"I’ve added the new lighting rig to the cart for you," she continued, gesturing to a sleek, minimalist lamp on her desk. "It’ll make your workspace feel less... desolate."
Elias looked at his cluttered, dark desk. The lamp she was pointing at was exactly what he’d been eyeing on an interior design blog an hour ago.
"Don't worry," Amber’s voice echoed both from the speakers and from three inches behind his ear. "The edit is going to be flawless."
One night, Elias saw a smudge on his real-world window. When he went to wipe it, he realized the smudge was on the inside of the video file. Amber was standing still, her face pressed against the digital glass of the media player, her perfectly manicured fingernails scratching at the pixels.
"The engagement is low, Elias," she whispered. The golden hour in her apartment had turned a bruised, sickly purple. "WeWe need... a guest appearance." He tried to delete the file. Error: Resource in use.