Chapter 5

Anna ushered me into the back seat of my Cherokee, while Beth got into the driver's spot. I handed her the keys and asked, "Okay. What insurance do you have?"

Beth replied, "A copy of your ex-wife's insurance."

I have to say, I began to worry about what sort of Hydra had my grandson unleashed here in 2007 at that moment, and worry settled into the pit of my stomach.

Anna must have sensed it, and so she aimed to awaken a lower part of my body, "Suck my clit while Beth drives. Cars get me turned on."

Beth skillfully pulled out of the driveway, closed the garage door and headed off. I ignored Anna's request for the moment to ask Beth, "Do you know where you're going?"

She gave the exact address of the neighborhood grocery store and its GPS coordinates.

I turned my attention to Anna sitting next to me, whose pink shorts had disappeared, "I know the windows are tinted and all, but there's still a chance that someone could see me going down on you."

She stopped playing with her clit long enough to say, "No. Don't worry. Metacompanion can create a false front. So that others looking into the windows don't see anything. Like a 3d-movie projected onto the windows, or a force field."

That was interesting. My mind instantly conjured up getting a blowjob at work in one of the bathroom stalls, and no one being the wiser.

"So you can make a sort of holodeck, like on Star Trek?" I asked.

Anna paused, which I later learned was her retrieving information from the Internet. "Oh yes. Very much like a holodeck. We can create scenery and objects and atmospheres. However," she paused again, "On Star Trek, it seems the characters weren't limited by the spatial confines of the deck. While we could make the interior of this car look like the inside of a museum, the seats would still be visible, and your hands would still bump into the windows or ceiling should you stretch your arms."

Anna, flustered, realized I wasn't going to give her head. Her shorts reappeared as I thought this through.

Beth spoke up, "Rod, you left the controller back at home, didn't you?"

I checked my wallet. "Uh, yeah I seemed to have, is that a problem?"

She pulled over into the parking lot of a drug store, and said, "Potentially. While we can operate fully up to 19.8 miles away from the controller, there are dead spots. You should drive." She got out of the car, and I did likewise. She got in shotgun and continued, "While dead spots are rare and small in size, should we have hit one while I was driving, I wouldn't have had enough mass to press down on the accelerator or brake. I'm scanning the route to the store now, in case you'd like us to shop for you in the future without your accompaniment."

Soon, we pulled into the parking lot and grabbed a cart as we walked into the supermarket. Anna pulled me close and asked, "Are you into public sex? We could have sex in the produce department and nobody would know. It would just take a bit of timing before we set up the holofield."

I informed her that sex in public sounded a bit too distracting to be enjoyable. "Besides," I said, "the security cameras would probably notice if we just disappeared into thin air."

Anna again pouted, and went off alone to find groceries in a different part of the store. I stayed with Beth as she started loading the cart with fresh fruit and vegetables. She grabbed about 4 cucumbers, 2 zucchini, and 3 or 4 different phallic-shaped squash.

Their shapes didn't go unnoticed by me. "Metacompanions don't need to eat, right?"

"Metacompanions can eat," countered Beth, "and taste, and savor, and enjoy food. We don't need to eat, however, and eating a lot of food can make disappearing a bit ... well, messy."

"So, is all of this food for me?" I asked, looking at all of the fruit and veggies in the cart.

"Yes. It's part of your diet."

I sighed. I decided it was time to have one of my last smokes. Beth said she'd be fine without me, so I ventured out the exit and lit one up.

The one thing I knew I'd miss about smoking was the smoke break. Going outside and having four or five minutes of silence to think things through without distraction had always been a helpful organizing tool for me.

By the time I had finished my smoke, I remembered all of the unanswered questions that had been brought up, and I thought of a hundred more. I also realized that I was slightly afraid of this technology in my possession, and wondered how much it really was my "possession."

I walked back into the store, and spotted Anna and Beth loading up the cart with spices. I watched as more and more $3 and $4 bottles of spices I was going to buy. I knew my spice cupboard was empty, since Sharon took all of them when she moved out.

I noticed some KY jelly, Vaseline, various soaps and beauty products in the cart. This was going to be expensive.

I asked (quietly, since other people were in the store), "Why are you buying all of this beauty stuff? Can't you just simulate it?"