Ravens of Eternity

41 Regroup

When Eva got back to Helios, the first thing she did was head back to her pad and changed into a new set of clothes. Well, technically they were the same design as her set of black, except this one had some grey highlights.

It was plain, but stylish.

She realized that she had coughed up 1,000 credits for a simple “reskin” and balked for a moment at the cost. It felt as though she had been robbed via microtransaction. Then she vowed to make more interesting choices next time, to make the cost worth it.

Miko sent her a ping on her DI just as she had finished up, and they ended up meeting at a nearby arcade.

Both of them had frequented arcades back in their old lives, and were very fond of them.

Miko had gone to those Asian style arcades, where machines and people were packed next to each other. A cacophony of sounds from all of the machines, plus everyone talking made for an impenetrable wall of noise.

Eva on the other hand loved that American style arcade, with a full restaurant, bar, and theatre attached to it. It was designed for huge parties and had a ton of room for everyone to move around, play, and get stumbling drunk.

The ones in this universe, or at least this exact one on Helios, was completely different.

It was more like a boutique and was sleek and stylish. Every inch of the place had soft edges and smooth curves, as though they sold high-end personal technology. In a way, they did sell high-end personal experiences, so the aesthetic and atmosphere made sense.

.....

It was still a great departure from what either of them were used to. Unlike the arcade cabinets that the both of them grew up with, the machines were more like areas and spaces where the different games could be activated.

Each one was different from each other. The whole place was littered with holograms, weird control gadgets, wraparound displays, you name it. Most of them connected directly with the players and allowed them to control it through their DI.

Although the arcade wasn’t packed, it wasn’t empty, either. There were throngs of people here and there playing games in little groups. Everyone was having a good amount of fun.

Miko headed towards a game in the corner as they both chatted. Compared to the rest of the machines, it was relatively small and only had a few spots for players.

“How was basic training?” asked Miko.

The moment she sat down, a holographic projection of a cube sprang up. It looked similar to a Rubik’s cube, but where a Rubik’s cube had sides that were 3×3, this thing had double that. And there were various random missing squares along all its faces.

When she started the game, numerous pieces started to gravitate towards the cube from six different angles. As the parts fell, they built up on the cube’s faces, and the only way to get rid of them was to complete each face.

It was pretty much Tetris, except 3-dimensional and looked rather daunting. Probably the reason why hardly anyone played it.

It looked really tough, but Miko didn’t seem to have any problems with it. She spun the cube and caught the parts as they fell.

“Was rough,” Eva replied. “Had to put down a couple murderous terrorists. You?”

“Rogue AI went berserk in the laboratory and put the whole station into lockdown,” replied Miko.

Unlike Eva, Miko was sent to the Federation Naval Engineering Institute, which was a huge station above Ganymede, the largest moon orbiting Jupiter. There, she and a few thousand other trainees learned the mechanics of space flight and the intricacies of information architecture.

Well, in terms of military capability, anway. It was basic training, but for brainy people rather than brawny people.

“You should have been there,” she continued. “There were many electrical fires and systems malfunctions. It was absolute chaos. We could have used your help.”

“What happened?”

Miko casually spoke as she spun the cube around, and wiped away plane after plane. The game was tough, but Miko barely saw it as a challenge.

“Took care of it. But it cost.”

“Same on my end,” said Eva. “I... We also lost a few people, some real important. Coulda’ used your help there, too.”

Miko simply nodded.

A moment of silence passed between the two of them. It seems their experiences were similar, so they understood where the other was coming from. They both experienced a degree of tragedy during their training.

They were both still dealing with the lingering emotions, so they didn’t pry into each others’ situations.

Miko had inadvertently let go of the controls and let the cube faces build up with falling parts. It eventually had a game over, and so she entered her initials into it and left.

Her top score eclipsed second place a great deal.

“By the way, thanks for selling that gear we got ages ago,” said Eva after a time.

Miko nodded quickly. Most of that stuff was useless for them, so she put them up for auction before they left for training. By the time they had gotten back, they had sold for a little over 60k.

“I kept the good equipment,” she replied. “I can sell the rest if you want.”

“Nah, it’s fine. The stipend gave us a good chunk of change that we can live off of for a while.”

While they were at the academy, the Federation’s refugee stipend had accrued and their ledgers increased 10k per week. Since they couldn’t really spend it while in training, their accounts just grew.

100k for the month plus the 30k ish that they had made their ledgers nice and content. For a little while, anyway.

“We will need at least one million credits each if we wish to have a B-ranked loadout,” said Miko.

She had already done the assessments and even had a spreadsheet of parts paired with prices listed out, which she happily shared. Eva was rather impressed with how organized Miko’s mind was.

“The naval contract will contribute a good chunk,” she replied.

“This is true, however the job will not occur for another month and a half. He had mentioned something about red tape.”

“Ugh. Bureaucrats.”

“Yes, tell me about it,” said Miko. “Japan – well, back when I lived in it – had a huge problem with bureaucracy. They even had a hotline to complain about red tape.”

Miko giggled a little before she continued.

“They received so many complaints that they had to shut the hotline down temporarily... after only a single day!”

Eva laughed at the absurdity of it.

“Makes sense why the contract’s delayed,” said Eva. “They’re all wrapped up in their bureaucracy that they can’t even tell most of the people that are on the project, what the fucking project actually is.”

Bureaucracies had clearly gone rampant within the Federation. It sort of made sense. After all, a civilization of that magnitude needed lots of fine-tuning to run smoothly.

Unfortunately however, humanity had foolishly chosen to go with legions of paper-pushing administrators to keep itself organized. Although most of the populace went through their lives relatively easily, the bureaucrats who kept the wheels oiled were no doubt a mass of unbridled chaos.

It all seemed like such a waste to Eva.

She wondered if there was someone, somewhere in the Federation who still had to use rubber stamps and india ink, simply because regulations demanded it. The thought of its plausibility frightened her, so she abandoned it completely and vowed never to think of it again.

So she changed the subject, quickly.

“Have you looked at streamer mode?”

“I did,” Miko replied. “But I did not activate it.”

Eva didn’t turn it on, either. But she did go through all of the settings, which she found oddly familiar. Some determined where she streamed to, or if she wanted to schedule her streams. There were also block lists and chat functions and all sorts of social settings.

Eva wasn’t positive, but she got a feeling that this meant she could stream her life through her DI. It excited her a great deal.

“When I looked it up,” said Eva, “there was zero info. Like it doesn’t actually exist here. As though only us players have it. Isn’t that weird?”

She had asked a few cadets about it during the academy, and found that everyone else didn’t see it. Well, everyone except for Chengli, Grizz, and Tyrant, all of whom were refugee players.

“I mean,” she continued, “streaming is a thing, but it requires a drone attachment and some extra control cybernetics. They call it omnicasting or something like that. I watched a few vids. Lots of people make a living with it.”

Omnicasters were the equivalent of social media content creators in the Sol Federation. A great many people had all sorts of ‘casts, from cooking to travel to porn. It was a veritable ocean of content.

Most of it was of low quality, but the few that were great truly shined.

“We should try it out and see what happens,” said Miko. “Perhaps we can also earn from our version?”

“I’m up for it. We can grab a job or two and stream that? Maybe it’ll get exciting and people will watch?”

“We could also try to be journalistic and stream ‘breaking news’, too.”

“Or we can stream this thing,” said Eva.

She had stopped at a rather fancy-looking game. The whole space it occupied was lit warmly, and even its temperature was slightly elevated.

In the middle of it was a hologram of a random person. It shifted its pose as it slowly spun around. The current design was rather generic, and looked dull. It invited improvement.

Eva customized the hologram through a pop up control on her DI. She shaped the hologram into a rather attractive and handsome man. He was square-jawed, wavy haired, and had rippling muscles.

He was a bit of a dreamy hunk, and some of the women who passed by couldn’t help but take a second glance. A couple even stuck around and watched for a good long while.

“Is this some sort of character creator?” asked Miko.

Eva shook her head. The moment she had stepped into the area, the game had sent all its details to her DI. What it was about, how to play it, and so on.

“You play as a fabric-eating bacteria that sustains itself by consuming people’s clothing,” she replied. “But the person fights back by putting on more and more clothes. You win when they’re out of clothes.”

Eva immediately got to work and started to eat away the holographic man’s clothes. She dissolved his shirt rather quickly, which revealed his strong, highly-defined muscles. But he reacted quickly and put on a shirt while she was busy stripping away his pants.

This only increased her fervor, and she evolved her bacteria to keep pace. She was practically drooling as she frenziedly peeled off layer after layer.

“You probably shouldn’t watch this,” she told Miko.

Miko rolled her eyes with slight exasperation. She couldn’t understand why Eva indulged herself like that.

By the end, Eva had beat the top score by at least threefold, and had worked herself up into a sweat. Her bacteria had evolved over a hundred times and became the apex predator of every textile.

The holographic man was left shivering in his underwear, and if Eva could have taken those, she would have. She certainly tried. More than once.

When she was done, she stepped back and marveled at her work as she wiped her brow. All that activity had worn her out a bit. Perhaps not so much physically, but definitely hormonally.

A couple of female bystanders even applauded her as she stood aside slightly out of breath.

.....

“All that work got me thirsty,” she said.

“Why did you even play that game?” Miko replied. “You know you are beautiful, yes? You can just go and get a real person whenever you want and strip him down however you like.”