(2)syl - Selfjack (iii)

Post: 03.05.2007
Date: Unknown
Time: Unknown

Viewing Darr-Eiech

I see

this:

From my vantage point above, an enormous crater carved into the ground, just an oval scar on a wounded planet. Back when it happened, fragments from the comet came down all over the planet, creating thousands of craters. This, definitely, is one of the bigger ones. It's miles across. No less scarred than the land below, the sky above is black and gray, blasted with rolling clouds. They seem to hover over this place, as if drawn here.

Before. I've been here, done this, seen this before. Not the last time, but the time before the last time--the first time. Wonderful. My dreams are beginning to repeat themselves.

But that's not right. This isn't the same since I'm not asleep, and this isn't a dream. I'm jacked into....something.

Like before, in a blink, I'm down on the ground, standing in the middle of the crater, surrounded on all sides by towering walls of disturbed earth.

It's as different from last time as it is the same. Location is exactly like it was before, but standing here, it feels different. Last time I was in somebody else's body, seeing things through their eyes. This time it's all me. Even though it's not, this feels real. I can't remember ever being jacked into an environment that looked as real as this. Is the MIU I'm using really that good? Resolution this high is expensive, and it requires more bandwidth than the Driftlings have. There's no way I should be seeing things this way.

Maybe I'm dreaming after all.

"You broke through again."

I whirl at the sound of that voice, the one I've heard only once before, the one that came from a shadow-cloaked form hung from a wall, the one that said it was my father.

(the other one)

The sky above, colorless and oppressive, seems to fall all around me, siphoning off some of the color, some of the reality. Or perhaps some of the unreality. Whatever it is, it brings tears to my eyes, and I'm not sure why.

"It's you," I say.

He laughs. More of a grunt. His voice is deep and there's a soft whisper behind it, as if his throat is dry, as if he could use a drink of water. "Say it," he says.

I know what he wants. "DevilGOD," I say, but it hurts to let his name through, as if I'm giving into him, surrendering to him some title that he doesn't deserve.

"Good girl," he says.

I wipe tears from my eyes and take a good look at the person standing in front of me. His clothing is mocking me, because he's wearing a Drifting cloak, tan and long. His hood is up, his face shrouded in wandering shadows. His arms and hands are hidden in all those folds, and they billow as if he's wringing his hands beneath them. It's hard to determine his build because of his cloak, but we're the same height. His head is bowed, but raises every few seconds. He's taking quick peeks at me.

"I'm sure you have questions," he says.

"Who are you, and what do you want with me?"

His hood shakes from side-to-side. The breath I can hear him blowing out is barely more than a wheeze. "You always do get right to the point, don't you?"

"And just what the glitch do you know about me?"

"Just about everything. That's the whole point of this."

Anger spills over me like a torrent of rain. I'm reaching for my sever-whip, but my hip is bare. A quick once-over of my body lets me know that I'm wearing that glitched white skinsuit with the color-changing ribbing. I glare at DevilGOD, the ribbing flaring dark red. I hate cyberspace.

"Is any of this real?" I ask, looking around, spreading my arms.

"All of it," he says.

"Where are we?"

"In your head."

"So this--" I reach down to the ground and dig my fingers into the dirt, grab a handful of the stale, rocky earth, "--is all in my head?"

DevilGOD chuckles.

I throw the dirt at him. He flinches, turning his hood away. The dirt pelts his cloak. My finger hurts, as does my foot.

"Tell me where this place is," I demand. "And tell me now, or I'm going to unplug."

DevilGOD shakes his head, dirt sliding off like muddy water. "No you won't. You're too curious. But I'll tell you. Better yet, I'll show you."

Then I'm gasping for breath because we're both shooting vertically through the air. Wait, that's not right. We're not rising as much as the earth is falling away from beneath us. Wind whips at us. It glides off my body, whistling over the ribbing. DevilGOD's cloak flaps around his legs. I get the briefest impression that there isn't that much to his body. And he's holding something in his arms, holding it tightly against his body underneath all those folds.

I breath deep, wind grabbing at my hair, pulling it across my eyes, into my mouth. I look down through that blue veil.

The crater shrinks below us. The land around looks similar to that of that other crater I was at, where Aran...

(no)

where Phoenix...

(nonono)

Thick jungle rings the crater, reaching out like an infection escaping from a wound, desperate for new flesh to gnaw on. From there I can only make out black earth, like it's been burned.

Or maybe it's just gangrene.

I'm so mesmerized, it takes me a moment to realize that we've stopped.

"You recognize where this is?" DevilGOD asks.

I look down through my feet. My head swims from the height, but I'm not afraid of falling. I know, that despite what he says, this isn't real. If anything goes wrong, I'll just jack out.

"I'll give you a hint," he says, pointing behind me and downward. "Those are the Free States, there to the south. Well, what's left of them."

"Wastelands," I breathe.

"Some do call it that."

"Why are you showing me this?" Not because I asked you to. If you are who you say you are, you have a purpose. Nothing here is an accident.

"Because I wanted to," DevilGOD says, his voice as calm as a forgotten forest.

"Why?"

"Because it's time. Because I need you to know, or you won't do what I need you to do."

"And just what the glitch do you want me to do?" I spit. The skinsuit is maintaining that horrible shade of red as if it's never going to stop. Maybe it won't. Maybe I'm going to be angry for a long time. I do have a lot of things to be angry about. "Don't play games with me. Tell me now."

Suddenly, my stomach is in my throat as we fall. It's not like before, where the world fell from beneath us and we remained motionless. This time, we're falling. In reflex, I throw my arms out. I'm stuck there, arms extended, looking down in a breathless rigidity at the onrushing planet. There's no wind. Save for the feeling in my gut and the rapidly zooming ground below us, there's no other proof that what's happening is real.

We touch down, back in the same footprints that we left on the floor of the crater.

"A piece of Wormwood landed here," DevilGOD says.

I'm shaking, so I kneel down. It puts me in a subservient position, but right now I don't care. Going down under my own power is better than collapsing. "Not a revelation," I say. "I really hate it when people like you take forever to get to the glitched point. Just answer my question."

He ignores me, of course he does, just like everybody else like him. DevilGOD says, "It's only fitting that I make my home in the resting places of a fragment of that wondrous event. They say the impact almost shook this planet from its orbit. Almost, but not quite. Still, the destruction was global."

"Thanks for the history lesson. Can you skip past the boring part?"

"So impatient. Just like--" DevilGOD stops.

I'm up in a flash, on the balls of my feet. "Just like who?"

I don't get an answer for a moment. I get the feeling he slipped, and now he's deciding whether he can use his slip to his advantage. I'm cheery on the inside though. He's not perfect. He's not God, or even a god.

My mind tells me he's smiling when he says what he says next: "Just like your mother was."

(your mother) (your other father)

"My mother? What the glitch do you know about her?" I'm mere seconds away from charging him. I don't have a weapon, but I won't be able to stop myself. The automatic me is about to take over.

"I know everything about you, syl. I know everything about your mother. I know everything about your other father. I know everything!"

I take a step forward and then stop myself. The automatic me is hammering against the defenses I've thrown up to prevent her from unleashing hell. I'm holding her back, but just barely. There's no static in me anymore, but right now, it feels like there should be. For a moment, I want the static. It would be...appropriate.

"syl, you can't hurt me here. This is Khasm000. This is Darr-Eiech, the lowest level of Eiech. This is the refuge I created. This is my home. Your matrix husk only maintains cohesion because I'm maintaining it. I allowed you in. You are my guest."

"I'm nobody's guest," I say. "You pulled me here. Did you you pull nin(9) in too?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"She was jacked into something."

DevilGOD's hood is shaking back and forth. "syl, you act and talk with confidence, but you still only have a youngling's knowledge."

"She was jacked. There was something on the other side or she would've come out d-jacked. Brainfried. She was in here wasn't she? Does she know about you? What did you do to her?"

That hood keeps up its swaying, as if that's the only answer I need, the only confirmation of how wrong I am and how little I know.

"What do you know about my mother?" I ask again, letting the nin(9) thing drop because he's not going to tell me anything, and I can't make him.

The hood stops swaying. "Everything you wish you could remember."

(he knows)

(but his lips are sealed)

"Glitch it, why did you bring me here? If you aren't going to answer my questions in a meaningful way, then this is pointless. What do you want with me?"

"I know you have questions. I'm--"

That does it. His taunting is over as far as I'm concerned. I'm moving forward, closing the distance between us. Something glimmers between us, an energy field of some sort that pushes back at me for a moment, but I batter it with both fists, then it shatters and I'm falling through. DevilGOD gives a grunt of--surprise?--when I slam into him. He turned his body at the last second though, so I hit him more to one side than directly into his torso. He's protecting what he's holding. He staggers back, giving ground, but in no way losing his balance. I'm clawing for his cloak, reaching for any edge of fabric I can find, to pull it away, reveal the mysteries beneath. He stiff-arms me though, sending me away from him. I spin, breathing deep and hard. I feel spittle on my chin and my breath is hissing through my teeth. Didn't know I had gone that feral. The skinsuit has gone black. Not off, but black. What does that mean?

"Don't do that again, syl," Devil GOD says, his hood rising up, but I can only see shadow within it. "You will not like what I do to you if you come at me like that again."

I don't answer him, but opt for staring him down. Let him wonder what I'm going to do.

When DevilGOD speaks again, his voice is even and low, afflicted with a wheeze that wasn't there before. "You have met my emissary, the rivot bot Calamity Carl."

I almost lose my balance. I can't prevent it; my jaw drops.

"He gave you instructions. You will do exactly what he told you to. You must leave your people. Take only a few. Take only your friends, and continue your journey west. The danger to you will only increase if you do not obey."

(black vale six driftfane's sin)

(take only a few)

DevilGOD continues, "Then, and only then, you can come to me."

"To you," I repeat, though what I really want to do is scream You sent Calamity after me! and attack him again, but I'm too numb to do much other than stand there.

"I am not the only one watching you," he says, turning to face me, taking a step toward me. "There are others who are making moves against me, and consequently against you. Their dark designs will ultimately fail, but until they do, they have opened the cages on their minions in hopes that they will delay me. They have unleashed the Horrosaurs onto the surface of this planet. These beasts stand between you and Black Vale Six. They are coming for you, and those that follow you. You must avoid them at all costs. If you engage them in combat, you will lose. Their power is greater than that which destroyed the island, and you know that you could do nothing to prevent that event from happening."

(bleed)

(black future)

(come to pass)

"No," I say.

"You must do these things, syl."

"No."

"You must and you will. When you have finished what you must do in Driftfane's Sin, then you will come to me in the Wastelands. There, we will finish all of this."

"No, this ends now." In realspace I feel my hand grabbing for the MIU cord. I feel it disconnect.

But nothing happens.

"I'm not done with you yet," DevilGOD says, and now there's true threat in his voice.

I can't move. Something's holding me where I am. I can feel the pull of realspace tugging me away from the virtual world, but there's a stronger force keeping me here.

"When you come to me in the Wastelands, in this same crater we're standing in--there we will complete all that I have set in motion."

"What the glitch are you talking about?"

"I intend to end the lives of every living thing in realspace," Devil GOD says, and I know he's grinning wide under that hood.

I don't know how to respond to that, so I don't. This level of insanity was not what I expected.

"With the death of the realspace, I will bring Neo-Eiech into existence. A virtual world like nothing anybody has ever seen before."

"Some world. What good is a world if there's nobody alive to jack into it?"

"Oh, the inhabitants of this world will live in Neo-Eiech. Though their bodies are dead, their matrix husks will live on, forever, in a world that I design and rule."

"Let me go. I don't know how you're going to kill everybody on the planet, but whatever your insane plan is, you certainly don't need me for any of this. And even if you did, I'm not going to cooperate with you. Let me go or I'm going to do something drastic to break this connection."

"I will let you go soon, syl."

"Good. You have to know that I'm not going to do anything you say."

"Oh, but you will, my blue-haired angel. You will do everything I just told you to do, and you will obey everything else the rivot bot commands you to do."

"No."

"Yes you will, because I have something of yours that you want oh so very badly." Then DevilGOD extends his arms outward, bringing the object in his arms into plain view. He's laughing, a high-pitched, deep-bellied laugh that echoes off the crater walls.

He does indeed have what I want more than anything else in the world.

He has my daughter.