Wish You Were Here
©2020 by Walter Reimer

Thumbnail art by  freia
Filk by  marmelmm



In the air-conditioned haven of a university library in Georgia a tigress frowned at the term project on her computer. Picking up a stylus, she underlined an engineering equation before dragging the highlighted formula to another part of the paragraph. She then set the stylus aside and typed a few more sentences to describe what she was building. She brushed an errant lock of pink-tipped blonde headfur out of her eyes before sitting back in her chair and stretching.

Across from her, a bobcat looked up from his own tablet and admired the sight of his girlfriend straining at her school t-shirt. Kyle Washburn then opened a private message window.

Hey Sylvia.

Sylvia DiPantera cocked an ear at the flashing alert on her screen before sitting up and opening the window. She frowned, and frowned again when she started to say something aloud and Kyle shook his head. The bobcat pointed at the sign on wall that requested silence, and typed again.

Something bothering you?

It was a bit of a running joke that Kyle slept with his computer. Of course, for a major in programming and website design, having ready access to the tablet and a strong WiFi signal was almost as essential as food. Sylvia rolled her eyes and typed.

Just trying to get this done. Jahn wants it by Friday afternoon. Her chemical engineering instructor had a fearsome reputation. Her major was sort of an oblique family tradition.

In 1937, Sylvia’s Great-aunt Antonia had married Pierre duCleds, a member of the family that ran one of the largest chemical manufacturing businesses in the world. Pierre was planning on retiring, and hadn’t planned on having any children. Antonia, or Toni as she insisted on being called, hadn’t planned on children either, but the happy couple had arranged for the children of Toni’s brothers and sisters to go to college.

Such was size of the bequest, and so carefully was it managed, that Sylvia (a descendant of Toni’s brother Vincent) was able to attend the university with full tuition, including a living allowance that would enable her to concentrate on her education and not seek an outside job unless she really wanted one.

Quite a few family members had told her while she grew up that she resembled Great-aunt Toni, and when the time had come to choose a major the tigress had insisted on chemical engineering.

Kyle typed, Oh. I was hoping we could go out tomorrow night. The tufted ‘horns’ on the tips of his ears twitched. Part of Kyle’s tuition was being paid by his parents, and the remainder was being paid by a major tech company on the promise that, upon graduation, the bobcat would join the workforce in Silicon Hollow, an eastern copy and competitor of the older west coast community. Between the two of them, they were able to rent an apartment off-campus. There’s a group playing at the Frog and Peach, and I know you like the oldies.

Sylvia shrugged. I figured we’d stay in tonight, and she waggled her eyebrows at her boyfriend, who smothered a chuckle with a cough.

Order out, then? Sushi?

The tigress closed her eyes and stuck her tongue out before typing, I was thinking burgers. She glanced up to see him grinning. What?

The bobcat merely waggled his eyebrows at her and went back to what he was doing.


***


Kyle sat back on the couch at Sylvia’s apartment and smothered a soft belch with his paw. The burger had been very tasty, and the tigress had stepped into the bathroom for a moment to wash her paws after getting grease and butter from the sautéed onions in her fur. He’d managed to be a little more fastidious.

He took a sip of his soda and picked up the TV remote, accessing FilmNet and clicking on Resume. There was a pause followed by the scene of a cruise ship with a bunch of furs wearing swimsuits and dancing. The music sounded like something from an oldies station, but the lyrics were from the recent pandemic:


“Old man COVID is in my shoes
Sittin' here a-coughin' and a-singin' the blues
So be my vector, you got nothin' to lose
Just let me infect you on a C cruise

Oo-ee, COVID baby
Oo-ee, COVID baby
Oo-ee, COVID baby
Just let me infect you on a C cruise

Got a sore throat baby got some Vitamin Cs?
This sneezin' and this wheezin' got me on my bended knees

I got to get off this boat, get my hat off the rack
The Wuhan Flu has hit me like a knife in the back
So be my vector, you got nothin' to lose
Just let me infect you on a C cruise

Oo-ee, COVID baby
Oo-ee, COVID baby
Oo-ee, COVID baby
Just let me infect you on a C cruise

I got to get to shore, baby I ain't lyin'
My fever is a-risin' and it's right on time
So be my vector, you got nothin' to lose
Just let me infect you on a C cruise

Oo-ee, COVID baby
Oo-ee, COVID baby
Oo-ee, COVID baby
Just let me infect you on a C cruise

Got a sore throat baby got some Vitamin Cs?
This sneezin' and this wheezin' got me on my bended knees

Oo-ee, COVID baby
Oo-ee, COVID baby
Oo-ee, COVID baby
Just let me infect you on a C cruise!”*

*(‘COVID Cruise’ by M. Mitchell Marmel; to the tune of "Sea Cruise" by Frankie Ford. Songwriter: Huey Smith; "Sea Cruise" lyrics © Warner Chappell Music, Inc.)

He was still chuckling when Sylvia emerged from the bathroom and sat down beside him. “That’s a good song,” the tigress said. “I’m glad that they finally found a treatment for it.”

“The virus, or the song?” Kyle asked, and they both laughed before settling down to watch the movie, which was a comedy based on the old beach movies from before either of them were born. The plot was a ‘boy meets girl’ theme, with a rather odd subplot based on a stolen artifact from a museum. The subplot was played strictly for laughs.

“You know,” Kyle said slowly, running a finger along the fur on Sylvia’s thigh, “I’d like to go on a cruise with you.”

Her paw came to rest on his, and she leaned in to kiss him. “Sounds romantic,” she said, “but neither of us can afford it. Even if we pooled our money,” and she kissed him again as his ears dipped. “Don’t look at me like that, Kyle. You know it.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I do.” He took another sip of his soda, and the two watched as the movie continued.

It was fairly lame. At the end, everyone seemed to get a boyfriend or girlfriend, even the inadequately-explained foreign girl who seemed a little creepy. The subplot was resolved in a completely ridiculous fashion, and the movie ended with another big song and dance number.

After a couple hours of video games, Sylvia got up to get ready for bed. Kyle lingered for a moment or two, looking at the game controller in his paws with a thoughtful expression on his muzzle.


***


“What the heck is all this?” Sylvia asked two months later. Kyle had been acting oddly, sending a lot of emails and texts and spending a lot more time on his computer than normal. Today he’d left the campus early, explaining via text that “something” had come up, and now she stood in the living room of their apartment and looked at the collection of empty boxes and the pile of components. She recognized at least two CPU towers, but some of the other items were just featureless plastic cases with USB sockets in them. “Kyle?”

The bobcat looked up from his seated position on the carpet and grinned at her. “Hi! Have a seat.” As she cleared some packing material away and sat down on the sofa he said, “I’ve been thinking, you know, about the cruise.”

“Yeah? We still can’t afford it, hun – “

“I know,” he said, and he scootched around so that he faced her. “But it got me thinking, so I sent an email to a friend of mine over in Rain Island.”

“Rain Island?” she echoed, thinking about the independent nation at the other end of the United States. “Um . . . Izzy, was it?”

He grinned. “Ozzy. You were close,” and he leaned forward and kissed her knee. “The same company’s putting us through college; me here, and him over at UNP, but he’s more on the hardware end of things.”

“Okay.”

“So he sent me this stuff, really on the low-down, you know,” and he put a finger to his lips, “so don’t tell anyone, okay?” She nodded, and he said, “It took a while to get everything together, but here it is,” and he held up a pair of opaque goggles.

“Virtual reality?” Sylvia asked.

Kyle grinned, baring his teeth. “Better,” he declared. “This is what they call bleeding-edge stuff. I have to send every bit of it back when we’re done.”

The tigress was studying the goggles. They appeared to be wireless, but without any screens inside the eyepieces. “Okay,” she said, “so how do they work?”

The bobcat’s ears dipped. “I’m not supposed to tell anyone – “

“You know I won’t say a word, Kyle.”

He nodded. “Okay. Ozzy told me that it’s a brain-computer interface – “

“Don’t we have to have, like, holes in our heads for that?” she asked, and he laughed as she stuck out her tongue, crossed her eyes, and pantomimed drilling into her skull.

“Nah, nothing like that,” he said. “Like I said, this is really advanced. Get comfortable while I finish hooking it all up,” and he turned back to the welter of cables and components scattered around in front of the TV. He powered everything up, keeping an eye on the process through a tablet that was physically connected to one of the CPU towers.

Kyle put his goggles on. “Do I put mine on now?” Sylvia asked, and donned them when the bobcat nodded.

He tapped the tablet screen and said, “Ozzy said that we might feel a little dizzy at first. The system’s adjusting to us.”

“Whoa,” and Sylvia sat back against the sofa. “He’s not kidding.” The tigress felt a sudden vertigo, as if she’d closed her eyes while sitting in a spinning swivel chair. There was an explosion of bright light and atonal noise that swiftly vanished . . .

And she was suddenly standing in a field.

She blinked, shook her head, and opened her eyes.

It was a very nice field, with wildflowers growing in it, a forested hillside in the middle distance, and to the left the ground sloped away to a broad expanse of water. Sylvia could smell the flowers, and feel the wind in her fur and the feeling of the ground under her feet. It was sunny, but the temperature was mild. She looked down to see that she was wearing a white cotton sundress.

She started shaking. She had been sitting on her couch, in a city in the American South . . . and now where . . . where was she? “Wha – what -?” she started to stammer.

“Shh,” and she whirled around to see Kyle standing a few yards away. The bobcat was wearing his usual cargo shorts and Dalek Victory! T-shirt. He had a paw raised toward her, palm out. “Stay calm, Syl, please. This is just the desktop.”

“D-desktop?” She whirled again, ears flicking and her tail almost bottling as a hawk flew overhead. “We . . . we’re in the computer?”

Her boyfriend shook his head. “It’s more like the computer’s in us,” he said, looking around. “Ozzy told me that this is the view from the mountains near his hometown. It’s pretty.” He crouched down and ran his paw over the grass. “Wow . . . just wow.”

“But – but this is all CGI?” she said, still getting over the shock. “You weren’t kidding when you said bleeding-edge.”

“I know, right?” Kyle grinned and stood up, walking over to her while he said, “The vertigo is the computer figuring out what you look like as it interfaces with your brain. Everything you see here is a computer program.”

“Like that movie?”

The bobcat laughed. “Nope. If I fell down and broke my arm here, I’d feel the pain, but my actual body wouldn’t have anything wrong.”

“How do you know?”

“Ozzy tested it by jumping off that cliff over there,” and Kyle pointed. “He broke a leg, but when he exited the program he was fine.” He didn’t bother to mention that the fox had admitted he’d wet his pants.

“Wow. So how do we get out of this, then?”

“Like this,” and Kyle said loudly, “System, exit.” A red dot appeared in midair about two feet away from him. “Put your paw on it, and you’re back on the couch.” He gave her a sudden nervous look, teeth nibbling at his lower lip. “Do you – do you want to leave?”

The question made her stop and think. She was getting over the initial shock, and was steadily growing fascinated by the sheer amount of detail in the program. Sylvia crouched and ran her paw over the grass, then plucked a flower and brought it to her nose.

Yes, it was a violet.

“This – this is amazing,” she said, and she gave her boyfriend an admiring look. “Think of the gaming possibilities.”

Kyle grinned as he nodded. “I know. Ozzy’s trying to get the new War of Wands game adapted for this system.” He scuffed a foot against the grassy slope. “I had to see the source code before I could start writing up the cruise program, and it’s fantastic,” he said, stressing the middle syllable like the Ninth Doctor.

Sylvia blinked. “You – you wrote a cruise program? For this? For us?”

“I had to write a search engine just to get the data files set up,” Kyle replied, “and the compiling took two full days.” He looked around again. “If this wasn’t a trade secret, I’d offer the program as a term project and probably get an A.” He probably would have said more, but she kissed him at that point.

Yes, the feel and scent of him were correct.

As was the feel of him enthusiastically returning the kiss.

When they parted, the tigress asked in a husky voice, “What about that cruise, lover boy?”

“Hm?”

“Do we have to walk down to the town to get there?”

“Huh?” He blinked and chuckled. “No. Like I said, this is the desktop.” He gave her a wide smile. “I put a lot of work into the cruise. Control K,” he said to open air, and a keyboard appeared at waist height. “Brace yourself,” he said as he typed. “Everything around us is going to change.”

“Should I close my eyes?” Sylvia asked.

He half-turned toward her, his right index finger raised, and paused for a second before saying, “Yeah. It’ll save you a shock.” She closed her eyes and he asked, “Ready?”

“Ready.”

It was more than a little disconcerting. The weather changed from mild to almost tropically humid; her clothes had changed, judging from the weight on her. The surface under her now-shod feet was hard and level. The smell of tropical flowers and car exhaust mingled in the air, along with the sounds of traffic and seagulls.

Sylvia opened her eyes.

She and Kyle were standing on a sidewalk on a fairly busy city street. But . . .

The cars – and the people driving them, and the people on the sidewalk – looked like they’d stepped out of an old movie.

“Where are we?” the tigress asked. “More to the point, when are we?” She turned to look at Kyle, and burst out laughing.

“Like it?” Kyle asked. The bobcat was wearing a white linen suit with a broad tie done in a red and blue geometric pattern and topped off with a white Panama hat that he tipped at a rakish angle. He held a wider-brimmed hat with a yellow band around the crown. “The program fits us in.” He grinned. “You’re looking good too.” She looked down to see that her sundress had been replaced with an ankle-length dress in cream linen with a matching jacket over a pink blouse. White cotton gloves were on her paws and a white leather purse hung from a shoulder strap.

“Wow,” and Sylvia laughed. “We look like we fell out of an old movie.” She accepted the hat from his paws and put it on before taking his arm. “So, where and when?” she asked as the pair set off down the sidewalk.

“Honolulu, Hawai’i,” Kyle replied, “about a block from the cruise ship docks.” He grinned and stuck his free paw into his suit jacket, pulling out two pieces of paper. “We have tickets for the Matson Line ship Loretta. A nice eight-day cruise to the Spontoons aboard a luxury liner.” He smiled as she fairly squealed with delight. “And it’s nineteen thirty-seven.”

She stopped, her eyes going wide. “Nineteen thirty-seven?”

“I told you I had to do research – “

A few passing sailors hooted and applauded as she kissed him.

When they resumed their walk, the sound of bells tolling the hour told them that it was nine o’clock. Sylvia asked, “I have so many questions. Eight days, you said?”

“Yeah, to the Spontoons.”

“What – what do we do with our bodies?” He glanced at her and she asked, “We both have classes tomorrow.”

“Not a problem. We can leave at any point after saving.” He smiled, matching her expression. “Sort of like a computer game,” and they entered the cavernous terminal.

Kyle passed her ticket to her, and Sylvia was surprised to find her passport in her purse as they got on line and approached the blue-uniformed terrier at the cruise line’s desk.

The man scrutinized the passports, then the tickets, before looking at a list. He looked up and smiled. “Your luggage is already in your cabins, Mr. Washburn. Enjoy your trip.” He touched the brim of his cap and nodded at Sylvia. “Ma’am.” He signaled for the next couple in line.

As soon as they were out of earshot Sylvia said, “He seemed real.”

“Yeah,” Kyle said, grinning.

“What was that about ‘cabins?’”

“Research,” the bobcat said. “We’re not married, so we can’t have a cabin together. But what we have has a door connecting them,” and he winked. “I don’t want you getting lonely, now do I?” They both laughed, stepping out onto the wharf and into the looming shadow of the liner. “First class,” Kyle added. “Nothing but the best.”

“Of course,” Sylvia chuckled.

They were shown up the gangway and guided to their stateroom by an officious-looking fox. “Here you are, Sir,” he said. “We’ll be casting off soon, so you and the young lady can step out to the rail to watch.” Kyle tipped him, and the fox winked before leaving. The bobcat blinked and stepped out into the corridor to see the fox walking away.

“What’s wrong?” Sylvia asked as he stepped back inside.

“That . . . that was Ozzy. He wrote himself into the program.”

“Like a Hotchkiss movie,” Sylvia remarked. “Would that be an Easter Egg?”

Kyle laughed. “I’ll have to send him a text later.”

The two stepped out onto the main deck, joining the crowds of passengers gathered at the starboard rail. Shouts echoed between the Loretta’s flanks and the walls of the terminal building, and a cheer arose from the crowds on the wharf and the ship as the Royal Hawaiian Band, all in crisp white uniforms, struck up the tune Aloha Oe. Young women in traditional grass skirts danced a hula as the ship cast off and tugs began to move it away from the pier.

As the liner was turned away, Kyle pulled back his shirt cuff and looked at his wristwatch. “It’s almost five.”

Sylvia planted a paw on the top of her hat and looked up at the sun. “What? It’s not even – oh, you mean at home. So?”

“We both have class tomorrow, and I’m sure you were hungry.”

“Yeah, I was. So how do we get out of here?”

“Let’s go up to the stateroom first.”

The two felines threaded their way past their fellow passengers and stewards serving drinks and canapes until they reached their cabins. Once Sylvia had shut the door, Kyle said, “Have a seat,” and waved at a comfortable leather chair. He sat down in the matching chair and said, “Control K.” Again, a keyboard appeared before him in midair. “I’ll save the program at this point, okay?”

“Sure. Can we skip ahead?”

“Hm? Sure!”

“Just in case wandering around on a ship that’s a computer program gets boring,” Sylvia teased, and her boyfriend laughed.

Another admonition to close her eyes, and she heard Kyle say, “System, exit.” Again, things shifted around her, and she felt the sofa under her. Evening sunlight was peeking around her goggles, and she raised a paw and removed them. Blinking, she saw Kyle remove his.

“So, what did you think?”

Sylvia looked at the goggles in her paw before leaning forward and saying, “What did I think? I think it’s amazing! I can’t wait to see what dinner tastes like on the ship, or when we get to the Spontoons.” Her stomach suddenly growled, and her ears dipped. “Speaking of dinner.”

“Fried chicken?”

“Sure.” The tigress got to her feet, just a little unsteadily, and headed off to the bathroom to freshen up before they went out.

Kyle started powering down the system, a pleased grin on his face. Yeah, he’d done a lot of research, some of it involving reaching out to Sylvia’s parents and family. They’d given him access to the picture albums they kept on FurBook, particularly for anything they had on her several-times-Great-Aunt Antonia. One cousin had even given him a sound file of his girlfriend’s namesake’s voice.

He couldn’t wait for them to get to the Spontoon Islands. She didn’t know it yet, but Sylvia was going to have an encounter with a family member she’d never met.



end