It's like I'm lost in a forest of words, until I find a path and the words find order; lines flow, meaning follows. It must be a kind of magic that conjures up the forgotten story of a man who lived long ago. Hand in hand we make our way to the river where I drink in his undying thoughts. I revel in his sketch of the ducks that rush up to meet him, eager to win bits of biscuit. Biscuit is some kind of food, I think. I wish I knew exactly what it was. I search for the word and summon up a page about biscuit-making or baking as it was called; there are pictures of other foods on this page too, and they elicit a pang of hunger that seems completely natural but foreign at the same time. I read the page and can only understand some of it. I wonder how we could have lost the words biscuit, bread and baking. It seems we have lost too many words, all sacrificed so that we may live in a world consumed by the need to need nothing. It's really an illusion of a life defined by highly saturated hues that are, in fact, colorless—dark even—devoid of value. But, I can read. I can wield the magic to find lost words. Magic. Perhaps I'm a witch. Yeah, the reading bitch is a witch. I like the sound of that.

The bot interrupts my dreaming as if it physically breaks my thoughts wide open. "Saki, I am sorry but this is important. You have three days worth of pax processing overdue."

I wish I could use my magic to teleport the sentient to anywhere but here. I ignore it, but the stupid thing doesn't take a hint.

"Saki? I know you can hear me."

"Go away, Rue, I'm reading."

The bot throws an isoglyph into my overlay peripheral, a colourful pictorial graphic representing the concept for inadequate response, and continues. "I thought you might be, but reading will not be a valid excuse for the Audit Process when it finds you failing to comply with the citizen terms. Your weekly audit is tomorrow and the terms state quite clearly—"

"I know what they say." I cut the bot off in midsentence. "It's easy for you to bug me, isn't it? After all, you only have one world to worry about."

"Easy? I have been in this job for over two hundred years and I can tell you that there is nothing easy about dealing with humans. Especially humans like you: seventeen years old and you think that mushy brain of yours understands the mysteries of the universe. You have much to learn, my young citizen-user, and a good place to start is here with these outstanding pax."

"Whatever." I reject the bot's meaningless blabber. Now fully distracted, I exit my reading mod and turn over to environmental visuals. I call my personal space in the Environment the library; it's rendered as the inside of a expansive cube, lined on each interior surface with thousands books on shelves. The scene slowly loads into high resolution with lighting effects applied. For the library I've chosen candlelight as a default. (So shoot me, I'm a romantic—but the warm dancing light makes the place seem alive.) Here, unlike everywhere else I know, the shadows are my friends.

Rue bot's sprite renders as a small crystal sphere floating mere centimeters before my eyes. It's inside my comfort zone, so I slap it and the bot spins out of the way, leaving a trail of bubbles behind.

The swim routine that I've enabled applies an underwater physics engine, so I'm floating, too. I can set my buoyancy to match my weight and so it's like I'm defying gravity, but is better than the zedgrav routine because I like feeling the tacit resistance of the water and can easily swim about. It's especially handy when choosing books from the shelves.

But I'm annoyed now, my dreaming spoiled by that useless bot, and feel like a change of scenery, so switch the library for a deep ocean scene. The books fade away to reveal the deep green. I spin around and let the pull of the current take me down into the depths.

The small bot follows, beautifully lit by a pale green-blue ambient light, the source of which seems to be always behind me, impossible to see.

My thoughts turn to my last readings. "I think I've found it," I say to myself.

Rue bot mistakes my whisper for a invitation to converse, the bot's beauty dissolves in an instant. "Found what?" it asks.

"A spot at the wall that leads to the river. I was reading about the river before you interrupted me. I'm going to take my book outside to the river and read."

"That is not a good idea. Please stay ingee, Saki. It is dark and cold outside and ..." The bot throws the most annoying glyph I've ever seen; it denotes the penalty for failing to pass a pax audit.

I shake my head and snap at Rue. "That crap can wait!" The dark is a problem though, so I'll leave in the morning. Hopefully the sun will warm things up a bit, too.

The bot starts complaining, warning something about accepted user protocol, so I recall a mental op to dismiss it. Now alone with only my thoughts to bug me, I start to worry. What if I'm seriously wrong in spending so much time and energy directed towards the outside? I know enough about the Environment to know that they consider the outside to be nothing more than a place to build tower-hold-apartments to house chairs and the little people hooked into the chairs. By reading I've found that there were some who—I don't know—wanted more–want more, maybe? Anyway, it's all history, gory history if you consider what the user fanatics did to outsiders. I hope the fanatics are history too. But maybe they're not and, rather than evoke their hatred, I should just be content to continue reading here in the Environment. Here, where life is easy, so they say. All I have to do is comply enough to get by—process the pax—pass the audit-a good citizen-user.

But that word comply, it knots my stomach. Mental fatigue overtakes my desire to make sense of the world and my place in it, so I pump out a sharp scissor kick and swim into sleep.