Lin Hao returned earlier than Danika expected, and Jade greeted him with, "Did you get me a phone?"
He sounded just like a kid who was expecting a present and, to Danika, it conflicted with his imperial appearance. Lin Hao hadn't changed his celestial avatar either, and if they had been in a garden or a palace instead of the blank white room, it could have been a scene out of a novel.
In that scenario, the younger brother was taller and prettier, and his more elaborate outfit made him look like he was dressed up for a ceremony. His face held the smooth cheerful expression of someone who had never seen the darker side of life. The older brother had a world weary look, despite his impeccably neat appearance, and his amused smile told the onlooker that he was probably responsible for the carefree attitude of the younger.
Lin Hao told Jade, "I did, actually. All you need to do is create your own assistant and have it send the link."
"I don't need an assistant, I can send the link myself," Jade announced.
Lin Hao looked startled for a moment, but then he nodded and brought up his menu screens.
"Speaking of assistants, mine says it can't see what I wrote here," Danika complained. "I know that you warned us that it wouldn't be able to access this system, but can't you, I don't know, make an assistant mirror? It can hear what I say aloud, so why can't it see what I'm doing?"
"Why don't you just have Jade make you an assistant here and install a second app?" Lin Hao questioned in return. "Then you can have access to the data from both servers from your phone."
"You mean that way Jade can have access to us too," Devon said with amusement.
"I don't mind giving Jade access to my phone, and I already have an assistant here," Danika replied quickly. At her declaration a little white robotic dragon appeared beside her. Jade had done a good job making it match her specifications. "But this one," she pointed to the little display screen that floated beside her and displayed an image of her 'Living Jade Empire' assistant, "can only listen in, and that one," she indicated the dragon, "doesn't have any history to help it understand what I'm talking about yet."
"It's too bad we can't just sync their memories," Dalma commented.
"The assistants would need their own server for that, and there would be a lot more potential for something getting past the systems' World Dragons, not to mention a lot more data being moved back and forth," Lin Hao stated.
"Doesn't she just want the individual interaction library copied from her old assistant to the new one?" Myles asked.
Danika had never thought that she'd look at Myles so hopefully, but she did as she looked back and forth between him and Lin Hao.
Dalma suggested, "We could attach that to our own avatar data when we copy ourselves to the next server copy, since you agreed to let us move those over."
"That's a one time export, it wouldn't keep the assistants up to date with each other," Lin Hao pointed out. "It's small enough to send to the backup server and read it once a day, the problem is moving it between systems."
"I can set that up while you look over what we've got for opening up character skill and stat design through Jade and the assistants," Dalma offered.
--
Shinichi was still home when Danika finished up and logged off for the day. Ryuske was also home, so they all had dinner together. Danika couldn't really bring herself to complain about Ryuske's presence… she didn't even mind it really… it was just not quite the romantic evening that she'd half hoped for.
She stirred the food on her plate, coating the chicken more evenly in the creamy sauce. Living as a couple with a parent in the house had a lot of the disadvantages that were normally attributed to having children. It reduced your private time together and limited the topics that were suitable for the dinner table.
Ryuske was probably the coolest possible parental figure she'd ever met, but he wasn't exempt from being a "third wheel" sometimes. In a way, she enjoyed living as a family, but she hoped that they'd have time for a "honeymoon" phase someday.
"We're out of guild quests," Shinichi announced. "I was thinking of increasing the number that Song Solvin would accept this week?"
"What? Why?" Danika asked blankly.
"We finished them all," Shinichi answered simply.
"You could do things besides play that while you're free," Ryuske suggested.
"No, it's fine," Danika said quickly, "you can change it if you want."
Shinichi chuckled and asked Ryuske, "What would you like to have done while we're taking a forced rest?"
Ryuske shrugged. "If you're supposed to be resting, then rest?"
"I am resting," he protested.
Danika commented questioningly, "You seem to be feeling pretty well?"
"I started getting a sore throat this afternoon, so I went and got the recommended medicines and started taking them. But yes, I feel alright now," Shinichi agreed. "Want me to do the dishes?"
Danika couldn't explain why she felt surprised, it was what she would have done. She shook her head quickly and refused, "No, you don't need to."
"I'll do that," Ryuske declared.
Danika only made a token protest, which she meant (and would have carried through on), but she yielded the duty without regret. Shinichi led her up to their room without any coaxing on her part, instead of settling on the couch as they often did. He didn't lay down though, he moved things around until they could sit comfortably with him wrapped around her.
She started 'Living Jade Empire' on her phone before pausing to ask, "Are we playing?"
He chuckled and moved his phone into her line of sight, to show her that he'd already loaded the game. "We are," he agreed. "How is the demo creation going?"
"I never realized how difficult it is to think of something that isn't like anything else," she told him seriously. Since Devon had challenged Paul to think of a characteristic that no plant or animal on Earth had, she'd been trying to think of one.
He didn't answer right away, and after a moment she wriggled around enough to look at him. He smiled and leaned down enough to kiss her temple, without releasing his phone. "Yeah," he agreed. "Songs are like that too."
Danika almost objected that it wasn't what she meant, but after thinking about it for a few minutes, she decided that maybe it was.
Shinichi looked at his screen, which displayed her garden and the berry bushes the Witch had given him seeds for. All of a sudden he looked over at her shelf of plants and asked, "Since you like plants so much, why not make garden areas in the house like you described? You don't have to limit yourself to this room?"
"What?" she asked blankly. The sudden change in topics completely threw her for a moment.
"You listed the little garden spaces at the ends of the halls as things you liked about the place. It sounds like something you could do in our place?" he suggested.
Danika thought about it for a moment and then shrugged. "I like having plants to look at where I'm just sitting around, and I like to be able to see the sky. Maybe that's why this room seems nicer than the living area downstairs? Because it's underground, so there are no windows?"
"Should we ask to trade places with Naoki and Toshi?" Shinichi asked after a moment. "They are on the top floor so there is more of a view?"
Danika quickly shook her head in negation.
"No? Are you sure?" he questioned.
"I'm sure. I'm just getting used to this place. Actually, I was thinking…" she replied quickly, and described the layout that she'd decided might simplify her mornings. "Also, instead of visiting different places, can't we just use a VR design program to try out different layouts? With two VR systems in the house we can test them out together, even if it is a pain to swap the other set between people."
He blinked at her, and then laughed. "Yeah," he agreed. "Sorry, it honestly never occurred to me."
"I only thought of it because we were making rooms and trying to get Jade to understand the concept of space stations. We've about decided that we need to let the game have magical gravity generators though," she explained.
He looked doubtful as he asked, "Magical gravity generators?"
Danika nodded. "Since we don't understand how they would work, they would have to be magical. Like faster than light travel, which we haven't decided for sure if we're including yet, but we will probably have some form of it."