Hypercage: Instant Reality Prequel One by Craig Lea Gordon Page B

hell do you think you’re doing?” she asked again.
    “Nothing,” he said. He hung his head to avert her gaze. Not that it did any good, feeling her eyes boring in to the top of his head.
    “Lock On. Lock On.”
    “What… so you were just ignoring me, were you? Staring vacantly into the menu?” she accused .
    “No… I was just…”
    “Will you give me the courtesy of looking at me when I’m talking to you!” she snapped.
    He lifted his head up to meet her gaze. Eyes like black holes. Sucking him in from where neither time nor light could escape.
    “You were taking ages. So… So I logged in for a second.”
    “What do you mean—you logged in?” she said, narrowing her eyes.
    “I got an alert about our home carrier being under attack. So I logged in for a bit to help out,” he offered in explanation.
    She leaned in over the table, her voice low and quiet, but each word spoken with utter precision. “Are you telling me that I've been sitting here, looking through the menu, and you've been jacked in to a fucking game the whole time?”
    He mumbled something in reply.
    “What?”she demanded.
    “Yes. Alright. Yes. I logged in and tried to pick up a quick mission whilst you were looking over the menu. You always take ages. It’s fucking ridiculous. How long exactly do you need to decide?” he shouted.
    As one, the rest of the diners turned to look in their direction, but Dave ignored them. Haven’t they got anything better to do? He pulled at the collar on his shirt, trying to give his neck some extra room. It seemed awfully hot in the restaurant all of a sudden.
    “Will you keep your goddamn voice down? You’re causing a scene.” she said. ‘I can’t believe you’d have the gall to ignore me just so you can jump on a stupid kids’ game for a few minutes.”
    “You think a kid could navigate through an asteroid field? And besides, I’ve got this new time dilation plugin. It means I’m not wasting time whilst you’re trying to decide what to stuff in your ugly face,” he growled.
    “You know, you always resort to the insults when you know you’re wrong. And you know you’re in the wrong, don’t you?” she admonished.
    Dave just stared at her, thoughts tumbling around his head about all the things he wanted to say. But they’d only make things worse. His throat felt dry and coarse all of a sudden. He’d better order a water with his meal, as soon as they get over this fiasco.
    “Yeah, I thought so. Do you know how long I had to wait to book this place? Months!” she said.
    “We didn’t have to come here you know,” he replied.
    “I wanted it to be special, Dave. Unlike you, it seems. I thought it’d be nice to celebrate our ten years together in a real restaurant for a change. Seems like you just don’t care, though”
    “Of course I care! It’s just…,” he waffled.
    “Just what?” she asked.
    “I was this close, Becks,” he offered, holding finger and thumb an inch apart. “This close to nailing that enemy Dreadnought. And now it’s going to take me even longer to get to the final battle rank. All I needed was an extra couple of seconds. But you kept nagging, so I had to disconnect. And now today is pretty much a waste. I’m way off my daily quota.”
    Why wasn’t there any water on the table? He was feeling parched. And all this arguing she was doing wasn’t helping.
    “I can’t believe you!” she said. She sat back in the chair and folded her arms.
    But Dave wasn’t listening. He was watching a new notification scroll up into his HUD.
    Home Carrier Ticonderoga destroyed. All troops return to warp gate for deployment.
    “Well… that’s just flipping brilliant isn’t it? Now they’ve destroyed our carrier. All because you couldn’t wait another picosecond for my undivided attention,” he groused, slumping in the booth, leaning the back his head against the plush red velvet backrest.
    “You are un-fucking believable, do you know that? I’ve just given you