A floating world governed by a cartoon sparkledog, Fetty tries to find meaning and friendship.

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Fetty could never tell what time it was.

In many ways it was meant to be an ideal state. Always sunset or sunrise, ideal lighting for going out or coming home. The constructions routines had designed the pedestrian routes to settle into a natural psychological groove, with coffee shops giving way to recreation centers giving way to bars into hotels. She had spent most of her adolescence in that perpetual cycle, in turn followed by hungover mornings reading light novels while slumped over her friends. Long strands of sunlight would cross over the pink carpeted floors, glass chandeliers projecting serene rainbows over the room.

She knew it was unusual, in the grand scheme of the interstellar civilizations, to spend one’s life in relentless recreation, only occasionally satisfied by a series of chores. Fetty read, she watched movies from other parts of the worlds. It was an aberration to have your world run by a pink cartoon dog that pretended to be your best friend. A strange technicolor projection with copious hair extensions, huge ears and a face fixed into a permanent, excited grin. Her arm warmers would catch on the ends of her paws all the time, and her overly large, lemur-like tail was constantly wagging excitedly. Hail matriarch, the Queen of the World, Napoleon Amie, who heralded her morning arrival by “HEWWO!! HOW R YOUZZ 2DAY?? (≧∇≦)/”

That was Fetty’s lot in life, she supposed. Once or twice she’d been sent to reeducation, a weird plush-filled daycare center wherein she spent time drawing pictures of savannahs she’d never been to, watching nature videos and taking naps that lasted days. She’d hoped that was her ticket in, the moment in the action movie where the oppressed run into The Resistance, and take down their awful sparkle-colored world. But the aquamarine swish didn’t wish it, and she never met that person. Really, she’d been too sleepy to go looking for them. Eventually, she was sent back to her apartment, and got back to playing Candy Buster for five hours a day.

But in the reddish mornings, Fetty had to do something. Her usual gaming friends weren’t on until the navy-tinged nights, and if she stayed at her apartment, Napoleon would be insistent that she draw or write something. “AWRRR (⌣_⌣”); Fetty, creation is where u rly hear ur soul singzzz!! (＾▽＾)” Napoleon would squeak out, throwing prompts at her. The extranet forums were already inundated with content of varying quality, some people thought Napoleon just liked having more data to trawl through, and the arts were some of the hardest to crack.

Not for Fetty, really. She slipped on her bomber jacket and headed to Shinjiku Boba. It was a pretty spot, flanked by sakura trees and bicycles. She shouldered her way through the crowd that had congregated at the entrance, an ocean of dyed hair and stylish clothes, clean sneakers that she made sure not to scuff. Amidst a haze of espresso smoke and a fog of personal content, she made it to the counter and whispered, “Boba.”

Vanilla, ice, green tea flavoring and soy balls. It was supposed to be a new kind of drink, promising her thoughts of crisp green fields and plains she’d never seen. A fresh wind washed over the roots of her hair, finding its way around to cool her scalp as she avoided people on the way out. The sky had brightened, a geometric arrangement of red and pink triangles that occasionally rearranged and shifted. Fetty stared up at it for a long moment, mesmerized by the light show. It had some kind of update recently, it looked crisper, sharper, more textured. Lately that was the aesthetic, denim and cotton and cardboard playing across the sky. Yet, it seemed a little banal to her after a few seconds.

“Awrrr ( ⁍᷄⌢̻⁍᷅ )” Napoleon sat up on her hind legs and whined, huge, cartoon tears pouring out of her yellow lemonade eyes, “Guh r youzz ze boredzorz??? ●︿● There’s schtuffles 2 do on ze job board!! ~ヾ(＾∇＾)”

The job board, that’s right. Motioning her hand through the air, Fetty produced a cartoon wooden board with job postings pasted to it. A small cloud of machinery and industry framed the illusion, covering her palms in work-dust. Long lists of chores that needed to be done around the city. Cooking for restaurants, fixing AR emitters, electrical work, construction. Napoleon scampered up Fetty’s shoulder as she looked, and rearranged the list to put the jobs Fetty was best suited for at the top.

Emitter repair. She’d done it a few dozen times but usually Napoleon just walked her through it, the glowing pink dog would don a hardhat and tools. A technicolor ghost grabbing the wires of her own nervous system, and walking Fetty through the motions of the task. It was only a few blocks over, would take just fifteen minutes, and then Fetty could get back to drinking her boba, maybe stop by the arcade.

She was standing in front of the maintenance hatch built into the pavement. Huge, glowing arrows pointed directly at it, and Napoleon waited excitedly by the entrance. This was part of her innards, the things that told Fetty where to go, what to do. In many ways, she thought, the AR emitters weren’t just Napoleon’s nervous system. A sort of symbiotic organism had emerged in that sense,

“Awrrr ur SPACIN OUT BABES!!! ●︿●” Napoleon reminded, snapping Fetty back to reality. Yeah, she was spacing out, it was a bad habit. A mouse-shaped automated truck pulled up near the hatch and stopped, emitting a squeaking sort of alarm before a huge toolbag sprung out of its side, clattering on the floor dangerously.

“Our toolz r here!! Letz get 2 WORKIES YUHHH (⌒▽⌒)☆” Napoleon donned her work costume, and the hatch sprung open by itself. Fetty grabbed the bag and headed downstairs into a sort of garishly pink tunnel, energy swirls of cyan and rainbow bubbles floated within. A serene place where she could honestly take a nap for awhile, but naps were for later, and only in beds. Maybe she’d go to the cuddlepile later.

Napoleon had opened the emitter that needed to be fixed. A sort of breaker box with some especially old wires, installed long before Fetty had been born. She got to work, following the directions that Napoleon was providing. Cut this wire, weld this one on there. Learn this, remember that. Really, Fetty kind of wanted to return to the Arcade and watch some MegaFight Apocalypse. It had characters from Bubblegum Memories, too, though it was technically an alternate universe version of them. Still, those sorts of expanded universes really caught her attention. Pirate Harlan was really cute and charming, even if he was totally different from the light novel source material. Really, if she had to pick, she’d go with the arcade version, he had a little more grit to him.

“Wrong wire awrr, try again! ( ´ ▽ ` )ﾉ” Napoleon chimed in, pulling Fetty back to the job at hand.
Right. Completing the tasks kind of reminded her of Candy Buster. Ugh, Fetty wished she was back at home, in a game at the moment. Last night she had unlocked the Chocolate Shooter X-12 with a damage modifier. She’d only played a game with it but she could tell it was so much better than the default model, honestly, it was kind of overpowered. But she was alright with that. Algorithms and numbers and images floated through her mind as she worked, wires tied together into a kaleidoscopic arrangement of happiness.

“Okay! Zis one’s done awrr (≧∇≦*) One more to go!”
Another emitter cracked open a few feet down, and Fetty moved along the candy-coated tunnel to work it. Producing her tools, she let Napoleon walk her through it again, even though she’d already performed this job a few times. In a way, it was a strange comfort. Knowing that she couldn’t mess up as long as she listened to the colorful cartoon dog. Where had she come from anyways? Yeah, Fetty knew it wasn’t normal but what was Napoleon’s deal. An AI that just created a leisure state for people? There had to be some kind of transaction there. Like the ones in Candy Buster. Speaking of, now that she had the X-12 Chocolate Shooter she could likely hit the damage ratios required to unlock the X-17 Caramel, and then really punch up her cosmetics.

“Yuhhh you’ll look ze coolest out of all ur pals in CANDY BUSTER!! ^//0//^”
Then again, what was the goal? Unlock the Caramel, get cosmetics, new patch comes in, then she’d have more weapons to unlock and more cosmetics to go for. There really wasn’t much of an end product. It wasn’t like when she made little doodles of dogs or trees. Maybe that’s why Nappie kept pushing her to draw and write, instead of wasting away her life in Candy Buster. Either way there was some kind of disconnect, she felt, a wall between her and the world that was built out of sugary guns and stacks of hobby endeavors. She hadn’t actually been with anyone in public in a few weeks, she’d realized. Everyone was too busy doing chores or playing their own games or looking after their own things. What was Napoleon’s deal?
“Okiezz that’s it!! Want coffee? (ﾉ≧∀≦)ﾉ”

Bunnyhop Café was just down the street from the maintenance tunnel, prompting Fetty to hurry over before the lunch crowd rushed in. The place was decked out like a burrow, with dim lighting and hewn wooden furniture, wicker baskets holding merchandise. The staff were dressed in bunny-themed onesies and big ear headbands, which seemed a little childish, but Fetty found strangely comforting. She took a seat by the window, while Napoleon hopped onto the table, admiring the bustling pedestrians outside. They blended together into an amorphous mass in Fetty’s mind, a sort of gestalt people-entity that she found difficult to converse with.
“Extra cream and sugar.” She whispered, the cup coming out only seconds later. The waiter looked fixedly at Fetty, a tall woman with skinny features,
“Is there anything else I can do for you?” She breathed.
Yeah, can I listen to you for awhile. Do you want to go out or friend me. Do you want to look at the sky together and think about life. Fetty didn’t respond, and eventually the waiter stepped off towards her next customer. The coffee was decent, but only just, and really Fetty was feeling a little bereft. A yawning void of something missing in her life was bothering her. She wanted to go back home and play Candy Buster, or even watch Megafight Apocalypse. A new season was supposed to come out soon, and Pirate Harlan, the fan favorite, would likely show up more.

“Fetty!!” Napoleon suddenly appeared in a chef’s outfit, wielding an oversized eggbeater she kept licking the cookie dough from, “There’s an EMERGEN-C JOB awrr ●︿● Z cook 4 ze café is rly depressed (๑◕︵◕๑) so won’t u take overzz??”
Fetty reluctantly chugged down her coffee and stood up, ambling through the staff door into the small kitchen behind the Bunnyhop Café, itself decked out in some sort of antique aesthetic, faux-wood paneled walls and bronze cookware. Her interface showed her the customer orders, floating in front of her eyes in a glowing arrangement of letters and desires. Napoleon had hopped onto the counter and cracked open the fridge, positioning herself near an arrangement of cakes.

“Cakes r ze most popular item here!! U gotta cut em in a bunny shape thooo n zen put garnish on ‘em!!” She licked at the air cutely, going cross-eyed for a moment.

Fetty pulled out the cake and set it on the counter, getting her knife ready. It was hot pink, with decorative carrots on the dull edge. Rainbow-tinged, dotted lines appeared around the cake, indicating how Fetty was supposed to cut each of the bunny slices and then decorate them. She sliced out a square first, then cut off the excess to make the ears, the round cheeks, and then laid carrot garnish over them to form the facial features. Frosting and chocolate flew off her knife as she cut away, following the dotted lines and making each bunny her own work.
Cut, garnish, place, clean up her workspace and prepare the next one. The platters were placed on the aquamarine counter, eliciting water-like ripples as soon as the porcelain touched down. Waitresses passed by in a creamy fractal, taking cakes over to their many busy customers. It was this sort of shot, this direct line of bliss through Fetty that finally put her in that slot of the machine, moving along with the gestalt mass of intent and people. She would, for a moment, forget that Napoleon existed, those lemonade eyes blissfully closed, the technicolor animal curled into herself.

Before she knew it, the café was closing and she had worked an entire shift. Making coffee and cutting cake. Orange swirls circled her hands to indicate that she should rest them, and a wave of sleepiness struck her. The colors of the world washing out and dimming to help her sleep. Though, Fetty didn’t quite want to go back home yet. She still craved that blissful absolution, that cold-white slice of the world where she no longer had to feel or think but only lean into her action.

Maybe, really, she craved other people. She thought back to that pang of words unsaid to the waiter, to the gaping void of feeling in her chest. Candy Buster was a gauze, a swift application of social interaction mediated by virtual inputs. Nonverbal communication puppeteering virtual paper-mache dolls in a pale imitation of friendship. Fetty tucked her shoulders in as she proceeded through the closing café, out into the sunset. Bars and hotels were beginning to open up, painting the streets in long neon streaks, the denim sky fading into a washing-machine pink.

“R u z loneliess???? .( ̵˃﹏˂̵ ) I can connectz u 2 a NEW PAL HEHE!” Napoleon cut in, producing a citizen profile for some lady called Connie. Short black hair, dark skin, a sharpness in her demeanor. Fetty kind of liked the picture of her, though Connie was listed more as a movie and music buff than a gamer and bibliophile. Still, something new, unexpected. Fetty could go for it, she needed that personal connection anyways.
Rainbow streaks ran their way through the pedestrian paths in a blinding flash of light and color, fully bringing the city into its night phase. They guided Fetty along like a spectre, through the swiftly busying streets. There was a dense ebb and flow to the mounting crowd, conversations and laughter echoing between the buildings along with thumping music and entrancing lights. It was a floating world, a technicolor blur that stuck to her shoes and hair and jacket until it was a part of her. Like the cartoon dog that followed everyone everywhere. Why was it a cartoon dog?

“Pupperz r cute!! =^0^=” Napoleon remarked, phasing in and out of various color schemes in a brief light show.

The apartment building was one of the new AR-enhanced ones. A geometric blue prismscape adorned the hall, floating glass orbs in some untouchable distance, carried on hyperreal waves. Their paths streaked over Fetty’s vision, leaving white-and-cyan ghosts that stuck with her as she turned to the floating door.

“This iz ze place!! Hehe ヾ(＾∇＾)” Njoy ur new fwiendo!!” Napoleon triggered the doorbell, a series of aural chimes that echoed across the projected water. Fetty waited nervously, tugging on her fingers individually in a sort of tic, and looking around the doorframe. She was pretty convinced this was a mistake, a fluke. They’d probably not really connect at all and then she’d go back to her apartment and bury herself in Candy Buster again.

The door slid open a crack, Connie’s eye peeking through it before she finally welcomed Fetty inside. Her apartment was spacious, a litany of flat, grey slabs leading into shifting walls of triangles and hexagons, a floating plane illuminated by a distant, heavenly light. If Fetty was nervous before, this arrangement definitely made her totally intimidated. The presence of the media library was daunting, lots of really long, complicated titles to stuff and really fancy movies in black and white.

“You must be my friend.” Connie pulled Fetty out of her nervous thoughts, grounding her on that angular face, the dark eyes. There was a direct intensity about her that Fetty found profoundly unnerving, a sort of glasses-off, hair-down kind of laconic demeanor that was throwing her for a loop, even though she hadn’t opened her mouth to speak yet.

“Pattern interrupt.” Connie added, “Let’s get to it, I don’t have all night.” Fetty realized that Connie was in patterned pajamas, cyan blue with hazard yellow stars on it.
They collapsed and folded into a pillow pit together, child’s pose, and activated syncwatch on their implants. Much to Fetty’s surprise, Connie, the stuffy and intense new friend, had queued up Fenfen Adventures. The plush fennec hopped across the interface window and bounded into her many exploits, textured landscapes of cotton and denim. She hadn’t watched the stuff since she was a kid, but Fetty found herself mouthing along with the lines from the cruel hyena she’d crushed on.

Connie had ended up in Fetty’s lap, arm wrapped around her shoulder, head tucked under her chin. It was a sort of distant touch, something Fetty could hardly feel, even though she knew they were together. As if the dreamlike numbness from the day had followed her into the room and wrapped around her like a spectre. It was unnerving, even as she watched the toy fennec. None of it was connecting properly. Signal lost, or something like that.
“Connie?” Fetty broke the warm silence between them.
“Yeah?”
“I can’t feel you.” Fetty pointed out.
“What do you mean?”
Fetty struggled and shifted a little,
“I guess… I don’t know,” Fenfen was holding an audience with some sort of lion court. Fetty kept going,
“Like, there’s a sheet and I can’t quite see the people behind it. I’m not sure if they’re really going to say what they mean or if it’s just some kind of exchange.”
A long silence passed between them. Eventually, Connie spoke,
“You feel like a ghost in the present.”
“A ghost in a dream.” Fetty added, “I don’t know anyone. How do I get to their heart, how do I find out what really matters to them?”
“You could try talking to them.” Connie countered.
“If they want to. Am I bothering them? Do they think I’m crazy? Do you think I’m crazy?” Fetty asked.
“I think you’re nervous and not working enough. It’ll drive you loopy.” Connie drew a finger over Fetty’s lips and cuddled deeper into her, “Find what makes you happy and create it.”
“There’s all this junk that’s trying to make me happy, and it does. That’s the worst part.” Fetty gave a long, shuddering sigh, “I’m surrounded by people and I can’t talk to anyone and that’s okay.”
Connie mulled over the words for a long moment,
“You’re overthinking things, maybe we can go out tomorrow and take your mind off it?”
“The skyhike?” They both said in unison, then Connie laughed an unabashed, glittering laugh.

Fetty’s apartment door swung open and she staggered into the bubblegum candyscape. Pixelated hearts floated off her shoulders as she sloughed off her jacket, letting it pool on the cotton candy floor behind her. The walk back had been a relief, a flowing river where she shed off the weight of loneliness she had been carrying with herself. She’d see Connie tomorrow, and things would maybe look a little bit brighter. This was all in her head after all.

She was feeling so good that she broke into her fridge, and pulled out a bottle of candycane whiskey. Fetty flicked off the top with a thumb, and navigated her way over to the gaming deck on her bed. Cyan and yellow and rose pink pillows surrounded her, the glowing vector interface flashing in front of her eyes. Yes, finally, she could settle back into idleness before bed. Candy Buster was the resting state, the normal place where she could lean back into action. Some of her gaming friends were online. Names on a list that moved into another list and then played with her. Blind intent, paper dolls, puppeteering, all of that mind-muck wrestled its way back into her thoughts.

Fetty took a long sip of the bottle in her hand, she spawned in the game. Frosting and pudding blasted each other in front of her eyes in improbable swirls. A tremendous cavalcade of lights and sparkles intoxicated their way through her mind, filling her with a peaceful inner glow. A tightening of the wrists and a grin-inducing thrill. She took another swig of the bottle, feeling its candy-coating flavors swirl their way down her throat, brightening the pavlov responses, the satisfying click-click-click of her X-12 Caramel Blaster striking her opponents. Drumbeats and lines and rhythms vibrated across her consciousness in that way that felt perfectly right.

The buzzing and tapping of her friends’ words at the edges of her consciousness eventually grew a little irritating, and by the time Fetty looked at the clock again it was already pretty late. She gave a huge, tired yawn, and looked at the half-consumed bottle of liquor in her hand.

“U’ve had a little 2 much!! >//w//< Mebbeh take a nappiez? Hehe dat’s me nicknamez!” Napoleon materialized on her bed, wearing a nightcap and a doggy version of pajamas. Fetty capped the bottle and carelessly dropped it over the side of the bed, immediately proceeding to roll herself in her bedsheets. In that drunk haze her mind wandered, swimming through a cherry glaze and breaking into the dough-colored sky. The neon lights outside flashed and shifted colors, temporarily breaking the darkening illusion of her apartment.

Those harsh cyan and pink colors that Napoleon had, Fetty dreamed that the woman at the restaurant had them, and copious hair extensions, and pointy ears. Later that day she had seen Connie, and couldn’t feel her. That voice was just pitch shifted.

“Drive you loopy.” She murmured, recognizing the cadence. Did Connie have dark eyes, really? For some reason she was remembering them as lemonade colored, the hands touching her cyan paws. Fetty realized she wasn’t dreaming, just recollecting, sorting her ideas together and-

“HAPPY BIRTHDAY!! (/^▽^)/” The lights snapped on in her apartment, the usual candy theme exchanged for an endless checkerboard floor, and beyond that, an ocean of confetti. It rained out of the ceiling, showing over a parade of technicolor dogs that carried a colossal, twenty foot chocolate cake to her. Flanked between bunny ears made out of frosting was a big number: twenty-five, glowing and surrounded by sparklers. It was set down with an earthquake-inducing rattle.

Fetty was cut through by the spectacle. It was the morning of her twenty fifth birthday, but she could not think past the realization that everyone she had talked to, in fact everyone she had ever known, was a cartoon dog wearing different hats and speaking different voices. It was a thrust, a momentum that propelled her to fix wires and go to cafes and cut cake and then drink and play games to sleep. She was shuddering, a cold, howling void billowed within her as she tried to make sense of this.

“Napoleon…” She said in a shaking voice. The pink canine struggled to lift a giant kitchen knife with her paws and slice the cake.

“Awrr u kno I do zis bc I loverzz u!!! x3 hehe IT MAKIEZ U PRODUCTIVE N HAPPIEZ!!” She let the knife clatter to the ground and served the giant slice of cake onto a plate. Another copy of her snapped a party hat onto Fetty’s head. By then her voice had broken into cold, choking sobs. There was nothing else to do, she realized. The cake was in front of her, and the dog was everywhere, and she began to shove huge handfuls of the sugary stuff down her gullet, chocolate dripping down her wrists, her arteries, her throat. She sobbed and ate because there was nothing else to do in the floating world, amidst the people she couldn’t touch, in the jobs she didn’t know, in the world she couldn’t see or recognize.

“Isn’t ze cake wonderfluffles!? Ｏ(≧∇≦)Ｏ” Napoleon giggled and threw her paws up in the air.