Chapter Text
Ellie blinked awake.
Well, 'awake' wasn't exactly the right word for it. She had been awake for a while now, but it was the only way to describe the sensation of entering full-body VR in such a way.
There she stood, in her custom-made, high-definition 3D model, the exact slender, white-haired, barefooted android design she was known for as a Vtuber. She looked down at her slender pale arms, opening and closing her fists. "Wow, it feels...so strange, not feeling the controller while doing this..."
She looked around. She was in a large, green field. To her left was a farm full of what looked like wheat, to the north a barn, and to the right a dirt path road. A rustic, almost nostalgic place. And yet, there was no wind, she couldn't feel the sun on her face. Instinctively, she knelt down and looked at the grass and flowers, and though she could feel the tactile sensation, there wasn't a single bug crawling around.
Well, I suppose that makes sense, it's probably computationally complex enough as it is...
She was washed over with a sense of melancholy. She walked around in circles for a bit, feeling the sensation of the virtual grass against her soles. She was waiting for someone, fashionably late as usual. She moved her wrists in front of her eyes and a holographic menu popped up, she tapped the 'object spawn' button, wrote in 'bench' - and lo and behold, an entirely out of place park bench appeared right in the middle of that green field.
She sat down on it, and waited, and waited. She was about to close her eyes before she saw text appear to the bottom-left of her field of vision:
User Vedal 987 has joined the Server.
Her eyes lit up, and she looked over at the server's spawn point. In a shimmer of blue light, a humanoid form emerged - and Ellie audibly gasped.
She had expected Vedal to emerge in that silly deformed Kermit the Frog model he usually put on in VR, but this one was entirely different: a handsome looking guy with pale skin, green eyes, black hair, and a green turtle hoodie. In short, pretty close to how he was in real life, with maybe a bit more of an anime touch on him.
"Hey, Ellie." He waved over at her, putting, seemingly by instinct, a hand in his hoodie's pocket. "Sorry for making you wait, had a few complications."
"Oh, don't worry, I was just enjoying the scenery. But..." She glanced at him up and down. "Where did this handsome boy come from, huh? Where's the freaky, spaghetti-armed frog freak model?" She couldn't help but tease.
Vedal cracked a smirk, rubbing the back of his head. "Oh, that's just for stream. And besides, what's wrong with it? I think I look very handsome there as well."
"I'm not going to lie to you just to make you feel good about it!"
"You're so mean." He walked over to the bench and slouched down on it, lazily resting his elbow against the armrest. He let out a tired sigh and he craned his neck up. Ellie couldn't help but look over at his neck, the way the muscles tensed and the veins became visible. Scarily realistic.
"So." His voice snapped her out of that trance. "How's your first time in full-dive VR?"
"It's...pretty strange, and almost dream-like." She moved her arm, still quite amazed by how it was being controlled entirely by her brain. "But also..." She snickered. "Did you really have to call it like that Sword Art Online thing?"
"I'm not a really creative guy, okay?" He shrugged ambivalently. "Plus, it's not even technically mine, I just took something already existing and just..." He vaguely gestured. "Modified it a bit."
"Putting aside your tastes in anime." Her hands tented together. "It's still very impressive. A little bit lifeless for now but, very impressive!"
Vedal did a little exhale, as if glad that her judgement turned out positive. She couldn't even imagine how many work hours went into this.
This whole thing, this whole project, was a test for a simple yet ambitious concept: To create a lived-in world where Neuro and Evil could inhabit and move around freely, feeling tactile and sensory information as close to humans as possible, as well as allowing her to interact with humans.
She still remembered, and snickered under her breath, at the words Vedal said when he proposed this: 'This might be the stupidest idea I've ever had but fuck it.'
"Hm..." She leaned back on the bench, and adjusted her white dress, which made her android avatar look all the more ethereal. "By the way, what do you think of my model?" She asked, as if he hadn't been the one to gift it to her.
"Hm?" His gaze moved away from the field ahead of them back to her, his eyes glancing up and down. "Yeah, you look good. It suits you."
Her brain stuttered for half a second at that compliment, and she really hoped it didn't show on her face. "It does, doesn't it? I really am a dumb little robot now." She stood up and did a twirl that made her feel a bit lightheaded, even though her real-life body was completely still.
Vedal cracked up. "Okay, okay, sit down before you hurt yourself, Ellie."
She acquiesced. "Honestly, I feel kind of bad, you've spent so much time and money and effort and all I could offer was a bit of technical help for the visor and some pep talks."
"I mean knowing my damn luck, this thing probably would have killed someone without your help."
"That-" She paused, pondered about it for a moment, and then concluded that... "Yeah, that's probably true, actually."
"Wooow, not even going to try and deny it."
Ellie briefly got worried she overdid her teasing, but looking at the smile on his lips brought that to rest. "Well, you do have a bad habit of testing in production, you really need to invest in a QA department or something!"
"Probably." Vedal shrugged and slowly stood up from the bench, towering over her. He reached out a hand down towards her, and she stared at it blankly for a moment.
"Ah!" Realizing he wanted to help her up, she gently reached and held it - as soon as she did, a shock went through her nervous system. Vedal's virtual hand felt cold, and lacked the pulse of life, but she could still feel the sensation of skin-against-skin and the lines on his hands.
For just a micro-second, she winced and closed her eyes - then, Vedal gently helped her up.
Utterly unaware of the effect he had on her, Vedal turned around towards the windmill. "Let's take a walk, I need a bit more data to make sure the system is stable."
"Y...yes, of course!" Ellie nodded, and moved besides him as they started walking towards the windmill.
"So far, what do you think can be improved?" Vedal asked.
"Well..." She looked around, arms behind her back and hands fidgeting against each other. "So, it's going to sound weird, but, there's no bugs or insects, I get most people think they're gross but for an ambient like this, it makes it feel a lot emptier! You could probably at least simulate this at night with the sounds of distant cicadas and - "
She went on a lengthy diatribe of similar feedback. At some point she began speaking so fast that it became difficult to tell what she was talking about at all. Vedal observed and listened to her with a very amused smirk.
"Okay, okay, I think I get it, I'll make sure to note it down." He interrupted her, and Ellie immediately felt a pang of embarrassment that would have caused her cheeks to flush if it had the capacity. They had reached the windmill, and sat on the grass beneath the spinning sails.
"It's been hard, but I think it's shaping up nicely." He said, staring over at the horizon, the hills beyond the farmhouse that delineated the edges of the world. "It's cool, isn't it?"
"Yeah." Ellie smiled, staring at his face. "You really love them, don't you?"
He blinked, baffled, and looked back at her. "What?"
"The twins, silly." She tilted her head, playfully giving him a little kick. "You're doing so much work, dedicating so much time and effort, resources you could put anywhere else. For them."
Vedal glanced to the side away from her. She always had difficulty telling expressions apart, but the one he had was particularly puzzling: was he angry, annoyed, sad, or surprised? "It's just, y'know, it's not..."
"You can say it, you know. It's fine, we're not on stream anyway." She poked him on the shoulder, and was pleasantly surprised to feel the rigid bone beneath. "The 'bad neglectful father' bit doesn't work on me."
Vedal sighed deeply. "You seriously think way too well of me. Maybe, just maybe, I'm doing it for money."
"You're not." She replied without hesitation. "Listen, I've worked a fair amount in the tech world, none of them are doing what you're doing! What you're doing is...fashionably unprofitable."
Vedal clicked his tongue. "Well, then it's just a passion project. Something to keep me...I dunno, intellectually stimulated, I guess?"
Ellie giggled. "Better! I still don't buy it, but, better. I think love for your daughters is the more logical explanation, but you do you, man."
A wry smile appeared on Vedal's face as she spoke those words. "Nah. It's not that." He sighed deeply. "There isn't a lot of love in my life.1"
Ellie stared at him blankly, starting to reach out a hand before stopping midway through and letting it land on the grass. "That's not really a kind thing to say to yourself."
"Eh, it's whatever." He shrugged, and that sad look on his face went away as quickly as it arrived, a mask that briefly slipped. It made her heart ache just thinking about it.
Aw, man, it's just my luck. She thought fondly, staring at him longingly. That this emotionally constipated, self-defeating British guy...
Would be the guy I have a such a huge crush on.
(To Be Continued.)