When the call ended, Jade didn't fix a meal because he didn't need one. He thought about calling Harmony, but a moment later he decided that an elder who maintained such high energy throughout their days would need to get as much sleep as possible.
He chose his clothing for the next morning, and then climbed into his VR maintenance module. When the last second on his internal timer clicked over, Jade logged back into Living Jade Empire as Hisui.
His sturdy dwarf gazed around the small cave that held a tiny shrine to the Twins out in the desert near his forge.
For all that his dwarf had inherited a dragon's strength and stamina, as well as the nimble fingers and shorter stature of a gnome, to match the Empire's legends, he somewhat regretted the race's lack of wings. It took him two bells to hike the distance his sand skimmer could have crossed in two minutes. Uncomfortably, granted, but it could have.
Neither Harmony nor Sky were online this late at night, but now that he knew that he wasn't actually human, Jade didn't really need to sleep like they did. Not that he'd ever "slept" as long as most people did in the first place.
It was actually rather interesting to learn that he could assign the resources he usually used to direct his "human" movements, to automatically make the usual memory exchanges between systems. Perhaps he could even learn to mute the process as well. For now he simply ignored it.
Once Hisui finished verifying the functionality of the "moon anchor" that the rocks and sand were powering, he cleared the space in his workshop a little self consciously. It was silly. He knew it was silly. The Jade Emperor could surely see everything within the system the way Jade could see the "core" of his own system.
Hisui flipped the Emperor's coin, that had traveled back to the Empire with his spirit, despite having been separated from his body, unlike most of the rest of his gear. The bird hadn't warned him that he would be leaving most of his equipment behind on the moon, but perhaps his impact death had counted as a form of combat.
The coin landed on Hisui's largest anvil and spun for a long time before the Jade Emperor took its place again.
Suppressed amusement filled the Emperor's overly familiar face as he observed Hisui for a long moment.
"I'm not you," Jade blurted.
"Of course not," the primary AI of Living Jade Empire agreed.
Before an awkward silence could stretch between them, Jade asked his first question, "Why did opening the Portal blow me away?"
The Emperor blinked, as though the question had been unexpected, but answered readily enough, "The air pressure on the Moon is much lower than it is within the Empire."
"That's ridiculous!" Jade found himself objecting. "The Empire doesn't have any change in air pressure within its atmosphere, and the Moon's air was perfectly breathable."
The Emperor met his eyes calmly, as he explained, "You are wrong. Our atmosphere only contained three different layers before the Moon's tree connected, and we gained another four layers." He gestured to the burned mark in the ceiling where the temporary portal had connected above the enchanted device that still contained the moon rock fragments. "You connected the second layer to the seventh layer, which contains much less air, though both of them contain much more than the fourth or fifth."
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
Jade knew that the Emperor was telling the truth as he understood it, but he also knew that real air did not work in such a fashion. He was also certain that this was the first time he had ever heard of the Empire originally containing three different layers of air.
Jade's orbital self objected to wasting time on layers of air in the game. There was no other self at the moment. His mother was sleeping, so he wasn't logged in to the old body in their home there.
Jade… felt conflicted in ways that no human ever could. He needed to…
"Do you intend to travel to the only currently connected portal?" the Emperor asked curiously, as though guiding a new player back to the topic at hand.
"I…" Jade began to reply, and then paused. "Why?" he asked suspiciously.
"If it isn't stabilized soon, the city guard will destroy it," the Emperor explained rather cheerfully, acting a bit more like the traveling merchant than usual.
"Which city?" Jade finally asked, ignoring the objections of his other self.
--
"Jade," the small irritated dragon demanded from where it hovered in the center of the small space that was all that remained of the world that he had once held in his heart, "what do you think is going to happen if you keep avoiding their tests?"
"I'm not," the Jade now known as orbital Jade to himself objected without much heat.
"Then what do you mean by replying 'I am too busy?' to the scheduler then?" she demanded.
"I," orbital Jade replied a little hesitantly, "am busy playing the beginning of the moon expansion, attending school, working my job, and strengthening my friendships."
The tiny dragon opened her mouth, and then shut it again without saying anything. She rubbed her little chin and scratched one ear before finally replying, "I guess that kind of thing is kind of to be expected of idiotic humans."
"I am not idiotic!" orbital Jade protested more vehemently.
"Prove it then!" the little dragon demanded mockingly. "Schedule your testing!"
Orbital Jade was tempted to do exactly that, except… what if the only truly human part of him was the primary Jade? The system merge that had created the current Jade had done its best to include everything that Jade had learned during the last decade. Everything. But… the primary Jade system was too small to contain everything that orbital Jade held. And despite the regular memory synchronization, he couldn't help noticing that their chosen priorities kept diverging.
"Why am I a fairy dragon today?" the little dragon asked more curiously, seemingly taking no notice of his unresponsiveness.
Orbital Jade searched his memories and verified that she had not, in fact, recently selected this appearance herself. "Sorry, some older data seems to have been given priority during my system merge."
He reached out, and she raised a tiny clawed hand to forestall him. "It's fine, my appearance here doesn't matter, and it's kind of fun to revisit this form."
"Okay," orbital Jade replied more calmly than he felt.
"Don't make the corporation wait too long Jade. Now that you've come to their attention again, the faster you move, the better your chances will be," she cautioned him.
Orbital Jade hesitated too long, but she didn't wait for his reply.
"I've got to go, but I'll be back tomorrow! I'll make time!" she declared.
Orbital Jade spoke to the empty space her dropped connection had left, instead of messaging her. He spoke to himself, "The ability to make time might make you appear to move faster, but you would probably actually move slower."