People were leaving the expo warm, happy and entertained. The couples were snuggled together through the snowfall. Families huddled together. Even the video game mascots had it better than Adam, they were toasty in their costumes. The female models in skimpy costumes were in the warm pizza shop.
"There has to be an explanation. Maybe she was too nervous to come?" I encouraged Adam.
"No, she just didn't want to go out with an ex-data analysis, who makes stupid jokes. I only talked to her from when she patched me up, to when she walked me to my car. I built this up way too much in my head," he admitted solemnly.
Quick footsteps thrashed through the snow in the parking lot, and Martin and I saw a short girl with wavy blond hair tromp past Adam. She wore green knitted mittens, a blue and red knitted beanie, and a large brown winter jacket. None of her clothes matched - it was Lara.
"Lara, twelve o' clock, right in front of you," I notified.
"Hey!" Adam jumped up with joy when he looked up.
After a short scream, scaring Adam, Lara looked closer and laughed. "Adam! I thought you were a snowman!" she said, brushing the snow off his face and arms. "I'm so sorry I'm late, my clock is set for west coast time. I only just realized when I took out my cell phone to call you."
Adam was in disbelief. "You didn't think my joke was stupid?"
"What?" she asked, squinting in confusion.
"Do you want pizza?" he replied quickly.
"I would love pizza! Where is it?"
"Just up here at the expo. I wanted to get a slice, but didn't want to miss you," he explained in embarrassment.
"That's so sweet..." she stated, holding onto his shoulder as they climbed the steps to the convention center.
Martin and I could see a clear view in front of Adam, as I made him promise to prop the phone up in his chest pocket, to let the camera on the phone peak out. He too was wearing a snow jacket. However, his head and hands were bare, and shivering. His broken leg felt ready to shatter like ice.
A waiter immediately showed them to their seats. He brought them steaming garlic bread and water to tide them over while he tended to his many other customers.
"I'm really glad you came," Adam expressed passionately.
"Me too! I'm just sorry I'm late. I made you wait for three hours and there could have been some cool stuff at this place," she said, looking over her shoulder at the costumed mascots, less than costumed eye-candy, and costumed patrons gawking at the previously listed. Adam paid no attention to the eye-candy. I took a screen shot for him, for when he wasn't entranced by Lara.
"So, why is your time behind by three hours?" Adam asked, filling his belly with bread.
"Because, most of my friends are on the west coast, so they're three hours behind," she explained.
"I still don't understand."
"We actually game online, a lot. I synchronized my time, with theirs, to be on their same schedule. I was supposed to have been in an online tournament with them tonight, actually, but I cancelled on them."
Her phone beeped a harmonic tone, and she checked to see the text alert.
"This is actually the team leader now. He says they won, but it was a close call," she informed. "Hey, look at this. I've never seen an ad on the web like it. Have you seen it?"
She handed Adam her phone and pointed at an ad to the side of the email. The ad had an illustration of a man in a tree, peering into an office building with binoculars. The headline read:
New Jersey Office Peeper
The rest of the ad warned about a peeping tom who observes unsuspecting women in offices. Evidently, if you see this man, no matter how much you might like him, take the blue pepper spray from your purse, aim for the eyes, and shoot.
Back in my system, we all looked at each other in wonder. "You don't think..." Martin began.
"No... What are the chances?" I questioned.
"We did it," he pointed out.
"You're saying that after Adam crashed through the window of the office building, Lara's computer's A.I. is trying to sway her away from Adam?"
"No, I'm saying Lara's computer's A.I. is trying to have her pepper spray Adam - in the eyes," he stated.
"Why?" I asked, bewildered.
"To keep Lara away from men. Alternatively, her A.I. just distrusts Adam. It was very strange how they met. Maybe she told one of her friends on her cell phone or on her computer, where the A.I. was installed, about Adam, and now it is placing fake alerts on her computer and trying to get Lara's attention to divert her away from him," Martin suggested.
After Adam examined the ad alert, purposely putting it in front of his phone's camera for Martin and I to see, he handed it back.
"The New Jersey Office Peeper. That's a strange one," Adam said nervously.
"Right?" Lara agreed, not connecting the dots.
They took a walk around the expo parts that were still open. The sounds of equipment clanked together and the occupants of the building still chattered away. Since the show was packing up, all the televisions and electronics were unplugged, so there wasn't much to see.
"Do you believe you can know a lot about someone from just one question?" Lara asked out of the blue.
"I never really thought about it. I think you would need to ask quite a few questions before you learn a lot about them," Adam answered, occasionally looking over to see if she was looking at him.
"What's your favorite video game? Of all time."
"That isn't easy to answer... Can I get back to you on that?"
"Of course. Besides, that was an answer itself," she laughed.
"Yeah? What does that answer say about me?" Adam asked, having fun with her game.
"You're indecisive, afraid to leave your routine, and a hopeless romantic."
The game stopped being fun for Adam. "Indecisive, afraid and hopeless, huh..." he sulked by her side.
"Being a hopeless romantic isn't a bad thing. Well, if it makes you feel any better about being a wuss," she began with a snicker. "I'm an adventuring dreamer that will only grow up through time travel."
Adam laughed continuously. "Did you find this quiz online or something?"
"I made it up and tested my theory on my friends and family. It was spot on."
They went into a dark conference room, where a couple of people were wheeling equipment.
"Do you know anyone else with a favorite game or genre?" she asked.
"My brother only really likes sports and racing games," he stated for the verdict.
"Oh, well he's simply not cool."
"How so?"
"He's not a real gamer!" she declared, elbowing Adam playfully.
"Well, he's a damn good non-gamer. I can never beat him at any games, no matter what they are."
"Is he computer savvy?" she asked.
"No, when he gave me his computer, it was riddled with junk and viruses. Wade told me that is why he is so good at defusing viruses," he said, slipping up with my name. "I mean, Jade, not Wade, his friend who used to fix his computer."
"Well, you should play him at a PC game that requires a mouse and keyboard. He probably won't be able to pick up the controls easily," she explained, air gaming with a pretend mouse and keyboard in front of her.
"I will try that next time he-" Adam began, but was cut short by Lara's shushing.
She grew closer and closer to him, chest to chest.
"Be quiet... for just a minute," she whispered. Suddenly, she struck a snowboarding pose. "Follow my lead!"
She and Adam were standing inside the dark conference room, where a few of the showcase assistants were gathering the arcades. He didn't even notice that they went in there. A security guard was patrolling the area, not noticing Adam and Lara by a cardboard cutout of a few snowboarding game characters. With their snow jackets, they fit right in. After the assistances who were wheeling in the covered machines left the room, so did the security guard.
She got out of her snowboarding pose and Adam got out of his skii'ing pose.
"Did you plan this?" Adam asked, still whispering, getting an adrenalin rush.
"No, I wanted to sneak in here to play tic-tac-toe," she joked. "Help me move this to that outlet."
They rolled an arcade system over to the wall, plugged it in, and it automatically lit up and began operating. Lara removed the black cover, unveiling a shooter arcade underneath. The system had four realistic looking guns, all of different models, calibers and categories. Although, it didn't matter, as you could choose your weapon in game.
"The game keeps score?" Adam asked losing motivation, as he won few, if any games, throughout his life against his brother.
"Hey Martin, do you want to play it? I'm reading data from Adam's phone's Bluetooth. We can join the game wirelessly," I said excitedly. "We could fill in for the two guns that aren't being used."
"Sorry, I'm talking to Irene right now..." he answered, leaving his stick figure idle again while he continued to talk in private with her, from system to system.
"Fine, I guess it'll just be the three of us playing then..." I said grumpily.
I replaced the third player's controls with a virtual gun that I toted. This was done by uploading myself, with just the essentials to play such a game, into the arcade's memory. Adam and Lara both raised their weapons, as I raised mine. However, right before the game started, a fourth player entered the game, naming herself Aurora.
I could tell it wasn't just the arcade filling in the last player, because there was a second Bluetooth connection controlling the fourth controller. It was coming from Lara's phone, I just knew it. Lara's A.I., Aurora, was aiming dead center at the screen.
We clashed through the game, Adam versus Lara, and me versus Aurora. It was the first gaming between us four. It wasn't just for fun; it was to see how experienced the other gamer was. It was to test the limits of the others, to know how they game for future reference, to know how to pace yourself in the long run.
The four of us, without saying a word, only laughs and giggles out of Lara and Adam, respectively, finished the first stage. It showed our scores, and mine, obviously was the highest. The game slowed to a cut scene of story, when Aurora decided to talk.
"Don't you think it's pretty ballsy to be playing video games with humans?" Aurora asked, spawning her visual self for me to see. "It's illegal."
She definitely was one of a kind. Her body was in the form of a human woman's, but her skin texture was of a futuristic circuit board, while at the same time, it had a Victorian steampunk feel to it. The circuits moved like a shimmering aurora, constantly changing colors. Thick copper heat pipes connected from place to place on her body, such as from her wrist to elbow, and top left shoulder, rotating to the bottom of her left shoulder blade. Occasionally, a pipe would loosen and steam would shoot out from the openings. Just over her heart on her chest, there were a couple revealed copper pipes, which replaced ribs. Visually behind them, a large silver cog quickly ticked, in place of her heart.
The circuitry board faded in the middle of her neck, to a light skin tone and texture. She had wise eyes that peered into yours, as if they knew your next move. Her pixie cut hair shimmered, just like her circuitry, blues, greens, pinks and purples.