Chapter Thirteen – I Have Paws

Chapter Thirteen – I Have Paws

“The Mesh is love. The Mesh is life.

Is it any wonder those of us who live by this oasis don’t want to leave our little matrix of friends and foes?”

–Anonymous Mesh user, 2049

***

“So, there are two ways to dive into the Mesh,” Daniel said as he sat up and bunched his legs beneath him awkwardly.

“Yeah, I know,” I said.

“No, you don’t,” he countered. “Now shut up and listen to daddy Daniel.”

I blinked from my spot on one of the fancy reclining couches across from him. It was a big seat, made for one person to lounge back in, and with a load of controls for positioning and such in the arm.

Lucy, of course, was currently crushing me with her bony behind while playing with my mechanical arm’s fingers. My other arm was wrapped snugly across her waist.

“Daniel, the day I call you ‘daddy’ is the day you die.”

“Of like, pleasure?” he asked.

“I could buy a taser,” I mused. “Maybe some sort of automatic whip that hears people talking shit and just slaps them for it?”

“Oh, fuck off,” Daniel said. “Fine, no need to call me daddy. Maybe Big D?”

“I’ve seen you naked,” I pointed out. “It’s horrific, and anything but big.”

“You wound me,” he said.

“I could find someone else to show me this shit you know?” I asked.

Daniel grinned back. “Fine. So like I was saying before you threw a snit over my nicknaming choices, there are two kinds of dives in the Mesh. This shit’s not the internet where you’re just skimming the surface. There’s mid-diving, which is slipping into the Mesh with normal aug-gear. You see stuff, and you can manipulate objects in-Mesh using whatever controls you have installed.”

I nodded. “Yeah, it’s the internet as an MMO, I know.”

He nodded. “Yeah, it’s normie shit. A Full dive, a deep dive, that’s something else. You need much better mods for that, and it locks your body up. Moving shit in your head moves things in-Mesh. I think you’ve tried that at school, yeah?”

“I remember that,” Lucy said. “We had to wear that hat with the little nubs. You could still move around though.”

“A shower-cap, yeah,” Daniel said. “That’s low-level though. Real pros, real divers, they have some crazy ass gear that lets them go deep. It turns off your body, kinda like when you’re asleep. Try not to wake up before your brain realizes it. Sleep paralysis is freaky as shit. Had to replace one of my augs cause I kept getting stuck in between for a few minutes at a time.”

“Wait,” Lucy said. “Was that when you paid Nose to slap you every morning?”

Daniel frowned. “Little shit kept slapping me for weeks even after I replaced the faulty aug.”

Lucy and I chuckled for a bit. “Alright, alright. So I’m just going in to meet some people. I don’t need to go deep dive, right?”

Daniel’s expression shifted a few times. “I mean, no, but yeah. Mid-dives are cheap. You need to do it sometimes because you don’t have the time and place for a full dive, but to people that are always jacked into the Mesh, that’s like, I don’t know, showing up to a wedding in jeans and a tank-top instead of a suit. It’s lazy normie mode.”

I rolled my eyes. “Myalis, you’ve got some cheap full-dive gear?”

Cheap? No. Inexpensive? Yes. A ten-point Full-Dive Module augmentation should be all you need, especially since it would connect to your Mark II Cyberwarfare Augmentation.

“That sounds good enough,” I said. “Lucy, are you coming with?”

“Hmm? No, I need to keep an eye on the kittens. You know how they get when they think no one’s watching them.”

They’re currently attempting to capture your Dumbass drone with a laundry basket.

“Oh-kay,” I said. “Just don’t do anything too kinky while I’m out of it,” I said.

Lucy pouted. “But what if I really want to?”

I pulled her close and pecked a kiss on her cheek. “Just a little then,” I said. “Daniel, how do we meet up in the Mesh?”

“Uh, I’ll send you an address. Shouldn’t be hard to meet, we’re diving from the same local net, that’ll place us in the same area.”

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This might feel like you’re sneezing backwards.

“Huh?” I asked. And then it hit and my head bounced back and I felt my nose scrunching up. “Oh, oh fuck that’s weird,” I said a moment before the weird tingling in my head shifted.