"Really, thanks again, John," said Carl.

The old security guard descended the final step a little ahead of him and started ambling towards his briefly-abandoned post. "Don't mention it. You know I always go to my grandkids' games."

Carl was still grinning as he reached the lobby floor just behind. "Yeah, I've seen the pics enough times. They're growing up pretty fast!"

"You can say that again," John grumbled. "I remember when they used to just be happy to see me. Now I need to be bringing 'em presents all the time." He snorted. "Ah, don't let me keep you. Give her a cheer for me, too."

Carl waved as he passed by the security desk. "Will do. See you Monday, John. Have a good one."

"You too, Carl," John said, returning the wave.

Carl pushed on the door to the exit, glancing at the timer on the AR display in his glasses that was synchronized with his personal phone in the process. Perfect timing.

His car drove up to the curb at the end of the outer walkway.

Yeah, fantasy stuff and steam-powered cars are cool, but you just can't beat modern convenience. He pulled open the passenger side door, which had unlocked automatically when it synced with the phone in his pocket, and got in. Once his seatbelt was fastened—he remained in the "passenger" seat to save the time and effort of getting into the "driver" seat—the car set off on the course he'd programmed in that morning to save time at this exact moment.

"Whew," he said as he adjusted the seat to provide more legroom. Should even get to the school a while earlier than I expected. And if traffic's lighter than usual somehow, then I might be really early. Might even catch some of the first half! Ugh, so tired though. Not sure that quick cup of coffee on the way out is gonna be enough.

He leaned his head back and tapped his hand on the armrest as his car navigated the annoying, still-traffic-filled roads near his office. He passed by a series of orange construction signs and grew agitated. That's right, they're starting that resurfacing next week. Ugh, that's gonna be a nightmare. How the heck did they find a major fault with these roads? They're practically brand new! Probably Roger's work somehow. Monday's gonna be unbelievably tedious with how long I'm gonna have to sit in with…

Carl considered the course of action he'd known he would have to take. Although, now that I think about it, I've kinda got him over a barrel now, don't I. So if I don't go to HR, I can avoid the hassle and probably get him to call off the prank war. It's not like he meant for that to go off on a Friday night, he probably just forgot it was there since he's been so busy with the latest update. And it's not like much…time…passed…

He frowned and began stroking his beard. How's that even possible? I only spent three minutes in-game? But I was there for hours. Like, ten freaking hours, at least. Wasn't I?

He rubbed at his eyes. I should've grabbed another coffee on the way out. I'm pretty beat. Maybe I just fell asleep and dreamed the whole thing. Three minutes… Almost feels like it had to be a dream in that case. Guess I've got some time to check some stuff, at least.

Carl reached into his pocket and retrieved his personal phone. Unlike many people in the current year, he chose to continue using one that had a touch interface on the device itself. Brain link might be considered safe for general use, but who knows where that data's going. I trust FE a bit since I know we don't sell any of that and just store it offline, but anyone else… Yeah, it might be old fashioned, but it still gets the job done. He pressed down on the smoother, touch-recognizing side of the phone with his left thumb, and it activated when it recognized contact with his finger. He swiped around with both thumbs, quickly connecting the correct pattern in the hundred-dot matrix that would unlock his screen, and his phone's display activated in a translucent overlay in his glasses.

He closed out of the article Annie had sent him on the improvements stress relief would yield in a person's life—a not-so-subtle hint, he'd imagined—then grew distracted by the latest photo she'd sent to tease him in preparation for their once-a-month special night that they'd scheduled for that same night: a black heart on a stem resting against the hardwood floor of their bedroom.

Not for the first time, Carl frowned as he considered it. What the heck's she planning? Last time it was my turn and she really liked how I set up that reservation at the expensive steakhouse, then the play at the theater, then that short walk to the hotel, then the massage… He grinned as he recalled how she'd pretended to throw a tantrum the following morning when he told her they needed to check out by noon. It's gotta be something that can top that for me, but I don't have a freaking clue what she's up to. And it's something that's obviously not gonna take too long since it'll be after Sammy's game. Also both the girls are gonna be home…

He scrolled to the previous photo she'd sent, a thin, black piece of something over the same floor, then the one before that—something pointy and black.

Maybe she's got some new movie she thinks I'll really like, and all these pics are related to it? We haven't done a movie night in a while, that could be fun. I mean, it's obviously not gonna just be sex; that's common enough for us. Then again, she did cut me off this week, so maybe I'm on to something there…

He worried at the mystery for a short while before his thoughts shifted. Hm, I should probably start thinking about what I'm gonna do for next month already. Starting to almost feel tough to come up with stuff at this point unless I start repeating. Been doing this since just after Sammy was born.

He scrolled to the next photo back, a smiling, bleary-eyed selfie she'd sent him when she'd woken up for the second time that morning a few weeks back when he'd had to rush in at four in the freaking morning because one of his emergency scanning scripts had uncovered the start of the latest Accounting-porn debacle. He stared at Annie's pretty, smiling face and sighed. She really is the best. I bet she'll be a little surprised when I get there more than five minutes before the end of the game tonight.

Recalling what he'd been about to do, Carl reluctantly switched out of his photos before he ended up going through all of them again. He opened up his browser and, after briefly considering the matter, opened a private tab to avoid having anything he viewed stored in his history. I'm gonna regret this, I know it. But I guess what I'm trying to find out is whether you can actually have sex in New Era or if I dreamed it…

The results were almost as bad as he'd expected. This is what happens when you search for anything sex-related with the search filters off. Still can't search for freaking C strings without getting results that are totally not safe for work. He moved his eyes to the bottom of the page, and the browser dutifully scrolled downwards by tracking his eye focus. Lot of people taking advantage of the game's recording feature. Pretty sure that's a yes, then. Hoo boy. He rubbed his beard. Man, that's… I guess I gotta give it to Roger, that's pretty impressive. And definitely explains the player numbers.

At last, he came across the result that was actually related to his company. Ah, so it's a separate expansion pack thing where the base game can't even load the assets for mature stuff. And there are age-restricted zones. Makes sense, then they can give it a different rating. Ugh, it's so hard to keep track of all these things. Sort of sounding familiar now that I'm reading about it though. I kinda remember Annie talking about how pleased she was with the content filtering system and how it even won some parents' association award, I think? Obviously I had to have known it at some point though. I mean, it's my company's game, and it's not like I'm out of the loop on everything game-related. At least if it's all in an expansion-y thing it probably means I don't have to worry about Bobby as much…

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He chewed on the corner of his lip. I mean, I'm still gonna worry. It's not like—

The voice message indicator lit up on his glasses. He looked at it, then blinked his right eye.

"Sammy's game got delayed a little bit," Annie's annoyed voice began, displacing his previous line of thoughts. "Some kid pulled a fire alarm." She sighed, then her tone brightened. "Anyway, just wanted to let you know. I'm already here getting the cheer squad warmed up, though! I love you."

The message ended.

Carl grinned, the three words he'd been longing to hear for the past however many maybe-real hours raising his mood as they always did. Yeah, she really is the best.

He looked out past his phone's display for a moment to gauge his progress, then frowned. He pulled up the app on his phone he used to check traffic. What the heck. How are the roads this clear?

Somehow, though, they were. The stretch of highway that he'd expected to take him at least ten minutes of moving at a pace slower than he was capable of walking was miraculously not congested, and, in fact, he'd already long passed it.

Wow, that's pretty lucky. I should be there in a few minutes at this rate! Shoot, what the heck was I—

The message indicator lit up again on his glasses, this time for a text-based message.

Sammy: Where ru Dad? Sad [https://www.royalroadcdn.com/public/smilies/sad.png](((((((

Carl felt his stomach twist, and his exhaustion was completely blown away. He quickly thumbed over to the app that controlled his car and disabled the speed limiter, enabling the vehicle to achieve a top speed of ten over the limit when it calculated that it was safe to do so. It wasn't illegal on its own, but he now ran the risk of being pulled over if a police officer happened to be operating a speed trap and decided that it was a slow night.

C'mon, c'mon… Carl began tapping his sneakers against the mat on the floor of his car as he willed it to go faster.

The school came into view.

Carl frowned when he saw it, or, rather, when he saw what it was made of. I think I'm gonna get annoyed any time I see a brick building for a while now.

The car pulled into the driveway, taking the turn a little more roughly than he would've liked and reminding him of the terrible driving habits of an eighteen year-old blonde girl whom he'd maybe befriended in the three minutes that he'd maybe been logged into his company's virtual reality-based game, assuming he hadn't just been dreaming the whole thing with various bizarre details his subconscious had dredged up.

He frowned as he considered it. That's way too big of a time—

"You have arrived at your destination," his car announced in the default, emotionless voice that he'd left it set to.

Carl opened his door quickly, got out of the car, then slammed it behind him as he walked quickly towards the doors of the school's gymnasium, pocketing his phone in the process. He heard the familiar sound of tires on pavement behind him, his car driving away to park itself in the nearby lot. He pulled open the doors and hurried through the lobby into the—

"—number twenty four, Samantha Weathers," announced the PA.

"GOOOOO SAMMY!" Carl roared through his cupped hands as he made it into the gym proper. He put the thumb and index finger of his right hand into his mouth and whistled incredibly loudly, a trick he'd begun learning as soon as his eldest daughter had joined her first basketball team so many years earlier. He came to a stop at the edge of the bleachers, clapping as he scanned the court.

His daughter, the tall, blonde, sixteen year-old sophomore, was standing on the opposite side of the court, her hands cupped over the mouth and nose of her crimson face as she looked over in his direction.

Carl squinted quickly then blinked, the gesture which signaled his glasses to capture a photo onto his phone, then raised his hands over his head and continued to clap solidly until the announcer started introducing the next girl on the other team. He lowered his hands and let out a sigh of deep satisfaction.

Nobody cheers louder than Carl Weathers.

He pumped his fist in the air a little in front of him, then turned to the packed home team bleachers.

Annie was sitting up near the top in the middle, waving to him with both hands and a surprised grin on her face.

Carl strode to the stairs, then bounded up and squeezed along the aisle to sit in the spot she'd saved for him. "Hey, I got out a—"

Annie clasped her hands to his cheeks and pressed her lips to his, cutting him off. She moved back a little too quickly after, giving him a teasing lick across his upper lip as she parted. "I can't believe you made it this early!" she said in an excited tone, her right arm snaking out to wind around his as she leaned into him.

"Well, good evening to you, too, Miss Strickland," he said, enjoying the feel of her pressed against his side as he always did. "If you're gonna give me this kind of greeting any time I get out early, I might have to do it more often."

Sammy's team huddled up out on the court.

Annie shook a little next to him from her laughter. "No promises, Mister Weathers, but you should do it more often anyway." She started trying to wrestle his thumb with hers, as she always had when she was in an exceptionally good mood.

Carl pretended to lose the thumb war over a long, drawn-out campaign which lasted nearly a minute, despite the sheer impossibility from the difference in thumb sizes. "Where's Bobby?" he asked while their battle continued.

"She," Annie said, looking up at him with a coy smile, "happens to be staying over at Jen's tonight."

Carl frowned as he watched the start of the game. "I don't remember her—"

"I'm sure she must've mentioned—"

Carl jerked suddenly to his feet. "YEAHHH SAMMY!" He placed his fingers in his mouth again and whistled to celebrate his daughter's first basket in her first starting game at the varsity level.

Sammy ran back towards the other side of the court with one hand pressed to her face. Her teammates patted her on the shoulders, and her friend Nancy waved up to him.

Carl sat back down and sighed contentedly. The only thing that'd make this better is if I could somehow drop a good dad joke on her from up here.

"You know, you can cheer without embarrassing her," Annie pointed out in a wry tone.

Carl snorted. "She's just being a tsu—" He paused. "Pretending she doesn't like it," he said, frowning at the word he'd almost used. "She sent me one of those overly dramatic messages a few minutes before I got here asking where I was."

Annie chuckled. "She's adorable."

A thought crossed Carl's mind. "She mentioned any boys to you lately?" he asked.

His wife started laughing harder, then whacked him on the arm. "Would you give it a rest with that already?"

"It's a legiti—"

"Carl, she's sixteen," Annie said in an exasperated tone. "I was already on my second boyfriend when I was her age. If she wants to—"

"Just the first one," Carl pleaded, looking down at her. "C'mon, you know how much this means to me."

"You've been planning this for almost five years, Carl," Annie said, not needing to look up at him for him to know that she was rolling her eyes at him.

"It's an important rite of passage," Carl said defensively. "So has she—"

"No, Carl, she hasn't," Annie said with a sigh. "You need to be more supportive, okay? She's really tall, and a lot of kids are intimidated by her."

Carl frowned. Intimidated? By my little girl? But she's so sweet, and nice, and… Well, I guess she gets pretty whiny about some stuff, but that's not intimidating.

Annie leaned into him again, her hand running up and down his arm. "I know you think it'll be funny, but you need to also think about how she'll feel. It'll be like she's getting bullied by her own parent."

Carl stiffened as he recalled another blonde girl of nearly the same age who'd been more than bullied by her parents, even if he wasn't entirely sure that he hadn't dreamed her up. "You're right," he said once he'd managed to push his anger down again. "Yeah, you're right, Annie. Sorry, that would've been really dumb if I did it."

Annie looked up at him with a confused expression on her face. "Really?"

Carl nodded. "Absolutely." He forced a grin onto his face and looked down at her, taking her hand in both of his and rubbing it with his thumbs. "I think I just needed to look at it from a different angle."

Annie smiled widely, then puckered her lips and closed her eyes the same way she'd done with him since she was only twenty five.