The client-side processing unit was an awkward beige metal box, crammed underneath the massive mahogany desk because it was too large to sit on top. Out of one side, a multitude of colored cables jutted, like party streamers celebrating Expensive and Possibly Illegal Hardware Day. A thick optical lead, the induction rig's data line, fed into the back of my computer. A second massive cable plugged into the surge protector with an unwieldy power brick labeled in Japanese and in just enough English to make me worry about “flaming hazard.” Finally, a collection of plastic rainbow-sheathed wires led up from the ugly tan cube to a flexible nylon helmet dotted with electromagnets along its inner wall and an integrated blindfold and earplugs to help block physical input. This last component hung nonchalantly across the back of my captain's chair, waiting for me to wear it.
It had taken me the better part of three hours to get the drivers for the induction rig installed and tested. I'd checked and double-checked the potential throughput of my system's network to make sure I wouldn't have to bypass my security and feed the output line directly into the router just to maintain a connection. I'd validated the integrity of the skullcap itself, reading and inducing a current through every magnet. I'd secured the power lines to ensure the total power drain wasn't going to brown out the building when I ran everything at once. I even ran a successful mock-connection to Tadashiissei's network, aborting the connection right before logging into Irokai. Piecewise and collectively, I'd done everything but actually turn out the lights, put on the helmet, and activate the connection protocols.
During the fourth dry run, I consciously realized that I was stalling. I could only validate things in a vacuum so many times before I started second-guessing myself and introducing errors, but something kept me from actually sitting down in the chair and launching. I'd checked and double-checked everything system-related, so it couldn't be the software. The hardware itself was a black box to me, but all the tests I had done against it suggested that it was what Fuki had promised it to be: a hardware component for reading neural impulses and inducing state changes in the brain through electromagnetic resonance. I was as ready for this as I was ever going to get. Why was I still hesitating?
I bowed my head, letting out the breath I caught myself holding, forcing air in and out of my lungs. I didn't trust Fuki. That was at least part of it. She'd contacted me out of nowhere, citing some vague mutual acquaintances and suggesting that we had a lot in common, but really, I didn't know anything about her. I shook my head. Scratch that, I thought. I knew she either worked for Tadashiissei or knew someone who did; that was the only explanation for the amount of detailed information she'd been able to provide. No casual hacker, no matter how good, could have reverse-engineered so much about the company's codebase in such a short time. Even a team as good as the one she claimed to have couldn't have done this much research this quickly without internal access. That meant she had an angle, a reason for taking down the company from within... or a reason to go looking for people who did and get them to reveal themselves.
In light of that, I couldn't trust the rig either. Sure, it had the Tadashiissei logo on it, and it did look remarkably like what I saw on every visit to the transit facility, back when I could get through the front doors. That didn't mean that it actually was what I requested, or even that it did anything at all. It passed the initial checks, but any clever programmer could set up a dummy device to respond however he or she wanted, to look like a perfectly valid piece of hardware and then do absolutely nothing. Worse, what if she was a company agent, and this was a trap? If the thing could do proper induction, I had no way to control in advance what it would put into my brain, short of tearing the thing open and studying its guts. If I did that, and I was wrong, I had no way to put it back together, and I doubted Fuki would be willing to send me a replacement, assuming of course that it worked.
I ground my teeth in frustration. “You're stalling again,” I said aloud, as though the words, given form, would somehow jar me into action. All it did was up my heart rate, as I realized I was running out of excuses. Either I trusted it, or I didn't. If I trusted it, it either worked or it didn't. If it worked, I wound up in Irokai. If it didn't... my mind conjured a myriad of scenarios, from brainwashing to a silent alarm going off in Tadashiissei's offices to impossibly lethal feedback.
I shook my head again as I stood and walked out of the room, grabbing my cigarettes from the kitchen counter. The equation was even simpler than that, really. Either I trusted Fuki, or I didn't. If I trusted her, and that trust wasn't misplaced, then I got to go back to Irokai with administrative access. If I didn't trust her, or my trust was misguided, then I stayed outside, in the “real” world. Everything followed from that premise, and that was the one part giving me the most trouble. Was she trustworthy, this pseudonymous person from the digital void?
The first draw of smoke hit my lungs in a frantic burst of heat and nicotine, soothing my rattled nerves. I leaned against the balcony, cigarette tucked between two fingers as I stared at the sky, the sodium glare from the streetlights washing out the night sky. Nothing Fuki had said to me yet had turned out to be wrong, but that could all be an act, an attempt to lure me into her web. I had no reason to doubt her, beyond the fact that I couldn't make sense of her actions. Why would someone inside the company work to destroy its greatest asset, unless she were trying to get people to incriminate themselves? She had to have a motive, a reason for her betrayal, but I couldn't figure out what it was. I just had no idea.
I took a second drag, holding it inside until my chest burned, then let it out in a rush of grey smoke. Did John understand why I left him? I wondered, watching the wisps dissipate in the ever-present breeze. For that matter, does Adam understand why John's leaving us both? I shook my head, flicking the half-finished cigarette into the empty space. Some things, I realized, couldn't make sense from the outside. Even if I knew Fuki's reasons for what she was doing—assuming she was really a “she” and not a “they” or something else entirely—I couldn't guarantee that they'd make any kind of sense. Knowing something and understanding it were two very different things, and all this twisting around trying to decipher someone else's inscrutable motives was getting me nowhere.
The leather of the captain's chair was cool against my butt as I dropped, naked, into the seat. I took a few minutes to whip together a timer, a little watcher-script to cut my outside connection in an hour in case anything went wrong with the system. The skullcap was tighter than I remembered, putting a faint pressure all around my head as I tugged it into place and tied the chin-fastener. “Lights, off,” I said, my voice muffled by the earplugs. The light seeping around the edges of the blindfold disappeared, leaving only the faint glow of the monitor. “Timer, execute.” I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and leaned backwards, lifting my feet off the ground as the chair tilted me to near-horizontal.
“Inductor, execute.”
An infrasonic thrum began pulsing through my head, and despite the absence of any light, my vision slowly filled with a field of grey. Faint rainbows rippled in the void, and then suddenly I was falling, but up and down refused to identify themselves. Bars of music resolved out of the background hum, chords coming together into a chorus of electronic pure tones, then diminishing into a digital hiss.
Swirls of color took shape and form, resolving like stereoscopic images into regular, asymmetric patterns. Gravity abruptly asserted itself, and I landed with a heavy thud onto my hinds, then staggered into the dart-tiled door . It gave way as my weight impacted it, and I tumbled out of the arrivals booth onto a concrete walkway. A collection of people stared as I struggled to my feet, and somebody in the crowd said, “Hey, buddy, you okay?”
Someone put a black-furred paw on my shoulder. I followed it back up the brown arm's length to the face of a raccoon, his brows furrowed in concern, an awkward mixture of sympathy and smugness at play in the set of his muzzle. Behind him, a group of his friends stood around twittering and watching their companion with admiration and annoyance. He extended his other paw to me and helped me awkwardly to my feet, offering a fraternal pat on the back. “First time through the transit system? That looked pretty rough.”
I blinked, snapping my head from the raccoon's face back the wall behind me; it was concrete, like the rest of the tram station, but set with a series of multicolored tiles like the floor of Tadashiissei's transit transit station. The patterns extended briefly up onto the walls, and overhead a sign in Japanese and English said Beni Prefecture Transit Point. Welcome Visitors to Irokai!
I grinned an impossible grin, tail wagging madly behind me; even if I could have stopped it, I wouldn't have. I wiped at my face with one paw, before a telltale streak of silver could reveal anything awkward. “Yeah,” I said, clearing my throat with a cough. “That last step's a long one.”
The raccoon grinned, obviously glad of his chance to show off his superior gravity-management experience. “You gonna be okay? You need some help?”
I waved offer the offer, shaking my head. “I'll manage; I'm meeting some friends at a club not far from here.”
“Yeah?” The raccoon's eyes lit up and a knowing smirk crossed his face. “Which one?”
I looked back at my erstwhile-assistant and made a point of visually giving him the once-over. Out of curiosity, I went for a hardline and tried not to look too shocked when I got one, complete with administrator options I wasn't expecting. A quick scan showed that he hadn't loaded a single mod or upgrade. His base model was one of the standard packages, even down to the coloration. His clothes were custom-tailored, but a fast follow-up on the labels showed that they came from a corporate partner, probably part of a package deal. Even his tail moved in recognizable idle-loops; the overall effect was random, but the individual segments of movement were pure Tadashiissei-baseline.
I smirked, giving my own tail an expressive wag. “I don't think you'll like it.”
The raccoon frowned at that and pulled his paw away. “Suit yourself,” he quipped with a shrug, then motioned back to the gaggle behind him. “We're gonna go have some fun now.” Then he was gone, rejoining his group of little friends, which slipped back into the moving throng.
“Yeah, fun,” I said to no-one. Then I was off at a dead run, sprinting past bodies as I exited the station.
The skies over Beni Prefecture perpetually drizzled, a light misting interrupted only by the occasional high wind or heavy storm. Even during the day the sun forever lurked behind the clouds, visible only by the stray streak of light that broke through the cover. Runoff gathered in haphazard puddles on the broad concrete sidewalks, reflecting iridescent rainbows from the street lamps. Away from the main strips lined with boutiques and cafés, the back roads and alleyways twisted and curved back on themselves, giving the whole district a strangely organic feel, as though it had started from some grand plan and then quickly outgrown its design.
The front of the FutureShock looked like most every building in the district: low to the ground, with concrete walls and a corrugated roof, faintly tinted red with rust. Flyers advertising various bands, upgrade shops, and other service-oriented businesses blanketed the steel double-doors marking the entrance. The only sign for the club itself hung in the single window: a constantly-evolving logo filling the glass, beneath which were the words, “Anything is possible.”
No bouncer stood at the doorway; instead, as I approached, the quick double-beep of an incoming message sounded in my ear. I opened the hardline and checked my queue; in it was a request for response from “The Association”:
Dear Prospective Member,
Please be aware that FutureShock and its participants do their utmost to live up to the organization's motto. Inside these sacred walls, anything is indeed possible. This venue is not for the faint of heart or the closed of mind. Anyone wishing to experience everything that Irokai not only can but should offer may enter the club after responding in the affirmative to this message, at which point The Association holds itself blameless for any loss of sanity, dignity, or innocence experienced within. In other words, don't say yes if you don't mean it, and don't try to hold us accountable later if you didn't really mean it.
If you understand everything you've read above and you're still interested, respond in the affirmative and someone inside will acknowledge your acknowledgment as soon as possible. Thanks.
The Association
I'd forgotten about the application, and more importantly I'd forgotten that I wasn't using my old account. I considered searching through the administration console to find my old records, but good sense stopped me for a change. The last thing I wanted right now was to advertise to anyone else in charge that I might still be around, and checking for my old access information would probably trip somebody's flag somewhere. Still, it couldn't hurt to see if my old hangout had changed much in the time since I'd been gone, and this was part of why I wanted to be back in the first place.
It took a few minutes for someone to process my acceptance, while the light rain slowly soaked into my white fur, turning it a slick silvery grey. Then the double doors creaked open, inviting me inside. Synthesizer tones spilled into the streets, while softly strobing lights beckoned from the bottom of an unlit stairwell. I crossed the threshold into the concrete antechamber, and the steel doors closed behind me, shrouding me in shadows. Moments later, a red light came on behind me, illuminating the stairwell, throbbing gently like a mother's heartbeat, coaxing me further inside.
The stairs had no handrail, but each step was more than wide enough to find, even in the reduced light. Gradually, the glow filtering up from the basement replaced the red behind me, as the concrete steps gave way to solid black strips, limned in yellow light. The edges of the stairs themselves lit the way further into the depths, their glow augmented gradually by a pattern of hexagonal panels that matched them, giving the appearance of a neon beehive. I paused and touched the wall, running my pads over the smooth surface; it wasn't glass, or plastic, or for that matter any material at all. It was an artifact of Irokai's nature, a wall defined solely as “wall,” absent any property indicating substance. Light bordered each hexagonal segment, suffusing the hallway with a golden glow.
At the base, the staircase gave way to a broad tiled floor, each step sending up a soft reverberation that no analog material could naturally make. The middle of the room was sunken, dominated in the center by someone's artistic reinterpretation of a tree, circular clear trunk rising from arcs of roots embedded directly in the floor, while angular branches spread out overhead, decorated in fractal holofoil leaves. Translucent “fruit” in an array of Pythagorean solids and the occasional exotic surface hung at intervals, inviting those standing beneath to reach up and pluck them. Benches surrounded the “tree,” free of any visible support yet easily carrying those who sat or sprawled across them. Instead of doors leading to other parts of the club, tinted pools of liquid mercury rippled at intervals around the edges of the room, and a long bar dominated one part of the wall, inverted cones balancing on their points serving as stools. Overhead, the walls rose in finer and finer tessellations, converging at the domed ceiling in a semi-spherical sundisk of impossibly pure yellow that filled the room with its light.
If the room itself defied conventional physics, then its inhabitants defied classification. On one of the benches beneath the tree, a glass statue of a domestic canine leaned against a liquid-metal rabbit, one transparent paw stroking along her silver thigh. At the bar, a holographic mouse drew lines of light through a cluster of violet rosettes floating in snow-leopard-shaped formation. Against one wall, a feline-shaped hazmat suit dripping with machine oil exchanged connector hoses with a blue-furred cat in a silver umbilisuit. As I watched, one of the portals began to ripple, then disgorged a butterfly-woman, her stained-glass wings coruscating rainbows behind her as they vibrated. Behind the counter, a topiary rabbit blooming with berries chatted amiably with a plush coyote, glowing wires stitched into its fur.
I smiled. It felt good to come home.
As soon as I stepped out of the tunnel leading down from the entrance, the rabbit-bush turned and waved. “Welcome to FutureShock!” she called, inviting some of the other inhabitants to turn in my direction.
I waved sheepishly with one paw, ears flat against my head and tail trying to curl between my legs. Of course they won't recognize me, even if they do, I remembered. New account, new identity. In a place in which anyone could be anything, nobody took appearance for granted. I strode over to the bar, making a show of nonchalance. “Hey, Briar,” I called out to the topiary, taking a seat on one of the conical stools. “What's blooming?”
The rabbit-bush's ears flicked upwards in surprise. “Sorry, have we met?” Suspicion tinged her voice.
“It's been a while,” I admitted, scratching at the back of my head with one paw. “It's Jules.”
The plush coyote huffed, its glass-bead eyes half-closed in a suspicious squint. “Nice try, officer.”
I smiled wanly, ears back against my head. “You never change, Sparks.” I motioned them forward and leaned over the bar, whispering, “I hacked my way back in.” I put a finger across my muzzle and grinned.
That got their attention. Both coyote and rabbit leaned in close, ears arching forward to catch every sound. “If you are who you say you are,” the rabbit challenged, her voice reedy and tight, “then prove it.” Then she dumped a mass of encrypted text into my communication queue.
I dragged up my hardline and rummaged through my settings, then pulled up my bank of private keys and started decoding. As the algorithms cranked, I recited. “Why, the fact is, Miss, this here ought to have been a red rose-tree, and we put a white one in by mistake; and if the queen was to find it out, we should all have our heads cut off, you know. So you see, Miss, we're doing our best, afore she comes, to—“
The topiary rabbit held up a paw, ears arching forward and needles bristling in a smile. “Enough, Jules. Welcome back.” Then she gestured towards the staircase. “So how'd you get here?” She waved the fingers of her other paw, and a cluster of bright red berries rose out of her palm, which she proffered. “Last I heard, you'd gotten banished.”
“I was,” I agreed as I took the bunch. They were sweet, mostly raspberry-flavored with a faint metallic aftertaste. “What is this?” I asked after I'd eaten about half of what Briar had given me.
“Something new,” she replied with a shrug. “So how'd you get back in? And what's with the admin flag?”
Sparks nudged the rabbit with one paw and said to her, “I don't like this.”
I finished the cluster of berries and handed back the stems, which vanished into Briar's thickets. “It's a long story, and I don't have a lot of time to explain it, but... yeah, I'm on a hacked account.”
Briar grinned, her brambles rustling amusedly. “Tadashiissei's gonna be choleric if they catch you.”
I smirked at that, but then the bottom fell out of my stomach, forestalling my clever retort. I put a paw over my gut and kneaded at it. The muscles beneath my fingers moved in very un-muscular ways, wiggling loosely, as though not quite attached. “What was in those, anyway?”
“Something new,” Briar repeated with a giggle. “You'll see in a minute.”
It didn't take that long. Despite the slow wave that my vision seemed to be doing despite remaining still against the bar, I could definitely tell that my fur was changing color, shading from white to a deep red. I brought a paw up in front of my face and squinted, watching with detached interest as the hexagonal wall-pattern began to shine through not just my fingers, but my pads as well. I looked down at myself, observing the changes as they spread, my fur losing definition, then vanishing entirely into my new rubbery skin. I couldn't see any bones or organs when I looked at myself, just an expanse of translucent red all the way through. I looked back at my tail and tried to wag it; it felt like I was dragging it through molasses.
Sparks snickered, then leaned forward and gave my arm a lick with a velvet tongue. “Raspberry,” it pronounced with a smirk.
Carefully, I stretched out one leg and rested it on the ground, then the other. Everything felt so heavy all of a sudden. I slid forward, but somehow my legs wouldn't support me, and I slipped bonelessly to the floor, ending up in a heap of tangled limbs. “Hey!” Even my voice was heavy, coming out slowly and ponderously, played back at half-speed. “Warn a guy next time.” I stared up at the sundisk and brought my paws in front of my face, watching the way the colors before my eyes moved as I waggled my fingers.
Briar laughed. “That'd suck all the fun out of it.” She came out from around the bar and sat down beside me, dragging one leafy paw over my chest and neck, making me squirm in slow motion. “Now, tell me, how'd you get back in here?”
“Induction rig,” I responded immediately, though still on a heavy delay. “Hacked connection.”
“Mm-hm,” Briar agreed, “petting” me with her leaves. “So what's with the admin account?”
“Ask Fuki,” I replied, slowly waving my paws in front of my face, then in front of her. The topiary rabbit swam in sticky red when I waved at her.
“Who's Fuki?”
“Don't know,” I admitted with a slow shrug. Choleric. The thought of the word made me laugh.
Briar's ears twitched, and I saw her look up at Sparks, who shrugged in response. “You sure?”
“Yeah, sure.” I nodded, then tried to get a paw under me. I had legs, last I checked. Two of them, in fact, but they didn't really want to talk to each other. I contented myself with playing with the sun while they decided to be nice.
Again they looked at each other in silence, until Sparks said, “Is it really you, Jules?”
I nodded again. “Yeah.” Yellow and red made orange. Orange. “Yeah, that's right.”
The topiary frowned, and then berries were before my lips. “Here.” They were blue, and I snapped at them eagerly with gelatin-teeth. They popped in my mouth, and strands of purple suffused me as the juice spread. “This'll help.”
The weight slowly dissipated as the second batch of berries worked their magic, and I forced myself into sitting upright. “Whoa,” I looked down at myself; the change was still fully in effect, even if the mind-bender wasn't. “Real nice, Briar, Sparks.” I frowned at the two. “Nice way to say hello.”
Sparks threw up its cloth paws in frustration. “How were we to know? Somebody comes in here with an admin flag claiming to be you, and we'd heard you'd gotten zeroed.”
I held out a paw. “Okay, yeah, I understand. Do you believe me now, at least?”
Briar nodded. “Yeah, sorry.” She stood, then helped me back onto my hinds and onto the stool. “So, how're you back? And why?”
I rolled my shoulders and grinned. “A guy gets lonely?”
Sparks chuckled, but Briar scowled in response. “I'm not taking it. There's something going on here.”
I sighed and nodded. “Yeah, there is.”
“So spill.” The topiary folded her arms across her chest.
I looked at her, then at Sparks. “I can't say much. Mostly, I came to warn you. Some really heavy-duty disaster is on its way. Be ready to duck and cover.”
Sparks' ears flattened. “Are they shutting this place down?” It huffed again, paws balled into fists. “We didn't do anything wrong! Well, I mean—”
I held out a paw to forestall the protests. “Not you, not here. Irokai. Does Minshukakumei ring a bell? Democracy Revolution?”
Briar and Sparks exchanged a glance, then looked back at me. “Rumors, mostly,” Sparks admitted. “I've seen a few images of what looked like edits, but I thought they were fake.”
I shook my head. “They're not. Not all of them, anyway.”
The topiary rabbit frowned and leaned forward. “Jules, what's going on?”
I turned to the rabbit and smiled wanly again, showing translucent teeth. I leaned forward to rest my elbows on the bar—
—and pitched out of the captain's chair as the software timer expired, cutting my network connection. My knees hit the floor with a bang, my elbows following a moment later and only barely keeping my face from being next.
Unwelcome darkness and silence assaulted me, and for a moment I flailed in the void, until sense reasserted itself and I clawed at the straps of the skullcap, prying out the earplugs and then yanking the whole thing off of my head. It fell in a heap of nylon and cables beside me as my eyes snapped around the room, the sudden change of sensory inputs making my head reel.
I put a hand to my stomach, trying to still a sudden burst of nausea and to get my breathing back under control. So that explains the transit stations, I thought, in between bouts of disorientation. The world slowly came together, and I poked at my skin, scowling at the pink flesh that had so recently been raspberry gelatin. It felt real enough, even if it didn't match my memories.
I considered logging back into Irokai and trying to explain myself, the timer and everything else, but I decided against it. As much as I wanted to explain, I didn't have much more than I'd already said in the way of facts, and even that much was probably dangerous, for Fuki and for me, and maybe for them, too. They'd know what I meant as soon as it was relevant, and before then it wouldn't make any sense. They weren't stupid, any of them. They'd figure out what they needed to know and what to do about it.
Gingerly, I got my legs back under me, checked that the bones were intact within, and then pushed myself upright. “Successful test,” I said to no-one in particular, and then I dropped back into the captain's chair and pulled it in front of the computer desk, scooting the skullcap out of the way with one foot. “Lights, on.” I grabbed the normal headset next to my keyboard. “Timer, close. Inductor, close. Editor, open. Debugger, open, load file 'voice-over.' Synthesizer, open.”
I had a lot of work to do to cover my advance payment.
Showing posts with label rabbit. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rabbit. Show all posts
2009-07-16
Beautiful World 09: Delinquency
Cold air rushed into the apartment as I opened the sliding glass door leading to the balcony. The clock in the den said six-and-three-quarters local, a half-circle of color running from green to indigo; it was later than I liked to start my mornings, but after the late night, it had felt necessary. Those sections of the sky visible through the towers of Murasaki Prefecture were already a lighter blue, streaked with lines of gold and rose, hinting at the sunrise to come. Overhead, though, stars still filled my view, shimmering against a vast expanse of deepest black.
Nude aside from the sash tied around my waist, I stepped out onto the metal balcony, muzzle turned upwards to face the heavens. As I closed the glass door behind me, sharp winds cut through my fur, but I had long since become numb to the cold. One paw I kept at my waist, steadying the katana in its saya as it bobbed against my hip; the other I curled around the thin railing, bracing myself as I gazed upwards at the sky. Even with the morning fast approaching, I could still make out the constellations overhead. To the east, Seiryū had all but disappeared, only its eye still visible against the coming dawn. Opposite, Byakko shimmered against the darkness, her tail dipping lazily into a rising pond of brilliant blue. Elsewhere, the Tortoise and Phoenix chased each other across the heavens, and Rabbit and Fox danced. Beneath them all, I stood and faced them, entranced.
No matter how long I gazed upwards at the heavens, I never tired of watching the stars dance in the sky, watching them shine and scanning for the occasional comet. I knew, as a matter of fact, that the heavens were artificial. Far from being celestial bodies of burning gas, Irokai's stars were mere polygon clusters, spinning in place overhead and palette-shifting to give the illusion of twinkling in a sky unfettered by air pollution. They gave off no heat, only light. If I wanted, I could download a copy of the night sky and, in much-reduced scale, hang it from my living room ceiling.
Yet, for all that, I never tired of looking up to them. Stretched out against an endless blank slate, they gave Irokai a sense of infinity. The world was not boundless, but a night sky filled with stars fostered a sense that it could be. As far back as I could remember, the stars had transfixed me, and I could spend hours doing no more than lying on my back and watching them, imagining flying among them, reaching out and touching them. Knowing their truth had never diminished their impact. In many ways, it had heightened it.
For several minutes, I stood, watching as the approaching day washed out the stars, until a flood of brilliant light broke through the skyline, outlining Murasaki Prefecture in gold. The last of the stars disappeared behind a wash of sun, and I lowered my gaze from the sky. I had delayed starting the day as long as possible. It was time to begin.
Stepping back from the railing, I drew the scabbard from my sash. Kneeling, I rested it in front of me, then bent reverently over it, my muzzle not quite touching the ground, forehead just barely brushing against the intricately woven sheath. With arms outstretched, I held the pose of a supplicant, focusing on my breath as it entered my nostrils and then escaped between my lips. Prostrate before the sun, I emptied my mind, waiting to see what filled it.
As expected, the vision of the distorted sky was first to mind, and with it a wash of anger. Stepping out of my apartment to be greeted by such a crude scrawl against the heavens was an offense both professional and personal. Until then, I had taken the graffiti in stride, the childish hacks of vandals who sought to destroy something they could never have built. Their acts against the stars themselves had been a blow too far; it was proof that they, whoever they were, would stop at nothing until their aims had been achieved. It also served as the strongest proof yet that my superiors either didn't understand the danger that hackers could pose, or didn't care. It didn't seem to matter how strident my demands, how imploring my requests. Every attempt I made to illustrate the threat to Irokai seemed to fall on deaf ears. My reports went unread. My support requests were closed, unanswered.
Eyes closed, vision turned inward, I studied my response, and my response to my response. It wasn't just anger that motivated me, I realized; it was despair. I no longer believed that there would be an official response to my requests, any more than there would be a public revelation that anything had ever happened. In beautiful Irokai, hackers were an archaism, like paper currency. To admit that someone had, not once but multiple times, broken through the security measures in place and tampered with things publicly considered immutable would have revealed a world unready to be treated as just as real as any other. Even if someone were to answer my cries, it would be in a way that never admitted there had ever been a complaint. I would never know if someone were listening, until one day I found my prayers answered, with no sign that they had ever been made.
The weight of memory hung heavily on my shoulders, but I dragged myself consciously back into the now of meditation. Your breath is real, I reminded myself, ignoring the inherent absurdity of a digital sapience in a simulated world worrying about air. In. Out. In. Out. I focused on the sounds of my breath, on the feelings of the air moving, the rise and fall of my chest. Feel, and accept the feeling, but do not succumb to it. I felt anger, and helplessness; this didn't mean I needed to be angry or helpless. The question was, what was there to do about my emotion? How could I resolve this tension?
I considered, briefly, quitting my job with security. I had, in the past, manually reverted changes that I had found, and once I had requested and received a restoration from backup files, but I the problems were beginning to arise faster than I could resolve them alone. Others within the department had helped me, and even my manager had thanked me for my efforts. It seemed, though, that outside of a limited few brave souls, most of Irokai's management had traded honesty and diligence for appearances. I could foresee a day, not too far into the future, when I simply could not keep pace with those trying to break Irokai from within. What would I do then? It would be better to leave a final warning and simply walk away from it all while I still had some dignity, to give up on trying before burning out and coming to hate something that I enjoyed. The world would disintegrate around me, but I, at least, would not go with it.
And yet, were I to quit, what would I do instead? Where would I go? There was no “outside” for me, not in the way there was for the analogs who worked for Tadashiissei. Irokai was my only home, and I was as intimately tied to its existence as the world was to its hardware. The hackers were not just an artistic annoyance; they were a threat to my home. If the hackers were to get out of control, or worse, to gain control of Irokai, its creators might decide to simply end their grand experiment. What, then, would happen to those of us who lived within it? If Irokai were to disappear, I would surely go with it. The thought of death was alien to me, as it was to any resident of this world, but contemplating the end of Irokai itself was one that filled me with dread. There would be no waking up from that final shutdown.
I opened my eyes and leaned back, resting my paws on my hips, considering the sword that lay before me. If I was displeased with my decision, it was because the other options available to me were worse. No matter how pointless it seemed, the best option I could find was to keep my position with Irokai Security. At the very least, I could continue documenting every breach in hopes of forcing some form of response. I might never get a formal acknowledgment, but at least the problems would be fixed. Plus, as long as I held a security clearance within the company, I could continue to revert most of the changes myself. For those too invasive to manage alone, I could enlist others to help, people outside of Security, or even outside of Tadashiissei itself. I smiled tightly, remembering my conversation with the Hospitality specialist from the other night. Laid out in such bare terms, Mitsuko had been disturbed, to say the least, by the prospect of going behind her employers' backs, but even she had seen the necessity of action if Tadashiissei refused to do so. If she could convince her lover to help, so much the better.
I reclaimed the sword from the ground, bowed over it, then held it briefly upright, balanced on the tip of the scabbard, before sliding it back into the sash at my waist. My knees slightly spread, I waited until I felt still, then placed one paw on the hilt of the sword, drawing it and rising onto one hind as I slashed forward, the opening stroke of the Mae kata. In time with the blade, I launched the security interface and pulled up the administration panel. The tip of the sword wobbled slightly, my concentration split between the physical and practical. Turning to the blade to the side, I raised it overhead and gripped the hilt in both hands, sliding forward on one knee to draw the blade down in a vertical slice, accompanied by opening the local lockout menu. The blade wandered wide as I scanned through database references, then snapped down in a decisive stroke as I rose to both hinds and flagged an account. Then, finally, I closed the menu and completed the noto, returning the sword to its scabbard, sinking slowly back to the opposite knee.
Through each of the forms I progressed, the Ushiro and Ukenagashi, and on through to the Nukiuchi. Each draw matched an opening of the interface, each stroke a command, and each return exited the terminal. I ran through the stances twice, once for thoroughness and once for speed. Then, practice done for the day, I bowed over the sword, then released it back into my personal archive. By the time I had finished, the sunrise had long finished, and the clock in the den hovered at a few degrees shy of eight. I scowled at the time, tail and ears flat in irritation, but I hastily dressed and then left, making my way down to the lobby and the streets of Murasaki Prefecture.
The glowing sign over the front door said “Sunny You,” complete with stylized smiling yellow face. A sign hung on the door advertised expanded personal storage on sale, while a holograph turned beside the entrance, displaying a myriad of available bodies, all tastefully covered in a modicum of white clothing. The sense of need faded as I approached the shop, but I paused with one paw on the handle, watching the display. Someone had apparently decided that “bear” was this season's in-look; fully half of the figures that passed were ursine, in various colors and proportions.. After a minute, I turned away from the shifting images towards the door, noting with a flash of ambivalence the Tadashiissei “Sponsored Partner” image hovering next to the credit card logos.
Inside, the atmosphere was decidedly cool. The most incongruously unhappy element within the room was a female rabbit wearing a black shirt with an animated silver-and-blue logo advertising something called FutureShock and a skirt with some kind of pseudo-randomized texture running through the range of violets. The bright red security-rings around her ankles and wrists prevented her from leaving the store, but beside her stood a teenaged fox in a yellow employee's polo and black slacks, staring at her as though to lock her in place through the force of his gaze alone. He held his arms folded defensively across his chest, leaning forward domineeringly, his tail curled tightly against his back. A few other patrons looked on with a mixture of interest and contempt, while an older female bear wearing similar corporate apparel, stood behind the counter, watching distastefully.
As soon as they realized I was there, both the rabbit and fox started to speak, their voices canceling each other out in a blur of noise. Ignoring them and holding out a paw, pads facing them for silence, I walked up to the cashier's station and drew my security credentials out of the interior pocket of my coat. “My name is Giri. You called for security, akibito-sama?”
The bear nodded, clacking the claws of one paw against the yellow countertop. She pointed with the other towards the rabbit in the middle of the store. “She tried to make off with one of our specialty mods without paying.”
"I did not!" The outburst from the rabbit was automatic, her voice at once petulant and pleading. "I—"
The younger fox immediately snapped, "You did! I saw you! I caught you myself! I—"
“Oh, for heaven's sake!” The rabbit put her paws on her hips, the silver rings in her ears jangling angrily as they shook. “I did nothing of the sort!”
The two fell instantly into bickering, their volume quickly rising as each tried to shout down the other. I sighed, shook my head, and opened up my security terminal, putting into place a local mute on the two of them. Instantly, their voices stopped cold, but it took several seconds for them to realize what had happened. They both glared at each other, then at me, as though trying to convince me that the other was at fault.
Turning away from the bickering couple, I looked back to the manager, pulling up her name out of the user database. “So... Eliott-sama, please explain.”
The manager blinked, standing a bit straighter when I referred to her by name; apparently she had never had to deal with Irokai Security before. She motioned towards a display on the wall near the cashier's station. Within a clear case, the figure of a bear-sow slowly spun, motes of light sparkling through her fur irregularly. Beneath the case, a sign in Japanese and English announced the Firefly package, available on sale now for forty-percent off with any other avatar upgrade. “I was up at the front of the store helping some other customers, but Aaron saw her standing there staring at the display. I heard him ask her if she needed any help, and she asked him how much the new Firefly mod cost by itself. When he told her, she started screaming about usury and monopolies. That's when I excused myself and approached. I tried to get her to calm down, but she refused to listen to me either, and then Aaron said she started to make an unauthorized copy! That's when I hit the security lockdown.”
Throughout the manager's speech, the rabbit started gesturing more wildly, while the other store associate tried to grab her arms and pin them down. The confrontation appeared to be headed to blows, so I put a movement lockout on them both and then relocated the rabbit next to me. She jerked around in surprise, almost falling when her feet refused to leave the ground despite her vigorous response. I removed the vocal lock from her and frowned. “So, usagi-san, is this correct?”
The rabbit snorted, paws again on her hips. “Hardly.” She turned first towards the fox, then the manager. “I was trying to figure out if they used a pseudo-randomizer or if they had a real analog random function on the lights, and he told me to stop trying to hack their code. I could've bought two custom bodies for what they wanted for one little mod, so I whipped out a decompiler—which, by the way, is neither illegal nor against the service agreement—to see for myself. The kid freaked out and screamed thief, and she hit the panic button.”
The bear's silver-tipped brown fur bristled, her eyes narrowing. “You can't just go around trying to steal source code! That's illegal!”
“Terms of Service, Customized Avatars, section fourteen.” The accused let out an exaggerated sigh. “I have the right to ensure before purchase that any mod I buy is compatible with other code I already have installed. I've got some heavy mods that I paid a lot of money for and I'm not going to plunk down that much credit for something that's going to clobber something else I already own. Legally.”
The manger sniffed. “I don't see a single mod on you.”
At that, the rabbit smiled tightly, and the logo on her shirt froze into the image of a single world emblazoned on her chest in metallic silver. “Yeah, well, I wouldn't wear most of them in a place like this.”
At that, I held up my paws, forestalling them both from continuing. “I believe I understand what has happened here,” I said quietly. “I will take custody of her, akibito-sama.”
As the manager smiled her approval, the rabbit's eyes went wide and jumped from me to her and back. “You gotta be kidding me! I've done nothing wrong!”
In the security menu, I switched the target of the rabbit's location lock from the interior of Sunny You to a five-meter radius centered on me. “Are you disobeying a direct order from Irokai Security?”
The rabbit's ears shook, her rings chiming angrily, but she looked down at the ground. “No.”
I nodded, mostly to myself. “Good.” To the manager, I bowed deeply. “Thank you for alerting Irokai Security to this matter, Eliott-sama. I will ensure this is handled appropriately.” As soon as she bowed in return, I turned and walked out of the store, the rabbit dragging behind me on an invisible leash. I ignored the sales associate when he stuck his tongue out at my charge, but only as the door closed behind me did I relinquish his voice to him.
I made a point of ignoring the passers-by as I walked. I could see at the edges of my sight how they stopped to stare at the “criminal” in her awkwardly blocky red cuffs and anklets, but I did nothing to acknowledge them, other than to motion for the occasional pedestrian to step out of my way. To her credit, my charge did nothing to engage them, neither challenging nor pleading. She merely followed in silence as I led her to a nearby office building, up an awkward elevator ride and then three sullen flights of stairs, until we stood on the roof, alone in crowded Murasaki Prefecture.
When I did finally stop, the rabbit stumbled into me and then jerked backwards. “Sorry,” she mumbled automatically, her eyes not meeting mine.
I didn't move from my spot for several seconds; I merely stood and looked over the edge of the building, down to the streets below.
“I said I'm sorry,” the rabbit repeated, her voice louder but still nervous.
“What is your name, usagi-san?” I asked, not looking at her. Far below, people moved, like little blobs of color twinkling against black asphalt.
The rabbit hesitated before blurting, “Briar.” It was a challenge as much as a declaration.
I opened my terminal access and performed a quick scan. “Your account says otherwise, Summerfield-san.”
The rabbit snorted again. “Oh, yeah, clever,” she sneered, reflexively. “You can look stuff up in a database. If you don't like my nickname, at least call me Caitlyn.”
I turned away from the streets, back to face her, a frown on my muzzle and my ears flat. “I work in security; giving me an alias, even a common one, was not your wisest decision.”
Briar rolled her eyes. “I told you what I wanted to be called. You gonna give me guff about it?”
I looked away, towards the skyline, watching the morning sunlight reflecting off of the buildings. “No.”
We both stood in silence, until finally she said, irritably, “Look, what's going on? Am I getting banned or not?”
I shook my head, still not facing her. “No,” I said again.
The rabbit let out another heavy sigh and gestured to one wrist with the opposite paw. “Why all the theater, then? Why didn't you just tell them to buzz off?”
“I had my reasons, Briar-san.” I looked back at her. “Sunny You has a partnership with Tadashiissei. I could not simply do nothing.”
“Politics.” Briar spat the word.
I merely nodded in response, taking a seat against the railing at the edge of the building. “Would you have stolen the upgrade, had they not caught you?”
Briar's face registered an instant of guilt before returning to her defiant glare from before. “You can't steal code. Code's just an idea given a form. I was trying to figure out how they did it so I could do it myself for cheap.” She paused briefly, then continued. “Everything they sell is overpriced, anyway, and their code's always a mess. I know folks who could do the same thing in half the space.”
“I see,” I said, more to her expression than her words.
“I didn't do anything wrong,” she snapped. “You said as much.” She drew away, then, looking down at the roof, as though suddenly remembering to whom she was speaking.
“I did,” I agreed quietly. Before I could say anything else, though, a buzzer rang twice quickly, indicating a work call. I held out a paw to Briar, then tilted my head, checking my communication requests. It was from Mori Koneko, one of my analog coworkers. I accepted the contact. Hai?
Giri? It's Koneko, she transmitted unnecessarily. I think we've had another incident like you described. This one's ... it's big. You'd better come see for yourself. Following her words was a relocation invitation.
I sighed. One moment; I have another job to complete. I closed the connection, then looked back at Briar. “I will let this one go as a misunderstanding. I suggest you stay away from Sunny You for some time.” I dismissed the location lock, and the angry red circles around her limbs disappeared.
Briar blinked and rubbed at her bare wrists. “Wow. You had me worried for a while there. I thought I was busted again for sure.”
At that, I raised one brow. “Again?” I performed a quick scan of her visitor history but found nothing in her record. “Your file appears clean.”
The rabbit's eyes widened briefly, but then she shrugged. “It's... must've been a while. Maybe these things fade over time.”
I waved off the excuse, standing up from the ledge. “I have more pressing concerns than someone trying to save a little money.”
“You know, I like your attitude, I think.” Briar sent me a contact information memo, which I filed automatically. “Next time I get in trouble, I'll call you.”
I sighed and shook my head, then accepted Koneko's invitation to go survey the latest assault on my home, leaving Briar alone on the rooftop to contemplate the sun.
Nude aside from the sash tied around my waist, I stepped out onto the metal balcony, muzzle turned upwards to face the heavens. As I closed the glass door behind me, sharp winds cut through my fur, but I had long since become numb to the cold. One paw I kept at my waist, steadying the katana in its saya as it bobbed against my hip; the other I curled around the thin railing, bracing myself as I gazed upwards at the sky. Even with the morning fast approaching, I could still make out the constellations overhead. To the east, Seiryū had all but disappeared, only its eye still visible against the coming dawn. Opposite, Byakko shimmered against the darkness, her tail dipping lazily into a rising pond of brilliant blue. Elsewhere, the Tortoise and Phoenix chased each other across the heavens, and Rabbit and Fox danced. Beneath them all, I stood and faced them, entranced.
No matter how long I gazed upwards at the heavens, I never tired of watching the stars dance in the sky, watching them shine and scanning for the occasional comet. I knew, as a matter of fact, that the heavens were artificial. Far from being celestial bodies of burning gas, Irokai's stars were mere polygon clusters, spinning in place overhead and palette-shifting to give the illusion of twinkling in a sky unfettered by air pollution. They gave off no heat, only light. If I wanted, I could download a copy of the night sky and, in much-reduced scale, hang it from my living room ceiling.
Yet, for all that, I never tired of looking up to them. Stretched out against an endless blank slate, they gave Irokai a sense of infinity. The world was not boundless, but a night sky filled with stars fostered a sense that it could be. As far back as I could remember, the stars had transfixed me, and I could spend hours doing no more than lying on my back and watching them, imagining flying among them, reaching out and touching them. Knowing their truth had never diminished their impact. In many ways, it had heightened it.
For several minutes, I stood, watching as the approaching day washed out the stars, until a flood of brilliant light broke through the skyline, outlining Murasaki Prefecture in gold. The last of the stars disappeared behind a wash of sun, and I lowered my gaze from the sky. I had delayed starting the day as long as possible. It was time to begin.
Stepping back from the railing, I drew the scabbard from my sash. Kneeling, I rested it in front of me, then bent reverently over it, my muzzle not quite touching the ground, forehead just barely brushing against the intricately woven sheath. With arms outstretched, I held the pose of a supplicant, focusing on my breath as it entered my nostrils and then escaped between my lips. Prostrate before the sun, I emptied my mind, waiting to see what filled it.
As expected, the vision of the distorted sky was first to mind, and with it a wash of anger. Stepping out of my apartment to be greeted by such a crude scrawl against the heavens was an offense both professional and personal. Until then, I had taken the graffiti in stride, the childish hacks of vandals who sought to destroy something they could never have built. Their acts against the stars themselves had been a blow too far; it was proof that they, whoever they were, would stop at nothing until their aims had been achieved. It also served as the strongest proof yet that my superiors either didn't understand the danger that hackers could pose, or didn't care. It didn't seem to matter how strident my demands, how imploring my requests. Every attempt I made to illustrate the threat to Irokai seemed to fall on deaf ears. My reports went unread. My support requests were closed, unanswered.
Eyes closed, vision turned inward, I studied my response, and my response to my response. It wasn't just anger that motivated me, I realized; it was despair. I no longer believed that there would be an official response to my requests, any more than there would be a public revelation that anything had ever happened. In beautiful Irokai, hackers were an archaism, like paper currency. To admit that someone had, not once but multiple times, broken through the security measures in place and tampered with things publicly considered immutable would have revealed a world unready to be treated as just as real as any other. Even if someone were to answer my cries, it would be in a way that never admitted there had ever been a complaint. I would never know if someone were listening, until one day I found my prayers answered, with no sign that they had ever been made.
The weight of memory hung heavily on my shoulders, but I dragged myself consciously back into the now of meditation. Your breath is real, I reminded myself, ignoring the inherent absurdity of a digital sapience in a simulated world worrying about air. In. Out. In. Out. I focused on the sounds of my breath, on the feelings of the air moving, the rise and fall of my chest. Feel, and accept the feeling, but do not succumb to it. I felt anger, and helplessness; this didn't mean I needed to be angry or helpless. The question was, what was there to do about my emotion? How could I resolve this tension?
I considered, briefly, quitting my job with security. I had, in the past, manually reverted changes that I had found, and once I had requested and received a restoration from backup files, but I the problems were beginning to arise faster than I could resolve them alone. Others within the department had helped me, and even my manager had thanked me for my efforts. It seemed, though, that outside of a limited few brave souls, most of Irokai's management had traded honesty and diligence for appearances. I could foresee a day, not too far into the future, when I simply could not keep pace with those trying to break Irokai from within. What would I do then? It would be better to leave a final warning and simply walk away from it all while I still had some dignity, to give up on trying before burning out and coming to hate something that I enjoyed. The world would disintegrate around me, but I, at least, would not go with it.
And yet, were I to quit, what would I do instead? Where would I go? There was no “outside” for me, not in the way there was for the analogs who worked for Tadashiissei. Irokai was my only home, and I was as intimately tied to its existence as the world was to its hardware. The hackers were not just an artistic annoyance; they were a threat to my home. If the hackers were to get out of control, or worse, to gain control of Irokai, its creators might decide to simply end their grand experiment. What, then, would happen to those of us who lived within it? If Irokai were to disappear, I would surely go with it. The thought of death was alien to me, as it was to any resident of this world, but contemplating the end of Irokai itself was one that filled me with dread. There would be no waking up from that final shutdown.
I opened my eyes and leaned back, resting my paws on my hips, considering the sword that lay before me. If I was displeased with my decision, it was because the other options available to me were worse. No matter how pointless it seemed, the best option I could find was to keep my position with Irokai Security. At the very least, I could continue documenting every breach in hopes of forcing some form of response. I might never get a formal acknowledgment, but at least the problems would be fixed. Plus, as long as I held a security clearance within the company, I could continue to revert most of the changes myself. For those too invasive to manage alone, I could enlist others to help, people outside of Security, or even outside of Tadashiissei itself. I smiled tightly, remembering my conversation with the Hospitality specialist from the other night. Laid out in such bare terms, Mitsuko had been disturbed, to say the least, by the prospect of going behind her employers' backs, but even she had seen the necessity of action if Tadashiissei refused to do so. If she could convince her lover to help, so much the better.
I reclaimed the sword from the ground, bowed over it, then held it briefly upright, balanced on the tip of the scabbard, before sliding it back into the sash at my waist. My knees slightly spread, I waited until I felt still, then placed one paw on the hilt of the sword, drawing it and rising onto one hind as I slashed forward, the opening stroke of the Mae kata. In time with the blade, I launched the security interface and pulled up the administration panel. The tip of the sword wobbled slightly, my concentration split between the physical and practical. Turning to the blade to the side, I raised it overhead and gripped the hilt in both hands, sliding forward on one knee to draw the blade down in a vertical slice, accompanied by opening the local lockout menu. The blade wandered wide as I scanned through database references, then snapped down in a decisive stroke as I rose to both hinds and flagged an account. Then, finally, I closed the menu and completed the noto, returning the sword to its scabbard, sinking slowly back to the opposite knee.
Through each of the forms I progressed, the Ushiro and Ukenagashi, and on through to the Nukiuchi. Each draw matched an opening of the interface, each stroke a command, and each return exited the terminal. I ran through the stances twice, once for thoroughness and once for speed. Then, practice done for the day, I bowed over the sword, then released it back into my personal archive. By the time I had finished, the sunrise had long finished, and the clock in the den hovered at a few degrees shy of eight. I scowled at the time, tail and ears flat in irritation, but I hastily dressed and then left, making my way down to the lobby and the streets of Murasaki Prefecture.
The glowing sign over the front door said “Sunny You,” complete with stylized smiling yellow face. A sign hung on the door advertised expanded personal storage on sale, while a holograph turned beside the entrance, displaying a myriad of available bodies, all tastefully covered in a modicum of white clothing. The sense of need faded as I approached the shop, but I paused with one paw on the handle, watching the display. Someone had apparently decided that “bear” was this season's in-look; fully half of the figures that passed were ursine, in various colors and proportions.. After a minute, I turned away from the shifting images towards the door, noting with a flash of ambivalence the Tadashiissei “Sponsored Partner” image hovering next to the credit card logos.
Inside, the atmosphere was decidedly cool. The most incongruously unhappy element within the room was a female rabbit wearing a black shirt with an animated silver-and-blue logo advertising something called FutureShock and a skirt with some kind of pseudo-randomized texture running through the range of violets. The bright red security-rings around her ankles and wrists prevented her from leaving the store, but beside her stood a teenaged fox in a yellow employee's polo and black slacks, staring at her as though to lock her in place through the force of his gaze alone. He held his arms folded defensively across his chest, leaning forward domineeringly, his tail curled tightly against his back. A few other patrons looked on with a mixture of interest and contempt, while an older female bear wearing similar corporate apparel, stood behind the counter, watching distastefully.
As soon as they realized I was there, both the rabbit and fox started to speak, their voices canceling each other out in a blur of noise. Ignoring them and holding out a paw, pads facing them for silence, I walked up to the cashier's station and drew my security credentials out of the interior pocket of my coat. “My name is Giri. You called for security, akibito-sama?”
The bear nodded, clacking the claws of one paw against the yellow countertop. She pointed with the other towards the rabbit in the middle of the store. “She tried to make off with one of our specialty mods without paying.”
"I did not!" The outburst from the rabbit was automatic, her voice at once petulant and pleading. "I—"
The younger fox immediately snapped, "You did! I saw you! I caught you myself! I—"
“Oh, for heaven's sake!” The rabbit put her paws on her hips, the silver rings in her ears jangling angrily as they shook. “I did nothing of the sort!”
The two fell instantly into bickering, their volume quickly rising as each tried to shout down the other. I sighed, shook my head, and opened up my security terminal, putting into place a local mute on the two of them. Instantly, their voices stopped cold, but it took several seconds for them to realize what had happened. They both glared at each other, then at me, as though trying to convince me that the other was at fault.
Turning away from the bickering couple, I looked back to the manager, pulling up her name out of the user database. “So... Eliott-sama, please explain.”
The manager blinked, standing a bit straighter when I referred to her by name; apparently she had never had to deal with Irokai Security before. She motioned towards a display on the wall near the cashier's station. Within a clear case, the figure of a bear-sow slowly spun, motes of light sparkling through her fur irregularly. Beneath the case, a sign in Japanese and English announced the Firefly package, available on sale now for forty-percent off with any other avatar upgrade. “I was up at the front of the store helping some other customers, but Aaron saw her standing there staring at the display. I heard him ask her if she needed any help, and she asked him how much the new Firefly mod cost by itself. When he told her, she started screaming about usury and monopolies. That's when I excused myself and approached. I tried to get her to calm down, but she refused to listen to me either, and then Aaron said she started to make an unauthorized copy! That's when I hit the security lockdown.”
Throughout the manager's speech, the rabbit started gesturing more wildly, while the other store associate tried to grab her arms and pin them down. The confrontation appeared to be headed to blows, so I put a movement lockout on them both and then relocated the rabbit next to me. She jerked around in surprise, almost falling when her feet refused to leave the ground despite her vigorous response. I removed the vocal lock from her and frowned. “So, usagi-san, is this correct?”
The rabbit snorted, paws again on her hips. “Hardly.” She turned first towards the fox, then the manager. “I was trying to figure out if they used a pseudo-randomizer or if they had a real analog random function on the lights, and he told me to stop trying to hack their code. I could've bought two custom bodies for what they wanted for one little mod, so I whipped out a decompiler—which, by the way, is neither illegal nor against the service agreement—to see for myself. The kid freaked out and screamed thief, and she hit the panic button.”
The bear's silver-tipped brown fur bristled, her eyes narrowing. “You can't just go around trying to steal source code! That's illegal!”
“Terms of Service, Customized Avatars, section fourteen.” The accused let out an exaggerated sigh. “I have the right to ensure before purchase that any mod I buy is compatible with other code I already have installed. I've got some heavy mods that I paid a lot of money for and I'm not going to plunk down that much credit for something that's going to clobber something else I already own. Legally.”
The manger sniffed. “I don't see a single mod on you.”
At that, the rabbit smiled tightly, and the logo on her shirt froze into the image of a single world emblazoned on her chest in metallic silver. “Yeah, well, I wouldn't wear most of them in a place like this.”
At that, I held up my paws, forestalling them both from continuing. “I believe I understand what has happened here,” I said quietly. “I will take custody of her, akibito-sama.”
As the manager smiled her approval, the rabbit's eyes went wide and jumped from me to her and back. “You gotta be kidding me! I've done nothing wrong!”
In the security menu, I switched the target of the rabbit's location lock from the interior of Sunny You to a five-meter radius centered on me. “Are you disobeying a direct order from Irokai Security?”
The rabbit's ears shook, her rings chiming angrily, but she looked down at the ground. “No.”
I nodded, mostly to myself. “Good.” To the manager, I bowed deeply. “Thank you for alerting Irokai Security to this matter, Eliott-sama. I will ensure this is handled appropriately.” As soon as she bowed in return, I turned and walked out of the store, the rabbit dragging behind me on an invisible leash. I ignored the sales associate when he stuck his tongue out at my charge, but only as the door closed behind me did I relinquish his voice to him.
I made a point of ignoring the passers-by as I walked. I could see at the edges of my sight how they stopped to stare at the “criminal” in her awkwardly blocky red cuffs and anklets, but I did nothing to acknowledge them, other than to motion for the occasional pedestrian to step out of my way. To her credit, my charge did nothing to engage them, neither challenging nor pleading. She merely followed in silence as I led her to a nearby office building, up an awkward elevator ride and then three sullen flights of stairs, until we stood on the roof, alone in crowded Murasaki Prefecture.
When I did finally stop, the rabbit stumbled into me and then jerked backwards. “Sorry,” she mumbled automatically, her eyes not meeting mine.
I didn't move from my spot for several seconds; I merely stood and looked over the edge of the building, down to the streets below.
“I said I'm sorry,” the rabbit repeated, her voice louder but still nervous.
“What is your name, usagi-san?” I asked, not looking at her. Far below, people moved, like little blobs of color twinkling against black asphalt.
The rabbit hesitated before blurting, “Briar.” It was a challenge as much as a declaration.
I opened my terminal access and performed a quick scan. “Your account says otherwise, Summerfield-san.”
The rabbit snorted again. “Oh, yeah, clever,” she sneered, reflexively. “You can look stuff up in a database. If you don't like my nickname, at least call me Caitlyn.”
I turned away from the streets, back to face her, a frown on my muzzle and my ears flat. “I work in security; giving me an alias, even a common one, was not your wisest decision.”
Briar rolled her eyes. “I told you what I wanted to be called. You gonna give me guff about it?”
I looked away, towards the skyline, watching the morning sunlight reflecting off of the buildings. “No.”
We both stood in silence, until finally she said, irritably, “Look, what's going on? Am I getting banned or not?”
I shook my head, still not facing her. “No,” I said again.
The rabbit let out another heavy sigh and gestured to one wrist with the opposite paw. “Why all the theater, then? Why didn't you just tell them to buzz off?”
“I had my reasons, Briar-san.” I looked back at her. “Sunny You has a partnership with Tadashiissei. I could not simply do nothing.”
“Politics.” Briar spat the word.
I merely nodded in response, taking a seat against the railing at the edge of the building. “Would you have stolen the upgrade, had they not caught you?”
Briar's face registered an instant of guilt before returning to her defiant glare from before. “You can't steal code. Code's just an idea given a form. I was trying to figure out how they did it so I could do it myself for cheap.” She paused briefly, then continued. “Everything they sell is overpriced, anyway, and their code's always a mess. I know folks who could do the same thing in half the space.”
“I see,” I said, more to her expression than her words.
“I didn't do anything wrong,” she snapped. “You said as much.” She drew away, then, looking down at the roof, as though suddenly remembering to whom she was speaking.
“I did,” I agreed quietly. Before I could say anything else, though, a buzzer rang twice quickly, indicating a work call. I held out a paw to Briar, then tilted my head, checking my communication requests. It was from Mori Koneko, one of my analog coworkers. I accepted the contact. Hai?
Giri? It's Koneko, she transmitted unnecessarily. I think we've had another incident like you described. This one's ... it's big. You'd better come see for yourself. Following her words was a relocation invitation.
I sighed. One moment; I have another job to complete. I closed the connection, then looked back at Briar. “I will let this one go as a misunderstanding. I suggest you stay away from Sunny You for some time.” I dismissed the location lock, and the angry red circles around her limbs disappeared.
Briar blinked and rubbed at her bare wrists. “Wow. You had me worried for a while there. I thought I was busted again for sure.”
At that, I raised one brow. “Again?” I performed a quick scan of her visitor history but found nothing in her record. “Your file appears clean.”
The rabbit's eyes widened briefly, but then she shrugged. “It's... must've been a while. Maybe these things fade over time.”
I waved off the excuse, standing up from the ledge. “I have more pressing concerns than someone trying to save a little money.”
“You know, I like your attitude, I think.” Briar sent me a contact information memo, which I filed automatically. “Next time I get in trouble, I'll call you.”
I sighed and shook my head, then accepted Koneko's invitation to go survey the latest assault on my home, leaving Briar alone on the rooftop to contemplate the sun.
2008-10-06
Bonds of Silver, Bonds of Gold 01: Sale
The sign that hung over the large wooden door needed no explanation: five oversized golden chain links entwined in a loop. The face of the squat, stone structure was empty besides, absent even a window to let in the sun. Everyone else walking past gave the entrance a wide berth, as though standing too close invited the attention of the occupants. A few passers-by stopped to stare at me as I paced in front of the building, then hurried on their way, averting their gaze. Not my concern, their actions said. Nothing I can do.
Turning my back on the city square, I tensed my paws into fists, then raised one arm and knocked, rapping my white knuckles against the wood. As soon as I did so, it swung open to reveal a grey-furred wolf standing within. Aside from a collar made of polished steel chain locked around his neck, he was nude. Despite his exposure, he stood tall, his ears erect and unashamed. A metal tag dangled beside the lock at the hollow of this throat, glinting in the sunlight. He rested one paw on the edge of the door, then cocked his head at me, his silver eyes boring into mine in an unasked question.
My eyes darted to the paw holding the door open; he'd been declawed, his fingers ending only in soft fur. My attention snapped back to his face, I opened my muzzle to speak, but my throat had suddenly run dry. "I... I need... I mean...." I stammered, one paw rising shakily to gesture overhead, towards the sign, hoping to explain without saying a word.
"Milos, down," called a thin but stern voice from behind the wolf. "Take the boy's cloak."
The wolf's reaction to his name was instantaneous. He dropped to his knees, his head bowed and his tail tucked. The door, now free of his grasp, begun to swing closed of its own accord, until I propped it open with one hind. Milos raised his arms to me, and I awkwardly slipped the rough-spun woolen cloak from my shoulders and into his paws. As soon as he had it, he shuffled to the side, out of the doorway, never rising from his awkward crouch as he approached the wooden coat rack beside the door. He stood just long enough to hang my cloak, then returned to his previous posture, resting his paws on the floor beside him.
I stared for several seconds, watching the whole proceeding, until the voice that had spoken before cut through the jumble of my thoughts. "So, come to observe my pet, or was there something else?"
I tore my eyes away from the wolf, towards the speaker. Behind the desk that dominated the room sat a tall , middle-aged raccoon. Her eyes were yellow-flecked violet, shining like chips of amethyst shot with gold. She kept her teeth hidden behind a thin smile, and her black-furred ears stood relaxed and erect, but there was no masking the feral glint in her gaze. She wore a loose cotton robe dyed in a range of greens, cinched at her waist by a broad, brass chain-link belt. Her wrists, her ankles, and the end of her tail were similarly adorned, the metal gleaming against her dark fur.
She beckoned me within, and I hesitantly crossed the threshold into the front office. Witchlights illuminated the interior, soft yellow lights that floated around the edges of room. Woven tapestries hung on the walls and insulated the stone floor. A pair of solid wooden chairs sat to one side of the desk, the raccoon's lavishly stuffed seat on the other. The coat rack holding my cloak hovered near the door leading back to the city square and safety. Behind the desk, a second door, this one sealed with a heavy bolt and a lock, led further into the depths of the Slavers' Guild.
The door swung closed behind me as I released it, and I stiffened as it closed. The raccoon's smile tightened, her ears flicking back against her head briefly. "Come to see the wares?" she asked, stepping out from behind her desk. She clicked her claws twice, and Milos hurried over to her side, kneeling again behind her. She reached down and lightly combed her fingers through the wolf's fur. "Looking for a servant, perhaps?"
I shook my head rapidly, my ears flat back against my skull. My cheeks felt hot, but my fingers were numb. "No, that's not it, I—"
The raccoon tilted her head to the side. "Oh, I see." She nodded knowingly. "Looking to become a man, are you? Young strapping buck like you? We can rent for an hour or a night, if you like." She cupped her paw beneath Milos' muzzle and stroked the fur of his throat, eliciting a pleasant growl out of the wolf. He shifted in place, spreading his legs, revealing his plumping sheath. "This one's personal, but I'm sure we could find—"
"No!" I blurted quickly, tensing. "Not to buy, not to rent. To—" I cut myself off quickly, tearing my gaze away. My breath came in short bursts, and I forced myself to take a deep breath, then let it out in a noisy rush. "To sell," I finally mumbled, unable to pick my eyes up off of the floor.
"Oh?" The slaver dragged out the syllable. "And just... what... would you be selling?"
I turned towards the door leading outside. It might have only been a few paces behind me, but it was an uncrossable gulf away. I struggled for the words to explain and found only fear, pride, shame. I tried to put these into words, but none would come forth. My heart pounded in my chest, and I looked up, shivering, into the raccoon's hungry violet eyes.
She licked her lips, a reflexive flick of her tongue as her eyes bored into mine. "Oh, my," she murmured. The thick rug absorbed her hindfalls as she glided across the floor, and then suddenly she was beside me. I caught the faint scent of hazel from her fur as she loomed over me. "And just why would a young thing like you be on the market?"
I shrugged and pulled away from her. "It's none of your concern."
I'd taken half a step when her paw was at the back of my neck, claws grabbing the collar of my shirt. "Not an attitude you should take, child," she hissed, her breath warm against my ear, her voice low and harsh. "If I were the one holding your leash, I could order you to tell me, beat you to within a hair of your life if I didn't like the answer, and then ask again." One arm thrust out in front of me, one claw pointing to the locked door at the far end of the room, behind her desk. "This is no game, child. Once you're through there, there's no return short of release from your master." Her voice tightened on the last word, as did the cotton around my neck, catching my breath.
Instinctively, my paws went to my throat, pulling against my own shirt to breathe clearly. "My... my mother!" I shouted between gasps. "Please—" My voice broke, a shudder running through me. "I—I'll tell!"
Instantly, her grip relaxed and she stepped away, but the first sob was already starting. "My father... the plow and the winter broke him." I tugged uselessly at the collar of my shirt. "My mother can't... couldn't feed us all. Somebody... I had to do something!" The damage was done, the truth exposed. I shuddered, biting my lip to stifle the sobs welling up in my chest, breathing shallowly through my muzzle. I wiped at my eyes with one paw. "This way... this way it's one less to feed, and more coin in her purse."
Something warm brushed my leg, and I looked down to see Milos pressed against me. His fur was thick, slightly coarse but well-groomed. His silver eyes met mine, and a fleeting smile crossed his muzzle before fading back to the carefully neutral expression he wore when I first saw him. I reached down and stroked the back of the wolf's head, fingers gliding over his ears. He let out a low rumble of pleasure, pressing back against my fingers, and his clawless pads kneaded the ground.
The slaver cleared her throat quietly, and I looked up to see her standing beside her desk, arms folded across her chest, wearing a slightly bemused smile. "Milos, heel," she said quietly, all trace of hostility gone. The wolf crawled back over to her and curled up at her side, and she petted him lightly as she watched me. "Everything I said before is true, lad," she chided. "Once you belong to another, only your master can set you free. You could be killed and no-one would care."
I blew my nose heavily on my sleeve, then threw up my arms in a helpless shrug. "What does it matter?" I sighed. "A quick death from some noble's sword or a slow one in his fields. Either way it's the same fate; one's just faster and less brutal."
The slaver shook her head at that. "You'll live a lot longer if you can still your tongue. Still, I admire your attitude." She sat quietly on the edge of her desk for several seconds, then nodded. " Very well, I accept your offer. Have you any skills besides leading a dray and counting seed?"
I shrugged again. "I've sung in the local choir, and I know all the holes on a recorder."
"Singing and playing?" The raccoon tilted her head to the side. "And can you read?"
"Some," I admitted. "I've led my row in hymnal before."
The raccoon's smile widened, her violet eyes shining against her fur. Her striped tail bobbed behind her as she mused aloud. "There's a sale on domestics in a week in Barony Deterikh that fetches a high price; you'd pull ten times the coin there that you would locally." She squinted at me, considering, then nodded. "If you can make learn what I have to teach you in eight days, I'll send a hundred, sovereign, to your mother, and I'll sign a contract to that. If not, she gets your sale price on the bid less travel and ten percent. Have we a deal?"
My eyes blossomed at the figure. That kind of coin would feed her, and the rest of my family, for a year or more. "It's... yes." I swallowed heavily, eyes fixed on the door behind her desk. "Yes, I accept."
She nodded and clapped her paws together, then sat at her desk and began rummaging through drawers, pulling out a thick ledger and some additional papers. She carefully opened it and began leafing through pages. "Your name?"
I closed my eyes. "Stannis, son of Jedrick, of Barony Jazinsk."
She meticulously inked my name into the ledger, then again onto one of the forms. The tip of her quill scratched against the durable paper, uncomfortably loud in the still air. Then, she carefully blotted the ink and set the book aside, rolling the pages of the contract. She slid them into a capped leather tube, which she passed to Milos. "Take these to Stannis' mother, then return," she said to the wolf. Then, to me, she said, "Give Milos your mother's address."
I did so, and the wolf nodded to me, bowed to her, and then rose and padded over to the front door, stepping through it silently. I watched it as it fell closed behind him, then turned back to the slaver, who rose from her desk.
"Follow me," she said, motioning towards the other exit from the room, the one into the depth's of the Slaver's Guild building.
My head bowed, I fell in step behind her. My heart pounded in my chest, but my head was clear. I had done everything I could.
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