Polis Kyiv, Polytechnic Institute campus
Daria Vasilevskaya, August 12, 2049, 5:57 AM
Thick curtains completely covered the windows of a small room in one of the twenty-five dormitories of the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute campus. It was dark and quiet. Only the faint hum of cooling system fans and a soft ticking sound could be heard. The night lighting was dialed down to a minimum, but there was still faint illumination – from the glowing of two holographic screens, tiny LED lights of numerous devices, and a horizontal strip on an advanced VR headset.
“Why so stuffy? Is there… a storm coming?” A teenage girl with black hair, braided into two messy pigtails, broke the silence. She was wearing only an oversized black T-shirt with a dreamcatcher print. The question was spoken aloud, but there was no one to answer. Besides, the VR headset on her head was blinking green, indicating an active neural connection, showing she was still immersed in virtual reality.
As if responding to the girl’s words, the ceiling lamps lit up dimly in night mode, revealing the chamber. The center was dominated by a large anatomical transformer chair, connected to the wall by thick cable conduits. Additionally, numerous cables were sprawled right on the floor, through all the room.
And all this abundance was joyously being fed into a massive electrical panel located in the corner opposite of the entrance door. Further up to the ceiling, shelves were packed with processor units, power cables, and water cooling tubes.
The cluttered desk, buried under a pile of electronic junk, squeezed into the space by the window. Amid this technological chaos, it was hard to notice a bed covered in plush toys and haphazardly draped with a white blanket adorned with bright cat drawings from a children’s cartoon.
The walls were plastered with posters; and all the surroundings were scattered with various items of clothing, empty plastic bottles, boxes, electronic devices, toys, and other miscellaneous items.
It was a mess. A really horrible mess.
“Man, Dashka, what the heck… it’s six in the morning! Stayed up all night… again…” a barely audible sigh and a low, slightly raspy voice broke the silence that had reigned in the room for hours. The chair shifted to a sitting position with a soft buzzing noise. The VR headset was removed and hung on a side mount. It became clear that it was merely a secondary tool, since the connection indicator remained lit. And the main cable lines were attached not to the headset but to the ports of a massive interface implant embedded in the occipital bone.
(Note: Dashka/Dasha is a diminutive form of the name Daria)
Raising hands behind her head, the girl found two locks underneath her hair and twisted them with noticeable effort. The support bar shifted upward, and eight cables disconnected with quiet clicks. Only then did Dasha stretch and open her eyes, letting out a long yawn.
For a few seconds, she just sat there, blinking, and regaining her senses. Then she stretched again and cracked her neck.
“Azumi, open the window!” the girl finally said, removing the hair tie from her left braid. The curtains obediently parted to the sides, making her squint at the sudden brightness.
Outside, it was a gorgeous early morning, the sun generously sharing its warmth with the world. But Daria didn’t care. Closing her eyes, she seamlessly slipped back into virtual reality.
Her fingers, which had started to unravel her hair, froze and, if one looked closely, could be seen trembling slightly. Her eyes moved rapidly beneath her closed lids, a common sign of using implants that allow work in deep VR environments without external devices.
“Raven.1, you’re on the evolution analysis of the new cybercortex topology. Just run the standard sample through the second template; I don’t expect significant results yet since evolution is ongoing. Raven.2, Raven.3 – sync with Alisa and start prepping for the update. Coordinate the timing with her schedule. Raven.4 – we’ll use today’s algorithm draft for the fall course but clean it up. Formally, we’re working under Professor Symonenko’s AI... ...Raven.12, let’s whip up a message for Max, a really pretty one, then join Raven.9 to assist. Here’s the text…”
“Max, so anyway, good luck at the competition and all that,” she began dictating aloud, and a big, animated Raven appeared in her field of vision. It nodded importantly, took a quill in its claw, and started writing the message on a hovering parchment.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
“I’m fully confident in our work, so just go and kick some butt!” The Raven turned its head towards a newly appeared basket, grabbed a victory emoji with its beak, and placed it on the parchment. “Sorry I can’t make it to the stadium, but I’ll definitely be watching the live stream! Uh… so… yeah… Actually, I just want to let you know that everything’s finished. Yes, the entire volume – nine days ahead of schedule. And don’t scold me about my workload; I’ve heard it all before.” The Raven hopped, shook its head, and added her favorite “What to do, that’s what I am” emoji to the parchment.
“Anyway, I’m sending two Ravens to Alisa, we’re rolling out the full patch today. I’ll finish up here and head to the club to prepare everything. And if you’ve got plans, factor in the update to avoid any nasty surprises. It’s better to think things might go wrong than to tear our ass hair out because we didn’t do our best, don’t you think?” The Raven finished writing the last line and thoughtfully looked at Dasha, tilting its head in a funny way.
“What? You think it’s bad? Fine, scratch out the ‘ass’ word.” The Raven nodded importantly, took the quill in its beak, and made a thumbs-up gesture with its claw. It looked a bit creepy, but that’s how Daria liked it.
“And anyway, I’m tired, I want a massage and some treats!” she added with a smile. The Raven recorded this and grabbed a heart emoji with its beak.
WILDVERSUM Chapter02 Dasha [https://i.imgur.com/CZC5jys.jpg]
“No, wait! Not the heart, replace it… with a cake,” she corrected quickly. The Raven gave her a long look but eventually nodded, grabbed a cute, animated cake sticker, and attached it to the message. The parchment rolled up into a neat scroll, and the Raven grasped it with its claws and flew out the window.
“It’s just animation, but looks so cool...”
After sitting for a moment, she finally opened her eyes and stood up, her braid still half undone. The girl pulled the T-shirt over her head, tossing it onto the bed. Stretching, she cracked her knuckles and headed to the bathroom — it was small, and impudently dominated by a monstrous construction of a luxurious jacuzzi with hydromassage and numerous spa functions. The remaining space was tightly shared between a Japanese paperless robot toilet, a towel rack, and a tiny sink with a large medical cabinet built deep into the wall above it.
Dasha leaned on the sink and peered at her reflection in the mirror...
Skinny, but with rather well-defined muscles, she was clearly hitting the gym. The girl slowly turned in front of the mirror, examining herself — pale skin, small breasts, a long neck. Her face featured large eyes with very dark irises. Usually beautiful, they now looked frightening — red from broken capillaries, puffy eyelids, and huge dark circles under her eyes. Not a pretty sight at all.
“Damn, Dashka, you freaking monster! Need to grow the sub-brain’s processing power and implant two more accelerators! Or I’ll truly turn into a vampire by eighteen.”
“Booo…” She made a face at her reflection in the mirror, then pressed her left thumb to the sensor and commanded, “Open the medkit!”
Calling it just a “medkit” was modest; it was a massive medical cabinet with temperature-controlled compartments, sterile auto-cleaning, and a set of drugs any self-respecting biohacker would envy.
On the bottom shelf were two professional auto-injectors from British “Bioline Surgery” — one for intramuscular, the other for needle-free subcutaneous injections.
“Let’s start with the hardcore stuff, as always.” she smirked, grabbing a plain white box from the top shelf. The large ampoule with black-green markings went into the intramuscular injection gun.
Sitting on the closed toilet lid, Dasha wiped her outer thigh with a disinfectant tissue. She placed the gun at a ninety-degree angle to her leg and pressed the button without hesitation. The device lit up an orange indicator, beeped briefly, and inserted the needle into her muscle. Enduring the pain and waiting for the procedure to finish, she set the gun aside and massaged the injection site to distribute the chemicals evenly.
The wipe, ampoule, and used needle went into the “medical waste” container, and Dasha returned to the cabinet. After putting away the injector, she applied a beige waterproof regenerative patch to the injection site.
“The patient is more alive than dead,” she commented, grabbing the next “torture device,” already prepared and configured.
Checking the cartridge charge, she pulled another disinfectant wipe from the dispenser, cleaned her right shoulder, and pressed the medical gun to the site while looking at herself in the mirror. The second procedure was less painful and quicker.
Dasha had just enough time to discard the used wipe and put the tool back in the cabinet when a wave of dizziness and weakness hit her legs.
“Yeah, done for now,” she muttered, grabbing the sink for support. “Whoa... that hit harder than usual…”
“Okay, gotta keep this in mind for the next ‘cleaning.’ Now, this stuff’s getting stronger than before...”
The girl put the gun back in the cabinet, closed one of the doors, and looked into the mirror again.
“No, this just won’t do! Gotta go to uni today, I’ll scare everyone away looking like this,” she said to the reflection, examining herself: dirty, sweaty hair hanging in unattractive clumps on her forehead. The reflection nodded silently in agreement.
“Can’t even imagine what my armpits smell like… Azumi! Shower, express mode, drying, and air massage.”
Dasha climbed into the jacuzzi and stood in the center, squeezing her eyes shut.
“Azumi, I’m ready!”