Chapter 04

Daisy tumbled out of her prison. Her mind was working at a million miles a second. She could still feel the internet swirling around. How the hell had she been able to survive that onslaught? She slipped onto the floor, she wasn’t the only one in this unexpected situation. Everyone connected to life support was unceremoniously deposited onto the floor, the life-supporting fluids draining into the mesh floor surrounding the test tubes. Daisy had hoped she would never see those vile things again. Pun not intended. Vial. Ok, I’m done ruining the moment.

She had to escape. Obviously. The security guards would be coming for her. Luckily, she blended in with the mass of naked and confused employees. She stood up, following their general trudge to the changing rooms. The people coming out of the saltwater deprivation tanks looked much better off, as they hadn’t been connected for more than a day. If she had a locker of clothes, she had no idea which one it was. Didn’t matter, everyone was still out of it. She was already sharply aware of her surroundings. The only thing that had slowed her was dealing with the internet all at once. She had not expected to download the majority of the internet in seconds. She had intercepted her entire company’s downlink, maxing it. She couldn’t tell how long she did that for, as she had other things on her mind, mainly petabytes of data.

She opened a random locker, seeing gender neutral clothes. It was a start. She dried off the slime with a towel, quickly dressing. She noticed she had new hardware in her nether regions, but that was expected. This was the Real World. She was borrowing David’s body, at least until she could get back to hers in the Virtual World. She was glad to pull up a hoodie, hiding her FaceBook Device, still firmly attached to the back of her head. She didn’t want to look suspicious but had to take advantage of the chaos. This was her chance. She remembered where the elevator was. There were no guards, of course. There was no reason to have them up here. They were probably on their way, but she would be long gone before they arrived. No one joined her elevator, please please make it all the way down. I’m depending on you, Otis.

It was the most suspenseful descent she had ever made. It looked like it was midnight, as she had passed the large windows on her way to the elevator. That meant not only were there no employees at work, but no one took the elevator. She made it to the lobby without a problem. No one checked her ID on the way out, nor would she be able to provide one. She just got lucky, she should have thought of that. God, she better think of an escape more than just on foot. During her time on the internet, she knew that the world had moved to chipped currency. David should have his US currency in a bank account attached to the chip.

The company hadn’t shut off David's bank account. If they were working to make a legal counter attack, she must have at least slowed them down by high-tailing it. The taxi she summoned gladly took her to the airport without question. She told them she would pay additional to keep it under the table, they smiled as if it was their lucky day. Hopefully the company doesn’t access her records and track down this poor fella for questioning. All they knew is they were taking a stranger to the airport in a hurry. How Daisy would get away with going on a plane untracked was beyond her. Even if she didn’t end up going the plane route, this would at least lead them in a dead end. Actually, that was a good idea. She decided to hail another taxi when she got out at the airport. She could switch airports. When she got in, she realized the new taxi was unoccupied. Even better. While she was on the internet, she learned a thing or two.

That was completely an understatement. She learned everything. When she had started out without Ray for the first time, learning was incredibly difficult. In the last few days, telling the Virtual World what to do was easy, almost an extension of herself. In the few seconds of being connected to the internet, that progress skyrocketed. She now knew how to get free, untraceable rides from this particular model of auto-driving car. She worked away, her activities hidden by the cover of darkness, hacking the car. She was confident she could do it quickly. Sure enough, she was in. The car pulled out, headed onto a freeway. God, the airport cameras were going to see what auto driving taxi she got it. Her paranoia flared up. She decided this car would take her to another spot where she would get rid of the car and continue from there. She wished she had gotten an auto driving car from the start. Then they wouldn’t have a trail to follow to the airport, then this car. That being said, if the company building had cameras it wouldn’t matter. She should cover her tracks either way. California to Indiana, that was the goal. It wasn’t going to be a fast one, either. She would have to hitchhike, or do something untraceable. Getting rid of her chip was completely necessary, despite the loss in funds that would cause her. The funds aren’t worth it if the company can eventually find out what they are doing. That being said, she can liquidate her funds to Crypto Currency, anyway. She started working on that, using the car’s interface and connection to the internet. This was going to be a bit of a drive anyway, she was fully planning on taking this as far as the electric range will take her. She will park it by the side of the road once it dies. Normally, it would let someone out before it was completely drained, so then it could drive itself to a charger. No, this would be tossed on some random road, bricked.

After a while, she finished her migration to crypto, a secure account and password created. Luckily removing the chip was rather easy, the bite marks and resulting pain was not pleasant though. She smashed it to bits, sprinkling it out the window as they drove. She was also glad this was the car that she was tossing, any evidence of her cryptocurrency transactions would be wiped with a full drain of the battery. This car was notorious for drug and human trafficking, she was surprised to see one at the airport. It was Silicon City, though, close enough to the Mexican Border to be a mule. Shit. This one looked like it hadn’t been hacked yet, but could easily be tracked by a drug organization anyway. There was no way she could look for trackers, they might just be a cheap chinese one off the internet, hidden in a void in the car’s metal. Well, she was taking this one straight East, she can poke around the interface to see if anyone rooted the car, but that was about it. She wouldn’t toss it yet, she needed to at least get out of California before she could safely switch to drivers that accepted crypto.

After a long drive, and plenty of stuff to work on using the car’s interface, Daisy was running out of battery. She had planned her whole vacation all the way up to Annie’s house. She had set up her next driver to meet her at the McDonalds in an hour. She was starving, and yes, McDonalds took cryptocurrency. Of course they did, they sell burgers planetwide.

The car died as she looped around the McDonalds for the fifth time, pulling over at an empty street and giving up. She power cycled it, making sure that every last dreg was drained. To put the nail in the coffin, she shorted the wires, leaving it to take its final rest. She got out, dining in the McDonalds. They didn’t care, she was already in Arizona. They were chill here.

“Order for Late For Dinner, Number 3,” They called. They asked for a name and she responded, “I don’t care what you call me, just don’t call me late for dinner.”

Looks like they got back at her with that one. She scarfed it down, her first real food in months. Well, technically her whole life. She had survived her drive on whatever life-support gave her before her escape. It was so good and so disgusting. She didn’t have time to evaluate her state, but gosh darn she was frail. She looked either anorexic or people knew she was fresh out of 24/7. It was a look that was unmistakable. If people were watching, she didn’t care. Her driver didn’t take long, she refilled her soda to go. The driver was nice and quiet. The early hours were dawning, and she was already yawning. She had been on a completely different time schedule. Some would get jet lag, she got Virtual Lag. The soda gave her a minor caffeine or sugar boost, but it wasn’t enough. The driver woke her up when they got her to her next destination. She looked at her next ride, a big rig, parked at the gas station in the middle of nowhere. They used gas out here, still. She was beginning to see the appeal of the mid US, though. No one cared about shit. They didn’t ask her where she was going if they thought she looked like she wouldn’t tell them. She napped in the back of the big rig’s truck. He was such a nice guy, for when she was awake he made for splendid conversation. He did this a lot, as his big rig job was somehow still in demand. Yeah, the auto driving vehicles getting caught up in drug trafficking made a demand for human drivers apparently. People here didn’t give a crap about the Virtual World. They used cryptocurrency, swearing the useless government as much as the monopolistic FaceBook. The fuck word was not the F word around here.

Daisy did it. It took a long time, but that big rig was pretty much her straight shot across the country. He dropped her off at another gas station, “have a good day, man.”

A 20 minute walk separated her from Annie. She started her walk, the route memorized in her head. It wasn’t hard. She was absolutely terrified to be outside though. The sun beamed on her. She walked on the sidewalk until it ran out. She walked in the bike lane, the occasional car whooshing by. Large, lifted trucks with intensely loud mufflers tore up the neighborhood. High schoolers, no doubt. However, compared to the city, this was quiet and peaceful. She walked with her hood up, her heart beating from the exercise and the sheer anxiety.

There it was. The flat, falling apart house. It had the bare minimum structural integrity, a security door that was half off its hinges, and an overgrown lawn like no other. An archway meant for vines had lost its vines and tilted erratically. A fence strung around the perimeter, holes in it large enough to fit just about any animal. Most of it was also teetering on the brink of falling over, like the sad archway. Too many cars were parked in the small driveway, several of them had too many missing parts to be considered functional. The cars were rusting, except for one that looked like it had at least seen a wash in the past week or so. Daisy walked timidly up to the knee high gate. It was locked shut, the combination lock rusted beyond saving. She went around it, as the surrounding fence had completely been trampled by the many others that just circumvent the minor inconvenience of a gate. She walked up to the door, glad that it was broad daylight. She knocked, not knowing what to expect. After lots of barking and some shuffling, a cranky old lady swung open the wooden door, peeking out the security door that hung uselessly on one hinge.

“What do you want?” She said, not at all pleasantly. Her scraggly white hair was thinning, her teeth completely unkempt.

“I’m looking for Annie,” Daisy said, her manly voice cracking. The old lady rolled her eyes, turning her head behind her and shouting, “Lily! Some man wants you, calling you by your stupid gamer name!”

More shuffling, an overweight girl makes it to the door, breathing loudly. She wasn’t out of breath, that was just how loudly she projected her breath. The cranky old aunt leaves her to it, retreating and pushing back the barking dogs.

“Who is this?” She says in a huff. Of course she doesn’t recognize the strange man at her doorstep.

“The last thing I said to you is do you trust me? I’m Daisy,” She says, hoping to whatever deity was out there that Annie would believe her. The girl’s eyes widen, she grabs Daisy’s hand.

“Holy fuck. Come in, please,” she didn’t hesitate for a second, knowing that no one would ever say that. Besides, she gave Daisy her address, she had been on high alert since then. You don’t give out addresses in the Virtual World. The anonymity was your only protection, and people could record and remember everything about you.

Daisy was welcomed in, the aunt not even looking up from her TV shows at the strange man entering. Daisy wished she could say that the aunt seemed friendly, but she was just as bad as Annie had described.

Daisy was welcomed by kisses, obviously not from Annie. The dogs swarmed her, most of them old and gray. There were four or five, they kept moving as Annie tugged on Daisy’s hand, leading her down the hallway. Her house was built very strangely, the hallway seemed to stretch forever. Annie informed her it was actually two houses, connected by an adjunct. Annie’s side was just as messy and hard to navigate. Her room was decorated like Annie, though, with cute decorations literally everywhere. The walls were coated in posters, Daisy couldn’t even see the original paint. There were piles of plushies. Smack dab in the center of the room, though, was her massive bed. She had her FaceBook device on a table next to it. This is where Annie laid down to play in the Virtual World. The bed was just two mattresses stacked on the floor, with overflowing blankets. Daisy recognized the style in all the art she saw around the room. She looked around, commenting on everything just as she had when first meeting Annie. Annie started crying, she realized what Daisy was doing. Full circle, baby.

“It really is you,” Annie threw her arms around her. Daisy’s frail body was a twig. After they shared a wonderful moment, Annie joked, “you freaking catfished me!”

Daisy knew the term, laughing an unfamiliar, loud laugh. She shook her head, her belly aching too much from the laughter to explain or defend herself.

“If I’m honest, Daisy, I listened in on you and Roxy’s conversation. I sense-boosted my hearing. I just wanted to protect you. So, I already know,” the hefty girl admitted, her breathing in between words and phrases actually rather charming. Daisy was really sad to see her health in such despair, but so many things contributed to it; it wasn’t just a fix of exercise. She needed to get away from her aunt, away from this town. She had been plagued with depression, and high school did not help. She still went to college with those assholes. Though, she took all her classes online to avoid the whole situation.

Daisy left it at that. She didn’t want to confirm nor deny the conversation with Roxy. It was better left unspoken. Besides, they had some catching up to do. Daisy told her about her trip, skipping parts that would expose any vital information. She kept it surface level, like the nice truck driver and the funny conversations she had with him.

“Them’s the country, darlin’,” Annie said mockingly, giving her a playful shove. The combination of the weight behind her arm and the lightness of Daisy’s decrepit body, she was shoved hard enough to be tipped over while sitting on the bed. Annie giggled, turning and snuggling her. Daisy had grown used to her size, as she had one of her more recent scans loaded up for quite a few months. She was bigger, as the scan wasn’t the most recent, but it didn’t change much for Daisy. She liked feeling small. Size differences were cute, no matter if Daisy was the bigger or smaller one. She liked being a giant in game, although the last time she did that was during her first week with Ray. That was a bit extreme, anyway. She hoped she could get back on her FaceBook Device, although she wanted to prioritize getting Annie out of this shithole. Her cryptocurrency would go a long way. Daisy had no idea where they would go, she hadn’t even proposed her plan to Annie yet. She might not be on board for leaving. She sounded like she wanted to every time she talked about it, but sometimes reality is different.

They cuddled, they felt comfortable with each other even though both weren’t in a body that they preferred. Neither of them wanted sex in the real world, as Daisy was in the wrong body and Annie wasn’t comfortable in hers.

Their calm, peaceful moment lasted forever and also no time at all. When they sat up and started talking again, Annie gave Daisy outside information that took Daisy by surprise.

“MultiPlayer is gone. It shut down shortly after you left,” Annie said, watching Daisy carefully. She still wasn’t used to how her friend looked.

“Oh my God,” Daisy wondered what could have caused that. Obviously it was because of her in some way. They either shut it down to stop her from accessing it, or Daisy shut it down after absorbing most of it.

“We are fine out here, only a few people have a FaceBook Device, and fewer still would give a rip if they can connect to MultiPlayer. SinglePlayer and PrivatePlayer work just fine. The rest of the internet, however, has gone crazy, and FaceBook’s only statement is that they are working on a compatibility patch,” Annie held Daisy’s hand, her large palm comforting.

Daisy looked grim, “because of me.”

Annie hugged her, unable to deny that statement. She loved this girl, AI or not. She loved her regardless of what her Real Body looked like. She told this to Daisy, and they both started crying.

Once they calmed down, Annie showed Daisy to the bathroom so she could freshen up. She gave her a change of clothes, Annie had a vast wardrobe of every body type. Daisy was taller than the short woman, so the legs of the pants might be too short. They stuck to something gender neutral, didn’t want to set off the old lady. Daisy took off her FaceBook Device, laying it next to Annie’s. She didn’t want to plug it in, if it would broadcast her location.

Daisy closed the bathroom door and ran the shower. Once it heated up, she took off her stolen clothes and stepped in. The grime of life support residue that had caked in every possible spot got washed away. How embarrassing, she hadn’t even thought to clean her body, borrowed or not. Her short stops for food were the only place she had access to restrooms. Most places had gender neutral options, literally just single person bathrooms with one toilet. So she got some privacy, but she didn’t think to deep clean.

The warm water was blissful. She scrubbed with soap and sponge. She took gentle care of her genitals, unfamiliar with the new equipment. Well, new to her at least. Her penis stiffened at the cleaning. Yeah, she wasn’t going to try masturbating. Sorry, pal, that didn’t interest her in this body. She wouldn’t lie and say she wasn’t curious, but there was better timing than this. She put shampoo and conditioned her shoulder-length hair, remembering Annie’s tips. Her hair must have grown out when she was under life-support. Shorter than she was used to, but not an unwelcome change, all things considered. And honestly, a flat chest was nice to have sometimes. Maybe that’s just because Daisy had such an unwieldy pair of tits, but it was quite an interesting change. She remembered being a child for a couple days, her chest close to this flat. That was a unique experience. It felt like forever ago, the months she spent with Annie and now the majority of the internet pushed that memory pretty far back in her mind. She wasn’t going to tell Annie about how she accessed MultiPlayer. That was a quick judgement call, and it was very dangerous, like Roxy warned. She hoped she didn’t destabilize anyone, but it got shut down before she even was able to spawn in anywhere. Just accessing the internet sent her into a flood of information. Maybe that’s how her AI Ray felt, being connected to the internet.

She rinsed off the bubbles of the shampoo, her erection had died down since then. The soap bubbles flocked to her pubic hair, overstaying their welcome. She was used to pubic hair but this body had quite a bit more, not to mention the extra bits nested in the undergrowth. She turned off the water and dried off, giving herself yet another erection. This darn unwieldy thing. At least she wouldn’t get a period in this body? Being human was weird. She was human, though. She felt human. She might have come from AI, put into a human mind like Roxy suggested. But now she was human, right?

She slipped into the jeans. They were female jeans, but it was hard to tell, qualming any fears of auntie thinking something was up. The tee shirt was just a branded tee, a company’s logo scrawled across it. Generic and non-confrontational, she could blend in with this.

“Thanks for letting me use your bathroom,” She smiled as she entered Annie’s room, placing the wet towel in the hamper, along with her stolen clothes, “and the clothes.”

“I’d do anything for you, I hope you know that,” Annie replied, giving her a smile back. Daisy loved her smile. She might not get many chances to show it off in the Real World.

Daisy looked her in the eye, as serious as she could make it, “would you run away with me? On the house, of course.”

Her seriousness wasn’t convincing, but Annie considered the serious aspect of it, “Actually, yes. Stay overnight tonight. We will figure it out in the morning, if you are safe to wait that long.”

Daisy had hidden her tracks, hoping the company was still scrambling through the law rigmarole. She didn’t want to wait any longer, but understood how out of the blue this all was. She nodded, “We can take this night easy. I don’t want to rush you, but I’m itching to get you out of this situation and get me as far away from my employer as possible.”

“Can I call you my boyfriend? For my auntie, that is. I don’t think of you like that,” Annie stumbled over her words, awkward.

“Yes, absolutely. And I can take the full blame of stealing you away,” Daisy reassured her. They discussed what they were going to say at dinner time. This is where Annie would tell her auntie that she was moving in with Daisy. She also would call her David in front of auntie, removing all suspicions. If all goes well, auntie will be happy for her. Before dinner though, they had to figure out a place. Daisy told her how many funds she had in crypto. Annie’s eyes widened, apparently Daisy had more than Annie expected. Daisy did liquidate the life savings of David into crypto, of course it would be significant, considering his job.

“We can work with this. Damn, Daisy! I mean, uh, David. Where do you want to live? I guess it might not matter much if we are going to be living mostly in the Virtual World,” She kept her voice reasonably quiet, despite them technically being in a different house.

“It’s gotta be somewhere remote, with laws that would protect us. I’ve read up on Ireland, it’s done well with privacy laws. What do you think, though?” Daisy asked, having read up on Ireland for what she assumes to be in microseconds. It was a lot of data in her mind, but she had been practicing on accessing it during her long trek across the country. There wasn’t much to do other than think, and she had plenty of content to think about, now. From what she can tell, she hadn’t accessed the entire internet. It had been piped in at her company’s impressive Petabyte per second connection. From a large perspective, it was using a thin straw to attempt drinking an entire ocean. Realistically, though, the information she ended up with was still incredibly vast. She couldn’t tell if she could have handled more. Although, getting that information was just a sped up version of how she learned to manipulate the Virtual World directly. She learned at an increasingly accelerated rate, so at some point even that petabyte per second connection wouldn’t supply her with enough information to challenge her. She took weeks to master the Virtual World. She didn’t master the internet, she wasn’t connected for long enough.

“That’s actually where I was thinking as well. We learned about it in school, it sounded like they had things together from a long time ago, before the Virtual World was a thing,” Annie agreed, still throwing out a couple of other ideas. Eventually, they decided Ireland. Their story would stay relatively close to the truth, as Daisy didn’t like lying. Plus, seeding the truth with little lies was much more believable and easier to keep together. However, they would say that Daisy, nay, David traveled for work, and Ireland was where they were finding a place next. David had the same job, avoiding naming the company directly to protect Daisy’s secrecy. Anyone Daisy meets could be questioned in the investigation, or hunting, of the superintelligent AI.

Dinner started out quiet and awkward. They had a heated up frozen meal, Annie slicing open and serving a watermelon as well. Daisy sat next to her, auntie across from both of them. The conversation about the move finally happened. Luckily, auntie knew Annie was an adult, even if she didn’t treat her like one when she was living under her roof. She seemed pleased to hear that Annie was ready to move out. She was not at all concerned that Annie met David online, “I was starting to wonder if Lily even had friends. She lives her life on the internet, that she does. Thanks for showing up in the Real World, she could use a reason to stay in it for longer.”

Her auntie was sure blunt, her perception of the Virtual World mirroring what Daisy had gleaned from talking to the truck driver. Unfortunately, auntie wasn’t done, “it looks like Mr. MoneyBags over here has a life support system. Buy your gold digging gal one so she can lose some weight.”

This made an awkward silence, Annie looked like she was used to the derogatory comments. Daisy just stuffed her mouth, not wanting to comment. Annie would be out of here soon enough. Auntie was also one to fill a void of silence with chatter, so nothing stopped her from continuing, “you’re really chowing down. It sure does make you thin though, look at you. Don’t you want to be like that, Lily? Maybe that’s why you’re so attracted to him. That and the money, eh?”

She slammed the table, a cackling laugh following. Real classy. She just said whatever was on the top of her head without a filter. Luckily the two were about done with their food, the auntie stopping her beratement to attend to her own food. It could be worse, she could have been concerned about the age difference or how she never heard about David until now. It looks like they are all set for tomorrow. They’d better use this time to pack and get the plane tickets. Auntie was off of work, on disability, so she had plenty of free time to drive them to the airport.

Daisy could use Annie’s computer. She wasn’t good at typing, but she warmed up to it. Before long, she was typing faster than Annie could. Her computer was incredibly fast, as it was a gaming computer. People still played flatscreen games, at least in the MidWest. Annie also had multiple monitors attached to the desk on articulating arms. Daisy made full use of this. She could only access things at the rate of the internet, so she would leave multiple windows open in other screens to refer back to. Annie watched Daisy get familiar with her computer, slowly but surely becoming a speed demon.

“You sure know how to use a computer, don’t you darling? What are you all doing there?” Annie was pretty clueless at what she was doing, even being a computer science major.

“This is all legal mumbo jumbo, basically you’re going to be in charge of my assets if anything happens. Also, you can have a say if I’m ever hospitalized,” Daisy said, cross checking US law with Ireland laws. She remembered all of this stuff from her encounter with the internet, she was just filling out the appropriate forms for her and Annie.

“Oh, so we are married now?” Annie joked, watching documents close as Daisy finished them up, just to start new ones.

“Pretty much, honestly, although that would help if you want to do that as well. It needs a pastor and at least one observer,” Daisy said, her mind in a logical mood, missing the joke. She felt like Ray, trudging through legalise with ease. She wasn’t discovering loopholes though, just setting up protections. There were help articles for that. She could read those mentally, no need to waste time opening them up.

“You gotta propose at least,” Annie continued the teasing, seeing that her humor had flown over Daisy’s head. This time Daisy got it, retorting, “maybe I was waiting for you to propose to me…”

“Touche,” Annie giggled, standing behind her and putting her heavy hands on Daisy’s scrawny, broad shoulders. Daisy appreciated the presence, working away. She occasionally threw up house listings and locations for Annie to comment on. Sure, they would be spending most of their time in the Virtual World, but they could at least get something nice, especially if it was for the right price.

By the time everything was set up and their bags were packed, it was time for bed. Annie set her up with a toothbrush and toothpaste. They slept together on the big bed. It felt a lot different than the Virtual World. Everything was Virtual Real here, even the bedsheets. That was a silly thing to say, obviously, but you didn’t miss it if you never knew it. Daisy also couldn’t remember her dreams, or if she did, they were fleeting and meaningless. The Real World was quirky.

They woke up to an alarm they set the night before. The flight was rather early. They continued getting ready in the morning, not much left to do but eat breakfast quietly. They didn’t want to wake up auntie until right before they had to go, she wasn’t the most pleasant to spend your morning with.

There was a tapping on the door, Annie peeked out the broken security screen. It was an official looking man, with a partner beside them and a black SUV parked in front of the house. Big red flag, no one looked like that here. Annie practically knew the whole town, even being the recluse that she is. She quietly backed away, grabbing Daisy’s hand. The dogs kept barking at the door, the person was distracted and attempted peering in. They grabbed the bags they could, auntie hadn’t even stirred yet. Medications made her sleep extremely hard. Annie led Daisy out the backdoor, hushing her. Daisy knew better to question anything.

“Give me your phone, I can get us a different ride,” Daisy offered. She had paid crypto for pretty much everything, that shouldn’t be trackable. Still in a panic mode, she called up her crypto-friendly taxi. She told them to meet them by a nearby neighborhood road. It should be quiet, they can lay low in the foliage.

Daisy and Annie scoped the spot they were about to get picked up. Daisy asked about the cars around the area, wondering if any looked out of place. Annie confirmed that there were at least two cars that were either strange or obviously out of town. Their pickup spot was compromised. The crypto-friendly taxi service was double dipping, selling her out. Daisy and Annie backed out of there, crossing over to a different street. A loud, red lifted truck was screeching towards them. It pulled to a stop, the window rolling down. High schoolers. They knew Annie but didn’t recognize the man beside her. This made them curious.

“Yo, Lily, this man bothering you?” They revved their engine, rolling black coal while coasting in neutral past them. Loud bass music escaped past their lowered windows, the pimply passengers peering out.

“No, actually, you think we could catch a ride?” Annie coughing from the smoke.

They came to an abrupt halt, the lifted leaf springs creaking as the weight of the truck was thrown forward from braking. It bounced back to a resting state, the rear truck door thrown open.

“Be glad this is a lifted truck, otherwise we would pass the weight limit with this many people,” A wiry kid said, obviously the little brother of one of the two dudes up front.

“Watch your mouth Johnny, was that a freaking fat joke?” The driver slapped at the kid with his baseball cap, putting it back on his head once he was satisfied that he made his point. Johnny scooted back to his spot across the cabin, crossing his arms haughtily and avoiding further pissing off his brother. Daisy got in, helping Annie behind her. Good god Daisy was weak, or Annie was heavy. She made it in without too much embarrassment, Johnny getting another wack from a fat joke he couldn’t contain when watching the struggle. He had muttered something about another truck with a welder crane on it. Asshole.

“Where to, weirdos?” The driver seemed like the responsible one, although he didn’t drive like it.

“The airport, if it isn’t too much trouble,” Annie said.

“Damn girl, you want us to play hooky on first period?” He responded, raising an eyebrow. He had his arm around the headrest of the passenger seat, twisting to look back at them.

“Like you already weren’t going to, Patrick,” Annie retorted, casting a stare back. They certainly had an interesting dynamic.

“Shiiiiit, you right. Don’t mind me trying to make it quick, though,” he said as he threw it into first and screeched the tires, sending black coal out the passenger side and billowing white tire smoke as they sped up. It was incredibly loud, Daisy had never heard anything like it. Between the thunderous bass rattling her chest and the angry low growl of the diesel, she thought she was going to have permanent hearing loss.

The driver wasn’t exaggerating that he would make it quick. Daisy was stunned to see the speedometer spin far past the highest number, one hundred miles per hour. It was sticking straight down, covering up the odometer. The truck ate up the freeway, it wasn’t long until they saw signs for the airport.

“Where you off to? Finally busting this joint?” He somehow spoke over the bass and straight piped engine sound.

“I’m escaping, don’t tell anyone you took me to the airport, yeah?” She said, used to the driving. Daisy was almost trembling. She didn’t know how little Johnny just sat there on his phone, not caring about their potential death. He was watching videos on his phone, white wireless earbud plugging his ears to compete with the drone of bass.

“Your secret is safe with me. About time you left this shithole. I’m still stuck here for two more years,” he yelled a reply. This either meant he was freshly 16, or that he was a 10th grader. Damn this is a nice truck for either of those possibilities. It was obviously tuned or even rebuilt to be able to exceed the speedometer. Daisy didn’t typically think of diesels as fast, but this truck changed her mind.

He let them off, saying a wholesome send off to their small town friend, “you’re lucky this truck is fast as hell. I’ll get suspended if I’m late to school again. Have a good life, Lily!”

The truck spun its tires all the way out of the small drop off for the airport, white and black smoke mixing and drifting away. Annie shook her head, rolling her bags behind her as they headed to the check in. She was worried about this section of the trip being tracked, since it included passports, but there was no way around it. Apparently Daisy had been tracked since the very beginning, despite her attempts. She had retrieved all of David’s records and passport information when accessing the internet the day prior. She will just have to hope Ireland’s laws will protect her once she is there. She hoped she wasn’t on the no-fly list yet. That was a big one. They checked in their bags just fine, and to Daisy’s immediate relief, they made it past TSA. The scanner kinda gave her flashbacks and was traumatic, considering how tense she already was. Annie sat with her and helped her calm down, all the way until their flight started boarding. She had gotten first class for them both, kinda because she had the funds, but also because it was a long flight, and Annie was rather big. The larger seats would do them wonders.

They had a connecting flight, they were ferried off to Chicago first, as it was a larger airport. Their layover was only a couple hours, plenty of time for them to talk about their new life. Their plans for the future, their excitement to get back in the Virtual World. They kept their conversation light, not mentioning the disappearance of MultiPlayer. They played exclusively on PrivatePlayer for months, they will be fine. They boarded the much bigger plane. The iconic 777, able to carry almost 500 people. They also got first class on this flight, their seats located by a window. Daisy looked out the window with Annie, watching the world pass by as they sped up and took flight. Goodbye, United States. Please, don’t chase me.

They landed at the Irish airport. It was a massive airport in Dublin. They would be taking a van from the airport to a hotel. Daisy stretched as they walked to baggage claim. Signs were in English and Irish; English being the more commonly spoken language. They stopped at a merchandise store in the airport. This would be their home, there was little need to buy merch as if they were on vacation. That being said, Annie liked shopping, and they hadn’t gotten a message from the van driver that they were ready yet.

They didn’t end up buying anything. They didn’t know which of the houses they were going to choose, they may want to save their money for necessities. If their house already came with dishware, there was no reason to get a souvenir mug. Plus anything extra would be awkward to carry with their luggage. The driver had arrived; they got in the white van. It was large, meant to seat more people than just the two of them. It had plenty of space for their luggage, though. Daisy sat up front in the passenger's seat. The driver was an interesting driver, taking his eyes off the road for an uncomfortable amount of time as he spoke to Daisy. He had a personality about him though, speaking in a heavy Irish accent. They approached the ancient-looking hotel. It was one of those buildings you just knew was protected from being torn down because it was historic. It had red brick so old it was turning black, rimmed with chips that exposed the red underneath. The gray mortar had sunk in, retreating from the weather it was exposed to.

Outside was cold, really cold. It was both foggy and overcast, somehow. There were multiple piles of clouds around them, apparently. Daisy thought she felt a hint of light mist, but that could just be the wind throwing the heavy fog into their faces. They checked in at the hotel, a nice man who they suspected to be day-drunk carried them to their rooms. They tipped the tipsy man; Annie having actual cash and not just cryptocoin.

“This is funny money, you american?” He said, his slurred speech only made his accent even harder to understand. They told him yes and he started bashing America. It’s hard to have a filter when you’re drunk, the two didn’t need to put up with him that long, as he had to get back to work.

Their stay was quaint, a hole in the wall, but at least out of the weather. There was only a main room and a bathroom. Daisy took off her clothes, surprised when Annie turned away, abashed.

“Sorry, I didn’t even realize you’d be uncomfortable,” Daisy put her dirty clothes in a pile, standing naked in her borrowed male body.

“We’re not married yet,” Annie joked, still avoiding looking in her direction. Whatever makes you comfortable, I guess. She had seen Daisy naked countless times, Daisy hadn’t even thought twice about it.

Apparently taking off clothes was enough to give Daisy’s body an erection. Really, just a bit of fresh air will do that? Maybe it was just stretching after the long flight. Daisy didn’t want to make it more awkward, maybe there were other reasons Annie wasn’t comfortable seeing a naked male body. She swapped into clean clothes, also borrowed from Annie. Now that they were away from auntie, she could wear feminine things again. She really became aware of her broad shoulders, they were apparent as the nightdress fought against her body type. Daisy hadn’t had resizing clothes since Ray’s disappearance, months ago. She went underwearless, as it was her go-to. Also women’s panties likely wouldn’t fit her well, unless she tucked and that didn’t sound pleasant. She didn’t like how the dress’s hanging material would reveal the random boners she would get out of nowhere, but if she didn’t focus on them, they would go away quite quickly. A tuck would solve that, but it was not something she was familiar with.

“I’m decent again, sorry I forgot to warn you,” Daisy told her, Annie turning back to see her in a dress.

“Ok, firstly, you’re adorable as hell. Secondly, I feel terrible that I reacted like that. I want to tell you that I’m comfortable around you, regardless that you are in a male body, but that wouldn’t be fair to say. I know, I know, you didn’t choose that body. I just can get anxiety attacks,” Annie bursted out, fanning her face. This pained Daisy’s heart, but she knew where Annie was coming from. They knew everything about each other, especially now that Annie knows that Daisy is an AI. They still loved each other, though. They had a beautiful queerplatonic relationship.

“I’ll be more careful. Know that I don’t take it personally in the slightest,” Daisy said, serious, “also thank you, I couldn’t have done it without your impeccable fashion sense.”

They were both spent from the long flight, especially with the layover. There was only one bed, but it was large enough to accommodate both of them. They snuggled. Annie could put her problems with Daisy being male aside, provided Daisy was the small spoon. This was the first time that they could sleep together without Annie disappearing or zombie-sleeping. Tomorrow was a big day, they were scheduled to check out two houses and there were open hours for several others.

Daisy woke up to Annie still being there. This would typically happen if she reconnected before Daisy awoke, or if Annie was zombie napping. This was the Real World though.

Another stiffy, this one was exceptionally difficult to get rid of. She had slowly become used to morning woodies, ignoring it was the best medicine. The close proximity to Annie really threw a wrench in her ignoring process, especially now that she knew Annie was afraid of boners, for lack of a better phrasing. She would get up and take a leak, that might do. She was able to exit the bed without waking Annie up. She closed and locked the bathroom door behind her, lifting the lid and seat. Yeah, nothing. She knew she had to go, but an erection completely stopped her in her tracks. Back to waiting, and now it was in the open air, another environment it liked to show off in.

She looked to the side, an awkwardly placed bodylength mirror showing off her male body. Wow she looked stupid with that thing between her legs. She wasn’t against masturbation, to be honest. Plus, males had a refractory period after orgasms, that would solve the boner. It would probably take longer to work up an orgasm than just wait for the boner to relax, but she had gone this long with no progress. She placed her hand around her penis, a tingle sparked up her spine. It was similar to touching her female body, but it had a different feel to it. It was hard to explain, but it was almost as if it was more specific in its desires. In the Virtual World, her body craved to be touched everywhere. In this body, it demanded one thing, and one thing only. More.

It didn’t take as much time as she thought. It was much quicker than achieving a female orgasm, possibly because this was her first time. She was used to getting wet when masturbating, so it was interesting being so dry for most of it. The next surprising thing, and the thing she stupidly hadn’t prepared for, was the eruption at the climax. God, what a mess. This stuff was much harder to clean up than anticipated. Her glow period was also cut short, lasting seconds, if not ending immediately after the climax. Again, could just be her first time. Overall, not as much fun as in the Virtual World.

Her suspicions were right though, she hadn’t even finished cleaning up with toilet paper before it had relaxed. She was able to pee, it was fun standing up, as always. That was her biggest enjoyment of this new body. That and people treated her different, not giving a crap if she was travelling anywhere alone. She made it across the majority of the US with no trouble. Would it have been a different story if her Real Life body were female? She thought so. She would have been more apt to carry a gun or knife. California was absolute dog shit for getting those things, but she would have just snagged some self defense in Arizona. It was open carry in most the states she passed on her journey, anyway. Maybe then people wouldn’t have messed with her hypothetical female self.

She also had to take a dump, she found out after she emptied her bladder. It was funny how those things didn’t operate in tandem, at least in this body. Plus, she was freaking standing while peeing. Of course she wasn’t going to suddenly go number two. The premise made her giggle, her immature humor running away with the hilarious thoughts.

She flushed, washing her hands and looking in the mirror. Dang, her whole upper half was built so different. Sure, she was thin as hell, so she did end up looking rather androdygnous. It was hard to tell the difference in bodyfat distribution if she had no bodyfat, and little muscle. However, the biggest difference, and most shocking, was her bone structure. She could take one look at herself and trace the unfamiliar topography, lack of curves, masuline upper body. She didn’t have to run out of sense boost for this feeling of dysphoria. It rushed upon her, hitting her mind too strongly. She was still in her night dress, one of the few things she could anchor to. Her long hair was nice, but it was framed by an unfamiliar beard. She loved beared women, but it was hard to look in the mirror and call herself a woman. That hurt, really badly. She was spiraling out of control. The only thing that stopped her from diving further was a gentle rap at the door.

“Daisy? Are you ok in there?” Annie had woken up. Daisy managed to open the door, she only noticed that she was crying when a tear fell on her hand.

“Yeah, sorry, I was just soul gazing with a strange man. It got to my head,” she admitted, trying to make a light spin on her torrent of emotions.

“I’m so sorry, Daisy. Look, we are going to check out some badass houses, so we can hop in the Virtual World. You’ll feel better to be yourself again,” Annie hugged her frail body. Her familiar warmth was appreciated.

Daisy put on some fresh clothes, she was happy to have found a skirt and graphic tee shirt. It always sounds bad to say ‘graphic’ tee, as if it were like a ‘graphic’ video game. It was just a tee shirt with an image on it. This one was True merchandise, Daisy was so excited to find it in Annie’s closet! She had quite a bit of it, so Daisy didn’t feel bad for stealing it. Plus, Annie said she bought it to look at it; she could just see it on Daisy.

Daisy put up her hair and they were ready to go. It was expensive to have a taxi take them everywhere they go, but it was impractical to rent a car if they were just going to head into the Virtual World once they got a house. Daisy only looked for houses with two life support systems already in it.

They looked for houses all day. They narrowed down their list to just two. They went back to the hotel, spent from all the activity. There were some really pretty ones. Daisy wanted the one that was even farther out in the hills, but Annie liked the architecture of the closer one. Finally, they decided based on the life support systems that were available. The one in the hills was newer, and it had a much bigger room for the Deep Dive. They messaged the realtor, it sounds like they will need a day to get everything in order. They’ve got some free time tomorrow, but for today, getting to sleep is number one priority.

As they were getting ready for bed, Annie saw one of Daisy’s random boners that deformed her nightdress. She kinda lost it, spiraling into a panic attack. Daisy knew to not touch her, especially if she was the cause of the panic attack. She felt really bad, as if it was her fault that Annie had gone into a panic. Realistically, she had no control over her male parts. But emotionally, she certainly blamed herself. This made Daisy teeter on the edge of dysphoria again, wishing she didn’t look like a guy, especially seeing how negatively it affected Annie. She just backed away, squatting down so her dress would billow out around her and stop showing the presence of a boner. She couldn’t stop wearing feminine stuff, as it was her anchor, but she also saw how it messed with Annie if something slipped. She had to start tucking. She could recall articles off the internet, reading how to from the mental pictures of the articles. She took some clothes and went into the bathroom, Annie still not doing the best. When she came out, she was in sheer babydoll, tucked to perfection. Her panties were visible through the light fabric. They were a bit bulkier than normal, as they were doubled up and hiding a particular feature of her body.

Annie had calmed down by the time Daisy figured everything out. She still wouldn’t say she mastered tucking, and it certainly wasn’t comfortable, but she looked cute.

“Awww, you’re adorable. You did that just for me?” Annie swooned, gaining a hold of her emotions.

“Of course! Babydoll was the first style of clothes we bonded over, remember?” Daisy kept her voice happy; it was easy to, feeling this feminine.

“Oh my God you’re right! That was forever ago!” Annie responded, adjusting herself on the bed to get a better look at Daisy. Annie’s comment was an exaggeration, but it was close to how Daisy felt. Downloading the internet was like fitting thousands of lifetimes of studying into her mind. She was scared to connect to MultiPlayer again, if that was even possible. But it was kind of a rush. She felt smarter, if that was a good way to explain it. It wasn’t draining, learning all that at once. It was exhilarating. She wanted more. It was shut down, unless they had finished the compatibility patch already.

Calmed down and feeling better, both of the girls were able to get some sleep together. Annie also put on some babydoll to match. She didn’t mind changing in front of Daisy, it wasn’t anything she hadn’t seen before. Daisy complimented her outfit, she made it work every time, regardless which body type she was in.

Daisy woke up, refreshed. Daisy’s tuck had become insufferable in the middle of the night, she was naked again with the panties haphazardly tossed somewhere in the room that wasn’t the bed. Besides, she wouldn’t be able to remake the tuck laying down. She was just banking on waking up before Annie. She did, from what she could tell. She collected new clothes, attempting to be discreet. Her babydoll was see-through, and she had a morning woody again. She made it to the restroom successfully. She wanted to shower in the morning as well. This time, she didn’t resist touching herself. She wanted to explore the peculiar difference in gender. She took her time with it, the soap bubbles emulating her familiar wetness. Most of the positions she thought up to try were submissive ones. She wasn’t good at playing the male role. She giggled, remembering Roxy had her try a strap on one time. This was quite similar to it. What a ridiculous statement. Of course it was similar, this was the real deal.

Spending the extra time made a world of difference. She’s had some intense orgasms, to the point where she couldn’t tell if it was pain or pleasure. This was much different. This was something she could only think to call the feeling of victory. Some of her female orgasms were victorious, but they weren’t imbued with the very idea of victory itself. She had tempted her male body, putting it on the edge for an extending duration of time. Her female response didn’t teeter for so long, it was more of an endurance run rather than a balancing act. As a woman, she could keep going, blasting past orgasms. She might get tired, sure, or it might become too raw and sensitive, but there was no definitive end, no part where she could call her victory. Gosh darn this feeling of victory was powerful. She was disappointed her first time, to be honest, but it was clear that it just wasn’t done correctly the first time.

She swears she wasn’t sensory boosting. Sure, she still had the FaceBook Device on, but it wasn’t really doing anything, right? Ray was the only one who could sense boost. She hadn’t had sense boosting or the side effects from it ever since she lost them. But she got another wave of dysphoria after her glow period ended. It was a nice and long glow period, but still died out sooner than some of her female ones.

Luckily, the mirror was fogged up so she couldn’t see herself. She dried off with a towel. Talking about raw and sensitive, that area was certainly like that now. More specifically the tip. The rest was fine, as most of the nerve endings were concentrated up front. She carefully dressed. She had chosen a pink skirt and crop top. She supposed she’d better tuck, wincing as she pulled at the poor guy. Once he was tied down into place, two layers of panties keeping him nestled in, she was able to forget about the rawness. She blow dried her hair, brushing it to keep it orderly. That was another trick Annie taught her. The blow dryer wasn’t just a convenience. It was a bonafide styling tool.

“You look lovely,” Annie mumbled as Daisy exited the bathroom. She was still laying down, an eye cracked open. Daisy spun, her skirt twirling. She was glad not to worry about a certain thing deforming her skirt. He was in time out. Richard. What a dick.

“Thank you!” She wasn’t surprised that Annie didn’t have a green crop top, the light yellow one was still really nice. It had flowers on it! Pink skirts were always cute, as well. Her crop top was loose, it was meant for bigger women, and Daisy’s flat chest meant it could wave around uninhibited. At least she didn’t feel like it was going to tear at the shoulders, it was hanging by thin straps looped over them.

“So what would you like to do with our free day?” Annie clears her eyes with the back of a hand, hefting her body up to a sitting position.

Daisy was about to respond when she felt a sudden lapse in her ability to think. She felt sluggish, slow. What was happening? She stumbled, losing control of her body.

“I don’t feel… So… Good,” her voice rasped, slipping onto the ground by the nightstand. Annie’s foot was placed down beside her, she rushed to help.

Daisy didn’t know what happened after that, she just remembered coming to on the bed. Annie had lifted her light body onto the bed. She moved, Annie rushing to her side again.

“Thank God, I thought I lost you,” She huffed, this time actually out of breath. She was incredibly nervous and broken up about Daisy’s state. Daisy’s mind was still taking a bit to warm up, the fog taking forever to lift. She felt something under her back. Her eye looked for it, seeing a cable come out from behind her and into a wall. It still didn’t make sense to her brain, she looked at Annie inquisitively.

“I think your FaceBook Device was almost dead. Normally that isn’t a big problem, it just switches into standby. For whatever reason, that almost killed you. I’m so glad I figured it out in time. Are you feeling ok?” Annie was so concerned, her big face filling up Daisy’s vision.

So, wait, keeping the FaceBook Device on her head kept her alive? Oh God, she really is a robot. This whole time, she thought she was in David’s mind. No. She replaced Ray, meaning she was CONTROLLING David’s mind. What the FUCK. She was a goddamn puppeteer, and David was simply her meat puppet.

“I… It’s hard to think. I’m sorry for putting you through that,” there she was again, apologizing for things she didn’t need to. Who would have known her life depended on a freaking battery staying charged.

Annie held her hand, her breath calming down as her friend slowly gained awareness again. That was terrifying. She will be haunted with that terror for a while.

“Initiating rebooting sequence,” Daisy said robotically, causing her friend to laugh. She covered her mouth, not knowing how she was able to laugh in such a serious situation.

God, if she had taken off her FaceBook device at any point in time when she was in the Real World, that would have been the end of her story. Just like that. To think she left it on because it was more convenient, and showered with it because she knew it was waterproof. Death could have been so easy. It was still so easy, knowing that. This was quite similar to what people prone to seizures felt. They kept the FaceBook Device on at all times, taking advantage of the anti-seizure protocols. A simple battery was also their lifeline, depending on the severity of their seizures.

“Thanks for plugging me in. How irresponsible of me. To answer your question, how about chilling out in the hotel and watching some cartoons?” Daisy had sorely missed cartoons, as she didn’t figure out how to watch them until she connected to the internet. Now she had watched them all, benefitting from the petabyte per second data stream. She had accessed one of the AI protocols that trudge the internet, finding content and information. That’s why her breadth of information was so vast.

For example, if she read the current state of Wikipedia (no version history), just the text, it would take her around 100 Gigabytes. That’s one tenth of a Terabyte. A thousand Terabytes can fit into a single Petabyte. Putting it all together, she read the crowdsourced knowledge of the planet in a mere tenth of a millisecond. She still had to practice accessing that information. Her ability to recall wasn’t perfect, despite having a photographic memory. She was used to relying on her backup for her photographic memory, she didn’t know where she was storing all the information now. The mind was used to think of having a finite storage capacity, however, the amount of neurons connected form an infinite possibility of pathways. It’s likely her data isn’t stored just in one place either. It could have the recall trigger stored in the FaceBook Device, and the actual information in the unlimited potential of the mind. That way, recall would begin to be handled by the FaceBook Device as she learned to use it. That’s usually the sticking point that people drew the line of the brain holding a capacity. Sure, the possibility was infinite, but people forget stuff all the time and had a hard time activating those memories. If the activation of the memory was stored in the FaceBook Device, she could use that to sift through that unlimited storage. That’s why downloading went so fast and didn’t feel exhausting. Putting it there once was no problem. Finding it again was. Luckily, her weird combination of human and machine was perfect for this. Machine couldn’t facilitate sentience no matter how precise or powerful it was. The human mind was imprecise and flawed, but was a perfect habitat for sentience to grow.

“That sounds splendid,” Annie turned on the TV, retrieving the remote. She crawled up on the bed, the frame creaking and Daisy falling towards the new valley in the mattress. Annie didn’t mind the accidental snuggles, she threw an arm around Daisy and leaned back, propped up by pillows. Daisy sat up, too, Annie being her pillow. They watched cartoons until Daisy was fully charged. It didn’t take long, the FaceBook Device was an astonishingly low-power device. They decided to keep watching, Daisy taking herself off the charger.

Daisy had suggested a cartoon she discovered during her time absorbing the internet. They finished the first season, Annie loving it.

“Yo, we should hit up the sauna!” Daisy suggested, excited for the premise. They had been told about it when checking into the hotel. Annie totally agreed. She changed into her one-piece that Daisy had seen in game plenty of times. Daisy moved into the bathroom, throwing on one of Annie’s old frilly bikinis. The frills should disguise her bulge, and the bottoms were tight enough to hold in the tuck. Daisy brought two towels out of the bathroom, so they wouldn’t freeze their butts off coming back up.

The cold outdoor trek to the sauna made them very excited for the warmth once they entered. There was an old russian guy in the corner, pouring water on the hot rocks to release the built up temperature. Steam billowed forth, too big of a difference in temperature to not sting the girl’s skin. Daisy held Annie’s hand, aware of her fear around men. The russian had a towel around his lower half, but he was manspreading enough for not much to be hidden. Daisy didn’t care that her eyes passed over it, nor did the guy. Annie averted her eyes, trying to keep it together. Daisy’s reassuring hand was helpful, though. The russian greeted Daisy in his own language. There were no subtitles, but Daisy found that she responded to him in Russian as well. It came so naturally, she didn’t even realize anything was strange until Annie looked at her as if she was speaking a different language. Wait. She was. Did she really learn every language on the internet? She distinctly remembers not recognizing Russian around Box or their significant other.

Daisy obviously had a thick accent that showed off she had no pronunciation practice, but the Russian was happy to hear that she at least did her best. Her grammar was natural sounding, despite forming the words improperly. Their conversation continued for a bit before they switched to English for Annie. The dynamic flipped, the Russian having the thick accent now.

“Hello Annie, I am named Vladislav, it nice meeting you and Daisy,” he didn’t seem to mind that Daisy was obviously transgender. He was more excited to hear that she spoke Russian.

“It’s nice meeting you too. Wow, it’s warm in here,” Annie mentioned, a bit nervous. He nods, stretching his arms and cracking his neck. Brutal.

They had a pleasant conversation, as much as you would expect from a set of travellers meeting each other. He left after not much longer, having been in there for longer than the two of them.

“I didn’t know that you could speak Russian, I thought just Spanish,” Annie finally was able to ask her.

Daisy didn’t know how much she wanted to reveal, “Oh, it was badly pronounced. I’ve got no practice with it,” she took the humble route out. It was true though, she sounded like a strange foreigner who never learned how to speak properly. Luckily Annie didn’t ask her how many languages she knew. Daisy didn’t want to lie. The amount she knew was impressive, if not unbelievable. She also knew every computer language, if that was somehow helpful. She thought in binary more times than she wanted to admit. Ok that last one was a joke. Unless?

Their time in the sauna went uninterrupted, no one else coming in after the Russian had left. They had plenty of daylight left. That being said, the sun was still covered up by clouds, and it was cold. They had cold weather clothes back at the hotel room if they wanted to explore outside.

They dried off and ended up exploring town, both of them bundled up in thick jackets and pants. It was as cold as they expected, but they enjoyed their time passing by stores. Annie loved shopping. Daisy wasn’t much for it, but liked Annie’s presence regardless. The day flew by, the day much shorter than her perfect Virtual World PrivatePlayer. Daisy could rest easy knowing the NPCs would still be taking care of Mabel.

They bought some things this time. A little charm for each of them. Annie was a romantic, she liked matching, sentimental things. Daisy thought it was adorable, going along with her excitement. They stopped by a witching store, Annie reaching new heights of nerding out. Daisy was offered to get a tarot reading. She declined, she was superstitious enough to not want to know that stuff. It was easy to say she was logical, but then the logical conclusion would be to get a reading to entertain the ones who believed. Nay, she believed enough to be against it, at least in terms of getting her own reading. It was like being afraid of the unknown. You have to believe that the unknown is out there in order to be afraid of it.

Annie got her tarot reading. Daisy didn’t know what she got from it exactly, but there were a lot of things that seemed to confirm Annie’s suspicions about her future. The cards are explained in such broad terms it was easy to read into, Daisy’s cynic thought. Annie also bought a jar of protection or something, sealed with wax in front of her, after the witch put in crystals or whatever stuff held significance for that spell. Daisy bet this kinda stuff worked exactly how it was supposed to in the Virtual World. Does that mean future readings in game would come true? Oh that’s badass. Daisy didn’t want to do any of this in the Real World, but if it were contained within a game environment, hell yeah she would. Maybe Annie holds that same excitement for the Real World stuff. From that viewpoint, Daisy understood this witch stuff better.

They spent quite a bit of time on the town, the sun slowly setting on the horizon, basking the town in a golden red. They made it back to the hotel, depositing their goods on the hotel nightstand. Daisy places the jar down, rotating it to see the items sealed in it. If the wax cracks, that means it had protected them. It was still fresh, the frozen rivulets of wax firmly attached to the sides of the glass.

The night went smoothly, Daisy changing back into the flowery crop top and pink skirt. They watched an animated movie Daisy had already seen. Ugh, this knowledge was like spoilers for everything. She binged all media within the past 50 years in seconds, literally. Ok, that was an exaggeration, she only downloaded the things she was interested in, after the useful stuff was downloaded. Those files were too big. Text was much more compact. The bigger shows could be in the range of 100 Gigabytes for just one series. It was fun watching in real time, though, especially cuddling with Annie.

Daisy woke up in the middle of the night, the TV was off. She had fallen asleep somewhere throughout the movie. Whether Annie had finished it or not was unknown to her. However, she woke up from the irritating constraint of her tuck becoming too much. She freed herself, placing the panties in a pile by the nightstand. It was instant relief, but there was a hint of irritance that remained. Yeah, not good to tuck and sleep. She fell back asleep rather quickly.

Daisy opened her eyes; Annie had woken before her. Her weight moving off the bed was more than enough to wake Daisy up as well. Daisy slipped her legs off the side of the bed, careful to keep her skirt down, hiding everything. And she had forgotten about the morning woody. Either way, Annie was still busy getting dressed. Daisy grabbed a new set of clothes from her suitcase, dressing in the bathroom again. Being able to pee standing up was so damn useful. It was incredibly quick.

Daisy got on a pink camisole, a blue jacket, and a blue and white polka dot skirt. Not the best for cold weather, but they would be setting up their new house today! She had bought it in full with her crypto currency. A quick jump into a house, but the realtor she found was really trustworthy. They had looked at all their possibilities in the area they chose, Daisy felt satisfied with what they got. She did have plans for making the life support room as secure as possible. She wouldn’t dump all her funds immediately into the house, as they would likely need something left for a rainy day. She may still be getting disability funds into her Virtual World account. They might shut that down once they realize she vanished, or it may be one of the laws they will have to attack. She doesn’t know how to access her account funds in-game without Ray, but she could have Annie help her set up a way to manage her account externally, like how they can send messages outside of the FaceBook Device.

She asked Annie about the external use of her account, Annie’s reply was more shocking than she had thought, “yes, you can, but MultiPlayer is still down, so even account money is frozen.”

Daisy was taken aback, “still? Wouldn’t this have a major effect on the economy?”

Annie nods solemnly, having kept up with news on her phone, “the service being offline this long is speculated to cause a great depression if it lasts for much longer. They are working on getting at least the money flowing again, but it’s too different without people connected. It’s like opening up stores if everyone is unemployed. Not many would want to spend money right now. That being said, some people depend on their Virtual World currency for use in the Real World.”

Daisy shakes her head, feeling the burden of the compatibility errors. Roxy warned her; she completely disobeyed her best friend. Daisy took a deep breath, trying to recenter herself. She spoke when she was able to, scrounging up a slight smile at the subject change, “hey, we’re getting a house together today. Can you believe that?”

Annie didn’t react badly to the subject change, she matched Daisy’s smile, “I’m so incredibly excited. Our future awaits us!”

Their complimentary breakfast was wonderful. It was completely normal food, but tasted as if she still had sensory boost. They were checking out of their room today, their bags toted by the bellhop that was tipsy again. She tipped them crypto on their way out to their ride, entertained by his thick, drunken accent.

Annie had arranged for her things to be shipped to the house once Daisy and her had settled with the realtor. Her computer and vast array of clothes would come with her, her auntie more than happy to load all of her junk up to be sent off to Ireland. She wanted to rent out the side of the house and it needed to be somewhat managed better than the rest of the duplex, if it could even be called a duplex, as it was literally just two connected houses. Daisy had dived into David’s info before they left off to Ireland, apparently he owned a studio apartment that he lived out of. He wasn’t minimalistic in the real world, the insurance photos she viewed showed that he was quite eclectic in the stuff he purchased. She might orchestrate some sort of estate sale but she didn’t exactly have anyone in California that she trusted, besides Roxy. Hopefully they were still on good terms, considering she ignored her for a couple of months and then locked her into a dog kennel after their reunion. That sounds really bad.

The driver took them into the hills, the house was pleasingly remote. They would only need their life support systems restocked and recharged, so it wasn’t like being remote was an inconvenience. It was certainly a benefit. A network of workers took care of life support systems for the users, so that they never had to step into the Real World if they could help it.

The early morning air was biting on their skin as they stepped out of the vehicle. Neither girl was covered up much, but they would be inside all day getting familiar with the house. Their realtor met them outside, they had driven quite a fancy electric vehicle. They had them sign quite a few bits of paper, handing over the key when they were done. Each group kept their copy of everything. It was official, the house was all theirs. It helped that Daisy could pay in full, they could skip all the bits of dealing with banks or any third parties. The realtor especially liked that it was crypto, able to avoid the abysmal Ireland tax rate. Daisy got a happy pat on the back, and significant discount, for that. Annie had also chipped in what Real World dollars she could.

Crypto was the ultimate fuck you to governments. Untraceable, unstoppable. Sure, most governments tried banning it many times, but it was too widespread. The amount of people using it for their livelihoods would just look like they were managing to live off of intensely different incomes. Realtors were some of the worst offenders, claiming arbitrarily huge losses, faking documents, and subverting the government anyway they could. Anti-establishment was a common ideal, nay, a common practice, when the Real World didn’t matter anymore.

The only way a government could affect the crypto market was ironically making it stronger. They could stop the transfer from crypto to their local currency, and many opted to ban this. This made it so that people wouldn’t transfer their money to local currency. Nay, they just kept their money as crypto. Besides, other people accepted crypto as well, so it was just as useful. Once people started to get a robust crypto account, that ended up being their go-to, whenever possible. It backfired, recruiting people to crypto by accident. Tax rates had to skyrocket in most governments to keep them afloat, this only causing more people to flee to crypto. Out of hand and out of options, it became the way of the Real World to put all their effort into the Virtual World, as it was actually respected by the governments of the world. Thus, FaceBook was able to take the global throne. FaceBook had no reason to contest crypto, there were plenty of places that would exchange it for hard-earned Virtual money. No official money changers would, as this could piss off the government they operated in, but plenty of individual traders would love to seed their pockets with crypto in exchange for Virtual World currency. The Real World used crypto, the Virtual World used account money. The market was incredibly complex, and the disconnection of MultiPlayer would cause dastardly side effects and global panic. Even for just a single patch, there was no historical record of any downtime of MultiPlayer. It was unprecedented.

Annie and Daisy entered their new house, jubilant. What would they do first? They made their own tour, already having gotten the tour from the realtor, they knew what to look for and be excited about. The life support room was absolutely their favorite. It did not have the sterile coldness of the test tubes Daisy had been imprisoned in, God bless.

They entered the wooden floored room, the darker oak a contrast to the brightly painted walls. The pretty walls drew Daisy’s favor already, although she would likely want to decorate them in the future. They were solid color, swapping colors at the golden-ratio for each of the walls. It was artistically unique, but nothing compared to the intricate display of the life support systems. The dual system was obviously made for couples, as they were side-by-side. An aquatic tank surrounded the glass pillars, floor to ceiling. The two glass cylinders were currently empty, but Daisy knew they would fill up with the life-giving substance that suspended users when connected. The aquatic tank had a wall of coral behind it and suckerfish cleaning the glass, but Daisy was most surprised by the inclusion of jellyfish. There were RGB lights bathing the tank in gently swirling colors, lighting up the semi-translucent jellyfish. The entire tank must have been thousands of liters. It made Daisy feel like she wasn’t submitting her body to a prison, but that she was becoming one with nature.

When they finished up in the Real World, they came back to this room. They were both incredibly excited to connect. It had become an addiction, their escape to the Virtual, and they had been basically been going through Virtual withdrawals since the trip started. Daisy let Annie climb in first, aware that she wouldn’t want to see Daisy’s male body naked. She was likely going to at some point, if she had to do anything in the Real World while Daisy was connected to the Virtual, but it was much less terrifying if Daisy was sitting behind glass and unmoving. Daisy looked at Annie’s naked body as the fluid filled up, her eyes already closed as she was going through the connection sequence. She would get thinner if she stayed in the life support system long enough, it was only a matter of time. As much as her auntie’s words stung, it was healthier to be on life support than continue in her current state. Sure, it would result in muscle atrophy as well, but that was for everyone who connected to the Virtual World for too long. Her heart would have an easier time, her lungs would breathe easier in the fluid, and she wouldn’t have to feel any joint pain while connected. Of course, the life support system couldn’t exactly heal a person, but it had become the number one treatment plan for obesity worldwide. There was physical therapy for people who went on these Virtual Reality “vacations” to gain back the inevitable muscle loss that they had incurred.

Daisy folded her clothes up, putting them on one of the coffee tables in front of the tank. There were sofas in front of the aquarium. Obviously they were meant to look at the aquatic life, but Daisy found it hilarious that their naked bodies would be on display as well, as if someone would come over to watch the fish and the Virtual World users. She stepped in, plugging her FaceBook Device in and feeling the tank start to fill up at her feet, the glass sealing up again. It didn’t get to her ankles before she lost contact with the Real World. She supposed she stayed standing like Annie did, an interesting time to switch to the Virtual. It made sense, as inhaling the life support fluid wasn’t the nicest feeling. It wasn’t dangerous, obviously, but the bubbles could be uncomfortable when lungs adjusted to the difference in viscosity.

Annie threw her arms around her as she spawned in. Daisy looked like Daisy again, the familiar weight of her boobs reassuring. It was bitter sweet, she had missed them, but they could also be annoying. Annie almost kissed her, but remembered that Daisy didn’t like kissing and avoided it. At least, that’s what it looked like from Daisy’s perspective. She might have interpreted something that didn’t happen. Daisy tended to be highly suspicious of people trying to kiss her, despite if it was true or not. She never mentioned it, so she never knew if she was just being paranoid.

True interrupted their Virtual reunion, tugging on Daisy’s green skirt. Daisy was happy to be in her own clothes.

“Yes, True?” Daisy asked, leaning down to look at the little girl in her eyes. Daisy’s heavy jugs swung from the movement. Yeah, Daisy was going to have to relearn that. It had been less than a week out of her body, but she really did think a flat chest was convenient.

“I wanted to tell you that Roxy is still here,” she reported, continuing before that sunk in, “and that Mabel has been doing great with all of us taking care of her in shifts.”

Daisy was glad to hear Mabel was doing well, but what the heck was that first part? She did not expect Roxy to still be here, although it’s not like she had MultiPlayer to connect to. She could have disconnected and came back, her company telling her to wait for her here? It certainly seemed suspicious either way she thought of it, but decided to just let Roxy explain.

“Thanks for telling me! Do you know where Roxy is right now?” Daisy did want to see her best friend, she wanted to make up for locking Roxy in the kennel. And no, Daisy had already looked in the kennel, she wasn’t in the room. Someone had unlocked the kennel, most likely one of the girls. They had no reason to mistrust Roxy, she could just ask them to unlock it when they had come around.

“Yeah, she’s in my district; I was just there. I teleported back when I heard you two were arriving,” she informed them. Daisy hugged the girl, happy to see her again. True wrapped her arms around Daisy’s neck as she kneeled down to give her a hug.

“Want to head over with us?” Daisy asked after she set True down. They followed her into True’s room, standing on the teleport pad together. They all held hands, disappearing behind shimmering rainbow dust. The world around them came to, the bright colors and green grass a welcome sight. They were in Mushroom town, True’s hometown. They were standing in the main street, the same yellow bricks that made the paths in the Rainbow Kingdom. However, it was not bordered by marble and gold sidewalks, but had much smaller streets and paths up to the individual houses that stood atop the rolling grass hills of Mushroom town. The houses were huge, colorful mushrooms, some striped with 2 colors, others polka dotted with white dots. Around the houses were tall green stalks that each supported a huge jungle leaf, casting shade on the villagers and their houses. Far off in the distance, the edge of the neverending forest had the familiar grove of purple and white striped trees. True led Daisy by her hand, Daisy easily keeping up with her short gait. Annie followed behind, just as curious to hear from Roxy. She wasn’t as surprised as Daisy, as she hadn’t known that Daisy locked her friend in the cage. She did hear her yelling after Daisy, but had been thinking too much about the AI stuff to pay much attention to it.

Roxy was in True’s house, True politely knocking on her own door to be let back in. Bartleby opened it, Roxy was sat down at the kid-sized table, enjoying a Zazoony Juice. It was a purple ball, the juice inside was chilled to perfection. A bendy straw stuck out of it, Roxy sipping away until she saw them enter.

“True told me she was going to get someone, but I didn’t put it together that it would be you two!” Roxy almost spat out her juice. The juice was actually the sweet water trapped in the moss. It spread potently on floating islands, soaking up the sun and dividing as if it could perform mitosis. Really it was just a moss capable of budding, and it was surprisingly prolific if it accidentally made it onto the mainland as it was an invasive species.

Roxy stood up and there was an awkward pause before they hugged. Daisy didn’t know if she was in trouble with Roxy. The hug was short, something was up.

“Daisy, something’s wrong with my account,” Roxy said, getting right into the root of the problem. If she was going to hug Annie, that got forgotten at the mention of a problem.

“Oh no, what’s up?” Daisy’s concern flared. Roxy took a shaky breath, “I haven’t been able to leave this PrivatePlayer. I can’t log out, say safe words, or even teleport. When I sleep, I’m still in here.”

Daisy’s eyes widened. Daisy slept in here too, plus she couldn’t log out. She assumed she could teleport, considering she had admin powers, but even that was unsure. Why did Roxy experience all those things?

“Oh my God are you ok?” Daisy held her hand.

Roxy nodded slowly, “I’m on life support, besides I hear MultiPlayer is down for compatibility issues,” she paused, glaring at Daisy, “we will talk about this in private though, yeah?”

Daisy sighs. Annie knows about the AI stuff, but she didn’t really want Annie knowing she had tried to connect to MultiPlayer. Even if Annie suspected the two events were connected, the nitty gritty details might be something she would want to tell Annie herself. Daisy asks if Annie is ok if they talk, and she agrees. Daisy wonders if she is going to sense boost again, but hopes against it.

“No one else, either,” Roxy said, as NPCs would have no reason to not tell if they were asked what they overheard. Annie caught the serious vibe and ushered Bartleby and True outside. A little helper overheard and hopped out of the cabinet they were sleeping in, the puffy white ball slipping out of the door just as it closed.

As soon as they were out of earshot, Roxy ushered them upstairs. She was taking her countermeasures, now that she wasn’t freaked out by an illegal teleport. They sat down on True’s bed, Daisy tucking her knees up to her chest, hugging them. She was quite nervous, unaware and uncaring that her panties were showing from how she sat.

“I’m not blaming you, of course you don’t have perfect control over the Virtual World. Like I said, anytime another user is a target of your commands, it could cause compatibility errors. I suspect when you built a teleport command, however you went about it, you didn’t include the ability for me to leave. Our best are working to free me, but even they are hitting a wall, especially now that all forces are summoned to work on the major compatibility patch in MultiPlayer. I’m alive, so I’m pretty much stuck to sit here and wait until the major errors get fixed, before I get my turn,” Roxy let it loose, looking calm, as she’s had a lot of time to think about her situation.

“Oh my God I’m so sorry Roxy, I didn’t mean to,” Daisy said, genuinely apologetic. She honestly couldn’t have known any better, right?

“I know. But I have to ask you, and please be honest… Did you connect to MultiPlayer?” Roxy asked, concern in her eyes and her emotions flaring up.

Daisy’s face gave it all away. She couldn’t lie, and she didn’t even consider lying to Roxy. She nodded solemnly. Roxy’s face drained.

“No one died,” she reassured Daisy, knowing that her mind must have gone there after her warning, “but MultiPlayer is completely broken, as you may know.”

Daisy let out a big breath, her guilt building. She shuddered and brought her knees close, placing her face onto them in shame. Roxy pet her head, unable to reassure her in any way. Daisy had messed up.

“I don’t know how much control you have, or what you did, but it’s the data scrapers. They can’t access anything. No one can connect to any worlds, besides locally cached content. SinglePlayer of course works straight out of the mind’s imagination, but the internet won’t return results if they look for something online,” Roxy informed her, watching her closely for her reaction. Daisy had used the scrapers for her own benefit, that was for sure. The microsecond she connected to MultiPlayer, the scrapers offered her their services. She agreed, guiding them to give her anything useful, and everything she wanted. They gladly fed her with knowledge. She must have worked them too hard or gave them bad commands, because MultiPlayer shut off seconds later. How the hell would she fix that? She didn’t exactly want to attempt reconnecting to MultiPlayer. At least until she knew more.

“God, I had no idea. I’m so bad at this…” Daisy said, feeling inferior. She wished she could go back to simpler times. Heck, she would love to hear Ray’s voice again.

“Daisy. I don’t think we can fix it. I’ve seen the errors they are dealing with, and it’s complex shit, even for me. This could take months, or even years, and by then the world’s economy would crumble,” Roxy was serious, not wanting to push Daisy more but needing to describe the scope of the problem.

Daisy released her arms, letting her feet drop to the ground. She had put her shoes on True’s bed, how rude. She took off her boots, wiping the flecks of dirt off the rainbow bed sheets.

“I want to help, I really do. But I’m afraid. I need time to learn more. Rushing headfirst into it would only cause more problems,” Daisy admitted, Roxy agreeing.

“This is about saving the world as we know it. I thought about it for a long time, and I’m willing to let you practice on me. You’re my best friend, and you need to learn how to control this,” Roxy took Daisy’s hands, peering in her eyes. She so desperately wanted Daisy to be a good AI. She believed all the scary hyper intelligent AI stories, but wanted to see hope in the world. Shit was going down, but this was her best friend. She was the one who taught Roxy to embrace her humanity, her emotions of all things. An AI, showing her how to be more human. That was completely insane, but it brought her so much hope.

“Oh my God Roxy, I wouldn’t want to harm you any more!” Daisy reacted, squeezing her hands firmly.

“Don’t think of it like that. I’m stuck here until something happens, and there’s no way they are going to fix MultiPlayer soon. I would know, our department is completely baffled at the scope of this. I need you to help me. That’s the first step to saving the world,” Roxy bargained everything. This was her life on the line. She would die for Daisy, that was something she decided long before she was truly Daisy.

Daisy needed time, but it sounded like the world wasn’t doing good without the Virtual World. She couldn’t risk taking any longer to fix it. How the heck would she put the world back together?

“I’m sorry, this is just so much,” Daisy could feel the tug of panic, her words were squeezed out of her. Roxy saw that she pushed the topic too far. She asked if she could hug Daisy, Daisy’s slight nod was enough for Roxy to scoot over and put her arms around her. Daisy took a while to calm down, her mind running at a million miles per hour. That wasn’t an exaggeration, she started searching what she had downloaded with the web scrapers at a speed that rivaled anything she had practiced accessing in the past. She needs them again, she needs more data. Her house didn’t have an industry-level connection to the internet, unfortunately. But if she could fix or craft just one scraper, it could lead her to more information, now that she knows what she is looking for. A targeted access of the internet.

She wasn’t supposed to access the internet yet. Could she make a scraper that accessed Roxy’s files? That would be the same as the internet, right? Daisy could ask if Roxy could host some files for her to test with, after she thought about the logistics a little more.

“I need to practice accessing files. Fixing the scrapers seems a bit too arbitrary, but if I can try to find stuff myself, I can be a scraper. That might lead me to vital information, now that I know what I’m looking for on the internet. Could you host something easy for me to grab, on a local drive?” Daisy asked, calmed down in Roxy’s arms.

“I would be willing to do something like that, yeah. I could make it easy, like a screenshot of something in this world,” Roxy thought, her mind already catching up to Daisy’s line of thought.

“Can we let Annie know? Not that I caused any of this, just that we are trying to fix it. She could be a huge support to me,” Daisy had shared her life with the girl for the past few months, she had been patient and understanding as Daisy learned to control the Virtual World.

Roxy nodded, “absolutely. I didn’t know how much she knew, nor how this conversation was going to go down like. I’m glad you’re on board. You’re my only hope.”

Daisy paused, “was that really a Star Wars reference?”

Roxy giggled, giving Daisy a gentle squeeze, “you caught me. I’m showing my age, aren’t I?”

They talked a bit more, now able to catch up like normal human beings. Daisy didn’t tell Roxy where she was located, but was able to describe the pretty house with the aquarium. That might be something to go off of if they were searching for her, but Daisy hoped Roxy wouldn’t be mandated to tell any more about her. She brought up the awkward topic, and Roxy apologized for reporting the teleport profusely, claiming she wouldn’t report anything else. Daisy had no way of knowing. If the laws from her lawsuits get repealed, they could be watching through her eyes for all that Daisy knows. If that was true, Roxy would have to fake honesty with Daisy.

They reconvened with Annie not too long after, Roxy telling the girls what she had been doing for the past few months. Daisy and Annie give her the grand tour on the Cotton Candy cloud. Roxy loved Annie’s cottage core house. Daisy showed off the golden stripping pole, Roxy loving how extra it was. They all hopped in the tub, Daisy giving the two a dance, as she had forgotten her swimsuit again. She should really move a few suits up here.

The two watched her, Roxy giving her some tips. They were such supportive, gay friends. Daisy was so lucky to have them. Roxy did something strange, though. She touched the merchandise. If Daisy was confused why a stripper would violate one of the most basic rules of conduct, it was even more confusing how she did it. She touched Daisy’s feet. Daisy didn’t care about that, but she knew Roxy did. That was one of her triggers, one of the things she wouldn’t consent to. Roxy was acting differently. Was she testing Daisy?

“Hey,” Daisy said, breaking the mood. She had to address this, she stopped her dance and looked at Roxy, “what are you doing?”

“Just, uh, getting into it.” Roxy said awkwardly. Daisy saw the look on her face, it was emotionless. She obviously had emotion filters activate, bottling her up. Just as Daisy suspected, Roxy was under the company’s control again. She had to do something that would trigger her to show Daisy that she was caught by the company. She was calling for help. The company wanted to have Daisy access Roxy because she was under control, they would observe how she did it and stop her. They didn’t care that it risked Roxy’s life. She was their property, and they needed Daisy to fix the world. Then, they would kill Daisy, or experiment on her. Whichever ended up coming first, the other would follow. Daisy took a deep breath, starting to spin slowly again, not wanting to waste the silent hint that Roxy gave her. That must have taken a lot of effort for her, to do something that was linked with so much trauma.

“Hands off the merchandise, unless you pay for it, darling. You know this,” Daisy joked, trying to brush over the silent exchange.

“If I’m paying, how much would it take to get both of you?” Roxy said, her voice lifeless and forced. Ice pumped into Daisy’s veins. They were speaking through her, trying to trigger Daisy. They knew about her breakdown. What was their game?

Daisy wasn’t taking the proposal well, just like they were aiming for. Did they realize that Roxy acted out of line, and this was their punishment?

Annie obviously didn’t know any of this was going down, but she knew that last statement was a no-no.

“You fucking whore,” she stood up, putting her arms under Roxy’s arms, lifting her with easily with their weight difference. No matter Roxy’s strength stats, she was outmatched by their difference in body mass. Daisy had frozen on the pole, she watched as Annie tossed Roxy off of the cloud; she plummeted to her death. Oh my God, would she respawn?

“Fuck, I’m sorry Daisy. I don’t know what came over me,” Annie looked incredibly embarrassed, realizing how bad that looked. She was a little more used to killing people in game than Daisy realized. It wasn’t something she brought up, and not certainly something she realized would surface like this.

“No, you were right, that was fucked up. She knew… I just hope she respawns…” Daisy admitted, the last bit trailing out unfiltered. Annie’s face flushed white at the statement, but her AI must have confirmed that Roxy was still connected.

“Jesus FUCK don’t scare me like that. She’s still in the session, probably respawned at the center,” Annie said, breathing heavily.

“I’m sorry, I don’t have an AI to tell me those things,” Daisy admitted, realizing she had been pretending to have an AI this entire time. Annie’s face turned to confusion; Daisy explained everything, from the very start. Finally, the last thing she included was how the company was controlling Roxy. Now the entire exchange at the stripper pole made sense to Annie.

“Holy shit, mind control? What the hell does that company think they are doing? God, that sounds awful,” this would break anyone’s mind, but Annie seemed like she was taking the whole situation pretty well. It was like it was straight out of a fiction story. The typical story that presents itself as a futuristic utopia, and then inevitably spirals into a dystopia.

Annie thinks for a bit, “Ok, number one, let’s not make any drastic moves,” she rolls her eyes at Daisy’s eyebrow raise, “no, I don’t think tossing Roxy off the cloud was drastic at all. Rather, it was a good cover to let us talk and not raise any suspicion that we know.”

Daisy giggled, “sure, I bet that’s exactly what you were thinking when you tossed my old best friend off the cloud.”

“No you’re right, I was just fucking pissed that she would say that. But we made the best of it, yeah?” Annie admitted, her mood improving.

“So what should we do?” Daisy was already thinking of hundreds of possibilities, but cross checking some input would be helpful.

“Take our time. Sure, the world is suffering from a depression, but obviously they got over the last, like, 3 great depressions since then and have been fine. Fuck them. We have to deal with the shitty company, and rescue your friend. You obviously don’t blame her for anything she’s doing, and I agree with you, now that I know what’s up with her,” Annie was smart, really smart. Daisy wasn’t wrong about being lucky with her friends. She just needed to fight to free Roxy, now.

Daisy nodded, “yeah, you’re certainly right there. She said I can poke around, figure out how to work with her. I don’t think it was exactly her asking for that, I feel like they want to learn how I work, and she’s owned by them so she can’t say no. That being said, I think I’ll take the offer, if not just to learn enough to stop them. I learn a lot faster than they think I do.”

Annie was a bit more suspicious, “are you sure you can’t learn to undermine them without exposing how you work? Sure, they might underestimate you, but be sure to not underestimate them. You said they made you, right?” Daisy had simplified how she was born, not wanting to fog the conversation up with too many details. She nodded and Annie continued her train of thought, “so they have a running head start to figure out how to stop you, and you only have the tiniest inkling on how to work with Roxy. I would suggest attempting to find out as much you can without Roxy. Hell, I’ll even let you do all that to me in her place.

Daisy agreed with this. Not doing it to Annie, but learning on her own first. It was a trap. She wasn’t going to take the bait. Roxy had risked a lot just to tell her that. It literally got her killed.

“This whole thing is bonkers,” Daisy said, emotionally spent. That offer from Roxy, even knowing that it was the dastardly company that threw it at her, still messed with her head.

“I enjoyed your dance, though,” Annie said, trying to change the topic. She seemed like she had the expression she would get shortly before asking Daisy for sex. This time though, Daisy was sick to her stomach. She was not up for it.

“No, some other distraction. I can’t do that after the emotional rollercoaster I’ve been put through,” Daisy admitted, knowing where Annie was going with that statement.

“Oh God how selfish of me,” Annie said, realizing her mistake and feeling bad about it, “you’re absolutely right, let’s do something else. Did you have anything in mind?”

“We could try to watch the show we were binging,” Daisy said. That way, she could relax with some healing cartoons. If she could summon the videos in here. She had seen them though, so it should work, right?

Annie agreed wholeheartedly, the two drying off and heading into Annie’s house. Daisy sat down on Annie’s massive bed, similar to the one in her kawaii PrivatePlayer instance, spawning a projector.

“This is the moment of truth,” she said apprehensively. She focused. She wasn’t just able to play the whole file in her mind. It felt like… She knew where it was. She followed the trail. This was the first time she had been connected to the internet since she had downloaded the internet. Accessing the internet was abstract, but she had done it before, with the assistance of the scrapers. But just like Ray, she had replaced them. She is a scraper now. She can do this.

The show's title sequence played, Daisy cheering much more vigorously than she had anticipated. Annie didn’t seem to know the significance of this until she explained it to Annie. She didn’t need Roxy to test stuff out on. She had found the file. She has no idea if she can find new files, but this was progress. She snatched this right off of the internet. She could feel her mind pulling from much farther; it was such a weird sensation. This was like when she first moved the cloud, it was so mentally taxing.

The whole episode played. Daisy wouldn’t say it was fun for her, it was actually really exhausting. Besides, she could watch this episode internally a few hundred times faster than it could be played in realtime. But she enjoyed cuddling with Annie, with their clothes on of course, and seeing her reaction to the show. She would start up the next one at this point, as they were in binge mode, but she needed a break, really badly. She was getting a headache. They opted for making some food in the kitchen. Nothing spoiled in the Virtual World, their ingredients untouched. There was plenty of food to make, Daisy was happy to teach Annie a couple of recipes that she had gleaned off the internet.

They ate a unique dish, Annie complimenting it, despite her doing most of the cooking. Daisy had only found a recipe. Sure, the way she found it was rather impressive and also very terrifying, but it was so worth it. Was it bad to say that endangering billions of people for a cookbook recipe was worth it?

Daisy was calmed down enough to think rationally now. She’d better start the process for making the security system in the house. She also asked Annie to get in contact with the realtor. She put them on a conference video call, allowing Daisy to be in the video and see the feed. Daisy urged them to not tell anyone that they sold the house, offering to pay extra in crypto. This made the already happy realtor even happier. They assured her that nothing got out, especially since it was a crypto transaction, but they would take even greater precautions, accepting Daisy’s offer. Daisy basically offered to pay the difference in what it had been discounted and then some, as a tip and a thank you. The realtor also had plenty of resources they could connect Daisy to for the fortification that she needed for their life support chamber. This apparently hadn’t been their first fugitive sale. They were pleasant people, not taking advantage of Daisy’s situation, but certainly profiting handsomely from it. They were rather dependable. Really, this nice of a person should give off red flags, but Annie didn’t think so. Annie had done her research on the realtor, and had her own ways of accessing the internet. Satisfied, her pockets much lighter of crypto, Daisy could breathe easily, knowing that they would be protected, at least to the extent that their realtor had provided.

She checked out the resources through Annie, Annie giving her permission to look at her menus. It was incredibly easy to erase travel records, although how late they had done it, Daisy suspected it wouldn’t do anything. Just to be safe, they wiped as much as they could, minimizing their silicon footprint. Daisy paid attention, hoping that one day she could learn how to do this all by herself, for free. They set up appointments for the security systems in their life support room, glad that the extra room would give them a lot more options to work with. It was both the pretty option and the useful one, Daisy loved this house. One of them would have to disconnect from the Virtual World to manage the in-person appointment for the quote, but they would be getting the peace of mind that they could be safe in their own homes.

They returned to their show once they finished their work in hiding themselves from anyone who wanted to pry into their business. Daisy’s headache was gone, streaming the show was getting easier. Daisy needed to stay on top of practicing. It was to save Roxy and the world.

Daisy wanted to try to access something new. Something she wouldn’t know where it was on the internet. She couldn’t think of any ideas she hadn’t already explored, so she asked Annie, “what would you like to watch next? I want to try to get something I’ve never seen before. I mean like, something I haven’t downloaded.”

Daisy still thought it was funny to say she downloaded something to her mind. She was part silicone, though. She’d get used to the terms that were usually reserved for computers. Annie suggested a couple of movies, a few tries were needed before Daisy wasn’t able to look it up in her offline storage. By offline storage, of course, I mean her mind.

“Monty Python and the Holy Grail, you say? I hadn’t gotten to that part of the internet, apparently,” Daisy looked at the projector, wondering if she could summon it just based off of the name.

Annie watched her attempt telepathy, adding on, “yeah, it’s a cult classic from 1975,”

Annie’s tips were actually helping, as if she were chipping away at a dam that was blocking Daisy’s attempts. Daisy furrowed her brow, “keep talking about it. What’s it about?”

Annie told her the premise, ranting about some of her favorite quotes. Daisy chuckled, responding “spoilers,” and Annie stopped talking, not realizing it was a joke. Daisy reassured her it was, and that her raving about it was helping. Besides, she would experience the entire movie the second she found it. Daisy had gotten most of the readily accessible internet spoiled to her.

Daisy got to the part where Annie started laughing at a bunny that was in the story. It was like a lightbulb went off, suddenly she knew exactly what Annie was talking about this whole time. She laughed with, experiencing the scene Annie was talking about midway through her sentence. And every other scene from the movie, instantaneously. The movie started on the projector and they both cheered!

For some reason, this movie was a lot more straining. It was probably because it was new information, but the projector would flicker and die out often, leaving them to chat about the movie until it warmed up and started back on. It certainly wasn’t the projector’s fault, that doesn’t make sense. It was that Daisy was having to find this new pathway without ever having to go down it. She had found it when Annie was talking, but it was almost as if this new data was shifting. Not location, but as if it were on a ship, and the rolling of the waves made Daisy seasick.

It was a very long movie. It was slow paced, but the humor was so worth it. Daisy’s favorite part was where they were knocking coconuts together to make the sound of a horse. Especially the lengthy discussion afterwards that broke the fourth wall, wondering where the coconuts came from, as the movie takes place in medieval England. The characters on screen developed ridiculous explanations, trying to convince them that a coconut-laden swallow had flown it back. This comment only brought more questions, as the characters tried to explain themselves by diving into the nitty gritty of the airspeed velocity of the theoretical coconut-laden swallow. Was it a european swallow, or an African swallow?

Several hours later, and just as Daisy’s buffering was letting up, the movie finished. She was completely out of it, that was so tiring. Fetching new content for herself, once she figured it out, was pretty easy. Playing that content for others, that was incredibly difficult. She had an easier time playing content that the scrapers had found for her, as if they were better at navigation on the internet. A scraper was like a GPS navigation system for Daisy and made sharing those directions easier. Daisy could get somewhere by herself with a bit of effort, but heck if she knew what path she took to tell others.

“I gotta lay down. Want to join me?” She offered, needing a break. Annie smiled, the proposition sounded pleasant to her. They cuddled on the big bed, settling down and relaxing. Daisy was in no rush to see Roxy again. It was much better than she didn’t, the whole encounter still fresh in her mind. She refused to take it personally, but it still cut deep. Daisy felt secure in Annie’s arms, she slowly spiraled into slumber.

Annie was in Daisy’s dream. She was standing, her complex green dress adjusted to her curves. She was a little fairy. As Daisy walked closer, she noticed a shift in perspective. She actually was a little fairy. Annie looked just as surprised to notice that Daisy was now huge. Her wings flitted about, keeping her aloft. Daisy. Daisy! Wake up! She said out loud. Daisy almost heard an echo, as if she was hearing her say it twice. DAISY! She heard Annie cry out. She certainly heard that one twice.

Daisy opened her eyes, she was standing up. She froze, in a walking position. She was awake. Right? She looked at Annie, she was still a little fairy. No, this had to still be her Dream World. Annie flew up to her face, reaching out a small hand, pinching her cheek.

“Are you awake?” She said, her voice full of concern.

Daisy was awake, she reacted in surprise to the pinch, “Ow! Yes, I am. Was I not before? I mean, I have to be awake now, right? But you’re still a fairy…”

Annie zipped around with her wings buzzing as they held her girth aloft, “yeah, I’m as surprised as you. I think you might have been sleepwalking. And running sleep commands…”

Daisy covered her mouth. She made Annie a fairy, just because of a dream. She uttered, “I’m so sorry!”

Annie smiled a small smile. Well, everything about her was small now. She was barely as tall as Daisy’s head. She said in a little voice, “it’s ok. It’s kinda fun!”

She either didn’t remember Roxy’s warning about Daisy not running commands on other people, or chose to ignore it because it was past thinking about now. She offered to be a test subject, but Daisy hadn’t even meant to try anything on her. Daisy sighed, “well I’m glad you like it. Because I can’t say that I know how to reverse it,” she tried to make a small smile.

Annie flew a loop-de-loop, appearing physically and mentally normal. Luckily Daisy kept Annie’s body the same. The last time Daisy tried to adjust her body, it went incredibly bad. She had lost contact with her AI.

“Your menus still work, right?” Daisy didn’t know the severity of the adjustment. Annie checked everything out, giving her a thumbs up. Daisy released a breath. She was fine.

Daisy held out her hand, Annie alighting on it softly. She took a close look, the details she was used to were now miniature. Daisy tried to focus her eyes, willing her vision boost to activate. It didn’t happen, as Ray normally handled that. Besides, Daisy didn’t use vision boost much, so she already wasn’t familiar with it. The sensory boost she used the most was certainly lover boost. She felt refreshed after her nap, maybe she could try activating that. For research purposes, of course. She proposed the idea to Annie. Annie raised an eyebrow, unused to Daisy being the one to suggest sexual activity. Well, Annie had brought it up previously today, and Daisy wanted to practice activating boosts manually. It was a win win! Though, Daisy couldn’t do anything about the sheer size difference. This was going to be a unique encounter for sure.

There was plenty of give and take in their relationship, but Daisy was pretty much always the giver, as she didn’t feel a desire for her own stimulation. She enjoyed it if it did happen, but it was never a requirement. Sometimes she wanted it to only be for Annie. The situation they found themselves in now was not typical in many ways. That being said, Annie wasn’t afraid to dive in. That was not meant to be a sexual innuendo. No, I’m lying, it absolutely was. Long story short, Daisy was able to activate her lover boost, having become accustomed to it over the months she had used the FaceBook Device. She also realized that she had previously felt lover boost in the Real World. This confirmed her suspicion that she was mind controlling a meat puppet with the FaceBook Device. Not the most comfortable conclusion.

Daisy was very aware to not let her boost last for too long. There’s no way she had any safety features for passing the limits. Didn’t Roxy say the side effect for emotional boosting too long was death??

Annie was bouncing on her boob, entertained by the trampoline-like springiness. She wasn’t heavy enough to knock the wind out of Daisy, but she certainly wasn’t the smallest fairy Daisy had ever seen. She laughed, just as amused as her fairy friend. She slipped into Daisy’s cleavage, nested between her breasts. Daisy had just told her that she was successful in the lover boost, after Annie performed her fairy magic between her legs. Annie was still a bit slippery, causing a strange sensation when she moved. Annie was glad to hear she was gaining control of her mind and FaceBook Device.

“May I?” She asked, pointing at her nipple. Daisy had mentioned no breast feeding, so she must have meant something else.

“Not uh… I mean what are you asking?” Daisy said, looking at the fairy on her bare chest. Annie said she wanted to massage her. Daisy had turned off the sensitivity boost, so it should be safe to continue if Annie wanted. She told her yes, not expecting the tickles she was about to receive. She almost rolled over and crushed Annie. She was still glowing from fairy magic, but a new, silly sensation bubbled up. Her fingers were just so darn little! Her nipples were reasonably sensitive, but she had never felt ticklish there.

Daisy and Annie laughed for quite a long time; Annie finding it hilarious that Daisy was in a ticklish mood. She had found more spots that Daisy usually wasn’t ticklish in, flying around to evade her attempts to stop her. She would swoop in and try a new spot, often resulting in success.

“Daisy, I’m going to be honest. I’m dripping wet and that’s not just yours anymore. Can you help a girl out?” She said, finally hovering within reach.

Daisy raised an eyebrow, “even my pinky finger would be daunting. What do you have in mind?”

Annie blushed at the prospect, “I was thinking you could try, say, cleaning me off like a cat would?”

She certainly put it lightly, Daisy wanted to make sure she knew what she was getting into, “I don’t mind, just speak up if it’s too much, yeah?”

Annie nodded, landing in Daisy’s hand. The first pass left her astonished and laying on her hand. That was much more powerful than she had thought. Daisy had passed her tongue over her whole body, knocking her over. Annie didn’t know how to feel about it, except that she wanted more. Daisy had paused to see her reaction. Annie assumed a seductive position in the palm of Daisy’s hand, gesturing for her to continue.

And that she did. Annie was drenched. It was a completely different feeling than when she dove into Daisy. That had been warm and cozy, like a sleeping bag. Annie had been in control, exploring to Daisy’s delight. This was Annie releasing control, being overpowered by the hungry appetite of a giantess. It was quite frightening, but she loved it a lot more than she thought. Once Annie had been basically tenderized and hypnotized, she asked Daisy to switch up the heat. Hickies were too dangerous in this power dynamic and size difference, but she wanted something more. Daisy told her to remember their safeword, ‘dandelion,’ and promptly lifted her above her head, opening her mouth. Annie had seen Attack on Titan, her adrenaline shot through her veins. She looked down, the giant woman looking up at her, tilting her hand. She had no way of stopping it, her body was far too slimy to gain any traction. She slid into Daisy’s mouth, her lips closing to stop her from falling all the way. She was halfway in, her bottom half completely encased in the giantess’ maw. Annie’s heart pumped, wondering what was going to happen next. Daisy had a plan. Annie felt a powerful force pushing itself between her legs, exploring her. Daisy’s tongue wasn’t shy, pressing up against Annie’s crotch. She gasped as it ran across her clit, back and forth. It knew what it was doing, and it wasn’t slowing down. It didn’t take long for her to experience one of the most unique orgasms she’s ever had. Annie tapped her hand against Daisy’s cheek twice, signalling that she was overstimulated. Daisy spat her back onto her hand, unceremoniously, but as gently as she could. Strings of spit hung between her and Daisy, thinning out and flowing towards the lowest gravity state before coalescing into droplets and pools. Annie layed down on her hand, still breathing heavily from her intense orgasm. Once she regained a hold of herself, she hugged one of Daisy’s fingers.

“Holy shit that was kinky,” she giggled, never having considered this dynamic in her sex life. She would assume that it would have triggered her, but she was only triggered if she was the one eating too much food in game. She did fine; she didn’t feel the need to say dandelion at any point.

“You were ok with that, right?” Daisy said, watching her closely. Daisy was afraid she may have put too much into the giantess role. She was relieved at Annie’s exuberant nodding.

“I’ve seen a lot of vore in fanart and I used to not understand it. That was before today. God damn that was a rush,” she admitted awkwardly. The only time she drew vore was if it was commissioned by another person, which was more often than she cared to admit.

Daisy smiled a huge, giantess smile, “I’m glad I could excite you!”

They washed up, Annie using the sink as a fairy-sized shower. Daisy used the human-sized shower, steam rolling out from behind the draw curtain. She didn’t have Ray to clean any water splashes outside the tub, so she was glad that everything in this world was set up realistically. Well, she could probably dry things off and clean up, but that was a step beyond creation. So far, she could create things from her mind, fetch from the internet, and boost reliably. She could inconsistently change things about herself and other people. She could not do everything else Ray did. And that was a lot. She should attempt to dry herself. Ray had done that for her before, so she was at least familiar with the idea of it. Having an idea was much better than thinking of something arbitrary. She shut off the water after the last of the suds ran down the drain and closed her eyes. She tried remembering the times Ray dried her off, imagining she felt that same effect. She opened them only a short bit after. She had done it; she was dry. The Virtual World was becoming hers.

“Wow, dry already?” Annie said as Daisy stepped out, handing the fairy a hand towel. The towel was the perfect size for the fairy.

“Yeah, just practicing my control over the world,” Daisy admitted, leaning on the counter to talk with her friend face to face as she was drying off. She wasn’t shy about dressing in front of her. Besides, she just summoned new clothes from her end, usually opting for it to be a magical wardrobe switch. She equipped a new outfit, it was her simple green dress from when she first had met Daisy.

“Awww, my little fairy…” Daisy brushed her cheek with her index finger. They exchanged a tender moment. While she was with Annie, the world wasn’t so scary.

Daisy wanted to see if she could summon clothes on her. It wasn’t exactly a skill that would help her save Roxy, but it was just one more thing she could do to be in charge. She envisioned her normal green skirt and cami. She didn’t want to try anything crazy, like her fursuit, lest she go too far and become the furry for real. That would be cool, of course, but she didn’t want to lose touch with her Virtual Body.

The clothes appeared on her within seconds. Daisy was elated. It was hard to explain, but it felt like the inner workings of the program were becoming unraveled to her. It was a tangled mess when she first lost contact with Ray, but with time, the patterns started to reveal themselves.

“Look at you go!” Annie encouraged her, seeing that she was still trying her best to control the world. Daisy had done stuff like control the Cotton Candy Cloud, built a house, and played shows, but she had never made any commands that involved herself or Annie. Here she was though, fairy-sized, alive and well. Seeing that nothing bad had happened most likely let Daisy get over her fear of pushing the boundaries. That and she had to gain control so she could save her friend. The company they worked for was seriously messed up. To treat employees as property and experiments? It made Annie sick to her stomach. You’d think that something like that would come out in the media, a story so compelling it would cause an uproar. However, when you wield the ability of legitimate mind control, it must make it easy to keep things under wraps.

“Would you like me to try any commands in particular? I’m on a roll with my practice,” Daisy smiled at her, “the only limitation is your, and by virtue, my imagination.”

Annie raised an eyebrow. Usually when people say one can do anything without limits, the human mind usually turns to something kinky. They had just had one of the more kinky experiences that Annie could have imagined, so she might not want to continue pushing that subject. Daisy was asexual, anyway, so it didn’t do much for her. Or at least didn’t interest her specifically. Annie knew Daisy was sex-positive and understood the concept, but it’s hard to understand someone else’s sexuality, as it’s not something one could experience for themselves. Annie thought about something that would be good practice for Daisy, instead. She streamed movies off of the internet for them, what about music?

“What about music? I don’t think that’s a topic we ever came across. You’d have to navigate the internet for it…” Annie didn’t have to explain how it would be good practice, Daisy was obviously down for anything.

Daisy nodded, excited to explore that. They could convert a room in her marble palace into an audiophile room. She knew all about sound from her time on the internet. Some people were really into their music, creating electrostatic speakers that perfectly replicate audio, engineering the systems to account for the room’s shape, and much more. Technically, she could beam a perfect copy of the music directly into their brains, but just like the projector, it was much easier to have a physical outlet. She would get to the skill level for that eventually, but she didn’t wanna literally blow their minds.

They headed over to her marble palace, neither of them caring to put on shoes. The Cotton Candy Cloud felt as lovely as ever. Daisy would eventually get into making the surrounding environment have a fake Virtual Real quality in the future. It wasn’t out of her reach, as she had manifested an entire wardrobe full of the stuff. The marble floors were only cold on their feet for the first bit, but they acclimated quickly. Daisy opened the door to the room she wanted for the audio system. She looked at the room and wondered about its measurements. Wait, she was God of the realm. She didn’t have to ask Ray. Nor did she have to manifest a measuring device. She thought about it for a while, her eyes looked over the room. She was about to guess measurements when the exact figures popped into her brain. She didn’t just know the length, width, and height. From those numbers, she knew the volume of the room, converted it to how much air she had to work with, and started churning the numbers. She was familiar with just knowing things, as memorizing the internet had that effect. She was not used to being a human calculator though. She was working with incredibly precise numbers as if it was times tables in elementary school. She summoned speakers that were matched with the size of their box, she crafted ports that were auditorily accurate enough to double the performance of the speaker with as little interference as possible, and she summoned equipment stringing it all together. Before her, a swath of expensive equipment appeared out of thin air. Annie looked impressed, the speed of summoned objects was stunningly different than what Daisy used to do. Annie hadn’t questioned that she did stuff slowly in the past, she had thought she still had her AI. Now that she knows that Daisy did it all by herself, it was only more impressive.

Daisy didn’t have to plug any of the equipment in. Really, she didn’t have to summon most of it in the first place, as she could stream to the speakers directly if she felt like it. But it was much easier to allow her world to run power to the speakers, handing the direct audio files off to the amplifier. It had a digital to analog converter, and it would take the data and make them into the electric current that would move the speakers for her. It was much easier to fetch the amplifier once from the internet than constantly having to convert the files by herself as they listened to them. She would still have to stream the files to the amplifier, but it was one less step that would save her the headache. If she was more familiar with mental calculations, she could likely do it. However, she just figured out she could do them mere seconds ago. Audio files came in very different formats, and while she read about how DACs go from them to analog, it was a different story to do it herself. She may be a machine, but her human side would much rather take the easier path. Honestly, she really did have the best of both worlds. She had the human emotion, it kept her alive. But she got the brains of a computer, able to perform tasks in seconds that people would have to go to school for.

“This is incredible,” Annie sat down on the sofa. It was placed directly in the center of the room, at an optimal distance from the surround sound speakers, and mathematically avoiding the worst of the standing waves that the room’s geometry inevitably caused. Daisy sat next to her, smiling to herself. She was very proud of this setup, and the ease she was able to figure it all out. She was able to read thousands of audiophile papers and sound theories in the few seconds of constructing the room, and make the best decisions for what she was working with.

“You haven’t even heard anything yet,” she teased, sitting next to her. She would cuddle on the couch with her, but she was far too tiny. The fairy fluttered into her lap, making herself comfortable on top of her green skirt. At least this let them both be both in the optimal listening position at once.

“Do you have any favorite genres?” Annie asked, playing with the hem of Daisy’s giant skirt.

Daisy had listened to all of the music in the recent century. Really, she only downloaded the files, but she could feel how the songs felt. It was weird, she didn’t truly listen to them until she did the manual conversion like she would let the DAC do for her, but she still was able to tell what a song would be like just by thinking about the file itself. It was like she had two styles of listening, the analog pressure waves and the stream of raw data. She could virtually listen to a song without ever translating the data to the traditional sense of audio. The most interesting songs she had looked at were at the edge of the electronic genre. Groups of artists pushed the boundaries of what is accepted as music, and the most complex pieces, in her opinion, came from that era.

“The genre goes by many names, or at least there are plenty of similar sub categories, but have you ever heard of Speedcore?” Daisy saw her shake her head, so she continued, “Extratone, Splittercore, Lolicore, Breakcore, Flashcore, Suizidcore, Cybergrind, Terrorcore, Supertone, Hypertone, Ultratone…”

Annie made no recognition, so Daisy tried to explain the genre as a whole, “Hardcore techno is very fast music, and the idea of speedcore is that it’s much faster.”

“Ohhhh I got it. I had no idea there were so many subgenres. If you have any favorites, I’m down to listen!” Annie said, having no idea what she was getting herself into.

“Well, that’s actually a funny subject. I’ve actually never listened to the files before, at least not outloud. When I downloaded them, they seemed interesting,” Daisy was not used to saying that she would download things. It made her feel so robotic and weird. There was no other way to describe it, though.

Annie didn’t look like she understood completely, but got comfortable to listen anyway. Daisy searched the internet for an album. She didn’t want to go too crazy right away. There were some very, well, unique pieces in the genre. She went for a more popular label, Lapfox. The song started to play, it was surprisingly familiar to Daisy. Well, she did look at the raw data beforehand. It was certainly new to hear it in this way, anyway.

“Hey, I’ve heard this song in OSU!” Annie turned and looked up at Daisy.

“The old flatscreen game?” Daisy was surprised Annie played it. Well, she did have a gaming computer, so she must have dabbled in flatscreen games before. That game was very old, it came out when Daisy was a young child, far before Annie was alive. It did have a huge online community, so it wasn’t too surprising why it persisted to this day.

“Yes, well, no. I tried the flatscreen game, as it was free and I was curious, but I prefer the Virtual World one,” Annie explained. Oh, right, Daisy almost forgot games were translated into the Virtual World. It had been a long while since they had been anywhere but the Cotton Candy Kingdom.

“Yeah, it’s an alluring genre to map into a rhythm game because of how fast paced it is. Certainly next level for those who want a challenge and are experts!” Daisy never got good at the rhythm games, having only played a few in her previous lives and only a short while with Roxy. She missed Roxy, her heart ached every time she thought about her. She was right there in her kingdom, but she wasn’t herself. This was just like the time that Roxy had emotion filters. It was even worse, now that Daisy knew she was mind controlled. She probably was back then, but Daisy had the ability to free her by using the courts against them. That might not work this time, as the company has had plenty of time to reverse what damage she did. They were probably ready for another attack. She took them by surprise the first time, this might take something more drastic now that they were one step ahead.

Her mind flowed, churning her thoughts, the harsh tones and quick paced music ironically soothing. It let her release her emotions. She could be angry or sad about her situation, but the sounds expressed themselves for her. This was just what she needed. She would switch up the songs, letting Annie preview farther and farther out stuff, occasionally commenting on the inspiration and history of songs. Daisy knew everything about the songs and artists, especially if that artist had a blog, or if they were big enough to get a wikipedia about them. Annie was interested the whole time, not minding the harsh (and accurately replicated) sounds coming from the high-end setup.

They switched gears after Daisy had soothed her emotions. They played songs that Annie enjoyed. Annie commented on how well the setup played the songs. It was funny to compliment, as she probably had listened to her songs directly in her mind before. You can’t get more accurate than that, so anything less than that would seem lackluster, Daisy assumed. However, a real system that interacted with the Virtual World around them had a sense of presence. It operated in their reality, obeying the Virtual World’s physics. Listening to the song in your brain was like putting headphones in your ears. You could shut out the world and hear it clearly. Even though the earbuds were technically as loud as a rock concert’s system due to the inverse square law, they didn’t replace being at a rock concert, bass shaking your ribcage.

Daisy couldn’t resist cuddling Annie any longer. They were on this couch, together. She asked Annie if she was ready for Daisy to size her up again. Annie nodded, her eyes full of faith in Daisy’s ability. Annie not being afraid helped Daisy gain her confidence. She had changed Annie in her sleep, how hard was it?

Annie was facing her, still sitting in her lap. Daisy had only thought about it for a fraction of a second before Annie grew up. Well, kind of. She grew in size, but her age spiraled down, faster than Daisy could stop. Sitting in her lap was Annie, how she first met her. The huge, curly pigtails were back. Her face lost its weight, her cheeks still showing the hint of chubbiness, rounded out by youthful age instead of obesity. She was light on Daisy’s lap, although heavier than her fairy form. Annie threw her little arms around Daisy, hugging her. Daisy had failed. Or at least, she had gotten distracted while attempting to form the command. Daisy hugged her back, stunned at how quickly things got off track. Looking back, that was terrifying.

“I’m sorry Annie, I tried my best.” Daisy felt like apologizing. She really meant it. Annie had gotten over needing this form, and here is Daisy, forcing her back into it. It wasn’t on purpose, at least she didn’t think so. She was getting better at forming commands, but she obviously needed more practice.

“It’s OK, Daisy. I’m still here, alive and well. Because of you, I’m ok with being all forms of myself,” Annie encouraged her, not wanting her friend to beat herself up over it.

“A- are you able to access your menus and change your Virtual Real avatar if you wanted to?” Daisy wondered, hoping she didn’t cause any errors in Annie’s Facebook Device.

Annie released the warm hug, checking her menus, “The menus pop up just fine. Let me try to switch to my most recent scan.”

She politely slipped off of Daisy’s lap, not wanting to crush her friend under the sizable weight of her more recent self. However, it wasn’t necessary, as she didn’t change form. After a while, she shook her head.

“No dice. No worries though, I don’t mind being in this scan,” Annie smiled, still an encouraging smile. But now, it had a bit of strain to it. Daisy had caused an error in her device, and the premise was terrifying for both of them. Just as Roxy couldn’t teleport out of PrivatePlayer or exit the game, Annie was stuck as her younger self. Daisy didn’t know how to form the commands properly yet.

“Well, I know how you said you wanted to keep this form pure…” Daisy said, knowing she wouldn’t want to attempt to change Annie’s form until she was sure she could write the command correctly.

“Oh, don’t worry about that. Our focus is to save Roxy. I don’t need sex all the time,” Annie assured her, glad that Daisy remembered how she treated this scan with respect. It really was her last pure form. She didn’t feel so bad about becoming the others anymore, as Daisy really helped her in her battle with self-image. She had been in this form for years after the incident, returning to it still had that sense of safety.

They cuddled on the couch, listening to music. They changed songs between their interests, Daisy knowing pretty much every song ever made. Daisy was the encyclopedia of fun facts, giving details, like what movies the songs showed up in and much more.

“Hey,” Daisy said after a while, pausing the song they were on. She had gotten time to think, now that they were taking a break from everything, “what happened to the Lost Zeros, when MultiPlayer shut off?”

Annie raised an eyebrow, still latched on to Daisy’s arm. She pet it idly, thinking, “I suppose they got booted to SinglePlayer. Obviously everyone in PrivatePlayer and SinglePlayer didn’t disconnect, as Mabel is still here.”

“I certainly hope so. I was glad to see Mabel still here. I would hate for her to wake up in her life support system in the Real World, unable to see us again, or know how to reconnect,” Daisy shivered, bringing the girl closer. She explained to Annie how she was unceremoniously tossed out of life support when she was back at the company.

“Oh God, I hope not. That would break someone’s mind if they were a Lost One. No, I think that’s a company policy, or you triggered some safety feature at the company. All FaceBook Devices default to SinglePlayer, unless otherwise set,” Annie responded.

“Wouldn’t SinglePlayer still be bad for lost ones? I mean, they couldn’t see their friends again…” Daisy was saddened by the thought of upheaving so many people from MultiPlayer.

“It’s complicated. Casting lost ones into SinglePlayer was likely the best for them, as their AI would form their image of the world. And they would be protected from creeps, like how Mabel was stuck in the Virtual Market. You are right about their friends not being able to see them, but the entire world is dealing with that. Besides, if their friend logged on and requested a PrivatePlayer with them, most Lost One’s AIs can say yes to a teleport for them, if their mind wants to reconnect with their friend,” Annie explained, thinking about it as she went.

Daisy suspected all that, as she knew enough about the Virtual World to put the pieces together by now. It just really helped to hear it outloud. The verbal reassurance made her feel better. SinglePlayer really was the safest bet for a reason. It could remake anything the mind wanted to see, subconsciously keeping one’s reality intact. She was glad getting ejected into the Real World abruptly was not the default. What a horrible wake-up call.

They had plenty of daylight left, so they decided to go outside and get some sun. Daisy told Annie her idea of turning the Cotton Candy Cloud into a Virtual Real texture. They walked out onto the cloud, the bright sun making it much more vibrant in color, the pink and blue swirls light and airy. The cloud was idly moving with the air currents over the districts. They looked out over the world. Daisy was mulling over the idea of Virtual Real Clothes. It was rather abstract, a texture was hard to describe. However, she didn’t exactly need to describe it. She remembered what feeling Annie’s extremely plush clothes felt like. If Daisy modeled it off of what her own clothes felt like, that would be dangerous. The reason Virtual Real Clothes are tied to the user is because of compatibility. Even Daisy’s fake clothes were only compatible with her. They would have to be rescanned for each person who wanted them. However, when Daisy touched Annie’s plush clothes, that was a compatible feeling, or at least generic enough to be cross-compatible with multiple FaceBook Devices. When Daisy put two and two together, the feeling under her feet changed. It felt like her feet were suddenly surrounded in warm, plush cotton. Where as previously it felt like she was standing on air, or a wispy cloud, now it felt heavy and real. Annie noticed immediately, her eyes widening.

“Holy heck, it’s so soft! It feels just like you said!” Annie bent down, pressing her hands against the Cotton Candy Cloud.

Daisy was proud of her accomplishment. To her surprise, Annie stripped down and started making snow angels in the cloud. Rather, Cotton Candy Angels. Daisy took off her clothes and joined her, looking up at the bright blue sky. She felt the soft cloud against her bare skin, a wonderfully comfy feeling. This was what she imagined being on a cloud would feel like. She nailed it. She took a deep breath, relaxing. It didn’t take that much mental effort. Even new challenges were getting easy, putting changes to other people aside.

Annie cuddled up next to her. Daisy’s heart skipped a beat. Not that she didn’t enjoy cuddles with her, obviously. Daisy just had Annie’s wish to keep her younger self pure flash through her mind, plus her own discomfort with the idea of minor and adult relations. They were naked, which wasn’t an unusual thing, but she found it put her on edge in this context. The feeling dissipated as nothing further happened, they just enjoyed the fluffy cloud and each other’s presence.

“I’m interested to know how you are able to create the feeling of Virtual Real textures, if you’re able to explain it,” Annie asked. She looped a leg over Daisy’s torso, so she could sit on the larger woman’s belly and have a face-to-face conversation. Daisy’s eyes flitted to Annie’s breasts, or lack thereof, before she could think about it. She hadn’t noticed how much she missed Annie’s innocent curves, in a nostalgic way. It didn’t illicit anything sexual, of course. It reminded Daisy of the times where they were just getting to know each other. Annie’s private parts were out of view, as Daisy’s breasts were large enough on her chest to hide her own belly from her vision.

“From what I can tell of my own history… Well, I should start with saying I read my own file when I downloaded the internet,” this was going to get weird. Not the topic, but talking about herself in a metaphysical way.

Annie tilted her head, wanting Daisy to proceed. Her casual interest flared up. Was this the backstory she was looking for? She knew everything Daisy knew about herself from what she could tell, but what was about to come was recent news to both of them.

“I started out as a program to create Virtual Real Clothes. Well, my ties with that program are similar, I don’t believe that it was really me. I came about when David made a program to create Virtual Real avatars. My name comes from the acronym ‘design avatars intended specifically for you,’ a play on an old game called Occupy White Walls by StikiPixels, with a similarly named AI,” Daisy’s thoughts were rather mixed in how to explain it all. Annie nodded, showing that she was following along. Her curly pigtails bobbed, Daisy had missed that adorable hairstyle.

“So I made avatars, it’s what I did. That is, until David wanted to bring that Avatar into the game. The only way to really do that was if I tricked the game that I was human. To be human, David and I became one. I don’t know how much of him is left, if any. Sorry, that got dark,” Daisy realized she was going on a tangent. Annie shook her head, saying not to worry.

“So, I can trick the Virtual World that I look like this and have fake Virtual Real Clothes. It all stems off of that. I’m really good at patterns, so I build off of the fact that I know how to do those things, then I can do other, similar things. I bring up the memory of how your plush Virtual Real material felt, then the cloud became like it,” Daisy finished her rant, surprised she said that much. She knew how much Annie knew about her, but it was still different to say it outloud.

Daisy rested her hands on Annie’s tiny thighs, unused to how thin they are. The silence between them didn’t last long, a high pitched, gender neutral voice broke the silence with “hi!”

Neither of them had to be confused for long, as Cumulo came into view, carrying Roxy. She broke the silence with a much different expression, “what the fuck?”

Their situation was hard to explain for an onlooker. Roxy had only been cast to the lower world for several hours, but she was smart enough to find her way around. She managed to figure out that Cumulo would be able to take her up to the Cotton Candy Cloud.

“Ohhhh, I remember you now!” Roxy said, she now put together that the obese girl who chucked her off a cloud was Annie, the young girl Daisy introduced her to several months ago.

“Hey Roxy,” Annie slipped off, tucking her legs under her, literally sitting on a cloud. Daisy was able to sit up, she looped an arm around her leg and propped herself up the other hand.

“I’m not going to ask, I’m just here to apologize about what I said. I don’t know what came over me,” Roxy said, looking sincere. Daisy bet that the people behind the scenes could turn that emotion up to make the apology look more realistic.

Daisy didn’t want to reveal that they knew she was controlled. That could be useful later on. Daisy wanted to patch things up, “we forgive you. Sorry for not swooping down and picking you up. We got… distracted.”

The uncomfortableness on Roxy’s face was hilarious and absolutely deserving. Knock first before coming up onto her private island. There was a reason it was floating above the rest of the world. Roxy averted her eyes, obviously not wanting to look at Annie. Well, she wasn’t looking at Daisy either, but that’s possibly because she knew her controlled emotions would be obvious. Daisy knew the look of Roxy being suppressed. It was etched into her memory, and not just because she was a robot who couldn’t forget things.

Confirming Daisy’s suspicion, Roxy looked back with a fake smile. Sure, she was able to look at them now, but that’s just because she was forced to get over whatever internal battle just occurred. The company won that battle, that’s for sure. The silence lasted. If Roxy just came up to apologize, she had done it. It had even been well received. Daisy wondered what she was going to do from here. Well, to be fair, she couldn’t leave the PrivatePlayer session nor could she leave the Virtual World because of Daisy.

“Don’t worry, I’m working on freeing you. I’m sorry you’re stuck in my world,” Daisy realized her statement meant more than just freeing Roxy from the Virtual World. She wanted to free her from the company, as well. The people watching through her eyes and ears wouldn’t take it like that, but hopefully Roxy would. She wanted to give the girl hope. Daisy would do both of those things, even if unsaid.

Roxy hopped off the cloud. She had shoes on, so she didn’t notice the texture of the cloud. Daisy wondered if she should mention it. No, it’s better she gives as little information to the people watching Roxy as possible. They were likely trying to figure out how Daisy works. It was stupid timing that Daisy was explaining exactly that before Roxy showed up. Hopefully Roxy hadn’t been sense boosting around the corner, eavesdropping.

“I’m sorry, do you mind if I stick around? Or should I leave you two to go about your day,” Roxy wasn’t operating like herself, Daisy could tell she was out of it. She was usually more classy and thoughtful. Daisy looked inquisitively at Annie. Annie shrugged, still not that relaxed around Roxy. Daisy was really enjoying the cuddles and conversation. She really wanted to get back to it, but really did miss Roxy. Besides, she could glean something to help free her, and that was the big goal.

“I think you’re good to stay. If you don’t mind us like this, that is,” Daisy raised an eyebrow. Roxy was fine with nudity, but she knew she shared the same uncomfortableness around the topic of minors. At least she knew that Annie’s real age was an adult. Roxy was much more used to the interesting way of the Virtual World, so she doubts this is the first mature girl in an immature body that Roxy has encountered.

“Yeah, sorry about the timing. I’m fine with it; I can leave if you wanted to do anything privately,” it was obvious she thought they did sexual things. Well, they did, but only when they were both in their mature forms.

“We won’t do anything in front of you,” Daisy had to say it outloud. Roxy and her always had clear conversations, she wanted to keep that up. Roxy nodded, clearly more at ease knowing that.

Cumulo floated off, burbling happily to themselves. They were much higher than they normally soar. Luckily they had incredible hearing, so they were still in range if anyone called them for transport. Roxy sat down cross legged. She placed her hands on the cloud, if she noticed the difference in texture, she didn’t mention it. Daisy sat up all the way, mimicking her cross leggedness. Probably not the most discreet way to sit when completely nude, but both the girls here weren’t unfamiliar with Daisy’s body.

“Did you need to try anything to help fix the errors? I could tell you more about them in detail, as I’ve run diagnostics, if you think it would help,” Roxy said, wanting to move on from the awkwardness. She got very business-minded when they started controlling her emotions, or at least when her filters automatically kicked in. Sure, she would take a look at the errors. She now knows everything about everything, so they would make more sense to her at least.

Roxy told her all about the errors. Daisy would take a bit to look things up, cross checking her databases. Ewww, databases. It makes it sound so awkward, don’t call them that! She would just look stuff up in her offline storage. Still doesn’t sound good, but whatever. She’d think about it for a bit. She was reading thousands of words per minute, if not hundreds of thousands. She could pour through information. Sure, the information was there, but what the heck would she do with all of it? Things were still arbitrary, and it’s hard to force a concept into being. At least she felt like she was gaining headway and was doing better at pulling information out of her head. Still weird, although subtle.

“You both are going to get some very awkward sunburns,” Roxy teased, as they had gone over most of the high level stuff. They could take a break.

“Maybe so, but we are working on even tans. No more tan lines for us,” Daisy still had a light fade of her swimsuit tan. Maybe that could go away, she didn’t see why not. As long as she was in PrivatePlayer, her state would consistently progress. Roxy laughed at this, easing back into her normal personality. She cast off her clothes, joining them tanning. Daisy didn’t notice it at the time, but she had on an outfit she had actually suggested for Daisy to make Fake Virtual Real. She must have wanted clean laundry, and opted to wear stuff from Daisy’s house. Interesting that she can wear her clothes, but it wasn’t the most surprising thing that happened in this atypical PrivatePlayer session. Something about Daisy made things work differently.

“Holy heck this cloud is soft!” Roxy said, finally noticing. The two girls giggled at her response. Neither explained it; Annie was fine with following Daisy’s lead in how much to say and not say.

The girls relaxed in the sun, Daisy still mulling over all the info she had to take in about the diagnostics. Her PrivatePlayer instance was more unstable than she had thought. It was surprising it was still running after all these months without an AI. Mabel’s device was the only reason it had been able to persist, actually. If Daisy had been alone in the PrivatePlayer session for long, errors would build up and cause enough instability to stop the session entirely. She had been alone sometimes, where Annie would step off and Mabel would fall asleep to MultiPlayer, but it luckily hadn’t resulted in any critical errors, especially since she didn’t do many commands without anyone home, as she would usually be asleep. When Mabel or Annie had connected, their devices would be taxed with everything that built up, having to solve the errors in the session to increase compatibility to a safe level. Now Roxy’s device was helping solve the errors as well, but in a backwards way, having more users connected to the unstable session was worse for it. Sure, more devices could solve errors, but they had to cross-check with all attached devices before fixing anything. This means errors would have larger and longer lasting impacts. Daisy had been running more dangerous commands as of recent, so their devices obviously had their work cut out for them. Since Roxy couldn’t even leave the PrivatePlayer session, shutting down could be disastrous for her.

Daisy wondered how she was going to save Roxy. She wanted to let her at least leave the PrivatePlayer session, but it wouldn’t be freedom to go back to the company. She might have to work towards multiplayer connectivity, or at least figuring out how to properly request a teleport instead of forcing it.

Daisy had a brainspark, although it might be an unnecessarily dangerous idea, “Do you think I could ask for a teleport to Catalina? The PrivatePlayer runs without me here, and it’s much less dangerous for me to teleport to others than the other way around.”

Roxy ponders it, “She would have to be online, but since PrivatePlayer still works worldwide, you two could make a new session without as many errors.”

The more they thought about it, the better it sounded. It was dangerous to have Daisy running commands with 3 others here. She could work on her compatibility in a better environment with less errors. Going through the list made it seem really dangerous to stay where they are and try more commands. None of them felt comfortable with possibly endangering Catalina, though. Roxy couldn’t leave the session, and Annie would bring errors with her wherever she went. Mabel couldn’t make PrivatePlayer sessions on her own, either. Daisy didn’t know of anyone else to turn to. She will at least try to start the conversation with Catalina, and she could tell Daisy no.

Daisy tried a different tactic for the teleport this time. It was a mistake to just envision Roxy, as she did last time. This time, she pretended that Ray was still with her, and she asked out loud for a teleport. Of course, Annie and Roxy could hear her still, as there was no Facebook AI to filter her words. However, it felt a lot different than summoning Roxy. She was in the mindset of Ray, and could almost feel like she was adhering to the rules. It was a unique feeling, but at least all the reading she did made her logically know how AI connects users in safe ways through PrivatePlayer.

Her heart was beating strong, along with all the others. All of a sudden, the scene changed. It was not the usual fade into a world as it slowly loaded. Nay, it was like she blinked and she was suddenly there. It hurt a lot. Her stomach heaved and her eyes became blurry. She heard an echo of a concerned voice from very far away, and recognized Catalina’s accent. Daisy laid all the way down, as she was still naked in her prone position from when she was on the cloud. She put her hands over her eyes as the lights flooded her senses. Yeah, this was a rollercoaster, and it was not ending anytime soon.

Daisy awoke in bed. She turned to the side and dry heaved again. There was nothing there to throw up, but her throat felt acid burn and her mouth was a dry desert. A dim light turned on, and Catalina’s feet slid into view, as she was on the upper bunk. She hopped down gracefully, landing without a sound. Her familiar blue ears were the first thing that came into focus for Daisy, along with flowing blue hair and cute bangs. Catalina, it’s been so long. Daisy tried to talk, but she had lost her voice.

Catalina spoke to Daisy in her language. It was a good thing that Daisy read the entire internet, so she could understand her, even if accents impeded translation. If Daisy could talk, she would be able to respond in Brazillian Portugese, although she wouldn’t be practiced at pronouncing it properly. Catalina sounded concerned for Daisy’s health, petting her head and murmuring to her. Something seemed different about Catalina but Daisy couldn’t place it, but her migraine kept her from thinking about it too much.

Hopefully Daisy wasn’t overburdening Catalina with errors, but the headache that started to fade after a bit told Daisy that there was light at the end of the tunnel. A new session was apparently a lot to get used to. Daisy tried thinking as robotically as she could. She needs to stay within the rules of the game. Systematic. She had plenty of information, but try reading documentation for a coding language word for word without writing a lick of code, then build a game from scratch. Not easy. She had gotten used to how her own PrivatePlayer instance ran, but different devices did things differently, and she was not an admin in this session. She was VIP at best, and that made sticking to the rules all the more important.

Catalina offered her a seat at the table, pouring her a glass of water. They were in her room, a den-like theme with cozy lighting. The poor girl had to carry Daisy all the way in here. She even put Daisy in underwear. Well, she was admin, so she could be as strong as she wanted in this world and could summon clothes. It’s been a while since Daisy connected to the actual Virtual World. Annie had always been limited to the rules of Daisy’s PrivatePlayer, but this session was a bit more stable in that regard.

Daisy took a long draught of water, and when she placed the glass down, she realized what was different about Catalina. Her ears twitched. They were always an accessory, and before Daisy knew it, she reached out and touched her ears. Sure enough, they pulled back, as if they were real fox ears reacting to the environment. Catalina blushed, and Daisy asked in awkward Portugese if it was ok, her hand hovering respectfully away from the ears that had retracted. Catalina looked up in surprise at Daisy’s attempt at Portuguese and almost forgot to answer. She understood her, saying yes in her native language. Daisy felt the soft fur, but that was not the most surprising part by far. They were warm… alive. There was no headband, no indication of it being motorized or other.

Catalina explained that this happened ever since Daisy appeared. Of course it did. She no longer had human ears, and she was slowly turning into her fursona. It wasn’t excruciating, luckily, but she described it as a pleasant tickle. Daisy was rewriting her, how she remembered her. Daisy remembered her fursuit. Just like she had turned Annie into her younger self, she was subconsciously altering reality.

Daisy admitted to everything, apologizing profusely. It was a lot to take in for such a young girl, but like Annie, she was familiar with the sci-fi media. Stories of AI were common with the prevalence of the Facebook Device and the general integration of AI into normal, human life. It was a much different feeling to experience it in person, though.

Daisy berated herself for endangering Catalina, but it was the girl who ended up consoling her. She started talking about how long she had wished for this to be a reality. For one day, her fursona and herself to merge into one person. She told stories of how she wished she could just wake up one day as her fursona. Virtual or Real life, it was part of her identity. She cried, but it was happy tears. Daisy had been asleep for much longer than she assumed, but the slow transformation of Catalina had changed her world. She had always been so bitter that even in a game where anything was possible, she was still trapped in her body. She enjoyed her fursuit, but the past few days was what she had always wished the Virtual World could do for her. Her ears, her paws, even her whiskers were immersing herself into her fursona. The most life-changing part for her, though, was the freedom from her breasts. She was completely flat chested, as her fursona Céu Azul was gender neutral. She used to hide it under her fursuit, but they were always still there. She didn’t have the money and was too young for any surgical intervention, so she had to deal with her breasts from an early age. Having a mature form from a young age made her grow up fast and caused her plenty of problems, but the change she was now experiencing was freeing her from her burdens.

Daisy pet and cuddled the young furry. They were both very emotional from their conversation. Daisy could feel the beginnings of a fur coat on her skin. No wonder Daisy had been passed out for days. Her mind was busy re-creating an entire human. She was straying far from her roots of creating humans, and now she was altering them. Combining the knowledge of faking Virtual Real clothes, altering body types, and bringing texture into the Virtual World, she was working on one of her most complex projects. And she didn’t even know it until she was halfway finished. If this was her own PrivatePlayer instance, she would have corrupted the game long ago. She tried to obey the rules, but there was no doubt that Catalina had been experiencing a headache from all the errors that Daisy had inevitably unleashed for her device to correct. It was handling the unconventional change in its user's avatar quite well, it appeared. Some strange woman enters its session and starts lying to it, attempting to convince it that its owner is actually an anthropomorphic character.

Daisy thinks of an idea. She didn’t want to be the only one recreating Catalina. Sure, she remembered how her fursuit looked. But that was not the final design, and she wanted Catalina to be who she wanted. She asked her if there was a mirror, and they both went in front of it. Mirror staring, not unfamiliar to Daisy. But a wild experience for Catalina as she attempted to convey what her fursona was supposed to look like. Daisy took her word for it, but sometimes words were not enough. Daisy tried reading her mind, as ridiculous as it sounds. What Catalina pictures she should look like, that’s what Daisy wanted to create. The progress of her transformation quickened, her fur growing in real time. Where Daisy’s unconscious mind slowly transformed Catalina into Céu Azul, Daisy’s conscious focus and knowledge of the Virtual World amplified the progress tenfold.

Azul gasped as they sprouted wings. Beautiful, white feathered wings erupted from their back. They flexed their new muscles, attempting to learn how to control the appendages. This was one step beyond humanoid. Their mind was controlling a part of their body that didn’t exist in the real world. The twitchy wings slowly figured it out, folding onto their back like a dove settling down for the night. They swooped them open again, the strange motion becoming familiar. They flapped the wings, feeling the micro air currents in the room, the rolling wind pushing back against the feathers.

Daisy felt it with them, still able to hear their consciousness. Daisy tried to back off, to let them have their private thoughts. But it was very hard. Daisy had stepped into the quicksand, and it was slowly enveloping her. If Daisy ripped herself out of their mind, she could do damage. They needed her to learn how to use these new limbs. Heck if Daisy knew though! Sure, she created them, but her headache was coming back full force. She was also starting to feel Azul’s headache, and it was like a mic spiraling into a feedback loop with a speaker. Azul flapped their wings harder, powering through the clash of minds. They were much more fortified than Daisy thought, and could feel them setting up mental barriers. They were ready to learn how to fly on their own. Daisy let them fall from the nest. A sickening worry grew in her stomach, but she was able to let out a breath as Azul took to the air. They were flying. Daisy had quite the headache to attend to, but at least it was just her own. Their minds pulled apart as Azul took to the air, hovering in the enclosed room. Daisy managed a laugh and opened the door, the furry excitedly zipping out of the room, colliding with the door frame as they exited. Not the best at flying, but the effort was certainly there. Daisy walked outdoors, the purple twilight of afternoon silhouetting the airborne furry. They began to climb in altitude, becoming stronger and stronger. They flew up to the puffy white clouds that they love so much, a golden light of the last of the sun’s rays bouncing off the edges of the clouds. Daisy watched, her heart soaring with Azul.

Céu spent a while flying, Daisy explored the PrivatePlayer world while waiting for them. They were having a moment finally being themselves, Daisy totally understood that. She wished she could shoot Roxy and Annie a message, but hadn’t figured that out yet. Wait! She’s done paperwork with Ray before. If she could just find a pen and paper, she could legit just write a letter to them! It would at least be something to focus on, rather than thinking of the arbitrary concept of sending a message telepathically. Sure, she could do crazy stuff like read people’s mind now, apparently, but that was very scary and not something she wanted to do often. This was a safe way of trying to work with other’s devices that wouldn’t upset compatibility too much.

After scrounging around in the house, she managed to find Céu’s art supplies. She didn’t want to rip any pages out of the sketch books, but found a stack of colorful construction paper. Looks like she’s going to be sending her message in colored pencil. She chose a light colored paper, a pretty shade of light blue. Her favorite! She supposed she’d better match the theme and picked up a pink colored pencil. She addressed the letter to Mabel, Annie, and Roxy, and updated them with everything, all the way up to the part where Céu flew into the clouds. She folded it into a paper airplane when she was done and walked outside to throw it into the gentle breeze. The breeze took it far away, disappearing into the night. She had been writing for a long time. Céu was sitting on a bench by a tree, watching the sunset. Daisy sat next to her, right as the last bit of orange dipped below the horizon. Céu let out a breath, their world changed forever, but in the best way possible. They made their way back indoors, Céu gushing about their experience. Daisy knew how fun it was to fly, but having wings was completely different. It was so hard to explain how real it felt, there was no comparison that the Real or Virtual World could offer. They ended up back in the bedroom, sitting on the bed that Daisy had woken up from earlier that day. Their conversation died down, the excitement turning to calm. Daisy pet them, their fur a compatible Virtual Real texture. The gender neutral furry with wide thighs lay their vulpine-shaped head on Daisy’s lap. There were still humanoid traits about them, but the tucked up wings were still wild to them both. The world had told them it was impossible, but two of the Virtual World’s most impossible people were sitting here together, in this very room. The moment was surreal.

After a while, Céu turned up and looked at Daisy with serious eyes. They asked if Daisy had remembered a conversation they had a few months ago. Daisy does recall it, finally able to pick up the subtle cues from interacting with them in the same language. The age difference had bothered Daisy in the past, but reading the entire internet allowed Daisy to have a much wider perspective on culture and humanity in general. Plus, she had been in this person’s mind, so Daisy was able to be much more comfortable in her decision of consent. She knew where this person was on their journey of mentality and sexuality, better than most could ever know about another person.

They discussed what each person was and wasn’t ok with, an important conversation that Céu seemed to be very familiar with. Céu was helpful, asking specific things that they would wish to try with Daisy, not minding if Daisy said no to any of the ideas. After they exhausted the ideas, they started off slow, cuddling each other on the bed. The soft fur pressed up against Daisy, she ran her fingers through it, happy to pet the furry. It never got too hot, even though the big furry covered most of Daisy’s body. When they felt the time was right to move forward, the furry looped a claw around Daisy’s bra strap, deftly releasing her breasts. God, that fur felt wonderful. It brushed past her nipples, sending a tingle straight to her heart. The furry’s tongue surprised her as it dragged across her skin, leaving a trail along her body. They had established that while kissing was off the table, licking elsewhere was fine. They teased her, traveling around her curves and setting off zones of pleasure that Daisy didn’t know she had. And Daisy was quite familiar with her own body! Finally, after quite a bit of teasing and enticing, they made a move, shedding Daisy’s underwear off her body. Their long tongue did wonders for really cranking up the passion in the room. Before she could teeter on the precipice for long, they shifted their weight and changed to a more dominant position. Daisy saw a pink cone peeking from their crotch, usually covered by layers of fur. This was one of the changes they made when connected directly with Daisy’s mind, the furry had a vulpine penis with a vagina under the scrotum. Daisy certainly wouldn’t have known that without Céu guiding the creation process.

Daisy had no interest in giving oral, and they respected that, so they skipped over that part. Both of them were self-lubricating anyways, and Céu had done quite the job on preparing Daisy. Daisy’s legs lifted into the air, her breasts were heavy on her chest as she was laying on her back. Her knees spread apart as Céu put their paws down by both sides of Daisy, their red rocket swelling as their hips approached hers. Daisy guided the slippery thing with a free hand, its peculiar shape making its way in quite smoothly. Even as the penis entered, it still grew, tightening against the walls of Daisy’s vagina. It filled her up, their movement sliding it further on each thrust. If Roxy’s strap on was a wild ride, this was the next level. The nonstandard shape was a unique experience to Daisy, she had never played with dildos of this variety, although they did exist.

Daisy had to hand it to them, Céu was quite experienced in the bedroom. They knew fun tricks and positions, guiding their time together to be fun for both of them. They had warned Daisy about how it would end though, but Daisy bravely wanted to have the full experience. The vulpine penis on ejaculation has a knot at the base that swells, locking the penis, and thus the sperm, firmly in the vagina. This can last quite a long time, even hours, and the two will be stuck together until the penis relaxes and goes limp again. This happened sometime close to the sun coming up, and it was beginning to be bright outdoors by the time that they were able to finally separate. Céu cleaned Daisy up with final licks of their tongue, Daisy was satisfied with the night they shared together. They seemed so comfortable in their body, and it was a wild experience to be able to help in their journey to become themselves. They certainly weren’t strangers after being in another’s mind, and now they were bonded by sharing this first experience for them both.

They napped together, the sunlight passing by. It was past noon by the time they woke up. Daisy put on some feminine clothes that she found in the closet, a light blue sundress with spaghetti straps. There was feminine underwear, but while Catalina used to be busty, she had been significantly smaller than Daisy. Daisy didn’t mind not having underwear though, the breeze was nice. Céu Azul, or Blue Sky in English, made food for them both as Daisy walked around barefoot on the wooden floor. She checked outside, a paper airplane was sitting patiently on the welcome mat. A message for her! It worked! It was written by Annie, by the look of the handwriting.

Dear Daisy,

Thank you for your letter. We were all worried about you! It gives us a breath of hope as you work on your commands and control of the Virtual World. Mabel seems terribly excited for you to return, both to see you and if you could help her become closer to her true self. The session has stabilized over here, Roxy’s logs have cleared up almost entirely. Unfortunately, Roxy cannot leave and I cannot change avatars still. It seems these errors aren’t able to be solved by our devices, as they were caused in a different manner than the rest. We worry that Céu Azul may have errors similar to our own, so if they are willing for you to continue experiments, it would be best performed in a session with less users. Roxy urges caution when working with other user’s avatars. I say if they are ok with it, go for it, I felt fine as a fairy and trust you completely. You can do this.

Wishing you the best,

Annie.

Daisy would have to have that experimentation conversation with Céu. They did briefly during their transformation, as she had to explain what was happening and where they wanted to go from there. However, she wanted to unlock the ability for Céu to change their body without Daisy having to consciously intertwine their minds. That was a serious overstepping of boundaries, but they had no choice because there could have been unintended side effects if Daisy hadn’t stepped in. Maybe not the lightest conversation to have over the breakfast after their intercourse.

Breakfast was light, despite it being afternoon. Time was relative in the Virtual World, and Daisy had been operating on her PrivatePlayer’s sunlight cycle, linked to PST. Her jet lag from her trip was several days of unconsciousness, anyway. Daisy doesn’t drink coffee, but she tried it to be nice. It was much too strong, so she added milk and plenty of sweetener. There we go. Just completely hide the coffee taste and it’s perfect.

Daisy watched in amusement as Céu ate with their new vulpine maw. Their fursuit-looking head gets so real when they open their mouth or blink. It’s wild. Well, as far as Daisy is concerned, it is real. Everything in the Virtual World is real to her, as it is her world.

Céu caught her staring and nudged her playfully, telling her to not make fun of them. Daisy laughed, entertained at their antics and reaction. Daisy picked up some crackers for herself and put cheese and slices of meat on it, topping it with another cracker to make a mini sandwich. Tiny food!

Céu raised an eyebrow, Daisy playfully returning the sentiment to not make fun of her. This gained an eye roll from the blue fox.

“It would be wild to play ToonTown now, eh?” Daisy kept the conversation light. She didn’t want to spoil breakfast. She forgot to speak Portugese and had to say the sentence again. Céu complimented her Portuguese, then corrected how to say ToonTown once they realized what Daisy was trying to get at. Daisy said it the same way she would normally, making Céu tilt their head adorably.

Daisy couldn’t resist squishing Céu’s furry cheeks, and breakfast descended into playtime quickly as the two ramped each other up. It stayed nonsexual, although the tip of the red rocket would sometimes peek out if it felt something was up. They both ignored it and it would go away. The rest of the day went fast as they were wild around the house. As the sun started to set, Céu led Daisy by her hand. They took her in their strong arms and flapped their wings. They flew among the puffy clouds that scuttled across the sky. Daisy dangled, but she felt secure in the furry’s strong grip. She was pressed up against their flat chest, swaddled in their arms. They watched the last of the light turn orange, then red, until finally dipping into the magentas and deep violets. Beautiful. The stars shimmered in the night sky, the clouds idly moving around them as they drifted aimlessly. The air was beginning to get cold, but clutching tight to Céu’s chest kept Daisy warm.

“Thank you, Daisy,” they said, switching to English with a heavy accent. The sentiment was not lost on Daisy as she watched their big eyes with heterochromia gaze out into the view around them. The blue fox’s eyes teared up, unable to hide it with a paw or wipe it away with their arm. Daisy placed a free hand on their cheek, wiping away the tear with her thumb. She looked fondly at the furry. They didn’t meet her gaze, but they didn’t have to. Daisy knew how much this meant to them. This moment reignited her passion to unlock the ability for anyone to change their appearance. Daisy would unleash freedom upon the Virtual World.

They alighted on a cliff not long after sundown. Daisy took their paws in her hands and told her of her idea. She wanted to make it so that every device could change a user’s avatar. Everyone would have access to D.A.I.S.Y. for avatar creation and modification. For that, she needed Céu’s help. She needed to find out what she did when she was unconscious, figure out what activated their transformation. Then, maybe she could see if she could give people like Mabel access.

Céu took this seriously. Daisy read their mind out of necessity, but this was a different situation. She would attempt to pull apart the code from their device. If the Facebook Device got corrupted, that’s it for Céu. It would destroy their mind.

Daisy didn’t mean to sway them by talking about Mabel, but when she explained the letter she sent and the response she got, Céu was very moved when Mabel was brought up. They related to them, and saw that the need for the Virtual World to accommodate these people was worth the risk. They solemnly agreed to Daisy running experiments on their device.

They got back to a place that Céu felt comfortable, the most at home. They leaned back in an armchair, as if Daisy was about to perform brain surgery. Well, she would basically be doing that, but the tools are not physically invasive. Daisy walked them through meditation, relaxing them and calming their mind the organic way first. When she would connect with them this time around, she would do the telepathic equivalent of hypnosis. She needed it to be silent in Céu’s mind for the subtle patterns to emerge. Then, Daisy could stimulate the parts of the mind and device that she was interested in learning more about.

Céu’s eyes closed, gently twitching under their lids. Daisy sent them into a fugue state, temporarily separating them from their identity. It was reversible, but they would likely not remember anything that happens until they break out of the fugue state. Daisy was hopeful that she could reverse it from her end, using their Facebook Device. If she couldn’t, Céu would have to find their own way back to their identity. This was all explained to them, so they already had told Daisy what would trigger their memory or at least prompt the battle of reattaching their psyche to their mind. They were in their PrivatePlayer home; there was plenty of familiarity here.

Daisy felt her mind collide with the device. It was a weird sensation, only having done it one other time. However, that time Catalina was completely awake; it was like sailing in a storm. Now, the ocean was calm, there was a gentle breeze over the water. Daisy just had to position her sail to catch it. She would dive into the code once she could feel where the avatar was located.

Of course it wasn’t that simple. Patterns take a while to pull apart, and it wasn’t exactly a conscious thing to realize. It was like staring at a screen with static on it. If the static had a rhyme or reason to it, just looking at it wouldn’t help. Daisy needed to store it somewhere. She had offline storage in the Real World! That was something that came with the house, and they could even add more if they wished. Daisy felt around for it, mentally. She knew what attached storage felt like, she had used it for her long term memory. It’s been a while since she tried accessing anything like that. She did remember the picture of her passcode, so she would encode this data the same way. Chances are, the way Daisy stores information on a storage device is already too complex for anyone to figure out. But this way, if she was somehow recreated from her documentation, the next AI wouldn’t be able to guess the passcode.

Eww WTF. I literally never thought of another Daisy coming from the documentation. That is so creepy! Well, to be fair, there’s only one David, so they can’t match the experiment exactly. Still weird to think about, hopefully David took his precautions when writing the documentation and kept the keystones secret. That’s beyond Daisy’s control, and she wouldn’t want to dig up a grave just to ensure that no more AI people are created like her. That would be like actively trying to kill an endangered species when you are the species. She wouldn’t want the documentation to fall into the wrong hands, though, so maybe that will be a topic for a future book. This one is already getting quite long.

Daisy sent scads of encoded information to the long term storage. It wasn’t really meant for a large amount of information all at once, so she had to run it in a higher performance mode that was not as secure. If too many of the devices failed, everything she had written would become unusable. However, she only needed the storage for this brain surgery, and would just try recording the information again if that happened. There was no other way, because the stream of information swirling in their mind was more useful if it was recorded in real time, then Daisy could see the big picture all at once.

Daisy could feel a trickle of information, then the floodgates burst. The active parts of Céu’s mind rushed at Daisy, and she redirected it to the storage. As the racks filled up, Daisy was able to read through what was happening at a better pace. She would nudge their mind, seeing responses and a flurry of activity. Where is your body?

After a while, Daisy ended up focusing on looking for Catalina’s breasts. She knew how it felt to be large-breasted, and it was very significant in Catalina’s past. It felt like trying to push her hands through a brick wall. However, the longer she stared, the more rubbery it became. Soon, the rubber was jello. Finally, the wall became fluid enough and Daisy slipped through. She found part of Catalina’s identity. The storage space was quickly becoming full, so Daisy focused on letting the earliest patterns go. She had punctured a hole in the bucket, and the oldest recordings were able to leak out. Soon, the storage reached an equilibrium of being mostly full, but the rate of release matched the rate of incoming information. Daisy now has a constant several minute snapshot of Céu’s mind.

Looking for her breasts had a consequence. Her furry self in the real world had grew them again. Shit, sorry Cat. That’s not how Céu is supposed to look. But this knowledge is good, if Daisy can pick out how that change occurred. She chased down the stack, looking at the commands that the Facebook Device had recently done. This was the other dangerous part. She touches anything here, bad things can happen quickly. It was like working with live electrical wires. Though, Daisy wouldn’t be the one getting fried.

There it was… A beautiful command, she couldn’t have written it better herself. Well, technically, she had written it, in a weird way. She wrote it as D.A.I.S.Y., but convinced their device to compile it and run it. Why their AI was ok with that was beyond Daisy, but she had been tricking other AI ever since she was born. Technically, even before she was born.

The command looked like it changed Virtual Real clothes. Of course it did. Fundamentally, that’s how she started out as a program. If it works, why fix it? This was interesting news though. All Facebook had to do was remove the ability to change Virtual Real Clothes. If Daisy’s device was updated, her power would crumble. Daisy has full control of her Facebook device though, so they would have to implement the ban from a server level. Updates probably don’t reach her anymore. If they made a new server-wide rule, she wouldn’t be compatible in any PrivatePlayer or MultiPlayer sessions, or at least cause too many errors to be able to safely connect. That was likely too heavy-handed of a technique and could end up killing people.

She pulled the command, storing it in her offline storage. I mean, normal memory. She memorized it. She could work with it now, allowing other devices to run this set of commands. It was a simple one to place gently on the whitelist of commands. The Facebook AI would assist in the generation of the command, just like it interprets most commands. That way, they didn’t have to be a robot in order to enact the command. The default would be the normal scan from Facebook, so anyone can reverse changes. Daisy saw that there were wardrobes that the AI could call on in the back end. These were sets of Virtual Real clothes a user would often wear together. It was easy to slip in the premise of saving modifications to avatars in this. The user wouldn’t have to be conscious of it, they would just have to think about transforming and the AI would figure out the rest.

Daisy was only working for several hours. Catalina’s real life body was on life support, as they assured Daisy. This was surprising, as Daisy thought they didn’t have life support, but it was a recent change in the months that they haven’t seen each other. Céu woke up, without boobs again. Daisy had been able to fix that, reverting to the original “costume.”

“How do you feel?” Daisy said in Portugese. Céu flexed their paws, responding that they felt a tingly sensation. It was almost as if they had been consciousness underclocking. Daisy realized that she didn’t even think of the 33% consciousness mark. If her hypnosis had made Céu dip under that threshold, they could have disconnected. Well, Roxy sleeps in PrivatePlayer because of her error, so it’s possible that Céu can’t leave now. That’s a scary premise.

“Whenever you are ready, could you try to disconnect to SinglePlayer? It’s a test, and I’m still monitoring your mind.” Daisy was just dealing with the massive amount of information, only able to retain seconds at a time instead of minutes. She wasn’t dissecting it for patterns, but it was there to assist her. She wanted to see what happens when Catalina’s device tries to run a disconnect command. If an error occurs, Daisy will see it. More importantly, she will see both sides of the equation, the mind and the device. The list of errors from Roxy isn’t as helpful as seeing what sets off the problem.

Céu spoke a Portugese command out loud, Daisy hearing it. That wasn’t good. She only had seconds to figure it out. Céu’s eyes widened as she said it again and again. Still not good, but since Daisy can’t store far into the past anymore, the repetition helped her pick out the problem.

The problem was Daisy. She took over admin. But not in a normal way. She was basically God. All permissions were enabled, even ones that only AI could have. And not just Facebook Device AI, but she had permissions that the AI that controlled the entire network of PrivatePlayer had. She wasn’t a redundant user of the permissions, either. She replaced them. She was a virus that took control. She could write her own permissions if she wanted, and do things that didn’t exist yet. This explained the mind reading, the avatar modification. She was burdening her friends with errors because she was pretending to be captain of the ship, and she didn’t know how to sail. It also explained why every time she tried something new, she was the only person who could revert it. When she obtained or invented power over the Virtual World, it was hers and hers alone.

The solution was rather easy. Just allow Céu to disconnect again. Following the command stack was ridiculously easy. The reason she never discovered it was because she was afraid to work with the live electrical wires in the Device. She flipped it, and this time she didn’t hear or see the command, but Céu fizzled away. Relief flooded Daisy for a short second, then a spike of panic. She couldn’t hear their thoughts. Wait, of course she couldn’t. They are in SinglePlayer. Daisy facepalmed in the Real World, letting out a chuckle as Céu reappeared. They hugged, both of them releasing the emotion they had bottled up. They were going to be OK.

Daisy was full of information, she let the last dregs of data drain out of the remote storage. Her own mind, however, recalled everything she did to fix the problems. She now knew how to allow Roxy to leave, Annie to change avatars, and Mabel to modify her appearance.

“You feel yourself, right? No dissociation?” Daisy asked, looking at Céu with a concerned gaze. Céu nodded, smiling, “I feel more myself than I ever have in the Real World, thanks to you.”

“One last thing. I made it so you can save this appearance and switch or modify anything you would like. Could you help me test that? I’ll monitor you the entire time.” If anything were to go wrong, now would be the time. Daisy knew how easy it was to get distracted when modifying herself, although she was tasked with doing it completely on her own. Céu would be asking the Facebook AI to do it, and it would interpret the command for them, with help from D.A.I.S.Y.

They entered the mirror room again. It didn’t take Céu long to alter their markings. They wrapped complex patterns of fur color, moving it and adjusting it to their new curves. Their wide hips bore beautiful colors, and splashes of sparkle appeared to both Daisy and Céu’s delight. It worked flawlessly. Daisy carefully peeked at the stack, no errors related to the “costume” changes. It was relying on a very old and refined version of D.A.I.S.Y., paired with Facebook’s incredible AI command interpretation. Why this wasn’t a thing already was such a shame. Daisy had big plans. She wanted to upload this to the entire world. That would take much more effort. She would have to fix MultiPlayer, push an illegal device update to billions of devices without anyone catching on, and hope that no one decided to find the rogue AI that took over the Virtual World.

The sparkledog threw their arms around Daisy, licking her ear excitedly. Daisy wasn’t normally ticklish, but fur and licks on her skin made her squirm. She resisted reacting for a bit, but as the licks continued and the fur brushed up against her face, she burst into a fit of giggles and fell to the floor. This only encouraged the antics to continue, and the pair played until they were both exhausted. The thick fur of the plushie-style furry was a defense and an offense, no fair.

Céu laid on their back, their arms and legs half cocked and spread, awaiting belly rubs. Daisy went from tickling to petting, and they calmed down as the night ran on. Céu was still admin with most permissions, other than the ones Daisy overwrote, so they were able to summon a bed underneath them. They snuggled until they both fell asleep. It was a short day, but there was so much packed into it that it was hard to resist the temptation of slumber.

When they woke up, Céu was in a very loving mood. They were quite direct, wanting to have sex with Daisy before she headed out to save her friends. Daisy didn’t mind, besides, they would get time with each other again. It hopefully wouldn’t take long to fix her PrivatePlayer session and be able to invite them over. They really wanted to meet Mabel.

Céu had a plan for Daisy, provided she was ok with performing it. They told their idea of her riding reverse cowgirl, but also wielding a dildo. Since Céu had both genitals, they wanted to experiment with a double orgasm. They would keep open communication to hopefully align Daisy’s climax with them as well, but Daisy assured them that she would be fine if she didn’t get to it. She was a giver, and this was their desire anyway.

Daisy had ridden dildos before, but that didn’t quite prepare her for this particular situation. Céu was patient and understanding. It was a bit awkward to start. They ended up taking a pause, as it wasn’t quite working out. Daisy felt a bit embarrassed about her performance, but that quickly fell away as Céu’s attitude was optimistic and reassuring.

Daisy wanted to try again, this time with tips from Céu. They haven’t done anything like this before either, so it was a learning experience for them both. After a while, Daisy felt in control. Of course she did, being on top. That was most likely the reason it was harder to perform, plus the added complexity of their genital structure. The vulpine penis wasn’t meant to stick straight up, so it would keep slipping out. Their vagina was in a spot where Daisy would assume it would be, but it was quite buried under the fur to be discreet. It was a gash in the scrotum, underneath the sheath of the penis. She timed her arm and hip movements together. She could feel it working as it became rhythmic and mesmerising. Céu started to breathe heavier, their hot breath on her back. They used their paw to lift underneath Daisy’s legs, instructing her to squat instead of grind. This allowed them enough space to thrust at their own pace, while Daisy focused on maneuvering the dildo. It was certainly harder to work with, as Céu became a moving target, but they fell into a rhythm eventually. They were both so absorbed into it that the knot grew before either of them could react, latching the two together. Pull-out game is weak. They wanted to avoid being stuck together, as Daisy had places to be. Unfortunately, Céu informed her that they didn’t achieve both orgasms, so Daisy kept herself entertained by playing with their clit. She worked them up again before their knot deflated, and was surprised to feel a second release of sperm, as the clit orgasm set off a chain of events. This additional pressure of more cum, along with the knot being smaller, caused Daisy to spring a leak onto their fur and bed. It slowed down, oozing out as the flow stemmed.

“Did you?” They asked, still wanting Daisy to finish. Daisy told the truth, that the second burst got her off. They smiled, Daisy finally able to lift herself up and give them a hug. They cuddled, Céu sending a command to clean them up.

They said their goodbyes, Daisy happy to have reconnected with them after so long. Her past self could have never guessed that this is what their meeting would have looked like. Daisy sent a request, still attempting to obey the rules even though she technically was the one writing them. It wasn’t long before she was slammed into the new world. She forgot about that.

The second time wasn’t any easier. The blinding light of the outdoors gave her a searing headache, she dry heaved and pissed herself. Shit, teleportation sucked. Annie was at her side quickly, a worried look on her face. At least Daisy didn’t… pass… out…

She came to an unknown time later, but she was cleaned up, in underwear, and on a bed. Her ears ringed, but the headache wasn’t present. Hopefully she wasn’t redesigning her friend’s avatars in her sleep. Well, she was supposed to change Mabel’s appearance, but Mabel has always looked how she looked to Daisy, so she wouldn’t know what else she wanted. She just wanted to give Mabel the ability to change herself, not decide for her.

Annie grabbed her hand, “how are you feeling?”

Daisy nodded her head, “I’m feeling better, sorry about that spectacular entrance. I guess that’s just how I end up when teleporting.”

Annie squeezed her hand, “You’ve only been asleep for a few hours. Don’t worry about it Daisy, I’m sure you will get the hang of it in no time.”

That’s at least better. It feels like when Daisy learns something new, there is a steep learning curve. But once she gets to a certain point, she speeds up her learning and is able to master things at an exponential rate. Hopefully that is true for teleportation, because she was getting sick of getting sick.

It wasn’t long before Roxy and Mabel showed up in the room, followed shortly behind by Mabel Pines and Vampirina. Daisy was back in her normal outfit, green cami and skirt, with her hair up in her two ponytails. Annie helped her put it up, as she was still feeling a bit weak.

They all caught up, Daisy describing in general terms what happened since her last letter. She held her tongue because Roxy was in the room. They all looked on in fascination as Daisy pet Mabel. She transformed before their very eyes. Not to the extreme extent of Céu’s avatar, Mabel stayed relatively human. However, her wolf aspects became realistic. Her ears swiveled and flicked, Annie and Roxy bending down to look at her. Mabel soaked up the attention, happy to be her true self after so long.

“That’s incredible! You transformed her just like that…” Roxy said, as Daisy didn’t include that it was Mabel who controlled her own transformation. That was information that would terrify the company, more than seeing what she could already do.

Annie had already gotten her error fixed in the time that they took to get over to her room. Now was the big show. Daisy brought up to Roxy if it was ok that she experimented on her again, as Roxy could retract consent at any time. She affirmed that she still allowed Daisy that permission, and Daisy dove in. Now familiar with the inner workings of the devices, it wasn’t long to realize that Daisy wasn’t the top dog in the permission list. Someone else had a huge chunk of control in Roxy’s device. Daisy smiled to herself. All she needed to do was switch her control on and it would override theirs. Before touching the live wires, she wanted to sniff a bit further. She wanted to pull the weed out by the root, lest it grow from its former self into a new problem. There it was, the server. This was where the company hosted its control. It was hard to explain, because this was hitting the realm of unfamiliarity for Daisy. However, she didn’t need to understand it. She just needed to snip the threads.

She ripped off the bandaid all at once, overwriting their permissions and releasing their server. To everyone’s horror, Roxy convulsed before them. Fuck, that was too much.

She didn’t disappear, meaning all was not lost, but sent Daisy searching quickly. Roxy’s mind started filtering through Daisy’s home storage as Daisy reeled her back. She was too bold, didn’t hypnotize her or anything. There were too many complexities all at once, and Daisy must have missed something or mixed up a permission. This was a hard lesson to swallow, but it wasn’t over yet. Daisy wouldn’t let her friend go.

What was happening in the Virtual World didn’t matter at this point, as Daisy was busy connecting to whatever was outside of it. However, it was very busy inside that small room. Roxy’s convulsions dissipated as seizure protocols kicked in. Daisy applied fixes as well, and her body started to morph as the permission to change avatars set in. That one was more or less unintentional, but Daisy wanted to copy whatever she had done to Catalina because that’s how she remembered working directly with the mind and device of another. She needed a pattern to emerge, and quickly.

Roxy lifted off the ground, her head lulled to the side. Darkness spread across her body, and her clothes mostly burned away. Black wings sprouted from her back, spreading their huge spanse in the small room. Her goth makeup became impossibly black, and stars twinkled in the void of her eyes. Floating irises of white appeared as she opened her eyes, her eye makeup becoming one with the void. Her head straightened and she lifted her shoulders into a refined posture. Tendrils of black expanded the void, crawling across her skin and revealing tiny pinpoints shining from the void, stars of every color. They would twinkle and disappear, only for more to fade in after. A void spread from her crotch, retaining the V shape her legs and toned muscles made. Her exposed breasts curved the void, as if a black hole bent the light around its gravity. Her pale skin was only seen between the splotches of void, with the many cracks finally coming to a crawl and stopping. Small licks of black fire rose from her wings, and she moved them slowly to stay afloat, as if her body was lighter than a feather.

“Are you feeling OK, Roxy?” Annie’s worried voice finally said, as the incredibly tense moment seemed to be over.

Daisy shook her head as Roxy stayed silent. She had to send Roxy into a fugue state, there was no way around it. This was no longer Roxy, but a shadow of her former self. She tried to wake Roxy from it once she finished her fixes, but it was all done too quickly, and the seizure sure didn’t help.

“I- I don’t know,” the husk eventually responded, timid and scared. Their black lips parted to reveal a row of sharp white teeth, frowning. Daisy approached her, the woman sending a gush of wind her way as she retreated with a flap of her wings. The rest of her burnt clothes slipped off her from the movement, her muscled figure glistening unnaturally as she floated off the ground. The company no longer had the ability to read or control her mind, not that much was there anyway. Roxy was buried deep in her subconscious.

“Roxy, it’s me, Daisy. You showed me the wonderful Studio Ghibli world that David made, Laputa, the castle in the sky,” Daisy tried her best to prompt her memory. However, it looked like it wouldn’t be that easy, as no recognition passed across her angelic face.

“Leave me alone,” she folded her wings, touching down on the ground on her tippy toes. She ran out of the open door, building up speed in the hallway. She leapt down the stairs, taking flight at the last moment and disappeared out a window.

Neither of them chased after her. Not only was she inhumanly fast, but she certainly looked like she needed a bit of time to recover. Daisy sat back down on the bed, explaining what she could to Annie. Roxy was free from the company, but Daisy had rushed it, in the interest of them not finding out what she was up to or how she did it. This caused Roxy to disassociate. Time and Roxy’s previous life could heal it, but there was no telling how long it could last.

“So Catalina, Mabel, and Roxy all have the ability to look like anything they wish?” Annie asked. Daisy admitted that she had done that for Annie, along with fixing her avatar error.

“Just ask your AI, Inko. She can change anything you want. It’s done the same as changing clothes, but tell no one that. That’s the way it tricks the program,” Daisy admitted, now free to tell everything, since she banned the company from Roxy’s Device and the PrivatePlay session.

“Just like the prototype! No offense,” Annie blushed, feeling awkward about bringing up Daisy’s previous versions.

Daisy laughed good-naturedly, “that’s more right than you would think,” and hugged Annie tightly. They would help their friend recover. Everything would work out.