22 Cautious 08

Sun’s stomach growled. There was a way to turn that off, but being in tune with their Real World body was important, since they didn’t have a life support system. Those either came as a subscription in a facility, or an expensive in-home solution. They were mostly done with configuration, it would be good to take a break.

The trio logged out, waking up on the bed together. It felt like a wild dream that was far too realistic. And they haven’t even gotten to the fun part, yet.

Sun took a bit to warm up to the Real World again. Their arms and hands felt fake. It was almost like this was the game. Sara pet their head, watching them take it slow.

Markus got up, letting them know he would make lunch for them. He makes a mean grilled cheese sandwich.

“Are you doing alright?” Sara asked, holding Sun’s hand as they sat up. They nodded slowly, brushing the short black bangs out from their eyes. They coughed, Sara patting their back. The headache was starting to return, and the bright lights didn’t help.

“Could we dim the lights?” Sun laid back down as Sara flicked the dimmer down to a manageable level.

“Is touching still ok?” She asked, dragging her fingers tenderly across their arm when they said it was.

Markus entered with a plate of grilled cheese sandwiches and napkins, squinting through the darkness, “What did I walk into? Do y’all need a moment?”

Sun chuckled and shook her head, “Come sit down with us. Thanks for lunch…”

Their conversations were quiet, aware of Sun’s adjustment. Sun was unused to sitting this closely with Markus. He had been in town for a year at this point, but he was always keen to keep a distance when Sun’s family was around.

They finished their food, and in the dim light, Sun’s tired and aching mind just wanted to take a rest. Sara suggested sleeping in the Virtual World, to help adjust. It’s a SinglePlayer experience, but they could all wake back up in the PrivatePlayer server again.

Once they connected to PrivatePlayer, Sun wondered if either of them were able to wake them up. Sara scrunched her eyebrows but Markus had an answer.

“Yeah, it’s a permission you can enable for individual people. By default, you disappear to everyone and that’s it. But, for a select few, you can let them wake you,” he put his hand behind his head, his face flushing a bit.

“I actually didn’t know that!” Sara looked astounded, “where’s that setting and how would people wake you?”

“Bring it up to your AI… There’s a few methods, messaging that sets off an alarm, nearby sound, even touch. But be safe with these settings, there’s a reason that it’s all off by default,” Markus warned, the reasoning behind his reaction apparent as Sara and Sun encountered warnings when accessing the menus.

“Oh, I see… It can leave a RagDoll in the session. It isn’t actually you, but I totally get why that could be creepy. Or bad.” Sara connected the dots faster than Sun. There can be rules set for the RagDoll, so that it would disappear if those rules were broken.

“Oh. OH. God. Yeah, safety to the max with this one,” Sun seemed quite flustered; Sara helped them choose the strictest profile.

“I’ll just enable it for you two,” Sara decided, Sun agreeing. Random people wouldn’t see the RagDoll, nor was it really a user connected to the session. As a proxy, it was just there for the users who were chosen. However, it could pass along sensory information to the sleeping user, switching them into the RagDoll if they chose.

“I’ll enable it for y’all as well. I mean, we all sleep on the same bed in the Real World anyway. Now we can in the Virtual World,” Markus punched in a few options on invisible menus.

“I’m certainly ready to test it out,” Sun said with a yawn, feeling better in the Virtual World but still tired from the day’s events, “wake me in 20 minutes or so, I have it set for when you say my name. And if the RagDoll disappears, you did something bad and I’ll know. If that happens, we will have a talk about boundaries when I wake up.”

The warning was not lost on Sara or Markus. Boundaries are important and something that needs a firm guideline.