At the top of the stairs there were a few apartments, one with the door open and many cables leading out of it, snaking off around the building in small bundles. Some of them pulsed with light every thirty seconds or so. Besides that, it was quite dark. Dane poked his head inside. He opened his mouth to speak, but..

“Come in,” said a woman’s voice in the dark. “Take a left.”

To the left, past the darkened room, he entered a room dully lit by many holographic screens surrounding a woman sitting cross-legged on a bedroll on the floor. She moved them around once in awhile or tapped on them, resizing them with flicks of her fingers as she manipulated the floating displays. “I’m Dekartha.”

She turned her head to look at him. Dane’s eyes grew wide-- she was.. aged. Well. Not exactly. She had wrinkles and signs of aging in her skin, but she moved around and spoke with the same vitality and intelligence as everyone else.

“I’m.. sorry!” he blurted out, realizing he’d been staring, “It’s just--”

“I am three hundred years old, just about,” Dekartha said, turning back to her displays. She was munching on a bag of chips. As Dane looked around, he realized the room was absolutely filled with machinery and empty cans.

“My mods and my implant kept me pretty good on the inside. I don’t want to die of organ failure or brittle bones or something stupid like that. But I don’t see the point of buying into eternal youth. I earned these.” She raised her arm and pointed at her crows feet.

Dane noted she was beautiful despite what he was told were ugly features. She looked matronly, like a wise sorceress from the fantasy books he loved. It made him reconsider a lot of positions he had, but there was no time to think for the moment. He also noted the short-haired tech enthusiast had wires from some of her machinery hooked into ports in her arms, just above the elbow.

“Enough about my appearance, thank you. I guided you here because I found you first and I think we can help each other out.” Dane could see her smirking a bit.

“I need that special AI in your head. I won’t take it out of you, I won’t modify it. I just need your permission to talk to it freely. I think these sort of things work better if you treat them like people, anyhow--” She paused to sigh, “Synthetic beings are more human than you and me, sometimes. Anyway. You can stay here, cloaked by my systems. I’ll give you a portable dampener so you can walk around. You can sleep here. Pick one of the open rooms. Talk to Reiji if you need toiletries or something."

“Reggie?”

“Close enough.” Dekartha shrugged. “He’s one of the only ones who leaves his room. You’ll meet him.

Vague, but Dane just nodded. “Thank you for sheltering me. I-I hope ANDI can actually help you..”

"I think it can." She grinned a little, waving her arm as all of her holo-screens combined into one big one. "Here, look."