Safe Hour at the Bar

I was a mouse again.

The first time I met Vivian I was a flying-anywhere superhero in the procedural sim every weirdo builds first. The mouse came later. The mouse was what stuck — the world became a parkour puzzle, and the heavily lacquered bartop made perfect tack-tack noises as my claws skittered across it.

Vivian waved from across the bar and pushed a thimble of water toward me. On her other side, Nate and Gemini argued the bad old days of sims.

Nate — The Snake, he insisted — sat coiled on a barstool. Sickly green; a Disney reject painted in just the wrong color. He said it gave him character.

"Remember when you had to worry about cooling your brain?" Nate said. "Swear to god I lost cells from the heat off the old copper cortex implants."

"Cortex. C-O-R-T-E-X, right?" Gemini's pencil danced across the crossword. "It fits."

Gemini wore a human avatar. Expensive. She preferred to stay that way. She gave great mouse pets, so I let it slide.

Vivian's cane tapped the floor — the deliberate tock she used when she wanted the room to know a shift was happening. Low-poly fox. Low-poly cane. Very-high-fidelity sound.

Blind people catch things sighted people miss. I always felt a little naked around her.

"Studio day," she said.

"How did you know?"

"It's all over your whiskers." She nudged the cup closer. "Your tail's giving you away."

My tail was, in fact, giving me away.

Nate slid down the bar. He moved the way somebody moves when they know they're being watched and have decided to like it. Catalogue famous. Meme for a season.

"How's the submission going?"

"Not clicking."

"Reese is judging this year. I could put in a word."

"That's all right."

"You sit on this and someone else wins with half the talent."

"You're too big for the studio."

"Don't be cute."

Gemini cackled without looking up. "Since when has size ever stopped Zoo folks? You can't win a gallery show from inside your little mouse hole."

I blushed. Fur covered it.

Nate started back toward his end of the bar, then turned. "Offer's still open. Snakesim. Adrenal boosters this version — it's a riot."

Third time this week.

"I'm good."

He shrugged like he was doing me a favor by asking, and went.

Vivian held out her hand. I hopped into it. She lifted me close enough to feel her breath like a gentle breeze.

"Don't let Nate get to you. He gets this way when he's lonely."

I nodded, knowing better than to say what I really thought about him.

"Courier got it to her?"

"She sat down on the floor and looked at it for a long time."

"How do you—"

"I have my methods, mouse."

Thump-thump.

A tiny mouse in a vest blinked in at the edge of the bar. My harness.

"Pete flagged the cardiac spike. Permission to deploy cover?"

"Granted."

"Deployed. Pete is watching you do burpees. Try not to spike again for fifteen."

She blinked out.

Vivian flicked a private window open between us. Jamie's reply bloomed bright in the air:

Jamie: "WHO IS GEOFF AND WHY IS THIS SO PERFECT 😭"

My tail twitched. I bolted for my mousehole studio.

I had to paint.