Chapter Nineteen - Log Off
“If you don’t know your sh etiquette, then you’ll end up being the one caught walking around with your fly down. The one that others shy away from because you’re too loud at the wrong ti.
That’s why, in collaboration with Nimbletainnt, we’re presenting this five-part series on the etiquette of the sh!
Strap yourselves in, kids, because we’re going to be learning a whole lot today!”
--shy the Manatee, a Nimbletainnt Education Mascot/Vtuber. June 2036
***
“Thanks you two,” I said. “You’ve been surprisingly helpful.”
Dial-Up scoffed, shaking his head enough that his wild mane of white hair wiggled around. “Think nothing of it. You could do with learning a bit more about the sh though.”
I shrugged my kitty shoulders, and when the room turned into a grand library without so much as a twitch, I didn’t startle. “I’m getting used to it, I think. But I have sothing waiting for in the real world.”
Lag shook his head with a rusty squeak. “This is the real world,” he said. “It’s perceptible, and follows its own set rules. It’s even, technically, physically present. It’s just different enough that so of us like it better here than in the IRL.”
“But you still call it the IRL?” I asked.
He moved his arms in a sort of ‘what can you do’ gesture. “We need to call it sothing.”
I looked around the library, at the dusty shelves and old books. Daniel looked entirely out of place hovering there. “Well, I’m off to go scare the truth out of so rcs. Thanks again. I’ll get the girl to send you so digital flowers or sothing once I get her ass out of the fire.”
Dial-Up barked a laugh. “Sure. I think I’d like that. You know where the exit is,” he said with a gesture behind .
A glance back showed a heavy double door at the end of the library. “Can’t I just log out from here?”
Daniel sighed. “She’s real clueless, sorry,” he said.
“What?” I asked.
“You can’t just... that’s like walking into soone’s house and not taking your boots off, you know.”
“I’m not taking my boots off for anyone,” I said.
Daniel slumped in mid-air, like a squid that had just been stepped on. “Dammit. It’s like, uh, soone opening your fridge without permission, or soone not leaving the room when you want so alone ti with Lucy.”
“Right, right, it’s impolite, I get it. I’m not entirely daft.”
Surprising!
“Shush you.” I turned and strutted over to the door. “See you two geeks around,” I said.
“Good luck, Stray,” Lag said.
“Don’t die!” Dial-up added.
Daniel flew past and opened the door. A good thing, since I couldn’t actually reach the handle at all. Though it wasn’t a real door, so maybe there was a way to open it without actually interacting with the handle? There had to be sothing in place for the non-human avatars out there. Or maybe the digital world was just as ableist as the real world.
We didn’t end up on the sa catwalk as before. Instead the door led into a sort of bazaar, or at least a spot behind a stall set in a row of them. The stalls were wildly different, so looking like authentic wooden things from back when wood was a thing people could afford, and others looked like the sort I’d seen in pictures of conventions.
So decided to raise their middle fingers to gravity and were just floating there, or weren’t actually stalls being geotric things hovering around.
“What’s this place?” I asked.
“An NPC marketplace,” Daniel said. “The people behind the stalls are programs. They sell stuff.”
“People can’t navigate a shopping site here?” I asked.
There were a few dozen avatars walking past the kiosks and staring, but for the most part the room felt way too big for the number of people present.
“It’s more of a personalization thing,” Daniel said. “You know, eting soone, bartering, having a face to match the item.”
If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
“But that face is a program with no one behind it?” I asked. “Right, internet weirdness.”
“You’re way too young to be shitting on sh culture,” Daniel said.
I snorted and sat down. “So, where’s the log-out button on this thing.”
“You can’t log here,” Daniel said. “Co on, let’s step out of the building first.”
“Are you serious?”
I grumbled to myself as I followed after Daniel. I wasn’t expecting a hand to grab by the scruff of the neck and lift off the ground. “Oh, aren’t you a cutie!”
I was turned around to co face to face with a young woman, a young woman with a man’s voice. “Put down or I swear to fuck I will end you,” I said. I swung my arms around, but I couldn’t reach the idiot’s arm.
“This model is top. The fur isn’t even a texture, it’s all modelled. The poly count has to be insane,” he said. I assud it was a he, there was no way what looked like a Japanese school girl had a voice that bassy.
“Myalis,” I said.
Deploying weaponry!
I felt sothing on my back shift, and suddenly I had a pair of guns poking over my shoulder.
“Oh, wow, it’s so sort of cha-shift too.”
“Um, yo dude,” Daniel said. “Put her down, would you?”
“How much for the model? Or at least tell where you got it.”
A pair of reticules appeared in my vision, handy little circles with a plus in their middle. I centred both over the idiot’s face, then with a ntal command, pulled the trigger.
The idiot didn’t explode or burst apart, there weren’t even any particle effects or anything. His avatar froze, twitched once, then disappeared.
I landed on all fours, my guns already folding back into my back. “Right, that’s enough internet for today,” I said. “Myalis, let’s log off.”
Understood.
The world turned the comforting blue of a BIOS screen fritzing out, then black for just a mont before I opened my eyes to see an unfamiliar ceiling.
A glance around confird that I was back in the real world, in the living room I’d left. Though I had a few more pillows around my head and my lips were wet. Had I been drooling?
Daniel was still knocked out on the sofa, legs over the edge and arms splayed out above him. He was twitching just a little, his eyes moving under the skin of his eyelids. Nice and creepy.
With a sigh, I pushed myself up and got to my feet, only to find myself pausing as I wobbled a bit. Everything felt just a little bit off. I bounced on the spot a few tis, stretched my arm out, then bent my knees close to my chest to get everything back in order. It seed to work.
“Cat?” Lucy asked from the corridor. She stepped in, her face lighting up with a smile the mont she saw standing. “How did it go?”
“Eh,” I said.
She pulled into a hug, then planted a wet kiss on my mouth. “So, I experinted with a bit of somnophilia,” she said.
“You did?” I asked.
She nodded. “Yup. I kissed you real good. But it’s just no fun when you’re not reacting to it.”
I snorted and returned the kiss. “Pervert.”
“Co on, you’d have tried the sa thing,” she said.
“No. But I might have copped a feel,” I said before giving her an example of what I ant.
Daniel sighed. “Can you guys at least let set up sothing to record this before you start?”
I rolled my eyes and pulled back from Lucy. The mont was kinda ruined. “Dammit Daniel,” I said. “You’re lucky that you’re useful enough to keep around.”
The boy laughed and shifted on the sofa until he was sitting up, legs over the side and toes squeezing and letting go restlessly. “That’s my goal in life, to be moderately useful.”
“Keep trying,” I said. “But, yeah, thanks for acting the guide.”
“No problem. Oh, and I got lots of screencaps for Lucy. I bet you could talk her into petting you.”
“What?” Lucy asked.
“Nevermind that,” I said. “Co on, we have so things to plan out. Like how to hit up a rcenary base.”
“You’re doing what?”
***
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