My sister and I went different ways after Mom died.
She became Miss Perfect, Miss Valedictorian, Miss Whoever-I-Have-To-Be-For-Approval. Miss Liar.
I built myself a box.
And you know what? I’m safer in the box than Alice is in all the different masks she wears. I can keep the Truth to myself, and I don’t have to worry about whether other people believe me. I’ve got the Truth Club, and I don’t need anyone else.
It’s safer with Dad, too. And even though SHOCKS keeps watching me, I know they’ve never seen through the box. How could they? I built it myself.
But dammit, sometimes I see her faking it with her friends, and I can’t help but wonder what it’d be like outside the box.
----------------------------------------
Location Unknown, Date Unknown, Time Unknown
- - - - -
[After-Action Report: Albert Head, Victoria Merge Event]
On May 23, 2043, The SHOCKS Joint Anomaly System recorded a possible merge event centered at West End High School. Merge locations included R-389, R-251, and R-573
R-389: A low-energy reality, R-389’s defining features are brutal competition for resources, constructs that combine metal and flesh, and reality-warping Incomprehensible-designated anomalies.
R-251: R-251 is a replicating reality. Its inhabitants live in several different versions of reality simultaneously, and different decision points create new versions of their reality, causing the different branched paths to approach infinity. Given its effects on R-0, we believe prolonged contact with R-251 could result in a reality-ending event.
R-573: This was R-0’s first contact with R-573. At present, we believe it has something to do with the events of Merge Prime, especially with regard to Beta. However, the only hard evidence we have is Object 573-V-1/IO, and it’s proven to be completely inert when away from Subject 573-V-1/IO Alpha.
I skip ahead in the file to the very edge of what I’m cleared for. Past that point, every line is covered in black marks or ‘Restricted,’ and there hasn’t been much point in even trying to read them. Next to me, Li Mei’s pretty much drooling over the new information in the After-Action Report, but I’m not done with it yet, and if what I want’s in here, I’ll have to tell her to wait. I need to know—both for the Inquiry and for myself.
The merge in Albert Head also triggered Merge Prime or perhaps was triggered by it. Regardless, the area is under heavy research, with a Recovery and Stabilization Team dedicated to keeping it clear for researchers. The area is considered a top priority and has been placed under quarantine. See Merge Prime Research for details.
The link is ‘Restricted,’ so I return to the After-Action Report.
Facts:
1. When RTS Lambda-4 responded, they encountered the R-389 merge bubble behaving oddly. It didn’t follow known merge patterns and proved unbreachable from the outside.
2. Contrary to on-site reports, the replicated spaces within the building did not dematerialize. This presents research opportunities into [Redacted]. Further information requires a Class Three or higher clearance.
3. As of May 27, 2043, testing and research in West End High School is the SHOCKS organization’s highest priority in the VVI Control Zone and the second-highest in the North American region behind slowing Merge Prime. All available VVI resources not engaged in evacuating Xuduo and Qishi-Danger anomalies that cannot be contained in place are to be repurposed to research Merge Prime and the Albert Head merges.
That’s…nothing to go on. There’s no truth in there. In fact, the After-Action Report admits to at least one lie—maybe two—about West End High, and it screams that they’re hiding something. The problem is that they’re hiding everything, though. I’ve been trying to find information on my family, the other survivors from West End, Merge Prime, the After-Action Report for whatever happened with the meme at the basic living apartments—anything. But other than a few paragraphs as an overview, there’s no information for a Level A employee, not even if that employee is acting director for the Victoria/Vancouver Island control zone.
The acting director thing is, it turns out, a weird quirk of the SHOCKS database and whatever AI they’re using to run their headquarters. In an emergency situation—like if the control zone’s current director is missing and the facility is dealing with containment breaches, the next-highest-ranked employee is promoted to acting director. Li Mei is technically constantly breaching containment. So, when she realized the facility had been evacuated, I got promoted.
I’ve got a feeling that Li Mei helped with that, but I’m not going to ask her about it—not while she’s hungry.
I turn back to the computer screen. The rest of the document reads ‘Restricted’ on every page, followed by black words, so I close the file.
“Hey, that’s mine!” Li Mei says, staring at the computer.
Her eyes flick white, and I sigh and open the file again. “Fine. Just the top half, though. I need to know what’s inside the rest.”
I ball a fist while the words disappear from Director Smith’s computer one at a time, stopping just before the ‘Restricted’ section. Li Mei hasn’t ‘eaten’ a single blacked-out word. I don’t think she can. But I can’t help but feel like the answer to my Inquiry is right at the tip of my fingers, and I don’t know enough to get the answers.
Truthfully, I doubt there’s enough in there to solve this Inquiry. It seems like the boogeymen didn’t have this any more figured out than I do. But it does give me two leads: one I can follow once I’m done here and one that’s impossible to balance in my equations. The first is that West End High is the center of this whole mess—or at least SHOCKS thinks it is. If that’s the case, it’s weird that they never really interviewed me about what happened there. Then again, they have video footage and my augs. They probably didn’t need to.
Either way, it means I’ll see West End High again soon. Hopefully, without Li Mei. She keeps hurrying me through documents like she doesn’t realize I need this. She’s made it super-clear that I can’t trust her, both because she’s been lying to me about the fates of the SHOCKS employees that got left behind and because she’s made it clear she’ll kill me the moment the information I’m feeding her dries up.
Still, she might be able to help with the other lead.
“Li Mei, it’s time to tell me about the Joint Anomaly System. It’s not in the SHOCKS database, and it’s not the Halcyon System, but I don’t know what it is.”
“Mmmm. I can’t tell you anything about that. It’s the one part of the building they kept me out of. Everything else was easy to handle, but that room’s got Qishi-Danger shielding for every anomaly type imaginable. You can only get in through the airlock, and when I tried, they threatened an actual containment protocol for me. For me! Outrageous!”
“But you could take me there if I wanted.” That’s not a question—not quite, at least—but it’s right on the edge of being one. I’ve been playing loose with Li Mei’s rules, partially because I have to to get anything out of her and partially because even though she’s a menace—and probably the most dangerous person I’ve ever seen—she’s also the only person I have to work with here. I need her help, and she needs mine, and besides, we’re best friends now.
“I could. It’s down the Xuduo wing. We could visit some of them if Director Smith hasn’t emptied out the whole facility. But some of them aren’t friendly, and some of them are dangerous just because they exist. If you think you’re ready, we can go now.”
I think about it, but I don’t have any other leads. So, standing up from Director Smith’s shockingly comfortable office chair, I close the computer down. “Sure, let’s go.”
----------------------------------------
My new best friend leads me down the hall, past the computer-filled cubicles, and to an elevator. “I’ve watched Director Smith take this route a hundred times, and it’s how the researchers working with Xuduo-Danger objects get to their containment cells.”
The office is sterile. There’s no personality to it, just cold efficiency. It feels like school without the teachers’ personal touches in their rooms. Like the science wing, but the posters on the walls don’t tell me anything about the periodic table. Instead, they’re all warnings about informational security, keeping things secret from each other, their families and friends, and the objects they’re working with.
Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.
Li Mei grins at one of the last types of posters, then eats the words off it, leaving a picture of a pair of red lips with a finger over them shushing the empty room. She’s clearly enjoying herself in the absence of anyone trying to keep her under control.
Then the elevator arrives, and she disappears as its doors open. I step inside, thumb the pad to let it know who I am, and press the ‘X’ button. The elevator starts descending, and I draw the Revolver. Li Mei’s warned me I’ll need it but hasn’t told me what I’m up against. Maybe she doesn’t know.
Either way, the elevator ride down takes forever, and I’m left to my thoughts. Which, of course, leads to my mom.
I haven’t thought about her in a long time, but as the elevator descends into the Xuduo-Danger levels, my memories all rush back. The humming, the roses and oil, and the white flash. Then, just after that, the things that poured into my bedroom through the wall that was suddenly…gone. Alice had Miss Marvelous the Elephant Princess, though the plushie was in much better shape back then. I didn’t have anything to hold on to. Just my pajamas.
Li Mei pops into the elevator, drawing my attention. Her wrappings are tattered, and wounds cover her arms, but she doesn’t bleed—at least, not blood. Instead, what looks like pen ink drips from her injuries. She grins. “Object - 213-VVI-1/PA is free in the hall. The Stag Lord is a physically anomalous object. Don’t know much more about it, other than that it’s some sort of nature avatar, and it hurts.”
That’s a lie.
The door opens, and I raise the Revolver, heart thumping. The hall’s dark except for over each door, where letters and numbers for each anomaly line the corridor. The Xuduo-Danger prisoners get more room than I did—either that, or they’ve got tougher containment to break out of. The Xuduo wing doesn’t smell sterile like the medical cell I was in or like too much coffee and cigarettes like the office.
It smells like dirt and fresh rain. Plants cover every surface like Kudzu gone wild. Flowers and ferns hang from the walls and windows, and in the distance, I think I can see a tree—a tree in a hallway I assume is deep underground!
I look at the flickering fluorescent lights. They’re covered with vines, letting only a purplish glow through. One of the vines reaches toward me, and I bat it away with the Revolver’s barrel. The vine half-wraps around it in the moment they’re touching, and I pull the gun back with a jerk.
Other plants’ roots wedge themselves into door frames or slowly rip at seals around large glass windows; whatever The Stag Lord is, it’s only a matter of time before it makes this whole hall a disaster zone, then starts working its way through the rest of SHOCKS Headquarters.
“We need to stop this,” I say, and step onto the grass, half-expecting to see a tree face from Mrs. Lightsen’s room. Instead, something moves on the far side of the hall.
I pull the trigger, and a familiar ray of flame surges across the room, its orange light pulsing brightly. But something’s wrong. As it travels, the plants it passes grow rapidly, throwing their branches and stalks into my shot’s path. The mats of plant life catch fire and quickly burn out, but when the smoke fades, whatever I’d tried to shoot has vanished, too.
“Nice try. But we don’t actually need to stop it,” Li Mei says.
She’s telling the truth, I realize. We don’t have to stop it. If we find the Joint Anomalous System before it frees the other Xuduo anomalies, we can leave. But even though that’s the truth, it doesn’t feel right. I start walking down the hall, careful not to touch anything—and working on phrasing a not-question for Li Mei. “Tell me what you were fighting that cut your arms.”
“Oh, The Stag Lord.” Li Mei stares at her arms, which have mostly stopped bleeding ink, and the tattered wrappings. “I’m still working through the thoughts I drained, though. It’s not human. It’s barely awake.”
The Stag Lord’s thoughts are barely awake? I almost ask Li Mei about it but catch myself. Instead, I focus on the foliage. The hallway is greener than Vancouver Island and nearly as humid.
I turn the corner, holding the Revolver like Lieutenant Rodriguez showed me for covering a turn, and see it.
The Stag Lord.
It’s facing away from me, hands outstretched, covering a door labeled ‘Joint Anomalous—‘ something with plants whose roots tear into the steel barrier. It’s impossible to read the rest from this far away—not with the vines and roots covering it, and not with its eight-foot frame in the way. Two white antlers span the hall’s width, avoiding gouging the walls by inches. The rest of its body is covered in vines—or maybe it is the vines.
I gulp and creep forward, my stomach doing backflips. It’s big enough that I’ll need to run as soon as I pull the trigger. Otherwise, it’ll probably break my arm with one swing of its vine arms.
I hold the Revolver up and pull the trigger.
And The Stag Lord burns.
----------------------------------------
{Skill Learned: Revolver Mastery 5}
It screams as the Revolver’s flames touch its matted root body—not the bellow I’d expect from something that big, but a higher-pitched scream of agony—and it whips around to face me. The empty, dark eye-sockets in its skull mask quickly fill with fire, and it rushes toward me, still shrieking. I pull the trigger as the Revolver’s cylinder rotates, but the shot passes over The Stag Lord’s shoulder—or maybe through it—and slams into the door. It catches fire, too.
Then I turn and run.
{The Stag Lord (-1) - Reality-Bending Anomaly}
{Stability 2/10}
As I run, the walls come alive around me, vines and flowers exploding into growth. The thickets and brambles choke the hall, tearing at my hoodie and trying to rip the Revolver from my hands. Li Mei turns around, wrappings little more than tatters over her jet-black skin, and takes a step toward the flaming Stag Lord. Then she thinks better of it and disappears. A flower explodes, and a thorn jams into my arm, but I pull it out. It stings. Acid?
{Skill Learned: Physical Anomaly Resistance 2}
My best friend has abandoned me. The thought bounces crazily around my brain like a pinball, and I keep running as the heat builds on my back. I turn the corner. The elevator’s right there, just down the hall, and I sneak a look over my shoulder at The Stag Lord.
The screaming has stopped, and its whole body is ablaze except for a small section around its stomach that stubbornly refuses to burn. Both antlers burn, too. It staggers down the hall after me, and I duck into the elevator and hold the ‘Close’ button down until the solid steel doors slide shut.
The metal buckles and groans once as something massive slams into it. Twice. I brace the Revolver facing the door, waiting for the third hit to break through, but it doesn’t. Only my panicked breathing breaks the sudden silence in the elevator.
I slowly, carefully work up the courage to press the ‘Open” button, but just as I reach out, a singed-looking Li Mei pops into the elevator. “You made it. Good. Wait a minute for the smoke to clear out.”
“You left me!”
“I did. I’m not about to fight that in a burning hallway, but you did a great job. I’ve checked, and it’s…I believe the term SHOCKS uses for indestructible anomalies is ‘Temporarily Neutralized,’ but ‘hibernating’ probably describes it better.”
The shakes hit me a moment later as my panic fades. My head spins; I’ve been low-Stability before, in the push to the Universal Reality Anchor, but it doesn’t feel like I’ve even scratched the surface of this place. Since the door still radiates heat, I slump into the far corner and pull up my Truths and Inquiries.
►Truths - Anomalous Bond 2 (-2), West End High 1 (-2), SHOCKS Research Facility (-2)
►Inquiries (2/5)
►What is Merge Prime?
►Li Mei and Infovampires
I still can’t answer any of those, and I’m not sure it’s a good idea to anymore. Any more knowledge I shouldn’t have might tip me over the edge, and I don’t want to merge—or have another reality merge on top of me. Li Mei might be my best friend, but she’s not above leaving me behind to save herself. Would she turn on me if things got worse? It’s hard to say, but my gut says the truth is yes. So, I need to protect my Stability.
Then, an idea hits me.
Instead of trying not to answer these, I could find Inquiries I can answer.
It’s high risk, but I need a Skill to help me deal with Truths. So, I mentally work through the Halcyon System until I’ve cleared three Inquiries. I don’t need to know what Merge Prime is yet, and whatever happened at West End High, I won’t learn it right now. The Halcyon System’s a big mystery—probably too big for me to solve right now, so I also abandon that line of questioning. In their place, I come up with three brand-new questions that will, hopefully, lead me to a Skill that gives some Stability reduction to my Truths.
►Inquiries (5/5)
►What is Merge Prime?
►Li Mei and Infovampires
►What’s the Stag Lord?
►What is the Joint Anomalous System?
►Why does The Stag Lord want to open up the Xuduo doors?
I look over my list of Inquiries one more time—my new ones feel much more answerable than trying to figure out the big-picture questions—and blink the Halcyon System away. Then I stand and press the back of my hand to the door. It feels…not cool, exactly, but it doesn’t burn me.
“Okay, time to find the truth,” I say, as much to psyche myself up as to say something to Li Mei. The elevator doors half-open before catching, and I squeeze through them just as a tiny figure the size of a doll slips from The Stag Lord’s burning body and disappears down the hall. I fire a shot from the Revolver but miss, and it’s gone before I can take another shot.
“’Temporarily neutralized,’” Li Mei says. “Let’s go. You want to see the Joint Anomalous System, right?”
“Yes, I do,” I say, Li Mei’s power working on me again.
Her white eyes bore into mine before she tears herself away. “Then let’s go.”
{Stability 1/10}
I wobble on my feet for a moment before steadying myself. Her previous questions hadn’t screwed with my Stability! What’s going on? I almost ask it out loud but follow her down the hall instead. Like it or not, I’m in it for the long haul now; if the elevator doors won’t open, it probably can’t go up anymore, either. So, there’s really only one choice: I have to follow Li Mei.
The plants are gone. All of them. In their places are piles of ash that coat the tile floor and an occasional wisp of flame. Every single door in the Xuduo-Danger wing is cracked, and some look pulled out of their frames. A fire sprinkler runs in front of us, with another down the hall. I walk through the water, even though it soaks my hoodie.
I turn the corner to see Li Mei staring at me, a hungry expression on her mostly-revealed face. Before I can raise my gun, though, I see the door. I stare, not understanding for a moment, as I read the seven words over and over. “Joint Anomaly Management Enhancement System: Experimental Sector,” I say. The words feel wrong on my tongue.
Everything happens all at once.
{Truth Learned: What is the Joint Anomalous System?}
{Active Skill Learned: Analyze: ERROR. Missing component}
{Stability 0/10}
{Merge Triggered}
Li Mei lunges toward me while I pull Revolver’s trigger. Fire fills the hallway, and she screams and disappears, teleporting behind me. Her wrappings burn, but there’s no flaming hole in her.
I’m already running for the door, my thumb pushing down on the scanner to open it. I slide inside, and the door hisses shut before Li Mei can join me.
And finally, the thought crystallizes. Joint Anomaly Management Enhancement System. James.