<pre>“Something funny popped up on my screen when I opened *The Secret Garden* for our English Lit. study group.”
It was Monday afternoon and Milla was studying with Michael at the library. He raised an eyebrows. She continued, fiddling with her Pad.
“I opened the book and this notification popped up: some uknown author modified the text and it pointed me to the modified text. Here, I think you should see for yourself.”
Michael grabbed Milla’s Pad and read the passage.
“I don’t know about this Alice person, but Milla, I’m positive Claire is my sister!”
“So now we know this Alice person and your little sister are on that layer of reality.”
“Yeah. They found a way to send a message over to this level.”
“Crafty, don’t you think?”
“Definitely.”
“Yet, we can’t write them back. It’s one way only.”
“I know. But I’m relieved. Now I know where my sister is.”
“So, about Subject Zero —”
“There’s a chat room with other Awakaneds this saturday. But I don’t think they know where this Subject Zero of yours is or if he is on this level of reality at all. Besides, it’s still just an hypothesis. We don’t know for sure someone like him or her actually exists.”
“True. But I think it’s safe to assume it does. Unless our Subject Zero is someone from outside who, for its own purposes, made some of the chips defective and devised a way to hack the other chips. A saboteur.”
Michael became pensive.
“Subject Zero sounds less far-fetched than a saboteur.”
“So, about the chat-room, I’m in, right?”
“Of course. It’s better if you explain your reasoning yourself, Lady Holmes.”
“Lady Holmes? You’re giving me nicknames, now?”
“You don’t like it?”
“It’s kind of cool. I think I’ll use that as my screen name. Anyway, if our Subject Zero is someone from the Angelus Layer, I can ask Nako to pull me out. I think I overstayed already. My body will need rehab when I go back to the Angelus layer.”
“That’s how it works over there?”
“Yep. Unless you are in cold sleep.”
“Oh, right, on that level I am a frozen fish stick.”
Camilla laughed.
“I guess. But a fish stick? Not a nicer popsicle? I don’t know, mint-flavor?”
“You imagine me mint-flavored? I like orange-flavor best, myself.”
Milla giggled.
“What about me? What flavor’d you imagine me to be?”
“You? You’d be a soft, creamy vanilla-chocolate and strawberry-whipped-cream ice cream, Milla.”
“When we meet in real life I want you to take me to an ice-cream bar and buy me one!”
“It’s a promise?”
“Pinky finger?”
Michael promised me we’d meet outside the game, if and when we manage to go back to reality and take me to an ice-cream bar and buy me ice-cream! I know it sounds childish, I mean, buying ice-cream and all, but it made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. I think I have fallen for Michael. It’s so weird. I don’t even know who he is! But I don’t care.
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Codename: Angelus
Science FictionAt the end of the XXI century, a catastrophe happened, that brought the world to its demise. Wait! I'm living in the mid-XXI century and the world is fine! The Earth isn't scarred, we have adavanced technology, space colonies, underground cities on...
