Chapter 67: The Username and the Girl
The water of the Canal Saint-Martin was a slow, green mirror beneath the iron bridges, broken only by the occasional ripple from a passing barge or the shadow of a cloud scudding across the cool April sky. Briv Rodin stood by the railing, his fingers tapping a nervous rhythm against the cold metal. He’d chosen the spot because it felt artistic, because the light was good, because it was public but not crowded. Now, every reason felt stupid. He was a man waiting for a hallucination to become flesh, and he wasn’t sure he wanted it to.
He saw her first as a shift in the atmosphere. A young couple walking a dog paused, their heads turning subtly. A cyclist slowed, almost wobbling. It was like watching a stone drop into a pond; the ripples of recognition moved through the people on the quay before she even came into view. Then she was there, walking beside Zoruk, who moved with the silent assurance of a shadow that had decided to take form.
Alya Dumont wore a simple cream-colored sweater and dark jeans, her long brown hair loose. She looked both exactly like her images and completely different. The beauty was there, angelic and disarming, but it was the careful, assessing look in her dark eyes that struck Briv. She wasn’t just arriving. She was arriving for him. She knew.
Zoruk led her to the bench where Briv stood frozen. “Briv Rodin,” Zoruk said, his voice a neutral catalyst. “Alya Dumont.”
“Hi,” Briv said, and it came out as a croak. He cleared his throat, forced a smile. “Sorry. This is… a terrible way to meet someone whose birthday I’ve remembered more consistently than some of my relatives.”
Alya’s smile was gentle, not the wide, dazzling one from her commercials, but something smaller, more real. It reached her eyes, which stayed on his face. “Briv. I know your name. I remember your comments. You were always funny. Never invasive.”
The kindness in her voice was a physical warmth that spread through his chest, followed immediately by a cold wave of shame. She’d noticed. Of course she’d noticed. He’d built a cathedral from digital bricks, and she’d been vaguely aware of the construction noise.
“That was the goal,” he managed, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Funny, not frightening. The bar is low, but I aimed for it.”
Zoruk gestured to the bench. They sat, Briv and Alya at either end, Zoruk standing slightly apart, a silent moderator. The canal flowed past, indifferent.
“This is a cooperation test,” Zoruk stated, his gaze on the water. “The parameters are simple. Briv, you must speak to Alya as a real person, not as five years of imagined meaning. Alya, you must answer as yourself, not as the graceful public image that makes everyone feel seen. No performances. Only the truth of this moment.”
Briv let out a shaky laugh. “No pressure. Just dismantle my entire internal mythology in front of the subject. Great.”
Alya watched him, her head tilted. “You say ‘subject.’ Like I’m a specimen.”
“Aren’t you?” The words slipped out, raw and honest. He winced. “Sorry. That’s the problem. To three million people, you are. To me, you were. Are.”
“What did you want from this meeting, Briv?” Zoruk asked, his tone devoid of judgment, which made it worse.
Briv looked at Alya, at the real person occupying the space where his idea of her had lived for so long. The fantasy was already cracking under the weight of her actual presence—the faint scent of her perfume, the way she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, the slight tension in her shoulders. She was nervous too.
“I wanted you to recognize me,” he said, the admission pulled from a deep, embarrassed place. “Not my name. Me. The person behind the comments. I wanted the… the connection I imagined to be real. For you to look at me and see something… special.” He shook his head, looking away at a passing boat. “And I know how unfair that is. It’s like sending invisible friendship letters for years and then being angry the recipient doesn’t know your middle name.”
Alya didn’t mock him. She folded her hands in her lap, her expression thoughtful. “I never meant for a small reply to feel like a promise. It was just a reply. A moment. I’m… sorry if it felt like more.”
“Did you know it might?” Zoruk pressed her, shifting his gaze. “That your attention, however brief, could become foundational for someone watching from a distance?”
She was silent for a long moment. A duck paddled by, quacking. “I know my attention has weight,” she said finally, her voice quieter. “I’m not naive. When you have a platform, a ‘like’ isn’t just a ‘like.’ A reply isn’t just a reply. It’s a token. A validation. I know that.” She looked at Briv, her gaze direct. “But if I thought about the weight of every single interaction, I’d never post anything. I’d never speak. It’s easier to just be kind, to be friendly, and hope that’s enough. To hope people understand the difference between a public kindness and a private… invitation.”
“But the line is blurry,” Zoruk said. “Especially for those who crave the connection. Look at the people already in your orbit. Remy Bernier has love, a real, private relationship. Rachelle Lebas has loyalty, the intimacy of shared daily life. Corinne Chagnon has management, the control of access. Georges Bernier has provocation, a way to pierce the bubble through chaos. And Briv? He had admiration. A distant, respectful worship. Each handles their access to you differently. Each believes their way is the most authentic.”
Briv flinched at the word ‘worship.’ It was true, and it sounded pathetic. “I never wanted access,” he said, focusing on the worn toe of his shoe. “Not like that. I didn’t want to be Remy. I didn’t want to be Georges, teasing you to get a reaction. I just wanted… a chance to be seen. Honestly. Just once.”
Alya’s gentle smile returned, tinged with a sadness now. “Being seen honestly is harder than being admired, Briv. Admiration is a filter. It only shows you the good parts, the shiny parts. Being seen honestly means showing the tired parts, the insecure parts, the parts that snap at your manager or hide from your boyfriend because you can’t have one more serious conversation.” She glanced at Zoruk, then back. “Remy sees that. Rachelle sees that. It’s not always pretty. It’s work.”
“And do you think Briv wanted the work?” Zoruk asked her. “Or just the finished, beautiful product?”
It was the cruelest question yet. Briv felt it land in his gut. He wanted to protest, but the truth held his tongue. For five years, he hadn’t wanted the work. He’d wanted the image, the idea, the perfect digital girl who was funny and kind and existed solely in the positive space of his screen.
He lifted his head and met Alya’s eyes. They were dark, intelligent, and waiting. No filter. “I wanted the product,” he said, his voice rough. “I built the product in my head. You’re right. I didn’t want the work. I wanted the… the masterpiece, without seeing the messy studio, the paint stains, the discarded sketches.”
Alya nodded slowly. “And I let you. I presented the masterpiece. I curated the gallery. That’s my job, in a way. But it’s also my shield.”
“A shield that can feel like a promise,” Briv finished for her. He felt a strange, hollow relief. The cathedral was crumbling, and the sky it revealed was grey and ordinary, but it was real. “I get it now. You’re not responsible for my museum.”
“But I am responsible for knowing the power of the artifacts I put on display,” she said, surprising him. It was a concession, an honesty that matched his own. “Corinne tells me this. Rachelle screams it at me. Remy just… looks at me sometimes, and I know he’s thinking it. That my kindness can be a weapon if I’m not careful. That it can give people the wrong idea. Like it did with you.”
“It wasn’t wrong,” Briv said quickly, then corrected himself. “It wasn’t malicious. It was just… asymmetrical. I assigned meaning you didn’t put there. That’s on me.”
The air between them changed. The nervous energy bled away, replaced by a quiet, mutual recognition. The fantasy was named, dissected, and laid to rest on the bench between them. What remained was two people in their twenties, sitting by a canal on a cool afternoon, one famously beautiful, one artistically inclined, both suddenly very ordinary and very tired.
Zoruk observed the shift. The tension had not evaporated, but it had transformed from a brittle, potentially dangerous thing into something softer, more melancholic, and ultimately more useful.
“Cooperation has occurred,” he stated, his work done. “Briv named the fantasy without demanding payment for it. Alya named the power of kindness without pretending it is harmless. You have both moved from imagined territory into real ground. It is less fertile for dreams, but more stable for building.”
He gave a slight, almost imperceptible bow of his head and began to walk away, leaving them alone.
Briv watched him go, then looked back at Alya. She was watching the water, her profile etched against the grey-green light. She was still breathtakingly beautiful, but the aura of unreality had gone. She was a person who got tired, who had complicated relationships, who had a manager who controlled her and a friend who resented her sometimes and a boyfriend she hid from. She was real.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly.
“Don’t be,” she said, turning to him. Her smile was small, genuine. “It’s the ecosystem. I live in it. I feed it sometimes. I can’t be angry at the birds for eating the seeds I scatter.”
“That’s a generous way to put it.”
“It’s the only way I can put it and keep doing what I do,” she said, and he heard the weariness in it, the weight of being perpetually, publicly kind.
He nodded. They sat in silence for a minute, the sounds of the city a distant hum.
“So,” Briv said, the old humor returning, now stripped of its desperate edge. “If we end up on this Tethys Dome thing together… do I get to be the funny, non-invasive guy in the background, or do I have to develop a whole new personality?”
Alya laughed, a real, bright sound that made a passerby glance over and smile. “Be the funny, non-invasive guy. The world needs more of those. Just… maybe say the jokes to my face, not into a comment box.”
“Deal,” Briv said, and for the first time, he smiled at her without a trace of worship in it. It was just a smile, between two people. The reflection in the canal was just water and light, holding no secrets, promising nothing at all.
=====
The reflection in the canal was just water and light, holding no secrets, promising nothing at all.
Night had fallen by the time Briv’s phone buzzed, a single letter ‘Z’ lighting up the screen with a meeting point not far from where they’d spoken. The message contained no request, only a command of time and coordinates. His stomach twisted, but the hollow relief from the afternoon had been replaced by a restless curiosity. He went, his footsteps echoing in the now-empty streets bordering the water. The quaint daytime cafes were shuttered, their cheerful awnings now casting long, hungry shadows under the amber glow of wrought-iron lampposts.
She was already there when he arrived, standing under a bridge arch where the light didn’t reach. Alya looked small, her arms wrapped around herself against the chill that rose off the water. Zoruk stood beside her, a silhouette of impeccable stillness. He didn’t turn as Briv approached, his focus entirely on Alya.
“You understood the daytime lesson,” Zoruk said, his voice a low vibration in the stone enclosure. “The curated persona. The honest weariness. It was a good beginning. But Lord Olmer requires a deeper assessment. A stress test of the psyche beneath the social skin.”
Briv shoved his hands in his pockets, a defensive hunch in his shoulders. “What does that mean? More questions?”
“Observation,” Zoruk corrected, finally turning his head. His eyes in the gloom were dark pools, absorbing the scant light. “You both cling to narratives of control. Briv, you believe your respectful distance was a form of moral purity. Alya, you believe your managed kindness is a form of ethical protection. Both are illusions. Tonight, you will watch them shatter.”
Alya took a sharp breath. “Watch what shatter? What are you going to do?”
Zoruk didn’t answer with words. He simply looked at her. His gaze fixed on hers, and the rhythm of his breathing shifted, syncing with the faint lap of the canal against stone. Alya’s protest died in her throat. Her shoulders, tense against the cold, slowly slumped. The intelligent, wary light in her eyes dimmed, smoothed over into a placid, empty sheen. Her arms fell loosely to her sides.
“What did you do?” Briv whispered, panic clawing up his throat. He took a step forward. “Alya?”
“She can hear you,” Zoruk said, his voice now a soft, resonant hum that seemed to vibrate in Briv’s own bones. “She simply has no will to answer. Her conscious mind is… resting. The subconscious, however, is exquisitely receptive.”
Briv watched, horrified and transfixed, as Alya’s hands moved to the hem of her cream sweater. With the blank, efficient grace of a sleepwalker, she pulled it over her head, letting it fall to the damp cobbles. The cool air pebbled her skin. Her fingers went to the button of her jeans.
“Stop,” Briv croaked, but his feet were rooted to the ground. He couldn’t look away.
“You wanted to see her honestly,” Zoruk murmured, the sound weaving through the noise of Briv’s pounding heart. “This is honesty. The body, without the narrative. The flesh, without the performance. Watch.”
Alya pushed her jeans and underwear down her hips in one fluid motion, stepping out of them. She stood naked in the arched darkness, her skin glowing like a pearl in the diffuse city light. She was perfect, a statue of smooth lines and gentle curves, but the vacancy in her expression made it monstrous. She turned slowly, a full rotation, as if displaying herself on a silent command.
“Fuck,” Briv breathed, his horror entangled with a hot, shameful bolt of arousal. This was every secret fantasy made obscenely, terrifyingly real. “Zoruk, please.”
“You will be silent,” Zoruk said, and his gaze swung to Briv.
It was like a key turning in a lock deep inside his skull. A wave of thick, syrupy warmth cascaded through Briv’s mind, smothering his panic, his fear, his guilt. His thoughts didn’t disappear; they just became distant, unimportant. The command was the only real thing. His own hands moved without his permission, stripping off his jacket, his shirt, his jeans and boxers until he stood as naked as she was, the night air chilly on his skin. He felt no embarrassment. He felt nothing but a quiet, waiting emptiness.
“Good,” Zoruk said. He unbuttoned his own trousers, freeing his cock. It was already fully erect, thick and imposing, but as Briv stared, he saw the subtle movement beneath the skin, the hint of something more. Zoruk approached Alya, who stood waiting, her head slightly tilted.
“Kneel,” he said, his voice still humming with that unnatural resonance.
Alya sank to her knees on the cold stone, her movements languid and assured. She looked up at Zoruk, her beautiful face a mask of serene expectation.
“Open your mouth,” Zoruk commanded.
She did, her lips parting. Zoruk fed his cock into her mouth, not with a thrust, but with a slow, inexorable pressure. Alya’s eyes fluttered closed as he filled her, a soft, muffled sound escaping her throat. Zoruk placed a hand on the back of her head, his fingers tangling in her long brown hair.
“You worship the idea of her,” Zoruk said, his eyes now on Briv, even as he began to move his hips, fucking Alya’s mouth with deep, measured strokes. “You built a temple in your mind to her kindness, her sweetness. Look at the reality. Look at her.”
Briv looked. He saw saliva glistening at the corners of Alya’s stretched lips. He heard the wet, rhythmic sounds of her throat working around him. He saw the utter, pliant surrender in her posture. The cathedral in his mind didn’t just crack; it vaporized.
Zoruk’s pace increased, his thrusts becoming harder, more mechanical. Alya gagged softly, tears forming at the corners of her eyes from the depth, but she didn’t pull away. She kept her mouth open, her tongue pressed flat, taking him. Zoruk’s breath hitched, a rare break in his control. “Such a good fucking whore,” he grunted, the filthy words stark in the night air. “Look at you, choking on it. You love it, don’t you? You love being used.”
A muffled, affirmative whimper vibrated from Alya’s throat. Briv felt his own cock, hard and aching, twitch in response.
With a final, deep push that made Alya’s nose press against his abdomen, Zoruk groaned. Briv saw the muscles of his thighs tense. He was coming. Alya’s body jerked as he pumped his release directly down her throat, her own throat working frantically to swallow. Zoruk held her there for a long moment, spent, before sliding out with a slick pop.
Alya remained on her knees, panting, a strand of saliva and come tracing a line from her lip to her chin. Her eyes were dazed, worshipful, fixed on Zoruk.
“Stand up,” Zoruk said, his voice regaining its composure. He turned to Briv. “Your turn. You wanted connection. You wanted to be seen. Now you will be. Inside her.”
He pointed to a low, flat stone bench set into the bridge abutment. “Alya. On your back. Legs spread for him.”
Like a doll animated by a single string, Alya rose and lay back on the cold stone. She spread her legs, bending her knees, presenting herself to Briv. Her glistening sex was exposed, vulnerable. She looked at him, but there was no recognition, only blank, eager obedience.
“Go on, Briv,” Zoruk purred. “Fuck your fantasy. She’s yours to use. Tell her what she is.”
The command in Zoruk’s voice sliced through the last tatters of Briv’s own will. He moved forward, his body thrumming with a need that was no longer his own. He knelt between Alya’s thighs, the rough stone digging into his knees. He positioned himself at her entrance, the head of his cock nudging against her wetness. He looked down at her face.
“Tell her,” Zoruk insisted, his power a velvet vise around Briv’s mind.
“You’re just a slut,” Briv heard himself say, the words foreign and hot on his tongue. “A beautiful, empty slut.”
“Yes,” Alya breathed, her voice husky and strained. “I’m your slut. Use me.”
He pushed into her. The heat and tightness were overwhelming, a reality so intense it burned away the last ghosts of his dream. She was impossibly wet, her body welcoming him with a slick, eager clutch. He sank to the hilt with a guttural groan.
“Oh god,” he choked out, already moving, setting a punishing rhythm. The sound of skin slapping against skin echoed under the bridge. “Fuck, Alya. Fuck.”
“Yes,” she moaned, her head lolling back against the stone. Her hands scrabbled at his back, her nails digging in. “Fuck me, Briv. Fuck your little fan fantasy. Is this what you wanted?”
Her words, so filthy and direct, drove him wild. He pistoned into her, each thrust a violent erasure of his five years of polite longing. “Yes! This is what I wanted. I wanted you to be this… this cunt for me. I wanted you to beg for it.”
“I’m begging,” she gasped, her hips rising to meet his. “Please. Please don’t stop. Fuck your pathetic dreams right into me.”
He leaned down, capturing her mouth in a brutal kiss, tasting Zoruk’s salt on her lips. She kissed him back fiercely, sucking on his tongue, her legs wrapping around his waist to pull him deeper.
“On your feet,” Zoruk commanded from the shadows. “New position.”
Briv pulled out, his body screaming at the loss of her heat. Alya slid off the bench, turning to place her hands on the cold stone, arching her back, presenting herself from behind. The sight was devastatingly lewd.
“Take her like the animal you are,” Zoruk’s voice coiled in his ear. “Show her no mercy.”
Briv moved behind her, guiding himself back into her soaked, willing flesh. He entered her in one fierce drive. Alya cried out, a sharp, beautiful sound of pure rapture. He gripped her hips, his fingers biting into her skin, and fucked her with a relentless, pounding force. Each impact jarred through both of them.
“Whose perfect fuckhole are you?” he grunted, the words pouring out of a dark well he never knew he possessed.
“Yours!” she screamed into the night, her voice breaking. “Yours, Briv! God, yes! Ruin me! Ruin your perfect angel!”
He pounded into her, the force of it rocking her whole body. Her pleas and sobs of pleasure fueled his frenzy. He felt a coil of pressure tightening at the base of his spine, an avalanche about to break.
“Where do you want it?” he growled, his thrusts becoming erratic, desperate.
“In my mouth,” she sobbed, the command from earlier now her own desperate want. “Finish in my fucking mouth.”
He pulled out of her, his cock slick and throbbing. Alya turned, dropping to her knees before him again. She looked up at him, her face a mess of tears and fervor, and opened her mouth wide, sticking out her tongue.
Briv took himself in hand, stroking twice, three times. With a ragged shout that tore from the depths of his gut, he came. Thick, hot pulses shot across her tongue, over her lips, coating her chin. She kept her mouth open, swallowing what she could, letting the rest spill out as she milked him with her hand until he was utterly spent, trembling and empty.
The world snapped back into focus with a sudden, violent clarity.
The humming in his head vanished. The warm, syrupy compliance evaporated, replaced by the icy flood of reality. Briv stumbled back, his bare skin screaming at the touch of the cold night air. He stared at Alya, who was still on her knees, coughing, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, her eyes wide with dawning, horrified comprehension.
Zoruk stood nearby, fully dressed again, as immaculate as if he’d just stepped from a boardroom. He watched them, his expression one of detached analysis.
Alya scrambled to her feet, her body trembling violently. She grabbed her clothes from the ground, holding them in front of herself like a shield. She looked from Briv’s naked, horrified form to Zoruk’s calm face.
“What did you do?” she whispered, her voice raw from screaming and crying. “What the fuck did you do to us?”
“I showed you the substrate,” Zoruk replied, his tone clinical. “The raw material beneath the stories you tell yourselves. You are not your kindness, Alya. You are a body that can be made to crave degradation. You are not your respectful admiration, Briv. You are a mind that can be made to revel in violent possession. These are facts. Now you know them.”
Briv found his voice, a broken thing. “You made us… you made me…”
“I removed the inhibitions,” Zoruk corrected. “The desires were yours. The words were yours. The climax was yours. I simply turned the volume up until you could no longer hear the comforting lies you use as a soundtrack.” He buttoned his coat. “The effect is temporary. The memory, however, is permanent. Process it. This is the true cooperation test. You have cooperated with your own deepest, darkest selves. How you live with that knowledge will determine your fate on Tethys Dome.”
He began to walk away, his shoes making no sound on the cobblestones.
“Wait!” Alya cried, her voice cracking. She was shaking, struggling into her jeans with frantic, uncoordinated movements. “You can’t just leave! You… you raped us. In our minds.”
Zoruk paused, glancing back. His gaze was like black ice. “I did not violate a single physical boundary you did not, in that moment, profoundly wish to have violated. I am a mirror, Alya Dumont. You just do not like the reflection.” He looked at Briv. “You built a temple to a ghost. Now you have fucked the reality. Which one will you choose to believe in?”
Then he was gone, absorbed by the deeper shadows of the sleeping city.
Silence descended, broken only by the lap of water and the ragged sound of their breathing. Briv slowly picked up his own clothes, his movements robotic. He couldn’t look at her. The shame was a physical weight, crushing his lungs.
“Alya,” he finally choked out, pulling his shirt over his head. “I… I didn’t want that. Not like that.”
She laughed, a short, hysterical sound as she finally zipped her sweater. “Didn’t you? You seemed pretty fucking into it. ‘Fuck your pathetic dreams right into me’? That was you, Briv. That came out of your head.” She spat onto the cobbles, as if trying to clear the taste. “All those years of being the nice guy, the respectful fan. And underneath it was just… that. A guy who wanted to call me a cunt and fuck me raw on a public bench.”
“It wasn’t me!” he shouted, the sound bouncing off the arch. “He was in my head! He made me say those things!”
“He made you want to say them!” she shot back, her eyes blazing with tears and fury. “He turned a key, Briv. He didn’t put the words there. He just unlocked the door.” She hugged herself, the bravado crumbling. “Oh god. The things I said. The things I… I wanted.”
The fight left him. He sagged, leaning against the cold stone. “I know.” The memory was a film reel he couldn’t stop: her eager mouth, her begging, the obscene, perfect filth of her words. A part of him, a sick, hidden part, was still throbbing with the aftershocks of the greatest pleasure he’d ever known. The horror was in the enjoyment. “I know.”
“What do we do?” she whispered, her voice small. “We can’t tell anyone. No one would believe it. Or they’d believe it and just see us as… as what we were. Willing. Into it.”
“We were not willing,” Briv said, but it sounded weak, even to him. His body’s traitorous recall betrayed the statement.
Alya met his eyes, and in the gloom, he saw a terrifying understanding. “Weren’t we? For those minutes, it was the only thing in the world we wanted. That’s what he wanted us to see. That’s the ‘substrate.’” She used Zoruk’s cold word like a curse. “I spend my life trying to be good. To be kind. To be in control. And in ten minutes, he turned me into a mindless… a thing that begged for it. That loved it.”
Briv was silent. He had no comfort to offer. The cathedral was not just gone; the ground where it had stood was scorched earth.
“He’s going to put us on that ship, isn’t he?” Alya said, her voice hollow. “He’s seen what we are. He knows how to break us. That’s the point.”
“Yeah,” Briv said, finally pulling on his jacket. The fabric felt alien against his skin, a costume he no longer knew how to wear. “I think that’s exactly the point.”
They stood there, two shattered people in the aftermath, the silence between them heavy with shared violation and a secret, unspeakable knowledge of the darkness they now knew lived within them both. The canal water, black and secretive now, flowed on, carrying nothing away.