DUNN (again)
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Chapter 26
I woke up in a thicket of bushes, my back sore and my head throbbing. The creatures were gone and the early evening of Dunn was upon me. A passerby scoffed at me under their breath and as I sat up I saw that I was in Verham still and just outside the Mayor’s house. I breathed a sigh of relief and looked up towards the side of the building to see the black opening in the side Drew’s attic wall high above me. Nothing was coming out after me and for when I realized that, I dropped back down and closed my eyes.
A few minutes later after officially getting over what had transpired I stood and entered Drew’s house again. I came upstairs, past the still sleeping Killian and climbed the ladder to the attic to surprise Drew from behind. I tapped him on the shoulder and he screamed as his concentration on the portal was diverted causing it to close. In an exhausted and surprised look he slumped back into a chair and asked me how I got back, “I think that portal is accessible from both sides, I entered this way,” I said pointing towards the wall in which the portal sat against, “but and exited it that direction. When I came back I was running and entered it from this way too but exited…”
“Out the side of the house?” Drew said shocked, I nodded and picked a bramble out of my hair. He laughed a little and after a beat said, “Wait, why were you running?”
I had thought this over while lying in the bushes and despite the terrifying nature of the creatures that existed on the other side the fact that they didn’t follow me through felt important. I had yet to fully understand what their intention was but it seemed something brought on through the stopping of the code, something specific to that state of things and on top of all that; it wasn’t anything worth worrying about right now, so I decided not to tell him. What I did share however was everything else I had encountered including the state of the world.
“So even if we go back…” Drew started,
“It’s basically a frozen world.” I finished and took a drink from my waterskin. We sat for a moment in silence and contemplated our options. After a long pause Drew said,
“Alright, correct me if I’m wrong but this is my understanding,” he stood and began to pace, “The Code isn’t creating anything new, it’s only recording things that already exist, things that are real or as much as it believes are real. That’s why when you spoke to Jessica she showed up in a line of the code.” I nodded along and added,
“Yes it allowed me to…” I paused for a second and then powered through, feeling terrible once again about my actions, “change the way that she felt about me, but only after she was added to the code.”
“Right,” he said, “but it didn’t create her from nothing is what I’m getting at; she existed beforehand. The same way I’m here because I called you and was added as a line to the code. Just like Marcus and just like the places you visited.” He paused and thought before continuing, “That means the real world exists as it is. That’s why you saw it frozen, regardless of what The Code wants that is still the only, real world.”
I nodded and sat down on the large couch he had stashed up here,
“When you launched Dunn on your computer the code interpreted it as reality and changed everything we see. It used the ‘rules’”, he said with air quotes, “of the real world to make things you created fit pretty darn close but only the people already written in the code were carried over putting everything else in stasis.”
“Right and it deleted my file,” I said
Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
“Of Dunn?” Drew asked confused, “Yes, well when I launched Kappa it brought her into reality but deleted her from my computer, making this the only version.” I said and Drew’s pondered on what that meant. After a moment I added, “So far as I could tell at least.”
“Either way that means that the code is still running. It’s running right now and as you said there was power on back at home. It’s safe to assume then that your computer is still running, adding lines of code like the conversation we’re having right now.”
“Okay but how do we fix it?” I asked. Drew bite his lip and said,
“Why don’t we just go back and delete all the lines up until you first launched Dunn?”
I shook my head no, “Even if that didn’t delete us and every other real person here, it would only keep the pieces of the real world I interacted with; the forest, my house, my lawn and the handful of you.” Drew pursed his lips and said,
“Then I guess turning it off would be a bad idea too, eh?”
I shrugged, “Maybe, who knows? It could fix all this or delete us from existence in an instant.” I said flatly. Drew didn’t react and after a beat in a deadpan tone said,
“Let’s call that plan B then, shall we?”
I smiled and said, “What does that make Plan A?” Drew slumped down in the couch next to me and sighed in defeat.
“Damned if I know. Even if we could sort this mess out it’s not like we have another Dunn.” He said and somewhere deep in the back of my brain a spark began to glow.
Careful not to extinguish it I casually said, “What do you mean another Dunn?”
“Well,” Drew said in a way that sounded like he was talking without thinking, “I guess if we had a copy of Dunn that wasn’t in the code we could retroactively run it through the code and remove it.”
“Would that work?” I asked as the spark grew to a small flame.
“Yes of course, it’s like find and replace on word. We could easily remove just the Dunn program lines. That would force the code to remove all traces of it and would set the reality back to normal however even if we took a copy from the code we’re currently in, it would find and replace us out of existence. Besides, it would be impossible to do while we’re in the code and as you’ve already said, you don’t have a backup.”
For a moment I could feel my heart race but I couldn’t tell why. It was as if my body knew the solution before my mind did but I could feel the excitement in my rising,
“No, I don’t have a backup; all my files were on the computer or my USB – both of which were lost.” I said as I searched my mind and then all at once it hit me, “but I did leave a backup on the computer at the library.”
Slowly Drew turned to me and I could see the excitement behind his eyes as he stood up,
“Okay, okay, let’s not get ahead of ourselves.” He said and I nodded eagerly and he began to list the steps as he counted his fingers, “First we’d need to open a gateway to the library and get you a USB,” I nodded, “but that’s not too hard because there are plenty in my desk there.” I stood up excitedly beside him as he continued to walk through the steps, “then we need to get you back to your house and run the find and replace on the code that’s running on your computer right now,” I was almost about to talk over him.
“Which is easy,” I half asked but more answered for him, he nodded and continued.
“Then if we delete all the unaffected original Dunn line from the code, it has nothing to run.” Suddenly I could feel the raising of a red flag.
“Won’t the code start populating Dunn if we’re standing in it though?” Drew made a face of intense thought and said,
“Yes but not if we’re all through the portal as well; if we’re all standing in the real world, then it has nothing to create.”
“But how will you…” I was about to say but how will you keep the portal open when he brushed me off and continued on,
“When the lines are replaced the real world will be the only reality the code knows and…” a smile crept on his face and despite my momentary hesitation about how we would keep the portal open, I smiled too.
“I think we solved it.” I said as I threw my arms around him. Drew and I jumped up and down yipping and laughing for a good minute before the sound of Killian clearing his throat stopped us. We turned to the ladder that led down to see Killian, having woken from his sleep, standing there watching us.
“We figured out a way to get home Killian!” I said to which he replied,
“Well done laddie, now do it without waking the dead.” With a slam he shut the attic door leaving both Drew and I in a fit of laughter.