Hourglass: Chapter 2 - The Mnemonist

Xavier had reentered the digitized opium trip that comprised the majority of his waking life.

As soon as he got home, he loaded up Sutra Samurai SwordXxx. Basically, you were attacked by wave after wave of ninjas while satisfying a harem of voracious geishas. Xavier had been having simulated sex since he was twelve years old, at this point he was excited by little else in Sims other than fantasies of group sex with Asciatic succubi, interrupted spontaneously with violence. There’s just something about Asians!

He was digitally balls deep, having simulated doggy-style sex with a geisha with comically large boobs, when a ninja dropped next to him from the ceiling and swung a katana at his digital head. He barely ducked what could have been a decapitating blow and plunged the spear he had laid next to the buxom geisha into the gut of the ninja.
“You’ll never escape…” The ninja said in a raspy voice, coughing up blood as he sank to the floor.
“You so strong.” the geisha murmured, totally unconcerned by the recent assassination attempt.
Her dialog might be weak, but she performed like a pornstar, and the attention to detail was exquisite: from the jiggle of her breasts, the sensual moans, her insatiability for weird positions, to the sweat forming on her curved back. Better than your last fuck, my Dear Engrossed Reader?
As Xavier was about to climax, a skinnier geisha who had given him a blowjob earlier reentered the scene… This could get interesting.
The skinnier geisha knelt to kiss Xavier, but something was wrong with her eyes. Her irises are too… Catlike… A shapeshifter!
In one dramatic spinning movement, she produced a dagger and slit Xavier’s digital throat just a moment after their lips had been intertwined. Bitch! The skinny geisha let out a diabolical laugh and transformed into a sexy she-demon with translucent wings.
Xavier’s perspective in the game became disembodied as he rose above his character’s digital body, now reddening the fine fabric of a futon in a stylized Japanese tea house.

Just as he was about to restart the level, a notification popped up.

SOCIAL INTEGRATION OPPORTUNITY - STARTS NEXT WEEK [FROM SUPPORT GPT]
The Gulf Veteran’s Foundation is in need of an MC for their annual poker tournament fundraiser. The original MC of the tournament was hurt in a car accident, Support GPTs livescan of social networks has identified Gulf Veteran’s Foundation’s need which would fit your expertise with poker and public speaking training. The event will last four days and may result in a recommendation to the courts for your social integration.

He badly needed to start showing the courts that he was something other than a cyber-criminal. The recommendation letter will make my criminal defense attorney a happy camper! The post from The Gulf Veteran’s Foundation FBOOK page was relayed by SUPPORT GPT:

I regret to inform you that Joe Keagan, our MC for the upcoming annual poker tournament, has been injured in a car accident. His talents as a presenter and his passion for the game will be hard to replace. The tournament may be delayed. The association President, Marvin Jones, may be contacted personally at 91852719521639092112 by qualified MCs who we hope can fill Joe’s shoes.

But the notification and its promising details disappeared a moment later, replaced by…

This FBOOK post has been deleted. Support GPT will notify you of future opportunities for social integration.

Fortunately, this was not an opportunity lost for me because I remembered the President’s oddly long phone number! In a world where everyone is outsourcing their memory to technology, dumbing themselves down, I prefer to exercise mine with mnemonics - the ancient art of training memory. 91852719521639092112 is actually pretty easy to remember with phonetic number pegging and visualization. I’m a quick mnemonist, and I saw this number in my mind’s eye as: “A Beautiful Naked Blond Jumps Up and Down.” I thought you’d enjoy that visualization, Dear Reader!

He immediately called the President, who picked up on the fifth ring, and Xavier introduced himself.
“I heard you were looking for an MC for the upcoming tournament, but it looks like the FBOOK post got deleted. Did you find someone?”
“No. We deleted the post earlier today because my secretary left my personal SecureLine number in it. I got deluged with spam calls, and we try to keep operational security pretty tight around here. But you’re calling me now. Did you copy my number somewhere? It’s not supposed to be public.” Marvin’s baritone voice communicated some exacerbation.
“No, my public speaking mentor forwarded me the post…” A little white lie never hurts anyone. “Because I love poker, and I remembered your number.”
“You remembered my number?”
“Yeah, I have a pretty good memory. The post is perma-deleted, so I think you’re good on the OpSec front.” He threw in some military jargon to ingratiate himself.
Marvin was impressed and offered meager compensation for the MC gig, which Xavier declined, suggesting a letter of reference that would help his “budding career” as a public speaker.

A few days later, Xavier was wearing a suit, on his way to the fundraiser, sitting in the back of a driverless auto taxi reviewing his notes.
If I can nail my MC performance, it might be just what my Jewish pitbull of a defense attorney needs to get me out of the probation program completely. No more monitoring of my biosignals, no more being called an addict, no more Support meetings, and no more onerous Support payments!
The event was in an older part of town that was aging with little grace; comprised of old warehouses, small dilapidated homes, and a homeless shelter. As he emerged from the auto taxi at his destination, he felt utterly overdressed for the neighborhood. The entrance to the venue was a dive bar, where about 50 veterans were imbibing before the poker tournament. There was a single woman in the bar, well past her prime yet trying to compensate for it with ample makeup and a low-cut top, serving the drinks. She seems to be enjoying the attention! Xavier arrived about 30 minutes early, so he made it a point to mingle and introduce himself. Anything to make the letter of recommendation for the court beam!

The most animated characters in the bar were Jerry and Yuri, an odd pair. Jerry was a tall, skinny black man wearing a faded leather jacket covered with military insignias. Yuri was also tall, wearing a similarly faded jacket, but with a bodacious beer belly pushing out over his belt and a completely hairless head, with the exception of full, thick eyebrows. The left side of his skull had an unsightly skin discoloration.
Jerry was energetically reminiscing about an adventurous, boozy night in Europe once upon a time, the details of which Yuri was enthusiastically exaggerating, denying, or elucidating upon. Jerry had a southern black man’s accent, the kind comedians and impersonators like to fake. Yuri had a thick Eastern European accent to match his eyebrows.
Xavier chuckled to himself, he couldn’t help but think that recounting this story was their schtick; a dual-performer act that informed their spectators that these were men of a livelier time. I guess it’s true; the older you get, the more adventuresome you were!

For the next four nights, the veterans drank, smoked, swore, and played poker till the wee hours. As the hours passed, the booze flowed, the stench of cigarette smoke proliferated (which the venue surprisingly allowed inside), and the stories the old men traded grew in absurdity. The poker tournament was not particularly well organized and Xavier had to volunteer as dealer a couple of times.
On the final night, he presented a giant fake check to a wheelchair-bound, purple-heart-bearing veteran. As he climbed off the stage, he realized he wasn’t getting any feeds or notifications via his Link. He tried to run a diagnostic app to troubleshoot the problem, but it failed to launch. There must be a problem with the actual hardware. He was disconnected.
He didn’t mind much, though; the remainder of his time here would be best served socializing. Last night to schmooze them up for a golden recommendation letter!
“Xavier, you enjoy cigars?” Yuri asked, blasting Xavier with his whiskey-soaked breath and suggesting a cigar bar with a “better view.”
Xavier had started to enjoy the veterans’ company and their stories of dubious veracity. “Yes, I do, actually.”
After a few hearty handshakes and promises of a rematch, Xavier, Yuri, Jerry, and a few vets left together. The cigar bar was attached to a cosmopolitan pedestrian mall in a better neighborhood a short auto taxi ride away. 

As Xavier was about to sit down at a table on the patio with his geriatric smoking partners, a figure entered his peripheral vision, and déjà vu hit him like a ton of golden bricks. It was the woman from the elevator in the Support building. Holy shit, I’m so glad my Link isn’t connected. My biosigns would be off the charts right now!
She made eye contact for an evanescent moment and confidently strode right past him, with no hint of recognition. That’s weird! Did she not recognize me from the elevator just a few days ago? She was practically eye-fucking me!

Jerry caught Xavier gawking longingly after her departing curves, contained by a utilitarian yet fashionable dress.
“Go talk to her!” Jerry goaded him on.
“I have no idea what to say…”
“Run around her and approach her from the front with a wave so she doesn’t think you’re a mugger. And just ask her if you can say something to her really quickly and then tell her that her dress looks great and that she looks Latin, that’s it, then shut up.”
“But that’s a total violation of her privacy…”
“Boy, you’re a damn fool if you don’t go talk to the girl. Don’t make me tell you twice, young man!”
Approaching a random woman on the street will surely result in a hashtag complaining about a “violation of privacy,” but no one will ever know it’s me since my Link is down…

Half shoved in the direction of fate by Jerry, Xavier began trotting after her. His hormones began to rush through his veins in a way they rarely did. As he closed the distance, time seemed to slow down, and he noticed how endearingly feminine she was; how her watch strap matched the color of her anklet, the way her panther-esque dark hair, hanging all the way down to the small of her back, swayed back and forth. Despite wearing uncomfortable-looking, yet not quite gaudy, heels (the same color as her purse), she walked in long, confident strides over the pockmarked and uneven sidewalk.
I can’t believe I’m about to do this! God, I hope she’s not a hooker!
He did as Jerry told him, embarrassed of the scene he was making looping around her in a half-jog. He caught his reflection in a boutique window; he looked sharp in the suit he had chosen for the night. He waved and smiled awkwardly, she stopped and gave him a quizzical look.
“Uhm, I’m sorry to bother you…” He fumbled over his words, “Can I say something really quickly to you?”
“Yes.” Her accent was exotic, intoxicating, musical, and sweet all at the same time, with one word she excited him more than eight Sim strippers in a science fiction-inspired digital strip club had recently.
“I realize we met before that one time in the elevator…” That’s not true! I just avoided eye contact in the elevator. “But I saw you again just now and thought your dress looked nice. Uhm, very fashionable.”
“Tank you! But I never meet you before.” She failed to make the ‘th’ sound in her surprisingly sincere ‘Thank you.’ From now on, Dear Reader, I’ll correct her delightfully dubious pronunciation. It’s a sublime pleasure to hear but perhaps not to read.
“But I remember you from the Federal building last Wednesday.”
“No, I arrived yesterday. Maybe you met my sister, she is very popular.”
The girl in the elevator was identical… Maybe she’s cozening me!
“I could swear we met in an elevator downtown near the aquarium.”
“I understand that because…” she seemed to search for the words in her obviously limited English vocabulary, “…my twin sister lives near the aquarium.”
A twin! Could there be two of these majestic creatures?
“You have a twin! Really?”
“Yes, I’m living with her in this country.”
“Okay… You look Latin; where are you from?” Xavier asked, as Jerry had suggested.
“Colombia.” Her accent went deep and sultry, and her eyes intensified as she named the South American country he’d never been to. A bunch of stereotypes of drug dealers, poverty, guerrilla violence, and civil wars popped into Xavier’s head. I should say something nice about where she’s from…
“Uhm… I love coffee from Colombia! I wish I had some this morning. Are you a coffee farmer’s daughter?” Such a stupid joke, I’m done!
To his surprise, her face lit up; she laughed, closed the distance between them, and lightly touched his forearm. “No! My dad is a…” she searched for the words again, “psycholohista.”
“A psychologist?”
“Yes, he is a psychologist in a town. I brought some coffee from home, and I will make you the best coffee. After you try my coffee, you will not be drinking Starbucks anymore!”
Did she just ask me out on a date?
“Really? Okay! Where?”
“You know the park by the aquarium? With the water…” She gestured toward the sky
“Water Fountain Park, at the benches, yes! I will need your number to text you, and we’ll schedule it.”
“I don’t have a phone number yet in this country, but I will meet you tomorrow at the benches in the park. What time do you want to meet?”
“Uhm… In the afternoon, how about two O’Clock?”
“Superrrr!” She purred with a rolling Latin “R” from deep within her.
“Uhm… I’m Xavier. What is your name?”
“Astrid. Encantada.”
Xavier had run entirely out of things to say. It was time to eject.
“Okay, so we are meeting tomorrow, for sure, at two O’Clock at the benches?”
“Yes, we will see each other then.” With that, she closed the distance further and kissed him on the cheek. He felt ten feet tall as she sashayed off into the unusually warm spring night.
What luck I have! The most beautiful girl I’ve seen in ages just so happens to have an identical twin who wants to make me coffee. I can’t believe how easy that was! Instead of reporting me for violating her privacy, she asked me on a date!

Xavier sauntered back over to the table with a newfound swagger and heartily shook the hands of Yuri and Jerry. “I’ve never done that before! Such a rush! I can’t believe she wasn’t offended! I’m meeting her tomorrow.”
The veterans were quick to steal the thunder of the moment by launching into unbelievable tales of their past sexual conquests. Xavier’s self-monitoring pessimism began to kick in…
Let me introduce you to a voice in my head; we’ll call him “the Demon,” he is loud and opinionated: “She probably is a prostitute! And not just a cheap whore but a professional who hooks high-paying clients with her innocent little ‘Let me make coffee from my homeland for you’ act and then empties their bank accounts. What interest would a gorgeous girl like that EVER have in a Post Opp like you other than your money?”

As Xavier was about to tip back another whiskey, his peripheral vision lit up like a Christmas wreath with Link notifications.
My Link! It’s connected now! Oh shit, it will read my arousal biosigns tomorrow and report them to Support.
“Damn. My Link just connected. I have to cancel my date with her tomorrow!”
“What in damnation are you talking about, young man?” Jerry spat at him.
“I’m on probation; my Moderator monitors my biosigns for arousal.” It was his third whiskey, and the truth came tumbling out of him. “If I go on a date with her, I’m going to be VERY aroused. I already got in trouble with my Moderator for violating the privacy of women.”
To which the veterans espoused outrage about his court-ordered biological prohibition, more impassioned than Xavier himself ever had.
What these old men don’t get is that the Link is worth it. Digital godhood and perpetual novelty are worth trading some of one’s freedom and biological imperative.
“When I was a young cat myself, chasing skirts, I could not believe the damn bullshit I had to deal with. Nowadays, you young cats doing the same thing men have been doing forever, gotta deal with with some next-level bullshit we never woulda imagined! Biosign monitoring!” Jerry ranted.
“Yuri here will give you something to calm your nerves real good for your date tomorrow.” One of the veterans suggested in a low tone with a gleam of trouble in his eyes.
“Really, what’s it called?” Xavier was skeptical.

“Phenibut,” Yuri murmured through a billowing cloud of cigar smoke.

If you enjoyed this sample chapter and found it provocative, prepare to have your mind blown by the rest of the book!

Here's a plot summary...

Xavier is a Biohacker, Lifehacker, professional poker player, statistical savant, gamer, addict, and cyber-criminal currently being prosecuted for masterminding a nine-million-dollar heist of "pre-cognitive capital." Pushed out of his comfort zone one night at a cigar bar, he approaches a strikingly beautiful Colombian woman, Astrid. An old Russian man gives him a mysterious confidence drug along with some advice that gives him a shot at charming a woman unlike any other he has ever known. But Astrid has an identical twin sister who seems to have succumbed to the same corrupting modern influences as Xavier. As he battles his addictions, the twins draw him into a web of intrigue and moral quandaries. In a world where corporations enslave the human mind to predict the future and profit, he'll excel because of the Biohacking tools he yields and his innate talents but falter because of his fundamentally flawed character.

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