Serafina and the Virtual Man - By Marie Treanor Page 0,67
before you came home. Sera’ll have told you it made a bit of a mess.” She straightened and looked at Dale. “Do you want to check this lot’s still working? I’m afraid your printer’s mince. I don’t know about the laptop—it rattles a bit ominously.”
Shut up, Jilly, you’re talking too much…
Dale was giving the room a sharp once-over. Ignoring Jilly, he spoke directly to Sera. “You cornered it in here? This is where you destroyed it?”
Sera nodded. “We chased it up here from the sitting room. It was pretty violent, as you can see, but we managed to blast it in the end. It shouldn’t bother you anymore.”
“Please tell me it didn’t go into my lab? Through that door?”
“It tried,” Sera said, with cagey if literal truth. She shrugged. “Didn’t do it any good. Any reason it should have chosen this room for its last stand?”
“I couldn’t begin to guess,” Dale said tiredly. He rubbed his forehead. “If it’s really gone, that’s all I need to know.” He turned away, then glanced back at Sera. “Thank you.”
“No bother,” Sera said easily. “I’ll send you my invoice.” She and Jilly walked out of the room in front of Dale and Petra.
They collected their coats and bags, and Sera offered her hand to Dale. “Glad we could help, Mr. Ewan,” she said civilly. He took her hand, and on cue, Sera frowned as if a thought had struck her. “Just one thing. While I was struggling with it, the poltergeist seemed to be trying to implicate you in the death of your partner Genesis Adam.”
Sera’s other arm just brushed against Petra’s. Jilly knew what she was doing and blessed her for it. Dale was left with nothing to say except, “Of course I didn’t kill Adam.”
Sera’s gaze flickered apologetically to Petra, who said wryly, “Neither did I.”
Sera dropped Dale’s hand, grinning as if it was a great joke. “Poltergeists are notorious liars and not very bright. Appreciate your business. Good-bye, Mrs. Ewan.”
Jilly, unable to trust herself, opened the door and left ahead of Sera and Blair. Impatience ate into her bones, made her want to shout at Sera, Hurry up!
She got into the passenger seat of Sera’s car and waited while Sera waved and strolled over, opened the door, and got in beside her. Carefully, she fitted the key into the ignition before glancing up at Jilly.
“They’re telling the truth. It wasn’t them. Neither of them killed Adam.”
****
He imagined he was floating or maybe even lying on something soft. A cloud, maybe. Didn’t his mother tell him that was where angels lived? But fuck, he was no angel. Maybe he was in the heaven he’d never really believed in. Which was good, wasn’t it? Better, at least, than the alternative.
Only he didn’t want to be there either. He wanted to be back in the game with JK, shooting gangsters by way of foreplay before retiring once more to bed with her. She was the sweetest lover he could remember, and he knew that wasn’t the game. JK was real. He’d intruded on her life, and she liked him well enough to be seduced. Although that probably was the game, he acknowledged ruefully. Despite her disappointment that they hadn’t had sex in the real world, he was pretty sure she wouldn’t have done it at all if she hadn’t known it was only VR. There was a lot of baggage to overcome there. Games were useful therapy.
And fucking good fun. He smiled on his cloud, visions of JK writhing and passionate in his arms as he pushed deliciously in and out of her, JK hand in hand with him, running naked through the lobby and diving under the roulette table. Dancing with him in a flimsy, floaty dress; in a shorter, slightly coarser dress with a funny little hat, the smell of wine and cigarette smoke in his nostrils—but no, that was another game, after they’d blown up the bridge over the Seine…
Which game to play next? Perhaps he should just sleep first—it was so comfortable just floating, not having to worry or think…
Exodus, where are you? Are you back?
Annoying interference. He needed to sleep.
Adam, are you there? Answer me!
JK. Why wouldn’t she let him sleep? They’d play again after…
Have you really gone for good?
Gone? Gone where? Where could he go except into another game? Another game with her. But they were in the middle of stuff, stuff he really didn’t want to think about and yet had to. Dale and Petra and