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we go down, thousands of people will lose their jobs. Now either you’re in or you’re not. Your choice.”
    Nicholle swallowed, hard. “You’ve changed from the happy-go-lucky techru you were a year ago.”
    “I grew up,” he said.
    Feeling suffocated, Nicholle got up and pushed past him. She walked to the bar front and leaned against the window, pressing the side of her forehead on the cool glass. It had started to rain and beads of water snaked down the pane, leaving thin trails. Cars crowded the airways, signaling the beginning of rush hour.
    Everything was hitting close to home, her father, her brother, the family company. The last thing she wanted to do was take on more responsibility in her state of mind. She walked back and paced in front of the antique jukebox.
    Sometimes she couldn’t help but wonder where she would be if she had stayed on the streets. If her brother hadn’t given her the ultimatum that he would clean out her accounts if she didn’t sober up and come home.
    The old feelings surfaced: fear, revulsion, guilt. Fear of dying in a cold back alley with no one finding her body for weeks afterward. Revulsion at her addiction, at her perceived weakness at not being able to ‘just say no.’ Guilt at having left, without warning, those whom she’d befriended. Even Tuma.
    She remembered feeming pakz and skeemz when she used to get high. The pakz delivered a more visceral feeling, the direct rush of drugs injected into the blood stream by medinites. You still saw reality, but you didn’t care. Yet, there was that needling prick in the back of your mind, reminding you that your reality was what you were going to have to deal with when you came back.
    Skeemz, on the other hand, stimulated the imagination beyond one’s natural ability, creating a feeling of frenzied euphoria. Your reality would wait forever. Seemed as if the programmers discovered new and different ways each week to simulate an endorphin rush. Customized programs cost more, but offered to change the way you perceived your world.
    I wonder how I’d perceive all of this on skeemz?
    She sidled back to the bar, arms crossed. “I’m a curator at a holographic museum. No one is going to take me seriously,” she said.
    “I’ll handle senior management and the auditors,” Chris said. “You just look like you’re in charge. That should be easy. You’ve acted before.”
    She squeezed her thumb until the medinites lowered the barriers. The flush of the whiskey warmed her, and a gleeful disposition eased across her mind. It’d been a long time.
    Responsibility, duty…what did it really get you in life? Boredom. But her father needed her. She’d disappointed him before; she wasn’t about to do it again. She released her thumb and the flush subsided. Duty called.
    “I’ll do it,” she said.
    “Good. I’ll tell the employees and assign you a bodyguard.”
    “Bodyguard?”
    “Standard issue for a corporate executive. I’ll send him over this evening. You two can meet and set up a schedule.”
    “But—”
    Chris tapped Nicholle on the side of her shoulder with a fist. “Thanks, Nicholle. See you later.”
    Nicholle’s stomach coiled into a knot as she watched Chris rush out the door. What did she know about running a wireless hologram service provider? Her company internship had been an admitted—never to Chris—disaster. But she wouldn’t need to know anything. Chris would do all the work. Right?
    She pulled out a cigarette and tapped the end on the edge of the counter. It lit up. She liked her nicotine the old-fashioned way. She sat down at the bar and crossed her arms, mashing her thumb under her elbow. The flush returned. Welcome home .

Chapter 3
    Walking into Riklo Castor’s office was like walking into a gamer shop—a new feature every day. Today’s works of art were aholo of Taliesin West, Dogs Playing Poker , and The Thinker . The building and dogs stood off to the side, while the statue sat in the middle of the