She went and laid on the couch while he went to the kitchen. He filled the sleek, brand new coffee maker with filtered water, his hands perfectly steady, and slotted a small, silver capsule into its chamber. A soft hiss echoed in the quiet room before a dark, steaming liquid pooled in a clean mug.

Alyna watched him from the couch, her arms wrapped around her knees. The raw, visceral fear from the night before had receded, leaving an intense, poignant curiosity. She was studying him, not as a monster, but as a beloved, heartbreakingly complex piece of machinery she was determined to understand. Every silent movement, every detached gesture, was a new line of code in the complex program that was now Ray.

The rich, dark aroma of coffee soon filled the small apartment. He brought the steaming mug to his lips, taking a slow sip.

A message appeared in Alyna's vision, a private ping from Ray's interface. He didn't want to risk waking his mom..

Ray: It's ready. Want a cup?

Alyna: Can you still taste it?

Ray lowered the mug, his gaze distant.

Ray: I can taste it. Yes. But it's not the same. The nanites identify the volatile organic and synthetic compounds, the acidity, the temperature, the precise chemical profile. They cross-reference it with my old memories. I know, intellectually, that this is a "rich, dark roast." But the pleasure of it… that's a phantom sensation.

He met her eyes across the room through the interface.

Alyna: Then why drink it?

He looked at the mug in his hands, at the steam rising in the morning light, a small, sad smile touching his lips. Because it's what people do and because I know you like the smell.

A wave of warmth and sorrow washed over Alyna. He was performing humanity for her. He moved toward her then, his footsteps silent on the clean floor, and sat on the couch beside her, offering her the steaming mug. She took it, her fingers brushing against his. His skin, a perfect simulation, felt warm, but she knew now that it was a clever deception.

She brought the cup to her own lips, the heat a sharp, pleasant sting. Ray had drunk from it as if it were nothing, but for her, a creature of flesh and blood, it was still too hot.

Another small, invisible chasm between them.

She looked at him over the rim of the mug, at the ghost of the boy she had fallen in love with. She took a slow sip of the coffee, then placed the mug carefully on the low table.

"It doesn't matter," she whispered, her hand coming up to touch his face again, her touch even more certain this time. She leaned in and kissed him. It was a statement of radical acceptance, a choice to bridge the terrifying chasm between them.

For Ray, there was no rush of blood, no surge of physical arousal. Instead, his senses were flooded with a universe of pure, unfiltered data. He was just feeling her, but at the same time he was cataloging her.

Archiving the reality of her presence with perfect fidelity in his memory.

When she finally pulled back, her sapphire eyes were shining, with fear no more, but with a new, intense light. "Can you... can you feel them?" she asked, her voice a hushed whisper. "The nanites. Individually? What protocol do they run on? Do they draw matter from the environment?"

"I don't know," he admitted. "The knowledge of what I can do is just there. I don't understand the 'how' of it yet. It's like having root access to a system without the source code." He glanced across the room, at a broken datapad lying on a shelf. "But maybe we can find out together."

He stood and retrieved the dead device, holding it out on his palm as he sat beside her again. Alyna leaned forward, her fear completely gone, replaced by the breathless and focused awe of a scientist about to witness a miracle.

Ray focused his will. She watched, transfixed, as a web of shimmering, white light flowed from his hand, enveloping the broken device.

The shattered screen seemed to melt, the cracks healing, flowing back together until the surface was a single, flawless sheet of dark glass.

The screen flickered to life, its boot-up sequence running at an impossible speed. The manufacturer's logo glowed, bright and crisp. It was perfect.

Alyna exhaled slowly. Her fingers traced the edge of the repaired datapad, her touch reverent.

"Ray..." she whispered. "This is incredible."

He looked at her, at the genuine, brilliant excitement in her eyes. "You don't have to force yourself to be okay with this, Alyna," he said gently. "It's okay to be scared."

She shook her head, a real, bright smile finally breaking through. "I'm not scared," she said, her voice firm. "Not anymore. Because you're still Ray. You're just... the most advanced, most interesting piece of technology I've ever encountered." She looked from the datapad to him, her eyes shining. In that moment, his terrifying condition became something else entirely. It became a shared project. A mystery for them to solve, together.

Her gaze moved to Nox, her beast of a computer. Sitting on the coffee table, the monolith of obsidian was basking in the morning rays that sliced through the blinds. Ray caught her gaze and the unspoken question within it.

"Are you sure?" Ray asked, his voice low.

"I'm sure," she replied, her confidence absolute.

Ray raised his hand and placed it on the computer's cool, matte surface. The nanites flowed from his palm into the computer's internal systems. He felt his consciousness sink through every component, every processor, every circuit. Analyzing. Understanding. Military-grade processing core, liquid cooling, its own dedicated highly encrypted comms channel. The machine was indeed a monster.

"How did you get the money for this?" Ray asked. "This must have cost a fortune."

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Alyna showed him a confident smirk. "Did some debugging for a friend and bagged some favors." She was a netstrider, and a very good one at that. Which reminded him.

"Do you mind if I dive using Nox?" Ray asked.

Alyna glanced at his hand. "You don't need a NexPort?" she asked, puzzled.

"No. The nanites let me do it without one. But…" His voice trailed off as he glanced at his old, 'battered' laptop standing right next to Nox. "Last time I tried, I used my laptop. It worked for a second or two before the whole thing short-circuited."

"I'm surprised it let you dive in the first place without exploding," she said with a laugh. "Don't worry about Nox." She glanced at the old datapad he had fixed for her. "Even if you do manage to break her, I'm sure you can fix her back up again." She stood from the couch. "Better take Nox to our room and let you enjoy the ride."

Ray nodded, and as Alyna unplugged the machine from the wall socket, he carefully lifted the heavy tower. They moved it to their room, placing it right next to an outlet. Ray sat down, leaning his back against the wall, and placed his hand over the computer once more.

"Have fun," Alyna said with a warm, encouraging smile.

"Thanks. I will," Ray responded.

She took a step back, walked to the door, and slipped out, closing it softly behind her. Ray's gaze lingered on the door for a few moments before he closed his eyes and let himself dive.

The walls of his room dissolved into a screaming cascade of static. For a moment, Ray wasn't in his room anymore—he was inside something else, a disorienting, collapsing dataspace made of half-formed code and fracturing geometry. But unlike last time, the connection didn't snap. Bolstered by Nox's immense power, it held firm.

Data cascaded around him like millions of small, multi-colored bricks, forming shapes, patterns, and movement. The chaotic static resolved, and he found himself not in his apartment anymore, but standing on a skyscraper's rooftop, looking out over a digital city that pulsed with life. This place was even more active than Virelia in the physical world. Holographic ads for virtual goods and illegal software flowed across the sky in shimmering rivers of light. The buildings around him were familiar yet different, their color schemes and textures shifting constantly. He could see other netstriders, their avatars walking along the streets below, flying between buildings, or simply phasing through walls.

He looked down at his own hands and body. He looked vaguely human-shaped but was composed of a shimmering, shifting mass of tiny, silvery-black cubes.

This isn't an avatar, Ray realized. This is my raw nanite form, rendered in the Net.

His mother had told him about diving, and he'd even done it a few times with her back when she still had mods, but this was entirely new. He felt… more connected. The line between his thoughts and the digital world felt thinner. More permeable.

He opened his interface. A dark blue window filled with menus written in clean, white text appeared before him. He navigated to the public avatar selection. He needed a disguise, so he scrolled through the options, the free ones:

The Corporate Citizen:

A bland, generic avatar in a grey business suit with a small, pixelated logo of a smiling globe on the lapel. Soulless and forgettable.

The Glitch:

A popular choice for retro enthusiasts. A pixelated, low-resolution figure that intentionally lagged and stuttered as it moved.

The Stickman:

An open-source, minimalist design. A simple, black-and-white stick figure with no defining features. Perfect for blending in.

He chose the stickman. The silvery cubes of his body shifted and flowed, reconfiguring themselves into the simple, two-dimensional appearance of his chosen avatar. He walked to the edge of the roof and leaped off. There was no impact as he landed silently on the street below.

The digital world unfolded around him, a mesmerizing city of pure data. He walked through streets of shimmering light, past towers built from cascading code. Some sectors were brightly lit, likely controlled territories of powerful netstriders. Others were dark, lawless voids.

Something moved in the corner of his vision. He turned and saw it: a human-sized teddy bear holding a gleaming katana.

"Give me everything you have," the teddy bear said, its voice a synthesized, cutesy growl.

"Don't want to," Ray replied, his tone flat.

"Really? You got some balls to say that to me, Ursa Major, the Cyber-Shogun."

Ray wasn't sure if the netstrider was a serious threat or just a troll, but he found out soon enough. The bear sprinted toward him, his katana raised. To Ray, its movements seemed to be in slow motion.

My nervous system, even in here, is faster than a normal human's, he thought as he sidestepped another clumsy swing. After a few seconds, he grew tired of the game. On the next swing, he didn't dodge. Instead he grabbed the katana.

He felt a sharp sting like sensation as the blade made contact. The strange, alien letters, that didn't look like any alphabet he knew, flooded his vision as his nanites reacted, engulfing the katana program. The teddy bear, recognizing a catastrophic error, let go of its weapon and started to run in panic.

Ray stood motionless, processing what had just happened. His system had detected an unknown threat, adapted, and consumed it, just like the pickshard hack on the maglev. The katana program had been added to his memory. His right arm shifted, and he was now holding the gleaming blade and understanding it. It wasn't a real sword; it was a physical manifestation of a program designed to pierce a system's defenses. It wasn't very sophisticated, not very strong. The bear had likely attacked him assuming he was a noob, an easy source of a few credits.

He dismissed the katana. It dissolved into sparkling cubes of light that retracted into his body, then he started walking again.

The "Glitching Pixie" was a dive bar tucked away in an unindexed sector of the Net. The place had been coded a long time ago; its original code had been corrupted by the passage of time. The walls would occasionally dissolve into waterfalls of static, and the drinks on the table would change flavor and color with every server refresh. It was a chaotic but reliable safe house, a refuge for netstriders who valued privacy over stability.

It was here that Ursa Major, the Cyber-Shogun, burst through the door. He stumbled to a table where his friends were gathered, his synthesized voice a high-pitched squeal of panic.

"He took it! He just… he took it!"

A netstrider with the avatar of a sleek, nine-tailed fox looked up from her drink, her expression one of bored amusement. "Let me guess," she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "You tried to shake down a piece of junk code and it called your bluff. Was it the dancing security guard again?"

"My katana!" he wailed, collapsing into a chair. "My Tatsu-Tearer 7.0! It's gone!"

A hulking frog in a pinstripe suit grunted, adjusting his tie. "Absorbed it? That's not how it works, Major. Code doesn't just get 'eaten.' You probably just suffered a cascade failure from running that shoddy overclock you downloaded last week. Check your error logs."

"This is different!" Ursa Major insisted, pointing a trembling, paw-like hand at his own chest. The others scoffed and rolled their eyes, but he slammed his hand on the table. "Look!" He opened his program inventory for all to see.

The table went silent. The amusement vanished. Where the intricate, high-level icon for his prized katana program should have been, there was just a gaping, empty slot. The code around its edges fizzed and sparked with corruption, like a fresh, digital wound.

A netstrider with the avatar of a perpetually anxious-looking white rabbit shuddered, his ears drooping. "A program-eater," he whispered, his voice trembling. "I've heard stories… net-ghosts that devour data, leaving nothing but corrupted files behind. I thought they were just horror stories to scare noobs."

"It's no horror story," a new voice rumbled, deep and authoritative.

The leader of their crew, a massive black bear avatar in a surprisingly tasteful noir-style trench coat, leaned forward from the shadows of the booth. He had been listening silently, his calm gaze fixed on the frantic energy of his friend.

"This is new," the bear said, his voice a low growl. "Someone who can absorb code directly, without a breach protocol or a cascade failure." He looked at each member of his crew, the "Zoo Squad," as they were known in the underground. "This isn't just about getting Major's program back. This is about understanding the threat. We need to know who this 'stickman' is."

Ursa Major looked up, his eyes wide with a desperate hope. "So you'll help me?"

The bear nodded slowly. "We'll help you," he confirmed, his voice leaving no room for argument. "Find him. And see what kind of monster we're dealing with."

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