The Girlfriend Experience

"We saw that llama before," said Jessa. They were walking down a trail near Machu Picchu, though they were still a few miles from the iconic citadel. Jessa looked something like a cross between Aubrey Plaza and Alison Brie. She had dark hair and long bangs that came down to almost touch the tops of her thick square glasses. She was bubbly and sardonic in equal measure, switching between the two depending on her whims and who she was speaking to. She wore short-shorts and a shirt with the power-up star from Mario on it, revealing a half-completed tattoo sleeve that was an ode to Adventure Time, Carl Sagan, and the muppets, in that order.

"What llama?" asked Pete. He was just out of college and thick in a way that was going to turn into fat if he didn't watch out. He was taller than Jessa by about a foot, which suited him just fine; she had to get on her tip-toes to kiss him unless they were on the couch. Pete had on some painfully unfashionable cargo shorts, but maybe he thought that was alright because they were tourists. His beard was thick, and hung down far enough that Jess could kiss it just by tipping her head up towards him.

"There was a llama," said Jessa. "And it was the same as the other llama."

"You're a llama expert now?" asked Pete.

"Someone has to be," said Jessa.

"Maybe it was the same llama," said Pete.

"Nope," said Jessa. "Not unless the llama raced ahead of us without us hearing it, then stood by the side of the path chewing cud. Which, as our resident llama expert, seems *pretty* unlikely." She squinted off into the distance and pushed her glasses up with a finger. "There he is again."

The camera had been following Pete in third person, but I switched it over to manual to go look at the offending llama. I don't really know what I expected; it looked like a llama. It had a white pelt with brown spots, and it gave a dull look towards the couple.

"I'm going to go check it out," said Jessa. She took a swig of her cateen and began walking through the underbrush.

"I don't think we're supposed to go off the path," said Pete. He followed her anyway.

"Same coat as the others," said Jessa.

"Maybe that's how they breed them?" asked Pete.

"He's got the same teeth," said Jessa. "There, that little crooked one on the left." I moved the camera closer and saw where she was pointing, but Pete echoed my feelings on the matter.

"I didn't look that closely at the others," he said.

"Come on," said Jessa. She left the llama behind, and it lazily tracked her as she set off down the path. Pete hurried to catch up, because Jessa was almost moving at a jog. My camera had no trouble following them, naturally.

"Jessa," said Pete.

"There," said Jessa. They'd gone a few hundred feet. "What in the ever-loving fuck. Llama number four equals llama number one." I checked, even though there wasn't really a point. The fourth llama on the path was the same as the one on the third.

"We've got a ways to go until we hit the city," said Pete. "I don't think we have time for this."

"Pete, look at this llama," said Jessa. "Fucking *look* at it. It's the exact same llama."

"I think you just like saying llama." He laughed nervously, then rubbed the back of his neck. "Come on, let's go. The llamas aren't really part of the attraction."

"Pete," said Jessa. "What in the hell is going on?" The last thing I saw before the recording cut out was her frightened, doe-eyed look.

"And that's where I jumped ship," said Pete's voice in my ear. "What in the hell happened?"

I wanted to tell him that he was supposed to make a graceful exit from the vacation program. Cutting out while the em is looking at you is verboten for a number of reasons, not least of which is that it's possible for them to notice the discontinuity. But blaming the customer went against the instructions in the manual, and this call might be recorded for quality assurance purposes, which basically meant my supervisor calling me in for a meeting to tell me what a shitty job I'm doing.

"It appears that she noticed a reused asset," I said. I could have told him that even without looking through the recording he'd grabbed, but he wanted to 'show me the problem'.

"Yeah, I know, she saw the llama, but I thought she was supposed to have some built-in suspension of disbelief," said Pete's voice. "She's not supposed to be, you know, existentially inclined."

"Did you check the compatibility requirements prior to arranging the vacation program?" I asked.

"Of course I did," said Pete, but I was looking at the specs side-by-side, and had been since before he'd started playing the recording.

"From what I'm looking at, the vacation simulation you were using was of too low a grade for that particular model of em," I said. Which was basically customer-service speak for 'you're full of shit'.

"Okay, well I don't think so. But if that's the problem, then how do I fix it?" Which was basically customer speak for 'yeah, that's definitely the problem'.

"You're going to have to do a full reboot," I said. "Roll the em back to the most recent back-up, tell her that you're going to have to cancel the trip, and don't run it with a program that's contraindicated by the user manual." I realized that sounded a little biting, so I added, "If that's what happened."

"I don't have a back-up," said Pete. I let the line go silent for long enough that Pete asked, "Are you still there?"

"There are a few options in a situation like this," I said slowly. I almost thought 'poor guy' before remembering that this was all his fault. "Unfortunately, none of them are particularly good. First, there's psycho-surgery to remove the offending vacation memories. This is the way to go if you have the money, but it's all done bespoke, and it's fairly expensive." Pete couldn't afford it. There was no way he'd have been using a cut-rate vacation simulation if he had that kind of money. "Second, you can run a blackout gambit. The em would wake up in a hospital with the last thing she remembered being talking to you about llamas on the trail to Machu Picchu. This is also expensive, since you're basically buying a whole new simulation with doctors and nurses and everything like that, and it's not great for suspension of disbelief in the future. I'm not an expert on this, but I think the fact that you'd have to account for the flight from Peru to," I looked at his file, "Nebraska would make it a lot harder for the em to accept. And lastly ... this is a somewhat sensitive topic, but we can reset her back to her initial configuration."

It was Pete's turn to be silent. None of the options were great, but that's what happens when you don't keep regular back-ups. "How much would the reset cost?" he asked.

"I've just talked to my supervisor about it, and he's willing to waive the fee in your case." This was a lie, but it made for good customer service, and hopefully Pete would rave about us on the internet later on. The reset didn't cost us anything, but Pete would feel better if he thought that he was getting away with something.

"Alright," he said. "She's not going to remember anything?"

"The em will go back to the base state," I said. "Just remember that the em won't be the same. If you have inside jokes, references, and personal histories, it's all going to be gone. It's irreversible." I no longer felt a twinge of sadness at giving the disclaimer.

"Alright," said Pete. "Do it."

With a keystroke, I sent a command to wipe the problematic Jessa from existence. She would be replaced by a new Jessa, one that hopefully wouldn't run into compatibility issues. Pete hung up soon after that; I doubted he would give me a good rating, but that was the last call of my shift. I was thankful for that, because the job could be draining.

When I got home I laid down on the couch for a few minutes before booting up Claire.

"Oh, you're home," she said. "How was work?"

"Some people just don't know how to treat their programs," I replied. I thought briefly of the llamas. "Say, have you ever wanted to go to Peru?"