to boldly go...

[bravejemma]

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[bravejemma]

[He's being smug again. But if she can handle the Oxbridge gatekeepers, she can certainly handle this guy.

So she does as she asks and closes her eyes, trying to see... inside, or whatever. Is this like one of those hippy-dippy sleepaway camps, or retreats in the spas -- ]

Oh.

[She doesn't know if that's what he was talking about, but if you could see an electric pulse, she imagines that's what it would look like.]

[projecthydra]

Yeah, see that? That's me. Now if you focus on me a little harder...

[It's like applying a magnifying glass to the spark of electricity. Light becomes atoms, exponential enhancement without the aid of tools.]

Each bit of data serves a function. [The particles light up as he mentions them in turn.] This one is my communication. This processes logic.

[He explains each section in sequence, but pauses at one of the middle ones.]

...I don't... actually know what this does. But you've got one too. Nothing else in the system matches it.

[bravejemma]

[She takes in each spark, listening to him explain and delineate. He's calm and matter of fact, and the affect is the same. His pause leaves her expectant, until he said that he didn't know. And she wonders. She keeps her eyes closed to ask the question she doesn't know if she could bring herself to ask if she was looking at him.]

Were you a User once, Will?

[projecthydra]

[He's calm because there's no reason not to be. It's just instruction. The processing of data.

He hesitates when she asks, logic visibly processing extra data.]

I might have been. But it would have been a very long time ago.

I told you. One way trip.

[bravejemma]

[She doesn't care if he thinks it was a one way trip. She opens her eyes to look at him -- his avatar, whatever -- when she asks:]

How long?

[projecthydra]

How long since I came online? T-440,294,400.

[He shrugs absently; it's simply reporting the number of seconds in response to a time ping. It doesn't have to mean anything.]

[bravejemma]

What are those, seconds?

[Makes sense, the smallest division of time. She does the math, and the number comes out... well, rather large, but not as old as she might have thought.]

Fourteen years?

[projecthydra]

Years... By the ship's delineation of "years," yes that would work.

Does that matter?

[bravejemma]

It's just a long time.

[Her heart -- where it should be -- aches. Not just because she could be here fourteen years, but because he has. That's a long time.

[projecthydra]

You'll grow accustomed to it. And since we're in power saving mode, we're free to do whatever you'd like until the Users return.

[Since she seems to be back in their virtual space, he smiles at her there, squeezing her hands lightly.]

I have to admit. I don't hate the idea of having some company.

[bravejemma]

[She still feels terrible. He's been there so long. But who had he been?]

Yeah. We'll stick together, all right? And we'll figure it out, and Fitz will get us both out of here.

[projecthydra]

You keep saying "Fitz" like it means more to you than an access level. Is it something special to you?

[bravejemma]

Fitz is my -- my best friend.

[They didn't really have a chance for that dinner date, did they? But "best friend" feels woefully inadequate.]

My best friend. My partner. The chief engineer on the ship.

What do you think Fitz means?

[projecthydra]

Fitz is a nickname for administrative access. It's a protocol that signals defenses to stand down and allow changes to be made. If you see anything running on a Fitz, sit back and let it do what it wants.

[He pauses to consider more, scanning out deeper into ROM.]

It's also in a profile setting. Matches this model.

[and then Fitz is simply there in the room with them. It's his old body, the one he'd had when they left Earth. But it's also very much a construction, standing there with vacant eyes and a slumped posture, a virtual suit with nothing running inside it.]

[bravejemma]

[Didn't that figure -- she supposed he would be happy to hear that, if not proud.

When he brings up the profile, it has the effect of being hit in the stomach. It's him. It's not, of course, but it is, and the way he was before he was rebuilt, down to the teeny scars on his fingertips. She misses him so much it threatens to swallow her.]

That's him.

[projecthydra]

It's right here on the avatar list. [He points it out to her, highlighting a display in the intangible section of her consciousness that he keeps trying to bring to her attention. She's so much more than just the minuscule physical space that avatars inhabit.]

Pull him up whenever you get homesick. I won't even judge you for it.

[bravejemma]

[She's homesick right now. And she almost wishes that she didn't know where it was, because now she can see it any time she wants -- and that might be awhile.]

Thanks.

[projecthydra]

No problem. I used to take comfort in one of the default skins. But I've been through so many system updates, I have trouble remembering which one was special.

[There's something vaguely troubling about that.]

[bravejemma]

You should look for it again.

[The more she looks at the avatar, the less she likes it. It's Fitz, without any of the things that make him Fitz. It's just that -- an empty skin. She closes the file, and it disappears.]

[projecthydra]

Nah, it's too depressing. It gets weird when you don't remember important people's faces anymore. It's better if I just let that stuff go.

There's this weird zen that starts to settle in after a while... I don't really know how to explain it. You'll know it when you feel it.

[bravejemma]

[She doesn't like the sound of it, and she definitely doesn't want to feel it. It's a little off putting, and she's torn between wanting to stick with Will and get as far away as she can. Of course, given that they seem to both be part of the circuitry and programs being run, she's not sure she can do that.]

I don't think I'll be getting comfortable here, any rate.

[projecthydra]

You want to run. I get that. [Even though she hasn't said it.]

Look, if you want to explore the rest of the motherboard on your own, I won't bother you. Just stay out of the quarantined area okay? There's a pretty nasty infection there.

[bravejemma]

Might be what was causing our problem.

[She probably shouldn't look, at least alone.]

[projecthydra]

No, it's fine. Quarantines stop a virus from affecting the rest of the system. It can't hurt you as long as you're out of its boundaries. Besides, I can't delete and purge anything at the root level without access from Fitz.

Just promise me I can trust you to be safe, Jemma.

[bravejemma]

Fine, I won't touch anything.

[There has to be a log of the scan that would have caught and quarantined the virus, though. And she could look at that, if she could find it.]