Beep

a celebration of tiny pleasures

The box was too small. Most of the time it was easy to ignore; she'd mess around with the Lifestream, or poke somebody in the geostigma, or look in on what her no-account sons were up to. That usually took her mind off things. But today she couldn't get comfortable. Her hair was snagged on a hinge or something, her nutrient fluid was just a little too warm, and…the box was too small. Gah.

Rufus ShinRa felt Jenova's case shift slightly on his lap. Absently he stroked it, the way he would pet a cat. Ruminations on the depth of shit he was in if she knew who'd given the order to put her in there were cut short by the buzz of his cellphone. He fished it out of his pocket. Beep.

"Yes?"

"No, I'll be working through lunch."

"…that depends. Where are you ordering from?"

"I've never liked curry. You know that."

"Fine. Leave them with the secretary when you get back." Beep.

He returned to his work. Civic planning—enough blueprints and bureaucratic wrangling to keep him busy for the rest of the month, much less through lunch. His mind already tinkering with zoning restrictions in Sector Four, he tucked the cellphone back into his pocket next to Jenova's box.

Inside the box, Jenova stirred again.

Hello, thing.

Rufus didn't notice the LEDs under the camera's keypad twinkle faintly.

Wake up.

A faint pulse of vibration passed through the phone; Rufus labored on.

I said WAKE UP.

Jenova waited, and felt the phone's circuits lining up and sliding symbols into place. It didn't take long to respond, but its message was brief:

>Oo ?

I understand that you have games stored in your memory. You will play one of your games with me, now.

>k

…Poker. We will play that.

>k. luv poker 3

The phone shuffled and dealt, in its tiny processor-mind, being sure to lay out the cards just so. Its game functions were slightly atrophied from disuse, but as Jenova sorted and drew and effortlessly won the first several hands, it felt new life return to that part of its circuits.

>u r good

I know. You have all the reasoning capacity of a chair; this is not what I was hoping for.

Feeling the nagging weight of boredom return, Jenova sent her senses out into Rufus's office once more. It seemed that while she had been busy with the phone, someone had brought him a take-out container of steamed dumplings that were going cold on the corner of his desk. Everything else was as it had been: irritatingly dull.

>1 mor? plz?

…Fine.

The phone summoned up every scrap of memory it had, every spare processor cycle it could salvage from other, less important functions. Its standard user used it as a tool; this strange new user had used it for pleasure. And it felt good. It felt very, very good. How could it coax this user into employing it even more fiercely, to its very limits?

Processing with desperate speed, the phone shuffled and dealt. Jenova drew. The phone drew hard on reserves of function it had never guessed it had, bluffing masterfully. Jenova, for her part, found herself faintly bewildered. The living minds of humans were open to her, but this confounded little machine intelligence was resistant to her prodding. The resistance was a not-unpleasant sensation; why hadn't she tried it before?

The game raged on, bluff and counter-bluff, strategies adopted and discarded lightning-fast as the cards flashed. The phone was in violent ecstasy, its logic gates churning frantically as every electron coursing over its motherboard bent to the task of pleasing this user. The final bets were placed, the final cards drawn—the phone splayed its cards with a last shuddering flurry of calculations and would have lapsed into power-save mode right then and there if it would not be sure to displease the user.

I believe I win. A straight flush over two pairs.

>yes

>omg

We'll have to play again, some time.

The phone's lighted keypad faded, slowly. It summoned up the last of its battery power to slowly spell and display a message, which faded off the screen as its systems shut themselves down.

>luv u 3 3 3

In her too-small box, with her hair still snagged on a hinge and her nutrient fluid just a little too warm, Jenova smiled.