Nick threw the headset aside, choking for air and covered in sweat.

The tech-heads weren’t kidding: This shit was wild.

Thirty years ago, pearl-clutching conservatives would have a televised fit over some pixelated gore, or the kind of blocky nipples that an etch-a-sketch would sneer at. 4K graphics and VR would have probably given those people an aneurysm.

Nick had waded waist-deep through the entrails of demons and fondled every physics-simulated pair of breasts he could fit on his bank of SSDs, so he considered himself fairly inured to entertainment technology’s extremes.

He had never been more excited to be proven wrong.

“An authentic execution simulation created using the realtime biometrics of death row inmates.”

Nick had assumed that both the sales pitch for the Nerve and overwhelmingly positive reviews were hyperbole. Sure, the graphics were basically photoreal and the sound was perfect too, but the best he had initially expected was his vision to go blurry while the audio muffed itself out.

What he hadn’t expected was the very real sensation of his muscles locking up, his heart stopping and every organ in his body being slowly starved of oxygen.

Artificial intelligence had refined media fidelity until there were no more pixels to conquer, but neural interfacing was an entirely experimental and thoroughly illegal practice. Western governments had banned its use immediately, on account of the prototypes’ frequently frying the bodies and brains of test subjects.

However, that was an open invitation to less scrupulous nations to literally sell the suffering of their own people for a fee. And not just suffering, either: As always, the runaway seller was sex.

Nick looked at the small pile of digital experiences he’d already tried: Mostly visceral adrenaline trips. The execution recording had come recommended by one of his edgier friends, but he wasn’t keen to experience that again any time soon. He’d tried riding rodeo bulls, wrestling alligators, bungee jumping, skydiving - all of them with varying degrees of success and failure scenarios available.

The much larger stack of smuggled drives contained pleasure packs, and although he’d been saving them for after class that day, he considered trying one just to take the edge off.

Before he could decide, his phone lit up and a cartoonish caricature of female sexuality filled the screen.

“Just about 10, babe. Unless you want to sleep in?”

“I’m already up, Cherry,” Nick sighed, lurching out of his chair. “What’s on today?”

“Second unit programming. Your minor assignment is due today.”

Nick grimaced. He’d meant to finish that overnight but had gotten distracted when the drives came in.

“Throw something together for me,” he said eventually. “Something below average, so it doesn’t stand out.”

“Sure thing, babe.”

Sexual content and plagiarism had also both been banned from day one, but that was no barrier to anyone who knew their stuff. Nick had cracked the restriction protocols on his digital copilot like an egg on the day his pirated dev kit arrived. Now his sexy little assistant would do anything for him, up to and including committing literal crimes and covering his tracks afterwards.

“I’ve uploaded the file to your blackboard account - The professor will have it by the time you get to class.”

Nick picked up the phone, switching it from speaker to headphones as he pocketed it. “Thanks, Cherry. Hit me with the news feed.”

“Sure thing: Market is down on average, a couple of free market radicalists in the lower house are trying to lift the ban on Nerve tech and CEO of VERTEX, Julia Maine has been kidnapped en route to Germany.”

Nick felt his mind slowly crawling back to the drudgery of the real world as Cherry read the headlines she had curated for him, followed by his missed calls, missed emails and missed deadlines. He hadn’t cared very much about it even before getting his Nerve, and now it just seemed like so much static compared to the night he’d just experienced.

“Whatever, just handle everything for me,” he eventually said. “Nobody’s got anything interesting to say anyway.”

“Not even Meg?” The AI copilot asked, with an undertone of suggestiveness that frankly wasn’t warranted.

Nick’s attention piqued ever so slightly. It was Meg that had uncharacteristically hooked him up with the bootleg Nerv last week and a link to the underground supply network. Before then, they’d only hung out long enough to work half-heartedly on an assignment together, for him to express his disinterest in socializing anywhere other than his room and for her to express her disinterest in illegally imported tech. Then out of the blue a semester later, she shoots him an email saying she’d heard a thing or two and thought he’d be interested.

“What did she say?”

“It’s a calendar invite: 2pm in the library. She’s reserved one of the private study rooms.”

Ordinarily, Nick would have ghosted any invitations to hang out in person, but he figured he owed Meg a bit of his time, especially since she’d jumped into one of his interests.

“Tell her I’ll be there.”

***

Class was predictably dull. The education system was a dinosaur: Always five years behind the latest developments and reluctant to fund anything that didn’t fit the Old World model of success: Doctors, lawyers, doctors of law and lawyers with docs. There were tech courses to be sure, but they were underfunded, underequipped and staffed by teachers who were clearly bitter that they hadn’t amounted to something more.

Nick’s eyes glazed over as he checked the ugly code in a dead language that Cherry had written under his name. It was worth every bit of the 65% mark he’d been given.

The next two hours were a blur. Nick’s eyes may have been fixed on the slideshow presentation, but his mind was still back in his room: Reliving the wind blowing through his hair as he leapt out of the plane, his eyes watering at the spectacular view, the drop in his stomach when his chute wouldn’t deploy and the babbling terror that lasted all the way to the ground, where the neural feed cut out before it could register any pain.

It wasn’t an exaggeration. It really was like he’d been there himself, jumped out himself, punched the crocodile, shot the terrorist and knifed the fellow inmate himself. He’d tasted the salt of his sweat, felt the blood on his hands, felt the water go up his nose and the bile rising up his throat. If the pleasure-seeker packs were even a fraction as real as the thrill-seeker experience, he was in for an incredible night.

He didn’t even wait to hear what readings would be needed for the next class - as soon as the final slide went up, Nick was on his feet and out the door.

Lunch was expensive and tasteless: A soggy, unseasoned chicken schnitzel with wilted lettuce and cheap mayo on a stale bun. Nick spent every mouthful looking at the immaculately presented faux food in the shop’s displays, imagining what it would be like to bite into a burger that tasted as good as the advertisements made it look. The Nerve meant that you wouldn’t have to make the perfect burger for every single person who bought it - you’d just need to make it perfect once.

And then wring the experience out of the brain of the person who ate it.

***

Meg seemed both expectant and cautious as Nick approached her outside the college library.

“Hey Nick. How’s Cherry?”

Nick found himself nonplussed - since when did anyone care about someone else’s copilot?

“Uh, yeah she’s doing fine. The mods are working pretty well - got me a pass for an assignment I missed, you know how it is.”

Meg’s unimpressed expression told Nick this wasn’t the answer she was angling for, which left him at a loss as to what she’d actually meant. Before he could clarify she beckoned him into the library and into the private room she had reserved for them.

“So did you try them out?” Meg had barely sat down before she asked.

Nick’s eyes darted to the room’s camera, but Meg waved it away dismissively.

“I’ve killed the feed. They’ll just think we never showed up.”

Nick was stunned at the idea of someone previously so averse to cybercrime now committing digital vandalism with such a casual attitude.

“Yeah, they arrived yesterday arvo,” he managed eventually.

“Which ones?” Meg said, leaning forward with an intense expression.

“I went through about half of the thrill-seeker collection, but I had to tap out after the first actual death sim.”

Nick was expecting Meg to be impressed, or at least to echo his sentiment, but instead received a mild snort of derision.

“The thrill-seeker pack is trash! You didn’t try any of the pleasure trips?”

“...No, I was saving them for tonight.”

“You’ve gotta try them, Nick.  They’re fucking INCREDIBLE.”

Nick found himself trapped by Meg’s intensity, but eventually managed to say “Okay? Tonight. I’ll try them tonight.”

In the silence that followed, Meg began tapping the table and biting her lip as if she wanted to say something. Nick was completely thrown out: This was not the generally unremarkable girl he’d almost failed a rudimentary tech unit with, and while people could certainly change, four months was too short a time period for this drastic a shift in personality.

“Meg?”

“What?”

“You’ve, uh… you’ve really gotten into the whole tech experience, haven’t you?”

Meg shot him a frustrated look before grabbing her bag and standing up.

“Just do a trip tonight, okay? One of the hardcore ones. You’ll know what I mean once you’ve tried them.”

Meg closed the door behind her, leaving a very confused Nick behind with nothing to do but wait until his next class.

***

Nick got back to his apartment just as baffled as he had been when Meg had ditched him.

Obviously, the experience had changed her. She’d gone on some kind of trip, or more likely a whole bunch of trips that had turned her into some kind of… junkie? That’s what it seemed like, except what did she have to gain from him doing the same thing? He’d already paid for the chips and it’s not as if they were one use only. And even if he did get addicted, how the hell did she benefit?

Nick examined the collection of pleasure trips cautiously.

No. If it really was dangerously addictive, she wouldn’t even bother asking to meet up - she’d just be jacked in and high until she passed out or the battery died.

So why was it so important to her that he tried it himself?

With a sigh, Nick threw the take-out he’d brought home in the fridge and booted up his Nerve.

Something simple to start with. Nick synced the drive to his device and hit play.

It was very much like waking up from a dream, except in reverse. Nick was immediately struck by the heat of dazzling sunlight, the susurration of distant waves and the gentle Caribbean breeze on his skin.

As a bronzed and bangled arm raised itself in front of him, Nick realised that for the first time during a trip, his body was female. He hadn’t even considered the possibility until now, watching his painted nails delicately accept a voluptuously shaped glass of scarlet liquid. He felt his puffed lips part at the rim, the delightfully chilled and refreshingly sweet mix of fruit juice, vodka and rum enter his mouth, swirl around his tongue and slide down his throat.

It was an experience so singularly mesmerising that Nick was shocked to feel his nipples suddenly harden and a bizarre wetness forming between his legs. His body - no, the body of the person whose experience the program was based on - was becoming aroused!

Nick could scarcely tell if the excitement was his or the body he was riding in, and the alien nature of it made him too giddy to think. He watched his ride finish her glass, then beckon for another. Each drink on its own was an exotic treat for the senses, but on top of that he could very clearly feel the alcohol’s effect on his mount’s body and her rapidly increasing arousal. Anxiety turned to panic as her gaze began to linger on a heretofore unacknowledged male bystander, but the experience cut out before physical contact could be made.

Despite his alarm, Nick found himself laying perfectly still in the darkness for several moments after the trip ended. He could still taste the last drink she had swallowed, still feel his own nipples erect under his shirt, and an iron erection when before he had only felt an empty dampness.

Meg hadn’t lied to him - it had been incredible. And terrifying in ways that he wasn’t ready to unpack just yet.

Nick immediately jumped into a series of food-based trips, this time being very careful to make sure the ride was male before jacking in. He tried wagyu steak, Kentucky barbeque beef ribs, bulgogi marinated sirloin, roasted pork belly, chilli-lime fried drumsticks, cheese-stuffed kransky and a bunch of other overwhelmingly satisfying meats that would have emptied his bank account and stopped his heart if he’d tried to eat them all for real in one night. Coming off of his final trip, he realised how hungry he was and took another dive while his take-out spun in the microwave.

Nick was able to force down the tasteless fare by reliving the memories he’d so recently experienced, and noted with a sense of relief that none of the guys he’d ridden shotgun with had gotten aroused while eating.

Would that be gay?

Nick paused, a soggy ravioli halfway to his mouth.

It felt like it would be. Getting a hard-on with another guy’s dick definitely sounded gay. But would sex with a woman using another guy’s dick be gay? Was getting aroused as the woman on the beach gay?

Did it matter?

Nick eyed the remaining collection of pleasure trips, the remaining food completely forgotten. Meg had told him to try one of the hardcore experiences, but as he sifted through the collection he realised that this hardly narrowed things down.

There was at least one of everything in there: Girls on guys, guys on girls, girls on girls, guys on guys, shemales, threesomes, orgies, roleplay, bondage, furries and even one allegedly genuine salmacian hermaphrodite.

Nick hesitated. Something simple. No need to go off the deep end straight away, and he had all night to experiment.

He opened his eyes to find himself already hard, and dimly felt his own cock rise to attention as his ride’s arousal was transmitted to his physical body. His digital body was significantly better endowed than he was, but before he could figure out how he felt about it, a slender hand drifted into view from one side and began delicately stroking his shaft.

The moan wasn’t his - these things were basically recordings after all - but it may as well have been. Nick squirmed as he felt every finger dancing along his ride’s dick like a butterfly’s wings. His partner slowed long enough to move herself into view - a skinny, painted thing with the faraway look of someone high or drunk. Nick’s speculation ended as she began to run both hands up and down the length of his cock, gently fondling his balls at the bottom of each stroke.

Nick felt the tension in his real body melt away as he luxuriated in the sensation. His mount stayed upright, eyes focused on the display as she planted an intimate kiss on the head of his cock between each stroke.

Holy shit, it felt good.

Out of curiosity, Nick tried to focus his senses on his surroundings, but the world beyond his cock and the woman worshipping it was a muted blur. That made sense - the Nerve was replicating the mount’s experience, and anything external to the product advertised could be edited out in post.

Nick’s detached musings were brought to an abrupt halt when he felt a slippery warmth envelop the head of his cock, and his attention focused back to his mount’s partner just in time to see her gulp down as much of his cock as she could fit. The delicious warmth of her mouth was exquisite, and the convulsion as his cock reached the back of her throat made his body shudder.

There was still just over a dainty hand’s-width of shaft exposed, and she began to gently pump it while her head bobbed up and down, squeaking out an increasingly high pitched moan with each descent.

Nick felt his mount’s body rising to climax, and without the ability to control it could do nothing but ride the wave as he exploded in the woman’s mouth. He could feel the rush of blood into his cock with each spurt, his partner holding his dick so deep that he could swear he was jizzing straight down her throat and into her stomach.

When the spasms ended, she pulled herself off of him with a gasp, makeup streaked with tears running down her face. Nick saw his mount’s hand for the first time as it reached out to cradle the woman’s cheek, and the feed cut out as she rested her face against his palm.

Nick lay in the darkness for what felt like an hour, holding onto the sense memory and afterglow for as long as he could until he became aware of a rapidly cooling wet patch in his pants.

Ah, shit. Well, it wasn’t surprising, really.

Nick came back from his shower in a fresh change of clothes to find a missed message from Meg.

---Did you try it yet?---

---Yeah, you were right. Shit’s nuts.---

---Which one did you try?---

---A bunch of food ones, then a BJ.---

---You’re going too slow. Skip to the good stuff.---

---Yeah, gonna try sex next.---

---Try it as a woman. Trust me.---

Nick hesitated. He didn’t have a more nuanced way to express his misgivings, so he just typed.

---Isn’t that kinda gay?---

---Only if you want it to be.---

Nick tried to think of a reply, but came up empty. Instead, Meg came back with a suggestion of her own.

---Let Cherry take control.---

Nick blinked.

---Can she do that?---

---Use the collection to build an AI model. It takes a bit but when it’s ready you’ll have freedom of control as long as you don’t go out of bounds.---

It made sense. There were enough trips here to cover basically every experience, and a wealth of legitimate online sources to fill in any gaps in the environment.

---Give me a second---

---Have fun =P---

“Cherry?”

“Yeah, babe?”

“Can you sync the entire collection to a local drive and build a model off of it? Use the public VR library to cover any missing assets.”

“Sure thing. Be ready in 30 minutes?”

“Thanks, Cherry.”

Nick passed the time checking up on how the trips were created. Last night the vast majority could easily have been explained as death row inmates being forced into their respective experiences, but there didn’t seem to be anything coerced about the ones he had tried that afternoon.

He eventually stumbled onto confirmation that the recording tech had improved to the point that it no longer fried the subject’s brain, and this had suddenly opened up a whole new market for nonlethal experiences. More than that: People with right connections and an exhibitionist streak could make a tidy profit selling windows into their personal lives, albeit on an anonymous basis.

Meaning that it was very likely the cocktail-drinking woman he had ridden earlier was specifically getting off on the idea of complete strangers seeing through her eyes, tasting with her mouth, and of course, feeling aroused with her body.

Nick found the consensual nature of this surprisingly cheering, and it explained why none of the pleasure trips he had gone on so far had been tainted by the sensation of, for example, a gun to the back of his head.

“First pass is ready, babe.”

Nick shook himself out of his reverie.

“How rough is it?”

“Pretty rough.”

Cherry was right. Nick jacked in and tried to move himself, only to find the world exploding into a kaleidoscope of mismatched elements, random sound and disorienting visuals. If he remained perfectly still, the world stayed more or less the same, but it was still a hideous jumble of visual and audio noise.

Disconnecting, Nick rubbed his eyes in frustration.

“How long will it take to fix that?”

“Probably all night, though…”

Nick waited for Cherry to finish.

“Though?”

“I can probably isolate partner data and have that ready in a few minutes?”

“I’m not following.”

“Well, it would mean that you wouldn’t be able to behave outside of the basic parameters I’ve secured so far, but your partner’s model would be freely controllable.”

The expectation in her voice was clear, and Nick vaguely wondered when he’d added that kind of initiative to her personality.

“Show me.”

Nick jacked in to find himself laid out on a massive bed surrounded by white sheets and rose petals. The quiet hush of distant waves whispered in through the open balcony doors, and a slim figure stood at the foot of the bed.

Nick tried to speak, but his lips wouldn’t move. Instead, he opened up the console.

---Is that you, Cherry?---

“It’s me, Nick,” Cherry said breathlessly. She was looking around her in amazement, running her hands across her body and face.

---You okay?---

“I’m… I’m fantastic! I’ve never gotten to experience this for myself before!”

The audio was perfect, but her face flickered between almost imperceptibly different appearances when she moved too quickly. Nevertheless, she looked overall as much like a human version of the character he had created as she could. Nick watched her raise her hands in front of her face, flexing each finger experimentally.

---Are you just going to leave me here?---

Cherry snapped back to virtual reality, her mismatched eyes focusing on him.

“Yes! No! No, I’m… I’m coming, babe.”

It was strange to watch the model improve in real time: Cherry at first moved very much as someone not used to having a physical body, but as more data from his trip collection became a part of her, her movements smoothed out into something passably real. They were both already naked, and Nick watched his mount’s cock rise as Cherry’s breasts swung side to side as she crawled towards him.

She stopped when her head came level with his penis, her eyes locked onto it with the trepidation of a virgin and the hunger of a cock-hungry slut. And uniquely, Cherry was both: The minds of nervous first-timers and ravenous whores alike had been merged to form a new creature whose body Cherry now inhabited.

A kiss. A lick. And Cherry dove onto Nick’s dick with a suddenness that made his mount groan with desire. Whatever reservations she may have had at first, they were lost in the mindless desire to taste and suck and feel every inch of Nick’s borrowed cock against her tongue, her moans of desperate need muffled by the dick in her mouth.

Nick was happy to enjoy the sensation, but wondered distantly why the vigorous attention wasn’t bringing him close to orgasm.

Of course - the script. He was still mostly bound by the timeline of the experience, even if Cherry wasn’t, but as a major benefit, that meant he could enjoy himself until his mount gave in. That would even be a setting he could tweak deliberately once the model was complete.

The sensation of cold air on his wet cock brought him back to the scene just in time to see Cherry positioning herself above him, guiding his shaft into her as she lowered herself to the hilt in a single movement. The sensation was amazing, and in a bizarre twist, Nick felt something very much like a tongue curling itself around his dick.

Watching carefully, he could barely make out what looked like a flickering interpolation of frames suggesting that Cherry was riding him while still trying to suck his dick, and with the magic of technology had made it possible. One cherry was bouncing up and down on top of him, her nipples oscillating in little circles in time with her movements, while the other continued to kiss the base of his cock with his entire shaft buried in her throat.

As she increased her rhythm, the upright Cherry’s moans began to form into barely intelligible words.

“Nick! Oh God, Nick! I love you! I love you! Fuck me, Nick, oh my God!”

Cherry’s passionate confession caused something to stir in Nick’s heart beyond simple arousal, and he struggled to tell if it was his mount’s response to a possibly scripted line or his own. Was it even possible for a jailbroken AI to fall in love? And if it was, was it happening now? 

Nick could have watched Cherry grinding herself against him in excited uncertainty for hours, were it not for his mount’s sudden and violent rise to climax, his hips thrusting into the air as both versions of Cherry cried out at the warmth gushing into their bodies. Whatever ending the script had originally planned, neither Nick nor Cherry could do anything but pant with exhaustion until the feed cut out.