Omniverse

But you failed to notice the suddenly appearing portal in your room, and Rick stepped through it.

You turned around. Startled for a second, but you were actually glad to see Rick and smiled at him confidently.

'You might just as well throw your Senso-Cell out now, it's useless. Look, the whole thing wasn't meant to be a threat against you. I just wanted to challenge myself and what could be more awesome than to challenge myself against YOU?'

He didn't seem mad, nor did he have that annoyingly sexy smirk on his face. He just stared at you with a dark intensity.

'Since you've destroyed it, I should remove it from your body. Unless you want to get an infection from the disintegrating particles. S-sit down. I need access to your neck and left shoulder.'

You obeyed, took a seat in your chair; pulled your sleeveless top down to uncover your left shoulder; then grabbed your long red hair and held it in a ponytail.

He walked to you, slowly, with the confidence of a winner. A shiver ran through your body, but it wasn't anxiety. It was desire. You couldn't help your body being turned on by his presence. He stopped right in front of you; his crotch was on a level with our chin. You bet he deliberately positioned himself in such an angle, so close to your face. You swallowed hard, and turned your head away -- on the one hand to make your neck available, but on the other hand to try and hide your blushing face.

He lifted a device from his pocket, which looked like an old-fashioned raygun. Suddenly, you felt his fingers stroking your neck in small circles, as if he was applying pressure on your muscles to find the right spot for the insertion. Your breathing accelerated. His touch gave you goose bumps, hardened your nipples and made you extremely wet; especially when his fingers "accidentally" wandered towards your boobs.

'Brace yourself, this will hurt' Rick's voice was surprisingly soothing this time. Your attention had been completely diverted by his closeness and touch; therefore you failed to comprehend the true gravity of his words.

A wave of excruciating pain hit you. Since you had failed to brace yourself, your body inadvertently spasmed and bumped into Rick's lower abdomen, your left arm grabbed his waist and held onto him as if his body-heat could neutralise your pain. Your face was pushed against his crotch, and you could clearly feel his erection.

'W-whoaw, easy there, tiger!' Rick chuckled whilst regaining his balance and held you in place. 'I knew you desperately wanted to suck my cock, but didn't expect pain to be such an aphrodisiac for you' he laughed. You pulled yourself up clumsily, glaring at him with anger and continuous agony. 'Fuck you' you hissed at him, making him laugh even harder.

'Really?' he teasingly leaned into you; his gorgeous dark grey eyes fixated on you, his slim but strong hands pushed against your shoulders. Damn, he was so hot, so powerful, in close proximity. You eagerly strained your neck to catch his lips, but he leaned out of reach, holding you firmly. He looked you up and down.

'Look at your heaving bosom, what a little cock-tease you are! Where's your lofty attitude now, hmmm? I know you're gagging for it, sweetheart, and just to be clear: I'm calling the shots here and I'll make you fucking work for it!' He stepped back from you, leaving you aching with desire -- the pain was dissolving, being replaced by pure lust. You stumbled towards him, reaching out to touch his chest and stroke him right up to his face.

'You-you're going the wrong direction, baby' he grinned, but you didn't care. You had been aching for his touch.

'Please Rick...Help me out here' you moaned as you brought your face to his and kissed him. You felt him seizing your hips as he pressed into you, grinding his erection into your groins. He was still teasing you, not opening his mouth and quickly avoided yours by biting into your neck. You grabbed Rick's hair and pushed your whole body into his, hungry for more. His teeth sank into your neck, sucking on your skin like a powerful hoover. It felt amazing. It had been a while you got a hickie from anyone, and you were damn sure this would leave a mark. That made you proud, in a silly schoolgirl--way: you got a love bite from the coolest kid in school.

Rick stopped abruptly; his hand dug into your hair and yanked your head up roughly. You looked at him bedazzled. He gave you a sharp, commanding look whilst gripping and massaging your left breast with his other hand.

'You're going to wear a sexy little dress to your big launch event t-today. No panties. And make that mark on your neck visible. If you comply like a good girl, you'll be re..urp..warded.' With that he let go of you, grabbed his portal gun and pointed it on the wall.

'You threw together a decent simulation there' -- he added before dashing off. Was it sarcasm or did he actually mean it? Deep down you knew it was the latter and the thought made you smile.

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Now you had to get ready for the opening event. Taking into account the enormous auditorium would be jam-packed, not to mention TV-stations across the whole dimension would be broadcasting every second - you knew you couldn't take any chances: you had to prepare for the eventuality of rivals and enemies ruining the launch. You ruled out the possibility of Rick being one of them - at least he didn't mean any harm to your project. He didn't do you any favours, though, by ordering you to wear as little clothing as possible. You were about to meet the challenge of hiding a complete arsenal in your ankle boots, watch and under your black lace cocktail dress. The fact you wilfully obeyed Rick gave you an extra boost: you hadn't felt this overwhelming urge to get under someone for a long time.

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'Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Y/N'

The audience let out a thunderous cheer. You walked to the stage, throwing them a confident smile and a casual thumbs up. You scanned through the hundreds of faces in the auditorium, recognised quite a few of them. To your greatest surprise you spotted Rick in the third row. He had come across as someone who hated social conventions and events. Why on earth did he attend this particular one? You were certain it wasn't for your enterprise -- the man must've had some underlying shady business going on. Gatherings of this magnitude would always attract spectators with alternative motifs and goings-on.

'This is the moment I've been looking forward for a year and six months' -- you started -- 'I'm sure you're familiar with the previous prototypes of 'Outside', the massive multiplayer online game, which engages artificial intelligence and virtual economies, where players are connected in a shared simulated universe. Outside has been utilised on multiple platforms, including conventional social simulations, games, even in medical research.

Now, imagine there are infinite universes with infinite versions of each and every one of you. Have you ever wondered what would your life be if you made different choices? Now in the comfort of your own home, without any risk, you can plug in and live the life you've always wanted!

In the past year and half we created a breakthrough in simulated reality-games, where users can access a copy of their own realities through neural interfaces and are able to fully control it in a procedurally-generated environment. Without further ado, let me introduce you to 'Omniverse'

The 3D hologram projector lit up behind you and the presentation commenced. You looked at Rick and wished you could read his thoughts right now. He was watching the footage with a stern look. You still weren't certain whether he had figured out every little aspect of 'Omniverse' and whether he intended to jeopardize it in any way.

Obviously the promo wasn't going to reveal that data had been pulled from versions of the multiverse for a selected number of test subjects. Interdimensional travel-theories had been around for a while, but only a few individuals managed to implement it in practice. In your dimension, Rick Sanchez was the first person who achieved it. The government and a few private companies had experimented with numerous theories for quite a while, with more or less success.

Five years ago you cracked the security codes of all three organisations investing in interdimensional research. You managed to gather significant data and combine them with your own analysis. You generated artificial wormholes and tested transmitting small objects to other universes. The fact that all substances were broken down into particles and reassembled again from scratch caused a real headache. They often changed shape and substance in the reconstruction process, therefore you had to fix all these errors before trying to go through the wormhole yourself. If the process transformed perfectly symmetrical objects into blobs, hell knows what would've happened to a human body. You really didn't fancy turning yourself into Jabba the hutt.

You came across Rick's name a few times during those years. He was a freelancer, commissioned by the government occasionally, and assisted a few tech companies with his breakthrough inventions. He would've been a perfect collaborator, however, you never had the guts to even try to contact him. Besides, he was a complete introvert and possibly bipolar. Being an introvert yourself, it wouldn't have bothered you, but you weren't up for dealing with constant outbursts of a lunatic genius. You had always preferred working on your own, and so did Rick.

The man had successfully concealed his coding for decades, despite all the threats and most generous offers he received.

'Now you can test Omniverse first-hand in our designated booth' - you looked through the masses and asked 'Ladies and gents, this is your one-in a lifetime opportunity to be the first ever person who logs in to Omniverse, live! Who wants to give it a go?'

A young girl from the first row jumped without hesitation and hurried to the booth, shivering with excitement. Her every move was visible on the 3D-screen. She sat down, one of the assistants helped her to plug in. A large number of characters appeared on the screen - the girl's alternate selves from other universes; and data were pulled from all of them, synchronising with the current personality traits. In a few seconds the girl's synthetic character was complete and everyone could see her journey in her virtual environment. The crowd looked on in awe as the program altered the participant's character in seconds in whatever way she pleased.Within seconds she was living the life of one of the household-name actresses; then she switched to a version where she won her eighth gold medal at the Olympics in Triathlon.

Suddenly the alarm chip in your head went off. Someone was remotely trying to gain access to the coding. You quickly gave the pre-established warning signal to the CEO and hurried backstage, trying not to distract people. You quickly ran a security check only to find a malware trying to embed itself in the program and alter it. Fortunately you caught and destroyed it in the nick of time. However, this incident raised further alarms: you had to find out who had initiated the virus and entirely disarm them.

Whilst you were running checks on numerous federal and outlaw individuals, you heard a scream from the auditorium. 'What the fuck...' you ran back to the stage; facing total disarray and more screaming. You took a glance on the screen and your heart stopped for a beat. All the characters were dead in the simulation - but not only in the game, in their respective universes, as well. You burst into the booth, only to find the young girl's lifeless body, her glassy eyes wide open, frozen in a state of staring into oblivion. 'Goddam!!' you shouted and stormed out, activating the shutters of the whole tower block. You grabbed your plasma pistol and picked up the mini-microphone that connected with all speakers in the whole building.

'Ladies and gentlemen, I'm terribly sorry, but this is an emergency scenario. We can't allow anyone to leave the building until we scan and register everyone for further analysis. This is a crime scene now, the police are on their way' You tried to sound calm, however, the shutters just made things worse. Panic took over, people tried to roll or climb under the shutter, resulting in casualties. You activated the ID-scanning drones to process data as quickly as possible. Your greatest triumph was turning into a nightmare. No one had ever been injured using any of your games, not to mention such deadly consequences.

You realised the alarm earlier had been a distraction, so you'd deal with the false trail whilst the culprits gained access to the simulator. It was extremely challenging to think clearly in this chaos, but you tried your best. Fuck's sake, maybe it was time to consult Rick. It was the last thing you wanted to do, but being stuck, you had to bring out the big guns. You looked around, trying to locate him in the disarray - it would have been simple under normal circumstances, due to a number of his distinguished features -, however, you completely lost track of Rick. It was impossible to contact him without a cosmic phone application, and you only had one installed in your apartment.

Fucking great...well, shit happens, so you had to deal with this yourself. The police were going to arrive any minute now, and they would want answers. You had to go back to the booth to examine the body and the plug more carefully.

When you stepped in, you were startled to see Rick hovering over the body, studying the plug and the dead girl's skull.

'Oh, you're here' you stated the obvious, he didn't even consider your blunt line worth reacting to. You stepped closer. 'Do you know who generated the virus?' Rick looked up from his device that looked like an old-timer gameboy - must've been some sort of new technology you'd never seen. 'C-course I know' he replied sharply. You really weren't in the mood for games now, started to become anxious. 'Well, would you care to elaborate?' you snapped 'In case you haven't noticed, the whole area is in chaos and we might be in deep shit once the police arrive' Rick looked you up and down, as if you had just casually met in a bar. 'You're looking sex..urgh..hot' You stared at him in disbelief. He couldn't possibly be serious! 'Yeah, right...focus, please, we have a situation here' you growled. Rick frivolously hid his device along with the recently detached plug in his coat pocket. 'That's evidence' you noted 'If you remove that, how will I explain it to the police?' Without uttering a word, Rick reached into his other pocket and took out an identical plug.

'This has been a setup. If the cops were to find this your whole company ends up in jail; the plug's been compromised' he said whilst connecting the new plug both with the Omiverse cloud and the dead girl's head.

'Fingerprints...' you hardly opened your mouth, Rick was already spraying the device with something that looked like a fingerprint-removal sprinkle you read about.

'I've already added fingerprints from you, your assistant and Dead Girl here' Rick said 'so when the feds analyse it, they won't find anything out of order'

'Yeah, but how will this explain her sudden death? Also, I still don't know what exactly killed her!'

'No time for explanations, sweetheart, need to be quick. You..you'd better follow my lead if you want to remain free and find your answers' Rick added. You weren't sure if this was supposed to calm your nerves - either way, it didn't work, his comments made you rather confused.

'Look, I've never had to hide from the police and I don't intend to start now either' you took a step back from Rick. He threw you a perplexed look, but you stood your ground. 'I'm staying here' you reiterated.

'Suit yourself' Rick was reaching for his portal gun 'Shame that some monstrous dyke will ravage your sweet pussy in prison, but maybe that's what you really want deep down, eh?' he switched the gun on and was just about to jump into the emerald green light, when you grabbed his arm. 'What the hell are you insinuating?' Rick turned back and licked his lips whilst grinning at you. 'That you might have some hot lesbian vibe?'

'What...you're totally wrong, I do not!' you spoke with a shrill voice. You liked hanging out with gay girls, you had even kissed and fingered one in a pub toilet, but apart from having had a little fun, you were straight as a die. Shame, really, because you'd have had more options if you played for both teams.

'I meant I thought you'd fixed the plug and they couldn't hold me accountable!'

'It'll lead them on for a little while; it'll buy us some time to fix it, but we have to get the hell out of here now!' Rick urged you impatiently.

You could hear the police sirens and soon officers started to flow in the auditorium, followed by a few weird-looking bald men in black suits.

'What are the Federals doing here?' you whispered. This just turned from a murder-mystery into a dead-serious chase. Federal agents only appeared if a dangerous criminal was on site. They must've had a lead, this meant the culprit was hiding in the building.

'Come on!' Rick shouted, and the agents started running towards the booth. One of them pointed a gun at the window and exclaimed: 'You're under arrest! Come out with both hands in the air!' Next thing you knew the window smashed in thousands of tiny pieces, when a bullet whizzed through, missing your left ear only by a few millimeters. Rick pointed his portal again at the wall, but the agent's next bullet crashed through it, shattering the whole thing.

'Get down!' you shouted and pushed Rick to the ground, whilst firing your plasma pistol right among the agent's eyes. His head exploded, covering everything around you with chunks of brain.

This was going out of hand. You clearly panicked. Had never been shot at by a federal agent before. Rick was right, you had to leave right now! Since his gun had been exterminated, you had no choice but using your secret weapon. Crawling on the floor, you entered a few figures in the small panel in the floorboard, and a box emerged from underground. You opened it; entered a few coordinates and just before the other federals fired the second and third shots that'd have finished you both, a turquoise circle appeared and swallowed you and Rick.

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You dropped to the ground, exhausted. Travelling through an artificial wormhole was highly risky, especially if the coordinates hadn't been previously tested. Well, it looked like you were lucky this time: your body felt normal, painless -minus your accelerated heartbeat and anxiety. Rick staggered to his feet, he also looked relatively all right.

'That-that was ricksy-ehmm.. risky business' he said as if he was still reading your mind. 'Your coordinates are out-of-whack. Where the hell are we?'

'I don't have any fucking idea, Rick!' you snapped again 'I had to act quickly in that situation and I did my best!' you screamed completely perturbed. You were about to lose your sanity. Rick must've realised this, because he grabbed both of your arms and pulled you close. 'Hey, hey, don't take it so personal, it-it's all good' he cupped your face and forced you to look into his eyes. His proximity and level-headedness calmed you a little.

'I'm ok. Honestly...it's just...it's Omniverse. I can't let Omniverse go down the drain! It's my best piece ever!'

'Yeah, it's kinda decent' Rick shrugged. You restrained yourself from throwing him a look of contempt. You knew Omniverse was one of a kind, and you bet Rick agreed, even though he'd never have openly praised you or anyone else for that matter. Whether intentionally or not, his remark brought you back to your senses.