# CHALLENGE #6 — OTHER RULES
## Chapter 1 — Elsewhere
Suzie Q had described the job as venue evaluation.
Mandi had learned to distrust phrases that sounded harmless only because they were written by people who billed by the hour.
“Venue evaluation,” she repeated, sitting on the edge of the back-room table at Lizzie’s while one boot swung several centimeters above the floor. Neon-orange hair burned under the warm ceiling light. Her black contacts made the amusement in her eyes harder to read and somehow more obvious. “That means what, exactly?”
Suzie Q slid a thin black card across the table.
“New private club in Charter Hill. Invitation-only. Adult experiential rooms. They want Moxes professionals to consider referrals.”
Dalia picked up the card before Mandi could.
Hot-pink hair, emerald-reflective contacts, thigh-high boots, menthol lollipop. She looked like subtlety had been offered a chair and politely told to wait outside.
The card read:
**ELSEWHERE**
**YOU KNOW THIS CITY. TRY ANOTHER ONE.**
Deja leaned over Dalia’s shoulder.
“That's not ominous at all.”
Her pale silver-blonde hair was tied back badly enough that two strands had already escaped near one temple. Gray eyes tracked the microscopic printing along the card’s edge.
“Signal mesh?” she asked.
“Supposedly mixed-reality architecture,” Suzie said. “No mandatory neural interface. Which is why Mandi can test it without anybody pretending chrome is universal.”
Mandi pointed at herself.
“Useful design choice.”
“Non-invasive environmental projection, haptics, adaptive actors, generative staging, smart-material rooms. They sell alternate versions of Night City by the hour. Corpo fantasy without having to actually move to another city.”
Dalia rolled the lollipop between her lips.
“And they want three of us because?”
“They want two experienced adult-social professionals and one technical person who knows when the walls are lying.”
Deja raised one hand.
“I know when walls are lying.”
Mandi looked at her.
“You usually encourage them.”
“Only interesting walls.”
Suzie Q leaned back.
“The evaluation is ninety minutes. Fixed fee, €$30,000 each. No client. No booking obligations. No sexual contact required. You inspect one room, test privacy, test boundary controls, tell me if I should send anyone there.”
Dalia’s eyebrows rose.
“Thirty each for ninety minutes.”
“Yes.”
Mandi took the card from her.
“What’s wrong with it?”
“That,” Suzie said, “is why you’re getting paid.”
There was a small silence.
Then Deja grinned.
“I’m in.”
Dalia sighed.
“Of course you are.”
Mandi turned the card over.
On the back, beneath a discreet address, one line had been printed in silver:
**Reality is a service layer.**
Mandi stared at it for two seconds.
“Thirty thousand is no longer enough.”
Suzie Q smiled.
“They already prepaid.”
Mandi hopped off the table.
“Then reality can disappoint me professionally.”
---
Elsewhere occupied three floors of a building that did not advertise itself from the street.
That alone made it unusual in Charter Hill.
The lobby had no reception desk. No visible cameras. No logos beyond a single silver line across the wall that changed shape depending on where you stood.
A woman in a charcoal suit met them at the lift.
“Welcome. I’m Soraya Bell, experience director.”
Mandi offered a hand.
“Mandi.”
“I know.”
Dalia smiled around the lollipop.
“Always a slightly worrying answer.”
Soraya smiled back without hesitation.
“Your professional identities are the identities under review. We were careful not to request unnecessary private information.”
That earned her a fraction more respect from all three.
Deja asked, “How much network autonomy do the rooms have?”
“None outside the building. Internal closed mesh. You’re welcome to inspect it before entry.”
“Now I’m suspicious for different reasons.”
Soraya led them through a corridor whose walls looked like liquid dark glass.
“The concept is simple. Each room offers a branch. One historical divergence. The environment extrapolates a plausible alternate Night City around it.”
Mandi glanced sideways.
“So if Arasaka never came back?”
“Possible.”
“If Johnny Silverhand became an accountant?”
“Less plausible, but technically possible.”
Dalia asked, “If Night City discovered competent municipal government?”
Soraya stopped walking.
“Madam, we do have computational limits.”
Deja made a strangled sound.
Mandi looked at Dalia.
“I like her.”
Soraya opened the final door.
Inside was an ordinary room.
White walls. Three chairs. One standing mirror. One interior door opposite them.
“No helmets,” Mandi said.
“No neural induction,” Soraya replied. “The branch is performed through environmental transformation. You remain physically present, physically yourselves, and able to leave at any time.”
Dalia nodded toward the second door.
“What’s behind that?”
“The branch.”
“Which one?”
“You asked for randomized.”
Deja looked at Mandi.
“We did?”
Mandi looked at Dalia.
“You filled out the form.”
Dalia removed the lollipop.
“I may have selected ‘surprise me.’”
Mandi stared at her.
“You did what?”
“It seemed appropriate.”
Deja laughed.
Soraya lifted a small control pad.
“Hard stop remains available from either side. Say ‘Elsewhere, end session’ clearly and the environment returns to neutral. No emotion modulation. No libido modulation. No behavioral compulsion. The system may change context, social assumptions, and environmental rules. It may not change your willingness.”
Dalia’s expression sharpened approvingly.
“Good.”
Soraya opened the interior door.
Beyond it waited a narrow corridor lit in warm gold.
Mandi stepped through first.
Dalia followed.
Deja came last, still looking at the walls like she expected them to confess.
The door closed behind her.
And somewhere, very far away, a city went quiet.
## Chapter 2 — The First Wrong Thing
The first wrong thing was the silence.
Not absolute silence.
Night City had never understood absolute silence.
There were engines. Footsteps. Conversation. Music from somewhere above them. A transit hum. A delivery drone complaining softly to itself as it crossed an intersection.
But no gunfire.
Mandi stood on a sidewalk under a familiar Charter Hill skyline and waited.
Five seconds.
Ten.
Twenty.
She looked at Dalia.
Dalia looked at Deja.
Deja lifted one finger.
“Wait.”
They waited.
A minute passed.
Mandi frowned.
“This is deeply unnatural.”
A man across the street dropped a shopping bag.
All three turned toward the sound.
The man stared back.
Dalia lowered her shoulders first.
“Good start.”
Deja was already working.
Not diving. Not interfacing. Just scanning with a slim handheld unit she had brought precisely because Elsewhere had claimed to be non-neural.
“No projection markers,” she murmured.
Mandi looked up at the towers.
“That good?”
“No.”
“Excellent.”
The street smelled real.
Rain on old concrete. Food oil. Electric heat. Perfume. Exhaust. A trace of ozone.
A bus rolled past with an advertisement across one side.
**NIGHT CITY COMPANION ARTS WEEK — PROFESSIONALISM IS INTIMACY WITH STANDARDS.**
Mandi turned slowly to follow it.
Dalia’s lollipop stopped moving.
Deja read the smaller line beneath the slogan.
“Keynote speakers…”
She leaned forward.
“Oh no.”
Mandi narrowed her eyes.
“What?”
Deja pointed.
The bus advertisement carried three photographs.
Mandi, in an immaculate black suit with neon-orange hair.
Dalia, in white, hot pink hair arranged in a sculptural sweep.
Deja, wearing dark formal clothes and an expression that suggested someone had just asked a technically interesting question.
Under the photographs:
**MANDI — FELLOW, APPLIED COMPANION PRACTICE**
**DALIA — DIRECTOR, INTIMACY SYSTEMS & PROFESSIONAL ETHICS**
**DEJA — SENIOR SPECIALIST, CROSS-FORM EMBODIMENT**
Mandi stared.
Dalia stared.
Deja stared longest.
Then Mandi said, very carefully, “I think we’re respectable.”
Dalia’s face remained composed for almost three seconds.
Deja broke first.
The laugh came out too loud, bounced off the clean glass frontage beside them, and made a passing couple glance over with mild concern.
Mandi pointed at the disappearing bus.
“Fellow.”
Dalia put the lollipop back in her mouth.
“Director.”
Deja was still laughing.
“Cross-form embodiment.”
Mandi turned toward her.
“That one sounds earned.”
Deja stopped laughing.
“No.”
Dalia looked thoughtful.
“Actually—”
“No.”
“We should remain open-minded.”
“I have been a German Shepherd exactly once in public professional context.”
Mandi smiled.
“That you remember.”
Deja pointed at her.
“This reality is already hostile.”
A polite chime sounded from Dalia’s pocket.
She froze.
Slowly, she pulled out the phone they had entered with.
The device had changed.
Not physically.
The same case. Same scratches. Same custom security shell.
But the lock screen displayed a calendar none of them had created.
**09:30 — COMPANION ARTS WEEK OPENING PANEL**
**10:45 — PROFESSIONAL BOUNDARY LAB**
**12:30 — LUNCH WITH CITY LABOR COUNCIL**
**15:00 — PUBLIC Q&A: “DESIRE WITHOUT ASSUMPTION”**
**18:00 — CIVIC RECEPTION**
Mandi leaned in.
“We have a schedule.”
Dalia scrolled.
“We have an assistant.”
Deja looked over her shoulder.
“We have an expense policy.”
Mandi recoiled.
“Get us out.”
Dalia ignored her and opened the identity tab.
Her expression changed.
“What?” Deja asked.
Dalia turned the screen around.
The profile read:
**Dalia — Director, Intimacy Systems & Professional Ethics, Night City Institute of Companion Arts.**
Mandi’s mouth opened.
Dalia scrolled down.
**Domestic status: registered partnership — Mandi.**
Mandi made a noise.
Deja snatched the phone.
“Reyes?”
Mandi leaned closer.
“Absolutely not.”
Dalia was trying not to laugh.
“That is not even remotely our problem right now.”
“It is a banned-level problem.”
Deja tapped sideways into her own profile.
Then went completely still.
Mandi saw the expression.
“What?”
Deja locked the phone.
“Nothing.”
Dalia held out her hand.
“Deja.”
“No.”
“Give me the phone.”
“No.”
Mandi folded her arms.
“Now I need to know.”
Deja looked between them.
Then, with the dignity of someone walking voluntarily toward execution, she unlocked the screen again.
Her profile read:
**Deja — Senior Specialist, Cross-Form Embodiment & Somatic Translation.**
Below that:
**Credentials:**
**Certified Human-Canine Embodiment Facilitator**
**Licensed Companion Animal Consent Interpreter**
**Visiting Lecturer, Post-Biosculpt Identity Studies**
And beneath the text was a photograph.
A German Shepherd sat beside a lecture podium wearing a small professional collar and an identification badge.
Mandi bent in half.
Dalia closed her eyes.
Deja stared at the sky.
“I hate alternate reality.”
## Chapter 3 — Respectable People
The second wrong thing was that nobody seemed afraid of them.
Not wary.
Not interested in whether Mandi’s compact frame meant easy prey.
Not trying to decide whether Dalia’s boots hid a weapon.
Not reading Deja’s restless attention as possible netrunner threat.
People simply moved around them.
A woman carrying coffee recognized Dalia and smiled.
“Director. Loved your interview on boundary fatigue.”
Dalia, without missing a beat, answered, “Thank you.”
The woman kept walking.
Mandi stared at her.
Dalia shrugged.
“Mai still knows how interviews work.”
“Do not bring Mai into this. She has better judgment.”
“Apparently not. She clicked ‘surprise me.’”
“That was Dalia.”
“Covers do not outrank the women wearing them.”
Deja made a delighted sound.
“Oh, now we’re doing ontology on the sidewalk.”
Mandi pointed at her.
“You’re a licensed animal consent interpreter.”
Deja’s face went blank.
“I withdraw from the discussion.”
They reached the corner.
A pedestrian signal changed immediately.
Every vehicle stopped.
Mandi stood there.
Nobody accelerated through the red.
Nobody blocked the crosswalk.
A bike courier actually yielded.
She crossed slowly, looking suspiciously at all of them.
“This is propaganda.”
Dalia followed.
“About traffic law?”
“About civilization.”
Deja crossed last.
“I’m getting a city mesh.”
Mandi turned.
“You said no projection markers.”
“I said no Elsewhere projection markers. This is a live urban network.”
Dalia stopped walking.
“Live.”
Deja nodded once.
“Dense. Old. Layered. Hundreds of thousands of active endpoints. Municipal infrastructure. Private systems. Public authentication. Transit. Commerce. Not a closed building mesh.”
Mandi stared at her.
“That’s not possible.”
“Correct.”
Dalia took the lollipop out again.
“End session.”
Nothing happened.
Mandi looked around.
“Elsewhere, end session.”
The city continued.
A tram passed.
Somewhere nearby, someone laughed.
Deja’s expression lost some of its humor.
“That’s more interesting.”
Mandi looked back the way they had come.
There was no door.
No corridor.
No building entrance matching Elsewhere’s interior.
Only a small bookstore with a blue awning.
Dalia’s gaze sharpened.
“Okay.”
Mandi said, “Thirty thousand was not enough.”
“Agreed.”
Deja took a breath and looked at the skyline.
“Before we panic, we establish rules.”
Mandi nodded.
“Rule one: don’t panic.”
Dalia nodded.
“Rule two: do not expose our real identities until we understand what this is.”
Deja added, “Rule three: do not assume local systems work like ours.”
Mandi looked at the bus stop advertisement again.
“Rule four: I am not giving a keynote.”
Dalia checked the time.
“You have twenty-one minutes.”
“No.”
“Your badge says fellow.”
“No.”
“People recognize us.”
“No.”
“If we behave like missing impostors, we attract attention.”
Mandi stared up at her.
Dalia smiled sweetly.
“Fellow.”
Mandi’s black eyes narrowed.
“I will ruin your civic reception.”
Deja brightened.
“We have a civic reception?”
Dalia nodded.
“Apparently.”
Deja checked her own schedule.
“Oh.”
Mandi saw the face.
“What now?”
Deja put the phone away.
“I have a practical demonstration at eleven.”
Dalia’s eyebrows rose.
“Cross-form?”
“I will bite you.”
Mandi laughed so hard she had to hold Dalia’s arm.
The city around them remained offensively peaceful.
## Chapter 4 — Companion Arts
The Night City Institute of Companion Arts occupied a building that, in their reality, belonged to a mid-level weapons logistics company.
Mandi stopped on the steps.
“This is upsetting on multiple levels.”
Dalia looked at the clean limestone frontage.
“It’s an improvement.”
“There should be armored trucks here.”
“There are students.”
“That’s what I mean.”
The lobby contained no visible security beyond a quiet desk and a wall of professional accreditation plaques.
**Consent Law.**
**Somatic Practice.**
**Companion Labor Standards.**
**Client Boundary Management.**
**Trauma-Informed Social Practice.**
**Pleasure Ethics.**
**Post-Encounter Recovery.**
Deja slowed.
“This world gave joytoys a university.”
Dalia corrected automatically.
“Companion arts.”
Mandi looked up at her.
“You’ve been Director for nine minutes.”
“Standards matter.”
A young receptionist spotted them and immediately stood.
“Director Dalia. Fellow Mandi. Specialist Deja. Welcome back.”
Dalia smiled.
“Thank you.”
Mandi whispered, “Welcome back.”
Deja whispered, “We have been here before.”
The receptionist handed them badges.
Mandi’s read:
**MANDI**
**FELLOW — APPLIED COMPANION PRACTICE**
She stared at it.
Then clipped it to her collar.
Dalia looked at her.
“Why there?”
“Professional branding.”
Deja made the mistake of laughing within reach.
Mandi slapped Deja’s badge onto her chest.
**DEJA**
**SENIOR SPECIALIST — CROSS-FORM EMBODIMENT**
“You’re worse,” Mandi said.
Dalia’s badge was gold-edged.
Mandi saw it.
“Oh, no.”
“What?”
“You have executive trim.”
Dalia looked down.
“I do.”
“Power is corrupting you.”
“It took less than ten minutes.”
A coordinator approached.
“Director, the opening panel is ready. We moved your first question to professional refusal under high-status client pressure.”
Dalia’s expression became genuinely interested.
“That’s a good topic.”
Mandi looked offended.
“You’re enjoying this.”
“I contain multitudes.”
“You contain management.”
The panel room held perhaps eighty people.
Nobody was dressed like a street joytoy.
Some wore business clothes. Some practical workwear. Some fashion so expensive it crossed from clothing into financial threat. A few had visible biosculpt modifications. Others looked completely ordinary.
On stage, four chairs waited beneath a banner:
**PROFESSIONAL INTIMACY IS PROFESSIONAL LABOR.**
Mandi stopped laughing.
Just for a moment.
Dalia saw it.
So did Deja.
Because beneath the absurdity, the alternate world had done something their own city almost never managed.
It had written the obvious thing on a wall and meant it.
Nobody owed access because money had changed hands.
Consent remained live.
Boundaries were work skills.
Recovery mattered.
Professional sexual labor was labor.
Mandi looked around the room.
Then quietly said, “Okay. One point for the weird universe.”
Dalia touched two fingers against the back of her hand.
“Only one?”
“The traffic thing is still suspicious.”
They took their seats.
The moderator smiled at the audience.
“Welcome. We’ll begin with a familiar problem: what happens when a client believes status changes the meaning of no?”
Mandi’s answer came before she could remember she was supposed to be an alternate version of herself.
“It doesn’t.”
The room went quiet.
She continued.
“Status changes how expensive the room is. It changes security. It changes preparation. It changes how carefully you document boundaries. It does not change no.”
Someone in the front row nodded.
Dalia leaned toward her microphone.
“Professionalism is not obedience. It is clarity under pressure.”
The moderator smiled.
“Exactly.”
Deja looked from one to the other.
“You two realize you’re actually qualified for this.”
Mandi covered her microphone.
“Shut up, Doctor Good Girl.”
Deja made a sound that escaped directly into the room sound system.
The first laugh from the audience was polite.
The second was not.
## Chapter 5 — Doctor Good Girl
Deja's practical demonstration turned out to be worse than expected.
Not because anyone asked her to become a dog.
That would at least have been straightforward.
Instead, twenty-two graduate students waited in a semicircle while a lecturer introduced her as “one of the most important practitioner voices in post-biosculpt cross-form consent.”
Deja stood at the front of the room with her hands in her pockets.
Mandi and Dalia sat in the back row because they were terrible friends.
The lecturer continued.
“Deja's field work was especially influential because she refused the old assumption that a temporary nonhuman morphology necessarily invalidates self-directed preference.”
Dalia slowly turned her head toward Mandi.
Mandi's shoulders were already shaking.
The lecturer looked at Deja.
“Would you begin with the central principle?”
Deja glanced once toward the exit.
Then she sighed.
“Body shape is not consent.”
Several students began taking notes.
Deja blinked.
She continued, because now she was annoyed enough to be competent.
“Instinct load isn't consent either. Neither is reduced speech. If someone chooses a form that changes what communication looks like, you adapt communication. You don't downgrade the person.”
More notes.
Mandi stopped laughing.
Dalia's expression softened.
Because that was Kiro underneath Deja: restless, curious, occasionally impossible, and very serious the moment a system risked flattening someone into a category.
The lecturer nodded.
“And what was your most important lesson from canine embodiment?”
Deja stared at him.
Mandi leaned forward.
Dalia whispered, “Don't.”
Mandi whispered back, “I didn't say anything.”
“You are radiating it.”
Deja answered slowly.
“That wanting something while in a changed body does not automatically mean the body made the decision for you.”
The room stayed attentive.
“And also,” she added, “tails are a security vulnerability.”
There was a pause.
One student laughed.
Then another.
Deja's mouth twitched.
“If your body has a highly visible emotional indicator you did not grow up managing, everyone knows what you're thinking before you do. This is educational. It is also annoying.”
A student raised a hand.
“Did you find the loss of human speech disempowering?”
Deja thought about that.
“No. I chose it. That's different.”
Dalia nodded once.
The answer belonged to their reality too.
The lecturer smiled.
“Exactly.”
Then he touched the wall display.
A slide appeared.
It showed Deja as a German Shepherd wearing the same little professional badge from her profile photo.
Under it:
**CASE STUDY: VOLUNTARY CANINE EMBODIMENT AND AGENCY PRESERVATION**
Mandi made a choking noise.
Deja closed her eyes.
“Of course there are slides.”
The lecturer, oblivious, advanced to the next image.
Deja sitting beside a hot tub.
Next.
Deja on a massage table designed for canine biosculpts.
Next.
Deja wearing a leash.
Mandi put both hands over her mouth.
Dalia whispered, “If you laugh, I will leave you here.”
Mandi whispered through her fingers, “I am being so supportive.”
Deja pointed at the screen.
“Why does alternate me have documentation?”
A student answered earnestly.
“Because your work changed the certification model.”
Deja stared at him.
Then at the slide.
Then at Mandi.
Mandi lost the fight.
The laugh bent her forward until her forehead nearly touched her knees.
Dalia lasted two seconds longer.
Deja looked at the class.
“For the record, if any of you publish that leash photo again, I will—”
She stopped.
The room waited.
Deja realized she had absolutely no idea what counted as a socially acceptable threat here.
“—file a strongly worded complaint.”
The room nodded approvingly.
Mandi slid sideways in her chair.
“I'm going to die.”
Dalia, tears in her eyes now, whispered, “Not in this universe, apparently.”
## Chapter 6 — Dangerous Language
They discovered violence was obscene over lunch.
Not metaphorically.
Socially.
The Institute cafeteria served actual food rather than nutrient paste wearing garnish, which gave Mandi another reason to distrust the place.
They sat with two Labor Council representatives and a woman from the Companion Standards Board.
The conversation began normally.
Rates.
Break enforcement.
Boundary recording.
Client blacklists.
Health services.
Professional burnout.
Mandi was halfway through a genuinely useful discussion about why security staff should never be paid by the client alone when one of the council representatives asked how Mandi had developed her approach to high-pressure refusal.
Mandi answered without thinking.
“Mostly from people who didn't understand no until somebody put a knife through the table.”
Silence.
Absolute, room-wide silence.
A fork stopped halfway to someone's mouth at the next table.
Dalia closed her eyes.
Deja stared very hard at her plate.
The council representative blinked.
“A… knife?”
Mandi realized.
“Oh.”
Dalia stepped in smoothly.
“She means historically.”
Mandi turned toward her.
Dalia continued.
“Comparative professional history. Some earlier practice environments used coercive physical signaling.”
The Standards Board woman looked pale.
“Physical signaling.”
Deja coughed into her drink.
Dalia gave her a warning look.
Mandi tried to help.
“Not here, obviously.”
Nobody looked reassured.
The council representative leaned forward.
“Was anyone injured?”
Mandi considered the safest answer.
“Not by the table.”
Dalia kicked her under it.
Mandi looked offended.
“What?”
Deja made a small noise that might have been prayer.
The Standards Board woman spoke carefully.
“We teach historical violence modules, of course. But direct lived exposure is uncommon.”
Mandi stared.
“Uncommon.”
“Yes.”
“How uncommon?”
The woman looked around the table, as if discussing something intimate.
“I have never personally seen a firearm discharged.”
Mandi's face went blank.
Deja stopped moving.
Dalia slowly removed her lollipop.
The woman added, “Outside a museum simulation.”
Mandi whispered, “Museum.”
Deja whispered back, “Do not.”
Mandi looked at her.
“There is a gun museum.”
“Do not.”
Dalia was already checking the city guide.
“There is.”
Deja stared at her.
“You're supposed to be the responsible one.”
Dalia scrolled.
“Night City Museum of Conflict History. Seven blocks.”
Mandi sat back.
“We're going.”
The council representative looked genuinely concerned.
“You enjoy conflict history?”
Mandi smiled brightly.
“Professionally.”
Dalia kicked her again.
## Chapter 7 — Lunch Without Bodyguards
The strange part was not that the city had almost no visible weapons.
The strange part was how long it took them to stop looking for them.
Dalia noticed first.
They left the Institute and walked toward the museum through a midday crowd.
Mandi scanned hands.
Deja scanned rooftops.
Dalia mapped exits.
The usual work happened without discussion.
Two blocks later, Dalia realized her shoulders had lowered.
Not much.
Enough.
She looked at Mandi.
Mandi had noticed too.
Ace lived under Mandi's neon orange. The petite woman could turn harmlessness into a weapon because she understood exactly how dangerous rooms became when people misread her.
But this room was a city street where nobody seemed to be looking for an opening.
A man bumped Mandi's shoulder.
He immediately stopped.
“Sorry.”
Mandi blinked.
“It's fine.”
He nodded and moved on.
She watched him go.
Dalia said, “You look disappointed.”
“I had three possible responses ready.”
“To an apology?”
“To impact.”
Deja walked backward in front of them.
“I checked assault statistics.”
Dalia frowned.
“You found them?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
Deja turned around again.
“The city had twelve reported serious assaults last year.”
Mandi stopped walking.
“Twelve what?”
“Twelve serious assaults.”
“In one district?”
“Citywide.”
Mandi looked physically offended.
Dalia asked, “Homicide?”
Deja raised three fingers.
Mandi stared.
“For the year?”
“Two were accidents classified under legacy code. One actual homicide.”
Mandi looked around the street.
“What do these people do with all their unresolved feelings?”
Deja checked the network.
“Therapy, mediation, recreational sport, structured argument forums, sex, art, competitive cooking…”
Mandi lifted a hand.
“Stop.”
Dalia smiled.
“Which one bothered you?”
“Competitive cooking.”
They passed an outdoor café.
Nobody sat with their back to a wall by necessity.
Nobody had chosen a table for lines of fire.
Nobody moved when a siren passed because the siren belonged to a medical vehicle and everyone knew it.
For several minutes they simply walked.
The alternate reality became less funny.
Not sad.
Not better in every way.
Just disorienting.
Mandi finally said, “I don't like how quickly my body noticed.”
Dalia knew exactly what she meant.
“Mine too.”
Deja was quieter now.
“Signal load is lower.”
Mandi glanced at her.
“Because nobody is trying to kill anybody?”
“Partly. Networks aren't built around continuous threat assumptions here. Authentication is still serious. Privacy is serious. But every system isn't expecting hostile takeover every second.”
Dalia looked at a family crossing the road.
“Different architecture.”
“Different fear budget.”
Mandi breathed out.
Then a delivery drone floated down beside them and spoke in a pleasant voice.
“Fellow Mandi?”
Mandi stared at it.
“Yes?”
“Your lunch reimbursement documentation is incomplete.”
Mandi looked at Dalia.
Dalia looked at Deja.
Deja smiled.
“There. Evil survived.”
Mandi pointed at the drone.
“I knew this place was fake.”
## Chapter 8 — Museum of Terrible Grip
The Night City Museum of Conflict History charged admission.
Mandi called that offensive before they reached the first exhibit.
The lobby gift shop sold miniature decorative pistols, foam swords, antique-war posters, and plush figures of historical mercenaries.
Deja picked up one of the plush toys.
It had a tiny black coat, an oversized pistol, and a stitched frown.
“Look.”
Mandi looked.
“No.”
“Mercenary.”
“No.”
“It squeaks.”
Mandi took it from her and squeezed.
The toy made a cheerful chirp.
Dalia turned away because laughing openly at a museum cashier felt rude.
The first gallery covered the long decline of private armed violence.
Smart ammunition restrictions.
Weapons buybacks.
Municipal security reform.
Corporate disarmament treaties.
Labor pressure.
Insurance exclusions.
A decades-long cultural shift that had made carrying lethal weapons socially comparable to bringing an open industrial saw into a restaurant.
Not impossible.
Just alarming.
The second gallery reconstructed a twentieth-century gun shop.
Mandi stared through the glass.
“Those are all replicas.”
Deja checked.
“Yes.”
“The safety catches are molded.”
“Yes.”
“The magazines don't release.”
“Yes.”
Mandi looked personally betrayed.
Dalia took her hand.
“Keep moving.”
Then they reached the blade exhibit.
Mandi stopped.
Dalia felt the stop through their joined hands.
“Oh, no.”
Behind glass stood two reproduction katanas on a wall mount.
A display card read:
**DUAL-SWORD MERCENARY STYLE, C. 2060–2070**
Beside it, a looped instructional hologram demonstrated an actor drawing both blades in the same direction, elbows wide, balance high, wrists stiff.
Mandi watched once.
Twice.
A third time.
Dalia tightened her grip.
“No.”
Mandi pointed.
“That is wrong.”
“I know.”
“It is offensively wrong.”
“I know.”
“No one would stand like that.”
“Apparently someone did for the recording.”
“He's crossing his own draw path.”
Deja appeared on Mandi's other side.
“Don't correct the museum.”
Mandi looked at her.
“He would cut his coat.”
“Historical fashion casualty.”
“He would cut his arm.”
Dalia began pulling.
“Come on.”
Mandi stayed planted.
A museum guide approached with professional warmth.
“Can I answer a question?”
Mandi turned toward him.
Dalia whispered, “Please don't.”
Mandi smiled.
“Yes. Who approved that demonstration?”
The guide looked at the hologram.
“Our historical interpretation team.”
“They're wrong.”
There was a pause.
The guide looked fascinated rather than offended.
“You have practical familiarity?”
Mandi realized the trap half a second too late.
Dalia closed her eyes.
Deja looked at the ceiling.
Mandi said, “Comparative movement study.”
The guide brightened.
“Are you with the Historical Physical Conflict Society?”
Mandi blinked.
“The what?”
Deja's head snapped around.
The guide lowered his voice.
“They meet Thursdays.”
Dalia stared at him.
“For what?”
“Reconstruction.”
Mandi's smile became dangerous.
“Reconstruction of what?”
The guide glanced toward the security desk.
Then leaned closer.
“Fighting.”
Deja whispered, “Oh, fuck.”
The guide flinched at the word but continued.
“Padded, obviously. Fully supervised. Waivers. No live weapons. But some members are extremely serious about technique.”
Mandi looked at the hologram again.
Then back at the guide.
“Not serious enough.”
The guide handed her a small paper card.
Dalia saw the address.
Basement level. Two blocks away.
Tonight.
Mandi tucked it into her collar beside her Fellow badge.
Dalia sighed.
“We are not joining an underground violence club in an alternate universe.”
Mandi looked innocent.
“Of course not.”
Deja said, “We're absolutely going.”
Dalia looked from one to the other.
Then at the exit.
“I'm surrounded by idiots.”
Mandi kissed her cheek.
“Director of idiots.”
## Chapter 9 — Extremely Illegal Foam
The Historical Physical Conflict Society met in a basement under a pottery cooperative.
Dalia considered that detail so perfect she no longer trusted reality to be accidental.
The door required a membership phrase.
Mandi read it from the museum card.
“Conflict is context.”
A slot opened.
Two suspicious eyes looked out.
“Context is responsibility,” a voice replied.
The door unlocked.
Deja whispered, “Secret handshake next.”
There was, in fact, a secret handshake.
Mandi nearly left on principle.
Inside, thirty adults stood around a padded floor wearing protective equipment that would have survived a moderate vehicle collision.
Foam knives.
Training sticks.
Soft-edged replica swords.
Helmet sensors.
Impact monitors.
Three medical staff.
A wall-sized waiver display.
Mandi stared.
Dalia stared.
Deja whispered, “This is the safest dangerous thing I have ever seen.”
A woman wearing full chest protection approached them.
“New observers?”
Mandi nodded.
“We heard you reconstruct historical fighting.”
The woman smiled nervously.
“We don't use that word outside.”
“Fighting?”
She winced.
Dalia touched Mandi's shoulder.
“Be nice.”
Mandi tried.
“What word do you use?”
“Adversarial movement practice.”
Mandi closed her eyes.
Deja turned away.
Dalia pressed her lips together.
The woman continued.
“Tonight is short-blade defense and dual-sword historical forms.”
Mandi opened her eyes.
“Dual sword.”
Dalia murmured, “No.”
The woman offered a foam training blade.
Mandi took it.
It weighed almost nothing.
She turned it once in her hand.
The room noticed.
Not because she did anything dramatic.
Because even with a toy, Ace's body knew exactly where an edge should be.
The woman stared.
“You've done reconstruction.”
Mandi said, “A little.”
Deja coughed.
Dalia looked away.
Five minutes later, Mandi stood on the padded floor opposite a man twice her mass while a referee explained rules she could have followed unconscious.
“No head contact. No throat. No joints. No uncontrolled takedowns. Stop on verbal signal. Maximum three exchanges before reset.”
Mandi nodded.
The man raised his foam blade.
Mandi raised hers.
The referee said, “Begin.”
The exchange lasted less than a second.
Mandi moved once.
The man's blade left his hand.
Her foam edge stopped against the center of his chest protector.
Silence.
Mandi stepped back.
“Sorry.”
The man looked at his empty hand.
The referee stared.
Dalia covered her face.
Deja whispered, “Fellow, Applied Companion Practice.”
The second exchange lasted longer because Mandi deliberately slowed down.
Two seconds.
The third lasted four.
The room had become absolutely silent.
The woman who had greeted them walked closer.
“Where did you learn that?”
Mandi looked at Dalia.
Dalia gave her the expression that meant *if you say Afterlife I will personally kill you, even if this universe considers that rude.*
Mandi smiled.
“Private study.”
The woman looked reverent.
“Would you teach a seminar?”
Mandi's smile vanished.
Deja sat down on the floor because her legs had stopped supporting her.
Dalia leaned against the wall, laughing silently.
Mandi looked around the secret basement filled with adults illegally practicing extremely safe violence.
“No.”
A disappointed murmur moved through the room.
Mandi pointed at the museum hologram technique board pinned to one wall.
“But whoever drew that stance should be arrested.”
The woman nodded gravely.
“We've been saying that for years.”
Mandi looked at Dalia.
Dalia looked back.
For one dangerous moment, understanding passed between them.
This universe was ridiculous.
But it had standards.
## Chapter 10 — No Simulation Found
Deja stopped joking at 21:14.
Mandi noticed because Deja only went completely quiet when a system had become more interesting than the people around her.
They were walking back toward the Institute district after leaving the basement club.
Dalia had acquired a paper bag of pastries from a late café.
Mandi had acquired the foam mercenary toy from the museum gift shop.
She claimed it was evidence.
Nobody believed her.
Deja stopped under a transit sign and looked at the handheld scanner again.
“Say it.”
Dalia's voice changed immediately.
The playfulness remained, but Mai's structure moved underneath it.
Deja turned the screen toward them.
“I have been trying to find the boundary layer for six hours.”
Mandi squeezed the plush mercenary once.
It chirped.
“What boundary layer?”
“The one Elsewhere would need.”
Dalia frowned.
“Projection coordination.”
“Yes. Actor mesh. Environmental timing. Haptic staging. Any closed control architecture. Anything that says we are still inside their building.”
“And?”
Deja looked at both of them.
“There isn't one.”
Traffic moved behind her.
A woman on a bicycle rang a bell at a distracted pedestrian.
Somebody argued with a food kiosk over a refund.
Night City, wrong version, continued being ordinary.
Mandi said, “Maybe their tech is better than yours.”
Deja nodded.
“Possible.”
Mandi waited.
Deja exhaled.
“Not this much better.”
Dalia glanced around.
“What are you seeing?”
“A real city network with historical depth. Device records going back decades. Public records with internal inconsistencies that make sense. Dead links. Legacy software. Maintenance debt. People with private messages unrelated to us. Businesses with tax disputes. Transit failures. Municipal systems patched by three generations of engineers who hated each other.”
Mandi blinked.
“That last one convinced you?”
“Nothing fakes technical resentment that well.”
Dalia handed her a pastry.
“You're serious.”
Deja took it automatically.
“I can't prove this is another reality.”
Mandi squeezed the plush mercenary again.
Chirp.
“But?”
“I also can't produce a technically sane explanation for how Elsewhere is simulating three square kilometers of independently active infrastructure without a control surface I can detect, while giving us physical objects we can carry and food we can digest.”
Dalia looked at the paper bag.
“Food.”
Mandi stopped chewing.
They all looked at the pastries.
Deja nodded.
“I checked them.”
“Of course you did.”
“They are chemically real.”
Mandi swallowed slowly.
“Can we talk about the fact that we ate alternate bread?”
Dalia said, “No.”
“Alternate butter.”
“No.”
“Alternate jam.”
“Mandi.”
“It could have consequences.”
Deja looked genuinely thoughtful.
“Probably not.”
“That was not reassuring.”
Dalia checked the local schedule.
“Our registered address is eleven minutes away.”
Mandi stared at her.
“We're going home?”
“Apparently.”
Deja said, “If local versions of us exist, that is where evidence will be.”
Mandi looked at the peaceful street.
“And if local versions of us are home?”
Dalia put the lollipop back in her mouth.
“Then this becomes a very different story.”
Mandi considered that.
“Still going.”
## Chapter 11 — The Apartment That Knew Them
The apartment opened to Dalia's palm.
That was the first problem.
The second was that it was beautiful.
Not palace beautiful.
Not corpo showcase beautiful.
Lived-in beautiful.
Warm wood. Soft lamps. Deep couch. Books. Plants that had survived long enough to become confident. Three mugs on a drying rack. Shoes by the door in three distinct sizes.
A framed photograph showed Mandi and Dalia laughing in formal clothes at some outdoor event.
Another showed Deja, human, sitting between them on a beach with wind destroying everyone's hair.
A third showed Deja as a German Shepherd lying across Mandi's lap while Dalia held a drink and looked deeply pleased with life.
Deja pointed.
“No.”
Mandi picked up the frame.
“Yes.”
“Put it down.”
“You look happy.”
“I look furry.”
Dalia took the frame from Mandi and examined it.
“Both can be true.”
Deja walked away.
The kitchen recognized Dalia.
“Welcome home.”
Dalia stopped.
Mandi leaned against the counter.
“Director.”
“Don't.”
The kitchen continued.
“Your civic reception reminder is active. Deja's hydration target is incomplete.”
Deja shouted from the hall, “I hate this house.”
Mandi smiled.
“It's worried about you.”
“Tell it to mind its business.”
The kitchen said, “I can reduce wellness reminders if desired.”
Deja reappeared.
“Oh.”
Dalia folded her arms.
“Polite house.”
Mandi opened the refrigerator.
Everything was labeled.
Nothing was expired.
She closed it immediately.
“This is not our home.”
Dalia laughed.
The bedroom situation was worse.
There were two bedrooms.
One large.
One smaller.
The large room contained a wide bed, two bedside tables, a shared wardrobe, and enough evidence of Mandi-and-Dalia domesticity to make both women stand silently in the doorway.
Not explicit evidence.
Ordinary evidence.
Mandi's socks mixed into one drawer.
Dalia's lollipops in the wrong bedside cabinet.
A small stool placed near the upper wardrobe shelves with a handwritten label:
**FOR MANDI. DO NOT MOVE.**
Mandi pointed.
“Alternate me has accepted infrastructure.”
Dalia looked moved.
“Growth.”
“Betrayal.”
Deja opened the second bedroom.
Then closed it.
Mandi saw her face.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
Dalia was already walking over.
“Open it.”
“No.”
Mandi arrived first and pushed the door open.
The room was unmistakably Deja's.
Signal gear, though less aggressive than Kiro's usual mess.
Clothes.
Books.
A wall display full of biosculpt research.
A large photograph of a German Shepherd wearing protective goggles.
And a dresser with three drawers labeled in neat print:
**HUMAN**
**CANINE**
**DON'T ASK**
Mandi sat down on the floor.
Dalia leaned against the doorframe.
Deja stared at the drawers.
“I am going to burn this universe down.”
Mandi looked up.
“With what? Strong language?”
Deja pointed at her.
“Do not weaponize local law against me.”
Dalia opened the third drawer.
Deja lunged.
Too late.
Inside were six collars.
Professional, decorative, soft, formal, playful.
And one small note.
Dalia read it aloud.
“Stop buying these. You already have enough. — M.”
Mandi looked scandalized.
“Alternate me is judgmental.”
Deja took the note.
“Alternate you is correct.”
Dalia lifted one elegant dark collar.
Deja's gray eyes followed it.
Mandi noticed.
Dalia noticed Mandi noticing.
Deja noticed both of them noticing.
“No.”
Mandi smiled.
“We didn't say anything.”
“You are radiating it again.”
Dalia put the collar carefully back.
“For now.”
Deja stared.
“For now?”
Dalia walked out.
Mandi followed, delighted.
Deja remained in the doorway.
Then looked at the third drawer again.
“Alternate reality is a privacy crime.”
## Chapter 12 — Public Records Are Gossip With Funding
The apartment had a local archive.
That was how they learned who they were.
Not really.
That distinction became important quickly.
Dalia sat at the dining table with a tablet while Mandi curled sideways in a chair built for someone taller and Deja paced behind them.
“Local Mandi,” Dalia read, “started professional companion work at twenty-one. Transitioned into education and labor advocacy after a client dispute led to citywide standards reform.”
Mandi nodded.
“Plausible.”
“Published *Petite Body, Full Agency.*”
Mandi's expression changed.
Deja stopped pacing.
Dalia looked up.
“What?”
Mandi looked away.
“Nothing.”
Dalia knew better than to push immediately.
She continued.
“Local Dalia began as a private companion, moved into systems design, helped establish current live-consent contract standards, and became Institute director four years ago.”
Mandi looked at her.
“Of course you standardized sex.”
Dalia looked offended.
“I would standardize contracts, not sex.”
“That's exactly what Director Dalia would say.”
Deja pointed at the screen.
“Me.”
Dalia scrolled.
Then smiled.
Deja saw it.
“No.”
“Local Deja—”
“No.”
“—worked in signal systems before a voluntary long-form German Shepherd biosculpt experience became the basis for a new professional field.”
Mandi whispered, “Long-form.”
Deja put both hands over her face.
Dalia continued.
“Following publication of *Speech Is Not the Same as Voice*, she developed cross-form consent protocols used across medical, recreational, and companion contexts.”
Deja lowered her hands.
The room quieted.
Because that title was good.
Annoyingly good.
Mandi said softly, “Alternate you has a point.”
Deja sat down.
“Alternate me stole my point before I had it.”
Dalia scrolled to household records.
“Registered partnership: Mandi and Dalia, eleven years.”
Mandi looked at her.
“Eleven.”
“Our covers are older here.”
“Apparently.”
Dalia read further.
“Deja: co-resident seven years.”
Deja narrowed her eyes.
“Co-resident.”
“Household classification: intimate nonexclusive family unit.”
Mandi leaned closer.
“That's efficient.”
Dalia looked at Deja.
Deja looked at the table.
The humor softened again.
Not because the alternate biography meant anything binding.
It didn't.
A public record was not destiny.
A generated history was not a hidden truth.
Mandi and Dalia were covers, not separate women waiting to become real if enough paperwork accumulated.
Deja was a chosen operational name, not a person living inside Kiro.
But the alternate world had taken fragments of what they actually were and arranged them into a life that felt disturbingly possible.
Mandi reached across the table and tapped Deja's wrist.
“Hey.”
Deja looked up.
“It's not us.”
“I know.”
Dalia added, “And it doesn't get to tell us what we are.”
“I know.”
Mandi smiled.
“But the drawer thing was definitely you.”
Deja threw a napkin at her.
The moment broke cleanly.
Dalia caught the napkin before it hit Mandi's face.
Mandi looked at her.
“Director reflexes.”
Dalia folded it neatly.
“Standards.”
## Chapter 13 — Privacy Mode
The apartment's bedroom system asked one question.
“Privacy level?”
Dalia looked at Mandi.
Mandi looked at Deja.
Deja looked at the ceiling.
“Why does the room have levels?”
The system answered because of course it did.
“Level one: visual privacy. Level two: visual and acoustic privacy. Level three: full external sensor exclusion except emergency health monitoring. Level four: complete sensor exclusion including noncritical health telemetry.”
Mandi nodded slowly.
“I respect the room.”
Dalia said, “Level four.”
The windows darkened.
A soft indicator beside the door changed from white to black.
The room said nothing else.
Deja waited.
Then looked impressed.
“It actually shut up.”
Mandi climbed onto the bed.
“Best technology in this universe.”
They had spent the day being told who their alternate selves were.
Professional fellow.
Director.
Cross-form specialist.
Partners.
Household.
History.
Every label had arrived with a file, a photograph, a credential, or a room arranged around someone else's idea of their lives.
None of it mattered here.
Mandi sat cross-legged near the center of the bed and looked at the other two.
“No local biography.”
Dalia leaned against the bedpost.
“Agreed.”
Deja's mouth curved.
“Does that include Doctor Good Girl?”
“No,” Mandi said. “That one survived peer review.”
Deja threw a pillow.
Mandi caught it, laughed, and fell backward.
Dalia caught Deja before she could launch a second attack.
Not hard.
One hand at her waist.
A familiar pause.
Deja went still in the way Kiro sometimes did when Mai's control arrived quietly enough to feel like a question.
Dalia's voice lowered into that whiskey-smoke register the cover wore so well.
“Still planning violence?”
Deja looked at her.
“Historically.”
Mandi laughed from the bed.
Dalia smiled.
Then kissed her.
No alternate record instructed it.
No system suggested it.
Deja answered because she wanted to, one hand finding Dalia's shoulder while the other caught lightly at her waist.
Mandi watched for a moment, expression warm beneath the black contacts.
Then she rose onto her knees and moved closer.
Dalia broke the kiss just long enough to look at her.
Mandi touched Deja's cheek.
“Okay?”
Deja nodded.
“Very.”
That was enough.
The next kiss belonged to Mandi and Deja, playful at first, then slower when Deja stopped laughing. Dalia remained close, one hand still at Deja's side, the other sliding up Mandi's back when Mandi leaned into them both.
Clothing came away gradually rather than theatrically.
Boots first because Dalia complained that alternate domesticity did not make thigh-highs practical in bed.
Mandi's collar stayed.
Deja noticed.
Mandi noticed her noticing.
“Mine,” Mandi said.
Deja smiled.
“I know.”
Dalia reached for one of the soft collars from Deja's drawer.
Then stopped before touching it.
Deja looked at her hand.
At Dalia.
The invitation stayed visible between them.
Deja breathed out and nodded.
“Yes.”
Dalia took the collar.
She fastened it around Deja's neck with unhurried care, fingers lingering briefly beneath the edge to check comfort before she looked into Deja's gray eyes.
Deja's first response was not submission as performance.
It was recognition.
Her shoulders softened.
Her mouth parted on a quiet breath.
Mandi touched the front of the collar with one finger.
“Alternate you has decent taste.”
Deja leaned forward and bit Mandi's shoulder lightly.
Mandi yelped.
Dalia laughed.
“Historical physical signaling.”
“Traitor.”
After that the room lost its interest in jokes for a while.
They moved together without turns, old familiarity crossing through newer curiosity. Dalia's control stayed responsive rather than assumed. Mandi's playful provocations kept changing the shape of the moment. Deja moved between them with less hesitation than she would have once allowed herself, answering touch with touch, choosing closeness rather than waiting to be placed inside it.
When Dalia drew Deja down with her, she paused long enough for their eyes to meet.
Deja's answering movement was immediate.
The first rush of pleasure broke her composure into a sharp breath and a surprised little laugh that became Dalia's name halfway through.
Mandi kissed the laugh away.
Later, when Mandi's own teasing finally failed her, she went suddenly quiet, eyes closing as she held both of them closer. Dalia recognized the shift before Mandi said anything and stayed with her through it, one hand steady at the back of her neck.
No one hurried.
No one kept count.
No one had anything to prove to an alternate household file.
The intensity rose because they wanted it to, then broke through them in different ways: Deja gripping Dalia hard enough to lose every clever sentence she had left, Mandi shuddering into laughter that vanished into breath, Dalia's control finally cracking into a low sound and a moment of stillness against them both.
Afterward they did not move immediately.
Mandi lay half across Dalia.
Deja remained close enough that her collared throat rested against Mandi's shoulder.
Dalia's hand stayed loosely at Deja's back.
For a long minute the room did exactly what the best room should do.
Nothing.
Then Mandi whispered, “I still hate the traffic.”
Deja began laughing against her skin.
Dalia covered her eyes with one hand.
“Go to sleep.”
Mandi smiled.
“Director order?”
“Partner request.”
That shut her up more effectively.
For almost thirty seconds.
## Chapter 14 — Morning Mail
Mandi woke to coffee she had not ordered.
She opened one black eye.
A tray sat outside the bedroom door.
Three coffees.
Water.
Fruit.
Pastries.
A printed note:
**CIVIC RECEPTION ATTIRE DELIVERY — 08:30**
Mandi stared at it.
Then at the bed.
Dalia was still asleep.
Deja was awake, lying on her back and staring at the ceiling.
The collar remained around her neck.
Mandi followed her gaze.
“What?”
Deja whispered, “We stole local Deja's collar.”
Mandi whispered back, “Borrowed.”
“From another reality.”
“Still borrowed.”
“What if she wants it?”
Mandi considered that.
“Then she can file a strongly worded complaint.”
Deja turned her head.
Mandi grinned.
Dalia spoke without opening her eyes.
“I heard that.”
Mandi kissed her shoulder.
“Good morning, Director.”
Dalia opened one emerald-reflective eye.
“If you call me that before coffee again, I'll revoke your fellowship.”
Mandi smiled.
“Power abuse.”
“Document it.”
The door chimed at exactly 08:30.
The clothing delivery was terrifying.
Mandi received an immaculate dark suit cut to her 145-centimeter frame without a single compromise in proportion.
She held the jacket up.
“This universe is showing off.”
Dalia's outfit was deep green with a structured waist and enough room for movement that Mai's approval became visible despite herself.
Deja received a charcoal suit with a high collar.
Mandi saw it.
“No.”
Deja held it against herself.
“Yes.”
“The collar under the collar?”
“Yes.”
Dalia drank coffee.
“Layered professionalism.”
Deja looked at her.
“You're both impossible.”
The mail queue on Dalia's phone contained forty-seven messages.
Most were ordinary.
Institute logistics.
Interview requests.
A labor council follow-up.
Three students thanking Deja for the demonstration.
One message from the museum asking whether Fellow Mandi would consider advising on historical blade accuracy.
Mandi read it twice.
Dalia looked over her shoulder.
“No.”
“I didn't say anything.”
“Your face did.”
Another message opened automatically.
**CIVIC RECEPTION HONORS — FINAL CONFIRMATION**
Dalia read the list.
Then stopped.
Mandi saw her expression.
“What?”
Dalia handed her the phone.
Mandi read:
**MANDI — PUBLIC LABOR MEDAL FOR COMPANION PRACTICE**
**DALIA — CIVIC SYSTEMS HONOR FOR CONSENT INFRASTRUCTURE**
**DEJA — EMBODIMENT ETHICS CITATION**
Deja looked up from fastening her suit.
“No.”
Mandi smiled slowly.
“Oh, yes.”
“No.”
“Doctor Good Girl gets a medal.”
“Citation.”
“Even better.”
Dalia took another sip of coffee.
“We should attend.”
Both turned toward her.
Mandi said, “You're enjoying power again.”
Dalia set the cup down.
“We still do not know how to get home. Publicly disappearing from our local lives is unnecessary attention. Attending also gives Deja access to civic infrastructure and high-level network staff.”
Deja thought about it.
“She's right.”
Mandi looked betrayed.
“Doctor.”
“Fellow.”
Dalia smiled.
“Children.”
## Chapter 15 — Civic Virtue
The civic reception took place in a hall that, in their Night City, would have required three armed checkpoints and at least one person pretending not to be a sniper.
Here, security consisted of two people checking invitations and a sign asking guests not to bring active recording drones into private conversation zones.
Mandi kept waiting for the trick.
There wasn't one.
The hall filled with city officials, labor organizers, artists, companions, researchers, medical specialists, and enough socially confident people to make Deja visibly consider climbing into the ceiling.
Dalia noticed.
“Stay.”
Deja looked at her.
“I wasn't moving.”
“You were thinking upward.”
“That is invasive.”
Mandi adjusted the little medal ribbon on her immaculate suit.
“Doctor Good Girl is overstimulated.”
Deja turned.
“Fellow Mandi is about to experience historical physical signaling.”
A nearby man heard the phrase and went pale.
Dalia smiled apologetically at him.
“Academic joke.”
He relaxed.
Mandi whispered, “You saved that too easily.”
“I have been Director for a full day.”
The ceremony began.
Mandi expected self-important speeches.
She got some.
No universe was perfect.
But the honors themselves were uncomfortable in a different way.
A companion worker received recognition for organizing emergency housing after a hotel chain tried to blacklist staff who refused unsafe clients.
A medical team was honored for developing privacy-preserving health access for sex workers who did not want employers or clients seeing their records.
A labor lawyer received an award for winning a case establishing that prepaid time did not create prepaid consent.
Mandi's humor faded again.
Dalia leaned closer.
“Second point?”
Mandi looked at the stage.
“Maybe three.”
Deja heard.
“Traffic?”
“Still suspicious.”
Then Mandi's name was called.
She froze.
Dalia nudged her.
“Fellow.”
Mandi stood.
The applause was warm.
Not celebrity applause.
Recognition.
She walked to the stage and accepted a small silver medal from a city councilor who thanked her for “advancing the principle that professional intimacy never reduces personal sovereignty.”
Mandi stared at the medal.
The sentence hit harder than it had any right to.
Because she knew exactly how much of her own Mandi life had been built on that distinction.
Being paid did not erase Ace.
Being wanted did not erase choice.
Being shameless did not make her available to everyone.
She turned toward the microphone.
There was apparently a speech.
Nobody had warned her about the speech.
Dalia sat very straight.
Deja looked delighted.
Mandi looked at the audience.
“I did not prepare anything.”
Light laughter.
She glanced at the medal.
“So this will be shorter than whatever alternate version of me usually says.”
The room laughed again.
Dalia's eyes widened.
Deja covered her mouth.
Mandi continued before either could stop her.
“I think professionalism gets confused with performance a lot. Looking confident isn't the same as having no limits. Being good at making somebody comfortable isn't permission for them to forget you're a person. And being paid to make desire easier to talk about doesn't mean your own desire becomes public property.”
The room went still.
Mandi shrugged slightly.
“So… keep the standards. Charge properly. Take breaks. Say no when you mean no. And if somebody thinks status changes that—”
Dalia's expression became a threat.
Mandi smiled.
“—document the interaction and use the appropriate institutional process.”
The room applauded.
Deja folded forward in silent laughter.
Dalia closed her eyes with relief.
Mandi stepped away from the microphone.
As she passed Dalia, she whispered, “I adapted.”
Dalia whispered back, “Barely.”
## Chapter 16 — The Wrong Kind of History
Deja found the first real clue during Dalia's award speech.
Dalia was onstage talking about infrastructure in a way that would have made Mai deeply offended if anyone suggested she was enjoying herself.
Deja sat between Mandi and an empty chair, pretending to watch.
Her handheld scanner was hidden inside her sleeve.
Mandi noticed the tiny shift in her breathing.
“What?” she whispered.
Deja did not look away from the stage.
“Local historical archive has a branch-experience registry.”
Mandi blinked.
“A what?”
“Experimental immersive institutions. Mostly theater. Some environmental reconstruction.”
“Elsewhere?”
Deja nodded once.
Mandi's attention sharpened.
“Here?”
“Same name.”
Dalia finished her sentence to applause.
Deja waited until she returned to her seat.
Then showed them the screen.
**ELSEWHERE — NIGHT CITY COUNTERFACTUAL HISTORY EXPERIENCE**
The logo was identical.
Silver line.
Black field.
Same typography.
Dalia stared.
“Address?”
Deja scrolled.
The address was not the one they had entered from in their reality.
It was the museum.
Mandi looked at Deja.
“The conflict museum.”
“Basement annex.”
Dalia took the scanner.
“What does it simulate?”
Deja's mouth twitched.
“Us.”
Mandi frowned.
“What?”
Deja pulled up the description.
**Experience a Night City in which private lethal violence remained normalized, corporate armed force shaped daily life, mercenary culture retained social status, and intimate labor protections developed unevenly under criminal pressure.**
Mandi stared.
Dalia read it twice.
Then a third time.
Deja continued.
“Popular educational horror scenario. Recommended age sixteen plus.”
Mandi whispered, “Educational horror.”
Dalia covered her mouth.
Deja scrolled further.
“Visitor reviews.”
“No,” Dalia said.
“Yes,” Mandi said.
Deja read the first one.
“‘Atmosphere excellent, but weapon density felt exaggerated.’”
Mandi's jaw dropped.
Another.
“‘Companion labor conditions seemed implausibly unsafe. Surely no modern city would tolerate this.’”
Dalia made a small strangled sound.
Deja was smiling now.
“‘The traffic was the least believable part.’”
Mandi pointed.
“That reviewer understands reality.”
Dalia took the device away.
“When does it open?”
“Tomorrow morning.”
Mandi looked at the clock.
“It's twenty-three hundred.”
Deja nodded.
“We wait.”
Dalia shook her head.
“No. We investigate the building now.”
Mandi smiled.
“Director.”
“This is operational.”
“Sure.”
“Stop smiling.”
“Power looks good on you.”
Deja stood.
“Can you two flirt after we determine whether we have accidentally crossed into a neighboring universe?”
Mandi looked at her.
“We can multitask.”
Deja sighed.
“I miss normal Night City.”
Dalia stood too.
“You said that city has one homicide a year.”
“I didn't say I miss all of it.”
## Chapter 17 — Elsewhere, Again
The museum at midnight was closed.
That would have mattered more if Deja had not spent most of her adult life treating closed networks as emotionally complicated invitations.
Dalia stood beneath the rear service awning while rain began in a soft, disciplined sheet.
“Nonviolent universe.”
Deja worked on the access panel.
“Yes.”
“Respectable professional identities.”
“Yes.”
“Civic medal recipients.”
“Yes.”
“And we are breaking into a museum.”
Deja looked over her shoulder.
“Technically we're entering the workplace of an institution that invited Fellow Mandi to consult.”
Mandi brightened.
“I have an email.”
Dalia stared at both of them.
“This argument would not survive contact with a lawyer.”
Deja opened the door.
“Good thing we're avoiding contact.”
The basement annex smelled exactly like Elsewhere.
Not the physical smell.
The idea of it.
Clean materials. Ozone. Expensive air filtration. The faint neutrality of a place designed to become somewhere else.
Three rooms lined a dark corridor.
Their labels glowed softly.
**THE CORPORATE COLLAPSE BRANCH**
**THE CLIMATE EXODUS BRANCH**
**THE VIOLENT BRANCH**
Mandi pointed at the last one.
“Rude.”
Dalia opened it.
Inside waited three chairs, a standing mirror, and one interior door.
Exactly like the room they had entered.
Deja's humor disappeared.
She scanned the walls.
“No local mesh active.”
Mandi stepped inside.
“Maybe it powers up in the morning.”
“No.”
Deja moved closer to the interior door.
Her scanner flickered.
Not a clean error.
A pattern.
Signal appearing where no transmitter existed.
Then vanishing.
Then returning at a frequency that belonged nowhere in the room's device map.
Deja whispered, “There you are.”
Dalia moved beside her.
“What?”
“I don't know.”
Mandi folded her arms.
“Useful.”
“It's not network traffic.”
“What is it?”
“I said I don't know.”
Dalia looked at the door.
“Can it hurt us?”
Deja considered the question seriously.
“No evidence.”
“Can it affect willingness or cognition?”
“No evidence. We have been ourselves all day.”
Mandi looked at the mirror.
Her neon-orange hair reflected normally.
Dalia's hot pink beside it.
Deja's pale silver-blonde between them.
Three cover identities in a world where those identities had become biographies.
Mandi touched the silver medal pinned to her jacket.
“Open it.”
Dalia looked at her.
“Sure?”
“Yes.”
Deja looked at both.
“Sure?”
Dalia nodded.
“Yes.”
Deja put her hand on the door.
Nothing happened.
She frowned.
“Locked.”
Mandi reached into her collar and pulled out the original Elsewhere card.
The one Suzie Q had given them.
The black card had changed.
The silver line no longer formed the Elsewhere logo.
It formed a narrow doorway.
Under it, in letters that had not been there before:
**RETURN PATH AVAILABLE.**
Dalia stared.
Deja stared.
Mandi held the card up.
“Thirty thousand is definitely not enough.”
The interior door clicked.
## Chapter 18 — The Violent Branch
The corridor beyond looked familiar.
That was worse than if it had looked impossible.
Warm gold lights.
Dark walls.
A turn.
Another door.
Mandi led again.
Dalia stayed close enough to touch her shoulder.
Deja came last, scanner useless now except as something to hold.
At the final door, a sign had been mounted at eye level.
**COUNTERFACTUAL SAFETY NOTICE**
**This branch depicts normalized lethal violence, unstable criminal labor structures, weak public mediation, armed corporate authority, and inconsistent protections for intimate labor.**
**Visitors may exit at any time.**
Mandi read it.
Dalia read it.
Deja read it.
Mandi said, “I feel judged.”
Deja nodded.
“Accurately.”
Dalia touched the handle.
“Ready?”
Mandi looked at her.
“Home.”
Deja took a breath.
“Home.”
Dalia opened the door.
Gunfire cracked somewhere outside.
All three flinched.
Not from fear.
Recognition.
Mandi's face changed first.
The compact warmth of Fellow Mandi vanished into Ace's immediate pressure under the neon-orange cover.
Dalia's gaze mapped angles before the second shot.
Deja's attention snapped into the network like a familiar storm had just returned.
The corridor opened onto a Charter Hill street.
Their Charter Hill.
A driver leaned on a horn while forcing through a red light.
A street vendor shouted at somebody over payment.
A security drone tracked three pedestrians with unnecessary suspicion.
A distant siren fought traffic and lost.
Mandi stood on the sidewalk.
Another shot cracked six blocks away.
She smiled despite herself.
Dalia looked at her.
“Don't.”
“I didn't say anything.”
“Your face did.”
Deja inhaled.
Then frowned.
“Wait.”
Mandi stopped.
“What?”
Deja pointed behind them.
The door was gone.
In its place stood the real Elsewhere lobby.
Soraya Bell stood in the middle of it.
Her face was white.
Three technicians surrounded a dead control panel.
The wall clock read 18:47.
Mandi checked the time on her phone.
18:47.
Dalia's local alternate calendar was gone.
Their own secure interfaces had returned.
Deja stared at the clock.
“No.”
Soraya saw them.
“Oh, thank God.”
Mandi looked at Dalia.
Dalia looked at Deja.
Deja whispered, “We were gone almost forty hours.”
Soraya rushed toward them.
“You were gone eleven minutes.”
Mandi looked down at the silver medal still pinned to her jacket.
Dalia still wore her civic honor.
Deja still wore the soft dark collar beneath her suit collar.
Mandi squeezed the plush mercenary tucked under one arm.
It chirped.
Soraya stopped.
“What is that?”
Mandi looked at the toy.
Then at her.
“Evidence.”
## Chapter 19 — Eleven Minutes
Soraya Bell locked Elsewhere down before anyone asked her to.
That earned her another point.
The technicians disconnected the room from building power.
Then disconnected the backup power.
Then physically removed the control module from the wall.
The interior door remained a door.
Nothing more.
Mandi sat on one of the three chairs with the plush mercenary in her lap.
Dalia stood beside Soraya, giving the fastest possible version of events without offering any real identities.
Deja had taken over the technical table.
Nobody had formally given her permission.
Nobody was foolish enough to stop her.
Soraya stared at the civic medal on Mandi's jacket.
“You entered at eighteen thirty-six.”
“Yes.”
“Our room initialized randomized branch selection.”
Mandi nodded.
“Then?”
Soraya looked at the control logs.
“Then the branch generator returned no valid scenario.”
Dalia frowned.
“No valid scenario.”
“The system crashed.”
Deja spoke from the table.
“Not exactly.”
Soraya turned.
Deja enlarged one line of code.
The branch selection field showed:
**TARGET: NULL**
Under it:
**PATH: AVAILABLE**
Soraya stared.
“That is not our syntax.”
Deja nodded.
“I know.”
“You're sure?”
“I have read your entire runtime.”
Soraya blinked.
“When?”
“While you were talking.”
Mandi squeezed the plush toy.
Chirp.
Soraya looked at her.
“Please stop doing that.”
Mandi squeezed it again.
Chirp.
Dalia took the toy away.
“Professional environment.”
Mandi looked wounded.
Soraya rubbed her forehead.
“Our internal cameras show you entering the room. The interior door closes. For eleven minutes, nothing happens.”
“Nothing?” Dalia asked.
“No image corruption. No hidden movement. No access panel. No projection. You are simply not visible.”
Mandi sat straighter.
“Not visible where?”
“Anywhere.”
Soraya played the recording.
Three women entered.
Door shut.
Room empty.
Eleven minutes.
Door opened.
Three women stepped back through wearing different clothes.
Mandi held a toy.
Dalia wore a medal.
Deja wore a collar she had not entered with.
The recording stopped.
Nobody spoke for several seconds.
Mandi finally said, “That is extremely bad venue evaluation footage.”
Soraya looked at her.
“Your fee is being refunded.”
Mandi's eyebrows rose.
“No.”
Soraya blinked.
“No?”
“We did the work.”
Dalia folded her arms.
“We also exceeded scope.”
Soraya looked from one to the other.
“You disappeared.”
Mandi nodded.
“Premium service.”
Deja spoke without looking up.
“Thirty-nine hours, four minutes local elapsed time.”
Soraya turned sharply.
“You have logs?”
“Thirty-nine hours of passive scan history compressed into eleven minutes of your clock.”
“That is impossible.”
Deja looked at her.
“Yes.”
Soraya took a breath.
“What did you find there?”
Mandi answered first.
“Better traffic.”
Dalia said, “Better companion labor law.”
Deja said, “Worse weapon museums.”
Soraya stared.
Mandi added, “Much worse.”
Dalia continued more seriously.
“Close this room.”
“I already did.”
“Not until tomorrow. Not until maintenance. Close the branch function entirely until you understand what happened.”
Soraya nodded.
“Agreed.”
Mandi looked at her.
“And no client testing.”
“Agreed.”
Deja leaned back from the console.
“One more thing.”
Soraya waited.
Deja held up her scanner.
“The other city had Elsewhere too.”
Soraya's face changed.
“Same company?”
“Same logo. Same room. Different purpose.”
“What purpose?”
Mandi smiled.
“They use our Night City as a horror scenario.”
Soraya stared.
Dalia said, “Weapon density felt exaggerated.”
Deja said, “Traffic was the least believable part.”
Soraya sat down.
Mandi took the plush mercenary back from Dalia.
Chirp.
Soraya closed her eyes.
## Chapter 20 — Venue Evaluation
Suzie Q listened without interrupting.
That was how Mandi knew the story was bad.
They sat in Lizzie's soundproof back room exactly where the evening had started.
Except Mandi now wore a civic labor medal.
Dalia had changed out of the alternate formal suit but still carried a small green-and-silver honor pin in one pocket.
Deja had refused to remove the collar.
Suzie Q noticed all three things.
She chose not to ask immediately.
Dalia finished the report.
“Elsewhere has closed the randomized branch function pending investigation. Soraya gave us full internal logs and accepted Deja's recommendation for physical isolation.”
Suzie looked at Deja.
“You trust her?”
“Yes.”
“Do you trust the room?”
“No.”
“Would you send Moxes professionals there?”
All three answered at once.
“No.”
Suzie nodded.
“Good. Simple part done.”
Mandi leaned back.
“Can I tell you about the university?”
Suzie looked at her.
“No.”
Deja smiled.
“Yes.”
Suzie sighed.
Dalia took out the alternate-world Institute badge she had kept.
Suzie read it.
**DIRECTOR — INTIMACY SYSTEMS & PROFESSIONAL ETHICS**
She looked at Dalia.
“You became management.”
Mandi slapped the table.
“THANK YOU.”
Dalia gave both of them a cold look.
Suzie picked up Mandi's medal next.
“Public Labor Medal for Companion Practice.”
Mandi nodded.
“I was respectable.”
“Briefly, I assume.”
“Uncalled for.”
Then Suzie looked at Deja.
Deja looked back.
Suzie's gaze dropped to the collar.
Then returned to her face.
“What were you?”
Deja answered carefully.
“A senior specialist.”
“In?”
Deja was silent.
Mandi and Dalia inhaled together.
Deja pointed at them.
“Don't.”
Mandi smiled.
“Cross-form embodiment.”
Suzie's expression did not change.
Dalia added, “Post-biosculpt identity studies.”
Suzie looked at Deja.
Deja looked at the wall.
Mandi whispered, “Doctor Good Girl.”
Suzie Q folded forward over the table.
The laugh arrived without warning.
Deja covered her face.
“I hate every person in this room.”
Suzie laughed harder.
Dalia offered Deja a menthol lollipop.
Deja took it without looking.
When Suzie recovered, she wiped one eye.
“Okay. Serious question.”
Dalia nodded.
“How were workers treated?”
The room changed.
Mandi answered first.
“Better.”
Suzie looked at her.
“How much better?”
Mandi considered it.
“They had live-consent contract law. Prepaid time never implied prepaid access. Independent security funding. Mandatory break standards. Privacy-protected health care. Professional refusal training. Client blacklists with due process. Labor representation that treated sex work like work instead of a tolerated emergency.”
Suzie stopped smiling.
Dalia added, “They had problems. Bureaucracy. Credential barriers. Institutional self-importance. But the basic architecture was good.”
Deja said, “Their city was not sexually freer because people were less serious about boundaries. It was freer because boundaries were treated as infrastructure.”
Suzie sat quietly.
Mandi touched the edge of her medal.
“That's what the weird part was.”
“The lack of gunfire?”
“That too.”
Suzie looked at all three.
“So somewhere, maybe, this city learned.”
Dalia nodded.
“Different city. Different history.”
“Still.”
Nobody made a joke for several seconds.
Then Mandi squeezed the plush mercenary.
Chirp.
Suzie looked at it.
“What the fuck is that?”
Mandi brightened.
“Historical mercenary.”
Suzie stared.
Deja said, “Museum quality.”
Dalia put her head down on the table.
## Chapter 21 — Things You Keep
They stayed in cover until they reached the Safehouse.
Not because anyone outside needed the performance by then.
Because after thirty-nine impossible hours, changing names in the middle of the ride home felt like one variable too many.
Mandi sat in the passenger seat with the medal in her hand.
Dalia drove.
Deja sat behind them, fingers occasionally touching the collar at her throat.
Night City behaved normally.
Someone fired a weapon in the distance.
A traffic light failed.
A delivery van blocked half an intersection.
A pedestrian shouted at a driver who shouted back.
Mandi watched it all.
“Home.”
Dalia glanced at her.
“You sound disappointed.”
“No.”
“Liar.”
“Some things were better.”
“Yes.”
“Some things were deeply disturbing.”
“Such as?”
“Expense documentation.”
Deja leaned forward between the seats.
“The local network actually had useful municipal APIs.”
Mandi looked back.
“Don't defect.”
“I could fix so much with those APIs.”
Dalia said, “You could also be prosecuted for adversarial network practice.”
Deja sat back.
“Home.”
At the Safehouse, they did not immediately release the covers.
Mandi put the plush mercenary on the table.
Dalia placed her civic pin beside it.
Deja remained standing.
Mandi looked at the collar.
“You keeping it?”
Deja's fingers touched the soft edge again.
“Maybe.”
Dalia did not assume.
“Because alternate Deja had one?”
“No.”
“Because of last night?”
Deja looked at her.
“Partly.”
Mandi waited.
Deja exhaled.
“Because I chose it there. Then I chose to keep wearing it here.”
Dalia nodded.
Simple.
Correct.
No alternate biography required.
Mandi smiled.
“Good.”
Deja narrowed her eyes.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“You're doing the face.”
“What face?”
“The face where you're about to say something.”
Mandi picked up the plush mercenary instead.
Chirp.
Deja threw a cushion at her.
Dalia caught it.
All three stopped.
Dalia looked at the cushion in her hands.
Mandi looked at Deja.
Deja looked at Dalia.
Mandi said, “Director reflexes.”
Dalia hit her with the cushion.
The fight lasted six seconds and involved no historical physical signaling beyond pillows.
By the standards of the other universe, it was practically organized crime.
## Chapter 22 — Hydration Target
The Elsewhere card changed the next morning.
Deja found it beside the coffee machine.
She called Mandi and Dalia without touching it.
Mandi arrived first in ordinary Ace scale and posture despite the neon-orange cover still waiting for release later that day.
Dalia came behind her with a fresh menthol lollipop and the expression of someone already prepared to distrust stationery.
The black card lay flat on the counter.
Silver letters moved across its surface.
Not projected.
Not displayed.
Moved.
Deja read aloud.
“Branch feedback received.”
Mandi leaned closer.
“From who?”
The text changed.
**VISITORS: THREE.**
**RETURN STATUS: COMPLETE.**
Dalia folded her arms.
“Good.”
Another line appeared.
**PROPERTY RETENTION: ACCEPTED.**
All three looked at the table.
The medal.
The civic pin.
The plush mercenary.
Deja touched her collar.
Mandi smiled.
“They know.”
Dalia said, “Apparently.”
New text formed.
**PROFESSIONAL NOTE: LIVE BLADE TECHNIQUE REMAINS PROHIBITED DURING FUTURE VISITS.**
Dalia turned slowly toward Mandi.
Mandi put both hands up.
“I used foam.”
Deja laughed.
The card changed again.
**MUSEUM CONSULTATION REQUEST: WITHDRAWN.**
Mandi looked offended.
“They're cowards.”
Dalia took the card.
One final line appeared.
**DEJA: HYDRATION TARGET STILL INCOMPLETE.**
Silence.
Mandi looked at Deja.
Dalia looked at Deja.
Deja stared at the card.
Then at the coffee in her hand.
“This counts.”
Dalia said, “It does not.”
Mandi was already laughing.
Deja pointed at both of them.
“Alternate reality has no jurisdiction in this kitchen.”
The plush mercenary chirped from the table.
No one had touched it.
All three went still.
Mandi slowly looked toward the toy.
Dalia removed the lollipop from her mouth.
Deja whispered, “No.”
The mercenary chirped again.
Mandi smiled.
“Thursday.”
Dalia closed her eyes.
Deja started laughing first.
---
**END**