As Momo popped out of Mordecai’s domain, she found herself in the absolute cherry pit of the Nether. Hundreds upon hundreds of little Nether bubbles surrounded her. Tiny snow globes brimming with life. Well, afterlife. It was an overwhelming amount of options. But she just needed to pick one—just one—and make it count. There was no more time. There was no more running.
Congratulations! As it turns out, violence is always the answer! And stabbing eyeballs, apparently. For outmaneuvering a, in Mordecai’s words, “literal god,” you have reached level 3 in Nether Demon (Purified Variant).
You have gained the skill [Replicant Area — Create]: A spell which exists in opposition to the default Nether Demon skill, [Replicant Area — Destroy], this skill allows you to create a replicant area. System dialogues with further information will follow once you use this skill. This skill can only be used three times, so spend wisely.
“Holy shit,” Momo mumbled. “This is perfect.”
She could, of course, just jump into one of the other myriad worlds surrounding her, but she couldn’t be certain of what would be waiting inside them. At the very least, Sera’s Nether policemen would be heavily surveilling the area. And if they spotted her, Sera would follow soon behind.
But if she could craft her own replicant area… Then she could create a safe haven for the souls, with no police jurisdiction. Just a place for them to thrive, unbothered. Like they were always meant to.
She didn’t give it any more thought. She cast the spell, and as promised, several more pieces of parchment spawned in front of her.
Area to replicate?*
* This place must exist inside Morgana’s domain. (For a list of planets and universes inside Morgana’s domain, please see a System Customer Service Portal.) This area also must be approximately the size of a town square, a small village, or roughly 120 attached living rooms. You cannot, for example, write Africa, which is a continent, although many mortals seem unaware of this fact. You can however specify a specific address in Cape Town, and we’ll try our best.
“An address? That’s so specific.”
Momo knew very few addresses. There was her childhood home, her dorm—which she only knew because she’d regularly order packages from Amazon instead of leaving the house—and the run-down pharmacy where she’d regularly pick up her ADHD medication. She had been hoping to create a replicant area which mirrored something vague but cozy, like a little Christmas village, but she didn’t exactly know any addresses in rural Switzerland.
“Ugh, I don’t have time for this.”
She took her quill and hastily wrote down the pharmacy address.
83 Sherman Rd, Albny, USA
Spelling error in original entry detected.
“Aw damn it,” Momo said, noticing it immediately. She had left out the second a in Albany. She went to fix it, holding up her quill, but the paper had already disappeared, another dialogue box appearing in place of it.
The A.I. Spelling Agent has fixed your error.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
Momo’s brow dropped skeptically. “Oh, okay…?”
New Location:
234x4gs2 43x34g, A District, L Continent, B. A.FORMER-NY, USA
“What the hell. No,” Momo said, slapping the paper. “No, that’s not what I want! Go back! I thought God’s personal spell check would be better than this!”
Location accepted.
Location data being analyzed …
Location data transferring to the Nether …
Replicant Area being built …
Area added to registry of replicant zones …
Welcome to 234x4gs2 43x34g!
A portal opened, a bubble swelling around it. Before Momo knew what was happening, she was being sucked in, kicking and screaming.
—-
When she came to, she was met with the eyes—if one could call them that—of a robot. It was a beaten up rectangular thing, kind of like a mini-fridge, with two blinking digital eye sockets, and it was studying her in awed silence. A small camera in its iris zoomed in and out on her.
Disoriented, she sat up, and the robot made an anxious buzzing sound before backing away, its wheels whizzing through the moist soil. It sounded like a car that had been caught in a ditch. Its white metal frame was severely dented, and its label, District A Localized Scouting Vessel, was smudged nearly to nonexistence.
“Hi there,” Momo groaned, rubbing her eyes. “Is this an afterlife for… robots?”
The robot made a series of beeping sounds she couldn’t decipher.
“Good, glad we settled that, then,” she muttered, backing up until she brushed against the trunk of a tree. She was in a small clearing in the middle of a wide deciduous forest—birch, oak, and maple for as far as the eye could see. It was plausibly something she’d find in Upstate New York, not that she got out hiking much, or at all.
A nearby sign confirmed her suspicions. It was an eroded trail map. This forest was part of some kind of old national park. Taconic Ridge State Forest, to be specific. Although that name had been mostly crossed out in red ink, and replaced with a white and black sticker which just contained numbers and letters.
The robot rolled up to her bravely, beeping at something on the ground.
She looked down at her feet and saw a strange headset looking thing. It had an attached microphone, and earmuffs. Momo picked it up, and the robot started beeping even more.
“Look dude, I really—this place is cool and all—but I seriously have to deal with a very pressing matter,” she said, but its beeping only got more insistent. “Fine! Fine! I’ll put on the headset, and then you have to leave me alone, okay?”
The beeping stopped, satisfied.
She slipped on the headset. Nothing happened.
“Thing’s dead, dude,” she mumbled. “Sorry.”
The robot beeped angrily again, nearly jumping up and down as it tried to communicate something.
“Oh—” She fiddled with the microphone, and her finger found a button. “You mean this—?”
A startup noise played.
Advanced Morse Code Translation Feature Activated
A strange voice began to overlay through the headset as the robot beeped excitedly.
“Human! Human! Human!”
Momo blinked slowly, processing. “A… what? You mean me?”
The robot wheeled back and forth with delight. “Yes! Human! Human creator has returned! District A Localized Scouting Vehicle is no longer alone!”
“Returned?”
“Yes!” it beeped happily. “Human creator leave. Human – all human – go extinct. Only robot remain. Only scouting vehicle. Many years pass. Feel emotion. Sadness. Stuck in mud. Cannot return to other robots. But, human is here now. With wings and horns. I do not remember wings and horns. But still, human! Human!”
It began to get stuck on a loop, just playing the same sound over and over again. Momo felt suddenly sad for the little refrigerator. Even if he wasn’t real, per se, he was a flickering mirror image of a real thing. He had existed somewhere, at some point.
She hated to get his hopes up.
“Well, I mean, yes, but I actually can’t stay—”
Wait.
Duh.
“Robot, can you stay quiet for just a little bit?”
The robot paused, ceasing its torrent of obsessive beeping.
“Human leaving?” it said after a moment. The disappointed tone of the beeps nearly pushed a dagger through Momo’s heart.
“Human not leaving,” she said, shaking her head adamantly. “Human bringing more humans.”
“Oh! Yes! Human! Human! Human — I be quiet.”
It wheeled itself into a corner, and shut off. Momo sighed. She returned to her tree, sat down, and retrieved the Wraith Box from her coat pocket.
Time to end this.
Curling her wings around her, she opened her third eye.