November 5th, 2008

Chapter Five

An hour and seventeen minutes later, I woke up. Damn – I lost the good memory/bad memory lotto this time. Not that surprising, really, considering that I have more bad (or boring) memories than good ones. I’ve become rather good at ignoring the emotions the memories embroil in me throughout the years, so I’m able to bounce back rather quickly and go about my morning ritual.

After cleaning up a bit of the clutter in my personal files, I decide to check on the status of the apartment hunting program. It turned out that it had gone through about half the listings and there appears to be a few promising ones on the list. I may as well wait for the program to finish running, however. It is not like I’m due to be anywhere anytime soon.

With that, I had very little things left to procrastinate with. Most of my to do pile is now outdated since I have a much better paying job so I most likely won’t need to be operating under the table this month. Unless, of course, the new apartment is much more expensive. Unlikely – I tend to go for dives anyway. Cheaper and people don’t pay any attention to an uninhabited apartment in the slums.

Ooo, Crossard’s data package has graphs! I think I’ll just browse through those first...

Well. None of this information is particularily exciting – so what if the number of æthrenet failures has been increasing with the past few years – the number of people online has as well while the number of servers has stayed nearly constant. God knows why this was so important to give to me.

Ah, there’s an attached note. Perhaps it would have some information to interprate these graphs in the way Crossard wants me to.

Nope. I believe that she’s just paranoid. I highly doubt that they’d ever shut down the æthrenet just because the number of people turned into wraiths a year is going up. A general number does not take in account for the amount of people who turn into wraiths by choice or necessesity. Such statistics are not recorded, as Crossard has noted.

Actually, I wonder why the details on wraithdom have not been recorded. Perhaps there actually is something interesting about this data after all. With that in mind, I flip through the data again, but Crossard never once mentioned that she had more precise statistics.

I guess I’ll just have to ask Jimmy after work today.

About to leave my apartment, I give a brief look over my schedule. It turns out that it was a good thing that I looked – apparently I had arranged to acquire some information on a popular male movie star’s online habits. My employer? The jealous girlfriend.

Yes, the only reason why I took that job was so that I could set up some spy cameras and programs for their confrontation. I find the personal lives of celebrites far more amusing than any of the movies they take part in. There appears to be far more drama.

Fortunately, for these actors, it’s highly likely that their blowout will occur on the æthrenet – the man only leaves it to make public appearances and to ensure that his body still works. He’s got an addiction problem, though I don’t know if he’s addicted to the æthrenet or the sex that he can get there. I suppose I will find out – that is my job, after all.

With that thought, I left my apartment and sent out a bot to search for my target. I figured that it might be a bit tough to track down this guy, considering that celebreties tend to like their privacy and all. But, no, I got my results back in seconds – apparently the man was actually advertising his presence. One short hop between servers and I was able to find a good vantage spot to watch the guy.

Unsurprisingly, the guy was good looking. Very good looking. He was probably in his late thirties and it looked like the years were going to be kind for him. Very kind. The man was clearly trying to pick up women so I quickly started up my recording software. This looked like it was going to be a good one! And it wouldn’t even take that long.

Sure enough, five minutes later the man walked out of the bar with, get this, three women on his arms. Though I think that one of them is actually a man... I wonder if our dear Mr whateverhisnameis is aware of that fact. I’m hoping that he doesn’t and that he finds out too late. Oh, the looks on peoples faces when they realise that they’ve actually been doing someone of the wrong gender. It’s so worth it.

I leave the bar myself and follow at a discrete distance, not that my actual presence is quite necessary. The recording bots can manage on their own. TheGuy leads his three ‘women’ off to a rather luxiurious private server – a private server that’s encrypted with an encryption that I have hacked on many occasions. What a waste of money – you get this state of the art system and you don’t even properly secure it? What an idiot.

Within seconds I was in and quietly observering as TheGUy wasted no time in stripping his companions’ clothing. Looks like I’ll be getting front row seats to a (free) NC-17 showing. This should be interesting...

With a smirk on my face, I move to where I determine the best vantage point would be and lean back against the wall. Sometimes I love my job.

Oh shit.

And other times I hate it. Usually that is when I get caught. And TheGuy himself is clearly looking directly at me. Shit shit shit shit!

“I see that you’ve made it into my home, what do you think of it?” He’s learing at me. Oh god, surely he doesn’t think that I want to join in...?

“It’s very... tasteful.” The walls, floors and ceilings are all made of solid gold. This place has about as much subtly as the placeinfrancethatisamuseumandpalaceandshit.

To my surprise, TheGUy just laughed, “What can I say? My ex-wife designed it and I have been far too busy to hire someone to redesign it. So, do you want to join us in our... fun?”

“I’m afraid that I’ll have to decline. I’ll come back at another time.”

“Oh no, don’t do that! Stay, stay! I like an audience!” He’s leering at me again. “In fact, you could say taht I live for them!”

“You’re an actor. Without an audience, you’d be broke. Quite literally, you do live for them.”

“Spoilsport.” And with that, TheGUy turned back to one of his women (actually, the guy pretending to be a woman) and ignored me completely.

Is he seriously going to... oh, wow, he is. Wow.

You know, I had no problem with this when they didn’t know that I was there. But now that he’s openly acknowledged my presence and even invited me to join... wow, so not cool. Actually, I suppose that I am participating just by standing here. You know what, I think I’m going to go wait out in the next room.

Alright, I can still hear them, but that’s okay. This way I’ll know when they’re done so that I can deliver my ultimatium... and see if TheGuy would be willing to fork out a little extra for this footage to just... disappear.

An hour later I was still standing outside of that door. Goddamn, sometimes I really hate æthresex. When one isn’t limited by their physical body, well, lets just say that going all night really is possible. I’m starting to get really, really bored. You’d think that this little orgy would just end already. Or is that too much to ask.

Oh, the moaning has finally stopped. Let this be the end, not an inter-

Damn. Apparently they’ve started again.

Another hour and a half later, I’m sitting against the wall and have downloaded the latest issue of Asimov’s. Normally I go for romance novels, but, well, that would just be too apt for this setting. Instead I’ll read science fiction stories.

Ah. Apparently this one has sex in it. Wow, this is actually pretty graphic for a non-adult magazine. Wow. Next story, please.

By the time I finish the magazine, there is only half an hour before my shift at Senses Squared starts and they still haven’t let up in there. Damn, this sucks! I was planning on scamming extra money off of this guy!

But, wait, the door is opening, despite the persistant moaning (all feminine, I noticed), and out comes TheGuy in all of his glory.

“Taking a breather?”

“No, just being a gracious host. Was there anything in particular that you wanted?” He’s smiling. And, well, he appears to be rather happy to see me.

“Mmm, no, I’ve got everything that I need, thanks. I just wanted to let you know that your little orgy has been recorded and backed up on a server that you could never hack into, even if you could ever find it.” I couldn’t help but smirk when TheGuy became noticeably less happy.

“Oh... so you’re paparazzi.”

“No, actually. Though sometimes I do work for them... I’m actually employed by your wife.” At that, TheGUy looked incredibly annoyed.

“She’s my girlfriend, actually. What does she want?”

“Oh, nothing much. She just wanted to see if you were involving in any extra-marital affairs. Which, evidently, you are.”

“Jesus! We’re not married or anything – I can indulge in as many women as I want!” Oh wow, this guy needs a reality check. Or the woman. Or they just need to communicate a hell of a lot better.

“Is that so?”

“Yes! What’s she paying you? I’ll double it if you don’t give her those recordings!” He’s looking really desperate now. I wonder why he wants to keep her.

“Deal. I’ll send you the bill and the bank number to deposit my pay in. Goodbye, Mr. WhateverHisNameIs,” I turned to leave, but then remembered something that I just had to tell him, “Oh, and by the way, one of the women in there is actually a man. FYI.”

“Wait, what?!”

Oh, the look on his face was indeed worth it. He’s looking rather grey, oh, no he’s going green now! He turned his back on me and marched into the room, demanding answers to my claims. Man, I wish that I could stay and watch this, but I’ve got to get to work. I guess I’ll just catch it later on my recordings.

After the excitement of this morning, you’d think that going to work at Senses Squared would be quite boring. Well, it would have been more boring if it wasn’t for the fact that Jimmy is looking a little subdued. I’m guessing that he got a bit of a talking to last night. I didn’t realise that Crossard had it in her.

“So Jimmy, what’s up?” I ask with a smirk. He shoots me a mock glare and leans over the divider between our cubicles.

“Same old, same old. Just another day at the office. You?”

“I read a magazine outside of a room in which TheGuy was having sex with three women at once. Except one of the women was actually a man, but he didn’t know that.” I paused to take in Jimmy’s disbelieving expression. “It was rather boring.”

Jimmy’s face slowly spread out in a wide grin and he laughed. “That’s pretty funny, Wraith. You had me going for awhile there.” I just smiled in reply.

“So, what do you do here?” I asked, changing the topic, “or is it classified?”

“Oh, they have you working on one of those projects. That really sucks. I’m not on anything like that – I’m just working on developing apps for the æthrenet itself. Nothing too exciting.” Jimmy shrugs nonchalantly.

“At least you know what you’re doing. Being unaware of the reasons why I’m modifying this code isn’t something that I enjoy.”