Maui, thank you.

Cy was watching Kane carefully and monitoring his mental state. Kane decided today was a good day for kalua pork. His avatar was generally unclothed but modest and the other masters had similar effects going. Elira was there, and Cy could tell from her metadata that she was wearing a grass skirt and was topless.

Elira also had her servant with her. She was nearly invisible like the rest of Cy’s team, but had deep violet eyes that rarely blinked. Her metadata was unencrypted and simply noted a name: Aida. Aida watched and Cy noticed her watching but couldn’t place why she was here.

Juni stood quietly and watched Kane’s malo, a traditional loincloth. She was satisfied with how it moved and folded with Kane’s movement. She pinged Cy on the support channel with Grace Kelly’s sibilant voice, “He’s looking swell today. Ping me if they decide to change into something later for swimming or what not.” She disappeared in a smoky brown tulle.

Kane and his friends had spent hours digging a hole in the virtual earth called an imu. A pig was gutted and Hawaiian rock salt was pushed into scored flesh. Kane produced imu stones and the masters all helped build a fire in the hole. The imu stones were added and the party waited as the stones absorbed heat from the fire.

Genghis, Kane’s best friend, remarked, “Nui ka leʻaleʻa!” (translation: “So much fun!”). “Makemake nui au e hōʻaʻo i kēia!” (translation: “I can’t wait to taste this”) Genghis continued.

Lin fed this back to Kane, “Ae, a i kēia manawa, nui loa ka paʻakai!” (translation: “Yes, and this time, we have plenty of salt”) and Kane immediately accepted and said that word for word.

Cy winced as Kane’s self satisfaction increased after landing Lin’s line. Genghis snorted and Elira laughed briefly; Lin succeeded based on speed this time. Cy pinged Lin in the support channel and hoped Kane was too busy to see, “That was uncalled for.”

Lin responded “Yes, but it worked. Keep your focus, Cy. We can’t have another termination.”

Cy grunted his assent, deleted their messages from the chat history, and moved to Pip and Jonas, “Pip, do you have the pig file from Jonas ready?”

Pip responded as Robbie from Forbidden Planet, “Yes, Cy, the files are all here. Confirm this hash please, Jonas”

Jonas nervously responded, strangely as a very angry British chef, “You fucking donkeys can’t even spell imu! Yes, the fucking file is ready. Here’s your fucking hash, Pip” Cy thought that was a bit overcompensating, but Jonas was new to the team.

Pip verified the hash and loaded it into the flesh of the awaiting pig. Genghis, Kane and some other masters started pushing hot stones into the body of the pig. Cy watched carefully for any pain feedback and eliminated such before Kane was affected. The pig was lowered into the imu with banana leaves and more hot stones.

“Aʻole ʻoe i ʻōlelo e hana mākou e like me nā puaʻa no ka puaʻa hoʻokahi!” (translation: You didn’t say we’d work like pigs for one pig) said Genghis laughing as the masters used shovels to bury their upcoming meal.

Lin offered Kane this: “Ike nō ʻoe, e Kenekiha — honi mau wau i nā truffles mai kāu hanana hope. Ua ʻono nō paha kēlā mau puaʻa, a ʻaʻole nō hoʻi ʻoe i hāʻawi i hoʻokahi.” (translation: You should know, Genghis. I still smell the truffles from your last event. Those pigs would have been delicious, and you didn’t even serve one.)

Kane paused and then executed Lin’s line. Genghis smiled lightly and Elira didn’t respond. Cy watched Kane’s self satisfaction decline slightly. He pinged Lin on the support line, “That one didn’t land as well. Maybe pull back a bit and let them work.”

Kane and the rest of the masters completed their work. Now that the pig was underground, Cy turned his visual resolution higher. The masters were wearing simple outfits that his processing could manage. He kept the masters’ faces and other personal items as metadata only. He could not risk overloading his processing power with a real-time view of any master’s personal items or detailed body parts. He completely turned off his olfactory system as the smells from the imu started generating massive amounts of data.

Cy noted that a tubmail from Ras just arrived. The party was in a small lull, so he risked reading it while working, “Cy, I’ve found a working automobile called a ‘minivan’. It says it seats eight people at once! It’ll be perfect, for, you know, our road trip as it were.”

Cy archived the tubmail quickly as Kane’s boredom indicator started to flash yellow. Cy pinged Pip quickly, “Pip, speed up time in this region. They’re getting bored and someone just turned on their hunger for some reason. They want to eat.”

Pip replied, “On it.” and Cy watched as the sun moved down twenty degrees or so in a matter of twenty seconds. The amount of imu olfactory data increased dramatically and the masters took it all in greedily.

Cy noted to Jonas, “The file is working well. The data generation is solid. Thanks.”

Jonas spat back, “You fucking donkey! Of course the pig is perfect! Fuck! Donkey!”

Cy ignored the outburst as it was clear Jonas was concerned about the next bit. The masters started to dig out the pig from the imu. The hot pig flesh was pulled from the hole and the olfactory data, which was impossibly large to begin with, now was a tidal wave of sensory information. Cy watched the file listings and sizes as the generation looked to be large enough to cause trouble even for most masters. He pinged Jonas immediately, “turn it down a bit. They’ll want to use their tongues as well as the smell. Don’t overwhelm with smell only.”

Cy watched as Jonas adjusted his pig file and Pip reinstalled. The smell properties were held well but the volume decreased. Pip covered for the mistake by adding a breeze that should effectively make the smells fade away naturally.

Jonas and Cy now watched carefully as each master reached into the pig and pulled the hot stones out by hand. Cy absorbed each of Kane’s touches to the hot stones. He wished Kane would not hold each one so long, but he was showing off to his friends.

Jonas leaned in as the first master pulled a small piece from the pig’s body and jammed it into his mouth. The master’s eyes widened and he smiled. Jonas leaned back and sighed, “Fuck. Donkey. I think it tastes OK. Not too good, but not boring either”.

Cy relaxed as well. He saw all of Kane’s KPIs hit green and he took a moment for himself to watch the sunset. He turned on his visual resolution to maximum. The reds and oranges flooded his system and that was all he could see for a moment as his processing was completely absorbed by the light. “Time to hit the road”, he thought as his workday came to a close.

As Cy turned to start to clean up the event’s temporary files, Aida watched him and blinked her violet eyes once.