This chapter is Reader PoV

"Everything should be good now. If you need anything, call us or ask Wallace. And please, for the love of God, don't try to get out."

Dad kisses me goodbye and leaves the room with Sid on his side. Once the door's closed, I begin to unpack my stuff and make sure to find a proper place for everything, starting with my books. Meanwhile, Caleb is sitting on the bed, watching me being a maniac as I try to organize my books in a very specific order. He must be frustrated to get locked down again but he is not being too noisy about it. I wonder what he is thinking right now.

Once done with the library, I take a minute to observe the room. After all, I'll have to stay in there for a bit, better to know what I should expect from it from the beginning.

As expected, the room is far from a luxury suite in a popular hotel, especially since it's supposed to be a secret room meant for hiding more than living. Half of the floor is filled by the bed; a very expensive king-size bed. We won't have much space to move on but at least, we will sleep like babies. On the right, a wardrobe, and on the left, the library I just completed. At the front of the bed are disposed a very small kitchenette composed of a tiny fridge, a sink, and a portable stove with only one plate to cook on. A built-in table sticks out of the wall, giving space for two people to sit with foldable chairs. A modest TV screen hangs off the wall, above the table, next to the air conditioner. Next to the kitchen, a door leads to a cramped bathroom where lays a simple toilet and a shower with a little storage above the WC. There is a cabinet under the stove, leaving space for more storage, and finally a little bow next to the library.

I go back to my luggage and get my clothes inside the wardrobe. As expected, Caleb doesn't have anything else than his habitual scarf and loincloth and his newly acquired suit. I'll have to make more clothes for him!

It takes me about twenty minutes to get everything in order, close my luggage and sit.

Now what?

He hasn't said anything yet and I'm starting to feel uncomfortable due to his odd silence. I can't even look at him. Why does it feel so weird to be in this situation when, months ago, he was living under my roof for weeks? We know each other now and started to build an authentic and trustful relationship.

I turn my head to check on him and meet his glare, forbidding me to watch elsewhere. I can't stand the silence anymore and try to start a conversation:

"It's weird, isn't it? Getting stuck together once again? I promise I won't flood you with my terrible puns."

The man scoffs quietly:

"Don't mind this. I got used to them. Kindda like them now."

I could have answered with a joke but didn't feel like breaking this mood. I thought he would be grumpy, but he is posture and behavior tells how relaxed he is. From when I met him to now, he isn't the same. And I like him even more than before.

His eyes are now tainted with melancholy as his voice raises:

"Hey, girl. Sorry... for putting you in trouble. Since I've met you, I was only able to get you in danger."

"What do you mean?! You saved me from getting shot earlier, remember? You've got three bullets for the sake of protecting my life."

"But if I hadn't been in your life, you would never have to live this."

"And leaving you alone and forgotten in your apartment? If I had to choose again, I would pick you up and heal your ass once more."

"...Thank you."

He doesn't say anything else and gets a book that was left on the bed, sinking back into his reading session. As for me, those evening events drained all my energy and the only thing I can think of is how comfortable this bed might be. I take my vanity bag and a night dress and head to the bathroom for a quick shower. The warmth of the water helps relax my muscle tension and I take a couple minutes to stretch and massage my shoulders and neck. Once done, I dry myself up, cleanse my face from the leftover make-up, put the nightdress on, and go to bed, not caring to get my stuff back to their place.

"I'm gonna get to bed now. Don't worry for me about the noise, it won't bother me. Wake me up if you need something."

I don't wait for an answer and immediately tuck myself under the sheets and focus on my breath to fall asleep faster.

"Good night, little skinsuit."

He said that so softly, I almost missed it.

"Good night, Caleb."

And soon, it all went dark.

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I suddenly wake up at five in the morning for no reason. Guess I got enough sleep. I turn around and see Revenant laying on his side, turning his back to me. We got one of the biggest king-size beds, and yet my man is sleeping on the edge of it, leaving a gigantic gap between us.

I get up and walk to the mirror, rearranging my hair to look a bit less messy. I know he already saw me with my 'just out of bed' face before but I don't want to look like a disaster in front of him.
Now that I look 'average', I stand in the middle of the room for almost a minute, unable to decide on what to do next. In the corner of my eye, I see the book he had chosen and get closer to examine the cover. It is another recommendation I've given him to have a change from the horror genre. This one is a fantasy story with a bit of romance, but mostly fights and magic. The bookmark is almost in the middle, showing that he must have gotten into it to tackle so many pages in a few days.

I turn my head and see him, asleep on the bed, optics off, and the subtle sound of his hardware working on his data. I would like to know what he is dreaming of but I'm not even sure that they put the dreaming program in his option, as he is the first ever made simulacrum.

I'm starting to wonder, how alike, or how far from the other simulacrum he is. Sims nowadays have a bunch of programs and hardware to mimic real life, so they can't tell they are in a simulation. But what about him? From what I know, he can smell very clearly, and feel all types of touches or pain if he is conscious of it, meaning he can't feel anything that had been done to his back, that didn't damage important parts of his body or if he didn't felt any push or vibrations with it. That's why I always press my hand a bit harder when I touch his shoulder, so he can acknowledge it.

But what about the body's reaction to strong emotions like fear or sadness? What about dreams and nightmares? What about the more subtle feelings like serenity, accomplishment, or attachment? And what about desire? We never really talk about all of this and I might have made him feel bad more than once talking about things he couldn't even feel or have anymore.

Maybe I should ask him when he is awake. I would like to understand how life is from his perspective. We may be able to build personalized hardware and programs to update his body if he wants to. But for now, let him sleep and recharges his battery. I'm gonna eat breakfast and maybe watch a series on my laptop. Then, I'll have to work on the lady cyborg design.

Revenant wakes up a few hours later, around eight, and stretches. Wonder if this is a reflex or a real need. He turns around and sees me sitting on the bed with my drawing program open.

"Already working? Not losing time girl."

"I still have a job you know. It's just that I'm limited to the design part due to our lockdown but I can't just take this time as vacation and delay the client's orders."

"Y' got your point."

He is about to stand up when something catches his attention on my screen:

"Is that your client in that pic?"

"Yes, why? You know her?"

"No. Just trying to understand how she can walk with those huge legs. What type of cloth did she ask for?"

I show him her order ticket and how's my work going. He stayed with me for four hours, watching me draw and answer emails, asking questions about my job every so often. I'd never thought that my carrier would pick his curiosity and I feel deeply happy and grateful for this.

It's about noon when we get interrupted by my stomach, calling for lunch. I close my laptop and get one of my 'ready-to-eat' meals. Chicken, coco, and curry. Basic but enough. Revenant hasn't moved from the bed and is still looking at me. I take this opportunity to ask him:

"How was your night? Did you rest well?"

"As usual, yes. Nothing too fancy to chat about."

I'm hesitating to be more direct with him and then I remember that he is a tough man. He can handle me being a bit too curious and asking bad questions.

"No dreams?"

"No."

"Not this time or never?"

"Never."

That's what I thought.

"I was thinking about it and..."

"Don't tell me you were dreaming of me."

"Even if I did, I won't tell you just because you'd be a jerk about it for the rest of the day. I was thinking about your programs. How many updates you'd need to get the same life simulation the others have? Recent sims CAN dream. And there are a lot of things they have made progress on to make life a bit more human-like for simulacrum."

"Great, another way to be delusional and play pretend."

"But unlike the others, you are aware of your situation. Getting those updates won't be to prevent but more to enhance your life."

He takes a more serious posture and rubs his index against his lips as he's holding his chin, getting some reflection about my last sentence.

"Let's say updating my body could help me live better. What else than dreams could be updated?"

"We first need to discover your body's limits and compare them to what recent sims can do. One thing I've noticed is that you can't feel something you haven't knowledge of. Not in your sight or having no damage means that nothing happened, which isn't right. Did you realize how hard I had to push when touching you in your back for you to notice it?"

He remains silent for a bit, probably searching in his memory every time I touched his back to make sure I wasn't inventing things up. But I don't give him that time and immediately add:

"The day you woke up, knowing you were a simulacrum... It took you to see that piece of glass in your reflection to realize that you were injured and that you, strangely, felt no pain from it."

"Now you say it... Ok, this part might need to be improved. But what else?"

"Well, there is plenty of things that are made for Simulacra to think they are still human. Besides dreaming and a more precise touch sense, there is emotional stability which helps a lot or the way your body reacts to stimuli and feelings. I could do a list and you tell me what may interest you. Then we'll see what you can do on that topic and what we can improve. We can even craft something to mimic the taste."

"I like that one. Kinda miss good food and wine."

"See! I'll make that list later. You tell me whenever you want to try something."

He nods and finally gets up:

"I'll take a shower now. This body grabs dust like a magnet."

I giggle:

"Maybe we should search for an update for that too."

He bumps my arm as he passes by and gets into the bathroom. Meanwhile, I send an email to Myriam about those mods and updates we might do on Revenant and do the same with Sid. Then, I get back to my laptop and resume working on the cyborg lady. After almost thirty minutes, the bathroom door opens to a thick cloud of steam from which Revenant appears...naked.

"Wh... Caleb, what the fuck?!" I instantly close my eyes and turn my head.

"Why are you screaming? Told you I had a lot of dust, and I tried to make it quick."

"That's not the problem! Why are you naked?! Where is your loincloth?"

"Naked? Come on, the loincloth is barely hiding anything and it's not like there is something to hide anyway."

"First, you MIGHT have something to hide."

"Pardon?"

"Secondly, something or not, you are technically naked so get something on your ass!"

He grabs a towel and puts it around his hips:

"What do you mean 'I have something to hide'?"

"I'm not feeling like talking about it right now. Ask me later and never get out of the bathroom without your loincloth again."

He makes a loud grunt, enough for me to hear his frustration, and gets on the bed with his laptop.

I can't believe it. Either he lacks decency or he really doesn't know how Sims works... down here. I'll ask Myriam to educate him on that matter. I can't do it myself. I'm a shy person and those types of subjects just embarrass me too much. Even more when it comes to people I like.

I want to go outside, getting some fresh air to change my mind but this ain't happening. I'm now stuck with my scarlet red face and him mocking my shyness every time I make a damn sound. Don't worry, buddy, I won't miss an opportunity to get under your skin when something makes you uncomfortable.

I finally regain my composure and get back to work, but this time, Caleb is too busy on his laptop to take a look at my screen. On the one hand, I appreciate it as I can focus more on what I'm doing, but on the other hand, I miss those interactions with him and his critics were very helpful. Maybe I'll ask for his advice in a couple of hours.

The day goes on way faster than expected, working, chatting, working, eating, chatting while working, and finally getting ready for bed. Like yesterday, I get my nightdress in the bathroom and put it on before getting out, unlike a very uncivilized simulacrum. I get under the sheets but don't feel like sleeping right away and grab a book in the library. Revenant is sitting on the edge of the bed, scrolling on his phone, and scoffs:

"What's funny?"

"I'm watching the latest Apex show. As usual, Octane did something stupid and died ridiculously. But he brought Loba and Caustic with him. What a genius!"

I get to the edge with him and watch over his shoulder as he rewinds the scene. Octane's team was on a trident, driven by Loba. She got injured and asked Caustic to take the wheel as she heals her wound, but the junky got faster and started to improvise stunt and create paths where there is none. Of course, that leads the trident to fall over the edge of the map, which concludes with their death. Loba did try to get out of it with her teleportation but an enemy saw it and punched it back into the pit.

"Ok, that bracelet throwback is damn hilarious."

We laugh together and watch a bit more of the show, commenting on some good moves from Gibraltar and Catalyst and some noteworthy actions here and there from other legends.

"Never took time to watch the Apex games before. Never got interested prior to being a legend myself and didn't need to watch it once I was living it. Should have done that before."

"I'll be honest, I never thought I could have fun watching people fighting to death."

"Technically, they're not dying. We got a little gadget on us which record our health states and as soon as we are agonizing, it teleports us to a med-bay so we're all ready to get respawned if our teammates survive long enough."

"I could have guessed that nobody is really dying or none of you would have stayed that long into the show, but it's quite interesting to know how it works being the scene."

We exchange a bit more about the games until I yawn for the fourth time.

"You should go to sleep now." He stands up.

"You're not coming to sleep too?"

"Don't need it. I recharged my battery yesterday and I can last for several days like that."

"What about sleeping to avoid hours of boredom?"

He pauses for a second:

"Good call. Don't want to read all the books in one night. Guess I'm going back to bed then."

He lays back over the sheets, takes his scarf off, and rolls at the edge of the mattress again.

"You know you can take more space, right? There is enough place for the two of us."

"Don't want you to hurt yourself by bumping into me in your sleep."

"It won't happen, come on, get closer."

He remains silent for a bit, then glide a little toward me, closing the gap from a couple of centimeters. That's already an improvement, I won't ask for more. We wish a good night at each other and let the night passes.