Snatch Me

pose menu and moved to right click on the models head.

A menu opened and another sub-menu.

“You getting along okay over at your dad' s house? You need anything, you can always give me a shout.”

“Mmm,” she said.

“Don' t be shy about taking me up on it.”

“Okay.” She hit another dead end with the program. She considered a moment and decided on a different task. When one can' t find something where a reasonable person would put it, try looking in a place where it would never put it. Mack' s voice had changed, from the cheerful, this-ischitchat tone to something more serious. She tuned back in.

“I just wanted to say, I lost my wife a couple of years back. Sudden, like with your dad. It' s a real kick in the gut.”

She stopped, looked over at him. He was looking away from her, staring at a poster depicting the parts of a computer, but she could tell he was really seeing something farther away.

This was the place where people were supposed to say something like, I’m sorry for your loss. But that sounded too canned. She couldn' t come up with anything original that felt right. “It is,” she said at last, put her hand on his shoulder, felt the muscles in his back go taut under her fingers. She broke the contact as his head swiveled. Fixed her eyes on the monitor. She could not handle another match with those discerning baby blues of his.

She found his solution then, the option he needed to click so attached items would move with the model.

“Look,” she said. Mack leaned close, his head next to hers. His hair was a rich, dark silk with waves that begged fingers to wander through them. It smelled of citrus and spice. She forced her attention away from his hair and back to the model' s.

“See where you link it?”

“Yeah. How the hell did you ever think to look there?” Jolie just shrugged.

A guy with virtual sex as a hobby should be an expert with attachments, but this feature had been buried in an edit menu when common sense would lead you to expect it in an insert menu.

With the problem solved Mack retrieved his USB stick while Jolie cleared cups and crumbs from her desk.

“What do you use the 3D modeling for?” she asked. “If you don' t mind my asking.”

“Fantasy art, mostly,” he said, standing up, dusting off the knees of his jeans.

“Really? That' s so cool.” Mack just wasn' t the sort of guy you thought of when someone said artist. He had the muscled body of a guy whose work pushed its limits.

He had the wit and moves of a guy whose work pushed his intellect. He had more layers than the lucky librarian costume. What would she find if she kept peeling them back? She wasn' t going to.

If a guy like Waster could capture her desire so completely from the reaches of cyberspace, taking up with a real-life player could be as addictive as crack. Despite the teasing about smart girls, everyone who played those cyber games had to master a steep learning curve to make it work. They were geeks, amplified by a factor of ten.

They were dangerous minds, only safe to handle when limited to pixel bodies. She liked to dip her toe in a little danger, not drown in it.

The door bells chimed and Sienna strolled in.

“Hey, girl, you ready for that rematch? Hey, Mack.” Mack backed through the gate. “I don' t want to keep you. Thanks for the help, Jolie.

Later, Sienna.”

“Everything okay?” Sienna asked.

“Yeah,” she said. “Let' s go running.”

She thought about Waster during the run, and that evening as she was falling asleep.

She thought about the Quarterz when she first woke up…fought an hour-by-hour battle once she got to work, resisting the ache to log in.

It was noon when she realized that she' d gone hours, almost an entire day without thinking of her father. After months of thinking of nothing but, she had finally crossed a threshold. He was slipping out of her life.

Chapter Five

A post-apocalyptic swamp is just as noisy as a pre-apocalyptic swamp, the difference being that the chirrs chirp, and locust rattles have a deeper base, as if the insects and reptiles behind the sounds are ten times bigger than their old-school cousins. Or it might be my imagination was running away with me, but that was my first impression of the swamp that fed the river that flowed through the Quarterz, down to the Wastelands and out to the gulf beyond.

The mutated vegetation and heavy green mists of the swamp were creepy. A great place to hide. With each step I could feel the slither of unseen reptiles moving like breath, in and out of tangled vines around me. I was about twelve feet from where I left the boat when the brush in front of me exploded and the world turned upside down.

It stayed upside down while I swung back and forth in a net, like a pendulum on a clock.

As usual I was here more to hide from my real life than to hide from hunters. As usual I was doing a great job with the first goal and a lousy one with the second.

Vegetation squished and popped under the weight of an approaching predator.

Could anything that sounded that big be human? I sniffed the air for a clue but the smell of skunk cabbage and stagnant water masked everything else. The guy emerging from the trees was Sasquatch big, but a whole lot better looking.

Makes you wonder-if the swamp grows guys that much bigger, what does that say about the crickets? Don' t want to know? Me either.

His skin was a creamy brown, just the shade I liked my coffee. His hair was a jungle of waist-length braids. He wore camo shorts, combat boots and the usual hunter-type utility belt.

He cut me down without a word. I closed my eyes, braced myself for the leash and the dizzying spin that would follow when he launched off to whatever his favorite spot for partaking in prey might be.

Neither happened. I opened my eyes again. He didn' t look pleased.

“A new girl.” The way he said it you' d think he' d netted a big cricket instead of me.

He turned away and did some stuff with the ropes to reset his trap.

“What' s wrong with new girls?” I inched quietly toward the right while he had his back to me. He wasn' t watching me. I was watching him instead of where I was going.

My ankle hit another trip rope and I was back in the air.

It was really nice of him to cut me loose again instead of just walking away. It was even nicer that he didn' t answer my question.

“I guess I shouldn' t throw back a beautiful girl who jumps into my nets twice,” he said, helping me to my feet. “We can go have sex if you want.” Imagine this. With an invitation like that to tempt me, I didn' t want. The guy knew how to shred a girl' s confidence.

“You don' t have to.” I dusted myself off, gave the trip ropes a wide berth and stomped toward the waiting jungle.

He caught up to me in one stride, grabbing my wrist. “I didn' t hear you safe-out and I don' t recall saying you could go.”

A familiar quiver stirred in the pit of my stomach. I didn' t see an answering gleam in his eye.

“Look. You were obviously hoping for someone special. No big deal. I really just wanted to find a place away from hunters where I could practice.”

“I wasn' t expecting anyone special…”