I swapped back to the me that was in my room with Raccoon. There was a slight tug at my chest as if I were being pulled. Then the version of myself with Fen Li and Jasper stopped its strain.

It wasn't a visible thing but I knew whatever part of me that was being stretched to some other place was now a part of me again.

The first time we’d done it I seemed to travel with the part of me that stretched out. It was a little nauseating. I took a quick moment to check on Inethiel. We were alone except for Raccoon and Spoolie.

Back at the home server, I said, “See I told you it would be fun!”

“I think Jasper might have peed his pants,” Raccon said while hopping on the bed.

I laughed. “Is that why he ran to the bathroom?”

His shirt was untucked when he returned.

“Let me check,” Raccoon's eyes had a far-off look to them. “Yup. Wow, that's too funny!”

It was funny but his Zix should have had better control over his nanobots than that.

“Just sent his doctor a note,” Raccoon said.

Our talk with Jasper and Fen Li had turned into a meeting with the “End of Days Alliance.” It had been constructive but annoying. I'd accepted their group invitation which didn't hurt for some reason.

The other streamers who were a part of it showed up almost instantly. Maybe they wanted to meet me? Either way, we'd left on a positive note.

Jasper and Fen Li weren't in the best of moods which was to be expected.

I wasn't sure if we’d go along with the narrative they'd proposed.

“We can talk about it later,” Raccoon said. “You should see if Kevin still wants to link up.”

I squinted at him. “You just wanna see Ferret again don't you?”

Our eyes met and he disappeared. His essence or code was briefly visible to me and my mind followed where it went. He was back in the game.

That's weird, I thought. I’m sorry Raccoon, I was just joking around.

I ran my fingers over my bed's comforter and thought of my parents. They'd made the bed, a fact I’d missed when I returned. My interface showed they were at home in the real world.

A part of me wanted to go home, ignore the game, and the rest of the world. I could huddle up with my parents like we used to, watch shows together, or see if we could travel somewhere.

Then I thought about the hundreds of people waiting for me to return. No, I had to finish what I started. Maybe I’d visit them tomorrow night. Tonight I wanted to spend time with Kevin.

My perspective diverted as I shifted my concentration from the home server to the game.

“All you have to do is tell Fer— I mean your Zix to follow these instructions,” Riley said and paused.

Spoolie pulled one of his eyes into his body. It slowly squirmed its way up again. “Okay, that'll make it so I can—” He paused and turned to me. “You’re back!”

“She’s probably going to tell you that she can’t do it but you have to be persistent and tell her that you can’t change her code and that she has to do it,” Riley insisted.

“I will,” Spoolie said without looking at him. “You were gone for a while. Riley and I talked while you were gone. He’s pretty cool and knows a ton about the Zix.”

I raised an eyebrow and glanced at Riley. “Does he now?”

Riley made eye contact with me briefly before looking away.

“Azerail!” Jennifer yelled, she was in my room with me. She seemed more surprised than angry.

Shit, I said and I don’t know if it was instinct or what but I pulled at the connection to myself and it came to me.

Riley’s little raccoon jaw dropped as he stared at me. How did you do that? I’m supposed to do that for you.

I pulled it away and it just worked, I said.

The real question I had was if I could put it back. I needed to learn to figure out where the server was in physical space. How would that even work?

How do you select where we're going? I asked.

Riley jumped on my lap. Each place has a unique identifying variable. If you want to go to the home server, you need to focus on the different aspects of the home. For example, it's surrounded by grass so that changes how I'm able to—

This was much longer than I was willing to wait for a response so I cut him off. So I think about the home server and duplicate myself somehow?

That's overly simplifying—

I thought about the grassy area in front of our home server where Raccoon had made a chair for me. Then I reached instead of pulling.

Nothing happened.

My luck had run out. We'll figure that one out later.

Riley blinked at me but said nothing else.

“You guys look intense. Are you talking?” Kevin asked.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

I nodded. “Yeah, but we're done for now. When do you want to go to your house?”

“Uhm… let me—” he cut himself off as he spun. “I'm going to log out and I'll send you a message when you can come over.”

“Sure,” I said.

Then he retreated into his shell, rolled off my leg, and zoomed out of the building.

“He’s cleaning his room isn't he?” I asked.

Riley smiled. “Yeah.”

I checked to see if my connection to Kevin's messages was still active. It wasn't which meant I had pain to look forward to.

I'll make sure to keep them active from now on, Riley said.

Out of curiosity, I slid my AR slider down and instead of a field like last time we were relatively close to one of the residential buildings. I couldn't make out the exact number but just like last time, cars were lined up with food for people. They all congregated around thermobots.

There were so many of them that I couldn't make out anyone I knew. Then again, I didn't know anyone out of the game.

They all looked as if they were having a good time.

Incoming pain in three, two, one, Raccoon counted down.

Right on queue the pain and a notification hit me.

“Ready!” Kevin said in his message.

I inhaled and let it out slowly. “Alright Raccoon don't put me too close—”

The world shifted again and I was almost prepared for it. Almost.

At least this time I could see through both eyes but Raccoon had put me right next to Kevin which was too close to his personal space.

I took a step back and my foot hit something causing me to fall. Normally, my nanobots would be able to stop me. They would lock up my limbs and react quicker than I naturally could on my own.

The comforter on his bed made a ruffled thump sound when I hit it. It didn't make the noise for anyone but us since I was in mixed reality. His bedsheets probably weren't disturbed at all.

“So… that's my bed,” Kevin said.

I laughed. “I can see that.”

There were nanobots in the air that could move the sheets but they probably wouldn't activate unless we interacted for a prolonged period in one space.

Airborne nanobots deactivated when people breathed them in. Having active nanobots in your body was a choice but having ones outside of your body could allow someone who needed it to create small fires just by thinking about it. Even people who didn't have them in their system could use them. Mainly they were reserved for survival situations.

If someone wanted, they could summon a food car from the closest town by simply being hungry. No one went without food in the world unless it was by choice.

I sat up and examined his room.

All spheres were the same and his wasn't an exception. He happened to have his room on the same side my parents did.

It was a complete mess. Clothes were stuffed practically everywhere.

“You know you could have just used that,” I said while pointing at his clothes disposal/printer.

“What is it? Does it wash my clothes?” he asked as he strolled over to it and lifted both lids. “Kind of looks like a dumbwaiter.”

Was he being dumb on purpose? “Open your menu and select it. You can have Ferret tell you what it does or—”

“Ferret?” he asked.

“Your Zix, I started calling all of them by their animal name remember,” I said as I searched for Raccoon and Ferret. Neither of them were here.

“Ah,” he said while pinching his fingers together. His menu popped up and a secondary description page appeared in front of it.

I stood and examined his walls. Similar to my room there were posters everywhere but there was something strange about his. They were high-definition. I examined a Nirvana poster. It wasn't digital and had the smell of printed paper. I could never forget the scent. That was practically all we used in choosing school.

“Is this an adhesive of some sort?” I walked to his wall and selected the poster. A range of similar posters from the same band popped into view.

“Scotch tape,” he said without looking up from the description he was reading. “Wait, what does it mean by dematerialize?”

“It breaks down the materials into their base elements. Then it can print them into anything else you want later,” I replied.

That particular poster depicted a yellow misshapen smiley face with its tongue sticking out. I'd seen it before, Jennifer was a fan of this band.

“Wow, this is cool,” he said.

He released his fingers and looked at me.

I turned and leaned against his wall, and the displayed posters in my interface disappeared. “So what do you want to do?”

“C-can we test it?” he asked.

“We finally get to hang out again and you wanna do laundry?” I questioned while crossing my arms. “It's not like you get to watch them disintegrate. You have to close the door for it to work.”

He frowned. “Okay.” He sat on his bed and eyed a white T-shirt lying on the chair next to his desk.

“Fine, go ahead, do it,” I said.

A smile graced his lips as he grabbed the shirt, sprinted to the disposal, and stuffed it into the bottom slot. “Now what?”

“Close it and a little red light should appear. When the light turns green it's done,” I replied.

He did as I said and after about 10 seconds the light turned green. When he opened it nothing was in there. “How do I make another shirt?”

“There should have been an option on that description page,” I said with a grin, realizing that I missed his amazement at the mundane.

He checked. “Oh, yeah.” as he was about to tap the little clothes hanger icon, he lowered his hand, looked at me, and let go. “Sorry, I keep getting distracted, this has to be super boring for you.”

I shrugged. “A little.”

“How about,” he took my hand and led me to his bed where I sat down. “You decide what we do next.” Then he grabbed his chair and rolled it closer to me so we could face each other.

For a moment I sat there waiting for him to get comfortable but after he settled he gave me a hundred percent of his attention. I got lost in his dark blue eyes and couldn't say anything.

He grinned. “Well?”

“I do have one idea,” I said.

Raccoon, you good to help with hole one? I asked.

Yup, he replied.

Kevin rolled his chair closer to me, making me smile.

I took Kevin's hand and stood.

He mimicked my moments rising with me.

His floors were bare which was a good thing otherwise we would have had to move things around.

“Okay, so you have the choice. Wall or floor?” I said.

He broke eye contact with me briefly as he glanced at his wall, then pointed down.

With my free hand, I dragged his chair and tucked it under the desk.

He continued to follow me and when I stopped he rubbed his thumb against my palm. It sent tingles throughout my body.

“So.” I reached into my pocket and pulled out a two-centimeter flat black hole. It wasn't a black hole in the stellar sense but similar to cartoons. “You're going to help me.” I tossed the hole on the ground in front of us. “Open this, so we can go inside.”

He looked at the hole and then back at me, his eyebrows sunk in confusion.

I pulled on his arm and lowered to the floor.

He followed.

“The goal is to expand it. All we have to do is stretch the edges and hold it in place for ten seconds. We keep doing that until it's big enough that we can jump inside,” I instructed.

We were both sitting next to each other, legs touching.

He sighed. “Are you sure this is what you want to do?”

“I promise it'll be fun,” I said while rubbing his hand with my thumb.

I wasn't stupid, I knew what he wanted to do and I wanted the same thing. To encourage him I moved even closer to him.

His body tensed.

When I shook his arm it seemed to break whatever spell he was under.

“C’ mon,” I said and without another word, we got to work.

***