519 The Flood, Ch. 32


Chapter Thirty-two

"Sonia Red," I recognized the girl, "No, the other Sonia. The original fork. The one who is connected."

Grabbing the dinghy's tender line, I slipped over the side into the water. Holding on to the side of my boat, I pushed underneath the surface. She was nowhere to be seen. Furthermore, I no longer felt illuminated. The water was cloudy with debris, and stung my eyes, so I pulled myself back up to the surface.

"Well, that wasn't connected," I shivered, shocked at how cold the water was becoming. "What did she say? Dive to get connected."

A light bulb. Taking a deep breath, I went under again.

Sunny, I love you, but as the head of General Digital, I've seen lots of pornos featuring Sonia Red. That stuff is a big part of our business. And so, at this moment, I did my best to remember one.

The plots were usually based on fantasies, whatever is popular in the moment. 

"Dome Lifestyles," the thought popped into my head, and I saw a new Ultra Sonia product. This was something I've never seen before, set in a post-flood future, where society has rebuilt along class lines. The privileged live lavish lives in private domed communities. The rest struggle for existence, dying young or wearing personal breathers and radiatian-blocking fashion.

There's a small middle-class, who work for big corporations like GD. In Dome Lifestyles, Sonia wants to upgrade from her middle-class world of 9 to 5 and living in the stacks, modular high rises, to a more lavish life in the fresh air of the domes.

You can play any number of characters, from Sonia herself to the various bosses and wealthy individuals, salespeople and officials she meets along her ascension.

Personally, I was more interested in the future they were showing. Because it was based on my present, but also, because I think it is the present. Modern day. Now. 

Guys, I think I made it.

But the simulation in a simulation was gone, it was just me, floating under a yellow dinghy, somewhere over the old Eureka Valley, now a harbor.

I kicked to the surface.






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