Searching the Akashic records for more ammo

Gradie had landed, suddenly, on his feet. Soft light poured through a wide viewport into the strange room, halfway between a sci-fi ship deck and an early 00’s home theater on a rap stars budget. It took him a moment to recognize the source of light as something familiar.

“Is that earth?” A blue and white hemisphere floated in the starless black outside.

“You don’t recognize it?” said Philip. “School nowadays as bad as they say?”

“I thought the Allworld was this world's version of earth?”

“Yeah, kinda,” said Nova. “But this is something else. Our own creation.”

“How?” Gradie asked. Nova seemed to misunderstand his question.

“If your intent is specific enough, the Other will create whatever you want, not just cram you in the Allworld with all the archetypes.”

Gradie remembered how hard it had been just to make his mask. The thought of these two twenty-year-olds crafting a duplicate earth made him feel just as insignificant as he had that first day with Michael, watching crafts move into the Allworld from distant unknown places. Despite his days flying around the ball, he knew he had only grazed the surface of this new world, and the true depth of it all still evaded him, like the dim lights out in the black.

“Think of it like a 3d map,” said Angel. “It’s a responsive fragment, crafted completely from memories. Really, it’s an illusion. Just a convenient way for us to organize memories from the Real and the Hardworlds.”

“God damn. I thought Michael was exaggerating,” Lindsey said, in awe.

“Thought you makers were supposed to be all about expanding the boundaries of hyperreality and all that shit,” Philip said. “Would think working with some Hardworlder’s memories of waiting in a parking lot for an afternoon would put you to sleep.”

“Hell no, I love working with the Hardworlds,” said Nova, his eyes lit up by some kind of monitor invisible to Gradie. “Keeps you grounded. The goals are more concrete. ‘I need a gun’. ‘Make me a bomb that does this’. ‘Prime a self that did this here’. None of that ‘build me a space that entices the Spirit to reflect on its childhood’ bullshit. Or ‘I need this craft to have a presence of immense age.’” Nova had put on a voice, an imitation of some former client, that sent Angel into a fit of laughter.

“Yeah, man. Not to mention how fucking batshit crazy makers get when they only work with the Other. Spend every day reworking memories ten times removed from any reality, and it's like your mind expands so much you're just a vapor in the void.”

“Sounds fun,” said Philip.

“What Philip? You hate all that shit!” Nova laughed.

“If I was not Alexander, I would be Diogenes.”

“What?”

“Ignore him,” Lindsey said. “He wants you to ask about it. Are you going to drop Gradie into this?” she waved at the non-earth, still gawking at it like it was singing to her.

“Yeah, but we gotta ease him into it. Get a lock on how his Spirit eats. I’m bringing up his room right now.” Nova‘s eyes fluttered and his fingers moved subtly in front of his chest.

“So, Philip says you’re pretty new,” Angel said. “How much do you know about the Otherworld?” He flicked his hand across his face and the earth outside rotated. Lindsey swore.

“Just what Michael told me,” said Gradie. “I’ve mainly just been flying—”

“Oh yeah? Did he show you that little movie?” Nova yelled from his seat.

“Yeah. Why? Is it bullshit?” Gradie remembered how emotional and inspired the story of underdog dimensional travelers versus astral demons had made him, and felt a wave of embarrassment.

“I wouldn’t say that,” Angel said. “But there is a lot more to it than just what it shows. I think one of his old friends made it back in the day.”

“Let me guess,” Philip asked, smirking. “Did it have an overwhelming stench of new-age bullshit clashing with a hardcore Christian certainty?”

“Uh,” Gradie tried to put the feeling of the ‘video’ into words, but the only ones that came to mind were ‘hopeful longing’.

“You knew Michael back in the day?” Angel asked, sounding suddenly animated.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“We were acquainted.”

“How long was he operating? We looked through all the mem he gave us and I couldn’t figure out—"

“Room’s ready,” Nova said.

A door lit up in the wall with a sound like deep-set locks opening in a bank vault. It was a plain door, plucked out of any office building Gradie had ever been in, and he wondered if even now the twins were drawing on his memory to create it.

“All right bro,” said Nova. “We need to get a lock on you, so get a clear image of what the room on the other side is like, something simple, but make sure it has shelves or something so I can load the constructs into it.”

“What?”

“Just imagine a room and open the door,” Angel said, shaking his head.

Gradie looked at the door and tried to imagine a room. The first thing that came to mind was his bedroom in the Real, but he tore his mind away from that in a hurry. It was harder to do than it should have been. He got the feeling everyone was watching. It got worse.

“Are we just going to be standing here watching you two wave your hands around,” Lindsey said.

“Nah. Once I get a lock on him I’ll pull his feed up,” Nova said.

“Meaning,”

The light in the room changed and Gradie turned around. The earth and space had disappeared from the viewport, and it was now a massive screen of TV static, with a neon green CH 03 in the corner.

“Once he goes in, this will show what he sees. First-person style,” Nova said proudly. Gradie felt whatever was standing in for his heart in a world of thought shake in his chest.

“Which hopefully will be this year,” Philip said, glaring at him.

“All right.” Gradie turned back around and faced the door.

A room. Ok. A room to help me go into the Hardworlds.

Guns. A gunroom.

It flashed in his mind and he held the image. A carpeted room lined with glass-covered shelves, filled with guns, and a large work table in the center.

Annnnnggggg

It sounded like he was being buzzed into a gated condo and a light over the door went green.

“Got him,” said Angel.

“All right bro. Go on in,” said Nova. He sounded excited, and Gradie tried to feel some of his positivity, but the memory of neon blue eyes burning through his past weighed him down. He nodded like a doomed man and grabbed the handle.

“Gradie,” Angel called. Gradie turned around.

“We’re not gonna be digging into you like Lucy did. This is gonna be fun, alright?”

“Yeah, bro. Get excited! You’re about to do some interdimensional assassin shit!” Nova made a fist and Angel shook his head with a weary smile.

Gradie nodded and turned back to the door, and took a breath. His own voice boiled up from the rolling boil of his fears.

Whatever it takes, you’ll do it. Whatever comes, you’ll be ready, Hardworlder.

He opened the door and stepped into the gunroom.

It was almost exactly as he had pictured it, but infinitely more tangible. The experience of having something imagined just moments before burst into life as a complete reality was overwhelming. He laughed and fought back tears. His mind danced like a lottery winner and he felt an intoxicating sense of power.

“Holy fuck!”

“I told you it would be fun,” said Angel, his voice coming in through a loudspeaker in the ceiling.

“Step over to the table. There’s something for you.”

While the Vault control room and the beach before it had only highly suggested walking, the gravity of the gunroom demanded it. Gradie approached the table, and noticed that not everything here was as he expected.

There was a single pistol on the table. An old friend.

“Is that—”

“Your Five seven from the last job,” Angel said. “This is your record room. It will hold all the mem from the selves you drop into, after Lucy processes them.”

Gradie remembered Michael taking him to Lucy’s floating palace immediately after he had made it back from the Office Job. She had told him to remember everything, and the first thing that had floated out at him was the gun firing in his hand. The rest of that other him had poured out backwards from that moment, flowing into the dark sky above him. A single star had bloomed in the dark, then the sky had rotated and he lost it forever. All in all, it had been a far more pleasant experience than their first meeting.

“Oh yeah, speaking of Lucy,” said Nova. “She gave us your readout, and I gotta say, I like the way your mind arranges memory. Very tactile. And time has a spatial component to it. Almost synesthesia-like. Really strong creative visualization too. Could be a damn good maker if you put the work in.” He spoke more to himself than to Gradie at the end.

“Based on her analysis, object-bound memories in a classic mem palace structure work best for you,” said Angel. “But if that’s not the case we can always try something else. Every Hardworlder stores their mem differently. I’ve seen rooms, sounds, flavors, outfits, videos, even Polaroids.”

“Why can’t I just remember them normally? Like keep them in my head?” Gradie felt the question was so obvious he almost hadn’t asked it.

Count yourself lucky, kid,” Philip said. “Most Orgs cut their Hardworlders off from the mem completely.”

“What? Like erase my memories? How?”

“Memory from Hardworlds isn’t static,” said Angel. “If you can pull it and get into it, you can change it. That’s kind of the trade-off. Memory from the Real is more boring, but it’s also more concrete and immovable.”

“But why erase them? Isn’t the point of this that I need—”

“Most teams do it as a precaution,” Angel continued. “So their agents don’t go spilling memories of their jobs all over the Other. But we don’t really have that issue. Benefits of a smaller more dedicated team. You got lucky, man. Your teammates are here for good. If you could talk to other Hardworlders, you’d hear some horror stories.”

“No shit,” said Philip.

“But you still lock them in this Vault. Isn’t that kind of like keeping them from me?”

“No, cause we’re not keeping shit from you,” Nova snapped. “The Spirit doesn’t mesh well with memories from the Hardworlds. They dissolve and decay almost immediately. Which is why you have to go to Lucy right after you drop out, when they’re fresh.”

“But Philip keeps his in his head, right?”

“My methods are beyond your understanding and far beyond your ability.”

“If you want to hoard your job records in your head,” said Lindsey. “Where Lucy and the twins can’t use them or help you analyze them, then go ahead and try. But keep in mind that Philip is Philip, and I’d prefer not to have another one on the team.”

“One of a kind.” Philip had laughter in his voice.

“You use the Vault too?” Gradie asked Lindsey, looking up uselessly at the speaker.

“Not like this. The twins secure my mem, but I have a hardline into it from my realm. I prefer to drop in without anyone watching.”

“Alright bro, enough theory,” said Nova. “Pick up that pistol.”