“You’ll be living in a mansion in the clouds,” Laura said, “so this tiny stone hut in the woods is only technically your home. I hope that’s okay.”
“Why can’t my mansion be my home?” Mr. Stilwathe asked.
“It’s just a software limitation. I need to specify your home point on solid ground, but you’ll never need to visit it.”
“But isn’t my mansion technically on ground?”
“It’s on a floating rock. The system recognizes your mansion as an airship. But on the upside, you can take your home to other domains, which I thought you might like.”
“Really? A traveling home?”
“Only if the domains support that, but yes. Would you like to see what I’ve got?”
“Of course!”
Through the frames of Laura’s interface lenses, she saw a floating mansion upon its rock projected up from her desk in miniature scale. Along her desk’s surface were many square miles of landscape, similarly miniaturized. It all amounted to two weeks of work.
After collapsing the project into an export file, she pinched it with gloved fingers and pressed it to the center of three view panes around her desk—the one that showed Mr. Stilwathe. The file seeped through to his side.
Stilwathe was unsure how to open the file. Expected. He was a business man—vice president of Cramer Synthetics. He was no doubt helpless around computers without his assistants.
“Press the ‘Link’ button,” she said, and waited patiently for him to find it.
The rendering reappeared over Laura’s desk, only now it also rendered on Stilwathe’s end too.
“If you press the expand button on the desktop,” Laura said, “I can give you a proper tour.”
He scrounged for the button, pressed it, and startled. Through his own interface lenses, his office was replaced with the world Laura had designed. Stilwathe marveled like a child as he gazed about at seemingly nothing. Laura wasn’t close to finishing her work on the domain, but it still made her glow to see a client’s unadulterated delight. “You can ignore the terrain for now. It’s mostly auto-generated.” She teleported his view to the floating mansion. “This is where the work is.”
The term “mansion” was generous. In order to stay within the rules for what the Virtual Standards Board labeled as a vehicle, she had to keep it to two stories in the house proper, and a measly twenty rooms. Stilwathe probably already lived in a larger home, but what that home didn’t have was a seat atop a jagged chunk of earth like a floating iceberg, smoothed on top for pleasant topiary touches. Inside, an elevator led into the core of the floating land, where Laura had built a massive engine room with multi-floor contraptions filled with steaming, rumbling clockwork wizardry. A console in the center managed the flight control.
God was it fun to design. Most of her clients were boring. They would enter a fantasy world where they could live however they wanted, yet nearly all hired her to design mansions similar to their existing homes—lavish, but mundane. In whatever fantasy world they were living in now, Laura imagined they still wore a suit and tie.
Stilwathe was different. He may have been another aging, overweight aristocrat, but at least he dreamed big. As a child, he’d read a series called the Clockwork Battalion, by Vincent Cornwiler, which had a Victorian style world built upon majestic steam machines. It stuck with him and became the basis of his fantasy world. Laura had had to read the series to get a proper feel for what he wanted, but she hadn’t minded one bit.
She showed Stilwathe around his future home. To her relief, the smaller size didn’t bother him.
And just as she’d hoped, he was floored by the engine room.
“Marvelous.” He explored the inside. “Simply Marvelous. Do the engine parts actually do anything?”
“No. Most of it is for show, but so is everything in the virtual world, right?” Stilwathe was too busy peering around, so she continued. “Another upside to a smaller home like this is that I can put in much more detail. Though it’ll have to be within certain limits if you want to take it to other domains, it should still be quite nice.”
He took off his lenses and rubbed his eyes. Laura took the cue and disabled the full-projection mode. “I’ll still have a lot more touches I’d like to do if you’re willing.”
“Of course. Of course.” He waved it off. Like all her clients, money wasn’t a concern.
“Great,” she said. “Would you like to look at the body I have so far?”
Interest piqued, he put his lenses back on.
After the hassle of linking files once again, they both saw a dapper gentleman projected from each of their desks. His suit fit the Victorian theme, though his hairstyle was modern—simple but elegant. He was undeniably handsome.
“Ohhhh,” Stilwathe leaned close. “That is me, isn’t it? I forgot how fetching I was in my prime.”
Laura nodded. Stilwathe had not been nearly as ample as he was today, but he was never fetching. The stills he’d provided Laura were a good sample. Several were of him with other businessmen. The ones of his beach trip with his third wife were particularly helpful, since they showed him nearly naked. Regardless, Laura had still needed to use her imagination more so than with other clients.
“Do you have other outfits?” he asked.
“Press the tabs by its feet.”
He did so. The next projection was the same body in modern business attire. He approved. “This will be the new face my business partners see.”
More tabs led to more outfits, some casual, some modern, some Victorian. In the last tab, the body was naked. He coughed politely and switched back to another.
“It’s okay,” Laura said. “Look at it. Now or later. Make sure it’s right. Besides, I’ve seen it.” She spent an hour tweaking details about the genitals in all its various states of arousal. There was no modesty to be had anymore.
Uncomfortable, Stilwathe scrutinized the naked body. He figured out how to zoom in, though he avoided the private areas. “Looks good. Hmm.”
“Is something wrong?”
“No no. I like the definition, but eh… the skin. It looks… I don’t know. Unpolished?”
“You mean imperfect?”
“…Yes.”
“That’s by design. I trimmed away a lot of flaws from what you had as a young man, but I kept many too. Just some creases, some vein work, and a few sparse hairs.”
“But why? I thought half the point of virtualizing was that you get to have a perfect body.”
“Exactly. You can. Anybody can. You can just pick a stock model and change details. That’s why in their world, beauty is in the flaws. It’s about realism. Same with your airship. The engine room could have perfect brass cogs, but it would look fake. That’s why I took the time to give them tarnish and scratches. Same with the bricks on your house. Uniform bricks would be impressive in real life, but in the virtual space, you want mottled tiles and ivy, and maybe a few chipped spots.”
“I see.” He still frowned. “None of this is final, right?”
“Right. Once you’re in the system and configured, there are always some last minute changes, especially to your body. Your contract with us covers all adjustments for up to one month.”
“Good. Good. And what about after? Suppose I want you to make new content.”
“TransitionLabs only covers initial domain and body design as part of our Transition experience. You’ll have to hire a third party for later content design.”
“Right, but you. I can hire you personally, right? For later projects? You came highly recommended.”
“I work for TransitionLabs.”
“Yes, yes.” He flapped his hand. “But surely you’ll take on clients personally. I can pay quite well.”
“It’s not that I don’t want to. I’d love to actually, but I’m under contract. All my work is for TransitionLabs only.”
“Pity.” Stilwathe closed the projection and settled back. “If you ever find yourself no longer obligated so, you will let me know, won’t you? I’m a man who’s never satisfied with what he has for very long.”
She chose her words carefully. “I’ll remember that, sir. If my circumstances were to ever change, then I’d be open to such a proposal.”
“Excellent,” he said. “Will you be available later? If I have more questions…”
“I’m available anytime, and I’ll be sitting in with your call next week with Dr. Sankar.”
He nodded. “You’ll hear from me.”
The call ended. Laura removed her lenses. She was left staring at the three screens of her interface desk, aligned like half of a hexagon so that each was within reach.
Between them, they showed her apps, calendars, notes, and widgets. Without her lenses, it was all still there, although two-dimensional. The setup was far better than her pitiful workspace at home, but she hated it. Policy required it to have work-related content only, and those company-mandated widgets nagged for her attention all day.
She dimmed the screen and collected her things. The day was over, and her mind was on her little home, still an hour commute away.
Her interface desk lit back up.
She was getting a call.
It was her boss.
Laura considered pretending like she hadn’t seen it—leave now, call him back tomorrow. It was well past work hours, but that never mattered to him. This call was certainly about the chat she’d just had with Stilwathe, so he knew she was there. Even though she theoretically could have been out the door by now, he’d accuse her of ignoring him.
She accepted the call.
There he was, a perfect young professional with slicked-back hair, a chiseled chin, sharp eyes, and a slight shadow of a beard—exactly as she’d designed for her virtualized employer.
“You took your time.” Shoal was already in a mood.
“I was halfway out the door.”
Shoal glanced at something nearby to him. Probably checking an app Laura was sure he had which would show exactly when his employees were supposed to be in office.
He didn’t make a point of it. “I need those avatars, and the changes for my body.”
“They’re not done, sir.”
“I asked for those over a week ago, for tonight. It should only have taken you ten minutes.”
“It’s not ten minutes, sir. You asked for forty avatars. Unless you want me to throw them together using the prefab suite, then—”
“No. Jesus. I don’t want a half-assed job. Fuck it. Just get my touch-ups done. I’m on my way to a shareholder’s meeting.”
“Sorry, sir. I’ve been working.”
“Yes. With Stilwathe. I see you were just on another call with him.”
“Yes.”
“What about? More tweaks and adjustments? Why aren’t you finished with him?”
“He wants a few more changes which I’ll probably do tomorrow.”
“Did he ask for more work?”
No. Laura had offered, but Shoal already knew that, didn’t he? She had a hunch that he knew the answer to every question he was asking.
“There are a few places he’d like more detail. I let him know that I could make alterations, like our contract promises.”
“Finish with him,” he replied. “We just picked up two more clients today. I’ve scheduled you to meet with them tomorrow.”
“Is anyone else able to take them?”
“You’re refusing work?”
“It’s just you’ve got me doing those avatars, and I’ve already got five clients right now. I think Isma only has two, and Calvin only has the Lambard client.”
“Isma and Calvin have fewer clients because they don’t waste time offering to make changes for free. Stilwathe was satisfied with what you showed him the first time.”
“It’s not done.”
“Get done. We’re not paid for post-edits.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And did you offer to take on jobs for Stilwathe after his contract finished with TransitionLabs?”
“I told him I couldn’t.”
“Is that what you said? Because it sounded like you told him you gladly would just as soon as you’re legally allowed.”
So he had been listening in, probably thanks to another mandatory widget on this work machine. “I only told him I’d let him know if my situation changes. To be polite.”
“When I came on to the Transition team, I chose to keep you on. Not many employers would give a non-guild nobody a chance. Don’t make me regret that. Stealing company clients would not just be grounds for dismissal, that’s grounds for litigation.”
“I wasn’t trying to steal him away. He wouldn’t even be a client after his contract was up.”
“So you are considering his offer?”
“No, sir.”
“You work for TransitionLabs. You can’t take on clients of your own.”
“I know.”
“And if you quit…”
“I know, sir. I know my contract.”
“Don’t snip. Get my tweaks to me before six.”
He ended the call. No goodbye.