The sickest I’ve been was in fourth grade.
Mr. Clyde sent me home. Of course, Dad couldn’t come pick me up—we didn’t have a car, and he couldn’t have found the keys even if we did. Even so, it was pretty obvious that I had chicken pox, and I couldn’t be at school.
What? A lot of kids get them. And they’re miserable.
The worst part was Alice. She couldn’t stay in the same room as me for fear she’d get them, too, so she had to crash on the living room floor for a week. She was late to school four times. But that’s how we learned that public buses will pick up kids even if they can’t afford to pay.
Alice got the chicken pox on the sixth day.
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Location Unknown, Location Unknown, Time Unknown
- - - - -
The first thing I notice is the smell.
The second is the wave of vomit. This morning’s yogurt and toast ends up on the ground. So does the orange juice. It takes a minute for me to recover, spitting bile and saliva. My head’s spinning. “James, can you do something about this?”
[No. We don’t have olfactory augs, and if we did, this would be outmatching them,] James says. [I’m rating this reality mid-Xuduo-Danger for the smell alone.]
I’m tempted to agree. The scent of lupine is so strong it’s a stench, and it’s mixed with that stink you get from someone who’s slowly rotting away while still alive. Gangrene? Is that what it’s called? Or maybe it’s a cancer smell. Either way, the flower and the rot is a bad combo, and that’s why breakfast is all over the…floor.
I finally look around and reevaluate my situation. This is definitely at least mid-Xuduo-Danger. Probably high-Xuduo, in fact. The ‘walls’ curve down to the floor, which squishes slightly under my feet. It’s all pinkish-brownish, and the wind moving slowly through it is warm.
When I was in fourth grade, one of our topics of study was the human body. I don’t remember much about it. Anatomy was never my thing, but I remember an ancient TV show Mr. Clyde showed us. A teacher with curly orange hair shrunk her school bus down to pill-size—or smaller—and drove it into one of the students’ mouths to explore the human body. It was super gross.
I’m hoping—really hoping—that I’m not in a human body right now. But for sure, I’m in a body.
[Skill Learned: Toxin Resistance 6]
Alright. So. Inside something. That’s gross. Not as gross as what I dove through to get here, but it’s definitely gross. “Ideas?”
[SHOCKS is requesting that I patch them into your aural and optical augs. They want a direct line of communication with you, and you’re currently helmetless. Director Ramirez claims it’s for exploration and research purposes. I haven’t responded.]
“Okay…” I pause to think. On the one hand, Doctor Twitchy’s been annoying every time I’ve Mergewalked. On the other, I have no idea how to proceed from here, and James isn’t giving me much to go on, either. This isn’t a prepped Mergewalk like the last four, either, and everything about it is unknown. The equation has too many variables, but bringing help to solve them might make them more manageable. “Link me to him.”
My aural aug pops quietly, and a second later, Doctor Twitchy’s voice cuts in. “Claire, Strauss says you disappeared. Are you in Provisional Reality AAG?”
“Yes,” I say, starting down the fleshy pink hallway.
“Okay. Copy that. Uh, we’re working on creating a link to R-AAG. We’ll keep you updated. In the meantime, Command is operating both Lambda-Four and Five, and I’ll be working with you. I’ve got your feeds up. This isn’t…the worst thing I’ve seen. Right now, we’re withdrawing the RSTs. Try to search for a cause for this merge.”
I ignore him—I’ve done four Mergewalks for SHOCKS, so I know what I’m supposed to do. James is building a map just like he did when Strauss and I were in the maze reality. I’ve got the Revolver out and ready in case some intestinal parasite jumps me. And Doctor Twitchy isn’t doing anything useful other than blabbering about where the hell I am. That leaves me with exploring and recording what I see and hear. I walk for almost an hour, but not much changes.
At least the ringing in my ears has stopped, though.
So…let’s see. The equation’s coming together. I don’t have a full picture, but the path I’m on seems to angle upward slightly. I’m filling in all the variables as if this reality’s a single living thing. That’s just intuition; I have no proof, but it makes sense. It’s too big to be anything else.
But the worst part about this gigantic thing is that there’s not a single clue about what happened or why this reality’s leaking into ours. No evidence, just pinkish-red flesh that squishes under my feet.
James has been flickering my augs between heat vision, regular vision, and sonar maps, looking for anything out of the ordinary, but that’s pointless when there’s no control to measure the variables against. There’s nothing to fight. There’s hardly even a danger except for the acid-filled pools in the disgustingly wobbly floor.
It’s almost…boring.
Okay. This reality’s one gigantic living thing. If we assume that, I still can’t solve this math, but I can get closer. I need to find its brain.
I need to keep going up.
It takes Doctor Twitchy a couple of minutes to realize something’s changed, but once he does, his voice gets much more animated. “Claire, report in. What are you doing?”
“I’m pretending the whole reality’s alive and sick. If I can find what’s wrong, we can try to fix it,” I say. “It’s like the cartoons of living pills going in to fight a disease. Right now, I’m heading toward where I hope its brain is. Once I get there, I’ll…”
The truth is, I don’t have an answer to what I’ll do once I get there. Maybe it’ll be like a computer, and I’ll be able to figure out how it works. That’s what happened in the God in the Machine’s reality, so maybe it’ll work here. Besides, Mr. Clyde said that brains were like organic computers, didn’t he?
“Copy that. Continue on, report anything unusual,” Doctor Twitchy says.
“Har har.” It’s all unusual.
The smell’s not as bad up. If anything, it’s worse. The ‘normal’ gassy digestive acid smell fades, but the lupine-and-rot smell grows stronger as it does. The pinkish ground, if you can call it that, has turned bright red; in some places, the red’s even giving way to black. [Something’s wrong with this reality,] James says unnecessarily.
I don’t bother nodding. Some truths are self-evident. I just keep walking.
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The wound itself is beyond description.
But my brain tries to describe it anyway.
It’s big. Really big. The tunnel I’ve been walking through just…stops in a sheer drop-off. Far below, the ground’s scabbed over; whatever happened happened a while ago. But the infected-looking sections are everywhere. I think
I can see it on the other side of the black and red canyon, but I could be wrong. It’s got to be a half-mile away. And the smell of rot’s so thick in the air, I can see it.
The canyon’s deep, but mostly, it’s just wide. Even so, I hesitate, zooming in my optic aug and enjoying it not heating up as I magnify the—
[Bloatworms]
—Bloatworms down below. They’re big, too. They’re probably the size of the bus Alice and I used to take to West End. And so far, at least, they’re slow. I watch one of the whitish grubs crawl over a patch of the blackest flesh. When it passes, most of the black’s gone.
I pan my vision up the cliff on the far side toward the tunnel. For a moment, it looks familiar, but I can’t quite place it. The ringing in my ear returns, then fades.
“We need to get over there,” I say.
[Well, you don’t have anything that can help you fly, so your best bet’s climbing down, then climbing back up,] James says.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
Sometimes, James is the best personal assistant. And sometimes, he’s a sarcastic know-it-all. I roll my eyes and work my way down the wound’s side. It’s a rough climb through some of the blackest, most foul-smelling sections of the cliff wall, but at least it’s not long.
[Skill Learned: Endurance 7]
The moment my feet hit the wound’s floor, the Bloatworms turn toward me—all of them. I draw my Revolver as they rush toward me in a rumbling wave, like the tide coming in. The first one charges in. Its ‘face’ turns toward me, but there’s nothing face-like to it. Just a long sucker—proboscis? It slurps at the rot covering the ground. My Revolver fires once. The flame spikes into the Bloatworm, and it detonates.
The whole worm explodes, guts and rot and fetid, stinking air all lighting up in a fireball that lights up the entire wound. The smell’s an unholy mix of the hot dog cookoff at Landsdowne Middle School, a hospital, and the garbage when I forget to take it out. And, of course, lupines.
Then the shockwave slams me into the wall, my vision goes dark and pinholes, and I use Smoke Form to get control back. The shockwave passes as I solidify again a few feet from where I was.
My heart’s pounding. That was amazing.
It was also a lot like the woman I shot in Sooke. She blew up, too. That’s…less amazing.
“Ramirez, you get that?” I ask.
There’s static for a second, then he replies. “Yes. Sending it to the analytics team now.”
I don’t have time to reply. The next Bloatworms are closing in. I flip the Revolver toward the first one, but it’s too late. It’s too close. If I don’t move, they’ll hem me in. I look left. Right. There’s already no way out. I can’t be trapped. The closest Bloatworm surges forward, proboscis only a foot or two away from me, when I realize I can’t be trapped.
Using Smoke Form and Slither together hurts. My brain doesn’t want to go through things. But getting crushed by a ten-ton Bloatworm would probably hurt worse. I turn to smoke, then jaunt myself through the gigantic monster.
[Stability 4/10]
As it crashes down on me, I backpedal. My heart’s pounding, and the ringing in my ears is even worse now. Is there another merge in this reality, too? No. I’m distracting myself. The new closest worm starts turning, but they’re so slow. Two more steps back. Bullet Time. Three shots, three Bloatworms, one on either flank and one in the middle. The world moves again, and all three shots hit. I’m already Smoke Formed this time.
The explosions cascade through the Bloatworms. Smoke Form stops, and they’re still blowing up. The air’s thick with chunks of worm, infection, and heavy green smoke. I close my eyes and wait for it to be over, trying not to breath too much of it.
[Stability 3/10]
[Skill Learned: Revolver Mastery 15]
[New Ammunition: Reality Skippers]
[Skill Learned: Toxin Resistance 6]
When the fire and pressure stop, my face and hands hurt like they’ve been sunburned. I ready the Revolver, but I can’t see into the cloud. I squint behind my glasses and creep closer, trying to catch a glimpse.
A wall of white-colored flash crashes out of the green smoke and crushes me under it. It’s like being hit by a bus. Something pops in my hip, and my shoulder’s on fire all of a sudden. I bite back a scream, though; the Bloatworm’s right up against me, and I’ll probably get a mouthful of maggot if I open it.
[Skill Learned: Physical Anomaly Resistance 8]
My first thought is to pull the trigger. I’ve got a couple of shots left. That’d get me out of here. But I’m not sure about surviving the fireball from under it. Either way, it hurts, and I need to do something. I wince—I don’t have a ton of Stability left—and use the Smoke Form/Slither combo.
[Stability 2/10]
This time, as I travel through the Bloatworm, I get a good look at what’s inside of it. There are organs, of course, but most of the ribbed, caterpillar-like body is hollow—just one big gas bag. That’s got to be what’s doing the exploding.
“Claire, your aug’s feed cut off for a second,” Doctor Twitchy says. I ignore him. Instead, I start running. Once I think I’m far enough away, I fire another shot, and the Bloatworm dies.
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My stomach won’t stop churning.
I’ve spent the last five minutes recording what’s left of the Bloatworms—or, as Doctor Twitchy’s calling them, R-AAG-P1s or whatever. I’m not thrilled about it. Around every single charred and split corpse is a black circle. They’re not explosions. They’re infections, and they’re growing even as I pan my aug over them.
“That’s enough. I’m moving,” I say the second I’ve shown him the last worm. The wound’s far side’s a lot steeper than the one I came down, and I have my work cut out for me.
The cliff’s squishy under my boots. I’m glad I can’t see my face because I’m pretty sure that I’m absolutely filthy. A quick glance at my hoodie, leggings, and SHOCKS-approved body armor confirms that. This is probably worse than the time the shower backed up. Probably.
I’m only about twenty feet up when another Bloatworm starts crawling across the wound. It hits one of the rings around the dead monsters and slows down as its proboscis works back and forth, cleaning the blackened flesh until it’s merely a bright red. [Analyzing. Simulation complete,] James says. [It will ignore you unless you’re on the same surface it is.]
“Couldn’t have done that earlier?” I complain. My foot pushes off a bone fragment, and I wrap my hands around…something…and keep pulling myself up.
[No. With something this new, the Analysis requires information. These are brand new. I’m rating them mid-Geren-Danger. Their size makes them a threat, but your Revolver countered them pretty hard, to put it in Knights of the Apocalypse terms. If this is the worst thing you find here, we should be okay.]
I shake my head and keep climbing. “There’s something worse. I’m not sure what, but I saw it before we climbed down.”
James rewinds my aug in a picture-in-picture view. Then he hits play, watches, and zooms in over and over until the image is nothing but a couple of pixels. He doesn’t say anything for a minute. Then, as I reach the tunnel I’d been following, he does. [I sent the image to Director Ramirez. SHOCKS might be able to get some information from it.]
“I’d rather he work on how to get me out of here,” I grumble.
Doctor Twitchy speaks up. “We are. The merge generator’s being calibrated to enter that reality. It should work out okay. We’re trying to aim it to be relatively close to your location, but it’ll be a few minutes, and we don’t want to pull you out until you’ve figured out how to close the other merge points.”
“Points?” I ask, stretching my burning arms and legs.
[Los Angeles, Tokyo, and Vladivostok all have similar disease outbreaks,] James says. [Beirut and Kyiv might as well.]
“Is this worldwide, then?” I ask.
[No. Australia, New Zealand, and a few other Pacific Islands are holding out. So are the Falklands and the southern tip of Argentina.]
I don’t say anything. There’s not much to say. Merge Prime’s almost done with…whatever it’s trying to do, and I’m stuck in some other reality instead of with Alice and Sora. My stomach won’t stop churning, and I don’t think it’s the smell this time.
“Claire. L4-3. Respond.” Doctor Twitchy sounds stressed. I look down the tunnel; how long have I been staring off into space? Probably too long. I’d love to be with Sora right now. Hell, I’d even settle for Alice or Dad. But the best thing I can do is keep moving, so I do.
And as I do, the ringing in my ears stops.
And a voiceless song starts.
I freeze. “Uh, James?”
[Yeah, I got it, too. Report it in,] James says.
“Doctor Twitchy,” I say, not bothering to cover my nickname for him, “I’m picking up a similar song to what I heard in Reality 1421. It’s either going to be another black merge or an angel.”
“Copy that. Keep moving forward, but be careful. We’re firing up the merge generator now. The JAMES Unit is providing targeting information. We’ll also…we’ll also set up another Faraday Cage around it, so be ready for that.”
“Great.” I pause, thinking. “And get a clean-up crew there, as well.”
For a second, Doctor Twitchy sounds like he’s holding back a laugh. “We’ve had one ready since we started getting your aug footage. Everyone in the Experimental Sector’s in full hazmat gear as well.”
That’s a relief, even if I’m pretty sure the scrubbing I’m in for will rub me raw. I open up the Revolver and slot in the new cylinder. This one feels heavy one second, then weightless the next, and the gun’s barrel won’t stop bobbing up and down, but if it’s an angel, fire didn’t hurt it last time.
The tunnel curves up and to the left, much sharper than it did before. As I keep moving, the song gets louder and more insistent, and I can’t keep it out of my head. I ready the Revolver and go around the corner.
It’s a wide chamber; the walls beat almost like there’s blood moving through them. Part of the floor’s missing, and when I glance at it, I can see all the way down to the bottom of the wound. But the angel in the middle of the room captures almost all my attention.
Just like the one in R-1421, this one’s a completely quiet hole in space. It hangs in the middle of the room, angular wings up like it’s mid-dive. It doesn’t feel like it’s looking at me, and black infection drips down from its void shape.
I level the Revolver and aim it at the angel. James clicks through filters until my augs start helping my Infohazard Resistance. And I pull the trigger, emptying the cylinder completely.
The gun doesn’t make a sound. The yellowish shells just…vanish before they’ve even left the barrel.
Everything stops except the angel. The song crashes against me, and my Stability crashes.
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The world’s on fire, but it’s not hot.
The air’s full of screams, but it’s pin-drop quiet.
As reality falls apart around me, I lose sight of the angel in the song it’s surrounded me with. Whatever the R-1421 angel was, this one’s much more powerful. My Infohazard Resistance can’t stop it. My augs’ filters buy me a quarter second. Then, the song takes over.
Realities burn. Everything from pinpick universes to expanses I’ve never thought could exist. It all succumbs to the flames. Familiar places—the God in the Machine’s reality, or the maze world—disappear. Part of me is horrified to watch. The other part’s fascinated.
But mostly, I’m scared. The angel’s stronger than anything I’ve seen before. It dwarfs Li Mei or the Stag Lord, and I struggled with both of them. Maybe a Fungal Lord? No. Not even one of those would stand a chance.
I try to connect to James, but he’s silent. I try to raise my Revolver, but it’s not there.
And all around me, realities go dark and silent except for a voiceless song.
It goes on and on. It only lasts a second. And something outside of the song snaps. My Stability.
[Stability 0/10]
I lash out with the only thing I have left.
Soundbreak triggers, a counterpoint that mutes the voiceless singer’s song and punches into the void. The vision breaks, and everything happens all at once.
Suddenly, the world’s moving again. Something pushes through a brand-new merge in the half-second it’s open, dropping into the room on the angel’s far side. Six tiny merges open all around the angel, and six bullets hit it, punching holes in its soundless void. It screams.
The sound feels like being run over by a steamroller, and it’s not even directed at me. I Slither away from it. The angel turns—I can tell even though it’s nothing but a featureless void—and rips into the hulking mass of tentacles and reptilian frame that just entered this reality.
I reach for a different cylinder, my stomach dropping. I can’t fight either of these things.
Another merge opens right next to me. James yells something in my ear. Doctor Twitchy yells something, too.
I don’t hear either of them; I’m too busy jumping through the Jell-O.