Chapter 386: 29: Beautiful Emptiness

Shinichi gave in to Danika's worried prompting when he returned, and spent a few hours sleeping in the VR-medi pod before moving back to their bed when he woke up. In the morning he got up and had breakfast with her, or perhaps he stayed in to have breakfast with her, since he seemed to feel more energetic.

When Danika settled herself in place to log into the new server, she checked the record and stopped. She didn't bother to exit the pod, she just called Shinichi on her phone. It was kind of a lazy way to talk when they were both in the same house, but so much less trouble than getting out and back into place before she was late.

"You're sick," she told him. The long silence that met her statement made her wish she'd made it a video call, and she added a little nervously, "I mean, the pod says you were running a low fever last night and that you probably have a cold. There's a link to a page advising fluids and rest and whatnot. It might be wrong since you seem to be feeling better already…"

Shinichi interrupted her with a sigh, and told her, "No, it's probably right. I'll call our manager."

"What? Why?" she asked with confusion.

"If I'm sick, odds are that we'll all get sick. We can't afford to be sick. You don't want to know how much it costs to cancel a concert," he explained.

"Oh… I'm sorry," Danika replied unhappily.

Shinichi chuckled and replied, "It's not your fault. Have it check you too, okay? I'm sure you don't get exposed to nearly as much as we do."

"I usually only get sick about once a year," she assured him quickly.

"You haven't been sick since we met that I know of," he pointed out with amusement. "It might be about time."

"I'll have it check, but if I catch it from you, it probably won't show up until next week," she replied dryly.

"Danika," he said, and then hesitated. "Actually, I kind of hope that you'll be sick while I'm here and not while we're gone."

"In which case you can stop worrying, because I'll be perfectly fine this time," she pointed out laughingly.

"Probably," he agreed.

--

Jade greeted Danika with an airlock, and announced, "I've made you like a dragon! I mean, you're still human shaped, but I gave you dragon eyes and dragon skin. I looked at my memories of how your assistant helped create the steampunk outfits for the dwarves."

Danika felt confused, but she asked agreeably, "Is the airlock for you to push me out of?"

"I am not one of the villains," Jade protested.

Things began to get a little clearer and she asked, "Did Devon Yu give you a bunch of Space Opera stories to analyze last night?"

"Yeah," Jade agreed happily. But then he said critically, "But there aren't many new storylines, only different settings and some new words."

"Well, yeah," she agreed as she stepped into the airlock, "they are still stories about people."

Gravity disappeared and the airlock opened into an endless dark sky. A million stars burned brighter than any sky she'd ever seen. The sky from a mountain top in "Living Jade Empire" was the closest, and it couldn't match the depth of this vast star scattered fabric.

It took her a moment to realize that she couldn't breathe. It felt like her body was trying to tell her that she was drowning. Her eyes on the other hand felt dry to the point that they were starting to burn no matter how she blinked. She tried to turn back toward the airlock, but she flapped about with no effect.

Not no effect, she realized after a moment, as the airlock seemed to float slowly past at a completely unexpected angle, farther away than she thought she could possibly have floated already. She wanted to tell Jade that it was ridiculous to have an airlock without a ship or a station attached to it, but she was starting to panic as she drowned in nothing. It was far too similar to the way ZipZing had almost drowned inside that first slime.

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Jade appeared beside her and asked cheerfully, "How is it?"

Danika glared at him as he seemed to rotate dizzyingly in her field of vision. He reached out and grabbed her elbow, and gently pulled her over to the airlock, which opened in a welcoming fashion. Even before it closed behind her, she could suddenly take a gasping breath.

"Any longer and you would start to take damage if you were a human player, I think that is pretty close to what you described?" Jade said hopefully.

"Yeah," Danika agreed as she sat on what had suddenly become the floor as the door finished closing, and just breathed for a minute. She rubbed her face, which felt completely normal, and then told him, "You did really well, it seemed pretty convincing to me. Myles and them will probably have more of an idea about how realistic it seems."

"Myles says it's completely unrealistic for an unaugmented human, but matches the stories pretty well," Jade reported. "Lin Hao just said: Well done, next we'll work on architecture. Dalma says: Okay, boosters need to be part of the starter equipment."

"Why doesn't anyone ever address Lin Hao as Hao?" Danika muttered without really expecting an answer.

"He says he just doesn't like it," Jade reported cheerfully a moment later. "And he says to give you a piece of candy and bring you to the meeting room."

Danika stared at the candy Jade handed her, and then shrugged and popped it into her mouth. Maybe it was a psychological effect she'd developed from eating candy to restore her health in 'Living Jade Empire' but she did feel better as the airlock door opened into the meeting room.

Lin Hao grinned at her and said brightly, "Jade seems to be understanding the new theme pretty well right?"

"That… I don't know yet," Danika replied honestly. She turned and added quickly to Jade, "But I think the modification to humans is really good!"

Paul agreed, but started proposing different alien races. Danika ignored the conversation for a moment and asked Lin Hao suspiciously, "Did you sleep? I mean, it was just an empty patch of space, but it seemed convincingly realistic in a really theatrical way. You must have completed the system for changing the natural laws?"

Lin Hao gave her a wry smile and murmured, "Perhaps you do know me well enough." Danika gave him a puzzled look and he replied more clearly, "No, I haven't slept yet. And yes, I think the modification is complete. But what do you mean theatrical? Space itself should have looked completely realistic?"

"Are stars really that bright?" Danika asked doubtfully.

Takahashi answered her, "The light of more suns than you can imagine counting, unfiltered, reflected in eyes that can adapt to the dark while not being overwhelmed by the light. Yes." The older man's smile was hard to describe. Longing, happiness, regret, they were mingled there like the smile of a man who was speaking of a lifelong love that was out of reach. He looked at her expression and his face resumed its normal mildly cheerful expression as he added, "Danika, this is an opportunity to fulfill a million dreams, and has the potential to pull people into finally taking the last step off of our world."

Danika couldn't help objecting, "Millions of steps have already been taken, and people are still moving forward every day."

Takahashi grinned and Danika jumped when Myles looked over and agreed, "Danika is right."

Paul complained, "Unfortunately I don't think that there's any way we can avoid offending a lot of people with it at the same time. The modified human totally works for presenting a lot of popular stories, but it's really going to freak people out."

"Why?" Lin Hao asked. "It's really no more or less weird than humans that can use magic."

"I don't understand why people can't use energy here," Jade complained. "But Devon insisted that they can't anymore."

Danika opened her mouth and then closed it.

"Gods no…" Dalma groaned. The programmer turned to her department head and said, "We're going to have to do the same thing for character stats and skills. They are all going to have to be modified according to underlying rules too, or recreated from scratch."

"I'm going to bed," Lin Hao announced bravely, and logged out.

Everyone stared at the empty space for a minute, and then Danika laughed and told Dalma, "That means yes, right?"

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