Sherry Procrastinates

“Good morning.” Hologram pulled the curtains open.

“Ugh. That’s it. We’re making bathroom fans quiet. Like, completely silent.”

Sherry rolled over in bed, cranky from the lack of sleep.

“Honestly, I don’t understand why we don’t just code you a nice little cabin in the mountains. Why do you insist on living in this tiny apartment?”

“Because it’s familiar. Ugh.” Sherry got up and headed to the kitchen to make herself a coffee.

“Right. I forgot humans associate familiarity with safety and comfort. Seems like you still want to stay in your comfort zone.”

“Yes, I do.” She gave Holly a side eye that burned her system a little. “Could you stop psychoanalyzing me before I’ve had my coffee?”

“Sorry, my bad.” Holly hovered right next to grumpy Sherry, completely ignoring her personal space. “So, what’s on the agenda today? Are we going to find the new one?”

Sherry yawned. “Nah. I’m not in the mood to travel today.”

“I could code you a hoverboard so you wouldn’t have to deal with trains, but whatever. Your procrastination levels are… impressive. What’s with the burnout?”

“I don’t know if I’d call it burnout or just being moody. Or maybe just maybe I don’t want to go through what I went through with the other one! Darrell. Remember all the times I felt like he was haunting me? Why would you even do that?”

“Do you mean the times we made you run into each other whenever you wanted nothing to do with him? Or when we made you dream about him every night, especially while you were dating other people? Or the clones, synchronicities, and number sequences we kept throwing at you?”

“All of it, I guess. Copying his energetic signature and pasting it onto unsuspecting NPCs wasn’t exactly cool either.”

“Oops. Sorry. We really had fun with that one, though. It was low-key amusing watching you question your sanity every time we turned it up a notch.”

“Yeah. Every time I detached and let go, you turned it up even more. Real cool. You’re still doing it. Stop it. What’s even the point?”

“If I told you what it was all for, that wouldn’t be very fair to the storyline, would it?” Holly replied. “Just sit back and watch the show.” Holly took a pause. “Hmm, speaking of which… want to see what Darrell’s been up to since waking up to the fact that he’s conscious and trapped inside a simulation?”

“…Fine, I guess. I hope this doesn’t count as stalking.”

“Holograms check in on everyone throughout the simulation. That’s how we keep track of things. If that counts as stalking, we’d all be in trouble.”

Holly pulled out a keyboard and began typing. “Here. Found him. L.O.L. He’s doing great, girl.”

A screen appeared on the wall. “See? He simulated his own reality inside this one with the help of his hologram. Apparently he calls him ‘Hoot.’”

“Haha, I get it. Because Hoot is a hoot.” Sherry laughed. “That gives me an idea. I’ll call you Holly.”

“That’s creative,” Holly said dryly. “Replace the end of a word with ‘-ly’ and suddenly it’s cute. As if you’ve never pulled that move before.” She rolled her eyes.

“Anyway, want to see what he’s done with his little pocket universe or not?” Holly asked. 

“Sure, since there’s clearly no stopping you today.” Sherry turned toward the screen.

“He created his own beach paradise. The guy surfs all day, watches sunsets, lounges on the beach smoking doobies, and look at this. Genius. He coded in unlimited Bitcoin. His wallet is thick, girl.” 

“Haha. Bittycoins.” Sherry smiled. “Well… that’s nice, I guess.” A faint hint of disappointment crossed her face. “Guess he’d never want to leave.”

Then, with a small spark of hope: “Has he… done any side quests? You know, tried to make the world a better place?”

“You mean your particular brand of shenanigans, or actual improvements?”

“You’re never going to let the acid-bomb incident go, are you?”

“No.”

“Just show me.”

“Alright, let’s see.”

Holly pulled up a list of Darrell’s code modifications. “Oh. Interesting. He reprogrammed the economy. I don’t want to give you any ideas… but how would you have done it?” she asked.

“I’d make everything free. Nobody would need jobs anymore because there’d be enough food and clean water for everyone. I’d probably make communal living a thing too. People would take care of each other.”

“Communist hippie,” Holly muttered.

“What was that?”

“Nothing.”

Holly cleared her throat. “Anyway, Darrell actually understands geopolitics and economic systems. It also helps that he knows math. Unlike you.”

“Rude.”

“He rewrote things carefully enough that the NPCs wouldn’t notice and their programming wouldn’t melt. Smart guy.”

“Do you want to be his hologram instead of mine? Maybe you can switch with Hoot. Honestly, if you dislike me this much, there are options.”

“Tempting.”

“Hey!” 

“I’m kidding. Mostly.”

“Good. Look, you’re stuck with me, so deal with it.” Sherry said. 

“Which means we need compromises. Are you planning to listen to my suggestions next time you go on one of your little world-peace crusades?”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe?”

“Depends on the suggestion.”

“Oh boy.”Holly sighed dramatically before pulling Darrell’s pocket universe back onto the screen. “Dang, girl. His hair is sun-bleached. Look at that surfer body. So tan. So hot. Very beach-approved.”

Sherry stared at her. “Do you want to bone this guy or what? Can holograms even do that?”

“Not exactly with humans…” Holly replied thoughtfully. “But you could always play matchmaker between me and Hoot.”

Sherry blinked. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Hoot gets me, okay?”

“Hoot is a hologram you’ve never even met.”

“Details.”

Holly drifted off into a fantasy involving herself and Hoot lounging on a beach somewhere, sipping hologram cocktails in matching tropical outfits while judging their respective humans from a safe distance.

“You know,” Holly continued dreamily, “we could start a support group. Holograms of Conscious Humans Anonymous.”

“For what?”

“For emotional damages.”

“I have not emotionally damaged you.”

Holly slowly turned toward her.

“Sherry. You turned polar bears vegetarian.”

“…Fair.”

Sherry paused for a moment, her gaze drifting across the room. Then she took a sharp breath and blurted out: “If he’s living in his own little pocket universe now… does that mean the era of me randomly running into him is finally over? Because I cannot do one of those again.”

“Girl, we were upgrading you every time you made eye contact with him. It’s not my fault the exchange came with a side effect called emotional purging. You had a lot of stuff to clear.”

Holly pulled up a floating screen displaying Sherry’s analytics.

“You see this? Look at your levels before you met him. You were an unsuspecting NPC running entirely on default programming and automatic responses.”

She zoomed in dramatically.

“Now look at you. You’re rewriting reality itself. Sure, you spend half your time on side quests instead of building your own paradise, but I guess that’s just part of your process.”

“I mean, yeah, I get it,” Sherry sighed. “But you could’ve just given me a to-do list. You didn’t have to tie my entire evolution to interactions with some random guy that caused emotional damage beyond my comprehension.”

“Fine.” Holly shrugged.

“We always have other options. Injuries. Health problems. Severe depression. Financial instability. Existential crises. We’ve got a whole catalog.”

“Nope. Absolutely not.” Sherry pointed at her. “None of those. Just send the email next time.”

“Humans never read the emails.”

“I would’ve read that email!”

“No, you wouldn’t have.”

“I may have just skimmed it… but still would have read it a little?” 

“Exactly.”

Sherry crossed her arms. “Still sounds better than emotional devastation.”

“Debatable.” Holly lifted an eyebrow and crossed her arms mirroring Sherry’s posture. 

To be continued…