CHAPTER FIVE

  Giovanni’s office was in total silence before Dante entered, his steps loud and awkward. Forgoing sleep meant Dante would be only somewhat alert. An NRS would keep him conscious but it wouldn’t keep him well. Recording Pluto was more important to him than sleep, though.

  “What is it?” Giovanni asked him. Dante was mildly surprised but knew Giovanni was always one step ahead of everyone. Giovanni most likely just expected to see him after every session at this point. “Did you ask about the Hellwhip?”

  “Not yet,” Dante said, and before he was interrupted he continued, “Don’t worry, I’ll bring it up soon. He was just getting bad in the middle of this session so I brought a nurse in to help him out a bit. He’s dying, after all, remember?”

  “Yes…” Giovanni held his chin, his eyes flickering back and forth between the monitors on his desk and Dante. “Well then, what news have you for me? I assume you’re here because of something that was said?”

  “Correct,” Dante said. “During this recording, Pluto wasn’t sure what to talk about. This of course bothered me because I assumed he was lying, but I humored him as it is my job to do so and asked him about whether he had ever been to a strata completely governed by Nanos. So he started telling me about Stratum 169, and, well… he started talking about a peculiar idea.”

  “Oh? Like having a weapon that could destroy all of Mobius peculiar?”

  The way Giovanni said it, Dante wasn’t sure if it was meant in jest or not. But Dante nodded anyway.

  “Like uploading your mind to a Nano peculiar.”

  Giovanni’s attention was finally pulled from his monitors. His gray eyes grew wide, but he did his best to constrain his physical display of worry and asked Dante to continue.

  “Pluto talked about some friend of his, a boy named Tom, who died way back when his journey began on Stratum… what? 54? 55? I don’t recall. Either way, the boy was killed over revealing a food source to other children—truly a foolish story, I must say. Why the very idea of Nanos going out of their way to guard food is preposterous, a flagrant lie for the sake of it. In any case, Tom was dead. But now Pluto is saying that there was a Nano who had followed him from the start of his journey all the way to 169, and that on 169 the Nanos who governed it decided to fix Pluto’s Nano. And upon being fixed it was revealed that this Nano housed the consciousness of Tom, Pluto’s dead friend. Now to me this all feels very… I don’t know… tragic? Not in a natural way but in a more Shakespearean way, if you follow my meaning. But I was wondering if you were aware of any word on whether this sort of thing has happened before, the idea of consciousness being trapped in a CMP drive. You wouldn’t happen to know anything of the sort, would you?”

  The more Dante spoke, the more Giovanni’s face contorted and reaffirmed its neutral position, as if the skin itself were breathing. Dante wasn’t sure what it meant, but he knew what he was asking made his superior uncomfortable.

  “Dante, as a Recorder I am sure you are well aware that your position holds no bearing over the truth, that your own opinions are meant to be hidden from the public. We are here merely to record what is said by those we have captured, nothing more, nothing less.”

  Confused, Dante said, “Well yes, but I still have the ability to have an opinion, right? I mean this isn’t even the first time we’ve talked about something like this. Even with Pluto as a single case I’ve come to you for guidance in these things.”

  “Well stop,” Giovanni said, his strong voice cracking. “I don’t mean to be rude to you, Dante, but there is much here that could get you into trouble. It would be better if you continued to assume the role of a true Recorder, the role of a man without a face.”

  Unsatisfied with that answer, Dante was about to argue when Giovanni gave him a look so strong it bore holes through his eyes, and Giovanni shook his head slowly as though he wished no one would even hear his head moving. Dante just nodded.

  “I understand, sir. If you wish it, I will stop bothering you.”

  “Thank you for your understanding, Mr. Dante. When your current job is finished, I believe it will be time for us to reevaluate your position.”

  Dante was halted in his tracks. “Reevaluate my position?”

  Giovanni nodded. “Yes, reevaluate your position. After all, with your performance here being what it has been it could be argued that a Recording position is too lowly a profession for you.”

  It was Dante’s turn to glare at Giovanni.

  “We will, of course, discuss the matter in full once you’re finished recording Captain Pluto. The only thing we wish is that you are justly rewarded, so don’t worry about being sent someplace you wouldn’t want to be.”

  Sighing in frustration, Dante said, “That’s not what worries me. Good day, Giovanni sir.”

  And he left in more anger than he ever had from his superiors—his friends— office, not only disturbed but left with more questions than when he had entered. It was obvious to him that he was preoccupied with something, that Giovanni was dancing on eggshells and unable to speak as he normally would. But the things that were said bothered him more than the way they were said.

  “I am a Recorder!” Dante swore beneath his breath. “I will always be a Recorder!”

   The anger never left him as he burst into the cell of Pluto once again, frightening the nurse. She was thankfully finishing up her work, so she ran off upon seeing Dante stomp over to the bedside, his recorder already at the ready. Once the door was shut and he was certain they were alone, Dante shook Pluto until he was fully conscious.

  “Hey… Hey what the hell!? What are you doing?” Pluto asked groggily, his medicine obviously keeping him from full wakefulness.

  “We haven’t the time for you taking a nap. Your sentencing is happening in roughly two and a half days time, and you’ve allegedly traveled nearly one thousand strata. There’s still a lot of recording to do.”

  Pluto’s eyes were dazed and flickering, taking their time choosing whether or not they wished to be awake.

  “Now, have you an idea of where you’d like begin or must I choose for you again? Be aware I’m recording all of this on the off chance the higher ups actually care about whether or not you are lying.”

  Still blinking heavily, Pluto yawned, his body shaking with the violence of one who has just been woken. “Honestly, how many more of these are we doing? No matter what it’s not really enough to cover everything. I’m sure we both know that.”

  Sighing in frustration, Dante said, “Counting this session, we have possibly three more as it’s still technically the fourth day. It entirely depends on your health and the length of your recordings. If your health continues to fail we may only get one or two more good recordings in before it’s all over.”

  Pluto nodded as if the thought of his demise were something eons away, not days. “Well then. I think I have a route I’d like to take. We’ll save my tale of 995 for last, as I’m sure that’s something you desperately want to hear about. But I find it boring to speak of, you know? After all that’s the only thing we will speak of during the trial. It would be annoying to listen to it there and then again on recording, though I suppose that happens often, doesn’t it?”

  “All the time,” Dante said dryly.

  “Right, right,” Pluto picked at something in his teeth, examined it, then continued to pick. “Well, actually now that I think on it the way you’re talking about my health I might not even be able to tell the court what happened on 995, will I?”

  Dante’s hands shook. “No, so you had best tell the tale soon.”

  “Don’t worry about it, I’m pretty sure I have the order all planned out now. Even have a few contingencies just in case things go awry and I’m dead as can be in a day or so, as you say I could be.”

  “Then where will we begin for this session, Mr. Pluto.”

  Pluto picked away at his teeth until a mild spot of red appeared on his fingernail. “It’s Captain Pluto, and we aren’t starting until you get rid of your sour mood. I won’t speak to a needlessly angry man.”

  Feeling provoked, Dante rose with a quickness he seldom used, his recorder falling to the floor with a clatter. “My emotions are of no concern to you, Mr. Pluto! And even if they were the concern of others, it is highly unprofessional to focus on such a subject when we are in the midst of recording you and not me. I won’t even be speaking on the recording, so no one will know how angry I am anyhow!”

  “Actually they will,” Pluto said, his face glimmering with the look of a child in the middle of a prank. When Dante was confused, Pluto pointed to the recorder on the floor. “As you said earlier, you began the recording early so that they might know of my lies. Well now they’ll know of your lousy mood, too. Not sure if that really matters, seeing as everyone on this strata is in a lousy mood from what I can tell. But still, they’ll know. So it might be better if you at least get into a state of neutrality before we begin so they don’t think their great Recorder Dante is some sort of diva raging to bend the world to his will.”

  Few times in his life Dante was angry. In fact if you asked him he could probably tell you all of them, counting on his fingers the instances and wondering aloud if he recalled each one correctly. Of all the times he was angry, this was the angriest. To say why would be a lie. Even Dante was unsure of just what drove him so mad. It must have been everything, right? His delusional guest, bent on lying at every session and making a mockery of Dante’s profession; the nurse being a constant, nagging nuisance who wouldn’t give him a smile even if he asked politely; the fact that his superior, the man who he had called his friend, was now deciding whether or not Dante would be allowed to follow his dream of being the greatest of Recorders, when he should be well aware of his dream by now; all of these, plus the general grind of living in the same place, eating the same bad food, living the same boring life and feeling the energy sucked from him at all angles by aimless charlatans whose only concern was some short term triviality, some banal exchange among friends in a world without affection to begin with. Pluto was the liar who snapped Dante’s psyche in two for a short moment.

  And Dante, mild mannered as he was, gave Captain Pluto a beating.

  It didn’t matter that he was dying in a bed.

  It didn’t matter that he was a subject, someone to be respected.

  It didn’t matter that he was a criminal, possibly the greatest Dante had ever seen, liar or not.

  All that mattered to Dante was taking the feeling that was pressing on his chest and sending it out with his feeble knuckles, his weak little body a poor vessel for such visceral anger.

  Pluto just laughed as it happened, as though his great punchline were finally at hand.

  Dante came to his senses mid-punch, breathing heavily with his fist half cocked, him kneeling over Pluto and his fist dripping bright red blood.

  Having never been in this sort of position, Dante stopped breathing heavily from exhaustion and started hyperventilating, his eyes darting from his fists to the bruised face of his subject.

  “Feel better?” Pluto asked jovially, a free hand touching lightly to the mild swelling on his now split bottom lip.

  “I-I-I’m not sure what came over me!” Dante exclaimed. “I jus… I just-t-t…”

  “Snapped?” Pluto offered.

  Dante nodded, his breath a vibrating sigh.

  “Well it happens. So long as you feel better we can be on with this recording business, so long as you’re feeling up to it?”

  Taking a few deep breaths to force away the shivers, Dante said, “Of course. We must continue recording.”

  “Then get off of me so I might breathe!”

  The situation already strange, it became more strange when the two shared a laugh over their odd positioning, awkward now that the violence had ended.

  “Honestly,” Pluto said as he tested the swelling of his face with a tender touch, “for a man who appears to have done no physical labor in his entire life, you have a decent punch.”

  A mild excitement arose in Dante, some primitive pride in his own strength. “Really?”

  “No, not really. With all that punching you should have knocked me unconscious, especially in my crippled condition.”

  Dante’s pride was immediately hurt, and Pluto laughed at his reaction.

  “Anyway, that’s enough fun and games. Allow me to begin an important tale. Not to say that the others weren’t important, but this is a rather important part of my story. Unfortunately it’s still something that happened long ago, back on Stratum 199, but it is an important part of my history nonetheless. I should also state that there’s a chance we won’t finish this one in one single session, so on the off chance that happens I will tell this story across two sessions then finish up with 995. Will that suffice, Dante?”

  Nodding, Dante made sure that his recorder was in a good spot for picking up audio and urged Pluto to continue.

  “Right, then allow me to tell you of how I became known as the legendary Captain Pluto, pirate leader and scourge of Mobius.”

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  Now you might be wondering what I mean by becoming the legendary Captain Pluto. After all, as I’ve described in coarse detail here, my legend began long ago, back on Stratum 56. But in my opinion that isn’t the case. If I were to ask you, for instance, when it was that you truly became yourself, you would probably say something different from what others might expect. But that is how it should be, right? We know ourselves better than others, therefore we know when our greatest transformations truly occur.

  My transformation may have started on 56, but it ended long after, in 199.

  Up until then—though there were certainly plenty of misadventures that brought us closer, illuminating our purpose further than before—few of our exploits were as tiresome as the one on 199.

  And of course, it all began on 198.

  Cat, Tom, and myself had all made our way across 198 with relative ease. It took us less than the usual two weeks to reach the edge of 198, and that was in no small part due to a young vagrant named Oscar. He was a guide of sorts for our travel through 198. All he required for payment was his protection, which we were able to give him easily enough. Oscar was more worried about Tom than anything, but by the end of our journey he seemed at least more used to him than before.

  However, as I’ve stated this tale is of 199.

  Prior to our ascension, I was speaking with Oscar. It was mostly small talk, pleasantries and good byes, when I finally asked him if he knew anything of 199.

  Immediately, his young face grew lines that hadn’t been there before.

  “Pluto, might I be honest with you?”

  “Of course, Oscar. I’d prefer it to hearing lies.”

  Oscar nodded, rubbing the skin of his hands in nervous tension. “Well, I know now that you all have been trying to reach the edge of Mobius, but before that… When you came in here, walking around with that Nano, you and Cat wielding strange weapons that appeared to be Nano make, we all assumed you were some strange, rogue group of Nano sympathizers here to kill us all. So I was tasked with guiding you up to 199, where you would… More than likely be killed.”

  Cat’s attention was immediately piqued, and I myself stood there in keen interest.

  “So 199 is some sort of death sentence? Why, what’s up there?”

  Oscar appeared more worried about saying his thoughts aloud than he did about revealing he was trying to kill them. “Honestly? No one here is quite sure, Pluto. A few of us have ventured upwards, but only one returned. That was a long time ago, back when more of us were trying to conduct the great pilgrimage. Now the fear of the legends are so great that none of us are willing to travel upward and verify it.”

  “Well, come on Oscar, what sort of things are said of the place? If they’re wrong that’s okay, we won’t come back here to kill you.”

  We might.

  Oscar obviously wanted to leave, but having been dragged into the conversation he saw no way out. Plus, despite all his best efforts, Oscar had become more of a friend to us than he had ever wished.

  “The man who came back… His name is Dmitri, and though he’s very old now I can say that his word has always been good in my experience. That being said, he has said that 199 must be the very edge of Mobius. He said that the strata is a doorway to the vacuum of space, that no Nanos build there and that nothing survives there. That it isn’t a strata at all but merely the end.”

  Now obviously you and I are sitting here talking in 999, Dante, but back when I was down there the excitement I felt was surreal. Obviously I was worried we might all die, but if 199 were truly the end then my journey was over. We could finally move on.

  I doubt that this is true… But perhaps we should be cautious.

  Tom and Cat were skeptical, and I was as well. Hopeful, sure. But skeptical.

  “It wouldn’t make sense for Mobius to end as you describe,” Tom said. “It’s not that it can’t end. Just that if it were to end mid-strata, and be so bad that upon entering you would be in space… It makes no sense to me.”

  “Yeah, me neither,” Cat said, shaking her head and furrowing her brow. “I’ve been following Pluto for a long time now, and the strata always follow some basic series of patterns, even down to the residents. For it to suddenly end like that would indicate an accident more than a plan, wouldn’t it?”

  Frustrated, I agreed. “Well Mobius is sucking up the universe, but it’s not finished. That’s an endless mission, really. There’s a chance a strata was destroyed by a stray asteroid or planet or something. Anything could have struck from outside and caused severe damage, really.”

  “Well, not necessarily,” Tom said. “Mobius was built with the intention of withstanding things like that to some degree. Obviously the plan could be incorrect, but I doubt this. I would need to see it to understand fully.”

  “Guess we’ll have to see for ourselves then.”

  Oscar stared at us with a baffled expression. “You’re really still going?”

  “Of course. I couldn’t stop even if I wanted to,” I told him with a tired smile.

  “You can always come with us if you’d like,” Cat said playfully.

  I’d rather he stay. Three is already a crowd.

  Poe had nothing to worry about. Oscar waved his hands wildly. “Absolutely not! I’m heading back home the second you guys leave.”

  We all laughed, but I was still a bit sad. Oscar, as I said, had become a friend, and no matter how many friends I lost it never got any easier. So we all said our good byes once more, Cat gave him a hug, I shook his hand, and he shared an odd exchange with Tom who I swear took mild pleasure in Oscar’s discomfort despite being a Nano.

  And with that, we were off to another LG shaft, ready to once again start anew in a new strata.

  The start of 199 appeared normal enough. Most strata begin with a long hallway that leads out to whatever grand scheme composes the majority of the local structure, and 199 was no different. So the three of us made our way forward with an intense feeling of trepidation that we—well, that I couldn’t shake. At the edge of that hall were a few charging stations, and we went to use them but we heard a strange whistling noise, something none of us were familiar with.

  Then Cat’s eyes grew wide as she understood.

  “Wait! That’s wind!”

  “Wind?” I asked, confused. “What’s wind?”

  “Wind is what happens out there, in space! My father always told me that it was a proper force back on Earth, that we even tried to harness it for an energy source but failed.”

  I was still confused. “But how do you know that noise is wind? None of us have been outside of Mobius.”

  “True,” she said, “but do you recall the machine I had in my room back in 117?”

  I was coming up short until Poe interjected.

  Her fan, you idiot.

  “Right, your fan. It did sort of sound like wind, I guess. Only quieter.”

  Tom just made his way to the charging station. “Well, wind or no wind, we must press onward and we should be well taken care of beforehand. On the off chance that we are able to make our way through here without being sucked into space, we should be prepared for a fight.”

  “What makes you sure we’ll have to fight?” Cat asked, her hand subconsciously gliding to the rod at her side.

  “Well, aside from the fact that this doesn’t appear to be a human residence, Oscar’s story was more than likely true in some ways. If only one man came back from the initial group, then something must be here that took care of the rest. We should be mindful of that danger. Even if the story was just a story, it must stem from some source of reality.”

  After each of us finished our preparations, we continued onward, making our way around a corner towards the sound of the wind. There we were greeted with three doors, which was strange enough. Even stranger was the make of the doors themselves.

  “Wood?” Tom said, perplexed. “We only see doors like this on human settled strata. And even then, we never see them like this, built directly into the walls of Mobius.”

  “Well we should continue towards the wind,” I said. Cat and I placed our ears up to two separate doors to check for the sound. Mine was the obvious culprit, and I said, “The wind seems to be coming from behind this door.”

  Cat frowned at me. “Actually I hear the wind from under mine too.”

  Confused, we swapped doors and there was the sound of wind behind each. We even checked the third door, and there was the sound of wind there as well. Tom decided to get involved as well.

  “Being a Nano I can’t detect sound in the same fashion you two can, however I can pinpoint where exactly the vibrations are emanating from. If you give me just a few seconds I should have an answer.”

  We waited, and in little time Tom had an answer for us.

  “Something is wrong here. It does appear the wind is coming from all three doors.”

  “Would it really be so odd to have three sources of wind?” Cat asked.

  I shook my head. “I’ve traveled far. Wind on its own is weird enough, to have multiple sources behind doors made of wood is a bad omen.” Removing my Hellwhip, I made sure the setting was for level three and walked up to a door. “You two should stay behind for right now, just in case. I’ll go in and see if we’re safe to continue.”

  Cat was about to protest but Tom pressed a metal limb firmly against her clavicle. “We shall be awaiting your safe return, Captain.”

  “Don’t do anything stupid,” Cat added just as the door shut behind me.

  Once the door shut, everything went black. My vision, my consciousness, everything. It all happened so fast not even Poe could warn me of the imminent threat. There was, however, a small period of time where my dream was mixed with reality, and this I recall well. I was laying face down on the metal floor, the wind so great that the world was swirling around me in a violent gust. In front of me stood a familiar face, one I could hardly forget but also one I hadn’t remembered in a long time.

  “Hello, Pluto,” Poe said, for once not as an echo in my mind nor in the guise of my own self. “We haven’t met like this in a long time, have we?”

  “I killed you,” I growled, anger swelling in me. “There’s no way you should be—”

  “Alive? Well, that depends on your definition of the word. Biologically yes I am gone. Even if you hadn’t decided to turn around and blast my lab to bits, I would have more than likely been dead before you even met Cat.”

  “Well then what are you doing here? You’re obviously some kind of illusion.”

  The old man made a face as though considering the thought. “Yes and no. I am always with you, Pluto. After all we are one now. But this physical being you see before you must be some kind of falsity, yes. Just as this wind must not exist. Or the wooden door you passed through.”

  “Then what is happening?” I asked, worried.

  Poe was about to answer when he stopped. I became extremely worried then. His countenance dropped immeasurably, and it was obvious he knew something I didn’t.

  “I’ve been here before,” Poe said, turning around and spinning with the wind in a dizzying display. “Long ago, yes! I had forgotten but it’s clear now, I’ve been to this place!”

  “Where is this place?”

  “Pluto, you’re in danger! You have to get yourself together and find a new place for us! Otherwise we might be stuck here forever!”

  Poe was speaking strangely then. Vaguely.

  “I don’t understand what you mean!”

  The wind grew louder, faster.

  “You will when this is over! Just stay alert and be on the look out for someone new, Pluto. Someone who can come with us.”

  I was about to clarify that he meant we needed a bigger crew when the vision corrupted further. The wind danced loudly in my ears, his body tore apart and became two, then four, then eight, sixteen, dividing and multiplying endlessly in my eyes. Unceasing worry coursed through my body for a timeless moment, and for some reason it felt as though I were floating out in the vacuum of space, only my ears were filled with a ticklish noise like the discharge they produce only louder, more unnatural.

  Then I woke up, not behind the wooden doors, but back at the end of the hallway. My Hellwhip was finished charging, Tom was still plugged into his own charging station and powered down, while Cat was passed out snoring with her rod glowing the blue color it did when it was fully charged.

  Did we just hallucinate?

  “Honestly I was gonna ask you,” I whispered, disconnecting my Hellwhip with a resounding click. The weapon resumed its usual hum as I thrust it into my belt loop. “Were you speaking to me or did I imagine a separate you?”

  Did I tell you of my past? Or did we talk about how to dispose of Tom?

  Sighing, I said, “No, you offered some kind of warning. Told me to get more people, actually.”

  Bah! An illusion indeed. I want fewer companions not more.

  “Yeah, I know. The whole thing was weird. Especially the wind.”

  Yes… The wind.

  We waited for a moment to make sure that there wasn’t the sound of wind and to allow Cat and Tom to be fully rested. I was still tired but there was no sense in trying to sleep more. Whatever that had been, dream or illusion, it had taken a lot out of me. But it scared me more than anything. I didn’t want to go back to that vortex.

  I thought about waking Cat up but instead asked Poe a question.

  “Poe, how old am I now?”

  How old are you? Well that’s entirely relative, Pluto. We have to factor in the time debt we incur when we travel between strata, then calculate the difference between local time of 56 with the actual general time of Mobius itself. There’s also a chance that—

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  “My age, Poe. How old am I biologically?”

  Right… well in terms of sheer biology, you are now thirty years of age. A healthy young man, still in the prime of his youth!

  Running a finger along a line on my forehead, I said, “You’re sure? Thirty doesn’t feel right to me. I feel much older than that.”

  Probably just from the rough journey. It has aged you prematurely, Pluto. But you are still very much a thirty year old man.

  I left it at that, but I didn’t believe him. I couldn’t be sure but I felt like I was double that at least, especially when I stared down at my rough hand whenever I removed the skin suit.

  As I was about to wake up Cat and Tom, footsteps echoed along the walls of the hall and I readied my Hellwhip, unsure what to expect. I was rather confused and relieved to see it was Oscar and not a Nano. He loped over to us with a look of uneasy exhaustion on his face. I lowered the Hellwhip but left it set to three.

  “Oscar? What are you doing here?”

  Cat yawned and stretched as she woke up, then got up fast as she realized who stood before us.

  “Once you left I…” Oscar trailed off, his gaze elsewhere. “It wouldn’t be right for me to let you go off like this, exploring this unknown place. Even if I’m not as equipped for combat as you three are, I just couldn’t live with myself if you all died here.”

  He sounded sincere, but by this point in my journey I knew not to trust anyone. Even Oscar.

  “I suppose you’d be worried whether we lived or not,” I said, clapping a hand firmly on his shoulder. “After all, we wouldn’t have returned either way. So this is more for your piece of mind then, not so much to help us.”

  “You make me sound selfish,” Oscar said, looking hurt. “You’re not entirely wrong though.”

  “Yeah, he’s only partially wrong isn’t he?” Cat asked as she readied her rod. “It wasn’t hard to figure out that you were being punished by being our guides. The others didn’t seem to care too much about your survival. So what, is this just another part of your sentence? Or is this you deciding you fit in with us, because you don’t decide that, we do.” She looked as though she might kill him any second, but I gave her a look to stand down.

  “No, I suppose you do,” Oscar replied. “My apologies if I’ve overstepped. I just… Well I haven’t any place to go anyway. I may as well accompany you and see the edge of Mobius before I die.”

  “We won’t die,” Tom said, his charge complete. “As we discussed before, the odds of this being the very edge of Mobius are extremely low. If you follow us, you will reach strata 200 and beyond, so long as you don’t die due to your own failings.”

  “And I thought you were a merry band of brigands,” Oscar laughed nervously. “Well, so be it. If you’ll have me then I’ll follow you.”

  Cat and I exchanged a look that said we would keep a close eye on him. I nodded to Oscar indicating he was in. He smiled, but I gripped his shoulder hard enough to make him wince.

  “Just don’t get in our way. As you say, you aren’t equipped for combat. I’m sure you would prefer dying old as opposed to young.”

  “Indeed,” he muttered and followed behind me, with Cat still within my peripheral watching him and Tom behind all of us, leaving him boxed in on the off chance he was there to cause trouble.

  As we walked, we made our way down a new hallway with nothing but the echo of our footsteps to keep us company, all of us on edge due to the possible danger before us and within us. Poe even remained silent, allowing me a rare moment to think without interruption. I wondered primarily about the strange hallucination Poe and I had been involved in. They were obviously linked, I thought, but being that the contents of my illusion and Poe’s illusion were separate, they were only linked by the source of the hallucination not the contents. So to call what I had seen a warning would be foolish, because what Poe saw was different and strange. They couldn’t both be right… Well, perhaps they could, but getting a straight answer from Poe was difficult so there was no true way to verify the information. In any case, I concluded that there were two possibilities. The hallucinations were coming from the strata itself, some strange byproduct of the air in 199, or alternatively Poe and I experienced an extremely vivid dream separated by our individual consciousnesses. If the latter were the case then there was nothing to worry about, really. Just an odd side effect of having a linked mind. However, were it the former, then there was more cause for alarm. The only way that I could verify that it was the strata would be to see if Cat, Oscar, and possibly Tom were also having hallucinations. Only two of them really needed to experience them to confirm my suspicions, Tom of course being a special case, someone who could probably avoid the effects of an oxygen induced hallucinogen.

  While we were walking and I was thinking of all of this, there was a loud noise behind us and we all turned to see what had happened. All of us were surprised to see that Tom was gone, disappeared somewhere.

  “Tom?” I called out, worry not quite setting in.

  “Tom!?” Cat called, her worry very much setting in.

  Oscar was afraid, in over his head. He freaked out and bolted back the way we came. Cat and I called after him, but he hadn’t even gotten that far when the wall beside him opened, produced an appendage, and yanked him inside, some hidden place within the walls.

  Cat and I were sent into flight, scared for our lives. She ran in step with me and we tried our best, but there was no way we could escape. Mobius itself was kidnapping us.

  Well this isn’t good.

  There was a loud bang, a metallic tumult, and Cat was gone.

  Poe and I were alone, surrounded by the unknown entity, the great and powerful Mobius.

  Knowing the futility of running, I came to a stop and took deep breaths, awaiting my capture.

  It took no more than five seconds.

  The appendage took me deep into the walls, through an intricate series of tunnels and hidden pathways. I swore I saw a glimpse of Cat to my left, a scattered image of Tom being hoisted off into the grand nothing, but the images I saw were fragmentary and unreliable. My journey was rough and unpredictable, my body banging and slamming into many things before finally being brought to a strange location. None of it was like anything I had seen in any of the other strata I had been to.

  Once I was grounded, the appendage disappeared once again within the ceiling above me. Based on how long I had been pulled by it, I was concerned that I had been taken once again back to 198, but the surroundings were enough to convince me otherwise.

  The room I was in was essentially a cell, four walls, a floor, a ceiling, but no way in or out save the metallic appendage which had closed the ceiling behind it. Now as I’m sure you’ll agree, a simple room with nothing in it isn’t cause for any intrigue. Maybe the means of getting there was, sure, but not the room itself. And that’s where you’re wrong. Because as each second passed, blue line descended from the ceiling, and as that strange light touched everything in the room the entire area changed into something beautiful. I was suddenly transported far off, away from Mobius and somewhere organic. There were flowers like those in the garden I had met Cat in, the petals all sorts of colors, vibrant and attractive like she had once been. The air itself felt fresh, as though each breath I took was filled with some intoxicant, some drug to give me strength. Beneath my feet crunched that which grew forth, and the ceiling was replaced with an endless abyss of blue covered in mild, fluffy white things I’ve come to know as clouds. At the time I didn’t know what clouds were, as I hadn’t explored the files regarding Earth, but now I know that the place I was taken to, the area I was shown, was a field on Earth, a place of beauty and wonder great enough to show our ancestors that life itself was a gift given by a higher power, something you would be hard pressed to convince those living in the inorganic squalor here on this great endless megastructure we call home.

  Earth? What sort of joke is this?

  “I don’t know, but I don’t like it,” I said, confused while I spun around in wonder.

  “You dislike it? How could that be? We scanned everything to be sure that this would be a pleasing vista for you.”

  I continued to spin until the source of the voice showed itself. I’m not really sure what I expected. Maybe I had no expectations. Even so, what I was greeted with was far from anything I may have posited.

  A man stood before me with an aura behind him like some sort of deity, his head crowned with a holy golden halo. He wore a chainlink suit of armor, a primitive piece from head to toe, with metal plate on his shoulders and legs. A dark green tunic covered his chest, and a mantle so dark I couldn’t describe the color was over that. He wielded a strange looking weapon, not a sword or a mace but something in between.

  I should have been worried. But his face was pleasant, warm. Safe.

  “Who are you?” I asked, my Hellwhip still gripped tight in my hands.

  “Me? I am of no importance. I could be anything in the world, human or otherwise. This form was merely chosen after searching your mind.”

  “Strange, I don’t know you,” I said, confused.

  Maybe he’s fictional?

  “Your companion is correct. We searched your subconscious and found this image. Although,” he said as he transformed quickly into Cat, “we could always become something else, whatever you deem most pleasant.”

  Her face was untouched by combat or travel. She was the young woman I had met so long ago, the beautiful, plucky young lady who dreamed of fun adventures. Not the jaded woman I had been traveling with. Not the hopeless, bitter woman who housed an unspoken hatred for me as well as fealty. This was an image I had looked upon for comfort whenever I couldn’t sleep. A woman so perfect to be unreal, imaginary.

  “So all of this is fake then?” I asked with a sigh.

  Don’t be stupid, of course it is.

  With a bright, beaming smile, Cat shrugged in playful agreement before transforming back into the strange man.

  “Sorry, but I’d prefer you to be cognizant not aroused.”

  A pang of pain struck my chest but I nodded.

  “Now then, to begin with I must congratulate you. As it stands right now, no single human has traversed Mobius farther than you have.”

  “Really?” I asked, curious.

  “Humanity has been on a constant pilgrimage forward across Mobius, even as it has continued to build, but many stop and create settlements. Most don’t continue endlessly as Mobius itself. Even if your journey is over here, we must congratulate you on the progress you’ve made as it truly is astounding.”

  Don’t thank this overly polite AI. There’s something obviously wrong about this.

  “Obviously,” the being spoke as it transformed into something else, a tall woman in a long robe, an infant held to her breast. “But you haven’t much of a choice but to listen to me, correct?”

  “Obviously,” I said.

  “Good, well then allow me to get to the point: you are hereby relieved of your duties as the great traveler, the eternal wanderer Pluto.”

  Both Poe and I responded simultaneously.

  What!?

  “It is not as though you have been bad,” the being said as it became new once more, now becoming a child with a tree branch in its hand. “In fact this should be something you celebrate, as you can finally rest.”

  “Then what of the pilgrimage? What of the edge of Mobius?”

  “Edge of Mobius? Come on now, you must have realized the truth by now.”

  When we didn’t reply, the child became an old man, the tree branch became a walking stick, and the sky around us transformed as he showed us Mobius from the outside as though we were floating in space right beside it.

  “Centuries ago now, when humanity was attempting to colonize space in a last ditch effort to leave our apocalyptic home world, they accidentally created Mobius. Now on the surface nothing should have gone wrong. Mobius was merely a space colony, after all. It was meant to have a few robots created using nanotechnology, and the ship itself would be maintained through this budding new wave in science. The humans aboard the ship were all scientists themselves, along with their families, and it was always meant to be a temporary situation while we searched for habitable planets.

  “Now as I understand it, the other colonies never found replacement planets. Our contact with those colonies was cut off nearly a hundred years ago, however, so it’s difficult to say if that is still true. What is true, however, is that Mobius had a chink in its armor, a bug in the system that went unnoticed by everyone involved. Within the depths of the program was a mistake. The Nanos were supposed to be told to only do production for the written schematic, but the value was infinite instead of finite. The Nanos built, and built, and rebuilt endlessly and have continued ever since the program started running.”

  Shaking my head, I said, “Wouldn’t the scientists aboard Mobius try to fix that? I’m sure there were computers for them to use. They built the Nanos themselves, didn’t they?”

  “Just because they could fix it doesn’t mean it was possible. The Nanos were a budding consciousness in the universe, a new form of life, and they wished to create as much as humans did.”

  Do you mean the Nanos stopped the humans from fixing Mobius?

  “I do.”

  The old man waved his hands and we were once more returned to the great field, the false surroundings feeling absurd to me.

  “So you see, Pluto, Poe, Mobius will never cease. You could travel forever and never reach the end. There has been no point in its entirety where the Nanos have halted production. Last time I checked Mobius had more than 1000 strata, and it’s on track to create two strata for every one you traverse. Your mission is hopeless.”

  Staring at the old man confused, I asked, “What am I to do then? If my journey ends without me reaching the end or my own demise, then Nanos will find and kill me. I’ve seen them attempt this first hand.”

  The old man transformed into the younger Cat once more, her smooth fingertips gliding across my worn arm. “Does it look like we are a part of Mobius still? You could stay here forever and never be found. We could do anything here, go wherever you want, experience all the universe has to offer, all that you’ve missed out on in your life. We could be together, Pluto.”

  Now Dante, I know that since you’re hearing what I’m saying you’re well aware that the woman I was speaking to wasn’t actually Cat, or an old man, or some strange warrior or anything else that they appeared to be. Nothing was as it seemed in that strange space. But she knew exactly what to say; the offer was tempting. But I couldn’t accept something like that from a being who was obviously not even human. Especially when I knew that my companions were elsewhere, possibly in grave danger.

  “Where’s Cat? Tom? Oscar?” I asked her, her namesake stealing away her false smile in second.

  “They are safe,” she said. “You have no reason to worry about them here. They will not miss you.”

  “Not miss me?” I scoffed, my hand thrusting out to grab her wrist. “Even if that were true of them—which I doubt, you troubled machine—I will miss them.”

  “I can become whoever you desire,” she said as she transformed into Tom, his form true to life with its lanky metallic shape. “No one is impossible for me to copy. And as I’ve shown you already,” Tom shrunk down and I gasped at the sight of his human form, the one he held when we were young, “I can be anyone from anytime. You will see.”

  Come now, you really think we’ll fall for stupid tricks like this?

  That may have been the most important time Poe every interjected.

  “Thanks Poe,” I mumbled under my breath. “Tell me where my friends are now or I’ll blow this place sky high.”

  The sight of my Hellwhip worried the little lookalike. In no time Tom was replaced with the strange warrior I had seen originally, their unusually dark mantle blending into the new backdrop of endless space, giving the illusion that they were merely a floating head.

  “You will not intimidate me. If you attempt to escape here, I will deal with you myself.”

  Setting the Hellwhip to level four, I pointed it at the floating head, unworried about the consequences.

  “You won’t intimidate me, either. If you refuse to help me then I’ll refuse to listen to you any longer.”

  “So be it.”

  After he said that, everything that happened next was extremely fast. I took a deep breath, preparing myself for the recoil I was about to feel. Then the face of the being transformed, and though it continued to wear that strange mantle its head was now that of a Nano, one I was familiar with. Frightened of. The face of the Executioner was now before me, and the being leaped at me suddenly, and in fear I reset the Hellwhip to level 5 and pulled the trigger fast, doing my best to find my target.

  Then everything went white.

  “It was truly strange,” Pluto said, sitting up in his bed. “The whole experience was intensely real and extremely vivid as well, the surreality of it all so wild it was hard for me to process.”

  Before he could continue with his tale, the door behind Dante exploded open and the two of them turned to face the men in the doorway. Giovanni was there with a few men Dante didn’t recognize, though they were large and intimidating enough for Dante to know intrinsically that this was not going to be a fun visit from his superior.

  “Mr. Pluto,” Giovanni said with a slight bow of introduction.

  “It’s Captain actually,” Pluto said with a smile.

  “Right, Captain Pluto, would you kindly refrain from continuing your tale? The man before you is being relieved of his Recording duties effective immediately.”

  Dante sat there dumbfounded. Pluto was equally confused, looking from Dante to Giovanni.

  “Well considering he won’t ask, may I ask why he’s being relieved?” Pluto asked, sitting at the edge of his bed.

  Giovanni nodded to him. “It has come to the attention of those in power that Mr. Dante has been overstepping his duties. Recording, for instance, can only occur during hours designated for work but Mr. Dante has been overworking you, Captain, and forcing you to do recording sessions during odd hours when you could be getting your rest. In addition to this, we were alerted at 22:35 that there was a disturbance in this room, and when we reviewed the footage it appeared that Mr. Dante was attacking you, Captain. We cannot allow our Recorders to lower themselves to such base behavior. Therefore, we are hereby resigning Mr. Dante this very instant.”

  The entire time Giovanni spoke Dante shared a look with him, one he couldn’t decipher. Whether it was regret or fear, Dante wasn’t sure, but he knew that Giovanni wasn’t acting himself. He hadn’t been acting himself the entire day.

  That didn’t make his forced resignation sting any less.

  The two brutish men came forward with the official form, and Dante signed, initialed, signed, then signed again that he was hereby relieved of any and all Recording duties and would be forfeiting over any government owned property within the next 48 hours.

  When all of it was set, the two men left before Giovanni. Looking from one to the next, Giovanni said, “You have a moment to sort yourselves out before the nurse comes in to take care of Mr… I mean, the good Captain. Once you’re finished come see me in my office, Mr. Dante. The other one.”

  And he was off, gone, and the room was still shrouded in awkward silence.

  “None of that made any sense,” Pluto said out of nowhere. Dante just stared into his hands.

  “I mean, sure you probably shouldn’t have done those things. But it was obvious he didn’t want to let you go, and the papers he had you sign were stupid too. You still have plenty of time to ask me all the questions you need to.”

  Dante immediately perked up.

  “You’re right… why would he allow for that?”

  Pluto shrugged. “Well there’s a chance they’ll have a new Recorder talking with me tomorrow during regular work hours, right?”

  Dante was about to agree but shook his head. “Actually no. We haven’t got many Recorders to begin with, but seeing as your case is nearly here and I’ve already recorded nearly all that was possible, they wouldn’t go out of their way to replace me on short notice for you. At this point it would be a waste of time when as you’ve pointed out, they will be asking you about 995 during the trial anyway.”

  “So then, did he just give you a free pass to speak to me?”

  Dante nodded.

  “But why?”

  “Pluto, I’m going to go see my boss for a while. If I don’t return to speak with you, would you be able to meet me on the sixtieth level? There’s an elevator at the end of your hall.”

  Dante left his recording device with Pluto, hiding it under his pillow. Then he ran to Giovanni’s second office.

  The commissary.

  Years ago, when Dante had first entered the commissary for his rest, he had thought the place to be quaint and homey. Sure it wasn’t some incredible holy ground or a place to be revered and loved, it was still merely a place of recharging through eating, but the environment itself was meant to be imprinted on you with its quiet colors and soft seats. The people working there to prepare the food were nice and always the same. The food itself was always the same too, just as good as always with reasonable portions. The repetition of going there daily meant a missed day of commissary food would cause you to feel something like pain but not quite. Dante had been neglecting visits to the commissary to focus more on Pluto, a case he’d found to become more and more important the more he heard from him.

  However, Pluto’s words had an averse affect on Dante, more than just his own belief that perhaps Pluto had been telling the truth, for now the commissary, a place Dante had always looked forward to as a safe haven meant for him, was now akin to the trough Pluto had mentioned in his first recording session, and now Dante could do nothing but look at the small seats, the machines filled with simple junk food, the cooks preparing the same tired recipes, and think that perhaps what was once comfortable never truly was, but was instead a mere satiation of primal desires designed by a mechanical governing body, just something to keep those with biology in line.

  He felt sick just thinking about it.

  Giovanni sat in his usual booth, a spot with a view of the Hell reactor in the center of 999. As usual, Giovanni had a plate set for Dante ready to go. It was the sixth day of the week, normally a cause for celebration for Dante as today meant a meal of chicken, rice, and vegetables. Dante sat looking at the meal, something once appetizing, and feeling a sense of uncertainty about it. He wondered if any of it was even real, or if it was merely printed slop.

  “Well, go on,” Giovanni urged, his fork filled with meat and rice.

  “I’m not really that hungry,” Dante said, the disgust palpable in his voice.

  Sighing, Giovanni said, “I know we aren’t exactly on the best of terms now, but don’t take your sour feelings out on your stomach. Eat up, this might be the last time you get food for a while.”

  “What do you mean? Am I in more trouble than just beating on a criminal?”

  His mouth full, Giovanni chewed thoughtfully before swallowing, his eyes unblinking at Dante.

  “There isn’t a lot that I can tell you. Much of what is going on is highly classified. But I didn’t stop you from being a Recorder because I thought you were bad at your job. You must know by now that I haven’t cared about your work hours, right? I’ve known since the beginning that you were a workhorse, always trying to get the most out of your Recording spots. I also know you only worked hard hours with criminals who were particularly interesting, those who you felt could net you the most important information. You were good. Probably the best Recorder we’ve had in years.”

  Dante scoffed at him. “And yet you fire me. For what, beating on a man who’s to be dead in a few days?”

  “You don’t know that,” Giovanni said quietly, stuffing more food in his mouth.

  “Oh come on, Gio. We both know that a crime as heinous as his will net him death ten times over in our court. He’s been dead since we caught him.”

  Giovanni scraped the plate clean, then took a sip of his drink.

  “Dante, 999 might not even be here tomorrow.”

  The grave face and deep tone was all it took for Dante to become a more obedient listener.

  “As I said before, I can’t tell you much. Not only because of how classified everything is but in all honesty we aren’t entirely sure what is happening ourselves. All I can say is if you have any desire to live you have to gather your things and head upward. To 1000. This place is as good as dead, probably more sure than Captain Pluto is dead.”

  His mind swirling, Dante didn’t even notice his hand habitually grab his fork and begin stuffing piles of rice into his mouth, the food a mild comfort. There was little information on 1000, but from his understanding above the governing body of 995 through 999, there was a great wasteland, a near endless abyss of metal corpses and Nano brigands running amok, destroying all that attempt to move upwards. Dante could barely run down the hall without getting winded. There was little doubt in his mind that he could never survive the mythical land above his head.

  “You realize that me attempting to live the life of a wayward spirit would be a death sentence in itself, right?”

  Giovanni smiled sadly to his friend.

  “You sell yourself short. You might be unable to do much physically, but you are a resourceful man. I’m sure you’ll come up with a plan. Either way, you must leave. For your own safety.”

  Midway through chewing his food, Dante’s eyes grew wide as he understood something of his friend.

  “What about you, Gio? Will you come with me to 1000?”

  His friends sad smile seemed to shed its own tears.

  “Maybe if I wasn’t who I was I could travel with you, my friend,” he said with a somber voice. “Unfortunately, with my position I must go down with the strata. So long as you escape I will feel I’ve done my part.”

  Dante took a sip of his drink, the sweet carbonation doing little to alleviate his stress. He pushed his plate forward for what he worried would be the last time. Then he lied to Giovanni.

  “If I go to 1000 I will stay there for a while. Maybe a few weeks. Then I’ll come back here, you can reinstate me as a Recorder, and we can talk about our experiences. We’ll discuss what will happen over the next few weeks right here, over food as we always have. All will be well, Gio, you’ll see.”

  Giovanni stood up and clasped his friends hand firmly as if he weren’t certain he should let go.

  “I’ll see you around Dante. I hope that your trip to 1000 will be filled with wonder and happiness. Perhaps all of this is much like an old idea from Earth. Have you heard of the concept of a blessing?”

  Dante had. “A religious idea, isn’t it?”

  “In some ways,” Giovanni said. “But the concept transcends such notions when applied to the ancient saying, ‘A blessing in disguise.’ The idea is that a horrible occurrence in your life may actually be something that leads to a wonderful time, something terrible might just be too important to avoid. It’s a blessing in disguise.”

  “And you think that all of this might be a blessing?”

  Giovanni finally let go of his hand with a sigh, the lines around his eyes appearing deep under the steady glow of the Hell reactor.

  “I truly hope so.”