Page 33 of What If It's You?

“So…seeing anyone lately?” If he was dating, that would absolve me, right? A lingering crush doesn’t have to be some big deal as long as you’re not letting it hold you back. I glanced up at Drew for just a second before turning an altogether unnecessary level of focus onto my chicken tikka. It was long enough to see the flush creeping over the border of his shirt collar…a shirt bearing a faded Final Fantasy logo. It was a small thing overall, but I couldn’t help but feel vindicated. IknewWorld D Drew wasn’t the same as the one I was used to. If only I could determinewhy…

“I mean…sorta. I’ve gone out on a few dates with this girl Nisha, but it’s nothing serious.” He laughed nervously, then took a huge gulp of his La Croix, sputtering as the carbonation hit his sinuses. This was emphaticallynotthe sort of thing we usually talked about.

“Could it become serious?”

“Maybe?” Drew winced, the awkwardness of the conversation seeming to physically pain him. “She’s kind of out of my league, to be honest.”

“How is that even possible? You’re one of the nicest guys I know, you’re a certified genius—”

“I’m not a—”

“And you’re cute to boot. Nisha shouldbeso lucky.”

Drew’s flush had spread all the way to the roots of his dirty-blond hair, and he’d fixed his eyes on the salt shaker he was twirling against the tabletop. I shouldn’t have said it—it was too flirty, exactly the line crossing I’d spent years avoiding with him. Still, I felt gratified at his bashful smile. This Drew deserved a little confidence boost. Especially since I knew, now, that confidence lookedgoodon him.

“We’ll see. I don’t want to jinx anything, but so far we seem to get along pretty well.” Drew’s nostrils flared, eyes darting to the side as his smile transformed for the briefest moment into something more suggestive. An image of his muscled, naked body, his morning erection hinting at all the other boxes he might check for the right woman, flashed into my mind unbidden. I tried to ignore the tendril of jealousy that threaded through me at the thought of him and Nisha tangled in those expensive sheets, hidden from prying eyes by long velvet curtains.He’s not really yours and he never has been and you’re not even sure you’d pick that life if you had the choice. You don’t get to be jealous.Still, the brief time I’d spent as Drew’s partnerfeltreal, even if it hadn’t felt totally right. And really, how much of that could be chalked up to simple anxiety? It’s not like I had to worry about misremembering major parts of my history with Ollie.

“Oh, I meant to ask you if you set up a profile? On AltR.” Drew set the salt shaker down on the table.

Fuck. I was glad not to have to be the one to introduce the topic, but if I had to start by defending myself, I was hardly going to get Drew to open up more about the problem. I took a long swallow of water, trying to douse my nerves, then turned to Drew.

“I did. Sorry if that wasn’t cool, I was just…well, I was curious. And you’d gone home for the day, otherwise I’d have asked first.”

“Oh, no worries. Honestly, I’m glad you did. We need as many different users as possible to train the AI on. I was just gonna ask how far you got. Did you get to load an experience, or…”

“Oh, umm…no, actually. At least I don’t think so? I was having a hard time getting specific enough for the program. It wound up trying to reboot the entire calibration sequence and I called it quits.”

“Yeah, it can be tricky finding the right inflection point. You’ll get better with practice, though.”

“I didn’t…screw anything up, did I?” I couldn’t quite meet his eyes as I said it.

“What do you mean? Like the hardware?”

“Sure, or the software. I didn’t, like…”Cause the program to glitchso hard it actually sent me—all of me—into another life for an entire day.“I don’t know, bug anything by not finishing the entire calibration?”

“Not that I can tell,” Drew said with a shrug. “You show up as a user, but it didn’t log any experiences for you. Which is what we’d expect if the calibration sequence didn’t complete successfully.”

“Right.” I nodded slowly, stomach sinking. Not that I wanted to mess up Drew’s masterpiece, but at least it would have been an explanation. “That’s good.”

“But if you let me finish setting you up, you could play around a little? It would really help us out, there aren’t that many people cleared to know about the project yet. Most of the ones who are cleared are pretty senior, so it’s hard to get on their calendars. Are you slammed, or…”

“No, I’ve got some time today.” I tried to play it cool, but the urge to shoutYes, now!was almost overwhelming. Technically Ididn’thave the time—I was swamped, not to mention I’d need to figure out what, precisely, “I” had doneyesterday. But it’s not like I’d be able to focus on datasets about conversion rates with various ad tests in various demos controlling for this, that, and the other withthishanging over my head. There was no way I could figure out what was right for me until I sorted out what had happened to me. And if the right choice wasn’t this life…then I really needed some more face time with the program.

“Amazing. Is now good, or…”

“No time like the present.”

With a grin that I hoped masked my anxiety, I stood, bused my tray, and followed Drew back to the Lightning offices.

I half expected the program to fritz out the moment I put on the headset—or, worse, somehow transmit the experience of Drew, naked, pulling me against him just that morning straight onto Drew’s monitor. The fact that it was the last thing I should be visualizing with a device that couldliterally read my thoughtsstrapped onto my head made it impossible to ignore.

But the calibration process was the same as the night before,except I had Drew beside me. When we got to the point of my choosing a moment to revisit, Drew paused the program to make sure I could hear him. Inside the headset, a stunning waterfall cascaded over rocks, the spray so finely rendered I could almost feel it on my face. The only hint that the scene wasn’t real was the text scrolling across the screen and fading again, over and over,Sequence paused…Sequence paused…Sequence paused…

“The best moments to revisit are ones that you remember clearly but that don’t seem all that fraught.”

“And do I have to know what about that moment counts as my choice?”

“You don’t even have to be the one whomadea choice in the moment. It just has to be something that could have gone differently. Like with the corn maze demo I showed you—someone could have found me, or my sisters might not have left me there, or I could have tried to find my way out again and gotten luckier. It could have been me who took a different path after that moment, but the result didn’thaveto hinge on my actions.”

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