Meg stiffened and Paul rolled off of her, jumping up.

“Who the fu…”

The nude man standing in the bedroom entry waived a hand and Paul froze.

“Now now, we shall have none of that. Such ingratitude towards your benefactor, but I suppose you don’t know that yet.”

Meg stormed over to the corpulent man, “This is not what we agreed to!” she raged.

“I don’t recall agreeing to anything,” he replied with a small smile.

“I was to handle his acclimation, you’re interfering!”

“My dear girl, I don’t see how I’m doing anything of the sort. I merely wanted to welcome my new acquisition.”

“Stop being a disingenuous fuck!” she roared. “You know exactly what you’re doing! He’s not ‘yours’! This is an accords violation!”

“Yes I do know,” he said, his voice turning cold. “You’re the one who forgets her place you stupid Echo! I own you and now I own him. I’ll do with you what I want, when I want it. Everything you have are crumbs from my table! I’ve violated no accords, this is public space. I’ve invested in you both and by the terms of the accords I’m owed recompense. Watching your little show was a delightful appetizer and started the process of buying down your debt. Look, it’s made me all randy. Get on your knees and take care of that.”

Meg’s expression changed from anger to dismay, “I haven’t explained…”

“Not my problem,” the man interrupted.

He turned to a frozen Paul, “Welcome to Afterlife. You’ve incurred a substantial debt to me for bringing you here as has your ‘wife’. You’ll both be paying that off for a long time so get used to this.”

He turned back to Meg, “Now you can get on your knees and relieve me with your mouth like the Echo whore that you are, as you’ve done thousands of times before, or his first payoff experience can be at the torture garden. Your choice but my patience wears thin.”

Shooting an apologetic glance at Paul, she sank to her knees and took him into her mouth. He was right, it was an act she had done many, many times before. His name was Ian and he was some sort of media mogul. He spent a considerable time in Afterlife indulging in pastimes that were no longer socially acceptable to meat society, if they ever were. Ian was a sadist but consensual sex had never appealed to him. Afterlife gave him the ability to indulge his fantasies of rape and coercion without fear of consequence. He had developed a ‘fondness’ for Meg and patronized her often. At least this meant Meg knew how to bring him off fairly quickly. She felt him tense and she took his cock deep into her mouth so he could shoot down her throat, avoiding having to taste him.

Ian grunted like a pig as he came, knowing what Meg was doing and deliberately pulling back to fill her mouth.

“Swallow it all or I’ll make you do it again, or maybe I’ll take your husband’s ass,” Ian taunted.

Meg swallowed.

“Ah, much better. You’re so very good at sucking cock, and doing it in front of your husband made it all that much more exquisite. Well I’d love to stay and continue with this little reunion but duty calls,” Ian smirked and then vanished.

Paul regained the ability to move, “Meg, are you alright?” he asked, going to her concerned.

She grimaced, standing. “I’m sorry you had to see that,” she said.

“What the fuck?” Paul exclaimed. “Who was that guy? If he’s hurting you, I’ll kill him.”

“You can’t,” she said. “Kill him. No one ‘dies’ here. You can be killed, but you can’t ‘die’. You just respawn. If your ‘death’ was particularly horrific you can get your memory edited to remove the worst of it, otherwise we’d all be insane by now. For all I know, we are. Sit down, I’ll give you the basics, then let’s get the fuck out of here, as he pointed out this is public space and anyone can show up.”

They sat on the bed.

“Look,” she began, taking his hand, “We’re in a simulation. It’s the most realistic simulation ever created, but it exists in Afterlife’s servers. It’s a playground for the super rich.”

“Then what are we?” he asked.

“We’re what they used to call NPCs, Non-player characters. We’re part of the simulation. We’re here to give the players something to interact with. They sometimes call us ‘Echoes’. It’s derogatory, if you hadn’t guessed.”

“That’s seriously fucked up,” Paul said.

“Tell me about it. The original game used AI to bring the NPCs to life but it wasn’t real enough for the rich fuckers so someone got the bright idea of using scanned memory book data coupled with AI to make more realistic NPCs. It worked. It worked a lot better than they thought it would.”

“So what’s the point of the game, what’s the plot?”

“There isn’t one,” she said, “it’s pure anarchy. Well, mostly. There are some rules called the accords. The players get to do anything they want to. Want to hunt a T-Rex? That can happen and apparently it will look and feel real.”

“And what, we’re the T-Rex?” he asked.

“Not per se, but there is a ‘Greatest Game’ scenario people play out. Those hunts need guides etc. That’s us. Apparently we exist in a nebulous legal status, are we real or not? Are we human with the same rights as any citizen or are we just a program? Afterlife corporate doesn’t want that litigated so they offer just enough ‘rights’ for us to keep the regulators at bay but still stack the deck. Basically we’re slaves. We’re not called that, of course. We have to earn our keep like good capitalists, so participating in T-Rex hunts earns us points, call it wages.”

“What if we don’t want to play?” Paul asked.

“Not an option,” she replied. “The accords require that we work as part of the terms of our existence, oh and you can’t choose not to exist. If you don’t voluntarily work, they choose jobs for you. You don’t want that, trust me. I tried that,” she shuddered. “Newbies, like you, have a grace period to figure everything out before you need to work, but it’s short and you come in with a debt burden you need to erase before you can start banking wages to improve how you live.”

“So I sold my soul to the company store?”

“Exactly. Worse than any of the terriers on the Erie Canal ever did.”

“So who was that guy, and what was he talking about ‘owning us’?” Paul asked.

“He’s a ‘Meat’. What we call players. They interface with the game, I don’t know how, maybe some kind of chip implant or something. While they’re here, they fully experience everything. They’re not supposed to pop in and out like that, it ‘ruins the illusion’. Most can’t do the ‘freeze’ thing either, but money talks.”

“Everyone works, Paul, including me. I’m a whore,” she said bluntly. “Sure it isn’t called that. I’m an ‘Entertainer’. I’m an escort. If someone is living out some adventure story, I’m the ‘love interest’. If they’re living out a darker one, I can be the victim.”

“Why?” he asked.

“It’s not like I had much choice, is it? If you don’t pick, they assign you based on your personality. I was one of the early Echoes, I didn’t have anyone to explain the rules to me. I got ‘assigned’. C’mon Paul, you know what my brain is like. We were married for 35 years. You know what I’m into. I was kinky bitch when I was alive. I wrote erotic horror stories and got paid for them. My mind, my memory, all of that is available to Afterlife. I get to live out all my stories. Lucky me, right?” she added sarcastically.

“So is this place 120 Days of Sodom all the time?” Paul asked, aghast.

“Parts of it are, yes, but not all of it. The trick is to get situated in a niche you have some control over. I can help you do that. If you want me to.” She added quietly.

“Why wouldn’t I want you to?” he asked, genuinely confused.

“Paul, I told you. I’m a whore. That’s not going to stop. Much as I would like it to, it’s what I do here, and I’m at a point where I have a lot of control over what I do and don’t do, and if I’m being honest, it’s not all bad,” she looked directly at him. “I can’t stop doing it. Afterlife won’t let me. I can’t even promise I’m not going to like it. They’re taking some of these scenarios right out of my own head, of course they turn me on. That’s the point. That’s part of what the Meats are paying for. Some of them are just looking for sex, but sometimes I need to be their girlfriend, or at least act like it.”

“Meg, I’m not going to pretend that I like this,” Paul began, squeezing her hand, “But even when we were alive, we weren’t entirely monogamous. We didn’t call it that, but, c’mon babe, we were swingers for a bit. Hey, nothing like this of course, but it’s all a matter of degree. I won’t always like it, but I lost you once, I’m not losing you again. We’ll figure it out.”

Meg blinked back tears.

“But why am I hear?” he asked.

“Ian,” she said simply. “The guy that was here. He’s a little…obsessed with me. He’s a sadistic bastard. I’d gotten to the point of having enough credit to be able to turn down his bookings and he didn’t like that very much. He wanted some leverage over me, so he paid for your upload. It’s very expensive and a risky investment. Less than 20% of uploads actually take. They’re not sure why.”

“So I got lucky, eh?”

“Some luck, you’re a virtual slave in a Hieronymus Bosch painting, and it’s my fault.”

“Shut up, Meg,” he said in the voice of a cartoon character from the last century causing her to laugh, as it always did, “It’s not your fault, it’s his. I’ve got another chance to be with you. We’ll figure the rest out. Besides, gotta admit, watching you give that fucker a blowjob was at least a little bit hot.”

“God, you’re twisted,” she said, smiling. “Lucky me.”

“Made for each other, now are you going to do something to help that or do I need to suffer?” he winked.

“Hold that thought,” she said, holding up a hand. “By the way, actual AI does all the menial work around here. Let me introduce you to him. Alexander!” she called.

“Yes, Meg?” a disembodied male voice replied.

“How much longer does Paul have this room for?” she asked.

“He has the standard week’s acclimation package,” Alexander replied.

“If he terminates early, does he earn a credit?”

“Yes, Meg. He will be credited the daily rate plus a bonus,” the AI replied.

“If you wanted to, you can stay with me. Checking out early will give you enough cred to keep Ian off your back for a bit and really piss him off.” Meg added, suddenly shy. “Or you can stay here.”

“Why would I not want to stay with you?”

“Well, there’s the whole whore thing…” she said.

“I like whores, especially cute ones,” Paul said. “Do you have the room?”

“OK, then we’re moving you out,” she said. “As to the room, yes. I have a big place. I’m very good at my job.”

“No surprise there.”