Aliapanacea

  People often idolize samurai, love ahem, but eople tend tet is when they're not fighting antithesis, samurai are just people.

  They need privacy, time off, and eveional support. Although their AIs help, they aren't a rept for true panionship.

  Olivia “Whisperer” Reeves, in an interview with Samulife, August 2056.

  ***

  Lissa. You’re being an idiot.

  “I’ve told you Raya, she’ll be pissed at me if it isn’t perfect.”

  Raw exhaustion weighing down on me like an anvil, I groan, leaning ba my absurdly fortable chair. My room on the sed floor of the Starchaser is pretty simple and bare, with basically nothing in it besides a rge bed and this stupid chair I’ve been stu for twelve fug hours.

  Rotating in front of me is the tiny hologram of my avatar that I’ve been whittling away at to create the ideal representation of… me. Well, not me me, but the me that will be in trol when I’m in the mesh. She’s quite particur about things, and usually she’s the oo take care of this kind of thing. Unfortunately, she’s still fug pouting in the back of our head from the aftermath of the ambush; Hopefully, setting this up right will coax her out enough that things will work out.

  I sigh, sending the hologram spinning in front of me again, looking for any signs of imperfes. I’m definitely close, but I just ’t seem to find the thing that is bugging her. Everything is to her standards, as far as I tell. The me dispyed is a bit too feminine for my tastes, but she’s a stickler for this kind of thing. This all started when Emme brought up the fact that she had chosen a maid theme for herself for some godforsaken reason, and suddenly I had to have my avatar be the perfect embodiment of proper servibsp;

  She’s still me, of course, but while I have ged drastically over the st few days, she has decided to be more or less ere before we initialized. No scar, no cyberic eye, no dark bags beh them to indicate how tired I am. In fact, we even ended up ging my irises to an admittedly pretty cute violet here. Our hair stretches to our lower back, dyed to perfectly match the ptinum locks of our sister and mother. Rather than Emmelyn’s heretical short skirt maid uniform, my violet dress stretches down to my ankles, hiding any hint of skin on my legs. The shiny bck Mary Janes are cssics, and I don’t think we could have gohout them here.

  You’ve been awake for nearly sixty hours Lissa. This is not healthy.

  Ign her I send the hologram spinniically this time. “Maybe it’s a minor accessory?”

  You have five minutes. I will go call Emmelyn.

  “I haven’t done much since I ged my hair length…” I cli the hair, then shift it bay natural bck. “What color to do though…”

  As I stare at the avatar like this though, my unease about the model fades and I ’t help but groan. “Seriously? Natural hair color of all things? I’m keeping the dye on the main body, I like it too much.”

  Are we finally done?

  I yawn, rising out of my chair just to flop onto my bed. “Yup. Nini.”

  Ha… Sleep well.

  I ’t help but smile as darkness nearly instantly takes me.

  Eyelids fluttering, as I awake after a dreamless rest, still exhausted yet thankfully far more lucid. Feeling like death, I drag myself to the edge of the bed, where I flick my aug on to check the time. Ten hours of what felt like near instant sleep. A fug miracle.

  I stumble out of bed, every muscle in my body still angry at me for my far too extended scioushe previous few days. I flop back down into the fy chair, waving a hand in the air above me.

  “Mornin’ Raya. I need some breakfast and a full dive system.”

  You just woke up, and you’re already getting back to work?

  New Purchase!

  Css-I Battle Bar (Strawberry): 1 Point

  FDS Module: 10 Points

  Total Cost:

  11 Points

  Final Total:

  1271 Points, 1 Token

  I snort, catg the food bar and taking a bite. “Don’t bme me for beied. I’m getting to experienething I should have been able to for my entire childhood.”

  I suppose so, but you’re also an idiot who has no sense of restraint. Don’t speak with your mouth full, fool.

  Rolling my eyes, I swallow the food, then flinch as it feels like I sneeze backwards. For a moment, I’m dumbfouhen blink out of the disbobution as I quickly devour the rest of my meal before crag my knuckles.

  “Okay, let’s do this.”

  Are you sure you don’t want to tell anyone you’re diving first?

  I shake my head. “Nah, you just tell them for me if they need me right?”

  I am not an excuse for antisocial behavior.

  “Yes mom,” I mutter, then lean ba the chair as I ask, “Where are we going to be whe in there?”

  Depends, anywhere you think would be fun to visit?

  I shrug. “I dunno, never really thought about it? Europe?”

  Ha… Fine, I’ll make this work. Initializing dive.

  “Wait, I’m not-”

  The room around me falls away, and is repced with a crowded city street.

  “Ready… Dammit, Raya.”

  Wele to the EU Phase.

  All around us, groups of people in a wide variety of avatars wander about, beh a sky filled with just every kind of ad imaginable. I gaze around ihe sheer amount of colors and lively noise nearly overwhelming. A line of seemingly random vehicles flies around above us, and I sigh as someoakes a picture of me then runs away.

  I absentmindedly reach up towards my face, but pause when I see that my nails are painted violet. I gnce down at my body, quietly huffing a euphoric ugh at the fact that I am now in the body that I made st night.

  “This is…” I gnce behiapping my cute shoes on the ground. “Really nice.”

  I’d hope so, you spent so long on it.

  I giggle, then start walking dowreet, my Mary Janes clig delightfully with each step. “I think I really appreciate the time put into it.”

  Oh? Did you s who is fronting?

  I grin, pg a fio my lip. “Maaaaybe~?”

  I’m just going to take that as a yes. This is far too out of character for it to be anything else.

  Stig out my tongue, I put my arms behind me. “Sometimes it’s hard to tell when we s, there’s not really an indication for it.”

  Well? What’s your pn? I know your headmate said she was going to do research, but what do you pn on doing?

  I turn, looking towards a rather lively dance party in the distance, some sort of eleic music I’ve never heard before reverberating through the air.

  “Well,” I murmur, feeling quite alone all of a sudden, “Finding some friends to get to know would be nice.”

  Neon Street might i you, it’s an ope that some samurai frequent it whehey’re in the mesh. Sparkling Magenta Explosion and members of her friend group have held multiple lives and certs in a club there.

  Getting a little excited, I nod. “Sounds good, lead me there?”

  Follow the arrow, the destination won’t be hard to spot.

  A wide smile on my face, I do just that. It’s sort of fasating to be walking through a pce I’ve only heard of through the little modern media smuggled into New Houston as this sort of digital wild west. I haven’t seen any cowboys or hackers yet, so I suppose that’s sort of been exaggerated.

  Turning through a few twists and turns, I immediately gasp whereet iion es into view. Neon street is definitely an apt name for this area, sidering every single edge of the buildings is lined with bright, colorful tubes. It’s densely poputed with users and stretches as far as I see into the distance, an overwhelming number of different signs deg a venue for something or another. I breathlessly move fng through the crowds to see if there is anything that particurly catches my i.

  I pause and raise an eyebrow when I see a tiny picture of an obviously drunk fox girl holding up a headband with fuzzy fox ears with bold text along the bottom g, ‘No time to expin, put on the fox ears!” Grinning, I take a step towards it only to flinch when the fox girl pops out of the wall as if she was actually there.

  “What in the world?” I reach out, toug the image, only for it to vanish. “How does that work?”

  You idiot! Look at yourself!

  I blink as a third person camera view of my model pops up, and I flush when I see what ged. Twe ears and a big fluffy tail matg my hair color tell me everything I o know. I step off to the side as several people point at me and ugh, doing my best to hide my fabsp;

  “What happened!? Why am I a fox?”

  The meme had a virus on it, idiot, it modified your model’s code to add the extra stuff.

  “That’s so cool, I wanna know how that works! I pause, then add, “Er, does it do anything bad?”

  That’s the somewhat iing thing, it’s set up to modify the model then ping the creator only if the virus is removed.

  “So it’s either be a fox or meet the creator of the cool virus?”

  Pretty much.

  As much as I want to bitd moan about the ultimatum, I ’t help but giggle as I reach up to poke at the twitg ears on my head.. “Well, let’s take the tter then. Bop it for me?”

  This seems somewhat foolish, but okay.

  Beh my fihe fluffy extras disappear, and I lean against ay wall to wait. I wate groups as they vigorously discuss some kind of samurai rivalry, but I find myself uo stay focused oopic due to anticipation. Fortunately, it really doesn’t take long for the culprits to make themselves known.

  Dropping down in front of me from seemingly nowhere in a very overly dramatic pose are two nearly identical fox girls in a purple hoodie and bck jeans, their only visible difference being that they wear a kitsune mask on the opposite side of each other’s head.

  Their hair is remi of a dark night sky, tiny stars shining throughout their silky locks. I find myself nearly entranced by their pink, vertically slitted eyes, which seem to stare into my soul as they approach closer to me.

  After a moment, in perfeison with a very specifie, the girls say, “Hello there.”

  Even I know that one; I roll my eyes and then deadpan, “General Kenobi.”

  “Ah, a woman of culture I see.” One of the girls says as she smiles.

  “Did you like the viral marketing?” Asks the other, a bit of smugness in her voibsp;

  I nod, tapping the top of my head. “It was really iing. How did you do that?”

  “I kind of hijacked the ads in the mesh space here to i with your model. inally it was meant to be one f out clothes, but I made the ge to be semi perma.” She shrugs. “That is the simple expnation, but that doesn't expin how you reverted the ges so quickly.”

  “A girl has her secrets.” I put a hand on my hip, then wink. “Though, are there drinks in the mesh? Cause’ if there are, maybe I'll tell you after a few.”

  “There is a bar around the er here. It’s called the Flowing Neon.” The girl chuckles as I give her a look. “I know, very imaginative, but it’s fitting.”

  I sigh, then put out my palm. “Lead the way.”

  They set off, and one of them turns around, walking backwards as I follow. “There is a drink called ‘pixel shaker’, it’s pretty fun if you are o the mesh.”

  I blink, then hit myself internally. “Right, I totally gave that away, didn’t I…”

  “Eh, not too bad. But be a little careful what you s if you don’t have a good antivirus to bap things for you.” She giggles.

  “Most people who s that meme are o the mesh.” She then twirls around, spinning on her heel.

  The girls abruptly leap down a set of stairs, where they enter a signless building with a flowing colored smoke waterfall for a door. I rush to catch up, stepping through the cloud to find a somewhat lively bar, though not nearly as crowded as the streets outside.

  I take a moment to gnce around, then find the foxes waving to me from a -around booth that they have somehow gotten to iime it took me to go dowairs. I slip in on the opposite side as them, only to see them looking at me with anticipation.

  I quickly yield to their silent demands. “This is nice. I’m Lissa, by the way.”

  “Shinon.” “Shinobu.” They speak up at the same time each raising their opposite hand.

  “Though it’s advised to stick to niames amer tags here, but you seem like someone who we make an exception with.” Shinon grins with her elbows oable, and her resting on her hand.

  Finding myself still having a little bit of difficulty telling the tart, I look to the side as I intone, ‘Raya, you put their names above their heads for me? I don’t wanna screw up.’

  It was already there from the start, you just didn’t notice.

  I blink, looking a bit closer to see she’s right, then flush a bit as I respond to the girls,“Y-Yeah, that makes sense, safety and all. I suppose I’ll have to think of one for myself.”

  “Ours is B&N_Foxes. There are randomly geed ones, but most of the time they are about as legible as if someoried to type with their forehead on a physical keyboard,” Shinobu says in deadpan, “Holy, names are hard. I have no idea how people e up with good ones, and I feel for Samurai who get hat are… yeah.”

  I snort, the events of Sunday running through my head again. “Ugh, they’re totally right Raya, I o grill Emme about the name she tried to fore more.”

  There’s a moment of nobody saying anything, and when I realize why, I freeze. “Did… Did I just say that out loud?”

  “I have no idea what you are talking about.” Shinon grins.

  Lightly, I sm my head into the table. “Fuuuug hell I’m an idiot. Took me all of five mio let it slip.”

  “Could be worse, retty close to some Samurai too, and this pce is ner to them either.” Shinobu reaches out and pat-pats my head. “Like aunty Magenta frequents this bar, along with GranLuna.”

  “I know my AI mentioned Magenta earlier, but I have no idea who GranLuna is.” I sigh, appreciating the chill of the table on my cheek. “I’m basically brand new, and my home was basically entirely isoted from the outside world.”

  “She’s FoxFire.” Shinon said, sipping on one of three drinks that were not there just a sed before. “From the meme you sed.”

  “Yeah. Like we should not really be saying this at all? But you are adorable and frien shaped, so it’s fine.” Shinobu smiles. “Also not to mention the fact that you are a Samurai too, so there is almost no way you could not have found out who we are if you really wanted.”

  Rising off the table with warmth in my chest at their words, I take a sip of the drink in front of me, only to have it immediately hit my head. I wi the fuzzy, then respond, “If they get mad it’s on you, but, um, I suppose I’ll get to meet them if I stick around? Might be nice…”

  “If you spend long enough around us? Yeah, you will meet a whole gaggle of Samurai.” Shinobu ughs then downs her drink, only for her model to go all pixeted for a sed.

  “Uh…” I tap my fingers oable, then nod. “If you’re fih that? Actually, who are you two, to be reted to so many Samurai?”

  “There is an argument to be made that we were lucky? But most people would argue that we might be the most unlucky person to walk amongst the living,” Shinos, “There is some heavy stuff with corporate experiments and what not, but the gist is that Mom rescued us and our sister then adopted us.”

  I tilt my head. “What’s your mom’s name?”

  “Whie’s?” Shinobu asks with a grin.

  Rolling my eyes, I respond, “The one who saved you?”

  “Again, whie’s?” She asks again, her smile growing even wider.

  I breathe in through my he samurai one, since I’m guessing she is one?”

  “Oh you know.” Shinobu giggles before she states:

  “People call her Maniac.”

  Aliapanacea