Nightfall. Planet Provia.
Catgirl Dot is kicking back on a narrow catwalk, thousands of feet above her resident arcology's largest bioreserve. With so many body modifications transforming her into a feline, she's able to slink around the protected area undetected.
The irises of her electric green eye implants are glowing as they extend out from their corneas to project a quantum computer-generated reality into her lens, directly stimulating the retinal cells that transmit visual information to her brain. Using a true-to-life virtual avatar, Dot searches the simulated world for her newest long-distance beau, Clu, who dwells in a cubicle apartment on one of 15 surface colonies scattered about the planet's only natural satellite.
Clu is standing outside — or what passes for outside on the lunar superstructure — and gazing up through the colony's semitransparent radiation and micrometeorite shields.
Provia fills the sky.
The irises of his bionic eyes are flickering as he switches to their shared simulated reality to generate a private, self-furnishing loll room. Then, he invites her to join as the room auto-populates itself with a random assortment of simulated Provian pets.
Dot's avatar spawns in next to a fuzzy moffbat that's been coded by an algorithm to flutter around her in circles.
"Hey," she's smiling, baring custom fangs with her tail dancing behind her.
"Hey," greets Clu. "Nice mods. You actually have fangs?"
Back on Provia, Dot flicks out her tongue and a barbel pings against an incisor, amusing Clu to the point of distraction. Finally, she purrs, "Why don't you come down here and see for yourself?"
Art by Jelle Atromitos