by K.A. Rose
Stage 14:
One More Look
Subject: Merry Christmas
To: "Sanjuro" (sbrenner@sdumsd.edu), "Elk" (blueberry_popsicle@wazoo.co.jp), "Sora" (ph33r_mj_l33t_5k11lz@haxxj00.com)
From: "Kite" (kaito@mail.co.jp)
Date: 25/12/2011 20:35 GMT+8hrs.All preparations are in place.Come to Mac Anu as soon as you receive this email. The gate will be hacked promptly at 10 AM. We only have a small window to operate within so let's make it count.
Kite.
Subject: Goodbye
To: "BlackRose" (burakurosu@boggle.co.jp)
From: "Kite" (kaito@mail.co.jp)
Date: 25/12/2011 20:39 GMT+8hrs.I'm going now. I don't know if I'll be back.Wish there was more to say.
Thanks for everything, I guess. Including your silence.
Kite.
Mac Anu. 21:49 AM.
"The one last thing," Kite
said, turning to address his compatriots face to face, "is that I think
we should exchange phone numbers."
He was waiting for the massive
outcry. He received it.
There were a few good arguments
he couldn't tune out. That's a very personal thing to give out, it's something
of a taboo to give out your number on the net on a whim, how do we know
this won't inadvertedly fall into the wrong hands, how can we trust one
another to toss the numbers out when we don't need them anymore...
Et cetera, et cetera...
"Listen," he stressed,
until the protests filtered to a stop. "I know it's asking a lot. I also
know it's pretty much necessary. I wouldn't be asking this unless I thought
it was the best possible way. We are entering into something very dangerous.
This is something that could cost us our lives if we're not up to speed.
"If you're worried about the
other person not throwing away your number when we're done, take it up
with them later. For now, though, we're going to trust each other. We're
all in the same place here, and we're all putting ourselves at risk. So
the least we can do is watch each others' backs. Okay?"
And so, begrudgingly, the
four PCs did.
>>Don't worry, Kite
told Sora in private PM. >>I won't call unless I have to.
<<Which is just a
massive
comfort in the circumstances, Sora shot back, finishing writing out
the three numbers that he had been given. Once in type on a .txt file on
the desktop, once by hand near his computer, as per instructions. His pencil
tip broke on the end of Kite's number.
>>You live in Tokyo,
Kite remarked with slight surprise, after a pause in which Sora guessed
he had read the numbers he'd just written down, paying attention to a familiar
prefix.
I was gonna tell you,
Sora thought. Really. Some time.
<<Well, Sora
said instead, glad that it was hard to detect bitterness in text, <<it's
a pretty big prefecture and all. It's not like you'll run into me at the
local market or whatever.
>>Yeah, Kite conceded,
seeming embarrassed. >>Guess not.
"So what about the field?"
Sanjuro asked, taking the two out of their silent secondary conversation.
"You said you'd have to hack it. Did Lios seal off the area?"
"Yeah, he's being difficult."
"That's ironic," Elk said
bitterly. "Wasn't this our goal in the first place?"
"Call it a reversal of principles."
Kite's gaze drew itself toward the Chaos Gate, beckoning unconsciously
for his teammates to follow suit. "I used to think it would do the trick
just to let it go. Now I want to end this properly."
He smiled in some strange
self-possessed amusement, and looked over his shoulder. He studied the
faces of his companions, the distant looks on their faces that refocused
as soon as they saw they were being watched. "I guess it's kind of too
late to ask whether you're all backing me up on this."
Sora snorted. "Ch3h. You're
only asking that now?"
Sanjuro added, "Was there
ever any doubt to start with?"
And Elk concurred, "We're
behind you 100%, Kite."
And the clock across the water
main struck 22:00.
"Here we go," Kite said, excited
despite himself. He hadn't hacked gates in a while; there hadn't been a
need. Though this time, his tools were a little less flashy. He activated
the Chaos Gate.
"I meant to ask," Sanjuro
said cautiously. "If Lios is using upper-level security, won't that be
too sophisticated for the Bracelet?"
"That's okay. Mia hooked me
up."
Glowing bands of light spread
out from the portal, a stream of archaic symbols encircling them. A magic
circle spread out under their feet. Some knowledge of the ancients implemented
to signal their passing between worlds, onward to battle.
And to think, Kite
thought to himself as he ran the hackscript from his desktop, it's all
just bits of data.
"Oh thank god!"
Which were not the first words Kite and his group
were planning to hear upon successfully hacking through to Delta House
of Leaves. They collectively turned their attention to the porch of the
house,
where a lone Blademaster stood to his feet at their arrival.
"How'd you guys get through? They took down the
barrier?"
"What are you doing here?" Kite asked, realizing
only belatedly that he'd left pleasantries out entirely. "Did you come
here with a party?"
The new PC bristled at the sudden questioning. "What's
it to you? You a mod or something?"
"Are there others here with you?" Sora stressed.
He knew he could get a point across more emphatically than his smaller
cohort. "It's a simple question."
"I had a party," the Blademaster said apprehensively,
"but we didn't find anything so they all left. I hung back to check again,
and then when I tried to Gate Out, it was locked. Is it open again?"
"Lios the sysadmin is closing it again within half
an hour," Kite answered truthfully. He'd been able to estimate the reaction
time with only about a minute or so margin of error. "Get out now, and
stay out."
The Blademaster scanned face to solemn face. "Is
something... going to happen?"
There was a slight pause as the four PCs seemed
to be deciding each to himself what their answer should be, but Sora won
and answered first. "Don't ask questions. Just get out."
"Right... Right. Jesus," the newbie said reproachfully,
activating the Gate Out command. He had soon warped out of sight.
"This is a problem," Kite said when the Blademaster
had departed. "Until Lios puts up the barrier again this is open territory.
He might not even get around to it, knowing we're in here. We need to dissuade
people more than ever. Sanjuro," he said decidedly, turning to the warrior,
"we're not setting up a command post in the dead-end room. Communications
are going to break down regardless, so there's no point. I want you out
here instead."
Sanjuro inclined his head, first as if rolling with
Kite's sudden emergence into authority, and second when he confessed, "I
wish to accompany you into the maze."
"No dice. We need someone out here at all costs."
"We talked about it, Kite," Elk said helpfully.
"You've agreed to switch with him?" Kite asked.
The Wavemaster nodded. He turned his attention back to Sanjuro, arching
his eyebrows. "It's fine with me, but... Are you sure about this?"
"Like I told someone else recently... It doesn't
matter whether I think I am or not, I am involved in this now. And
I think I have been for a while." His mouth twitched with the hint of an
embarrassed smile. "In addition to that, whether or not you feel like forgiving
me, I owe you and Sora both whatever I can."
As if to do battle with the solemnity of the moment,
Sora forced the sarcasm back into his voice and said, "What kind of talk
is that for a samurai?"
Sanjuro chuckled with relief. "'Suppose you're right...
Shall we be off, then?"
"Don't worry about anything out here," Elk assured
them, as they approached the step leading to the front door. "I'll get
mean if I have to. Just concentrate on what you have to do. And... well...
it goes without saying, but... Good luck."
Kite nodded. "Thanks."
And what seemed like within moments, they had disappeared
into the dungeon's depths.
Minato-ku, Tokyo. 23:08
The upperclass private sectors of Minato-ku were
cloistered and quiet, small worlds closed in on themselves through which
no one tended to venture except with direct purpose in mind. It was often
rumored no one actually lived there, because its deathly silence just couldn't
have been human.
Then the head of the neighborhood had the bright
idea, probably borrowed from some foreigners (probably Frenchmen, sniffed
locals), that more socialization should take place. And so it was decided
that the residents of these higher-end homes would open their doors to
their neighbors three or four times a year to host get-together parties.
Because it was a union of the elite, there was no concern for foul play,
just the fact that the neighbors would have to endure each others' presence
for a few hours every few months.
This Christmas it fell to the author Ryo Sakuma,
age 46, to host the party. It was his first year conducting one for the
benefit of neighbors, though not the first overall. A member of the intellectual
community already, he had experience organizing for this kind of thing.
In addition, this year he happened to have a little help from "family."
So, all over, the Christmas party was a raging success,
if in a muted, austere way as accomodating for the upperclass. Originally
a man of limited means until his book sales took off, a part of Sakuma
heavily disliked this atmosphere and sought constantly to shut himself
up into his study, always to be dragged back into the center of conversation
again.
He thought ruefully that if it was his World
PC Bear in this situation, he'd have succeeded in escaping a long time
ago. Bear was not so accomodating. Ryo Sakuma, however, seemed to be.
Sakuma was therefore wrought with relief when the
telephone rang in the kitchen, and he was able to extricate himself from
a droning man's riveting adventures in lawn care guilt-free to go answer
it.
The bestselling author was notoriously hard to surprise,
much less shock. So he was thankful that no one was around in the kitchen
to see his expression when he learned who it was or, more astoundingly,
who they were asking for.
He weaved his way back through his normally desolate
living room until he came at last to the sofa, something of an effort,
where some of the younger and more pretentious intellectuals, some the
children of neighbors, would cluster and (presumably) gain a sense of belonging,
or at least competitiveness.
The present dazzler among these was a moderately
tall girl of short, ashen hair, athletically built by nature but marred
somewhat by an unknown sickness that had taken her lung capacity and atrophied
her muscles, leaving her an inexplicably delicate and even angelically
wispy. Thin but defiantly calloused fingers clasped a wine glass she only
occasionally sipped from for show, the main event being to prove her incredible
wit at all costs.
Sakuma tapped her on the shoulder. "Mitsuki-san."
Mitsuki Tsukasa, age 18, wheeled beautifully around
in an instant, with a flirtatious "Haaaaiii?"
Inwardly, Sakuma --or Bear, or maybe both-- cringed.
He remembered Tsukasa being so different, not so many years ago. What a
change that boarding school and a steady relationship had been on her.
Particularly the school.
He had leaned against calling her Tsukasa in the
real world, believing still in some way that he had to separate her from
her game persona and all the memories attached to that. And realistically,
as her legal guardian, referring to her informally was perfectly within
reason. A fonder surrogate parent might have even taken to a cuter suffix
like -chan or -chin, even indulge in a cute nickname like Mitsukichi. But
he wasn't so fond of her, especially with her recent shifts in personality.
And anyway, she had only come tonight because he'd specifically invited
her; she'd turned down his offer to live with him over summer and winter
break in favor of moving in with her wife. Well, that was her choice, clearly...
"You have a phone call," Sakuma told her, thumbing
in the direction of the kitchen. "Did you tell anyone you'd be here?"
"No... No one... Hmm..." She placed a finger to
her chin for a moment in thought, then turned to one of the college-aged
boys she had been conversing with and pushed her wine glass into an unresisting
hand. "Let's see about this..." she murmured, and disappeared into the
crowd.
After he had lost track of her in the commotion,
his eyes drifted back to the couch. Only one person actually sat there,
others preferring to stand or lean against it. This person was a slightly
older woman, around 25, with long hair, sad eyes made sadder by her spectacles.
She was not overweight, but a little softer and rounder than Tsukasa, a
fact only made evident by virtue that Tsukasa was so thin as to be extraterrestrial.
This woman's appearance had more to do with her limitations of movement;
for seven years, for reasons never discussed publicly, she had been confined
to a wheelchair.
Sakuma seated himself beside her.
"Sorry to have dragged you into this," he said,
knowing the apology sounded hollow even as he said it.
Subaru Nazuka shook her head. "Mitsuki seems to
be having fun, so it's all right."
"How are you holding up? Can I get you anything?"
Nazuka's mouth twitched into a smile for a moment,
before disappearing again. "You don't have to be so nice to me, Bear..."
Had she used the name in a closer setting where
they may have been overheard, Sakuma may have objected to the title. As
it was, between the two of them, it seemed appropriate.
But she had never called him that in the real world
before, even when it was just the two of them. Even more now, Sakuma saw
that there was something in Nazuka's expression that went beyond the normal
somber disposition she normally exhibited in public, or what he saw of
her. She seemed genuinely sad for something, and perhaps lonely.
"Tsukasa needs to be stopped," Sakuma muttered bitterly,
so much under his breath he feared it had even escaped her ears in the
din.
"You can't stop people, Sakuma-san," Nazuka said,
pausing for a moment to surreptitiously wipe something from her eyes behind
her glasses. "Don't worry. I'll... I'll sort her out or something. Again."
"There has to be some kind of equilibrium. She can't
just swing from one extreme to the other. It isn't fair to you."
"Thank you for your concern, Sakuma-san, but you
shouldn't involve yourself so much... Especially when I have no power to
walk out of a conversation."
"You're right. Sorry."
"No. Don't be. I just..." She tried and failed to
suppress a small sniffle. "I just wish something would humble her again..."
"Haaiii, who is it?" Tsukasa answered exuberantly
into the receiver.
"Tsukasa," said a deep voice. Too familiar for comfort.
She nearly dropped the phone.
"How did you get this number?" she demanded, voice
suddenly hushed, deprived of her normal cheer.
"By accessing your guardian's personal contact information,
how else? We are not lowly moderators, Tsukasa. World administrators
possess a full range of powers over its users." The voice almost seemed
to delight in sharing this information.
Lios.
"What the hell are you going on about, calling here?"
she hissed into the phone. "What do you want?"
"Delta House of Leaves.
Do you know it?"
"...What's happened?"
"You must be at least tenuously familiar with the
players Kite and Sora, correct? You knew they were investigating this particular
dungeon. They came to you once for advice, did they not?"
"Answer my goddamn question."
"Patience, little lady. I'm getting there. Seems
that all of our combined efforts to keep them out of that place have failed.
They're inside again, and this time they've fallen off the map."
"What do you mean?"
"New security features from Ziggurat B enable
us to track the movement of any PC anywhere in The World. Three
PCs, that of Kite, Sanjuro, and Sora, have disappeared without logging
out. You may be slightly familiar with this phenomenon."
"Sora... What's happened to Sora?!"
"Aha," Lios said, pleased as if he had just won
an in-office bet. "I suspected as much. You have a one-track mind for that
boy."
Tsukasa gritted her teeth. The teasing had not penetrated
her, not the way Lios would have intended. Suddenly all thoughts of astounding
grasp of particle physics and 9th-century classical literature had been
obliterated, wiped away. She couldn't refocus to that trivial bullshit
if she tried.
Sora was in danger... That stupid brat was in danger!
"What do you want me to do?" she whispered. "How
can I help?"
She could almost see Lios cracking a sardonic grin.
"Wasn't there a time, Tsukasa, when you would never have offered your assistance
to anyone? And in fact, you were the one getting saved?"
"Sora saved me more than once. I'm not going to
forget."
"Sora isn't capable of altruism."
"He's changed."
"Oh, the way you have?"
"Fuck you."
"Sora did it for money. Or because he thought it
was fun. I don't care what anyone believes, the trade-off after Aura's
awakening was only because he thought he was going to turn out on top.
He only sided with you because you were winning. He'd've defected again
if the tides turned--"
"SHUT UP!"
The effect was lessened somewhat by the limitations
on her voice, but it lacked nothing in ferocity. A few guests standing
near the kitchen, unbeknownst to Tsukasa, were edging slowly away.
"No more of this bullshit. Just tell me where to
go. I can log on in ten minutes."
Upon entering the house,
the three PCs had made a unanimous decision to shun the Spiral Staircase
in favor of exploring the first-level rooms and corridors. They investigated
the normal levels of the structure first, primarily to verify that no one
else was inside, but also to see that the changes made to its structure
when the house had reacted against its occupants
had reverted back to normal. The lights had even stopped dimming.
Inside the labyrinth, Kite allowed himself the use
of the mic only to shout out into the darkness a query for anyone who might
have been within. But only echoes were his reply.
They moved swiftly in a bid to cover more ground.
They used no hacks, knowing whatever they attempted would be disabled sooner
or later anyway, and relied solely on the light of spells to guide their
way.
They maneuvered in perfect coordination without
much more than a gesture. An hour passed without a single word exchanged
between them. The maze was not unakin to a vacuum, stealing all conversation
away from them. The farther they travelled --more than 30 kilometers so
far-- the firmer this silence became. There was no time to waste on words.
After an hour, however, the walls and ceiling filtered
away and left the three in a wide open area, only the floor beneath them
their link to any sort of human structure. They puzzled at this for a moment;
they had deliberately avoided the Great Hall and all it might contain,
and in any case, this new area surpassed the Great Hall in size ten times
over, even when the house had grown. Their
footsteps did not even resound against distant walls; they were lost in
the darkness.
More than that, they slowly came to the realization
that the ease of their progression was due in part that they were heading
downhill.
Lambda Pulsating Truth's Core was not a regular field,
even by the standards that incorporated areas like Delta Hidden Forbidden
Holy Ground and Delta House of Leaves. It
was
not, in fact, a field in the gaming sense of the word at all. It was a
server. Net Slum.
Helba had designed it at some point following Tsukasa's
entrapment roughly three years ago, seemingly almost in preparation of
the things that were to come. It served as her personal data-dump server
in which excess, often illegal data could be discarded without concern
for deletion. Lately it had become the home of glitched NPCs and failed
hack attempts by players, resulting in some very amusing, if insidiously
creepy, freaks of data.
The last time Tsukasa had seen Net Slum was during
the Unison Hanabi a few months following 'the Ordeal', when the last of
the coma victims were well on their way to recovery and Helba felt confident
enough to hold the event. She had made significant alterations to its design
to reflect the party atmosphere, but hadn't bothered to take them down
since. Because Net Slum was Helba's own personal creation known of only
by a few people --most of whom being among Kite's former group and no longer
very active online--, the hacker had little concern for keeping up with
appearances.
Tsukasa knew Lios had worked with Helba previously,
often using Net Slum as the meeting place, but the proposal that she meet
him there tonight did not put her at ease. Net Slum, as the name suggested,
was not a place one went to for straight dealings.
It was 23:38 when she finally gained access to the
field. Sakuma had put up a bit of a defense, and Subaru had been curious
too. But there was just no time to deal with them right now. When she had
finally secured access to Sakuma's smoke-filled study to log on to his
computer, she saw to locking the door behind her.
And when she finally arrived, she found that Net
Slum was far from empty.
Apart from Tartarga and the other denizens of the
server, Tsukasa recognized the squinting, moustached form Lios typically
took in The World, and beside him, floating slightly off the ground,
was Helba herself. Standing around the Shinto gate from which a PC entered
were other vaguely familiar faces --Wiseman, Orca, and Mia, as well as
a few of the lesser sysadmins-- and some Tsukasa had never seen before,
many of them with obviously hacked character models. These unknowns communicated
among themselves, most in net slang, a few in English l33t, one or two
in what Tsukasa guessed was Mandarin, and a lone Frenchman who appeared
very put out.
At the Wavemaster's arrival, Helba looked up from
the map spread out between her and Lios and addressed her. "Welcome back
to Paradise, Tsukasa."
Tsukasa did not even grant her a curt nod. "You're
not supposed to be online," she remarked. She had been keeping up with
the news reports about the trial.
"How I know," Helba answered nervously. It was an
atypical emotion for her to express; Tsukasa had never seen her in anything
but complete confidence. "However, circumstances being what they are, and
with The World's administration behind me, I'm hoping this is a
fact to be overlooked."
Tsukasa shrugged. "This all might be direly important
to you people, but what does it require me for? It seems you have enough
illegal help to go around already."
"That's not the attitude I heard on the phone, girl,"
Lios rumbled, eyes not leaving the map. "If you've had a change in sentiment
perhaps it's best you get the hell out of here."
"I'm not going until I find out the situation,"
Tsukasa said defiantly. "And what you called me here for in the first place."
"May I?" Helba offered to the sysadmin, who nodded
indulgingly. Helba spread her hands. "First off, we were fools to not have
seen this coming. Correspondence with some of the others you see around
you indicate that Kite and his group were anticipating a large operation
for some time, one they initiated at roughly twenty-two hundred tonight.
Elk made contact with Mia to obtain upper-level hackscripts to break through
Class-A field protections, most principly."
"I'd had no idea," Mia was saying quietly, apologetically.
"I thought he was still doing his virus hunting gig."
"At the same time, Sora had been in correspondence
with Wiseman asking for insight on the Adamantine Code, and Sanjuro was
interrogating the only member of the Holloway Team to escape unscathed.
Likewise, I was communicating with Kite."
"For what?"
"He requested that we hijack the entire Tokyo intranet
to offset strains upon his team's systems while inside the dungeon," Helba
admitted, after a second of pause. "A request that I denied, most naturally.
Only to discover soon after, in fact just tonight, that he had had his
wish granted, even without his knowledge.
"You see, our present theory is that Delta House
of Leaves does not in fact exist on the Delta server. Or on any server
in The World. Rather, it is in all of them, and permeates out into
the net, onto individual systems with no relevancy to The World
whatsoever. His concept that a city full of computers could share in crunching
the large files needed to process the house
was not so far-fetched after all; it was a system already in place. But
on a worldwide scale."
"That's all conjecture, of course," Tsukasa pointed
out flatly, without even a hint of possibility. "You've only observed some
unknown presence eating resources remotely, so you presume. It's nothing
but a theory. And not enough of a theory to merit an international hacker
alliance. Of which I am still not part," she added spitefully, casting
a hand to the chattering PCs behind her on all sides, "because I'm not
a hacker."
"Tsukasa, please... Exhibit some of that regard
for others that you used to possess. The others you see here were all involved
in trying to access the house through the
raw code. All of them failed. That is why Lios sought to contact you."
"You might not be a hacker," Wiseman said cooly,
"but you harbor abilities not even the best of them could manage in a lifespan.
It outpowers even the Twilight Bracelet."
At first, upon realizing what Wiseman's implication
was, Tsukasa gave a short laugh. She shook her head sardonically, glancing
from face to face... But as she studied them, she realized she was the
only one seeing humor in this.
For the first time in a very long while, Tsukasa
began to look apprehensive. She even clutched at her staff nervously.
"You... want me to... use that?"
"We are not expecting you to go into the field,"
Lios clarified. "But we believe that someone with Morganna's Power could
conceivably transport themself into its loading dock screen-- the base
template all fields in The World are built up from. From there we
may be able to uncover valuable information about the nature of the dungeon
in question, and perhaps even locate the missing PCs."
Helba shook her head morosely, murmuring, "Poor,
stupid Sora-kun..."
"You knew him, didn't you," Tsukasa said to her.
"He worked as my messenger for a time. I'd meant
to become better acquainted with him, endearing as he was, but he drifted
away too quickly. Would that I had had the time to bring him up more appropriately."
"You're not his mother."
"No, but you think yourself to be his big sister,
don't you, Tsukasa?"
This caused a few glances among the Japanese-speaking
hackers, those not aware that the player Helba addressed was a girl. The
snickers that arose made Tsukasa cast dark glares at the perpetrators.
"I think he's a stupid little kid," Tsukasa announced
hollowly. "I've tried helping him God knows how many times, but if this
house
business proves anything, it's that he'll never learn until he dies of
his own foolishness." She stuck the tip of her staff into the ground, letting
the thud act as punctuation. "Now how do I reach him?"
Never in all their explorations of the house
had they experienced anything but flat, level planes. As it happened, never
in any dungeon had there been anything else; it violated game physics.
Refusing to let this dissuade them, the three pressed
onward, even welcoming the decline as an unexpected benefit.
However, by midnight, it became clear that this,
perhaps, was not the best course. They had no idea how far the slope went,
and they had already travelled such a great distance. So, with a quick
exchange through PMs, the party reversed their course and headed back the
way they had come, recognizing immediately the difference made to their
progress on an upward path.
But within ten minutes they were heading downhill
again.
>>I don't get it, Sanjuro said. >>We were
heading straight.
Kite stopped their procession for a moment and pondered.
>>I
can only guess, but it might be that we've been set on an axis. Whichever
way we go, it'll tilt.
>>Like a see-saw? Sora asked.
>>Actually, that's a good way to put it...
>>Here's a better question. Now what do
we do?
The shorter Twin Blade paused in answering, scanning
the area around them, though their projected light penetrated virtually
nothing around them. >>I guess we do what it wants.
Tsukasa had been prepared for anything when she transported
herself to the dungeon loading base. She had, afterall, seen more than
her share of the unusual in her time spent in The World, many of
which no one else, even Kite and his crew, had ever witnessed. She wouldn't
be phased by corrupted textures or buggy wire-meshes, streams of code appearing
and disappearing into nowhere, warped physics--
But not this.
She had known, from the screencaps of the Holloway
Journal, what the inside of the house looked
like. But here there were no infinite corridors and doorways, no winding
paths and constantly expanding or shrinking ceilings.
There was nothing.
There may have been a floor under her feet, but
her shoes made no sound against them. It was quite possible she was hanging
in space. She couldn't tell now.
>>I'm in, she wired back to her operatives.
<<What do you see? Lios came back.
>>A whole lot of nothing.
<<Wiseman says that sounds about right.
>>What am I meant to be looking for?
<<Feel free to use a light hack if you
need to.
Tsukasa considered for this for a moment, examining
the hand clasping her wand, but stopped.
She could see her hand.
The Wavemaster brought her other hand close to her
face and stared at it. She could see it perfectly, without any form of
illumination. Because illumination made shadow, and there was no shadow.
It's a strange thing to see objects, much less one's
own body, in absence of shadow. Very rarely do humans even achieve a state
where this can be witnessed, the conditions for which being more difficult
than one might imagine. And even if the result is achieved, human vision
is not attuned to perceive it correctly.
Shapes are defined by light and shadow. In the latter's
absence, many facets of its form are lost.
>>It isn't dark here, she wrote in her PM.
>>The
texture's black, but I'm fine.
<<How? Lios asked.
>>I'm not sure. But I think if there's something
here, I'll find it. She snapped her fingers experimentally. The sound
reached her headset, but there was no echo. It was dead air. >>Sound
works okay. I'll use that to navigate if I come across something.
<<That may not be enough. You're dealing
with a huge area and sound only projects so far. I suppose it's a bit late
to check whether you're psychic.
>>A little bit, but not much to really help here.
I'll see what I can do.
<<It may suffice just to concentrate. Morganna's
Power should do the rest.
>>We'll see. Shut down communication for a moment;
let me think.
There was no audible cue to indicate Lios had obeyed,
but after a few seconds' silence, Tsukasa untensed a little. She drew a
large breath --the air seemed cold, very unlike Sakuma's stuffy little
study-- and closed her eyes. The darkness behind them was no different
than what she saw with her eyes open, but it was a more comforting darkness
somehow.
The best thing to do, she knew, was to try to find
Kite, or some indication of his presence anyway. But she hardly knew him,
and her mind refused to concentrate on his visage. Likewise Sanjuro and
Elk were a closed book to her. But Sora...
Sora...
Kareshi, kareshi, doko desu
ka...
"...I wonder if Sora's all right..."
THERE!
>>I've got a fix on him! Tsukasa announced,
taking wand up in both hands. >>I'm going!
Morganna's Power was not an item to be accessed
from skill menus. It operated on sheer force of will. And though normally
Tsukasa would have experienced difficulty in activating it after so long
an absence, the pressing urgency of the moment compelled inexpertise to
take a back seat.
She did not fly, precisely, nor did she warp in
and out of space. But the air nevertheless did whip around her, breezing
past a thousand tiny, gnat-sized sounds, until her feet landed on the undefinable
floor again and she stumbled, staggering to a halt before a tall male Heavy
Axeman and a diminuitive female Blademaster, their forms transparent, translucent
as they walked side by side, allowing Tsukasa to see right through one
body into the other...
"I know," the Heavy Axeman was saying. "She didn't turn up at school today.
If she's gone again the teacher is
going to really come down hard on her."
What the--
"It's that stupid boyfriend of hers," the Blademaster contributed crossly.
"I always knew Americans were bad
news. I wish they'd just tear down that air base. Okinawa doesn't need
their type around here."
Okinawa?!
What's going on? Tsukasa thought wildly.
These people aren't talking about the Sora I know...
"Excuse me," she tried timidly, extending out a
hand--
--that passed right through the Heavy Axeman's shoulder.
She withdrew her hand so quickly her entire body
jolted. The pair of PCs, who had not reacted at all to her presence, continued
to walk and chat-- until the pair of ghosts faded into nothing but small
wisps of sound.
And from these sounds bred others.
"Ohhh god that dungeon was
hard."
"Do you think he likes me? He doesn't like me, does he?"
"Save me..."
"Can you lend me the gold until tomorrow?"
"I don't want to die!"
"My parents hate me. I don't want to live."
"It's not fair."
"I don't deserve this..."
"I love you. You know that, right?"
"That stupid strategy guide--"
"Well--"
"A/S/L?"
"Stop. Sit down, shut up, and think about this."
"Rez plz!!!1"
"You're so paranoid."
"If he knew what I looked like on the outside--"
"She hates me. I knew it. I knew she wouldn't want to go out."
"I never want to have kids."
"Am I going mad?"
Tsukasa clamped her hands down on her ears, physically
recoiling from the sudden cacophony. "What-- What is--?!"
All around her, the translucent remains of PCs wandered
in and out of the shadows. Walking casually as through a root town, slashing
weapons as if attacking some unseen foe, talking and pouring heart-felt
emotions out to each other.
What am I seeing? Tsukasa thought frantically.
Are
these... echoes of things said in The World? Ghosts? Remnant data
from conversation logs?
"Tsukasa's been going downhill ever since she started her senior year."
The Wavemaster jerked her head toward the sound.
Its source resided somewhere beyond the range of her current location,
but she still heard it clearly as if spoken right next to her. It was a
voice she could never have been able to tune out.
Subaru? But-- You stopped playing when I did--
Tsukasa went into the warp state again, bringing
herself to the source of the sound. She had to turn around a few times
to finally get within her range of vision a pair of PCs hovering in space
some twenty feet beyond her. Subaru was there, seated on a chair that did
not exist here, leaving her body floating awkwardly, her axe across her
knees.
Next to her sat Bear, hunched forward with hands clasped together. He said,
"You think it may have something
to do with being elected Head Girl?"
"It's the culmination of a lot of things. It isn't the nicest school, Sakuma-san.
Oh, it's prestigious, she's getting a
great education, but the people there..."
Subaru trailed off, as both she and Bear suddenly snapped their heads up.
They did not look in Tsukasa's direction,
but to something unseen just beyond them.
"No, thank you," Bear told the unknown inquirer. "I'm all right. Nazuka-san,
would you care for something?"
"No, thank you. But I would care for a glass of water, please."
"Thank you, Tanaka," Bear added, as the two of them watched the invisible
retreating figure.
Tanaka... That's his maid! Tsukasa realized,
eyes snapping wide. This isn't part of The World, this is their
real conversation! This is happening downstairs right now! How...?
How far do these echoes go...?
"...Shit."
Sora, to his credit, only whimpered.
It had happened very suddenly. After the three had
finally agreed to let the house do what it
would and follow the decline even as it steepened and their pace quickened,
they had come, all so suddenly, to an edge.
None of them would have reacted in time if not for
the fact that Sanjuro had fallen first. And it might have been the end
of the matter except that Sora, in his split-second reflexes, had thought
Kite had fallen instead, and immediately struck out his hands.
Sora now was lying on his stomach, crook of his
armpits hanging on the edge of the floor that gave way to the sheer drop,
both hands clasping one of Sanjuro's wrists while the other dangled, not
daring to release his katana even as he hung there, swaying ever so slightly.
>>That was way too close, Sanjuro said nervously,
eyes still latched onto the trembling hands that were all that were keeping
him from falling. Falling to where, he didn't even want to think. >>Good
god. Thank you.
>>yeah. sure, Sora managed, concentration
too screwed up to bother with his typing.
He couldn't tell him it was an accident. It wasn't,
really. Either way he'd've probably tried to catch the person's fall. But
the fact that he thought it was Kite...
...wasn't something to think about right now anyway.
>>drop the sworda lready, Sora grunted. >>I
can;t pul lyou up like this.
Sanjuro's attention had turned to the abyss beneath
his feet. >>Just a second. I'm going to run a hackscript.
>>Those'll just run out here anyway, Kite
reminded. He was peering over the edge near Sora's shoulder.
>>It doesn't need to.
Sanjuro's character animation stuttered for a moment,
and when it regained itself, the sword he had held in his grasp had been
replaced by a crude polygonal flashlight.
>>That's not Adamantine's work, Kite observed,
noting the differences in the object's design.
>>Got it from a friend.
The Heavy Blade shifted his grip on the hacked item,
pointing the head of the flashlight down beneath his feet. A distinct trail
of light catching air particles was the only effect this had, however,
before the light tapered out into darkness.
>>No surprise there, I guess.
>>I wonder how far it really goes.
>>I'm not really looking to find out first-hand,
Sanjuro admitted. >>Although, it does remind me a bit of when I was
a kid... There was a time, once, when I took a flashlight I had and pointed
it at the sky on a clear night, and wondered why the light should show
up at all only to fade out prematurely anyway. And what sort of light was
powerful enough to get all the way.
>>ur delerios, Sora said with effort.
>>Wouldn't surprise me.
Sora emitted something approaching a squeak, his
strength nearing his limits, as his fingers almost gave way, clenching
tighter just a second too late, jerking Sanjuro a quarter of an inch down
and the carry-along force enough to send Sora sliding forward--
Kite was by his side in a second, holding him back
by the shoulders. >>No more playing around, he said to Sanjuro.
>>Let's
get going.
>>I think you're right, Sanjuro said reluctantly.
He allowed the converted weapon fall from his hands, watching its light
drift down and down. >>I'd rather liked that weapon, too... he remarked
sadly.
He swung his other arm up, enough momentum to lodge
his arm from Sora's grip if Kite hadn't been at the ready to catch it,
and, the two working together, managed to haul Sanjuro up far enough that
he was able to clamour back over the edge.
Together, all three peered over the edge into the
abyss, in time to see the light of the lost flashlight finally blink out
somewhere far below.
>>The house is getting
stranger, Sora said, after recovering enough to focus on his typing
again.
>>Should we be taking this as a sign? Kite
asked.
>>If only that so far, Wiseman's been right.
"Tsukasa
has had a very rough life," Bear reasoned. "It's only natural that she
herself has some rough edges. Not
to take that as an excuse for her behavior, of course."
"My behavior?" Tsukasa echoed. "What about my
behavior?"
But her contribution to the conversation went unheard,
as Subaru continued to nod without acknowledgement to her lover'spresence.
It was the same as with any of the ghosts Tsukasa encountered in this place,
but it made it no easier to accept this fact as she listened, stomach twisting
with anxiety and digust.
"Before, when she was callous, I thought it was just because of her disassociation,"
said Subaru reflectively. "But
now, instead of being afraid of everyone, it's as if she wants everyone
to be afraid of her."
"What are you talking about?!" Tsukasa shouted.
"Subaru...!"
"...I don't think she really loves me anymore..."
It felt like someone had just dumped ice water into
Tsukasa's stomach. Her entire body ran cold, strickened.
"How can you say that?!"
But the problem was, she hadn't. Though it had been
Subaru's voice, her lips had not moved at all.
The harder Tsukasa strained to listen, the more
she discovered that two lines of communication were being conveyed. On
one level were the words verbally spoken between Subaru and Bear, but even
as they spoke there were other words hovering behind them. Not said, but
implied. Or not implied sometimes, but deliberately hidden.
Thoughts.
>>Lios. Are you getting this? Tsukasa tried
desperately. She didn't wait for a response before continuing, >>Something
is terribly wrong with this place. Whatever this is, I don't think this
is just a dock screen-- for anything. I'd like to get out of here. Please.
Now.
>>...Lios?
>>...Helba?
>>...Anyone?
"What's going on on the field, when all this is happening?"
Helba asked Lios, shooting him an accusatory look. "Kite hacked the field,
did he not, but you haven't moved to lock it down again."
"I'd like to get them all outta there first before
I do that," Lios answered, a little indignantly. "Not much of a rescue
party if we can only get them out so far."
"It's all right now at one AM, when the servers
are near empty," Helba said. "But come morning we're not going to be appreciating
the situation quite as much. What's Tsukasa's status?"
Lios consulted the map that Helba and he had been
using for a reference since the start
of their meeting. At a glance it would have appeared very archaic, a yellowed
scroll rolled out with markings labeled in elegant red ink, but watching
it from Lios's perspective up close, the markings became a grid, and the
little dots of moving figures were tracked along it.
This was one of the admin powers of Ziggurat
B. The expansion didn't come out in stores for another six days, but
staff had received their copies early, to serve as a closed beta test.
This feature would officially eliminate a lot of the strain put upon moderators
in tracking down troublesome players.
He switched views from a menu to access the root
screen for Delta House of Leaves. But all
he got was an empty grid.
"Uh-oh."
>>I think our path is getting narrower, Sanjuro
said. >>You can feel it, can't you?
It was true, Kite silently agreed. Though their
light bounced off no adjacent walls or ceiling, nothing except the unending,
tilting pathway, there was the undeniable sense that the path itself was
shrinking on either side, closing in tighter. Like a noose.
Other things were happening. Files from his desktop
were suddenly refusing to open, requiring keystrokes to be accessed at
all. His pocket calculator, even though he'd put in fresh batteries just
last week, had gone dead in the middle of a calculation to verify they
had, in fact, traversed over 200 miles so far.
And of course, they'd noticed the items disappearing
from their inventories. It was small at first, the liquidation of oddball
spell scrolls they'd never have used anyway, cheap antidotes and restoratives.
Things they didn't really remember being there in the first place. Things,
just like Kirby_Wax had written in the Holloway Journal, that they'd taken
for granted.
Sanjuro had had a spare weapon in his items box,
so after the incident with the sheer drop he had equipped it. It was a
low-level Rare, identical to one Kite had given to BlackRose as a gift
once, and it glowed bright yellow by its own design. For this feature,
Sanjuro was soon in the lead of the party again, as the three walked for
some undefinable end.
>>How are you holding up? Kite asked Sora
in private PM.
<<Quit worrying so much.
>>Of course I'm going to worry. We've been at
this for three hours now. Are you tired?
<<I ran into a cram schooler on the way
home from the grocer today and made him drop his bag, Sora said. >>He
had some caffiene pills. I stole them. So don't worry, I'm in good shape.
Pause. >>I can't tell whether you're just joking
or you really did do that. Either way that's kind of twisted.
Sora was prevented from replying as the house,
as if compensating for the absence of the Creature, gave a sudden, violent
jerk.
It was so abrupt that their hands holding their
controllers nearly seized up from the shock of the force feedback. All
three staggered off-balance; Sanjuro steadied himself with his sword, catching
Kite before he might have pratfalled onto the floor.
>>What was that? Kite wondered in open PM,
pulling himself up. Sora was the only one to not have been heavily affected
by the shaking. >>Felt like two continents running into each other.
>>Adamantine would hurt you for that remark,
Sanjuro said, with a bit of effort. Feeling confident enough that the shaking
had subsided, he loosed the tip of his sword from the crack it had wedged
in the floor. >>It must be some major restructuring. Or deconstruction,
possibly. In any case... Let's hope there aren't any more surprises like
that.
>>Logarithmic patterns disagree, Kite said
unhappily.
>>Say again?
>>There is only one universal language, and that's
math. Computers function on math. Everything in computers function
on math. We probably function on math. And the thing about math
is, there's always a pattern. To everything. People included. So of course
the house operates on a pattern too. Even
without knowing what the pattern always is, knowing that there is one lets
us know we can anticipate more of that, and probably other things too.
>>I'm not so sure, Sanjuro said warily. >>By
this point it seems most likely the house
is doing things because it wants to.
>>You're attributing it sentience?
Sanjuro retreated from the accusation. >>Not
necessarily. No. I wouldn't do that.
>>Why not?
It was Sora who answered, >>Because that would
just be giving it power.
Tsukasa soon gave up attempting to communicate with
Lios. She wasn't one to struggle with fruitless endeavours after it was
clear they were, in fact, out of her realm of control, so she turned her
attention instead to her surroundings. The transparent shapes of her lover
and legal guardian had faded away, for reasons Tsukasa could only guess
at. It could have been that they had moved outside proximity to her terminal
and couldn't be picked up, or that Tsukasa herself had lapsed in the concentration
needed to see and hear them.
In a move mostly borne of a fit of desperation to
avoid thinking about Subaru and Bear's conversation, Tsukasa elected to
search around the root screen some more. Her first query warped her to
a pair of female Twin Blades giggling over an older boy in their class;
the second one a meeting of three intellectuals, two Wavemasters and a
Long Arm, discussing the stratosphere.
It's like I'm using a search engine, Tsukasa
thought ruefully. This isn't going to work.
Just how expansive of an area did the Delta House
of Leaves root screen cover? Tsukasa mentally acknowledged that the templates
from which fields and dungeons were built were naturally quite large themselves,
but this was unheardof. She could only imagine the implication of this
on the dungeon itself.
But that was just silly. How could a single field
exist in multiple locations without a discernable shift in transfer from
one node to another? How could it exist outside The World's servers?
How could it be accessing conversations in real-time in all places, even
those not happening online?
I could just be hallucinating, Tsukasa considered.
It wasn't self-mocking; by this point it seemed as valid a possibility
as any other.
But soon her thoughts drifted to Sora again.
He'd been on her mind a lot lately, ever since hearing
from Kite that the boy was officially involved in this investigation business.
It nagged at her, like an insect buzzing around her face or a cut on the
roof of her mouth. She had even been in the middle of her winter-break
studying at Subaru's house one day and made
the mistake of letting her mind wander, and the next thing she knew she
was growling and tugging at her hair in anger.
Sora pissed her off, like a pet cat that
just couldn't be convinced of the concept of not piddling on the rug. Every
time she turned around that boy was getting himself into more trouble.
He was completely incorrigible; either he simply could not learn from his
experiences, or he refused to.
And she'd tried, oh how she'd tried. Didn't he remember the
rave party in Net Slum, a few months after 'the Ordeal' wrapped up?
He'd hidden, too afraid to join the others. She drew him out. Didn't he
have a nice time that night? Reconciled with Mistral, had good fun of harassing
Mimiru, and--
--met Kite.
Tsukasa seethed. It was because of that stupid
boy that Sora was even involved in this thing. If those two hadn't
gone off and gotten so buddy-buddy, her job would have been a lot easier.
Oh, she had nothing against Kite personally; she rather liked him, really;
she respected how competent he was. She'd sooner talk to him right now
than anyone even resembling Sora. But that didn't stop her from resenting
Kite for how much he undermined her efforts where Sora was concerned.
"Well, yeah, but that leaves another question," someone said.
The Wavemaster snapped her head up, jolted.
There Sora was, walking from left to right just in front of her, perhaps
ten feet away. He didn't seem to notice her,
or care to notice anything. His eyes were distant; bored.
"Sora!" she began, but hesitated from reaching out
her hand, as a shift in his head let a lock of hair fall from his shoulder,
enough movement for her to see he, too, was slightly transparent.
She trailed after him as he continued to walk, and
running behind him (Twin Blades' footsteps covered more ground than a Wavemaster's,
regardless of model size) saw that walking beside him was the hero of the
hour, Kite.
"Look, you don't have to understand why it works," Kite was telling
him. "Unless you're planning to pursue maths
as a career, the main objective it just to know how it works. In
the case of binomial expansion, there's no real
reason to Pascal's Triangle except that it works for what you need to do."
"If you think you'll overcomplicate things otherwise..."
"Teachers overcomplicate things, that's the problem. Do you think
you're seriously going to need all this theory
stuff once you get to study the subjects you like? What subjects do
you like?"
"Japanese, I guess." This generated a short laugh from Kite, to Sora's
puzzlement. "What's so funny?" he asked
sharply.
"Nothing-- I'm just remembering how when I first met you, all you did was
talk in l33t."
"\/\/4n+
3j3 5|-|00ld 5+4r+ 4941n?" Sora challenged.
"No, no, that's okay..."
Their figures had been dimming for some time, but past that point their
voices, too, faded out, until the last hint
of the two PCs was lost in shadow.
Tsukasa mused on the scene for a moment. It seemed
as if the two had been discussing academics, some moderately easy math
subject. It wasn't, overall, the strangest subject to talk about online,
but for someone like Sora it ranked up there quite high on the list.
She didn't recognize it as such, but Tsukasa was
slightly envious. Obviously, Kite was a relatively bright boy for his age
(Tsukasa tended to think of people in this frame of mind, even though Kite
was only two years younger than her), but she couldn't help thinking that
she was much better at math, and so much better to discuss it with other
people. It irked her that someone like that managed to get through to Sora
when she couldn't.
Is that what it is? Getting through to him?
Huh.
"H3h, ch0tt0. What do you mean, 'we'?"
Tsukasa turned to her right in the direction of
the emerging voice. Another ghost of Sora had appeared.
"Oh, come on!" Kite pleaded, some ways off.
"No, I'm not coming on. Since when is this my problem? Where'd you
get the idea I was planning to help out?"
These are memories, then, Tsukasa confirmed
to herself. This had to be discussing the expedition back when the house
had first been discovered.
"You look like shit," another fragment said, directly behind her.
"Sora..."
Kite again. Was he going to be in every echo here?
"Before you start-- I'm connecting from a net cafe. I've only got about
fifteen minutes before my debit gets hit hard."
A debit card? A remark like that would immediately
label him as a young boy. Most kids in the westernized prefectures had
small-limit debits via their parents; it replaced a lot of the hassle of
allowance in pocket change.
Yes, of course, Tsukasa had already told Kite about
Sora's real-life age, but what difference did it make to Sora? He never
spoke about this sort of thing. He harbored some intense aversion to anything
that might define what his real self was like. So when did that suddenly
change?
"I'm just glad you're all right," Kite insisted.
Ah. Right. That'd be why.
Another echo. "Should have known it was always a mistake to play nice."
Despite herself, a shiver ran down Tsukasa's spine.
She remembered that tone, and it didn't spring from happy memories.
Another time, Sora screaming, "Why don't you hate me?!"
She jumped, going into a spin mid-air.
It was Sora and Kite again, but Kite was on his knees, back forced up against
some invisible wall, with Sora
pinning him down. His blade was buried up to the base in the smaller PC's
shoulder, shaking, a few drops of
lifeless, unreflecting blood trailing down from the wound.
When he spoke again, his lips did not move, just as Subaru's hadn't earlier.
"You're
not fooling me. You
can't actually-- No one ever-- WHY? Why can't I make you go away?!"
And then the actual words verbalized: "What do you... think this proves...?"
"For
the love of God, why can't you just give up on me? Why do you have to do
this to me? This can't
actually be--"
And sobbing, "Why don't you...
"just...
"give...
"up..."
Tsukasa averted her eyes. She didn't want to see
Sora like this. Not like this. Not now.
He was far too incautious, or he'd been made to
become so. Even if what she'd just seen was a private moment between those
two, what kind of behavior was that for a male?
Scars? Well, it could be. Just how badly damaged
was he?
There was another point, almost too insidious to
be her own thought, but whose else could it be in this darkness.
He was like she used to be. Except not quite. Where
as she had been distrusting and cynical (in Tsukasa's world, cynicism was
one of the most appropriate states of being possible), Sora had just fallen
apart.
Still there was some familiarity there, in the things
they were made to face. The shock and surreality of coming upon someone
you can't push away, no matter how you try...
Sou ka. That was it, wasn't it. That was why Kite
had managed and she hadn't. That was why Kite had become his brother and
she would never be his sister.
"It's okay," Kite was telling Sora, the memory from before still playing
even though she had stopped watching.
Was it so prominent that it could persist even after Tsukasa's concentration
was gone? "Whatever might be
worrying you, whatever at all, it's all right, Sora."
What Kite could offer, he gave unconditionally.
She could never do that.
Even with... her...
"SORA!!"
When Tsukasa looked up, the scene against the wall
had gone away. She saw nothing. Featureless black.
"i'm al lright1 dont; worrydammit."
"Just stay there. We're going to hack up a rope to lower."
"itll jsut break!1"
She spun around. Right. Left. Behind her. Up. Down.
The echoing cries turning her every which way in pursuit of the sound did
nothing but disorient her further. Efforts to concentrate were drowned
out by fear and the shouts that grew increasingly desperate.
"AAH!"
"Hold on, Sora!"
A third voice was saying, "It's no good. I can't get the hack to--" cut
off by a resounding tremor that shook every
particle in the air, a rumble or a growl or something of the two. Something
as if tearing through solid rock.
She turned again and this time saw definable shapes
in the blackness, a ledge on which Kite and another PC, a male Heavy Blade,
stood close. Kite was extending his hand out downward, the movement futile
even as he did it, and Tsukasa followed the direction of that hand down
in time to see
a
trail of s p a r k s
and Sora falling out of sight.
End Stage 14.