Redux 083: One Thousand Questions
"What's your name? And yours? What does that one do? And that?" Alice felt like a kid in a toystore. The kind of machines she saw here made what she was used to look ancient. "I told you we don't use names here. And don't touch that." One member of Stonewells club yelled. "We monitor the dueling network with that; keep track of all the Templars in the air and all the duelists on the ground. It will take too long to explain the functions. Just know that everything is where it should be." They had to move this stuff around a lot, and they would prefer to keep it intact and organized. "How can you keep all of this a secret? Wouldn't anyone be able to track you here?" Iria did not feel very secure in what, to her, looked like a massive hotspot of network activity. "We have one the best coders this side of the country on our side. Nobody can find us here as long as I am in charge of security." Another masked man boasted about himself. "Heh. If you want to call these guys anything, just call them Limbo 1, 2 and 3. That's what I always do." Tory shrugged. She had always been the least interested in hiding her identity. "Regardless." Limbo # 1 coughed. "What's with the third degree? We should be giving you the questions!"
"Well go ahead! Ask me anything! I bet you're dying to know what life is like for Eric in another universe!" Eric smiled at his counterpart. "Not really." Stonewell for his part did not play a reflection very well, with his dull frown. "Huh? Why not? I mean I have a ton of things I want to talk with you about! Like.. how's mom? Is she doing okay here? Isn't she worried sick about us.. I mean you.. staying out this late?" It was well into the evening. And Eric's own mother never not threw a fit when he returned home later than nine' o clock. "She's doing as well as you can in this union. You worry about your mother, and let me worry about mine. Just because of who you are, does not mean you get to tell me what I should do." Eric must have touched a nerve he didn't know he had, as Stonewell snapped rather hard. "He was just asking." Alice tried defend Eric. "Then let him ask something useful! Don't waste time checklisting every little difference. It wont make it any better or worse!" He stormed off to lean against the corner. "Geez." Eric could hardly recognize himself in Stonewell.
"Then what would you like to know? Why we came here?" Adamant was willing to cooperate for the time being. "That'd be a nice start." Tory said. "Very well.. Have any of you ever heard of the XYZ, Synchro or Fusion guild?" The former XYZ-leader started off with a quiz. "No? Wait; your world divided duelists by summoning methods? That sounds antiquated." Limbo # 2 laughed. Here people could put whatever they wanted in their extra decks. "It did. And I led the XYZ-guild.. for a time. On the surface we were just a dueling guild. In actuality we were much like you, a group of soldiers funded by outside sources. Those sources discovered your world, and sent some of us here." Adamant almost wondered if their forces could have worked together. But it seemed like these people never even heard of his squads. "What are you saying?" Uno asked. "That'd be my question as well." Stonewell asserted. "We weren't the only ones. The Synchro Guild managed it too, they infiltrated both worlds simultaneously. Providing duelists like you with the means to take down the current rulers; sounds like something they would do."
"Oh I get it. But no.. I cannot take you to our 'benefactors'. They only ever meet with us online." Even if Stonewell wanted to help Adamant with that, he couldn't. "I see. Then.. there is something I must do." He got up and walked towards the exit. "Hold on! Where do you think you're going?" Tory got in his way. "I spoke of it just now; my guild sent people here. It took the best scientists in the land, but together they devised a gate that allowed us to cross over. My men went to the other side, with the materials needed to recreate the gate on that end and to establish a continuous gateway. There is a gate machine in this world too and that is where I am going now. I do not know if it still is secure, but I intend to return"
"That's a nice story. But that doesn't make me feel better about letting you leave after you saw our secret base! You could go to the nearest surveillance station and rat us out!" Tory said, voicing her concerns. "Then have one of you join me. I will show you 'our secret base'." Adamant made a counter-proposal. "Are you giving that as a way for us to keep an eye on you? Hmph. How are the skies?" Stonewell turned to one of his partners. "The next templar will come by fifteen minutes from now." Was the response. "The timing is good then. I'll go with you." He walked up to Adamant. "But your friends will have to stay here for the evening."
"What!? We gotta sleep on this freighter?" Eric yelled. "Do you have any better place in mind?" Stonewell countered. "We.. didn't really get the chance to look at places yet." Uno confessed. This day threw a lot of distractions at them. "It's not so bad. We have plenty of food and the crews cabin has decent beds." One of the Limbo-guys stated. "Eh.. I think you're making a fuss about nothing. Adamant wouldn't betray us. I trust him, and Eric trusts me, and you can trust Eric." Uno did not see why they had to go through that much trouble. "Not all of us are as trusting as you are, Uno." Iria got up to join Adamant and Stonewell. "You are coming along as well." Adamant inferred. "As the saying goes; four eyes are better than two." The disciple felt she could also do more out there than in here. "That works for me." Stonewell shrugged and opened the door. "..So be it." Adamant shook his head. "We will contact you before we arrive. Do not do anything 'crazy' while we are gone." Iria warned the remaining duelists, and glared at Uno in particular. Then Adamant and his escorts vanished into the night. "..I bet they're gonna be best of friends when they get back!" Alice said all cheerfully.
... "Wait. Something doesn't make sense." Tory blurted out after a few moments of silence. "If that guy has to find the teleporter, how did you get here?" Adamant's machine didn't sound like the kind of portal that dropped you off at random parts of the world. "Oh. That is another story." Uno realized he failed to actually describe the 'how' part of their journey here. "You remember this?" Uno took out the crystal. Tory and Stonewell had already seen it anyway; there was no point in keeping it a secret. "How can I forget something that nearly burned my eyes out?" Tory held up her hand just in case it decided to flare up again. "This is a pendulum. It lets me travel through time and space.. when it wants too at least." He let the jewel dangle between his fingers, tantalizingly. "Oh my. That is what you used? Can I.. analyze it?" Limbo # 3 slowly reached out to it. "Go ahead. Nobody in the other timeline could figure out what it was made of." Uno dropped it in his eager hands. He ran off to place it in a scanner right away. "Okay. How did you get that?" Tory now asked him. "No idea."
"Oh. Right. You've got amnesia. But you somehow remember that you were born here and not over there." Tory ran her hands through her hair. It was proving difficult to keep all the elements of this crazy story in her head. "And you're calling it a pendulum? Like.. these cards?" She took out her own Abyss Actors. "I suppose. Some guy who calls himself UNO, whose name I.. ahem.. appropriated, claims to be the inventor of pendulum cards. But there's at least four other duelists out there who disagree. They all have something like this, and if you believe their words, than this thing is older than time itself. Don't ask me which came first, pendulum cards or pendulum crystals." One was named after the other; that was as far as Uno got. "But you guys have a lot more than we did. We were just starting to use them." Alice murmured. At that point Eric got an idea. "Hey! Maybe they can tell us who made them! Looking on the network didn't help. But I bet you guys can hack around all that protection that that empire has!"
"What makes you think we haven't done that already?" Limbo # 1 snorted. "We know a lot of what they don't want you to know. Like how this all started. The 'official' story is that this Union began at the turn of the millennium, hence the name. It was born from an agreement between representative of all countries to unite. For the sake of peace, all borders were done away with and all resources were shared. Through this the world saw an exponential rise in medical and scientific fields. It progressed decades in years. Not one man has claimed responsibility for this project, which is why have all these faceless statues about the cities. They're a symbol of the new peace. But the truth goes the other way around. There was this group of people who showed up with technology so advanced that they could literally force the world to submit to them while hiding themselves at the same time. They control the flow of information and money, they say when something is 'invented' or when something is released to the public. Sure they let everyone keep their homes, pray to their gods, and live life with even more comfort. But the governments are only going along with this because they have no choice."
"So it all began 16 years ago." Naturally such a story led Uno to one question. ".. who is they?"
"I was hoping you'd know more about that, mister time traveler." Tory folded her arms. "Well. We did have this theory that it could be this Tempus-guy. He's also a time traveler, and all the other time travelers are after him." Alice explained. "Tempus? Well I would have remembered if we came across a name like that. We only have the names of the ministers and inquisitors who work for the Millennium Union. I doubt they are at the top of the foodchain. Near as we can figure there's people they have councils with, who to answer to. But we dont know their identities." Not even the best hackers could find anything on the true creator of Millennium. "What about those control cities? Someone has got to be in charge there, right? Maybe we can find 'them' there?" Uno grew more and more certain that he would find either UNO or Tempus in one of the control cities. "Ha! Good luck getting inside one of those! You wouldn't even get passed the first barrier." Limbo # 1 chortled. "Trust me. I've forged a hundred IDs, and none of them passed the bar. You need to be like VIP-level to proceed. Like a high-scale duelist or an actor.."
"Back up. High-scale duelist?" Eric interrupted. "Yeah? They're the cream of the crop. They're the ones that get access to the good stuff, that Millennium bases its Templar A.I. on. I don't know how it is over on your side. But people are addicted to duels here, and the most famous ones can go wherever they want. There's leagues, competitions. You saw the school right?" Tory could go on forever. "Well, we did have guilds. They had ranks and classes and all that. Different word, same system I guess. But Millennium started a dueling order here?" Eric struggled to understand. "Just like Dom in our world, someone made sure that the cards existed here... So how does one become a high Scale duelist? Do you have to beat a headmaster at an academy? Because Alice and me were already planning to do that." Uno knew they didn't have much time. "Master Zenshin? He's a nice guy, but I wouldn't pick him for the trial. He doesn't pull his punches." Tory told them. Which caught Uno's curiosity. "You know Zenshin?" He hadn't mentioned his name. "Ehr maybe? Maybe I'm a member of the academy too? Ergh, yeah okay. I am a member.. That's where I first saw you guys." She caved in pretty quickly.
"The Academy is a good place, despite everything. You make friends there, get good meals and can sleep in their dorms long as you're a member. A lot of kids try it. I just.. like to live safe when I can... But listen! Beating Zenshin is just the first step. It will get you on the network and make sure Templars don't look at you funny when you duel out in the open. But you still can't get inside the control cities. Or else I would have done it by now." Tory said as she glanced through the open door. The city's light was seeping through. "It's purple again... Why does it get purple sometimes?" Alice asked. "As far as Millennium claims, it's a consequence of every major metropolis emitting so much more energy with all their new gizmos. It messes up the way light reflects, screws up the spectrum. We haven't found anything that contradicts that. You get used to it after a while." Limbo # 2 clarified. "Oh, I wasn't something it wasn't pretty. It's just.. not the same as home." Alice wished she hadn't brought it up. Now she was just thinking of her own family and town again. "Yeah. You are pretty young to be travelin' dimensions. Bad luck always happens to duelists apparently." Tory sighed. "But don't worry! I'll look out after you kids!" She said with a smile. "I'm the same age as your Eric!" Eric grumbled, exasperatedly. "But eh.. thanks I guess."
"Excuse me." Limbo # 3 mixed in with the others. "I'm sorry. I detected a trace of some natural elements, but most of the make-up is unrecognizable." He gave the pendulum back to his owner. "That's okay. It's clearly not something man-made." Uno didn't expect any answers anyway. "Maybe it's time we take you up on that offer of sleeping." He was getting tired. "We can continue tomorrow. I agree. Guys, I will guard the fortress tonight." The other Limbos agreed and headed out. "Well, goodnight then." Uno, Eric and Alice retreated to their own rooms in the ship.
"Uno, should I..have told them about me?" Alice asked Uno as soon as they were alone. "You mean about where you came from? I didn't want to do that without asking you, and I think we should keep it simple anyway, at first." Uno did not see how Alice's past could help them figure things out. "Like.. how the world is going to end in four years?" She asked further. "Oh. Right, you heard about that." Alice nodded slowly. "I'm sorry. I promised Emily, but I didn't do a very good job." When December attacked, it was hard to not talk about that. "Look. Four years is plenty of time. I will find a way to stop whatever is gonna happen. I don't want either world to be destroyed." Uno swore. "Me neither." Eric was starting to like this world. "Yeah.. it's not my home. But it's someone's." And that was all that should matter. "Now let;s get some shut-eye. I am sure the world will be here tomorrow."
...
"You should rest." Adamant said to the disciple who hadn't slept in 36 hours. "Not before you do." She didn't feel like closing her eyes near him. "You're gonna have to learn to trust someone else besides yourself, Silver." Adamant had trained himself to stay awake for long periods anyway. "How did you two end up on the same team?" Stonewell merely observed them argue as he sat in the back of the van. "!" Every roadbump further tensed his body. "How much longer?" He cursed. "At least ten hours. Settle down. There are no drones nearby. If it does come to a confrontation, we can fight back." Adamant and Stonewell could both say they had already taken down one Templar after all. "If you knew what these things did to the people that can't fight back, you wouldn't be so calm." Besides.. it wasn't the machines he was worried about.
...
Hours passed; the purple night made way for the yellow sun, and Uno was one of the first to rise. "Wha.." He didn't do so by choice. "Ssssh." Tory stirred him awake, while placing her finger on her lips. "Something's wrong?" Uno saw her throw glances at her back. "You need to wake up, and stay very very quiet. Please." She whispered urgently. "Right." Uno did as he was told and shook Eric and Alice. "Hrm, mom.. five more min..guh!." The former groaned as he sprung right up from his makeshift bed. "What's going on?" Alice looked around with drowsy eyes. "We've been found." Tory revealed right away. "What!? How?" Eric gasped. "Keep it down." She hissed softly but clearly. "I don't know how. I need to get you guys out of here. There's a path that takes us to the cargo hold. We can sneak out unseen through there." She pointed at the door behind them. "But..what about your friends?" Alice noted the absence of Limbo # 3. "It's too late for him." It hurt her to say it, but she had to. "Come." And as she led them out the back of the ship, they passed a hall with windows. "No way." Eric couldn't resist; he had to see what was going on outside. "It's her!"
He saw Iria Silver, flanked by a dozen Templar drones. They circled around the unfortunate Limbo on the deck of the ship. "Silver.. Inquisitor Silver." Whereas Stonewell could be mistaken for Eric, there was a marked difference between this Iria and the disciple. Her uniform was black, almost militaristic. Her hair was shorter, lacking the other Iria's topknot. And a black-glass scouter covered her left eye as if it were an eyepatch. "Sad little man, not even a duelist. You couldn't have done this alone; where are the others?" Her voice was the same, yet somehow colder than Iria Silver had ever sounded. "I will never tell you!" The now unmasked Limbo # 3 swore with all his might, despite the fear evident on his face. "A boring choice of last words. We will get more." She snapped her fingers.. and it happened. "Aaaaahh!" Limbo screamed when it happened to him... And Alice screamed when she saw it all. He was transformed by light. The body disappeared, leaving nothing but a card with his terrified expression on it. "Them too?" Uno was aghast. The power to turn people into cards came from this world?
(To be Continued in Redux 082: Fight or Flight Response)