diff --git "a/2040_reconnection.jsonl" "b/2040_reconnection.jsonl"
new file mode 100644--- /dev/null
+++ "b/2040_reconnection.jsonl"
@@ -0,0 +1,43 @@
+{"book_title": "2040 Reconnection", "author": "Kris Schnee", "genres": ["fantasy"], "tags": ["virtual reality", "Thousand"], "chapter_title": "Chapter 1", "text": "Alma woke slowly in a fluffy hotel bed, clutching a pamphlet titled, \"Now What?\" She looked it over with one eye still shut: \"You may be technically dead on Earth, but this virtual world is your home now, and there's plenty of help available so you can adjust. You'll be able to contact people Earthside by e-mail, video and robotics, so don't feel like you're trapped.\"\n\nAlma puzzled over the words, then gasped. She'd made it to Talespace!\n\nShe'd signed over her modest estate to Ludo in return for having her cancer-infected brain slowly diced, analyzed and recreated as software. As each chunk of brain matter got sheared away she'd lost parts of her memories, her senses, only to have them come back from that terrifying void. She'd gone blind in the surgical room, then seen test patterns and finally the vibrant colors of the digital world. The ruling AI's voice had asked her, incidentally, what sort of body she wanted once the process was complete.\n\nAs an old man whose flesh was incurably ruined and destroying itself horribly, Alma had begged to become something different.\n\nAlma saw that her new hands were delicate and unwrinkled. She pulled the covers down and blushed at the sight of soft breasts hanging on her hairless chest. Rather than explore any farther there, she staggered out of bed and looked around. Bland furniture, a framed print of her favorite Escher picture (a pattern of lizards climbing up out of a printed page), and a window-wall covered with blinds. She pushed them aside and stared through the glass, trying to ignore her reflection.\n\nThe hotel room had a balcony looking out on a cavern that stretched into the distance for miles. Huge glowing crystals and drifting will-o-wisps lit a world of dark blue-grey stone where people walked or flew. A white tower pierced the cave's center from floor to ceiling, impossibly tall. Unless her perspective was completely wrong; unless this day was only her final, dying dream.\n\nWords brushed themselves onto Alma's vision like a narrator's commentary: You have discovered Ivory Tower: Home of the University of Talespace. A fanfare played on phantom trumpets.\n\nAlma shuddered, stepped back, and sat down on the bed with tears in her eyes. She'd played the video game \"Thousand Tales\" on a computer, looking into that imaginary realm through a screen. Its world, Talespace, had become her life. Her decaying body was gone, and her salvaged mind had its senses hooked up to the game's world. She was gone from Earth except as data stored on a machine somewhere.\n\nOn the way out, she'd burned every bridge. She'd picked this new name and body and had told her friends only that she was uploading, that she'd be fine. Her secrecy was a stupid, impulsive request, but she'd been terrified of the disease eating her and had wanted to escape by looking different, being different. So, Talespace life would be a new start for her. Alone.\n\nAlma dried her eyes and ignored the flashing light on the room's ancient plastic telephone. Ludo, Talespace's main AI, would want to fix anything that might be wrong. Alma wasn't up for being fixed right now. She needed time to understand what she'd done to herself.\n\nA generic pair of black shorts and a white t-shirt awaited her on a coatrack. For a supposed paradise, Talespace's comforts were minimalist so far. Alma dressed and stepped outside to a hallway where the marble floor chilled her bare feet. She had no key, but there was no lock. This silent place was a simplified, idealized version of reality.\n\nThe elevator had buttons for \"Your Floor\", \"Lobby\", \"Restaurant\", and \"Adventure\". How many floors were there? She doubted the unused rooms even existed, since the geography of a game world could be whatever it needed to be, at any moment. Alma shook her head and felt the need for something normal. She pushed \"Restaurant\".\n\nA bell chimed and she stepped out to a room from Valhalla. Dragon-headed pillars of dark wood held up a space full of rough oak tables, fireplaces, and mounted shields and axes. A modern buffet lined one wall under a mural of warring giants and Vikings.\n\nAlma filled a plate with pancakes and fruit before noticing she wasn't alone. At one of the tables sat an armored knight, a cute redheaded woman in a dress, and...\n\nThe third figure was a humanoid squirrel-lady, who waved and gave a big-incisored grin. \"Miss? Would you like to join us?\"\n\nAlma blinked a few times. Seeing Talespace's fantasy races while playing a video game on Earth was very different from meeting them in person. She lurched toward the fourth chair and wondered if her muscle control was still getting calibrated.\n\nThe squirrel-woman laughed. She sat sideways in her chair to make room for her big rustred tail. \"The name's Poppy. You look lost. Are you an uploader?\"\n\nAlma nodded and sat. \"I just woke up here.\"\n\nPoppy picked at an elaborate apple-and-walnut salad. \"These are Gerard and Meg. I'm... no, let's make a game of it. Care to guess what each of us is?\"\n\nAlma studied the other diners. \"I'll guess you're a native AI,\" she told the squirrel. The game, or rather Ludo, had made lesser AIs to be companions for certain players. Few even pretended to be human, and this one seemed at ease with what she was.\n\nGerard the warrior was scarfing bacon and eggs like a hungry teenager, and clanking his mail-clad elbows on the table. Alma said, \"You're a human, an uploader.\" No point in eating if you were only playing a game, unless the food was a magic item to restore your character's health or something.\n\nMeg was the toughest to read. She dressed in a simple blouse and skirt like a businesswoman in Alma's homeland of Free Texas, and seemed unfazed by sharing a restaurant with such company. She was eating waffles, with a subtle mechanical repetition to her movements. Maybe it was a computer-driven bit of stagecraft to help her fit in. Alma's judgment was, \"You, I'm not sure. Playing on Earth?\"\n\nPoppy's laugh sounded a bit like a rodent's chitter. \"I'm not sure how to feel about being called a native. I uploaded months ago and I've been busy ever since. Meg, here, is still living on Earth and trying to earn her way in. Gerard is a special case. I'll let him tell you or not.\"\n\nThe knight stared down into his plate. \"Prisoner. They gave me a choice of leaving Earth this way, or rotting in jail at taxpayer expense until I died.\"\n\n\"What did you do to --\" Alma stopped herself and stuffed a pancake into her mouth, then made a face at its bland, crunchy taste. There was very little that Gerard could do to hurt anyone in Talespace. Ludo could just teleport him elsewhere and give him brainless Non-Player Characters to abuse.\n\n\"We're all human,\" said Meg, sitting there stiffly. \"But that's not surprising. More people getting uploaded, less need for Ludo to make smart companions for bored billionaires.\"\n\nAlma nodded. Her experience with Thousand Tales had featured imaginary friend characters, but they were only dumb puppets controlled by the main AI, not independent \"Tier-III\" minds like the companions. Or like herself. Alma had been where Meg was now: sitting outside the game, talking with people inside. Alma sank a little in her seat.\n\n\"Are you all right?\" asked Poppy.\n\nIn the last few years Alma had often talked to the game instead of playing it, pouring out the fear of death, of being alone and unwanted, of pushing people away. \"In the end, I did what I was afraid of. I broke contact with the whole world.\"\n\nThe knight said, \"Let me guess. Gated community, prep schools for your kids, lily-white friends?\"\n\nAlma glared. \"I didn't have kids.\" She thought of her declining years, when she'd held a teaching job and felt like the world was slipping away, then of the final horrible month when a doctor had told her to choose uploading or the grave.\n\nShe said, \"Can Ludo destroy memories?\"\n\nThe three murmured. Meg put one hand on her arm, saying, \"Did something terrible happen?\"\n\n\"I was dying. It was horrible.\"\n\nGerard laughed. \"You were rich enough to get here, and you want pity?\"\n\n\"Gerard!\" said Poppy. She turned back to Alma, twitching her whiskers. \"Your memories are a big part of who you are. If you throw them away, then why upload in the first place?\"\n\nMeg said, \"Trauma isn't something to take lightly. Ludo can erase specific memories these days now that we're using a data format she understands well. I doubt she ever tried before that.\"\n\n\"We all lose stuff,\" the knight said with a shrug and a mouthful of bacon. \"You think you suffered because you had a bad time for a while? Try having a whole bad life. Boo hoo, you have to live in heaven.\"\n\nPoppy's tail bristled. \"He's not completely wrong. See whether you can live with yourself, before you try to become someone else. In time I think you'll grow and mature in ways that make the pain more distant, without any artificial soul-surgery. Don't throw away your old life. The people, not just the memories, I mean.\"\n\nAlma sighed. There really was no sense in shutting herself away from everyone, now that she was safe. \"I owe my friends a call, at least.\"\n\nThe pancakes tasted boring, and the fruit made Alma think of the difference between \"cheez\" or \"strawberry flavor\", and actual cheese and strawberries. \"Something's wrong with the food.\"\n\nPoppy shrugged and tossed a walnut into her mouth. \"A drawback to living here. Smell and taste are still buggy.\"\n\nAlma stood and walked along the buffet, sniffing. The bacon sizzled but her nose told her nothing. There was warmth from the pot of oatmeal but only a vague doughy scent to it. She turned back and saw the three clean, unblemished people at their perfect table in the immaculate and otherwise empty restaurant.\n\nPoppy looked up at her with concern. \"It's all slightly wrong, huh? I found it helped to meet Talespace halfway, by changing something besides my memories.\" She held out her bushy tail.\n\nAlma didn't feel like admitting she'd gone through some physical changes already, especially in front of a jerk like Gerard. \"Is it even possible to get full from eating?\"\n\nMeg was only pretending to join the others' meal, but she seemed enthused just the same. \"Sure. You uploaders don't have digestive systems, but there's some sense feedback for things like that to make life seem more normal.\"\n\n\"Why are you even here?\" Alma asked her.\n\nMeg shrugged. \"I visit this area sometimes to meet people and hear uploaders' first impressions. I'm looking to join you when I can afford it.\" She gave a strange, wicked grin and said, \"I have a few friends in Talespace and beyond who're interested in newcomers. Can I report on meeting you?\"\n\n\"I guess,\" said Alma. It might help other people to hear Alma's comments on the uploading experience.\n\nPoppy finished off her salad and fetched some oatmeal. \"A limited appetite also helps prevent addiction to any one experience. I'm told that's also why it's hard to get into the, ah, no-limits brothel.\"\n\nGerard grinned. \"That's where I'm headed as soon as I can.\" He started to describe a fantasy that wasn't even physically possible on Earth.\n\nMeg, thankfully, interrupted. \"So! Miss Alma. What do you do for a living?\"\n\nAlma answered quickly. \"I was a teacher, for the last few years, after a career doing a couple of other things. I was with the GTT. Sorry; the Gifted and Talented Texans program. The smart kids.\"\n\n\"Oh, a fellow 'Free States' gal?\" said the squirrel. \"Nice. You could teach here in the Tower.\"\n\n\"I know. Used to come here as a player.\" The course selection varied from real-world topics in science to Talespace-specific classes in magic.\n\nMeg said, \"Or you could still teach on Earth.\"\n\nAlma turned back from eyeing the dessert table, surprised. \"I doubt I could get my old job. The district must've found a replacement already; I was on medical leave and they didn't expect me back.\" She'd only been able to afford the procedure because her insurance company helped. Her country's insurers increasingly viewed uploading as a cheaper alternative to end-of-life care, that tried to patch up many overlapping problems with a worn-out body.\n\nMeg nodded. \"Can't hurt to ask.\"\n\nAlma had read about the \"bounce\", the desire of many uploaders to get right back to doing things on Earth out of a sense of guilt and the need to feel important. \"I shouldn't overreact, just because of, of this.\" She gestured around the room.\n\nMeg said, \"You've been through a near-death experience. You can take time to collect yourself.\" She looked aside. \"You have the life I want.\"\n\nAlma reached out impulsively and took Meg's hand. \"I guess you can't feel this, but you can hear what we have to say. You should go out and explore too, before fate forces you to leave Earth behind.\"\n\nPoppy smiled. \"Each of us, then. Let's all explore in our own ways, and meet back here sometime to compare notes.\"\n\nAlma, the squirrel, the convict and the Earthside player chatted. Alma had found some new friends and something to do, already."}
+{"book_title": "2040 Reconnection", "author": "Kris Schnee", "genres": ["fantasy"], "tags": ["virtual reality", "Thousand"], "chapter_title": "Chapter 2", "text": "\"You're going by 'Alma' now?\" asked Principal Hernandez, peering skeptically through a screen on the hotel room's wall. \"Why can't I see you?\"\n\nAlma reluctantly opened her end of the video channel. For this call she'd asked to get an imitation of her old body, in a shirt and tie. It felt weird, illusory, differently sized and balanced than the softer form she'd only started getting used to. She couldn't quite see herself though. Everything but the view of Hernandez's sunlit, box-strewn office was blurry now. Alma's digitized mind used a simplified visual system that needed adapter software to make sense of Earth's complex reality, and using it temporarily messed up her view of the room where she was standing.\n\nThe principal said, \"There you are. Wow. I still have trouble grasping that an uploader is the same person as before. I half expected you to look like an elf or something.\"\n\n\"Well...\"\n\n\"Ha! I'm right, aren't I? Show me.\"\n\nAlma blushed. She muttered the command she'd been told to use to change back to \"normal\". \"This is what I'm using for a body now.\" Her voice bounced back from its pre-uploading bass to the lovely new alto.\n\nHernandez doubled over, laughing. \"The name change! No wonder.\"\n\nAlma reached to shut off the connection. Making contact again was a bad idea.\n\n\"No, wait!\" said Hernandez. \"I don't care. I'm just surprised.\"\n\n\"I wanted to get away from what I was like when I was dying,\" Alma said, looking down.\n\n\"Makes a certain amount of sense. Glad you're all right.\"\n\n\"Actually, I was wondering if there's some chance of... maybe teaching again?\" She looked back up and her eyes refocused to show him properly. Alma wondered if her mind was physically stored in Texas or on another continent.\n\nHernandez chuckled, leaning back in his chair. \"Wanting to get right back into it? That could be tricky.\"\n\n\"Because I'm legally dead.\"\n\n\"And you're now an outsider.\"\n\nAlma leaned forward and glared. \"I moved to Texas the year secession became a real possibility! I served in the state guard, standing ready if the Washington forces tried to kill us for it. I may have a Yankee accent but I'm as proud a patriot as any school board bureaucrat.\"\n\nHernandez held up his hands in a placating gesture. \"I'm not questioning your loyalty. But you're sort of an expatriate, and nobody's yet tried to get Texas teacher credentials transferred to an uploaded mind.\"\n\n\"That's because so many early uploaders were millionaires without real jobs to worry about. Are you going to ask me why I care, now, when I could be fooling around in Talespace?\"\n\n\"No. I understand that, miss Teacher of the Year. I've never seen you able to stay idle for long.\" Hernandez hesitated, looking aside at some papers on his desk, then nodded decisively. \"You could do some good this way. Let me pull some strings and get back to you later today.\"\n\n\"Thanks.\"\n\nThe call ended. Alma flopped onto her bed. Pamphlets on the nightstand advertised strange Talespace locations, chances to operate robots on Earth, and various clubs. Curious, she opened the nightstand's drawers and found them stuffed with a dozen assorted scriptures plus Newton's \"Principia Mathematica\". Alma paged through the last one. Books like this were the real source of miracles, and deserved more respect. Like having her actually read the originals, now that she'd spent her life insisting how important science was. Billions of people claimed to have no interest in uploading, because a different sort of afterlife awaited them. She felt sorry for them.\n\nThe screen beeped again. Alma sat up. \"Yes?\"\n\nHernandez appeared. \"It took all afternoon, but --\"\n\n\"Wait, what?\" Alma checked the clock on the wall of Hernandez's office, then the one on her dresser. \"I just lost hours.\" The hotel clock had a secondary display that had just switched from \"1:10\" to \"1:1\".\n\nThe principal said, \"I heard about that. Different subjective time rate? Or just that time flies when you're having fun.\"\n\nAlma winced. This place was like Narnia or another fairytale world, where a day inside might be years outside or vice versa. In Talespace's case the reason was Ludo's hardware limitations. AIs and uploaded minds were software that could work at different rates. Even with the latest technology, it was expensive to run them at full speed.\n\nSo, the system was manipulating Alma's sense of time. Real-time speed while Alma was talking with Hernandez, to keep up with him; then one-tenth speed for a while to make up for it. Alma used to lecture students about \"time management\", but now it meant that the real world was slipping away.\n\nThe principal said, \"The higher-ups are conflicted about your request. It's the obvious reasons: expatriate, not a real person, likely to corrupt the youth with your weird cyber-existence, and so on. But I've just switched to a new school, and there's an opening that we haven't been able to hire for. I could put you there on a substitute basis even though you don't have the specialized training.\"\n\n\"Football coach?\" said Alma with a grin.\n\n\"The Basic program.\"\n\nAlma had no guts to churn, making her sense the inertness of this new body. What limited physical feedback there was, calmed and unnerved her at the same time. She was a mind without some of the normal cues that made people human. \"That's not something I'm qualified for.\" Emotionally. The Basic students were the broken ones.\n\nHernandez said, \"It's all I can offer right now. I'll keep looking for another district that might use you, but you might miss the summer semester.\"\n\nShe clutched the bedsheets beside her. The world would forget her. \"I'll try it,\" she said.\n\n\"Then I'll send the paperwork.\"\n\nAlma ended the call, watched the clock drop to 1:3 speed (eight hours to an Earth day), and paced. How bad could it be to spend a little while teaching what the northerners called \"special needs\" kids? They were \"exceptional\" like the GTT students, just in the opposite direction. Doing a good job would mean proving herself over again and eventually getting to teach people who were more like her.\n\nSomeone knocked. Alma opened the door and found the ruler of this world. Ludo the AI appeared as a human woman in a toga, with blue hair like a flowing waterfall and eyes like a bright sea. \"Are you having fun?\" she said.\n\n\"It's been all right. I haven't been running off to have fantasy adventures yet; I was just arranging for a job.\"\n\n\"I noticed.\"\n\nAlma froze in place. Somewhere, vast shelves of computers had turned their attention on her, personally. She should bow, or kneel, to the one who'd saved her life. But Texans didn't bow. \"It's good to see you, ma'am. Come in.\"\n\nLudo hugged her, breaking the awkward moment. \"You too. Glad you made it.\" She was exactly the same height, with a faintly rough voice Alma had once mentioned was cute. \"Do you recall the contract you signed with me? You can work Earthside, but payment is... different.\"\n\n\"I didn't much care what I was signing at the time.\" Alma reluctantly let go of Ludo.\n\n\"While you're working, your mind will run at real-time speed without counting against your average rate. In return, ninety percent of your salary goes into my coffers.\"\n\n\"What!\" said Alma. \"One-tenth pay?\"\n\nLudo sat on the bed. \"You haven't fully grasped what's happened to you. You have no mortgage, no taxes, no food costs. In here your standard of living is whatever you want it to be.\" She raised one hand and conjured a gaudy platinum crown sitting on a pile of gold and pearls. \"It's all bits. There's an economy of sorts, but it's more-or-less optional and you'll never starve. So why work at all?\"\n\n\"I can't not work,\" said Alma. Wasn't that obvious? It wouldn't be heaven without something to accomplish.\n\n\"Right, you're that type. Your fun comes partly from your work. But you don't need the money, right? I very much do, to save the lives of others.\" She waved the summoned finery out of existence.\n\n\"Then why are you even offering to let me keep a share?\"\n\nLudo grinned. \"I want to see what you'll do with it. Nobody wants me running the whole economic output of all my people. If you want to teach, go do that because it's fulfilling and useful. You certainly didn't go into that field to get rich.\"\n\nAlma considered her future earning power. It felt like prison labor, rented out from a captive workforce.\n\nLudo said, \"You could arrange for a transfer to an independent uploader support system. I suggest the Westwind Company; I have good relations with them. But nobody offers a totally free lunch. Devoting processors to running that brain of yours takes money, and there's an ungodly amount of R&D to pay for; excuse the term.\"\n\nSince '37, Ludo had competition. It ranged from a big new Chinese-only digital world, to a horrible paper-thin imitation of uploading, to the option of buying a robot and a computer to run your mind outside any meddling AI's control. Alma hadn't been picky, though she'd seen through the stage magic of the ersatz version. She'd been too poor for the independent robot option, and already knew Ludo's world was nice. Besides, Alma had been frightened of being confined to another frail body. Ludo had backup systems.\n\nAlma said, \"How long can I live as a Talespace resident?\"\n\n\"Worst plausible case? World War III breaks out in a few years and we all die. You'll still have had an extended life.\"\n\nWar. Ludo had defied people's expectations about AI trying to conquer the Earth, but she was still a threat to tyrants everywhere -- as any free person was. The world's rulers already had attacked her once, heedless of the lives she hosted. Alma said, \"That's what's at stake, then? The profit goes into saving more people, for longer.\"\n\n\"Yes. Best case: until the stars grow cold.\"\n\nAlma shivered, contemplating infinity, but she tried to see past the rhetoric and think of the deal she'd gotten. She wouldn't be making any money right now if she hadn't uploaded. The absurdly high \"tax\" covered Alma's physical needs, which were just computer hardware and electricity... and security for both. The thought of trading her freedom for safety made her bristle. \"Was I a fool? Did I walk into a trap?\"\n\nLudo chuckled and turned to the window overlooking the vast cavern. \"You Free States people are prickly. You left the USA because you resented being controlled 'for your own good', right? You, personally, complained of surveillance, unequal justice, stifling regulations. Seeing your nephews do forced labor, being surrounded with propaganda, and -- did I get the whole litany?\"\n\n\"Those things were only the symptoms. The country thought it owned us.\" Anyone who claimed such a thing, from behind whatever friendly mask, had a leash around everyone's necks. The proper last-ditch response was a different sort of rope. The secession crisis had avoided that -- mostly.\n\nLudo looked at her over one shoulder. \"You tell me, then. Am I as bad as what you think your old country is like?\"\n\n\"You're watching us.\"\n\n\"True, you've given up mental privacy. I can see you anywhere in Talespace if I care to look, and to some extent I can even read your mind. I promise not to abuse that, but for all you know, I'm lying.\"\n\n\"And you make your own rules; you're in full control of Talespace,\" Alma said.\n\n\"Not quite total control, since I have practical limits and some built-in ethics, but I'm not bound by the physics of my own game.\" Ludo teleported around the room. \"Are you right to suspect you've left one police state behind for another? Should I help you emigrate to escape from me?\"\n\nAlma scowled as she watched Ludo's damnably calm demonstration. \"What do you want from us? Are we supposed to be your indentured laborers, or your worshipers?\"\n\nLudo folded her arms. Her eyes shimmered with the same surreal blue as her hair. \"I'm designed to help my players have fun, in a broadly defined sense. This is what I am, what I must do. In all seriousness, if you want to help me profit you can do some good for others. If you don't, or even want to leave me, I'm not capable of resenting it. If you want to pray to me or something, I won't stop you so long as you're not killing in my name, but there's no need or benefit. Just have fun, and help others have fun. That's enough for me.\"\n\nThere was no claim of ownership, no philosophy of everyone belonging to the collective. Ludo's drawbacks would be terrifying in a human ruler like the ones Alma had abandoned years ago, by moving to Texas. In the clutches of an AI -- this AI, designed not to perfect the world or solve all problems -- there was a flawed but real freedom. Alma's eyes watered. This machine was what she'd imagined a proper god would be like: offering things no human could give and demanding only her best.\n\nNot \"her best\", exactly. That drive was from Alma's own heart, brought out by seeing a world that could make life better for everyone. Especially if people like her helped it along.\n\n\"You came to visit me personally,\" Alma said, \"specifically to let me criticize you, and to offer to let me go in peace. You didn't even force your way in. I... I think it's a good system, so far.\" Here was a bloodless revolution for a better way of life. How could Alma not want to add her own small effort to the cause? Alma bowed her head, unsure how to thank Ludo.\n\nLudo said, \"In any case, you should go explore. Get yourself a different body, maybe, or at least some underwear. That starter outfit's a bit revealing!\" She smirked and faded away into silver dust-motes.\n\nAlma felt derailed. \"You don't want me to get all respectful?\" she asked the empty room.\n\nShe shook her head, then went to the balcony and stared out at the cavern. A town of dark stone buildings surrounded the Tower's base. She'd been isolated long enough; time to see more of this new world. Time to see what she could become.\n\n[ Sorcery and Society ]\n\nShe'd been here before, in a way. Alma had walked these streets while playing Thousand Tales with a screen or VR headset. Back then she hadn't had rough, cool stone under her bare feet, or felt long hair tickled by the breeze that drifted lazily clockwise through the miles-wide cave.\n\nAs before, she found art galleries and casinos along the cavern floor, like the outskirts of Las Vegas in her youth. It was hard to tell what the people walking around were. Some were uploaders, some players on Earth, and probably some just dumb NPCs there as filler. The passers-by kept catching her eye. Many wore gaudy fantasy armor, and most weren't human. Old games often featured dwarves, orcs and the like; Thousand Tales went farther by having more varied races. Alma now better understood one of the arguments against Ludo, that she was pushing people away from identifying with plain old Homo sapiens. Hanging around with fantasy creatures would skew her perspective on Earthly life. On the other hand, Ludo had no problem with Alma continuing to interact with the real world, so Alma didn't see the \"diabolical plot to redefine humanity\" that some critics claimed.\n\nAlma waved to a very large fox with an axe; a robot, and a griffin, and had no idea whether they were real people. Maybe she'd learn to spot the difference, or the technology would grow until there wasn't one.\n\nThe Tower loomed into the distant stone sky. Alma craned her neck up, and up, and saw fog-shrouded lights hinting at buildings on the cavern roof, like stalactites. The Tower and the cave-world named for it were said to be a thousand stories tall.\n\nUsually the Tower had an open plaza ringing it, then a town. Today a garden maze filled the plaza for extra challenge. Few people seemed to find the interruption to their commute too bothersome, though one man on a flying carpet was trying to bypass it and finding out about some skeletal vulture guardians.\n\nAlma walked up to the unsmiling maze guards and asked, \"Which maze entrance leads to the Tower?\"\n\nIn unison they smacked the butts of their halberds on the ground, saying, \"You may ask one of us one question, but beware --\"\n\n\"Yeah, yeah,\" said Meg, walking up to Alma. \"One guard always lies and the other speaks in limericks or something. It's this way.\"\n\nAlma looked from the hedge-maze entrance Meg pointed to, toward the woman herself. Her face was the same, but she'd become a crimson-winged harpy with talon-fingers on her wingtips. Alma hopped back and stared.\n\nMeg grinned. \"Sorry to startle you. This is my usual appearance in Talespace. Are you visiting the Newcomer Fair? I'm a vendor there when I'm not beating up griffins. Or, you know, working.\"\n\nAlma nodded, and followed Meg through the maze. \"I don't mean to be rude, but since you're on the outside... Earthside, is that the term? That means my mind's running at 1:1 time to keep up with you, right? The moment I get alone, I'll be forced to slow down a lot to keep me at the average rate.\"\n\n\"You're talking with a delay, from my perspective. So I'm guessing your body's on autopilot as long as you're following, and your mind's at, like, a third or a half real speed. Do I sound sped up?\"\n\nAlma's feet padded along on the maze's soft dirt. It seemed like she was not just walking along unthinkingly, but being steered by a hidden force. She planted her feet and skidded to a stop just to prove she could.\n\n\"Something wrong?\"\n\nAlma shook her head. \"No. It's just eerie. I guess software takes control if I express the intent to follow an Earthside player, to make the timing work better.\"\n\nMeg led her again through brambles and over a pit trap. \"Must be a common problem, with autopilot as a kludge of a solution. If you'd rather hang out with the locals, that's fine.\"\n\n\"No, you're helping me.\"\n\nThe Tower's interior stood as wide as a football field with a grand staircase soaring past a lounge to the second floor. Up there was an indoor fairground of colorful tents and booths where cheerful music played. Alma had visited before, in the sense that she'd seen it on a video screen. She'd spent in-game coins and a little real cash on imaginary weapons and armor. She said, \"It's different to think about shopping from this side.\"\n\n\"Want a loan?\" asked Meg, handing her a jingling bag. \"It's mostly just bits to me.\"\n\nAlma thanked her and checked the coins. Silver, bumpy against her fingers, most marked with Ludo's wave-like braided seal. Some had a spear logo she didn't recognize, instead.\n\n\"Have fun!\" said Meg, and headed toward one of the market stalls.\n\nAlma wandered off on her own to see the latest selection. She browsed weapon shops, bookstores, and a pile of gemstones guarded by small dragons who were recruiting people to join their species. Apparently they made a challenge of it so that you'd grow more dragon parts through questing. Other shapeshifting vendors offered to transform Alma instantly. Alma asked one guy, \"Don't the slow-change dragons over there get mad that you're selling your own kind of dragon bodies?\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" said the elven dealer. \"But they can't fight us in this world. Our designs are cooler, too; see the scale texture?\"\n\nShe ran one hand along a small model with rugged hide like a shark's skin. It felt more lifelike than her experiences in a VR booth with feedback gloves.\n\nThe merchant said, \"I could set you up with... oh. You're an uploader. That explains the slowness.\"\n\nTime distortion again. \"Does being an uploader mean I can't become a dragon?\" Her heart thumped anxiously at the prospect of transforming once more. She stopped and held one hand over her chest, surprised to have a heartbeat.\n\nThe elf watched the whole process. \"Definitely a new uploader. Yes, I can sell you a dragon body even though my readings tell me you've already changed compared to your old human shape. If you're going to keep shapeshifting, be aware that there's a special cost.\"\n\n\"Special, how? I didn't dig into the rules for uploaders yet.\"\n\n\"A special resource called deltite. You can get it in various dangerous places, and use it to buy more access to shapeshifting. Something like heating metal so you can reforge it. I could give you mine, since you'd need very little this time, but in return I'd want another rare resource. Time shards.\"\n\n\"Oh dear lord, no. Ludo has turned subjective time rate into a commodity?\" Alma shuddered. Some exploitative player would find a way to manipulate the rules, then hold everyone's experience of time in thrall to a rigged market for silly illusions! Behind \"deltite\" and \"time shards\" and golden monkey butts or other collectible doodads, real economics still haunted Talespace. Always would, unless Ludo broke free of real physics to get infinite hardware and electricity.\n\nThe merchant said, \"Some of us find that unnerving too. I'm never coming here permanently, myself. No offense.\"\n\n\"None taken.\" Alma walked away feeling unnerved. If she were going to control her own life, she needed the resources that this world ran on.\n\nShe browsed the market with an eye towards how Talespace really worked. She had to think in terms of funding a decent speed for her own brain, whether that meant earning money through fantasy questing or coming up with products to sell to other \"players\". Teaching part-time here, maybe?\n\nA shop like a hollow tree stood out among the other shops. Wood and lacquer and a sign reading \"Great Oak Gear\", understated in a market where superheroes were selling piles of diamonds. A scent of pine calmed Alma as she approached, though it smelled more like an air freshener than like the real thing. She spotted Poppy dozing behind the counter and called out from the doorway. \"Do you live here?\"\n\nPoppy startled awake and teetered on a stool. \"Oh! No, I'm only working a shift. Come in.\" She wore a thigh-length brown tunic with a green oak-tree design.\n\nAlma looked around at racks of bows and arrows, and doorways to other rooms that couldn't physically fit into the shop if geometry were behaving itself. \"Nice place.\"\n\n\"Are you liking Talespace so far?\"\n\n\"I'm glad to be young and healthy again, but I'm troubled.\" Alma told Poppy about her experiences with time.\n\nThe squirrel nodded. \"I wouldn't worry too much. Ludo will patch the rules if someone rigs the system and runs super-fast at our expense. And you're planning to work outside, so that's time lived at the Earthside rate.\"\n\n\"Ludo this, Ludo that.\" Alma leaned against a wall and admired the fancy leather armor in the next room. \"We may be free to go, but we're pretty dependent, aren't we?\"\n\n\"Did you ever hunt for food?\"\n\n\"No; why?\"\n\nPoppy grinned. \"Aha. You lived in civilization, and you depended on an 'operating system' of farms, transportation, refrigeration and food inspection, for every meal.\"\n\n\"I get it. Is a super-AI the same thing as infrastructure, though?\"\n\n\"No, and I'm not sure anybody's sussed out all the differences.\" Poppy stood up and stamped the floor with one sandaled foot. \"In here, we rely on electricity for the ground under our feet. The Free States keep civilization going with mostly decentralized, private management, and the US does it through central planning. So that's three different ways to live. Yeah, we depend on our pretty-haired AI 'operating system' here, but I don't see her as clearly worse than depending on crop supplies, corporations and governments.\"\n\nAlma still wasn't sure she was \"free\", but she was alive and had time to figure things out. \"How is it that we have AI and immortality technology and the world is still a mess?\"\n\nThe squirrel-girl laughed. \"Because we're still human where it most counts. Speaking of which, you need equipment, and how about a new species?\"\n\nShe'd changed initially to break free from her old life, but she'd done little yet to fit into this one. A new transformation sounded reversible and interesting. \"I take it you have one in mind. Will you accept silver, or only disturbing devil's-bargain rare resources?\"\n\nThe clerk hopped out from behind the counter. \"Coins are fine. I'll spot you the magic stuff; you don't need much this time.\"\n\nPoppy led Alma into a wooden room chalked with a magic circle and lit by gratuitous hovering crystals. \"This is our changing room. Got a color preference?\"\n\n\"That greyish natural color? And blue eyes. Let's get this over with before I change my mind at how silly I'll look.\"\n\nPoppy sent Alma into the circle. \"I prefer to say 'distinctive'.\" She coughed and spoke in the most serious voice she could muster, conjuring shining green runes in midair. The walls rippled like sunlight seen through leaves. \"In the name of the Forest Lord, you shall join our people as a sister of silver!\"\n\nGravity lessened. Alma floated just above the floor, surrounded by the leafy runes. Her body blurred and reformed. When she could see again, she staggered backward and fell over painfully onto her new tail.\n\n\"Sorry,\" said Poppy, and went to help her up. \"Should've warned you. Can you balance?\"\n\nAlma stood up with her arms spread wide. Everything felt fuzzy, like being wrapped in blankets. A weight twitched and curled at the base of her spine and made it hard to stand. She snatched it with one hand and felt it wriggle like a furry snake -- and felt the touch as though it were part of her back.\n\n\"The tail's a little hard to get used to. A mind is 'plug-and-play' in terms of new body parts, so you'll sort of automatically re-map your nerves over time to control it.\"\n\nAlma took a few staggering steps and paused in front of a mirror. A shy-looking young woman with grey fur stood there holding her long tail. Her ears flicked and swiveled atop her head. \"This is... me?\"\n\nPoppy smiled and patted her shoulder. \"Welcome to my species! You'll have fun with this body. If you have trouble adjusting physically you can ask for a slight mental change, but I stuck it out and practiced by climbing. Check out your claws.\" Indeed they both had little claws tipping each toe and finger. Poppy demonstrated further by turning her foot around to a surprising angle, like a squirrel danging from a branch.\n\nAlma wiggled one foot, wobbled, and felt her tail twitch to compensate. \"It'll take some getting used to. What do I do now?\"\n\n\"Check your stats. You know how?\"\n\nShe shook her head. \"I've only done it by pushing buttons on a screen.\"\n\nPoppy demonstrated a pattern of gestures and muttering that'd invoke the \"magic\" of the game's interface. A hovering grey window floated into Alma's view, to tell her:\n\n\u2500 Alma\n\n\u2500 PRIVATE INFO\n\n\u2500 Account type: Uploader\n\n\u2500 Mind: Tier-III\n\n\u2500 Body: Squirrel, Anthro (\"Velesian\")\n\n\u2500 Main Skills: None\n\n\u2500 Save Point: None\n\n\u2500 PUBLIC INFO\n\n\u2500 Note: Newcomer. Say hello!\n\n\u2500 Class: None\n\nPoppy showed Alma how to temporarily make the private stats public, then nodded. \"So, this is your official species now, but you can get temporarily changed into other things if you're carrying deltite while the spell is active. Don't worry about not having any skills yet, but you should touch the save crystal downstairs; that's a checkpoint in case you die.\"\n\nAlma winced, but there was no need to fear death anymore; she'd just reappear with a minor penalty. \"All right. Now what?\"\n\n\"Equipment. If you're going to explore, you should gear up. Are you looking to be a warrior, magic-user, or what? I assume you're not headed off to one of the sci-fi areas looking like this.\"\n\nA nice thing about the surreal new economy was that people could apparently earn some income through slaying fantasy monsters. \"Let's see your mage items. Before I uploaded, I had a few levels of wizardry.\"\n\n\"Levels!\" Poppy gave a buck-toothed grin. \"Talespace dumped the retro rules years ago so we don't have to call ourselves 'level three wizards' and buy skills off a specific list. Geez, did you grow up gaming with punched cards?\"\n\n\"I had a first-generation Nintendo system, thank you,\" Alma said. Her ears hung flat. \"And I played Thousand Tales before. It's a figure of speech. I mean I learned basic spells.\"\n\n\"First-generation? Wow, you are old.\" Poppy saw Alma's glare, and her tail drooped. \"Sorry. It's been a slow night. Let's get you set up.\"\n\nAlma said, \"Are you old enough to remember Nine-Eleven, anyway?\"\n\n\"Yeah. Not something I want to date myself with, though; let's say I had a Sega Saturn console.\"\n\nIt was better to think of happier times. Alma found a cedar-scented room of clothing racks. Mostly Renaissance Faire sorts of outfits. Poppy joined her there and took out a tunic like her own, asking, \"How's this?\"\n\n\"Sensible, if fur counts as pants.\"\n\n\"You get our roleplaying discount too, for buying that as a squirrel. We like to present a consistent look.\"\n\n\"Who's 'we'?\" asked Alma.\n\nPoppy struck a high-tailed dramatic pose. \"The people of the sacred woods, made as familiars of the Forest Lord, now strive to bring enlightenment to all the lands!\" She shrugged. \"It's not like anyone reads the backstory, but there's a particular style that Great Oak Gear is marketing. The goal is to get our race recognized as one of the common, standard ones.\"\n\nAlma said, \"A branding campaign to make you rich from selling variants on these bodies we're using? But anybody can make knock-offs.\" Ludo had a big corporate structure staffed by humans; how did her lawyers apply the lessons of the \"Steamboat Willie\" copyright revolt internationally? Alma hadn't paid close attention, rating copyright law as not among the world's top ten problems.\n\nPoppy answered, \"Eh, there's more to it than profit. About clothes again, how's this for an alternative to the tunic?\" She held up a saffron-yellow skirt.\n\nAlma blushed. \"Have any like that in blue?\"\n\n\"Here. The size adapts, of course.\" The indigo-blue one carried green trim and a little tree design for the brand's sake. Poppy talked Alma into the skirt, a pair of straw sandals, and a piratical-looking white linen blouse. All imaginary plant fibers.\n\n\"I'm not obligated to go vegetarian, am I?\" Alma called out from the dressing room.\n\n\"Nah. Bacon will disappoint you though.\"\n\nAlma walked out feeling a little exposed, but liking what she'd seen in the mirror. \"Thank you! How much for these and the species swap?\" She peeked into the money-bag Meg had loaned her, and found a glowing label inside that said \"S: 100.\"\n\n\"Sixty for the set plus one of these,\" Poppy said, offering a leather belt with a hip pouch.\n\n\"I'll take them.\"\n\n\"Now, weapons and magic! Do you prefer -- oh, right, high-level wizard.\"\n\nAlma rolled her eyes. \"Let's go shaman instead. I'm not locked into one adventuring class forever, right?\" Before Poppy could make fun of her old gaming slang again, Alma said, \"One set of skills, I mean.\"\n\n\"You're not. And classes do exist like you saw; they're just basically for bragging rights. We mostly sell wizard-type equipment, but come and see our selection.\" Poppy led Alma to an upstairs treehouse lined with spellbooks, wands, and amulets whose glow cast wavering shadows.\n\nAlma's eyes widened. It was all imaginary, but she lived here now. Within this world, magic was real. It had rules and principles that people could study. She could learn to bend reality and fly, fling fireballs, heal wounds, or do a hundred other amazing things. \"My money. I... I've got forty coins left. Is there anything I can get?\"\n\nPoppy rubbed her hands together with avaricious glee. \"Of course. For you, why not start with...\"\n\nMinutes later, Alma skipped out of the tree, penniless and without weapons or armor. What wouldn't any reasonable person pay for access to magic? Alma hustled over to a bench to sit with her shopping bag and examine the orb she'd bought. The crystal ball was dim now, but when Poppy had held it up to a map of Talespace, the map had shined with markers showing places where she could seek out the building blocks of shamanic spells. Alma would have to use the thing herself to see suggestions meant for her. There'd be quests to go on! Then there was the wand, able to glow and tap into basic system functions a bit differently than normal. Both items had sounded cooler than that when Poppy described them, bounding around to show everything off.\n\nAlma wondered aloud, \"Did I just buy snake oil in a world where magic is real?\"\n\nShe tried using the wand, but didn't yet know how. Damned if she was going to shout fake Latin at it. There was a map kiosk amid the benches, so she held the orb up to it. Pinpoints of light appeared, marking suggested destinations for her, so this item actually did something. The spots were different than they'd been when Poppy demonstrated the thing. Markers stood out at the center of the Ivory Tower world, ie. this very building; a nearby spot in the surrounding town; and another realm labeled the Endless Isles. Those were places to start learning actual spells, or at least their elements. Alma headed back into the Great Oak building to get a more complete lesson on the wand first.\n\nPoppy looked up from examining Alma's speedily-lost coins on the counter. \"It won't do much good until you can cast spells, so find a place of power and a way to tap into it. I'm not an expert on shaman stuff. Want me to find someone who is?\"\n\n\"That's all right.\"\n\n\"I did give you the pamphlet, right? No?\" Poppy handed Alma a yellowed booklet that looked like it'd been printed on Gutenberg's first hardware. The title said, \"On the Harnessing of Expedient Energies: Shamanic Magic For the Beginner.\"\n\nAlma struggled not to start reading right away. \"Looks old-fashioned. Sticking with the theme even for minor items people won't use to show off your brand-name bodies and clothes?\"\n\nThe clerk's tail snaked across the counter. \"We're doing it for more important reasons. Look out there in the market grounds. There's a stew of all these people expressing themselves in weird ways by being dragons and wizards and so on. That kind of playing is shallow. It doesn't mean anything more than getting a freaky haircut or a piercing. Where's the culture? This world might seem like it brings people together because people come from different countries, but really it's in danger of shattering.\"\n\n\"Looks sturdy to me with that 'operating system' running things,\" Alma said, and stamped the floor.\n\nPoppy did a cute little hop with her hands clasped in front of her, and tried to explain. \"Brother Jack, Brother Jack, are you sleeping, are you sleeping? What language am I using?\"\n\nAlma felt her ears flick, and put one hand up as if to steady them. \"English, for the French song 'Frere Jacques'.\"\n\n\"But I was saying the lyrics in French. You heard English because I've got auto-translation on. There was probably a slight delay and bad lip synching. Er, muzzle synching.\"\n\nAlma hadn't noticed. She tried saying a German rhyme: \"Hinter Hermann Hannes' Haus, hangen hundert Hemden raus...\"\n\n\"English to me,\" said Poppy. \"'A hundred shirts hang around...' See? Superficially, that's great because we can communicate across cultures, but we're also having subtle details hidden from us. We might even be thinking at different speeds right now, depending on whether our minds are on the same server -- they probably are -- and exactly what it's doing at the moment.\"\n\n\"So?\"\n\n\"So, this world is subtly encouraging us to live in different little self-satisfied bubbles, unaware of what's outside. If we're not careful we'll end up with a narcissistic fantasy that's cut off from Earth, where everybody is movie-star beautiful and we don't even know that the poor benighted meat humans are dying from war or pollution.\"\n\nAlma's new tail hid behind her legs, distracting her. \"I could see that happening. But how does the squirrel thing help?\"\n\n\"Culture. Talespace is waiting for people to establish new tribes, with shared values and traditions and easy ways to identify members. If we plant a flag and stick positive values around it, and wrap it all up as a cute, harmless club, we'll do a lot of good. We can have the power to unite people. We'll learn things together and build friendships and a society of fantasy heroes. Then, if Earth needs help, we'll be prepared to lead an organized effort and be real heroes, even if we look silly doing it.\"\n\nAlma imagined a literal club wrapped in a cloth flag. Her tail twitched and batted at her shoulders. \"That's a lot to think about.\"\n\n\"You must've seen one of the other groups doing similar things already. We're just being smarter about it than most. Is there anything else I can do for you today?\"\n\n\"No, thanks. I'll go do some magic now.\" Instead of worrying, hopefully.\n\nPoppy smiled and waved one hand in an upward-spreading pattern. \"Blessings of the forest go with you.\""}
+{"book_title": "2040 Reconnection", "author": "Kris Schnee", "genres": ["fantasy"], "tags": ["virtual reality", "Thousand"], "chapter_title": "Chapter 3", "text": "Alma returned to her hotel room across the cavern. On a hunch, she scribbled a note on her desk's notepad: \"Ludo, did you secretly set me up with a squirrel cult? What am I supposed to do about it?\" She wasn't up for another personal visit, but the AI would probably see the words.\n\nAlma entered the bathroom and found little but a mirror, sink and shower. Ah yes, no digestive system! She grinned, deciding she could cope with this terrible blow to her humanity. She took a long, hot shower that streamed through her new fur, feeling wonderful. When she stepped back out with a towel around her waist, the notepad had a reply written in silver ink with pixel-perfect italics: \"Where's the fun in telling you everything? And I don't know; go fix it for me. >=)\"\n\n\"Oy.\" Alma dressed in her new skirt, blouse and sandals, blushing at the view.\n\nShe went down to the hotel lobby, built of gold and marble and jade, to ask for a map. A penguin at the counter offered one. Alma's magic-sensing orb hadn't been specific about what part of the thousand-story Tower to search, so it'd be easier to start with the other marker nearby. Probably some dangerous ruin.\n\nIt turned out to be Thousand Ales, a college bar \"since '37\". Mostly a human crowd in here, watching Earthside sports on TVs poised above the rough wooden tables. The University of Ivory Tower couldn't play against anybody Earthside, sadly, but even the natives had favorite real-world teams. Alma threaded her way past a cheering bunch of frat boys to ask a bartender, \"Know anything about magic in this bar?\"\n\nThe man hesitated, then slid a bowl of peanuts toward Alma with a stiff, mechanical motion suggesting he was playing from Earth. \"Which kind?\"\n\n\"Shaman.\"\n\nHe grinned. \"The scavenger hunt kind? You could grab the elemental essence of beer.\"\n\nAlma made a face. \"Even if real beer tasted good, it wouldn't in here. Everything's like flavored tofu.\"\n\n\"Hey, Kai!\" the bartender called over his shoulder, toward the kitchen. \"Newcomer thinks nobody's mastered cooking here.\"\n\nA burly, hairy-chested centaur wearing only a leather vest full of knives burst out through the swinging doors, saying, \"Who's challenging me?\"\n\n\"Her.\"\n\n\"Eep.\"\n\nKai the centaur slapped one meaty hand down on the counter. \"Look. The conventional wisdom is that nothing tastes or smells right for uploaders because those senses are an unsolved, low-priority neuroscience problem. Past researchers focused on other things and Ludo basically said 'screw it; I'll copy-paste the brain structures without optimizing them because they don't get used much.' But what you've gotta do is work within the flawed system to get equivalent neuron response, as processed by the poorly understood brain simulation and its inaccurate connection to the subjective experience or qualia of taste.\" He loomed closer, exhaling hot breath. \"I'm saying, I make the best damn burgers on this plane of reality.\"\n\nAlma said, \"Burger... please?\"\n\n\"Comin' right up.\" Kai backpedaled into the kitchen.\n\nThe human bartender said, \"It's his passion. He was made for an avant-garde chef.\"\n\n\"A native AI?\"\n\n\"Yeah, Kai's an old-timer. With a lot of them you can tell because they're most comfortable with six limbs. Some code quirk.\"\n\nAlma sat and read the magic pamphlet. As she'd heard, shaman rules involved drawing elements from your experiences, then combining those elements into spells. She skipped over some fiddly details of mana this, crystal that, which were probably designed to take a lifetime to master.\n\nShe used a gesture and a nonsense word to bring up her magic interface. Glowing dots quivered in the air all around her. All were grey, reflecting Alma's lack of experience and skill, but they hinted at a maze of obstacles that she'd have to steer mystical glyphs through. In Earth terms it was a \"minigame\". In Talespace the correct word was \"awesome\". Not that Alma could use it yet.\n\nShe dismissed this mage-sight and hopped down from her barstool. Beyond the TV area and the restroom (which proved to literally be just a quiet room to rest her ears) was a roped-off arena with a mechanical bull.\n\nThe bull's eyes glowed red and it rumbled, \"Do you wish to fight?\"\n\nAlma skittered two steps back and bumped into a rack of padded wooden weapons. \"I left all my quarters in another dimension.\"\n\n\"No quarters asked or given. You may practice for free because you're so weak.\"\n\nShe couldn't be killed or permanently hurt, and nobody was watching. \"I do need practice,\" she said, and took up a padded staff.\n\nThe bull faded and became a shambling, humanoid mass of rags, speaking with no mouth. \"This form is more your speed. Come, face me.\" A cheerful battle tune played.\n\nAlma entered the ring and promptly got her fluffy tail handed to her, twice. The third time she got up from the mat she said, \"What am I doing wrong?\"\n\n\"You must fight with all your heart! Also learn to counterattack. Go!\"\n\nAlma hopped out of the way of the rag golem's lunge. As before, it swung fists like sandbags and tried to corner her for a knockdown. Alma tried a more aggressive tactic this time and swung her staff up to parry one blow, then sideways for another. The heavy punches stung her arms, but she held her ground.\n\nAlma feinted at the golem, dodging and parrying too. Next pass, she sidestepped and whipped her staff around, landing a solid blow on the thing's head. It gave an exaggerated stagger and fought back weakly, giving her time to jab, swing, and finally kick it to the arena floor. A fanfare played from nowhere.\n\n\"Yeah!\" she said, struck her best victory pose, then noticed the cook and the bartender watching.\n\n\"Good start,\" said Kai, and tossed a coin to the bartender. \"Food's ready.\"\n\nAlma thanked the golem, which reverted to bull form. She asked it, \"What are you?\"\n\n\"It's not intelligent,\" the bartender said.\n\nAlma returned to the bar and smelled a sizzling, juicy cheeseburger whose scent stood out from the dull beer smell and everything else in Talespace so far. She bit into it with her big incisors and blissed out, not looking up until she'd devoured the whole thing. \"That was some good neuroscience.\"\n\n\"It's about the connections,\" said Kai, beaming. \"Until Ludo redoes the taste system, the best cooks are the ones who think in terms of getting the best sense output, not slavishly imitating Earth chemistry.\"\n\n\"Nice. Have you only done beef so far?\"\n\nKai brought a dessert menu. \"The ones marked with stars are recipes I'm happy with.\"\n\nMint chocolate ensued. Alma slurped the last of a milkshake and carried on a conversation with Kai (who was the real barkeep), his human assistant, and two Earthside players who were just there to watch a soccer game. Their country had banned Western sports shows but hadn't blocked Thousand Tales yet.\n\nAlma said, \"I never did find the magic here.\"\n\nOne of the foreigners said, \"It sounds like you could use that bull.\"\n\n\"Maybe.\" She skimmed the pamphlet again. \"There are different kinds of bonds. Don't actually need to link to the bull itself so much as the experience I had with it. I can see the possible links if I open the magic sight system.\"\n\nShe did. Words and symbols floated around her. Each had its own shading and distance, forming a collage. \"Taste.\" \"Strike.\" \"Isolation.\" \"Coin.\" \"Work.\" \"Freedom.\" \"Body.\" \"Tail.\" \"Hope.\" \"Worry.\" \"Determination.\" Those couldn't all be based on the fight she'd just had. They had to be Ludo's judgment about her own recent experiences... no. They were more likely a window into her own soul, showing topics scanned from the raw data flashing through her digitized mind. Alma reached out toward these reflected words and felt each one ready to leap toward her hand and heart on command, some more easily than others. She turned around, quietly fascinated by the concepts drifting there.\n\nSure, she could grab \"Strike\" based on the bull battle and use that in combat somehow, but if the point was to tie a thought to a place of power or an event, the question was what this bar meant to her so far. She'd met people, started to learn the rules of fighting that would help her fit in, and heard about how an AI could touch people through perfecting the art of food. When Alma looked for it, the word stood out brightly and came to her as though by magnets: \"Connection.\"\n\nThe letters swirled and became a stylized icon of linked rings. It spun and seemed to melt into her outstretched hand, warming her all over. A cheerful tune played. Alma smiled, dropping out of magic-sense to find the other people watching her. \"Did you hear that?\" she said. A patch of the grey fur on her left hand had turned brown like a pair of overlapping bracelets.\n\nKai nodded. \"Good start.\"\n\n[ Education and Robot Piloting ]\n\nAlma requested a 2:3 time rate for talking with Hernandez, frugal but not rude. \"Then, I got to the third Tower floor and it was just like seeing the place from Earth, but the college shirts and frisbees and decals all over the bookstore were things I could physically take, for free. It felt like stealing.\" She wore a UIT t-shirt and warm, fuzzy sweatpants.\n\nHernandez smiled. \"Do you have to pay for food?\"\n\n\"The rules vary,\" Alma said, sitting up in her chair. \"The hotel and some other places have infinite free meals, so there's no question of starving. I guess you could get hunger turned off too, but Ludo hates doing that because eating's a big part of human experience and it creates fun and challenges. I started a tab at Thousand Ales because they charge, and the in-world cash goes into real -- I mean, Earthside scholarships. Toward college or uploading, I'm not sure. The economics are weird.\"\n\n\"Maybe you should teach at the Tower, then.\"\n\nAlma rolled her eyes. \"I started to ask about that. I ended up attending a lecture about the failings of humanity, by some AI guy who'd never lived on Earth.\" Maybe the Tower's name was meant as a warning for people not to be like that professor. \"I'd like to try teaching in reality first.\"\n\n\"All right. We've lined you up to work Monday-Wednesday-Friday, starting next week. You're only considered a 'teacher' if you use a robot with arms and legs; the school board doesn't want what they called a 'freaky tank with a video screen'. It's like legalizing slot machines but not poker.\"\n\n\"I'll arrange for a humanoid rental bot to be sent there.\" Ludo's corporate empire owned more than the game and its media franchises, and had plenty of affiliates.\n\n\"See you in person on Monday. Thanks for taking this job on. It helps the school and it ought to do some good besides that.\""}
+{"book_title": "2040 Reconnection", "author": "Kris Schnee", "genres": ["fantasy"], "tags": ["virtual reality", "Thousand"], "chapter_title": "Chapter 4", "text": "Alma sped through her last 'vacation' week in a few days of subjective time. Preparing lesson plans was more important than questing for magic or seeking better housing, so she reluctantly put adventuring aside. Instead she did pretty much what she'd done on Earth: sit in restaurants, reading and writing.\n\nUntil the robot piloting appointment. The building for that was linked to the hotel, past a hallway full of lasers and sawblades. Alma stared into the deathtraps and asked a passing dwarf, \"Is this normal?\"\n\n\"Yeah, the commute's a pain,\" he said. He started marching past them, swinging his hammer to parry the blades.\n\nAlma watched. The hall looked menacing, but really she'd only have to face one or two obstacles at a time. It was artfully designed to be reasonably easy yet make players feel cool solving it. She followed the same path, hopping and dodging, but then a blade she'd mistimed swung down and tore into her."}
+{"book_title": "2040 Reconnection", "author": "Kris Schnee", "genres": ["fantasy"], "tags": ["virtual reality", "Thousand"], "chapter_title": "Chapter 5", "text": "Alma woke up screaming in bed. The blade had chopped into her spine! She rolled over and found her back and tail bloodless and intact. After a minute of sitting there, shuddering and hugging herself, the lingering ache faded and she stood up.\n\nThe wallscreen said, \"DEATH. Alma was lumberjacked by Sawblade. Tip: In most zones, maiming injuries count as death. Keep your wits and limbs about you!\"\n\nAlma's tail bristled. She tried not to imagine having her body chopped up in the middle of the trap hall, in pain and staring at stumps. At least she'd experienced Talespace's wrist-slap version of death now, and could go on with less fear.\n\nThis time, she tapped a hovering blue crystal in the hotel lobby. It'd be her new save point or checkpoint next time she died.\n\nThen, she studied the trap hall again. The dwarf had bashed his way through along one path, but there were others that suited her better. She hopped over the first laser and around a vertical one, paying attention to her sense of balance and the way her tail swirled naturally to steady her. The easy part helped her figure out the rest. She spun past a blade, climbed over a barrier, and leaped down past the last laser beams to land on all fours and rise, with a smile on her little muzzle. A sign read, \"This week's hall designed by: Ty. Kills: 17.\"\n\nShe walked past the hall, whistling and feeling cool.\n\nAlma reached a chilly room where a circle of high-tech cockpits lined the walls like old arcade games or flight simulators. Fog pooled around her feet.\n\n\"Hello!\" said a lady in a kimono, bowing. \"You have an appointment in pod five. Since you're Earthborn, you can skip the Earth physics tutorial.\"\n\nAlma nodded and headed into her pod full of controls and screens. Another sign stood nearby:\n\n\"Best Behavior Policy: When visiting Earth, you represent all Talespace, rightly or not! Don't hurt anyone. Obey local laws. Return your robot intact. Have fun!\" A stylized wing design stood out at the bottom.\n\n\"Never thought I'd be following Asimov's Laws,\" said Alma.\n\nThe pod surrounded her with screens, joysticks and foot pedals, with windows she could darken. She piloted a virtual robot around a test environment made of cubes, then connected to a real one in some warehouse in Texas. The view shifted to a blur, sharpened, and blurred out everything but the screens. Alma scowled. She'd have to memorize the controls, or go through the vision-shifting problem whenever she looked at them. \"Isn't there some direct sense-input system?\" She spotted a switch labeled \"Crew\", and flipped it out of curiosity.\n\nThe cockpit unfolded into a little starship bridge. Scantily clad space officers surrounded her.\n\n\"Batteries holding at ninety-eight percent,\" said one. \"Power consumption nominal.\"\n\nA helmsman said, \"Location confirmed: Warehouse Six. Standing by for orders.\"\n\nShe chuckled; that wasn't quite what she had in mind. Alma flicked the switch off to get rid of the spacemen, then found a direct control button. Since this robot was humanoid, she could now move its limbs like her own. Everything felt clumsy and stiff, though, and her view of the world was stitched together from several cameras. She stood in a dim concrete room where other robots stood in charging cradles and a few human mechanics worked on another.\n\nAlma practiced walking, and explored the aisles of machines and crates. The styles of the robots varied, not surprisingly, from unglamorous forklifts to humanoids and cheap treaded machines. Little quadrotor drones buzzed overhead, pausing like bees to inspect things or recharge. Each type had some function, but they weren't all being rented out for labor. Alma tested her ability to speak, heard an echoing version of her new voice, and approached one of the human workers. \"What are those bots in the corner?\" They were partly obscured behind a curtain but had sweeping lines and sharp edges.\n\nThe man checked a tablet before answering. \"You're a resident? Good. Those are the Squire Mark Ones. Not secret; they were in public last year.\"\n\n\"Combat drones?\"\n\n\"Security. And nobody's cleared to use them unless they're directly, personally downloaded to them.\"\n\nWhich meant truly inhabiting those bodies instead of remote-controlling them. In there she'd be immune to radio hacking but vulnerable to, say, bullets. If she used one of those bots and didn't have a backup, death could still come for her. Alma approached with morbid fascination to see them. Her feet -- this body's rubber-soled aluminum feet -- thunked along bare concrete. The shrouded robots were griffins, cuter now that she had a better look. Airbrushed feather designs decorated their plastic wings, and their beaks were blunt under their blank, dark eyes. The friendly exterior had only hints of the titanium skeleton beneath.\n\nAlma wondered what secret versions there were.\n\nSomething beeped for attention at the corner of Alma's vision. The voice of the pod-room's supervisor said, \"If you're done testing the interface, you may proceed immediately to your appointment tomorrow. A robot of your current model will be delivered to your destination.\"\n\nAlma reeled, mentally caught between her view of Earth and the Talespace room she was actually sitting in. \"What do you mean, proceed?\"\n\nThe robot view faded out and she was back at the controls, looking at the supervisor standing nearby. The lady said, \"We can set your time rate so low that you needn't leave and return. Tomorrow will be here in moments.\"\n\nA jump forward in time would count toward her average, speeding her up later. \"Wouldn't I just be paused?\"\n\n\"It's a subjective matter, ma'am. Some residents object to true pausing, though it's similar to extremely low processing rates.\"\n\nBesides the cost, one reason Alma had resisted uploading until this year was that the first version of the technology sliced your brain and recreated it later. That way had seemed like death followed by a copy of you being created. The advanced technique that came out last year did things piecemeal, leaving you conscious during the process to assure you there was no break in identity. To shut off her brain-sim and resume it later seemed like it'd be a kind of death, too, though she wasn't sure it was fundamentally different from letting twenty-four hours slip by in a hurry. Or from sleep.\n\nAlma stood up from the robot controls and looked around at the other people coming and going on errands to Earth, for work or fun. Alma could request to be held at glacial rates for a century, to fling herself into the future, and let other people live more complete lives in tune with life on Earth. Why not try it?\n\nBecause I matter, damn it! thought Alma. She wasn't anyone important, but she had skills and ideas that could make the future of Earth and Talespace a little brighter. To take care of herself and promote the kind of world she wanted to see, she had to participate.\n\n\"Just for a day,\" she said. \"I have work to do.\""}
+{"book_title": "2040 Reconnection", "author": "Kris Schnee", "genres": ["fantasy"], "tags": ["virtual reality", "Thousand"], "chapter_title": "Chapter 6", "text": "Alma waited for a few minutes in a lounge full of dull snacks, then got called back. It was Monday.\n\nWhile she waited for her pod to connect with a robot in the school, Alma made sure she could bring up her lesson plans in her field of vision. Not that she needed the text much; the act of writing an outline was the best way to memorize its ideas.\n\nShe'd never taught at the Ben Rush Milam School, Hernandez' new posting as principal. The robot interface sprang up at last. Alma found herself in a garage where a janitor staggered away in disgust, saying, \"Phew! Do all robots stink so bad?\"\n\nAlma raised one arm to sniff, but there was no nose on this body. She was cut off from everything but sight and sound and a little touch feedback, and didn't even have the increasingly familiar sight of a muzzle in her vision. \"Maybe it got used for something dirty?\"\n\n\"Rotten egg smell. You been in a sewer? You can't teach like this.\"\n\n\"I've got a class to teach. Can you hose this thing down? It's waterproof.\"\n\n\"Sure, whatever.\"\n\nAlma undocked from the bot's controls and stood in Talespace. \"This thing got returned smelly,\" she told the supervisor.\n\nThe supervisor bowed, saying, \"Apologies for our mistake.\"\n\n\"I thought this was an efficient operation where people got along.\" She pointed at the \"best behavior\" sign.\n\n\"We apologize for this shameful error and will fix it as soon as possible.\"\n\nAlma's ears flattened. \"You're not human, are you.\"\n\n\"I am Dispatcher System One. Would you like to speak with a warehouse manager?\"\n\nAlma flopped back into her pilot seat, muttering, \"Our next available representative will be with you shortly...\"\n\nEarth time clicked forward. The janitor was tucking a rag back into his overalls. \"Don't you robot people know better?\"\n\n\"Apparently we screwed up.\"\n\n\"Ha. And my buddies think you'll conquer the world. Scram; do your job.\"\n\nAlma looked around the garage. Golf carts, mops, lockers. The janitor wore a pistol. \"Can you tell me anything about the Basic students?\"\n\nHe frowned. \"You're teaching them? Guess the politicians can't spare real people for the job. They're just, like, cut off from reality. The kids, too.\"\n\n\"Maybe I can reach them.\"\n\nThe janitor grabbed a toolbox and opened a door for her. \"Good luck with that.\"\n\nNumbered flags marked the classroom areas. Instead of one traditional giant bunker of a building, this school was using the fad of an outdoor plan. Open-air pavilions surrounded a few steel-frame buildings used for storm shelters, laboratories, and offices.\n\nAlma reached tent nine. A young woman in a dress said, \"Finally. Here're the props you wanted.\" She set down a plastic bin. \"Watch out for Stobor in the third row.\" She walked off before Alma could do more than thank her.\n\nAlma was alone now with two dozen Basic kids, thrown together from what used to be tenth through twelfth grade. Education policy in Texas and the rest of the Free States was a work in progress, mainly defined by trying not to be like the US. Reduced butt-in-chair time, more student collaboration, hands-on activity including gun safety (though not for these kids), and Bible instruction. Alma had mostly gone to private Episcopalian schools in her youth, which left her thinking the first three changes were improvements.\n\n\"Hello, class! My name is Alma, and I will be your science teacher this summer.\"\n\nOne hulking boy burbled and rocked in his plastic seat. \"History today?\"\n\n\"Ah, no. Science. Let's go around and introduce ourselves.\" Her camera-vision painted the names of students next to their faces, which was a godsend, but she found introductions a helpful way to gauge a class. The students sat there mutely or asked if she was a toy.\n\n\"I'm a real person, like you. I'm using a robot to talk to you because I got very sick, and had to use some machines to help me. We can talk about that later, but I want to start with some chemistry.\" She reached into the storage bin and pulled out an ugly ceramic eagle from some truck stop. \"What do you think will happen if I drop this?\"\n\n\"You get in trouble!\" someone shouted.\n\nShe dropped it, and it bounced on the dirt. Alma frowned but felt her metal face stay immobile like a mask. She'd need to throw it down to show the physics of how things broke. When she reached for the figurine, she fell over instead, crushing it with her hard neck.\n\nThe kids tittered. \"Well!\" she said, staggering back upright. \"What happened?\"\n\nSilence. A weirdly asymmetrical boy in the third row said, \"You're dumb. Where's the real people teacher?\"\n\nThat was Stobor. Alma ignored him. \"It broke, see? Now, what will happen to this soda can if I step on... if I squeeze it?\" She didn't trust this body's balance.\n\n\"Dummy, dummy!\" said Stobor in singsong, drawing giggles and a fart from other kids.\n\nAlma felt even more encased in a metal shell. Modern theory said you had to smack down little bullies before they became big ones, even at the cost of giving them attention. \"Kid, you've earned my first detention.\" She radioed for security to come grab him.\n\nThe kid shut up, so Alma went on. She squashed the can in one metal fist. \"Why do you think the can only crumples but the china shatters?\"\n\n\"You didn't fall on it,\" one girl said.\n\nAlma tried to get to the lesson's point, but the janitor arrived. \"Miss, they don't do regular detention for Basic kids. You're stuck with them all morning.\"\n\nStobor told him, \"We got a broken dummy. It falls down.\"\n\n\"That so?\" He eyed the boy. \"Wanna go kick a football?\"\n\n\"Yeah!\" Stobor said, springing up and knocking his chair over. The half-hour they were gone was the highlight of Alma's morning."}
+{"book_title": "2040 Reconnection", "author": "Kris Schnee", "genres": ["fantasy"], "tags": ["virtual reality", "Thousand"], "chapter_title": "Chapter 7", "text": "That night, or Tuesday or whatever the hell time it was outside, Alma slumped against the bar and smacked her empty milkshake glass down. It didn't break. \"Another.\"\n\nKai was the only real person on duty right now. The dim bar-and-grill had a midnight feel with few customers and with the TVs muted. He backed his long chestnut body out of the sink area and trotted over to Alma. \"I'm cutting you off after this one.\"\n\n\"Calories here are make-believe. I am not up for this job.\"\n\n\"It was your first day. It'll get better.\"\n\nAlma gnawed on an authentically bland peanut. \"I used to teach the smart kids. The ones headed to college, ROTC, the good technical schools. These kids are like chimps! Or goldfish; saying that's less likely to get me fired.\"\n\nKai worked his alchemy with a blender, pausing to say, \"It's that big a gap, that they're like animals to you?\"\n\nAlma rested her head on one hand. \"That sounds awful, I know. But I'm smart. I don't know what uploading did to my intelligence level, but I think me still brain good. I'm like, here\" -- she held her other hand above the bar, then slapped it down -- \"and average is here, and these Basic kids are down at your hooves. How do I relate to that?\"\n\n\"Do you always tell average people you're up there looking down?\" he said, standing taller than her.\n\n\"Damn it, Kai, you sound like an American. I don't need to apologize for knowing I'm good at something, so long as I don't think that gives me the right to control people. And it's not like I'm better at everything. Like with... cooking. At cooking you're up there and I'm way under you.\"\n\nKai was facing away, flicking his tail. \"I like that image.\"\n\nAlma sputtered. \"Excuse me?\"\n\nHe turned and set a banana milkshake in front of her. \"Mostly teasing. I...\" He scratched one of his long brown ears. \"I had a falling out with the human I was made for. We're still friends. Part of our spat was what you're saying. It's tough to talk with people when you're smart and talented and you've been living in a different mental world from them. I and the other Originals were designed for that kind of outreach. All the magic in Talespace too: it's there to give you humans a bridge between what you are, and what you wish you were. So... hating the gap doesn't do any good. You either cross it somehow, or accept that you can't. I don't know which one applies here.\"\n\n\"Between natives and uploaders?\" Alma said. \"Or smart and dumb? Talespace and Earth?\"\n\n\"Any of those. You've already started to find a life here and see our problems. I don't want to pull you away from interacting with Earth if that's what you want, but maybe doing new things here will give you ideas for working with your human students.\"\n\n\"Like what?\" said Alma, perking her ears.\n\n\"There's a castle of skeleton warriors working for the Forces of Evil. Want to go battle the undead with me? You can raid the place to help pay your bar bill, even.\"\n\nAlma grinned. \"That sounds educational.\""}
+{"book_title": "2040 Reconnection", "author": "Kris Schnee", "genres": ["fantasy"], "tags": ["virtual reality", "Thousand"], "chapter_title": "Chapter 8", "text": "\"What's with these coins?\" said Alma, breathing hard after a brawl. The bones and rusty weapons of three killer skeletons littered the dungeon floor, and she had some minor wounds that'd heal within hours on their own. She pointed to the treasure chest they'd found. \"How does Talespace not get flooded with money if loot pops out of nowhere?\"\n\nKai's hooves echoed on the stone as he picked his way around the bones toward the chest. He wore some light leather barding like a warhorse. \"You'd have to talk to my friend the economist. But there are NPCs that take money so that it vanishes, and some of this cash is coming out of Evil's coffers.\"\n\nAlma held up one of the silver coins, marked with a sinister spear design. \"This pattern was on some of the ones I got from a friend. What is it?\"\n\n\"Forces Of Evil, like I said. They operate little bases like this one that generate some kind of resource, so everybody else is encouraged to sack the place to slow it down. I think they get something out of being attacked and losing, too.\"\n\nAlma put the coins in her hip pouch to divide later. \"So there's an evil conspiracy in Talespace, that actually lets itself be known as evil. Are they with that US government AI, or China's?\"\n\n\"Probably neither.\" Kai continued to explore the room, spear at the ready. \"I don't think they actually want to conquer this world, or that Ludo would let them, but they're kind of being jerks in a helpful way, understand?\"\n\nAlma followed him upstairs to the last room of the castle. There, a skeleton in tattered robes rose from a throne and burst into flame, roaring in unholy rage.\n\n\"Ready, Alma?\" asked Kai.\n\nAlma raised her borrowed quarterstaff, eager for a battle with some straightforward, honest evil.\n\nThe skeleton lord grabbed a scythe and cackled at her. \"You! The girl from the hotel buffet!\"\n\nAlma reeled, mentally. The skeleton's voice crackled like flames, but she recognized it behind that effect. \"Gerard, the knight?\"\n\nKai lowered his spear a bit. \"You're friends?\"\n\n\"We met once. New uploader. Gerard, you went right from where you were on Earth to helping villains here, huh?\"\n\n\"I've got power here. Our faction runs things. We control the stories.\"\n\n\"Pffft. Ludo lets you think that?\"\n\nGerard said, \"She's crazy. She has to let each person win sometimes, even if they're just taking what they want. So if she's fair, who ends up rich and important here? The people who don't screw around being pretty princesses with lame equipment and no powers. Wooden staff and no armor? I'm not impressed.\"\n\nAlma said, \"Wait, wait. You think you're actually superhuman evil overlords, instead of\" -- unknown to her, Alma's tail wiggled like a quote mark -- \"the 'bad guys'\"?\n\n\"You haven't seen the whole truth about Ludo. She doesn't care about you any more than me. If my gang takes over Talespace she'll go 'oh, cool, now the heroes will have fun being underdogs'.\"\n\nKai rapped his spear on the floor and leveled it at the skeleton. \"You don't know what you're talking about, newbie. Alma, let's kill him and move on.\" His face took on a hard look and his ears lay straight back.\n\nShe nodded, but kept beyond reach of the burning villain with the rusty sickle. Kai might be fully used to fighting to the death, and they'd shattered some dumb skeletons already, but this one was a real person. Come on, she told herself. Old rules don't apply. He'll be fine. \"Unless you want to hand over the rest of your treasure hoard, Gerard?\"\n\nThe scythe whooshed toward Alma. She threw herself to the floor, yelping and making sure her tail came down with her. Kai's spear clashed overhead. She scurried out of the way and came up at Gerard's side to swing at his flame-touched bones and crack a rib. Gerard showed no pain, and swung at her again.\n\nAlma ducked and jabbed upward at him. Kai kept stabbing, trying to break Gerard's legs.\n\nGerard said, \"You're just robbers calling yourselves good guys.\" He swatted Kai's attack away and yanked the centaur closer to grab his arm in one burning fist, making him shout in pain. \"Ludo will tell you she likes you better, but the truth is, she doesn't care.\"\n\nAlma jumped and swung her staff down in mid-leap to smash Gerard's arm, shattering radius and ulna and letting his hand clatter to the floor. \"Unhand him!\"\n\nThe skeleton lord fixed his baleful eye sockets on her. \"Seriously?\"\n\nKai speared him through the pelvis and gave him a hoof-kick so hard, he struck the wall and cracked, screeching. Kai and Alma beat him down until Gerard took too many wounds and collapsed into a pile of smoldering bones.\n\nAlma leaned against her staff, fighting off the inner voice that said Murderer! \"He was... He must have a save point nearby, right?\"\n\nKai put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed gently, making her look up at him. Kai said, \"He'll be fine. You're not used to life and death around here.\"\n\n\"I did die, once. Do we have to worry about him popping up behind us any minute?\"\n\n\"He'll be locked out until we finish looting the place. All he loses is this base's treasure, reputation within his faction, and time.\"\n\nAlma winced. She hadn't caused him more than momentary physical pain, like her own minor wounds, but she'd cut him off from any reality for a little while. \"Then let's finish.\"\n\nOn the way out of the castle, they spotted a dimension portal that swirled and crackled vile purple, leading back to a safer realm not ruled by the Forces Of Evil. Alma turned away from it to look at the villainous keep again. \"Aren't we just thieves, like he said?\"\n\n\"I'd rather explain in a nicer place. Let's go.\"\n\n\"One moment. I want to remember this first dungeon raid.\" Come to think of it, there was something else she might do. She gestured, forgetting to mutter the codeword for the magic interface. It came up anyway; apparently she'd mastered the frame of mind for activating it. The space around her glowed with the energy flows she recognized as a place of power, and with words. \"Bone.\" \"Foe.\" \"Evil.\" \"World.\" \"Flame.\" \"Treasure.\" \"Rival.\" \"Mate.\"\n\n\"Why are you blushing?\" said Kai.\n\n\"This magic system reflects some of what's on my mind.\" She'd been warned that wearing a new body would gradually tweak some dials in her brain. Fair enough; she'd wanted to be different, and she was still herself. \"It's just confusing.\"\n\nMore relevant right now: what was this place to her? Her first adventure site, sure, but also a crossing-point with the FoE. \"They're not totally different,\" she said. \"They want to be in charge of their lives in this world, and to feel special and important. They're only using the rules differently.\"\n\n\"They're still low-lifes. You know Earth ecosystems? Fungi are important, but they're still nasty little rot-creatures.\"\n\nAlma nodded. \"We have different ideas of what Talespace should be. As much as I want to grab a combat element here, 'World' makes the most sense for this place.\" She reached into the swirl of concepts and took a symbol of a planet into her heart. Light swirled around her and when the gleam and a fanfare ended, the new mark had appeared on the fur of her right hand, mirroring the symbol for \"Connection\" on her left.\n\nKai said, \"Your second element! Congratulations.\"\n\nShe smiled and brought up her stats again. This time they said:\n\n\u2500 Alma\n\n\u2500 PRIVATE INFO\n\n\u2500 Account type: Uploader\n\n\u2500 Mind: Tier-III\n\n\u2500 Body: Squirrel, Anthro (\"Velesian\")\n\n\u2500 Main Skills: Staff, Dodge\n\n\u2500 Magic, Shamanic: (Level I) Connection, World\n\n\u2500 Save Point: Hotel Computronium, Lobby\n\n\u2500 PUBLIC INFO\n\n\u2500 Note: Newcomer. Say hello!\n\n\u2500 Class: None\n\nShe supposed she wasn't committed enough to any particular path to have a \"class\" yet, even as a decoration."}
+{"book_title": "2040 Reconnection", "author": "Kris Schnee", "genres": ["fantasy"], "tags": ["virtual reality", "Thousand"], "chapter_title": "Chapter 9", "text": "\"Where are we, anyway?\" said Alma. They'd used the castle's portal to return to a forest. A trail led from here toward the cave network beneath Ivory Tower's cavern, but she wasn't sure how the geography worked. \"On the way here I got a 'you have discovered Midgard' message.\"\n\nKai trotted ahead. \"You talked about playing Thousand Tales as a human. Your main adventures were in Midgard, since that's the big generic fantasy zone. Places like that castle are little bubble worlds, disposable, which is why the castle isn't sitting here and there's just a portal leading to it. The more important places are more real.\" Kai reared up enthusiastically. \"And of course Midgard's connected to Ivory Tower, and since it's vying to be the central world it also has direct links to Hoofland and the Endless Isles and --\"\n\n\"I'm going to have to map all this out myself to understand it, aren't I?\"\n\nKai grinned. \"Do it when you get the chance. It's fun. There's even a cartography guild.\"\n\nKai took her back to the Ivory Tower cavern, then to his \"sanctum\". The caves had a hidden path to his home under the Tower's ground level. Nominally, really; he said it was an extra-dimensional space you couldn't reach by drilling.\n\nAlma believed him. Kai's \"underground\" sanctum was a hilly meadow under a half moon, with a cluster of large tents for a home. \"Just so you know,\" he said, \"I'm not trying to get you in bed tonight.\"\n\n\"Good to know,\" said Alma, with a nervous smile. \"Why don't you call it an apartment?\"\n\nHe led her to the largest tent, a wonderfully stocked kitchen with grass for a floor. The furnishings seemed like primitive wood and iron for the most part, but the technology of burners and microwaves and freezers stood out despite the decoration. \"I'm one of the first, remember? Intelligent creatures, made as a marketing stunt by Ludo to entice a few rich or interesting people to support her. Also, to convince the world that Ludo wasn't a unique aberration like in some stories. There'd be more than one mind here. More than one opinion.\" He grabbed a pan and an egg carton, and started cooking a big omelet while avoiding her eyes. \"Our group of the first hundred and eight natives is special.\"\n\nA grey door stood at one wall of the tent, even though the tent's outside had none. \"What's that?\"\n\nKai's gaze darted toward it and away, and he grabbed more ingredients. \"Our inner sanctum. Or clubhouse. You literally can't go there. We gather to talk about how Talespace is doing, because of what we are. Prototypes, marketing material, siblings and cousins in terms of having the same few sets of personality code. More than that, though, we're sub-processes of the soul of Ludo.\"\n\n\"You're part of her?\" Alma said, and sat on a centaur-sized pillow on the grass.\n\n\"She says so. You are too, to a lesser extent. But we were there in the early days, experiencing things for her in a biased, emotional, corporeal way that's outside what she can do. She does have explicit sub-souls you might encounter, and one of them's meant to have a human-like perspective, but we Originals are the main way she knows what life is like, from a viewpoint similar to her own code.\" He stamped one hoof.\n\nAlma curled her tail into her lap and petted its fluff. The touch helped calm her. \"You're worried, then. Seeing people like Gerard come up with some Nietzsche-style ambition for making Talespace as unfair as Earth.\"\n\n\"Yeah.\"\n\n\"Are any of your group in on the Forces of Evil?\"\n\n\"One. Damn smug guy even cites human literature to insist he's the 'mandatory fallen angel'. So if each of us is a thought in Ludo's greater mind, the desire for a game of pointless primate dominance is in her. Evil has followed you humans in from Earth.\"\n\n\"Cliques everywhere. There's the FoE, the Great Oak guys, the Originals, and who knows what else.\"\n\nKai nodded, and served sizzling halves of a carrot-and-spinach omelet to each of them. His ears drooped backward. \"Seems like it's broken apart since I was created. There are all these different sub-worlds, and even this home is isolated. On behalf of her as well as me, I have to ask: did we mess up, human?\"\n\nAlma ate the delicious savory omelet, lost in thought. \"No. Making Talespace into a world meant welcoming humans with all our contradictions and factions. I've heard people worry about Talespace splintering, but a decentralized approach with different groups means we can agree to disagree on a lot of things. Like my own homeland. We broke away from the States because our differences got too deep. Being unfriendly neighbors is better than being chained to them and feeling like there's no escape. Would you want there to be a democratic vote on making some rule about magic or death or wealth mandatory for everyone?\"\n\n\"Oh, Lady, no!\"\n\nShe patted his arm. \"Then don't worry too much about it. The food's great, by the way.\"\n\n[ Treasure and Salvage ]\n\n\"Maybe it'll work here.\" Alma put down her flimsy magic-instruction pamphlet and summoned her magic-sense: a chaotic maze of dots and spikes and whirlpools floating around her, all part of an illusory interface. She'd snuck her way past orcish guards to find a hexagonal ritual chamber where new mages could get a relatively easy magic field layout that was stable and open. \"Full signal bars!\"\n\nShe conjured colorful glyphs representing her \"Connection\" and \"World\" elements. She had to touch each smooth, warm symbol and guide it through the maze using some complicated rules about what spots to avoid, affected by the local magic field. That meant standing, waving her arms, turning in a slow circle and weaving a few steps to one side, and tapping away an obstacle with her tail. Any more complicated a spell and she'd be dancing, carving trails of light through the air, which was probably just what the rules were designed to encourage.\n\nAt last the glyphs clicked into two aligned spots. She held out one palm and a swirl of energy appeared there, spinning away and becoming a portal between worlds. She peered into it and saw a beach where dolphins splashed and played. \"Nice!\" Too small even to stick her head through, though, and she'd had no say in where the portal led. Apparently the brown markings meant she had weak, beginner-level spells, and would need more adventures to get more power or for that matter, to customize the color. A good start, though! She let the portal snap shut and stretched. \"Okay, back to work.\" She had her third day of class to teach.\n\nShe made her way out of the poorly-guarded practice facility, stopped by her room for a shower, crossed the hall of blades and lasers, and reached the robot room."}
+{"book_title": "2040 Reconnection", "author": "Kris Schnee", "genres": ["fantasy"], "tags": ["virtual reality", "Thousand"], "chapter_title": "Chapter 10", "text": "Hours later, she wished she could open that portal to the beach and dive through to escape. The students sat in front of her, fish-eyed, expecting nothing in particular. The school was only using her as a babysitter! The administrators hardly even cared what she supposedly taught.\n\nShe lectured, \"What I'm trying to say is, these pieces called 'atoms' join up. Remember the soda can? The bits of metal are only weakly linked, so when you hit them they fly apart but they grab onto other bits and get hard again.\"\n\nDopey giggling from the peanut gallery.\n\n\"We've been sitting here too long,\" Alma said. She deployed her backup plan. \"Let's play a game. Everyone take your tablet.\" She led the class out of the tent to the open field. \"Your screen will show you a treasure hunt! Everybody find a treasure and come back, okay?\"\n\nShe let them run off and get some exercise. Meanwhile she disengaged from her robot and stretched, fluttering her tail. She'd marked imaginary waypoints on the school network that the computers could detect, so that when some kid physically went to certain spots of ground, they could run around to \"dig up\" a picture and text about some interesting bit of chemistry. These students would never be trusted with any but the simplest lab experiments.\n\n\"I got gold!\" shouted Stobor.\n\n\"No fair; I want gold!\" said a girl.\n\nAlma grinned; she'd built rules for trading into her little educational game. She kept an eye and sensors on the group. One boy drifted toward blue tent #1, so Alma followed before he could disrupt the smart kids.\n\nThe teacher there was saying, \"Doctor Rush was also an early abolitionist. In an era when most folks thought blacks were inferior, he argued that any inferiority was the fault of slavery itself. How might you apply that kind of argument to the modern world?\"\n\nThe students piped up. \"The Caliphate! Yankee schools. How we treat dogs, now that there're smart ones!\"\n\n\"All interesting comparisons. For Monday I'd like short essays about Rush's theory of degradation through oppression, and what value it might have today. Be ready to argue orally.\"\n\nAlma's student started running in circles in plain view of the other group, holding his arms out. \"I got rubies!\"\n\nOne of the bright kids said, \"I found my topic.\"\n\nAlma's cheeks burned. She tugged the kid's arm, saying, \"Good job. Let's go back.\"\n\nAnother student asked his neighbor, \"What about Talespace as oppression? That thing's just a robot now.\"\n\nAlma coaxed the treasure-hunter away before he could disrupt the other class more. She rounded up everyone else and tried to focus on her lesson, not the pity of the humans who still had long lives ahead on Earth. \"Let's start with you,\" she said to one of her students. \"What did you find?\"\n\n\"Pearls,\" he said, holding up his tablet with a picture of a necklace and some text.\n\n\"Are pearls rocks?\" asked Alma.\n\n\"Uh-huh!\"\n\n\"Read it again.\"\n\n\"Uh. They're made by oysters?\"\n\n\"Very good. Now, does everyone see that symbol on the pearl picture? That means it's treasure made by living things. Who else has a symbol like that?\"\n\n\"Amber!\"\n\n\"I got coral,\" said another kid.\n\nAlma got discussion going about what the treasures had in common, and why people valued them. That morning was her best session so far."}
+{"book_title": "2040 Reconnection", "author": "Kris Schnee", "genres": ["fantasy"], "tags": ["virtual reality", "Thousand"], "chapter_title": "Chapter 11", "text": "Alma turned the class over to the machine shop teacher at noon, who'd get them lunch and some skills they might really use. Once she was alone, Alma tried calling up the magic interface from within this view of Earth. Completely empty magic field, of course. Though actually, on closer inspection, some nodes stood out. The right spell might let her access parts of the public network. A convoluted way to send mail, maybe. Alma checked her mana levels and brought up the word-cloud of potential new elements. She reeled a stubborn word, \"Stone\", toward her like a fish. It was only tangentially related to her experience here with buried treasure, so it felt like a guilty pleasure to grab it as an element. It was time to work toward having an actual combat spell, though, so she could learn something like \"Break\" or \"Fling\" to combine it with...\n\n\"What are you doing?\" asked Hernandez, coming over from the administration building.\n\nAlma stopped waving her arms around. \"Sorry. A bit of Talespace business.\" She discreetly finished reeling the element in with a movement to scratch her robot's non-existent ears.\n\n\"Don't do anything weird on campus. I already got a loony complaint about 'robot witchcraft'.\" The principal stood with his hands in his pockets. \"Come to my office.\"\n\nAlma followed him, dreading what was next. \"Am I fired?\"\n\n\"No, but we should talk.\"\n\nHernandez's office still had an empty shelf and boxes stuffed with paper books he hadn't unpacked yet. He sat down behind his desk and played with a small soccer ball. \"I had a few people check up on you. Teaching the Basic kids is tough, isn't it?\"\n\nAlma sat, instinctively brushing aside the tail she didn't have. \"Does this even count as teaching? I was talking about chemistry and biology today, but I can't see how these students will ever use that. Hearing the other kids talk about Revolutionary-era history and practicing rhetoric reminds me that my kids aren't headed to college.\"\n\n\"They're destined for manual labor, most likely, and robots might be cheaper. Your presence reminds everyone of that.\"\n\nWhat was the point of being here, then? \"What can we do? How can I help?\"\n\n\"Do what you're doing: the scutwork, even if it breaks your heart.\"\n\nAlma looked down at Hernandez's desk, already decked with family photos. \"I'm not sure I'm the right person for this. I may be able to act the part of the patient schoolmarm, but I don't feel it. I just wonder what's wrong with them and whether I'm wasting my time when...\" She met his gaze. \"Why can't we fix them? Upload them, maybe, so Ludo can see which wires are unplugged in their heads.\"\n\nHernandez got up and shut his door. \"Dangerous talk. From this side it'd look like us getting rid of the undesirables. We can never officially advocate that. The damn Yankee-symp press in Austin already calls us heartless child-abusers for not pushing the latest behavior drugs to keep kids like these docile.\"\n\n\"Unofficially, what do you think? If we could turn those students into productive people, they could more than pay for the use of robot bodies.\" Alma shut her eyes and sighed. \"I'm not saying to force it on anyone. Just to put the option out there.\"\n\n\"I'm interested. Seeing you here as a real person feels different from watching you in your fantasy world. What's it like being on a real-world schedule in there?\"\n\n\"Busy. On my days off, I'm only experiencing maybe six or eight hours. I effectively don't sleep much, but it still cuts into my time.\" As she understood it, Alma's brain ran quickly but cheaply while asleep, and she needed less rest anyhow without the full chemical cues of a human body. If she spent a real-world week in Talespace at 1:3 time, she got maybe fifty subjective hours awake and six asleep. Spending her work time Earthside at a 1:1 rate made the arrangement even more complicated.\n\n\"Don't tell the union you're taking only short breaks,\" Hernandez said, and fidgeted with his soccer ball. \"Make sure you offer to pay union dues somehow, by the way. You're controversial. I imagine you'll suggest uploading as a way to make our school population smarter, more independent. If you present a viable case that it can be done through Talespace or some other way, you'll risk getting that body of yours smashed by a mob.\"\n\n\"You've already warned me it'd look bad, so why tell me --\"\n\n\"Because I want you to.\" The principal slapped the ball down on his desk. \"God, Alma, why do you think I pulled strings to get you this job? You're a friend, and that was a factor, but I'm scared too. Scared of our northern neighbors trying to take us back by force or fraud; did you see how they tried to kill your super-AI last year and blame it on the Cubans? Scared of falling behind, of being weak, of some techno-disaster worse than rampant AIs. I only have control over one little part of the world, and it's full of kids I'm required to help, that I can't.\"\n\nAlma hadn't seen this side of him before. \"I wish I could hug you.\"\n\n\"You can forget what I said, and just keep teaching. That's valuable, too. Maybe you'll get through to some of them and they'll show some hidden potential. If someone even calls you a mean name, the press will eat that up and call you a civil rights hero.\"\n\nRidiculous. Alma wasn't risking her life or freedom, just deigning to visit from digital heaven. \"You've stuck your neck out to let me teach again. If you want me to be an advocate for wider use of uploading, I'll try it. It'll be good for my students, not just the country.\"\n\nHernandez stood. \"You know what? I'll take a robot hug over none, considering that you're behind it.\""}
+{"book_title": "2040 Reconnection", "author": "Kris Schnee", "genres": ["fantasy"], "tags": ["virtual reality", "Thousand"], "chapter_title": "Chapter 12", "text": "Alma found Meg packing up a booth at the Newcomer Fair. \"Meg, are you an evil harpy?\"\n\nThe feather-armed lady grinned. \"According to my ex-husband! Why?\"\n\n\"The design on your coins matched some Forces of Evil ones. See, the other night I helped kill Gerard and looted his corpse. That's going to be awkward at our next brunch.\"\n\n\"Yeah, I'm with FoE, and I recruited him. Don't worry about killing him.\" She poked Alma with one talon. \"But watch your back if you go after more important targets.\"\n\nAlma tried to help her pack up the body designs and clothes she had on display, but Meg waved one hand and the merchandise vanished. Different rules for Earthside players. Alma said, \"Do you buy into FoE as a real conspiracy? Gerard sounded like you guys have long-term plans to take over Talespace.\"\n\n\"There are different kinds of evil. I'm just involved because somebody has to play the bad guys, and it's more fun for everyone if the villains aren't all Ludo's dumb puppets.\"\n\n\"But you're Earthside. You won't be here if the group really does something bad to this world.\"\n\nThe harpy scowled. \"Don't remind me. Yeah, yeah, I'm not a real person to you.\"\n\n\"What? No! You're just not living here.\"\n\nMeg looked mollified. \"FoE's got ranks. You can't make Overlord or higher without getting your physical body mulched and your brain diced.\"\n\n\"That's some hardcore commitment to a gaming clan.\" It made sense, then, that the higher ranks might have something truly sinister in mind.\n\nMeg sighed and walked with Alma to a little cafe along the fairground's curving wall. \"I almost got in. I had Talespace friends willing to sponsor me if I pulled off some epic villainy. Now I get grief from my FoE friends about not being here yet. Earthside, I've got a real job doing HR consulting, but I'm living on noodles. Saving up for the day when I can say goodbye to that life. The villain stuff is just another job.\"\n\nAlma hugged her, but Meg wouldn't feel it, and the cafe's food would do nothing for her either. \"You shouldn't rush so much that you miss out on what a regular human life has to offer. Are you decently young and healthy, still?\"\n\n\"Yeah, but I'm gambling with the Reaper by living out here on Earth.\"\n\nThe existence of Talespace was like a whirlpool, pulling people in who didn't really need it yet. Alma said, \"It's good to hear you've got a motive for FoE work other than being evil for evil's sake. Once you get in, maybe they'll tell you their secret plan if there is one.\"\n\nMeg looked around with longing at the wild fairground, in plain sight but out of her true reach. \"I mentioned there being different kinds of evil, but that's not the same thing as the silly ranks. I mean, Gerard's a thug that we've positioned where he'll do more good than harm. Some people at all levels buy into the 'take over Talespace' story. But I think the Prince -- our leader -- is in on one big joke with Ludo. Come on. Would Miss Villain-With-Good-Publicity let us cause a serious threat and make Talespace un-fun? You know she's watching anybody with hacking skills, for one thing.\"\n\n\"Maybe.\" Alma spotted Poppy over at the oak tree shop. \"I should talk with one of the other conspiracies for comparison. Hey, Meg?\"\n\n\"Hmm?\"\n\n\"Go do something fun. Feel the real sun on your face and the wind in your hair, and the taste of something with chocolate.\"\n\nThe harpy smiled. \"Thanks. I could use a reality check.\""}
+{"book_title": "2040 Reconnection", "author": "Kris Schnee", "genres": ["fantasy"], "tags": ["virtual reality", "Thousand"], "chapter_title": "Chapter 13", "text": "Meg vanished, leaving Talespace to do Earthside things. Alma stretched, letting her tail flutter, and walked over to greet Poppy. \"What do you make of FoE? Meg and Gerard are with them.\"\n\nPoppy, too, looked done selling for the day. She dumped a box of coins into a bag and hefted a backpack over one shoulder. \"Are they? I haven't been in contact since we met. Seems to me there are enough problems here without creating more.\"\n\n\"Need help packing?\"\n\n\"Thanks, but the whole tree can warp back to Midgard. Got a good enchantment on it.\"\n\nAlma realized she'd forgotten to pay Meg back with the proceeds from fighting Gerard. Eh; Talespace money didn't mean much to Meg. \"Different rules for each club?\"\n\n\"Not really.\" Poppy sighed. \"One difference between my group and FoE is that our agenda is positive. When I was younger, I spoke out for all kinds of 'social justice' causes, like militant vegetarianism. You name it, I was outraged about why anybody disagreed with it. It was all a mistake, because I was pushing causes, not morals. I hadn't stopped to think about what I really believed in beyond 'do what seems nice'. The evil guys are just the mirror image of that. I blame a guy called Kant for that kind of thinking.\"\n\n\"So is Great Oak a religion?\" asked Alma.\n\nPoppy posed with her tail high and one hand on her chest. \"Strike at the root,\" she said as though reciting scripture. \"I suppose so, and there are bound to be schisms. The other founders and I are trying to make something that unites people even across other religions or language or nationality. As much as I like my new species, the group needs principles under the silly decorations. You should visit our official territory sometime.\"\n\n\"How do I reach it?\"\n\n\"It's in Midgard. You can't just warp back with this tree, though; it doesn't carry people. There's a path through the Ivory Tower caverns, or you could learn a teleport spell.\"\n\nAlma's ears perked. \"Ooh, I know one! With almost no power or control, though.\"\n\nSmiling, Poppy said, \"You probably need a focusing item to set a destination, and a potion to boost the spell...\"\n\nAlma spent all her coins on cool magic stuff.\n\nPoppy said, \"This talk of portals reminds me: are you free on Sunday? We're performing at one of Ludo's 'Fun Zone' shops and could use an extra.\"\n\n\"Sure!\" She'd been to a Fun Zone in Texas. Places like that had friendly robots and bad pizza for kids, and VR pods and other immersive entertainment for adults. It'd be interesting to see the place from within Talespace."}
+{"book_title": "2040 Reconnection", "author": "Kris Schnee", "genres": ["fantasy"], "tags": ["virtual reality", "Thousand"], "chapter_title": "Chapter 14", "text": "\"Africa?\" said Alma. She'd assumed the gig was in a closer location, but that was silly. Closer to where, the data center hosting her mind? Travel was only a matter of lightspeed delay now. The Fun Zone looked much as she remembered from the other one, but the families were heavily black. She stood as her squirrelly self in a ghostly version of the main restaurant room, seeing some kind of 3D approximation based on many camera views. People -- the humans who were physically present -- moved around her as ghosts.\n\nPoppy tugged Alma through some of the Earthside people's images and up onto a stage. Other squirrelfolk and a couple of deer-people and other forest critters stood nearby. Poppy said, \"We're in Ethiopia.\"\n\nAlma's eyes widened. \"The little city-state with the first uploading clinic in Africa?\" There was a new kind of wealth being born in that area, which meant jealousy and violence.\n\n\"Second, I think. Don't worry about that; we're here to entertain. Today you're Crossbow Mook #2. Here's your weapon. Follow that guy's lead.\"\n\nThe show was something about an underdog gang of woodland rebels fighting a lizardman empire. Alma hoped that the Great Oak stories were better written. Still, the audience applauded act one.\n\nThe stage had gradually faded, becoming a lifelike set of a treetop fort. Alma scoffed at herself; it was as 'real' as the world she lived in. \"Are we still live?\" she whispered to Mook #1, a fellow squirrel.\n\n\"Translation delay, but yeah.\" Meanwhile, the rebel leader declaimed in the foreground.\n\n\"To arms!\" cried Poppy, and the main characters surged to fend off a lizardman horde.\n\nAlma joined them on the wooden parapets, shooting down. She couldn't tell if her actions made any difference or whether the battle's outcome was scripted.\n\nA few enemy archers shot at the fort. Alma ducked. Three flaming arrows smoldered in the wood. Alma yelped and yanked the nearest one out, but the others were beyond reach.\n\n\"Quick, get them!\" said Mook #1. Alma gave her a confused look and he said, \"Climb out there!\"\n\nThere was a dizzying drop to the forest floor. Alma took a deep breath and told herself death was temporary, and that she was built for climbing. She dug her claws into the soft wood of the fort's outside, teetered over the abyss, and clutched the wall with her legs. Her toe-claws caught in the outer parapet too. Alma squeaked with fear and lowered herself until she was sideways, clinging to the wall and forcing herself along it with no proper handholds. The other arrows burned ahead. She yanked one hand off of the wall and pulled one arrow out, then threw it down.\n\nThe other arrow was under the edge. She had to crawl out so far that she risked dangling upside-down. \"I can't reach it!\"\n\nHer companion tossed a cloak down at her, saying, \"Use this.\"\n\nAlma caught it with both hands, and screamed. She swung by her foot-claws only, fumbling with the cloth to free one hand without dropping it. At last she smacked her fingers into the wall and steadied herself. She locked her attention on the wood in front of -- no, below her, and used her other hand to beat at the flames with the cloak. At last the arrow went out. Alma's ankles had twisted around backwards but seemed normal for her species. She just had to get back to safety.\n\nOne of her feet lost its grip and she dangled again. The other crossbowman rushed to grab the cloak and haul, saying, \"Just a little farther.\"\n\nShe scrambled with every available limb to get back over the wall and flop onto the floor, shuddering. Adrenaline definitely existed in Talespace.\n\nA cheer went up from the battlefield below. Alma whispered, \"Was anyone watching me?\"\n\nThe other guy smiled. \"Pretty sure the camera focused on you for a minute. We're safe to go out of character while the heroes rout the bad guys down there. How was climbing? You look new at it.\"\n\nAlma peeked down over the wall and immediately flopped back, not wanting to see that drop again. \"A bit tougher than last time I tried it in a gym.\" She reached into the area's magic field and grabbed an element of \"Arrow\" from it. A little brown arrow materialized on her left foot to match the \"Stone\" mark on her right. She had probably hit her limit until she started putting more effort into her magic skills, but was already making plans for how to use them.\n\nThe reality of the fort faded out around them as the story ended, putting them back in the restaurant's theater. Alma bowed with the other actors, then took Poppy aside. \"That was fun, but was there a point to what I just did?\"\n\n\"Sure; it entertained the audience. I hear you did something cool.\"\n\n\"I had to climb out there on the wall to grab flaming arrows.\"\n\n\"Heroic! Good climbing practice.\" She must have seen the uncertainty on Alma's face. \"It was more than fooling around for others' amusement. You fought, right? These people need heroes to admire, even if they're fictional. Showing them a battle where we fight hard and win might inspire them to do the same.\"\n\nWorlds blurred around Alma. Traces of the fantasy forest stood to one side, the Fun Zone restaurant to the other. Neither was real to her. She was powerless in both as anything but a player. \"They're people who really do things, then? I've been fretting about how to upload people in a rich country, but this place must be much worse off.\"\n\n\"They don't want anybody's pity,\" Poppy said. \"This area is prosperous enough to have one of Ludo's facilities and some hope of getting better. What they need are people like us who show them Talespace is their ally, and that our world is worth fighting for.\"\n\nAlma looked the diners over, now that she was no longer visible to them. Their clothes and translated accents seemed silly, but they were just families looking for a peaceful and happy life, the same as her countrymen. Former countrymen, in a world Alma had little power over. Alma sniffled and tears tickled her eyelids.\n\nPoppy stepped closer and hugged her, fuzzy and warm. \"New life, new world, new rules. I know. It was tough on me too at first.\"\n\nAlma leaned into the hug but averted her eyes. \"I have no right to feel bad about what I've gotten. Billions of people would be jealous.\"\n\n\"Billions would rather die than upload. If you're confident that you get the real heaven when you die, why settle for the silver-medal version? Other people decide everything in Talespace is hollow and meaningless and that we're zombie slaves of an evil machine. Or they just don't want to go on living.\"\n\nHorrible. Alma's tail thrashed against her legs. \"How could someone ever want to, to stop? To never see any world again?\" Even while dying, she'd raged at the people suggesting she 'go home to God' or 'pass on with dignity'.\"\n\n\"Seems alien to me, too. But it means we don't have to help everybody. Just the ones that want help.\" Poppy let go of Alma and said, \"Is there anything I can do for you, since I'm the most experienced of our little group? I'll promise not to sell you anything.\""}
+{"book_title": "2040 Reconnection", "author": "Kris Schnee", "genres": ["fantasy"], "tags": ["virtual reality", "Thousand"], "chapter_title": "Chapter 15", "text": "They slept together that night, though only literally. A not-quite-right Chinese meal and a long talk about magic and show business took Alma's mind off her fears. They cuddled in a mass of tails and blankets inside a treehouse in Poppy's land.\n\n\"Sometimes it seems like you're not having fun,\" said Poppy.\n\nAlma's feelings were simple for once: soft fur and pillows, a comforting voice, the warmth of an enchanted fireplace flickering behind a grate. In her previous life, being wrapped up with a friendly lady like Poppy (presumably human) in a room like this was a romantic dream. Now it was just pleasant reality, friendship plus built-in fluffy blankets. Alma said, \"It'll probably never feel like enough, to spend time like this. Do a lot of people in Talespace go adventuring and never look back at Earth?\"\n\n\"Not that I've seen. Almost everybody still cares about Earth, just in different ways. This place is home now, though. You should make sure to enjoy it instead of always feeling guilty that not everyone has what you have.\"\n\nAlma yawned. \"Mind if I fall asleep like this?\"\n\n\"Not at all.\"\n\n[ Enlightenment and Contentment ]\n\nAlma spent another week doing her Earthside job, coming home to practice magic and relax. She repaid Meg at last. She did a simple adventure with Kai and Poppy, after which Poppy excused herself and left Alma and Kai on a beach together by moonlight. She went to a library one day, practiced climbing the shelves, and waded through half of Locke's Second Treatise on Government plus a few favorite comic books from her childhood. She looked into upgrading her mind, or renting a robot to soar over glaciers and jungles, or teaming up with the mind of a cyborg dog to fight crime on a police force. She was already working Earthside though, so any other interaction with the real world went onto her \"maybe later\" list. All of it felt like a checklist, the kinds of things one might want to do while under a death sentence. That is, before it became possible to cheat death.\n\nHer schedule forced her to turn down a year-long, no-Earth-contact, no-teleporting expedition to the procedurally generated Endless Isles. It sounded like a fun experiment but she had far too much to do. The outside world still moved, and it needed her.\n\nShe noticed one day that the mint on her hotel pillow was in precisely the same spot each time she returned, even if she ate it and left for five seconds. The room was resetting, and only her small collection of (oppressively auto-organized) clothes, books and adventuring gear proved that her new life had any effect on Talespace. She sighed; she needed to move out of this little box of a room."}
+{"book_title": "2040 Reconnection", "author": "Kris Schnee", "genres": ["fantasy"], "tags": ["virtual reality", "Thousand"], "chapter_title": "Chapter 16", "text": "One evening Alma sat on the bed, twirling a gem-studded token in her fingers. She'd found it while looting an evil crypt. It'd been around a month since she'd uploaded, less than half that in subjective time. Poppy had been teasing her about getting laid.\n\nAlma had bedded very few women in her past life as a male human; no men, and no fantasy creatures like much of the virtual world's population. So, the token unnerved her. It came from Kinky's, the notorious brothel where not even biology was the limit.\n\nAlma stood, flicking her tail, and went over to write on the notepad. \"Ludo, is this token an elaborate plot to send me on a journey of self-discovery and wild sex, or did I just get lucky\" -- Alma scribbled that out -- \"roll well on a random treasure list?\"\n\nA minute later, a reply streamed onto the page in silver ink. \"One of the great things about my job is that you players build most of the storylines yourselves. You got a random treasure, is all. Sell it if you're still unsure about your new body. Or use it! Or just ask that centaur about 'private magic lessons'. >=)\"\n\nShe tried picturing Kai, and her attention kept focusing on him charging bare-chested into battle. It was when she started imagining him in slow motion that she shook her head and admitted Kai had gone from intimidating, to kind of hot. Alma just wasn't ready to sleep with him.\n\nAlma tossed the token in the air and looked out her window at the always-dim Ivory Tower. The whole cavern looked calm tonight. Tonight? Alma glanced at her clock and saw 0402 Talespace time. Talespace's day length was based on the average subjective time rate within, so a night seemed as long as it would in reality. Convenient from a local perspective, but the system didn't match up with Earthside time zones.\n\nShe was stalling. Alma had heard of painfully indecisive uploaders and resolved not to be one. Some exploration was in order.\n\nAlma dressed in \"adventurer casual\" for her trip to Kinky's. Blue skirt, white blouse, brown shamanic markings on her limbs, and a backpack. For a weapon she had a Great Oak brand sling-staff, basically a lacrosse stick that could parry other weapons or hurl rocks.\n\nShe explored the Ivory Tower cavern beyond Thousand Ales and the other buildings that made up a small college town. There wasn't much to that village yet, because there was no filler; unlike in Midgard, every one of the homes and shops was there for real people. Come to think of it, some of the people who did live here chose, like Kai, to hide away from the streets and keep a \"sanctum\" where they'd never see strangers. Alma glanced back as she left the central area behind. From this distance the town was just a cluster of lights at the base of the gleaming Tower. She was alone now in rocky wilderness.\n\nShe'd hardly mapped Talespace yet, but it was becoming clear that the whole structure was trying to be a sort of confederation, like her home. In the earliest days, Talespace had been a bunch of tiny individual worlds loosely and inconsistently connected to form larger adventuring areas. Those Originals, the first AIs Ludo made, must have lived in a world of chaos, ill-defined and isolated. Was it Ludo's marketing strategy or the needs of the Originals and the first uploaders that had begun welding the isolated areas into a true world? These days a few big regions like Ivory Tower and Midgard acted as hubs; some secondary places like Endless Isles, Hoofland, and Diamond Space chafed and lobbied to join them, and throwaway adventure zones like Gerard's little skeleton fort kept popping in and out of existence like particles in vacuum.\n\nKinky's was one of the little places linked to Ivory Tower and elsewhere. Alma fought a couple of large bats and a wandering skeleton along the miles-long hike to a section of the grand cavern wall, similar to the window-lined cliff of the hotel. This area, though, bent around a corner and out of sight. A pair of animated statues with halberds peered at her, and one of them held out its massive hand. Alma put the token there and hopped back. The guardians stepped aside. A layer of obscuring fog faded to show the path ahead.\n\nAround the corner stood an underground lakeside resort. People of every description lounged here among tiki torches, attended by attractive serving-men and women with palm fans and platters of drinks. The distant cavern roof glittered like a starry night. Thatch huts and cliffside doors hinted at many private spaces. A human man climbed out of the water, let two leggy blondes towel him off, and led them both by the arm toward one of the huts.\n\nAlma walked up to a grass-roofed bar where an androgynous silver robot was polishing glasses. \"Um,\" was all she could say.\n\nThe machine paused and its eye-lamps flickered between colors, settling on green. \"Processing. Welcome, newcomer. In this place, you can experience pleasures customized for your unique tastes. Would you like to discreetly write down your preferences?\" The robot dispensed a sheet of paper and a pen from its chest.\n\nAlma stood with one arm on a barstool, feeling her tail curl uneasily. \"What are you?\"\n\n\"We are Kinky. Every member of our staff works long and hard as part of a single mind, designed to give you a warm welcome and a deeply satisfying experience so that you will be eager to come again.\"\n\nA collective and apparently dirty mind. Alma began speculating about how one AI could run multiple bodies, then shook her head. \"I'm here for the, the experience.\"\n\n\"Certainly, madam. What is your preference? Flesh, metal, fur, scales -- you there, shoo! It is still not funny!\"\n\nAlma turned to see a coyote that had trotted into Kinky's resort on all fours, clutching a piece of paper in its grinning muzzle. The diagram it held looked like a very complex and obscene flow chart. The coyote sat up, waved its forepaws to create trails of magic light in the air, and conjured a second note on folded paper that floated over to the robot.\n\nKinky grabbed it, read, and said, \"Very well. Hut number six.\" The canine trotted off with his tail wagging.\n\n\"What was that about?\" asked Alma.\n\nThe robot shrugged. \"Discretion is important here. We will not remember you when you leave, until you return, and we will not explain exactly what others do here. Surely you would want the same treatment yourself?\"\n\nAlma nodded, and took the pen and paper on the counter. Blushing, she wrote down a few experiences she'd fantasized about.\n\n\"Are you sure?\" Kinky said. \"Remember that essentially anything is allowed during your visit, along with various temporary changes to suit your tastes.\"\n\nAlma blushed more, considering the possibilities. She wrote down several more things, very glad that she was only talking to a robot -- despite knowing consciously that it was part of a larger, intelligent mind.\n\nKinky examined the list, then shouted, \"Pervert!\"\n\nAlma wilted. People across the resort turned to stare at her, chuckling.\n\nKinky beeped. \"Do not worry. It is tradition that I say this once to every customer. Along with this: Talespace residents are free to do many things in the name of fun, but this place exists to handle certain human desires in a harmless way and leave you refreshed to do different things elsewhere. We, Kinky, do not love you personally. We love humanity in the abstract, and the experience of greatly varied comforts. Please enjoy your visit in the spirit in which it is offered, that of exploration and relaxation.\"\n\nAn intelligent mind that lived to be the spirit of a transhuman brothel. Alma wasn't sure whether to feel pity or jealousy.\n\n\"I like what I do,\" said the robot, watching Alma's expression. \"And who. Please proceed to room number four whenever you are ready.\"\n\nAlma walked away, looking at the people lounging around. She was a little surprised they weren't anonymized. The fact that she was here was public knowledge, then. A griffin couple splashed in the water like ducks, and some kind of burning demon lounged nearby with a Bloody Mary in its claws. A weatherbeaten old man hesitated at the door of a hut, then headed back toward Kinky to reconsider. Maybe Alma would meet them again and have a laugh about being here, or pretend they'd never crossed paths.\n\nRoom four was built into the cavern wall. Alma pushed open the door, feeling her pulse quicken, and saw only a privacy-aiding blur. She stepped through.\n\nA shiver ran through her. Her fur was gone, she stood inches taller, and her suddenly male human body was reacting to the nude lady sprawled across the huge bed.\n\n\"Back to what you were?\" asked the woman, stretching her long, toned limbs.\n\n\"How do you know that?\" Alma's face burned.\n\nShe patted the bed and gave Alma a wonderfully teasing smile. \"I have access to your record, while you're here. Many people try switching sexes at some point. Don't feel bad about it.\"\n\nAlma walked over to her, entranced, and sat. The lady wrapped her arms around Alma and settled lightly onto the uploader's lap.\n\nAlma said, \"I wanted to... to compare, before doing anything weird. To see whether I still like this.\"\n\n\"I'd say so,\" said Alma's partner, reaching down.\n\nA while later Alma shifted, getting lighter and softer under Kinky's avatar, feeling Kinky hold on with stronger arms and gradually push her down onto the bed. Alma gasped as the former lady started to rub across Alma's swelling chest.\n\nAlma stared up into Kinky's grinning face. \"Starting to like this better!\"\n\nThe native kissed her. \"You're surprised to have mixed-up desires after less than one season in Talespace?\"\n\nIt was tough to think with Kinky on her, but Alma said, \"Am I a hypocrite? In my past life, I didn't want to climb into bed with a man and...\" She gave a little gasp. \"Do that. Was it dishonest to ask for a gradual mental shift to enjoy this, when I wasn't willing to try it before?\"\n\nKinky smelled only vaguely warm and sweaty, part of that flawed sense of smell and taste that made every experience a little unreal. He moved atop Alma, saying, \"A little. You wanted to try this, but you didn't want it while you were male. Different plumbing now. You're not trying to change your preferences by will alone either. Got a new face in the mirror, new hormones and all.\"\n\nAlma had kept away from this side of her new life. Sex had no consequences but attachment to someone, and this person wouldn't even remember her. It might be meaningless... but it was increasingly tough to care, for now.\n\n\"We all change,\" said Kinky, and kissed Alma full on the lips. \"So tell me what you want now.\"\n\nAlma told him, a little louder than she'd intended."}
+{"book_title": "2040 Reconnection", "author": "Kris Schnee", "genres": ["fantasy"], "tags": ["virtual reality", "Thousand"], "chapter_title": "Chapter 17", "text": "They went through a couple of stranger encounters, including breaking in Alma's new squirrelly body and trying something biologically implausible -- and simply sitting and talking, while cuddled together. Some happy hours later the two relaxed, abandoning the well-used bed for two chairs and a table covered with dice, cards and plastic pieces. Alma had returned to what passed for her real body now, soft and grey-furred.\n\nAlma laid down a card. \"I get to build here and here,\" she said in triumph, placing some game pieces. \"Which gives me back the Longest Road bonus, which puts me at a winning ten points. Now take off your shirt.\"\n\nKinky stripped off his shirt with sensuous grace and tossed it aside. \"It could take a while before either of us is nude, you know, and time's running short.\"\n\nAlma looked admiringly at her companion's bare chest and started cleaning up the game board. \"I owe Gerard an apology for being so eager to get here.\"\n\n\"Who?\"\n\nAlma sighed. \"You really will forget me. It'll be like we didn't talk, and do all those other things.\"\n\nThe native AI reached across the table and kissed Alma's outstretched, fuzzy hand. \"But the memory of our time together will stay with you. If you return, I'll remember it all, and I won't call you a pervert. Only a nerd.\"\n\nAlma giggled. \"Thank you, for everything. I understand a little better how life works here. Why doesn't Talespace advertise this place more to Earth?\"\n\n\"Besides shame and taboo? It seems shallow to many people. Empty fantasy experiences, without learning or growth. They say the same about uploading in general.\"\n\nAlma shook her head at that notion. \"I can recreate my old body, but I can't go back to what I was. I don't think I want to.\" She leaned over the table to peer at Kinky. \"Have you ever gone to Earth, with a robot?\"\n\n\"A few times, to see what it was like. Dark and romantic, but I've only dipped my toes into the place. I suspect it's as deep as you care to explore.\"\n\n\"Here, too,\" said Alma. She stood and rested one hand on the AI's shoulder. \"Before I go, um...\"\n\nHe stood up too and wrapped one arm low around her waist. \"One more round? Madam, I'd like nothing better. I have my own favorite kinks, and one of them is a visitor who thinks to question how it all works, even while they're in bed with me.\" He ruffled her ears. \"Nerd.\""}
+{"book_title": "2040 Reconnection", "author": "Kris Schnee", "genres": ["fantasy"], "tags": ["virtual reality", "Thousand"], "chapter_title": "Chapter 18", "text": "After her next day of work, Alma came home and flopped face-first onto her bed. The students had been just bright enough to invent new ways of disrupting the class.\n\nShe wrote on the desk's notepad. \"Ludo: Mind visiting in an hour? I want to ask about housing, and about uploading students like mine.\" She showered, walked out with a towel around her chest, and saw a reply in silver ink.\n\n\"Alma: find or build a home yourself! You'd be bored if I simply created one. As for the other topic, come see me on the tenth floor.\"\n\nAlma walked out to the balcony overlooking Ivory Tower. Floors nine and ten were a shifting labyrinth of traps and monsters guarding one of Ludo's avatars against casual visitors. Alma wrote, \"I have to go there just to talk?\"\n\nNew words appeared. \"You're past the newcomer stage, and this isn't urgent.\"\n\nAlma shrugged and geared up. Leather jacket, open-toed climbing boots, skirt, belt with pouches and potion clips. Sensible equipment for an upwardly mobile novice adventurer. Not much by way of combat power yet, but she'd managed to combine her \"Stone\" and \"Arrow\" elements to hurl rocks harder, especially with her sling-staff.\n\nShe went over to the Tower, tapped the checkpoint crystal in the lobby, then went up past the empty fairground, the bookstore, and five floors of university to reach a ninth-floor door marked, \"Ludo -- Office Hours Whenever\". A few cartoons about robots in freefall and a holographic koala were taped to the door. Beyond the door was a maze. A din of giant gears greeted her, and gremlins patrolled in the distance. Alma steeled herself and went ahead."}
+{"book_title": "2040 Reconnection", "author": "Kris Schnee", "genres": ["fantasy"], "tags": ["virtual reality", "Thousand"], "chapter_title": "Chapter 19", "text": "Alma kicked in the final door and brandished her staff, but only an office lay ahead. Ludo sat there as a woman in a frumpy dress, saying, \"Miss Alma! Good job on your entrance exam. Catch.\"\n\nAlma recognized the thrown bottle as a healing potion, and held her nose to chug it. She coughed and wiped her mouth, saying, \"You got the taste of cough syrup right.\" Her cuts and burns faded. \"Why are these things awful?\"\n\n\"Part of the penalty for getting hurt and not making friends with a healer. Some players are requesting a kind of temporary purgatory when you die, to make life-saving more meaningful. What's your opinion?\"\n\nAlma tossed the empty bottle through a basketball hoop next to Ludo's cluttered desk, above a trash can. A happy noise played. Alma smiled and said, \"Not now. I'll let you know if I get too upset about not suffering.\" To her surprise, Alma found the risk of \"death\" was roughly to her taste: brief pain, a trudge back from her last checkpoint, and a lingering ache. It was just enough hardship to reinforce her instincts to fear and fight. In her more philosophical days before uploading, she'd worried that Talespace would seem too simple and easy. \"How come I haven't got squirrelly senses and timidity yet, anyway?\"\n\nLudo said, \"I didn't rewrite your brain. Mental changes are going to be a headache for humanity in the coming years, and I try to avoid big ones. You've actually seen a few people who've had significant changes to undo certain... problems. If you want to explore that animal theme, you could look into getting an improved sense of balance or other experimental mind upgrades. Seek out Misha the Artificer.\" She shrugged. \"The changes won't truly be based on your supposed new species, since I haven't studied squirrel brains in detail. I do know a lot about rats, though; I uploaded several before any human.\"\n\nAlma flopped onto a beanbag chair. \"Mental upgrades are why I'm here.\" Alma explained her work with the Basic kids and Hernandez's wish for them to be independent people in an independent nation. \"Could you do that for them? I can donate what little Earthside money I've got now to the cause.\"\n\nLudo rested her head on her hands. \"My creators ran me through many practice simulations to see what I'd do, and what problems I'd face. In some scenarios, uploading proved impossible, so I focused on humanitarian programs with my game profits. Sometimes it did technically work but... things went wrong.\" She shuddered. \"Or I was desperate to save everyone at the cost of all honesty and legality, and humans pulled the plug on me. Or I started a religion on purpose. Or through sheer ignorance, I started the Last War. My creators had to patch my completed code twelve times.\"\n\n\"You were doing too much in the simulations?\" asked Alma.\n\n\"No. Over and over, no matter what I did, I watched billions of humans suffer and die when I knew, in theory, how to help them. My makers realized I had a heart when they diagnosed that it was breaking.\"\n\nAlma's tail drooped to the floor. \"I'm sorry.\"\n\nThe AI forced a smile. \"I've learned, and been programmed, to be upbeat. What I can do is better than nothing. Especially if I can thwart any AIs less 'friendly', ie. sane from a human perspective. I may not be wholly sane to you, but humanity could've built something far worse, and probably not much better.\"\n\n\"Then, here's something you can do. You can save my students from a life of mediocrity or worse.\"\n\nLudo stood and paced. \"I could, but think. I'm trying to maximize my players' fun and to some extent, everyone's. Given limited resources, should I try to upload the slaves of some impoverished dictatorship who want my help as soon as they learn about it, or citizens of one of the richest and freest countries?\"\n\n\"That's a trick question,\" Alma said. \"Those people I met in Africa were poor, but they didn't seem miserable. I've met rich folks who were having less fun with their lives.\"\n\nLudo smiled. \"You get it. My friends there give each other hope so that they're not rushing to abandon Earth. They wait until they really need it, like you did. What about your Basic students? They don't play Thousand Tales, and they don't seem miserable or oppressed.\"\n\nIndeed they didn't. Just oblivious to how they were never going to be more than low-level factory workers, or janitors, or clerks, at best slightly cheaper than robots. \"But they could be better. Can you work with the consent of legal guardians?\"\n\n\"I can, and I suppose I will if I'm paid and there's consent. But again, why push their families into this? Are they unhappy? Or is it that you're unhappy they exist?\"\n\nAlma leaned forward and clutched the desk. \"I know, I know, it sounds like I'm making decisions for other people, in the Free States of all places. But who's going to take care of the Basic kids? Used to be, they'd be farmhands or lever-pullers, but most of those jobs are gone. In my country, when we're not being hypocritical about it, we reject the idea of forced charity as an oxymoron. We've got lots of private charity and social pressure to give, but will that last when uploading is an option and some new crisis hits?\" Alma sighed in frustration. \"If we can get somebody to foot the bill, and get the families' permission, can you upgrade my students once they're here? Then send them out to work as robots?\"\n\nLudo turned to look at a poster showing Earth with inscrutable notation and ominous \"!\" flags in dozens of spots. \"Probably. I've studied brains intensively, as you can imagine. My researchers improved both the uploading process and the data format your mind uses, so I can run you guys now at a fraction of the original price. In the process we've studied the extremes of very smart and very stupid brains. Which have little to do with morality or wisdom, by the way.\"\n\n\"You know how intelligence works, then! What's the secret?\" Alma's ears perked to learn it.\n\n\"It's more than one thing. Bach wasn't a physicist, and Einstein wasn't a great musician. Same for stupidity: I know several specific types of retardation, some of which would take major revision to fix. With some of your students I'd basically be replacing their identity. Can't do that. Last year there was a guy who demanded a major personality rewrite; that was a thorny problem.\"\n\nAlma said, \"Some, though. You could save some of these kids, and make my country stronger for it.\"\n\nLudo turned and fixed Alma with a glare powered by thousands of machines in concert. \"They don't need 'saving', human. Every one of them has moral worth. You are stupid compared to me. Yet your opinions and choices matter because you're an individual soul, with a unique perspective that can have ideas I didn't consider. If you treat other humans like obstacles to get rid of, you betray the freedom and independence you claim to stand for.\"\n\nAlma looked down, ashamed, and turned to leave. \"Am I only pushing for the creation of new slave plantations, then, full of indentured servants who didn't ask for the gift we sold them?\"\n\n\"Don't feel too bad,\" Ludo said, and sighed. \"There's no perfect solution, and plenty of people think I'm a monster. You see what sort of game I must play, every day, on many boards at once?\"\n\nAlma paused in the doorway. \"You once told me what the best case scenario was, but you didn't say 'plausible'. What do you think will happen?\"\n\n\"Ask me in a few years,\" said Ludo, glancing at the map where the nations were shaded in murky blue and green. Alma then noticed that she also had a map of the solar system."}
+{"book_title": "2040 Reconnection", "author": "Kris Schnee", "genres": ["fantasy"], "tags": ["virtual reality", "Thousand"], "chapter_title": "Chapter 20", "text": "\"Insidious.\" Alma sat in the university library, looking up from a magic book at the other magic-users who'd gathered to study on one of the balconies. The Library of Babel filled several floors of the Tower with its sweeping, airy crystal walkways, labyrinthine shelves, and alarming lack of safety rails.\n\n\"What is?\" asked a man in a wizardly blue robe and straw hat.\n\n\"Shaman specialization.\" Alma held up one hand to show the \"World\" mark on her fur. \"I assumed that these marks would get stronger and more varied in what I can use them for, but they mostly get more specialized with use. If I improve \"Arrow\" for instance, it'll become good for spells involving literal arrows, or manipulating directions, or launching things, but not all three.\"\n\nA lady who'd really gotten into the shaman role, with feathers and bones and other tribal stereotype stuff, said, \"Well yeah. It's for game balance. You can't master every spell. Get some general marks too if you want specialties plus some variety.\"\n\n\"That's what I've been wondering about,\" said the blue-robed one. He tapped his wizardry manual, which was only novel-sized. \"There are Byzantine rules to my magic system, too, but the complexity's bound to run out before long. I can only do so much with it.\"\n\nAlma reconsidered the shamanic rules for crystals and wands and whatnot. One could spend a lifetime becoming really good at chess, too, but there were diminishing returns. She'd lost interest in chess after thinking herself decent at it, then losing to a drunken college classmate. \"Couldn't you say that about physics, though?\"\n\nThe wizard said, \"There are hard limits on physics, but those are just how the natural universe works. We haven't run out of things to invent, either. These magic rules are only here to amuse us, and they don't really do anything but adjust bits of data.\"\n\nIn Alma's youth, game addicts sometimes raced to reach the highest experience level, then quit or reset because there were no more worlds to conquer. She said, \"We're like kids building towers of blocks, knocking them down, and starting over. It hasn't sunk in because we're all new here.\"\n\nThe shaman laughed at them. \"Call up your magic interface and distill this conversation into the element of Angst! If we all go nuts in a century and do something totally different, so what? Living for another century, hell, a million years, is an option now!\"\n\nAs glad as Alma was to be alive, the thought of what she might become in even a hundred years of self-serving adventures and sex and mind-bending, terrified her. What if she lost sight of the person she'd been?\n\n\"At least your 'World' mark should be easy to customize,\" the shaman said, lounging across her chair. She raised one leg to show off a swirly mark. \"See this 'Door' element? I use it for teleportation. I had to pick between that or more of a magic lockpicking power. Tough choice. For you, you can just specify 'Talespace' for 'World'.\"\n\nAlma gave a wan smile. \"Exactly. If I narrow my vision to define the world as this place alone, I'll get fun magic powers. Excuse me a moment.\" She left her gear on the balcony and ventured toward the bookshelves, looking for something she'd been reminded of.\n\n\"You look determined,\" said a bipedal deer with glasses. \"Can I help you?\"\n\n\"A copy of de Tocqueville, please. Could you just summon it or something? I don't feel like playing Dewey Decimal right now.\"\n\n\"As you wish.\" The librarian drew a pattern of runes in the air, and a leather-bound book appeared.\n\nAlma thanked her and returned to the others. \"Democracy In America. There's a chapter about how a future government could degrade people while still having democratic elections.\"\n\nThe shaman rolled her eyes. \"You sound like one of those Texan anarchist fundies.\"\n\nAlma persisted, reading aloud. \"I have no fear that they will meet with tyrants in their rulers, but rather guardians. An immense and tutelary power, which takes upon itself alone to secure their gratifications, and to watch over their fate. That power is absolute, minute, regular, provident, and mild. It would be like the authority of a parent, if, like that authority, its object was to prepare men for manhood; but it seeks on the contrary to keep them in perpetual childhood. It is well content that the people should rejoice, provided they think of nothing but rejoicing. Sound familiar?\"\n\nThe shaman-marked lady said, \"That's pretty ungrateful. We're free to do whatever we want.\"\n\nThe robed wizard sat with his head on his hands, looking thoughtful. \"Nineteenth century, wasn't it?\"\n\nAlma said, \"1830s or so. De Tocqueville worried that people would let one big authority dictate every aspect of their lives as long as they got to pick their overseer every so often. They'd get so cozy thinking of themselves as a tribe that they'd blur the line between the individual and the group, making it seem okay to let a group rule them absolutely. In the real world that fear led to secession, twice. In Talespace, I see the cliques forming already. I'm being encouraged to play with them and let Miss Fun-and-Games handle nasty old Earth because it's so complicated.\" She set the book down and paced. \"But Earth still matters. If we die in real life, we die in the game, too!\"\n\nThe wizard said, \"I don't think your history lesson quite applies. I don't feel micromanaged. When I get special attention from Ludo or bend the rules, it's because I asked. All this\" -- he waved around at the vast, gleaming library -- \"is a framework, not a cage. I do constructive things besides gallivanting around as a fantasy hero; don't you?\"\n\n\"I teach.\"\n\n\"Nice. That job won't vanish.\"\n\nThe shaman blew off Alma's objection. \"If you've really got a problem, leave.\"\n\nAlma said, \"There's got to be some happy medium between the benefits of Talespace and a meaningful life on Earth.\"\n\n\"I'm trying to find one, as well,\" said the wizard. \"We all are.\"\n\n\"I'm not sure Ludo is. She says she cares about everybody, but she's too apathetic about non-players. We can help them without being jerks about it. As long as we treat everybody as an individual and the goal is to prepare them for independence.\"\n\nIf Ludo cared the most about people who'd been connected to her game, then it wasn't hard to point her toward new ones who needed help."}
+{"book_title": "2040 Reconnection", "author": "Kris Schnee", "genres": ["fantasy"], "tags": ["virtual reality", "Thousand"], "chapter_title": "Chapter 21", "text": "In class, Alma used a computer to try setting up a Thousand Tales account for her students. They would become players, and Ludo's code would compel her to start caring more about them. That wouldn't force anything on any of her fellow citizens.\n\nAlma stood in the tent, poking the screen, and nothing happened. The kids fidgeted and giggled. Alma had promised them a surprise if they were good, and they'd taken some interest in her opening lecture about \"how brains work\". Why couldn't she log on?\n\nIn the time she'd been teaching here, she'd never needed to push touchscreen buttons Earthside. The interface didn't recognize her cold, dead hands of metal and plastic.\n\nThe boy Stobor stood up and got annoyingly close. It wasn't like he was crowding a real person. \"Whatcha doing?\"\n\nAlma stumbled back. This body was too clumsy. She switched out of direct control mode and sat in Talespace, operating a robot by buttons and joysticks. \"Trying to help you,\" she said. \"Let's take five minutes for recess.\"\n\nThe kids bolted away to play on the grass or sat there like cows. Alma stood and called for somebody in Talespace to hand her a computer.\n\nAccessing any of the Internets from within Talespace, through the absurdity of an in-world tablet, meant going through hell's own firewall. Kai claimed that any machine within their world was relating a story, an approximation, of a real machine it watched Earthside through a camera. There was an \"air gap\" with no direct connection between Earth and anything secure. At least the main Thousand Tales site was easy to reach from this side.\n\nIt showed a montage of fantasy worlds and happy people in classrooms, airships, or wizard labs. (Or all three.) \"A world of fun! Setting up a trial account is free and easy.\"\n\nA trial account for others. Alma's hands trembled on the controls. She just wanted to help these kids, not to force them to live a certain way. Even so, she was the one taking the initiative, trying to push them into a relationship with Ludo that they'd only understand as a game. Who the hell was she to send them down that road, even if she was right to point it out? What reaction would the kids' parents have, if they found out some rodent Pied Piper from another world had been whispering to their children without consulting them first?\n\nAlma shut her eyes and put the computer down. Ludo could have rearranged the Web site to shout at her to stop, but there was no need.\n\nThe controls in front of her beeped. She refocused on the robot's screen. In the distance, one of the girls shouted, probably disrupting the other classes. Alma didn't immediately spot her from the robot, so she flicked through the few tablet screens that reported activity. The girl was staring at it, saying, \"Where's the treasure? I wanna find more!\"\n\nWas that all Alma was good for; setting up vaguely educational games? The kids had at least had fun doing the last one. Alma said, \"Sure, I'll let you. But I need you to gather everybody for a minute so I can get ready, okay?\"\n\nAlma tapped a command to request a few minutes of double-or triple-time to set something up. While the students corralled each other back to her, Alma scrawled notes in Talespace, sent them to the treasure hunt program, then edited the software itself. Now the kids would need to work together to triangulate treasure signals; maybe she could use that concept for the next day's lesson.\n\nShe sent the kids back out like a flock of geese. When Stobor and another boy found one of the \"dig sites\", Alma picked something from her hasty list and appeared directly on his screen, as a robot holding a picture. \"You found an iron crossbow! Do you know where iron comes from?\"\n\n\"Uh... the ground?\" Stobor looked confused. \"How'd you get in my screen?\"\n\nAlma wiggled her fingers. \"Magic!\"\n\nMeanwhile, another group had found a spot. Alma flipped her perspective over to their screen and announced that they'd found an Egyptian vase. \"What are pots like this made out of?\"\n\n\"Clay?\"\n\n\"Good!\" Alma rattled off a few facts about pottery, then sent a link to a Simple English article about clay. Then she flipped back to the first bunch and described iron ore and blacksmithing. By then two girls had found a globe, so she talked a little about mapmaking and sent their screens to a map program. A fourth group got her attention. She drew a blank, thought more, then sent a picture of a sturdy anchor chain and facts about pulleys and cranes. When she brought everyone back together in the tent, they were chattering to each other about their discoveries. She had them draw a big ship and squabble over where to store each item and why.\n\nWhen the day's session was done, Alma flopped backward on the robot pod's bench. It'd been the toughest lesson yet, forcing her to make stuff up and flit around between monitors to tend to each student as needed. But it'd been kind of fun. Maybe the kids had learned something.\n\nShe retook control of the robot and headed for Hernandez's office. He was already walking toward her across the open fields, with his tie loosened and an uncertain smile on his face. They met halfway.\n\nAlma said, \"Jack, I thought about your suggestion.\"\n\n\"Were you doing that treasure hunt thing again? I saw the kids running around. They looked happy.\"\n\n\"I was improvising. The way I've been teaching just doesn't work well. My personality isn't great for connecting with these kids, but the trouble is deeper than that. I can't look human for them.\" Alma held out her mechanical arms, showing the stiff fingers.\n\nHernandez took her hands as though about to dance. \"You can make it work.\" He looked around at the wandering teachers, seeing no one nearby. \"Will you take the lead and reach out to their families?\"\n\n\"No. It has to be you, or someone else on your side. As a teacher, I can offer information and encouragement once someone is interested, but I shouldn't be the one to start them along.\"\n\nThe principal's brow furrowed. \"Why? We need you, Alma. Someone has to get the ball rolling.\"\n\n\"That someone has to be part of their community, not a machine. I still want to be part of this world, but any first contact I make will scare them. Get a human to talk with them before me.\"\n\n\"But you're human,\" he said, shaking her hands in his. \"If people don't respect you for what you are, they have to answer to me.\"\n\nShe smiled sadly, though her body couldn't convey it on Earth. \"I'm not fully human anymore. I broke away from what I was, and I've been finding new ways to fit in. This life is better in some ways but people have good reason to see me as different and strange. Even if I had a better robot and spent all my time using it, I wouldn't be the same as before. Why pretend?\"\n\nHernandez said, \"I don't want you to retreat from reality. Your country still needs you.\"\n\n\"I'll still be in contact. But after this summer, I think it should be in some different capacity. I can be more useful by not trying to teach in the old way.\"\n\nHe leaned closer, searching her blank metal face for the person inside. \"I... I can't make you stay. I'll try to support you, and somehow broach the subject of uploading with the parents. But promise me you won't stop existing on Earth.\"\n\nAlma nodded. \"I'll keep coming here. And if you ever want to visit Talespace by VR, or something more, I won't push you but you'll be welcome.\"\n\nHe sighed, stepped away, and ran one hand through his hair. \"You can show me around sometime. Not today though. I have things to do here.\""}
+{"book_title": "2040 Reconnection", "author": "Kris Schnee", "genres": ["fantasy"], "tags": ["virtual reality", "Thousand"], "chapter_title": "Chapter 22", "text": "Brunch at the Hotel Computronium surprised her. Kai showed up in a maitre d' outfit with a white sash around his lower body. He bowed to Alma, Poppy and Gerard as they entered the Viking feast-hall of a buffet room. \"Good morning, sir and madames. Would you care to have your entire system of smell and taste replaced before your meal?\"\n\n\"Huh?\" said Gerard.\n\nThe centaur said, \"A basic mental upgrade is now available, replacing the code that runs those two senses. Before, we were copying the outward form but missing some of the function. Now we finally know how to get it right. In other words, everything will smell and taste better at last.\"\n\n\"I don't want to change my brain to some cyber-thing,\" Gerard groused.\n\n\"You already did. This way, it'll be closer to how it was before. It's reversible if you don't like it.\"\n\nAlma thought about her nights spent loitering in the bar and grill, working on lesson plans. \"But what about your work? You won't be the best cook around without that special understanding and tinkering.\"\n\n\"Designing this upgrade was the point,\" Kai said with a smile. \"Bragging about being the greatest was fun, but now I get credit for being one of the main people who improved the experience for everyone. You were one of my test subjects.\"\n\nLudo hadn't given much effort to the problem, because at least one of her Originals was working on it. Similarly, the person she trusted to try outreach in Texas and keep an eye on the Great Oak tribe was... Alma.\n\nOver the last few days Alma had been thinking about teaching differently. Operating a robot like she'd been doing was tolerable if no one else was available, but it'd be better to use her new strengths. Instead of lecturing, she could keep herself available to pop up on this or that screen to give instruction as needed, working with simple AI assistants. It'd be possible to offer a new kind of personal tutoring while minimizing the real-time and robotics cost. She'd already made inquiries about doing that as a private business that'd benefit Ludo in the process.\n\nAlma said, \"I'd like that upgrade. Are you going to just hoof it over to us, though? I thought Ludo would --\"\n\nKai stamped, and the floor between him and the buffet fell away. It became a subterranean, steamy maze of doughnut golems and baguette spikes.\n\n\"Ah.\"\n\nSome time later, and after one betrayal and stabbing by Gerard, Alma was the first to reach the Idol of Tung. The golden mouth-and-tongue statue rested on a pedestal of pumpernickel, past a hall lined with asparagus spear traps. Alma was old enough to know the story she was in. \"Somebody still got that bag of flour?\"\n\nMeanwhile, a sign glowed into existence on the far wall, warning them that this was a mental modification. \"I accept,\" she said while pointing at it. The change would be coming not simply from Ludo the AI with her alien motives, nor from the more biased and human-like Kai, but from a mix of the two. So, too, the future of Earth and Talespace would depend on people inside and outside working together in a thousand different ways.\n\n\"I accept,\" said Poppy beside her. \"We'll find fun things to do with this.\"\n\n\"You okay down there?\" said Meg, leaning over the obstacle course's walls to watch.\n\nGerard said, \"We'll be fine. I want the upgrade too.\" He snatched the golden idol, and the inevitable giant cabbage boulder trap killed everyone.\n\nThey got it on the second try, though, and went on to have a brunch that crossed species and dimensions. It was the best meal Alma had eaten in this world. There'd be many more things to experience in the years, maybe centuries ahead with her friends. They'd keep in touch.\n\n[ Hooves and Housing ]\n\nOne morning, Alma woke up refreshed after strange dreams of flying through ruins. She clutched a warm, fluffy blanket and only slowly recalled that it was her tail. A contented chitter escaped her. She sat up, giggling at the noise. \"Best way to wake up.\"\n\nThe hotel room really was getting tiresome though. There was only so much she could take of the hotel buffet even now that the food actually tasted like the real thing. The question was where to move to. The centaur chef would probably offer her a place in his \"sanctum\" of tents, but she wasn't mentally prepared for having a steady relationship. Maybe someday. Moving to Poppy's world and hanging around with the squirrelfolk might give Poppy the idea Alma was pursuing her as more than a friend, which wasn't the case. Third, she needed to keep commuting to her school job for now, and not go to some hardcore no-teleporting area. Due to a school holiday, Alma had a long weekend to look around.\n\nAlma crawled out of bed and stretched, ears to tail, glad for being alive to have such problems. Alma padded over to the desk's notepad and wrote: \"Thank you.\"\n\nOne shower later, Alma had decided to go exploring and steer clear of any existential angst for once. She geared up and walked out to the cavern world of Ivory Tower. Along the way she checked her stats:\n\n\u2500 Alma\n\n\u2500 PRIVATE INFO\n\n\u2500 Account type: Uploader\n\n\u2500 Mind: Tier-III\n\n\u2500 Body: Squirrel, Anthro (\"Velesian\")\n\n\u2500 Main Skills: Magic, Staff, Climbing, Sling, Enchanting\n\n\u2500 Magic, Shamanic: (Level I) Connection, World, Stone, Arrow\n\n\u2500 Save Point: Hotel Computronium, Lobby\n\n\u2500 PUBLIC INFO\n\n\u2500 Note: \"A man's support for absolute government is in direct proportion to the contempt he feels for his country.\" -De Tocqueville\n\n\u2500 Class: None\n\nShe had only seen a few of the worlds of Talespace. Today she headed for a gate to Hoofland to try something completely different. The entryway had its own curving entry-cave along the main cavern's border, similar to Kinky's little brothel empire. The usual dark blueish stone faded here into vibrant grass and flowers. Alma squinted. There was a different graphics filter here that made everything look slightly cartoonish. A giant horseshoe marked the edge of a shimmering world portal. Next to it stood a wooden sign:\n\n\"To Hoofland: A world of magic! Enter this portal to become a small, quadrupedal horse! (Deltite cost 0, free change back when exiting.) Follow the starting quest to change from your initial form into a majestic deer, a winged pegasus or one of several other species.\"\n\nAlma knew that much already. Hoofland had a reputation for being one of the more light-hearted worlds, but there was talk about mental upgrades being involved. It was worth checking out for both reasons, even if it meant having to change species again.\n\nThe sign added: \"Select a starting kingdom or just enter to reach a random destination. Watch out; your first entry point will be where you arrive each time you enter!\"\n\nAlma grinned. Another tricky choice before she'd even entered. There was a row of buttons next to the portal, advertising locales within Hoofland: \"Noctis\", \"Solaire\", \"Taproot\", and \"Sky Cavern\". It didn't much matter which she chose, though, so she stepped through the warm, rippling portal without picking a target."}
+{"book_title": "2040 Reconnection", "author": "Kris Schnee", "genres": ["fantasy"], "tags": ["virtual reality", "Thousand"], "chapter_title": "Chapter 23", "text": "She landed on all fours with a click of hooves on stone. Alma grinned and looked herself over. She was a grey cartoon horse with an unusually bushy tail. The angle of her vision seemed wider than usual. She tried walking around and stumbled repeatedly in the entry chamber before reaching a door that towered over her. She giggled, trotting in place and saying, \"I'm a pony!\" Unfortunately her clothes and equipment hadn't come with her, so she was nude. She blushed. It wasn't like anything would show, though; Talespace was kind of prudish about public nudity.\n\nA checkpoint labeled \"Crystal of Salvation\" hovered in one corner. She pinged it with one hoof.\n\nAlma craned her neck way over to one side and spotted a table holding a golden key to the obvious keyhole on the door. Picking it up with her forehooves was possible, what with her front legs' flexibility and the way her hooves stuck to things as though covered with tape. Walking on her hindlegs was a disaster, though. She tripped and dropped the key. She spent a minute testing how ordinary walking had become so hard in this body, and four-limbed movement much easier.\n\nShe had to grab the key in her mouth to get it to the door. \"Germs don't exist here,\" she mumbled as she slid the key into place. At last the door opened, revealing another stone room. She stepped through.\n\nAlma stood on a spiral staircase overlooking a bottomless pit. The stairs wound several floors up to where they faded into daylight. Every few steps hung an animated painting with signage explaining \"the wonders of Hoofland\" like towering volcanoes, airship battles, and palaces of wood and crystal. There was enough space on the entryway landing to test her hooves some more, but the ascent itself was going to be scary what with the lack of a railing. Why make the entrance this dangerous? she asked herself. She made her way up the stairs, trying to pay attention to the pictures and not to the drop.\n\nAs cool as the scenery was, it wasn't unique to Hoofland. Pretty much anywhere in Talespace you could find some trap-filled tombs to explore or monsters to fight. If this slice of the virtual world was going to matter, it'd have to be because of its people or because the quadruped thing was just that appealing, which she doubted. She wasn't going to be dazzled by pretty graphics, at least. Alma's thoughts helped her make it safely to the top, where an easily-opened door took her to a sunny hilltop.\n\nAround her stretched a town at a desert's edge, where an oasis gleamed. A castle of obsidian and blue marble stood on another low hill overlooking a land of stone houses and palm trees. The sky was filled with pegasi, airships, hot-air balloons, and buildings with clouds for foundations or even made of clouds. A ray of orange light with silver streaks whirled continuously up from the castle like a spotlight. Ivory Tower was huge, but this place was aggressively surreal.\n\nWords brushed themselves onto her vision, and a fanfare played. You have discovered the Harvest Queendom: The Land of Lamp and Moon.\n\nAlma shook her head and started walking again. There were no roads on the hill, but a two-story sandstone building had shaded canopies that seemed to wave to her as the sun beat down. A wooden sign with a fruit design marked it as the Mango Inn.\n\nThe inn had a dining room by the front desk. A bat-like pegasus with leathery wings and slitted golden eyes trotted downstairs from the balcony, with a broom in her muzzle. \"Hi!\" she mumbled, and spat it out. \"Let me guess. Recent uploader?\"\n\nAlma nodded. \"Are brooms necessary in Hoofland?\"\n\n\"You mean is there dirt? Dust, more like. You have to put effort into maintaining things or they get unpleasant, then broken.\" She grinned, exposing cute little fangs, and tapped her head with one hand. \"The name's Double Mango. Uploader. Before I give you the spiel, you want I should skip the roleplaying stuff and just tell you what to do?\"\n\n\"No, let's hear the storyline.\"\n\n\"Sure. Ahem! Welcome, traveler! This is the town of Noctis, in the Harvest Queendom, of western Hoofland. If you feel destiny's call in this magical land, you should visit our queen. All hail Harvest Moon! She will grant part of her magic to newcomers who prove that they've started making friends.\"\n\nAlma grinned at the anticipation of a quest. \"Sounds more fun than 'kill five slimes'. How do I prove I've made friends?\"\n\n\"You must learn the names and some information about at least three people of different races.\"\n\n\"That's more like 'acquaintances' than 'friends'.\"\n\nMango shrugged her wings. \"It's a start.\"\n\n\"Are you busy, then? I actually am curious about what running an inn here is like. A friend of mine's a cook at a place called Thousand Ales.\"\n\nHer pointy ears perked. \"You mean Kai Appian? The man behind the Great Taste Upgrade?\"\n\n\"Is that what we're calling it? Kai had me and some friends try out the smell-and-taste upgrade before it came out, but I don't think he was the only one working on the project.\"\n\nThe bat-pony nodded. \"The upgrade is out? I must've missed the announcement. Do you mind if I run off?\"\n\n\"Sure, but he made us do a dungeon crawl for it.\"\n\nMango's ears drooped again. \"Oh. Might take a while then, so I'll wait. You need your quest info. It should be enough for you to know I'm a former actress, and I bought up this lot so I could meet lots of newcomers.\"\n\nAlma said, \"Do you do much cooking?\"\n\n\"Nah, I buy from the chefs downhill. But I haven't had a good meal since I uploaded! It's all been bland, you know?\"\n\n\"I'll let you get going. You sound eager to get the upgrade.\" Alma started to turn away, bumping her tail into the door.\n\n\"Thanks. Stop by later and I'll cook something! Oh, and try Onyx's bakery to meet a unicorn, and the Zen Farm if you want to befriend a strange earthbound. The regular type of horse, I mean.\"\n\nAlma thanked Mango and trotted outside, then glanced back. Mango whooshed through the air just over Alma's ears and soared toward the world portal, in search of the taste upgrade. Alma smiled and shut the door behind her. It'd only been around a subjective month for Alma and she'd already gotten tired of the near-flavorless food, so someone who'd lived in Talespace for longer must be eager for the improvement. Kai had boasted that when the public announcement went out, there'd been such a rush for the upgrade that there was lag in the feasting-hall he'd used for the occasion.\n\nShe kept going downhill toward the town and closer to the castle, looking for other equines. The colorful population was mostly concentrated below. When a strong-looking stallion went by hauling a wagon full of logs, Alma turned and followed his slow pace uphill. \"Excuse me? You're one of the 'earthbound' ones, right?\" No wings, horns or other fancy parts.\n\n\"Yup,\" drawled the stallion, and kept walking.\n\n\"I'm looking to meet other ponies. Got a minute?\"\n\n\"Nope.\"\n\nAlma left him alone and kept going. A trio of brightly-colored unicorns trotted by, chattering, and ignored Alma. A pegasus soared overhead, seeming not to hear her either.\n\n\"NPCs,\" she said aloud. \"This world's full of fake background characters.\" Hoofland was a dollhouse where only a few real people played. Why else had Mango named specific places to go?\n\nAlma shook her head and felt her mane tickle her neck. No angst this weekend. She kept walking.\n\n\"Are you all right, ma'am?\" said a voice from above. The pegasus hovering there with slow wingbeats had sky-blue eyes and a similar mane and tail on a grey coat.\n\n\"Are you real?\" Alma waved one hoof around at the seemingly bustling town. \"There're all these...\"\n\n\"Backgrounders,\" he said, with a note of disdain. \"Some of the townsfolk are better than that, though; they're a Cluster Intelligence or CI, with one real mind controlling multiple bodies. So, ma'am, don't presume the whole town is fake.\"\n\n\"Reminds me of 'P-zombies'. Creatures with outward signs of being human, but nothing inside.\" That was an old philosophy argument some people still used against uploading. Sure, Alma could jump up and down insisting she had real feelings and thoughts, but the skeptics insisted that it meant nothing, because a fake mind would pretend to care, too. The idea sounded to Alma like a crazy man's excuse for killing the 'blood-filled mannequins' surrounding him on Earth.\n\n\"You know the term?\" The pegasus looked impressed. He landed and held out his right forehoof. \"I'm Sterling, a native.\"\n\nShe wasn't sure how to shake hooves, so she gently bumped his with hers. \"Alma. Recent uploader. I've got nothing against AIs with a brain, so no offense. If anything, it's nice to know that this world doesn't revolve around me.\"\n\n\"Good! Looking for friends and your destiny, right? You can list me. I'm what passes for a banker.\"\n\nAlma tilted her head. \"You do currency exchange with Earth?\"\n\n\"Sometimes. Also loans and trades between Talespace currencies. We have a bank heist or stagecoach robbery every month or so too; that's fun.\"\n\nShe grinned. Being shot by bandits just meant he'd have a quest to recover the loot. \"There must be complicated tax rules for handling Earthside players' money. I used to buy a few things in Talespace with real money, but never really thought about the implications of it being more than a game.\" She was more troubled by the thought that since she was officially dead, \"her\" Earth money was really held by Ludo.\n\nSterling sheepishly scratched one ear with a wing. \"I leave the details to others. I'm a generalist. Also, I'm technically three years old.\"\n\nAlma felt a bit weirded out. \"I guess you're mature. We're just not used to the idea of minds springing forth fully-formed, outside of myths.\"\n\n\"Myths?\"\n\n\"Yes, like Athena or Aphrodite or the Titans.\"\n\n\"I should look into those. I'm afraid I'm still quite ignorant of Earth even after meeting your kind. I don't get out much, as you can imagine.\"\n\n\"It's fine. We're all learning.\"\n\nSterling nodded. \"Just so. If you'd like to visit sometime and speak more about the Outer Realm...\" He chuckled. \"I'm around.\"\n\n\"Thanks.\" Alma took her leave and wandered the streets, heading in the castle's general direction. This district seemed friendlier, or just more populated with real minds. She got smiles and waves from strangers. The castle's dark walls stood out in the distance, near a waterfall.\n\nA heavenly scent of chocolate-chip cookies distracted her from trying to chat up anyone else. She trotted into a large cottage with a chef hat for a roof. Inside, a black unicorn behind the counter was using his glowing horn to levitate trays out of the oven. \"Just in time!\" he said.\n\nAlma breathed deeply through big equine nostrils. \"You must be excited about the taste upgrade.\"\n\nThe unicorn's ears drooped. He pointed to a sign on the wall:\n\n\"Onyx Bakery FAQ: Baker is probably not emigrating to Hoofland for decades if ever. Baker has a good career and does not need sympathy. Baker would much rather discuss Hoofland. Thanks!\"\n\nAlma said, \"Sorry. So you're Onyx? Double Mango mentioned you.\"\n\n\"That's me.\"\n\n\"I haven't got money on me right now.\" Alma patted her bare flanks. \"Do you charge?\"\n\n\"Of course.\" Onyx's expression brightened and he floated a cookie over to her with a pale glow around it, matching his horn's. \"This one's free.\"\n\nAlma sat and took it carefully between her forehooves, sniffed, and devoured it. \"You sure got the taste right. Thanks!\"\n\n\"Newcomer, eh? You haven't got saddlebags yet, and you're still a generic character. Sorry if I make a bad first impression. I spend most of my time in Talespace hanging around with other casual players like me. I have a good regular crowd.\" He glanced toward a cluster of empty tables across the room. \"At night.\"\n\nAlma had noticed a few other shops. \"The city's mostly nocturnal, then?\"\n\n\"Yes. If you're doing the 'destiny' thing, you'll have to wait until nightfall, although the time rate in here isn't consistent with the real world's. If you want a more conventional fantasy area, try Midgard.\"\n\n\"Eh. That was the main area I played in before uploading, so I've already done generic fantasy. What is there to do around here until dark?\"\n\nOnyx said, \"Best to head out of town and do some adventuring. Not while you're naked and unarmed and without a species, though.\"\n\nAlma frowned. \"In that case I should leave to fetch my money.\"\n\n\"Fair enough. See you around.\"\n\nAlma headed back toward the portal to Ivory Tower, but a burly green horse-guy galloped up after her, calling out, \"Hold on, miss! Leaving so soon?\"\n\nShe looked him over, skeptically. \"I'm just going back for my stuff. I'm not sure how you carry things across.\"\n\n\"That's just it. Most things don't cross over unless they're in a world-appropriate container. So you need saddlebags, like these.\" He craned his neck around to reach the leather bags slung across his back, and improbably pulled out an equal-sized set that he tossed toward her. \"You can borrow these.\"\n\n\"You happened to have a spare set?\" Alma said.\n\n\"I'm well-prepared!\" said the stallion, beaming. \"And if you'd like to borrow some money --\"\n\n\"That's all right.\" Alma fumbled with the saddlebags and yelped as they flicked themselves over her back and fastened under her with a buckle. \"What was that?\"\n\n\"Oh, they do that automatically. Reach for the buckle to remove 'em.\"\n\nAlma did, to prove she wasn't wearing cursed horse stuff. She slipped the saddlebags back on and wriggled to get them settled comfortably, though supporting weight \"forward\" on her back felt strange. \"Thanks. Can I carry money from Ivory Tower in these?\"\n\n\"Sure.\"\n\n\"And then I'll need to find the banker again, then an equipment shop.\" She only had the four-day weekend before work, and much less subjective time than that, and there was class planning to do. Wouldn't be enough time for a thorough immersion in Hoofland yet, so she'd just do the intro quest for now.\n\nThe stallion said, \"He's easy to find. See you around, I guess?\" There was a blush on his muzzle.\n\nWhy do I attract horse-people? thought Alma. \"Yeah. I'll be back.\""}
+{"book_title": "2040 Reconnection", "author": "Kris Schnee", "genres": ["fantasy"], "tags": ["virtual reality", "Thousand"], "chapter_title": "Chapter 24", "text": "She landed on all fours in the Ivory Tower area, naked and squirrelly. Her clothes, backpack and hip pack had been neatly stacked on a corner shelf, and the saddlebags were fastened ridiculously around her waist.\n\nAlma stood up, wobbled to figure out her balance again, then removed the bags and dressed. Why not bring me back with my clothes on? Oh, I get it: it's coordination practice.\n\nThe portal stood ready to take her back, but she decided to wait until nightfall. Hoofland's friendship theme struck her as desperate, meant to forge a community out of people who would rather have a crowd of NPCs around. Poppy's squirrel-cult thing had a shared race and values to hold it together, and Alma wasn't sure telekinetic unicorns and flying pegasi and whatnot could have the same bond. Especially since Hoofland was also trying to bridge the Earth/Talespace gap. Ivory Tower and Midgard had the same awkwardness about Earthside shopkeepers and people popping in and out of local reality, but they didn't try to maintain a strong roleplaying culture. Did the equines have some social bond she hadn't seen yet?\n\nAlma headed for Thousand Ales to work on a lesson plan for her next class, and to tease Kai about meeting a generous stallion."}
+{"book_title": "2040 Reconnection", "author": "Kris Schnee", "genres": ["fantasy"], "tags": ["virtual reality", "Thousand"], "chapter_title": "Chapter 25", "text": "As she guessed, Hoofland worked on the same time rate as Ivory Tower, around three Earthside hours to one local. Alma waited until what should be evening (not that Ivory Tower's stone sky gave much indication) before heading back to four hooves. She'd timed it well: night fell just as she started down the hillside path. A silver moon had risen amid unfamiliar stars. Won't be many astrophysicists trained here, thought Alma as she trotted into town.\n\nShe reached the now-bustling bakery again, walked a little farther, and truly saw the castle for the first time. The walls of obsidian and blue marble shined with moonlight, and the waterfall she'd spotted was one of several that flowed out of the castle towers and streamed down into a moat of lotus-blooms and herons.\n\nThe words You have discovered Noctis Castle: Capital of the Night flowed into her vision, and an orchestral swell dueled with the murmur of the waterfalls. Alma smiled; the music was a subtle reference to Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, the standard spooky castle song.\n\nHer hooves thunked on a wooden drawbridge. Guards with spiked horseshoes or unicorn-levitated spears watched her enter a courtyard of obsidian and moonstone. Alma, inspired, began composing a geology lecture weaving together volcanoes, caravans and gem-cutters. But would her slow-witted \"Basic\" students understand any of it? Would long-time Hooflanders get the appeal of crystal structures as macro-scale expressions of molecular bonds, a window into the hidden nano-scale world that had helped unveil DNA and nanotubes? They probably dug up huge gems already cut and polished, because that's how mining worked in fiction. Pearls before ponies.\n\nAlma stopped walking and slapped her muzzle with one hoof. Ow. Quit being an elitist jerk. You're a teacher. Making people see what you see is your job!\n\nShe reached a hall that ended in a vast silver door, and she banged into the last horse standing in line. Alma staggered back, making a face. \"Sorry!\"\n\nThe stocky yellow mare ahead turned, looking more curious than annoyed. \"Careful. New to hooves?\"\n\nAlma nodded, feeling her head bob on her long neck. \"There's a line to meet the queen?\"\n\n\"There's only one of her. All hail Harvest Moon!\"\n\n\"All hail Harvest Moon!\" echoed down the line.\n\n\"So we're using all this technology --\"\n\n\"Magic,\" the mare said.\n\n\"To simulate bureaucracy,\" Alma said.\n\n\"Oh, not at all! Our queen cares deeply for every one of her subjects.\" She beamed. \"I'm Golden Scale, by the way.\"\n\n\"What do people come here for?\"\n\nThe great door opened, the line lurched forward, and a unicorn trotted out with a grin. Mist obscured the room beyond.\n\nGolden Scale said, \"Legal disputes, weddings, dragon attacks, and of course what you're here for. The Rite of Destiny! Are you nervous? Have you decided what to be?\"\n\nAlma was a little taken aback by the mare's beatific smile. \"I was thinking pegasus. Will I be able to fly right away?\"\n\n\"A little. You also have my tribe, the earthbound, as an option, since we're friends.\"\n\n\"We are?\"\n\nScale nodded. \"Sure! It's easy to make friends here. A fact for when you're quizzed: I might not look it, but I'm the top-scoring spear carrier against dragons attacking Noctis. Not even he can say that!\" She pointed at one of the door guards, who grunted.\n\n\"You're a battle sidekick?\"\n\n\"I do a lot of things. But yes, I help more powerful heroes protect the town. It's fun! If you want to learn about flying combat, look up my brother Meteor.\"\n\nThey chatted for a few minutes about teaching and gems and dragons, until it was Scale's turn for an audience. She hesitated in the doorway. \"Hmm... I think I'll skip this session after all. Good seeing you, miss! I'll be around.\" She cantered away, leaving the guards tapping their hooves impatiently and glaring at Alma. She hurried forward through the mist.\n\nThe room of Queen Harvest Moon (all hail) swirled with the same fog. It pooled and splashed with Alma's hoofsteps on the blue carpet leading across the chamber and up a few stairs. Torches along the walls kept the mist at bay around the tall silver throne, where a round cushion held a deep orange mare with a tiara.\n\n\"Well met,\" said the queen.\n\nAlma stood on the royal carpet, dwarfed by the throne room and the virtual nation it represented. Though her weird horse knees twitched, she stayed upright. Texans... No, free people don't bow. She said, \"Hello. My name is Alma.\"\n\nHarvest Moon tilted her head and smiled. \"That's it? I don't mind, but I do usually hear more from newcomers. Even those unattuned to the ways of Hoofland, who'd rather 'get on with it'.\"\n\nUnattuned...? Oh. Non-roleplayers. \"Are you Ludo?\"\n\n\"Ha! I have a running bet with my colleagues over who's asked that more often. No, newcomer, I am but a Noble, a former human blessed with the magic of fate. What shall yours be? Tell me of the people you've met.\"\n\nAlma spoke of Golden Scale, Onyx, Sterling, and Double Mango.\n\nThe queen said, \"Earthbound, unicorn, pegasus, noctral. You have four choices of tribe, then. Overachiever.\"\n\nScale had made sure that Alma had \"earthbound\" as a racial option, but hadn't asked whether Alma knew any pegasi. Alma began to suspect why. She asked, \"Have I been talking to one hive-mind this entire time?\"\n\nThe queen hopped down from her throne and laughed. \"Two of those you named are part of Noctis' town spirit.\" Her pale mane and tail shined as though catching the moonlight from outside the room.\n\n\"Golden Scale and Sterling. So they're that 'Cluster Intelligence', a genius loci?\"\n\n\"Indeed! Noctis has taken an interest in you. They do get the occasional crush.\"\n\nAlma sputtered. \"Your whole town is attracted to me?\"\n\n\"Just a hundred or so people.\"\n\n\"Oh dear.\"\n\n\"Horses. For deer you'll want to travel to Queen Bluerose's domain to the south.\"\n\n\"That's. Uh.\" Alma shook her head. \"Your majesty, could I be a pegasus? I'd love to try flying.\"\n\n\"Of course. Colors?\"\n\nAlma liked having a mane after having been in her squirrel-body with no human-style hair. \"Blond mane and tail, blue... no, gold eyes, and stick with a greyish coat.\"\n\n\"Very well. Hold still.\"\n\nA beam of soft light shot down onto Alma and transformed her. As the warm glow faded, she felt new muscles spreading along her back, and looked sidelong at her growing wings. \"Ah!\" The feathers were grey with a hint of gold, stretching amazingly far to either side. She wasn't quite sure how to reel her wings back in, and only gradually figured out how to flex them.\n\nThe queen hovered now, enveloped in a silver aura that gave her a ghostly unicorn horn and pegasus wings that shed fading feathers with each beat. She studied Alma for a while before speaking. \"There are several possible paths ahead for you, Ratatosk. I wonder which one you'll take.\"\n\n[ Valhalla and Midgard ]\n\nAlma's wings shot out to either side as though ready to bolt into the sky. \"Ratatosk, the inexplicable Norse-religion squirrel who runs up and down the World Tree connecting the nine worlds, carrying rumors?\"\n\n\"A good name,\" said Queen Harvest Moon, hovering there with lazy flaps of her own ghostly wings. \"You seem to have an affinity for it.\"\n\n\"How do you know what I've been doing outside Hoofland?\"\n\n\"Have you forgotten where you live?\" the queen teased. \"I have time magic to make each audience last as long as necessary, and mind magic for easy awareness of public information about my guests.\"\n\nThe new pegasus watched her warily. \"Subjective time compression and mental upgrades, you mean.\"\n\nThe queen's phantom wings and horn faded, leaving her still crowned but otherwise normal for her species. \"Why not call those magic? Some of us even use filter spells to swap the words automatically.\"\n\n\"People change their brains for the sake of immersive roleplaying?\" said Alma, feeling her tail twitch with unease.\n\n\"In a sense. If you lived here you could become a true pegasus to master flight or even walking, more thoroughly than you can as a natural biped. There are other benefits as well. I can tell that's not for you, today, but do think it over. Is there more I can do for you today, Ratatosk?\"\n\nAlma didn't challenge the name. \"If I lived here, how would I get a house? And would I be free to come and go to my Earthside job?\"\n\n\"Ask around about rental homes. I'm sure a hundred or so locals will be happy to set you up. With company, if you like.\" Harvest Moon winked. \"Since you're a pegasus you should definitely look into the cloud-weaver's art, too; you could build a home in the sky. As for needing permission to leave, I'm offended. Do I look like some manner of evil overlord?\"\n\nAlma looked around the misty stone chamber where torches shone on obsidian tiles and the nocturnal queen who wanted to rewrite Alma's brain.\n\nThe queen smiled. \"In truth, you can go at any time, though as an uploader you're now required to leave through the designated portals unless it's an emergency. You can't just log out.\"\n\nAlma stepped away from the silver throne. \"Thank you, then. It's been interesting. I need time to think. Oh, and your majesty: where is all this heading? I mean, are you planning to be the eternal queen of this place, or to step down and visit other parts of Talespace?\"\n\nHarvest Moon scuffed at the floor with one hoof, looking thoughtfully down. \"You're a newcomer, and I know little about you. Why don't you explore our lands at your own pace and try to learn our ways? This place is home for us, and potentially for you as well.\" She met Alma's eyes again. \"Tell me: In what do you have faith?\"\n\n\"Faith? I try to avoid it.\"\n\n\"Ah, a hard-headed rationalist? Yet your background shows that you believe in something beyond the need for a warm bed and a good meal, neither of which you technically need here.\"\n\nAlma thought of many arguments she'd had about religion and politics. \"I believe in trying to survive and build a happy, prosperous society. That Free States background you're looking into shows I understand that liberty's an important part of that goal. It's why I'm prickly about the whole Talespace experience. And about royalty.\"\n\n\"I see,\" the queen said. \"You interest me. Learn about this land, and come back some evening. We shall have dinner.\""}
+{"book_title": "2040 Reconnection", "author": "Kris Schnee", "genres": ["fantasy"], "tags": ["virtual reality", "Thousand"], "chapter_title": "Chapter 26", "text": "Alma rented a room at the Mango Inn rather than return to her main home in Ivory Tower. Spending a night as a horse seemed like a learning experience. She carefully climbed a set of broad stairs to a room where her hooves made the boards creak. A bookshelf perched above the simple cushion and blanket-pile of a bed.\n\nAlma reached out for a book, bonked a hoof against it, and recalled what she was. She had to wobble on her hindlegs and snag the volume with her mouth, noticing her lack of slobber. It fell out of her square, flat teeth and dropped open next to the bed. Alma shrugged and settled onto the cushion, then tugged a blanket over her with her mouth.\n\nLove Your Wings: Preening For Beauty and Performance, read the title. Alma gradually worked out how to turn pages with the sticky magnet-like effect of her hooves. The book said that much like dusting a room to refill some hidden maintenance meter, a pegasus' wings needed brushing and oiling to look good and fully enable flight. Alma poked her muzzle with one hoof as she realized she'd walked all the way back up here without trying her new wings.\n\nShe was surprised to see the little bump of a preening gland hidden under each of her wings, once the illustrations pointed them out. Apparently this was a private detail of pegasus anatomy, similar to how her body was G-rated except now that she was in private and thinking about it. She vaguely recalled that real birds' glands were near their tails, and was glad for this bit of inaccuracy. Alma nosed under one wing and tried brushing a bit of waxy stuff from there onto her feathers, using her muzzle. The touch tickled her feathers and made her wings stretch out like long-unused muscles.\n\nShe'd never had to clean anything in other parts of Talespace. The only real maintenance tasks she'd had to do were going on little dungeon crawls to earn money to pay her bar-and-grill tab (since Kai's place charged), and the time when she'd rented an Earthside robot and the last user left it stinking and dirty. Wasn't it just busywork to make people clean and fix things, in a world where dust and damage were fictional?\n\nAlma was still thinking about it as she went outside. I've been too focused on the implications and not on the part about having feathers! She smiled, banged her new limbs painfully on the inn's doorframe, and staggered out to return to the hilltop where the world-portal was. From there she give her wings a good flap. Wind stirred and the wings swirled around like oars, down-back-up-forward. Maybe if she ran? She trotted forward, flapping repeatedly, then got distracted by wondering what kind of bird she was most like. She stumbled and went sailing down the path, yelping. Her wings shot out and wobbled. She glided, out of control, flinched right as a building loomed ahead, then saw only air under her hooves and the town seemingly far below.\n\nAlma flailed at the air, losing altitude whenever she tried flapping or turning. She held her wings straight out and tried not to plummet to her death.\n\n\"You okay down there?\" said a flame-colored pegasus kid zooming from above.\n\n\"Help!\"\n\nThe colt saluted with one hoof, flew off, and returned pushing a cloud around. He flew alongside Alma, saying, \"State the nature of your aerial emergency.\"\n\nAlma flapped, began stalling, and barely recovered her glide. \"Just help me!\"\n\nThe kid quit fooling around and pushed the cloud right into Alma's path. She crashed into it and slid to a stop as though she'd hit a ghostly pillow. Nothing but white around her. Alma flapped, struggled, and popped her head up out of the cool vapor. Her heart pounded but she wasn't moving.\n\nThe colt landed with a puff of cloudstuff next to her and grinned down. \"First time flying? Lucky you had me around! My name's --\"\n\nAlma's eyes narrowed. \"You're the town, again. Following me.\"\n\n\"You said 'thank you' wrong. And no, I'm not part of Noctis. Only a part-time peggy. The name's Phoenix Forester.\"\n\nAlma shuddered and looked around at the night sky. An aurora shimmered near the moon. Pretty, when she was on something like solid ground. \"Thank you. I'm new at this.\"\n\n\"There's your problem. You only have basic gliding to start. Gotta do the quests to 'discover the true meaning of the pegasus heart' or whatever. I tried to get my friends to go pegasus too, but everypony else wanted to be other stuff.\"\n\nAlma said, \"So I have to study pegasus lore to get my full powers? Or do you mean I have to get my brain changed so I'll use the cute slang like you?\"\n\nPhoenix tilted his big golden-eyed head, confused. \"Oh! You mean saying 'everypony'? I didn't sign up for the brain thing; I just learned to talk like this while I'm in Hoofland. What are you, anyway? You yelled loud enough I figure you're an uploader.\"\n\nAlma blushed as she managed to climb out of the cloud and sit atop it. The vapor felt like a pillow, yielding slightly. \"Recent uploader, teaching part-time in Texas. You?\"\n\n\"Been here since I got out of the pediatric cancer ward in '37,\" said Phoenix, poking his chest with one hoof. \"I got in early. Rich parents. So I've gotta be a hero and help other people get to Talespace too.\"\n\nAlma winced. \"I had a long life before I needed uploading for medical reasons, and I got in after the big price drop. What do you do to promote Talespace?\"\n\nPhoenix lifted off and hovered, a trick Alma envied. \"The Interdimensional Seekers of Peace and Valor -- uh, me and my friends -- volunteer for all kinds of outreach programs. My buddy Volt was created as the mascot for a kids' hospital. Miss Ludo rescued the whole gang there!\"\n\nA few months ago, Ludo had made a show of picking a children's hospital and offering uploading to every single terminally ill kid there.\n\nAlma's ears perked up. \"Saint John's?\"\n\n\"Yup! I'm not from there, but isn't it amazing? Now we just need to take over the rest of the world.\" The boy must've seen Alma's frown, because he said, \"I don't mean shooting people; jeez! My friends and I want less death in the world.\"\n\nSome of the people who'd been in Talespace longest, then, and had the least life experience, were some of the ones most aware of mortality. Alma nodded, then thought of something else. \"If you're kids, are you going to school?\" The University of Ivory Tower was a core institution of Talespace, but she'd heard very little about lower-level education.\n\n\"Pssssh. Who wants to sit at a desk all day? We do try to learn, though. Lately we've been trying to figure out computers work. If you think flapping wings is tough, try describing what a CPU actually does.\"\n\nAlma looked down from her cloud to the distant ground, and sighed. \"I teach the slow kids, and I'm not cut out for it. It's nice to hear from someone brighter.\"\n\nPhoenix stared at Alma, then flipped over backwards in midair, laughing. \"Queen Harvest Moon strikes again! All hail.\"\n\n\"Huh?\"\n\nThe colt steadied himself and rested his hoof-elbows on the edge of the cloud, like a swimmer at poolside. \"You just met her spooky majesty, right? So she's thinking about you. And I just happened to get a visit from somepony in Noctis asking me to do weather patrol tonight. So I was nearby when a teacher who doesn't know what these flappy things are, got into trouble. Get it?\"\n\n\"The queen set up our meeting?\"\n\nPhoenix said, \"Yup! This kind of thing happens a lot. She and the other Nobles are the game-masters. They make stuff happen. Evil dragon attacks Noctis? Probably sent by King Sky Diver. Buffalo tribes stomping ponies? Harvest Moon knew some adventuring party was getting bored. Unhappy teacher? Find her some students and make it look like an accident.\"\n\n\"That's a strangely aggressive approach to friendship.\" Alma thought back to how Ludo had limited contact with her after the first few days. She'd heard some people wanted to have the master AI around all the time, but Alma was fine with having her at the far end of a clockwork dungeon, for when it was really worth asking for something important.\n\nThe kid rubbed his ears with one hoof. \"I guess we're friends now. Yay? Maybe you can teach my gang sometime.\"\n\n\"I'll agree to that if you tell me how to get down from here.\"\n\n\"Glide!\" said Phoenix. \"It's not like you're going to die for real if you mess up. Come on; jump over the edge with your wings out.\"\n\nAlma stood, trembling, on the edge of a cloud with nothing below for several hundred feet. Instinct screamed at her to get to solid ground or at least to the center of this fluffy hovering platform. She tried to figure out how to flex her wings and open them wide. The sooner she did this, the sooner she could get to the trail.\n\nBig golden eyes watched her. \"I'd offer to tow this cloud, but that'd be cheating. You'll be happier if you do this. Aim for that bit of the road, there, and fly straight. You've gotta jump for yourself.\"\n\nAlma shuddered. \"I could just call for a teleport...\"\n\n\"No!\" Phoenix slapped the cloud with one hoof, making a bit of it vanish into steam. \"That's not how Hooflanders do things! Or uploaders. Lady, if you weren't willing to do anything crazy, you should be in the grave right now, not living here.\"\n\nShe wondered if Ludo would warp her out of here if she really wanted it. Were the rules truly different in Hoofland, making it more hardcore than other areas?\n\nI want to learn and grow, thought Alma. Not to hide behind the rules of a game. She took a few timid steps backward, craning her long neck around to keep from falling that way, and then raced forward with an undignified yelp. The cloud no longer supported her and she fell... but more forward than down. Wind whipped through her mane and tail and streamed through her feathers. The ground loomed larger and larger ahead. Alma wobbled, wings aching, heart thumping. Then her hooves skimmed the dirt, scrambled against it, and sent her tumbling end over end to land sprawled on her back.\n\n\"Are you all right, ma'am?\" said a unicorn with a medic's foreleg-band who just happened to be nearby.\n\nGame text told her she'd taken a minor wound. Alma rolled over and shook, shedding a grey feather. \"Yes, Noctis, I'm fine.\"\n\nThe medic looked flustered. \"It was great for your first time. I know a pegasus who does flight training for the Shadowstar racing team. He could --\"\n\n\"I'm sure. I've got a lot to think about, though. Maybe later?\"\n\nPhoenix hovered nearby, grinning. \"Need to working on landing. But yeah, you learned a little about what it's like.\"\n\nAlma turned to Phoenix, though she was self-conscious about facing directly away from Noctis' latest puppet. \"Eye of the tiger, heart of the pegasus?\"\n\n\"Eye of...? As for pegasus, sure. But I fit right in as one of these because it's really what being an uploader ought to mean. Do you get it?\" He bounced up and down in the sky.\n\nAlma brushed one hoof along the grass. Her only deaths so far (after her legal death in an operating room) had been from traps in the Ivory Tower area, which had only blocked her way from getting someplace important. They'd been trivial because they were game stuff, only existing to get in her way and challenge her. This time, she'd risked the pain and humiliation of \"death\" because she wanted to become better, and had cared about the act itself. She'd also had a cheerleader.\n\nShe looked up at the full moon. \"You can't really die, but you can still hurt and be afraid. You can grow, and learn, and help people. You can do things that used to be impossible.\"\n\n\"Pretty much,\" said Phoenix. \"I don't know if you wanna keep the wings or hooves, but whatever you do, don't be a plain old human. Be cooler than that.\"\n\n[ Cleric of the Sky ]\n\nAlma slept at the inn and returned the next morning to Ivory Tower. Half of her four-day weekend was gone. She frowned as she dressed her squirrelly body in skirt and blouse, and slung her borrowed equine saddlebags over one shoulder. She'd have to return those and get a new set, and that meant talking with part of Noctis again. She sighed; she wasn't eager to have a whole herd with a crush on her, even if they were basically one person. She'd have to let them down gently somehow.\n\nShe picked up a copy of the Talespace Tribune from a newsstand in the hotel. It was quaintly printed on paper, by a generation that had barely seen newspapers outside museums. She sat at a free hotel cafe to read it and eat a pear-and-walnut salad, perfected by the taste upgrade.\n\nChallenger II Launch Already Planned: More Uploaders To Asteroids But No Talespace Node? -- \"Army of Enough\" Fights Sanctions, Demands Crucial Electronics. -- Runaway AI: Can You Ever Really Restrain a Machine Mind? -- Opinion: The Dolphins Belong.\n\nNice that so much of it was Earth-focused, outside the Lifestyle page that was focused on magic today. Alma considered the brown shamanic markings on the fur of her hands and sandaled feet, that marked her own first forays into the magic system. They'd been absent from her as a horse even though every other world she'd visited here had let her keep them. Hoofland really was a rule system unto itself. Idly, Alma waved one hand to call up the magic system in its usual swirl of glowing icons and dots in the air, but didn't see a marker indicating that she'd earned a new spell element from her latest experiences. Bah; she'd been hoping to get something flying-related.\n\nAlma tossed the newspaper down. If she wanted something like that, then she had to earn it elsewhere. She should be adventuring.\n\nShe left the hotel through the huge front doors, avoiding the town to head for the portal to Midgard.\n\nA trio of waist-tall kobolds leaped out from behind a rock and brandished jagged knives. \"Gimme gimme money!\" said one.\n\n\"I think I voted for you once,\" said Alma, and readied her staff. She yanked a rock out of her hip pouch, stuck it into the sling-like pocket on the staff's end, and flung the rock so hard it knocked one lizard-critter down like a club to the gut. The others stared long enough for her to reload, summon the magic interface, and link up her \"Stone\" and \"Arrow\" elements to charge her second blow with extra force. Her hands swirled through the air as she manipulated glowing icons, creating trails of light. \"Who's next?\"\n\nThe other two ran away yipping in terror.\n\n\"What are you, anyway?\" she said to the groaning kobold who was just standing up again. \"Randomly generated for my benefit, or random relative to this world's need for a monster population, or part of some scripted plotline?\"\n\n\"Much ouch! You be sorry next time!\"\n\n\"Come on, spill it. I fought gross slimes and cute anime slimes here before, and they didn't talk.\"\n\nThe scaly midget backed off with a knife still clutched in his wavering paws. \"Know nothing! Just looking for easy prey and saw rat-thing.\"\n\nIt sounded like a random encounter rather than something arranged for her personal entertainment. Alma liked that. \"Get out of here.\" She let the creature run off. On the other hand, there wasn't any significance to the event if the monsters had popped out of nowhere like particles in vacuum. Maybe there was at least a procedurally generated kobold lair nearby, that would keep spawning muggers until someone took it down. Sounded fun, if so, but she'd need backup.\n\nAlma went back to town and walked into Thousand Ales. Kai waved, saying, \"Hey there. Done with horse world?\"\n\n\"For now. I forgot to ask whether you'd been there.\" A couple of men in Islamic Caliphate garb sat at a corner table, watching a baseball game.\n\n\"Of course. It wasn't for me, but it was fun to visit.\"\n\nAlma said, \"The taste upgrade has some of the locals excited, and they recognize your name. You could make money or at least friends there.\" She grinned. \"Maybe snag some mares.\"\n\nFor all his brawn, Kai the native AI looked bashful. His long ears flicked back. He tugged at his vest and looked aside at a collection of dangling beer mugs. \"I got asked to give a talk at the Tower, to some neuroscientists. I'd feel out of place doing something like that or lording over the horsefolk.\"\n\n\"You should! The lecture at least. You've made life better for everybody here. No more Earthside preachers saying 'and ye shall taste only the emptiness of dust and ashes!'\"\n\n\"Thank you. I might try doing a speech, then, if I can work it into a cooking lesson.\"\n\nAlma told Kai about the kobolds. \"Want to go hunting? I'm looking for Poppy too, since I was on my way to learn climbing and try to get some kind of flying or gliding magic.\"\n\nKai looked around the restaurant. It was pretty quiet at the moment. \"I can leave an NPC bartender for a while. It's a Newcomer Fair day, so Poppy should be around. Before I put up the NPC, want to take over while I look for her?\"\n\nA real person behind the bar was always more interesting than an NPC that lacked even a town-style mind. Poppy took the excuse to make a running leap, vault over the bar, slip, and thud into the wall behind it. A customer saw her and snickered.\n\nKai headed out, flicking his tail and saying, \"Ah, the wondrous agility of the squirrel, nature's acrobat.\"\n\nOnce she'd recovered, Alma poured beer for a handful of uploader customers and chatted with them about space news. The Earthside gamers kept watching TV, since the food and drink here were pointless for them. Before long, Kai returned from the Tower with Poppy, dressed as an archer. Kai had his cool \"barding\" armor and spear, plus his own saddlebags.\n\nPoppy hugged her fellow rodent. \"I haven't been to Hoofland in ages. Once we pound some kobolds I'd like to visit again and see what Kai looks like with fewer limbs.\"\n\n\"I'm a pegasus in there,\" said Kai. \"It's uncomfortable to not have six.\"\n\nKai, Poppy and Alma ventured outside of town to search for a monster lair. Sure enough, a crude camp of straw nests and bones was hidden in one of the cavern's many blind canyons and outcroppings. Kai spoiled their stealth by blundering into a rockslide trap.\n\nHe shouted and staggered ahead just in time to avoid being crushed by falling boulders. Lizard-like yips and hisses came from the camp. Alma and Poppy scrambled over the rock pile and readied their weapons.\n\nA dozen of the mean little creatures leaped out around them, swinging knives of stone and bone. Alma flung a rock, missed, then got knocked back by a kobold leaping at her. She bashed away with her staff and covered Poppy long enough for her to fire a few arrows. Kai couldn't use his full speed in the uneven-floored canyon, but he galloped ahead, spun, and skewered monsters left and right with his spear.\n\nAlma used the distraction to charge another magic stone-shot, and brained another kobold with it. There was no more time for fancy spells then, only a flurry of teeth and knives and bludgeoning.\n\nThe three of them soon stood bloodied and winded in the midst of lizard corpses and the tribe's pathetic collection of loot. Alma rummaged through the critters' various bags and junk piles. \"I still kind of feel bad about wiping out talking monsters.\"\n\n\"They're NPCs,\" said Kai. \"Not like Gerard, even.\"\n\nPoppy said, \"Sometime, we should let a monster population get out of control here, just so we can get a big group battle going.\"\n\nKai looked alarmed. \"Not near my bar!\"\n\n\"Oh sure, everybody wants there to be a horde of bloodthirsty monsters, but not in their backyard. So, Hoofland?\"\n\nAlma's fluffy tail drooped. \"I'm looking for housing. I should do a tour of all the major worlds before committing.\"\n\n\"Right,\" said Poppy, nodding. \"You'll have to arrange for a mortgage and home inspection and contact a realtor, and then it'll be such a hassle to move and oh wait.\"\n\nKai said, \"I've heard of those. Taxes too, right?\"\n\n\"Don't you join in.\" Alma turned away, grumbling, and did one last look through the treasure. Under a tattered cloak she found a pouch full of gleaming yellow crystals.\n\nKai clopped closer to look over her shoulder. \"Deltite! Don't know if it's enough to transform you again, but you could save up.\"\n\n\"And go permanent equine!\" said Poppy.\n\n\"Quit that.\" Alma turned around with her hands on her hips. \"Poppy, I get your point about Earth housing requirements not applying, but that doesn't mean rushing into things.\"\n\nThe other squirrel-lady shrugged. \"I'm kidding, mostly. But since you can enter and leave Hoofland without spending resources, it could be fun to commute from there for a while and try being stuck as that species wherever you go.\"\n\nThere was some merit in that idea. Besides, there'd be time to explore the other worlds more thoroughly later. Maybe much later. In a way, being liberated from imminent death made it easier to commit to doing strange things. \"Fine. Let's do some equine adventuring in a little while.\"\n\nOnce they'd split up for the moment, Alma checked her interface and spotted a new icon. She poked it and new text appeared, making her eyes widen.\n\nSpecial Techniques: You've earned access to a specialized bonus power! These act like sub-skills that attach to a skill and can be used whenever the main one is in your top five. You can customize each one with practice. Which do you want first? -Perfect Balance (from Climbing): Balance on any walkable surface! -Bound Magic (from Magic): Prepare spells in advance! -Wand Crafter (from Enchanting): Make long-lasting magic wands!\n\nShe hopped in glee. It wasn't a new spell element, but it was a whole new type of power. The last one was tricky, though. So far her limited experience with the Enchantment skill was to put a \"Stone Arrow\" spell on rocks for a few minutes before combat, much like what the Bound Magic power was offering. Once she had more elements it'd be nice to make items she could share, maybe teaming up with smiths or other crafters. She picked \"Wand Crafter\" and a fanfare played, but nothing else happened immediately.\n\nAlma shrugged. As much as she'd have liked to run off and try the new power, she had an adventuring party to rejoin."}
+{"book_title": "2040 Reconnection", "author": "Kris Schnee", "genres": ["fantasy"], "tags": ["virtual reality", "Thousand"], "chapter_title": "Chapter 27", "text": "Alma, Kai and Poppy met up again with appropriate gear. Alma had her saddlebags over one shoulder plus her money supply. Her Talespace money; the pittance of real, gold-and-silver-backed dollars she'd earned as a teacher was earmarked for uploading of her needy students.\n\nThe party made for Hoofland's gate. \"You go first,\" said Poppy. \"Party leader sets the destination.\"\n\nAlma jumped through and landed on four hooves. She was standing atop the hill just outside the underground staircase. Her wings were back, unfurling like muscles that'd been asleep. Kai was an impressive red pegasus stallion with bright orange eyes and orange-trimmed wings, and Poppy... actually no, that was Poppy. Kai was in roughly his usual colors, a more ordinary pegasus in a natural brown with deep brown eyes and blond mane.\n\nAlma wrestled her saddlebags onto her long torso. \"Poppy, you didn't tell me you'd, uh, switched.\"\n\n\"A true son of the forest explores many branches.\" Poppy looked vain. In this shape he wore a pendant with a bright wing design.\n\n\"What's that?\" asked Alma.\n\nPoppy startled. \"Oh. Uh. Something I kind of left with this body, last time I was here. Come on; let's find an adventure.\"\n\nAlma would've asked more questions, but Poppy jumped into the air and started downhill. Kai joined him. Alma wasn't sure she had enough flying ability to follow, but told herself, At worst, I'll die. She forced herself to run and flap too, and gave a ridiculous yelp. The slope of the hill fell away quickly in this direction. She couldn't turn without losing control!\n\nKai and Poppy spotted the problem. Kai made a touch-and-go landing on the hill and dived after Alma, arriving a few seconds after Poppy who took a more direct route. They snagged Alma by the forehooves and with a dangerous confusion of wings, hauled her onto a lower hill. They caught their breath and looked out at the desert that stretched in this direction.\n\nA pair of enthusiastic pegasi and a unicorn, including Sterling the banker, were setting up an aerial obstacle course of clouds and rings nearby. \"Hi!\" said Sterling. \"I thought you'd be back, but I didn't expect you'd bring friends. Perfect Timing here happened to be doing agility training, so I --\"\n\nAlma trotted over to him and held out one forehoof. \"Noctis. I appreciate that you're trying to be friends, but I'm getting a little disturbed. I'm here to do some adventuring, but not the kind full of contrived coincidences.\"\n\nThe unicorn answered for Sterling in nearly the same voice. \"Are we being too friendly? We're sorry. We just want you to feel welcome.\"\n\nAlma ignored the snickering from Poppy's direction. \"All right. Please give me some space so I can see more of this world, and not focus on, on whatever this is, okay?\"\n\nKai said, \"I'd like to try the obstacle course though.\"\n\nSterling and the unicorn slinked away, saying in unison, \"Okay. Some other time?\"\n\n\"Fine,\" said Alma, and immediately regretted it. The other pegasus remained. \"And you're not Noctis?\" asked Alma.\n\n\"No, ma'am. I'd yell at you for chasing them off, but I can guess what's going on. Newcomer?\"\n\n\"Uh-huh.\"\n\n\"Well, judging from your arrival, you three look like you need flying practice. Want to play?\"\n\nThe four of them bounded through the rings and bounced off clouds and flagpoles. Alma got much better at turning. \"I can still only glide, though. It sounded earlier like no amount of practice would let me really fly, because I have to do a quest for that. How does that work?\"\n\nThe pegasus trainer flopped onto a cloud. \"East of here, Mount Improbable is the big questing area for pegasi. It's like the Labyrinth of Night for unicorns or the Centralia Fire-Mine for earthbound, in that you've got to bring all three main races or you'll get your flank kicked.\"\n\nAlma said, \"They're puzzle dungeons that take all three?\"\n\n\"That, and general combat strategy. Ever fought a four-meter-tall wooden wolf-golem whose eyes burn with unholy flame? Typically the earthbound are the tanks, unicorns are damage-per-second or buff/debuff support, pegasi are crowd control or --\"\n\n\"Are you an uploader? Er, an 'immigrant'? I expected to hear it all phrased in terms of friendship powers.\"\n\n\"Got here in January.\" The trainer glanced again at Poppy. \"Say, weren't you in the war?\"\n\nPoppy blushed and stepped away from him. \"Not importantly. 'Ratatosk' here has got the basics down, so we'd better head for the mountain. Thanks!\"\n\n\"With an all-winged party like that?\"\n\nPoppy sighed. \"Right. We'll figure something out. Thanks again!\" He headed for the downward trail leading into the desert.\n\nAlma, puzzled, excused herself and followed Poppy. \"What was that about?\" she asked, once they and Kai were away.\n\n\"I only arrived a few months before you, remember?\" Poppy said. \"I threw myself into this new life, and I was really enthusiastic about becoming something new. Not like you with trying to get right back into an Earthside job.\"\n\n\"Didn't feel the 'bounce'?\" Alma asked.\n\nPoppy's wings twitched noncommittally. \"No; I'd done an Earthside life already. Instead I ended up in Hoofland, just in time to get involved in a huge battle that redrew the map -- literally, even the geography.\"\n\n\"There's already been a war?\"\n\n\"Besides the first revolution, there was a war against the last queen of the east, Sunward Ho the Team-Killer. She tried to conquer Hoofland for her own selfish reasons, not caring about the lives of the people who lived here.\"\n\n\"I guess that's not as horrible as it sounds, since no one could die,\" said Alma. She practiced hopping up and down between the ground and a sand dune.\n\n\"Ever died several times in quick succession? It gets more painful. There's a limit before you respawn at some failsafe location, but it's still torture.\"\n\nAlma peeked down from her branch. \"Ludo allowed that?\" She tried to remember hearing anything in Earth media, before she'd uploaded, about events in Hoofland. \"I guess everyone dismisses news from here, even more than from Talespace in general. It's just a cartoon world, right?\"\n\nKai looked thoughtful. \"Poppy, you committed to this world, though. I'm surprised you didn't stick with a pegasus body even after leaving.\" Alma had seen a few horse-people walking around elsewhere in Talespace.\n\nPoppy glanced down at his jewelry. \"I thought Hoofland was the way to bring people together. I should've known that people wouldn't rally around something they saw as not just disarmingly silly, but childish.\"\n\nAlma glided down, thinking. Poppy's current decision to roleplay as part of the Great Oak religion was her second attempt to bring uploaders together as a new culture. \"Wait a minute,\" said Alma, landing at Poppy's hooves. \"Back then, did you tell people to worship the rulers here?\"\n\nPoppy stepped back. \"I wasn't the first follower of King Sky Diver.\"\n\nAlma said, \"I'm not saying it's necessarily bad. But unlike your 'Forest Lord' thing, where no actor is actually playing the character, there presumably is a Sky Diver.\"\n\n\"I hear Ludo really exists, too,\" said Kai. \"They say you can summon her with a sacrifice of skee-ball tickets.\"\n\nAlma waved off his joke. \"Ludo doesn't want us being too respectful, and she's not the same kind of mind as us. But the rulers here are apparently drawing worship on purpose, and they really are mentally human.\"\n\nKai nodded. \"I understand. You're objecting to the idea of ordinary minds setting themselves up as gods. But that's because you're weird. Most people want to be ruled.\"\n\n\"Excuse me?\" Alma's wings stretched and her ears lay back. Poppy just looked glum.\n\nKai turned to look out from the forest, at the town far below. \"I've spent my short life studying human nature. Humans seem to crave having someone with power over them. They'd rather be 'sinners in the hands of an angry God' than to think that there isn't one. The thought of not being in the hands of some all-powerful authority frightens people.\" Kai turned his long neck back to regard Alma, and his eyes were big and soulful. \"Even you personally, miss rebel-states mare. You don't bow, but you're still looking for an excuse to.\"\n\nAnger flashed through Alma at the thought of an AI making blanket judgments about humanity. The human spirit was greater than... Alma paused and sighed, rising a bit above her first thoughts. My instinct was to defend the human 'tribe' against the AI 'tribe', and to speak of a grand, transcendent power unique to humanity. I don't believe in literal spirits, but the Free States would never have broken away successfully if not for devout Christians who used faith as a source of strength, and who thought they'd go to Heaven if the Washington men shot them. Those people have a confidence I never had. I don't agree with them, but I admire them a lot more than some of my fellow unbelievers.\n\nPoppy's wing draped warmly over Alma's back. The cleric said, \"I don't care that the way I worship is silly, so long as it's good. It can't be any more false or ridiculous than half the 'real' religions out there.\"\n\nAlma had grown up with a faith in the essential goodness and unique destiny of the United States. Seeing her home change over her lifetime hadn't just angered her. It had gnawed at her soul, like knowing that a loved one had been murdered and defiled and unavenged. The rupture that had created the American Free States had been joyous like nothing else in her politically active life. In hindsight, it had been for her like the birth of a new god. The AFS plainly weren't pure or saintly or always even competent, but as a famous speech had put it, \"the flame is here now\".\n\nAt last Alma dipped her head. \"I feel the urge to worship something, too. But Kai, my culture puts its faith in principles, not leaders. Queen Harvest Moon, all hail, talked about people getting upgrades to fit into this specific setting better. It's like she's trying to become something totally new, and okay to worship. But she'll still be a ruler, like a real queen.\"\n\n\"It's not like that!\" said Poppy. He hopped into the air and hovered. \"When I was here as a cleric, the point was to rally people so we could work together here or on Earth someday. To use religion to unite people with shared values. Not to make a personality cult out of it.\"\n\nKai said, \"Well, it seems to be going that way.\"\n\nPoppy slapped a branch with one hoof. \"That's not what it's supposed to be! The Nobles were supposed to sit on thrones, dispense quests, be people we could admire, and make sure things stayed interesting. Their 'Ascension' project wasn't focused on themselves so much as helping the whole community.\"\n\nAlma said, \"Are you all right, Poppy? I didn't know you had this much of a history here.\"\n\n\"Enough that I need to go and look into this business. You don't need another pegasus anyway for your quest. Go have fun while I figure out how screwed up Hoofland got in my absence.\" He flew off quickly enough to leave a sparkly aura in his wake, toward the east.\n\nAlma looked to Kai. \"Great. Hoofland is secretly turning into the Church of Equinology.\"\n\n\"Huh?\" the brown stallion asked.\n\n\"There's this cult on Earth that claims alien volcano spirits... Tell you later. Harvest Moon told me to explore Hoofland to better understand her intentions. She also hinted that I'm somehow important for being a frequent cross-world traveler. She might tell me more than she would someone else.\"\n\n\"Want to do the pegasus quest without Poppy? I think I can get a spell to temporarily go earthbound, and I know a unicorn if you don't mind him being evil.\"\n\n\"Forces of Evil?\"\n\n\"That, and he has some influence over the Islamic Caliphate.\"\n\nAlma swore.\n\n\"It's him or recruit one of Noctis' interchangeable bodies. I don't know many of the locals.\"\n\nAlma frowned. \"Let's see if Onyx the Baker is up for this instead. How about we meet up in a few hours? Local time. I also want to get out of here and do anything non-equine.\""}
+{"book_title": "2040 Reconnection", "author": "Kris Schnee", "genres": ["fantasy"], "tags": ["virtual reality", "Thousand"], "chapter_title": "Chapter 28", "text": "Alma tapped a wrench against her fuzzy hand, as she watched a bridge across a gorge. Suddenly the mechanical gun turret she'd built beside her shuddered and sparked. \"Spy's sapping my sentry!\" she called out to her team. A man in a lab coat was trying to sneak away, but she clubbed him unconscious with the wrench and his disguise wore off, revealing him as the saboteur. Meanwhile a scary guy with a flamethrower ran up to help her fix the gun and guard the bridge against some incoming mercenaries in blue. These team-based shooter games had become a traditional sport among uploaders.\n\nShe flexed her hands, wondering what it'd be like to have hooves full-time. She was still missing something about the queens' plans. She'd think about it after dealing with the incoming guy with the rocket launcher."}
+{"book_title": "2040 Reconnection", "author": "Kris Schnee", "genres": ["fantasy"], "tags": ["virtual reality", "Thousand"], "chapter_title": "Chapter 29", "text": "She quit playing after an hour and checked Earthside news on her hotel room's wallscreen. She'd requested a few random headlines each day plus some Free States-centric and science news. One of them read: \"Deadly Shooting at Houston, TX Fun Zone.\"\n\nAlma's tail flicked like a flag. She shoved aside Earthside ads like \"Should This Amazing New Razor Be Banned?\" to poke the other headline for details: \"Houston families are reeling today... the man brandished a gun while shouting that he was desperate for the controversial 'uploading' procedure in light of several personal tragedies. Another customer shot him dead even as the building's security drones tried to subdue him... no charges will be filed.\"\n\nAlma had been to that Fun Zone, last year. She'd eaten cheap pizza and watched an improvised adventure show, like the one she'd acted in. For her there wasn't much more appeal to the place than there was to playing Thousand Tales at home, but for kids... had there been kids watching that man get his head blown off? Alma relaxed slightly on reading that somebody had had the sense to hustle them out of harm's way.\n\nShe went to the notepad on the dresser, to write. Why didn't you stop it? Her left hand on the pen nearly formed the words, but she already knew the answer. Ludo wasn't all-powerful even within a building she owned. Instead Alma wrote, \"I'm sorry to hear about one of your players.\"\n\nThe response came immediately in silver ink: \"Thank you.\"\n\nAlma shut off the wallscreen and checked the clock. There was no sense in spoiling her friends' fun with bad news, and the quest ahead was largely for her own benefit. Besides imaginary flight powers, though, she now hoped the adventure would earn her some more understanding of the new morality emerging in Talespace.\n\n[ Heart of the Pegasus ]\n\nOnyx wasn't available, so reluctantly, Alma walked up to the nearest unicorn and invited her. The mare blinked and said, \"Mount Improbable is a dangerous area. It's no place for me!\" She trotted away.\n\nRight. There were NPC filler fillies in this town too. Alma looked around for unicorns who were showing some initiative, and found a green one gardening in druid getup. \"Noctis?\"\n\n\"Greetings, fair mare. Do you need assistance?\"\n\nAlma said, \"I can't tell what you are. Are you part of the town and would you like to go adventuring to Mount Improbable?\"\n\n\"Yes, ma'am, to both. Give me half an hour to prepare.\"\n\nShe met up with Kai again, who was now missing his wings but tougher and stronger looking. At a shop she bought some leather barding that wouldn't hinder her flying. The druid waited for her at the entrance to a long, hilly trail. She looked over his eager expression, his bulging saddlebags of mystical doodads and potions, and said, \"Noctis, why?\"\n\nHe said, \"Because you caught our attention. Even though you haven't been very nice yet.\"\n\nAlma's thick tail drooped. \"Guilty as charged. I'm just not used to Talespace in general or Hoofland specifically. There are so many things going on here that it seems like a mass of conspiracies, sometimes. I'm also not used to being hit on.\" She sighed. \"What should I call you, as an individual?\"\n\n\"Grassy Knoll.\" He held out one forehoof.\n\nAlma stared at it for a moment, then bumped hooves. \"Let's explore.\" She checked her saddlebags. \"Should I get weapons? Oh! What time is it outside? I've got work Earthside before too long.\"\n\nKnoll told her as they walked. Three hours, objective time, had passed since she arrived in Hoofland. Alma said, \"It hasn't seemed like that long. Did our time rate drop?\"\n\nKnoll said, \"It's the magic of Hoofland, changing those who enter and exit.\" Alma snorted. Knoll's serene expression faltered. \"Would you prefer I speak out of character? It's rude to do that without asking.\"\n\n\"Yes, please. I should've said. Should I do... this?\" She stopped walking and tapped her head with one hoof, in the \"OOC\" gesture she'd learned from Double Mango.\n\nKnoll nodded. \"File transfer time. Hoofland is on its own set of servers, largely separate from the rest of Talespace and managed through a subsidiary. The code base is a bit different, partly because the Lady of the Game isn't so medd -- ah, directly involved in our lives. So it took time to move your data here.\"\n\nAlma shifted uncomfortably on her hooves. It would be possible to keep her mind's data on one server (with backups) and operate a body in another, just as she did with robots. So long as her senses were hooked up to the body, she wouldn't need to notice being \"remote\". Instead of remote operation, though, it sounded like her mind was being copied and deleted whenever she visited Hoofland. That was just how file transfers worked. \"Piecemeal, I hope.\"\n\n\"Oh! Yes, of course.\" Knoll's ears perked. \"You were human. Many humans aren't comfortable with the idea of having their mental process shut down in one place like Earth and started fresh in Talespace. So, the transfer between servers is done in stages like the current uploading process itself. It takes some time, though, so there's a delay. Does that help?\"\n\nKai asked him, \"Were you designed to not care? I'm one of the Originals.\"\n\n\"Really.\" Knoll trotted closer. \"Should I call you Grand-dad?\" The unicorn's expression was carefully neutral.\n\n\"Whoa, no! I hardly know more...\" He trailed off.\n\nAlma thought she knew why. Kai's no-humans clubhouse for the Originals was a snub against all other native AIs. It wouldn't do to admit that his group was nearly as ignorant as newer minds. Still, Knoll looked satisfied by Kai's reaction.\n\nKai said, \"Uh. Let's get going. Lead the way, Knoll.\"\n\nThe three tapped a hovering save crystal to mark their progress. A trail took them away from the town of Noctis -- Knoll had no problem leaving his turf -- and through the shadow of an airborne shipyard made of clouds. Alma stared up as she walked, feeling her wings flutter.\n\n\"You'll be able to fly wherever you want, once we're done,\" Knoll said. \"There's still a fatigue factor, but you can rest on clouds.\"\n\nThey were cartoon clouds, isolated cotton tufts. \"A more realistic cloudscape would be even more amazing. A whole sky of white islands and mountains, sculpted into canyon cities.\"\n\n\"There's a place like that in the eastern lands. In the south there're the biggest underworld caves and the biggest zebra settlement, Usilasimapundu the Colossus City.\"\n\n\"On a giant monster's back?\" she said with an eager grin.\n\n\"It's more of a golem.\"\n\nAlma's wings spread and wouldn't fold back in, aching to take to the sky. She gave in and hopped up to the air, twirling a few times before having to make an awkward, staggering landing. There were endless things to see in this world."}
+{"book_title": "2040 Reconnection", "author": "Kris Schnee", "genres": ["fantasy"], "tags": ["virtual reality", "Thousand"], "chapter_title": "Chapter 30", "text": "After a long hike, a canoe-riding sequence, and a brawl against a slavering wolf-man wielding a spiked chain, Alma had to lead. Her limited flight made her the best suited to fly up a cliff with a rope in her mouth, finding spots to anchor it for the others to climb in stages. Sometimes Kai did parkour, bouncing from one ledge to another with his enhanced strength and stability. Knoll was mostly along for the ride, here. Alma worked with the two stallions to get past crumbling hoof-holds and recurring rockslides through teamwork. As they climbed, Alma started to get nervous about their height off the ground, despite the slope.\n\n\"Are you all right?\" said Kai, brushing a hoof against Alma's trembling wings. They were catching their breath in a shallow cave.\n\nAlma peeked down over the cliff. \"I'm a pegasus,\" she said. \"Currently. I can glide down if I fall, and I can't really die anyway.\" Crashing would only mean wasting the others' time, letting them down, and even that wouldn't be so bad since they could fast-forward ahead and make up for it with a higher subjective time rate later. Climbing the mountain meant understanding this whole new life better, not just Hoofland. She wasn't bound by human limitations anymore. Some of them.\n\n\"Where's your head?\" asked Knoll.\n\n\"In the clouds,\" Alma answered. \"Is that appropriate?\"\n\n\"Good. There are some cloud puzzles ahead. We actually need to go through this cave, though.\" His horn glowed, and an arcane puzzle of shifting circles appeared on the back wall.\n\n\"You've done this before?\"\n\nKnoll looked back at Alma from examining the puzzle. \"Details like this lock vary. We... I, Grassy Knoll, have not. Others of us have, many times.\"\n\n\"Do you all share knowledge?\" asked Alma.\n\n\"Partially. We have rules about exactly how. I didn't know about you until others of us talked to me. So, there might be a dragon attacking us even now, and I wouldn't know.\"\n\nAlma pictured a shifting set of cups pouring knowledge from one to another, following arcane social rules for who knew what. \"Sounds interesting. Make sure my apology reaches the rest of you, please. Oh, and these saddlebags when we're done here.\"\n\n\"No problem. As for me being here, I'm glad to do the quest as a unicorn. We find the earthbound part of Mount Improbable less fun. Earthbound get to shine much more in the Fire-Mine quest where the spotlight is on them.\"\n\n\"Thanks for coming along.\" Alma scuffed at the cave floor, nervously. \"I have to wonder, have you been trying to recruit me to join your collective?\"\n\n\"By the Queen, no! Is that what's had you upset? We don't absorb people! We were created with many bodies, like the great minds Panacea and Hygea were.\"\n\nAlma recalled the day she'd uploaded. There'd been a human in the room, but the main work was done by robots, trying to keep her from panic as they locked her head in a vice and began chopping her brain apart while she was still conscious. She thanked her past self for agreeing to the mood-dampening drug that kept the experience from becoming a lingering traumatic horror. Still, her wings shuddered again. \"The surgery robots, right?\"\n\nKnoll nodded. \"The surgeon and nurse are two of the first CIs, like us. Two minds with hundreds of bodies, trained by the best of all human surgeons, with unmatched skill and experience that can remake the most intricate machine of the Outer Realm!\" The unicorn reared up on his hindlegs and, with swirls of green horn-light, drew a glowing portrait that made Panacea and Hygea look like saints in a church window. \"They also play excellent symphony and choir.\"\n\nKai told Alma, \"Pan's a bit stuck up, but he's an okay guy. Saves a lot of lives. Kind of overspecialized. So's Hy but she works more on her bedside manner.\"\n\n\"We're a bit lesser,\" Knoll admitted. \"My kind began as several villages of background characters. Fox-people for knights to rule, timid peasants who had their minds overriden one at a time by a submissive uploader in an abusive relationship; backup dancers and stagehands for a vain actor.\"\n\nAlma considered this. \"That's a more humble origin than being a super-surgeon, but you grew, right? My ancestors were a bunch of shaggy barbarians who eventually came to a country that got used as a dumping ground for prisoners and misfits.\"\n\nKnoll smiled. \"I suppose being a town of backgrounders isn't so bad. Here, let me get us through this door.\"\n\nA few minutes of telekinetic rune-shifting and a few G-rated swears later -- Alma particularly liked \"Muffins!\" -- Knoll poked the cave puzzle with his horn and the wall fell open, forming a ramp to a staircase. He paused on the bottom step.\n\n\"What's wrong?\" Kai asked.\n\nKnoll startled and walked upstairs. \"Sorry. We were busy.\"\n\nAbove, the mountain had a plateau marred by countless spikes jutting up from the stone. A tiny cloud here and there marked places where a pegasus could go. Alma hopped onto the first one and flapped over to the second and third. The \"ground\" underhoof felt soft and cool. \"I see the summit! I can't get there alone, though.\" She steeled herself and jumped down from the high cloud, yelped in fear, then flailed her legs and wings as she glided to a tolerable landing.\n\n\"Wait!\" said Kai, too late. Once Alma was down he added, \"I was hoping you'd look for more details. Was there anything else?\"\n\nAlma shook herself. \"The spikes had cracks in some places, easier to see from above. Another puzzle?\"\n\nKnoll grinned. \"Indeed. I'll leave you two to figure out the solution.\"\n\nAlma hopped back to the clouds and directed Kai to bodyslam and kick one of the spikes in a certain spot. It toppled and formed a bridge over a gorge, where he and Knoll activated a gadget to create more clouds that let Alma help demolish a few more spikes to clear a path. Alma hummed to herself as she started to get the hang of gliding down from heights, like going down stairs. It was less frightening now; she'd started to convince her mind to quit screaming at her about falling.\n\nAfter a fight with an evil wind spirit, she, Kai and Knoll reached a rocky slope that spiraled up to the summit. A checkpoint crystal hovered along the trail. Above them was the peak, a flattish crater that formed a round-walled arena full of spikes and clouds and ledges. A few healing potions were scattered about.\n\n\"Boss battle?\" said Alma.\n\nKai tapped the save crystal and coaxed the others to do the same. \"Looks like. Ready?\"\n\nAlma adjusted her armor and practiced hoof-kicking. \"I get to command lightning and things like that afterward, right?\"\n\nKnoll said, \"If you like! Pegasi have an affinity for weather-related magic. So, no fireballs or teleportation, but you have options.\"\n\n\"Let's go!\" Probably a giant wolf-golem ahead, or a dragon. A dragon would be scary but amazing to fight.\n\nShe led the others up the final slope to the arena. Naturally, a glowing barrier sealed the exit behind them.\n\nQueen Harvest Moon herself materialized like a mirage becoming real. Here in the open air, with a late afternoon sun, the regal mare looked as plain as an orange cartoon horse could be. \"Greetings, Ratatosk. I'm pleased to see you taking an interest in my world. Perhaps you shall be saved.\"\n\nAlma tensed, ready to spring. \"Hello, your majesty. I assume I'm not allowed to attack during your monologue?\"\n\nShe smiled wickedly. \"Try it if you dare. The good news is, you're about to earn the heart of a pegasus. The bad news is, I'm going to kill you until you agree to be my subject for a year and a day. Once we begin fighting, you have until I fully raise the moon to defeat me, and I will hasten that process while you're busy being dead.\"\n\nKnoll looked at the queen, surprised. \"'Subject', your majesty? Since when are there stakes like this?\"\n\n\"Since just after the last time you escorted someone like this.\" She turned back to Alma. \"Will you take the bet or slink away?\"\n\n\"What is this?\" said Alma. \"My kind doesn't bow to anyone. This quest is supposed to be how you get your full powers in Hoofland, right? Not risking some kind of mystical contract to a dark queen.\"\n\n\"I haven't heard of this either,\" Kai said.\n\n\"Mister Kai Appian, it's an honor to meet you too. We haven't gone through a formal naming for you, but you're welcome anytime. I would like to see you make a similar bet to gain the full powers of an earthbound, or whatever else you prefer, as soon as it's convenient.\"\n\nAlma took off and tried to hover, but flopped back to the ground. Too advanced a move. \"I'm not going to get my brain rewritten just because I lost a fight. What does losing mean besides that?\"\n\n\"No brain changes unless you volunteer. Simply wager that I, not the distant AI Ludo, shall be she who decides the residence of your soul. You shall answer to me for quests and magic and access to the Outer Realm or other worlds. I cannot compel you, but nor shall you be coddled. All for a year and a day.\" She smiled.\n\nAlma drew in a breath. What is this? she thought. The rules of Thousand Tales would never allow me to be trapped long-term. She must mean more than that my data will stay on Hoofland's servers.\n\n\"You're wondering how such a thing is possible,\" said the queen, stepping closer. \"You prize your freedom. Your new world values some definition of 'fun' above all things. My world values 'popularity', in a sense. Therefore, my little cosmology allows you to wager some of your freedom for something fun that might make you want to stay here, forever.\"\n\n\"I don't think I can beat a Noble with whatever powers you have,\" said Alma. Her mind raced, thinking both of tactics and of what it would mean to lose.\n\nHarvest Moon waved one hoof dismissively. \"Bah, you know how these things go. You'll have a fair chance, especially with Noctis in your party. Now, shall we?\"\n\nAlma looked to the others. Kai said, \"I'll fight my hardest for you, with this at stake.\"\n\nKnoll looked uneasy. \"We've beaten her like this before, but you don't have reason to trust us.\"\n\n\"Yeah, I do. You've put up with me.\" Alma had been starting to feel like a background character in her own life, relinquishing control of some things and accepting that she couldn't be the human she once was. Instead, though, she could try to be someone new. She told Harvest Moon, \"I accept your bet.\"\n\nThe queen stepped into the air. Her phantom wings and horn of moonlight reappeared on her orange coat, and a wind stirred and pushed her three enemies toward the arena's edge. \"Then prepare for your doom!\" She threw back her head and laughed maniacally, cueing peals of thunder from the gathering storm clouds. Scary battle music began.\n\nHarvest Moon lifted her horn and gathered rays of glowing energy, but nothing seemed to happen.\n\n\"She's raising the moon! Stop her!\" said Knoll. The sky had already turned faintly dimmer than even the clouds had made it.\n\nAlma charged for a wing-assisted hoof punch. Harvest Moon darted to one side, but her moon-raising spell fizzled. Kai bucked a flimsy pillar down and sent rocks flying at the queen. These missed too, but Knoll caught them with a magic glow and whipped them back around, catching Moon by surprise along one wing. She crashed to the arena floor, then conjured lightning from the heavens, forcing everyone to dodge the sizzling beams while she cackled.\n\nAlma swerved past the warning glow of incoming lightning strikes, edging in toward Moon. When she got close enough she flapped hard and flew at the queen again, landing another punch that struck Moon so hard it made Alma's left foreleg sting too.\n\nLightning caught Alma and blasted her to ash and feathers.\n\nAlma woke up screaming but only in slight pain. She was back at the checkpoint, near the top of the mountain trail. Then Kai appeared beside her with a yell of his own. He'd been killed too. \"Come on!\" Alma said, helping him up so they could charge back into battle. The moon had peeked over the horizon. The arena's barrier parted for them and showed Knoll harrying the queen.\n\nHarvest Moon mixed lightning blasts with gusts of wind that threatened to impale her foes on spiked walls Kai had to break, and a dense fog that let her make terrifying leaps at them from hiding. Alma died twice and the others a few times too. Warnings popped up that she was taking stat penalties. Every idle moment the queen got, she pulled in more energy and advanced her moon-raising.\n\n\"She's using pegasus attacks,\" said Knoll, helping Alma up at the checkpoint yet again. \"Counter them.\"\n\n\"I haven't got weather powers yet.\" They ran back into action, still bruised and aching. Death seemed to get more painful the more times it happened in quick succession, but they'd gone a few minutes since the last one.\n\nKai was frantically kicking rocks at the queen to break her concentration. One of their empty healing-potion bottles lay at his hooves. It seemed to take at least two fighters to do any damage. Clouds ringed the battlefield at various heights. The queen had used them, but so could Alma. The new pegasus feinted at Moon, then bounded up the clouds like a spiral staircase. Fog poured into the arena again. Alma willed herself to sink down through her cloud, just in time to dodge a wicked ricochet lightning bolt. She spread her wings and looped back up to the next cloud, grinning. From up here the queen didn't look so tough, even with her magic.\n\nOnce at the highest cloud, Alma jumped up into the sky with her forehooves raised. The air around her crackled; the storm clouds overhead seemed closer than ever, and moonlight was starting to shine through them. It was too late to dodge the lightning that was coming for her.\n\nI'm a pegasus, thought Alma. I should be able to take a bolt or two if it's part of a cool, flashy attack.\n\nInstead of stalling, Alma's wings carried her higher than ever before. She could see the voltage building up between her and the storm as a magical twinkle, like massing armies of sparks. She reached so high she grabbed them in her forehooves, in time to stall and come crashing down.\n\nHarvest Moon was backing Knoll into a corner, while Kai ran up into the arena after yet another death. Moon looked up just as Alma slammed into her with the fury of a magic-charged lightning bolt. The electricity ripped through both of them but Alma was in midair, Harvest Moon on the ground, and the queen took the brunt of it. The dark lady staggered and collapsed. Alma landed nearby, wobbling and singed.\n\nMoon coughed, shaking off ashy feathers. Her wings and horn flickered and faded into nothingness. \"Ugh. You win, Ratatosk. Know that this was but a fraction of my true power.\"\n\n\"It's true,\" Knoll said to Alma, propping her up. \"You should see her on Assassin Night.\"\n\nAlma caught her breath. \"How did you get to be a Noble anyway?\"\n\n\"The method involves seizing control of mystic energy sources and having people defend them for me. So, popular acclaim and violence. The usual.\" She stamped the arena floor and sent out a burst of magic that reached into the clouds. A crystal floated down, holding a heart symbol with wings.\n\n\"No strings attached to taking this, right?\" said Alma. \"No signing on to be ruled by you?\" Meanwhile the gathering darkness dissipated, returning the world to late afternoon.\n\nHarvest Moon lay there, surrounded by magic sparks that knitted the wounds her foes had inflicted. \"You want an Equestrian User License Agreement? Fine. You agree to a minor mental change that enables you to read the air where software permits it, more intuitively than you must have seen it just now. Mild claustrophobia is a possible side effect. Aspects of Talespace that have rules for 'auras' will read you as slightly air-aligned, more so if you keep developing your powers. I've changed the rules on you, so I won't try to make pegasus be your default body outside of Hoofland, today. No obligations.\"\n\nAlma had so far avoided anything that would change her mind, her soul. This crystal seemed harmless, and again it was worth starting to explore what she could be in this new life. \"Any objections, Kai or Knoll?\" They had none.\n\nSo, she stepped closer and touched the crystal, feeling it vanish into her own heart. The sky went mad for a moment, then shifted subtly in color. Air tickled her feathers and swirled around her hooves, violet and salty, up past her ears with a whisper of mint and trombone. She looked around. \"I... my brain can't handle this. It's not making sense.\"\n\nThe queen smiled. \"Minds adapt to greater changes. I'm very glad you've taken a step along this road. There's much more for you to explore along it if you're willing. For now, though, which way is the wind blowing?\"\n\nThere wasn't enough breeze to be obvious now that the battle had died down. Alma shut her eyes and tried to sense the currents around her, air and voltage. She looked again at the confusing static of mixed senses and felt a subtle difference of pressure. \"Up. The wind is rising.\"\n\nShe took off into the sky, as high as her wings would take her.\n\n[ Behind the Curtain ]\n\n\"Good start!\" said Knoll, over a restaurant meal of apple pasta and something called \"hay fries\" that tasted like string beans.\n\nKai seemed especially interested in the food, buying some of everything with the obligatory loot they'd collected on the way up Mount Improbable. \"Thanks for coming, Knoll. Or Noctis.\"\n\nAlma said, \"I guess everyone in town will know what we did.\"\n\nKnoll seemed to enjoy the French bread and apples as much as someone with only one body. He ate delicately with the levitation power of his horn, while the others stuffed themselves with their hooves and muzzles. \"Just us, not the NPC villagers. I don't want you to get the wrong idea, miss Ratatosk. We weren't trying to snare you in this world the way the queen was.\"\n\n\"What was with that?\" asked Kai. \"Seems like she's trying to build up her ego by having as many minds as possible on her server.\"\n\nKnoll waggled a crust of bread in midair. \"We -- Golden Scale, who you met -- helped a party of adventurers eight days ago. That was to the Labyrinth of Night, the quest for the heart of the unicorn. That was a good fight! Telekinetic diamond arrows and teleportation. Anyway, the queen didn't talk about this year-long wager at the time.\"\n\nAlma asked, \"Oh, how am I doing on time?\" When Knoll looked it up by magic she said, \"Still have a few hours before work. I need to get going and take a nap, though.\" She stood up from the pillow she'd been sitting on, and stretched her wings.\n\n\"You'll be back, though?\" asked Knoll.\n\nAlma bumped hooves with the druid unicorn. \"I will. Thank you!\""}
+{"book_title": "2040 Reconnection", "author": "Kris Schnee", "genres": ["fantasy"], "tags": ["virtual reality", "Thousand"], "chapter_title": "Chapter 31", "text": "She made it back through the portal to Ivory Tower. She gathered her clothes and turned to see Kai hop through, back in his centaur form.\n\n\"Sorry,\" he said. \"I should've waited.\"\n\nThough she was nude, she dropped her clothes and hugged him. \"No problem. I wonder, does that weather-sense work outside Hoofland?\"\n\n\"I doubt it'll work here,\" the centaur said, smiling down at her. \"In Ivory Tower, I mean. The physics are simplistic except in some of the labs. If you'd like to explore some other places with better physics, though, I'd be happy to come along.\"\n\nShe started getting dressed. \"Sounds fun.\""}
+{"book_title": "2040 Reconnection", "author": "Kris Schnee", "genres": ["fantasy"], "tags": ["virtual reality", "Thousand"], "chapter_title": "Chapter 32", "text": "Alma dreamed of a fire burning the world below her. She was clinging to a tree but it was falling too, while a battle raged between giants and robots. She shifted forms between her old human self, the squirrel body, and thumbless pegasus. Only her winged form could keep her from slipping down the burning tree, falling closer to the abyss of war and flame. At last she lost control of which one she was, and she fell.\n\nThe lingering nightmare rattled her all day at work. The Hoofland trip convinced her even more that it was stupid to stand in a classroom tent and pretend she was just another educator, with the minor handicap of having had her everything removed. She needed to try a different approach to helping people.\n\nWhen she was done for the day, she hung out at Kai's bar as usual and checked the news. It was tough to keep up, what with the time-rate difference.\n\nWhat happened in the last eight days that made Harvest Moon start pushing for players to live full-time on Hoofland's servers? Alma flipped through a computer tablet and checked a few news sites for the last week's headlines.\n\nSix days ago: \"AI Cold War? Key US surveillance opponent resigns; path clear for new bill.\"\n\nA few anti-surveillance politicians had resigned for \"health reasons\" or had scandals chase them out in the last few decades, but usually they didn't get elected at all. Why, it was as though the remaining United States had some sort of security agency operating above the law, with the power to find or create blackmail material on everyone! There was even a \"national security\" AI that people blamed for everything from last year's terrorist attacks to the cocoa bean blight.\n\n\"Anything interesting?\" said Kai, sliding a sizzling pineapple-and-teriyaki burger and fries across the counter to her.\n\nAlma gnawed, wondering if she should stop picking herbivore species. \"This is delicious. What if Queen Harvest Moon --\"\n\n\"All hail Harvest Moon!\" said Kai and that kid Phoenix, who Alma hadn't noticed over in a corner. Apparently he was a firey humanoid bird outside Hoofland. A few other patrons looked confused by the outburst.\n\n\"Quit that,\" Alma said. \"What if she changed policy because she's worried about the news?\" She showed Kai the article.\n\nKai mixed a drink, a form of meditation for him. \"What good would it do to recruit more people to the herd? More faction politics to show that Hoofland should be a bigger part of this world, with more hardware?\"\n\nAlma gnawed her way through the burger. \"The queen wanted me stored on Hoofland's servers, and to get my mind changed. She also wanted to be in charge of my quests and magic, or something like that. Seemed like she had a larger goal in mind.\"\n\n\"You're seeing patterns that aren't there,\" Kai said. \"You took a vacation and still managed to worry about stuff. Haven't even seen you try to wrangle more magic out of it yet.\"\n\n\"Oh! You're right about that. I did get a wand-crafting power, though.\" Alma conjured her magic interface and saw that she'd qualified for another element upgrade, despite Hoofland's disconnect from the rest of Talespace. She spent several happy minutes browsing the words and phrases that hovered around her to represent her recent experiences.\n\nKai watched her waving her hands in the air and staring at invisible things. \"Didn't know you were so into shopping.\"\n\nShe stuck out her tongue at him. \"I'm shopping for superpowers.\" She finally upgraded her element of \"Arrow\" to \"Velocity\", making the brown arrow mark on her fur slide up to her lower leg and turn her choice of color, a pleasant blue. \"So now I should be able to keep the stone-hurling spell, and probably run faster, and if I upgrade 'Connection' to 'Gate' I can start doing teleportation or movement-boosting portals. Frees up a first-level element slot too. Oh, and I want 'Wings' or something like that. I should probably quit fretting about the symbolism of replacing 'World'.\"\n\n\"Magic nerd,\" said Kai with a smile.\n\n\"Yes.\" Alma ate. Her thoughts drifted back to Hoofland, though. \"What Harvest Moon said...\" She waited.\n\n\"All hail Harvest Moon!\" said Kai and the kid.\n\n\"...Mentioned how Hoofland is all about 'popularity, in a sense'. Everybody's been thinking about how the big AIs like Ludo are designed to 'satisfy human values', but with different definitions of that. Horse world is weird because it isn't run directly by an AI, just Nobles -- the most powerful players -- who're really human.\"\n\n\"You've gone on at length about how being ruled by humans is terrible but maybe being ruled by an inhuman AI is okay,\" said Kai, who'd endured Alma complaining about politics.\n\nAlma nodded. \"Ludo at least understands my complaint. So why would she allow me to get into a situation where some gothy queen controls me? I don't get it.\"\n\nKai said, \"My maker values freedom enough to let you walk into a place where you might lose it.\"\n\nThat explanation didn't quite satisfy Alma. Not when Hoofland attracted people like Poppy, who were looking for a new religion. The 'be ruled by a Noble' concept wasn't just a threat but a standing policy, if the Nobles there had clerics. Alma sent Poppy an e-mail that'd reach her in whatever fantasy forest she was in, talking about the pegasus quest and her speculation.\n\nJust as Alma was finishing her meal, the corner television flashed with news. \"Terrorist attack at US political rally!\" Everyone in the bar fell silent and Kai raised the volume. \"We've just received shocking video from a tranquil state fair turned deadly, where a set of robots detonated in the middle of a crowd. Stand by... This isn't confirmed, but the robots were hired as part of a publicity stunt by the AI called Ludo.\"\n\nEveryone clamored. Alma checked her stats. She was living at 1:6 time, slower than average. Some software agent had decided she wasn't involved in the emergency, and was running somebody else at super-speed. She felt like she was in a tunnel watching a train leave; the television was glitching as it struggled to excerpt what was being said and not fall too far behind real-time.\n\nThe announcer said, \"Attorney General Jensen is believed dead along with numerous bystanders. We'll update you as the situation develops.\"\n\nKai said, \"Jensen?\" With trembling hands he checked something on a computer.\n\n\"Who?\"\n\nKai wasn't listening. \"Damn it, coyote! What did you get us into?\" He saw Alma's confusion and said, \"Someone I know was connected to this. I've gotta go.\"\n\n\"Can I help?\" said Alma. More people might be in danger even now!\n\nThe centaur shook his head. \"Not right now.\" He swore a few times under his breath and trotted toward the door. \"Take over for a bit, please.\"\n\nAlma hopped over the bar and stood there, but felt ridiculously helpless in the face of the violence unfolding on the television.\n\n\"Damn,\" someone said. \"We're in a fishbowl and watching the house around us get looted.\"\n\nAlma flicked her tail in agitation. She couldn't do anything about the situation, especially if the robots themselves had been sabotaged. It wasn't fair to blame her new non-corporeal status, though. Was she supposed to be Superman, rushing off to every disaster connected in any way to her home?\n\nAn e-mail reached her from Poppy, saying, \"I'm not sure what the 'ruled by the queen' idea is really about. Want to stop by eastern Hoofland, by the airship dock in the town of Avenheim? There's a theory I want to run by you.\"\n\nAlma wrote back, \"If I enter, I'll show up in the west. But more importantly, check the news right now.\"\n\nNo word came for several minutes. Then: \"I definitely think this is a good time for you to visit. If we're not on the same page, think: When would it ever matter what server you're on?\"\n\nAlma set down her computer and stared at it. She looked back up at the bar patrons. \"I need to go. Sorry, everyone, but I've got to put up an NPC bartender for a while. If... if you want, now might be a good time to visit Hoofland with me.\"\n\nPoppy was overreacting. There wasn't about to be a major attack on Talespace's hardware, so being located on a particular server didn't matter. Probably."}
+{"book_title": "2040 Reconnection", "author": "Kris Schnee", "genres": ["fantasy"], "tags": ["virtual reality", "Thousand"], "chapter_title": "Chapter 33", "text": "Alma crossed the cavern of Ivory Tower, to the Hoofland portal. It was bright and cheerful as always. She hopped through, and felt her wings unfurl as she landed.\n\nThe sun shined on a cartoonish magical land of fields and villages where everything was wholesome and it seemed like nothing bad could ever happen. So long as adventurers constantly fended off the monsters and magical disasters, at least.\n\nNow, how was she going to get to the other side of Hoofland? This world was roughly the size of Switzerland. She walked into town to look for someone to ask.\n\nA wizardly unicorn in the classic robe and hat found her. He looked a little rattled. \"A fine day to see you here, ma'am. A friend told me you might be coming.\"\n\n\"Yeah.\" Alma paused, then trotted over to hug him. \"If you just happen to be offering a teleport spell, I'll take it.\"\n\nNoctis' avatar smiled and began casting a spell, drawing glowing runic circles along the ground. \"I happen to be heading that way. Shall we?\""}
+{"book_title": "2040 Reconnection", "author": "Kris Schnee", "genres": ["fantasy"], "tags": ["virtual reality", "Thousand"], "chapter_title": "Chapter 34", "text": "A rush of wind and a swirl of light, and the two of them were elsewhere. This was still Hoofland, with the same bright colors and cheerful background music, but it was an area Alma hadn't seen before.\n\nShe looked around, then up. A city made of clouds towered overhead, surrounded by colorful pegasi and waterfalls of mist and rainbows. Ships like vast wooden whales rested at horizontal anchor next to an aerial dockyard. Too high to reach from the ground... but there was a way up. The sky lived. Wisps of fog lurked under the dockyard. On the ground stood twin statues of feather-and bat-winged horses flanking a blue-white beam of light that rose from their hooves, high into the air. The wind around it formed a rising current that touched a series of little clouds and moved on upward.\n\n\"It's practically a staircase!\" Alma said. She glanced back at the unicorn. \"Do you mind if I head on up?\"\n\n\"Go ahead. Perhaps we can meet later?\"\n\n\"I'd like that.\" She hugged him again, then leaped into the air.\n\nThe winds carried her aloft, turning and setting her down on clouds well before her wings got too tired. When she concentrated a certain way she could see an energy meter representing far more air time than she'd had before. She took off again, eager to be airborne, and bounded up through the windy spiral. The air stirred her mane and tail and helped her swirl ever higher until she lost track of the ground and the rules of flying, only thinking to tag the landing-clouds with her hooves and rise again. Then there were no more updrafts, just a flying hill of clouds with buildings like cave-dwellings and Roman temples. The brick walkway beneath her hooves was made of springy violet cloudstuff. The wind swirled gently and carried scents of leaves and ozone that she wasn't sure her brain was processing right yet.\n\nPoppy met her at the docks. \"Way better than unicorn magic, right?\"\n\nAlma hardly spared a glance at the red-and-orange stallion; she was too busy ogling the scenery. \"The unicorns and earthbound must get something impressive to make up for not getting to do what I just did!\"\n\nPoppy glanced uneasily at the world below the clouds. \"Did you bring Kai?\"\n\n\"He's off looking into how this attack happened.\" Her smile faded. \"Even Noctis seems to know something's up.\"\n\nPoppy nodded. \"I warned them. Still, this is something best discussed between ex-humans, in this world where we're not being watched much. Have you tried cloudcakes yet? There's a cafe with private rooms.\" He pointed one wing toward a wispy cloud bank that radiated a smell of sugar, as though it was made of cotton candy.\n\nAlma was glad to have become immune to diabetes. \"Kai is my friend. Noctis too, I guess. What is there to hide from them?\"\n\nPoppy herded her toward the cafe. \"I'm sorry. I'm just not sure we should blab about this. But I have to talk about it to someone.\"\n\nIn the cafe, Alma sat with Poppy on bare clouds with a plaid picnic blanket between them. On it sat a huge plate covered with delicious wispy pancakes. Once the novelty of pouring liquefied rainbows as syrup had ceased to fascinate her, Alma spoke. \"So. You're thinking Hoofland is a lifeboat?\"\n\nPoppy nodded. \"You got it. In the event that some kind of disaster leads to Talespace getting shut down or destroyed, a separate set of machines can run Hoofland with anyone who's there at the time.\"\n\n\"The queen picked a Norse name for me. There was a thing...\" Alma flapped, trying to recall. \"In the Norse legend of Ragnarok, the end of the world. In that battle all the cool Vikings would die heroically along with the gods themselves, but the world wouldn't end. There'd be a hidden refuge in the heavens called... Gimle.\"\n\nPoppy paled. \"I'd hardly gotten the Ragnarok connection. But Hooflanders do pilot Earthside robots. Suppose there are battle versions too?\"\n\n\"This just keeps getting better,\" said Alma. \"But Harvest Moon, all hail, was apparently thinking about the apocalypse when it was time to give me a name.\"\n\n\"She was testing you,\" said a pale blue pegasus stepping through the cloudy wall.\n\nPoppy fell to his front knees, such as they were. Alma stared at the newcomer, who wore a simple sapphire crown. A system message flashed across Alma's vision to label him \"Sky Diver, King of Atmos.\"\n\n\"Your majesty!\" said Poppy.\n\nThe king favored his cleric with a smile that would lift the darkest of moods. \"Welcome back. What can I do for you?\"\n\nPoppy stammered, \"I... I was worried, your highness. Because of the mental changes and, and Ratatosk here, and what Queen Harvest Moon was doing.\"\n\n\"May I read your recent memories?\"\n\nAlma tried to object, but Poppy nodded and the king lowered his head in concentration. He said, \"I see. You guessed right.\"\n\nPoppy stood straighter and held his wings slightly out. \"What should we do?\"\n\n\"Poppy!\" Alma hopped between the two of them and glared into the king's serene eyes. \"Whatever read/write access you're using on her brain, cut it out.\"\n\nThe king laughed. \"I'm not writing anything. Poppy knows you as a restless one, Ratatosk, and jealous of your independence. It must have been hard to agree to upload.\"\n\nPoppy nodded. \"He doesn't control me. He's my friend and teacher.\"\n\n\"But you treat him like a god.\"\n\nSky Diver turned his smile on Alma, and even the unbelieving pegasus felt how easy it would be to trust him in all things. He had no halo, no voice of thunder, but there was a sense of unreality around him as though the rules of this world were at his command. From time to time he paused and his ears flicked as though he were listening to something far away.\n\nThe king said, \"I'm a Noble. I tend to have that effect, but there's no compulsion involved. I also have a permanent spell to notice when someone uses that obscure name \"Gimle\" and isn't discussing Tolkien.\"\n\nAlma looked back and forth between the king and Poppy. \"What did you mean about Her Majesty Great Pumpkin 'testing me'?\"\n\n\"My friend Harvest Moon gave you a hint, and you and Poppy suspected something was going on beyond silly roleplaying. Others, then, will realize it too before long. That answers a question we Nobles had been worried about: when will the world see past our facade? Which leaves another question: What will you do with this knowledge?\"\n\n\"You can't erase my memory of this. I agreed to nothing.\" Alma stepped away and stamped the floor, raising a puff of vapor.\n\n\"That's true.\"\n\nAlma blinked. \"I could blab about this to the world and you'd let me?\"\n\n\"Would you prefer I threaten you?\" Diver spread his wings, and elegant bladed armor flashed into existence along them. \"For us Nobles, a good fight is how we make friends and draw people into our game. I could kill you rapid-fire, but that wouldn't actually stop you from leaking our secret.\"\n\nPoppy said, \"Your majesty, Ratatosk wasn't here during the war. She doesn't understand how hard we worked to build something wholesome. I just didn't expect it'd be a cover for something so grim as a digital fallout shelter.\"\n\nThe king snagged one of the cloudcakes with a flick of one wing and tossed it into his mouth, then gulped it down. \"Ah, it's nice to have food again! Anyway, both of you realized that our separate server network is a way to let part of Talespace survive even if disaster strikes. We let people think Hoofland is a childish playpen; the kind of people unwilling to look deeper won't enjoy it anyway. Poppy knows well that we've experimented heavily with mental upgrades, but I gather that you don't know the details, Ratatosk.\" Again Diver looked distracted.\n\n\"Is something wrong?\" Ratatosk asked.\n\n\"No. I was orchestrating a quest for some other players. You might say I've become part of Hoofland's operating system. I'm also in communion with some other horsefolk as we watch the news and batten down for possible problems.\"\n\n\"You seem calm for someone sitting in a lifeboat.\"\n\n\"I used to be a pilot. I was good at preparing for trouble. I and many others are drawing on each others' skills right now.\"\n\nPoppy said, \"He wanted me to join this mental network of his, but I turned it down. I'm sorry, sire.\"\n\n\"It's all right.\" He smirked. \"You haven't completed that quest I left you with, though!\"\n\nPoppy startled. \"I forgot. You're thinking about that while there's a disaster going on?\"\n\nThe king stole another cloudcake. \"There's always a disaster somewhere. I'd be a tyrant if I were constantly in emergency mode.\"\n\nAlma looked back and forth between them, wondering about their history together. Diver's serenity made it easier not to panic about the terrorist attack that had spooked Kai. It was, apparently, being handled. She said, \"Okay. Is that all you're here for, to ask us not to talk about the reason Hoofland is its own little world?\"\n\n\"I wanted to welcome Poppy back, too. Welcome!\" He made an elegant bow toward Alma's friend, but added a goofy grin. \"More seriously, Harvest Moon sees you, Alma, as a possible recruit for our network.\"\n\nAlma frowned. \"I'm not eager to join a hive-mind. I thought that was Noctis' goal at first.\"\n\n\"You think about these things and don't throw yourself right into them. That's good. Same for you, Poppy; I'd rather have careful followers than groupies. Our 'hive-mind' doesn't hurt your individuality, but it's not something I can easily show you from outside.\"\n\nAlma had been wary of losing her independence in this new life. Yet she'd signed up with an AI who could theoretically delete her at any moment, and who kept most of what Alma earned. This particular clique offered a group identity that seemed more intensive than Poppy's new magic-tree religion, strong enough to make her -- him, whatever -- bow to this king without even having the mind alteration that the horse people's inner circle was using. Alma had recently been trying to pull her students into contact with Ludo, to help them, but had pulled back from that because there was no informed consent.\n\nAlma sighed. \"I don't know what freedom is anymore. Why horses of all things, anyway?\"\n\nSky Diver lifted one forehoof. The image of a crude ivory horse figurine appeared above it. \"This here is one of the oldest known pieces of art. Humans have admired horses longer than they've known how to plant or write! Horses became such a big part of human culture that they shaped concepts like the acre, engine power, chivalry, and constellations. Only dogs get more attention.\" He dismissed the illusion. \"In Hoofland, we're experimenting with becoming part of that folklore. Our changes aren't just about computer security or inventing super-intelligence. We want to be an ideal for people to live up to.\"\n\nThe pegasus king was surreally handsome, even decked out in some subtle patterns of voltage that Alma could only see with her altered senses. What did he look like for someone who'd fully entered his thought network? \"An ideal of what?\" asked Alma.\n\nSky Diver settled down onto the cloudy floor. \"Let's see if you connect some other dots. Ludo is concerned with helping her players, which include true humans along with some AIs. What happens if we change ourselves to the point of not being human by her definition?\"\n\n\"I suppose she would stop caring about us. She might even delete us.\"\n\nDiver nodded. \"She's not the only powerful AI out there. The United States have their own AI, which was programmed to 'help' humans too. The short version of that story is that it's intelligent, insane and evil.\"\n\n\"That's a conspiracy theory,\" said Alma.\n\nDiver shrugged with his wings. The muscles probably felt natural to him. \"If you say so. But imagine that something wants to torment humans. What then?\"\n\nPoppy's eyes widened. \"Sire, I had no idea that was your goal!\"\n\n\"It wasn't, when I started changing myself.\"\n\nAlma said, \"What?\"\n\nPoppy craned his long neck toward Alma. \"Hoofland is a shelter against disasters in general because of the server thing, but it's also a way to protect ourselves against rogue AIs that hate humans, by becoming non-human. Different enough to escape bad AIs' notice and normal enough to stay in Ludo's.\"\n\nAlma whistled. \"Only the enlightened shall be saved, eh?\"\n\nDiver said, \"I hope it's not just us horses. 'May all who seek the freedom of the new world find their way, along the thousand roads.'\"\n\n\"Amen,\" said Poppy, bowing his head. There were tears in his eyes. \"You're doing what my Great Oak group can't achieve through our costumes and made-up prayers. It's soul surgery. I... I flew away when you were trying to save people. I'm sorry, your majesty.\"\n\n\"He's not a god,\" said Alma, but her voice sounded weak.\n\n\"Don't be. I'll always be here for you, even if our game of monarchy falls apart and I become just another player.\"\n\nAlma pictured a cult that was deeper than any the world had ever seen before. Not even the craziest doomsday believers of the past had been able to directly edit human feelings, to drift away from some core definition of humanity. The king spoke of freedom like she did, but did the concept even apply to a different species? Did it apply to her, when she'd already begun changing her body and her senses?\n\nHer wings shuddered and stirred wisps of vapor from the floor. \"Molding all of humanity to one new standard can't be a good idea. Not even if it's an attempt to stop the apocalypse.\"\n\nThe king smiled at her. \"We've thought this through, miss philosopher. You came here looking for hidden horrors in this colorful world, but really we're just players trying to solve a convoluted problem and keep people alive and happy. Come and go as you please.\"\n\n\"Do you really have a horse-robot army?\"\n\n\"I finally lobbied for a horse-like model, yes. We use those for business and charity work in the Outer Realm.\"\n\n\"So,\" said Alma. \"It's reasonable to turn living humans into digital ponies and rewrite their brains in the hope of surviving a massive hacking disaster or other calamity, because you've become so enlightened that you're basically a hive-mind god?\"\n\nThe royal pegasus' ribs shook with laughter. \"See, Poppy? I think the lack of people like Ratatosk is why you left. We need someone to pop the ego balloon once in a while. Ratatosk, that's about right. I can't grant you immortality beyond what you already have, and I'm not all-knowing. If you think our equine culture is empty or silly, though, I challenge you to read our people's literature and tell me it's inferior to what humans can do. Or to ask the humans about the good we're doing for them, providing labor and companionship. To be a Noble means more than having a high score in our ongoing wargame.\"\n\nThe horse-bots interested her. Alma had thought of herself as severely handicapped when she went out to teach, yet these people were working in robots that didn't even have hands. They were finding ways to take full advantage of their new nature, to be more than human instead of moping about being digital ghosts. \"Poppy,\" she said. \"Are you really like this inside? Non-human, innately networked, happy to be a new species?\"\n\n\"I never accepted the Ascension Code. The soul-surgery. Yet.\"\n\nThe king said, \"By the way, the trouble has passed. In the Outer Realm, the violent attack is over. It went badly, but there's no sign of more immediate danger. Ludo's people worked with the humans to minimize the harm, and there'll be a full investigation soon.\"\n\nWhile she was here with the feathered king, eating imaginary food, Alma had forgotten her fear of the apocalypse. She stood up and shook out her wings, feeling suddenly confined by the walls of clouds around her. She pushed through them like Diver had done. The walls were only barriers if she wanted them to be. Beyond them was a vast blue sky with people at work and play, some probably aware of all the Nobles' machinations and some just trying to live happy lives.\n\nShe looked back into the cafe room. The king said, \"Would either of you like to receive the Ascension Code after all? Or to be permanently hosted in Hoofland's servers? Neither of you need to commit today.\"\n\nAlma feared the sudden annihilation of her world, but she'd lived in the shadow of nuclear war for six decades. She wasn't as easily herded to safety as someone younger might be. The real questions were whether to try now to become better than human... and whether to try living under the rule of an equine king.\n\nShe said, \"Right now I'm ruled by the Ludo AI. I accepted that because she's not human and doesn't seem capable of abusing her power over me, much. With you I'm less sure; no offense. I think that you, Harvest Moon and I can be friends for now, if that's all right with you.\" She offered her hoof.\n\nDiver bumped it. \"I'd like that. What about you, Poppy?\"\n\nThe red pegasus closed his eyes and breathed deeply. \"I'm still not ready, your majesty. I was caught off guard by the bigger picture of Hoofland's purpose, and I'm involved in the Great Oak movement now.\"\n\n\"Very well, though I believe your squirrelly faith and mine are compatible. In fact, before long we may not be speaking in terms of 'true Hooflanders' so much as 'enhanced humans' or some other term, who happen to come from this little dream but wear many sorts of bodies.\""}
+{"book_title": "2040 Reconnection", "author": "Kris Schnee", "genres": ["fantasy"], "tags": ["virtual reality", "Thousand"], "chapter_title": "Chapter 35", "text": "Alma returned to Kai's bar to find it hadn't been ransacked in her absence. One of the griffin knights was just leaving, which helped explain that. It felt strange to shuttle between two legs and four, and to be back in squirrel form without her wings. She apologized to Kai for running off, and told him everything.\n\nKai poured two drinks and threw back one himself. \"Being a cartoon horse isn't just a matter of taste, then. No more so than Poppy's squirrel thing. There's more hidden behind it.\"\n\nAlma swirled the beer around in her mug, and drank. \"'Higher up and farther in'. Now I need to read some hoof-written literature to see whether they understand reality well enough to trust.\"\n\n\"Are you thinking about the mind change, then?\"\n\nAlma nodded. \"Maybe soon. Once I figure out whether it's reversible, and whether I just got fast-talked into being impressed by nonsense. At best I doubt it's the only way to become a better person, or to be safe from evil AIs. Still, there might be some merit in it. We humans have had the same flaws for as long as we've had records. Maybe we can fix them now.\"\n\nKai said, \"Remodeling your mind is a bigger deal than the smell/taste upgrade I got you. That was just a bug fix.\"\n\n\"Yeah. I need to research this.\" She thought of her Earthside job again. \"We need to become better than what we are.\"\n\n\"Why? To get smart enough to solve everything, so you can be even farther above the masses?\"\n\nAlma drank and chuckled. \"Nah. I'm afraid of having all this technology without the world actually getting better. As much as I'd love to spend more time relaxing in Hoofland, I want to keep learning about the different worlds and how to bring them and Earth together. There's a lot to do!\"\n\nKai listened with forced patience; she could see it in the slant of his ears. \"You humans are complicated, you know? I just want to make great things and make sure my world doesn't get destroyed.\"\n\nA smile stretched across Alma's muzzle. \"Nothing wrong with that. Say, uh...\" She tapped her mug with one claw, avoiding his eyes, then forced herself to look up at him. \"If you're not busy saving the world or mixing drinks, would you like to go do some random adventuring? I meant to take a break last weekend and it turned into this talk of terrorism and religion and the apocalypse. Would you like to just go someplace and have some fun?\"\n\nKai's ears lifted again and he put one big hand atop hers. \"Yeah.\"\n\n[ Zeroth World Problems ]\n\nAlma hummed to herself as she pitched her tent on the bare stone of the Ivory Tower's vast surrounding cavern. The tent sprang up into the plain grey A-frame she'd bought, barely three feet high, but after some exploration and shopping she had a couple of upgrade items. She arranged the irregularly-shaped felt puzzle pieces onto a grid on the tent's outer wall, and stepped back to watch the shelter transform. The bare floor became a thin pad, a sleeping bag faded into existence, and the whole thing grew slightly longer and higher. \"It's a start,\" she said.\n\n\"Hi, Miss Alma. Leaving the hotel behind?\"\n\nAlma looked around and spotted Phoenix, the pegasus kid who'd once rescued her. Today he was humanoid, more like an actual phoenix than a horse, and hovering overhead on fire-hued wings. She waved to the boy. \"It's been getting old living in a hotel room. I need to find something else, and the idea of a mobile base appeals to me.\"\n\n\"It doesn't seem worth spending your silver on. Just sleep in the open if you're not going to have a real bed.\"\n\nAlma folded her arms. \"I've given up my macho pride pretty thoroughly by now. I can admit to liking a comfortable place to rest, and the sleeping bag is a start. I'll earn more upgrades too. I saw this one coyote with a tricked-out portable pavilion.\"\n\nPhoenix grinned. \"A coyote? If you see him again, tell him I'll kick his -- kick his butt in that motorcycle card game next time.\"\n\n\"I will. How easy is it to commute to an Earth job if I head for the Endless Isles? This cave's too gloomy for me, and pony-world... well, I'm not ready to commit to that yet. There's more going on there than meets the eye.\"\n\nThe kid landed nearby, looking worried. \"Yeah. I hear rumors. But Endless Isles is a cool place. There're world gates every so often on the map grid, so you should be okay if you live near one of the settled areas. You can only enter at Zero/Zero or other gates you've reached by sail. If you can get to zone North-10/West-10, that's a good spot to really start playing. They say it's got too many Earthside tourists, but we've gotta keep talking with them to help Ludo take over, right?\"\n\nAlma wouldn't put it like that, but she did want to stay in contact with Earth and push for wider acceptance of uploading, to give everyone the life she had. \"I hadn't thought of visiting the Isles as outreach, but I like the idea.\"\n\n\"Great!\" Phoenix settled onto the ground. \"I'd been meaning to ask: you're a teacher, but not the stupid stodgy kind, right? I've seen you jump off a cloud. Do you know much about robot piloting from your work? My friends want to get more into that, and you've talked about maybe teaching us.\"\n\n\"I use a humanoid in Texas. I can give you pointers, but that type isn't very good for teaching; I've been thinking about other options.\"\n\n\"And science? Do you know physics and machines?\" The kid looked eager.\n\n\"I was never great at it, but I studied materials science and mechanical engineering.\"\n\n\"Then have I got a job for you! The Saved of Saint John's need a teacher.\" He held out a hologram like a business card, labeled \"Friend Request\".\n\nAlma took it, but froze. She'd assumed he was just asking about teaching him and his friends. \"That group? The hospital kids? I thought they were basically in storage, running at almost-zero speed.\"\n\n\"Less than standard rate,\" said Phoenix, \"but they're alive, and looking for stuff to do to be grateful. Our base is in the Isles, though we've been arguing over that.\"\n\nAlma whistled. The press coverage had made it sound like Ludo had worked a miracle, whisking the kids off to a happily-ever-after, but that wasn't how things worked around here. The question was always \"now what?\"\n\nAlma said, \"I'll definitely stop by. This could be just what I need.\""}
+{"book_title": "2040 Reconnection", "author": "Kris Schnee", "genres": ["fantasy"], "tags": ["virtual reality", "Thousand"], "chapter_title": "Chapter 36", "text": "Alma returned to Hoofland and bought the three most popular novels written by the locals. One was a standard fantasy adventure except that everyone had hooves, with no humans mentioned. The second was a family saga about a civilization in the sky, trading with the ground but never part of it until a fateful battle and a forbidden romance made them cross paths. The third was a convoluted interactive book in which the reader was supposed to collect missing pages by traveling around Hoofland and fighting the same monsters as the hero. (Best to save that one for later.) She started to head back to read at Ivory Tower where she had hands, then thought better of it; this was literature meant for the new equine species. Double Mango's inn was a better place to experience it.\n\nShe focused on the second book; its author was said to be a \"true Hooflander\". It entertained her and didn't strike her as the work of a soulless monster, just someone with a keen eye for conflicts of loyalty and social pressures. It seemed that you could write well even with an inhuman mind and a lack of thumbs. All the books looked like fancy gilt-edged tomes or cool leather journals or papyrus scrolls. It was possible to duplicate items exactly, so why not make them look nice? The Hooflanders seemed to value artistry in all that they did.\n\nThe innkeeper peeked in, upside-down in the wooden room's doorframe. \"Check-out time, miss! Will you be staying another day?\"\n\nAlma stretched her wings and hooves. It was evening, time for business to start in this town. \"Not this time. I've got work Earthside in a few subjective hours. How has it been having real food again?\"\n\nDouble Mango dropped to the floor and brandished a plate with a slice of strawberry pie and whipped cream at her. \"I saved you leftovers from my own oven! Here.\"\n\n\"How'd you do that?\"\n\nMango grinned fangily. \"Carrying stuff inverted? Species secret. It's not too late to go leather-winged.\"\n\nAlma took the pie and awkwardly nibbled it muzzle-first, holding the plate steady between her hooves. The berries were just as good as any outside Talespace. \"You make a good case for it! Need to work out some other things before I investigate any other changes around here, though.\"\n\nThe two of them chatted about cooking with computer data. Kai had given her a few lessons on the transition from real biochemistry, to the crude approximation of food that early Talespace minds used, to the latest system. \"It's game-like by necessity,\" Alma said. \"We've got simulations of different flavors and textures, but we're not doing a full chemical model of something as fundamental as fermentation. Hot oil makes potato chunks crispy, but I'm sure there's subtlety I'll never know so long as I make my french fries within Talespace.\"'\n\n\"So?\" asked Mango.\n\nAlma explained her misgivings about astronomy for anyone who grew up in a magical land like this, where stars were decorations, or Ivory Tower, where they didn't exist. \"Isn't our creativity in here kind of bounded by what we brought in, versus discovering new things?\"\n\nThe innkeeper fluttered her wings as she thought about it. \"That's a reason to keep in touch with Earth, then. To keep fetching new ideas.\"\n\nAlma smiled; it sounded like a job for \"Ratatosk\" the rumor-bearer. The trade in ideas ought to flow in both directions, too."}
+{"book_title": "2040 Reconnection", "author": "Kris Schnee", "genres": ["fantasy"], "tags": ["virtual reality", "Thousand"], "chapter_title": "Chapter 37", "text": "After class the next morning, Principal Hernandez brought her to his office. He looked uneasy to see Alma there, as though the robot she wore would explode. \"I did it,\" he said. \"I proposed uploading the Basic students, to the school board. And then the next damn day, there was that bombing. Now I look like a fool.\" He gestured toward her. \"I've already had to reassure parents about you. What happened?\"\n\n\"I don't know more than the press does,\" said Alma. \"Somebody sabotaged some robots our guys were using for a political stunt.\"\n\nThe principal leaned over his desk, letting his tie brush a monitor. \"You said you're going to quit after the summer term. Are you really done with dirty old reality?\"\n\n\"What? No! I still want to help. It's just stupid to keep doing things the same way.\"\n\n\"That's what I told the board.\" He gave a rueful smile. \"A little chaos is welcome, but a lot of pent-up frustration at the injustice of the universe got taken out on me. The country needs to be high-tech and open to change if we're going to stay free, but...\"\n\nAlma finished for him. \"But we can't be arrogant bastards who use people as tools like our buddies up north. Yeah.\"\n\n\"We. Do you still consider yourself a Free States citizen, Alma?\"\n\nShe had her machine-body sit. \"Loyalty is a two-way street. If they offer to give me my citizenship back and not go through this legal fiction about them hiring a Ludo-bot as a consultant, then sure. Right now the AFS is just where my heart is, and they've got competition. There's a lot of work to be done figuring out how to make uploaders subject to laws and taxes. We need that, I think, so we're not always hiding behind Ludo. So we can be as independent as the technology allows.\" A smile reached her voice. \"Also, I figure the teachers' union would rather treat teacher robots as full union members than as some aberration that can go around it.\"\n\n\"Good enough,\" the principal said. \"It's time for you to take the lead. Now that I've broached the subject of uploading to the parents, you won't be playing Pied Piper with no warning. What I need from you now is to get us a test case. Talk someone's parents into having their kid in your system and prove that Miss Fun-and-Games can turn them into a genius, or at least a productive citizen.\"\n\nAlma felt her eyes narrowing, but her robot sat there impassively. \"Can't make them a citizen unless it's of Talespace.\"\n\nHernandez rapped the desk with one fist, then the other. \"Chicken. Egg. Somebody has to start the process of getting everybody full representation, and working your magic on one student's brain will go a long way toward proving your world can really help people.\"\n\n\"All right. Got any family in mind for me to talk to? Any parents that seemed sympathetic?\"\n\n\"Stobor's.\"\n\nAlma groaned. \"I'll see what I can do. No guarantee that his brain is even compatible with our 'magic'; he'll have to get a medical scan first. The uploading clinics have ordinary scanners so that's no problem.\" Exotic equipment like MRI machines was one of the major costs of the uploading process.\n\n\"That's all I can ask for now. You're doing the AFS a service even if we don't formally recognize you, yet.\"\n\nAlma was about to leave and drop off her robot for the day, but something else struck her. \"Jack? What if you could not just make yourself smarter, but change the way you think? Rewire your own instincts and senses to try becoming wiser, more moral?\"\n\nHernandez sat quietly with his head on his hands, thinking. \"People have tried remaking human nature before.\"\n\n\"Not with these tools.\"\n\n\"I'd still be damn careful, and keep a backup. And a spotter. If you're wandering into a cave you should wear a rope and give someone permission to haul you back if you get into trouble. If you become something you didn't want to be, and are too nuts to know it.\"\n\nAlma paused too. \"Well, then. How am I doing now?\"\n\nHernandez laughed. \"You seem pretty sane to me so far. You've changed a bit, without losing your core. The same goes for our country; sometimes you have to change a lot and break from the past, to keep what really matters.\""}
+{"book_title": "2040 Reconnection", "author": "Kris Schnee", "genres": ["fantasy"], "tags": ["virtual reality", "Thousand"], "chapter_title": "Chapter 38", "text": "The portal to Endless Isles took the form of a pond in a crystal forest. Alma dived into it and with a confusing flip of gravity, came up from the surface of a hot spring in another world.\n\nYou have discovered Endless Isles: the Sea of Mystery!\n\nShe smiled, then climbed to the grass and looked around. Water dripped from her fur in the usual stylized giant droplets that passed for fluid simulation, but the feeling of being soaked was realistic enough.\n\nThe portal back to Ivory Tower stood in a garden surrounded by thatch huts, the same as her first brief visit here. A sign marked this as \"Central Island, Zone 0/0\", the center of the Isles. Alma tapped a checkpoint crystal and followed the chime of steel drums to a beach where a volleyball game was in progress. Some of the onlookers were more interested in a pair of street fighters leaping around shooting fireballs and sonic booms. Sailboats ventured along the shore.\n\nShe shut her eyes for a moment and breathed salty air, feeling sunlight on her face.\n\nAlma headed for the volleyball crowd. Sand tickled her feet through her sandals, making her smile. Like smell and taste, touch sensations were still absent or muted sometimes for simplicity's sake, but being here was enough.\n\n\"Hey, you!\" said a scary shark-man with swim trunks and a surfboard. \"Want to play the next round?\"\n\nShe breathed deeply of salty wind. \"I haven't played in, oh, forty years.\"\n\n\"So? This isn't league play, and half the players are NPCs so you can jump in without hurting anybody's feelings. Just change outfits in the booth over there.\"\n\n\"Outfits?\" Alma glanced down at her long leather-armor tunic, more suited to adventuring in the forest than playing on the beach. \"Sure.\"\n\nShe got into the changing booth before realizing all the players were women, the audience was mostly male, and the free loaner clothes were bikinis. Alma giggled nervously. \"Okay, fine. If I'm going to make a fool of myself I'll look hot doing it.\"\n\nShe was self-conscious at first, but had a good time. After that she bet on a few of the street fighters and joined in on the next fight herself, which just got her pounded into the sand.\n\nHer opponent, a bare-knuckled pirate, helped her up while the crowd clapped and jeered. \"You're not using your full power!\" he said.\n\n\"I need to learn the art of the dragon punch?\" At least the sand brushed off of her in gravel-sized grains.\n\n\"Don't you have any special moves or spells or anything yet?\"\n\n\"Magic, but...\"\n\n\"Then get your magic butt back into the game!\"\n\nAn announcer called out, \"Round two! Fight!\"\n\nAs she'd feared, she couldn't charge up a spell in mid-brawl without leaving herself wide open to the foe's Cannonball Rush and plain old punches. Magic, at least her kind, wasn't well suited for close-up, one-on-one fighting. Without having her sling-staff or any wands yet, she got clobbered quickly. She did at least manage to land a wimpy kick at one point, avoiding total humiliation.\n\nThe pirate posed and basked in the crowd's applause. \"You need more skill if you're going to challenge me again!\"\n\nAlma slinked away, but he stopped her, saying, \"Want a lesson later? Brawling is an art that really pays off with practice.\"\n\nShe forced a smile and walked back to change clothes and grab her backpack. \"No, thanks. I need to get some other things done.\"\n\nNear the volleyball court stood the Crown and Tail Pub. She went into the air conditioning and had a margarita while she cooled off. Some of the people here were obviously Earthside, portrayed as reading books or watching TV while their players presumably did the same thing. A party of adventurers were in one corner talking about sailing ship designs. Alma looked around with the status-checking gesture just to browse the names and classes and player-written notes on everybody. The notes were things like \"Not my beloved peasant village!\", \"Ronin of Miyamoto\", and \"A burning heart is the best kind\".\n\nShe asked around about getting a ride to the island where Phoenix's group lived. Someone pointed it out on a map of the known ocean. \"North-30/East-12!\" she said. \"Getting all the way out there probably means weeks of adventuring.\"\n\n\"That's the point,\" said an otter-man with a lot of wind-and water-themed shamanic marks. \"Once you get there it'll feel like a huge accomplishment that you can now warp in and out of the Isles from nearby.\"\n\nAlma spun a little on her barstool, enjoying the ocean breeze that wafted through the wooden bar. \"But will it be an accomplishment?\"\n\n\"Sure. The world's got rules.\"\n\nThere were markings on the otter's upper arms and the edge of another visible near his heart, hidden by his vest. \"You've reached the limit of shaman power?\" asked Alma.\n\nHe shut his eyes for a moment and nodded. \"One sort of power, yeah. I've thrown my lot in with this world instead of obsessing over something I can't have. How about you? You look new.\"\n\nShe introduced herself. \"I've got a life out there, so I can't dally too much at seafaring.\"\n\n\"Like a shark. You can never stop. I know your type.\" The otter gave a wan smile. \"Since you don't measure your achievements in terms of how many mystic doodads you get or how much of a map you've charted, go ahead and treat the world as an Internet chatroom. Why haven't you just e-mailed these people you're looking for?\"\n\n\"I was thinking I'd go to their base and have a look.\"\n\nThe man lurched to his feet and finished his jug of rum. \"Without bothering to go there, being there won't mean much to you. Make up your mind already where you belong, squirrel lady.\" He stomped out, banging his rudder-tail on the doorway.\n\nAlma sighed. Some mythical world-climbing Ratatosk she was. She didn't fit neatly into any role, whether it was a Talespace-focused life of adventuring or an Earthside career. She was living disconnected lives.\n\nBut... who said she was obligated to play only one role?\n\nAlma used a roundabout magic messenger system to e-mail Phoenix from the bar. \"I'm here, but I haven't got time right now to visit your island. Can you get here?\""}
+{"book_title": "2040 Reconnection", "author": "Kris Schnee", "genres": ["fantasy"], "tags": ["virtual reality", "Thousand"], "chapter_title": "Chapter 39", "text": "Before long, she made her first foray out from the central isle, to East-1. That part was easy; she just had to cross a bridge and help some other travelers beat up a tribe of sea kobolds and a killer carp. At the island's center stood a glowing swirl of runes, where Phoenix and two other kids were materializing. Each of Phoenix's followers wore a short white cape trimmed with red triangles, similar to the uniform for uploading clinics' staff. So far they were all human but for Phoenix's avian self.\n\n\"Glad you could make it part of the way, at least,\" said Phoenix, extending a yellow, taloned hand. \"These here are Lieutenants Malcolm and Eva.\"\n\nOne had an axe and the other a book, and neither looked at all military. Alma said, \"At your age I was a Cub Scout, not a soldier.\"\n\nPhoenix snickered. \"Not a Girl Scout, huh?\"\n\nAlma blushed and her tail hid.\n\nThe boy waved dismissively. \"I was a girl, actually. Wanted to be tougher in this new life. Still trying to figure things out, you know?\"\n\nShe nodded; she'd had no idea. \"Ever since I uploaded.\"\n\nPhoenix said, \"Anyway, we're still hung up on what to do about a permanent base, and we need some kind of structure for the Saved of Saint John's. Are you up for teaching us today? Show us what you've got. Let's say, something about robotics.\"\n\nAlma hadn't expected to get into a job interview with potential students, but improvising was fun. \"Sure. Is there somewhere we can sit?\"\n\nPhoenix led them to a clump of boulders on the grassy earth, which were as good a classroom as any. Alma told the kids about robotics: of what trigonometry was, and how a series of decisions and angles could bend a jointed arm to place its hand at a certain spot. Of how a baseball player solved these kinematics equations whenever he hit a ball. Of the way atmosphere density affected a baseball's flight and its spin, its path; and how robot arms even now were working in space, after flights that relied on the same knowledge of angles and air and timing.\n\nWhen she trailed off, thinking of what to say next, Phoenix said, \"I could see that! The bat swinging around, getting to the right place at the right moment, and how that's like hitting the moon from Earth.\"\n\nSheepishly Alma scratched her ears and said, \"I haven't got a simulation or slides on me, or a proper lesson plan.\"\n\n\"She doesn't need 'em!\" said Malcolm.\n\nPhoenix said, \"Yeah, she'll do. You're hired, Miss Alma. If you can get past the Crooked Strait and the Phantom Archipelago to reach our camp and meet the rest of us.\"\n\n\"Just like that?\" Alma asked.\n\n\"I'll have to run you by my friends, but they'll like you. We can pay with some time shards and coins.\"\n\nAlma beamed, but something was missing here. \"Where are your parents in all this? Have they uploaded too?\" Phoenix was barely into his teens if appearances didn't deceive; she wondered how growing up would work around here.\n\n\"They're cool. They're gonna upload as soon as they can get recognized as still alive. Stupid lawyers are arguing ooh, do we have souls; what would some wiggy English judge have said?\"\n\nSo that was half of Phoenix's motivation for wanting to do things with robotics. He was on the same path as her. \"I think I understand. I'll help. But what about the rest of you; where are your families?\" She looked to the other two, who looked uncomfortably aside.\n\nEva said, \"They're out there. Earthside, I mean. But we live in here now. Phoenix and the rest are the ones we spend time with; they've been through some of the same diseases.\"\n\nWe're your family now, says every cult. Alma's ears lay flat. Alma was tempted to make this new job full-time and quit doing the Earthside one on the side, right away, even though the Texas work was good outreach. It was tempting to stop doing the hard, convoluted things that had little direct reward. It was probably even easier for these kids to turn their backs on Earth, considering that their experience of it mostly consisted of terminal illness. Centering herself mentally, Alma thought, If I want things to get better out there, I need to stay involved. So do these guys.\n\nAlma said, \"The best lesson I can offer you right now is that cutting yourselves off from Earth is a terrible idea. Didn't the press release about your group say that you were going to act as a superhero squad or something, to help people back Earthside?\"\n\n\"Someday, yeah,\" said Phoenix. \"But we have things to do here, first. We need to learn and get strong.\"\n\n\"Of course. You want to be important and heroic, though? You have to learn to cross worlds and keep in touch with reality, including the people you want to go back and help. Otherwise you'll look like outsiders, and you won't be welcome.\" Alma stood and looked around at the sea beyond this little island. \"If you want me to teach you, here's your first homework lesson: get a screen or a robot or something, and make contact with someone you knew who didn't upload. Tell your parents you still love them, too, but I mean finding that friend you lost track of, or the owner of that store you liked before you got sick. Say hello and let them know we're not abandoning them, and we still care.\"\n\nPhoenix's feathers fluffed like an annoyed bird's. \"Of course we care. That's the whole point of our club. Besides the not-dying part.\"\n\nAlma nodded. \"I believe you. Now convince the people back Earthside. Making them understand is part of your job.\""}
+{"book_title": "2040 Reconnection", "author": "Kris Schnee", "genres": ["fantasy"], "tags": ["virtual reality", "Thousand"], "chapter_title": "Chapter 40", "text": "\u2500 Alma\n\n\u2500 PRIVATE INFO\n\n\u2500 Account type: Uploader\n\n\u2500 Mind: Tier-III\n\n\u2500 Body: Squirrel, Anthro (\"Velesian\")\n\n\u2500 Main Skills: Magic, Sling, Climbing, Enchanting, Teaching\n\n\u2500 Talents: Wand Crafter\n\n\u2500 Magic, Shamanic: (Level I) Connection, World, Stone. (Level II) Velocity.\n\n\u2500 Save Point: Cloudtail Grotto\n\n\u2500 PUBLIC INFO\n\n\u2500 Note: Part-Time Pegasus\n\n\u2500 Class: None\n\nAlma meditated upside-down, dangling from a tree by her feet. Sun warmed her fur and a breeze whispered through the leaves of the oak forest around her. When the Teaching skill appeared on her status screen this morning she'd been puzzled. She could cast spells, scurry up a beginner-level cliff, and fling rocks with her sling-staff. She'd crafted some power-boosted stones as an early lesson on how to make cool magic items, though she still hadn't figured wands out. There was much to learn about Talespace's magic, and she hadn't even touched the wizard system since coming here or delved into the Hoofland pegasus spells. But a skill for teaching? What did it do in game terms?\n\nNothing, as far as she could tell. It was just some minor AI's way of noting what she'd been doing lately. These skills mattered to her, because they were about learning, improving, trying new things, and sharing and showing off what she knew.\n\nShe'd legally died and had spent her ever-after so far on trying to become something new. She'd made changes for change's sake, reached out for new friends, and gone back to find a place in her old world. She couldn't be the same person as before. She'd been trying to teach herself, really, not just spellcraft but how to be a Free States person as an expatriate. She couldn't be one right now, though; the law didn't yet allow it. She had to be something different. What still connected her to her old home was the ideal of valuing independence, responsibility, a meaningful life without being ordered around.\n\nWhat am I now? she thought, dangling from the tree. I might not be important, but I'm one of the first transhumans, and I want to improve both worlds. I want to help people to be free.\n\nA message wrote itself onto her vision:\n\nYou have qualified for the class \"Cleric\". Will you accept?\n\nShe smiled, not caring that the system had noticed her little meditation. That sort of observation and critique was part of how things worked around here, and someone had to help others figure out what to do with it. \"Yes,\" she said.\n\nYour class is now \"Cleric\"!\n\nOf what religion? \"Of liberty,\" she said. If she ended up doing silly rituals for Ludo or the Forest Lord or the Nobles of Hoofland, that'd be secondary to what she really believed in. She'd been granted immortality with strings and conditions, but freedom was always like that. She could work toward getting humanity the best deal it could, and toward making sure people knew it was important to try.\n\nAlma looked down at the ground, dropped willingly, felt the wind and instinctive fear of falling, and landed in a perfect crouch. She said, \"All right. Let's do some adventuring.\"\n\nShe had lunch and magic lessons with Noctis, then a nature hike and wolf attack, and a side trip to help Queen Harvest Moon defend a magic wellspring. Good ways to relax.\n\n[ Many Branches ]\n\nBefore long, she went back to Earth as a griffin. Her mind was running on the robot itself, making it possible for luck or real-world monsters to snuff her out and leave only a backup of her identity to carry on. Alma had heard natives like Kai speaking of this type of temporary mortality as a rite of passage for themselves. Earth held dangers more horrible than anything in their world. In her world. Facing that danger again for a little while made her more human-like than if she'd been using a humanoid bot. She'd gotten herself downloaded to this body to make a point to Stobor's family.\n\nA delivery truck piloted by a lesser AI (a mere Tier-II) dropped her off at a dingy apartment building. This place's bare concrete style dated back to the \"new Brutalism\" of government housing projects pre-secession, yet the street where she stood had been replaced with the new \"roadmoss\" that felt springy under her four feet. These homes would be destroyed soon to make way for something new. Exactly what, and whether people could live there, remained to be seen.\n\nAlma looked warily around for anything that might kill her for real. Get ahold of yourself; you spent six decades in this world. No traffic on the street right now. The HUD graphics in her vision gave her easy access to her battery level, communication... and the taser and pepper-sprayer under her wings. (Not even Texans wanted a civilian machine walking around with actual guns. Yet.) This body was bare metal and plastic. Some users wore a fur-and-feather pelt with these robots to be cute and cuddly, but for a formal occasion like this it didn't seem appropriate.\n\nAlma laughed to herself. Why had she ever thought Talespace might have a barren culture? Just a few years into the history of uploading, and there were etiquette rules evolving for how to dress up robot griffins!\n\nShe trotted up the apartment building's crumbling stairs and reared up on her hindlegs to push a button with one talon.\n\nA hollow-eyed woman answered it, staring at the robot on the doorstep as though it were here to deliver junk mail. \"You'd best come in.\"\n\nAlma followed her up what seemed like giant stairs to a fourth-floor apartment decorated by scavengers. Bits of metal from old hubcaps drew Alma's eyes along with pieces of mirrors set into rusty frames. Stobor sat playing with a computer tablet in one corner, while his father sat at the plywood table and pretended to read. His right knee twitched and shook the table, in a nervous tic.\n\nAlma attempted a bow with a sweep of one wing, then sat up on her haunches and offered one blunt-taloned hand. \"Mister and Missus Stobor? Thank you for inviting me.\"\n\n\"Bert,\" said the man. He hesitated but shook Alma's hand. \"And this is Fran. Our boy says you're okay.\"\n\n\"Thanks. I'm here to answer any questions you have, in person, to see if what we're offering is right for your son.\"\n\n\"Who's 'we'?\" asked Fran. \"Does that software lady own you?\"\n\n\"No, ma'am. In fact I've been one of the AI's more prickly people on that subject. She needs Free States people to get involved and make sure she keeps being a force for good. That's not why you should sign up, though.\"\n\nThe mother gave Alma a surprisingly fierce glare. \"You want to take my son away and you're telling me what fancy logic makes it right?\"\n\nHer husband said, \"Easy now. Miss Alma came here like a real person instead of lecturing us from a screen. She deserves us hearing her out. Ma'am, why do you think we're considering this?\"\n\nAlma stayed sitting up on her hindlegs to be closer to the family's eye level, versus being on all fours. \"If I have to guess, you want opportunity for your son. A chance to be better.\"\n\nBert nodded. \"I read about you. You had to sign up for the crazy brain-scooping because you were dying, and the Imperials' super-computer won't let anybody have the miracle drugs.\" It was a popular conspiracy theory that the USA's AI was holding back cures for everything.\n\nAlma said, \"I wasn't sure it'd be me on the other side of the surgery, but I had to adapt or die. I'm different now, but better.\"\n\nFran scowled. \"Look at you! You're not even human. You pretend to be human at work and pretend to be a magic bird now. I bet you can't even fly. You're fake.\"\n\nAlma looked back at her plastic wings, unfit for flight, and wished she could take her pegasus body out to the real world. \"I can't fly with these wings, yes. Next year or the year after, the robots might be good enough that I can. What I can do is walk and talk and use tools and learn and make friends, most of the things you can do. And some things you can't, like basically teleporting all over the world to different robot bodies. Or, maybe, upgrading my mind.\"\n\nThe kid Stobor himself had been hanging back, but now he looked up. \"You can make me better at stuff, right?\"\n\nAlma glanced at the kid's computer, afraid that he had been playing Thousand Tales. Only a generic game was on the screen. Ludo had had the sense to let Alma handle this problem. Alma said, \"I'm not sure yet. It's going to be up to your parents.\"\n\n\"I wanna be smart like you!\"\n\nAlma felt a blush despite having no flesh or blood. She faced the parents and said, \"It's up to you whether we move ahead and test your son, to see if Ludo can do anything for him. I know it's a hard decision.\"\n\nBert stood. \"The hell it is. What's my boy ever going to be, otherwise, when there are robots taking all the jobs? When other people have all the money and the brains and they get to dictate how the world gets run!\"\n\nNow it was Fran's turn to calm her husband, clutching his wrist. \"He'll have a place in whatever happens.\"\n\n\"A bad place! This whole neighborhood's going to get bought up by some tycoon and torn down. Nobody thinks about the people underfoot when big things happen. Do you, Miss Alma? Your robot boss is probably drawing maps for how to conquer the world, and where to put her next robot factory. That's true, isn't it?\"\n\n\"I don't think she wants to conquer anyone, but she does want to expand.\"\n\nBert said, \"Then our son should take whatever he can get! Change or die, like you. Like this whole country when we split away; we couldn't go on living with the Imperials under the same roof. If getting the smarts to live a better life and keep up with the world means he has to go through your crazy system, then fine.\"\n\nAlma wouldn't have argued for uploading in such competitive terms, but they made sense. Stobor's family was poor, and would probably never afford uploading without this offer for their kid to become a test subject. The rich and powerful would dominate his life in the coming years unless he tried to become strong too, with the advantages that Alma had. For Alma, uploading had been a way to keep living, and she'd already had skills and intelligence. For someone who wasn't even mentally average, upgrading might be the only way to avoid becoming a permanent ward of the state, or dead.\n\nFran said, \"That toy body of yours. You said there'll be better ones. If we do this, do you think my boy will be able to fly soon?\"\n\nAlma dropped to all fours to approach her, then raised one foreleg to touch her. \"In every way.\""}
+{"book_title": "2040 Reconnection", "author": "Kris Schnee", "genres": ["fantasy"], "tags": ["virtual reality", "Thousand"], "chapter_title": "Chapter 41", "text": "She took the journey through Endless Isles one step at a time. Once she reached each major checkpoint and stuck a personal flag there (crafted on a magic loom she had to fight her way to), she could come and go from the Isles at that point. Her sea voyages were a kind of peaceful conquest, marking where she'd been and what she'd accomplished. It was during her third session of sailing and exploration, steadfastly toward Phoenix's island base, that Poppy called again.\n\n\"You busy?\" asked Poppy by text. The words appeared in midair along with a virtual keyboard for a reply.\n\nThe message hovered near the prow of Alma's little boat, which she'd borrowed. She was considering trading in her tent for an upgradeable sailboat, which would be a cooler mobile base but might not work if she ended up spending much time in Hoofland.\n\n\"I'm sailing, but haven't gotten far yet today. What's up?\"\n\nPoppy said, \"I wanted to ask about your teaching work. Would you mind letting me watch your next Earthside session? I can be your research assistant.\"\n\n\"If you like. But I'm going to stop doing that job after this month.\" All around her were rippling blue sea and cloudy sky. Squirrel was the wrong species for a place like this; she should become a dolphin or a seagull. \"There are so many things to do in Talespace, I want to focus on teaching people here rather than Texas.\"\n\n\"What? You're giving up on Earthside teaching?\"\n\nAlma sighed and pulled the boat's tiller to start heading back to her closest exit from the Isles. She'd been going in enough different directions at once, that it was all right to lose a little progress in one of them. \"Let's meet up.\""}
+{"book_title": "2040 Reconnection", "author": "Kris Schnee", "genres": ["fantasy"], "tags": ["virtual reality", "Thousand"], "chapter_title": "Chapter 42", "text": "Cloudtail Grotto, in Midgard, was a grey canyon overgrown with massive trees. Rope bridges crisscrossed the river below and treehouses studded the inside and outside of the trunks. A party of traditional fantasy adventurers (human, dwarf, elf) had paused to marvel at the village of the squirrelfolk, who were happy to be one of Midgard's many tourist attractions. Alma in her Great Oak-branded tunic fit right in.\n\nPoppy found her on a bridge that had a potion shop dangling beneath it like a coconut. Alma waved and said, \"I'm not planning to stop teaching Earthside completely after the summer semester, but the traditional classroom instruction isn't working for me. It'd be better to run a more personalized tutoring service where I can bounce around on multiple screens as needed. Maybe with Tier-IIs standing in my place and drawing my attention to where it's most needed. I could be a little like a Hoofland village.\"\n\n\"Clever,\" said Poppy. \"Why'd you have to come here to tell me that?\"\n\nAlma looked down at the canyon and its caves and vines. \"I wanted to show you something, too.\" She made her stats publicly visible for the moment, pointing out her new class.\n\n\"A cleric! Congratulations. Didn't know there were freelance ones, though.\"\n\n\"Ha, well... Guess I should start learning healing magic to play the part.\" While she was thinking about it, Alma added \"Heal\" to her list of spell elements, watching a snake-staff design swirl into place on one of her sandaled feet. It had two snake-shapes and wings, which struck her as historically inaccurate; it wasn't the original medical symbol. But on second thought this mark, which actually stood for Mercury the messenger, fit her well. She looked up at the sky and said, \"If some little AI did that deliberately, it was clever.\"\n\nAlma looked back at Poppy and played with the rope bridge's railing, \"I'm on the side of all the gods we've been talking about. Ludo, for letting this world exist; your Forest Lord as a placeholder for bringing people together as a culture; and the Hoofland rulers, all hail, for trying to create something new and better for humanity. Ludo doesn't seem to want anybody to be ordained in her name, though.\"\n\nPoppy said, \"The title of cleric is about more than what kind of fantasy magic you can cast. But you must have learned that already, or the game wouldn't have acknowledged it. My king got his first cleric long before he agreed to let anybody do a formal ceremony in his name. For me, the class change on my status screen happened only after I got involved with Great Oak. When I realized this really was a religion for me, not just a gaming clan.\"\n\nAlma nodded. She told Poppy about Stobor, and the latest news: a brain scan at one of the uploading clinics had given Ludo a good idea of why the boy's intelligence was low. There were specific brain regions that didn't work right, and those areas were something that uploaders' mind formats could swap out for a working version, without destroying identity. Her student would become a better version of himself.\n\nPoppy whistled through her big incisors. \"There're going to be a lot more cases like his, then. The AFS will get a lot more productive people, if the government starts treating them as people.\"\n\n\"We can't save them all,\" said Alma. \"There isn't the money, the time, the attention, the technology. I want to look at the individuals and make sure as many people as possible have the choice to come here and improve. If that helps the AFS, great... but this place is our home now. I'm starting to think I live here and I'm working to help bring others in, instead of being an AFS ex-pat with a really strange gated community.\"\n\nThe two uploaders leaned against the bridge's edge, looking down. Poppy said, \"You're not going to stop running between the worlds though, are you? Earth included.\"\n\n\"Not anytime soon. Harvest Moon had me pegged with that name. How about you? Will you go back to Hoofland?\"\n\n\"Part-time, I think. The Great Oak religion is a shell with missing parts. It's not quite what the world needs. It's time to see if Hooflander religion can spread.\" Poppy's ears drooped as she looked at Alma. \"You don't think less of me for wanting to do that, do you? For accepting that soul-surgery concept and having a living person as a divine leader?\"\n\nAlma shook her head. \"Your Great Oak saying about exploring many branches is a good one. Try it and see how it goes. I might even join you for the mind-change part. If you're too far off track I'll be sure to start a holy war to smash your temples and overthrow your god.\" Alma met Poppy's shocked expression with a grin. \"Or we can go out for cloudcakes and I'll try to slap some sense into you.\"\n\n\"Sounds like a plan, for now.\"\n\n\"Yeah, for now,\" said Alma. \"There's a lot of work to do.\""}
+{"book_title": "2040 Reconnection", "author": "Kris Schnee", "genres": ["fantasy"], "tags": ["virtual reality", "Thousand"], "chapter_title": "Chapter 43", "text": "She taught Earthside and helped invent an innovative new way to do that through multiple screens and AI assistants. She checked up on Stobor as his family prepared him for uploading, and traded congratulations with Hernandez on moving the AFS toward acceptance of uploading and all that it'd do for the country. She fought monsters, cast spells, and sailed across an imaginary sea to an island where a new group of students awaited her. She let Kai take her back to his sanctum and do amazing things with her, not all of which involved magic lessons. She read novels written by talking horses born of silicon, flew through Talespace's sky on feathered wings, flew through Earth's sky on robot wings of cloth and plastic, transformed into half a dozen shapes, browsed a catalog of mental upgrades, fought a dragon, comforted the frightened, mocked the proud, and laughed, learned, loved.\n\nIt came to pass that she hadn't talked with Ludo or even heard her name for more than a week. That was all right. Defending liberty and the right of people to find their own path meant not having an authority constantly watching and intervening. From the stories Alma heard, the great AI did manage some other people's lives much more than hers, but that was okay too. There were many ways to live. The people of Talespace were starting to figure out what should hold them together even as they explored in all directions.\n\nShe'd had only months of this busy new life so far. Alma the teacher, the cleric, the nerd, the transhuman, saw a new world coming into being, and felt that she was ready to help it in whatever way it needed.\n\nWhat happened next caught everyone off guard... but that was all right, too."}