Read Player One: What Is to Become of Us for Free Online

existence tragic — whatever “tragic” means. She can’t figure that out, either. It means that something good happened but was then wrecked. It means a waste of a human being.
    But Rachel is going to prove that she is not a waste. For example, she has proven that she can dress herself stylishly, just like a regular human woman. She read in a magazine that all women should have a little black dress and that all women love Chanel clothing, so she took all of the money she made from her mouse-breeding business and she visited the downtown Chanel boutique and bought a little black dress and shoes at a cost of $3,400, the amount she would receive for 8,200 mice. Rachel also visited a First Choice Haircutters outlet and asked for a makeover, because she had heard that all women love makeovers — and men find a woman who has been made over to be highly attractive. And then, having assessed her menstrual cycle, and dressed and groomed like a fertile and desirable human woman, she took a taxi to the airport hotel cocktail lounge because she has learned in Internet chat rooms that this is where people go to have flings. A “fling” is a human term to describe a zero-commitment, most often non-procreative, one-time-only sexual act. People in and around airports are usually experiencing a reduced sense of identity, and travellers like to flirt and experiment sexually in ways they would never do in their everyday environments.
    So now Rachel is in a hotel cocktail lounge, using an out-of-date computer infected with multiple viruses that, when activated, trigger the noisy onscreen arrival of a Las Vegas slot machine depicting human vaginas that click into place along with an enticement to meet the right woman online, now, as long as a Visa, Amex, JTB, or MasterCard number is given. A quick search reveals that the web link is to a server in Belarus, a statistically unwise place to ship credit data.
    Rachel is ready to begin her quest for motherhood.
    ___
    Rachel saw the sunburned bartender and wondered how old he was. The bartender seemed to be in reasonable condition, but Rachel remembered that, as an employee, he was probably not inclined to be sexually disinhibited and thus in search of a fling. The bartender was speaking with a woman who looked about thirty-six — or perhaps thirty-four if she was addicted to alcohol. It’s much easier to determine a woman’s age, as nature is far more generous in offering visual prompts in that department. Seated at the bar was another man — early thirties? He appeared well-nourished, and Rachel tried to determine whether he was handsome. “Handsome” is the male equivalent of beautiful, and to neurotypicals handsomeness indicates good breeding stock. Having studied copies of InStyle magazine for years, trying to understand the language of looks, Rachel remained unable to calibrate any rules of attractiveness. On the other hand, the man at the bar, who had had two drinks since he had arrived, kept two large rolls of money in his jacket pocket. Rachel took this to mean he was rich and could be a good provider to a child.
    The man looked at Rachel several times as she sat by her computer. She interpreted this as sexual interest and knew that it was her role to provide a countersignal, so she stood up and sauntered across the room in the manner of high-fashion models on TV.
    On meeting the man — Luke — Rachel found him agreeable enough. Luke had a couple of drinks in him, so she knew he was more likely to laugh than if he was sober, and she hoped he wouldn’t laugh. She hated laughter. Laughter was like a punctuation mark at the end of a sentence that reminded her she wasn’t human. And it was an awful sound, almost as annoying as crying babies.
    A TV commercial showed a reindeer, so Luke brought up the subject of reindeer and Rachel thought she handled it very well. Then came the subject of religion, and she thought she held her own there, too. There was a conversational lull after