Pea had already assumed she would be the one offered up as a sacrifice to the alien, but not for the reasons Aditi clearly set out.

“Junebug isn’t made to support human life. I don’t think it even has atmospheric pressure in there. If Matt or I go, we’d be exposed to vacuum, and would probably suffer horrendously and die, even if this is a Sandbox.”

Matt nodded. “It still has to replicate the conditions of the ARcade, or it would be useless for design-work.”

“So why will I be safe?” Pea asked. Arguing seemed pointless, even to her, but anything to let her stay in the escape pod for a few minutes longer. She never thought she’d be sorry to leave the brown velvet behind.

“You’re an Item,” Aditi said, matter-of-factly. “You can be destroyed, but not killed. If your Hit Points go to zero you just faint. And I’m pretty sure vacuum doesn’t affect the Bright companions.”

“No, the early model companions had a lot of limitations like that,” Matt agreed.

He noticed the look on Pea’s face and lifted his hands up as if warding her off. “Hey, don’t shoot the messenger. I didn’t design you.”

“We’ll put a helmet on you, because you do need to breathe. If either of us tried, we’d have to put on a full suit, which takes a while and… well, I’m not sure if it would even work, as we wouldn’t be… urm… skin-to-skin with Junebug.”

Pea wondered if she would ever stop being constantly nauseated in this wretched game.

“Also, depending on the size of the cavity,” Aditi continued, “I’m not sure we could even fit an emergency suit in there.”

Pea swallowed and told herself to think of it as a hug. She was going to give the child a hug. There was nothing gross about that. There was nothing scary about being trapped in a hug.

“Mother Pea?” Junebug said, quietly. “If you don’t want to come… you don’t-“

“I want to,” Pea snapped, more forcefully than she intended. She softened her voice as much as she could. “Of course I want to visit you Junebug. We’re in this together, OK? Just… just don’t spin or anything when I’m in there. Humans are fragile.”

“OK,” Junebug said, with some of its previous enthusiasm. It started to bounce, barely missing the surface of the shield.

The sight of it doing little acrobatics, however hesitantly, lifted a weight off Pea.

Junebug was not going to give into despair after all.

“Junebug, poppet, you should go to the underside of my ship,” Aditi said. “There’s a patch without any lights that I’ll open for you. It’s a docking mechanism that you can fit yourself onto so that Pea can… can visit you.”

“What are you doing with a docking mechanism designed for Quentith ships?” Matt asked, his eyes so wide Pea could see a circle of light brown sclera.

Aditi didn’t answer, and swept past him into the control room, the lights on her braids clattering against each other as she went.

“Escape Pod Computer, please open the docking mechanism between my ship and yourself,” she said, seating herself in one of the red chairs as if she were a queen in a throne.

Pea and Matt followed her in, with Pea taking notes as Aditi adroitly switched the view on the touch screen to where Aditi’s ship was coupled with the pod. There was very little to see, considering the massive size difference between the vessels. The spiky Christmas tree of a ship took up the whole screen no matter how far Aditi pulled out the zoom.

“OK, this is useless,” Aditi said, after attempting several times to use other controls. “Why did this prick lock down his controls so much?”

“Right?” Matt agreed and collapsed into the other chair, his legs hooking over the arm. “I reckon he was using it as a pleasure…” He glanced at Pea and his face darkened to a reddish purple.

Pea felt herself tense up in outrage, then forced herself to relax.

She didn’t even know who owned this escape pod, or what it was for… and neither did Matt, no matter what he assumed. He had been wrong about a lot of things.

Which made the companion realize that Aditi seemed to know a great deal more than Matt about, well, everything.

“Aditi, do you know who I uh… who uh, owned or…”

It was Aditi’s turn to stiffen up, very briefly, and Pea wished she could see the emotion that was on that expressive face for that moment. Unfortunately, the woman was facing away from Pea, and kept her face towards the touch screen control panel.

“I know this escape pod is from the Icarus, but the identity of the player who owned the Icarus isn’t public knowledge,” Aditi said, after a noticeable pause.

Pea glanced at Matt and saw that he’d noted the hesitation as well.

“Not public knowledge? That doesn’t mean you don’t know who owned the Icarus,” he said bluntly, his brows pressed in a frown his bill couldn’t muster.

“The Icarus was destroyed in the incident,” Aditi said brusquely. “As far as I know the owner scrubbed their identity immediately after.”

“That still didn’t answer the question,” Matt said, his eyes fixed on the small woman. “It didn’t answer Pea’s original question either. She obviously wants to know who owns her, not who owns the escape pod. It might not be the same player. And whoever it is didn’t put their name in her HUD.”

“How do you expect me to know then?” Aditi asked, throwing up her arms dramatically. Much like she had when putting on a show for Junebug.

She picked herself up out of the chair with a lot less grace than she had sat down with, and marched back over to the tiled recess in the rec room, which had- once again- been drained of water.

Pea followed, her mind almost numb with all the information she had been required to process in the last few hours. She was exhausted, and now she had to worry about whether one of the only people she thought she could trust was actually hiding something.

She stopped at the edge of the empty spa pool and gazed at the open hatchway in the middle of it, her mind churning like… well, like a spa pool.

“I know you’re tired,” Aditi said sympathetically as Pea struggled to collect herself. “But I think the best thing to do while you’re over there is to help Junebug gather some decent Ship parts. It will give you both something to focus on.”

“Ship parts?” Pea wrenched her thoughts back to what she was about to do. “Why do you need those? What, so Junebug has… uh, snacks?”

“I don’t need snags,” Junebug protested. “I just want… I just want Mother Pea to come here. All of you are so far away, just wandering around and making noises and… and…”

“I’m coming, Junebug. I’ll be with you soon,” Pea assured her, with as much warmth in her voice as she could muster.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

It wasn’t enough.

The companion hoped that her presence at least would actually help the alien child as much as Aditi thought it would.

Even if it was goopy in there.

“It’s not for snacks,” Aditi said. “Look, Pea and Junebug, you’re both going to be in here for a while. I’m going to be visiting a lot and Matt seems like he’s going to stick around too, whether we like it or not.”

She glanced towards the control room, where Matt had appeared in the doorway.

“He’ll be able to use his own ship, though, and of course he’ll just dash out if he wants a break.” At Pea’s frown, Aditi elaborated. “’Dashing out’ is ‘Cade lingo. It means to, uh… log out? To leave the ARcade and go home to real space.”

Pea nodded, pleased to actually have something properly explained for once.

“However since you can’t do that, I think we should start putting together a better home for you,” Aditi continued. “With areas for privacy, sleeping, and eating, that kind of thing. There are a lot of Items and chunks of Ships out there. We might be able to do something to better accommodate Junebug as well.”

Aditi’s face brightened as she explained her idea. Her wide smile dominated her expression, reminding Pea of how sinister she had found it when she had first met the smaller woman.

It still put her in mind of a shark. A very motherly shark, but one capable of ripping apart her enemies none-the-less.

Could Aditi actually be trusted? She was obviously hiding something.

“We could make it amazing for you both, even without the admin rights to this Sandbox.”

Pea blinked at Aditi as her spiel came to a close. She tried to refocus on what the tiny woman been saying.

It hadn’t occurred to the companion that she would stay in here permanently. She had every intention of heading out to find him, as soon as possible.

No matter who he turned out to be, at the very least he should know who Pea actually was, and how to get back to the real world, if that was even possible.

She wasn’t going to find him in the Sandbox.

Still, Aditi wasn’t wrong. The idea of somewhere private to sleep- maybe even with a bed instead of those couches- was so heady that Pea felt her arms break into gooseflesh as she considered it.

She did need somewhere to live while she was getting her bearings.

And of course, there was Junebug to consider. No matter what happened, Pea had no intention of leaving the alien child alone forever.

After everything was sorted out, Pea could come back here and visit. Maybe they could even figure out a way to remove Junebug from the Sandbox. No matter what the two players had said, Pea was sure there had to be a way.

“I could get my friend to come over and do her magic if you like,” Matt suggested. “If you retrieve my ship for me, I’ll go right away. She’s an Item Smith, so she’ll be able to knit the bits of Ship together.”

“Do you really think we should let more people in here?” Aditi protested. “We still need to figure out how to stop random egghunters from finding it like you did.”

“I doubt any of those amateurs could figure it out,” Matt muttered darkly, then shrugged. “But, you’re right. If we could do it, someone else will stumble on it eventually.” He stroked his furry chin elaborately with his webbed hand and Pea had to fight the urge to roll her eyes at him.

She lost that fight.

“It’s an easy solution though,” Matt said grandly, ignoring Pea. “Just reroute the Sandbox so it opens in the Lobby instead of in the middle of the Celestial Cade. It’ll get lost among the 50 trillion other Sandboxes in the Lobby.”

“That’s your easy solution?” Aditi snorted. “There’s no way to do that if you aren’t an admin of the Sandbox.”

“Oh come on, Raine, we both know you’ve got access to all kinds of stuff you shouldn’t,” Matt winked cartoonishly at Aditi, but something dark seemed to glimmer in his black eyes.

Pea wondered what was actually going on in the undercurrent of their conversation, but decided she was too tired to care.

“I’m sure you can figure it out,” Matt said. “Just as I’m sure my friend can be trusted. It’s Stormy Smith by the way.” He stage-whispered the last bit, as if it was a big revelation. Pea shrugged, because of course she had no idea who that was.

Aditi sighed, also unimpressed.

“I guess it can’t be helped,” she said. “We’ll need to let people in here eventually. Maybe we could even sell a few of the Items out there. It would give Pea and Junebug some Units in case of emergencies.” She seemed to make up her mind and nodded at Matt, who grinned smugly, the corners of his mouth curling into commas.

Pea knew they had decided something secret between themselves. She had no idea what it was, but the fact that they were acting like they were in charge, and keeping Pea in the dark, fanned the smoldering coals that burned in the pit of her belly.

“Alright, fine,” Aditi continued. “Instead of getting ship parts this time, Junebug and Pea will retrieve what’s left of your Ship.”

A weak giggle echoed around the pod as Junebug was reminded of the state of Matt’s ship. To his credit, his eyes crinkled with the same joy as Pea felt at hearing the young alien laugh.

“Shall we?” Aditi said, and gestured at the hatch. Pea nodded and swung herself onto the ladder.

Aditi’s ship wasn’t quite as grand on the inside as Pea was expecting it to be. She had braced herself to encounter anything. After all, if this was a simulation, Aditi could make the inside of her ship seem like the bottom of the ocean, or an alien forest, or the middle of Times Square, or the surface of the sun.

Instead it was cozy, with cream walls and cushions, polished wood floors, rattan furniture, and an elaborate antique writing desk which was set in front of a window that looked out into space.

Several stained-glass lamps around the room glowed with the colours that Aditi wore in her hair. Pea wondered if there was any significance to them, or if Aditi simply liked pretty lights.

After so much time in the pod, the sight of the comfortable room made Pea want to collapse in a heap on the fluffy rug in the center of it and sleep for a thousand years. Instead she followed Aditi through one of several wooden doors.

They stepped into a very different space. Rich, red carpets covered the floor, and the ceiling soared above them, sporting elaborate gold constellations set into a lapis lazuli background. Snowy white pillars lined the walk towards a large portal door, made from some kind of white metal. It was taller than Pea and looked like the door to a bank vault. Bright, tiled murals of different ecosystems on Earth lined the walls. Pea stared at them in wonder as she passed. She stopped briefly in front of one that depicted a koala chewing on a stem of eucalyptus. The koala’s eyes seemed to follow her as she hurried to catch up with Aditi in front of the portal.

“I know it’s a bit much,” Aditi admitted. “But I only ever use this room when I talk to the Quentith and it feels like it should… I don’t know, represent humanity?”

“Are you an ambassador or something?” Pea asked as the smaller woman grasped the handle on the portal and pulled it out with a thonk.

“Ha! Not exactly,” she replied, as the huge door swung open. The women both stepped back to accommodate it.

“I’m a journalist. Well, I’m a writer anyway. So I talk to a lot of different kinds of people.”

Pea peered into the portal. Inside was a closed, dark-red iris valve. It looked uncomfortably fleshy and she shifted her eyes from it immediately.

“Have you ever um… visited a Quenti?”

Aditi shook her head. “No. I would if I had the chance though.” She grinned at Pea, with another uncomfortably-wide flash of teeth. “I’m a bit jealous, to tell the truth. Maybe I can visit Junebug when she’s feeling better.”

Aditi pressed a hand against the valve and it spun open at her touch, revealing only a dark tunnel beyond.

“If I’d known this was going to happen,” she said. “I would have found an Item that could let me spacewalk. Unfortunately, all I’ve got handy is this fishbowl from the standard emergency suit.”

She did her magician’s gesture with her hands, sliding one across the other like she was pulling something from her sleeve, and a helmet appeared. Aditi held it out to Pea.

‘Fishbowl’ was a very apt description. Wearing this on top of her space bikini, Pea realized, was going to make her look ridiculous.

Pea sighed heavily and reminded herself that she was doing this for Junebug. She put the helmet on over her head, squeezing her chin past the narrow opening.

Her springy blonde curls somehow remained uncrushed, because of course they did.

A collar snaked around Pea’s throat and drew tight as the helmet settled into place. It startled her, but didn’t seem to obstruct her breathing at all. She tried to slide a finger under the collar and found it was melded to her skin.

Well, that was just wonderful.

“Uh… I didn’t want to say anything in front of Matt in case you were insulted but… I can find you some other clothes if you want?”

Aditi hesitated then rushed to add, “of course, if you want to keep wearing what you’ve got on, I think it looks great!”

Pea turned to the other woman and grabbed her hand to emphasize her next words.

“I would wear anything, anything at all, if you could get me something to wear that isn’t… this.” Pea gestured at her bikini top with her chin. The useless silver thing was still clammy against her skin from the several times she’d fallen in the spa pool.

Aditi nodded, relieved that she hadn’t insulted the companion. “OK. I’ll find you something you can customize.” She squeezed Pea’s hands, and then released them.

“Now, when you get to the end of the docking tunnel there will be another valve like this one. It won’t open until I’ve closed the doors here, so you’ll be in the dark for a bit. Is that OK?”

Pea nodded, her lips pressed tightly together. It was going to have to be OK, because there was no getting out of it now.

Without another word, she stepped forward into the tunnel.