Flawless Crystal, Chapter 5

Crystal sat at the dining room table with her mom, eating her usual breakfast of grapefruit and toast except this time Nina wouldn't give her any credit for it. The blonde pixie was capricious about the rewards now, and she was unpredictable with the penalties as well.
	"Don't you think it's weird how not a single person has had a bad experience with the Rift?" her mom asked,
	"Can't you see how dangerous this is?"
	"Mom, it's just a game," Crystal replied, laughing nervously to disarm her mom from being so serious.
	"At BEST, it's a cult with how much it controls what you say and do. The only reason people aren't speaking out against it, is because they know they'll be immediately found, punished, then have their voice removed from the Internet."
	"I think you're being over-dramatic about it," Crystal said.
	"I really wish you would stop playing that game. It's like watching you have a drug addiction."
	"I've only played one time!!" Crystal shouted, fighting back tears because her mom had just called her an addict.
	"Look at how much you've changed, since that first time!"
	"Oh my gosh, I don't need to listen to this," Crystal replied hotly.
	"Just listen! I know you're really smart. You're probably smarter than I am. But smart people can get addicted to something, as much as anyone!"
	There was that word again: 'Addicted'! Hearing it made Crystal's skin crawl, it was so offensive.
	"It's just a video game," Crystal repeated, "For now, it's cool for me to have my own kingdom in a realistic world like the Rift. But I know it's just a fantasy, and I'll probably get bored of it after a while. If I'm still having this issue in six months, maybe you'd have a point. But it's been less than a week."
	"Just answer this question: How much of your time do you spend thinking about the Rift and doing things to get there faster?"
	"Obviously not enough, because I'm stuck here having this stupid conversation, and not in the game, playing!" was Crystal's sarcastic reply.
	Crystal could tell this upset her mom, and she felt guilty for it. But the teenager got like this whenever someone brought up her habit: defensive and mean and impossible to talk to. There were a lot of things she wasn't telling her mom about. Like how dull and disappointing she found this world compared to the Rift, or the full extent of the changes that Miss Cottrell's company was making to her school.
	"What's going to happen with your company?" Crystal asked.
	"Remya wants to acquire it. It sounds like she just wants to strip us for technology then put us to work constructing narratives for her players... Her offer isn't very generous. Even now, it's bad because Ayena games is under pressure to organize itself by Rift Valley's unrealistic labor standards. My work week is more than twenty hours longer now," Crystal's mom admitted.
	'Narratives' – when she heard this word, Crystal got lost in a pleasant daydream about her own Rift game and all the new things she looked forward to doing next time.  It distracted her from the seriousness of her mom's situation.
	"I might not accept Remya's offer."
	"What would you do, then?"
	"I have other options, and our money is secure. I'm not too worried about that. I'm more concerned about you."
	"Well, don't worry about me," Crystal said, "I'm fine."
	Her mom wasn't convinced.
	"I might do a study into the Rift," the woman settled on,
	"To compile a list of all the things it's asking from people. Except, Remya doesn't like it when outsiders try to investigate her company and she will certainly get angry at me if I investigate her. She will consider it hostile..."
	She looked like she wanted to say more but was aware of R-22's presence, and both their phones were out on the table. The Rift app allowed them to access the microphone on Crystal's phone even when she wasn't using it. It was a way for Nina to further control Crystal's actions because she knew practically everything that the girl said and did. She was definitely listening right now, and it had an influence on the things Crystal was comfortable talking about.
	"Well, have a nice day at school."
	"Of course I will!" the girl replied, forcing a smile.
	But school was miserable.
	Crystal wasn't even sure if 'school' was an appropriate thing to call the place anymore, the coursework was so different now. Every day there was a de-emphasis on academics and a focus on things more like how to perform a tea ceremony, and practicing hand-writing 'thank you' cards to people who didn't even exist for attending imaginary events. For an entire period, Crystal would be seated at her desk, writing on pen and paper things like, 'Thanks Cousin Serafina, for attending my party! It was a delight having you, and your dress was so pretty...' or whatever else the AI came up with procedurally.
	What happened to the calculus and history and programming? It was all still available; a person could technically still sit down at their desk and learn about vectors if they wanted to. A lot of students still did. But for people who had tried the Rift, it was too tempting to switch algebra for dance or home economics as long as they got the right amount of credit.
	The school was taught and administered mostly by AI machines, so it was a quick pivot. The students who had tried the Rift fractured off a little bit from the rest of the students by taking different classes, and sometimes there was tension. Especially for Crystal, it became more like a finishing school to teach her social graces, and to change her attitude about certain things.
	Crystal felt like a girl beneath a magnifying glass sometimes because of how stringent the AI could be, personified by that blonde floating faerie Nina whom she now had more contact with than anyone else in her life. Nina, who always had some way to badger her, some 'assignment' that would usually involve Crystal doing intimate body labor for another one of her classmates or else be punished with deprivation. At Nina's suggestion, Crystal was watching ads for the Rift on her way to school right now.
	One of the narratives stuck in her memory: it put the player in an aristocratic setting, and tested their ability to succeed at a royal court. The amount of detail was spectacular, but the most striking feature was that the Rift actually gave the players pretend memories to use for this game, so they had relationships they could draw on.
	"You play as Jacqueline," the woman narrating explained.
	Crystal watched as a sun-kissed Southern belle stood on the balcony of a towering high-fantasy castle, dressed in a vintage Valentino dress and sipping wine with a defiant smile on her face.
	"Jacqueline is the heir to the throne after her father's death. Except, her stepmother is taking every opportunity to convert the kingdom over to her side, so she can become the new queen."
	Now Crystal could see the stepmother: a tall, slender woman with raven-black hair down to her waist and striking green eyes. Maybe it was the fact she was wearing so much fur, or her long red nails, but she looked like a fearsome villainess. There were shots of her giving orders to the kingdom's staff, and addressing the royal court while the Southern belle watched on with suspicion.
	"Depending on the choices a player makes, the narrative can have any number of endings."
	The Southern belle and the stepmother were competing on horseback, dressed in designer equestrian outfits. The Southern belle lost the race, and must also have lost a bet because the stepmother presented her riding boots to the girl, who had to clean them by hand now. Then it showed what would happen if the Southern belle won, which entailed the stepmother putting on a maid's uniform and cleaning their enormous estate. Jacqueline's family had a lot of parties and dinners which allowed for constant politicking, and the player had to use their artificial memories to gain influence over their guests and make bargains.
	"The player needs to be proactive. If they do nothing, the stepmother will probably win."
	The game showed a scenario in which the Southern belle had failed. She was dressed in a black dress: a long-sleeved maid's uniform, and she was standing to the side of the table, behind her stepmother. Gone was the vivacious girl who had long been the center of gossip and future ruler. Now she was a meek, pliant maid. A servant that no one spoke with, except when she would refresh their drinks and take the dirty plates away. She remained at her stepmother's beck and call for the whole dinner, and hated it, but the woman held all the cards now.
	Why were they showing her one of the losing narratives first?
	"Do they have a narrative like this, but the stepmother turns into a dragon?" Crystal asked Nina.
	"Yes!" Nina chirped, "But in that one, there's a way you can kill the dragon. It's totally possible. Do you want to buy it?"
	Although she liked the painstaking attention to detail on the costumes, Crystal wasn't very interested in buying this narrative. She liked the idea of a threat coming from within her kingdom, but felt that it wouldn't be fun to quarrel with a scheming stepmother. Especially if there was a possibility she could lose and have to spend her limited time in the Rift silently waiting tables and scouring pans which the stepmother always planned for her. Even if Crystal won, it would take effort and just distract her from the other things she would rather be doing.
	"No thanks."
	She got a voice-chat request from Kelsey and pulled it up.
	"That photo you took this morning was so cute! Your butt looks really good! Are you trying to bring back the selfie?" Kelsey asked.
	She was referring to the selfie that Crystal had taken as she lied in bed this morning. She took it so that her face, her butt, and the soles of her feet were all in the shot and Nina made it so that all three were perfectly in focus. In order to get that photo, Crystal had to go through an entire modeling shoot with the AI, who gave her a lot of positions to take and coached her on her facial expressions as well.
	"I just thought it looked cute," Crystal said.
	"How was it, helping with the hot yoga class?"
	"Kind of awkward. There was so much to do! I basically had to go up to each student and wipe them down with a fresh towel – and my AI wanted me to be really thorough too, then I finished with a fresh towel for their faces. There was a whole ritual around doing it slowly and confidently. A lot of the girls loved it, I gotta say. A couple of them asked me to fan them when the room got really hot, towards the end."
	"Isn't that against the spirit of hot yoga?"
	"Not really. The students usually towel themselves off anyway, because it distracts them from their flow. So having someone around to do it for them, helps them deepen their practice," Crystal argued.
	She was trying to downplay how she felt about this 'assignment' – it was more than 'kind of awkward' going up to a girl she barely knew and gently running a towel up her back,  down her arms, and wherever else there was sweat on her entire body as the girl just continued doing yoga paying her little mind. Not to mention how weird it was to be in a yoga class but not have a mat of her own to stay on. She definitely felt like an outsider, and that she was here for a different purpose: to serve the actual students.
	"How are things with you?" Crystal asked.
	"Good! I'm still trying to take over the student council," Kelsey answered,
	"Rift Valley has a really ambitious plan for the school that need approval, and they don't like any delays. I feel like I'm doing a lobbying campaign for the Rift, and I'm not even getting paid for it!"
	They both laughed.
	"Are you going to audition for Lilian's play?" Crystal asked later.
	"Not unless the Rift make me. She wants to have her actresses literally whipped on stage as part of the performance! Dracula's wives or sisters or whatever: tied to a post, and whipped show after show. And you should see what they do with the mummy!"
	"She has been in to that kind of stuff recently," Crystal observed.
	"What about you, Crystal? It looks like you've been in to some different kind of stuff too. How did Bonnie's feet feel?"
	Kelsey smiled in a way that she could really pull off, like she was a mischievous partner in crime.
	"Uh, her feet?" Crystal said, involuntarily thinking about Bonnie's feet in more detail than she would like to admit.
	"They were normal. It felt really awkward though, with everyone watching me. I think that's why the AI gave me so much time for it."
	"They were watching because they were jealous!" Kelsey said, "Bonnie looked like royalty that morning."
	Nina buzzed around the screen, indicating that if Crystal didn't hang up soon, she would miss watching the rest of the ads.
	This next ad was shorter, but far more strange. Two women were fighting like gladiators: one wore an alligator-skin bikini and the other was all in leopard print. But both the fighters were small enough to fit on a chessboard. As they engaged in heated combat, two normally-sized women watched over them wearing fine clothes and sipping afternoon tea. The regal women apparently controlled these pocket-sized fighters, and could change their costumes to give them different fighting abilities. Crystal could understand the thrill of fighting, but she disliked the concept of someone being a captive fighter for another player; apparently whichever woman lost would become a gladiator who served in the winner's stable.
	No, she didn't want that in her kingdom.
	"Nina, why are these ads targeting me?" Crystal wondered.
	"Just part of the algorithm: our best guess of what you want to see or would enjoy the most."
	It was puzzling for Crystal that the Rift thought she would enjoy this sort of thing, but she ignored it. Then she checked her e-mail, and heart started racing because she received a special newsletter from Rift Valley.
	It was announcing a new wearable technology: a deep black bracelet about 40 millimeters across with a flexible infinity display screen. It filled the same purpose as a smartphone, but with an added functionality. It would change colors according to how well the user was complying with their Rift assignments. Crystal thought of a health meter in some video game when she looked at it: green if the user was on-target, yellow if they had erred, and red if they were failing. Unlike a cell phone, a person couldn't put this away or hide the display. The rationale was that it would always be in view, so that everyone could check each other's compliance. The colors yellow and red, if not fixed, warranted a report to a Young Pioneer.
	"These things are so coool!" Nina cheered, flitting onto the newsletter and holding out her arm, to show that she was wearing one,
	"Look how it changes color!"
	It flashed to life with a vibrant blue light and stayed there a while before switching over to green.
	The green was a pleasant color; not as nice as that first enchanting blue, but nice. Feelings of comfort and security took hold of Crystal as she became absorbed with the soothing green hue. Then the display changed to yellow, and it set off her anxiety. Red was highly unpleasant to look at, with the added embarrassment of everyone knowing that she was in trouble. Then Nina's mock bracelet switched back to green, which put Crystal at ease.
	"They'll have them at your school today! You should totally get one," Nina said, pretending that she was Crystal's old friend telling her to get a pair of shoes.
	 Crystal had narrow wrists, so she appreciated the way that the wide black band would compliment her frame. But she was undecided about the way it looked and the statement it made. Her internal debate didn't last long because the newsletter announced that starting today, a user would only get the full amount of time off if they wore this new type of bracelet. So if Crystal chose not to buy it, she would only get half of the credit that Nina awarded her for completing an assignment. Then a quarter. Then a tenth. She needed to decide if it was worth wearing this in public to continue getting time off.
	"Okay, I'll buy one," Crystal said.
	She was bothered by how easy the decision was.
	"Perfect! You can meet with Bonnie to pick it up."
	Crystal therefore started her school day by meeting with Bonnie. She found her friend in the commons again, doing her best not to gloat about the fact that her own Rift bracelet was chromatic silver while everyone else's was black. She casually kept her wrist up near her face in a variety of ways, like by playing with her hair or resting her cheek on her palm so that whenever someone looked at her they would see her accessory. One of the black bracelets sat on the coffee table, intended for Crystal. It was resting right beside Bonnie's bare feet, in front of them so that her soles towered over it. Before Crystal could pick the thing up, Bonnie grabbed it between her big and second toe and lifted it from the table, to pass it to Crystal using her foot.
	"The Rift told me to do this, I swear!" Bonnie teased, referring to the way she was subjecting Crystal to her feet yet again.
	"Thanks," Crystal said, and put the sleek bracelet around her right wrist. She didn't like how it had just touched Bonnie's feet, but whatever.
	"Make sure you give it a good review," Bonnie said, in the usual overbearing tone she had when giving orders,
 	"In fact, that's the first thing you should do. Take a seat and write one up. Remember to add lots of personal details."
	Bonnie used her toes to point at the other sofa where she wanted Crystal to sit while she did her work. What a diva! Crystal resisted the urge to shake her head or roll her eyes, and sat down to type out yet another 5 star review for a Rift product. Both Bonnie and Nina would double-check it when she finished, and on more than one occasion they had forced her re-write a review entirely to make it 'more fun' or 'more personal.' Crystal loathed the way Bonnie acted when she got the opportunity to oversee Crystal's work. The girl was highly critical, never satisfied, and communicated herself like a wealthy suburbanite asking to speak with someone's manager.
	She was at least in a good mood today.
	"Crystal, you've been doing such a good job on your Rift assignments!" Bonnie said, "And like, that foot massage you gave me was the best I've ever had."
	"Thanks," Crystal said.
	She didn't want to reject the compliment, but she also didn't want to be associated with 'giving a good foot massage' either.
	"So, let's discuss your schedule for today," Bonnie started,
	"Instead of going to class, could we have you stay here in the student commons? Only for a couple of hours. Today, your assignment is to give any other girl a foot massage, who wants it. Just like you did for me."
	Crystal shuddered at the thought. One pair of feet was bad enough, but there were dozens of women in here now!
	"I- I don't want to miss class," Crystal argued, even though 'class' could be something as silly as practicing a curtsy, or handwriting more letters.
	"That's the best part! We got this approved to count towards your anatomy and kinesthesiology class! As you do each girl's foot massage, your AI will tutor you on the bones, the nerves, and the muscles of the foot."
	 "Th-that's--"
	Bonnie held up a hand -- her insolent way of telling Crystal that she wasn't done talking.
	"Crys, I know you are having doubts about this. But you can't imagine how good it will be for you to challenge yourself in this way. You could be back in the Rift tomorrow. And like, honestly? The girls are more excited to get foot massages than anything – nobody will give you any trouble or look down on you, if that's what you're afraid of. In fact, there were more than fifty RSVPs for this event!"
	"You made an event for it?" Crystal said, aghast that over fifty people wanted to come have her massage their feet. Of course Bonnie knew how to draw a crowd, and it would probably be all the catty mean girls in the school, too!
	"You didn't even know if I would say yes!"
	Her bracelet flashed yellow. Then a petite girl with strawberry blonde hair approached with a nervous smile on her face.
	"Hi! You're Crystal? The yellow light means you are available to do a massage, right?"
	"What?" Crystal ecxlaimed.
	"Not yet," Bonnie cut in, "Come back in like ten minutes."
	Crystal noticed that there were more robotic servants in the student commons than there had been previously. But Bonnie's insolence was what really annoyed her – here the girl was, offering her friend up as some kind of... public foot servant!
	"How much time is the Rift offering me? I might want to go to class instead of doing this," said Crystal.
	Bonnie could lose her temper very quickly, especially when she didn't get something that she wanted. And that's exactly what happened now.
	"That's fine," the brunette replied in a curt tone, "But if you decline this assignment, you won't get any credit for the rest of the day."
	"Fine!" Crystal snapped.
	"And, I will penalize you for 12 hours. If you aren't even willing to talk about this, you probably don't have the right attitude to get back to your game world."
	Crystal wanted to slap her! It really couldn't be worth this! And how dare Bonnie call it a 'game world!' She had to take a stand.
	"Fine," Crystal repeated.
	Bonnie glared at her – Crystal felt like she had surprised her friend by sticking to her guns.
	"Well. Maybe next time," was Bonnie's measured reply.
	"Yeah, definitely," Crystal shot back.
	Then she realized that she had said "yeah, definitely" when she meant to say "yeah, maybe."
	"See me when you are ready for your next assignment, then," Bonnie said ominously.
	Proud Crystal marched out of the student commons with her head held high, delighted that she had put Bonnie in her place and stood up for herself. Her bracelet glowed a hostile red color for quite a while -- it was unsettling.
	That exchange marked the beginning of the worst few days of her life. Classes were terrible; her AI tutor realized that she was getting so many questions wrong that it started asking her easier ones. It was hard for her to focus in general and she was in danger of losing her place as the top student of the school. And who would be on top when Crystal fell? Bonnie, who was now using her influence in their circle of friends to ostracize Crystal – only Kelsey spoke with her, now. And not when Bonnie was around. Nina appeared much less often, which was a bright spot. It meant that Crystal didn't have to do the difficult pilates classes, or learn countless rules of etiquette, or be a towel girl anymore. But it also meant that Crystal couldn't do anything that would help her get back to the Rift faster.
	Now more than ever, she wanted to escape into the fantasy world of the Rift. Her bad mood, her social isolation and her sense of loss all combined to sap the joy out of her life. Soon, colors looked muted (they were brighter in the Rift), she became upset easily, and nothing seemed to satisfy her. Much of her time, she spent daydreaming about the last time she was in the Rift – the Corinthian columns in her palace, her flying unicorn. Her memories of the Rift had a morphic and dreamlike quality, but it always felt good to reminisce even if the specific reasons why were always changing. A weekend passed with her just moping around.
	Many times, she looked online to see if there was something wrong with her, to find a solution. The teenage girl always got annoyed when she described her symptoms and the Internet searches told her 'puberty' – she was positive that something deeper was going on here.
	Were other people experiencing it? If they were, nobody was talking about it. She continued wearing the Rift bracelet – she couldn't say why --  but its screen remained black as oil. Talking to her mom was useless; it was like a kind word couldn't get past her mouth whenever they spoke. Remya Cottrell hadn't responded to any e-mails, and was probably too busy to help anyway.
	To top all of this off, Crystal's Rift countdown timer had slowed down. She should have been back by now, but half an hour would pass without her looking at the timer and when she did it would only go down by five minutes. Yet whenever Crystal stopped to watch it, the seconds ticked as normal. All of this wore her down. After much internal debate and delays, she sent Bonnie a text:
	'Hey. I'd like to get my next assignment please, and start getting time towards the Rift.'
	'AWESOME!!! Meet with me tomorrow morning!'
	Bonnie and Lillian were sitting together in their usual spot. Bonnie's smile left no doubt that she had won; she had forced proud Crystal to submit, had shown the entire school who was the better genetically modified woman. Now Bonnie had the girl crawling back her to do exactly as she was told. Crystal's cheeks burned and she was beside herself with indignation, but she saw it through.
	"I'm so happy you're back with us, Crys," Bonnie said,
	"Look, we even had time to get you a proper set-up!"
	Crystal looked over to the corner of the room, which had been converted to a sort of tiny bohemian lounge. Actually, it was just a sheepskin rug on the floor, right in front of a leather chair. It looked trendy and inviting.
	"We're going to have you sit on that rug while you give foot massages. While you do these, your AI will help you learn all those muscles and bones in the feet. And in a few hours, I will come back and give you a test. Anything below ninety percent will be considered a failing grade, and you will need to repeat the course."
	"Fine," Crystal replied, wearily.
	"Perfect! Oh, and Lilian wanted you to help her put on her play."
	Crystal couldn't help but notice Lilian's silver bracelet as the wan girl spoke.
	"It's no big deal," Lilian said, "I'm just having a really hard time finding actors for the background roles. Like, the actresses are fine getting whipped, but they want a speaking role out of it. So, do you think you could be one of the extras in my play? We might also need to use you during rehearsals, for the actors to practice on."
	Crystal agreed to be polite, and Lilian thanked her for it. Crystal's bracelet went green – the first time it had worked in days. Despite her misgivings about agreeing to act in Lilian's sadistic play, Crystal felt good to see that green light again. Like she was on the right path.
	"Hurry up, Crystal! You need to go take your place – Rhonda will be your first client, and you have six dancers coming to see you at lunch."
	Rhonda was already seated in the chair. A heavy-set Latina girl with leather Birkenstock sandals, her eyes were laughing as Crystal approached. She even had the nerve to rest both her feet in Crystal's lap, when she just as easily could have put one to the side.
	"There are over 7,000 nerve endings in each foot. 26 bones, 33 joints, and more than 100 muscles," Nina said.
	Crystal looked down at Rhonda's feet as she listened to the lecture. They were quite plump, with chubby toes, and it had been a while since her last pedicure. Crystal had to use more pressure to please the woman, who was enormously grateful for such attention being paid to her feet.
	"The largest bone in the foot is the calcaneus, which connects to the Achilles tendon."
	Crystal spent about fifteen minutes on Rhonda's feet, becoming acquainted with the style of massage the girl liked along with her anatomy. Her bracelet would flash green every so often, showing that she was in compliance. A robotic servant stood nearby, looking down at her as though it were supervising her work. Was it recording this? When Rhonda's time was up, another of Crystal's classmates sidled into the chair, stretching out her legs so that blonde Crystal could begin her massage.
	This was a new low for poor Crystal: spending her entire morning kneeling on the floor of the student commons, rubbing girls' feet who went to school with her. Nina commandeered Crystal's phone during this, and used it to give her a visual aid as they did this preposterous 'class.'
	"Don't look so sad!" Nina chided her, "You are going to get a LOT of time towards the Rift for this. In fact, you might be able to go back tonight. IF you do a good job, that is..."
	To Crystal's shame, this provoked within her a slavish devotion to please all these women, including Bonnie, so that she could get back to the Rift. She started to think about women's feet differently: the repulsion never left (especially not when Elena kicked off her pink flats and Crystal was overwhelmed with the sharp scent of her feet), but now she looked at them like a necessary evil that she would overcome to get back to the Rift.
	After Elena was Cecilia, a student here from France. Then there was Roseline, who wore a sky blue skirt that matched her platform slides. Then Artemis, a girl with black hair and Mediterranean features who Crystal recognized from her pilates class. Then Francesca, then Delilah, then Anastasya...