CA Chapter Two (Patreon)

When Ava woke from her three week immersion in Amythyst’s pod, she’d only known that she’d been surrounded by fluid a minute before because her skin was damp, and there were lingering traces of gel in her nose and ears. Amythyst’s little robot, B.T., had been there with a towel, and Ava had wiped it all away easily, since the gel seemed to like to cling to itself.

This experience was nothing like that, however, and Ava spent several achingly long minutes coughing up faintly blue goo into an emesis basin. Dr. Veralt, of course, didn’t bother to come and check on Ava personally, for which she was actually grateful. LeeAn and Quinn, however, were no real help, though LeeAn at least offered Ava a towel when the coughing fit was over. LeeAn also removed Ava’s IV and helped her to the shower, leaving Quinn behind to clean up the traces of biogel on the floor and around the pod.

Taking a long, hot shower helped immensely, and once Ava got dressed again, she felt almost like her usual self. LeeAn led her back to Exam Room One, where she checked Ava’s vitals against the ones she’d taken earlier, and pronounced her fit to leave.

“You weren’t even in there an hour,” LeeAn murmured as they walked back out to the nurse’s station. “Was it strange?”

Ava shrugged awkwardly, glancing toward the man sitting, watching the monitors and pretending not to listen to them. “It wasn’t that different from being in the game with a regular pod, honestly. Just getting in is-” she broke off, shuddering, and LeeAn gave her a curious glance.

“The doctor said it’s a lot like a sensory deprivation tank,” the other woman offered.

Ava snorted derisively, then covered her mouth and smiled apologetically. “I wouldn’t say that, but I haven’t tried sensory deprivation. Maybe if you had an oxygen mask? I guess I’ll probably get used to it, but it isn’t… pleasant.”

LeeAn started to say something else, but paused, tilting her head as if listening to something. “The doctor says you can go back to your suite. The tank will be ready for use again in about twelve hours, so he wants you to rest, and be back an hour before your regular shift, to make up for leaving early today.”

So magnanimous, Ava thought, but she just smiled again and touched her jaw, which was still faintly tender from getting her auditory implants about a month earlier. “You have implants too?” she asked.

“Oh, we all do,” LeeAn told her. “It’s a requirement for working here, since the LandonHome app integrates with them.”

“Oh. That makes sense.” And it did. Amythyst had told Ava that the app actually installed part of itself in the implants, allowing the app to track the user, even when they didn’t have their screen with them. Fortunately, Amythyst had been able to create a sort of implant emulator for that part of the app, so it thought it was in her implants, but it wasn’t. As long as Ava kept her screen with her at all times, as she was supposed to do anyway, no one should notice that the digital Ava was in one place, while she was actually physically someplace else.

Since Ava’s ‘commute’ was entirely indoors, and her rooms were within easy walking distance, she didn’t have anything to gather up, and quickly left the lab behind. The moment the double doors swung shut behind her, Amythyst’s voice was in her ear, routed through her implants via the dozens of tiny electronic bugs that were now scattered and hidden throughout the house.

“Are you all right? How was it?” Amythyst sounded worried, and Ava smiled with unusual warmth as she passed the guard on the way by, causing a hint of confusion in his return smile.

“Fine, if you don’t mind being manhandled into a small, dark tank that’s then filled with fluid,” Ava murmured subvocally. Her implants picked up the faint vibrations of her vocal chords, and translated that into speech, which it relayed back to Amythyst, who growled furiously.

“He’s doing that again? Amy caught him doing that once, and told him if she caught him again, she’d figure out how to fire him, no matter who his father was. Damn it!” There was a long pause, and then Amythyst said, “I’m so sorry, Ava. I should have warned you. I didn’t think he’d do it now that he’s a private physician, but of course it makes sense in retrospect. He knows you can’t do anything about it, since you’re so tied up in Non-Disclosure Agreements, and as far as he knows, you’re a pushover anyway.”

Ava flicked her eyes at a member of housekeeping running a vacuum as she walked by, nodding and smiling vaguely. When Amythyst was watching and listening through her implants, the AI put a small icon of her face at the edge of Ava’s vision, and it was there now, so Amythyst would understand why she didn’t answer right away.

Once she was far enough away that the other employee couldn’t hear her, Ava murmured, “It’s okay. No one would expect anyone to treat another person like that. The important thing is, was it worth it?” She had snuck the minute electronic devices that were supposed to allow Amythyst to hack into the lab server through security by the simple expedient of having Ava swallow them with her morning juice.

Her own body and the faint bioelectric field it created had covered the signature of the devices when she passed through the scanners that were supposed to detect any electronics without the LandonHome app installed on them. Unfortunately, while she’d been able to get one container of juice by security during the minor confusion when she moved in, she wouldn’t have another chance like that, and nothing else they had come up with was as effective and relatively low-risk.

“Oh, yes,” Amythyst said, sounding smug. “You must have managed to almost completely detach the suit’s plumbing, instead of just knocking it askew, so almost all of my little friends avoided the filtration system. I now have contact with almost eighty percent of them. So far, it’s at about the rate of a dial-up modem, but I’m slowly adjusting the code to let me in completely. It helps that they’re using an old version of Emily, probably because she's smaller, but it also means I know exactly how to exploit a few weaknesses in her code.”

Ava had no idea how fast a ‘dial-up modem’ might be, but she gathered it probably wasn’t measured in the usual gigabits per second. She didn’t ask, however, since she was just entering the wing of the mansion where the live-in staff had their rooms. The central hall was empty, since the day shift personnel were already at work, while third shift was sleeping. Voice echoing from the common area suggested some members of second shift might be up, but fortunately none of them came into view during the short distance between the main doors and Ava’s suite.

Ava opened her door and slipped inside with a sigh of relief. While the room wasn’t truly secure, since anyone with a high enough security level could walk right in, it still felt safer than the rest of the house. Amythyst put the system that monitored sounds in her room into a random loop of innocuous noises whenever Ava was home, too, so no one would hear her while she was here.

As soon as Ava was completely inside, the screen on the far wall flickered to life and Amythyst stood there. The AI still looked worried, and Ava held her arms out and spun to show that she was intact.

“Go do that in front of the mirror,” Amythyst told her, and Ava realized that the only view Amythyst had at the moment was through her own ocular implants, so she could only see what Ava saw. Obediently, she went to the bathroom and repeated the action.

It was still strange to see two matching blue eyes when she looked into the mirror, rather than one dark blue and one so pale as to be almost white. Ava didn’t like her heterochromia, but she was used to it, so the contact she wore as ‘Ava Shaw’ surprised her every time. Otherwise, she looked more like Ava Gardner than she was actually comfortable with.

Her short hair was disheveled, and her face looked tired and drawn, while Ms. Shaw was supposed to have immaculately styled hair and a full face of subtle make-up. Unfortunately, she couldn’t use any kind of cosmetics when she went into long-term immersion, so her appearance was far too close to that of the perpetually tired and miserable Ava Gardner. Still, she forced a smile onto her face for Amythyst’s benefit, and was rewarded with a sigh.

“Stop that,” Amythyst said. “You look like a bad actor in a C-grade movie. Plus, you don’t need to pretend for me.”

Ava dropped her arms and sighed, then rubbed her face tiredly. “Okay. Then, if there’s nothing else I can do, I’m going to go to bed.”

“You should eat something,” Amythyst told her.

Ava gave her reflection a more genuine smile, knowing that Amythyst could see it. “I’m really not hungry. I just had breakfast, what, four hours ago? It only seems like it’s been days. I’m sure I’ll want to eat when I wake up. Besides, I expect you to work some miracles between now and then, so we know what we’re getting into next time.”

She turned and left the room, but the wide screen snapped to life as she passed through the living room, and Amythyst said, “I hate that you have to do this. I wish I could…” She trailed off. They both knew she couldn’t do anything else. Technically, she didn’t even have a corporeal form, though when they were in game together, Ava often forgot that.

“Isn’t that why you hired me?” Ava asked, a little bitterly. They had met by chance, when Ava’s party had stumbled across Amythyst while she was attempting to retrieve an bugged artifact in-game. The AI, who knew everything about everyone, whether she liked it or not, had realized Ava was about to break, and had stepped in to make her an offer she couldn’t refuse. In exchange for helping Amythyst discover if Amy Landon was still alive, and helping get her out of her father’s control if she was, Ava would get a winning ticket for any lottery in the world, which would legally render her wealthy beyond her wildest dreams. Legal, that is, as long as they didn’t get caught, which Amythyst was convinced they wouldn’t.

Ava hesitated at the door to her bedroom, looking at the image of the AI. As always, Amythyst was beautiful to Ava, though some people might have thought her pretty at best, with her round face, snub nose, and generous curves. “Do you regret it?” she asked, before she could stop herself. “Choosing me, I mean. Anyone would have jumped at the deal you offered. You didn’t need to settle for a minimum wage worker who barely finished high school.”

Amythyst smiled her glorious, warm smile, and said, “Never. I only wish I could let you go, now, before you have to take any more risks.”

But they both knew she couldn’t. Now that the AI knew Amy Landon was alive, everything else was secondary, including Ava. If Carl Landon got even a hint that someone was trying to take his daughter away from his ‘protective’ care, he’d use all of his considerable wealth and influence to flee the country, and he might never surface again. No, this was their chance, and they had to take it.

“I’ll get her out, Amythyst,” Ava promised.

“I know you will. Sweet dreams.”

Ava went to bed.