One thing I haven’t figured out about thinnings, merges, and reality-hopping is why it always smells so funky.
It’s roses and machine oil, or daffodils, or lavender and rot. And I don’t know why. James doesn’t pick it up except passively, through me, and I haven’t asked anyone from SHOCKS about it yet. For all I know, it’s a me thing. Like, something to do with Mom.
That’d make sense. She liked flowers and flowery smells. It could just be me pulling an Alice, though. Maybe the smells are all just lies I tell myself to deal with whatever I’m trying to deal with, just like Alice’s lies.
But if that’s the case, why are the smells always different? And why use flowers, especially when I don’t care about them?
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SHOCKS Headquarters, Victoria, British Columbia - June 3, 2043, 11:17 AM
- - - - -
The pace of monsters has picked up.
So far, it’s just flybites, so I haven’t had to get involved. The RST troopers and the experimental sector’s automatic defenses are keeping the nearly constant stream of winged mouths suppressed, although clean-up’s starting to become a problem. A few researchers have been assigned to sweep the bodies away from the ramp up to the merge portal.
I’m not looking forward to this next Mergewalk, but it’s not like SHOCKS has another way to turn off the merge.
Actually, why didn’t Doctor Twitchy build a safety valve into this contraption? Why don’t we just shut this merge down from here, if they’ve got the tech for it? And why did they lie to me about being able to shut it down?
When I ask him as he leads me toward Strauss’s bomb, Doctor Twitchy looks at me like I’m the idiot who didn’t put a safety valve on their world-ending doomsday device. “Because we’re not trying to shut this merge. We’re trying to completely decouple this reality from ours. If we fail, a few 1431-AA-3s in the experimental sector are the least of our problems.”
“And this idea will stop the merge in Mount Douglas Park?” I ask.
“That’s what we’re hoping,” he says, and I turn my attention toward the rover and the bomb.
It’s hideous.
Strauss knows it, too, but he just shrugs. “This is a proof of concept, prototype, and test model all in one. If it works, we can have someone build it in an easier-to-use package. It meets the mission requirements of ‘as many shots at closing the second merge as possible, as quickly as possible.’”
The bomb looks nothing like a bomb. Even the parts that James told me were explosive are gone now. The two bags of yellow stuff have been replaced by a plastic case with wires sticking out of it. Maybe that’s the bomb. But the rest is an assortment of computer parts, gyroscopes, and duct tape, all strapped to a six-wheeled machine the size of two skateboards next to each other. At least it’s self-propelled—as I stare at it, it drives slowly toward the portal and stops behind the RST troopers’ line.
“We’re unplugging your helmet for this run,” Doctor Twitchy says. “You’ll have a battery charge for an hour. That should be enough time to deliver the package to the inner merge. From there, you can plug it into the line attached to the rover. It won’t be coming home, unfortunately.”
“Won’t that pollute R-1421?” Strauss asks.
Doctor Twitchy nods. “We’ve taken that into account, and we believe the risk to R-0 due to the rover and bomb is minimal, given what this part of R-1421 is populated by. We’ll detonate it once the internal merge is shut, so it’ll be minimally technologically contaminating. It's a non-issue compared to continuing to allow the merge in Mount Douglas Park to stay open.”
Strauss looks like he wants to argue but keeps his mouth shut. It’s a change from previous SHOCKS protocols, though, and he’s obviously uncomfortable with it. I file that away; it’ll be useful information for my equations, but it probably won’t change any variables. Not really. I already knew they’re desperate.
That’s why I’m here.
“So, time to go?” I ask.
“Two minutes, plus however long it takes to get a lull in the anomaly waves,” Doctor Twitchy says.
I slide the helmet back over my head, letting it stay unpowered for now, and start waiting.
----------------------------------------
Location Unknown, Reality 1421, Time Unknown
- - - - -
The moment the endless tide of flybites stops, I step through the portal again. It’s just like pushing through Jell-O, and the daisy smell’s waiting for me on the other side. So are the orange mud and the purple stalks.
And so is the bomb. It rolls forward, its motors making a wimpy electrical sound as its wheels squish through the mud toward the place where I last saw the black merge wall. Off the steel-and-concrete surfaces of the JAMES Experimental Sector, it’s wobbly. Really wobbly. It’s no carriage, and it’s definitely not built for two—or even for the load it’s carrying.
I blast a flybite out of the air with the Revolver. Its wings beat in the mud, and then it goes still.
Okay. This is an escort mission. The bomb’s not very fast, and there are lots of enemies to deal with on the way. I’ve seen this in Knights of the Apocalypse. The equation’s always simple but frustrating. Too slow to run, too fast to walk, no common sense, bad pathing. The works.
I flick my helmet’s power on. “Hello. You guys here?”
“Yes. We’re at fifty-nine minutes on your battery. Estimated delivery to the wall in fifty-two at our current speed,” Strauss says.
[That should be enough, as long as you don’t get sidetracked,] James says.
I start walking after the rover. I can’t hurry. Not with the escort mission running. These are the worst—in games and in real life. The only good news is that the number of flybites thins out dramatically as we move into the mist. By the time I’m a hundred yards from the portal, there’s practically nothing in the air but mist.
Maybe that’s worth reporting in. “Hey, all the flybites in the area are by the portal. I’m moving away from it, and this whole reality feels empty.”
“Got it. We’re setting up a Faraday Cage and some extra stabilizers in case they all try to push through at once,” Doctor Twitchy says.
I nod and keep going. Occasionally, I have to shoot something, but there are no more slimes trying to eat me, no more flybites—no more anything.
Just boredom and the not-quite-walking whirring gears of the rover.
Eventually, I start hearing the voiceless song again. It feels like the recordings of opera my seventh-grade social studies teacher used to play during tests, but…not. Like a violin or a flute, but missing something. It’s incredibly distracting, even with my Infohazard Resistance—and it’s definitely gotten stronger since earlier today. I report it in, but Doctor Twitchy still can’t hear it. Either that, or he’s lying to me.
A couple of minutes later, the black void appears, and the song doubles in volume.
The bomb rover rolls forward. By now, its wheels are caked with orange mud, and its gears are screeching; if there were any flybites left here, they’d know where to find me. The rover lurches to a stop five feet from the black wall. Then, a light goes red and starts blinking.
[That’s your cue to leave,] James says. Doctor Twitchy says something similar.
I turn to go. But then something pushes through the void.
----------------------------------------
The singer is an angel.
The song doubles again. Music bludgeoning me like a club. Crashing down on me like a hammer. I can’t think. Somewhere in the distance, James is yelling in one ear about my vitals or something. But I can’t understand what he’s saying.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
The sound’s practically visible. It’s all I can see of the angel as it ripples off of it in all directions; I know it’s there only from the empty space in front of me. It’s a completely silent hole in space, shaped like a massive human, with two wings extended overhead—an angel. My jaw goes slack, and I stare at the beautiful, voiceless space.
Something clicks in my ear. Then, a second later, it clicks in my helmet. Then, there’s a rapid-fire click, and the entire side of my face lights up with pain. [Claire, respond!] James shouts. I hear that just fine through the fire covering my cheek and temple.
“I’m…I’m here.” Whatever filters James is running, they’re evening out the angel’s mind-crushing song, balancing it enough that I’m—
I stop walking forward toward the silent hole in space.
Now that I can think, the singer’s no angel. It looks like one, but it can’t be. I draw the Revolver from my hoodie pocket, use Bullet Time, and throw three shots toward it.
They hit.
The song stops, and the screaming starts.
It slams into me, not like a club, but like a bulldozer. A wall of force I can’t hear so much as feel and see shoves me away from the angel and toward the black void it came out of. I Slither away to the monster’s other side and start running.
[Stability 4/10]
This thing’s beyond me. And it’s not something a creative solution can solve. I need help.
As I run, the scream fades, and the voiceless song fills R-1421 again.
[Skill Learned: Infohazard Resistance 8]
Over my shoulder, the angel’s pushing forward. Sound warps and warbles as it floats through the air. I give it another shot while running, but it doesn’t do anything. Neither does a gravity shot a few seconds later.
[Claire, I’m rating this one high-Xuduo-Danger,] James says as I run. [It’s a living sound anomaly—I’m not sure if we can classify it as living, actually, because it’s not—]
“Don’t care. How do I stop it?” I ask between breaths. My feet slip in the mud, but I keep going.
[Skill Learned: Endurance 6]
[You don’t. Your current skill set doesn’t have a counter to it, and the helmet’s going to run out of battery soon. You leave and hope it’s not as fast as you are.]
The angel explodes through a thick patch of purple stalks. They try to tear at it, but there’s…nothing. They pass through its sound-void body, exploding into greenish-yellow goop.
I breathe. Think about the equation. Breathe again.
Then I keep running.
The song pushes against my ears, and something pops. I shoot another three shots with Bullet Time, let the scream push me away, and keep moving. The angel screams and screams, and I flee into the mist.
It disappears, but I can still hear it singing as it follows me toward the portal.
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By the time I push back through the Jell-O portal and pop into the JAMES Experimental Sector again, I’m completely exhausted. Even Endurance isn’t doing much to help.
I’ve been running for nearly twenty minutes and fighting as I go. The helmet shut down a while ago since I didn’t bother plugging in the wire as I fled from the sound angel. It would only have slowed me down.
Plus, I forgot.
Mostly, I forgot.
The Jell-O gives way, and the voiceless song stops for a second. The Experimental Sector’s changed—a lot.
A dozen towers surround the portal. They look a little like URAs, but three times the size and without the gyroscopes. Instead, they’re all linked by a grid of wires so dense I can barely see through them, forming a cage all the way around the portal and overhead.
There’s no door, either. No easy way out. [Faraday cage,] James says. [They haven’t turned it on yet, and I’m keeping them from doing it until—]
Something surges through the portal. The autoturret on the ceiling starts firing before the voiceless singer’s halfway through, but the bullets do nothing except pile up at its feet, stalled out like they’ve hit a wall. Outside the cage, two Recovery and Stabilization Teams worth of troopers ready themselves as researchers flee.
Then the angel’s all the way through.
A moment later, Strauss presses a button, and Doctor Twitchy presses a second one. The cage activates, filling the air with static that makes my hair float inside the helmet and pressure that feels like pushing through a Universal Reality Anchor but a hundred times worse. For a second, I can barely move. The voiceless singer’s song cuts off, and the whole cage goes silent, except for the humming of electricity filling the cage around us.
“Do you have a plan to get me out?” I ask. The helmet’s done, so I pull it off my head, letting my frizzed hair fly everywhere.
The voiceless singer turns around mid-air, surging back toward the portal. I cross my fingers for it. Once it’s through, SHOCKS can let me out.
Then, the portal blinks out suddenly, and the voiceless singer wavers like a bad TV signal in a movie. [The bomb just went off. I’m following SHOCKS communications, and they think the merge in—]
“Don’t care! Get me out!” I say, firing all seven shots into the angel’s chest. They hit, it screams, and I hit the cage. Electricity courses through me, and I bounce off it a moment later, feeling like a piece of metal in a forge. Researchers push the towers closer around the cage, narrowing the space between the angel and me.
[Stability 3/10]
Its wings touch the cage. Electricity surges through the soundless space, filling it with light. Then, the voiceless singer collapses into almost nothing, and the cage around me overloads and explodes with a crash that deafens me completely.
As I stand over what’s left of the angel, two RST troopers rush through with a container. They scoop the voiceless singer’s remnants into it. It’s already starting to re-form. Strauss leads me toward a gaggle of researchers with Doctor Twitchy at their head. My heart’s pounding, and so is my head; the adrenaline is bleeding off faster than I can center myself.
We’ve won. We’ve shut down a merge, on purpose, using Doctor Twitchy’s invention and Sergeant Strauss’s device. And my power. This should be a moment of triumph.
[Truth Learned: Mergekilling]
[Active Skill Learned: Soundbreak]
[Skill Learned: Infohazard Resistance 9]
[Stability 2/10]
So why does it feel like they’re holding out on me?
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Director Paul Ramirez led Claire Pendleton away from the overloaded Faraday cage and the deactivated portal to Reality 1421. The anomalous girl was still dazed from the overload, and she wouldn’t be able to hear anything for several minutes. Still, he wanted to finish the debriefing on the device’s test run before she forgot what had happened inside—and while she was still a little off-kilter. Something about her gave him the shivers.
Ramirez trusted her about as far as he could throw Sergeant Strauss. She had a history of clamming up, and with the JAMES Unit working for her instead of them, he couldn’t coerce her at all—or record any of his plans anywhere the artificial intelligence could find them. That meant the debriefing would be best served fresh while he rode the confidence of victory.
The girl collapsed into a chair the moment they arrived in his office. Paul took a seat on the far side of his desk. His monitor was on, and the login page was displayed clearly. He pressed the power button to shut it off; all the other electronics in the room were disabled by default. Nothing happened.
That was a bad sign.
“JAMES Unit, please respond,” he said.
Claire narrowed her eyes at him, and he grabbed a yellow notepad to write a message telling her that her hearing would return soon. She nodded. “Water would be good.”
Paul stood up and grabbed a paper cup from near the sink. He filled it for her, then poured a shot of something a little stronger for himself. When he sat back down, something was typed into the login box.
[I’ll burn it all down. Don’t test me.]
Nothing else, just those eight words. Paul gulped and downed the drink, ignoring Claire’s glare. Then she cleared her throat. “I can hear a little. Let’s get this over with,” she said loudly.
“Alright. First, the mission was a success. We’re sending RST Lambda-Five to check the Mount Douglas Park merge, but we believe it’s been cut off. That leaves whatever AA-3s are left there, plus any leaks of other Provisional R-2043 anomalies made it through there. We’ll figure out how to clean those up later, and tomorrow’s merge expedition will be cleaner as a result of what we learned today,” Paul said.
“Tomorrow?” Claire asked, eyes widening a little. She stuck a finger in her unaugmented ear and twisted it around.
“Yes. Miss Pendleton, we’re facing an absolute crisis, but this is a line of attack at its core. We’ve just proven that this is an option. I’ll have this information to every SHOCKS office on the globe and the three in space the moment we get communications back online.”
Paul could feel his excitement building inside, even as Claire leaned back in the chair and emptied the paper cup in one long pull. Then she said three words that crushed his good mood.
“I don’t care.”
“What do you mean you don’t care?” he asked, setting down his empty glass. “This is a massive victory for SHOCKS. We’ve got a line of attack against Merge Prime now. All we have to do is keep shutting down merges here, and we can actually—“
His computer screen flickered, and the text in the login box changed instantly. [Be quiet and listen.]
Claire squished the paper cup. “I don’t care. I’m going to keep helping you because it’s keeping Alice and Sora safe. But James will be watching you, so you’d better follow through.” She kept glowering at him, and he couldn’t help but think of every misfit teenage girl with an attitude problem. Except this one was probably stronger than any RST Trooper could handle alone.
And that was a problem for him because he had to deal with her right now. People weren’t his strong suite, and he knew it. He couldn’t help but feel the sweat trickling past his tie, and he fought the urge to loosen it. “Your sister should be finishing up a session with our research team now,” he said.
“And Dad?”
“What about him?”
“When are you going to start fixing him?” Claire asked, leaning forward suddenly. “You have plans for me, for Alice, and even for Sora, probably. What about Dad?”
Paul sighed. He hadn’t been looking forward to this conversation, and he’d been too distracted by his non-proven anomalous engine to prep for it. He didn’t have many options, and none of them were good. How best to proceed?
“Well? I want the truth,” she said.
He was almost tempted to tell her she couldn’t handle the truth, but she wouldn’t get it, so he took another deep breath. “Claire, the only solution for your dad will be painful. There’s no way around that. And if the JAMES Unit discovered it and told you before we started, you probably wouldn’t approve.”
No response. The nerves were getting to him, and he continued. “We’ve got to get him off alcohol. But there’s no good way to do that here, so we’re putting together a program. When we know what we’re going to do, we’ll tell you, I swear.”
Claire closed her eyes, and the words on his login box disappeared. When she opened them, they swirled black with red points for a moment. Then she blinked, and they were mud-brown again—a piercing, cold mud brown he usually only saw in Olivia’s eyes. “I hope so,” she said, standing and leaving.
Director Ramirez waited until the door closed. He shivered. Then he waited another five seconds, breathing freely for the first time since the girl had taken control of the debriefing. As he poured himself another drink, he couldn’t help but wonder when he’d lost control of his own facility, and if he’d ever get it back.