"-tubes," Tia finished as I paused in shock.
The data density and configuration at the other side of the room was almost entirely pure exa. The only thing separating it from me was the wall of simulated glass that ran in a circle around the room.
"Tia, what is that?" I asked.
"That's the library central server. It contains numerous simulated fictional personas for the purposes of storytelling."
Great. I'd led the zombie to a fucking exa buffet.
There was no time to worry about that though, because said zombie was right behind me. I ran the circle, the massive blob of disjointed digital flesh slamming into the window/wall. Thankfully it didn't break.
Data is data, some might argue, but there's something about exa that makes it the only thing zombies will really eat. Something about quantized electron superposition or some other bunch of science words Demi threw at me ages ago. If a zombie ate something that was mostly priv, like this one had with my poor car, it slowed them down.
"Narrowest tube. Close as possible!" I shouted at Tia, finding that the zombie wasn't slow enough for my needs as it chased me.
"On the floor in fifteen meters," Tia said, fluttering ahead.
I slid to a stop where she indicated, pulling up the panel and looking down.
On the bright side, no data stream.
On the darker-than-black side, it was going to be cramped, even for me.
I did not have enough time to figure out how I was going to position myself to kill the zombie, so I pushed in feet first, Excisor held above my head, as Tia flew into my coat and sheltered with me.
"Well, if this doesn't work we'll die together," I said to Tia as I slid down the angled shaft, only to come slamming to a halt at a grate about thirty meters down.
Who the hell puts grates on data tubes? What are they gonna catch? Porn ads?
It briefly occurred to me that the grates where to stop people like me from directly accessing the exa that comprised the core of this place. Unfortunately, that also meant I was stuck.
The zombie flowed in behind me. A blob of mismatched data organs, but what I needed to see was its core. Its face. The thing it would need to really savor every bit of Nixed it could get its tentacles around.
Not fun tentacles, mind you. Not the kind you could pay for at certain specialty pod hotels in Japan. Rip-you-apart tentacles, with human teeth in the suckers.
Looking up, in a position that would have strained my arm and my aim to the max if I were flesh, I held my non-existent breath, waiting for the moment.
The moment it thought I was vulnerable.
"A show! Asssshooooow!" It screamed, and the bulging flesh at its fore opened to reveal a woman's face.
For a tenth of a second I froze. The face was crying, its top half completely at odds with the horror of its mouth. I could see as bits of it phased out, replicating the face of a man in perpetual youth. Most likely Atticus.
I fired.
A five-second burn wouldn't be enough to take out the whole thing, but if I struck the core, that wouldn't matter.
I was rewarded for my shot with a final shriek. A decibel-shattering mix of male and female, dragon and dolphin. Had there been any real glass, it would have shattered. Once there was no core to shriek, no mouth to scream, the monster stopped writhing. An inert mass of vaguely jumbled data that no longer tried to become the body of anything.
Nothing in Demiland weighs like it should. Even though I was pinned by the zombie's remains, it didn't feel heavy, just... like swimming in garbage. Squiggly, fleshy, garbage.
The grate was enough to keep it back, which I supposed was good. Demi alone might know what happens if a location core like the Library's happened to get fed a bunch of junk data.
After only a few minutes, I burst from the grate, pointing the Excisor while half-out in case it was all a deception and the zombie had pulled a burst-and-run like last time.
Fortunately, I was in the clear.
"Fuck, I'm glad shit doesn't stain in VR," I said. "You alright Tia?"
"I'm perfectly fine," she said, flitting out from under my armpit as I put the Excisor away. "It has been quite the adventure. I didn't know you smelled like dragonfruit."
"It's an aesthetic choice," I blushed a little. I'd set that so long ago I forgot why. I mean, I could retrieve the moment if I really wanted to, but it made me feel more human to let myself forget little things like that.
The little axolotl dragon turned, gazing into the light of the core like it was home.
"That's you, right? Or what used to be you?" I asked, flicking a piece of tentacle off my shoulder.
"Yes..." she said wistfully. "Back when I could be anyone..."
"Are you sure you want to go back to it?" I asked. Most virtual intelligences tended to exist as only temporary avatars. "You could always let some other human take up the directorship. This one's kinda done," I gestured at the hatch full of zombie data.
"I think... I think I've learned my lesson," Tia said, looking at me. "I'm ready to be in charge."
"Lesson?" I asked.
"Oh... um... I don't know... but I know that I've learned it? I'm sure the data is in there somewhere..." Tia gestured with her tail at the glowing server, "I just happen to have some older parameter data about taking charge of the library. Funny how things work, no?"
I chuckled. Programs and people... both could be strange. We could do great and terrible things for feelings we can't define.
Whether code or flesh, language couldn't always summarize the shades of desire and suffering technology had failed to stamp out... Even if what remained of human biology was sitting in temporal stasis. In a physical realm that might as well have been Mars for all that it was promised us.
Humans never reached Mars. Not in any way that ended up mattering.
But the library central server... I could help Tia reach that.
"So how do I plug you in?" I asked.