The road ahead is endless. The road behind just as well.
You look up, and the sky is pitch black. You look back down, and you see everything clearly.
The asphalt below is cracked and weathered, worn away from centuries of disuse and lack of maintenance. Flanking each of its sides is a void, deep and endless.
As you stare down at it, it seems to beckon you, begging you to throw yourself down it, let every fiber of your being be consumed, let all of your pain, your anguish, your trauma, all be left behind.
You shake your head, and look back at the road ahead. You are alone in this place. All you hear is the revving of your bike’s engine as it speeds ahead, echoing and reverberating against walls you cannot perceive. Your hands grip tighter on the handlebars as you stare forward.
Your balance must not wane. Your mind must not falter. No matter what happens, you must keep going. Keep moving. Stop, even for a moment, and you will breathe no longer. Focus on the road.
Focus.
The last thing you see before you crash is a hooded figure with a long, gnarled staff staring at you from the dark with piercing, crimson eyes.
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Gibbon wakes up in a heap on the floor by his hammock, his upper torso and arms tangled in his blanket and his legs hooked onto its edge. He’s shivering, shaky breaths condensing into vapor in the cold morning air as he carefully disentangles himself from his beddings and stands, staring out the window at the dim blue sky outside. The sun hadn’t even begun to rise yet.
He takes a breath, deep and measured. It stings his nose on the way in, and as he exhales, he stretches his back, hearing and feeling the popping of vertebrae as he watches the cloud of vapor dissipate and disappear. A frown creeps up his face as he gathers up his fallen blanket.
God, he hates his dreams.
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As the sun begins to peek over the horizon, bathing the dunes in golden light, Gibbon sits on a log in his front yard. The embers of a once-crackling campfire glow reddish-orange, sending flecks of ash into the air as they give their precious heat to a heavy cast-iron coffee pot that sits atop them. Staring idly at the pot on the fire, he listens to the burbling of water boiling and coffee brewing. A bag of open grounds leans against the log he’s sat on. A roughly-carved wooden spoon rests in his lap.
His mouth's as dry as the sand below his feet. His eyelids feel like they’re lead-lined. He put on his coat before he left the house, but didn’t change out of his sleeping clothes, still sticky with drying sweat. He fights sleep tooth-and-nail, desperately trying to stay awake long enough to get some caffeine in him. In his left hand he holds the handle of a chipped ceramic mug, grip slipping and tightening as his constitution wanes. It’s an uphill battle, but one he’s fought before.
He notices the embers dying down, and hears the bubbling of the pot slow, then stop. He sees steam rising from its spout.
Thank fuck, it’s ready, he thinks to himself, carefully weaving the long handle of the spoon through the pot’s own, using the leverage to pick it up off the fire, and set it down in the sand in front of him. Using a similar maneuver to remove the pot’s lid for a moment, he dumps the contents of his mug into the coffee, about a cupful of cold water. He takes a beat, staring at the caramel-brown foam on the coffee’s surface congeal at the edges of the pot, before pouring himself a piping-hot cup.
He takes a sip. It scalds his tongue and throat as it goes down.
The taste is tolerable. A little burnt, but he doesn’t care. He gently blows into his beverage before taking another sip. Better.
A buzzing from his coat pocket mid-gulp almost makes him splatter hot coffee all over himself. Coughing, he sets down his mug and retrieves his PDA from his pocket, tapping a few buttons with his thumb as he wipes his mouth with his sleeve. He puts the PDA to his ear.
“Hel–”
A booming voice on the other end nearly makes him jump out of his skin.
“EY GIBS, WAKEY WAKEY!” yells the voice of TK, crackling and distorted.
“FUCK, TK! Too early! Too early to be this loud!” he responds, voice scratchy and rough as he coughs away a few loose grounds of coffee.
‘Oh, right. Not a morning person, my bad. Anyways, just wanted to call and let you know I’m on my way to the shop right now to dive into that thing you found before I’m s’posta open. Meet me there, a’ight?“
“Yeah. Will. Need to finish my coffee first.”
“See you then!”
A click, and a low buzz. Gibbon sighs, putting his PDA back in his coat pocket and downing the rest of the coffee in one big gulp.
It’s lukewarm.
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Far beyond the cliffs and dunes, the sun had long since breached the horizon and hung lazily in the sky, bathing the town in its radiant, golden light. As Gibbon rode on his usual route to TK’s, a convoy of short-nosed trucks clattered along ahead of him, towing along towering crates packed to the brim with food, supplies, and trade goods from the capital, the golden insignia of the New Western Conglomerate plastered on their sides. Passing them by, he then saw a merry band of delinquent dunekids loitering in their little hideout, a run-down garage where they chatted and laughed while tinkering with their dirt bikes, painted gray and blue like storm clouds in the evening sky. One of them that wore a respirator stood on a stepladder outside, spray cans in hand, painting hazard lines and crashing waves around the large rectangular door, capping it off with a large decal of a great white shark breaching the water’s surface above its center. Gibbon scoffed. He remembered being like that once.
The front side of TK’s was dim and quiet as Gibbon pulled into the back like always, parking his bike and leaving his helmet in the garage as he pushed the door to the back room open, yawning and rubbing his eyes. The consequences of sleep are quickly ripped from him as he stumbles and almost trips over a thick cord draped across the floor, nearly introducing his forehead to the cold linoleum flooring.
The room was a mess of wires and cables of varying thicknesses, strewn about the ground, walls, and even weaved through little brackets mounted on the ceiling. On the table, the monitor remained, but the peripherals were nowhere to be seen, instead replaced by a heavy, rusted toolbox, a big red button, and a finger-sized ampule of cyan liquid. With all the cords plugged into it, the artifact now resembled an octopus strung up to the ceiling by its tentacles, and as Gibbon followed them up and around the room, he saw that they all led to the operating chair where TK stood, hunched over and fiddling with something on its back. While all the cables seemed to terminate at the back of the chair, a particular one wrapped in red tape was left to drape across its headrest, ending in a trapezoidal jack with sharp, needle-like points that sent shivers up Gibbon’s spine as he stared at it, horrified.
His work seemingly done, TK stood and stretched, dusting off his hands before noticing both Gibbon standing in front of the chair, and the look of terror on his face as his gaze locked onto the red-taped cable. A smile crept up his face, and he clasped his (organic) hands, meandering over to where his friend stood.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
“Hey, you made it! How’s your mornin’ been man?” he said, gleeful and uncaring.
“TK. What the fuck is that.” Gibbon responds, pointing at the rather dangerous-looking cord draped across the headrest.
“Oh. You never seen one before?” TK prods, scratching the back of his head. “Neural interface jack. Connects the brainware I got lodged in me to whatever-the-hell that thing is.” he responds, punctuating his statement with a finger pointed past him and at the artifact.
“Okay. How?” Gibbon asks, nervously.
TK responds by turning around, holding up his hair with one arm, then grabbing and ripping off a patch of synskin from the back of his neck like a wide bandage. “With that thing!” he says.
Gibbon promptly responds by yelping once, screaming, then tumbling backwards onto the floor, sitting with his back up against the side of the couch and shakily pointing at the area where there used to be what he thought was just skin.
“WHAT THE FUCK? WHAT THE FUCK! TK, WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?” he yells, refusing to take his eyes off of the exposed metal embedded in his friend’s neck and part of his upper back, a wide, octagonal depression with several circular holes in it now exposed to the dry, dusty air.
TK whips around, holding his hands up in a sort of light pushing motion. He still holds the patch of faux-skin in his left hand.
“Woah, woah! Chill, man, chill! It’s just a Neurojack, had it installed a while ago by this guy out in Savegal. Needed it to operate some stuff while I was working in the big city. You seriously never seen one before?”
“NO!” Gibbon yelled indignantly, standing and dusting himself off before crossing his arms and looking his compatriot in his (thankfully organic) eyes. “I’m a scav, not a tech for fuck’s sake!”
TK hummed, a brief one-note noise of acknowledgement before walking back to the table to look over the artifact. “Yeah, good point. Short summary, ‘jack’s connected to some hardware in my brain, lets my gray matter interface with tech and vice-versa. Pretty much necessary to work with neuroware-compatible tech at near-maximum efficiency.”
Staring, Gibbon cocked his head, an expression of utter befuddlement having taken over his face. “I understood none of that.”
TK looked over his shoulder, sighing. “Computers in my brain let me talk to computers out here through the big cable with red tape on it.”
“Huh. Alright.”
TK looked back, dusting the top of the monitor with his hand before turning to face Gibbon once more. “Got a job for you too pal.” he said, smiling.
“What?”
“Need you to be my eyes out here. Have a seat.” he said, spinning a chair by the table with his free hand.
Gibbon obliges. He immediately regrets doing so, as TK spins him a few times before stopping him as he faces the monitor, pushing the chair in. “See this thing? I’m gonna need you to keep an eye on this thing. You’ll be able to see what’s going on in Deepspace through my eyes thanks to it, and if I start freaking out, you need to hit this button.” he exposits, gesturing toward a big red button mounted to a painted yellow base.
“This thing’ll safely disconnect me from Deepspace without the risk of my gray roasting and smoke pouring out my ears. If I start buggin’, or if you hear and see me trying to throw myself outta that chair, Slam. That. Button.” he stated, accentuating his last three words by pointing at said button. “I’m not aware of anything that happens in the real while I’m diving, so it’s up to you to keep an eye on me.”
“Hm. Gotcha.” Gibbon says, still confused but understanding what he needs to do.
“Alrighty! I’ll try and keep you updated while I’m messing with the thing, you should be able to hear everything happening while I’m jacked in through the monitor.” TK says, walking back towards the operating chair and giving it a few more looks-over before taking a seat and leaning back. “Remember, if something goes sideways and I start bleeding from every orifice, before doing anything else, Hit That Button!”
Gibbon glances at him and nods, looking back at the monitor with bated breath. He feels the sweat on his palms seeping through his gloves as he squeezes the fabric of his pants on his lap, nails digging through slightly and into his legs.
“Alright, diving in three! Two! One!” TK shouts from across the room, slotting the Neurojack into the back of his neck and slumping into the chair, slack-jawed and corpselike.
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The monitor flickers, and an image of a towering structure made from tall, hexagonal columns appears on the screen. Gibbon exhales, relieved. The perspective on-screen shifts down a little. He sees polygonal hands with flat, uneven shading as TK inspects himself in Deepspace, patting down his arms, torso, and legs before clapping twice and speaking.
“Alright, sweet! Mic check, mic check! Can ya hear me out there, Gibs?” he says, his voice mildly distorted and crunchy through the monitor’s old speakers.
Gibbon opens his mouth to speak, before being quickly interrupted. “Aw shit, right, my bad. Forgot to mention, comms are one-way, so you won’t be able to talk to me while I’m diving. Sorry about that!” TK says holding his (virtual) hand in front of him in a thumbs-up gesture. Gibbon groans, pinching the bridge of his nose.
“Gonna access the infrastructure now. Be ready.”
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Through the monitor, Gibbon sees TK walk forward, phasing into the structure like it wasn’t even there. Blackness, for a moment. Then, they both saw something strange, as TK passed through the boundary.
He entered a room, cuboid in shape and so large he couldn’t see the ceiling. The walls looked like polished marble, streaks of black and dark gray that cut and streaked through the pale, cold white they sat upon. Looking behind him, he saw no exit from whence he came, and as he pressed his hand against the wall he emerged from, he felt nothing but smooth, cold polished stone.
TK hummed to himself, as he turned and walked further into the chamber. He saw nothing for what felt like miles, listening to the click-clack of his footsteps and mentally noting the lack of echo as he meandered, despite its perceived size and dimensions, the space within the artifact had anechoic properties. Looking again at his hands, he brought one much closer to his eye, seeing the distinct planes that comprised his polygonal fingers, and the seams between them. He cracked each of his knuckles, listening intently for the sound they’d make. It was nearly imperceivable, but he noticed the slightest millisecond of delay before he heard the pop of his joints.
“Hmph. Render quality is real low in here, even for old-tech. Wonder what’s taking up all the processing power.” he noted, rolling his shoulders as he kept walking on.
For a time, there was nothing. TK’s mind roiled with near-infinite possibilities and hypotheses, so deep he was in his theorization that he almost didn’t notice as his hip met an immovable object, nearly knocking him off-balance as he stared up into the unrendered abyss above him. Stumbling, he whipped around and looked at the thing he ran into, dusting off his lap and straightening his stance as he drifted toward it curiously.
An onyx-black pedestal stood in stark contrast to the pale white of its surroundings, naught more than a rectangle extruded from the floor, its top surface cut at a steep angle that gave it the look of a large chisel embedded in the floor. As he approached it, TK noticed a few small carvings in its base, and a glowing white sigil of a tower with a thousand eyes on the angled surface that faced him. Slowly, gently, he reached out and placed his palm on it.
All around him, thin seams in the air split open and formed a swarm of eyes that rolled wildly in their sockets before focusing on the pedestal, followed by a sound like raindrops on a quiet lake’s edge as a whispering voice spoke from the ether.
[FOR EVERY SECOND THAT PASSES, AN ETERNITY DIES.]
[THE MORTAR OF EXISTENCE CRUMBLES AND FALLS LIKE FLIES.]
[NOTHING IS EVERYTHING, AND EVERYTHING IS CONTRADICTORY.]
TK scoffs. “Man, this architecture really is old. Haven’t seen the Voltaire algorithm used to encrypt soft in decades. Should be simpler than I thought to solve.”
Turning to face the eyes, he stared into one and spoke.
“What is man, but beasts mind-borne and lucid?”
In response, the eyes shrunk and morphed, conforming into a fractalline pyramid that rotated slowly as the eyes shifted their gaze to him.
[A HORSE IS A HORSE IS A HORSE.]
[THE CHARIOT IS HOME, BUT I AM NOT.]
Leaning against the pedestal, TK spoke once more.
“Avert the westward winds, focus on the stillness.”
The eyes congealed into a large mass that pulsated and rippled, before settling on a spherical shape that seemed to endlessly fold inward on itself, rolling and spinning at concerning speeds.
[CROSSROADS DOUBLE-CROSS EXES AND OHS.]
[BEWARE THE PANOPTICON, STAY IN ITS SIGHT.]
Cocking his head, TK stood straight, speaking in a measured, even tone.
“The sightless ones see, and the deaf ones hear. Beware the panopticon, for it is I.”
The surface of the many-eyed sphere rippled in response, and all turned black. The paleness of the marble seemed to invert in an instant, as if someone had hit a switch and turned out the lights, the far walls and floor now a deep, charcoal black interspersed with cracks and streaks of white that seemed to glow ever-so-faintly. The sphere grew larger, even larger, the eyes on its surface flitting about at an alarmingly rapid pace, as if the entity present in the machine was panicking, unprepared for such contingency. Then, as suddenly as it began, it stopped.
The sphere hit the floor with the sound of shattering glass, spreading out into a thick, circular mass before springing upwards and splitting open at the top, blooming like the bud of a flower before tipping over and spilling a curled-up figure onto the ground with a wet slap, coating the area around it in a thin layer of bright white fluid before shriveling up and disintegrating into a cloud of ash that floats up, up, and away, far into the air above.
Horrified, TK backs away, standing to one side of the pedestal with his hand on the top edge as he stares at the body before him. Slowly, carefully, it stands, joints popping as it straightens itself out, a long cloth seemingly appearing from nowhere that it wraps itself in, revealing the body of a small boy with a dog’s head that stares at him with intrigue. It closes its eyes, yawning softly as it stretches its arms.
“Good morning. How are you here?”