‘Roger, do you think we’ve become boring?’  Rhonda asked, pushing another cartridge into the rifle and taking aim. The grunting and wailing increased as the shuffling figure reached out a putrid rotting hand towards her, fingers outstretched, ready to rip her throat. She pulled the trigger and the zombie collapsed neatly to the floor with a squelch and a thump.

‘Is this really the time to be having such a conversation?’ replied Roger, wrestling with another groaning member of the undead. The zombie grabbed at his face with surprising strength and Roger could feel his skin start to tear, as his attacker raised its other fist to thump him.

‘Hon? I need a little help,’ he said. With a bang the zombie’s stomach exploded, entrails looping onto the stone floor. ‘Thank you dear,’ Roger said, turning to smile at Rhonda, but she wasn’t smiling back, she wanted an answer.

‘But are we boring?’ Another shuffling figure of doom was creeping up behind her, lifting an axe above where Rhonda stood with her arms folded.

Roger sighed and clapped his hands, ‘Zombie Apocalypse off!’ he said.

The zombies, stone passageway and echoed mumbling vanished. Roger and Rhonda found themselves sitting in a comfortable lounge with plump cushioned chairs in reds and blues, and a three-metre square video screen showing a soothing waterfall.

‘You haven’t answered my question.’

‘Of course we haven’t become boring, darling! Last night I was fighting tigers in ancient Rome!’

‘You do that every Thursday night. It’s a routine, every Thursday, you, Mikael and Dusty fight tigers.’

Roger sighed, ‘Fine, you’re sick of zombies, sick of tigers, you want variety. Pick a place, any place.’ Roger waved his fingers in the air like a pianist playing an imaginary piano. A menu appeared on the large screen with options such as ‘Space: Invade the Aliens!’ and ‘Bali Dreams’.

‘Anywhere you like.’ said Roger.

‘I want to go outside.’

‘That doesn’t narrow it down much. How about Australia: Outback Survival. That’s about as outside as it gets. I know how you love all that nature stuff. We can look for exotic fungi or something.’

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‘No, I want to go outside the game, outside the Sphere.’

Roger tsked and kept his eyes on the screen, ‘How about a trip to space?’

‘No, Roger,’ she said.

He flicked through the menu options with increasing speed. Suddenly he stopped, looked thoughtful, took her hand and said gently, ‘Rhonda, do you want a baby?’

‘No of course I don’t want a baby, you goof!’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes, sure I’m sure. The last time we had a baby was the most stressful, unpleasant two weeks of my life.’

‘It won’t be like that this time. We’ll use a different program.’ His fingers started flitting through the menu again ‘How about Sweet Dreams Lazy Baby?’ or ‘Part Time Parenthood?’

‘I want reality, Roger, not programs. I want to go outside.’

Roger ignored her.

‘What about Elizabethan England? We can meet the queen.’ Rhonda grabbed hold of Roger’s fingers to stop them waggling in the air.

‘Stop trying to dissuade me for a moment and think about it. Think of the excitement, the stories that we can tell when we get back. Your extreme sport friends, my Cloud Busting Circle, think how incredibly jealous they would be. Maybe we could give a presentation, even make a cult out of it.’

‘It’s not that daring, Hon, we used to live outside the sphere, remember? Even when we had the old Virtual Reality games we still had to go outside, go to work. It was awful! Squashed into a high-speed pod with a thousand other commuters and then sat at a desk all day trying to convince the boss I was doing something useful…’

‘You do that all day now.’

‘Well, yes, but now the desk is on a beach, with monkeys bringing me fresh mangoes to eat, or at the top of a mountain with goats nibbling at my toes. Not in a cramped office surrounded by sweaty, farting malcontents, who keep whistling or making small talk.’

‘But it was real.’

‘It was damp and smelly. I can’t see why you’d want to go back there when we can be anywhere,’ said Roger.

‘But I’m not suggesting we live back in the real world, just visit. We’ve been in Total Reality for four years now, I don’t know anyone who’s set foot outside. I just want to see what’s happened to the world, what’s out there. Just for a few hours.’ Rhonda could see that he was out of arguments and the decision was all but made. All he needed was a minute to get used to it. While he floundered on the sofa, she collected their coats and boots from the hall. Then she started rummaging through the kitchen drawers, filling her pockets with various survival tools such as a pocket knife and string; completely forgetting that none of these things would leave the sphere with them.

‘How do we even do it? How do we leave?’ Roger called out.

‘Oh, you know, just shout ‘Game off’, or something. We’ll shout a few things ’til we get it right.’

The exit menu wasn’t obvious, and she had to contact tech support so they could spend ten minutes trying to dissuade her with patronising inspirational memes, before finally giving her the exit code.

‘Is this it?’ said Roger, as they appeared in a gleaming white room, looking at two small harnesses suspended from the ceiling.

‘This is the Psyche Transition Room,’ read Rhonda from a poster on the wall. ‘It says we have to get into the harnesses to aid Reality Adjustment.’ So they climbed into the harnesses, giggling nervously and getting caught in the buckles. And then the lights went out and the air got thick.