[[True. But lan development is often stimulated by pushing Bios when they’re near their limit, and I want to see if you respond to that.]]
"Dio, you’re a pest."
[Frequently,]] te said. [[You’d better start, if you want to avoid a drenching.]]
"What would happen if I simply stayed here?"
[[I would learn how well you swim.]]
I climbed to my feet, glad I hadn’t taken my shoes off. The sandbars were already looking shrunken, and the water had grown choppier, which meant it would be harder to maintain the lan skid. I could swim, though, and if my skid failed, I would at least be closer to the endless loop of the city.
"The Synergis doesn’t have emergency services?" I asked, even as I started forming my skid. "I can’t call someone to come pick me up?"
[[You could if I weren’t busy poking you with a stick to see you jump. [City Information] will have Constructs you can reach out to, and in complicated situations the city administrator will at least listen to petitions from Bios.]]
I frowned, then said: "I’ll decide how annoyed to be with you later," as the inward growth of the skid reached my feet, and I had to concentrate on maintaining it while stepping up.
The choppy water was the worst, slowing me down and constantly threatening my balance. Maintaining the skid began to hurt, in an achy stretched muscle way, and my steering grew erratic in the increasing wind, so that I ended up well to the left of the entrance into Vessa, and knee-deep in water. It was not a place to give in to an impulse to sit right down.
"Did you really conjure up a storm just to test me, impacting thousands of other players, or was that you being free with the truth again?" I asked, as I turned and began to wade toward the entrance.
[[If I were to be strictly correct, this was already scheduled, and changed only the choice of practice location.]]
A stinging wall of rain reached me, crushing in its intensity, and I had to put my head down and concentrate on not getting blown over. The massive tube of the rollercoaster made it impossible to lose my way, but the wind was trying to wedge me under the lower curve of it.
"Here!"
I barely heard the word. A firm clasp at my wrist followed, and I was pulled forward by a shape looming through the rain. Another matched me on the other side, cutting the impact of the wind, so that I was more or less able to make the last of the distance on my own two feet. A weird plastic sensation, like I’d walked into an invisible balloon, gave way almost before I’d noticed it, and I stumbled as the storm was shut away, replaced by Crowd.
"…saw you coming back—thought you weren’t going to make it!"
"Category 5 for sure."
"…find out how solid this structure is, anyway."
"They did it because those asses in Pyres of Heaven were yapping on how there wasn’t any weather."
"My Cyke said it wanted to test whether I could use my lan in an emergency."
"Yeah, mine too."
No door or shutter had come down over the entrance into the rollercoaster: instead some kind of bubble—invisible except for where the rain hit it—was keeping the wind out. Everyone who’d been out on the sandbars had come in and stopped to watch the storm. The person who had my wrist, a very tall and athletic woman, let go of me and asked me, for the second time I think, if I were okay.
Nodding, I smiled my thanks, mouthed the words to my other rescuer—a man not much taller than me, but built wide—and tried to not too obviously cringe in the direction of the nearest wall.
[[Have you decided how annoyed you are?]] Dio asked, as I succeeded in finding the back edge of the press of gawkers, and made a rapid, if dripping, retreat.
"That will depend on whether you think that demonstrated that I’m ready to take my next Trial." I paused, wiping at my face. "No, wait, it depends on whether you’re going to keep pulling that shit on me. Don’t manufacture crises for me, Dio. I’m not in that much of a hurry."
[[Duly noted,]] Dio murmured.
But without, I took care to observe, making any kind of promise.
23
ship
Trial Successful.
Rank Five Achieved.
Reward:
[Tier 1 Apparel Pattern]
[Vehicle Naming Right]
[Propulsion Unit]
"What?" Startled, my concentration collapsed, along with the enormous glimmering half-bubbles I’d nearly succeeded in joining together. "But I didn’t complete the Pocket."
[[Creating a sealed Pocket on a planet is not recommended.]]
"Why?"
[[The planet moves away. Very awkward.]]
"Huh." I sat down, though I wasn’t as tired as I’d been during my storm session—or as far out among the sandbars. "So the Pocket, what, takes you outside of space and time? My own personal TARDIS?"
[[Space only. And the universe dances on.]]
"You could have told me that before I started," I said, frowning. "What if I hadn’t stopped, and I’d completed the bubble?"
[[I would have told you to stop, and if you didn’t, let you drift. But this is a simulation, and after you had enjoyed vacuum for a while, we would have had a discussion about the tone of voice I use when I really really mean it.]]
"You almost tempt me," I said, but with a widening smile. "And I really passed."
[[You did. Well done.]]
"Thanks, Dio. How do I get the propulsion unit?"
[[It will be fitted before you reach your Snug. And then you will be clear to go off-planet. You also graduate to a less protected stage of citizenship. Your safety is still primarily dictated by the rules of your location, but more interactions are permitted.]]
I started to pick my way back across the sandbars, not bothering with a skid since I could walk most of it without difficulty. A few of the nearest players yelled "Congrats!" and I supposed it had been obvious that I ranked since I’d arrived, nearly formed a full Pocket, and headed straight back. I smiled and nodded, but didn’t pause. I wanted to waste no time.
"I can take off straight away?" I asked as I caught a pod. "I don’t have to put in supplies, or get flight clearance or anything else?"
[[Supplies are already taken care of, as much as they’re needed. Check your menus.]]
Remembering that I’d won naming rights, I sorted through my menus until I found [Ship] and opened that up to:
[Location]
[Status]
[Flight]
[Navigation]
[Shields]
[Sensors]
[Passengers]
[Environment]
[Synthesis System]
[Name]
[[If you’re going to cry looking at the menus, I can’t wait to see your reaction to orbit.]]
"I don’t call this crying," I said, wiping away a bit of mistiness. "And I can’t wait to see my reaction to orbit either."
Dio made a noise I hadn’t heard before: not the little jangle of laughter, but something lower and more muted. I glanced at tem, but then the pod arrived, and I hurried to my Snug while whipping through all my new menus, drinking in information greedily. My propulsion system was [Planetary Standard] and my [Status] was Docked. By the time I’d stepped through my airlock, my Snug was officially named The Hare, and I was examining all the sub-commands in [Flight], discovering [Tutorial].
"Any words of wisdom before I try this?" I asked.
[[I believe "Don’t Panic" is traditional.]]
I smiled distractedly, hurrying to the cockpit, but then took myself in hand, and went to visit my Wet Room instead. This was an experience I wanted to enjoy without any distractions. Finally, refreshed and free of sandy grit, I settled into my chair.