Charlie

The weekend came, and with that it meant that Charlotte and I could finally enjoy some actual time together.

"Hmm? Do you want to use those glasses again?" she asked.

"Yeah," I said, handing her a VR set along with my own. I hadn't really found anything that would really pique her interest when it came to VR, but I thought of something that she might enjoy. At least, I thought she might enjoy it - if she didn't, we could always try something different. That fishing trip I had taken with my father had been the stroke of inspiration behind this idea. "So," I told her. "This is a fishing game." I wasn't sure if she would like it or not, but she hadn't been outside for many decades so perhaps she would catch on to it?

The scenery as I put my helmet on was not much better graphics-wise than the earlier garden one I had shown Charlotte, but ones that were really realistic weren't developed yet. At least, not for now. Perhaps, in the future, the two of us could sit at home and go wherever we wanted with VR tech and it would all seem so lifelike as to be indistinguishable from reality. For now though, this was the best that we could get.

"So you throw in your line like this," I told her. "And then withdraw it like this." We had to wear special hand pads for this to work, and while awkward at first, she did get the hang of it. I didn't know how much Charlotte was getting into it as we went along, but she didn't seem like she was bored or anything. "If you want, you can increase the frequency of how often the fish appear for ease."

"I see," Charlotte said, reeling one in. "What are those other numbers?"

"That's a score, but you don't need to worry about that," I told her. We did this for about half an hour, but it seemed that Charlotte was quickly becoming bored as she asked to do something else. I couldn't really blame her, because while fishing in VR was better than fishing in real life when it came to the number of fish that you could catch, it was worse in the overall experience. It just didn't have that sense of tranquility or ease that being outside had.

Not to mention, unlike my father, she really wasn't much into it. "There's something else we can try." This was my backup plan, though in hindsight it should've been more of my plan A. "We can meet actual people through VR tech." I had to do a little with adjusting a microphone too as we wouldn't just be talking to each other while we were sitting in a room anymore.

That was what I thought she might be interested in given how she was cooped up in this house her whole life. The nature of what she had become meant that she really couldn't engage in any kind of human interaction save for scaring people away until she had met me. Though, there was the possibility that this was exactly what she preferred and she was a true shut-in at heart, but I had the feeling that deep down she did in fact want to socialize with other people.

'What kind of people?" she asked, at least sounding vaguely curious now.

"People from all over the world," I explained to her. This was more of a hang-out sort of game, where you walked around while using an in-game avatar and talked to people. That was it - that was all there was to the gameplay, no guns, no enemies to fight, and no treasure to collect. I normally wouldn't have played something like this in the past, but with Charlotte, it was something that I would consider. "Anyone who's also purchased the game can speak with us."

"Can they see us!?" she asked, sounding very alarmed. Her curiosity had turned to fear, and I could almost see her saying 'no' out of reflexive apprehension.

"Well, they don't have to see 'us' per se," I told her. "As in, they can't see our actual bodies, but the bodies we make in the game. They can hear our actual voice though." I then tried to explain to her what a 'chatroom' was like, and she seemed to somewhat grasp the concept enough to agree to try it.

I chose the default male avatar as mine, though Charlotte, once explained on how to change her avatar, spent over fifteen minutes customizing it until she felt that it was just right. Strangely enough, she chose her sprite to have green hair and blue eyes- it was a strange combination, but I didn't comment on it. She also chose to wear a white sundress.

The game took place on a large island with a large club on one side, and a beach to walk along. There wasn't much else, but I guess that that was all that could be expected from this kind of game. Charlotte needed a bit of help with trying to figure out the controls, but we were on our way to the club in no time.

It was a large wooden structure shaped like a shack, and per the game's description each server could hold up to three hundred players, though this one had sixty-seven at the time. We didn't run into anyone on the way to the shack, which was probably because there was almost nothing of note aside from that on the island.

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As we entered the shack, I realized that I had made a mistake in that I was not the only one who had decided to just go with the default avatar. It made losing me in the crowd possible, so I quickly changed my hair and eye color to match Charlotte's.

The inside of the shack was designed like a nightclub, with a stand for drinks on one side and a 'DJ' on the other side, though you were free to choose whatever music you wanted to hear.

We were approached by a pink-haired catgirl, of which there were several in the club as a matter of fact, who said something garbled.

"Uh, pardon me?" Charlotte asked.

The girl repeated something, and I figured that she was speaking in some kind of foreign language, which we didn't understand. Still, there were ways of communicating beyond languages and I used a 'confused' emote to show that I had no clue what she was saying. She seemed to get it and went to go meet someone else.

"So, what do we do now?" Charlotte asked.

"Whatever we want," I told her. We walked up to the bar to order 'drinks' which were served to us and Charlotte tried to pick hers up and drink it.

"Huh? This doesn't work," she said, sounding confused.

"Oh, you can't eat or drink things in VR right now," I told her. "Well, you can eat or drink, it's just that you can't actually taste or smell anything." And given the environments some of the games were set in, it was probably for the better that you couldn't smell anything. I couldn't even imagine what kind of gear you would need to have to be able to smell or taste things though, no, it probably wouldn't happen unless you could somehow connect things to your brain directly. "The drinks here are just cosmetic, there's nothing you can do to drink them."

"So, why do this anyway?" Charlotte asked. She tried to pick it up again, but her hand just moved through it.

"To fit with the atmosphere," I told her. Come to think of it, it had been a long time since I had last been clubbing. Was it last year's New Year's Party? Probably. "Now let's see if we can strike up a conversation with any of these ah... fine folk."

"Conversation?" Charlotte asked, looking into the crowd. "But... how do I do that?"

"It's easy, just walk up to someone and press 'A'," I said, and when I realized that of course, Charlotte didn't understand the joke, I cleared my throat and added, "Don't worry about what people think about you here. They don't know who you really are and have no preconceived notions about how you should act. You can say whatever you want - or, at least, within some limits."

"But... how am I supposed to start a conversation?" she asked. It seemed like such a strange question, though I had to remind myself again about how her life had been up till now.

"Well, if you're ever at a loss for what to say," I told her, "remember that people love talking about themselves above all else. So ask them how they are, how they've been, and anything that they're interested in about. Secondly, remember reciprocity, it will look odd if you just ask them things about themselves, so remember to offer snippets of your own." I was hardly a social butterfly myself, and this was advice that Suzy had given me, but Charlotte was a recluse among recluses. I highly doubted that Charlotte didn't know how to speak to people - she spoke to me just fine, but perhaps some nuances of social interaction were lost on her? Also, she had only really started talking to me after I had hit her with a chair so…

Anyway, there was only one way we could tell if this could work or not. "See that girl over there with the blue hair and cat ears? Why not go talk to her?"

Charlotte seemed a bit hesitant, though it was a bit hard to tell given the VR tech did not translate human expressions very well. She walked over to the other person's avatar, and then said, "Hello, could you tell me about yourself?"

She had the right idea, but the wrong way to go about it. It sounded like she was conducting a job interview. However, the other person did reply.

"Hey! My username's 0wlm@n! How're you?" The voice was distant, as if his microphone wasn't working properly, and I could also hear the wind whenever he spoke.

"Wait, you're a man?" Charlotte asked, extremely surprised. "Why are you using a female character then?"

"Just felt like it today I guess," he replied. "Say, didn't really expect to meet a lot of actual girls here. What're you looking for?"

"I still don't understand," Charlotte said. "So you're playing as a female because..."

"I mean, c'mon, it's not like there aren't a bunch of people doing it," he said. "And I mean, honestly, is this your first day on the Internet, love?" Yeah, it had been a good thing that I hadn't exposed Charlotte to the Internet earlier.

At this point I decided to intervene and drag Charlotte away. Well, I couldn't physically do that so I had to go behind her and make an excuse to take her away.

"That was... odd..." she said.

"Yeah, sorry about this," I said, now feeling that this, much like the fishing game, was a huge waste of time. "I thought you might enjoy it, but if you're not having fun I don't see the point in doing any more of this-"

"No, wait," she said. There was a strange energy to her voice. "I think I want to try meeting someone else again!"

"Alright," I said, a bit surprised at her energy, but willing to support her.

"I have a new strategy this time," she said. "I'm not going to ask them what they want to talk about- I'm going to tell them what I want to talk about!"

"That's uh... something but," before I could say more than that, she had already made her way to a person using the default male avatar.

"Hello, pleased to meet you. I really like the Home Alone movie series, how about you?" Charlotte said. She said this with vigor, which made it seem like she was almost shouting into the microphone. I needed to remind her not to do that.

There was... no response at all. "Um, excuse me, I said something..."

I went up to the character, and it wasn't moving at all. "Oh, they're probably AFK." I then realized again that Charlotte would have no idea as to what that meant. "I mean, they probably had their headset on, but went to do something like fetch breakfast or whatever. That's probably why they can't hear us."

"Oh," Charlotte said. I felt pretty bad for her, she seemed to be quite fired up only to run into a wall of disappointment.