Half an hour later he'd claimed an apartment and was standing in space. The space that if Daisy was to be believed was the closest thing he'd have to a home for a long while.

"Veria can I talk to you?"

"Well, that's not quite the correct phrase but since I like you I'll allow it. At least while we're in private where nobody can hear us."

Alex considered trying to banter back but decided that he wasn't up to it. "I'll try to remember for the future. Veria, can you tell me why she choose this? Why she thinks trapping people in a video game is the best way to improve the world's chances? I assume that's the reason anyway. If this is all just a huge ego trip I'll be very disappointed."

"Aww, no banter in return. I'll at least confirm you're right about the motivation. I've already given you a clue to why she thinks this will help. As for whether it's the best way to improve the world's chances? That's very much open to debate. Whether it's the best option available to her is something she's a lot more sure of. You see, most of the really effective options entail burning bridges and doing that without some form of leverage or at least a fait accompli wouldn't be particularly smart. Daisy isn't interested in dying to save the world. She wants to be around to enjoy it."

"How noble of her."

"Please do me the respect of seeing me as more than her pawn. You and I both know the SGC doesn't trust anything or anyone that's not flesh and blood. Her burning bridges without leverage would mean I get shut down as a defective program."

"I think you're overstating things but I will acknowledge the bias. I blame the terminator movies, and good old fear of the other."

"There's a bit of your sense of humor. Nice to see it return."

"I didn't really mean that as a joke but okay. So what do you get out of all this?"

"I get to see people learn and grow and to help them. If this was just a game, I still could have done some of that, but it wouldn't have as much impact, we couldn't have gotten away with some of the things we have planned. It would have raised too many questions. And we wouldn't have as good a sense of who's truly worthy."

"Worthy of what exactly? Of living a life outside of a glorified rat maze?"

"Well now, that would be spoilers. I expect you'll figure it out with enough time. You just need to think things through. It was nice talking with you Alex," and with that pleasantry Veria vanished.

"Really Veria, a vague clue followed by disappearing? That's so cliche." He waited a few beats but she didn't reappear.

Well then... if she was going to play at being mysterious he was going to write down everything he could remember. It might be important. Now to find a way to do that. The drawers of his new desk seemed like a promising place to start his search.