Flawless Crystal, Chapter 14

	A look into the classroom would reveal an eerily beautiful scene: Crystal and ten other girls standing in front of a mirrored wall dressed in their uniforms for ballet class, raising their arms with perfect synchronicity born out of many hours of frustrating practice.
	Even their expressions were the same: measured smiles, and eyes that appeared devoid of deeper thoughts. Each of them were, in fact, doing their best to keep any thoughts from entering their minds. The matching bracelets they all wore scanned their bodies, and detected the sort of brainwave activity associated with thinking (especially negative or critical thoughts). For one of them to have subversive thoughts was a punishable offense, the same way as if a girl's arm was one inch ahead of where it was supposed to be.
	There wasn't a thought in Crystal's mind as she went through this routine for the umpteenth time, only the persistent desire to avoid having a negative thought and spiraling further from the Rift. Only through perfect obedience could she get to the Facility, and the machines were there to test her to make sure that she was prepared. The closer she got, the more stringent the Rift's demands became – and the smaller the rewards. For example, once she had been commanded to avoid making eye contact with the other students in her school for the entire day; she could look no higher than a person's knee. It made her feel hugely anti-social and kept apart from the other students, especially combined with the way her and the other Rift girls were shepherded away from the rest of the student body. Her reward for avoiding eye contact all day was five minutes towards the Rift, but she was so close to getting back that it had been a worthwhile trade.
	Less than one hour to go.
	On that particular day, Crystal had been instructed to wear an outfit that she really would have preferred not to: tight flannel shorts that were almost threadbare and a white spaghetti strap tank top that strained to contain her breasts. Altogether, it looked like she had on pajamas that she had long outgrown, and they were second-hand things to boot. It deepened her humiliation to be examined by the other students without being able to see them in return. Many of them would whisper snarky things about how the shorts looked like they were about to split open, they were so stretched over her butt. But it was the fraying on the bottom hems of the shorts that really got to Crystal. The way stitching had peeled away in some places, it announced to the entire world that she was poor and couldn't afford to replace her clothes on the UBI even as they unraveled about her, dangling threads of cotton down her scandalously-exposed thighs.
	That particular morning, her mom had--
	"Crystal, please step out from the line," came the even voice of their robotic dance instructor.
	Fuck! She cursed herself for allowing her mom to enter her thoughts. It was a sure-fire way to get in trouble. Each of the other students in the class turned towards the mirror and stared into their own reflections, still as statues.
	"You are showing too much mental activity. Would you prefer to lose time towards the Rift, or a diversionary treatment?"
	"A diversionary treatment, please," Crystal replied. Meanwhile she was trying to forget about her strained relationship with her mom, and clear her thoughts.
	The diversionary treatment was usually some form of corporal punishment, but this time they only made her stand with her nose against the wall. It was preferable to losing time, but her cheeks were burning with shame that anyone who walked by would see her being disciplined like a misbehaving schoolgirl. At least it distracted her from thinking about her mom, or else she was just getting better at clearing her mind of thoughts. In ten minutes, she could rejoin the rest of the dancers and continue the endless exercises.
	After dance class, she checked her phone. Now, in addition to taking a selfie to unlock it, she had to sit through advertisements of the companies that helped her finance it. She had learned that part of being poor was watching a bunch of ads; all of her subscriptions had reverted back to the 'free' versions, which were inundated with annoying pop ups and bothersome videos. They were procedurally generated and micro-targeted for her specifically, often designed to be provocative by featuring things like women's feet, which provoked a strong response from her because it was a phobia she had never gotten over. Crystal lied down on the floor, slipped off her own shoes and took a selfie with her soles propped up behind her as she had been instructed to, then watched the first ad:
	It was for potato chips, and it took place in a throne room that looked much like how Crystal imagined her own to appear in the Rift. A regal-looking elven woman sat on a high backed throne wearing a crushed velvet dress and a gem-encrusted crown. She had a servant girl fanning her with a large palm frond, and she would occasionally reach into a bowl that another one of her servants was holding up for her, to grab a chip.
	"Anyone can enjoy Pip Chips," the regent said, looking at the camera with a self-confident smile, "Whether you're an empress like me or... someone with a little less means."
	She stared down at the servant girl holding the bowl of chips for her, who nervously lowered her gaze towards the ground in response. Then the dark-haired empress picked out another chip, examined it, and saw that there was some brown discoloration on it. With a petulant frown, she cast it to the floor in front of her throne. Then she stomped on it several times with her bare feet, putting some anger and force into the action. The expression on the servant girl's face was pitiable; she looked like she was watching her livelihood burn. When the empress had finished stomping the chip, she moved the soles of her foot up to her servant's face, and a close-up saw that much of the potato chip had stuck on there along with little bits of dirt.
	"Go on. Enjoy!" the woman commanded her short-haired vassal.
	The girl clearly didn't want to lick the empress's feet but did so anyway, and Crystal noticed that the servants were pretty much the only thing in the whole commercial that weren't presented in an ostentatious manner. No, they had on simple grey linen smocks, blunt haircuts, and the only 'jewelry' they had were thick metal collars each with an enormous sapphire mounted in the front portion. As the servant leaned forward to do something Crystal found truly repulsive, the Pip Chips logo popped up to interrupt the scene and she found herself thankful to them despite the irrationality of it.
	The next ad provoked a very strong emotional response within Crystal, partially because it reminded her of how she had signed up for the UBI without thinking about how it would affect her time in the Rift. But the other reason it excited her was more primal: this footage was filmed in-game.
	"We are pleased to announce the new Job Market functionality, going live in the Rift today! I'm down here at Fantasy Beach to show you one configuration of jobs that many people are enjoying," came the voice of a female reporter.
	The video showed a woman dressed in a pastel pink belted pantsuit. She was standing on a sea wall in front of a somewhat narrow beach. This advertisement could have only been created in the Rift: the sky was a beautiful pink color that was reflected in the pink waters of the ocean, giving the place an otherworldly beauty. And the shore!! It wasn't made of normal sand or rocks, but rather it consisted of a jaw-dropping variety of precious crystals and gemstones in all manner of shapes and sizes. There were emeralds resting next to jadestones – such a superabundance of precious rocks that it was a little overwhelming to take it all in. Several women were on the beach in cute swimsuits, but none of them were engaging in leisure activity. Instead, they were on their hands and knees meticulously combing through the minerals, searching for something in particular.
	The reporter went down the stairs to get a closer look at what the beach combers were doing. She had some difficulty walking on the rocky shore in her pink patent leather stilettos, whose heels were encrusted with innumerable tiny diamonds.
	"The Stone Finders spend their shifts here, looking for very specific gemstones among all the dross."
	She drew the viewer's attention towards the ground with the pointed toe of one of her shoes, moving a stack of moonstones to reveal an enormous pearl hiding beneath. A girl in a red skirted bikini saw it, and immediately crawled over to the reporter's feet, kneeling before the woman with her hands folded neatly in her lap. She appeared to be silently asking if she could have the pearl. Instead of giving it to her, the reporter picked it up, and the girl sat there staring at it completely spellbound. She was pale with short brown hair and freckles, and her youthful body was glistening with perspiration. Was she getting sunburnt?
	"Each of the Finders has a unique set of stones they need to collect," the reporter continued, 	"The requirements can be easy like 'pink stones only,' or they can be extremely specific: A certain type of stone, with a certain shape, and a certain molecular mass. In some difficulty levels, there is only one on the entire shore."
	The pearl was larger than anything a person could reasonably find in nature; larger than a tennis ball.
	"There are other adjustments, too. You can make it easier, like this."
	With the wave of a hand, the reporter made it so that every stone surrounding them in a two meter radius was all white calcite, except for a single lapis lazuli that was easy to perceive due to its deep blue color. The brunette girl in the red bikini immediately started racing towards the blue gemstone, although for some reason she kept crawling instead of standing up. She was ecstatic when she found it, nearly on the verge of crying as she clutched the stone to her heart before crawling back to the reporter.
	"Or you can make it very difficult."
	With another wave of her hand, all the rocks became jet black. There was black obsidian, Apache tear, jet, onyx -- each of them nearly impossible to tell apart to begin with, and many of them were polished and shaped to look like the other ones. But that wasn't all: Crystal noticed a sand flea crawling across the unfortunate Stone Finder's hand, and another on her calf. Where there's one, there's a hundred more – and now the girl seemed to be positively sweltering in the sun, drenched with sweat that covered her face as quickly as she could wipe it away. To Crystal's shock, the reporter just left the girl there like that, carefully looking through all the rocks hoping to find the one thing she needed. Every so often, she would recoil in pain from a flea bite and wherever she moved on the beach, the rocks around her became black for a two meter radius.
	"The Finders then take their gems to a Sculptress, whose job is to shape and polish them."
	The video showed a young woman sitting in front of a folding table just above the shore, performing the exhausting task of processing a stone by hand instead of using any labor-saving machines. Her circumstances didn't look much better than the Finders down on the shore, although she had an umbrella for shade and a place to sit down, at least. She was visibly exhausted by doing the repetitive motion of scrubbing a stone for so long and she still had a mountain of gems to work through.
	"Then they go to the market, where they can be placed into jewelry or used for hot stone massages – anything, really. The beautiful part is that in the Rift, the healing properties of these stones can be made into an undeniable fact. You know how some people have doubts, in the real world, that crystals have any sort of metaphysical properties? It's different here. Here, a black obsidian stone can absolutely help you unblock yourself."
	A short walk over, there was an upper-class woman reclining on a cushioned divan made entirely of rose quartz, receiving a foot massage. The servant attending to her was using a conical pointed massage tool to press down onto very specific regions of the woman's thin, high-arched feet. It was having a tremendous affect on the lady: she was lying back with one wrist dramatically against her forehead, moaning in delight at the treatment.
	"YES!! That's SO good! More! I demand it!" she cried out a cut-glass accent. It made Crystal flush, like she was watching something that was supposed to be private.
	Another servant girl was sitting nearby with a spray bottle that she was using to mist the woman's entire body to keep her cool. Tiny gemstones floated around inside the bottle, and each time the woman got sprayed she had a visceral response to it like it had brought her to a new plateau of delight. Many other women were seated on divans, lazily indulging in treatments offered to them by working girls who never seemed to get a moment's rest. The location was a fantasy beach-side town with upscale bistros and hotels, and the streets were paved with slabs of grey heliotrope.
	"Now here is the real brilliance of this program," the reporter said as she stretched out onto a divan and clapped her hands together, immediately summoning three servant girls.
	One of them gently removed her high heels, another prepared the spray bottle, and the third stood at attention, ready to fetch her food and drink. Her pantsuit dissolved and she was left wearing a pink and white bikini so that the girl with the spray bottle had access to her entire body.
	"Obviously, the Rift could just generate stones as needed, without involving any labor from players. But it turns out that people just enjoy them more when they know that each piece was hand-selected by an artisan, specifically for them. It helps give the world a sense of reality, that these things weren't generated. They were harvested, and that labor makes them more real. Oh, gosh!"
	The blank-faced Asian girl working on the reporter's feet had started in with the onyx massage tool already. It would shatter after one use, necessitating her to get another one from the Sculptress who would need the right stone from the Finder.
	"That tickles a little! But I like it.. Can you fetch me a fresh coconut please?"
	She got more comfortable in her seat, and continued:
	"So that's the Fantasy Beach narrative. Each person starts with a randomly assigned job, usually as a Rock Finder or a Sculptress at best. Then through hard work and efficient play, you can work your way up to a masseuse, a fan girl... and when you win, you become a person of leisure!"
	Two such women walked by, dressed in gemstone-embellished chiffon bodices that were one-of-a-kind in their unique stitching. Their hair was done into gorgeous wavy updos that defied gravity, showing incredible craftsmanship and then woven with silk ribbons dressed in pearls. They didn't have a care in the world, and sipped mimosas out of crystal champagne flutes that they tossed into the garbage once they finished like they were disposable plastic cups.
	"They are currently seeking out more players, and would love to have you!"
	 Nina appeared immediately as soon as the ad finished.
	"I don't want to be a nag," she began, "But you haven't selected any of the work narratives we've shown you, so far. How about this – if you agree to go to Fantasy Beach, I'll make it so that you automatically start as a woman of leisure. How does that sound?"
	This made Crystal smile – for once, it felt like the Rift was helping her out.
	"You'd do that for me?"
	"Of course!" Nina said, "But I do need to ask for something in return."
	"What's that?"
	 "I'd need for you to sign up for another, less popular narrative. The Fantasy Beach one would be what you do during the 'day', and then I'll show you what you'd be doing for the night --"
	"Wait, day and night?" Crystal asked – she felt very timid asserting herself like this, but this was important enough that she couldn't let it slide.
	"If I'm doing the Fantasy Beach thing during the day and something else at night, when could I be at my kingdom?"
	"I don't understand your question," Nina replied condescendingly, like she didn't understand the question because it was so stupid. She went on:
	"You're doing all of these things simultaneously. And you can jump between them at any moment. You could dwell in one of these narratives for what feels like an entire day, but less than half an hour would have passed in the real world. And that time differential is always getting better; it currently stands at about 60:1. So being concerned about not having enough time in your kingdom is kind of an... outdated frame of mind."
	Crystal felt a pleasant sense of vertigo at the thought of spending that much more time in the Rift. There was a tingly, burning sensation in her temples: the result of a desire so strong that it caused the rest of the world to dim in importance. She forgot about all the stupid rules they forced on her and all the things she had surrendered until the only sensation in her mind was a daydream of experiencing the beauty and splendor of the Rift for months on end.
	"Let me show you the next narrative," Nina replied to a dizzy Crystal.
	This was the 'night' simulation:
	It took place in a Victorian setting, with gas lamps lighting a cobblestone street on a moonless night. In pre-industrial darkness, a carriage pulled into view only it wasn't being drawn by horses, but by four women who were harnessed to its traces! They didn't even have use of their arms; each of them was forced into a straitjacket made of a black silky nylon mesh that was apparently quite strong despite its tissue-thin weave. Their torsos were harnessed by lengths of chain which connected to the mechanism that made them pull the cart. They appeared to have bits in their mouths, and blinders – Crystal immediately wanted to look away, but found herself transfixed by how absurd and offensive the whole thing was.
	The things that were driving this strange carriage weren't even human. They were some kind of fantasy creature: pairs of silk stockings and opera-length silk gloves animated to be the shape of a person with Victorian masquerade masks hovering where their faces should be. It looked like a bedroom outfit had gotten up and started moved around of its own accord.
	The carriage driver brought down its whip on the back of one of the human pony girls. The whip was a rare thing because it was not made of silk but of sturdy leather, and the front-right girl cried out in pain but pushed herself even harder to move the heavy thing. Her face was the portrait of outrage, but all her struggles to escape were in vain. Crystal wanted very much to refuse this narrative when something unexpected happened.
	 A couple of women dressed as Robin Hood skulked up from out of nowhere, and sniped the silky carriage driver with flaming arrows. It burst into flame immediately along with its sole passenger, and the bandits used this opportunity to attempt free the pony girls.
	As they got close enough, Crystal could see that the girls had many pairs of silk stockings stuffed in their mouths, held in place by the metallic bits they carried between their teeth. The vivacious bandits quickly became frustrated as they couldn't manage to loosen the prisoners' bondage one bit, it was so durable and well-tied. Knives wouldn't cut through the material, although it was as thin as expensive lingerie. One of the bandits cursed when she looked down and saw the women were pad-locked to the carriage in several places. Each of the girls was attempting to shout through the gags, but their words were muffled and incomprehensible.
	"In this simulation, you play as the human resistance against an 'enchanted clothing' spell gone wrong," Nina said.
	Crystal's curiosity had been piqued; despite the strange villains, it looked like it could be fun playing as an outlaw heroine.
	"The town has been taken over by silk garments that take the shape of a person. They're all controlled by the Enchantress. And she wants to enslave all humans, because she feeds on their frustration."
	Reinforcements arrived quickly; animated gloves and stockings that approached like shock troopers carrying clubs and nets. The bandits realized they were dangerously outnumbered so they escaped, leaving behind the pony girls who all started crying after having freedom snatched away from them.
	"Your job is to defeat the woman who cast the spell."
	The camera cut to the Enchantress's dungeon. She was a hale, unsmiling woman who walked around the dark hallways of a prison, surveying her conquests. She was flanked by several women wearing silk garments that controlled their movements; apparently they were rebels pressed into unwilling servitude as her royal guards. The Enchantress looked into one cell to see a woman magically frozen with one foot resting on her opposite knee, perpetually turning in circles like a doll on display. In another cell, a fiery rebel commander was pinned to the floor by some silk gloves, laughing hysterically while many more floating hands tickled her armpits, her ribcage, and the soles of her feet. Crystal was reminded of how much she hated it when R-22 did that to her and it unsettled her to think about the implications of a 60:1 time distortion in this sort of place.
	"She is particularly spiteful to the rebels that she captures."
	The footage became more grainy at that point. Crystal could only vaguely make out the sight of defeated rebels being subjected to fiendish punishments. The ad was careful to capture the fury in the captives' faces, though – at least the ones who weren't crying for mercy or laughing uncontrollably at the unseen hands of an unseen tormentor. The color palette of the place was shadowy and gloomy; the few sources of light were no brighter than shadow lanterns, so it made sense to call this the 'night' narrative. Sometimes, the camera would read 'R-18+' when it panned to certain parts of the Enchantress's dungeon to censor what was going on.
	"Okay, I'll agree to them both," Crystal decided.
	"I'm happy you made that choice!" Nina announced, then she paused and pulled out an old-fashioned calculator and pretended to be engrossed in it.
	"Yup! This will earn you access to the Facility!"
	Crystal's eyes shot wide open the moment she heard this.
	"Really?!"
	"Yes. You can go there directly from here. In fact, I'll order you a car."
	Crystal had her objections to the suddenness of this plan; shouldn't she go home first, to say goodbye to her mother? But she knew her mom wouldn't understand, and would definitely try to stop her. Crystal didn't trust herself to handle that argument and she was afraid of what she might do if things got hot enough. Better that they re-connect once she was in the Rift suit – that sort of distance between them might make it easier to talk.
	With that unpleasantness decided, she could focus on what really mattered. She was finally getting back to her Rift! No more acting like a towel girl during a hot yoga class! No more having her every single move assigned, scrutinized, and corrected by an endless procession of AIs! As she looked down at her phone to see how long she had until the car arrived, she noticed that her hands were shaking.
	She still had time to say goodbye to her friends – but honestly, she thought of them more as Young Pioneers and fellow players now rather than as friends. First, she sought out Bonnie who was in the student spa receiving a four-handed massage from Sarina and Kelsey. Neither of the girls looked up at Crystal, they were so focused on synchronizing their effleurage motions across her back and shoulders. Bonnie was covered by a white sheet from the waist down although her feet were exposed, ankles resting on a bolster.
	"My AI said that I'm approved! I'm going to the Rift Facility!" Crystal called out – she could barely contain her excitement. Sarina and Kelsey were spectacularly jealous, but Bonnie wasn't surprised.
	"I know," Bonnie replied, "I signed off on it."
	"But who is going to care of my shoes now?" she asked playfully, sounding like a spoiled brat who was entitled to someone looking after her clothing.
	Crystal knew the sort of response Bonnie was expecting, and she swallowed the last of her pride to answer:
	"Well, the Rift suit lets you move around the real world, right? Maybe I could help you out here, while I'm wearing it."
	There was a pause between them, but she could tell Bonnie was pleased to hear this. For her part, Crystal felt like she had suffered an enormous defeat: she was basically offering herself up to become Bonnie's robotic servant while trapped on the UBI. Nor could she shake the suspicion that the girl would use this constant proximity in the most annoying ways possible. Bonnie liked what she was hearing so she sat up, loosely gathering the sheets to cover her breasts. She looked sleepy but very happy, and she flashed a charming smile at Crystal.
	"I could live with that," she teased, "It will be nice having you around, and I might find less teeth marks in my flats."
	Crystal blushed, but had no response for that little barb.
	"Oh, before I forget: could you also agree to act as a background character in my Rift narratives, sometimes? I think it would be fun for us to play together, don't you?"
	Now, Crystal gritted her teeth. Bonnie had never looked more arrogant in her life. She was seriously asking for another concession? How much more could they possibly take?! She was already doing the Fantasy Beach thing during the day (albeit as a woman of leisure, which wasn't so bad) and that weird enchanted clothing simulation at night – where would she possibly find the time? And the way Bonnie asked was SO annoying, specifically wanting Crystal to be a 'background character.'
	But Nina's argument stuck with her: that when wearing a Rift suit, time was dilated to such an extent that it was obsolete to think of it as a scarce commodity. Even so, Crystal saw the danger in this agreement. She realized that Bonnie would want to make the most of her comparatively scarce Rift time, and might commandeer Crystal's attention without regard for how she felt about it. Whenever Bonnie was online, she would pretty much be at the girl's beck and call.
	"How would that work?" Crystal asked, taking care not to sound defensive, but optimistic and curious,
	"Wouldn't there be a mismatch between us? Once I'm wearing a suit, a second in the Rift is much longer for me than it would be for you. So how could we play at the same time?"
	"Oh, that's easy," Bonnie replied,
	"It just auto-inserts more details into your narrative to make up for the difference. For instance, maybe I'd assign you to clean my shoes. In my narrative, you'd only have eight or ten pairs to get through. But in your narrative, you'd have... well, a lot more. Fifteen minutes to me might be a few hours to you, but either way you'll spend them giving my footwear some TLC. Does that make sense?"
	It made Crystal's blood boil to think that of all things, Bonnie would assign her the task of cleaning her shoes in the Rift! Not to mention the fact that Bonnie would only 'see' her cleaning a few pairs of shoes, but her lived experience would be cleaning perhaps hundreds of the girl's flats, stilettos, and trendy sneakers. And she was misrepresenting the numbers, too! If, as Nina had claimed, time changed by a factor of 60, fifteen minutes would feel to her like fifteen hours. These figures weren't exact, but they still suggested that the girl would have a terrifying amount of leverage over Crystal. That she was basically going to continue her domineering treatment even afer Crystal was in the Rift, and would additionally get an unfathomable force multiplier she could use for her own ends.
	Of course, Crystal wanted to argue that there was no point in cleaning shoes in the Rift, but then she remembered that advertisement that human labor imbued items in the Rift 'a sense of reality.' Crystal pictured a pile of dirty shoes of such massive volume that it would take her 15 hours to care for them all, and it made her want to cry.
	This was the final test, wasn't it? She was reminded of a Cold War term that she had learned and forgotten the name of – but it described something like, "when a revolution sacrifices its original goals for the sake of political expediency." She had liked the Rift because it meant freedom, autonomy and power. But now, she was bargaining all of those things away. What were the odds that she ended up captured by those animated silk undergarments then put to work pulling a cart across Victorian London in a pair of high heels? Then when she jumped to a different narrative, it would just bring her to Bonnie's fantasy shoe closet which was so large it took up two stories. There, the only thing to occupy her mind would be a rag, a mirror, and the arduous labor of caring for the type of shoes that she, herself, could never afford!
	But these thoughts didn't dissuade her; it was better to be doing the most tedious thing in the Rift than to be doing just about anything in real life.
	"Yes, it makes sense," Crystal said, "And I'd be happy to help."
	"Yay! I can't wait. You'd better go now, you don't want them to think you are hesitating."
	Although she had lost a very small amount of enthusiasm, Crystal was overwhelmed with emotion as she strutted out of school. She couldn't wait to arrive at the Facility – she had built it up so much in her mind that it was practically her life's purpose to get there. Now that it was finally within her grasp, she couldn't be anything but deliriously happy. So what if she had to do a little busywork while she was in the Rift? The thought of actually occupying her beloved kingdom again brought on a sense of euphoria that justified every difficult decision she had made. Only a very small part of her was mourning her old life, mostly she wished the driver would go faster getting her to where she belonged.