Gloss
By Kola Heyward-Rotimi, first published in FIYAH
When an update deletes an underground virtual night club from the map, its owner decides that they will uninstall the game and start living their real life.
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Plot Summary
A virtual reality guru, Ace, is watching a girl who is experiencing her first time at The Clipper, a night club in a virtual reality universe. Ace notices that she has bootleg versions of his merch: modifications, like black teeth, that lack the glimmer his work always has. Ace is watching his angel boyfriend, Zeal, dance on a platform when everything is deconstructed and destroyed. The server had been shut down. Luckily, it was a global malfunction and not a targeted raid on the night club, which has happened before. Updates from the dev team caused the site to crash, but these updates have also made it so that the Clipper is no longer a hidden place on the virtual map: It stands out as a giant black building instead of being hidden in a rip between rock faces. The Clipper is ruined, no longer full of the neon lights it once was. Ace asks if he'd be able to see Zeal in real life, but Zeal shrugs him off, claiming he's no angel in real life. Ace decides to quit using the virtual reality game altogether now that the Clipper is destroyed, but wants to say goodbye one last time. As a message, he automatically upgrades all the modifications people have bought from him over the years to have a giant middle finger on them. Now, there will be thousands of avatars with middle fingers painted on them throughout the game, as one last "f*** you" from Ace.