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Tama thinks Ryuki and her are finally starting to make a decent team. It's still waaaay too early to call it, but she's got a good read on who Ryuki is as an (artificial) entity and what he's capable of now that they're talking again. Maybe that's why they've fallen into such a comfortable rhythm of banter and work in such short time. Even with their initial setbacks, Tama can confidently say they're doing pretty well for themselves.
The functions she really needs her AI-ball for are reliable. Hell, thermal and X-ray vision haven't brought up any problems at all. And Ryuki's VR reality augmentation capabilities are holding consistently at 90% - save for a few dead pixels that hang at the edge of her vision, it's all there. Tama has learned that her partner's much more likely to glitch out trying to connect to the web or access messaging systems, but keeping her smartphone is an easy fix to the problem. Sure, Aiba had given Tama a Look when she saw her using her cell to check her messages, but she'll live.
The biggest issue is when Ryuki needs to interact with ABIS servers. They haven't really figured out a fix for that. Ryuki will just sometimes glitch out when he's trying to retrieve the classified files he should have access to, and then Tama will wait out the few minutes until he becomes operational before they try again. She's learned that if, after three tries, there's no luck, she's better off tracking down the physical records herself. Usually though, Ryuki can get it on his second attempt. Weirdly enough, the most troubling aspect seems to be sending or receiving data from Ryuki's own memory files. She emailed Pewter about it, but he still hasn't responded. He probably would've told her to bring the AI-ball to his workshop if she hadn't outright vetoed that possibility in the email's body - she couldn't in good conscious leave her little guy alone with him for days on end knowing how terrified he is of the engineer, and it's not like that even solved anything the last time they tried it. Pewter's complete silence though, Tama knows, means that he's just as confused by it as he is by all of Ryuki's quirks and bugs.
Today's the big day though. Exam day, practically. Tama is going to use the psync machine and, with Ryuki's help, uncover secrets from their subject's dream. And while Tama knows that she and her partner are working together pretty well now, she doesn't feel like they're even remotely ready for this.
Hell, her own training has been meager, and Tama knows she's very much a hands-on learner. Sure, she read the manual (at Ryuki's nagging) and reviewed the basics this morning, but that's still leagues away from actually doing such a complicated procedure.
And Ryuki - god, Tama wants to be optimistic, but there's gotta be a zillion programs her little guy will need to keep track of while in Somnium, and at that point, it's just statistics that something will go wrong. A feature could fail, his avatar could freeze up, shit what if he glitches the Somnium altogether, could they get trapped in their subject's head, how easy it to get unstuck in a dream -
Bottom line: Tama isn't expecting much for this psync. Hell, she's nervous about whether she'll even go under properly. And it doesn't help that she got to the psync room early enough that nobody, not even Pewter, is around.
"Tama? Your vitals are abnormal."
"No shit, Ryuki. I'm nervous."
"Oh."
There's a slight popping sound as her mechanical eye drops out of its socket. Tama quickly moves her hands to catch the thing before it plops to the floor. The semi-transparent goo surrounding the eye shimmies and shakes, forming little spikes. In a moment, Ryuki's fully shaped into his chibi-self.
"We will be okay," Ryuki assures her. "Boss chose you specifically because you understand the human psyche exceptionally well, and my whole purpose is to assist you. There is no reason to worry."
Tama holds back a sigh. "I know, I know," she says, and really, she does know. She's been repeating that mantra to herself this morning ad nauseam, and while it's nice to hear someone else voice her thoughts, that doesn't make them seem all that more solid.
Ryuki holds himself higher - is he puffing out his chest? "It's alright now! Because I am here, Half Might!"
"What?"
"The person on the TV said it last night. Everyone cheered up when he said that, so you should feel better now," Ryuki says, like it's the most obvious thing in the world. "Any second."
Tama can't help it: she laughs. "Remind me not to let you channel surf on your own."
"Your vitals are improving!" Ryuki cheerfully reports.
She pats him on the head. "I guess they are, lil porcupine."
"Tama," he whines. It's unclear whether he's protesting the nickname, the petting, or both. Regardless, he doesn't say anything else, so Tama chalks it up to playful banter and pokes him once more for good measure. He huffs but doesn't shy away from her touch.
The door opens and Tama immediately recognizes the footsteps. "You're early," the newcomer states.
Tama keeps a loose grip on Ryuki as she turns around. "What can I say, I'm excited to see inside your dreams," she replies with a wink.
Her mentor looks at her with a mix of fondness and exasperation. "Let's hope you're prepared to do so," Aiba says evenly.
"Good morning, Miss Aiba, Mister Date!" Ryuki chirps.
"Morning," Date says aloud, from inside Aiba's eyesocket. It's.. unsettling, to say the least.
Aiba immediately winces at the noise. She flicks her robotic eye. "Use the mental public channel if you're gonna talk from there, idiot."
Date must say something in his private channel with Aiba because she flicks him twice more for good measure.
There's some flashing of yellow and red lights as Date and Ryuki chat. Whatever they're talking about is making Ryuki nervous - Tama can tell from the way his little spikes droop, even though his expression remains neutral.
"Why isn't he in your eye?" Aiba asks suddenly.
Tama looks down at the AI personality in question before turning back to her mentor. She shrugs.
"You're aware he'll have to be in your eye socket during the psync, correct?"
"Oh yeah!" Tama says hurriedly, hoping Aiba doesn't think she's a total idiot. "But, we're not psyncing yet, and it's easier to talk to someone when you're looking at them, y'know?"
Aiba looks at her quizzically. "Couldn't he project his avatar?"
"Avatar?" Tama questions.
"Yeah, a three-dimensional model that your AI controls. Most of them are humanoid-looking, to make conversing and emoting easier between partners." Her tone slips firmly into concerned territory. "Did he not make one yet?"
"He did!" Date reports. His voice is mischievous. "He wanted to wait til the Somnium to show it off. You're gonna love it, Tama."
Ryuki tries to hide behind Tama's fingers. She looks at him expectantly, but he doesn't say anything on the topic.
From there, it's not long until Boss and Pewter show up. In some regards, it's business as usual. Boss complains about everything not being immediately ready, Pewter tries to explain that these things take a ridiculous amount of time, and, after some wheedling, everything's set up within the half hour. Aiba walks Tama over to the machine and briefly shows her where she's supposed to lay down, how the visor should sit on her face, and physical symptoms to be wary of and immediately report to Pewter. Tama has Ryuki go over the study sheet they'd made earlier for the key points of psyncing. She tries to remember to breathe once it's finally time to do this for real.
"Remember," Pewter's voice echoes through Tama's head as the machine starts up. "You can only stay in Somnium for six minutes."
"Got it," Tama replies.
"Pewter and I will be able to see what you see," Boss reminds her. "So do your best out there."
Tama gives a lazy thumbs up. The machinery whirls. There's a haze of lights, moving about like a child's kaleidoscope. A whooshing sound accompanies the strange shapes and colors. Then suddenly, she's pulled through them and-
She's greeted with a bird's eye view of a jungle. The sort of lush vegetation she'd seen in action movies, or maybe a documentary she fell asleep during. The colors are vibrant, between the low, hefty bushes and tall, thick winding trees and resilient flowers of all shapes and sizes. There's also a few insects flitting about - dragonflies, bees, and quite a few bugs Tama doesn't recognize zip across the sky.
The view shifts, and she's now looking at a young man. He's in his late teen, early twenties - there's still some baby fat clinging to corners of his face. His hair is white with a few pinkish orange strands framing his face. It's styled short and spiky, and though it's long enough in certain sections, it doesn't hide his eyes. In fact, the highlights help make his red irises pop.
He's wearing a black suit - no, school uniform maybe? - with an odd pattern. There's a criss-crossing of reddish orange lines on his torso where the jacket is opened - could maybe be an odd sheer vest, although the material looks to be the same as the jacket - and the markings reappear on the pant legs. Weirdly enough, there's diamond cutouts on the jacket's shoulders and on the hems of the pants. The strangest part is that the ends of the clothes seem to meld into the young man's skin. Hell, it looks like she can see the veins in his hands, but they're dyed that same shade of orange-red, so they're probably just thin gloves, right?
The man is kneeling on one leg, camera in hand. The camera is pointed at some kind of cricket, barely hidden by the surrounding leafage. "Found ya," he says in an Australian accent, "This is an invasive species that destroys the ecosystem. There’s a whole hidden world down here ya don’t see until you’ve traveled under the brush!" There's something familiar about that voice…
"Wait," Tama exclaims, "Ryuki? Is that you?!"
The kid - no, Ryuki - gives a goofy grin. "Yep!" He shoots straight to his feet, camera and accent already discarded. He rolls back and forth on the balls of his feet. "Do you like it? I based it off your preferences."
Tama swallows the automatic question of "What preferences?!" because, quite frankly, she's not prepared to crush that adorable expression off his face yet. He's like a preschooler showing off macaroni art, for Pete's sake. She can't, however, say nothing, so she opts for something more harmless, and playfully ribs, "You look like you're still in high school - maybe one of those really preppy colleges."
Ryuki rolls his eyes and crosses his arms in a huff. "I'm not going to take criticism from someone who dresses like an S&M pervert with a police cosplay fetish."
Boss's choked laughter carries over the speaker, and Tama is painfully reminded that she has an audience here. Talk about embarrassing and nerve-wracking all at once.
"Excuse me," Tama huffs, her cheeks growing red. "I-"
"Only have six minutes to investigate - right!" He's bouncing with energy, quickly shaking his limbs.
Her partner actually cut her off. Ryuki's never done that, even accidentally. And since when was he this assertive? Tama's too surprised to interrupt him back.
The air around Ryuki begins to glow and crackle. Electricity flows through him and ghosts around his body. "Somnium scan: activate!" he shouts.
All at once, the electricity disperses throughout the dream world. Little semi-transparent locks appear in certain spots, helpfully labeled: a giant mess of tangled vines, an even bigger boulder, some darkened grass, and something that vaguely looks like a candle?
Tama counts them. "Four locks - is that a lot?"
Ryuki shrug. "We can only interact with a small sliver of the Somnium, so it's better to just focus on each lock as they come up."
"Look at Mister Know-It-All, coming in clutch," Tama teases.
She expects the slang to confuse him, like it often does. But Ryuki doesn't bat an eye. "I do know all," he says in a soft, eerie voice, like he's some creepy kid in a bad slasher film. "Even that which is kept hidden."
"Oookay," Tama replies, unsure what to make of … everything that's happening. Maybe it's best not to get into it, especially now with a timer ticking down. "So what should we do first then?"
Thankfully, Ryuki's voice switches back to normal. "You tell me. I'm basically your avatar here. You order me where to go and what to do, and then those actions will affect the world of the Somnium. If we unlock all those mental locks, we'll come to some kind of truth or revelation about whatever Aiba is trying to keep hidden."
Tama frowns, "I know the theory, but... ?"
"Put more tangibly, our first lock is these vines over here. Aaand we can interact with that camera and some pink flower petals over there." Ryuki points to each one. "I think Pewter has a map that you can view, based on the data collected from the Somnium scan, right? Try to pull that up."
Tama focuses on visualizing a map. It takes a few seconds to materialize but she gets it working. The items Ryuki pointed out all have little markers on them. There's even a blinking objective on the top border of the map: "Mental Lock 1: Clear the vines".
"Let's try out… the flower petals first."
"Roger dodger!"
The petals are hidden under some lush bushes, so Tama's not surprised she didn't initially notice them. There's five, bright pink petals laid out in a circle.
"What are you thinking, Tama? I could rearrange them into a shape or something, play the petal game, inspect them, lick them-"
"Lick them?"
"Okay!"
"Wait, no I meant-"
But it's too late. A petal is already on his tongue. He tilts his head in thought. "It tastes like elephant."
"What."
"Elephant." Ryuki reports seriously.
Tama glances at the mental lock and sighs. "Okay, well, that was a waste of time."
"Don't! Get! Discouraged!" Ryuki pumps a fist into the air. "There's still plenty of things to try."
Tama spends a moment considering that. "What's the petal game you were talking about?"
Ryuki gingerly picks up the petals and cups them inside his two hands. "Y'know, you ask a question and pull petals off for 'yes' or 'no'."
"Aren't you supposed to play that with a flower, not just the petals?"
"Regardless, it's worth a try.”
"What question should we even ask?"
"Classically, people ask if someone likes them. Like this." Ryuki closes his eyes. "Does she like me?"
The petals in his hands start to glow and change. They blur, making it impossible to guess how many there are.
Ryuki cracks open one eye and removes a single petal from the pile at a time. The discarded petals gently float down onto the grass. "She likes me, she likes me not, she likes me, she likes me not, she likes me, she likes me not… she likes me!"
The petals fade into the ground. At the same moment, the vines begin to glow. Then they slowly fade away. The little label "Mental Lock 1" suddenly has a checkmark next to it.
"We did it," Ryuki cheers. "Only three more to go."
"Yeah," Tama says, appreciatively. "But who was that 'she' you were asking about?"
"No time for distractions, Tama! We've got to work on the next lock."
Sure enough, Boss's voice carries throughout the Somnium. "You've got five minutes left."
Tama pulls up the map to slow time to a crawl - and also strategize their next move. "Let's see, our next obstacle seems to be a boulder further into the jungle. And it looks like there's an oil drum north of where the vines opened up, and then a textbook of some kind not too far from there, and a houseplant."
"Where to?" Ryuki asks.
Tama hums. "Well, this is Aiba's dream, and what appears here has some significance to her, right? So to get past mental hurdles, we want to interact with stuff that's really important to her, stuff that evokes a lot of memories and feelings, right?"
Ryuki tilts his head. "I guess you could put it that way. Why, what are you thinking?"
"Aiba's got a potted plant on her desk, and she told me once she has a bunch more at her apartment. So maybe we should start there."
Ryuki clasps his hands. "Good call!"
He races past the narrow path the vines had blocked off. It's slightly darker here, with all the tall plants reaching toward, and therefore cutting off, the sunlight. Weirdly, there seems to be a slight drizzle ever present in this area, but Ryuki doesn't react at all to the droplets as he rushes past.
There's the oil drum a little further inward, but Ryuki doesn't even hesitate: he jumps over it without breaking stride. As he lands, Tama spots the textbook to his left - something about 3D modeling, it looks like. She barely has time to look at all before he's rushing to the houseplant that’s directly in front of the second mental lock.
The plant… looks fake as hell. The leaves have a waxy glint to them, and the angle of the branches are way too symmetrical, like a model asset in a videogame. All in all, it stands far too proudly up to the height of Ryuki's hips.
"Are all houseplants like this?" Ryuki asks. There's a hint of disappointment underneath his curiosity.
"No. This one just sucks, even by imitation plant standards."
Ryuki nods once. "I wonder if Aiba actually likes gardening…" He stares at the fake plant a second longer. "So, what do you want to do?"
"Aiba waters her desk plant first thing every morning, so let's do that."
"There's not a watering can though…"
Tama looks to the sky. "But there's rain water. Cup your hands like earlier and you can catch some."
Ryuki is absolutely delighted. "Oh, okay!"
He follows her instructions and pours the caught water directly onto the fake plant. For a moment, the plant seems to glow like the petals and the vines did, but it stops rather abruptly.
"Damn, I really thought that might work," Tama laments. She glances at her psync timer. "And it ate up 90 seconds?!"
"Wait, Tama. It's still glowing!"
Tama squints but no, that's still one normal - albeit pathetic - looking houseplant. "Is it?"
Ryuki kneels down closer to the plant. "Yeah, right there-"
With a shriek, he abruptly pulls back.
There's a spider the size of a small dog at the base of the plant. It's got a soft glow to it, and, as Tama watches, it starts growing in size. Rather rapidly, actually. In an instance, it's already bigger than the trees. If Ryuki wasn't a supercomputer, Tama doubts his reaction speed would've been fast enough to get him out of the way.
"Tama, what should I do about the giant Parasteatoda tepidariorum?" Ryuki asks calmly, staring directly into the eyes of the arachnid.
"How should I know?! I don't even know what a Parasteatoda tepidariorum is!" Can Ryuki die in Somnium? Did she zone out reading the section of the psync manual that covered that? Tama really doesn’t want to find out right now.
"It's the common house spider, also called the American house spider due to the region it largely resides in."
"Is now really the time for that?!"
The spider extends one leg toward Ryuki, almost in an accusing manner. Good to know the freak of nature has her back, Tama briefly thinks.
"Hello," Ryuki says. "You wouldn't happen to know how to break a boulder, would you?"
The spider screeches and wraps its leg around Ryuki's waist. It lifts him up into the air and scurries further down the dirt path, stepping over the boulder in the middle of it as easily as Ryuki cleared the oil drum.
It's even darker here, and the atmosphere does nothing to settle Tama's nerves. While there's still plenty of plant life, it all looks grayed-out and smokey like someone applied a dark-filter to everything. The spider holds Ryuki tightly in its leg as it takes another step forward.
Then it places Ryuki back on the ground, screeches at him once more, and travels deeper into the jungle, quickly disappearing into the plant life.
Tama and Ryuki don't say anything as the second mental lock unlocks.
"Three minutes left!" Pewter's voice warns.
Tama swears as she pulls up the map. "Why'd that eat up so much time?"
"Time works differently here," Ryuki reminds her. "I can start giving approximations of how long actions should take to complete, if you'd like?"
"Yes, please. Set that to default, or whatever."
Ryuki nods, flexing his fingers. "On the bright side, the spider gave us a ½ TIMIE - you remember reading about those, right?"
"Yeah, yeah." Tama's eyes spot four more highlighted icons on her map. "Alright, there's the obsidian rock wall, a broken radio, a frying pan, and a pair of sneakers… Ugh, what to pick?"
"The third lock says 'to gain entrance to the cave,'" Ryuki chirps up. "Though I'm not sure exactly where that is."
"Maybe behind the rock wall?"
Ryuki walks over to it. The sleek black wall is shiny enough to reflect like a mirror back at him.
He gets closer and examines it from the side. "I'm not seeing any obvious openings."
"Oh, Ryuki! Try smashing it with your fist, like you're gonna crack a mirror."
Ryuki blinks. "My calculations say that would take 120 seconds to complete - should we use the TIMIE on this?"
"Hell yes!"
Ryuki makes a fist. "Very well."
He widens his stance and positions his arm further away. Then, with a shout, he winds up and hits the obsidian rock straight in the center.
The stone doesn't budge.
"Oh," Ryuki says, voice strained.
"What is it?" Tama asks.
"I think this is what breaking an arm feels like."
Ryuki closes his eyes and slowly moves his hand back down to his side.
"Are you okay?"
"Yep," he chokes out.
"Are you sure?"
"Totally. Completely. One hundred percent. Fine."
"Two minutes left!" Boss shouts. "Hurry it up. You don't have much time!"
Tama tries to focus, but she can feel the seconds slipping away. Is the rock the right thing to be inspecting right now? People normally associate rocks with caves, but is that too much of a logical connection for a dream world? But then again, even if she has Ryuki run back to the other items, which one holds the key? Aiba's never said anything about taking up radio repairs, and she doesn't seem like the sneaker-obsessed type, and what would she even tell Ryuki to do with the frying pan?
But she needs to decide something. "Okay. Um. Let's…" Tama tries to pull up the map, but it's hard to focus when the psync clock counts down so ominously.
Ryuki looks equally concerned. "Tama, may I try something?" he offers.
"Please."
There's electricity dancing around Ryuki again, but it's different from the Somnium scan. Bits of TV static mingle in between the shock waves, and the waves themselves are a light orange. Even the hum of the waves is different, reminiscent of an old a/c whirling mixed with a radio rapidly flipping through stations.
With a thrust of his hands, Ryuki pushes the energy outward. The corrupted waves fill the space, but it especially clings to the four notable objects like a layer of dust. Slowly, the frying pan, radio, shoes, and rock mirror turn that same static orange color. Small cracks begin to appear on them. Like the breaking of an egg shell, the cracks spiderweb outward. Then, they shatter. In their places, Tama sees a 3x TIMIE, a 10 second TIMIE, a ½ TIMIE, and a 2x TIMIE.
Ryuki walks over to the 10 second TIMIE and picks it up. Tama can only stare at this sunset-tinted world in awe. The psync clock has moved down to a crawl, as if Tama had the map open.
That spurs Tama to act. She pulls up the map and sure enough, the labels for all the key objects have turned into gibberish, almost like a computer spitting out broken code.
"Ryuki, did you glitch the Somnium?"
He seems to consider the question for a moment. "I think so?"
Ryuki suddenly stands to attention. "But I can undo it though! I mean it! I hadn't yet, but only since you didn't have the map up and I thought you wanted more time to think, but, uh -."
With a snap of Ryuki's fingers, the world is returned to how it was moments ago. Only the newly held TIMIE proves it was ever any different.
"There!" Ryuki says. "All better now. And, I don't even think I have enough power to do that again right now, so - so you don't have to worry!"
Tama doesn't hide her smile. "Ryuki, that trick is amazing! It's super helpful, thank you!"
"Really?" Ryuki's tone betrays utter confusion.
"Yeah, it even got us a nice TIMIE, right?"
"Yeah…"
Tama laughs. "Then I'd say it was a pretty good trick. You're not holding out any other special features, are you?"
"No," Ryuki quickly replies. His expression suddenly changes to thoughtful. "But it did seem like there was a deeper layer of Miss Aiba's mind that we could maybe access."
"Like a hidden Somnium?"
"I think so."
"That'd mean it's some secret Aiba's keeping even closer to her chest…" Tama ponders aloud.
She weighs her choices. Going deeper would mean probably more mental locks, so they probably wouldn't get to the end if they jumped into a different Somnium now. However, it might look more impressive to Boss and Pewter… Plus, there was no guarantee even with the sweet TIMIE that they'd reach the truth of this mental layer in the next 90 seconds.
"Do you think you can get us there? And fast?" Tama asks.
Ryuki nods. His hand is surrounded by orange static once more, and he reaches out into the air. He pulls, and the view distorts with the motion.
It's like the weird trippy vision Tama first saw before she entered Aiba's mind. Only the images she sees now are like broken computer screensavers - colorful but malfunctioning in obvious ways. Staring makes her head spin, so she closes her eyes.
When she opens them, Ryuki’s standing in a small butterfly garden. But instead of any plants, there’s just plots of dirt. The only object that scans as notable on Tama’s map is a police badge.
Tama instantly knows what to do. “Ryuki, rub the dirt off the police badge.”
As he cleans the piece of metal, one of the butterflies floating above lands gracefully on his hand. It turns to look at him.
A young, male voice emits from the insect. “It’s so important that your hands stay clean,” it mocks. “People are dying and all you care about is your stupid reputation. I hope you can live with all that blood on your badge.”
The butterfly falls onto the plot of dirt and promptly dies. It stays pinned there, like a sick trophy. Not a second later, something small and metallic materializes into existence one plot over.
“A whistle appeared over there,” Ryuki reports.
“Clean it off.”
Ryuki does so, but nothing happens. An idea pops into Tama’s head.
“Try blowing it!”
Ryuki tilts his head quizzically. Nevertheless, he exhales on the outside of the whistle and tries to dust it off.
"No, no, no!" Tama complains. "Put your lips on the edge and blow. Real, slow."
“Why did you say it like that?”
“JUST DO IT, RYUKI!"
He sighs and blows the whistle. It doesn’t make a sound. All the same, a stink bug appears from the dirt the trinket previously occupied.
The voice this insect speaks with is soft and feminine, yet it has a garbled quality to it. Maybe Aiba’s remembering a phone call?
“Yes… yes…,” the bug says. “And the police are covering it all up, saying it was self-defense? This will certainly make front page news if it’s true. We’re going to need strong evidence though. Can you name names? Send over files? An anonymous tip doesn’t carry much weight these days…”
The stink bug rolls over. In the blink of an eye, it’s been vivisected.
“Tama,” Pewter shouts, “you have less than a minute! Hurry up and get out of there!”
Her eyes land on a half-buried coffee cup. “There’s still more left…”
Ryuki walks over to the mug and retrieves it from the dirt. “I’ll use the TIMIE here, so we can try one more action. What are you thinking?”
“Drink it.”
Ryuki makes a face but does it nonetheless. “Huh, it actually doesn’t taste like anything.” He looks inside the cup, but the dirt has been replaced with a cricket.
Its voice is robotic and eerie. “In female suicides, most women chose to poison themselves. Slip something into a drink, fake a note, and no one will bat an eye. Stop what you’re doing - while you still have that choice.”
She wants to see more, but Tama knows her limits. She shuts her eyes, calms her mind, and -
She wakes up in the psync room. Tama slowly rises from her chair and stretches. God, it feels so weird to be back.
Aiba is slightly slower to move, so Tama waits and they head into the control room together.
“Both of you feel alright?” Pewter asks. “No headaches, nausea, dizziness?”
Aiba nods. Tama flashes a thumbs-up.
Tama turns to Boss. “So,” she says, trying not to reveal her nervousness, “how’d I do?”
Boss smirks. “It’s hard to believe this was your first time. I knew you’d be a natural.”
Pewter looks flabbergasted. “That’s an understatement. It’s hard for most psyncers to intentionally dive into a deeper layer of the subconscious once already in their subject’s Somnium.”
“It is?” Tama asks. “Huh.”
Aiba raises an eyebrow at her subordinate. “How was it?”
“Trippy,” Tama admits. “I’m not sure what a lot of it means. Any chance you could help me decode anything?”
“The subject of the psync doesn’t experience the Somnium,” Aiba explains. “That said, I’d be happy to review the footage and discuss it with you at a later date.”
Something about Aiba’s tone makes Tama doubt her words. Which is odd, since Aiba’s always so forthright. But Tama has to trust her gut on this one. The fact Aiba quickly excuses herself certainly doesn’t help her offer come off as more sincere.
“What were all those voices about? Something about a cover-up and death-threats?”
“I don’t know either. I suppose only Aiba knows,” Ryuki mentally responds.
“So much for uncovering the hidden truth.”
Aloud, Tama declares, “Since I did a great job and therefore am not getting fired, can I clock out and enjoy the rest of my Saturday?” She grins hopefully.
“Not so fast,” Boss replies sternly. “I want a full report on your experience on my desk tomorrow morning. Treat this like you psynced into a suspect for a case, and really investigate what you’ve learned in Somnium and how that might lead to new angles and clues.”
Boss locks eyes with Pewter. “And we still have to discuss the tech side of things.”
Pewter steps forward and clears his throat. “Yes. As you put it earlier, Ryuki 'glitched' the Somnium. Being able to turn segments of the dream space back into raw data and exploiting them is not an ability he should possess.”
Tama can hear Ryuki gulp.
“However,” Pewter continues, “I analyzed the data and saw that it did no harm to you or Aiba, so I believe it safe to use.”
Tama lets out a breath she didn’t know she was holding. “Man, don’t scare me like that, Pewter,” she chides.
Pewter at least has the good sense to look somewhat abashed. Not very, but Tama’ll take what she can get.
“Furthermore, looking into the data you captured led to an insight into Ryuki’s other malfunctions. Specifically with his inability to send and receive ABIS-restricted data.” Pewter checks the nearby monitors to confirm something. “To grossly oversimplify, his connection drops dramatically as the proximity to our servers decreases. Unfortunately, knowing why doesn’t magically fix the issue, but manual uploads and downloads when he’s directly connected to our tech show no signs of corruption, so that’s one way we can ensure you follow protocol and upload all case recordings your AI-ball captures.”
“Cool,” Tama says. “Is that everything then?”
Boss sighs. “One last thing. Pewter and Aiba filled me in on the extent of problems you’ve been having with your AI-ball. It’d take a week, but we could get you a new one.”
Pewter splutters. “Boss, I said it’d take a month! And that was being conservative with my estimates!”
The woman in question ignores him. “One week,” she repeats. “And you’d have a partner with standard ABIS abilities. They’d be a new partner, a completely separate entity. But, having seen your capabilities today, it’d be understandable if you’d want to keep this one. It’s entirely your choice, Tama. I won’t fault you for either decision.”
“I’m good with Ryuki.” Tama replies without hesitation.
“Are you sure?” Pewter asks.
“One hundred percent.”
Boss smiles. “Alright. I’ll see you two tomorrow then. You’re free to go.”
Tama bids her superiors goodbye and exits the room. She walks down the hallway in utter silence - to be expected for a Saturday afternoon in a high security clearance section. The elevator comes not a moment after she presses the call button and she steps inside, taking a deep breath.
“I am so glad that’s over with,” she says. Tama puts her hands behind her head and leans against the metallic wall.
“You didn’t even consider Boss’ offer.” Ryuki’s voice is hushed.
“Why would I?” When Ryuki doesn’t answer, she insists, “Sure, I like to fool around, but I’m a one partner kind of woman.”
“... Thank you, Tama.”
Tama knows Ryuki and her still have a lot to learn about each other. But she also knows that she likes him, and he likes her back. In spite of everything, they make a good team. That’s enough for now. She’s not keeping him around out of guilt or embarrassment - Tama honestly can’t see herself working with anyone else. So what if he’s a little buggy? She’ll find work-arounds for whatever problems arise, just like how he’ll keep her on task and remind her of just how capable she is when she's not at her best.
“It’s gonna take more than that to get rid of me. We’re stuck together, Ryuki, whether you like it or not.”