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Julie took one, shaky indrawn breath before blinking her eyes open and allowing them to focus in the dimly lit garage.
There was still a pair of (green? brown? hazel?) eyes watching her from only inches away and they still belonged to him.
Luke .
His head was tilted toward hers, their foreheads almost touching, their knees barely brushing against each other on the surface of the uncomfortably thin sofa bed.
She could feel the way the cheap springs of that mattress were poking into her hip, the texture where his jeans brushed up against the bare skin of her knee, the gentle breeze of his breath that ghosted against her face when Luke let a slow exhale escape his slightly parted lips.
She felt all of it and it felt totally, 100%, undeniably real .
Only it couldn’t be real.
Because if she closed her eyes she could also feel the vague outline of the top of the line HGC headset resting against her face. It was what enabled her to experience the world she was currently immersed in but it was also what reminded her it was all an illusion.
She had never been so grateful and so bitter at the same time.
“What’s going on in that head of yours, boss?” Luke asked, his lips curling up into a mischievous smile that made her heart skip a beat in a way a series of code had no business doing.
“Wishing you were real,” Julie blurted, the words unintentionally honest in a way she rarely was anymore, in the game or out of it.
His brow furrowed for a moment like he couldn’t make sense of her admission and Julie’s heart sank. That would make sense after all. A character created by an algorithm, even one designed by the legendary genius Caleb Haunt, wouldn’t be capable of processing its own lack of humanity.
This wasn’t the first time she had made the reality of their situation known and if Luke still couldn’t respond with more than confusion it only confirmed the nagging truths that continued to take up space in her mind.
That the sofa bed they were on, the garage they currently called home, this entire version of LA based on an idea of what the real thing had been like almost 60 years ago…all of it was just a product of the latest HGC technology and her own desires.
Julie was starting to allow herself to spiral further into disappointment when Luke’s forehead suddenly smoothed out as his expression became determined yet soft.
“I’m real,” He insisted, reaching out to grasp her hand and pull it gently to rest against his chest where an approximation of a heartbeat kept a comforting rhythm. “You’re real. This is real.”
He lifted his arm and pressed his free hand against her cheek, the warmth of his palm cutting through the phantom sensation of the headset instantly.
Julie leaned into the contact instinctively and Luke answered her subtle motion with another of those unrestrained smiles that unleashed something in her heart that had been crystalized into immobility since her mom died.
Julie returned it instinctively even if hers was more like a shadow to his sun.
“There you go,” He said softly, his hand dropping from her cheek leaving her immediately bereft of that precious warmth that somehow cut through everything.
He squeezed the hand held against his chest before dropping that too.
“We’re going to figure this out,” He continued with an earnest confidence she envied.
She wasn’t that sure of anything.
She hadn’t been in a long time.
“There’s nothing to figure out,” She argued reluctantly, some long dormant and hopeful part of her rebelling even as she spoke. “I’m not even really here right now. I’m in my room in 2050. I could press this and…”
Julie reached for the silver ring on her left hand, the engraved letters forming a bumpy path beneath the pad of her finger, a map home she was less and less inclined to follow every time.
She hesitated but Luke nodded, his forehead furrowed again, this time clearly more from concentration than confusion.
“Do it,” He prompted, his eyes dropping to where she nervously traced the surface of her ring.
The ring system was just one of the many advancements that Caleb Haunt was credited with bringing to the field of virtual reality gaming, a device that linked the player’s nervous system to the constructed environment allowing them to experience even the smallest of physical sensations.
It was designed to block anything above a moderate pain response of course. Few people were willing to pay to enter a world that could hurt them.
Unfortunately for Julie the technology wasn’t advanced enough to block the pain in her chest. Not when Luke was looking at her like that, eyes open and inviting.
The ring had another purpose beyond relaying sensation and that was to allow the player to exit the game at will.
“Come on, Jules,” Luke urged her again, his voice gentle but firm. “Show me.”
Julie bit her lip and glanced down at the ring, considering.
Technically there was no reason she couldn’t exit the game in front of a character. The whole thing was designed to only exist when she was actively engaged in it. In other words, she should be able to leave and return without the characters ever knowing she was gone. She had so far chosen to quit in private in some kind of futile effort to forget the artificialness of it all, to preserve the illusion of finally having friends, and purpose, and a place she could breathe and…whatever she had with Luke.
But it was probably time.
It was probably past time if she were forcing herself to be honest.
She couldn’t prove it to him no matter what he said but she could prove it to herself.
Julie sighed and let her eyes drift shut so she didn’t have to watch Luke’s face fade away then increased the pressure on her ring until she felt the slight tingling throughout her body that was the tell tale sign of exiting the game.
It felt like being shocked over and over with a small burst of static electricity, not truly painful but just unpleasant enough to remind you that you were a living creature with a body after floating through a dream for hours at a time. She reached up to remove the headset as she opened her eyes and took in the disappointing reality that awaited her, the tiny, windowless room she called her own.
More like a closet really.
She knew she was lucky to have her own room at all, a gift from her dad to try to pull her from her apathy after losing her mom, taking Carlos into his own room to provide her privacy. With the atmosphere outside unsuitable for spending more than an hour or two outside per day indoor space was at an incredible premium. Buildings climbed toward the sky in ever taller and taller towers, the entire population of LA stacked on top of each other like a child’s haphazard blocks threatening to tumble down every time an earthquake rumbled through.
Even inside the air tasted acidic and bitter after the simulated relief found within the game’s version of the past.
Julie missed it already.
The fresh air.
The blue sky.
Him.
“Julie?”
A knock at the door accompanied her father’s voice and Julie carefully slid the headset a little further behind her in a most likely futile attempt to keep him from seeing it.
Sure enough, barely a second passed between her dad cracking open her door and sticking his head in before his eyes landed on the white object behind her, the shiny secret too obvious to hide.
He sighed and wedged himself a little further into the doorway, the room too small for him to enter fully if they both wanted to remain even remotely comfortable.
“I don’t like you using that thing so much,” He reminded her, his voice dejected and tired as it so often sounded.
Julie took in the lines on his face, the way fine dust from his time commuting to work earlier had settled into those cracks like physical reminders of the weight of just existing these days. She dropped her gaze to her hands and the ring that still gleamed up at her, almost impossibly clean in a mocking contrast. A swell of guilt filled her.
“I know,” She muttered, unable to come up with a more satisfactory reply to her dad’s resigned disappointment.
“I understand wanting to escape,” He offered, clearly doing his best to keep his tone neutral. “But there’s only so much…I mean…you can’t live in a dream, Julie.”
Julie fought the urge to ask why not.
To ask what the difference was between her enveloping herself in a technology aided fantasy and him working so many shifts that he barely had time to sleep let alone think about everything they had lost.
“It’s just a game,” She insisted halfheartedly instead. “I know that.”
“Maybe you could work on some music tonight instead,” He suggested.
Julie nodded slowly though it was clear neither of them truly believed she would act on his suggestion.
There wasn’t enough soundproofing between the crowded units in their building and she knew the first chord she played was likely to bring angry complaints or worse from their neighbors. Somehow her mom had always been able to charm all of the surrounding tenants to not only tolerate but look forward to their musical sessions. Julie doubted she would have the same powers of persuasion especially now that the music conglomerates had started listening in and sending people bills for playing unauthorized covers. Nobody wanted to take the risk that a stray note could be misinterpreted as coming from their unit, and they weren’t likely to give her the time to explain her pieces were original.
Besides, she hadn’t written anything since her mom died.
Well…that wasn’t entirely true.
There was the song she had written with Luke a few days ago.
It had felt so…easy.
With him.
How could a mere semblance of a human being capture how she felt in words and melodies like that? How could he see into her soul when he wasn’t even supposed to have one of his own?
It wasn’t how it was supposed to work, not even with the advanced special play characters that Caleb Haunt was famous for.
Her dad cleared his throat and Julie forced out both an answer and a tight smile.
“Yeah, maybe I will. Thanks, Dad.”
She wasn’t sure what she was thanking him for, maybe for still caring despite her retreating from everything and everyone, maybe for still thinking her capable of creating something other than longing for things she couldn’t have.
He didn’t ask for clarification though, just nodded and told her he loved her, already backing out of her room and closing the door behind him.
Julie didn’t waste any time, the pull of the comfort she had carved out for herself and the desire to get the confirmation of her worst fears over with combining into a sense of cresting urgency. She reached behind her for the headset, tugging it over the top of her head in a practiced motion. The familiar whirring filled her ears as she reached down to press the top of the ring refusing to allow herself to hesitate.
For a moment she found herself adrift in the familiar disorientation that always came with entering the game, a slight feeling of vertigo combined with a sensation of cold air rushing over her body. Then she got her bearings, settling back into the digital version of her body which was still curled toward Luke’s on the sofa bed. She fought down the sense of relief that flooded through her as she caught sight of him.
He couldn’t become home to her.
She wouldn’t let him.
“Jules…I…what just happened,” He sputtered, interrupting her equally determined and depressing thought spiral.
It was Julie’s turn to furrow her brow in confusion at his words.
He shouldn’t know that anything happened at all.
Sure, he would remember their previous conversations about how none of this was real. Data retention from one game session to the next was a baseline feature of the software, necessary to maintain the realism of the scenario. But actually knowing that she had left and returned? That would break the illusion. That wasn’t supposed to happen.
“What do you mean?” Julie asked, treacherous hope springing up inside her like a physical object clogging her throat.
Luke’s eyes widened as they danced over her face.
“You disappeared,” He said in disbelief. “One second you were here and then you just…weren’t.”
Julie let his words sink in for a moment before answering in a nervous croak.
“That’s impossible.”
“But it happened,” Luke insisted, his voice rising slightly in pitch. “That was…wow.”
“I don’t understand,” Julie managed to get out, her heart pounding in her chest.
Luke seemed to realize that she was on the brink of a panic attack even through his own disbelief and he brought up both of his hands to rest gently on her cheeks.
The contact grounded her slightly and she took a shuddering breath as their eyes met.
“You know what this means?” He asked, that damn smile of his spreading slowly across his face yet again.
“I was telling the truth?” She offered, her voice even smaller than it had sounded a moment ago. “This is just a game.”
Luke brushed his thumb over her cheek comfortingly.
“Yeah,” He agreed with a nod. “But I was telling the truth too. I’m real. This is real. You and me.”
Julie racked her brain for any alternative but she couldn’t think of one. Whether that was because the unlikely truth of the situation was just that apparent or because she found it difficult to think with Luke staring at her like that (again) she wasn’t sure.
“You’re real,” She repeated instead, her voice gaining a little strength as his contagious joy seeped into her.
“I’m real,” He echoed through a widening grin.
“But you’re trapped in a game,” Julie pointed out, the sheer ridiculousness of the statement and its tragic implications somehow unable to pierce the bubble of happiness they found themselves in.
“We’ll figure it out,” He said quickly, his belief somehow enough for both of them in that impossible moment. “Promise.”
Maybe he thought she was about to protest.
Maybe he just wanted to.
Either way his head darted forward in that moment and the next thing she knew his lips were pressed tightly against hers, so warm, and solid and real .
By the time he pulled away he was laughing and Julie giggled along.
“What?” She asked, not really caring what his answer was.
Why not?
“This is an interesting little relationship you and I have,” Luke observed.
Julie raised an eyebrow.
That was the understatement of the millennium.
“I mean what are the odds,” He continued.
“Because we met in a place that doesn’t really exist?” Julie asked, tugging one of his hands down to link with hers, each of her fingers slotting firmly between his like it was where they were meant to be.
“Yeah, that,” Luke said, his eyes sparkling in a way she could no longer attribute to a glitch of code or errant electrical current. “And did I mention we’re soulmates?”
Julie rolled her eyes and used her free hand to shove at Luke’s chest but when he only leaned his forehead against hers and closed his eyes like he was completely sincere in his own way she couldn’t resist the urge to let her own eyes drift shut too.
This time she didn’t feel the phantom weight of the headset at all.
This time all she felt was him.