I came to the conclusion that no sane person, who had gone through what I had, would be able to sleep. It made perfect sense to me especially since I couldn't either.

Instead, I tried my hand at meditation. It was a common practice that we did at school to relax. With how bad some of the girls at school treated me I had a lot of experience with the good ole criss-cross-applesauce and breath technique.

Thoughts passed through my mind like a fire hose. They cascaded down on me and my concentration faltered. Becoming an observer rather than a participant was more complicated than it looked.

I didn't give up though. My breathing eventually normalized and I listened to my heart beating. Guided the air flow in and out of my lungs. After who knows how long, I was finally able to relax.

My door opened, interrupting my state.

It was Jennifer. Our eyes locked and she said, “Hey, sweetie.”

“Hi Mom,” I said with a sigh.

She strolled over to my bed and sat down. “Can’t sleep?”

“Yeah,” I said.

Did I even need to sleep in here? Would my mind drift off when I needed to rest? I hoped not. Losing consciousness while in the middle of a conversation would really suck.

“You ate?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I said.

A brief moment of awkwardness passed. “I guess have a good night?”

I smiled. “I'll try.”

“Give your momma a hug,” she said.

We embraced and I held on for longer than I should have but it was a bad day.

When we let go I noticed she had tears in her eyes.

This was a huge change for all of us. My parents were there every day of my life and when I tried to imagine never seeing them again my heart sank.

“Don’t worry Mom, I’ll be back home soon and then we can travel somewhere really far away,” I said.

She shook her head. “I don’t know honey. Doctor Steve—”

“Nope, we’ll go to Japan. You love it there,” I said. I did too mostly because New Tokyo was amazing.

We separated and she gazed into my eyes. Then she gave me a peck on the cheek and dashed out of my room. The door closed behind her.

She’s not taking this well. I thought.

Raccoon, Ferret, or the other Zix didn’t respond to my reflection, which was a relief.

I scooted back to the wall and went back to meditating. Getting my mind to the place I was at earlier took a while because my focus kept jumping to my mom.

As my thoughts swam I rode the current of their intensity.

There was no change in my surroundings, yet, I could feel a sort of otherworldliness emanating from my location. It was as if a white noise channel on my interface had been activated.

Instead of trying to figure out what it was, I let it roll by, observing but not interacting.

It was purely auditory and passed from my left to my right. Then it closed in on my face and was much louder than before.

I waited for something to happen but nothing did until it suddenly stopped. Vanishing from my senses.

What was that? I wondered.

My whole body shivered.

It was gone, whatever it was. A sense of violation flooded over me. I felt as if I'd been examined without permission. Which, now that I thought about it, sounded dumb because people have been able to watch what I was doing my whole life.

Then why do I feel violated?

No answers came.

I closed my eyes for a moment and the world disappeared.

***

I opened my eyes with a start and the world swam. A beam of light from my window beat down on me. For a moment I got lost in the swirling colors. Then my ears rang as a bout of tinnitus assaulted my ears.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

Apparently, Kumo hadn’t fixed that issue.

Despite the pain and vision disturbances something else surprised me. I was still sitting. Normally, I would ball up my comforter into a makeshift body pillow and snuggle with it. I’d tried an actual body pillow before but I didn’t like them. They weren’t malleable enough for my tastes.

I chose a practical outfit to start my day. Jeans and a T-shirt. They fit, which was nice. I selected brighter colors which I hoped might make my mood better.

The day started out normal. My parents sitting in their respective spots. Autumn lounged on the couch doing her morning project management rounds while Jennifer nursed a cup of tea at the kitchen table.

Jennifer avoided working or contributing to society in general. Most of the Penurious did. It helped curb the temptation to practice science again. Only a small amount of them went back to work. They always went to a different profession.

She found things to entertain herself. Gaming was her main pastime. We went to all of the major gaming festivals in between visiting all of the other smart cities. We’d been to each and every one of them.

Autumn always joked that Jennifer's gaming addiction had infected me. She was probably right. I wished she would play video games with me but her refusal to partake in horror-related media kept her away from DO.

I ate a tasteless breakfast and told my parents about my weird morning. Doctor Stevens was meeting with his colleagues at eleven and I had the whole morning open to do whatever I wanted.

Raccoon was nowhere to be seen and my parents didn’t know where he was. He wouldn't even respond to my thoughts.

A sense of loneliness flushed through my body. I wasn't sure if it was mine or Raccoon's feelings. Kumo was able to share his emotions with me and the Zix were much more sophisticated AI than he was.

Perhaps it was a combination? Either way, I struggled to find something to do.

Kevin was busy being enrolled in school and taking a tour.

Darryl was busy doing Darryl things. Since our fallout, I didn’t really know what he was doing half the time anymore.

Out of pure boredom, I tried my hand at physical makeup again which was weird because I was an avatar applying it manually. If Raccoon was going to make ignoring me a habit, and filters weren’t going to be as easily accessible, relearning the skill might be a cool side project.

When I showed my parents Autumn immediately snapped out of work mode. “Oh, sweetie. You’re out of practice aren’t you?”

“Yeah…” I said.

She jumped off the couch, took my hand, and dragged me to my room. “You used the bathroom?”

I nodded.

“Hold on a sec,” she said and pulled up her interface.

Dolphin swam into view.

Mom gestured at my small desk, it elongated into something much more elegant. Multiple layers were added to it, each one lined with an array of different makeup types. She had something similar in her room.

“This is what they used to call a—”

“A vanity,” I said.

She smiled. “Right,” The desk continued to change, the layers split in half as a large mirror rose from behind them. Small lights twinkled into view as they formed on the edge of the mirror.

A circular puck appeared on the vanities surface and a cylinder sprouted from its center. Another mirror flippable mirror formed on top of that. “This one lets you see your face without having to lean really close to it.”

“Cool,” I said.

That could come in handy.

Autumn turned to Dolphin and she disappeared only to reappear seconds later. Autumn held her hand out and Dolphin dropped something into it.

I couldn’t get a good look at it before she closed her hand but whatever it was sparkled.

“Nainai Hua, gave me this when I was a little girl,” she said as she revealed a golden lipstick container. “I was going to give it to you back when you first started experimenting with makeup but when I saw what those girls did to you…” She shook her head. “Giving you this back then probably would have made you even more upset.”

She was dead on about that.

“Either way,” she said while waving a hand through the air. “I want you to have it. When you get back I’ll give it to you for real, but for now, you can use this.”

Dolphin had probably gone back to the house to do a quick scan of it.

I stared at the case in her hand as she offered it. The negative experiences from school came rushing back to me. A smaller version of myself cried herself to sleep. Memories of the girls fake powdering their faces, whenever they saw me.

Screw them!

I bowed deeply to my mom, carefully took the golden container from her, and gave her a hug.

She pushed me away and bowed. “Yòng tā, rútóng nǐ de xīn.”

Which meant that I should use it as I would my heart.

“Xièxiè nín, māma. Zhège lǐwù wǒ huì zhēnxī de,” I said in Mandarin, giving her my appreciation for her gift.

We spent the next few hours as a refresher course while going over the various types of makeup and finding a favorite lipstick to put in the case.

The time for the meeting rolled around quicker than I expected.

Jennifer knocked on my door reminding Autumn and we all migrated back into the living room.

“We’ll see you soon and talk about what happened,” Jennifer said.

I no longer had my parents to interact with which made things so much worse.

When I got bored of watching them gaze in on the meeting, I migrated back into my room where I spent a good amount of time browsing through my closet and organizing everything.

Ellen hadn't stopped by yet but I couldn't get a hold of her if I wanted to. Even my edit rights were useless because Raccoon wasn't there.

So I waited and waited.

By the time my parents finally came out of the meeting, I was so bored I had sprawled out on the floor making imaginary snow angels.

The meeting was inconclusive. More than half of the time they were talking about the sharing of emotions rather than my being stuck in the server.

Apparently when Doctor Stevens said he wanted to meet with his colleagues about “Azerail Edwards” he needed to be more specific about why.

It was a similar situation I'd been through about a million times with AI. You had to be extremely specific or else you might get less than optimal results.

My parents said that like the previous cases of people in my situation, they had no idea what was happening. They decided to meet again when they had time.

Which meant who the heck knows when. The seriousness of my circumstances collapsed on me all at once and a part of me shut down. I couldn’t comprehend what they were saying anymore and didn’t care.

Raccoon showed up and I ignored him too.

I rushed outside and ran.

***