Day 26

The day started in a typical fashion. I woke up next to my neighbour's stupid-looking dog again. The digital clock on the wall read 25:01. Weird, but I don't care, my mind is still occupied by the naked lady I saw last night. I have seen my fair share of naked bodies but she's of a different breed. Back on Earth, I might have preferred the stupid-looking dog, or the digital clock; here... she's a commodity.

The phone rang, I answered it and I was shocked to see her on the screen! Even though we did not say so, I thought last night would be the first and the last time as that was the unwritten rule between the so-called Type E and Type U. "What is this?!" I said, "Are you trying to get us killed?" She ignored my question and went on to ask me anxiously, "What time is it now?" I could have explained to her what she saw on my clock was normal in an environment distorted by us energy gatherers but that might get me into trouble with the Committee. I glanced at the clock any way and shouted, "Oh! Shit! Time dilation!"

The time is 3407 A.D., lots of Earth like habitable planets have been discovered; interplanetary communication and time travel is very common at that time.However, the availabilities of energy and men had not improved at all and they were actually causing more and more conflicts. I had no doubt the Time Gathers were sabotaging the energy labs ... again.

Due to the energy crisis caused by the black hole in 26th century, since then energy is being rationed by the Universal Energy Committee; at some point the Free Trade Advocates started teaming up with the Time Gathers to either steal energy or damage the energy labs. VSIP, or Virtual Sex Induced Power, seemed to be the only hope and whether I liked it or not, I was deemed to be good at it.

The time dilation effect fell so suddenly that the dorm room seemingly morphed into my old living room and the image on the phone screen morphed into a real person... my beloved wife, Uphori, ... who had died ten years ago. She asked me, 'Honey, do you miss me?' 'Wait a minute!' I knew why this flashback felt so unnatural: Uphori had never called me 'Honey.'

"Honey, do you miss me?", "Honey, do you love me?", "Honey, I need you!", "Honey, come feel me!" Presently, Uphori2, Uphori3, Uphori4 ... loads of Uphoris materialized right in front of me...

Suddenly all Uphoris disappeared and the lady on the phone said, "Looks like there is some impurity in the power we generated last night so your FlashBack Reality Machine choked."

"She's gotta be playing some sort of tricks and she's just trying to cover it up" I was not sure if she was sent by the Committee or the Gathers but in any case the only thing I could do was to unplug and run, real fast. Packing the essentials, meanwhile cursing myself, I started to replay, in my mind, what I had done the night before. After an extravagant seafood dinner at the Bay, I came home feeling lonely. That was the perfect mood for Virtual Sex so I brewed my special pot of tea and waited for a "Type U", i.e. undressed inducer.