Aiko slapped a hand over her mouth and stifled a giggle.

“It’s not funny,” Katie warned. They were in one of Jack Calvert’s cars. Jack had insisted that Katie let Malcolm drive her home, and Aiko had insisted on coming along for the ride.

“It’s hilarious actually,” said Aiko. “You standing there all breathless and quivering of bosom in that corset. Aaron all Studly McHotstuffin in his pixel kilt. His eyes meet yours, your cheeks flush, he’s just about to declare his lust for you and boom, yours truly busts that shit up cold.”

“Yeah, your timing is impeccable.”

“What’s the girl version of blue-balls?” Aiko asked. “Icy ovaries? Purple titties?”

Katie rolled her eyes. “What. Ever. You’re imagining things.”

“Yeah I don’t think so,” Aiko teased. “I think you got it bad. Which is hi-lar-ious. Because just a few hours ago you were saying it was weird to like him.” Aiko tapped a finger on her chin, and her grin was mocking. “Fangirling, you called it. Said he’d never like you back because you’re not a supermodel and–”

“Oh, my god,” Katie said sighing dramatically. “You’re like a human tape recorder, jeez. I know what I said, but then I started seeing things your way –”

“Oh, yeah?” Aiko crossed her arms over her chest and settled back into her seat with a look of satisfaction on her face.

Dammit, Katie thought with irritation. This whole conversation had been one of Aiko’s little traps.

Katie sneered and stuck out her tongue as Aiko smirked at her in triumph and waggled her eyebrows.

“I knew you liked him.”

“Shut up.”

* * *

He’d really wanted to kiss her last night.

During what was the highlight of his career, after having given probably the most important speech of his professional life, all Aaron Eldridge could think about was Katie Martinez. The way her cheeks pinked up when she was slightly embarrassed, the way the tiny dimples at the corner of those strawberry lips flashed when she smiled. He’d really like a chance to spill tea on her again. And then lick it off. He replayed last night’s clumsy episode in his mind. Imagined the shiny wet trails of liquid curving over the swell of her breasts and disappearing under the fabric of her dress.

Aaron shivered at the memory. God, she was hot.

The launch for HL2 had gone very well. Eldridge Innovations’ announcement was dominating the tech blogs and was the featured story of every news cycle on broadcast and cable television. Aaron was definitely happy about that. What he wasn’t so happy about was the month he’d promised he’d spend in HyperLyfe. It was impractical, and he was sure it would be perceived as an obvious publicity stunt.

The PR firm his company employed and his own in-house marketing department thought a month in Virtual Reality was a brilliant idea. In his morning meeting with the team, Susan Charles, the exec in charge of the launch, showed him the press release outlining how Aaron would spend his time in-world, and an itinerary for each week. They had everything organized and informed him he’d be hosting daily live streams of his adventures. They had a list of planets for Aaron to visit while in HyperLyfe, user-created communities that they thought showcased the best of virtual reality.

Truth was, he’d been barely listening during the meeting. He trusted his team to sort it all out. So, rather then bother memorizing the minutia, instead he found himself daydreaming of the Scottish Highlands, of a pretty brunette in a tartan skirt and woolen corset. Bright-eyed with a sweet smile, a sexy ass, and an even sexier brain.

Somebody said Celestia, and Aaron was rocked out of his reverie.

“Mmm? What’s that?” He said, straightening in his chair. “What about Celestia?”

“We’ve got you scheduled to visit that planet later in the week,” said one of the marketing guys. “We have you hitting all the hot spots for the first few days. Dance clubs and race tracks, a couple of sci-fi places to really draw in the male fourteen to twenty-two age group. That’s our initial target–”

“Scratch that,” said Aaron waving his hand. “Our target demographic for VR is vastly different than for the rest of our games. Dance clubs and NASCAR aren’t going to impress anyone. They’ve got that stuff in real life. Celestia is what we should be leading with.”

The guy stiffened and Aaron stared him down. “For that matter, your initial suggestion is way off base too. Are you under the impression that only teenage boys game? Or that only males enjoy racing and sci-fi?”

“Well, yeah.” The guy scoffed and shot Aaron an arrogant look. “I mean, come on. Women don’t–”

Aaron stood from his chair and placed both hands on the conference table. “You’re fired,” he said. “I don’t have time for that attitude, and I really don’t have time to educate you on why you’re wrong. Do you even read the monthly earnings reports? Has it escaped your attention that half the game designers at this company are women?”

The guy stood up from his chair, red-faced, fists bunching up like he was preparing for a fight.

“Aaron,” Susan said, throwing a pitying glance at the guy. “Can’t we talk about this? I’m sure–”

“No,” said Aaron. “He’s fired.”

“This is bullshit!” the guy yelled. E.I.’s security, ever present on the other side of the conference room’s glass wall, saw the scene and waltzed in, ready for Aaron’s instruction.

“Meeting’s over everyone,” said Aaron, and people wasted no time clearing the room, including Susan, although she kept trying to catch Aaron’s eye as she backed out of the room. Aaron wasn’t having it. He quietly informed security of the sudden change in personnel, and two burly guys in black suits lifted the shell-shocked marketing guy by the elbows and escorted him from the building.

“Drama Queen.” Aiko strode into the room and hopped up onto the table, folding her rainbow tights covered legs crisscross style. “What’d that guy do? Spill tea on you?”

“Stop it,” Aaron warned with a smirk. “Nah, I just sensed some man-baby vibes. He had a no girls allowed in gaming attitude and I won’t have that shit here.”

“Fuck no,” said Aiko, snagging a donut from a box on the table. “What an ass. I spend like 95% of my time gaming. And shit, Katie, she’s like the best game creator I know.”

“That reminds me,” Aaron said, shuffling through a stack of papers, “can you get me in touch with her?”

“Oooooooo.” Aiko stuffed the donut in her mouth and picked up a nearby piece of paper and fanned herself with it dramatically. “Whoo! Thum-body hath a cwush,” she teased.

“What?” Aaron said, walking around the table toward her. “I don’t speak donut, care to try that again?”

Aiko chomped the donut, chewed and swallowed. She grinned up at Aaron smugly. “You like my KitKat. I knew you would.”

“Grow up.” Aaron flicked her on the arm. “Yeah I like her, so gimmee her phone number or email or something would ya? I want to ask her out.”

“You’ll be seeing her this week,” said Aiko. “Just ask her then.” She held up the piece of paper and waved it under Aaron’s nose.

“What are you talking about?” Aaron snatched the paper from her and scanned the front. “This is the marketing team’s itinerary.”

Aiko stuffed the donut back in her mouth, and got on tip-toe to lean over Aaron’s arm. “Right there.” She pointed. “Catalina Celestina, owner and creator of Celestia. That’s Katie.”

Aaron stared at her. “You’re shitting me.”

“I shit you not, stretch,” she said. “May I live a thousand lives and never eat a bear claw again.”

* * *

Katie leaned against the doorway of her spare bedroom, now filled with a crew of six men hard at work erecting a giant black box, and looked at the handwritten note. Again. It was like the thirtieth time she’d read it in as many minutes.

Katie stifled a giggle. It was a really nice letter, if a bit goofy. Or maybe she just felt goofy because she was embarrassed, and kind of awed? Awed that Aaron Eldridge had said he was star-struck, by her.

Rupert meowed loudly from the bathroom behind her, and she turned her head to see the tips of his paws sticking out under the door, searching wildly for somebody to claw in retaliation for his unjust imprisonment.

“We’re done here,” said one of the workmen, wiping his hands on his overalls. “So you can let the little guy out in just a few minutes.” He grabbed a clipboard from his toolbox and crossed to her. “Sign right there, and we’ll be out of your way.”

Katie snuck a glance at the big black box that now took up nearly every square inch of her small spare bedroom.

“That sure didn’t take long,” she said, signing and handing the clipboard back. “When you showed up this morning I was skeptical that it would be ready in time but wow, I’m impressed.”

“Thank you,” said the workman. “We’ve got installation down to about…” He checked his watch. “Forty-two minutes, now. A new record.”

Katie thanked the crew and walked them to her front door, locking it behind them before returning to let Rupert out of the bathroom. He took one cautious step over the threshold of the spare room, hissed at the black box, and scampered away.

“Techno-phobe,” she muttered as she closed the bedroom door and took her own first steps toward the Insta-rig. Pressing her palm to a smooth glass plate on the side, she smiled when it lit up and a familiar voice greeted her.

“Bio-data received,” said Command. “Thank you. Welcome, Katie Martinez, to your personal HyperLyfe 2.0 rig-bay.”

The wall in front of her sprung an opening. Cool, teal-colored lights hummed softly to life as Katie stuck her head inside and looked around. It was the same as the rig-bays at Lux, just smaller.

“Shall we begin?”

* * *

“Are we still broadcasting?” Katie asked. Her rainbow feathered wings kept her hovering in mid-air, bobbing at eye level with Aaron’s giant mechanical robot avatar. “We’re not live still? It’s over, right?”

Yes!” Aaron laughed and rolled his shoulders, trying to work some of the tension out of his muscles. His avatar’s arms followed the movement, the sound of metal grinding as he moved. “And boy am I glad. Talk about stressful!”

“Oh my God, I know!” Katie grinned, and her avatar twirled in circles, platinum eyes shining as sparkles of light emitted from a wild cascade of golden hair. “There were a million questions coming in, faster than light. And so many people! I’ve never had that many visitors at Celestia at one time. You’re quite the crowd-pleaser Aaron.”

“Me?” Aaron scoffed. “It was your world they came to see. I just built the sandbox, you made the castle.”

Aaron’s first day live-streaming from virtual reality had gone exceedingly well. He and Katie had spent the whole day together hosting a guided exploration through the sights of Celestia that was broadcast in realtime all over the world. The response had been incredible. Not only had millions of people tuned in to watch, but HyperLyfe experienced an enormous surge in logins, with countless avatars pouring into the world to follow Aaron and Katie around as they explored.

“That’s kind of you to say,” said Katie. “But you’re the–”

“I’m sorry Katie,” Aaron said, holding up a hand. “Can you hang on one second? My PR team is messaging me.”

Aaron took the call, listened, thanked his team, and then returned to his private voice session with Katie.

“Well they’re happy,” he said, “Or at least as happy as they ever are with me.” Aaron chuckled. “This month-in-VR thing has kind of stressed everyone out.”

“I was wondering about that,” said Katie. “Are you literally spending all your time in world? I mean you’ve gotta sleep, shower, eat. They can’t expect you to be here a full twenty-four seven, what about private stuff, like with your business?”

“Well, thankfully, that reporter didn’t trick me into any details,” said Aaron. “But I know if we don’t make a good faith effort, we’ll get some bad press for it. To be honest, at this point I’m kind of curious. I’m looking at the whole thing as an experiment.”

“Still,” said Katie. “Everybody needs downtime.”

“Definitely,” he said. “And we’ve planned for that. When I’m not live streaming anything, whatever I’m doing is private. Our website shows that I’m logged in, but not exactly where I am or what I’m doing. That’s what we’re doing for business meetings and stuff. Staff is coming in-world with avatars and meeting me at my virtual office here in HL.”

“I bet that’s fun for them,” said Katie.

“They hate it,” Aaron groaned. “You know that saying, the cobbler’s children have no shoes? That’s my office. It’s just a giant, empty, white room with chairs. I’ve never really done much with it. Everybody keeps yelling at me that the environment is not conducive to creativity.”

Katie laughed. “Well it’s meant for business, not pleasure, not like your castle.”

She coughed and laughed and Aaron wondered if she was thinking what he was, that the last time they’d been in VR together they’d been alone, in a bedroom in that very same castle. He was delighted to think that she associated pleasure with her visit there.

“Hey,” he said, giving in to impulse. “I’m starving and in the mood for some great company and a bad movie. Would you care to join me? Tonight?”

“That would be very cool,” Katie said. “So uh, we’ll both go eat and then meet back here–”

“No no, don’t go anywhere,” said Aaron, the giant metal teeth of his robot breaking into a wide grin. “I’ve got dinner covered.”

“Aaron,” said Katie, her avatar’s brow furrowing in confusion. “As realistic as HyperLyfe is, we cannot eat virtual food.”

“Trust me,” he said. “I got this.”