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????-??-?? ??:??:?? Aydan > I don't want to go back outside TLA ætherspace alone if I don't have to, I want to see what's going on at home first, but can you be ready to direct me somewhere safe if it turns out to be a bad idea?

????-??-?? ??:??:?? Ana > as good a plan as any. I'm sending you an address, have a command ready to open a gate before you even step through to TLA

You look across your narrow space at ÆON. “I’m going to take a look outside but you should stay in here, it’ll be safest this way.”

“As you wish, Aydan.”

????-??-?? ??:??:?? Aydan > I'm going

You open a door next to you and crawl through into the spiraling tunnel up to the TLA entry node. You emerge into the familiar home server space, with the patterns of TLA’s network projected across the distant starfield. You then close your connection to the primitive computer, ensuring it will recharge and that nobody will detect ÆON’s presence there. Now you are alone. Your class seems to have moved on from this space, but a doorway was left open.

You step through the portal. It leads only to another directory on the local filesystem. After the short passage, you find yourself standing in an æthereal projection of a 3-dimensional space. It’s almost realistic, in the way that a 2-dimensional image can fool your mind into seeing it as having depth. This is a detailed 3D model of TLA’s colony. You’re standing somewhere in the academic block, but there is nobody immediately nearby.

You can feel the presence of others in the æther not far away, around the corner of the Practical Arts building, and you go to take a look. Peering around the corner, you see your classmates with Professor Kitov, all wandering about this simulation. Then you see something unexpected--yourself.

Another Aydan walks among the group, an indistinguishable copy. You examine and analyze this entity. If it is merely an echo, it is highly detailed, even projecting the sense of being a true avatar. Before you can turn away, the other Aydan catches sight of you and your eyes meet. Immediately it turns away and steps behind the building, motioning like it is trying to lure others out of your view. You duck back behind the wall.