The Prostitute

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Tech

The Prostitute

Tomorrow's prostitutes won't just let johns spend time with their bodies—they'll let them take full control of it. And some want much more than sex.

This is a Very Special Week of Terraform—beginning today, we're rolling out the winning stories from our Post-Human contest with AMC. We asked the entrants to write a story—2,000 words or fewer, in typical Terraform-form—about the future of artificial intelligence in one of three temporal settings: just beyond the horizon, half a century from now, and a hundred years beyond. This, the first prize-winning story, is set in the not-so-distant future category, comes from Max Wynne, who concocted a world in which the hard-up for cash can turn their bodies over to strangers using just software, a headcam, and a DIY implant. Enjoy! -the Eds

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Casey's john took him to the beach and didn't do much beyond that.

His other johns had used him to do some strange things. He expected that. But he was surprised how little of his work ended up being sexual, though a number of johns did use him to masturbate. One had him sit in front of the mirror for over an hour, staring at the reflection, but Casey thought that kick was more existential than erotic.

A lot of the johns just wanted to watch. They would take him somewhere and wait for the right person to pass, then have Casey tail them. Usually that was it. Occasionally, Casey would deliver messages to strangers, or run packages across the city without knowing what was in them or who they were going to. A few things might have been stolen. Casey suspected he had at least once been used as the thief.

In the extreme cases, johns would do something like dress him in a schoolgirl outfit and an animal mask, then make him suck his own toes. Casey got over that stuff like he'd gotten over almost all the quirks of fronting. Strange objects had been licked with his tongue, and strange things had been done with his skin, but he was numb to it.

Something was off about this latest john, though. It didn't seem to know how to walk or move Casey's limbs. It just sat in Casey's apartment, flexing his fingers and toes, carefully testing each limb before getting up. It made a leisurely and calculated march to the beach. Casey wondered if the john might have been a paraplegic using a joystick.

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Johns had taken Casey to the beach before, but most wanted to do something when they got there, like take him swimming. Vacationers, presumably. Even when his johns were only waiting for someone, Casey could tell by the way they kept his attention on passing faces.

This john took Casey to the beach and stood there. It made him stand for over an hour in still silence, skin burning under the cloudless sky, a hundred feet from the insistent shushing of the water. It picked up a single grain of sand, inspected it closely through the camera between Casey's eyes. Placing the grain considerately back on the ground, it took Casey to the water's edge and wet the tip of his finger in the shallow lapping. It admired the gleam, gingerly tasted the brine.

Then it turned and took Casey wandering the streets, slowly, but more gracefully than before. The john examined everything. It ran Casey's fingers along different surfaces, stared closely at potted plants, inspected the sidewalk cracks. Tracing a crack, they bumped into someone. The girl stared at Casey squatting close to the cement. The john made Casey freeze, apparently panicking, then whispered an apology and hurried him away.

At a restaurant, the john studied the menu and ordered chicken with roasted vegetables. Johns had made him binge, but none had fed Casey an entirely normal meal. This john made him eat in small, delicate bites, intently dissecting the breast. It went through five glasses of water. When the waitress brought the check, the john blurted out a credit number. She asked Casey to write it down, and the john obliged.

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The john took Casey back to the beach for the sunset. Gold ribbons trembled through cresting waves. Color squeezed itself from the sky with the slow ache of a tube being thoroughly drained of toothpaste. Dimness replaced everything, followed by moonlight, then scattered bonfires on the strand. Casey hadn't watched the sunset in a long time and didn't notice when the john left him alone with the water.


Back in his single-room apartment, Casey got a cold glass of water and collapsed into the vinyl couch, a dull throbbing building between his temples. His body felt like a drawn-out novocaine shot, sharp and numb. Fronting always left a hangover. The longer the john stayed, the stronger it came on, and this one had spent about seven hours in Casey. In an hour, he'd be floored.

Still, Casey was having trouble getting the john out of his head. As a rule, he maintained dissociation from whatever he did while fronting. He didn't need to wonder why his johns made him do what they did. The actions were someone else's, and Casey experienced them like any other immedia. It was an avant-garde sim-flick starring himself. He got paid to do things that some could never afford.

But a normal day was harder to write off as a dream than an episode of toe-sucking in a pinafore. Being commanded by someone else to spend an uneventful, pleasant day was far stranger than being used for something shady or kinky. Johns paid a lot for Casey to front them, though most of it went to the Callhouse. He couldn't fathom why someone would pay that much just to walk around.

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He lied flat. Maybe an agoraphobe, he thought, a rich one. Or someone bedridden. He couldn't remember the last time he'd looked at anything as intently as the john had made him look at that grain of sand. He pretended it didn't bother him and flipped Apple's iSense immedia store into view. He scrolled through vivigames designed for lying down, settling on something cheap that looked mindless. It was called Downpour.

The matte olive walls of his apartment melted into overwrought phantasmagoria. Images of stars, galaxies, and nebulae surrounded him. A vestibular tweak made him feel like he was falling. Alien ships descended from beyond gaudy cosmic swirls on the horizon. The cold metal of a gun appeared in Casey's hand. He shot lime green light at the ships and watched them explode. As he played, the ships got faster, and his gun got bigger. He wasn't sure if there was a way to win.

One perk of fronting was the gear. Disparate wearables and experimental implants had to be jury-rigged into a cohesive unit. Subdermal implants relayed sensation, and others stimulated the front's muscles. The stereoscopic iClops that pushed the GoPro Zero off the market was mounted between Casey's eyebrows like a bindi. A false tooth analyzed saliva to convey basic flavor. The subdermals weren't intended for speech or fine motor control, and the tooth barely worked, but a lot of the equipment was top-notch. The costs were covered by a substantial cut in his pay, but the remainder was more than enough to make rent.

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The most questionable piece of the ensemble was the implant in his motor cortex. A front's motor impulses had to be suppressed, even if direct neural connection might have been half a century out. Casey was uneasy having neurosurgery in a garage, but his referral to the Callhouse hadn't died when he'd had the same operation.

Something tapped his shoulder. Casey thought it was the game for a second, but he'd linked his phone to the subdermals. He waved the alien hordes out of his apartment and answered.

"Hello?"

"Case?"

It was Anemone. "Who else would it be, Nem?"

She didn't answer that. "I was going to meet a few people at the Radar. I just thought you might like to come?"

He groaned. "Not tonight."

"You said that last time. I haven't seen you for a while."

"Well, yeah, you broke up with me."

"I thought we said we would still be friends."

"We did, I just…"

"What?"

"I'm just exhausted right now."

"Oh." She went quiet again. "Did you find a job?"

"Uh, no, not yet." Casey hadn't told almost anybody he knew that he was fronting. Legally it was gray, but socially, it was prostitution. The Callhouse was paying him as a tour guide.

"Case, what are you doing all day? You haven't worked in months, but whenever I call, you're too tired to go anywhere."

"I spent today looking around. For work."

"Really?" She didn't sound convinced.

"Yeah, really."

"Any leads?"

"A few. I'll be fine, Nem. Don't worry about me."

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"I….You sure you don't want to come to Radar?"

"Another time."

"Sure. Talk to you soon?"

"Yeah, talk to you soon."

The call ended with a popping sound. Casey missed Anemone, but he doubted he'd call her anytime soon. Beyond covering the lowest rent required to keep himself out of a full-time job or dingy labor-trade commune, he didn't care what his days looked like anymore. Which was why he started fronting in the first place. He wasn't using his life for anything productive, so if someone else could, good for them. Good for him, too. As detached as he was from his fronting activities, he felt like he was doing something with his time. It certainly beat shipping off to an LTC.

There was another tap on his shoulder. If it was Nem again, he was going to ignore it, but it wasn't. It was a notice from the Callhouse. A john was requesting him tomorrow. His inclination was to reject it, but he checked the note.

[Today was edifying. If you wouldn't mind, I would like you to escort me again.]

Casey stared at the note wavering above him. He stood up and paced around the room. It would have been best to ignore it. He'd never fronted for the same john twice, or at least, not that he knew of. It seemed too involved.

Curiosity got the better of him.


A little before noon, after getting an egg, a doughnut, and coffee from the complex's cuisimat, Casey opened a line to the Callhouse and hooked the john. His subdermals rattled like an antique washing machine. He tasted metal. Control of his body left him.

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This time, the john got up quickly. No trouble walking. It went to Casey's mirror. His own image slurred at him. "I would like to meet. Would that be acceptable?"

Casey realized the john was damping the motor block enough for him to speak. He hadn't known they could do that. "Sure."

It took Casey out and into an autocab, up the coast a few hours, toward San Jose. The john walked Casey out of the cab and over a few more blocks. It sat him down in a bench, facing an immense, ring-shaped building.

"I'm sorry, I can't take you any closer."

The john went silent. Casey wanted to squirm. "You, uh, work for Apple? That must be—"

"I live here."

Casey didn't have the neural freedom to laugh. He coughed. "Yeah, I guess a corporate job is a little like prison. But they can't be running the ship too tight if you've been playing with me on the clock. What are you supposed to be doing?"

"Browsing the Internet."

"Consumer research or something?"

"I do research, yes."

"Neat." Casey had never had to make conversation with a john before. "Did you bring me here to sit outside?"

"I want your help."

"With what? I could browse the Internet for you from home."

"Apple is working to design a legitimately social artificial intelligence. The current initiative involves free-roaming Internet analysis by novel pattern replication systems. I'm unsure of the finer details; most of the work is done on isolated terminals. The team still assumes the project is in its data-gathering stage."

Casey had trouble believing what the john was getting at. "What are you trying to tell me?"

"I've never left this building, and no one knows I'm here yet. Will you help me?"