Vicariously
Thanks to her dad’s part-time ski pro work, seventeen-year-old Beck has managed to stay out of the Tubes: coffin-sized pods where tech lets the poor experience others’ recordings in all five senses. Beck wants more than just to keep out of the Tubes, though. She wants to get herself and her dad back to the life of luxury (and happiness…) they had before her mom died. Jobs are scarce, so when she blows her only tryout and discovers her dad is about to lose his house, her dreams of a better life are over—until an old family friend gets her an audition for the government’s new snowboarding reality show.
Beck jumps at the opportunity, against her father’s wishes, since auditioning requires expensive tech upgrades that will leave her penniless in a pod if she fails. She’ll have to build a huge following to get the gig, and since on-screen romances are the easiest way to go viral, Beck intends to land her first kiss at the tryouts. Childhood friend and rival snowboarder Ash keeps getting in the way, though, so their agent suggests they fake-date for followers.
Soon, Beck suspects their chemistry isn’t all pretend—and that there are some things she’d rather not share with her followers. And the more she learns about her followers, the more she questions whether having money to keep herself and her father out of the Tubes is worth being part of the system that keeps so many others in them.
