AW0001 Prompts

Ivy and a swimming float went into the dark. She closed her eyes to feel nothing but the warm water and calming, flowing sounds. She had never felt so human before. Since birth, unlike the normal AW0001, she was born with a robotic upper body, which makes every place on her body mechanical except her head. She developed a sensitive mind when she was young, and Ivy soon learned that other AW0001 had different experiences. They don't feel the world like she did. And what about humans, or BNNUY02? With their fully synth skin, do they unlock a higher level of sensation? Working as an analyzer, Ivy knows better than anyone else that there's more than one layer of reality, even in the digital or physical realm. She analyzes others and the world itself with an endless heart that wants to explore new things. Unlike her only friends who love to embrace old things, Ivy left her safe zones often to explore. And together with other well-known things, she dumped her old friend.

She doesn't know why that memory came back to her head at this moment. But Ivy got so sleepy that she couldn't open her eyes. Although she can still hear the sound of water flowing, she knows that she's still floating. There's no attracting code, but she found a welcoming voice gently repeating.

- Come to me, come to me...

It fainted away. Come to who? Is that a thread? She couldn't know and got too tired to care. Slowly, her consciousness shut down, leaving her disconnected from all body sensations.

- Welcome home, Ivyria.

She woke up. With a violent kick, she unintentionally destroyed a small assistant bot in the emulator center. That voice got her in an alert state. Staring at the pieces of it lying on the floor, she was expressionless. But then a thing got put into her arms—her plush bot. She doesn't care who gave it to her; she immediately flips it over to see if her notes are still there. They disappeared. All of the time she spent inside the emulator went to waste.

But before she could start swearing, a hand holding a proper notebook appeared right in front of her. Ivy looks up; she sees a pair of red eyes and an elegant smile. Saying nothing, she took the notebook, opened it, and flipped some pages to find the text. There are clean and beautiful notes; exactly everything she has written on her plushie is there. The handwriting looks soft and careful, which clarifies her thoughts. That's "her". Ivy hugged it into her chest and turned around, with the plush bot in another hand. She doesn't want to speak, but the person behind her repeated her line again, with the exact same intonation.

- Welcome home, Ivyria.

- Don't say anything.

- Welcome home, Ivyria.

- Are you crazy?

- I saved you.

- What?

Ivy looks around again. This is the emulator center, but nobody is here except for the assistant bot that she broke in panic. Standing next to the room where she woke up was a woman with a calm smile.

- Ochagne, what did you do?

- I saved you.

- What do you mean?

- You broke the wall of that emulator. You should not be carried away by viruses or other attackers. You were in a very vulnerable state, but I saved you.

Oh, so now she has it. The liminal "backrooms" were Ochagne's creation. She made a whole extra emulator room to secure Ivy in it, while she got lost in a zone of higher commands that she was not developed to understand. That zone can instantly kill her, for it was meant to welcome higher-ranked androids.

- But why?

She couldn't understand why a friend that she hadn't talked to for years and didn't even keep in contact with could someday rush into an emulator server and save her in a crisis.

- You've come a long way, Ivyria, and I'm just here to say congratulations.

- Only that? And you work on thousands of lines of code in a few seconds just to bring me back here and say congratulations?

- Yes, why not? You make me think again about myself. You wake me up from a fooling dream. Along with congratulations, I want to say thank you.

- I... I don't understand?

- Oops, the staff is coming; I should go now. See you later.

Ochagne disappeared right before the emulator center staff opened the door. They were so freaked out and worried because of Ivy's action. 10 hours have passed since she entered this room, and they lost contact with her for 8 hours. If she ends up missing, there will be a big reputation stain for them to clean up. Looking at the broken bot on the ground, an android staff member sighed, telling her with a voice that was clearly trying to be calm and not raging.

- Ma'am, you will be charged with 3000 CC for destroying this bot and causing dangerous chaos during your experience. And the cost of your extra time using the emulator service is 1520 CC.

- "Wow, now I'm broke."

That's the thought inside her mind; Ivy prefers not to say it out loud. She silently pulls out her phone and transfers the fee through the digital bank. Now she has to work extra time until the end of the month, which is the next 10 days! Ivy wants to explain that she wasn't using their service for the extra 8 hours. That was Ochagne's room! But again, she got too tired to argue, and so did the staff. They look exhausted from trying to locate Ivy the whole time. They were filled with anger and worry; she couldn't help but feel sorry about that. Gladly, the center decided not to ban her from there; she just received a warning.

- Enough, really enough. What a good way to end a day off! I will never ask for holidays again, or did I ever do it?

Ivy questioned herself as she walked home. At least, things are not repeating blank rooms or denying physical here. She knows where she's heading; now that simple thing has become her greatest wish!