 meters. From the base, it takes
off just like a regular aircraft. Out in the wastelands however, it comes to
a hover and sets down like a helicopter. Takes off out there the same way."



"What's the range?" Ken asked.



"A thousand kilometers, just like the Mosquito," he replied. "That's
standard doctrine for all Martian military aircraft. The civilian model
actually has a little more range since it doesn't have the armor and
armament to add extra weight."



"I want it," Ken said, running his hand over the alloy of the body.



Jacob grinned. "Then we'll get it for you," he said. "It's the Martian way."



++++++



That had been eight days before. Since then, Jacob, true to his word, had
arranged for Ken to take the qualification exam for the next Hummingbird
pilot training class in two months. The day after tomorrow he would take the
intra-city train on the six hour trip to Eden once again. The exam itself
was touted as a general knowledge and spatial relationship test designed to
determine whether a person had what it took physically and mentally to fly
an aircraft. Martians, with their paranoia about death, were naturally very
careful in whom they selected to fill such rolls in society. In true Martian
fashion there was no means by which to study for the test or to take a
sample examination to see what you were up against. There were no study
books or computer programs, no tutors, no education programs that stuffed
you full of just what you would need to succeed. The Martian view on the
matter was that you either had what it took or you didn't and that being
able to study would just allow a certain number of unqualified applicants
into the fold, applicants that at best would have to be weeded out later,
and that at worst would make it through and be an unsafe pilot.



The impending trip had been very much on Ken's mind the last few days,
occupying most of his waking thoughts. Now, however, it was the virtual
reality masturbation program that Marcella was installing him into that was
at the forefront of his brain. He looked at the helmet she was offering with
a mixture of trepidation and arousal.



"Go ahead and put the helmet on while I hook it up to the computer,"
Marcella told him, handing it over.



"And what exactly is this helmet going to do for me?" Ken asked. "Is it
going to plug into my brain or something like that?"



"No," Marcella said. "Our VR technology is not quite that advanced, although
Karen and her colleagues are looking into the possibilities of direct
connect. What this helmet does is somewhat similar to what the gloves and
the genital attachments do. It sends out electrical impulses that trick your
various nerves into thinking they sense the environment of the program
you're running. Your eyes will think you're seeing the environment in three
dimensions, your nose will smell the environment, your ears will hear it,
and your tongue will taste it."



"So if I tell it I'm licking a pussy..."



"You'll feel and taste it," she confirmed.



"Wow," he said. "Jacking off has come a long ways."



"Fuckin' aye," she told him. "Now go ahead and put it on."



He put it on. It fit snugly for a moment and then seemed to self adjust. He
had a moment of claustrophobia as blackness engulfed him and it seemed like
he couldn't breath. The claustrophobia was replaced by wonder when light
suddenly bloomed in his vision and he found himself looking at a beautiful
park-like landscape. Green fields stretched out before him with a small lake
visible in the distance. Unlike the real Martian parks, there was no ceiling
here, no windows. He could hear the babbling of a brook somewhere behind him
and he could feel the sensation of a light breeze against his face. He
inhaled through his nose and sure enough, the odor of freshly cut grass
filled his senses.



"This is the default opening scenery you're looking at," said Marcella's
voice, which seemed to be coming from thin air somewhere above him. "You'll
notice it looks like an Earth landscape. That's popular among Martians since
we have to live our lives inside. Most of us have never actually seen such a
thing."



"Interesting," Ken said, turning his head this way and that, which allowed
him to look around at the scenery as if he were really there.



"That's just the VR lounge," she told him. "Let's get to the real
interesting part. Tell the computer to access the Xanadu Pornorama site."



Ken did as she asked. A moment later the field disappeared and he found
himself standing in a plush hotel lobby. Sitting behind a desk was a
gorgeous, naked brunette, her eyes looking at him. She smiled. "Good
morning," she told him. "Welcome to Xanadu Pornorama, where your every
fantasy is our reality. Please state your name for voice authorization."



"Uh... Ken Frazier," he said.



Her smile grew wider. "Ahhh, Mr. Frazier," she said. "We've been expecting
you. Karen Valentine has sponsored you for a one-week trial pass. This
allows you unrestricted access to all our services. Would you like a
pre-programmed experience or would you prefer to custom-design one?"



"Custom design one," Marcella's voice suggested. "That's the best part of
Xanadu."



"Custom design," Ken said.



"Very good," the woman told him. "I'll be your assistant in getting your
fantasy started. How many sexual partners would you like?"



"How many?" Ken asked.



Marcella's voice chuckled in his ear. "I'm telling you, anything goes in
here," she said. "You can fuck men, women, geriatrics, animals, underage, or
all of them at the same time. Let your imagination run wild."



"You're kidding," Ken said. "Underage? I thought that was illegal."



"It's illegal to actually do it," she told him. "It's not illegal to
fantasize about it. If four-year olds are your thing, this is the place to
do it."



"That's disgusting," Ken told her.



"To each their own," Marcella said. "What goes on in the porn sites stays in
the porn sites. They are forbidden by law to divulge their clients'
fantasies. They don't even store them as a matter of fact. And on that note,
I'll be leaving you now so I can get some meat marinating for dinner. I
think you'll be able to figure out things from here."



"But..."



"No buts," Marcella said. "A person's fantasy is supposed to be their own in
the VR site. Just have fun and I'll talk to you when you're finished." She
made a few kissing noises and then she was gone.



"Mr. Frazier?" the woman asked, her expression enquiring. "Have you decided
how many sexual partners you would like yet?"



He took a deep breath, his mind reeling with the thought that he could
program virtually anyone or anything and in as many numbers as he wanted.
Leave it to the Martians to expend effort perfecting this sort of
technology. As tempting as it was to go hog-wild and have an entire lesbian
nunnery seduce him, he decided to start simple. "One," he told her. "Just
one for now."



"Static," she said. "And did you have any particular person in mind? Or
would you prefer to manufacture one?"



"How about we manufacture one?" he said hesitantly.



"Static," she said again. "Male, female, or hermaphrodite?"



Hermaphrodite? Jesus Christ, these people really were twisted. "Uhh, female
please," he answered.



"And what age would you like her to be?"



He thought for a moment, almost said 30 years old, and then remembered that
Martian years were nearly twice as long as Earth years. "Around fifteen, I
think."



"Very good. Hair color and style?"



"Light brunette, shoulder length."



After hair, they discussed skin color and then body style, and then breasts,
and then legs, and then vaginal appearance, the questions becoming more and
more specific as they went along. It was only after the process was complete
and the computer receptionist presented him with a view of what he'd come up
with, did he realize he had been describing Annie.



"Jesus," he muttered, looking the three-dimensional apparition up and down
in awe. It was not a perfect representation of his wife, not by a long shot,
but the resemblance was close enough to send a chill up his spine.



"Will this be static, Mr. Frazier?" the receptionist asked.



"No," he told her. He was not quite ready to engage in a masturbation
fantasy starring a woman who looked like his dead wife. It was too painful.
"Not good at all."



"What would you like to change?" she asked.



He basically started over and created a new woman. This one was younger,
only 12 Martian years old, her hair blonde, her breasts large. When
presented with the finished product he smiled in satisfaction. She looked
like a stereotypical male adolescent fantasy girl and nothing at all like
his dead wife.



"Perfect," he told the computer. "Absolutely perfect."



"Very good," the woman said. "Now where would you like your fantasy to take
place?"



"Where?" he asked. "What do you mean?"



"What setting would you like to fuck her in?"



"Uh... what are the choices?"



"Our database is all inclusive," she said. "Any known geographical location
can be recreated. Should I tell you some of our more popular choices?"



"Sure," he said.



"The top deck of the old Agricorp Building is very popular. This can be done
with or without bystanders of course. The Honeymoon Suite of the Whiting
Luxury Hotel in orbit of Rhea is another static one. The views of Jupiter
are quite rankin. Inside of a bio-shelter atop Olympus Mons is commonly
picked by the adventurous types. If you prefer Earth locations we have an
extensive database of those as well. You can be placed atop a rock
outcropping in the Grand Canyon, be put inside a hot air balloon at 2000
meters altitude over any geographic location, visit any of the famous hotel
suites, past and present, or even be put out on a sailing vessel in the
middle of the ocean."



"No shit?" he said, fascinated.



"No shit," she replied.



"How about the hot air balloon over the Grand Canyon? Is that possible?"



"Fuckin' aye," she confirmed.



"Sounds good," he said. "Book it."



"Would you like the modern Grand Canyon or the historic one?"



"Uh... what's the difference?"



"The modern Grand Canyon has residential complexes lining both sides of it
and the river below has been dammed in several places. Many of our visitors
prefer an earlier version of the scenery."



"Earlier version, definitely," he said.



"What Earth year would you like?" she asked. "We can simulate the Grand
Canyon's appearance from early formation period to modern times."



He paused for a moment to consider this, thinking how static it would be to
see the Grand Canyon during its early formation period, but finally elected
to go with 2003, the year he was shot.



"2003 it is," she said. "Now what would you like your partner to be
wearing?"



"Hmmm," he said, considering. "How about a white summer dress with lacy
white panties on beneath? Nobody wears any fuckin' panties on Mars and I
kind of miss taking them off."



"White summer dress and lacy white panties," the woman said, unsmiling at
his jibe.



"Jesus, I'm joking with a damn computer image," he said, giving a shake of
the head.



Again, the woman made no comment. She simply asked him a few more questions
about the fantasy he was constructing, finalizing the details of whether he
wanted his partner to be dominant or submissive, willing or reluctant,
passionate or passive. He answered everything, becoming more excited by each
enquiry, and finally the woman declared she had enough information to begin
his program. "Enjoy your whack-off," she told him. "When done, just say:
'get me the fuck out' and you will be returned to the main menu."



He opened his mouth to thank her but before he could, the hotel lobby
disappeared, the woman with it. He was in blackness for a few seconds and
then the panorama of the Grand Canyon suddenly opened up all around him, his
perspective that of a man floating about six thousand feet above it.



"Holy shit," he said in awe, grappling for a second with his equilibrium.
The illusion was nearly perfect in all ways. Far below he could see the
canyon stretching off before him, could see shadows cast by the late
afternoon sun, could see wispy clouds floating by above, could see the
trickle of the Colorado River running through the midst of the canyon floor.
Above him, a colorful red and blue hot air balloon reached into the sky.
Before him and around him, the wicker basket of the balloon encircled him.
He could feel the soft breeze against his face, could hear the flapping of
the canvas, could smell the sharp odor of propane gas, could feel his hands
gripping the railing of the basket.



He turned around to take in the scenery behind him and there stood his
fantasy woman, leaning against the railing of the basket on the other side,
her blue eyes looking at him, a smile on her face. As with the scenery, the
visual illusion of her was perfect. It really looked like a blonde woman in
a white summer dress was standing before him. The expression on her face was
one of excited arousal.



"I really love it up here, Ken," she said, her voice soft and sexy. "Flying
makes me sooooo horny."



"Does it?" he said, his eyes looking her body up and down now and ignoring
the staggering scenery.



"Oh yes," she said, leaning back a little more. She let her legs open
slightly and her hands went down to the hem of her dress. Slowly,
sensuously, she began to pull it up. "Did I show you my new panties?" she
asked him.



"No," he said, feeling his cock stiffen beneath the probe. "I haven't seen
them yet."



She pulled the dress up higher, until the panties became visible. They were
just as he'd described-white and lacy. The crotch was slightly damp. "What
do you think?" she asked him.



"Very nice," he said, almost forgetting that he was talking to a computer
illusion. "Very nice indeed."



"Wouldn't you like to take them off and get a better look?" she asked coyly,
opening her legs just a little more.



"Yes," he said. "I think I would."



Here is where some of the limitations of the virtual environment became
apparent. Despite what his eyes were seeing, Ken was not actually standing
in a balloon, he was sitting in a desk chair. The only sensory inputs being
simulated for him were on his hands, head, and cock. His legs still felt the
chair beneath him. His feet knew they were not really in a standing
position. And, though he could look down at himself and see a simulated
body, he could not actually move it himself. Only his hands and head
responded to movements from his actual body. He had to rely on the computer
to make the movements for him.



The computer did so a second later, moving his simulated body into a
kneeling position before the simulated woman. This gave him a momentary
sensation of vertigo but it quickly passed as he stared at a close-up view
of the sparkling white panties. He took a deep breath and caught just the
faintest odor of aroused musk in his nose. He then reached out with his
hands and put them on the outside of her thighs, feeling soft, feminine skin
on his fingertips.



"Nice," he said, running his fingers up and down a few times. The computer
woman cooed at his touch.



He let his hands slide upward to the top of the panties and he inserted his
fingers into the band. He pulled downward and they slid down her legs,
baring a wet, aroused pussy capped with neatly trimmed blonde hair. The odor
of musk grew stronger in his nose as he pulled the panties off her legs.



"You're not looking at my panties," the woman said playfully. "Did you find
something more interesting?"



"Yes," he said. "I think I did."



He let his finger slide through her pubic hair and across the wetness of her
lips. He slid it in past the first knuckle, twisting it and turning it a few
times. Again, he was amazed by how realistic the sensation was.



"Maybe you'd like to give it a little kiss?" the woman asked him.



"Oh yeah," Ken said, leaning forward and doing just that. He stuck out his
tongue and licked between the two lips, gathering juices on his tongue,
tasting the tart tang of her. She moaned deliciously at the contact. As he
had programmed her to be, she was very responsive to his touch.



He licked her up and down for a few minutes, running his hands up and down
her legs as he did so, occasionally squeezing her tight ass. Knowing this
was not a real woman, he quickly became bored with this activity and his
cock was now straining for release.



"I'm gonna fuck you now," he said, signaling to the computer that it was
time to move onto that activity.



"Oh yes," she said, and a second later, Ken's computer body was standing,
his head even with hers. "Should I put it in?"



"Yes," he told her. "Put it in."



She spread her legs a little wider, opening herself up, and then her hand
reached down and grabbed his computer cock. As she did, he felt the
sensation of a soft, dainty hand gripping his real cock. He felt as if he
were being pulled forward and then rubbed through the slippery wetness of
her lips.



"Give it to me hard," she said.



He pushed forward with his hips in his desk chair and at the same time, his
simulated hips moved forward as well. He felt his cock sliding into a tight,
slippery sheath, felt the clench of muscles gripping him.



"Nice," he said. "Very nice."



"Oh yes," the woman said. "Fuck me. Fuck me hard!"



He began to move in and out, fucking her, his hands gripping her by the
waist. As before, there was really no mistaking what he was doing now for
the real thing. Though the sensation on his cock was perfect in every way
and coordinated exactly with the thrusts he was doing, it was only his cock
that felt it. He could not feel her legs pushing on his, could not feel her
stomach nestled into him, could not feel her arms wrapped around his back.
And though he could kiss her, could even put his tongue in her mouth-again
with perfect simulation of the sensations-he could feel no contact with her
from the chin down.



But this activity was not designed to replace the real thing or to fool a
person into thinking it was the real thing. This was simply an upgraded
version of jacking off to Internet porn from his day and it that regard, it
was far superior. It took only a few minutes of pushing his simulated cock
in and out of the woman and listening to her whisper exciting, nasty things
in his ear, before orgasm came upon him. He began to move faster, more
erratically, and soon he was groaning out his pleasure as the spasms of
delight coursed through his body. He came hard, feeling like he was shooting
his come into a gripping, slippery pussy instead of into an electronic
simulation device.



Ken took a moment to stare out at the amazing scenery while he caught his
breath. The woman let her dress fall back over her thighs but said nothing
further. She simply smiled at him dreamily. Finally, with nothing left to
do, he said, "Get me the fuck out of here."



Instantly he found himself back in the hotel lobby, looking at the naked
receptionist.



"Did you enjoy your whack-off?" she asked him.



"Yes, thank you," he told her.



"Static," she said. "Would you like to construct another fantasy, join in a
pre-programmed one, or leave Xanadu Pornorama for now?"



"I'll leave for now," he said.



"Goodbye, visit us again soon."



The hotel lobby disappeared and he found himself standing in the field once
again. He reached up with his hands and removed the mask from his head,
returning him to the reality of the bedroom. His hands were still in the
gloves and his wilted cock was still encased with the stimulation device.
Next to his chair, Peanut was lying on his side, sleeping, soft snores
coming from his trunk.



He removed the gloves and set them on the desk. He then reached down and
extricated his cock from the device. The inside of it was filled with his
semen. He unplugged the coaxial cable that connected it to the computer
terminal and then stood up. Peanut, hearing him stand, woke up and looked at
him.



"I think I'm starting to like it here on Mars," he said to Peanut as he
walked to the bathroom.



Peanut, in the manner that elephants had, gave a trumpet of approval at this
statement.