That evening

Evening came down gold and then purple, and after a dinner where Allison ate three desserts and interrogated the waiter about the island itinerary, she announced she was taking a warm shower, because the night tropical air had finally defeated her.

"Don't peek okay?"

The bathroom door shut as she enter. A minute later he heard the water. Over the water she's humming happily. She hummed constantly when she was happy, because she's with her boyfriend in the best vacation.

He lay back on the huge bed, which was easily the biggest bed he had ever been on, and picked up the strange phone.

He still hadn't figured out the logo. It nagged at him. A backwards arrow, a loop bent the wrong way. He felt like he'd seen it somewhere before, years ago, some website, some ad, something at his father's company—

There was no flicker. Or if there was, it was so fast he couldn't swear to it. A brightness at the edge of the screen suddenly gone.

He turned the phone over. Checked the back. Turned it back.

The flicker happened again. Closer to the center this time.

"What is wrong with you," he muttered, and brought the screen up to his face.

As he brings the phone closer to him...The shower door suddenly banged open.

"Kyle, hey, I can't find it anywhere, did you see my—" Allison stood in the doorway, dripping, stark naked, one hand on the frame, steam curling behind her. "—underwear."

Time feels like it just stopped. Kyle's brain feels a bit fried as he stared at the miracle in front of him. In half a second: she is naked, she is completely naked, say something, and then, catastrophically, a rush of blood southward that he had zero control over, because he was teenager and he has hormones so it's make sense that he got hard looking at her, she was gorgeous and wet and standing three feet away with nothing on. Because she's completely naked.

Allison's eyes dropped. Went wide. Snapped back up as her cheeks becomes red in embarrassment.

"KYAAAHHH!! I'M SORRY!" she shrieked, slamming both hands over herself, one across her chest, the other lower, and spun around so fast her wet hair slapped her own back. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean too. I forgot the towel, I left the towel on the—" Kyle can't concentrate as he looks at her sexy curve ass.

"Okay you know what, NEVER MIND, forget the underwear, forget what you just saw, I'm going back in the shower!!"

The door slammed. The lock clicked.

Kyle sat on the bed with his heart going like a drumline, staring at the bathroom door, and then he put both hands over his face. "Sorry," he said, uselessly, through his fingers. "I didn't, yeah. Sorry."

"IT'S FINE!" came the muffled reply.

He flopped backward onto the bed and stared at the ceiling, shaking the image out of his head, mostly failing, and after a minute he picked the phone back up, because his hands needed something to do other than jerking off.

This time the screen suddenly flickering. The screen was different.

In the middle of it, glowing softly, was the backwards arrow. Rendered as a button now, round and dark.

He should have put the phone down. But he got too curious. His thumb hovered went on it. The flicker ran across the screen one more time, quick as a blink, and somehow that was what did it, curiosity being the oldest and dumbest human instinct of all, and he pressed the button.

The world turned into electricity.

It wasn't pain. It was worse than pain, it was everywhere at once, his bones buzzing, his teeth, the roots of his hair, and he tried to shout and his jaw wouldn't work, and the ceiling swung, or he swung, and the last thing he saw was his own hand blurring on the bedspread before he gone unconscious or fainted, and then nothing. The phone landed face-up beside him on the sheets.

On the screen, small white letters on black:

**TRANSFER IN PROCESS.**

The phone's progress bar crawled.

**TRANSFER COMPLETE.**