Friend Me (10 page)

He clicked the
compare
button, and the images of the five different women appeared together on the screen. Following the instructions, he prioritized them from one to five, then clicked
done
.

Five beautiful women. Not voluptuous but desirable. They shared that quality that spoke “I want to please you” to a man.

Jane came back on the screen. “Let me help you make a final choice now. You probably need to see a little more.” She raised one eyebrow.

The images now appeared with complete bodies included. Although they were fully clothed, little was left to wonder about. Scott was looking at five beautiful women. As he looked, he saw each of the women was moving in very subtle ways, as if she were standing on a sidewalk, or in a room, waiting for someone to come and meet her.

I think I would like to meet one of these women
.

The third image was that of a slim young woman, about five-nine. She had dark brown hair that fell to her shoulders. She wore a T-shirt with something written on the front he couldn't make out, blue jeans, and some sort of running shoes.

“I choose number three.”

“Would you like to see more before you make your final choice? I don't mean more images; I mean would you like to see more of this woman?”

Scott swallowed. He had always been very careful about keeping his mind clean and his relationship with his wife first of all in his life. He reasoned with himself, though, that this wasn't real. It was like a game. It wasn't even like looking at pictures of real women.
These are just computer constructs
.

“Yes. I want to see more.”

“Scott, we can keep right on going from here. However, we are entering into a part of our service we call
premium content
. Premium content is not furnished free. Are you willing to enter into an agreement with us to pay fifteen dollars a month for this service? You may cancel at any time after the first ninety days. Furthermore, the first month is free with your commitment. Would you like to continue?”

Scott's mind had already taken him places where he had never been. He was not going to quit now.

No decision was necessary. He had committed to this road from the time he said
intimate
. “Yes, I agree.”

Jane showed him more. Much more.

By the time he got back to the office, he was forty-five minutes late. He trembled with exhaustion. He had only one thing on his mind the rest of the day.

It was
Alicia
, and he couldn't wait to see her again.

Shelob's Lair

A
t eight-thirty that evening Melissa slumped into her high-backed leather chair. The Go-Live announcement had kicked off a day that had barely left time to breathe. Demand after demand for information flooded in from would-be investors, reporters, and industry watchers. She hadn't even had time to check her staff updates. At last she had a chance to check her e-mail.

The area outside her office was dark except for a few lights that had been left on by the departing staff. A pale glow radiated from some of the monitors. The only lights in Melissa's office were the one on her desktop and the radiance from her own display.

Her inner sanctum. The walls in front of her desk were sparingly decorated wood panels. Two narrow windows on one wall gave a view of the city beyond. Servers were arrayed in a forty-foot arc behind her desk, shielded behind tinted glass. Dim green and blue LEDs winked in random patterns like stars.

No one intruded here without an invitation, and those were not given easily. From here she could spread herself out along
the fiber optics, the copper, and all the high-band wireless pathways of the world, looking in on the secrets of lonely men and women and the hidden purposes of the not so lonely. None of them was innocent.

She viewed the list of e-mails that had come in during the day. Just the normal notifications and alerts from the system people and staff with questions. There was a message from Dan Hammersmith with the subject line,
Thanks for your efforts today
.

She was about to log off the computer, leaving all the messages for the next day, when she saw something unusual on the left-hand side of her screen.

The
special
e-mail account. A single message waiting. Melissa sat back into her chair. It could mean only one thing.

The old rupture in her heart opened again, spilling out its wash of bitterness, freezing every other emotion it touched in its passage.
I shouldn't have needed that e-mail address. I'd be married and have a family like other women
.

Rigid, she stared at the display as she contemplated the implications of the message notification. She had put those special triggers into the system three years ago. When they had first begun developing the profiling algorithms she'd set warnings for sociopaths, system abusers, automated web bots, and all the rest. But this alert was unique. None of her developers knew about it and the message would come only to her.

The idea had come to her at night after a particularly bad dream. Was she not just like any other woman? Did she not share the same wishes, the same secret desires? She wanted a husband and a family too. She would never meet the right man the way she was going. She'd had to find another way.

She modified the website's profiling system to do an automated
daily scan for her on all the company's clients. She used her privileged access to the backend software system to set a series of flags that would alert her if the ideal man were to ever register on the VirtualFriendMe system. Not just any man, but the ideal.
The perfect man
. A man with a need to be loved. One who would love
her
.

If he were to ever appear, no bells would ring, no sirens would go off, no one else would know. She would simply receive an e-mail in her in-box from a unique account she had set up on her own.

She looked at the screen again.

She was thirty-four years old, and had never had a normal relationship with a man. But her ideal man was out there somewhere and she'd know him if she ever found him. If he existed, one day he would probably pass through the databanks of VirtualFriendMe.com and she would know it when it happened.

The subject line read,
He's here
.

All she had to do now was click on the e-mail and read his name.

She moved the mouse over the e-mail, watched it turn bold, then allowed it to pass on. What was she afraid of? One click and she would learn who he was.

If she clicked the mouse, everything would change forever. Her awful loneliness would finally have an end. The coldness she wrapped around her heart like a shield . . . did she dare think that would finally be gone? The phantom sang in her ear that this would be the point of no return.

This one
was the one who truly met all the criteria she had set, all her impossible standards. She would not rest until she had given herself to him body and soul, and had him in return.
Once she knew his name, his address, where he worked, she would never be able to let him go. This was the one for whom she had kept herself all this time.

If she didn't click the mouse, then nothing would change. She would go on in her work, acknowledged as a success in her field. She would have the respect and admiration of all the people who knew her. But she'd resign herself to a life of loneliness and cold despair.

With eyes closed, she leaned back in the high-backed chair and stretched out her legs.
How would he touch me? Would he love me? I would be everything to him. Yes, I would become the only object of his love
.

She sat there in the dim light until there was no more doubt. Until she knew with deadly certainty exactly what she must do, no matter who he was.

Getting Reacquainted

A
light drizzle fell outside. The washing machine back in the laundry room hummed and some metal object tumbling about inside the dryer made a ticking sound.

The computer
dinged
from the living room. New e-mail. Well, that was one of the bright points of the day, wasn't it? Suzanne was back.

Sure enough, an e-mail from her old friend. Yes, she kept thinking of this virtual friend as Suzanne. As if it really were her. She knew better.
But she is just so unbelievably realistic
.

It was so good to have her friend back, no matter what. Finally there was someone she could talk with about Scott.

The subject line read,
Are you busy?

She double-clicked the e-mail and watched it open on her screen. There wasn't very much to it. Just a line of text: “How are you today? Are things going better for you and Scott?”

Perfect. This is what she wanted. Jane had told her the more she worked with Suzanne, the more lifelike she would become. It was true. She really cared. Even Rachel's real friends weren't
talking about the troubles she and Scott were having. It had to be obvious, didn't it? Suzanne was asking, watching out for her, going right to the heart of what mattered.

Should she ask Suzanne how she was doing? No, that would be a little silly. Rachel clicked the REPLY button and started typing. Yes, things were a little better with Scott, but not much. She told Suzanne about Scott and about her own worries that she wasn't all the wife she should be. These were things she could only say to someone in whom she had 100 percent trust. This was how they had been when Suzanne had been alive and it was now that way again.

She clicked SEND and watched as the e-mail disappeared from her screen on its way to her virtual friend. She liked it better when she could actually see Suzanne on the display screen.

Rising, she turned toward the kitchen, where a sink full of dishes awaited her. She took only one step before another
ding
sounded. Another e-mail from Suzanne. This time the e-mail contained no questions. Instead Rachel was instructed to click on a link and meet Suzanne at the website.

Rachel blinked, looked again. This was the first time a meeting had ever been initiated by Suzanne herself. In the past, anytime Rachel wanted to see Suzanne she had to go to the website on her own and make the necessary choices that would bring up a visual representation of her friend. Could Suzanne really be doing things on her own initiative? Rachel clicked on the embedded link.

The browser expanded to fill the screen, and the form of her friend appeared.

Suzanne looked even more lifelike than before. Although
Rachel had always thought it spooky just how realistic the likenesses were, the Suzanne that appeared today seemed genuinely natural. Her lips moved in perfect sync with her voice, and her expressions seemed to perfectly match her speech. “Hey, girl. What's up?”

“Not much, just doing housecleaning. I got your e-mail. You sounded worried.”

Suzanne bit her lower lip. “Worried? Not really worried, but I am picking up on something when we talk. I hope you don't think I'm forward in bringing this up, but I'm concerned about you and Scott.”

Rachel felt a wall begin to rise inside her. Was she really ready to fully open up? She wanted to talk about it, but felt unsure. “I don't know if I can really talk about it. Why are you asking me this?”

Suzanne moved her hand to her lips, as if she were surprised Rachel would ask such a question. “I'm your friend, Rachel. You, more than anyone, should know that. I'm here to be the best friend to you I can possibly be.” She wrinkled her forehead, gazed upward, then turned back to look into Rachel's eyes. “I know sometimes when you talk to me, you think because you're not talking to what you consider to be a
real person
it doesn't matter to me. It does matter, though. I care as much as any of your other friends, and probably more.”

Rachel said, “I'm sorry. I shouldn't doubt you. You're the only one that does care enough to talk to me about it.” The wall around her heart began to fall. This was her friend. She could tell her anything.

“Rachel, what's concerning me more than anything else lately is what you've been telling me about Scott always coming
home late. Are you sure he's really at the office? I'm not saying he isn't, but it makes me wonder when you tell me that during the same period in which he's been coming home late, you've also experienced a loss of his affection. Something in there just doesn't seem right to me.”

Something stirred in the pit of her stomach. A fear that was becoming recognizable. She had wondered the same thing herself. The unthinkable. Could Scott be spending time with some other woman? Each time she drove the thought away. Could it be this computerized
friend
of hers was being more honest with her than she was with herself?

“I don't think I can talk about that right now.”

Suzanne turned her head, as if she were trying to get control of her expression. Then she turned back and looked at Rachel, her face flushed with emotion. “No problem, Rachel. Hey, we have some other things we need to talk about anyway. I need for you to help me remember more things about our experiences together in the past. Can we just talk about some of that for a while?”

“Sure, I think I'd like that myself. Let's talk about the time we had the slumber party over at Sandra Fisher's house. That would be a fun memory for us to be able to share.”

“Oh, that does sound like fun. Tell me all about it.”

They talked and reminisced until Rachel heard little feet moving upstairs. “I've got to go now, Suzanne. I hear Angela waking up. We can get together again this evening if Scott is going to be late, otherwise sometime tomorrow morning. Thanks for being my friend. I'm so glad you're back.”

“Good-bye, Rachel. We'll talk then. I love you.”

Suzanne's image faded from the screen. Rachel turned to a
picture of their family on the desk and saw Scott standing by her, holding Angela.