"Enemies of Society, Allies of Disorder, rise to confront your salvation! Hark! for here we stand, and here we shall remain!"
The creed of the Associates
Jack awoke within his apartment, sweating profusely. He sat up from the bed, looked around. Angelica was not present. Neither, he realized as he surveyed the room more closely, was the purple spider award he had hung on his wall, the bottles of scotch in his glass-fronted liquor cabinet, and his rack of coats on the wall. There were, however, two Noobs sitting on the couch in front of the wall-mounted television. The area around them looked as if a bomb had gone off; refuse, including empty chip bags and candy wrappers, surrounded the couch. The Noobs were laughing hysterically at the show in front of them. Jack, focusing on that, identified it as an episode of the Roblox Forum Simulator from Grand Year 2013.
Wait a minute. Grand Year 2013? Currently, they were well into Grand Year 2014. What was this?
He walked towards the Noobs, who turned to look at him. One of them ventured: "Whaiy yugh in mah house? Gert da eff out!"
"You're in my house, asshole," Jack snarled. He reached into his pocket for the shiny gun - and found it to be missing. He also realized that this wasn't the same long red trenchcoat he had brought aboard the Great Justice, but instead was his old RPD uniform, the one he had accidentally spilled pizza sauce on when he was but a day in the force.
"Geddafughkinshit outta mah houuuuuuuuuuuse!" the Noob screamed. It picked him up by the scruff of the neck, opened the front door, and tossed him out onto the ledge outside. Jack hit the ledge hard, rolled to stop the pain. Oddly enough, his bullet wound wasn't hurting him.
Why wasn't he aboard the Great Justice anymore? The last thing he remembered before blacking out was Terry, the WIJ traitor, shooting him in the back and taking a bullet for the other traitor. But why was he now in his old apartment, which had been taken over by two Noobs in a slowly spreading blast radius of trash?
Hoping to find some answers, he set off down the ledge in front of him. Everything had a faint, hazy, almost dreamlike quality to it. When he encountered the odd pedestrian they all just ignored him as if he were just an uninteresting stain on the sidewalk. Turning sharply on a corner, he saw ahead of him a mass of people, looking at a blur that was presumably one of the bullet trains that operated all through New Robloxia.
Jack joined the group, and watched as it flashed by.
This model, he could tell already, was outdated. There was a red stripe on the side of it, a hallmark of the 2013 Firejet-model bullet trains that had been phased out in early Grand Year 2014 to be replaced with the Icebolts. As far as his knowledge went, all the three-dozen bullet trains in New Robloxia were Icebolt-models.
Something weird was going on here. He knew it.
The train vanished into the distance, and Jack and the other pedestrians were now free to walk over the track bridge and onto the other sidewalk leading to... where? He didn't recognize the building ahead of him. It was a large gray rectangular concrete building, with a uniformity of design that almost hurt to look at. As he watched, the Firejet train from earlier slowed to a halt in front, and the side doors opened, releasing a stream of passengers.
There was a billboard above the entryway to the building, with an electronic display in pixelated yellow-orange letters. It showed something that Jack at first glossed over in favor of the rest of his surroundings, but which eventually brought his eyes back in confusion and dread. The billboard said:
NOW BOARDING ALL DEPARTURES FOR ADMIN ISLAND STOP - 9:30 AM, GM SEPTEMBER, GY 2013
GY 2013.
"Oh my god," Jack breathed. "This is impossible."
-OOO-
The medic bent over the figure whose upper and lower body was covered in a blue blanket, leaving only the head bare to inspection. The medic itself was a square-headed Blocklander in a white medical apron and carrying a briefcase. It held out a hand, and felt the pulse of Jack Steel. Then it spoke in a voice like a rudimentary speech simulator.
"His Circulatory System Is Fading Fast," the Blocklander reported. "If He Does Not Improve, We Will Have To Hook Him To A Circulatory Automation Machine And Place Him In Suspended Animation."
"What are you currently giving him," Helen asked.
"I Have Administered A Dose Of Stabilizer," the medic said. "With Luck It Will Keep His Pulse Going Long Enough To Find A More Permanent Solution Until His Injury Heals Enough For Normal Circulation To Resume."
The medic walked over to a control panel on the wall and began to punch in some buttons.
"Shall I Patch In Builderman Right Now, Sir And Madam?" it asked.
"Please do," said John. "Immediately."
"Yes Sir." The medic punched a large orange button, and Builderman appeared on a small wall screen. He looked haggard, but he brightened at the sight of John and Helen.
"Ah, it's you," he beamed. "How goes the mission?"
"Jack's been shot, sir," John said flatly.
There was silence on the line.
"What? Shot? By whom?"
"There was a traitor aboard the ship," Helen replied. "Whose traitor it is, we don't know yet, but we'll find out when we've captured him."
"He's still on the loose?"
"Yes, sir," Helen said, "but believe me, we are trying our best."
"Okay," saidBuilderman. "When you find the traitor, give him an interrogation, and if he doesn't cooperate then try to intensify the pressure."
"Yes, sir," Helen and John said together.
"Good. Now, I'd like to see Doctor White. Doctor White, please make your report."
Doctor White, the Blocklander, cleared its throat. It sounded like a highly compressed laser blast. "Sir, He Is In Unstable Condition. He Has A Weakened Circulatory System From The Shot, Which Punctured A Lung. Tissue Is Being Repaired By An Internal Script As We Speak, But I May Need To Hook Him Up To A Machine."
"Sounds bad. Well, thank you for reporting, Doctor White. Now, I'll have to report this development and my orders to Captain GoldBC... I will resume correspondence with you tomorrow. Good day."
The feed cut out.
-OOO-
"Alas, it is all too possible, Jack."
Jack turned around to look at the person behind him, which turned out to be... him. It was an identical copy of himself.
"You're me," he said.
"Yes I am you," he replied.
"How are you here with me?" he asked.
"I am you and you are you and you are also me," he said.
"What?" he said, flummoxed.
"I'm your subconscious, dummy," he said. "I'm that one part of your brain that determines what you are and what you become and where you've been. I'm the subconscious personified... except I'm not because you're yourself personified in your mind."
"I don't get it," he said.
"Agh, you make me hurt with your forebrained stupidity," he said. "I'm you and you're also you, but we are different you's." He approached him. Jack saw that this subconscious-Jack was wearing the clothes he'd be wearing in the future, aboard the Great Justice. There was even, now that he came to look, blood from a bullet hole in the other Jack's back.
"I think I get it now," Jack said. "What do you want?"
"I want to keep you alive," the other Jack replied. "I'm you, and you're me, of course. I'm a self-preservationist just like I am. Or should I say you are. But of course, the formal way of addressing one's self is I."
"I'd pay me good money if I shut up," Jack snapped.
"Fine," the other Jack exclaimed, raising his hands to chest level, open, palms facing out, in a ridiculous parody of shock. "I can see you don't need me to survive. I'll just be off, and you can help yourself stay alive, okay?" He began to fade.
"Wait, no!" Jack screamed. The other Jack paused in mid-fade out, and then reappeared, smiling slightly as though he had just won, which of course he had.
"Then, allow me to show myself the way out of my predicament," he sneered.
They walked on towards the station, the other Jack falling into step beside him. Jack saw that the other Jack walked with a purposeful stride, while at the same time he himself had fallen back into his old habitual slouch. It was kind of intimidating.
Do I really look that way to other people? Jack thought.
"Yes I do," the other Jack said. "Now shut up and walk."
They continued to walk in silence.
"What is this place?" Jack inquired at last.
"It's a mental simulation," the other Jack explained. "You and I, or should I say you and you, are drawing from my memory as a fallback. It happens a lot during the really serious injuries... like being shot, as me and me both have been."
"So I'm still alive?"
"Not... as such. I'm in a state of... well, I guess the best word to use is... limbo. We're not dead, not alive. My body does function, but my mind has temporarily taken over as the plane of my existence."
"That's some Zen crap right there," Jack muttered.
"Indeed, that is some Zen crap," the other Jack said. "Come. I must stop the thing that is about to happen."
"What thing? Seriously, I ask question after question and all I get is-"
"Oh shut up." The other Jack quickened his pace. Jack had to run to keep up. They approached the building, keeping an eye out for the billboard. The time steadily ticked on closer to 10:00. Jack's breath became heavier, and he began to perspire, although why he did not know, being in a mental plane of existence after all.
Soon, outside, it began to rain. They hurried inside the building and sat down in a row of seats facing inwards. A sign over the check-in booth said, "EAST END DEPOSIT".
"Ohhhhh, that's what's going to happen," Jack said quietly.
"Yes," said the other Jack. "This place will be destroyed."
"Yeah, I remember," said Jack. "There was that bombing two years ago that screwed over everything. Yeah. Thousands of people dead, and the Associates showed their faces as monumental assholes."
"But you'll have a chance to stop it," said the other Jack.
"Really? Aw, sweet." Jack grinned.
"Not really, though," the other Jack added. "This is just our body's way of dealing with the bullet you were just shot with. This is the healing process, symbolically rendered in your mind's eye as a memory, but an interactive one. You can do whatever you want, but sooner or later, if you want to live... you'll stop the bombing."
"I'll need a weapon," said Jack.
"No you won't. That's what your fist is for."