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"Is he still around?" Dagor asked with trepidation.
"Oh, yes. He's very much around."
Dagor let out a breath. "Human lives are so fleeting."
Frankie's smile melted away. "They are."
Mia cleared her throat and smiled brightly. "We should eat before everything gets cold."
Frankie
All throughout dinner, Frankie kept stealing glances at Dagor, and each time, he looked even more gorgeous to her. Especially when he smiled. He was also brilliant, asking Toven about the technology behind Perfect Match and whether it had been developed by humans or by the immortals.
Thankfully, Toven wasn't much of a tech guy, so his answers were easy to understand.
"I would love to try out an adventure, but I don't think Aru will authorize the expense. We need to be frugal with our resources."
"Can Dagor be a beta tester like me?" Frankie asked. "That way, he can get to experience it for free."
Toven shook his head. "Regrettably, our three distinguished guests cannot enter the secret compound."
Frankie arched a brow. "And I can?"
"You can be thralled or compelled to forget where you've been," Toven explained. "They cannot. The mind tricks that work on humans don't work on them."
"I see." Frankie cut off a piece of cake and put it in her mouth.
It wasn't a big deal that Dagor couldn't come with her to the compound. She'd already decided that their fling would be confined to the cruise. Once that was over, they would part ways.
"Don't look so crestfallen," Mia said. "I'm sure you will be allowed to leave the compound to visit your family, and you could meet Dagor in the city."
Toven shook his head. "Dagor and his companions are searching for the missing Kra-ell pods. They will probably return to the search right after the cruise."
Dagor nodded. "We were waiting for Gabi to get strong enough to travel. She is no longer under the doctor's supervision, so nothing is holding us back now."
Why did his words hurt?
Hadn't she already concluded that she would have fun with Dagor during the cruise and no more?
"What was wrong with Gabi?" Frankie asked.
Maybe the gods emitted some sort of radiation that was harmful to humans?
"She transitioned into immortality," Mia said. "Aru induced her transition the same way Toven induced mine."
"Not exactly the same way," Toven said. "Aru didn't even know what a Dormant was and that they could be induced. I knew, but I didn't realize that Dormants were still to be found so many generations later. It had never occurred to me."
Frankie shot Dagor a glance before returning her gaze to Mia. "You said before that I might be a Dormant. What makes you think that?"
Mia looked uncomfortable. "The affinity. The theory is that immortals and Dormants feel affinity toward one another. It's like recognizing like." She smiled at Toven. "Apparently, gods feel it too, and it transcends physical proximity. Toven and I fell in love inside a Perfect Match simulation."
"Is it really that good?" Dagor asked Toven.
The god nodded. "It's uncanny. I forgot who I was for those three hours or three days inside the virtual world. In there, I wasn't a god; I was just an enhanced human like many others, and I served a god." He shook his head. "This was before I owned half of Perfect Match, and I feared my identity would be discovered inside the simulation. So, I designed the adventure to include gods in case I said or did something while in the virtual world to reveal my identity. The end result, though, was more than I had expected. The story had an almost prophetic feel to it. I tried to hunt down the programmer that helped me create it, but he turned out to be a phantom."
"What do you mean?" Frankie said. "As the company's owner, you can access all its employees. How hard could it be to find out who it was?"
"He called himself Brian, and there were several Brians working at Perfect Match headquarters at the time. I spoke to each one, and they all sounded different from the Brian I spoke to. I had a phone number and an email for him, but those belonged to a lady named Gina, who had no idea who had been using her email and phone extension."
