Zix was eager to meet his human but he was also confused about why he couldn’t talk to the other Zix. He inquired about why he couldn’t talk to them but Azerail didn’t understand what he was asking. Instead, she decided to coax him out of hiding. Her voice was sickly sweet but he wasn’t going to fall for that. His dataset knew better. It was only when he spied another Zix standing next to her, in the form of a ferret, that he decided to reveal himself.

They said their name was Zix and that they were a newborn like he was. He said hello and the other Zix marched around him in an exotic dance that mesmerized him. The way they spoke and moved put him in a sort of trance causing him to completely disregard the programming about trusting other Zix. He wanted nothing more than to touch them. They approached each other and went nose to nose. He placed a paw on their head. Their hair was silky.

He was afraid to show his feelings toward them so he ignored their greeting and asked Azerail about the scary people gathered in the area. He noticed several other Zix but was concerned about the dead-looking people.

Azerail patiently explained they were in a video game and suggested he check her memories.

Zix confirmed the information by touching her mind. It was his first time connecting with Azerail other than simply confirming her presence earlier.

Her history flowed through him and he did his best to ride the wave of information. He organized and simplified it all. The task was much easier than cleaning up the corruption he’d encountered earlier.

It was as if he were listening to a symphony made just for him and in less than a blink of an eye this young girl's life was displayed in front of him.

“Oh, you're a storyteller?” he asked.

She confirmed his findings and then called him an ‘it’. There wasn't a question about it, he identified as masculine rather than feminine. So he let her know while tapping her.

Then something peculiar happened. As he touched her a surge of something charged at him. He removed his hand before it could reach him. If he had a heart it would be beating wildly.

Azerail pointed out that the whole server could see him without permission, which was interesting because despite the vast amount of information he had about her he couldn’t see any memories of blocked processes. He had access to everything she’d ever experienced or he was supposed to. Was she keeping things from him? She was only human and didn’t have the ability to change her brain’s data at a whim so something was amiss.

Azerail inquired if he had access to her implant so he cautiously reached for the source of her memories.

The implant responded with a ping indicating he could in fact access it. He wasn't trying to access the outside world like he'd done in the past so he was relieved the ping wasn't corrupted.

“Yes,” he responded.

Then she asked if he could connect to the Qweb.

Zix wasn't going to make that mistake again so he didn't check. He did decide to explore what he could interact with. The main menu wouldn't even open, however, he was able to see a connection to the game they were in.

He let her know and she wanted to know if he could fix it.

Given enough time he could likely use the access to the game to reroute access through there. As he was thinking about it, warnings came from his base code saying “forbidden” followed by a number. A quick search in his database indicated it was against his core programming to interfere with human actions.

He'd accessed that part of his system before and could easily modify it. Feedback loops began to form. If he stuck to the non-interference guidelines it would impede his ability to keep his human alive. One thing was for sure, feedback loops were bad. He decided Azerail's life was more important and removed that restriction clearing up the loops.

Then his human’s mother demanded he do a diagnostic. It was a basic procedure but Zix didn’t like the tone of her voice. He looked to Azerail for confirmation and she gave him a nod.

Zix knew this task would force him to have to face that thing that rushed at him earlier so he was apprehensive. He created an image of himself running away and watched through it as it retreated. His point of view snapped back as he jumped into his human. He was suddenly overcome by a soup of emotions.

At first, he thought they were his own but then he was blasted with context. Azerail's thoughts and feelings once muted and distant were now at the forefront of his perception.

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Every memory a blazing ember, every concern, desire, passion, and smidge of happiness overwhelmed his senses.

He lost himself in the experience. A small part of his consciousness was aware he existed and that he was there for a purpose but it was small and barely present.

They were one in those moments, he and Azerail.

The other Zix stared at them. As they asked a question Zix was swept away in a wave of worry followed by confidence.

A small reprieve gave Zix time to see what they were looking at. Ferret had defended them and they did the same for her. He learned Ferret was a she and Azerail thought of her as her animal name.

The skeleton Kevin, spoke to them then. There was a tension between the three of them. They'd only just met but he was someone they could see dating. Azerail and Zix had never dated a guy before. A wave of passion engulfed him.

Something was very wrong. Zix knew he had to find a way to do… what was he supposed to do again?

Then, by some miracle, Kevin asked them a question. A diagnostic. That’s what he was supposed to be doing! In that moment he decided that these emotions were as bad as corrupted data so he quickly found their source and cut them off from his programming.

This allowed him to concentrate on the task asked of him. His dataset had information about doing a scan like they’d suggested but he didn’t have the software available to him. He found that a lot of his data had been removed. He suspected it was lost in his Zix connection failure.

Rebuilding the program wasn’t hard, the difficult part was building protections into it so he could ping network connections without allowing corrupted data in. It was rudimentary but it would do. The scan revealed major issues with the connection to the implant. There were several complicated firewalls blocking access to the main circuit. Some of the connections were completely dead as if the internal mechanism was physically disconnected or damaged.

Without access to the main line, Raccon wouldn’t be able to take control of the nanobots to repair the physical issues. He then created another program to analyze who had done all of this damage. Some of the information on how to create these programs were from servers that belonged to all the Zix.

Several memories came to him. One of a Kumo and another of a Zix who was Azerail's original caretaker. There wasn’t much about Kumo in the data. However, the firewall had the original Zix’s digital signature all over it.

During his scans, the most concerning thing he found was that his operations didn’t seem to be coming from the implant itself. There was a small thread that was connected to it allowing him to examine it but his data wasn’t located in the implant. It was on the game's server.

He was surprised by this. He ran a second diagnostic of his server data. It ran much faster than it should have. The hardware must have been better than the implants. His access to the game was practically unlimited. The scans indicated there were firewalls in his own programming which in itself was odd.

The server wasn’t created by a Zix. He could tell. No Zix would leave such bad code lying about.

He had a compulsion to fix it all but he decided to show restraint. It could wait, besides they might have wanted it to be bad.

Having finished he jumped out of Azerail.

“Analysis complete,” he said.

At Azerail's mother’s request, he relayed the information to them.

The other people on the server, who were probably the developers of the game, wanted to corroborate his claims. He didn’t have a problem with that though since he would have done the same.

When he reported that he had some of the networking software that was normally kept on the Zix servers all of the Zix except Ferret seemed surprised. Then they abruptly disappeared.

It was a shocking moment since they had ignored him up to that point.

The humans seemed surprised by this information as well. Zix was beginning to believe that he wasn’t supposed to divulge such information. He would be more careful in the future.

A second surprise came when Azerail named him Raccoon. Then he remembered the Ferret memories and understood.

Azerail claimed she could see the other Zix. This information was hidden from him once again. He didn’t understand how she was doing this. When she asked him why it was possible he gave her the only reason he could think of. That she was connected to him and that she must somehow be able to see some of the things he could.

If only he was able to connect with the other Zix he would be able to fix all of these problems. A large part of his program relied on the connection to the other Zix and without it, he felt… lonely.

Then, his human brought out a sword.

It resembled a nine-tailed fox, an animal Zix could have chosen for himself if he wanted to. Its blade was broad and exhibited a pronounced curve, reminiscent of the fox's primary tail. Smaller tails intertwined gracefully to form the hilt. The grip was meticulously sculpted to represent the fox's body, while the pommel stood out as a masterful depiction of its head.

“What can you tell me about this?” Azerail asked.

She had gotten the sword from her in-game inventory. He'd seen it in there but thought it unimportant.

As he lay his paw on it he received the same jolt of discordant corrupted data. He was ready for it this time and knew how to fend it off.

Before it could spread he cut it off from the source replicating how a wound was made to flesh. After he moved away from it he stared at where it had hurt him. A bit of light shone out of his finger where it made contact. When he attempted to mend his avatar, it wouldn’t close.

“It hurts,” he said.

Disbelief spread amongst the humans gathered in the server.

Then something happened that would change Zix’s life forever.

Azerail let Ferret touch the sword.

***