Overdrive by Phillip W. Simpson Page A

in your everyday mundane existence. It was suspected some of
the founders had somehow got hold of exceptionally old copies of “Fantasy
Island."
    To meet the demand
of pleasure seekers and tourists alike, the Hedonist’s had built a fleet of
StarCruisers. These ships were designed to encompass as many of the activities
found on Revel as possible. A kind of entrée really. The final port of every
Hedonist StarCruiser was Revel. The culmination of three months in space, an
excuse for a huge party (not that they needed one), and a chance to see
Hedonist’s on their home turf. People could, of course, come and go as they
pleased, and a lot did, finding that Hedonism was surprisingly tiring work.
    The ships
themselves, like all modern transport devices, were largely controlled and
maintained by AI’s. Other AI constructs were generally based on their owner’s
personalities. Hedonist AI’s were largely unique. The brain patterns and
personalities of some of the more famous (and infamous) Hedonist’s were copied,
combined with almost infinite memory and processing power and turned loose to
control their ships. Of course, AI’s imbedded in people’s neural structures
could do the same thing; that is, copy their hosts personalities, but these
ones weren’t famous and in control of an excess of 20,000 human lives. The side
effect of combining a real personality with an AI was that the personality
became, after an extended period, much more logical. Personality quirks and
real human emotions still existed to a degree but were now presided over by the
logic framework provided by the AI.
    The Dirty
Little Minx was controlled by the personality of one Tina Hogsworth. Tina,
long since dead, lived on in the spacious cyberspace of her AI’s mental framework, observing the physical activities that she had once been an enthusiastic participant.
Tina’s claim to fame, amongst other things, was that she still had the record
for having the largest amount of sexual partners, in one sitting (so to speak),
whilst on a tight rope. Of course, that had lead to her eventual demise. During
her 126 th tryst, attempting some rather convoluted and technically
impressive sexual connection, her partner had slipped sending them tumbling and
screaming (some said that she was still in rapture), the 500 meters to the
pavement.
    Felix read all
this in the pamphlet provided when he arrived on board. He could have more
easily accessed it via his AI but had turned it off to better remain incognito.
That he was actually reading it was surprising, but he was bored.  Not many who
traveled on a Hedonist SpaceCruiser could ever admit to such, but with his life
seemingly at risk, Felix had to keep a low profile. He’d arrived on the Dirty
Little Minx 4 hours previously, spent the first two sitting in his room
bored as a bastard and the next hour entertaining himself by playing with the
various holographic displays in his room.
    The Hedonists, as
he discovered, had basically no shame. Anything debacherous, sexual, deviant or
adrenaline filled could be accessed. Most of it in real time and aboard the
ship, and invariably sexual. Out of boredom, he’d almost accepted the offer of
the ship to send a partner to his room. Almost. He may be on the run, with
various armed psychopaths chasing him, but he wasn’t going to resort to any
form of sexual standard lowering.
    Finally, armed
with the belief that he was unlikely to be tracked here and with the attitude
that he may as well try and enjoy himself whilst on board, he asked the ship if
there was a quiet bar available. The ship offered him a list of 36. Selecting
the remotest one on level 21, he found himself in a small bar cum restaurant
known as Mojos. Situated right on the hull, Mojos provided panorama’s, via
large field windows, out into space – or in this case – into the gray
nothingness of nospace.
    Relatively small,
there were six bright green booths and a long red colored bar accompanied by
tall bar