False Icons for Dinner

You are Dace Keller, a paragon of manhood. Because every man that’s ever been, for as long as you’ve known, has wanted to become Dace Keller. 

You are the model man, which all men that are not Dace Keller aspire to be. You are handsome, and witty. An uncontestable icon of masculinity. You look dashing in a suit and tie, and never trip on your sentences. You keep your nebulously blonde-brown hair at a short trim, maintaining just enough beard growth to still be considered well-groomed but also slightly rugged. You’re lean, and saharan brown. Everyone knows you’re a sexual powerhouse, but also–implacably–a gentleman. Your face adorns holo billboard ads and silver screens everywhere. As everywhere you go, you are instantly recognized, loved, and admired. You sense the yearning eyes of women moving over you, feasting on your every movement, but feel no insecurity. Your carefully refurbished mental faculties simply won’t allow any pretense of meekness or vulnerability.

This was your destiny, ever since you were approved for the Dace Keller enhancement package by the corporation you work for. Not that it was mandatory. Not per se. But everyone knows it’s the closest thing to a guarantor of success in this Dace-eat-Dace world. And all it took was a minimum of 30 years of dedicated service to the company and your name signed on the dotted line. 

Granted, the transition hadn’t been quite as seamless as you imagined it would be. There were still wrinkles to iron out, neural pathways to override and reconstruct, your engineers had reassured you. It could be a matter of months before you were fully assimilated. 

In those days, there were ants crawling around in your head. You felt like an unwelcome stranger trapped in your own metallic skin.

What you needed was a distraction.

…

The nymph you’d chosen for a virtual dinner date had a tattoo. 

Through her neckline, that plunged all the way to her navel, you glimpsed a set of white-feathered wings folded over the exposed left and right trapezius, convening inward, the frayed tips culminating at just above the solar plexus.

You couldn’t take your eyes off it. 

Naturally, it was only a matter of time before you got caught.

“Sorry,” you said, chuckling for a tactical smokescreen. In true Keller fashion. “New upgrade, if it wasn’t obvious. I’m a mess.”

She simply shrugged. “Relax, no judgment here. I get it. Just yesterday, you were probably some nerdy guy working in accounting, and now you’re a sexy testosterone-pumped robot Frankenstein’s monster. There’s bound to be growing pains.”

“I appreciate your…er, prescient grasp of my situation.” 

Up until then, the date had been going well. Surprisingly well, considering you’d never used an app like this before. Never even breathed the same digital air as a nymph before. Or been on a date, for that matter–either real or virtual. More than anything, you were just amazed at how tame this turned out to be, in contrast to the extreme marketing campaigns the company behind the app was infamous for. Not that it could very well be helped, you supposed. A dating app incorporating “full-dive” technology (i.e. full sensory details reflected in a virtual environment) was bound to only ever be portrayed in one way to “the masses;” even if, like most consumer technologies, it would regularly see a more tame use.

“You’ve got the Keller looks–that’s the important part. Believe me.”

“My, my, such a jaded view of our society,” you mused.

The nymph smiled wryly. “You’re talking to the technical equivalent of several billions of dollars worth of silicone implants.”

“As clever as that was, we both know it goes a fair bit deeper than that.”

“You’re absolutely right,” she said, in a jovially pandering sort of way. “Thanks to the wonders of modern tech, now whenever a John Highdecker I'm humoring gets slightly too handsy, I get to dial up the old adrenal capacitor–and flip the script real fast.”

“A John Who-decker? I believe you’re inadvertently showing your true age by talking about banging antiquated models."

She glowered. "Old enough to put you to bed early."

"Keller is who's relevant in this decade: and I’m sorry to say, sweetheart, but we’re all red-blooded. It’s in the design blueprint. Though I reckon you’re an unofficial black belt in some martial arts discipline at this point, and probably someone I shouldn’t get too close to, if judo throws are your go-to solution.”

“Or like how there’s no fancy cybernetical fix for performance anxiety: sometimes, even Kellers just need a good whack. Like an old IBM.”

“Fair. I can’t guarantee I won’t also disappoint, if given the chance.”

“It’s not entirely out of the realm of possibilities. So far, you’ve exhibited just the right balance of arrogance and self-deprecating honesty.”

“You make it sound like a math equation.”

“I like a man who’s simple enough to break down into easy-to-digest variables.”

“I’ll simply assume that’s a nymph’s distorted idea of a compliment.” You paused to take a sip of water–Dace Keller’s fat mouth was drying you out. You were envisioning yourself as one of those washed up, permanently drunk actors that have to be dragged out of their trailer onto the filming set every morning. With only the Keller buzzing in your brain keeping you afloat, like a woefully underpaid assistant feeding you lines through a surreptitious earpiece.

At least it seemed to be working.

“What model parts are you sporting, anyway?” you asked.

She gawked at you like you’d just turned that glass of water into wine and spilled it all over her nice evening gown. “You’re not serious.”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” you said nonchalantly.

“I’m Stella-freaking-Ray.”

“Is that supposed to ring a bell?” You made a show of shrugging and scratching behind your head. “Servos are coming up dusty; I guess you’re not hot shit after all.” Keller could be a total jackass, and completely out of left field.

“Haven’t you flipped through any mail-order catalogs recently?”

In that instant, your mental processor had a little oopsy. A complete system freeze, as a matter of fact.

The nymph pressed, “isn’t that how you found me?”

Something vital had dawned:

“You…can’t remember,” the nymph said, lowering her voice.

“Y-yeah.” As though someone had gone through your memory and took a permanent marker to several key details. 

You couldn’t even remember the name you signed on the damn contract.

The nymph touched your hand. “You alright?”

You pulled away, your voice coming out more riled than intended: “I’m damn skippy! Not like I didn’t know what to expect.”

“You sure? Knowing is different from the experience,” she said. “There’s actually a lot they don’t tell you. Like how far it goes beyond just a name…” she trailed off, and you could sense something was weighing on her mind, as she was brushing her hands along the contours of her olive-tanned shoulders across the tattoo of furled white angelic wings, which you thought lended them a snow-capped appearance. 

It was that very same tattoo that had caught your eye in the catalog.

Identifiable markings were practically off-brand, unheard of in pinup photos especially.

Aside from that, it would be superfluous to say she was beautiful. Because all nymphs are beautiful, by somebody’s estimation, explicitly by design. Even the niche-st of niche models; even if it’s only beautiful to a handful of spectacularly degenerate individuals.

But Stella Ray wasn’t niche. You were just messing around, earlier, saying you didn’t recognize the model. If Dace Keller was king of the Y-model market, Stella Ray was decidedly the X-queen. The way she glowed like a goddess. Wavy shoulder-length honey blonde hair, striking amber eyes. A perfectly proportioned face, it likewise went without saying, though distinguishably more rounded than angular. And a deceptively petite frame–coquettishly small and thin, while preserving those integral feminine curves. A cynical design, but effective. Combining her looks with a sharpened mental acuity, a downright bloodthirsty capacity for sexual aggression, it’s a model designed like a holy anointed sword to carve an otherwise impervious Dace Keller’s heart into ribbons. Albeit, in a way he finds cutely endearing.

At this time, there was a lull in the conversation. That special sort of funerary silence: born of a mutual state of hesitance, between two strangers with decent chemistry. You were alone, together, in that virtual dining room. Music of a smooth, slow-tempo instrumental variety was oozing from the cavernous walls. Dinner was served, materialized instantaneously on request by a waiter bot, to little fanfare. You ordered a steak, medium-rare; a real man’s meal. The smell made you sick to your stomach.

But Stella Ray merely had the waiter conjure her a cigar. 

“What’s the matter? Too badass for something so mundane as eating on a dinner date?” you teased.

“No point,” she said, revealing the lighter embedded in her right index finger. It gave a satisfying click and produced a steady jet of flame. “My tastebuds were replaced with honest-to-god massage nodes. So if I don’t need it to survive, and I can’t taste it; since at that point I’m only really doing it to fit in, when I’m already a copy-pasted cybernetics model, then what’s the purpose?”

You nodded, seeing the truth in her words. “So how'd you become a nymph, anyway?"

“Guess I got lucky. Had a month or less to live, at best, but managed to snag an all-expenses-paid enhancement surgery when I signed a contract with a representative of the company that created this app. Used to be packs of them going around. Real persistent. All dressed in black, hitting up all the hospice wards in the city. We called them vultures.”

“Definitely paid by commission,” you quipped.

“My tattoo…I got it to remember a friend, who didn’t take the deal.”

Whatever eldritch protocol that existed within you which governed your wry one-liners was about to kick in again.

But something held it back.

You could tell the nymph was struggling to maintain her easy smile.

She sighed, “I need a drink,” her voice thoroughly laced in that particular venom of a freshly dislodged, deep-seated loathing.

You snapped back, hailing the waiter bot.

The nymph sat back with a pleased look. “That’s a good not-quite-Keller."

The bot poured you both another glass. Something harder. 

A few sips in, you were feeling increasingly daring: 

“Ever had any second doubts?"

She gave an exasperated sigh. "Sorry, my head is all over the place right now." 

"Ever thought becoming a humpbot was a terrible life decision?”

Immediately, you winced. Damn it, Keller!

But Stella appeared unfazed. “Bastard,” she muttered with a smirk. “Seeing as I'm forty years into a fifty-year contract, I’d say it’s a bit late for regrets. You learn to adapt; old taboos become the new norm. As human beings, we're resilient like that. Machines, even more so. Another decade and I'm free; and I swear, on the sanctity of my profession, I'll never date another Dace Keller in my goddamn life."

You raised your glass. “A toast to freedom?”

“I'll drink to that. And speaking of: lately, I’ve been thinking full assimilation is totally bunk.”

“Don't tell me you’re one of those whack job conspiracy theorists.”

“Honestly? I think all that famous Dace Keller bravado is a farce. A facade. Because I’ve seen it slip enough times and with enough Kellers to know it isn't just an anomaly. It’s baked in. If I had to guess, it’s probably a shortcoming with the current technology. Give it another hundred years. But whatever it is, they're keeping it under tight wraps.”

“If that’s true, you’re talking about potentially the biggest scandal in the cybernetics industry.”

“I am. Which is why it’ll never come to light. This is a cash cow that'll keep on giving, under the right curation. Better they keep Keller as-is, more-or-less a placebo, than risk exposing their deception with public statements or bug-patches."

You weren’t fully convinced. 

Either that, or you fiercely didn’t want to be.

“Placebo or not…I don’t regret taking the enhancement. Type of guy I was before, I used to go through my life on auto-pilot. Kept my head low, nose to the grindstone. Used to resent people. I think, at the end of the day, it really boiled down to jealousy; other people were opting into cybernetics, but I was standing my ground on being full-organic. Then still questioning why I was always the one getting left behind. Why I always seemed to be misunderstood, looked down on. Couldn’t fit in. Then I realized…it must be me. That I needed to make a change. So I–”

Suddenly, the nymph seized you by your face. 

She cradled you within her outstretched palms, her touch surprisingly warm against your sensitive skin. 

There was an unexpected surge of desperation in her voice:

“I’m only saying…this is YOUR new beginning. Don’t limit yourself." 

Holding you in this way, you could only look forward. You could only stare into her eyes like miniature suns, drawing you forward through empty space. A thawing of the great glacial wall between you commencing, until: lips nearly touching: 

It was The Creation of Adam to your Keller-grade comprehension.

“Find me,” Stella Ray said, her breath filling your nostrils with smoldering virtual ash.

Two hours had passed–the limit.

She must’ve been keeping track. You hadn’t. 

Within a kernel of time beneath your perception, the uploaded copy of your neural network was pulled back to non-virtual reality. 

And you were never quite the same.

Years down the line, you still haven’t found her. 

You’ve combed through hundreds of daily mail-order catalogs. You started to view the models on display, all nearly identical except for slight variations in their poses, as like the autopsy photos of all those that had fallen victim, like yourself, to the unmatched allure of a permanently reshaped mode of existence. Infinite Stella Rays, but none with the angel feathers. A fetishized facade of total uniformity.

Why do they subject themselves to it? Freedom.

You’d made the grave mistake of opening up to a coworker, once, about your search. And since then, the other Kellers are ribbing you constantly, mocking you for your 'little obsession.' It isn’t typical for a Dace Keller to become so emotionally invested, they claim.

You must be malfunctioning.

They’ll never understand; you hardly understand it yourself. 

You’re on track to becoming the model man, which all men that are not Dace Keller aspire to be.

You should be content. No, you should be proud. 

Instead, deep down...you know you're dissatisfied. 

It isn't a life you'd chosen for yourself. 

You’d gladly trade it all away, if it meant you could see her again.

…

So that’s exactly what you'll do.

That’s how you’ve ended up on another cyber surgeon’s table.

You’d sought out a representative of the company that made the virtual dating app. One of their “vultures.”  

You agreed to a fifty-year contract: a new-new beginning. 

It isn’t going to be an easy transition. You know that, now. Chances are, the leap from Keller to Stella will be even wider and more treacherous gulf than before. But it feels right. It doesn’t feel pressured; you won’t be a stranger in your own body anymore. A step closer to freedom. And after so much searching, you’ll finally find her, fulfilling the unspoken promise you'd made.

Then afterwards, you think that maybe you'll get a tattoo.

So you'll never forget this feeling.