Parents aren’t supposed to have favorites. But they do. And we know it.
Alice was Dad’s favorite up until a month or two after Mom died—at least, I think she was. That’s when she put on the mask and started doing mom things. Up until that point, she was my hero. After that, she became my lifeline. And I can’t help but wonder if that’s why she drifted away from Dad.
Or why Dad drifted away from her.
He’d already started cracking. No, he’d pretty much shattered when Mom died, but Alice stepping up finished the job. He stopped looking in the paper after that. We were in basic living within a year. And within two, he completely stopped trying.
I always wanted to be like Alice, even when she changed who she was entirely.
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SHOCKS Headquarters, Victoria, British Columbia - June 14, 2043, 7:32 AM
- - - - -
I may be willing to go all the way, but SHOCKS is taking its sweet time.
It’s been days.
They haven’t given me a mission since I came back from the self-reinforcing reality, R-2301. I’m getting updates from James. They’ve given up on Victoria completely, pulled back the Universal Reality Anchors and covered their Headquarters in an overlapping weave of them that makes me feel like my teeth are vibrating out of my gums. I haven’t smelled anything in days, either, and there are technicolor shimmers in the edges of my vision all the time. The migraines are an almost constant.
Alice isn’t doing great. She’s putting on a brave mask, though, and pretending she’s not feeling the same bullshit I am. I haven’t hung out with her in a day or two. She’s busy working with Lambda-Five on bringing the last few civilians they can find somewhere safe. According to her, it’s a real mess out there beyond the URA line. According to her, there aren’t a lot of people left.
Dad…is Dad. He’s pissed off, shaky, and still smells like spilled, stale beer, but it’s less strong. Whatever SHOCKS is doing, they’re taking it slow.
And I’m bored. I can only flip through Sora’s brother’s architecture books looking at cool buildings so many times. Right now, I’m flopped off her bed; my legs are still up there, but my head’s on the floor, and I’m looking at Modernist Austrian architecture by some guy named Loos. It’s a combination of square, blocky stuff and some really weird curves.
“So, what do you think? I could probably design that,” Sora says.
I shrug. My hoodie slides down and hits me in the face. As Sora laughs at me, I roll the rest of her way off her bed. “I think it looks better upside down, and that’s the truth.”
She snorts, covers her nose, and flees to her bathroom. I hold back a laugh and keep staring at the Loos book. It’s not much, but it’s better than nothing, and the alternative is twiddling my thumbs for a bit longer while I wait for Director Ramirez and James to decipher the dozens of VHS cassettes they pulled off of my aug.
“I can’t believe you,” Sora says. She’s got a couple of tissues with her; she blows her nose as she crosses the room and takes the book from me. I protest, and she narrows her eyes dramatically. “Loos was a genius, and there’s so much to learn from him. If you can’t see it, I’ll give you some more Wright instead.”
“Sure.” I roll my eyes. “I’m starting to think that Itsuki’s not the one who’s interested in architecture.”
“Don’t you say that out loud.”
I’ve hit a nerve. “Why don’t you tell your parents?”
“Because I’ve been interested in like thirty different professions since my twelfth birthday, and I don’t want them to think this is just another fling like marine biologist or—“
“Wait. A fling?” I ask.
Sora reddens. She pokes me in the side with her toe. I wriggle to get away from her as she keeps up her attack, sounding outraged. “You know what I mean!”
“Sure. You’re fifteen and speed-dating different careers. Was ‘dentist’ cute?”
I want to keep needling Sora, but James interrupts, speaking through Sora’s computer and my aug at the same time. [Claire, your computer pinged. It’s from Director Ramirez. He wants you to meet the rest of Lambda-Four in the operational planning room. He won’t be there in person, but Lieutenant Olivia Rodriguez is fully briefed on the mission. He’s found targeting information and discovered a way to move a team across to a different reality safely.]
What I should do is get up and go. I should be excited that something is happening. Instead, I stay on the floor. After days of nothing happening, it’s suddenly go-time, and I’m not ready. Adolf Loos’s architecture book suddenly looks a lot more appealing. I reach for it, but Sora’s socked foot kicks it away. She raises an eyebrow. “You’ve got to go, huh?”
I shut my eyes. Then I nod and pick myself up off the floor. “Yeah. Say ‘hi’ to your next job crush for me!” The joke slips out naturally, but my voice is heavy with…something. Regret? Nerves? I’m not sure, but now that it’s time, I wish it wasn’t. I retreat before Sora can poke my side again.
----------------------------------------
When I was part of Lambda-Four under Director Smith, we didn’t have time for fancy briefings. We got all our information while we were driving to the basic living building with the meme. The Sooke operation was pretty similar—we needed to move fast. Speed’s been the name of the game so far.
But something’s changed.
This time, we’re in the operational planning room. It’s a round room with a projector in the center that’s not on right now and an old TV, probably from before Mom was born, that’s on. It looks like it weighs a ton and a half, and someone rolled it in on a wheeled frame. It’s sitting in front of a wide-screen plasma TV that’s attached to the wall.
That one’s turned off.
The mood’s disgustingly sober. Ironically, Dad would love it. The chairs don’t even squeak when I move in them. It’s pin-drop silent; we’re waiting for Lieutenant Rodriguez to finish showing us what’s so important.
It smells like nervous sweat and something else I can’t place. The four of us are sitting in a row while Lieutenant Rodriguez stands next to the TV. Right now, it’s playing a scene from my vision on a loop. It’s slowed down almost one hundred times, but I remember it.
On the screen, realities burn.
Lieutenant Rodriguez lets it play one more time, then pauses it on a single frame. “This is our team’s target. We’re going to enter another reality, capture the Voiceless Singer there, and return it to R-0.”
The screen shows a roiling ocean. It looks every bit as angry as the Salish Sea in January, and lightning flashes across the horizon. I wince; I’m not looking forward to this. “Why isn’t Director Ramirez here?” I ask.
“Wait,” Strauss interrupts. “What do you mean, ‘our team’s target?’”
“Please hold your questions,” Rodriguez says. Her jaw’s set. She doesn’t look happy. “The briefing will likely answer them, and we need the time to prep for this one. It’s going to be a shit show. In short, Director Ramirez believes that the Voiceless Singer anomalies are creating the conditions for Merge Prime. Our previous interactions with Voiceless Singers have treated them as if they’re standard anomalies or put one of our best assets in danger. He’s convinced that this strategy has to change.
“Right now, he’s working on modifications to the merge generator anomalies. He’s been studying the data from various anomalies that moved back and forth, including the Voiceless Singer, and he believes he can modify the portal to recognize both Claire and anyone moving across the barrier with her as the same anomalous entity. If that’s the case, we can move RST Lambda-Four into the other reality.”
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
“Won’t work,” one of the troopers says. Rodriguez stares at him until he looks down. “Sorry, ma’am, but we’ve only had two long-term merge incursions, and neither was what I’d call a success.”
“Director Ramirez wouldn’t be asking us to do this if he didn’t think it’d work. The key is Claire being able to cross. Once we’re over there, she’s our key to returning, so keeping her alive is the primary objective. Finishing the mission is secondary; we can take another shot at it if we have to, but not without her.”
I hate this. If I could, I’d walk away. I’d abandon this because it’s not going to help me get stronger. My heart won’t stop pounding, and my lungs feel like they’re going to burst.
[Claire, this has a high chance of working. At the very least, it’s likely that Ramirez will gather valuable information on how to protect Earth from Merge Prime, which will buy you and me time. I strongly recommend you go along with it, regardless of whether you think it’ll work or help you advance your own goals.] James sounds serious.
But I’m not sure I want to. “What if you don’t come back?” I ask Rodriguez.
“The mission has several levels of success,” Lieutenant Rodriguez says. She clenches her teeth, and I can see her neck move as she swallows. “Securing a Voiceless Singer is the ultimate goal. The mission would still be considered a success if we can move non-anomalous humans back and forth between our reality and a different one. However, the mission is only a failure if we lose L4-3. The team is expendable. Claire must survive.”
It’s going to be one of those missions, I think. Rodriguez looks at me, and I realize I said it out loud. I take a deep breath and double down. “Can you explain why Director Ramirez thinks I can do this?” If she has an answer, I’ll give it a try, but if it sounds like bullshit, I’m out. SHOCKS doesn’t matter. Only my people matter. That’s not true, but I’m good at lying to myself—almost as good as Alice. Only when I have to be, though.
“Yes, but it’s going to sound like we’re making stuff up,” Lieutenant Rodriguez says. She launches into an explanation that involves taking certain pills every six hours while in the merge, projecting ‘auras’ onto them with an anomaly that—apparently—makes them real and not some imaginary thing, and completely isolating the portal from our reality before sending anyone through. “I know it sounds like bullshit, but we think it’ll work.”
“You’re not exactly convincing me,” I mutter. But the truth is that she already had. I’ve been doing these missions for so long, jumping through portals, and every time, I’m alone. Sometimes, I’ll have Ramirez talking nonstop in my headset, and James is always with me, but they’re not putting themselves on the line like I am. If this works, I won’t be alone. And for all that he’s SHOCKS, I know I can trust Sergeant Strauss to watch my back.
Strauss, though. He went into another reality with me. He shouldn’t have been able to, but something about those circumstances allowed it. It’s possible, at least.
So, after a minute of listening to her explain all their procedures for tricking my Mergewalk power, I nod. “Okay. I’m in.”
Lieutenant Rodriguez stares at me for a second like I’m crazy. Her facade breaks for a second. “You are? I mean, I’m not even convinced this will work.”
I nod. At least I won’t be alone on the other side. And it does offer all sorts of opportunities to answer Inquiries.
----------------------------------------
[System Access: 100%]
[Recalculating Skills, Knowledges, Bonds, and Inquiries. Adjusting Stability]
[Claire Pendleton]
►Stability 1/10
►Skills - Endurance 7, Urban Combat 4, Anomalous Computing Systems 4, Physical Anomaly Resistance 10, Open Mind 1, Revolver Mastery 16, Compulsion Resistance 2, SHOCKS Database 1, Infohazard Resistance 9, Memetic Resistance 8, Gravity Shells, Reality Anchoring 3, First Aid 1, Toxin Resistance 6, Reality Skipper Shells, Bullet Time, Slither, Smoke Form, Analyze, Mergewalk, Mindscape, Soundbreak, Determination, Absolution
►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 (4/5)
►What’s going on at Albert Head and West End High?
►What do the voiceless singers want?
►Why don’t people come back from other realities?
►Where are the voiceless singers hiding?
►
Something’s been bugging me.
Why can I transfer to other realities so easily? And more importantly, why can’t other people? It shouldn’t be this hard—even with my current skills and powers, I’m not that much more powerful than an average person. According to James, my reality levels are on the high side, but that’s not an explanation. That’s just a fact. Mergewalk helps, but there’s no way SHOCKS could only have had two or three successful missions. Even accounting for my power, it doesn’t make sense.
“James, can you get me information on all the humans who’ve entered other realities.”
James pauses for a second. [That’s over five thousand documented individuals prior to Merge Prime and closer to three hundred thousand after. If I give you the records of everyone prior to Merge Prime who survived the trip for longer than five minutes, that narrows it down to four incidents.]
“Four?” SHOCKS told me there’d been three, not counting me but counting Strauss.
[We had a team enter another reality. They were wiped out, but SHOCKS learned an incredible amount from that operation. The second was Agent Zhang. She spent months in R-1032, but SHOCKS isn’t convinced she didn’t bring something back with her. She went rogue shortly after escaping containment post-return. Then there’s Strauss.] James goes quiet.
“That’s three.” I look around the Experimental Sector. Researchers are everywhere. They’re building a series of towers that look a lot like the Faraday Cage setup, connecting one of those Mobile Containment Units to the merge generator, and rearranging the whole entryway. Massive metal shields hang over the anomalous contraption at wild angles that make no sense to me.
[Yes, the fourth. It’s classified above Director level clearance.]
“But you have access to it?” I ask.
[Yes. The fourth was a non-accidental merge attempt. Zhang and the RST were mistakes, but they provided vital information to a SHOCKS Headquarters in Florida, which saw an opportunity to either deploy teams into other realities in advance of merges—during what you call the thinning phase—or to preemptively explore and catalog other realities and the anomalies inside of them. They’d hoped to change SHOCKS’s whole mission from one of containment to one of prevention. To build a fortress around R-0 instead of fighting in the streets, so to speak.]
“It didn’t work, though?”
[Actually, it worked perfectly. The testing RST entered another reality and found the thinning from the far side, then set up various anti-merge technology. They dug in and prepared for a reality merge.]
“What happened?” I ask.
James is quiet for a moment. [Sorry, London’s going crazy. Have you ever seen the videos of when they tried plugging that volcano in Mexico?]
“Yeah. It was in one of my science classes last year.”
[It was like that. The reality merge was delayed by several days before popping violently. It ate a good portion of the Everglades. After the experiment failed, all the records were sealed, and all cross-reality missions were forbidden. The penalty’s pretty steep, too. If what Ramirez is trying doesn’t work, he’s already done enough for SHOCKS to terminate him just by facilitating your Mergewalks, to say nothing of both using you as a SHOCKS agent in other realities and attempting to send a full RST through a thinning.]
So, Director Ramirez knows that this is a bad idea, and he knows the consequences, but he doesn’t know the truth about why it’s not allowed. I shiver. If this mission goes wrong, will we set up a plugged volcano scenario?
Will it matter?
No, it won’t. The current conditions on Earth are so bad that one more reality dumping into ours will hardly matter. In many ways, the fight’s already over, and this is a desperate Hail Mary and nothing more.
The rest of RST Lambda-Four are sitting nearby but separate from me. There’s still a trust barrier there. Strauss has his head deep in his bag; he’s packed it absolutely full of stuff, and the rover drone thingie with the dozens of merge-closing explosives and devices has a pair of bags on its back. They’re filled with even more gizmos and gadgets; as I look at them, James helpfully labels them in my augs. I ignore the labels. They don’t matter.
Rodriguez is talking through her headset. I’m not sure who she’s talking to, but she sounds pissed off. I can’t see her face between the helmet, the mask, and the bad angle, but I can’t help imagining the glare. And the other two—Daley and Munroe—work on their weapons and gear. They’re the team’s shooters. They’ve both got battle rifles that are identical to the one Strauss carried when I ran into him at Aberdeen Hospital.
“Dammit,” Rodriguez says. She paces back and forth, and I watch her, but her voice lowers to the point where I can’t hear it anymore. Strauss zips up his bag and checks the triple battery and solar charger on the rover. And I watch. Everyone looks like they’re trying to look relaxed—but failing. The tension’s so thick I can feel it weighing down on me.
“Alright, team. Go time. Paul says we’ve got a window for the next minute and thirty seconds. We’re landing on the dark world from L4-3’s vision. Go.” Lieutenant Rodriguez shoulders her pack and rifle, then runs for the gap in the Faraday Cage. The others follow her, the little rover whining along behind as it struggles to keep up.
They stop on the ramp.
I’ve got a harness on over my hoodie. It feels like a combination climbing harness and combat set-up, but its back’s covered in metal rings. The other members of the team chew on something and swallow as they hook their combat plate carrier things to my shoulders with quick-release straps. According to Director Ramirez, we’re trying to trick Object 723-V-1/RP into recognizing us as one entity with all my powers.
I glance at him. He looks sweaty, and he can’t help but drum his fingers on the top of a nearby computer box. His eyes meet mine, then drift toward Lieutenant Rodriguez before snapping back to the screen.
A light in front of us goes green, and the five of us move forward into the merge generator.
It feels more like Jell-O than it ever has. Mergewalk strains to move me forward. I’m not any stronger than normal, and I feel like I’m dragging all the others through the merge. The rover scoots past me, beeping.
Then I hit the ground on the far side. Bright yellow sunlight pours across the beach. All around me, the rest of Lambda-Four coughs and vomits. Helmets come off and packs and guns hit the pure-white ground as the Recovery and Stabilization Team…recovers and stabilizes. Wherever they touch the ground, the sand they’re lying on turns sky-blue.
“Command, this is Lieutenant Olivia Rodriguez, Lambda-Four-One.” Rodriguez forces herself to stand and shoves her helmet back on. “Mission is compromised.”
I look around. The merge portal is gone.
We’re on our own.