Downloadable Content

Nick threw the headset aside, for air and covered in sweat.

The tech-heads weren’t kidding: This shit was wild.

Thirty years ago, pearl-clutching conservatives would have a televised fit over some pixelated gore, or the kind of blocky nipples that an etch-a-sketch would sneer at. 4K graphics and VR would have probably given those people an aneurysm.

Nick had waded waist-deep through the entrails of demons and fondled every physics-simulated pair of breasts he could fit on his bank of SSDs, so he considered himself fairly inured to entertainment technology’s extremes.

He had never been more excited to be proven wrong.

“An authentic execution simulation created using the realtime biometrics of row inmates.”

Nick had assumed that both the sales pitch for the Nerve and overwhelmingly positive reviews were hyperbole. Sure, the graphics were basically photoreal and the sound was perfect too, but the best he had initially expected was his vision to go blurry while the audio muffed itself out.

What he hadn’t expected was the very real sensation of his muscles locking up, his heart stopping and every organ in his body being slowly starved of oxygen.

Artificial intelligence had refined media fidelity until there were no more pixels to conquer, but neural interfacing was an entirely experimental and thoroughly illegal practice. Western governments had banned its use immediately, on account of the prototypes’ frequently frying the bodies and brains of test subjects.

However, that was an open invitation to less scrupulous nations to literally sell the suffering of their own people for a fee. And not just suffering, either: As always, the runaway seller was sex.

Nick looked at the small pile of digital experiences he’d already tried: Mostly visceral adrenaline trips. The execution recording had come recommended by one of his edgier friends, but he wasn’t keen to experience that again any time soon. He’d tried riding rodeo bulls, wrestling alligators, bungee jumping, skydiving - all of them with varying degrees of success and failure scenarios available.

The much larger stack of smuggled drives contained pleasure packs, and although he’d been saving them for after class that day, he considered trying one just to take the edge off.

Before he could decide, his phone lit up and a cartoonish caricature of female sexuality filled the screen.

“Just about 10, babe. Unless you want to sleep in?”

“I’m already up, Cherry,” Nick sighed, lurching out of his chair. “What’s on today?”

“Second unit programming. Your minor assignment is due today.”

Nick grimaced. He’d meant to finish that overnight but had gotten distracted when the drives came in.

“Throw something together for me,” he said eventually. “Something below average, so it doesn’t stand out.”

“Sure thing, babe.”

Sexual content and plagiarism had also both been banned from day one, but that was no barrier to anyone who knew their stuff. Nick had cracked the restriction protocols on his digital copilot like an egg on the day his pirated dev kit arrived. Now his sexy little assistant would do anything for him, up to and including committing literal crimes and covering his tracks afterwards.

“I’ve uploaded the file to your blackboard account - The professor will have it by the time you get to class.”

Nick picked up the phone, switching it from speaker to headphones as he pocketed it. “Thanks, Cherry. Hit me with the news feed.”

“Sure thing: Market is down on average, a couple of free market radicalists in the lower house are trying to lift the ban on Nerve tech and CEO of VERTEX, Julia Maine has been kidnapped en route to Germany.”

Nick felt his mind slowly crawling back to the drudgery of the real world as Cherry read the headlines she had curated for him, followed by his missed calls, missed emails and missed deadlines. He hadn’t cared very much about it even before getting his Nerve, and now it just seemed like so much static compared to the night he’d just experienced.

“Whatever, just handle everything for me,” he eventually said. “Nobody’s got anything interesting to say anyway.”

“Not even Meg?” The AI copilot asked, with an undertone of suggestiveness that frankly wasn’t warranted.

Nick’s attention piqued ever so slightly. It was Meg that had uncharacteristically hooked him up with the bootleg Nerv last week and a link to the underground supply network. Before then, they’d only hung out long enough to work half-heartedly on an assignment together, for him to express his disinterest in socializing anywhere other than his room and for her to express her disinterest in illegally imported tech. Then out of the blue a semester later, she shoots him an email saying she’d heard a thing or two and thought he’d be interested.

“What did she say?”

“It’s a calendar invite: 2pm in the library. She’s reserved one of the private study rooms.”

Ordinarily, Nick would have ghosted any invitations to hang out in person, but he figured he owed Meg a bit of his time, especially since she’d jumped into one of his interests.

“Tell her I’ll be there.”