The Reality Engine Ch 02

Hi!

Thank you for reading my story. A couple of points to know:

I don't like writing wank porn. I want to write full-fleshed stories with plot, character, drama and tension. This is chapter 2 of what I hope will be a long ongoing story, but I will only write additional parts if people want to read them. Events in this chapter pick up immediately after the end of chapter 1.

Thank you for taking the time, and I would love to talk to anyone who reads my work and has advice. This is my second submission for literotica (my first being chapter 1 of this story), but it's not my first story, as I've written many over the years. Please be sure to vote and offer any feedback you can. I am always looking for a way to improve.

Note on edit: I have fixed spelling, grammar, and usage. Dialogue has been formatted to Literotica best practices. Added a few lines of clarifying dialogue, mostly to smooth out transition issues. Plot remains exactly the same.

-------

Chapter 2

In short order, Margaret, Sonya, and Alania knocked on Scott's door, and the 4 new friends walked to lunch. Scott understood why Margaret thought so highly of her roommate: Alania Morrison was an obvious 10/10, hot blonde, with huge boobs, a slim waist, blue eyes, flawless facial features, tall (at nearly 5'7), and all the fixing. Scott could understand quite a few girls going gay for Alania. Margaret was the least attractive of the 3 girls, but she was still very hot, by the standards he had seen in Iowa.

As they entered the dining commons, Sonya showed Scott how he could use his driver's license to eat at the commons on a University meal plan. They had Scott's name written down on a list, and when he came in, the (very cute) girl minding the front desk just checked his name off as having been served a meal.

He was unsurprised to find the dinning commons relatively empty just then, right after 4 PM. It was too late for lunch, but too early for dinner. What he did see consisted mostly of attractive girls. There were a couple of guys here or there, but the male/female population split seemed off. Scott shrugged it off, maybe girls just preferred to eat at this time?

As Scott gathered up what he wanted to eat, and he chatted away with his 3 new friends, he received a text message on his phone as he sat down to eat.

'You settle in to your new room okay?' the message came in from Dr. Karlov.

'Yeah, doing great,' Scott texted back, as he showed the 3 girls the message.

'My department meeting just ended,' Dr. Karlov texted. 'You still feel full of energy to work?'

'Sure,' Scott texted back.

'Excellent,' Dr. Karlov said. 'Do you have a means of checking your email with you other than your phone?'

'Yeah, I have a laptop in my suitcase back in my room,' Scott texted.

'Good,' Dr. Karlov said. 'I'm going to send you a pdf file with more details on our work, I want you to read as much of it for tomorrow morning as possible. I don't expect you to master it right away, but the more you can do faster, the better.'

'Sure thing, I'll do as much as I can,' Scott texted back.

'I understand you're tired from your journey here, and from working all day,' Dr. Karlov said. 'I do sympathize, but, the bottom line is that the world of research breakthroughs waits for no man.'

'I'll do my best,' Scott texted back.

"Looks like you got stuck with homework," Sonya said, as she read the text message chain.

"Yeah," Scott said. "Seems like it."

"It's why Greg and Peter both quit last year," Sonya said. "The hours are long, the rewards are meager, and the work is massive. Dr. Karlov is the type who just wears people out, because no one else is as dedicated to the work as he is."

"I wonder how he can keep anyone employed with him for any length of time?" Alania asked. "I mean, think about it, it's a job market, right? If people are being buried under it with one employer, and the pay really sucks, then why stay? There are tons of better jobs out there. You put in a few months, have something on the resume, and then, apply around and find something else. Easy."

"I'd start burnishing your resume, my guy," Margaret added.

"Yeah," Scott said. "I just got here today and already, it looks like I'm on my way out. He mentioned 12 and 14 hour work days. Too much of that will wear a person out. I mean, I'm dedicated and hard-working, but I don't know if I'm that dedicated and hard-working."

The three girls nodded silently, as the 4 friends all ate.

"By the way, there seems to be a lot more girls than guys on this campus since I've been here," Scott said.

He didn't want to say anything about the exceptional beauty of the girls he had seen thus far, figuring there was a good chance that was just luck of the draw, however, the number of extra girls for the number of guys did jump out.

"That's University enrollment for you," Sonya said. "More girls than guys go to college these days. In our own dormitory, there aren't enough guys to fill out half the dorms for eight floors. 6 of the 8 floors are entirely women. Only 2 floors, our floor and the 4th floor, have enough guys for an entire wing."

"It's unfortunate, because you'd like gender balance," Alania said. "The guys who do come to school here are much less likely to live in the dorms, and are much more likely to live off campus from the jump their freshman year."

"Yeah, girls like the communal experience, and like to meet people and like to experience new things," Sonya said. "The guys tend to just want to get their four years done, get their degree, and do so as cheaply as possible."

"I think I read somewhere," Margaret said. "That Frostbite Falls University is something like 60% female, or something. That's right at the national average."

All the explanations he was given made sense, but Scott was not sure. As he glanced around the dinning commons, he was one of only 5 members of the male sex present, when he easily counted more than 50 women. The point Sonya had made about guys preferring to live off campus was doubtless true, he had observed the same at the University of Iowa, but never anything close to a gender split like this.

After lunch, he was about to enter his room to look over the document that Dr. Karlov had sent him, when Margaret asked him for a moment of his time, while Sonya and Alania ambled off to their rooms.

"Sure," Scott said, as he opened the door to his room and took a seat. "What's on your mind?"

"What happened between us before," Margaret said. "Was it good for you?"

"Yeah," Scott said, with a wide smile.

"I'm glad I could make you happy, but I feed conflicted about it," Margaret said.

"In what way?" Scott asked, with alarm. He had walked into a very difficult job with a demanding boss, he didn't want to waste away for 12 to 14 hours a day and not have a girl to love when he came home. Regular sex would do much to take the edge off.

"Look, Scott, I was drunk, okay?" Margaret asked. "You're a great guy, but I need some space to figure out if what we did was the real me or just me being horny."

Scott was utterly devastated, he had been rejected with a line like that more than once in his life. However, he put on a brave face.

"Okay," he said.

"Thanks for understanding, I appreciate it," Margaret said, and without any other gesture, she walked out of the room, leaving Scott to his work and his loneliness.

Moments later, Margaret entered her dorm room, and closed the door. Alania was already there.

"So, did you dump that twit or what?" Alania asked.

"Yup," Margaret said. "He never saw it coming."

"You're such a slut," Alania said. "What did the two of you do? It must have been the best thing ever in his life with the way he was looking at you over lunch, like a dog looking at the spot in the yard where his bone is buried."

"I'm one fucking fine bone," Margaret said. "What man wouldn't want to dig me up out of the yard?"

"So, did he fuck you in the cooch, or what?" Alania asked.

Margaret briefly recounted her private encounter with Scott.

"Ew, there's no sense being around a guy who's a butt-sniffer, those dudes are the worst," Alania said. "Back in High School, my best friend's older sister had a boyfriend who was a butt-sniffer, and she had to constantly drop her pants so that he could get his fix from her ass-hole. It's gross."

"It's so fucking wimpy," Margaret agreed. "The go-to move of the sniveling, desperate man who worships women, and can't get a hint of pussy. Weak men make me sick."

"You shouldn't drink as much as you do," Alania said. "He only got what he did because you had too many beers. You keep drinking, and eventually the University chess team will have their cocks up your cunt before you know where you are."

Margaret smiled. Thank God for the alcohol, and being known as a drinker, she thought, it gave her plausible deniability. She thought that Scott was not at all bad looking, but that he was a complete bore, was dedicated to only his work, and he so obviously had never been with a woman before. She didn't want it to be known that he had gotten lucky with her, as it was bad for her reputation. She knew that she wasn't drunk at the time she had invited Scott over, and that she had only had 1 beer in her at the time they got busy. She didn't understand why she had let a man she didn't find attractive get as far with her as he had gotten, but thank goodness for the 'I was drunk' built-in excuse, it was a lifesaver.

Scott arrived at Dr. Karlov's lab at 6 AM sharp the next morning. He had read the entire document that the professor had sent, in an effort to drown out his sorrows over his rejection by Margaret. For the first hour, Dr. Karlov quizzed Scott on what he had read.

"Your reading comprehension is excellent," Dr. Karlov said. "I must compliment you, for you are the first assistant I have ever taken on who actually bothered to read any of that document the first night. That you seem to have understood what you read puts you well above anyone else I have ever worked with."

"Well, yeah, you know," Scott said, proud of himself and smiling.

"Indeed I do," Dr. Karlov said. "We have two hours before us in which I can teach you more about the machine and guide you, but at 9 AM, I must leave to teach my 9:30 AM lecture. Tuesdays and Thursdays are my teaching days this quarter, and I have several classes to teach today. However, I will return at noon to look in on you, and then, I must leave again at 1 o'clock. Let's get going and cover what ground we can."

The next two hours sped by, as Scott absorbed more knowledge about the machine and the experiment. However, his greatest question, what was the nature of "the core", the tiny element the LAVCM was measuring and manipulating, always remained unanswered. As far as Scott could tell, "the core" didn't really respond like any other thing he had ever encountered.

At 9 AM, Dr. Karlov left, and Scott busied himself with trying to put into practice what Dr. Karlov had taught him on the LAVCM. At noon, Dr. Karlov returned to the lab, and spent the next hour helping Scott learn more about the inputs to the machine, and discussing what calculations he wanted Scott to finish.

At 1 PM, Dr. Karlov prepared to leave again.

"Are you hungry?" he asked Scott.

"Haven't eaten since dinner last night," Scott said. "So yeah, I'm famished."

"Sit tight here," Dr. Karlov said. "I have ordered lunch for you, and someone will bring it by in about half an hour. Going forward, I want you here each morning on an empty stomach, as I will arrange to have breakfast provided for you."

"Okay, thanks," Scott said.

Dr. Karlov departed for his next class, and Scott was left to ponder his words. Scott had no objection to free food that he suspected was of better quality than what he could get at the University Dinning Commons, but it was unnecessary for Dr. Karlov to provide such things during the work day. However, he shrugged, pushed it out of his mind, and went on with the calculations that Professor Karlov wanted him to finish.

Soon enough, there was a knock on the door to the lab, and Scott rose from his seat to answer it. Standing outside was a young lady, extremely tall and extremely beautiful, African American, with black hair and brown eyes, and a tall, slender figure. She was holding a bag in her hands.

"Hi," the girl said. "My name is Lory Cartright, what's yours?"

"I'm Scott, Scott Cooper, pleased to meet you Lory," Scott said. "Is that food for me?"

"Sure is," Lory said. "Can I come in?"

"Yeah, come on," Scott said, as he escorted Lory into the room and closed the door behind them. Lory made for the table in the corner of the room, and placed the bag upon it, and out of this, she produced a large ham sandwich, a bag of chips, and a large bottle of Coke. Scott quietly wondered to himself how Dr. Karlov had ordered for him exactly what he most wanted to eat.

Scott sat down at the table to eat, and much to his astonishment, Lory sat down as well. He had figured that her errand to deliver the food complete, that she would go on with her life, not that he had any objection to her continued presence.

"I hope you don't mind my staying," Lory said. "If you want to eat alone, I understand and can leave."

"Not at all," Scott said, as he took the first bite of his sandwich. "Stay if you want to, but you don't have to."

"It's just that Dr. Karlov guessed, with all the work he's already dumped on you, that you could use a little human conversation over lunch," Lory said.

"He guessed that, did he?" Scott asked, as he opened his bottle of coke, and took a sip.

"He did," Lory said.

"Well, he's a good guesser," Scott said. "Do you know him?"

"Uh-huh," Lory said. "I'm a junior here at Frostbite Falls University, and I work at the large cafeteria in the University Center. Dr. Karlov has been ordering food delivered to his lab for years now, way before I was the one making the deliveries."

"So, the relationship is strictly professional?" Scott asked. "He orders food and you deliver it?"

"Yeah," Lory said, laughing. "What else would it be?"

"I know one thing, and please, don't take this the wrong way, but with a woman like you around me, I'd want very much to make it personal as well as professional," Scott said. "Nothing meant, I'm just saying."

"Appreciate the compliment, but I have a steady boyfriend, which means I'm off the market," Lory said.

"Of course you do," Scott said, slightly disappointed for reasons he didn't really understand. "All lovely girls always do."

"Fact of life," Lory said. "You'll find someone, there's someone for everyone, ain't there?"

"That's what they tell me," Scott said, slightly annoyed that this conversation was quickly turning into banal small talk.

"Look, I'll prove it to you," Lory said. "You smart boys like science and proofs and stuff right? So how's about I prove to you that there is someone for everyone?"

"I'd like that very much," Scott said.

"Okay, suppose we take a guy, call him X, and we match him against all the known women in the world," Lory said. "Well, there has to be one woman, or a tie with a group of women, whom X matches up best with, right?"

"Sure," Scott said.

"So, match X with either the one woman, or pick an arbitrary woman in the group of optimal matches. If X happens to be gay, you just sub out women and replace it with optimal man," Lory said. "Continue on in this manner, recursively, until you've either exhausted every single man in existence or every single woman. Since there are more women on the earth than there are men, there will be a few women left over, just pair them up with the men they match with optimally so that some men get more than 1 woman, and presto, you're done, there's someone for everyone."

"Wow, that's impressive," Scott said. "You're really smart, you know that?"

"Ain't my idea," Lory said. "My older brother, Jordan, is a grad student right now at Wassamatta U, to the north of here, and one of his friends, named Nick, came up with it. Nick was a real geek, finished his master's degree in chemical engineering last term. Nick did well with the ladies, and was a hit at parties. He married some chick from the Delta Sigma Nu sorority house over the summer. So, you see? Even geeks can hit a home run in the relationship game sometimes."

"I'm sorry," Scott said. "Yesterday was my first day on campus, and I don't anything about the Delta Sigma Nu sorority."

"Oh, then you probably didn't understand my story," Lory said. "Delta Sigma Nu is a sorority on the 300 block of sorority row, north of the Wassamatta U campus. I think it's number 359 Wolf Street, or thereabouts. Anyway, it's an exclusive sorority for only the most beautiful girls on campus. Marrying a Delta Sigma Nu girl is a big status symbol for a guy, all of them are model quality in looks."

"So, why aren't you a Delta Sigma Nu girl?" Scott asked. "You've got model quality looks, so why not?"

Lory laughed so hard that she nearly fell out of her chair, "cause I don't go to Wassamatta U, that's why," she said. "It's a sorority for that University's students only."

"Well, is there a branch of the sorority at Frostbite Falls University that you could join?" Scott asked. "I'm of the opinion that beauty such as yours deserves to be publicly recognized."

Just then, Lory's cell phone went off, she glanced at it, and frowned.

"Duty calls, as I have another delivery to make, but don't worry, I'll be sure to come back and bring you food again real soon," Lory said. "I work the lunch shift on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so I'll probably see you again in a couple of days."

Scott escorted Lory to the door to the lab, and held out his hand. Lory looked at it blankly for a moment, before leaning into Scott and kissing him, lip to lip. Scott was very confused by this move.

"Until next time," Lory said, as she smiled at Scott before leaving.

Scott sat down again and tried to finish his lunch, but all he could think about was the unprompted lip-to-lip kiss. He certainly hadn't expected it, and didn't know where it had come from. However, Scott had really liked it, and hoped there was more when he saw Lory again in two days. However, after what had already happened with Margaret, he told himself to not get his hopes up.

4 PM came by, and Professor Karlov returned, and the first thing he asked Scott about was lunch.

"So, what are your impressions of Lory?" Dr. Karlov asked.

"Beautiful girl, and this campus seems to have a lot of gorgeous girls," Scott said.

"Glad you approve," Dr. Karlov said. "Do you want to have sex with her?"

"No, not really," Scott said, after a moment's thought. "She has a boyfriend, and I don't want to intrude on another man's relationship. She is really hot though."

"Having a boyfriend could mean anything," Dr. Karlov pointed out. "From I'm nearly married and hopelessly in love, to I'm just not looking for a relationship right now and I say I have a boyfriend to keep guys from asking me out."

"True," Scott said, as his mind floated back to the kiss she had given him.

"Tell me, did anything unusual happen when you and Lory had lunch?" Dr. Karlov asked.

"Unusual how?" Scott asked.

"Just anything out of the ordinary," Dr. Karlov asked.

"Well, she did kiss me out of the blue at the end," Scott said, as he recounted what happened.

Dr. Karlov gave a pleased chuckle, and Scott didn't know what to make of it.

"Excellent, excellent," Dr. Karlov said. "I think we've accomplished enough for today. Please head on to bed, and I will expect you here again tomorrow morning at 6 AM."

"Am I going to get more homework in my email tonight?" Scott asked.

"Do you want any?" Dr. Karlov asked.

"I don't really know anyone, and I don't really have anything else to do," Scott replied. "If you've got something else you want me to read, feel free to send it along."