Artificial Happiness

Author’s notes: I had this story stuck in my head for month and it wouldn’t leave me in peace until I wrote it down. It might be utter nonsense but maybe you will like it. This is a longer story (>58000 words), not part of a series and not related to my previous uploads. I find it hard to put a label on what kind of tale this is. It has a lot of sci-fi/cyberpunk elements. It’s mainly about the personal journey of the protagonist and exploring the world he lives in. The setting is a rather simple version of a not so distant future without aliens or faster than light travel. Humans started mining asteroids, commercialized space travel, built space stations around multiple planets and established a moon base and two extraterrestrial colonies, but did not come close to spreading beyond the solar system yet. Humanity is split into two classes called Workers and Naturals. This class system is the main theme of the story. Sex plays an important role, but isn’t the main focus of the plot. Most of the sex scenes happen later on, so some patience is required.

*****

1

The entire production facility erupted into thunderous applause when the space yacht slowly made its way out of the assembly dock. The completion of the first test model for the new XG3 was celebrated with exuberant enthusiasm all across the shipyard space station Zukunftsfabrik in orbit around Mars. Robert, a 28 year old engineer and software specialist was part of the crowd, clapping and cheering like all the others, while they watched the vessel venturing out into open space on large screens. Seeing the fruit of his work come into existence instilled a profound feeling of pride and accomplishment within the employee. He was happy.

After the countless hours of work he and his colleagues had invested into the vessel’s development it was a natural reaction; or it could have been. The truth was more complicated. Robert was a Worker. In the context of his time that meant that while he looked like any other human being on the outside, his insides were outfitted with various bio-cybernetic implants which controlled almost every aspect of his life; including his emotions.

Like most positive feelings they experienced, the cheerfulness of the Workers was a product of the Cybernetic Emotion Regulation System (CERS for short). Consisting of a network of intercommunicating devices distributed throughout the body and brain of a human being, this system influenced what its host felt, thereby manipulating what the person thought and did. An artificial intelligence residing on a tiny computer within the Worker’s skull constantly monitored all brain activity and gathered data from hundreds of connected sensors. Based on the acquired information it decided upon necessary measures and triggered the corresponding implants to execute them. Those implants could influence their host in various ways. They could increase or decrease the body’s production of different neurotransmitters, hormones and enzymes, making a severe impact on the human bio-chemistry. Signals transmitted via the nervous system could be strengthened, weakened, intercepted or created artificially. The system even regulated basic body functions to some degree and was capable of releasing a broad range of potent substances into the bloodstream.

With the CERS it was possible to control what a person felt at any given time. The uses for this technology were manifold. Like most companies of their time, the spacecraft manufacturer Vereinigte Raumschiff Werke (VRW for short) used it to control its workforce. Due to this technology the motivation, diligence, industriousness and work ethic of the employees were extraordinary. Completing their tasks and whatever else was beneficial to the company brought happiness to the staff; anything which might harm it caused great displeasure; the vast range in between was met mostly with indifference. The Workers were conditioned to delight in their occupation and not care for much else.

Robert was an exemplary employee of VRW, as passionate about his occupation as any employer could ever hope for. Maybe he would have even liked his occupation without the CERS compelling him. He worked in quality assurance and currently focused especially on developing sophisticated simulation software for predicting what would happen to a spacecraft in different situations. With the first test version of the latest model available now, a lot of new data would come in soon, meaning a lot more work. He was already excited.

That would have to wait though. Right now it was time for his obligatory lunch break. The same applied to many of his colleagues. The CERS modules of all those employees automatically reduced the induction of positive feelings; the celebrating subsided quickly and the crowd dispersed. Breaks were always a dull event. Workers were not supposed to feel good about leaving their tasks, so the CERS made sure they remained in an unfulfilled, languid state throughout recess. Despite that fact, no Worker ever skipped a mandatory recreation time. The one thing which made everyone feel worse than interrupting their occupations was a breach of the given daily schedule. This kind of transgression was automatically punished with depressing sensations by the implants, making sure that nobody even dared to consider it.

Breaks were important for staying healthy and productive. Cases in which employees had worked themselves half to death during the early adoption phase of the CERS-Workforce had shown that it was more cost efficient for the company to enforce regular periods of rest. Besides, it was important to ensure that people’s moods had their ups and downs throughout the day. Otherwise the emotion control could become ineffective over time.

Robert despised the breaks just like everyone else. With his elation diminished, he made his way to the canteen in order to collect his food ratio. This was done by using one of the automated dispensers. A Worker’s implants kept track of the body’s nutrient needs and a small chip embedded in the forearm could transmit this information to external devices. When the dispenser recognized such a chip in its reading area it put together a meal which provided exactly what the person needed from a biological point of view. Being well fed was important to stay productive, so the company made sure everyone ate properly. Due to the meddling with natural sensations of humans, the physical hunger was often not sufficient to keep Workers properly nourished. Therefore the CERS needed to create some additional incentives. This was done primarily by punishing a lack of ingestion with a feeling of discontent instead of rewarding the desired behavior. Through such an approach eating became more of a routine procedure than something to look forward to. The meals consisted mostly of an almost tasteless nutrient paste, so it wasn’t really appetizing either.

Gaining no joy from it, Robert’s main focus during breaks was rarely on eating. During lunch he usually occupied himself with something on the side which coerced his CERS to provide some pleasant feelings. He selected a relatively isolated area of the vast canteen hall, crammed with instances of the same set of tables and benches. Once he was sitting, he retrieved a small machine called a universal interface device (UID for short) from his pockets and placed it on the table. The UID was a small computer which was capable of connecting to all kinds of devices via physical ports as well as wireless connections. It was outfitted with various input capabilities, audio hardware and a screen which could be adapted in size. In terms of earlier technology the dimensions ranged from those of a common mobile phone to those of a smaller TV screen. Like everyone else Robert used it to operate all the different computers and other machines which he used during work and his everyday life.

Currently the UID was connected to the station network. Among many other things this network provided a collection of recent news about the corporation. Knowing that the XG3 model was approaching its release, Robert browsed for articles about VRW’s latest creation. Just as he expected, the company was doing well in the light of its upcoming flagship product. Prizes on the stock market were up, experts praised the innovative design and promising specifications, consumers expressed their intense anticipation for the vessel.

Robert didn’t really understand much of what he read. He didn’t know how stock markets worked; raised to be an engineer from the very beginning, that knowledge was useless and boring to him. Employees working in the financial department, who were designated to know and understand the economic aspects of the company, took care of handling that stuff. He also had no idea about what was so special about the design. He hardly cared about the appearance of other spacecraft and had no idea why this one was supposed to be more or less aesthetic. The designers were the ones allowed to enjoy these things.

The whole concept of using a space yacht was utterly alien to Robert. Almost his entire experience with the vehicles was limited to testing purposes. The engineers who were responsible for the specifications could muster a lot more enthusiasm for the topic. They loved to try out and compare space faring vessel, arguing over trivial details among themselves. Allegedly it was a prerequisite for devising a proper concept, so their CERS encouraged this behavior.

His ignorance of these fields was of no importance though. Robert didn’t read those articles because he was interested in the information they contained. What made them appealing was the simple fact that they held a positive notion about his employer and the product he had helped to create. He was conditioned to delight in any good news about the company, regardless of whether there was any rational thought behind it. Therefore he felt a pleasant rush of artificial excitement when he read about VRW’s successful fiscal year, their ambitious advancements into new market segments in the logistics industry and the construction of new production facilities on Titan station, even though half of the words meant nothing to him.

“Good news?” someone asked from the side. Ripped from his perusal, Robert looked up into the familiar face of a woman standing to his right with a tray of food in her hand. “Do you have a seat for me?”

“Of course,” Robert answered, making room for her. “It’s really great news.” He handed her the UID and pointed at the text passage he had just been contemplating.

“The number of preorders for the XG3 already exceeds that of the previous models in the series,” she read aloud. “Great news indeed.” She returned the UID to Robert, showing him a warm smile. He smiled back at her. The woman by the name of Lisa was a colleague from the quality assurance department and a good friend of his. They had been working together for years and made quite a good team. Productive collaboration caused pleasant common emotions and memories; an ideal basis for a solid friendship among Workers.

The company encouraged friendly relations between their employees. It had shown to improve cooperation in the workplace and increase the motivation of Workers. So the CERS did not only allow but boost sympathetic feelings towards colleagues. Not every employer was as generous. In some branches friendships were considered a distraction, so these companies kept their staff from feeling too amicable about each other.

It was a general rule applying to the majority of CERS-controlled Workers though, that interpersonal relationships were kept strictly platonic. In most cases all feelings associated with sexuality were completely inhibited. Sexual activity among Workers would only entail unnecessary complications. Due to the fact that Workers were created in laboratories, based on a large variety of genetic material collected throughout the human population, there was no need for them to procreate either. The easiest solution was to avoid the topic altogether. Sexual education was simply left out in the training programs for young Workers and the CERS took care of the rest: Keeping the offending hormones at bay and preventing any undesirable thoughts from an early age.

Accordingly, the relationship between Robert and Lisa was purely professional and innocent. They were completely unaware that it could be any other way.

“Have you read the report about the recent crash of one of the shuttles from our Model 5 line on earth?” she asked casually while eating.

Robert nodded. Every time there was some incident involving a VRW vessel, the information eventually arrived at the QA department for the purpose of learning from the case and figuring out whether there was some flaw in the ship’s production process or design. In this particular case a shuttle entering earth orbit had been hit by space debris, a tiny piece of aluminum, at high velocity. The collision had caused serious damage to the ship’s engine. Subsequently it could not produce enough thrust to ensure a stable descent to the surface for a controlled landing, leading to a fatal crash.

“The investigations concluded with high confidence that the accident happened due to a combination of very bad luck and inadequate safety measures by the operator,” Robert summarized his takeaway of the report “No technical deficiencies or fault of the ship.” In other words: not their problem.

“I know, but the gathered information is quite interesting,” Lisa claimed “I ran some simulations with the data from the collision. In one of the scenarios I modified the shuttle by adding a reinforced hull layer, similar to that used in the XG3. According to the results there is a good chance the shuttle would not have sustained critical damage with this addition.”

“That is interesting,” Robert confirmed. “Unfortunately the additional layer will significantly elevate material and production cost; it also comes with more weight leading to a decrease in fuel efficiency. With a yacht that is acceptable, considering the steep market prices and demanding target clientele; but the mass-production shuttles need to be cheap and efficient or they will not be competitive. It is unlikely operators in this market segment are willing to accept the higher price; other shuttles wouldn’t have survived such an incident either.”

“That is the point,” Lisa continued undeterred. “There are rumors that the Terrestrial Space Traffic Organization might soon increase safety standards around Earth due to the recent climb in accidents. This would force all shuttle manufacturers to revise. If we already have a working concept by the time the new regulations are established it will be an advantage over the competition.”

Considering this point of view, Robert nodded. “If the TSTO is really working on new regulations it makes sense to prepare in advance. You should come up with a concept and present it to management. I wouldn’t invest too much time in it as long as there is no affirmation from above though.”

The pair continued chatting idly, mostly about work (what else was there to talk about?), while consuming their tasteless meals; until the break was over and they were allowed to return to their workstations.

“Will I see you in the exercise facility this evening?” Lisa asked while they made their way back to the QA department.

“No I will be working on my side project again,” Robert informed her. For a moment he believed to recognize a brief expression of disappointment on her face, but it was gone immediately.

The rest of Robert’s shift was uneventful and passed swiftly. The official workday had twelve hours. Most employees stayed longer. The actual time a worker spent on the job was an individual choice; which of course meant it was mostly dictated by the CERS, depending on factors such as concentration, stress, tiredness or urgency of their tasks. The system encouraged its host to do as much work as was justifiable while being careful not to over-strain mind or body. The objective was not only to maximize short term output but also to avoid mistakes, accidents, long-term health risks and maybe worst of all, a lasting decrease in productivity. When the CERS noticed a decline in the condition of its host, it gradually reduced the motivation and satisfaction gained from the occupation and steered towards desiring some rest. Concluding the workday was done simply by leaving. The implants took care of time tracking, which had mostly statistical purposes. There was hardly any need for monitoring the schedule of a Worker. The CERS made sure they arrived at their stations on time, fulfilled their duty with diligence and stayed as long as was reasonable; no additional enforcement necessary.

On this day Robert finished his regular duties early. Usually he would have kept working for a few more hours but he had other obligations. A few weeks ago he had been assigned to an additional project which required him to put in some more hours every now and then. He didn’t mind at al. It was an interesting project and he had gained a lot of new knowledge through it.

For his assignment he was expected in the research labs. Robert left the QA department and walked out into the hallway. There were two types of corridors: The straight ones, leading from one end of the station to the other and the round ones, which curved upwards and went in a circle. The entire space station was basically a huge rotating cylinder. The outer layers of that cylinder contained all the offices, production halls, control rooms, canteens, laboratories, accommodations and other essential facilities. The rotation created a force pushing everything within those layers outwards, which served as a simulation of gravity. When upright, the passengers and inhabitants stood on the outer walls with their heads pointing towards the central axis of station. Other parts which were not commonly occupied by people, like the fusion reactor, storage rooms and much of the technical infrastructure were placed farther in the center. On both ends of the cylinder there were large docking areas, where space ships could be attached to the outside of the structure. One side was designated as the assembly dock, where larger ships were put together from the individual parts created deeper within the station. The other side was for incoming and outgoing traffic, such as transports delivering passengers, goods, parts or raw materials.

In cheerful anticipation Robert hurried down the hallway along the length of the station in direction of the traffic dock, with the research labs as his target.

2

A knock at the door broke David’s concentration and shifted his focus from the screen in front of him. He took a look at the time. The Worker was punctual to the second as ever. He unlocked the door, let Robert in and locked it again. The project team was complete. It consisted of three people, who had been working together in this crammed lab for the past few weeks. Besides David, who was the project supervisor, there was Catharina, a female Worker currently sitting in a chair in the middle of the room and Robert, an engineer from the QA department.

Unlike the other two, David was not a Worker. He belonged to the second category of humans, the ‘normal’ ones, generally referred to as Naturals. Anyone conceived and born by conventional means, as the offspring of two parents, instead of being created artificially in a lab from a collection of genetic material was considered a Natural. In contrast to the Workers, those people were not outfitted with a CERS. Only they were eligible for owning property, earning money, signing contracts as well as citizenship from nations.

Workers basically existed purely for the purpose of performing labor for the Naturals. They were protected by certain laws, but were also strongly bound to their employers, received no monetary compensation for their services and did not have the same rights and freedoms as regular people.

Despite this obvious inequality, Workers generally felt no anger, loathing or envy towards the Naturals; nor did they experience any desires for a better or different life. The CERS ensured that all of them were content with their designated fates and didn’t dwell on thoughts of being exploited, no matter how unfair the situation was. Some claimed it was a form of slavery, but there was little objection to the situation due to the fact that all the slaves were happy; in most cases probably more than the average Natural. It was artificial happiness, but to them it made no difference.

Part of the vast wealth generated by the entirety of the CERS-Workforce was redistributed among the population in form of a universal basic income (UBI for shot). Every Natural had a claim to a UBI, covering the fundamental needs, effectively eliminating severe forms of poverty in this era of humanity. The larger part of humanity didn’t have any occupation and just lived from the UBI. Few companies still employed Naturals for a job which could be done faster, better and without a salary by a Worker. Only the kind of work which Workers were not good at, not capable of doing or not allowed to do by law was still widely available to Naturals. Most of those jobs were either high management posts, had some artistic nature, required a good understanding of the peculiarities of Naturals, could only be done with certain privileges or involved the administration of Workers.

The latter was the case for David’s occupation. He worked as a CERS overseer, which meant that he was responsible for administrative tasks regarding the workforce in his company. This included the duties of procurement, assignment, supervision and training of Workers, configuration, maintenance and updating of their implants, as well as ensuring their health and wellbeing in compliance with the international Worker laws. It was forbidden to delegate these tasks to other Workers, so the corporations required Natural staff. Depending on the number of employed Workers, every company was obligated to have one or more such overseers. In the case of a huge corporation like VRW, which employed thousands of Workers throughout the solar system, there was a whole department of overseers dedicated to this purpose.

David was part of this department and usually worked at its headquarter in Munich. He had been sent to Zukunftsfabrik station temporarily, for the research project assigned to him. The project revolved around space ship maintenance and repairs. Such tasks were done almost exclusively by Workers. They could be trusted to fulfill those crucial necessities with utmost diligence, precision and effort. That was also partly a problem. When Workers were told to ensure that a vehicle was safe and fully functional, they tended to make absolutely sure that all standards were observed to the tiniest detail. That was not always what employers wanted because extensive checks and maintenance work led to long down times and inefficient usage of resources. The job required finding a reasonable middle ground between minimizing risks and keeping expenses at bay. A certain feeling for what was appropriate was needed. Workers were not always well suited for that, especially when they lacked practical experience. Making independent decisions about crucial measures instead of just following instructions often posed a challenge.

For David the goal was to improve the decision making process in such scenarios by developing advanced functionalities of Worker’s implants. In this particular application the intention was to make the CERS deliver certain impulses on what was important and what wasn’t during ship maintenance tasks. Part of the prioritization would be done by an artificial intelligence based on a continuously growing collection of past data. For the Worker it should manifest like a feeling; as if caused by an inherent instinct rather than a piece of software. If successful, this technology could ultimately be used to implant parts of the proficiency usually only acquired through experience, into Workers without any existing know-how. Many companies conducted such research, trying to further enhance the capabilities of the CERS-Workforce in an effort to make it ever more efficient.

David wasn’t particularly fond of his position or this project, but his options were limited. On a job market saturated by artificially created humans who did everything better, faster and for free, it was not easy for Naturals to find and keep an occupation. Rising through the corporate hierarchy to a point of notable salary and influence was even harder. There was just too much competition. The project was a chance for David to distinguish himself, a stepping stone for bigger things; if he managed to succeed. In case of failure it could just as easily be his demise. Without proper results he might be back to depending purely on his UBI; reason enough to get to work.

“Alright, let’s start,” he proclaimed. “We will continue from where we left off. There are still plenty of bugs and imperfections in the behavior guidance CERS extension. Before the basic software isn’t stable it makes no sense to continue with the advanced features, so we will focus on that for now. Go through the results of yesterday’s test runs and start with the most critical issues. In the meantime I will train the pattern recognition system with the updated ship diagnostic data and see how it performs.”

The Worker got to it immediately. The commitment he displayed was outstanding, even for his kind. Robert was an invaluable asset for this project. His original purpose had been rather simple: As one of the leading quality assurance engineers, he knew exactly what the common flaws, problem areas and pitfalls of the company’s products were. Through all the internal tests and the real world data fed back to his department, he knew exactly where to put the focus in inspections. Robert was supposed to act as an advisor, offering his knowledge and experience. By now his participation ran much deeper.

Within the first few days of the project David had realized that he was in over his head. Progress had been painfully slow and some obstacles had seemed impossible to overcome. It had been pure coincidence when Robert had first noticed that his supervisor was struggling with the implementation and offered his help. David had reluctantly accepted the offer, knowing that he was not supposed to. Any involvement in CERS related development was prohibited for Workers. Only Naturals with an overseer license had the right to perform such tasks. Teaching or ordering Workers to do parts of their job was strictly forbidden. The same applied to providing them with the necessary tools for modifying CERS settings or the software for creating extensions. However, the more common and widespread the CERS-Workforce and with it the demand for overseers had become, the less respect these rules received. While the potential repercussions for violations were severe, the supervising authorities lacked the resources to ensure punishment of all offenders. Especially in isolated facilities like space stations, the risk which came with breaking some rules was small. Companies often turned a blind eye on such mischief; monetary interests usually weighed stronger than other concerns.

Fully aware of all that, David couldn’t resist the temptation of utilizing Robert’s abilities. It began modestly, with some assistance on challenging problems and delegation of minor implementation tasks. The collaboration was so successful and Robert’s skills and ingenuity so impressive that David had become gradually more daring in his infractions. At some point he simply gave the Worker full access to all the CERS development resources and the instructions on using them, allowing for more independent work. From then on the advancement had been tremendous. Delighting in this assignment, Robert had no problem with being misused, mainly due to the fact that he wasn’t aware of it. Everyone was happy with the arrangement.

Affirmed and emboldened by the success and lack of consequences, David had recently crossed an even more serious threshold. In order to remove the last impediment keeping Robert from using his full potential, he had made a small but severe change in the configuration of the Worker’s CERS. The system was outfitted with a feature which effectively kept Workers from any attempts of changing their own or another Worker’s CERS settings in any way. So even with the means to do so, a Worker would never even think of meddling with the implants; as long as this function was active. In Robert’s case this safeguard was a hindrance in his assignment, so David deactivated it. That was a risky move. Someone might notice in case the CERS configuration was checked, or Robert might do something he wasn’t supposed to do. The chances of that happening were very low though, especially for the latter case. Workers hardly cared about anything but their job; it was unlikely the idea would ever occur to him. As long as David reset the CERS changes and made the Worker remove all the software from his device once his work was done, nobody would find out.

Robert himself was blissfully unaware of all these illegal activities and their implications. He just did what he was told and enjoyed every moment of it. His ardor for the job was a significant part of what made him so effective. When fully focused on a task he worked with astonishing speed. Within less than an hour he identified and fixed some of the most severe issues in the software, a feat which would have probably taken David the rest of the day.

“Ready for another test run,” Robert announced with a satisfied smile.

“Alright, compile and deploy it,” David ordered. “You know the drill.”

Indeed Robert was familiar with the procedure by now. Once the software was compiled and ready for deployment, he approached Catharina, who was still sitting quietly and patiently on her chair. Walking up behind her he put his UID to the back of her head and triggered a signal to her CERS. A small patch of synthetic skin slid aside and revealed a port built into her skull. A small rectangle, commonly referred to as Plug came sliding out of that port. Robert retrieved it and inserted it into a connector of his UID.

Every Worker was outfitted with such an access port. The Plug was essentially just a data container. On it was a copy of the entire configuration and setup information for the Worker’s CERS. The overseers could retrieve it and put configuration changes as well as software updates onto the device. Upon reinserting it, the CERS would recognize the changes and apply them.

As soon as Robert had put the software update onto the Plug, he slid it into the back of Catharina’s head again. The woman didn’t even seem to notice. She had gone through the procedure a lot lately. Her temporal main function at the moment was as a test subject for the research. There were test environments which emulated CERS functionality for verifying the quality of new software, but to find out if the effects on Workers met the requirements there was no way around trying it out with a real person.

With the update installed they ran a series of routine diagnostics and tests as they had done plenty of times before. The woman sat through it with unwavering patience. Most of her current job consisted merely of waiting and enduring the procedures she was subjected to. It seemed like a dreadfully dull experience, but she never complained and she always looked content. The CERS made sure that even doing nothing was a pleasant occupation as long as it was in line with her instructions.

David gazed at Catharina’s face while the implants within that pretty head ran the tests. She noticed his stare and showed him a bright smile. The woman had been assigned as his personal assistant a while ago and had come with him from Munich. They had spent a lot of time together lately and David had grown quite fond of her. He had already suffered from feelings of loneliness and isolation back on earth; since his relocation to Zukunftsfabrik station those had become a lot worse. Her companionship had been a great comfort, despite the obvious differences which set them apart. In fact he had found dealing with Workers to be easier and more pleasant than with Naturals in many cases. At the same time he was aware that his affection for Catharina had reached a rather unhealthy dimension.

“The tests are done,” Robert reported, interrupting David’s thoughts. “Stability has improved significantly but there were still some inadequate results. I will continue the development.”

David approved with a nod. Reminded that he should also be focusing on his work, he directed his attention back to the display in front of him.

Over the next three hours Robert went through two more cycles of implementation, deployment and testing. Meanwhile David made frustratingly slow progress on his own tasks. When the Worker announced that the latest version of the software satisfied the quality criteria for stability, David was more than willing to leave it at that.

“I think it’s enough for today,” he declared with a yawn. “Only the cleanup left to complete.”

Cleanup meant removing the experimental software from Catharina’s implants and undoing the changes to her CERS. For that purpose David had created a copy of the original data on Catharina’s Plug before the initial start of the project. Applying this backup after each session was another routine procedure Robert had taken over. Once again he removed the Plug from her head and connected it to his UID. The backup function came with a series of confirmation prompts, each of them listing changes which would be undone when the procedure was completed. Most Naturals would just skip through these as fast as possible. For a dutiful Worker that was unthinkable; so it was not surprising to find Robert meticulously reading through each and every listed change. In the middle of doing that, the Worker’s expression changed from a look of concentration to an irritated frown; not a good sign.

“What is a Sexual Inhibitor?” he asked David.

David was startled by the question “Why are you asking?”

“It says here that the Sexual Inhibitor is currently deactivated and that the backup will activate it. I didn’t touch that setting. I don’t even know what it means.”

The color drained from David’s face when he realized his mistake: He had forgotten to undo the change last night. It cost him significant mental effort to keep from panicking. As calm as he could possibly act, he walked over to Robert and took the Worker’s UID into hands he barely kept from trembling.

“Hmm… that is odd,” David mused as if he didn’t know exactly what this meant. “Maybe I changed it by accident.”

“What does this inhibitor do?” Robert wanted to know.

“That is not important, just forget about it.” David removed the Plug from the UID and handed the device back to Robert. Before the Worker could ask any more uncomfortable questions in his boundless curiosity, David said: “That is all for today, I will finish up. You can go.”

Robert’s expression indicated that he was discontented with the sudden dismissal and lack of information but his CERS would not let him push the topic any further. Seeming rather irritated he walked to the door.

“Don’t talk about this to anyone,” David added, intending to be commanding, but making it sound more like a plea.

Robert nodded obediently and left the room.

As soon as the door closed, David let out a deep sigh of frustration.

“You seem distressed,” Catharina observed with concern, as she rose from her seat and walked over.

“What? No, I’m fine.” David claimed quickly, trying to appear certain.

“Are you sure?” she asked coming really close. “Are you worried that Robert might tell somebody about us?”

He shook his head. “No; I told him not to say anything, so he won’t. He doesn’t even have a choice; his CERS compels him to follow my instructions.”

“So what’s the problem?” Catharina wanted to know. She was strangely observant and empathic for a Worker.

The problem was that he had maneuvered himself into a situation from which he didn’t know how to escape. Controlled by his libido and improper yearnings he had done things he couldn’t justify. It had started harmlessly: To cope with boredom and loneliness he had played with Catharina’s CERS configuration, trying to give her personality some more color in comparison to the average assistant. It was not uncommon that Overseers tweaked the characters of their direct subordinates so they would be pleasant company and work well together. This practice was sometimes frowned upon, but not forbidden. In David’s case however, he found himself increasingly drawn towards his assistant as he continuously idealized her to his preferences.

When indecent fantasies started creeping into his mind he should have known this wouldn’t end well. For a while he kept resisting the urges, but they only grew more intense. On multiple occasions he watched her while she was partly or fully naked. Knowing no shame in a lack of clothing Catharina didn’t mind. While morally questionable, this wasn’t officially prohibited either. He crossed that line when the woman accidentally walked in on him masturbating one day. In an irrational, lust-affected state he instructed her to finish it for him. She was clueless about anything related to sexuality of course, but she was also willing to follow each and every command and eager to please her superior. Her movements were clumsy at first but she was a quick learner. Afterwards David was ashamed of his rash actions and determined to never let it happen again; a resolution which was already broken the next day when Catharina offered to give him another hand job. He could resist neither the tempting offer, nor the opportunity to show her other ways of satisfying him.

Incorporating some sexual services into his assistant’s usual occupation was a clear improvement for David, but it still wasn’t enough. He wanted something which felt more real. The decision to deactivate her sexual inhibitor in order to let her experience sexual sensations came easier than he would have expected. It felt right at the time. Now that he had properly introduced her into the world of sexuality and they had become something like a couple he regretted ever giving in to the impulse.

This situation was doomed to end badly. Catharina was property of VRW. She wasn’t licensed for any sexual activity and even if she were, this kind of relationship between a Worker and Natural was highly inappropriate; even more so for an overseer. If the company found out, they would immediately sack David and report him to have his overseer license revoked. He had grossly misused his authority, which was a serious breach of contract. Catharina would just be assigned to a new purpose. Even though it seemed almost like she was in love with David now, after her configuration was reset, she probably wouldn’t care about him in the least anymore. The right thing to do was ending it immediately; but instead of following reason he just plunged himself deeper and deeper into this mess, incapable of stopping.

The way Catharina looked at him didn’t make it any easier. There was so much affection and passion in those pretty green eyes. David had craved for someone to look at him like that for so long. He delighted in that gaze, but at the same time it reminded him how wrong it was. To her these emotions might have felt real, but they were still a fake. The CERS had compelled and conditioned her into feeling that way. David didn’t deserve that affection, he wasn’t worthy of her longing gaze. It tormented him. He needed to tell her that their affair had to stop; that her feelings were not real; that this relationship could never work out.

Instead he just said: “I’m not sure; it’s probably just the stress.”

“Maybe I can help with that,” she proposed while she swiftly opened his pants and grabbed his dick.

“That’s not a good idea,” he claimed with a voice carrying hardly any determination. His organ growing rapidly in the woman’s hand suggested a different opinion.

“Why not?” Catharina inquired with innocent naivety. If he had clearly told her to stop she would have interpreted it as a command and quit immediately. But the way he had configured her CERS, she would not react to such a hesitant statement, so she kept groping his genitalia.

“Because we are not supposed to do that.”

“If we are not supposed to do it, why does it feel so good?” Catharina argued while she continued indulging him. For a Worker that logic actually made sense. They rarely had to make the decision between what they wanted and what was expected from them, because the CERS made sure it was one and the same. Their world was so delightfully simple; it was enticing to forget that Naturals had to live by different rules.

“It’s more complicated than that,” David tried to defend his position with futile effort.

Catharina stopped arguing with words. She just pressed her body against his, kissed his neck and stroked his phallus to its full size. Overwhelmed by her sensuality David was unable to resist any longer. He grabbed Catharina’s hips, lifted her petite body up and placed her butt on his desk. With impatient hands he peeled her out of her cloth. The supple, slender body revealed underneath was not unfamiliar to him, but it excited him each time anew.

David’s hands greedily roamed over her enticing flesh. His desire for her increased by the second. He knew that she felt the same for him; because he had basically configured her to lust after him. The film of wetness he encountered once his hand inevitably slid between her legs and the way she pressed herself against him in yearning supported that notion. It drove both of them even wilder.

Absolutely incapable of delaying any longer, David pulled Catharina’s waist to the very edge of the desk. She eagerly spread her thighs wide, presenting the target of his desire. Though she uttered no word, her demand was unmistakable. They both sighed in unison when David finally pushed inside of her. After a moment of reveling in her tight, grasping embrace he started to move. Soon he was pounding her with fast, eager thrusts, driven by an overflowing need.

While deeply lost in the throes of passion, David was oblivious to certain circumstances he should have been aware of. First of all he had just exceeded the time slot in which the lab facility was officially provided to him. In the last few days and weeks that had never been an issue because he had always been the last one to occupy the room for the day. Now there was another research team which required the lab directly after him. None of that would have mattered if he had stuck to his usual habit of always locking the entrance. After Robert’s departure, he had forgotten to do that though.

All these facts came rushing back to the front of David’s mind when he heard noises from the door. By the time he had drawn the correct conclusions from them it was already too late. When his head jerked to the side he saw four people standing in the room, two of them Naturals. The initial expression of simple surprise on their faces turned aghast when they realized that the woman to whom he was joined at the hip was actually a Worker.

With a strange calm and lack of emotion David acknowledged that his career was over.

3

Robert was in the middle of his shift the next day, when the message arrived. In very brief words, devoid of any details, it informed him that the side project he had been working on with David had been terminated. His assignment was over and his assistance no longer needed. This came as a surprise and disappointment. Robert had enjoyed the project and hated leaving a task unfinished. He knew that the software was far from complete and the fact really bothered him; especially after they had made such great progress lately. It made him wonder why the research would not continue. He even considered the possibility that the termination was a lie and that David had just kicked him out. This scenario was particularly vexing. Had he done something wrong? Perhaps it was related to the Sexual Inhibitor setting Robert had encountered during the backup. David had seemed rather distressed about it. If this was the consequence of some fault of Robert, he desperately wanted to know. Knowing and understanding one’s mistakes was important for Workers in their constant strife for improvement.

The whole affair put Robert in a bad mood, which the delight in his occupation couldn’t fully redeem. His mind kept wandering to speculations about the project termination and an extensive analysis of his own behavior. Sensing his distracted mental state the CERS steered him towards ending his shift uncommonly early. He used the additional free time in pursuit of more information.

First he went to the lab in which he had been working with David. There was no sign of the Natural or his assistant. It even seemed that every trace of the project’s existence had already been thoroughly erased. Afterwards he tried to find David at his flat in the station’s accommodations for Naturals. To his astonishment it turned out that the place was vacant. Apparently David had moved out a few hours ago. From a Worker at the front office Robert learned that the Natural was no longer on Zukunftsfabrik station. Getting more and more perplexed by the whole matter, Robert kept asking around among Workers who had something to do with David or his assistant. The only piece of information he managed to acquire came from an employee of the human resources department. The woman had overheard two Naturals saying that David was charged with allegations of sexual misconduct towards a Worker. She didn’t know what exactly that meant other than that it apparently was a serious offense which would probably lead to a discharge and loss of his overseer license.

After Robert’s investigation he was hardly wiser than before. The only real clue about what was going on was the term sexual misconduct, but he had no idea what it might mean. The sexual inhibitor he had encountered the day before was the only other reference to the unfamiliar word. Surely there was some connection, but he just could not see it; an incredibly frustrating condition.

Standing at an intersection of two corridors he considered what to do now. There were plenty of options where to go, but few real choices. Much of the decision-making was done by the computer in his skull by influencing what he did and did not want to do. There were few prohibitions and hardly any areas of the station were strictly off limits to Workers. The CERS just kept them where they were supposed to be by suppressing ideas of wandering off and discouraging any improper intentions. In theory Robert could even access the traffic dock to look for a way off the station. That was a very unlikely scenario though. Like most of his colleagues, Robert never left the space station orbiting Mars. It wasn’t officially forbidden, nor would he have been actively prevented from boarding one of the shuttles which frequently arrived and left. The CERS merely made sure that the idea had no appeal. Why would he leave, when all he liked and enjoyed was within the station while the outside world was a scary, unfamiliar place with nothing desirable in it?

Generally the CERS not only prevented undesirable activities but also encouraged beneficial ones, but at the moment there were no particular obligations to enforce, so the system allowed for some freedom of choice. This remnant of individualism was an important part of the whole concept. It left room for making independent decisions about more trivial matters, maintaining a feeling of self-determination, while more crucial matters were heavily influenced.

Lacking a better idea, Robert went to the Worker habitat with the intention to do some more research on the mystery which currently haunted him. Robert’s room was tiny, little more than a closet. It barely fit a narrow bed, a shelf and a cupboard, with just enough space left to stand in between. Still, for a Worker it was quite the luxury. Employees from lower categories than Robert’s usually slept in bunk beds lined up in large sleeping halls. Those Workers had synchronized schedules, meaning that they all went to bed and got up at the same time. The higher classes had more sophisticated systems for regulating their sleep, optimizing the time-frames individually, depending on current constitution, personal preferences and phases of maximum productivity. Robert’s optimal sleeping time for example started and ended a bit later than for most others and it varied in length by about an hour. In order to ensure an undisturbed night-rest and grant some individual space, the higher-ranking employees were placed in separate rooms which were still far from luxurious. Of course the CERS made sure that whatever accommodation was assigned to them, they were absolutely content with it.

Perfectly happy with his modest little chamber, Robert placed himself on the bed and focused on his UID. In a quest for more information he searched the station network for the term ‘sexual’ and anything related to it. The results were scarce: an old, outdated company guideline stated that sexual relations between employees were discouraged; a medical document mentioned sexual organs without specifying what they were or what purpose they served; there was also one reference to the sexual inhibitor of the CERS with a very short description saying that it suppresses hormones, thoughts, urges and body functions related to sexuality.

None of that was particularly helpful. Wherever sexuality was mentioned it was treated as something obvious and common, suggesting that the reader was expected to know what it meant. This notion just added to Robert’s frustration. Having exhausted all other options, there was only one more source of information left. Putting the UID to the back of his own head he triggered the signal for releasing his Plug. He had never done that before. The idea of making any alteration to his CERS configuration had never crossed his mind. He hadn’t even thought of the possibility before. There was no reason why he would want to change anything either; why should he when he was happy with how it was. The only reason he considered it right now was a thirst for knowledge and a severe aversion against not understanding something.

Once Robert had connected his UID to the Plug, it didn’t take long to find the ominous setting. As expected the sexual inhibitor was active in his configuration. He stared at the screen for a while, contemplating what a modification might entail. It was called an inhibitor, so its purpose was to prevent some feeling, trait or behavior which would occur otherwise. No matter how hard he tried to imagine what a sensation he had never experienced might be like, it seemed impossible; it was just too abstract. Predicting possible negative repercussions wasn’t easier. Naturals lived their entire lives without such an inhibitor, so how bad could it be? For Catharina the setting had been turned off during their last project session and she had seemed just fine.

It took some long minutes of internal struggle but eventually his curious side managed to rationalize a temporary deactivation of the inhibitor sufficiently to justify it against the side which would have preferred not to diverge from familiar paths. The final decision to make the change came with a sudden determination. Workers were always encouraged to evaluate their choices thoroughly but there was also a need for resolve and certainty once a verdict was reached. In line with this habit Robert banished any doubts as soon as he was sure what he wanted. If anything bad happened he could always reset the setting.

After he had reinserted his Plug with the modified configuration he just sat on his bed waiting for the changes to take effect. Nothing happened. Or at least he didn’t perceive anything happening. There was no noticeable change in his state of mind, nor any unusual feelings. Robert was partly relieved, partly disappointed. So far he was no closer to a revelation than before; therefore he left the altered setting as it was, in the hope that at some point he would notice a difference.

Following some more research with little to no yield Robert decided that it was time for his bedtime routine. He left his room and went to the sanitary facilities of the habitat. Plenty of other employees were there. Many of them were also preparing for sleep, some come from the exercise facilities, and others had just awoken and were getting ready for their shifts. Men and women shared a common facility dedicated to bodily hygiene. With the Workers manipulated to feel neither sexual urges nor shame for their bodies, there was no need for separating by sex. Having them combined was cheaper and more efficient for the company, which was always the primary concern.

The facility contained all the necessities for basic hygienic needs: toilets, showers, sinks, mirrors and shelves containing the common articles for keeping the body properly groomed. There were also chutes to dispose of used laundry as well as stacks of towels and fresh cloth for everyone to take from. Like in most other rooms on the station, everything was rather crammed. There was never much space between people. While this would have been unacceptable for many Naturals, the Workers didn’t mind.

The visit of the sanitary facilities was a fixed point in every Worker’s schedule but nothing which granted much pleasure. Therefore the employees were usually in a solemn mood. They focused on fulfilling the obligations to hygiene as quick as possible and left as soon as they felt like having done what was necessary. There was hardly any chatter or social interaction, no unnecessary lingering; just self-centered Workers rushing from one point to the next.

Usually that also applied to Robert. This time was different though. As soon as he entered the room he noticed that something was off. At first he thought the difference had something to do with the other occupants. Gradually he discovered that it was his own perception which was unusual. He was uncommonly aware of the other Workers around him. There was an inexplicable interest in the people standing around and passing by. There was an aesthetic to the human body which had only now revealed itself to him it seemed. While he crossed the room his gaze involuntarily wandered from one person to the next, trying to decipher the mystery behind the strange attraction. How could this kind of beauty have eluded him entirely so far? Primarily the female colleagues drew his attention; especially when they were partially or fully naked. His eyes tended to linger on their chest and groin areas in particular.

A room full of naked Workers was quite a stunning sight. Employees for spaceship production facilities were not selected for their physical beauty of course, but the optimized gene-pool from which Workers were generally bred was considered as a cross-section from the most superb specimen humanity had to offer. That came with a lot of the properties which were considered attractive. Despite their accelerated development through childhood and adolescence, the primary and secondary sexual characteristics of Workers were fully developed. Their wholesome lifestyle, well-balanced diet and regular exercise lead to a healthy body, adding to its physical appeal. Furthermore the CERS-Workforce project had only been started a little more than three decades ago, so even the oldest among the employees were in the prime of their life.

So even if attractiveness wasn’t a concern in the every-day life of these Workers, the nude body of a young, healthy, fully developed human, blessed with great genes, was more than enough to arouse the opposite sex; a little too much for Robert whose sexual urges had just been awoken for the first time.

He tried to attend to his dental health but found it unexpectedly difficult to focus on the trivial task. Even the reflections of people walking by in the mirror were incredibly distracting. It didn’t matter where he looked, there was no escape. At the sink to his right stood a female colleague who had just returned from the showers and was still unclothed. Robert didn’t know her and normally wouldn’t have given her a second glance. No he found himself studying her body meticulously, analyzing the previously unseen loveliness in it. His gaze traveled up and down over her curvy shape before locking onto her breasts. There was no logical reason why he should enjoy looking at those simple, objectively unspectacular mounds; yet he did.

Robert felt a stirring in his loins; an entirely new sensation. When he looked down and brought his hand to the front of his pants he realized in shock that his penis had grown in size and become somewhat rigid. That hadn’t happened before. Of course his genitalia had been subjected to small changes in size, mostly due to temperature, but nothing like this. It was worrying, yet it didn’t feel unpleasant or harmful. On the contrary, his organ pressing against the fabric keeping it restrained was even slightly enjoyable. He might have been more concerned if his mind hadn’t been clouded by the unfamiliar hormones in his system.

All he wanted to do at the moment was to keep watching the woman next to him. Unfortunately she left shortly. Robert’s longing gaze followed her, mesmerized by the slight swaying of her buttocks. Once she was gone he searched for a new target to admire. The showers were the logical choice. As soon as he reached them he was overwhelmed by the rows of wet naked bodies lined up before him. The water running over the gorgeous figures somehow amplify their beauty. In the meantime his erection grew even further. It was confusing and alarming but not enough to make him leave yet.

Robert was entranced by the display. It was strange how entertaining the supposedly banal sight of bare skin could be, even though he had witnessed the exact same scenario countless times before. The longer he stood and stared, the weirder the whole situation felt and the more aware he became of how anomalous his behavior was; it made him uncomfortable. The sensation was amplified when he noticed passing persons giving him inquisitive glances. They didn’t question or complain about his conduct, nor would they put much thought into it. While naturally curious about everything related to their job and their basic interests, Workers didn’t care much about the affairs of other people or in fact anything which wasn’t relevant to their occupation. Still the looks made Robert feel self-consciousness and even a little ashamed.

After a while he couldn’t take it any longer and fled towards the exit. Just when he wanted to leave the facility, a he an encountered someone familiar; it was Lisa. She greeted him with a friendly smile.

Robert was stunned, as he felt like he was seeing the woman’s face for the first time, even though he recognized it immediately. How had he never realized how pretty she was? Her delicate features, bright blue eyes, cute little nose, short sandy-blonde hair, smooth fair skin, that heart-warming smile; he had seen all that a thousand times and yet it seemed that only now he found the beauty in them. He was absolutely baffled, almost forgetting to greet her back.

Robert’s intentions of leaving vanished immediately. Now his thoughts went in a completely different direction. At that moment all he wanted to do was watch that wonderful woman. It was all he could think about. Lisa was returning from exercising, which meant she would take a shower. He had to wonder: had he ever seen her naked? It was likely, but he could not remember. Usually he didn’t care about trivialities like that. Now it seemed like the most important thing in the world.

Lisa walked past him and proceeded to one of the laundry chutes with the intention of undressing. Robert turned around and walked after her, trying to come up with some pretext to stay near her.

“About those shuttle reinforcements we talked about yesterday,” he took up the topic from the previous day’s lunch break.

“Yes?” Lisa asked him to proceed. She seemed slightly irritated that he would bring up the topic here and now, but talking about work was a welcome distraction during the boring evening routine, so she was willing to participate in the conversation.

“I recently read about some experimental debris shielding used on satellites. They recently launched a trial version of such a satellite on Venus. It’s cheaper and lighter than the solutions we use for our ships; with some adaptations it might be a good middle ground for the shuttles.” Robert was impressed by himself. The idea was not bad considering that he had just come up with it on the fly for the sole purpose saying something.

“Interesting,” Lisa considered while taking off the top of her exercising cloth. Beneath was a tight undershirt which clearly presented the outline of her sizable breasts. That was more than enough to spike Robert’s excitement. “It might be worth a shot. Repurposing such a technology sounds like an extensive project though.” The shirt was also removed, leaving her chest bare for her colleague to admire. He did so with greedy eyes. Two delicate pink nipples demanded all of his attention.

“Yes, of course,” Robert commented, struggling to concentrate on the conversation. “A prove-o- concept might be required first; but we should definitely look into it; maybe consult some experts.”

“We?” Lisa asked with a frown. She stepped out her pants, revealing long, well-toned legs and curvy hips. Robert didn’t know where to look; the situation was overwhelming. “You seem a lot more enthusiastic about the idea than yesterday. Didn’t you suggest not to spend too much time on it? Now you want to develop some entirely new concept for hull reinforcement; what changed?”

“Nothing changed,” he blurted out, feeling like he had been caught at doing something wrong. I just thought about it a lot…” While waiting for her to remove her remaining underwear, Robert experienced the paradoxical situation that he desperately desired her to do it, yet he wanted to savor the moment for as long as he could. Oblivious to his struggle, Lisa shed the piece of fabric unceremoniously. Seeing her fully nude form, Robert was presented with exactly what he had wanted, yet he still wasn’t satisfied. He craved for something more but had no idea what it was. There was an urge to touch her, a need to feel something. But then what? There was a deep desire within him, but how to fulfill it was a mystery to him.

Meanwhile Lisa had discarded all her clothing through the laundry chute, turned around and walked to the towel shelf. Robert craved for her to stay, to come closer to him instead of walking away, to present herself instead of turning her back on him. He resisted the impulse to reach for her, kept himself immobile, just following her with his gaze.

Lisa went for a towel on the bottom shelf, bending over to reach it. While doing so she extended her lovely, heart-shaped buttocks in Robert’s direction, granting a revealing view of her backside and part of her labia. At that alluring sight his arousal reached a new peak but in absence of any physical stimulation and lacking the knowledge how to deal with this strange sensation the experience was more frustrating than rewarding.

Torn between bliss and agony, Robert’s discomfort with the situation finally got the upper hand again. After a final glance at the body which was the main cause of his confusion, he made a hasty escape. As soon as he was back in his room he reactivated the sexual inhibitor, determined never to turn it off again.

4

Robert’s resolve on never meddling with the sexual inhibitor again didn’t last long. With the restriction back in place the obsession about female bodies and the unusual behavior of his genitalia were gone without a trace, but the memories and impressions remained. His mind kept drifting back to the strange experience multiple times over the next few days. While confusing and even frightening there had been something deeply appealing about it. He was sure that there had to be more to this unfamiliar aspect of human life. Besides, he was still no closer to understanding what happened to David.

His curiosity just kept on growing until about a week later he couldn’t resist trying to lift the inhibitor again. He stayed in his room that evening. Nothing happened at first, but after a while some particular memories came to mind. As it turned out, certain thoughts alone were sufficient to trigger the same responses his body had shown before.

Sitting on his bed, naked from the waist down, he inspected the curious condition of his organ for a while. The state of his penis appeared grotesque, swollen far beyond its usual size and protruding from his body on its own. The head showed a somewhat darker shade of its regular color and the blood vessels along the shaft were more prominent than normal. There was also a slight bend to it now, which wasn’t apparent in its flaccid form.

Despite an undeniable urge to touch it, Robert was hesitant at first. It seemed strangely inappropriate, as if the organ, undoubtedly attached to his body, somehow did not belong to him. Eventually he dared to reach for it, carefully feeling with two fingers at first. When nothing bad happened he started probing more thoroughly, exploring the details of the newfound body part. The phallus grew even more rigid under his touches. He kept on playing around for a while. There was a fascination to it, something very appealing; but at the same time it was kind of frustrating. As if he was missing something or not doing it the right way, keeping him in constant, unfulfilled desire for more. After some time, drops of transparent, sticky liquid started leaking from his urethra. While it surprised and worried him at first, he came to the conclusion that, like everything else he had discovered, there appeared to be no harm to it. Still it raised even more questions and left him more aware than ever that he had no idea what was going on.

At some point he decided to quit the experiment and reactivated the inhibitor. With a sensation of incompleteness he watched his erection fade while the entertaining memories suddenly appeared as trivial as they had always been.

Like before he intended to leave it at that and never remove the inhibitor again. Like before he ignored his own resolution and did it again a few days later. It went on like that for a while. Despite the fact that he didn’t find real satisfaction in his experiments, for some reason he wasn’t capable of stopping. It made his lack of insights into the matter even more annoying. He needed to know more about sexuality, but all the sources at his disposal were exhausted.

It was obvious were he could get more information: from the Naturals. Lacking a CERS and subsequently any inhibitors, they had to live their entire lives with these sensations, so they certainly knew what this was about. The problem was that Robert didn’t really know any person he could ask such questions. There were plenty of Naturals on the station, but Robert rarely interacted with any of them. As far as he was aware of, there were no common friendships between the two classes of humans. In fact, the most contact with one particular Natural he had ever had was with David. Otherwise there was nobody he knew who qualified. He couldn’t just walk up to a random Natural and start asking questions. It would immediately raise suspicions. Besides, the knowledge that this topic was somehow related to David’s departure and that there was so little information available to Workers made Robert really careful. He didn’t want to make any mistakes which might entail serious consequences. Still he was looking for ways to learn more about the world of the Naturals.

The solution to his problem came by itself, in the form of a message from management, broadcast to all employees fitting a certain profile. The XG3 space yacht was nearing its release and was due for its final tests. Some of those would not be done exclusively by Workers. There was a simple reason for that: the average Worker strongly differed in many ways from the clients for whom the expensive yachts were produced. Therefore it was advisable to let some Naturals who were not involved in the development process test the final product. Five sample vessels would be provided to candidates chosen by VRW for up to three weeks. The testers were supposed to spend this time living in the yacht, try out all of its features and do some piloting exercises. Their feedback would be used to make some final adaptations.

In order to assist and supervise the testers and to help in case of potential defects, an engineer from the workforce with extensive knowledge about the ship would be assigned to each yacht. For this job the company needed volunteers from the applicable staff. There was a reason why these types of assignments were always handed to volunteers: A Worker’s CERS was always configured specifically for the current job. Assignments usually came with some reconfiguration. Even for rather trivial changes in positions, tasks and responsibilities, some modifications to the CERS were necessary to ensure that the Worker stayed happy and productive in the new occupation. A drastic change like this, which involved taking the Worker from the familiar environment and assigning him or her to a completely different job and setting, also required substantial alterations to the mental state. How well someone responded to such changes varied from person to person. Studies found that Workers, who voluntarily chose a reassignment, responded a lot better to the necessary reconfiguration.

Robert usually didn’t volunteer for jobs which would take him away from the station or diverged too far from his usual job. This new task however, was a good opportunity for him to perhaps find some answers. He would be working closely with a Natural, which might present an opportunity for asking questions. Beyond that there was a chance he would learn more about the outside world.

He immediately replied to the request for candidates. It was not surprising when his application was accepted almost as fast. He was an exemplary employee, well suited for the job; his quick response suggested a good fit for his mindset and the number of enthusiastic applicants was probably not that high.

After being accepted for the assignment, things happened fast. Robert received an appointment with an overseer who made some changes to the configuration of Robert’s CERS in order to prepare him for the new task. A little anxious about having his accustomed settings changed, he made a complete backup of the old configuration the night before. Nobody knew that of course. Neither did the overseer realize that Robert’s safeguard against modifying CERS settings was disabled. The necessity to check that would usually never occur.

Once the preparations were done, Robert was assigned to a ship and a Natural. The person he would team up with was a 29 year old woman by the name of Julia Fischer. He could not judge whether the fact that she was female was a good thing or not. On the one hand he was interested in peculiarities of the male body and was worried that she might not have the insights he required. On the other hand there was this weird obsession with women which haunted him as soon as the sexuality inhibitor was gone.

Robert met her for the first just hours before the scheduled departure from Zukunftsfabrik station. Even if he hadn’t known, he could have immediately told that Julia was a Natural. One clear giveaway was her cloth. Workers wore uniform, purely functional clothing with little regard to design and aesthetics. Colors were used mainly for indicating a Workers position and profession. The company uniforms usually also covered the body from collar to toe, there was no point in exposing skin.

The attire Julia wore was a distinct contrast to that. Her appearance was in no way provocative or salacious by Natural standards, just a common outfit in line with the current fashion. Compared to the chaste Worker garments however, the tight fitting fabric accentuating the shape of her body and the slight display of cleavage might have been considered daring.

Another significant difference was her hair. Workers of both genders usually kept their hair rather short and practical. There were automated hair cutting units in the sanitary facilities with a couple of cuts to select from; when and how to use them was left to the individual. Preferences differed somewhat but most Workers put hardly any concern into it and had their hair cut whenever it became impracticable. Beyond cutting and cleaning there was no interest in additional care. Being subjected to the beauty standards of the common population, Julia had her brunette hair hanging down past her shoulders well groomed and styled.

Of course there was no point in applying makeup for Workers, whereas Julia supplemented her angular facial features with a decent amount of cosmetics. Studying her appearance Robert guessed that he would probably be attracted to her if his sexual inhibitor hadn’t been active at the time. While his sexuality was repressed, it was not so easy to tell what might arouse him about a person once the inhibitor was inactive. Through his previous experiments he had gotten a rough idea about what caught his interest though.

The woman introduced herself as Julia and offered to call her by that name, dismissing the need for formalities. That was fine by Robert; he had no other name to offer anyway. Workers had no parents, no family, therefore no family name. The real identifier of a Worker was a complex serial number unique to each individual ever created. The calling names were just given for convenience reasons.

Julia’s greeting was friendly and casual. Unlike many Naturals her conduct towards Workers was hardly affected by an attitude of superiority. Still Robert felt somewhat humbled. The notion that Naturals were of superior status and importance was omnipresent. He automatically acted submissive around her. With David it had been different. It took Robert a moment to realize that the primary reason for that was the recent change to his CERS configuration. Unlike David, Julia was neither an overseer nor a direct employee of VRW. That meant that she was not able to make modifications to his personality and was likely not accustomed to the idiosyncrasies of Workers in engineering. In the previous assignment the company had simply left it to David to make the necessary adaptations to Robert’s settings so he fit the requirements. In the present case that was not an option so they had given him a configuration closer to that of the average assistant, like Catharina, to ensure he treated the Natural with proper courtesy and obedience.

“So this is the plan,” Julia announced. “Over the next three weeks we will take this yacht to Venus and back. On the way we will swing by Earth and stock up at Hawking station. The distances between all three planets are conveniently small at the moment; so if this ship holds what it promises in terms of speed, we should be able to make the trip with a day or two to spare. We will do the specific piloting exercises the company has provided at regular intervals in between.”

Robert acknowledged the idea without comment. He was not particularly proficient or interested in astronomical navigation, so he had no real opinion on the matter.

“When will you be ready?”

“I can depart anytime,” Robert answered promptly. “All preparations have already been completed.

“Great, give me two hours then I will be ready as well. Let’s say we meet at the ship at 15:30 local time.”

Robert nodded obediently. Having nothing to do in the meantime he headed back to his room and took a closer look at the current settings of his CERS. He wasn’t particularly fond of the new condition of his mind. While the implants made sure there were no unpleasant feelings about it, he found it disagreeable on a rational level. The manipulations of his attitude towards and interaction with Naturals seemed pointless and counterproductive to him. Usually such thoughts would be prevented by the CERS, but with the alteration safeguard disabled Robert was free to build his own opinion on the matter.

Surveying the current configuration he quickly found some parameters which looked tempting to change. Even though he had done it before, he was hesitant at first. His previous modifications had been limited to temporary experiments with the pursuit of knowledge as the main motivation. Now he intended to do persistent changes for his own benefit. After a moment of inner conflict he compromised on a small set of simple measures which wouldn’t have too much of an impact as a first test. He briefly considered deactivating the sexual inhibitor as well, but decided against it. Satisfied for the moment he put his Plug back in place.

As usual there was no immediately recognizable effect after the new configuration was applied. Once he met with Julia again, the difference became obvious. Talking to the woman immediately came easier and more natural; to Robert it felt like he had much more freedom in what he could say and do.

They met at the traffic dock area on one end of the space station and ventured to one of the smaller air locks. On the other side of it, the assigned yacht was already waiting.

“No luggage?” Julia asked when she saw that Robert came empty-handed.

He shook his head. “The company provides everything I need on the ship.”

“Makes sense; I guess we can get going then; after you.”

Opening the airlock required credentials, which Robert could provide by bringing the implant in his forearm close to the access panel. With a hiss the thick metal gate opened and provided entrance to the yacht via a short tunnel.

Julia let out a whistle of appreciation when she got aboard after Robert, stepping into the comparatively large living area. “So this will be our shared home for the days to come; quite fancy. If it handles as well as it looks I will have a lot of fun with this crate. Does the ship have a name?”

Robert was confused by the question. “The designation code is VR-Y3-XG-A4C7,” he recited from memory.

Julia shook her head. “That’s not what I mean. A ship needs a proper given name; something with personal meaning. It’s an old naval tradition.”

They spent the next few minutes making a quick tour through the yacht’s luxurious interior while also discussing a name for the vessel. It took Robert a bit to grasp what kind of name they were looking for, but eventually he came up with a proposal which seemed acceptable: Beautiful Mystery.

“A bit cheesy, but I like it,” Julia concurred, while she made herself comfortable in the pilot chair. “Quite poetic; at least by Worker standards; Beautiful Mystery it is.”

Glad that she liked his idea, Robert took his seat in the copilot position.

With the swiftness of someone who had done this plenty of times, Julia’s hands darted across the controls in front of her, preparing the ship and the attached systems for takeoff.

“You seem to be quite familiar with these systems,” Robert commented.

Julia shrugged. “The interfaces of these vessels are all pretty much the same and ridiculously simple. The yachts are particularly idiot-proof.”

Robert agreed, but he had been working with them for most of his life, so he had no real frame of reference. “Sounds like you have piloted plenty of space craft. Do you own many ships?”

Julia chuckled. “No, I don’t own any. Space ships are horribly expensive and I am not that wealthy. Most of them belong to companies or rich people. The common folk have to rent one or pay for individual flights; or, if you have the proper piloting license and training, you can do pilot jobs and test flights; like I do.”

“So this is your job?” Robert asked.

“More like a hobby,” she answered. “The money one can make in this line of work is insubstantial. Getting assignments is tough. Most pilots are Workers and of course they are usually preferred. In the few cases where Naturals are wanted, the competition is huge. I love space travel and enjoy tasks like these; I would even do it for free. The monetary compensation is just a bonus. But don’t tell that to your superiors.” She winked at Robert with a grin.

Meanwhile the ship had detached from the airlock and was slowly moving towards away from the station.

“So what are you doing with the rest of your time?” Robert asked, eager to learn more about the life of the Naturals.

“You are quite inquisitive for a Worker,” Julia observed instead of answering.

Fearing that he had overstepped, Robert instantly regretted his curious questions. The CERS reacted to his pessimistic assessment of the situation by punishing him with discouragement.

“I am sorry, I didn’t mean any offense,” he apologized submissively.

“That’s not what I meant,” she quickly assured him with a chuckle. “I really don’t mind; on the contrary, I am happy to chat. It’s just surprising, that is all. I have been around Workers before and usually they barely speak a word about anything other than their job. Any deviation from that pattern would be a welcome change.”

This clarification immediately restored Robert’s mood; more than that it, made him even bolder than before.

“I might indeed be different from most of my colleagues,” he informed her in a conspiratorial tone. “Unlike them I am very curious about the life of Naturals and would like to know more about it.”

“I’d be happy to satisfy your curiosity,” she informed him.

Now Robert was really looking forward to the assignment. He would take his time, start with some unassuming, general questions, try to get to know Julia better and wait for an opportunity to steer a conversation in the direction of the topic he was most interested in.

While the yacht left Zukunftsfabrik station behind and ventured out into open space, Robert already mused on various scenarios how the following days might play out.

5

Julia pushed the Beautiful Mystery’s engines to their absolute limits as the vessel accelerated through the vacuum towards a target buoy. Once it reached its maximum velocity, she activated the steering thrusters at the front of the starboard flank and at the back of the port side flank. The opposing thrusts made the ship spin horizontally. The thrusters diagonally across kicked in to stop the spinning so that the ship ended up making a 180 degree turn once it was stable again. The yacht’s forward momentum was hardly affected by the maneuver, so it was still moving in the same direction, now rear first. Again Julia demanded everything the engines had to offer, pushing the other way, gradually lowering the speed instead of increasing it. The video feed from the backside cameras showed the buoy still coming closer at a fast pace. For a while it looked as if they would not be able to stop in time; in the end they came to a full halt a few hundred meters before the buoy.

Julia relaxed, leaning back in the pilot chair, loosening the tense grip on the steering controls. She wiped the sweat from her forehead. After hours of testing the manual control capabilities of the yacht and bringing both machine and pilot to their limits, she was absolutely exhausted.

“Well done,” Robert commended.

“Me or the ship?” Julia asked with a tired grin.

“Both I guess.”

“What do the diagnostics say?” she asked, hoping that they had all the data which was required for this particular set of tests. She enjoyed the task but it was really exhausting over a longer period of time.

“Looks good; temperature is slightly above the expected values and one reactor cell is only operating at 78 percent, but nothing critical. I can’t say with certainty before I run a full analysis on the data, but generally I think everything is in the green.”

“Great; then I would say we call it a day.” Julia turned off the manual controls, switched back to autopilot and set a course for Hawking station.

Modern space ships were mainly piloted by computers. On most flights the human crew did little more than put in the destination and preferred route, supply some additional properties, adjust settings if necessary and keep an eye on the system readings in case something went wrong. Everything else was done by the ship itself.

The possibility for manually controlling space craft had two main purposes: An emergency alternative in case the auto pilot was faulty (which was an extremely rare occurrence) and entertainment. Steering space ships by hand was a common pass time for those who could afford it. A yacht like the XG3, needed to be tested for manual piloting thoroughly, because many of the future owners and renters would certainly try themselves in reckless maneuvers, dangerous races and similar folly.

Like most space travel enthusiast, Julia delighted in the pointless but entertaining piloting hobby. Doing it for hours at a time took its toll though and she was overdue for a break. She disentangled herself from the safety belt harness and lightly pushed off the seat. Floating freely in the zero-G environment she turned around and steered herself towards the exit.

“You can keep working if you want to,” she told Robert who was still strapped into the copilot chair with what seemed to be a look of indecision. Telling a Worker that he could stop working was often not a kindness. She had interacted with his kind often enough to know these peculiarities. Robert wasn’t an entirely common Worker though; she had figured that out rather quickly. It was hard to tell what exactly made him different, but there was something off about him. “I think I’m also done for now” he answered and followed after her.

As soon as Julia got out of the crammed cockpit and into the more spacious central room she started tugging at the fasteners of her flight overall. She couldn’t wait to get out of it. The calibration of the ship’s temperature regulator wasn’t quite perfect yet. It couldn’t fully compensate for all of the additional excess heat produced by the energy reactor and the engines when they operated at maximum capacity. As a result the interior air temperature was slightly higher than comfortable after their stress test runs. In combination with the thick, padded flight suit the heat was almost unbearable.

Most of the time she didn’t even bother wearing the overall, but that would be foolish for the current piloting tasks. High velocity and rough maneuvers tended to exert a lot of force on the body, pressing it hard against the restraints keeping it in place. Without proper protection that led to bruises, abrasions and worse. A little thermal discomfort and sweating was a small price to pay for preventing that.

Julia peeled herself out of the overall. With the protective garment discarded she was reduced to wearing panties and a bra. She intended to stay that way until the temperature would stabilize. Being around Robert in just her underwear didn’t really bother her. Like most people she didn’t react to Workers in the same ways she would to another Natural. It had become quite common to consider them more as robots than real humans. As a consequence, some of the most fundamental emotions usually felt towards another person were simply not there. That could include for example empathy, envy, sympathy or shame.

There were plenty of people who had absolutely no problem with being completely naked around Workers. Some didn’t even mind masturbating or having sex in front of them; and some got a thrill out of it. In recent years a whole new type of fetish had developed around the idea of being watched by clueless Workers while committing some naughty act. Julia wasn’t into that kind of stuff; some partial nudity was the maximum extent of what she was comfortable with.

She made her way to the fridge and retrieved two water bottles. When she turned towards Robert to pass him one, she found him still wearing his suit and staring at her with a strange look; strange at least for a Worker. On a Natural the situation would have been obvious.

“Looking for something?” Julia asked, startling Robert from his absent gaze.

“No,” he answered immediately, averting his eyes. “I was just contemplating a personal project.”

The Worker’s odd behavior puzzled Julia. He was definitely uncomfortable about something, perhaps even nervous. She had no idea what it might be. She couldn’t help but consider whether she had said or done something to cause his distraught condition; nothing particular came to mind. The only apparent cause of dismay was the fact that he was still in his flight suit. Perhaps he wasn’t sure whether he was allowed to take it off, she hypothesized.

“You can take off the overall, if you want,” she proposed. “It must be simmering under there.”

He nodded in agreement, starting to open the fasteners, but there was no urgency to it, indicating that it was not his primary concern. Julia watched him undress while she took a gulp from the bottle. Like her, he was only in underwear beneath. Julia wasn’t surprised about the attractive upper body which was revealed when Robert started shedding the suit. He wasn’t particularly muscular, but his splendid genes and optimized diet ensured that there was practically no excess fat to be found on his body and his muscles were well outlined beneath his skin. The same was true for pretty much every male Worker. Julia was used to it and while she couldn’t quite deny a certain appeal to the sight, the fact that she knew he was a Worker ensured that there would be no attraction between them. She was so conditioned on the idea that he was not really human that her mind automatically rejected the possibility of seeing him as a potential partner. That didn’t mean she couldn’t admire the view though.

The Worker’s body was exactly what Julia had expected up to the point when he pushed the overall down past his waist. She was startled to see a significant protrusion at the front of Robert’s underpants. It took a moment for her to acknowledge that her initial perception of the situation didn’t deceive her: The Worker had an erection.

“What the hell is that?” she asked, pointing at his groin.

Once the Robert realized what she was referring to, he swiftly pulled down his underwear and presented his manhood.

“What are you doing?” Julia asked in a high-pitched voice, utterly perplexed.

“You wanted to know what it is,” Robert tried to defend his action, sounding seriously confused.

“I know what it is you dolt, but it shouldn’t be like that,” Julia snapped. She was confused and alarmed yet she couldn’t help but stare. There was nothing special about it, just a normal engorged dick, maybe slightly above average in size, yet it seemed so out of place. As far as she knew Workers did not experience arousal unless explicitly configured for it. Something was wrong here.

“You mean it shouldn’t be like that because I am a Worker?” Robert asked carefully.

“Obviously,” she replied.

“So for a Natural this condition would be normal?” he continued his inquiry.

“I guess so.” Julia was more and more confused by the situation.

“Can you explain it to me?” Robert asked with a hopeful expression on his face.

Once again she was baffled. “You don’t know what an erection is?”

Robert shook his head. He looked lost and confused. Slowly the whole scenario started to make a little more sense. For Workers who spent their entire lives on an isolated station, surrounded mostly by their own kind, there was probably little need for sexual education. Most of them would never have a use for such knowledge. Usually the CERS kept them from having any interest in it. Apparently this had changed for Robert recently and now he was clueless about what was going on.

Julia relaxed a little, but was still uncomfortable about the situation; especially with the Worker’s phallus continuing to point at her. It was like stumbling into the plot of a porn video. She had no interest in letting that story unfold.

“First of all, get that thing out of my sight,” she demanded. Robert complied hastily, stowing the organ back in its confines. At least he still followed orders. More hesitantly she added: “What exactly do you want me to explain to you?”

“I would like to know everything about sexuality,” he requested sounding more like a school boy than an adult.

Julia took a deep breath while trying to collect her thoughts. This day had certainly taken an unexpected turn. She wasn’t sure how to deal with Robert. Never before had she experienced or even heard of a case like that. Some of his behavior had been unusual from the start. Clearly there was something wrong with his CERS. If the system was faulty or wrongly configured there was no telling what might be going on in his head. Was he dangerous? He hadn’t shown any irrational or violent tendencies so far. The safe thing to do would probably be to inform the company. The yacht wasn’t far from earth by now. She could contact the VRW headquarter and confine Robert to his cabin until they took care of the matter.

Julia was curious though. Without a doubt this was an extraordinary occurrence and she wanted to know more about it. She had not received any instructions for such a scenario, so there were no obligations either. After brief consideration she decided on questioning Robert about his point of view, before daring to make a choice.

“Before I can explain anything to you, I will need to know what is going on,” Julia clarified, arms crossed and a stern expression on her face. She hoped to exert an aura of authority, to ensure the Worker’s compliance. The role of the displeased superior wasn’t really a familiar one for her, but for this purpose it should be sufficient. “It’s obvious that your CERS doesn’t work the way it should. Not just because of the bulge in your pants, but also because of your behavior. For example a usual Worker would not be ogling my chest, like you are doing right now.” The Worker quickly averted his gaze, scanning the room for another point of interest to focus on. “Do you have an explanation for that?”

Robert opened his mouth and closed it again. It was plain to see that his mind was hard at work figuring out what to tell her. Either he was trying to come up with a lie or he was looking for the proper way to tell his story. Julia had little patience for either. The fact that he had enough mental freedom to be so hesitant was already disconcerting.

“My sexual inhibitor is deactivated,” Robert stated with some reluctance.

“Sexual inhibitor?” she asked, not familiar with the term but able to deduce its meaning from context. “You mean in the configuration of your CERS?”

He nodded.

“That doesn’t sound like something happening by accident,” she expressed her suspicion with a frown.

“No,” he admitted, “I turned it off.”

“Why?”

“I was curious. I wanted to know what sexuality is; but afterwards I was more confused than ever.”

“How did you even manage to do that?” she wanted to know. “Workers are not supposed to be able to change their own configurations.”

He shrugged. “I just did. I still had the tools for it from a project I had been working on. The rest was easy.”

Somebody definitely messed up there, Julia was sure. She wasn’t an expert in the overseer’s business but it was common knowledge that they were subjected to strict regulations. Something like this was clearly not supposed to happen.

“I didn’t break any rules,” Robert claimed defensively, even though there had been no accusation. “Nobody ever said it was forbidden.”

That sounded unlikely at first but the more Julia thought about it the more sense it made. Companies like VRW strongly preferred relying on the CERS to ensure proper behavior of their Workers, in favor of defining and enforcing specific rules. It had turned out to be more efficient and surprisingly reliable. This philosophy also helped tackle the criticism against the concept of the CERS-Workforce as being slavery. A common counter argument used by companies was that there were no chains, no guards, no locks and no inhumane rules or restrictions. Workers weren’t forced to do anything they didn’t want to, nor were they prevented from anything; they were merely encouraged or discouraged towards the desired behavior. Based on that reasoning it made sense that there was no established rule against modifying CERS settings. The implants made sure that Workers didn’t get any wrong ideas and that was sufficient. Apparently this safeguard wasn’t active in Robert’s case anymore.

“How long since you made that change?”

“The first time was a few weeks ago. I turned it off and on again a few times since. I wanted to stop but wasn’t quite able to. I just need to know what this is about.”

“Wait a second. Did you only volunteer for this assignment in the hope of learning more about sexuality?”

He nodded, looking ashamed of himself. “I am sorry if my behavior was inappropriate, I didn’t mean offense.”

Suddenly Julia felt sorry for Robert. She couldn’t begin to imagine how terrifying it must be for an adult, who hadn’t heard anything about sex in his life, to be plunged into a sudden puberty, without anyone around to talk about it. Clearly this was really important to him.

“It’s okay,” she assured him with a significantly softer tone. “This is just really weird for me. For the future you should know that openly staring at people is considered rude. Even more important: Don’t expose your genitalia in front of someone who hasn’t explicitly agreed to it. That can get you in a lot of trouble.”

Robert nodded. “So would it be possible for you to teach me about sexuality?”

Her first instinct was to refuse. It just seemed inappropriate. Considering the hopeful expression on his face and how utterly lost he seemed she found it difficult to deny him though.

“Possible, yes,” Julia admitted reluctantly. “However, I am not quite sure how to go about it. I might not be the right person for that” She wouldn’t even have known how to handle that situation with a child, much less with a grown man. Much to her private embarrassment, the first method which came to her mind was a practical hands-on way. That idea was quickly rejected of course. Robert was handsome in a way, but the fact that he was a Worker made sure that she felt practically no attraction towards him. She barely even considered him a man. The only reason why she wanted to help was that she felt sorry for him and a little guilty about the CERS-Workforce situation in general. Pity and guilt were not a good basis for engaging in sexual actions; at least not to her.

The most obvious way of teaching him would be a direct conversation. However, the thought of having ‘the talk’ with an adult Worker barely younger than her, who she had only known for a few days, was beyond weird. She had never done anything remotely like that. Where would she even start? How much detail was appropriate?

There had to be a better way. How did kids nowadays learn about sex? The answer was obvious: the Internet. Certainly there were some decent instruction videos on sexuality for young people online. Luckily the yacht was close enough to Earth to access the Internet via one of the many satellites dedicated to this purpose, without too much latency. With Earth’s global network at her disposal, Julia could pick from such a vast collection of sexual material, there had to be something fitting this purpose.

“Give me a few minutes,” Julia said. She picked up her UID and established a connection through the ship’s communication array. Browsing the most popular video streaming sites, her expectations were quickly confirmed: the selection was huge. She shortly sampled a number of videos with promising descriptions and high ratings. It was hard to determine what she was looking for. There wasn’t really a category ‘sexual education for male, adult Workers’. It should be informative, start at the very basics and cover the whole subject, without being too childish or patronizing. Also she realized that she would have to remember clearing her browser history after this. It might raise some really uncomfortable questions if someone saw the suggestions without context.

The video she chose was about an hour long, had received excellent ratings and the instructors in it made a respectable impression.

“This is hopefully a better teacher than I could be,” she announced. She increased the size of the UID’s monitor size and left it floating in the middle of the room after starting the video. The Worker’s gaze immediately fixed on the screen and he watched with undivided attention.

During the first few minutes Julia didn’t quite know what to do with herself. Watching the video with Robert or leaving him alone, both felt wrong somehow. To her own surprise she found the video rather captivating, even though she didn’t really learn anything new. Most importantly it helped her cope with the awkwardness. After a while her eyes started darting back and forth between the UID and Robert’s face to study his reactions. He didn’t even seem to notice.

Julia was quite satisfied with her choice of tutorial. It was rather graphic and detailed, with a fair level of nudity considering that the target audience was adolescents; but it wasn’t too salacious, with a professional, somewhat academic feel to it. Whether it was the right thing to answer Robert’s questions was hard to judge, but all the essentials were properly covered.

Once the video was over, Robert just stared blankly for a while. It certainly was a lot for him to take in.

“Do these things apply to Workers as well?” Robert asked after a long silence. The video had obviously been targeted at Naturals and didn’t even mention that there was another type of human. “Or is this just about Naturals?”

“Well, physically you are not that different from us, so I guess most of it holds true for Workers as well. As far as I know, Workers are sterile though, which means the part about conceiving children isn’t really relevant for you.”

“But a Worker could have sex?”

“In theory, yes; if you find a willing partner; I am not sure how easy that will be though. It’s hard to tell how women will react to being wooed by a Worker.

“What about masturbation?”

“Nothing is preventing you from doing that is there? If you are asking for my permission, I don’t really care, nor am I in any position to forbid it. Just keep it to your cabin, okay?”

Robert nodded. To Julia there was little doubt about what he would be doing with a significant portion of his spare time for the rest of their time on the yacht.

Her expectations should hold true. Over the following days he spent a lot more time in his cabin then before. It was kind of paradoxical that Robert was traveling through the solar system in a luxurious yacht for the first time, seeing incredible views, yet he spent his time doing things he could have done pretty much anywhere. The joys of masturbation seemed to be a significant revelation to him. He had turned off his sexual inhibitor all the time now which proved to be a bit of a problem.

The lesser issue, but still rather awkward, was the extreme obviousness with which he regularly disappeared into his cabin for a very specific purpose during their leisure time. Julia informed him that this, like most things surrounding sexuality, was a rather private matter. Afterwards he at least stopped telling her about his intentions. That didn’t make his activities during those short intervals of isolation less obvious of course. Not that she minded him having his fun, but it felt really weird, knowing that he was jerking it next door.

What troubled Julia more, was that in absence of other inspiration she became more and more the target of Robert’s longing gazes; even when dressed relatively chaste. Being cooped up in a confined space for days with just one person of the opposite sex, after having rushed through puberty in record time, it was not all that surprising. He had the decency not to spy on her, to make his staring not all too obvious and to shamefully avert his gaze when caught. What worried her was that he might develop an unhealthy fixation for her.

The solution seemed simple at first: Julia could lend him her UID. Unlike Robert’s device, which was limited to specific networks dedicated to Workers, hers had full access to the Internet. There were plenty of other women on there to obsess about. She put in a filter for adult content and only admitted a few select sites, with the intention of restricting him to some of the tamer and more realistic material. He was already weird enough, there was no telling what might happen to his mind if he lost himself in the eerie depths of the pornographic wonderlands the Internet so readily offered.

The vast collections of pictures and videos were definitely a significant enrichment for his limited sexual life, but they didn’t quite achieve the intended goal. Julia’s presence still had almost the same effect on him as before. A real woman out of flesh and blood was still something different from all forms of digital stimulation after all.

Julia even considered asking Robert, if he could turn on his sexual inhibitor while they were in a room together. He probably would have complied, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it; commanding someone to alter his own mind, distorting his personality, seemed inhuman to her. Besides, she had no idea what kind of long-term effects these changes might do to his psyche. While she didn’t quite see Robert as a regular person yet, she didn’t consider him as a mindless, inconsequential Robot anymore either.

By the time they arrived at Venus, Julia’s concerns caused her to come up with a spontaneous deviation of their journey plan. The idea had already occurred to her the previous night, but when she found Robert gazing at her absently during another test run, she made up her mind.

“Tomorrow we will go out!” she announced resolutely.

“Out where?” Robert asked puzzled.

“The commercial district of the Venus colony,” was her answer.

He was certainly surprised but had no reason to object.

VRW probably hadn’t intended for Robert to leave the ship during his assignment, but no one had told Julia that he couldn’t. Hopefully the many distractions available in the colony would take his mind off his haunting desires. Even if not, there would at least be plenty of women for him to ogle.

6

The Venus colony was an extraordinary achievement in humanities conquest of the solar system. Robert had read a lot about it, but seeing it with his own eyes was awe-inspiring. A miracle of modern technology, it was unlike any other human habitat. Even the larger colony on Mars, the only other extraterrestrial planetary settlement, looked less spectacular in comparison. While Mars had plenty of challenges in store, such as low gravity, lack of atmosphere, solar radiation and so on, the basic idea of establishing a base there had been straight forward: Get to the surface, establish a structure which separates the inhabitants from all the environmental hazards and establish a steady, reliable supply of all the goods and materials needed.

Venus was a different story. Due to extreme temperatures and atmospheric pressure close to the surface, setting up buildings on the ground was not really an option. That didn’t stop humanity from colonizing its closest neighbor though. Based on rudimentary concepts which had first been developed in the 2010s and significantly improved upon in the 2020s, humanity embarked on one of its most fascinating endeavors: The Cloud City. What seemed like a fever-dream of science fiction enthusiasts at first became reality throughout the decades.

Around 50 kilometers above the surface, temperature and pressure were much less of an issue, the atmosphere was still conveniently dense and there was plenty of sunlight to harness energy from. The colony hovered in that altitude, a cluster of connected floating platforms. Each of those was covered by a wide dome which kept the oxygen-rich, well-tempered air inside separated from the outside and protected from various other hazards.

For plenty of reasons the Venus colony was much smaller than the one on Mars, but it had received a lot of attention lately and was in the process of overtaking the older colony as the most popular destination for interplanetary travel. Of course the floating city was far from being self-sustaining and swallowed gigantic amounts of money. It was financed through a combination of public funding, donations, tourism, scientific research and permanent residents who were willing to pay insane sums in order to be able to call themselves Venusians.

It wasn’t possible to land a space ship on the cloud city. This wasn’t much of an inconvenience, as most ships were not intended for efficient ascent and descent through a planet’s atmosphere anyway. Aerodynamics weren’t much of a concern in that area; nor was it as important to keep the mass of a vessel low. Transfer between Venus orbit and the colony was only possible via shuttles, optimized for this task. A swarm of such vessels constantly moved back and forth transporting people and wares. For this purpose the planet was orbited by a so-called gateway station, which was essentially just a large floating dock, allowing space ships to attach and serving as a main station for the shuttle transfer.

On this gateway station Robert and Julia deposited the Beautiful Mystery and switched to a passenger shuttle which brought them down to the Cloud City. They arrived on one of the largest floating platforms, which was home to the commercial district. This part of the city was the main target for tourists, offering plenty of options for spending their money. It would also be the place Julia intended to spend the day in.

The district was dedicated to entertainment, shopping, relaxation, dining, partying, gambling and other pastimes. Various restaurants, bars, cafes, shops, cinemas, virtual reality stations, casinos, museums, sport facilities, brothels, spas and much more were crammed together in a comparably small space. Due to the limited space, challenging conditions and significant cost of importing wares, these establishments charged much higher prices compared to what similar delights might cost on Earth. Nonetheless plenty of people were eager to pay. Some because they were in the city for business and had no other options; for many more merely being here made everything more enjoyable. The feeling of floating through the Venusian clouds was worth a lot to certain tourists, even while engaging in rather mundane activities.

To Robert it was a whole new world. This was the first time he was truly confronted with the deeply hedonistic, commercial side of the Natural society: all the advertisements competing for his attention; the vast selection of things to do, see, eat, drink and buy; the inefficiency and redundancy of it all; the omnipresence of monetary evaluation, assigning a price to everything. For someone who had never possessed or needed any money, had been provided with all basic needs with very little choice and had never experienced any desires beyond what he was given freely, it was overwhelming. Robert just followed Julia’s lead, trying to process the experience.

Their first stop was a cloth store, where Julia bought him a new outfit. The only attires he possessed were common Worker uniforms from VRW. As long as Robert merely tagged along in the role of the subordinate, it was fine, but it wouldn’t allow him to indulge in the activities not intended for his kind. People would get very suspicious if they saw a factory Worker casually mingling with Naturals. The unfamiliar outfit felt strange to Robert at first, but he quickly got used to it. Despite the disguise he was plagued by the feeling of not belonging. What would the Naturals do if they found out that he wasn’t one of them? Julia ensured him that there was no reason to worry about that. The idea that a Worker might pose as a Natural was so absurd it would never occur to them.

Nevertheless the pair was initially nervous, as they walked through the district, trying to blend in with the other tourists. They quickly relaxed throughout their stay, as it turned out that they didn’t draw even the slightest attention.

Julia introduced Robert to various forms of conventional entertainment. While he was very curious about them and enjoyed trying new things, most of it had little appeal to him. He had been conditioned on what was supposed to be enjoyable and what wasn’t for his entire life. These deeply embedded definitions of fun were not easily replaced, so many of the Natural pastimes were weird and pointless to him. In addition to that his CERS, even though its authority over his mental state had been strongly reduced lately, still had a lot of influence on what caused pleasure in him.

The activities which really sparked Robert’s enthusiasm were those which introduced him to some new form of technology. Being in one of the most technologically advanced places humanity had to offer, there was plenty for him to discover. The actual purpose of the various devices he got to see was often lost on him, but their existence and functionality fascinated him immensely. He would have loved to take some of them apart in order to learn how they worked.

Another strange concept which didn’t really fit into his previous world view was the idea of indulging in meals. He had been living on the same, almost tasteless nutrient paste for as long as he could remember. Factory Workers were not even aware that food could come in any other form or flavor. Therefore he was quite surprised by the existence of so many different restaurants, all of them offering edibles in various forms. Without any idea what Robert might like or dislike, Julia decided to stop at a few different places for small snacks throughout the day. At first, everything Robert tried was bland and unappealing to him. After a while they had an idea what the reason might be: The CERS had a function which detected consumption of unnecessary nutrients, such as excessive amounts of sugar and fat. The implants influenced the taste and caused unpleasant feelings to discourage from such behavior. This feature was activated by default for most Workers. A minor change of his configuration was a quick and effective remedy for the problem. Afterwards he found a lot more delight in the sense of taste. His underdeveloped taste buds did not react very well to spicy or overly sweet dishes and there were some intense flavors he could not stand at all, but he also discovered some very delicious food, he really enjoyed.

In addition to technology and food, there was a third thing which really peeked Robert’s interest: People. At first it was the Naturals who held his curiosity. Strolling around in their strongly varying, colorful cloth, noisily chatting with each other, joking and laughing, eating and drinking, spending money and wasting time; their behavior was so different from that of Workers, so pointless, unpredictable and illogical. It seemed strange to Robert that those people were supposed to be humans in their original, unaltered form, while the Workers were an artificially modified breed.

Watching the Naturals was entertaining but also irritating. They were so alien to him that it felt almost impossible to relate. However, they were not the only humans in the colony; there were also Workers. They weren’t as apparent, but there were plenty of them. Originally the CERS-Workforce had been created for isolated factories and jobs with little contact to Naturals. The enormous success in these fields had soon led to a dramatic expansion of the concept until most service jobs were now done almost exclusively by Workers as well. Waiters, barkeepers, promoters, shopkeepers, ticket vendors, cleaning staff, security personnel and many more occupations found in the commercial district were in the hand of CERS-controlled employees.

This type of Worker displayed some significant differences in comparison to what Robert was used to. Due to the fact that interaction with Naturals was an important part of their responsibilities, there was a strong focus on making these interactions as pleasant as possible. The first consequence of this policy, which Robert recognized, was their looks. For the purpose of luring in customers, many employees were extraordinarily attractive. While even common factory Workers already benefited from a supreme gene pool, those who were intended for the service industry were often specifically chosen based on their appearance. How to style and groom to the clientele’s liking was obviously part of their training. In many cases the uniforms also acted in favor of their natural beauty, especially for women. While still being unmistakably the attires of Workers, tight fitting fabrics, a lot of exposed skin and inviting necklines were a common sight.

Their behavior was also somewhat different. For factory Workers, efficiency was always the topmost priority. This clearly did not apply here. These employees were all about being friendly, polite, inviting, sometimes even humorous and generally pleasant company. They tried to emulate the positive characteristics of Naturals. It made sense of course. Most customers in a restaurant would feel weird about waiters who reduced their communication to the necessary minimum and hurried around as fast as they possibly could. People wanted to feel like they interacted with normal human beings, not mindless robots.

One thing was similar for the varying kinds of Workers, but it manifested in very different ways: The happiness created by their work. Factory staff delighted in its occupations, but rarely expressed these emotions for others to see. Workers such as waiters on the other hand were conditioned to show their passion openly. Satisfying a customer demands filled them with joy and they made sure that people around them were aware of it. They displayed warm smiles, overflowing enthusiasm, sincere excitement for new arrivals and a jaunty attitude in general. In addition to creating a pleasant experience for customers, there was also another important motive behind it. People should be convinced that the CERS-controlled Workers were truly happy about their lives. It helped overcome moral concerns towards the more or less forced servitude.

Seeing the Workers go about their business with glee invoked a multitude of strange sensations in Robert. He knew perfectly well how they felt. They were in the same state of bliss he usually experienced during his shifts. He had so much in common with them. Yet he had freed himself at least partly from the manipulation of the CERS while they were still completely obedient. In a way he both pitied and envied them.

Throughout their tour, the pair encountered a large statue depicting two human figures, one male and one female. Their facial features were somewhat blank and generic, suggesting that they didn’t portray specific persons but a more general group of people. From the back of each head protruded a long, thin appendage resembling a cable. The wires snaked through the air in a winding pattern and ended without connecting anywhere. It took Robert a moment to realize that the statues were supposed to represent Workers. The cables were testament to a concept from earlier, more archaic days. Back then there had been no Plug for changing CERS configurations. Instead, the port which was now occupied by the Plug had been used to establish a direct connection between a Worker’s implants and a computer via cable. It had taken some time and a few very unpleasant incidents until people learned that directly meddling with the brain of a conscious human being could have unwelcome side effects, leading to the development of the Plug.

“This is a memorial dedicated to the Workers who built this colony,” Julia explained. “There is another one just like this on Mars. The CERS-Workforce was crucial in the effort of making the colonies into what they are today. Early attempts on colonization were very slow, costly and ridden with failures. Purely automated missions carried out by machines with sophisticated artificial intelligence didn’t quite live up to the expectations, often failing in properly adapting to unpredictable situations. Manned missions with volunteers from Earth were no more successful. Regular humans had a hard time coping with the immense challenges to body and mind. There were plenty of accidents, various cases of illness or insanity and a fast decline in productiveness for every new team. The projects were on the brink of being abandoned. That changed with the advent of the CERS. Teams of Workers were engineered, conditioned and trained specifically for this purpose. Much more resistant to the physical dangers and almost immune to the psychological ones, the first teams were sent to the colonies about 25 years ago. It was a huge success. The Workers proved to be the perfect middle ground between a human’s inventiveness, ingenuity and ability to adapt and a machine’s resilience, effectiveness and stamina. Building on the primitive basis provided by the earlier operations, they conjured up the colonies with unbelievable speed. For that achievement they are honored here.”

“What happened to the Workers who first came here?” Robert wanted to know.

“Most of them died, unfortunately. Even for them, the harsh conditions on a foreign planet were not without consequence.”

“I thought so,” Robert replied with a sorrowful expression. Julia regarded him with a look of sympathy but had no words to offer. They regarded the memorial for a while, before walking on.

While constantly moving from one place to the next, Robert never had a chance to observe the surrounding Workers for long. That changed when Julia decided that they had done enough exploring for a day and brought him to a pub she had been to before, the last intended stop of their excursion. The pair picked a quiet, somewhat isolated booth in a corner where they could not easily be overheard. The waitress who served their table really caught Robert’s eye. She was a rather short, young red-head with fair skin and a really cute face. With a cheerful, almost giddy demeanor she was more dancing than walking between the tables while going about her occupation. Watching her was addictive.

When the waitress greeted her new customers, her smile was so brilliant and heart-warming that Robert was dumbstruck for a moment. He attempted to return the smile but it felt forced and shallow. It was ironic, despite being the result of intense conditioning and artificially induced emotions, her reaction seemed so much more sincere and genuine. When she walked away, Robert’s gaze followed her, captivated by the sensual sway of her hips.

“You like her,” Julia observed with a grin and yanked Robert out of his stupor.

“She is nice,” Robert admitted. “But that is just because her CERS manipulates her to be that way.”

Her expression became more serious. “Do you think that is wrong?”

“No,” Robert quickly denied, not wanting to sound like he objected to the world view of the Naturals. “I don’t know; it is just strange that she is so similar yet so different in comparison to me.”

Julia nodded sympathetically as if she understood his sentiments. He doubted that she really did; he barely understood it himself; but he appreciated the gesture.

“Are they configured and educated like me?” Robert asked after a moment of silence in a hushed, almost conspiratorial tone.

Julia looked puzzled for a moment, until she grasped the true meaning behind his question. “You mean if they are as clueless about sexuality as you were?”

He hadn’t intended to be so forthright about it, but in essence that was exactly what he was interested in. He nodded.

“I am not sure. Generally it’s discouraged to give Workers any knowledge or emotions which are not necessary or beneficial for their specific occupations. So if sex is not part of her job, she probably has no desire for it. How much she knows about it, I can’t say. It depends on what the employer considers as necessary. Most companies have very strict rules about the way Naturals are supposed to treat them. Staring and some innocent flirting is usually okay, but inappropriate touching, sexual advances or attempts of building an unprofessional relationship are mostly forbidden. Even with less strict employers, the Workers are mostly unaware of the motivation behind customers’ indecent behavior, I think.”

Robert nodded, somewhat disappointed. He let go of the subject, trying to wrest his mind away from the cute waitress. He and Julia had another snack, a dish of fries and artificial meat nuggets with chicken flavor. He found both to be quite agreeable. The beer Julia had ordered on the other hand was not at all to his liking. His inexperienced taste buds couldn’t handle the bitterness. Not surprised, Julia took the beer for herself and gave him the cider she had ordered as a second beverage. That one he enjoyed a lot more. She advised him to take it slow though, since it was the first time he was drinking alcohol.

Shortly after they had finished their food and first round of drinks, a woman walked up to their table and greeted Julia enthusiastically. She was a Natural by the name of Amy and apparently the two women were long-term friends who hadn’t seen each other in a while. Amy was mid-thirty, tall and stocky with long black hair, and a square face. The dress she wore was a lot less practical than the cloth Julia seemed to prefer.

“So who is this handsome gentleman?” Amy inquired looking at Robert. “Your boyfriend?”

“No, not at all,” Julia clarified hastily. “This is Robert; we are colleagues, of sorts.”

“Pleasure to meet you,” Amy said, extending a hand. Robert quickly answered the greeting, nervous about suddenly having to interact with another Natural.

“I didn’t know you had colleagues,” Amy commented, placing herself in a chair at the table without anyone explicitly inviting her to do so. “Do you have a new job?”

“Not really,” Julia answered. “I am still doing piloting assignments and the likes whenever something comes up. Currently I’m testing a new ship. Robert here works at VRW and really knows a lot about the vessel so they offered to send him along for explaining all the details and tracking the performance of the ship.”

“Sounds nice,” Amy commented. She turned towards Robert. “You must be quite the talent, getting a job at VRW,” she assumed.

“So I’ve been told,” Robert replied truthfully. “One might say I was born for it.” As soon as the private joke had left his mouth he felt like it was a stupid thing to say. If Amy thought the same, she showed no sign of it. Luckily she didn’t follow the topic any further.

For the next hour or so, the woman remained at their table and kept talking almost incessantly. At first she discussed some personal topics with Julia but in time her focus shifted more and more towards Robert. Much to his discomfort she kept asking him questions which he couldn’t answer truthfully without revealing who he actually was. Both he and Julia wanted to avoid that at any cost so in a disorganized team effort they fabricated a construct of lies around Robert’s life which became more and more difficult to maintain. Luckily Amy wasn’t of the suspicious kind and didn’t seem to care much for many of the details he provided, so if there were holes and contradictions in the story, she didn’t realize.

The conversation was exhausting and made very clear to Robert, how very different his life was from that of a Natural. He couldn’t make sense of half the things Amy told him. Creating plausible lies about one’s life was really difficult, without knowing what was normal and acceptable.

At some point, she asked where Robert had grown up. That was a really tricky inquiry which could cause many potential follow-up questions he couldn’t answer. Robert decided to attempt a completely different approach. Leaning over to her he said with a low, conspiratorial voice: “What if I told you, that I am actually a Worker, bred in a laboratory, owned by VRW, who secretly broke out of the factory and is now on the run?”

Both Amy and Julia looked at him in irritation for a moment. Then Amy erupted into high-pitched laughter. Robert smiled, happy that his plan for a distraction had worked.

“You really got me,” Amy admitted once she had calmed down. “Acting all shy, solemn and secretive at first and then hitting me with such a punch line. The seriousness with which you delivered that was brilliant; you could be an actor.”

“He really is quite the joker,” Julia confirmed, visibly amused about the exchange. “When I first met him I thought he is just all about work and business, but I discovered a rather devious side about him.”

“Oh I can imagine that quite well,” Amy claimed with a grin. “Alas, I have to be on my way now; I have an appointment coming up. I hope we’ll run into each other again soon.” To Robert she said: “It was really nice meeting you. Let me know if you want to have a drink some time, so we can get to know each other better.” She unceremoniously handed him a business card with her contact information on it.

Both Robert and Julia relaxed visibly once Amy was out of sight. Keeping up this charade had been quite a strain on them.

“What is that about?” Robert asked and held up the business card.

Julia smirked. “Amy is into you. She has a thing for younger men. If you want to have sex with someone, she would probably be your best chance.”

Robert considered it briefly. He didn’t quite feel the same desire for her as for some other women. But even if he had, there would have been serious doubts about contacting her. The conversation had made clear that the Natural’s world was completely foreign to him. He didn’t belong in it and was unsure how long he could fool people into believing that he did. More importantly, he didn’t even want to fool people. He just wanted to be himself. Seeing how dismissively Naturals treated Workers, it was quite obvious that they wouldn’t just accept him though.

“I don’t think so,” Robert finally replied with a solemn tone and they left it at that.

“So what you said about being a Worker who escaped from the factory and is on the run…” Julia carefully brought up a different subject.

“I knew she wouldn’t believe me,” Robert defended his actions, misinterpreting what she wanted to say.

“I know,” she confirmed. “But what I am wondering now is: Are you? A Worker on the run I mean? I know you didn’t really flee from the factory. The question is: Will you go back?”

The question took Robert by surprise. “I haven’t really considered the possibility of not going back. Where would I even go? I have no money, no home and no family; as I have seen today, this world is utterly strange and confusing to me. No, I don’t think there is any other option for me but to return.”

“What about your CERS?” Julia prodded further. “Will you keep it as it is or go back to the previous settings? I mean you know about sexuality now; that was the objective right?”

“I am not sure yet. I will have to try it out. My expectation is that in my current state, the regular life at the factory will not be as pleasant as it used to be. So it is probably better to reset my configuration to default.”

“Even the sexual inhibitor?”

“That would only cause me problems and frustration anyway,” he tried to make it sound like an easy choice.

“Can you really just turn it off and not think about it again?”

That was another question he was not capable of answering. It hadn’t been that simple in the past.

“I hope so. I have lived without any idea about sexuality for most of my life and it hasn’t made me any less happy. Without those biological urges, there is little to miss about it I guess. It was mainly curiosity which made me explore the topic further. Now that I know what it is all about, I should be able to lay it to rest.”

“Even without having tried sex for yourself?”

“Workers are not intended to have sex,” he cast a longing glance at the passing waitress. “Maybe it’s for the best. Not knowing what I am missing might make it easier to live without it for the rest of my life.” Robert tried to sound convinced and confident about this prospect; with very little success.

Julia regarded him with an expression of pity. “There is still a way how you could experience sex before going back to the factory,” she revealed. Robert was unaware of what she meant. She had made very clear over the last few days, that she was not interested.

“I have played with the thought but wasn’t sure if it is a good idea,” Julia started hesitantly. “Do you know what a brothel is?”

Robert shook his head.

“It is a place where people can pay to have sex. There are three such establishments on this station.”

The thought that something like that existed hadn’t occurred to him, but after seeing all the various ways for Naturals to pay for fun, he wasn’t surprised. After all it was a form of entertainment.

“I don’t have any money though,” he mentioned the obvious flaw in the plan.

Julia waved it off. “Don’t worry about that, I will sponsor you. In case you decide that this is something you want.”

Robert thought about it. He felt bad about receiving even more money from Julia, after she had already paid for the entire day. However, he was also curious and after being surrounded by beautiful women all the time, also somewhat horny.

“If you really don’t mind, I would like to visit such a brothel. I will decide whether I go through with it once I have a better idea of what I am getting myself into.”

“Okay, fine; and just though you know: I have never been to such an establishment and I am not at all familiar with the business. I will take you there and be gone as quickly as possible. Afterwards you will be on your own.”

That made Robert a bit more nervous but his mind was already made up. The two of them left the pub and made their way down the corridor of the ring.

“This must be the place,” Julia announced when they stopped in front of a rather inconspicuous entrance with a neon sign reading “Venusian Delights” above it. “Among those I found on the local network, this one has the best ratings and reviews among the available selection. I don’t know if people who rate brothels online can be trusted, but that is all I have.”

The two of them stood in front of the brothel awkwardly, both rather uncomfortable about the situation.

“Are you going to come in?” Robert asked carefully. He really hoped that she would. His limited experience in talking to Naturals and the complete absence of experience with prostitution made him very nervous.

“I didn’t intend to,” she admitted. “But maybe I should make sure you don’t get ripped off.”

“I would appreciate it,” Robert said relieved.

Hesitantly they entered the building. Robert was surprised to find out that the main room of the brothel looked a lot like the bars they had passed throughout the day. The main difference was the many astonishingly beautiful women in skimpy costumes acting as waitresses and barkeepers, dancing on podiums and providing company to the guests. He hadn’t put much thought into it, but somehow he had imagined something different.

Robert and Julia had only taken a few hesitant steps into the facility when they were approached by a barely dressed woman.

“Welcome to Venusian Delights,” she greeted with a brilliant smile. “Are you here to spice up your relationship?”

“No, we are not a couple,” Julia established very quickly. “I am just accompanying my friend here. He has never done this before but he would like to find a nice lady to spend some time with.”

“Certainly; you can take a seat, have a drink, take your time to find someone you like and get acquainted; or you can just approach the girl you fancy and get right to it; whatever you are comfortable with.”

“Thank you, having a drink sounds good,” Robert announced, needing more time to decide.

“Great, follow me.” The woman guided them to a table.

Julia looked uneasy but there was also some curiosity in her expression. Instead of leaving immediately she took a seat next to Robert. “This is less shady than I expected,” she pondered aloud.

“Why would it be shady?” Robert asked.

“Well, this business has a certain stigma to it. For a very long time many people considered it to be immoral; some still do. It used to be tightly entangled with all kinds of criminal activities and was illegal in many countries. In most human domains it is a legal, respected and well regulated trade nowadays. Society is a lot more accepting of this profession than it used to be. Still, it hasn’t managed to lose the bad reputation entirely.”

“So do you consider it immoral?”

“Not really; I wouldn’t have brought you if I did. Still, it is not really my thing and sitting here feels kind of weird.”

“Yeah, I am not completely comfortable about the situation either,” Robert admitted.

“So do you want to leave?”

A part of him wanted to, but the more his gaze wandered through the room filled with all kinds of gorgeous women, the more a different part urged him to stay.

“I think I will stay here a little longer and see how it goes. But you don’t have to stay because of me.”

Julia was clearly not sure whether it was a good idea to leave Robert alone, but also eager to get out of the establishment.

“Ok, if you are certain, I will take a shuttle back to the ship. You know how to get there, right?”

He nodded.

Julia took out a credit chip, which contained a fixed amount of money and placed it on the table. “There should be enough on there. No need to spend it all though.”

“Thank you.” Robert picked up the rectangular chip and took a closer look at it. He understood the concept of money and knew how it worked, but he had never owned any form of currency himself. Workers received no salary or other form of income. Everything they had was provided by their employers.

“Ok, have fun.” Very quickly Julia was gone and Robert was left a lot more uneasy than a moment before.

He tried to get over his anxiety by focusing on the reason for his presence. That worked surprisingly well. His conscious inhibitions were quickly overshadowed by his instinctive desires. For a while his eyes just kept darting from one passing employee to the next, extensively studying their pretty features. At some point his gaze inevitably got stuck to one of them. She looked a lot like the waitress he had seen at the pub earlier: Cute round face, long red hair, fair skin and a slim body. The curves of her shape were not as pronounced as those of many of her colleagues, but fit well to her relatively short, delicate frame. She was dressed a tad more modest in comparison to most of the others, which in Robert’s opinion just added to her appeal. Her looks suggested that she was in her early twenties. A very lively, youthful attitude complemented the appearance. Just like all the other women, she was breathtakingly beautiful, but there was something which made her seem more sympathetic and approachable to Robert. He was instantly enamored.

His absentminded stare didn’t go unnoticed for long. Their eyes met and she came over immediately.

“Hi there; you look lonely.” She somehow managed to appear both coy and forthright at the same time. “Would you care for some company?”

“I would like that very much,” Robert burst out.

That brought a delighted smile to her pretty face “Should I get us some drinks?”

“Sure,” he answered. When he realized that she would also want to know what drink he wanted he quickly added: “Just pick whatever you like, I will have the same.”

She gave him an enthusiastic nod and hurried to the bar. Robert wouldn’t have minded her to take her time, finding the view of her well-shaped behind quite entertaining. She returned shortly, carrying two glasses containing mixed liquids of multiple colorful hues. The drink was mostly sweet with only a slight hint of liquor hiding underneath. The taste was quite welcome and Robert sipped it eagerly, having no clue how to strike up a conversation with the beautiful woman who had placed herself right next to him, leaving very little space in between. Luckily she took the lead.

“I am Sarah,” she introduced herself.

“Robert; pleased to meet you,” he replied, mentally scolding himself for not thinking about an introduction himself.

“You are here for the first time, right?” she followed up.

“Is that so obvious?”

“It is; but I think it’s cute.” To emphasize that statement she gave him an encouraging look and squeezed his thigh with one hand. She might have ventured further but sensing how tense Robert was, she took it slow.

“Where are you from?” Sarah asked casually.

“I currently live on a space station around Mars,” he kind of dodged the question.

“That must be fascinating,” she claimed with what sounded like genuine interest. “What brings you to Venus?”

“I am here on a work assignment,” Robert replied truthfully.

“Oh I love men who work,” she beamed and her hand slid upwards ever so slightly. “What do you do?”

“I work at VRW, a company producing space ships. I am currently testing our latest model.” Talking about his work made him a lot more comfortable and confident. This was the one topic he was really proficient in.

“Sounds amazing; flying through space and visiting different Planets, moons and space stations…”

“Have you ever traveled in a space ship?” Robert asked.

“Oh no, I would never dare. I have been on Venus for as long as I can remember and I am quite happy here.”

Her words caused a sudden realization for Robert: She was a Worker; all the women in this establishment were; of course. Now that he thought about it, it seemed completely obvious; their exaggerated friendliness, enthusiasm for the job and almost unnatural beauty were all plain indications that all of them were bred and conditioned for this. If almost any other service job was done by Workers it was only logical that it applied to this one as well. Nevertheless it hadn’t occurred to Robert before. Maybe it was due to the fact that they didn’t fulfill the cliché of the uniformly clothed, highly efficient workforce he was used to from factory life; or perhaps because Robert had been under the impression that Workers and sexuality were two entirely incompatible things; maybe he had just not cared to think about it.

The revelation caused the emergence of a mixture of conflicting sentiments. On the one hand Robert realized that none of these women were here out of their own volition. They had been sold to this establishment just like he had been sold to VRW. Their entire behavior was just a product of their conditioning. It wasn’t really Sarah who had decided to come to him and offer her company; it had been the computer in her head which more or less piloted her. Each smile, each kind word and each touch was the result of a mental manipulation by the cybernetic implants.

On the other hand it meant that there were actually real emotions behind her actions. It wasn’t just an act with the intention of fooling him into liking her. Just like he enjoyed his work, it was safe to assume that she enjoyed hers; the CERS would make sure of that. Her smiles were the result of actual happiness, her laughs of genuine amusement, and her actions of real desire. Pleasing a customer was her task, so it was only logical that it would bring her joy. It was the very purpose she existed for.

Robert was really unsure how to feel about this situation. Usually his CERS took care of such inner conflicts, but with the control of the system significantly throttled, he was left to his own devices. Sarah noticed his distracted condition.

“Is everything alright?” she asked with a hint of worry in her voice. “Did I say something wrong?”

“No- no, of course not,” Robert quickly ensured her. The idea of seeing anything but a smile on the beautiful girl’s face was abhorrent to him. “I just drifted off into some work-related conundrum. But you have my undivided attention again.”

Somehow, talking to Sarah came a lot easier now that he was aware that she was a Worker. Part of it was a sudden curiosity. He wanted to know more about her life, which was supposed to be similar, yet seemed so different compared to his. “Have you always worked here?”

“No, I was transferred here a few months ago. Before that I was a waitress in a restaurant on the other side of the district.”

“Why were you transferred?”

“I don’t know,” Sarah admitted. “They told me I was needed here and that I would be a great addition to the team.”

“Do you like your new work?” Robert already knew the answer of course but he needed to hear it from her.

“Yes, I absolutely love it. I liked being a waitress, but working here is even better.

“What do you like most about it?”

“Oh there are so many great things; if I have to pick the one I enjoy most, I would say it’s the sex.”

That was the first time she explicitly mentioned the supposed purpose of this business and a good opportunity for Robert to steer the conversation into the direction he was most interested in.

“Did you have sex before you started working here?”

“No, of course not,” Sarah answered as if the thought was completely absurd. “Why would a waitress have sex?”

“Right; did you know anything about sex when you were a waitress?” he pressed on.

She had to think about that for a moment. “I don’t think I did. When I was transferred, I received an extensive training where I learned everything about the topic. Maybe I have already known some of the stuff I learned there, but it’s hard to tell.” Trying to remember seemed to come with an effort. That was no surprise to Robert. Switching jobs entailed substantial changes in the CERS-configuration and from his experience he knew that it could be confusing and leave certain memories hazy and distorted. The effect was probably even more drastic if she didn’t know about the changes.

“I guess by now you must be quite the expert in matters of sexuality,” Robert remarked.

“Do you want to find out for yourself?” she asked. Both her voice and her facial expression suddenly became much more lascivious, a strong contrast to the casual nature the conversation had held so far. It had not been Robert’s intention but the talk about sex had caused Sarah’s CERS to stimulate her physical desires and urge her to speed things up. As a consequence she had moved even closer to Robert and the touch of her hand, now almost at his groin, had become more firm.

Robert didn’t need any artificial enhancement to increase his arousal; the natural stimulations of the current situation were more than sufficient. By now they were also strong enough to wash away any doubts or inhibitions.

“I would like that very much,” he admitted.

With a satisfied grin, Sarah stood up, took him by the hand and led him across the room. Through a door in the back, they left the part of the building which looked like a bar and entered a different part which resembled a hotel. A large reception desk dominated the room. From behind it, a man in a suit greeted the couple politely.

“You will need to arrange the formalities here,” Sarah informed Robert, indicating the reception. “I will meet you in our room.” She gave him a quick peck on the cheek before disappearing through another door which read “Employees Only”

Being left alone Robert was somewhat confused and unsettled, but he surrendered himself to whatever procedure was required. At this point he was willing to put up with quite a lot in order to see Sarah again.

“Welcome Sir, is this your first visit?” the receptionist wanted to know. He seemed to be a Natural but had a formal demeanor which was unusual for his kind.

“Yes.”

“Have you already picked a package?”

“Package?” Robert asked. “I am not sure what you mean.”

“A configuration package,” the man specified. “It determines the personality, behavior, sexual preferences, stimulation intensity and physical responsiveness of your companion.”

“You mean the configuration of her CERS?”

He nodded.

“You are changing the settings of her implants for each individual customer?” Robert asked in disbelief.

“Correct; our employees and their implants are specifically optimized for fast configuration changes almost without side effects. We use the most modern and sophisticated CERS technology on the market.” The pride with which the man explained this suggested that he had misinterpreted the reason for his customer’s disbelief. Robert was less impressed that this was possible and more shocked that somebody would actually do it.

“What kind of configurations are we talking about?” Robert asked, uncertain if he really wanted to know.

The man explained the possibilities with an advertising tone:

“There are many configurable traits and for each of those there is a broad range of possible settings. One of the most important traits is her attitude towards you. Depending on your preferences she could be madly in love with you, have more friend-like feelings, be interested only in your body, treat you with an emotionless professionalism or even despise you; and plenty of other variants.

“You can also choose from many basic personality traits: Shy and timid or confident and wild; well-mannered good girl or dirty-talking slut; nice friend or arrogant bitch.

“Another trait controls whether her behavior is more on the active or passive side. The passive extreme means she will take no action on her own. She will just submit to your will and let you do whatever you want. On the other end of the spectrum she will take the initiative, put in a lot of work and act on her own impulses. Anything in between is possible.

“Then there is the matter of dominance. In most configurations your companion will do what you ask from her if it is reasonable within the situation. There are even more submissive configurations, where she will display a more devote attitude and obey each and every command with utmost precision; as long as it doesn’t conflict with our rules of conduct of course. If you prefer a more strong-willed, more dominant character that is also possible. From a little disobedience and an occasional enforcement of her own will, all the way to her asserting dominance and giving commands, everything can be arranged. Please note that physical punishment beyond what counts as trivialities is not included in the standard services and will entail extra cost and need for clarification.

“Another thing to configure is her libido. The higher you set it the more aroused she will be and the stronger she will crave satisfaction. In addition to that you can increase or decrease the pleasure she will be able to receive. When this trait is maximized, the CERS will amplify stimulations to the point where she can reach an orgasm very easily. On the other extreme she will get only very little satisfaction from the act. It is also possible to grant her normal stimulation but prevent her climax until you explicitly allow it.

“There are some more granular options but those are the most important choices. The available standard packages consist of predefined settings for all of these traits, combining them into a character which is realistic and consistent. However, if none of those suits your tastes, it is also possible to create a custom package at a small additional fee. As this is your first visit I would recommend sticking to the standards.”

Robert had listened to the explanation with increasing perplexity. He really couldn’t tell how to feel about this. Partly he was horrified that someone would constantly make such drastic interventions on the mind of a Worker for the banal purpose of catering to the fetishes of Naturals. He couldn’t imagine a life were his own mind was in such constant flux. At the same time he was fascinated by the technological implications. It proved that with his experiences so far, he had only scratched the surface of what was possible when playing with CERS settings.

“Could you also just leave her with her natural personality?” he asked.

The receptionist let out a patronizing chuckle.

“She is a Worker; she has no natural personality. Everything she says and does and feels is a product of her CERS.”

That statement hit Robert hard. Was it true? If yes, what would that mean for him? Did he have a personality? Were the recent changes to his character really a return to his natural self or just a different version of a completely artificial person? Could he ever be like the Naturals or would there always be a barrier between them?

“If I may make a suggestion,” the man in the suit proposed. “I would recommend standard package number four, a very commonly requested configuration. Your companion will be kind, amiable and very attracted to you. She will put your pleasure above all else and make an effort to deliver it. She will take some initiative, provide guidance and push you a little for your own good, but will also respect your boundaries and pace. Her libido and pleasure will be slightly increased to ensure she will have plenty of fun. It is well suited for new and inexperienced customers, feels quite natural and fits well to Sarah.”

Robert considered it. He really wanted to see the woman again; and he wanted much more from her.

“Will she enjoy it?” Robert asked.

“Of course,” the man claimed with absolute certainty. “All Workers enjoy their jobs. She might even get more pleasure out of it than you.”

Robert nodded. It made sense. He had always liked his work. Why should Sarah not feel the same way?

“Alright, I’ll take it.”

“Great, I will set it up.” He typed something on the terminal in front of him. “How would you like to pay?” the man asked.

Robert handed him the credit chip Julia had provided. The suited man took it graciously and put it into a reading device.

“Thank you very much. You will be charged for every half hour you started, calculated from first entering the room, until you leave. This includes all standard services as listed in our general conditions. Any additional services or companions come at an extra fee. Any more questions or requests?”

Robert shook his head.

“Very well, your companion will join you shortly in room number six.” He indicated the corridor to the right of the reception desk. “Have a pleasant stay.”

Robert took the suggested path and walked through the hallway until he reached a door marked with a six. The room on the other side was small, furnished in warm colors and almost fully occupied by a giant bed. He paced up and down along the side, anxiously waiting for a companion he wasn’t sure he even wanted to join him. After his conversation with Sarah he had been so sure that this was what he desired but after all he had learned in the meantime, a new kind of doubt had taken hold of him. Not just due to nervousness and insecurity, but because he questioned the ethical implications of the entire undertaking.

Those concerns were put aside for the moment when Sarah entered the room. She looked pretty much the same as when he had last seen her, just a few minutes earlier, yet her beauty overwhelmed him anew.

“Did you miss me?” she smirked when she noticed his longing gaze.

“I did,” he admitted.

“So here I am.” She came close and wrapped her arms around him. Robert felt a comforting warmth as she pressed her body against his. “So what do you want to do now?” her lewd expression suggested that she had some intriguing ideas.

“I am not sure,” Robert said hesitantly. He believed to notice a subtle change in Sarah’s demeanor from before. Maybe he just imagined it because he knew that her mind had been altered in the meantime but it was still off-putting.

“In that case, let me give you some ideas.” Sarah slid down onto her knees and started removing the cloth from the lower part of his body. Robert just stood there, frozen between delight and reluctance. While his mind was irresolute, his body had no such inhibitions. When his penis was freed, it had already grown substantially. Sarah’s touches quickly brought it to its full size. She delicately wrapped a small, soft hand around the shaft, slowly pulled back the foreskin and planted a kiss onto the exposed head.

“How about that?” she asked, looking up at him with a grin.

“That’s really good,” Robert confirmed, unable to deny his very obvious arousal.

It was enough confirmation for her to continue. Her lips engulfed the engorged tip of his dick while one hand delicately moved along its length and the other caressed his testicles. Robert could feel her warm tongue slide over his most sensitive part. For a while she kept licking and sucking lightly, teasing him with every contact. The treatment intensified his arousal, vanquishing all other thoughts form his mind and made him tremble with desire; yet it did not grant the full satisfaction he so desperately craved. When he was almost ready to beg for more, she started venturing further. Very slowly but persistently her soft lips came closer, gliding over the skin of his shaft. More and more of his phallus disappeared in the woman’s mouth. He thought she would stop when the tip pressed against the back of her throat; she didn’t. Seemingly without effort she swallowed his entire length. The sensation made Robert sigh with pleasure. It became even better when Sarah started moving again. He soon realized that he wouldn’t be able to endure this for long. Just when he felt the climax approach, Sarah retreated and freed his twitching organ, depriving it of the stimulation which would have been needed to send him over the edge. It seemed she could read his body just as well as he could; and she wasn’t going to let this end yet. Returning to her previous exercises she effectively kept him close to the peak for a while but never let him reach it. It was incredibly frustrating and pleasant at the same time. At some point she let go of his dick and rose to her feet.

“There is still a lot more for us to try,” Sarah commented with a suggestive smile. She took a step back so Robert had a good view of her entire body before starting to discard the few pieces of clothing still covering it. Completely mesmerized, Robert drank in the stunning sight, his eyes wandering between the two small, pink nipples, her hairless groin and the gorgeous body as a whole. After granting him some time for a thorough inspection, she climbed onto the bed. On the far side of it she sat down facing Robert, leaned back and spread her legs wide so he could see her most private parts. A glistening film of wetness covering her labia indicated her arousal. Not his achievement, but that of her implants, Robert knew. The thought made his doubts from earlier well up again.

One of Sarah’s hands spread her nether lips while the other beckoned him to come closer; her lustful gaze challenged him to do so much more. He followed the invitation. When he was close enough she reached for his erection, guiding it to the desired target. She placed the tip against her entrance then leaned back and waited for him to do go the rest of the way. While he hesitated, she put a hand to the side of his face raised her eyes to his and gave him a look which shook him to the core. It was a genuine expression of deeply felt emotion. There was desire and affection and trust in that expression, maybe even love. Surely it was intended to encourage and reassure him but to Robert it was an atrocity. This look had no right to be shared in this situation, between those two people. She was not supposed to give it to him and he did not deserve to receive it. It was unreal and wrong. Terrified by his own thoughts, Robert withdrew from the woman, as if her touch burnt his skin.

He awkwardly retreated back to the other side of the bed. With trembling hands he reached for his pants, lying on the floor where they had been discarded. From their pockets he retrieved his UID. He put it against the back of his head and triggered the quick-reset function. It was a feature of the CERS which made it return to a predefined standard configuration without the need of extracting the Plug. It was a safety measure in case configuration changes caused unintended side-effects. Robert had set it up while experimenting with his CERS so he could quickly go back to a state of which he knew was safe. That included an active sexual inhibitor.

Still shaking he sat on the side of the bed and waited for the implants to do their work. Soon his erection started to subside and the arousal and desire were washed away from his mind. Only once he was sure all of these feelings were completely gone, he dared look at Sarah again. To Robert she looked exactly the same and totally different at the same time. Her features and all the peculiarities of her body were still as he had perceived them before, but their attracting effect had vanished entirely. Now she was just another person, as he had seen so many others before, no more and no less.

The girl was startled by Robert’s sudden reaction of course.

“Is there a problem?” she asked carefully.

“No,” Robert quickly answered, then reconsidered. “Yes; I don’t know.”

“Did I do something wrong?” enquired in an apologetic tone.

“No,” Robert quickly ensured her. He should have known that Sarah would blame herself. She was configured to be submissive and to put her customer’s pleasure above all else. Seeing him recoil from her, as if in disgust must have caused a horrible feeling. Once she was sure that he really wasn’t angry with her, she came closer and sat beside him. The proximity of her naked body was now just a fact, nothing to be excited about

“I am sorry, but I can’t do this,” Robert claimed.

“But why?” the female Worker wanted to know. There was no anger or insistence in her voice; just confusion and self-doubt. She must have felt just as frustrated as Robert. It was paradoxical; he refused to have sex with her, because he felt it was wrong and he didn’t want to abuse her for his pleasure; yet the one thing she wanted, which would make her happy was to have sex with him and please him as best as she could. That didn’t seem to make sense; then again, there was so much which didn’t make sense right now.

“Because what you feel isn’t real; or maybe it is; I am not sure which is worse,” he tried to put his conflicting emotions into words; and failed miserably.

“I don’t understand.”

“Neither do I; this world is so confusing. If you are a real person, what they do to you is weird and wrong and horrible; but if you are not real that means I’m not real either and in that case I have no right to be here.”

There was a moment of silence. Sarah clearly didn’t understand a word he said, yet she still tried to comfort him. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want. Just tell me what you want me to do.”

She reached for his dick, trying to massage it back to life, but her efforts were futile.

To Robert her affection was soothing and sickening at the same. He needed to get out of this place. As quickly as he could, he got dressed and rushed to the door. Before he left he turned around to Sarah one last time. “I am sorry. You deserve better.” Then he stormed out.

If the receptionist had any opinions about Robert’s quick return, he kept them to himself. “Goodbye, we hope to see you again soon,” was all the man had to say when he handed the credit chip back to his customer. ‘Not likely’, Robert thought while he took the chip and stowed it in a pocket of his pants. He kept the words to himself.

As fast as he could, he made his way to the shuttle bay and returned to the gateway station and the Beautiful Mystery. When he arrived, Julia was floating in the living area, reading something on her UID. She greeted him with a curious smirk. “How was it?”

“I- I didn’t go through with it,” he confessed. “Not completely, at least.”

“Why not?”

“I am not sure.” Any attempts to hide his distressed state were futile.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Julia asked, coming closer.

Hesitantly he took the offer, not quite sure what to say. “There was this girl at the brothel…” he started reluctantly. Soon the words came pouring out of his mouth all by themselves and he told the entire story, only leaving out the irrelevant or overly indecent details.

“I understand,” Julia claimed somberly, once Robert was done talking. He wasn’t sure whether she could really comprehend his predicament, but the fact that she reacted with empathy was already a comfort to him. “I am sorry I came up with this stupid idea; I thought it would be a kindness. Of course I knew that the women there are Workers, but I had no idea they changed their configurations. I am far from being an expert on the subject, but it does seem kind of extreme.”

“There is nothing to be sorry about,” Robert insisted. “I really appreciate your kindness. You couldn’t have known what effect it had on me. It was my choice. Everything I did, I did because I wanted to do it; maybe for the first time in my life; and look how it played out. Maybe Workers are really not meant to make their own decisions.”

“That is nonsense. Forget that bullshit about you not having a personality. You are just as human as I am.”

“I am not so sure about that. Even if it is true, I have my doubts whether it’s a good thing. Thinking back at my time at the factory and considering all the happy Workers I have seen today, I get the feeling that being a mindless slave to the CERS might be the more pleasant option.”

“Do you really think you can go back to that state with all the things you have learned?”

“I don’t know,” Robert said truthfully. “The thought frightens me. I guess I will just have to find out.”

“And if you can’t?”

Robert shrugged. There was no answer he could think of. An unfamiliar pressure formed at the front of his head and for the first time in his life, tears welled up in his eyes. Full of compassion, Julia hugged him. For a long time they just floated there, finding consolation in each other’s embrace.

7

“That’s it!” Julia announced cheerfully, leaning back in the pilot’s chair. “We have completed the last piloting exercise. Now that we have tested all the features, all that’s left to do is enter a course back to Zukunftsfabrik station. From our current position we should be there in approximately twenty hours.”

Robert just nodded, his attention focused on analyzing the results of their test flight.

“Or we could make a little detour,” Julia mused. “We have some time to spare. We could make a stop at a different space station or the Mars colony and spend a day enjoying ourselves a little.”

Robert shrugged. “If that is what you want. It’s your call. For my sake you don’t have to divert from the plan.”

“So you are not anxious about going back to the factory; back to your old life?” she asked carefully. Since the day on Venus both of them had avoided the topic and directed all focus on completing their assignment.

“A little,” Robert admitted. “But I am also looking forward to it. “This might be my CERS talking, but most of my memories of the factory are positive ones. I don’t know if I will be able to return to the life I have known, but the thought that I might makes me keen on finding out.”

“Alright, Zukunftsfabrik it is then,” Julia confirmed. “In the meantime there is one more obligation to fulfill.”

“And what would that be?”

“We drink,” she stated merrily as she floated out of her seat. “A completed job demands for proper celebration; unless you want to finish your work first.”

Robert looked at the UID in front of him. The data it displayed offered unusually little appeal to him right now. He dismissed it with a shrug. “I can also finish it later.”

“Spoken like a real Natural” she said with a grin. “I will make a lazy, unproductive member of society out of you still.”

Robert chuckled at the joke he wouldn’t have comprehended until recently. “Yeah, I can totally see myself spending my time pointlessly browsing the internet, binge watching videos or getting drunk in some bar, doing absolutely nothing of value.”

“I see you have us figured out completely.”

They floated to the lounge.

“You seem to be in a better mood than over the last few days,” Julia observed.

He shrugged. “I have configured my CERS to increase the supply of certain neurotransmitters and have also found a way to make it repress certain thoughts which cause me distress.”

“Oh; well that is one way to cope; I guess. Sometimes being a Worker has its advantages, it seems.”

She took two small bags containing some liquid from the refrigerator and tossed one to Robert.

“Not as good as from a proper glass I’m afraid, but it will serve its purpose.” She opened the container and held it out in front of her. “To a job well done; cheers.”

Robert imitated the gesture and they both sucked some of the content from the bags into their mouths. He grimaced at the pungent taste and the slight burn the alcohol left in his throat. “What is that?”

Julia laughed at his sour expression. “It’s called gin; takes some getting used to.”

“I am not sure I want to get used to that,” Robert replied. “The taste is horrible.”

“It is not only about the taste, but also about the effect,” Julia explained. “People who don’t have a CERS use this to make themselves feel better.”

“Well, right now I’ll take all the help I can get.” Robert forced himself to swallow another mouthful of the stuff.

“So what is your plan once your return?” Julia asked.

“I don’t really have a plan. I guess I will just go back to my original configuration, resume my usual occupation and see how it works out. If it turns out that I can’t be content with that anymore, I will find some other way to get by. I don’t really want to dwell on that right now. What are you going to do once this assignment is over?”

Julia considered it for a moment. “I will probably head back to Earth; haven’t been home for a while. I will visit my family, meet old friends, take some time off and have a proper vacation.”

“That sounds nice; I assume. The whole concept of enjoying days or even weeks where you do not work at all is still somewhat strange to me.”

“That is because you hardly know any fun pastimes. With a nice hobby even you would survive a vacation.”

“Hard to imagine, but if you say so. What is Earth like?”

“That is tough to answer. There are so many different places and aspects to it. I don’t know where to begin.”

“What do you miss most about it?”

“Mostly very simple things; the air and the water for example.”

“There is water and air here,” Robert claimed, puzzled by her statement.

Julia shook her head resolutely. “Not like that. The stuff here has been purified a thousand times. It tastes and smells bland, stale and exactly the same everywhere. Where I grew up we had clean, fresh air and water coming from mountain springs. That is an entirely different world from this processed crap. I also miss open spaces. Everything is so narrow and crammed around here.” Once Julia had started talking about Earth, more and more things came bursting from her lips. Robert listened intently. Half the things he heard he could hardly even imagine, but he was still fascinated. By the time Julia was done talking, they had both emptied their gin.

“Another one?” she asked.

“Sure,” Robert answered. The last sip of the drink had been no more enjoyable than the first, but he was beginning to feel its effect and he liked it.

“Earth really sounds amazing,” Robert mused. “Kind of makes me want to go there one day.”

“You mean breaking out of the factory and hitching a ride on a ship to Earth?”

“That would be one way. Or I could ask for a transfer. There are Workers on Earth as well, right?”

“True, there are plenty of them,” Julia confirmed. “I haven’t thought about that option. Can you ask for a transfer? Would the company take such a request seriously? Are there rules or standard procedures for that?”

“I have no idea actually; never had any inclination to find out. Now that I think of it, I have very little knowledge about what I can and can’t do. Do I have certain rights and privileges? How do I make a complaint? What will the company do if I tell them I am not happy with my job? I simply don’t know the answers to those questions. Maybe they would actually treat me like a regular human being if I behaved like one. Or they would just consider me defective and toss me out like a broken piece of electronics. What do you think would happen?”

“I have no idea,” Julia replied in a serious tone after brief consideration. She remained silent for a while before she asked: “Do you think the use of the CERS-Workforce is wrong?”

“Wrong in what way?” Robert asked her to specify, not quite sure how to answer.

“In the way that it is immoral to exploit human beings by manipulating what they feel.”

Robert sighed. “I have thought about that a lot lately and I still couldn’t come to an agreement with myself yet. It has been a real shock to find out what the Worker life looks like from the perspective of a Natural. It seems so restricted, dependent and irrelevant. That doesn’t really bother the usual Worker though. Even if they do it for personal gain, can it be wrong to create a being and grant it a happy life without any worries? Until I accidentally broke free from the control of the CERS, I had no reason to complain.”

“That is what we are always told: that using Workers is fine, because they are happy and because their sole purpose, the only reason they exist, is their occupation. I see the logic in that and still it somehow feels wrong. It is kind of like raising an eagle as a pet and clipping its wings at an early age, so it never learns how to fly. You can grant it a pleasant, happy life; nevertheless it feels wrong, because you know it was destined to soar through the sky and you took that away. Just like eagles are supposed to fly, aren’t humans supposed to think for themselves and make their own decisions? Isn’t it wrong to take that away from someone? I never thought about it like that, because I didn’t really consider Workers as regular humans; most Naturals don’t, I guess; but without intending to do so, you have convinced me that you are.”

“I have one question,” Robert requested. “What is an eagle?”

Julia almost choked on her gin in a sudden fit of laughter. “Are you serious? You really don’t know what an eagle is? Large bird of prey, symbol of freedom?”

“I had no real education in zoology and there are no animals on our space station.”

“I get that, but how can someone not know what an eagle is?”

Robert just shrugged. The previous topic entirely forgotten due to this revelation, the pair spent the next hour talking about animals. It started with a basic education about birds, continued with finding out what types of animals Robert did and didn’t know and culminated with the invention of a game in which Julia described different animals and Robert had to guess whether they really existed or were made up. In two very different ways they both had a lot of fun, partly due to an ever increasing state of inebriation.

“I’m still not convinced this giraffe thing really exists,” Robert commented once Julia had run out of ideas and declared the game over.

“How did we get to this animal topic?” Julia pondered after she had fetched yet another pair of drinking bags.

“Something about me having my wings cut?” Robert suggested his alcohol-afflicted brain not quite as sharp as it usually was.

“Yes, now I remember; my great ‘eagle and Worker’ analogy, which was utterly ruined by your lack of ornithological knowledge.”

“My apologies for that,” Robert offered sarcastically. “Now that this gap in my education has been closed I can confirm that it was indeed a very good analogy. I am still not sure whether it is better to be a happy bird with clipped wings or an unhappy bird soaring through the sky though.”

“Think about it like that,” Julia pondered. “If you could go back in time and prevent yourself from ever meddling with your CERS, so you would still live your regular, happy Worker life; would you do it?”

It took Robert a while until he could come up with an answer to that question. “No, I don’t think I would.”

“Why not?” Julia wanted to know

“Because that would mean I would have never met you. Not knowing you seems too high a price to pay.”

Julia looked very surprised for a moment; then she suddenly rushed forward and kissed Robert. The momentum of her onslaught sent them both spiraling through the zero-g environment. At first Robert was just confused and overwhelmed by her actions. He wanted to ask what she was doing and why, but she granted him no opportunity to speak, keeping his mouth occupied with hers. He could have easily pushed her away but he didn’t want her to stop. At some point he just accepted and went with it. He had never kissed anyone before and had no idea what he was doing, but Julia didn’t leave him much to do anyway. It was a strange feeling, unfamiliar but not unpleasant; pleasant enough to cause a stirring in his loins, in expectation of more to come. With Julia’s body tightly pressed against his, there was no way to prevent her from noticing.

“I guess that means your sexual inhibitor is not active?” she commented with a smirk, when their lips finally parted. Robert nodded. She showed a lascivious smile. “Good.” In between more kisses she started removing both her and Robert’s cloth. He helped with clumsy hands and great enthusiasm. Emboldened by his inebriation his hands dared wander where they would have never gone in a sober condition. Touching and groping, the Worker and the Natural explored each other’s shapes with eager hands. Once both of them were naked and sufficiently familiar with the partner’s body, things progressed fast and unceremoniously. Drunk, eager and impatient they rushed to what both of them craved. Julia grabbed Robert’s sufficiently erect dick, gave it a few strokes and guided it between her legs. This time Robert was given no chance to reconsider; once in position, Julia wrapped her legs around his hips and impaled herself on him.

Joined at the hips, the pair of naked bodies floated through the room in a state of ecstasy. With a steady, regular movement of her hips, Julia dictated a pace. After some initial synchronization difficulties, Robert adjusted to the rhythm and met her half way. His mind was a wild mess of pleasure and confusion and drunkenness, devoid of any logic. The alcohol in his system dulled his senses, making the whole activity much less enjoyable than it should have been. In addition to that, something about it felt off. It was not as fulfilling as he had imagined it to be.

Their copulating went on for what felt like a really long time. By the time Julia had worked herself to an orgasm they were both panting and sweating with exhaustion. Numb, sore and mentally absent Robert was nowhere close of achieving the same. Afterwards the whole thing became more exercise than pleasure. Knowing that nothing good would come of it anymore, they separated with a rather anticlimactic end. What followed was an atmosphere of awkwardness and embarrassment which brought a sudden end to their celebration.

They spent the night in their individual cabins, left to their own thoughts.

After a few hours of sleep, Robert woke to another first-time experience: His first hangover. Suffering from both physical and psychological ailments, even going through his morning routine became a challenging and exhausting task. The lack of gravity, which could already be disorienting under normal circumstances, now came with a completely new level of vertigo. Making some adjustments in his CERS configuration helped, but there was still a persistent discomfort of body and mind, he couldn’t quite get rid of.

Robert’s recollection of the events before he went to sleep was fuzzy, incomplete and lacking details. He had sex with Julia that much was clear. Despite the fact that he had wanted nothing more for the last two weeks, he was not entirely sure whether that was a good thing. Not just because the experience hadn’t quite lived up to his expectations. Up until the moment she had kissed him, she had made very clear that she had no sexual interest in him. According to her own words she didn’t want sex with a man she had no romantic feelings for. Had that changed? Was it only the alcohol, which had instigated her actions? Or had she done it out of pity? Could she have developed feelings for Robert? Did he have such feelings for her? It was hard to tell. He had been attracted to her from the first day and the relation between them had evolved into something he valued highly. However, at no point had he given himself to illusions that this was anything more than a temporary friendship. They were just far too different to be anything more than friends. Robert found himself unable to properly process all that in his current state. Natural emotions were just too complex and bewildering, even when sober.

He found Julia strapped into the pilot chair of the cockpit. She was idly staring out the viewport, at the growing sphere of Mars in front of them. Robert placed himself in the co-pilot chair next to her and gazed in the same direction. They sat there for a long time in an uncomfortable silence. In less than 4 hours they would reach Zukunftsfabrik station.

“Nervous?” Julia asked eventually.

“A little,” Robert admitted. “At the moment that is the least of my problems though; I don’t feel very well.”

Julia smiled faintly. “That is called a hangover; the reminder that every joy in life has its price.” It was obvious that she wasn’t unaffected by the consequences of drinking either, but she coped a lot better, even without a CERS.

Another long silence followed. Afterwards it was again Julia who spoke up: “About last night…”

“It was a mistake,” Robert voiced his guess, in which direction this was going, before Julia had found the words.

She was surprised for a moment; then she nodded “So you feel the same?”

“I don’t regret anything, if that is what you mean” Robert answered hesitantly. “It was an… interesting experience. Even if it didn’t play out quite the way I had imagined it. It is also incompatible with how you previously described your attitude towards sexuality. You said you would only have sex with someone you have romantic feelings for; which means either you made an alcohol-induced misstep and broke your own rules or you have romantic inclinations towards me. The latter would be unfortunate because in a few hours our ways will part, and we might not see each other again. So I assume what we did was a mistake.”

“That is a very analytical way of seeing it,” she commented with a mixture of amusement and melancholy. “It might have been a combination of both causes. Alcohol, horniness and impaired discernment certainly played a significant role; but some deeper emotions might also have been involved. Maybe it’s just because we have been stuck with each other’s company on such confined space for weeks. That tends to create a certain sexual tension. But beyond that I really have grown fond of you. Maybe drunk me just wanted to express that somehow before we part.”

“I am quite fond of you as well,” Robert replied. “And I appreciate the effort of drunk you. Generally, I want to thank you again; for everything you have done for me and all your support.”

“It has been my pleasure,” she said with a warm smile.

While Mars filled an ever larger percentage of their sight, they spent their remaining time together with casual chit chat. Robert would miss talking to her. At least the current version of him would.

8

Coming home to the familiar environment of Zukunftsfabrik station and its space ship factory had a soothing effect on Robert’s mind. The company made sure he was able to return to his old routine quickly. After requesting a short report on his assignment and the data he had collected, they reset his configuration to the old default. Like before the responsible overseer failed to check and recognize that the modification safeguard was disabled, so Robert kept full control. Unlike last time he didn’t immediately change the settings though. In order to find out whether satisfaction with his old life was still an option, he left the configuration exactly as it was.

For the first few days this worked surprisingly well. The simple everyday life of a Worker brought back a stability he had sorely missed without realizing it. The worries of previous days were buried under a vast heap of tasks to occupy him with and replaced by a serene feeling of contentment. For a while Robert had actual hope that this condition might last. It didn’t.

Despite his best efforts of backporting his mental state to the old version, there were some new thoughts and habits Robert couldn’t quite shake. They were subtle and inconspicuous at first. Among them were a fondness for making analytical observations about the Worker life and a tendency to get lost in philosophical considerations about the topic. By his fourth day back in the factory, Robert was convinced to have made an important discovery in this mental endeavor. According to his theory there were some fundamental differences between Workers and Naturals in their pursuits for happiness.

Workers usually spent the majority of daytime with their main occupation or some activity closely related to it. During those periods they were mostly content, experiencing only some minor ups and downs. Therefore, a Workers life played out on a more or less constant level of happiness. There were rarely any outstanding highs or lows, no short moments of ecstatic bliss or phases of devastating depression.

The emotional spectrum of a Natural was much more erratic in comparison. They spent a lot more time being dissatisfied or bored. Periods of joy appeared rather short-lived and there was a lot of potential for very negative moods. The intensity of a true moment of happiness however, was far more rewarding than anything a Worker ever experienced. Naturals tended to live from one positive experience to the next, rather than achieving a more constant level of wellbeing. At least that was what Robert had perceived during the weeks he spent as an almost Natural.

From a purely pragmatic point of view, the Worker life seemed preferable. It was a common occurrence though, that people wanted what they didn’t have, once they knew it was there. Robert was no different in that regard. As much as he appreciated the stable mood his CERS provided, he couldn’t help but long for something more exciting and fulfilling. These feelings only increased over time until he couldn’t resist any longer and started meddling with his configuration again.

All the previous practical experience made him quite confident about his skills in handling the implants. Subsequently his experiments became gradually more daring. The results were often hard to predict and not always to his liking. Messing with the bio-chemistry of the brain was a complex and risk thing; there was still much he didn’t know or understand.

Robert didn’t rely purely on the mental manipulation to grant himself some positive feelings but also returned to the small joys he had known during his time on the Beautiful Mystery. Luckily he was prepared for that. During his journey, when he had accessed the internet of Earth or the smaller but still substantial network of Venus via Julia’s UID, he had used the opportunity to fill a storage drive with all kinds of digital treasures. A lot of it was of pornographic nature. There had just been so much stimulating material to view and so little time.

Not all of his browsing through the vast networks had been driven by hormone-fueled lust though. He had also acquired plenty of songs, videos, reading material and even some games. These forms of entertainment were still baffling to him, but he had started developing a certain appreciation for some. He had also gathered more information about the CERS and its capabilities. In particular he had done some research regarding the special functionality used by the brothel on Venus. As it turned out, most of the functionalities the man in the suit had mentioned could be achieved with conventional CERS hardware. It only required some plugin-software to be installed on the implants. Out of curiosity Robert had searched for and downloaded such a software package, including instructions on how to use it. So far he had found neither a use for it, nor any motivation to study the topic further. It might prove useful in the future though.

At first Robert thought these small distractions after work hours would keep him content for a long time. He was wrong about that. As it turned out, some sporadic short-term gratification was not sufficient to suppress a craving for more. Neither did it stop his mind from drifting along all sorts of unusual inspirations throughout the day. Those random thoughts revolved around various topics, ranging from deep philosophical contemplations to absurd trivialities. He pondered over many questions. Some were of existential nature, such as ‘what would happen to Workers once they became too old to do their job?’ Others were very simple, such as ‘where does this unmarked door lead?’ What bothered him most was not that he didn’t know the answers to them, but that he had no one to discuss them with. His colleagues would have little interest in such conversations. Since he had freed himself from much of the mental manipulation of the CERS he found the company of other factory Workers dull and uninspiring. They barely talked about anything but work, had no interest in chatting during their shifts and were boringly solemn at any other time. Robert knew fully well that he had been exactly the same not that long ago. Nevertheless they were almost insufferable to him now. Despite being surrounded by people all the time, he felt lonely. He really missed Julia.

Just when Robert had started thinking about coming up with some crazy scheme for contacting her, an interesting opportunity diverted his attention. Lisa, his friend and long-time coworker approached him during a shift. He had rarely seen her since his return to the factory and they had never found an opportunity to talk. The reason for that was revealed to him when she told him about a new position to which she had recently been assigned.

“The company has initiated a development project for a new type of ship,” Lisa informed him. “They want to establish a team in the Ultimate Space Racing (USR) league. The R&D department has been tasked with planning a racing vessel. This is mostly uncharted territory, so they are recruiting employees from across all fields to assemble a project team. The participants should be capable of coming up with a concept which fulfills the requirements of this new kind of spacecraft while achieving maximum reuse of our existing parts, designs, infrastructure and production processes. I volunteered for this program because it fits well with my recent work, specifically the collision simulations, structural integrity models, material studies and low-mass-designs. The team is still in need of more expertise for the simulation software. A lot of new development is needed to cover all the usage scenarios of the new ship.

“We have worked well together in the past and you are a good fit for the job, so I would like to invite you into the team. This would entail assignment to a different part of the facility, a slightly diverging work schedule and an extensive learning phase for acquiring the necessary knowledge and skills. I know it sounds like a very drastic change but I think it could really be an opportunity to…”

“I’ll do it,” Robert casually interrupted her doubtlessly well prepared recruitment speech. Lisa looked dumbstruck for a moment. She certainly hadn’t expected him to agree so fast. Workers usually didn’t accept such a drastic changes in their lives easily; unless their CERS configuration was changed accordingly first.

“Just like that?” Lisa asked. “Don’t you want to know more details about the project, your tasks or the team?” Clearly she was a little disappointed that she would get no chance to prove how well prepared she was for such enquiries.

“No, I trust your assessment.”

“Do you know what the USR league is?”

“No idea; I will find out soon enough I guess.”

“You don’t even need time to consider?” It really seemed to vex her that someone would switch jobs so easily.

“No, it really sounds like a very interesting project.” Robert didn’t know anything about space ship racing, nor did he care about it. There were two reasons he was eager to volunteer: First of all he hoped that a new job, a different environment and a change in routine might help him escape from his unfulfilled state of mind. Secondly, he was desperate for some social interaction. He had always liked Lisa, probably more than anyone else on the entire station. If there was any Worker he could have a somewhat enjoyable conversation with, it was her. This new project sounded like a good opportunity to spend some time with her.

“Okay, great” Lisa confirmed; the satisfaction of having achieved her goal quickly replaced all concerns about Robert’s strange behavior. “I will inform my superiors. You can finish up whatever tasks you are currently working on and switch to the R&D department as soon as everything is arranged.”

A few days later, Robert found himself at his new workstation in a new office. With only twenty occupants, the room was a lot smaller and quieter than the vast hall he had previously worked in. It was also farther from the actual production facilities, both in distance and appearance. A Natural might have considered this a promotion. Workers usually didn’t think like that. To them, there was no career ladder and no promise of advancement in a hierarchy. Everyone just did the job he or she was intended for as best as they could. Still Robert felt like this was an improvement for him.

Lisa worked in the same office. Her workstation was just a few meters from his. It didn’t take long until an opportunity for a private conversation with her arose. Lisa was tasked with introducing Robert to some of the new software tools they would be using throughout the project. For that purpose the two of them occupied a small conference room, where they could talk without disturbing anyone.

It was the perfect chance for having an insightful chat; at least that’s how it played out in Robert’s mind beforehand. Once he found himself alone with Lisa, he realized that he had no idea what to say. Feeling like a complete idiot he just sat there and listened to her detailed descriptions of some new engine optimization software, grasping not even half of it, because his mind was in an entirely different place. Currently he was much more interested in studying the woman’s face.

At first he was just admiring her lovely features. Soon the focus of his curiosity shifted more towards her behavior: the slight tilt of her head; the way she occasionally ran a hand through her hair; the higher pitch in her voice when she emphasized something important; the fluent movement of her hands aiming to complement the words she spoke; all the little idiosyncrasies Robert had always known to be part of her, but never consciously recognized or thought about. Those were not manifestations of the CERS, but an intrinsic part of her personality. A personality which he was absolutely sure existed.

Among the peculiarities he noticed there were also small expressions of joy, caused primarily by her work of course: a slight upwards curvature of her lips, indicating the faintest smile; a sparkle in her eyes; an enthusiastic increase in her talking pace when discussing something she was really interested in. They were subtle, but undeniably there. It was not the gleeful exuberance Robert had observed in many of the Workers on Venus. Lisa was more composed and serene; more like him.

“You seem distracted,” Lisa suddenly interjected, forcing Robert to abort his mind’s ramblings “Is everything alright?”

“Yes, sure,” he claimed hastily. “I was just… contemplating.”

“What subject, if I may ask?”

Failing to come up with a fast, proper response, Robert decided to go a different way. Seizing the chance of having Lisa’s attention he asked: “Are you happy?”

She was clearly startled by the unexpected question, but answered quickly: “Yes, of course; why wouldn’t I be?”

Robert nodded and followed up with another question: “Is there anything you would change about your life or yourself, if you could?”

This time it took a little longer until she replied. “There are certainly things about me which I could improve, but nothing particular comes to my mind right now.”

“Did you ever wonder what other life you could have lived? What other paths might be out there?”

“Not really…”

Of course not; her answers were exactly what Robert had expected. Nevertheless there had been the fickle, irrational hope for some deeply hidden sensation of discontent, a faint craving for a fundamental change. It would have made everything so much simpler.

Robert hadn’t fully admitted it to himself yet, but the real objective in this entire endeavor was to modify Lisa’s CERS configuration. Not for the purpose of adjusting her personality to his preferences as they did in the brothel on Venus of course. He merely wanted her to be free, just like he was. Of course the main motivation wasn’t an altruistic one. His own desire for companionship was the driver behind the idea. That was what made him hesitate. Robert didn’t know whether Lisa wanted this change or not. He couldn’t just ask her because as soon as her CERS detected any kind of thought which revolved around unauthorized changes to its settings, it would immediately make the idea very undesirable and keep her from even considering it. There was no way for her to agree to the change; at least not until the change was already done.

Could granting someone more cognitive freedom and self-determination be a bad thing? The Naturals clearly put an immense importance on those properties, but they had never been in a Worker’s position; just like Lisa had never experienced the sensation of being a Natural. Would it be a kindness or a vile deed to introduce her to this feeling? Once she passed that portal there might be no going back. It was impossible to say if the other side would be salvation or torment to her. Robert couldn’t even answer that question for himself. His escape from the machine’s total control had been a revelation and a source of abundant joy to him, yet it was also the cause of a lot of adversity as well as the torn condition of his mind. If he subjected her to the same experience she might be thankful or she might despise him for it; possibly both.

After Robert just looked at her in silence and indecision for a while Lisa asked: “Are you really okay? You seem… different ever since you returned from your recent assignment.”

That statement was a surprise to Robert. Either Lisa was more observant than he would have expected or the changes in his character were more obvious than he had intended to reveal. His first impulse was to deny everything but the urge to share his situation compelled him to disclose at least some of his thoughts.

“I’m fine; mostly; but you are right, I am somewhat different. On my assignment for testing the XG3 I got some insights which altered my perspective to some degree.”

“What kind of insights?” Lisa wanted to know.

“Among other things I’ve had a glimpse at what life is like beyond the factory, met Workers with completely different occupations and acquired a much better understanding of Naturals.”