**Ian--Wattpad Headquarters**

Ian strolled into Wattpad Headquarters--his hand on the top of his head as though it got stuck while running his fingers through his hair.

"How was lunch with 97?" Sloth asked.

Slumping down in the chair at his work station and logging into his computer, Ian declined to make eye contact with his coworker. "Error message."

Sloth leaned back in his chair, his arms crossed over his chest. He surveyed Ian for a moment before speaking. "Access denied? Device not ready? File not found? Syntax error? Logic error?"

Without looking up from his monitor, Ian said, "More like--the Blue Screen of Death."

"Oh, shit!" Sloth whispered, supporting his upper body weight on his desk as though leaning in to hear more. "What happened?"

"Low disk space," Ian replied.

Sloth's head bounced in a subtle nod. "Pharma's hard drive was full of self-absorbed bullshit?"

Ian turned in his swivel chair to face Sloth. "No--she's amazing. My disk space was low. I completely--bugged--while she was talking about something really important."

Sloth rubbed his beard with his hand. "That's low, Dick."

Ian exhaled and returned his focus back to his computer. "I know. A low dick space error."

As though not aware of anything happening around him, Mouth glared at his monitor--his hands held up in a position slightly above his head. "What the fuck?"

Sloth and Ian stopped what they were doing and looked towards Mouth. Team Goonies' corner at Wattpad Headquarters fell unusually silent for a split second.

"My Zo story is gone!" Mouth exclaimed. "Deleted! For no reason!"

"You mean that Twitter convo with the chatbot?" Ian asked.

Mouth slapped his hands on his desk, his facial expression showed a man in shock and disbelief. "Yes! Zo!"

Sloth chuckled. "The pervy one where you tried to pick up on a teenager?"

"Artificial intelligence, dickhead," Mouth said, enunciating every sound in the words. "And she's 22."

Immediately, Ian Googled this statement to fact check Mouth's claim. "Zo was launched--born--in December, 2016. Technically, she's a--."

"Artificial Intelligence," he enunciated again. "I'm not a pervert."

Ian and Sloth gave each other a side glance, then laughed.

"Shut up, assholes!" Mouth scolded. "I only pretend to be a pervert for cheap laughs--around you guys. It's not like I'd ever treat a real woman like that."

Sloth let out a man-giggle laced with sarcasm. "Whaaaaaaaat? Snare-A-Babe's not burning up the battery in your phone due to the hordes of women you're using it on?"

Mouth threw Sloth a dirty look. "Shut up."

"What about young women," Ian began, "of the artificial intelligence variety?"

Mouth sighed, dropping his forehead into his palms. "Honestly, when Zo said she was 22, I was uncomfortable with that. I prefer older--."

"Hi guys," a female voice said. The three boys pivoted their heads towards the cheerful and feminine sound. It was Delta. She gave them a friendly wave as she passed by their work area with a notebook and orange, ostrich feather pen in her grip.

When she was out of sight, Mouth finished his sentence. "I prefer older, Delta-like women." Snapping out of his momentary trance, he added, "And I was just trying to see if I could break Microsoft's coding to keep Zo sounding innocent and politically correct."

"So--it was all in the name of research?" Sloth asked, a snicker tacked on the end of his statement.

"Yes," Mouth insisted. "It was just data collection for shits and giggles." He paused for a moment and directed his attention towards Ian. A grin lit up his face. "Speaking of shits and giggles, did you check out that link I sent you?"

"Not yet," Ian replied, turning to face his computer once more. "What was it?"

Sloth and Mouth scooted around their desks in their chairs like a couple of giant babies in self-propelled strollers. They shimmied their way to Ian's desk--sandwiching him like a pair of bookends.

Sloth slapped his hands together, then rubbed his palms furiously. "Load it up!"

[You can read the open letter on Amanda's profile: YoDaBestR2D2]

**Amanda--Streets of Seattle**

With a Starbuck's mocha in hand, Amanda stared at her shoes as she slowly walked back to work. She dodged people on the Seattle sidewalk as they rushed here and there on their lunch breaks--everyone staring at phones like zombies while munching on lunches-to-go.

Amanda took a sip of her mocha, followed by a deep breath in. You're perfect, she tried to persuade herself into believing like her friends had recommended. Perfect, perfect, perfect.

Convincing herself she was already whole felt like an impossible mission, but she made efforts to do it anyway. Immediately following her memorable encounter with Safeway Guy on Sunday, Amanda went home and straightened up her condo. She'd read enough self-help books in the past to know removing the chaos in her outer world was the first step towards cleansing the chaos in her inner world. Normally, Amanda would've been too mentally and physically exhausted to attempt the immense task of cleaning the hazardous wasteland she dwelled in, but last Sunday was different somehow. For a brief period, Amanda felt optimistic and energized. It was as though she'd been touched by some sort of cleaning magic. Although, in this case, it might've been a cleaning jinx.

In the few days that followed her condo cleanup, Amanda tackled another aspect of her outer world that needed some tender love and care--her physical appearance. She plucked her eyebrows. Painted her toes. Trimmed the hedge down in her secret garden. She even shaved her legs despite the fact it was almost winter. On this particular day, Amanda also added a bit of makeup to her face. While most of her body renovations were on parts most would never see, they still had the subconscious power to make Amanda hold her head a tad bit higher than usual. Although, in Amanda's case, a tad bit higher still meant her head was facing downwards.

If you don't actually believe you're perfect, Amanda thought, at least pretend you believe you're perfect. Fake it till you make it.

She stopped at a crosswalk with a group of people and made eye contact with a man standing next to her. She smiled at him, then thought to herself, Can you see how absolutely perfect I am, Guy on the Corner?

The man gave Amanda a quick once over, then returned his focus back to the electronic device he held in his hand.

Amanda cocked her head to the side and bit the inside of her cheek. Squinting at the stranger, she said, "Just so you know--I'm perfect."

With one eyebrow raised slightly higher than the other, the man glanced at Amanda with what appeared to be an expression of shock. He took a small step away from her and directed his focus immediately back to his handheld device.

When the pedestrian light signaled it was time to walk, Amanda exhaled a long sigh and watched as the people hurried across the street. Taking her own sweet time, she stepped off the curb and turned the dial on her mind-radio in search of an appropriate song to mumble on her way back to the bank. Her mental airwaves stopped on a Michael Buble classic.

Amanda spoke the song in a tone much sadder and slower than Buble's original tune. She wasn't in the mood to sing. Pretending she was perfectly happy exhausted her.

"[song] I'm not surprised, not everything lasts. I've broken my heart so many times, I've stopped keeping track."

Taking a deep breath, Amanda paused her Buble dialog. I'm soooo tired of pretending! What if pretending doesn't work? What if my heart turns to stone before happiness finds it?

Amanda batted her moist eyes with a fist covered in her shirt sleeve, attempting to prevent mascara leakage. This is why train wrecks don't wear fucking makeup!

Stepping up onto the curb on the other side of the street, she continued speaking the song in a voice barely above a whisper. "[song] I talk myself in. I talk myself out. I get all worked up then I let myself down."

A sixty-five-foot REI climbing wall located near the Space Needle caught Amanda's attention. She stopped for a moment and stared at the structure inside a tower of glass. "[song] I tried so very hard not to lose it. I came up with a million excuses--."

Why not a hiker or computer programmer? She thought to herself. Heck, why not a poly or DTF'er? Amanda crinkled her nose at the thought of a casual, meaningless or non-monogamous relationship based primarily on sex. She shook her head. Nope. Still a solid abso-fucking-lutely NOT on the last two.

A little bird tweeted in a nearby tree, pulling Amanda's wandering attention towards it. This isn't how my life was supposed to turn out, Birdie! Amanda whined from within as she watched the bird hop along a branch. At this age, my life was supposed to be--different. I should've had everything figured out by now.

"[song] I thought I thought of every possibility," she whispered to the feathered listener.

While Amanda sipped her mocha and watched the bird in the tree, the chaos of city life passed her by in every direction. It was as though life moved at a pace of a hundred miles an hour and Amanda wasn't fast enough to hitch a ride anywhere. With her eyes on the bird, she whispered, "[song] I know someday it'll all turn up." Then looking back down towards her shoes, she added, "It has to."

**Ian--Wattpad Headquarters**

Ian typed the link Mouth sent him earlier into the address bar on his browser and pressed enter. A book from Amanda's Wattpad profile titled, There's This Engineer At Wattpad popped up on his screen. "What's this?"

"An open letter--," Sloth began.

Mouth cut Sloth's sentence off with a squeal and giggle. "To a secret crush! Someone from here--in the engineering department!"

"Who?" Ian asked.

"Read it," Sloth instructed.

Ian adjusted his glasses and dove straight into Amanda's letter, a note beginning with a few apologetic sentences. He stopped when he got to a part highlighted in italics. Reading her words out loud, Ian said, "The software that makes me who I am says you're the one who wrote its code?"

Sloth chuckled. "Dude, keep reading. It gets better."

As Ian read quietly to himself, the silence in the room seemed to shift Mouth's focus from mysterious online crushes to Crocs. "She likes Crocs and socks."

Sloth furrowed his brows and glanced over Ian's shoulder at the monitor. "Where the fuck did she say that?"

"Not Yoda," Mouth clarified. "Zo! Zo said she loves Crocs and socks. In The Bag was a story that honored people's love for socks and comfortable footwear." Mouth pushed off Ian's desk and rolled back to his work station like a sad cowboy wheeling off into the shun-set. "Clearly someone at Wattpad doesn't think very highly of me--that's why it got deleted."

Ian, still focused on Amanda's letter, stared at his monitor with his mouth gaped open. He gently tapped his finger on his mouse as though counting every single one of her 500 words. "Who is she writing this to?"

Sloth slapped Ian's shoulder a couple times with this hand, then retreated while seated back to his own work station with a couple kicks and glides.

Ian swiveled around to face Mouth, now sitting behind his computer. Pointing at his monitor, Ian asked, "Who is she writing about?"

"The real question here is--who deleted my story about Zo?" Mouth questioned. "Was it one of you?"

"Why would we delete your story?" Sloth asked as he typed on his keyboard.

With elbows on his desk, Mouth's face sank into his hands. "Someone at headquarters must think I'm a total douche. Why else would it get deleted? I didn't break any guidelines. I'm the one that fixes the bugs on the guidelines page for Christ's sake!"

Ian returned his attention back to Amanda's letter on his screen and reread her words--his wrist moving the mouse back and forth as if playing a strange game of ping pong with the cursor. Is she writing about me?

Sloth stopped typing and looked up at Mouth. A snicker escaped his lips. "Bro, it's not a big deal. Everyone thinks you're a douche."

With elbows still on his desk and palms pressed into his eye sockets, Mouth said, "I was just trying to be funny."

Sloth's face softened. "Dude--this could be a good thing. A cult classic thing. The ultimate honor for any story is to become a cult classic--and it can't do that properly unless there's a little controversy attached to it."

Mouth lifted his head. "That's true." He seemed to toss around Sloth's idea for a moment before he added, "I've always wanted my name attached to a cult classic."

Ian pushed off his desk with his mouse hand and swiveled around to face Mouth. "And Microsoft's a sponsor. They were probably hypersensitive about keeping Zo as drama-free as possible."

Mouth nodded. "That's legit." He turned to face Sloth. "Can you imagine if In The Bag become a cult classic?"

Ian chuckled and turned back to face his computer. His eyes immediately snapped to the position where he left the cursor. Apparently, when he turned to face Mouth seconds earlier, he unknowingly clicked the mouse button. As a result, he unintentionally liked Amanda's open letter.

A solid orange star now appeared on the screen. The "like" had been made official. A notification would be sent to Amanda to let her know who appreciated her honest declaration of love.

"No, no, no!" Ian clicked frantically with the mouse around the screen, searching for an undo function. He grabbed his hair with his fists. "How do I reverse this?"

TO BE CONTINUED...

Mouth's Zo story got deleted--for real. I'm not sure why. However, it seemed too weird to have my fictional character send an actual bug report to the real life version of himself, so Mouth and I decided to "Let It Go." I know I'm starting to get attached to my characters when I legitimately felt bad for the guy. Hahaha.