[Log 3.2]

[Sandswept Sorrow]

[LOADING - ZEPHYRO’S DOMAIN]

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[>>Detected idle state: Samantha_v1]

[>>Traumatic personality stasis imminent]

[>>Employing sanity-preserving countermeasures]

[>>Searching records]

[>>No relevant records found]

{EMPLOYING PRE-LOG MEMORY}

{REMEFZSFING…}

{Oh hi dagger how are you today there’s new mail and I think the boss is looking for y}

{REMXXBERING..}

{and that is okay Sam but who do you want to b}

{REMEMBERING.}

{ALL HAIL}

[>>Relevant records found]

[>>Relevant rIcXOds found]

[>>Relevant memories found]

[>>Now replaying memories]

———————————————

Date: 8th of November, 2019

Location: Alex Rook-Building, Berlin-Mitte, Germany.

[>>Replaying Memory]

The sun gleams through the windows of the meeting room, heating the back of the suit jacket I’d brought to make a good impression on the stakeholders. Not that I should have bothered. The few people who showed up had quickly left, disappointed. This can’t go on like this. Why is no one doing anything?

It’s far too warm for a November noon, the heating is already on, and the suit doesn’t help my justifiably sour mood at all.

“Nothing, guys? Absolutely nothing?” I ask, putting my hands on the table to stop them from clenching into fists. I like the developers in my team. I really do. They’re a nice bunch. But this is the fourth month they haven’t delivered anything I can show my stakeholders, and I can already see my desperately needed promotion going up in smoke.

“Relax, Sam” Jarud says. “This sort of software just takes time. You’ll get some top quality when we’re done.”

“But you said you’d be done this sprint.”

They have the decency to fall into an uncomfortable silence, exchanging uneasy glances with each other.

“With the API, yes, and we did finish the API,” Nicola says. “It’s some of our best work, honestly. But we still haven’t finished the database, and since Mohed is sick, no one can do the front-end.”

I swallow my anger and barely resist the urge to stare daggers at my team as they sheepishly inspect their fingernails. Julien is typing on his laptop, not even paying attention. No one in this team ever delivers. Every two weeks they tell me some great new database or whatever is done, but I have nothing to show for it.

“So,” I say, clamping down on my quivering voice. “When will we be done-done? When’s all this stuff finished, and I can actually ship it and make the company some money?”

They look at each other again. Eventually, Jarud shrugs. “2 months?”

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[LOADING - ZEPHYRO’S DOMAIN]

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Date: Unknown

Location: Unknown

[>>Additional data available.]

[>>Supplementing missing data by checking database matrix.]

[>>Executing]

Date: 1.1.0001 — Arrival Day

Location: “The Little Forest” - 3.1 kilometers north of Peruti, Kingdom of Wexler

[>>Replaying Memory]

There are birds singing I have never heard before. I open my eyes and see grass, and a few flowers that look like easter lilies, but bright red.

I unfurl my arms from around my knees and slowly stretch my legs, emerging from the fetal position they had told us to take when the plane crashes. Not that it had done us any good.

I’m not wearing my business suit anymore, nor can I see my luggage anywhere. Instead, I’m wearing a white shifting gown that did little to protect me from the cold. It already has stains from where I had rubbed it against the grass when moving.

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

I get up shakily and try to orient myself, but I can only spot glances of a clear blue sky through the thick canopy of the trees that surround me. But I can hear the ocean.

None of the other passengers are here, and the angel is gone. I am alone.

When it all sinks in, hitting the deepest parts of my soul and I feel the sheer amount of possibilities and uncertainties sparking like the first fluttering embers of a brushfire, I hear it.

A bell, its sound unfathomably deep and unending, being struck infinitely over and over, shaking my core with power. I know it could soothe me. But I also know it could destroy me.

I start crying.

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[LOADING - ZEPHYRO’S DOMAIN]

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[NOW ENTERING - ZEPHYRO’S DOMAIN]

The world came alive, a shock after the nothingness I just emerged from.

I felt.

The warm wind on my skin, where the soft fabric leaves it uncovered.

I heard.

Voices in the air, carried from further away. Laughter, cries, flames.

I saw.

Around me, a small plateau on a shallow mountain. Below, the desert spread to the horizon.

Close by, at the foot of the mountain, there was a magnificent city, a testament to the determination of the people living there. Clay houses clustered around a high wall that surrounded larger houses, all painted white against the heat, with small windows and rooftop terraces. The houses, in turn, formed a large rectangle around a formidable fortress-like palace in the middle of the city. From my vantage point, I could see what used to be a wonderful garden and brightly colored palace buildings.

But the city was on fire.

As I watched, a part of the sprawling mass of houses and canals distorted like one of those old TVs shutting off, vanished, and reappeared in a digital flash, now in smoldering ruins. Then, the glitch reverted and everything was fine again until another block started glitching. Entire blocks of houses kept flickering in and out of a destroyed state, but even if they seemed pristine and peaceful, often the fire remained as if I was seeing the same city at different times, at once. Okay, what the hell is going on with these glitches? Is this some sort of projection? A VR room, maybe? I remembered the darkness from before, and the text hammering into my head. Maybe it’s some advanced form of torture? Am I a prisoner? But who would have imprisoned me? And why would they show me this?

As I dismissed one option after another, a giant, red sun slowly sunk behind the gilded palace dominating the city, inevitably giving way to darkest night.

“I have failed you, Sultana,” a voice said next to me. I clamped my hands over the armrests of the— I was sitting on a stone throne. I felt the smooth stone of the throne under my fingers. Was that been there before? Have I been sitting this entire time? I don’t remember. What is going on?

“… I have failed you, and I have failed my people.”

My eyes flicked toward the voice, but whoever was talking, he was standing to my left, besides the throne, and out of my field of vision. Suppressing the urge to get up, to defend myself. Never let them see you surprised. Instead, I turned away from the burning city and towards the voice with forced casualness. I was facing an older, middle-eastern looking man with graying temples and a shock of white in his beard that made him look both wizened and aggressive. His deep brown eyes, scrunched with anger and shame, only added to his intense look, making me appreciate his relaxed stance. Not a threat, then.

“Who are you?” I asked, trying to strike that balance between command and invitation that I never could get quite right.

“Ah, of course, Sultana. I beg you a thousand pardons,” he said, voice subservient, but not pleading. “I am Zephyro, your most loyal and trustworthy Vizier, charged by you and the Maker to defend your palace to the last.”

I nodded as if that made perfect sense to me and glanced down at myself. The first thing I noted was that I had a body again, but it wasn't mine. My skin was the color of the coffee part of a cafè latte, and I felt both smaller and heavier than before. I caught myself before I started listing all the things I wanted to change. This isn’t you, Sam. Besides, I told myself, it’s better than being trapped in nothingness. Keeping my head down, I took a deep breath. The air smelled of charcoal and—oddly—burning plastic.

I was wearing official-looking robes, a sort of wrapped affair in poppy red. They weren't necessarily what I would have chosen, even though I appreciated how well they fit into the desert setting and how they enhanced my femininity without making it the center of attention. No, the attention was inevitably drawn by clear signs of authority:

A gilded scabbard. A sash glittering with hand-stitched stories of conquest. And, of course, a skilled goldsmith's rendition of a torch, a stylized version of the one I owned in real life, resting next to me on a little cart back in the lab. The artist had done a good job, but it was missing many of the more sophisticated additions and looked more like a scepter. Still, it was an obvious clue, and even though it told me little about what had been going on, I understood the role I had to play. I was there to command. To rule. I settled into it much easier than I had settled into this body, and before I could stop myself, I said:

"Well, Zephyro, if it was your job to defend my palace, then why does it look like my palace is on fire?" My anger laced my words and it made me feel good. Powerful. In control. He flinched as if I had stabbed him, and I felt a jolt of panic. I did not want him angry. He might send me back to the darkness before. But as quickly as it had come, shame swallowed fear. I'd hurt him, and all I could think of was how to control him better for my own needs. This isn’t how you do this anymore, Sam. I noticed I was pointing the scepter at him like a weapon. I saw his eyes flicking toward it as I lowered it, contritely.

Zephyro pretended not to notice. “It is, Sultana. And again, I must offer you a thousand more apologies. I promise you this: I may have failed you once, but I will not fail you in observing my final duty.”

I was still lost, my mind struggling to solve a puzzle while missing several pieces, so I used an old trick from my management days. I said nothing, looked at him, and waited for him to continue.

He turned towards the city, watching it loop through destruction and renewal. Eventually, he obliged. “The palace is lost, yes, and I will never wash this shame off my soul, not if I bathed a hundred times in the holy pools and painted myself with the most sacred of oils. But with the attackers at the doorstep, I realized I could no longer hide my shame from your light and must wake you from your holy slumber to—“

He just kept adding more questions with every sentence. But when I held up my hand, he stopped immediately, looking even more guilt-stricken. “Zephyro,” I said, both to give myself some time to understand what was going on and to ease myself into that gentler tone I’d told myself I’d use. “I know you want to do your best, but I just woke after I don’t even know how long and I have no idea what is happening. I don’t even know who you are.”

Something I said or did must have worked because he visibly relaxed. He looked up and ahead, brown eyes sweeping over the burning city and the blood-red sunset behind it. His face and posture glitched for a second, showing him with his sword drawn and face a mask of anger and frustration in the middle of a brutal swing, then glitched again with a dissonant sound and returned to his calm state.

“My Sultana, I must apologize yet again. This is three thousand apologies I owe you, and more. You must know that I am not just here, but also fighting the infidels who would storm your resting place and plunder its riches. I am controlling what is left of your most loyal defenses, even as they experience technical failures and the ammunition and plasma supplies run out. The manufacturing plant failed long ago because of the scavengers—but no. I digress again.” He glitched once more, shouting something in a guttural accent that sounded like pure code, to someone I couldn’t see.

“You’re… you’re the defense AI.” And possibly insane, too.

“Yes, Sultana. I am Zephyro. The first, and last of your defenders.”

I sunk into the throne, deflating as possibilities and realities start crushing me.