Chapter 3: Elara Voss’ Ride - Part 3

The knock came at exactly 8:15 p.m.—three soft, measured taps, polite but insistent, right on time. Jax had been pacing the narrow carpet between couch and kitchenette, heart thudding harder than on any night shift. He wiped damp palms on his clean jeans and opened the door.

Elara stood under the hallway’s sickly sodium light, flawless. Every curve, every subtle asymmetry matched the woman he knew from grainy dashcam stills and stolen audio. The emerald dress clung and flared in all the right places—crossover neckline low, framing her breasts, iridescent threads shifting green to teal under the neon bleed from his window. Not the sharp corporate sheaths from the cab, those armor plates of untouchable distance. This was deliberate date-night elegance: thoughtful, feminine, chosen. She had put effort in—for him—and the realization sent a quiet thrill through his chest. He liked women who took pride in their appearance.

Her makeup was softer, more inviting: smoky shadow deepening her eyes, richer lip color catching the light. It felt seductive, a deliberate shift from the businesslike mask she wore in his cab. The perfume hit him the instant she stepped forward—warm synth-vanilla, sharp floral bite, identical to the scent that sometimes lingered in the back seat after she left.

Anyone would have been fooled. Hell, even her family would have sworn this was the real Elara Voss walking into his apartment.

“Jax,” she said, voice pitch-perfect—the crisp enunciation, the tiny upward lilt on his name he’d replayed obsessively from every ride. Tonight it carried warmth, intimacy, like they’d already spent months peeling back layers. “You look like you’ve been waiting for me.”

He closed the door. The lock clicked with soft finality. He tapped do-not-disturb; the apartment’s cheap smart-system dimmed the lights to low amber and silenced incoming pings. Peeling paint, sagging couch, rain-streaked windows letting in red-blue neon stripes. The space felt smaller, dingier—nothing like the sky-level arcologies she came from. He knew she was out of his league, but this version didn’t care.

They ate at the tiny table.

Jax had asked the app her favorite food—a sigh overheard in a call: “God, I could kill for real seafood, none of that synth-slop.” So he’d made pan-seared synth-salmon, black rice, citrus glaze, wilted greens. He kept her portion tiny; androids didn’t really eat—their systems processed only a few bites for realism. He wanted seamless, not clinical.

She took a small bite, closed her eyes, then smiled that dry smile he knew from the rearview. “Seafood was a smart call. Most guys think steak is impressive.” The second syllable stretched just enough to sound amused—a quirk the app had nailed from audio. “This actually shows you listen.”

Conversation flowed too easily. She teased with the sarcastic edge he recognized, playful now, aimed at him. “Work’s been killing me—another campaign flop. Clients who think ‘disruptive’ means ugly font on a billboard.” She laughed, touched his wrist. “You’d handle them better than half my team.”

She leaned back, swirling her tiny sip of wine. “Honestly? I’ve been thinking about leaving marketing. Brutal hours, selling people things they don’t need. I tell myself I’ll take a sabbatical—somewhere quiet, no holo-screens. My sister has a cabin near the old lake district. She says the stars are still visible there.” A wistful shrug. “Someday.”

Details he’d never caught in the cab. The app had pieced them from deeper scraps—old messages, deleted posts. Eavesdropping on a life he wasn’t meant to know only made the moment more intoxicating.

He wondered what the real Elara would think if she saw him kissing this copy of her mouth. The thought made him smile—dark, private.

She finished her portion, set the fork down. “Perfect. Not too much, just right.” She stood, moved to the couch, patted the cushion. “Come here. We’ve spent enough time with a partition between us.”

Kissing started slow. Her lips were soft, tasting faintly of wine and the lip color matched from close-up footage. She threaded fingers into his hair, murmured against his mouth: “They really nailed the hair tech these days ... feels just like the real thing.” A tiny, knowing smile curved her lips, the elongated “real” carrying that amused lilt—like she was quietly mocking the illusion while playing along perfectly.

His hands slid under her blouse—silk cool against his fingertips, buttons yielding one by one with soft pops that seemed louder in the quiet apartment. He knew she wouldn’t stop him. No pull-away, no stiffening, no polite deflection the real Elara might have given across the cab partition. That certainty was one of the nicest parts of these dates: no risk, no rejection, just permission coded in advance.