Book 4: Chapter 6: The Search Expands
Bob
May 2333
Outskirts, Eta Leporis
I sat in my library, blearily gazing at the table in front of me. Will, Bill, and Garfield watched me silently, the occasional slow head shake the only commentary offered. Every once in a while, I took a half-hearted sip of my coffee. Bill finally couldn’t take it any longer. “You do understand you’re in virt, right? You can just dismiss the hangover, right?”
I responded with a pasty half-smile that was probably more terrifying than reassuring. “Yeah, and in the future I’ll do just that. There’s no metric in which this is enjoyable. But after finally reading your blog—well, Original Bob was by no means an alcoholic, but he did occasionally, when it was called for, go on a, uh …”
“Bender. Did you make that whole speech just to deliver that line?”
I chuckled, then groaned and held my head. “No, it was just a bonus. But goddammit, Bill. We are diverging. Nothing bad, yet, but I think you’re right in expecting it. And we actually have a Bobbi now?”
“That’s just a rumor. I don’t know of anyone who’s met her. But really, that’s inevitable too.”
I sighed and considered doing a reset and dismissing the hangover. It had served its purpose, whatever deep psychological need for self-flagellation was involved. But now my curiosity was up. “This feels pretty real. Verisimilitude in VR—uh, virt—has really been improving.”