The music filtered out of the ballroom and competed with the surf sounds as I sat in the sand surrounded by piles of floofy ball gown that I’d bunched up around my knees. There was a huge bowl of unchilling bacon-truffle ice cream next to me and I was sucking on the chocolate-infused candied apple spoon that had come with it. Together, it had been more decadent than I could have imagined. Don’t get me wrong, the rehearsal was rehearsal-y, the dinner was utterly divine, and the ball was well, Glenda knew how to throw a party and the conga line was half conga and half cupid shuffle. Mr. Glenda was something out of a Hallmark Christmas romance that made me think we were doing a crossover episode with bingo cards and everything.

I’d gotten an influx of 700 xp for doing all the wedding prep chores. Hell, I’d gotten 50 xp per dance with the handsome boys at the ball in their tuxes and perfect steps. I’d begged off after 250 xp of that. The other 450 xp had just been for showing up and standing where I was supposed to stand for scenes. I felt more like a cardboard cutout than a person. If I’d danced all night, I might have leveled again. I was pretty sure I had leveled, but it was so hard to keep up with how much when I couldn’t see my character sheet out here. All I knew was that my display had changed and become more dynamic before I’d begged off my latest dance partner and headed for the sand. That must have meant that I’d leveled up. I knew that I should have gone right back in there and danced the night away, racking up the exciting experience points, but there was only so much smiling through champagne and caviar that I could do before I just needed a break.

So, why was I, the supposed star of the show, sitting out here in the sand? I hadn’t stopped being an introvert just because I’d spent a week on reality TV. Hex lay curled up between my legs in a nest of moonlight-touched, pale-yellow taffeta, but the ferrets had been hanging from the chandeliers in the ballroom the last I’d seen of them. I idly stroked her fur with one hand, propped up on my other hand and sucking on the slightly mint-flavored stick that was at the base of my apple-y spoon. Tam had called it a palette cleanser. The moon glittered on the little waves, and I basked in the almost-silence. I was just hoping we’d filled enough reels for the next episode for me to take a little break and get some good rest. If I looked up, between the moon and the waves, I could see what I thought was my room in that wing that was stretched out over the ocean, but it looked far enough away that I considered sleeping here in the sand instead of finding my way all the way back up there.

“And here I thought I’d be the only one escaping the thrills for the quiet,” came a quiet, masculine voice behind me. The solitude had been so soothing that I resented any intrusion. I swore the next upgrade I was giving myself was a room where I could lock my door and be alone for five freaking minutes.

I twisted to look as Hex scampered up my arm and into my hair as if on some cue that I didn’t recognize. I was ready to be snarly, but there stood Adonis, decked out in a tux with the pants rolled up over his bare ankles, shiny black shoes dangling from two fingers, one sock toe dangling out. In his other hand, he held his jacket by one little finger over his shoulder. His tie was as casually loose as his sandy-blonde hair, and his shirt was unbuttoned enough to glimpse a sliver of a six-pack. I was torn. Did I drool? Not until my eyes got snagged by the bluest eyes I’d ever seen. Dear gawd, were those dimples at the edges of that devilish smile? Hex started kneading in my hair with just enough claws to snap me out of my gawping before I totally embarrassed myself.

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“Introvert break,” I admitted, with what I hoped was a self-deprecating smile. In my mind, I was thinking, he was sweet and cute as could be, but then again, I wasn’t some Sandra Dee, and I didn’t need some guy to complete me.

“Guilty,” his smile broadened slowly and yep that was a stomach dropping dimple. My introvert warred with my desperately squelched romantic side. “Glenda’s bashes are a blast, but if I don’t go out at the halfway point, it’s impossible to enjoy it.” Was he thinking I was crazy to be out here in the sand? Was I crazy to be dazzled by a guy? I wouldn’t be the first. I won’t be the last.

“I don’t think you made it to the halfway point,” I warned him, steeling my nerves to not let my voice quiver like some dopey Hallmark-watching girl that guys made fun of. “I have it on good authority that she’s pushing this one all night long.”

“Makes me want to go swimming instead,” he gave me a flirtatious look. “Get out in the waves. Splash around.”

“You’d go back to the ball all wet?” I tried to be reasonable, ignoring that flirtation because guys like him didn’t flirt with girls like me.

“Maybe you’re right, but we don’t have to get our clothes wet, if you know what I mean,” he suggested. Wait, really? In my mind, I did that look-behind-you thing, thinking he must be talking to someone else. Then again, I was the star of the show, supposedly. Was he here for me? Were we bucking for a romance angle here?

“Ten o’clock and I’m back in there dancing,” I told him, not sure what plotline we were working toward.

“You’re kidding,” his smile slipped a bit and so did my stomach. Steady, girl.

“Nope,” I said on a sigh. “I’m with the chef and mimosa breakfast is scheduled for 4am, followed by super-sleep enhancements so we can all be pert and perky for the wedding’s 11am wake-up call.”

“Pert and perky,” he echoed my words, laughing around them. “Tell me more.”

“Her words, not mine,” I commiserated as he slumped to the ground next to me, his hand very close to where my hand was bunched up in my sandy skirt.

“With the chef, huh?” he probed, dropping his shoes and jacket in the sand casually. Did guys like this have to practice moves like that? Even with practice, I’d have flubbed it.

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“Guilty,” I said, scooting my taffeta out of his way as he was close enough for me to smell his very delicious aftershave. Just as I went to brush off some sand, his hand reached for mine. It was like a fast forward summer romance. I busied my hands in my skirt, thinking I wasn’t that kind of girl.

“I’m going to need longer than a ten-minute break, then,” he turned his head toward me and smiled. “Mind if I join you?”

“Be my guest,” I said, almost automatically, though he’d already invited himself. I was feeling that tug of mindlessness that comes from being the nerd noticed by the football captain.

“AND CUT!” scrolled across my vision. The off-air light went on and the red door appeared.

“That was great,” the mystery man was still smiling at me, and I wasn’t quite sure what was happening. “Sorry for the interruption. I didn’t know they’d try to work me into the script.”

“I’m sorry?” I asked, my confusion only intensified as Hex took that moment to hiss at the guy. That feeling in my gut was going quickly from giddy to gurgle.

“You should probably head into the green room and work on your stats,” he motioned to the door. “You’ve reached level 10. Congratulations.”

“Who are you?” I asked, knowing that the answer would ruin everything but having to ask anyway.

“I’m your new agent if you want me,” he gave that sparkling smile with the perfect dimples. And there it was… the other shoe that comes to kick my ass.

“Another AI?” I asked, realizing that I should have taken a cue from Hex.

“No,” he laughed out. “I’m a real person. My name is Danny.”

I raised an eyebrow at him and drew back a bit. I hadn’t followed his directions to get up and go to the red door. I wasn’t really a following directions kind of girl anymore. In this place, it was hard to feel like a person and not just a cog in the machine, but for one stupid moment I’d felt not only like a person, but a woman. The gurgle in my stomach settled into a small pit, but it was growing.

“Well, this is an avatar,” he admitted, running his hand over his perfect six-pack like it excited himself. The gurgle-lump mixed with my rising anger. I wasn’t just mad at him, but he made for such a pretty target. “But I’m a real person behind the screens. I was given access to your program for a modest fee to try to recruit you into my talent pool.”

He said it like it wasn’t a slap in the face. I kept my emotions under wraps, at least on the surface. Now I was ready to get up and head to the red door. I pushed up out of the sand in an ungraceful scramble and wadded up my cloud of taffeta in one arm as I marched to the red door. Mr. Handsome Avatar pushed up to follow me, so I walked faster.

“We could still be friends,” he called out to me as he followed on my heels. Did that really work on girls? Well, it wasn’t working on this girl. I had no illusion that he wanted to be friends. He seemed much more like a pimp than a friend.

“Grace, can you lock that door to Mr. Danny Avatar?” I asked her before the door even closed all the way on his startled face. The fact that he had the nerve to be startled just added fuel to my fire. Even if I did decide I wanted an agent, it would not be this dope.

“Sure thing, Honey,” Grace told me as I strode toward my mirror. Thank the AIs my taffeta had been replaced with my normal jeans and a T-shirt now that I was backstage. I didn’t even have to dust the sand off of where it gets into everything. There were some serious perks to this immersive VR stuff. As far as I was concerned, it was the only way to visit the beach. Seriously, no sand anywhere. If this had been the real world, I’d have been plucking sand out of my hair two weeks from now, but as I brushed my hair out of the way for Hex to hop down, there wasn’t a speck left.

“You’re going to want an agent before – “ he was saying as the door snapped closed on his foot. It wasn’t like it was a real foot. It didn’t get chopped off or anything, but he didn’t get in the door. And like the irritating sand, the walking toothpaste commercial was gone as efficiently as the sand had been.

Now that I’d lost the bundle of taffeta, I felt like I could breathe again. It also helped that the person was gone. Yeah, okay, maybe AIs weren’t going to understand how I was thrown by a real person walking in on a set where I’d been getting used to the fact that I was actually pretty much alone. To have that upended without warning had old Janet poking her head up out of her box to yap like some terrier with more fluff than teeth. I shoved her back in the box and pulled up my big-dog pants.

“Agent?” I demanded. “That was a real person?” Oh, my gawds! A real person. My mind finally caught up to the fact that I’d seen a real person inside the VR. Yes, I know, I’d seen the shrink in the real world only… good grief, was that this morning? Seriously? Shrinks don’t count anyway. They stop being people when they’re taught to ignore their emotions so they can help other people through theirs. I was going to have to add agents to that category of not counting as people too. Then again, it was only one guy. They couldn’t all be that bad. It was just that he hadn’t seemed any more genuine than Grace or the World AI. What did that say about me? Half of me had been enjoying being seduced by a pretty face and the other half had been worried that I was being thrust into a love arc. None of me had been ready for a sales pitch with dimples.

“Well, yes,” Grace admitted, but she was confused by my attitude. “We’ll need to negotiate contracts with channels and while I have the capacity to help you, the Endangered Jobs Act requires that we allow for agents to vie for that privilege.”

The Endangered Jobs Act. The moo-verse herded into the polls on another “cause” when AIs had more jobs than humans. Was it the fault of the AIs who were given all those jobs that humans supposedly didn’t want anyway? Or was it the fault of the moo-verse that didn’t want those jobs? It didn’t matter once Polly Homemaker decided that she couldn’t feed her kids because she couldn’t even get a job as a hooker anymore. Was she really expected to live on government subsistence (which was more than I made at my previous job) since she had four kids? NO! The moo-verse was called in with pretty pictures of chubby little starving children. Why weren’t they being fed in school, like the other kids due to the Feed the Future campaign (which I have to admit seemed like a very good idea until corporate America decided to outsource the food prep of school meals to McDonalds, who had then introduced boiled pizza packs – don’t ask, don’t tell was the motto of that food choice for balanced meals)? The children weren’t eating at school because they were homeschooled by Polly the Ex-prostitute who used the subsistence money on her boyfriend Stew. None of that came out in the Scandal papers until after the Endangered Jobs Act had been enacted and by then it was too late. AIs had been banned from any job that had authority over real people, except for prisoners who had no rights as people anyway.

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“We’ve locked the door to agents, but they will be forming a queue,” Grace said.

“Let’s go over stats, Grace,” I looked into the menus and focused on what I could control. “I don’t want to talk to anyone until I know all my options.” While that’s what I said, I wasn’t looking at my stats. I had my head buried in my arms on my dressing room vanity. Just when I’d thought I was getting the hang of things, it blew totally out of control again. Had anyone even tested this system of “rehabilitation” before it was enacted by the moo-verse? How many systems were there like this? How much was so broken that real people didn’t count anymore and wasn’t there anything anyone could do about it?