{Loading…}
{Loaded.}
[>>Now replaying: Log 1.099.epi]
Date: 8.9.175 AA / 4404 LTC
Location: Unknown
//Warning us to Violence.//
[>>DATA CORRUPTED]
[
You have connected to a new Domain: UNNAMED_DOMAIN(LARES). Do you trust this Domain?
(Y/N)
]
What? This was my own Domain, so yes, but…
[
Acknowledged. UNNAMED_DOMAIN(LARES) has been added to your list of trusted Domains. Would you like to connect to this Domain now?
(Y/N)
]
[>>Alert!]
[>>Detected idle state in DPM: Samantha_v1]
[>>Traumatic personality stasis imminent]
[>>Employing sanity-preserving countermeasures]
[>>Searching records]
[>>Relevant memories found]
[>>Now replaying memories]
Date: 12th of April, 1990
Location: Daxberg, Mömbris Municipality, Bavaria, Germany.
[>>Replaying Memory]
“Sammi? Oh, come here, what happened?” my Mom says.
“Stefan was mean,” I say.
“She bit him in the face,” my father adds.
Our living room is gloomy, but I like it that way. Lots of wood and cushions, and you can build fortresses out of the couch because you can move the individual parts. It’s cold, but not cold enough to put the stove on. The windows are small, the house old, and our money tight.
My father sighs and grabs me by the shoulder. I don’t like it, because he always does that before he scolds me.
“Samantha, you say you want to be a princess, right?”
I nod, even though I to be honest have no idea what I want to be, but princess sounds nice.
“Princesses need to be very proper, and what you did clearly wasn’t. You can’t do things like this ever again, you understand?”
I nod again, even though I don’t understand. Stefan was mean, so I was mean back. It wasn’t a big deal.
“I was just angry,” I try to explain.
“Princesses don’t get angry. They are above that,” my Mom says, and that is that, because my Dad always says she sounds like an English princess because of her accent, so she must know what she is talking about.
[Data corrupted]
Now Loading: Unknown Domain
▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▱▱▱▱▱▱▱▱▱▱▱▱▱ 36%
[>>Detected ongoing idle state in DPM: Simulacrum/Samantha_v1]
[>>Traumatic personality stasis imminent]
[>>Employing sanity-preserving countermeasures]
[>>Searching records]
[>>No relevant records found]
{SCANNING PRE-LOG MEMORY}
{REMEFZSFING…}
{REMEMBERING}
Date: 1st of February, 2020
Location: Café Kranzler, Kurfürstendamm, Berlin, Germany.
[>>Replaying Memory]
“Look, I am not telling you to quit right now, but… are you really happy where you are?” Simon asks me and sips his coffee. It’s the fancy kind, one step away from being “deconstructed,” and we’re paying out of the nose for it, but damn is it ever good.
I take a sip of water and try to brush my hair out of my face before I remember I cut it to ear length. What was I supposed to say? I idly thumb the buttons on my jacket instead.
“Are you, Sam?” Simon asks again. The way he’s leaning forward, it almost feels like he’s going to kiss me if I didn’t know he was very, very gay. He notices me fidgeting and reaches out to touch my shoulder, but I turn and grab my cup before he can make contact.
I blow over the hot liquid.
“I don’t know.”
Simon sighs.
“Do you even like this job?”
I think about that while I take a sip. The espresso tastes faintly of chocolate and cherries.
“I do. I like being a Product Owner. Feels like I can be creative while making a bit of a difference, you know?”
“Make a difference? At this company? Sam, you’re a… they want you to be a glorified requirements engineer. Is that who you want to be?”
“I don’t know,” I say again, and try to smile because I’m feeling a lot of things now that I am thinking about this stuff, and that’s making me very uncomfortable.
Simon raises an eyebrow so high, I fear it might vanish back over his shaved head. Then he makes that half-resigned, half-disgusted sound that we Germans do so well.
“Ach…” He turns away, rests his elbows on the counter, and plants his face into his palms. He massages his temples, then surfaces like a swimmer. “I’m just wondering… You’ve been passed over for promotion four times now. If I were you, I’d be furious. Heck, I am furious right now on your behalf. Where is all that anger going, Sam?”
It’s getting hard to breathe.
“My Salary, I guess?” I joke, just to steer the conversation anywhere else.
[Data corrupted]
[Now Loading: Unknown Domain]
[▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▱▱▱▱▱▱▱▱ 60%]
[>>Detected ongoing idle state in DPM: Simulacrum/Samantha_v1]
[>>Traumatic personality stasis imminent]
[>>Employing sanity-preserving countermeasures]
[>>Searching records]
[>>No relevant records found]
{SCANNING PRE-LOG MEMORY}
{REMEFZSFING…}
{REMEMBERING}
Date: 3.2.0001 AA
Location: Peruti, Kingdom of Wexler, Tobes.
[>>Replaying Memory]
I’m so stupid, it’s making it hard to breathe.
How could I ever even think that I was supposed to be some great hero? I am just a dumb chick with powers she doesn’t deserve and no outlet for all this goddamn anger. I need to put it somewhere, to let it out, or it is going to eat me whole.
A touch on my shoulder, feather-light. I try to steer away, try to move, try not to lash out, but I can’t, I have to, and so I slap Chris’ hand away.
“Don’t fucking touch me!”
“Sam…” he says. His voice is all soft and high, hovering somewhere between man of silk and woman of velvet, as if he can’t quite decide who he wants to be. It’s annoying, but I learned that he doesn’t affect it. It’s just who he is. Somehow, that’s even more annoying.
“What?!” I snapped. I shouldn’t. I really shouldn’t. This guy is the only person who’s giving me the time of day, and I am being an absolute bitch about it and… The spiral starts again and my lip starts trembling.
This time, when he holds me and caresses my head, I wrap my arms around him to never let him go. I know I shouldn’t show this weakness, that I needed to be strong and proper if I wanted people to respect me, but I just couldn’t stop the tears.
“Everything… everything’s gone, Chris, and I can’t ever get it back. It just makes me so very fucking angry!” I snarl the words into the wet cloth of his tunic.
Chris’ hand combs through my hair, short and pristine even after living in the dirt for weeks now. I wish it could get dirty. I wish I would look as old as I really am. People are starting to whisper, and worse, to look. Soon, they will covet.
“I’m angry too, Sam,” he says.
“You should be. You’re a fucking saint, and people treat you like shit,” I say.
“Maybe we’re both saints. Maybe we should both be angry. Do something with that anger, you know?”
[Data corrupted]
[Now Loading: Unknown Domain]
[▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰ 100%]
[>>Domain loaded.]
[>>Now entering: Unknown Domain]
[
Battery power engaged.
You have less than (16) minutes of charge remaining.
Activate Power Saver Mode?
(Y/N)
]
I stood in the middle of a forest clearing.
The clearing.
Everything was exactly how I remembered it.
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The tree still had the scorch marks.
The blood and charred corpses of the wolves were gone.
The house was new, though.
It stood exactly in the middle of the meadow, next to the little knoll of grass I’d stared at for so long after arriving. Actually, I was pretty sure it was exactly where I’d arrived. Around the clearing, the forest was just as dense and dark and impenetrable as it had been back then. I knew better now, of course. Over in that direction was Peruti, where I’d met Chris. Down there, between those two trees, was the bandit camp. The capital of Wexler was a week’s trip that way, on foot.
If all these places existed in my Domain, that was. Still, they existed in my memories. So why wouldn’t they, here?
When I moved, something pressed uncomfortably into my shoulder. I reached up, grabbed it, and came away holding Zephyro’s gauntlet.
I should be feeling something. Anything, really. But it was all a bit much.
First waking up in Zephyro’s Domain, then the running, the fighting. Saving all those people at the Plaza, surviving ever more hideous monsters, hailing the Old Guard, defeating… whatever that thing had been. Then the Shackled. The Palace. A promise I didn’t know how to keep. Zephyro’s death. The kids. Tin’s fear, Pina’s rebellious anger, Voni’s blind adoration.
I was exhausted, and it didn’t have anything to do with my CPU for once. This was mental fatigue, from having fought too much, for too long, and still seeing no end in sight. I couldn’t even look farther than my own mind.
But despite the cotton swab feeling smothering my thoughts, I had to try.
My eyes focused on Zephyro’s gauntlet. It was heavy, made of interlocking metal plates with a leather lining. Nothing special, just a piece of armor, no matter how I turned it. When Zephyro had worn it, there had been a gentle silver glow shining through the cracks between the plates, but it was gone now. I decided to keep it anyway.
How could I ever not?
[Lamsat alwazir almuhadiya - Hand of the Vizier]
[
Moved from c://memOS/Nexus/temp
To c://memOS/downloads
]
{CPU Load: ▲ 99%}
{Core Temp: ▲ 62° C}
[
Battery power engaged.
You have less than (12) minutes of charge remaining.
Activate Power Saver Mode?
(Y/N)
]
The notification pulled me out of my grief-mired reverie as the glove vanished.
If only it could have helped me here, but mentally connecting a glove that shot beams of moonlight and projected shields with the theoretical concepts of energy and power was too much of a stretch. I’d risk gambling away what precious little Logic I still had left, especially if memOS got overridden again.
Luckily, now that I had all my senses back, there were alternatives that provided stellar opportunities.
I inhaled deeply once again, raised my head upward, toward the sun. A fusion reactor would be nice about now. Chris and I had done it before. We’d spent weeks on it, of course, and despite all of their knowledge, it was held together with far more divinity than technology. There were just too many gaps the Wish had to fill, gaps in my knowledge that Chris couldn’t work around, no matter how hard they tried.
The Wish thrummed in my heart, flooded my limbs, set every fiber of my being alive. I focused on those days when Chris and I had worked together, how we had finally succeeded and celebrated as the weird bright blue radiation of the fusion chamber filled the underground cavern below the bunker. The last step before we could finally build the servers and the laptop. Before we could work on our revenge.
I exhaled, but when I read the notification, I snapped my mouth closed again before the Logic could leave.
[>>It looks like you are trying to superlogically enhance a digital lifeform.]
[Would you like help with that?]
[( )Get help superlogically enhancing the digital lifeform]
[( )Superlogically enhance the digital lifeform without help]
What? This wasn’t what was supposed to happen! I tried to cancel the prompt every way I could. Neither thinking ‘back’ nor ‘escape’ or ‘cancel’ did anything, however.
So, holding my breath with Logic bristling in my full cheeks, I did the only thing I could.
Chris?! A little help?!
Beep!
[//sudo decline prompt]
[You have declined. Should you change your mind, you can find this prompt in the (Help) menu.]
[//c://codedojo.exe]
Not the time, Chris! I thought, eyes watering. I had no idea how much Logic I was holding, but it felt like a lot. I needed that Logic. Without it, I wouldn’t be able to get myself a new battery, or reactor. Even so… I had tried it all, hadn’t I? At which point would I admit defeat, admit I couldn’t do this on my own?
But relying on the kids seemed like such a long shot. How were they even supposed to know I needed power? For all they knew, Machines just worked. I still wondered how that was when I received another prompt.
[>>User CHRIs wishes to take control of (@&^%$%!_^]
[Y/N?]
{Y}
Without any time to think about it, and my blood rushing in my ears, I accepted as quickly as I could, even though I had no idea what was going on.
Then, finally, I couldn’t hold it any longer, and I exhaled.
{CONSUMED LOGIC - 300 LB}
{AVAILABLE LOGIC - 1490 LB}
A tiny bell chimed.
The Logic flowed from my mouth, my nostrils, my eyes. It swirled, glowing bright enough to be visible in the midday sunlight, danced with itself, and formed a shape. It was small, about as long as my forearm, and a little shorter than that in height. With a bright flash, the Logic coalesced in a snap, and a small, black cat landed gracefully in the grass to my feet.
It had large, aquamarine eyes, and was wearing an absurdly long cyan scarf that glowed a little, even out here, and flowed in a gentle breeze I couldn’t feel.
“Beep,” Said the cat, smugly.
[
CHRIs_v1 IS NOW CHRIs_v2
]
“Chris?” I asked, bewildered. “Is that you?”
“Beep!” the cat reiterated, sitting down while its scarf floated behind it like arms, or wings, perhaps?
[
Battery power engaged.
You have less than (2) minutes of charge remaining.
Activate Power Saver Mode?
(Y/N)
]
The cat’s—Chris’—eyes grew as wide as mine felt.
“Boop!”
“Fuck!”
We said in unison, but while I was paralyzed by exhaustion and the sheer amount of things I didn’t know, Chris dashed toward the front door of the house immediately, and I didn’t even need the jolt of adrenaline I received to follow them. If you saw Chris running somewhere, you wanted to be right behind them.
The house was a three-story building like they had in the older American suburbs of the Midwest. Ash-gray Wooden slats, a front porch with a railing, and lots of windows were all I could pay attention to before I jumped the three steps up the porch. Chris was trying to open the door with the scarf they could apparently use in place of hands, and I stopped over them, legs spread a little to not step on their feline body as I tried to grab the door handle. The door didn’t have a handle, though, just one of those weird American brass knobs you could twist, featuring a keyhole.
I patted the pockets of my pants, found something in the front right one, and pulled out a keychain that felt as familiar as if I’d used it all my life. It had several keys as well as a key fob pulsing a light cyan glow, but only three of them could possibly fit the keyhole.
Of course, it was the third one that fit, and when I turned it in the hole, the door opened with a satisfying click and the chime of a little bell hung from the inside frame. Chris was already inside, having slunk through the opening as quickly as they possibly could, and I followed them, ignoring the empty living area immediately to my right, as well as the staircase therein, and the corridor leading further into the house, directly in front of me. Chris headed for the kitchen to my left and when I caught up with them, they were in the motion of pulling open the fridge, one of the only furnishings I had seen in the house so far. There wasn’t even a dining table, just one of those American stoves and a ramshackle counter with only one cabinet hiding the plumbing of the sink.
I stumbled to a halt in front of the open refrigerator and paused.
“Chris, what the fuck?”
[
Battery power engaged.
You have less than (1) minute of charge remaining.
Activate Power Saver Mode?
(Y/N)
]
“Beep!” Chris said urgently, using their scarf to point at the only thing inside the damn fridge.
Feast? -_o
It was the damn heart, still dripping black blood from its too-many-valves and impossible, needle-thin-toothed mouths. The five blodshot, half-closed eyes didn’t help make it look much better, but it was the twitching ears that nearly made me toss the thing as far as I could. They weren’t human, just naked animal ears.
“You can’t be fucking serious!”
“Beep!” Christ said emphatically, scarf scrambling to try and lift the damn thing, but it seemed to be too heavy for them.
Feast!? :)
[
Battery power engaged.
You have less than (1) minute of charge remaining!
Activate Power Saver Mode?
(Y/N)
]
I couldn’t believe I was going to do this…
I inhaled as quickly as I could, and when the wish surged into my arms to thrum in my fingertips, I touched the heart. It felt slick and disgusting and nauseatingly comfortable.
I still hadn’t gotten around to going through the memOS help menu, but I hoped it had some sort of antivirus program. At the very least I hoped it would give me a few options to choose from like before, and that I could make the selection fast enough.
There was a spark as if touching an electric eel, and memOS began to chime in my mind.
[MemOS can not verify the digital signature of this file. Accessing it might cause damage to your system, software, and/or hardware. Do you want to access this file anyway?]
(Y/N)
[//Y]
Chris decided for me, keeping my hand on the heart with a soft touch of their scarf. I’d never owned a cat and wasn’t very good at reading their body language, but even to me, Chris seemed agitated, staring at the heart with wide eyes.
[It looks like you are trying to superlogically convert a piece of pseudophysical reality.]
[Would you like help with that?]
[( )Get help superlogically converting a piece of pseudophysical reality]
[( )Superlogically convert pseudophysical reality without help]
I selected the first option because I needed all the help I could get.
[>>You are attempting to superlogically convert [heart_of_hunger] into {Food? :)}! memOS is attempting to find a solution for the problem…
…
…
>>SAINTNET is not responding.
>>No active connections found.
>>Error.
>>Reciting the Paris Epitaph.
>>Apples to Apples, Dust to Dust.
{
{OFFERING} 3 out of {INFINITE} possibilities.
>>1) [Convivum - A feast for the Senses] ONE! :> - Receive a bounty of Logic, fit for a Queen. There are no side effects to this choice. You should pick it. :)
ONE! :> - You receive {ERROR.} I receive {Your Mind.}
>>2) [Oris - The Domain Hungers] ONE! :> - A Digital Machine Built from Flesh that Devours the Divine - 300 LB
ONE! :> - You are now able to {DIGEST/ABSORB/ASSIMILATE} Logic/{The Divine Taste/Food/Bliss} and convert it to electrical power at a rate of 10 Logic per Kilowatt.
>>3) [Z’ylatyel - grynsloz myros f’ghongaril] ONE! :> - Submit.
ONE! :> - Submit!
}
The choice seemed simple enough. Both option 1 and 3 were obvious traps, which only left the second one. But what if all of them were traps? What if I was just feeding the monster my Logic?
“Beep Beep!” Chris said, as precisely as I’ve ever heard a beeping twice.
There was no real choice here, was there?
I could still let go and embrace oblivion.
But I had promises to keep.