Red and the man she loved sat in the kitchen of their worst enemy. They were trapped, but not by walls—not strictly speaking.
"Let me make this clear to you," said Royce Bracket quietly. "Something you can understand."
Red stared at him across the table, glowering. The kitchen was shadowy, cool, and small, but light filtered in from the crack under the door—light from the Country. Or the afterlife. Maybe. Red still hadn't figured it out.
"You've done the most heavy lifting," Royce said. "With the Transistor, I mean. Therefore, it seems only—logical—that you should be the one to do it. Very logical indeed. You'll cut a hole in this place. And go back."
The Transistor sword was a weapon with remarkable powers, including soul absorption. Right now, using it to return to reality didn't seem at all implausible, especially when said by the man who built it. But that didn't mean Red liked it.
Red dug her nails into her palm so hard they almost broke the flesh. She spat out the words. "Return to Cloudbank? That's insane."
She wished she could go back in time—just five minutes—and stop Royce from roping her into this conversation in the first place. Hatred seethed and rose; her blue gaze hardened, but Royce Bracket looked nonplussed. Red wanted to throttle him.
"Making this work—well, it won't be easy," said Royce softly. "Won't be easy, and I have to do all the math involved. Awful lot of it."
The man behind Red breathed through his nose like an angry bull. All his self-control was concentrated on not launching himself across the table and punching Royce, as he had done their first night in the Country.
"No way," Red said coldly. "Going back—you think I have another death wish? The Process—"
"They play by their own rules now," said Royce.
The Process was a variety of supernatural creatures and beasts that Royce and his accomplices—a cunning, four-member group called the Camerata—had unleashed upon the city of Cloudbank in order to make it 'better'. The Camerata had lost the only thing capable of controlling them, the Transistor sword, and the Process had run amok like out-of-control tornados, destroying most of the city in mere hours. Going back would be nothing short of insane.
Royce Bracket smirked, softly, keeping eye contact with her, and then sneered slightly, as if Red were a tiny slug and he a god. Red gritted her teeth.
"You seem to be forgetting something," he said. His voice was quiet, calm, almost detached, as if he was thinking of other more important things. But Red knew better than that.
Behind her, the man glowered and made to step forward, but Red straightened up an inch. Reluctantly, he stayed put.
"Maybe spending these days with your love bird here has made your memory a bit—dim, on certain matters, shall we say," Royce said, the smirk still curling the corners of his mouth as he looked at her with large, poisonous-green eyes. "I told you, didn't I? Just a while ago—before we had our little battle, before you came here. The Transistor plus its cradle means no more Process. It controls them. They are gone from Cloudbank. Gone from Highrise. Gone from Fairview. Vanquished. Pulled back in. Eradicated."
He settled back in his chair.
Red bit the inside of her cheek. A stupid folly to make—but also reasonable, she thought defensively. She vividly remembered Cloudbank and its surrounding areas as she had last seen them: overrun by the Process. Could she be blamed for that? But they had been reined back in, it was true. Replacing the sword in its "cradle" had done the trick: put it back in and the Process disappeared.
But something had gone wrong, jus then; she and Royce had ended up somewhere very different and very strange the moment the sword had been replaced. Inside a massive Transistor or half-way to the Country—she still hadn't made up her mind quite what that place had been—they'd dueled to determine who had the right to leave and go back to reality.
Considering how exhausting winning had been, Red thought she could be forgiven for remembering the city the way it had been most vivid to her. What was wrong with that?
Red shook her head, short but bright hair trembling like flames in the kitchen's dimness. She wanted this conversation to end, and soon. "No more Process. Okay. But so what? Why do you think I would ever want to go back?"
The man behind her placed his large, warm hand on her shoulder. "I don't need to go back," she said, settling back in her chair, eyes flashing. There was nothing left for her in that Processed city now. In fact, many people believed she had died. "Besides, what makes you think I would follow the advice of someone who tried to kill me?"
Royce's green eyes burned in his face and his lips were a thin, tight, angry line.
Red wasn't going to lie to herself: seeing him like that gave her a tiny, blooming satisfaction. Royce and the rest of the Camerata had ruined her life and that of her beloved, effectively destroyed Cloudbank with their inability to control the Process—which had resulted in the deaths of hundreds of citizens and a mass evacuation of thousands more.
"'Think I'll go where it suits me'," Red said, arms folded. It was a line from one of her old songs; she flashed Royce a quick, cold grin. "Right now, that place doesn't include Cloudbank."
"You—," said Royce, seething, "you enjoy seeing me like this, don't you, Red? Oh, don't lie. I know it. I know you do."
He looked at her and smiled, eyes icy and unfeeling, blanketing his rage for now.
"I am going to be frank with you. I've gotten quite tired of being here, of being in the Country. Just being—it's not even living. Not even living. I am going to be perfectly honest with you. I never thought it would happen. Getting bored. Getting bored here, of all places." He steepled his fingers and looked at her over them. "Never, ever thought it would happen. But, ah, it did. I'm a smart man, and this place is not good, for someone like me. Not good at all. I need to go back to Cloudbank. So there you go."
He leaned forward, looking Red in the eye, and his gaze was hungry.
"You are my way out. As I said, you've used the Transistor the longest. Have the most skill." He didn't look pleased about that. "Once I build a new one, you can cut your way back into the real world for me. Back into Cloudbank. Admittedly, I lied, before, Red—just a bit. You won't be going back. I will."
Horror rose in Red before she could stop it, like an outburst of Badcells. She gaped at him. A new Transistor? Was that possible? Could one even be made here in the Country? But that couldn't be true—
At Royce's words, the man behind Red strode forward with footfalls like thunder, slamming his hands on the table and bending into the ring of light. Royce's gaze snapped up to meet his, and the man spoke: low, dangerous, and intense.
"No WAY am I going back in that thing."
Realization flooded through Red in three terrible flashes: Me to wield it, she thought, Royce to create it, and—and him to be inside it, his soul to fuel it. Just like last time.
She started to tremble.
The man released a forceful breath, glaring at Royce with eyes as sharp as the blade in which he had once been imprisoned. Keeping eye contact, He straightened up to his considerable height and crossed his arms.
"Do you get it, or do I need to repeat myself?" he growled. "Not. Going."
Striding to the kitchen door, He wrenched it open and blinding Country daylight exploded, illuminating the small room. Red moved quickly to follow him.
Royce Bracket looked livid.
Red and the man stood on the small porch, the little gray overhang covering them in shade. She rested her head on his shoulder, more glad than she could say to be away from Royce.
The sky was a perfect, brilliant blue, and before them stretched endless fields of bright gold: the Country. The afterlife, some might call it. Its sun had a barely-visible red ring around it, almost like an afterimage, shimmering in and out of sight with every second.
"Royce Bracket—" The man shook his head.
"Let's try to forget about it," Red said quietly, although goosebumps were still on her arms, Royce's voice fresh in her mind. She wished the conversation had never happened. A new Transistor couldn't be possible, could it?
"Let's say he somehow returned to Cloudbank," He said quietly. "I can't see whatever he does there being good. Not with a mind like his."
An image of Cloudbank as Red had last seen it burst into her mind: towering blocks of deathly white that used to be buildings, streets, shrubs, and trees—and people.
"The Country doesn't suit Royce Bracket," she admitted. "He was right about that. He's desperate."
Through the crack under the front door Royce's chair scraped as he got up, and his footsteps receded into the house's living room where they were muffled by carpet. The red wooden house was the only building in the Country, as far as Red knew.
Too bad its occupants hated each other.
Overall, though, while the Country was definitely strange, it could be peaceful and comforting. Red finally had Him back with her, and only someone like Royce Bracket would want to return to an empty Cloudbank.
He and Red sank down, leaning against the door and stretching their legs out into the gentle sunlight. A breeze rustled the fields of gold.
"I—," he whispered at last, staring at his lap. "What he said—I'll never—that thing—"
She squeezed his hand as he shut his eyes tightly for a moment. Shaggy dark hair obscured most of his face and his mouth formed a rigid grimace. His entire body had tensed.
Red got to her knees, wrapped her arms around him, and hugged Him as hard as she could. He buried his head in her shoulder, trembling and slowly returning the embrace. Being inside the Transistor was a kind of hell Red could never imagine.
"I won't let it happ—," she began, but then came footsteps through the fields of wheat.
They looked up. Standing there were the two other Camerata members, Grant and Asher Kendrell.
The man scowled, dark eyebrows drawing together. "You're still here? I was hoping you two were figments of my imagination," he growled, as Red slipped off him.
Asher Kendrell smirked and shook his head, dark skin and white suit standing out against the golden backdrop. The Camerata crest on his sleeve was a like a splatter of blood and tar. "After four days I would have thought you'd grasped the concept of the Country, what it means to be here. Escape is impossible. Haven't you gotten it yet?"
The Kendrells were here because they had killed themselves rather than be overcome by the Process. It had been downright cowardly—they hadn't had enough grit or courage to stick it through and bother fixing their own mistake. Red scowled up at them.
"No walls," said Grant Kendrell, a huge, tall man with silver-white hair. He wore a flowing and stylish red jacket, embroidered with the Camerata symbol where the lapels would be. He had slit his own throat, Red remembered, and Asher had drunk poison. "No walls in this place, whatever it is, but impossible to get out of all the same."
Frustration laced Grant's voice, though he tried his best to hide it. A light sheen of sweat covered his brow: they had been wandering in the wheat fields, as Red had seen them obsessively explore since her arrival.
"Forth time's the charm, is that it?" asked the man beside Red, coolly, getting to his feet. He raised an eyebrow. "I would've thought you'd have grasped the concept of the Country by now."
Grant took a step forward, looking angry, but Asher flung out a thin arm to stop him. Face expressionless, he began walking past Red and the man into the cool house. Gaze lingering on Red's, he sneered slightly.
"Trying to read us?" he said as Grant followed him into the house. "It's not going to work. You should know better."
They closed the door with a snap, footsteps scraping over the wood floor as they moved through the kitchen and headed in the direction of the living room.
The man stared at the door for a moment, then slammed his fist against the wall. "Jerks."
"What are they doing out there in those fields?" Red said, gazing out at the shimmering horizon and shuddering.
He shrugged, still looking ill-tempered. "How unfair is it there's only one house here? I'd be happy with just another building—anything to get away. You and I could live in Junction Jam's, couldn't we?"
As if on cue, his stomach rumbled. He grinned for a second. "What I wouldn't give for their Sea Monster flatbread right now."
Red nodded in agreement and longing. The simplest phrases reminded her of the oddness of the Country, just when she thought she'd been getting used to it. Now that he'd mentioned it, she realized she did miss the taste of their favorite flatbread.
Here in the Country, in four entire days, none of them had felt hungry, and yet the need to sleep still persisted. Calling this place 'strange' could be an understatement.
The sun was a little lower in the sky now. They both agreed they didn't feel like going inside just yet, so they strolled in the endless golden fields, hands intertwined.
If we can just walk far enough away, Red found herself thinking, almost desperately, as the strands of wheat brushed against her arms, maybe we can outrun the house—and the people inside it.
No matter how far they walked the house remained in the background. Always there, like it was watching. Red squeezed His hand tight.
He didn't say much. When he had been trapped in the Transistor he hadn't said much either—compared to now, at least. Of the four nights here so far, they had talked at length before going to sleep. But being silent was something Red understood only too well, and if he wanted to walk in silence she wasn't going to stop him.
As they continued the yellow sun began to sink, while a large red afterimage remained hanging high: ghost of the noonday sun. A cool breeze brushed across the fields, ruffling her dress and his big black jacket.
"It's not possible, is it? A new Transistor?"
The words came tumbling from her before she knew what she was saying.
He immediately tensed and looked away, stopped walking.
"Sorry," she said, horrified. "I really didn't mean—"
"It's okay, Red." He sighed and stayed quiet, but didn't continue walking. Red didn't know what to do with herself.
"Let's go back," she said at last.
To get to the quieter upper floor He and Red had no choice but to go through the living room. Asher and Grant Kendrell were there, lounging on the sofa nearest the window. Royce Brackett had his palms spread upon a small round table, facing them both. It was covered with papers.
"I suppose you have a point," he said to Asher, looking sour. "Either way it'll be difficult, very difficult. But if we can substitute that for—"
They all looked up when Red and the man entered. Royce's gaze settled upon them, hard as glass.
Red's legs told the rest of her to move, quickly, but her body would not listen. Royce's gaze penetrated her: it was like being glared at by a creature of the Process—a Clucker, or a Man, or a Fetch, waiting to pounce and then to kill. Hair rose on her arms and the back of her neck as a familiar feeling took shape inside of her, one she had felt every second while fighting to survive back in Cloudbank: that of being hunted.
Red glanced at the room's other door, at the far end. Up the stairs were bedrooms, doors they could lock. She shared a look with the man at her side and they started to walk across the living room.
Their footsteps were muffled by the carpet. Red's dress rustled and the door didn't seem to be getting any closer. Just walk. She dug her nails into her palm, focusing on looking straight ahead. At her side, He was still and quiet.
The Camerata's gazes drilled into them.
Red's eyes flicked towards the table before she could stop herself. It was spread with scientific diagrams, drawings, and mathematical formulae—lots of mathematical formulae, written in a thin hand and crammed together on the page.
If she could just get a closer look—no, she had to focus, get to the door—
Just as she was about to turn away and pretend she hadn't been, Royce, Asher and Grant saw her looking. She almost stopped, heart in her mouth.
Royce's look had venom in it. "Now, Red—nobody likes a sneak." Pale, spidery hands flitted forward to cover up some of the larger documents and blueprints, but not before she had seen—
"Like you aren't one," He snapped. "Leave Red alone."
"I can't, really, can I?" Royce said quietly. "We're in the only house out here, after all. The only house. Nowhere else to go."
The man stepped forward, eyebrows drawing together, hand curling into a fist. "What are you saying?"
Royce gave the smallest of shrugs, straightening and covering the blueprints. "Oh, nothing, really. Just that, well, returning to Cloudbank—it would be one way to alleviate the boredom, now, wouldn't it?"
He looked as if he would hit Royce. Behind them, Asher and Grant jumped to their feet.
"Let me—put it this way," Royce said testily, to both of them. "There are many things you don't know about the Country. Things that you don't notice. Is it really called the Country? Well, nobody knows the answer to that, do they. People gave it a name just to humanize it, to fool themselves. Fool themselves into thinking they knew something about what they really don't."
His piercing eyes flashed in Red's direction, and stayed. "I would've thought you had noticed it, during our fight. Our little skirmish, back then. Where we were. What it meant. What being here, in this place, means."
Red's pulse thrummed. He's giving me a hint, she thought desperately. What's he trying to tell me?
"Now, go away." Royce shooed them with pale fingers as if he couldn't bother doing anything more. "Take your business somewhere else. And your love bird, too. There are—bedrooms—other rooms—outside. Leave. I have plans."
He bent over the papers again but didn't uncover them yet. The man scowled and cracked his knuckles, moving towards the door only when Red brushed past him with a meaningful look. This was a fight of knowledge, that, right now, they could not win. They reached the door and the Kendrells threw themselves back onto the sofa, looking distastefully after them.
Red jogged up the stairs with Him close behind.
He glowered out the bedroom's only window, which had a view of the back of the house. It wasn't much different than the front: more golden fields. The sky gleamed a dark sea-green, the sun's red afterimage hovering in place of a moon.
"If you'd have told me when I was alive, I never would've thought I'd end up hating the Country," he said. "It's them, really. Ruin it."
Red perched on the edge of the bed. She felt like the Camerata's gazes were still on her. "We're not the only ones to have died from the result of this Process-and-Camerata mess. How come there's no one else here?"
He shrugged. "No idea."
Maybe there were many Countries, all with a few deceased residents each, stacked upon each other like the world's tallest pile of pancakes. All existing at the same time. Maybe? Red fell back onto the white-quilted bed and stared at the ceiling. She'd never been good at that kind of scientific or philosophical thinking, instead letting her song lyrics do it for her.
What had Royce meant? That there were things she didn't know about the Country, things she didn't notice—like what?
She thought back to the moment when she'd placed the Transistor back in its cradle, drawing the Process back in. That had worked, at least, but she and Royce had been taken to some kind of eerie in-between because of it. It had looked similar to here, the Country, but the landscape had been littered with hundreds of blue-and-gold Transistors swords, some the normal five feet tall, others as big as Cloudbank's skyscrapers.
Was he trying to tell her that they were all there? The in-between, instead of the Country? But that didn't make sense. She'd won the fight, left Royce there, and got out. She'd joined her man in the Country—then, somehow, Royce had been there, too. But the Country was different: it had no Transistors littered about, big or small. The two places couldn't be the same.
But there was no way two of Royce could exist.
It just didn't make any sense.
Springs squeaked softly as He lay next to her on the bed. She looked at him and traced the edge of his face; he smiled.
"We'll find somewhere," he said. "Somewhere without them."
"And when we do, you're staying. In your own body. You won't be in any Transistor—I'll make sure of it."
"That's my star." They kissed. "You always could handle yourself."
They woke before the real sun had risen.
Leaving the grey, deathly-silence house at such hours caused Red to wonder, briefly, whether Royce, Asher, and Grant were light or heavy sleepers. Her mind almost contorted itself trying to imagine someone like Royce sleeping before realizing she didn't really care. Not about the people who'd caused so much havoc by creating, and losing control of, that sword.
On the way out Red glanced into the shadowy living room. The blueprints, scientific diagrams, drawings, and piles of math papers had all been put away somewhere.
Something sparked in her memory from the evening before. She turned to Him as he shrugged on his large black coat, gold buttons glimmering dully in the grey, inside-morning light.
"Last night," she whispered. "I did see something on those papers, right before Royce covered them up."
He raised an eyebrow and opened the door. "Oh?"
They slipped out, shutting the door behind them. The Country was covered in morning mist. While the proper yellow sun had yet to rise, its red afterimage hung there like an eye or a perfect, round bottle stain.
Leaving the house without breakfast still made Red feel as if she were doing something wrong. While their stomachs would rumble occasionally, and while the house did have a refrigerator, none of them—including the three Camerata members—ever felt the urge to eat, not even once. Unless Royce had a secret stash of apples they didn't know about.
"I saw," Red said as they set off, "a name. It was Rainhue."
"Rainhue?" He scratched the side of his face, taking long, high strides through the wheat. "Huh. I've never heard of it before."
He was practically an expert on the geography of Cloudbank; he knew all the street names and intersections and how to get almost anywhere in the sprawling city from another point. If he had never heard of the place called Rainhue, it could only mean bad news. As for Red, she'd lived in the area of the city called Highrise. Not once had she heard of any side streets, elevators, or even colossal sets of stairs leading down to Cloudbank's lower levels named Rainhue. She wracked her mind. None of her few friends, fans and admirers, or even family had anyone by that name.
What a strange name it was, too—Rainhue. Like flowers being pulled out of sight on a current. Melancholy.
After they had been walking for some time, the sun rose and blanketed the land in its light. The dew dripping on the wheat and occasional spider webs melted away.
They would have stopped for lunch but didn't need to, not here. As they walked they held hands and talked about the past—before He had gotten killed and the Transistor had trapped his soul inside of it, before the Camerata had unleashed the beasts and creatures of the Process upon the city. They talked of when life had been normal. Song writing, tea and lyrical strategy, concerts and applause, cool breezes and off days. Kisses, market fairs, political discussions over flatbread while it rained, his warm jacket over her shoulders when she was feeling down. Her hand and his.
"Hey, look."
He pointed. There were soft brown hills in the distance, and strewn along their bottom were dozens of tiny black dots.
"Are those—houses?" She shaded her eyes with a hand. "No, wait. People?"
They exchanged a glance.
"Or Rainhue?" he asked.
By the time they had reached the beginning of what could be estimated as half-way there, Red found herself incredibly grateful for all the walking she had done in Cloudbank. Aside from battling ambushes of the Process at almost every other intersection she had traversed a vast portion of the city. Her legs and feet had gotten tough and strong (not to mention her arms, from hauling the Transistor sword around. He'd been very concerned about that, which had made her smile and made it a little easier.)
Existing as a flickering soul and being stuck in a sword hadn't done anything for his fitness, though. She would even guess that it had worsened it, although she didn't think it would please him if she said that out loud. Although He was by no means flabby, by the time they were almost to the brown hills and the black objects looked vaguely recognizable he'd taken off his jacket and tied it around his waist, exposing sweat stains on his shirt.
"I think I need a breather," he panted, looking slightly embarrassed. The sun was at its zenith.
They sat down right there among the wheat, which now enclosed them like golden gates and rustled above their heads. He took off his shoes and rubbed his feet.
"I can't believe this. Sorry, Red." He grinned, shaking his head. "Ridiculous."
She laughed, and his tired face lit up at the sound of it. "Hey, it's okay. I wasn't all fighting fury back then, I got tired too."
"And hungry."
"Hey, that Junction Jam's flatbread saved my life. Probably would've given the Camerata the Transistor earlier if they'd offered me food."
He snorted, and then chuckled. "Yeah, right."
She grasped his wrist to let him know she'd been joking, just in case some part of him took it the wrong way. She felt terrible for saying it already. "I'm really sorry—I shouldn't have—Not with you in there. I'm sorry. No way."
He looked her in the eye. "I know."
They leaned in and kissed; for a moment everything was perfect. He settled back and gazed at the sky, Red resting her head on his chest. A breeze ruffled their hair and clothes, refreshing and soft, and the wheat around them brushed together in whispers.
Their hike hadn't started out with any particular purpose, so they lay there for a while, lost in thoughts of the past.
Something tugged at Red—something inside of her, something strong. It was pulling her back the way they had come.
She got to her knees, looking over the endless waving wheat. A miniscule red dot seemed to flash at the farthest point of the horizon—the house. She put a hand to her chest. It felt like a magnetic tug.
"You feel that?" she asked.
He rubbed his eyes, sighing happily. She hated to cut that feeling short, but this pull was odd.
"Hey," she said softly.
He opened his eyes, saw the look on her face. "What?"
"Um, I need you to focus. Pay attention—pay attention inside." She didn't know how else to phrase it. The tug came from an inch near her heart.
He sat up, seeming to listen to something she couldn't hear. Then he nodded, slowly, eyebrows creasing.
"It's—it's pretty strong, for me." He rubbed his chest and made a small grimace.
"Does it hurt? A lot?" she asked.
"Nah, I'm fine." Gingerly, he got to his feet, staring at the distant house—and then he gasped, clutching his chest, bending over. "Ahh! It's—O-okay, now it hurts." Red bent over him; after a moment he straightened up, grimacing, eyes watering.
"What is this?" he gasped.
"No idea," she said shakily. The pull inside of her wasn't nearly that strong.
"Think we should head back?"
Red glanced at the red fleck that was the building. Something inside her—something that had nothing to do with this new and uncomfortable tug—suspected Royce was behind this.
"No," she said, trying to keep her voice even and hoping she was wrong. "Let's—let's get as far away as possible. Maybe it'll stop."
Although He looked uneasy he didn't object. As they continued the tug inside Red's chest became irritating and more persistent; ignoring it was hard. She watched Him closely and stayed by his side.
He slipped on his jacket and bundled it up, shivering, and she took his hand as bitter inadequacy threatened to overwhelm her. Soon sweat started pouring down his face, and he began stumbling.
"R-Red—I—" He fell to his knees, eyes unfocused.
She tried to hold down her panic but it didn't work. It gushed. Her hands began shaking violently. "This—it's my fault, we shouldn't have gone on—I'm sorry—" What had she done?
He fumbled for her hands as his eyes came back into focus, and she didn't let go of him for the world.
"L-look," he gasped The fingers of one hand twitched, though he had no strength to point. "Bikes."
A hundred or more motorcycles were heaped in lengthy piles along the foothills; rusty, wet, ripped in half, crushed, melted. With a chill Red recognized the model; they'd ridden one throughout the Process-riddled Cloudbank when in a hurry.
His words from back then rang in her head, as if they'd been uttered seconds ago: Bike deserves some kind of reward. Not to get wiped out like all his bike friends. See you in the Country, Mr. Bike.
They were here—all of them.
He began to chuckle deliriously. Red cursed herself. She should never have pushed him this far, all to discover a moldering mountain of dead motorbikes. Idiot!
She hauled him upright, gritting her teeth and ignoring the strain near her own heart, which had gotten stronger. He sagged against her shoulder. Compared to him, now, the Transistor sword seemed as light as a feather.
"Come on," she said; he was now breathing like each one was a pain to take in. "We're going back."
"Red—this pull, this feeling—" He looked up at her, struggling to keep her in focus. "It's d-different from from The Spine—and—"
His knees gave out from under him, and his skin had turned deathly pale. Red almost couldn't breathe. Horrified tears pricked the corners of her eyes. No, no, no—This was all her doing, she'd pushed him.
"—this isn't Royce's fault," he rasped.