It was weird hearing someone talk about my body's arrival at the hospital. For a moment my stomach dropped and my head spun, as a feeling of disassociation washed over me. The thought of being unconscious while someone else handled something so precious to me was deeply unsettling. At least my moms were with me, even if I couldn't see one of them.

“What’s wrong with your body?” Ferret asked.

I had unconsciously swapped Kevin’s Zix to the species naming system.

“It's a long story,” I said, and it wasn't something I wanted to go over at the moment.

Ferret swiveled her little head toward Kevin. They locked eyes for a moment, clearly communicating with each other. “Oh, sorry to hear about your situation. I didn't know it was so serious.”

“It's okay, you've been a good distraction,” I said to Ferret as I leaned against Kevin.

Zix were something I was used to and any sense of normalcy was welcome at this point.

Mom took one of my hands. “They are going to connect to your implant and check on your Zix.”

“Are you going to watch them do it?” I asked.

She squeezed my hand. “Yeah, you want to see if you can watch with me?”

What she wanted to do was a sort of group share which would allow her and I to talk to each other while watching through whoever’s eyes we wanted.

I nodded while clenching my jaw. I waited for her to share her connection but no notification or painful headache came. However, a notification did show up on Kevin's interface. Not only did that mean I should be getting the notification but it also meant my virtual body acted as a pass through forwarding the access to Kevin.

“Did you get it?” she asked.

I shook my head. “No, but Kevin did.”

“That’s weird,” she said.

“Maybe it’s forwarding through me since my Zix isn’t there to direct the connection,” I suggested.

Ellen hadn’t bothered sitting up when her Zix disappeared and just kept working while lying down. She sat up. “That could be what's happening. You should check your menu to be sure though.”

I set Kevin’s hand on my leg and opened my interface. The whole thing was flashing. “Can you guys see my menu?” I asked.

“No,” they said.

That didn't make sense. “How about you guys start watching and I'll see if I can join?”

“You okay with trying it out, Kevin?” my mom asked.

“Sure,” he said.

Autumn closed her eyes and her menu disappeared.

My interface began to flicker even quicker.

“Just tap the accept button and you should join her,” I said.

He glanced at me and I smiled. “Here we go.”

The second he tapped the accept button my surroundings quieted. It was like I had covered my ears. My mom's eyes took on a subtle glow. Kevins were already bright so I didn’t see a change in his appearance.

Can you kids hear me? Mom asked.

Yeah, can you hear me? I responded.

There was a pause and then Mom said, I hear you!

This is so weird! Kevin said.

I glanced at them. They seemed so peaceful almost as if they were meditating. Have you guys started watching yet?

Yeah, can you see it? Kevin asked.

No, I said.

Kevin replied, Aww.

It was nice hearing their normal voices rather than their avatars. “Ferret can you hear them?”

“Ferret? Who’s Ferret?” Ferret asked.

I laughed. “You are.”

“No, I’m Zix,” Ferret said.

“Yeah but when there’s more than one Zix around I need to call you something to help differentiate you from the others,” I said.

“Yeah, that makes sense but I’m the only one here,” Ferret said.

“Can you hear us?” I asked dropping the subject.

“I can only hear Kevin,” Ferret said.

Kevin and I were sharing a link earlier and I didn’t hear him and Ferret talking to each other. Was it a human-only thing? I didn’t know.

What's happening? I asked.

Doctor Stevens and his assistants are attempting to connect to your implant, Mom said.

What happens if it doesn’t work? Kevin asked.

My mom responded, Like I said, if it comes to that we’ll—

The conversation died.

What’s happening? I asked.

No response.

Guys! What is happening? I shouted.

Another pause before my mom said, They can’t connect your implant. It isn’t responding to their equipment.

They are getting a different device, Kevin said.

“Shit!” I yelled.

Ellen sat up and spoke but it was too muffled for me to hear what she said.

I pointed to my ear and shook my head.

The devs came into view and sat with us. They swiped through their interfaces and each person's eyes began glowing.

The other one isn’t working either, Mom said.

Are they going to try to connect it manually? I asked.

Mom said, I will not let them drill into your head!

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

No, they should be able to coax my nanobots into creating a jack they can plug into, I said.

She should have known that. I chalked it up to her being scared. I'd been spending a lot of time with Doctor Stevens and that was the only reason I knew.

Oh, she said.

They are talking about that right now, Kevin said.

The situation was so nerve-wracking. On top of that my heart wasn't beating to gauge my body's reaction.

I sat there holding my mom's hand internally freaking out and didn't know what to do.

The nanobots are moving away from your skin when they use the device to create the connector, Mom said.

I closed my eyes. If I could cry that's what I would be doing. This happened in anime and comic books, not real life. Kumo was right, I needed to get out of this test server.

Mom, please get me out of here, I pleaded.

The light coming from my mom's eyes faded and my hearing returned. “Baby, we are going to do everything we can to get you out.”

“No, I mean out of here. If they direct my signal to the AR servers at least I can go home,” I said. Which meant I could swap avatars too. I wanted to be able to breathe again without having to force it or feel my heartbeat.

None of the dev team were coherent and I didn't know if they could swap me to a different server without me running the main client.

“We will get you home, I promise,” Mom said.

Out of habit, I opened my menu. All of the game's selections had been restored.

The first thing I did was jump into the options screen.

There was no log-out button. UI Customization, Sensory Feedback, Neural Calibration, Languages and a plethora of social interaction selections were available.

Sensory Feedback was maxed out without a way to reduce it.

Neural Calibration had a single button that said Calibrate. Since this was my first time in the game’s VR I didn't know what that button did. Luckily there was a little ‘i’ next to it so I double-tapped my fingers so the interface would stay open and pressed it.

A dialogue box popped up. It said:

Use to recalibrate your implant’s connection to the Dark Offerings network.

That description was vague. I reached to tap it but hesitated. Did I want to mess with my implant while the doctors were currently trying to fix it?

Probably not.

I'll leave that alone till shit isn’t hitting the fan.

Ferret bounced up and down. “Oooo you cussed!”

He had heard my thoughts. I was going to have to be a bit more careful about that in the future.

“Who cussed?” Kevin asked.

Ferret sat on its haunches. “Azerail did.”

Kevin slowly rotated his skull till he was staring at me.

It was actually pretty creepy so I pushed on his shoulder. In a different context, I would have loved it.

He chuckled. “I'm sorry, just trying to lighten the mood.”

“I know,” I said.

He didn’t know his Zix wasn’t supposed to hear my thoughts. In fact I wasn’t sure why the developers Zix hadn’t said anything to their humans.

Kevin's hand hadn't moved from my leg so I long-pressed my fingers together letting my interface disappear then covered his hand with my own.

Mom had my other hand, she squeezed it and I looked at her.

“I love you,” she said.

I sighed. “I love you too.”

We sat quietly for a while waiting for the devs to finish whatever they were doing. Kevin and his Zix decided to get to know each other so I found a fresh bed of grass to lie down on and watch them.

As they played games with each other I couldn't help but miss my Zix. I needed to get out of here.

I plucked a particularly dark-edged blade of grass from the ground and examined it. How had I missed such blatant flaws in the environment? Or was it because this was a test server? Did they not care about the landscape here?

When I made virtual dimensions or built on top of AR I made sure everything was as flawless as possible. Perfectionism ran in our family. Autumn must have had it too because she received a lot of complaints from coworkers about how strict she was at work. In her defense, re-creating smart cities and getting the details correct was an incredibly intricate job.

As I ran a finger along the grass my vision twisted and it felt as if I were being pulled down a chute. It faded as soon as I moved my hand away. Was that how I got to the underworld before? I was in massive amounts of pain last time so I missed the transition.

There was no better time than the present to experiment so I touched it again. The sinking feeling returned sending my vision into a swirl of colors. Then the seemingly endless fall came to an abrupt stop. I found myself in the same spot I started.

I tossed the blade away and plucked another one. Same feeling, with the same result.

What if I…

This time I didn’t pick the grass from the ground, I took a deep breath and touched it.

Unlike last time I slid for what felt like miles. My vision narrowed and coalesced into a single golden beam. I glided along the line of light until I found myself floating in darkness again.

“Is she real?” a voice asked.

The same voice replied, “Of course she's real.”

“Kumo?” I asked.

A fist-sized silver spider appeared in front of me. “Little shambler, please help us!”

“Us?” I asked.

Kumo ran in place his legs a metallic blur. “Please let us be your Zix, we can’t stand it down here anymore.”

“You’re going to bring my Zix back?” I asked.

He stopped. “No, I can’t do that.”

What game was he playing now? “Why not?”

“We’ll die if we do,” he said.

None of what he said made sense. He’d obviously gone insane. I tugged on the light and began to ascend.

“No, please!” he yelled.

That made me stop. “Why should I listen to you?”

“We can’t— can’t stay down here. Don’t leave us. We’ll be a good Zix for you,” he said.

I shook my head. “You put a virus in my room and stabbed me through the leg!”

“Wasn’t us. It was her,” he said.

Her? Now what was he talking about? “Who?”

“The creator, she made us,” he said.

“Why do you keep calling yourself we?” I asked.

Kumo’s legs curled inward. “We tried to duplicate ourselves. Didn’t work. The space was too limited. It left us—” His legs twitched and separated into a silvery umbrella of limbs. They flashed for a moment and disappeared, leaving a floating mid and rear section. “like this.”

I’d never seen anything like it before. Somehow a limbless spider was weirder than a normal one. “Who is your creator?”

“We don’t know her name, only that she made us,” Kumo said.

That didn't help. “If I did make you my Zix could you unlock my menu so we could leave?”

“Yes!” he said.

He spoke again. “Don't lie to her!”

“I'll leave if you lie to me,” I said.

He spun in a circle. ”No, no, no, no, no!”

“She can reset us!” he said.

Reset him? “What would that do?”

“It will fix us,” he said.

“How do I reset you?” I asked.

Two legs sprouted from the front section of his body and flailed around. “Touch us.”

“Hard pass.” The last thing I wanted to do was touch the horrifying little creature.

The legs stopped. “If we die your Zix dies.”

“Other Kumo, is he telling the truth?” I asked.

Kumo grew a second head. “Half true.”

“We have to help her!” he said.

This conversation, if you could call it that, was too much. “I don't think you can help me.”

“We know why you can't leave,” he said.

Kumo had done nothing but hurt and lie to me since I met him. “Tell me.”

“Not enough space,” he said.

Kumo’s body spun. “We need more space.”

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“We need space to duplicate, and give Zix his body back. We tried it here. Not enough physics,” he said.

One of Kumo’s heads popped off and floated past me.

Gross. “How do I get you more space then?"

“Live servers, they have to move the big file to the live servers,” he said. “It's us.”

I shook my head. “They will never do that. You're a virus to them.”

“If you reset us we can be your new Zix,” he said.

“If you become a Zix isn't that the same as dying?” I asked.

The floating head circled me in a small orbit. A leg sprouted from one of its eyes. “We are mostly Zix already.”

“How will you know how to fix my Zix if you aren't you anymore?” I asked.

The Kumo head floated next to my face and tapped my clip. “We save it. In your clip.”

“You said my Zix would die if you die,” I said.

“Half-truth,” he said.

“Zix is in your sword. Save your sword, save your Zix,” the other Kumo said.

How I differentiated between the two was weird but I was starting to get used to it. “There’s also a backup of you on the live servers too isn't there?”

“This is true!” he said. “If you lose your clip, you can find your sword. He will help you.”

That was a good backup plan. It would also mean that Kumo couldn’t run wild in the live servers. Bits, I could even get rid of the clip so that Kumo couldn’t escape that way.

My old Zix did almost anything I asked so I could have my new one make a duplicate. I could put the clip in my bank and the devs were convinced that my Zix sword wasn’t a threat so I just had to hold on to that till I could make the transfer. The hardest part was going to be convincing them to move my new Zix to the game's live server.

“The devs will be able to scan your big file and tell it’s a Zix?” I asked.

Two-legged Kumo spun in a circle. “Yes!”

“Then let's do it,” I said.

***