In the physical world, Dennis Matthews was lying back in a recliner while his kid sister Cindy was sprawled across the couch. For all intents and purposes, they both looked like they were asleep, if maybe in the throes of intense dreams. Skin flushed, breath coming hotter.

That wasn’t too far from the truth. While their bodies were inert, their head computers had their minds deep in virtual reality. There was no more exciting kind of dream.

Gun in hand, he kept his head down as he ran through the corridors, each footstep ringing on steel. The breath was hot in his lungs, his heart was running a sprint. The game may have been virtual, but the feeling, the thrill was real. He strained his ears, trying to hear where his opponents were.

He rounded a corner and almost slammed right into a woman in shiny black. It came down to split-second reflex: he fired off four rounds before she could line up one. Bright, colourful flashes tore through her and sent her ragdolling to the ground. Now he had time to think, to process the tight suit that followed her curves far better than any space suit or armour should.

That thought was spoiled when the woman’s player appeared, floating in ghostly spectator mode just above her corpse. And using her actual, personal avatar, a replication of what she looked like in meatspace: barely over five feet tall with a skinny frame; blonde hair tied in twintails; and a petulant pout that made her look years younger than her fifteen.

“I’m bored,” Cindy complained. The private message echoed in his auditory cortex without ever doing business with his ears. “Come on, we’ve been playing Killzone for hours! Can’t we play something else?”

“You’re just sore because you’re losing,” he sent back. “Now hush up, some of us are still in the game.” He raised his gun again, wary of other enemies in the Killzone.

She blew a raspberry and floated after him, walking on air. “C’moooon. Pleeease?”

“Shhh!” He was sure he could hear someone nearby, but where, exactly? If he was careful, he could get the drop on—

Cindy cupped both hands around her mouth and shouted, “He’s over here!”

“Would you shut—”

A split-second too late, he realised his mistake. She had been sending private messages. In his exasperation, he had spoken aloud, or as aloud as he could in the virtual space. Another opponent leaned around the corner and opened fire. Dennis felt the flashes like dull impacts — never actual pain — and watched as his character hit the ground. Now in spectator mode with her, he glared at his kid sister.

She just smiled back at him, shameless. “Oh look, you’re not in the game anymore either. Can we play something else now?”

Dennis sighed. “Fine. If it’ll get you off my back.” The metal corridors fell away and left them in the household’s VR lobby, which looked exactly like their actual living room.

Cindy beamed at him. “I want to play New Life.” Here in the lobby, they didn’t need to bother with private messages.

He eyed her. “Didn’t you say that ‘kiddie mode’ was so boring and restrictive that you weren’t going to touch it again until you were eighteen?”

She rolled her eyes. “I changed my mind. Duh.” She took his wrist in both hands and tugged. “C’mon, please? I can’t play it by myself. Even with kiddie mode on, Daddy’s set it so I can’t even launch it on my own. Like I need a, um, chauffeur.”

“Chaperone.”

“Yeah, that one. Please?”

He looked at her pleading eyes and hands literally pulling his arm. Finally, he sighed.

As New Life launched, it dropped them into a different space: the ‘New Home’ that Cindy had made for herself last time. A quaint, studio apartment with full-length windows overlooking a colourful, neon-lit city that didn’t exist outside virtual reality. At the same time, Dennis changed from his YT self into the new avatar he’d made just for this game. Tall, muscular, with sharply handsome features and a dark suit. He used the name ‘Jack’ here.

New Life was, essentially, a sandbox. Something powered by Relive-grade sensory feedback, so you could make virtual restaurants you could actually taste, virtual flowers you could actually smell, virtual clubs where you danced the night away and felt it as something other than an animation. In New Life, you could do anything.

Well, almost anything. With the parental controls their father had put in, you couldn’t even undress your avatar all the way, let alone go to certain thriving districts.

Cindy hadn’t ever put a couch down, so ‘Jack’ just sat on a corner of the bed while he waited for her. She skipped up to the window and tapped a button that turned it reflective, effectively making it into a full-wall mirror. She called up an interface that floated by her hand, a series of toggles, sliders, and options.

As she pushed a slider, she matured, growing from fifteen to early twenties in the span of a few blinks. Taller, fully-grown, her frame still skinny but more developed. Her blue tank top and black skirt re-sized along with her, maintaining a perfect fit. Then she leaned in close, free hand braced on the window as she peered into her own face. Her features grew harder and sharper, with strong cheekbones and a narrow chin — a lethal kind of lovely, looking a lot like the femme fatale from Runner 3. Purple lipstick and thick, shadowy mascara appeared, without her having to actually apply anything. Her blonde twintails changed into a bob cut just shy of shoulder length.

Then she straightened up and focused on her body, teasing values one by one. Several more inches of height, all going into her smooth legs. A fitter, more athletic frame, with muscle showing along her limbs. Fuller curves, expanding her hips, growing her breasts.

Yes, Jack noticed. So his sister had good taste in avatars. So what?

Then she moved her finger farther down the line, tap-tapping. With each toggle, an article of clothing vanished. Shoes: gone. Tank top: gone. Skirt: gone. Soon, she was down to just the plain white underthings that were locked onto their New Life avatars.

Seeing them let him catch his breath, just a little. It was still shocking for her to be showing so much skin, but his little sister wasn’t going to strip naked. She couldn’t. There were parental controls on. She even lowered her hand from the interface panel, and Jack breathed easier still.

Then she reached behind herself and, after a little fumbling, unclasped her bra. Jack’s heart threatened to stop as it fell away, revealing her full, soft, naked breasts.

“Oh, that’s much better,” Cindy cooed. Staring at her reflection, she arched her chest forward and shimmied her shoulders from side to side, giggling at the ... animation. “So that’s what it feels like to have a bit of ‘boing boing’, huh...”

Jack finally found his voice, though it came with a lot of spluttering and squeaking. “What did you do! How!”

“A little exploit I found.” Her tone was as cheerful as when she’d jailbroken the smoothie printer to give her all the sugary flavours she wanted. “The restrictions keep us from using the interface to get naked, but it doesn’t block object interactions at all. So I just need to undress by hand, and bam.” She struck a pose. “Naked tits confuse the system and drop us out of kiddie mode.”

Jack didn’t know what to say to that. Not least because having those ‘naked tits’ right there was making it hard to think about anything else.

Especially as Cindy lifted her hands to them. Cupping them emphasised how big they were now, overflowing her grasp; and as she squeezed, her fingers sank easily into the softness. Her eyes went wide. “Oh. My. God. These are perfect.” She raced over to him, bouncing all the way. “C’mon, you have to give them a feel.”

He choked and flinched back so hard, he almost fell off. And became immediately more aware that he was sitting on her bed. “Are you crazy? I’m not going to feel you up!”

“Why not?” She kept squeezing them while she spoke. “Flawlessly smooth, creamy skin. Soft and firm at the same time. Weighty and bouncy. You won’t find tits this nice outside VR.”

Each word was more tempting than the last, but he stuck to his guns and kept his hands to himself. “You’re my sister! It’s weird!”

She rolled her eyes. “It’s a game, doofus.” She went to fold her arms in her usual pouty pose, but her breasts were now much more in the way, so she put her hands on her hips. “You shot me dead like five minutes ago, but are you getting arrested for murder? No, because that was a game.”

“Th-That’s different.”

“Why?” Cindy asked. “Why is a game with tits so much weirder than a game with violence? It’s not like you’re laying a hand on my real body either way. You didn’t kill the real me, and I’m not inviting you to touch the real me’s boobs either.”

“I mean, good luck with that,” Jack said. “The real you barely has boobs.”

She shoved him, then poked her tongue out. “Thanks for proving my point. It’s not really me, and it’s not really you. I’m not saying Dennis should grope me. I’m talking to Jack.”