Her clothes were a bit rumpled from sleeping in them. It wasn't the biggest deal but honestly she should probably just give in and get an apartment. She knew she was going to eventually so why delay things. She pulled up her interface and noticed the announcement.

That was really good news. Being able to talk to her mom and Clinton even if only for a few days it would make all this better.

How to handle this though... she dug into the interface. Group texts were apparently an option.

Hi Clinton. Hi Mom. It's Claire, apparently the people who run the game are letting us talk for the next four days. I'm still waking up at the moment but I would love to have a video call later if you're up for it.

If this is a prank...

Don't be so paranoid dear. I look forward to seeing you and hearing your voice Claire. I've been so worried.

I'm looking forward to seeing you too. I'll text more once I've had breakfast and we can work out the details.

With that message sent Claire stretches and stands up before realizing she really needs to use the restroom. She looks at her map and finds one nearby.

After taking care of that and getting a drink from an accompanying water fountain, she gives in and picks an apartment. It seems like the buildings towards the edge and at the center are all filled up so she ends up in one of the middle rings. The map shows her a route that apparently uses ziplines, three different walking routes depending on whether she wants to go at ground level, on rooftop or in the extensive tunnel network, and optionally a train ride in the network that runs alongside the tunnels. In the end she's hungry and not quite looking for exoticism so she opts for the train.

It's a short walk to get to the nearest entrance to the underground and once she gets to the train platform it arrives within a minute. The train seems to be empty this early in the day. This train has two cars each big enough to hold thirty people easily between the seats and the grab-bars for people standing. She sits and it's a comfortable enough seat.

It's only a few minutes on the train before she gets to her stop and another short walk from there to the basement of her new building. She takes the elevator up to the tenth level and says quiet hellos to another couple of people poking around the kitchen. In the end she opts for yogurt, an apple and some toast as her breakfast.

Feeling a bit more human she pokes about her new home and finds a small library in another section and a video game area in the third. She chuckles a little at the oddity of having a video game area inside a video game. Then she finally makes her way to her personal room. She has one of the odd wedge rooms. The large dresser and wardrobe apparently have clothes in her size complete with underwear and a bathrobe. Grateful for the chance to change she gathers up a bundle and makes her way to one of the bathrooms to shower.

She was not actually prepared for the bathroom. The shower is huge and it has more luxury settings than she's ever seen in real life. She briefly considers taking a full on bath but decides against it. She does want to get around to calling her Mom and her brother soon.

She undresses and tosses her clothes in the small washer. It doesn't seem to have any settings or any way to insert soap so she just decides to trust it and hits start.

Then she starts the shower, tweaks the temperature a bit and steps into the water. It is every bit as nice as she expected.

She soaps herself up, enjoying the feeling of her hands rubbing across her skin and the gentle spray of water from above and from the side.

She takes her time getting clean and even indulges herself in testing whether using a shower wand in a certain orientation is a nice as certain videos suggest. She's still not quite used to her new body but all signs point to yes.

When she has more time she'll definitely have to indulge in some more extensive tests.

As she's part way through washing her hair she hears a jingle which might be the washing machine.

She finishes up and dries off using the blow dry setting in the shower before wrapping herself in a towel and checking on the machine.

It seems like she was right to have trusted it. Her clothes are not just washed but also dried and they seem entirely unharmed by the process. That had to be video game logic at work but she's not going to question it. She dresses in the extra set of clothes she brought from her room, grabs her newly washed clothes and makes her way back to her room.

Once inside, she puts her clothes away and then sits cross legged on her bed before bringing the interface back up to text some more.

That took longer than I expected but I think I'm ready whenever you are. Can you remind me what your QuikTalk ID is?

I'm GoldSilverMom and Clinton is DanceDanceRobot

With that information Claire shifts through the interface until she gets to the video call configuration. She takes a few seconds to set the position for the virtual camera and then dials.

Her mom connects almost immediately.

"Claire?" She says a little uncertainly.

"Hi Mom, it's me." She knows her mom will accept her. Her mom has been very supportive though her whole transition process, but still there's a tiny corner that's worried.

"Oh, my baby girl is gorgeous."

That's when Clinton logs in. "Hi Sis."

"Hi Clinton. It's good to see you."

"A part of me feels like I should be apologizing. Even if that's kind of silly."

"It is silly. I don't blame you at all. You weren't even the only person who suggested this to me." She pauses for a breath. "And another thing is, the first couple hours, before we found out we were trapped, those were some of the best I've had in a long time. I'm still sorting through my feelings about everything but being trapped has at minimum a silver lining for me."

Her mom tears up a bit at that. "Have things really been that bad?"

"I'm not really sure how to answer that. It's not that life has been an endless chain of bad moments or anything. It's more like a weight that I knew was there but couldn't really fully perceive isn't there anymore. Like... having a really persistent cold for months and you sort of get used to it and then somehow you finally beat it and everything seems a bit easier. Everything seems a bit better and even really bad things don't hit quite as hard."

"That makes sense. I'm glad there are good points for you in all of this. I just wish that asshole of a woman let it be just a good experience and not a bad one with a silver lining."

"Speaking of that, did she tell all of you why she did it? The press release doesn't really offer a reason. Just some cop-out about how no reason she could offer would be accepted so she won't bother trying to give one."

"Not exactly. She seemed to think we'd come to understand her reason by playing the game. She also promised to answer our questions if we could find her. The closest thing she gave to a reason was saying a bunch of stuff about the game's lore. About how the gates being rediscovered meant the world was threatened, but that's all made up. I don't see how it could apply at all to the real world unless it's some sort of metaphor."

"Well she's right about me not accepting any reason for threatening my daughter's life. Stupid witch."

"You're right, there isn't going to be a good reason. I just, I want to make sense of it all. There has to be a reason." His voice gets a bit louder as he goes on. Then he stops himself and takes a deep breath. "I'm sorry you don't need me getting upset."