I’ve had the ringing in my ears for a long time.
Since I was five, probably.
I don’t remember. But it didn’t get bad until puberty. Not sure why growing boobs and stuff made it get worse. But it did. And even then, it’d be back for a couple of hours or a day, and then it’d stop. So I could ride it out most of the time. And when I couldn’t, it was easy to use my nap pass or complain about a migraine and go to sleep in the nurse’s office. Dad didn’t pick up the school’s number, and I could always nap through it.
My tinnitus was a nice alarm, too, for thinnings—at least until all of Victoria was triggering it.
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Location Unknown, Date Unknown, Time Unknown
- - - - -
I’ve seen…a lot…of thinnings. As I stare at the inside of this one—holding my breath in case there’s another spore attack—I realize I haven’t been inside of one except for a couple of seconds in the spore one. It’s a lot different than I’d imagined it would be.
For one thing, it’s not like being inside of a merge. When I’ve been inside merges, it’s still felt at least a little like being in Victoria. When West End got merged, it was still West End. Even the basement in the hospital still felt connected to the rest of the hospital, even if it was a different reality leaking in.
But this is different.
As my chest starts to hurt, I finally take a quick breath of the daffodil-scented air. The only place that feels like Earth at all is scattered around the shimmering blue and yellow barrier behind me. A couple dozen twisted tubas, shattered saxophones, and other instruments in awful condition sit on the ground. They look like they’re melting and flaking away at the same time. Everything else is shades of brown.
I’m on a mountain. Or at least a mound. A narrow path looks like it weaves its way down through pillars of…something. They’re taller than a basketball hoop, pinkish-brown, and look like they’re swaying in the wind. Except there’s no wind.
There’s no sound, either.
Not wind, not birds, not anything. Not even rats; the skinless, furless ones from the maze merge and the normal ones in basic living made me good at recognizing that sound. It’s completely quiet. So quiet, in fact, that I can hear my heartbeat.
“James, you there?” I ask.
[Yes. I’m working on an analysis of the current reality. I’ll have a good indicator of your relative reality levels…now. The provisional R-AAA’s reality levels are just slightly lower than yours, so on a long enough timeline, it’ll eat at you. But you should be fine for a while.]
I eye the decaying instruments dubiously.
[Really, you should be okay.] James pauses. [But let’s get moving anyway.]
The way down from the mound’s a little springy, like standing on a mattress. It only takes a minute to be back on solid ground. Or at least slightly more solid. The reality—har har—is that this reality’s all a little squishy. The sky’s orange like a sunset, but there’s no sun, and now that I’ve gotten a little closer to the pillars, their swaying looks less like they’re in the wind and more like…
“Are they breathing?” I ask.
This close, that’s definitely what they’re doing. I stop a few dozen feet away from the breathing pillars. They’re made of muscle, with some flap at their tops that opens with every breath they take. And they stink. The half-rotten smell all but covers up the daffodil’s scent, and no matter how much I try not to, I can’t keep it out of my nose. “Come on, let’s get moving,” I say to no one in particular.
As I move past the first one, it seems to lean in toward me. The second copies the first, and both cough red clouds into the air. Mrs. Nazaire is right, though. I’m not dumb, and it only takes a second to run the numbers and decide I don’t want to breathe that shit. I follow my own advice and get a move on, leaving the first flesh pillars behind as they cough at me.
They’re weird. But they’re not a threat. Anquan, probably. That’s what James decides after a minute, too. So we agree on that.
“Who built this path?” I ask after a minute. The whole thing’s lined with flesh towers, but there’s nothing else here. I haven’t seen a single living thing unless you count the coughing things. They’re still on the path’s edges. And they’re still coughing red dust, though that’s not hard to avoid.
I’m halfway through the pillar field when one opens up.
The first thing I notice is the sound; it’s like someone unzipping a backpack in slow motion. I whirl, reaching for the Revolver, as the whole tower splits like a banana with five sections that collapse to the ground, covering the path and the dirt around it. The smell goes from awful to unbelievable. The egg-shaped, translucent film inside is the first moist-looking thing I’ve seen here, and I wish I hadn’t.
And inside is a…
Not quite a person. Its arms are too long and thin, its head too angular. And it’s too tall. A basketball player would look tiny compared to it. But it could have been a person, once. Not human, but whatever passes for human in this reality. It’s nothing but flesh and bone now, though—empty eye sockets search as a hole where its nose and mouth were sucks in the red dust.
Then its head locks onto me, and it splits open vertically into two jaws. A Halcyon System message pops up.
[Devoured]
It howls, a piercing, deafening sound in the silent world around me. The Revolver flashes out. I pull the trigger once. Flame rips across the path. Not enough; it’s moving fast, and the shot misses. Bullet Time, three shots, two hits. The rotten-flesh smell gets stronger, with a hint of charred, burned pork. Then its impossibly long arms lash out. They grab me. I hit the ground hard enough to see stars.
It pauses. I’ve hit it hard enough that it’s wobbling. Goop seeps from the two holes in its trunk, but they’re already knitting themselves shut.
I roll. The devoured lunges. As it does, I use Slither and disappear. I’m in the opposite direction it expects, back the way I rolled. It hits the packed dirt path. The Revolver coughs once. Again. And a third time before it clicks empty. It doesn’t matter. The devoured’s head isn’t there anymore. There’s no angular head, no eyeless sockets.
Just quiet.
And the slight moan of more pillars breathing.
[Running an analysis. I’m putting that thing at high-Anquan-Danger,] James says. [Lots of physical aggression, pretty tough, and fast enough to hit you, but nothing you couldn’t handle.]
“Speak for yourself,” I say, picking my sore ass off the ground and wincing. Did I hurt my chest? I breathe deeply, and sure enough, it hitches. “Is it broken?”
[I’m not getting any signs of a broken bone yet, Claire,] James says. I start to relax, but he keeps talking. [Of course, it could take several minutes to be sure. But your blood pressure’s still stable, or within acceptable limits. It’s a little high.]
That’s not surprising, somehow.
----------------------------------------
Up ahead in the distance, there’s a small town.
It’s not much: a few buildings clustered around the path, a road that almost looks like asphalt, and a sign. They’re all things I imagine I’d see in a tiny community on a highway. Even the big concrete tower in its center’s not weird. It’s not something I’d expect from a town this size, and I have no idea what it’s for, but it’s not weird.
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But what’s surprising is the sign outside. It reads ‘Holy Square.’
It reads ‘Holy Square.’
[Why can we read that?] James asks a second before I can. [Almost no realities even have humans, much less humans with English.]
“Should we turn around?” I ask, but I’m already running the numbers. My goals might be changing. If the language is English, that means there were people here. And if there were people, I might be able to figure out what happened to Provisional Reality AAA. I consult my Inquiries.
►Inquiries (3/5)
►What is Merge Prime?
►Are Sora and my family okay?
►What’s going on at Albert Head and West End High?
►
►
So, yeah. There’s space. James and I debate for a while; he’s worried I won’t have time to finish an inquiry in a low-reality environment. But in the end, I’m in charge, and I think we have time to figure out the truth here. The math all lines up for me, at least. If there’s a town, and it’s at least kind of modern, we should find newspapers or diaries. Either could have answers. And James’s concerns about my safety certainly aren’t valid since the worst thing in this reality has been pretty weak. Relatively speaking, I mean. I wince as I twist a little wrong, and an aching pain works its way up my side.
I add a new Inquiry.
[New Inquiry: Why is Provisional Reality AAA empty?]
And, armed with my Inquiry, a math equation that says I should be fine, and, of course, my Revolver, I head toward Holy Square.
The town lives up to its name. As we get close, it’s clear that the whole thing’s built around a single building, the once-towering square-walled tower in the very center. The houses along the four streets that lead toward it aren’t anything special: peeling paint in either red, blue, or yellow, decaying wood, and the all-too-common flesh pillars. Some windows look broken in, but for the most part, they’re intact.
But the tower’s the only building that looks like anyone’s damaged it intentionally. Its concrete sides look blackened and charred, and its wide doors gape open. Loudspeakers—covered with reddish growths—hang from the tower’s sides, just above shattered stained glass windows. It looks like a combination of a military bunker and a Catholic church. “Someone’s smashed through that,” I say.
[I’m running Analysis. Let’s avoid that for now,] James says.
“You don’t have to tell me twice.”
I head toward a yellow house. It’s not much different from the others, but its door’s open. The glass front door isn’t broken—it’s almost like the wind hasn’t caught it at all. I plug in some variables. Either whatever’s happened here happened recently—like, in the last day—or there hasn’t been any wind since it happened. So, those are my possible X values, and depending on the answer, I need to be more or less careful. But I don’t know which variable to use yet.
Outside, the flower beds are empty; they’re just dirt. I reach down to feel it, and it falls apart between my fingers, crumbling into dust. I file that away; it’s evidence that the X value is probably two, not one.
The door creaks slightly as I push it a fraction of an inch more open, Revolver up. Inside, the house looks a lot like the houses on TV. A colorful, flower-patterned couch, a table with bowls and cups on it, and a newspaper. Exactly what I came here to find.
As I approach, the smell of something stale hits me. The milk in the bowls looks like powder, and I don’t touch it or see if any of it’s still liquid. I don’t need to. The cups are empty except for an orangish tinge on the inside. It’s someone’s breakfast, abandoned on the table and dried out to nothing.
I flip the paper over and read the headline, then the article inside.
Great War Averted
The Elders’ Council announced that research into averting the upcoming Great War has borne fruits today. Speaking from their tower’s balcony in Sacred Circle, they unveiled the weapon that will end the war: a bio-engineered plague to be unleashed on our enemies across the ocean. This plague could easily turn the tide of any war, and the public demonstration of its capabilities is expected to turn both West Nephilim and The Unbowing Protectorate’s armies aside. Upon exposure to the virus, all exposed people mutated into—
I don’t finish because something unzips upstairs, and I’ve got a bad feeling I know what the plague mutated people into. What I’m not sure about is whether the red dust is the plague. “James, did you scan—“
[Yes,] he replies. [I’m running anti-bias filters and looking for memetic dangers now. Some hyper-religious cults use them, and it seems like this whole society might have been one.]
“Great.” I ready the Revolver and head for the stairs. The devoured up there’s thumping around, but it’s not looking for me yet. If it was, it’d either be shrieking like the first one or silent. My money’s on shrieking. Either way, the math says I’ve got the drop on it, but not if it’s spreading the plague.
I creep to the base of the stairs, Revolver ready to cover the landing, but it’s not there. [I’m not seeing anything these anomalies—]
“Devoured,” I whisper.
[Sure. These devoureds have that’d make them more than an Anquan-Danger anomaly, so you should be able to handle them. I’m working on a simulation for this plague now—mostly to see if it’s likely to have burned itself out or if you need to be worried about it.]
“Burned out?”
[Yes. Biological diseases frequently can’t survive without a host. If it weren’t for the devoured pillars, I’d be pretty confident it was neutralized, but with them? I’m not so sure.]
The thumping sound upstairs stops suddenly, and my breath catches mid-response. The whole house is quiet all of a sudden. Too quiet. Has it seen me, or did it hear me talking? Either way, the equation’s changed, and it’s time for action.
So, just like Strauss taught me, I take a step up the stairs, Revolver up. I’m ready for anything this devoured can throw at me.
I’m not ready for it to crash down onto the wooden floor behind me.
Boards splinter. A cupboard hits the ground. Shattered glass fills the floor. It slices into the devoured’s flesh, and the monster shrieks. Through the open door, I can hear more zippers unzipping as towers open; it’s called for friends.
I use Bullet Time and put a shot into its head, then two more into its chest. Just like Strauss said. The cylinder with the gravity rounds thumps against my stomach in my pocket. The next devoured pushes through the door frame, and I shoot it with a gout of flame. Then, another rushes in. It shoves its injured ally out of the way. The whole thing feels like a zombie game, but less fun.
[Skill Learned: Revolver Mastery 11]
My fingers grab the cylinder as I hurry up the stairs for some space. I Smoke Form and Slither through the wall, feeling my brain bend in an unpleasant way. But then I’m through it, in a master bedroom. The bed’s not made, and it smells like perfume. Two skeletons—not devoured, but corpses—sit on the bed. I don’t look at how they’re positioned.
The Revolver’s fire cylinder goes in my pocket. It’s good for killing, but I need to get away.
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[Beginning Simulation Batch Zeta-Four-G]
[Dataset: Unknown Locations, Clarice Alora Pendleton’s Perspective]
[Beginning Simulation 1/345,659]
James wasn’t ready for this.
But it didn’t matter. Whether she’d triggered a trap or the devoured—AAA-13-P Provisional—were just opportunists, Claire needed his help, and he didn’t have time to run a billion-iteration simulation on the few samples he had. If the data was flawed, it wouldn’t be the end of the world.
If she didn’t get his Analysis, that would be, because she had seven shots of fire and three of gravity. That wasn’t enough for the twelve unique devoureds he’d heard through her aug. So, she needed to extend the fight out and come up with a way to avoid losing.
He could provide that. But even with petaflops of processing power running five thousand simulations a second—even with the ones and zeros blurring past his vision at a blistering speed that made SHOCKS’s whole network look like a Game Boy—he had enough left over to run other tasks.
So he could watch the real fight at the same time he analyzed his data.
Claire had holed up in a bedroom. The house owners had decided to greet the end of the world with an intimate moment. How nice.
Other than the door, the best option for leaving was a window, which she shot out before he could point it out. The gravity shell ripped into it. Shards of glass and frame tore free from the wall and compressed into a ball in the center of the miniature singularity.
She fired another shot. This one hit a devoured dead center as it tore into the bedroom door. A second got caught by the gravity pull and slammed into the ceiling. Then, her fingers switched cylinders while she watched the door. All seven shots were lit up; she’d figured out she needed to extend the fight, too.
Then she emptied the Revolver into the trapped, helpless devoureds before he could tell her to stop.
They died shrieking like the first one, but another tripped over their corpses, and then a fourth pushed through the clogged door frame.
[Simulation Progress: 174,399/345659]
It wouldn’t be fast enough. Not unless Claire extended the fight even more. A single Anquan-Danger anomaly shouldn’t be a problem for her, but the sheer number of them could easily overwhelm her.
[Claire, get out of there!] he shouted into the binary void around him, hoping she’d listen.
She switched the cylinders again, backing toward the destabilizing singularity at the window as the bedroom filled with devoureds that pressed their attack. Another two gravity shots pulled some away from the window, but then she had to Smoke Form another’s grip.
She threw herself from the window before she could go fully solid, firing the last gravity round up toward it. The first monster got trapped. So did the second.
Then Claire hit the ground back first, and James heard her breath rush out from her lungs.
He eyed the door he wouldn’t—refused to—open. It wasn’t one to SHOCKS. This one was much worse, and even though he wasn’t a SHOCKS employee, hadn’t been one so much as a slave, he still didn’t want to open it completely. Integration into the Halcyon System was a choice. And he’d chosen it, yes, but opening that door—the one with the twos and threes, not clean, simple binary—wasn’t something he could do. Not and go back, at least.
His fingers were on the doorknob when Claire got up.
And at the same time, he received a notification.
[Simulation Complete. Data analyzed. Optimal combat pattern available. Export?]
[Yes.]