Their hips were pistons, moving in time without hesitation. “Squeak” was the sound of her black rubber boots on the hot metallic floor. Sweat dripped from the boy’s brown skin, but she, a machine, a woman like none other, remained cool as could be. She gave in to his desire and kept focused on the job. 

 

Multitasking? The word was too soft for what they achieved. 

 

Plugged into a complex system, Star accomplished two impossible tasks at once. Opening city gates and satisfying Jabari.

 

“Nearly done,” she said. 

 

“Almost, yeah,” the boy spoke without losing pace. 

 

His manhood drew sweet juices from her synthetic depths, making a constant patter of splashing at their feet. He was lost in her world, an ocean that gripped and rolled. Twenty years old, Jabari was young in age and maturity. Though, even for a boy in his year, he was far too cocky. Foolish as it was to distract his partner during a hairsplitting operation, the boy couldn’t help himself. He never could. In that world, stupidity was a luxury he indulged at every chance.

 

“No. I’m nearly done. The gates will open in 5, 4, 3, 2...” Star counted down while Jabari picked up his pace. 

 

At the boy’s climax, his hands held her hips, keeping their bodies firmly joined when the sound of alarms erupted from every corner of the dazzling monitor-filled room and beyond. 

 

“Shit,” Jabari exhaled, flushed with euphoric relief when danger was imminent. 

 

“We should go,” Star warned.

 

“Give me a minute.”

 

“They’ll find us soon.”

 

“How soon is soon?” He asked with a laugh.

 

Sober as a rock, he could have fooled anyone into thinking he was drunk at that moment, savoring the delights of flesh. Sadly, all the pleasure rushing through his bones was snuffed out when a door flew from its hinges. Before Jabari could turn his head, men dressed in Chem Corp uniforms rushed in. Swiftly, Star unplugged her fingers from the control point and her velvet walls from Jabari’s cock. 

 

“That was soon,” Jabari joked, pulling up his cargo pants, still in no hurry. 

 

He hid away his wet deflating manhood to follow behind his companion, who had already run for cover behind computer towers and thick cords strung every which way across the room like vines. Chem Corp guards opened fire at the sight of the two intruders, as one would expect. Their standard-issue handguns shot bolts of electric energy, like concentrated lightning. Each round burned on impact and sent vibrant sparks flying off metal.

 

“The stairs are definitely out, but,” Jabari said, before finding himself interrupted.

 

“The window,” Star told him. 

 

“What? No!”

 

“There’s no time.”

 

“In case you forgot, glass and skin don’t mix,” he argued.

 

Dressed in little more than boots and blue cargo shorts, he wasn’t prepared for the gamble his partner had in mind. 

 

“I’ll protect you,” Star said, taking his hand and pulling him to follow.

 

“Star!” Jabari shouted, dragged along until they reached a window. 

 

The synthetic girl threw herself through the glass but released her partner at the edge, leaving him to make the choice for himself. Jabari might have hesitated for a heartbeat, but ultimately, when the guards drew too close, he jumped. 

 

On the way down, from the top of Tone City’s second-highest tower, they fell quickly. Neon lights that swam by were breathtaking, and Jabari nearly forgot he was plummeting to his death. His eyes had fractions of time to fixate on any singular point of wonder. Chem Corp headquarters was grand and constantly releasing fumes into the sky from its maze of pipes. Roulette Lounge, a brick building that hid near the foundation of the city, was hard to miss with music swooning out on the streets. Rawling Medical Center, where most of the wealthy went to trade in their flesh bodies for steel bones, was the last thing Jabari noticed in the distance before he turned his eyes to the impending pavement. Luckily for the boy, he wasn’t alone. He fell into the embrace of Star, who had been waiting with arms stretched out to catch him. 

 

“How’d you know I’d jump?” He asked while they fell further and further, seemingly without a care.

 

“You always do,” she answered, turning their positions in the air so her back would hit the ground first. 

 

Air pressure was nearly enough to rip skin from Jabari’s bone, but the closer they came to the ground, the slower everything moved. Color faded till even the brightest of lights were nothing more than white streaks. The city’s chaos of sound left the atmosphere silent until only a familiar humming was left in the boy’s ears.

 

“No, no, no. Five more minutes. Five more minutes, please,” Jabari begged before suddenly he was pulled back to reality. 

 

His headset was yanked off, and his eyes were forced to adjust to the color swap from digital to real. 

 

“I told you an hour. You went on for two,” Zero, an elderly inventor, reminded the boy. 

 

Jabari sat up. His body had been inside a pod made from welded parts of a freezer and several odd machines. After occupying the stationary vessel for longer than scheduled, his legs were numb. With Zero, his elder, mentor, and employer, standing in wait, Jabari couldn’t remain idle. Of course, when he climbed out of the contraption, he nearly fell, but his boss was there to catch him. 

 

“It was just getting good,” the boy remarked after Zero caught his arm. 

 

“Just getting good? How do you explain the fifteen minutes you spent at the top of the tower? Wasn’t that good enough?” Zero chuckled, knowing exactly how the boy had gone over his allotted time. 

 

The old man handed a towel to Jabari with a chuckle. Though the adventure his apprentice had faced may well have been fiction, the same couldn’t be said for his stimulation. Every word he spoke in the digital had come out of his mouth in the real. Every drop of sweat and stain of seed he had allowed to wet his faded blue shorts was real. 

 

“Keep making a mess of my pod, and I’ll have to charge you double next time.”

 

“It’s not my fault. If you don’t want people getting off when they plug in, don’t program the AI to fuck,” Jabari joked, and used the towel to clean himself as best he could while Zero stepped away.

 

In the digital realm, the young man embodied strength, confidence, and style. In reality, Jabari was poor and unlucky. His attire might have been the only constant between the two worlds. Even then, the quality of his clothes was lesser outside of the game. But Jabari wasn’t the only person living a double life. Scattered across Zero’s rusted garage, there were a dozen pods running the same simulated world for boys better or worse off. 

 

The inventor’s business was a small one, but thanks to his community’s need for escape, he had recently made large profits. 

 

“How much do I owe you?” Jabari asked while he and his mentor walked through the garage, passing pod after pod until they entered a cluttered workshop at the back of the building. Zero’s facility was grand, stretching wide enough to house projects small as a bug or big as a tank. Though most of his working materials were recycled parts from the scrap yard that surrounded the area, there were valuable elements mixed among the more dirt-covered. 

 

“Come in a little early and leave a little late tomorrow. We’ll call it even,” He told Jabari. 

 

“But what are we working on tomorrow?”

 

The old man, dressed in mud-colored overalls, guided their steps to a table positioned at the center of the facility. Though what lay on the table was in several pieces, intricate wiring that connected each joint made it obvious that a humanoid shape was under construction. 

 

“Star is a sophisticated AI, unique from anything I’ve built before.”

 

“She’s a video game character,” Jabari said.

 

“She’s more than that. Far more. And tomorrow, you and I will take the first significant step to bring her into our world. Star will be my first successful synthetic child,” Zero explained with pride. 

 

“You should give her a different name,” the boy said, laughing before he added, “She hasn’t even been born yet, but half the neighborhood has screwed her.”

 

Zero scowled and shook his head at his assistant’s lack of maturity. 

 

“Be here tomorrow before sunup, or you won’t use another pod for a week,” he threatened.

 

Illegal Copy- takes an existing brain and replicates it in a new body, but it can never be the original. 

 

Rare Synthetic- an artificial organism. 

 

Common Transfer- takes the living parts of an organism, typically the brain, and implants it into a new body.