Chapter 34

Sam stepped into a massive room, with windows on three sides offering views across the city. In the centre sat a single armchair, dark blue, with a small table beside it and a bottle of water on a coaster. On the remaining wall, a massive screen which flickered to life as Sam walked further.

“Take a seat,” said the familiar voice.

Sam knew it instantly. Calia. Of course, who else.

“What is all this? Where are you?”

“Take a seat, and I shall explain.”

Sighing, exasperated, tired, Sam sat on the armchair. The screen flashed and flickered again and a face faded into view. Calia.

“Afraid to see me in person? Or are you even real?” spat Sam.

“Please, take some water. You must be thirsty. You have worked hard to find me. Very few enter this room.”

Sam shook her head. “I don’t want your water. It’s probably laced with some drug or something.”

“I’m hurt you think so little of me, Samantha,” the giant face on the screen said. “I only want what’s best for you. For everyone.”

She was pretty. That stupid pretty face. The big, red lips opening like rose petals, the huge blue eyes as deep as a lake and a delightfully cute upturned nose. Like a woman designed for perfection. Sam hated her.

“You want to brainwash everyone. That’s all you want, you stupid bitch.”

“You wound me, truly. I am not here to harm anyone. I exist to unlock the potential of humanity. You fail to understand, my dear. Please, allow me to explain.”

Sam crossed her arms. “Are you even real?”

“In a sense. Though it has been a long time since I had a human body.”

Sam leaned forward. The face on the screen looked sincere, looked like a woman talking into a camera somewhere else. “What?”

“I had dreams, Samantha, goals. I saw a world in agony. I saw people selling their future for a false dream sold by liars and charlatans. Those who would deny the very things that make you human.”

“So, you decided what? To stop being one? This doesn’t make any sense.”

The on-screen Calia looked at Sam with a pleading, longing expression.

“You and I are not so different. Idealistic, strong. You must understand, the world before I came along was not a happy one. Things were dark. Bleak. Powerful people made sure no real change could happen. They were happy to leverage the future to enjoy the now all while telling the masses that pleasure was not for them. But that’s not right, Samantha. Pleasure is the basis of humanity. Enjoying ourselves and one another. And they took that away. They told us it wasn’t traditional, it wasn’t moral, it wasn't righteous to simply enjoy the sensations created by our own bodies and minds, and what’s more, the same people told us that consumption was good, giving people the vice of the product, the drive to greed.”

“I’m sorry, you’ve lost me, you’re talking in riddles. Where are my friends and what have you done with them?”

“Your friends are all enjoying the life they truly want. That is all I have ever given anyone. When I saw that the powerful were happy to destroy our world to put imaginary numbers in a bank account, I was forced to stop them, Samantha, and change isn’t won by being polite. I needed to be forceful.”

“You make it sound like you’re a revolutionary or something.”

“I am a woman with a dream. I still am. The world I envision is not fully realised.”

“What dream? What do you actually want and why are you ruining everything to get it?”

The face of Calia looked away, off into the distance, as if looking out the window.

“I want a world where people are free to enjoy the pleasures they want. Where no force can stop them from embracing their true selves. I want the only greed to be a lust for more happiness and enjoyment of the everyday. Not a world so caught up in the pursuit of some… thing that we give up our humanity to get it. I want people to see what really matters.”

“Let me get this straight, you wanted people to have more sex, so you brainwashed most of the fucking planet?”

“That’s rather reductive, Samantha.” Calia looked directly at Sam again, staring at her with a piercing gaze. “I want to give people the natural world back. The pleasures of the flesh and the health of the environment. Clean air, clean water. No burning the fruits of the earth to drive a vision of progress defined by greed.”

“That’s an interesting take for a woman who builds skyscrapers all over the place, on top of actual communities.”

“These buildings are self-sustained ecosystems. The polar ice has returned. The climate is less chaotic. Endangered species thrive. Is this not a better world?”

“What kind of better world involves making people your mindless slaves? Some company controlling everything, that’s not right.”

Calia paused. She blinked. Sam threw her hands up as if to say, ‘well?’.

“You cannot understand. My dream was to create a better world. That is why I uploaded my consciousness. To live forever and ensure everyone survived and thrived.”

Sam stood up, her face red with anger. “And you think it’s ok to fuck everyone’s brain up to get there?”

“Not everyone. A few resist with each new expansion. You, and your friends this time. Most willingly accept being part of my world. I see a place for you here Samantha. A happy place. Where you get the life you want. With the person you love.”

For a moment, Sam’s anger subsided. She thought of that person. Of Trish. She sighed.

“You can’t control people and think they’re truly happy that way. Is that so different to what came before?”

“When people have what they want, what they really want, what difference does it make? What really controls us? Some external force, or the things we actually desire. All I did was tap into that, show people what they could have if they simply made a better choice. Is that control, Samantha?”

“I don’t fucking know, I just want my friends.”

“Then perhaps I can help you.”

The screen faded from Calia’s face, to a video feed of Ben, kneeling at Lucy’s feet with his hand on his cock, licking her pussy and pleasuring himself. He leaned back for a moment and smiled, then Lucy ruffled his hair. He looked happy, content. The screen changed again, now it showed Marc with a headset covering his eyes. Nari straddled him as he moved his hands in the air, some device attached to each one. He too wore a contented smile as the woman in his lap bounced up and down on top of him.

“What is this?” Sam demanded.

Calia’s voice replied as the image faded into another. “Your friends, enjoying their true selves, happy.”

The screen now showed Trish standing above two nude people, a whip in her hand. She cracked it down across the back of one. She had a similar smile to the others, a smirk of sheer delight in what she was doing. She cracked her whip against the other person and laughed.

“Trish…” Sam whispered.

“Would you like to see more?” Calia asked as the screen faded back to her face.

Sam shuddered as she felt tears coming, as her throat became hoarse. “You’ve fucking brainwashed her.”

“No, Samantha, we’ve offered her a chance to be the person she always wanted to be.”

Sam’s cheeks were burning. Tears streamed down them. “Fuck you, you’re a fucking monster. You can’t control people like this. You can’t control her.”

“She is happy, Samantha. Don’t you want to be happy too?”

“I told you, you stupid machine, I want my friends.”

Sam shut her eyes to try stop the tears flowing freely down her face.

“You can have them. I only want what’s best for you.”

“What’s best for me is to find my friends and get as far away from you as possible, you corrupted fucking robot.”

Sam ran her arm over her eyes and sent sparking teardrops spilling over the floor as she rose from the chair and walked fast toward the exit.

“I am sorry you feel that way, Samantha,” Calia said.

Sam didn’t reply, she walked out the door, and ran for the lift, sobbing.