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“I’ll be back before midnight,” he promised. “Try and get some work done.”
I frowned at the lack of my laptop. And at the lack of something else.
“You wanna know the one thing I actually am angry about?” I asked him.
He froze halfway through the process of putting his coat on. “Of course.”
“I’m mad you put that baby down before I got here. I was gonna snuggle the hell out of him.”
The fatherly smile on Adrian’s face melted me all over again.
“That baby was so tired he put himself down,” he chuckled. “But if he happens to wake up? Feel free to snuggle away.”
Pulling the rest of his coat on, he opened the door and looked back.
“I wouldn’t mind if you saved one for me, too,” he said with a wink.
~ 15 ~
HARPER
Snow.
For most people, it was a huge inconvenience. It meant shoveling, scraping, plowing yourself out. Putting on layer after layer to keep warm as you battled the elements, then peeling off those wet clothes as you stood, shivering, trying to get warm again.
Snow triggered claustrophobia in those who rarely felt it, for the simple reason that the right storm or blizzard could trap you in your house. With someone like me, however? I counted on those blizzards. They were the perfect excuse to start a fire, get cozy, and write code until my fingers were ready to fall off. I could drink guilt-free hot chocolate. Read an entire book, or start a movie marathon. Winter storms let me put off anything and everything that normally took me away from my work, or distracted me from my computer screens.
And especially; up here in a place like Buffalo? They were a free, multi-day pass to be totally anti-social.
The snowstorm raging over the past two days had swallowed up my driveway, nearly covered my windows, and blissfully ended any reasons for me leaving the house. I had the little wood stove between my kitchen and living room glowing white-hot, burning with such heat and ferocity that, at one point, I actually started sweating.
As it turned out, that was not only fine, it was actually ideal. The haptics I was currently testing required patches fixed directly to the skin. I could simulate an entire haptic suit by connecting leads to the pads fixed on my arms, legs, thighs, and stomach. I had pads affixed up and down my ribcage. Pads from my shoulders down to the tops of my breasts, just above the nipple, where current iterations of Virtual Reality software wouldn’t dare to send signals.
But not my software.
Inevitably, as VR continued its evolution, people meeting virtually instead of in-person would feel the basic human need to touch. It wasn’t enough to just see each other anymore, or feel the pressure on your fingertips as someone on the other side of the world reached for your hand. No, you needed to feel the tingle as they slid their palm into yours. The butterflies that came with lying atop each other, chest to chest, stomach to stomach, even pelvis to pelvis.
I’d written kissing software; one with extremely intricate and delicate receptors that interfaced with the eleven different muscles of your upper and lower lip. I hadn’t tested out both sides of that one yet, but I was more than ready to. I just wasn’t willing to part with my prototypes. At least not until I had the next generational version built.
And so there I was, standing in my underwear, a few dozen wires dangling from all different parts of my exposed skin. I was running low on firewood, and frozen pizzas, and bottled water. Testing my most recent bug, I was running even lower on patience, when suddenly:
Knock KNOCK.
On any other day the raps at my front door would be unmistakable. But they had to be mistaken, because—
“C’mon, egghead. Open up!”
I pulled out the leads as quickly as possible, which even then took practically forever, then ran to get dressed. I recognized the voice immediately, of course. And I knew ignoring that voice wouldn’t make it go away.
KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK!
“Alright, already!” I called back.
Is he serious?
I was both annoyed and excited as I threw open the door. I hated being interrupted while I was making progress. At the same time, I hadn’t seen another human in days.
“How the hell did you—”
