🌔

2254-10-06 21:00:46 Aydan > unSynthlike of you to be impulsive and deviate from a plan, but I’d love to have them along! as long as they understand what they’re getting into...

2254-10-06 21:00:54 Synthesis-03 > I can be more social than my systers, yeah.. and of course it’ll be informed consent

2254-10-06 21:01:00 Zeta > I’m fine with it, I didn’t even realize you had a partner

2254-10-06 21:01:05 Synthesis-03 > you wouldn’t know them, they go to a different academy..

2254-10-06 21:01:08 Synthesis-03 > anyway, see you in the æther.

2254-10-06 21:01:11 Aydan > dissociating now

You ready a command to activate your ND-device and slip away, but stop to send one last message.

2254-10-06 21:01:20 Aydan > <3

2254-10-06 21:01:24 明子 > <3

With that, you let go of the surface and let the little chemical impulses from your implant carry you away. Darkness closes in around your vision. You close your eyes and relax.

✴

You’re falling. Flying. Spiraling down. Up. Out. Away. Inside.

The spiral fractal of light embraces your mind. You reach out with sense beyond sight and touch the æther.

As chaos coalesces into fluid structure, you look around for the familiar entry node. But the æther looks different today. It’s smaller, despite being infinite in scale. Dark nebulæ in the ætherglow obscure much of the server starfield you know. Your sense flows in one direction, one door alone will open for you. You remember, you configured your terminal like Synth instructed, and entered a private ætherspace.

You reach out and feel the heart of the processor. It’s different, but warm, inviting. As you float at peace in the entry node, alone in a world of your own, a gate opens in front of you--a gate you can’t see through.

The avatar of Zeta materializes, glowing with its pale aura. You hadn’t gotten an up close look at it before now. The rounded glass monitor of its face lights up, in bright glowing pixels like an ancient electron beam type display--it flashes to life like a machine turning on, showing the simple pattern of its face, the jagged line stretching around the sides as its mouth, the bright trapezoidal pattern of its eyes. The LEDs in the triangular ears on top of its head light up at the same time, and those other diodes interspersed throughout its body. Wires stretch out in all directions from the edges of the display and wrap around its head, meeting up with other cables wrapping over its back, connecting with others from the mechanical joints in its arms and its hands. Its thick fur, half black and half white, dominates everything between the metal.

????-??-?? ??:??:?? Aydan > Z have I ever told you your avatar is...