Martha Crisp
"How far down does this go."
Flanagan
"A safe distance."
Martha walked down smooth lead-layed passage.
There was a slight curve to the steps, outlining some huge pillar to her right
Martha Crisp
'Hands and arms away from the lead walls, inside the staircase at all times.'
She felt the hair rise up on her arms, due to cold or a faint buzzing of electricity.
Small LEDs in sconces spilt orange, reflecting on the lead
Rossin
'Okay this Al-tok thing - better analogy: a tick.'
"Tick?"
Rossin
'It attached itself to us via the link, sucked out a bunch of the Algera from the Awakened.'
"Okay, no: so what is Algera?"
Rossin
'Here is a data file on it...'
algera
They stopped walking at the landing of the stairs
A small rounded door made of dark oak stood closed in front of them
Flanagan opened the door
Dark oak floors and walls ended less than an arms length, matching the door perfectly in color
Martha Crisp
'How was this all built?'
Inside lay another door, made of finely, tightly meshed copper wire.
In the narrow passage between the two doors lay an electrical panel with one switch
Flanagan pulled it down
Martha Crisp
'This is a lot of lead...'
The faint buzzing suddenly ceased
Martha hadn't noticed it until it was silenced
Flanagan stepped forward and opened the wire door
Beyond the wire door was a blackness reflecting back both her and Flanagan's face.
Smooth as glass
Martha Crisp
'It reminds me of obsidian...'
Martha Crisp
"What's with all the doors?"
Martha saw the same copper color lead into the cube, a bridge
Flanagan
"Privacy, my dear, from many things..."
Martha walked to the wire gate
Beyond it she saw the black reflection was actually a colossal cube of obsidian
It was evenly surrounded by a gap then wire mesh, extending from the gate encompassing the dark oak room
Martha Crisp
'How far down is...'
They were a short distance away from the cube, less than 20 feet
Martha looked down
Her stomach knotted, the sense of scale sunk in.
It would be a long fall.
The air was unnaturally still - at seeing that depth she thought even indoors there should have been a breeze
Flanagan walked across the short bridge
The copper handrails crunched and rattled at Flanagan's grasp as he crossed.
It was made of that same copper wire mesh.
Flanagan reached the end - a small landing platform extending from the cube - made of the obsidian
Flanagan pressed in his palm on a part of the obsidian and it sunk in.
He repeated this in several other locations on the smooth reflective surface.
Martha crossed the bridge
Taking careful steps and not looking down
Finally he swung a door open
Martha Crisp
'Okay, not obsidian...'
Inside was a dark hallway
He walked forward and beckoned her to follow
She noticed the successively smaller set of cubes she was walking into
Martha Crisp
'Wood, copper, wizard-glass...'
Each a layer around the room she was stepping into
Flanagan
"The doors, please."
Flanagan's hand reached toward another electrical switch
This one however, was made of the same black glass.
Martha looked and found a handle on the other side of door.
She heard the electricity hum alive outside
Martha pulled the door shut
Inside was a pure dark.
Flanagan stood at the end of the small hallway.
His voice echoed from that far away, at least
Flanagan
"Beyond this next door no outside light has ever reached, inside here could be anything."
Martha Crisp
"Have you been inside?"
Flanagan
"Oh yes, many times."
Rossin
'This is going to work.'
"What is going to work?"
Flanagan
"We are going to steal some Algera, hopefully all of it."
Rossin shrugged and gestured to where Flanagan should be
Martha was started to still see him, alone in the dark
Martha Crisp
'Right: I see him with my brain.'
Flanagan
"We are heading into the link.
We are going to boldly pierce through a collection of thoughts and ideas and steal the power behind them."
"Mosquito on a tick."
Rossin
'Awkward analogy, mosquitos do not feed on ticks.'
Martha Crisp
"So what exactly does this look like?"
Martha Crisp
"What exactly are we going to do?"
Flanagan
"That thing inside your head, it has a signature of it's owner - we are going to use it to go right to it."
Martha Crisp
"Right to it?"
Flanagan
"Then I'm going to poke a hole it in, you are going to suck up the Algera."
Flanagan took her hand in his
Flanagan
"This is very important, keep this strong in your mind."
He grasped her hand tighter
Flanagan
"We are holding hands, as an idea, as a concept: keep it as an anchor."
Rossin
'I do not know if I can follow you into the link.'
Flanagan
"Don't spread out too thin."
Flanagan
"Yes: keep your thoughts together, don't let them spread out too far.
I'm leading us through the beast: you have to find it first - just focus on holding my hand and don't get lost."
Martha Crisp
"We're going into the link?"
Martha Crisp
'Wait, us physically into the link?
How does that work?'
Flanagan
"Are you ready?"
Martha nodded her head, then a moment later squeezed his hand
Rossin
'Best of luck, and do not overwrite anything important...'
Martha Crisp
'Overwrite?'
Flanagan opened the door
Both felt gravity shift - towards the door
They fell in
%%%%
Felix was engrossed in his phone on the park bench
Kent looked around in all directions
Watching for anything out of the ordinary.
At Felix's mimed request
Kent Barbado
'He has been on his phone for a while now.'
Kent leaned over
Kent Barbado
'They made him mute, I doubt he is pretending.'
Felix had the top half of his screen covered, and below was a terminal
Kent Barbado
'He was writing some sort of code..'
Felix held out a finger to him, and he kept on typing
Kent lost interest until
Felix uncovered the other half of his screen
It was a bunch of squiggles
Felix convulsed in place - his right eye twitched
Kent Barbado
'Sort of like what I saw on that one building.'
Kent noticed Felix spasms just as they stopped
Felix groaned and stretched his neck
Felix Danabrus
"There we are, nasty little trick."
Felix stretched his jaw
Felix Danabrus
"Now, about you..."
Felix fiddled with his phone some more
Kent Barbado
"Okay, you can talk now?
Felix, Who are you?"
Felix froze halfway to shoving the phone in Kent's face
Felix Danabrus
"Who are you?"
Kent Barbado
"Kent, and give me that!"
Kent swiped the phone from Felix's stunned hand
Kent Barbado
"Using this...
What ever this..."
Kent fumbled for his works, he was tired, and
Kent shook the phone at Felix
Felix Danabrus
"Whatever this...
Are you Awakened?"
Kent did not hesitate
Kent Barbado
"What do you think?"
There was a pause
Felix Danabrus
"I mean, I asked the question - so..."
Kent Barbado
"What was that back there?
That group?"
Felix Danabrus
"That group?"
Kent Barbado
"Girl was part of it, that guy whose head you bashed in was too."
Felix Danabrus
"The one that spilt that black goo?"
Kent Barbado
"What is that black goo, Felix?"
Felix turned to him
Felix Danabrus
"You want to give me back my phone?"
Kent Barbado
"So you can call a horde of zombies on your side in a second, no thanks."
Felix Danabrus
"Then why should I tell you anything?"
Kent paused briefly
Kent Barbado
"Martha sent me here."
Felix Danabrus
"How do you know Martha?"
Kent Barbado
"Questions later - answers now: who are those people?"
Felix squinted his eyes
He continued slowly
Felix Danabrus
"That was Alice Glass...
But that wasn't her that we killed."
Kent Barbado
"You killed: you swung."
Felix Danabrus
"You sung that stupid song wrong: that was deadly in of itself..."
Kent pinched his eyebrows
Kent Barbado
"What do they want?"
Felix Danabrus
"Probably to take over everything."
Kent Barbado
"Everything?"
Felix Danabrus
"Everything.
Every thought, every dream, every conscious action taken in its name."
Kent contemplate that
Kent Barbado
"So like: fanatical religious nuts?"
Felix let out a sigh
Felix Danabrus
"Okay, walk and talk.
We need to get back to Flanagan's."
Kent Barbado
'That a bar, or a person?'
Kent kept his question quite
Kent Barbado
"First we head back there."
Felix stared at kent
Blankly
Kent Barbado
"I dropped a thing I stole from them, near the gutter."
Kent held out Felix's phone, and started walking
Felix groaned
The two walked onwards in silence back to the alley.
When they arrived the scene was as it had been.
People walked down the street not even looking
Kent Barbado
"Keep an eye out!"
Kent pointed to the alley door.
Felix looked all around before watching the door.
Kent inspected the gutter
Kent Barbado
"It was right here."
Kent scoured the area
He had checked both cars - they were the same ones parked, he was pretty sure
Kent Barbado
'...Somebody call the gangs...'
Kent Barbado
"That guy took it."
Kent Barbado
'He was bent down over there...'
Felix Danabrus
"That guy?"
Kent Barbado
"Call the gangs."
Felix Danabrus
"He has it?
Well good look finding him."
Kent Barbado
"With my luck he'll shoot himself up with it, or sell it to a junkie."
Felix Danabrus
"Wait - what did you steal?"
Kent Barbado
"A syringe...
That they were giving out."
Felix Danabrus
"And a homeless man has it now?"
A silence fell over them
Felix Danabrus
"We should find that man."
Kent sighed
Kent Barbado
"Got any nifty tricks to do that?"
Kent Barbado
'Do not give him his phone back...'
Felix reached out his hand for his phone
Felix Danabrus
"A few..."
%%%%
The link was visceral, Martha was unprepared
She fell and kept falling into a repeating fractal of herself
The center of this fractal-self was a hole, dark and in her silhouette
Martha squeezed through an outline of herself
Martha Crisp
'A bit cramped...'
She was falling toward some bottom
She saw below her a moving shadow-play: a reflection of her own movements.
All around her: a full spectral spread of pieces of her life lined the edges
Those too moved like a slowed down projector
There was a gap between each moment
Martha felt that gap grow wider
Martha leaned to her left
She found her self against a barrier
Almost like soap
She broke through
She found herself on the grass
It was night, and she was in a large grass field, trees surrounding all sides except
She heard a noise to her left, a wooden impact
She looked left
And was watching herself storm out of the back of the mansion she had been in a few nights ago
Martha Crisp
"Oh... well then."
Martha sat up on the grass
Martha Crisp
'Must be a memory...'
She felt the soft sponge of the grass, it was perfect
There was another door closing
She looked back up.
Rossin was following the Martha that had stormed out
He looked briefly startled, almost like waking up from a dream
He walked across the yard to where she lay
Rossin
"Not quite, I'm a memory of Rossin, not the quality original.
But...
I think I can get him here, since I am here, sort of a switcheroo."
Martha sat up
Martha Crisp
"Anything I need to do?"
Rossin
"Let him through."
Rossin pointed to the left
There was an edge to the memory - leading back to that space
And between the memory, and that space was a gap - wide as a small field
It was slowly growing
Martha approached the edge
Martha compared herself to being inside a finger - the gap was a ring
She leaned over
In that gap Rossin appeared, partially immaterial, bounded behind some barrier
There was a crack
Another Rossin to her left was banging on the barrier
The Rossin in front of her shook his head and backed away
More and more appeared until it was not empty
Just a writhing mass of Rossin's stuck together
Rossin
"I'd step away if I were you."
She did
Rossin
"Looks like we missed our chance."
Martha Crisp
'What did Flanagan say?'
Martha thought of her hand, her hand holding Flanagan's
Flanagan's flesh and clothing grew out of her hand until he was standing beside her.
He looked up
Above him was the gap, writhing copies of Rossin swirled and licked some invisible barrier
He looked to Rossin then back up
Flanagan
"That was not what I expected."
Martha Crisp
"It's a mask."
Flanagan
"That I know, but... never-mind - just be cautious."
Martha Crisp
"So where is my body right now?"
Flanagan
"What do you mean?"
Martha Crisp
"Am I asleep in the cube?"
Flanagan
"Martha, dear: you're in the link. your body is right here."
Martha felt at herself
She seemed solid enough
Martha Crisp
'But before...'
Before when she endlessly fell in on herself.
Martha Crisp
"But I'm physical, the link isn't..."
Flanagan
"Who said that?
If it exists: it's physical."
Martha paused, and after a few breaths felt a little calmer
Martha Crisp
"So what - I'm really physically here in my own memory?"
Martha Crisp
"Can't we dream our way in."
Flanagan
"We used the backdoor for a reason, we do not want to be noticed...
And we want certain privileges..."
Martha Crisp
"Also - Why can't Rossin be here?"
Flanagan
" He's a tulpa, He's not a person, like you or I..."
Flanagan and Rossin shook their heads
For separate reasons
Flanagan
"Time to go either way, we don't have forever."
Martha Crisp
"What exactly is the plan?"
Flanagan pointed to the writhing mass of bodies in the void
Flanagan
"See that - we go inside that - and yes: before you ask. it's going to hurt."
Flanagan coughed
Flanagan
"Like a lot, probably.
Be prepared for the worst and hope for the best."
Martha Crisp
"Then what?"
Flanagan
"In there: we find a way to our little shadow king."
Martha waited
Flanagan
"Then I'm going to poke it, and whatever comes out, you need to drink."
Flanagan flourished his hand and brandished a forearmed sized thin needle
Flanagan
"Hm - what else..."
Flanagan waved his arm again and a large funnel settled in his hand.
He handed it to her
She inspected it, to have a cover she couldn't see a seam to
Flanagan
"Hold it out and be ready, a small sample."
He held the funnel in one hand, thumb over the lid
He waited until Martha took the hose
Flanagan
"It's a filter - it's alright."
And with the other took his needle and sliced his thumb
Flanagan
"Only Algera flows."
Droplets of blood collected on the surface of the lid - but something else slipped through
Martha waited for it to flow down the tube
It reached her lips, it was a drop
It was cold and hot, it was every extreme.
It was a pure experience: her lips, then her tongue touching a pure expression of data.
A flooding sense of infinity - filling small holes.
Though it had hardly made a dent in the larger gaps
A pure and blinding divinity.
A transcending moment, where things clicked into place.
A sense of oneness in the universe, Her life a fractal pattern not just of herself, but of the link.
She knew the link: a connection, it was more than what anyone had told her..
It was understanding that flooded her.
There was a center to that connection, far away..
All at once it stopped, she was standing next to Flanagan.
An idea she had, now unsupported by the direct infusion of Algera, tumbled and cracked, scattered to the aether robbing her of an epiphany
Martha Crisp
"Holy shit."
It was as if every moment of her life had been curled up - and presented as a singular idea
That was what she was, deep down
She inspected her hand
As if for the first time... as for a way, it was the first time - knowing what those hands would do
Flanagan took her shoulder, and she caught the filtered funnel in her outstretched hand
She kept the sadness out of her face, the coming betrayal
Flanagan
"That was from a drop of my blood - I have more than a few...
But Martha - I want to impress upon you - two thirds of the awakened's Algera is stuck in that thing.
You might be...
Occupied for a time by so much Algera."
Martha didn't know all the rules, but that small amount of Algera let her know some things
Martha extended her hand
-cp G.Objects.jar --mason --glass , hand
Glass crystallized as her brain processed a new jar in her hand.
Flanagan
"Algera spoils outside of a host..."
Martha Crisp
'Okay, so - outside a host...'
Martha Crisp
"When you say spoil?"
Flanagan
"Evaporate, here - may I?"
Martha nodded.
Flanagan shuffled his hands in Martha's direction
-tf {
outside:steel,
inside:-sym link - creator.heart
}.then((r)=>r.set(Permissions,750)
Her cup changed, from glass to metal, and came with a lid.
Her heart pulsed
She felt it echo from the cup in her hand
Martha Crisp
"Oh that feels weird."
Flanagan
"Keep your heart protected, and set your default permissions."
Martha looked at the funnel and the jar
Martha Crisp
'Default permissions: right.'
defaults.set(permissions, 750)
Martha Crisp
'Okay - I can do this: this is easy...'
Rossin
"You can do this."
Martha Crisp
'Dream Rossin says so, does that count...'
She decided it did: she would have to let him know
Martha Crisp
"Hand me that spike of yours."
Flanagan did so,
She thought a moment longer - then started
this => [...self.hands[0].Objects[0],
-cp G.Objects.armor{carbon fiber,Moulded},
...(for x in 10:
-cp G.Objects.spike{
Prototype:self.hands[1].Objects[0],
style:Barbed,
length:1ft,
Location:Front corner at {2xπ(this.front.radius)}
}
)
] --auto-format --light-weight --resizable
The cup and funnel morphed in her hands
Mostly like she pictured in her head.
The items combined into a short spear - spikes and the funnel at the end
Martha Crisp
"This isn't going to kill it though, is it?"
Flanagan
"No, no it won't.
It is far too spread out for that."
Martha Crisp
'This is just like stealing treasure from a dragon, yep...
And with this treasure...'
She contemplated what she would do with that store of power
Martha looked above her
Martha Crisp
'Rossin said it would be months before she would be ready...'
She studied it some more.
She had Flanagan by her side after all
Martha Crisp
"Can we kill that thing at least?"
Martha tilted her head towards the thing
Flanagan considered
Flanagan
"After we get the Algera out, before that it's going to be our way in, and our way out."
Martha Crisp
"Any other way out...
Or in?"
Flanagan
"Out, maybe - but in... that's the way."
Martha Crisp
'Okay, less than ideal, he will not help me after...'
Martha suppressed the thought
Flanagan
"Are you ready?"
Martha nodded
Martha Crisp
'Thread the needle Martha...
Keep it together.'
%%%%
Martha held his hand
That was a constant
She held tight as she and Flanagan tore through the skin of the copies of Rossin clawing at them
Flanagan had ripped open a hole
The one from her childhood, the one at the back of her mind
Martha Crisp
'How long have you been there?'
She panicked, that hole was death, worse than death.
It promised so much worse from her nightmares as a child
they slid through.
She was thrust through a void
With the sudden blindness came pain
Martha Crisp
'Just hold his hand.'
She did.
Her shoulder was cut
An edge of memory cut her physically
"Why!?" She was crying
She couldn't remember why
As she fell deeper into the void the memories grew denser
She was racked not just with bodily pain: she was riven by edges of the link of memories the entity co-opted, each connected to a moment of pain
The betrayal of a lover, discovered through an intercepted message
The loss of a child, by looking the wrong way at at just the wrong moment
The hate in the eyes of your parents, after killing their grandchild
Worse, and still:
She held his hand
Each moment cutting her, now a part of her
She compartmentalized them as best she could.
Her panicked mind was not helping
Still, she held his hand
There was no light, no concept of light, not even the equivalent of being able to see.
Every connection in the entity was shrouded, shifting, and impenetrable..
Until she was cut by an memory's edge, which was often, she might as well have been in a void
Martha Crisp
"How are we going to find anything in here."
There was no response
Martha Crisp
'Can he hear me?'
Martha waited, still nothing
Martha Crisp
'Okay...
Girl scouts was useful for something...'
Martha squeezed .... --- .-- / .-.. --- -. --.
A short time later she felt something back in her hand
... --- --- -.
Martha Crisp
'Okay, so I guess I just wait?'
Martha contemplated how she might kill this thing
Martha Crisp
'You seem much bigger, but...'
It couldn't actually be this big, it was just in her head, one brain...
She had to be larger - she reasoned... but maybe not stronger
Martha Crisp
'No: it is in me, not the link...'
Those had been her memories, she realized
Divorced from her by Rossin - and used by this thing as a sort of fuel
Martha Crisp
'I had a daughter?'
She tried to remember her face
She couldn't
Another memory cut into her
She couldn't accept it
She buried that one deep down
Martha's feet hit a floor
She was in a memory, her own.
A row of books on either side of her.
A dark emerald colored carpet at her feet
He squeezed her hand
Which had nothing in it
Martha looked around
Flanagan was nowhere in sight.
Some movement behind the books caught her eye
Flanagan
"I'm in the other row."
He tugged at her
Martha looked down at her hand
She was still holding his hand, she could tell, but it wasn't there.
She felt it, and him pulling on her to come.
It was as if he had an invisible stretchy arm that could pass through walls... of books at least.
Martha let herself be led on