Chapter 8 - Rain

I followed Camel as he hobbled through the dead pleasure district to the main thoroughfare cutting back to the center of The Commons. A quick glance to the left confirmed the Polizei standing guard at the boundary crossing point were gone. Maybe they didn’t like the rain either.

At this point the pinkish water, shining in the luminescence of the city, was up to our ankles. We slogged forward in the flood. The water burned and stung as it swirled around my calves. The torrential rainfall pummeled relentlessly.

“We’ve got to get to higher ground!”

I pushed on. The streets were empty, the yokocho alleys abandoned. My ears filled with the rush of falling water. I tried desperately to maintain visual contact with Camel but the rain was making visibility difficult.

My foot passed over something hard and slick beneath the water and I tumbled forward, sprawling in the pulsing wet, soaking through my coveralls. The water was tasteless and odorless but it assaulted every nerve in my avataric body. I pulled myself up on my hands and knees, gasping. Stinging pink rivulets ran down my naked head and throat.

Where are we going?!

I tried to shout but my default voice was woefully feeble.

My companion did not respond. He sloshed on through the water that now reached up to our waists. I surged onward. I had a value of 20 assigned to my Speed category. At this moment, that seemed a small number indeed. Strength would also be useful in fighting against this current.

Finally, I saw Camel turn and begin to struggle up slick metal stairs abutting a wall, curving around like an emergency staircase on the side of an overpass. When I reached them, breathless from exertion, I hauled myself up, gripping the slippery railing for dear life.

The soupy waters churned and swirled behind me. I wondered if the whole city would soon be drowned.

At the top of the stairs I collapsed on the street. Currents of water raced down the road all around me. Lights from a looming billboard advertising nostalgia schnapps reflected in the heavy puddles. Behind me, the stairs were swallowed by the rising pink tide.

Eyes burning, I shielded my face and spotted Camel across the street beckoning wildly. He stood at the entrance of a series of concrete khrushchevka-style high rises. I could not crane my neck far enough to make out the tops of the buildings in the colorful storm.

Mustering my strength, I pulled myself up and waded across to join him in a sort of exposed atrium or outdoor lobby in the center of the high rises. Two metal birdcage elevators waited with open jaws. Even here, the water was swiftly rising.

“These are the Towers! The best bet is to go to your nook and spatchka off the rain.”

I briefly recalled the Residential Towers as a location listed at the Information Kiosk.

My nook? I have a room here?

“All the Volunteers are given free rooms by bolshy bratty. It isn't much, but it's domy. Scan your code and the elevator will take you to your floor.”

Camel gestured, allowing me to go first even though there were two elevators. Nodding, I hurried in. He grunted and slid the door shut behind me. A pang of claustrophobia hit as I heard the clanging metal latch and saw the flood rising up to my knees.

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Panicking, I glanced around and saw a circular red light on a black square sensor built into the side of the elevator. No other buttons or controls. No levers. I proffered the barcode on my wrist and, with a loud clanking, the elevator began to rise. Water poured out through the metal bars like a sieve as I went higher and higher.

I had no idea how many floors up I had ridden until the elevator jolted to a stop. I turned and saw a dark hallway stretched out before me, and I fumbled for the rear latch of the cage.

I stepped into the hall. Lit by dim, flickering lights, I perceived rows of small round portals on either side of the hall, one stacked on top of the other. Each had a number. Glancing at my wrist, I hurried in, searching for mine.

01001110 01101111 01100010 01101111 01100100 01111001

There it was. It was placed on top of another capsule-like entrance, with two small steps built into the wall. There was another sensor on the door so I scanned my code. The door swung open.

A fluorescent light revealed a room approximately nine feet long and four and a half feet tall. A pallet of foamlike consistency was built into one section of the floor. A dial on the wall adjusted the lighting. Otherwise, there was nothing else. Having nothing else to do and nowhere else to go, I crawled into this glorified torpedo tube, shutting the door behind me.

To my surprise, I realized I was completely dry. That seemed impossible. I had slogged through heavy rain, practically swam through a flash flood. The water had assaulted every inch of my flesh. And yet, not a trace of it remained. And at least here, in my capsule, I was sheltered from the onslaught.

I had no idea how long the rain would last. I possessed no means of measuring time, and no means of communicating with anyone outside of my capsule.

Were all the rooms on these floors occupied? In each building of the Towers? Was I, even now, surrounded by other Volunteers who were my neighbors? Had they all wisely taken shelter, being familiar with the changeable whims of this metaverse? Why then did I feel so alone?

I stripped off my coveralls, folding them in a square, and placing my shoes on top of them. I stretched out on the foam pallet. It was a more comfortable position than sitting or crouching in the cramped, hard space. I looked at my wounded arm. Thankfully, it had not gotten worse.

I opened my menu and navigated to the Status submenu.

[STATUS

* Infernal Burn (neutralized)]

I hovered over Infernal Burn to see if I could access any more information. I could.

[Infernal Burn (neutralized): this status ailment increases vulnerability to fire and heat-based damage.]

Oh, wow. I must have received this ‘status ailment’ when I was bitten by that Hellhound, in addition to the damage and immense pain. I wondered if that was something that automatically happened or if it was a probability thing. Either way, I was thankful for the ministering aid of that striking woman, Rook, that apparently rendered the burn neutralized. I would have stood no chance against the flame spewing Baskerville Hound in such a state, not that I would have even without the status effect.

Thinking about vulnerability and risk made me realize that I had not ‘backed up’ my data, as Camel mentioned. If I were to die, maybe even drowning in an improbable flood of electric pink rain, I would lose everything I had gained since arriving here. The last thing I wanted was to see my precious 1,070 Crypt vanish, not to mention the curious baubles I had acquired - Crystals, Card Fragments, Materials, and so forth.

Could I save my data here, resting in my capsule? Or did that require a trip to this Restoration Point? I desperately needed to find out what was going on with this dangerous world that I had allegedly volunteered for with no memory of doing so. With no memory of who I was or where I had come from. I needed answers. But for now, I could only wait.

I didn’t know if sleep was possible in this place. But I felt the need to rest. During my so-called orientation, the Concierge mentioned something about suspended animation. If my physical body was in suspended animation in the ‘real world’, then maybe ‘resting’ or ‘sleeping’ in this place was equivalent to a computer going into sleep or idle mode.

I closed my eyes and concentrated. I tried to reach out through time and space, to somehow connect with my physical form outside of this simulation. Where was it? What did it look like? What was happening to it just then? But there was nothing. No response. No sensation. Whatever my life was, or had been, was severed from my conscious experience.

As these and many other thoughts flitted through my confused mind, I twisted the dial to immerse myself in total darkness and see what dreams may come.