Credit: Hayley Murphy

Stephanie Roberts is a 33-year-old parks service employee in a Chicago suburb where she lives with her brother and mother; in the winter, she drives the Zamboni at a public skating rink. But she's also Zania Turner, of glowing skin and impossibly luxuriant black hair, who sashays in silk dresses through the booming virtual world of Second Life, which is run by the San Francisco company Linden Lab. In her life as a 3-D cartoon, Roberts gathers with other avatars to role-play reënactments of obscure Star Trek cartoon episodes, build and buy digital homes and furniture, and hang out on digital beaches.

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