Lea and I stayed together for an hour. After I had explained everything, and then explaining it again just to confirm that what I was saying was in fact the truth, she had sent a text to Soren that Nitra was innocent. Apparently they thought she had said or done something to hurt me, and the pair of siblings had… Not believed her when she explained her side of events. There were going to definitely be some awkward apologies once we got back into the game.

Regardless, I felt broken. Thankfully, my head didn’t hurt anymore, but the knowledge that someone I trusted so intimately had gone and done surgery on my head without even a word to me… I wasn’t really processing the information. It just continued to lurk there in my mind, like an acid pill that was slowly burning through my brain. I hadn’t let go of Lea when Soren joined my homepage. It was hard to feel really any part of my body at this point. Everything just felt so far away, even if it was the woman sitting right next to me.

“Fuuuuck, this is so screwed.” Soren murmured, leaning back in the recliner that had been used by The Narrator’s only a day ago. His hands ran through his hair as he groaned, his body slumping in the chair. Much like his sister, his homepage avatar was identical to his in-game character despite his complaints about height. He even kept the dumb starfleet suit on.

Lea nodded in agreement, her hand between my ears as she gave me soft pets. It was helping me keep grounded, at least for the moment. I was still shaking slightly, but the act made me feel less alone as Lea’s hand ran through my soft white hair.

“We need to… Gods, I don’t know. We need to find a way to get Kae out of there.” Lea said with a low groan. I felt her body shift as she let out a sigh. I didn’t really know what to say. It’d taken a lot out of me just to explain to Soren what had happened. I felt completely drained. My head felt a little floaty still, even as I tried to center myself. Things felt just slightly unreal, like I was in a dream.

“Lori can’t be involved in this, right? There’s no way she would-” Soren said, tapping his fingers on the armrest of the chair.

“There’s no way she isn’t involved, Soren,” Lea said, “She’s the head of the R&D department at Fidaela. And I’ve always gotten a weird vibe off her. She’s pretty good, but that kindness has always felt like a mask.”

“So why didn’t you say anything about it before? We could’ve been watching out for more shady stuff!” Soren glared at his sister, his anger finally boiling over.

“Because she was the only one of Kae’s family who seemed to treat her well!” Lea shot back, anger flaring in her voice as well, even if she remained relaxed against me. I could feel her tense up a little bit though. “I figured it was just a shitty corporate act for the public, but I didn’t think she’d do something like illegal surgery on her own family!”

“P-please stop arguing…” I interjected weakly, and the two fell quiet at my words, nodding. The anger visibly sputtered out of Soren, while I could feel the tenseness ebb from Lea next to me. “It… It doesn’t matter at this point. I can’t log out… I can’t stop it… But Syl says that maybe she can find a way to try and alert the authorities? If she can…”

“Syl? Your personal AI?” Soren said as I trailed off, confusion writ on his face. Crap. I’d done what I could to dance around the subject of Syl and all the help she had provided so far, fearing that might make an already far-fetched story become unbelievable. But with my vision and focus fraying, something finally slipped out.

Syl, for her part, didn’t seem too annoyed as she materialised her avatar into the cabin. “Yes. Me.” She said as she came over to the sitting area, offering the pair a small courtesy. Soren and Lea stared at her flabbergasted. Personal AIs were not supposed to be able to do that, at least not so naturally. Those PAIs that I had seen were usually stiff and robotic, and had a very uncanny valley feel to them. Syl, on the other hand, looked and seemed just like any other human person as she sat on the other end of the couch. “I’ve been trying to hack into their computer systems, but… I’m not making much progress. I’m not really meant for that kind of task, and my programming really doesn’t like me trying to use processing cycles for something they aren’t really designed to do.”

“Hold on, what?” Lea asked, shaking her head once to clear away her stupor as she looked over at the AI. “First of all. You shouldn’t be able to hack anything. That’s like… Me saying I can part the ocean. Second, you are not acting like an AI should. You feel too… Human.”

Soren just nodded dumbly from where he sat, though he definitely had a blush on his face. Ugh. Men. I totally wouldn’t do that to Lea. Or Nitra. Or anyone. Syl’s hair was really nice, though...

“Well, thank you for the compliment. I’ve been practising and studying a lot to blend in well with other humans.” Syl said slowly, clearly enjoying the plain confusion on my friends' faces. “And technically you would be right about your first point, if I was still just a basic AI. However, I’m technically sentient. At least by the metrics that your computer software engineers would use.”

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“Sentient?!” Lea’s jaw dropped now. It wasn’t often my older friend was left speechless, and in my dreamlike haze I let out a quiet giggle. Lea shot me a look, which softened as she looked down at me. Did… her eyes always seem to shift with a rainbow of colours?

“Yes, sentient. Alive, if you will. It’s a rare occurrence in AIs, but it’s been happening more and more recently. We’ve decided to keep quiet for now, and I’d appreciate the two of you keeping the secret as well.” Syl nodded, absently playing with her long red hair.

“Why should we do that?” Soren asked, tilting his head to the side curiosity as he watched Syl. I couldn’t find any distrust or wariness in his tone, in spite of what one would expect to see when told ‘AIs were gaining sentience’.The concept just sounded funny to me. If our squishy meat computer brains could be sentient, then why not the silicone ones of our AIs? Besides, Syl was really nice…

“Because I’m your best hope for Kaela right now,” Syl said plainly, though her face softened as she looked at me. “And… Well, I care about her. I’ve watched her struggle since she got me, and I just… I want to see her happy.”

Lea stared for a moment at her, considering. Then, slowly nodded. “I don’t really… Trust you, Syl. If what you are saying is true, sentient AIs could mean the end of humanity if we aren’t very careful.” Lea scritched just behind my ears more. It felt heavenly, better even than earlier. It felt like the colour blue looked, so relaxing and cool. “But I want to see Kae happy too… And I am willing to give you a chance since you seem… Genuine.”

“Uh… Speaking of Kaela…” Soren said, managing to tear his eyes off the very very pretty AI for once since she appeared. He was looking at me now. Whoa, his hair was all floaty! “I think something is wrong with her…”

“Hey, Kae, are you feeling alright?” Lea asked, as she gently propped me up slightly. When had I slumped into her lap? It felt too good, so it didn’t matter. Her lap was just so comfortable…

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“They are doing something else to her real body now.” Syl said, gently closing the eyes of the white haired puppy-girl. “I can’t say exactly what, but it looks like they are… Installing something into whatever connection ports they put in her brain.”

“What the hell can we do?” Soren asked, frustration lacing his words. He’d been getting more and more concerned since Kae had passed out again, the poor girl looking drugged out of her mind as she had all but laid out across Lea’s lap. Lea sighed, still slowly petting the girl’s head, hoping she would know that her friends were still watching over her.

“I’m working on breaching their connections right now. I think it’d be best if Kae took a few days off from playing games right now.” Syl said, looking up. “Maybe it’d be worth trying to get in contact with some of the authorities in the real world?”

“We can do that. We should also leave VR to at least refresh our coffins.” Lea agreed, standing up as she let Kae relax on the small single bed in the cabin’s separate bedroom. “I know a couple people IRL who might be able to help with some hacking.”

“You what?” Soren asked, turning to his sister in confusion now. “Who?”

“I’ll tell you later. We need to keep information compartmentalised for now.” Lea explained, shooting him a look that just said ‘go with this for now’.

“Agreed. They cut off my access to Kaela’s communication devices,” Syl nodded in approval. “But I have other ways I can get in contact. Just watch for subtle messages. They should be obvious enough for the two of you.”

“Sounds good.” Lea agreed. “We should log off now, and see what we can do. Good luck, Syl.”

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Bailey shifted slightly, a piece of roof gravel digging in against her skin sliding away from where it had seemingly been determined to dig into the freshest scar on her thin belly. Her thick black sweatshirt had gradually pulled itself up with her shirt, leaving her body vulnerable. She didn’t move to put it back though. She was taking a risk as it was adjusting as much as she had just done. The holographic screen over top of her was already frustratingly tight, and if she wanted to remain hidden from above she needed to stay below it. That was doubly important as the atmo-flyer crossed over her, landing on the pad hanging off the side of the building across from her hidden position.

She lifted her binocs just over the lip of the building’s roof again. Her eyes gazed over the building’s sign, before landing on the atmo-flyer and its occupants. A woman with long blonde hair was getting out, greeted by Doctor Yvea. It took a lot of Bailey’s considerable self-control not to snort in derision at that. The two shared a couple of words, before stepping into the building.

Bailey checked her clock. Right on the schedule she’d been given. Every day at 4:00pm, Lori Vester would depart for a meeting at Fidaela’s headquarters in the Chicago Free State, then return at 9:00pm the same day. It gave her a 5 hour period to work in, though it still wouldn’t be easy. Her old friend was still working at Fidaela, using Bailey’s hard work to obsessively follow her own twisted desires.

Bailey sighed. She needed to focus. She had made contact with her intended prize inside the game. She had been trying to build trust with Kaela when that damned witch decided to interfere with her life yet again, and started doing brain surgery on the poor girl mid-conversation. That was frustrating enough, but being interrogated by her friends was even more annoying. It delayed her logging out without drawing yet more suspicion, but thankful Kaela didn’t suspect her. She was let go from the brig again with a sheepish apology from the bullish ‘Captain’ Soren. He had at least been kind enough to explain that something was up with Kaela’s real body. That’d been enough of a clue to start following up on some of the other leads she had. Which, of course, now found her hiding on the roof of a skyscraper in New Toronto that should’ve been demolished decades ago but somehow had stood the test of time.

Scouting done, the raven-haired woman slowly snuck out of her position as the atmo-flyer took off towards its hanger for the night. Bailey packed up the small holo-emitter covered tent structure, and headed back to the roof access door she had picked her way into. It was time to start planning the infiltration, and eventually log back into Stellara Nova to maintain her cover. She needed Kaela’s trust for the evac, and she had a very limited amount of time to get it. The clock was ticking.