Katriana slumped back down in her chair, numb. She had expected him to be hesitant when it came to her suggestion, but why had he reacted so poorly? Given his reaction to her critique of his game, it seemed unlikely that she would ever see him again, and it was even less likely that he would accept her apology. The GameHead cursed herself for getting so angry.

“Lovers spat?” Cheme, another server at the Greenhouse,  appeared with Katriana’s half of the check. There was amusement in her voice and she placed an extra cup of chai on the table ‘on the house’.

“No. We’re not like that.” She signed and moved the goggles enough to wipe her eyes. “I just…said some things I shouldn’t have.”

“Maybe you should ask that Wizard you were talking about for help.”

“What do you mean?”

Cheme smiled and scanned Katriana’s card. “I overheard your conversation, girl. If his ‘game’ is broken, why don’t you see if someone could fix it?” She hit a button on the table and the dishes collapsed into compact boxes that she loaded onto her serving tray. “I would hate to lose such a nice customer so quickly.”

Katriana nodded. “I thought he liked it here too.”

“Oh, he enjoys this place. It’s good for his soul. You are right to say that his demon is evil if it punishes him for coming here.” The black woman nodded and turned, hips swaying as she threaded her way through the tables and back to her mothers the kitchen. “Make sure to bring him back soon. He’s good for you, Kat.”

Katriana sighed again and drained her mug, being careful to collapse it when she was done. Cheme was right. She remembered how he had smiled the first time he had come here, and how he had smiled more and more over the weeks she had known him. If she had done something wrong, he should have told her, rather than giving up on his happiness. But his familiar could not be expected to help them repair their friendship, so Katriana would have to do all the work herself.

She stood and slipped out of the restaurant, still thinking as she descended the stairs to her floor-level. If Philip’s familiar really was broken, or his game somehow corrupted, then the Wizard should be alerted, right? It was what the man was there for, after all. But it had been frightening enough attempting to speak with the leader of their Server with a whole chatroom backing her up – how could she justify speaking to him alone, for a reason that likely was breaking some kind of confidentiality rule? Her Familiar was no use; it seemed to think that she should cut her losses with the professor and find more ‘normal’ friends. But that was simply unacceptable. Philip needed her.

No. That was a lie. Katriana paused to lean back against the brickwork of the block wall. Philip did not need friends who hurt his feelings and were unable to understand his difficulties. Philip deserved someone better than her. No, it was she who needed him, and the idea of not seeing the man ever again brought the tears back out all over again. She needed to know that there was someone else out there – someone real –who shared the same problems. She needed to know that it was even possible to keep living in a world where her every movement was regulated and everything she cared about deemed as unimportant.

Katriana stood and looked out over the edge of rusting fire-escape railings. Philip had survived the Game for ten years. She had survived it for three months. And during those three months she had lied, to herself, to her former friends, to everyone she met.

“I’m not fine.” She whispered, staring down into the darkness of the lower city. “I haven’t been fine for years.” But she pretended, putting a smile on for everyone around her, whether they be doctors or LifeGame specialists or even her own familiar. With Philip, she felt safe enough to let the smile waver, if just for a bit. With Philip, she felt as if someone might finally understand.

“But that damn familiar gets in the way.” That too was a lie, or at least a partial one. There was something strange about the man, beyond the sadness that had drawn her to him. Every time either of them began to feel comfortable in their friendship, that something got in the way. She had seen him, on many occasions now, losing his calm, stoic attitude for a moment, becoming so comfortable around her that he was almost able to blurt something out…but then he would freeze and the normal Philip would reappear stronger than ever.

A hover car passed below, filled with drunken college students intent upon finding their way to the garage five flights lower. Given the city construction, even on one of the long stretches of vertical apartment floors, jumping from this height would do little. Though the rusty stairs she was on could give out any second – a feature that gave the Greenhouse a bit of its charm – there was no real danger of dropping anything more than a few feet, thanks to the force-fields that stretched across the streets every level. But Katriana had no real desire to commit suicide again, despite potentially losing one of the few people she considered a friend. No. The Game was enjoyable enough to keep her going, and she was stubborn enough to refuse to lose a friend over something as silly as a misunderstanding. If Philip was unable to explain why he was different, fine. She would figure it out on her own.

Perhaps inviting him to the party was a bad idea. She let herself admit that as she finished walking down the stairs, all thoughts of jumping wiped from her mind with a cheer from her Familiar. Philip certainly was not the sort to enjoy crowds of people. But she would be here at the Greenhouse next week at the same time, with some suggestions as to how they might be able to get higher point values.

As her feet hit the sidewalk pavement there was a shout from up above. Cheme was jumping from landing to landing, hurrying to catch up with her friend, a scrap of printout paper in her hands.

“Hey! Katriana!” It had taken fifteen minutes for Katriana to descend the staircases that Cheme skipped down in less than two. “I forgot something!” She jumped over the railing one story up and slammed onto the pavement right in front of the Gamehead. Cheme’s acrobatics would have surprised most other passersby, but Katriana was used to the other girl’s idiosyncrasies.

“One of our regulars left a message for you. He said his name was Darren or something?”

Katriana looked surprised, but took the sheet of paper and scanned it quickly, mumbling a replied ”Thanks.”

“No problem. See ya latter!” And the waiter was back up the stairs, racing her earlier time to get back on the clock. Katriana nodded a goodbye and walked down the sidewalk to the closest entrance into the superstructure, still scanning the page. At first glance it looked like gibberish, meaningless words and numbers strung together with arbitrary punctuation. Yet her Gamegoggles deciphered the message with ease, a functionality that Katriana had not even known they possessed.

The message itself was simple, just an update of what Darren had used her information for, as well as a link to the first of the news stories he was planning on the LifeGame. She wondered at the secrecy as she swiped her way into the building and keyed an elevator to take her to her floor. Then she noticed a request for further information at the end and she spent the next half hour – which took her from the atrium floor, through the elevator ride, and back to her small apartment – composing a return message. Applying the encryption program included in Darrens message turned out to be quite interesting, and she was so distracted by the complicated ethics questions he asked that she did not notice that her Familiar seemed oblivious to her actions until after the message was sent and the encryption program wiped from the Goggle-system.

Hopefully, Darren found her answers useful.