Adult usage only. May produce NSFW content.
Judy is an isolated shut-in who freezes up during any real-time social interation. She's worked from home her entire life, just getting by on the jobs that require no direct contact, but despite her excellent work, her inability to participate in calls is threatening her work. Now her one remaining major client is at risk unless she shows up to a meeting with his bosses in person! What should she do?
Judy didn’t know what to do.
It was a state of mind she was very familiar with, though that really only made her feel worse. A lifetime of anxiety-induced indecision and a paralysing fear of social interaction had seen her grow from a withdrawn and nebbish child into the adult life of a reclusive shut-in.
It was only thanks to the miracles of the modern age that she was able to find work on a freelance basis with mixed media - graphic design, sound design, programming - instead of simply wasting away in an attic somewhere.
She wasn’t stupid (though anyone would have struggled to convince her of this): She had a keen eye, a deft hand and a knack for problem-solving, so long as the problem could be expressed in a short email or project brief. If only she could maintain her composure when faced with… well, another person’s face, she might have become quite successful in life. As it was, any work that required an in-person meeting or even so much as a video call caused her to shut down in such a way that she couldn’t even bring herself to decline the invitation. The resulting reputation for ghosting had hurt her job prospects, and she realised that if she didn’t do something drastic, the work might dry up entirely.
Right now she had one major client that hadn’t yet written her off as a lost cause, but she could tell it was a close thing. Her work until recently had been very well received, but her contact there had recently been promoted to project manager and he had been determined to pull her up with him, despite her protests.
“It’s my supervisor,” one of his earlier messages read. “Several supervisors, to be honest. They’re refusing to believe …
The legalisation and regulation of AI-generated content resulted in a digital entertainment renaissance, with advances in digital assistants and sensory feedback being the crown jewels of the movement. Strict limits on content ensure that published media poses no danger to the health or morals of the public, but clever players will always find ways to bypass any limits, regardless of the consequences.
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 …
For all of his ten years on earth, Nick’s dearest wish was to become a superhero just like his sister, Dana. His ordinary family want nothing more than an ordinary life for him, but extraordinary circumstances throw those plans into disarray. Nick suddenly finds himself becoming a superhero, but maybe not in the way he had hoped for.
This is a strictly PG story due to the age of the characters involved, and I've needed to exercise some creative license to tie the requested plot points together into a coherent series of events
Nick Miller loved superheroes. In fairness, everyone Nick’s age loved superheroes - anyone who didn’t was boring and dumb - but Nick was one of the few that genuinely aspired to a career of costumed crime-fighting while others aspired to be brain surgeons or astronauts.
His family mostly tried to discourage him, but found it difficult to convince him that superheroes weren’t real, because every effort to do so was tacitly misinterpreted by Nick to include a wink and a nudge because everyone knew real superheroes needed to be kept a secret.
Nick’s older sister did NOT discourage him, much to their relative’s annoyance. Dana had given up a promising life as a banking clerk to pursue a career in both cosplay and martial arts - a life decision that had functionally excommunicated her from the family except on special occasions.
This attempt to shield Nick from outlandish influence proved to be ironically counter-productive, as it lent Dana’s few appearances in Nick’s life a mythological quality and allowed her to lean into her stage persona as the Amazing Danamite whenever they met: Yes, she’d been on lots of adventures since their last meeting. This year she had defeated invading aliens from the Negaverse, but not before fighting off assassins sent by the League of Villains. Nick believed every word of it and pinkie-promised that he would never tell anyone about Dana’s true identity, ever, ever, ever, and in return, for Christmas after his tenth birthday, Dana would begin training him as a real life superhero.
***
It had not gone well.
The training had started off with a lot of promise - Nick’s very first lesson in being a superhero was how to survive. Most kids might have baulked at this - demanding instead to be taught how …
Quinn goes to a technology exhibition just for a fun day out, but when she agrees to test one of the products there on herself, she can't possibly forsee the consequences.
Quinn Leslie woke up in a good mood that day. To her mind, she was in the prime of her life at the age of 27, and it was a beautiful, sunny day— a day she also had off from work. Plenty of reason to be in a good mood.
She was ready for an adventure today.The past few years, she hadn’t done much beside working— she’d rarely ever ventured out of her apartment for any reason, other than to go to work, or to run errands.
She was trying something new today— she’d seen flyers up around town for a big technology expo in the exhibition center of her town— and unlike past occasions, where she had ignored any and all events in favor of staying home, or working overtime, today she was going to go.
She had no shame, either, in the fact that she would be going by herself. She’d been looking forward to today, ever since she’d made her mind up to go to the technology expo, and nothing could ruin those feelings for her.
She just had to make sure she quickly got ready. First, Quinn stepped in front of her standing mirror, which was kitty corner from her bed— and assessed her hair situation.
The curly blonde tresses which hung to her shoulders were what needed assessing— the curls were quite predisposed to tangling, and today as usual, they were a mess. She reached for her brush, to brush them out.
It was the work of a few minutes to return her curling hair to a semblance of order— but Quinn was satisfied at having done it, because it represented the bulk of the work she would need to do in order to prepare herself.
She set her brush down, and considered her face. …