Digital Galaxies

We entered the rec room slowly, me behind Cerri due to the intense anxiety that was threatening to swallow me whole. God, I was so scared the others wouldn’t accept me. I mean, I know that Cerri’s friends would be chill, but my own? They didn’t even know about Cerri, let alone me.

“What happened to her?” David demanded immediately. “What do you know?”

Clutching at my friend’s hand, I stepped out from behind her, eyes glued to the carpet. I did wave though, so that was something. Everyone was there, the whole crew sitting or standing and generally lounging around near the door.

There was a long pause as everyone stared at me, along with a quiet gasp of understanding from Gloria of all people.

“How…?” David asked slowly, clearly confused as to how I could be logged in and kidnapped at the same time.

Ed knelt down, resting his forearms on his knees as he forced me to look at him. I couldn’t do anything other than give him a wavering apologetic smile.

“Okay, clearly something is going on here,” Ed said at last, stopping David with a hand as he tried to move towards me. “I assume you’re a little tongue tied right now?”

I nodded, clutching tighter at Cerri’s hand. Yes. I’m scared.

“And that’s you in there? The friend we’ve known since forever?” he asked gently, searching my eyes as he spoke.

It is.

“How? What the fuck is going on?” David asked, shattering the sliver of calm that Ed had built. “What the fuck happened to our friend? H-she was just carted out of our house by some sort of weird robot.”

“Would you like me to tell them?” Cerri asked quietly, giving me a caring, reassuring smile.

I nodded, shifting closer to her in an attempt to get even a little bit of comfort. Please. It was hard to even type right now, I was just that paralyzed.

“Alright,” my friend said, taking a calming breath. Oh gosh, she was nervous too. “Alia… she had herself digitized.”

Silence filled the room, only the gentle hum of the ship was audible as everyone stared at me in shock. I noticed idly that we weren’t in aetherspace, which meant they had dropped out to wait for my little emotional crisis to be over.

“She… what?” Ed blinked, staring at me with wide eyes.

Surprisingly, David seemed to settle slightly. “Fuck, okay... that’s one way to go about it I guess.”

“Go about what?” Gloria asked curiously.

“She’s always seemed miserable as... well, the person she used to be. I figured I was going to have to talk to her about her options at some point and this was one of them,” he told us, sitting down on the back of a sofa. “Honestly, seeing her as Alia, this is the happiest she’s ever been by a significant margin. Digitization is extreme, but it does make sense.”

“Dude, she basically killed herself!” Ed exclaimed, staring at us all in horror. “She’s just a copy of our friend.”

Oh no… Ed no… please...

“I mean, copy or not, she’s the same person,” David said, glaring at his boyfriend.

“Actually,” Cerri said mildly, letting go of my hand to place it protectively around my shoulders. “Continuity of consciousness is maintained during the process. Not that it should matter to anyone but Alia.”

I was awake when it happened. I didn’t even notice anything. It had to tell me it was done with a notification, I said via the group chat. Cerri holding me was probably the only reason I wasn’t running from the room crying right then. Of all the people to get upset, I didn’t expect it from Ed.

“I was with her,” she agreed from beside me. “And also, if any of you have an issue with a digital person in general, just know that I am an SAI. Also also, I will be taking care of her in digital space, so you don’t need to worry about that.”

Also also also, I traded my body to a place that does artificial bodies. I’ll be getting one that looks exactly like this one, hopefully. Even the tail and ears, I said with a tentative grin, focusing on David as I typed it so my hopefulness wouldn’t be shattered by whatever expression Ed was pulling.

“Ah, that’s what the bot was for,” he remarked with a wry laugh. To Cerri, he gave a long, considering look. “An SAI huh? Take care of her.”

“I will, don’t worry,” she said, rubbing my shoulder. Then she leaned over and I got a kiss placed on the top of my head. I think something within me kinda melted right then and there. I almost fell over from the force of the emotions that rampaged willy nilly through my nerves like a herd of enraged wild horses. The tips of my fingers, my toes, and my lower back all lit up in a cacophony of tingles.

Ed ruined whatever that wonderful feeling was with a noncommittal groan. “Alia, you should have at least spoken to your friends first. What you did, even considering what Cerri just told us… that’s a big deal. You can’t come back from that.”

Why was he being so weird about this? What was his problem? I could feel myself losing him as this discussion went on. My control over my rising panic was slipping second by second. All I wanted to do was go back to that pillow fort with Cerri and cuddle for a week. I couldn’t though, I needed to try and get through this, I needed to try… to try… I could do it. I just. Fuck.

“I didn’t want to log out,” I said, my shaking voice barely above a whisper. “I was so scared, I didn’t want to go back to being… him. Not even once. I couldn’t do it. I know you won’t understand, I wouldn’t understand if I was looking in from the outside, but… to me, there wasn’t really a choice. That’s how awful I considered the idea of going back out, even for a few days while I recovered from being in the pod for too long.”

“We know, Alia,” David said gently. “We realised pretty quickly that you were happier in here.”

“Then why is Ed being a cunt over this?” I blurted, promptly cringing in on myself when I realised I’d said something confrontational.

“She’s an adult, it’s her decision and her decision alone,” Cerri agreed with a warning tone.

“Jesus, sorry for being worried about my friend,” Ed exclaimed, throwing his hands in the air. Giving Cerri a look that was not at all friendly, he stood up and left the room in silent anger.

We all watched him leave with a host of mixed expressions. I really hoped I didn’t lose Ed over this… I needed him. He was like a big brother to me now, the cuddly and emotionally caring sort. I guess that’s why he was so upset compared to David, who was by far the more practical of the two.

“I’ll go talk to him,” David sighed, pushing himself to his feet. He gave me a quick pat on the shoulder as he walked past, and a kind smile to go with it.

With the boyfriends gone, the rest of the crew sort of stared at me for a few moments, then all began talking at once.

They stopped again with a round of chuckles, and Roger spoke first, “Well, regardless of what he thinks, you won’t get any problems from me. It speaks a lot about your courage, if I’m honest. That’s a huge decision to make.”

“Same here,” Warren agreed with a weird laugh. The weirdness was explained when he continued, “I’ll be getting digitized soon, I think. I uh… my body isn’t exactly functional anymore. Health shit, I won’t go into it. I’m in long term storage right now while the doctors try to deal with it but my chances aren’t good.”

“I mean, yeah,” Gloria said with a nod. “Me too, but because I test fly some real dangerous shit and I don’t really want to die in some burning metal carcass because an engineer made a calculation error.”

We should totally all get an apartment together in Exodus City when they get digitized, Cerri sent to me privately. Weirdly, the message came through in a social app I’d never seen before. Exosocial. Huh. Guess we really were breaking out from under the thumb of the all powerful United Nations.

That would be amazing! I sent back, turning to grin at her. She was already waiting with a smile, bringing my chest back into flutter mode.

“What’s going on?” Gloria asked with amusement, leaning sideways to put herself in our peripheral vision. “You two talking in some sort of digital person way?”

“Yup,” Cerri chirped happily. “It’s crazy mind meld stuff, you wouldn’t understand.”

“Wait, for real?” Warren asked excitedly.

No, she’s joking, I giggled, bonking her shoulder with my head. Don’t mess with the meatlings, it’s bad manners.

“Meatlings?” Gloria asked with a mix of incredulity and amusement.

Yeah, you know… those who haven’t ascended yet, I typed as I tried to maintain an innocent, casual expression.

“Great, the robot uprising looks like a bratty, adorable little girl,” Gloria grumbled playfully. “Someone tell her to do some chores or something so she whines and hides in her room.”

“She is adorable, huh?” Cerri said with a playfully considering look down at me.

“Takes one to know one,” I shot back quietly, nudging her with an elbow.

It was kinda strange how touchy we had gotten with each other in such a short time. I guess that’s what happened when two touch starved friends open the cuddle flood gates like that. I loved it though, the physical feeling of someone caring for me was just… it was a balm applied to the wound that was my lonely life.

“Alia, I’m assuming you don’t have anything urgent to fix around the ship?” Roger interjected, ever the voice of getting-shit-done.

Not that I know of, I typed wryly, adding afterwards, Keyword there… because like, I highly doubt there isn’t something broken.

That got a chuckle out of him. “Good to know. How about you take some R and R time for yourself. Either that or help Cerri out, choice is yours.”

“I’ll set up a little cat bed in the corner of my lab for her,” Cerri smiled, clearly still in a teasing mood.

“I’m a fox,” I told her, pouting grumpily.

Cerri blinked, thrown off apparently thrown off by my response. “Oh, I know that. It is just that foxes are not generally kept as pets, so when they are, the owners will have to use products designed for other animals. Foxes, especially the fennec kind which you appear to resemble, are relatively similar in size to cats, so it made sense to use a cat bed.”

Now I was the one staring in confusion. “I thought you were teasing me…”

“Oh, no. I’ve seen how you sleep, you like to curl up and hug your tail, so it seemed like a circular bed would work,” she replied happily.

Off to the side, Gloria let out a long groan. “Jesus, you two were made for each other.”