Chapter — 15

Well, that answers the question of whether I'm being monitored or not.

WolfMosh stood in the doorway to her sleeping quarters that had just opened, his gaze fixed on her.

She looked a real mess, she knew, but that wasn't important. She didn't care what he thought of her in that regard. No, she actually preferred it if she came across as unappealing in his presence.

"How are you?" He asked, tone still flat.

"Just dandy. So you're monitoring me?"

He almost looked offended. "Of course I am. I monitor everything that goes on in this facility."

"You've been peeping at me through some cameras in here?" Rei asked, looking around her room in a third useless effort to locate them.

Third time's the charm? No? Well, I tried.

She'd even tried scanning for nodes, as any cameras had to be connected to something, but hadn't found anything.

They could be shielded somehow...

"No!" he said so vehemently that she looked back at him. "There are no cameras in any of the sleeping quarters here. Do you think anyone else would stand for such a breach of privacy?"

Rei shook her head in acknowledgment of the point, as it was something she had considered. She had also considered that now that she was back, it may only be her room with cameras installed.

WolfMosh moved into the room with the door closing behind him, all the while muttering beneath his breath, "Not that I'd actually watch any of the footage. I'd just have the resident AI or an algorithm watching for anomalies and notify me if anything came up." He sounded a bit grumpy to Rei.

So there's an AI watching the whole place. Not that much of a surprise. The question still remains, though. How did he know something had happened if no AI or whatever watched the totally non-existent cameras?

She asked as he sat down on her chair, still mumbling something too indistinct to hear, even with her augmented auditory implants. They were great, but this was beyond their scope.

"Well, obviously, I've been monitoring your health chip."

Right. The other thing everyone has, apart from the basic nanites. A tiny chip connected to them to analyze the data compiled on the host's health.

"You showed many anomalous signs but nothing life-threatening from what I picked up. As I was nearby, I decided to check in to see if any cyberware was causing malfunctions or the like. Can't be too careful."

Took you a while to get here if you were 'nearby.' I'm still holding off on recalibrating [Ego], and it's becoming really annoying.

"So, now that you've checked. Can you leave?"

"How are you feeling apart from, you know," He gestured to her still puffy eyes.

Rei scowled. "It was a nightmare, all right? And I feel fine."

And she did feel fine, she realized for the first time. No lingering weakness remained in her body. The only issue was her stomach.

She was ravenous.

So, sleeping even fixed my weakened state? If it can heal wounds, why not? As I just noticed it, the hunger is obviously not as severe from merely treating my body from the lengthy inactivity compared to, let's say, healing a wound.

It's curious that it didn't do so while I slept in the mesh. Another mysterious restriction.

Her boss studied her for a long moment — taking her in. Yet again, she felt oddly exposed beneath those eyes of his, but she was still wearing loose clothing, so she didn't understand why she felt that way.

"Alright. I'm still giving you a day off for you to exercise and get some real food. Then, tomorrow, you'll be back in the mesh. Clear?"

"Yes, master."

He nodded and stood, walking out.

***

Her [Ego] recalibration had gone as expected, and there was nothing much to say about it. She spent the remainder of her day doing as ordered but was extremely careful not to overdo it with her exercises.

She had no such compunctions when it came to eating.

Rei was so stuffed when she went to bed that night that she feared the food coming back up for revenge, but she needed it. Even if [Mind] and [Ego] didn't take much out of her from each recalibration, she needed to add some to her reserves in case the worst happened, and her body attribute went up.

And for another reason.

We don't talk about that other reason.

Some unexplained physical improvement? A serious problem, but as long as no one saw it happen, perhaps manageable. Those mesh-diving suits sure didn't leave much for the imagination.

A ravenous beast raiding their common room on camera on top of the improvements? She didn't want to think of the alarm that could cause.

After waking up and doing her morning business, she ate again, did some light calisthenics to keep up appearances, and then went to the dive room.

Mikaela's dive chamber was still empty, and Rei hadn't seen her in a while, but both Wilma and Selvix lay inside theirs. Rei joined them in short order, her mind entering the mesh directly into her private realm. She was locked out of going anywhere else.

As soon as she appeared inside the pavilion, a cube identical to the last one appeared. It came with the sound of obnoxiously loud bubble wrap popping once in her face, startling her into flinching.

The cube hovered before Rei's face, almost touching her nose.

Dickbag move.

She grabbed the cube and as she did, data in the form of WolfMosh's voice sounded out to her.

"This is the next puzzle cube in the series. It's not that different, but it's much more challenging. The same deal as last time or until I give you permission to leave. Oh, and do spruce up the place during this time, will you? The security is laughable, and I didn't think you'd love grass so much that you haven't even created some comfortable furniture yet."

Rei felt a bit called out on that last statement, but in her defense, she hadn't had time to do any renovation since she'd been so focused on the cube. At least, that was her excuse.

Not wanting her past proclivities to spread into the gossip mill, she started doing what he'd suggested.

She levitated the cube to the side before waving her hand in a dismissive gesture, the world around her vanishing. She hadn't removed any underlying structure to the submesh but merely deleted everything she would tag as 'environmental.'

She was left with a white void, her feet planted on a reflective surface that, when stared down at, reflected her face back at her.

A bit disorienting but kinda neat. Is this the base form of the mesh?

Waving her hand again, the world around her transformed — her cyberdeck was working overtime as it helped orient her thoughts into code.

I don't know why I wave my hands around, but it feels natural and, oddly enough, more efficient. I'll have to ask someone why that is.

She kept gesturing, her mind working furiously as a new scene grew before her.

It was a fjord.

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

The waters beneath her glimmered in the sun, and in the distance to her left, a snow-capped mountain chain shone. She herself stood upon one of the mountains of middling height in the fjord, a perfect view of the broad river's snaking path towards the ocean in the far distance.

She had difficulty figuring out all the flora; some greenery may have been more imaginary than accurate representations. She was no botanist and didn't care; it looked okay to her.

She then constructed a large house in the traditional Japanese style she'd seen so many images of. It wasn't perfect, but without a connection to the public mesh, all she had to go on was memory. There were a lot of paper walls and wood joinery, so that checked out to her.

Moving inside, she looked happily out of one of the larger wall-sized windows facing the ocean in the distance.

In the middle of the house, she'd constructed an open courtyard. She filled it with bamboo and a tiny pond with round, smooth stones stacked into natural sculptures. She even made a miniature waterfall that filled one of those bamboo tubes that clanged ever so often as it filled and emptied. Tiny stone walkways snaked between doors and the pond.

There was obviously lots of soft grass.

Rei described it as 'Zen' and was quite pleased with herself.

She spent a nearly full day fixing imperfections and filling the house with comfortable furniture and other nicknacks. The most important place, however, was her workroom. She spent another whole day writing helpful programs that could control the weather, lighting, and time of day, among other things. These programs took the shape of control panels and holo displays.

Then came the second task:

Security.

Rei found it lucky that she'd decided to alter the environment first, as she came to understand that the protections shielding a mesh were quite different from ordinary ICE. For one, the complexity of even the simplest things was absurd, as the mesh was a cohesive whole and not disparate elements clumped together.

At least, that was how her submesh was constructed — and she suspected others were the same. It was very different from the loosely connected internet of the old world.

This meant that the security protocols had to be interwoven into the mesh as a whole, and everything that wasn't part of that whole became a weak link in the chain — a weakness a skilled Magi could exploit.

It wasn't that different from what all ICE did, but the scale was immense in comparison.

The protections WolfMosh had established were nothing great before but could now only be described as pathetic when not connected to much of anything. Rei could simply entwine the work he'd done into every aspect of her realm but decided against it.

He did tell me it was rudimentary last time and urged me to improve upon it in his latest message. Here goes nothing.

Rei used the knowledge gained from ICE she'd been exposed to during her puzzle cube spree and other insights she attributed to her increasing skill levels from the System as she tore the old security down and rebuilt it from scratch.

It was the most complicated programming she'd ever done, and she was challenged at every turn. The most difficult part was how it had to be all-encompassing yet not interfere with anything.

Although there were many hiccups along the way as she went around her realm and plugged memory leaks and other issues, she eventually finished.

It took her a full five days.

I have no idea if that was fast or slow or how good my actual defenses are against someone like WolfMosh. He'll probably breeze through it, honestly speaking. It's much better than before, at least.

Plopping herself down in one of the lawn chairs — her bare feet luxuriating in the grass — she connected to her program regulating the time and fast-forwarded to midnight.

The aurora borealis above made the courtyard seem magical, and the contrast with the warm lights lighting up the paper walls facing inward added coziness to the atmosphere.

I'm still not entirely satisfied with the northern lights. It was damn hard to program, that's for sure.

It had stumped her quite a bit, and she needed many iterations before she felt it was good enough not to disgrace her Scandinavian ancestors.

If she could even call them ancestors any longer.

She decided she could.

Is it weird to have a Japanese house in a fjord? Yes. Yes, it is. Do I give a fuck? No, I do not. Am I pleased with myself? Hell yeah.

She felt it reflected her own psyche in an abstract way, and she hadn't really thought of that comparison before making it. It illustrated how well it suited her.

"This is quite the shift from your usual style."

Rei felt like she had a heart attack. Her head snapped in the voice's direction, seeing who'd spoken. Not that she didn't know who it was.

"Will. You. Stop. Doing. That!"

"Not until your ICE can keep me from coming and going as I will. Take it as extra motivation," WolfMosh said with an unapologetic grin.

Rei scowled for a few seconds but soon looked away. She tried to channel some of that ambient zen she'd cultivated in her courtyard to regain equilibrium, which worked surprisingly well.

"So what do you think?" She asked eventually, seeing as he didn't speak but merely looked around.

He hummed. "Which bit? The environment or the security, or lack thereof?"

Rei nearly scowled again, but she did want an honest answer.

"Both."

He hummed for a few seconds longer, walking around while giving the grass an amused smile. "Well, the environment is undoubtedly unique. A fjord, if I'm not mistaken. A curious choice and not one I would have pegged you for. And the Japanese house is well done, if inexpertly so. It lacks many things to make it authentic. Too many paper walls for a start. What else?

"Ah, yes. I liked what you did with the room and all the controls. You workroom, I take it?" Rei nodded. "That's all I'll say about the realm's appearance. And when it comes to its security, you also did a good job. Not nearly good enough, but a good start."

"And you're not going to tell me how to improve it, are you?" Rei questioned.

"I'd thought you'd know better by now," He gave her an amused smile, "Or can it be that you want me to know your improvements to the security so I can circumvent them with greater ease and continue popping in whenever I feel like it?"

Exasperated, Rei shook her head. She got the point, though. It wasn't a good idea to take inspiration from a guy she wanted to keep out when crafting ICE. That was probably why he felt her current efforts were mediocre, seeing as most of her inspiration was taken from his work with the puzzle cube.

"Where the fuck am I going to get inspiration from if I'm trapped here?" It was an honest and logical question, and she asked more to poke a hole in his criticism than any expectation of actually gaining access to the public mesh.

Not that it worked.

"Inspiration? Do some damn innovation if you don't have it." Was his simple response.

The fact that it resonated so well with the description of her programming skill made her irritation easy to squash. He was right, she knew. Inspiration was good, but using it to cut corners wouldn't do. To keep him and anyone else of note out, she needed to build something only she knew how to solve.

She closed her eyes and leaned back in her lawn chair, listening to the periodic thunks of the bamboo tube hitting another hollow piece of bamboo with a satisfactory clunk.

Rei thought over his words and tried to internalize them — to plan ahead. She had much to improve upon, and if she ever wanted to get out of there, she needed to keep up her rapid pace.

Lying there, though, she felt herself growing drowsy. She'd only slept once during the week she'd spent in the mesh, and another rest was in order now that she was finished working on her realm for the foreseeable future.

I might iterate on the security, but everything cosmetic has to be put on hold.

Rei considered questioning him about the strange memory flashback she'd had about the betrayal but eventually decided against it. Nothing she said could convince him of anything, and trying to shift blame onto something or someone unknown would be counterproductive.

Rei yawned.

"Tired?"

Rei opened her eyes blearily, seeing WolfMosh kneeling by her pond with a finger swirling the otherwise still water.

"Yeah."

"I came to tell you to get out of the mesh for now. Since you haven't even started on the puzzles, some time to stretch your legs and keep yourself healthy would be for the best."

"Really? I suppose I will then." She said with another yawn.

As she was about to initiate her disconnect, he spoke again. "And my apprentice? This water feels way off."

Rei barely stopped herself from sighing.

***

Upon leaving the mesh, Rei was once again greeted by notifications.

「Notice:

[Programming] skill level has increased.

Level 4 → 5」

It was only a single one, but Rei didn't find that strange, seeing as she'd done a lot of programming and not much of anything else. [Data Analytics] might also be close to leveling, but she wasn't sure since nearly all she'd analyzed was of her own making.

She yawned again, this time with her actual body, as she went about the motions of disconnecting herself from the dive chamber.

I wonder if there's a perk to prevent notifications from disturbing me when I'm this tired. Oh, right. I still have two unspent perk points...

Later, I need to sleep.

Smelling the delicious scents from the corner of the room, she amended that statement.

I need to eat, then sleep.

Wilma waved cheerily at her as she approached, and Selvix gave a reluctant nod of acknowledgment.

"Is Mikaela absent again? And why are you eating here? There's a common room for that."

"Ugh, you sound just like the boss. 'Don't eat in the dive chamber.' 'Don't spill shit on the cables.' 'Don't go into the DC with sticky fingers.' Franklin's hogging the common room, and he's always such a killjoy, so here we are. And no, she's not here." Wilma said.

"Left half an hour ago," Selvix added.

Rei stifled another yawn and nodded. "Alright. I'll grab some as well, but I think I'll eat in my room. I'm too tired, haven't slept much in the last week."

"Aw, really? Not gonna eat with your big sis and this grump?"

Rei could only nod again, feeling as if she'd yawn again if she opened her mouth.

Leaving them to their food, Rei went to the common room to acquire some for herself. She saw Franklin sitting in a corner, staring into his food, seemingly in a trance.

He jerked as if startled awake when the machine heating her food pinged, signaling its task's completion.

He didn't look around, but he did ask how the cyberware was faring. To Rei, he seemed almost nervous that she'd damaged it or something. Her response of stating that she was fine didn't work as it became evident that her health was of secondary importance to the state of her implants.

Ouch, continue like that, and you'll break my heart, you creepy motherfucker.

Quickly putting distance between herself and the dude, she went to her room and ate before crashing. She knew she should exercise before sleeping, but her lack of mental energy made her procrastinate without shame.

Yeah, exercise can wait. The nanites will hopefully take care of the lingering weakness during the night. There's going to be many busy weeks ahead of me as is.

She idly wondered how long it would take before WolfMosh found her proficient enough to be handed some actual work.

「Would you like to sleep?

(Yes / No)」

Yes, I really, really do.