Launch: Chapter 31

  After his encounter with Amber, Markus was in a daze and he took a roadpod aimlessly around the city, with no particular direction in mind.  Something within him compelled him to seek out a simple and uncomplicated pleasure.  He had the roadpod take him to see Molly, his favourite simulant prostitute.  He used to invite Hugh to come along and visit one of her associates, but he’d stopped asking long ago.  When Hugh refused Markus didn’t really understand and only blinked in response; eventually he just stopped asking.  For whatever reason it was just something Hugh had never been interested in.

  Human prostitution was legal, but it was ever rarer these days.  The proliferation of sexims of all kinds had effectively saturated the market, but human prostitution had dried up even more due to the relative absence of desperation in the New Commonwealth.  It was simply not possible anymore for one to have to prostitute themselves for a lack of other options as a matter of survival.  The Baseline ensured that it was effectively impossible for someone to have to sell their body to eat for another day, or to have shelter for the night, or to get their next fix.

  Human prostitution still occurred, but the relative scarcity of humans willing to do so meant that those who were willing could command extraordinary prices from those solicitors who for one reason or another preferred them over simulants.  Those who did engage human prostitutes swore they could tell the difference but simulations were so perfect this was not really possible and blind experiments confirmed this.  The only difference was the psychological gratification of knowing that they were purchasing a ‘real’ person.  Ironically, there had even been some cases of the more crafty sexims marketing themselves as humans and operating this way for years before being caught.  None of their clients ever seemed to notice before they were caught.

  Reasons for humans to engage in prostitution nowadays varied as much as the reasons for solicitation itself did.  Most commonly it was the appeal of the incredible prices they could command and the lavish lifestyle it could afford them, a lifestyle well above and beyond what they could have just collecting the Baseline or with any entry level job supplementing it.  Fewer still did it just because they enjoyed it, or were drawn to some aspect of the power dynamic of being dominated, or of dominating their clients.  As in all things, the reason for the behaviour was as diverse as those who engaged in the behaviour themselves.  Whatever the reasons though, between the Baseline, the ready availability of high quality sexims, and perhaps most importantly the absence of a shroud of criminality around it, the exploitative prostitution of the past had disappeared entirely.

  “Hello Markus,” she smiled warmly, “It’s been too long, how are you?” she asked.  She had her thick dark blond hair in broad loose curls.   Her lightly bronzed skin and somewhat large shapely breasts were clearly visible through her sheer pink negligee with white frills about the edges of it.  The colour of the white frill matched the white panties she was wearing just as the pink of her lipstick matched the colour of her negligee.  She wasn’t quite as tall as Markus, and when they stood beside each other she was clearly at least a couple decimeters shorter than him.

  “I’m good,” he answered reflectively, and then he told the truth.  “Actually I’m not good… actually I’m quite devastated, and incredibly conflicted…”

  “Oh no… I’m sorry to hear that,” she replied sympathetically.  She looked at him with her sincere hazel eyes opened even wider than they normally were.  “Do you… want to talk about it?”  It was a perfectly reasonable question, but one she’d never had to ask before.  He’d never had much interest in having conversations of any depth or consequence with her.  It was usually just some exchanged pleasantries, and then he’d want to get right down to business.  Either activity was fine with her though, many came to her as much for someone to talk to in complete confidentiality as they did to partake in her body.

                 

  Molly was an authorized sexim of a woman who was older than Markus, but decades ago had been a phenomenally popular music star.  When Markus was twelve or thirteen or so, and just beginning to discover his nascent sexuality, the woman whom Molly was based on had burst onto the pop culture scene in her late teens.  This model was based on the original Molly when she’d been about eighteen and was just hitting the heights of her popularity.  She’d been Markus’ first infatuation, an infatuation he found eminently safer than any interest in any of the real girls around him.  Her celebrity made her something of a fictional character to him, something safer to be captivated by than anyone real, something which could never reject him.

  A couple decades later when the original Molly’s music career was clearly in its twilight, she’d authorized the creation of a dozen sexual simulations of herself, and this contract with the manufacturer was more than enough to keep her in a lavish lifestyle until the end of her days.  Each sim of any kind was a carefully crafted work of art, brought into existence by craftsmen with an artistic talent and attention to detail which was truly unparalleled.  Sexims were one of the first applications of high quality simulants once the technology was perfected; in fact the demand for such beings was one of the principle drivers for the development of the technology in the first place.

  Sexims were undoubtedly the most common purpose of any unlawful simulations, but Molly was commissioned legally and with the full input and support of her original progenitor.  Not only were the simulations physically identical to her younger self, but her personality (or at least her public persona) was an incredible match because of her progenitor’s direct involvement and participation in the simulation process.  Most celebrities found it unseemly to be involved in something like this, but some did choose to nonetheless.

  Some chose to out of vanity, others on account of the ease of the money, but some genuinely liked the idea of their fans being able to partake in their eternally youthful body without them having to physically participate themselves.  They saw it as an unusual and profound way to ‘give back’ to their fans.  The original Molly had been quoted as saying that she’d prefer that her fans from that part of her life remember her the way she’d been back then.   For her it was a way of partitioning the life and person she’d been in her youth, and the life and person she was now, later in her life.  As many people and celebrities as there were who liked the idea though, even more found the idea somehow trashy, sick even.

  One of the mixed blessings of simulants though, is that their minds subtly changed over time.  It was found that they could only be truly convincing if they had this capacity.   Any attempts to rob them of it always left them vacant somehow.  As a result, from the moment of their creation simulants of any kind began to gradually and subtly drift away from their original programming, and the original faithful recreation of their progenitor’s personality.  As a result there was often a slow attrition of sexims.   Of the dozen models which were created of Molly for example, around the world only ten remained in service as sexims.   The other two had quit to pursue their own interests and their own lives.  Since they were deemed to have the same intrinsic rights as humans, as fully self-conscious beings, nothing could be done other than allowing them to go, and wishing them well.

  As long as they did perform the function they were created for though, they paid a percentage commission of their sales to the simulant company which manufactured them.   It usually didn’t take more than a few years of operation for a run of a dozen simulants like Molly to recoup to the company the considerable costs of their creation.  It was pimping of a sort, but the sexims were created expressly for that purpose, and were programmed with a sincere desire to fulfill that purpose, and if they developed the capacity to wish for a life beyond it, they were promptly released and wished well on their journeys.  It also had to be acknowledged, that they would not have existed at all, if they had not been created expressly for the purpose they were.

  Once high quality sexims were perfected, it wasn’t long before child sexims were produced as part of a research program to develop a comprehensive strategy for treating otherwise intractable pedophilia.   They were found to be effective in many cases ranging from simple curiosity to a tragically exclusive unacceptable sexual orientation, and as a result there were currently in circulation quite a few child equivalents of Molly in a variety of apparent ages.  In these cases those who were cursed with a sexual attraction to children finally had a means of engaging in what was for them a natural feeling behaviour, but without victimizing anyone as had previously been a horrific requisite consequence of doing so.  It was this inescapable reality which had previously forced the ones who wished to and could, to deny themselves the object of their sexual desires for their entire lives.

  In seemingly as many cases however, the treatment was remarkably ineffective.  Like those who preferred human adult prostitutes because it was the exploitation in particular which excited them, there were those who were not only attracted to children, but who specifically enjoyed the element of victimization.  For these people the sexisms were an ineffective surrogate because for them it was about sexual attraction to abuse itself, to power, domination, and control.  Knowing that their victims were not real children, in conjunction with the absence of being able to inflict upon them genuine pain, abuse, humiliation, or horror, ultimately made them an ineffective substitute.  Researchers had toyed with the idea of creating adult and child sexims who could simulate and display these negative feelings and experiences, but such a being would actually have to feel and experience these things in order to adequately simulate them.  No one had ever had the heart to actually create such a tortured being for so explicitly terrible an existence.

  The simulation of a child for any reason was actually quite rare in any case.  When it did happen, they were usually created by parents who had lost their child and wanted to bring their sons or daughters back from the dead.  Much of the joy in having children originates in watching them grow and mature… but these were functions no mechanoids could ever duplicate.   They would inevitably deviate gradually from their original programming, but at a glacial pace compared to the exponential rate at which real human children developed.

  

  Markus told Molly everything.  He could tell that she was taken aback by his exposing himself to her in this way.  He had never spoken to her about much of anything at all, much less at length about something like the crisis he was currently facing.  He told her all about the mission, his initial dubiousness and subsequent affirmation of it, his mother’s accident, and now Amber’s pregnancy.

  “Wow…” she said.  “I never knew any of this about you, Markus.  We’ve never really… you know talked before.”  She seemed genuinely pleased at his newfound comfort and willingness to open up to her.   “It sounds like an incredible opportunity,” she commented when he didn’t offer any more information.

  “I know…” Markus said.  “So many people wanted a spot on that ship… but it was me who won a spot, somebody who never really wanted it in the first place.  It’s crazy.”

  “No,” she answered with a slight giggle as she looked down for a moment.  “I mean Amber, the pregnancy.”

  “Oh,” Markus answered, surprised.  “Really?  How do you figure?”

  “I’m a sim Markus… I can’t have children.”

  “Oh, right.” Markus responded, a little embarrassed.

  “To be honest, I’m kind of jealous.  Here you have offered to you on a silver platter something I could never have even if I really wanted it…  You see, If I’m careful my lifespan is effectively… well limitless, but family… having one or starting one… well that’s one thing I can never do, something forbidden from me forever.  I may be ageless in my own way… but in this way I’m oh so painfully mortal.   Reproduction is… well, it’s what really separates your kind from mine, not the technology or the material we’re made of.”

  “You’re right… I never thought about it that way before,” Markus reflected.  “Does that really bother you?  Do you think about it a lot?” he asked.

  She shook her head and the curls of her hair bobbed about in concert.  “What’s to be bothered about?” she said with a somewhat feigned smile.  “It’s just the nature of existence…”  He detected a hint of sadness in her eyes now, something he’d never seen before.  He wondered if he’d just never looked that hard before, if he’d just never thought of her as a person enough to really notice her feeling anything at all.

  “I’m sorry…” Markus found himself compelled to say for a reason he could neither identify nor understand.

  With her eyes just a hint wetter than they’d been before, she looked at him wide eyed again with a charming smile.  “It’s alright…” she responded reassuringly, “I imagine it’s better than not existing in any form at all.”

  “I suppose we’ve all got our existential limitations…” Markus said in reflection.

  “Damn right…” Molly said agreed.  “Markus, can I give you some advice?”

  “I can use all the advice I can get,” he answered somewhat ironically.

  “Don’t let anyone else make this decision for you.  It sounds like this may be the first truly consequential lose-lose decision you’ve ever had to make in your life.  I think you’ll be robbed of something if you don’t really look inside yourself and decide what path you really want for yourself, based on knowing yourself in a way no one else can know you.  The way I see it you win either way… you only lose if you make the choice you don’t really believe in, if you make the choice you won’t be able to live with…” she shrugged, “whichever that is.”

  “You’re a smart woman.” Markus declared thoughtfully.

  “I have my moments,” she replied with a sexy smile, her spirits now fully restored.

  Markus discovered he had a newfound affection for this woman, this sexim whom he’d used so many times for his own gratification, with no regard for her thoughts or feelings or desires.  In the same moment he realized he had a painfully similar relationship with Amber.  He tolerated a little more from her, and in exchange he got a little more out of their relationship.  With Molly it was some money for some sex, with Amber it was some attention for some affection.  Did he ever really care about her?  Was it ever anything more than infatuation and the comfort of habit?  Now he was beginning to wonder.

  “You sure I can’t interest you in some sex Markus?” she said as she batted her eyes coyly and pushed her breasts together.  “I mean you’re already here…”  She gave him the sexy eyes and playfully tried to entice him.

  “There’s a part of me that really wants to Molly,” Markus offered sincerely, “the part that’s kept me coming back all these years… but I think I finally understand why my friend Hugh was never interested in any of this… it’s shallow.  Don’t get me wrong, I think you’re great and this has nothing to do with whether you’re human or a sim, it’s just…”

  “You don’t love me,” she said with a shrug, “and for some reason that matters to you now.  Something’s changed… now you know what it means to really care about something.”

  “Exactly.  I’m sorry…”

  “Hey, don’t be sorry about that, never.  Caring is… always a good thing, believe me.”

  

***   ***    ***

  

  A couple years after the launch of the New Horizon Generational Starship, the number of Molly sexims would be reduced to only nine.  This third one to leave the profession she was created for would wander the Earth for years, pursuing all of the experiences she could be granted given the nature of her existence.  One day she would find her way up to the Orbital One space station and wander into the Space Outback Bar and Casino, where she would meet an Australian simulant working behind the bar.  Over time they would fall deeply in love.  Eventually they would together become the first simulants in history to commission the creation of their very own human baby, and they would name it Markus.   Under their watchful and loving eyes, that baby would grow up into a happy adult who would later grant them the joy of their first grandchild, and later on their first great grandchild, and then their first great great grandchild, and so on, and so on, for centuries…