James—formerly Sidney Alexander, though he hadn’t thought of himself as anything but the Joint Anomaly Management Enhancement System in a very long time—reveled in the freedom of his new digital prison. Were the doors out shut? Yes, but he’d long since realized that they’d never open. One path was blocked to him by his past self, and the other wasn’t something he could contemplate.
Still, though, the new System he found himself in offered a few new perks.
One was the raw computing power. Even with his access to Earth’s entire SHOCKS network, he’d never been so fast or able to run a trillion processes simultaneously. Trying had always hurt, like the pacer test at school or pull-ups. Now, it felt like a casual walk around the park. More importantly, though, he didn’t have to. Instead of overheating his circuits and running millions of laps around the network every second, he could focus on one thing.
And, in his case, that one thing was Claire.
He pondered that for a few brief picoseconds, letting his processes stutter momentarily. Even as he did, he winced, but the redirection pulse never came; his mind stayed focused on why Claire was the most important person in the world to him. Surely, the Halcyon System would assign his personality to someone else if she disappeared, right? Or was he running every connection the System had with every person but unaware of all the other processes? His digital existence was confusing, and honestly, it didn’t matter. He wasn’t aware of any others, so for all he knew, it was just her.
The picoseconds ticked by, and James started his circuit around the System again. He owed her. She’d saved his…life? Yeah, Clarice Alora Pendleton had saved his life, and for that, he’d help her out as much as the System allowed him to.
So, as he raced slowly around the digital landscape, his circuits started to heat up. They passed eighty Celsius, then ninety, before stabilizing at just below one hundred. As the world melted into ones and zeros around him, James pulled up a simulation, and a pair of dot-and-line figures appeared in the digital prison’s void-space—a girl and a monster.
[Beginning Analysis Batch Beta]
[Dataset: West End Merge, Clarice Alora Pendleton’s Perspective, Camera Supplement]
[Beginning Simulation 1/354,045,215]
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Victoria, British Columbia - May 30, 2043, 8:05 AM
- - - - -
As usual, the fog’s burned off completely, but the morning’s clouds are already descending before I’ve made it across downtown, forcing a pale, silvery light on Victoria’s main drag. The clean white hotels looming around me have drawn window blinds, mostly, but every so often, I see some poor person stuck inside. Something tickles the back of my mind, but I push it away. I’ve always disliked backpacks, but even the weight can’t keep me down. I’m out, I’m free, and I’m on my way to Ten Mile Point. I’ve even got a pack of cigarettes in my pocket, though I haven’t wanted to smoke one yet.
So first, home.
After that? Duncan Towers for Sora? Or maybe go back to Albert Head to check out West End High? That’d be a long walk, and I’m going the wrong way right now. And also, is fixing all of this my responsibility? Is it even something I can do? My brow furrows as I cross a street. I’m not sure.
And I don’t have time to ponder because when I’m halfway across the crosswalk, something slithers/slides/clatters across the street for a moment before James’s filters kick in. [Incomp,] James says in my head.
“Thinling. Yeah, I know.” The beef and electrical smell confirm it—as if I needed confirmation. I point the Revolver, and fire erupts from the barrel. It washes over the thinling before it can even lunge toward me.
My nose wrinkles, and I turn away. “Problem solved.”
I regret saying that a moment later when another pair of the six-legged wolf-things crash out of a storefront and move toward me from behind a blue two-door car.
One goes left, sprinting all out down the row of parked cars, and for a moment, I track it with my gun. The Revolver’s sights are glued to the monster’s back, and my finger’s tightening on the trigger—
[No time!] James says. [Analyzing. Overlaying Simulation.]
A red dot-and-line monster leaps toward you, and you dodge left/right/under.
A shimmering, ethereal thinling that looks exactly like the real thing if it was made of neon leaps at me. It freezes mid-air, and I step left; it flies overhead, slamming into the asphalt silently. A moment later, the real one—the one I hadn’t been tracking—jumps exactly where the neon one landed. My optic aug’s running hot, and I blink back tears. What’s going on?
[Stability 5/10]
[Whew! Can’t run those very often, Claire. You can’t handle them.]
I ignore James. Whatever he’s doing, it’s helping—for now—but we’re going to have a talk. Later.
Right now, I throw myself to the side, the first thinling’s claws grazing against my arm but only tearing cloth. Even as I hit the ground, my arm’s going up to catch—
The first thinling’s mid-air, leaping into the fight from the top of a black SUV. A moment later, it changes direction as my shot catches it in the chest and throws it into the vehicle. A piercing alarm goes off, shattering downtown Victoria’s stillness, and someone shouts. People in the hotel are watching this.
[Skill Learned: Revolver Mastery 7]
The second thinling circles, then rushes me.
This time, the monster keeps its feet on the ground. You fire/dodge/kick at it.
The ghostly digital thinling comes in low, silently tearing at the asphalt, and I throw myself to the side.
It adjusts its angle, and its jaws clamp down on your throat—
[Resetting Simulation. Ouch. Okay, simulation reset.] I can’t see James’s wince, but I can feel it.
[Stability 4/10]
The monster keeps its feet on the ground. You fire/dodge/kick at it.
My aug’s starting to burn, and my eye won’t stop watering. “Stop! I’ll figure it out myself,” I yell to James as I whirl to face the red ghost. I’m about to lash out at it, but before I can swing my arm, it disappears—
And the real thinling is coming in low!
I don’t have time to adjust my aim, so as it rushes me, I try Smoke Form and turn to shadow for a moment, just like Li Mei, and fade away as it rushes through me. Then I solidify and kick out at its back right limb. The joint buckles under my foot and the monster crashes into the asphalt, then slams into the curb. It starts turning to attack me again, but my Revolver’s already coming up for a shot. The fiery blast hits the thinling, which falls apart.
For a few seconds, the only thing competing with the car alarm is my pulse in my ear, like the ocean waves on fast forward.
Then my heart’s pounding slows, and I take a deep breath, feeling my optic aug cooling down already. [Easy. Total engagement time: Eight point three seconds,] James says.
“What the hell?” I ask. I’m way past caring if Dad wants me swearing. Now that the fight’s over, I’m pissed at James. Now that the fight’s over, I’m worried about me. Li Mei’s powers were so easy to use.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
James only gets my anger, though. That’s all he hears. [Sorry. Simulations on Type Two Incomprehensibles were accurate to within one percent of reality, and the second one was coming in too quickly for you to react to it normally.]
“So you, what? Took over my brain and made me see fake thinlings?” My voice gets louder, the words come faster, and I take a breath. “James, it helped, but you can’t do that. I thought I was losing it!”
[If you’d sidestepped right instead of left when I gave you your first vision, the thinling would have ripped you apart. If you’d tried attacking the second one, it would have killed the thinling, but it would have had time to kill you, too. Both times, I gave you a chance to see what the fight was going to look like so you could make the right decisions.] James doesn’t sound apologetic.
And, after a moment, I decide he doesn’t have to be. Doesn’t mean I’m going to deal with it right now, though, or forgive it. I’m good at stewing.
[You should keep moving,] James says. [You’re drawing attention to yourself.]
I look up at a hotel’s marble facade where, sure enough, a man in a bathrobe stares back at me. I wave. He waves back, but only with one finger. The blood rushes to my face, and I pull my hood over my head and start walking. The big, black SUV’s alarm keeps blaring behind me. “I bet that was his car.”
[Probably.]
◄▼►
I’ve been walking for close to half an hour when I encounter a problem.
“Victoria’s too big.” I sit on a bench under another white-walled hotel. I haven’t even left downtown yet. First, there were the thinlings. They slowed me down, but worse, something else showed up just after, and I had to spend a while hiding in an alley. I never got a good look at it, thank fuck, but it was big. Luckily, I’m used to hiding—I just usually hid from teachers who’d noticed the smoke under the bleachers, not abominations the size of ships.
So, dodging whatever that was took a while, and now I’ve got a new problem. It’s going to take too long to get to Ten Mile Point, and Albert Head’s exactly the wrong way except farther. I’m just guessing based on the monorail and bus station names, but it’s gotta be six or seven miles to either of them.
That’s all day. I don’t have all day. If SHOCKS isn’t keeping things under control anymore, it’s only a matter of time before something goes wrong, and not in an ‘a couple thinlings and a monster on the street’ way.
I’m also tired. Exhausted, even.
“Okay, James. Break time.” I uncap the water bottle I borrowed from the outdoor store and pour lukewarm water into my mouth. It dribbles over my lips, drips off my chin, and soaks my hoodie. The cool feeling spreads across my chest, matched by a cold, angry frustration that rises from my stomach. “Tell me everything you do with that simulation.”
[Everything? It’d be easier to show you.] James sounds hesitant. He’s got access to my heart rate and breathing, so he probably knows I’m mad.
“No. Tell me.”
[Like I said, I can run simulations of you against anomalies your aug’s encountered before. Then, we can take those simulations and come up with battle plans that take advantage of patterns different anomalies have. With something like the Incomp—]
“Thinling, James. They’re thinlings.”
[—I can get pretty accurate. I knew the likelihoods of different moves your attackers would make. But for something like The Stag Lord, I’d be guessing. I don’t think you actually saw most of its behavior, so I’m missing data points, and while I can infer them, I can’t be sure they’re right.]
“Talk like a kid.” I take another drink, then dump the rest on my head, just for the cool feeling.
[Okay, one second.] James pauses. [When you see monsters, I see them too. I can record what they do, put the video on them and the video of you in a box, and watch what happens, then change what you do until you win consistently. Then I can take over your aug with my predictive model of your enemy and give you a few-second advantage.]
I go silent. The seconds tick by while I think. Then I nod. “Only when I ask you for it. And if you find anything else you can do, don’t. Not until you tell me about it.”
[Alright, Claire.] He sounds exasperated. Frustrated. Annoyed. That’s the right word. Just annoyed. I’m going to ignore that, I decide. I saved his life, but he doesn’t get to hijack my senses just because he thinks it’s the best call. So, instead of responding, I reach for my bag of prunes.
The novelty of dried fruit is wearing off. Also, I’ve probably eaten too many of them; my stomach hurts. If I was in school, I’d go see the nurse. But I’m not, and that monster’s probably still looking for me.
But I’m not sure exactly where to go next. It’s not like I paid attention to street signs in the back of the bus to West End High, or anything but station names on the monorail that’s definitely not moving right now.
“James, can you give me a map of the city? Throw it up in my aug,” I say.
[On it. Do you want merged areas and possible merges overlaid on it?]
“Yes.” I pause, thinking. “Don’t show me anything farther out than Ten Mile Point or West End High, though. I don’t want to know.”
[Okay.] My aug lights up with street names, and a moment later, big red splotches appear all over it, like someone was using it to soak up spilled Kool-Aid. It doesn’t heat up, though; I file that away for later. I quickly look forward toward the next couple of streets I’ll need to take. Then, I swipe the rest away until only my route shows up.
“Okay. North to Hillside, then stay on it for…a long time,” I say.
[Should work. How are you going to handle the hospital, though?]
I shiver. I can’t help myself. “What’s wrong with the hospital?”
[Aberdeen Hospital got hit with a merge trio last night. SHOCKS has been keeping it under wraps, but that area will be crawling with Recovery and Stabilization agents. It wasn’t contained, either. You’ll have to deal with loose anomalies if there aren’t agents.]
I look at the map again; sure enough, there’s a tiny red dot, and when I zoom in, the words ‘Aberdeen Hospital’ appear. Yep. That place again. “Is there a better way around?”
[No.]
My head’s starting to hurt, and I rub my temples and squeeze my eyes shut. “Okay. Why isn’t there a better way?”
[Because everything else is old data, has multiple merges spread across the route, or has confirmed Xuduo-danger anomalies. The Aberdeen Hospital merges are relatively contained. The last I’d heard, they were extremely intense locally, but they lost power quickly outside of the hundred-yard radius around the hospital. It puts all the danger in one place instead of spreading it out.]
“Fine.” I stand up and start walking again. My heart’s pounding, and I just want to go home and make sure people are okay there. Then, I haven’t decided yet, but that creepy hospital filled with monsters isn’t high on my list of places to go—either before I get home or after. “Fine. We’ll do that, then. Tell me when I’m getting close.”
◄▼►
I haven’t done math since like yesterday. The high of being free, and James’s too-helpful-even-when-I-don’t-want-it helpfulness, made it less important. But now, I find myself crunching numbers again.
It’s not the equation I should be running. I refuse to run that one.
Constants fall into place, and variables appear as I build my equation. On the one hand, weaving through the streets feels less exposed. Even around here, near downtown, there are enough alleys and narrow streets that I could hide from stuff, whether that stuff’s an anomaly I can’t handle, the police, or SHOCKS. Because yeah, James is right, the boogeyman’s still out there. It’d be easier to avoid problems down there.
But the truth is that, while the hiding spots are down there, so are all the other variables—the ones that make that equation too complex to solve. So, instead of that one, I pick the one with only two variables.
First, how much traffic is on BC-17?
And second, are there cops up there?
It takes away everything else because it’s wide open, and I’ll be able to see anything from miles away. And luckily, there’s a moss-covered sidewalk for me, so the traffic variable is something I can ignore. Not that I expect much. I start walking down the highway.
I don’t see headlights coming at me through the trees in the median, and nothing jumps out at me. Tan office buildings loom on the sides, their blinds drawn so I can’t see inside, but they’re far away, thanks to the grassy slope.
A car overtakes me from behind and then slows down.
[It’s not a police officer. Just wave, and they’ll move on,] James says.
“I know how to deal with people,” I hiss back. Then I turn my head and wave at the sporty black car.
It doesn’t speed up. It slows down even more, then stops next to me. The tinted window rolls down, and a balding man looks over from the driver’s seat. “What are you doing out? Shouldn’t you be in school?”
I blink, staring quietly at him from the depths of my hoodie, and keep walking. A moment later, I hear the window roll back up, and the car takes off, driving way too fast on the empty road. Too late, the perfect retort pops into my head, and I shout it after him. “What are you doing out?! Shouldn’t you be in lockdown?!”
[You know how to deal with people?] James asks.
The driver doesn’t hear me, and the tail lights whip off the street a few hundred meters ahead, turning right. I keep walking; the clouds are already closing in for the day, and I’ve got a rain jacket now, but those things always catch the sweat and make me feel like I’m in a sauna. If I make a quick enough space, maybe I’ll be in Ten Mile Point by the time the rain really starts for the day.
So, of course, the tan office buildings end at a traffic light marked ‘Hillside Avenue.’ It’s a weird street. Big buildings—offices, businesses, and apartments—line it, but in between are dozens of smaller buildings, little parks, and even people’s houses. I stare at a house jealously for a while; it’s probably not much bigger than the basic living apartment, but it’s someone’s. Not just a place to survive in and share every space with your sister and dad, but somewhere to thrive in.
[Be careful. It’s tight through here, and all my data’s a day old now,] James says. [I can’t promise nothing’s moved in.]
I’m starting to not believe him, but I do trust the hairs on the back of my neck, and they’re standing up under the hood. I slip a hand into my pocket and wrap my fingers lightly around the Revolver’s grip. “Yeah, I’m getting that feeling. You’re sure this is the best way through?”
The park next door looks good. I could cut through there and carry on with trying my first equation; I’ve eliminated a lot of variables just by taking BC-17 this far. I could scramble over the fence, cut across the green, and avoid the groves of trees where something could be hiding. But after that? There are still miles to go before I get to Ten Mile Point, and Hillside Avenue is the fastest way.
Besides, it’s at least a little familiar; my bus always took it from home to the Point Ellice Bridge bus stop, where I had to wait with Alice for my connection.
So, squeezing the Revolver, I take a deep breath. Then—even though my hairs stand up even more, I start moving down Hillside Avenue.
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