Love in the Matrix... John worked for a temp firm that specialized in providing cyberspace problem solving services, unlike your typical temp firm employees would simply report to the nearest office or jack in from there home, to work any place in the world. Teams where frequently composed of people from different states or even different countries, many times not even speaking the same langauge (the cyber deck provides translation utilities). [continued in rest of .plan file] It was a typical day at work, this time trying to rebuild an area that a secretary had accidentally destroyed when she cleaned her bosses desk without permission. On the desk was an unlabelled block containing an entire model of the new 10,000 shop underground mall for manhattan, foolishly no backup had been made. The system that had contained the block had only been used slightly in the mean time meaning that most of the block had not been recycled. The makers of the matrix had not planned on people wanting to undestroy things and thus it was a dangerous procedure which required overriding all consistancy checks on that area of reality, leaving a piece dangling could eventually result in the loss of terabytes of data if not detected in time. On this particular day Linda from Los Angelas had been assigned to assist by double checking all changes. John was somewhat worried, this was his first time with a female coworker, and his previous experience with women was a mixture of being laughed at at parties, and undoing the damage they had done when they went into cleaning frensies. To his great surprise Linda did neither of these all though he had been half expecting to turn around and see her sweeping the virtual floor, or talking about what a nerd he was. He knew it was futile to try but even after 29 years he still made a half hearted attempt at getting to know her better, of course he knew she would either be married, laugh at him, or turn out to be a lesbian. John and Linda talked for some time, Linda while she didn't laugh at him or otherwise try to put him off she seemed to keep something about her real self hidden, she said her age was virtually 18 but refused to give her real age, although her virtual image looked 18 and was extremely attractive. John made sure that he got Linda for his next assignment, this time it was a packing problem that had not been solved sufficiently by the available software. It was hoped the intuition would do the trick, since humans still have several thousand times the processing power available to them. John was stumped but Linda finally came through with a solution but it would require a slight change in the product being packed, John hadn't even thought of doing it that way. Linda said "When you can't win playing by the rules, make new ones.", and she turned out to be right, the change saved the customer several million in shipping costs for the cost of shaving several centimeters off a mold. Finally John had found a woman he could consider living with, smart, unmarried, and didn't laugh at him. He had long talks with Linda about all sorts of things, and started to fall in love with her eventhough he didn't know how old she really was or even what she looked like. He dreamed of spending the night with her, of even marrying her. Eventually after he had known her for a while he decided to tell her that he loved her, she hadn't laughed at him yet, but he was still pretrified. He told her the next day when the current job was done, Linda's expression was not what he expected, he had expected either disdain or amusement instead Linda looked sad. Linda explained that she also was starting to fall in love with him but there was a problem, "In real life things are not what they are here, could you still love me if I was 90 years old, bedridden, or just plain ugly". That night John thought of all these cases and could still imagine love even if Linda was 90 or if he could only hold her hand a t her b side. He told Linda that he could still love her, infact he was now completely in love and couldn't even sleep, he begged Linda for a meeting in real life. Linda told him that she would, but that he might be unable to love her no matter how hard he tried. John said he still wanted to meet her, Linda agreed to visit when she could get a reasonable plane fare. The next monday Linda was no where to be seen in the matrix, John hoped she was on her way, he shivered all day with anticipation. Suddenly a message appeared telling him to jack out because he had a visitor, he jacked out as quickly as he could and jumped half way out of his seat, only to see that it was not the person he was waiting for, a man in his early thirties stood in the door. John got up to shake hands and asked what he was here to see him about, the man seemed very nervous and introduced himself as Linda. Johns jaw dropped and he just stood there for several minutes, this was not what he was expecting! John had had men make passes at him before, but had dismissed it as not being an option, now the tables where turned he was in love with a man and had virtually asked to have his children! Not knowing what to do, and afraid that he would soon shit his pants, John reached for a beer and sat down, his head still spinning. Rob (Linda) said he had expected things would not go much better but hoped they could still remain friends. John agreed, after all Rob hadn't tried to decieve him it was John's own doing. Rob suggested that they get supper, John suggested a nearby restaurant with very hot food and a bar. Rob ordered his food extra hot, and John ordered his drinks extra strong. John kept wondering what it would be like to make it with a man, but kept pushing the idea from his mind, it just wasn't something you where supposed to do. Over dinner they talked some more, and John kept having the feelings he had with Linda in the matrix, he was very frightened, this just couldn't or shouldn't be happening. John was feeling very confused and offered Rob a ride back to the airport although his plane wasn't due for several hours. Rob said he hoped it hadn't caused to much trouble but it was better to not have let it go any further without telling the truth. Upon reaching the car John realized he had drunk much to much and really shouldn't drive, they decided to take a cab back to the office so John could sober up, meanwhile Rob could catch up on a few things he needed to do in the matrix. They managed to get a cab just as it was starting to rain, by the time they got to the office there was a full blown storm. Fortunitly everyone had left by now, John didn't have to make a fool out of himself stumbling around. Rob jacked in and got to work putting the finishing touchs on the current project, John collapsed on a sofa in the lounge outside and put on MTV. John was startled by the sound of a huge clap of thunder followed by a crash in the next room. Rob was lying on the floor stunned from the sudden involuntary jack out that had happened as the net went down. Rob, "I guess thats it for tonight", after he got over the shock Rob joined John watching MTV. John and Rob began to talk some more, about life the universe and everything. John was starting to recover from the shock of Linda's true identity, and began to feel more at ease with her/him much like they had in the matrix. John was rather groggy and fell asleep for several minutes, he dreamed of being with Linda in real life as she had been in the matrix, it was a semi lucid dream, he knew something was different but he couldn't remember what it was, in the dream he fell into Linda's arms and could feel her skin under his hands. John was suddenly awakened by thunder, why do you always wake up in the best part of dreams? The imaginary feeling was still partially there, and he saw the "real" Linda sitting next to him. Without thinking John put his arm around her/him and cuddled, Rob returned the hug, for a second John paniced realizing what he had just done. John was so overwhelmed by the sensation his instinctive reaction over rode all his preconceptions, he kissed Rob, kissed him again but this time a long deep kiss. John melted, his world suddenly turned upside down, all he had ever been taught told him it was wrong, everything he experienced told him it was right. He lept into Linda's arms kissing her all over, gravity seemed to leave, and he was floating freely as if in the matrix, Rob's hands seemed as if it they where charged with thousands of volts, he could feel the tingling and almost see the sparks fly where ever Rob touched him. Rob lightly touched one of Johns nipples, John shivered and squirmed it was as if he had put both hands in an outlet but rather than pain had received unbelievable pleasure. All John knew is he wasn't in Kansas any more, infact he didn't think he was even in the universe he had known only an hour before. He and Rob had slowly shed all there cloths and had sex in every way they could imagine until they where to exhausted to move. John suddenly realized that the net outage would not last much longer, and that Rob had missed his plane, he offered to let Rob stay the night at his house. They shared Johns bed for the night but where to exhausted to do more than cuddle and sleep. Rob called the airport only to find out that the storm had washed out the runway and that he would be unable to leave for several days. John happily agreed to put him up, fortunitly they could both go into work since it really didn't matter where Rob jacked in from. John and Rob jacked in from the same office, and worked on the current project dreaming of the coming night. For most of the following week they spent the nights in each others arms. Eventually the night before Rob would have to leave, John asked when he could visit again. Rob regrettfully said he had spent virtually all the money he had to get out here, and would not be able to visit again for many months. They both went to work feeling like they had just attended each others funerals. Neither could concentrate on the matter at hand and they eventually had to leave, when they got home John discovered that they had only been at work an hour although it seemed like half a day. Rob didn't seem quite as unhappy any more and went about packing his suitcase, John on the otherhand was close to tears, he had found true love and now he would disappear. Upon arriving at the airport John had the feeling something was wrong, there was no one there waiting for a flight that usually carries 400. John asked a security guard when flight 421 was arriving and was informed that it had left 3 hours ago. Rob asked at the desk and was informed he could not get his money back, it was his responsibility to be there on time. John suddenly realized Rob had tricked him, but rather than feeling hurt or angry he gave Rob a long passionate kiss infront of a very shocked old lady. John, "oh thats to bad, I guess you will have to stay here for a while". Rob explained that all he was leaving behind was an apartment with 3 months overdue rent and alot of bills, he had been unemployed for a year and had never been able to catch up. John and Rob went home to start there new life together. The End