Chapter 1: Are You Seeing This?

The sound of flesh striking flesh echoed through the dim hotel room.

Watching the scene from her hiding spot on the balcony, Scarlet refocused the camera and took another picture. The silent snap of the shutter immortalized the scene before her, and she briefly considered whether she needed to get a short recording as well. Posterity, and all. She moved her camera slightly so that the lens wouldn’t reflect any light through the small gap in the curtain and continued to observe.

The woman was tied to a chair, her wrists secured and her ankles fixed with clean, deliberate knots. Whatever this was, it was obviously well planned out and professionally done. There was nothing rushed or sloppy about it. A strip of tape covered the woman’s mouth, and a dark scarf blocked her eyes. She was breathing fast, but she wasn’t straining against the restraints.

Scarlet tilted her head slightly, observing.

Without uttering a word, the man drew his hand back again to strike.

What exactly was he hoping to get out of this? Scarlet mused. From the details she’d gathered about the woman, the most remarkable thing about her was the amount of money Scarlet’s client had paid to collect that information in the first place.

A small, familiar weight shifted under her collar. Its tiny paws pressed briefly against her skin before settling again.

“Yes, yes, I know. The human mind is truly unfathomable,” she agreed quietly. Her words barely a breath in the afternoon air.

The weight shifted once more.

“Almost done,” she added more softly.

She adjusted the angle of her lens, refocused, then took another silent shot just as the man’s hand started down again. When he was only centimeters from the woman’s face he froze-

-something flickered right into the middle of Scarlet’s field of view.

She went still.

Somehow it didn’t block her sight, but it was there. Fixed, clear and impossible to ignore.

Scarlet lowered the camera slightly and read.

[Congratulations!]

[*EARTH* has reached planetary threshold for System integration]

[Commencing Initialization]

[Time until full integration: 71:59:58]

[Welcome & Good Luck]

She blinked once, blinked again, then peeked inside her shirt collar only to see a pair of beady black eyes blinking back at her.

“…ah.” So she could clearly see through the messages. They were just sort of in the way.

With the resignation of someone consistently inconvenienced by reality, Scarlet lifted the camera again, shifted her focus back to the room, and took one final silent shot before packing her camera away. Only then did she rub briefly at her forehead with two fingers, like she could press the message out of existence. Sure, she could see through it, but she wanted it to go away.

It seemed like that thought did something, because in the next moment the message disappeared. It was still there, somewhere, she could feel it, like a lingering sneeze. Present but not quite. She was somehow sure that if she wanted to she could recall the words.

On a whim, she tried to bring only the countdown timer back into view. To her mild surprise, it worked.

“…ah?” Now in the corner of her vision were a faint series of numbers inexorably counting down to… something. ‘Initialization’. Whatever that meant.

[71:57:22]

“…ah…” Yeah, it was time to go.

Across the room the man had unfrozen. His expression was now shifting in a kaleidoscope of emotions Scarlet couldn’t be bothered to decipher.

The woman made a muffled sound behind the tape.

“-mph-!”

The man leaned forward quickly and ripped the tape from her mouth.

She sucked in a breath. “Do you see this?”

“You see it too?” he shot back immediately.

“I can’t see anything and I can still see it,” she snapped. “Take this off.”

He reached up and yanked the scarf free. It caught briefly in her hair.

She winced. “Ow- Watch it-”

“What is this?” he demanded, completely ignoring the woman as he waved his hands in front of his eyes like that would help.

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Scarlet watched them for a few seconds longer.

The woman exhibited none of the panic responses she’d expect from a victim of kidnapping or assault. She’d also made no attempt to escape or struggle before the messages had popped up. The knots on her ankles and wrists were neat and accessible. The chair was positioned carefully. And on a side table there was a glass of water within reach.

This was no hostage situation. That meant that whatever they were doing was no longer any of her business.

“That’s good enough,” she murmured, slinging her camera bag over her shoulder and opening the sliding balcony door.

Both of the people in the room turned as she appeared from behind the curtains and stepped inside.

The woman blinked rapidly at her, clearly having difficulty comprehending that a third person was now standing in the room. The man followed her gaze a moment later, his expression going strange.

“Was she there before…?” the woman asked.

“The maid? Is she a part of whatever this is? A hallucination?” the man said, looking between Scarlet and the empty air in front of him. “Is she- Hey, are you real?”

Scarlet did not respond as she strode across the room to the exit. Neither of them moved to stop her. The man’s gaze snapped toward the half drunk glass of water on the table, looking at the beverage dubiously as Scarlet walked past them. They watched her go, but they didn’t interfere. Something told them a voyeur was probably the least of their problems.