"And so that's all there is to it, Mr. Cooper. It's all completely free. For now, anyway."
The young man smiled, his blond hair stringy, unwashed. Pimples dotted his cheeks, and he continually pushed his silver, wire-rimmed glasses up the bridge of his nose. Mike doubted the guy could have been more than twenty. So this was Jon Chamberlinne, inventor extraordinaire? He wasn't impressed.
"How did you come to learn about my, uhh, services, anyway, Mr. Cooper?" Chamberlinne went on.
Mike swallowed, said, "My friend told me about it. Roy, you probably remember him? Well, he said you created the most amazing thing he ever saw. He said the only reason you haven't gone public with it yet is because you needed to test it out more. I guess that means you're looking for a few guinea pigs."
Chamberlinne laughed, a high-pitched sound that reminded Mike of a skittish squirrel scolding a passerby. "That's as apt a manner to put it as any other. I can't market this software until I know it works, absolutely. And I also need to make sure it's safe. There may be risks involved."
"Risks?"
"Sit down, Mr. Cooper."
Chamberlinne motioned toward a cheap-looking swivel chair. Mike sat in it. He might as well get comfortable, since he'd probably be here for a while. He had to admit, this wasn't exactly the way he pictured the lair of a would-be wizard inventor. Chamberlinne's small apartment had few furnishings, piles of unwashed clothes littered the floor, the remains of a leftover frozen pizza were strewn on the kitchen counter, and the overhead light didn't work. They sat in lamp light, which Mike supposed was for the best anyway. He didn't exactly want to see Chamberlinne's acne-covered face any clearer than he had to.
Suddenly there was a shout coming from above. A woman's voice, screaming at someone to go to hell.
"Don't mind the Hansons," Chamberlinne said. "They fight every night. This is nothing. They're just getting started."
A man's voice, hoarse, sounding liquored up, yelled back, telling the unseen woman to go fuck herself, because he sure wasn't going to do the honors.
"Charming," Mike said. "He doesn't physically abuse her, does he?"
Chamberlinne snorted. "Hell, no. All they do is yell. It's harmless shit. Kind of distracting when I first moved in here. But you know, you adjust. You get used to stuff."
Mike shrugged, nodded. He hoped he'd get used to the Hansons in a hurry. If he didn't, they'd ruin the whole thing. He wanted to get the most out of this invention he had heard so much about. Roy had been his friend for ten years. He wasn't the sort of guy to exaggerate, so when he told Mike that he had to get his ass over Jon Chamberlinne's and try out his new application . . . well, he was very intrigued. And from what Roy had said, the more you could concentrate, the more you could lose yourself in the virtual game, the better the experience would be.
"Your friend was right about that," Chamberlinne said. "It's the kind of thing where . . . you get out of it what you put into it." From upstairs, Mike heard Mrs. Hanson tell her husband that he had a small dick and didn't know how to use it, to which Mr. Hanson demanded to know whose dick she was comparing his to. Was she cheating on him? Chamberlinne shook his head. "She says he has a small pecker every night. Don't know why he acts so flabbergasted at this point. He should be used to it by now."
Mike couldn't care less how big Mr. Hanson's dick was. Besides, that was an area he didn't need to feel inferior about. Mike wielded a solid eight inches of man-meat. Thick, too. That was one of the reasons he wanted to try this whole invention thing out. He was confident in his abilities to attract and seduce women.
"Anyway," Chamberlinne went on, "the application is completely unpredictable. No results are predetermined. So, the more you allow yourself to experience what it has to offer, the more mental energy you exert, the better your chances will be. After all, I'm well aware why you're here. It's the same reason millions of guys will want to purchase my baby once it's ready for the market. To have the opportunity to fuck any fictional female creation is too good to pass up."
"Yeah, see that's the thing, though," Mike said. "Having a chance to fuck any fictional character? How is that possible? I mean, how can your application know every fictional female character?"
Chamberlinne smiled. Upstairs, the Hansons continued with their war of words. Now Mr. Hanson was calling his wife fat. "Okay. Perhaps I am guilty of hyperbole. Let me rephrase. My application has every female creation of any repute. Obscure creations aren't included. Some of them will be, in time, as I expand the database. But for now, I think you will find that your choices are expansive enough. There are over two thousand female characters to choose from. And, as I mentioned, that number grows by the day."
Mike let out a breath, glanced at the remains of Chamberlinne's frozen pizza on his kitchen counter. The apartment was so small, nearly every square foot of it could be scanned from where he sat.
"Well, I don't need to look at your list. I know who I want. You do have June Cleaver available, I hope."
Chamberlinne let out a hearty laugh. "Naturally. How could I not? I wouldn't mind taking a crack at her myself, when I have the chance."
"You mean, you haven't even tried your own invention out for yourself?"
"I can't. What if something goes wrong? What if I get stranded? I can't chance it until I know all risks have been eliminated."
Mike didn't like the sound of that. It was the second time Chamberlinne had used the word "risks." What risks was he referring to?
"Well, consider," Chamberlinne said, again thumbing his wire-rimmed glasses up the bridge of his nose. "I fed my database with as much pertinent information as humanly possible. I've spent much, much time researching for this project, Mr. Cooper. Every day, fifteen hours a day, for three years. Family life? What's a family? I am a . . . devoted . . . practitioner of my craft." Based on his unwashed hair, zits, crappy apartment, Mike didn't doubt it. This guy obviously was the obsessive type. "That said, I want my application to be a free-flowing system. That is, I can feed it everything I possibly can about all of the fictional characters I include. But in the end, the application, not me, will decide what happens."
Mike didn't understand, and it seemed that Chamberlinne read the confusion on his face.
"Put another way," the inventor said, "I can 'create' June Cleaver, but I cannot know what she will do once a scenario plays out. The application 'knows' her based on the data I feed it, but then it freely chooses to do what it will with said data based on the situation she is placed in. So . . . let's say you use my application, meet June Cleaver. I have no idea what will happen, Mr. Cooper. Perhaps she'll fuck you seven ways to Sunday. Perhaps that naughty, repressed side of her I'm sure you want to unleash will explode all over your erect cock. Or, perhaps, she'll slam the door in your face, call the police, or, worse . . ." he paused, for dramatic effect . . . "call Ward."
Mike laughed. You didn't want an angry Ward Cleaver coming after your hide. But that also brought up an interesting point. "You said you created just female characters, though," Mike said. "If that's the case, then how can Ward even be anywhere in your application?"
"You have a quick mind, Mr. Cooper," Chamberlinne said. "I like that." Upstairs, Mrs. Hanson threatened to slice off Mr. Hanson's sorry excuse of a dick if he didn't quit calling her fat. "Think of my application as a world unto itself. Like a dream world, or, in this case, a virtual world. The application knows everything June Cleaver knows. Therefore, it creates the people she knows. If you knock on her door, make a pass at her, she certainly will be able to call old Ward to the rescue, and he certainly might show up. Her entire world, everything she knows and feels and dreams and fears and aspires to, is included in my application."
Mike had to admit, it sounded awfully impressive. Still, what about the risks? Chamberlinne hadn't really answered that.
Chamberlinne sat back in his chair, putting his fingertips together, forming a hand-tent. "Well, Mr. Cooper, as I said, once you enter into my application, it becomes a world unto itself. Anything can happen. And even though it isn't 'real,' per se, it will seem real to you. You will honestly believe you are there, with June Cleaver. So, for example, if Ward comes around and decides to gun you down with a rifle, you will die in the application, correct?"
Mike nodded. Yeah, a rifle shot from Ward would likely do him in.
"But the application will feel so real to you, Mr. Cooper. Just as if you were really living it. Or, in the scenario just mentioned, as if you were really dying. And because of that, I can't be sure what the risks are. It might prove too much for you. It is not inconceivable that your heart will cease beating. You will believe, in your mind, that you are dead. Every fiber of your being will believe that, Mr. Cooper. And so I am not sure what will happen. It is entirely possible that your virtual death might carry over to your actual death. And that is why, if you wish to proceed, I must have you sign this release form." He reached into his pocket, took out a folded slip of paper. "I don't mean to be overly dramatic, Mr. Cooper. I just need to protect myself. You know, just in case."
