Somewhere to regroup

The atmosphere in the hotel lobby was very strange to Emmy. There were a handful of guests sitting at a bar and a couple with suitcases lounging on the couches. The clerk greeted the pair with a broad smile.

"Good evening! Are you twins? You look so much alike!" He laughed and clapped his hands. "How many rooms for how many nights?"

Emmy sized him up. He was acting weird, almost as if...

"I'm sorry, but... are you anesthetized?" she asked.

He blinked with delighted confusion. "Of course, ma'am! We all are here!" He gestured broadly to the lobby and she scanned the room. Every customer wore a big, cheesy grin just like the clerk.

"Oh my God," she whispered to Betty. "Do you think Matt dosed the whole town?"

Betty burst into laughter. "I forgot!" She turned to the clerk. "She's an Emulated of me from back when I was a grumpy. We're on the run from my husband Matt. He's grumpy too and he likes tormenting her since he can't hurt me."

Emmy crudely shoved the airhead aside and leaned across the desk. She **** a sweet smile, which the clerk reciprocated.

"I'll be honest, sir. We don't have any money. What can we do to get a room?" Emmy asked, desperately trying to figure out how to bribe or seduce an anesthetized person.

"Oh, don't worry about that!" he said cheerfully. "You can stay here as long as you want! We've got plenty of rooms available."

"What?" Emmy was shocked.

"A few years ago everyone just sort of realized that there wasn't much point in charging for stuff. I'm happy just to keep on doing what I'm doing and not charging anybody, and so are the folks at the supermarket and restaurants and shipping companies-"

"Ok, post-suffering utopia," Emmy interrupted. "Give me a key."

As the man behind the desk turned to get a keycard, Betty grabbed Emmy's arm excitedly.

"Ooh, this can be our base of operations for our **** plot!" Betty said. The clerk paused when he heard that.

"**** plot?" he asked. Before Emmy could respond, Betty blurted out more.

"Yeah! We're gonna fuck Matt up bad for what he did to Penny! Or Emmy is, at least. I don't really care."

Emmy watched the card disappear under the desk with dismay. "Oh, dear," the clerk said. "And she's your emulated? May I have the tablet?"

"Betty, wait!" Emmy cried, but Betty had already handed it over. She shielded her eyes from the blinding glare of the screen. "Stop! What are you doing?"

"In this county we don't require anesthesia unless a grumpy breaks our code of conduct," he said as he tapped at the screen. "However, plotting to harm someone is a violation. If you were human, I'd alert the local hospital and they would come give you the anesthesia. Fortunately it's much simpler with Emulateds."

He handed the tablet back to Betty and Emmy frantically tried to take stock of her mind. She didn't feel different, but he had clearly done something to her.

"Now, can you tell me more about your friend Matt?" he asked pleasantly.

"He's a fucking monster," Emmy said. "I never want to see him again."

"Not even for ****?"

Emmy was confused. "I would love to get ****, but how on earth would I?"

"You could always ∅ him," he said

Betty was giggling at her and the clerk had a strange smirk on his face. "Always what?" Emmy demanded.

"He told you to ∅ Matt." Betty said with a laugh. "Or you could ∅ him, or ∅!"

"What the fuck did you do to me?" Emmy demanded. "And why are you talking like this?"

The clerk just nodded to Betty. "It seems like everything's in order. I removed her concept of ∅."

He handed them their key cards with a smile and sat contentedly in his chair.