Chapter XVII

This time I was the one knocking. On the balcony I didn't spot her, but there was light behind her half-closed curtains.

"Hey neighbor!" a cheerful Riley shouted over the intercom.

After she was done unlocking her door, she threw it wide open and pulled me inside. She grabbed my wrists and pushed me against a wall.

"Took you long enough," she whispered.

"I uh, this is not, I mean, we can…"

"Dude! For real?"

Riley let go of me. She walked towards a cabinet and started pouring two drinks. She was wearing boy shorts and a loose shirt. I was an idiot.

"You wanna watch some E! while doing some E?" she asked, nodding at a screen near her couch that had Keeping Up with the Kardashians: Next Generation on. "I'll let you rub my feet."

"Sounds tempting," I answered. "But I was hoping to bother you for something else."

Riley turned around holding two tumblers with something chemically yellow. She raised an eyebrow.

"Something else?" she asked. "Got me curious. What are you into, big guy?"

"That pill you slipped me the other night, do you…"

"Nooo!" she exclaimed. "He aims, he swings, he misses."

Riley handed me the drink, and looked at me with light disappointment.

"I'm not a dealer," she said. "Just an enthusiast."

"I know."

"Fine."

Her L shaped apartment was a mirrored copy of mine. From where I was standing, the bathroom wall blocked the view of her bed area. She signaled to follow her there. I was surprised when I found out what she was hiding around the corner.

There was VR equipment lying around everywhere. A lot of it. A Geforce 50K11 headset, last gen but still insanely expensive. A haptic suit. A treadmill to enable actual walking instead of using your hands.

There was even a compact cable installation from the ceiling with an armor attached so that users could experience flight, superhero landings and slow motion bullet time. It was insane.

"Damn! For someone who hates the OASIS, that's a lot of gear."

"I need it. What did you think I majored in?" Riley said while searching a drawer. "You're all my little guinea pigs."

"This must've cost a fortune."

Riley shrugged.

"Girl that used to live here left it. Thought about selling it, but she might want it back someday."

She pulled the armor towards her and wrapped it around her.

"Same size. Pretty sweet, right?"

She had some suggestions on what the two of us could do with the installation. I offered her the foot massage instead, for now.

"As a thank you for the pill?" I proposed.

"Might as well."

Encouraged by whatever the yellow drink was, my visit to Riley took longer than expected. With a pleasant buzz I fell asleep in my own bed, leaving the pill on my desk for tomorrow.

But when I woke up it wasn't after a good night's rest, charged up for another round of Quake. It was the middle of the night.

My body felt agitated. I got up to piss, but that didn't change much. All of a sudden I was seeing movement in the shadows of my apartment and felt urged to inspect every dark corner. This was paranoia.

Could it be the drink, I wondered. Or was it something else that freaked me out.

My famous hunch popped up. Uninvited suspicion crawled into my mind. I walked to my front door and activated the monitor of the intercom. It was also a phone book for the entire flat.

I typed in Riley's address.

"Grant, Mia Cooper" it said.

Riley was subletting the apartment from someone else. The girl with all the VR gear, no doubt. The next hour I spent tracking her down online.

"Mia Grant"

"Mia Cooper Grant"

"Mia C. Grant"

"Mia Grant Surrey"

"Mia Grant Vancouver"

Then I tried a combination with "UBC". Bingo. She went to the University of British Columbia, just like Riley. It redirected me to the neuroscience faculty page. She apparently earned some publicity within the scientific community with a paper.

There was a picture. She looked like the kind of person that would spend her savings on OASIS equipment. She had a self-neglective vibe to her. She was slightly familiar, although I couldn't remember ever really noticing her in the halls or elevator of the flat.

Not sure why the whole thing unsettled me, I drank a glass of water and watched some porn to get my mind back in its cage. I had a contest to win, no distractions. It seemed to do the trick.