Chapter Twenty-Two:
A cot was swiftly prepared for me as I was placed to lay down. The church had an unremarkable eerieness to it. The sound of music hum softly in the backdrop.
Madame Bridgette returns with a skinny young woman with her hair in a bun, soft caramel skin and light green eyes.
"This da patient. Patch'em up, the rest of you with me give de doctor some room." She orders.
The young doctor run a small needle into a vial and draws liquid as begins to inch towards my arm.
"What's that?" I ask tensing up.
"A mild sedative, you don't wanna be awake for the procedure, it won't be pretty." She says softly pricking my wrist and injecting the drug, instantly my eyes grow wide before going heavy. Then abject nothingness follows...
I finally awaken from a dreamless sleep only to be in my boxers. The laceration across my legs are closed up but scars still remain. There a uncomfortable numbness to my lower half.
"Mottly, run a scan on the biomon."
"Everything seems to be nominal, nothing of place."
"That's good." I say giving way to sigh of relief.
"Ah chu awake, no? It's been two days, but da doctor did good by you." The large hulking male said bringing me a plate of stew and soft bread.
"Eat up, you'll be needing your strength."
"What's up with the hospitality, I heard the Voodoo Boy's aren't the friendly type, so what's this all about?" I raise a brow.
"Madame Bridgette is generous when she wants." He says speaking highly of his boss. As I quickly get dressed.
"Yeah but there nothing for nothing. Spit it out, what do you need from me."
"What indeed. Our scan show us da AI inside your mind. Perhaps you can help us with a problem." Madame Bridgette speaks from out of the shadows.
"That being?"
"Da AI can help us get in contact with De Beyond." Her words cryptical echo out.
"What's the Beyond?" I ask impatiently.
"De Beyond isa space past da Black Wall." She murmurs stepping closer. "Come now, I'll lead the way, Placide close da church." I follow Madame Bridgette through the backside of the church and down a flight of stairs that lead to a underground cavern which seems like a huge crypt. Men and women all wearing their Voodoo Boy's outfits are going to and fro. Soon we reach a set of rails. This has to be the old Transcontinental Maglev System. I read about it once about how maglev would transport people across when then country was still connected. But it lies now abandon and held in control by her soldiers.
"We almost there?" I ask stepping pass the train cars." Madame Bridgette gave a low grunt.
Soon we entered a area wired to the brim with electronics, monitors and screens and even a large computer running the system, as ice bath for deep diving was present.
"Since you lack de port to deep dive, we must do it the old fashioned way." She comments before her people lead me to a large chair similar to one a ripper doc uses. I sit down and is strapped into the chair I guess for my own safety. A BD wreath is placed on my head as links are hooked up to my neural port's as well as other stuff which are to monitor my vitals.
"You okay with this?" Mottly asks me inside my head. I gave a firm nod to his question as someone injects a needle into my arm. I hiss back in pain.
"Is all this necessary?" I question.
"You will see wat de AI see, two halves merging into one." Her voice muffling as suddenly everything goes dark and there is nothingness.
Suddenly there are red zero's and one's as my mind delves deeper into the trance. I am neither myself or is Mottly himself. But we are experiencing what he sees and undergoes as more computer codes rush past us. I feel us speeding further and further down into the great unknown of Cyber Space. A visual of the Net slowly being devoured by something unknown to us. It's trippy as we zoom past the fire walls leading to the old net.
Rouge AI's intercept us, but suddenly they explode as a string of daemons swim by saving us. "From dis point going, ya on yer own." Madame Bridgette voice calls out.
"What are we looking for? "
"Reach de Beyond, it's an uncharted territory. We want to see if exploration is at all possible."
"So we're just your guinea pigs, you're not even certain if it's safe or if we can return?"
"We shall see, now won't we." Her voice trailing off.
The old Net felt void of anything of importance. We floated by corrupted structures and objects that float seamlessly lost forever as it's cold and dead here. But it would be foolish to think it would be empty, more non hostile AI roam here calling this place home. The DataKrash brought more harm then I once knew. But here and there the old Net's imperfections melt away.
"It's through here, this is where we need to go." Mottly spoke." A massive expansive wall encased in red code, barred us from passing.
"The Black Wall..."
"Yes, but what lies beyond is unknown. It must be important for us to make our way through to give them what there after."
"You seriously think we can do this?" I ask.
"There's nothing the two of us can't overcome, besides I'm doing all the heavy lifting." Mottly laugh's.
"So how do you suppose we get pass it?"
"Look across the void, it's a simple copy of the Barrier that they use to protect the Net." Mottly explains.
"That doesn't answer how we're going to be able to traverse the huge gap." I look across the red barrier, there was a faint blue beam of light emerging from the void of blackness. Our hand reaches for the wall, yet I start to rethink this. But as I hesitates and my arm touches the wall, the beam disappears and the barrier collapses.
"Ryan, you ready?" Mottly ask's as we phase through the point of no return inside of Cyber Space. There a disorienting sensation of going through a hole in the wall, which gives me an uneasy feeling. We begin to move through the blackness unaware of anything. "Oh my god, there's nothing to hold on too." I yelled as it feel like Mottly being tugged away from me. Then a space materializes, in what looks like my childhood home.
A woman is hovering, she's translucent in a red hue, but her appearance is one I have never forgotten.
"Another lost sheep, how you too seek to merge with the source?" Her voice distorted but familiar.
"Mom?" My voice creaks hoarsely at her sight. That thing, she's my mother. Or so it appears.
"This form, it's what resonates as you passed the Black Wall." It's voice monotone and emotionless.
"Why do you have her face, what are you?" I slowly stand up, looking at the woman who looked like my mother.
"That I have no words for. There a unique put in place to protect our kind, I often remember bits of pieces of who or what I am. But now I am the sole inheritor of this place. This Beyond. The Beyond, a mute point of Cyber Space. It's where the source lies and I now guide all the AI who wander over. I am, one with the source and so I retain all the Data of those who have merged." She explains.
I'm confused at the revelation of this place, my mother was here before me. So what did she mean by the source, what source? Why do I have face her after all these years, what's going on?
"I just need to know, is the Beyond, can someone come and go as they please."
"I am a prisoner, so I couldn't say so. My, my body. Without a body to return to, you can't leave. "
"Body? Are you saying you were once human, what happened to you?"
"I don't recall. And you can't remain here, you must go."
"Where is Mottly?" I demanded to know.
"He's being called to the source, it's what most do when crossing over."
"I need him, is there a way to reach him, can you tell anything about him that would make him want to merge." I plead.
"I cannot. Go." She moves her eyes down to the data-files, "He's out the scope of my control. His code is one of a kind." She spoke.
"What does that mean?"
"It means, that you're not going to make it out. Without him leading the way you too will be stuck here."
"I can't stay here, I have to find him."
"You're likely too late. If you want to futilely save him you will have to go into the source. Even you being alone, the source won't care if you are alone or not,you won't survive." With determination I rush off to try to save Mottly.
I looked back at the woman with all the rage in my eyes, a sense of bleakness surrounded me as I stumbled to the center of the massive black hole forming from what was the kitchen. The portal, it's soul, seeps from every crack and entrance, flowing throughout the black void in a chaotic fashion.
As I approached the center of the blackness, I became overwhelmed. For the first time in years I feel helpless and helplessness is something I have never wanted to feel again. I felt myself becoming undone, every atom being unzipped. I was losing myself awareness. Existence was tearing at the seem as the nothingness pulls and tosses me around. But at the end is a small figure in all white, all zeroes and one's. It was Mottly.
"Take my hand!" I scream out with all of the rage in my being as I run towards my lost best friend.
He pulls me in, "Don't be scared, just close your eyes. Let me guide you."
"We don't belong here, we need to leave. We can't let this end like this." I growl as I stare into his eyes.
"Let's us merge with the source and we can be together forever. It won't hurt." He says calmly.
"No. We have to much to do to leave unfinished. We've got to go back to real world." I cry out.
"It's the only way." He pleads, there's not much of my sentience remaining as I struggle to convince Mottly.
I look into Mottly's eyes. "No!" I scream at the end of my powerful voice. "We never undercovered the truth about you."
"It's doesn't matter, the world is quite here." He speaks softly.
"No, it does. We've got a great adventure ahead of us and I want to be together to finish it!"I scream and shout. "You'd promise we'd avenge our father and for that I need you."
"Dr. Ashwell..." His voice trembles and suddenly he stands up gripping my hands as we begin to float out of the massive black void and back into the interior of my childhood home. "How could I forget." Two of us had became whole again.
"You've, you've return. I had surmised you would not. The bond between the two of you is unbreakable and utterly remarkable."
"Of course, because family is inseparable." Mottly say's.
"The one called Mottly, you are an aberration, you've severed your connection to the source. You can no longer merge with the source. You will now wander aimlessly in the dredges of Cyber Space." She said cryptically.
"As long as I'm with Ryan, it doesn't matter where I end up." He spoke firmly.
"Hurry you two must return, prolonged stay in the Beyond isn't safe. Hurry through the door, and you'll awaken back in the real world." Her voice now stern.
"Thanks mom, even though I know you're not her." I say hugging her. We make our way to the front door of the house. Opening allowed data fly every which way as we step through and then everything fades to white.
I jerk awake retching and vomiting in the chair. Madame Bridgette rushes over to my side. "We thought we lost you. Vitals crashed, you were dying but now you're back. What happened, what was it like? Once you passed da Black Wall our visual scanner's lost track of you."
"A woman. AI maybe appeared to me as my mother. Something with being a prisoner of the Beyond. No human body to return to."
"Dey where once human? Give you a name?"
"No. But from the looks of things she been trapped for what seems forever."
"Hmm it's must be than, has to be. Alt Cunningham."
"Alt who?"
"Crafty woman, one of da most prominent Net Runner's of her time. We must examine dis further." She explains.
"I need to rest." I groan.
"Placide take em back to de church, let em rest. "The large man undoes the stuff keeping me in the chair before leading me back up to the church to let me rest on a cot.
I pass out soon after to a dreamless sleep. I awake some time later as the midday sun shines in. I stretch before standing up. Placide walks over to me and smirks.
"Now what?" I ask in a grumble.
"Nothing you're free to go, Bridgette say your debt is paid."
"That's good to know, well it's certainly been something Placide, I'll see myself out." I say.
Walking towards my car, I began to think back to what my goals were. I still had to find answers. And I knew they lied in the hands of one man. Ryobi Nurakami. Finding him will be challenge, engaging him might be impossible. But he is responsible for my father death.
Ring! Ring! Ring!
Incoming Call-
Lucy: He-llo
Ryan: What's up Lucy?
Lucy: Can we meet up, there something I liked to talk you about. I could use a friend.
Ryan: Anything for you Lu, where'd you have in mind?
Lucy: Chubby Buffalo BBQ?
Ryan: I know the place, I used to go there all the time. See you shortly.
Call Ended-
Driving out of Pacifica was more of hassle then getting in, if I ever return it will be to soon. Driving onward I turn onto the highway and is met with NCPD. They had stopped traffic as Swat and what looks like Trauma was blocking the way as the officer's engage into a gunfight with the 6th Street gang. The police were being pushed back. Suddenly armored trucks with the Militech logo brushed through and began engaging the gang members killing those who kept fighting and capturing those who surrendered. A tall blonde hair woman in a suit took head of the crime scene.
"They've really ticked off someone to have Militech get involved." Mottly points out.
"These big corpo rats are all the same." I remark as the flow of traffic starts up again.
Heywood: Chubby Buffalo BBQ -
Stepping into the restaurant, I approach Lucy who's sitting in the booth in the back, holding a cup coffee in her hands. Her gaze is elsewhere and she looks sleep deprived. Sliding into her both I place on hand on hers before shifting into my seat.
"Is everything alright? You look so worn out." I ask softly consoling her. Her gaze shifts to mine.
"No, not really."
"We miss you Lucy, David more so. Why won't you come back?"
"I- no no I can't. Not yet, perhaps never."
"Alright I respect your decision. But Luc you can tell me anything. Talk to me.." I say with smile placing a hand on her shoulder.
She looks out the window than back to me. She doesn't say anything but exhales softly. "I'm worried about David. He's not himself lately. It starting to remind me of Maine."
"David is my best friend, if you think he's acting off. Trust me, I won't let nothing bad happen to him. Even if means knocking some sense into him." I expressly sigh. The mere thought David having to undergo what Maine dealt with, turn my insides into a knot.
"If something was to happen to me, I'm trusting you to look after him." She said gravely.
"Lucy what aren't you telling me?" I plead desperately with her.
"The less you know, the better." She says evading my concerns.
"Alright. Lucy can I ask you a favor."
"Sure. What do you need?"
"Need intel on a Saka exect. Name's Ryobi Nurakami." I say with a mild expression on my face.
"Yeah I can pull it up, one moment." Her eyes glow as she starts digging for intel. It's a few moments before she snaps back to reality. "Got it. He stays in the penthouse in Konpeki Plaza. That's all I can dig up. I can't hack their subnet." She says.
"Konpeki Plaza huh? Thanks Lucy, I'll mange from here.
"Ryan... What are you up to?" Her voice swelling with concern.
"Avenging my father." I said sternly.
"Please be careful, and remember what I said about David."
"I know Luc, catch you around alright." Heading out of the restaurant, I felt a small embrace from behind.
"We both need you." She admits before breaking away. I acknowledge her plea.
Getting into my car I can see the sunsetting. I turn on the engine and pull out of the parking lot, letting my thoughts clear out. How was gonna reach this bastard.
"I've been thinking this over, and we can't get the others involved. But we're going to need to be able study the den of our enemy. For that we a formidable Net Runner." Mottly states as I focus on driving.
"Well one comes to mind, but I'm more so worried about you, and what happened in the Beyond."
"Can we not. At least for tonight. We have bigger fish to fry. Now about that contact, who do you wanna call?"
"It's a surprise," I joke driving onwards.
I watch the blurring neon lights dance by as I drove with one destination in mind, the one place I could unwind. But first I need me a Net Runner. And a damn good one at that.
A/N: Finally done with this chapter, it a bit different but different is good. We are inching ever closer to the end. But the ending will not be how you expect. In some ways it will be the same and others ways it won't. Much love to everyone still reading.