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It’s Hawaii this week.
The Lone Wanderer’s drowning Timmy Neusbaum in the ocean- and she’s an adult this time, so it’s not hard. She holds his head underwater until he goes completely still, and a minute or two more to be sure before she lets the tide take him.
Warm white sand sticks between her toes as she trudges up the beach. Braun’s smiling, sipping something from a coconut; there’s another on a matching beach chair. She takes the drink, and the seat.
“I have to say, I’m impressed. You’ve been nothing but eager.”
“Thank you, Doctor. That means a lot, coming from you.” She scrunches her nose at the taste of alcohol, and sets the drink in the sand.
He looks over his sunglasses, blue eyes. “Call me Stanislaus. We’re on vacation.”
“Of course.” Erin laces her fingers behind her head; her hair’s long here. She kind of misses that, from the vault. “Anything else you’d like?”
“Aside from another pina colada, not at the moment.”
She shifts forward. “Should I-?”
“No, no, let the waiter get it. He doesn’t have a personality.” He waves to the bartender, who starts mixing immediately.
“Make mine virgin!” When he doesn’t react, she turns back to Braun. “I don’t think he heard me.”
“He did.” he affirms, and nods to the ocean. “He’d hear you thirty miles out and take a raft just to get the drink to you.”
“I love when people do their damn job.”
With a particular glance to the Wanderer, he says, “So do I.”
He’s young- well, older than Betty- older than Erin, even, but she’s an old soul. Braun’s just old. Not bad looking, though. “Is this what you used to look like?”
His eyebrows go up; one sits higher on this face. “I spent years with that face. Why’d I want to do it again? No, I copied this from a movie star. Something different.”
“It’s nice.” she agrees. It’s nice to have both her legs.
“You’re too pale for the beach.” Braun admonishes, drawing her out of revelment for her own body. There’s a blink where the world goes out of focus, and then it’s back. He smiles as he hooks his sunglasses in his shirt. “That’s better.”
She’s albino; of course she’s pale, but disagreeing with Braun gets you dismembered. He’s a control freak, but Erin doesn’t mind it so much for a day at a time. It’s only in the simulation. There’s a lot of things she only does in the simulation.
“There’s Mrs. Dithers.” Erin observes with a nod.
Braun follows her gaze out to the shore, and grins. “Shame about that shark...”
“Shame I chummed the water.”
The waiter’s back with their drinks. They click their coconuts in toast, and Stanislaus nearly chokes his trying to speak. “While I’m reminded, I want you to choose the next simulation.”
“Me?” she asks with false ineptitude.
“I understand you have a life outside of here. I’m a reasonable man, I tip the bellhop. You should be compensated for your efforts.”
“That’s very generous of you.”
“Let me finish!” She nods submissively as he takes a sip. “I can’t offer anything material but the storage password, and I assume it’s been looted by now.”
Erin blinks quietly. She has, indeed, looted it.
“I can, however, provide you with the vacation of your dreams, free of irradiation and restrictive ethics codes. What do you say?”
The Lone Wanderer smiles politely for a moment longer, to make sure the megalomaniac has permitted her to speak. “I’m flattered, Doctor. Stanislaus.”
“As you should be. I don’t make these arrangements for just anyone.” Or anyone at all, really; the only other person to step into his fantasy world, he turned into a dog. “So,” he goes on as the sun goes down, “where will it be?”
She doesn’t have to think on it; Erin wanted to go ever since she saw it on the cover of a magazine. “Paris.”
“Paris...” he muses, judging the gradient of the sunset. He finds both considerations satisfactory. “I could push Martha Simpson off the Eiffel Tower...”
“I could do it for you.” Erin suggests.
Braun smiles and sips his drink as they watch the sky turn black and blue.