The Unseen by Jake Lingwall

loves me, but for the first time in my life I feel like I belong, and I can’t leave that any time soon.
    “I miss you, too,” Kari said. The guilt formed a ball in her stomach and made her feel a little queasy, but she didn’t show any of that to David. “I need to get going, but we’ll talk again tomorrow.”
    “Promise?”
    “Of course,” Kari said before disconnecting from the call. The small camera that had been floating in front of her face, broadcasting it to David, reattached to the processing unit behind her ear. So when are you going to tell him you never want to leave this place?
    Kari didn’t feel like working on either of her projects, so she whistled for Lars. Walks around Valhalla were an effective break that had become a critical part of her daily routine.
    It was beautiful outside, and there was always someone testing out a new project that provided plenty of distraction. If she saw some of her friends she’d stop and hang out for a while before getting back to work. Having friends she would randomly run into was starting to feel normal.
    It was well into the warm summer night by the time Kari climbed the set of stairs leading back to her room. She had casually designed a new collar for Lars that featured Cerberus, the three-headed dog that guarded the underworld in Greek mythology. She thought Joseth might like it. But when she had tried to order it to print in the basement, she had found that all of the printers were busy for the rest of the day. She couldn’t think of anything that would occupy the printers for that long, so she had headed toward the basement to find out. But she never made it there.
    SeptemberMist and Motorcad had physically forced her to join in a round of Black Hat Tycoon, a strategy board game that, when played with teams, took hours to complete. All of the players connected to the same game, and the virtual board and pieces were displayed holographically in an augmented-reality setting. She had partnered with SeptemberMist, and together they had managed to eventually subdue all other botnets—rogue networks of virus-controlled computers—and win the game.
    Motorcad’s team had been eliminated early, but he had stuck around to provide witty commentary and try to exact posthumous revenge on the people who had conquered his networks. Kari’s abs hurt from laughing so much, which made her even more eager to get back to her room to rest.
    Lars came running out of the open door to Kari’s room to greet her. She had sent him up to the room before she had started the game. One of the best luxuries about Valhalla was the endless supply of someone or something available to help out with the little things, like taking care of Lars. Kari jumped when she noticed someone else was in the room, but she tried to play it off as getting shocked when she saw it was Joseth. Hopefully he’s overriding his vision.
    “Sorry to scare you,” Joseth said. Perfect.
    “You didn’t scare me,” Kari said. Even better.
    “Well good. I just wanted to stop by and see how things are going.”
    “Things are going great. I’m not sure I’m ever going to leave this place, honestly.” Kari sat down in a chair across from him, holding Lars in arms.
    “You don’t know how happy I am to hear that.” Maybe happy enough to stop by more than once a week.
    “But,” Kari frowned, “I haven’t had much luck paying that rent.”
    “Me neither.”
    “Does that mean you aren’t going to evict me?”
    “I’d have to evict myself as well for failing to hack the system, and I rather like it here. While I’m sad that you haven’t figured it out, I’m glad that I get to keep my ego intact for now.” Joseth flashed a friendly smile at her.
    “I’m sure you’ll get it soon.”
    “I hope so. The hardest thing is just trying to get myself to focus on it. It’s hard when you have to split your mind across multiple projects.”
    “What else are you working on?”
    “I’ll show you soon. In a few