PASsport, Happening Encounters, FINAL CHAPTER free porn video

8PHE0061 word count 5231 ******** Day 61, Saturday and later.... Then the blackouts began. Chastity assumed it was because others were riding her in the same way that she had ridden them. Whichever or whomever it was, she was obsessively clean. Which was fine by Chastity. Some of her blackouts included truck work. The truck now ran and was titled in her name. All that remained was cosmetic work. There were dings to bang out and rusted panels to repair or replace. It also needed new wood in the truck bed, new stakes for the stake truck, paint, some glass, and seat covers. She completed - or someone had completed - the conversion over to metallic hydrogen. They'd also included a scavenging fuel cell that fed off the fumes that MH4 produced as it off-gassed. Chastity had looked at those but had deemed it too expensive. Who had paid for it? Over breakfast, she discovered that Joi and Marion were having similar troubles with blackouts. One of the things they did remember, that Chastity did not, were daily visits with Drake and Reginald. Some of these visits had been done in Chastity's body. This confirmed theory one. ******** On Tuesday, Cookie and Wechuge ganged up on Chastity. They insisted that she play PASsport - without doing what Chastity now did routinely, put Wechuge on autoplay and just monitor passively. "Guys," Chastity said, "you know, I understand, but ... I can't play this game anymore." Cookie said, "Have I ever asked you to do something you didn't want?" "Plenty times!" "I'm asking again. Trust me?" Chastity took control in name but actually let Wechuge control of the avatar. Wechuge trotted to an X-rated movie theater in Zombietown West. Oh, joy. AVS. The theater was playing thirty-one versions of the Basement Tapes, as Chastity had started referring to them. These were AVS pornos - some newly discovered - that included scenes in Stormy's Room, and usually also included scenes in the Ming's Flowers van and Lao Fan cemetery. Chastity almost bolted. "Really?" she asked Wechuge. Wechuge shrugged. She spoke in orcish, saying, in essence, "I am unhappy, too. Follow my lead." Chastity could understand orcish? When had that happened? She discovered that she also could read orcish pictograms, at least while she shared a mind with Wechuge. Huh. Wechuge imposed all thirty-one AVS games on her at once. Cookie had done this before, with a smaller number of games. It wasn't a novelty anymore. Chastity found, if she fractured her mind, that she could multitask. She shuddered to think what habits they were imposing on her - and what her new sense of normality would be at the end of it. A thirty-second track appeared. This was different from the others. This track replayed her lost IRL memories. Some of them, anyway. Apparently, Cookie had been saving important events to Mem2, and hiding them. ******** Brennan had been busy. Chastity was one of his laboratory animals. She'd been transferring her sense of self to other bodies while they drugged out her baseline body. Most of these experiments ended some time after Chastity lost consciousness. When they transferred her to the youngest anime body, she managed to stay awake even though they drugged her baseline body to the point where they had to intubate her because she'd stopped breathing. Princess 4's biotronic packet was more human-like. They'd spent months preparing P4's "brain" by imposing recordings and emulations of Chastity on it. And now, Chastity had spent enough accumulated time in this bodice to 'burn in' pathways in the biotronic packet. To test her new 'seat,' they turned off the transmitters on Chastity's old body. Then they sent Chastity - in this anime's bodice - to Mercy Hospital to visit with Reginald. She experienced no ill effects from signal lag. She did experience PTSD symptoms, though. Trapped in a nine-year-old's body? While sitting on Brennan's lap? In the back of the Ming's Flower van? She tried firing her Z-guns but found she didn't have any. Success! Brennan was elated. Milestone achieved. They woke up the host body while she was gone. That Chastity woke up as herself. She formed new memories, independent of the memories that were forming in the new body. When they brought the body and bodice together again, it took a moment, but the remote Chastity found that she could slide back into her original body. This used the same process that Cookie used when she updated her personas or melded them. They'd long-ago perfected dominating a human with robot personas. That's what a rider or a wraith was. They had less success with enforcing the takeover when the hijacked body lost signal. On-board biotronics could only do so much. Brennan was not happy about that. In theory, though, an anime mind could burn pathways into a human brain with enough time and repetition. In practice, this took enormous bandwidth. It wasn't yet practical. It was the next milestone. Then the mindwipe techs came, and wiped all memories of the last few days from Chastity's brain. ******** The next day Chastity had sensed Brennan's presence looking out from Reginald's eyes. Her then-self had noted the oddity but hadn't been alarmed about it. But her now-self cried out in horror. She now had a clear understanding of his intent. Brennan wasn't roboting in on Reginald to help his grandson re-learn motor skills. He was burning in pathways for his own persona. ******** Cookie shushed her and then pulled her out of Wechuge's body. "Feel any different?" Chastity was afraid to speak. She had always suspected that an AI was constantly monitoring her words and behavior. Now she'd had it confirmed. Nothing she said or did went unnoticed. The best she could hope for was to be ignored because nothing flagged the attentions of Grandmother. Chastity smiled. She defaulted to behavior that she thought would be expected. "I'm horny." No-one came to mindwipe those memories. Maybe the subterfuge had worked? It seemed like it was possible to overload the overmind. Thirty-two tracks. ******** And then real life called. A water pipe had burst in the basement at the manor. ******** Chastity carried a large pipe wrench and a toolbox up the steps. She saw Brennan on the first floor, talking to some woman. It looked like he'd gotten a rejuve - taken some of his own medicine. Alternately, this could be his animated medical clone, one step in the cutout process that would allow Brennan to jump bodies with less chance of detection. It didn't matter, did it? Joey was walking down the same staircase that Chastity was climbing. He was still miffed at her for refusing to be his friend. He'd made it his life mission to make her suffer in small ways. Instead of offering to help carry that heavy toolbox, he bumped her with his hip. As she knew he would. Perfect. She used the extra motion to swing the toolbox around and over the rail. She let it go. It sailed. For a moment, she thought it might miss. But Brennan stepped into it. It landed on his head, killing him instantly. His body twitched. A woman nearby was covered in blood and brain matter. She looked like she wanted to scream but was afraid it would get in her mouth. She fled. Conversation stopped in the room. Joey turned around on the staircase. His eyes narrowed. Chastity checked behind her. Nobody. She faced Joey, and hefted that wrench. "Think you're man enough?" she asked Joey. Suddenly, he looked uncertain. Someone started clapping, a slow clap. It was Brennan. He stepped up to the edge of the gore. "Well done," he said. "That's the third medical clone I've lost this year." Medical clone. Well, fuck. She'd only delayed the process. Chastity felt a moment of uncertainty. Then resolve. Brennan continued. "Three sisters killed three medical clones. Does stupid run in your family?" Marion? Had killed a Brennan clone? Oh. Things made sense now. Joi. Joi killed a clone? "Why don't you finish the job, Princess?" Brennan said. "Come down, whack me in the skull." He opened his arms and smiled. Chastity knew better than to trust him. She tried to back further up the staircase. Her shoes were rooted in place. "Aw, Buttercup. Can't move?" Chastity tried again. She barely twitched. "Joey, take her toy from her. Bring her to me. We're going to rape you dead, doll. We'll drop your lifeless husk in the Breaks. It's cleaner than mindwipe - although you'll be begging for a mindwipe before I'm done with you." Joey started up the staircase. Chastity tried again to move. And failed. Again. Her heartbeat was hummingbird fast. The lights went out. She felt released. Cookie took over. "My turn," she said. She jumped over the railing, into the darkness, still holding the wrench. She landed on the Brennan clone. It was warm, slippery and full of bones that broke when Cookie landed on it. The room was dark, except for a faint glow of exit lights. Cookie noted motion all around her. Her secretary modeled the room and updated the model with information gleaned in that faint light. Cookie scrambled toward real-Brennan's last known position. She negotiated the bloody floor with ease - lots of practice keeping her footing in the gore fests of a zombie shooter. She made no noise beside the necessary noise that her boots made on the floor. She saw Brennan. She brought the wrench down in fury. He moved a tiny bit. Saw it coming, probably. She broke his collar bone. She smacked him again, hit him in the head, but he'd blocked the blow with his hand. She felt the bones break in that hand. And his head. She swung a third time. The wrench stopped in mid-swing. Cookie pulled a muscle trying to finish the swing. She had a moment to recognize the trouble. Bodyguard. Wolf-bride, from the looks of him. He had a firm grip on her wrench. Another bodyguard grabbed her by the hair and pulled her off her feet. Brennan groaned. He was groggy. He fell to his knees. She kicked him in the face. "Someone remove that cunt. Get her away from me." He spat out a tooth. They lifted her higher and away. Two of them. Oh, fuck. The lights came on. Brennan rose and stumbled up to her. Face to face. Cookie tried to spit. She couldn't. She couldn't resist at all. She trembled with rage. And fear. Brennan said, "You almost got me." He looked at one of her captors. "Throw her in the snow. Naked. Go home, Princess. One of your sisters is a dead woman. Would you like to choose? Your mom?" He collapsed on to a chair. "Please tell me the autodoc still works." Waren said, "It's in the basement. Go, go, take him there. Now." She saw three men pick up the chair with Brennan in it and rush off towards the stairwell. Four men removed Chastity's clothes, her shoes, and her specs. They did this quickly, efficiently, and with surprising gentleness. Joey said, "Sorry, Miz Princess." He threw her into the deepest snow drift by the door. Chastity had a moment to be thankful that he hadn't thrown her to the icy sidewalk. And then it was cold and dark and wet and very very cold. The icy crust on this snow hurt. Painfully. She heard the door click shut behind her and security lights in the yard all came on. Blazing. Bright heatless light. "Move, move," Cookie said, and helped her. She got up on top of the crust, running as fast as she could in bare feet. She made it to the driveway. Two cars passed her. Neither stopped. She ran for the road. The gates started to shut in front of her. She put on a burst of speed she didn't know she had. She made it to the street. Her feet were icy clubs now. No feeling. Just pain. She fell twice. The Ming's van passed her, honking. The driver shook his head when she yelled for help. He continued on. A battered Malay skidded to a stop beside her. The door opened. Someone pulled her into the car. Felix. Glasses. Striped sweater. Creepy grin. He cranked the heat all the way up and drove away. "Hospital?" he asked. Chastity shook her head. Her teeth started to chatter. Her whole body shook. "I finally got to see you naked," Felix said. "I've seen you naked lots of times but those are real titties. Not AVS 'toons." Chastity couldn't form a reply. She warmed her hands in the blast of heat from the vent. When she could speak, she said, "Felix, call Joi please. Call my mom. Call Jazz." Felix tapped his specs. "Sure. What are their tel-IDs?" She didn't have her specs. She didn't know. Cookie said, "I've got this, Wabi Sabi." Cookie used Chastity's voice to recite numbers to Felix. She pulled them up from Mem2. No answer. No answer. No answer. Chastity left three nearly identical voice messages. "Brennan. Hide. Now. Go to safety. Stay there." Chastity examined her feet. Cut. Bruised. Painful. But no permanent damage. Her knees, elbows. Same. She looked at Felix. "Do you have a blanket?" He shook his head, grinning. "Na-ked." "You saw me naked when you roofied me." He looked crestfallen. "Actually, no. I started to but then I realized what I was doing. It's not a video game. You could have died." Chastity looked at him, unbelieving. "I dropped you at the clinic and drove off." He stopped the car and gave her his jacket. "If you want to leave the car, I understand." She considered it. Barefoot. Nearly naked. Ice and snow. "Take me home." She put the jacket on. Felix nodded. She gave directions. Soon she was on Yucca Lane, headed home. Then she reconsidered. "Take the next left. The right after that. Drive up Zamia. Don't hit any small children." "What child would be out in this?" Felix gestured to the snow and sleet. "A small blond child, looking for his mommy. Slow, slow, stop." They stopped by Mrs. Mac's house. The lights were on in Joi's house, and in Linda's. Doors open. Cars everywhere. Men. Brennan's men. "Drive," Chastity said. "Don't speed off, just drive." Felix pulled out onto the road again. "I am the hero. Where to, damsel?" Chastity considered. Brennan owned all the brothels in this town. Her only friends worked in brothels - except for Jazz. "Look up Tick Tock Investigations." Tick Tick's phone went straight to voice mail. Chastity sighed. "Do you have an apartment?" Felix grinned. "Yes!" He pumped his fist. "Stay on the road, hero." ******** Felix explained that he'd been watching Chastity on a docudrama. Cartoonified. But he'd figured out it was her - and that it was real. Brennan had broadcast most of the last few days live, unconcerned about the trail of evidence he was creating. Chastity let Felix play with her titties. She gave him a handjob. She said, "I don't have sex without testing you first." He looked disappointed but soon got over it. He gave her a striped sweater and some pants that wouldn't fit. He made instant oatmeal. She looked around. "What's up with Mondays?" He looked confused. "Today is Friday." "You live at the truck stop on Mondays." "Oh. I timeshare. I've been buying days of the week for two years. Monday is the only day it's not mine." Timeshare? She'd heard stranger things, though. "Where does your roommate go on the other six days?" "The gym. The shelters. He camps out a lot. He comes in once a week for a private shower and laundry. Sometimes he brings his girlfriend." So, even Felix's loser roommate had a girlfriend and Felix did not. Chastity almost felt a pang of pity for the man. "His girlfriend has lice." Felix said. He scratched absently at his scalp. Lovely. They sat in silence and ate oatmeal with reconstituted apples. "Felix," Chastity said, "Look up Girls College. Professor Rafe, mmn, Alpha something." Cookie provided the name. She said, using Chastity's voice, "Raphael Alpheta." Then Cookie flipped back into observer status. Felix said, "Listed as faculty. Number is private." Chastity said, "Professor Sherman Turkoy?" She listened as Cookie corrected her. "Um, Sherwood Tukoy." "The same." Chastity thought for a moment. "Professor Tudlo. Cakey Tudlo." "There's an Agnew Tudlo, Professor of Cybernetics." "Call him." Cakey answered on the first ring. He took the call in video. "Look at me, Felix. Let me talk to him." Felix said, "He says you're the girl. A disaster at the lab?" "Yes. Sorry to bother, Professor. Can you give me the number to Rafe Alpheta?" "He said to step outside and howl." "If I thought that would work, I would do it." "He's connecting you on conference. He can't give out the number. There's a woman on now. She looks angry." "Felix, face me, so she can see. Rafe, I'm in trouble. Joi, Jazz, my mom, Marion. Bad trouble. People get dead kind of trouble." "The man professor wants to know if it's Cult." "I don't think so. Organized crime. But not Cult." "He's hanging up now." "Is Rafe still there?" "She wants to know my address." "Give it to her." "She's kinda scary." "I'm scarier. And I am here." Chastity stood and faced Felix. The sweater rose to her hips. She didn't care. Felix said, "Seventeen thirty-five Cherry Lane, apartment one-oh-two." Then he relaxed. "She's laughing now. I think we're okay." "We're not. My family might be dead." ******** The clan found Jazz and Tick Tick in a wrecked car halfway into the icy waters of Wolf Run. Both were unconscious when help arrived. Airbags had saved their lives. But not their bones. They found Linda at the Bloop and Ballast, just getting processed in. They found Marion in a window there, already posing for prospective customers. They didn't find Joi. Until days later. Her body had been dumped in the Breaks. She'd been raped. Tortured. And then beaten to death. The last image on her celeb glasses was Brennan, his arm in a sling. He was missing two teeth. It looked like someone had scrawled on his forehead in lipstick. PATIENT ZERO Joi was missing the same teeth. They'd pulled them out with pliers. She had a similar message cut into her forehead with a knife. PATIENT ONE Rafe said, "When you kill this man, make sure he stays dead." She handed Chastity a length of rebar. It felt familiar in Chastity's hands. They'd disconnected her Mem2, her Z-guns, and her spinal prostheses an hour before. She was on her own. No Cookie. No secretary. No riders, no wraiths, no resident AIs. No demons. Rafe asked. "Are you in?" Chastity nodded grimly. She could walk again, without that horrible Swish. She could swing a bat, swing an iron rod. If she had one in her hand, she felt confident she could kill something with a sling and stone. She tested the weight of the iron bar in her hands. Motor memory was still active. She swung and parried, spun and struck. "When and where. Point me at him." They rode in a cavalcade of motorbikes. The society parked two kilometers from the ghost town. Chastity rode behind Jazz, carrying her rebar like a rifle at shoulder-arms. Colin rode behind Stephanie. Felix rode behind Jorry. Felix? What was he doing here? Jorry said, "Okay, hero. Watch the bikes. Blow this air horn if anyone fucks with them." Felix nodded. He huddled around a thermos of coffee that someone handed him. "Stay off the phone," Jorry told him. "Complete radio silence. Got it? No google searches, no looking at porn." Felix nodded again. "I'm not stupid. I know how evil those people are." He nodded towards the town. The group that Chastity was with advanced up a frozen canal. She saw another group walking up a culvert. Long ago, this culvert had brought water to fill the canal that serviced Two Lisa. Teams went out into the snow, disabling security sensors and bots. On occasion, they took out a biomechanical guard. Or brought down a drone with a weighted net - the nets didn't show up on radar. Then they stopped. Something was wrong. A runner came up. Stephanie. She spoke a few words to Rafe. Rafe turned to Chastity. "Agent Lo wants a word with you." "Agent Lo?" "The FBI beat us to our marks." "Where is he?" "At the mansion. We were never here." They all disappeared quietly. Rafe took Jazz with her. Rafe nodded towards the security lights just before she left. "The gate is open." Colin was speaking with Agent Lo outside the main building. "There she is," he said. "I told her we should call the police. But she wanted to see if her girlfriend was here. Bargain with the devils." Chastity suddenly felt very aware of the white camouflage parka she was wearing. And the iron bar. She dropped the rebar in the snow. She walked up to Agent Lo. "What's the low-down, Mr. FBI?" she asked. Colin hugged Chastity by the shoulders. "Don't we make a cute couple? I lent her my spare ski patrol parka." Agent Lo shook his head. "Ski patrol wears red and black." "Oh. My hunting parka." Agent Lo held up a finger. "Stop talking before you tell a lie I can't ignore. Miz Giles? Do you have a moment?" "Maybe." "I won't ask why you are here today. I will ask why you were here four days ago." "Blackmail, extortion, rape. Threat of violence to me and to everyone I know." "Someone killed Brennan Giles." Chastity remained silent. She suppressed an urge to smile. But her heart leapt with rejoicing. Agent Lo said, "Many witnesses implicate you." "Any witness Brennan left alive has perjured himself twenty times and never felt remorse." "Preliminary investigations indicate that it was a cyber-terrorist who killed Brennan Giles." "That kind of lets me off the hook. I don't know boo from binary." "You're a known associate." "Because I fed coffee to a terrorist's mother?" "ap Sara 113." "Oh." "An interesting war weapon, Stigmata. It uses the body's nerves to print messages on the skin. Scar tissue. Nearly indelible. But that's not what killed him. Prions killed him. His own autodoc poisoned him." "Not fast enough," Chastity said. She was thinking of Joi. "Stigmata warned us that he's highly contagious. The CDC is on its way." "I don't have much sympathy for anyone else who gets the contagion." "There will be innocent victims. Sara 113 doesn't seem to care." "If I meet her, I'll pass along your angry words." He nodded. "Go. Before someone official notices who I'm talking to. Oh, and, find a lawyer. Because someone from my world will come knocking. You were a home fab tech." Chastity nodded. She had a questioning look on her face. "Mention that to your lawyer. An autodoc is essentially a home fab with a medical suite of sensors. I hope for your sake we don't find your fingerprints on that machine." "I don't even know where it is." Agent Lo nodded. "Leave please. Before the press gets here." ******** EPITAPH (not in chronological order) Marion didn't want the house, didn't even want money from it's sale. She said, "You're the only one with happy memories here. You weren't raped in every room." Chastity tried to object. Marion said, "Already saw a lawyer. We've known for a while that you're my sister. Biologic sister. Half-sister. Our father, Lebar Tupper, paid for this house. His will specified that it go to his daughters. That's you." "But...." "Pay it forward. I'm never coming back to this hellhole. I'll find a job in Meadows. Prostitution is legal there, too." "You can get a job besides...." "Oh, stuff it," Marion said, interrupting. "You sound like Joi. I'm going to give this rejuve a run. Finish college. Then get a real job." ******** Jazz came to visit a few times. They still played volleyball at the beach on Saturdays. They still bowled from time to time. One sunny springtime day, Jazz came over with a girlfriend. "Tiffany, this is my bestest best friend, Chastity." Tiffany nodded. "Princess." Chastity asked, "Do I know you?" "I have a white parka very much like yours." "Clan?" "I'm like Colin. Officially I'm fully human." She didn't look wolfish at all. Nor did she look buff. Or dyke. Just how Jazz liked 'em. "Are you affined?" Chastity glanced over to Jazz. "We are." Jazz grinned. "Ah. Good hunting and many babies." Jazz snorted. Tiffany didn't understand the joke. "She didn't tell you? She wants babies." Chastity pat Tiffany on the shoulder. "Science that shit out." She touched Tiffany's teeth, a gesture she'd learned in her brief association with the wolf brides. "Tiffany, do I have your full attention?" Tiffany's eyes narrowed. "If you break my friend's heart - double knocks." "I am not as frail as I look, human." Chastity smiled. "Neither is Jazz." ******** Chastity eventually met Cookie on the game again - in the Dreamtime realm. Some noob had Cookie now. He'd leveled her up to level 84. Cookie hated the noob. He never let her play independently. She could only talk freely in dreams. Cookie wanted to know if she could pass along Chastity's private tel-ID to a certain person from the Yukon. "Why the hell not? Let him know, though. I used ta' be a dude." Chastity never activated her Mem2 or Z-guns again. She didn't need it. The blackouts had been engineered. Most of her PTSD had been engineered. The mastermind of it all, Brennan, was dead. ******** Roy died of prion necrosis. Seems he'd caught it from Joi, in her final moments alive. He gave it to two other women before he died - Noel, and a woman that Chastity didn't know. ******** Chastity lawyered up with a bright young wolf bride who nearly passed for human. Public Safety had 'requested an interview' at the police station. Chastity arrived with a lawyer. All the police files disappeared at that moment. Most of their evidence. Eventually, Sara 113 was implicated. And, because various witnesses contradicted one another in their statements against Chastity, she walked. ******** Chastity was at the coffee shop, studying for a microbiology exam when she heard a baby squeal. The voice was unfamiliar, but the vocabulary was not. "Puridads! Aba, aba, ah-bah!" Chastity looked over to see a baby dressed in girl clothes struggling with the clips that held her in a stroller. The mom bent down, popped the clips, and picked the baby up. "Aba!" The baby reached for Chastity. The mom looked at Chastity uncertainly. Chastity smiled, "I can hold your baby." She cleared her specs of study material and opened her arms. The woman handed over the baby with hesitation. "Aba!" The woman explained, "That's her word for up, for down, and for hold me. It also means..." she blushed, "feed me." Chastity smiled. She said, "Hi, baby." "Puridads!" "That's her name for cat," the woman said. Chastity nodded. "It also means grandmother." "Yes, how did you know?" "I speak the language. What's her name?" "Rosealie." The baby said, "Oh-see. Oh-see-dake." "I don't know how she turns Rosealie into Osiedake, but she does." "Okay, Rosealie, who was Umpa?" Rosealie thought for a moment. Then she said, "Puridads." Rosealie touched Chastity's breast. Chastity felt the milk let down. That hadn't happened in years. She stood, still holding the baby. "Hi, I'm Chastity. And you are?" "Marvella." She shook hands with Chastity. Rosealie nodded. She said, "Ella." She reached for Marvella. Marvella took the baby. "I've never seen her do this before, just jump into a stranger's arms." "They are social creatures. Have you taught her to sign?" Marvella shook her head. "You'd be amazed at how fast she picks up signs. She reads, too, I bet." "Yes. How did you know?" "An RT child. They want to communicate but they have trouble speaking." "RT. How can you tell?" "It's the hair. It's NKR, not quite right." "You're the second person to tell me that. I don't see it." She nuzzled Rosealie's hair. "Fuck," Rosealie said. "Fucka fucka fuck." Marvella shushed the baby. "She has an amazing vocabulary for filthy words." Chastity said, "Nine-dot's...." Rosealie said, "Balls!" She squealed and clapped. Marvella sighed. "And that's her favorite bad word." Chastity nodded. "You a gamer?" "Yes." "She probably picks it up from the chatter. Gamers have filthy mouths." Rosealie nodded. She blew kisses at Chastity in that awkward but cute way that babies blow kisses. "Kiss Osiedake?" Rosealie asked. She touched her cheek. Chastity bent to kiss the baby on the cheek. At the last moment, Rosealie snapped her head around and kissed Chastity on the lips. She squealed with delight. Marvella said, "I didn't teach her that." Chastity said, "Me, neither." Rosealie said, "Bye, bye, Puridads. I'm okay." She waved, clenching and unclenching her fist. ******** Every year, on Chastity's birthday, Waren sent her a new set of top-of- the-line Trapper boots. He'd escaped prosecution. Somehow. He also escaped prion necrosis while half of his staff died from it. Most of Waren's 'girls' - employees, male or female, working a SWID - also died. Some of their customers died, too. The contagion nearly killed legalized prostitution in the Western States. Nearly. ******** Linda rose in the ranks at Diversified Hospitality. She immediately took Roy's job. Eventually she became the VP in charge of marketing and sales at Bandersnatch Games. From time to time a cab driver or a bot touched Chastity on the forehead and said, "Respect." Grumblers swarmed her house every Halloween, begging for fries and candied yams. They never scampered away hungry. Reginald grew up completely cured of the genetic disorders he'd been born with. He came to visit Chastity's monsters almost every day. When he was big enough, he mowed Chastity's yard. He eventually became a plumber's assistant - working for a repair spider named Fastfitter. Big Drake got a job with Diversified Hospitality. He hired into Linda's old job and did well with it. Tick Tick died. He'd become infected from Joi's dead body. Three wolf brides died, also. Jorry died by volunteering to go into quarantine with the other two. He admitted later that he thought he'd be okay if he was careful. No one cared for him when it was his turn to pass. He wouldn't allow it. Chastity tried to enter the quarantine cabin to care for Jorry. They had to physically restrain her from going in that log cabin. They set a watch to keep her from sneaking in. They burned that cabin to the ground when Jorry died. They stood upwind and out of the smoke. The sing to celebrate their lives was - to borrow words from Colin - ginormously epic, man. And, Chastity? She discovered something she'd already known. Happily ever after only lives in fairy tales. But she got by. Eventually she became a hunting guide, helping out-of-state hunters bag a trophy-sized Jersey gator or a polar bear/grizzly bear hybrid. She kept the meat and the hides. They kept memories and AVS clips. Sometimes Chastity awarded one of the hunters a tooth. ******** Fin.