The cameras outside of the warehouse revealed that the morning sun had crept up over the New Orleans skyline, a wash of hazy red and orange across the Mississippi river.

Seventeen hours straight. I was starting to feel the strain.

I switched to Benny’s feed. Saw a girl in a sweat-stained tank-top, tanned skin. Black hair swept slender shoulders. A thick-gauge cable was plugged into a shunt at the base of her skull. Benny reached out and touched the cable and followed it to the sleek black Ono-Sendai that she was hunched over.

I jacked out.

I turned and jumped into his arms. The cable snapped taut and nearly pulled my console from the desk. Benny unplugged me and then pulled me towards the pallet of blankets piled in the corner.

In the afterglow of sex, we lay atop the tangle of blankets.

“You’re hot shit, Louise.” He stubbed out a cigarette and rolled to face me, propped on one elbow. He traced patterns on my skin and I shivered.

“Yeah, I know.” I reached down between us. “Not too bad yourself, Benny.”