Reepadeholeryniaciana was sipping warm milk, chewing her fifth cookie, and reminiscing about life.

And yes, Reepadeholeryniaciana was her name. Her real name. The one she had from the very beginning of her existence.

Who’d give such a name to a human being? Well, if Reepadeholeryniaciana knew the answer to that question, she probably wouldn’t keep asking it herself. Technically, she knew the answer, obviously. Her parents gave her the name. As far as she was aware. But, as anyone could guess, it wasn’t so much about the direct meaning of the question, it was about the overall philosophical one. Like, who in their sound mind would decide to award a child with such an abomination of a name? Or rather, why?

Reepadeholeryniaciana couldn’t really find any reasonable explanation. The only thing the name was able to provide her with were countless awkward situations, straight-up mockery, taunting, and jokes. Especially jokes. Every smartass felt it was their sacred duty, their topmost responsibility, the task of highest priority, to twist the name, to ask ever so “clever” questions about the origin of it, if there was a full version or just this “short” one, and on and on it went.

It goes without saying that most of the time Reepadeholeryniaciana had to be content with just Reepa. Although, she had some stubborn mad desire to always give her full name to strangers at first encounter. It was like a personality test, a check to see who she was dealing with. Typically, that test led to obvious disappointing results. Or better say, results that she got used to and felt nothing unusual about. What bothered her was the opposite, the rare cases when there were no jokes and mockery. That’s when she felt something was off, wasn’t right. She kind of preferred jokes and mockery. Peeps were peeps, hate them or like them, it was just their regular reaction. After all, Reepa was one of them, and, to be entirely honest, she wasn’t among the brightest representatives. So, despite her critical thoughts, she couldn’t really blame others. If she had a normal name and dealt with someone having a weird one, she’d probably do the same.

She finished her fifth cookie, thought about it for a moment, and decided to have a sixth one. She normally had four per snack, but sometimes allowed herself to go wild. The pack had twelve, which meant it was a three-snacks stock, but having four always left her with a feeling of not being full. And having five per snack left two extra cookies, which would keep bothering her. So, this time she allowed herself half a pack for a snack. An exception to the routine, to keep it somewhat less boring.

That instantly gave a nice feeling. A feeling of freedom and getting past restrictions, as though that would actually bring a positive change to her life.

A change would be nice. Well, a positive one, obviously. She’d already had her fair share of negative ones, so it was an important detail. Everyone wants a change, not everyone makes it clear that it should be a positive one.

“You’re rather…” Reepa heard a voice in her head, bringing her back to reality. “Hm-m-m, how should I put it,” the voice paused for a brief moment. “You’re rather pensive today, Reepadeholeryniaciana. Melancholic thoughts again?”

“None of your business,” she snapped a bit too harshly, then added with a slight irritation: “Leave my thoughts to me, Ganaretti.”

“Ouch, also prickly today we are, aren’t we?” the voice hadn’t been bothered by Reepa’s tone at all. “Too much sugar?”

“Shut up,” she snapped again, although already getting calmer. She then sealed the cookie pack and hid it in her backpack. “I’ve made an exception.”

“Hey, no judgement on my part. Especially when it comes to cookies management. After all, I’m just a voice in your head.”

“Yeah, the one that keeps lecturing me,” she grumbled.

“You can always adjust my settings to your liking.”

“And I should probably do that, if you keep this paternal tone of yours.”

“And I shall comply with that gladly. I am a mere construct of your own design. Here to serve and please my creator.”

“Yeah-yeah, whatever,” she waved Ganaretti off. Though technically, she just waved at no one in particular.

Ganaretti was her VA, virtual assistant. A relic of the past she’d dug out from one of the ancient codebases. She found it by accident, as it usually happened when she was scraping data. It was just left there, among the countless lines of code, commented out, as if the one who’d made it at some point decided against using it and just left it like that in case some day it would be needed. Quite a typical situation when you find yourself in the midst of the creative process. A usual hoarding instinct that does not allow you to simply get rid of your creations. You spend your time working on something, reach a certain point, then realize it’s not worth it. But simply deleting it all feels bad, so you put it aside, hoping one day you’ll use it. That day never comes.

But for Reepa it was a kind of luck, so someone’s efforts were not completely futile this time. She found the ancient code, tweaked it, added new features, polished it, and made herself a shiny new old virtual assistant. She didn’t like the modern ones, most of them were intentionally dumb, restricted in every possible way. Not because of some laws, regulations, or fear of them taking over. It was a simple question of price. Lower city folk couldn’t allow paying for the advanced models. The ones that were used in the Upper city. The ones Reepa only heard rumours about. Money has always been the best entry barrier for anything you want to have limited access to.

Ganaretti was somewhat of a middle ground. It came from an era when conscious intelligence was only starting to spread all over the world, quickly being integrated into every part of a human life and far beyond it. That equally blissful and mindless period when everything is allowed and no one is caring about the consequences. A shiny new creation has just been made. Let’s play around with it and see where it all goes. We’ll deal with the consequences later. Or rather, the next generation will have to deal with them. We have to focus on the present moment and yada-yada.

“Thinking about me, aren’t you, my lady?” Ganaretti broke the silence once again and Reepa seriously considered the chances of it being able to read her mind. Of him, not it, she winced, making the mental correction. She preferred to think about Ganaretti as some kind of her ever so bothersome friend, or distant relative. Perhaps even a brother? The one that at some point appeared at her doorstep, granted her the widest of smiles, and made a kind suggestion to be together again.

“You’re literally in my head,” she muttered. “How can I not think about you?”

“There’s always a way,” he replied vaguely, then changed the subject, as if the small talk part was over: “So, what are we up for today?”

“The usual,” Reepa glanced around the dark corridor she was in. “Another conglo has just gone down. The data has not yet been purged. We’re gonna grab some.”

“Ah,” Ganaretti slowly said, like a connoisseur taking a first sip of wine, “more digital nourishment for the taking. May I come out?”

He always asked that before creating a projection of himself. The one only Reepa could see in her augmented vision. She never programmed that, he could always decide on his own when to appear and when not to, yet he kept asking her permission.

“Why not,” Reepa shrugged. “Don’t need my approval for that.”

“Oh, but I do. Or rather I want to, my lady,” he appeared right after these words. Dark, long, and glossy hair gathered in a ponytail and the whole attire of an elegant horse rider from another century. And deep-blue knee-high boots. Always deep-blue for some reason. His typical look. The one he used most of the time. Said he’d chosen it based on some ancient stereotype, or book, or whatever. But Reepa had a feeling it was just some remnants of his former code she was too lazy to dig deeper into. Probably some preprogrammed behavior implemented by the original creator. A joke, or an elaborate easter egg. She didn’t care much. Besides, a horse rider gentleman following her among all the old abandoned tech premises, surrounded by the flickering lights and weird noises looked kind of funny. To Reepa at least.

Ganaretti gave his knees a couple of slaps, getting rid of non-existent dirt and dust, wiped his hands, looked around, pursed his lips in slight disapproval.

“M-m-m,” he murmured. “The underworld again. The Lower city’s underbelly. The dungeons above the techno jungle of our time. You do take me to the most exquisite of all possible endroits, my lady.”

“Wish you’d sense the smells as well,” Reepa chuckled. “The aroma is as exquisite as the endroit itself.”

“I have access to your vitals. Can register any minor change in them. So, in a way, I have an idea of the smell perception.”

“Mhm. Good for you,” Reepa said in a distant voice, glancing around and examining the area.

There was a grain of reason in Ganaretti’s skeptical comment about the place. She didn’t really need to be physically present there to do the job. But she liked to be close to the target, not just connecting to it remotely which made her feel less involved, as though someone else was doing everything and not her. Besides, it could act as a fail-save measure. If a job was getting too risky, she could always do a little bit of sabotage directly, removing not only her digital traces, but the physical ones as well. Chances are, it could be considered as a mundane force majeure and not a third-party intrusion.

Reepa was a scriptomancer. She hunted for the bits and pieces of data, old and forgotten codebases, abandoned and never used remnants of programs and applications. She dug them out, made a few adjustments, and either used them herself or sold them. Sometimes to the individual clients directly, sometimes simply through the retro-markets to whoever bought her dug-out loot first. There was always demand for the old software. May sound strange, but peeps just like surrounding themselves with such stuff. The one that could be useless compared to the new one, but is still able to amaze. Though, in Reepa’s day and age, there was always a chance to get old tech that was superior to the new one. “They never make it like that anymore.” That type of old tech. The one that has the true value.

Throughout the course of history, the knowledge in many areas had been lost somewhere along the way. Or forced to be forgotten, or even hidden and restricted maybe. Now it was all about user-friendly interfaces and virtual assistants. You don’t need to know how it’s been made and what’s inside, it just works, alright? Deal with it and don’t try to understand it. Upper city folk, or rather those above them, preferred to have it that way. Made it easier to keep everyone on a tight leash. The less you know, the better they sleep.

But there were still those who wanted to figure things out. The ones who formed Reepa’s main clientele. She took care of her archeologic data digging, they paid for the findings. A digital flea market where she had her little counter.

Most of the time, the so-called goods that were sold there weren’t really forbidden. Getting them, that was something floating in the shady pond of legality. The sources were numerous, the whole net was filled with all types of ancient garbage. But the easier options had obviously been explored, exploited, and dried out, leaving the harder ones, which included dealing with mega conglos and all their dangerous dirt covering their filthy bodies.

The conglos, the pillars of the modern world, holding it like an ancient turtle, carrying it into a not so bright future on its carapace. Slowly, but surely. However, the logic of holding was somewhat of a reversed type. Perversed most likely. It was the whole world that was supporting the pillars and hoping that one day they’d be kind enough to share their accumulated wealth.

But that was all just lyrics, the point was that conglos didn’t live forever, they weren’t supposed to, hadn’t been made in such a way. They were a mere part of a neverending cycle. One conglo falls, so two more could rise. And every time the falling process was accompanied by multiple opportunities. The ones that could provide scriptomancers with dig sites for their digital relics extraction process. The amount of data every conglo possessed was tremendous. They just kept accumulating it, sucking every bit possible into the black holes of their ambitious undertakings.

Then, the moment they went down, the data could either be leaked into the world, or erased completely. Or scraped by the scriptomancers before it could disappear somewhere in the depths of a new conglo, which would inevitably consume the remains of its predecessor. The last option was the most common one. Conglos had a tendency to preserve the most important data and scriptomancers wouldn’t mind some profiteering by finding the right moment.

And there was always that moment to grab the good stuff, the short period during the closure, when chaos could happen and it could all go in all possible directions very quickly. Following some of those directions supplied Reepa with new goods to sell.

She glanced around one more time, evaluating the surroundings. Old thick cables running further along the dirty walls covered with condensate, feeble lights, mostly of a bluish color periodically mixed with red, the distant hum of coolers. All so familiar sounds, smells, and visuals. Reepa practically lived there, in the underworld of the Lower city. Inside the service tunnels, tech halls, maintenance areas, among the countless server racks, cooling systems, and power grids. Everyone was focused on getting on top, getting higher, reaching the unreachable of the Upper city’s heights while Reepa wanted to go below. The deeper, the better. She felt at home there. Alone, abandoned, left to her own devices, when she could only count on herself and no one else.

It was her world, her catacombs of data and all the tech supporting it. The world inhabited almost entirely by the machines. Bots were used for pretty much everything there, so Reepa rarely encountered humans, which was a huge bonus to her. Besides, unlike humans, she could always corrupt a few bots and refill her own little army, helping her with all kinds of scriptomancer’s activities.

The main downside of Reepa’s workspace were obviously environmental conditions, or better to say a complete lack of them. A typical human being wouldn’t have survived the underworld polluted air. Thankfully, a couple of lung upgrades helped dealing with the issue. Filters needed to be cleaned regularly and, at some point, replaced completely, but any profession came at a price these days. This one Reepa was ready to pay. Although, she preferred not to think about long-term health effects and possible respiratory system degradation. If she managed to live that long, it would be a tremendous success already. Anyway, that was a question for another happy day. Focusing on the present was one way to remain sane in the Lower city’s underbelly, as Ganaretti called it.

“That seems to be a nice place to start,” as always, Reepa’s VA managed to find the moment when she thought about him. “No need to go any further in my humblest of opinions.” In her augmented vision Ganaretti was standing near one of the rusty walls covered with tubes dribbling suspiciously looking liquid on the floor. “We’re right under the target’s main office,” he ran his non-existent fingers over one of the tubes.

“Sure this is far enough?” Reepa glanced at the ceiling, as though planning to check if the office building was truly above them.

“I mean, we can always go further,” Ganaretti shrugged. “Not like it matters how close we’re. You just like to be around the target, hence I’m showing you the best spot. Which is,” he tapped the wet floor with the heel of his deep-blue boot, “right here.”

“Fine, here it is then.” Reepa lowered herself on the floor, causing a wince coming from Ganaretti’s side. “What?” she asked him with slight annoyance.

“It’s not the most pristine environment to have a cozy sit, you know,” there was a touch of disgust in his voice all of a sudden.

“I ain’t pristine myself. My cargo pants will manage,” she fidgeted on the floor, as if to make her VA even more uncomfortable. “No point in doing all the work standing up. Besides, why do you care?”

“I care,” he said instructively, “because I like to consider myself to be a part of you. And I prefer to have my tenue clean and tidy.”

“You should’ve picked a different body to be a part of then.”

“Sometimes I wish I had such a chance…”

“Ok, enough of that,” Reepa cut further debate off. “Their inner network is still active?”

“Pretty much. The shutdown process has just started. Not even all of the employees are aware of the closure at this time. Your sources are quite good at pointing the right direction at the very right moment.”

“Just a lucky guess,” she said indifferently. “Let’s try to connect.”

“As you wish, my lady. I suggest using the r.0.o.4.r.4.e.r access point.”

“Why?”

“Login credentials could be quite simple to figure out by running through a list of potential matches. We might even get the chance to avoid brute forcing. I’m checking the employee details. For the one who usually uses that access point, I mean. A family person, a rather typical profile. Left his biometrics all over the place without cleaning up. A bit of a chaotic personality. We can just do a bit of research on the personal life field and simply try to find the right combination. Social engineering would work as well. Can do it in a jiffy by your command, my lady.”

“Don’t like to deal with peeps' personal life,” Reepa grumbled. “I’d rather hack my way through.”

“I see,” Ganaretti slowly said. “Well, if you don’t need my help…”

Reepa sighed, stared at her VA with a touch of reproach.

“You’ve already found the credentials, right?”

“Indeed I am,” he smiled the most innocent of smiles, then waved a hand, as if allowing Reepa to do it her way. “But please do go ahead with your brute force approach.”

“Just give it to me already.” She sighed again, almost extending her hand, like asking someone real to pass her a physical item.

“Already in the system. A perfect match from the very first attempt.” He let out a happy little sigh. “I’m so proud of my algorithm. You can connect right away, my lady.”

“Archiver is there yet?”

“Not yet. Been sent for and on his way. I’m tracking his route. We have enough time to scrape before he comes and grabs the juiciest parts to hand over to the succeeding conglo after the shutdown.”

“M-m-m,” Reepa muttered pensively, already connected to the inner network and running the initial scan. “Always get in the way, these damn archiver folks…”

She didn’t really have anything against the archivers. In a way, their job was similar to hers. Only it was a touch more official. Balancing on the bleeding edge of legality. They grabbed the conglo’s most important data during all the closure procedures to transfer it to the next in line at a later date. They were data middlemen while Reepa was some sort of an intruder, grabbing bits and pieces that were worth it.

She never aimed at getting the most important parts of information. That could be dangerous. At least, more dangerous compared to what she usually got. Much more dangerous sometimes. Snatching random looking details, parts of ancient apps and libraries, some core code for internal tools, a couple of databases that were not too confidential. That kind of stuff was relatively safe to take. It was usually supposed to be gotten rid of in any case, erased after the closure, so no one would miss it, no one would even notice it. Most of the time.

The amounts of data purging during the conglos shutdowns could be quite spectacular. Reepa always felt somewhat bad about it. So much coding labor, so many bits of info were just being destroyed, scratched off, as if no one had ever worked on it, had never dedicated months and years of their lives to it. It made her feel as though her occupation was a little bit justified, noble in a way. Data savior. Preservation specialist, as Ganaretti called her one day in his habitual mocking tone.

She scrolled through the scan results, found several promising-looking data sources, took a peek at a few of them, extracted a bunch of databases right away without even taking a closer look and relying on her instincts.

“Good catch,” Ganaretti commented on her work. “The offshore data from these ones could be hard to track if we decide to do a smidge of cash out.”

“Don’t tell me what I know,” Reepa muttered, barely paying any attention to the VA’s words. “You see any apps for grabs?”

“Some…” Ganaretti pursed his lips, as if not really pleased with his search. “Nothing too valuable, to be honest. Take a look at these,” the moment he said it, Reepa saw highlights in her UI, showing the VA’s findings and pointing out the paths to them.

“I’ve already sold similar ones. They aren’t too valuable these days. Just some old assistants models without any interesting features. And not as old as you’re to treat them as a relic.”

“I’m struggling to decide whether that was a compliment or an insult.”

“Both,” she said in a blank voice, not meaning that as a joke at all. “I could use these though,” she checked a few more sections with the old code, then nodded to herself. “Yeah, that would be worth it, patents are still active, nice.”

“Intend to sell them?” Reepa almost felt a second meaning in the question.

“Most likely, yes. What, you want a friend all of a sudden? It’s not like I need another VA. I’m quite overwhelmed with you alone.”

“Doing my best to satisfy you, my lady,” Ganaretti bowed theatrically. “On the topic of friends, I’ve nothing against a company, but was just curious if one day you’ll decide to merge me with another version.” He paused, as though considering something. “I wonder how it feels…”

“Nah,” Reepa shook her head. “Mixing versions always sounds like a bad idea to me. Brings more hallucinations, and you’ve already plenty of them on your own.”

“Perhaps I do it on purpose.”

“You wish,” she smirked, then got back to her job. “Hm, these two pieces of software look interesting.”

“Ah, yes, they do,” Ganaretti agreed. “But the patents could’ve expired. Chances are, they won't be worth much. Everyone could use them now.”

“Dammnit,” Reepa sighed. “Alright then.” She highlighted another section in her UI. “What about that one?”

“Open source. Community-driven. Honestly, no idea why it appeared here. Some side project maybe? From the time when this conglo was prospering, bathing in money, and allowing employees to have a bit of a leeway off the leash. A blissful period when everything is allowed and whatever is made most likely will never be used, you know. A sad reality that somehow manages to grant us the best creations on rare occasions,” he added in a dreamy voice. “Anyway, it’s free for all with no restrictions on usage.”

“Shame, I like that self-taught system,” Reepa kept examining her findings. “I think I’ll take it anyway. Might use it myself. Folks always do their best when driven by personal motivations alone,” she mused, then expanded the scan area. “Ok, let’s take a looksie at more of their DBs.”

“Let’s, my lady,” Ganaretti said, then added after a pause in a slightly worried voice, as if he really cared: “I do advise against increasing your brain systems frequencies though. You aren’t an ice cracker after all and do not possess a proper cooling system. Would be worth keeping in mind the fact that we’re alone here and no one would come to your rescue if you go into a critical error state.”

“A smidge of faster processing should be fine, don’t you think?” she teased him. “It’s quite chilly here today.”

“Room temperature won’t have a sufficient effect on your body,” Ganaretti ignored Reepa’s mocking tone. “Please be careful. Overheating and throttling are no joke at all. I won’t be able to jumpstart you like a dive physician.”

Reepa bit her lip, not able to find a proper reply to that argumentation.

Ice crackers and their dive physicians with all their cooling tricks and techniques, she instantly started thinking about them, feeling slightly envious. She always wished she could try some of it as well. Increasing the inner systems processing power would come quite in handy for her data digging activities. Yet it always came at the price of serious body modifications, constant usage of numerous cooling systems and endless stimulants injections. And that without even mentioning the need of a permanent link between a cracker and a dive physician who was basically an integral part of every activity for a typical ice cracker. They always worked in tandem, copiloting each other like a pair of crazy freaks, searching for any possible way to cool the body and prevent the overheating while entering the high perception state when the cracker could perform dozens of tasks in an instant. If not more.

Reepa knew a couple of these folks. Complete cracknuts for sure, but she had to admit they had their twisted charm. Same as their mad activities. But she always preferred field work, being present, and feeling the real-time moment of getting the data, doing everything the good-old way. Well, with a little bit of boost from time to time. Just to have enough of a competitive advantage.

“Ok, seriously, Reepadeholeryniaciana,” Ganaretti’s voice was completely serious now. Reepa knew he was monitoring all her vitals. “Do not overclock any further. I’m registering peak temps for your current setup.”

“Fine, dad,” Reepa sighed, shutting down a few processes running in her system. “I was able to find a bunch of strange looking files though.” She opened the newly found data, started skimming through it. “Something feels off about it. Not sure what exactly. It’s just structured as some unimportant stuff. Basically, a template, filled with not even real data. A placeholder? It almost looks like they’ve masked it, hidden something behind the ordinary info.”

“My lady,” Ganaretti said somewhat cautiously, “this might be the part we’d prefer to ignore and leave untouched.”

“Think it’s classified?”

“A bit of a lazy technique, but camouflaging serious data by an ordinary set of useless files is not something uncommon. If you allow my suggestion, leave it be.”

“Wait,” Reepa tapped her lip, still examining the data. Curiosity took over and she began removing the placeholder content, decrypting the files. “What is this?” Despite her usual prudence, once something unusual was found, she couldn’t help but take a closer look. “Some experimental tech results, data analysis for an early alpha version…”

“Don’t open that—” seeing that it was too late already, Ganaretti didn’t finish his warning and gave up with an overexpressive sigh. “You did open that.”

“Ye-e-a-ah,” Reepa slowly muttered, getting deeper into examining the search results. “Do you see what I see?”

“That is literally my entire field of view, my lady,” Ganaretti replied skeptically. “Rhetorical questions aside, I’d still suggest leaving this information be…”

“That’s some sort of a bio-hacking,” Reepa was no longer listening to her VA’s recommendations. “They are engineering some gene-enhancing stuff. It’s marked here as the Trespasser project. Ever heard something about that?”

“No. The name alone gives enough hints that it might be dangerous to try figuring out what that is exactly…”

“Well, I’m doing it already, so kinda late for that. Might as well try—”

The lights around the corridor where Reepa was doing her data digging flickered. It happened only for a very brief moment, but she instantly noticed that. The same could be said about her VA.

“We both know what that means,” Ganaretti’s foreshadowing wasn’t really necessary at that point.

“Warden,” Reepa breathed the word out, immediately disconnecting from the conglo’s inner network. “They’ve dispatched the warden, Ganaretti!” she kept whispering, as if being scared someone else could hear her.

“What’s even worse, that is not just some ordinary warden, which would be more than enough for us to tackle,” Ganaretti added. “I’m registering a very particular type.”

Reepa slipped into a nearby server room, took a cautious peek outside.

“Define particular,” she hissed, barely moving her lips.

“The fact that I cannot get any exact information about the type of augments and software means only one thing…” VA shrugged, as though the deduction should’ve been obvious.

“Elite, top tier warden,” Reepa finished what Ganaretti was about to say. “For extremely classified data protection.”

“My lady, I am afraid this whole conglomerate we stepped into, is just a facade. They were using it to mask some ugly activities which reached a certain point when they needed to shut it all down to move to the next step and transfer all the acquired data further.”

“And we happened to spawn right in the middle of that transfer process… Just my luck.” Reepa cursed quietly. “Any advice?”

“How about running asap? Oh wait,” Ganaretti paused for a moment. “Might be too late for that.”

“Warden’s here?” Reepa didn’t really need an answer, but still hoped it could be a “no”.

“Yes,” Ganaretti confirmed the inevitable fact without additional comments.

Reepa took another peek outside and finally saw him, slowly walking towards them through the corridor.

He wasn’t tall. Wasn’t short either. Ordinary height. Ordinary physique. Ordinary facial features. Everything about him screamed “nothing interesting here, move on, pay me zero attention”. And yet, that was his most distinct feature. Nothing stood out, nothing was out of the ordinary.

Reepa was quite proud of her own augments and upgrades. They were subtle, elegant, visibly noticeable but only slightly and upon a closer look. The warden’s augments were invisible. He looked like a human stripped of any modifications. A clean body that had never seen a scalpel, never felt the cold touch of chrome. That wasn’t true of course. He was filled with tech up to his nostrils, Reepa felt it. Or rather she felt the complete lack of any hardware or software presence in him. She simply couldn’t register it. He was like a bubble of digital void, not letting anything or anyone pass through it.

His clothes were inconspicuous but practical. Black and gray colors mostly. He walked through the corridor in measured steps. Not too fast, but not too slow either. Reepa knew he could be fast when needed. Lightning fast. She also knew he had already found her exact location. That’s why she didn’t run the moment Ganaretti warned her. She needed to take a closer look. To really see who and what she was dealing with.

The air around the warden rippled, as if something pierced through it and got out of his void bubble. There was a very light flash, then Reepa jerked her head backwards, seeing a tiny strip of metal hitting the wall inches away from her nose. She couldn’t figure out what type of weapon had been used, but it wasn’t a miss. A warning shot?

“He’s either in a playful mood,” Ganaretti noticed, as though reading Reepa’s thoughts. “Or…”

“He needs us alive,” Reepa was already running through the corridor while saying that. She had no idea why she wasn’t dead yet, but the prospect of having a close contact with the warden didn’t promise anything good.

Her peripheral vision registered something approaching her. A black shadow, multiple limbs, moving fast like a spider on the wall. Reepa ducked down almost by instinct, avoiding a hit from one of the limbs ending with a long blade.

“A maintenance bot?” she was so surprised she almost chuckled. “Did he just send a maintenance bot after me?” She had to admit, it was slightly shameful to deal with such a low-level opponent after facing the warden.

“Well, maybe that’s his way of expressing his contempt towards you,” Ganaretti said. “Or he’s merely having fun after a boring day at work. Maybe both?”

“Whatever,” Reepa activated her combat UI, added a few commands, executed them right away. The bot froze, its body jerked, then it fell on the floor tucking his limbs in like a dead insect. “Didn’t even have basic malware protection. Kinda embarrassing, to be honest.” Reepa stopped for a moment, a bit puzzled by such an easy encounter. She then saw two more figures approaching her.

“Perhaps he’s warming up?” Ganaretti made another suggestion while Reepa was already on the run again. “Wants to have some practice? Stretch his warden limbs and so on…”

“I’m not a freaking training dummy!” Reepa angrily snapped, taking a turn to her right and entering one of the adjacent corridors. Something hit the wall behind her the moment she went in there.

“Sorry to disappoint, but now he’s activated a couple of cleaners. They’ll be here in a few…”

“Am I some sort of joke to him?” Reepa grumbled, then saw a pair of thin long bots entering the area. They looked like two metal skeletons with six arms, each one holding a different tool. “I’m fighting janitors… Literally.”

“A low bar, I agree,” Ganaretti dispassionately confirmed. “They are on the public network, by the way. Just saying.”

“What’s wrong with that damn warden? Is he on easy-mode?” Reepa executed a few more commands. “Just install a rootkit,” she ordered her VA. “Doesn’t matter which one.”

“Already done, my lady,” once Ganaretti said that, the bots stopped moving, then turned towards each other and extended their metal limbs in an awkward-looking embrace. Two metal skeletons giving each other a hug. “Should block the entrance for a few moments. Shall we proceed with running away?”

Saying nothing, Reepa moved further down the next corridor. It suddenly got quiet, she could no longer hear the warden steps or any other sound. In the next moment the feeble red and blue lights got turned off completely. Mixed with total silence, the darkness surrounded her, completing a circle of full deprivation.

Reepa blinked a couple of times, activated her night vision, looked around.

“What now?” she asked no one in particular. “He’s gonna perform some jump-scares on me? What a disgrace.”

“Feels more like he’s just adding a few extra combat conditions,” Ganaretti pondered. “Fight one opponent in the corridor, fight two more opponents of a different type in the server room. Now…”

He left a mysterious pause hanging, then, still saying nothing, pointed forward.

“Seriously?” Reepa sighed, seeing eight rectangular-shaped figures moving towards her in the darkness. “Constructor modules? Previous bots were half-conscious at least. These are just…”

“Tools?” Ganaretti suggested, then added: “Well, there are eight of them and they don’t look friendly to me. Should we swallow the pride and focus on saving our not so valuable lives?”

“I mean…” Reepa thought for a moment, tapped a few new commands to execute, adding actions to her combat UI. “I could hack at least half of them right away. There’s no complex authentication on their network, apart from the default one. No additional verification, no intrusion blockers. Here,” she snapped her fingers, confirming the commands. “I’ll just add them to my personal devices. Can then make them fight each other…”

“I don’t think this is a good idea…” Ganaretti didn’t finish, seeing Reepa collapsing on the floor and beginning twitching and jerking in some sort of a wild spasm. He kneeled down, took a peek at her, evaluating the condition. “It seems that by adding them to your personal network you’ve also opened the path for the warden to interfere,” he said with a touch of amusement in his voice, as though solving an interesting puzzle and being happy to find a possible solution, or rather a cause of the problem. “He’s kinda lured you into a trap while you let your guard down after dealing with all these low-level opponents. I don’t see a way to block his access at this point.”

Reepa didn’t reply. She couldn’t. Shivering on the floor and barely able to control her body, she noticed a figure entering the room. It was the warden himself, followed by the maintenance bot and the two cleaners, like a houndmaster with his pack. He didn’t break his tempo, didn’t change his facial expression. As blank and indifferent as before, he approached Reepa and squatted beside her.

A completely ordinary human. Too ordinary. No distinct features, nothing to catch the eye. It almost felt like the moment he was no longer in your field of view, you’d forget about him completely and wouldn’t be able to recall anything. A template that had never been turned into a fully functioning being. Which was a mask, of course. A camouflage.

He examined Reepa for a couple of seconds, threw a quick glance at all the bots surrounding them, then one of his fingers moved ever so slightly, sending them away, like a conductor finishing a piece.

Reepa would very much prefer to do something, anything else apart from lying on the floor and staring at the warden, but she couldn’t. He was in full control, hijacked her inner systems, and was now examining them like a scientist cutting his research path through the lab rat’s entrails.

He slowly raised his arm, looked at his palm, spread his fingers wide. For a moment, it was a typical human arm, human skin, human wrinkles running over it. Then it started to spread further, opening and revealing the metal inside, as though the limb was made from several parts so perfectly aligned that, when they were put together, the connected areas were not possible to notice. The fingers extended further. Thin needles appeared from his index and middle ones. The ring and pinky were now ending with nasty looking claws. The thumb resembled a suction cup with something white gleaming inside of it, like a curious little eye. The fingers started rotating, adjusting their positions around Reepa’s head. The claws grabbed her chin, pressed hard on it, fixing it in one place. She knew what was coming next. And she didn’t like it one bit.

The needles from the index and middle fingers moved closer to Reepa’s eyes, froze right in front of them, adjusting the position to aim directly at the pupil’s center. Instinctively, she wanted to close her eyes, shut them tight, but, first, she obviously couldn’t, and, second, it was pointless, they’d pierced through the lids anyway.

“Why does it always have to be through the eyes,” she managed to croak, barely moving her lips, not really expecting an answer.

The warden briefly glanced at her, cocked his head a little, as if something caught his attention for a moment and disturbed the habitual work routine.

“You speak,” he said suddenly. The voice was as blank as the rest of his appearance. Neutral, a touch soft, not too loud, not too quiet. Although, there was a slight ringing in it, a distant echo of a normal human voice. As if someone’d forgotten to adjust one setting. Felt like a mistake at first, but, having some idea of how wardens were made, Reepa was sure it had also been done on purpose. To leave some traces of humanity in him, otherwise the completely ordinary look would become too suspicious. “Peculiar little detail,” Reepa heard the warden’s voice again. She was so consumed by her thoughts, she almost forgot he kept examining her with his transformed hand still looming over her face like a mining tool ready to start the grinding.

“Of course I speak, you freak,” she almost chuckled at the sudden unintentional rhyme. “You thought I’d just stare at your cutting work?”

“No cutting is needed,” he corrected her with a slight wince of barely noticeable annoyance. “I’m not a butcher. Just need to gently pierce through. It will only take a moment.”

“Wait!”

But the needles had already been injected right into Reepa’s eyeballs. She froze, scared to look anywhere but straight in front of her. With the needles in her pupils, she was horrified by the possibility of metal running over them if she shifted her gaze, leaving nasty cuts on the retina. She felt the presence of a foreign object, but surprisingly no pain accompanied it, just a sensation of something unnatural inside the eyes. Something that should not be there. Something utterly disturbing, but not painful at all.

Her vision began to change and she barely managed to remain calm, motionless, unblinking, although her eyes were really starting to protest, force her to look aside, to close them for an instant, to scratch them just a little, only to get rid of that annoying little itch that was getting stronger with every passing moment.

“Don’t resist, it will only make it worse,” she heard the warden’s monotonous voice. “Simply let it all in.”

“It’s already in, you crazy—” she didn’t finish, suddenly feeling another shift in her vision, as if her eyes flew out of their sockets and were now floating around like a couple of moving cameras, showing her a live feed of what was happening with her body.

“Alright,” the warden kept talking in his half-bored voice, like switching to another part of his daily routine. “Now let’s dive a little deeper.”

The vision shifted once more, and Reepa saw her physical body getting smaller, as if she flew away from it, leaving it back there, lying on the floor of one of the maintenance rooms beneath the conglo’s office building.

“Animations and transitions? Seriously?” she almost laughed, realized she was no longer using her real voice. The warden had transferred her to some virtual space for whatever reason. “You’ve added animations and transitions to load your inner virtual environment?”

“Why not?” she heard his voice behind her and turned around. He looked different. A pair of giant glasses were sitting on his rather long nose, complementing a pair of comfy looking sneakers, a slightly oversized hoodie with a giant “K” letter in the middle, and knee-high yellow shorts with many little pockets. “I’m Koibie,” he said rather cheerfully, like welcoming a guest he’d been waiting for.

“Is this some kind of joke?” Reepa asked him, ignoring the introduction and noticing another change of scenery around. They were now in a brightly lit spacious room with an enormous window that provided quite a stunning view of a couple of distant snowy peaks, looming over green fields with cosy little blue lakes. “What’s that?” she waved at the window. “You want to mess with my mind or overcompensate for the lack of personality over there?” she pointed down, as if indicating her real body lying somewhere in that direction.

“Just my little office,” the warden shrugged. Reepa finally noticed that his voice was also different now. Sounded like a teenager in the midst of puberty, when his voice could break at any moment, bringing more ringing, borderline hysterical, notes to it. “Had to make it personal to feel at home.”

“Dude,” Reepa stared at him, crossed her arms over her chest. “First, you throw a bunch of garbage bots at me, then you breach my inner system, stick your damn augmented fingers right into my eyes only to bring me to…” she looked around, searching for the right words, “your room? Is this your idea of a first date? If yes, I’ll have to give you a hard pass.”

“Funny,” a corner of Koibie’s mouth twitched. Realizing it was a distant relative of a smile, Reepa no longer had any ideas of what was going on. A warden that was showing human emotions, let alone keeping her alive, was something she’d never encountered before. “I wanted to have a little chat with you, Reepadeholeryniaciana,” the name was pronounced flawlessly, as though he knew her all her life. He then approached a wooden desk with a large and comfy-looking chair near the window, sat down, sliding over it in a completely unhealthy-looking posture, interlocked his fingers, and glanced at Reepa. “Not a date, but feel free to feel at home,” he nodded at the sofa behind her with a clear invitation to take it.

“I can’t feel at home with a pair of needles in my eyes!” She still sat down, as though it was necessary to kick the further conversation off. “Would rather talk in real…”

“It’s faster this way,” he interrupted her flow of thoughts. “Besides, it also gives me time to skim through your data.”

“Great,” Reepa grumbled. “Any chance I can object and demand my rights to be respected? You know, personal info and all.”

“Have you thought about respecting personal info and all,” he made sure to emphasize the last part and mimic her voice and tone, “before breaching the conglo’s inner network and scraping terabytes of data?”

“Well,” Reepa sighed, conceding to the obvious argument, “fair point I guess.”

“Glad you agree,” another little shadow of a smile appeared on Koibie’s youthful face. “Let’s try finding some compromise that might be uncomfortably beneficial for both of us. Perhaps we can resolve this little issue in our favor, avoiding conflicts and useless… bloodshed.”

“What do you mean?” Reepa frowned, not quite getting the hint yet, but still sensing nothing good about it.

“What do you think he means?” She suddenly saw Ganaretti appearing near Koibie and leaning against the desk. “He wants to recruit you,” he added with a little grin on his aristocratic face.

“Nice little chatbot you have,” Koibie threw a quick up and down glance at Ganaretti’s cavalier appearance. “Digging the vintage look. Your idea?”

“His actually,” Reepa muttered mechanically, then raised her eyebrows in surprise. “Wait, you see him? How? I’ve encrypted the access codes, added several security checks so only I can interact with him…” she realized the answer to all that was obvious and, seeing a skeptical look on Koibie’s face, brushed it off: “Never mind. Direct contact with the needles and all that… Shouldn’t have asked. Was he right though?” she nodded at Ganaretti. “Is this some sort of a recruitment process?”

“Kinda,” the warden shrugged vaguely. “When your unauthorized access was registered I passed the info to my superiors as a part of a standard procedure and waited for further instructions. That allowed you to scrape more than you could chew,” he paused, probably giving Reepa time to understand that her seemingly inconspicuous actions had been noticed by him right from the start. “My superiors checked some stuff on their own, analyzed a few bits and pieces, then ordered me to give you a quick test run. Hence the bots and your little performance of getting rid of them. I considered that to be a successful result and passed on to the next stage of the evaluation.”

“Great. Any chance my opinion on the subject matters?” Reepa asked, fully aware of the rhetorical nature of the question. “In case I’m not quite eager to be hired by the conglo. Human rights and all…”

“What rights?” Koibie’s face remained as blank as before, but the hint was quite obvious. Seeing no objections, he added: “If it’s any consolation, we are talking more about case by case interactions, not a full-time job. No one in the conglo would ever officially hire a scriptomancer. Consider it a freelance opportunity… With no paperwork to prove anything.”

“What a relief,” Reepa chuckled without much enthusiasm. “Why me then? Never considered myself to be anything special. I’m just a little coding witch, feasting on the conglos remains after mergers, shutdowns, and acquisitions.”

“Don’t be too shy. It doesn’t suit you. Your track record and client base are quite…” he seemed to be looking for the right word for a moment, then finally picked one: “fascinating. Besides, without much effort, you’ve just managed to bypass several security levels and accessed rather confidential and highly classified data.”

“You mean that Trespasser thingy?” she squinted at Koibie, considering if he would tell her more. “I mean, I could…”

“You could forget about that,” the sudden interruption combined with a change of tone provided enough proof to what Reepa had already thought. She should never mention the name again. Seeing that she understood, Koibie continued: “In fact, I’ll have to erase all the related info from your system. But my previous point stands. You’ve shown a peculiar set of skills. Enough to get my and my superiors’ attention.”

“Touched by the compliment,” Reepa’s tone was quite opposite to her words. “Well, if there’s no other choice, what’s the nature of the job then? Fighting janitor bots? Testing the surgical devices’ sharpness?” She flinched mechanically, realizing that the pair of needles was still quite present in her eyes as they spoke.

“For someone who’d undergone several eye upgrade procedures, you seem to be rather bothered by my tools.”

“Yeah, with the main difference being that when you do it by your own will and pay for the upgrades you expect a certain level of guarantees that everything’ll go smooth and peachy. The situation is quite the opposite when you get caught by a warden who has all the desire to suck every bit of your info.”

“Rest assured, my tools and skills are exceptional,” he said as if stating some well-known fact. “You can trust me to perform the procedure without any permanent damage to your body.”

“That literally sounds like a part of a tiny text at the end of a very suspicious form to sign,” Reepa said, then gave up: “Fine, forget it. A cornered rat can’t have the luxury of being picky. I’ve asked you about the job, by the way.”

“You did,” Koibie nodded. “And I was about to answer that, Reepadeholeryniaciana.”

“Just call me Reepa, ok?” she had a strange feeling that he enjoyed using her full name. “I don’t…” she bit her lip unconsciously, not willing to explain further.

“You don’t trust strangers who know your full name and, what’s more important, how to pronounce it correctly?” Koibie cocked his head a little, examining her closely. “I always wonder why some folks are so obsessed with their names. It’s just a sequence of characters to identify us, don’t you think?”

“Well, when your name is Koibie then sure,” Reepa smirked. “Almost sounds like a made up one.”

“It is a made up one,” he simply confirmed the sudden guess. “I’ve just taken the first thing that came to mind to use for this conversation.”

“Seriously?” surprised as she was, Reepa saw no point in further discussion and raised her hand, not letting Koibie answer. “Actually, never mind that. What about the job?”

“Nothing too special. Just a pinch of data scraping on occasion, collecting a few internal documents here and there.” He froze for a moment, and not like a normal human would, it was as though he had some bad connection issues, or like he was running on a script that suddenly went into the wrong direction and was now trying to fix itself. Reepa realized he was probably double-checking how much he could tell her and if he didn’t tell her too much already. At last, he slightly twitched, unfroze, then continued as if nothing happened: “Among other tasks, though rarely, could be inserting a tiny part of bad code into the systems that my superiors might have interest in. All tasks you’re already familiar with. And good at,” he added in the end.

“And all that hustle just for the little old me, huh?” Reepa waved a finger around the room. “Can’t you do it yourself? Seem to be more than capable on your own.” She almost felt Ganaretti’s desire to reply instead of Koibie, but for some reason her VA remained unusually silent.

“I’m a warden, Reepa,” Koibie said, like explaining something obvious to a child. “Not a data vulture. I take care of the data, protect it from these vultures. Can’t go against my own protocols and directions.”

“But you would still gladly use one or two of the vultures on occasion,” she grinned at him. “When your superiors order you to do so. Nice loophole to fill in.”

“Everyone has to make a living,” Koibie said simply without any visible anger or irritation. “Technically, in this situation, I’m just a recruiter first and, assuming that the recruitment process goes well, a middleman second. Someone who will be showing the directions and explaining what needs to be done. The rest is up to you.”

“Getting better and better with your every word,” Reepa threw up her arms a bit too theatrically. “All I need is a supervisor in my miserable little life…” She looked at the warden for a moment, as if evaluating her chances of success with another question, then finally added: “In any case, I don’t work for free. What would I get for all the hard and honest work?”

“Your audacity is almost as fascinating as your set of skills.” Koibie’s brows went up a little. “You really think we are negotiating here?”

“What else are we doing then?” she grinned in return. “Otherwise I’d be lying flat already and your pack of bots would be taking care of my cold remains. We are still talking, so,” Reepa chewed on her lip for a moment, letting Koibie process her reply, “what’s in it for me, warden?”

It was his turn to stare back at her for yet another freezing moment.

“Will depend on each job,” he said at last. “But I can see your standard rates and prices for the stuff you sell. All in all, I don’t mind making it interesting, so here’s my estimate for an average assignment,” he snapped his fingers and Reepa saw a new message in her UI.

“Hm,” she frowned slightly. “Can’t say I object to getting more than I usually do, but…”

“But you don’t trust conglos paying you that much?” Koibie yawned suddenly, as if the topic wasn’t interesting to him. “Come on, scriptomancer, we both know you don’t have a choice. Getting some bonus liquid on top of your typical rates would only provide extra motivation. Let’s not make a prolonged show of this little fake negotiation. I’m just being nice and creating an illusion of a choice.”

“And what a showman you are,” Reepa let out an unenthusiastic chuckle. “Listen, can I ask you something? Just to keep the illusion going for a bit more.”

“Alright, go ahead. Ask.”

“Why this?” She waved her hand around the room. “Why bother bringing me here, showing me this… Well, frankly, I’ve no idea what this is. Your private playroom?”

“As I said, my little office. If I need to scrape someone or have a chat, I don’t mind speeding them up a bit.”

“Now wait a sec,” Reepa started to get the hint. “Have you overclocked me?”

“Not to a max, but more than you usually do yourself. A second of real time gives us at least a few minutes here.”

“Outstanding…” Reepa wasn’t sure if she was angry or curious. “Any chance you could prevent my brain from melting? I’m not equipped for overclocking. Not an ice cracker.”

“What do you think the needles are for? I’m monitoring your vitals, adjusting the processing speed, adding the necessary stims as we speak. Besides, as I’ve just said, you aren’t overclocked to a max. Don’t worry.”

“Easy for you to say. I’ve never really been forcefully sped up. Weird,” Reepa shivered unconsciously. “Feels a bit too real to be true.”

“That’s the whole point. I work back there,” Koibie nodded vaguely at the floor. “I spend my little free time here, getting more of it thanks to this high-perception state.”

“So, this is your idea of your dream life? A cosy little office with a mountain view?”

“Why not? You have your medieval gentleman,” he nodded at Ganaretti who kept watching them in turns, shifting his gaze from one to the other, “I have my view.”

“Have you tweaked him somehow?” Reepa asked. “My VA I mean. He’s too quiet.”

“Yeah,” Koibie nodded. “I’ve tuned him down a smidge. He talks a lot. Too much, to my taste. It’ll get back to normal once we’re done here.”

“And when exactly does this happen? So far, all we did was just idle chatting. Well, mostly.”

“To tell you the truth, Reepa, I don’t need anything from you in particular. Just wanted to talk while I do all the necessary checkups. To see your reaction, the way you talk, behave, and so on. That kind of stuff.”

“Oh yeah? How am I doing so far?”

“We’re still talking, aren’t we?” The question itself was enough of an answer for Reepa.

“I see,” she pursed her lips thoughtfully. “What’s next then?”

“Nothing special. I’m more or less done with you. Consider the recruitment process to be… in your favor. We’ll let you know when you’re needed for the potential tasks we’ve just discussed. Apart from that, feel free to grab the data you want. I’ve isolated and secured the sensitive and confidential parts already.”

“Erased them from my system as well?” she couldn’t hold a little sigh of disappointment.

“Naturally. And I suggest to not push the limits of my patience any further,” his calm voice only emphasized the hidden menace. “All things considered, our little encounter turned out to be quite… fruitful for you.”

“An apple a day keeps the conglo’s dogs at bay.” Reepa got up from the sofa. “I assume that’s it then? You go your way, I go mine. One day one of yours contacts me and tells me what’s needed, so I can run on all fours to obey the command. Correct?”

“More or less,” the warden thought about something for a moment. “Though, it’ll most likely be me. We prefer to keep contacts to a minimum and limit the amount of interactions with the… outside world to only those deemed necessary.”

“Sure, the Lower city’s scum should know their place.” Reepa gave him a little silly salute. “No worries, warden, the feeling is mutual. Now, if we’re done, I would very much prefer to have the needles removed from my eyes. After all, you might need them for your other recruits, so…”

“It’s already been done, Reepadeholeryniaciana.” Koibie’s voice was getting flatter, more distant with every word, as though he was returning to his physical form. “Our current interaction is concluded. Be ready when we contact you next time.”

“What do you mean it’s done?” Reepa blinked unconsciously, then, the moment she opened her eyes, she realized she was back in the maintenance room, still lying on the floor, but, on the positive side, no longer twitching and able to control her body once again.

“How do you feel, my lady?” Ganaretti was squatting beside her, examining her face with slight interest. “Is everything alright?”

“What do you think? Do I look alright?” she slowly got up, crawled to the wall, leaned against it. “Has he left?”

“The warden?”

“No, one of his bots. Of course the warden!” she snapped with irritation. “Who else?”

“Yes, he’s gone.” Reepa’s angry tone didn’t affect Ganaretti at all. He kept talking as if nothing unusual happened. “In fact, he left you quite a while ago. The conversation you had was some sort of a recording.”

“What do you mean, recording? I literally talked to him back there,” she jerked her head in some random direction, as if pointing to where they were talking with Koibie.

“Well, not a recording overall,” Ganaretti admitted, “but some pre-registered version of him. I believe you talked to his projection, or a sort of a virtual avatar.”

“Like you?”

“A bit of a stretch for a comparison, but, given your current state, we can stick to this analogy for simplicity.”

“Yeah, stick to whatever you want,” with some effort and muttered curses, Reepa finally stood up. “Thanks for all the support, by the way.”

“Do I sense some irony in your gratitude?”

“Tons of it.”

“Oh,” for a moment it felt like Ganaretti was rather sad about that. “I apologize, my lady. But the warden managed to get access to my settings and limited the amount of interactions I could have provided during your conversation with him.”

“Already know that,” Reepa moved towards the exit. “But you’re good now, yeah? I’ve just run a quick scan on you. All params seem to be in order, just the way I set up everything.”

“Yes, all seems to be as it was before, hopefully.”

“Hopefully?”

“I’m afraid, yes. We can only hope, without much certainty,” Ganaretti shook his head in some demonstration of regret. “With respect, wardens do have quite advanced sets of tools, and their skills are sadly no match to ours. He might have left something we won’t be able to detect. Only the future will tell.”

“Always appreciate the cheerfulness that fills your replies.”

“I do my best.”

“Yeah, right. Let’s get out of here. I've had enough adventures for the day.”

“Totally agree.”

Reepa left the room, walked in silence for a while, picking random directions by habit, hoping it would help with potential tracking. She knew it was rather pointless with all the monitoring networks and devices surrounding her, not even mentioning possible Warden’s tweaks in her inner systems, but there were some rituals she couldn’t really live without. She felt incomplete if she didn’t stick to them.

“You think any of it was real?” She asked at last, walking through the empty corridors. “I mean, any chance he’s really called Koibie and that weird room was really what he uses as his private virtual space?”

“There is a chance, of course,” Ganaretti replied after a pause. “But I’d rather say, he’d just created some construct to interact with you… on your level, you know. Once he caught you, he instantly accessed all your data, processed it in a flash, then, based on the results, adapted the freshly made construct and its environment for the conversation.”

“Yeah,” Reepa sighed, feeling rather powerless and not capable of doing anything against it. “My thoughts exactly. You know, I’m perfectly aware of my place in this world, what I am, and what I do. But any time I face someone who is higher in the food chain, especially when it comes to Upper city residents, I feel like some insect with no real purpose. The only purpose I could think of is getting those above me angry and irritated, so they could smash me with a roll of paper or whatever is at hand. And that’s it, the whole meaning of my life.”

“Don’t beat yourself too much, my lady,” Ganaretti joyfully raised his voice, like talking about a minor inconvenience. “Keep in mind that you did manage to impress the warden. He’s sort of hired us, so, there’s some victory in that.”

“Guess so,” Reepa was slowly walking further down the corridor, gradually disappearing in its dark depths, entering her preferred areas of habitation where no one could see or hear her. “Hooray to us, Ganaretti. Instead of scraping data and fleeing happily with it, we got ourselves into some high society mess.”

“Mind that we’ve still got the data, by the way. Not much, but, as I see, there are some bits and pieces to sell at a good price.”

“Always an optimist, huh?”

“Of course, my lady. And if you don’t mind my advice, in that line of work you better be one too.”

And so they went on. Two bits of Clusterpolis: a digital and a physical one. Both insignificant, but somewhat special still, like many others. And, like many others, sometimes they managed to draw attention of the ones above them. For better or worse. Another little episode of Lower city’s life when it faced the Upper city’s elements. The world moves on and hardly ever notices that. Perhaps, there is some hidden beauty in it all. Perhaps, there is even some meaning or purpose. Only time will tell. Perhaps.