Artificial Happiness

"Give me a few minutes," Julia said. She picked up her UID and established a connection through the ship's communication array. Browsing the most popular video streaming sites, her expectations were quickly confirmed: the selection was huge. She shortly sampled a number of videos with promising descriptions and high ratings. It was hard to determine what she was looking for. There wasn't really a category 'sexual education for male, adult Workers'. It should be informative, start at the very basics and cover the whole subject, without being too childish or patronizing. Also she realized that she would have to remember clearing her browser history after this. It might raise some really uncomfortable questions if someone saw the suggestions without context.

The video she chose was about an hour long, had received excellent ratings and the instructors in it made a respectable impression.

"This is hopefully a better teacher than I could be," she announced. She increased the size of the UID's monitor size and left it floating in the middle of the room after starting the video. The Worker's gaze immediately fixed on the screen and he watched with undivided attention.

During the first few minutes Julia didn't quite know what to do with herself. Watching the video with Robert or leaving him alone, both felt wrong somehow. To her own surprise she found the video rather captivating, even though she didn't really learn anything new. Most importantly it helped her cope with the awkwardness. After a while her eyes started darting back and forth between the UID and Robert's face to study his reactions. He didn't even seem to notice.

Julia was quite satisfied with her choice of tutorial. It was rather graphic and detailed, with a fair level of nudity considering that the target audience was adolescents; but it wasn't too salacious, with a professional, somewhat academic feel to it. Whether it was the right thing to answer Robert's questions was hard to judge, but all the essentials were properly covered.

Once the video was over, Robert just stared blankly for a while. It certainly was a lot for him to take in.

"Do these things apply to Workers as well?" Robert asked after a long silence. The video had obviously been targeted at Naturals and didn't even mention that there was another type of human. "Or is this just about Naturals?"

"Well, physically you are not that different from us, so I guess most of it holds true for Workers as well. As far as I know, Workers are sterile though, which means the part about conceiving children isn't really relevant for you."

"But a Worker could have sex?"

"In theory, yes; if you find a willing partner; I am not sure how easy that will be though. It's hard to tell how women will react to being wooed by a Worker.

"What about masturbation?"

"Nothing is preventing you from doing that is there? If you are asking for my permission, I don't really care, nor am I in any position to forbid it. Just keep it to your cabin, okay?"

Robert nodded. To Julia there was little doubt about what he would be doing with a significant portion of his spare time for the rest of their time on the yacht.

Her expectations should hold true. Over the following days he spent a lot more time in his cabin then before. It was kind of paradoxical that Robert was traveling through the solar system in a luxurious yacht for the first time, seeing incredible views, yet he spent his time doing things he could have done pretty much anywhere. The joys of masturbation seemed to be a significant revelation to him. He had turned off his sexual inhibitor all the time now which proved to be a bit of a problem.

The lesser issue, but still rather awkward, was the extreme obviousness with which he regularly disappeared into his cabin for a very specific purpose during their leisure time. Julia informed him that this, like most things surrounding sexuality, was a rather private matter. Afterwards he at least stopped telling her about his intentions. That didn't make his activities during those short intervals of isolation less obvious of course. Not that she minded him having his fun, but it felt really weird, knowing that he was jerking it next door.

What troubled Julia more, was that in absence of other inspiration she became more and more the target of Robert's longing gazes; even when dressed relatively chaste. Being cooped up in a confined space for days with just one person of the opposite sex, after having rushed through puberty in record time, it was not all that surprising. He had the decency not to spy on her, to make his staring not all too obvious and to shamefully avert his gaze when caught. What worried her was that he might develop an unhealthy fixation for her.

The solution seemed simple at first: Julia could lend him her UID. Unlike Robert's device, which was limited to specific networks dedicated to Workers, hers had full access to the Internet. There were plenty of other women on there to obsess about. She put in a filter for adult content and only admitted a few select sites, with the intention of restricting him to some of the tamer and more realistic material. He was already weird enough, there was no telling what might happen to his mind if he lost himself in the eerie depths of the pornographic wonderlands the Internet so readily offered.

The vast collections of pictures and videos were definitely a significant enrichment for his limited sexual life, but they didn't quite achieve the intended goal. Julia's presence still had almost the same effect on him as before. A real woman out of flesh and blood was still something different from all forms of digital stimulation after all.

Julia even considered asking Robert, if he could turn on his sexual inhibitor while they were in a room together. He probably would have complied, but she couldn't bring herself to do it; commanding someone to alter his own mind, distorting his personality, seemed inhuman to her. Besides, she had no idea what kind of long-term effects these changes might do to his psyche. While she didn't quite see Robert as a regular person yet, she didn't consider him as a mindless, inconsequential Robot anymore either.

By the time they arrived at Venus, Julia's concerns caused her to come up with a spontaneous deviation of their journey plan. The idea had already occurred to her the previous night, but when she found Robert gazing at her absently during another test run, she made up her mind.

"Tomorrow we will go out!" she announced resolutely.

"Out where?" Robert asked puzzled.

"The commercial district of the Venus colony," was her answer.

He was certainly surprised but had no reason to object.

VRW probably hadn't intended for Robert to leave the ship during his assignment, but no one had told Julia that he couldn't. Hopefully the many distractions available in the colony would take his mind off his haunting desires. Even if not, there would at least be plenty of women for him to ogle.

6

The Venus colony was an extraordinary achievement in humanities conquest of the solar system. Robert had read a lot about it, but seeing it with his own eyes was awe-inspiring. A miracle of modern technology, it was unlike any other human habitat. Even the larger colony on Mars, the only other extraterrestrial planetary settlement, looked less spectacular in comparison. While Mars had plenty of challenges in store, such as low gravity, lack of atmosphere, solar radiation and so on, the basic idea of establishing a base there had been straight forward: Get to the surface, establish a structure which separates the inhabitants from all the environmental hazards and establish a steady, reliable supply of all the goods and materials needed.

Venus was a different story. Due to extreme temperatures and atmospheric pressure close to the surface, setting up buildings on the ground was not really an option. That didn't stop humanity from colonizing its closest neighbor though. Based on rudimentary concepts which had first been developed in the 2010s and significantly improved upon in the 2020s, humanity embarked on one of its most fascinating endeavors: The Cloud City. What seemed like a fever-dream of science fiction enthusiasts at first became reality throughout the decades.

Around 50 kilometers above the surface, temperature and pressure were much less of an issue, the atmosphere was still conveniently dense and there was plenty of sunlight to harness energy from. The colony hovered in that altitude, a cluster of connected floating platforms. Each of those was covered by a wide dome which kept the oxygen-rich, well-tempered air inside separated from the outside and protected from various other hazards.

For plenty of reasons the Venus colony was much smaller than the one on Mars, but it had received a lot of attention lately and was in the process of overtaking the older colony as the most popular destination for interplanetary travel. Of course the floating city was far from being self-sustaining and swallowed gigantic amounts of money. It was financed through a combination of public funding, donations, tourism, scientific research and permanent residents who were willing to pay insane sums in order to be able to call themselves Venusians.

It wasn't possible to land a space ship on the cloud city. This wasn't much of an inconvenience, as most ships were not intended for efficient ascent and descent through a planet's atmosphere anyway. Aerodynamics weren't much of a concern in that area; nor was it as important to keep the mass of a vessel low. Transfer between Venus orbit and the colony was only possible via shuttles, optimized for this task. A swarm of such vessels constantly moved back and forth transporting people and wares. For this purpose the planet was orbited by a so-called gateway station, which was essentially just a large floating dock, allowing space ships to attach and serving as a main station for the shuttle transfer.

On this gateway station Robert and Julia deposited the Beautiful Mystery and switched to a passenger shuttle which brought them down to the Cloud City. They arrived on one of the largest floating platforms, which was home to the commercial district. This part of the city was the main target for tourists, offering plenty of options for spending their money. It would also be the place Julia intended to spend the day in.

The district was dedicated to entertainment, shopping, relaxation, dining, partying, gambling and other pastimes. Various restaurants, bars, cafes, shops, cinemas, virtual reality stations, casinos, museums, sport facilities, brothels, spas and much more were crammed together in a comparably small space. Due to the limited space, challenging conditions and significant cost of importing wares, these establishments charged much higher prices compared to what similar delights might cost on Earth. Nonetheless plenty of people were eager to pay. Some because they were in the city for business and had no other options; for many more merely being here made everything more enjoyable. The feeling of floating through the Venusian clouds was worth a lot to certain tourists, even while engaging in rather mundane activities.

To Robert it was a whole new world. This was the first time he was truly confronted with the deeply hedonistic, commercial side of the Natural society: all the advertisements competing for his attention; the vast selection of things to do, see, eat, drink and buy; the inefficiency and redundancy of it all; the omnipresence of monetary evaluation, assigning a price to everything. For someone who had never possessed or needed any money, had been provided with all basic needs with very little choice and had never experienced any desires beyond what he was given freely, it was overwhelming. Robert just followed Julia's lead, trying to process the experience.

Their first stop was a cloth store, where Julia bought him a new outfit. The only attires he possessed were common Worker uniforms from VRW. As long as Robert merely tagged along in the role of the subordinate, it was fine, but it wouldn't allow him to indulge in the activities not intended for his kind. People would get very suspicious if they saw a factory Worker casually mingling with Naturals. The unfamiliar outfit felt strange to Robert at first, but he quickly got used to it. Despite the disguise he was plagued by the feeling of not belonging. What would the Naturals do if they found out that he wasn't one of them? Julia ensured him that there was no reason to worry about that. The idea that a Worker might pose as a Natural was so absurd it would never occur to them.

Nevertheless the pair was initially nervous, as they walked through the district, trying to blend in with the other tourists. They quickly relaxed throughout their stay, as it turned out that they didn't draw even the slightest attention.

Julia introduced Robert to various forms of conventional entertainment. While he was very curious about them and enjoyed trying new things, most of it had little appeal to him. He had been conditioned on what was supposed to be enjoyable and what wasn't for his entire life. These deeply embedded definitions of fun were not easily replaced, so many of the Natural pastimes were weird and pointless to him. In addition to that his CERS, even though its authority over his mental state had been strongly reduced lately, still had a lot of influence on what caused pleasure in him.

The activities which really sparked Robert's enthusiasm were those which introduced him to some new form of technology. Being in one of the most technologically advanced places humanity had to offer, there was plenty for him to discover. The actual purpose of the various devices he got to see was often lost on him, but their existence and functionality fascinated him immensely. He would have loved to take some of them apart in order to learn how they worked.

Another strange concept which didn't really fit into his previous world view was the idea of indulging in meals. He had been living on the same, almost tasteless nutrient paste for as long as he could remember. Factory Workers were not even aware that food could come in any other form or flavor. Therefore he was quite surprised by the existence of so many different restaurants, all of them offering edibles in various forms. Without any idea what Robert might like or dislike, Julia decided to stop at a few different places for small snacks throughout the day. At first, everything Robert tried was bland and unappealing to him. After a while they had an idea what the reason might be: The CERS had a function which detected consumption of unnecessary nutrients, such as excessive amounts of sugar and fat. The implants influenced the taste and caused unpleasant feelings to discourage from such behavior. This feature was activated by default for most Workers. A minor change of his configuration was a quick and effective remedy for the problem. Afterwards he found a lot more delight in the sense of taste. His underdeveloped taste buds did not react very well to spicy or overly sweet dishes and there were some intense flavors he could not stand at all, but he also discovered some very delicious food, he really enjoyed.

In addition to technology and food, there was a third thing which really peeked Robert's interest: People. At first it was the Naturals who held his curiosity. Strolling around in their strongly varying, colorful cloth, noisily chatting with each other, joking and laughing, eating and drinking, spending money and wasting time; their behavior was so different from that of Workers, so pointless, unpredictable and illogical. It seemed strange to Robert that those people were supposed to be humans in their original, unaltered form, while the Workers were an artificially modified breed.

Watching the Naturals was entertaining but also irritating. They were so alien to him that it felt almost impossible to relate. However, they were not the only humans in the colony; there were also Workers. They weren't as apparent, but there were plenty of them. Originally the CERS-Workforce had been created for isolated factories and jobs with little contact to Naturals. The enormous success in these fields had soon led to a dramatic expansion of the concept until most service jobs were now done almost exclusively by Workers as well. Waiters, barkeepers, promoters, shopkeepers, ticket vendors, cleaning staff, security personnel and many more occupations found in the commercial district were in the hand of CERS-controlled employees.

This type of Worker displayed some significant differences in comparison to what Robert was used to. Due to the fact that interaction with Naturals was an important part of their responsibilities, there was a strong focus on making these interactions as pleasant as possible. The first consequence of this policy, which Robert recognized, was their looks. For the purpose of luring in customers, many employees were extraordinarily attractive. While even common factory Workers already benefited from a supreme gene pool, those who were intended for the service industry were often specifically chosen based on their appearance. How to style and groom to the clientele's liking was obviously part of their training. In many cases the uniforms also acted in favor of their natural beauty, especially for women. While still being unmistakably the attires of Workers, tight fitting fabrics, a lot of exposed skin and inviting necklines were a common sight.

Their behavior was also somewhat different. For factory Workers, efficiency was always the topmost priority. This clearly did not apply here. These employees were all about being friendly, polite, inviting, sometimes even humorous and generally pleasant company. They tried to emulate the positive characteristics of Naturals. It made sense of course. Most customers in a restaurant would feel weird about waiters who reduced their communication to the necessary minimum and hurried around as fast as they possibly could. People wanted to feel like they interacted with normal human beings, not mindless robots.

One thing was similar for the varying kinds of Workers, but it manifested in very different ways: The happiness created by their work. Factory staff delighted in its occupations, but rarely expressed these emotions for others to see. Workers such as waiters on the other hand were conditioned to show their passion openly. Satisfying a customer demands filled them with joy and they made sure that people around them were aware of it. They displayed warm smiles, overflowing enthusiasm, sincere excitement for new arrivals and a jaunty attitude in general. In addition to creating a pleasant experience for customers, there was also another important motive behind it. People should be convinced that the CERS-controlled Workers were truly happy about their lives. It helped overcome moral concerns towards the more or less forced servitude.

Seeing the Workers go about their business with glee invoked a multitude of strange sensations in Robert. He knew perfectly well how they felt. They were in the same state of bliss he usually experienced during his shifts. He had so much in common with them. Yet he had freed himself at least partly from the manipulation of the CERS while they were still completely obedient. In a way he both pitied and envied them.

Throughout their tour, the pair encountered a large statue depicting two human figures, one male and one female. Their facial features were somewhat blank and generic, suggesting that they didn't portray specific persons but a more general group of people. From the back of each head protruded a long, thin appendage resembling a cable. The wires snaked through the air in a winding pattern and ended without connecting anywhere. It took Robert a moment to realize that the statues were supposed to represent Workers. The cables were testament to a concept from earlier, more archaic days. Back then there had been no Plug for changing CERS configurations. Instead, the port which was now occupied by the Plug had been used to establish a direct connection between a Worker's implants and a computer via cable. It had taken some time and a few very unpleasant incidents until people learned that directly meddling with the brain of a conscious human being could have unwelcome side effects, leading to the development of the Plug.