“No, I’m sorry. Just a routine follow-up. It helps me get a clearer sense. I appreciate the time,” she said to Var, then turned back to Cill. “Why don’t we go to your office? I’ll try not to take up too much of your time.”

“That’s okay. You can take as much as you need. Var, when the lieutenant’s finished with me, I think I’m going home. I’m useless here today. I’ve screwed up everything I’ve worked on, and had to back out. I’m just making a mess of things.”

“Do you want one of us to go with you?”

“No. No. I think I just need to be alone. I just need more time. You can let Benny know if you see him before I do. I’ll come in tomorrow. I’ll be better tomorrow.”

“I’ll tag you later and make sure you’re okay.” He went to her, gave her a hug that seemed both sincere and awkward to Eve. “Try to get some rest, okay?”

“Yeah. You, too.” Her bold, bright eyes watered up before she turned away. “My space is down this way, Lieutenant.”

Along the way, Eve glanced back to see Var standing behind the glass, watching them go, looking miserable.

“Do you want something?” Cill asked. “I’ve got power drinks, soft drinks, fizzies, diet and regular.”

“No, but go ahead.”

“I haven’t got a taste for anything.” Cill shoved her hands in her pockets, pulled them out again, twisted her fingers together. “You do this all the time. I mean, you talk to people who lost somebody. I was wondering if you know how long it takes before you stop forgetting you lost somebody, stop expecting to see them.”

“It’s hard,” was all Eve said.

“I don’t know if it’s going to be worse to stop forgetting, stop expecting. If it’s going to be worse when I remember all the time. It’s like… You look down at your hand, you don’t really think about it being there. It just is. And if you lost it, wouldn’t you keep expecting to see it there?”

“I guess you would. Grief counseling can help. I can give you a couple of names of people you could talk to, who might be able to help.”

“Maybe.” She shoved her mass of dark hair behind her shoulders. “I’ve never done therapy or counseling or any of that. But maybe.”

“You knew Bart a long time. The two of you must’ve worked on a lot of programming, a lot of games together.”

“Tons. We brainstorm. Sit around, get some pizza or whatever and just make stuff up. Then we get down to it. How do we translate that into a program? Benny’s point man on research. You dupe somebody’s game, you’ve wasted time and money and resources.”

“So you pitched ideas.”

“I guess you could say. We knock them off each other, spring-board them.”

“Who came up with Fantastical?”

“Ah… gosh.” She sat, brow knitted. “I’m not really sure. A lot of the concepts evolve through the brainstorming. I think… maybe Var had this idea for a fantasy game that offered user-controlled scenarios. Then I think… yeah, I think I said something about there being plenty of those already. What’s the next level? How about we take it holo, refine, seriously refine the imagery, the lag time.”

She looked away from Eve, stared through the glass wall of the office, where people zipped by. “Then, if I’ve got it right, Benny piped up with there were holo-games and programs along the lines already, and how Roarke’s company had the juiciest imagery out there. So what’s the next, next level?”

“Didn’t Bart have anything to say?”

“Oh yeah, he hangs back sometimes because he’s working on it in his head.” She rose, got one of the power drinks.

Moved well, Eve thought, thinking of the yoga classes. Strong and fluid.

“You sure you don’t want?”

“Yeah, thanks anyway.”

Cracking the tube, Cill sat, then after one sip set the drink aside. “I guess I don’t really want it either. I forgot where I was. Oh yeah, so we kept tossing stuff around, back and forth like, and Bart says not just juicier imagery. Full sensory load, smart tech. Military uses smart tech for training. We apply that to the game, add the full sensory, go full-out on imagery.”

She picked up the drink, just held it. “It’s a big investment, of time, energy, and money, but he really sold it to us. He was like, ‘We don’t just offer a menu of choices for mix and match. We open it up.’ Not just user-controlled, but the user can literally program his fantasy, every element, or mix his elements in with default elements. We just kept kicking it until we had the basic outline. Then we had to do the roll-up-the-sleeves and figure out how the hell to do it all.”

She nearly managed a smile. “And we did. It’s going to be the ult of ults.”

“You’ve been testing it, playing it.”

“Oh hell yeah. The four of us, or whoever’s around and up, worked on it mostly after hours. At least at first. Lowdown on this one because it’s going to be big. That’s why we wanted to get Felicity to draw up some paperwork before we duped it for you guys.”

“Understood. What did Bart like to play best?”

“Oh, he mixes it up. But whatever he plays, he likes being the hero.

Who doesn’t? He likes scenarios where he’s fighting for a cause, or the girl, or his own soul. Best was that combo.”

“The program puts you into the scene, makes you work for it, right?”

“Wouldn’t be fun otherwise.”

“So was he good at the fight?”

“Better than the rest of us most of the time. Bart likes to watch vids on gun battles, sword fights, knife fights. He studies instructional discs, talks to soldiers and cops and all that. It’s important when you’re programming to know the moves, the strategies, so you can offer them to the player.”

She took another absent sip of the drink, stared out the glass again. “I guess most programmers aren’t all that physical, but Bart works at it. He likes to win-and he likes to play. He’s a hell of a gamer. Was,” she said, in a voice that started to shake. “He was. He was my best friend in the world. I don’t know what I’m going to do now. I don’t know what any of us are going to do.”

Eve took out a card, wrote down a couple of names and contacts. “Try one of these names. It can help to talk, and to have somebody listen.”

“Yeah, okay. Yeah, I think I will. Is it a problem if I go home now?”

“No. Cill, do you know the Sing family?”

“Oh sure, sure. The kids are seriously sweet.”

“Var mentioned you were having a service for Bart here tomorrow. They’d like to come. If you’d let them know.”

“Yeah, I will. They’re on my list already, but I’ll take care of it right off. I’ll do it from home. I just think I want to be home.”

“Okay. Where can I find Benny?”

“He was in his office when I went by a little while ago. Mostly the three of us are just sitting around trying to get from one minute to the next. He’s probably still there.”

She didn’t find Benny in his office, which offered her the perfect opportunity to study his space. Open door, she thought, glass walls, implicit permission. Like the others, he had an office Friggie and AutoChef, a range of comps, a collection of toys and games.

More files, more clutter than Var, less than Cill, she noted, with active memo cubes stacked on his workstation, a mound of discs beside them. More discs filed by number on a shelf-and, as in Mira’s office, several photos.

She studied Benny with Cill and Bart as kids, all fresh faces and goofy smiles. Benny, tall and skinny even then, had an explosion of improbable red hair. He towered over his companions as Cill’s sharp green eyes sent out a wickedly happy glint, and the doomed Bart stood in the middle. In another they were teenagers at what looked to be the Jersey shore, sunshades, geek tees, windblown hair, mugging for the camera.

Still another had them dressed in costumes, with Cill in a fancy wig that had big rounds of hair at both ears, and a white flowy dress-with some sort of blaster in her hand. Benny wore a kind of space soldier suit, a smirky smile, and held another blaster, while Bart wore a white tunic and carried a glowing tubular sword.