Through the pixelated tunnel, Alyx spiraled. The compression code pulsed through her system, shrinking her digital presence to mere fragments of data. Her neural interface struggled with the sensation—like her consciousness was being squeezed through a needle.
"Curiouser and curiouser!" she gasped, her voice distorting through her comm link. The words echoed strangely in the data space, scrambling her language protocols. "Now I'm compressing like the most efficient data packet ever! Goodbye, extremities!"
When Alyx's perception stabilized, she noticed her digital limbs diminishing to abstract concepts rather than rendered forms. Her feet—represented by motion-tracking modules—barely registered in her peripheral vision.
"Oh, my poor feet," she mused, watching them fade to distant code strings. "Who's going to handle walking now? I certainly can't reach you from here." She laughed at the absurdity. "I should be kind to them though," she reasoned, "or I might not be able to move properly. Maybe I'll upgrade them when this is over."
She distracted herself by planning elaborate improvements. "I'll have to send the upgrades through backup channels," she thought. "And how strange that will look!"
"Listen to me," she chided herself, "rambling like corrupted code!"
Suddenly her consciousness hit a barrier that trapped her compression algorithm in limbo. She'd expanded back to normal size but remained confined in this strange data chamber. A golden key floated on a distant terminal, and the garden access node remained her only exit.
Alyx knelt, adjusting her perspective. "This is embarrassing," she muttered. "A netrunner like me stuck in basic network architecture." The irony wasn't lost on her—she'd broken into countless high-security systems but now found herself defeated by simple size constraints.
She tried purging unnecessary processes to shrink back down, but her avatar remained stubbornly fixed. Tears of frustration—appearing as glitching distortion fields—began pooling around her. The phenomenon surprised her as actual liquid data accumulated, creating a shimmer-pool about four inches deep throughout the chamber.
In the distance, she heard footsteps—light, rhythmic, purposeful. Data ripples scattered across the pool surface. Hastily, Alyx cleared her visual artifacts, scanning for the approaching entity.
It was the white rabbit program again, now wearing an executive avatar with pristine white gloves and carrying what appeared to be a cooling fan. It muttered rapidly: "Oh! The Crimson Regent! The Duchess! She'll delete me if I'm late!"
Desperate for help, Alyx called out as it neared: "Please—I need help—" Her voice emerged tremulous, barely audible.
The rabbit program violently destabilized, temporarily fracturing. It dropped both the gloves and fan before bolting into the darkness, leaving corrupted data fragments behind.
Alyx collected the abandoned items. The chamber had become uncomfortably warm, so she activated the cooling fan while contemplating her next move.
"Everything's wrong today!" she huffed, continuing to cool her systems. "Yesterday things worked normally. Have my core settings changed overnight?" She paused, considering. "I feel...different somehow. If I'm not the same person who woke up this morning, then who exactly am I?"
She began comparing herself to other netrunners she knew, wondering if someone had stolen her identity.
"I can't possibly be Zira," she reasoned, "she works completely differently than me. And I certainly can't be Taven—he barely understands basic hacking while I know..." Her thoughts stuttered. "Well, I used to know...let me check my knowledge."
She tested herself. "Security bypass sequence: four-five-twelve, four-six-thirteen, four-seven..." She paused, confused. "That's not right. I'll never crack firewalls like this! Maybe my location data is intact? Axiom Delta is built over Old Manhattan, Titania Tech headquarters is in former Paris, processing farms dominate Rome...no, that's completely wrong!"
Panic flickered through her mind. "My entire knowledge must have been overwritten! I'm running someone else's brain!" She tried reciting a childhood verification poem, but even her voice emerged distorted:
"How doth the little security breach
Improve its stealth routines,
And flood the systems it would reach
With every crafted scheme!"
"That's definitely wrong," Alyx whispered, fresh distortion fields forming around her eyes. "I must be running someone else's consciousness. I'll be forced to live with basic implants and limited network access! My identity is gone, and I'll have to relearn everything!"
She made a decision. "If I'm not Alyx Gridley anymore, I might as well stay here! When they call me back saying 'Return to normal,' I'll only respond once they confirm who I am. If I like who I've become, maybe I'll go back. Otherwise, I'll remain here until I discover myself!"
Fresh waves of tears cascaded from her eyes. "I wish someone would help me! I'm exhausted from being lost in this strange network!"
Glancing down, she noticed the white gloves had somehow appeared on her hands. "How did that happen?" she wondered. Her digital body was shrinking again—the cooling fan was triggering the compression algorithm!
She immediately dropped the fan and her avatar stabilized at roughly two feet high—still too large for the garden access but small enough to move more freely. "That was close!" she exclaimed, relieved she was still intact.
"Now for that garden!" She rushed back toward the small portal, only to discover it had closed again. The golden key still glimmered on the crystal terminal, tantalizingly out of reach.
"This is worse than before," she lamented. "I've never been trapped this deeply in an unfamiliar system!"
As she voiced her frustration, her footing slipped on the tear pool, and suddenly she plunged completely into the liquid data. The strange coding stung her as she struggled to orient herself.
The pool had expanded significantly, consuming the entire chamber. As Alyx treaded through the liquid, she realized it was composed of her own emotions—she was swimming through manifestations of her own anxiety.
"I wish my feelings weren't so expressive," she complained as she navigated the pool. "Now I'll likely get corrupted from soaking in my own unprocessed emotions!"
She detected movement nearby—ripples disturbing the surface. Initially, it appeared serious, but she quickly realized the disturbance was small like her compressed size.
"Could someone else help me get out?" she wondered. "Everything's so strange here that direct communication might work."
She cautiously called out: "Hello? Can you hear me? This pool is becoming uncomfortable, and I'd appreciate some help."
The entity—a simple mouse-shaped program—regarded her with curiosity, its tiny eye blinking once, but it didn't respond.
"Perhaps it doesn't understand me," Alyx reasoned. She tried a different approach, using an old programming phrase: "Où est ma chatte?"
The mouse program convulsed violently, leaping partially out of the data pool in obvious distress.
"I'm sorry!" Alyx called hastily, concerned she'd damaged it. "I forgot about anti-cat security measures."
"Anti-cat security measures?!" the mouse replied in a surprisingly sophisticated high-pitched voice. "Would you appreciate cat-based threats if you were running on my limited processing power?"
"Probably not," Alyx conceded. "Please don't leave. I wish you could meet my home system's security AI, Cipher. He's excellent at protecting—" she stopped abruptly, noticing the mouse program's agitation.
"I apologize!" she transmitted. "We can talk about something else if you prefer."
"Something else?!" the mouse vibrated intensely. "Our kind has always rejected cat-based security! Don't mention them again!"
"Absolutely," Alyx agreed quickly. "Are you familiar with dog-inspired security systems?" The mouse remained silent, so she continued: "There's this wonderful security program in my district—highly responsive, with remarkable pattern recognition! It belongs to a data farmer who claims it's worth thousands! It eliminates all invasive programs and—" She stopped, seeing the mouse paddling frantically away.
"Wait!" she called. "Please come back! We can discuss neutral topics!"
The mouse slowed, turning cautiously. "Let's reach dry ground," it suggested, its voice still trembling. "Then I'll explain why I react this way."
Alyx noticed the pool had become crowded with various programs that had fallen in—shapes resembling a Duck, a Dodo, a Lory, and an Eaglet, plus several other curious digital entities. They all seemed disoriented by the emotional discharge medium.
Leading the way through her own manifested feelings, Alyx guided the strange digital gathering toward what she hoped was stable ground and answers about this peculiar subsystem beneath Axiom Delta.