Page 6 of Starfighter Command, Game 2 (Starfighter Training Academy 2)

Everything was gone. Wiped. Destroyed. The Phantom. The missions I’d completed. And Kass, the imaginary man I’d spent the last few months obsessing over.

I was an idiot to become emotionally attached to a fictional character. But there wasn’t much room for dating in my line of work, and Kass had somehow become more real to me than any man I’d ever dated. Which was no surprise if a few dinners followed by casual sex could be called dating. Eventually the men I “dated” all grew tired of my secrecy. I didn’t tell them who I worked for or what I did. Most of them didn’t even know my real name.

Then I’d started the game and saw Kass, and my interest in dating had stopped completely. No one held my interest but him.

“Stop moping, you big baby,” I scolded myself and tried to focus on work. Two long hours remained until I could go home and laze around the apartment. I’d spend another sleepless night with no update on Jamie, no game time with Kass to soothe my nerves, and no idea what to do next.

I was the expert in getting answers. Yet I had none, which made me even more cranky.

All I knew was that I missed my friend. I missed playing the game I’d won and then broken. I missed Kass, a video game–created alien that didn’t even exist.

Without doubt, I worked too much. I needed to get out more. Meet real people. Learn a new hobby. Spelunking. Pretzel making. Hell, even go on some kind of adventure vacation.

Anything as long as I didn’t have to admit to anyone I was upset and frustrated because I was lusting after a computer-generated avatar and my only link to him had blown up.

My desk phone beeped. I picked up the receiver. “Yes?”

“Ms. Becker? This is the front desk. There’s someone here to see you.”

This building had super-tight security. From key fobs for all areas to retinal scans for access in others. But I also wasn’t expecting anyone. I had no outside appointments, and my only friends were… well, one was missing and the other lived in London. I frowned.

“Did they give a name?”

“Kassius Remeas.”

---