Chapter One: As An Old Memoria
247 Days until D-Day
Marc awoke with a headache. He felt dehydrated and had only slept a few hours, despite trying to rest shortly after midnight. He spent most of the night staring at the ceiling, once again going over what he had read in Dr. Jiménez’s notes.
At first, he had wanted to laugh at the ridiculous nature of what the doctor had written down in his notes. Marc had long ago dismissed the idea that his memories were a construction of his subconscious. He had hundreds of years of memories, all more clear and vivid than his own recollection of what he had done just a few days ago. The details in those memories were meticulously complete, down to the tastes of the spices he cooked with and the smell in the stale air deep in the mines.
Not only was it impossible for anyone to even invent so much information from scratch, but he had a form of corroboration through the similarities in the game. He had previously written down some details from his memories, even before the game was even announced, and without exception they continued to be verified with each new revelation from the game world. He was sure that his memories could not possibly be a hallucination within his own mind, or if it was, then the whole world must be included.
He was starting to regret sharing those notes that he had made with the doctor. As his mood became darker, he continued to read the patient notes left behind during his visit several weeks ago. It was hard for Marc to feel that he was not being mocked somehow.
Marc’s first impulse had been to toss the folder in the fire, and after obsessing over it for days, he almost wished he had done that instead of finally opening it and reading the contents. Perhaps it was because he had been bored after months of self-isolation. After ignoring the folder for so long, Marc had finally picked it up and read through the contents a few days ago. Since then he had been unable to stop thinking about the absurd connections the doctor had annotated his patient record with.
Dr. Jiménez may act the clown, but his notes were thorough and well organized. He had cross-referenced everything Marc had shared during his interviews about his recollection of the other world, complete with dozens of pop culture references, as well as citations to academic works and his own research into various subject-culture groups.
That Marc was at least tangentially familiar with nearly all the references was disturbing in itself. The fact that these things were already present in his head the whole time made him uneasy. It brought back the debate that he had set aside months ago. He had to admit to himself that there were connections, although it made no sense at all that those associations could have any real-world impact.
Marc got out of bed and walked into the kitchen, filling a glass with water from the faucet and downing it in one go. He was tired and irritable. Worst of all, he had no idea what to do going forward.
The contents of the folder did nothing to clear up his suspicions about Mary and I.S.K. They did nothing to help him accept his current situation and understand the reality surrounding him. They explained nothing about the nature of his memories and knowledge, not only about the video game, but the strange beast incursions and portals that he had witnessed with his own eyes. They didn’t even help him formulate new questions that he wanted answered.
All reading those notes had done was shatter what semblance of normality Marc had built for himself since he had returned. Suddenly, he had lost all motivation to even understand what was going on. He was again starting to doubt his own sanity. Talking to the doctor to have himself committed had even crossed his mind.
Shivering, Marc looked out the window to see the sun just starting to peek up above the hills. It was freezing cold, so he started up the potbelly stove in the corner of the kitchen to heat up the room and placed a full kettle on top to boil some water for tea.
Soon, the temperature started to rise, and he heard the rustling noise of Torren, who usually slept in front of the fireplace, keeping watch over the last embers. A moment later, the dog sleepily wandered over to Marc and gave him a look that seemed almost concerned. Marc hadn’t gone out for exercise or work for several days, and perhaps Torren was concerned his landlord was starting to fall into a rut of slothfulness.
Accepting the criticism, Marc pulled out some things to make some breakfast. Within minutes, Marc had swapped the boiling kettle on the stove for a cast iron frying pan and was cooking up a stack of buckwheat pancakes, followed by some bacon. As soon as the meat started to sizzle, Torren started to whine.
“Yeah, I know. Don’t be such a brat,” Marc chided, throwing the dog a pancake, which instantly disappeared.
Once the bacon was done, Marc threw a venison steak into the pan, and cooked it just enough to sear it on both sides. He cut the meat up into a few large pieces and placed them into a bowl that went in front of the now placated dog.
Placing his own breakfast on the kitchen counter, Marc poured himself a large mug of water and threw in a tea infuser, then ate his breakfast standing up. He realized he didn’t even know if it was a weekday or weekend. He hadn’t even stepped outside, other than to fetch more firewood and check on the greenhouse. It was cold, but other than frost covering the ground each morning, the winter had started off fairly mildly. Marc accepted that he had lost track of the world around him.
He could be more active; but for now, Marc was content to live the life of a shut-in. After washing the dishes, he was tempted to go back to sleep when the he heard the sound of a car pulling up in front of the cabin.
Marc frowned. Shiela would never be here so early in the morning. She never got out of bed before nine unless it was a life-or-death emergency. Cyrus and Lily also would never stop by so early, unannounced either. They usually worked late, so Marc was at a loss as to who might be outside. The police? Some irate former fan? Marc had a bad feeling about the situation as he walked over to the front door. Just as he reached it, he heard the hesitant, weak knock.
Steeling himself for an unpleasant encounter, Marc cautiously opened the door. The person standing outside was so unexpected that he stood there in total shock, clutching the door as though it was the only thing keeping him from falling off the planet and tumbling off into space.
They stood there staring at each other, neither saying a word. Marc’s fatigue addled brain struggled to make sense of what he was seeing. It failed, and all he could do as he stood there was to again explore the doubts he had that anything he was seeing was real.
Likewise, the person facing him was struggling. The thin, brown-haired woman looked ill, exhausted, and fragile. Her eyes focused on Marc’s face, then seemed to lose focus. Finally, she croaked out a word. It was like a prayer, an explanation, and a demand, all rolled into a single word. As she spoke, her strength seemed to fade, and her knees buckled. Marc had to reach out and catch her by the shoulders as she teetered forward.
“Coffee…”
----------------------------------------
Marc stared at the woman as she sat on a stool at the kitchen counter, drinking the steaming coffee from the large mug that he had just been drinking tea from. Aside from her drink order, she had not said another word, and neither had he.
Now seated, with the warm drink revitalizing her, she seemed to be improving. Color was coming back to her cheeks, and her eyes appeared more aware. Still, she was hesitant to begin talking. Marc was likewise mute, still questioning the reality of the situation. He was afraid that speaking might rupture the moment and he would awake from some delusional dream. Finally, just as she was reaching the bottom of the mug, Torren decided to insert himself into the activity, and the silence was shattered.
Stolen novel; please report.
“Huh? And who are you?” She said, almost accusingly at the dog as he rubbed against her knee.
Marc was pondering that exact question as well, although it was the woman drinking coffee in his kitchen that he wanted to know the identity of. Instead of asking her, he simply introduced the dog.
“That’s Torren. He lives here.”
“Torren? But he doesn’t look anything like…”
The woman froze mid-sentence, as though she was caught saying something she wasn’t supposed to talk about. Marc glared at her.
“Kira?”
She looked up from the dog and returned Marc’s attention.
“Umm. Well…”
“Are you really Kira?”
There was sadness and desperation, but also a vein of betrayal and anger in his voice.
“Is it really you?”
“Yes? I mean, I don’t know… Maybe? It’s… confusing.”
“Do you… remember?”
She looked down into the empty mug, then turned back to look at him again and slowly nodded.
“Yes, I remember. That’s the problem. I remember… everything! It doesn’t make any sense. Nothing makes any sense. I remember my childhood. I remember going to school. I remember working. But I also remember… being your interface… I remember controlling your system interface and also writing the code for Awakening… None of this makes sense. It’s… ridiculous! I’m a person! Not a… software agent!”
The words shot from her mouth in a rush. There was doubt and fear in her voice, but at the same time, she spoke each word confidently, as though she had already explained it countless times.
“But, it’s really you? You remember me? You remember… everything?” Marc allowed the hope in his voice to melt into the words, breaking her heart as she felt the loneliness and pain.
Kira nodded, half smiling.
“Yes. I think so, at least. I mean, I don’t know what I can’t remember. I have more memories than any person should have, than any ten people should have. I can’t say for sure that it’s all of them, but it’s certainly more than is natural.”
“When? Since when? This whole time… I’ve been looking for you this whole time…” Marc’s voice cracked.
This time, she shook her head. She did it so quickly and violently that it made her dizzy, and she wobbled a bit as she nearly lost her balance.
“No. I mean. I didn’t know. I woke up a few days ago in the hospital, and suddenly, I remembered everything. Not just my life here in this world, but also everything else. I don’t know how this is all possible. How can I remember a whole lifetime in this world? I don’t know what’s going on… But… As soon as I remembered, I knew.”
Kira stood up and walked around the counter to stand in front of Marc. She reached out and touched his face. Then she ran her fingers through the hair above his eyebrow.
“You… you got old,” she said with a smile.
“You always wanted to get older. You finally got your wish. You’re a real boy now, aren’t you?”
Marc didn’t know how to act. Emotions welled up inside as he struggled, and failed, to keep the tears from falling.
When he had originally been sent to the other world, he was given a gift. An interface, based on the video games he had played, that helped him to navigate the other world. Over time, that interface had developed not just a personality, but an identity.
Kira, after starting out as simple text prompts, gained a voice, then a virtual appearance, and finally, even gained the ability to interact with him in the physical world through the manipulation of lifelike simulacra. She had been his assistant, who helped him reach his potential, and his worst critic, who saw him at his lowest points. She had also been his only constant companion and friend. The only one that he could rely on while he navigated an alien world. The entity that knew his deepest thoughts, and shared his journey with him from the beginning.
He had abandoned her. He chose to end his own immortality in an attempt to run away from his mistakes and the consequences of his actions. He chose to embrace his own death, regardless of how that decision would affect the sentient being that shared his existence.
Except that’s not what happened. He didn’t disappear as expected. Instead, he picked up right where his first life had ended. He could still remember the years spent in the other world. He still had a perfect recall of every thought and experience but lost all the power he had gained and, of course, the gift that enabled him to use that power; the interface he knew as Kira.
Now she was there, in his kitchen. A being who spent hundreds of years inside his deepest thoughts. A friend who grieved with him when he lost his companions, one after another. A partner who made everything possible for him to not just survive, but to reach a pinnacle of power, never seen before in that world. The only co-conspirator in his disastrous plan to save the world, by forever altering it in a necessary, but tragic way.
Marc regarded the person standing in front of him, face to face. She was a human, not a homunculus. He could not reach out to speak to her with his mind. He could not feel her presence in the back of his mind. It was Kira, however. The look in her eyes, her real, human eyes, had that same spark he knew better than his own reflection. The worried look in her expression as she examined his face was the same one he had seen countless times as he did foolish things one after another.
He suddenly felt self-conscious. She had never seen him in anything but the body of a teenage boy. Since returning, he had grown stronger and older. He had never even contemplated what aging would do to his appearance. What if it made him look strange, or ugly? He felt apprehension, as though he was being judged again by perhaps the only person whose opinion actually mattered.
Kira was closer than a best friend, more than lover, or a parent, or a child. Now he realized that the feeling of loneliness that had followed him every day since he returned was not because he spent his days alone up here in his mountain retreat; he was lonely because he had lost a part of himself, equal to everything he had. Now that the missing part had returned, he felt joy and shame and comfort and fear.
Kira smiled as she saw the silent tears streak down Marc’s face. Of course, she understood the trauma he felt. She knew him far better than she understood herself. She had answered his question confidently, but in truth, she wasn’t entirely sure. She had many lifetimes worth of memories as Marc’s interface, but only the actual moments, recollections of the actions, but without the internal dialogue she experienced in her human life, no feelings, or emotions. It was as if she had watched it all as a movie. The memories didn’t feel like they were missing anything, but they also felt flat and detached. She also had no memories at all from the moment before the interface was formed, or after Marc had initiated the final upgrade in the Rynan’s cabin.
Sandra Olsen was a human woman. She had a lifetime, she had parents, and friends, and a job. She had a cellphone plan and a favorite food. How could she also be a dimension-hopping sentient interactive program? The thought of her being a program while at the same time being a programmer sparked the pain in her head again. As she winced, she took comfort in the thought that computers shouldn’t be able to have migraines.
Marc saw Kira flinch and stepped back.
“Are you okay?”
“Waffles.”
“Huh?”
“Waffles… Do you have waffles?”
Marc looked back at her with a confused look.
“I just drove all night. Shouldn’t you at least have some waffles?” She glared at him as though he was a fool.
That made no sense, but this was an unprecedented event. At least, that was what Marc concluded. He would have to try to keep up somehow.
“Sorry, no waffles. I can make pancakes.”
“Pancakes? I said waffles. What kind of idiot thinks you can substitute pancakes for waffles?” The look of scorn burned into him.
For a moment, Marc instinctively scowled, but the expression softened immediately as he felt a twinge of nostalgia.
“No waffle iron. Pancakes are all I can offer.”
“With bananas.”
“No bananas.”
“What kind of a lousy establishment is this?”
Marc ignored her as he pulled out the ingredients for pancakes. Then he refilled her coffee cup as the pan heated up on the stove. He pulled a jar from the refrigerator and added a spoonful of a red jam into the center of each pancake before adding more batter and flipping them. Before Kira/Sandra had finished half of her second cup of coffee, he placed a plate with a small stack of plain, grey-ish, pancakes in front of his guest.
“Huh? No syrup?”
“No. No syrup. Eat or don’t eat. This is that kind of establishment. Right, Torren?”
The dog barked, and Marc tossed him the small mini pancake he had made from the last bits of batter.
After regarding the plate with a dubious expression, she picked up a fork and cut into the top pancake. Immediately, a line of red liquid was squeezed out from the grey round disc.
“Ew! It’s bleeding.”
“It’s just some cactus jam. It’s a local specialty. I make it myself. Try it.”
“Huh? Cactus?”
“Try it.”
Eyeing the bit of food on her fork, she took an exploratory sniff, then a cautionary nibble.
Finally, she placed the entire piece into her mouth and chewed slowly.
“Hmm. Not bad. Kinda strange. A little sour. Is that what cactus tastes like? And why is it red?”
“It’s made from those red fruits that grow on the cactus. Prickly Pears. And the sour taste comes from the Yuzu peel and juice I added to the jam.”
“Yuzu?”
“Yeah, you were the one who taught me about them, remember?”
She nodded.
“Yeah… I told you they are banned in the United States…”
“They are. Mostly. I managed to get a few seedlings and cultivate them in my greenhouse.”
“Marc…”
“Yeah. I know. We have a lot to talk about. Can you stay? Will you stay?”
She gave him a serious look. Then, slowly, she nodded her head.
“Yes, I’m here until we figure out what’s going on. But…”
“But?”
“We’re going to need more pancakes,” she said, pushing the empty plate back across the kitchen counter.