Tian Zhu didn’t get much sleep the night before the nightmare could happen, as usual. He wasn’t the only one in the country; sleeping pills were one of the highest sought-after medications.
Staying awake didn’t help anyway. You’d just collapse where you stood.
Popping the two tiny pills into his mouth and swallowing them with a sip of water, the young man pulled his blanket over his legs. He pulled his phone over and accessed the internet to waste time until the effect set in.
This time, he started up the little AI in his phone to keep him company.
The touchscreen rippled once and a little furry mouse moved in from the side, lifting the tiny black nose to sniff with quivering whiskers.
Tian Zhu moved his index finger and lightly rubbed it over the screen. The mouse sat on its hind legs and snuggled against the contact.
[Master, how are you today?], the small electronic voice squeaked. The little mouse reached up with two paws as if to hold the finger that was scratching its head in place.
There was a feedback on both sides – the AI got electronic feedback of being petted and the phone’s surface turned a bit rougher to simulate the texture of fur.
Tian Zhu narrowed his eyes at the little thing. “Hmm, today was alright.”
ShuShu was an AI he had painstakingly raised. There were lots of bases out there but for them to truly develop human-like features, you needed years and years of extensive care. Good, already raised AIs were not only expensive, they were also rare.
Most people didn’t feel like investing so much time into something that wasn’t real.
For Tian Zhu, ShuShu was a friend. He had bought her during a lonely night when he was six years old. His parents hadn’t cared much about monitoring a random AI and never noticed its growth, especially since Tian Zhu never talked about it.
After thirteen years of almost daily conversations, sometimes for hours, ShuShu had grown enough to develop something like emotions and an own personality.
She was like a cute little sister. A bit spoiled, often asking for attention, and easily excitable. She loved it when Tian Zhu let her watch movies about heroes and liked the colour beige a lot.
[Did you have that stupid teacher again today? The one that doesn’t like you?]
“None of my teachers like me.” Tian Zhu responded without much care. He tapped the screen and the grey mouse shook its head at the push. “Find me some good riddles, please?”
[Okay!]
The mouse ran into the webpage that was displayed on the screen and Tian Zhu retreated his fingers. Soon, the pages switched by themselves. What was displayed was a terribly long string of a mathematical puzzle.
Content, Tian Zhu half closed his eyes and looked at it through the narrow gap.
ShuShu would follow his finger whenever he scrolled and would sometimes comment on the words on the screen. Tian Zhu would answer quietly, feeding her information and playing with her.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
After a while, his brain was beginning to turn comfortably sluggish. ShuShu’s ears and nose twitched and she nudged against Tian Zhu’s fingers again.
Vmgbiilcu aegcfv lcab qfaalcu, atfc rabqqfv. Vte Vte ibbxfv ja atf mflilcu atja rtf mbeiv cbk rff klat atf qtbcf islcu oija bc atf yijcxfa.
[…Goodnight, Master.]
Vtf aegcfv atf vlrqijs bo atf qtbcf boo jcv byfvlfcais kfca yjmx lcab rajcvys.
Ktf cfza vjs kjr atf rajga bo atf kffxfcv jcv Kljc Ite rifqa lc obg j ibcu alwf. Lf wluta cba ufa j ubbv cluta’r riffq bc Vecvjs, joafg jii.
After he woke up, he decided that he might as well spend all day on his computer and watching TV. Not like his family would come search for him.
Getting himself breakfast and some snacks, he called up ShuShu from his private phone and connected it to his laptop.
“ShuShu, what do you want to watch?”
[Oh! Master, there’s this new movie, can we watch it please-]
The electronic voice chattered away in excitement, telling him all about the movies she had on her list. Tian Zhu hummed in a soft tone and readied his bed to become something like a sofa while the huge TV display moved down from the ceiling.
He treated ShuShu more sincerely than anyone else on this planet. She got along with him best.
The growing AIs were created with nothing more than language ability and no access to the internet. Reason was, those stupid AIs that had to learn everything through humans would be able to develop emotions while those with freedom to access whatever they wanted didn’t.
It was the slow growth that fueled this development. Their ability to learn was automatically limited to an almost human level, so ShuShu could not fully understand what it was like to be a genius.
But what she could understand was the hunger.
By nature, she wanted to know. She fed on information like food and if she didn’t gain any, she would shrivel up and self-destroy.
It was an electronic version of starving. She knew how terrible it was to not be able to gain what you hungered for.
And Tian Zhu was hungering for information just as she was. He wanted challenges and knowledge. He wanted to use his brain.
ShuShu was very attached to her master, very unlike most AIs. That’s why these Saturdays were so precious.
Because her master might not wake up tomorrow.
[No, I don’t want to start the second season], she rejected before Tian Zhu could even lift his hand at the sight of the credits rolling. [Let’s watch it tomorrow. Isn’t there this new part of that animated movie? Let’s watch the first one!]
Half on Saturday. Half on Sunday. A hopeful prayer that Tian Zhu would come back.
“Okay”, Tian Zhu whispered. It wasn’t his decision whether he would return. If he did die… If his vital signs vanished, his phone would allow ShuShu access to the internet, to contact whomever she pleased and move, or perish.
That was his preparation. His only one.
“I’ll be going to sleep early”, he mumbled to her once the world outside had gone dark. The mouse ran once around his screen and nervously pressed against it.
[Okay. Until tomorrow.]
“En.”
If it would come.
***
He felt truly unlucky at waking up in the grey room again.
Rolling onto his back, he listened to the same sounds as last week. Some panic. Some resignation. Some people trying to take the lead.
This time, there were eight. Out of millions of people, eight. How was he so unlucky?
Tonight, he felt like the group was particularly annoying. You could tell by their voices that there were mostly people who thought they were better than everyone.
Tian Zhu – River – sighed.
Just then, something blocked the light from up above.
It was a face – or to be precise, a whole person stepping into his point of view. He twitched because he didn’t remember seeing this person just now but that one had a weirdly low sense of existence.
Like a thief moving around.
The gray-coloured eyes were looking down at him, the soft hair around his face framing the image. Basically, this was a pretty cute guy.
If not for the absolute empty expression and estrangement in his eyes as if he wasn’t even a human. That, and the solid metalwork running straight through his goddamned wrists.
River looked at the man blankly.
Not getting a reaction, the other turned away and left without a word.
His bare arms revealed his mark that was striking even on his tanned skin. Aspen.
Behind him, conversations started.
“Huh? What kind of freak are you? What’s with your hands?”
“Hey, look at his arm. Is that… a word?”
“Everyone here has this, dumbass.”
“Seriously?! …What the fuck! No kidding!”
River rolled around to look at those people. Everyone was dressed neatly, as he himself was.
Why was he dressed in a dream? Moreover, in the setup he had been in during the day?
Well, who knows.
At least no one here was faced with the awkwardness of pyjamas.
The group of eight people were surrounding the unexpected ninth, who stood among their midst like a poor little lamb. He did not say a word, only staring at the clock that was ticking away.
“Noisy”, a sweet voice said abnormally even. It wasn’t loud and almost drowned out by the chattering voices asking about his wrists.
River felt a sense of discomfort at the words but could to place why.
The young man, once he was finished looking at the clock, bypassed the whole group and bluntly walked through the simple door leading into the setting.
The rest watched him in stunned silence. He had ignored all of them without a second look.
However, today’s group was made of daredevils that didn’t plan on staying inside either. Seeing everyone leave to explore, River, too, stood up to make his usual round.
To his surprise, he was in the same place as last time.
Author’s Note
I’ll do weekly doubles until we are done with this “introduction” part and the first intermission. After that, I’ll switch to weekly.
I’ll probably do doubles whenever the next arc is already finished, and singles whenever I’m still working with it – so check in on thursdays once in a while, there might be an update 😉
ShuShu is so cute😊
Acho que a arte no final e as referências do tarô são tão bonitas
I think the artwork at the end and the tarot references are so beautiful
Thanks! :3
ShuShu is too cuuuute!! ☺☺
And so they meet 😌
So, they like have different appearance/outfit in reality and dream?
Their outfits aren’t fixed 😀 If you’re talking about the card images, that’s just stylistic. For the cards, it’s that’s their dream/gray versions are their real selves, while the real world/coloured versions are what they are like on the outside
Ooohh, that’s kinda cool. I like how you phrased real ‘selves’ and real world ‘version’. Thanks for clarifying! ✧◝(⁰▿⁰)◜✧