Celebrity Problems (Part III)

My head is spinning.

Did she follow me? 

Maria001’s appearance in Sector 5 is suspect. My subscription to her mentorship program has been running for nearly half a full catalog-year. And not once have I run into her in-person in Sector 1. Now, days after agreeing to volunteer with Lisa010, here she is, in the flesh, lurking in the outer-sectors.

My mind races through our most recent conversation for clues that might have brought her out here. No Celebrity leaves Sector 1 unless it earns them a heap of tokens. And nothing I know of in the outer-sectors can promise such a return.

Except maybe gossip. 

I think back to her words about the “most valuable en-gen” being the kind you can’t generate on-feed. Was it a set-up? She must’ve known my mind would go straight to murder. It’s the only thing the Bots prohibit on-feed. And something users would surely pay to watch, whether I fail or succeed. She’s planning to broadcast! That backstabbing family-lover! The air in my lungs seems to get thicker. I feel my face flush red. 

“Hmm, that’s curious,” Lisa says, breaking through my panic. “Says here she’s off-feed. Maybe she’s coaching unfuckers, too. Let me check the roster.” Her eyes glaze over as she opens up a dashboard in her VIZ-screen. “Well, she’s not here as a volunteer. What in the name of Bot do you think she’s up to?”

Then, it hit me: If she’s off-feed, maybe she’s out here to kill someone, too! She might even have a whole set-up somewhere. Some hidden skypartment where Celebrities with a snuff kink show up in-person to watch, while she beheads some poor unsuspecting unfucker. I wonder how many tokens they’re willing to pay.

Suddenly, I have a much better idea.

“We have to follow her,” I say, constructing a new plan in my head as we speak. I start racking my brain to explain why we need to postpone her charity visit, but I realize I may not have to. Lisa010 is invested. Her brows narrow, eyes fixed on the spot where Maria001 just fled. 

“I’m sure…,” she hesitates, scans her volunteering dashboard again, and continues with a grin, “George453 can wait.” 

My lips curl into a conspiratorial smile. Underneath her phony kindness, I think, Lisa010 is a Celebrity just like me. 

“We should stay off-feed just in case,” I say. “If Maria001 doesn’t want to be seen, she’s likely paying attention to users posting on the SkyWeb out here.”

Lisa010 nods and finally takes the lead ahead of me. But by now, my plan no longer involves slipping her a DozeX and dumping her sleeping body off-platform. All I can think about is catching Maria001. Whatever she’s too afraid to show on the SkyWeb, Lisa and I will break the scoop. And if what we uncover is a long-standing 1A Tops in a Sector 5 scandal, neither of us will have to worry about token levels for at least the next few catalogs. 

But down the next alley, Maria001 is gone.

“Shit,” I spit as I catch up with Lisa. I scan the empty space for movement. “We didn’t move fast enough.” But instead of immediately giving up so we can get back to her volunteering, Lisa010 surprises me again.

“Well, I may have a way we can find her, but…” she falters. I can see the outline of her fingers covering the green glow of her wrist as they nervously dance over the SkyChip embedded inside it.

“But what?” 

“Well, sometimes the unfuckers aren’t in the skypartment unit they say they’ll be in when we get here. For whatever reason, they’ve moved somewhere else. It’s usually close by. So as volunteers, we get a heat stamp detector as part of our field kit so we can find them.”

I look down to see I’ve pulled Lisa010 into an embrace. The urge just struck me, though I can’t explain why. The only reason I’ve ever touched another human before is to generate love energy. And generating love energy only brings in worthwhile tokens these days if it's creative enough to bring viewers to our feeds.

When I pull away, Lisa010 looks as shocked as I must for doing it. But instead of getting angry, she breaks out into excited giggles. And so do I. Her laughter is contagious and I realize: She wants this just as much as I do.

Staying in the darkened corners, we move from building to building as Lisa performs her heat scan. In silent waiting, I start to grow nervous. Up ahead, the courtyard lights of Junction 5N brighten the face of the final few buildings down this alleyway. If Maria made it that far, we may never find her.

But in the second to last building, she’s there.

“This one!” Lisa010 nearly shouts, and I shush her. She pulls in her lips and starts again, whispering, “There are several bodies inside. At least five or six. One of them must be Maria001!”

I scan the block for street cams. The only one I see sits beyond the alley. With no red indicator light flashing from its base, my guess is it’s broken. Either way, it faces the courtyard, with the line of buildings behind it kept out of sight. The perfect place for a hidden snuff den, I think. 

Placing a finger over my lips to remind Lisa to stay quiet, we tiptoe up a short set of stairs to the skypartment building door. 

Locked.

My heart sinks again. But this time, Lisa010 acts decisively. With the swipe of her wrist, the door lock turns from red to green. After a short beep that I hope no one inside can hear, it opens. Lisa010 steps inside.

I linger behind. When she turns back, I’m staring at her in disbelief.

“What?” she grins. “Our field kits also come with universal keys programmed to our operate within our designated Sectors. How else are we supposed to pin down these wiley unfuckers in their last-minute shenanigans?”

My smile widens and I find myself wanting to hug this girl once again. It’s such a strange feeling, especially after hating her for so long. But I can’t help it. She follows all my content, allows me to accompany her out here, even though we’ve never even spoken before; she’s even using her volunteer field kit against SkyCorp policy to help us both land a major Celebrity scoop. 

Maybe I was wrong about her. 

But now, more than ever, I’m convinced I’m right about Maria. Somewhere inside this building, 5M123, she has at least four other Skycitizens with her: maybe a few to kill, and others, paying her to watch it happen. They could send an anonymous token dump after the act, and no one would even notice. Celebrities get donations all the time from junction losers trying to mooch off their fame. 

I start to imagine headlines I might run on my feed: “Maria001’s secret sexy serial killer lifestyle keeping her 1A Topside for catalog-years.” Hmm, maybe something shorter. “Dying to Stay in the Tops: Maria001’s Kill List.”

The gossip feeds love to report on inner-Sector Skycitizens whose SkyWeb shame drops their token levels. Even more with a drop so dramatic, it lands them in the outer sectors.

But once they get there, they become unfuckers, and users immediately forget about them. They could easily be dead, but no one cares enough to find out. It’s how I planned to explain Lisa010’s disappearance, too. It’s probably what’ll happen to Maria.

From outside the building, we narrow down the probable location to somewhere above the 22nd floor. We climb the stairs to avoid any potential noises the elevator might make, and by the time we get there, I’m exhausted. Lisa010, however, seems unphased. She trots up the final steps and begins scanning around the corners for heat stamps. 

“Sometimes I visit the Activities Sectors,” she tells me when I finally catch up. “You should try it! A real en-gen boost. Those massive fuckers really know how to collab. Throw you around like a rag doll, they do. One time, they somehow had me generating energy in an aerial obstacle course!”

A pang of jealousy hits me. I’ve never been invited to collab in Activities. They usually only stick with their own. But I can’t get mad at Lisa. Not anymore. Not now that we’re on the same team.

With nothing on our scan, we head up to the 23rd floor. Then the 24th. After scaling up three more floors, we finally hit the jackpot. 

Room 27G. Six warm bodies inside. 

Lisa and I creep up to the doorknob. By now, she seems as eager as I am, if not more, to uncover what may be going on inside. She scans her wrist across the door’s access panel without giving it a second thought. It releases a tiny beep before swinging wide. 

Fortunately, it opens to a long hallway, making it unlikely our heat-stamped interlopers heard us enter. Still, we both pause to make sure. After a few moments of silence, we take our first step inside.  

The skypartment is about what I would expect from a Sector 5 housing unit. There are no active-holo mods improving the decor. No wall screens. No tech of any kind. Instead, a QuantexⓇ spraycoat of grey is peeling off the walls. The flooring is covered in a thin, lumpy carpet. The only visible modernity are a handful of recessed lights above our heads, and only two of them are working. Stains darken every surface of the hallway, like specters from another time, looking in.

It smells like wet fabric, soaked with expired synth-water. Or liquid excrement before it gets flushed. The smell is probably how the ground-level smells, where skyplatform waste goes to rot.  

Lisa smells it too. She turns, fingers pinched at her nose, and makes a gagging gesture in my direction. I stifle a chuckle. As she turns her back to me, I glimpse her BSU and for a moment, consider how easy it would be to affix the DoseX capsule in my pocket. Only now, the idea makes me feel ashamed. 

As we step to the end of the hall, we finally hear voices.

What we find is unexpected, and horrifying.

Maria001 is there, overhead lights affixed to makeshift rafters showering onto the scene. And she’s not alone. In the shadows behind her, I can make out at least three men. Despite the darkness, I can see clenched hands around penises, rubbing frantically. One of them keels over with exhaustion, a bullet of liquid exploding down the tip of himself and onto the brightened stage in front of him. 

But the humans with Maria make for the most disturbing sight. Center stage sit two underweight newbs, young enough to be from the same gen-year as Lisa. They look even tinier sitting on oversized chairs at an oversized table. The clothing they wear is too small. The boy’s hair is cut short, like a bowl placed on his head. The girl wears a blonde holo-wig styled into two high buns. 

Staring at Maria with wide eyes, they kick their dangling feet and clasp at silvered cutlery, which they bang into the table. They either play dumb or are just acting in their brainless outer-sector ways. The goal of the scene seems to be to portray them as undeveloped CDU children, prematurely taken out of their pods. 

None of it looks like murder. It doesn’t even look like love energy. With two steaming bowls of some unidentified mush in her hands, Maria001 walks over to the seated newbs, placing the dishes on the table in front of them. She pats the girl on the head and scoops her a spoonful of mush, guiding it to her mouth making helijet noises. 

Finally, I notice Maria001’s ridiculous costume: a frilly dress with puffed sleeves and an apron laying flat across a hooped skirt. And it’s real fabric, not a hologram. At her back, I can see quick-release clasps holding the garment in place. At the front, embroidered letters spell out the word “Mom.”

Lisa010 looks back at Jessica128 with wide, horrified eyes. 

“A mother kink?” 

She mouths the words silently, her lower lip trembling.

There are few words so insulting and unpatriotic to the Botech Network that they outshade even being an unfucker. Most Skycitizens use words like family, brother, or sister to describe disgusting, unfucked human behavior. Something to be ashamed of.

But to use it against the Bots insults their service to humanity. It pretends bonds beyond their perfected vision of human society. To do so even once would be enough to drain anyone’s token levels.

The word “father” is rarely uttered. Its one of the most vicious insults. It stems from an ancient lie about non-Botech creators with more knowledge than the Bots. There are dark-SkyWeb gossip columns that dabble in taboos, but even they would never give such false beliefs credence. 

But “mom” is even worse. The Bots create humans through gestation pods in the Childhood Development Unit. They crafted the bio-synth that forms human life. Their singular goal is to serve our best future and create the most valuable, high viability Skycitizens. Supposedly, “mom” implies that a human could just “poof” create a human life without any Botech assistance at all. Though one would ever dare attempt to calculate the mechanics behind making that work.

It’s disgusting. It’s unpatriotic.

And it will be the biggest scandal that a 1A Skycitizen has ever been involved in. 

This is even bigger than I ever expected. If I had just killed Lisa010, I’d still be hanging onto my skypartment by a thread until the next gen-year. But this? Maria001 performing a mother kink off-feeds with outer-sector unfuckers for tokens? This will get me into the Tops. The story’ll be trending for weeks. By the time users move onto something new, I’ll have my pick of 1A skypartments.

Not killing Lisa turned out to be my biggest advantage. I’ll need her to verify the story. One clip could just be the results of a holo-scene or a VR reproduction. But two people producing the exact same footage from different angles would be much harder to deny. Of course, Maria001 would be run into the ground, but that’s the way of SkyCity.

The cost of being a Celebrity.

I look at Lisa010, my eyes wild with excitement at our discovery. She seems to have the same idea, smile widening. She nods her head toward Maria001 and her mother-fucking entourage. 

“A mother kink,” I mean to mouth back, confirming Lisa’s assessment of the horrific discovery before us. But out of excitement or just plain stupidity, I speak the words out loud.

The next few moments move like syrupy Quantex. The room goes silent. The shadowy men release their penises and duck back further into their darkened corner. Only the outer-sector unfuckers still “goo” and “gah” in their uncontrollable idiocy. But all eyes turn to us. 

My mouth drops. What in the groundamn unfuck have I done? 

I try to stay calm. I can still recover from this. I just need to pull up my VIZ-screen and activate my feed. But Maria001 acts first.

She storms toward us, face drawn in pure hatred, and I instinctively cower in fear. Suddenly, she’s right beside me, beyond the stage lighting and preventing a good shot even if I had managed to activate my VIZ-screen. Her eyes are fiery with anger. They pierce into my brain, causing my limbs and, worst of all, my eyes to falter. I think, in my ignorance, she might kill me. Maybe I wish she had. 

Instead, I hear a loud rip as the quick-release clasps of her mother costume burst apart. In a single movement, she pulls it from her body and, with all of her might, flings it at my face. I unrumple the fabric, holding it up with two fingers in front of me as though the garment itself might spread her filth. 

Her next words make me freeze.

“What did you just say?”

“Huh?” It’s all I can think to answer. 

“Repeat what you just said,” she demands again, voice like a knife.

“A m-mother kink?” I stammer. My throat is dry. I sound afraid. I am afraid, which does little to help with what happens next.

Her eyes twitch so quickly I almost don’t even notice it. Not like it would have mattered if I did. She’s been doing this for decades. And I’m just another newb squashed under her thumb.

“You heard it here first folks,” Maria001 says aloud for her followers. “Jessica128 is running a mother kink den out in Sector 5.”

My shock prevents me from speaking, and she goes on.

“I knew something was up when you tried to get me to talk about risks. And the nerve of holding me after our session, no doubt trying to pry some illicit information out of me. But when you wormed your way into Lisa010’s volunteer gig, I knew you were up to something.” She scoffs. “So, I followed you out here. We did. Me and Lisa010 that is.” Maria001 nods to Lisa. 

I turn, expecting Lisa to look as dumbfounded as I do, but her face is impassive. I know that face. I’ve made it before when given the chance to rise up in the ranks. She’s calculating.

“We knew she was up to no good,” Maria continues without waiting for Lisa to reply, “but a mother kink? That’s the most vile, reprehensible… ”

Finally, my voice returns to me. “What? I… No!” 

“The evidence is right there in your hands.” 

I look down at my arms. They’ve stretched out into the stage spotlight, where the word “Mom” embroidered across the top of the apron dress is as clear as day. The dress suddenly feels like fire in my hands, and I toss it behind me. I turn to Lisa, hopeful that she still may be an ally. But when I see her face again, I realize there are no allies in SkyCity.

“That’s right,” Lisa says confidently, her eyes twitching across her VIZ-screen, activating her feed. “When Jessica128 offered to volunteer with me today, I knew something wasn’t right. She never cared about unfuckers before, never even heard of the volunteer program. Then, suddenly she wants to help? It all seemed too suspicious, especially after her ‘risks’ monologue on Maria001’s mentorship call. 

“Turns out, we uncovered a SkyCity traitor.”

“That’s right, Lisa010,” Maria chimes in. Her face is scanning the room, and she’s pulled up a holo-screen on her arm to display what users are seeing on her SkyWeb feed. She wants me to see it, too. “I’ve blurred out the faces of the innocent participants in Jessica128’s acts, but I wanted my viewers to see for themselves.” Then, to the rest of the mother-loving crowd, still cowering in the shadows, she adds, “You don’t bear the responsibility for her treason. But you all should probably go.” 

They gladly take her invitation to exit unscathed and scurry out of the skypartment.

“Remember, you were manipulated into this,” Lisa010 shouts after them. “It wasn’t your fault!”

Some of them even have the nerve to speak: “Thank you for saving us Maria001” and “You really are number 1.” 

“As for you,” Maria says, turning back to me with Lisa010 suddenly at her side, “consider your mentorship canceled.” She smirks, but behind her eyes, I see a viciousness that I’ve never seen before. “Oh, and take a look around.” 

I don’t. Instead, I finally manage to log into my VIZ-screen. My token levels have already bottomed out. I turn up my right wrist to find my SkyChip has switched from green to red. I can also see other users’ profiles, and that Lisa010’s token score has skyrocketed. Looks like she’ll no longer be taking my skypartment in 1G, not after the millions of viewers tuning in to see her heroic mother-kink bust pay her subscription fee.

And Maria001, meant to be #1, has topped the Sector 1 token counts by double.

“This is your new home,” she spits, leaning close to my face so I can see her smug satisfaction. “Get used to it.”

As the two walk away, tears stream down my face. Across the board, my subscriber count is zero. My collab for later that afternoon is canceled. No one will ever want to generate energy with me. Once labeled an unpatriotic unfucker, there’s no going back. Not to 1H and certainly not to 1G. 

I live here now. And there’s nothing I can do about it. That’s just the way of SkyCity.

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