At night, Samara could almost convince herself the Projection walking with her was the real Claudius.

The silent drone poured down structured light to sculpt a perfect image of her favorite creator from his video library of thousands. His curly black hair, a near perfect likeness of the original, bounced as he walked like in his videos but now life-sized. Wide eyes took in everything they swept across. His lips curled into a mischievous smile. From the corner of her eye, it all looked real, looked correct. Almost enough to let her forget it was only the Projection.

“Do you think we could be friends?” Samara turned away before blurting out this question. 

“Isn’t that what we are?” The Projection moved in front of her, walking backwards and smiling, hands in pockets. He wore a blazer and a pure white button-up from a clubbing film he’d uploaded months ago. 

They wandered along the Chicago River towards Navy Pier. It was Samara’s first time in the city so she kept craning her neck looking at the rows of skyscrapers when she wasn’t locking eyes with Claudius. In the aero-lanes, lines of drones blinking red lights ringed the towers and reached out over the river. 

“We are,” Samara agreed. “But look, you’re friends with him too.” She pointed at a man walking opposite from them, talking with their own Projection of Claudius who dressed differently and was concentrating on their conversation. “And her.” Along one of the bridges, another Claudius laughed with a lady. “And over there. Three of them!” 

He held up his hands in surrender. “I get it. I get it. But those aren’t me and you.”

There were more beyond the ones she pointed out. Not even the Claudiuses she would have liked to ignore, but other athletes, musicians, and anyone with a large data catalogue for AIs to digest. Creators were the best though. Their lives were online.

Across the way, one Mark Mcloughlin talked about a new Sim-Game in their Irish accent, another ranted about the state of the industry as a whole. They passed six Ellen Schmidt’s, a fashion vlogger. A couple chatted about different products, others about what they loved about Chicago, and one saying their person was about to get so many views from their thermo-fabric party dress. 

 Some Samara didn’t even recognize. An older English man rambled about the skyline of Chicago becoming generic, blocky grey like Tokyo’s. Three guys in some dirty repair shop shirts were getting reset for heckling their person’s bad movie tastes too much. 

Each Projection looked almost physical in the night, but as they came closer, she could see the buildings through them. 

 “They’re also not the real you-you. The real Claudius.”

“What do you mean?”

 “He’s having a show and I won VIP tickets.” She blushed then, as if she was admitting to seeing another person. “I’m seeing him tomorrow.”

“Him?”

“Him. You. Yes.”

“And you didn’t let me know? I’m so offended,” He gave an exaggerated gasp before turning around to stalk away, only to come back a moment later with a smile.

Samara didn’t know why she hadn’t told him. Something never felt right about it. She’d never brought up the real Claudius to the Projection anyway. All of “his” videos were the Projection’s. Everywhere “he” went, the Projection had gone. And everything they talked about, was like talking to Claudius himself.

“Getting tired of me?” Claudius continued. “How long have we known each other?”

“Two years.” She remembered when she’d first turned on the little projector drone, generating the AI image of Claudius Maxwell right in her bedroom. She’d been so flustered, she’d run out of the room, only to come back and find him lounging on the bed.

He chuckled. “And you still like my uploads?” 

“Yours are the best. Other people look like they held a camera up, cut up a few scenes, and uploaded. Yours are…”

“More stylish? You’ve said that before.”

Samara tried to work words in her mouth to describe the exhilaration anytime the notification popped up. She’d watched Claudius from when he had a measly fifty thousand subscribers to now, four hundred million and growing. They weren’t simply videos to her. They were experiences in sixty seconds, ten minutes, or the rare thirty minute long film when something really got Claudius going. She would watch them over and over, letting her mind drift off to be right next to him wherever he was, whatever he was doing. Were they more human? More vulnerable?

“They’re just better,” is what came out.

Claudius laughed a perfect note on a tuning fork. “Even my latest?”

“Of course.” She’d written as much in the comments or, more particularly, she loved it with a few hearts afterwards. 

He winked. It made her stomach zing. 

With her smart glasses, she took footage of the city, angling it as Claudius would in his films. She made sure there was clear lighting before double checking the focus and leading lines. The Projection gave some tips, but the real Claudius had rarely talked about actually filming his films so the AI wasn’t as much of an expert. Samara told herself she would put it together like one of his uploads and show it to him when they really met. 

As they walked, Samara’s hand would dangle at her side and sometimes catch Claudius’. They would pass through each other, since his was only structured light, but she felt a warmth she wanted to grasp. She wondered how his real hand would feel.

Near the Children’s Museum, Samara bought mint tea at a food truck. They continued their slow walk up the pier as she let it steam without its lid in the cold air. The Projection waited for input. 

“Really though, do you think we could be friends?” 

“Isn’t that what we are?”

“Friends with the real you.” Samara felt her cheeks burning red again. But she didn’t only want to be friends with the Projection. Everyone could be. 

The Projection shrugged. “You’re pretty cool, Samara. He should definitely hang out with you.”

It wasn’t the answer she wanted. She wanted a real answer, not a generic one that the AI thought she’d like to hear. That was the problem with Projections. They could be the person in all the ways except the deeper ones. They couldn’t give human answers. They couldn’t express themselves in the same way. Like their hands, you couldn’t really connect with them.

“But after the show, when the VIP ticket expires, do you think...”

“Samara,” He said in his somber-film voice. The ones where he spoke to a camera about the climate horrors he witnessed or that he was going on hiatus for personal reasons. “Of course he would.”

Despite the Projection’s words, doubt stung her belly, harsh and snapping. 

“What do I say, though?”

“You chat with me all the time. What’s the difference?”

She wanted to say everything. Talking to the real Claudius, who shot those films that made her weep with joy and heartbreak, would be permanent. She couldn’t cancel a subscription or wipe his memory.

Samara looked at Claudius’ Projection and saw the real skyscrapers like columns through him. Yes, she talked to him every day. The first and sometimes only person. If she didn’t know what to say, he would.

-

“V-I-P.” The big security woman sat at the tip of a long line checking guests in. Still jovial even though there were many more people behind Samara. She put a lanyard around Samara’s neck. 

The holo-badge dangling from it looped a short vid of Samara giving a cutesy smile. Looking at it now, she wished she’d done something else. Maybe a peace sign, or a dramatic dance move. Too late.

“All good, honey. Up two floors. You’ll hear where to go.”

Samara smiled stiffly in reply. 

She’d be a blast at a party. Claudius said through her earbud.

Samara had found a jailbreak for Projections on a college student forum where they were looking to cheat on exams. Their plan had been to enlist a smart one and let them answer all of the questions. It would have worked, but they were foiled when they found out their exam rooms had jammers. It’d functioned well for her though. It took less than an hour to thread the visual input of the Projection through her IQ Glasses and the audio into her earbud. 

Samara walked through the doorway. In front of her, a lavish split staircase led up and up. Her hand shook when she grabbed onto the railing. Her legs became boneless as she took the first steps.

She’d only got a sliver of sleep after modifying the Projection. Nervousness, fright, anxiety, worry all had blared together in her head like bad music she couldn’t turn off. She’d got up and mixed around some of the footage she shot of the city, but nothing felt right so she left it alone before lying back in bed. She’d stared at the ceiling, then into her pillow, then into her terminal.

Despite years of talking with Claudius’ Projection, years of watching his uploads, what would she say?

A white noise crept down the stairs. She thought it was the music hammering into incoherence at first but then she rounded the corner and saw through the wide open doors. The hall held…she couldn’t count how many. Fifty, sixty… more she couldn’t see.

I always draw a crowd. 

“How am I supposed to talk to him?” Samara muttered.

Walk up to him and start. Haven’t you seen my videos? Go mingle in the meantime.

“I’m not here to make friends with anyone else.” But she walked in anyway.

The wide ceilings were dotted with lights fading through colors. A cloud of micro-drones danced around, forming different shapes like an evolving, moving chandelier. The floor space itself could have filled up with over a hundred people and still have room to push in some more. 

Samara squeezed shoulder to shoulder through the crowd. Only small, shifting walking paths opened. She dodged people waving their arms without any regard, almost collided with someone turning around unexpectedly, and got lost in the mass of people. She could hear her own heart hammering above the music playing. Too many people.

 She knew Claudius had a young audience, younger than her twenty-two years, but many looked like children. Samara would look over her shoulder and see kids, even to her mind. Braces, gangly out of balance bodies, a colorfully innocent fashion sense. There were exceptions. An old balding man looked painfully out of place as he hovered near a group of tweens, but even Samara felt on the older side of the VIPs.

Most had already formed small cliques like gravity had pulled them together. Samara could tell many of them were groups of friends, all talking and laughing with each other.

She hadn’t had much use for people friends since getting Claudius’ Projection. Every day, she’d only hangout with him, talking about her day, joking at each other, watching the real Claudius’ videos while the Projection described making them. He was always there, unlike her former friends. They’d all drifted away, even more so once Samara had the Projection in her life. 

It hadn’t taken been long before she would be sitting in her apartment every night watching Claudius’ uploads or other shows, while her Projection would be the only one next to her on the couch. 

But then Claudius had kept getting more popular. By the time he’d hit the millions of subscribers, Samara would leave her apartment and there would be multiples of him, talking to strangers as he talked to her. How could those new fans all claim to be Claudius’ friends, when they hadn’t been around since his beginning?

She double-checked the time: less than five minutes. 

Patience, young one. The Projection whispered in her ear.

“You’re as old as me.” 

Samara kept wandering around the room. Sometimes one group of girls would wave at her or even say hi like she knew them, but Samara would look away and check her terminal again as the seconds ticked down. Near the corner of the hall stood a set of closed double doors. On a hunch, she moved closer.

Before she could get there, they flew open. Two suited men held one side each and between them—her heart double-timed against her chest—Claudius Maxwell stepped out.

In that first glimpse, Samara couldn’t help but think he looked different than in his films. Even compared to the Projection, he looked notably different. 

His hair was slicked back in a retro twenty-ten’s style, longer than in his last episode. His face looked bigger, bloated. It wasn’t noticeable by someone seeing him for the first time but Samara, who’d stared at his face for more hours than she would care to count, could tell. Even the way he carried himself changed. From laid back and observant to more forward, assertive.

“Hello, my friends!” The real Claudius announced in the same way he greeted all his films. His voice carried across the whole room. 

Samara caught his eye. The beautiful gray that she had spent too long staring at on a screen. In that moment, his smile struck only for her. Then the crowd pushed in behind her, cheering and screeching.

Get up to him! Go girl!

By the time the Projection spoke, six people had rushed in front of Samara. She fought her way back toward Claudius while the crowd shouted over each other, louder and louder each second. They crushed around Samara. She slipped through tight gaps where she found them.

Claudius moved further into the room. The crowd parted for him like tail ends of a magnet. He kept smiling, kept replying to everyone he heard, kept hugging everyone who came close, and taking selfies with a heart-snapping wink. To everyone but Samara.

She tripped. For a heartbeat, she expected to crash into the wall of people surrounding her, sending them tumbling. She hit the floor instead, hard on her right with a loud fleshy smack.

Samara! You cool, everything cool?

“Yeah, yeah, cool.” Her arm pulsed with pain. In front of her were only one pair of shoes. She could almost see her face and distressed hair in the polished black.

“You don’t have to fall over yourselves to come meet me!” Claudius Maxwell said. Everyone laughed. The blush hit hot on Samara’s cheeks as she got up on her own.

Tell him about your film! He’ll love it!

“I’m Samar—” She began.

Another person cut in. “What is your next video going to be about?” 

Get his attention, you can do it!

Then another. “Want to go dancing after the show?”

Samara!

Then another. “I loved your trip to Arusha so much!”

Even Claudius couldn’t answer them all but he began chatting with the nearest girl. A slim blonde that could have turned sideways and disappeared.

“...The way you helped with those typhoon refugees in Thailand,” she said, waving a cocktail glass around.

“Taiwan,” Samara interrupted her. “Get it right at least.”

Ouch, cut her deep. Claudius’ Projection said in her ear.

The girl’s face twisted in anger before the real Claudius laughed. 

“It’s alright! They’re easy to get mixed up.” He didn’t try to shake her hand but instead wrapped an arm around her shoulders before pulling her in close. His hand fell across one of her breasts for a moment before grasping at her shoulder. “And you are?”

“Samara, totally your biggest fan—” She stopped herself. Obviously she was a big fan. She was here with him! “I made a film. I think you’d-“

Claudius picked up another conversation with someone else who forced themselves into the front, then the next. His arm slipped from her shoulder like a blanket torn off on a cold morning. He moved on through the crowd. Away from her, again.

It’s alright. We have the whole night.

-

Samara tried to enjoy Claudius’ show. 

The VIP tickets had allowed her first row seats. So close she could take one step and have to climb onto the stage. But her’s weren’t even centered, given that all of the other VIP holders needed seats as well. She sat far off to the right, nearer to the ominous red exit sign than to Claudius himself. Some unluckier than her were in the next row back.

Worse, during the show, Claudius sprawled on a couch facing away from her. She stared at the back of his head for most of the hour and a half. Occasionally, he would turn and look out at the audience. She would see his profile, but never his whole face. 

During the Q&A, he paced around the stage giving drawn out stories of rumored feuds with other creators or how they made certain uploads. His gaze never drifted over to where she sat, despite her hand wiggling in the air as high as she could stretch it.

How could he do that to her?

Samara would laugh with the rest of the audience, even cheer with them, but anytime she did, it felt as hollow as a passionless film. He wasn’t going to see her. He wasn’t going to talk to her, not in any real sense at least. Not with all of the other people fighting for the same privilege.

Claudius’ Projection tried to lift her spirits.

You still have the after-party to hang with him. Don’t worry about it too much. 

If I like you, why wouldn’t he?

Maybe yell at him and grab his attention. Like really yell.

“Will you shut up already?” Samara whispered. The closest people around her shot angry glances. One gasped, slack jawed, like she’d said that to the real Claudius. She ignored them and sat back with her arms crossed.

None of the Projection’s comments agreed with Samara. Despite him being a replication of the real Claudius, they were still disconnected somewhere. Something the Projection didn’t get. She only wanted to spend some time with Claudius on her own. Even a little bit of time. But she couldn’t with all of the other people around.

She had an idea.

-

Where are you going?

“The bathroom,” Samara said as the heavy fire door behind her hissed closed.

You passed them already.

“Guess I’ll have to find another one.” 

Samara…

“Let me do this.”

As she wandered through the back hallways, she kept an eye out for any distinct looking room. The stars had to have some special place. She assumed there would be an indication as to which. But so far, every steel door looked like a copy-paste of each other.

When the live show had ended, she’d cheered with the rest of the audience. At the VIP after party, she’d actually mingled with some of the girls who had broken out from their groups during the show. All of them had chatted on and on about how great it all was. Samara had nodded until the real Claudius had come back in the same manner as before.

Samara hadn’t tried to fight the crowd this time. She’d sat back and watched the mob of people follow him from one end of the room to the other. Everyone had tried to get a few words in with him, or a selfie, or a quick clip of a video. That’s not what Samara wanted though. She wanted more.

So she had waited until the real Claudius slipped into the back for a break. Samara had followed.

You’re going to creep him out.

“I don’t think so.”

Don’t trust me on the subject anymore?

“Nothing else has worked.”

Samara, I don’t think you should-

“Zip it.” She heard footsteps coming around another generic looking corner. 

 When a man appeared, wearing a shirt labeled SECURITY in bold white on the front, Samara started to sweat a bit. 

“You’re not supposed to be back here,” he said.

“Claudius told me to come find him.” The lie came easily. She bit her tongue to keep herself from stuttering it out. 

“Another one?” He chuckled before pointing the way he came, as if he’d heard it already. “All the way down. You’ll know the door.”

Samara flushed with embarrassment as the man walked away whistling. How many others were there? She hadn’t been paying attention to how many stayed for the after party and even if she had, there were so many…

She followed the security guard’s direction. At least there wouldn’t be hundreds to compete with. 

Samara, turn around.

“I’m not letting this chance go.” This is exactly what the real Claudius would do in one of his films anyway. Sneak into somewhere he shouldn’t be, get out clean with the footage, and have a great story to tell all of his followers. Samara would do that.

At the end of the gray hallway was a lavish door. Fine stained wood with the name “Claudius Maxwell” slid into the eye level nameplate. Music pumped behind it. A skunky smell slipped out from underneath.

Don’t. Samara, I know this. I don’t know how but I know this. Behind that door-

“Is the real you.” She raised her hand to knock, reconsidered, and simply opened the door. 

The stench uncorked. A stagnant musk of marijuana and stale beer billowed out.

A black light blared inside the room, distorting all of the colors. She blinked a few times, getting her eyes to adjust from the hallway’s pale fluorescent lights. Neon green stars lined the edges of the walls above the wild font with the venue’s name underneath. Shapes formed in the not-purple of the light. 

A vanity with a smart mirror waited for someone to sit in front of it. A centered table filled with a mess of bottles, platters of half eaten food, and a small mirror with some dust on it. Spilled drinks and stray pieces of clothing littered the floor. Samara didn’t see anyone at first, until she caught sight of the bed.

Not a bed, a pull out couch. It took the majority of the back corner. Piled high with blankets and pillows slowly twisting over each other. Samara’s eyes focused on the movement. The shapes became clearer. 

Four naked women lounged there. Claudius, naked as well, had gotten up and walked towards Samara with a wicked smile twisting across his face.

“Another VIP?” The light behind Samara cut diagonally at his bottom half. The black light gleamed in his eyes. His wide lips were a smear of neon orange. “Late but we’re still having fun!”

He giggled. Not in an endearing way like Samara had heard in his films but something gross and sticky. When he reached out to pull her in, she stepped back. 

Samara, leave!

One of the girls walked over from the couch and wrapped her arms around Claudius’ chest. 

“When are we going to be in your film?” Her words slurred. Her eyes looked distant. Her body, what parts Samara saw of it, looked far too young. 

“Coming?” Claudius reached out to grab Samara again but she’d turned and ran back down the hallway.

-

“That wasn’t me,” the Projection said. He sat on Samara’s bed, hair curled like nothing had touched it since she last saw him. She had switched back to the drone once she’d arrived home but didn’t turn it on until now.

It had been days since the event, since seeing the real Claudius. She’d taken off work in advance, expecting to be exuberantly posting online about the whole event and how great Claudius was, how they are now going to hang out and be friends. But she’d sat in her apartment alone, with the curtains drawn. Would someone find her to ask what she saw? No one did. She missed her friends.

“How do you know?” She could still see him in her mind’s eye. Naked and high and with that disgusting smile on his face. Her stomach churned at the thought. Her eyes stung.

“I didn’t do anything.” He sat back. “I told you not to go back there.”

“Why didn’t you tell me before?” 

“I didn’t know until I saw the door. Some trigger went off in my head and I recognized it.” He looked troubled like when the real Claudius would walk out of a bad neighborhood and reflected on his life. Maybe that was fake too.

“You told me he would like me.” She tried to keep her voice level but as she spoke it grew in volume until she yelled. “You were supposed to be the real Claudius!”

Hurt painted across his face. “Am I truly not real to you?”

 Samara sat quiet for a moment. AI or not. Hologram or not. She’d laughed with him, cried with him, saw the world with him, every day. The friend she’d spent hours and hours watching and living with. The friend that she could turn to relax and forget about everything else. 

But that friend had lied to her.

“Samara?” he asked, looking for an answer. His voice poked pins into her stomach. What was once excitement and happiness, was now diluted with dread and disgust, boiling together like food poisoning. It wasn’t the Projection that did the things the real Claudius did. It wasn’t, but it was, but it wasn’t…

“Console command,” she said. 

Claudius’ Projection sat up stiffly. His face became passive, emotionless.

“Passcode?” the Projection said. The voice no longer Claudius’ but a generic computer’s tone, all jagged edges and abrupt enunciation. It hurt hearing it from Claudius’ mouth.

She replied with her code. 

“Please speak command.”

“Clear memory,” She bit off the word. “Roll back one week.” 

“Please confirm command.”

“Confirmed.”

For a moment, Claudius looked sad as if someone had broken his heart. His image flickered in and out, erasing the expression on his face. When it stilled, he turned to her and smiled, bringing that familiar buzz back to her stomach.

Maybe he was right. That wasn’t her Claudius. The Claudius she’d seen buy whole neighborhoods food, that helped clean up after typhoons, that laughed and cried and let everyone experience life through him. Her Claudius, the Projection, had been real and good to her. Wasn’t that all that mattered?

“Samara!” the Projection said. “Been awhile. What have you been up to?”

Maybe she could still be friends with her Claudius.