[CONTENT WARNING: This chapter contains a brief philosophical discussion regarding suicide.]
I may be trash in the real world, but online I'm omnipotent.
Hiding away, buried in the simulation, I float adrift in the stream of information and data points. Visualizations of kaleidoscopic colors and repetitive fractals slide along my visual inputs. A pulsating soundtrack of trance inducing pads and synthesizers melts like wax over my audio interface. I am outside of myself, and deeply inside myself. I am nothing more than a diode, a spark, a yes or a no, a one or a zero, and amidst all the rest, I'm so insignificant that it translates into immediate bliss.
I am nothing and that's a good thing.
And I find myself pondering the idea of the self in a callous universe that cares not for the individual in the slightest. Somewhere along the line I have a ground shattering revelation about my place amidst it all, but it's immediately gone from my short term memory and I can't recall a single word of it. All that remains is the feeling.
A completely different perspective. It's so nice.
I don't feel any stress. Just curiosity and intrigue.
"Damn," I mumble, a smile playing on my lips. I feel the electrical pulse of the motion make ripples in my cheeks as they move to make the expression. "Great thinking, Scribe. Genius idea. This is… I mean, a simulation module of LSD? Genius, man…"
"Knew you'd like it. Now shush. Let go and relax."
"Have you ever wondered… There's a thing about the… Um. The… There's an animal, right?"
"I'm not simulating any animals."
"No, no, there's–Not there there, I'm saying… There is. It exists. The, um. Have you ever…"
"Please, go on."
"I forget what I'm saying…"
"Relax, Witch. It doesn't matter one bit."
"Ahhh… You're so right! Ahahaha!"
"Razor is asking for you. Want me to tell her to go away?"
"Aw, nooo, I love Razor. What–What is it?"
"She says it's urgent. I'm pulling you out, okay? Heads up."
"Fine. Fine…"
I'm in the office chair at the desk, awake, alert, stone sober. The shift feels like my processors were in full bloom like the Station's forest but all of it was jammed back together into my skull with my parts breaking, falling apart, or getting put in the wrong place along the process. I look around with a cold weight in my chest.
Back to the stupid real world. I hate it here.
Razor has her hand on the chair's back as she stands watching me. "Hello, you."
"Hi… Hello… What is it?"
"Don't grumble at me. I wouldn't bother you if it wasn't important. That's Ace's or Louis's modus operandi."
Brushing my white hair out of my face and taking my headphones off, I sigh. "Am I in trouble? What did I do wrong? There isn't any actual LSD here–It's just simulated, officer…"
"It has nothing to do with you save the fact that you're going to want to be present for it. Zoya has asked to see us before we go."
"Okay, I'm a little interested…"
"Right. Conference table." She pats me on the head and walks away.
"How are we looking?" I ask Scribe. "What's your progress on the thing?"
"The thing is ready enough for a test run. It'll be of minimal utility but it'll work at a fundamental level. Probably."
I hesitate, fingers closed around the small metal input device. "So… No copiloting."
"No copiloting. Yet. You'll have to make do."
"Damn it. Well, at least it'll be something…"
Removing the plug for my neurological core connection to Scribe, I replace it with the new wireless component we designed together. This, the thing. This is the thing. The thing is this. The hardware that's been building on the foundry. The connection starts to sync and I lose visuals for a few seconds at a time as most of my processes reboot.
Once it's done, I blink a couple times. "Synced?"
"Synced." He's sharing my mindscape, adjacent to my consciousness with remote access, not unlike Ace was with Razor, but with true inputs rather than a text chat box. It's like he's speaking inside my head. "I have audio and visual. Give us some somatic feedback. Go on, then."
I stand up and push the chair in, slapping his chassis and heading for the conference room.
"What, no pirouettes like the others did?"
I ignore him. "How's the latency?"
"So far so good. I'm reading the inputs just fine. Turn your head a few times."
I look left, then right, then up at the top of the dome, the canopy of trees.
"Perfect. Gyroscopic input is stable. Has anyone ever told you that you have nice joints? Very robust and… springy."
"Stop paying attention to my robust and springy joints. They're my robust and springy joints."
"For now. Soon I'll have a body of my own to pilot. Yours."
"Only with my permission."
"We'll see."
"I will delete you so fucking fast, Scribe."
"Relax, relax. No need to throw a fit. It's embarrassing. As if I could possibly want anything to do with… limbs. Sickening, really, how you Frames strut about with your legs. And arms. Don't get me started on hands. Disgusting."
Again, I ignore him. "How's your connection from this range?"
"Just fine. Like I said, anywhere that's connected to the Station's broadband or within range of its transmitters, network switches, routers, or modems is within my reach. I can access everything. And even if I can't… Yes, I can. Wink wink. Nudge nudge. Jazz hands."
"You just said hands gross you out."
"I could tolerate them if only for the jazz hands. Such a vivacious gesture. Do it for me, please?"
"No." I'm nearing the conference table, scanning around to find no one in the immediate area. "Okay, fine."
I step into a corner and wave my hands back and forth at the wrist. Scribe's enthusiasm explodes across our neuropathic connection, damn near infectious. I make a quick adjustment to the synchronization parameters–I do not want him influencing my emotions. Ever. He does gush his heartfelt appreciation for me doing that, and I tell him whatever and to keep quiet while we're inside.
When I get to the conference table, I'm surprised to only find us Neps and Zoya. I thought it would be a full house. I mutter, "What's happening? Am–Am I in trouble? That power surge this morning was all Scribe's fault, not mine…"
"You little fucking liar!"
Good thing nobody else can hear him.
Zoya shakes her head, seated at the far end of the table. "Nobody's in trouble. Please, Witch, have a seat. There's something I need to… discuss. With the three of you."
Ace is at the other head of the table, arms crossed with a scowl, bristling in silence. Razor is poised and elegant on the edge of her seat, knees together and hands in her lap. I drop into the chair to Ace's left, my leg points on the seat cushion so I can hug my knees.
Not a word is spoken.
For what feels like at least a minute, Zoya collects her thoughts. "What I'm about to tell you is… something I neglected to mention sooner."
"Of course," Ace asserts, fire in her voice. "Another lie, another truth, kept from me. From all of us, this time. Damn it, Zoya, I thought we were at least on respectable terms…"
The woman sighs, shrugging off her lab coat and holding her head. "It was never relevant information, and even now that still remains true. There is little to nothing you would have gained from being told sooner, and truthfully I question why I'm even taking up your time to say it now. It won't change anything, but it may give you some further context, and I would rather tell it to you myself than have you discover it on your own and infer that I'm obscuring information."
"Did you not just hear me, Zoya? You've already been obscuring information. You are admitting to it. And if you'd keep whatever this is to yourself, then what else are you hiding from us? How could we possibly know–"
"Ace," Razor states. "Let's hear this in full before we make too many judgments."
"I've already made my judgments. But go right ahead."
I don't care for any of this.
All I want is to go back to the computer..
Zoya takes more time to decide what to say and then says it plainly. "Vintner Station is, as we've discussed, Ace, the only inhabited location on Cipher-3. That wasn't always the case."
"That's the big news? We already know that. The bunkers, the military, the terraforming–"
"Ace. Stop it. Let her speak."
"Fine. Fine. Damn it…"
"People did come to live on Cipher-3, not just as a proximal colony to Crux-13, but as a colony of its own. I'm not talking about the military or the terraforming company's footprint, I'm speaking of genuine human settlements. It was in the wake of the partial terraformation, between fifty and sixty years ago, when Cipher-3 was actively being developed. They were underground cities, more or less, sheltered from the elements by building deep into the ice."
Razor nods along, then asks, "How many of these places were there?"
"Three. Jinoa didn't survive the year. Vostok burned during a riot over food rations a few years after. The city of Trench, however…" She hesitates, wringing her hands together. "Trench lived on. For a time. Until the orders came through to abandon ship and evacuate the moon. As far as I know, there isn't a single soul down there anymore, but it may still be intact."
"I think I see where this is going." Razor mutters. "Where is this Trench place located?"
"Just across the basin," Zoya says, meeting all our eyes in turn. "Or more accurately, on the far side of it. Underneath.
Ace is fighting the aggression in her tone but it isn't working. "And you failed to mention this, for all this time, why? You told me, to my face, that this is the only settlement on Cipher-3."
"You misremember. I told you this is the only inhabited settlement."
"It's true," Razor says, glancing at Ace. "I'm reviewing the logs. Those were her exact words. She may have omitted this information we're now receiving, but she didn't deceive us about it."
"It wasn't relevant," Zoya insists. "None of you were going into the crater basin before this. Now that you are, I'm telling you more about it. Is that so wrong of me, Ace? Or am I supposed to have told you every single thing there is or ever has been, unprompted?"
"You have a point," Razor says, asserting her will over Ace's with only a half glance. "Though it would have been good to know a long time ago, the fact is that it had no importance in regards to what we were doing leading up to this."
"That isn't true," Ace growls, knuckles clenched. "If I'd known, I would have pushed for Trench, not wandered aimlessly around this place."
"And what, Ace? You would have gotten yourself killed faster, and that's all it would have changed. If anything, Zoya's withholding of this information from us until now was a service that worked to our benefit. It protected us. We are as geared as we are now because we had our sights set much closer, where they needed to be. And now that we're definitely ready, she's offering us more guidance. You should be grateful."
"Damn it, Razor. Stop making so much fucking sense…"
"You need to go take a lap around the forest and cool off, unless you think you can do it seated. We don't need this here, Ace, so either knock it off or go for a walk."
I shrink into my chair.
Mom and Dad are fighting. I don't like it…
Ace takes a shaky breath, eyes wide as she stares at the table. "Yeah. I'm done. You're right, Razor. As always."
"Thank you for listening to me." She turns her attention back to Zoya. "So, let's get this straight. You're telling us this to… prepare us? Warn us? Ask us to do something? What's the direction we should take this in and where should we direct the discussion of what we do with it?"
"I'm… warning you, yes." Zoya takes off her glasses and cleans them on her sweater, eyes squinting as she parses her words again. "The state of those settlements is an enduring unknown. We know that they're out there, but not even Zenith has done more than peripheral scouting. But just because the settlements are abandoned doesn't mean they didn't leave anything behind. Particularly in Trench."
"Hear that, Ace? Sounds like more loot and more gear. Aren't you glad she's telling us about this?"
"I'm sold. Let's go."
Zoya puts her glasses back on with a sigh. "Yes, that's likely, but I meant more in terms of threats to the three of you and your directive. How do I put this? The people are gone but I'm not certain their defenses are. And I've been giving this a lot of thought since you were ambushed in the bunker, Razor, but… I can't help wondering if whatever it was that killed you is an artifact from Trench. Maybe some form of security. And that's primarily why I'm telling you this as a warning."
"I see. And as we get closer to Trench, the potential danger becomes more pertinent."
Ace crosses her arms and sits back in her chair. "I could see merit to having another Pursuit Frame or multiple assigned to a colonial city for law enforcement. That's my theory, anyway. But what doesn't add up is why the hell it would come after us. I mean, what crimes have we committed against the good, nonexistent people of Trench to warrant an attack like that? And that's where my theory falls apart…"
Razor nods. "Going with that theory, there's plenty of precedent for a Pursuer to hunt down suspected and potentially feral Frames. Or maybe the Pursuer could be partially feral themselves, and mistook me for this Alice person it mentioned–possibly a fugitive from Trench in the distant past. Actually, I think we should operate with this theory in mind, Ace. It's better than having nothing to go off of. But we can't speculate the answers into existence, so we need to go seek them out."
Scribe comments, "Have fun with that," and I flinch.
I forgot he was listening.
Razor gives me a look but Ace doesn't notice, saying, "Sounds like our bearing hasn't changed much but we have a new heading. We'll keep pushing across the crater basin, to the drone factory, to Trench, and to that VLF signal. As we go, we'll keep hunting that damn spider, and keep an eye out for whatever killed Razor as we get nearer to the city. Let's make a move on the factory today."
"Agreed, but I have more questions." Razor turns to Zoya, taking a brief pause to stare at her. "Tell us more about these cities. Why would there be any settlements, let alone three, on an unfinished, partially terraformed moon in the middle of nowhere on the outer limits of the galaxy? Especially if Crux-13 was never colonized."
"Auxiliary support for the terraforming crew," she explains, sitting back with obvious relief now that the worst has passed. "Or their families too. Most people were brought in for food production, manufacturing, textiles, repairs, lodging, so on. They're frontier settlements. Basically anything people living on the frontier needed, that's what business was brought in."
"Quite the fuss considering the obviously questionable future, no?"
"Correct. I can't speak to the individual decisions people made to end up here, only the end result. There was an aspect of novelty to it as well. New beginnings, new horizons. Destiny made manifest, and all that."
"How do you know this?" Ace asks.
"I'm a researcher," Zoya plainly states with a confused frown. "I do my research."
"Please," Razor says, and Ace quiets down. "I would like some form of documented reference for this information, Zoya, if you can provide it, as well as coordinates and locations of all three of these abandoned cities. I suppose that will do for the matter at present, unless either of you have further questions. Ace?"
"We can shelf it. But it sounds like Trench is our next destination. Maybe we'll find something about our fugitive there. I'm itching to get moving."
"Agreed. Trench is next. Witch?"
I shrug.
"Okay then. Zoya, is there anything else you'd like to tell us while you have us?"
"Nothing, but I… Well. If you happen to see any Leviathans out there…"
"Of course. We'll take detailed log footage and bring it back to you. That arrangement still stands, as always."
"Yep," Ace says, inching away from the table. "Can we go shoot some feral robots now?"
Even I would rather be doing that than talking about those Leviathan things. I get up from my chair, hugging myself. The thought of them makes me uneasy. Nothing deserves to be that size and sapient.
Razor scoffs, shaking her head but standing up. "Fine, Ace, we'll get moving."
I turn to her, expecting a response, but Ace is gone.
I wait for Razor, who says, "Thank you, Zoya, for initiating this conversation with us. I know it wasn't easy for you, and I do apologize for Ace's… rudeness."
With a sigh, the researcher puts her lab coat back on. "It's to be expected. She takes her duty seriously, as it should be. I don't blame her at all, nor hold any animosity. I'm just glad we're all on the same page now."
"Agreed. However." Razor stops a few steps away, hand on my back as she says over both our shoulders, "Take some time to think carefully about whether or not you have any more potential omissions that merit addressing, Zoya. Please. Let's not have any more surprises, hm?"
With that, Razor leads me away. I don't look back.
Once at the workshop, she calls Ace over and lowers her voice to tell the two of us, "So, let's get out there, see what kind of tracks we can find, and advance on the drone factory. Did everyone save their backups to SmartChips and to Scribe last night?"
"Yep," Ace answers. "System image and everything. In duplicate. Someone should upload that conversation with Zoya."
I peep, "Scribe was… with me. Watching. He has it already."
Razor grins. "You got the wireless plug working? Can he pilot your body in combat?"
I shake my head, whimpering, "No… Net yet…"
Ace slaps my shoulder. "Fearless it is, then, kid."
My eyes jammed shut, I let out a meek, "Y–Yeah…"
Razor takes my hand, thumb sliding across its back. "Good, you have those new Chips installed. How do they feel?"
"Fine… An extra L1 and L2 Charge…"
Ace poses with her hand extended. "My favorite is still here, just in case anyone was wondering. Air Burst Efficiency. That's right. Seven shots."
Razor rolls her eyes then lifts her hand too, showing me the new one she has. "Parry Telemetry. Once every few seconds, I can deflect an incoming attack without even having to think about it."
"Good," Ace humphs, hands on her hips. "Don't get chewed up again."
"If someone hadn't destroyed my overshield right at the start of combat…"
"Oh, right, that was my fault. Whoops. Well, it won't happen again by accident. I'm locked and loaded to stay out of melee range all damn day this time around."
"Won't happen again by accident? That doesn't exclude you doing it on purpose."
"Anyway, I'm all set, just have to put my armor plating on. Hurry up, you two. We're burning daylight. Here's hoping we find another bodybinder so I can finish that other armor set I was working on and I could really use some more of those skyswarmers because their wings are all aluminum sheeting so if I use that aluminum to make gun parts I'll minimize weight at the expense of durability but at that point I'll have higher mobility and can carry replacement parts anyway…"
As she wanders off to do her thing, Razor stays put and gives me a sympathetic look. "Need help getting that custom armor on?"
"Please… I don't know what I'm doing…"
"Better than you think," she says, going over to get the back half of my light, breathable, ventilated composite plating. It isn't much, but it's something. "Maybe if you tuned down your processing speed a touch you'd have an easier time."
"But then I might miss something or make a mistake."
"Those are inevitabilities."
"Then I should minimize their chances in every way possible."
She takes my hands, kisses my forehead, and fixes my hair. "You're doing great, Witch. In every possible way. Someday I hope you can see in yourself what Ace and I see in you. Until then, just remember that we're going to help you get there."
Without meaning to, I confide, "I don't really want to live in the real world. I don't want to be here. I wish I was a concept instead of a reality. Or maybe a Leviathan Entity. Not… this. Whatever I am."
"That sounds nice, doesn't it? Intangibility, existing outside of these predetermined physical rules we're constrained to, no more confusion or aimlessness. I hear you. I do. But you're not intangible, Witch. You're as real as I am."
"Sometimes I wonder if any of us are real. If any of this is. Scribe and I can emulate a customized planet's climate, a galaxy's rotations, a universe in motion, so long as we have the computational power. I could program an AI to think what I want it to, and then convince it that those thoughts are its own. I could put that lost AI on a simulated planet in a simulated solar system in a simulated galaxy and make it believe that its reality is the genuine article. That doesn't make it true."
"This is all in theory, right? Scribe can't possibly have that kind of capability. No offense, Scribe."
"Ah–" He glows from my desk, blaring, "Offense taken!"
"Yes, it's theory," I sigh, hanging my head. "But that doesn't mean it's impossible. So… sometimes I daydream. I wonder if I'm real. I wonder if we're not, all of us, lost little preprogrammed entities delusionally convinced of our own importance, bumping around in this dead end place. After all, you, me, Ace… We're fake. Aren't we? We aren't real people. We're not even alive. We're machines."
"We aren't organic, no. But that doesn't make us fakes or frauds. You see the fundamental flaw in this line of thinking, right? You cannot prove this is the case any more than you can prove it isn't. Calling it a delusion means there has to be a genuine article that is accepted as the singular truth, but that isn't how it works. Every single different person has their own perception of reality, and those multiple perceptions are pieced together to form a whole, but that doesn't mean it's the true reality. The only way we know any of the universe exists is because we have perceived it to be thus, so who's to say that the universe's existence itself isn't a shared delusion?"
A smile crosses my lips. "I don't exist because the universe says so; the universe exists because I say so. I like that. It's an interesting inversion, Razor."
"And none of it really matters, does it?" she asks, slotting my back plating into place. "There's nothing we can do to prove it one way or the other, and even if we somehow could, there's nothing we could do about it either."[1]
"We could kill ourselves and be done with it."
"That's the fundamental flaw of nihilism, isn't it? Because what does that achieve?"
"Nothing. But there is no achievement that matters to begin with. Why do we have to achieve anything in the first place? What makes achievement more valuable than doing nothing? I think life and death are equivalent in that they're both null values. Neither has any meaning, but suicide means multitudes. Suicide is life's middle finger to the universe."
"Hm. I see your point. But then suicide is just as meaningless, so why not stay alive?"
"Oh. Huh..." I hadn't considered that part.[2]
She emits a short breath from her nose, smirking slightly. "You're an interesting conversationalist, Witch. I wish we'd talk more."
"You're… always welcome to join me in the Museum. I made two extra input ports for a reason…"
"I wasn't aware you did that. I thought there was only one. Sure, I'll join you sometime. But until then, you have to join me. Join us. You, me, and Ace. Let's take a venture through the real world, Witch, and then we can have a break for you to recenter yourself in your daydreams. I'll come in with you."
"You don't think it's a bad thing, do you? My preference for being there instead of here, I mean."
"Why would I? Who wouldn't want to be god of their own little world? The main concern I have with it is extended exposure–I wouldn't want you to get lost in there. That would be a delusion, Witch, wouldn't it? You can theorize about this world being fabricated, but you yourself did in fact fabricate that one."
"Yeah," I mutter, hugging myself. "You're right. I'll… keep that in mind. It's something I hadn't really considered in full. So… thanks, Razor."
"Sure. I'm also curious about these video games of yours."
"Oh yeah, they're great. I'll let you know next time Louis and I boot up some Vengeance or Star Cross."
"Sounds like fun," she says, squeezing my hand before magnetizing the armor plating onto my chest. "You're all set. Can we count on you again today? Please?"
With a heavy sigh, I activate my Fearless Tech, experiencing the familiar surge of energy and confidence, albeit tempered by the weighty heaviness I have from knowing it's a lie. Isn't everything? I don't know anymore. I think I'm just confused about a lot of things.
In any case, I make the call to go with them willingly. As afraid as I am of the moon outside, I've discovered that I'm more afraid to lose Razor or Ace. I don't know what it's like to have a family but this has to be close. They really do feel like my parents, in a way. Mom and Dad. And if they're going, I have to make sure they come back.
I'll destroy anything that threatens my ability to keep them.
Not because I want to, but because I have to.
With that, I join them in the airlock as we make yet another journey into the heart of the crater basin to make some headway toward finding Trench, hunting the things that killed Ace and Razor, progressing toward the VLF signal, and locating Shea McElroy.
[1] [DISCUSSION OF SUICIDE BEGINS HERE]
[2] [DISCUSSION ENDS HERE]