Chapter — 18

WolfMosh let his mind glance briefly at the camera feeds that monitored the dive room as he walked toward the elevator going up from his underground facility. He watched as all four of his apprentices climbed in and connected to the mesh, another part of his mind seeing them all appear inside the local secure mesh.

Even when present in the physical, with his level of authority and cyberware, he was never truly gone from his own mesh when at Cyber Fang HQ, and he took this time to watch as they introduced Rei to it.

Or introduced themselves to her more accurately.

He had considered keeping her out for a while longer but found increasingly less logical reasons to do so as time passed, considering how much her avatar's ICE had improved.

Her ICE should be good enough to at least stall them until any security protocols can take care of it by now. If there wasn't a slim chance the backer might contact them once I'm away, I wouldn't have taken such a risk and just disposed of her already.

The elevator doors closed behind him, and he started his ascent. Whoever was causing such chaos on the battlefield would soon be dealt with, and he could return and continue his vigil.

Or perhaps he could conclude this whole affair upon his return. He dearly hoped so.

***

When entering the mesh through her dive chamber, Rei was presented with a choice for the first time. Instead of just popping up in her private realm, she could now choose to enter the secure local mesh her submesh was nested within.

The choice presented itself in two large archways of gleaming black metal, with intricate carvings depicting canine imagery along their surfaces.

Inside the archways, one crimson and one orange portal swirled. The vibrant colors glowed, reflected along with their housings in the mirror-like floor of the otherwise white void all around her.

Is that a portal to my realm? And the crimson one should be for the local mesh, right?

Rei approached the crimson one, stepping through after only a moment's hesitation. She'd wanted to explore it for so long now that the prospect of suddenly being allowed to incited some conflicting feelings.

Passing through, she entered an entirely new space without any delay, as if she'd genuinely stepped through a portal.

Rei found herself in the uppermost levels of an atrium. Her environment seemed mainly constructed with metals of various kinds, and the floor was black marble streaked with crimson.

The glass ceiling, held up by sturdy metal frames above, showed the night sky, but what took center stage in the middle of the stars — casting its luminance into the otherwise dimly lit structure — was a crimson moon, either very close or of immense proportions.

Behind her was an archway not unlike what she'd entered through, but its center portal seemed inactive. On each side of it stood a wolf made of metal, their ears or snouts sometimes twitching as if scanning the area.

She couldn't see what they were scanning for, though, as she was too far from the edge of the circular walkway to see down into the lower levels of the atrium, and the walkway itself was empty.

Well, no, it wasn't empty. But empty of actual people.

Three beings floated to the right of Rei: A cloud, a sun, and a snake.

Rei stared.

The cloud was an arm span in width, and white lightning buzzed in the general shape of eyes within, only dispersing and reappearing every time the being blinked — the lightning flashing out in all directions but diminishing before reaching the cloud's outer layers.

The sun wasn't much larger than a bowling ball, but dozens of sanguine cubes orbited it in dizzying patterns. She saw some of the cubes lose cohesion before flowing like blood into a new orbit and reforming into solids.

The snake was the most normal in appearance. It looked like, well, a snake. It was about two meters in length and had poisonous green scales. Two fangs dripping with purple venom were on proud display, and both of its slit-pupil eyes were glistening emeralds. Meeting those eyes sent a chill down Rei's spine.

The snake was also slithering through the air like it was swimming.

The cloud suddenly started sparking with immense amounts of lightning in rhythmic bursts, some of it even leaving the cloud's confines for a few centimeters before dissipating. As much as it took Rei aback, she also somehow understood it for what it was:

Laughter.

A voice she recognized soon emerged between bouts of sparking electricity, Wilma's voice intermittently interrupted by her mirth. "Her face! Did you see her face?!"

The snake let out a hiss that sounded amused but in a much less friendly way. Meanwhile, the cubes circulating the sun remained in their orbit, not translating into data that Rei could attribute to any specific expression.

How do I even understand their expressions? It's bizarre.

And I almost wish I hadn't toggled off my facial obfuscation before entering, as they could clearly read what was no doubt a comical expression.

She hadn't thought it a good idea to hide her identity when going to the local mesh for the first time, seeing as the trio didn't know about her capability to do so. A decision she was now somewhat regretting, even if it was smart in the long run.

"Very funny," Rei said, unamused. "So Wilma," she pointed toward the cloud, "Mikaela," she pointed toward the snake, "and Selvix," she pointed toward the sun. "Is that correct?"

"It is." The sun said, the sun in question bubbling while all of the sanguine cubes vibrated to form the sound. Their varying frequency made the voice sound like dozens of people speaking simultaneously, which was a bit off-putting.

"I have work to do," Mikaela said, starting to slither away from the group with haste.

"Wait!" Wilma said. "We should show her our secondary avatars as well. Do you have a primary and secondary avatar, Rei?"

Rei shook her head.

"Aw. You may have spent most of your time in a boring humanoid form before, but you at least had a secondary avatar. It was such a cute little red panda as well."

Mr. Nibbles? Rei immediately thought.

She'd missed sleeping with her plushie more than she'd thought possible, but sacrifices had to be made. She'd rather Miyo keep him safe for eternity than have WolfMosh or someone else throw him in the trash when she'd first come to the facility.

She knew now that no one would have, but hindsight only applies when looking back.

"Ugh, fine." The snake complied reluctantly, quickly swimming back before transforming into Mikaela.

It wasn't Mikaela as in the real world, but it was closer than a snake.

At least in appearance, Rei thought with an internal sigh.

I still don't understand what could have made us friends or even friends with benefits besides her body. The snake form represents her venomous personality all too well.

Her secondary avatar had more visible cyberware, and her eyes were the same slit-pupil crystalline she'd had as a snake. Otherwise, it seemed fairly normal.

"Happy?" She asked Rei scornfully, showcasing impressive fangs previously hidden behind her lips.

"Yeah, thanks."

With a snort, she transformed back into a snake and zipped away.

"My turn!" Wilma said excitedly.

Her cloud started shifting from a formless and constantly moving state into something more humanoid. It had the general shape of her real-world appearance but with a slightly larger bust that seemed to defy physics — not that such physics was even applicable to a cloud elemental.

In this form, she looked more corporeal, and the lightning within became less apparent. Her eyes, however, still held the same intensity of lightning, but it was trapped in spheres of water that represented the eyeballs.

"Whatcha think?" She asked, twirling on the spot. Her feet made cute poofing sounds every time she stepped on the floor.

"It's impressive," Rei said, meaning it. It wasn't a look she'd go for, but she had no doubt that the programming beneath was intricate.

Without being prompted, Selvix also transformed into his other avatar. This avatar was practically identical to his real-world self except for one glaringly obvious difference.

He had no head.

A sun sat in place of a head, and the neck was an intricate metal construction that looked to be siphoning energy from the glowing sphere. Veins of color reminiscent of his kaleidoscopic sclera in the real world pulsed in lines down from the neck and below his shirt, moving beneath clothing to reappear along the backs of each hand.

There was still a single sanguine cube present, however, and it was through this he spoke once more.

"I also have a lot of work to handle. Can you assist her? She seems lacking in both knowledge and mesh etiquette," he asked, his voice no longer off-putting as it was singular and not a crowd speaking in unison.

Lacking etiquette? What?

"Sure can!" Wilma said, grabbing Rei by the wrist with fingers made of clouds before starting to drag her away.

They felt wet and slightly cold but left no water where they touched, which added to Rei's slight feeling of being overwhelmed.

Selvix's sanguine cube bobbed once in acknowledgment before he transformed back into his primary avatar. The sun then seemed to implode, forming a black hole that sucked in all the cubes before vanishing.

"Wha-"

"He just teleported to his workspace. Showoff," The elemental humanoid grumbled.

"Why didn't Mikaela teleport? Why don't we?"

Rei was somewhat confused as moving manually through the mesh was inefficient from a time perspective.

"She probably didn't want to dedicate the processing needed for it, perhaps already keeping her cyberdeck under heavy load working on some project in the background or something."

That makes sense, perhaps.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"Or she just wanted to show off her slithering technique," Wilma said with a snort that sent sparks of electricity from her nose.

I'm not even gonna ask.

"So why aren't we-"

"I'm showing you around, of course!" She answered happily.

"Ah," Rei said, feeling stupid.

As they approached the railing that had hidden the lower levels from Rei's view, Wilma suddenly stopped her. "Oh, and for your information, in the mesh, I go by the handle 'Sparks,' Mikaela by 'T0xyn,' and Selvix by 'SolArX.' That's why he said you lacked etiquette. Using real names when in the mesh is heavily frowned upon if they have a handle that says otherwise."

Rei stared into the severe eyes of 'Sparks' and could only think:

Is she for real?

Leaning on [Deception], she nodded, doing her utmost not to break into giggles and instead match 'Sparks's' serious demeanor. "Of course."

Are they twelve or something? How can those be considered awesome Meshmagi aliases?

"Oh," Wilma suddenly said, turning back to Rei, "Should I still call you N1bbl3s, or do you have a new handle?"

Re wanted to throw herself off the railing and just end it all from sheer embarrassment when she realized that Wilma was entirely serious.

MY HANDLE WAS N1BBL3S?!

***

To be fair, N1bbl3s was kind of cute in a nerdy way. And they were all nerds, no two ways about it.

But as a handle? How is that even remotely intimidating?

Wilma shared a bit about the name as they stood at the railing and watched the lesser Magi working for the Fangs move to and from workstations and complete tasks in the lower levels of the atrium.

Intimidation had apparently never been the point. At least not according to the old Rei from what Wilma told.

It had supposedly been purposefully chosen to put her enemies' guard down and give her an advantage, as who would be on guard against someone unknown with a moniker meaning 'Nibbles'?

Not that it had worked.

Every person who insulted her chosen name had either been beaten to a near brain-dead state or just killed outright by Rei. It gave her incredible notoriety, and nowadays, many feared the return of 'N1bbl3s' after her mysterious near-three-year absence.

Rei could barely withhold her incredulous laughter at the impressed tone Wilma delivered these bombshells with.

That some letters were numbers was not unusual either — if seen as old-fashioned by many — according to her present company.

To Rei, it only made the whole thing even funnier.

***

Wilma, or Sparks, stuck to using Rei's actual name as she guided her through the local mesh after Rei had spouted some nonsense about wanting to reinvent herself after the coma to discover herself anew.

It was all just meaningless noise, but with [Deception] making her bullshit sound convincing, she managed to get Wilma off her case, believing that she hadn't discarded the old handle just out of embarrassment.

She showed Rei different rooms where data visualization or programming could be performed using AI and other algorithms. It was mostly just a bunch of rooms with various tools to make some tasks easier, but Rei never saw herself using any of them as she lacked the authority to study the tools themselves.

Relying on external tools she didn't understand when she could just get better at doing it herself felt like a way to handicap one's future potential to Rei. It could be time efficient, though, she supposed.

Wilma then showed her where new jobs came in. It was a room with a big holographic noticeboard that constantly shifted as new jobs came in and others disappeared — having been taken on by a lesser Magi working on the floors beneath.

Rei found it curious that they were located beneath the ground at the most secure location in the real world but worked far above the rest of the gang inside the mesh. She felt like this had some implied meaning.

Wilma also showed her how the AI running things for WolfMosh color-coded the incoming jobs, separating them into categories.

"The red ones are only visible to us as they are marked as most likely being extremely difficult, while the orange ones are of middling difficulty and available to all. Most of those working beneath don't pick those up, though, as the penalty for failure can be steeper than the reward for success. The green ones are available to all, and as you can see, the ones most people work on."

Rei could see that as green color-coded jobs kept disappearing and reappearing nearly constantly while the orange ones remained as static as the red.

Well, it was not as static as the red, as another red color-coded job had just come in, adding another task to the tally she was now a part of resolving.

"Now," Wilma said, "there's only one more place to show you. Of course, there are some other places, but you can explore them on your own time."

Curious, Rei followed Wilma as she was led to what looked like a café. It was placed so that those within could gaze down upon all the people working in the layers below.

Behind a counter stood what looked to be a middle-aged man in a chef's hat. A curly mustache sat beneath a bulbous nose, and he was curling one end of it, nodding to them as they entered.

"A strawberry cake and some coffee for me. What about you, Rei? Rei?"

Rei was startled out of her confused inspection of the man by an elbow from Wilma that felt soft but sent a jolt of static into her side.

"What?"

"What will you have? I like the strawberry cake myself. And coffee is always nice with some sweets."

Cake? Coffee?

Wilma rolled her eyes at Rei's continued confusion. "Alright, another strawberry cake and coffee for my friend here."

The middle-aged man nodded and went to work. As Wilma led a confused Rei to a table with a nice view, she saw the chef retrieve a cake from a fridge and cut two slices out of it before beginning to grind coffee beans.

Have I gone mad? Who is this? And a café?

Not getting it, she just asked: "What is going on, Wi- I mean, Sparks? Why is there a café here, and who is this guy?" She pointed at the chef — if a bit rudely — who was now pouring boiling water down on the ground beans through a filter.

Wilma raised an eyebrow.

"This is a café. And we're here to eat? And that is just a program, Rei." She seemed almost as confused as Rei now.

Rei looked at the middle-aged man, startled. She supposed she shouldn't have been surprised, as daemons could be incredibly lifelike. She wouldn't have thought that anyone else, no less a chef, would be permitted to be on this floor, which explained it.

But one part was the most confusing to her.

"Eat?"

A giant grin suddenly stretched itself across Wilma's elemental face. "Are you telling me you haven't eaten in the mesh before? Wait, no. Don't tell me. You haven't explored the sensory possibilities at all, have you?"

Seeing Rei's baffled expression, she started giggling. "Oh, my, you haven't."

She was nearly crying with suppressed mirth as the chef — no, the program — approached them and gave them their order. He didn't speak but simply left again, returning to stand behind the counter and curling his mustache.

Feeling a bit put upon by her companion's laughter, Rei tried to defend herself, "I have explored it a bit, just so you know. I've felt rain, and wind, and the sun, and..."

But she trailed off at smelling the coffee and seeing the delectable-looking cake now placed before her.

Hold on a moment...

Hold on for just one fucking moment!

Not bothering to finish her sentence, she grabbed her spoon and scooped up a bit of the soft and fluffy goodness before bringing it to her tongue.

The explosion of flavors made her moan in ecstasy.

She didn't even hear Wilma's renewed laughter as she was lost in sugary bliss, her spoon automatically questing for another piece as she kept her eyes closed in enjoyment.

All too soon, her spoon hit ceramic, her hand moving about in search of more, only to find nothing. Opening her eyes at last, she stared at the now empty plate before looking up and meeting Wilma's gaze just as she took another bite of her own cake.

The look in her eyes must have been hilarious as Wilma spit out the cake in yet another burst of giggling.

"Oh, no. You made me spill the cake." She said sadly, swiping a cloudy hand over the ruined pieces and making them vanish.

Rei, though barely heard her, lost in contemplation as a stray piece of cake vanished from her hair.

I can't believe I didn't consider this. It's so obvious that all the senses can be triggered in the mesh through our neural link, as I've already experienced some of them.

Data is data, after all. Why not just make data that the brain can interpret into whatever we'd like to experience directly? The puzzle cubes incited mild pain whenever I failed, after all. I feel like a fool.

Sure, she hadn't exactly had time to ponder all aspects of the mesh with the puzzles and work WolfMosh had put her through, but something so obvious should have come to her naturally. It was almost weird that it hadn't.

"Is that seriously your first piece of food in the mesh?" Wilma suddenly asked, bringing Rei back to the present.

"Um, yeah. I've never eaten anything in the mesh if that wasn't obvious by now."

"I almost pity you," Wilma said frankly, taking another bite of cake, "So many come to the mesh just to experience things, you know? Or they do so in the better-curated realms through Virtual Reality equipment to not put themselves in unknowing danger."

"Do I understand correctly that absolutely everything can be experienced in the mesh?" She'd already come to that realization, but she needed it clarified.

"Of course. Food, drink, violence, sex, you name it. And it can all be better than it ever would in the real world."

"Damn..."

"There are obviously downsides to this as well, addiction being one of them."

"Addiction? Couldn't you just make the data non-addictive, if that is how you say it?"

Wilma shook her head and sipped her coffee, and Rei joined her, tasting her own brew. It was excellent.

"No. Well, yes, physical addiction is wholly negated, but the mental one? Not so much. Imagine eating the best food you could imagine in the mesh daily. How do you think real food will start to taste?"

"Like shit," Rei answered promptly, looking at the now clean ceramic where the cake had sat a moment before.

"Exactly. There are, of course, equivalent stuff in the real world, but how many can actually afford it? Even if the food in the mesh won't sate your hunger, it will still be worth eating for the experience.

"It isn't uncommon for people to go to work and then settle into their VR equipment when home, eating, drinking, fucking, killing, or whatever, during their evening while nutrient fluids get pumped into them as they do."

"That sounds like a dangerous mental spiral to be trapped in."

"It is," Wilma agreed readily. "Many lose their jobs and families that way, too lost in the mesh to ever want to get out. Those who are on the verge of dying in the mesh for real always get booted out by the VR equipment unless they've modified it, though, often finding themselves entirely broke, without a job, and with families who have already written them off for dead. Not that the families are wrong in most cases.

"It's often the streets for those without the credits to stay indefinitely in the mesh once real addiction sets in. Then, all that awaits them is a slow death from all the cheap drugs they can get their hands on with their UBI. Nasty shit that."

It was a depressing prospect.

Trying to shift the subject somewhat, Rei took a sip of coffee and said, "What about the chef, then? I mean, could you not have just made the cake data appear and then eaten it? Or, for that matter, just simulated the cake data directly into the neural link?"

Wilma shook her head. "Haven't our master taught you anything?"

"He mainly threw puzzles at me and vaguely hinted how shit my security was."

"Now that's interesting, not surprisingly, though," Wilma muttered. "Well, puzzles are his favorite thing, I think. I swear I've heard someone tell me that." She looked out the window, which showed the Magi working like ants beneath, frowning.

Eventually, her eyes cleared, and she returned to the last pieces of cake, saying, "So, to answer the easiest first: Only idiots who don't want to live long with dubiously modified neural links can continuously induce artificial stimulation into the nervous system.

"All corporate-produced neural links have deep-learning algorithms that would pick up on such blatantly harmful data pretty quickly. You could still get through it, obviously, but then you'd be more likely to die from brain damage than some addiction.

"That's why force-feeding raw data into your brain that way won't work in the broad sense of the word. As I said, you could get past those restrictions, but why would you? To take eating as an example, the process is half the fun, is it not?"

Rei had to nod. It wasn't something she'd considered from that perspective, but it made sense.

"Then we have your other question of just making a cake appear and then eating it. It should work just fine, should it not?"

"Ye-"

"Wrong!" Wilma interjected, shaking her head. "He seriously didn't teach you anything? Symbolism matters in the mesh, Rei. Why do you think everything we want to work in the best and most efficient ways is always visualized? Why do we gesture when performing acts of programming? Why did SolArX implode into a black hole when teleporting? It's because it just makes it easier and more efficient even if it isn't strictly necessary."

Rei was taken aback at the passionate speech tinged with a tiny hint of ridicule.

Well, I knew all that. Of course, I did. I simply didn't see it when presented with a program with the appearance of a chef cutting up a cake made of data.

It made sense to her now, though. She could have just created a cake out of raw data and processed the data to experience it, but it wouldn't be the same. The process of making the cake, cutting it, and presenting it on a plate with a spoon in a café paired with a coffee had so much meaning that the end product transformed into something more.

It made absolutely no sense to Rei how it could work like that, but she knew that it did. Why it did had also become something of a puzzle to Rei that her mind sometimes drifted to when she was programming or doing other things in her own submesh. It was a mystery that she was dying to unravel.

WolfMosh had confided that even he didn't understand it, but Rei was determined to surpass him in all aspects anyway, so what was one more?

"I understand now. Thank you, Sparks."

The use of the moniker made her smile a bit, but Wilma obviously thought she was smiling at her gracious bestowal of understanding and smiled right back.

"Sure thing. Now let's drink our coffee, and we can split off to go to work. There are many things for us to tackle, and I'm sure both T0xyn and SolArx are growing impatient handling all that on their own. I suggest you start with a few orange jobs, as failing a red one will cause us more trouble than if you simply didn't help."