Claudia beat Harley and Marisa to the restaurant on Friday.

“Lunch is my treat today,” she said. “We can do that much, at least. Oh, man, I can hardly wait for you guys to see this! It’s been driving me crazy, not being able to tell you what we’ve been working on. But the lawyer says that I have to get you to sign these before I can tell you anything more.” She slid two stacks of paper, and two pens, across the table.

“And hello to you too,” Harley chuckled, sitting down and pulling his into reach. He scanned down the first page. “Are you okay? You only keep flexing your right hand like that when you’re sore.”

“I just overdid it a little plus the weather is crap. I just took pain meds. I’ll be fine, I promise. Stop reminding me about that when I’m happily distracted being excited, you beast.” She didn’t sound particularly upset, though; she reached over to lay her left hand briefly over Harley’s, in fact.

“Sorry, my bad. Just checking.”

Marisa looked at hers. Her own name was filled in, along with WyrdTech, the dev group.

“The hardware, as adapted for compatibility with any other device, the code that allows the hardware to interface with any other device and with the witch-tech component, and the witch-tech component and the techniques required for its creation, function, and integration, collectively referred to hereafter as ‘the Reverie device’... that’s a mouthful,” Marisa said.

“It is,” Claudia sighed. “Honestly, lawyers. It’s just the physical device and the stuff that makes it run.”

The waitress set two more glasses of water on the table, and offered menues.

“I think we’re going with our usual,” Harley said. “Fish and chips, Ris?”

“Never get enough,” Marisa said.

“Club sandwich with a side salad for me, Italian dressing.”

“And my sweet Thai chicken wrap,” Claudia added.

“Sure thing,” the waitress said. “Drinks?”

With their full order, she left them alone.

“We made a game,” Claudia said, “but like Harley said before, there’s a huge range of potential uses for the same tech that go way beyond that. Imagine being able to use this combined with scientific data to visualize and manipulate it, or for education and training, and our healer-witch friend thinks it could be applied to psychotherapy too. Ultimately, it could be a major step towards full-on immersive VR that actually works and feels real!” She stopped and took a deep breath. “Sorry, we’ve been really excited about this, but maybe you can see why all the secrecy.”

“It’s okay,” Marisa said, laying a hand briefly over Claudia’s, her light brown over Claudia’s freckled near-white seashell-pink, and only realized belatedly that it was the same gesture the tech-witch had used a moment before. She drew her hand back and wrapped it around the worry stone she wore on a white cord around her neck, something to play with at odd moments. “That’s understandable.”

“No releasing so much as a single word until we’re given permission to do so in writing,” Harley said, mostly to himself. “That’s normal. The hardware is ours on indefinite loan but must be surrendered on request?”

“We’re only ever going to do that for something major,” Claudia said. “And depending on how the beta-test goes we might replace it with an upgraded version.”

“You aren’t legally responsible if something goes wrong but will make every effort blah blah... this is all completely standard.” Harley picked up the pen and signed what turned out to be two copies.

“Do you want the results of our safety tests so far?” Claudia asked. “We’ve been keeping absolutely meticulous records of that.”

“Later, probably. I’m not reading through it today. I’m going to trust you that nothing about it is going to fry either of our brains or anything.”

“We’re all unanimous about safety being a top-tier priority. There’s no point if it isn’t safe to use. Where there’s any conflict between safety and seamless immersion or something, safety won.”

“I’m not usually involved this early,” Marisa said, “but yeah, it looks pretty straightforward. It’s your toy, you’re allowing us to use it for the sake of testing and feedback, no trying to reverse-engineer it even if I had the faintest idea where to begin doing that, and we keep it strictly private. Until you say so, at least, and then we get to be the first in two different media to share our experience with it.”

“Exactly,” Claudia said. “I’d never ask you to sign anything or do anything I thought could work out badly for you.” She produced a box of brown, rough-textured, recycled cardboard from her backpack and slid it out onto the table, then signed each agreement herself, returned one copy to each, and gathered up the rest to slip back into her backpack. “All set. I’ll text you each a one-time-use download link for the app, just click and give it permission to install, but remember that it’s going to be a chunky download. Turn on the device—it’s just one button. I made certain it was fully charged before I packed it up, but it’s a standard USB-C connector for the tech part, there’s a cord in the box, and the witchy part will gradually recharge on its own. It’s going to flash yellow for a minute, then turn green. Make sure you have the dongles plugged into your phones, they match with what you told me you have, and it’ll pair automatically although you might need to give it permission once more. Run the app with full permissions while the light’s green. The first time only, the app will walk you through connecting Reverie to your wi-fi so it can reach our servers. Very, very high-security data transfer and storage, the best we could create. If you run it at the same time, it’ll ask if you want to share a game, and I really recommend you do that, it’s much more fun. From there, just follow the instructions. I suggest only starting it when you know you’ve got a while free, because it’s probably going to be easy to lose track of time. I don’t really want to say anything more than that, because it might give you expectations.”

“Hard to avoid that,” Harley said. “But yes, makes sense.”

“Those sound like pretty simple and intuitive instructions,” Marisa said. “How do we turn it off?”

“It’ll tell you,” Claudia said. “But basically just, Reverie, pause, or Reverie, save and exit. Pause will leave the illusions in place but switch off the interactive part so you can walk right through them, until you say, Reverie, resume. Save and exit will shut it down entirely. It’ll offer you the chance to go back to a saved session next time you run it.”

“Easy enough. Are you coming over while we try this?”

Claudia shook her head. “As much as I’d love to be there to see reactions, I’m going to pass this time through—maybe on a second run. Right now, I want you able to just explore it with no interference and no pressure. But I’ll be listening for you if you need me for anything or have any questions.”

* * *

“I’m thinking we should just plan on ordering pizza later,” Marisa said, on the drive back to their house. “Neither of us is going to want to stop to make supper if this works at all, and Claudia’s super-bouncy so it seems unlikely it’s going to be a total flop.”

“That’s probably a realistic approach. We can make sure most of the cat stuff is done in advance too, other than their evening meal, and I’m getting almost as good as you are at cuddles-on-demand while I’m doing something else. We’ll have virtually the complete rest of the day to give this a fair shot and see what happens.”

“Do you think they’ve actually done it? I mean, even I know that it’s been a goal for ages, trying to integrate witchery and tech, and outside of a tech-witch being right there as a bridge, it never works.”

“I don’t know. I’m suspending judgement until I see it. I’ve seen a lot of discussions about how it could be done and a lot of unproven claims. But I’ve known Claudia for, oh, five, six years, and she only gets hyper for a good reason. Okay, she does find a lot of good reasons, but they get rarer as they get more intense, and this is intense.”

Both phones chimed; since Marisa wasn’t driving, she checked hers. “There’s the download links, right on schedule.”

They shared a pleasant, if not overly large, house in a residential area that was mostly rather old and modest in architecture, but easygoing and friendly in population. The upper floor had a bedroom for each plus a third bedroom that Harley used as an office for writing tech articles and testing software; Marisa had converted the finished part of the basement into a set where she could produce videos aimed at users who were bewildered by tech, assessing software and hardware and offering solutions and alternatives. What had started as a purely practical arrangement that would allow them both to have a home and workspace while they were still building a following had developed into mutual support and then into a firm friendship. Claudia, who had actually introduced them to each other on the grounds that they might be able to help each other, had been delighted at how well it worked.

Very early, both had admitted to some degree of sexual attraction that potentially could complicate matters, but they’d acknowledged quickly that acting on it would almost certainly be catastrophic. While Marisa could find anyone appealling, her history so far suggested that she did much better in relationships with women, with some broad fuzzy ground around that term. Harley knew from experience that he wouldn’t find any relationship particularly fulfilling if he couldn’t indulge his creative use of ropes on a partner, and that wasn’t anywhere Marisa intended to go. That acknowledgement had actually made things more stable, since they knew exactly where they stood and there were no unanswered speculative questions hanging in the air.

Thus, the comfortable little house, the pair of fostered rescue cats who were waiting for a forever home—helped along by a few videos on social media and Marisa’s personal channel, and occasional unexpected cameos in her planned videos that she left in while editing because her audience loved it—and a busy but generally satisfying life. Single, in both cases, but who had time, considering the competitive realm of creating online content?

Inside, outerwear shed and hands washed and foster-cats duly greeted until they wandered off to do their own thing, both settled in their cozy living room to investigate the boxes and links.

Tapping the link did indeed start a download of quite a substantial file. While it did so, Marisa went to the kitchen to get them each a drink, and returned to find Harley jotting down notes, old-school with a pen in a hard-covered notebook.

“Just so I remember later for writing about it,” he said.

“Fair enough. I’ll just borrow your notes and memory if I need to.”

The device in the box was a rather unpreposessing black rectangle, like a tiny computer; it had only two buttons, one larger and more obvious, the other smaller and recessed. When Harley pressed the larger button, the promised LED came on, flashing slowly yellow with the speed gradually increasing. Finally, it changed to green.

The app, duly installed and given all the permissions it requested, let Harley give it the wi-fi password, chimed cheerfully, verified the presence and identity of the dongle, and announced that it was building the interface.

“Definitely user-friendly so far,” Marisa observed. “It can’t really get easier than this.”

“So far,” Harley agreed.

Another chime on each phone virtually in chorus, and both asked whether they wanted to play together in a shared reality. When told “Yes” the app played a brief tinkly melody, then declared that the two phones were now synced for the purposes of the game.

Welcome to Reverie: Ambition!

You have chosen a two-player game.

Before continuing, you must give your consent. The full Terms and Conditions can be found at this link [coming soon!]. In short, Reverie uses a combination of technology and witchery. This includes a mind-witch component which will scan your upper thoughts while you set up your personal uniquely-tailored game, and which will allow you to interact with the illusions that create the enhanced augmented reality in which the game takes place. Strict protocols are in place to prevent Reverie from scanning any deeper part of your mind, and it saves only data which is directly relevant to game set-up and operation and which is saved under the highest level of security. It does not project anything which is not directly relevant to gameplay. If you consent, please say “Yes” now. Your phone will ask you to sign in to verify your identity for legal purposes.

“Yes,” Marisa said, and then offered her thumbprint and added her pattern lock as well. “I suppose it makes sense, given all the laws around mind-witch scans and such.”

“It’s not really any worse than most software and their EULAs,” Harley said. “Although the NDA basically outweighs anything right now.”

Thank you! At any time you can say “Reverie, pause,” and the game will be suspended until you say “Reverie, resume.” If you wish to end your session, say “Reverie, save and exit.”

The next step is to create your avatar. We recommend that you ask your fellow player to take a full-body photo of you to form a basis for this, although you can proceed without that if you prefer. For best results, do not wear loose or bulky clothing, and stand against an uncluttered solid-coloured background in good lighting. Taking two or three pictures from different angles will increase the base accuracy, if desired.

That seemed straightforward enough, though Harley groaned and rolled his eyes over having to break his usual rule about avoiding cameras. The dining room walls had little decoration on them and the lighting was decent, so they used that as a setting. Both were in jeans, a concession to the weather outside, with anything particularly bulky already removed for comfort indoors.

Marisa’s app showed a timer in the centre, with the word Processing beneath it, but it quickly cleared to show quite a recognizable version of herself in a nondescript and figure-hugging sky-blue bodysuit covering essentials, standing on a grey tile floor with a creamy wall behind her, flanked by suggestions of potted plants. It had quite impressive detail on zooming in, and had managed to fairly accurately extrapolate anything that might not have been visible.

Please customize your avatar’s appearance. Reverie will use both your choices within the app and any image you are visualizing to create a final avatar for you.

“How outrageous are you going to be?” Marisa asked.

Harley chuckled. “I’m going to push it a bit, of course. Nothing grotesque or anything, but I want to see what it can do. Especially if I’ve actually gone as far as actually taking pictures of myself for this.”

“Hm. This really does have an immense range of options. There’s a fantasy tab? Elf ears, feathers... Oh, man... is that a kitty tail? And ears? I have got to see how that works.”

“Of course you do. And I mean that in both the sense of, it wouldn’t be you otherwise, and because it’s a good test.”

She stayed mostly with her own appearance, but did add the cat ears and tail, and changed her skin colour to white with ample pale orange and grey patches like a dilute calico; the tail and ear colour changed, unasked, to match. She adjusted her own short black hair to a longer fall, loose curls that brushed her collarbone with straight bangs, and changed the colour of that to orange with a generous swathe of grey at the left front.

“There’s no way to choose outfit,” she said, puzzled. “That’s weird.”

“Hmm, you’re right. Maybe it generates that depending on the gameplay.”

The app showed Marisa’s avatar slowly spinning in place, with a button asking her to confirm her choices. She did.

Thank you! Avatar saved!

The next step is a series of questions which will customize the game to the interests and tastes of both players. Please choose: simple or detailed. We recommend choosing ‘simple’ for a first play-through and making use of ‘detailed’ on subsequent experiences to tweak the results or try something completely different.

“Simple?” Harley said.

“Simple sounds good.”

We recommend, on a first play-through, that you give the first answer that comes to mind. Replies can be given out loud or typed. As a reminder, the data used incorporates your mental visualizations during this phase as well.

“I’ll move to the dining room for the moment,” Harley said. “Just so we aren’t talking over each other.”

“Thanks.”

1) What is your favourite genre of fiction? Please choose all that apply.

2) What is your favourite game?

3) Please describe your ideal partner – sexual, romantic, or platonic.

“Oh, come on! Claudia promised this wasn’t a dating sim!”

“Just answer the question,” Harley laughed. “It does say it can be platonic.”

There were fifteen questions in all, and some of them were distinctly odd, but they didn’t really take all that long to answer.

Thank you for your patience! This completes the set-up for Reverie: Ambition. Your unique and customized game experience is now being prepared.

Harley returned to the living room and perched on the arm of the couch, watching his phone expectantly. “All right, Claudia, let’s see what this wild invention of yours can do once it gets going.”

Game generation complete! Say or press Continue to activate!

They looked at each other, both grinned, and said, “Continue,” together.

Have fun!

The lighting in the living room rippled.