Chapter One

WHY DID ANI-MIN Move have to launch new features on a weekday? The last thing I wanted to do when I got home from the office was immediately drag my ass back outdoors.

“I’m tired, Franny,” I said, putting my feet onto the coffee table, relieved to have them out of the little heels that were the curse of business casual. Frances cocked her head at me, her fluffy ears going askew. “But it looks like they’re launching legendary raids, and I am not missing that.”

After starting the update to my Ani-min Move app, I put down my phone while the update installed. Franny lowered her head to her paws and whined.

“I know, I know. A walk would be better than the apartment’s dog yard.”

Who knew eight hours at a desk would be so exhausting? But doing the same thing every day really grated on a person. Make sure this client has their order placed correctly. Keep that project running on time. Figure out why supplies are delayed. So much communication, so much organization, so much waiting.

I ran my fingers through my brunette hair, scratching my scalp and enjoying the ten seconds of silence.

At least, until Franny barked.

“Okay, honey. Let me get out of these slacks.”

I pushed myself to my feet and strode across the living room, wincing at the tumbleweeds of golden retriever fur under the kitchen table. This is why I’m single, I berated myself. Not that there’d be anyone datable over to see it, especially with my reluctance to use dating apps. And Sacramento was a big city, but dating was intimidating enough for me to hesitate in visiting downtown’s gay clubs. Besides, what would I wear?

I stripped out of my slacks and blouse, tossing them into the pile slowly accumulating on one side of my bedroom, and pulled on my comfy stretch pants and a bright pink tank top.

Oh, it was so tempting to collapse onto my side of the bed—avoiding the piles of fur where Franny slept on her side—and browse the internet or read until I fell asleep.

But that was one of the many reasons why I had Frances. Personal accountability. She got me out of the house every day, kept me walking and breathing fresh air.

“Okay girl, where’s your leash?”

The scramble of nails on the fake hardwood floors echoed down the hall as Franny dashed into the kitchen where she likely took position expectantly beneath the row of hooks for her leashes. I pushed feet into worn tennis shoes and picked up my phone. The update was complete, and I reopened my app, tapping past the screen welcoming me and advertising the new raids. The legendary cat Felesana would show up at local parks for me to battle with my friends! Yes, I got it. Show me where the closest one is. I brought up the augmented reality map, my character standing in the middle of the block my apartment complex resided on, and I tabbed over to the nearby raid window.

Franny let out a whine to remind me I hadn’t put on her leash yet, so I obliged her and giggled as her excitement ramped up from an eight to a twenty, all wagging tail and lolling tongue and shivering with eagerness.

“Honey, I’m so glad it’s this easy to make you happy.”

Heaven knew how hard it was to make people happy. “Where’s the product I ordered”—“Annabel, your surveys have come back less than perfect”—"I’m sorry, I can’t date a lesbian who used to date men”—

Yeah. I loved Franny. Dogs were woman’s best friend too. Not just man’s.

I grabbed my phone and my keys and gave Frances a pat.

“Looks like one of these big kitties is at the park three blocks away. Let’s go do our first legendary raid, girl.”

 

“OH MY GOD, I didn’t think this many people still played this game,” I whispered as the park came within view. Large oak trees offered scattered shade on a grassy field, sandwiched between an elementary school and suburban homes. A tanbark-lined playground bordered one side of the field. On the other side, the park’s name plaque was surrounded by no less than fifty people.

Teenagers, all with phones in hand, clustered in groups as far from the playground as possible, probably because it was full of running, laughing kids. Parents idled closer to the park’s plaque, staying in range of the raid spot. Some families sat on the grass in dappled shade, talking to each other, gesturing at their phones. Adults from my age to much older were scattered throughout, some of them looking around with an air of embarrassment at playing a kid’s game, mixed with the same astonishment I was sure I was displaying.

Franny tugged at the leash, making it painfully obvious I’d come to a stop in my surprise.

“Right, we’re going.” I took a few more steps, unsure of where to stand. Franny pulled hard toward the playground. She loved kids, but the risk of her scaring one who was afraid of dogs, or worse, scaring a parent, made me reluctant to allow her to yank me in that direction. “This way, girl.”

I led her to the other side of the plaque, closer to the teenagers. They were talking and laughing, and I wasn’t sure who had started the raid and who hadn’t.

God, I’d have to ask someone. I swallowed down a wave of anxiety. You’d think, with me calling clients all day, this wouldn’t be hard, but this was different.

“Did we start yet?” I asked a middle-aged man, who had a phone in one hand and a tablet in the other.

“What team are you on?” he asked back, and I blinked in the panic that happens when someone says something you should have anticipated but totally didn’t. In my brain fog, I couldn’t remember any of the teams’ names. But their colors, yes.

“Purple.”

“Courage is over there,” he said, gesturing toward the playground.

“Thanks,” I managed, leading an ecstatic Frances past the crowds toward the screaming and giggling and crying of the playground. There was one bigger group of people near there, but having that many eyes on me if I asked what stage of the raid they were in pretty much guaranteed my brain fog would return in full force. So instead, I beelined for a woman standing by herself a few feet away from the group, phone in hand, purse on one shoulder.

“Did you guys start yet?” I asked, idly aware she may just be at the park with her kid and didn’t play at all. God, what would she think of all of us nerds?

“Sixty seconds, hurry and get in!” she said, not looking up from her phone, but her inflection was pleasant enough. I tapped the Start Raid button and stared blankly at the list of ongoing raids.

“What’s the passcode for the Courage folk’s raid?”

“Star circle circle,” she said.

The legendary raids didn’t have a maximum number of players, but if you grouped up with others on your team, you’d get more bonuses at the end of the fight. The Ani-min Move interface suggested half a dozen per group. As I queued into the correct raid, the number eighteen came up in the corner of the screen.

“Damn, there are so many people here,” I mumbled.

“It’s so cool,” the woman replied. I glanced up, surprised she thought I was talking to her, but she was gazing out at the playground. A blush erupted up my neck and cheeks, and I quickly refocused on my phone. She was really cute, with wavy brown hair and freckled cheeks and honey-brown eyes, and I would now be incapable of talking to her.

Franny whined, clearly wanting to move, but we’d have to go on our walk properly after this raid. She’d be under everyone’s feet if I tried to steer us through the crowds as my mini-animals battled.

“Just a few minutes, girl, okay?” I soothed, petting her head. She nuzzled into the back of my knee, which told me she was upset, but accepting. She curled up, her warm fur pressing into my shins.

“Did you hear what the strategy is for this legendary?” the woman asked, and I blinked at my phone, my heart hammering. She’d chosen to talk to me again!

“It’s a cat, so I assumed water type.”

She burst out laughing, a warm, light laugh that embarrassed me as much as it calmed me. “Nope, you want vegetation type and light type to fight him.”

“Oh, okay.” With only ten seconds to go, I switched out many of my mini-animals so I’d actually be contributing to this fight. And then: three, two, one, go.

I started tapping at my phone, as did the woman beside me and the entire group to our right. It didn’t take too much concentration to keep my mini-animal fighting the boss, which left me people watching, my gaze flicking from my screen to the crowds and back. It didn’t take long before I settled back on her. She looked out at the park, smiling in a deep, satisfied way that I assumed meant she was watching her kid. I followed her gaze and tried to figure out which one was hers. It could be the taller boy sliding down a firefighter pole, a younger boy on a swing, a pigtailed girl sashaying her way through the running kids, a picked dandelion in her hand, or any of the myriad of kids running at breakneck speed up and down and around the structure.

I refocused at the raid, and we were doing well. Felesana reared up his head, which had a mane of stars, and bared moon-bright teeth. When he slashed his claws, the animation was shooting stars. Very pretty and dramatic, and it made the squat little cricket I was using to fight it seem useless in comparison. But, slowly, his health ticked down.

It was incredible there would be this many people still playing last summer’s sensation. Didn’t we all have something to be doing? I mean, I didn’t, and the parents probably loved letting their kids run around. But everyone else? Homework? Dinner? I tried to shake off the amazement, but it stuck that so many would want to come together to play a phone game with strangers. A little swell of joy encompassed me. We were strangers, yes, but with the common goal of helping each other out and having some fun.

An eruption of cheers went up from across the park, and many of us turned heads in their direction. One of the other teams had ostensibly beaten their instance of the legendary cat, and the group of teens were now yelling and cheering.

“I guess the fight’s not too bad?” I tried, hoping my throat wouldn’t seal itself shut.

“With this many players, you can’t lose,” the woman said. And given Felesana only had a quarter health left, I figured she was right. This fat cat was going down.

Even if I was on my last mini-animal.

“Good, ’cause I’d hate for someone to come all the way out here and not beat the raid.”

“How far did you come?” she asked, looking over her shoulder at me. I hunched my shoulders and blushed into my phone, hoping my hair would cover my red cheeks.

“Oh, only three blocks that way.” I gestured.

“I’m two blocks that way,” she said, pointing in the opposite direction.

I smiled, and oh-my-god we smiled at each other, and then I noticed my last mini-animal had fainted.

“Shit, I’m out.”

“No, you’re not. You can pick new ani-mins and hop back in.”

Rejoin battle flashed at the bottom of the screen. Of course, she was right. And I should have figured that out on my own. I went with whatever default the AI had picked and hopped back in the raid just in time to watch the legendary’s fainting animation.

The Courage group heaved a collective sigh and then bursts of congratulations and talk filled the air. I nodded at the rewards I took in—a thousand experience points, handfuls of potions, and energy pellets for fainted mini-animals. Now, the fun part: try to catch the defeated Felesana to add to my collection. The raid interface had gifted me ten legendary nets, so I’d get to fail ten times. Unless I was actually lucky enough to catch him.

Here goes nothing.

I tossed Felesana a calming treat and threw a net at him. He shed it with a single buck of his head.

“Damn it.”

Another calming treat, another legendary net. Another escape.

“For fuck’s sake.”

“Got him!” the woman exclaimed, and I grumbled under my breath, but at my own ineptitude, not her success. “Oooh, I think that was a critical catch. Cool.”

“Do you put the spin on the nets?” I asked her. “I’ve yet to figure it out.”

“Yeah! I practiced with a lot of basic nets and sparrows.”

I attempted the fancy flick of the wrist with my next legendary net, which sent the thing flying off the side of my screen. “Oh my god.”

She chuckled, and I looked up at those pretty eyes gazing at me. “If you’re going to spin right, release left, or vise versa.”

Okay. I tried to parse through that sentence as Felesana went through a complicated stretch-roar animation.

I usually spun left, so I spun and flicked my finger to the right. The net arced through the air and landed squarely on the cat.

“That worked!” I exclaimed, watching with bated breath as the cat wiggled three times in the net and then sat calmly. “I caught him! Holy shit, yes!”

“Wonderful!” She smiled wide enough for me to smile back without it feeling awkward. But in my excitement, Frances had stood, and then weaved in and out of my legs until her leash was in a complete tangle around me.

“Oh, no. Franny, honey, sit.”

Luckily, the sweet girl obeyed, and I slowly undid the tangle before she could run off and send me sprawling onto the cement.

“What a well-behaved dog,” the woman said, and I made that sound anyone makes when a stranger has no idea.

“She’s being very patient right now.”

The woman smiled, and I realized the raid was over, and this was the moment where we’d part ways, maybe say goodbye, and never see each other again. But everything in my gut didn’t want that to happen. I’d need to act now, if I could work up the nerve. If I could—

“My name’s Rachael,” she said, holding out a hand. I shook it, knowing my expression was wide-eyed surprise but completely unable to get that look off my face.

“I’m Ann.”

She nodded and then gestured down. “And her name?”

“This is Frances.” I petted her head, and she lolled out her tongue, giving me a big doggy smile. “You’re welcome to pet her. She’s friendly.”

Rachael gave her head a rub, and Franny stood and wagged her tail, leaning into it.

“You are now officially her best friend,” I said, laughing.

“Oooh, a dog!” a child exclaimed, and lo and behold, a little boy was running toward us, his hair shaved into a faux-hawk. Ah, here was her kid.

“Hold on, Connor. Please ask Ann if it’s okay if you pet her dog.”

The boy stopped just short of us, looked up at me with trepidation, and then back at Rachael, who nodded at him.

“Can I pet your dog?”

“Go for it. She loves kids.”

Connor went to town, rubbing her ears and her head, and Franny practically knocked him over in her excitement.

“Sorry, now he’s her best friend,” I said, and Rachael laughed.

“Fine by me.”

What kind of questions are you supposed to ask about a person’s kid? I had no idea. Some of my coworkers had kids, and some of my cousins, but I usually let them tell me things without me starting the conversations.

“Okay, Connor, let’s let Ann take her doggie on a walk. You and I should head home.”

Oh, it was too late. “Great raiding with you,” I said, my voice wavering.

“Totally. I’ll be happy to find you on my Courage raid team anytime.”

“Same.”

Conner was practically getting a face bath from Franny at this point, and I eased her off of him. “Come on girl, time for our legit walk.”

That got her attention. She perked her head up at me and wagged her tail, and Conner darted to Rachael’s legs, wrapping his arms around her.

“You have a great evening, Ann,” Rachael said. “Nice meeting you.”

The soft tone in which she said my name was killing me. “You too.”

She took Connor’s hand and walked off. I watched her go as I opened up the Ani-min app again and healed my mini-animals. Franny and I started traversing the park in the opposite direction Rachael had taken, and I left Ani-min open on my phone so the game could age-up the baby “critters” I was walking into “adults.”

I probably wouldn’t see Rachael again.

But I sincerely hoped I would.