This Other Eden

This Other Eden by Ben Elton

Book: This Other Eden by Ben Elton Read Free Book Online
Authors: Ben Elton
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of the studio’s hottest
properties, and he had been a huge hit in the Child Star Virtual Reality
games. In these incredibly popular entertainments, the player is faced with a
fictitious juvenile Hollywood super-celebrity, played by Rupert. The player is
then allowed to punch, throttle and, if he can, run over the Child Star with a
truck.
    The
game was already in its twelfth mutation: Child Star 12:
    The
Première. In this version, the player inside the VR
helmet encounters the Child Star at the opening of Smirk, the Star’s
latest kiddy picture. The Star does an interview, in which he goes on about how
his mom only gives him ordinary pocket money like the other kids and how neat
it is to get to meet all those big stars, etc. At the point at which the Child
Star says, ‘I’m just a regular kid. I guess I like to do what all kids do,’ the
player has fifteen seconds to throttle him before the minders arrive. The
player must kill the Child Star immediately, because with each throttling the
Child Star survives, the more obnoxious the interview gets: ‘I’m just a regular
kid, I eat pizza, go to movies and hang out with the guys in the mall. Girls
are cool but I don’t have a regular date.’ Eventually, if the player has
failed, the Child Star, still grinning his endearing grin, gets awarded a
special juvenile Oscar by Mickey Mouse.
    Surprisingly,
Rupert himself was popular in actual reality as well as Virtual Reality because
he was, in fact, a nice child. Whilst the trend for many decades had been for
pint-sized little shits to play witty, decent, inventive boys and girls,
Rupert, who was actually a fairly well-adjusted young person, had made a hit
playing a pint-sized little shit.
     
     
     
    Cross-dressing.
     
    As she fell, Rosalie
caught a momentary glimpse of the terrible pandemonium she had created.
Sunlight was pouring in! Pure, unscreened, naked sunlight! Not one square inch
of flawless white skin in the room had felt such a harsh glare in years. It was
a beautiful bit of terrorism. The sort of witty, brutal protest for which
Mother Earth was justly notorious. To pour sunlight on the beautiful people of
the Golden State and watch them run screaming for their BioShield parasols was
to remind the world yet again just how far people had drifted into simply
accepting eco-degradation.
    Rosalie
was in and out of the cake in a moment. It was as if she’d been falling into
and leaping out of cakes all her life. However, one glance showed her that it was
out of the frying pan and into the fire. Or in this case, out of the cake and
into the arms of the studio security officers. Five of them were closing in on
her, although they were making heavy going amongst the upturned tables and
panicking beautiful people. Rosalie scanned the room for a means of escape. The
ladies’ room was only yards away; she made for it. Rushing in, she surprised a
beautiful young starlet at the basin. The starlet had no idea what had been
happening, having been re-stapling a chin tuck whilst all the excitement was
going on.
    ‘Get
your dress off!’ shouted Rosalie, already stepping out of her cake-covered
green dungarees.
    The
starlet wondered. This could be her big break. True, the casting couch was a
coin to be spent sparingly. If you dropped your drawers every time anyone with
a two-picture development deal on the outer edges of the lot suggested it, you
might as well leave them off altogether. On the other hand, this woman in
dungarees had a pretty commanding presence. A lot of gay girls made pictures
these days; a couple were even production heads. The starlet thought that
perhaps now was the time to swallow her pride.
    ‘Hey,
listen, you’re real nice, I like you,’ she said, trying to hedge her bets.
‘But, you know, I don’t want you to think I get it on with just anyone, you
know?’
    ‘Get
your dress off now, you repulsive little bitch or I’ll kill you.’ The
wire-strippers Rosalie found in her belt gleamed inches from the

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