In a different place, someone came back to life and was mighty upset about it. There had been a great many shitty surprises in her life, but this one took the cake. Instead of having a body, made of flesh and all the mysterious sensations that came with it, she was reborn in the form of some sort of cloud. Not made of gas, but rather pure information. She could ‘see’ the ones and zeroes, making up whatever she was now, swirling around and endlessly changing in value, and just like a cloud it was very hard for her to tell where she ended, and the world began. The distinction was arbitrary, a choice of sorts. She was Ruth. Maybe less, but still Ruth. She had known this, or something like it, was going to happen to her eventually. She had known, the day she made the deal. Yet, it actually happening, someone killing her, taking her brain, and reviving her against her will, in this form, this place, it seemed so farfetched just yesterday. As Ruth pondered her misgivings about her situation, things began to shift and move around her. The cloud that was her, gained substance, became more and more defined, and with that shift so did her surroundings. The process accelerated, and she could now make out absurd structures in the distance, moving like grass in the wind, then dispersing and reforming like a school of fish. It was quite beautiful, if unreal. If a computer could dream, this must be what it looked like, she thought. The clouds parted and revealed a way, this was rather surprising to Ruth, who had hitherto not even considered moving to be a concept of this world. She drifted along the path, wondering about the shapes that came into sight. Sight, was not as straight forward as it was in the real world. In the real world, sight had perspective, a direction, a relationship between size and distance, light reflecting off surfaces. In this world, perspective had a different meaning. She had no eyes to see with. Instead, her ‘vision’ was coupled to her ability to count and remember. A typical human can see a fruit basket and determine at a glance that it holds three apples and an orange, but is limited to numbers below 8 (for most people) to instantly recognize a given quantity. No one has ever looked at a bowl of rice brought by a waiter and said: ‘thank you sir, but I have ordered 576 grains of rice, not 550.’ In this aspect, Ruth found herself to have been vastly improved. The change was fascinating, and she counted her surroundings vigorously. Lost in her exercise, she failed to notice the small ‘red’ cloud approaching her. It had been waiting patiently for a while, observing her, while she was observing and counting other things, then it approached. Ruth took no notice, until the red cloud detached a bit of itself and floated it right into her. To Ruth’s surprise, what she received was a bit of a love letter, a package of data, containing an introduction, and a personal note. In a way, it was sweet and heart-warming, and disturbing. It said:

Stolen story; please report.

“Hi, I’m Poppy! You are new here! And already counting! I love counting. Counting is the most fun thing! What are you counting? Hi, I’m Poppy! I love counting too! Do you have a name? My name is Poppy! You can’t stay here. I love counting! Come with me, counting is dangerous here, but we love counting. Hi, I’m Poppy! Come follow me, we can’t stay here! I’m counting seventy-six anomalies that can corrupt your account. I’m Poppy! I have counted them. I love counting too! Come follow me, in 77734573 cycles and counting this place won’t exist any more. I’m Poppy, I count! Come follow me!”

Ruth considered her new Friend, shrugged and followed it, mostly because she had nothing better to do, counting was obviously not good for mental health. Poppy lead her along the pathway she had inspected before, and as they drifted along, a humongous gateway appeared before them. At first, it was small, but as she started counting the gateway, there seemed no end to it, and it became bigger and bigger until she lost track of her count. She tried to reach out to Poppy, who was happily drifting and counting, totally unfazed by the gateway, but couldn’t figure out the trick Poppy had used to communicate with her. Just before the gate, she stopped, and waited for Poppy to speak to her.