CHAPTER 16 - GOODBYE, COCYTUS!

The group walked out of the local cafe, their bellies full of hearty hydroponically-grown food, of a much higher quality and calorie density than spaceship food.

The sun was now high up in the sky and the air felt a bit warmer, though still extremely cold, and unlike underground everyone’s coats were fully enclosed. The streets were more crowded, both with vehicles and with people. Suddenly, Nheka sniffed the air and dashed forward, towards someone who was a rare sight indeed on this planet: a fellow chohjozra, somewhat slimmer than Nheka, with a slightly more angular beak, and shorter limbs. Given Kayden’s previous correspondence with Nheka about her species’ physiology and slight dimorphism, he knew that this particular individual was male. He wore a dark green coat with black stripes on it, and a lime green hood even puffier than on Nheka’s coat mostly covered his face, leaving only the beak poking out. The same multitude of jewelry decorates his body.

She hadn’t seen a single member of her species since she stepped off from the ship that brought her to Federation space, so they immediately started talking in their guttural language that sounded more like a series of growls and hisses than speech. Kayden smiled as the rest of the group stopped beside them, waiting for the two to finish talking. And they talked for what felt like a very long time. Fifteen minutes, according to the clock, of standing outside in Antarctica-esque weather. Kayden was very glad for modern thermal insulation technology.

After returning, Nheka said "He told me ssome worrying news," her voice was, as usual, rather monotonous but Kayden was able to pick up enough cues that she was nervous. "After I left my civilization, it wass apparently uncovered that one of the Nrukhrizchaa’s Councilors, Tkruhzchae Mzzkrar, wass an agent of the Hegemony… a massive upheaval enssued ass hiss guardss tried to help him leave the civilization… it ended in an orbital sstarsship sskirmissh againsst our Orbit Guard, and debriss came raining down onto my home city of Mkhtyazbaa… over a hundred innocent civilianss dead… but at leasst my home wass not crusshed. I wissh I followed news from Akeruh."

"Wow. I… I’m sorry," Kayden said.

The Iron Empire of the dal-ghar, vaguely serpentine aliens, and the Hegemony of battle-thralls that they had assembled, was the main astropolitical rival of the Alliance, and was in fact the catalyst for its formation. For many decades now, the two power blocks vied for dominance, using the minor powers of the Oval as pawns in a grand game of chess, with the stakes being the fate of all known sapience. A common tactic was to brainwash politicians and use them to destabilize Alliance members. The Chohjozra Nrukhrizchaa, being ideologically barely aligned with Alliance– only joining on the technicality of having free elections despite their society being otherwise highly illiberal, due to having a strategic position– was particularly susceptible to such manipulations.

"Why do humans ssay that when they’re not ressponssible for ssomething?"

"Dunno, just one of those phrases. Means the opposite. Like, you know, ‘ain’t no’ just means ain’t."

Nheka just tilted her head and looked at him in confusion.

"Yeah it doesn’t make sense to me either. Anyways like. What were the dal-ghar even trying to do there?"

"Nobody knowss. Classified…"

"Hm. What else did you two talk about?"

"I am not telling you…"

"Let’s go then. What do you want to do to take this off your mind?"

"Nothing… I want to check in on Roni…"

***

When they returned to their room, Roni was still there, just reading something on his datapad with a gruff expression on his face. Kayden at first hesitated to ask what he was reading, but before he could stop hesitating, Roni said "I hope my mom is okay… she lives on Nyu-Chukotka which is like one short jump from here."

"...what’s that again? Name rings a bell," Kayden said.

"Cold barren planet that got terraformed into something like a tundra. Not many live there. Place’s bleak. But very cheap to live in and lots of space for the homesteading types. She left seven years ago and I stayed behind."

"What about your–"

Roni frowned and said "Please don’t remind me of him."

"I’m sorry."

The miner put down his datapad. "Don’t worry," he sighed. "I guess I’ll have to get used to living here until the check arrives. I’m so afraid of going outside."

"Even at day?"

"Well if one of theirs sees me they might track me down to here and kill or kidnap me."

"Right…"

***

Most of the rest of the day was spent either buying groceries for Roni to last 3 days in the motel room– from Tiik’s money– and indulging in local attractions somewhat less adrenaline-infused than the previous two ones. The sun wasn’t even beginning to set, but everyone, except obviously Ray, was tired, being used to planets with shorter days. Thus the entire evening was spent back in the room. They ended up booking a separate room for Roni, and he left for it.

It was mid-evening, with the sun barely starting to set, and the five were just finished playing a quick Simulacrum adventure when an entire set of different footsteps stomped hastily outside, in the hallway. Kayden had a pretty bad feeling about this. He very carefully sneaked up to the door and pressed his ear against it.

"Where’s that fucker? Fucking bitch trying to hide like a little rat…" was heard muttered, followed by periodic rattling on door knobs.

Kayden’s heart pounded. They were here. Lai sat up and opened his mouth to say something, but the human turned around and made a ‘shush’ gesture, pointed at the door, then swiftly ran his finger across his throat. The relmai backed down.

There was a knock on the door. Kayden stood completely still and did not answer. The footsteps continued. The next set of knocks was on Roni’s door, just down the hall.

"I sure hope he doesn’t answer," Kayden thought as he kept crouching near the door. "But how– oh they probably saw us on those stupid cameras in the hideout and tracked us down to Roni. Yes yes we had balaclavas but when we have such a motley crew it’s not really a good way to hide your identity huh. We’re like a hand that’s all sore thumbs."

The footsteps kept on stomping through the hall until they turned around and left. "...not here? Or just asleep or some shit…"

Another voice was heard, similarly semi-hushed. "I wanna tear off that stupid robot’s head and throw it in–" the click of the hallway exit door closing cut off the explanation of whatever fate Ray would suffer.

Once he was sure they were gone, Kayden stood up and said "They’re here. Well, they were but now they fucked off apparently. What now?"

"I guess we sshouldn’t go out at night," Nheka said.

"Not planning to," Kayden said, "I already lowkey want to go to bed. Ray, can you like, figure something out so we don’t get shot in our sleep?"

"I could set a script to wake me up if any sudden noises occur."

"That works."

***

30 Jan 2230

The sun set, and a cold night fell over the frigid city. Everyone had to uncomfortably sleep on the same bed, barely fitting. They did manage to do so, thanks to being exhausted, and then…

"Footsteps!" Ray intoned in a louder monotone than usual. Everyone jolted awake. Kayden put a hand to his ear and listened as well as he could despite his racing heart.

…

The faint sound of a series of footsteps were indeed heard, accompanied by the rolling of a suitcase, just like theirs. A click of a door. More footsteps. Another click. Silence.

Kayden sighed. "It’s not the thugs, it’s a tourist or something. I mean thanks for keeping alert but it’s…" he looked outside, seeing the star-studded sky with a bright Milky Way, and checked the time, "...five in the morning. Huh. I’m not used to no light at all at five," he squinted at the stars, "You know, it’s a little jarring to see the Big Fork and the Dachshund be so… deformed."

An awkward pause followed. "You know how it is with me, if I go to sleep again I’ll wake up at eleven in the morning and feel like shit. I don’t drink much coffee, more of a tea guy, but I brought some for scenarios like this," Kayden said as he stood up from the bed.

Lai, who was cuddling his partner, grumbled "Just let us sleep please…"

Kayden poured some water into a cup, adjusted a little dial on the bottom of it, waited until the thermometer on the side reached 80C, and poured a packetful of instant coffee into it. He couldn’t exactly remember the last time he had to recharge this thing, it was probably a month or two ago, and he used it semi-regularly.

After his residual grogginess was gone, he spent most of the rest of the morning watching videos and playing games. Today would be the day they leave Cocytus, and they’d have to figure out what to do with the artifacts they absconded with yesterday. He was quite distracted from his activities by those thoughts and like usual during distracted gaming, he lost several rounds in a row. Unlike at the New Arizona spaceport, it was against real people and not bots, which made it all the more frustrating.

When the sun started to rise, the rest awoke, and Kayden beckoned Lai, Ray, and Nheka to sit down next to him.

"So, the artifacts. We would look so suspicious if we just handed them over to the police. But I want to make sure the thieves don’t find them before the cops do. I want to just dump them somewhere so a law-abiding citizen can find them, but we gotta figure out where to drop them off. Also, because someone decided to fiddle with one of them," he glanced at Lai, "They have relmai fur on them. We gotta clean them thoroughly."

"Sorry! I'm currently shedding."

"You weren’t thinking of that so I forgive you," Kayden said.

"I can use my nanofiber cloth to wipe every strand and skin cell off them," Ray said.

"Would that not also wipe any fingerprintss that the thieves left?" Nheka hissed.

"They were probably smart enough to not leave any in the first place," Kayden replied. "This is shady as shit but I like not being in jail. I’m fine bending the law for that."

Tiik, who was still on the bed, laughed and said "Crime is everywhere, crime, crime!"

"Yeah. And we also have to figure out how to now have the cold damage them too much. Hmmm. Oh I have an idea…"

***

Thirty minutes later, Ray walked alone outside, carrying in their backpack a large garbage bag with a blanket wrapped around its inside, stuffed with artifacts and a plastic bag full of hot water. They slinked into an alley between two nondescript commercial buildings near the center of town and discreetly placed the garbage bag under an electronic bulletin board that had lots of blinking e-flyers on it, ranging from lost pet notices to ads for random services, products, and even media. It would surely be found quickly there, and before dropping off their haul, Ray checked for any cameras. None.

"That works," Kayden said after the cyborg came back and finished telling him what they did. "The rest of them, though? Kaput?"

"Likely. But un-100% chance," Ray said.

"Well I don’t see a way we could do anything to find them?"

"Only thing certain in universe: heat death. And we will unlive to see it. Effectively: nothing certain."

"Makes sense. Let’s hope then. But what about the e-laser?"

"I have license, can unopen carry with me."

"Alright, makes sense."

***

It was just before noon, and they were walking on the street in full winter attire, coming back from another snowmobile ride across a different route, when Lai’s datapad chimed. "Ey Kayden, another message!"

"...whisper please, we’re in public."

The relmai stopped and leaned to Kayden’s ear while looking at the screen. "Amani says he has inbho. Due do a recent black market bust on Cocytus by Terran audhorities, the smugglers will keep going. No they were not caught up in it. The crate reshuffling was to leave less obh a trail. The artifacts will likely go on the ship somehow. There will likely be searches obh passengers so keep that in mind."

"Hell yeah!" Kayden shouted, unable to contain his enthusiasm, "That means we do have a chance at catching them! Maybe my uncle could be avenged."

Nheka hissed but did not say anything upon hearing of the news– of course, she heard the whisper just fine.

"I told you so."

"Yeah. Hopefully it means they leave Roni alone now also. Still might be a good idea for him to get out of here."

***

It was evening when Kayden and co were packing up again. Roni opened the door.

"I just want to say, thank you so much. You saved me. I’d probably be dead now if not for you. I will remember you all forever."

"Always glad to help. But we’re leaving now," Kayden said as he finished packing the suitcase.

"Stay safe!"

Lai looked up from his datapad and said "You too! Hope we can meet agaaaaain!", then gave a broad wave.

The five went to the spaceport, easily finding their way back without a map as the carbon-nanotube beanstalk of the space elevator served as something of a beacon, and once they arrived, they gave away the rented winter gear, meanwhile placing the gloves-turned-booties into Nheka’s suitcase. As they went up, they (except Nheka, as always) looked down at Permafrost and its outbound railways, and the all-enveloping snowstorm that approached them, much like a flurry would approach a crack in the sidewalk, only much larger and slower.

"Hey at least we didn’t leave thirty minutes later," Kayden said, placing his hand on the inside of the cylindrical viewscreen.

"Yeaaaa," Lai said. "That would’ve been just awbhul."

"You know, Tama is warmer than Earth or NA but you didn’t really complain about being here unlike Nheka. What gives?"

"We just aren’t bothered by temperature dibherences much, ya see?"

"Alright. Guess that makes sense. I assume the tundras on your planet are as bad as the jungle."

"Oooh yes, not just the wildlibhe, but the winds, the winds are really strong and piercing."

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"That makes sense with all the temperature extremes."

Soon, they boarded the ship, then watched the giant snowball that was Cocytus gradually shrink until it was a tiny white dot. Kayden then leaned back on the bunk bed and just stared at the ceiling for a while. This was just two days but it felt like a far longer time. And now he knew that the smugglers were still here, on this very ship. At least Kāmohoaliʻi was a core world and it might have been harder for them to hide there. And hey– his group finally reached the core of the Federation! That same core Kayden’s father complained about. He himself had a more neutral opinion on it, and was curious to see the much more developed cities there. Alacrity was something of a preview of those, but was still much younger than the coreworlds, many of which have had more than a century of settlement behind them, often even predating first contact.

"Hey Tiik," Kayden said, looking at the white relmai. "Weren't you supposed to stay at Cocytus? As Lai told me."

"We talked id over in private and I decided to continue towards Earth because I don't wanna split up bhrom my bhriend."

"Right."

Nothing of note happened for the rest of the day, except for Kayden once again checking his messenger for any mail from Saera. None.

1 Feb 2230

Late afternoon, according to the ship clock. The stay on Cocytus messed up everyone’s sleep schedules somewhat, so they were a little zoned out, especially having lost sleep thanks to a search of the cabin early in the morning by security guards. The five, including Ray, were at the eatery, but instead of the shipboard food (dismal fish and crunchy algae-noodles), they brought their snacks, from Kayden’s crackers and Lai and Tiik’s candy to Nheka’s dried insects. They still didn’t focus much on eating, instead concentrating on the reason he brought the mostly-inediate cyborg here too.

"I think we gotta figure out what we will do at Kamohoalii so we don’t do all that awkward choosing planetside. We’re landing in…" He leaned into his datapad, which was on a stand on the table, "New Taichung. I think I pronounced that right? Because I know I’m butchering the planet’s name, which I think is Tongan or Maori or whatever. Chinese-founded colony there, on one of the larger tropical islands. Luckily someone had a recent tourist guide downloaded to Cocytus’ planetary net before us so we have a guide for what to do."

Everyone looked up from their food.

"So we have those options in the city. It’s pretty large, bigger than Littlegulf. Very multicultural, multispecies even. Anyways! It is very much a water planet so most of the outdoor activities involve water–"

"So did all the activities on Cocytus. Just bhrozen water," Lai chuckled.

"Yeah you know what I mean, smartass. But yeah there’s…" he leaned forward and squinted, "Surfing, nah I never even saw a board in my life and would probably drown… I think everyone’s tired of underwater stuff… Just relaxing on the beach? An option but a bit too tranquil. Something in addition to that… Hm… We can watch a jetski race! There’s one scheduled on the day we’re gonna arrive."

"Ssoundss passive, like the beach…" Nheka said.

"Yeah. There’s an e-BCI option for watching it as if you’re on the boat but I’m scared of those."

"Kayden, you mention e- and i-BCIss, but at home BCIss are very new tech. Can you explain the termss?"

The human looked away from the screen. "‘E’ means external, ‘i’ means internal. External are the helmets, internal are implants. Latter are more powerful but can’t be easily removed. Extensive ‘i’s are called meshes. Kinda expensive, but becoming cheaper and more common. Many people have an external, mostly cyborgs and Laterals and, I don't know, group minds, have internal ones because let's be honest the functions that can't just be done by a pad are niche unless you're into feelies and whatnot."

"Feeliess?"

"You know, like it was originally a term for BCI media that induced feelings but now it covers for example visualizing 4D objects and 7D cellular automata with a gazillion states. The stuff Ray does. Whimsical but not really my thing." Kayden tapped his fingers on the table.

"Makess ssensse."

"But yeah I’m getting sidetracked. Not much to say about the outdoor activities that aren't either passive or too extreme. We’ll see what the city has to offer when we get there, then. Because this guide doesn’t say much about it," he sighed and bit down on another cracker.

The ship left Acheron that same day. It was late evening, and the warp disturbances seemed stronger than usual than in the other trips. Kayden distracted himself from the nagging voices via an audiobook. The voices, of course, spouted total nonsense that was at times vaguely disturbing, often claiming to be characters from games or movies, or religious figures.

"Stupid hallucinations," he mumbled and cranked up the volume on his headset to the maximum after being repeatedly pestered by the dulcet tones of Howdy Purr the animated cat.

Everyone else was in a similar state.

2 Feb 2230

The warp bubble dissolved, revealing the yellow dwarf that was Kumulipo. The approach would take five days, due to the star being almost as heavy as Sol. It had almost the same color too, being pale in comparison with the previous stars the group visited. Those five days were spent mostly lounging around the ship’s entertainment section.

7 Feb 2230

Finally, the planet became visible. First, as a blue circle. Then, as a larger blue circle. Then, as a viewscreen-encompassing blue circle. Tiny green dots could be seen sprinkled across it, if one squinted. There were many ships visible gleaming around it as dots reminiscent of embers around a fire, swift and transient, in far greater quantities than the three frontier worlds. Even from here it was apparent that it was a whole different region of the Terran Federation.

The station, too, was different in design. Rather than the fairly plain exterior of the frontier stations, shaped like a bare metal wheel, this one had multiple "rims", each one’s Whipple shielding covered in names of various companies and even ads for random products. This was a much richer world, with lots of tourists passing through, and so it was economically viable to use the hull as ad space.

"Finally. Felt like an eternity," Kayden said with a sigh after they passed customs and entered the spaceport, which had a much more tasteful design than that of Cocytus. They decided to not spend much time on the station and go straight through the lobby to the elevator down. The furniture was made of a bizarre bright green wood with small translucent pyramidal inclusions, contrasted with a faux-basalt floor and dark red walls. It was very warm, so Nheka was only wearing her shorts and not the coat.

The proportion of genemods here was actually roughly the same as on the icy planet, but their forms were more varied, rather than mostly being directly based off of animals. Many were near-human, resembling elves or fauns of myth, while others were downright non-humanoid. None of the latter had humanlike faces, in order to avoid the uncanny valley effect. Not as many were furred, and this made sense on a planet that was warm and mostly water.

The five were going down to a subequatorial-latitude island, mostly swamp or jungle with a sandy beachline surrounding it, and a still-active volcano in the center. It was merely the largest link of a chain archipelago of other, similar islands, all with similar features, and small compared to most Earth island chains such as Hawaii. The city, as Kayden said almost a week ago, was indeed huge, especially to a frontiersling like Kayden. From the space elevator’s viewscreen, it at first looked as insignificant as any other city, but as soon as they got close to the ground it revealed itself to be the megapolis it really was, though from that altitude the style of the buildings was not apparent despite it being noon. Kāmohoaliʻi was one of the "garden worlds", planets highly susceptible to agriculture despite their alien biosphere. Not because of biocompatibility, as no known exoplanets had their native life be directly edible for humans, but because the archipelago planet’s native protein structure allowed easy conversion to Terran forms. Even from many kilometers up, entire clusters of waterborne hydroponic farms were visible in the ocean, glistening in the sunlight below the clear sky, like artificial islands. None were too close to the natural islands, in order to keep the fairly unsightly farms out of sight of beachgoers.

As they approached the ground, the city, New Taichung, became apparent. It had a less unified aesthetic than Alacrity, owing to its older settlement date and more rapid and diverse immigration from Earth. Lots of skyscrapers, somewhat less tall than the ones on Alacrity, some just as sleek and sail-shaped and some instead blocky, or cylindrical. Skybridges, though present, were mostly between the tallest of buildings that happened to stand next to each other. The city center was a fair distance from the beach or the depths of the jungle, but there was still plenty of greenery, mostly in strips separating the crowded sidewalks from the roads on which vehicles traveled, as an eclectic tapestry where imported palm trees stood next to local equivalents that, thanks to the whimsy of evolution, looked oddly mushroom-like, with very solid canopies and curving, smooth trunks. The elevator also felt faster here.

"At least there’s no special gear needed here," Kayden said as they walked out of the well-furnished but overall unremarkable depot. "I tried and selected only planets where you didn’t have to wear, like, a full-on eva suit. Not much to see on those ones, unless you really like craters, or sand, or endless water, and so on."

"Yea," Lai said, "I wouldn’t go to those either, once ya see one obh one type, ya saw them all. I saw Vesper, no need to see, I dunno, Luna. Or Aris-whatever."

"Especially not through the visor of a suit. Yeah sure modern ones are easy-ish to move in but the prebreathing is a pain in the ass."

They sat down on a bench outside to get used to the quite unusual air on the planet. It was saltier than Alacrity’s, and had a faint but very odd odor that reminded Kayden of a mix of fermented fruits with an undertone that resembled the olfactory equivalent of tasting iron. The smell was very noticeable at all times, but at least it wasn’t directly unpleasant or headache-inducing.

"Why’s it so smelly?" Kayden said.

"Explaining: Local organisms rely heavily on pheromones and pheromone-adjacent mechanisms for communication. Example: tiny worms living inside caps of cap-palm trees," the cyborg pointed at one of the trees, "highly sophisticated, eusocial, symbiotic with trees. Smell emanates from and changes with state of tree: if sickly odor becomes more rancid, worms start hunting parasites and repairing bark. When blooming odor becomes similar to chocolate, worms start spreading seeds. And similar cases."

"Interesting! I do wonder what Nheka thinks of it though."

"It iss very pleassant to me… Reminds me of home. We have flowers that smell like that and we prize them."

"Oh I thought it would overwhelm you. Alright then. Soooooo what are the plans for today?" He said to himself as he looked up the local guide. "You know, there’s a holo-shooting-range literally down the street from the motel I booked, with full-fidelity holograms, my hometown only has a shitty one where they look like ones in a pocket holocomm. We can figure out where to go after that. But first, our room."

They chose to walk there, as it was not far away. The sidewalk was, unlike at Alacrity, very well-maintained and made of some kind of material that wasn’t really concrete, feeling somehow even sturdier. It was smoother and shinier, yet had as much grip.

The building was a very odd one, shaped like a narrow cone about thirty stories tall, where the topmost floors were smaller. At the top was a sphere with a diameter of about a fifth of the building's height, similarly divided into floors, Kayden assumed there were premium rooms there. It was mostly glass, with a thin frame of metal, and its shape and composition made it stand out amid the others.

"Looks kinda ridiculous. Like a giant chess piece or something."

The room itself, accessible after a quick elevator ride, was somewhere in the middle of the building. The furniture was minimalist, curved, and beige while the walls were nearly black. Overall, it was pleasant to look at, if nothing extravagant. They dropped off their luggage and sat down to have some snacks before setting off.

"Ray," Kayden said, sipping some tea. "This was nagging me for a while. Like, what kind of code runs your programs? Did you write it yourself or? What’s it look like?"

"Confirming. I unintend it to ever be read by an organic. Thus I have optimized it for conciseness and elegance. Have you heard what a reduce function is?"

Kayden just gave them a blank stare. "That’d be explained in the tier-two programming classes in high school wouldn’t it? I only took tier-one when they gave me a choice in ninth grade," he sighed. "I sometimes kinda regret not focusing on that a bit more than I actually did. I’d often run into an error that I had bent my code into during auto-refactoring, and, I shit you not, it’d be so obscure that the only place on the entire internet that even mentioned a similar error would be some forum that’s probably not even hosted on a human planet. And the mention would be a thread from thirty years ago with no answer!" he paused. "In fact that’s how I met Nheka. A tech support question turned into a mail-based friendship, and soon we were writing whole pages just talking about our respective cultures. Waiting for days for the next message… Anyhow, I kind of digressed. Can you… send me an example of, I dunno, a minor program you have? Like your cellular automata stuff. I have a passing interest in the Game of Life. Contributed some of my comp’s time to the search for that glider-indestructible still-life five months ago. Then I realized, if they were looking for it for two centuries plus without a single lead, it probably doesn’t even exist."

Ray said nothing as Kayden’s datapad got a message with an attached file.

There was a period of silence as Kayden squinted at the screen. "Wow. This is like a soup of random symbols, various brackets, and one-letter variable names. I guess this is what elegance looks like."

"Confirming."

"Alright then."

"You ununderstand perfection," Ray said.

"Perfect is the enemy of good."

***

Their destination was a fairly old building by extrasolar standards: a five-floor rectangular entertainment complex with nondescript dark gray walls, slathered in neon signs. Most of it seemed dedicated to holographic entertainment of all sorts. While something of a luxury, inflexible, and expensive to run compared to BCI-based entertainment, it was not reliant on the human neurostructure so any species could use it, not to mention some people were uncomfortable with such intrusive methods, and it was more seamless. There were many different rooms with different experiences available in each, and the shooting range was tucked away somewhere in the middle, amid a series of hallways.

The inside, visible through a transparent door in the currently-empty, plain entrance hall, was fairly small and certainly did not look like a traditional range. Instead of simply a line of moving targets, it was a wide-open space with a gently sloping ‘landscape’ that definitely felt larger than the actual room’s dimensions. It was a very abstract style, with a white wireframe-gridded black ground that reminded Kayden of the minisub’s sonar or perhaps a very antique video game. The ‘sky’ was a rich, slowly pulsing green, quite easy on the eyes. Many abstract shapes danced across this skybox, sometimes seamlessly crossing over into the play area as volumetric displays. These were shot at and disintegrated by the many patrons inside, with garishly-colored guns that didn’t really resemble energy or slugthrower weapons and fired very visible, slow-moving bolts. Kayden and friends paid a modest sum of money for twenty minutes of this via an automated terminal and wielded their weapons of choice from a rack that opened after the transaction was made.

"Not really what I expected, huh," Kayden said as he grabbed a pistol that looked more like a blue banana and sprinted forward. As the sound-insulated door opened, it became apparent that there was a soundtrack that resembled a rave-like beat pulsing in rhythm with the skybox. As he ran close to the edge of the room, some kind of silent treadmill gave the illusion of an infinite space, or rather an invisible wall.

A while was spent running from and disintegrating various shapes with these colorful bolts. Just as their time was about to run out, with less than a minute left…

WHAM!

Kayden felt himself being seemingly accidentally rammed into and knocked down onto the ground by someone much larger and heavier than him.

"Ow! Don’t get under my hooves!" A gruff voice intoned.

Kayden turned around to see who exactly was now painfully pinning him onto the ground, and involuntarily recoiled in fear.

Mostly humanoid, more than seven-foot-tall, muscular body bound in leathery mottled teal-and-orange skin. Rounded dog-like snout filled to the brim with sharp teeth. Eyes obscured by wide aviator glasses. Bright orange mohawk and small, protruding beard. Two antennae, horse-like ears, sideways-facing pointy bronze-with-patina horns, and fins not unlike that of Nheka’s, all decorated with various baubles. A spade-like spike at the end of a long tail. Hooves. Both made of the same metal as the horns. Wearing a cropped leather-and-metal jacket and belted pants, both with blue highlights, fingerless gloves, as well as spiked bracelets and collar. Clearly a Lateral, if a very humanoid one by that morphism’s standards. Odd cinnamon smell.

Kayden, of course, was instinctively terrified. It was one thing to see one from a distance and another to have one literally fall onto you, staring you in the face. It was an unconscious kind of fear, and while irrational it was expected when first meeting someone who looked like some kind of monster or demon.

"I…"

The Lateral stood up with superhuman speed and agility, despite his bulky form.

"Uff… Hurt anything?" He grunted as he helped Kayden up to his feet with such force that the poor human felt a pang of whiplash.

Kayden clutched his head. "No… well now you did. Argh…"

His datapad beeped, as well as his friends’, who had just rushed to the scene, thus signaling that it was time to go, and they all quietly retreated back into the lobby, returning to liminal tranquility and silence.

"This was… something. I… certainly enjoyed it. Yeah in Simulacrum I had this kind of thing but it hits different when you’re actually running around and not sitting on a couch waving your hands like a lunatic."

Ray placed their weapon of choice, a pair of swords that shot spinning blades when swung within the holo-room, back into the storage. "For record: I only went because wanted make you happy. I have Ultra-tier Simulacrum subscription in case I wanted to experience million times fidelity of this experience, within confines of brain."

Kayden rolled his eyes. "You could have experienced this whole trip," Kayden then made air quotes, "within confines of brain… and yet you went on a cross-civ journey," he thought for a bit. "In fact didn’t you mention that you traveled the entire Federation? Hypocritical innit?"

Ray’s response was in their usual monotone, but definitely felt like an exasperated rant. "Correcting: unsimply Federation. I spent time in glittering, flashing relmai city on Tama; observed grimy factories of kseldani hive on Mksu’taa’vmu; debated secluded chimera thinkers at Garden-Waterfall; shared memories with an iywkaa pilgrim at Equity-6; challenged a Canid to fight at Blackaxe, won by guile; and convinced an Abyssal to value life at Raindrop."

"I get it. You wandered half the Oval like a confused net-courier. Still, my point is, why do all of this if you like Simulacrum so much more?"

"Less soulful and spiritual experience. Compare: shooting objects. Base desires more satisfiable via Simulacrum."

"You’re the last person I’d expect to hear describing something as spiritual." Kayden leaned against the wall.

"I use that word in different sense than humans. Hard to formulate in English rather than MindLang."

"Alright then."

Before anyone could say anything else, the Lateral from a few minutes ago barged into the corridor.

"Hey! I was a bit rude to you," he said as he towered over Kayden. "But, uff, you said I hurt you. I really don’t like hurting humans, you see?"

"No it’s fine, the headache passed," Kayden backed away one step.

"I still feel wrong, uff… what’s your name again? I swear you mentioned it but I forgot."

"Kayden Reynolds. And no I didn’t," he kept backing away like a scared animal, as Lai tried his best to stifle laughter.

"Well, alright," the Lateral then pointed at himself. "Mbuyu Lange." He seemed to completely ignore Kayden’s fear of him, since he continued approaching as he spoke.

"N-nice to meet you…"

"Don’t be afraid, human. Never met a cute fuzzy kitten before?" Mbuyu smirked.

Lai completely lost it, and his holo-flamethrower fell onto the ground with a clang.

He breathed in deeply and regained his composure. "Well, honestly, no. I’m from the frontier."

"Understandable. Fuckers don’t like my kind there."

"Oh come on, not all of us are…" he looked down at his feet and the cold, bare floor.

"Uff. You know exactly what I mean."

Kayden sighed. "I do. My dad’s an asshole who hates my friends for what they are."

"Mhmmm. And there are way too many fuckers like that there for me to feel safe."

Kayden looked at Mbuyu’s hulking, beastlike body. "But what do you have to fear from them?"

"Not physically, you see. Yeah if a fucker tried to kill me I’d punch ‘im so hard that he transfers to an escape trajectory from the galaxy," he snorted, "Not my point. Don’t like people discriminating against me. Can’t smash or stomp my way out of every complicated situation, as much as I wish I could," another snort.

"I… didn’t think of that. Sorry."

"Few baseliners do. Oh wait, someone's calling me…" Mbuyu looked away and started seemingly talking to himself. "Yes hello Ika. Yeah? Okay yeah I wasn’t there for a while, let’s go," a pause followed, and the Lateral looked back to Kayden. "I gotta go, seeya later, you seem cool enough!" he then stormed off.

"Weird guy," Kayden said.

"That’s Laterals bhor ya," Lai said. "Knew one back on Tama."