Page 72 of What If It's You?

what’s going on?

I considered not telling him—there was no guarantee he’d believe me, for one thing, and it was more than a little embarrassing to own up to the fact that I’d used my chance to experience his possibly-world-changing new technology to ask about a work crush.

But Drew was the only person who could possibly find a way to set things right. Besides, I’d already realized it in my other life: He wasn’t my person, but I did care about him. There were a lot of ways to love someone. And refusing to ever be vulnerable with them clearly wasn’t one that had worked out for me so far.

Laurel:

quick call?

Drew:

??

“A work thing came up. Do you mind if I take a quick call in the studio?”

“Go for it. Frankly, I’m shocked you’ve made it this longwithoutfires to put out.” Ollie’s grin was jovial, but the words pressed hard on a tender spot. He was right, I didn’t even particularly love my job, I just liked how good I was at it. Why, precisely, was my job the part of my life that everything else was forced to work around?

But that was an existential crisis to solve after I dealt with the moreliteralexistential crisis.

Moments later, Drew’s familiar—though very, very tired—face stared back at me from my computer screen.

“Jesus. Do I really look this haggard?” He pulled at an eye bag, vague curiosity briefly animating his features.

“Video calls don’t do anyone any favors,” I said, smiling slightly. “If you’re worried about it, a ring light can do wonders.”

“Honestly? It’ll probably help my case if I look this bad when I talk to senior management. At least they’ll know I gave it my bestshot.” He smiled weakly, but his eyes stayed flat. “Anyway, what did you want to talk about? I don’t want to be rude, but I really can’t chat long. Not that it’s not nice to see a friendly face.”

“I’ll cut to the chase. I think your unrecognized user is…probably me?” I grimaced. Tried to bolster myself with the knowledge that World D Drew had handled it all remarkably well, considering, and that version thought we weretogether.“I know I told you I never completed my profile, but it wasn’t like the calibration sequence fritzed out the second I started. I tried maybe…three inflection points? The first couple seemed to confuse it, but the third seemed like it was working.”

“Really? And then…it spat you back to the Start screen anyway?”

“More or less.” I shrugged. “Anyway, I was thinking about it, and maybe like…the program glitched as far ascompletingmy profile, but maybe it’s still running one of those inflection points in the background? For the unrecognized user, I mean?”

“It’s not a bad theory, honestly.” Drew cocked his head to one side, considering. “But I’m sorry to break it to you, it’s definitely wrong.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because I already tried renaming the unknown user as you—your calibration mix-up was the only thing I could come up with for why it would exist—and it spat an error saying it was a duplicate profile. Which makes sense, since I already signed out your incomplete profile a couple days ago.”

“Oh. Got it.” I deflated. I’d hoped that would be enough to solve this.

“If that’s it, I really should get back to this…”

Oh god, I didn’t really have to tell him I’d completely fucked his program sideways to find out about a crush, did I? A crush onhim?

But I could already see him scanning the screen for the leave meeting button, and this was my last chance to make things right, not just for me, but for my friend.Courage, don’t fail me now.

“Actually, there’s more to it.”

“Oh?” He stared at me expectantly, head tilting in a way that, a week ago, I wouldn’t have recognized as subtle annoyance.

“Question for you: Was one of the data points you input onyourprofile ever, umm…that­time­you­asked­me­out?” The last words came out as a single breathless squeak.

“What?” He sniffed, halfway to dismissing it, then stopped short, tilting his head to the side again, as though heeding a dog whistle offscreen. “Actually…yes.I think I did input that. But how did you—” He blinked at me, a massively exhausted deer in the headlights. “Wait…are you saying thatyou…?” Horror slackened his face.

“Yes?” My entire body was just one big cringe.

“Okay. Okay that’s notgood,but that doesn’t mean it’s screwing everything up. I mean…like you said, you never even finished your profile. So maybe the AI is a little snagged on the question, but—”

---