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The faux driftwood that made up the furniture of Nonah's spare bedroom reminded me of a game Kavuush and I had played. Kavuush wasn't much for games, but this game taught people how to survive with minimal resources. And she had this deep fascination with survival scenarios.

Sometimes it overwhelmed her to think about what the world would be like without technology. Other times, she'd build a VR simulation out of cardboard and string. It was an utter mess, but functional. To her, functionality was all that mattered: proving that it could be done.

We'd spent weeks in this game building a camp. We had a thatched roof, a fire pit, bowls we'd made of coconut shells, and water collection pots made out of washed up plastic debris.

The worst and best part of that game was the food. On an island in the middle of nowhere, you ate what you could find. And if a spice rack didn't wash up on shore, the only seasonings you had were coconut and sea salt you dried yourself. I laughed to myself remembering this. What made this the best part of the game was Kavuush and I complaining about the food.

The one I was laughing about was when Kavuush said, "This tastes like what would happen if you boiled scrawny rats in coconut milk... Oh wait, this is a scrawny rat boiled in coconut milk!"

I replied, "At least we have protein."

She said, "Our avatars won't die, but they'll have to live the rest of their lives knowing that they ate starved rats."

"At least we're not eating bugs."

"At least they're crunchy! Tough rat meat is the celery of meat. By the time you're done chewing it, you're back at zero calories."

It was then that I saw she wasn't actually putting any into her mouth. "Wait, you're not even eating it!"

Longing was a strange emotion. Now that I knew I couldn't see her for a long time, the memory brought thrums of sadness. The excitement I'd gotten from pressing against Nonah, gone. The elation at having my body working, muted. Hope about my new job, stunted.

When we shopped for clothes, I let Nonah pick out everything. They took me to two physical stores and three virtual ones. Our awkwardness and my mental exhaustion prevented us from having much conversation. I was glad they focused on the shopping and didn't try to get me to talk more.

Once home, we put my new clothes in the wash. I ended up sitting on the couch for some reason.

I was staring at the overly orderly grain pattern of the wood flooring when they said, "Would you like some tea?"

"Sim?" I asked.

"Of course."

They handed me a virtual cup and sat next to me with a cup of their own. I leaned against them.

They put their arm around me. "You seem overwhelmed."

I nodded.

"How about some music?"

"Sure."

A bamboo flute accompanied by a cello and a hand drum began to play from the speakers at all corners of the living room. It was an odd combination, but calming and upbeat. The melody from the flute soared over the deeper tones making me feel like I should be flying. Maybe this is what they listened to when they used those wings.

"I want to see you fly sometime."

"I want to see you fly too."

"Me?" I asked.

"Your body could easily be fitted with wings. Detachable ones, if you wanted."

"Maybe? I've never thought about it. I've ridden gryphons and stuff in VR, even glided using a wing suit, but never got around to trying actual wings."

"Well, you're going to be pretty jealous when you see me fly with my flight."

"A dragon flight?" I asked.

They nodded. "I'm the leader this year. We're all dragons or close enough."

"How many?"

"Thirteen in total, but we're lucky if we get four at a time. Busy schedules and all."

"That's a lot of people for me to meet." I sipped my tea to find it was now the perfect temperature. Of course, this simulated tea could have been rendered to remain at the right temperature, but the current cultural craze was for accuracy and not convenience. It was chamomile tea with honey and didn't have any calming effect on Paitishek, but we loved the smell and taste. The aroma alone took the edge off. Nonah was very thoughtful.

"Not to overwhelm you more, but the CEO is one of them."

"Yikes," I said.

"Don't worry, he's always happy on the days he flies. He might give you a raise just for watching him in the air."

"He's prideful about his flying, is he?"

"Giddy is more accurate."

I laughed.

They rubbed the back of my head. I relaxed even more.

We didn't say another word and listened to the music for another hour before they led me to my room and said, "I know you don't need sleep, but I suggest you meditate or something. I can't imagine how untethered you must feel." They gently shut my door.

I liked that. They didn't stay and try to convince me it was for the best. That gave them more the air of a friend than the air of a caretaker. So, I took their advice. I stared at the driftwood and worked to clear my mind. All I wanted was some quiet. To work on accepting that I was stuck here. To let go.

An hour and a half later, I was relaxed enough to be bored. Getting out of my cross-legged position, I went over to move the laundry to the dryer. The LiebGrund washer and drier were shaped like spheres stacked one above the other. The drier opened when I looked at it. Everything was dry. I hadn't heard Nonah switch the clothes... There were a couple pairs of panties, with room for their sizable bulge, in a basket on the side of the washer. I picked one pair up and took note of the brand name.

A teardrop of tessellated lace was interrupted by solid satin fabric that held one's package. Ormand would love it if I came home to show off a pair of these.

Ormand... Nonah's body reminded me of his strong heavy frame. He was the only human in my juusoi. He was always so open about his emotions and aspirations. And his gift for humor soothed everyone's hardship. He was my grandmaster of foreplay and my favorite human.

I put the panties back in the wire basket and then inspected a pod on the wall about half-way between the washer and drier. It had "LiebGrund Automation provided by Animsys," written above a tiny part number and a rectangular matrix barcode. Laundry arms were pretty common; if I hadn't been so distracted by being marooned, I would've realized what it was. A door peeled open and hung down as two arms emerged. The small flexible ball-jointed arm with three fingers and the bigger four-fingered arm worked together to untangle the clothes. The big arm handed me one of the unitards we'd bought.

Soon I had my arms full of my new clothes. The assumptions AIs used to make were often pretty bad. But, nowadays, seeing a new person in the house and new clothes had an obvious connection.

Normally, I would've sent a request for help unloading the drier if I wanted help. But, if you stood and stared at a person or AI, you'd end up with help whether you asked for it or not.

I took the clothes to my bedroom and when I opened the closet, I saw a rail above the bar that hangers went on. I held out a unitard and as I expected, an Animsys arm pod came and two arms came out. They said, "Hang or fold?" with a slight Australian accent. Computer voices were indistinguishable from real ones unless you were doing audio analysis to determine whether the voice came from a speaker or was articulated.

There was plenty of room in the closet, so I said, "Hang everything."

"Please put everything in the door bin."

I pulled on a plastic handle on the door and a bin folded out. My arm full of clothes filled it completely. When I stepped back, the big arm pulled the door closed and worked silently to fill my closet with hung clothing. I wanted distractions, I wanted to do it myself, but it was hard to refuse help when it was literally built into the closet.

Back home, we had a housekeeping bot that did most of the housework including washing and hanging clothes. If there was too much work for one robot, I just put my own body on autopilot while my mind did something else. Did Nonah have a robot in addition to these conveniently placed arms? I hadn't seen one.

As I walked toward my bed, I got a message from Nonah. Be prepared to talk about your fight with the FCAT. I've had to make an autoresponder that says it will be covered in the meeting tomorrow.

I sent a clip of a vampire in full gothic glory giving a peppy "thumbs up" accompanied by a fangy smile.

Nonah sent back the sensation of their laughter.

I smiled letting their mirth fill my mind and body. "Borrowing laughter" was what the ads for Weicaster called it. Weicaster was Weibook's messenger functionality. I'd say it was innovative, but Weicast bought Sharemotic. And every other startup that had code they wanted. They let startups take all the risks for them.

I spent the rest of the night analyzing my fight with the FCAT and the combat readiness of my new body. I visited open-source cybersecurity projects and updated my AI's as best I could.

When Nonah approached my door, I hopped out of bed and opened it before they could even knock.

They tilted their head. "You're fast."

"I have very good hearing," I said.

"Top of the line, I suspect."

I nodded.

"Pick out something and put it on. I'm heading out in a half hour."

"Roger," I said.

"Don't Roger me, I'm not a drill sergeant."

"Roger that," I said and saluted.

They laughed.

Stress could put me in the oddest moods. I bounced around the room as I put on a stretchy dark blue top that was all straight lines and acute-angle cutaways with flared sleeves. I put on my maroon bell-bottomed leggings that went with the blouse. All the stitching on both was orange and visible. Because of the sharp angles and straight lines, the stitching actually managed to look formal.

When I saw Nonah at the table eating cornflakes in the nude, I stopped in mid-step. "What?" The cereal was virtual and visible to anyone, the standard setting for virtual food. People eating invisible sandwiches looked hilarious, but got old quick.

They smiled sheepishly. "Don't look at me like that. I like the crunch."

"Sorry, I couldn't imagine why anyone would willingly eat virtual cornflakes. You don't even need the calories."

"You can blame my human mom for it. She'd give me cornflakes with peach slices or blueberries almost every morning."

Once Nonah was done eating, they put on an outfit similar to mine saying it would be funny if we matched since a couple of them didn't know I was staying at their place instead of a hotel.

Animsys was a five minute air-tram ride from Nonah's place. The building looked a bit like a circus tent modeled with a low polygon count. Triangular windows flowed across it like tiger stripes. It was somehow both hideous and beautiful: much like the horseshoe crab. I had very mixed feelings about horseshoe crabs.

The entryway had a giant marble FCAT sculpture in the style of the Latvian Riflemen Monument in Riga. Its simplified angular shapes matched the rest of the building.

Nonah said, "Come on, we can look at this later."

"Just one more picture," I said as I lined it up and took it.

They rushed me through security. I admired the sharp diagonal lines that broke up the hallway walls as we made our way to the conference room. As they opened the door, I saw another dragon. A slender red one with wings nearly as big as Nonah's wearing a tuxedo with an unbuttoned neck instead of a bowtie. Now that was a cool look for a CEO. He was showing all his pointy teeth in a gracious smile as he sat at the head of a long glass and stainless steel conference table.

A dark-haired woman with olive skin glowered at me as I entered. The other three expressions in the room were a range between those two extremes. And that's when I remembered that I hated meetings.

The CEO got up and held out his hand. As I took it, he said, "So glad you could join us, Saanah."

"Glad to be here," I said wondering if that exchange had any meaning. It was how every group interview and corporate meet up started.

The handshake lasted long enough that I wondered whether I should pull my hand back. Too much excitement from the CEO, I decided as he finally let go. All the chairs had broad ovular holes in their backs for tails to go through. Nonah sat next to me dwarfing the chair they were sitting in.

A Paitishek, who was poorly hiding her excitement, said, "Why did you let the FCAT harpoon you?" Her half-open crest was what revealed her excitement. Paitishek had to go to great lengths to play poker well.

"Veeskha!" The CEO narrowed his eyes at the Paitishek. "Can we please do introductions first?"

"Apologies." She pulled on the ends of her tan-colored sleeves, lowering her ears in embarrassment.

The CEO indicated himself with his thumb. "I'm Craig Corredor. CEO."

The Paitishek was to his left and said, "I'm Veeskha Tso Malaaik. CTO."

The "Tso" meant that her juusoi was full and she wasn't looking for new partners. Our middle names were contextual. Her last name was comprised of "malaa," our word for snout and "ik," a diminutive. Her mothers must have all thought she had a short snout. I agreed. Our last names were clues to identify us in a group. They had nothing to do with our parental lineage. We tracked that by a different name that only our family knew.

A young umber-skinned man with a round face and body in a collared long-sleeve T-shirt said, "I'm Kwame Opare. FCAT Project Manager. "

The scowling dark-haired woman said, "I'm Ferwa Akiki. COO." Curly shoulder-length hair was tangled in the tall white collar of her blouse. The buttons on her blouse were crooked as if she'd just put it on seconds before I arrived.

Lastly, the best dressed person in the room spoke. "Konkana Banerjee. CFO." Her saree was mauve and gold and she looked terrific in it.

I met her eyes and she smiled more naturally than anyone there. Perhaps she thought I was a good investment? Or, she was just a nice person. I hoped it was the latter. The CEO's smile was more nervous than hers.

Nonah said, "All of you know who I am."

The CEO gestured toward Veeskha and then me.

Before Veeskha could speak, I said, "If the FCAT had harpooned me in the torso, I would've been done fighting. I knew it would go for my hand because it knew I had two choices: one, detach my arm and I'd be short a weapon and an arm, or two, not detach my arm and get electrocuted. It didn't suspect I had an electrically isolated arm that was also a voltage generator."

"Why is your body weaponized?" Ferwa interjected.

Craig, the dragon CEO, said, "She doesn't know, look, if I had answers, I'd give them to you."

"She's a security risk, we should put her back in jail, not on our payroll!" Ferwa said. "At least not until we can verify how she got here."

Kwame nodded. "Yeah, let's just slow down and find more out about her origins before we sign her up." He glanced at me. "No offense. Just odd circumstances."

I nodded, "I agree it's str--"

"It's not strange at all, Saanah." Ferwa leveled a finger at Nonah. "Anyone they fuck gets offered a nice cushy job."

This time, I stopped my blush of embarrassment dead in its tracks. She'd see that as evidence of something we'd never done.

Craig, Kwame, and Konkana closed their mouths.

Nonah didn't blush in embarrassment, they flushed with rage. "How could you even--"

Craig held up his finger. "One moment, Nonah."

He put on a straight-lipped smile and turned toward Ferwa. "I'd appreciate it if you'd read up on our verbal abuse policy. Break it again and I'll terminate your position." He looked at Kwame. "The decision's made. We have to talk about what comes next, not what has already passed. I'm going to ask you to drop this one more time. If you don't, I'm going to put both of you on a forced vacation to Titan. Understood?"

He said it so sweetly that I could hear the frustration behind his words even more clearly than if he'd yelled.

Ferwa looked like she was going to strangle his scaly neck for a couple seconds before she took a deep breath and said, "Yes."

Veeskha said, "She did have a point."

The slam from Craig's fist on the glass tabletop made me turn in his direction so quickly that my chair lurched. He pointed at Veeskha and then the door. "Out!"

Her ears drooped as she got out of her chair and headed for the door.

Craig looked more tired than angry. As if he was suffering from guiding his wayward corporate children. I suspected this fight had been a long time coming and I was the spark that ignited it.

Nonah looked utterly miserable when they tried to smile for me.

My chest tightened. Was Nonah using their position poorly? Had I entered a dysfunctional corporate family? Why was everyone as surprised as I was that I was getting a job here? Were the CEO, Nonah, and Konkana the only people who were on board with it?

"So sorry about all that. Taking over the solar system is stressful work." Craig laughed to cue everyone with his joke.

I laughed with him because his laughing sounded like melodramatic sobbing.

"Ahh, there's nothing like a good fake laugh," Craig said.

"Kwame, do you have any burning questions before we talk about Saanah's employment?" Craig asked.

Kwame nodded. "Did you know the FCAT would slam you against that ledge?"

"No, I was going to just ride it and mill into it with my laser."

"That makes sense. If you had full agility, what would you have done differently?"

I tossed my hands in apology for my response. "I'd've run away."

Nona snickered, Craig hid a grin behind his hand, and the rest of the table sat there with slackened jaws at my abrupt candor.

I let them sit there for a moment and then continued, "What I should've told Veeskha is that getting harpooned was a decision I made under great duress that worked out. It wasn't some grand strategy."

Craig gestured toward me and then addressed everyone else in the room. "See? We need this sort of honesty."

Ferwa put her head in her hands.

Kwame said, "I'm told you hacked into our network. If the FCAT from yesterday hadn't shut down its wireless, would you have tried to hack it?"

"It's military-grade technology, or very close. I'd've had to plan in advance or get lucky. Even the best hackers are slowed by hardened systems. Especially if the company in question has good security practices."

He leaned back. "How long would such preparations take?"

"Are you going to ask me to hack one? Like this week?" I tried not to let my excitement show. I failed.

Konkana looked at Craig, "She's signed a non-disclosure agreement?"

"Yes, it was in the packet she signed yesterday."

"Our stock valuation is currently hung up on a security vulnerability one of our military drone models had. If we can show that we're doing more thorough stress testing, we can ease our clients' minds. The sooner we can show this, the better. We're in danger of losing a big chunk of business."

I nodded, "I'd be happy to help."

Nonah sent me, Look at their faces, they're falling in love with you.

Not Ferwa, She'd stopped scowling, but she still looked markedly less happy than the others.

She's more mad at me than you, don't worry about it.

Konkana smiled, "I looking forward to seeing what you can do for us."

"So am I."

» » End of Session « «

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