The Truth Club used to listen to music under the bleachers.
It only happened on days when the soccer team wasn’t practicing, and only once we were done sharing our truths. Keith provided the music most of the time, and he had the weirdest taste.
Oldies. So many oldies.
It was mostly stuff from the 2000s and 2010s, and it was all angry, anti-The Man stuff. Rage Against The Machine, Rise Against, Linkin Park—bands like that. Usually, it was just music, but we’d watch videos, too. He’d cast them into our augs from his phone. I could only watch one at a time, though.
There was one music video where the band and their friends ran around the zoo, sticking bumper stickers on the cages and stuff. One sticker said, ‘I’ve Spent My Entire Life Trapped In a Cage.’
----------------------------------------
Landsdowne Middle School, Victoria, British Columbia - June 9, 2043, 7:20 AM
- - - - -
The next five seconds blur.
The burning man smashes through my smoky body. It hits the stone box—sarcophagus pops into my head, but it’s too plain and not Egyptian enough for that—as I rematerialize. I use Bullet Time and put all four gravity shells into the coffin thing, one after another. The metal man is pinned in place, the swirling vortexes pulling at it as it tries to turn and keep attacking.
I push the lid until my arms burn from the heat and the strain, inside and out. Then I push some more. There’s no time for fire extinguishers, or foam, or soaking-wet nets. There’s only time to seal the burning man away again. Stone grinds against stone, and the lid creeps closer to being sealed.
When the lid finally shuts, I collapse against the coffin. Its wall burns my side through my hoodie, and I push away from it as the lid slowly clicks and whirs. When it finally goes silent, James speaks up.
[Nice job. SHOCKS is sending another vehicle to pick you up. ETA is fifteen minutes. Lambda-4’s trucks are at capacity, and all three vehicles are carrying injured that need attention. They’re heading for SHOCKS Headquarters, as per the plan.] He pauses. [Are you okay?]
I stare at the box for almost two minutes before I decide it’s not going to open. I’ve spent my entire life trapped in a cage, and now that I’ve got a tiny bit of freedom, I’m helping put other things in them instead.
I nod. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine.”
As Landsdown Middle School and the Wal-Mart both vomit stinging, acrid smoke into the sky, I stand up, walk a few feet away from the box, and sit against a melted but cooling bench. No cars go by. No police or fire sirens fill the air.
All around me, the city’s ablaze or fighting a plague or has massive fungus monsters crawling through its streets. No one’s coming to help fix it, and just doing what I’m doing is killing me.
I’m alone. For all that SHOCKS is on their way, I’m alone.
My tears sting the burns on my cheeks. “I’m fine,” I say again. But that’s a lie.
The Truth, with a capital T, is that Victoria has fallen.
----------------------------------------
SHOCKS Headquarters, Victoria, British Columbia - June 9, 2043, 9:32 AM
- - - - -
Debriefing happens in the medical wing.
I’ve got my own exam room, where I bounce my heels off the exam table I’m sitting on. It might be the same one I got prepped for my aug procedure in. It might not be. There’s no way to tell; they all look the same.
My face is sticky. It doesn’t want to move, and that’s fine. I don’t want to move it, either. The doctors worked on me for a while, but one of the things about my Physical Anomaly Resistance is that first aid doesn’t help. The wounds already look a day or two old, and they’re scabbed over. They said that my skin’s done burning, and it’ll heal up just fine. They think that in a couple of days, I’ll look like I’d never been in a fight at all.
That bothers me. I don’t have a scar where Director Smith shot me, either. The only proof I have of that fight—of any fight—is in my head.
All they could do was slather my face and hands with some sticky crap that tingles so much it almost stings. I want to scrape it off, but I don’t think it’s hurting me, and getting rid of it requires moving. I don’t want to move.
Doctor Twitchy steps in. He’s red-faced, and for half a second, before I get a good look at him, I can’t help but shy away. That shade of red is the same as Dad’s when he’s angry. But no—Doctor Twitchy’s not angry. He’s just stressed out.
“The Landsdowne staff and their families are currently in quarantine until we’re sure they’re healthy and decontaminated from their lengthy stay in and near merge zones. We have them in the medical wing and are working on exams for each of them. JAMES Unit, will you assist with that process?”
[Tell him I already am,] James says directly into my aug.
“Aren’t you going to tell him yourself?” I fire back.
[I don’t have time anymore. I can’t afford to dedicate unnecessary processing loops to conversing with him. Sorry.]
James sounds stressed out, too, and he didn’t talk to me during my medical check-up. That makes sense if he’s busy. I put it on the back burner and stare at Doctor Twitchy, doing my best to keep my face unmoving. “He’s already doing it. When can I see Mrs. Nazaire?”
“I’m not sure we can authorize that. We’re moving our timetable up as much as possible on the Xuduo-Danger merges,” Doctor Twitchy says.” I want to start this afternoon if you’re medically cleared. We have a reality in mind.”
“Hold on.” He’s moving fast, and I’m not ready yet. “The Landsdowne people. They need to be treated like my family or the Itos.”
“No, they don’t,” Doctor Twitchy says.
I narrow my eyes, and the jelly goop that’s covering my face crackles a little. I can hear it as much as I can feel it. It’s so gross—I couldn’t ever do a mud mask or the weird charcoal ones Alice swore by last year, even if she claims they help with acne and stuff.
“The fact is that working on helping Alice, plus running a long-term, slow-decrease alcohol detox for your father and providing support for the Itos that meets your requirements is taxing our very limited resources, and we need everything we can get right now. Both RST Lambda Four and Five are understrength for at least thirty-six hours, and L5-1 was injured on a mission specifically requested by you.
“So far, you’ve been invaluable. We couldn’t have made any of the progress we’ve made without you. But, Miss Pendleton, the situation’s getting worse. We need those resources focused on keeping SHOCKS afloat so we can solve Merge Prime, not on running rescue missions as they suit a fifteen-year-old’s fancy.”
I stare at him. Something’s happened; he’s grown a spine. Then I nod quietly. “I want them safe.”
He closes his eyes. “So do we. The best way we can keep them safe is to keep them from all this is to not expose them to any of it. They’ll have their own wing separate from yours, food, and the most safety we can offer on Vancouver Island. But they’re not getting any additional access to the facility. That’s non-negotiable; it’s bad enough that the Pendletons and Itos are everywhere without adding a few dozen more civilians.”
No, it’s not, I don’t say. Everything is negotiable. The question is whether I’m interested in trading something for it and what I have to offer. “I could refuse to cooperate.”
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
“You could. And then we’d try to force you, and the JAMES Unit would unleash every contained anomaly we’ve got on us or shut down all our infrastructure until we yielded,” Doctor Twitchy says. “We’d give in. We don’t have a choice.”
“Then give in,” I half-beg. But I already know he won’t. Not this time.
“No. Be reasonable, Claire. We’re on the knife’s edge. I’m not dedicating resources to something that doesn’t improve our chances of solving Merge Prime.” He scratches his sweat-covered neck. Something’s changed. He’s not Doctor Twitchy anymore. He just looks like him. “We’ll make sure they’re healthy, then debrief them. They’ll get their wing and freedom of movement inside of it. That’s the only offer I can provide. If you don’t like it, we can have it out now.”
“Fine, Director Ramirez,” I say. It’s not fine. Mrs. Nazaire and the rest of them should know what’s going on. But he’s grown a spine. I’m not sure why; James probably knows, but he’s right. He’s busy dealing with the end of the world. So is Ramirez. “Fine. James will be keeping an eye on them. If you don’t follow through, I’ll know.”
“Great.” Ramirez taps a finger on a tablet and hands it to me. “We’re working on finding those Xuduo-Danger realities with possible voiceless singer presence.”
“Why haven’t you given them a name and number yet?” I ask. The tablet’s screen is covered with information about different possible realities. It’s mostly number and known anomalies; no one’s been to most of these, so SHOCKS is running off what’s merged into R-0. But there’s one…it’s got a long file, and almost all of it is covered in black bars.
“Do you want the designation, or do you want to know what you’re doing this afternoon?”
I roll my eyes and motion for him to continue, all while reading the tablet. The battle plan’s got James written all over it; how closely has he been working with Director Ramirez?
“Thank you. We’re aiming for a series of quick merges. With Strauss’s bomb available to us, the limit is on how many we can build, not on manually disconnecting merges from the inside. I’ve got a trio of researchers working on isolating the actual shut-down trigger. Once we know that, we’ll be able to build them faster. Until then, one or two merges a day is our best possible pace.”
“Do you know where you’re sending me?”
Director Ramirez shakes his head. “No. Right now, we’re building a primary target list. We'll get to work as soon as we have a first destination.”
----------------------------------------
An hour later, the goop mask peels off in one big, semi-solid piece, and I’m pronounced fit for service.
That doesn’t sound like ‘healthy’ to me. I sit in the exam room for a few minutes and stare at my face.
It’s weird to look at myself like this. The goop’s clear, a quarter inch thick in places, and the eye holes stare back at me as I hold it in my hands. James keeps being less and less present. Dad and Alice…I hardly see them anymore. I’m not sure I’ve spent more than an hour or two with Sora since I got here—at least not all at once. And Dad…is Dad.
We’re all here. But I feel more alone than when I just wanted to get home. The people I talk to the most, I can’t trust.
I need some time in my Mindscape to work through that. I don’t have that time.
As I get dressed and walk down the hall toward the JAMES Experimental Sector, that’s all I can think about. How I’m alone, and how I’m not getting closer to fixing that. This deal…it was supposed to be the best way to keep my family safe. And it probably still is. But at the same time, that safety’s only temporary, and I’m losing something to make it happen. I need to do better.
How can I do better?
I don’t know.
Sometimes, I wish I was Alice. She can at least fake like she’s got her shit together. Other times, I wish I was Lieutenant Olivia Rodriguez; she actually does. But I’m not either of them. Somehow, all the pressure’s on me. I’m just a kid. It’s not fair.
That makes me snort, and the SHOCKS agent tailing me down the hall twitches as her hand drops to her waist. I’m not a prisoner anymore. But SHOCKS won’t stop seeing me as a threat.
The truth is that I’m not—not without James.
The fight with the burning man taught me one thing, though; I’ve got a lot of weaknesses. Shooting things with the Revolver? That works…most of the time. But when it doesn’t work, I don’t have much to fall back on. Soundbreak is good. I need more Soundbreaks or more bullet types.
I need to grow.
It’s the best plan I’ve got for dealing with SHOCKS or helping my people—who, apparently, also include the entire staff of my old middle school—survive this. I need to get stronger. A lot stronger. So strong they can’t tell me what to do, no matter who they are.
I leave who they are unanswered in my head.
So, becoming stronger. Actively growing. It’s going to mean some sacrifices.
[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
►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?
►
►
First, I’m not going to figure out what Merge Prime is. Sora and my family aren’t okay, and they won’t be until I get this figured out. I delete those Inquiries, giving me four spaces. I think about getting rid of the last one, too, but there’s an itch there—a feeling that I’m going to be learning more about that soon.
I create one new one.
►Inquiries (2/5)
►What’s going on at Albert Head and West End High?
►What do the voiceless singers want?
►
►
►
That’s the most important long-term Inquiry I can think of. It’s probably more important than understanding Merge Prime, and it’s something I’ll be taking steps to figure out, like it or not. But the other three slots? They’re for Inquiries I come up with while I’m on duty.
I need more skills like Soundbreak, and the best way to get them is to game the Halcyon System a little.
The airlock’s guarded. My escort nods at the guard, and I step inside.
Doctor Twi—Director Ramirez—is waiting for me by the empty, inactive portal. “Bad news first. We’re getting interference.”
“What?” I ask.
“Portal interference is consistent with a Universal Reality Anchor attempting to hold off a merge slightly beyond its rating. We can get our merge generator to connect, but it doesn’t stay connected. That means no helmet, no direct link to us, and leaving the merge won’t be as easy.”
“Fine.” It’s not like SHOCKS is a ton of help on most of these; I’ve got James, and he’s better than a dozen researchers.
“This reality is a self-reflective reality. It’s a lot like R-36—the one where everything was you. This one’s highly infohazardous, though. It’ll look like our reality, but it wants to reflect what you think our reality should be. We’ve seen it before, but it’s not currently merging on Vancouver Island.”
“Why’d you pick it, then?” I steel my expression as much as I can. My head’s spinning as I try to understand what he’s saying. It’s a reality that matches what I want? Like a Mindscape, but a whole reality? I can’t ask these questions. Ramirez would figure out the truth the moment I did.
Director Ramirez’s mouth turns up in a thin-lipped smile. “Because it’s not currently merging on Vancouver Island. We don’t believe any other SHOCKS divisions are currently trying this experiment, and keeping the island as stable as possible is our best way of extending our time to reverse Merge Prime. That means your objectives have changed. We don’t care about closing this merge the hard way; we’ll let it disconnect on its own once you’re out.
“You’ve got one goal while you’re in there: make contact with the voiceless singers and try to figure out what they’re doing—without getting caught.”
That lines up with my personal goals, but I make a third Inquiry. This one’s only in my head for now; until I’m through that portal, I don’t want James—and by extension, the Halcyon System—to know about it. Once I’m through, it won’t matter. They won’t be able to stop me.
“Find the voiceless singers, figure out what they’d up to, get back here, and wait for the merge generator to stabilize,” I say, looking at Director Ramirez for confirmation. “That sound right?”
“Yes, that’s right. Would you kindly request that the JAMES Unit open a line of communication with us?”
[Audio only. I’m not dedicating enough loops for video,] James says.
I relay the information. Director Ramirez looks like he’s about to lose his shit. He nods curtly. “We’ll work on re-opening the merge to R-2301. Be ready. The longest we’ve had it open is two minutes. The shortest is fifteen seconds.”
He leaves, and I start re-running the conversation on repeat. He lied somewhere, and it’s super-important that I figure out where. If it’s a little lie, like the kind James makes, that’s one thing. But there’s a lot at stake here, and I need to know what kind of shit he’s full of.
I’m also thinking about another conversation, though. About one at the end of the world—sort of.
Roses and machine oil, a maroon sun. The electric, metal tang. And the words. “It’s going to be okay, Claire. It’s going to be okay.”
Not when Alice said them, but when Mom did.
What if she’d been telling the truth? What would life have been like if she hadn’t lied to me? If Alice hadn’t needed the Mom mask to get by, and if Dad hadn’t gone off the high-dive straight into a bottle…what would that be like? I don’t even dare to answer those questions, even though they’re in my head. They don’t matter, and even if they do, they’re secondary to a larger question—a question of proof.
“Claire, the portal has stabilized,” someone says.
I run for the swirling Jell-O vortex as the frame around it shakes. I dive through. And in the moment before I push into R-2301, I add a third Inquiry to the list. It’s not about power—at least, not directly. It’s about answering a question I can only answer now.
►Inquiries (3/5)
►Could it have been okay?