The second they woke up, Savan felt as if they were drowning in a syrup-like substance, not unlike a field of molasses, and it made it difficult for them to figure out where they could swim, struggle or move. But after what felt like hours of their body sinking, rising, waving around in a plain of darkness, mixed from time to time with patches of light and no sound, they finally found a direction- A hand reached out from the left, then right, then up or down and so forth. Each was closing in, grabbing them. Some were violent, others more gentle, some pushed them, others invited them, while a few tried to take Savan with them.
Among them, though, the clopy noticed one that stood out from the rest, not altered in shape or form, belonging to a small child, an infant really. So, they grabbed onto it and the journey finally had a start. The field swirled around, creating small shapes and builds and a field…and faces. Savan didn’t recognize any of them, but since the scenes seemed to play on their own, sat down for now and just watched them.
They soon noticed that the story was about a small boy who grew up in destroyed skyscrapers, and wrecks which supported one another like stubborn dominos. The sky, though, reminded Savan of their city, as it also hosted a layer above it. The boy seemed to have lived his entire childhood in squalor, with ragged clothes and surviving on fungus, scraps, and whatever animal meat he could find. Savan followed how he lived on, for minutes on end, then hours, and days, still recovering from adapting to the process.
At some point, they got enough energy back to try and see if they could control, touch or influence anything, but it soon dawned on them. -“ I’m just a spectator, aren’t I?”-
They did not feel hungry, thirsty or had any other bodily needs, the only thing they could do was watch the boy live his miserable, but after 13 days of doing just that, boring life. Little by little, Savan grew out of their terrified state of realizing they became a living effigy, accepting it with time. The fact that the boy grew on with them helped out somewhat.
Something bugged them, though. As he was the only character, they never found out his name, and after questioning it out loud, the field moved as if in fast-forward until they found a street filled with junk, and among the trash were plates with names on them. “Billy?”, the clopy read in surprise when they saw one of the signs.
Just then, the boy looked at the sign, twirled around, and stared at it strangely. He didn’t know what it said, but he enjoyed how the rusty, scribbled paint could be scratched from it, and how his fingers could follow the outline of the letters. He picked up his new toy and put it in a backpack with other junk he carried around.
Savan smiled warmly at the little boy and managed this time to grab him by his hand. They didn't understand how or why they were able to do this now but felt that it was the right thing to do:
-“ Say, I think I’m lost. Can you help me out?”, they asked the little boy’s image, who nodded and guided the clopy around with him. After a few more months of living by his side, donning his style of clothes, mimicking hunger to eat with him, and trying to be by his side.
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On one repetitive night, the shouting and fighting in the other building was loud enough to scare the little boy from his sleep. He was shivering, and silently crying, muffling his mouth with his dirty shirt, as he didn't want the others to know where he was hidden. Savan was still watching over him, unable to cope anymore with their powerless status. They didn't know what else to do besides trying to embrace him up and cradle him in their arms. " Hush now", they unwillingly said. " It's going to be alright, you're going to get past this".
One, or two years later, while happily showing Savan a new piece of junk he found, no longer behaving like a kid, the boy suddenly stood still, unflinching. The clopy got very worried for him, asking him what was wrong, but when they saw what he was pointing towards, they immediately remembered what they were there for. The hand was a bit bigger this time, still, a child’s one nonetheless. But at least this time they knew what they should expect.
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So, for another few more years, Savan watched and learned alongside the little boy, whom they now named Billy, after their favorite toy. Billy grew up, from a scavenger to a small thief, a gang member, with their guardian angel watching over them for most of the time. The clopy, at some point, found itself in a spot where the memories seemed stuck, unable to move on, especially during moments when he had to make a choice. They tried to decide for Billy, failed, and found themselves unable to move with the movie, but with time they figured out:
- “ I shouldn’t think like me, I should do it as the you you were then, right?”
With that new revelation, Savan managed to guide Billy along his life, following him step by step, seeing how he enrolled in the military, how he fought other armies formed by people, cyborgs, and his AI commander, and how he almost conquered another settlement. Their County, the one the clopy was created in and worked for all their life.
The ending came soon enough when Billy got shot and in his last moments he heard the radio sending an emergency message- “ They planted nukes inside the Cube City!”, then everything went black. For a second, until a new image came- From a first-person perspective of Serviceman, who could see parts of the facility he was kept in; then how he fought another C.T.D; then him hunting down some humans in an industrial area; and so on, and so forth until he heard a conversation between an overweight old man and other people:
-” If the mind moulding procedure is almost out of way of numbing him, prepare the recycling process. Unlike the seven other times, this will be the last time he will go through it. After this race, we can finally wipe his mind clean and leave him empty. We are closing on creating a safe method for mind transfer, and I kinda like this body…”
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20 years later, Savan exits the real world and sees Vivar again. They almost forgot about him while inside the boy’s mind and stumbled on their words trying to say it correctly. Or so it sounded, but little by little, all the stages they spent living with Billy were slowly erased from their mind, leaving only fragments. Moments. Choices the two made together.
They then remembered the true world and what they were in the middle of. The race, the plan…their friends. “ How much…for how long was I connected?”, they asked, still confused.
-” Two minutes and 13 seconds.”
Savan couldn’t believe it, nothing made entire sense to them, but with both sets of memories returning and being deleted, they started to put two in two together. “ Vivar, it’s been 20 years for me…Or it was, but everything is going away, I can only remember pieces, parts. A few seconds each...” Savan needed some time alone to come to their senses, after which they told the knight everything they gathered- The second city, Billy, the war, and the moulding procedure:
-” They reset you, all of you, preparing the bodies for them. Vivar, I think sometime in the future, the same would have happened to you as well.", cried out the clopy, who realized something else in the process- "They want the same thing I do, don’t they…"
The knight didn’t know what to say, and he took a moment to contemplate next to Savan. At least he tried until Serviceman started to make some rustling noise and rose. He looked to his right, then his left, noticed that his arm was gone, then at Vivar, and once they spotted the albino skin of his companion- “ You…I saw your face before…was it a dream?”
-” Billy?”, they asked tenderly.
-'' Billy?... Yes, Billy, my name is Billy…and Servicemen, but not at the same time”. The C.T.D was confused once again, unable to figure out what happened, but he felt it when Savan grabbed him by his finger. -'' Lay down and let me tell another story. Remember, how I used to tell them to you to go to sleep”, and so he did, feeling very nostalgic at the sound of Savan’s raspy, caring voice.
He listened attentively and completed whatever the clopy didn’t manage to remember in their retellings. And he recalled what he wanted to achieve with the duel.
- “ I wanted you to kill me, Vivar. It came to me when I heard that they wanted to wipe me clean, but I couldn’t end myself…so I searched for something or someone who could. You, or the miner girl, but she was too sickly to do it properly…and now, if I want to, I could just do it myself, right? I can make that choice…”
But that’s not what he did. Instead, he looked at the two and stretched his right arm toward Vivar- “ Help me up, please” he humbly asked.