Then he gave her that wide eyed look. That what the hell are you talking about look. That back in your box look. His pupils almost trembled. His brow billowed like an accordion.
And it worked. That was the worst thing about that look. It worked exactly as intended. She got back in her box every time.
‘Crypto isn’t going to crash again,’ he said. ‘You just don’t understand how it works.’
‘You’re probably right,’ she replied. ‘You’re always right about this stuff.’
They were driving towards his parents for a weekend in their virtual cabin. Some time in the Alaskan wilderness would do them good, he’d said.
They stopped at a service station. The air outside the car was dense with heat. She felt trickles of sweat in her armpits.
He went inside while she charged the car. He’d be headed to the gated area of the arcade with signs that said 18+. She would have to wait a certain amount of time before she went and got him. It would have to be a universally unacceptable amount of time to be waiting. If she went to get him too soon he would give her that look and stay at the fruit machines for even longer in protest. She had to wait for the gambler’s guilt to set in.
Across the car park was a set of swings and a climbing frame. A child surged towards them with the potential energy of a pinball spring mechanism, their feet barely keeping up with the rest of their body. A hapless parent half jogged behind them, ready to scoop them up when the excitement inevitably outpaced the feet.
She’d wanted to go and stay in a caravan in Wales – a proper caravan – the kind that became rusty and got moss growing up the sides. Something made from metal and wood, not pixels and voxels.
It’s not very environmentally friendly driving all the way down there, he’d said when she suggested it. He always used the environment to bolster his argument when it suited him, safe in the knowledge it only worked one way. She cared, he didn’t. It was the perfect ammunition to get what he wanted.
It wasn’t even that much further than the drive to his parents, add that to the energy it took to run the virtual cabin and a weekend in Wales was probably loads better for the environment. Then he started talking about how he never got to see his parents, like he would spend more than fifteen minutes talking to them before he turned the simulation on and started chopping down fake trees with a fake axe for fake wood for a fake fire. She decided it wasn’t worth arguing. Most of their disagreements ended like that.
She rested against the bonnet of the car and watched the parent and child on the climbing frame. It was designed for children a lot older than this one. The parent moved them up the steps and carefully along the walkway to the top of the slide. They slid down together, child between the parents legs.
Over the years that wide eyed billowed brow looks had worn her down. It wasn’t even that she ever said anything particularly stupid. It just had to be in contradiction to the way he saw things. Then he’d give her those dry eyes that dehydrated her energy and left her feeling like a prune, tossed from a car onto a hot motorway.
The car made that soft chime sound. It was done charging. She went and sat in the driver’s seat and turned on the aircon.
“The crypto-index has crashed in the last couple of hours as prominent investor InTrepiD prompted mass sell off.” A soft voice came from the radio.
She edited the GPS destination and pressed the ignition.