Page/SCUD

A grey wolf imagined by Tessa, modeled after Page 81 of The Canidae Body, and the reason for her wolf fetish. Personifies her most primal instincts and, at least at first, bothers her at the most inconvenient times. Does not verbally communicate, but can change appearance as (subconsciously) desired and remembers things she does not consciously remember. Placed into an unconfigured SCUD v2.07 to give him life in the physical world. (An earlier model of SCUD was tested by Lee.)
Initially, Tessa imagines Page to test her "dream" powers because imagining Julian feels "wrong and exploitative." The wolf Page is based on, however, is unknown to her and fine to exploit. She quickly dismisses him as she is "not horny enough" if she has to think about it. Once she has played around more in her "dream" space, she calls him back to hand her a drink, only to be interrupted by a phone suddenly appearing on his serving tray. Neither she nor Page can make sense of the call she receives, but when her mind wanders again, he nonverbally suggests indulging her libido. This weirds out Tessa, but she starts to figure out he is both under her control and out of it, like an avatar for her subconscious.
When she finally gives in, Tessa is distracted by a noisy fan that has appeared on the dream-beach. Turning it off pulls her out of the dream, and by the time she is able to return to sleep, she is so frazzled that Page has to comfort her. Unfortunately, he is no help when she starts to try to figure out what is going on. She thinks about turning off the fan again, but it is now padlocked to stop her from doing that.
Tessa decides to follow the fan's cable, but she and Page quickly note that it is longer than expected. They finally reach a wall, where the cable goes beneath, and Tessa opts to fly over it. However, no matter how long she spends flying, she doesn't move at all, commenting on it being non new-kid-ian. Page stares at her when she gets the term wrong, but she resents being judged by her sexual fantasies.
Tessa examines the cable again and determines it will not come out from under the wall. She asks Page if he wants to bet that the walls don't continue forever, but he shakes his head violently. Then she has the brilliant idea of simply making a magic door, only it fails at the part where there's a hole to walk through. She asks if Page has any ideas, but his are not helpful at solving the problem. (He is persistent, anyway.)
Tessa manages to tear herself away from... herself, noting they will be interrupted anyway. However, she's surprised by what interrupts them this time, as a faceless generic figure walks past them and into the open door-without-hole. Tessa attempts to address the faceless figure without success, only for a hole to open up behind her. She and Page examine the hole, noting the faceless figure didn't cause it, before proceeding to examine the new opening. Tessa asks for a stick to poke the black wall exposed by the opening, and Page hands her a fork. Tessa briefly wonders if the fork is an inside joke of hers she somehow isn't in on, but proceeds to poke the wall with it anyway.
Category:Characters