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Vilner had killed her for the last time, he was sure of it. "Hah! Die!" he cried pounding on the console, and Linn laughed on the other end. She curtseyed as the computer-animated illusion disappeared, and she was back in her jumper again, blunt-cut dark hair framing a heart-shaped face. "Why does the love of my life have to be four solar systems away?" he wondered for the third time that week. Privately, though. Vilner had learned his lesson about online dating when he'd met that hazel-eyed lovely from Kaua IV and sent her twenty messages a day. That didn't work out so good. This was much better; the chick even loved computer games! "Wanna play again?" he asked hopefully.

But Linn sighed. "I'd love to, but I need to get some hyper-work done or my boss will kill me," she said, brushing back a lock with a plump finger. "Sometime else, though? Ok bye!" She shot a heart smiley at him and disappeared from his life again.

Vilner groaned and stared over at his own work. He had two projects going, both at or near critical mass. Being a hyperspace alchemist was a difficult task - being one in the ancient world hadn't been as hard, he was almost sure. His gold was almost at powder again.

With a sigh of his own, the young man stepped to the left, then the right, then crossed over his own steps, creating an X, the correct symbol...

...that brought him into the Norm Plane again. He veered slowly over to the cabinet in his little cell and took out some aspirin, then brushed the Plate clean. Then he turned switches left, right, left - down. The world went gray, then normalized. His headache was disappearing.

"Vilner! Almost done with this week's telemetry readings?" yelled his crewmate Jann from below.

"Yeah! Coming!" he called back, lying through his teeth. Lucky for him that telemetry readings were pretty stupid work. Just plug this in, push that out...

As he worked, he thought of Linn. She was the funniest chick he'd ever met, and the sexiest. She had the best taste in warrior costumes for one thing; said she was a designer back home - on Mars, he thought she said. He wasn't totally sure. Martian women tended to be some of the most frequent internet users in the hyper-field, maybe because Mars had the most money in its solar system. They didn't have to be alchemists to get to the hyper-field; he wasn't even sure if there were alchemists on Mars... Whatever she was, Linn was decidedly the best girlfriend he'd ever had.

"Uh-uh," he bopped himself

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