Hard Wired Trilogy DeAnna Pearce (if you give a mouse a cookie read aloud txt) 📖

Ari pushed through the doors thinking that a lot of things would be awesome. Despite the bitter feelings she had though, she looked forward to seeing Vinh. He had worked here longer than Ari, maybe he could help.

With her mind whirling about, she didn’t bother resting, but headed to the gym. After beating the dummy until her arms ached, she made her way to the kitchen for lunch. She read over a message from Reed while she dug into her sandwich. He did well with his art project and would be recommended for a full-time position in the graphics department. She replied:

I knew you could do it. You’re going to blow them all out of the water. Congrats!

As she sent it off, she bit her lip. While Ari was genuinely happy for Reed, and wouldn’t want it any other way, she knew this meant he had to stay. VisionTech was better than most corporations. But could she stay? That depended on what she found. For once she was grateful her brother didn’t want to join her on the island. She couldn’t leave everyone she loved.

Her AI announced Vinh at the front door. Allowing him in, she hurried and placed her dirty plate in the sink. She turned around in time to catch Vinh walking down the hall. “In here,” she called.

He stopped. “Anything good left?”

She joined him in the hall. “Just finished off my sandwich, sorry.”

“It’s okay. I better get to these tests.”

“What’s it for?”

“Just usual upkeep. With any new gear they want regular checkups. We can run it through a basic VR and see how it’s doing.”

“Great.” The sarcasm leaked through her voice as they headed down the hall.

“You can pick the program.” He offered, obviously picking up on her mood and trying to be nice.

“It’s not that. Just tired of being online.” She rubbed the skin under her port.

He shrugged. “Can’t say I’ve had that problem. Sorry.”

They entered one of Ari’s rooms, which was set up for VR. VisionTech provided it for her to practice or for recreation, but she had never used it. “What do I need to do?”

“I just need you to go through some exercises in there. I’ll be tracking the reports your suit sends and verify them manually.”

“You’ll be prodding me while I’m unconscious? That doesn’t sound creepy at all.”

“I only need one arm. I promise no creepiness.”

Sitting in the chair, Ari’s lunch gurgled in her stomach. Another part of being in the VR she hated was her unconscious form just sitting in reality. It reminded her of her father, sitting in a coma with tubes and machines to take care of him.

Before she plugged in, she wanted to talk to Vinh. “Can you tell me why the company is so interested in my health?”

Vinh busied himself with setting up his med kit. “You’re worth a lot. They take care of their assets.”

“It has nothing to do with my migraine the other day?”

His hands stilled for a moment too long. He lifted his gaze. “Why do you ask?”

“Just curious if the headaches were common with people like me.”

He turned back to his bag. “I’ve never worked with a warper before.”

“There has to be reports or something from previous warpers.”

He shrugged.

He didn’t answer the question, and Ari struggled to swallow the knot in her throat. Vinh worked for VisionTech with a contract and probable restrictions as well. He may be one of the few people she could really talk to about her job, but could he really talk to her?

“How about tea in some gardens?” Vinh searched available programs on the nearby computer.

“Only if you take out all the characters. I’m not in the mood for their chatter.” Tea in the gardens sounded historical, and Ari could only take so much of that. “Or leave them in and I can slowly kill them off one by one.” She joked.

“Have a seat. I’ll take them out. We don’t want to start giving you homicidal tendencies.”

She leaned back, plugging herself in, and mumbled, “Yeah, we wouldn’t want that.”

The VR ran smoothly enough. Vinh could speak to her inside the program and instructed her to do basic calisthenics to measure her response. What weirded her out the most was that he was doing the tests on her unconscious body. She jogged, stretched, jumped off nearby fountains. Laying on her back after a long set of pushups, she stared at the sky and noticed the clouds that weren’t quite right. The randomness of nature was hard for programmers to duplicate.

Anxiety crawled up her back, and she found herself constantly picking at her fingers. Vinh obviously was keeping something from her. But what?

Who could she trust? Emil, a stranger she just met, over the people who she now considered friends, almost family? Her gut had been telling her for weeks that something was up with Vinh though.

An idea popped into her head, one that may be stupid, but she didn’t care. She sat up in the fake grass. White tables were scattered through the garden. On top were an array of delectable treats, and accompanied by the fresh flowers and roses, it was almost picturesque. Ari didn’t feel like picturesque.

With a swipe of her hand, the tables disappeared. Glimpsing the code in the greenery, she amplified it to a neon green. Beautiful roses grew to the size of dinner plates. In a nearby fountain, Ari changed the crystal blue water to black with specks of gold throughout. It looked like the night sky rushing by. She smiled at her creation, and she wasn’t done playing.

Instead of bright and sunny, she swirled the colors of a sunset all over the expanse above her head. Even with the drastic changes, the program felt empty to her, so she filled it with the people she had been living with for the last several months.

Kari appeared sitting by the fountain. Her beautiful hair waving around her shoulders. She didn’t speak but just