Of Hardworlders and Kings
The music faded to birdsong and beachnoise like a DJ had switched tracks. All the psychedelic colors flowed out of the sky and drained back into the sun. In the soft blue left behind, shapes the dim grey color of distance, buildings and orbs and castles, were frozen in place as if left there to be played with whenever some weird god got the whim.
“First things first,” said Philip. “Let’s talk about your fuck up. You dropped in and immediately started freefalling because you didn’t push a self to drop into like Michael told you.”
Gradie glared at Philip. He had already pleaded his case in the debrief, but If Philip wanted to rehash this shit, he could too.
“I told you, I dropped into that crystal thing and it put me in some kind of dream. Which Michael said wouldn’t happen because only Celeste can walk into dreams.”
“Sounds like your spirit is pretty dense,” said Angel.
“Dense?”
“Ah Jesus, not that shit,” said Philip
“Means the Hardworlds pulls on you more than the Otherworld,” said Angel, looking off into the trees. “Would explain why Michael found you in one.”
Gradie didn’t feel like the Hardworlds had pulled on him. Quite the opposite. Getting in the first time had taken all of his focus and he had still almost fucked it up.
“He’s dense alright,” Philip said. “No, you got caught up in the projection and dropped in with no anchor so the Hardworlds put you wherever they wanted.”
“Right next to the target,” Gradie said. Philip’s face flared into a snarl.
“You keep on about that shit and I’ll wash my hands of you, kid. You got lucky. It’s not repeatable, it ain't how the fucking job is done, and if you try it again, the only job you’ll have on this team is getting EP’s Red Bulls outta the fucking fridge. Do you understand me?”
“God, don’t be such a—” Lindsey started at Philip. Gradie snapped before she could finish.
“I didn’t even know what the fuck Michael was talking about! If Hardworlding is so god damned special, why am I expected to be able to do it right the first time when the only training I had before this was setting my car on fire and listening to yall talk about it in a living room?”
The wind blew salt-scented air into the silence. Philip’s face softened.
“He’s got a point, bro,” said Nova.
“I know he’s got a fucking point,” Philip snapped. He sighed and turned back to Gradie. “Look, I think we all forgot how much a jump priming a self is from dropping in cold. None of us have dealt with a first-timer in years, even decades. We went too fast.”
Philip’s tone had turned paternal, and Gradie dug his shoes into the sand. It was unsettling. Yelling and shit-talking fit Philip like a glove. This felt like an apology born out of a frustration he shouldn’t be seeing.
“Michael, in his infinite wisdom,” Philip continued. “Decided that you should tag along on the next job, which unfortunately for you was about two days after you popped into the black. I guess he thought you should see a live job as soon as possible.”
“It’s how it used to be done,” Lindsey said. “Michael’s old school.”
“Yeah, and so am I, but I also know how to use an advantage. Which is why we’re here.”
“What advantage?” Gradie asked, ready as hell to move on.
“Our Vault,” said Angel.
“What’s a Vault?”
“It’s a box that streamlines priming a self. It’s loaded with memories, so you can construct—”
“What’s a box?” Gradie remembered the cop in the gas station threatening to lock him in one, and wondered what the fuck Philip and these kids had in store for him.
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“Oh,” said Nova. “A box is an enclosed portion of the Other that keeps the Spirit in place and affects the mind. Most of the sims and sins out there are modified boxes.”
“Sims?”
“Simulations and Scenarios. All those goofy rides they try to sell you out there,” Nova waved at the sky. “But our Vault is way more responsive than that shit. Taps into your working memory, meshes it with—”
“Is it like Lucy’s thing?” Gradie cut in. If whatever was in the Vault was anything like having Lucy peel his childhood apart, it made sense that most people weren’t signing up to be Hardworlders.
“Nah man, Lucy’s box is something special,” Nova continued. “It digs through every bit of the Spirit, even the— bro really?”
Angel had broken into stifled laughter. “Stop talking about Lucy’s box man.”
“Shut the fuck up,” Philip snapped. “There’s a lady present.”
“Never say that again,” Lindsey said, slow and sharp as drawing a knife. “I grew up with brothers. These kids can’t shock me.”
“Anyway, The Vault is more additive,” Nova continued. “It taps into our mem banks and lets you construct the self you want to drop into from the ground up.”
“How?” Gradie felt that electric excitement flare up at the thought of creating another life like setting up a character in a game.
“In the Hardworlds,” Nova said. “The mind has trouble telling the difference between your real memories, what you’ve done in the Otherworld, and your dreams. It all kind of blends together. We use that to our advantage”
Angel saw the glaze in Gradie’s eyes and helped him out.
“You go in our little simulator, imagine another version of yourself, piece by piece, then convince that little animal in your head we call your mind that what you see are not projections, but memories. When you drop into the Hardworlds, you wake up into that self.”
He said it like it was the easiest thing in any world. Gradie, however, had learned not to trust other Spirits when it came to what he would find simple.
“Why didn’t I do that before?”
“Michael didn’t want you to use it,” Lindsey said, skipping a stone across the water. “He thought it could be a crutch if you used it too soon.”
“And he’d be right,” said Philip.
“Why?” Gradie didn’t feel like losing his mind in a dead mall parking lot or spending half a day making phone calls while freaking out about a gun in his bag had really prepared him to be an interdimensional assassin. Philip disagreed.
“There are Hardworlders, then there are Hardworlders, kid.”
“What does that mean?”
“Most people get into the Hardworlds by trap doors,” said Nova. He saw Gradie’s question forming. “Fragments crafted to help them slip into the Hardworlds, convince them this is a dream and they wake up. Basically, trap doors do what you did the first time, but automatically.”
Gradie felt like kicking Michael in the teeth, but found a flaw in the trap door idea.
“Won't they drop out and think the Hardworld is real? Getting in is only part of the issue, right?”
“Yeah,” said Angel. “That’s why they have some veterans on the other side to get them up. ‘Wake up number eleven’ and all that shit. Usually about one for every ten crash dummies—”
“Please, no more of this shit,” Philip said, like Angel was describing how to eat roadkill raw.
“Also, I probably wouldn’t have let you use it the first time anyway,” said Nova. “The Vault is kind of like our trade secret.”
“Other Hardworlders don’t do this?” If the vault was as simple as the twins claimed, Gradie was sure all those powerful, ancient Hardworlding groups Michael had hinted at would be all over it.
“Oh yeah, they all do it,” agreed Angel. “But each org has its own memory bank. Unless they’re in a Corp or a collective or something where they pool their archives. Or if they lease out a generic stream. But the Vault would put a lotta them to shame, thanks to Michaels—”
“It does not fucking matter and he won’t remember anyway,” said Philip. “Today you will push a basic self, drop into a Hardworld and make contact, then Lindsey and I will run you through a basic wargame. That’s it. Then we can leave.”
“Philip doesn’t trust the Vault either,” Nova laughed.
“You don’t use it?” Gradie asked. Was there some third or fourth way to—
“Fuck no,” Philip snapped. “I’ve got two decades of memories stored right where they should be,” He tapped his head. “I prime the old-fashioned way. There wasn’t any of this shit when I started.”
“Bullshit,” said Nova. “The Gods invented priming with a membank.”
“The Gods invented Hardworlding and sliced bread and sticking two mags together with cardboard and duct tape. You believe that shit too?”
“Can we get started sometime today or,” Lindsey called from the beach. She had a bow and arrow in hand and was taking shots at a balloon-animal sea monster as it dove in and out of the water, three segments of its body already deflated and trailing behind it. Philip clapped his hands.
“Sure sweetheart—” an arrow flew past his head. “—Let’s get to it.”
Nova stared at the ground in front of him and a trap door popped open in the beach, flinging up sand. Philip jumped into the black square and disappeared like the liquid darkness was flush with the beach. Lindsey followed right after, her cloak disappearing last.
Angel smiled at Gradie.
“Your turn.”
Gradie approached the trap door and looked down. The solid blackness seemed to tug at him. He stared at it for a while before realizing he had absolutely no intention of going in. It had all the signs of another Lucy situation.
“You want a green light? Like the paratroopers?” Gradie looked up and saw Nova smiling and two glass hemispheres in a metal box hovering in the air in front of him. The red one went out and the green one lit up. Gradie didn’t move.
“Get off my plane bitch!” Angel yelled from behind and kicked him hard in the back. Gradie went flailing into the hole and the last thing he saw before everything went black was Nova’s laughing face.
He rolled as he fell. Down became up over and over again, as if the source of gravity was rolling in the opposite direction he was. Just as soon as he had lost all spatial awareness, and the beach felt just as far away as his home in the Real, light returned.