This is too much. I can’t think straight. “STOP!” I yell, forming my arms into an X. “Pause. Back up. Why are you here, Miss…?” It feels weird calling her Miss Stone, and she scowls at the title, too.

“Call me Jess, please,” she says, turning back to me. “And I’m here because I need your help. Look, I fail at being me. Especially in this…environment. But you? You’re perfect at it, and I need to appease the masses. So. You do still want to be me, don’t you?”

This feels like a trap.

“Who doesn’t want to be Jessica Stone?” I say hesitantly.

She spreads her arms wide. “Then here’s your golden opportunity! Let’s trade lives!”

She can’t be serious. I wait a heartbeat, then another, expecting her to cave and expose this elaborate joke, after which a cameraman busts out of the closet and surprise! I’ve been punk’d!

And yet…

I don’t think she’s joking.

Everything about Jessica Stone is perfect, from her manicured nails to her artfully messy topknot. Even in an unassuming blazer she looks like a movie star. It’s weird how some people just shine.

Is it really that easy? Can I just step into her shoes and become her? I’ve seen people don cosplays all my life, becoming space princesses and starship captains and robot mercenaries and Vulcan Jedis. Assume other lives, other names…

And here is Jessica Stone offering up her name to me. Does she know what I could do with it?

I narrow my eyes. “What’s the catch?”

She falters. “Catch?”

“Yeah. Why would you let me be you? What’s so bad about being you that even you don’t want to be you anymore?” By the tightening of her lips I know I’ve struck a chord.

Why would someone like Jessica Stone want to trade places with a nobody like me?

Her blue eyes slide to her assistant, and a silent conversation passes between them, like two best friends who don’t need words to communicate. I feel my stomach drop, as if I’m watching something intimate, and avert my eyes.

Finally, Jessica replies, choosing her words slowly and carefully, like she’s stepping on slippery rocks across a river. “Because I need to be someone else for a little while, and I figured I’d ask you. It’s the chance of a lifetime, right? To be Jessica Stone.”

Not only to be Jessica Stone, but to be a Jessica Stone who cares about Starfield. Maybe I can use this opportunity to my advantage. Do I feel horrible scheming about this?

Sure.

But sometimes you need to think outside the box to accomplish your goals, and thanks to the thousands of signatures on my petition—and the reaction at the panel—I know I have a community of fans who’ll back me up.