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Her hand cradles his.

Her thumb rubs gentle circles around his anxious fingers.

The little hairs on his knuckles stand on end.

He trembles, so she rubs her thumb slower and deeper into his palm. She knows a special spot there that makes him feel calm.

The black bracelets feel so tight on their wrists. They gaze out into the night sky above the desert sands.

“We sure about this?” He turns to her with a worried gaze. “No cold feet?”

She peers out across the dunes and into the distant stars. They all twinkle and shine like stars are supposed to, but they don’t look real. The stars in her Command Deck, those looked real. They were so crisp. Their light was so much more pure, more sharp. Something about the way they all glowed and moved across the sky together spoke to her, like every little light in the sky had been custom-tailored and fine-tuned for her pleasure. They were so perfect.

“Once we get to the waypoint out in the wasteland, there’s no going back,” he reminds her. “Aeschylus will have us on his rogue objects list. We’ll have to keep driving until we hit the safe house.”

She turns to him. The stars feel wrong, but he feels so much more real here. He’s not just a big, hulking combat avatar wearing gaudy white armor and a dorky white helmet. He’s not just a disembodied voice popping up in her neuro channel. He’s not just Commander Cole.

He’s Carson.

The mane of soft stubble around his warm cheeks feels like home when she brushes against it. Here in the real world, she can sense when his hand comes near hers, bashfully asking to be held by her. Little dimples and wrinkles and curious imperfections adorn his hard face and his bronzed skin. All of those marks and scars never render this clearly in VR. And sometimes when he speaks, subtle crackling sounds and low breaths add depth and texture to his voice, reminding her to breathe with him.

“So?” He asks again, his nervous crackle sneaking into his voice. “Where do we go from here, Alli?”