Chapter 2

Month 48—December in Los Angeles

WE GOT V1 of Pussy Pirates out in time for Christmas sales. The whole coming alien invasion thing had gotten so out of hand, people ate up the new game. It was a way for them to practice killing dickheads.

It seemed to me that US pickups had fallen off except in certain areas of the country because of the increasing violence and resistance of new political factions and right wing fundamentalist religions. Hardly any news at all came from the Midwest. I wrote that off to low population, but cities like Detroit, Montgomery, Miami, and pretty much all of New Jersey might as well have been Confederacy-free zones. It wasn’t safe to either test or to be involved in a pickup. In California we got off easy. There hadn’t been the level of Earth First activity in the State seen elsewhere in the country, because there was nothing here for the fuckers to be against. We’d already kicked the Confederacy out. Australia and the UK both elected Earth First governments and banned pickups in their countries. People fled to New Zealand and France by the thousands to increase their chances. But ‘stupid is as stupid does,’ in the words of some movie idiot.

We’d been working on the game for nearly six years. There were a couple hundred players who contributed to the code when we started. News of the Swarm had been welcomed at first. It gave us a concrete enemy for our online game. We wrote the scenarios as we went and coded them for each other to play. But the community began to fall apart within a year of the announcement.

Friends kept disappearing from the net. Hundreds had played, only knowing each other by online handles. I could have been playing against Aunt Di upstairs and never would have known it. But soon, the number of those of us who were really committed to development shrank to just a couple dozen, and we started getting more serious. We decided to develop a commercial version. And our brainstorming sessions were epic!

“What if there are collaborators?” Mastermind asked. “It could be that this whole Earth First thing is created to give the world away to the Swarm.”

“That’s evil, man,” Battlestar Houston said. “How about if it’s those bird-thing Darjee who are the collaborators. Like they’re taking away Earth’s top warriors so the Swarm won’t have as much resistance when they get here.”

We dreamed up all kinds of devious variants. And paranoia began to set in. What if they were watching the game development and targeting our small group of hackers for extraction to get rid of us?

We were all hackers. There’s no polite way to say it. We dug for news on the dark web and wrote it into our game scenarios. But we quit talking to each other through direct contact. Instead, we buried messages in the code. Nobody ever reads the developer notes in software. We could say anything we wanted to, including setting up places and plans for where to meet if we needed to escape. We’d all reached the same conclusion. Our game needed to teach us Earthlings how to fight. Get us used to shooting dickheads so we never hesitate.

Now that the first version of the game was a commercial success, we were getting a whole new batch of input. Gamers talked and made suggestions. That was what had initially prompted my meetings with Dakota Wind. One of the beta testers had asked that we develop an avatar that looked like a popular porn star.

“Why create an avatar? Why don’t we just get Chelsea to act the part and film her?” Space Cadet had asked. “Put her against a blue screen and we could cut her into any background we want.”

“As if Chelsea Tourneau would give us the time of day,” Duck had responded. “Although if we could get one of those artificial pussies modeled by her and distribute it to gamers, I bet we’d sell a bundle.”

We all knew toys would be a big add-on for the game.

Month 50—February in Los Angeles

AFTER MY MEETING with Dakota Wind, the idea caught fire. She got it. Not only did she get the game concept of using porn stars in action shots, she understood a deeper possibility that I hadn’t shared even with the developers.

“How much of what you are planning is actually doable?” she asked. “Not just for you to develop; I mean for people to put in action when the Swarm gets here? Are the scenarios real enough that people would know what to do when they were facing the dickheads? Can the weapons be developed that really work?”

“I don’t know, Dakota. I’m not sure we have the people on our team who could make weapons that really work. We can spec them, but we’re code nerds. It’s something to think about, though. Maybe we can find a company that will manufacture them. Right now, the most usable things we can sell are the toys. We have a controller design we could ship that would improve the game response. And the whole idea of selling masturbators that were modeled on some of the actresses we use is sure to be a hit.”

“Well, it’s something to keep in mind. We’ve got the first round ready to film,” she said proudly. “Want to watch?”

I gladly went to the studio to watch the first girls film their spots. There’s a library of animation moves for first person shooter games and individual combat games. It wasn’t difficult to film the actresses performing the moves and start cutting them into prepared backgrounds. A quick kick to the head of a combatant was a lot more interesting when the actress’s pussy was exposed in the process. Guys were eating the game up.

And some girls. Most notably, the models and actresses who had taken part in the filming. Dakota was flooded with requests from women who wanted to take part in the project. There were some knock-offs of the game appearing within four months of the release of Pussy Pirates, but they were way behind our development curve. They could put out video that looked like clips from their games but they couldn’t get the interactive connection down. They didn’t really have a game.

“Teddy, this is going great!” Dakota said. “I had my doubts, but you made a believer out of me. When can we release another level? I have girls falling over their tits to take part in this.”

“We had the first two upgrades almost ready for release when we released V1,” I said. “But the moves get more complicated. And we really need to move into VR for the rewards. Watching on flat screen is totally boring compared to being in front of KC Cutie while she talks about taking my hot dick into her wet pussy and shows it to me.”

“There are a lot of 3D viewers out there. And having an actress focus on a male that isn’t really there means I have a lot more women willing to work with us. Over the past few years, the actresses who will do only solo or gg scenes have completely overshadowed the old-style porn. This year’s awards were the first that had more solo and gg awards than bg. The status of the actresses has changed, too. The solo actresses are commanding the highest dollar value.”

“We didn’t get nominated for an award,” I groused good-naturedly.

“We were too late in the market. The awards were in January and we didn’t release V1 until December. Teddy, next January, you are accompanying me to the ceremony and walking up on that stage with me to receive our award.”

“Uh ... Not really, Dakota. Look at me. I’m a fat bastard.” If that brings to mind an image from Austin Powers, you got the right idea. Just without the fake Scottish accent and all that hair. Five-ten and two-eighty. That and a Big Mac will get you a heart attack throughout most of the world. I didn’t fucking care. I’m an asshole and I know it. Everybody else knew I was an asshole. Even Dakota knew I was an asshole who went home alone after watching each filming and jacked my cock the rest of the night.

“But, Teddy, you’re the brains of this outfit. You’re the Boss. You should get the recognition. This could get even you laid.”

“Thanks a heap, Dakota. I don’t see you stripping. Face it. You’re the Captain of this ship. You point the way and I’ll kill anyone between us and where you’re going.” I was a little discouraged regarding my own role in things, but I could see Dakota’s talent in everything she touched. I was comfortable writing code and scripts and making things work, but I lived in a different world than the starlets. Dakota had flair. Dakota had wit. Dakota had tits. Dakota had a wife. Dakota had a life.

“Don’t lose hope, Boss,” she said. “I’ll lead if you want me to, but I’ll only lead where you tell me to go. When it comes to killing dickheads, you’re in charge.”

Month 52—April in Los Angeles

UNCLE REG KNEW where to find me; he just didn’t know what to do with me. After my parents were killed, Reg became my official guardian but left me in the care of Aunt Di. She was reeling from the shock of losing their sister and I was an orphan. Of course, she took me in and Reg supported us. I flourished in the manner of a mushroom. I cleared a space in Di’s basement, turned out the lights, and lost myself in the world of ones and zeroes.

Reg lived in Wisconsin, and officially, that was my residence. But in Los Angeles I was home schooled and “off the grid” as far as my residence, who I was, or how I progressed. Di monitored my lessons but they were all completed on my computer. After finishing the high school curriculum at sixteen, I went to an online college and got a computer science degree. I grew up ... and out ... in that basement with no social interaction aside from my online friends. Just before my nineteenth birthday, I was five feet ten inches tall and weighted two-eighty.

I was surprised when Uncle Reg paid a visit that day in April.

“Teddy,” Reg said, “we’ve got to get you out of here.”

“Why?”

“Things are too closed off here. There is no opportunity for you to get picked up. In the rest of the country there are pockets of Earth First resistance that are targeting sponsors as well as Confederacy Marines. The pockets are expanding. Just going out in the company of more than one woman can make the entire party a target.”

“Not much chance of that happening here. I don’t go out ... with or without women. Earth First is more of a club here than a movement. There’s nothing for them to be against in California,” I answered.

“It’s still not safe. I want you to go with me.”

“Are you going to force me to go?”

“You’re almost nineteen. I can’t force you to do anything. I’m asking you to come out there where you can do the most good.”

“Come? As in with you? You’re leaving?”

“Yes. I’m in negotiations with the Confederacy. I’ve acquired an island in the Caribbean and am moving the company soon. If you’re there with me, you’ll get extracted with the rest of us. I’ll make sure there are plenty of beautiful women for you to choose concubines from. All you have to do is be there.”

I looked at Uncle Reg and then at Aunt Di, who was nodding her head. “You’re taking Aunt Di, aren’t you?”

“Yes. There won’t be anyone here to look after you and we can’t organize a pickup in California,” Reg said. I sighed.

“I guess you should know I’ve been in touch with them, too,” I said at last. “I’ve got a card around here somewhere with a phone number on it. All I have to do is call the number and two Marines will be here within an hour to collect me. In fact, I’m due a meeting with their recruiter on my birthday.”