Page 61 of Own the Eights Maybe Baby
9
Georgie
“Babe, say something!”
Georgie stared at her husband—her real husband, not the digital version. He stood in front of her, holding both of their headsets. She looked from side to side, then gazed at her hands. Relief, that wasn’t brown or shooting out of a baby with the furious force of a firehose, washed over her.
“Thank God we’re not covered in virtual baby diarrhea!” she said, the words tumbling out like…oh, forget it! Enough with the poop talk!
“That was…” her husband began.
“Intense,” she finished as Jordan nodded, looking as shell-shocked as she felt.
The plexiglass door swung open, and Lenny and Stu rushed in, then headed toward a tower of servers in the corner of the room.
“Sorry about the diaper glitch. We thought the developers had worked that kink out,” the tall Lenny said, opening up a laptop, then plugging it into the server.
Stu nodded. “You’re our first couple to do the grocery store simulation, and we sure weren’t expecting that.”
“Yeah, neither were we,” Jordan said, placing the headsets back on their respective hooks.
“Do babies do that?”
Georgie turned to see a white-faced Barry standing in the doorway. Wide-eyed, he stared at his iPad.
“You saw all that?” she asked.
“I don’t think I’ll ever be able toun-seeit,” the man replied, his gaze locked on the screen.
“That makes two of us,” she said under her breath.
But it wasn’t the glitch that sent a shiver down her spine. Sure, she may never touch another VR headset for as long as she lived, but all she could hear was that judgmental robotic voice’s final word.
Failure.
It echoed. It resonated. Yes, the simulation had glitched, but she and Jordan weren’t exactly kicking ass and taking names at the digital market. Quite the opposite. She hadn’t even thought to decontaminate the shopping cart. It was dumb luck that she saw the wipe dispenser.
How many other things had she overlooked? How many baby dangers lurked in the light of day or the light of a virtual world that she didn’t recognize?
“I’m going to call it a day. I think I’ve gotten enough footage,” Barry said with a shudder.
“And I’d suggest turning off the replay feature,” Lenny offered.
The CityBeat producer grimaced, his eyes locked to the screen. “It’s like a train wreck. You can’t look away. And each time you go back, you see some other freaky part.”
“We’ll talk to you later, Barry,” she called.
The man zombie-walked to the exit as the audio of her shrieking wafted back to them.
She might not know what to do with a pooping baby in a grocery store, but she did know one thing. She sure as hell didn’t want to watch their video. It was bad enough living through it. She didn’t need the postcard, picture, or the replay.
Stu gestured toward the door. “How about we go somewhere more comfortable and do a debrief.”
She’d prefer an appointment with a hypnotherapist to see if the memory of their simulation could be scraped from her brain. However, she had a sneaking suspicion that the little poop nugget of a recollection would be locked in her noggin for life.
Jordan wrapped his arm around her shoulders, and she leaned into her husband as they followed Lenny and Stu out of the simulation area.
“Do you feel all right? That was pretty jarring,” he asked, keeping his voice low.
