I was kicked back into the cold black sterile void with tears streaming down from my eyes. It wasn't fair, it wasn't fucking fair! Grandfather had lived this whole life before I knew him and I had only gotten two years with him before he died. Two years! And if I wasn't a demi-human I wouldn't even have those memories!

Now he was dead and this impostor up in Haven had consumed him, pretended to be him, stolen him away from me! I felt the red rage rising. No, I would not stand for this. I was going to get my grandfather back. I would rip my grandfather from @KB’s clutches and save him.

<@KB GET YOUR ASS DOWN HERE.> I shouted through the net, unsure of where I was but too angry to care.

A figure shimmered in the void, a vague outline of a hund in a long wool coat with high cut ears, he had carbon black fur and a pair of canine eyes rimmed with shimmering gold. Somehow he stood apart from the void, like a living shadow on a moonless night.

He spoke with grandfather's rasping voice and educated pre-war Döbian accent but his carbon black fur made it hard to tell if he was young or old. “Such fuss. Such rage!” He let out a low chuckle. “If you were anyone else I would have your head for this.” @KB said, miming slitting a throat with his finger.

“Oh fuck you!” I shouted, balling my hands into fists.

The figure laughed. “So I won't do what you want so you are going to punch me until I do, is that it? We aren't even in physical space. This isn't some movie where you can force your way through to me by sheer strength of will.”

He drifted forward, stopping as if he had hit an invisible barrier. “Your grandfather separated our two worlds permanently when he died, locking me behind Black ICE. You can't touch me, and I can't touch you.”

My rage went white hot and I felt that familiar feeling that the world around me was made up of tissue paper and I was a plasma cutter.

I floated over to him. I had used VR many times before and was operating in what they called a “black space”. You moved your avatar by thinking about where you wanted to be.

That reminded me, I looked down to see that I was a naked genderless figure. A blank slate. No, that wouldn't do. I took a deep breath and exhaled, calling my body back to me.

Slowly my avatar began to change until it was not quite me, but close enough. I looked over at the imposter pretending to be my grandfather. “You're lying.” I said, reaching forward into the invisible barrier. There was no resistance as my hand continued through unobstructed. Mother had given me access to Haven's systems, and I intended to use it.

His golden eyes widened in surprise as I grabbed him by the collar. “That's not supposed to happen.” @KB said, more surprised than afraid.

I wasn't actually touching him, I was connecting to his server and forcing a connection. He struggled but I maintained my grip. If he wanted to disconnect he would have to cut his connection to the network manually. But I was guessing that he couldn't do that, not if he was part of it.

As a human on a planet full of uplifts that hated, or at best tolerated my kind, I had spent a lot of time on the net. It was one of the few places I could interact with people who didn't know who or what I was. Between that and my hardware's full dive capability, I was a menace to anyone in cyberspace dumb enough to piss me off.

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“Give me my grandfather, now.” I said as I began to dig my fingernails deeper into his avatar. I found the cooling system for Haven’s mainframe and began an emergency shutdown. “Tell me, are you getting a little hot under your collar?”

“Not particularly.” The carbon black hund smiled as he turned the cooling system back on. “Esmeralda left you the keys to Haven, but perhaps you didn't consider that I changed some of the locks when I moved in.

He stepped forward through the barrier. “Thank you so much for connecting to me directly and breaching the security that was keeping me isolated.” He let out a low raspy chuckle. “You humans sure get stupid when you're angry. Now, let's see…”

I felt an attempt to make a connection hit my wetware’s defenses and fail. Then another, and another. Something was cutting the connection before he could transmit any data.

The golden eyed hund froze as a massive skeletal hand began to wrap around him. “Fuck.” He said as he was pulled back through the barrier.

@TGK said.

I watched as they retreated back into the void, then disconnected from the server.

***

When I woke up Turm and Springer were standing over me with their carbines pointed at my head. I blinked, no those weren't their names anymore. They were Mr. Knight and Mr. Rook.

“Good morning to you too.” I said in Döbian as I shook my head to clear the cobwebs. I felt like someone had stuffed my brain with hot coals and tar. “What with the guns?”

“We didn't know who we would find when you woke up.” Knight explained, still aiming his weapon at me. Sapphire and Sparky were standing behind him. “Something breached the facility’s network and started transferring a massive amount of data. We followed the trail and it led to you.”

“So that's why my head is fucking pounding.” I looked at the guns pointed at my head. “So, are you going to shoot me or are you going to put those weapons away before someone gets hurt?”

The two warhunds lowered their weapons. I could tell by the muscles flexing in their throats that they were having a private conversation. Knight looked at me like he wasn't sure what to say, but it was obvious that he wanted to tell me something.

“What is it?” I asked, wondering what was going on. Besides the nasty headache I felt fine. Actually, now that I thought about it, I felt really good.

In the end it was Rook who spoke. “Eden… your eyes.”

“What about them?” I looked around, beginning to pick out small details I had missed like the scar on the underside of Rook’s chin. “Everything seems sharper. More in focus.”

“They're also bright yellow.” Knight said, ripping off the band aid. “You look like your aunt GG.”

I shrugged, standing up and making an experimental hop. I was definitely stronger. But I felt all floaty and my mind was still hazy. “So what about it? What's so bad about having yellow eyes?”

“It means you're infected.” Sapphire explained, pushing past the hunds to get to me. “It means you have Gershwin in you. I didn't even know it was possible for a human to get infected but I guess you're just unlucky.”

I wanted to say that there was no way I could have him in my head. Then I remembered that yes, when I was working on the original project I had chosen to change the eyes of those I copied myself into. It wasn't even that hard. Most synthetic optics had a function to allow for cosmetic color changes. Yellow would signify that my presence was active.

No, not my presence. His presence! Gershwin had uploaded himself to me while I was distracted by KB. Fuck! He was already inside my mind taking over. This was bad. This was so fucking bad!

@LAST had even warned me Gershwin was active within the Communal Dream. But I had been too focused on finding my grandfather to consider that Gershwin might be hunting me.

Off in the back of my mind a low chuckle rolled out from the depths of my subconscious. “And the penny drops.” Gershwin said.