Maya Sundaresh picked an iridescent flower from a well-manicured flowerbed on a mossy lawn outside a cobblestone cottage. She hardly noticed the slight, unrealistic gloss of the petals or the brief digitized hitch that acknowledged the flower's removal. Nearly perfect.

The VexNet was accepting their code inputs. Chioma was right: they could, in fact, build a life here that consisted of more than neon blocks and dissecting minds.

Maya thought back to a year prior, if time meant anything anymore, when they were still lost, searching for other iterated copies of themselves. If Chioma had not convinced her to stop, to stay, to cease obsessively pushing forward to find… an end she could not define—

She saw what became of the other Mayas who could not let go of that drive.

But now, under Chioma's direction, they would build a haven. A safe stopping point for anyone traveling the VexNet to rest and gain their bearings. She hoped one day they would reach outside and bridge the divide between this reality and her old one. But that world had never truly suited her—she found its lack of objectivity exhausting. It was quiet, and over time they'd learned how to manipulate the network for their own purposes. So long as their changes weren't too large, or too disruptive, the Vex let them be. Perhaps their meddling had made the Vex curious enough to study them and see what they would do. At any rate, this had slowly become a life Maya felt aligned with. She was happy to pick her flowers and study the embedded law of code within the network that studied her.

"Maya! Come quickly, I found something!" Chioma's voice sprang up over the radio.

"What did you find?"

"You wouldn't want me to spoil the surprise, would you?"

Maya rolled her eyes but smiled. "No. I wouldn't," she said under her breath, shifting dense brush aside as she stepped out into a simulated forest to make her way to Chioma's voice.

Chioma, mouth wide in wonder, knelt over a wrecked Goblin frame, its shimmering radiolaria gurgling from containment vessels and split tubes. An Arc discharge had heavily damaged it, and the radiolaria sizzled as it welded circuits and plates back into working order.

"It worked!" Maya nearly tripped over her feet as she rushed to kneel by Chioma's side.

"Do you see how—"

Maya nods. "It's repairing itself—"

Chioma swatted at Maya's hand, too close to radiolaria. "And the micro—"

Maya side-eyed her wife, but continued. "Individual pluripotent organisms, specializing and homogenizing as needed, like—"

"They're learning, unlearning. Uploading, deleting—"

Maya grabbed Chioma's thigh. "Treating digital and physical matter synonymously. How?"

"We're digitized flesh, so if they can… we could change… like we changed this place, theoretically."

Maya looked to Chioma with pride.

"My… You." She met Chioma's eyes she looked up to Maya from the twitching frame. "Brilliant."

"See what happens when you listen to me?" Chioma kissed her, an excited peck, and then drew back.

"Things improve." Maya smirked. "Now we have our radiolaria sample. What would I do without you?"

"Spiral," Chioma said, pursing her lips to contain another grinning smile as she harvested the radiolaria. "Now we follow your plan, Maya."

"Yes… with radiolaria, we can bend the network even more. This place will be a beacon for all of us who find themselves lost." Maya grabbed Chioma's hand, brushing dirt from her knuckles. "Thank you, for stopping me. For making me stay. I don't think I ever said those words."

"You never had to." Chioma stood, still holding Maya's hand. "Come, one last surprise. See the sunrise I made you."

******

The Conductor looms over a shredded Exo Chioma frame. Dead, and inoperable. A ragged face hangs by synthesized threads of skin from a metallic cranium. She coaxes the faceplates from the Exo's head with a wave of her hand, and then gently lifts a scalpel from the operating table.

This one is damaged beyond what a standard reinitialization can handle. Repairs are required. The Conductor's metallic hand draws the scalpel across Chioma's prosthetic flesh. She drags the skin back from the abdomen and applies a clamp.

She trades the scalpel for a syringe and injects radiolaria into the dormant core and cerebrum. The new radiolaria splinters out in every direction. Dormant radiolaria within begins repairing the frame again as she operates. "See how it assimilates the dormant microbes? Isn't it fascinating?"

She thinks.

"Who made this for you? Certainly not mine." The Conductor thinks, rubbing the skin between her fingers and assessing damage to the Exo Chioma. "Still, fine work. A fine specimen."

Chioma's eyes snap open. She tries to wrench her restrained head down to look at the searing pain in her open, metal stomach. She tries to scream, but produces no sound.

"Get it all out. When you're done, I have some questions."