"Admin privileges?" Jax repeated, "How does that work?"
"Well," Pomni explained, "basically, it meant that... I was... the new Caine. Kind of. But, that was way too much power and I kind of panicked a little bit."
"Oh, Pomni, you're such a lightweight-- the first rule of godlike powers is, you give yourself a huge pile of money and a fancy car."
"It's the Circus, Jax," Pomni chuckled, "this is about as close to a practical application of anarchist property theory as we can ever get."
"See, miss me with that philosophy stuff. A bunch of guys all sitting around thinking, talking about thinking, and thinking about talking."
"And that's why you went to see James Bond movies."
"Exactly." She adopted a Sean Connery-style inflection, "Action, adventure, and romance is where it's at, my dear girl."
"Well, I took a semester of philosophy in college, basically on a dare," Pomni explained, "and it opened my eyes. Changed my whole life. Our professor told us we didn't have to read Chapter 8, so what did I do? I read Chapter 8. Political theory. Locke, Marx, Engels."
"Oh, so that's what the Three Stooges go by these days. See, I could never keep track after Shemp left."
Pomni laughed. "Did I ever tell you how I got to the Circus in the first place?"
"I don't think so," Jax appeared to be studying her fingernails, but Pomni could tell she was listening to every word.
Pomni recounted the story of the billionaire CEO and the community garden.
"Oh, Little Miss Bourgeoisie over here."
"I thought you didn't care about philosophy."
"I don't, but you spend enough time around my parents, you start to learn words like 'bourgeoisie' and 'proletariat'."
"Anyways," Pomni continued, "after that fiasco, I had to take a week off. But, like, I kept accidentally running into people wherever I went who got laid off from that company. Some of them had been laid off years ago, some were just laid off recently, and it was like... the Universe was trying to show me all the bad shit I'd done as a wealth manager."
"Managing wealth does sound a little 'class traitor-y'."
"I know, right? So I decided, you know what? Fuck this. I'm going somewhere there's no people. So my friends and I decide to break into the abandoned office building on Spencer Street. It's been abandoned for, like, a decade or something, 'cos nobody wants to take responsibility for the property.
"Anyways, Andy is scouting the fire stairs for venomous spiders and whatever while Megan is filming me."
"Hang on," Jax interrupted, "Can you remember their names?"
"No," Pomni admitted, "I just got tired of calling them 'What's His Name' and 'What's Her Name' all the time."
"Ah. Continue."
"So, I go into one of the offices, right? And there's this VR headset just, like... sitting there... on the reception desk. It doesn't look like it's connected to anything, so I decide to put it on just for lulz, right?"
"Aaaaaand, the next thing you know, you're bumping into me and breaking Gangle's comedy mask."
Pomni looked guilty, "Did I break Gangle's comedy mask?"
"Yeah. I... broke it a little more, actually. I was always doin' dumb shit like that."
"Well, yeah," Pomni agreed, "You were the wacky, zany, Bugs Bunny-type comic relief character."
"Yeah," Jax sighed. "I wasn't trying to be mean, it just... came out that way.
"See, I've had a lot of time to think, floating here in oblivion like this... and I realise just how I much of an asshole I was."
"I think we all go through that phase," Pomni offered, "You should have read some of the forum posts I used to make in middle school when I was pretending to be a thirtysomething British fop."
"Except, that was just a... I dunno.... a thing you did. I genuinely hurt people. And I did it because I was hurting, too."
"That's a pretty normal thing to do, Jax."
"Oh, is it."
"Yes, actually. I'm sure I hurt people's feelings whenever I made fun of their grammar and spelling. And those were probably just kids who didn't know how to spell yet. We all hurt people, Jax. I'm sure Ragatha, and Zooble, and Gangle, and Kinger have hurt people, either intentionally or unintentionally."
There was a pause, then Jax muttered, "I never talked to Kinger much."
"Why not?"
"I don't know. He was always actin' crazy and shit. He reminded me too much of my grandpa."
"Your grandpa was crazy?"
"No no," Jax held up his hand, "You weren't allowed to call him 'crazy'. You weren't even allowed to say the phrase 'Alzheimer's disease' in the same breath as his name. If you even suggested that he was sick, mom insisted that he would never get better. She was into that whole new-age faith healing bullshit, and she said that you could never suggest that someone was sick, even if they were in the hospital and doctors and nurses were saying that about them 24/7."
"Your mom didn't want to lose her dad."
"And I'm like, why not?! Seriously, why the hell not? It's clearly not doing any good, being in denial about grandpa's Alzheimer's. He's gonna die from that shit, mom-- why are you trying to shield yourself from that?!"
Pomni felt very sympathetic. "Oh, Jax..."
"But no. Dad told me in no uncertain terms, I was not to say that grandpa had Alzheimer's, or else I'd get grounded. So, what do I do? I immediately get my phone out with my dad standing there, I call up grandma, and I say, 'hi, grandma, this is Leeroy-- grandpa has Alzheimer's disease.'" Jax slowly sat down on the barrier as she relived the memory, "And dad grabs... dad grabs my phone from me and... smash... smashes it against a railing..."
Her breathing began shuddering, as though sobbing, though without any tears, only fear. She threw her head back and her shoulders up in resistance against a remembered force, "...He grabs me by the... by... the back of my neck and... takes... me... out to... out..."
"Jax!" Pomni shouted, "Jax, it's okay, it's okay!"
"Pom... Pomni?"
"It's me! It's Pomni!"
"Remember... how... when I told you that I had demons you didn't even know about?"
"Yeah."
"Yeah," Jax sighed, shakily.
"If it makes you feel any better," Pomni offered, "your social media profile said you were living with your friends and working as a delivery driver."
"And boymoding, I bet."
"Well... yeah. But that doesn't mean that Lee is never going to come out in Realspace."
"Ragatha already told me about that."
Pomni was a bit shocked, "Ragatha was here?"
"Yeah. Last week, more or less."
"What'd you guys talk about?"
"Things."
Pomni remembered how Jax had felt about Ragatha after Ribbit's death. "You don't need to say any more, Jax-- that's okay." They paused again, Jax took some deep breaths to calm down. After about a minute or so, Pomni said, "Jax... do you suppose our Realspace selves know about the Circus?"
"I dunno."
"How do you suppose the human brain handles being scanned like a document?"
"You're the philosopher," Jax said quietly.
"Well, I was never very good at metaphysics. Do you suppose they saw the Circus at all? Were they told that their brains got scanned?"
"I have a better question-- how long is the simulation going to last?"
"Jax?"
"This is a computer. Like a datacentre or something. Thousands of gallons of water getting poured into the heatsinks every day. There's city council minutes about this place, votes, protests even. How long until they shut the lights off?"
Pomni didn't say anything at first. "That's a scary thought."
Jax sighed, "There he is again, Ladies and Gentlemen-- our unthinking, uncaring asshole character, Jax!"
"Come on, that's not fair."
"Isn't it? I was the... I was... the asshole character."
"You had your reasons."
"They weren't good reasons."
Pomni once again felt separated by the perceptual divide. She was so close to Jax, yet so far away. Jax was hurting, but words weren't helping.
"I'm sorry," Jax said, "I've gotta go, Pomni."
"Okay," Pomni waved a little, "I miss you, Jax."
"No, you don't... but, thanks."
"It turns out, she's completely wrong about that," Kinger explained.
"She is?" Pomni was relieved to hear him say that, but she wanted to make sure he wasn't just saying it as empty reassurances.
"The Circus doesn't need a datacentre. All it needs is one rack of enterprise servers. The brain scan files aren't the only thing about this place that's small, Pomni. Scratch-- er, rather Mike and I were experimenting with a new kind of game engine that didn't use visual assets in the traditional sense. Rather than storing tons of high-poly 3D objects with texturing and shading, we found a way to sort of reverse the procedural generation process."
"Huh?" Pomni was out of her element.
"Well, take a look at me."
"Yeah?"
"Do you know how a traditional 3D videogame works?"
"Traditional, as in..."
"How they've been doing it since the '90s."
"Oh," Pomni realised, "Yeah. 3D model, animations, skeleton, that kind of thing."
"Exactly. And, in that traditional process, I would be composed of 5 models attached to an armature, right?"
"I guess..." Pomni was getting a little uncomfortable being reminded she was a virtual representation of a person, rather than a real person.
"In Mike's and my new model, it's based on coordinate data and perception. So, I am actually just a text-based representation of a model, which the game engine outputs as a visual element. In this way, I can be as high-poly or as low-poly as I want to be, because I'm procedurally generated. It was intended as a way to get programs working on low-end computers. You know, bare-bones refurbished computers with no video card or anything."
"O...kay..." Pomni was visibly uncomfortable, being reminded she was, essentially, Pinocchio. Or, now, a text-based representation of Pinocchio.
"What's the matter, Pomni?"
"Uh... I just... don't like being reminded that... you know... I don't... exist."
"But, you do exist."
"Yeah, but, not as something real."
Kinger reached out and pulled Pomni's hair a bit.
"Ow! Kinger?!"
"You felt that, right?"
"Yeah."
"It doesn't matter what form reality takes, or what it's made of. It can be made of carbon, or it can be made of numbers run through a perceptual matrix. You're still real."
Pomni sighed, "Yeah... I never was very good at metaphysics."
"So, don't worry that you're not Abigail Brooks anymore. You have her memories and experiences, but you're Pomni now. Just like I'm Kinger and Ragatha's Ragatha."
"You know," Pomni chuckled, "Jax called me a philosopher earlier today... but I think you're the philosopher, Kinger."
"Nah, I'm just a software engineer."
Getting back to the point, Pomni said, "So... about the datacentre thing?"
"There's no datacentre involved. Like I said, this whole simulation runs on 1 rack of enterprise servers that are geothermally-powered. It's not really a datacentre in the strictest sense, it's more of a privately-maintained deal."
"What if C&A goes out of business? Or gets acquired?"
"This is a long-term simulation, Pomni. It doesn't require any funding for power, because, like I said: sustainable energy. I can't make any guarantees, obviously; but it's not like anyone could make any guarantees there wouldn't be another mass-extinction event on Earth.
"You've certainly become concerned about some unconventional things lately, Pomni."
"Well, this is an unconventional situation," Pomni explained, "But, you're telling me that we have more development space in the Circus than we had on the whole planet Earth, and no one's going to shut the lights off to the server room because it's powered by geothermal energy?"
"Yep."
"See, that's a big help, Kinger. I wasn't exactly a hypochondriac or anything out in Realspace, but, that never stopped me thinking that I was going to get flattened by a semi-truck whenever I had to cross the road. I guess an advantage to being digital instead of physical is that I'm never going to suffer any kind of serious injury or illness or something, so, assuming nobody ever shuts the computer off, none of us are ever going to die."
"Well, unless we Abstract, that is. Though, I suppose that isn't a true analogue of death, since we can still communicate with Abstracts through the Memory Glass."
"Thanks, Kinger," Pomni smiled.
"Anytime, Pomni."
A portal opened nearby and Zooble and Gangle walked through, wearing winter sweaters and snowpants.
"Hi, guys," Pomni greeted them, "How was your honeymoon?"
"Really great," Zooble replied, "Thanks for the ski lodge, Kinger."
"My pleasure," he beamed, "I love building. Did you like the hot cocoa?"
"Yeah, how did you manage to get it to taste so much different from the Café?"
"I just gave it a little less sugar and pre-melted the marshmallows."
They stretched, "I'm looking forward to reopening B&R. I feel like it's been closed for years."
"Me, too," Gangle said, "I've got some really good ideas for new food to add to the menu."
Zooble yawned, "Oh, tomorrow, though. I forgot how tiring snowboarding is."
Pomni looked impressed, "You know how to snowboard?"
"They really tore it up out there," Gangle chuckled.
"You're as good as you think you are," Kinger remarked, "That's the great thing about perceptual programming!"
"Huh?" Zooble looked confused.
"Ah," Kinger waved his hand, "esoteric stuff."
"This was the first time I went snowboarding in, like, 10 years. I was surprised how much I remembered."
Ragatha came in from the development area, "Oh, hey, guys! Welcome back!"
"We got you something," Gangle remarked as she reached into her suitcase. She produced a towel-sized square of folded cloth.
"Oh!" Ragatha exclaimed, unfolding it, "A lesbian pride banner?"
"Oh!" Kinger remarked, "I didn't realise."
"We got you one, too, Pomni," Gangle brought a second one out of the suitcase and handed it off.
Pomni looked flattered and embarrassed at the same time, "How did you know?"
Zooble explained about the heart above Pomni's door. "So, we figured it was either Ragatha or Kinger, and Kinger doesn't seem like your type."
"I'm probably old enough to be Pomni's dad," Kinger added.
"Actually," giggled Gangle, "we've kind of suspected all along."
Zooble scoffed, "Gangle?!"
"Oh, yeah, sorry. That was supposed to be private. I forgot."
Ragatha simply laughed, "Thank you so much."
Zooble looked around. "It sure is quiet without Caine flying around and Jax cracking bad jokes, isn't it?"
"Yeah," Pomni sighed, looking down at the flag in her hands.
"You know, I never thought I'd say this, but... I kinda miss Jax a little."
Gangle nodded in agreement.
"Wh-- really?" Ragatha seemed surprised, "I think she picked on you two more than anyone else here."
"I know I do..." Pomni muttered.
"You really do, don't you?" Zooble put their hand on Pomni's shoulder. "You know, I think you were really starting to break through for a while."
"Yeah, but I wasn't, really, was I? 'Cos, in the end, she just..." Pomni trailed off and started to cry.
"I miss you, Jax," Pomni had said earlier.
"No, you don't," Jax had replied.
"Oh, fuck, I thought I was done crying over her." Pomni began to sob. Ragatha approached and began to hug her, but Pomni stepped back. "I'm sorry," she said quietly, "I... need to be alone right now. I'm sorry." Crying more now, she walked off to her room.
As she reached Jax's room, she looked in and saw Jax's portrait standing on the pedestal in the middle of the room. Rather than continuing to her own room, she carried on down the corridor and returned to the Abstractorium. Setting the pride flag down on the bench, she knocked on the glass and called out, "Jax? Jax, are you there?" She put her hand on the glass.
Jax's Abstract form floated down from above and blinked at her, as though considering whether or not to initiate contact.
"Jax, please."
Jax reluctantly placed a tendril on the glass over Pomni's hand.
Pomni found herself in Jax's perceptual void again. "Jax? Where are you?"
"Right here," Jax's silhouette faded into view, "What, you think I was on vacation or something?"
"Jax, this morning you told me I wasn't going to miss you."
"No, I didn't."
"Yes, you did. We were talking about whether our Realspace selves know about the Circus and you said you had to go. On your way out, I said that I miss you, and you said, 'No, you don't, but thanks.'"
"So?"
Tears began to stream down her face, "So? I miss you, dumbass!"
"Uh, Pomni?"
"What?"
"Pomni!" Jax had a hint of panic to her voice.
"What?!"
"What are you doing? Wh-- How are y-- what's going on?"
To Pomni's surprise, the shadow was clearing and Jax was becoming more clearly visible. Pomni realised what was going on.
"You're as good as you think you are," she remembered hearing Kinger say a few minutes ago.
"Perceptual programming," Pomni finished out loud.
"What the hell?"
"Don't ask me to explain it. I miss you so much, Jax. Sometimes I feel like you're still here, but I know you're not. You're down in the Abstract tank. When I remember you, I feel like I can reach out and touch you. I don't know how or why, but I love you, Jax. I know you'll deny it, I know you'll insist that no one could ever love you, but I do! I love you!"
As Pomni had been speaking, she had been taking steps backwards. "Uh, Pomni?" Jax's voice still had panic in it, "Pomni, what-- you're gonna Abstract if you--"
"I don't care!!" She dashed forward and lunged across the perceptual divide. Before Jax had the opportunity to object, Pomni was already in the air.
Pomni could feel herself beginning to glitch and randomise, but she kept her thoughts solely on Jax, and Abstraction be damned. It felt like she was being compressed and extracted, re-saved in various file formats, and crossing the carbon/silicon divide itself, but she kept her mind focussed on her friend. Her obnoxious, caustic friend who did nothing over the 2 weeks Pomni knew her but denigrate and bully those around her, and without whom she could not go on living an immortal life.
She made contact with something physical. Looking up, she looked into the eyes of Jax once again, tears streaming down both of their faces. "I missed you so much."
"Pomni..." Jax's voice was now coming from her own throat, rather than a perceptual envelope, "I missed you, too."
The purple emptiness began to glow with bright light and they held each other tightly as they hurtled across the Void at breakneck speed.
"Hold onto me, Jax," Pomni cried, "Hold onto me!"
"Something is very wrong," Caine remarked, sounding worried for the first time in his life.
"I feel it, too," Ragatha agreed.
"So do I," Kinger added.
Ragatha suddenly turned very pale as she remembered Pomni isolating herself and realised what happened. "Pomni... she's Abstracted."
"Oh, God..." Zooble gasped, "I think you're right."
"She's gone..." the terrible truth of the situation soaking into Ragatha like a deadly poison, "Pomni Abstracted. My Pomni is dead..." she began shaking so hard she could no longer stand. "Oh, God... No... No... Pomni... No!" Grieving too much to even shut her eyes, she simply sat on the floor of the atrium, hugging herself and sobbing without blinking.
Kinger attempted to comfort her, "I'm so sorry, Ragatha."
"Where did she go, Kinger?!" Ragatha sobbed, "Where is she?! She can't have just... Abstracted!"
"Poor Pomni," Gangle sighed, tears welling up in her eyes, "Poor Pomni."
"I don't get it," Zooble wondered aloud, "She was so happy."
"Pomni! No!" Ragatha wailed, her own body beginning to glitch and randomise.
"Ragatha!" Gangle cried out.
"Oh, no," Zooble began to panic, "No, no, you can't Abstract! Please, Ragatha!"
Suddenly, a bright flash filled the atrium. Everyone shielded their eyes, but as soon as it had come, it was gone.
"What was that?" Kinger exclaimed.
Gangle pointed down the hall and said softly, "Look..."
Ragatha stood up and gasped, "Pomni!"
"And... Jax?" Zooble couldn't believe their eyes. "Gangle... am I going insane right now?"
"No, honey," Gangle marvelled, "I see her, too."
Pomni and Jax walked slowly and wearily down the hall toward the stage, as though just having finished a journey of a thousand miles.
As they got nearer, Ragatha ran up to Pomni and hugged her tightly. "Pomni! Oh, Pomni, you're okay! You scared me to death!"
"Ragatha," Pomni smiled and kissed her.
"Isn't anyone going to say anything to me?" Jax panted, "I did just come back from the dead, you know. Uh-oh..."
Zooble walked up to her, arms crossed.
"Uh... hi."
"I never thought I'd get the chance to do this," they said, darkly. Then, they gave Jax a great big hug. "Hi, yourself, smart-ass," they said, their voice breaking.
Jax returned the hug. "I missed you, too, Spare Parts."
"Hey..." Zooble pulled away in offence and saw tears were welling up in Jax's eyes. "Well, yeah," Zooble muttered, sheepishly, "I mean, I was just telling everyone how I kinda missed you."
Jax chuckled, but in a different way. It wasn't her typical derisive chuckle, but a genuine expression of gratitude and relief.
She turned to Ragatha. "After you were planting your lips on Pomni, I'm not sure about this anymore, but there was something I always regretted not doing." She took Ragatha by the shoulders and kissed her on the mouth for several seconds.
Zooble and Pomni hooted celebratorily.
"Hubba, hubba!" Caine announced.
Pulling away at last, Jax said, "I missed you, Rags."
"I missed you, too."
"Excuse me," Pomni objected, playfully, "That's my girlfriend you're talking to."
Gangle walked up, "And this is my spouse!" She kissed Zooble.
"Whoa, wait," Jax chuckled, "You two are married now?!"
"I haven't told you about the new Eighteen-Plus expansion pack, have I?" Caine announced. "Yes, that's right! You are now able to have sex, drink, swear, and do more than fifty-seven other things!"
"Okay, cool," Jax interjected impatiently, "But, who do I have to see about changing my look?"
"Oh!" Pomni exclaimed, "That's right, I'm sorry." She snapped her fingers and Jax's former look changed to her new preference."
Jax was shocked, "Pomni? Did you do that?"
"Yep!" She snapped her fingers again and a floppy sunhat with ear holes appeared in midair, "Here, if you want it." Jax took it, but still looked shocked. "See, it's like this..." and Pomni recounted the story of how she ended up with admin privileges. "Since it was too much power for one person to have alone, I decided to give everybody admin privileges... including you."
"Me?"
"It only works if we all have it."
"Personally," Caine spoke up, "I'd love to see you come up with an adventure, Jax."
Everybody groaned.
"Well, and everybody else, too."
"I'm glad you said that, Caine," Gangle replied, "because it just so happens that I have a few ideas on that subject."
After dinner, Pomni walked Jax back to her room.
"How did you know you weren't going to Abstract?" Jax asked.
"That's the thing-- I did Abstract. But, it's like I said: I didn't care. You deserve love, too, Jax. I couldn't give enough of it from across that gap."
"Well, I'm still not sure what I did to deserve a friend like you," Jax grinned, "but I'm glad you brought me back. I'm still not sure how, but I'm glad it happened."
"Kinger could probably explain it, if you're up for a nap." Arriving at the door, Pomni pointed out the room. "It was a shrine for the past few months. We did that with everyone: Scratch, AJ, Raddle, Kaufmo, Ribbit... but I set yours up myself."
"People have been inside my room?"
"Well... no. Just me, possibly Ragatha."
"Did you happen to find a Polaroid of me and..."
"Yeah," Pomni brought the picture of Ribbit, Jax, and Kaufmo out of her pocket. "Here, this should go back to you."
"Thanks, kid."
Pomni laughed, "What 'kid'? I'm 26, you're 21."
"Call it a seniority thing," Jax chuckled. She looked lovingly at Pomni and kissed her on the cheek, "Thanks for everything."
"I'm glad you're back, Jax." Pomni turned and headed off to her room.
"Oh, wait!" she turned back, "I gave you a present. It's inside there. Hey, uh... do you wanna... do something tomorrow?"
"Thanks," Jax replied, "but I think I'm gonna just relax tomorrow. Crossing the perceptual divide took a lot out of me. The day after?"
"The day after," Pomni agreed. "Good night, Jax."
Inside her room, Jax shut the door and saw what Pomni had meant. A red bow on a barrette sat on her pillow with a tag tied around it. She picked it up and read the tag.
Stepping over to the mirror, Jax put the bow on. Looking at her reflection, she saw what she always wanted to see... more or less. While she had imagined herself looking more human than this, she couldn't complain. She remembered that night with Ribbit, but it seemed like a lifetime ago now.
Slowly, Ribbit was replaced in her mind by Pomni, saying, "I'm glad you're back, Jax."
Continuing to look at herself in the mirror, she said, "You look really pretty, Jax." Internalising it, she put her hands up to her mouth and gasped, then cried. Her ordeal was over, but more than that, she died a boring man and came back a beautiful woman.
Across the hall, Pomni and Ragatha were having an after-dinner glass of wine, when Pomni suddenly felt giddy and laughed out loud.
"You're not drunk already?" Ragatha giggled.
"No, it's just... oh..." she sighed and leaned back in her chair, "I'm so glad Jax is back."
"Do you think it's gonna go back to the way it was?"
"No. We're all better people now. Plus, Jax has... hope. For possibly the first time in her life, she has hope."
"Speaking of hope," Ragatha downed her glass, "I'm not going to lie to you right now, Pomni, I'm still a little cheesed off that you let me think you Abstracted."
"I did Abstract. I felt like I was getting run through 7-Zip Hell, crossing that divide."
"Well, it was greedy, and selfish, and out of character--"
"I'm sorry--"
Ragatha held up her hand, "I'm not through yet. And furthermore, it was quite possibly the nicest, most caring thing you've ever done... and this digital wine must be getting to me because you are looking incredibly sexy right now."
"You wanna procedurally-generate some hearts around my door?"
"I thought you'd never ask!"
THE END