Interlude: Echelon

Sixty-six years ago:

Sergei sat down to dinner with his parents. Though the fare was simple and required no preparation, his mother insisted that the family eat together. It seemed arbitrary and unnecessary to Sergei, but he had learned to shape his outer-facing self to accord with the irrational rules and customs of human society.

As always, his father was exhausted, slumped down in his chair. Sergei could see his hand tremble when he brought the food bar to his mouth. One important rule that Sergei had learned recently was not to ask Father questions before he had completed at least three-quarters of the meal.

Instead, he told his parents about his day, starting with everything he had learned about Intelligence. Intelligence had been an obsession of his for years now, stemming from an early misunderstanding he had as he navigated the internet archive soon after he received his system. Now, of course, he understood the difference between intelligence as mental capacity and intelligence as information gathering, but at the time, the difference had not been clear. Even now, he wasn’t entirely sure if the difference was a true difference, or just a different side of a two sided object.

At this point, it didn’t matter how he had started. Intelligence was his thing.

“Operation Zapata is an example of failed intelligence,” he told his parents. “It resulted in the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion. Inspector General Kirkpatrick determined that...”

He regaled his mother and father with the details for another twenty minutes.

“That’s wonderful, dear,” his mother said. “How was the Inside today? Did you meet anyone new?”

His mother always wanted to know if he had met anyone. Sometimes, Sergei suspected it might be her thing.

“I went back to the town. It was daytime and there were too many people, so I left,” he explained.

“That’s all right. You remember what I always say?”

“Yes, Mother. Baby steps.”

He was once again thankful for his outer-facing self. It bypassed his objection that she did not, in fact, always say ‘baby steps’, and even provided the context for him to understand the expected response. He had appreciated the importance of small increments for years, but his outward-facing self allowed him to follow the social convention that he should pretend that his mother’s suggestion was currently valuable.

“What I don’t understand,” his father broke in, “is why the boy hasn’t learned anything useful.”

Sergei was used to his father talking as if he wasn’t there.

His mother tsked. “Now Petro, just look at the difference over the past two years. Seryozha is like a different boy. What more could we have asked for? It’s a miracle if you ask me.”

She gave Sergei a fond look and patted him on the hand. He stopped himself from flinching.

His father grumbled. “The boy’s seventeen. Now that he can act like a normal person, he needs to start pulling his weight. I don’t know much about this Inside thing, but Jensen’s boy is pulling in almost a credit a week. If he keeps that up, he might pay the damn thing off ahead of schedule.”

This had become a familiar refrain for the past few months. Sergei couldn’t understand why his father expressed the same basic thought so often. He thought there might be something wrong with the man.

Soon, dinner was complete and Sergei returned to his cot and logged Inside. There was Runk, waiting for him as if he had never left.

“Hello, Runk. Can you show me where you found the other rocks?” said Sergei.

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Chapter 32: Reunion

The Sage is watching. Great. I’m going to assume he’s not talking about the plant. Although why not? I bet there used to be lots of sage near Taos. Except that was sagebrush, which is completely different. And I bet Taos is under several hundred feet of ice. So thanks for the hot tip, Henry.

Lilijoy realized her mind was babbling.

Okay. Pull it together. Henry Choi isn’t just broken, he’s in pieces, pieces that aren’t in agreement. One of those pieces gave me that message, and then deleted itself so the others wouldn’t know.

This much seem evident. Her own experiences during her brain meltdown seemed to confirm that it was possible. If her brain had been damaged more extensively, her Stage Two thoughts wouldn’t have had any anchor. Even when she was Dark and Light Lilijoys, she could feel the two narratives drifting apart. Henry Choi’s system must have been much more developed, more advanced, so she could only imagine what kind of divergence would occur.

And now I know I grew up in a Tao Systems testing facility. Something cataclysmic happened there, something that nearly killed everyone, probably did kill some. Something that caused the whole area to be irradiated, that caused an explosion within the facility itself. Henry blames himself for it, that seems clear enough. Or at least the part I talked to. I don’t even know if that’s the same part that gave me the message. How many pieces of Henry Choi are there?

She knew it would take her some time to process everything she had learned, but the feeling of getting closer to the answers was satisfying. The only problem was his advice at the end of the message. If she understood it correctly, he wanted her to erase her memory but keep the results. It reminded her a bit of Marcus’ technique for processing someone else’s Rules.

So I would need to give myself a plausible reason to travel to glacial New Mexico, and then delete the actual reason. If I want to know that Henry Choi is split, and the parts don’t agree, then I need to find some other reason I could have come to that conclusion, create some other reasoning that would allow me to discover the information. Or I can ignore his suggestion.

Ignoring Henry’s suggestion to erase her memories seemed awfully attractive. She had a hard time imagining what the consequences could be for her if she didn’t. There was one last thing mentioned in the message that was bothering her. Zone of control. What did that mean? Just what exactly was being controlled?

She thought about what she had already been able to do with her chain of midges, then extrapolated that to independent Tao System nanobots, spread across a large area. If she was going to remain in a single place for a long time, she wouldn’t want them flying or floating around; wind and rain would be too disruptive. But there were plenty of places where Tao system units could shelter, protected from the elements, surrounded by tissues that produced energy directly from the sun.

They’re in the plants. I bet the trees I climbed, and the grasses I wove, and the cattails I ate were full of them. Or I’m just being paranoid. But if that’s the case, why hide in the lower level? If the entire area is permeated with the Tao System, they could commandeer anyone who came close. Sinaloa would never have been a danger to them.

Part of her was tempted to turn around, just to verify or disprove her theory. The rest of her thought about her conversation with Anda, the conversation she was still having, she realized.

Now where were we? Right, slowing down.

“I think slowing down sounds fantastic,” she replied. “Any ideas where we should go to do it?”

“I know just the place,” he said. “It’s time I introduced you to my friends in the Tesla Clan.”

***

What Anda didn’t mention was that the trip would take four days. And include a stop in New Manaus. Lilijoy was beginning to feel like that might be an obligatory stop for every journey she would ever take.

This time, she simply stayed in the hovercar while Anda procured supplies, feeling like she had enough to handle without any more encounters with Antimony. Plus, it was just about time for her to rejoin the Inside anyway. She had become quite proficient at dividing herself between the two worlds, so she didn’t feel vulnerable at all sending most of her awareness Inside, though she did arrange a small patrol of midges around the hovercar while its fuel cells were recharging.

Soon, she rejoined her friends on the last couple hours of their journey home. Her Inside body had been dutifully marching behind Jessila and Skria when she left, and not much had changed.

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“Hey guys! How’s the trip been?” she asked.

Skria made a little noise and jumped off of Jessila’s shoulder, then circled around to land next to Lilijoy.

“You surprised me!” she said. “It has been so very, very boring. Walking and walking.”

Lilijoy gave her a sideways glance. “You’ve been walking?”

Skria waved her hand. “It doesn’t matter who was walking, just that there was far too much of it.”

Jessila grunted.

Skria leaned over to Lilijoy and whispered. “Jessila has even stopped talking. She said it was just encouraging me to talk more. Can you believe it?”

Lilijoy made a noncommittal noise. “At least we’re almost there. Why don’t we think of a fun way to pass the time?”

Skria looked at Jessila’s back. “See!” she yelled to her. “Other people like fun!”

Jessila grunted. Lilijoy wasn’t sure if she should be concerned for the big girl or not.

“I know!” said Lilijoy. “Use your air magic to lift me up. Then I can practice gliding.”

Skria gave her a skeptical look.

“Hey, I survived being thrown off the Greatwood. Don’t tell me your magic isn’t strong enough," Lilijoy protested.

“My wind spell isn’t the issue. You just don’t look like you would glide very far.” said Skria. “You never did explain how you managed to survive that fall.”

Lilijoy put on her best innocent expression, a bit sad she was keeping Nandi’s boon a secret for now. “Just lucky I guess. Rosemallow’s Gravity Grenade didn’t hurt either.”

Soon Lilijoy was being held aloft on a column of air. She was pretty sure that her Gliding skill wasn’t doing much, but it was still a fun way to pass the time. After Skria got a little low on mana, they both practiced their Acrobatics, tumbling and leaping all around a disgruntled Jess. Lilijoy had raised her Power stat up to an eighteen and her Acrobatics magi skill up to Enhanced since the last time she had been able to leap and tumble, and she was amazed by just how much higher she could jump. Soon she was doing quadruple flips and somersaults with ease. When she added her Flash into the mix it was almost silly how high she could soar.

“How do you use your Flash at the same time as Acrobatics?” Skria inquired, when they had both had enough. “There’s no way you were moving so fast without Flash, but I always have to drop one or the other.”

The discussion about mana types, and how to keep them separate, occupied the rest of the trip. Soon the sun began to set on the perpetual day of the instanced travel, preparing them for an evening arrival. The land around them gradually began to resemble the terrain around the academy, and though there was never a distinct point when they knew the instanced travel was complete, the sight of the Academy building against the night sky let them know that their journey had reached an end.

***

I’m back. Yay? Lilijoy searched her feelings for a moment before deciding. Yay.

There was something about returning, she decided, that made you wonder if you ever left at all. When she had walked through the door of Night’s Safety she had been preoccupied by the missing tribe, but walking through the front door of the Academy brought some of the other feelings she had experienced at the time to mind. Emotions she had no name for.

What’s the word for the feeling you get when you come home and feel like an earlier version of yourself? Or maybe I just miss the innocence of that self? Bits of nostalgia crossed with mono-no aware. Whatever it is, I’m sure there’s an Insider who’s obsessed with it.

Her reverie was broken by a most unwelcome source.

“Well honey! It’s just so great to see you back! I just love the way you’ve done your hair.”

Antimony. And my hair is the exact same as it was last time you saw me Inside.

Blond and shiny as always, Antimony was clearly toning down her accent, but not her personality. The irony of staying out of New Manaus to avoid this exact encounter was not lost on Lilijoy.

“I was just thinking about you and our little chat,” Antimony continued. “I hope you’ve been thinking about it too.” She lowered her voice, “This past week has been positively unbearable. Those boys! I only gained one level and I respawned twice. Twice! I sure hope you can help a girl out.”

Suddenly, all of Lilijoy’s problems, with Antimony anyway, were solved.

I don’t need to solve every problem, she realized. Sometimes, I can just outgrow them.

“I’m so sorry, Antimony,” she said, keeping her voice as sweet as possible. “But I seem to have leveled out of your cohort. I’m afraid it just can’t work out.”

She displayed her level sixteen status to the girl, enjoying the way her eyes widened. Antimony made a few stuttering sounds while Lilijoy moved past her.

Should I feel bad that that was satisfying? she asked herself. Another thought occurred to her. I hope I can still group with Skria and Jess.

She had decided to stay at the Academy for at least another term or two. She still had plenty to learn about arrays, and crafting, and hopefully magic. If she could get a source from her Trial world.

With another few steps she entered the small stone chamber with a huge wooden desk. Mumo sat behind the desk, looking bored to death as always, braiding his hairless tails in the air behind him while shuffling something around on the desk top.

There was always something about Mumo’s morose attitude that made Lilijoy overcompensate.

“Hello, Mumo!” she chirped. “I met a friend of yours.”

He looked down at her with a blank expression. “How nice for you.”

Lilijoy was used to Mumo’s facade by now, and plowed ahead. “Or I think she’s a friend. Maybe an admirer? Her name was Nyk-”

“Wait just a second,” Mumo interrupted. “What is it with you new students knowing Nykka? You’re the second one this week.”

Lilijoy got excited. “That’s why I came here right away! I need to find that other student, but I don’t know his Inside name.”

Mumo studied the claws on his left hand. “Typical. It’s all about what you want.”

I knew I should have stopped by the pond to get a fish! Who thought it would be a good idea to give Mumo the receptionist job? Lilijoy wondered.

She knew better than to say as much out loud. She would have chocked it up as more evidence that the true goal of the Academy was to create as much emotional drama as possible, but her internet memory told her that working as a receptionist was some kind of strange attractor inevitably pulling in all the apathy across a region proportional to the time they had been employed.

“I’m sorry Mumo,” she said. “I wanted to talk about Nykka, then find out how you’ve been, but when you mentioned the other student I got excited.”

Mumo waved her off. “Nah. You’re one of the good ones. I shouldn’t give you a hard time. It’s just a habit I suppose. The student you are looking for goes by the name Finch. Don’t ask me where he is though. Even if I knew, I couldn’t tell you.”

Finch. That’s probably not a good sign. I hope there’s some Attaboy left.

It struck her that the alternative explanation for his name, besides naming himself after the fictional attorney Atticus Finch, was that he had somehow become enmeshed with Magpie’s group. They seemed to like naming themselves after birds.

Or it could be both. Why not?

Now that she was so close to reuniting, she couldn’t stop a sense of rising dread. It was what Mooster had said to her just before she and Anda were ejected.

Join Atticus if you must.

She had passed it off as Mooster referring to Attaboy. Truth be told, she had been reluctant to consider it closely. Now that she was, possibly, minutes away from seeing Attaboy, the words kept surfacing in her thoughts. Join Atticus.

Join him in what? What does Mooster know?

She had been in the habit of thinking of Mooster as one of the Tao zombies, another unwitting participant in the schemes of whoever was behind… everything. Now she understood that he was something more, possibly much more.

Who is the Sage?

She thought she might know.

Mumo interrupted her train of thought. “While I can’t tell you Finch’s location, I have summoned him to this room. I would like to remind you that I am particularly fond of fish.”

“Thanks,” Lilijoy squeezed out, around her growing anxiety. Her system was keeping her body in check, but also allowing her thoughts to spin faster than ever. It was an uncomfortably detached feeling, but she was reluctant to override her emotions with something more pleasant. It seemed to her that controlling her emotions was a tool best saved for situations where her survival was in doubt. To distract herself, she focused inward, following her emotions as they fell into her soul vortex.

I wish this could be joyful anticipation.

She watched her emotions rise and fall for a long time.

***

“Hello?”

Lilijoy looked up. Standing at the room’s entrance was a young man.

That’s not Attaboy, she thought. He’s too tall. His voice is too low.

She looked again, and his eyes found her, and she knew.

“Attaboy?”

He rushed across the room and stooped to hold her.

“I’ve missed you,” was all he said.

“You got tall,” she replied, fighting back tears.

“Only compared to you.”

She squeezed him in protest.

“Oof! I may be taller, but you got strong! Pinton would be so happy.”

She released him to look up at his face. He looked different. Still Attaboy, but something else as well. Atticus. He looks like Atticus.

“I can’t believe it’s you. You and...”

“Ahem!” Mumo cleared his throat. “I’m sure this is all very necessary, but perhaps you could go elsewhere for your tearful reunion?”

They left Mumo’s room and walked with no goal in particular, other than avoiding anyone else.

“I thought you were dead,” she said.

“I was,” he replied.

There wasn’t much to say to that.

She took his hand and they walked. Together. At last.

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Epilogue: The Sage

The Sage looked over the wind-lashed hills far below, staff across his lap. He cast his mind down the cliffs of ice and rock, past the talus slopes, through the gnarled first trees into the valley where his charges roamed.

Or were they his wardens?

The distinction was unimportant.

For now.

He pulled his inner gaze back. All was as it should be.

Wait.

Something has changed, he thought.

Is it her again? Maybe this time she will answer my questions.

His mind contracted as several contingent programs activated, programs he now remembered creating for these occasions. It was not a pleasant process, but what he needed to do next would be less pleasant still. An area of his mind had been opened, a dark antithesis of everything he desired.

He cast his inner gaze upon the abyss of suffering, heard the screams of the damned rise up, cries of utter despair, all sharing one voice.

His voice.

Must I? he asked. It hurts.

He watched the thought rise. When it did not fall, he knew he must face his inner demons. Only they could be responsible for the disturbance he sensed in the material world. He must face the fundamental truth of his existence. When he was done, he would purge the unwanted memories, and a new voice would join the choir of the damned.

He began the ritual, the words that would cast him back down, into the pain of his past life.

“My name is Henry Choi. One hundred and fifty three years ago I killed my wife and son with my own foolishness. I killed and maimed my brothers with my own carelessness. I destroyed the world with my own arrogance.”

He watched the words hang in the air, watched them rise.

When they fell, he fell with them.

End, Book 2