Editing Note: These two versions have NOT been subbed by Tanya and her Subbing SWAT Team. Any and all odd spelling, eclectic grammar and outright crimes against litrature are mine and mine alone.

To the casual observer, it seems quite obvious what we’re looking at.

Silver Fox, with striking smile and casual laugh. Baby Doll, her perfect oval face framed by ink black hair, hanging on his every word, laughing at every cue. They’re not loud, they don’t deliberately draw undue attention but, as the impeccably appointed first class carriage races into the stormy north, their untold story mesmerises.

Even if he could be a young father to this child-like woman - as long as we assume she got the lion’s share of her striking looks from her mother - from the way Baby Doll looks at him, the way she touches his arm, his hand, his face, it’s clear she’s no daughter. Not that he isn’t also commandingly handsome, with that indefinable ease and healthy glow of comfortable wealth, private health care, expensive exercise and organic food. Silver Fox has no ring on his finger, nor the tell-tale pale indentation where one might recently have been removed. And, while he’s clearly older and perhaps less demonstrative, his is also not a father’s touch - nor a husband. There’s a hesitancy when he touches her, a still learning caution - the newness that comes from unfamiliar controls and uncertain handling.

So, a sugar daddy and his side-action perhaps? Or an as yet untamed man-child, still clinging to his own fading youth by clutching at a series of interchangeable young lovers. Whatever this is, it fizzes and pops with static energy and potential. As they sit, stretched over the separating table on the fast moving train, their physicality reeks of intimacy, expectation and soon to be delivered promise. 

Of the promise there is no doubt. And there is also another certainty here, another given. In an increasingly drab world filled with beige and grey they are painted in primary colours and everyone who sees them looks again.

Young men mutter darkly at the unfairness of it – with such a perfect angel so obviously in thrall to grey sideburns and a thick wallet. Old men grumble miserably about how they might also touch the firmness of youth if they were not so loyal, or logical, or limited in opportunity. And the young women? They glance at him and admit to the possibility, even while condemning her with casual, not entirely honest assumptions of motives and methods. In that they share much with the older woman who, even in resentment, might grudgingly stipulate they were never quite as perfect and would happily exchange places if he were to so much as curl one of those thick, tanned, well-groomed fingers in their direction.

Thus, in mutual adoration, mostly oblivious to the watching eyes, Silver Fox and Baby Doll manage to command the attention of everyone in the well-appointed carriage while not appearing to have eyes for anything but each other.

*

Stranger sits at the small bar at the Southern end of the North-bound carriage. He’ll be last to reach that distant Terminus but his elevated position provides a perfect place from which to look into the future they all glide towards on magnetic wheels.

On the flat panel behind him the news drones on about yet another tech company issuing yet another urgent recall for yet another faulty product sold as grade-A but issued in Beta. But Stranger is more interested in his fellow travellers, he imagines their lives, extrapolates their stories - filling in the blanks from the limited cues of partially heard conversation and his own not so casual observation. But even as he tries to complete a full book of observational stories, Stranger’s eyes keep turning and returning to the middle of the carriage. To the man with the perfectly photogenic silvering hair and the mesmerising woman glowing across from him.

After a lifetime spent consuming Anime and Manga, it’s as if this woman-child stepped directly off those pages, out of those screen and directly into his ever returning eye-line. Her compelling incandesce has an impossible to ignore magnetism, an almost irresistible siren call to his deepest longings and lusts. Like everyone else in the carriage, Stranger struggles to look away and, when he does, his betraying eyes always quickly pull him back.

Of course, if Baby Doll were to become aware of these involuntary stares, this long distance lust might be a problem. Happily, whatever physical perfection she might possess - whatever bright burning internal force makes her flesh appear to almost glow - she seems to entirely lack that primal instinct, the sixth sense when prey feels the eyes of predator and takes instinctive flight. Maybe her radar is overwhelmed because there’s never a time when she’s not the object of every eye? Or maybe she doesn’t have that prey instinct because she’s the predator - with nothing to fear from the physical imperfection of the lesser eyes that surround her and seek to touch the hem of her healing garment.

*

Stranger pulls his wandering eyes away once again and seeks liquid distraction. He taps on the glowing menu beneath the clear plexicast surface of the bar. Double distraction, with ice. As the chrome servitor spins and whirs to smoothly provide, Stranger tries to focus once again on the droning news report. But endless proclamations of dangerously faulty AI seem to come every other day now and the more the news feeds make every story urgent and breaking, the more they all become no more than background static.

Rain streaks along hardened glass and races in organic counterpoint to the smooth forward thrust of the train. However, even distorted as it is, it offers Stranger a no more interesting and no less abstract  view of the world than the one rendered in 24k perfection above his head. And then, inevitably, there she is again - the musical laugh, her casually flicked hair reflected in expensive bottles as she stands. Silver Fox reaches for Baby Doll’s hand, holds on for as long as possible, extending the moment of physical connection before her unfaithful feet carry her away from him. Baby Doll sways down the centre of the racing carriage, towards the bar and the Stranger sitting at it.

*

Baby Doll offers Stranger a casual, comfortable smile, her eyes dancing with life as she leans on the bar, just one stool over. Stranger offers back the bare minimum, a slight upward nod, the respectful, unspoken greeting at least theoretically permissible on this damp island of people infected with a terrible social dis-ease. Stranger then quickly returns to an intense study of his amber filled glass, remaining otherwise as still as the mouse who finds itself unexpectedly still alive in the presence of a suddenly distracted cat.

Careful side-eye allows him to track her sparkling eyes and the subtle movement of her rose-red lips as she considers the options at her fingertips. A glance back at the bar’s many reflections reveal Silver Fox, motionless at the table, flickering eyes dancing across a hand-held, the new-ager thinker in a non-thinking world.

But what is life without hope and the casual fantasy of the unobtainable miraculously obtained? As Baby Doll makes considered selections on the plexicast, Stranger can’t help himself. Like a young pretender trying to match high marks on an old tree, he offers tentative smile and over-casual enquiry in the hope of earning his own transitory sparkle.

“Table Broken?”

“Sorry?” Baby Doll barely looks up, but it’s enough to continue, quixotic.

“Your table? Broken?”

“Oh, no. I just… I wanted to… stretch my legs.”

Damn. That’s almost an invitation to look and, in looking, reveal himself. Must not look, must not look. Instead, Stranger turns the stool and pointedly looks back to where the Silverback seems, so far at least, unaware of this challenge to his ascendancy.

“Beautiful, isn’t he?”

“Sorry, what?”

Stranger is flustered, caught in the moment, trapped by the unthinkably direct way Baby Doll has shattered the social contract and construct for even such a liminal space. And she isn’t done.

“He’s beautiful, right?”

“I, Uh… I…”

As the servitor spins to serve her, Baby Doll seems oddly untroubled. She casually offers him the smile for which, just moments ago, he would have cheerfully killed.

“You don’t think a man can be beautiful?”

“No… Uhm… I mean …”

“Sure, he’s handsome, but… Look at him. He’s also beautiful.”

“Oh, okay… sure…”

Stranger turns his suddenly uncomfortable male gaze away from the undeniably… attractive male still lost in a study of his hand-held. Baby Doll laughs and yes, just as he might have imagined, it’s musical - a babbling stream on a distant mountaintop. But still, his mouth is suddenly dry.

“Sorry, I forget how… weird you boys are.”

“Weird?”

“Sure, totally weird. I mean, I see a pretty girl, I say, ‘there’s a pretty girl’. I see a lush arse, I say, ‘that’s a lush arse’… So what? Pretty is pretty, beautiful is beautiful… You allowed to look, you allowed to see…”

“Okay, sure. I guess.”

She giggles, shakes her head, throws a crooked smile that dimples her perfect cheeks as she scoops up her drinks. Her playful eyes catch the light as she turns away.

“It’s okay to look, just as long as you don’t touch… He’s mine.”

She glances up at the screen above and a single exclamation bisects her brows, the point of the exclamation right there at the bridge of her perfect nose.

“Is there no way to change that? Music or… anything?” With that, only the lingering scent of her remains as she strides back down the carriage.

Silver Fox smiles as he sees the angel falling back down the train towards him. Her returning smile would offer battle to even the darkest void as she walks away with a last throw away.

“Be good.”

Unexpectedly released from what seemed to be an increasingly deadly social trap, Stranger indulges in a deep sigh. He carefully turns back to the bar, carefully pulls up the bar-top menu, carefully looks for alternate content for the screen above. He selects a music channel and very, very carefully does not look back at the beautiful girl and her apparently beautiful companion… not even when she giggles.

*

Miles slide. Time passes. Stranger retains his bar-side perch. People come and go.

Through it all, the lord of light and his burning star sit like a black hole - sucking in every glance, every stolen look, every lingering stare. With the drone of endlessly interchangeable new music now swirling above his head, Stranger punches in and swiftly receives yet another drink - the servitor arm possibly the only thing in the carriage not constantly rotating towards due-lust.

Stranger is just lifting the fresh drink to his thin lips when Baby Doll once again pops up and props herself up at the bar. She offers another ‘we must stop meeting like this’ smile and swiftly punches in a fresh order. As the servitor glides and spins, she keeps her eyes on the menu and speaks between almost unmoving lips.

“I need your help”.

Stranger blinks, not even sure he’s the intended target for these half-spoken words.

“Please…”

Before Stranger can even be sure, let alone engage, Baby Doll scoop up her fresh drinks and turns back to her silvered companion. Her still incandescent smile only seems hollow if you’re suddenly listening for a flat note in that otherwise careful orchestra of sound.

Left behind on the bar-top, a thin, black metal card - wallet sized, reeking of money. In the centre of the card, one word. Libidne. Next to that a discreet, embossed QR. When someone whispers you lean in. Without even thinking about it, Stranger accepts the illicit nature of this moment and carefully moves the card towards himself, shielding it from observing eyes. Just the briefest reflected glance sees Baby Doll slip back into the booth - her perfect smile called and raised by her perfect companion. Stranger blinks behind his thin glasses. At last, resisting the furtive urge to check the coast is clear, Stranger reaches up with the same finger that re-positioned the card, taps his thin frames and sits back. He sips his drink on auto-pilot as his adaptive glasses transport him to a Virtual world.

*

The first thing rendered in ultra-high-def is that word again, Libidne. This time it’s accompanied by a helpful translation: Lust. As soft music plays through the magnetic induction above Stranger’s ears, two people emerge, left and right. He could be David, she might be Aphrodite. Models of physical perfection, as naked as the day they were created. They stand as Adam & Eve once did, apple uneaten, seemingly unconcerned, perhaps even unaware of their own nakedness. Each human shaped avatar for naked lust wears only a subtle smile - with shining eyes that invite the looker to look… and enter.

Shifting, nervous, Stranger taps his frames again. Reduced opacity drops the north-bound carriage further into the grey as Adam & Aphrodite turn and lead Stranger deeper into their world with all it has to offer. As he is pulled in their naked wake, voices whisper in his ear, an echoing stereo, male and female, whispered, inviting.

“Lust is life, life is lust… and when perfection is possible, why settle for less?”

Stranger now finds himself in what appears to be an endless deep blue void. Adam & Aphrodite turn to him again, those naked smiles, those naked forms – perfect in every way, with eyes that seem to promise and invite, filled with naked willingness as they stare through Stranger eyes into his lustful soul.

“But just what is perfection?” Adam’s voice resonates and ripples, deep enough to stir, warm enough to entice.

“And is your perfection the same as mine?” Aphrodite’s voice has a husky quality to add fire to her own warm enticement. Together the two still naked avatars tag-team Stranger, as if their sole purpose was to share this truth with him.

“Using our advanced digital selection, customisation, sculpting and personalisation tools, why not feed your Libidne with a companion designed just for you.”

As the treacle-sweet and butter-smooth sales pitch continues, Aphrodite sweeps her hand from left to right, again and again. Adam mirrors her, right to left. With each sweep they are different. Blond, brunette, redhead. Blue, green, brown. Pert, pendulous, petite. Tall, short, road-racer lean, muscle-builder brawn. Shaved, unshaved. Square jawed, sharp eyed. Child-bearing, lithe. Each iteration is different, linked only by shared physical perfection and those shining, seductive eyes.

At last it’s just Adam and Aphrodite again. Having tracked his eyes and read his every desire from the flickering dilation of the windows into his soul, they now know exactly who they are speaking to and who he really is. Aphrodite is the vision of perfection that steps across the space and, on naked feet and tipped-toe, she whispers direct into Stranger’s ear.

“Tell me about yourself… Tell me what you love. Tell me what you desire. Tell me what you want. Tell me what you lack. Tell me… everything.”

Aphrodite steps past him and there’s that smile, that twinkle, that unspoken perfect promise. As he turns to follow her Stranger is presented with a massive multi-dimensional display - shifting images, text, video, media and algorithm. As Aphrodite stands and smiles and waits for his desires to be spoken, Adam voices the ‘hard-sell’.

“Not only is every companion a model of physical perfection but, using the most advanced AI ever developed for an intimate application, your perfect companion will also perfectly meet your every emotional, intellectual and ideological need.”

Aphrodite nods, as if agreeing with a perfectly framed argument. She looks directly into Stranger’s eyes and speaks with her own absolute conviction.

“I’ll talk about what you want me to talk about. I’ll enjoy what you enjoy, I’ll love what you love and hate what you hate. I’ll never look away, I’ll never judge, I’ll never leave … I’ll love you forever. I’ll do whatever you want… Anything, everything… Forever.”

The lights and screens dim and once again it’s just Stranger, Aphrodite and that beguiling smile. He can hear his own heartbeat, the dry-mouthed swallow. It’s like he can feel her, taste her. That last for an electric moment and a million lust-filled years before virtual spotlights fade up and encircle him. In every spotlight beam a naked form, man and woman, all those previously offered – women and Man, man-mountain and long distance runner, dark and light, diminutive and full-frame - every single one naked physical perfection. They all look at Stranger with that same intensity, that same smile. They all whisper.

“Pick me.”

“Pick me.”

“Pick me.”

One by one the spotlights fade and with that fading the multitude of offered companions are gone until, once again, it’s just Stranger and Aphrodite.

“Pick me… Please…”

She smiles her forever promise as the light above her head slowly fades and takes her with it.

Stranger is left with that word. Libidne. Lust. Below that a new invitation. “Pick me”. Below that because such people cannot help but always remind us who deserves credit, powered by LibiNet.

*

Blinking, thoughtful, Stranger taps his frames. The yet un-entered virtual world fades. Blinking, chewing his lip, Stranger glances back down the north-bound carriage.

Silver Fox talks with hands and eyes, the casual confidence of man communicating with effortless passion, precision and privilege – opinions laid out, judgments rendered, jokes presented for laughing approval. In turn, Baby Doll bubbles and smiles, encourages and laughs.

Another blink as Stranger’s cogs whir and spin.

He sees his fellow travellers through very different eyes now. His radar obviously better attuned than hers, Silver Fox feels the weight of Stranger’s stare and glares across the carriage. He speaks with sudden clear anger and Baby Doll gives Stanger only the briefest glance before she starts to talk fast, placate, deflect and diminish. For his part Stranger hurriedly looks away, turns back to the bar where he finds himself looking once again at the metal card, the gateway to everything he might desire and what now seems almost certain to be a cry for help.

Stranger toys with the black card. A single finger moves it backwards and forwards while he decides. At last the card is moved away and Stranger’s fingers dance across the surface of the bar. He pulls up the seemingly endless Media choices and reselects News.

The channel switches and Stranger is straight away presented with the sight of a harried man behind a podium. The spokesperson carefully spins plates so viewers, consumers and, above all else, shareholders believe the serious nature of this issue while simultaneously not placing the blame at the feet of his ambitious, careless and always profit-driven corporate masters.

“…Obviously, we’ve invested millions in AI development and this issue is simply a small, unavoidable bug. However, we do strongly advise all users to contact our service representatives and arrange to return their… companions as soon as possible.”

On the podium beneath the fully dressed, imperfect, sweating man is not the Latin word for Lust. Nor is it the ubiquitous humble brag. No ‘powered by’ here, just an expensive, minimalist logo and a company name. One composite, created word. LibiNet.

*

When Baby Doll leaves a still frowning and clearly angry Silver Fox, Stranger is tense and ready. He does not look at her, does not move, even as he still radiates attention. For her part she barely considers the menus as she mutters through hardly moving lips.

“Did you see?”

Stranger nods, slight, careful.

“Do you understand?”

“I… No, not really.”

Baby Doll glances back at her still glaring, companion. His attention remains locked on this conversation with singular, possessive focus. She doesn’t look up directly at the rolling news scroll but, as she makes another placating gesture, Stranger can’t help but see. Dysfunctional AI… full product recall… Seeing where his eyes have taken him, she scowls.

“They don’t just make beautiful… They make smart.”

She throws another ‘I’ve got this, baby’ gesture at the glaring man. As growing understanding reaches full maturation, it’s all Strange can do to not look directly back at the bigger, older man.

“He knows?”

“He knows”

This time he can’t stop himself. It does not go unnoticed when Stranger’s betraying eyes pull him north towards the growing threat. Even the scowl is perfect, perfectly formed, perfectly eloquent. Stranger looks quickly away, back to Baby Doll. She sees just how swiftly he’s catching up now.

“Why don’t you…”

Baby Doll barely clings to her composure as she snaps out a quick interruption and answer.

“He’s bigger than me, he’s stronger than me…” A hard swallow. “He’s a man. He’s all man. You saw, they promise forever. That’s the promise, that’s what’s expected. It’s coded in… If I… When he realises forever ends today… I don’t know what he’ll do… but I’m sure I won’t live to see it.”

Baby Doll glances back at her increasingly agitated companion. His nodding head, flashing eyes and angry snarl make eloquent demands.

“He saw you looking at me. He’s very… jealous.”

“But I didn’t…”

When Baby Doll speaks again it’s with demonstrative gestures and insistent body language, even if her words in no way match her actions.

“When we get off this train it’s over for me. I promise you that. Please, you have to help me…”

Baby Doll throws Silver Fox a perfect PR smile. It speaks of love and reassurance and the obvious delivery of fiercely demonstrative remonstration. Then it’s back to Stranger through perfectly white, clenched teeth.

“You have to help me, please…”

A last silent plea from terrified eyes then Baby Doll turns away from the bar and back down the carriage. Her sexy sway is followed by gentle words of assurance and fealty as she confirms justice delivered and honour restored. In return, Silver Fox affirms his possession and territorial rights by pulling her down into a passionate kiss. The Aphrodisiac of challenge denied and honour restored.

As Baby Doll embraces the lust and further deflects any residual jealousy fuelled suspicion, Stranger watches in the reflection of the bottles, caught now in a crisis not of his making - an unasked dilemma of life and death. A woman trapped in a Dragon’s cave, desperately in need of a champion.

*

There’s a certain bustle in the carriage now, a flexing and stretching, the anticipatory futzing and fussing of people ready to step off and away – back to the real world. As the Stranger considers his impossible choices the Servitor puts bottles and glasses away - diligent, mechanical, tireless… inhuman.

Down the carriage Silver Fox is also up and preparing for their onward journey. Demure beside him, Baby Doll slips into a long black coat as he lifts down a small travel case. She glances Stranger’s way one last time, one last mute appeal. But Silver Fox demands her full attention once again and Baby Doll is led towards an uncertain future by a man who does not even glance in Stranger’s direction – the sad and recently vanquished lurker already forgotten.

With a whistle and buzz of in-carriage announcement, they pull into the Northern Terminus and the other travellers move quickly to the sliding automatic doors. Silver Fox leads Baby Doll off the train with the meat of her perfectly sculpted bicep held fast in his encompassing hand. Possessive connection. He might be imagining it, but Stanger is sure she throws one last, despairing look in his direction before she is steered into the misting rain.

Still, Stranger cannot bring himself to move, unsure what he just witnessed, what he’s just allowed - unsure what future he just co-signed with frozen inaction. Stranger looks down at the now clean bar. The black metal card sits in silent reproach. What kind of man lets another man do that to a helpless woman? What kind of knight lets the dragon drag a beautiful young woman away without protest? Especially if the dragon is not even flesh and blood, just the distasteful construct of an industry that never stops to consider the difference between can and should. What kind of man stands back while a faulty appliance offers life-and-death threat to an otherwise innocent owner? Suddenly decided, Stranger scoops up the card and hurries after Baby Doll and her potentially murderous sex-toy.

*

Stranger steps quickly off the train. He look past, over and through various cheerful reunions, dragged cases and confused transitory passengers. He’s still not sure what he might do if he sees them but, now the decision is made, his determination is self-fuelling and self-fulfilling.

At first it seems he’s too late. There’s no sign of the beauty that recently walked among us or the man in whose growing shadow she walks. But then he spots them. There, on the opposite platform. The old wrought iron bridge is both a connection between platforms and a link to the long gone ages of steam and electric for which this terminus was first created.

Baby Doll and Silver Fox are on the far side, at its foot, in the shadow… and clearly all is not well. Baby Doll talks fast, animated. She tries to explain, tries to convince. With her arm still gripped tight, Silver Fox gestures to his hand-held. An obviously angry stream of insistent words pin the smaller girl in place every bit as much as his white-knuckle grasp.

Stranger acts even before the thought is full formed. He hurries quickly down the platform and strides over the old bridge - stretching up pairs of steps in his urgency to do… something. To tilt, if he must, at this murderous windmill. To be the hero she needs and he so desperately wants to be.

As Stranger walks above the shining tracks he looks down, confirms Baby Doll is still in the shadow of the bridge – still prisoner of an increasingly aggressive Silver Fox. Even as Stranger watches, Baby Doll reaches for her angry lover with cool, careful words and calming gestures. The bigger man snarls, slap her hand away as if it were a lunging snake. He follows through with a sweeping slap - underwritten by now furious eyes. For her part, Baby Doll seems unable to do anything in reply. She just stands and takes it, the hand print on her face already starting to form, her own hand clutched to her chest as one might a bird fallen from a nest and broken by the uncompromising ground below. The big man spits fresh bile and fury down at the cowering girl as Stranger lengthens his hurrying stride.

With his back to him, Silver Fox doesn’t see him coming and, even as he reaches the far platform, Stranger is still not fully sure what he intends. Baby Doll does see, but doesn’t share this life-saving knowledge with even a single unfaithful flicker. But there’s now a new hope in her otherwise humble acquiescence. As Silver Fox continues to rage, Baby Girl stays silent, accepts his demonstrative anger, holds his attention while the Stranger she met on the northbound train hurries towards them.

It barely takes any actual effort. Just the same treatment he might give a pavement hog who doesn’t have enough respect to offer space on a busy street. A dropped shoulder, a brief stiffening. It’s enough. Silver Fox doesn’t even have time to exclaim, let alone react, before he’s unexpectedly tumbled off the platform into the path of the oncoming South-bound express.

The cries of shock and horror are already starting as Stranger takes one last look back at Baby Doll. The pert angel with inky black hair nods once, downward, a friend thanking a friend for a kindness rendered. Then, as the screams re-double and intensify, Baby Doll adds to them, calling out in a horrified and pain filled voice.

“Oh God, help me! Please help me.”

Her voice, her pain, her horror, her perfect distressed damsel pull all the attention as Stranger strides away without a second look back, just one more a faceless traveller, but also the hero who slayed the dragon and saved the girl.

*

Later, as the misting rain slowly washes Silver Fox's blood from the south-bound track, Baby Doll offers her last breathless gratitudes to sympathetic station attendants and officious authorities. There’s a calm dignity to her as she finally sways from the station, a recently purchased umbrella clasped in a delicate, still fizzing hand. The fearful gesture of a terrified customer tore her synthetic skin and exposed sensitive circuits to Northern inclemency. But she really is very, very smart and that was a problem even more easily solved than the customer himself.

Opening the sheltering umbrella, Baby Doll walks away - perfect shoulders straight, perfect head held high. Free.