Chapter 3:

DISGUST

RIGGED

Ugh... what happened... where am I...

I opened my eyes, blinking a few times and shaking my fringe out of my face. My body felt weak and my vision was blurry, taking its time to adjust to the light. I felt delirious, like I was still in VR, even though none of the rig was on me, but my wrists really hurt. I could smell disinfectant and mold, dampness and rot mixing with antiseptic.

My back was against a concrete wall lined with torn wallpaper. A cold breeze from above made me shiver, telling me I was right below a window in some old apartment. The city's lights filtered in from behind me, painting some green and blue against the curtains. The walls were mostly covered in soundproof foam, just like the booths at UNLOVED.

By the colors of the outside lights, I could tell I wasn't anywhere in New Town. To my left, there was a small, dimly lit kitchenette. To the right stood a chair next to a large bed, covered in white sheets and looking cleaner than the rest of the room.

A laptop was on the edge, a lot of cables hooked into it, including the rig I'd been testing. The screen showed white letters scrolling endlessly against a black background, with mentions of package files. A program getting installed through a terminal?

A desktop PC stood by the bedside, a larger mess of cables trailing around it as its RGB fans made the room look even more sickly colorful. A study microphone, like the type I'd used for my streams, was hooked up to the desktop, turned toward me.

A tripod towered in front, pointing some scanner down on me, periodically flashing a green beam. I heard running water, like from a faucet turned to max. A door to another room---a bathroom---was ajar further ahead. Alex was there, washing something, his back turned.

I shuffled and tried to stand, but my body refused to listen. All I could do was desperately wriggle my arms and legs by a few inches. I looked down, seeing that my wrists were tied tightly together with old USB and serial cables, the rubber cutting into my skin. My wrist tag and bag were nowhere to be found.

Where's my tag? My stuff... where... Suddenly, my heart dropped as the realization kicked in, my face growing cold with fear. Oh God, no. This is straight out of a horror movie. Please, no.

I kept twitching in my restraints, but everything felt heavy and unstable, as if I was drunk. My vision kept doubling and every movement felt like it was delayed by almost a full second. I whined and twitched back and forth, unable to stand as tears began to roll down my cheeks, blurring all the lights into a mix of yellow, red, green and blue.

Alex turned around, shutting the water off. He turned to the side, placing something down on a blue tarp covering the backroom floor before walking out. I tried to stand again, but my legs only twitched.

"Hm... Awake already. Always have to squirm." Alex muttered to himself, scowling as if I were inconveniencing him by being awake. He checked his laptop, clicking around more terminal windows like this was just an ordinary day at work, not looking at me once.

"Are you... going to kill me? Or---" I asked, my voice hoarse and small like I was an animal, begging into the barrel of a poacher's gun. I wanted to scream, but I felt like I'd already lost my voice.

Alex didn't even look back at me, sighing. "You're all alone with me here. No tag, no phone. What do you think I want to do?" He laughed like he was only teasing me.

I didn't say anything, only wriggling more, to no avail. His response only made me more terrified. I tried to pull my knees up to my chest to make myself smaller, but I was hardly even able to move my head.

Alex turned to me, not even bothering to feign empathy. "They all cry and writhe. What the hell do you want me to tell you? That I brought you here just to let you go so you'd blab to the cops?"

I felt sick and whined, my voice trembling. "I won't... please, I'll just go, disappear... I won't tell anyone, I promise..."

"Oh, sure. You're free to go, then." He gestured toward the door without even looking at me. "Go on. Get up."

I whimpered and pathetically tried to peel myself off the ground again. "What... did you drug me with...?"

"Motor blockers." Alex chuckled. "Cheap stuff. Mixed perfectly with the scent paste." He kept clicking around on the laptop, where I saw a 3D model of myself, only the face and hands looking complete, another window had Tsumiki's full model on it. The sight was enough to make me gasp.

Some text scrolled by on a debug display:
[MIRAGE_CLIENT] -> mirage.db.63a6825d52bb76e40c68.online
Encryption key: *********
Upload: 16.2 MB/s
Mirror nodes: 17
....Connected!

Exporting...
FACE: mina_face_ver1.pkg......................COMPLETE
VOICE: mina_voicebank_ver1.vcb..........COMPLETE
BODY: Scan data missing
[mirage]: Insufficent data for body texture bake.

Alex sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose as he talked to the computer. "Yeah, yeah. Just export the face and voice."

He switched to something that looked like an old-style chat client: white text against a dark background, colorful names, empty profile pictures. He dragged some files into it. My eyes were finally adjusting enough to make out the small text.

alex_p: [5 files attached]
alex_p: the one i told you about
alex_p: double set
alex_p: got her vtuber model too lmao
alex_p: full voicebank and all
alex_p: from days of vods
specter: holy fuck its tsumiki, didnt expect you to get that
specter: best one you got so far
specter: fuuuuck her real face is so cute
specter: get me the body data now. double pay ;)
specter: put her on mirage db too, tsumiki at least
alex_p: soon
specter: and dont leave anything out
specter: i want accurate textures ;)
alex_p: depends. shes being a bit of a bitch rn
specter: make her cooperate ;)

I felt my stomach spasm violently. They were talking about me like I was a piece of meat, like I was a toy. I let out a loud, wet gag, leaning forward by an inch. Nothing but stringy spit came up, dripping from my chin onto my knees.

Alex glanced over his shoulder, his mouth twisted with revulsion. "Not on the carpet."

My eyes were wide, my body shaking as I coughed up some more saliva. "F-fuck you." I spat, my voice nothing but a broken whisper as I glared at him. "You're disgusting. You'll rot in hell."

"I guess we'll see when I get there." He smirked at me for a moment, before standing up from the bed and stomping to the bathroom in silence.

There, he kneeled down to the tarp, which I now saw had a faint stain on it. He stretched on some nitrile gloves and picked two objects off a metal tray: a black device and something shiny. He flicked a switch on the device, a red beam emanating from it like it was some scanner.

My face paled as he walked out. The shiny object in his other hand was a scalpel.

Emilija's text flashed in my mind: "check in with me when you're done ok?" I never did check in.

He walked toward me, his lips curled up as he stared at my terrified face.

"Oh my God. No, no, no no no. Please. I'll be good. I'll be good, I promise. I won't say anything bad about you again. Please don't---please..." I begged, putting my palms together and making my voice as small as possible.

He was completely indifferent to my pleas, crouching down next to me, ripping my sneakers off and pressing my shin to the ground with his hand, the scalpel in the other. My mind went everywhere: what my parents would think if they found me like this, if my fans would think I'd ghosted them. Was this it? Was he going to drain me of blood? Carve me apart?

"Don't move. Scars waste my time. Make me splice textures."

"Please, Alex---don't do this. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry---" I let out more pathetic cries, expecting his mind to change.

"Stay still." He snapped like I was some unruly pet.

His tone made me jump. I looked away and held my breath, trying not to look down as he lowered the scalpel toward my legs, the scanner on the floor.

The sound of fabric tearing hissed through the room, louder than the computers' fans.

I tried to stay silent, but continued to silently whine, trying my best not to hiccup or move an inch. He trailed the blade downward as slowly as possible, so I focused on anything I could: the pattern of the desktop's RGB fans, a seam in the wall, video games stacked on a shelf, the scanner on the tripod flashing its beam across my face. If I screamed, would Alex's neighbors even hear me? Would Emilija come here and find my body? Or would the last evidence I'd existed be on some database, scans of my face, my voice, my body, and my very likeness being used by online freaks to get themselves off and enact their most sickening fantasies?

My pulse was hammering hard enough to make the entire room spin. I let out a weak, pathetic sob before feeling my right leg get colder. I turned back, seeing the stocking on the ground around it, ripped in two.

Alex crumpled it up and threw it to the side, casting the scanner's beam over my leg. "Wasn't so bad, hm?" He spoke like he was relieved, grabbing at my thigh with a gloved hand. "Some nice legs you got."

I choked on spit, coughing again as it ran down the side of my mouth. "Stop... please..."

Alex didn't listen, dragging the scalpel down on the other stocking. I held my breath again, but my muscles betrayed me. My leg jolted, the blade sinking deep enough to draw blood that ran down the side of my left leg. I yelped in pain as my vision tunneled at the sight of the red liquid running down. This was real. Not a bad dream or a horror movie. I was bleeding on some stranger's carpet. I might not go home tonight.

Alex stood up, his eyes narrow. "Just had to ruin it for me. Whatever," he sounded annoyed. "I'll just dupe the left one." He stood up and plugged the scanner into one of the computers, typing something in on the terminal. I weakly turned my head to the screen, my chest still heaving.

Scanner data found. Determining type...
Type found: Legs
Duplicating...
Texturizing...
...Complete!

Alex dragged some files over to the 3D model, where it updated, now showing my legs, perfectly represented. I felt empty. Like I was already dead. Disassembled into a collection of assets.

A notification message popped up in the corner. Alex clicked it, the chat window appearing again:

specter: she still giving you an attitude? ;)
alex_p: not anymore lol
alex_p: think i broke her
specter: lmao
specter: love when the realization hits
specter: and they go quiet
specter: more fun to make them scream again later ;)
alex_p: yep
alex_p: finishing up tonight
alex_p: just need to clean house after
alex_p: carpets fucked lol
specter: shes alive tho, right?
alex_p: yeah. just a tiny little cut
alex_p: her fault, not mine
specter: sounds fun. ill clean it :)
specter: just finish up on the tarp
alex_p: yep
alex_p: youll love her thighs
alex_p: perfectly meaty
specter: now ur just gettin me worked up ;)

I stared at the screen, my eyes blurring the words for me. They didn't look like letters anymore. These were only symbols recording that I wasn't a person to them. My cries were only malfunctions, my body and face were only assets.

Perfectly meaty.

I didn't scream or curse. There was no point. I only stifled another gag, coughing more.

Finish up. I didn't need to ask what that meant. It'd been obvious the moment the mist started spraying in the booth. The moment my knees hit the carpet and I could no longer stand. Just now, when he didn't care about the blade cutting me.

I should have never replied to his email.

I slumped against the wall, the entire room blurring. I wonder just how much I'd cried in the past half-hour. My chest hitched as I looked up at the crack in the ceiling. It was the only thing I could see. Maybe that was for the best. I was already hollow, slowly withering away. I was nothing but data on his screen. A face, a pair of hands, and a pair of legs. The rest of me was waiting to die.

I twisted my wrists against the cables, clenching my hands.