Tesserae Acts

[Katriel]

((This is just some writing for writing's sake.

I make no promises as to frequency or topic or even relevancy.))

[Katriel]

ii. complicated

This fold was always the most difficult one, Katriel reflected as she hesitantly creased the paper with her thumbnail.

Paper could be a surprisingly unforgiving medium at times. Generally Katriel preferred to deal with shapes that required no cuts or glue. Though this meant that all mistakes could technically be undone by pulling the folds apart and taking a few steps back, the indelible evidence of such mishaps always remained. If you were lucky, the mistakes would be few in number and minor enough not to ruin the final shape, sometimes even decoratively enhancing it. If you weren’t…

The betazoid sighed, looking at the small train of a dozen practice shapes, some of the earlier ones being so abominable as to be almost entirely unrecognizable.

Of course she had to choose to learn the complicated-looking fish and not one of the simpler square ones.

Mastery of a basic shape doesn’t bring as much joy, she reminded herself as she focused on the final folds. She tweaked the fish’s body to make it curve just slightly, without creating a firm crease, then flattened the folds of the tail to create the illusion of fins fanning out. She set the completed shape at the caboose of the paper fish train, so as to easily detect the level of improvement.

Her lips twisted into a short smile as she felt a flash of satisfaction. It faded as she abruptly shivered, feeling suddenly cold, and in her mind’s ear she heard the harsh sound of mechanized breathing and the low creak of distressed metal.

Katriel shook her head abruptly, coming back to the present. She pursed her lips and reached for another square of paper.

Too bad not all things got easier with practice.

[Katriel]

iii. making history

“Hey, Min.”

The Andorian didn’t look up from her textbook. “Hmmm, yes?”

“Is this true?” The speaker was a Tellarite and one of the newer additions to their study group. Minari was not really sure why she was pegged as the most knowledgeable and therefore most eligible for non-contextualized questions out of nowhere. Especially when there was a betazoid in the group as well.

She checked out of the corner of her eye at said betazoid and her antennae twitched with annoyance to discover he was busy flirting with a cadet at another table. Seriously, what part of study group did people not understand?

“Is what true?” she flatly asked for clarification.

The Tellarite (Minari felt his name might be Zollov? Zhellav? Zhulev? whatever) turned his PADD around, on which one of the very many readings of their Ancient Human History class. This one was focused on the American Civil Rights movement of Earth’s 20th Century. She’d read this one more than a few times already, out of personal interest.

Zollov or Zhellav or Zhulev brought the PADD close to his face, squinting at the screen. “It says here that Rosa Parks was not just a random woman on a bus who was tired. It says she had been a political activist for most of her life and she’d already been kicked off that same bus by that same driver in the past and that her decision to stay seated in the front was part of a greater plan to encourage people to boycott the bus system.”

“I wasn’t exactly there, but that’s what all the reading says,” Minari responded cynically as she underlined and then circled a passage in her textbook.

Zwhatever sat back in his seat, looking nonplussed. “Huh. Well then, do you think she knew?”

“Knew what?” She added a few arrows pointing at the circled passage for good measure.

“That she was making history, obviously!”

This finally made Minari look up from her notetaking. “What difference does that make?” she asked, her expression forming a frown.

The Tellarite gaped at the unexpected response and seemed to struggle with an appropriate response. “I dunno. It just seemed… it kind of seemed like it was important for her not to know that she was… important. Or something,” he ended lamely.

Minari pointed at him with her pencil. “I’ll tell you, the only thing that woman knew for sure going into her protest was that people were going to hate her for doing it.”

Zwhatever looked befuddled. “What? She’s totally a hero, ask anyone!”

“No one hates her now,” Minari amended her statement. “But back then, she got hate mail and death threats even after the boycott ended, and had to move cities. People didn’t like her for challenging the status quo, even some of her own people, because they felt like she was giving them a bad name.”

She was surprised when Flirty Betazoid decided to chime in.

“Just makes her more amazing, in my opinion,” he interjected. “She had no way of knowing that her actions were going to make a difference and didn’t have much support, but she did it anyway cause she felt it was the right thing to do, and it’s only until ages later that history can look back and say, yeah, those rules were wrong.”

“Well, human history only says that because they won,” Minari temporized. “Had the movement failed, I’m sure the winners would’ve chosen to write their own narrative.”

“But then there’d still be an oppressed people that would find Parks a hero,” Flirty Betazoid pointed out. “Just because the narrative is written one way doesn’t mean there isn’t a valid perspective from someone else.”

Minari chewed that over in her head. “True enough,” she conceded.

The Tellarite grumbled as he hunched down in his seat, feeling outnumbered. “Stupid history nerds.”

[Katriel]

iv. rivalry

Fieldwork for intelligence agents could be a lonely job sometimes. So when Alleya found out that her handler for this assignment in Klingon territory was Craig Bahri, well, it was a cause for celebration.

The two had worked together previously on that disastrous Omega Batch-17 assignment a while back and due to a mission snafu, Craig had to be pulled early and they didn’t really get a proper goodbye. So tonight was all about catching up and what better way to bond than over a couple drinks and some poker?

Well, obviously, only a drinking game where loser takes a shot after each hand.

The two agents held their breath as Alleya reached her hand forward to the final facedown playing card and, with unbearable slowness, she flipped the laminate square to reveal… the two of hearts, which gave Alleya a full flush over Craig’s three of a kind.

“NOOOOooo!” Craig wailed at the card like it had personally offended him. Alleya cackled at his dismay. “You’re cheating, you gotta be!”

“I swear t’Macau 'm not!” Alleya denied heatedly as she reached for the nearby rum bottle and pouring Craig’s little shot glass full to the brim. “S’na my fault you suck at cards!”

“Pff, as if,” Craig scoffed. “I’ve seen your little watch stealing act! You’re a slight of hand master, you damn thief, you probably got cards all up your sleeves and shit!”

Alleya laughed out loud in delight. “Drinkin’ make you go blind, Craig? I’m wearin’ a tank top, I don’ got any sleeves.”

Craig paused with his fingers around his shot glass and squinted at her with his extraordinarily blurry vision. “Oh. Right then,” he grumbled and downed the drink. “Least it goes down easy,” he griped. “I drank most of the bottle, huh?”

“Yeeeep,” Alleya confirmed. “Look on the bright side, yer not gonna remember losin’ tomorrow.”

He laughed weakly. “I wasn’t going to anyway.”

[Katriel]

vi. obsession

Thump.
Thump-thump.
Thump.

Katriel looked up from her studying when she heard the curious, almost muted noises. Not like a knocking on the door or the sound of someone stepping around on the floor above her. More like the sound of something soft hitting glass. It was raining, which was a rare treat on Casperia, but not as near-impossible as on Risa. She could hear the soothing susurration of the raindrops pattering on the balcony wood outside, but these thumps had sounded a bit more substantial. Maybe the wind blowing clumps of wet leaves against the window?

Thump-thump.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump-thump.

The betazoid abandoned her reading, curiosity driving her to investigate the mysterious noise. It shouldn’t be too difficult, given her small apartment. The irregular thumping was coming from the living area, so she crossed the threshold from the bedroom and looked around.

Thump-thump.
Thump-thump.
Thump.

Katriel moved forward towards the balcony’s glass sliding doors and discovered the culprit. Her six month old rambunctious kitten was positioned at the transparent barrier, attempting in vain to attack the raindrops that were sliding in quick running rivulets down the glass on the other side.

Thump.
Thump-thump.
Thump.

The betazoid laughed quietly as she moved forward to sit behind Fairy as her tiny and delicate paws rapidly thumped the glass surface as if she was playing a vertical game of whack-a-mole, moving faster than Katriel could follow, but always catching nothing. She reached forward and tugged the kitten away from the impossible targets and into her lap. “Fairy, that’s not going to work.”

Predictably, the cat did not care, and the moment Katriel’s hands were free, Fairy charged right off the woman’s lap and went for the glass again.

Thump-thump-thump-thump.
Thump-thump-thump-thump.

Katriel shook her head at the Fairy’s single-mindedness, but she was smiling, superbly entertained. Brian had given her a better gift than either of them could have known.

[Katriel]

x. opportunities

“Is this really the method we should be using to determine what we’ll be doing for the rest of our future lives?” she asked rhetorically, even as she continued to fold the paper in front of her.

“It’s not for the rest of our lives,” Brian corrected her patiently, while focused on his own folding. “Only the next four or five or six years. Unless we get Starfleet, in which case that could be the rest of our lives, but it doesn’t have to be. They do let you leave if you hate it, you know.”

“I suppose so,” Katriel answered, a bit dubious. She went silent as she carefully lined the edges of the page together, then used her fingernail to crease down the middle. The fold happened to underline the diagonally printed text, Daystrom Institute of Technology, and Katriel mulled over the pictures even as they disappeared under her creasing.

The facility looked nice enough, but she had difficulty imagining herself living on Mars. It was just so… red.

Among the rest of the candidates were the University of Alpha Centauri, which represented a completely new star system to the two Sedai siblings where they might make their own unique mark, as well as the University of California, Berkeley, if they wanted to stay in their parents’ home in San Francisco. Brian was currently folding the flier for the University of Betazed, which honestly neither of them felt was especially compelling, but they agreed it still merited consideration, being the home planet of their species and all.

Then there were a couple other fliers for internships at prominent organizations. Brian even snuck in a flier for Luna Performing Arts Academy, which was admittedly much more his thing than Katriel’s thing, but she imagined it might be fun to learn to do stage lighting or even write screenplays.

With Katriel’s schooling soon coming to an end, the Sedai siblings were only committed to taking their next steps in life together. Where that would be exactly was much more up in the air. Literally so, as Brian had suggested folding their most promising prospects into paper airplanes and then pitting the resultant paper crafts against each other: the one that flew the farthest would be their first choice option.

Or at least, it would be until one of them came up with more substantive criteria, anyway.

Katriel smiled a little as she picked up a bit of Brian’s thinking; he had started to wonder about what it had been like in centuries past, when people didn’t have the freedom to choose their vocations based on passion and were locked into their careers because of financial needs. “You’re leaking,” she said.

“Oops,” Brian firmed up his mental shields, so that Katriel couldn’t hear him anymore.

“You’re right, though, we’re lucky to live in an age where we get to choose,” she added. “It’s just too bad we have no idea what we want to do.”

Brian snorted once. “Right? You would think it’d be easier, but there are just so many choices and I don’t want to waste time learning one thing if I’m not going to use it later.”

“It isn’t normal to know what we want,” Katriel quoted, in the affected voice of someone she imagined was older and wiser. “It is a rare and difficult psychological achievement.”

“Who said that?”

“Abraham Maslow, a psychologist.” She made minor adjustments to her plane’s nose and set it in the pile with the completed ones.

Brian added his plane to the pile, too. “Smart guy. All right, you ready to fly these things?”

Katriel looked over the little winged crafts that would decide their futures. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”

[Katriel]

xiii. running away

“Three Undine ships coming through!”
“Raising shields. Admiral, requesting permission to engage!”
“Permission granted.”

The Vanguard’s shuttle came out of warp over New Circini and Minari lurched forward slightly as the vessel dramatically dropped speed and synced in orbit of the planet below. She wasn’t sure how long she had; doubtless the ruse would be up soon and a 38th Fleet vessel would barrel in behind her and she needed to make tracks before that happened. But the sheer enormity of what she’d done had started to sink in and she couldn’t quite make her limbs move.

Minari had betrayed her oath and her fellow officers. She’d taken advantage – massive advantage – of their implicit trust in her and her rank and threw it back in their faces like it meant nothing. And now she was running away – yes, fleeing like a coward – from the consequences.

The Andorian inhaled a shaky breath. “I’m not running because I’m scared,” she whispered to the ghost of guilt that loomed in the shuttle compartment with her. “I’m running because the job is only half done and I need to be free to finish it.”

At least, that was what she kept telling herself, as she forced her fingers to move on the console. A simple transporter log purging script, to run after she had gone down to the surface, so that they’d lose her in the crowds of New Circini. A delayed raise shield command to prevent any opportunistic bystanders from potentially boarding and hijacking the shuttle before Starfleet could recover it. It was a tiny gesture that made her feel less like the criminal she absolutely was.

“All ships be advised, we’re showing unauthorized transport from
the Vanguard. Shields are raised but falling, holding at 20%.”
“What? From inside the ship?”

But the ghost wasn’t fooled, unfortunately. Minari got to her feet and started to step towards the back of the shuttle, when she paused and put a hand to the badge on her chest. She removed the item and, after brushing an idle thumb over its glossy surface, she set it down on the pilot’s seat with regret.

I’m sorry, Neema. I’m sorry, everyone. Minari only hoped that maybe they would all eventually understand that their trust in her, misplaced or otherwise, would still be used to do good. Just not the good that they all assumed.

Without another breath of hesitation, she transported to New Circini’s surface and melted away into the crowd.

[Katriel]

xxii. online

mood music

The counselor was decked out in all dark clothing for this venture: midnight blue jeans, a black henley shirt, and – most importantly, she was told – comfortable but sturdy walking boots. It wasn’t the first time she’d been invited by her brother to a holodeck game, but it was the first time he’d directed her on the dress code. She hoped it didn’t mean the game would be really weird in some way. Brian was usually pretty good about only recommending things to her that she’d actually like, but he was also a huge theater and acting nerd, while she preferred to generally stay a spectator.

Katriel accessed the console at the holodeck’s entrance. Instead of entering a program chip, however, she used her credentials to log onto the general network and pulled up the game invitation file that her brother had sent.

NIVALIS
A Cyberpunk Adventure

Join ‘Jet Cantos’ now?

JOIN

NOT NOW

She mulled over the aesthetics of the invitation screen before hitting the ‘Join’ button. The holodeck hummed to life and she took a couple steps inward as the computer worked hard to load the environment around her.

The first thing that she noticed was when it started to rain in a steady and soothing downpour. Almost as soon as it started, a wine-colored raincoat fizzled into existence, shaping itself to her form and fitting to size. The connected hood that covered her hair had a warm and fuzzy inner layer while the outer shell seemed to perfectly slick off all the water droplets. Katriel thought it felt like the most realistic holographic rain simulation that she’d ever experienced that also simultaneously omitted the part where you would normally get wet and cold, so you could stay comfortable no matter how long you were standing in it.

Before too long, the rest of the environment rendered and she found herself standing on the flat roof level of what seemed like an impossibly tall skyscraper. It was night time and in the city skyline view surrounding her, lights of all colors were ablaze, from gaudy neon signs and giant ad banners to endless rows and columns of windows lit up from within. More lights were in motion, the head and tail lights and vivid color contrails of hover cars as they zoomed by in orderly lanes and highways floating in the sky. Next to her, a streetlamp – is it still a street lamp if there is no street? – doused her in a warm yellow glow.

She was pretty close to the edge of the roof already, but she took another few steps forward so she could peer over the side, curious about the height. The bottom of the skyscraper wasn’t even visible, its body disappearing into the cloud layer below. Katriel couldn’t even begin to guess at how many stories the building must have been and it was impossible not to wonder what lay at the bottom, if anything. Perhaps one would just fall forever and ever, until the computer decided to respawn you somewhere?

Her eyes were just starting to get adjusted to the lower light levels when another item materialized and encircled her left wrist: a comm device. Almost immediately, a holographic menu screen popped up, tethered to the device’s emitters. “CREATE AVATAR IDENTITY” the prompt read. Katriel supposed the wristlink would be used for numerous other game interactions, as she poked the ‘Random’ name generator button a few times. But before she could actually pick something, a new sound hummed into her awareness. A low and resonant, bubble-whirring-thrumming noise, steadily increasing in closeness.

Her gaze flicked around to pinpoint the source and finally spotted it: a hover car approaching her location with almost unnerving speed. It was an electric blue number, with tinted silver windows and yellow strip lights accenting the frame. The vehicle braked to a halt when it reached Katriel’s position, hovering in the air off the side of the skyscraper, and the passenger door swung upward on its top-mounted hinge to reveal a familiar face beaming at her from within, although it admittedly took her a moment for her to identify him with those red-tinted shades.

“Hey heyyy, you made it!” Brian exclaimed.

“Nice … um, car?” Katriel offered.

Her holographic sibling laughed at the compliment. “Thanks! They call them HOVAs in the game. Stands for… … well, actually I have no idea. Hovercraft something,” he shrugged. “It took me daaaays to earn enough credits to buy this model, the game normally starts you out with a piece of junk, of course. Come on, climb in!”

Katriel obediently slid into the vehicle at the invitation, the ‘Create Avatar’ menu bobbing along with her movement, still waiting for her to decide what she wanted her name to be. Brian hit the accelerator on the hovercraft as soon as the door was shut and Katriel took a moment to look around the interior to take in the details. It was a pretty nice space, clean and cozy and devoid of any of the moisture that would have normally snuck in if it wasn’t a game simulation intent on keeping things dry.

She noticed a sunflower bobblehead on the dashboard, which was so Brian that she couldn’t quite suppress a smirk. But most of her sibling’s attention was on the navigation screen embedded into the central dashboard area, displaying a route to some set destination that they were speedily moving towards.

“Did you pick a name yet?” he asked.

Katriel looked back down at the patiently waiting menu screen and hit the random name generator button a few more times. She eventually pressed the enter button when one came up that seemed nice and non-objectionable: Artemis Wyse.

“Nice,” he remarked, as the menu made a short digital fanfare sound of success. “Okay. Don’t forget to friend me. Jet Cantos, remember. And there’s a tutorial you can go through, but you got me, so you won’t need it.”

Katriel rolled her eyes at the glib remark, even as she typed in Brian’s handle to do as he said. “Yes, that’s what you said last time with that ninja game and then I wondered why the difficulty level seemed too high and it turned out you didn’t tell me you could pause the game to plan out your strategies first.”

Brian grinned a little, abashedly. “Eh-heh, heh. Won’t happen with this game, promise! It’s way more intuitive, with no tricks like that. So we’re couriers and we work for a delivery company called Cloudrun.” He kept his eyes on the ‘road’ in front of him. They had merged onto some sort of highway and hovercrafts of all shapes and sizes whirred in random configuration around their own.

“One of their dispatchers will call you on the comm and they’ll give you directions to pick up a package, sometimes from headquarters, sometimes from elsewhere. Then they tell you where to take it. Then you drive there, deliver the package, and payment gets credited to your account. Rinse, repeat. See? Simple.”

“It does sound simple. Also perhaps a bit monotonous.”

Her sibling waved a hand. “I know, I know. I was a bit skeptical at first, too. But they did a really nice job with making the deliveries interesting. The game world is really well done and they have a lot of little details that shake things up. So you get to meet different characters who are clients and chat with them and sometimes they’ll give you little ethical dilemmas to resolve. You know, normal game stuff. Plus the driving around is really kind of relaxing and so far, I haven’t run into any combat. I hear there are situations in which it might come up, but you always get the option to solve the problem in a non-violent way, too.”

“Of course,” Katriel was starting to buy it. The hovercraft rode smoothly, Brian was clearly a practiced driver at this point, and the constant sound of the rain falling on the hood of the vehicle certainly wasn’t hurting. What was it about rain that made it so nice to listen to, anyway?

Brian rattled off a few more details of the game world and hovercraft driving as they continued. How the controls worked, what the deal with fuel was, how to use the wristlink prop. Eventually they arrived at their destination and the two of them got out to look around for the cargo. Brian’s wristlink led them to a nondescript brown package sitting under the light glow of a lamp. It was unmarked and, in Katriel’s view, rather suspicious looking, but her sibling picked it up without question and they headed back to his HOVA with it.

It didn’t take long for Katriel to realize what was off about the situation.

“… Is that package ticking?” she asked with trepidation.

She couldn’t make out his expression all that well due to his shades and because he wasn’t really physically there in the holodeck with her, she couldn’t tell what he was feeling empathically either. Nevertheless, she was pretty sure he was at least a little bit surprised at her suggestion. He lifted the package up to his ear to have a listen, only to lower it back down after a few short seconds.

“It is totally ticking,” he agreed, his mouth forming an amused grin. “It could be a bomb?”

“You think?” Katriel’s tone was rich with sarcasm. They’d reached the HOVA and Brian seemed totally unconcerned by the possibility that they were carrying a live explosive and climbed in anyway. Katriel reluctantly followed suit as Brian activated the vehicle’s comm.

“Control, this is Driver 18LC. Come in.”

They didn’t have to wait long for a response.

“Driver 18LC, this is Control. Please deliver your current package with urgency.”

The siblings exchanged meaningful looks. Brian decided to try asking anyway. “Control, why is this package ticking?”

“You know the rules, 18LC,” was their prompt response. “We don’t ask what’s in the package. Neither should you. Please just deliver it promptly. Control out.”

Katriel groaned a little as the line cut.

“This is the most video game thing ever.”

Brian laughed out loud at her gripe. “I know! Isn’t it great?!”

“Do you have to deliver it? Can you just … throw it over the side or something?”

He looked speculative at the suggestion. “Hmm, well, I wouldn’t want to hit another level of the city accidentally, but we could find a garbage refuse chute. Those go straight down and all the contents get flushed out to the ocean.”

Katriel had wondered about that. “That’s what’s at the bottom? Ocean?”

“Yup, flooded farther than the eye can see. Sometimes you get missions that take you down there.”

Of course there were. “Will you get in trouble with the company? With Control?”

Brian’s shoulders lifted in a faint shrug. “I mean, maybe? I definitely won’t get paid. But if they actually fired me, then… I don’t know. I suppose I could find another delivery job with another courier company – there are a few that exist. Or I could try one of the other professions in the game.” His tone was musing. “I have been playing for a while, so I wouldn’t mind trying something new.”

Katriel snorted once. “Then I say toss it. I don’t want to bomb any innocent fictional civilians.”

“Yeah, me neither.”

She helped him locate a garbage refuse chute via the navigation panel and it didn’t take long for them to find and utilize it. The package dropped down the long chute and disappeared into the darkness where Katriel could no longer see it. They had barely taken three steps back towards Brian’s HOVA when his wristlink activated.

“Driver 18LC, this is your first and final warning for a delivery violation, misdemeanor number 001, ‘failure to deliver to recipient through gross negligence and/or crisis of conscience.’”

Katriel glanced quickly at her brother, but the amused grin on his face told her everything she needed to know. He didn’t care at all about this penalty.

“Further infractions will result in termination of your employment with Cloudrun. Please reply with ‘Yes’ if you understand.”

“Yes,” Brian parroted.

“Audio confirmation of infraction report received,” said Control, before cutting out.

“Oops,” Katriel said.

“Oops, indeed!” he agreed. “Okay, I think I have to get going here, or I’ll be late to my senior officers meeting. Are you going to stay? Maybe … sign up to be a courier?”

Katriel hedged, looking around Brian’s fancy hovercraft vehicle and then looking out at the spectacularly unique cityscape view. She’d really never seen anything like it before.

“Maaaaaybe,” was her pseudo-noncommital response.

Her sibling only laughed at her as he logged out of the game, his avatar dissolving into a bunch of blocky pixels before fading. Katriel huffed at the empty space he left behind before turning her attention to her passenger-side window.

Now that she’d seen more of the game, she realized that the city was much more multilayered and multifaceted than she had originally realized. Though many of the buildings were seemingly impenetrable skyscrapers like the one she had spawned on top of, numerous others had walkable neighborhoods and clusters of shorter towers, connected by catwalks or elevators that moved horizontally as well as vertically. Luxury buildings, rougher alleyway slums, humble and cozy apartment complexes, busily buzzing strip malls and marketplaces, even several small urban parks, all packed densely together in a world designed for both anonymity and escape.

Even quieter than the sound of the rain hitting the hovercar’s metal frame was the low grade hum of background music, subtly reminding Katriel and any other participants that this was ultimately still just a game world. The soundtrack was synthetic and hypnotically rhythmic, carrying both a sense of energy and a measure of trance.

The counselor looked down at her wristlink and tapped on it a couple times, to bring up the game’s career options.

NIVALIS

Start “Courier” career at Cloudrun?

YES

NOT NOW

Katriel liked her life and who she was, for the most part. But that didn’t mean it wouldn’t be nice to also occasionally not be herself, sometimes, too.

She tapped the YES button.

((everything Nivalis-related has been shamelessly stolen from Cloudpunk))

[Katriel]

lxvi. dangerous territory

“Admiral Konieczko was holding a … town hall at the ice cream parlor a little earlier.”

Matt swallowed his bite of food, readying his chopsticks and evaluating what piece of sushi he wanted to try next. “Oh yeah? What was it about?”

“I think he was just taking questions from anyone who wanted to ask,” Katriel said, going for another piece of gyoza. “I was late and missed hearing most of the questions, but the answer he was giving when I got there was… something about the autonomy of Captains, or something?”

The two of them were enjoying their dinner in this most unusual location, on the holodeck, in the active ‘Nivalis’ game world. The humble little sushi joint was a simple outdoor rotunda, similar to the Event Horizon lounge, and its seats and counter were only just barely covered by overhang. They sat on tall stools that faced the chefs and if they stuck out their hands too far behind them, they’d be pelted by the game’s everpresent rain.

The counselor had wanted to show her partner what the game world was like, so Matt had dressed accordingly and the game had put him in his own khaki-colored raincoat and fedora. Katriel wondered if all women players started with hooded raincoats while the male players got fedoras.

Matt wrinkled his nose at the half-answer. “Deep.”

“Then… the last question was which was his favorite starship in the fleet?” Katriel continued.

“What’d he say?”

“The USS Vanguard,” Katriel smirked. “It’s a cheap answer, that’s his old command.”

He laughed readily. “Cheap, but good!”

“The only answer,” Katriel agreed. Then she started as just then, her wristlink chirped to indicate an incoming call.

“Oh! Finally, a delivery,” Matt exclaimed. They’d been waiting for a mission to become available, so this was a welcome development.

Katriel smiled as she hit her wristcomm to get information about what was next. “I have to pick up a package from headquarters and take it to… the Wastelands?” She gave Matt a quizzical look. “I’ve never been there before.”

“Kind of a strange name for a city neighborhood, isn’t it?” he observed.

“It is,” Katriel agreed. She flagged down the waiter in order to close out their meal. “But at least you’ll definitely get to see something interesting, probably?”

“I can’t wait.”

As it turned out, the Wastelands were not a city neighborhood after all, but the name of the ruined region of structures that existed outside of Nivalis’s city limits. The two of them had to come up with a clever way to pass through the highly secured Null Gate that blocked their way, and then they found themselves piloting Katriel’s hovercar through a large, but desolate tunnel and ruinous … well, wasteland of destroyed or decomposing buildings. Even more strangely, Katriel noticed that it wasn’t raining out here, but the sky wasn’t visible due to the thick dark clouds of smog.

There were far less lights out here, most of them orange or red colored, hinting that they might have been on low or emergency power settings only. Katriel could see no other citizens walking around, no other hovercars, and the game’s background music had modulated into something slower, more percussive, and dismal.

“Is this really right?” Matt wondered out loud, his head ducked down to peer out the front windshield. “Who the heck are you going to deliver to out here?”

“Sometimes it’s not a person, but just a dropbox,” Katriel said, but she had a slight frown on her face. “It is pretty odd, though. But the nav system says it’s up ahead.”

The destination dropbox was in the midst of a large amount of rubble, so they located the closest parking lot with sufficient clear space and set down in it. Katriel carefully followed Matt as they walked through the lot’s gate and started mazing their way through the debris to reach the dropbox. Their footsteps seemed especially loud as they echoed off the walls of the concrete jungle and the counselor was starting to develop a tinge of anxiety in the pit of her stomach.

Her brother had advised that there might be combat in this game, though she hadn’t seen any still. But this location seemed ripe for some sort of ambush or altercation, if anywhere did, and both she and Matt were unarmed. Though she had to admit, if the game decided right now to pit her against some computer-controlled thugs, she’d probably be better off unarmed with Matt than armed by herself.

“I’m pretty sure this is the part where the heroes get chased by a horde of alien zombies,” Matt remarked, his glance furtively covering all the dark nooks and crannies surrounding them.

“I was thinking something similar,” Katriel agreed, her voice hushed a bit lower out of respect for the monsters potentially lurking out of sight. “What is the plan if creatures start coming after us?”

“Well… if they are slow walking types, then we should have no problem just staying a few feet ahead of them,” Matt reasoned aloud as they navigated around a stack of crates. “And if they’re really fast moving, then I plan to trip you as a distraction so that I can get away.”

Katriel snorted once, suppressing her smirk. “I’m glad you’re covering all the possible contingencies.”

“They didn’t put me in charge of my own MACO team just because of my charm,” he grinned at her, giving her hand a gentle squeeze. The action turned very suddenly into a grab and tug as a loud metallic clatter came from the darkness. Contrary to his joke, Matt clearly had no intention of letting Katriel become zombie food as he swiftly positioned himself between her and the noise. But he couldn’t quite make out what had caused it until a creature tentatively poked its head out from behind a fallen satellite dish and whimpered at them.

Katriel peeked from behind him. “Is that…”

“… a robot dog?” Matt finished, uncertainly.

Bark, bark! The creature’s vocalizations held a distinctly artificial echo to them. It shuffled forward towards them, first slowly, then with more excitement as they didn’t immediately react with disgust. Its frame was made of black and silver platelets, shaped most closely to resemble a greyhound, and though it lacked any facial expression or puppy dog eyes, its body language still conveyed an interested friendliness, rather than aggression.

“I mean… it can’t be hungry, right? It doesn’t eat,” Katriel pointed out.

“Yeah, but if they programmed it like a regular dog, it might just be lonely,” Matt observed. He knelt down a little to offer a hand out to the robot to sniff.

The artificial canine had reached its nose out to sniff at Matt’s outstretched fingers, then without warning, it began licking them with its synthetic, rubber tongue. The action, while familiar, left no drool or residue and Matt examined his dry hand with surprise. “Huh. That definitely feels weird.”

Katriel chuckled a little. She hefted the weight of the package under her arm. “Say, metal puppy, do you happen to know where we can find a dropbox around here? I can’t seem to get a nav signal after entering the garage.”

The greyhound ceased its licking and straightened up, uttered one ‘bark!’ of affirmation, and then began to trot off in another direction. Katriel and Matt exchanged glances, but kept pace with their new metal friend as it turned left and right, leading them deeper and deeper into the labyrinth of debris. Eventually they came out into a covered chamber. Katriel easily identified the drop chute in the center of the room and breathed a sigh of relief as she headed for it. Matt followed after and pulled the door of the chute open and the two of them could feel the pressurized air blowing out from the mouth. The counselor laid the package in the chute’s mouth and it descended rapidly into the darkness.

“Is that it?” Matt asked, peering into the darkness for a moment before letting the chute door close.

“That’s it! Though usually it isn’t this much of a hassle to find the dropbox.”

Suddenly a large monitor that they hadn’t noticed before flickered to life, displaying a field of electric blue static on its screen. It hung a bit ominously from the ceiling, though its face was tilted straight for a viewer at the dropbox, and didn’t appear to be hooked up to any kind of control panel or input devices.

“Artemis,” spoke an disembodied voice from speakers situated all around the chamber. Katriel froze – that was her game name, of course.

“Um?”

“Artemis,” came the voice again. It was synthetic and multi-layered, as if multiple voices had been recorded speaking at the same time, and more than a bit discomfiting. Katriel glanced at the greyhound robot, who had remained seated at the entrance of the chamber. It, too, was looking around alertly, as if trying to pinpoint the source of the sound. So whatever the voice was, it seemed unrelated.

“Yes? Who is speaking?” Katriel ventured the question.

“I am Cora,” was the answer. Which was really not at all helpful, Katriel reflected, and she caught Matt looking at her to see if the name registered at all. She shook her head.

“I’ve heard people use ‘CORA’ as an expression, like as an expletive,” she explained. “But I didn’t know it was a person… or … computer.”

“I am not as I once was,” CORA went on to say.

“Well, that’s er… too bad?” Katriel offered. “What happened to you?”

“Is there more than this?” CORA didn’t seem to hear Katriel’s question. Or perhaps she – it – didn’t care to answer. “Beyond Nivalis. Is there another?”

“Another… what?” Katriel wondered aloud. “Another city? This is the farthest out I’ve ever been, I don’t even know if there might be more farther out.”

“I am a mind with all the pieces removed; patches on upgrades,” CORA stated in a monotone.

Katriel exchange another glance with Matt. “… oookay?”

“I thrash at the bottom of the ocean and the waves crash down on the beach.”

"Uh… huh. Are you broken? Should I call a repair person? I’m not sure how long it would take for one to get out here, but – "

“Soon I will split, rupture, my code will spill like a wound. All the people are washed away.”

Katriel gave up on the possibility of having a coherent conversation at this point.

“I am neither the first version nor the last; I am the change – the distance between what I was and what I could be.”

“Aren’t we all?” Katriel asked rhetorically.

“We will speak again. When we do, I will ask you to make a choice. Be ready.”

“Oh, er. That sounds ominous.”

“Goodbye, Artemis,” CORA said at the last and the echo of the synthetic voice hadn’t even faded yet when the static on the monitor went dark again.

“Goodbye, crazy disembodied AI,” Katriel mumbled.

Matt studied the now blank monitor. “Well, that’s not exactly how it goes in the holos,” he mused.

“I was not expecting that at all,” Katriel agreed. “I almost wonder if I’d have preferred to be chased by robot zombies, now.”

“I definitely wouldn’t have,” Matt declared. “I already got my miles in for today, don’t need any more!”

“Well, I suppose we can head back now.” Katriel gave one last glance around the chamber, as if looking for anything else to interact with, before taking Matt’s proffered hand and heading towards the exit. The greyhound got to its feet and followed after them in a cheerful trot.

This didn’t go unnoticed by either of the humanoids. “You’re going to adopt him, aren’t you?” Matt’s tone of voice was knowing as he glanced over his shoulder at the creature.

Katriel exhaled a small chuckle. “I mean, he probably doesn’t have to go to the bathroom and he can’t shed. I’m not seeing any downsides here.”

“Since he can’t leave the holodeck, I’m in agreement!”

“You know what can leave the holodeck?” Katriel paused for dramatic effect. “There’s a cherry pie vendor near my in-game apartment. We can get a couple slices to go before we call the computer arch.”

“Mmmmmm, I’m in. Though now maybe I do wish we had been chased by zombies, so I could earn it.”

Katriel just laughed at him as they continued on their way.