Danika stared at the large glowing ball that spoke with the Emperor's voice and then gasped. "Jade?" she questioned.

Lin Hao finally turned to look at her, while the sphere asked, "Are you referring to the color or the gem stone? If everything is calibrated correctly, there shouldn't be anything in the room that is currently green."

"It is, but it isn't," Lin Hao explained like a cheshire cat. "No records prior to the initial boot up this morning." He told the sphere, "She was actually questioning your identity, since the previous game system was referred to as Jade."

"Oh, I am the Starcraft Game System Core," the sphere replied promptly. It listed a version number and gave its current up-time as well, and then added cheerfully, "I have not been nicknamed by my development team yet. Four of the other members have completed their login and will join you shortly."

"But didn't you remove the Empire's data from Jade's libraries last time?" Danika asked uncertainly.

"Just the working data, not the records," Lin Hao explained.

Takahashi entered the room a moment later and asked, "Things look set up for another futuristic demo? I thought we were working on the community garden world design next?"

"Greetings Takahashi Yuichi," the System Core said cheerfully.

Danika felt like she was in shock, but she tried to answer Takahashi while verifying her understanding at the same time, by replying, "I think it's just Lin Hao's idea of a blank slate. He just said he created this copy by erasing Jade's history?"

Her gaze was still focused on Lin Hao, even though her reply was to Takahashi. Lin Hao nodded reassuringly, and Takahashi said, "Oh, so that's it. I really like the concept of a completely fresh beginning. Thanks for accepting my recommendation."

Danika turned and asked Takahashi, "You recommended this?"

"Yes, since we're trying to push the system itself as much or more than the demos we're creating, it doesn't make sense to keep its core tied to Living Jade Empire," Takahashi replied cheerfully.

Danika turned back toward the featureless sphere that still spoke in Jade and the Jade Emperor's voice. She glanced uncertainly at Lin Hao who had already returned to his screens and back to the core again. A hand landed on her head and she jumped.

"Are you shocked?" Devon Yu asked with a twinkle in his oddly colored eyes.

"I'm shocked," she agreed dryly.

"Welcome back Devon Yu," the System Core said with a slightly different greeting.

Devon patted her shoulder and advised, "Get all of your complaints out of the way, and then we'll get started."

Dalma, who had entered the room behind Devon just in time to hear that, said critically, "My first complaint is all this white. I just woke up and all this brightness is giving me a headache. I've always thought our workspaces should default to grey instead."

The System Core spoke up cheerfully, "Greetings Erdei Dalma. Would you like to choose a different default color?"

"Ah…" Dalma replied a little blankly. "Do I have that authority?"

"Can we change his voice too?" Danika blurted suddenly.

"Sure," Lin Hao agreed. He swiped through his screens for a moment and tapped something.

"All of the current members of the development team currently have full administrative permissions, authorized by the main Admin account," the System Core announced. The sentence began in Jade's voice, and ended in the voice of a woman who sounded faintly familiar, and almost at the same time the white walls of the room darkened into a grey and green pattern like ferns cast into stained concrete.

"How's that?" Lin Hao asked.

"A bit dingy," Dalma replied critically.

"Sounds like a housewife?" Takahashi suggested.

Lin Hao made a tossing motion with his hands and announced, "Then you lot can set things to whatever you want, I'm going to go have lunch."

"Lunch?" Danika questioned.

"Food," he specified before logging out.

"Is this new demo supposed to be an Empire building variant?" Myles Blue asked as he entered the meeting room.

"Garden Empires?" Danika asked a little blankly.

"I think that's actually a pretty accurate way of thinking about the game structure," Takahashi said cheerfully.

"Greetings Myles Blue," the System Core added cheerily. "The last two members of the development team are logging in now but the Admin has logged out."

"Why are all of the AIs glowy balls?" Myles asked Danika.

Danika looked at the face of the person that she'd resented for a long time, and wondered how he could be so oblivious. Even now she hadn't exactly managed to forgive him, but it was no longer a weighty grudge. She looked at the glowing ball that hovered over the short column that held a pool of silver liquid, and shrugged.

"Lin Hao set them up?" she suggested.

"Ah," Myles replied, and nodded his head as though that explained everything.

When Paul and Miccah arrived, they started outlining a world of small soilbound conquests. The system they came up with reminded Danika of Shrubbery's garden in Living Jade Empire. Like the dryad, the player's account was bound to their plot and plants, although not to a specific tree.

Communities would have a common territory that would equal that of all of their members plots added together. After some discussion, they decided that a community territory would never shrink, but it would never expand beyond the current plot total, so that even if it lost members, it could retain the communal areas that everyone had built together, but those areas would not expand as new members joined until the total area exceeded the existing holdings.

They came up with a variety of ideas for how communities could compete, and also how they could make it feel like every gardener was contributing to the world as a whole. Takahashi hadn't been wrong, it really was a lot like building an Empire builder's game, with resource management, and kingdom-like communities built from private territories. The territories could only interact in limited ways, such as markets, competitions, and floral espionage (with pollen stealing insects.)

--

By the time her shift ended, Danika had acclimated to the stationary System Core and had shaped her assistant into a small bonsai tree, to match her feeling that they were building an entire world for dryads.

Even though she was careful not to work late, and logged in directly to 'Living Jade Empire' when she finished, ShinZing was already waiting for her beside the guild hall tree. She shifted into her own pixie form when he zipped toward her, and he laughed and scooped her up into a hug that left them spinning through the air together.

"How was the first day on this one?" he asked.

"Um, good, I think. I feel like we're more organized than we were with Jade. But it's really weird having a System Core that isn't Jade, but acts like Jade?" she explained, but also asked quickly, "What about things there? You're here early?"

"I'll have to leave early too," he replied apologetically. "Even though I promised I'd spend time cuddling with you."

His hand was warm against her cheek, and when they were both pixies like this it felt kind of like they were in their own forms despite the wings. "It's okay," she insisted quickly. "I just wish I could help you feel less anxious."

"Me?" he asked blankly.

"You seemed tired yesterday? And I thought it seemed like you wanted me to reassure you that, uh, that I haven't changed my mind?" she replied questioningly in a shimmer of pink sparkles.

"Danika… ah, sorry, ZipZing," he corrected himself quickly. "I thought that you seemed kind of anxious? So I wanted to spend more time…" he looked at her expression and grinned suddenly. "Are we seriously both just anxious about how the other one must be feeling anxious lately?"

"Maybe," she agreed with a relieved giggle.

"You don't want to know what Toshi said about that section of our movie script," he warned her as he hugged her tighter.

"I bet it's not resolved this easily," she pointed out with a grin.

"Nope. But I'm not going to let things end nearly as quickly either," he warned her gently.

"Things end? You and Nao both said it has a happy ending though?" Danika protested.

ShinZing gazed at her for a moment and then burst into laughter.