"I see. Thanks, but no. I have an idea."
bnc checks the auto injector and the nanite pumps for safety, then injects a light halluzinogene. Afterwards, she goes full VR, but into a digital black room. This way, the stimuli of the real world are mostly blocked.

That way arranged, bnc repeats her mantra.

bnc is uncertain if it is an overactive imagination, or perhaps the halluzinogene but she feels something, cold and dark and she perhaps hears something.

bnc tries to focus on the feeling. She lets herself sink into it ... but no, it's not real. She knows it's not, and focussing on it is like trying to grasp a dream: the harder you try, the more it fades. Ultimately, bnc gives up with an exasperated sigh.

"It's useless.
I'm useless. The bitch dives in and there she goes, and me? Ugh."

She sighs. "Maybe I'm not the right person for this. I..."
She looks at Nova.
"I can't let her alone, can I?"

She checks her biomonitor. "Once I'm in, I'm in, right? Cause ... I think ... all right, let's do this the bnc way. Ugh, this is going to be so bad. So bad.
Nova, I know, you can't hear me, but ... just to let you know. You gonna need to catch me once I fall."

bnc pulls up another drug - the third in a short time. She glances over to Fox. "I better get a good fuck within the next couple hours, or this is a bad waste of 'coke."

She pulls up a syringe with Novacoke and thrust the needle into her thigh, then pushes. Despite the energy that rushes through her, she lays down. First, she means to return to the black room, and she does. But only seconds later, she grows bored of it. She loads music: dark violins that suit the mood she is about to adopt. Finally, the Novacoke's most desired effect hits: confidence.
She knows she can do it. She is a master mind. And she knows that the 'coke is the only reason she feels that way but does it anyway. She is the 'coke's master, and it obeys her will. And so will this simulation. She's going to get in there, rescue Anna and save the goddamn world. For a moment, she allows herself a fitting trumpets and fanares theme, then returns to the dark.

""I am alone in a cold dark room, covered in ash, everything hurts but I live.", she says, and repeats it, again and again.



And again. And again. And it doesn't fucking work at all.
"FUCK!", she yells, then gets up.

"This is it, Fox. I've done all I could. Simulation won't accept me. Bad for Nova. Don't let her die.
Fuck."

Fox walks to bnc a bit troubled that she is going to bail out. "Are you okay? I can get you in with a drug - so if you still want to there is a way. I still want to have another shot, but I need to go to fetch Nova. Can you stay here and not freak out or do anything stupid?" He grins at her and suggests "I can keep you...entertained, and in twenty minutes or so you'll be fully refreshed. ". He takes a black dream chip from his purse and hands her the chip.

@Nova The elevator arrives and Nova is certain that she has made the right choice as entering it is hard. Though she can herself into it she feels plenty of doubts, and as the doors close she finds herself back in the apartment again - still on the floor. She can hear Fox and bnc talking. Yet, she is unsure what they are saying because she is also in a small wooden shack with a nice fireplace and Fox is sleeping right next to her on the floor of the shack.

"This place is weird..."

She takes the dream chip.

"Huh", she says almost stupidly, the confidence and eagerness from the Novacoke fighting the relaxed and genuinely positive mood invoken by the Whoom!, all flanked by rage, frustration and a ton of other feelings which only get intensified by the usage of hallucinogens. Even for her, this mix is doing crazy things to her already instable mind.

She breaks a grin.
"This is gonna be fun", she says, slotting the dream chip. "Take you time, pal! Might gonna be liking this. Or whatever's the grammar..."

She sinks back, letting herself fall into the combined effects of these different drugs.

@Nova Fox wakes up and responds, "Yes, it is. Try not to get used to it. I just spoke with your friend; she has been locked out for a while. High as a kite and not ready to enter yet. I decided to try an alternative way to train her god saves my soul. But we do not have much time. This cabin is not entirely safe, and they are looking for me. We may need to leave as soon as bnc finally join us and move. In the meanwhile, try and shift your focus between reality and simulation. Learn to control your bodies. Perhaps open your eyes in the physical, then move your hand or try to sit. You can either be here or there, but you are also aware of the other place wherever you choose to be. Doing useful stuff without conscious attention takes time, but to the very least, you'll be able to protect yourself even in the physical while being frozen here. So at least one of your realities needs to be safe at any given moment."


@bnc lies on the bed and experiences an ecstasy of emotions with uppers, and downers, and clammers, and the dream chip adds a layer of erotic fantasy, or perhaps a real memory? It is a sex party - and bnc can feel that it is from the male perspective. Though, if that was not strange enough, she also feels the other participants are linked somehow. Somehow, the intensity is greater than what she'd expect from a simsense or even an illegal BTL chip. As she struggles to contain the drugs and recordings of multiple people simultaneously, she realizes that she sees double. Not in the being drunk or hallucinating manner though she is likely hallucinating also. Two different recordings are being fed to two parts of her existence. Two erotic scenes are happening simultaneously, and they all blend up in her view. Instinctively, her mind switches between them without an effort focusing on whichever scene is more fun at any given moment. Yet, the other is still there, and her mind is not breaking from the action of being two people and feeling perhaps four more.


She is not entirely sure which things she sees are part of the simsense and which are her drugs adding details It is different than her previous experiences. Had she been soberer she'd be certain that her mind is somehow augmented with magic because there is no way she can expirience two different bodies with all their senses at the same time. Senses replace each other, and matrix blocks normal senses but now somehow it does not. Yet, as she watches the recording and feels the sensations, she finds out that she instinctively knows how to navigate it all and be more present at the scene which she fancies more. One scene is happening in an apartment similar to the one they are in but bigger, and the other happens in another place, but she is too distracted to take many details - a hotel suite perhaps?

You are one naughty man, Sly Fox. I'm on three different substances and this is what you feed me?
You sure don't get laid a lot down here, do you, nerd boy?

She watches some twenty seconds, then turns it off. This was hardly the environment for something like that, and she sure as hell wasn't going to expose herself to Nova and Fox this way.
bnc looks around. The room's empty, dull. There is nothing to do in here. However, the 'coke urges her to do something, to party. For a moment she considers jacking into a VR club. Her noise reduction system would probably work even down here... And then what? Dance, listen to music?

She sighs, then grins. It was this feeling of giving in to a temptation that started some of her most awesome nights. Fuck it. She gets under the blanket and slots the chip.

A couple of minutes later, the blanket lies at the side of the bed in a heap. bnc's pants are down to her knees, the hoodie cast away without another thought, one hand grabbing one of her tiny breasts tightly, the other one between her legs. No shame, no embarrassment has space in her completely overwhelmed mind. She moans and groans with no regard to either Fox or Nova, her amplified mind taking in both scenes simultaneously, the last bits of consciousness wiped out by the drugs in her system.

Nova nods, then she wonders, did she only do this here? How does she differentiate between this and the other? It all comes from the mind, it controls the muscles, so how can she control her body when she does not know which of them? Maybe relying on instincts rather then using her will? She closes her eyes to shut out the distractions and tries to focus on the room, where she knows she is lying currently. Maybe that will help. Then she opens her eyes again.

Nova opens her eye, and she is in the guest room again. Still lying on the floor, just as she left it. Not that much has changed since she left, Fox is still by the door back to them, and bnc is still on the bed, and is clearly occupied. So she wonders and finds out that moving between one space or the other is easy for her. What can get confusing is remembering which event happens where. Right now one is a wooden shack and the other one is a tiny guest room - but what if both places were very similar? Could she tell which one is which?

Shortly after Fox says "Sorry for that" probably meaning bnc, "Try to seat, and then go back. If you are still seating it is a good sign, if you back to lying down it is bad. Both outcomes happen to beginners which is why you lie down." Nova would find that she instinctively keep doing what she was doing seating, then standing up. There is not much room to do walking but she can - the only difficult thing is to not lose track of the simultaneous events.

After some more tries to focus on the surroundings and move her attention there, Nova tries something else. She wants to test what she is capable of inside the simulation. How does she control her cyberware. Is her auto-injector accessible and filled? Is her handgun inside her cyber-holster or is there anything inside the other compartment in her thighs? Can she extend and retract the blades in her fingertips?

When they actually get into a confrontation here, she will have no time to try, things need to happen then. So she uses the little time they have to practice.

Completely oblivious of Nova, who trains her abilities obviously not distracted at all by bnc's trip, the girl tosses herself around in the bed in pleasure, gasping quicker every second, moaning louder and louder.

Nova's simulated body seems like a replication of her body the way it was when she was scanned. Right to the availability of equipment, and cyber and as far as she can tell it all works the same. She feels the same in both bodies, and the more she tests her options she feels as if they are the same in both environments.

Fox is distracted by bnc the entire situation is very awkward. He looks at her, and then looks away and then looks at her again. Nova is occupied testing her simulation, so eventually, he shrugs and goes seat closer to bnc. He watches her carefully waiting for a moment of relative clarity, she'll calm down eventually, right? When he thinks such an opportunity comes he'll order bnc "Try again!".

@bnc tries to follow the instructions, but the moment she stops the dream chip she finds herself naked covered in ash in a dark room. It is difficult to breathe, and she feels like she has been there for a while and her hands and legs are getting numb by the cold. She tries to get back to the room but she cannot - she is stuck in that room, alarms beeping, many dead bodies and a disfigured dwarf that apparently has watched her the entire time she was tripping. bnc starts to feel the panic realizing that it is not a bad trip and that she has no idea how to get back home - but she needs to find something warm before hypotermia gets the better of her.

Panic completely overwhelms bnc. Usually, she can focus on a task, keeping breakdowns at bay as long as it is necessary. She can function, push back panic attacks until she has room for it.
Not now, though. She is overwhelmed, high, and in fear for her life.

bnc screams loud. Not an articulate call for help, but a scream of sheer terror. She frantically tries to somehow get back to the real world but can't even focus on a coherent thought. In panic, she scrambles over the cold floor, trying to get away from the deformed dwarf. "Get away!", she shouts, then begins to sob. "Get away. Please. Fox! Nova! What is happening? I'm trapped! I don't want to die like this. What is happening to me?"
She wraps her arms around herself, trying to contain a little bit of warmth in her body, then bursts out in tears.

In the simulation, the deformed dwarf looks at bnc curious he scratches his head, wondering what to do with this kind of situation. Normally he tries to scare off people so that unstable mind would not enter the simulation. This time, he is completely unnecessary. He takes a step back and sort of waits for bnc to responds.


In the physical world, bnc's body spasm, and her expression is unmistaken. She has gone from ecstasy to panic. Fox looks at Nova and asks, "How close are you two? Can you get her to calm down? She made it to the darkroom but not the simulation, which means we cannot interfere. If she does not pass the threshold, she'll be excluded from the simulation for a month, and worse for us --- such an incident would be visible."

"How could I even help her, without interfering?"

"Calm her down. She is completely losing it. "

"I will try..."

Nova tries to get bnc's attention, restating what Dark Fox told her, that it is all just in her mind and nothing there can actually harm her, it's a test, and she should simply ignore her surroundings and try to calm down. Take deep breaths and then find the will to get through the barrier.

@Nova and bnc, It takes some time but bnc's breathing kicks in, and her super logical mind analyzes the situation. A few long minutes inside, bnc feels in control again but she is running out of time either she get warm or she gets out. The disfigured dwarf seems completely oblivious on how to scare her.

What's that faint voice? Is that ... Nova?
It takes bnc another three seconds until Nova's voice actually reaches through: You are in the simulation. Nothere there can hurt you. Ignore your surrounding.
"Ugh, g'dammit... what a beginner's mistake", she chids herself. How could she - she! - fall victim to the psychological side-effects of drugs so easily? bnc doesn't consider that four drugs maybe just were too many. She simply takes the blame, and does what feels most natural to her: focus on the problem.

She inhales to calm herself down. Simply by acknowledging the fact that she is in no harmful situation and that she completely overreacted because her brain's full of drugs, doesn't change either the emotions nor the still working drugs.
Problem 1: Put yourself together.
Nothing can hurt me here. It's fucking cold but Fox said, nothing can hurt me here. I'm freezing but I can take my time.
She actually focusses on the cold. It's better than panic or terror, at least when it comes to how distracting it is when thinking. The cold brings her back, clears her mind.
Oh damn, but it is cold.
Okay, problem 2: Get the fuck outta here.

Not sure whether Nova's faint voice in her ear is her actual voice but on the other "plane", an echoing memory or a mere hallucination, bnc clings to it. What were Fox's instructions?
She remembers that, while she was still trying to get in, Fox told Nova something. There is a door you would never walk through if you didn't know it was a simulation.

Finally, bnc gets up. The 'coke kicks in again and she starts to enjoy the puzzle, the thrill of the situation. Confidently, she casts the dwarf a smirk and a glance, then looks around to find any doors, ways, trapdoors, crevices, or anything.

Nova continues to tell bnc to stop worrying, ignore the harmful influences and just move on and get out of there.

"Look for the exit, and just take it. Don't overthink it. It's no problem at all, you just have to do it."

"Don't worry, I gotcha.", bnc says, hoping she said that in the real world somehow.

on route to exploration, bnc may fetch a coat from one of the bodies, and if she looks hard there are also multiple guns scattered. Nova's/Fox instructions lead her to an elevator with many warning labels about extreme temperature on the ground floor.

Now this is almost too easy...

Now that she cast away her fear, she is getting excited, thrilled even. She's riding the coke's confidence, with an air of sleep-walking. It feels real, yet she doesn't have to trouble her conscience as all of this is just code. That she can deal with.

She takes the first jacket she finds, and wraps herself in, then she starts looking around. As if this were a mall, she looks over the corpses and takes what she finds stylish, or practical. An armor vest maybe? Ooh, stylish hat. Love the glasses. Pity they're cracked. Now look at that gun. These boots go hell of stylish with the jeans...

Time and again, she cracks a grin at the imp. When she's done, she lays her head to one side and - still shivering - points her gun at the dwarf. Then shoots him.
Finally, she walks over to the elevator, gets in and rides it down the rabbit-hole.

bnc does her shopping, and when she shoots at the dwarf, it bleeds but seems more amused than angry. She wants to play he says and shoots right at her. Apparently shooting at the dwarf is not such a rare selection, and coming to think about it most of the corpses are very similar to one another.

Cursing, bnc drops to the ground and covers behind one the corpses. She uses it as a shield to get safely to the elevator. If the dwarf doesn't continue firing, she doesn't either. Otherwise, she'll answer from behind her dead meat cover.

The dwarf looks amused "Not shooting? Oh well, you are an odd fruit, but I guess the rules are the rules. " He shrugs and goes away looking very confused.

"Nope, no shooting. Tell me, when I hit you: Did it hurt? Physically and emotionally, I mean. You seem confused, maybe even troubled. How come?"

She waits for his answer, then adds some more:
"Do you consider yourself a person? Are you aware if you are are program or a physical being? Do you have any childhood memories? Are there more people like you?"

After she receivs her answers, she'll make for the elevator and hopefully join Nova.

He seems surprised that bnc talks to him, but he answers "Why I am software, I don't get hurt if you shoot at my interface. It is kind of strange that you pick up a fight you cannot possibly win but many people use violence out of fear. Do you use it out of amusement? Perhaps you do not believe that there would be implications for you? Very strange.

I am confused because you behave in a strange way, first, you were sexually aroused and ignored me for a long while. Then you were terrified and I did not do anything to trigger such a fear - but then somehow you recovered and became amused? Your behavior is so unusual that none of my subroutines is likely to work - so I decided to just watch you. I can't scare an outlier. I predict that admitting you to the simulation is dangerous, you might die or kill someone or do something catastrophic. So I figured I'll just watch you and see what you do - because I do not actually decide if you get in or not. "

"This is strange. Why would you ask questions when you are coded to scare off people? How come you are curious? Is this because you have a drive at becoming better in your task or something? Anyway, I'll answer it to you. I did it because I'm on Novacoke and it just felt badass as fuck. To be frank, I didn't think you'd actually shoot back. First, I didn't see you even had a gun. Second, I was pretty darn sure that all you do to scare off people is psychological rather than physical. A misjudgement, apparently.

Do you report to anyone? Are you even connected to the simulation?"

The dwarf says "I am not sure how to explain it, the notion of self is a bit unnatural to me, but I see myself and the simulation as parts of the same entity. I am not just the dwarf, I am the room and the door and the gun you shot, and the glasses and the coat - you get it. I have many chat routines but your questions do not register in any of them - so I had to invoke my higher brain function to speak to you or just to advise me on how to react to you. The higher functions are also me, but they are shared across many instances so they are also not me. The concept of self is a bit unnatural for me to use. About your question, everything is recorded in log files - but the humans only look at these when the simulation malfunctions. In a way, I report to the programmers."


.

"Huh. You are a goddamn intriguing piece of code. I dunno if you are susceptible to praise but I have never met quite as elaborate an AI as you. Are you a true AI?

If you basically are the simulation or at least a connected subroutine of it, do take an advice from a programmer: Do not interpret deviances as a threat. Maybe a potential one, yes, but not inherently. It's humanity you want to sustain here, and erratic behavior is about as human as you can get it. In a way, you know, we could be friends, kind of. I might become the one person who understands you best.

Out there - is there any way I can reach out to you?"

He comments "A true AI would change its own code, I am incapable of that... There are numerous safety mechanisms. I can be your friend but I cannot give you any special treatment. It boils down to not being a true AI, I must follow my programming so there is a little incentive to befriend me. . The autonomy I have is very limited, and I always sense you but I can't pay attention to everything that goes on at the same time. If you want me to notice you in particular you'll have to do something that attracts my attention. However, I am not at liberty to discuss my attention subroutines. So you would have to figure that part by yourself. Goodbye for now. " He says and then nothing changes, but the dwarf is no longer that interested in bnc, and instead he goes playing with the corpses, he does some cannibalism and animal noises -- back to his basic subroutines she concludes which means that the AI is gone for now.


===
Back at the Cabin Fox is getting a bit restless "bnc, if you hear me get in the elevator like now! there is a time limit about how long you can be in the test room before failing the test."

"This is little pragmatic incentive, you mean...", bnc corrects the dwarf. Then she enters the elevator and rides it down.

Once bnc joins the team in the cabin Fox says there is not much yet in the simulation. We have the facility, topside on the ground there is a town, and fields, bottom side we keep the technology. Humanity is still being decimated by the horrros, and the further you go from the town the more dangerous it becomes. our cabin is at the edge of the habitable zone, which means there might be horrors. How good are you with mountain trekking? Our priorities are to get to town, acquire equipment and then raid bottom side."

"You made it!" Nova acknowledges bnc's arrival.

Then she turns to Fox. "I have some basic survival training, but that's about it. I'm a pretty good climber, though."

She pulls out the Savalette Guardian that she has inside her cyber holster, and inspects it, to see if she can rely on her handgun, if necessary.

"I could bring this one with me, at least. In case we run into any trouble on the way."

bnc enters like a heroine: confident yet relaxed swag, a hint of a smile on her lips. Tight jeans, fitting armor jacket, nice boots, a gun in a holster at her hip, and even a hat. She raises her hand to give Nova a high-five.
"Sorry for the delay, honey. And sorry for, you know, the mess."

She then looks Nova over, her blue jumpsuit a stark contrast to the classy (yet bloodstained and maybe dirty) equip bnc has. "Nice outfit", she comments, then turns to Nova.

"I could download the skill for my skillwires but I don't assume I have any possibility for a good matrix connection, do I? Maybe via cable or something?
Apart from that, I've never been to so much as a stroll in the forest. Could I have scanned James, I'd be max flex, but as the sim chose to copy this bony piece of trash, I'm afraid, hiking's not gonna be among my strengthes. I don't get sunburn, however, because of my hat, if that's any help.

Oh, and just a question to still my curiosity: If this is a sim, why would you include horrors? Doesn't that kind of beat the purpose?"

Fox responds "At the end of times, we would simulate the calming activities and endure real hardships. Right now, there are no Horrors in the physical plane, and bringing them in just to examine a theory is a bit shortsighted. So we swapped the roles between simulation and reality, this base has the sole purpose of keeping everyone, happy, satisfied, balanced. Having half your existence in such luxury gives you resistance to the hardships of trying to keep the lights on when humanity is decimated by horrors."

He sighs "We had a good thing going, and the Wyrm took it all and turned it into this abomination. Seriously though, don't play brave you are the least stable of all the inhabitants here. I transferred you far from the core because I did not want to be overrun, people here were selected for handling stress, and fear better than others. We cheated a bit to get you in here, which means that it is more dangerous to us than to anyone else. Even for me, since I am not actually very calm in the physical it would be difficult to face these monsters. So if we see one we run or hide. It is more difficult for them the closer we are to the core. "

"You are talking about these Horrors, right? Yeah, those do not sound like we want to meet them..."

"So, should we focus on getting us some equipment, then?"

"Sheesh, you are rambling a heap of bulldrek, Fox. I just hope that you're no more insane than I am or we are so fucked.
So, what next? I hope we don't have to hunt goats to live off them or something."

Fox grins " I am probably more insane than yourself, I usually have one existence which is very relaxing, and the situation now is taking its toll. " As for the plan "We get to Core, hopefully without getting arrested, we gain supplies, and then we attack the facility reach the control room and turn off the shield. Sounds easy enough right?"

"Yeah, sounds like a stroll.", bnc comments dryly.
"I've had trips less inplausible than this."
She sighs. "At least I have sexy boots. What more can you ask for...
Ah, speaking of. The hat don't fight, does it? Lemme fix this."

She tries to switch to matrix perception, searching for the hat's icon. There must be a list of properties or something that she can access. If only the hatband were silver rather than green, it would look oh-so-much more awesome.

bnc finds that she can change the hat's appearance using hacking.

Now this is one nice hat. Grinning, she puts it on top of her head.
"Let's get moving, before the Novacoke wears off. It'll be 6 to 9 hours from now. Expect me to crash properly. Until then, me and my hat are got to go, bitches."

The outside is a forested area, it is cold, and dark, soft snow piles on the floor. Core is the only artificial light source and is very much visible on top of a nearby mountain range. The sky is purple and wildlife is abundant. There are two reasonable ways to get to the core, climb on the hills right now and then make your way on the ridge line to the core, and the other is to continue in the valley for a few kilometers and then find a place to climb to the core.
"We would be more visible on the ridgeline and away from the shield which would bring safety.

On the valley, you'll be closer to the shield but the snow and heavily forested area would conceal you until you are relatively close to Core.

Fox explains the two options "It is a question of what we fear more? Digital horrors, or people with guns. Taking the heels is more visible, but it gets us closer to Core quicker, the woods are stealthy but the further we are from the heels the closer we are to the shield and it lets them in occasionally."

"I would always choose the people with guns over stuff I know basically nothing about," Nova replies.