A Perfect Match

Karen Carson lay upon her back upon the roof of her apartment block, flying on Robodone, the slave drug; the legal, non-lethal but highly addictive high that was sold by the government to all workers to relieve their lives of its drudgery and looked up at the sky and the golden tunnel, gleaming brightly above.
The golden tunnel, she had learned from her robot educators in high school, was a force tunnel, a tunnel of solid light that was projected between the Earth and Mars, taking constant streams of traffic to and from Earths shining colonies on the red planet.
Mars was where all the rich people lived and she had always dreamed that, one day, she would be going along that golden tunnel to live in one of its nice clean suburbs rather than being stuck on one of the myriad grimy ghettos of the Earth.
But fat chance of that. She was a sex worker and a low paid one at that, earning not much more than a robotic sex doll.
But she didn't have much choice. Unemployment was illegal thanks to the ultra-capitalist party; most poor people like her were addicted to Robodone and had to keep earning money to buy it and there were no jobs on Earth for non-robots besides prostitution or domestic service.
Ofcourse there were those who would judge her and say, why choose the life of a prostitute rather than a servant but even if she could have got a job working for some rich lady in a house, and serving jobs were rare, she'd heard plenty of horror stories about what happened to servants at the hands of their abusive employers like one girl who'd worked as a cleaner for a woman that had beat her, took away her robodone injections and locked her in a cupboard at night and when she'd reported it to a Po-bot the woman was let off with a fine and a warning.
The life of a poor human being was cheap in the 31st Century; worth less than that of a robot.
Still, if she kept taking regular injections of aevumol then she would never get old, never have to retire and could go on working, hypothetically forever; she could even get her boobs done and her hymen replaced at a revirgination clinic then she could raise her price or perhaps, if she saved up enough, she could go to a Euthenasia clinic instead.
They were opening up everywhere, she'd noticed, offering a quick, clean, painless and low cost death perhaps as a way for the rich to reduce the Earths overburgeoning population.
But then, looking at the clock on the teleport on her wrist , she could see that it was time to get back to work.
"Time is money", she said, "And money is everything".
She dialled the teleport number of her flat and suddenly she wasn't lying on the roof of her apartment building looking up at the sky but on her apartment floor looking up at a crack in the ceiling.
She quickly went into her bedroom and changed into her luminous blue boy shorts and day-glo orange tube top and then she heard another customer buzzing at her door.
She came out of her bedroom and turned a dial on the wall next to her armour plated apartment door altering its opacity, making it as transparent as a window, and saw a young man in the corridoor outside dressed like a tourist in a long t-shirt and cargo pants.
"Its 20 billion for french or sex; 30 billion for anything else", she said through the door.
"Have you been vaccinated?", asked the man.
"Oh yes. I'm fully vaccinated against every STD. You're safe with me", she said turning the dial on the wall further making the door dematerialize altogether.
"I'm new to this", said the man entering, "Do I pay by biometric scan?".
"No I prefer smartmoney please", she said, showing him into her bedroom, "Its far too easy these days to fool biometric scanners. I did have a machine once that recognized sperm samples but one customer got his willy stuck in it and then I had to call an ambulance".
Sitting on the edge of her bed, the man took out his wallet from his jacket and then took a handfull of digital banknotes or smart money, from it handing them to her.
She held up one of the banknotes next to a banknote of her own and upon each banknote an animated, digital portrait of the queen smiled and asked,
"Hello. How may I help you?".
"Tell me the password for this second", she asked.
"This seconds password", the two queens said in perfect synch with each other, "Which is changed every second by the Bank of England's central computer and only known by genuine smartnotes is ButterflyMcQueenArbogast6327".
"Its real", she said to the man, "Alright, just take off your clothes, honey and lie on the bed. I'll be with you in just a moment".
Then she took the banknotes into another room and fed them to a grunting robotic piggy bank that happily ate them up before loudly burping and saying, "I'm a greedy pig aint I".
When she went back into her bedroom the man was lying on the bed. He looked nervous she thought and there was something, some strange sort of tattoos on his body like tiger stripes.
"Nice tattoos", she said, crawling ontop of him, getting down to business, "What are they meant to be like a tiger or something".
"No", he said, seeming slightly embarassed by them, "I got them in the war".
"Oh which war?", she asked, "One here on the Earth or up in space".
"The Vortexas war", he said looking away from her, "In the outer Alpha quadrant. But they're not tattoos. They're Vortexan stripes".
"Oh well how'd d'you get them?", she said, confused, "You are human aren't you?".
"I was a prisoner of war in a Vortexan prison camp and the doctors that worked in the camp were carrying out experiments on the prisoners, altering their DNA, trying to make it like their own", he said, "They called it Genomorphing; like Genocide only instead of killing other species they were just making them like themselves".
"Oh well", she said, sympathetically, looking downwards from his waist, "Atleast the rest of you is human".
"I don't really like showing them to anyone", he said, "Its the reason I came here. I mean, no disrespect to you but I'd be embarassed for anyone else to see them".
"Well they don't look that bad", she said, touching the stripes, "And who knows. Maybe you're a tiger in other ways".
"So you don't think they look ugly and weird?", he asked.
"No, not at all", she said, "And who am I to criticize anyone anyway. Most people think I'm ugly and weird".
"Oh but your not", he said, "You're beautiful".
"Thank you", she said, "Well I spent a lot of money for this face and body. I'm glad it was money well spent".
"You mean you weren't born looking like that?", he asked.
Karen laughed.
"Who keeps the looks they were born with?", she asked.
He reached out and touched her cheek.
"Well a lot of women on Mars do", he said.
"You come from Mars?", she asked.
"Yes. Well I was born there", he said, smiling as if remembering something from his past, "May the Red Planet rise forever".
"I've always wanted to go there", she said, "Well I suppose its every Earthgirls dream".
"You want to see Mars", he said, taking her right hand and closing his eyes, "I'll show you Mars".
Then, suddenly, it was like when you download a dream from the ultranet; images entering her mind of a beautiful wealthy suburban landscape full of large houses and rich people living glamorous lives.
"How are you doing that?", she asked.
"Oh well. When the Vortexans altered my DNA they also gave me some of their telepathic abilities", he said, "What you're seeing is the suburb where I grew up".
"Its beautiful", she said as if an angel had just shown her a glimpse of heaven.
He laughed,
"You know there are more beautiful things on Mars than the Suburbs. A martian sunset for example".
"Oh yeah, I know that", she said, "But its just that; ever since I was a little girl I've dreamed of being a Martian and living in a big Martian house like the people in movies".
"Well", he said, "I'd happily take you with me to Mars if you'd let me although I don't know what my family would say".
"Yeah, I imagine it would be quite embarassing having a girlfriend from Earth", she said, becoming glum.
"Well not for me it wouldn't", he said, "Like I said. I've faced worse things in the war. I can certainly deal with the disapproval of my family and my moms always supporting liberal causes. I'm sure I could talk her round to accepting you".
"What about having a girlfriend whose slept with a million other men", she said, "That wouldn't bother you?".
"Everyones got a past", he said, "It doesn't matter if you've slept with ten billion men as long as I'm the only one you want to be with now".
"But I don't love you. I don't even know you. I'd be just being your girlfriend to move to Mars. Is that really what you want", she said, "Although I guess I could have some cosmetic brain surgery done, implant some artificial love in my heart".
"Well how do you know that love won't grow between us naturally?", he said, "I don't believe that anyone can predict the future. People change all the time".
But then she got up from the bed.
"Hold that thought", she said, going over to a drawer that slid open automatically; taking out a jet injector gun and firing it into a vein.
"Do you have an illness", he asked, concerned.
"No. Its just my Robodone injection", she said, shivering, her eyes turning upwards as if she was feeling some kind of rush go through her,"I need to take one every so often otherwise I start getting cranky".
She saw worry on his face.
"But you know nothing makes me hornier than when I get high", she said, putting the syringe back in the drawer that slid shut automatically and then, slowly stalking towards him, wrapping her arms around his neck,"You're not having second thoughts are you?".
"No", he said, "I just think you need a lot of help thats all but I'm a grown man; I can deal with it. I can get you the help you need".
"Then there's no problem then", she said, kissing him upon his lips.
As she kissed him, she saw something; something horrible in her mind, an image of a man strapped to a chair in a dimly lit alien torture chamber; a strange, scaly, six armed torturer standing over him drilling into his head as he screamed.
She pulled away her lips as if she had just kissed something red hot.
"What was that?", she asked.
"Oh memories", he said, "I'll be honest. I have medicine of my own that I'm supposed to take for them. Little nano-soldiers that invade my brain and flush out insurgent thoughts but I sometimes forget to take them".
"Well then", she said, smiling, "It looks as if we both need help"
"Yes", he said, putting his arms around her and hugging her, "I think we make a perfect match".