The team makes it towards the top of the wall in just over five hours. Luckily, the moon is still looming over them. They need the silence and dark to enter The Rung undetected. If they are too bold, security forces could be alerted to their presence.
They proceed with utmost caution. Weaver, who was leading them, rounds the lip of the top edge and gently moves his head up just enough to peer into the city. Yume, who is still harnessed onto his rear, waits in eager anticipation to see what he his seeing.
After a few baited breaths, he inches all the way to the top, and then descends to the other side. Yume looks around at a peacefully empty environment. When it is this late in the evening, there is a curfew for the citizens. All must be within their homes no later than twelve AM.
She has only had the opportunity to experience this a hand full of times. All of them where when her father was taking her to the hospital for estrogen. Huh she thinks to herself and smiles, I can’t believe I was so naïve. Regardless of her past, she soaks in the nostalgic sensation.
“Up here and to the left!” Hypatia whispers towards Weaver.
Weaver leads the group through a few blocks and down a dimly lit alley. Hypatia points to an inconspicuous crack in one of the walls. She peers her head around, front to back, checking her surroundings before hopping off of Morphae. She sticks her fingers into the crack and begins moving the loose piece of concrete.
“Little help here?” She pleads to the group.
Weaver walks over and nonchalantly moves the piece of concrete out of the way. He misjudged its weight and instead of it resting neatly against the wall, it tumbles backwards with a loud SLAM.
“Jesus, fuck! Everybody inside now!” Junker yells.
He grabs Hypatia and motions for Yume and the rest to follow behind them. Hypatia leads them down the winding halls of an old factory, using Rosie’s beacons as light. It’s been abandoned for so many years that the walls have decayed and molded to a point of complete disrepair. Yume finds herself sneezing uncontrollably.
“Yeah, sorry guys!” Hypatia shrugs. “Don’t mind the mess, I haven’t been here in a while.”
“A while? Or a century? Good lord, Pat.” Junker says as he plugs his nose with his fingers.
“This is all we have. Would you rather sleep out there with the Sentinels?” She snaps at him.
Junker’s face goes red, and he straightens his posture. “No ma’am! This’ll do just fine.”
“That’s what I thought.”
Hypatia rounds a corner that opens into a large auditorium. Spread throughout the room are several large mounds with tarps nailed down on top of them. She walks over to a fuse box and clicks a few switches.
“Oh, come on!” she bangs her fist into the box and a low humming starts to emanate from something above them. “There we go.” She triumphantly nods her head and walks back towards the group.
After a few loud pops and sizzles, a couple of the overhead lights begin to glow and light up the room. On the edge of the floor around the room, a soft light comes from a strip that lines it. Hypatia reaches into a pack on Mygal’s leg and pulls out a node. She places it into her hand and grins.
“Been a while since I’ve used one of these.” She says and extends a blade of crackling light out of her palm.
It glows a faint pink and shoots tiny spirals of gold out of its tapered tip. Hypatia walks over to one of the tarps and slices a line down the top of it. The two sides of it fall dramatically to the floor with a cloud of dust.
What was concealed beneath the tarp is a large cache of equipment. Yume recognizes some of it as the lines that the constellation used to ascend the levels of the ladder. Hypatia makes her way around the room and slices each pile. There are various other hunks of electronics and odds and ends beneath the other tarps.
Beneath the last one was several small harnesses attached to a metal pack. It doesn’t click with Yume until she sees Hypatia test one. These are the shift switches that all the members had on. The gear that allowed them to turn invisible.
“What do we need these for, Hypatia? They’re going to know we’re here.” Yume asks.
“Better safe than sorry, dear! Now put one of these on and show Junk how it works.” Hypatia responds.
Yume walks over to the pile and tries to decipher how you put one of these on. She has seen this in her father’s memories, but they were already equipped. She fidgets with the cordage and straps until finally fitting all her limbs through its convoluted system. She turns around to see that Junker is in a sort-of pretzel pose, completely incapacitated trying to put his on.
“Oh, come on, Junk! How did you even accomplish this?” She laughs as she runs over to assist him.
“Give me a break! I ain’t exactly young and nimble anymore.”
Yume maneuvers his limbs out of the knot that he put them in and shows him how to properly put it on. Once he had all his appendages in their place, she steps back and starts the demonstration.
“Alright, so if I remember correctly…It goes a little something like this!”
Yume proceeds to flip a dial on the metallic box and instantly vanishes. The sensation is completely disorienting. She finds herself falling to her knees, trying to steady herself on the ground. She quickly regains her footing and stand back up to see Junker fiddling with his box.
He gingerly turns his dial until is snaps into place and he disappears.
“WHOA!” He shouts.
Yume bursts out in laughter hearing a man that’s so stoic and confident experience a new sensation. It’s not apparent how hard of a time he is having until she hears a great THUD against the floor.
“Junk?! Are you alright?!” She says and frantically searches the floor looking for his body.
“Haven’t felt a buzz like that since my first dose! What a ride.” He exclaims from somewhere in the room.
Yume turns her dial off and begins reflecting light once again. She is having a difficult time locating him. Eventually, he appears all at once, face-down in the ground with his hand reaching under towards his shift dial.
She can’t contain another raucous bout of laughter. She walks over to him and helps him to his feet. He pats the dust off his front side and Yume helps him with his back. After properly cleaning himself, he turns to Hypatia, who is walking towards the two of them with a small book in her hands.
“Yume, I think you’d get a kick out of what I just found.” Hypatia says, and hands her a tattered moleskin journal.
The exterior is cracked and crumbling, but on the outside, Yume can faintly see some familiar initials.
1.
Adam Ripley. This journal once belonged to her father. She immediately recognizes his handwriting and a smile creeps along her face.
“Should I read it, Pat? I don’t want to intrude if it’s personal.” Yume asks Hypatia.
“You should read it. There’s some good stuff in here!”
Yume nods and plops down on the ground, resting against one of the crates. She slips her finger behind the cover and peels it open to the first page. She tries to comprehend it, but it’s just rows and rows of data.
02/24/76 1:06, 1.5s
02/27/76 12:34, 1.5s 1:22, 1.5s
03/01/76 9:47, 1.6s
The list goes on and on, as far as Yume can decipher, these numbers are recordings of something happening at specific times and at specific dates. Even down to the deciseconds. She can’t help but let curiosity and impatience get the best of her, so she flips through to the end of the data, finding some words.
I couldn’t keep track of all the moments, but this is my list as of now. Every time I have specified notates a break in my node. I am seeing things, Hypatia. Things I shouldn’t be. I need your help. Please, you’ve got to take a look inside.
* ADAM
Yume has hit a goldmine. The handwriting below is vastly different from her father’s, this is a recording of messages between Adam and Hypatia, before Yume was even born. Hypatia responds to him below.
Adam, you know that’s not what my job is for. I could be reprimanded; or worse, banished for such acts. Please, you must just put your head down. It can’t be that hard just sorting meat all day.
* PAT
Hypatia, please, you don’t understand. If what I am seeing is reality, then we are not safe. Nobody is safe. I am seeing human bodies when I should be seeing pigs. That’s what I’m supposed to be butchering here, pigs, right? Then why on earth am I seeing human flesh beneath my blade? You must look into my memories. It can’t be that hard, considering your job.
* ADAM
Meet me at bar 2788 tomorrow night just before close.
* PAT
Yume sets the journal down for a moment and tries to digest what she has just read. She knew her father had worked a similar role to her in The Rung but wasn’t sure exactly what he did. The role that he is describing has been eliminated in the assembly line of packaging. The butchering of livestock was automated by the time Yume worked there. She can’t help but dive back in to read more.
The next section was no longer a record of communication, but a collection of various notes and reminders. The bulk of it was rather uninteresting, but Yume reads through every scribble and stroke. A few pages into it, she finds more subject matter of interest.
She finds a diagram that is a cross section of a particular ceiling pillar. It shows an elevator system that transports Chamber representatives between levels. Alongside this diagram are several times and dates underlined a few times.
Every Thursday and Sunday – 4:44 pm. 16 members. Appear to be low level.
Every 28 days Once a month? EVERY NEW MOON. 1 member. Leader?
On the next page is a diagram outlining the details of the uniform worn by these members. Yume stares at it for a while and then pieces her memories together. These outfits were worn by those people within the pinnacle. It’s the robes and garments that they wore when they were receiving the king’s juices.
Yume gets up and faces these pages towards Hypatia, motioning towards them with her free hand.
“Is this how you guys made it up there? Are these the people whose identities you stole?” Yume asks her.
“Ah, yes! You’re quite astute, my dear.”
Yume, without even acknowledging her words, quickly turns back around and plops down again, burying her face within its pages once more. She flips through more pages, scanning diagrams and notes. Each page delving deeper into the mystery of how they infiltrated the pinnacle.
Inserted between two of the pages is a torn piece of paper. Yume arrives at that section and then pulls it out to take a closer look at it. It’s from an old toy manual. The page contains a blueprint for the motherboard of the device.
“Oh, man! I’ve heard about these things.” Yume exclaims.
“I had a friend whose dad used to have one of these. I think he called it a LIAR!”
Junker peeks his head into the conversation. “The hell is a LIAR?” He says with a twist of sass.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
Yume sighs, “The LIAR is a liquid-immersive augmented reality console! It made you look like your favorite cartoon character in real life! Or whatever character you wanted. They banned them way before I was born.”
“Well, why the hell would you want to look like a cartoon character?” Junker scratches his forehead in confusion.
“Well, I thought it was interesting! My friend told me about his dad scaring his friends with it. Showed up to their doors looking like a zombie.” Yume laughs.
“I think you’re glazing over a detail there, Yume.” Hypatia chimes in.
“What would that be?” She asks her.
“It emulated just about anyone. Well, any public figure that is. Not just their appearance, but their voice, their cadence, the way they walk, and the way they express their emotions. Almost indiscernible from the real thing.” She responds.
Yume, who has been eagerly listening, bursts out all at once. “OH! I get it!” she exclaims.
Hypatia smiles and then gestures for her to continue. “Well, go on then! Let’s hear it.”
“You guys used these things to copy those peoples’ bodies! I bet you had this blueprint to uh make them…better?” She trails off, unsure of the term to use.
“Back then, we called our alterations cracking. Just like how your node is cracked.” Hypatia corrects her.
“Ah, okay! So, you guys cracked these things to look like those people! But how did you get their nodes? Didn’t you need them to get inside?” Yume asks her.
“Well, let’s just say we acquired them. I won’t get into the gory details.”
Yume nods excitedly, “I read you loud and clear.”
Junker moves closer to the two and turns to Hypatia, in an attempt to get the team back on course.
“So, when do we go de-node these poor souls?” He asks her.
“We need to wait until morning when everyone is heading to their shifts. We have to make our move from a spot where they can see us. I have a specific location in mind.”
“Well what time is it now? My node ain’t telling me much since the attack.”
Hypatia tries to see the time from her node but is unable to as well. She paces the room, trying to think of something and then sprints out into the hallway. Yume and Junker follow her down the halls until the reach the crack that they entered from. Hypatia peeks her head out and looks up towards the sky.
“Oh, fuck. We must go. NOW!” She yells at the two of them. “Follow me and do as I say!”
Yume peers her head out of the wall and glances at the moon above her dwindling. The first hint of sunrise is creeping across the horizon. A faint red glow illuminates the edge of the night sky. It must be nearing four or five AM now.
Junker and Yume share a shrug and follow her back through the halls. Within the auditorium, they gather up enough shift packs for the three of them with a couple extra just in case. They let the spiders and Rosie know they will return shortly and then sprint out towards the city again.
As they reach the crack and head down the alley, Hypatia stops the two of them and has them line up against the wall, trying to avoid any suspicion if there is a passerby. She whispers instructions to them.
“Yume, I need you to take my hand. Junker, I need you to take her hand. We are going to have to use the shift packs now. I don’t know what time it is exactly, so we must proceed with utmost caution.”
Junker and Yume nod in agreement.
“Now, we all must shift and follow my lead. Hold on to the hand in front of you with all your might. We cannot afford to lose track of one another. We must move silently.” She continues after seeing them nod again. “Let’s go.”
The three of them simultaneously activate their packs and vanish. Hypatia proceeds briskly out of the alleyway and into the street. Thankfully, the citizens have yet to enter it for their morning commute.
Guided by only Hypatia’s hand, Yume follows her up several blocks and then down several others. She eventually realizes that this is her old neighborhood. The path they are taking now, as they pass her dormitory building, is the same path she once took to go to work.
They arrive at the pod station where her and several thousand other individuals would meet at before being transported to their various work sites. Instead of heading through the doors to the building, they circle around the side, finding an old fire escape ladder that leads to the roof.
Luckily for them, this building is only two floors. The trek up the ladder steps is not too strenuous and they reach the top within a minute. Once they are all safely on the roof top, Hypatia reappears before them. She holds her finger to her lips, signaling them to keep their noise to a minimum. Yume and Junker flip their switches and join Hypatia in the flesh once again. Hypatia is staring up at the giant drainage pipe looming over the roof top.
“When should I use it?” Yume whispers at Hypatia.
Hypatia whips her head around to Yume and motions again with her finger to keep quiet. Yume nods in understanding and sits down on the gravel flooring. Hypatia walks all around the huge pipe, inspecting it. Towards the front of the rooftop, hanging right above the entrance to the pod-terminal is a 90-degree corner of the pipe. Hypatia sees this and nods her head in thought. She gets onto her tippy toes and can just about touch it with her fingers.
“This will have to do.” She whispers faintly.
Junker and Yume stare at her with a confused look. Hypatia walks back over to them to explain.
“We need to wait until the people start to commute. Once we see them start to enter, that’s when you act, Yume. Let me handle the rest.” She says, almost silently.
Junker and Yume give each other a look and then shrug nonchalantly.
“I trust you.” Yume whispers to her.
The three of them sit in silence for what feels like an eternity. The morning smog slowly grows brighter. Then, one after the other, the citizens of The Rung begin pouring out onto the streets. A torrential sound of shoes against concrete bounds off the buildings around them.
Yume hears the doors beneath her open to the first laborer and she springs to her feet. She snaps the node off her bracelet and pops it firmly into her hand socket. The power is instant and electric. It is incredibly strong, but not hindering. She feels emboldened and full of courage.
It feels natural, as if the power was tailored to her body. The sensation could be compared to the first unclogged breath through your nostrils after a head cold. It is invigorating and refreshing, she finds herself wondering how she’s lived for so long without such a sensation.
With her new-found power, she sprints to the edge of the rooftop and looks down upon a sea of lifeless individuals. The node within her hand is pulsating bright blue waves of light all throughout her body. It pierces through her skin in tiny pinholes, giving her a bright radiance.
She holds her hands up to the sky and slams them together with a deafening crack.
“Open your eyes!” She screams.
A shockwave of sparks and loud popping ripples through the crowd. Their nodes are cracking and crumbling off their foreheads. Most of them are clenching their teeth and holding their foreheads in pain. The ground soon becomes littered with tiny shards from their gems. Off in the distance, a siren begins belting out an ominous tone.
Before Yume even has the chance to step back, Hypatia activates the node on her own hand and jumps behind Yume, reaching towards the pipe corner. With her blade now unsheathed, she jabs and slices at the pipe. A massive hunk of metal falls between the two of them and a pressurized stream of fluid erupts from the opening.
Yume and Hypatia run down the edge of the roof to avoid the gurgling beam of sludge. A few poor individuals beneath them get coated in the goo, but most seem lucid enough at this point to avoid the onslaught. Those around the stream are looking around, lost in a new confusion.
Soon the crowd begins to shout and panic. They seem completely lost and unsure as to where they are. These activities are so far-removed for their normal head-to-the-pavement lifestyle. Calling their expressions shocked would be a gross understatement.
As the pipe’s stream slows to a dribble, Hypatia takes her opportunity. The crowd, now panicking at the contents of the sludge, raise their voices in agony and disgust. It’s an overwhelming collection of grief and confusion as a river of bones and flesh flows before them.
One man looks up at Hypatia and shouts, “What is this? Why have you done this?”
Hypatia retracts her plasma and presses her node against her throat, amplifying her voice tremendously.
“What you see before you is the true nature of The Chamber.” Hundreds of people in the crowd begin yelling, but she presses on. “You have been lied to; deceived for generation after generation. We just severed their control over you.”
Hypatia points towards the pool of human remains.
“These are your brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, and your friends. There is no step up in the ladder, there is no graduating. There is only death.”
The crowd grows quiet.
“We have witnessed them harvesting your bodies. Those within The Chamber turn your loved ones into ever-lasting life. We are but livestock that they have coerced to self-butcher.”
She points at a man in the crowd. “You there, what do you do?”
He nervously looks around at his peers before answering. “I-I service the blades at the meat processing plant.”
“Have you seen what sort of meat that these blades cut?” She asks him.
“No, I haven’t.” He responds. “What makes you think I care though?”
Hypatia’s face contorts in abrupt disgust “You…don’t care?”
There’s a long pause before he speaks again, and all that can be heard is the siren wailing in the distance.
“All I want is to ascend. Why should I listen to some crazy lady and her daughter?” The man chuckles. He turns towards his fellow citizens and calls out to them. “Anyone here want to risk their future?”
The crowd responds in a deafening silence.
“That’s what I thought. Now everybody shut up and go to work before the bots get here.” He yells to them.
“Are you not dismayed? Have you any empathy for those before you?” Her cries fall upon deaf ears.
The crowd slowly composes themselves and then heads orderly into the pod-station. Like rats held within a maze following the scent of cheese, they resume their monotonous journey down a path to destined death. Unbothered by the sacrifices of even their closest family members and friends.
It’s a sickening sight, watching the ambivalence of a city as they march towards their jobs, entirely disregarding systemic slaughtering. They have bought in to The Chamber’s lies so heavily that even with the severing of their bonds, they still march towards an unreachable destination.
Hypatia turns to face Yume with a look of absolute disgust and shock. Yume and Junker’s expressions aren’t that much different. The three of them all fall to their knees in anguish.
“Did…did that really just happen?” Yume asks them. “Even with that knowledge, they don’t care?!”
Junker and Hypatia shake their heads and grimace.
“I-I’m so sorry you guys…” Hypatia begins to tear up, “I thought they would see how dire the situation is.”
Junker cuts her off. “Pat…I think that some people just can’t be convinced. You didn’t do anything wrong. They still believe in what they were promised. You did all you could.” He sets his arm on her shoulder.
She cries into his chest, and he gives her a tight embrace. Yume, determined to not throw in the towel, walks towards the edge of the roof and looks down upon the people. She scans through the crowd with her hope fleeting as they march through the entrance to the pod station.
She is about to call it and then something catches her eye. Somewhere off in the distance, there is one person not moving with the flow of traffic. One man stands alone, adamantly staring up at her. Yume recognizes his face but can’t place her finger on who he is.
He walks towards her, keeping his intense stare while moving closer to the building. As he steps on to the concrete leading into the doors, he points upwards and shouts at her.
“Yume?!” He yells.
The tone of his voice matched with his face brings a thousand memories rushing into Yume’s mind.
“Lucien?” She yells back, in utter disbelief.
Lucien, who Yume thought had ascended some years ago, was standing below her. He was the only person Yume ever had to talk to, aside from her mother and father. Her one and only friend in the dismal world that she grew up in. Yume’s eyes well up with ecstatic tears.
“I heard every word she said. I believe her.” Lucien says.
“Come up here! Come with us!” She pleads with him.
He shrugs his shoulders and walks around to the side of the building. Yume turns to Junker and Hypatia and tells them someone believed her words. Junker and Hypatia’s faces light up at her words.
“What?!” Hypatia yells.
“Huh?!” Junker asks as he raises the skin above his goggles in a questioning manner.
The three of them run over to the ladder and look down upon him as he ascends towards them. Junker looks towards Hypatia with another look of suspicion. He pulls her back a couple feet and whispers something in her ear. Hypatia waves him away, in an almost scolding manner.
Hypatia walks back over to the ladder and helps Lucien up the last step. Junker crosses his arms and sizes Lucien up.
“So, what are we doing? I want in.” Lucien says, with a slight grin.
“I’ll get you up to speed back at our hideout.” Says Hypatia, as she hands him one of the spare shift packs.
Hypatia walks the group through the procedure of making their way back to the hideout. It’s near identical to the process of them making it here, albeit in reverse and with a new member to the crew.
At the tail end of Hypatia’s explanation, chaos breaks out beneath them. The once quiet, orderly crowd is now sprinting out of the pod-station, screaming in terror. Several loud bangs can be heard beneath them, dampened by the walls of the building. The four of them jump at the noise and begin frantically looking at each other. Junker and Hypatia share a moment of dire eye contact.
“What was that?” Yume asks.
Hypatia’s expression grows hauntingly grim. “That was a Sleeker, dear. I didn’t think these people would be so resistant to our mission. It was a miscalculation; a fucking grave miscalculation.” She points down towards the station. “These people can’t enter the pods without their nodes. The first one to try and enter must have tipped off The Chamber to our alterations.”
Hypatia’s moment of grief is quickly drowned beneath a wall of sound. Horrendous metallic screeching, resembling that of a train’s brakes. The four of them rush over to the edge of the building to get a look at the commotion.
It was hard to notice at first, considering the existing pool of remains, but the individuals running away are being picked off by something. Their bodies are being lifted into the air and crushed into pieces. Tall, heavily-armored barricades spring up at the cross-roads leading to the station. A few lucky citizens managed to be on the other side and make it to safety. Those contained within the confines of the barricades meet a gruesome fate.
Yume’s brain starts reaching for a memory, but it’s not one of her own. The way the bodies of these individuals rise into the air and then crumple remind her of Shingetsu’s power.
“Is he here, Pat?” Asks Yume.
Lucien gets a curious look on his face. “Who?”
Junker tinkers with the lenses on his goggles, clicking them. The light reflecting on them changes goes through different filters until they light up bright orange.
“No, dear. I can see ‘em, those are Sleekers.” He says, trying to reassure her.
Yume sighs in a slight relief. Hypatia pulls the group close together and starts giving orders. She turns to Junker.
“Junker, we need to get out of here immediately. They are likely searching for the culprit. If we slip behind the building, away from the barricades, can you lead us back?”
“Yeah, I know the area well enough. Y’all are lucky you brought me along, huh?” He chuckles and adjusts his goggles. “Who’da thunk my eyes would save the day!”
Hypatia groans and flips her shift switch. The other three follow suit, grabbing their respective partners’ hands. Junker leads them down the ladder and through an alley leading between the buildings.
Yume finds herself happily surprised with the situation. Not with the murder of innocent people, of course, but with her courage and bravery. Perhaps its this over-powered node, or perhaps it’s personal growth, but she is able to compartmentalize the tragedies occurring around her. The peoples’ opinions here seem insignificant to her goals.
She knows her mission is to bring this all to an end. Her actions are quickly justified, and she wastes not another thought on their fates. Afterall, it was their pure and unadulterated reactions that brought them these repercussions.
Perhaps they brought it upon themselves? Yume thinks to herself. It was in this thought that she began to grow disgusted at herself. This isn’t like her; not in the slightest. Maybe after enduring years of shunning from this population, her empathy ran dry.
Ultimately, she realizes that this pattern of thinking is stemming from her seemingly bottomless pit of hatred. The driving force that has allowed her to join this battle is poisoning her mind. She shrugs it off and follows Junker down the treacherous path before them, praying that she will reconnect with her empathic self along the journey.