Chapter — 12

Well, that wasn't particularly exciting. Useful, yes. Not that exciting, though.

In her HUD, Rei was reviewing the data shard's contents. For a fleeting moment, she'd thought Franklin or someone else might have slipped her some secret information.

But it's just my new cyberware specs...

Rei still went through them, as not knowing what was now in her body — no, part of her body — would be foolish. Although their descriptions contained much marketing jargon, she still managed to glean some things about all the components.

Had she still had access to the public mesh, she would have searched for all these products to get a better grasp on their comparative value. At that moment, though, she had to simply guess that they were expensive but efficient.

It just wouldn't make sense to her for WolfMosh to put trashware into her if he wanted her to work for him, consensually or not.

And the more debt, the better, ey?

Why do I feel like these thoughts make WolfMosh out to be some creep? Whatever, it's not like I care.

She also had to consider the possibility that he'd done something to the cyberware — rigged them in some capacity to prevent her escaping or otherwise implanted a tracker. She wasn't naive, and considering she'd previously betrayed the Cyber Fangs, measures against a repeat occurrence would be logical.

As her future hinged on her successfully escaping — or annihilating her captor's whole gang, a prospect she wasn't keen on for many reasons — not knowing if something had been done to her new body parts got under her skin.

There has to be a way to access the cyberware more directly and take a look. Not that I'd know what to look for.

Rei briefly did this when using her cyberdeck to save some data; the trick was to repeat it on all her cyberware.

Should I try to do this now? Not knowing is bugging me, but...

As it was only her first day back, Rei reasoned that anything that could go wrong probably would, and being too suspicious this early could incite more scrutiny down the line.

Using her willpower to persevere, she shoved the issues in the mental box neatly labeled "Future Rei Problems" and went on with her day. Rei wanted to inspect some of the locations Wilma had shown her, and she was starving for food.

She found some in the common room, where she heated it up and plopped herself down in a comfy beanbag to slurp it up. The beef and noodles were excellent to quell her growling stomach, even if she wasn't sure if it actually was beef. Or noodles.

Synthetic foodstuffs were the norm, not the exception. As long as it tasted alright and did as advertised, Rei didn't care.

After having her fill, she haunted the corridors and peeked at some of the equipment, scanning for mesh nodes but not daring to connect to anything without knowing more.

There were a lot of nodes. Some were well hidden and belonged to what she suspected were defense systems.

Yeah... not gonna touch that.

Rei also went to the dive room to look around, but it felt awkward being there alone, with Mikaela and Selvix's bodies void of consciousness — like being in a room with a sleeping person you didn't really know.

Despite her saying that she'd be there if Rei had any questions or needed anything, Wilma was nowhere to be found. Her vague answer to Rei's aimlessness of "You'll figure it out" also didn't help.

So, without anything better to do, Rei returned to her quarters and bunked in for the rest of the day.

It was mind-numbingly dull without her meshfeeds, and going over the data she'd stored didn't yield any secrets either. That day alone, she raided the common room food storage four more times since eating was at least somewhat interesting.

If I keep this up, I might even have a bra that fits at the end of the month.

Or I'll just get fat.

She looked suspiciously at the innocent box of 'Macaroni and Cheese with EXTRA bacon.'

***

"Ready?" WolfMosh asked, an eyebrow raised as his crimson irises set against black peered down at her.

Rei nodded, once more checking the connection between the dive chamber and her 'Bitflow 1' data jack. It was perfectly secure, just like the last two times she'd checked.

Not bothering with any pleasantries, WolfMosh closed the see-through lid. It shut with a clunk followed by a hiss as mist began drifting into the confined space.

Rei had to take a sharp breath as the sudden chill hit her exposed flesh. It wasn't cold as ice, but the rapid shift had caught her off guard. Her breathing steadied, however, as she remembered how the chamber would regulate the cold to her own temperature so as not to make her a popsicle.

Not hesitating further, she brought up the DC menu in her heads-up display before selecting the option to go under. Everything had already been set up beforehand, and now all she had to do was follow the instructions.

Rei saw WolfMosh turn and start walking away as her neural link cut her off from her senses one by one in swift succession, first going by touch, then taste, smell, hearing, and finally sight.

But she wasn't blind.

What had replaced her sight was the vision of the mesh, and as if stepping through a door, a new world opened up to her.

She found herself in a square Japanese pavilion situated at an outcropping of what was unmistakably Mount Fuji. This wasn't Mount Fuji of the future with massive mansions and curated compounds for the rich and wealthy, but one where no city, futuristic or otherwise, was in sight.

And what a sight it was.

The pavilion was located a bit beneath where the snow started, and Rei felt like she could see half of Japan.

It isn't real, but still. Wow.

The wind was blowing through the trees and foliage — making branches creak and leaves rustle — and for a fleeting moment, she wondered what it would feel like blowing through her non-existent hair if she had some.

Just in time, Rei managed to halt an instinctual response to the desire. It took her a few seconds more to figure out what she'd almost done, and then it hit her.

I almost tried to conjure up my old avatar. The avatar of the Goddess of Creation.

As she was now nothing more than a semi-transparent outline of a person, it was lucky she'd stopped herself. Rei had no doubt the whole virtual space was being monitored.

A Helson Corp. slave with such a pretentious moniker. Ironic.

Still, that was what I once was to my many creations. Times sure were different.

She could still feel the wind as surely as the wooden flooring beneath her outlined ghostly feet, but without clothes or anything to cause variation, it felt abstract. She could also hear the world around her as perfectly as she could see.

Looking closer at the area around her, it felt vaguely familiar. A notion supported by the brief buzz of static as she studied the pavilion architecture.

It was kind of neat, in Rei's opinion, but through her cyberdeck, she could tell that what she saw wasn't really what was all around her. Anything more than a passing glance showed that the wooden planks, bamboo stalks, grains of dirt, and even the wind were all just lines of code mimicking what they represented.

It all came to life here, though — in the mesh.

"Spark any memories?"

Rei jumped at the sudden voice before whirling around and staring.

A wolf?

"Well?" The black wolf said in WolfMosh's iconic artificial voice after a few seconds of Rei simply staring, his head tilted in faint curiosity.

The wolf's black fur looked more like metal wires than strands of hair, and it rippled weirdly in the wind as if unsure of its own identity. On each large paw, razor-like claws sparked with crimson lightning, the same shade as its predatory mechanical eyes. Blood dripped from its steel maw, each droplet landing on the pavilion flooring with a hiss as its apparent corrosive properties ate through the material before vanishing.

The terrifying visage wasn't what made Rei stare in dumbfounded silence, however.

Rei had just inspected the world around her for the facade it was, and seeing something that looked real to her — no matter how much she focused on it — took her so aback that she didn't even hear her boss repeat the question.

"...Well?"

The impatience now clearly evident in his tone made Rei finally snap out of her stupor. She fumbled to remember his initial question before answering.

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

"Um, yes. But also no. It feels familiar but doesn't spark any memories."

"Curious," He said as he started to stalk around her, eyes never leaving her outline.

"May I ask a question?"

WolfMosh stopped walking and tilted his head again, an action Rei would have found adorable on any other wolf. "Go ahead."

"Why do you seem so-"

"Real?" He finished for her, his maw stretching into a semblance of a grin. "Because you don't have the authority to see the programming of my avatar."

"I don't have the authority?" Rei questioned, somehow feeling rankled at the idea.

The wolf scoffed before springing to his back legs as his whole form swiftly shifted into a man.

The man looked slightly different from himself in the real world, as evidenced by his larger-than-average canines. From his posture and mannerisms, though, there was a new sense of wildness to him. A savage aura surrounded him, marking him as a predator high on the food chain. His expensive black suit with red trim and polished shoes looked more like a collar to Rei. Something to show he was civilized, even if the air about him seemed to scream of danger.

Rei took an involuntary — if meaningless — breath as the feeling of danger suddenly vanished, leaving WolfMosh smiling a somewhat predatory smile at her.

"What was that?" Rei asked, her tone a little shaky.

"The mesh is not the real world, but it can be just as dangerous to those who are ignorant," He said calmly. "So, to answer your first question: You don't have authority over my digital avatar because I'm not stupid enough to give that to anyone. You see the world around us?" He motioned with a hand at nothing and everything.

Rei nodded.

"But you see more than you would in the real world, don't you? You see the very make-up of this world. It's code. What if you could do the same to me?"

Rei thought she understood. "Then I could pose a threat to you. Hurt you."

He barked a very wolf-like laugh. "Hurt me? A stretch if there ever was one. But sure, you'd pose a much larger threat than you currently do. Not that someone actually has to give permission for others to gain access. Breaching and splicing data we don't have authority to access is the Cyber Fangs' whole business model."

Splicing? Ah, I remember this. Due to mesh being almost synonymous with weave, the term hacking shifted to splicing, I think.

"The reason you can see the inner workings of this realm," WolfMosh went on, "is because I gave you permission to do so before you even entered. This is your personal submesh nested within our shared local mesh. Mikaela, Selvix, Wilma, and I have our own as well. In other words, this world — this realm — is for you to do with as you please, as you'll spend most of your time working here. No one but you or I have the same authority here.

"You may even invite your fellow apprentices here if you wish in the future when I give you my permission, but not before that. Though, even if they don't have authority like you do, I'd still increase the security of the place if I were you. I left it pretty bare-bones on purpose for you to figure out on your own, as they would have no issue splicing the submesh as it currently is and wrecking the place. Not that they probably would, but you catch my drift."

It was a lot of information, but Rei nodded along, figuring she'd understood his meaning.

"Then, the first thing on the agenda is for you to create an avatar."

"Can't I just remain like I am now?" Rei had an inkling of the answer due to his previous speech but still wanted confirmation.

"If you're talking about your current appearance of a boring outline, then sure, you could. It could hamper you in some ways, but you'll figure that out yourself.

"If you mean the amount of security — or rather lack thereof — surrounding you, then that is a big fat no. We might be in heavily encrypted servers where the mesh is highly secure, but remaining as vulnerable as you are now isn't acceptable.

"Right now, anyone can see all your data without even trying, and someone less proficient than me could fry your brain with a simple virus before the DC disconnects you."

That... is rather terrifying.

"Alright. How do I do this?"

***

WolfMosh kept his rapidly mounting wonder and disbelief to himself as he guided Rei through creating her first avatar.

All he had to do was explain the basics of how to program a stable base from which to build upon and give some tips occasionally as she worked.

As a preliminary security measure, he'd given her three different ICE — Intrusion Countermeasure Enmeshments — to choose from, but he was left speechless when she entwined two of them together to create a new cohesive whole before incorporating it into her base.

The result wasn't good, and its efficiency was terrible, but for the first attempt, it was beyond excellent. WolfMosh had only given her three very different low-to-mid-quality ICE to compare and build upon later as training material.

Rei had always been talented, perhaps even more so than WolfMosh himself, he knew.

He'd been cautiously optimistic that her brilliance would return with time after her amnesia had come to light, but either the amnesia hadn't taken as much from her as he'd previously thought, or something else had changed.

The way she wielded the data spoke of an intuitive understanding of the mesh that — with her lacking knowledge — might even surpass his own, which was a scary and exciting thought for someone as old and experienced as him.

He could only watch on in silence as Rei went on to form her avatar without his prompting once the base was constructed.

Due to her ICE being too poor to shield her from his eyes, he saw as she made, edited, and discarded data like she was in a trance — the previously boring outline slowly transforming.

He initially thought she was going for a basic close replica of her real-world appearance, as she'd often emulated him. She'd also always been very proud of her looks, which he could understand.

He was only partially correct.

What greeted him as the process reached its conclusion was a stranger with her gray, slightly wavy hair falling behind her back and glowing orange eyes. She wore a black hoodie and lilac shorts that showed off strong legs too fit to be her real ones.

He'd just realized that no shoes were present when she skipped out of the pavilion and stepped onto the lush grass surrounding it, sighing in contentment as she did.

"Damn, I'd forgotten how nice grass feels when barefoot."

WolfMosh didn't hear her, though. He was too focused on her face as she once more turned toward him. It took much longer than he'd expected — over a half second — for him to pierce the veil Rei had constructed over her facial features.

Ingenious, he thought to himself as he analyzed it.

It was rudimentary and would not work on anyone who knew what they were doing, but he was once more impressed.

Rei had woven false data into her avatar's face that appeared correct yet were not, paradoxically leaving her features on full display but making anyone unable to parse the false data see her as nothing more than a stranger, their minds unable to remember.

Obfuscating data with tricks that escaped the human psyche wasn't anything new, but it was rare. AIs didn't suffer the same fate, or at least not to the same extent, meaning the trick had to be really convincing to many different types of minds to work as intended.

She could have just changed her face to something else if she wanted some anonymity in the mesh, but knowing how vain she could be, he wasn't surprised at her reluctance.

Few chose to have an accurate representation of themselves in the mesh, as seen by his three other apprentices, either for vanity's sake — sometimes in the opposite way compared to Rei — or because they liked having some anonymity.

Some Magi like WolfMosh were simply so dangerous to the average person that their appearance didn't matter.

Non-humanoid avatars were also quite popular, but most had at least one humanoid one for convenience like he himself did. Discussing business with a client as a wolf — no matter how stylish — could become awkward if the clientele wasn't as steeped in Meshmagi culture.

It's not bad for a first attempt. No, who am I kidding? It's fucking insane for a first attempt. She still has a long way to go before reaching her previous heights, however. Whatever changed, I can't wait to see her surpass them.

***

Rei stood luxuriating in the grass as WolfMosh approached. She didn't know what kind of critique he would have for her avatar, but she'd noticed that he'd broken through her facial obfuscation without any trouble.

The code making it up had been a spur-of-the-moment invention, as being without any anonymity didn't feel right to her. She could easily exclude someone from it like she'd done with him after he tore it down, so it wasn't an inconvenience or anything.

"An interesting avatar, to be sure. Rudimentary, yes. But interesting." He said as he walked over to stand beside her.

Rei nodded before turning her face to feel the simulated warmth of the sun's rays on her face, her legs equally basking in the radiance.

That was why she'd chosen to don her avatar in somewhat conservative hotpants instead of knee-length shorts or pants — well, and for her own vanity, as she'd leaned into what she thought ideal when making her legs.

She'd also resurrected her other severely lacking feature, but showing that off with a tanktop or something would have felt embarrassing.

I'm no prude or anything, but since they obviously don't reflect my current state in meatspace, flaunting my ideal form would be awkward.

She didn't want her enslaver ogling her avatar too much, either. Hence, a compromise and the overlarge hoodie. It was very soft and comfortable.

I have no idea if there are any limits to what he could do to me in here after all. Not that I think he's that kind of person. Nothing about him indicates it, but I have no luck getting a read on him as it is. Just his casual and almost friendly interaction with me in here is such a contrast to our first interaction over our agents that it's jarring.

She hadn't strayed too far off with her avatar body, though, merely creating it in the image she hoped would reflect back in the real world after a few more attribute recalibrations.

While building her avatar base and planning its appearance, she'd concluded that straying too far from her real-world appearance could be dangerous. Her ego attribute remained at 5, and her mind suddenly having to adjust to two very different physicalities might deteriorate her progress in that regard.

That, and her desire for anonymity, led her to almost instinctively interweave a veil of obfuscation, hiding her face — not that it had worked on WolfMosh.

Rei voiced her thoughts as she turned her face away from the sun. "I thought something to hide my face would be a good idea. Not that it worked. Got any ideas?"

"I've seen similar things before. Nothing I've ever used, mind you, but I've seen it. Most just change their avatar to not reflect their real-world appearance, but sometimes even those with avatars that are fantastical desire anonymity.

"Almost every Meshmagi takes pride in their avatar, as most are self-created. Being forced to change it for fear of being recognized can be... annoying.

"But no. I don't have any tips for you as of right now. I might give you some pointers at a later date, but for now, I'm more curious about what you'll make without my input. Taking inspiration is good and often necessary for growth, but you shouldn't rely on it."

"Why?"

WolfMosh looked away from Rei, his eyes becoming distant as he gazed across the vast landscape below. "Because every piece of code known by someone other than yourself is a potential vulnerability. The most used ICE, for example, is often the one with the most exploits found and shared. The same goes for everything else in the mesh.

"Knowledge — data — is power in the mesh in a more meaningful way than in meatspace. Knowledge was the most powerful thing a magician in fantasy tales of old could possess, and we're the same. Hence our name."

WolfMosh held his palm out facing upwards, a ball of fire coalescing on top of it before compressing in on itself time and time again — eventually forming what seemed to Rei like the nucleus of a tiny star.

Without preamble, he threw it toward the horizon, the tiny star picking up speed instead of slowing down until it eventually hit a forest hundreds of kilometers away.

The resulting explosion took Rei's breath away, both figuratively and literally, as soon as the shockwave hit.

WolfMosh didn't seem affected in the least, not even his business suit or hair swaying. Rei, though, was wheezing, the explosion having felt utterly real and terrifying to her.

She looked at the creator standing at her side and the immense crater far away, which was actively expanding as if coated in digital acid — equal parts shocked and fearful, knowing full well that something like that hitting her point-blank wouldn't be good.

I have no idea if it would have simply erased my avatar and booted me out of the mesh or if it would have lasting impacts on my psyche, perhaps frying my cyberdeck and neural link along with my brain.

Waving his hand lazily, WolfMosh restored everything to its previous state as if he'd rewound time before turning to face her once more. His eyes danced with a gleam of madness.

His artificial voice sent shivers of excitement down her avatar's spine. "Now, are you ready to make some of that knowledge your own?"