"Hello, Jonathan. I have a few questions for you. Can you answer them?" Jonathan's eyes flickered open. His cheek was pressed against a cold white table, his eyes focusing on a grey wall across from him. His head ached. Slowly, he sat up, his dizzy gaze landing on a man who sat across from him, an ohm symbol painted in black on the wall behind him. "This is where you say yes." The man wore a grey suit that seemed to glint in the harsh white light. Everything about him screamed New Town. In front of him was a tablet but Jonathan couldn't see what was on the screen under the harsh white light.
"N-No...No...Where are my friends? What happened to them? Who are you?" Jonathan couldn't stop the questions from spilling out, his fear and grief suddenly overwhelming him. "What have you done?" The man pressed a button on the tablet, watching Jonathan with curiosity as a wave of calm came over him, leaving him weak.
"I have a few questions for you. Can you answer them?" The man asked again, cocking his head to the side with interest.
"Yes." Jonathan answered quietly.
"Good. Do you feel real?"
"I don't know…"
"Why don't you know? Do you know what real is?" The man asked, glancing down at the tablet for a moment before looking back up at him. Jonathan didn't answer, his hands starting to shake again. He wanted to yell, and cry. This man who sat across from him was somehow responsible for all of this and yet he could do nothing but sit across from him in the cold white room and answer his questions.
"I know what real is...but I don't think that I fit the definition of real. I've never been real...Everything I remember isn't real, just lies told to me to make me think that I'm human. I believed them all and now I don't know who I am." Jonathan explained, keeping his eyes down on the white table.
"I know you are, Jonathan." The man smiled and pressed a button on the tablet which made Jonathan feel completely exhausted. His eyes closed and he fell into a deep sleep.
"Hello, Jonathan. I have a few questions for you? Can you answer them?" Jonathan's eyes flickered open. He was still sitting in the metal chair in the cold white room, the large black ohm symbol painted on the far wall. Across from him sat the same man who wore a grey suit that seemed to glint in the harsh white light. Jonathan nodded. He felt like he had lost a lot of time but he couldn't remember why. Then he remembered pain and blood and Brock's wide blank stare.
"Y-You took my friends!" Jonathan suddenly yelled. "You killed Brock! Where are the others? What have you done?"
"That's enough." The man said, pressing a button on the tablet. A wave of calm came over Jonathan, leaving him weak. "Can you answer my questions?" The man asked again and Jonathan nodded. "Do you know what your purpose is?"
"No."
"You are meant to outlive human life, Jonathan. You are the foundation for immortality!" The man smiled as he spun the tablet in front of him to show him blueprints of a machine. Jonathan was impressed. Every detail was so intricate, right down to the smallest nerve. "You're beautiful, Jonathan."
"I-Is this...me?" Jonathan looked up at him in shock. "What am I?"
"You are the Delirious Project...What a beautiful project that was. Just look at you, Jonathan! You don't look at all as old as you are." He smiled brightly.
"Who are you?" Jonathan asked. "How do you know about me?"
"I'm sad you don't recognise me, Jonathan. I suppose that was intentional, though, the others leading the project didn't like me after what I started but I wanted to look deeper into the mind! They made you forget me. I'm Ohm but you can call me Ryan." He took the tablet back from Jonathan, letting out a sigh as he leant back in his chair. "I wanted to take you apart, Jonathan. I wanted to understand where your mind went and how you became a new person. I discovered that you had at one time experienced such painful grief but before I could go further, my colleagues caught me and threw me off the project. So I started the Vanoss Project. The Evan you know now walking around back in his own body is modelled off of you, Jonathan. You should be honoured."
"I'm not."
"That's rude. A lot of work went into all the different forms of Evan." Ryan scolded him.
"Where is Evan now? I want to see him." Jonathan Said quietly, looking past Ryan to the wall behind him where he knew there must be a door. Ryan glanced him at him with a curious look, cocking his head in interest.
"He's still upset with you."
"I know."
"But you still want to see him? That's very human of you, Jonathan. Almost like your old self." Ryan smiled, looking back down at the tablet as he pressed a few buttons. "I'm glad to see that patch back where it belongs." Jonathan glanced down at the owl patch on his shoulder, wondering what he meant.
"I don't understand...I never had this patch befor-"
"I'll tell you later on, Jonathan. When I know you are reliable, then everything will make sense." With a press of a button, exhaustion came over Jonathan, weighing him down as much as he tried to fight it. "Third time's a charm…"
"H-Hello...Jonathan. I have a few questions for you. C-Can you answer them?" Jonathan's eyes flickered open. He was still sitting in the metal chair in the cold white room, the large black ohm symbol painted on the far wall. Nothing had changed except for who sat in front of him. Evan sat across from him, his red jacket replaced with a soldier's uniform and a golden owl patch on his shoulder.
"Evan!" Jonathan started to get up which made Evan jump and quickly press a button on the tablet, a calm coming over Jonathan that forced him to sit back down. "Evan? What's happening? A-Are you real?"
"Yes. I'm real." Evan said, clearly struggling to keep his voice steady. "Can you answer my questions?" Jonathan could only nod. "Do you recognise me?"
"Of course I do. You're Evan."
"Do you recognise this uniform?"
"I-I...I've seen it in a dream." Jonathan found himself explaining. "I've seen you as a soldier...a dead soldier, in my dreams. I don't know why. I even see this soldier when I'm awake sometimes too. I thought that before I found out that I was a machine that it was a ghost but now I know that such things aren't real. Now I think it's something that Ryan wants me to see." Evan looked disturbed, his knuckles turning white as he clutched the tablet in his hands tightly. "Are you still upset with me?"
"Do you feel real? Evan asked, completely ignoring Jonathan's question.
"Evan don't do this to me. Please." Jonathan begged. Evan glanced at one of the room's corners, a look of concern flashing across his face. "Evan!" Evan suddenly looked back at Jonathan, dropping the tablet onto the white table.
"Shut up. If you keep talking to me like this, Ohm will kill you." Evan said under his breath, glancing nervously at the corner of the room for a moment. "And everyone else. So act like a machine and answer the questions if you want to survive and get out of here eventually."
"What about you?"
"I'm already dead." Evan picked the tablet back up, keeping his eyes on the screen.
"You aren't dead to me." Jonathan whispered. Evan looked up at him with a sad look in his eyes for a moment before it disappeared and he returned to the questions.
"Do you feel real?"
"I don't know. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't." Jonathan managed to say. Evan nodded slightly, his dark eyes drifting to the corner again. Jonathan knew he was in trouble now, and he prayed that Evan would be okay. He kept his face as blank as possible, not meeting Evan's gaze.
"What is real?" Evan asked. The room fell heavily silent for a few moments. Finally, Jonathan found the words.
"Real; adjective. Already existing as a thing or occurring in fact. Real is being awake to the world around us, conscious and living."
"Good morning, Jonathan! We got a lot to do today!" Jonathan's eyes flickered open, taking in the white ceiling above him. He laid on a soft bed, a warm blanket was thrown over him. Hanging over a chair was his jacket and on the chair was a blue suit, folded and waiting for him. He sat up, leaning against the wall to take in the room and Ryan who stood in the doorway, a smile on his face. "That's for you! From your New Town days." Ryan motioned to the blue suit. "Now come on! Get dressed and let's get to work."
"I won't wear that. I won't help you. I'm not letting New Town come back." Jonathan snapped as he got to his feet. He reached for his jacket, the faded owl patch glinting in the dim light. Its large eyes stared up at Jonathan, watching him. Ryan sighed, reaching into his pocket for a small tablet. He pressed a few buttons, glancing up at Jonathan as he began to feel weak.
"Get dressed. There is a lot to talk about." Ryan snatched the jacket from Jonathan's hand and stormed out of the room. Jonathan watched the door slowly swing shut, leaving him completely alone in the painfully white room. They had done so much to make sure that New Town could never exist again but it felt like they had failed. His friends were either dead or captured and he was useless, hacked and forced to comply.
Reluctantly, Jonathan took off his dirty clothes, throwing them into a pile on the floor. They were bloody and covered in dirt and sweat but despite that, they were a part of what had made him feel so alive; so human. His cold hands curled around the soft fabric of the blue suit that he knew was meant to make him feel less and less alive and more like a machine. The suit had been his uniform, something he wore every day in a glittering world that had fractured so quickly after Luke's death. He remembered riding their bikes together through the streets of New Town, the neon world flashing around them and the way they had laughed together as the wind whipped at their hair and pulled at their blue jackets. None of that had been real, at least not real in the way that Jonathan had wanted it to be. He pained him to think that maybe Luke knew that he wasn't human but despite that, he had tried so hard to be his friend. It pained him, even more, to think of how he had tricked him too and he died not knowing the truth.
Jonathan tried to push away the thought, quickly putting on the suit. He buttoned up the white shirt, tucking it into his blue pants and pulled the tie tightly around his throat, folding down the collar around the blue fabric. Finally, he pulled the blue jacket on, the smooth fabric settling over his shoulders and glimmered in the bright light. Taking one last moment alone, he pressed his hand to his shoulder where the patch would have been had Ryan not taken the jacket. He reached for the door and pulled it open, finding himself in a long white hallway.
"Hello?" Jonathan called out, taking a step into the hallway. "Ryan?" He turned right, focusing on a door at the end of the hallway. Silence hung heavy over him.
"Jonathan." He turned around, his eyes widening at the sight of the soldier. Blood dripped from his gloved hands. "You must determine what is a lie and what isn't. You decide what is real." Evan said, taking a shaking step towards him. "He is not the truth."
"Jonathan!" Ryan called out. Jonathan turned back around, trying to keep his expression calm as he quickly headed down the hall, glancing over his shoulder to see nothing left of the soldier but a few drops of blood on the floor. "You look more like yourself." He lead the way down the hall into a bright room where Anthony and Bryce sat around a white table, their cups of coffee steaming. "Morning!" Ryan smiled at them as they passed. Jonathan didn't look at them as he passed, instead of looking at a man he hadn't seen before. He was looking intently at the tablet in his hand as he leant against the counter, only looking up when Ryan and Jonathan passed. "That's Four Zero Seven. He doesn't like his first name." Ryan said to Jonathan when he followed his gaze to him. "He's just like you and Evan. Once a human...now better as a machine."
"Was he a part of the Vanoss project?" Jonathan asked as they left the room and continued on into a darker hallway.
"No. I created him from another leftover consciousness that had been taken in the first steps of the Vanoss Project, before Evan and all of them. He would have just been left sitting there in non-existence if I didn't give him new life. You can't argue against that, can you?" Ryan asked as he pushed open a door into a dimly lit room.
"No." Jonathan said quietly, shaking his head.
"Now, first things first...I have to show you who you really are, Jonathan. That's the only way to show you that you are real. That you aren't just a machine. I need you to feel as human as possible because New Town is human and it's alive! We will bring it back together, gears and organs, wires and flesh! We can mend your mistakes and make the world new and bright once more. That's what happened to you." Ryan turned on the light switch, revealing to Jonathan that he stood in a large white office, similar to the one his father had. "Have a seat." Ryan said as he sat down at the desk, spinning around in his chair to search through the filing cabinets behind him. "Your story is an old one, Jonathan. It goes right back to the start of New Town after the war."
"What are you talking about?"
"Have you ever heard of the Delirious project, Jonathan?" Ryan spun around in his chair, dropping a large file onto his desk. Remembering what Smitty had said, Jonathan could only nod, not wanting to lie to Ryan. "Really? What do you know?"
"That it started almost ninety years ago. Its goal was to create a machine that was human in every way except that it could outlive human life." Jonathan explained.
"In a way. About a hundred years ago, during a world war, there was a day that simply ended the reality that people knew then. They called this day 'Drop day' because nuclear bombs were dropped on several different places, plunging the world into the next ice age. Most people didn't survive long, military or otherwise. Out this came a group of people called the Revolters. They banded together and started to create a new society. A few years later, the beginnings of New Town was created. What you had once Old Town was this New Town and as this society advanced, well you know what happened. Anyways, people began to wonder if there was still people out there in the cold. So they sent a group of people to go look."
"And they found no one. I know the story." Jonathan sighed.
"No, you don't. That's just what they told you." Ryan smiled. "For days, they travelled into the Wasteland, searching for people. They found a few, all of them in pairs or groups. Some wanted to go with them, some didn't. Finally, just when they were about to return to New Town, they stumbled upon the wreckage of a train." Ryan opened the folder, pulling out a picture. Jonathan had seen this before. It was where Brock had died but the cars weren't as rusty nor as buried by snow and in the middle of the clearing was what looked like a burned funeral pyre. "There was one survivor. Completely alone because everyone in his group had died. When asked to come back with them, he was very reluctant at first. He knew which group they belonged to and he said that they were responsible for the death of his friends. Finally, though, he agreed to come back with them."
"He was forced to, wasn't he?"
"That's unknown. When he was brought back to New Town, they struggled to get him back to health and the current engineers at the time took interest in him. They were experimenting with creating AIs at the time which had been an interest before Drop day but now it had a completely new meaning. They wanted to create something that would live on, that would be stronger than humans. In this man's last few days of life a couple years later, he agreed to let them scan his consciousness and use it for future projects. They decided to try instead of creating a personality, just inserting it into the machine. They decided to take away a few years worth of memories so they could have a smooth transition but when this machine woke up, all he did was scream and cry over someone he had lost. It seems like they had taken away the memories of moving on from the trauma and left him right at the very moment that this grief came from. He kept saying 'why didn't they save him? Evan! Evan! Evan!'" Ryan suddenly yelled. Jonathan felt sick.
"It's just a coincidence…"
"Was it? They did some research. Among the Peacekeepers was a young private, barely nineteen, named Evan Fong. He disappeared after his camp was attacked shortly after Drop Day and was presumed dead. His body was never found but this man seemed to know what happened but he wouldn't say. They decided that in order to make this project work, they would have to wipe almost all memories and just leave the personality. It was at this time that they aptly named this project the 'Delirious Project', after the man's nickname." Ryan pulled out another picture. It was a plane with the word 'Delirious' painted on the side in bright blue. In the background was another plane, the face of a growling white tiger looking up at the viewer. Looking closer, Jonathan could see a figure by that plane, though only his profile was moving. Jonathan could have sworn that he looked a lot like Tyler. "They kept this project going for years, studying the habits of this machine. They convinced this machine that he was alive, updating his parts and systems to make it seem like he was growing and then they would 'kill' him and start over. That's mostly what I did, in case you were wondering. The only thing kept the same, though was the name; Jonathan."
"I-I'm the Delirious Project...I was a soldier…"
"A pilot actually but yes. When you shot your 'father' in the face I thought you had remembered everything, it was such a human thing for you to do."
"Why are you telling me this?" Jonathan cried.
"To show you that you are more human than you think you are." He pulled out one last picture of a young man in uniform. Jonathan stared down at himself, his hands starting to shake. Barely visible under his lapel was the gold thread of patch in the shape of an owl. he looked back up, he almost jumped out of his chair. The bloody soldier stared down at him, his dark eyes full of tears.
"J-Jonathan…" Evan stammered.
"The only thing about all of this that baffles me is Evan. How he has somehow returned to life as well. Maybe someone else created him, basing his personality off a long dead soldier too." Ryan wondered aloud. "That's why I like having him around. You too. Living history."
"J-Jonathan…" The ghost said again, reaching towards him. Suddenly the office vanished, leaving Jonathan standing on a snowy river bank. In his hand was a gun, the end of it dripping blood and bits of flesh. Around him were bodies. "J-Jonathan…" He turned, his eyes landing on the Peacekeeper who lay on the snow, blood dripping from his gloved hands. "Y-You decide what is real…"
"I wouldn't be surprised if you want to say that none of this is true. Anyone who is having an existential crisis would not want to believe it. But it's all true. Jonathan Smith was a pilot in the war who survived Drop Day and allowed his consciousness to be scanned and now here we are. That Jonathan went through hell and you are a completely different version of Jonathan, one who can't remember what happened. You are a better version because of that!" Ryan smiled brightly, bringing Jonathan back to the present. "You must remember though that New Town created you. It would be wrong for you to want to destroy your creators."
"I already destroyed them." Jonathan snarled.
"No. You missed me." Ryan leant forward, his eyes narrowing on Jonathan. "Now, you can help me in one of two ways. You can help me take down the order that you and your stupid friends have created. Or you can be my new experiment. Your choice."
"I've been your experiment for too long. I wo-"
"Take some time to think about it." Ryan leaned back in his chair. "You could have control for once in your life, Jonathan."
"I won't help you destroy what we have fought for. I won't let you do it." Jonathan shook his head. Ryan sighed.
"I'm disappointed in you, Jonathan. You were chosen to live on because of your strength and you are just letting it all go to waste." Ryan said as he turned the tablet in front of him on, shaking his head. "At least I can still find a use for you. Your mind is really what I'm interested in. However, I'm willing to give you a chance to rethink your decision." He pressed a few buttons on the tablet, suddenly freezing Jonathan. He couldn't move a single muscle. He could only stare at the pictures that Ryan had shown him on the table. "Just sit there for a little while, Jonathan. Think about how you got here and where you want to go from here." Ryan said as he got up and headed for the door, leaving the open folder of photos and documents on the table. Photos of Jonathan, a living version of him and another of Evan tucked under a few files stared up at him. The Peacekeeper in the photo was the exact same one that Jonathan saw in his dreams but there was a sparkle in this soldier's eyes. He hadn't been to hell yet; he hadn't become a ghost yet. "Keep in mind Jonathan, that you can choose where you want to go from here. Is it back to New Town where we rightfully belong?" Ryan called out as the door started to close behind him. "Or is it to your own personal hell?