Short Fiction: The Ballad Of Everyday Dave

Another tale from the annals of NuAlbion….

Everyday Dave orgasmed into the mouth of the PleasureBot, his mind eviscerating momentarily, a void all too soon filled with thick, hot shame. As the feeling spiked, he grabbed the baseball bat kept at side of the couch and swung at the PlexiDotted eyes that started up at him, the pastel colours a weak summation of warmth. Pinions and pistons and lubricants flew around the luxury manse, causing the many automated hands of his apartments CleanNet to spring into action, quickly eviscerating all traces of his diversion from sight, if not mind.

As his zipper buzzed itself up, his belt wrapping around his burgeoning waist, he caught a flash in his mind, a memory of his life before the fame. A life reduced and yet, so much more he thought. A life that held truths he doubted he would ever come close to again.

He remembered what it was like to be just Plain Old Dave. A Plebe like the rest of them. Remembering the fork in the road that led him all the way up to the pinnacle he now lived in, up here on The Ledge. He recalled the fading violet of Johnny’s C-Lenzes, the tears slowly pooling at the bottom of his huge, beautiful eyes, the moans tumbling from his mouth as Plain Old Dave clumsily mumbled out how he had to leave him.

“I can’t stay with you and take the show Johnny. They need me single. Folks need me to be as lonely as they are for them to believe in me. You understand, right?” Recollecting Johnny shrugging his hands off of his sculpted, warm shoulders, turning his back and spitting out - “Fuck you Dave! You never loved me, I was nothing but your faithful little dog, a hound you could fuck around with. All I ever wanted was for us to be forever and you never came close to even considering that!” Grasping the remembrance of his feeble apologies in response, watching Johnny pack up, taking not just his clothes, and trinkets and toiletries, but his smell. That musky, citrus infused scent that once pervaded every corner of their apartment box on The Lowers.

Then, there came the signing of the contract, streamed live on VidPing, the streamers twitching their emotes, the scores of them raining in as Dave became the star of his first sponsored show. The show was called WeFail and it showed folks pratfalling, having casual sex just after waving goodbye their partners, folks licking lampposts, folks falling off their Rydes and RevScoots, folks Happy Slapping their grandparents and other “adorable” behaviours, all caught on the web of cameras covering the whole of NuAlbion.  It was as much advertisement for said surveillance as it was celebration of the oddness of the folks in NuAlbion, with Dave also interviewing the folks after showing their clips, an addition that at least allowed those caught to have their moment of what must have felt like fame.  This allowed all of the Plebes to believe that they too could have their moment to be celebrated, which amounted to a fine win for The Administration.

Dave sighed as he lifted his Vape up to his plumped and artificially sculpted mouth. For as long as he had been able to think, Everyday Dave had known he would one day be something. He remembered his Momma, before she was sent to The Slot Mine for crimes he wound up committing, putting her constantly cold hands on each side of his face, the hands smelling lightly of boiled sweets and pastry, her telling him in her maddening, sing-song way, “oooooh Davey Baby’s gonna win all of the gravy, my Davey Baby’s gonna be the one who saves me….”

Though of course, he wasn’t. He was, in the end, quite the opposite. All it took was one night of him falling into a CopBot while high on PeeVeeGlue, trying to chase away a nasty minded dwarf with a badminton racket, the dwarf screeching, “I’ll BE EATING THAT BLANK ARSE DAVE MY BOY! JUST YOU WAIT AND SEE!!!!”, while he screamed back “NO, FUCK OFF! YOU’RE NOT MY REAL DAD, YOU CAN’T BE!” The CopBot Plasti-Cuffing his wrists, it’s intended gentle tone chiding in his head… “Although you are due to be detained, nothing could be less to worry for. All we will require is simple processing and you will be belong to the state for a simple and brief encounter with the warm hands of justice…” Dave allowing a brief chuckle at the recall of how poor their language processing used to be, before all language processing was moved from overseas to NuAlbion after the HydraWall went up and The Administration decreed everything NuAlbion needed would be made inside.

Then, his mind flicking to the appearance in court, his first streamed appearance on VidPing, the endless stream of jokes pouring out of him as he took the stand. The JudgeBot 2.6 ignoring everything, yet he could hear the chuckles being pinged out thru his E-Phones as the sentence broke his heart. “DAVID GREGGERTON THE THIRD, AS YOU ARE STILL WITHIN THE JUVE AGE BRACKET, WE FINE YOUR MOTHER 32,874 CREDITS, TO BE PAID IN CASH AND IF SHE IS WITHOUT THESE FUNDS, SHE WILL BE OBLIGATED TO PAY IN LABOUR.”

Dave waving his final goodbye to his Mother, her eyes barely registering the foreboding grey blankness of the room as she was accosted by the CopBots either side of her. She’d turned up to the court high on the SynthoCet he’d been able to source from his agent. He had felt that was the least he could do.

And then, the realisation of it all overcame Everyday Dave, the emotion building inside of him, a foul vibration eager to bust out in another burst of rage…. Yet then he felt his hand find its own mind and slide around the back of his neck, feeling for the embedded switch of the NuraLink M0r0N 3000, the metallic pop from the pressing of the button clearing his mind, leaving nothing but his chosen feeling, the rush you get from eating a large, sugary confection.

He stepped over to his ViddyScreen, cleared his throat and cracked his knuckles. NuAlbion’s pain awaited the mild salve only he could provide…