Chapter Nineteen – Log Off

Chapter Nineteen – Log Off

“If you don’t know your Mesh etiquette, then you’ll end up being the one caught walking around with your fly down. The one that others shy away from because you’re too loud at the wrong time.

Strap yourselves in, kids, because we’re going to be learning a whole lot today!”

–Meshy the Manatee, a Nimbletainment Education Mascot/Vtuber. June 2036

***

“Thanks you two,” I said. “You’ve been surprisingly helpful.”

Dial-Up scoffed, shaking his head enough that his wild mane of white hair wiggled around. “Think nothing of it. You could do with learning a bit more about the Mesh though.”

I shrugged my kitty shoulders, and when the room turned into a grand library without so much as a twitch, I didn’t startle. “I’m getting used to it, I think. But I have something waiting for me in the real world.”

Lag shook his head with a rusty squeak. “This is the real world,” he said. “It’s perceptible, and follows its own set rules. It’s even, technically, physically present. It’s just different enough that some of us like it better here than in the IRL.”

“But you still call it the IRL?” I asked.

He moved his arms in a sort of ‘what can you do’ gesture. “We need to call it something.”

I looked around the library, at the dusty shelves and old books. Daniel looked entirely out of place hovering there. “Well, I’m off to go scare the truth out of some mercs. Thanks again. I’ll get the girl to send you some digital flowers or something once I get her ass out of the fire.”

Dial-Up barked a laugh. “Sure. I think I’d like that. You know where the exit is,” he said with a gesture behind me.

A glance back showed a heavy double door at the end of the library. “Can’t I just log out from here?”

Daniel sighed. “She’s real clueless, sorry,” he said.

“What?” I asked.

“You can’t just… that’s like walking into someone’s house and not taking your boots off, you know.”

“I’m not taking my boots off for anyone,” I said.

Daniel slumped in mid-air, like a squid that had just been stepped on. “Dammit. It’s like, uh, someone opening your fridge without permission, or someone not leaving the room when you want some alone time with Lucy.”

“Right, right, it’s impolite, I get it. I’m not entirely daft.”

Surprising!

“Shush you.” I turned and strutted over to the door. “See you two geeks around,” I said.

“Good luck, Stray,” Lag said.

“Don’t die!” Dial-up added.

Daniel flew past me and opened the door. A good thing, since I couldn’t actually reach the handle at all. Though it wasn’t a real door, so maybe there was a way to open it without actually interacting with the handle? There had to be something in place for the non-human avatars out there. Or maybe the digital world was just as ableist as the real world.

We didn’t end up on the same catwalk as before. Instead the door led into a sort of bazaar, or at least a spot behind a stall set in a row of them. The stalls were wildly different, some looking like authentic wooden things from back when wood was a thing people could afford, and others looked like the sort I’d seen in pictures of conventions.

Some decided to raise their middle fingers to gravity and were just floating there, or weren’t actually stalls being geometric things hovering around.

“What’s this place?” I asked.

“An NPC marketplace,” Daniel said. “The people behind the stalls are programs. They sell stuff.”

“People can’t navigate a shopping site here?” I asked.

There were a few dozen avatars walking past the kiosks and staring, but for the most part the room felt way too big for the number of people present.

“It’s more of a personalization thing,” Daniel said. “You know, meeting someone, bartering, having a face to match the item.”

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“But that face is a program with no one behind it?” I asked. “Right, internet weirdness.”

“You’re way too young to be shitting on Mesh culture,” Daniel said.

I snorted and sat down. “So, where’s the log-out button on this thing.”

“You can’t log here,” Daniel said. “Come on, let’s step out of the building first.”