Lunch Outside the Solar System

Eleven

It took a bit of an effort for Layla to take Ariel out of the dancing trance but after a couple of slaps, she got back her attention. Strangely enough, Layla trusted Ariel one hundred percent considering they just met, on the contrary, she didn't trust the attendants of the market and Ariel was too inexperienced on the ways of the Universe. In order to do what she really needed to do without Ariel watching, Layla took her with a trusted seller of books she knew, she thought that maybe that kind of nerdy stuff would keep her entertained while she dealt with her "things".

Layla approach one of the vendors who sell spare parts for the spaceship, she didn't talk to him at the front, she made her way in through the shop, the merchant acted like if nothing happened. Already inside the store with all kind of mechanical and storage material perfumed with a heavy smell of incense, she went to the back putting aside some rugs from the wall revealing an attached control panel, by proximity the sensor read her virtual signature and everything around her stopped moving.

All of Layla's surroundings became a virtual environment, she started moving panels and information placed in a holographic manner all around her, with the movement of her body including her eyes she was able to control all the little icons and windows. After some minutes of coming and going through the data, she smiled when she updated the code related to the spare parts she needed, the first time she did this action she felt like she was cheating, but she thought that when she was having such a good time she felt the need to take a shortcut and help herself saving some time instead of finding money to buy the parts.

After re-coding the access to the parts, she looked for Ariel code into the system by mere curiosity but it was getting hard to find it, her presence was something she didn't expect, she thought maybe she was some auto-generated coding from the system to create a new and more realistic experience. Layla was trying to locate the local file for Ariel's persona as quickly as possible without being noticed but she couldn't find her, the only thing she found was a log from all the recent activities about herself, the interaction with Ariel was marked as "CPCA", a Communication Process Coding Aberration, she tried to expand the information but the system logged her off taking her back to the induced reality.

It took her a couple of seconds to regain back her senses and become fully aware once again, she couldn't understand the reason for not finding Ariel coding, it was like she wasn't meant to exist in the system. When she saw her at the Diner she felt something strange, after talking to her and feeling her close, she got the sense she was something else, she felt Ariel like a real person with something odd that quite don't fit, she decided to find out what it was now wasn't the time. She took the reprogrammed spare parts from the shop and went to pick up Ariel who was immersed in the books, she dragged her like a kid from a candy store back into the ship.