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[>>Now replaying: Log 3.10.1 - Who’s afraid?]
Date: Error
Location: The Bunker at Progress’ Head // Zephyro’s Domain
//Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself.
For Lucy had her work cut out for her. The doors would be taken off their hinges; Rumpelmayer's men were coming. And then, thought Clarissa Dalloway, what a morning—fresh as if issued to children on a beach.
What a lark! What a plunge! For so it had always seemed to her, when, with a little squeak of the hinges, which she could hear now, she had burst open the French windows and plunged at Bourton into the open air. How fresh, how calm, stiller than this of course, the air was in the early morning; like the flap of a wave; the kiss of a wave; chill and sharp and yet (for a girl of eighteen as she then was) solemn, feeling as she did, standing there at the open window, that something awful was about to happen;//
[>>DATA CORRUPTED]
E3 %I thought Monsters existed because of the Logic, how could she have killed them if she didn’t make them herself?%
E2 %Very good, Tin. See, Voni? There is no way she can be some sort of hero if she didn’t create these monsters herself.%
E1 %Not all monsters exist because of Logic. Only the Ferals. The others were here long before the Torchbearer arrived, or else how would you explain the Dragon Kings?%
“Wolf!” I yelled, and Zephyro immediately thrust his hand forward. A split second later, a blue shield snapped in place in front of us, humming with energy. The wolf, already in motion, crashed into it, and the field cracked, bright lines spiderwebbing from the impact point, accompanied by the sound of breaking stone. The creature’s snarl rolled through the alley like the sputter of a broken speaker. It moved back, tensed its back legs, and launched itself against the shield again. This time, it sounded like safety glass cracking, and the shield flashed white.
The Feral hadn’t made it through, and unlike after the first hit, it actually seemed dazed. It shook its head, the motion rippling through its entire body, then perked up and brought its nose against a crack in the shield. It sniffed, deep and greedy. The cube of Logic hidden in my robes twitched. The beast growled, sounding almost pleasantly surprised. Its hackles rose in anticipation.
“If I tell you where it is, can you kill it?” I asked.
But Zephyro grimaced and shook his head. “Possibly, Sultana, but I could not guarantee to keep you safe.”
“I can take care of myself,” I snarled, but I noticed how petulant it sounded. I blamed the panic and fury waging their eternal war inside me.
That moment of clarity was enough to realize we couldn’t win this fight. If I ran away, Zephyro wouldn’t be able to fight the wolf, but if I stayed it might go around the Vizier and kill me as easily as a CEO with a hangover kills a project.
“Chris, how are we on those turrets?” I asked as I whirled around and broke into a sprint. I needed a way to defend myself.
[>>User CHRIs is currently busy: Code_dojo.exe]
Too long, then. As I passed by Zephyro, I pulled him toward the other end of the street. “Another alley? Circle around?”
“Follow me, Sultana.” He tried to get ahead of me to lead the way.
I grabbed him by his combat vest and pulled him back. “And run into another monster? Stay behind, I’ll do the scouting, you navigate.”
“But—”
“Shut it. I won’t die here. Not because of your stupid sense of honor or ego or whatever.”
He didn’t reply, and we were running too fast to ruminate if I had hurt his feelings. What mattered was: He’d listened to me. My anger pulsed through my entire body and into my legs as they pounded the sandy dirt below. Men always felt like they had to take charge to prove something. It was always “my honor” this, and “my duty” that. They thought they knew everything, and better than me, and then they died. They all died and left me alone.
That quit voice in my head told me I wasn’t being logical, that my anger had long since poisoned my thoughts, and that I should apologize. I blasted the thought away and focused on running instead.
I grabbed the edge of an older building and used my momentum to turn the corner as tightly as possible. The ancient stone crumbled under my fingers like the sky crumbled into the void. My feet slid on the dirt and whirled up a cloud of dust. It smelled dry and earthy, mixing with the notes of smoke and sweat that filled the air around us.
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> Is this who you want to be?
I kept running.
> Are you willing to pay the cost?
I tried to ignore the thoughts, but the guilt moved within me like a tiny stone stuck in my shoe. Every second of Zephyro running behind me felt like a lonely feather brushing against my anger.
> Is this who you want to be, Sam?
Fuck. Fucking fuck!
I slowed down. It didn’t seem like Zephyro needed it, but he took the sign to run beside me.
“Sorry,” I muttered between breaths. I kept my focus on the road ahead. The tiny stone didn’t go away. Not completely. But it didn’t poke as hard anymore. Before Zephyro could say anything, a boom echoed through the streets and washed over us. I could actually feel it in my chest. I stumbled, taking the chance to risk looking backward. The sky was filled with glittering shards of blue, slowly dissipating.
“That your shield?” I panted.
“Yes, Sultana,” Zephyro said. He didn’t sound winded at all, but he was glitching again. Then streaks of blue light shot over his body, and the errors stopped.
“Got another?”
“In about 5 minutes.”
We briefly looked at each other. There was so much more I should say. But then we rounded another corner and we went back to running without another word.
After a while, the alleys around us changed. Paintings of torches and smiling women who looked a bit too much like me started to appear on the walls. The sounds of the collapsing city faded from overwhelming chaos to sonorous background noise. Like all sounds of distant violence, it was dangerously easy to get used to, until the screams and the collapsing inferno almost seemed like a distant dream. If it hadn’t been for the flickering red hue of the night sky above, and the motes of embers still coursing through it, the streets would have almost seemed idyllic.
Well, apart from the ripped-open doors and occasional smears of blood on the ground. It seemed that the Ferals had long overtaken us.
We kept running. Zephyro told me we were approaching the richer, better-defended parts of the town. He suspected the enemy would move through the thoroughfares first, then spread out, like an infection moving through arteries on its way to the heart.
Even if we had a bit of luck and the other gates had held back the enemy, there was still an entire city’s worth of people fleeing toward the palace. Crowds of that size were completely unpredictable, uncontrollable. I’d already had problems pushing my way through the throng outside the gates, and this crowd would be several times the size of that. If we got caught in that undercurrent, we’d get pulled along for better or worse.
I was proved right a minute of running later. We entered an alley that went parallel to the main road. Tight corridors, drapes hanging overhead, A/Cs on the wall to my left, some sort of wooden balcony to my right. As we ran, I caught glimpses through open doors and windows. The houses were small by Earth standards, but far larger than the ones I had seen in most villages on Tobes. One house I passed had its back door open towards the alley, and the front door was hanging on its hinges, revealing a view of the main street.
We hadn’t heard anything from the wolf for a while. It had probably gone in search of easier prey. So I slowed to a stop in front of the building with the open doors, trying to catch my breath. The doors aligned to show hundreds if not thousands of people fleeing in the same direction as us.
I’d known there were many people in this city, but knowing was different from seeing. There were men with turbans, women wearing colorful clothes, children crying for… for a lot of things. The sounds of the crowd were dampened because they had to pass through the house, giving the scene a distant feeling like I was watching them through a TV. And yet, when I moved, the illusion shattered, and all I saw were people.
People who are going to die because of you.
As I watched, an older man fell, screamed, and exploded into a shower of cyan sparks.
This was all my fault, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I was so tempted to just sit down and—
I gritted my teeth, shouldered past Zephyro who’d waited ahead, and got back to running.
More alleys passed, and despite me slowing down before each intersection to check for threats, we made good progress. Or at least I thought so. The city was absolutely massive, and every time I thought that the next street would surely show we’d gotten close to the palace, it almost seemed as though we moved away instead toward it. I wanted to ask Zephyro how long it would be, but he had been quiet for a while now, and I was still trying to stay angry to keep running despite my exhaustion.
We stopped at an intersection a while later. I leaned around the corner to check if the way was clear. Only dust and shadows flickering in the light of fires overhead. Zephyro indicated a smaller street to our right, blocked by a half-collapsed wooden handcart.
“Why can’t we just teleport to the palace?” I asked as we reached the barrow. I was out of breath, put my hands on my knees to recover a little.
“Pardon, Sultana?” Zephyro asked, quickly shoving the wooden contraption aside so I could move past.
“You’re an admin here. Me too. And yet we’re running and not teleporting. Why?”
“Your… hmm, how to best put this…? Well, you see, your essence, Sultana, is too dense.”
My eye twitched. He didn’t just call me fat. He didn’t. I was fine. He probably meant something else. No need to get upset about it. No need for anger. Had to save it.
As I pushed past the Vizier, I inhaled sharply to clear my head. I knew Zephyro probably wouldn’t insult me like that, and I was probably being a bitch. And yet, being angry still felt so good. So much better than being depressed and despondent. I couldn’t stop. It would be fine.
Who do you want to be, Sam?
I ignored Patti’s question ringing in my head. There were more important things to worry about than pop psychology.
I debated asking for more clarification on the teleportation thing, but if Zephyro said it wasn’t possible, I trusted him. But I had more questions. Many more. Among the many things that didn’t quite make sense, one stood out.
“By the logic of this place, I should have appeared where I am in the real world, right? Which means the palace, because that’s where both my body and the laptop are, yeah?”
Zephyro nodded slowly, following through the narrow gap after me.
“Yes and no. It is not that easy, oh Sultana,” Zephyro said, using one hand to quickly jam the cart between the walls of the alley. Blocking pursuers. Clever.
“It is a bit like it is with the Ferals and the Shackled. Body and mind are separated here. After a while you hardly even notice it, but while a Domain is always built to represent the Real, it is never quite an exact copy. It is a map, true, but even though the map is incredibly detailed, enough even to live in, it is not the terrain.
”The same is true for us. We can be in one place in the Real, and another in the Domain. Sometimes even many, many kilometers away. This can be dangerous. If our mind wanders, we often don’t notice what is happening around our real bodies. That is why many of us decide to keep our minds as close as possible to our bodies, lest we become defenseless. And so we have to wander these streets together. Of course, you could always go back to sleep while you move, but it would leave you defenseless, and I would rather have you able to evade attackers. I believe you would call this way of projecting your essence ‘a remote transfer of data.’” He made a face as if he had bitten into a sour grape, but went on nevertheless.
“Besides, even though I do not understand the dimensions of its magnificence, transferring an Essence of a magnitude such as yours would take many, many cycles.“
“Still, that makes no sense,” I said. “My temporary ‘body’ is already in the Palace, isn’t it? Shouldn’t I have appeared in there?”
“Ah, Sultana, indeed you did not,” Zephyro said. “Because both you and I are a bit of a different case, in that our bodies in the Real can not move, yet our minds do. This isn’t harmful in itself, even though we may only unfold our true potential at the place where our Bodies remain. But this is nothing you need to worry about, Sultana. I will guide you through the pathways of my Domain and make sure you arrive at the Palace unscathed. There, you will claim the throne and usher us into a golden age of prosperity, inshallah.”
“But… Why not keep me in the palace where I am safe? Why did you move me out there on the hill to begin with?”
“I did not, Sultana.”
“Who did?”
At that, Zephyro looked contrite.
“I do not know, Sultana.”