by Olivia Devon
Barb lip-read the words, then threw her own hands up and huffed in frustration. “I’m making lunch,” she signed. “You must be feeling better if you can be this hard-headed.”
She saw the television turn on as she turned to leave the bedroom. Katie had been tuned into the Gaming Channel too much in her opinion, and here it was on again, a headline about HyperLyfe scrolling across the screen.
“Captions,” she signed, snapping her fingers at Katie. Lunch could wait.
Katie loved her Mom, but there was a reason they lived hours away from each other. There was a time, right after her accident that she’d been tempted to move back home, to just curl up into herself and let Mommy handle all the grown-up stuff. But thankfully while Barb was nurturing, she wasn’t the type to coddle, so Katie had stayed on her own and pulled herself back up by her virtual bootstraps. They saw each other frequently in HyperLyfe. And when Katie saw how much her mother enjoyed it, she’d offered her the job of social director for Celestia. They kept their real life relationship to themselves. It was simpler if Celestia residents didn’t know they were related in real life. And, for the most part, it had never caused any issues.
Until today. When Mom had decided that because she’d met Aaron Eldridge for five hot seconds in a video game, she knew he was a nice boy who deserved another chance.
Whatever.
Closing her eyes on her Mom had been incredibly rude. Nearly tantamount to walking out on her, but Katie had reached her limit on the Aaron topic and needed it to end. She turned on the captioning for Game Hour and winced when Aaron’s avatar appeared on the screen. He was dressed in his kilt, standing in front of a roaring fire in the massive stone great room of his Scottish castle.
He looked gorgeous.
“Great,” Katie groaned out loud. “Bring on the humiliation.”
Barb sat down next to her on the bed and pointed at the screen. “He’s so cute,” she signed, grinning widely.
Katie rolled her eyes.
She missed the interviewer’s first comment, but Aaron’s avatar laughed, so it must’ve been a joke. It was good to see him laughing, even if the smile didn’t quite reach his eyes.
“So what’s all this drama been about, Aaron?” said the interviewer. “It’s been pretty crazy.”
“I’d definitely have to agree with that,” said Aaron, his avatar leaning against one side of the fireplace. “I never expected this project launch to take such a bizarre turn.”
“It really has.”
“Well, Stew, don’t sound so incredulous, your network has done a lot to help with that.”
“We just report the news,” said the reporter. “We don’t make it up.”
“Maybe not, but your network has been taking a point of view, a slant if you will, that hasn’t been fair, either to myself, my company, or private citizens.”
“Mr. Eldridge–”
“No it’s true.” Aaron held up his hands. “But we won’t dwell, and I acknowledge that I’ve made mistakes that certainly haven’t helped.”
“For example?”
“I let myself be baited. At that first press conference, I was baited into this month in VR thing to prove something that I’ve never believed needed to be proved anyway.”
“How so?”
“I don’t think any reasonable person really believes VR is an actual danger. Our sales have been phenomenal, we’ve got contracts with the military, corporations, and educational institutions all over the world that are anxious to implement VR. So, whatever hidden agendas have been lurking out there to discredit VR, I think they’ve already failed.”
“So you won’t be fulfilling your month in VR commitment?”
“No,” Aaron shook his head. “I didn’t say that. I’ll keep my promise.”
“Some would argue that you’ve already failed. The fact that you’ve been spotted in the real world.”
“The reporter had her point to prove, and I have mine.” Aaron’s avatar frowned. “She wanted to prove that VR led to addiction, that it was dangerous. I think the fact that I have taken time off, spent quality time in the real world with real people, proves that’s not the case. I trust the public to make up their own minds on that.”
“Well, about that time you’ve spent in the real world…” the reporter’s tone grew salacious. “Do you care to comment on any of that? Rumor is that you and Carly Carpenter–”
“Carly Carpenter and I haven’t been a couple for a long time now.”
“Oh? She says otherwise.”
“Stew, I like to think I’m a gentleman, and as such, I don’t enjoy calling her out like this but when she showed up in HyperLyfe and announced that we were back together, it was the first time I had heard from her in months.”
“So you’re assertion is that you are not back together?”
“No. We are not. It’s not just my assertion. It’s the truth.”
Aaron’s avatar looked tense and Katie tensed in sympathy. She glanced at her mother. Barb’s arms were crossed, and she raised an eyebrow at Katie in a look that said “See, give the guy a chance.”
“Are you seeing anyone right now?” asked the reporter.
There was a long pause, and Katie felt herself leaning involuntarily toward the screen.
“No,” Aaron said finally. “I’m not.”
“So the photos,” said the reporter. “The one alleged to be of you at Lux? That’s not you?”
“I’m a Lux investor. That’s common knowledge. The HL2 launch was there. I find it hilarious that anyone is scandalized of a photo of me in that building.”
“Well the allegation was that–”
“The allegation was that I was cheating on a girlfriend. I’ve just cleared that up. There was no girlfriend to cheat on. Period.”
“So you aren’t involved with Celestia creator Katie Martinez?”
Katie inhaled sharply and grabbed her Mom’s hand, while onscreen, Aaron’s avatar clenched its fists and shifted its weight.
“What I am…” Aaron said the words quietly, slowly, and his avatar turned its gaze directly into the camera. “Is anxious to get back to discussing the technology that is going to transform our world for the better, a cause that I’ve devoted my life to.”
“Yes but Mr. Eldridge, in the present, what our viewers want to know is, are you and Katie Martinez involved, and if so, what does that mean for the future of Celestia?”
“Nothing.” Aaron’s avatar sighed and shrugged its shoulders. “It doesn’t mean anything.”
His tone was flat, dismissive even, and Katie’s stomach lurched. Nothing? Doesn’t mean anything? What? Her? Her work? Or both?
The reporter tried to dig a little more but Aaron curtly deflected him, so the topic switched to the ZumZum acquisition. Aaron glossed over it, indicating that he was excited to be bringing on new talent but that he couldn’t discuss the details yet. The interview ended on a sour note and Katie turned off the television and turned to her Mother.
“See,” she signed. “He said it didn’t mean anything.”
Barb frowned and shook her head. “I don’t think that was his intent,” she signed. “He was talking to a reporter about his private life. He should be talking to you. Call him.”
Katie cut her hands through the air. “Enough,” she signed. “I’m ordering pizza. I’m starving.”
“Oh! Can we do it in HL?” Barb signed. “I want to do that Gino’s delivery like you and Aaron did. You said I could try out the rig-bay.”
Katie groaned and fell back against the bed.
Fucking reporter.
The guy was a dick who kept trying to steer the conversation to Katie and whether or not Aaron was banging her. It made him sick. He couldn’t wait until this month of bullshit was over.
Aaron looked around the bedroom of his castle and imagined Katie there with him. He pictured her everywhere, the image in his mind a mix of the real and the virtual. The real Katie, strapped to his digital bed, the real Katie, dressed in a t
artan skirt and corset made of pixels, laughing as he chased her up the stairs. When had his virtual memories started to merge with reality?
It was partly the technology, he knew that. The S-suits and the rigs and the visors made sensory experience in the virtual world rival that of the physical.
But mostly, it was Katie.
He was in love with her.
She’d shared his passions with more enthusiasm then he’d ever expected possible. It was exhilarating and addictive.
He missed her like hell.
He sat on the edge of the master bed and closed his eyes, reliving their first night together in his imagination. Pizza, a movie on the highlands, sex in this bedroom.
Actually, his system was set up to record and store all his sessions. He could literally replay and relive these memories if he wanted to, unlike the real world ones. The second after the thought occurred to him he recognized how gross it was. It was a total invasion of the privacy of a woman who’d basically made it clear that she was done with him.
“Command,” he said out loud, doing what he had to, before lesser angels could change his mind. “Locate all personal archived scene files featuring avatar Catalina_Celestina.”
“Locating files.” A moment passed and the computer spoke again. “Files located. Waiting for instructions.”
“Command: delete files,” he said.
“Files deleted,” said the system voice, and Aaron felt like he’d been punched in the gut.
Fuck, this hurt.
An alert popped up in the corner of his display.
Catalina_Celestina was online.
Well she hadn’t unfriended him yet. Maybe that was something. Or maybe she was just too classy to kick a guy when he was down. He’d probably log in sometime next week and notice her name missing from the list. And that would be it.
After a few technical difficulties, Barbarella69 was strapped into Katie’s rig-bay, and happily bouncing around Celestia.
At first, they thought they were going to be foiled by the speech commands that activated the system. Katie made a mental note to point that oversight out to Aaron, then she remembered she wasn’t talking to him.
But Barb had suggested Katie simply ask Command about a deaf interface, and low and behold, when Barb put on the visor, a holographic keyboard showed up under her avatar’s hands. She also had the option to sign if she wished, and have her avatar speak the words aloud.
When Barb saw that option, she beamed, and signed to Katie still in the rig-bay with her.
“I knew I liked that boy.”
Katie groaned and exited the bay, heading for her laptop so she could log in the old way. It was strange that after only a few days using the immersive technology, she was already thinking of the HL experience on her laptop as archaic and slow.
Her mom better order that pizza fast and get the hell out of her rig-bay. Maybe there was something to this VR-addiction theory, because she was jonesing to get back in-world. A little voice in the back of her head suggested it was really Aaron she was jonesing for, but she stamped down on that emotion quick and logged in, flying her avatar high over Celestia City in search of her mother.
She found Barb at the top of her newest skyscraper, her nose pressed against the glass of the penthouse she’d built for Aaron.
Barb smiled when Katie swooped down and joined her on the terrace.
“If I speak to you,” said Katie, trying something out on hunch. “Do my words translate to sign?”
“Yes!” Barb’s avatar said, nodding with glee. “I get text but there’s an option to have it signed too. A little video pops up in the corner of my display.”
“Wow,” Katie said under her breath. “That’s pretty awesome.”
“What’s this?” Barb gestured to the giant picture windows that lined the terrace of the penthouse. “You going to offer furnished rentals now or what?”
“It’s just something I built for Aaron. I really don’t want to get into it.”
“For him? Doesn’t he have a castle?”
“Yes, but this is a replica of his real place.”
“Oh.” Barb’s avatar pursed her lips. “I don’t get it.”
“He just moved into a new apartment,” Katie explained quickly. “He hasn’t had time to furnish it, yet, and he’s spending all this time in VR. I can tell he’s exhausted and… I dunno, it was just a lark. I was sick and up late and couldn’t sleep and so I built his apartment, and then I furnished it. I was going to send it to him, thought it might be someplace he could relax while he’s obligated to be in here. It was a stupid idea and I’ll–”
“Send it.” Barb’s smile was soft, but firm. “It’s a beautiful gesture.”
“It’s weird.”
“Yeah.” Barb nodded. “It’s that too. But you guys are both weirdos. He’ll get it. Send it.”
“We’re not. I’m not….I mean it doesn’t really matter now. I haven’t changed my mind.”
“Sure.” Barbarella69 donned a pair of sleek silver wings and fluttered up into the air. “Whatever you say. Still send it. At the very least, it’s a lovely parting gift.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“Good, now let’s go get that pizza. I’m starving.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Sometime into her third slice of pizza, when she was laughing with her Mom about her adventures in HyperLyfe with Aaron, Katie realized that she really missed him. Like, trying to hide the tears in her eyes from Barb as she attempted to fill the sad hole in her chest with cheese and pepperoni, missed him.
It had only been a few days ago when she saw him last. It felt like so much longer.
Of course, when Katie talked about Aaron, she glossed over the sexy bits. Barbara Martinez was no prude, but she definitely did not need the fine details of her daughter’s sex life. They talked about the tabloid photo briefly, but it was a short conversation that consisted of little more than dancing around particulars. Although her mother did mention she might want to come up for another visit soon, check out Lux for herself. Katie choked on a bite of pizza over that comment and Barb had to pat her back.
“Honey,” she signed, then grimaced and flicked a piece of half chewed pizza out of her daughter’s hair. “Don’t let bitterness and distrust ruin what could be the best thing of your life. Please. Promise me you’ll at least think about talking to Aaron.”
Bitterness and distrust. Steven had said the same. He was an ass, aiming to hurt her, but Katie had to admit, the same words come from her mother…it gave her pause.
Katie relented, told her Mom she’d consider it, and later, when Barb had settled in for the night and Katie was on her laptop in the bedroom, she took another tour through the apartment she’d built for Aaron.
She was kind of leaning towards sending it. But as she walked her avatar into the penthouse bedroom she cringed. It was way too much, totally presumptive. When she’d decorated the space, they’d just had sex and she’d spent the night spooning at his place. The result was she’d been in a warm fuzzy place when she’d worked on the bedroom and it looked like something a girlfriend would’ve decorated.
Floaty drapes over the bed, candles, a tapestry wall-hanging like the one she had in her own bedroom, and a romantic chandelier in the center of the room.
Ugh.
Quickly she set to work neutering the decor, removing all the feminine elements until the bedroom was wholly masculine, and frankly, a little bit cold.
There. That was better. Well not aesthetically, but symbolically, yes, it was ambiguous. Perfect. Now, she could send him this gift without sending any particular message.
She checked her friends list. Aaron was online right now.
Should she write a note to accompany it? No. Let the build speak for itself. It was just a nicely decorated apartment, and Aaron could take that however he wanted.
Opening up a gift alert in the HyperLyfe menu, she selected Aaron from her friends list, attached the 3D build of his apartment,
and sent it to his avatar before she could lose her nerve.
The system kicked back confirmations whenever you sent a gift. If the avatar accepted, you were notified. If they didn’t, you got nothing.
There was no reply. Nothing.
He had to have received it? Right? Maybe it was a glitch, or maybe his avatar was logged in, but he was actually in the bathroom or sleeping or something and didn’t see the alert.
Then again, maybe he’d meant what he said this afternoon in the interview. That she and Celestia didn’t mean anything.
She hadn’t believed him. The words had stung, but she hadn’t really believed it.
Katie stared at the screen. Still no notification. Chewing her lip, she patted Rupert’s head absentmindedly.
Dammit. This was her fault. She’d fucked it all up. And for what? The righteous thrill of being angry? He probably did have a reasonable explanation for the whole ZumZum thing! He wasn’t Steven.
No duh, said a part of her brain. If he’s not Steven, then what the fuck is your problem?
Then she felt it. In the pit of her stomach, deep in her bones.
She was scared.
She hadn’t acknowledged this feeling before. It had been too easy to wallow in anger, too easy to dismiss this queasiness as the flu.
What if this was really it, she blew it, they were over, and she was never going to see him again?
No.
That couldn’t happen…because…
Katie struggled against it, the blank that her subconscious was trying to fill in.
That couldn’t happen…because...agghhh…
Because she was in love with Aaron.
“Fuck!” she blurted out loud and Rupert startled, then nipped her fingers lightly. Katie scratched him behind the ear.
Still no notification. There was no way he hadn’t seen it. Stupid alerts popped up right on the display screens. They made a really loud “ping!” noise when the popped up. He’d at least have heard the sound.
Rupert padded past her lap and sat on the keyboard, and a second later her computer screen went nuts.
