CHAPTER THREE 

“Yeah, baby, I fucked you good,” Parker said in an unaccented monotone, as if reading from a box of breakfast cereal. 

“He was following her lead,” said Charisma.

“This is all shit, even if I mute it.” Benson shook his head, disgusted by the scene. This was their third review, after the best editing Benson and Charisma could manage. “The things they say, the way they act …” He sighed. “Hell, I couldn’t sully us with a scene like that. It’s bargain-basement fucking. In my grandfather’s day, she would’ve asked him to check her oil.”  

Benson ran his fingers across the editing screen, scrubbing footage of Chloe and Vic back and forth, still shaking his head. The experiment had been the worst kind of failure. The footage was totally unusable: cornball, the wrong angles and improper positioning, all the best things in shadow. 

A stationary camera on a lone tripod would have been better.

“We could try it again,” Alexa suggested. “With a less shitty actor.” 

Parker shook his head. “The idea is fundamentally flawed. She can’t respond to viewers she doesn’t know are there. Maybe Chloe could learn to mimic Slava’s tricks, but only if she knew she was supposed to — and why, and for what audience. She’s a chameleon. You’re telling her not to match her current background, but to match a totally different background — one she’s not aware of — based on your market research. Good luck with that.” 

“A voyeur scene, then,” said Alexa. 

“A voyeur scene will look like a voyeur scene,” said Benson. “We want a feature film.” 

Alexa tapped her chin. 

“Here’s an idea,” Benson said, still toying with footage. “How about we just tell her to do a scene?” 

Alexa shook her head. “No way. Same reason as before. Chloe Shaw is a bomb. We don’t want her going off until we have her positioned for maximum damage — and by damage, I mean to the rest of the industry.” 

“It’s one vidstream, Alexa,” argued Charisma. “What’s the chance a single vidstream will make a difference and send her spiraling out of control?” 

“By the same logic, why do it?” Alexa countered. “It’s one video. Why risk rocking Chloe’s boat? You have hundreds of the hottest men and women on the planet eager to stick parts of themselves into each other. Chloe is the one we’re hanging so much forward development on. She’s the avatar. She’s the future of sex! So why don’t you let it go, and record your scenes with other girls?” 

Benson grumbled. 

Charisma turned toward the screen with a sigh. “For something so terrible, it was incredibly hot. She almost made retro porn sexy.” 

“Close doesn’t count,” Benson said. 

“Still, she even got a good performance — sex-wise, not dialogue — out of Vic. When he used that dilator and had her begging for him to put it in her ass? Holy shit!” 

“That’s exactly why this is worth doing!” said Benson. “Her escort work is fantastic. And sure, we can charge higher and higher prices. But I think this stopped being about money for all of us a while ago. We want to push the ball, and Chloe isn’t scalable as an escort. A proper scene with Chloe could revolutionize what we do. Imagine if we could train her to ‘harmonize’ — or whatever it is she does — with viewers, according to our stipulations. We could shoot three or five versions of each scene, with her playing to a different customer schema in every one.” 

Benson stood and smiled. 

“We repackage the existing Nectar viewer in a new casing and call it ‘interactive,’ tune the sensors so they read the user, and play the scene most likely to get them off. We could charge three times as much for the vidstreams — shit, a hell of a lot more if we did holos — and we could up the price of the viewers along with adoption, because you can only watch the interactive scenes on the interactive viewers.” 

Benson’s smile was now as wide as it could go.

“We’d own the market because no one else would have anything like it. Secure the patents, do it right when The Beam comes out of beta, and harness that AI. By the time the patent expired, we’d have enough of a head start in mindshare to leave everyone else permanently behind. And, as a side benefit, think how much more data we’d have to throw at R&D if everyone was using our viewers and sending us biometrics!” 

Alexa nodded slowly. “I know. The point is, we can only go so far while keeping Chloe in the dark — with vidstreams, holos, or the rest of what we want to do with her. Eventually, she has to enter all of this, and we’ll have to pay her a ton once she recognizes her value. That day will come. But as you said, Benson — we get as much of a head start now as we can.” 

Parker rolled his head. “I see where you’re going, and I don’t like it.” 

“Shut it, Parker,” Alexa said. “The first time you try anything, it’s tricky. You know that. And hell, you’re a shrink; you can help with the next one. The trick to making this work is finding the ideal guy. We need a perfect subject, not a Nectar reject. When we find him, we don’t send Chloe on a job to meet him. Instead, it has to be natural, like what we do for elite spa clients. They don’t know we’re throwing a bone, why would she?”  

Benson perked up. Charisma stood from her chair beside him. The two filmmakers looked like puppy dogs waiting for a treat. 

“Yes, kids,” said Alexa, looking around at Olivia, Parker, and Houston, daring them to contradict her. Even if all three protested, it would still be three to three. O’s ties went to Alexa. “We’re going to let you try again.”