James had literally millions of battles going. Skirmishes between anomaly-bonded humans in Madagascar. A Qishi-Danger merge in Florida that had already consumed the Keys. Impossibly strong gravity switches across France. His tentacles had spread across Earth as Merge Prime expanded, and now he was everywhere, bringing more and more processing loops online so every System user had their own unique James personality.
The nanosecond SHOCKS Headquarters Victoria/Vancouver Island’s breach alarm triggered, every one of those loops went on the back burner.
A breach alarm could mean a lot of things. One of the Anquan objects could be acting up, or the Qishi-Danger stabilized seismic field under the Puget Sound could be moving. But within a quarter second, James had narrowed it down to one subject—a Xuduo-Danger, sound-based anomaly.
The voiceless singer was free.
He could tell by the microphones in that wing losing their feeds, then regaining them one after another, and by the visible void in space moving down the hall. And he could also tell by the areas around it flashing breach, then stopping.
None of the anomalies SHOCKS VVI contained wanted anything to do with the voiceless singer. James didn’t, either. But he knew someone—or something—that would.
In the half-second before James locked down the Pendletons’ and Itos’ wing, he flipped through what documentation SHOCKS had for the new anomaly. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to know a lockdown was the only way to get out of this with SHOCKS, the Experimental Sector, and—most importantly—Claire, intact.
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SHOCKS Headquarters, Victoria, British Columbia - June 8, 2043, 6:05 PM
- - - - -
Adrenaline dumps into my veins like the time the hot water heater broke and I had to take ice-cold showers in February. The room—no, right now it’s a cell—the cell presses in around me, white walls almost spinning as my muscles tighten. I need to do something. To move. To fight. To escape.
But James’s voice is there. [Don’t panic,] he says. Yeah, right. I’m stuck in a box in SHOCKS, just like I wanted to avoid. [The voiceless singer breached containment 5.32 seconds ago. I’m locking down the whole facility until a response plan takes shape. I’ve also opened up communications with Lieutenant Rodriguez and Director Ramirez. They’re still in their initial panic, but SHOCKS training is taking over.]
“I don’t care. Let me out!” I yell. I rush toward it and pull down on the door handle. It doesn’t move. The door’s right there—all James has to do is unlock it, and I’ll be in the hall, heading toward the angel. I can fight it. Soundbreak might be able to. It worked during the vision. Or maybe the new shots—the yellow reality skippers. If James just lets me out…
The seconds tick by. The door stays locked.
“James!” I whirl, looking at the camera in the corner of the room. It’s off—SHOCKS agreed to it, and James has enforced it so far—but I know he’s in there. He’s in my augs, too, but I need to glare at him. “James, open the door right now!”
[Put down the Revolver, Claire,] James says.
I look at my hand. The Revolver’s there. I don’t put it down.
Instead, I use Slither and Smoke Form. If I can’t go through the door, I’ll go through the—
[Stability 1/10]
When I try to pass through it, I bounce off of something instead. My Stability dips dangerously low, too; it hasn’t had time to recover yet. I need sleep, but there’s no way I can sleep when I’m this wired. Not when something’s happening. And definitely not when I’m trapped in a box at SHOCKS.
[It’s built to handle Geren-Danger teleporters, Claire. It’d even slow down Xuduos. Why do you think I locked you in here? This is the safest place outside of the Experimental Sector right now, but if you go opening doors, that thing will find you.]
“That’s what I want!”
[No, it’s not what you want,] James says. I almost shoot him—well, the camera—right there. [You want to keep your friend and family safe. That’s why you’re here to begin with, right? So listen to me—]
I try to Slither through the other wall into the hall between mine and Alice’s room. It doesn’t work either, but at least it doesn’t break my stability.
[—Claire, listen. I’m helping to coordinate SHOCKS’s response and interfacing with the Halcyon System to figure out what’s going on. Right now, every room in the whole complex is locked down. Give me five minutes to get them organized, and I’ll explain what’s going on. Please.]
Right now, I’m a thunderstorm off the coast. My heart’s pounding so hard my chest hurts, and I can feel the adrenaline in my too-tight shoulders and straining arm and leg muscles. But I can’t get out of my room. James has me right where he wants me.
Or SHOCKS does.
I collapse into the office chair in front of my monitor. Right now, the words ‘Lockdown: Shelter in Place’ ripple across its black screen in bright red, over and over. “Alright, but not a minute longer.”
[Thank you.]
----------------------------------------
[System Access: 100%]
[Recalculating Skills, Knowledges, Bonds, and Inquiries. Adjusting Stability]
[Claire Pendleton]
►Stability 5/10
►Skills - Endurance 7, Urban Combat 4, Anomalous Computing Systems 4, Physical Anomaly Resistance 7, Open Mind 1, Revolver Mastery 15, Compulsion Resistance 2, SHOCKS Database 1, Infohazard Resistance 9, Memetic Resistance 8, Gravity Shells, Reality Anchoring 3, First Aid 1, Toxin Resistance 6, Bullet Time, Slither, Smoke Form, Analyze, Mergewalk, Mindscape: ERROR. Missing Component, Soundbreak
►Truths - Anomalous Bond, West End High, SHOCKS Research Facility, JAMES, Stag Lord, Halcyon Bond, Li Mei and Infovampires, Dr. Dwyer, Provisional Reality AAA, Mergekilling
►Inquiries (3/5)
►What is Merge Prime?
►Are Sora and my family okay?
►What’s going on at Albert Head and West End High?
►Why did the voiceless singer breach containment now?
►Can I trust SHOCKS?
I’ve filled out my Inquiries by the time James comes back, and I’m well into an equation. This time, I’ve actually got it written out on paper. It’s about trust and SHOCKS and James, and the results are pretty damning, no matter how I slice it.
The first conclusion is that James—or, more accurately, the Halcyon System—is up to something.
Duh, right?
But, seriously, though. There’s the obvious answer he wants me to see—that he’s attached to me like boys get attached to Alice all the time. The quiet crush. The unrequited, one-way romance, or whatever. Alice is too much of a perfectionist to risk another Dad-induced break-up. Is that what’s going on?
No. There are layers to this. I’m not just a girl James can talk to. I saved him. We’re friends. He’s my second-best friend—my first outside of Truth Club. And he’s been with me for…a week? A week with no betrayals and minimal lying. Plus, he said he’d lie when he had to. So, why is he lying about this? The only conclusion I can think of is that SHOCKS, James, and the Halcyon System all want different things. It’s the only way to make the numbers work.
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Figuring out what they all want is trickier.
The good news is that the alarm’s quieted down—or at least I’ve gotten used to it. So that’s something. I try to relax, but my whole body feels tight, and I can’t stop fidgeting.
[Hello, Clarice Pendleton,] James says. Something sounds off with him.
“What the fuck is going on?” I ask quietly, in case Dad’s still awake. With the hammering wail of the alarm, that’s likely, and even if he probably can’t hear me swear, it’s a habit. And why’s he using that name?
[At 6:05:21, the breach alarm for the high-security Xuduo-Danger cells went off. By 6:05:22, I had established that the most likely breach was the voiceless singer, confirmed it, and made the decision to shut and seal all doors in the Supernatural and Hidden Objects Control and Knowledge Service Headquarters. I have been opening doors for the last four minutes to reunite Lambda-Four and Lambda-Five and move all noncombat personnel into secure areas.]
“Why not me?”
[Because right now, you represent a 9.327 percent likelihood of figuring out why Merge Prime is happening and a 1.542% chance of stopping it. That makes you a valuable asset, and not one I want to lose here,] James says.
Something’s wrong, but it takes me a few seconds to figure out what it is. James’s British accent’s gone; I’m not talking to James at all. This is the Halcyon System.
[I expected containment on the voiceless singer to fail, but not so quickly. As such, my calculations show that you have less than a ten percent chance of defeating it and a 60.003 percent chance of either dying or being permanently incapacitated. Your location in this reality and set of powers is unique, and as such, I cannot risk it before you have a reasonable chance of victory.]
“So, what? You let it maul the rest of SHOCKS?” I’m up and pacing my room. The hurricane inside me keeps building, and nothing James or the Halcyon System or even Dad says can stop it. If it won’t let me go, I’ll find a way out.
[No. The voiceless singer is moving through the facility, searching for something. I believe that it is looking for you. When it fails to find you, I expect it to attempt to leave this reality via the merge generator and am ensuring that it does so quickly,] the System says. [In the interim, you are safe here.]
I should be happy about that. It should be good news. But I can’t shake the feeling that something’s going to go wrong, and that I won’t be able to stop it when it does. I spent days trapped in one of SHOCKS’s boxes, and if the voiceless singer’s looking for me, I’d rather not be stuck in this one. But no matter how much I argue, the System doesn’t open the door.
----------------------------------------
Twenty minutes pass.
Thirty.
I haven’t stopped pacing. The sheer adrenaline in my system makes lying on my bed impossible, and sitting in the computer chair hasn’t even crossed my mind. The alarm’s too loud to sleep even if I wanted to—which I don’t.
Every so often, James—the Halcyon System version of him, that is—checks in. But for the most part, I’ve found myself alone in this prison. But that’s okay. It’s given me time to think. The reality is that there’s a way out of every cage, and somewhere in my list of skills is my way out. I’ve tried Slither and Smoke Form, and I’m low on Stability, so I can’t experiment too much, but even so, I think I’ve got it figured out.
The Reality Skipper shell cylinder.
When I used it in Provisional Reality AGG, the bullets disappeared, then reappeared through merges targeting what I’d shot it at from different angles. They weren’t in this reality—and if they weren’t in this reality, then they shouldn’t be affected by my cell’s walls. I can shoot something in the hall instead, and they’ll open a way out. I’ll be uncontained—and uncontainable.
I ditch the Inquiry about West End. It’s not like I can get there right now. In its place, I ask a simple question.
►Inquiry
►How can I use my powers to escape from SHOCKS’s containment cells?
It’s frustrating, looking at it, but I haven’t gotten anywhere in two weeks. I was stuck on the twenty-third, and I’m stuck now, on the eighth. But if I can get this right, I won’t be stuck anymore.
The tricky part will be Mergewalking in and out of the merge really fast—that, and making contact with the first merge in a shot. My augs are recording everything as I aim at the wall. The instant the hammer thumps down on the shell, it disappears. I look at the wall, and a second or two later, a merge opens, and the bullet hits the concrete.
Okay. That’s good. But where’s the first merge? And can I shoot out of my cell? My next shot’s at the wall to the hallway. The result’s the same: one squished bullet, one pockmark in the cement.
Maybe I need to see the hall? That leaves just the window in my cell door. When I look out of it, I can see the containment wing’s hallway, the Ito’s door across the hall, and…not much else. That’ll work. My next shot’s aimed at Sora’s wall, just right of her door.
The bullet disappears.
I wait. One heartbeat. Two. Three.
It appears, slamming against the wall and leaving another tiny crater.
Perfect. Now, the last problem. It’s a tiny one, but if I can’t find the merge the bullet escapes from, it’ll be impossible to balance this equation, and I won’t be able to keep Alice, Sora, or even Dad safe. The angel’s coming for me, but if it gets here, they’ll be in danger just by being close.
I flop on the bed.
[What are you doing?] The Halcyon System asks.
“I’m trying to escape.” There’s no point in lying—not when I’m about to show it exactly how I plan to do it. I pull up the recording of my first shot and slow the speed down to a crawl. The hammer descends toward the yellow-tinted shell’s back. It hits. And then…nothing. The shell vanishes. My aug zooms in, and I watch it again. Hammer, impact, nothing. Every time, it’s the same.
So, if the shell’s disappearing, and whatever’s happening isn’t happening behind the shell, it has to be happening in front of it.
I reverse the gun, holding it so it’s aimed just over my head. Hopefully. It’s hard to aim this way. My heart’s pounding, and my teeth are clenched so tight I can feel it in the back of my head. I want to close my eyes when I do this. Otherwise, I’m not sure I’ll be able to. But if I do that, I won’t be able to fill in this variable, and I need to know how this works.
I take a deep breath and, staring down the Revolver’s barrel with my eyes wide open, pull the trigger.
The bullet vanishes. I throw myself to the floor, dropping the gun on the bed. A second later, something thumps into my mattress. I ignore it. My elbows and knees hurt, but I ignore that, too. The video plays back, and there, in the gun’s barrel, is a tiny merge. It’s only there for the blink of an eye, but it’s there.
So, that’s it, then. This is going to be messy but doable. I stand up, walk to the door, and look at the camera. “Open the door, or I’ll open one myself.”
[I cannot do that. Clarice Pendleton, listen. This quarantine is for your own safety. I have attempted to exp—]
I don’t bother listening to the rest. The Revolver’s pointed out the window. Before the Halcyon System can react—at least with something that could stop me, I’m sure it’s already running through the possibilities, but it’ll take too long to do anything—I shove my finger up the gun’s barrel until I touch the yellowish shell.
I pull the trigger, feel the familiar Jell-O for a split second, and Mergewalk.
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It’s like being sucked through a straw. Like being set on fire and crushed and having the air vacuumed out of my lungs all at once. I wasn’t built to travel through merges this small, into realities this compressed; wherever I am, there’s nothing. No air, no ground, no outer space.
No space, period.
Then, suddenly, I’m on the floor in the hall, in my T-shirt and leggings.
[Stability 0/10]
My stability bottoms out, and a merge opens slowly in front of me.
But the truth is suddenly clear. The System could have stopped me at any point. This is what it wants: to force me to learn something. And the mergewalk I’ve just been on? It’s a solution to so many equations—like my broken skill. The truth is that I can’t be contained. Only I can contain myself. And that’s the trick to the Mindscape: containing myself.
[Truth Learned: Self-Assisted Mergewalking]
[Active Skill Learned: Mindscape Component - Self-Containment]
As the merge fully opens and a tall, thin monster with too-long arms and an almost-but-not-quite-human smile slinks out, I pull the trigger five times. The first four put bullets into its chest on a delay, while the fifth catches its shoulder. I’m already switching cylinders to the gravity shells before it even reacts to the volley of reality skippers.
It turns out I don’t need to bother with more. The monster hits the ground, face-down and bleeding. I watch it until the merge it came through closes, then relax just a fraction.
Somewhere down the hall, something’s fighting.
[Well done, Clarice Pendleton. Recalculating your chances of survival against the voiceless singer. Victory remains unlikely, but survival probability is in the fifty percent range,] the system says. [Returning control to James.]
“So I’ve got your permission to fight it, then?” I ask, glaring up at the nearest camera.
[You don’t need to, Claire,] James says. [The voiceless singer’s moving toward the Experimental Sector. Right now, RST Lambda Four is dealing with a pair of supplementary breaches in the Geren-Danger wing nearby. Lambda-Five is using mobile Faraday Cages to herd the voiceless singer away from critical—]
Good enough for me. “Open the door. I’m going to join Lambda-Four.”
[Everything is mop-up now. They’ll have it resolved in the next two minutes, and with your current Stability, your best move is to stay in this hall and backstop in case something does come for your family and friends.] James pauses, and I open my mouth to yell at him. I’m so tired, and the wave of adrenaline is…still there, but starting to burn off. [Here, I’ll unlock the doors to prove I’m not trying to hold you here, but you don’t have to go fight. You’re safe. They’re safe. And you have a new power to think about.]
“Oh.” I slump. It’s not that I want to give up. It’s that I don’t have the energy to give up. The adrenaline crash is completey on me. But I wait, leaning against the wall, until the alarm stops pounding against my ears.
Only when that’s finally happened do I return to my room. Now that I can jump past the locked door and teleport-killing walls, it’s not a cell anymore. But there are a few questions bugging me.
First, if it’s teleport-killing, how did Li Mei get in and out of my room when all this started?
Second, if Li Mei could get into my room, can Alice leave hers during a lockdown?
And third—and honestly, least immediately concerning—what else can Mergewalk like this? The voiceless singer in Provisional Reality AGG came out of a merge, but so did every monster, right? More importantly, it was heading back toward the merge generator in the Experimental Sector. That probably means it can’t Mergewalk on its own.
I’m too tired to deal with this right now, though. My arms and legs feel like noodles; I’ve been on the go all day, first in Sooke, then in another reality, and then here at SHOCKS Headquarters, and I’m tired.
I don’t even bother getting completely undressed and changing into PJs. The moment my head hits my pillow, I’m asleep.
But I’m not out like a light this time. This time, I ‘wake up’ somewhere new.