Zack glared at the screen and dismissed the prompt. Now it offered help? No, he didn’t want to complete a damn tutorial level. He had eight minutes to find a woman, speak to her with his best sexy growl, and spend the rest of the day competing with his team and pretending this had never happened.

He scanned the gym and settled on the highest level woman there. Might as well get as many points as possible, whatever that meant in this context. He selected the heart above her head by staring at it for a few seconds, and DaEvo popped up a notification with the woman’s stats.

Kayla Taylor (Social Level 86)

Physique: 89

Style: 82

Reputation: 89

Occupation: 85

A flood of social media posts followed the stats. Mostly pictures from Kayla’s career as a model. Advertisement spreads, red carpet events, and selfies with an endless stream of celebrities, including a few with Zoe Cross. All of them showed “KayTay,” as her fans called her, in gorgeous gowns on the runway or swimsuits on exotic beaches. She was always perfectly styled, with just the right amount of makeup to highlight her blue eyes and strawberry-blond hair.

She looked significantly less polished now, with a dusting of freckles not visible in her modeling portfolio and her hair pulled back into a messy bun. But she was still hot, her tight workout gear showing off her body just as much as the formal gowns did.

Zack pushed aside his nerves and forced himself to smile as he walked over to Kayla’s elliptical. Maybe DaEvo wouldn’t be so bad. Kayla was no Zoe, but she was still a hot model. And thanks to the game, he was going to talk to her.

“Hey, babe.”

The sexy growl was more of a wheeze, and Kayla didn’t seem to hear him over the whir of the machine and whatever she was listening to with her earbuds. She stared straight ahead, running on her elliptical with an intensity that Zack found a little intimidating. Apparently, that body required some maintenance to stay swimsuit-ready.

“Kayla?” Zack tried again.

Kayla looked down at him, frowned a little, and redoubled her efforts on the elliptical as if she were actually moving and could run away from him.

If she did decide to run, Zack would have no chance of catching her. DaEvo now displayed a sixty-second timer in the corner of his OptiGlasses, but it hadn’t started yet.

“Hey! Kayla!”

“Can’t. Stop. Now.”

She said the words on an exhale, breathing deeply between them. Sweat poured down her face as she ran even faster. DaEvo chimed and started the timer. Success! Apparently, he just had to get her to respond. Now he could stand there for a minute and let the timer run down.

But when Kayla said nothing else for ten seconds, the timer flashed red and reset.

Crap.

“Hey.”

Zack whirled around and found himself face to face with the bodybuilder from earlier. He swallowed. “Yeah?”

“You’re interrupting our workouts.”

The muscled man gestured to the gym, and Zack realized that everyone but Kayla had stopped what they were doing to stare at him.

Reputation -0.1

“What the hell?”

Had DaEvo really docked his reputation just because some muscled jocks were annoyed?

DaEvo calculates user Reputation using an in-person, real-time algorithm as well as other proprietary calculations for baseline information.

“What did you say to me?” The bodybuilder leaned closer, looming over Zack.

Behind them, Kayla Taylor was still sprinting on the elliptical, seemingly oblivious to it all.

“Oh, I wasn’t talking to you,” Zack said. “I, uh—”

“Maybe you should leave,” the bodybuilder said. “You don’t look like you belong here anyway.”

He laughed, looking at Zack from head to toe and apparently finding his flab amusing. Zack felt his cheeks burning red. Who cared about muscles? It wasn’t as if they helped you win game tournaments or get a job. Not that he had a job himself, but most manual jobs these days were done by machines. What was the point of putting so much effort into physical activity?

“Look, I’m not causing any trouble. I just need to talk to—”

“And I think you’re done here. She doesn’t want to talk to you.”

Zack and the bodybuilder looked back at Kayla, who was still ignoring their conversation.

“Is there a problem over here?” Another muscled gym user came over. This one was even bigger than the first, which Zack would not have thought possible.

DaEvo flashed again.

Reputation -0.1

“Fine. Whatever,” Zack said, raising his hands in surrender as he backed away and made a hurried exit from the gym, checking the clock as he did so.

Damn. He was two minutes late for the rendezvous with his team and no closer to getting back his electronics privileges. If this kept up, he would miss warmups entirely. And that was unacceptable.

Zack gritted his teeth as he steeled his resolve. Find a woman. Have a conversation. He had to do this for Star Fury and his team.

Maybe he should have made an effort to get to know his neighbors when he moved in. He didn’t know a single person in the building, male or female. He had toured the facilities when purchasing the condo, then promptly forgotten about them. Knowing his neighbors wasn’t exactly a priority—not like the new triple redundancy fiber optic cable they had laid during the condo’s development. It was one of the fastest networks in the nation, perfect for gaming.

But not even lightning fast internet would save him now. He needed a woman.

Zack took the elevator to the ground floor. Maybe he could catch someone in the lobby.

No luck. The lobby was empty. He would have to take this outside if he wanted to get his gaming system back.

That was just unfair. Firing Phil moved up Zack’s list of priorities as he took a deep breath and walked out of the apartment building for the first time in weeks. Heat wafted up from the sidewalk and washed over him in waves. Apparently, his decision to stay inside had been a good one. Walking into the Oklahoma summer was like walking into an oven. But weather had been low on his priorities when he moved from New York. He had been far more interested in fiber optic lines, the innovative green tech in the apartment building, and the new Star Fury main servers located downtown.

The building stretched above him, tall, sleek, and blinding in the afternoon sun. Solar energy panels covered every bit of the surface that wasn’t a window, and small wind turbines sat on the roof. Supposedly there was even a rooftop garden up there. Wind gusted past, nearly knocking Zack over, and he gritted his teeth. No wonder they had decided to put a green building here. The sun and wind were strong enough to power a tier-two server center, so providing light to the apartment should be a piece of cake.

Zack ducked into a small patch of shade under a nearby tree and dismissed the idle thought. Renewable energy was the least of his concerns right now. He opened the calling app. It showed three missed calls from his teammates, as well as a number of texts, but DaEvo had blocked his ability to do anything other than see that the calls had come in. He couldn’t even read the messages.