Chapter Twelve
Declan
The white cup appeared on Grandpa’s table before Avena did.
One second, the space beside the legal pad was empty. The next, there it sat—smooth, spotless, and shaped with the kind of precision that made the ugly fish mug look personally offended.
This new cup had no painted trout, no chip in the rim, and no faded mark on the bottom from a company that had gone out of business before I was born. It was so perfectly white it barely looked real.
That made it a bad fit for Grandpa’s cabin and a pretty good candidate for what I imagined Avena’s life was like.
I reached for it, then stopped before touching the handle.
Maybe I was learning caution. Maybe nearly waking inside a machine had finally made me suspicious of gifts that materialized from nowhere.
“You’re new,” I told the cup.
It offered no defense.
The air brightened near the fireplace. Avena took shape in the pale light, one hand already lifted as if she had arrived in the middle of reaching for something. Her silver-white hair was pulled back in a tight braid. Blue-white color moved under the skin at her wrists before settling.
Her gaze found me first. Then the cup. She stopped.
“This belongs to you?” I asked.
“It belongs to my residence.”
“Close enough.”
“I did not attempt to bring this here.”
“You didn’t try to bring the fruit either.”
“The fruit was part of a recent sensory experience. This cup has no significance.”
“Maybe the cabin likes the minimalist look.” My lips quirked up as her eyes moved around Grandpa’s mismatched furniture, worn floorboards, and the ugly fish glaring from the edge of the desk.
“That conclusion is not supported by its previous choices.”
“Fair.”
I kept my voice light. “Morning, Tinkerbell.”
Her attention shifted sharply back to me.
“The human cultural record separates the name into two words.”
It took me a second. Then I smiled. “You looked it up.”
“I verified your explanation.”
“You looked it up.”
“The distinction is meaningful.”
“Not from my perspective.”
She gave me the look I had come to recognize as irritation forced to share space with amusement. “You also omitted that the character is unusually small.”
“I was being diplomatic.”
“You compared me to a fictional creature while withholding relevant descriptive information.”
“I said she lights up and has opinions. That was the important part.”
A new pink hue flickered beneath Avena’s collar. “The reference is apparently used as affectionate teasing more often than insult.”
I leaned one hip against the table. “Apparently?”
“That was the archive’s conclusion.”
“And yours?”
The color at her throat softened toward violet. She looked down at the white cup. “Further evidence may be required.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“I am here.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Her mouth tightened. “I am becoming increasingly familiar with that response.”
“Then maybe try answering the question people are asking.”
I pushed away from the table. “Sorry. Start with whatever you can tell me.”
She nodded once. “I will undergo an evaluation after I wake.”
“Medical?”
“Not precisely.”
“That’s not a no.”
“The evaluation will include my response to the synchronization.”
That word had stopped sounding harmless several dreams ago. “This place.”
“Yes.”
“Us.”
Her eyes held mine. “Yes.”
The fire popped. My shoulders tightened.
“Who’s evaluating you?”
“People responsible for determining whether the process is functioning within acceptable limits.”
“That answer came with a fence around it.”
“It is the answer I can provide.”
“Do they know about the cabin?”
“They know the synchronization environment persists between cycles.”
“Do they know about me?”
“They asked whether a recurring figure appeared within the environment.”
“What did you tell them?”
“Yes.”
“No obfuscation. Just brutal honesty then.”
My tone seemed to make her hesitate. “You do recur.”
“I’ll try to vary my schedule.”
“I’ll try to vary my schedule.” The joke landed nowhere. I rubbed the back of my neck. “What else did they ask?”
Blue-white light gathered beneath her wrists. “Whether the figure displayed unexpected behavioral complexity.”
“Unexpected behavioral complexity,” I repeated. “And you said?”
“That their standards did not establish a maximum complexity for synchronization constructs.”
I let out a breath that had no humor in it. “You make me sound like a very complicated imaginary friend.”
“I was avoiding their assumption, not accepting it.”
“Did they ask if I was real?”
Avena went still. There it was.
“They asked whether I believed the figure possessed independent consciousness,” she said.
“What did you tell them?”
She took longer this time. “No observation has established independent consciousness.”
“Declan.”
“Technically accurate. I get it.”
“No.” Her voice came closer. “You do not.”
“The statement means I cannot prove your consciousness by the standards they would accept,” she continued. “It does not mean I believe you lack it.”
“What do you believe?” I asked.
Her gaze moved over my face with the same careful attention she gave every question that frightened her.
“I believe you waited for me.”
The tightness in my chest changed.
“I believe you remember things I do not know. You misunderstand information I have not explained and notice when I refuse to explain it. You are frequently irritating in ways I would not have chosen.”
“That last one sounds pretty conclusive.”
The corner of her mouth lifted, but her eyes stayed serious. “I believe the absence of an accepted proof is not the same as the absence of a person.”
“Okay,” I said.
“Okay?”
“I’m trying something new where I don’t ruin the moment by arguing with you.”
“I approve of this experiment.”
“Enjoy it while it lasts.”
“Are you in trouble because of me?”
“No conclusion has been reached.”
“That’s a probably yes.”
“It is not a yes.”
“Could they hurt you?”
Her silence answered before she did.
“Further intervention is possible if the synchronization is classified as unstable.”
“What does intervention mean?”
“The exact response would depend upon the classification.”
Another fence. This one had something dangerous behind it.
“Don’t come back,” I said.
Avena’s violet eyes widened, her lips parting in shock.
“If being here puts you at risk, don’t come back until you know it’s safe.”
Gold flashed under her collar. “You do not decide whether I return.”
“I’m not trying to decide for you.”
“You issued an instruction.”
“I’m trying to keep them from doing whatever intervention means.”
“By determining what risk I am permitted to accept.”
“You’re right,” I said.
The gold beneath her skin held for another second, then faded.
“I don’t like it,” I continued. “I’m probably going to keep not liking it. But it’s your choice.”
“Yes.”
“Can I ask instead?”
She considered. “You may.”
“If this gets more dangerous, will you protect yourself? It is important to me.”
“I will evaluate the available options.”
“Avena.”
“It is already dangerous.”
“Then what can I do?”
The question surprised her. It shouldn’t have, but it did.
“We do not know whether the environment can be altered during an assessment,” she said. “If another figure appeared, or if one of us behaved inconsistently, we might not recognize the interference immediately.”
A word surfaced before the memory around it did. “Challenge.”
She cocked her head to one side. “Explain.”
“Challenge and countersign. One person gives a phrase. The other has to answer with the right one.”
For a second I smelled wet canvas and cold mud. Saw a rifle angled across a chest. Heard a voice from darkness asking for a word before a shape could pass. No face. No location. Just the procedure, sitting intact where half my life should have been.
I waited for pain, but none came. I blinked back into the present.
Avena saw something in my expression. “Is this a memory?”
“A piece of one. Military checkpoints, I think.” I flexed my hands. They belonged to the cabin. Nothing cold tightened around my skull. “It’s okay.”
“The system constructing this place may have access to the same memory.”
“Probably.”
“Then the method would not establish identity.”
“It doesn’t have to establish it. It gives us a reason to stop and look closer.”
She glanced toward the legal pad. “Writing the exchange would create another record.”
“So, we don’t write it.”
“That does not prevent the cabin from retaining it.”
“Nothing we do prevents the cabin from retaining anything.”
The sentence settled between us. Our footprints still marked the snow. The two nectar glasses remained in the kitchen. The chess game waited on the travel board. Even the legal pad held words she had erased somewhere else.
“We make it ours anyway,” I said.
Avena looked at the ugly fish mug. “The fish is ceramic.”
“That’s your challenge?”
“It is an accurate statement unlikely to occur naturally in conversation.”
“You’d be surprised,” I snarked out of fear.
“What response do you propose?”
I considered the trout’s mismatched eyes. “That’s what he wants you to think.”
Her expression went blank. “Who?”
“The fish.”
“The fish cannot want anything.”
“Exactly. Nobody else would give that answer.”
“The reasoning is defective.”
“But memorable.”
She looked between me and the mug. Blue-white light moved beneath her wrists like sunlight under ice. “It may be effective because it is defective.”
I smiled. “That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said about one of my ideas.”
“It was not praise.”
“Even so, I’m pretending it was and I’m keeping it.”
She shook her head, but the tiniest smile escaped her pink lips.
“The fish is ceramic,” she tested.
“That’s what he wants you to think.”
“Your delivery suggests you sympathize with it.”
“We’ve been through a lot together.”
“You placed it on the desk two cycles ago.”
“A very intense two cycles.”
Her laugh was quieter than usual, but it took some of the weight off both of us.
“Does everything where you live look like that?” I asked, nodding toward the white cup.
Avena followed my gaze. “Much of it.”
“No chips?”
“Damage is repaired or replaced.”
“Mismatched eyes?”
“Not intentionally.”
“Your world sounds exhausting.”
“It is considered comfortable.”
“When they proposed examining the synchronization more closely,” she said, then paused as if she was reluctant to tell me something.
I waited.
“The assessment could have captured the environment’s sensory construction, my emotional response, and the origin of the neural patterns involved.”
I understood only enough to dislike it. “They wanted inside the cabin.”
“In a manner of speaking.”
“What did you tell them?”
“I declined.”
The room felt suddenly smaller.
“You said no?”
“The procedure was not mandatory. I supplied a valid technical reason.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
She knew it. I watched her decide whether to climb another fence.
“Yes,” she said. “I said no.”
“Because of me?”
“Because the assessment would have entered this place.”
“Same difference.”
“It is not.”
“Thank you,” I said.
Her gaze dropped. Violet light rose beneath her cheeks.
“Gratitude is unnecessary.”
“Still...”
The cabin trembled faintly.
Avena looked toward the ceiling. “That occurred sooner than usual.”
“Maybe we’re getting an early warning.”
“Or the synchronization is less stable.”
The legal pad sat open on the desk. Her safeguards filled the first page in clean black type.
Our measurements covered the pages after it.
The travel chess game waited beside them, pieces placed exactly where we had left them.
Through the window, the path held every footprint we had made. Everything appeared normal.
“If they look tomorrow,” I said, “how much of this can they see?”
“I do not know.”
“We could put things back.”
Her attention moved to the chessboard.
“Hide the pad,” I continued. “Clear the table. Kick snow over the tracks.”
“That would not alter the retained pattern.”
“Maybe not. But if there’s a chance—”
“No.”
Avena picked up the white cup. She turned it in both hands, studying its flawless surface, then placed it back down beside Grandpa’s ugly fish rather than removing either one.
“We will leave everything as it is,” she said.
“Why?”
Her fingers remained on the cup for a moment. “Removing evidence would not change what occurred.”
“That sounds like the technical reason.”
“It is accurate.”
“And incomplete, I think.”
She looked through the window at our tracks crossing the snow. “I do not wish it erased.”
The truth was simple enough to hurt. I moved to the other side of the table, close but not touching. “Then we leave it.”
“I have to go.”
“I know.”
I didn’t want what could possibly be our last words to be about fear.
“The fish is ceramic,” I said.
Her brows drew together before understanding softened them.
“That is what he wants you to think.”
I smiled. “Knew it was you.”
I held out my hand.
For one suspended second, the gap remained.
Then she closed it.
Her fingertips met mine. Her skin was cooler than I expected, smooth and unmistakably solid. The pressure was barely more than a breath, but every nerve in my hand recognized it. Blue-white light brightened beneath her fingers and gathered at the place where we touched.
Only Avena.
Her eyes widened as if the simplicity surprised her, too. I didn’t curl my hand around hers and she didn’t pull away. We let our fingertips rest together for the one moment the cabin allowed us.
Then the world lurched and her fingers vanished from mine. The blue-white light went with them.
I stood beside the table with my hand still raised. The sensation of her cool skin remained—a memory across my fingertips, fading too slowly to be imaginary and too quickly to be enough.
The cabin settled.
The white cup remained beside Grandpa’s ugly fish. I lowered my hand and listened to the clock tick.
It had marked the same useless second at 6:12 since I first woke here. I had stopped expecting anything else from it. But on the next tick, the minute hand moved.
6:13.