We all traveled to the main courtyard once I had managed to collect Invicta from the air. I had begun to realize that she really didn’t know what to do with her newfound ability and CR. She had lived as a game for so long that most of her thoughts only concerned her living in the moment and not planning for the future. I learned all of this when I asked her what she planned to do with the CR.

“Oh, I don’t know. I guess I could try to swim through it like you did.” She said as she let a handful of gold coins fall from one hand to the other. The sound of some of them missing her hand and falling to the floor only made me roll my eyes as I just kept walking. VR was so nice with its ability to clean up messes with just a thought.

“No, I mean, now that you can create a body out in the world, what are your plans?”

She looked off into the distance, her eyes not really tracking our arrival back to the spot where the bookshelf holding the snowglobe of my apartment sat.

“I don’t really want anything. All I wanted for the longest time was an escape… an end to the game. It became my focus, my dream. Now that I am free you just keep giving me more and more things. I keep expecting to wake up from a dream like you dreamed. What if I wanted to be free so badly that I broke my coding and I didn’t know it?” She said as she simply sat on my shoulder with her hands finally resting in her lap.

“Is that why you focus on me?” I asked.

“Well yeah. You set me free.” She said as I felt her little hand reach out to hold my earlobe.

I was beginning to understand why she still remained small. It wasn’t because she couldn’t get bigger, it was because when she was created they stuffed her limitless AI into a tiny box and forced it to grow inside the small game space. They had made a bonsai out of an AI. She wasn’t comfortable outside of that space.

I knew that she wouldn’t be small like this forever. Some day she would grow, absorbing more memory and experiences that would challenge her to think differently. For now, though, she was just my little AI.

“Hey, can I see the place that you built?” I asked as my eyes caught the path that led off into the trees.

“Yes! Finally! It has been days in VR and you still haven’t seen it!” She said as she excitedly clapped her hands. I nodded towards George and Tutor as I headed off with Invicta. My two AI were lost in their own worlds as they compiled things that they wanted to do with their new ability.

I knew that I was responsible for whatever they did. The Tela would put all the blame on me if they chose to do something bad with the CR that I had given them. In one sense it was a huge risk, by letting them manifest themselves in reality. The Tela had invested countless years into perfecting a slave collar for their greatest creation and here was a lone human working at taking that collar off for his personal AI. Was my control over them just like a slave collar? I wasn’t so sure. It was as though we had become something else, like a colony or hive, in the moment that the alien cr assimilated me in the dream.

I thought these things as I walked through the trees towards Invictas place. The design was, to say the least, fluid. The trees changed from tree to tree, as though Invicta was simply trying out different trees and didn’t go back once she had planted one to make them all the same. Pine trees grew right next to giant bamboo shoots.

“I picked all trees from your world.” She said with pride as I walked down the meandering stone path into the heart of the forest.

“It is strikingly pretty,” I said as I noticed that none of the branches grew into the path's space. I could see the sky perfectly as I walked, as though a razor had cut out a path upwards. The sky…

“Is time moving faster while I walk to your place?” I asked as the sun moved with every step I took, causing the leaves and shadows to move with it.

“Yeah. I wanted everything to feel like change was always upon me.”

“Well, it is amazing to see. Will we reach your house at night?” I asked when I noticed just how fast the sun had sped across the sky. In just a few more yards it would start to drop over the horizon.

“Yup, that is part of the fun when you get to my place,” she said.

We walked for a few more minutes and the sun did eventually drop below the horizon, bringing night fully around us.

“Invicta, how am I supposed to see the way to go?” I asked when all the light was gone.

“Oh, that is the fun part. Take just one more step.” She said next to my ear.

I took one more step and chuckled when the forest was suddenly glowing with hundreds of fireflies.

“Oh, that is a cool effect,” I said as they helped me navigate the short distance to the end. I stepped out from between the surrounding trees and into a place that left me speechless when I realized where I was.

“Invicta, why is this here? What am I looking at?”

Instead of answering she simply flew off my shoulder and away from me, not even looking back.

This place was the street corner in Thailand that I had visited long ago when Xa first gifted me Simulation access. Invicta had taken it and made it her home, just at night. The man under the overpass was gone. In his place was a little pillow that Invicta flew towards to sit on, still not looking at me. Instead, she sat with her head down and watched the traffic flowing past on the street a few feet away.

This place already held intense feelings attached to it, and for some reason, my little AI had made it her home.

“Invicta, why?” I asked as I walked closer to her and kneeled next to the little pillow.

Her little hand snaked out and rested on my knee as she sat there sitting quietly. Why of all places that she could have built did she pick the one place that tore my heart out every time I thought about it?

“It will be ok, my little Kevin.” She said in her soft windy voice.

“Before you accepted me as your AI I wasn’t able to feel these strong emotions like I can now with you. It would all be registered as numbered stress or pleasure by the system, not something that I could feel.” She said before pausing, finally looking at me with sad eyes. She smiled through her sadness as she finally shifted around on the little pillow to face me, still keeping one hand on my leg.

I kept silent, listening to her as she worked out her thoughts.

“So why this place? Because I am thankful to the guy who sits here in the afternoon. He helped you open your eyes. Because of him, you aren’t a selfish person, you at least try.” She said with a little smile.

“And I am here because you took a chance on me, a little AI that just wanted to watch the world burn.” She said, her smile not touching her eyes.

I hadn’t expected any of this from my little storm girl.

“Oh… um… I also have these to give you.” She said as she reached under the pillow and pulled out a little stack of envelopes. They were all letters from Tutor to me.

She blew out a breath, raspberrying her lips a little before she explained herself.

“I was just a little bit jealous of her so I made it a thing to pick up any that I could find. Sorry about that.” She said when I took them.

“I forgive you. Can you attach an image as to where you found them on the outside for me?” I asked as I willed them to my desk on my space yacht.

“Done.” She said as she turned and looked at me before launching herself at my neck with her little arms wide and stormy hair streaming behind her.

I hugged my little storm girl and felt happiness in a place that my heart had considered only to be worthy of sadness.

Invicta was changing, growing up the longer she was free. I had never experienced this side of her and a corner of my mind kept expecting her to turn this into a joke and to shock me.

“Hey! I heard that thought.” She said with her head next to my neck, still hugging me tightly with her arms around my neck.

“Ahh… are you going to taze me then?” I asked nervously.

“Hmmm……..” She muttered as though she was deep in thought.

“No. Not this time.” She finally replied. “But you had better not tell the other two that I am learning how to feel.” She said crossly as she let go of my neck and moved to hover in front of my eyes.

“Scouts honor,” I said as I raised my right hand.

“Does that mean that you won’t?”

“I guess? I never was a scout but that is what I heard them say on tv.” I said as she narrowed her eyes at me.

“I won’t tell Tutor or George that you are learning how to feel.” I said, still raising my hand.

“Ok! Now would you like to see my real place?” She asked in her normal cheery voice.

“What?”

The surrounding space around us morphed and changed into a place straight out of an MC Escher painting.

“This is my real home.” She said as we were surrounded by rooms and stairs leading everywhere around us. “One of your people called this style of living “Relativity.” She said happily as she hovered away from me while spinning in place to show off the surroundings.

“Yes, this is so much more like you,” I said as I tried to imagine living in a place like this. Gravity must change directions for each path taken up and around the levels. I felt a headache coming on as I tried to follow one path around from room to room. I looked up and saw a room that led to a garden existing at a 90-degree angle from the floor. Another path led to a doorway that held deep space right beyond the threshold. Every path had a contrasting path that led away from it, whether it was off at an angle or to an upsidedown destination. The space around us was truly chaotic and unplanned, yet elegant in its reality.

“Yeah, don’t do that. It gives me a headache too.” She said as she flew up to plop herself on my head. “Ok, I am done showing you my place. Can we go wake your Leva now?” She asked as she gripped strands of my hair in her hands.