by K.A. Rose
Stage 16:
Build a Casket for My Tears
Kite had gone to the kitchen to find a notice from
his mother that she and his little brother had gone to visit their grandparents
in the country, and that they would have taken him too, but they never
saw him anymore so they figured he wanted to be left alone. His mother
had left 20,000 yen on his debit card to buy groceries and whatever else
he needed, and she was expecting change back.
Which was the most communication he had had with
either of them in several days, so he didn't mind much.
His shoulder still hurt, so after forcing a little
food into a twisted-up stomach, he went to the bathroom and tried to examine
his back in the mirror. There was a dark spot, roughly circular and spreading
outward like a malignant growth, on his shirt near the shoulder. It was
faintly red.
He pulled off his shirt --delicately, for how it
was stuck to his skin-- and inspected the area. It was definitely blood,
caking up along a thin, vertical scar stretched over the bone of his left
shoulder blade. It pooled at the base of the scar, the part left still
unhealed, and from it Kite could barely see a thin, needle-like protrusion.
With great care, and a lot of strain upon arms that
weren't quite as limber as he'd've hoped, he was able to extract a small,
thin, sliver of metal perhaps two inches long.
He stared at it a while.
Returning to his computer console, bandaged and
starting to feel the effects of over-the-counter painkillers, Kite found
that his remaining teammate in The World had vanished without a
trace.
Kite went immediately for the phone.
He thought, ruefully, how most of that 20,000 yen
was going to be used up in making this one call.
"All right," Lios said, easing back half a step.
"Log data has come back from the lower admins. We've got reports from Sora's
ISP as well; still hashing out for Sanjuro, because apparently no one in
the entire U.S. works on Christmas day. But by the looks of it, it seems
like for both of them, they received a telephone call just before incurring
game overs."
"They both had rocket connections?" Helba asked.
"Sora was on a linear. However, that's still multi-line
function. Nothing that would have interrupted gameplay if a call had come
through. Hell, it's been a long time since we had lines that did have that
disadvantage, so I don't really understand how..."
"It may be a total coincidence," Helba reminded.
"We can't dismiss that possibility. Particularly since we cannot detect
whether the two were wearing their interface devices when the calls came.
Or when their characters died. Do we know how they died?"
"Spontaneous game over," Lios answered shortly.
"Much akin to what happened once or twice to Kite when his Bracelet was
overloaded. So, an automatic log-out."
"Depending on your perspective. I doubt it felt
like a log-out for Tsukasa, back a few years ago."
"Well, as far as we're aware, those two are still
alive, if incredibly hard to reach. Their cohorts are sitting pretty, too.
Do you want to Flash Mail them?"
Helba stared at him. So did Wiseman.
"...Please don't tell me that just occurred
to you," Lios said, too distressed to be amused.
"Hell-oh."
Elk looked up, startled. "You got pinged too?" he
said to Sora.
"Me too," said Sanjuro. "It's not Kite, whoever
it is."
>>That'd be me, came the PM on the screens
of all three PCs. >>Just cared to see if you were all awake and alive
before I launched into a larger speech.
>>...Helba? Elk guessed.
>>Correct, the PMs confirmed. Helba added,
>>Hello,
Sora.
>>Auntie! Sora said gleefully.
>>Oh, please don't. Fake cheer doesn't suit you.
Though I'm relieved to see you've strayed away from slang in these past
few months. Hello, also, Elk and Sanjuro. I hope introductions aren't in
order; we've all worked together in the past.
>>You know what's been happening, don't you,
Sanjuro said, not so much an accusation as an observation of unstated fact.
>>Again right. We've been monitoring, with limited
success.
It was Sora who made the connection first. >>You've
got a sysadmin with you there, don't you?
>>That's right. Lios, specifically.
Sora was half-tempted to play to Helba's motherly
affection for him and complain about Lios's behavior, but decided to put
it off for another time. >>You're tracking with the Ziggurat B expansion,
aren't you? So you know where Kite is?
>>Yes. Fortunately, Kite still appears on our
grid.
He kept the action out of his online movement, but
in his chair before his computer, Sora exhaled with relief.
>>There is a concern, however, over whether he
will be much longer.
Sora froze. >>What do you mean? he wrote.
>>We only know what we see and what the logs
tell us, little Sora. And what we are to understand is that you and Sanjuro
both escaped absorption by the house only
because you were physically removed from the interface, is that right?
Understand that we contacted in order to verify these conjectures.
>>Well, we can't exactly tell you one way or
another, Sanjuro replied. >>How could we tell what would have happened
if we'd still been connected?
>>By virtue of the circumstances involving the
deaths of the Holloway Team and several others, of course. She added,
as an afterthought, >>Don't remark upon our extensive cross-referencing,
if you please. I have a whole team of mediocre hackers here that won't
leave; I had to find something for them to do.
>>So, what, said the Heavy Blade, ignoring
the latter remark as superfluous, and not even in accordance with Helba's
usual manner, >>are you suggesting Kite might be in more danger than
we thought? We should call him as soon as possible?
>>In the interests of keeping the death toll
to a minimum, if you please. Yes.
At which point it dawned on Sora that all eyes,
even those belonging to people not currently present, were turning toward
him.
He had come to another edge, and walked along it
for a while, taking it as a guiding line in the absence of any other. He
didn't fear the shaking of the house. Since
Sora's and Sanjuro's exit it had ceased.
It wasn't long before he reached another edge, creating
a corner of the two. Beyond it, nothing. This dynamic reshaping of the
internal structure was no longer even signified by the growl, though Kite
had a hunch the Creature was still there. Somewhere.
Very close.
It was nearly 4:00 by now, or it was by his estimation.
He did not dare try to check his desktop. Or the clock by his monitor.
Or his watch. He didn't want to leave, or find out what would happen if
he did.
Just keep moving, he said to himself. That's all
you can do.
"Leave
me alone, Tsukasa!"
"Look, I'm sorry, all right?"
"I don't care how sorry you are! Get out of my life!"
"Subaru, I love you!"
"That's the first time you told me that."
Was it?
"And I promise you: I'll never, ever make you cry again. I swear it on
my heart and soul, I love you like air and
water and the sky. I'm sorry for ever, ever taking someone so precious
so much for granted."
"...Mitsuki..."
Please, never call me anything else.
"And Sora. How's he been?"
"Well, I haven't been on much so I can't be sure, but..." Crim scratched
the back of his
neck. "He's been hanging out with Kite a lot these days. That can be good
or bad dep-
ending on who's influencing who. Though I will say one thing to the kid's
credit..."
"What's that?"
"The last time I talked to him, he wasn't using leet." Crim lounged further
back into his
chair. "A very nice wedding, I have to say. Kind of awkward seeing all
these people
you've known for so long suddenly in the flesh. Except the few I don't
recognize. Those
kids over there, your classmates?"
"DAMN, they look elitist. I didn't know people actually went so
far
as literally turning their noses up like that!"
"Yeah. We're all part of the same study club."
"'Study club'?" Crim asked. He laughed. "School clubs sure are getting
more and more
generic, aren't they? Still, though," he added, sobering, "it's good to
see you going out
and making some friends."
"Honestly, Tsukasa-san! You can't actually go out
wearing that, can you?"
"What's wrong with it?"
"You look like a BOY! The haircut's bad enough, but
why can't you look a little more elegant?"
"I mean, are you trying for the butch lesbo look, or does it
come naturally?"
"Tada!"
Subaru gave a start. "Mitsuki! You're... in a DRESS!"
"Does it look bad?"
"No, you're beautiful!"
"...it's just not you..."
"Ugh, I'm so sick of these stupid essays."
"Grading underclassmen again?"
"Tell me, Subaru, are they doing this on purpose,
or are people really this stupid?"
Smile. "Not everyone's as gifted as you, Mitsuki."
"They ought to be, dammit. If I can manage, so
can they."
"Isn't that a bit of a high standard?"
Well, they ought to be! I'm not so special.
"Not everyone is a Renaissance man."
Since when was being equally good at
everything some spectacular feat? I just
apply myself.
"It's not that simple for some..."
"The problem is I think she got that way because
she's no longer afraid of people."
"Now, instead of being afraid of everyone, it's like she wants everyone
to be afraid of her."
That's a lie! How do I intimidate anyone?
"What a dazzling intellect that Tsukasa has."
"Oh, I agree. She'll go far."
"Why do you always have
to humiliate your classmates, you little shit? We know you know the answer.
Shut up."
"Calm down, Mitsuki!"
"I'm sooooo envious, Tsukasa-senpai!"
"You know what I'm talking about, Sakuma-san.
You understand, don't you?"
"...Mitsuki, I'm a writer. Part of my job is to write
for others to understand. I can't expect everyone
to rise to my level. If they can't understand what
I'm trying to say, I've failed, not them."
"It shouldn't have to be that way!"
"Little kids should watch their language!"
"No. You didn't just-- In front of Kite--!"
"You--"
"Do you want me to wash your mouth out with soap?"
"Kite is... He was the only one I had left!
Why did you take that from me?!"
"What gives you any right--"
"Go toddle off now and let the adults talk, huh? Oniisan
and oneechan can take care of things from here."
"What happened to you?!"
I started hating you again, Sora.
"I thought you said you'd be my friend!"
I thought you'd learn to keep out of trouble!
"Why is she torturing him like that?"
You don't get it, Kite.
"No,"
said Kite, opening his eyes and turning to look at her. "I
don't think you get it."
"What are you talking about?"
Sora flailed. "I told you! There was no answer!"
"Are you sure you dialed the right number?" Sanjuro
asked, for the third or fourth time.
"Yes I'm sure!"
What did these guys take him for? His heart had
been beating so fast it felt like it was either going to explode or spontaneously
combust, whichever came first; did they think he was relieved that no one
had picked up? He was going to get a brain aneurysm at this rate.
Why did they even have to ask him? Why him? Did
it look like he was enjoying this?
"Someone should have picked up," Elk insisted. "He
has a family, doesn't he?"
"They could've been out!"
"At four in the morning?!"
"I-- Um--" Sora gave up, throwing up his hands.
"This is one of those things where everything I say is wrong, isn't it?"
>>Please, stop it, Helba said. Somehow, she
had managed to come across annoyed even in text. >>Sora's dialing was
right according to user info records. We even tried it ourselves to verify.
>>If you could call him, why did you make me
do it?! Sora demanded.
>>He would have responded better to you,
the hacker answered simply. >>In any event, he isn't answering. And
although this is taking on a slight supposition, there seems to be but
one conclusion we can draw from this.
Sora reacted to this only by falling silent. He
lowered his gaze, coming to stare at nothing.
>>You don't mean... Elk began.
>>I'm afraid so.
The Twin Blade growled, unable to block out the
words even though they annoyed him. "And everyone's just fine with that,
huh?"
Elk and Sanjuro glanced back at him, surprised.
"What?" said Elk. "Sora--"
But before either PC could react, Sora had already
gone into a run, bounding up the steps to the porch. To the door.
"Sora!" Sanjuro shouted, starting after. But by
then the Twin Blade had already swung open the door and was running full-speed
into the house.
>>You best go after him, Helba told the remaining
two, after they hesitated for a moment. >>Don't worry for things out
here. I'll be watching.
>>Thanks, Elk said awkwardly, backing away
a few steps before accompanying Sanjuro through the door.
Helba refocused her gaze, turning her attention to
Lios and Wiseman, still poring over the map grid. "Are we detecting any
abnormal activity?"
"You mean, besides from the Player Killer kid,"
Lios clarified.
"Clearly," Helba said, obviously irritated but not
enough to start up a row at a crucial moment. "Well?"
"Dungeon interior looks normal," Wiseman reported,
less easily distracted than the sysadmin. "It--"
"Stop right there," Helba interrupted. "What did
you say?"
Tsukasa
froze.
"This... this isn't a memory," she said numbly. "Am I-- Are you--"
Kite shrugged. "Who knows.
Morganna's bound to have copies of me all over her system.
It would make sense seeing
as she already has a bunch of copies of Aura propagated. I'm
probably not real."
"This is a hallucination."
"Could be that too. They say that about sensory
deprivation, don't they? And that's this place to a tee." Kite glanced
around them, though at what, Tsukasa could only guess. The loading dock
screen was blank once more. The last of the ghosts had faded away. Only
Kite remained. "Do you think Holloway cracked because of that?"
"What did you mean, I don't get it?"
"The way you deal with people is sick, Tsukasa."
The Wavemaster scowled. "At least I'm honest!"
"I'm honest too. But your kind of honesty is malignant.
Like a tumor. It's your fault Sora fell in the labyrinth."
The scene that Tsukasa had witnessed replayed in
her head, as biting and stinging as it was the first time. When she heard
the screams echo in her mind, she half-wondered whether Kite --whoever
Kite was at the moment-- was hearing it too.
She realized belatedly that she was crying.
"It is, isn't it..."
"It's your fault he doesn't trust anyone. It's your
fault he's screwed up. People can't be reset. You fuck them up and they
stay that way."
Sora hanging over empty space, Sora's blade snapping,
Sora hanging on with one hand, Sora falling--
Sora falling--
Sora falling--
Replay again, and again, and again, faster, almost
hypnotic, like the drawing force of a waterfall--
Quit it--
Quit--
"Quit trying to scapegoat someone else!" she shouted,
snapping her head up. The sudden counterattack caused Kite to take a step
back, shocked. "I've tried! I tried as much as I could!"
"Then your most isn't enough, is it?" Kite shot
back angrily, undeterred. "He does something to piss you off, you just
attack. How does that help anything?"
"We're friends... right?"
"R...right!"
"Who was that girl I tried to PK earlier? Mistral?"
"Wait, wait. You tried PKing someone?"
"Well, she wasn't giving me her member address..."
"SORA!"
"What?!"
"It doesn't matter!" Tsukasa said sharply, clamping
her eyes shut. "Everything here is just trying to trick me. Nothing of
what I see here is really real. I've probably dreamt it all up!"
"Why would you bother doing something like that?"
Kite challenged. "What purpose could it possibly serve? You're just hiding
from reality!"
"You're hiding from reality!" Tsukasa roared.
"We're all hiding from reality! That's the entire point! What's
why we play this goddamn game!"
There was no hallway leading to the dead end room.
Rather, there was, but it was the first one that
had always existed, long before Kite's arrival. The door that had lead
into the corridor with the inexplicable minute now opened into nothing
more than a closet space, perhaps two or three feet deep at most. It was
even painted the same gray-white as the rest of the house.
Sora and the other two even gave a short, mostly humorless laugh at the
sight of it.
They split up and searched the rest of the rooms,
each taking a separate floor. The children's room, the study, and all the
other cute nicknames given to the various rooms were all without feature,
just the same as they had been upon initial exploration.
And so they checked again, rechecking and double-checking
rooms, occasionally calling out, futily, the name of their lost comrade,
growing more desperate as their searches again and again yielded no result.
Sora placed his hands against a wall, perhaps in
some vain hope that the pressure would unlock something, make something
give away, but things just weren't so simple.
And watching the ceiling above him, Sora's hand
curled into a fist and slammed against the wall, as the memory of an almost
forgotten conversation drifted up through his thoughts.
"If the randomizing matrices
keep changing," Wiseman had said, "it's
possible that eventually any exit that might have existed in some form
will disappear entirely. In such an event, it'd be safe to assume that
our options had completely run out."
"Say someone did
get trapped in the house,
in the way you're talking about," Sora
had said in response. "Is it at all possible to get the person out again?"
He backed up from the wall
a few paces and gave it a brutal, wild, furious kick.
"No," Wiseman had said.
"Goddammit, Kite!" the Sora
of the present shouted, loud enough that his two comrades elsewhere in
the house could
also hear. "GodDAMN it."
"Answer me," Tsukasa said,
leaning on her staff for support. It was growing difficult to stand; a
fatigue was setting in and she had no idea what could possibly be the cause.
"Why do you care about Sora so much?"
"Why do you?"
"Because-- he saved me, and
it cost him so much." This had never been the response she'd given in the
past, when the question had been posed her. A part of her ached as she
confessed it. "And when I found him again, he wasn't mine anymore."
"He's no one's."
"Wrong. He's yours. I'll bow
to that now, I guess..." She swayed slightly on her feet. "I guess I understood
that for a long time, even if I didn't realize it. I do now. Back when
you two met at the Unison Hanabi party, of course you clicked instantly.
Of course he'd remember you. I only got him into danger. You rescued him.
I couldn't do that."
She bowed her head, eyes cast
toward her own shows, the last hint of Kite visible disappearing behind
her bangs. "Still, though, in a way... It's like you only ruined him further.
Maybe if you two hadn't become such good friends he'd never have been involved
in this. Maybe he'd've stopped playing and been a normal kid again. You
took that away from him. You took it away and you brought him into this
place and you let it wreck what havoc it would on his already-haunted mind.
You've... destroyed him, haven't you? He's yours, but you don't really
care. You don't understand."
Tsukasa swallowed. Painfully.
Let tears fall freely from her eyes, falling straight to the ground instead
of rolling down her cheeks, her head at such an angle. "I heard him scream.
Heard his mind scream, when he fell. And it wasn't me that he was screaming
at...." She began to rise, roughly wiping away the tears with the sleeve
of her shirt. "...It was you."
But Kite, or the thing like
Kite, was gone. Tsukasa was alone in the void.
Yet she knew, or suspected,
or thought madly that though the figure was gone, he was still near enough
to hear. And finally at a proper conclusion she could understand and reconcile
with internally, she was not going to stop.
"It's you!" she shouted at
the darkness. "You're the reason he fell! You never listened, you kept
bringing him into this place, you kept putting him at risk! He was your
responsibility and you let him fall!"
The back of her neck prickled.
She spun around on a heel, but there was nothing. It felt like a game of
cat and mouse.
"Do you know where he is now?
Do you know if he's anywhere at all? What have you done to him, Kite?!
What did you do?"
A hint of red, briefly, out
of the corner of one eye. But it was gone when she turned to face it.
"Where is he? Where's Sora?!
You bastard, you killed him, didn't you!
"You killed him!
"You're a murderer!
"BRING HIM BACK!"
And quite suddenly, as she
turned, Kite came into her vision. He appeared differently, surrounded
by the glow of a regeneration spell, much more solid and darker, most of
his body a silhouette thanks to the spell, but it was him. Undoubtedly,
it was him.
And he was scared.
Tsukasa swung, the head of
her staff catching Kite across the shoulder. He cried out, more of surprise
than actual damage inflicted, and staggered back. But Tsukasa had already
dropped the staff and gone into a run.
He landed heavily on his back,
wheezing with the air knocked out of him, breathing made all the more difficult
with Tsukasa pinning him down. The Twin Blade tried, mostly in vain, to
shield himself as she landed blow after blow, not caring for strength or
strategy but the pure and simple violence of the action, striking anything
that came into view, anything at all through eyes clouded with tears.
"Bring him back! Bring Sora
back!"
Kite may have shouted in protest,
but the words were lost now. She was deaf to it, her ears narrowing in
on only the dull, damp blows of fist against flesh, the copper scent of
blood and the saline of tears.
"BRING SORA BACK!"
Reflexes left dormant began
to kick in for the Twin Blade, or desperation called for him to forego
pacifity. When she struck out her fist to punch him again, he caught it
by the wrist.
"...he's all right...
...really...
...I swear it..."
And suddenly, a wealth of
sensory input she had tuned out before hit Tsukasa all at once, so forceful
that she sank back, eyes wide.
The blood on her hands was
not graphical. It was real.
The floor beneath them was
solid, black stone.
The PC beneath her was real,
no longer a hallucination.
It was very, very cold.
"Oh my god," she whispered,
sliding off onto the freezing black stone. She watched, unblinking, as
the prone Kite slowly stood up and coughed, clutching at his chest. He
spit out blood, and a tooth. Overall, his face suffered little disfiguring
damage, and what was there was mostly on the part of when her nails had
cut in where a fist should have been. "You're..."
"I tell you again, Sora's
all right," Kite, ignoring or not realizing the change in Tsukasa's awareness.
"Please believe me."
"...I believe you..."
"And yes," Kite added. "I
am. At least, I think so."
Tsukasa looked around them,
awestruck though there was not much to see. The fact that the air around
them was, in fact, air, and there was a discernible floor, when none had
existed for her before, was terrifying enough. "How did I...?"
"That Power of yours...?"
"No. No, I'm not... I started
out on the dock screen. How did I end up here?"
"Are you still outside?"
Tsukasa turned her head toward
him sharply. "What?"
"Can you feel whether you're
in front of a terminal or not?" Kite clarified, looking annoyed, as if
he were having to explain it to a child.
She hesitated. "I can, but...
at the same time, I... don't want to find out..." She glanced at him, at
the blood he was presently mopping away with the arm of his glove, and
seemed to think of something upon looking at her own hand. She bit down
on it.
"Well?" Kite asked.
"It's... a little, but..."
Kite nodded. "You're in transition.
There's still hope for you." With a small grunt, he pulled himself to his
feet, a little increment at a time. Once upright, he extended a hand down.
After a while, Tsukasa got the idea and accepted his assistance to stand
up.
"You're being awfully nice
in the circumstances," she couldn't help but remark.
"Would it pay for me to be
an ass?" Kite pointed out. "If it makes you feel any better, you're not
high on my list of people I'd liked to see right now. But you're not the
worst, either, so don't worry."
"Who is the worst?"
Tsukasa asked, hoping it would be polite enough conversation.
Kite smiled shyly at her.
"To tell you the truth? BlackRose."
"I don't understand," Lios
said, watching the grid. A second dot had appeared in close proximity to
Kite's, and if the kanji over it was any indication, the rules of programming
as they knew it had just come crashing to a halt.
"Did she warp?" Mia asked.
"Doubtful. When Tsukasa moves,
we usually see an influx in data transmitting directly between system nodes.
We didn't detect that."
>>Hey Auntie, came
a PM from Sora over the line. Helba had set PMs to auto-send all to those
in the area, a function much akin to placing a call on speaker. >>You
guys still have Kite on your screen, don't you?
>>Yes, Sora, Helba
answered calmly.
>>If you guys know where
he is, can't you just go in after him to get him out?
>>Don't be stupid,
Lios responded, before Helba could type a reply. >>If it were that simple,
don't you think we'd have done that already?
>>Who is this? Sora
came back, clearly bristling at the remarks. >>Lios?
>>The dynamic nature of
the house prevents
direct transportation, even to sysadmins,
Lios went on. >>The dungeon is sharing filespace on a thousand different
points of origin. Character data would get ripped apart trying to teleport
to one specific location. That's why Tsukasa's giving us a headache
right now.
>>...Tsukasa's in there
too?
"The kid's running out of
siblings," Lios remarked dryly.
The first thing Kite did upon setting out walking
again was offer to cast Rig Saem on Tsukasa. She refused, indicating she
had the spell herself. But, she added, with conditions being what they
were and her item stores not being designed in preparation of a setting
like this, she didn't know how long her light would last.
And so they walked.
Soon Tsukasa found herself short on breath. Kite
kept a brisk pace, and neither the real Tsukasa nor her game incarnation
was physically fit to keep up forever. She at first resigned herself to
falling one step being Kite, then two. By the third, the tip of her staff
was dragging on the ground. She could no longer keep track of how far they
had walked, with no visible change in their surroundings.
She almost didn't register the movement when Kite,
without an apparent shift in his pace, ducked down and courteously took
the heavy wand from her hands, and hefted it over his shoulder.
"You don't need to--"
"I'm fine."
The cuts across his face that she had inflicted
had all but healed now, dried smears of blood all that remained in some
places. This didn't have the effect to weaken him, but rather made him
seem more alive. The only indication that he was. His eyes were dead, and
though he kept up a good speed he seemed heavily worn by fatigue. Weighed
down, not just by her staff and that inexplicable case strapped to his
back --peculiarity of anime designs always seemed plausible until tested
for practical use--, but also by the cold, and the monotony of their surroundings.
And probably other things as well. Tsukasa could no longer hear thoughts
here, but if what she had encountered before qualified for anything, Kite's
inner monologue was not a happy place to be right now.
"So... BlackRose," she said, after the silence was
starting to make her nervous. "She looks like Mimiru... right?"
"She'd probably say Mimiru's the one who looks like
her," Kite said, trying to smile, though it was clearly painful.
"Still... She and you, weren't you... well... best
friends?" she wheezed. She was beginning to wonder whether ending the silence
was so wise, when she was already tired from walking. Well, it was a half-jog
for her.
"I thought that, but..." Kite took a long breath.
"Then she got into university, and she stopped playing. Said in her inbox
that she didn't have time, what with homework and all that."
"You believe that?"
A slight, almost imperceptible change in Kite's
steps, before they returned to normal. "Well..."
"I don't know where she's attending, but it can't
be much more advanced than the prep school I go to right now. Even with
clubs and things, how do you just... forget people you care about...?"
"You don't access anymore either, so how can you
complain about that?" The words were there, but the apathetic way in which
Kite said them removed any accusatory tone. He was merely pointing things
out.
Still, Tsukasa's stomach gave a twist. "I just...
well... It was my wife more than anything else. She didn't play anymore,
so I kind of... didn't have any reason to stick around."
"Hm," was Kite's response. He glanced off to his
left, though at what Tsukasa could only guess. "It must be nice..."
"What is?"
"To have someone that can dictate your choices so
much. I don't think anyone will ever influence me so much that I stop doing
what I want to do."
"You still like playing, even in your state? What's
there to play for?"
"Didn't you know? I'm The World's One and
Only Arbitrary Cartographer." He laughed a little at this, as from an in-joke
he didn't expect her to get. And she didn't. When he glanced back, he caught
her gaze out of the corner of his eye. "You're different than I remember
you."
Tsukasa tilted her head slightly to the side. "What
do you mean?"
"You're more like you used to be. I know I only
met you a few times back then..." He smiled again, clearly trying to put
some earnest effort into it. "But when I met you last time, you were like
a completely different person."
"..."
"Sorry. It's not my place to say, is it?"
"...A lot of things have happened," she said at
length. "I'm... not the person a lot of people used to know."
Silence descended again, a voluntary one this time
for both parties. Kite did not seem to mind, so Tsukasa resolved with herself
not to mind either. She had more or less settled into step two paces behind
him, resigning herself to his leadership as they continued to progress
through the house, even as above them
the ceiling was dropping
lower and lower unt
il the spell ligh
t barely bo
unced of
f its dull
, ashen
surface.
wn
gl
ir
to
e, co
rro pa
a s
ti
rr
r th
alls w ow
th
in
ny id
at g
ller a
while a ere cl
ing do
And
oo
rew nd sm
aller, a
t the sa osing
the
sma aller a
single s
me tim in, na
offered
nd sm traight
e, the b
hallwa
lack w
but one way
y now.
in which to head, tha
t to a single door way that lay
at the end of the corridor, fixed with
a knob of some unknown crystal that gleam
ed in the pale green light of Kite's and Tsukasa's Rig Saem
long before either had reached it, and much longer before Kite, settling whatev
er ghosts in his mind, reached out an apprehensive hand and grasped the handle, and just a
s cautiously turned it, to a click so solidly real that it gave both of them a start. He pushed it open slowly, unkno
wn hinges giving way silently, into a small, square room that was as dark as all other structures Kite had seen inside the house,
but for one crucial difference: from the door way there was a drop of
perhaps three meters, and on the left wall, springing up as a thick banded
coil, was the Staircase, spiraling up and out through a large gap in the
opposing wall.
It seemed, for reasons unknown, that the room existed
on its side, and that the floor below them was not actually the floor at
all, but a wall.
"I hate to do it, but..." Kite said quietly, almost
a murmur too low for Tsukasa to hear, "...I'm going to hack my weapons.
We need the light."
"If you could do that earlier..." Tsukasa began.
Kite shook his head. "This place doesn't sustain
illegal data. Any hacks we use here just get eaten up. Just the same as
everything else."
He initiated the hack. He didn't understand precisely
how he was able to, without menus or a desktop to access, but he could
feel the script running. He felt the numbers flying through him, coursing
through small, controlled channels, unable to understand the sensation
except, perhaps, like water felt like running over your body, except on
the inside. It pooled into the small daggers held in his belt on either
hip, grew hot as from a furnace heat, then quickly dissipated.
When he reached down with his left hand --the right
one still occupied holding Tsukasa's staff-- it was to touch the cold steel
handle of a flashlight.
It feels more real than it looks, he thought
with something approaching amusement, clicking it on. He cast the beam
of light, thick and powerful after having become to accustomed to the weak
glow of spells, first over the featureless wall/floor below them, then
over to the left wall from which the Sideways Staircase protruded. He moved
the light to travel up the Stairwell's length, to where it disappeared
out of the gap on the other side, and further until his light could pick
up nothing else in the darkness.
"Looks like a long climb," he remarked plainly.
He did not notice Tsukasa's calls for attention until he felt her tugging
on his sleeve. He looked over at her as if wondering suddenly why she was
there.
"What did you say before?" Tsukasa asked. "Did you
say this place destroys illegal data?"
"Yeah."
"Kite," she said, voice bordering on desperation.
"We're illegal data."
The Twin Blade hesitated. When he had formulated
his response, he was cut off just as he began to utter it. The growl reemerged.
The growl came, and it was fierce, animal, loud,
and angry. And it was close.
The two PCs spun around, eyes going down into the
tunnel from whence they had just come. Kite's hand that held the flashlight
trembled as he tried to lift it toward the origin of the noise, shaking
so violently that he soon gave up the action, holstering the flashlight
instead and using the hand instead to take hold of Tsukasa by the wrist.
"Come on," he said.
"But--"
Too late, as the Wavemaster
axis, depositing them on the
was pulled
turned on its
left
forward, thr
suddenly
wall.
ough the do
he room
With
oor out in
ty of t
the Spi
to the op
gravi
ral Stai
en air, f
the
rcase e
alling d
as
xtendi
own
p
ng out
tow u
above t
ar g
hem into
d risin
gradual
the and
nothi
gr nd
ngn
ou
es
s
they didn't have a choice.
so, they ran
and the further they went
the faster the darkness crept up
from behind.
They tried running
faster
taking steps two
at a time
but the Staircase
only seemed to
l e n g t h e n
and without landings
or breaks in the spiral,
Tsukasa and Kite were fast
running out of stamina, their breath
drawing short, legs feeling heavier with
every step. It was Tsukasa
who, feeling a stair
disappearing beneath her
almost as soon as she had
stepped off,
summoned the last of her
strength and burst forward into
a sprint, moving into the lead and
pulling the lagging Twin Blade along with,
not hesitating even as Kite screamed out with
pain, the wound in his shoulder
breaking open anew.
But still they climbed,
faster and faster, the spiral
closing up into a tightening circle.
Like a wire coiling to a point,
or rather,
a noose tightening.
Suffocating, as the two
struggled to
breathe,
onto their last
reserves of
all possible human
strength,
heads swimm
ing, no lo
nger eve
n awa
re of h
ow m
an
y
fl
ig
ht
s
they
have
clim
be
d.
c
om
ing
to
col
laps
e fin
ally a
t last on
the final, e
nding
step.
The map broke.
"Damn!" Lios shouted, his character freezing for
a moment as his real self before the computer monitor shielded his face.
"That's REALLY not good."
"What did you do?" Helba asked, in an accusatory
tone. "What's the matter?"
"My computer's spewing sparks, that's what's the
matter!"
"H'rm," said the hacker, an expression which in
other people was usually displayed by raised voices and cries of 'are you
all right?!'. "Shut down quickly. Go."
"But--"
"Lios, I really don't believe you care to
fry your entire system. You can trust me for ten minutes. Go."
He may have obeyed, or it could have been that his
computer could no longer take present conditions, but in either case his
character model soon glitched and fizzed out, and was gone.
"...Pig-head. He's far too stubborn at times."
Helba turned her attention to the remnants of the
map still lying on an upturned crate. It was little more than oddly colored
shreds of polygons now, an assortment of jagged spikes not unakin to those
grow-your-own-rock kits occasionally given to children when parents can't
think of anything else to buy them. Usually trash data of this kind was
immediately taken to a dump server to await deletion. However, Net Slum
was such a dump server, so the broken map had nowhere to go.
She examined it for a few minutes, its last recorded
image still visible, if badly skewed, across its surface. It was the grid
of the house interior, but it was not a grid
anymore. All vertical and horizontal lines had been warped, replaced with
a centrifugal coil. No figures could be seen.
Well. This was bad, wasn't it.
"Bith," she said, in a loud, clear voice.
A dark-clad Blademaster who had been mingling among
the other hackers milling about the field looked up. Only the lower half
of his face was visible beneath his helmet, enough to see him crack a wicked
grin to put Mephistopheles to shame.
"Yes, Mistress Helba?"
"Your attempts in acquiring a bootleg of Ziggurat
B were successful, I presume."
"I couldn't wait five days," Bith said, by way of
confirmation. "The mod was asking way too much for the copy, too..."
"Admin privileges?"
"Fully patched."
"The map?"
"Running."
"Good boy."
"Nn-hnn," said her subordinate gleefully. "System's
running very hot. Poor bastard sysadmins don't know how to overclock, though.
It'll take a lot more than something like this to melt my freezetank. Oh
em gee," he added, sounding like he was on the verge of forgetting unless
he mentioned it, "you know that 'abnormal activity' you told Wiseman to
look out for...?"
| "I don't believe this," said
Kite.
Tsukasa nodded in silent agreement. Upon reaching the landing, they had arrived on an entire new level of the house. This was a flat plane, narrow, like a catwalk, and ending abruptly at a wall. And set into the wall was something new. After they had recovered from their flight, the two had turned their gaze to the sight and had found it impossible to look away, but just as impossible to move closer to it, seeming to share the strange, ambling fear that it might disappear if they approached. Kite thought at first to screencap it, remembering only belatedly that he had no keyboard to take the picture with. He considered asking Tsukasa for the favor, but then considered that they didn't know what would happen if they tried screencapping it anyway. Was it like the Adamantine Code? When Kite did take a step closer to it, it did not waver or disappear. It was as fixed to the spot and as solid and real as every- |
[
]
|
|
| thing else here, perhaps moreso in some strange way.
It was a window. "You don't understand because you were never here before," Kite breathed. "This... changes everything. It puts everything into a new perspective, do you see?" It could have been a genuine euphoria, some part of the explorer in him suddenly exhilarated by this new feature, but Kite sensed it was more to do with delirium. Either way he felt dizzy. Tsukasa had all but fallen mute. The window --an open window, at that-- did not impart with her the same joy of discovery it had in her companion. Yet there was still a part of her, that small nagging literary part, that understood what Kite meant, even if he himself didn't. Doors and hallways offered passage, but windows offered vision. Sight. |
||
>>Are you reading this? came Helba's PM across
the line.
>>Yes, Elk said, after a pause in which neither
of his comrades had moved to answer.
>>Listen carefully, she said. >>You have
to get out. Right now.
Elk started to write, >>But Kite is--
Helba's subsequent PM stopped him before he sent
it. >>I realize the situation, but this is very important. The area
you're standing on is growing increasingly unstable. If things persist
at this rate the entire field will be volatile in a matter of minutes.
There is no time for questions. Just go. NOW!
Sanjuro and Elk obeyed, abandoning the room in which
they had been standing in wait. Elk, however, stopped by the doorway leading
to the main hall, turning back.
"Sora!" he called to the Twin Blade, still standing
by a wall and watching the ceiling for some purpose that could only be
guessed at. "Didn't you read? We need to get out of here!"
"You go on ahead," Sora replied, voice a monotone.
"No," Sanjuro said firmly.
>>Sora-kun, Helba said to him, in private
PM. >>Whatever your sentiments for Kite, he would not want you to act
foolishly.
<<What do you mean, 'my sentiments'? I'm
just a kid; I don't know big words like that.
>>Please, Sora.
"Sora!" Elk was crying, by the doorway.
"Come on, Sora!" Sanjuro was shouting.
>>Don't dishonor his memory, Sora. Or Tsukasa's.
If they mean anything to you at all.
<<...Don't talk about them like they're
dead.
He began to turn around, much to the relief of his
cohorts, when the house gave a sudden jolt.
Sora staggered, clutching at the wall with a hand to avoid falling forward.
>>Get going! Helba shouted in open-PM. >>Get
to the field! Hurry!
I'm dying, aren't I?
Yes.
I don't want to die.
I don't want to either.
Who are you?
Tsukasa.
That's my name too.
But I am just a name.
What do you mean?
Don't you have other things?
&n