Lily comes through with a clue

Previously:

The Merge Necklace turned Craig’s life upside down. His girlfriend, Lily, was endowed with an Amazonian physique but was kidnapped by a mind-controller. His high school bully, Hank, was left in a body nearly identical to Lily’s and adopted the name Red. A blossoming romance with Red was interrupted by her discovery that Lily had been made into a cam girl.

Craig

“I’ll see you at dinner.”

Craig was at his limit. It had been a week, and this was the closest thing to a clue Lily had given him. He had gotten better at picking out the times she fought through her programming. Her eyes focused, the veil lifted, and he heard the Lily underneath. That only made it worse when, after a few words, her eyes dimmed, and the grating falsetto returned.

Her conditioning was taking a toll on them both. The moments of lucidity were coming further apart, and Craig could feel his memories of Lily being dicolored by the constant bombardment of the vixen on his screen.

But the dinner message was something. That was real. Now he had to hold out to see what she had planned. Reviewing her old videos had been fruitless, it was all the same nondescript room, the same bed. There was more content than his sanity could bear. More than 10 hours a day, every day, she was on stream. Even her meals were taken nude on camera. Today was one of the rare days she was allowed to wear clothes. Lingerie, primarily to hold a vibrator that she begged, in monotone, to be activated via donations.

On the one hand, he was grateful that she was a terrible performer. Her face revealed no emotion, and she never tried to connect with her chat. The delay from an unseen moderator screening all messages made it worse. And even still, she had managed to attract regulars. Maybe one was her captor checking in on her. Maybe this charade appealed to people who never knew the real her. Maybe they really thought she really was ‘glassdoll.’

Except she’s becoming glassdoll. If I don’t save her, that’s all that will be left.

Craig hovered the mouse over the mute button. He knew he should keep listening, just in case she tried to send another message. But the constant barrage of insults Lily directed at herself: at her intelligence, her value, her very humanity. There was only so much he could stand. With a twinge of regret, he clicked the mute button. The bimbo voice was mercifully halted, leaving Craig in blissful silence. He finally let himself indulge in his respite and unmuted the other half of his split screen.

“-going… going… And they’re outta here!”

Red made a show of squinting and shielding her eyes from glare, watching an imaginary home run.

“Any other racists, feel free to join ‘em. See ya never. From all the decent human beings left in chat, lemme see ‘thanks mod’!”

Craig smiled at the flood of supportive messages filling the chat. He let tension out of his shoulders that he hadn’t realized he had been carrying. Craig’s message to Lily had inspired Red to play Rebirth on stream and even to do a simple Tifa cosplay. He watched as she casually engaged her viewers; energy and personality pouring out of her. He couldn’t help but compare it to the lifeless display on the other side of his screen.

Lily had been even harder to watch for Red. She had tried to help, of course. They had started watching for clues in shifts, but that hadn’t lasted long. The exploitation of a body nearly identical to her own was defiling enough. But at the same time, the unending bombardment of misogyny sounded unsettlingly like Hank. It was too much for her. In any case, she couldn’t afford to stop working. So, with Craig’s blessing, she had gone back to streaming in the evenings and doing whatever she was up to in the mornings since ‘Hank’ dropped out of college.

“Clankers got nothin’ on me!” Red shouted, flexing a bicep. She had just finished a boss fight and, with her other hand, threw up a “V”.

Alone in his room, Craig blushed. He remembered the conversation they had before she started streaming again.

“I know what a sacrifice this is, having to watch her,” Red had said. “I’m counting on you, we both are. It’ll be hard, but I want you to know you’re not alone. Whenever I flash a “V” on stream, know that it’s for you. I see you, and I’m behind you.”

They think they know her, but they don’t. Not like I do. I’m the one she chose, right?

Craig took a deep breath to settle himself when his eyes were drawn to motion on the other side of the screen. Lily had disappeared from view only to reappear with some pizza. This wasn’t an uncommon meal for her, but it had always been slices on a plate. Now, she was holding a pizza box. She set it down on the bed and opened it, only to pause. Her arms trembled, but she turned it so the logo could be seen.

Craig leapt out of his chair. An identical box sat next to his own computer, delivered by Skye earlier that evening. Luigi’s.