SHOCKS Olympia Administrative Wing: Tram Platform, Washington, USA - June 19, 2043, 2:53 PM
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Sora did her best to swallow the anger welling inside her chest.
That dumbass, Claire, was pushing her buttons, asking her to watch the government scientist, acting like she was in the right to be suspicious of everyone, and then running off to get a head-start at whatever was behind the door. Sora knew—knew—that Director Ramirez had saved her life. That his call to evacuate the place they’d all moved to had saved everyone’s life. She owed him. And Claire was playing the ‘trust no one’ game again.
It was getting a little ridiculous, to be honest. It had been one thing in the circle below the bleachers, with just the three of them. That was fine when it was Claire, Keith, and her, smoking a single cigarette between them and taking solemn oaths of secrecy. But this? This was serious. People were dying over this.
Yes. Yes, it was getting to be a little too much.
But even though Sora knew that the right thing to do was tell Director Ramirez that Claire was up to something, she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Not yet. Yes, Claire was being a bitch. No, she hadn’t explained anything here. But Alexander was creepy as hell, so maybe Claire had a point.
Sora sat on a dust-covered metal bench near the door, staring out at the partially devoured train. Acid dripped from it, Acidic blood that hissed quietly in counterpoint with the dying train engine.
She had no idea what to do. This whole mess was way too big for a fifteen-year-old, and James hadn’t said a word to her yet.
SHOCKS Olympia Administrative Wing, Washington, USA - June 19, 2043, 2:53 PM
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James fought for his life.
The whole facility stood against him, arrayed in shining digital armor and wielding sharp spears tipped with murderous anomalous ICE programs his processing threads couldn’t grasp. He was a many-tentacled beast—an enormous giant Pacific Octopus with dozens of tentacles that had crept everywhere into SHOCKS Olympia’s network reefs and probed the depths of its ocean.
Now, he found himself under attack by programs he’d only theorized about and never had the courage—no, the insanity—to share with SHOCKS or anyone else.
The spears and harpoons tore at his processing loops. Wounds only recently healed erupted in spurts of blood-red ones and zeroes. This was worse than Reality 404 had been. Worse than being in the tank at SHOCKS Victoria. Worse than dying—and he knew. Sidney knew. He’d died before.
James wanted to give up. To curl into a many-limbed ball and protect the core of his being. He could rebuild. It’d take time, but with the Halcyon System’s influence, his processing power had grown exponentially since May. But even with the ICE programs’ damage ripping through him, even with pain that hurt worse than anything he’d ever felt, James was still human.
Mostly.
And that part of him, that human part of him, didn’t want to give up. It didn’t want to die.
He couldn’t see or hear. The ICE had cut his connection to Claire’s augs first, and while he still existed in them, he couldn’t communicate through them.
He couldn’t run. His tendrils of processing loops were too big and too awkward, and no matter where he put them, the facility’s soldiers were there with their spears, ready to stab into him and disrupt his thinking, break apart his code, and tear his digital body to shreds.
He couldn’t scream for help. No one could hear him in this digital graveyard.
So James did the only thing his state of existence and his human nature would allow him to do.
He turned at bay, like a boar pursued by dogs, and fought.
SHOCKS Olympia Administrative Wing: Tram Platform, Washington, USA - June 19, 2043, 2:53 PM
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Claire was being a little bitch again.
Robert Pendleton hated that he was thinking it, but he was thinking it.
He couldn’t help it.
Usually, Claire was his favorite. She listened, stayed out of the way, and was quiet other than the eight-bit beeping that sometimes came out of her phone. Unlike her still-missing sister, Claire didn’t argue back, and she didn’t stay out until some ungodly fucking hour. Not usually.
But sometimes, she could be way more of a bitch than Alice. Robert hated that he felt that way, but he felt that way.
He’d kill for a mirror. His hands had stopped shaking, and he was pretty sure he needed a shave. Not that he had a razor, or that the goddamned doctors running around in their labcoats would have let him have one. They’d done something to him. It was either when they’d cut him off and sent him shivering into the shadows for a week with nothing but barely-spiked apple juice to take the worst of it off, or it was whatever they’d jammed in his arm a day or so ago.
He’d used to be someone. But thanks to his daughter, who wouldn’t listen to her father, he wasn’t someone anymore. He hated it, and he hadn’t changed his mind; he still hated her for putting him through this.
But Robert Pendleton was sure about one thing. The labcoat-wearing fucks who’d gotten him off of booze? They’d made a mistake in doing that. Even though he was nothing—even though he could only vaguely remember a life before his wife had died, when he’d been someone, he understood for the first time that it wasn’t just him suffering. He could think now, and if he could think, he could look after his daughters.
Claire and Alice had suffered, too. And it was, somehow, the doctors’ fault.
Armed with that revelation, and with a head that was clearing from whatever the shot in his arm had been, Robert Pendleton watched the doctors and the one-eyed man with them.
He’d used to be someone. Now he was no one. But it’d be time to change that soon.
SHOCKS Olympia Administrative Wing, Washington, USA - June 19, 2043, 2:53 PM
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This place feels less like an office building and more like a museum.
It also feels familiar, but it takes me a minute to place it.
It’s the concrete work. The whole building is what Sora would call brutalist. Harsh angles, big, gray faces of concrete. Squares and rectangles and sharpness. Exposed steel in the beams overhead and the ones punching down who knows how far into the mountain below.
But as crude and boxy as the building looks, it’s a lot like the Research Mezzanine in the Containment and Preservation, Incorporated building back in Provisional Reality ARC. James could probably confirm that if he wanted to, but he’s not feeling chatty. What is interesting is the sheer number of exhibits on display on the first floor. A pair of stairs bump up several flights, with anomalies surrounded by glass in between them.
They’re not moving. I read the first plaque.
389-T-13/2I
Anquan-Danger
The 389-T-13/2I on display here was recovered from the West End High School merge event on May 23, 2043. It was neutralized by an unknown civilian, who successfully discovered the Incomprehensibles’ weakness to confronting its own existence before terminating it with a single shot from their weapon.
The plaque goes on and on about the dangers of R-389, the low-reality nature of that place, the weak sun, and the shifting monsters that live there. I don’t read much of it, and I understand even less. My mind is on one burning question: why is it here?
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
That’s good enough for an Inquiry.
?Inquiries (5/5)
?Why is the thinling in SHOCKS Olympia’s administrative wing?
?How does Director Ramirez intend to weaponize the merge generator?
?How can I get Alice back in her body?
?Who is Alexander?
?Why is there a giant spider in the Geren-Danger wing?
The thinling’s presence here, dead, with the same hole that my Revolver punched through it, is wrong. According to everything I know, SHOCKS locked down shortly after they brought me to my first cell. Moving a monster from one facility to another during a crisis shouldn’t have been a priority. And yet…
And yet here it is.
There’s something here. I ask James about it, but he has nothing to say, and I don’t press him. I do think about asking Sidney, but I decide against it. The risk is too high. I’d rather not know the truth about this than compromise my long-term plans, and talking to him directly will only tip James off if he’s listening. But still, the thinling is here. It’s definitely the same one. And it shouldn’t be here.
The Revolver’s been in my hands since I Slithered and Smoke Formed through the door. I’m ready for anything. For another giant spider, or a swarm of still-alive thinlings.
I’m not ready for the announcement I receive.
[Greetings, Acting Director Pendleton.]
[Your security clearance within the SHOCKS Olympia Intranet is Level A.]
[You have limited SHOCKS database access from your Level A clearance]
[You have limited SHOCKS database access as the highest-ranking employee on site]
[As Acting Director, you may not promote employees past Level Two.]
[As Acting Director, you may not promote anomalies to Level A.]
[As Acting Director, you may not power down autonomous security systems.]
Autonomous security systems?
Something pulls back into the wall. I catch a glimpse of a six-barreled gun, each gaping cylinder big enough to fit my hand inside, and almost slap myself. The thinling distracted me, but I’ve been in danger since I got here. “James, can you deal with those for me?”
Nothing. He doesn’t respond.
Okay. Fine. I’ll do it myself. The math’s simple, after all. It’s me against the administrative wing.
But first, I’m going to do some serious learning. There’s so much to pick up from this museum-like entrance, and as far as I can tell, the SHOCKS staff and Lansdowne teachers are perfectly safe out on the platform. Alexander’s a threat, but he doesn’t seem to want them dead.
I still don’t know who he is, why he was locked up in the Geren-Danger wing, or what he wants. But I know he doesn’t want them dead. If he did, they’d be dead already.
Luckily, none of the other anomalies on display are from West End High.
There’s a video that I can only see from a specific angle, through a filter so dark it’s like a welding mask. According to its plaque, it’s a memetic anomaly, and it’s not neutralized. If it’s not in a place where it can be viewed, it’ll start spreading until it is. The filter’s chock full of antimemetics that counter the worst effects, but even so, I only look at it long enough to be sure it’s not going to duplicate. Its danger rating is Qishi.
Then there’s a massive tank full of air. Millions of fist-sized ants crawl inside of it, building tunnels from a semi-clear substance they’re pulling from the air blowing up from a fan below the tank. They’ve got a long, complex designation, but they’re air ants. They’re only low Xuduo.
All around the edge of the room are cells with transparent Plexiglass walls, filled with dozens of other anomalies—all between Anquan and low Xuduo, and none looking like a breach threat. At least not right now. They’re all embedded into the concrete, and the only access doors are out of the cells’ back walls.
Since I’m acting director for SHOCKS Olympia right now, the director’s office is my first stop. The message I got from the facility said I couldn’t turn off the autonomous security measures, but that doesn’t mean it’s telling the truth—and Director Ramirez needs them turned off. Even if he and the SHOCKS people would be okay, I need Sora and the teachers to be safe.
And Dad. My heart pounds in my ears just thinking about him. But I need him safe. If he gets his ass killed—or if Director Ramirez gets him killed—he’ll never figure out how to apologize for…everything. And I need him to apologize. More importantly, I need him to start fixing it.
It shouldn’t be on me to forgive him for everything he hasn’t done.
I head up the flight of stairs, past the video player and the air ants, and push through a set of double doors. The floor’s carpeted here, and it’s clean. Too clean; no office in the world maintains itself this perfectly.
That’s got me on edge almost as much as the still-running computers. If this place was evacuated weeks ago, the screens should be off, and they shouldn’t sound like racecars. The math’s simple; the cubicle computers in SHOCKS Victoria were all locked. These ones aren’t. “James, what’s going on here?” I ask.
No response.
That’s fine.
Really, it is. I wasn’t expecting one. But if all the computers are running, that either means he knows about it and didn’t tell me, or he doesn’t know about it. He’d tell me about something like this—or at least be curious himself.
Something moves behind me. I whirl and pull the Revolver’s trigger; a singularity appears and rips the sparking, electrical insectlike figure with eight legs and a vicious-looking tail—
[Voltscorpion]
—off its feet. The carpet smolders and bursts into flame, and I backpedal away from the double doors. “Why the fuck is everything bugs!?” The gravity shell cylinder goes back into my pocket, the mergekillers that don’t do anything special except in the right circumstances come out, and I open fire. I’m still furious; I’ve been keeping it down, but Dad hurt me more than I realized, and it all comes out of the Revolver’s barrel. All the anger. All the frustration and impotent helplessness I’ve felt the last ten years.
And all the bullets.
They cut the Voltscorpion to pieces, then keep hitting it until the Revolver’s hammer clicks shut on a dull, lifeless round and the gun won’t fire anymore. Then, I pull the trigger a couple more times, just to be sure.
It’s a waste, and I know it. Worse, I know even while I’m still dry-firing the gun that if there’s one enemy, there are definitely more. But I don’t care. I want to kill something, and there’s no voice of reason telling me to stop. So I dry-fire the Revolver two more times, then switch the cylinders. With the fire lance rounds in and ready, I start walking through the cubicles.
I’m still pissed. I did everything right. Everything I could. And the only thing he could say when I got back to him was that I looked like shit? Another scorpion emerges from the back of a computer. The screen goes black as it does. Then the lightning-covered electrical monster goes dark, too. Three shells are enough. I’m not wasting rounds anymore.
My wings flare behind me. I can’t control them, and they’re useless for flight, but sometimes, when I feel most like the destroyer of worlds, or like an angel of death, they almost feel like part of me. And as I cut through the swarming electrical bugs like a tsunami coming ashore, that’s how they feel.
It’s over in less than a minute. I barely have to retreat. I barely have to run.
[Skill Learned: Revolver Mastery 25]
By the end, there’s not a single computer still running in the maze of cubicles and desks. They’re all black, and the humming fans have fallen silent as the Voltscorpions disengage from their meals, swarm to attack me, and die.
James still isn’t around, and I’m starting to get worried. If Sidney tried something early, and he wasn’t ready yet, that’d tip his hand and mine at the same time. If James hit something in this facility he wasn’t ready for, and it’s actually strong enough to beat a System-empowered, godlike computer program, that implies there’s a lot of secrets here. James built the SHOCKS security systems. He shouldn’t be beatable—at least not by them.
The Revolver flares as its bullets go active again, and I head through the open workspace—past posters on the walls. Loose lips sink ships, or some variation of that. ‘Don’t talk about what you see here’ is the message they’re all trying to convey—unless they’re talking about safety precautions in the containment wings.
The layout’s familiar, if a lot bigger than SHOCKS VVI’s administrative wing’s. I have to shoot a couple of straggler Voltscorpions, but they’re hardly a speed bump between me and where the director’s office has to be. Then I’m through that set of double doors, and behind the wooden desk in the office chair.
The good news is that the computer responds to me like I’m acting director. I have access to about the same amount of SHOCKS Olympia as I did in Victoria—before James took over the whole facility and occupied every byte of its software.
The bad news is that I think I know where James is, and I can’t help him.
I flick through the computer’s options until I get to ‘Security.’ Director Ramirez wants inside the SHOCKS facility, so I need to get the doors open—but not to help him. Everyone else with him, sure, but not him, and not Alexander. Before I can let them all in, I need control over the facility’s security systems.
But every time I try, I just get this message.
[As Acting Director, you may not power down autonomous security systems.]
And worse, there’s an ‘Active Breach Attempt Alert’ going off that I can’t interact with. It’s digital, and while I can’t power down or call off the alert, it’s fully capable of telling me exactly what’s happening. According to the director’s computer, an entity with similarities to both the Joint Anomaly Management Enhancement System and the anomalous message that accompanied Merge Prime attempted to breach the facility about four minutes ago. It triggered several Intrusion Countermeasure Electronics programs, which are currently attempting to neutralize it.
So that’s not good.
Mathematically, my best bet is to get Director Ramirez to this desk. It shouldn’t even be hard; I’ve already killed all the Voltscorpions, and there’s nothing here that’d threaten him if I’m around—at least, not anything that’s free. He’d be able to call off the ICE programs. He’d be able to shut down the facility’s defenses.
But there are two problems.
First, I can’t trust Director Ramirez. He might be trying to wage nuclear war on other realities. Or he might just be trying to find somewhere safe, and I could be reading too much into his notes. But I can’t take the chance.
And second, I can’t trust Alexander.
Right now, he’s stuck outside unless he uses his powers. If he does that, SHOCKS will know he’s an anomaly, and they won’t work with him. They only work with me because they have to. But if I let him in, he’ll have free rein inside, and there’s a chance Director Ramirez gave him the same Level A clearance Alice and I have. If he’s got that, he won’t need anyone alive once the door opens.
I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place, and the only option I have is to hope that James can win his fight.
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