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Clouds were filling the sky as I exited Zutraas's building. Her cybersecurity department was still examining the packet sniffer that had been found on her supercomputer.

I would've stayed, but her cybersecurity team was brilliant and knew her systems better. Plus, I had my own problems to worry about.

A mist of rain started to fall. Behind me, a mynah chattered. It was perched on on the railing of outdoor seating for a gourmet sandwich shop. Just below its perch was a large chunk of baguette it had stolen.

Or someone had given it that bread. Not feeding them was impossible for me. Because I loved them. So much personality in such a small bird. Watching them outsmart or outstubborn people was a true joy. You could divide the inhabitants of Gualmeeta over whether they hated or adored the common mynahs that cohabited our cities.

Hunting or harassing wildlife on Paitishek habitats led to jaw-dropping fines and eviction. As a result, on Paitishek habitats the wildlife had minimal anxiety toward people. I approached the mynah slowly making sure not to lock my eyes on it like a predator. Then I stole its bread. As it started to fly off I tossed bread pieces into a nearby planter.

It took a couple minutes for it to come back and in that time I'd made a trail of bread crumbs that led to my hand. Soon it was sitting on one hand while I was feeding it with the other. I chittered to it and it chittered back. It made the sound of ice cubes clinking in a glass, a couple different common Paitishek greetings, and then it cawed like a jungle crow. When it cawed, I could feel its entire body shudder to make the sound.

After the bread was gone, it stayed with me for a while longer. It was convinced I was hiding food somewhere and bounced up my arm to poke at the corner of my mouth. And then it flew down to my other hand and used its beak to pry between my fingers.

All the while as it did this, the sharp scrape of the scutes and curved nails on its feet reminded me that this wasn't just some helpless little bird. Evolution had given it armored legs, a keen mind, and the ability to escape danger on dexterous wings. Birds were far from helpless and were one of the most successful animals in exchanging quanta of cuteness for food and safety.

When the mist became rain, it started taking a bath. It puffed and fluttered on my hand so intensely that it fell off. It landed on the railing it had been sitting on just as I got a message from Ormand.

It was a live feed from a virtual store where he was trying on a new thong. The time he spent in the gym to take care of his mostly biological body had given him beautiful muscles. Not so much that he bulged out everywhere. The bit of fat he kept made him look cuddly. He was the one human in my juusoi and, though he chatted and hung out with the others, he was rarely intimate with them. I was his main sexual outlet.

I sent back Those straps coming in from the one side make it look like a suspension bridge. Are you having containment issues?

LOL. Do you think I should buy it? It's really comfortable and looks great!

Yeah, get it. You look sexy!

You going to be home tonight?

I believe so. Do you have plans for me?

He sent, Yes, but don't let the thong mislead you, it's completely irrelevant. Life doesn't make sense.

It's just a cascade random of anime references. We were quoting "Nerds Die First," a VR musical series we'd binged on our second date. VR musicals were the best because they let you sing along and attempt to join the choreography.

I felt him laugh. Sometimes I transcribed this as "LOL," or "she laughed," but messaging now included emotional feedback. You could experience someone laughing at your joke or crying at your misfortune asynchronously. It was like a text message with the actual sensations instead of just emoticons. You could choose to experience them or just review the accurate emotional information.

I asked, Finally done with pilot for season two? The show he was producing was also a VR musical series.

Just got done with the second round of edits this morning. Producer still thinks I have too many jokes packed into it, but she's given up trying to get me to take them out.

I laughed. Haha! I guess you won this time.

She can't argue with the viewership numbers. I think she's just not as into snark as the viewers are.

Did she not realize who she was dealing with?

No, she knew. She asked for me to run the show after all.

I meant she should've known you like your humor tightly packed with multiple layers.

No, that's how I like my men. He sent me a clip from a meme where a guy is waggling giant fake eyebrows.

He'd pretended to misunderstand me to set up that joke. I hated him... in a very loving way. This conversation is over. I sent a clip of one of the characters of his show, a tall woman, getting booped on the nose.

He sent a clip of the same character punching the person who booped her on the nose. Love you!

Love you! I sent back.

This time, when I entered the station near Zutraas's building, I took time to appreciate the parasols on the ceiling. So many colors. So many styles, from ancient Chinese ones decorated with cherry blossoms to twenty-first century ones with tiger stripes. The history of the umbrella in no particular order. Somehow this chaotic pastiche had been made beautiful. I went over to the dedication for the display and got the artist's name. Maybe I'd contact them someday.

As I got on the train, I returned to thinking about the errands. Other me had asked for quite a few.

I was now certain that most of them were decoys. Many of them were easy to fix. Deletion of social media posts I'd asked people to make about me. Cancellation of online orders. Together, most of the gifts other me asked for would make at least sixty pipe bombs. No government would ignore fertilizer and volatile hydrocarbons in those amounts being shipped to a residential address.

As I rode home on the train, I fell deep into my internal world. All my resources were being spent trying to make sense of the mess I was in. I was blocked by some of my contacts. There were mentions of me online that I had nothing to do with. Apparently, I'd made a popular VR experience that showed humans how to seduce Paitishek. It was one of four that other me had made explaining Paitishek culture and customs.

Did I dare try out the seduction one? Ignoring it wouldn't make it go away. Perhaps I could learn something useful about my other self. I loaded it.

A bedroom spun into view with a pretty little swirl of impressionist splotches. The walls were grey, but had a wood grain. The bed was covered in a peachy cream sheet. Outside the hexagonal windows was a beach with lazy waves crashing against it. Other me was in a dark red bodysuit with frills at the ends of the sleeves. A deep v showed the cleft of her breasts: something I'd wear if I was feeling sexy and powerful.

Other me said, "Hey, so you're a Paitishek that wants to learn how to seduce us? I can work with that. First, look me in the eye."

I did so.

"Good, now relax and your crest should go up. If you're not into me, be sure to edit my avatar to your liking. I promise I won't mind one bit." The look in her eye was as suggestive as what I saw when I practiced seduction in the mirror.

My crest raised out of instinct. Instincts weren't perfect and I was sure some Paitishek would find her--my?--prompting helpful.

With her crest fully unfurled, she said, "We call this sort of gaze gutseirangki. It's actually the phrase gu tseir angki meaning 'have sex stare.'"

The AI underlying this simulation saw my disinterest and whatever else she had about our language was skipped. The only reason I knew was because I was watching this simulation run. Just like I would've done, this experience was open source. The code was gorgeous. Someone had helped her produce this. It had the polish of a project that had multiple editors. I'd have to check the credits once it was over. Maybe I could find out who'd helped her. And then I'd know where she lived.

"Now, if the Paitishek you're gunning for breaks eye contact by looking away from you, or drops their crest, for a couple seconds, it's over. During later stages, when bodies are touching, if the Paitishek makes a nervous whine..." She made the sound. It was high pitched and made my stomach clench. "Or pushes away from you, stop and ask her what's wrong. Make sure both of you consent to what you're doing. If you have any doubts, talk about it. Nearly every augmented person is registered with Consentifier. If you can't show that your partner consented to the sex act, you could go to jail. Before we continue, do you have questions about any of that?"

"Nope," I said.

"Understand that I'm not a lawyer and can't offer legal advice." She took a deep breath, "Okay, boilerplate dialogue over. Shall we continue?

I nodded.

"Good. Now, get that crest back up."

I did so.

She put up her crest and held my gaze.

I started getting warm. I was beautiful, sexy, and looked great in that bodysuit. I'd known I found myself attractive since I saw myself riding atop my first girlfriend. We called the moment one realizes that one is attracted to oneself butankiia.

The growing tent in her crotch caused a sympathetic stirring of mine. Getting hard in front of myself? Uncanny.

She said, "As you can see, I'm a bit of a slut and all it takes if for me to share a gutseirangki with someone to get me going. Other Paitishek aren't as fast as me. I recommend looking for a blush like the one I have going down my neck." She pointed at the pinkened flesh of her neck. "If you don't see this, hold out your hand and see if she takes it. If you do see the blush or--" she pointed at her crotch, "--close the distance."

I took a couple steps closer.

"Good. If you still have eye contact, come even closer."

Two steps and I was within arm's reach of my doppelgänger. My breaths came in puffs. This situation was mystifying. I'd always enjoyed teaching others about our culture and customs. So, other me offering training like this made sense. And at the same time, no sense at all. Being overtly public was in direct conflict with my job. Outside the fake cybersecurity job and fake escort service I was in, I appeared to have a normal boring life. No one would think that I'd become a "how to" experience star.

In front of me was one slice of a manifold of possible futures where I had a face to the public.

This experience had been streamed six million times. And it was only two weeks old. Each of the other experiences other me had made had around a hundred thousand views.

"Reach for the side of my right breast with your left hand."

My heart started to race as I obeyed.

She said, "If she doesn't reach, stop and ask if she wants to go on a walk or something." She reached for my breast. "If she does, it means she shares your immediate sexual interest."

Feeling my own breast in this way, through the fabric of other me's dress, was bizarre. A fascinating sort of bizarre. It was like jumping off a roof only to discover the street below had been replaced by a giant ball pit. I pressed my hand against her flesh feeling it give. My blush deepened. She was fully hard now and my eyes kept darting down to look.

"Next, lean in and touch your lips to hers. Don't pucker, don't press, just slide your lips along hers side to side. Follow my lead." Other me leaned forward.

When our lips touched, it was electric. I shuddered. The strangeness was part of the appeal. She turned her head to slide her lips along mine and I made the opposite motion. I could feel her breaths puff on my scales.

Where was this copy? Where had she created this experience? Why? If she was me, surely she knew the CCAI wouldn't like her going out of her way to make herself public.

As her arms wrapped around my back, she whispered into my ear, "Hold her and start kissing deeper."

I shut down the simulation. I owed it to her to find her. And continuing would be flagrant self-gratification.

The credits for the program were unhelpful. It had a seal from COPVREE, the "Consortium of Professional VR Experience Editors," instead of naming a specific editor. Her profile had "A Space Colony Near You" as her location.

The acknowledgements section was cryptic: "I couldn't have done this without the solar system's most handsome police dog and my very own double dragon."

Had I become a furry? I'd had a relationship with a minotaur-like individual a few years ago, but a canine and a dragon? What was a double dragon? Was she referencing that ancient video game series Divesh was obsessed with? Why?

It made sense that I'd befriend furries, but the timing didn't make sense. For these people to be important enough for me to put them in acknowledgements, I'd have to have known them for a few weeks if not months. I could make friends fast, but dang!

The only full names associated with her project were other VR personalities who'd inspired her. I already knew and liked most of them. There was no new information. A dead end.

Well, not completely, I knew that her day job was in cybersecurity, or hacking. Otherwise, she wouldn't have been so careful with identifiable information. If she was spending all her time trying to make it as an internet personality, she would've at least mentioned what part of the solar system she was in. Personal branding and privacy were always at odds.

The only way I could get more information was to pose as a fan of her work. Befriending myself would be easy, keeping my own identity safe while doing so would be very hard. Lying to myself didn't sit well with me, but I knew she'd do the same thing in this situation.

Walking out of the station near my house, I watched a flock of joy riders pedaling their e-vellos go by. Hardly anyone lived more than two kilometers from a train station. But for exercise or to take in the scenery, people could take e-vellos all the way to their destination.

I wanted to join those joy riders and forget about everything. The unknown motives of my enemy hung like the head of a giant hammer and I was the nail.

Contacting other me was a necessary risk. As I rode home in an e-vello, I made an account on Kashgar VR and started writing. By the time I got home, I'd sent a direct message as a reply to the thing I'd just seen.

Dear Saanah,

Even though I'm a Paitishiek, I always wonder whether I'm getting social interaction right. Thank you so much for making this experience. I look forward to being less awkward when I see someone I want to proposition with a stare.

I'm wondering how you got into making these experiences. It can't be easy to put yourself out there like that. How did you get up the courage to do it?

Best,

- Rahkseeth

Hopefully I'd get to have a conversation with other me. Or whoever fielded her messages. If there was no response, I'd put more of my focus on analyzing the public comments associated with each experience. It looks like other me, or an assistant, had replied to a good number of them.

As I entered my home, a message from Kavuush was triggered. Contextual messaging had peaked in popularity, but it was quite useful. The message let me know she was at an artist meetup until late tonight. Ormand wouldn't be home for a while yet. Divesh and Treelow were still enjoying their trip to the moon. I was beginning to wonder if they'd ever come back. When they shared their plans for a month-long lunar vacation, I'd told them that seemed a bit long.

That had led to a fight. I fought with Divesh more than anyone else. Criticizing her ideas led to her trying to convince you that she was right. The argument didn't end until you declared that she was. I wasn't willing to do it anymore. At first, I was glad they'd be gone so long, but now I missed them. Even more now because I seriously suspected they were going to move out. That last fight with Divesh had been awful.

Our shower had beautiful artificial stone tiles that were pitch black embedded with sparkles. You could catch the entire spectrum if you changed your viewing angle. Somehow, after years of living here, I still stared in awe at the walls.

Only when I was horny or particularly dirty did I actually notice the process of getting clean. Old synthetic bodies were harder to clean than biological ones, but modern synth bodies like mine were effortless. Water never got anywhere you didn't intend it to and nothing stuck to them once you applied some soap.

Just as I was turning the stream of atomized water off, I got a reply to the message I'd sent other me.

Hey Rahkseeth,

So glad to hear you enjoyed that experience! I had fun making it!

To answer your questions:

#1 A member of my juusoi teased me about how I go on and on when it comes to the interface between human and Paitishek culture. He jokingly suggested that I should start a blog or make "how to" experiences. Years later, when I had some extra time, I tried it and loved it.

A chill ran through me as I realized she was referencing a conversation I'd had with Ormand three years ago. I slid the shower door open and stepped out in front of a long thin slit. A rushing sound accompanied a knife's edge of hot air. As I rotated and dried myself, I couldn't shake the creepy feeling that had taken hold of me. I continued reading.

#2 When I originally tried to make experiences, I was very awkward. A friend told me to just leave the recording software on so I could get used to the idea of being recorded. It worked like a charm.

I wondered if this friend was the police dog or the dragon. Was she in a simulation? If so, how did they trick her/my cybersecurity AIs? I was equipped to make that very challenging.

Was she in another body walking around somewhere? Were her friends constructs made to manipulate her or actual people?

Had this other me just started a new life and persona wherever she was? The dryer shut off, but I was too overwhelmed to move. Tears wanted to fall, hands wanted to be fists, and feet wanted to stomp. My body wanted permission to be a toddler. And I wanted to be purged of all emotion. But emotion was all I was in that moment. Thought had perished.

Thank you again for your kind words,

- Saanah

P.S. Rahkseeth one of my favorite names. It's beautiful! I have a little story to tell you if you want to know what it means to me.

I was already in too much shock to process this last part. I'd made a mistake using that alias.