Deviant Empire Pt. 03

Will gave a wide smile. Maybe it made no sense to him... but he could make sense of the effects. It resulted in everyone trying to give you the best service because that meant the biggest pay, it incentivised customers to be the most decent as that would mean smaller costs... and it did not allow people to just short supply something in order to sell it for high prices. Actually, it sounded like the people selling them stuff had no control over the prices they put forward.

"Missy... who sets the prices for what we buy and how much people get for them?"

The comfort worker had no issue to pause her food to give her stomach time to process it and answer his question.

"That would be the economics office. You do go to college to be able to go there. Everything measured and quantified over there."

"All the power in the hands of one office? What if they want to bankrupt someone or make someone rich?"

She smiled wide.

"Ah, we had that problem once... long ago. Now... they have like five conditions on them so they can't even do that intentionally. Anonymous reports, half of them fake, measured independently... and if one guy steps out of line too much they raise alarms. Sometimes the guy is right and the others he was compared to were wrong... but most of the time it's one guy trying to change how things work."

So they were not perfect and still had the usual human problems. But dealt with them. The capitalists of earth would hate this prospect. It did not require a master's degree in economics to know how they could turn from kings to paupers due to how they pushed workers and brought out middling products for high prices. Heck, he could think of one firm that would instantly sink. He never liked those designer computers.

"Will?" It was her turn to ask a question. The man almost shook as he was deep in thought.

"Uhm... yes?"

"Regarding what you said to Tran... Since it's that hard to get sex where you are from... how long has it been since you got any?" There was no addition of him not minding the question. For her it was a natural question. And he got that. The answer was easy to consider, but harder to spell out.

"Well, before you, I got with one of the blue girls on the shuttle... and before that... nothing."

She blinked four times in quick succession.

"What." Came her flat answer.

"Yep. It happens... a lot. Unless you have something girls want... you don't get any."

"But... how... there's like... more women than there are men?"

"And 90% of women go for 10% of men while the rest are taken. That means that 80% of men get squat until they get lucky one day."

Her expression denoted pure pity.

"That... I can't even imagine that. You'd be classed as mentally ill here from negligence."

A sad laugh from the man.

"Maybe I am."

Here, the woman would swear to give him a nice catch-up for all the time he never had.

"We could even do it here if you wanted to. Or with one of those cute servers. I think some are checking you out."

The words that the woman had for him showed that god exists... or at least karma. He smiled.

"No rush. I'm gonna have some later... don't want to wear myself out. Going from zero to a hundred should not be done so quickly."

Missy smiled and sunk her spoon back in her soup.

"True... but we're not ending the night without you getting some again."

Another slurp of that tasty fish soup. For her as he finished off his wraps. The woman spoke again.

"I feel sorry that you can't stay. Sounds like things are quite bad over there."

Will gave a shrug.

"I don't know if I could live here, even if everything seems to be... better. I don't know if I could commit to all these weird things. Still, I was okay with the idea of just getting a lot of notches on my belt before going home to make everyone jealous."

"Envious." She corrected him.

"Huh?"

"Jealousy is a fear that someone will take what you have, envy is wanting what someone else has."

Her correction made him smile. Right... that was the word he was looking for.

Smaller subjects would be approached for the rest of the dinner, little nothings to just help pass the time. By the end of it, Missy was purring in delight of the proper fish soup that one could rarely believe it could be that good...

After mentioning the barista, the man was also tempted to get a cup of coffee for both of them and... he had to stop being impressed by everything. Proper bean coffee with real milk... the barista made a joke if he also wanted it with breast milk and to then change his mind as others have asked before and she called their bluff. They actually did have two women on staff which had some breast milk to give. Cow milk was fine for him.

And then the entertainment district awaited them.

*

They engaged in several distractions that night. Some more interesting than others. All through it, Missy tried to convince him to engage in some casual fucking with some serving girl, but the man kept himself for back home. People around him were not openly fucking and he was not gonna be the one to start it. Perhaps that was the problem with their society... a collective pressure to conform to how things are.

His first choice sounded exotic but was far more fun in theory than in practice. A gravity-free bar where waiters zipped around through the air to bring orders... Though they had to be secured to their seats, the drinks were jelly to stay in the glass and the lack of gravity was disorienting and hard to get used to... Will expected some futuristic all-magnet to keep them in their seats... instead they had seatbelts. Missy would then explain that they tried that sort of stuff but it never ended well, either ripping outfits off you... or if you dared go naked it would rip the skin off you. Seatbelts were fine.

The second choice was an arcade where the man could enjoy some VR games that blew everything he saw on Earth out of the water. It was tempting to stay for hours, but the games were designed to not keep one glued to their spot for more than one. The most impressive was a race track where one could digitally control action figures in full motion with VR headsets, essentially being those little figures for a while as they raced through obstacle courses that seemed so elaborate and big when you're only a couple inches tall.

Will did not seem encouraged by the sight of a casino, especially after the line of "nothing is free in the empire". After Missy's insistence he gave it a try and was positively surprised. Chips were freely given for him to gamble with, and he checked to see it was certainly not hitting his fortune score. But the chips one got could not be redeemed... instead one had to win them in games... he was quite a hand with blackjack so he tried that and found himself luckier than usual. When he went to cash out, he expected to get fortune, instead... he had prizes to pick from. Before he could call the place out as just a fancy arcade, he saw the actual prizes and his chin hit the floor. Gold coins, bars, gemstones in all cuts and types... representation of riches in all shapes and sizes. That HAS to dent his score hard... right? Wrong. Gold was almost worthless to the empire since they could make it fairly easily. Other than the uses in semiconductors and protection against corrosion... which had better options already... it was just a shiny metal now. While he did not win enough to walk home with some gold bars, he could walk home with a few bags of gold and silver coins... thinking how if he sells these back home he might have some money to burn. And of course, the place could deliver them home so he did not walk around with two clinking bags of loot.

As he was ready to end the night, the man saw something out of the corner of his eye that made him go on edge simply because of how it did not fit. He forced his view to take in the strange sight as the man stopped in the street. Among the sleek glass and metal buildings around, there was one that just... did not fit. White and straight, made of solid marble... a building was packed between others like it was trying to pass itself as some other distraction. And for some reason... Will felt uneasy about the place.

"Missy.... What is that?"

The woman had stopped just as he did and sought out what he was staring at. Once again a straight answer.

"A home. It's a center for our faith."

"So... like a church." Hey, everyone names them differently. And ships have chapels on them. "It's making me feel weird." He had felt weird in churches before... one time nauseous. At first you think it's some religious experience, but then you find out that the smoke from the candles make you sleepy, the incense is literally made with drugs, the organ gives subsonic noise that can give weird, internal feelings... and the rest is just acoustics. But why was he feeling weird when he was more than a hundred feet from it?

"Must be the effects that a home has. I guess your body has no idea how to react to it."

"What." That left him with big question marks on his head. What effects? Other than the ones he mentally counted down.

"As the outsider decreed... homes follow the old rules. I guess they might feel strange to you."

That... made no sense at all. She was talking frankly, but the man could not even understand her intent. Missy could see his growing confusion and grasped his arm to pull him towards it.

"How about you see it for yourself?"

There was a sense of panic as he was dragged closer to the thing, not exactly resisting, but... wondering what the heck was happening. Will was very much skeptical of religion, but these people spoke about this god as if it was fact, their acts present in documentaries that were not religious...

No... he was missing something. And Ahri had spoken with the same factual tone about this. Something was up and he had no idea what it was. His steps got more straight as he shifted from being dragged to actively walking towards the structure.

He was in full alert mode as he scrutinized the place. It was ALL marble, two giant stone doors, pillars at the side, above the door was an image of an Eye. Even this made him feel uncomfortable until he noticed one aspect... or did not notice something.

Where are the seams? It looked like the thing was carved out of one solid block of marble. No... no... that can't be right. They have some high tech welding to just fuse matter.... But why is the grain of the marble aligning? Same thing... they just organized to make sure it all came from the same place.

Initially he thought that there was no way any of them were going to open those doors... but Missy just... pushed on the doors that were as big as a couple parking spaces... and the door sunk inward with not even a grinding sound. Will justified this as some tech used on the other doors... it read intent so it was opening for her, or had some weight distribution that made it easy to move. Or it was not really marble and that whole thing weighed fifty pounds and not eight tons.

Beyond that imposing door was a surprisingly sparse room, BIG, but not as decorated as he expected. It was all clean marble, the walls were covered in engravings, but only in the lower half, a great many sheets were laid down in rows that led to a solid marble altar that was flanked by two marble statues... one depicting a man and one depicting a woman. Strange... they did not mention a second god. Or was it some god with more faces? One thing stood out as not belonging here... to the sides of the altar were... musical instruments... though not your usual organ or something like that... just... any. Guitars, electronic piano, drums, violin... looked more like storage for music class than a temple.

They were not alone here. Close to the altar, kneeling on one of the sheets was one of the tan women... dressed in all white... her clothes seemed different from the others... it was more up to instinct than observation, but he could tell that was not the smart outfit he had on. Older, maybe looking like she was forty or fifty... kneeling there quietly. That HAD to be uncomfortable. The sheets looked as thin as a whisper and they were on solid stone... he could at least feel solid stone under his feet as he walked into the place. He could also feel strange for some new reason, but this one was harder to tell.

Missy walked confidently in, looking no worse for wear of the place, going over to kneel on a sheet close to the one the woman was on. He head turned towards the new arrival.

"Coming in late at night, Missaria? Just got off your duties?"

"Please... Missy. I'm with some new company." She gently pointed towards Will who inwardly chuckled at her full name. The woman turned to fix him with a gaze that seemed to pierce right through him.

"Not one of ours. So one of those coming from Earth. I suppose he is not coming to embrace the Family."

"Not yet." Will answered. "Just... curious. And the place weirded me out for some reason."

"Understandable. For many, the first visit to a home is rather... unnerving. The old rules can be at times strange compared to the world outside."

He stepped closer.

"You keep saying stuff about this belief... like it's... fact. While I can respect people's faith, you seem to confuse fact with faith."

That might have been a grave insult to many others... and he was about to mentally berate himself as well as ready himself for one from the woman. Instead she smiled and patted the spot on the sheet next to her.

"Oh, we are not confusing anything. For many, faith is indeed the belief in something fictitious. For us... it is not."

She was still in the domain of zealotry, and Will decided against contradicting her further. The prospect of kneeling on solid stone was not appealing to him, so he opted to instead sit down on the sheet. What met him was not the cold feeling of marble, but a soft sheet that felt comfier than his bed. He looked down as he set his ass on it... The woman smiled again.

"Did you see anything around here to perhaps suggest something more... or less?" She asked him that question. Missy decided to stay quiet and let this play out.

"Well, I looked at a documentary that stated some things that included your god as if it was historical fact."

"The Arrival. Yes, when the Outsider brought the first people of the Empire... before it was really formed... from the old, war-torn world into a new beginning."

"But... that's a creation myth. And in real life, you have things evolving, forming on the planet and so on."

"Does sound like it. But it has happened. Even his collapsing after exerting such power. We Tan have evolved on our world, but the first people of the Empire were brought there."

Will still struggled to understand the gap in her logic. She accepted evolution AND stated the people were just brought here by their god. She caught on to what was missing.

"Ah, I see. Forgive me... we are so used to it that one forgets that others are not. You are used with the idea that such faiths rely themselves on fantasies that could not happen and instead there are logical explanations for what actually happened... that there is a logic to everything. And you believe that a people as technologically advanced as ours have little room for fantasy..."

He gave a weak nod.

"It is no fantasy. Such supernatural events happened and DO happen. You are standing in one."

Will paused like a record was scratched in his head. Supernatural events being acknowledged as fact... and he was... in one? His guts felt uneasy. The woman continued as she let that sink in.

"The Outsider exists and his acts have happened. He came from a sad world, making our world before he was brought into it by the first followers. Then he lived in our world for many years, dying at old age... and then he came back... assuring us that he still watches us from above. He is no mere figment of the imagination, but a real force. Our guardian. Our guide. Our grand voyeur."

Another long pause. She was talking with such certainty that it was hard to find means to fight back. Outright stating that a god... exists? That his actions are not mere fiction, but fact?

"That... can't be right. For years, people have tried to show supernatural events exist and everyone failed. No offense, but... can you prove that? You said I'm standing in such a supernatural event? The old rules?" What the hell did that mean?

"Yes. For a while now... every home follows the old rules... our doors, no matter how heavy can be opened, our constructions are smooth and seamless, filth just vanishes from the floor, one does not need to breathe or drink water in here... and you can sing any song in this place." A smile. "He was big on songs."

Will outwardly scoffed at the notion just as his guts did another rumble... and now he noticed that was NOT just his nerves.

"Uh... before we move on... where might I find a bathroom? I need to... use one."

The relaxed manner of her response disturbed him more than her answer.

"Oh, you can just do it on the floor... not gonna be a trouble for a while. I do it myself."

His eyes bulged out and he gave two blinks. In the most tolerant place... shitting on the floor of a church would get him kicked out. In the less tolerant places it would get him brutally murdered. Heck, he was beaten by a mob with sticks for wearing shoes in a temple. How could this woman just tell him to shit on the floor?

"You... can't be serious."

"But I am. With Missy here as my witness, if I am in any way opposed to this action, let her recommend me for dismissal."

"Hey, we both know you WANT to see him go." The woman piped up.

The woman gave a smile. Perhaps she did. But Will had little time to consider his options. He did not remember seeing a bathroom anywhere close by... and if he went outside... there were people out there. Could he trust this woman? At least in here he had a smaller audience. With resignation, the man stood to move further in the back and make his pants open up.... That was such a useful feature... much better than the zipper that might occasionally pinch his dick. Relief washed over him as he could finally let loose the torrent. It was the soft and messy kind, his ass erupting in brown and noise, the soft turds practically flying out of his ass to fall to this pristine marble floor... the man felt like he was desecrating a work of art like this... but his body did not care where he dropped the bomb as long as he dropped it. A sigh as his burden was released, the man pushing more and more brown mass out of him to fall in a wet, messy pile on the floor.

It had been more than an hour since he took his medicine... and he was tempted to look at his work... usually he would be hit by the smell and immediately want to vacate the area... but now... now he felt A smell, but it was not quite unpleasant... more... interesting. He was still not tempted to reach in and take a bite, but he was certainly not repulsed by it. Well, he would try that much later.

After it was obvious there was nothing more coming out... he would entrust himself in this outfit's ability to soak his filth and take care of his ass wiping as he closed the hole again and stepped over feeling empty inside. He still felt quite guilty of what he had done. The priestess had practically stared at him go with delight in her features... and Missy was not averting her eyes either. It made him a bit self conscious, as if he was doing a walk of shame back to his position.

"Sorry for that... sometimes... body just does not care." He let out as he sat down on the sheet again.

"Oh, do not worry yourself. Give it some time, look back and you will see there is nothing to be concerned with." She seemed very certain of her words. "So... I was mentioning the rules. One of them was about this very aspect. Give it thirty minutes. Your waste will be gone."