The smells of basil, ginger, and peppers with an undertone of jasmine tickled her nose as she entered the the restaurant. While the decorations were cheap and the tables were metal under the tablecloths, the little place had a warm atmosphere and a good feel. She put on the mask of a smile as she greeted the hostess, "Two for lunch today June. How are you?" The small talk comforted the woman and Leng made her usual effort to only respond to what was actually said and not the kinesetic cues that betrayed the young splicer woman. As she settled into a back booth she glanced at the menu. "He'll be arriving soon he said. Could I have a pot of the jasmine tea? It smells lovely today." As the young woman left Leng adjusted her hat and watched the restaurant while she read a book in AR. To the observer she wouldn't appear distracted as she people watched. Her breathing smoothed out, this was a safe place and as well known as anywhere.

She looks up in surprise, a bit of annoyance flickering across her face at being startled before she replaces it with a smile. Then the the room subtly shifts for every person with a biological brain. Everything except for her drops into soft focus as if it's all background to her presence. "And you'd be August." she offers her hand and gestures to the table, "Would you like some tea? I haven't ordered yet except for the jasmine tea. I remember you saying you hadn't had Thai before, yes?"

"Well the pad thai most people like or the drunken noodles. If you're in the mood for something more intense I'd recommend the red curry. Now for myself I'm going to go with the seafood prik pow." she grins, "But I'd recommend against it unless you like very very hot food." The virtual pony pokes her attention, *Come on, keep talking Leng. He's not an NPC* She shakes herself and hangs her hat off one of the spare chairs as she lets the room move back to a normal focus for observers, "Sorry, Sparkle was getting my attention. How was your trip? And I'm terrible at this."

"Really? I've never had trouble with bureaucrat NPCs, not that last long in any case. But then, that's something I'm good at." She pauses to place her order for the seafood prik pow and a Thai lemonade to go with it. "Do you get many assassination attempts? People can be rude like that, especially people who didn't want to be found."

She cocks her head a bit, "New enemy? Are you collecting them?" There's a pause as she looks towards the kitchen door a few seconds before the waitress appears with drinks and food for the table. "There's one bit of good news for you, Thai doesn't call for chopsticks. Your genome's patched against peanut allergies, yes?"

Her smile is... practiced as she gestures at the pad thai, "Then you'll love that, it has ground peanuts on top. The rest is a nice mix of noodles, cultured shrimp, and vegetables. I thought you'd enjoy a place with real instead of fabbed food." She pauses for a bite of fiery shellfish, "Olympian's aren't too rare on Mars you know, I mean after rusters, alpiners, and clanks. But still. I don't think I've ever met one with an allergy. A bit like exalts and their variants when you come down to it. Without the creepy factor of the remade, though most of the remade I've seen here are doinks heading for the zone to," she makes air quotes with her fingers, "test themselves." The lady takes a sip of her lemonade to match August's, "Odd... I don't have any enemies. At least not on a personal level."

She stops and looks at her hand, as if considering the morph as she answers, "Inquisitive and slightly forgetful... but a genuine question I feel. He is a real person..." August feels a slight electrical shiver as she looks up, her eyes the same color as a sky on Earth before the Fall, "I grew up in a simulation of this body, or aware of that as we were force grown. So it was always meant for me. We're all like mainline exhalts, though a bit more attractive and driven, with a touch more neural hardware." She shakes herself and takes another drink of her lemonade, "So you've never met a futura before? I know we're rare... hmmm..." There's a pause while she looks out into space for a moment, "Interesting, to here me talk I suppose that's interesting, I consider my morph and my ego to be one. Sparkle Pony? Take a note on that."

"No, no, it's almost a pleasure to have someone forget." She pauses to chew on a bit of squid thoughtfully, "I'd actually be happy to discuss it, you seem open minded and real. It's just... difficult to unpack. So let me start I suppose..." For a moment she considers, "I think... the best place to start is the beginning. After all we all thought we were real and that everything around us was as well. I'm sure you know the outline. Each group of us was cloned and forcegrown, our world was simuspace at a vastly accelerated rate. My world was a school, an idealized private school. PreK to 12. Residential, that kept us in one place. It didn't stop us from learning quickly. I can only imagine the psychosurgeons having the dawning realization that the AGIs running herd on us... every last one of us with photographic memories, natural charm, willful to a fault, and with control of our own emotional states to a rare level. That alone... they should have known better. But then they wanted those fresh minds, tough, independent, smart, and unbroken by the fall. Everything a futura is. Everything we are." The room loses focus again as she talks, making her the realest thing there, a point of natural attraction, "Clever people they were. But too ambitious. Too many hardware hurdles I think, or sabotage... perhaps we scared the TITANs. So they added another factor..." There is a sigh, "I don't know. That's all third person, what I learned after the fact. Inside we were growing up but things were cracking. Our minds... things were wrong. I know for myself I could see the cracks in the world. I could tell that most of the students weren't people. They weren't even good fakes. Our teachers weren't people either, not really. Only one person in twenty, and all in the same advancing grade." She frowns, "I... don't know what to say... I'm sure you already have a question or seven? I can feel them forming just on the tip of your Broca area."

She looks down at a bit of surprise as her hand is taken, then a genuine smile blooms on her face... along with a blush that highlights the pale scar below her eye. "Why... thank you. Most people hear 'Lost' and they start to hide the knives. They're not entirely wrong to do that August, so many of us are shattered. I..." She stops for a moment, "Would you like some tea? With fewer other people around?"

Takes the offered hand and rises, straightening her hat with the other hand, "It's a short walk..." She wasn't lying as it turns out to be a small apartment above a coffee house next door. The lock recognizes her opens the door to a sunny little space with in a spartan Japanese style that is dominated by a kotatsu table with it's attendant futon for sitting with one's legs under. Her hat goes on a rack by the door while she busies herself making a pot of tea. "Um... just so you know, I don't generally have guests so it's not really decorated and nothing so grand as a house or a captain's stateroom aboard a spaceship..."

"You have a typewriter? As in the actual mechanical device? I haven't seen one of those since... hmm... well not in this sim, in the one I was born in though. We had a lot of mid 20th tech in setting." She pours green tea into two small cups, "As for looking like you fit in. I think a cat fits into any setting."

She sits down, tucking her legs under the table's futon against the slight chill that being near the edge of the dome brings, "So you write? The tea's not fabbed, it comes from a little greenhouse. I did a favor for the gentleman who runs it and he keeps me in green tea. I'm afraid the white's a bit too dear though." The ghost of a smile again, "As I said, I do well enough. Better than I have any right to really. I've only killed when there's been no other choice, I've avoided the worst of the assaults in my first sim, and," she chuckles, "I've not gone mad."

"Well I'd love to see some of your writing sometime." She runs a hand through her hair, fluffing out her blonde locks, "Really go ahead and ask. It's nice to talk to an actual person instead of just Sparkle or a client. I might not answer all of them but I'll not lie to you." More tea is poured and she makes herself comfortable by taking off her shoes and setting them by the window.

"It was a school, essentially a private school and orphanage on its own grounds. This was, of course, a pretty lie. Still it was an imagining of a place, a pile of gothic architecture amid parkland surrounded by a dark wood with one road out that we never took. Fully staffed and with a population of seven hundred students, less than one in ten being an actual person. I lived there by my own perception from infancy to about eighteen or so. The last years are a bit harder to track timewise." She takes a sip of her tea, "In my experience it was eighteen or so years with maturity coming with that. According to other sources it was only four years. So with the four years in this sim now, I'm either twenty two by my internal calendar or I'm eight by yours."

"Morphological dissonance, none at all... not really. Our simselves were mapped to our bodies, so our accelerated growth and accelerated ego development were in step. The sudden shift of one sim to another was disorienting though. But... I'd known it was coming for years. Even if you're encultured to a sim you start to see the cracks in it. The places where the experience isn't perfect or where they only had enough resources to deploy an AI instead of an AGI. the fact that my class were the only actual people was... corrosive. Even with the resilience they built into our minds." She considers it for a moment, "I think the futura is the only morph that was ever built for willpower, let alone having emotive damping hardware built right into the brain." ((OOC: Quite interesting actually))

She laughs without reservation, "I love that show! We had period TV programming. There were a lot of things in retrospect... but my first clear real inkling? I was asking the librarian's assistant for help finding a book and she gave me the exact response she had another time. I discovered if I stood just this way, used this tone, and asked for this book she'd say exactly the same thing and move exactly the same way. It was weird, I was about eight I think. Once I knew that I started finding other loops in minor characters. Subtle but it was there, repeated memes, repeated actions, parts of the simulation that weren't quite at the full quality. It became a lot more clear later."

"I think the best description would be creeping horror. You slowly start to realize everything's a lie. Then it starts getting worse as all the real people around you as slowly losing it. I think the actual murders started... around when I was twelve, maybe thirteen? In books you read about people learning to date and choose dresses and have teenage dramas... and in the classes around you that's right. But in your own class you're all going odd and you can tell that the ones who are going that way are the only real people because they're the only ones you can feel a mind behind the face. Does that make sense?"

Leng stiffens for a moment in surprise; she's clearly not used to people inside her personal space, let alone touching her. "Um..." there's a pause as she relaxes and leans her head on August's shoulder, "Okay, this is nice. And unusual... but I overanalyze. I haven't scared you off yet?"

She sighs softly, "I could tell the intent... just to put it into words you do understand that I can see behind your eyes, yes? I mean read your mind, not that I'm going deep but your intent... it feels nice." For a moment she doesn't say anything, "You're unusually genuine."

There is a nod as she picks her tea up again, "I am, all of the Lost Generation are to the best of my knowledge." She sips her tea and sits close, "And you're sincere about sincerity... you know that faking sincerity is very common and the conman's greatest weapon. If you can fake that you've got it made." A chuckle and the ghost of a smile, "I take it this other you've known wasn't one of the Lost? How were they broken?"

"Dominating the conversation by talking about me? That's a bit backwards I think." She ponders but makes no move to get up from the hug and physical contact, "Well I know you grew up one Earth and were in early with the Junta. I've never been to the real Earth. So... tell me about where you grew up, I'd like to hear more."

"So you were a Jovian before the Junta?" She smiles, "I've considered visiting but I think they'd shoot me on sight." "How old were you when you shipped out? Obviously at least ten years younger. Though there's some hidden depths there, you managed to work in a classical education." *Sparkle Pony, could you ask Spike for copies of some of his books? Now he's got me curious.*

She chuckles, "I'm mostly keeping to your emotional states and reading physical cues. Those and my weird sleep modes are pretty much unconcious. To drive your emotions, put on the charm, subvert your motivations, or to dive into your memories all require acts of will... so of those fairly significantly. In the good news I can't actually kill you with my mind." "Though your permission is appreciated." Tea is refilled and sipped, "So Jupiter's off my bucket list. Shame, I like the idea of a society where most of the minds are real. That said, why did you leave Jupiter?"

There's a shiver followed by, "Ick. No. I know it's a retro viewpoint but the idea of resleeving makes me feel ill. Not to judge anyone else mind you, but for me I see my body and soul as a package deal. They're one thing I can hold onto across multiple simuspaces." "So they took your spare and threatened your friend... that makes for a really good reason to escape." "There's milk and sugar in the fridge if you prefer it that way. I don't know how you feel about goat milk but it goes well in tea I think and it's easier for people to keep goats in the dome than cows." "Um... by the way, I have no idea how this is going or where its going. This really is the first date I've ever actually been on. I know, I know, I'm an odd duck."

"I didn't say that. What I mean is... I could keep you talking here for hours. I'm just unsure of how this whole date thing works outside of fiction. And I've found fiction a poor guide to reality, that includes Sparkle Pony's attempts to pass on advice constantly here."