Ethan hurriedly rang the doorbell and, shivering from the chill autumn air, shoved his hand quickly back into his coat pocket. He took a moment to survey the neighborhood, studying the cul-de-sac and the comfortable-looking homes that filled it. This is a nice part of town, he thought, lifting his watch. It had just hit six-thirty when the doorbell rang and he saw her.

Samantha stood in the doorway. He’d seen her picture online, but he was still surprised at how beautiful she looked. Her shoulder-length blonde hair framed her head like a shrine, leading down toward the comfortable green dress that hung over her and hugged at her curves.

“Holy shit, it’s cold. Come inside!” She smiled, opening the door widely. But Ethan didn’t move. He literally felt his jaw drop a little bit at the sight. Samantha’s smile widened at his reaction. “Come in!” She reached forward and grabbed his coat, pulling him toward the doorway.

“Sorry! I just didn’t expect—” He searched for the words as he motioned up and down at her.

She closed the door and leaned against it, rolling her eyes. “Please. My makeup’s not even done yet.”

“I don’t care.” He smiled and put his arms out for a hug. “I’ve spent the last two weeks mortified that I’d show up here and find a man twice my age and three times my size instead of you.”

She let out a genuine belly laugh. “No,” she said, going in for the hug, “just me. Sorry to disappoint.”

They’d met online a year ago after randomly entering the same instance as each other in an MMO. It turns out they worked really well together as a team and ever since they’d spent hours online with each other every week. They were content to just play the game and not divulge too much personal information until one week Samantha didn’t log on. Ethan had reached out to mutual friends they played with occasionally who mentioned that she was going through a bad breakup. When she finally logged back in she shared everything with him about ‘that asshole’ and ‘that whore’ and how bad she felt that her ex had blamed their affair on how often Samantha was online. It had taken a few days, but eventually Samantha realized that her ex was just an asshole, and that she had friends online that she could turn to.

At that point, Ethan opened up about his life and who he was—a twenty-two-year-old photographer who worked for his local newspaper. She had shared that she was a game developer in her late twenties, and for the next two weeks they played together every day, spending hours and hours asking each other questions and getting to know each other better. About a week in, they shared their real names with each-other and Samantha was caught off guard because “Ethan” was a boy’s name, and Ethan’s avatar was female.

At first Ethan was mortified. How had he not mentioned that in the first place!? But Samantha thought it was hilarious and it only made their relationship stronger, and every chance she got she’d joke with him about it.

He’d explained that he was a pretty big guy, widthwise, at lease. He was only five-foot-six, but was pretty heavyset. Since most games never offer avatars that fit what he actually looked like, and playing as a tall, ripped male only reminded him that he wasn’t a tall, ripped male, he preferred to play as a woman. She still joked about it, and even called him ‘girlfriend’ in game, but told him that she understood.

That was two months ago, and since then everything seemed to have changed. They’d opened up to each other more and more, and even started to write letters to each other, discussing mostly little things. However, those letters were deeply treasured by both of them.
Somehow, in that same time, Ethan had lost weight and now felt better than ever. Samantha had encouraged him to try eating healthier and had even helped foot the bill for a home-cooking subscription. In the last few months he’d gone from 218lbs all the way down to 150lbs, and he felt amazing. He’d been running more recently in the daytime, enjoying the last bit of afternoon warmth before it cooled off too much, and, all in all, he felt like he was in the best shape of his life.

Then, two weeks ago, they agreed to meet each other in real life. When Samantha announced she was moving for work and was going to be living an hour or so away from him, they were both ecstatic. When she first asked him if they could meet in real life, he wasn’t sure. He liked Samantha, but didn’t know if she like liked him back. He’d worked up the courage to ask her on a date, and she’d countered by inviting him to stay with her for the week, and now, here they were.

She was taller than he expected, maybe an inch or so taller than him. But he didn’t mind, or at least tried not to. He felt much less ashamed in his body as of late and knew how petty he’d be if he were to get caught up over something as stupid as height.

She was also smiling at him. Geeze, that smile.

“Earth to Ethan?”

He shook out of it and released her from the hug. Letting out a nervous laugh, he said “Sorry. Just got caught in the moment.”

“More like got caught with your hand on my butt.” She laughed, pushing him gently out of the way and heading down the hallway. “We haven’t even made it to the restaurant, yet.”

He didn’t remember his hand slipping, but he apologized again. “Sorry, you’re just… I mean… Shit! Where are my words tonight?”

“I don’t know where your words are, but the couch is there and there’s vodka in the freezer if you want to pregame.” She said from presumably the bathroom. “I’ll need five more minutes or so, if that’s okay.”

“Sure.”

Ethan went over to the freezer and pulled out the bottle of booze and poured himself a small shot. He’d only been drinking for a year and a half and the smell was pretty revolting, but if his previous attempts at communication were anything to judge by, he was going to need to relax a bit. So he took a deep breath, downed the shot, and spent the next twenty seconds coughing.

“I hope you’re not a lightweight.” Samantha said as she rounded the corner back into the kitchen. She was holding up two pairs of shoes. “I didn’t want to assume anything, so I want to ask. Would you be uncomfortable if I wore the heels tonight?” She proffered up the stylish footwear. “If not, I can wear the flats.”

“No! Don’t worry about me.” He placed the bottle back in the freezer as Samantha slipped on the heels. He walked up to her and, looking up and obviously trying to avoid staring at her on-display boobs, said “Besides, maybe I like this angle.”

She laughed a bit and leaned forward, giving him a better view. “I thought you might have gotten used to the sight of breasts by now, Girlfriend.” She winked at the moniker.

Ethan blushed, but didn’t look away. After a moment, Samantha went to grab a jacket.

“Are you ready?”

“What, no tour?”

She paused, placing the jacket back up on a hanger. “Uh… sure.”
Samantha led him into the living room and showed him her favorite plant. Apparently there was also a cat somewhere, but it didn’t like guys and probably wouldn’t come out until Ethan was gone. The house was small, so the tour was short, but the room Ethan found most interesting was her home office. It was covered in memorabilia from a dozen different RPGs and MMOs, as well as movie posters and original film strips.

“You work here?”

“Yeah…” Samantha stood in the doorway, arms crossed in front of her in a self-conscious manner. She played with her hands as she watched Ethan steadily work his way around the room.

“This…”

“What?” she asked, maybe with a little too much force.

“This is amazing!” said Ethan, rounding on her.

“It’s not too nerdy? Not too, I don’t know… ‘man-cave-y?’”

“Not at all!” Ethan didn’t see Samantha let loose a deep breath and relax. He was too busy studying framed character sheets on the wall. “What is all of this?”

“This is my research.”

“Research? I thought you made games?”

“Well, yeah. But I do a lot more than that, too.” She walked into the room and pointed at a few papers on the desk with the dual-monitor setup. “Just six months ago I landed a gig developing an app for, uh…” She scratched her neck.

“What?”

“Well, I just don’t know if I can really say.”

“Or what,” Ethan laughed, “you’ll have to kill me?”

“Honestly? I don’t know.” She looked serious, but sighed. “I’m working on developing an app for DARPA.”

“Like the CIA?”

“Kind of.” She said, reaching to turn on her monitors. Once they came up Ethan was able to observe spreadsheet upon spreadsheet of information. “Do you mind if I nerd out a little bit before we head out?” she seemed nervous, so Ethan was quick to reassure her. She smiled and turned back to the computer with renewed vigor.

“So it turns out that all of the work that MMOs and RPGs have been doing over the years has been more real than anyone ever realized. When people tried to create real worlds in video games and in RPGs they actually got closer than anyone ever expected. Do you remember the thing with World of Warcraft and the CDC?”

Ethan nodded his head. A decade or so ago there was a ‘virus’, or a ‘disease’, that a player could catch when in a certain high-level dungeon that would drain them of health pretty quickly. Because of this, once they left the dungeon the disease would be removed from the character before they could infect anyone else. However, the game devs had screwed up and forgotten to make it so that the player characters’ pets would have the same thing happen to them when they left the dungeon. What resulted was a true-to-life pandemic, where this ‘disease’ spread from character to character throughout the game in a realistic pattern. The CDC had caught wind of this and worked with Blizzard, the company that made World of Warcraft, to study the data to help them better predict the spread of real-life contagions.

Samantha continued. “Well it turns out that other stuff was more realistic, too. Genetic studies showed where in the brain different collections of synapses were located that could impact ‘stats’, so to speak, that could influence hormones and create immediate changes in a person’s body. And, on top of that, a person exposed to nanites like these,” she picked up a small bottle with glittery, silver pills in it, “the changes can be made almost immediately.” She motioned toward the character sheets on the walls. “So what my work does, is I take a person’s DNA, plug it into this little device, here…” she pointed at what looked almost like a 3D printer on the desk, “…and work to make adjustments to those stats.”

“You’re fucking with me right now, right?”

She sighed and seemed to lose energy. “Listen,” she turned in her chair to face him. “I know it sounds kind of crazy, but it’s my life’s work and it really works.”

“I mean, I’d like to believe you! And I think this is all amazing, but I don’t know if I can just trust that this technology exists.”

“Oh, Ethan, this kind of technology has existed for a while, now.” She grinned. “I can change how people look, how they respond to different stimuli, how they age. And as of last week I can even change people’s attire.”

Ethan was stunned. “How would that even…”

“It does work, and I can prove it to you.”

“Wait, you don’t need to—”

“Yes, I do.” She stopped him in his tracks. “I refuse to date somebody who thinks I’m crazy. I will not go out with you if you cannot respect me. Can you understand that?”

“But I do respect you, Samantha.”

“You just don’t believe me.”

“I…”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” She crossed her legs and arms, studying him. “So, what’ll it be?”

Ethan didn’t understand what she was asking. “I’m sorry?”

“What am I going to change about myself? What would you like to see different about me?”

“Nothing! You’re literally perfect, Samantha.”

“Well, we’re gonna change something before we go out. What do you think?”

Ethan decided to play along. “Fine, how about…”