The Discovery
Ahh, this is the life. Tiana leaned back in the comfortable lounge chair in the ship’s beauty salon as a team of nanobots applied a final coat of red polish, her signature color, to the nails on her perfectly pampered fingers and toes.
I really need to do this more often!
Between the soothing skin treatment of Llegorian mud and the hair follicle stimulation, she had not only added four inches to her already long and beautiful head of hair, but now her skin looked and felt ten years younger. Perhaps she ought to heed Rita’s advice and start flirting with younger men.
She allowed her mind to wander, but this time she wasn’t thinking about her bad experiences or about Tom. She found herself, strangely enough, not even thinking about younger men. Images of her holographic Personal Attendant took over her mind. It, no, not it, he was so kind and gentle. Since the strange experience when he had brought her to orgasm for the first time through a simple massage — okay, okay, and by driving her boobs to the point of insanity — he had somehow known she wasn’t emotionally ready to go any further physically and had limited his advances to just pleasuring her. He was always there to serve her breakfast when she woke up, and he was always there to tuck her in at night, no matter how late she arrived from her outings with Rita. Not only that, he had the face of an angel and the body of Adonis, and for the remainder of the flight she owned him!
The remainder of the flight … Her mind slowly drifted back to reality. She would lose him/it at the end of the flight. Its memory banks would be erased after the trip and her face, her name and their times together would be forgotten as if they had never happened. Derek was a program, not a man, yet her heart sped up when he was near and her mind kept finding its way back to thoughts of him when he wasn’t.
Get a grip, Tiana; you’re losing touch with reality!
She was going to miss this … program … when she reached the Magellan Outpost. The ship was currently in orbit above their first port of call, the ice planet of Tetras 3. They would spend the day loading and unloading passengers, refueling and preparing for the next leg of the trip. Rita had wanted her to catch a shuttle down to the planet and go skiing with her, a once in a lifetime opportunity, yet all she felt like doing was staying in her suite and spending time with … a hologram? Damn it, she was withdrawing further from reality to spend time with a man who didn’t really exist, in a computer-generated fantasy.
News from Earth was playing on a viewing monitor directly to her left. Deep in thought, she was not paying attention to it until a familiar face on the screen caught her eye. It was the man who had accosted her at the courthouse.
“… Managed to escape while at the spaceport waiting to be transported to the Lunar 5 penal colony. Mr. Hart, formerly a research scientist and part owner of Holographic Dreams Inc., a manufacturer of holographic chambers for both the personal and commercial markets, is not considered dangerous, but was the subject of a much-publicized trial that left many questions as to who his accomplices had been, unanswered.”
A second photo of the escaped felon, without the beard and with neatly groomed shorter hair, flashed on the monitor, causing Tiana’s stress to surge back up to pre-beauty salon levels as the announcer continued, “Anyone seeing this man is asked to please contact Galactic Alliance Law Enforcement immediately.”
The picture was the same image as her holographic suite’s Personal Attendant. The computer program she had been attracted to since she set foot on this ship. Her fantasy was turning out to be more real than she had anticipated.
Damn him! Not only had this poor excuse for a human being made fun of her at the courthouse, he had escaped, followed her all the way into her suite and made himself at home pretending to be part of the room itself. No wonder Rita’s Personal Attendant was different from hers. Hers wasn’t made of lying, deceiving and conniving flesh and blood. She had gotten her wish, her virtual man had come to life. Her very own Pinocchio, lies and all. But what did he want with her? Why her? Tiana was angry, yet she also felt a thrill and sense of lightness at the fact that Derek was a real man. And what a man! But if he was a real man, why hadn’t he had sex with her? Men just weren’t THAT unselfish. Maybe he didn’t find her sexually attractive. After all, she was the one who had an orgasm that first night, not him.
Tiana needed answers, and she was going to get them from Derek, the man.