Mirror's End
A GW AU
By Ephemeral
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Author's Notes: Um, well, er... This came about in two ways. The first, I was talking to A.L.I.C.E., a 'bot that a guy made up to have conversations with people; it didn't accept my name, and kept calling me "Connect." The second, I had a dream once that is the basis for this. I guess.
Enjoy.
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"Where's Connect?" asked the pretty lady with the blue eyes. She smiled, looking around the Mess Hall for a familiar face. The dozens of adolescents seated there at the worn metal tables murmured softly, collectively feeling out the presence of one smaller boy with a tendril of awareness. The wave of conscious thought rippled down over face upon tired face, sparking a something here and there, little flashes of laughter and benevolence. Finally, the feather-light touch fell to a secluded table set apart from the rest of the troughs, breathing simple requests and little pleasures, quiet eyes searching out who had summoned them from a soft sleep.
"Connect? It's time for your check-up," informed the gentle voice from before, running along the direct link smoothly now. The quiet eyes dimmed a bit in remembrance.
Connect turned to the four other Dredglings that accompanied him, his group: CFD-440. He first looked to the slender male sitting next to him, watching as he sat staring off into the dull gray of the wall perpendicular to his line of vision. The visible eye probably had a partner of the same remarkable green, hiding behind the veil of rugged mahogany hair falling over half of his face.
"Pierce, it's another Scan..." Connect said slowly, carefully masking his tingling unease. He never did like the mandatory, periodic tests of production and stimulation. It was a violation of his person, for certain, and he had to go it alone, always. It was just so cold in that chamber of perpetual ice and machinery, though.
The well-placed statement gained him attention of the remaining Dredglings present.
Wire merely acknowledged Connect's concern, which was saying something, coming from the marble statue he usually posed as. The metallic look of the mandate uniforms caressed his lean, almost feminine figure, but did nothing to neglect the outlined strength he radiated through his demeanor and unfeeling blue eyes that often poured like two orbs of water out into the faintly glowing screen of a standard computer. If Connect didn't know any better, he would have brought up the possibility of a romance taking place between not-man and near-machine. But he would've ended up with either a indifferent retort or a fractured bone.
"What, you don't want to visit your two favorite cyborgs today?"
This comment came from Submit, who playfully hung his spoon off the end of his nose. Connect sighed; he shouldn't have said a word, and should've just gone on into the inevitability. Pierce caught Submit in a glare that would most likely have made stone weep. The braided orphan quickly returned to his foodlike sustenance, smirking all the while and muttering about 'protecting the herd from itself.'
If Pierce hadn't intervened, Scissors would have in his stead. The beetle-black almond eyes regarded Submit with an unencumbered judgment that, while may have not set ice aflame, would have short circuited a low-powered cyborg.
Connect made as if to protest, but didn't get the chance. He was being beckoned, holding up the numbered, labeled and scheduled line of Dredglings programmed into the system that ran the entire Dredgery, an endless spider's web of information and databases just teeming and wriggling with secrets and statistics.
"Where's Connect?" The automatic questioning device installed in the attendant tripped over, beginning the process of questions and answers all over again. Connect lightly touched Pierce's forearm in farewell, and whispered his threats and good-byes to his Dredgling partners.
The blond boy of sixteen calculated 'years' stood immediately after that, leaving behind his comrades and comfort zones for a silent, echoing walk down Blue Corridor.
Step, step, step down the long corridor. Offshoots went right and left, whispering ways hiding their own secrets, watching him with unblinking attention and amusement. For all the years Connect may have lived there, he only knew which paths he was told to know, and made no attempt to educate himself further of the passageways and hidden temples waiting for him in the heart of the Dredgery. Tales circulated in the bigger groups, stories of Dredglings that had gone mad searching for a way Out into the World, horrendous ends being met at poisonous doorways and attacking cyborgs that melted with the walls, ready to rip any intruder to pieces.
Connect hurried his pace.
Within ten minutes, he'd passed so many other hallways, he lost count; but his feet knew where he was going, even if his mind was spinning in circles from the monotony of the Dredge.
He couldn't complain; he didn't know many colors, and couldn't tell you what looked better with which. He knew he loved the hue of Pierce's eyes, and that Submit's cheerful attitude made him think of something warm and chestnut. When he had been younger, Scissors had told him that his own eyes were like that of the Sky, this endless expanse of sheer air that extended in every which way above their heads in the Ancient Times, a plain for fire-breathing birds, sparkling dragons, and singing butterflies.
Wire reminded Connect of the Dark.
The Dark was what the Dredgery became after supper, after showers, after sleep. The ceilings with their repetitive lighting panels shut down, the constant hum of the generators far below their feet became a buzz, then a groan, and then silence. The Silence was the sound the Dark made, a faint shrill alarm in the back of your head, that if you were to turn around and seek out, you would find nothing more than a continuity of blackness and shrieking.
Connect didn't like the Dark. Connect really didn't like Wire either, but he was one of the only Dredglings to accept Connect, and in return, be accepted. Connect knew that without the Dark, there would be no morning, and no light; he'd learned that early on –Pierce had told him.
He rounded a blasé corner, moved past a busy Section, leaving behind the drone of the machines and the hurrying footfalls of those on duty. Finally, Connect reached his destination: the Scan Chamber.
Stopping in front of the door and staring at it would yield no more information than any other entryway in the Dredgery. From its appearance, there came no hint of what lay behind its seal, no indication of the whirring instruments and cold metal designed to read every mood that passed into its bowels. But this door was it, as so indicated by the run of letters and numbers just above Connect's head, a code that made sense to him, and made sense to every other Dredgling or cyborg here; he, too, was just a number; he could rattle off indexes and synoptic integers about himself and his group, and the generality of the surrounding Dredge –if he had to.
A faintly noticeable array of controls beeped at him softy from the right, the little box holding the key to his entrance into oblivion. Taking a deep breath, he placed both of his slender hands on the door at shoulder height, and waited for the pause and then...
He was in.
The entire process had frightened him as a child, the way you got into the higher security chambers. Where was the tally switch? the retina scan? Perhaps his fear was solitary, but the feel of passing through anything that wasn't water or the recycled, filtered air that blew synthetic breezes simply horrified him. But after he learned that he'd best get over it because no one would be on the other side to greet him, he simply told himself not to worry, and that all of the monitors in the Dredgery would catch him if he fell into a pit of electrical wires.
It was like momentarily becoming the ooze that was the cafeteria food.
Connect blinked; coming into the stark white room always blinded him, and the ingression left him dizzy and the slightest bit disoriented. But before he could contemplate the whiteness, it was gone as quickly as he perceived it. If the chamber had any walls, they must've been beyond the horizon. Before him stretched a lush field of wildflowers drifting in a wind he couldn't feel, but could see. He saw a giggling stream on his right, and a grand willow swaying over to his left.
And then began the scan, before the beauty even had a chance to settle in. He wouldn't remember this scene, nor that he'd tasted the sweetness with his ears and seen the wind with his eyes.
The gentle gales blew as if to flake away at his set identity, slowly eating away at what he was and what he knew, as if to wipe clean a slate for the process of building a new one. He stepped further in, mechanically, entranced with the complete simplicity unfolded before him. Nevermind that this wasn't real, he could smell the morning glories draped over the beginnings of a forest now, jewels blossoming just for him. Connect walked towards the clear stream, intent on dipping his toes in the gentle waters, and maybe even to catch a big green frog with baubles for eyes.
The blowing lakes of grass glittered in the unseen sun, reflecting the open blue of the sky that Connect would never know. If he were to get up and wander, as he had on the more restless visits to the Scan Chamber, he would've been rewarded for his curiosity with pretty chess cities worn by the tender touch of years he'd never know, being serenaded in a river of wind. Quietly and slowly, the sunset colored the meadows like spring violets, blanketing twilight over the dream, tucking Connect into a peace he would forget as soon as the Scan was over.
Connect smiled at the big purple wings of the butterfly dipping into the water for a drink, with its painted eyes of silver spidering over the scaled, paper-thin body like the symbols of a long gone civilization. He pouted a little when the insect left him for the opening moonflowers embracing the wide willow near him, a cute protest that only furthered the innocence he met inside this room of lies and deceits.
He looked off into the sunset, an apple red ball of fire spiraling through space, a mirage to him, for him. The sky was made a cake of pinks and blues and in-betweens, and the water was molten cotton candy.
Then the clouds were the backs of swimming serpents, great beasts of steely gray and mourning blue. Pillars of gold erupted in front of him, cries from the bowels of the storm of night and death. There came a moon, a smudge under the stuffing of nighttime and dreams and sleep.
Blinking at the beauty, he wondered what the other 'Lings saw when they came here... what had he come here for? Where exactly was he?
Thought left him, and this scared him. This wasn't real, his mind screamed at him. The water was nothing more than a river of data, zeros and ones tracing the patterns of nature's pulse like a poison tinting the waters black. The air burned his skin, this wasn't right.
He stood, and stumbled blindly towards what he thought was the exit, the way of his life; something was wrong, this didn't happen before, did it? No, he was sure, this was all wrong. Where was Pierce? Where was his closest?
The tears left his eyes and trailed paths down his cheeks, kissing his skin and cooling in the ersatz infidelity. Why wouldn't they let him out? This wasn't right, he wasn't supposed to be here, this was someone else's Scan, the bodies didn't match, the rhythms were all wrong.
Mountains melted, seas drained, cities tumbled into a rolling abyss and Connect was swallowed whole. He cried and cried, the panic turning into nothing more than a sound no one was hearing. He could feel the blood in his body turning thick and stopping, he knew his heart had left for a time in the sun, why was everything so white all of a sudden? Where did the water go? Where was the butterfly?!
All these questions wrapped him up, a snake of words and thoughts that were squeezing all he knew out of him, turning him into putty, mixing up the very molecules he was made of. If he went now... he wasn't old enough, his true day of Salvation wasn't for another week... He wouldn't, he couldn't leave without Pierce. He swore never to leave his side, just as Submit had sworn himself to Wire, and Scissors to an unknown figure he often spoke of in a vacant voice.
He couldn't leave now... He wasn't allowed. The Outside would reject him, he wasn't ready. His number was premature, his birth was reliving itself in front of his eyes, and so, so much pain. Why was everything thrown into misery? Had they done it...?
No, we had done it. All he knew was based on the fact that we had messed up and they were trying their hardest to right the tangled web of nothings and somethings. The sins of their fathers were being washed in sizzling electricity, melting down into the essence of perfection. But they'd never been allowed in the presence of perfection, that was the Main, those who spoke with the Heads...
It hurt. Fire was ice and emerald was amethyst. Things weren't as they seemed, and everything was all. Could this be the Outside? Is this why they were denied permission into Elsewhere? He was glad for it, he thanked them for keeping him safe. The Outside was horrible, a vortex of sadness and torment; Pierce shouldn't have to go through this, Connect would make sure he didn't, he'd make sure none of them had to meet Fate and look it in the bleeding eye.
Access denied for a reason, atone for what you haven't done and We'll be fine... Your existence is meaningless without Us, so be pleased and willing to obey... No trespassing, no thinking, no loving, no telling, just become One with Us...
No loving? No Pierce... Connect couldn't live with that, no matter what They said...
Everything became nothing, and nothing became home, and Connect was left to his own shaking body, in a cold hallway, in front of a door marked nothing more than a number.
On his way back, Connect passed Pierce, who was headed towards the Scan Chamber. Both faces were void of any emotion, and Pierce looked at Connect as if he'd always seemed like that. Not a word of understanding and assurance was said, and Connect walked on to the position in his Section he was due in, walking along with purpose for a life that was not the Outside.
And along after him, although he wouldn't hear it over the mewing and hissing of metals and parts, there was a whisper, a whisper of, "He knows..."
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The characters of these works are used WITHOUT permission for the purpose of entertainment only. This work of fiction is not meant for sale or profit.
Original portion of the fiction included here is considered to be the sole property and copyrighted to the author.
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Authoress: Ephemeral, the great Identity Crisis
Quick Contact: DarkGirlPoet
Inflation of ego via gobs of praise: NecroStitches@yahoo.com
Quote of the Day: On the MK-Journal RPG, if you follow--
Ephemeral: Random acts of Yoshino. o.O
Anago-san: what? o_o.;
Ephemeral: I dunno. I forget who plays who now. Una is Aracd is Kyoko is Yoshino.