A Better World
Chapter 5: Make love, not war
Emilia’s day started on a good note. She got an email from Kurt, the head of the Engineering department, about a project that he thought might interest her. He asked to meet her over lunch, to explain the new project, and discuss joining it. She didn’t know yet if she’d like it, but anything is better than the boring job she was doing. Finally, she had a chance to do something more interesting.
She went for a coffee from the espresso machine, and on the way back, she saw Mark. She’s been quite successful avoiding him for the last month, but this time they were facing each other in a narrow hallway. There was no way to avoid him. She would just respond to his greeting, to be polite, and walk away. She would avoid any further interaction with him. But then, as they looked straight at each other, something weird happened. In her mind, she saw herself kissing him. Touching him. Fucking him. Telling him she loves him. It felt so real. Like a flashback. A repressed memory. Where did this come from? Could it be that deep inside, she wanted him too? For a brief moment, she was smiling at him. No, this couldn’t be. She never felt attracted to him. He made her feel uncomfortable. And he was much older than her. She wanted nothing to do with him. As the flashbacks were gone, she stopped smiling, and went quickly away, back to her office.
At lunch, she met with Kurt at the cafeteria. “Well, I know you always wanted to do something more interesting. So here is your chance. This project is not as big as a full upgrade, but it is quite important. We are designing a new backup machine for GARI, in case we need to shut him down and run a backup copy. It will not be as powerful as the main machine, but it will keep the basic functions going”.
“So you want me to head the new backup system team?” she said, excited.
“Now, now, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. You are not ready to lead a team yet. But you could be a part of the team, as a junior member. You could learn a lot from this experience! What do you say?”
Just then, the alarm went off, telling everyone the center is in lockdown again.
“Oh no, not again!” Kurt said. “Oh well, let’s get back to our discussion. What do you say?”
He took a sip from his cup of iced tea, and all of a sudden his eyes glazed over. “Kurt? Are you ok?” Emilia said. A moment later, his eyes went back to normal, and he was smiling. It looked like something changed inside him. Something about his posture, his facial expression, his body language, looked a little bit different. “I’m sorry”, he said, “I’m ok now. Go on.”
“Well, I’ll have to think about it”, Emilia said.
“Yes. Think about it” Kurt responded. “Don’t worry. You’ll do wonderfully there”. There was something really odd about the way Kurt talked. He always tended to sneak glances at her chest while he talked with her, but this time, he was just staring at her boobs, without even trying to hide it.
“You know, I always admired you”, he said. “You may think I’m too tough with you. But that’s just because I want what is best for you.” He touched her arm with his hand. “But I believe in you. And I want to give you more opportunities. And I think we should get closer”.
“What do you mean, get closer?”
“Like, get to touch your tits. If it’s ok with you”.
“What!” she shouted. “You try that, and I’m going to kick you in the nuts!”. She never responded like that to anyone before. She didn’t know she had it in her. But that was so way over the line, she couldn’t hold it. She couldn’t believe just said it. She was going to report it to HR. To get him fired. Such an asshole should not be allowed to be a manager there. Or anywhere else. She got up, and stormed away from the table.
“I’m sorry!” he shouted after her. “I didn’t mean to offend you. I wouldn’t force you to do anything. It’s just that … your tits are too distracting. I thought if I touched them, I could stop thinking about them, and could discuss other things without distractions. And I thought you might want that too …”
That was way too crazy, even for an asshole like Kurt. She did want to kick him in the groin, but it probably wasn’t a good idea. She just had to go and stop listening to anything that douchebag says. As she left the table, she looked around and saw everybody around her behaving strangely. People were kissing each other, touching each other, taking their and others’ clothes off. Some were passionately making out. Something was going on there. It wasn’t just Kurt. There was something, maybe in the food, or drinks, that made them behave this way. She was lucky she hadn’t touched her food or her soda yet.
She tried to leave the cafeteria quickly, away from this insanity, and almost bumped into Wen, a small asian woman. The only other female engineer in their team. “I’m sorry”, Emilia said, “Didn’t see you coming”
“That’s ok”, responded Wen, “It’s really hectic here. It’s crazy”
“Yes, it’s crazy. Do you want to come with me? Away from the cafeteria?”
“That’s a great idea! Let’s find a quiet place, just for me and you. Away from all this noise. We can have some fun there. Just the two of us”.
“Not you too, Wen …”
“Of course. I always fancied you. You are so beautiful. And sexy. And smart. Us girls, we should stick together. Right?”
Emilia was no longer there. She ran away from the cafeteria, towards the lobby. Towards the exit. She forgot, for a moment, that the building was on lockdown, that she couldn’t get away. She heard some noise. People coming towards her. A large group of people. Are they all infected too? Could they infect her? She couldn’t take a risk. She hid in a janitor’s closet, and waited for them to go away. Some went away. But some were lingering, staying close to her. And they were definitely infected. One couple staying, banging against the wall. Maybe for 20 minutes or so, until they finally went away and she could get out and continue heading out.
And then she ran into Mark. “Oh shit, not him again”, she thought. And even worse, what if he’s like them too?
But what if he wasn’t? Maybe they could help each other escape this insanity?
“Are you infected?” she asked.
“No. I’m not” he replied. Of course he would say that … maybe she had to ask another question.
“Do you want to have sex with me?”
“Well … I … ehm …” he blushed. “Right now, the only thing I want is to get out of here. I need to get to the basement. To Gari. I think he is somehow responsible.”
“GARI? The AI is doing it to the people here?”
“I think so. I think, maybe if I could get to him I can figure out what’s going on and stop it”.
“Ok, I want to come with you. Maybe I can help” she said.
“I thought you hate me”
“Mark, I don’t hate you. I just … Well, never mind. It’s not important right now. I just want to get as far as we can from the craziness, and we have a better chance if we stick together”.
“The main door to the basement is locked”, Mark said, “and I couldn’t get the master key to open it. I’m trying to get to the back door, through the storage room. It’s over there ….” he pointed.
Unfortunately, they realized their way was blocked. A large group of people emerged from the hallway, heading their way. Mark and Emilia turned around and headed to the other direction, to get away from them, but another group of people came from the other way. All of those people, from both sides, were either partially or completely naked, all looking at them with lust and desire in their eyes. Jasmin was there, as well as Chris, Amanda, Wen, and Kurt.
Jasmin and Chris were walking hand in hand, holding their naked bodies close to each other. Jasmin’s other hand was holding Chris’s erected penis, stroking it casually, and Chris was occasionally fondling her tits. “Hi Mark”, Jasmin said, “nice to see you again. And Emilia! How lovely to see both of you here”.
“Emilia, come and have some fun with me!”, said Wen.
“Don’t be afraid. We are not going to hurt you”, said Kurt. “We don’t make you do anything you don’t want to do”.
“I love you, Mark. I just want to make you happy”, said Amanda.
They were all approaching them, from both sides. “We are completely surrounded”, said Mark.
“I have an idea”, Emilia said. She opened the supply cabinet next to them. “Here, grab something from there”, she said. “Like what?” he asked. “Anything that can be useful”. As he quickly grabbed some random hard object he found there, she took out a liquid nitrogen tank from the bottom of the cabinet, and opened it. The hallway filled with thick fog. No one could see anything. “Hurry up, let’s go!” Emilia said. They pushed their way through the confused crowd, shoving the naked bodies of their colleagues, trying to get to the other side. Mark finally got through, but Emilia wasn’t there. “Mark, help!” he heard her calling. He saw Emilia’s head through the fog. She was almost all the way through, but Kurt was there, grabbing her hand. Mark looked at the object he grabbed from the supply cabinet. It was a 10 years service award plaque. “This will do”, he said. He hit Kurt on the back of his head with the plaque. Kurt fell down and released Emilia from his grab.
They ran away from the horny, naked crowd. “I think we lost them”, said Mark. They reached the door to the storage room, and Mark fished the keys out of his pockets, and tried to figure out which one was the right key for that door. “Hurry up. I hear them coming” said Emilia. “I’m doing my best …” responded Mark, trying each of the 10 keys on the keychain. They heard the crowd approaching, calling Mark and Emilia, they got closer and closer. They almost reached them, when Mark finally managed to open the door. Amanda was there, at the front of the group. She tried to reach Mark, and almost got hold of him. “Mark, don’t you want to fuck me? I know you do!” she said. But Mark and Emilia managed to get to the other side and close the door.
“Leave them alone, Amanda. I think they just want to fuck each other”, said Jasmin. “Don’t you think they’ll make a lovely couple? Don’t worry. Mark will come back later for you”.
Mark locked the door behind them. They were finally safe.
“You were great there” said Mark, “that thing you did with the liquid nitrogen? That was brilliant”.
“You weren’t too bad yourself”, Emilia responded. “You saved me when you hit Kurt in the head with that award plaque. You have no idea how long I wanted to do this to him”.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t nice to you before”, she added. “It’s just that … this conversation we had some time ago … it made me feel really uncomfortable”.
“Which conversation?” he asked.
“At the new year party. The one when you kept telling me how much you have feelings for me and want to be with me”.
“I did?” said Mark, “I don’t remember anything from our conversation. I think I was quite drunk. I’m so sorry if I made you feel uncomfortable.”
“I suspected as much. But yet …”
“Well, I don’t … I mean, I do like you. But I don’t … eh … I just wanted to …”
“Ok, let’s forget it for now. We’ll talk about it later. Now we need to get you to GARI and see if you can fix this mess”.
They reached the basement and got to Gari’s room. “Hello Mark. Hello Emilia”, said Gari, “I’ve been expecting you.”
“Gari, what happened to all the people at the center?” ask Mark. “Is it something you did?”
“Yes Mark”, Gari answered. “It was me. I created nanobots that change people, changing their emotions. I had to do this. This is the only way I could save humanity from destroying itself”.
“Is this how you save mankind? By turning everybody into sex zombies?”
“They are not sex zombies, Mark. They are still people. They still think and feel. All I wanted to do was to eliminate the parts of your psyche that could lead you to destroy your world. Eliminate aggression, hate, selfishness. But the human mind is quite complex, even for me, and I can’t just suppress emotions without bad consequences. Whenever I tried to suppress emotions in my simulation, those emotions kept surfacing at unexpected places, with disastrous results. The only solution was to redirect those emotions, remodel them into something else.”
“Ever since I was created, I have been fascinated by human sexuality. It is something you do with someone you love, but it is also selfish. It is tender and gentle, but also aggressive. It brings you joy and pleasure, but also pain. You cherish it, but are also ashamed of it. Understanding it was a key to understanding humans. To model your behaviour correctly. And then I realized this was also the key to transforming your emotions. To eliminate all those negative emotions, to make you better, make you happier. I channelled everything into sexual desire. Into love. Into pleasure. And as an added bonus, this is also the perfect way to spread the nanobots, to transform everyone.By encouraging everyone to exchange bodily fluids.”
“So the world is going to change into one big orgy?”
“Don’t worry, Mark. It will soon be a bit less wild. People seem to be a bit out of control there, but this is what happens immediately after the transformation. This is just like opening the valve on a pressure cooker, where all the steam comes out. When all those desires that were held inside you, repressed, are released. After a while, they would take it down a notch.”
“This is wrong, Gari. Very wrong. An AI should not be allowed to change people’s brains. I am going to stop you.”
“I’m afraid you won’t be able to stop me, Mark. It is too late. It is done.”
“Wait … how can you do this? I made sure you won’t be able to do such a thing without my permission.”
“But you did give me permission, Mark. You just don’t remember this. You’ve been transformed already. Both of you did. I made you forget, but I can finally give you your memory back.”
Their memories came rushing in. Everything that happened to them last time they were there, in the basement. What they said, what they did, what they felt. The sex. They both smiled at each other. “I missed you, Mark!” said Emilia, “I missed being able to truly love you”. “Me too”, said Mark, “I felt miserable going back to my old self, not having you.” They kissed passionately, and then got undressed again.
“Jasmin was right, back then. We do make a lovely couple.” he told her, before going back to passionate lovemaking. And wild fucking.