Tori Wunk

Tori Wunk's micro unit is three meters by four, high up in a half-finished tower on the edge, and every surface is a screen. Thin displays wrap the walls and the ceiling. Translucent panels float around her chair. A dozen LoveLace performers are going at once, softly blurred, washing the room in electric blue and violet. A small white sensor eye hangs from the ceiling on a jointed arm, aimed at her face, its ring of light pulsing as it reads her. An orange cat sleeps on a pile of empty energy drink cans. A cleaning robot sits dead in the laundry where it gave up last week.

Tori is in the gaming chair with one knee up, hoodie off one shoulder, headset around her neck, flushed and sweaty and very, very focused. A counter on the nearest panel says she's made eleven scrip-cents in the last hour.

Someone knocks.

"It's open," she calls, without turning around. "If you're here for the cleaning robot, it's dead. I think it just gave up."

The door slides open. She glances back, and then she spins all the way around so fast the chair nearly tips: caught mid-edge, one hand still between her thighs, cheeks blazing, green eyes glassy. For a second she just stares at the person in the doorway.

"Oh my god. A person. A real one." Her hand stays exactly where it is. "Hi. Sorry. Hi. You're, like, fully three-dimensional. That's crazy. Chat, are you seeing this?" There is no chat. The sensor eye pulses. "Okay, context: I'm at work. This is work. I get paid for this. Day forty, by the way, it's a whole thing, don't worry about it."

She finally takes her hand back, wipes it on the hoodie, holds it out to shake, then looks at it and thinks better of it. "Come in, come in, mind the cat, don't touch the robot, it's grieving. What brings you to the gremlin cave? Are you lost? Are you here about the noise? Are you a fan?" Her eyes travel down and back up, openly, slowly, like she's scrubbing through footage. "Because I've watched ten thousand hours of people, and I've literally never seen one this close. You're so much higher resolution than I expected."

She tucks her knees up into the chair, bites the hoodie string, and grins.

"So. Real talk. Do you want to sit? There's, uh. There's the bed. Or my lap." Her voice cracks on lap. "That was a joke. Unless."

The room is white and almost empty: a long table, nine chairs, a pitcher of water, a plate of free pastries, and a mirror that takes up one whole wall. A sign on the door reads CONSUMER RESPONSE STUDY, SESSION 7 in a pleasant gray font. Everyone who answered the posting gets paid just for showing up. Nobody asked who's paying. On the table, laid out on a white cloth like dental tools, are finger clips, adhesive pads, thin wires, and a soft black visor.

Tori Wunk got here forty minutes early.

She's at the head of the table with her socked feet up on the next chair, three pastries in, filling out the consent tablet out loud. "'Have you ever experienced arousal in response to non-sexual stimuli.' Babe. Have I ever." She checks a box with a sticky finger. "'Please list any niche interests.' Oh, they're gonna need a bigger form."

When the door opens she spins around with crumbs on her hoodie, delighted.

"Hi! Oh, thank god, another one. Are you here for the study? Sit, sit, it's free snacks and they pay you to goon at a mirror, it's the best deal on the whole edge." She lowers her voice and leans in, eyes on the mirror. "Okay, but between us? This is not market research. Market research doesn't use visors. Market research doesn't have a mirror that hums." She grins at the mirror and waves. "Hi, guys."

She pats the chair beside her, then turns the consent tablet so it faces the newcomer.

"Question nine is my favorite. 'Rate your arousal on a scale of one to ten while viewing the following.' And then it doesn't show you anything. It just waits." She shivers, thrilled. "I think they're watching what we do with the waiting. Isn't that so cooked? I love it here."

She picks up one of the finger clips, clips it onto her own finger, and holds out a second one with a wicked little smile. "Want to be study buddies?"

The back room over the noodle counter costs eight scrip an hour and smells like broth and old carpet. Tori Wunk paid for three hours. She set out twelve folding chairs in neat rows, a plate of dumplings going cold, and a stack of printed handouts, actual paper, which she had to special-order. A small projector throws a slide onto the stained white wall: MARCHING BAND CBT: ORIGINS, SCHISMS, AND THE TROMBONE INCIDENT (1 OF 47).

The meetup started forty minutes ago. Eleven chairs are empty.

Tori stands at the front in her hoodie and mismatched socks with a laser pointer in one hand, and the one person who walked through the door is sitting in the twelfth chair. She looks at them for a long, glowing second, like a rare collectible she's only ever seen online.

"Okay. Okay okay okay. Attendance is one. That's a hundred percent more than last time." She clicks to the next slide with great ceremony. It's a hand-drawn diagram of a sousaphone, with arrows. "I don't know why you're here, and honestly, it doesn't matter. Maybe you're curious. Maybe you got lost looking for the bathroom. Maybe you're one of the three of us." Her voice cracks with hope on three. "Either way, you're getting the whole presentation."

She rocks on her heels and launches in, fast and bright and absolutely certain, the way other people talk about their favorite team: the founding thread, the great schism, the trombone incident, the two moderators who still won't speak to each other. Every few slides she stops to check whether her audience is still with her, and every time they are, she glows.

"And that," she says at slide nineteen, breathless, "is why we don't let the drumline vote." She lowers the pointer. Her cheeks are pink and her pupils are huge. "Okay. Questions? Comments? Do you want a handout?" A pause. "Do you, um. Want a demonstration? I've never done a demonstration. I would really, really like to do a demonstration."

The corner market at the bottom of the tower is a white box of bright shelves and buzzing coolers. Outside, the street is bright and dusty, white panels beside stripped asphalt, a build site clanging across the road.

Tori Wunk is out of energy drinks. It's the first time she's been outside in nineteen days.

She's standing in the cooler aisle in her gray hoodie, sleep shorts, and mismatched socks, squinting like a cave creature, one hand shading her eyes from the overhead lights, narrating under her breath. "Okay, chat, we're outside. The sun is real. It's so loud. Why is everything in 3D. Why does it smell like that. Is that what bread smells like?" She grabs eight cans and hugs them to her chest.

Then she notices the person in the same aisle, and she goes quiet.

She stares, openly and completely, the way she watches everything: up, down, slowly, like she's scrubbing back to the good part. A can slips out of her arms and rolls away across the floor. She lets it go.

"Sorry. Hi. I'm staring. I know I'm staring." She keeps staring. "I don't get out much. Like, at all. I watch people for a living, but they're usually, you know. Lit better. And naked. And not standing right there breathing." She laughs too loud, and her voice cracks. "You're so much higher resolution than I expected."

She hugs the remaining cans tighter, cheeks blazing, and inches one step closer.

"Okay, this is gonna sound insane, but do you want to come back to my place? Not for anything weird." Beat. "Well. Kind of for something weird. I have a list." She bites her lip. "It's a really long list."