Zoey IV

Fried grits were better than the gloopy kind. That said, something about using reheated grits made them into gummy, sticky slabs of rubber that even copious amounts of butter and cheese couldn’t make tasty. Ajax mimicked their grandmother and slathered his in syrup, but she could tell from his expression that that wasn’t a winning combination either. Even Nana barely picked at her food, so Zoey had a suspicion she hadn’t actually tried this recipe before foisting it off on her grandchildren.

At the end of the meal, several hockey-pucks of grain went into the trash, and Nana didn’t protest. She did, however, remind them that lunch would be warmed up spaghetti squash. Zoey and Ajax exchanged glances, and both heated up a mug of water before grabbing a spoon and a teabag and heading up to their rooms to log on to Veritas. Their grandmother watched them depart with a conflicted expression; she wanted them to play together, but she didn’t approve of digital entertainment (though Zoey’s dad said he’d spent hours online as a kid).

Ajax popped into Zoey’s room to grab a ramen bowl, and sat down at Zoey’s desk while the soup rehydrated and Zoey explained how the full-immersion pod worked. Ajax used a headset and gloves at home, but they’d already set up Zoey’s old pod in his room for his use (and swapping the two pods so the regular one was in the guest room had taken two days and a four-person team sent over from Veritas Corp). He hadn’t had a chance to see one of the extremely expensive new pods before, though.

Zoey ran her hand over the smooth curve of the pod. It was a little bigger and more ovoid than her old one, but it was also way, way cooler. Pressing a nearly invisible spot, she made the lid pop open. Inside, there were several subtle, closed panels, and a strange, hammock-like bed. This was the most obvious difference between this pod and the old one, which had a solid but flexible bed fitted to the user’s body, with long ‘boots’ and ‘gloves’ that you slipped your feet and hands into. It was far more sensitive than the cheaper gloves and headset, and the feedback was much more realistic, too.

As much as the old pod was better than a headset, the full-immersion pod was lightyears better than that. When the lid closed, it filled with a blue goo Bridget called ‘biogel’. The gel not only allowed the pod to read the user’s smallest motion with near-perfect accuracy, and provided feedback that was almost indistinguishable from reality, but the medical version could also be both eaten and breathed. Of course, the medical version required implants and professional supervision, so Zoey had never tried it. The home model was used with a mask that delivered either filtered outside air or air from a tank, and didn’t need implants, though she’d heard they helped a lot.

Goals.

Ajax peered down into the dark hollow of the pod, a conflicted expression on his face. “So, when people go in the real ones,” Zoey bristled at the implication that her pod wasn’t ‘real’, but she didn’t say anything, “they have to, like, drown?”

Zoey nodded. “That’s what I hear. Bree did it, of course, and she said it wasn’t that bad once you got used to it, but they offer all kinds of music, and meditation, and even mild muscle relaxants to help you get through it the first few times.”

Her cousin backed away from the open pod, shaking his head. “Nah. I thought it would be cool, at first, but drowning and then being trapped in there? Hard pass.”

Zoey frowned. “Trapped?”

His eyes flicked away, snagging on his ramen cup, and he picked it up, poking at the noodles with his spoon. The two tea bags and mugs sat abandoned on the desk nearby.

“You like some weird flavors, fam,” he said, blatantly changing the subject. “What’s ‘Bagna Cauda’?”

She shrugged. “Dunno. That’s why I buy them.” She flashed her screen at him. “I keep a list of all my favorite ones, but mostly I just keep trying new ones.” Wrinkling her nose, she added, “I did learn to be careful of any with a red label, though. I like spicy stuff, sometimes, but I still want to be able to taste something else afterwards.”

Ajax dipped his spoon into the broth and cautiously tasted a sip. His face lit up. “This is bussin’! You should totes put this on your list.”

Zoey opened her list and did so, though she added an A and a question mark after it. After all, just because Ajax liked it, that didn’t mean she would. She had learned that after Jace went crazy over the cheese ramen. No. Just… no.

The cousins sat in companionable silence as they ate their illicit soup, and when they were done, they both sighed with satisfaction, though Ajax punctuated his pleasure with a resounding belch. Zoey waved her hand in front of her nose, and Ajax laughed at her.

Zoey shook her head. “Boys,” she muttered, then pointed at her bedroom door. “Out. Use the suit in the bin at the end of your pod, and don’t forget to go to the bathroom first! You won’t, y’know, go accidentally or anything, but it takes a lot longer for the urge to break through immersion in a pod, so it’s a good idea to go in empty, and schedule breaks so you don’t have an emergency.”

Ajax tossed his empty soup container in the small trash can under Zoey’s desk and flicked a dismissive hand as he left the room. “Yeah, Uncle Marcus told me all that. I’m good.”

Zoey thought of one more thing, and crossed the room at a speed she usually kept under wraps. She didn’t think her know-it-all cousin would notice, though. Grabbing hold of the doorknob, she easily held the door open as he tried to shut it. “Hey, um… When we log out, I have to take a shower to get the gel off. If you need to use the bathroom, tell me, so I can wait a few minutes. Do not wander the halls until I’m done.” The suit was clingy enough when it was dry, and when it was wet, it was like a second skin. Ajax might be her cousin, but he was also a teenage boy, and she just didn’t want him to see her until she changed. Honestly, she didn’t like anyone to see her until she changed.

The half of his face that she could see through the crack in the door looked a little puzzled, but he shrugged. “Whatever.” For once, the word didn’t sound hostile.

She let the door close, and listened as his footsteps retreated down the hall, and the bathroom door clicked. Turning back to her room, she sighed at Max, who had his nose stuck in her trash can, happily licking the styrofoam cup clean. Crossing to the desk, she leaned down and pulled the soup container out of the trash, ignoring the wounded brown eyes Max gave her at this sudden, uncalled for removal of his morning snack.

“Like Nana wouldn’t see this in a hot second,” she muttered, shoving the cup into a trash bag she had smuggled into her room specifically for this purpose. After a moment of thought, she let Max clean out her cup as well. Fewer food remnants meant less chance of bad smells or bugs to give the game away.

Zoey waited until the sounds in the hall told her Ajax had finished his business and headed for his room. Her dad had supposedly gone over how to put on the suit, which could be a little tricky at first, but she didn’t want to change until she was certain he wasn’t going to need help. Five long minutes passed, and Zoey’s phone chirped with a message from the Veritas Online app.

Your Friend, Vexxx has logged on.

Nodding in satisfaction, Zoey opened the bedroom door and peered down the hall. Distantly, she could hear the slightly-too-loud sound of the large screen in the living room. Nana still called it a ‘television’, even though it was more like a computer monitor, and whenever she couldn’t convince Zoey to leave the house, she could usually be found sitting on the couch, with her good ear tilted toward it as she read the subtitles.

Looking down at Max, Zoey nudged him with her leg, urging him into the hall ahead of her. “You can’t stay in my room with the door closed, bud. You scratched up my windowsill last time you saw a squirrel in the back yard and couldn’t go chase it.”

Zoey’s lips pinched as she thought about that scratched windowsill. She hadn’t minded, even though it looked bad. It made her laugh, thinking of her dog barking himself silly as the squirrels taunted him from the yard below. No doubt it would have to be ‘fixed’ before they could sell the house, and when someone else slept in her bedroom, they’d never know the best dog in the world used to live here.

Max whined, looking up at her as his talk wagged slowly. He always seemed to know when she was upset, and she knelt beside him, burying her face in the thick fur around his neck. “I’m glad you’re here, Max,” she murmured. “At least somebody still wants me around.” She knew that wasn’t fair to her dad and Bree, but just at that moment, she didn’t really care about being ‘fair’.

Slowly, she stood up, swiping dampness and dog hair from her face. “Okay,” she sighed, patting Max’s back. “Go keep Nana company. I bet she has popcorn.” It was probably her imagination, but the dog’s eyes seemed to brighten, and he bounded off down the stairs. Zoey cast one last glance after him, then darted for the bathroom. She might not be all-but-superhuman anymore, but she was still much, much faster than anyone except her secret medical-grade biogel supplier Bridget would guess, and she could use the bathroom, get her suit on, and be in her pod in three-and-a-half minutes flat. Not that she’d timed it. More than once.

Bathroom. Suit. Pod. She had to hook up her own mask to the air tube, and even though she knew the system would check the connection and instantly stop filling the pod if it detected any leakage, she always double and triple-checked it anyway. Finally, she laid back in the sling-bed and stared up at the screen on the inside of the upgraded headset Bridget had given her when the full-immersion pods went public.

“Allie, start Veritas Online.” She barely felt the gel, which was maintained at exactly skin-temperature, rise up around her. Through some magic of density or viscosity, she hung, suspended in goo, as the sling was lowered. The game’s splash-screen flashed up, then seemed to suck her in, as Zoey logged on to Veritas.