SAVE POINT 115
Loading Conglomerating Issues &...Well, Breaking Disaster...80%
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Rosabella
They're all acting like this is a complicated thing—my entire group, speaking in hushed tones like the urgency and panic woven in their pinched faces won't give away the dire emergency we're all in or how panicked they are about it to the unknowing Gamers waltzing around the greenhouse. But this isn't a quandary or a gray area or even a decision, really.
This is black and white.
Two sides of a coin.
...That is, if Skipper's telling the truth.
She's killing kids. The girl is threatening to kill all the kids in The Game unless I revote the creator magic from the Gamers and hand over my authority to her. We know she's crazy enough to do it; I just have to know if she's physically able to before...
...Well, before I do something I'm going to regret.
I swallow, realizing for the first time how completely dry my throat is. I brush a frazzled hand across my face, pushing a strand of brown hair to the side. I only have a few minutes to act. Skipper's message had said 'Message me now'...or, basically, 'or else'. She'd kill the kids. And my dizzy mind doesn't even want to calculate the ramifications of that. Tears sting in my eyes thinking of Sheela—the little girl who'd watched her mother die by EmeraldCity's hand. I'd made sure she was safe. I'd protected her. I wouldn't let her die now. And I especially am not going to let it happen while all of us stand around, whispering paranoid indecision where the dialogue just goes in circles and gets nothing at all accomplished. We're wasting precious time.
"Dormouse," I hiss, catching the kid's eye and nodding him over—away from the rest of the group. His hands shoved in his pockets and general thin, hunched in shoulders tells me he's about as apt to have this side conversation as I am.
"Listen, you have to tell me," I start, taking care to keep my voice a whisper no one can overhear as the dark-haired boy leans in, his nervous eyes scanning my expression, "Is this something she can actually do—Skipper? Can she actually kill all the kids like she's threatening?"
Dormouse's face whitens. I don't like the worry in his creasing forehead or the uncertainty flashing in his dark eyes. "I don't know," he admits, "she's part code. I mean...I don't know." He trips over his tongue, shaking his head.
And panic seizes me again in a tight fist because, if he doesn't know when he's the person out of all of us who knows the code best...well, I have no idea how I'm going to make an educated decision on this...
"Dormouse, think!" I prod, not meaning to raise my voice although I do.
The kid throws down his hands on either side of his wrinkled-up face, "I am thinking!"
And my breath freezes in my throat as my gaze scans over the huddle of our friends only a few feet away. Any more theatrics and the group will notice. I need some cover. I grab the boy's sleeve, hauling his thin frame way more easily than I should towards the back of the greenhouse room. Where did EmeraldCity say that bathroom was? My glance skims over the stack of potted plants and lush trees, locking, finally, on a wood door in the back plastered with a unisex bathroom sign.
Right now, it looks like nirvana. ...Crazy what a little privacy can do.
Also, apparently crazy what adrenaline can do; my grasp on Dormouse's arm is herculean as I make a beeline for the door—
"Hey!" he tries to batt me off, "At least give me the decency of walking on my own two feet—"
"In here, just—" I'll admit it, I shove him through the door. I open the thing and shove him through. The lock clicks behind us with a quick turn of my wrist. I guess I'm okay at this 'kidnapping your impressionable friend and getting them to do something for you'. ...Probably not my best accomplishment...
"Hey!" Dormouse finally throws me off. His dark hair is ruffled and falls into his livid eyes which scan the place, finding tile and the stalls... "This is the women's bathroom again, isn't it?" he starts, annoyance bubbling up in his tone, "This is absolutely demeaning—"
Oh my gosh, this is nothing like that time in the donut shop...
"Stop being a baby"—first the huge tizzy he'd thrown about the cockroaches and now this?—I demand shortly, forgetting, in my aggravation to be a little softer, "It's a family restroom, and that's completely besides the point. I need to figure out if Skipper could actually kill all those kids—if it's possible. Is there any way to do that? To find out if it's possible?" The questions stream out of me, leaving me breathlessly leaning into the nerd's face.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
I watch him pull back the t-shirt he's wearing, adjusting the straps of his body armor vest. He sniffs. His face contorts in a frown, "A 'please' would help—"
"Please," I beg.
"Okay!" He's quick to answer like I've been pestering him about it for hours. He swipes a bothered hand through his hair, "I—I think I can check this one thing. I mean, if the system doesn't kick or lock me out—"
"Thank you!" I exclaim, pressing my hands together in a prayer that I wave at him.
But his lips squeeze into a tight, grim line, "Don't...thank me yet. Please, just don't thank me yet."
His long, pale fingers raise, ready, in the air. I can almost see the numbers and thoughts churning behind his pupils—like computer code spiraling through his irises. And he begins to type into an input box.
And, then, the numbers do fly.
Neon symbols, stretches of code that I don't have time to read before the kid races through them, hitting enter...
And I can barely breathe as I watch the spectacle—like how you feel when you watch a movie where someone's drowning. Except I'm not running out of air; I'm running out of time. My eyes flash to the walls in the bathroom, searching for a clock, but there isn't one. My heartbeat keeps track of each passing second in my ears like it's mocking me.
"...Well, this is incredibly macabre," the nerd mumbles, his eyes glazed over with the reflection of a million numbers.
"Dormouse, I don't need a vocab lesson," I spit.
"Well, this girl does," his eyes narrow as he points to the code, "She actually has an entire dictionary downloaded on here with slang—like the code was trying to learn how to talk organically like a human. Fascinating."
I'm chewing on my thumbnail. I never bite my nails. All this panic is getting to me— "We don't have time for fascinating," I blurt, "I need to know—"
"I found it so just—hold onto your pants, will you?" The kid's face creases with annoyance. His dark hair stands up on end as he runs his hand through it again.
My mouth drops open. I want to leap towards him—to shout. To shake him! He found it? "Wait, you found it—?!" I stutter.
"Are you listening?" he blubbers.
"Talk! Just talk, please," I implore.
"Okay, finally so, unfortunately, yes," the boy huffs, shuffling his feet on the grimy, tile floor beneath us, "Skipper has the coding skills to hack into mainframe to deliver the damage. The thing is, she needs administrative approval—so, like, approval from the current system governor."
"That's good right?" The words squeak out of me, but the kid's eyes are serious...too serious.
"No, that's bad," he tells me.
"Why?" I can feel the blood running out of face—literally; I can feel it.
"Because she already has it—approval from the system governor," Dormouse clarifies, "This girl is good. She has connections. She knows people. She can control them—"
"Dormouse, I need some positives right now," I hold up a hand. There has to be some work around. There has to be some way we can change her threats—stop her.
"Uh, well," he chews on his lip, options hemming and hawing in his eyes, "I can send her a message. I have the power to revoke the creator magic on this side. We could dm her and let her know we surrender..."
Maybe he sees my face.
Maybe he realizes that the word 'surrender' has dug into my chest like a twisting knife—
He winces. "You're right," the boy amends quickly, "surrender is a terrible word—"
"No"—my hands harden into fists at my sides. I feel my nails digging into the skin of my palms—"It's—it's true. We'd be....we'd be surrendering."
After all this? After everything we've all been through—everything we've fought for? I'm just going to give in to...to evil? I'm going to relinquish the position my parents took so seriously and loved? Everything? ...Gone? But I don't have another choice. Skipper's only really given me one. I can't let kids die. I won't let the Gamer's kids die. I think of little Sheela's face. No. I won't.
"Do it," I whisper. The words rasp up my throat.
"What?" The kid balks at me.
"You heard me," I said, my words much more confident than I feel. "Dm Skipper. I can't let those kids die."
"You're sure?" He's staring at me; Dormouse's expression claws at something in my heart. Because his eyes are wide and desperate, matching the utter uncertainty clutching at my chest—making it hard to breathe.
Am I sure?
I have no idea. How can anyone have an idea—know they're making the right choice in this situation? It's impossible and, yet—yet I have to do it. I'm the only one who can take this step—turn myself in. Stop this situation. I take a deep breath.
"It's that or everyone will take like five hundred years hashing it over out there," I nod towards the door, "I'm the Game Maker. I can decide."
"But you don't have to—" he fumbles.
"Dormouse, just do it," my tone breaks, "—please. I can't watch Sheela and a bunch of kids die."
He sighs, massaging his temples. His eyes look like I've just told him I want a death sentence. "Okay," he murmurs.
He lifts his fingers into the air and begins to type. And I can't breathe. Because, although the decision is over, the execution of that decision and the outcome scares me more than the part I have nailed down. I've just done it. I've just started something I can't take back.
I watch Dormouse bring up a message screen. "Here goes nothing," he mumbles as he begins to type.
...But there's an error sound.
Errrr.
And a system pop up appears, red-rimmed, in the middle of the screen—what? We stare at it together.
INBOX - MESSAGE
From Revision53_Skipper
The early bird gets the worm, and you are TOO LATE. Goodbye, kiddies.
Panic races through my limbs. No! NOOOOOOO!