I can hear you calling out to me…
I can't see you, but I can hear your heart…
When we meet, I want to tell you so many things.
Perhaps before World's End.
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Forty-Two Hours Till Core Shutdown
DisCON3Ct3D
Written by Shaun Garin
Thirty-Seven Hours Till Core Shutdown
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"… Are you feeling okay, Olette?" inquired Hayner, looking at the brown haired girl who held her head, massaging the bridge of her nose between two fingers. "I brought ice cream."
"Oh, thanks," said Olette, accepting the frosty dessert. "I'm just feeling kind of strange lately."
Pence shot Hayner a concerned look before he rested a hand on Olette's shoulder. "Do you want us to walk you home then?"
"It's okay," sighed Olette before nibbling on the end of her blue ice cream. "I've just, well… I've been having these weird dreams lately… and I don't know what they mean, but I keep hearing the same words over and over again."
"Strange dreams," echoed Hayner. "Like what Sora had before his world… died?"
"I hope not," whispered Olette.
The conversation lapsed into uneasy silence as they worked on their ice cream. Then, while they did so, Olette grunted, squeezing the thumb and forefinger across her nose. "I can hear you calling out to me…
I can't see you, but I can hear your heart…
When we meet, I want to tell you so many things.
Perhaps before World's End."
"Sounds ominous," muttered Hayner. "What does it mean? Is our world in danger?"
"No, I don't think so, but I think a world IS in danger," replied Olette vaguely. "Sorry guys, but I'm going to go and get some sleep."
"Do you want us to walk you home?" inquired Pence again to which Olette shook her head and bade her friends goodbye. Once out of earshot, Pence turned to Hayner and said, "I'm worried."
"You don't have to tell me twice," replied Hayner. "What she said back there gave me the chills. Twilight Town hasn't had a problem with Heartless but there's a definite amount of Nobodies around here." Shoving the rest of his ice cream into his mouth, Hayner stood, dusting his pants off. "Tomorrow."
"Tomorrow?" inquired Pence, getting up as well.
"Tomorrow we go to the Mansion. There's gotta be something there that's causing Olette's headaches. We know that there was a virtual world made up inside of the Mansion computer system. You think you could access it?"
"I can give it a shot, yeah," replied Pence. "Should we tell Olette?"
"Not yet. I don't want her to worry. Glad this is the weekend so we don't have to go to school."
Pence chuckled. "You just want to get out of doing any homework."
"… Olette…"
Olette shifted in her bed, tossing and turning, her brown hair matted to her neck and face, damp with sweat.
"… I know you can hear us…"
Olette shifted again, eliciting a moan as she curled up into a foetal position.
"… we don't have much time, the door is still open…"
Olette's arm lashed out, knocking a star-shaped lamp to the floor.
"… please help us, you're the only one we could reach… your heart is strong, you can do this! Come!"
With a gasp and suppressed scream, Olette sat up in bed, panting. Stifling a moan, she held her head as it throbbed and pounded. "I've got to get to the Mansion," she said to herself, getting out of bed and creeping down the hall to clean up.
Once clean and showered without waking up her parents, Olette shimmied out her window, dropping to the ground. The perpetual sunset of Twilight Town hung heavily, thick clouds peppering the skies. Taking off at a run, the girl ran towards the Mansion.
"Ugh, hello?" inquired Pence, having picked up the phone. "Hayner?"
//Pence, Olette's gone, her mom called me this morning and she wasn't in bed! Is she with you?
Alarmed, Pence swung his legs over the side of his bed, slipping his feet into sneakers. "No, I thought she wouldn't leave her house!"
//The Mansion then. It's the only place we know that connects to another world. I'll meet you there in ten minutes. Don't be late.
"Not even Seifer can stop me," vowed Pence as he grabbed a few items, slipping them into a backpack before practically leaping out of his bedroom window, onto the tree next to him that he shimmied down quickly.
"I know it's in here somewhere," mused Olette as she worked rapidly on the keyboard. "That program they used to send Sora, Donald and Goofy into the alternate world."
"Olette!" Olette looked up sharply at the pair of boys who charged into the hidden room, panting. "You had us worried!" exclaimed Hayner, catching his breath. "Why'd you sneak out like this?"
"Why'd you come after me?" inquired Olette, countering the statement.
"We were worried about you. That's what friends do; we help each other," said Pence reasonably.
"So… it is the other world," said Hayner. "And if I'm seeing this right, you want to go in it."
"They need our help in there," said Olette, running a hand across the smooth surface of the keyboard. "Something's wrong, I can feel it."
Pence sighed. "Okay, budge over, lemme take a look at this."
A few keystrokes later and Pence's brow furrowed. "Not good, not good at all."
"What's up?" inquired Hayner as he and Olette leaned over to look at the visuals.
"If these readings are correct, the system is suffering a major meltdown, possibly since it had a link to the World that Never Was in it. I estimate a complete Core Shutdown in about thirty-six hours."
"So a computer program is shutting down then?" inquired Hayner.
"Not just any computer program, a live simulation of our own lives. From what these files tell me, the guy who made these took samples of some sort of our very Hearts, the same thing that keeps us human. Those are REAL people in there, in a system that's, well, dying."
"At World's End," murmured Olette. "we've got to go help them!"
"You're right," said Pence. "I'll stay here on this side, try to contain the damage to specific sectors of data, but we need more than just you two."
"I hate to admit it, but he's right; we need more people to help." said Hayner.
"But the adults won't help, they don't believe in other worlds," said Olette.
"Then we go to someone else. Seifer's gang." without warning, Hayner burst into a run, running up the stairs only to pause at the top of them. "Go ahead without me Olette; I'll go and round up Seifer and his friends."
"He's right Olette," said Pence once Hayner was out of sight. "You're the one they asked for. It's you who needs to lead the way."
"But what can I do?" inquired Olette. "there's nothing special about me."
"Hey, there's definitely something special about you," said Pence and a light blush spread across both their faces. Pence was the first to shake out of their embarrassment as he turned around to face the screen. "Anyway, you go on ahead, I'll work on things here. Every so often I may be able to upload something to you, like a weapon or item in case it gets dangerous in there."
"Okay then." Olette let out a deep sigh as she walked over and stood under the device. "Ready."
"Initiating Data Transfer sequence," reported Pence. "In three… two… one…"
User Uploaded into Twilight Town Mainframe.
ETA to Complete Core Shutdown in Thirty-Five Hours.
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"… what is she?"
"She came from the sky."
"She must be a User."
Groggily, Olette pushed herself off the ground to a sitting position, blinking in the setting sun of Twilight Town. Everything felt the same, with the exception of the wide-eyed townsfolk who stood around her, gazing in awe and a little fear. One of the curious children cleared his throat and said, "Um, excuse me but are you a good User or a bad User?"
"… What?" inquired Olette, confused. "I don't understand."
"Okay, out of the way, make room here people, go on shoo!" exclaimed a distinctly familiar voice as the crowd parted and scattered, revealing Seifer and his gang standing there, silhouetted behind the setting sun. He looked and sounded the same, but something was different. That difference was apparent once Seifer raised an arm with a blue device on it, and the light glinted off a gold and black icon on his chest. "Hyperion, stats."
The device clicked and beeped as Olette got to her feet, looking curiously at the boy who lowered his arm. "So, you're the User that entered Twilight Mainframe. You look exactly like Olette."
"That's because I am Olette," said Olette, putting her hands on her hips and matching Seifer's even stare.
"So you did come from the Mother World," said Seifer softly. "Forgive me, I'm Seifer, Guardian Protocol 001. This is Rai, Fuu and Vivi - Guardian Protocols 002, 003 and 004. Forgive the awe of the people but they've never seen a User enter our world so blatantly."
Olette blinked rapidly. Seifer, asking forgiveness? That was a first. Just how different was he in this world? "Um, if you don't mind, I'd like to ask what's going on."
"Ah, follow us then. We'll explain on the way." With that, Seifer turned and headed towards the clock tower in the distance, Olette forced to jog to catch up to his long strides.
"You call yourself a Guardian," said Olette, looking at the icon. "What's that all about?"
"A Guardian is a program designed with the format to Mend and Defend. I'm the first one of this type of program in this system, version 4.0. When DiZ, the former User who created this system left operations of Twilight Mainframe to us, we were forced to learn on our own. It rapidly became apparent to us that there was another world, the Mother World that gave birth to us through our Hearts. We grew from simple programs to people, and then became a mix of the two. Rai?"
Rai took up the narrative, tapping his icon with a finger. "These Icons are our PID's, Personal Identifications. They're unique to our being, y'know? But lately something's been going wrong; sprites are vanishing from the system, taken by the Dusks. And what's worse, there's a malignant program out there bent on deleting us all, y'know?"
"Malignant program?" inquired Olette.
"A virus," said Fuu. "We don't know how it got in here since this is a closed system, but it took on a form of a pure heart that was in here before merging with its Somebody - Roxas."
Olette startled at Fuu who had spoken more than she had ever done before, and the fact that the name Roxas seemed so familiar to her. "Who, or what is Roxas?"
"Roxas was a being, a cast off of program identity number 452 - Sora. He was meant to merge with Sora and create a whole person, Heart and Body. But for some reason, something dark remained in the Twilight Mainframe and it corrupted into the Malignant Virus Roxas." answered Vivi, his calm child-like voice chirping in the air as they pushed the glass doors of the clock tower open.
"We're taking you to see the to give you an update, and possibly meet some of the other programs that run the computer system," said Seifer as the elevator opened before them with a hiss of released air. "You'll like him; he's supposed to be a friend of yours."
The elevator rose rapidly, much higher than Olette figured it would go until it dinged to a stop, hissing open with another release of air. The sounds of chatter messed together in a cacophony of voices as small little zero-like creatures and one-shaped creatures wandered around the futuristic command module. In the exact center with its back to them sat a humanoid form, a visor over his eyes.
"Set command line runtime to 00.01. I want data access from here to White Tor. Jeff, get those nodes out of danger. Also I want reports by the following nano. Try to get Sector 31 back online." The chair swivelled around and the owner of the visor removed it, much to Olette's surprise. "So this is the User," smiled Pence easily. "I figured it'd be Olette."
Pence got out of his chair and beckoned the others to a small adjoining room. When the door hissed shut behind him, the volume rapidly decreased as Pence switched on a node on his left arm rest. "I'm Pence as you know, but I'm also the of Traverse Mainframe. We're still waiting for the other two to arrive soon, but you know them as Hayner and yourself."
Olette blinked rapidly, a little taken back. "Myself? You mean I've got a physical duplicate here?"
"In a way," smiled Pence as he dismissed Seifer and his gang with a nod. "Take a seat; this'll be a bit of a talk. How much did Seifer tell you?"
"Only that everyone found out that they're digital recreations based on the Hearts of the people of Twilight Town," said Olette. "Other than that, I'm running on empty."
"Mmm, Seifer likes to keep things short, that's for sure. Let's start at the beginning then." Flicking a switch, the entire room plunged into darkness; no light save for a lamp on Pence's desk and a light illuminating Olette's chair could be seen. Then, the entire room exploded into light from a single point that suddenly grew exponentially, spiralling around in a fantastic light show, creating billions of stars resting amongst the backdrop. "What you're seeing here is a simulation of what DiZ believes was the creation of the world. In the beginning, there was Light. People loved it, and coveted it. Soon, Darkness crept into the hearts of man, and they fought to control the Light with Darkness. The world felt sad, and it destroyed itself in the process, for even worlds have hearts. But the light survived in the hearts of children, and very slowly, they recreated the worlds, but in separate entities, each with their own heart."
Tabbing another button, a sequence of images appeared in the sky above them. "Over time, DiZ managed to record the birth and loss of a world, from beginning to end. That's where we come in. Initially we were all simulations, created purely from data, ready to be deleted at a whim. But something changed; our hearts begun to beat. We have become ALIVE."
"Then, he arrived. DiZ used the simulation, our World as it stands now to contain a terrible anger and sadness -- the being known as Roxas, a Nobody of the Keybearer Sora. Angry and in pain, he lashed out time and time again, until finally he succumbed to the reprogramming where upon Hayner, Olette and I acted upon the hearts we were modeled for, believing him to be a true person. When Roxas discovered his Somebody, Sora, and vanished from Twilight Town, we thought him to have gone away. But somehow we managed to gain awareness, even though our hearts made us as human as the rest. This, we believe is the power of the Keyblade."
"You mean the Keyblade Sora brought with him to this world?" inquired Olette as the images faded to be replaced by a still screen of Sora entering the corridor of Darkness.
"The Keyblade is a powerful tool, able to amplify a person's heart for good or bad. But a part of Sora believed he belonged with us, and the Keyblade influenced our programming. We became part of this world, not quite human, but not quite data either but a living breathing mix of the two. Startled by this revelation all across the System, our people were in chaos. Some, like the binomes you saw in the OS room, rejected their original forms and thus purged the Heart Matrix, sealing it away and reducing themselves to the original zeros and ones they once were. They entered the work force, and not a moment too soon for whatever darkness DiZ had sealed away arose."
"The Nobody, Roxas," surmised Olette. "But if he's a Nobody that is pure data, can't you just delete him?"
"Believe me, it would be easier that way, but something about him is still our friend, no matter how much viral data he has absorbed." Pence adjusted a control on his chair as an image of a tall white tower standing on the beach far from Sunset Hill materialized above them. "That is the Tor, a monolithic recreation of Roxas' memories in pure white. Somewhere we believe is the Roxas we knew, the one we called friend. But now…"
Olette closed her eyes as she tried to block out the screams of people as Roxas laughed, a chilling laugh that raked across her spine like a serrated sword. After a blessed half-second, Pence turned it off. "That is what we have to deal with; Childhood Memories vs. An Insane Nobody." Flicking the off switch, the room lit up as he sighed. "I'm sorry we dragged you into this Olette, but time is of the essence. We have no Keyblade to fight this threat, and any attempt to create a program to simulate one is out of the question because we lack the qualities that makes a Keyblade choose its owner. We need someone, a User with a heart strong enough to contact through the digital plane to help us."
"But why me?" inquired Olette, shakily. "There's got to be someone else. I'm just a girl."
"A girl with a vision," answered her own voice. Olette turned in her chair to look at the girl who stood behind her, a thin strip of white cloth across her eyes, and a flashing white and black icon nestled between her breasts. "I'm sorry for intruding Pence, but I felt I was needed."
"Not at all," replied Pence. "Olette, meet yourself -- the Oracle. Otherwise known as a Net Protocol."
"Are you blind?" inquired Olette, reaching up to touch her mirror reflection. The blindfolded Olette reached up and Olette shied her touch away, but the girl grasped the User's hand in her own and traced it across her cheek, eliciting a blush from Olette from the intimate gesture. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to…"
"It's quite all right," said the Oracle, "I find that allowing myself to see what I see, confuses my sight. You heard my call. I have so many things to tell you, before World's End."
"Olette was the one who warned us about the possibility of the world ending," said Hayner from the door. Dressed like he always did, he wore his icon on a loose necklace. But the easy going smile still graced his expression. "Good to see you too, Olette-User."
"Thanks Hayner," replied Olette, still a little red from how the Oracle touched her hands. "So now what?"
"We wait," said Pence, looking skyward. "If I know myself, and I always did, I'll be looking for ways to salvage the system and repair the damage done. In the meantime, Hayner, why don't you bring Olette, give her the tour of Twilight Mainframe. Some things are a little different than what she may know, since DiZ was a little lacking in full detail."
"Right. C'mon, I'll give you the grand tour and we'll pick up some ice cream on the way back," said Hayner.
"Sea salt ice cream?" inquired Olette as the Oracle released her hand.
Hayner grinned. "Yep. Best they've got."