But Fantastical called him. He opened his briefcase, took out the disc, gave it a friendly kiss as he started up the stairs.

He’d decorated his spaces to his own whim and taste, so toys abounded. Props, weapons, costumes, and art from vids and games served as decor and amusement with every room on every level outfitted with various game systems, vid systems, screens, and comps.

It was, for Bart, a dream realized. He lived, as he worked, in a big e-playroom.

His second-floor office was a to-scale reproduction of the bridge of the galactic warship The Valiant, from the vid of the same name. His work on the gaming discs for the vid had given his fledgling U-Play its true start.

He forgot about changing his shoes, or changing his wet shirt, and went straight to the third floor.

Security on the holo-room required his thumbprint, voiceprint, and a retinal scan. Overkill, he knew, but it was more fun that way, and fun was always the name of the game. He might have opened up the space regularly for friends and guests, but he liked having the superspy aspects in place.

He reactivated them on entering, then shut down all outside coms. For the hour-okay maybe ninety minutes-he intended to play, he wanted no interruptions.

The whole point of gaming, to Bart’s mind, was the immersion of self in the fantasy, or the competition, or just the fun. And Fantastical would take that immersion of self several steps beyond what was on the market in mid-2060.

If the latest adjustments and enhancements worked, the businessman inside the gamer reminded him.

“They’ll work. It’ll be mag to the nth,” he muttered as he inserted the disc and ran through the startup. Once again he used his voiceprint, then his password. The new version was totally top secret. He and his partners hadn’t built U-Play on geek alone. He understood, very well, the cutthroat business in the gaming field, and actually found the corporate espionage kind of a rush.