Psycho-Nik: <Nik jumps over the large, damp ditch and sends his fist into Sgt. Handler's stomach, watching him collapse to the ground, the air forced out of his lungs>
Malady: <Malady sneaks up behind Nik & taps him on the shoulder> If you cast him away that easily, you better be ready to face his backup!
Private Message: Psycho-Nik to Malady-4982: Smart speech, but can the little girlee fight?
Private Message: Malady-4982 to Psycho-Nik: She's right here, & she knows all ur weaknesses, pal!
Private Message: Psycho-Nik to Malady-4982: I thought u were gonna go easy on me 2nite, honey ;-)
Private Message: Malady-4982 to Psycho-Nik: Hard day :-(.
Private Message: Psycho-Nik to Malady-4982: Good job u can take it out online, or I'd b worried about low-flying biros @ work 2moro!
Private Message: Malady-4982 to Psycho-Nik: Yuk. Work. Gotta write that report. Grr… I'd better log off.
Private Message: Psycho-Nik to Malady-4982: Log off?! & kill Captain Malady b4 Lt. Nik can thrash her?!??!
Private Message: Malady-4982 to Psycho-Nik: In ur dreams! :-D No, better go. Cat's whining.
Private Message: Psycho-Nik to Malady-4982: Ah well, can't blame a guy 4 trying. C ya @ the H20-machine 2moro. <<Psycho-Nik sends you a BIG HUGGGG!!!!!!>>
    Aislyn smiled at the monitor, near to laughing at Nick's crazy net-talk, but not wanting to show it through the tough side of her character. At this time of the evening, they were totally into their characters—engulfed into the Net world of role-play and all of it's fascinating advantages over real-life. After two hours of continuous chat, her mind had given up trying to remind her of any reality that wasn't virtual and had just let her get on with it.
Private Message: Malady-4982 to Psycho-Nik: We're cool? I mean, I know u wanna chat, but I have 2 get this thing done.
Private Message: Psycho-Nik to Malady-4982: Five by five, M'lady, 5 x 5.
Smiling, Aislyn went back to the group chat window and forced herself to type a farewell.
   Half a screen was taken up with responses to her departure—some more funny and… charming than others. Double-clicking on the small, fluctuating computer icon at the base of the toolbar, her cursor hesitated slightly before clicking on the 'Disconnect' button… and that was it. She was out.
 Taking a curious and guilty glance to the clock, a discreet curse escaped Aislyn's lips. She picked up the three mugs at her side by their handles, like rings on her fingers and wondered into the small kitchenette. Setting them in the sink, she turned on the taps.
 Two jade green sparkling eyes gazed up at her from the floor and she tried to ignore their motherly reminder of responsibility.
Aislyn's brain joined her cat in the debate, nagging her only too eagerly that she had that report to write for the next day. And this wasn't just any report either, it was one that could lead or drop her out of a promotion assembly.
Aislyn McKaufnie and Nicholas Summerton were both junior data reporters for Oxfordshire's local Internet Service Provider (ISP). It had been where they had met, nervously but fatefully, on Aislyn's first day. Now—almost five years later—the two were the closest of friends, and the senior partners were about to elect their next Manager of Weekly Statistics; a title that came with a better pension, a secure salary and a cool little security card.
Although both of their names were up for the position, neither actually expected anything to come about because of it. They were of a group of about thirty junior reporters and had been through several of these campaigns, which were used to get the newbies (net-term for somebody new to their profession) all worked up. Nick especially laughed at the freshly introduced and overly-enthusiastic newcomers, hanging onto every word of their boss.
Now that they had spent so much time at the bottom, Aislyn and Nick were used to it. They valued their equal status, with it's accompanying cubicle, pre-historic Windows 3.1 PC and tacky water dispenser. Neither expected to upgrade to the executive coffee machine anytime soon.
 "Stop it, Schrödy!" she scolded the cat lightly, her eyes skipping back and forth to the feline's silky form.
Schrödinger replied with wailing purrs—his mistress might have a large pile of paperwork to worry about, but all he cared for at the minute was his Kit-I-Kat.
"You're not going to give up, are you?" she asked in frustration, her frown turning helplessly into a smile at the glaring innocence being returned back to her. She had rescued Schrödinger nearly three years ago from a nearby RSPCA base, and in that time they had grown to understand each other just as well as she and Nick did.
Throwing down the dishcloth with rose eyebrows, she found a tin of cat food and picked up the mad-cat's saucer.
Schrödinger immediately stopped complaining and strolled excitedly over to Aislyn's feet.
Setting the saucer back down, Aislyn stroked the cat lovingly. She would spend an hour or so on the report; not an excessive amount of time, but not a short amount of time either. She could have a decent role-play internet session in those same hours, or answer a small fraction of her email, or simply surf freely to wherever her heart bid her be.
Her eyes stared absently at the floor, facing the impending boredom, "Looks like I'm back to the computer." She snapped out of her daydream and stood up. Schrödinger's eyes followed her and for a moment, she spotted a hint of empathy. Aislyn smiled sadly back at the cat and ran her fingers over his ears.
Obsessions were so hard to fit around your office timetable.

   "I am reasonably satisfied with the amount of effort you all put into this," Tompson growled, "I was actually able to read 50% of them without falling asleep." Jack Tompson was a typical, hard-to-please and regularly irritable boss. With his grey and black speckled beard and narrow, but sharp, eyes, he was the influence for many memo pad doodles, most of which weren't exactly flattering.
Aislyn watched their plump, obstinate boss from a distance, in amidst the other 29 junior reporters who had been gathered at the small clearing of desks near the water dispenser. Nick—perched on the edge of a table with one leg on her chair and his arm resting on his knee—sat next to her in a dark grey suit. His playful green eyes skipped over the faces surrounding him, indicating his extreme restlessness.
Having observed her companion's fidgeting with a comfortable smile on her face, Aislyn almost missed the end of her name.
"…Kaufnie and Carl Benson."
Her neck turned quickly, her eyes darting back to Tompson and widening. From the corner of her eye, she could see that Nick was doing the same, abruptly going pale.
"Yes, Ms. McKaufnie," her boss repeated slowly, "you've got two hours to clear your desk for a new junior. You will be stationed in office 67B on level 4."
"Huh? Excuse me?" Aislyn's head turned to the faces of her friends, wondering if they had heard what she had thought she had heard. Suddenly, people she didn't even know were patting her on the back and shaking her hands. From the heart of the group of congratulating fellow workers, she could decipher only one voice; barely recognisable through the bitterness.
"Well done, Aislyn."
That was wrong. Totally wrong—Nick never called her by her real name; he always used her Internet handle (nickname), Malady.
"Nick? Nick?" She slapped away some of the hands and turned away from all of the happy, over-dramatically praising faces, trying to catch sight of the one she wanted to see most of all. "Oh, will you just shut it?" she exclaimed into the face of another co-worker, who instantaneously stepped back in offence. "I'm sorry," Aislyn rectified sincerely and put on an extremely false smile, "Yey! Promotion? Yey to promotion! Now if you'll just excuse me…"
She pushed through the crowd of juniors, searching the faces for Nick. Catching sight of a flash of dark grey material heading down a corridor, Aislyn nodded gratefully to the last of her admirers before running after him.
The rest of the Statistics division looked on in bewilderment, before a whisper spread like a Mexican-wave across the room. Tompson—equally as annoyed with being cut off as surprised—replaced his shocked expression with a stern grimace and broke the assembly swiftly, briefly  and very successfully, "Get back to work!"

   RPGs—or internet role play games—are similar to role-play in real-life, only they are played online. A player creates a character which then gains a role in the game, which consists of numerous situations acted out via emails or chatroom experiences.
   Characters can be totally opposite to the people who write them, but there are always bits that shine through… just tiny little bits, like stars in the night sky. But it is from these little bits that you can gather a fantastic mountain of knowledge about a particular person. A complete mind's image of them can be built up on abstract and tiny, yet strangely solid details that come up in Internet conversation, like whether or not they use shampoo and conditioner or 2 in 1, or how long it takes their neighbour to light that candle flame he calls a barbecue.
   These insubstantial facts of everyday life suddenly become the things by which someone is known online—not by their appearance or intellect. Comparing a real-life friend with their online presence is seeing the ultimate image, the big picture; and something which made Nick and Aislyn closer than ever.
Which made it even harder when their opinions clashed.
   Aislyn hadn't been able to catch Nick up. She had followed him down several flights of stairs in their building until she was utterly exhausted. When she had reached the ground floor, she had just been able to make his grey form fleeing the reception and had guessed that he had gone either for a viscous drive, or home.
Wherever he was, she hoped that he was calming down. Slumped in front of the television, Schrödinger sitting ever-contentedly in her lap, Aislyn's mind was a violent mass of obscure and complex thoughts.
   Nick's characters were all very different, but—as always—held several factors in common. Like the guy himself, they had blonde hair and green eyes. They were also extremely arrogant and had a mighty pride that took longer than normal to heal. That was what scared Aislyn in her current situation. If it was Nick's pride that had been hurt by her promotion over him, then it would only be a painful matter of time before things sorted themselves out. However, if it was the prospect that she would be able to control him at work, well, then that was a more disastrous blow to their friendship—one that he would either have to solve himself, or face every single day of the working week.
But what puzzled Aislyn, now, as she sat silently on the sofa, was why this side of him had been brought out at that moment. She had seen him angry at work, and she had seen him angry online (which is—like any online emotion—generally worse ten-fold), but never before had she witnessed the raw spite with which he had spoken his forlorn congratulations. Whether they were in a Dungeons & Dragons game, or one that was based on Mars a hundred years into the future, he had never been angry at her.
   Taking a deep breath, she switched the television off and threw the remote across the room, venting some anger on the plastic control. Schrödinger stirred, and sat up straight, as if to say, "Okay, what happened?"
"Does it have to be this awkward?" Aislyn said, giving up with sanity and talking to her cat, "What does it do? Surely he knows I don't think I'm better than him. Surely. He probably deserves the job more than I do!"
Despite his silence, Schrödinger's eyes seemed to at least provide a constant stream of compassion to whatever Aislyn said and she appreciated that. Eventually pulling her knees up to her chin in despair and resting her head there, she looked to him pitifully. "What shall I do?"
   Suddenly, an idea popped into her head and she sat stone still for a couple of seconds, considering it. It could make things better, or make them even more painful. For a minute longer she sat there, wondering whether a journey into cyberspace would clear her head. Finally, she got up and sat herself down at her desk. Schrödinger came and seated himself not far from her left foot.
Staring into the monitor determinedly, she started it up.

   Aislyn waited for the modem to connect to her alter-life, impatiently tapping a biro on the computer desk. At last her tapping because too violent and the pen flew across the desk and upset a pencil pot on the coffee table. She sat back and sighed. If she was going to talk to him, she'd better get her act together. Taking an extremely deep breath, she logged on, and immersed herself in cyberspace.
Malady: Good evening ppl. How r u all 2nite?
GI_Goe:  Evening Malady. Heard u & Nik got in a row.
Aislyn hesitated; had Nick told everybody online about what had happened? Better act clueless, she decided.
Malady: Row?
GI_Goe: Yeah. Or so he said. Just logged off.
Malady: Damn… wanted 2 catch him.
TomCat: He was only on 4 a coupla minutes. Posted his next RPG piece & then went.
Malady: Oh, ok.
TomCat: I've just read it. Bit sour… u sure there ain't no row, Malady?
Malady: Not that I know of.
GI_Goe: Whatever u say. ;-)
   They all knew her too well. Better go before they catch me out, Aislyn thought, although doubting that any of them could possibly want to hurt her feelings in anyway. It was just hard to tell what type of emotional state somebody was in when you couldn't physically see or hear them.
Malady: I'm gonna go, 'kay? C u guys l8r.
TomCat: C ya, Malady.
GI_Goe: Yeah, bye. Hope u & Nik r m8es again soon.
Malady: Me too, GI_Goe, me 2.
TomCat: <<hugz>>
Malady: Thanx. Bye…
   So much for that. But just before she disconnected in defeat, Aislyn noted the small envelope icon in the bottom right-hand corner of her screen. New email. Hand shaking on the mouse, she opened her email account and flicked through the multiple advert messages and other junk mail. There was a long mail from her keyboard-pal in Malaysia, but she rapidly bypassed that until the subject line she had been waiting for stared her in the face.
  Email Subject: 'Castle_RPG_7: Nik's Part IV'
If you could rip open an email, Aislyn would have done it; instead she double-clicked on it so fast that it took her computer about a minute to catch up with her and bring it up in full.
A majority of the email was made up of snippets of other people's mails that were relevant to Nik's addition to their role-play game. At the very top, was Aislyn's own last part. Their characters were in a medieval castle in old England, doing the regular things—slaying dragons, saving damsels (and sometimes helpless Tom Cruise look-a-likes) in distress, as well as other equally predictable situations. At the moment, Aislyn's character—Lady Bekoni (a Mistress of the Great Magicks and therefore not registered as 'damsel' material)—was finding her way around the castle's secret pathways with Nik's character—the Black Angel. At first, Aislyn had told him that the name was a little over the top, but she had soon grown used to it. That's what you learned to do online, adjust to other people's ways, and if you didn't, then you found yourself friendless and—to put it bluntly—a flame target.
   Finally finding Nik's entry to the storyboard, Aislyn felt her eyes dampen as she read what he had written;
"The castle had never felt so large, dark and daunting. Looking around, all the Black Angel could make out was the blurry, golden glow of faint torches somewhere further down the great corridor and the ghastly chill of a piercing wind slicing like a blade across his back. Turning round suddenly, he realised that it was a blade. With an open mouth and shortening breaths, the Angel brought his eyes to hers with shock, his hands pulled into fists against the sharp pain. Bekoni… the beautiful young Lady he had been leading through the many Great Battles had stabbed him in the back with the very dagger he had given her under the last Full Moon. With one last choking gasp, he sank to his knees and closed his eyes—only she could kill him. Only her deceitful affection could kill an angel."
   Her lips widened out and her eyes narrowed as she clamped her hand over her mouth, and began to sob uncontrollably, immediately sensing the intense and harsh parallel to what had happened at work in his story.
Aislyn cried all night, keeping the email in front of her at all times in self-torture. All the while, Schrödinger sat silently at her heel, giving substantial support everytime she could bear to open her eyes enough to actually see anything. In the end, he leapt up into her lap and joined her for the night of salt water and self-initiated guilt-trips.

   Whenever Jack Tompson entered the Junior Statistics Lounge, you knew it. There was a sudden rush of the newly-employed running like elves to ask him how his day was, what the overall percentage rise in the investments was or whether he would like some more coffee. Nicholas Summerton merely acknowledged his over-rated presence and returned his eyes to his computer screen, trying not to let them wonder over to Aislyn's old desk just beyond. Stubbornly setting his fingers down on the keyboard, he began typing some miscellaneous figures.
"Summerton?" Tompson's voice boomed above the general office chatter, which quietened at his bidding, "Is Summerton in here?"
"Yes?" he lifted his head over the felt board separating him from the next junior and met his boss' eyes.
"Do you know where McKaufnie is, lad?"
Nick shuddered, but frowned, "No… is she not in her office?"
"I wouldn't be here if she was," Tompson retaliated frankly.
"No, no I guess not."
Tompson watched Nick for a couple of seconds, before growing impatient, "Well, do you know anything? Phone number? Address? If she's sick, I've gotta give it to her; that's a great way to start off her new executive career."
"Yeah…" Nick murmured blindly. Catching on slightly to something he had said, his frown deepened, "Address? Isn't it on company file?"
"According to the file, she moved apartments recently and we have yet to receive a new contact."
That made sense, Nick nodded. "I know where she lives now. I could go and…" he hesitated, gulping, but trying to disguise his nervousness, "…go and see if she's okay."
Folding his arms over his jelly-like, Santa Claus belly, Tompson conceded dryly, "That would be dandy."

   "It wasn't my blasted fault, was it?! What do you expect me to do? Just give it up? Give it up so that you can be satisfied with your level of masculinity?"
"It's nothing to do with that!"
"Oh yeah? I'm sorry if I'm jumping to conclusions... I have utterly no right to scream at you like this after you innocently dictated the entire affair in Castle_7! How come they get to know and I don't, huh?"
The couple stood opposite each other, leaning forward as if on a starting line and fuming.
Nick had very cautiously knocked on the door only about three minutes before, but the real shouting had started roughly two-and-a-half ago. He wasn't in a yelling mood, especially after the continuous and agonising guilt-trip he had forced himself through the night before. However, he could adjust.
"You're right, you don't. I only came down here because they're all up in arms at work."
"Well go back and tell them I'm off sick." Aislyn exclaimed, waving her arms about for emphasis.
"But you're not," Nick retorted, "You're off sulking."
There was another moment of silence, during which what seemed like the essence of an Angel passed through the room and calmed their cries. Aislyn's hatred melted into a pathetic slush and tears formed at her lashes once more. Nick felt his heart do a little jump and remorse shot up through his body as he saw the real state his friend was in.
This isn't right, his mind lectured him, she's supposed to be happy; she's just been promoted. Are you either dumb or selfish enough to deny her... your best friend in the entire universe happiness?
It's been said that the worst guilt is that which you wait long enough to admit to. Watching Aislyn's fingers rush to her eyes to gracefully try and wipe the pain away, to stand up him when she knew she couldn't, Summerton gritted his teeth. He had known all along that he shouldn't be angry with her—that it wasn't her who had to pay for his agony—it was him.
"Mal... Aislyn, I'm..." he started his apology, but couldn't finish. After spending so much time online, one grew used to being able to speak their mind freely—it had been the Net that had brought Aislyn out of her shell in the first place. But now the words just wouldn't form on his tongue.
   She lifted her head, yesterday's mascara still running. "That coffee machine isn't just for me, you know," she said simply.
"What?!" Nick frowned in puzzlement, "This isn't about the coffee!"
She let her head fall back and almost laughed, but the last syllable caused her to crack into another sob, "The office, the promotion, everything. It's not just for me."
Nick shook his head and held out his hand, "I don't see what you..."
   "We're friends, right?"
He paused, ashamed at even having to doubt this, that she even had to ask. He nodded silently.
"Friends share," she replied, folding her arms and letting her eyes wonder to the ceiling so that he couldn't see the ache in her heart. "They share, or friends aren't friends." Aislyn held her breath and looked him directly in the eyes, so that they were both on equal grounds, "I'll give up the promotion. I'd give up everything, if you wanted me to. 'Cos I'm your friend... and I'd rather us stay the way we are than drink coffee instead of water."
   Nick felt like crying. Aislyn stood with both her hand and heart outstretched towards him, with red eyes and rapid, upset breathing. She would give up her big break for him, and him alone. She would rather stay at the bottom than loose his friendship. When somebody says something like that—in real-life and not a movie or RPG—your heart breaks into millions of tiny pieces and a ripple of energy surges through your body. You have been enlightened in only a fraction of a second, and your entire perspective changes.
All because of love.

   It had been three days since that morning.
Aislyn and Nick talked for approximately fifteen minutes, before the latter called into the main office to say that Ms. McKaufnie was ill and that he was going to take the day off out of his weekend to look after her. They continued to converse for the rest of the day, until the restricted sunlight told Nick that it was time to go home.
Nick had told her that she didn't need to give up the job, and had admitted to being shallow and vulnerable to humane emotion—including natural jealousy. At work, they were barely ever apart; Summerton liked to spend a majority of the day in McKaufnie's office, "running through the latest figures" with her.
And sharing her coffee.
   Online, they were the closest friends they had ever been—and the Black Angel had been resurrected by Lady Bekoni's healing crystals (Nick had hilariously argued that this was even more tacky than his character's name). Even GI_Goe and TomCat couldn't get them to confess that there had ever been a 'row'. They were—in a strange way—even closer, because they had survived one of their many life-battles together. So there they were, three days after a significant dispute, chatting as carelessly as ever.
Malady: Whoa. It's 5 past midnight.
Psycho-Nik: Ur kidding!
Malady: Nope; we've been talking 4 over 5 hours!
Psycho-Nik: Well I better go; problem with working @ an ISP centre is that ur boss can tell how long u stayed up all night online. :-)
Malady: Agreed.
   There was a slight pause, and both cursors blinked blankly on the screen. Both could sense the other's indecision. Eventually, Nick typed a quick message.
Psycho-Nik: Malady... thanx.
Malady: Wot 4?
Psycho-Nik: Teaching me.
Malady: That's ok. <grin> U've been a good student.
Psycho-Nik: I'm honoured. <<Psycho-Nik bows to her Ladyship>>
Malady: <lol> But really, Nick.
Psycho-Nik: It's Nik.
Malady: I'm not talking 2 Nik—I'm talking 2 Nick.
Psycho-Nik: Oh.
Malady: I'm sorry 4 shouting & all that. Mutual forgiveness?
Psycho-Nik: U've got nothing 2 be forgiven 4.
Malady: I didn't act like the friend I thought I was. But I will.
Psycho-Nik: & I won't b such an idiot. <smile> <<Hugs?>>
Malady: <<hugs>>
Psycho-Nik: I guess I'll c u @ the coffee machine, m'lady ;-)
Malady: I'll b there @ 8. Oh, and Nik?
Psycho-Nik: Yeah?
Malady: 5 x 5?
Psycho-Nik: 5 x 5  :-)

"Five by Five"—a science fiction quote, meaning "We're on equal terms" or "I'm not your enemy". It possibly originated from the Armed Forces code-speak meaning "Excellent reception".
"ppl"—an Internet shorthand equivalent to "people".
"Flame"—both a noun and a verb used to describe offence in email. You usually get 'flamed' when you forthrightly offend somebody else.