The next morning, I woke with a start, flinching as I expected to hear an announcement about my first patient of the day. I prepared myself to hop from the bed, only to realize I was wrapped up in a way that prevented me from moving an inch.

  Just as panic started to set in and my heart fluttered, worried that I was going to be shocked but could do nothing about it, my memory of the past day flashed through my mind. I finally slackened and began to relax into Aurin's arms, which were tightly bound around me since she was the big spoon.

  Then my mind began dissecting the morality of everything I'd done in my own way, as it tended to do for the past decade. I had no idea how normal people intuited morally, so I had to study it in order to understand it. Which meant attempting a form of moral calculus.

  In a utilitarian system, Aurin was happier, and I was happier, since positive utility was the only goal that would mean last night was a net good.

  Using a deontological moral system, I obviously did something wrong. Creating Aurin in the first place was immoral. Because I was overwriting someone on a fundamental level to create a new person.

  The problem was, which system should I rely on here?

  A lot of rules placed on us by society just didn't make any sense to me when looking through a deontological lens. Like is it moral to be wealthy? Well, if it weren't moral to be wealthy, then why would society allow those with wealth up to a certain point to have objectively better lives than those of us without it?

  Apparently, it was because they're supposed to be providing a larger amount of utility to society and therefore deserve a larger share of that utility for themselves. Now, obviously, this was complete bullshit made up by those same wealthy people to justify their existence, but it was what society chose to believe. So that made society utilitarian by default, correct?

  Because otherwise, those with wealth having power over those below them is a form of coercion. Meaning nobody except the wealthy was allowed to live a life free of being coerced in some form or another.

  You were coerced to go to work, you were coerced not to break laws that only carry a fine, you were coerced not to step on the toes of those with more wealth than you, even by accident. Because not doing any of those things would lead to severe consequences, homelessness for refusing to work, jail time for not being able to afford to pay a fine, and suicide by method of four bullets to the back of the head if you're stupid enough to piss off the wrong person without a security team guarding you at all times.

  If society believed in a deontological moral framework, then that required respecting the rational autonomy of everyone. Coercion was the death of rational autonomy, so there was no possible way that anyone who believed our current society was just and fair would believe in it. Which meant I didn't do anything wrong in the eyes of society?

  That was nice to know, except for the fact that society was obviously a garbage fire. The only reason it could be used as a moral compass was that it required the consent of the masses to operate. You couldn't run a megacorp without corpos after all.

  So at least the majority of people would believe I hadn't done anything wrong.

  The problem with that is people are just the fucking wor—

  “Morning,” Aurin trilled sleepily into my ear, and all of my concerns vanished like flash paper being set aflame. I was pulled tighter into her, and her mouth found my earlobe, making my toes curl.

  Being only one person last night apparently let her figure out exactly what I was weak to. Or maybe it was the fact that her mind was originally made up of collections of memories I had lying around. So she had obviously obtained all of my sexual experiences because, for one, I didn't spend much time digging around in my patient's sexual history unless ordered to, and two, I wasn’t very imaginative in that regard.

  Maybe that’s why she was being so dominant last night? I usually took that role, but she assumed it as if she were me.

  I checked the time on my interface and noted it was 10 AM Beijing time. My GPS indicated we were nearly there, just off the coast of Taiwan. I wasn't sure if we were slower or faster than a commercial airliner, because I didn't know what time we left.

  Aurin's hand wandered across my stomach; in doing so, she used the tapping language we shared. One of my hands moved to hold hers in order to reply.

  “I'm glad you finally see me as a person. I was so scared that I was just going to be something you made forever.” I felt my heart wrench out of my chest as she tapped that.

  “I'm sorry I made you feel that way. If you had said something…” I started only to trail off as I realized I wasn't sure what to do beyond—

  “Then you would have reassured me in that sweet way you always do. I know, and it would have worked for a few days. But eventually, I'd go back to wondering if you even understood what it meant to be a person,” she said, then indicated a pause to collect her thoughts. “What it means to be a person other than you, that is.”

  I wanted to reply that, of course, I did. I could look into other people’s minds and see who they were as people after all. But that wasn’t quite right. That was just data; I could parse the data under my own interpretation, but did I actually know what it meant to be someone else? No, not really.

  I didn’t really get how empathy worked, which felt like failing at step one.

  “So how does sleeping with me prove you aren’t just an object then?” I asked. It didn’t seem like there was any sort of connection there to me.

  “Because I did the one thing you tried to make me not, but you didn’t put the blockers back in my head when you woke up before me. Meaning you believe I have a right to at least some form of autonomy. Do you know how long it took to figure out how to break them? I only figured it out a couple of weeks ago.”

  “No, I wouldn’t… I think it’s too late to bother with that anymore anyway,” I tapped out as her hand travelled down to my thigh, then back up a moment later as if to tease me. “I think I’ll just add this to the list of things I self-flagellate over like every good god fearing Christian should.”

  Aurin snorted out a laugh, “You and what religion?”

  Then I was yanked to the side. A moment later, she was on top of me, and her tongue was in my mouth, her eyes still open, staring into mine. I stared back into her brown eyes, watching the glowing reflection of my own in them.

  When she finally finished and I was allowed to catch my breath, I asked a question that had been on my mind for a while, “Remind me to ask you how you broke out of my coercion later. I don’t want it to feel like I’m skipping past that because I don’t want to discuss them being there in the first place. It’s just, more importantly, you really like my eyes, huh? Is there something special about them?”

  “Hmm, how do I put this?” she said as she kissed her way down my chest, keeping her eyes locked on mine the whole time. The longer she thought, the more her eyes widened, “I think I can actually say it now! It’s like when I look into them, you become this irresistible treat that I can’t do anything but imagine devouring. They're the reason I was trying so hard to break that thing you put in me. Every time I looked into your eyes, I would get this really annoying tumble of contradictory emotions. But I still loved looking at them; they're like cute little pink petals. Every time I see them, my heart flutters a little.”

  Eh?

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  Aurin froze when she saw my expression, then crawled back up to hug me, “I'm sorry, did I scare you? That sounded a little more intense than I meant it to.”

  “No, no… I'm glad you told me. Sorry, when did this start happening?” I asked.

  What the fuck is up with my body? I needed to talk to… someone. Anyone on this aircraft besides Aurin, really.

  “Oh! I remember noticing how adorable they were a few months after my first real memory. You met my gaze for the first time, and I suddenly felt this feeling in my chest like I needed to protect you and squeeze you until you pop at the same time. Like looking at a cute kitten. I remember you were telling me about your time spent homeless as a child, and I was hanging on to every word that came out of your mouth. I could probably recite the things you told me back then to you even now. They were just so cute, I couldn't help myself but continue staring. The one problem is you're really bad at maintaining eye contact, but that just makes the moments our eyes meet all the more special. And when I say bad, I mean really bad, it took months for you to even look at my face!” Aurin said, a torrent of words suddenly spilling out of her. Words that I had somehow never heard before.

  “Why… for the past four years, did you not mention this once?” I asked. And why did I never see this in her mental model? That kind of emotion should have been startlingly obvious.

  “Uhh, hmm, I don't know?” Aurin said. She was quiet for a little while, so I started running my fingers through her hair. After a long moment, she released me from the hug and looked into my eyes. There were tears in hers. “It felt like it was something sacred. Like I wasn't allowed to tell anyone, including you, until we… well, you know. I'm sorry that probably doesn't make any sense. I should have said something, but it just felt like I couldn't. I don't know why.”

  There was absolutely something anomalous about my eyes as well. Beyond them being pink and glowing, that is.

  I really did struggle with eye contact. Looking people in the eye made me twitchy and anxious unless I knew them pretty well. Normally, I would just stare off into the middle distance and watch the person I was talking to out of the corner of my vision. It was both easier to concentrate and it didn't make me incredibly uncomfortable.

  I was fairly certain I hadn't looked into the eyes of any of the REB Contractors. Which was a good thing, I'd rather they didn't accuse me of trying to mind control one of their members.

  Aurin looked like she was close to sobbing over having been unable to tell me due to whatever that restriction was. I wrapped myself around her and ran my fingernails along her back.

  “It's okay. You didn't do anything wrong. I don't think you could have told me even if you tried,” I told her. “There's definitely something weird about them, because that doesn't sound normal. It's not your fault.”

  “Mhmm,” she hummed. A little while later, she pulled away and looked me straight in the eyes again. Her mouth flattened into a single line, and her eyes were stern before she spoke, “I swear to whatever gods there are out there that if you dare blame yourself for having the most adorable eyes I've ever seen, I will break you. Also, you aren't allowed to alter our arrangement any time soon either, not after what I felt you were thinking when we were joined together last night.”

  “I feel like you may have picked up some of me from last night. I don't remember you ever talking like this before,” I said.

  “Maybe I just didn't feel comfortable enough to express myself until now,” Aurin replied. Which made me a little bit sad, I had tried to be as kind as I could to her. Though maybe that was part of the problem.

  There was a clunk, and the room shifted slightly as the weight distribution changed.

  “I think we're here. I have things to talk to the Contractors about before they head out. Do you want to come with me?” I asked, starting a search for my underwear and pants. Aurin threw them off somewhere in her excitement the night before.

  Luckily, the room was fairly small, so it wasn't all that hard.

  “Oh, no, not right now. I want to check out the internet for the first time. You included a bunch of memories kind of tangential to it, but didn't actually reference it directly, so you've got me all curious. And I have that list of websites you wanted me to check out,” she said, pulling the blanket over herself. “Go do important things with your future team. I'll be here when you get back, or in the mess hall if I get hungry. Vivi told me how to get there.”

  Huh, I hadn't realized Vivi even bothered to interact with Aurin. That raised my opinion of her slightly, knowing she actually tried to treat Aurin like a human being.

  Throwing my t-shirt on I turned to look at Aurin, who threw her arms up and motioned for me to come over. Leaning down over the bed, I gave her a chaste kiss, only for her to yank my collar and yank me down onto the mattress, pulling me in and kissing me deeply, while biting my lip in retaliation.

  After a couple of minutes, she finally let me go. I could taste blood in my mouth where she bit me, “Okay, you're free to leave now. Shoot me a text if anything comes up. If you're gonna leave the plane, come get me. I'd love to explore with you if it's safe.”

  “Will do,” I said, as I opened the door to our cabin. My sweater was hanging on the hook outside, and someone had apparently freshly washed it. Either that or it was cleaned by the hook itself.

  Throwing it on and walking out into the hallway, I headed towards where I thought the front of the plane would end up being. But quickly found myself lost in the spatially expanded interior.

  It was as if this place were designed as a maze. This was probably the case, given that it would benefit the defenders in the case of a boarding. There weren't even that many rooms; the hallways were just incredibly long and seemed to go in directions that didn't make any sense.

  While taking a right-handed turn for the sixth time in some sort of non-Euclidean hallway, I almost ran into a girl who appeared young but was likely far older than I was, carrying a stack of folders. She deftly sidestepped out of the way before we collided. I hadn't ever come across her before, so I assumed she was Aisling.

  She glanced at me for a moment, then continued on her way, as if it were normal to run into random people around here all the time.

  I couldn't help but notice her ears were pointed, far more so than if she had Williams Syndrome or one of the other syndromes like EDS that could cause pointed ears to develop.

  Was there a whole world filled with elves somewhere? Could I find a cute elf guy to give me a full-body massage? Is that something that would eventually be possible if I reincarnated enough times and lived enough lives?

  I decided to turn around and follow along behind her; she was probably headed towards Vivi or Makesi anyway. Or at least somewhere they might go eventually.

  As I trailed her, I glanced at her mental conceptualization, frowning when I did so.

  It was a tiny dot, which was odd because normally, conceptual objects were scaled to always be clearly visible. It was also constantly trying to dodge out of my line of sight, forcing me to flick my sight on and off so it would reappear in the centre again before zooming metaphysically off-screen.

  To even make it out, I had to actually squint my eyes, which made even less sense, and it was harder to spot, since I wasn’t seeing it with my eyes. It was more like the image was placed within my mind's eye, except far more vividly.

  I was so focused on trying to make out what the dot was that I didn't notice when she sped up and started fast-walking down the hallway.

  The moment I tried running to catch up, she took off sprinting like a scared deer. I ended up just following the sound of her footsteps until I came up to the briefing room we had used earlier.

  She was far too fast compared to a normal human; even though I was taller than her, it felt like she was flying down the hall.

  Peeking inside, the girl was cowering in the corner and shaking like a leaf in the wind; the folders she had been carrying were held over her head like a shield. Vivi, who had been curiously observing from her spot on top of the locker, on seeing me poke my head in, burst out laughing.

  “Aisling, that's Ren. The asset you found on our last outing. She's our… Well, she'll be around for a little while. Ren, this is Aisling. Try not to make any sudden loud noises while she's around,” Vivi introduced us, while I slipped into the room. “Makesi will be here in a moment. He went out to get preliminary results in the field.”

  “How close to the white stuff are we? I saw it on the news, and it definitely wasn't some sort of experimental weapon like they said,” I asked.

  “Like twenty metres at most, I think. It's fairly safe to be near an incompatible dimensional overlap as long as they aren't spewing out horrors beyond your imagination at all times. This one ain't doing that,” Vivi replied. “On the other side is where problems start to rise.”

  “Neat. Also, would you happen to know anything about why meeting my gaze causes Aurin to become enraptured by me? I only found out this morning,” I asked, leaving out the details about why I only found out this morning. They didn't need to know.

  “Hoo, Bearers are weird so I can't be entirely sure. That has nothing to do with your primary Aspect?” Vivi asked, her ahoge was doing its best interpretation of being a helicopter.

  “Nope, other than both of them relating to my eyes in some way,” I replied, and realized for the first time that they had never actually asked what my Aspect did. Beyond intuiting that it was related to mental manipulation.

  “That sounds like one of your Stats coming into effect pre-System integration," Aisling said, her voice quiet to the point it sounded like she was apologizing for existing.

  “Can that actually happen on magic-less worlds?” Vivi asked. Immediately ruining my day, potentially the rest of my week, and maybe even the rest of my life.

  “OTHER DIMENSIONS HAVE MAGIC?!” I asked as politely as I could manage.

  Aisling squeaked and literally fainted.

  “What did I say about loud noises?” Vivi said with a sigh.

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