Chapter Fifty – A Date Among Ghosts

Chapter Fifty – A Date Among Ghosts

“The nice thing about VR dating is that it’s a lot less about how you look and who you are physically, than it is about your personality, the way you present yourself.

You judge them based on the fandom they picked their avatar from.”

–Meshizen Interview, 2039

***

The meeting with See-Three continued for another half hour. Really, other than exploring the space, there wasn’t that much to do. See-Three took some notes of what they’d need, but most of those things were still at the first clinic location. It would just be a question of moving things from one place to another, which anyone with a car could manage.

“If it’s acceptable to start things without fully renovating the space,” See-Three said. “Then I think we can open the clinic within a day or two… definitely leaning more towards two.”

Two days was very acceptable.

See-Three and I shook over it all, and I told her that if she needed anything specific, she just had to let me know.

It would take a good long while to renovate the clinic properly, but with the amount the clinic would be charging for its services (basically fuck all) I expected that some of the people using it would be willing to pitch in to help a little.

We’d need chairs, benches, and a secretary. Further down the line, we’d need proper renovations too. Walling off some parts, fixing up the floors and ceiling lights. Normal maintenance shit too. Maybe a sign out front?

In any case, I expected that to kind of just happen organically.

The people we were serving were exactly the kind of people that wouldn’t want to get served in a full-on corpo-chic place. Being a little scuffed up would probably reassure them a lot.

With that all taken care of, I decided to head back upstairs. I was starving, and I wanted to get back to work on the mech now that my fingers weren’t threatening to freeze off.

I arrived upstairs via the elevator (man, this was unsafe. I needed to install an HMG or something by the entrance) and then almost ran into Lucy. “You’re back!” she said.

“I never even left the building,” I replied. On a whim, I wrapped my arms around Lucy’s shoulders. “Did you miss me so much?”

“Mhm,” she said. “I’m always worried. What if you decide you need a girlfriend on every floor, huh? What’ll I do then?”

“Well, you’d still be the top… unless I get a food girlfri– ow!” Lucy had pinched my skin on my side, and I let go of her to rub it. “That hurt,” I whined.

“You deserved it,” Lucy said. She tilted her head back, pretty little nose pointing haughtily at the ceiling. “We’re going on a date,” she said.

“A date?”

“Yeah. I need to get my evil hooks into you before any other desperate, wandering lesbian comes along,” Lucy said.

I couldn’t help the giggle that escaped. “Sure, because there are so many throwing themselves at me. I’d be more worried about you. Desperate, lonely housewife, all alone at home–besides her seventeen kids–with nothing to do. The neighbours are heavily repressed nuns, open to her evil predations…”

Lucy snorted, then climbed onto her tip-toes to give me a quick peck. “Date,” she said. “I’m gonna get dressed, and you should do the same.”

“Wait, really?” I asked.

“Ordered a taxi already,” Lucy said as she ran off across the house with me walking after her. Of course, she almost tripped, and then she wasn’t running, so much as walking fast.

I caught up with her changing in our rooms. It seemed as if she was serious about it, so I decided to do the same. A glance at what she was picking out to wear suggested that this wasn’t anything too formal.