by K.A. Rose

Stage 11:
Hard to Believe
 
 

    Kite stood leaning on the railing of the great bridge over the Mac Anu water main. His back was to the water, with his eyes fixated on his shoes.
    Fixation was the right word. To an outside observer Kite appeared so deeply engrossed with his current range of vision that he seemed glued to the sight. There was an unhinged, hazed appearance to his eyes, as much of one as could be gotten here, that usually resulted from a user who didn't put enough effort into sending data over the interface visor. But in his case it came from a fatigue so great that he might not have improved even if he'd tried.
    It was about a week later, the thirteenth of December. A Tuesday, roughly two PM.
    Kite's school had let out on Christmas break; his particular private school had a predominantly Christian student body, so they had a longer winter break than most schools, and as a result the servers were mostly desolate. Now and then a stray player would pass him, pausing for a moment in curiosity over any number of factors, before rushing on.
    He was the perfect picture of mutism. His mother and brother had not milked a single word from him in days, and when forced to respond he would simply grunt. After finding the suddenly introverted teen on winter break the family tried everything in their power to get him out of the house for a while, get some fresh air, but his protests grew so vehement that they soon were happy enough to leave him to his own devices in his room.
    His school friends had called a few times, mostly over the phone and once or twice landing physically on his doorstep. Without fail these were turned away; even Yasuhiko --Orca-- with whom he had barely spoken with since going on to different high schools, was categorically asked to leave. Silently.
    Such had been his behavior for the past week, since Exploration #4. He had come here every day since, hoping vaguely for something, though he wasn't sure what.
    His emails to BlackRose had somehow in the course of their one-way correspondence turned from nonchalant to desperate to the raving madness of the obsessed, to settle vaguely in the form of an atypical journal or diary, chronicling events and feelings without the expectation of response.
    It was not hopelessness exactly. It had gone past that point a long time ago.
    Today, however, was slightly different. Today his email to Lios had finally come through and gotten a response. Today he wasn't just waiting, he was waiting for a purpose. Today he was to see the system administrator about getting Delta House of Leaves shut down.
    More and more that just seemed to Kite like an excuse to stand here, to snap his head up every time the Chaos Gate activated with a new arrival, to wait for someone, anyone, familiar. But there was no one. Elk and Sanjuro were keeping their distance, Adamantine was unaccounted for, Kirby_Wax had expired at the hospital. Moonstone and Sora were...
    He felt like he should vomit, but wondered what might come up after so long without food.
    Bradbury had written about bile as liquid melancholy...
    Kite looked up at the sound of someone's warp-in, but it was only some female Long Arm. Not Adamantine.
    He had spoken a little with Sanjuro, before they'd broken off contact again. Sanjuro had called Adamantine's house four times and her office twice, to no response from either. The papers he had read had divulged nothing. He feared calling again out of the belief that his presence would criminalize him if Adamantine was reported missing or dead. Sanjuro didn't want to get roped into something like that.
    "The mass media here still has an insatiable fear of the internet," Sanjuro had told him. "If she reached the news, a second later CC Corp would be shut down and the president would be calling for my head on a platter. You've no idea the influence of the news networks in this country. I'd be guilty before they even knew my name."
    Another warp-in. Kite was growing tired of this exercise in futility, but he looked up anyway. A Celt-type Blademaster, as Orca and Bear had been, though this one exhibited purple war paint. Somewhere, a British historian was crying out in pain.
    Kite's eyes drew downward again, as if magnetically pulled in that direction.
    He didn't know what to do.
    Oh, sure, it was a simple matter of going to see Lios. Personality conflicts though there were, Lios wasn't stupid, and their past alliance was not cast aside. That angle of it wasn't troubling Kite.
    The real problem was that there was no news. Or rather there was news, of a kind, and he wished it wasn't so. He'd take up prayer if the God in question would invent timely coincidences as a little favor. He really needed that.
    The Chaos Gate activated again. But there was no point in looking up anymore.
    Just accept it, Kite told himself grimly. If you can bear to do that.
    What had he done, by going into that place? What had he done by bringing Sora, and Moonstone, and Elk and Sanjuro and Adamantine into that darkness when he had had no idea how deep those shadows ran?
    Tsukasa will never forgive me, he thought, cringing. She cared for Sora a lot, I think, in the end, and I...
    He's...
    They're all...
    "You look like shit."
    Just past his peripheral vision, between strands of unnaturally colored hair, Kite caught a hint of what seemed to be a pair of ninja-soled boots.
    He thought for a moment, lifting his head to take in the sight before him, that he had slipped into a dream state. Or some strange hallucination.
    It was not just the fact that Sora stood before him, large as digital life and whole and sound again, it was that Sora possessed an expression Kite had never witnessed before in life. It was some undefinable mixture of deep-seated pain, depression and a debilitating fatigue, a moroseness so strong it seemed to manifest as a physical presence. He looked almost like a ghost.
    And suddenly the floodgates that had held back Kite's voice for a week let loose.
    "Sora..."
    "Before you start," Sora cut him off abruptly, not making eye contact, "I'm connecting from a net cafe. I've only got about fifteen minutes before my debit gets hit hard."
    "I'm just glad you're all right."
    Sora seemed to be struggling to manage a sarcastic retort, and failing. So, changing the subject, he said, "I've got all these emails from Sanjuro piling up in my inbox. Wonder what reason he's got for spamming me like this."
    "He probably wants to apologize."
    "Huh," Sora sniffed. "Does he expect people to just forgive him on a whim? Let him stew in his angst for a while."
    Kite felt his words coming to him on automatic, drawn from some reserve of stamina he wasn't aware he had, while his inner monologue went spastic.
    "Wouldn't it be the mature thing to grant him that forgiveness, rather than have him agonize over this just because you feel like spiting something?"
    "I guess..."
    "I'm so glad you're all right," Kite burst out again.
    "Yeah, thanks," Sora answered in monotone. Kite could almost visibly see his statement rolling off the other Twin Blade like a bead of water on metal. It couldn't penetrate, or he wouldn't let it.
    Despite the elation of Sora's reemergence that Kite should have been feeling, he found himself feeling even worse than before. He wondered if it was humanly possible to die of guilt.
    "Only," Kite tried to persist, "I was very worried because you and Moonstone..."
    "What about him?"
    "Well... I mean... I can't say for sure because the newspapers haven't released the details yet, but... I'm hoping it's just a coincidence..."
    "What is it?" Sora asked, more forceful this time.
    In the end, Kite's choking voice betrayed him, long before he got to words like "man in his mid-20s," "dedicated trainer," and "dying suddenly of unknown causes beside his computer screen." When half-stammered sentences finally demolished the last of coherency and, though there was no visible indication of this in the game, Kite crumbled in on himself, Sora let him stop.
    "That's why," Kite managed finally, pausing while he lifted a hand from his controller to wipe his eyes, "I'm just... really glad you're okay."
    Sora, for his part, looked heavily disturbed.
    "And Adamantine," Kite went on, after recovering a little. "No one even knows where she is. She's just gone missing."
    "You won't hold it against me if Adamantine isn't my favorite person right now."
    "I couldn't expect anything else. It's just..." Kite shook his head. "Like her or not, we're the cause for her current situation, whatever that might be. And Moonstone. And Elk. And y--"
    "Shut up," Sora snapped. "Just shut up already. Do you think this accomplishes anything?"
    "I just--"
    "No 'just' anything. No one that came with us into that house came because you badgered them into it or whatever. If they didn't want to get involved, they wouldn't have."
    Something in Sora's tone put him off in a way he couldn't quite place, as if the conviction wasn't so much not there as it was trying quite strenuously to be there. "Is it the same for you?" Kite asked.
    There was the slightest of pauses before Sora answered: "Absolutely."
    Nothing more of which needed to be explained to Kite. He lapsed back into his melancholy. "Oh, Sora..."
    He was expecting to get chastised again, but to his surprise no counterattack came. When he looked up from his shoes again it was to find Sora watching him, eyes so dark and sullen the effect just couldn't have been the result of some premade chipset. When Sora noticed this attention on him, he averted his gaze again.
    There was a somber quality to the entire exchange that was oddly fascinating in its depth. An odd thought struck Kite, borne mostly from sleep deprivation, but also from that scattered approach to thinking that comes when one is sixteen and depressed.
    "Is it raining where you are, Sora?"
    The taller PC visibly tensed. "Why?"
    "Nothing weird," Kite tried to clarify. "Just that, it's raining here and I wondered if it was the same where you were. That's all."
    "Oh."
    Sora was looking down too now.
    "Actually..."
    Kite stirred himself out of a half-daze, to see Sora suddenly very anxious, maybe even shy.
    He had started over. "Actually, I'm..." He bit his lip.
    "What?" Kite asked.
    "Nothing. Nevermind."
    Kite thought for a moment of pursuing it and asking Sora what he meant to say. It seemed as if Sora was having difficulty holding on to some big secret. Or at least what qualified as a secret for him, which, granted, was an awful lot.
    If I was really his big brother, I'd prod him into saying it, Kite thought decidedly.
    But I'm not, am I?
    I suck.
    Sora, who had noticed Kite slipping off into a haze again, was saying, "How many days since you've slept?"
    "...Four."
    Sora inclined his head. "Log off now. Go get some rest."
    "But--"
    "Nuh-uh. You're no good to anyone the way you are right now. And I'm not going around babysitting anyone who's gone braindead, so you can just forget that. You're seeing Lios today, right? Don't worry; I'll take care of him."
    Kite was on the verge of protesting further, but the wave of relief that came over him unconsciously subsided him. He realized belatedly that he had started to smile.
    "Thanks, Sora."
    "Yeah, yeah," Sora said, still not meeting his gaze. He waved a hand dismissively. "Go on. Get out of here."
    "Will you email me, tell me how it goes?"
    "Sure."
    "And reply to Sanjuro, too. Give him that, if nothing else." It was toeing the line in what little authority he could hold over Sora at the best of times, and by all accounts it seemed to have failed. But Sora nodded graciously anyway.
    "Yeah, okay."
    He escourted Kite over to the Chaos Gate, even after Kite insisted it wasn't necessary. As they walked Kite PMed over the keywords for the meeting place with the sysadmin, as well as the URL to his dumpbox fileserver where the surviving remnants of their screenshots from Exploration #4 had been posted-- evidence if Lios happened to need the persuasion. The further up the stairs to the gate they ascended, the more rapid Kite's instructions became, throwing out random pieces of advice, half of which had no pertinence to the matter at hand or to anything else Sora could discern in the known universe.
    Reaching the top step, it was suddenly very clear to him that Kite was stalling as much as possible.
    "Hey, shut up already," Sora told him, as gently as he could allow himself to sound. "It'll be fine. Just go sleep."
    Kite began to nod, but stopped, looking up at Sora apprehensively. As if he was now the one that had something to say and couldn't fess up to it.
    He almost wanted to ask. The pained look on Kite's face almost begged an inquiry. But there was also a sinking suspicion that Kite himself wasn't so sure what he might say.
    "Go on. Just go," Sora said firmly. "I can't even stand the sight of you like this. Come back when your synapses are sparking again."
    "Right. Sorry, I--"
    "God, I'll bet you never know how to end a phone conversation, either. Just go."
    "Okay, okay..."
    A few seconds later, as Kite's character stiffened in the act of selecting the Log Out command, Sora's courage sprung up unexpectantly and smacked him in the face.
    "Kite?--" he burst out, "Actually, I'm--"
    But by then Kite had warped out.
 

                                                                    "Actually, I'm in Tokyo.
                                                                                                    You know, like you."
 

    The fields in which the sysadmins conducted in-game meetings with players could be called the Delta House of Leaves' antithesis. It was a blank loading screen, milk white and featureless, suffocatingly silent. Sora's footsteps echoed hollowly as he approached the field's center, struggling against eyes that threatened to unfocus in this eerie absence.
    There was pitch black. Was it possible this could be pitch white? The house presented a depth in space, a limitless beyond of a sort. This was its opposite. This was an abscess, a hollowed-out core.
    That, or someone had been borrowing ideas from The Matrix again.
    He didn't have to wait long before the flicker, and as per Kite's instructions, Sora raised his head. Above him, spreading out like multiplying bacteria, were the generic body forms of the root town NPCs, hovering on an invisible floor plane somewhere above his own. They hung in space, casting down unsympathetic glares with the same unhinged expression as one might get from a beast who only requires the right provocation to attack.
    Sora wondered if this was what prey felt like.
    Of the NPCs, one began to descend closer to Sora's level. Kite had talked about this too. The one among the NPCs to become animated was the one inhabited by the system administrator. Kite had been assured through email that they would be communicating with Lios, the sysadmin they had worked closely with in the past, of whom Sora had only heard second-hand information.
    "We've had our disagreements, but overall he should be receptive to what we have to say," Kite had said, which, Sora guessed through implication, was glowing praise as far as this man was concerned.
    When the lowered character model finally spoke, it was with the words, "Who the hell are you?"
    Sora, who had folded his arms and rested on one leg during the wait, called up to him, "I'm Kite's official replacement. Sorry for the inconvenience."
    "Oh, 'sorry for the inconvenience,'" Lios sniffed. "You can pull these kind of stunts with other players but it won't work here. Get out of my sight."
    "Anything you'd say to Kite you can say to me. I'm here by his full admission."
    "Very likely. Coming from a character like you I'd have a hard time believing it."
    Even the goddamn system administrators knew him from first sight...
    "What's with that look?" Lios asked, challenging Sora's pointed stare. "Do you honestly feel you can come into this place free as you please, someone with your reputation, and start making demands at people?"
    Sora took a breath. "We're petitioning you for the removal of--"
    "And it will be denied. Now get out."
    "Wait a second--"
    "To get this sort of prank from your average player, we could expect that. But from Kite we had expected better things."
    "The screencaps, though--"
    "In direct violation of game physics," Lios answered resolutely. "The screens were so clearly digitally altered, because there is no programming in The World that can allot for the things your pictures would suggest. Even graphics aside, it's a sloppily put together effort. Shameful. That 'journal' is the worst of it."
    "How can you just dismiss this?! At least three people have died from that place already!"
    "This is a tired old routine. Do you feel it's at all original to amass a bunch of well-timed coincidences and slap on a label of conspiracy? This is an amateurish attempt through and through. And to add insult to the injury, you come here to claim a representative switch --something a kid like Kite would never agree to-- and try to waste my time further. On what, the pretense that perhaps I wouldn't know you, of all people? Or that perhaps I'd have suffered a voluntary memory loss and been delighted at the sudden emergence of this 'new you'? Who do you think you are?"
    The question rang in the air before Lios continued.
    "Don't think your actions here in The World go unmonitored. You're aware of your position on our blacklists, but have you forgotten what you did to get on there in the first place?"
    "That's ancient history!" Sora complained. "I don't PK anymore! What does it take to get that through to you people?"
    "Huh. If you're waiting to convince us..."
    "Well, it's bullshit! I've put all that stuff behind me now; why can't any of you here just accept that? Why am I made to carry this around for so long after the fact?"
    "Foolish boy," Lios said coldly. His anunciation of the latter word in particular made Sora bristle; well, of course administrators had access to user data. "You put things behind you and you think that's enough to make others follow suit? Like they can just forget everything you've done to them? People aren't so easily forgiven, and people like you, especially, should never be forgiven for your actions. What you did, not once or twice but hundreds of times, can't be forgotten just because you've arbitrarily decided to start following the rules."
    Sora's throat was dry. He swallowed painfully, teeth clenched.
    It wasn't like that! There was more to it than that! Why doesn't anyone listen to me?
    Lios continued, "Do you think it shouldn't matter? Do you feel that by merely forgetting you can atone for past actions? You should be banned purely on principle."
    A cold sensation was spreading in Sora's stomach. He felt almost like he was falling. "You wouldn't--"
    "One mistake on your part is the only incentive we need, Sora, remember that. You are treading a very fine line. Now get out of here before we log you out by force. As it is we could easily place a call to your mother inquiring why her son finds it necessary to break not just net law but real-world law as well," Lios added, a malevolent grin starting to form on his lips. "Does your mother know you ditch your afternoon classes?"
    "Mind your own goddamn business," Sora said coldly, but without the strength needed for malice.
    Lios laughed. "Go home, boy."

    There was hardly a pause between Sora's reemergence into Mac Anu and his bringing up the menu to Log Out, and no time at all to take in his surroundings before he started to leave.
    "Wait! Sora!"
    A hand clasped his forearm, preventing the Log Out from activating. Sora spun around, front locks of hair flying. He met the half-gaze of the eyepatched Heavy Blade Sanjuro, looking up at him in sincere desperation.
    "Let me go," Sora snapped, wresting his arm from Sanjuro's grip. If there was one person he didn't feel like talking to right now, it would have to have been this guy. Of all the luck. "Leave me alone."
    "Wait a second," Sanjuro persisted. "What happened?"
    "It's all down the drain, that's what happened!"
    "Lios denied our petition?"
    "He thinks it's all a hoax!"
    Sanjuro's expression hardened. "Where's Kite?"
    "Asleep. What," Sora demanded, "are you going to pin this all on me now? You didn't see this guy. He'd've told off the Emperor if the guy had come calling."
    "I believe you," Sanjuro said emphatically. He had consorted with Lios a few times before, in relation to Kite. And that aside, he could tell how agitated Sora was at the moment. "But what does this mean for us now? The field's still open for anyone to walk into it?"
    "It's not going to be enough to just hope people won't be stupid and keep away from there."
    "More my country than yours, certainly. The BBSes here are already flooded with exploration proposals, especially now after news got out about Kirby_Wax's death. It's only a matter of time before one of those teams gets too far in to get back out. Look at what happened to us."
    "What can we do, though? No one's going to want to go near that house again."
    "We might have to."
    "But--"
    "Excuse me," said a new voice, young and female.
    The two PCs turned their gaze in unison to the side. A female Long Arm, a different design than Adamantine, stood before them, clutching her javelin like a timid Wavemaster might hold her wand. She was about equal in height with the other two, but she gave the impression of being much smaller and weaker. Her username as it popped up on their screens identified her as Aquamarine, a name too similar in the circumstances for the coincidence not to sting.
    "Um... I'm so sorry... but... Have you seen my boyfriend?"
    "Your boyfriend?" Sanjuro echoed. "Sorry, we..."
    "His name is Moonstone?" she said, the uncertainty in her tone making her statements sound like questions. She added to Sora, "He's a Twin Blade like you, purple hair? I was just wondering, because, well, I haven't seen him in a week, and he hasn't called or emailed or left a message with our friends and... well... I just thought you might know because I've seen you around with him and I..."
    When she dropped into silence, neither Sora nor Sanjuro made an effort to fill it. Sanjuro appeared somber, a little guilty. Sora looked so bad there were no words for it.
    "I'm sorry," Sanjuro said again. "But we haven't seen him either."
    "Ohh," Aquamarine wailed despairingly, "I hope he's all right..."
    And before they could say anything else, she had wandered off.
    "Girlfriend," Sanjuro mused. He pulled his gaze away from the retreating figure to look up at Sora, still frozen when shock. "Did you know he had a girlfriend?"
    "No," Sora said in something approaching a squeak. Sanjuro wasn't sure whether the mere fact of it surprised Sora or that a relationship like that could even develop in an online setting. "I don't think anyone did."
    Sanjuro grimaced. They had all assumed, wrongly, that they had all approached the house unattached, and so the place posed a minimum risk. Now, even if they were to permit the present situation in which anyone could walk into that place and find the labyrinth within, there was a new perspective to consider. Namely, the multitudes of others that the house affected beyond those that actually entered it. Like that girl.
    He said at length, "This... changes things, doesn't it."
    "You'll have to talk to Kite."
    "You talk to Kite," Sanjuro told him. "You're the only one who can get through at this point."
    "Oh, not this again."
    Sanjuro took that blow as deserving and plowed on ahead anyway. "I'm serious. I don't know if you're entirely aware of what's been happening between you two these past few weeks, but you're the dearest friend he has these days."
    "Yeah. Right," Sora said, chuckling. "The only person Kite can even pretend to care about is that BlackRose girl." He unmaximized the game window for a moment and checked the desktop clock. "My time's just about up. I'm out of here. Send an email to Kite for me, will you?"
    His forced aloofness must have come across just slightly too contrived, because Sanjuro subsequently asked, "You okay?"
    "Ch3h. What is it with Americans always asking that? Just leave me alone." Sanjuro almost winced at the strain in Sora's nonchalance. Sora added dryly, "Should have known it was always a mistake to play nice."
    "What are you talking about?"
    But Sora was already gone.
    Sanjuro rested back, katana held upright like a walking cane. It was the subconscious result of an inner sentiment he didn't really recognize as going on.
    He felt tired.
    He felt old.
    Before realizing he had moved, Sanjuro had made it to the bridge over the water main. The same area, though he had no way of knowing, where Kite had stood half an hour earlier. Resting his arms on the railing, he watched the water rush past, and flipped individual GP into the stream to watch it sparkle in the afternoon sun.
    In this way he spent ten minutes before he finally caved and sighed, unable to keep from mulling this over any longer. It just wasn't in his nature to simply forget about things.
    He wondered, vaguely, how it was he kept getting roped into these things. The last time with 'the Ordeal' should have been enough to tell him Kite wasn't the kind of person to get involved with. He should have maintained that distance that had grown between them, not crossed it out of some half-assed nostalgia. It sure as hell wasn't allegiance. Respect was there, certainly, but only in a remote sense, and definitely that had been tarnished by his recent behavior around Sora.
    Sora... Jesus Christ. He'd never have figured the two of them, but Kite's devotion to the other Twin Blade and vice-versa was too significant to ignore. It did, in a way, remind him of how Kite and BlackRose would act around each other, but that wasn't quite it either.
    The fact remained that Sora was an element in the equation that Sanjuro hadn't anticipated from the outset, even knowing from Kite's initial invitation that he'd be working with him. But it was an element now, and a unique one that Sanjuro, as a teacher of children, just could not bring himself to overlook. And just as Sanjuro had begun delving into Kite's personality for 'the Ordeal,' more and more Sanjuro found himself contemplating Sora's character.
    What was it? It was a right mess. The boy was disturbed. Probably broken.
    And what else? Kite didn't seem to care.
    And out of seemingly nowhere, Ryo Sakuma's new novel came back to him. He had ordered the book off an online shop last week --it wasn't due out in America for another six months, as a sloppy translation-- and it had just arrived the other day. With his schedule he hadn't had a lot of time to get into it, but one line from the early chapters now stuck out in his memory.
    "'You must be a fool, Kaneda, to see a perfect forest through so many splintered trees,'" Sanjuro recalled, watching the last gold piece sink into the current.
    "If only others had your optimism, Kite."
    He went off to write that email. While he was at it, he reflected, he ought to email Elk too.
 

End Stage 11.

>>Stage 12: You and Me

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