( Jade POV )

John is still glued to his notebook as the sun sets, boning up on his paleolithic archeology. Or possibly just Facebook, I don’t check. He looks up from his notebook as I start closing the blinds and turning the lights on against the gathering gloom.

“Evening already? Bloody hell. I lost track of time.”

He exclaims surprised.

"Not to worry. There’s a lot to research."

I respond.

“Yeah, and we have so little to work with! We’ve got basic leather working, maybe two people who know how to turn stones into useful equipment, and the ability to make ropes from the reeds along the river's edge. It’s not much of an industrial base!”

His words and tone suggest annoyance, but it’s betrayed by his grin. John always rises to a challenge.

“Well, I’m sure we’ll manage. Now, you should go and cook yourself some dinner - you forgot lunch. I’ll talk you through my results as you cook.”

I sternly command him, more to mock him then anything else.

John nods, and puts aside the laptop, shaking out his limbs as he rises from the sofa, grimacing from pins and needles in his feet. Well, I’ve warned him about his posture often enough. Traipsing into the kitchen, he starts pulling pans and implements straight from the dishwasher, occasionally giving something a cursory wipe with his sleeve. For heaven’s sake. There’s a tea towel right there.

As he starts frying onion and chopping garlic, I begin my debriefing.

“I’ve spent some time scraping up every scrap of info I can get about the fauna and flora of our region. Forums, the wiki, obscure IRC back-channels of anime fan clubs, the lot. First up, those large birds we had our community hunt? Turns out, they’re pretty rare, and way more dangerous than we realised. So, we got lucky. More interestingly, the rumour mill is saying that the males are capable of using some form of fire magic. I’m not certain how, though: the rumours are conflicting.

Some people say that they just emit a bunch of heat, stopping predators from approaching. There’s one forum poster that keeps saying he had one catch fire and charge his hunters, wounding them severely before they could retreat.”

John frown for a second before commenting.

“That seems a bit... over the top. He’s the only one reporting anything like this?”

Answering his question I also mention a small detail I stumbled upon when I recognized the user name.

“Yeah he is the only one, but it’s actually someone you might recognise. Do you remember a guy called Zane, from that third-rate Korean MMO you played a couple of years back? That was back before I reached human-rating, so I didn’t keep track of him, but my records say you were in the same guild.”

John nods, slowly, face screwed up in recollection. Or possibly because of the frying onions.

“Yeah… Yeah, I do vaguely remember him, actually. American chap, unusual to find on an EU server. Nice enough, although we didn’t raid together too often. Ping him a message and ask if he wants to chat about Throughout the Ages, would you? He might have had some useful ideas or something.”

I nod, and in a few milliseconds the message is composed and sent.

When that is done I continue outlining my findings

“OK, next up are a sort of big beetle. They’re about the size of a boar, with a similar function in the ecosystem. Omnivorous, good eating, but dangerous. They aren't hard to hunt, but if they get a hold of a hunter it’s game over. Their mandibles are designed to grind up old tree roots, so you can imagine what they do to a person.”

John nods, refraining from comment. He shoves some chopped vegetables into the pan and stirs them in carefully, before reaching down to get some tinned tomatoes. I wait for him to get his head out of the cupboard before continuing.

“Incidentally, gathering is a semi-viable augmentation to hunting. Food is available in plenty in the form of some berries and lots of tubers, but it's nearing the end of the wet season at the moment so the berries will be running out. It would nice to store them, but we’ve got no such technology.

For raw materials, we’ve not got too much to work with at the moment. The only species with useable hides is one of the two predatory species in the savanna, a small pack hunter that uses teamwork to hunt the beetles we talked about. Although it doesn’t seem to be a very successful evolutionary strategy - there’s not that many of them. They look a bit like a small, angry monkey crossed with a gecko, with six legs. Apparently they’re vicious when cornered. Overall, not a very useful source of leather.”

“Hmm. Yeah, that leaves us in trouble, actually. We’ll have to expand to the forest to the south-west, hope there’s some more useful wildlife up there.”

John concludes with a hint of concern in his voice.

“And what’s the other predator? You mentioned there were two?”

Now it is my turn to sound concerned.

“Ah, yes. The top predator of the ecosystem seems to be a sort of giant centipede. Reports say that it uses earth magic to disguise itself in the topsoil, then waits for prey to get near. It doesn’t really matter what gets close; it’s big enough to eat anything.”

John looks mildly horrified.

“Good god. That’s… terrifying. You could lose a whole hunting party if you get unlucky. I suppose we’ll just have to hope there’s none nearby.”

John leaves the sauce to simmer, and wanders back into the living room. I set a timer to remind him when it’s done.

I’m alerted by the local mail server: this Zane character has asked for a meeting in a couple of hours.

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( John POV )

Once more I hear Jade preparing, mere seconds away from digital transition.

“Dive initiating in three, two, one.”

The world descends into the familiar white static, ever-so-slightly-painful, like the feeling of a dental checkup applied directly through your eyes. Slowly the world resolves again, into a familiar white room. My personal hub, with access to my architectural software, games, online chat rooms, and pretty much everything else I use the dive pod for.

I’ve still got an hour or so before the meeting with Zane. It’s an old habit of mine to make private chat rooms based on the game I’m using them for, and I’m sure Throughout the Ages has plenty to work with. I used to create them for practice, but now interior design is my day-job I just do it to focus people’s minds on the game.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

“Jade, could you check up on our community while I prepare a chat room?”

I ask gently.

“Of course. I was wondering when you’d get around to this.”

She says.

“I’ll leave you to it.”

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( Zane POV )

I relax into the pod, and let Anno’s chatter wash over me without absorbing any of it.

“Countdown to a secure connection to the chat room designated: "Night’s Sky", two minutes. Sir, are you sure you know this ‘John’ person? It could be identity fraud! Just remember, sir, if they start asking for your bank details you’re to refuse!”

“Relax, Anno. ‘Stranger Danger’ isn’t really a thing in online chat rooms. And yeah, I remember John. He did the Guild Hall, as I recall. Odd that he’s re-establishing contact, but people do that sometimes.”

I can’t see Anno, but I know him well enough to interpret his brief silence as mute incomprehension. Anno doesn’t quite… get humans. He’s not quite of that calibre of AI.

Soon enough I hear his voice once more

“If… if you’re sure, sir. It’s true that the message did not contain any of the markers that normally designate spam. But remember, no bank details and no dangerous personal information, alright, sir?”

“Yes, alright, enough, Anno. The connection, please.”

I say, gently insisting him to do as I ask.

The familiar pattern of beeps races across my consciousness, transmitted down to the bone. A throwback, the dial-up tone, reborn in a medium a thousand times more advanced. Funny, how humans do that.

My vision dims to blackness, and the outlines of a door appear before me, coloured light streaming through the gap between portal and frame. Fancy. Once it completes its shift from blue to yellow to green, I push it open and step through.

I don’t know what I expected. Bright, airy ultra minimalism, perhaps - the loading screen suggested it, and it’s not an uncommon trend for designer types. Or perhaps some impeccably-furnished grandeur, a cathedral with really nice carpets, or something.

Instead what I get is an endless plane of glass, floating in space above Lorinas, surrounding four chromed chairs and a circular meeting table of black granite. Or possibly obsidian.

Admittedly, it’s a really nice overwrought black obsidian table. It’s inlaid in chrome lines, matching the chairs, tracing out some sort of strange circuit diagram. It’s got cool-looking curves and angles that are probably really advanced, and presumably make it invisible to radar or something. And, in the middle, a big 3D hologram projector, currently showing a scale model of the star above us in shades of pale blue.

He’s definitely come on a bit since that Guild Hall.

Cool as it all is, though, it’s still all just virtual set-dressing. I walk up to the table and take a seat. The chairs look like they’ve been folded and milled from a single sheet of metal, but they’re reasonably comfortable. And they swivel, which is what I look for in a chair.

A man opens another door in reality, on the other side of the table, and marches in. White, brown hair, average height, dressed in jeans, T-shirt, and jacket. Unremarkable in looks. All in all, pretty ordinary, highlighted by the absurd cosmic scale of the setting.

John, presumably, talking although he clearly doesn’t feel at ease.

“Ah… hi. Zane. Um… been a while.”

A uncomfortable silence descents until I realize that he expects me to respond.

“Uh… yeah. Hi, I guess. Nice chatroom. Designed it yourself?”

He grins, and sits down across from me.

“Yeah, d’you like it? I bashed it together with some assets I had from another project. I did think about something more ground-level, y’know, some rocks in a hut or something, but it felt too small-scale for Throughout the Ages. And this reminds me of the tribe-creation screen.”

“Yeah… Yeah, I get that now, actually. It’s cool, especially the table.”

I compliment him as politely as I can before asking him a question.

“Um… Who are the two other chairs for?”

Oh, our AI. I wasn’t sure whether yours was human or animal or whatever. D’you mind if they join us? I know some people prefer to keep them out of chatroo-

I quickly interrupt him, trying not to insult him.

“No, no! It’s fine! I’ll just instantiate Anno!”

I call up the standard in-dive menu with a practiced gesture. I note that it has a custom skin for the setting - John’s seriously a pro. Anno fizzes into reality like a converging swarm of blue bees, perched on the edge of the table to my left. To my right, John’s AI simply appears in green, no command on his part required.

She’s human-level. I mean, I should have guessed by the chairs, but… Wow. That’s rare.

Also, she’s really, really beautiful, a realisation that I fail to disguise fast enough.

She grins at my blush and then shakes her head at John.

“Honestly, John, you really should warn people! Not that I don’t enjoy the reactions, of course.”

She offers me her hand to shake before sitting.

“I’m Jade. It’s a pleasure.”

“Howdy Mam. Uh… likewise. Um. Zane. Yeah, it’s a pleasure to meet you too.”

Yeah, fucking smooth, Zaney boy. Cold as butter and smooth as ice.

But… wow. Not only is she a human-tier AI, she’s also the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. And her hand felt 100% real when I shook it - normally texture is one of the things AI can’t quite mimic perfectly in deep-dive.

John seems keen to get back to business.

“Yes, well. I know how you enjoy a first impression.”

He says to his AI, before turning towards me once more.

“Anyway, Zane, I actually wanted to have a chat face-to-face with someone else playing Throughout the Ages. Share a bit of info, that sort of stuff. Jade picked up your post about the incandescent terror-bird.”

His AI gently interrupts.

“‘Candur’, by the way. The latest patch gave me access to a limited bestiary.”

Respectfully John responds to her.

“Right. Well, you can give me a full debrief later, when we don’t have guests.”

It’s uncanny. They just talk to each other like normal humans, none of the slight misunderstanding and minor clarifications involved in conversation with lower-tier AI. Her expressions are entirely human, right down to the subtleties, and she apparently interprets human expressions well enough to recognise my reaction. Anno can barely keep up, even with a bunch of signaling.

Except for subtle green glow, Jade is indistinguishable from a human.

And, of course, it’s at this point that Anno interrupts.

“There’s a new update? Sir, may I go and patch it in? It might be something really important, like a security essential! Sir, your details might be at risk!”

I roll my eyes and nod in acquiescence. Anno and his damn paranoia. Jade looks on in wry amusement as Anno winks out of existence, still wittering. A single shed feather floats down onto the table.

John simply leans forward to press a button, one of many recessed into the ring around the holographic projector. Suddenly, a selection of drinks and snacks rise out of the surface of the table, in a most improbable way. I raise an eyebrow and grab a handful. John takes a sip from a bright blue cocktail. After all, dives simulate taste, so why not?

Then, to my surprise, Jade, too, pulls a cocktail from the crowded tabletop.

“You drink? I mean… Is that a human-tier AI thing?”

I ask surprised.

“Of course. I taste. I get the... full set of sensory input.”

She winks. I can’t help but grin. John simply rolls his eyes.