🌑

You stay silent and plug in your æthernet cable to the back of your collar. As they administer your injection, you feel the familiar pinch of liquid pressed through your skin at high pressure followed by the numb and calm of the medication, and within two minutes you are melting into the soft chair, and sinking deep below the surface of consciousness.

✴

Ætherside, you open your eyes to the tunnel of light pulling you down, impossibly far down, until the corridor expands into the familiar entry node. Last time you were here, you were kidnapped. You shield your mind reflexively and look around. You are alone this time, aside from the distance presence of ÆON, available through a wired connection to ÆR root device in your surface pocket. But for now it’s just you floating in the dense color of the æther, the brightest glow being on the most distant, untouchable horizon, beyond the star patterns of circuit architecture.

Your avatar is much as usual--Aydan shaped but feminized a few years on in your transition. Luminescent blue highlights accent your shoulder-long hair, and a light blue aura defines your space.

You aren’t alone for long. A gateway opens and your exam partner manifests here with you. A pale green aura surrounds her translucent skin, almost like liquid glass, or viscous water suspended in the shape of a girl. Her pale blue hair is longer in avatar form, and it reflects the starlight like smooth crystal that flows like silk in æthereal wind. Her eyes are magenta stars that flicker like pulsars if you make contact with them, an intensity to them that intimidates you.