Digital Galaxies

I stepped out of the Galicorp Spacer facility and into a wide plaza, and the first thing that hit me was the massive glass ceiling and what lay beyond it. I had been to Luna quite a few times, it was where a lot of the ultra wealthy gathered to conduct business after all. When I’d been there, the experience of looking up at earth had been wondrous, amazing in an incredibly humbling way.

This though… this was something else.

A massive blue gas giant sat out the window above me, white clouds stuck in a seemingly frozen pattern of beautiful swirls. Beyond it, I was able to make out a small green dot, about the size of the mole on my arm out in the real world. That must have been a moon for this massive planet.

“Wow,” I breathed, staring slack-jawed up at the sight.

“It’s something, ain’t it?” a feminine voice said from right next to me, causing me to jump slightly in surprise and turn to stare.

My heart gave a hiccup as I looked up at the woman next to me. She was slim, petite even, but also tall in a sort of elfin way. It was hard to describe. Then of course… was the next obvious thing. She had horns, but they weren’t just any horns. These ones protruded out from her head in gentle arcs, and their entire length was a deep dark blue that glittered faintly like it was made of granite.

Her hair was long, full and also a deep, dark blue, shimmering with the same strange starlight effect. Then, the long demon’s tail completed it using the same colouration as the horns and tail. Her face was so intensely beautiful, like… achingly good looking. Where I’d gone for a more cute look, this chick had gone for absolute perfection.

All ability to speak was instantly robbed from me, and I just kinda stared and nodded dumbly, unable to take my eyes off her.

“You alright?” she asked with a wry smile. She knew exactly what the problem was.

In an answer to her question, rather than talking, my cheeks flamed up in embarrassment. Quickly, I turned away from her, staring down at my feet as I tried to get myself under control. I wasn’t a fan of speaking at the best of times, but this was a little extreme.

Adding to my problem was the fact that I could feel her judging me. Like… what kind of weirdo gets tongue tied just by looking at a pretty girl? This creep, that’s who. I was such a social failure.

It was time to get the hell out of here. Without a word or a look, I rushed nervously away from the scary hot lady, making for the fountain at the center of the plaza. I made sure to cross around to the other side before I seated myself at one of the many benches that were set up to view the water feature.

I spent the next five minutes doing breathing exercises to try and calm myself the fuck down. At some point during my playtime, I’d started getting just… mentally overwhelmed by everything that was going on. Blue chick had been the last blow to put me down and now I was trying to regain control of the frantic nervous thoughts that flashed through my head at a million miles an hour.

It was something that always happened. If I was doing too much or there was just too much information coming at me, sooner or later my brain would just shut down and stop working. Sometimes it was so bad that I stopped being able to understand people. Like, I heard the words, but my brain just didn’t assign any meaning to the sounds I was hearing.

The only times where I was able to push through this were when I was intensely engrossed in whatever I was doing. That was sort of just a delay on the eventual overload my brain endured. Sometimes I could make it to bed before it happened, but most times it was the first moment I got any time to myself.

A chime pulled me back into the real world, and I glanced at my HUD to find a notification. It was from David using the FTLN messenger, asking if I was done with character creation yet.

Clay: Yeah. I’m done. Waiting outside the Galicorp building, on a bench next to the fountain.

David: Sweet, I just finished and Ed will be out in just a moment. See you soon.

For a moment I was confused as to why my name had shown up as my real life one instead of Alia, my ingame one, but then I remembered that duh, the real world messenger was never going to call me Alia. God, my brain was dumb sometimes.

As I continued to wait, I watched a group walk past me, six in total. The blue girl from before was with them, chatting away as if she hadn’t exploded my head earlier. She saw me staring and gave me a smile, and in spite of myself, I gave a shy smile back.

Then, of course, I blushed and looked down at my feet again, because I was incredibly lame. At least it was better than actually having to talk to her though.

A few minutes later and I heard the telltale arrival of my friends, bickering away as usual.

“Where the hell is he?” one said, who I think was Ed. His voice sounded a little different, deeper or something, I couldn’t tell.

“Not sure, let’s do a lap and see if he’s on the other side,” a voice that was definitely David said. He sounded exactly the same, and I mean… considering he looked like a video game character anyway, what was the point in making a new one?

As they came into view, I found that I was right. David looked exactly the same, and Ed had buffed himself up a bit and gotten rid of some of the podge. Otherwise, they were still very much the image of the friends I knew from outside the game.

They stared at me as they walked past, and I watched them both mentally discount me as who they were looking for. It brought a smile to my face, of the devious friend-pranking kind. They were going to get the surprise of their lifetimes when they realised that it was me inside here.

It was two laps of the fountain before they stopped a few yards away, clearly confused and annoyed. “Where the hell is he? Is he at the wrong bloody fountain or some shit?” David grumbled, bringing up a messenger window.

“Yeah this is weird, there is only one Galicorp spacer place in the port,” Ed agreed, glancing around as though I might have suddenly appeared nearby.

Sure enough, a notification popped up in my HUD, a message from David. I giggled, I couldn’t help myself. It was too funny.

That had Ed looking at me, while David stood there tapping his foot and frowning at his messenger window. I saw realisation slowly dawn in Ed’s eyes as my shit eating grin grew and grew. Goodness, the look on his face, pure amazement, disbelief, surprise, and… excitement?

“No. Fucking. Way,” he said slowly, tapping David on the shoulder.

“What?” David asked, still frowning at his HUD. “He’s not replying.”

“Yeah, because she is right there,” Ed said with great emphasis on the she part.

By this point, I was grinning like an evil demon trapped in the body of a small cyberpunk girl, and I was loving every second of their shocked faces. David’s eyes almost fell out of his head when he made the connection.

“Damn, boys… took you long enough,” I laughed, leaning back with my arms outstretched behind me. “What’s with the faces? You look confused?”

“Wow,” David breathed, and then that breath turned into a laugh. “Holy shit, Clay!”

“It’s Alia in here,” I winked, pushing myself up off the bench to walk over to them. Really didn’t want them calling me by my real name in here. That would be super weird.

“Well, Alia, aren’t you just a cutie?” Ed grinned, stepping forward with a look I knew all too well.

“Hey, arm’s length buddy! Personal space!” I growled as menacingly as I could. May as well have been a kitten for all the force it came out with. Also, being called cute had me blushing again, which was rather annoying.

“Can we keep her?” Ed asked, giving his boyfriend pleading eyes.

David pretended to mull the question over. “Depends, what skills did she pick?”

“I’ll have you know I am a renowned cyber thief! I’m also a pretty handy mechanic and I know my way around a cockpit,” I told them, hand on hip like I was a badass. I really, really wasn’t a badass though.

“Oh, I know my way around a cockp—“ Ed began to joke before David casually put an elbow in his ribs.

“Okay, okay… those are actually some good picks,” David said with a smile. “Compliments us well too. Ed here went for science and gunnery, with a background in the navy. He thought that part was hilarious, by the way.”

“It is hilarious!” Ed grumbled, frowning at David with as much vigor as he could muster.

“Yes babe,” David droned, before turning back to me and recounting his own choices, “I went for zero-g combat and rifleman skills, with a background in the marines. I plan to get a skill that’s useful on a ship the first chance I get though.”

“So you’re both two gay army boys,” I said with a rueful shake of my head. Typical.

“Navy boys, come on!” Ed exclaimed, really getting into his dramatics now.

“How come they call space military forces the navy anyway?” I mused, legitimately curious but also knowing that it would send Ed further down his silliness. “It’s all flying stuff, right? Shouldn’t it be the airforce?”

“Alright, that’s enough you little shit!” he exclaimed, rushing me with both arms outstretched. I didn’t stand a chance, finding myself lifted up onto his shoulder in a squealing bundle of outrage. Then he began to spin us both around, sending my bag flying off across the plaza.

Right into the feet of the blue girl who’d smiled at me. Her, and the rest of her crew, who seemed to have been coming to talk to us.

“Uh, hello…” Ed smiled awkwardly, letting go with one hand to wave at them like an absolute dork.