Claudia, superficially, looked more focused on her pizza than on the story they were telling her, although Marisa saw the odd twitch of her expression—nothing she could read easily.

“Gotcha,” she said finally. “And it’s not responding to voice commands, even though it was apparently accepting voice input earlier during the questions. Okay. There could be a lot of factors, here. It might be as small as a missing character in the code or a wonky hardware connection, or it might be bigger and deeper. You two both have extremely vivid imaginations. I mean, we gave it some guidelines for settings, but this goes way beyond. God knows what it might have gathered from whatever you were visualizing while answering questions, because unless you have spectacularly focused and disciplined minds, there will be some peripheral stuff that you weren’t even conscious of that was flitting through. That’s coming from our mind-witches, by the way, that minds work that way. And some personal experience, because a big aspect of learning to handle most kinds of witchy abilities is being able to stay, at least at that moment, absolutely focused on just a single clear thought without anything else creeping in to throw unexpected variables into the results, and it is really hard to do and it took me forever—I had to learn with something external to focus on, actually. Anyway, unexpected semi-unconscious fleeting thoughts. We’ve barely got it to the point of being able to handle two input sources plus one extra who can interact but not contribute. It might just be overwhelmed.”

“That’s a new one,” Harley said. “Breaking devices by thinking too much.”

“Ask me how much that surprises me. I’ve known Marisa since she emailed WyrdTech to tell us that our apps are great but could use a few tweaks to make them much more accessible for non-experts, and she was right, and I’ve known you even longer, since back when you were working in that computer store and unhappy because you weren’t allowed to think, before you started using your middle name instead of your first name and blogging about tech. You’re both very thinky kinds of people who can see inside and outside the box, which is what makes you so good at what you do. If anyone could overload it, it would be you two.”

“I think there was a compliment in there somewhere. Okay, expert, what do you need us to do?”

“No hurry, finish eating, but then go back to playing. I’ll tune into what Reverie’s doing and see what observations I can make, because believe me, I know inside out and backwards everything that it is supposed to be doing and I’ll spot anything odd that’s happening. Is that going to be okay? The offer to zap it is always open, and I’ll be right here until Reverie’s shut down one way or another.”

Marisa and Harley traded glances, then both shrugged. “I think going back to playing was always likely,” Marisa said. “We just needed a break and some food. I’m not in a hurry to stop.”

Harley nodded. “For a mostly-mental game, this has been surprisingly strenuous on multiple levels and we needed to stop for a bit. I think an unofficial time-out and some pizza is adequate for recharging, if Ris is okay after that last challenge.”

“I’m fine, Mistress,” Marisa said. “It was just a bad moment. Pretty sure I always knew you had it and I just had to keep following what you said.”

“Like I’d do anything else.”

“I suppose you can’t make any adjustments at all, Claudia,” Marisa said, looking down ruefully at her current clothes. “Pockets? Slightly less indecent?”

“I can’t change things like that,” Claudia said. “Not without risking warping the entire session, even without an unexplained glitch. Sorry, you’re stuck with sexy-cute semi-dressed catgirl.”

Marisa sighed and shrugged. “I figured that. Oh well. I think I’m getting used to it or something anyway. It managed to make the catgirl change feel really natural right from the start, and the clothes are starting to, somehow. I’m even starting to sorta like the bell.”

“Uh-huh. Okay? So whenever you’re done eating, just go on with what’s been happening. If you’ve been spiralling around the three rooms on this floor, I’d suggest that you continue doing that—it makes a convenient, safe way for it to keep giving you new settings and a sense of progress. I’m going to stay right here and do a deep connection to Reverie so I can watch everything happening in the box and between it and the server and your phones. At least it sounds like you’ve been enjoying yourselves.”

“Immensely,” Harley said. “I’ve been taking notes. Most of the concerns have been more along the lines of possible safety issues, which you might have already thought of, and a few thoughts on applications of this. One example: I keep up with my first-aid and CPR, but I have some doubts about how easy it is to apply that kind of very controlled and sterile lesson to a highly-stressful crisis situation. Jazz up the CPR dummy and add some realistic injuries to treat, in a setting that will mimic the distractions and so on of an emergency, and it might increase the ability of people to respond quickly.”

“The healer-witch who checked us out suggested it for medical training in surgery and triage and such, along with some forms of psychotherapy, real sessions and training both, but yeah, CPR and first aid should be on that list, too, you’re right. And in other medical uses, along with helping someone adjust to a prosthetic limb, it might give someone a break from a hospital room at a time when they can’t go out freely, to improve morale and mental health.”

“If you can do long-distance,” Marisa said, “it might allow someone to spend time with a loved one who’s not able to be there in person at the moment. Or tourism, because a lot of places are being damaged by the constant flood of tourists. Visit the Lascaux caves or Stonehenge or something, without travelling and without doing any harm. Watching wildlife and stuff, too, especially if you can link the input to a camera off-site. How’s that for non-intrusive observation, and being able to feel like you’re getting right up close?”

Claudia laughed. “I’ll make sure those get added to our already-long list of applications we’ve thought of for the core tech. I told you we were working on something amazing that we were excited about. I’m glad it’s living up to that, despite one little glitch in there somewhere. I’m looking forward to seeing these notes. And if we overlooked any kind of safety issue, believe me, that’ll be the very next thing we tackle.”

“I believe you,” Harley said. “I think you’ve just changed the entire future more than we can see yet, and the bunch of you are brilliant. I’m just deeply grateful that you also have strong ethics and compassion as well.”

Full but not stuffed, they packed up the pizza and stacked the boxes neatly under the table that their phones and the Reverie box were on, since the fridge would be problematic to reach and pizza should be safe enough for a little while.

“Do you suppose I can convince it to let me visit the bathroom?” Harley asked.

“Just think about that,” Claudia said. “Focus on how you’re feeling. I’ll make sure it recognizes it.” She hiked her skirts out of the way and moved over to lay a hand on Reverie.

Seconds later, Harley’s phone flashed and beeped.

“Auto-paused,” Claudia said, letting go. “Go ahead.”

“Thanks,” Harley said, getting up and striding off in the direction of the hall and stairs.

“I usually don’t bother wishing I was a witch,” Marisa muttered. “Right now, I am.”

Claudia laughed. “Well, you got to miss a memorable week of neoarcane syndrome. Never met a witch who can’t remember what that felt like, even if it was early and easy. And it’s particularly weird for tech-witches, since we’re apparently still forking from wright-witches. On the other hand, there are super-powers other than being a witch. I freeze up completely in front of a camera, can’t even get a still pic that I’m really happy with let alone video, but you make it all look so totally natural, like you’re just sympathetically explaining apps or devices or whatever in simple terms to a few friends without ever being patronizing. That just blows my mind. There are lots of witches, but not a lot of people who can do that without either confusing people or talking down to them.”

“I know. The world would be pretty dull if everyone was the same. But still...” Marisa shrugged. “Just out of curiosity, if I’d ducked into my bedroom to grab an overshirt or something and put it on, what would have happened?”

“Same thing as the jeans I assume you still have on. Reverie has an image of what you look like and it’s going to stick to it regardless of reality—it is, in fact, rejecting common reality and substituting its own. I could have created a new avatar for myself for this session, based off an existing one, but it won’t alter avatars, even between sessions, let alone within one.”

“Stubborn little thing, isn’t it.”

“It’s not sentient. It gathered data that it processed as what you and Harley want, and it’s applying that to the game framework as completely as it can in an attempt at giving you that.”

“What if one of the questions had triggered one or both of us into thinking of the one thing that we absolutely did not want before we got as far as what we did want?”

“Ah... it could have picked up the difference. The mind-witches made sure of it after exactly that happened on an early test-run. That was sort of funny in retrospect but not exactly pleasant at the time. I think you’re going to have to just accept that part of you actually wanted to dress like that. I’m not quite sure why you’re so upset about it, since I doubt Harley’s being rude about it and you’re in private and you’re enough to make me want to just squee for about an hour, but whatever.” She spread her hands, the normal one and the clockwork one.

That gave Marisa a way to get off that subject before it got any deeper into territory she didn’t want to be in. “What’s with the clockwork?”

“It’s not uncommon for tech-witches to feel like we’re the intersection point between people, modern tech, and maybe witchery. Probably not a surprise if I especially do, eh? In a sci-fi setting, before we refined the options for creating an avatar deliberately, I ended up as a serious cyborg, with parts of me all metallic silver and parts of me still human, and I absolutely love it. This is how it translates in more historical settings. The silver-cyborg version is just straight-up the self-image some deep-down part of me has, from what the two mind-witches say. I’m considering looking into whether a morph-witch can actually do shiny-silver skin without interfering with function, just a cosmetic change, not actually making any more of me non-organic, which I’m pretty sure no morph-witch could do anyway but no way would I risk losing the ability to feel and respond and generally be as alive as possible. Being able to connect directly to tech isn’t dependent on that either way, but a physical representation of self-identity is generally a good thing, right? On the other hand, cash is a bit short at the moment, so that’ll have to wait.”

“Cash is probably going to stop being a problem once the world finds out about Reverie. As long as you can keep it from behaving like a malfunctioning holodeck.”

Claudia blinked, then began to laugh, hard enough to flop onto her back on the floor.

Harley paused in the doorway. “Please don’t break Claudia, Ris, we need her.”

Claudia waved weakly at Harley, unable to catch her breath, still chortling.

Marisa shrugged. “Idunno, Mistress. I just told her we’re in a broken-holodeck story, and she keeled over. I didn’t think it was that funny.”

“Just tickled a nerve, I suppose. I mean, you’re absolutely right, we are, but there might be a story behind that reaction. Or she’s just overworked or had too much sugar or something. We could probably just go ahead and get on with the game, and leave her to calm down on her own.”

“That’s probably a good idea, Mistress. So, to tell Reverie that’s what we’re doing, I guess we loop back around, and we’ll see what kind of state Claudia’s in by the time we get back here and find out what’ll be in the dining room waiting for us this time around.”

“Exactly. See you in a minute, Claudia.” Harley held out a hand to Marisa to help her to her feet from the couch; Marisa accepted it.

They retraced their steps back through the dining room with the now-inactive wall screen and empty pedestal, the kitchen with its alchemical setup and wall chains, along the hall and back to the bare-stone living room where they found Claudia had managed to sit up and was trying to get her breath back.

“Well, this is less comfy,” Claudia said. “No wonder you made it go back to the other version. Okay. On with your game, and I’ll just stay here and monitor. Pretend I’m not here, act however feels natural to you and have fun with it. That’s the only way I’m going to get an accurate impression of what’s going on.”

“Got it,” Harley said. “I’m not sure we’d be able to with anyone else around, but with you, I think we can manage that.”

“We can, Mistress,” Marisa agreed. “Next challenge?”

“Next challenge.”

The doorway to the dining room looked oddly dark and shadowy.

“I hope we don’t end up blind again, Mistress,” Marisa muttered.

“We can handle it, whatever it hits us with,” Harley said. “We’re too good a team to be thwarted by a game.”