About ten seconds later, DePresti appeared in the doorway of the bedroom, dressed in gym shorts and a t-shirt. “Sorry about that,” he said. “I went for a run and didn’t want to wake you up. You were out cold.”
“No, you’re fine,” Parkowski said, sitting up. “You just scared me, that’s all.”
DePresti laughed. “Sorry about that. Want to go grab breakfast?”
She shook her head. “No, let’s just eat here.” Parkowski wasn’t ready to face the world yet.
“Everything ok?”
Parkowski forced a smile. She wasn’t sure if that promotion that had seemed like a sure thing a day ago was still on track. “Yes, but I would appreciate it if everyone would stop asking me that.”
DePresti gave her an odd look. “Ok, fine, let’s eat here, but then let’s go for a walk or go do something,” he said. “Something’s bothering you, Grace, I can tell. We’ve been together long enough.”
“Ugh, you’re right,” Parkowski said, agreeing with her boyfriend. Normally, he was wrong about almost everything, at least in her opinion. But, here, he couldn’t be more right. Thankfully, he didn’t press further.
She got up and out of bed and followed him to the kitchen. DePresti got a carton of eggs out of the fridge and started scrambling them while she got some strawberries and blueberries and started making bowls of fruit.
He turned on the TV to ESPN — not her favorite, but she could deal with it — and the two sat down to eat.
“So, what exactly happened yesterday?” DePresti asked.
Parkowski smiled. She had deftly avoided this topic while they were out with his unit the night before. While she was naturally curious, her boyfriend was even worse. He had to know everything going on, to the point where he could be almost borderline invasive.
She finished chewing her egg. “Well, I finished my mission.”
“That’s good.”
“But, in the end, I kind of screwed up.”
“Why did you do that?” DePresti asked as he went to the fridge for some orange juice. He poured a glass and took a sip.
“Well, I saw a dragon.”
DePresti spit out his juice. “What?”
“I saw a dragon.”
“You’re not bullshitting me, are you?” DePresti said, grabbing a rag to wipe up the spilled liquid.
“Nope,” Parkowski confirmed.
“And then what happened?”
“I screamed like a little girl and dove to the floor. It was coming at me, breathing fire.”
DePresti poured himself more juice into his glass. “I can’t say I would have done much differently.” He sat back down at the small table. “What happened after that?”
She took a breath. “It turned and came around for another run. I rolled, instinctively, and totally forgot that I had about a dozen wires hooked up into me.”
DePresti laughed briefly, then frowned. “Wait, was there a real dragon?”
“I don’t know,” Parkowski said, finishing her eggs. “No one else saw it.”
She sighed, eager to change the subject. “My headset turned off, I must have unplugged the power cord. Someone yelled ‘lost connection’ or something like that, I don’t really remember. And then…”
Parkowski stopped talking — and eating. Telling her boyfriend what had happened to her yesterday helped, but also brought up how much she had screwed up. She put down her fork and left the rest of her food untouched.
DePresti must have figured out how uncomfortable she felt. “Want to go for a walk?” he asked, finishing his breakfast with a huge bite of egg.
She nodded.
They quickly cleaned up the kitchen. Parkowski brushed her teeth and got her Philadelphia Eagles sweatshirt on while DePresti did the dishes.
She stepped over her boyfriend’s recently-acquired scuba gear, haphazardly thrown around the front door, and walked down the stairs to street level. Then, they walked the three blocks to the beach.
It wasn’t even eight o’clock yet, but on this breezy November morning, the streets were already somewhat busy. A lot of people had the same idea as them — get a walk in before the storm threatening off the coast came in.
Parkowski wished she had put her hair up. It swept around in the wind coming in off of the Pacific, but it wasn’t the end of the world. They made small talk as they crossed the narrow streets before they reached the beach.
“North or south?” DePresti asked.
“North,” Parkowski answered after a quick scan. “Fewer people.”
They started walking on the sand toward Hermosa Beach.
“So,” DePresti said after a minute or so of silence. “How did the first part of your mission go? You know, before the dragon and all of that.”
“Honestly, pretty well,” Parkowski answered. She explained how she had gotten her VR gear on, how she had adapted to the environment, and the surprisingly detailed rendering of Venus.
They walked on the hard sand and she continued, explaining how she was able to control the two robots and how she was able to flip between them.
DePresti didn’t say much, just nodding and asking a few minor clarification questions. He, too, was an engineer, and wanted to know the details.
She started describing the anomalies, and DePresti started asking more questions. “Was the system lagging every time you pointed in the same direction?” he asked.
