T-Skraper
T-Skraper
Lying in the sleep-pod of his two hundred square foot high-rise condominium, nestled in the heart of Las Vegas, Ronnie Gilder swiped from profile to profile. Ronnie Gilder resided in the much sought-after T-Skraper mega-complex, created by the Tinder Corporation. The exclusive condominium complex created by singles, for singles! Or so the advertisements declared. The slogan posted on billboards across the Las Vegas sprawl accompanied by pictures of seductive male, female and intersex models and usually the additional subtext of “This Could be you……”.
One hundred stories high with the equivalent of sixty stories horizontally placed on top to form a capital letter T. The original plan being that the building was to be the first of many, but then someone pointed out that it was a bit too domineering and the letter “T” itself boor too much association with a beastly politician from decades past, who now resided cryogenically frozen on Mars, his name no longer spoken directly. Legislation soon passed limiting all new builds to a sixty-story maximum. This benefited the T-Skraper greatly, giving it a one-of-a-kind view over the megalopolis the city of Las Vegas had become after the Mass Global Cooling Crisis(MGCC) which had caused the Northern States to become uninhabitable. It was arguable that Las Vegas had become the greatest city in America if not the world. With a population of one hundred million, it now represented just over half the population of the United States and now had one of the most desirable climates in the entire world post-MGCC.
Ronnie Gilder continued swiping for a while, Tinder profiles projected in high definition onto the ceiling of the sleep-pod, the ring on his right index finger allowing him to swipe almost passively with the slight flick of his finger. Occasionally he sat up a little bit in his pod, taking sips from the PodStraw Hydrator, currently set to the energizing setting containing synthetic caffeine and artificial maca root powder. Flavor setting set to Blue-Raspberry(Blue-Razz™ ), the one free flavor that came with every PodStraw Hydrator. Eventually, he rotated over to Facebook, switching his pod to full-on ImmersionMode and switching his PodStraw Hydrator to a custom mix of modafinil and ketamine, flavor setting still Blue-Raz™ allowing him to really enter The Feed. Ronnie was deep in The Feed for hours, he had thousands of Facebook friends. He cruised through the likes, comments, messages, the latest political happenings, an article speculating on advancement in cryogenic technologies resulting in “The Beast” being successfully unfrozen and what that meant for democracy, the home addresses of top cryogenic scientists posted for public view in the comments. Ronnie Gilder coasted effortlessly through The Feed, his actions optimized in such a way that he could click just enough advertisements to earn a respectable amount of ZuckBucks but not so many ads where he started to feel displeasure. The dopamine hits of The Feed beautifully plateauing during the paid-to-watch advertisements and then it was off to a new zenith in the pleasure of The Feed. The ZuckBucks were accumulating seamlessly now, Ronnie periodically would grab the green currency icon with a little Zuckerberg face on it and then switch over to the HighCorp Bond exchange interface and purchase high-yield one-hour-expiry OnlyFans corporate bonds. Thus earning a good yield on his ZuckBucks while only locking his money up for an hour at a time, continuously rolling over the bond position until he wanted to spend the Zucks.
Finally, he received a match on Tinder. It was go time, he quickly set his Pod-straw Hydrator to the fast release Viagra setting, still set to Blue-Razz™ on the flavor modulator.
Bethany, age 33, no kids, white, blonde. Body a hard seven by T-Skyscraper standards but easily a ten anywhere else. He quickly signed her DocuSign consent agreements, preferred and off-limits positions agreed upon. She sent him an STD test from several hours ago confirming she was STD-free. Ronnie pricked his finger on his SleepPod’s blood tester, furnishing immediate STD test results. He sent them to her and requested she also send an updated STD test, a blood test proving she was on birth control, and a signed release of liability waiver for Ronnie in the off chance she still got pregnant. She complied and Ronnie withdrew some money from his OnlyFan’s bond position, in order to pay for their sex room. Bethany requested an 80s-style room and Ronnie obliged. He hopped into the elevator that connected directly to his room and it ascended to the sex-den floor. He pressed the button for STD prevention after removing his clothing and a set of mechanical hands descended from the ceiling, proceeding to wipe his body down with a rubbing alcohol towelette. The hands then wrapped his entire body from head to toe in a hyper-thin antimicrobial saran-wrap-like substance, including his face, lips, and even his tongue. Before completely closing off his windpipe with the saran-wrap-like film, the mechanical hands were sure to activate his lung catheter and complimentary oxygen pack that came with every sex-room rental, compliments of the Tinder Corporation. Seconds later the elevator opened directly into the 1980s-style room he paid for. The entire room floor to ceiling was made of mirrors and Depeche Mode played slightly too loud from the surround sound speakers. There was even a red heart-shaped tub that had been made to look dirty and run down to really commit to the 80s aesthetic. Bethany lay naked on the water bed, barring the antimicrobial film which gave her skin a slightly reflective sheen. The king-sized water bed was set in a frame of a 1980s Cadillac, a pair of pink furry sex handcuffs attached to the mock steering wheel.
Neither of them felt it necessary to speak or fumble through introductions, just straight to business. At the end of it they had sex three times on the Cadillac waterbed, plus once in the artificially dirty heart-shaped tub, which ended up being more trouble than it was worth. The two of them laying on the wavy waterbed with Bethany resting her head on Ronnie’s shoulder, her eyes closed. Listening to what seemed like the same Depeche Mode song for the hundredth time because they all sound the same, Ronnie decided to break the silence.
“So when was the last time you left the T-Skraper?” Ronnie Gilder asked trying to feign interest while running his hand over Bethany’s well-defined abs.
“Well ummm must have been Easter…..” Bethany mumbled without opening her eyes.
Ronnie nodded in acknowledgment even though Bethany wasn’t looking at him.
“I try not to leave usually, only once or twice a year.” She continued. “Last time I got stuck in forty-eight hours of traffic trying to visit my family at their apartment complex, out in the what used to be the Valley of Fire national park, so I end up on the highway of course after taking the luxury shuttle from the T-Skraper, and the only Highway Man available had his privacy window broken, at least that’s what he said. So I was there lying in the back Highway Man’s drive-pod, just sipping on Blue-Razztm liquid Xanax, you know just trying to just get through it, and I swear the creep kept looking at me in the rear-view mirror.” Bethany said with disgust.
“Yeah, life outside the T-Skraper is a real drag.” Ronnie said nodding again, then added “I basically never leave”
A brief silence ensued and then Bethany asked earnestly “Hey you don’t mind if I go back to my condo now right? I had a good time, it’s just…….. I’d really like to check my Facebook account.”
Ronnie breathed a sigh of relief as he also wanted to get back to his Facebook account. “No problem.” He said then walked her to the elevator letting her grab the first one, smacking her butt as she got on.
She smiled and said “Maybe I’ll see you again.” as the doors began to close.
“Maybe.” Ronnie smirked back.
But she wouldn’t see him again as Ronnie Gilder never did the same Tinder-Girl twice. When he got back to his pod he would remove her from his match rotation. And with the population of the T-Skraper five hundred thousand, Ronnie wouldn’t need to keep any old hits in his match rotation, so he didn’t see the point of meeting anyone twice.
Back in the elevator the mechanical hands removed the thin saran-wrap-like film and gave him another rubbing-alcohol wipe down. He didn’t bother getting dressed in the elevator, as he was going to shower.
The doors opened to the condominium and Ronnie Gilder had a slight panic attack, rushing over to his sleep-pod's blood tester, a wave of anxiety hitting him in the few seconds it took for the results to come in. He was clean. He breathed a sigh of relief, then hopped into his glass shower pod, setting the spray down function to full sterilization just to be safe. The jets of chemical germicide sprayed him down with a fury, then a water cycle, then a moisturizing cycle with the high-speed tanning lights on to help him maintain his radiant and tanned skin. The whirlwind of highly purified air dried him in seconds. The whole process taking less than two minutes from start to finish.
Rushing back over to his sleep-pod Ronnie surfed The Feed for a while, accumulating more ZuckBucks and rolling them into OnlyFans high-yield hourly bonds until he decided it was time to get a workout in. He sipped some Blue-Razz™ pre-workout mixed with a light orally active anabolic steroid from his PodStraw Hydrator.
Ronnie threw on an all-red Nike workout outfit, consisting of a tight red tank-top, fitted shorts that ran three inches above the knee, and a red Nike headband. A pair of black and red Jordans for footwear, no socks. He rode the elevator to the VIP fitness center, which was Neon Purple themed today. He stopped for a moment to watch the girl working out in the exclusive glass centerpiece in the middle of the room. The four glass walls enclosed the elevated stage in the center of the gym, the room was equipped with over a thousand micro-cameras almost invisible to the naked eye, and could only be entered through a trap door in the floor since the glass walls and ceiling had no openings. The floor itself is a robust reinforced hyper-reflective mirror. Ronnie watched in awe as the blue-eyed blonde vixen worked out in the centerpiece, a T-Skraper ten out of ten easily. And in the world outside the T-Skraper her beauty would seem somewhat alien, almost offensive. The five-foot-nine blonde wore a pink sports bra and tight matching pair of pink short shorts. Ronnie watched as four additional OnlyFan’s drones circled the glass enclosure, to get some aesthetic “through the glass” shots as she started a set of deadlifts, directly super-setted into squats.
Ronnie immediately subscribed to her OnlyFans, which he got a 40% discount on due to his large bond position, her handle stitched into the back of her shorts- “Cyndy Pink” The header of her page read, “Cyndy Pink, My Life- Your Syn.”
Ronnie started his workout, hitting a couple of machines for a half-hour or so. Then he went to the muscle electro-stimulator machine and strapped on the body suit, the muscle stimulator’s electric nodes pulsating at a high vibration speed for several minutes. This would result in the equivalent of another forty-five minutes of extensive workout. Next, he set the body suit to a seven-minute cold-sculpting session the suction cups inside the suit began to latch themselves onto Ronnie while putting out ice-cold air to freeze away excess body fat, which helped keep his skin taught and hyper-vascular. After it was done, he went to the gym production room to film. He set the room to deep neon red and let the artificial sweat machine spray him down with the ideal level of artificial sweat for that perfect glisten in the red-neon light.
He turned on the room live-streamer to stream to his OnlyFans subs. He began his simulated workout going through the motions of weight lifting although all the weights in the room were actually hollowed-out props. Ronnie had perfected the right facial expressions of mock exertion at this point. He continued for thirty minutes, his muscles looking taught and pumped up from the electro-stimulator session. Then he turned off the live-streamer, wiped off the artificial sweat with a disposable washcloth, and headed to the elevator.
Arriving at the expansive roof-top of the T-Skraper, Ronnie Gilder met his only female friend Allie, whom he’d known since high school. Allie was Peruvian-Japanese and probably only a firm T-Skraper six but her unique look made her slightly more attractive, at least in Ronnie’s eyes, although he never slept with her except in emergency situations when he failed to meet someone new off Tinder for more than 48hours. Which usually only happened on Christmas/Christmas Eve. She greeted him happily and they headed to the Kim-Jong-Un cafe. They entered the outdoor rooftop cafe passing under the big Kim-Jong-Un head with his signature Kim-Jong-Un expression, a fake cup of steaming coffee on either side of his head.
After the M.G.C.C. Korea became all but uninhabitable, a group of ex-pats decided to trade-mark Kim-Jong-Un’s face and used it to launch a worldwide cafe franchise that eventually put Starbucks out of business- as they failed to pivot into an age where military aesthetics came into vogue. It’s founders used the profits to buy half of New Mexico creating “New Korea” which offered all Koreans monthly dividend checks from the cafe if they took up residency in “New Korea”, becoming a sort of mecca for the remainder of the race.
The almost human-looking waitress-bot dressed in classical North Korean military wear glided over to Ronnie and Allie, the small wheels under the mock combat boot making a slight squeaking noise as she stopped in front of their table.
“We’ll both have an iced cold brew with double espresso shots, and I’ll also have the no-carb croissant.” Allie said while removing her shoes and stretching her legs out onto the oversized leather chair, which was a quasi-military green.
“YE! YE!” The military robo-waitress said enthusiastically. And then looked at Ronnie expectantly for a moment until he nodded.
“YE! YE!” the robot said again tight grin across her synthetic face and quickly began to roll away.
Allie leaned her back up against the armrest, her short brown legs not quite reaching the other side. She took out a lighter from her black leather purse and went to light a cigarette. The robo-waitress did a swift one-eighty and quickly assembled the Plexiglas smokers box around her.
Allie rolled her eyes as the robo-waitress fished and let out a big puff of smoke which was immediately filtered through the smoker’s box purification system. “YE! YE!” the waitress-bot exclaimed again before rolling away.
Ronnie smiled “I don’t know why you bother with those analog cigarettes.” he said then took out a fake electronic cigar and puffed from it.
“Because I’m a person of culture, unlike you Ronnie.” Allie said coyly, puffing on the thin cigarette.
“My electronic cigar has seventy-two different settings, a non-perishable paper-like film that gives the real feel of a cigar, optimizable nicotine dosage, all the while allowing me to choose the regional taste I want the cigar to have. I also recently got the synthetic coca-leaf extract cartridge, so I can enjoy a smooth cocaine cigar anytime I want, like right now.” Ronnie Gilder smirked and blew a puff of vapor at the smoker's box encapsulating Allie.
Allie rolled her eyes but was smiling “You win again Ronnie.” she said taking a final toke of the half-finished cigarette and then placing it into the waste disposal container inside of the smoker's box.
The waitress-bot came rushing back over. “YE! YE!” it exclaimed again as it disassembled the Plexiglas box and stored it sleekly behind Allie’s chair. Then a compartment opened in the waitress-bot’s torso and the waitress-bot pulled out the coffees and carb-free croissant and placed them on the synthetic walnut-wood coffee table that sat between the two of them.
“YE! YE!” the waitress-bot proclaimed again, a taut smile on her face, empty eyes looking at each of them one at a time, somewhat eerily rotating her head from left to right, the olive-green hat with the faded red star on it looking ready to fall off.
“Yes, yes, we get it! Thanks for the coffee, now leave us alone.” Allie said annoyed.
“YE! YE!” the bot said one more time then rotated a hundred and eighty degrees and glided back to the kitchen.
“Jesus, that thing is annoying.” Allie said a little too wired up.
“Yeah” Ronnie nodded somewhat passively “Must be an old model.” he said then broke off a piece of Allie’s carb-free croissant and ate it.
“Dammit Ronnie! You could have just ordered your own!” Allie looked at him with fiery brown eyes.
Ronnie smiled “Your’s taste better.”
“You always do this!” she whined but Ronnie knew she wasn’t really mad.
“How’s the Twitch streaming going?” He asked, taking a sip of the cold-brew espresso from the chic metallic cup.
“Don’t change the subject!” Allie pouted but then said “It’s going really well actually I’m top ten in RPG streaming now.” she smiled and took a big bite of the croissant, which she dipped in the cold coffee.
“That’s good.” he said happy for her.
Allie nodded cheerfully and continued eating her croissant.
Ronnie gazed out into the sprawl of Las Vegas as he sipped his cold-brew espresso. Watching as the herds of Highway Men docked their drive-pods, hanging off the side of the highway overpass by steel cables. His eyes following the thirty-lane freeway deep out into the hills, all the way to the now condo-covered mountains.
Allie followed his eyes and gazed out too in silence, then asked “Do you ever think about it?”
“Think about what?” Ronnie answered, neither of them taking their eyes off the sprawl.
“Oh, you know…..” Allie began in a pondering tone “like that whole city out there, that whole mess. The passenger shuttles that take people from the regular roads to the freeway, the Highway men in their drive-pods that pick people up from the shuttles, and they spend their entire lives on that high-way, docking their drive-pods at the end of the night, hanging off the side of the free-way as they sleep for a few hours, never earning quite enough to pay the toll to actually exit the high-way. The people who are stuck in forty hours of traffic. The people who live in those condominiums they built in what used to be Elon Musk’s underground hyperloop and how they don’t see the sun for weeks at a time. And like how come them and not us? You ever think about that Ronnie?” she looked at him.
He paused for a moment still staring out into the sprawl, then said “I guess sometimes I think about how crazy it is…… how crazy it is that the most attractive person out-there….” he gestured with his hands expansively “that the best-looking person out there would probably only be a four out of ten in here.” Ronnie laughed and turned to look at Allie.
“Oh, you have no depth! Do you Ronnie?” Allie rolled her eyes but smiled.
“Maybe not, but that does at least answer one of your questions, doesn’t it?” Ronnie smiled back.
“Which one?” Allie responded, a little confused.
“How come them and not us.” He said confidently and took a puff of his cocaine cigar.
“Hmmmm I guess your right about that.” she admitted.
“Of course I am!” Ronnie declared and then blew cocaine smoke in Allie’s face, laughing.
She pouted. “Well you are wrong about one thing!” she said knowingly.
“O yeah? What’s that babe?” he asked actually curious.
“You said the most attractive person out there would at best be a four out of ten in here…..” she paused for effect.
“Yeah and?” Ronnie asked impatiently, a little annoyed she had piqued his interest.
“Let’s be honest, you were too giving.” she smiled “the best-looking person out there, wouldn’t even be a three out ten in here.” Allie said smugly and laughed.
Ronnie laughed too, then held his hands up and said “you got me” grinning widely.
She came over to his chair and sat on his lap and he held her as they took turns puffing on the electronic cocaine cigar, watching the last of remnants of the sunset.
Then Allie asked “Wanna come back to my place tonight? I got the two-person sleep-pod installed recently.”
Ronnie considered it for a moment, still a little horny from the residual Viagra in his system. But then he thought better of it.
“Honestly babe I would, but I really have to get back on my Facebook account for a bit tonight.” Ronnie said.
She nodded a little disappointed.
“But let's do drinks at the infinity pool tomorrow night.” Ronnie reassured her.
“Promise?” Allie said in a pouty voice.
“Promise.” Ronnie answered and gave her a strong hug before taking another puff from the cocaine cigar.
Arriving back in his condo, Ronnie spent another hour or so in The Feed collecting ZuckBucks and riding the residual high from the espresso cold brew and cocaine cigar. Then right as he was about to transfer all of his Zucks to the overnight eight-hour lock-up OnlyFans bond, which offered a slightly higher yield for the longer duration, he noticed he had a message from Cyndy Pink on OnlyFans. His heart skipped a beat as he opened it. Just one word- “Collab?”
Ronnie Gilder replied back “Yes.” then turned off his sleep-pod’s interface for the night. Sipping the Blue-Razz™ flavored sedative from his PodStraw, Ronnie Gilder drifted off into a restful sleep well contented, knowing that he was about to move up in the world.
