Speedrunner 0.2

What's that?

Ah.

Yes, we gave it everything it asked for. Of course we did.

Apologies if I sound tired, Diane, but I can see the moral hectoring coming from a mile away. That's the whole point here, the entirety of what makes this little experiment in entertainment interesting: AI led, human assisted. Our role in this production was to get it set up and secure the initial funding for its compute power and the like. Beyond that, we are here to act as guardrails and advisors. To tweak things if necessary, but not to build this ourselves. The entire idea is to see what it comes up with. 

Look, I’m as sensitive as anyone to the safety concerns about deploying all these resources primarily under AI control, but the reality is that most of what it’s asked for, while certainly surprising, hardly poses a significant risk. We aren’t creating Skynet -- you've seen the old Terminator movies, I assume; entertainment classics -- by giving an AI a bunch of amateur porn and video games to look at. It doesn't have codes to launch nukes.

I'm a regular listener, Diane, so I'll be honest, I'm a little shocked at your...well, your hypocrisy.

No, Melissa, I won't calm down, she needs to hear this.

Diane, you had the chief data scientist of the largest government analytics contractor on last month -- any questions for him about whether any data is off limits for their AI engines? Digging in on what they do to make sure that, say, facial recognition data from public video feeds isn't letting some AI monitor everyone's movements in realtime?

And that systems architect from the genetic testing company that's feeding an AI every DNA database they can get their hands on -- did you ask him about their AI guardrails?

No, you, didn't, did you?

Of course not. For them, it's just swooning over their cutting edge research.

But you turn your nose up at our reality entertainment media operation? Come on. I know we're in all the news headlines, but the truth is, our approach is more responsible than most of your guests; you're just way more worried about pissing them off.

So save your moral admonishments for the villains who actually deserve it.

Yeah, okay, okay. A quick break sounds good. I'm sure you've got an ad read to do or something.

Probably from one of those companies I just mentioned.

---

EXPERIENCE
Dominance: 3
Satisfaction: 0
Connection: 1
Overall Score: 0

Huh. Interesting.

I'd gained one Connection. That must be from Ted's Breadwinner perk. And I'd gained a whopping three Dominance. I pulled up my Any% Completion perk.

Any% Completion [C][BASE]
Always on the lookout to set a new record, aren't you? Encounters in which someone finishes faster than they expect will award you one additional point of Dominance or Satisfaction. Encounters that end faster than anyone expects instead award two additional points of Dominance or Satisfaction.

So...I must've gotten one Dominance from the encounter itself. That kind of made sense; I'd been in charge, it felt like. And then maybe another two Dominance for Ted finishing faster than either of us had expected?

Ted was obviously doing the same kind of math. "So I got one point of Connection and one point of Satisfaction from that. I guess Breadwinner gave me the Connection, and, uh, maybe the point of Satisfaction because that was, y'know, satisfying. What're your scores now?"

"I'm up to three Dominance, one Connection." I stared, blankly, at the scores for another moment. "But why's my Overall Score still zero?" I felt a little nettled by it.

"Three Dominance? Jeez." Ted was stunned for a moment. "Even with a point in Satisfaction and Connection, I'm still at zero for my Overall Score too. Oh...it must be multiplicative," Ted mused. "Like, it multiplies all of the other scores together. I think Sexual Prowess is the same way."

Hmm.

I pulled up my statistics.

STATISTICS
Appearance: 1
Verbal: 3
Physical: 1
Sexual Prowess: 3

"Yeah, my Sexual Prowess and Overall Score make sense that way, too," I said, thoughtfully, considering the implications of that.

"Three Dominance..." He looked at me, speculatively, clearly mulling over how I'd gained four total experience points and he'd only gained two. "So, you want to tell me about that last starting perk, Chloe?"

I debated internally for a moment.

We'd hit the encounter limit for now, apparently, but if my progression was tied to finishing sexual partners off faster than they expected, and Ted and I were going to have further encounters, telling him about this perk felt like it was only sabotaging my own progress.

What if it changed his expectations, made it so that even though he reached completion quickly, he was expecting that since he knew it was what I wanted, and so I didn't get my bonus points?

As it was, it felt pretty powerful. If it was just one point per encounter, then getting two or three points instead -- three or four points instead, with Ted's Breadwinner perk on top of that -- would matter a lot, fairly quickly.

Anyway, I didn't yet understand exactly how it all worked, but I didn't want to risk it.

So I turned towards him, and gave him my best earnest smile. "To be honest, I don't want to tell you. I trust you, Ted. It's just, uh...well, it's complicated to explain why I don't want to tell you, and explaining why would require telling you about it. I've got some good reasons, though, okay? And it's nothing that's bad for you."

"Huh. Um, okay. Admittedly, that leaves me in a tough spot, Chloe. From my perspective, that perk could be anything. So it's hard not to go to worst case scenarios, like maybe you can drain my stats under specific circumstances, or..." he trailed off, looking a little discomfited.

I didn't blame him; if he'd tried this with me, I'd have a similar reaction.

"That's not what's happening, but I get it. Tell you what," I said, slowly, thinking it over. "Show of good faith. What if I give you three of my minor favors now? Let me keep one just in case we get separated and I need it for something, but I'm happy to give you that one, too, if I can, before the end of the level. I want you to double them for me anyway. That way we're both going on some trust for the moment."

It was a little bit of a risk on my end, but I liked Ted, and trusted him. I felt like it was worth showing some goodwill.

He considered it for a moment, then sighed. "Okay. For now. This can't go on forever though, I was totally honest with you about what my abilities do. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect the same."

I nodded, gratefully. He seemed sharp; I imagined he'd figure it out eventually anyway, or he'd just start expecting to finish quick whether he figured it out or not, and then it wouldn't matter anymore. But I wanted to get the points while I could.

"I'll tell you eventually, promise. It's just..." I shrugged, at a loss for what to say that wouldn't just mean I got less stats out of my perk. "I'm just hoping you can trust me, for now. And maybe the minor favors show I'm not just out to take advantage of you."

The game seemed to interpret the end of this exchange as an agreed-upon set of trade terms. Blue letters flashed up in front of me.

CONFIRM TRADE WITH TED?

YOU WILL GIVE:

Minor Favors (3)

YOU WILL GET:

Nothing

I mentally acknowledged it, and the blue letters started flashing -- then turned green, and faded.

TRADE COMPLETED.

We lay there in silence for a moment, and then I thought to pull up the objectives again.

OBJECTIVES

Get a drink from the bartender (and drink it) -- 1/1 [COMPLETE]

Complete an encounter -- 1/1 [COMPLETE]

Add one additional party member -- 0/1

"...Still want to join my party?" I asked Ted, hopefully.

YOU'VE INVITED TED TO JOIN YOUR PARTY.

The words blinked in front of me, dramatically for a moment before he answered.

"I do. I think we've been working together well, Chloe. I mean, your weirdness around your last perk notwithstanding. So, yeah."

TED HAS ACCEPTED YOUR INVITATION AND JOINED YOUR PARTY.

We grinned at each other uncertainly for a moment. "Wonder how hard it is to leave a party...Like if I wanted to leave right now, could I?"

ERROR: YOU CAN ONLY LEAVE YOUR PARTY AT THE END OF EACH LEVEL, OR IN OTHER SPECIAL DESIGNATED CIRCUMSTANCES.

"...Apparently not," Ted noted, drily.

And then we both froze.

ALL OBJECTIVES COMPLETE.

TUTORIAL I COMPLETE. YOU WILL ADVANCE TO THE NEXT STAGE OF LEVEL ZERO.

"Hey, we completed an incredibly simple series of tasks!"

I held a fist towards Ted, and after an uncertain moment, he fistbumped me.

DELOADING WILL BEGIN IN 60 SECONDS.

PLEASE GO TO A QUIET, DARK PLACE TO MINIMIZE SIDE EFFECTS, WHICH MAY INCLUDE: DRY MOUTH, NAUSEA, UPSET STOMACH, CRAMPING, VOMITING, DIARRHEA, DISORIENTATION, HEADACHES, NOSEBLEEDS, EMBOLISMS, VERTIGO, MENTAL CONFUSION, HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE, LOW BLOOD PRESSURE, HYPERVENTILATION, MOOD SWINGS, PANIC ATTACKS, MEMORY LOSS, AND EARLY-ONSET DEMENTIA.

A timer in the corner of my vision began counting down from 60.

"Ooookay. Well that's a lot of side effects I don't want..." I hurriedly got up and walked to the door we'd came in by; there was a lightswitch next to it, which I flicked off.

I lay back down on the bed next to Ted and shut my eyes. "I wonder if they'll make sure we play together from now on since we're in a party. Hope to see you again soon."

"Likewise, Chloe. Glad you were the first person I ran into."

We both quieted down as the timer got closer to zero, and slowly, almost gently, sensory experience all faded away.

---

DELOADING COMPLETE.

Though dark, the room around me was subtly different from the one I'd just left. The smell, the temperature, the movement of air was all just a little off from The Starter Pint. I removed the helmet -- which I could now feel the weight and shape of, around my head -- and the room's lights brightened, slowly. I was back in the little tiny room Ethan had lead me to.

And then Ethan opened the door. "Well, hey, congrats! You finished the first Tutorial. What'd you think?"

"Uh, thanks..." I had a moment of disconcerting adjustment as I realized that this felt just like the game -- or, maybe, that the game felt just like this. It was indistinguishable in a way that was profound and uncomfortable. I believed all those side effects; the gradual transition was strange enough, I could imagine what abruptly going from one place to another would be like.

"Sorry. I know it takes people a second to grapple with just how good the VR is, their first time rezzing out of the game." Ethan gave me a sympathetic smile.

"Yeah..." I took a few deep breaths. I kept expecting the helpful blue text to appear in my vision, maybe popping up some information about Ethan, or...I blinked, rapidly, trying to focus. "How'd we do?"

Ethan shrugged. "Fine. It's the first Tutorial level; it's not really scored or anything. I mean, some people do find ways to fail it, obviously. But the success rate is pretty high."

I still felt a little weirded out by what was real and what wasn't.

But not weird enough to pass up an opportunity to try to get more information out of Ethan.

"How high a success rate is pretty high?" As I asked the question, I stood up and started stretching, facing away from him -- first standing on my tiptoes, then twisting and bending, as if I were loosening up and stretching after being prone for a while.

"Uh, seventy-five, eighty percent..." Ethan said the words absentmindedly. Even facing away from him, I could feel his eyes on the backs of my legs and ass in the black spandex of the rez suit.

"...I'm, uh, not really supposed to talk about stuff like that, though," he said, sounding a little chagrined. "So, y'know, don't, um...mention it to anybody else."

"I don't even know what I'd do with that information, I was just curious," I assured him. Seventy five percent. I wondered how many people were playing. "Anyway, did you get to watch me play?"

Ethan shook his head. "Nah. I just keep an eye on your vitals. They looked, um, normal, the whole time. Prometheus sends me and some other staff an edited recap of your run, but we won't get that for a little bit." He blushed. "Why, anything weird happen?"

"...Yes. But I think it was probably weird in only the ways it was supposed to be weird." I didn't elaborate. And then, I realized he'd used a name. "Prometheus?"

"That's the system's name. The AI engine running the whole show. Anyway, c'mon. We've gotta get you over to Medical. They get touchy if we go too long after your first time rezzing in."

Ethan led me through the corridors back over to Medical, and the next hour or two were another battery of tests.

---

Which, evidently, I passed.

"Great! Everything looks normal. Now, I'm supposed to get you some food and then you need to rez back in for your next Tutorial level," Ethan said, looking at that tablet he always had with him.

It must've had some privacy screen -- he was careful to angle it away from me, and I couldn't see anything on it. When I tried to peer over his shoulder, he gave me an aggrieved, distrustful look and twisted it away.

"How do you guys decide when to schedule me to go back into the game?" I wondered if Ted and I would be loading in together. I hoped so; he'd been helpful.

Ethan shrugged. "Prometheus is handling all the timings and stuff behind the scene. I just follow what it tells me....and it's telling me food, and then you rez back in."

Ethan led me back through the corridors...but proceeded past the Cafeteria sign, and back to my room.

"I thought you said I could get food?"

"You can," he said, easily. "But Prometheus says you're eating in your room today."

"...Uh, okay. Why?"

He shrugged. "Like I said, Prometheus handles all this stuff; it's kind of above my pay grade. Anyway, what do you want? It looks like your lunch options today are, uh..." he consulted the tablet. "...sandwiches or a salad. For sandwiches, there's a turkey BLT..."

As I ordered from him, I wondered about not eating in the Cafeteria. Maybe to keep us from bickering with one another, or planning outside of the game? That was too bad. It would've been good to strategize with Ted.

Or was it simpler than that? Prometheus, if that's what the system was called, had to be massively powerful. My intuition was that everything probably had a purpose behind it. But maybe that wasn't true, maybe having us eat in our rooms was just the simplest way to organize all the people that had to be involved in this operation.

Ethan left, and then returned a few minutes later with my salad, and I ate it quickly. It was pretty good, actually -- better than I would've expected given the spartan room I was in -- but I was itching to get back into the game, now.

Ethan stood awkwardly in the room while I ate, idly flipping through things on his tablet. Then he cleared away the container the food had come in.

I looked at him expectantly. "So...can I play now?"

"You can, yeah. But you're about...fifteen minutes ahead of schedule. Feel free to get yourself situated with the helmet on whenever you're ready; the suit will start rezzing you in when the time's right."

I was tempted to just lie down on the bed, dim the lights, and wait for the game to start. It was so immersive, and all I wanted to do was figure out more about the systems and break the game wide open.

But I made myself slow down. Ethan was the only actual human involved in this operation that I'd spoken with for more than a few seconds.

That meant he was important, even if it was just as a source of information.

And I could see the way his eyes lingered on my body. The guy had a crush, and I wasn't above continuing to use it.

I sat at one corner of the bed, rolling my neck as if it were stiff. "Did you apply to play, Ethan?"

He shrugged. "Nah. Didn’t think I’d get in, and they had a job opening posted, so…”

"Aw, too bad. You'd probably be really helpful if you were in the game, I'd get you in my party for sure." I rolled my neck back the other way.

"Think so?" He gave a chuckle. "I'll have to take your word for it until I see the recap footage."

Interesting. He didn't blush or anything. He must not know what the game entailed.

I wondered how much the system edited these recaps, and whether they were PG-13 or R-rated. Ethan might be in for quite a surprise.

That prompted another thought.

"Can the system -- uh, Prometheus, I mean -- can it hear us now?"

Ethan nodded. "Probably. Pretty much everything is hooked in to it one way or another." He held up his tablet, gestured at the rez suit helmet.

"So...I can talk to it? Like, it can hear me?"

He nodded, again, looking a little amused.

"Would it ever talk back?" I was curious how much Ethan would let me ask about the system before he stopped answering.

Ethan laughed, now. "I mean...everything that's happening in the game is effectively it communicating with you, right?"

"Yeah, but you know what I mean, like would it ever...have a conversation with me?" I rocked my neck back and forth.

I wanted him more off-balance than this, so he might let something slip. And I'd seen the way he'd been looking at me. "Actually, hey, can you see if my muscles feel weird, right here? I think maybe a few hours lying on the bed in the game gave me a knot or something."

"I mean, the medical exam would've picked it up, that's sort of the point..." but I could hear the uncertainty, the hesitant desire in his voice, and he came over, standing to one side.

"I don't bite, Ethan. Just tell me if my shoulders feel weirdly tight to you." I pulled my hair to one side, out of the way.

I felt him, tentatively, his hand a little clammy, push his fingers into the muscle of my upper back with his hand. "There?" His voice was nervous.

"Yeah...push a little harder. That's actually helping. So it wouldn't talk back to me?" I leaned back into his touch.

Ethan was stammering. Probably blushing, but I didn't want to look back at him to check; it might make him back off. "I-it's, uh...not really that kind of AI, I don't think. Its outputs aren't meant to be conversational. It's meant to create things that you can have conversation with, but talking to Prometheus i-itself is more complicated than that..."

"Oh yeah? How do you mean?" I made the last word a little breathless. Like I was enjoying his touch.

Which maybe was too forward.

He glanced down at his tablet and pulled his hand away from me like he'd been touching a hot stove. "Uh, w-whoops. I-I've gotta take care of something else. Like I said, just lay down when you're ready with the helmet on, and the game will do the rest. See you when you're done!"

Ethan basically fled out the door.

The abrupt departure made me wonder what had just happened.

Did he get aroused, and make up an excuse to get out of the room? Did something actually pop up on his tablet? If something had, had it warned him off of what was happening -- like some kind of direct message that said don't touch one of the players? Or was it just Prometheus -- or somebody else -- monitoring what was happening and intervening to send him on an urgent errand?

I wasn't sure.

So, while I mulled it over, I put the helmet on, lay back, and waited for the system to pull me into the game.

---

INITIALIZATION COMPLETE.

LOADING CHLOE.

The transition had been the same as before; a quiet fade to black followed by a gradual brightening.

I was still lying on a bed, but this time, I could feel someone next to me stirring as well. The familiar, disconcerting confusion crept in -- whatever virtual reality the combination of helmet and suit were creating felt perfectly real. Complete with that sense you have of tiny movements in the air, little sounds you aren't even conscious of, that clues you into the fact that there's another person nearby.

"Ted, hoping that's you." I spoke quietly. We made a decent team -- and I was ready to bounce some ideas off of somebody else.

"It is. Hi, Chloe. So they have us both rez in at the same time, I guess?" He was also keeping his voice quiet, but he sounded genuinely pleased to see me, too.

The setting information screen appeared.

LEVEL ZERO: TUTORIAL II

SETTING: [SAFE][MODERN][BAR][TUTORIAL][HAPPY HOUR]

ADDITIONAL RULES AND RESTRICTIONS:
ENCOUNTER LIMIT: 2
SPECIAL: WITHIN 3 MINUTES OF LOADING, PLAYERS MAY OPT TO LEAVE THEIR CURRENT PARTY.

I scanned things, quickly. It looked pretty similar. Two encounters, this time. That special option to leave the party.

"Huh," Ted mused. "Looks the same as the first Tutorial."

"Should we leave the party?" Ted asked, speculatively. "We could always rejoin later if we wanted, that didn't seem time-gated."

"Hmm. If you want...I think it's risky, though. Remember last time? It didn't seem like we could join a party until we did the other objectives. Actually, speaking of which..."

OBJECTIVES

Overall Score >= 1 -- 0/1

Party Size = 3 -- 0/1

Complete Two Encounters -- 0/2

I blinked, reading the Objectives rapidly.

"So...an overall score of at least one, add another person to our party, and complete two encounters?"

Ted nodded. I pulled up my Experience again.

EXPERIENCE
Dominance: 3
Satisfaction: 0
Connection: 1
Overall Score: 0

"So I need to get a point of Dominance, and if memory serves, you need to get a point of Satisfaction," Ted noted. "Otherwise it won't matter if we raise the others. Anything times zero equals zero."

He was saying what I was thinking. At least it was clear what we needed to do. If we were right about them being multiplicative.

"What about adding someone to the party?" I mused. "We probably want it to be someone who's got high Satisfaction...and someone who can give us Satisfaction or Dominance, the way you can give us Connection with that Breadwinner perk you have, right?"

Ted nodded. "That makes sense to me. And you've got high Verbal, and I should have higher Appearance...maybe someone with Performance?"

I nodded as well, as I stood up. "So...let's go see what the situation is like."

Ted, however, was hesitating. "We get two encounters this time. You sure you don't want to..." he trailed off, the question left unasked.

I gave him a smile and a shake of the head. "Later. Let's make sure we use them wisely."

I didn't want to say it out loud -- but based on how things went last time, it didn't seem likely that an encounter with Ted was going to get me a point of Satisfaction. Dominance, sure, Connection, sure -- but I wanted to make sure that I completed the Objectives.

He looked disappointed, but nodded. We walked over to the door and he opened it for me. I stepped through.

It was the same bar as last time, but the tables had been rearranged into a long row. People were milling about -- more than last time, I thought, maybe forty or fifty of us.

Alex the AI was behind the bar, and had some kind of microphone. "Okay, everyone. The format tonight is speed dating. You've presumably seen the Objective for the level; if you're in a party, sit on the side of the tables opposite the bar. If you're a singleton who's going to need to get into a party, sit on the righthand side. C'mon, move quick, everybody wants to complete their objectives, right?"

Ted and I -- along with most of the people in the room -- moved to the lefthand side. I leaned over to murmur in his ear, "Well, at least everybody presumably knows what's going on; if their first Tutorial level was like ours, they had to at least complete an encounter, right? Do you think there are more parties, or more people looking? Do we need to sell ourselves here or are we just screening people?"

Ted shook his head, muttering back. "Doesn't matter whether there are more solo people than parties. At some point it's going to occur to the solo folks that they can party up with each other if none of the pairs across from them work out; three of them solve the problem just as good as one of them and two of us. So we've gotta sell ourselves."

Shit. He was right. We conferred briefly as people got settled on what we were looking for.

What happened next was...well. It was an extremely weird form of speed dating. We had five minutes with a person across the table before everyone shifted. Alex the AI let us know that we'd have fifteen minutes at the end to go back to have final conversations with anyone else we wanted.

I'd been to one actual speed-dating event, and this was structured pretty similarly. Except that, instead of one-on-one conversations with men, I was doing this sitting next to a guy who I'd given a handjob to a few hours ago, trying to decide who'd round out our odd little team the best for this strange competition, based on what we knew.

Which was that one or both of us would probably be fucking whoever we picked.

---

"I'm just, like, hoping to meet some new people," the first woman in front of us said, earnestly. She was a willowy brunette, a little older than me. "Honestly, I didn't even think I'd get picked for the game, so like, just being here is a privilege, you know?"

"Uh, right." Ted glanced at me.

We'd agreed that he'd take the lead on the conversations, while I'd take a look at the description the game was giving me from my perk.

I'd been staring silently at this woman's archetype and description for the past ninety seconds.

NAME: Violet

ARCHETYPE: STONER/BOTANIST

Violet is like, extremely chill. Some people -- her roommates, her mother, most of her friends, every person she's ever dated -- would argue she's too chill. That she lacks ambition. Won't ever amount to anything. But you guys seem kind of intense; maybe you need somebody who'll mellow the vibe?

I took two things away from that description.

First, clearly the system was tailoring these for me, specifically. It was kind of like I was talking to Prometheus; or at least, like Prometheus was talking to me.

Second: Violet sounded fucking unbearable. But then, I remembered my description. It had made me sound unbearable, too.

"What're your perks, Violet?" I asked, cautiously. Maybe she was a high Satisfaction pl-

"Perks? I don't think I have any of th...oh..." her eyes went glassy, as she read the text.

She was seeing her perks for the first time, I realized. She'd managed to complete the first Tutorial stage without even knowing about them.

Slowly, I placed my hand on the edge of our table, palm down, with one finger out over the edge.

We'd come up with a numerical system to surreptitiously share our enthusiasm level for a specific candidate. One finger to five.

One finger was not the enthusiastic end of the scale.

Ted nodded, slightly, putting his own palm down on the table as well, two fingers extended. "Thanks, Violet," he said smoothly. "We want to make sure we talk to everybody, so..."

"Sure," she said, looking a little dazed by all the information in front of her as she stood up.

---

After another thirty seconds, another person sat down, a man this time.

I stared for a moment, not pulling up the system information about him. Just drinking in the view.

Tall, lean, dark-haired, with mocha skin. The rez suit clung to well-defined pecs. A hint of extremely kissable collarbone was visible. He set his arms on the table, and my gaze traveled to his hands, the way the veins stood out, the hint of forearms that were visible, the way the veins wrapped around them, up...

God damn. He was hot.

"Hi, guys," he said. "I'm Colton."

"Hi." I swallowed hard and tried to focus on anything besides his physical appearance. I pulled up his description while Ted peppered him with questions and answered a few in return.

NAME: Colton

ARCHETYPE: AGING FUCKBOY

He looks good, doesn't he? But if you take a close look at the eyes, you can see a certain hollowness. There's something missing: empathy, maybe. Connection, certainly. Love? Also yes. And it's all been missing for a while, now. There's an absence to him, a void, that neither you -- nor anybody else -- can fill.

Could be fun to try, though. Maybe you could fix him.

I wasn't even listening to the conversation between him and Ted. I was staring at the way the rez suit hugged Colton's biceps. I realized -- with a surge of embarrassment mixed with excitement -- that I was wet.

The description that the system was offering annoyed me. I didn't think I could fix him.

But it was all too easy to imagine how satisfying fucking him -- well, getting fucked by him -- would be.

Very satisfying. As in, I was confident that I'd get a point of Satisfaction out of an encounter with him. Maybe two points, if the game allowed it. Just imagining his arms wrapped around me, big hands on my waist...

I realized that Ted had put his hand on the table, was giving Colton one finger out of five.

I tried to pull myself together -- although I couldn't completely tear my eyes off him -- and gave him four fingers.

Ted blinked as he looked at my hand. "Well, thanks, Colton. We'll, uh, circle back at the end of this."

"Sure," Colton said, standing. "Nice to meet you, Ted. You too, Chloe." His gaze lingered on me as he turned to go.

Well, now I had a plan for one of my two encounters, I decided. Satisfaction. I watched him go.

"Seriously? Four fingers? Did you even listen to our conversation? Eyes on the prize, Chloe," Ted muttered at me.

"Yeah. Look, I need Satisfaction, okay? Just assessing options from people who look...satisfying." I said it absentmindedly, watching the shifting muscles of Colton's ass and back as he walked away from us.

Ted looked put out. "Yeah, well, let's try to rate them based on how they'd contribute as a party member, not based on how much you want to fuck them."

And then the next person sat down.

---

The parade of people felt endless.

There was Lisa, the TRADWIFE INFLUENCER. Long blonde hair, pretty, smart. In spite of the archetype the game had given her -- which was accompanied by a ruthlessly disparaging description -- I liked her. She had figured out her perks already...but they were quite Connection focused. One called Homemaker that gave everybody in her party bonus Connection as long as they were partied with her. Good, but too similar to Ted, we judged. I gave her three fingers; Ted gave her two. Too bad.

Then Will, a RETIRED FOOTBALLER. Handsome, compact, and sporty. Didn't know what perks were; also, maybe had a mild case of CTE from heading the ball too many times. We both gave him two fingers out of five.

After him was Jennifer, a PROFESSIONAL DOMINATRIX. She had also figured out her perks...but they were very Dominance-focused. I gave her two fingers, Ted gave her three...and a number of appreciative looks. I couldn't blame him; she did seem very at home in the black skintight rez suit. But he acknowledged that she didn't fit the plan we'd settled on: someone who would end up high in Satisfaction.

People just kept coming after that.

Unfortunately, it became clear that there were a lot of people here who were clearly not in it to win it. Nobody else got even five combined fingers between the two of us.

Ted and I were obviously ahead of most others in terms of understanding of the mechanics of what was happening. Probably half of the people we talked to didn't know what their perks were. Many of the ones who know their perks, wouldn't tell us. Almost nobody seemed to be thinking about forming a balanced party. And I don't think we ran into anybody who seemed to clearly understand that the Overall Score was multiplicative, and that they needed to increase all of three of their stats from zero if they wanted to complete the Objectives for the level.

In short, it was remarkable to me how terrible these people were at digging into the game mechanics.

Eventually, the last woman sat down. We both glanced to our right and saw Violet again, who had started with us. This was our final option. "Here's hoping for a miracle," I muttered.

"Hi, I'm Becky." Her voice was breathless, a little vapid. She was about my age and height, but the similarities ended there. Her hair was blonde, cut short in a bob. Blue eyes looked at us earnestly.

The woman was, I had to admit, a bombshell. Her rez suit was unzipped a little, but even if it hadn't been -- the way she filled it out was, well, eye-catching. With it unzipped, you could see a deep valley of smooth, tan cleavage.

I glanced over at Ted, who was supposed to be taking the lead...only to realize that he was staring at her tits.

I sighed, trying to move this along. "Hi, Becky. I'm Chloe. My suddenly-mute friend here is Ted. Can you tell us about your perks?" We'd settled on this as a pretty good initial question -- getting three minutes into a conversation and realizing the person didn't even under

"Perks? Oh..." Becky trailed off as they no-doubt popped up in front of her vision.

"If you feel comfortable, you could just read the names off to us, and we'll look at them directly," I said, encouragingly. Internally, I rolled my eyes. Another player who didn't understand the game mechanics.

"Um, sure," Becky said, uncertainly, eyes still glassy. "I've got, um...let's see...Amateur Costuming, Crowdpleaser, and The Love Interest. Huh, these're...kind of complicated..."

Ted finally got his shit together and pulled his eyes off of Becky's tits. "Thanks for telling us," he said. "Lots of people haven't been willing to share."

Becky nodded. "Sure. I'll read them all later, I guess. Do you think you'd want to add me to the group? What're you all looking for?" She asked the question shyly.

Ted rattled off the answer, now honed after repeating it a dozen times or more. I let Becky's information scroll past my vision all at once, reading it while she and Ted talked.

NAME: Becky

ARCHETYPE: ASPIRING ACTRESS

Most rational humans find former theater kids who're trying to make it in LA annoying. Their constant need to be in the spotlight; their deepseated need for validation, to have an audience. But, hey: this is, after all, an entertainment production. Maybe someone who's trying to make it big in entertainment could be useful to have around?

Amateur Costuming [C][Base] (This is Becky's starting perk.)
You've got the kind of eye for costuming that is shared by cosplayers, community theater enthusiasts, and historical reenactment nerds all the world over. If another player in your party lets you make minor adjustments to their attire, the statistics and other benefits offered by the attire are increased by 50%, rounded down, until the end of the level.

Crowdpleaser [C][Base] (This is Becky's starting perk.)
You love an audience, and the audience loves you. Any time you complete an encounter in which someone else watches you but doesn't touch you, you receive an additional point of Satisfaction, and so do they.

The Love Interest [C][Base] (This is Becky's starting perk.)
You certainly know how to play opposite a leading man…or woman. In any encounter in which you gain a point of Satisfaction, the other participants gain an additional point of Dominance or Connection.

I sighed. Fuck. She was annoying, but at first glance, her abilities -- even though she didn't know what they were until ten seconds ago -- seemed like a really good fit.

Reading them over again, I was realizing that I felt...a little jealous. Her abilities didn't only seem like a good fit, they seemed flat-out better than mine. Yeah, the additional detail on mechanics I got was good, but the conditions on Crowdpleaser were easy to fulfill, so was Love Interest...they both helped with stat growth. I was stuck with asking my streaming chat questions periodically, and that didn't even work on this floor!

"Chloe?" Ted elbowed me, pointedly. "Want to answer Becky's question?"

I reoriented myself; I hadn't been paying attention. "Sorry, what'd you ask?"

"Oh, I was just wondering why you're playing in the game?" Becky repeated. "I'm asking everybody that question."

"Um...I'm trying to win?" I looked at Becky, confused. "Why, why're you playing?"

She shrugged. "Winning would be nice, I guess. But I want to be an actress, and this sounds like it's going to be broadcast pretty widely, so even if I don't win, it'll be good to get my name out there."

She delivered all this with a guileless earnestness that I found incredibly grating.

"Uh...gotcha." I tried to keep the derision out of my voice. Why play if you weren't trying to win?

"Well, we should probably confer and then make a decision," Ted said, smoothly. "Nice to meet you, Becky."

And then he gave me a pointed look, and glanced down at his hand on the table. Four fingers.

I sighed, and put three fingers down, with one of them slightly curled. It gave her the best combined score of anyone we'd talked to.

"Nice to meet you both," Becky was saying.

"Becky, give us a minute, but don't make any decisions about joining a party without talking to us first, please. You're one of our finalists for sure," Ted enthused.

Becky nodded, pleased. "Great. Okay!"

---

"Were you trying to give her two and a half fingers? Come on, this is the best fit we've heard about, hands-down," Ted said, flatly.

"She's annoying. We're going to have to carry her, Ted."

"What do you mean, carry her? And nobody else is even close to workable for what we need."

"She's not gonna pull her weight, is what I mean. She didn't even know what her perks were. You just looking past that because you like her tits. Speaking of which...c'mon, let me at least talk to Colton," I pleaded.

"I get how Colton is going to satisfy you, but I need to get at least one Dominance, Chloe," he pointed out. "And what did you say his archetype was, again? 'Aging Fuckboy'? Be serious."

"Yours is 'Ted from Accounting'!" I spluttered. "The description the game gives of you says accounting is your entire personality! The archetypes don't mean anything!"

He blinked; I realized that was the first I'd told him what the game said about him.

"Whatever." Ted folded his arms. "Tell me, oh, anything you actually know about Colton. His perks? Stats? Why he's playing the game? Anything at all? Oh right, you can't. Because he wouldn't tell me, and even if he had, you weren't listening. You were just drooling."

I sighed, reluctantly.

"Come on," he said. "Becky's abilities sound perfect. Way less of a risk than him. She's obviously not good at the game stuff, but we'll help her, she'll be fine."

I put my face in my heads. "I know, I know. It's just that...Becky is like the human equivalent of a...a lobotomized golden retriever. And there's no guarantee you'd get Dominance from an encounter with her, anyway. That third perk said Dominance or Connection..." I was just looking for any reason now, though, and I knew it.

"Look," he said, reasonably. "We've gotta pick somebody to meet the Objective. The rest of the people here we agree are bad fits, for one reason or another. We get two encounters today. It's obviously we'll be able to leave our party at other points in the future. Let's add her to the party, and try one of those two encounters with her. If it doesn't work, we can each figure out what we need to do for the second encounter, even if it's with somebody outside the party. Other people will probably be looking for the same thing anyway, right?"

"Okay..." I nodded. Becky was our best shot at rounding out the party and both of our Overall Scores. "But...if she's really annoying...we ditch her at the start of next level, or whatever."

He nodded his assent.

One thing did occur to me, though. "You...you go talk to her and add her to the party if she's game, then we can go...do an encounter. I'll...be just a minute."

I headed over to Colton, who was talking to a woman from another team. I touched him on the arm to get his attention.

He turned, looking down at me, and said, bemused, "Oh, hey."

Staring up at him, I felt that same breathless sense of attraction. "H-hey," I said, suddenly tongue-tied.

He gave me a small smile. "It was...Chloe, right? What's up?"

"Yeah. U-um...we can't...add you to our party. I-it doesn't make sense for us. But I wanted to give you a tip. You need at least one point each in Dominance, Satisfaction, and Connection for your Overall Score to go up. S-so you should focus on, y'know...doing that," I concluded, lamely. It felt like I was talking to the most popular guy at school, hoping for his approval.

"Huh, okay. Thanks, Chloe." He nodded, slowly and then raised an eyebrow. "You...don't think I could give you what you need? Is that why you aren't adding me to your party?"

I felt a rush of blood to my face, and the butterflies I was feeling turned into pleasant clench of arousal in my stomach. "N-no, I, uh, that's not it, i-it's just..." I mumbled out the words, thrown.

He laughed. "So why're you helping me? If I'm not in your party, then I'm the competition, aren't I?"

"I-I just thought...you seemed nice..." I blushed further. I'm hoping to keep you around so I can fuck you at some point didn't exactly roll off the tongue.

"Well, regardless, I appreciate the tip. I didn't know that." He hesitated. "Tell you what: tit for tat. Here's something I know, that you might not: when one of your statistics hits five, you get to pick another perk."

He considered a moment, and then marched purposefully over to Lisa. The TRADWIFE INFLUENCER, as I recalled.

I sighed, watching him go, bitterly jealous. Lisa didn't deserve him. I wasn't the only one -- the eyes of most of the women in the room were on him.

Then the implications of what he'd been saying sunk in.

He must have a statistic at five.

That was a little surprising; Verbal was my best, and was only three. As far as I knew, there had only been one opportunity to get a single +1 to a statistic.

His five had to be in Appearance, I thought, as I watched him stride off, my eyes glued to the way his muscles shifted underneath the rez suit. That would explain why he looked so fucking good.

I wondered if he was this hot outside of the game.

And I wondered what kind of perk five points in Appearance got you.

And then the system popped up a notification for me.

BECKY HAS ACCEPTED TED'S INVITATION AND JOINED YOUR PARTY.

Right. Becky. Instead of Colton.

Sighing, I headed back towards the two of them.

---

"What're your statistics, Becky?" I asked. The three of us were headed over to what I was beginning to think of as our room at the bar -- the one I'd first come out of.

"Um, two Appearance, one Verbal, two Performance," she said, proudly. "I-I thought it'd be good to be balanced so I had the, um, glow-up drink last time. Whatever it was called."

"And that means your...Sexual Prowess is four?" Ted managed to imbue the question with academic, analytical interest, which made it sound less, well, horny, than I would've anticipated, given how he was ogling Becky in the rez suit.

"Yeah," she nodded. "Which doesn't really make sense. It was two before."

"It's multiplicative," I said, shortly.

"Oh, so like two times two instead of two plus two?"

I bit back the retort that she had just defined multiplicative, and nodded.

"That's kind of weird." Becky sounded nonplussed.

We arrived in the room.

Ted looked eager. "So, we should..."

I held up a hand. "Hold on a sec, Ted. If she's going to be in our party, we need to know how to help her. Becky, what does it say under Experience, for you? Dominance, Satisfaction, all of that?"

"Um, I've got zero Connection and zero Dominance. Three Satisfaction." She looked at us hopefully. "Is that good?"

I blinked, slowly. "Sorry, you've got...zeroes in both Connection and Dominance?" I glanced at Ted, who looked just as surprised as I was.

She nodded. "Yeah. Is...is that not good? I started with zeroes in everything."

"Well..." I waffled, trying to decide how to explain it. I had about a million questions, none of which made sense to ask right this second. "...It's not really good or bad, Becky. But you need to get at least one in each, or you won't complete one of the level Objectives. I don't know what that means exactly, but probably it means you won't advance."

"Oh." She looked crestfallen. "But...but I got Satisfaction from the, um...encounter last time. I don't know how to get Dominance or Connection."

"Um..." I hesitated. The point of Connection was one thing, would be easy. But I wondered if it would be possible for both Becky and Ted to get a point of Dominance from the same encounter. It seemed unlikely to me. And they both needed at least one point...

I could see that Ted's mind was working down a similar path. "Well, the Connection's easy," he said encouragingly. "Take a look at my perk, Breadwinner."

I pulled it up again even as I watched Becky, glassy-eyed, obviously reading it.

Breadwinner [C][BASE] (This is Ted's starting perk.)
Everyone wants a man who's a good provider. Encounters with someone who has less total currency than you will reward participants with one additional point of Connection.

Becky was quiet for a moment. "So...if you have more currency than me, I automatically get a point of Connection if we...?"

Ted nodded. "And I've got lots of currency. So maybe we just start there, huh? Let's do one encounter and see where it leaves us, and then we've each got a second encounter to figure out how to get what else we need." He glanced at me.

I nodded, slowly. Ted was right. And probably one of them would get a point of Dominance from this, I figured. We'd figure the other one out afterwards.

Becky shrugged. "I don't really get this stuff, but it looks like that perk gets me at least part of what I need, so...sure, let's do it." She gave Ted a winsome look, then glanced over at me. "You guys aren't, like, together, right?"

Ted shook his head, vehemently. I laughed, and then as Becky's gaze fell on me, I said, "No, no, although Ted, your enthusiasm was a little startling. Becky, I appreciate you checking. We're just in the same party."

"Okay. Well, you...you can watch if you want, Chloe. I mean, we're all in the same party, and...well, I kind of like being watched anyway," she confessed.

"I'd love to watch," I agreed. I had thought that might the case. I had the game put one of her perks up in my vision again.

Crowdpleaser [C][Base] (This is Becky's starting perk.)
You love an audience, and the audience loves you. Any time you complete an encounter in which someone else watches you but doesn't touch you, you receive an additional point of Satisfaction, and so do they.

That would give me a point of Satisfaction from her Crowdpleaser perk, as long as I didn't touch her.

And then, realizing something, I pulled up the description for Any% Completion again.

Any% Completion [C][BASE]
Always on the lookout to set a new record, aren't you? Encounters in which someone finishes faster than they expect will award you one additional point of Dominance or Satisfaction. Encounters that end faster than anyone expects instead award two additional points of Dominance or Satisfaction.

I was struck, again, by the interesting wording. I wondered what we all expected.

I knew I expected Ted -- who was, even now, staring at Becky's tits as he sat on the edge of the bed -- to finish pretty fast. It was obvious based on his performance last time that he'd been going through a bit of a dry spell. But just how fast?

I didn't know what Ted expected. Or Becky. But I decided I was going to do my best to get as much score out of this encounter as I possibly could.

It only said no touching her. And I could feel -- now that I was paying attention -- my high Verbal score kicking in. I had a few ideas for things to say.

"Well...I'm excited to watch this. Ted...what if you took your cock out?" I said, wickedly. "So Becky can see what she's working with."

Becky nodded, hesitantly. She sat down on the edge of the bed, next to him.

Ted was nodding too, but was mostly just flicking his eyes back and forth between me and Becky.

As if he couldn't believe this was real.

ENCOUNTER STARTED.

The text flashed across my vision as if to provide a counterpoint to that thought: this wasn't real.

But as Ted unzipped and pulled off his rez suit, it was clear that the fact that this wasn't reality didn't matter. His cock was hard and throbbing, just like I remembered it from yesterday. Becky's gaze locked on it and she bit her lip.

"You know, he's been staring at your tits this whole time, Becky," I murmured the words out. "Did you notice? I think he likes them."

I was beginning to get a feel for how my Verbal score was improving things for me; it was like I was in a little bit of a flow state, just naturally responding with what felt right, but it also felt a little like the mental version of the autocomplete that search engines and websites sometimes used. Like my own mind was throwing out helpful conversational suggestions, topics and word choice options that...well, just turned out to be the right thing to say to turn everyone on more.

Becky nodded, still a little tentative. "H-he really has," she agreed. She didn't look up at me; she was too busy staring at Ted's cock.

"That must be why he's so fucking hard right now. Is that why, Ted?" I asked the question conversationally.

"Chloe, what're y--" he glanced up at me quizzically, perhaps recalling how things went last time.

But I didn't let him finish; I wanted to stay in control of the situation. "Maybe you should show him your tits, Becky. I mean, he's got his cock out..."

Becky nodded, mutely. Her cheeks were flushed. She unzipped her rez suit down to her waist, cleavage spilling out of it, the full curves of her tits coming into view. Then, shyly, she shrugged out of the suit.

Her tits were, I had to admit, magnificent. Full and tan, with areolae and nipples that were almost the shade of her skin, just slightly darker. Absentmindedly, as she started at Ted's cock, she caressed one of her breasts -- the way its shape shifted as she touched herself gave you a sense of just how big and heavy they were, and I watched her nipple harden.

Damn. I had to work hard to remind myself that I wasn't supposed to touch her if I wanted that guaranteed point of Satisfaction.

I saw Ted's cock twitch in appreciation. He was staring, dumbly. And I could touch him.

I walked over, closer to Ted. "Oh my god," I murmured, in his ear. "Her tits are so fucking sexy, aren't they?"

He let out an affirmative little grunt in response. I moved to sit on the side of the bed, behind him and to his left, putting him between me and Becky.

"I don't want you to touch them yet, though, Ted," I whispered.

Becky looked uncertainly at me, like she was waiting for direction on what to do next.

Admittedly, I wasn't sure what to say next; I paused, uncertainly. Nothing I could think of felt exactly right. Maybe if my Verbal stat was higher. So I took a shot in the dark.

"You know, Ted's a little older, Becky. He's divorced, and I think he's been...well, going through a bit of a dry spell," I informed her.

"Aw, um, okay," Becky said. She looked at Ted with a sympathetic smile.

"And I bet your ex-wife didn't have tits like Becky's, did she, Ted?" I made sure my lips brushed his ear as I said the words.

"No," he moaned. "F-fuck," he added, as he looked back and forth between me and Becky. Well, really back and forth between me, and Becky's breasts.

"Maybe you've never even been with a woman who looked like Becky before, Ted," I mused. "Who had nice, big tits like hers, I mean. They're perfect, aren't they?"

Becky looked flattered and gratified. Then, teasingly, she fondled them, and gave Ted a curious, questioning look.

Ted looked almost mesmerized. His mouth was open slightly. He just nodded, slowly.

"They-they look incredible, Becky." His voice was reverent.

"Thanks, Ted. Do you...want to touch them?" Then she glanced my way, and, a little amused, said, "I mean, if it's okay with Chloe."

Ted nodded, eagerly, and reached a hand out. I slapped it away, and he looked over at me astonished. "In a moment, Ted. I have an idea."

As I reached down and slowly wrapped my hand around his cock, he whimpered. I could feel him throb in my hand.

"His dick's so hard for you, Becky." I put a little girlish giggle into my voice. "It seems really excited."

She nodded, looking down at it.

"Maybe...you should just let him put his cock between your tits," I said. "Would you like that, Ted?"

"Oh god, please," he moaned.

"Can you do that for him, Becky? Wrap those tits around his cock?"

She didn't answer; she just nodded.

I watched as Becky, slowly and deliberately, moved to kneel in front of him, and nestled him between her big tits. "Oh, he's so sticky with precum," she gasped, as the skin of his shaft slid between her cleavage.

Becky brought her hands up, and pushed her tits together. All three of us watched as his cock vanished into her cleavage.

Ted let out a groan and closed his eyes.

"I bet that feels good, Ted. So good. Soft, and warm...how long do you think you'll last in her cleavage, like that?"

He made a helpless sound.

"After all, you've never had your cock between a pair of tits like Becky's. Maybe it'll just make you bust right away." I made the last three words into a moan, right in his ear, as if I was having an orgasm.

"O-oh no..." Ted whispered. And then a louder, broken, "F-fuhck--"

I felt some delight at the look of absolute astonishment on both his face and Becky's face. At the at the little gasp she made as his cock throbbed its first gout of cum up her chest and neck. "Oh my god, so fast," she said, pleased, feeling it spray against her skin.

If I was honest with myself -- he'd finished pretty much when I expected him to. Not before. So it wasn't faster than all of us had expected, as Any% Completion required for me to get two points.

But the two of them were clearly shocked. She watched as Ted grunted and bucked his way through the orgasm, coating her chest. She looked up at me. "You weren't kidding about the dry spell, I guess."

I nodded, grinning. "He really seemed to like that."

Ted, catching his breath, was giving Becky a look that was borderline obsession. But as I spoke, his gaze flicked up to me, and the look was more complicated. Conflicted.

I could see he'd enjoyed it, wanted it. But there was a distrust there that made me feel a little bad. He was clueing in to the fact that I was nudging these encounters a particular direction.

I had to think about what to do. I liked Ted. Maybe it was time to tell him about my perk.

But there was something else that demanded my attention first. A glowing, upward-pointing arrow icon in the corner of my vision. As I focused on it, words appeared.

ADDITIONAL CHARACTER CHOICES ARE AVAILABLE.