The Virtual Man [The Virtual Reality 1] (Siren Publishing Classic) (3 page)

“Here, let me check my calendar,” she said as she started digging through her purse. She was going to give him her phone number or network address, or perhaps her business holo-card.

I could correspond with her from prison, perhaps schedule a conjugal visit or two and maybe …

His thoughts were interrupted as in one smooth move she took a sticky black label out of her purse and slapped it across his mouth.

“Save it for someone who cares, pervert. You’re just like my soon-to-be-ex. All sweet, sexy and charming on the outside, but inside you’re a Dalutian vampire just waiting to drain every drop of life out of a mate, and when you do, you simply toss her aside and replace her with a younger one. ” She glared at him.

Cool, she thinks I’m sweet, sexy and charming.

* * * *

Amused by the whole situation, Marshall Troy Delaney chuckled, then walked over, took Derek by the arm and led him away.

There’s no harm in him flirting one last time,
he thought.
He won’t see any females of any species for the next twenty years
.

Truth be told, Delaney sympathized with Derek. There were too many questions left unanswered during the trial. The boy just hadn’t helped himself with his antics. Delaney deemed himself a good judge of character, and he didn’t see anything but integrity and strength in Derek’s. Such were not the characteristics of a thief.

“Come on, Romeo,” he said as he ripped the label off Derek’s face and handed it to him. “We have a flight to catch.”

“But Marshall, didn’t you see that? She wants me,” Derek joked, gingerly folding what appeared to be a luggage tracking label and storing it in his pocket. “She wants me bad.”

“So does Bruno on the moon,” the Marshall laughed. “He might be a convicted murderer, but he couldn’t possibly be more dangerous than this woman.”

Derek just chuckled.

* * * *

Entering the prisoner transport vehicle, Derek couldn’t get his little goddess out of his mind. He had been with many women in the past, but for some reason, this one was so totally different from any other. She was beautiful and incredibly sexy, but that wasn’t it. This woman made his heart sing and his spirit soar. She was full of fire and presented the kind of challenge he thrived on.

Why couldn’t he have met her before that cursed Melinda? At least with this redhead what you saw was what you got, good or bad. Instead he had gotten involved with a two-faced viper who had eventually brought him to destruction. Derek owed his fate to stupidity and love. Perhaps those two words meant the same thing, he speculated. He had fallen in love and had foolishly let his guard down. Melinda was beautiful, sexy and intelligent. What’s more, she had fallen head over heels in love with him, or so he had thought.

In reality, he had been a fool. When ‘greedy, callous and deceitful’ are joined to ‘beautiful, sexy and intelligent,’ the result is a deadly poison that eventually tears the life out of those that drink of it. He had satisfied his thirst at her fountain and the venom had cost him his freedom — maybe his life.

Tiana’s transport descended into the spaceport’s passenger departure pad and she disembarked. Not much had changed since the last time she had traveled offworld. The spaceport was still just as busy and loud as the last time she had been here. Having dispatched her bags to the ship earlier, Tiana grabbed her travel satchel and ran for the starship’s docking gate. Catching her flight would be close. Running full-tilt, she almost took out a really good-looking man traveling with his two kids. Recognizing him as a recent hire to her team, she thought,
Oh,
what was his name? Marcus, that’s right, Marcus Long
. They would be traveling on the same ship to the Magellan Outpost. She was surprised that he was bringing his children.

“Sorry, Marcus, I guess we’re all running late.”

“No problem, Ms. Weiss. I’ll see you aboard,” he responded respectfully to his boss as he gathered his children to him like the protective father he appeared to be.

Calculating the best route, Tiana zigzagged her way to the gate, arriving just as the last tram leaving for her ship was about to depart. She shoved her way into the packed car and sat down . Several minutes later, she watched as Marcus and his kids leisurely got on the tram. She smiled to herself as she realized her haste had been completely unnecessary.

Tiana felt the tram start to move and watched as the gate was left behind. Looking out the window, she admired the many starships that were docked on that side of the spaceport. Georgia, being a major business and trade center, attracted starships from most parts of the Galactic Alliance, as well as traders and merchants from the independent planets. Breathing a huge sigh of relief, she allowed herself to relax for the first time that day. She was on her way. She would not have to deal with or see Tom at the very least for the next two years. She was a free and single woman and would make sure she remained that way. The trip to the Magellan Outpost would take about two and a half weeks. Tiana wanted to make the most of her “alone time.” Her position at Interstellar Engineering afforded her the privilege of first-class accommodations when she traveled, so she had reserved a deluxe holographic suite. Her house on Earth, while spacious and in one of the city’s better neighborhoods, was not equipped with a holographic chamber. She had at times considered adding one, but with the technology being as new as it was she was still waiting for prices to come down before buying. Like everything else on Earth, where she was concerned, the purchase would have to wait. For now, time aboard a luxury starship with a holographic chamber at her disposal would be just the vacation she needed.

As the tram approached the starship, the engineer in her could not help but appreciate its design. It was a current model Terran Cruiser. She knew that the purpose behind the design was to facilitate the ship’s transitions to and from hyperspace; as a woman, she appreciated it as a true work of art.

Looking the immense ship over, she admired the sleek hull, with its needle-like nose seamlessly expanding back into what could have passed for a pair of wings, making the ship look similar to a very large manta ray, an endangered species of fish that she had seen as a little girl at the Georgia Aquarium. Along the top of the ship, running front to back, a large, backbone-like glass atrium enclosed the luxury suites. One had her name on it! The glass gave the suites an unobstructed view of the stars, planets, comets and other wonders of outer space. Off to each side, within the wings, were a pair of state-of-the-art hyperdrive engines. The engines were encased in a newly patented rubber alloy developed by Interstellar. It was extremely temperature resistant and reduced noise and vibration to a gentle hum.

Rita Andrews — a fellow partner at Interstellar Engineering, coworker on the Magellan project, travelmate and Tiana’s best friend — had been the project leader on the development of the new alloy. Good old Rita had been the one person Tiana had turned to after Tom’s betrayal. She was a “rough-edged” engineer type, opinionated, temperamental, but with a heart of gold.

There was nothing Rita would not do for a friend, including helping her drown her marital sorrows with a bottle of liquor she had not synthesized but actually brewed from scratch in her lab at home from an old Earth formula she found during one of her research projects back in her home state of Tennessee. Rita had told her that back in the late twenty-second century, in the days when people still consumed alcoholic beverages, it was a readily available drink named after its original maker, whose name sounded something like Zak, Shaq or maybe Mac, with a last name of Daniels. Clearly this man must have been a genius, for after a few glasses of the stuff she had totally forgotten about Tom and all her problems. On the other hand, he might have also been an evil scientist bent on taking over the galaxy, for the next morning, she woke up, if you could call it that, with a horrendous headache and a desire to give up food for the rest of her life. Nutritional synthesizers mimicked the taste of alcohol without the intoxicating effects, but the real thing, as made by Rita, packed a punch.

At the starship passenger entry zone, Tiana exited the tram and joined the queue to enter the elevators that whisked them up to their respective accommodation levels. Her suite number was 1005, port-side on the uppermost deck of the ship. “Open door,” she commanded as the ship’s computer obeyed her pre-programmed voice pattern and slid the door open.

As she entered what would be her home for the duration of the trip, Tiana looked around.
Not bad.
Her suite was made up of a comfortably furnished great room, with food-synthesizing facilities on one side and a bedroom with an adjoining bathroom on the other. Tiana walked across the great room, straight through an open set of glass double doors. Standing on a cozy balcony overlooking a fifty-foot-wide walkway on the Promenade Deck directly below, she breathed in the various smells coming from the restaurants and shops that flanked it. Though passengers were to remain in their suites during take-off, and the Promenade deck was deserted, she could hear the hustle and bustle of ship personnel getting ready for the onslaught of people that would make their way there as soon as the ship achieved orbit. Still looking down at the Promenade, she caught a glimpse of movement to one side.
Did a naked man just run across the walkway? I must be seeing things
.

Looking up and directly in front of her, a transparent sheet of steel tempered glass, another one of Rita’s patents, rose up from the opposite side of the walkway, past the other balconies, stopping in line with her ceiling and finally curving over her and her neighbors’ balconies, forming the glazed atrium she had noticed earlier from the tram. Once in space, the view would be spectacular. For now, she could see other ships arriving at or departing from their assigned docks.

Walking back into the great room, Tiana tossed her bag on the floor, and collapsed on the great room’s plush L-shaped couch. She had lain there for a few minutes gathering her thoughts when a nicely modulated male voice jolted her out of her relaxed state. “Welcome aboard. I will be your Personal Attendant for the duration of …”

She was even more shocked to find an attractive young man standing just a few feet away from her. Tiana jumped to her feet and interrupted the extremely polite Personal Attendant. “How the hell did you get in here? Didn’t your mother ever teach you to knock?”

Startled, the Personal Attendant responded with a straight face. “I didn’t get in, I materialized, and, since I was programmed, not born, I have no mother.”

Tiana stared dumbly digesting what she had just heard. She had forgotten the suite was a holographic chamber. The ‘man’ in her suite looked so real. He, or as the case may be, it, was around five-eight, with dark-blond hair, brown eyes and a fairly average body. The one thing that stood out was that its features were too perfect, in a sterile, created in a lab kind of way. At least his voice was pleasant. She had heard that they were now making holographs that were anatomically correct. Her mind wandered as the prospect of what the next couple of weeks with her very own live-in personal attendant unfolded in her mind. Very quickly, her mind wandered right back.
Yuk. Not.

“Well, George, Fred or whatever your name is, from now on make sure you knock before you materialize.”

Without a response the Personal Assistant dematerialized before her very eyes, and seconds later Tiana heard a knock that appeared to be coming from nowhere in particular.

“You’ve got to be kidding.” She chuckled. “Come in.”

Her Personal Attendant materialized and addressed her as before. “Welcome aboard. I will be your Personal Attendant for the duration of the flight. I come in five different styles and you may select any of them at any point during the flight. This is my default style,” it stated, gesturing at its body, “but I also come in Barbarian,” it pointed out as its body took the shape of a wild-looking, loincloth-clad warrior with muscles rippling throughout its body. “Academic.” the attendant’s body changing shape, becoming a nerdy looking professor dressed in a tweed jacket. “Spy,” it said, changing into a sophisticated-looking man wearing a black tuxedo, “and finally, Gigolo.” The final style had slicked-back hair, a pencil-thin mustache and a flowery shirt open all the way down to its navel.

“I also have the female equivalent of all five styles, starting with —”

“I’ll go with the plain and boring male default style. I don’t need to see any others,” Tiana stated, not letting her Personal Attendant complete the demonstration. Truth be told, she didn’t want to see the female equivalents. She was sure they would all be skinny and perky. Skinny and perky just like Chrissie, the slut maid she had caught having sex with her ex-husband.

“Please listen carefully,” the Personal Attendant continued, “as I explain the operation of your chamber as well as its safety features. The XHA-45 holographic chamber is the latest of its kind, boasting new, high-resolution matter projectors. The system’s console can be materialized anywhere in the room by simply requesting it, in your own words, with a command such as ‘computer, materialize console.’ The chamber understands over 8,500 different languages and planetary dialects and is programmed to understand what you are requesting without requiring that specific commands be used. Simply address the chamber by beginning your commands with the word ‘computer.’ Once you do so, you will have the computer’s attention. You may then make your request in plain language the way you would speak to another sentient being.”

The Personal Attendant continued on, describing everything from how to change the suite’s décor to how to use the bedroom as a fully autonomous escape pod in case of a shipwide disaster. Tiana felt her eyes glazing over after a while but she did her best to listen, paying particular attention to the suite’s emergency features. It paid to always be prepared.

“Any questions?” it asked, finally finishing its long winded monolog.