"Zoe! There you are! I am so not saving you all the time," Caitlyn called out in relief, flicking back her purple hair with red streaks dulled by the lack of light, "This is the last time I'm saving your coding Zoe. Come on, let's go." There was no answer from the form sitting in silent contemplation amongst the iron rubble. Looking around at the horror of her surroundings, the newcomer began to worry.
"Come on, we have to go, this place gives me the creeps." A shudder proved the point but the addressed very quietly replied, unblinking.
"You go…I can't."
"Why in the source not?"
"I just can't. You wouldn't understand."
"Wait – is it the whole, programs-on-spikes-causing-incredible-pain thing? Honestly Zoe, you don't know any of them!"
"Yes, I do." She points accurately, finger following her line of sight with unerring distress.
"Oh you've got to be kidding!" Exclaimed the other in exasperation. "Can't we just save the One without all the complications?" She ran her fingers through her hair, taking on a suitably serious expression. "Ok, what do we do?"
"I don't know." The words were so quiet for a moment Caitlyn thought she had misheard.
"You always know - " she began.
"Not this time." Zoe cut in firmly.
Caitlyn hesitated…"Well, we have to get him off that spike…" Measuring her words against falling hope, the rainbow haired girl waited.
"It's not that simple." Raising her voice to fight the howling wind, Zoe refused to raise her eyes from the impaled body.
"Why not?" Challenged the other program, bewildered. "It's just a code manipulation." She paused. "But that looks dangerous, like manual deletion dangerous…' suddenly she was hit by the enormity of their situation. 'Ok, not that simple." Defeated, she sat with a thump beside her friend.
"And even if we did get him free, and we live, he'll delete any way."
"Ok, we go, we live, we save the One – it's a win-win situation! See?"
"That's a no win situation." Angrily.
"How is it not good? I am not understanding you today." She said in an unrecognisable accent, attempting to laugh.
"I can't leave him." Her desperate words betrayed a truth long denied.
"Oh shards, please don't tell me you're in love." No answer. "You are, aren't you?! Dude, we are so doomed! I'm gonna cry…" Shaking her hair she sighed heavily.
"He's doomed too and I'm the reason he's stuck here."
"What the hell are you on about? No, wait, I don't think I want to know. Ok, alright, here's what we do. It takes time for the manual deletion to initiate - "
"No."
" - So we'll use the time to get him off and replace him - "
"No."
" - With another program."
"Did you not hear me say no the first time?" Zoe demanded as she rose to face the other program, eyes flashing angrily. She shrugged before continuing. "Besides, there is no other program."
"Yes there is." Words soft as a breeze of times long forgotten, the Bold waited. Zoe eyes widened as realisation dawned, and with understanding came a wave of dark formless terror.
"Again with the 'no'! I am going to repeat that until it's imbedded in your code!"
"Zoe would you stop being so stubborn," Caitlyn cried, exasperated.
"No."
"We both know it's the only way." She tried to be convincing, persuasive.
"No."
"I'll do it without you." Threats.
"No, you won't." Denial.
"Would you stop being the hero and let me have to spotlight for a while?" Cried the girl in frustration, waving her hands in the air melodramatically.
"No." The sitting shook her head, arms folded, hair falling drably past her shoulders. The picture of determination.
"Look, you and Diablo still have a purpose; you have to save the One', She began earnestly. 'This is my purpose." She took a step toward the figure writhing silently across the void. Slowly the colour of her hair began to fade to its customary copper red.
"No, you don't understand." The words imploring, hands outstretched in desperation and fear. She couldn't bear to loose them both.
"Understand what?" Caitlyn turned, waiting for the answer.
"It doesn't matter if we free him," the words were calm and measured. "It doesn't matter if we get out. We're both going to be deleted, he and I. You don't need to suffer that, you can go."
"What in the Source are you blabbering about? You're being ridiculous." The Bold shook her head dismissingly.
"I am not being ridiculous!" The Swift snapped fiercely. "It's part of my coding, because of me he's going to be deleted."
"Not until you've saved the One." Came the confidant reply. "Time and place for everything you know."
"I also know I made a rather large error in my calculations. I didn't heed my predecessors and now everyone is going to pay the price."
"Well that's why you've got me!" Bright smile, she took another step, slowly closing the distance between her and death.
"Why? To save a love that's never going to last beyond a nanosecond, if that?" Words torn from her throat, she stood defiant. "That spike is the only thing keeping him from a system defrag."
"Exactly my point." Another step.
"You've completely missed mine. Out of the three of us, you are the only one who has a chance of saving the One."
"But it's your turn to save him!" Caitlyn whined, "I did it last week. Besides, I bagsed saving him." She gestured towards the Hunter, still impaled and limp.
"Why are you so set on this?" The Swift shook her head curiously, completely befuddled.
"There's nothing left here for me here. It's time to let go." As she spoke the words her head dropped and her pitch black hair fell in front of her face…but not fast enough to hide the depth of pain in her eyes.
"Let go of what? The last chance machine and man have to live in peace?"
"That's your path."
"I left that path."
"You took a detour!"
"It's a dead end."
"Nothing is what it seems. It's all just code, you can always play with it, change it…" There was a pause as Caitlyn smiled softly, no longer laughing.
"I don't like you when you're serious. You're scary." Zoe's eyes had rolled back a little, much like a frightened horse.
"Architect Zoe, do you have any idea what it's like?"
"What's like?"
"Having to exist everyday, when all you want is for it all to stop?" Pain made her voice raw, as she finally spoke the feelings long held inside.
"Yeah," Zoe replied with a nod, "I know the feeling."
"No, you don't," denied the other, "I was in that dungeon longer than you know. He did things to me…I lost my reason, my purpose, I almost lost my mind. I wanted it to stop. Then you came and I thought it would all be okay. But it's not, Zoe, it's not and it never will be." She shook her head sadly as her voice finally betrayed her. Zoe stood, her heart trying to deny what she had heard, but the truth was written in every symbol of her friends make-up…she'd just never chosen to see it.
"Sacrificing yourself isn't going to change anything." Intoned the silently panicking program, trying to sound logical and ordered as fear threatened to overwhelm her.
"What sacrifice? It's a gift, for all of us. For all of them."
"It's pointless, that way we all get deleted." Zoe was unsure if she was speaking of herself and the programs she had met, or of all those in the system, all inextricably bound together.
"How does that work?" Confused, the determined figure stilled, waiting.
"In case you forgot, I love Diablo. And because of that, because of the one flaw in my otherwise fabulous programming, in an instant he and I will cease to be. And because of your absurd need to be theatrical, there will be no one free to save the One." It was a patient explanation, as if it were being said to a small child, although the volume rose as she finished. Caitlyn shook her head slightly.
"Shut up Zoe." Calmly she walked forward again, unworried by her comrade's strange behaviour.
"I won't let you do this!" The Swift cried, grabbing the other's arm. In a movement too fast for eyes to follow and almost too fast for programming to allow, the Bold had raised her open hand to Zoe's face, impacting with enough force to leave a red print in the shape of a hand.
"If you try to stop me again, you'll wake up on the Oracle's couch."
"Are you threatening me?" Zoe blinked, confused.
"I'm telling you how it's going to be." She corrected, shaking her head, walking away. Desperate, Zoe began to sing...
"Linger in the doorway, of alarm clock screaming monsters calling your name. You must stay…" Forceful. Then a counter-melody begun, disrupting the first.
"Hold on to your love. You know I can 't stay long. All I wanted to say was he loves you and I'm not afraid…" Sad, sweet. Another change, this time slower.
"You'd cry I'd wipe away all of your tears, you'd scream I'd fight away all of your fears…" Desperate, pleading as tears began to stream down her face. Broken off by one last weaving melody…
"If I smile and don't believe, soon I know you'll wake from this dream, don't try to fix me I'm not broken. Goodbye I am the lie, dying for you so you can't hide don't cry…" Smiling as she reached her goal and the last notes died away…
"No!" The scream ripped through the air with more emotion and force than the codically charged melodies could contain. Pain wracked her body as the program that was older, nearing absolution, overrode the wishes of the newer, more vital program. Falling to her knees amongst the sharp metal protrusions, the defeated wept, denying what had happened on silent lips, her throat too tortured by the initial scream to make a whisper. Someone pulled her to her feet, wrapping her in arms strong and as real as codic structure could be. A rushing filled her head, almost drowning out the pain-filled screams that threatened to drive her mad. "Sing," his voice soothed in her ear, strong arms holding her upright, "make it easier for her." Tears collected in her throat, taking the sting away. "Sing like it doesn't hurt." He whispered, eyes closed against the pain he saw etched so firmly in her. With a tremor Zoe began.
"In the arms of the angels, fly away from here.
From this dark cold hotel room and the endlessness that you fear.
You are pulled from the wreckage of your silent reverie.
In the arms of the angels
May you find some comfort there…" the screams reached a shattering crescendo, then died out with the final note. Closing her eyes, Zoe's body collapsed as the one whose life had just been bought at so high a price lifted the sobbing program into his arms and began to run. Behind the pair, silent symbols fell unseen amongst the remains of a civilisation, slowly vanishing into a world of dreams and nightmares.
Beguile: You haven't missed much, I got stuck and now the story is near and end, sad I know but how can Zoe go on without Caitlyn? Please be careful while poking Smith, I would like to have you as a cool reviewer, not some psycho trying to kill my characters, thanks :p
The Red Queen: My grammar is average and I want to thank you for picking up on my mistakes, and thank you for liking Zoe. I have this horrible feeling everyone like Caitlyn more and I just hope that my dear Zoe isn't going to be forgotten because that would be terrible. But on a happy note, thank you for your reviews, thank you for your time and I hope you enjoyed this chapter.