Virtual Life Experience Pt. 02

As Mario entered her, he delighted in the muscle control she had in her vagina. He'd never had a girl with such skill before. There was no denying it, she was by far the best fuck he'd ever had and he didn't want to give her up any time soon.

Marcella controlled the pace from on top. She took it slow, savoring every stroke. Her pussy grasped his cock tightly every time she raised herself up until just the head was inside her, then relaxed on the down stroke. When she got to the bottom, she ground her clit against him with a grunt and threw her head back.

Without warning, she declared, "Oh god, I'm going to cum!" She switched gears, fucking him furiously, then cried out. Mario could feel her pussy pulsing with her climax, which put him over the edge too.

Later in the afterglow, they shared the bottle of wine Marcella had brought and she broached the subject of VLE again.

"Mario, I gave this a lot of thought. I understand the idea of boycotting VLEC products, but given that they are under federal investigation, they are going to get whatever punishment they deserve and I don't think we need to worry about them exploiting anyone else the same way. If I were the one wronged like Nikki or Jason, I would not want my fans to abandon me because of this.

As for my addiction, I agree to cut back, but please don't try to make me quit." Her eyes were begging.

"OK, sweetheart," Mario said quietly. The fact that he had two glasses of wine in him and she was fondling his cock as she talked probably contributed to his compliance, but also he really didn't want to quit his own VLE habit either. She had put forth a good enough argument to sway him under the circumstances.

"Oh thank you! I feel so much better."

Marcella rewarded him by sliding down between his legs. She began to delicately lick the underside of his cock, then around the rim of the head. She knew exactly where the most sensitive spots were and went over all of them with the lightest touch from the tip of her tongue. It was exquisite torture. Just when he thought he couldn't take it anymore, she took his cock head into her mouth and stroked the shaft with one hand. With the other hand, she caressed his balls. It didn't take much of this treatment before he came in her mouth with a groan.

Two days later, the regular crowd gathered at Aziz's apartment for the release of the next Antola adventure. Up until that morning, it was uncertain if VLEC was going to publish it, given their current legal issues, but they had announced the show would go on.

An additional member was at the party. Marcella had gotten special permission from Aziz to bring another guest: her little sister, who was visiting from home. Juanita was a high school senior. Aziz had said, "Please tell me she's 18, I don't want to be responsible for contributing to the delinquency of a minor." Mario could see the other reason he had asked in Aziz's eyes. He was already thinking about the possibility of seducing her.

"Relax, Aziz, she turned 18 three months ago," Marcella assured him.

Marcella and Juanita talked in hushed tones, punctuated by giggles. Mario caught most of it.

"Have you done any VLE of Nikki and Jason yet?" Marcella asked her sister.

"Yes, but just the kid's version. You know mom and dad would never let me try the adult one. Plus, our VLE suits suck, and not in a good way."

"Wait until you try the ES2000 chamber. It is unbelievable. I hope this week's release has some sex in it. I guarantee Jason will make you cum. He's so hot."

"Marcella! Oh my god, that's gross," whispered Juanita.

"Fuck you, Juanita, this is your sister talking. I know you better than that. You don't think it's gross when you're fingering yourself on the top bunk.

"Stop it! People can hear you!" Juanita slapped her sister on the shoulder.

As the party continued and the release time drew near, Mario began to get pumped up in anticipation. The Antola VLE was almost always adrenalin packed, either due to encounters with dangerous wildlife or just the amorous nature of the two deportees.

He felt an added rush this time, and it dawned on him that he was really looking forward to seeing Juanita naked. She looked a lot like her sister, whom he saw naked regularly, but this was different. The very fact that she was his girlfriend's little sister added a taboo element that was thrilling.

Juanita drew the first pairing. Mario thought she might turn her back to him as she undressed. Instead, she faced him and kept her gaze fixed on his eyes. She licked her lips and slid her hands over her breasts. Her naked body looked so much like her sister's, yet, he felt deliciously naughty looking at her. Marcella didn't realize what was happening for the first few seconds.

"Mario, you pervert, stop staring at my sister! And Juanita, stop encouraging him!"

Juanita feigned innocence, "What?" Then she stuck out her tongue at her sister and turned and climbed into the VLE chamber. Despite Marcella's admonishment, Mario watched her sister's bare ass until it disappeared in the chamber.

"Stop it, Mario."

"I'm sorry, but your sister is hot."

"Mario!"

"How could she not be, she looks just like you and you're hot."

Marcella rolled her eyes and said, "Then why don't you stare at me instead of her?"

"Because you're not naked."

A few minutes into Juanita's session, the noises from her chamber made it clear that she was thoroughly enjoying herself. It sounded like she was trying to be discreet, but not succeeding. At one point, she blurted out, "Oh god, Jason." The chamber shook as she thrashed about inside.

A while later, she called out again, but this time in a voice that evoked terror instead of passion, "Oh my god! Oh shit!" When the session ended, she stumbled out looking drained and put on a robe.

"How was it?" asked Marcella.

"Oh. My. God," said Juanita, "that was . . ." She seemed at a loss for words. "I was there. I swear I was really fucking there. How the fuck do they do that?"

Everyone else in the room grinned at her knowingly, remembering their own overwhelming first experience with the ES2000.

Juanita turned to her sister, "I swear when I get home I'm going to burn our VLE suits. They are total shit compared to this thing. We have to convince Daddy to get us one of these."

Marcella sidled over to her sister and whispered, "Did you cum?"

Everyone who had been within earshot already knew the answer, but Mario strained to hear the admission coming from her lips anyway.

"Yes."

"And? How was it?"

"The best ever. But what happened next was . . ."

"Don't tell us!" a chorus of voices shouted out.

"'Nita?" Marcella looked a little upset, and whispered something in Juanita's ear. Juanita whispered back, and the look of relief on Marcella's face told the story.

Mario was relieved as well. While he didn't want the drama spoiled, he was glad to know that Nikki and Jason would survive whatever it was he was about to witness.

Soon it was Mario and Marcella's turn in the chambers.

Mario stepped inside and closed the door. He fought off his usual moment of claustrophobic fear as the machine wrapped itself around him. He took a deep breath and said, "begin."

"Would you like to be Nikki or Jason?" the machine asked.

"Jason."

His eyes adjusted to the flickering candlelight. Lying beside him was the naked form of Nikki. He gazed into her serene, sleeping face. Shimmering curls fanned out on the blanket on either side of her head. He felt his hand caress her smooth, freckled shoulder, then slide south to softer, whiter territory. How is it possible that this is not real? The rational part of his brain told him this was an illusion, that his right hand and Nikki's left breast were 8.6 lightyears apart, but the rest of his being insisted they were in direct contact. Mario chose to shut off the rational part and live the compelling illusion.

Later, his lungs ached and his legs burned in exertion while the frightening black swarm gained on him. He tried to reengage the rational part of his brain, hoping to gain some measure of control over his rising terror.

He emerged from the chamber sweaty and spent, but exhilarated.

As he downed a beer, the unsettling realization struck him that the odds were going to catch up to Nikki and Jason eventually. Every week, the Antola adventure featured one or both of them in a brush with death. He suspected that their life expectancies were measured in months or even mere weeks.

Mario found this disturbing for two reasons. First, it was gut wrenching and usually painful to experience a death first hand. Secondly, he really did care deeply for Nikki and Jason. They were so much more than characters in a game to him.

Washington DC, Earth

"Mr. Latham, please explain your position at Virtual Life Experience Corporation," requested Senator Williams from Idaho.

"I am head of Off-World Simulations, part of the Simulation Department."

"And exactly what does that entail?"

"My group performs computer simulations to predict the success of sending specific VLE subjects to off-world sites."

"What defines success?"

"Maximizing profit," Leo said bluntly. He had given it a lot of thought and decided it would be best not to mince words. He was not going to come out of these congressional hearings looking good no matter what he said.

"What are the factors that influence the bottom line in your simulations?" asked Senator Albamonte from Michigan.

"The primary movers are GII and LE: gamer's interest index and life expectancy, basically if the gamers like the subject and the location and the subject survives long enough to realize a profit. It's always a balancing act, because the more dangerous the location, the more opportunity for excitement which boosts the GII, but tends to shorten lifespan."

"So death is not profitable?"

"Oh, no. Death can be very profitable, especially if the subject dies in dramatic fashion. It just needs to be weighed against the loss of future VLE."

"What is a reasonable life expectancy for these deportees?"

"That varies a lot depending on the situation."

"Fine, let me be real specific. Nicole McKenna, what was her life expectancy on Antola?"

"Six Months."

A murmur went through the senators. Nikki was immensely popular, a celebrity really, so the thought that VLEC had sent her to Antola with the expectation that she would die in less than a year was disconcerting.

Senator Albamonte spoke up again, "And you thought that was a good number?"

"It was about the best we could do within the cost parameters I was given. The initial sims only showed her lasting three weeks, until we made some adjustments in the terms of her deportation." Leo knew it sounded heartless even as he said it.

"Mr. Latham, did you run a simulation after the witness recanted her testimony from the McKenna trial to see what effect that would have on cost benefit?" asked Senator Orsini from Delaware.

A chill went up Leo's spine. "No."

"Mr. Latham, need I remind you that you are under oath? We have already heard testimony that such a simulation was run, are you saying you or your people didn't do it?

Leo knew his next statement was going to be explosive. "No, I'm saying the simulation was not run after the witness recanted."

After that sunk in a few moments there were gasps around the room.

"The simulation was run before she recanted?"

"Yes. It was run before the trial even started."

"Wait, you're telling me you ran a simulation to see what the effect would be if a witness recanted testimony she hadn't even given yet?"

"Yes."

"Did the recanting improve the cost benefit?"

"Yes, substantially."

"What did you do with those results?"

"Turned them over to the Judicial Relations Department."

"Pardon me," Senator Barker from Alabama broke in, "I'm just a simple southern boy, and I'm still confused about something. If you are not waiting for convictions, how do you know who to choose to run simulations on?"

"We run a filtering sim on everyone."

"What do you mean, 'everyone'? You mean everyone who gets arrested for a serious crime?"

"No, everyone who has a sufficient digital footprint to support an accurate sim."

"I have no idea what that means. How many people are we talking about here?"

"500 million in the last year." There were loud reactions of shock from around the room.

"You're running sims on innocent people." Senator Marshall from California stated it as a fact, not a question.

"Yes. We run a basic filtering sim on everyone we can and flag those people who score highly in it as 'prime candidates' to be VLE subjects for off-world adventures, should the opportunity arise. We monitor every judicial system in the world daily and cross reference our 'prime' list against all individuals in those systems. When we get a match, we run more specific sims for those 'primes' in specific locations, like Antola."

"So you've probably run sims on most of us in this room."

"Yes, very likely so."

"So if one of your 'primes' gets arrested for a serious crime, you determine if it is in VLEC's best interest for them to be deported before the trial even starts?"

"That's one way to put it, yes."

"And what do you do with that information?"

"I turn it over to Judicial Relations."

"What do they do with it?"

"That is not my job. You would have to ask them." His answer was a cop-out. Leo knew exactly what they did with it. They made sure the best candidates got convicted and sentenced to deportation, by whatever means necessary, legal or otherwise.

The senators turned their attention to Rodney Davis, head of Off-World Transport.

"Mr. Davis, it appears that the acts of your corporation have resulted in innocent people being sentenced to deportation to remote worlds. Can you bring them back?"

"That is not practical."

"Pardon me, but I didn't ask if it was practical, I asked if it can be done."

"In theory, yes."

"Meaning?"

"There is no insurmountable technical barrier that we know of. The cost and time involved would be prohibitive."

"Again, can you be more specific?"

"$3 trillion and 10 years to rescue subjects from one location."

"My god, why? It only takes you a few weeks after they are convicted to deport them and I understand for most of them, you have already made up the cost in VLE sales. Why is it so hard to reverse the process?"

"Think of it like dropping a rock into the deepest part of the ocean. It's really easy to get it down there. Getting it back is really hard.

The amount of sophisticated equipment necessary to send a small transport pod to a remote world is the size of a city block and must be in orbit around the planet that the pod is originating from. We would need all of that equipment at the remote site to send the pod back. Since most of that equipment is too large to transport off-world, we would need to send it in small pieces and assemble it there.

The large castings we need would actually have to be poured on site, so we would need to build a foundry on the remote planet. It would take us 5 years or so just to transport all the materials. Then we would need to build a facility and build the manufacturing equipment before we can build the actual transport launcher and put it into orbit around the remote planet.

All told, we would probably need to send two hundred people to the remote site during the process. Our current survival rate for remote landings is about 80%, which means some 40 people would likely die in the attempt to rescue just a few subjects. Presuming you were going to send all the workers back, another 30 or so would die on the return trip. It just doesn't make sense.

On top of that, even our most successful subjects have less than a 1 year life expectancy, so they would be long since dead by the time we were prepared to retrieve them."

Antola

Jason's stomach grumbled. He had been hungry for weeks. Ever since the black swarm had come through, food was hard to come by. Most of the animals that had not been consumed by the swarm had fled and not returned. The vegetation within three feet of the ground had been mostly stripped as well. The few animals that did remain in the area had rooted up and eaten most of the purple vine tubers. Even the fish had stopped biting.

He looked at Nikki, lying listlessly on a blanket on the ground. He felt a surge of sympathy for her. The lack of food was hitting her harder than him, perhaps because she had been struggling on this planet longer.

"We need to get out of here. We need to find a place with more resources and a safer shelter." Jason had been concerned about the safety of living in the cave for a while. The tuskers had already demonstrated the ability to dig their way into the entrance fairly quickly and had Jason and Nikki been in the cave when the black swarm had come, they would have been trapped. "Let's leave in the morning."

"OK," Nikki said without much enthusiasm.

Jason felt better just knowing they were going to do something about their situation.

Before Jason had even opened his eyes the next morning, he knew the rain had moved in overnight. It was a strange phenomenon on this planet that rain brought crushing, irrational despair. Nikki had suggested it might be a chemical released by the plants. It seemed as plausible an explanation as any.

Despite his resolve last night to leave camp and seek new resources, he was loathe to move. Why did it matter? If they stayed here, they would eventually starve to death. If they struck out to find new resources, they would undoubtedly encounter new dangers. Given the brushes with death they had already had, sooner or later their luck would run out and they would be killed. So moving on might keep them alive for a couple more weeks? Maybe a month? Was it worth it?

"No! That's the depression talking. I have to fight it," Jason thought.

"C'mon Red, time to get up and get moving."

"Ugh," she grunted, "Why? Let's just stay here. I'm tired of fighting to stay alive." A single tear was slowly rolling down her cheek. "Just hold me and we can die together."

"Dammit Red, get up! I will not let you give in to despair." Jason grabbed her by the arm and pulled her to her feet.

They trudged through pouring rain for several hours, sinking deeper into depression as they went. Jason began to think he had made a mistake. Maybe they should have at least waited for the rain to end.

Up ahead, they heard a mournful wail. It started low, almost inaudibly so, and ended like a drawn out cry of a mourning dove. A wave of sadness accompanied it. The sound drew them toward it, despite its melancholy.

They broke into a small clearing. On the opposite side, lumbering slowly across their path was an enormous gray beast. It looked to weigh several tons. It had a long, fat body ending in a short stubby tail. Its four legs to the rear were just short thick stumps. It had four more legs, longer and thinner but still tree trunk like at the front. It moved slowly in an undulating, caterpillar like motion. Palpable waves of sorrow seemed to emanate from the creature.

Jason's footsteps disturbed a small lizard like animal. It scurried away toward the beast. It slowed as it neared the path of the behemoth. The little animal staggered to a stop and looked at the large animal. Then the "lizard" just laid down in its path. The big creature continued to lumber toward it until its flat, broad head was just above the smaller animal. The monster cocked its head and studied the little "lizard" with two of its four large black eyes, then slowly reached down and picked it up with its mouth. The "lizard" put up no struggle and just hung limply from the monstrous wide jaws. With a little toss, the gray beast swallowed the "lizard."