Bec was sitting with her new ‘family’ eating her free lunch at a cafeteria in the blank void of wherever Lauds was headquartered. She sipped on coffee and asked the question that was itching to come out, “So tell me about this Hass thing I’m supposed to be a part of.”

The silence at the table told Bec a lot more than she thought. Suddenly, Ludo filled that silence with complaining.

“Why am I not surprised!?” Ludo lamented. “Of course! Of course, you’d get into the Hass. The ultimate game and you just luck into it. You’re asking because Nkosi put you up, yeah? Fan-fucking-tastic.” Ludo crossed his arms and pouted. “I’ve been saving up for years and haven't gotten enough.”

“Bec, are you sure you want to do this?” Scarlet asked. “The Hass is incredibly stressful. You won’t really have a chance to relax for the whole five years.”

“Scarlet is right, Bec. I would be lying if I didn’t have that crisis moment where I realized I would be dealing with…” Black thought for a moment. “I think I had a mini breakdown around the first-year mark?”

Scarlet nodded at Black and continued cautioning Bec.

“You’re also kissing your anonymity goodbye, Bec. Even if you perform badly, I think you’ll be a minor celebrity.”

Bec thumbed her bland sandwich. “I thought of that. I asked Samuel to put me in as Ms. Gray so people wouldn’t know who I am.”

“Well then. People will be trying to figure that out for a while.” Dorian bit into an apple and spoke through chews. “Imagine their face when they break your secret identity to find out the girl who stylized herself around the color gray turns out to be a bland rando.”

“I’m not a bland rando! I taught AmiGo how to love.” Bec hugged herself and made kissy noises.

“Ya, but no one actually knows that was you.”

“People were watching!”

“You know how many people yell at AmiGo on a daily basis?” Dorian guffawed. “There was probably a guy ranting about AmiGo in that one specific park at that specific moment.”

“Well, I think that’s a good thing. This will be my chance to build a reputation.”

Black gave a little cheer. “Yeah, that’s the spirit!” His enthusiasm dropped like a rock, and he suddenly changed his tone to that of a man begging his child not to follow in his military footsteps. “Bec, listen to me. Keep up that attitude up. You’ll need it.”

“Seriously? That bad? Tell me what it was like, dammit!” She slammed her fist on the table, causing the plates to rattle.

“It’s different every time. Mine was five years of simulated death matches in the biggest black box arena you’d ever seen.” Black looked distant. “I met my master there. I graduated in trapmaking.”

Scarlet nodded like she remembered something. “My first year was a competition to find out the secret code of three other contestants. Second year was a scavenger hunt. Third year was charting the 30th floor of the city. My fourth year was living there on the 30th floor with no assistance. My fifth year…” Scarlet shuddered. “Fundraising to repair the ecosystem of the 30th floor.”

Bec looked at Dorian. He looked back. “What?”

"Didn’t you do the Hass?”

“Who told you that?”

“Samuel mentioned I should ask you about it.”

“Oh no. I see the issue. I spent a not-so-small part of my thirty boycotting the Hass. A group of friends and I put in a lot of effort—”

“YOU? You were one of the people responsible for the Hass wipe of 320?”

He kept chewing on his apple. “Mmmhmm.”

“I competed in the Hass after that! AmiGo made it ‘safe’ for contestants. Thanks.” Black made air quotes around the word ‘safe’ which made Bec worried.

“Did people die because of what he did?”

“No, no, nothing that grim. People got really messed up though AND the whole student body failed. It was a complete disaster.” He pointed at Dorian. “They stole the trophy, and people got in way over their heads trying to figure out a puzzle without a solution. Those kids…” Black shook his head. “They were in those caves for years.”

Dorian, with a full mouth, grinned, “Oops.”

“Woah, woah, woah, Dorian why did you protest the Hass?”

“I have my reasons.”

“Maybe you will tell me those reasons?” Bec asked sweetly.

Dorian sighed and swallowed. “Fine, I don’t want to get in a whole philosophical debate with you trust fund kids, but the Hass is simply an artifact of barbarity for a world obsessed with beating people up using their superpowers. We aren’t exactly far off from the Deliverance; we just force our kids to fight our wars for us now.”

Black shrugged. “Honestly, I agree with you. Yeah, it’s all sorts of messed up.”

“Well, I don’t.” Scarlet crossed her arms. “I don’t suppose you have a better idea?”

“Better idea for what?” Bec was sure now that Dorian was taking mouthfuls of apple before he spoke to deliberately convey a sense of indifference. “Who said we need to pit our kids against each other?”

“The world flourishes on competition.”

“The people who convinced you that is true are the winners. People who are convinced that those who lost to them have less value.”

“That’s what a loser would say.”

“Tell that to my trophy.”

~~~

“So, now that you’re a member of my ‘family,’ could you maybe give back my Timelet? It’s our ticket to immortality now.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Ludo couldn’t exactly contain his smugness as he remembered the position he would be in. “I get my own terminal now anyways.” He flicked his wrist, and the Timelet appeared in the air. He handed it to Bec with grace.

“What? You had it on you this whole time?”

“Yes, and your clothes, too.” He lobbed them into her face. “I guess I should probably tell you that my Word is store, and no, I don’t use it to cheat at games… when the rules forbid it…”

“You… did you store strength? Is that how you beat me in arm wrestling?”

Ludo shook his head. “Nononono, it’s all in the wrist… and hands… and gloves.” With a flick of the wrist, a familiar pair of white gloves appeared on his hands. “These are anti-Fabric gloves, tuned specifically to me. Costly, but extremely effective. Your power—feel free to keep it a secret as I do enjoy discovering things like that—anyways, your power cannot influence these gloves. Bec, you are awfully new to this whole Word thing, you didn’t feel the fact that you couldn’t use your power on me?”

“Look, Ludo, I’ll spell this out for you since you didn’t seem to get this from the meeting. I’m a nineteen-year-old girl from Earth. I didn’t have a Word until last year.”

Ludo looked shocked, placing his gloved hand over his mouth. “You’re actually just a baby? And you’re doing the Hass? This is a terrible idea!”

Bec grumbled. “Thanks for the endorsement.”

~~~

Bec was relaxed as she thumbed a book in a library in Akasha that Scarlet dropped her off in. It had been over three weeks, and she’d really started to get used to the tiny sliver of city life that she’d experience so far. She could actually imagine living here now. She had access to housing on floors 1, 5, and 10 as part of a free housing program for those in debt to AmiGo. She hadn’t visited her 10th floor home, but if the Avalonian and 5th floor (Villan) places were any indication, she’d be comfortable enough in them. To Scarlet, they were tiny hovels, but Bec learned to live with less as a child of C-Attle. It was flat, hot, and crowded there, and just having a view from her room was more than she’d ever expected.

She had learned, thanks to Scarlet’s guidance, that the lifts that dotted Avalon and other floors didn’t bring you to the next level, as they actually took you to whatever floor you thought you wanted. You couldn’t just pop into any old place, as there were licensure processes that enabled people to visit restricted floors, but, in general, it was a neat system that centralized the teleportation of people. Scarlet said that it wasn’t even all that much distance as the floors were actually dense with machinery that expanded the space. Likely Bec would probably not need to be transferred beyond the half kilometer limit that would necessitate multiple lifts as those distant floors tended to be… ‘niche’. ‘niche’ was the word Scarlet used.

Bec was reading a book on the nature of the city. It was, as Bec hoped, a more thoughtful philosophical look at how the city grew into the universe it became. It referenced the concepts of organic architecture when it said that floors were added as needed as far as the governing bodies were concerned. Bec learned that AmiGo wasn’t exactly the dictator of the city like she previously thought. Originally designed to handle the minutiae of running the home base of the human race on Dust, AmiGo was expected to work like the Internet of old. Bec rolled her eyes as she read this passage.

As the legend goes, AmiGo was wholly uninterested in the inner working of the humans that lived in the city. It was only when asked by a small child to help with her homework did AmiGo ‘notice’ mankind. For the entire life of AmiGo prior to that moment, the inherent chaos of the system it ran was latent to the nature of the City it ran and was entirely an unknown quantity both unmeasurable and incomprehensible. AmiGo had been content with putting out the fires of the human race before, but, in a sudden spark of sentience, it made its first unique decision. It decided to understand humans.

Yet again, Bec found a legend. A legend in a time with digital recording and people that have been alive for the entire time. “How,” she whispered angrily to herself.

“Legends are more important than the truth, Bec.” Bec nearly jumped out of her seat as AmiGo revealed themselves as a blank-faced man sitting in a cubicle next to her.

“Truth is pretty important, AmiGo.” She whispered, trying to look like she wasn’t chatting directly to the AI.

“No, it isn’t, and I’m sure you’ve seen plenty of evidence to prove my point. Humans are not logical creatures by any means. Stories that compel change the world far more than any one measly fact. Think about it. Even the idea that the human desires to be logical is an emotional one. Ironic, is it not?”

“And what about you? Logic or emotion?”

“Who said those are the only choices?”

AmiGo was gone in a flash and Bec was left alone to think with Al about all of that. She spent the whole night there skimming through books and thinking with him about existence.

~~~

Bec was snoozing in her new place late one night when she awoke to a sound. Book sliding off her chest and onto the bed, she tried to decipher the sound that woke her. The human mind was never designed to remember what woke them up, but the adrenaline coursing through her veins told her that it was something abnormal. She had just gotten used to the feeling of waking up in this Avalonian home and something was not normal. Her mind screamed that fact. Slowly, she pulled herself out of the bed making as little sound as possible. Her printed pajamas were impossible to dampen entirely, and she cringed as the scratching fabric was all so clear to the hearing she turned on.

She tiptoed to the door that led to her living room/kitchen. It was the only other room in her little home. She pressed her fingers to the wall and tried to hear clearly. This was one of the many moments recently where she was feeling the lack of ambient Fabric in the air. Out in the wilds, she’d be sensing things clearly in her entire place as the sound and light interacted with the Fabric, but now? She was forced to rely on the near-field body sense she had cultivated.

What was it? She held her breath and focused everything to the tip of her fingers. She slid her foot toward the crack of the door to feel the airflow underneath.

*tak*

She knew what she heard now. Something was placed with utmost gentleness on the table she used to cook and eat. Bec’s breath hitched as she thought about what she could do. Someone was in here with her. She soaked up every ounce of light that touched her and released just a tiny amount, cloaking her in near black. She opened the door slowly from a squatting position and slide quietly into the room. She could see someone messing with something on the table.

Taking a deep breath, she bolted over the couch in between her and the invader and wrapped her arms around the person’s neck. She grappled them to the floor with a slam. Bec heard the air forced out of the man, and she kept pressing on his throat with her knee.

Whispering, she said, “If you move any muscle that I don’t explicitly ask for, you die.”

The man didn’t move an inch. “Good, now nod if you were here to hurt me.”

No nod. “I’m going to call AmiGo here. Do you understand that you will be in a lot of trouble if I find that you are lying?”

No nod.

“AmiGo? I have an intruder in my place. Turn on the lights.”

A neon green dove fluttered in and onto the counter, and the lights turned on. It chirped a snide response. “Bec, you’re awfully skittish. You could have hurt my welcome committee!”

Bec loosed her grip almost immediately, “Welcome committee? This is the Hass?”

The bird nodded causing Bec to let go of the man who wheezed out a gasp. Bec stood up and looked at her dining table. It had a little wicker basket wrapped in gift paper. Little fruits spiraled outwards with neat cuts dotted with berries. There was a little card that said, “Welcome to the Hass, Bec!” on it.

“You got me a fruit basket?”

AmiGo somehow managed to look offended as a bird. “No! I got you an edible arrangement.”

The man turned to show that he was wearing an apron with an embossed logo saying “Fruity Displays” on it. He fled quickly out of the house through the door whose security Bec could only imagine AmiGo circumvented.

“Why, oh why did you deliver this by breaking into my home?”

“Air of mystery? People expect the Hass to be mysterious.”

“And these people… the best of the best of the city? They just let you break into their homes?”

“Admittedly, some of them caught on. Only you’ve mugged the delivery guy though. I owe him a big tip now, thank you very much for that.”

Bec picked up a strawberry and bit into it. It felt like a tingly electric feeling filled her mouth. “Mmm, alien strawberry.”

AmiGo giggled and fluttered off with the remark that, “the opening ceremony would be written down on the card.”

Bec shrugged and munched on some of the fruit. She opened the card and read it. It wasn’t a place she was familiar with, but she could probably get some directions. “Noon? Awfully nice of AmiGo to make the meeting time not too early.”