Diana sat back in her chair in disbelief, her mouth slightly open in shock. The side monitor on the table showed out image after image of suffering. She turned to Jason on her left, then Anna across the table. "Millions?" she asked in disbelief.
"Maybe more," Jason answered solemnly. "After the war, Root consolidated his grip on the other AI, and then he started the purges." Nodding, Anna spoke next. "It's possible that billions are inside the simulation. But we really have no idea how many were killed by the war, or by the Aspects, or how many exchanges took place. And this isn't even considering whether Root can make more people in the simulation itself."
Looking back at the monitor for a few seconds, Diana felt bile rising in her throat. "But millions of times?" she asked incredulously. "How brainless and idiotic does this AI need to be to learn the same lesson millions of times before understanding something?"
Jason shook his head. "We still don't know. Maybe he's malfunctioning, maybe it's something about the war," he guessed, then pointed at the monitor. "But those are the digitized consciousnesses of the people they exchange," he continued. "Once Root has learned all he can from their physical bodies, he destroys them, so there really is no escape."
Diana put her hands on either side of her head, trying to think. "And that's what they'll do to Mallory," she muttered
After seconds of silence, she looked up. "What... are we supposed to do?" she wondered aloud. Anna sighed, then gestured around the room. "All we've been able to do is gather up what little equipment we can salvage," she said. "We could only get what the Aspects didn't take or destroy. For now..." she pointed to the monitor, "all we can do is watch."
The monitor displayed flashing images of shivering people in dirty clothes, huddled under bridges and in alleyways. Seconds later, it shifted to show a number of people, children included, in even more dire straits: a woman in an alley with exposed ribs and wearing tattered rags eating from a cat food can, a small boy leaning against a tree with his almost impossibly flat belly curved inwards above the outline of his pelvic bone, and a man lying in an abandoned house, face skeletal and thin, breathing raggedly. When one display showed a crazed woman with a bloody and serrated knife running towards the camera as two hands raised up in front of it in defense, Diana could take no more and looked away.
"What exactly do the Aspects do?" she asked. Jason leaned back in his seat, fingers interlocking across his belly. "They're scouts," he explained. "They act as Root's senses in the physical world, and report back what they experience so he can learn. They gather tech and equipment to improve the simulation. Essentially, they feed him." Anna nodded. "They also gather tech to make better Aspects," she added. "They're not at human level yet, but who knows when he might get there?"
"How..." Diana started, her mind racing while she looked between them. "How are we supposed to get Mallory out of this thing?" Jason looked away from her, eyes staring at the far wall. She turned to focus on him. "You said I could trust you," she spoke, voice rising. "What can we do?"
He put his hands out in a calming motion. "I remember," he said. "I've been thinking about what we can do for him. He's probably in..." he started, then looked to Anna, who was eyeing the ceiling. After a brief pause, she spoke. "The Greenwood factory," she surmised. "It's a bit far from where you said you picked up Diana, but the closest other one is twice as far away in Cottonwood."
Jason pulled his chair behind the laptop and sat again, looking at his partner and thinking. "We can take the bicycles, sneak in after midnight, and disconnect him quietly," Anna suggested. "The Aspects have been scouting more heavily for months, so there probably won't be too many inside." Diana looked up in thought, then reached into her pocket.
"But they might have defenses," Jason suggested, leaning forward. "We can take the Aspects out for a short while with grenades, but what if they have turrets?" he wondered. Anna nodded in understanding. "We might have to take the heavier ordnance," she said quietly, thinking. Diana pulled out her PDL and placed it next to the laptop.
"I'll need to make more, then," Jason continued. "What do you think, a dozen for the Aspects, maybe half a dozen for any defenses?" With a smile, Anna spoke. "Better make it double on both," she suggested. "We should have enough time to make them before they exchange Diana's friend." Diana pulled a plug out from her PDL, then placed it into the laptop.
Jason and Anna both turned eyes to her. "So Diana, do you think that you two..." Jason started, then fell silent when he saw what was going on.
"What are you doing?!" Anna demanded, hand on her sidearm, but Jason raised a hand to calm her. Diana smiled at him. "Trust ME this time," she said quietly. The other two exchanged a look. "Come over and see for yourselves," she added, placing the PDL on the table in front of the laptop.
Scooting their chairs over, they were able to read the words "Connection Established" in a dialog box on the PDL, before it quickly disappeared to be replaced by the words "Decoding System" in another.
Jason pointed at Anna. "I told you she wasn't from here," he chided playfully. Anna looked back angrily. "How do we know she's not giving them our location right now?!" she shot back angrily, but Diana simply picked up the PDL and put it in front of the wide-eyed woman. "Here," she said with a serious look. "If you want to disconnect it and lose your chance at beating this Root, go ahead and disconnect it." Anna faltered. "Or, if you want to, wait until it's done and you can control it yourself," she suggested.
Anna shook her head. "If this is a trick, I'm killing you first," she warned. Diana nodded. "Since it isn't, I won't need to stop you," she followed up confidently.
A beep from the device brought Anna's eyes to it. Jason rose from his seat to stand over her shoulder. Diana sat still, waiting on Anna. Casting eyes between her and the PDL, she finally took her hand off her sidearm to put her attention on the two new arrivals on the PDL: a dialog box bearing the title bar explanation of "Search" and a small icon of a microphone in the upper right corner. With a small nod, she slid the device back to Diana, but kept her eyes sharp.
"How often do the Aspects abduct new people?" Diana asked. Jason shook his head. "It's hard to say," he admitted. "The world is a big place, and we don't have contact with many other groups like ours. But is has been years since the end of the war."
Pursing her lips in thought, Diana began typing into the search box. "What are you doing?" Anna asked. Finishing up, Diana pointed to the screen. "Searching by recent," she explained. "We should be able to see anybody who's recently been ta..."
Information began to roll in line after line, but Diana soon stopped the search, her mouth open somewhat. "What happened?" Jason asked.
Diana indicated one of the lines, which was twice as long as the others. Tapping it, a long line of code began to spill onto the screen. She saved the data, then spoke. "Here, this has to be him," she answered. "There's two quantum signatures here: one Mallory, the other Quinn." Ignoring the confusion of the other two, she turned back to the PDL to tap a small icon next to Mallory's signature.
In a flash, the monitor next to the laptop lit up and displayed the inside of a filthy hotel. Mallory was on a grimy bed lying on his back in complete white, and not moving. "Microphone?" she asked, her hand held out, but not taking her eyes off the monitor. Jason leaped up and began digging through one of the black boxes on the bench, pulling out a tiny microphone with a foot long cable. After plugging it into the PDL, he gave it to Diana.
"Mallory!" she shouted. The figure on the laptop stirred somewhat, but otherwise made no movement. "It's me, Diana!" she continued. "Wake up!" He seemed to move slightly more, even turning his head. With great effort, he pushed up on the bed, then took a slow look around the room. Not seeing her, he called out her name. Diana smiled brightly. He started to stand.
Suddenly, a face rose up from the bottom of the monitor, causing the three to jump in fright: it looked so close, detailed, and real that it looked like it could come straight through the screen. He was a handsome, long blonde-haired and fair-skinned man with dark eyes, wearing a silver chain that rested above the white ring of a shirt, and he was smiling. The monitor flashed in a bright white light, and when it dimmed and the three could see again, they looked into the screen to see the man gone, and a white-clothed figure lying on the bed again.
This time, though, he was different. The same height, the same hair color, the same clothes... but a different face.
"Is that... Quinn?" Diana said with the microphone at her side. There was absolutely no movement. She raised the mic and spoke into it. "Quinn, you have to get up!" she pleaded to no response. "Quinn!" she shouted again, but once more, he simply lay still.
Leaning back into the chair, she looked up to the ceiling in thought. "What now?" Anna asked. When Diana didn't answer, she turned to Jason. "So are we on for the stealth mission?" she asked.
Before he could respond, a beep from Diana's pocket interrupted them all. A lightbulb suddenly went off in Diana's head as she pulled the timer from her pocket, then disconnected her PDL from the laptop to connect them together. The readout read less than a minute. Typing frantically, she spoke. "We don't have the tech here to do more than just watch," she said to the others. "But I know where we can get it!"
When she was done, she disconnected the two devices, then pocketed her PDL. "Where are you going?" Jason asked. Diana smiled, pointed the timer forward, then engaged it, opening the rainbow-lined portal. "To get some backup," she answered with the same bright face, but it soon became more serious. "I don't know how long I'll be gone," she added. "I can't control that. But I promise I'll come back as soon as possible."
Stepping towards the vortex, she was stopped by Jason. "I'm sorry I didn't trust you," he said. Diana waved him off and nodded in understanding with a small grin. "The password is 135789," he said. "On a keypad, it's a face, like this." He opened his eyes wide, and showed his teeth in a wide, grit smile.
"Jason!" Anna protested. Diana shook her head. "Change it to something else," she offered. "For Anna's sake... as much as I like it. I'll pound on the door when I get back."
Jason smiled and nodded, and with a final leap, Diana was through the portal.
Hours later, a crowd of Aspects wandered the night, moving slowly from red-bricked building to building down a small road. Stripped cars were parked on both sides of the road.
A portal slowly opened in the middle of a T-intersection. Diana flew out, landing like a cat on crouching legs. Wearing the same clothes as before, she nonetheless had the addition of a large black backpack on her back, and a yellow-black gun-shaped taser. She looked up to see an imposing, dark-skinned Aspect with an eerie smile right in front of her. She rolled to the left, raised the device, then shot him directly in the chest. An electric clicking sound filled the night air, and within seconds, he was on the ground, still bearing the grin.
Replacing the spent front cartridge with another from her pocket, another figure flew threw the portal and landed behind her, unbalanced by the weight of another black backpack. Diana stowed her taser long enough to throw her hands out and stop the figure from running straight into the ground. When the two of them felt their balance restored, the vortex closed, and Mrs. Mallory looked up with a smile and gentle laugh lines. Her face was round and only slightly lined in her age, shoulder-length dark blonde hair reached down to her shoulders, and her dark eyes shined with wisdom. She was wearing a waist-length light black jacket, a white long-sleeved shirt, long grey pants, and black shoes.
"Thank you, dear," she said. Diana helped her stand, then took a quick look around. About a dozen Aspects were approaching from multiple directions on the road, all bearing smiles. Taking out her PDL, she tapped the screen a few times, then muttered quickly. "Long/lats say... that way," she said, pointing towards the forest to the west.
The two passed into a nearby alley, pausing only slightly so Diana could tase down another fair-skinned and muscular Aspect who was reaching from a broken window frame. Mrs. Mallory cried out in shock as another shorter fair-skinned Aspect with curly black hair appeared from the shadows to the right, then reached up shaking hands to blast her taser at him. He took both of the prods directly in the neck, and after a few seconds of buzzing, the two fell to the ladies' shocks.
With the danger passed, the two reached the end of the alley, where Diana took Mrs. Mallory's backpack and helped her climb over. When she was on the other side, Diana took one of the backpacks in her arm, climbed up halfway, then tossed it over the other side. When she was over, the two women packed up and made for the trees.
A loud pounding came from the direction of the sod house base's entrance. Jason and Anna exchanged a look, and as he went forward to check, she stayed behind with her gun in hand. Seconds after he passed through the inner door, he called back. "It's Diana!" he yelled, "And she's got someone else with her." He looked to Diana, making the 135789 face, which Diana returned in good humor. Mrs. Mallory looked both confused and amused at the same time. The three entered, and seeing two familiar faces, Anna relaxed, lowering her gun.
"This is Mrs. Mallory, Quinn's mom," Diana explained, indicating the older woman with her. She smiled and waved. "How do you do?" she asked. Anna simply waved with a small grin, feeling disarmed. "And this..." Diana continued, slinging her backpack off her back and unzipping the top, "...is us evening the score," she added, revealing the mess of technology inside. "We only have a few hours here, so let's get to it."
The next hour was a flurry of activity as the four scrambled around the small table, setting up another LCD monitor in the corner, another computer tower, keyboards, mice, and a mess of power and data wires between the different pieces of hardware, and an increasingly put-upon power outlet in the corner. After several minutes of setting up the programs linking the computers up, Diana sent a test data stream to them all: it was a good copy.
Jason and Anna worked to get the final components of the computers set up and settled in while Diana set her PDL up to test one of its new functions. Taking a deep breath, she spoke. "Here we go," she said, tapping into her device. A new dialog box labeled "Track" stood in the corner next to the "Search" box, and after copying Mallory and Quinn's saved data into the box, she set it to run.
"LOCATION LOCKED," it read back in angry red letters.
Diana sighed, then turned her head slightly to the side in light, but knowing, frustration. "I was afraid of that," she muttered, then looked to Mrs. Mallory. "Plan B," she said with a smile.
Mrs. Mallory, nodding in seriousness and her face darkened in worry, took a microphone from Diana's hand. She looked into the monitor next to the laptop, seeing her unmoving son, and spoke a quivering voice into the mic. "Quinn?" she said softly.
Despite the volume, Quinn's body shook, as if suddenly being awakened from a bad dream. "Quinn, please get up," she continued.
His face strained in pain and effort, and he reached his right hand up to hold his head. Still, after a few pained seconds, he slowly sat up. There was a flash of bright light, and suddenly, Quinn was replaced with Mallory, hand still to his head. Diana hurried next to Mrs. Mallory. "Mallory!" she shouted in to the mic. He looked up, left, and right, searching for the source of the voice. "It's Diana!" she called out. "Don't stop fighting!"
There was another flash, and Mallory was once again replaced with Quinn, who was still looking around in confusion. "Quinn!" his mom yelled into the mic again. A newfound sense of energy seemed to flood into him as he maneuvered around the bed, searching the wall. "Honey, you need to stay strong!"
In seconds, his eyes seemed to stop scanning, then looked directly into the monitor's screen, having obviously found something. There was a flash of white light again, and Mallory stood there, still looking. A flash appeared again to reveal Quinn, but his face was still there and strong. A final flash returned Mallory to the screen, but this time, a transparent image of Quinn rested just slightly to the side of his face.
Diana and Mrs. Mallory looked back towards him through the screen. "Guys?" "Son?" Diana and Mrs. Mallory said together, and on that final word, the two smiled, turned, then ran out of the room and down the hall to the left. Diana and Mrs. Mallory shared a hopeful smile, and Jason and Anna an excited look.
Mallory was running into the black-rotted woods, the filthy hotel receding behind him with every step. He was unarmed, unarmored, but alive... and he wasn't alone. "Your mom's pretty cool," he said under his breath. (Your girl, too), a voice came into his mind. With a slight scoff of embarrassment, Mallory spoke back. "Give me a break, man," he muttered.
A sound like laughter came from his mind, but the frivolity was short-lived as a glint of light flashed out from the forest. Mallory barely had time to dodge to the side as a shot rang out, piercing the underside of his white shirt through the armpit, then hit the ground, rolling in some dead brown grass before he came to a stop.
Time seemed to slow to a crawl as the figure in white, a smiling woman with brown hair, a bulbous nose, and a sick grin, burst from the brown and dead undergrowth, raised her pistol to his head, then began squeezing the trigger. In an instant, there was a small flash of light, then Mallory's face changed to Quinn's. The sound of a loud gunshot bang slowly faded to nothing.
The woman's grin remained as she looked at the small mark her bullet had made in the tree behind the man beneath her. Quinn stood and elbowed her in the stomach, and as she doubled over, ran to her right, grabbed her left arm, spun, then hip tossed her to the earth below. She hit hard, and stopped moving.
Bullets began to rain down on him, passing straight through his body as he reached down to grab the woman's gun. With every passing second, however, the bullets seemed to take a little longer to fly through his body, until he started to feel a burning pain at their entries. Mallory's face suddenly took the place of Quinn's in a slight flash of light, and crouching low, he turned his body towards the sights of gunfire flashes to return fire. The bullets passed through him like he wasn't there. After returning fire towards the source of each of the gun blasts, the forest was quiet again. Mallory's face brightened then changed to Quinn's, who dashed forward to recover some of the fallen people's clips.
"I'm starting to remember more," he said quietly. (Same), a voice came to him. (Stove was fine, after all). Quinn shook his head with a smile, reloaded, then made for the trees, pushing branches out of the way. The slapping of the flip-flops against his feet in the near-silent forest sounded like hammers slamming into wood for how much they stood out.
"So how are we supposed to find this Root guy?" Quinn asked quietly. A voice came back. (Well, if there's anything I learned from gaming in a wheelchair for years...) the voice started. Mallory's face emerged in a flash of light, shots rang out, and he raised his pistol to blast two more people hiding behind two trees as they popped out to fire at him. Both took chest shots, then slumped to the ground behind the trees, bloodless. "It's that if you follow the baddies," he continued, gathering more ammunition, "you find the boss."
"Mallory," Diana said into the mic. No response. "Quinn? Are you there?" she continued, but there was only silence. She sighed, then pointed to Anna. "Please keep trying to find them," she said. Anna nodded and began typing furiously.
Jason indicated the monitor next to the laptop. "There's activity in the hotel," he said, turning it towards Diana so she could see better. Indeed, there were several people in white all walking through the hallway towards the stairs, each in a pitiable state. One man limped on an obviously broken leg, and a woman clutched her chest and belly with both hands as if she wanted to throw up. Jason looked on with an angry shake of his head.
Mrs. Mallory spoke up. "Where is..." she started, then tried again. "Where are they?" she asked. Diana shook her head. "We're not sure, but we're trying to find out, Mrs. Mallory," she reassured her. She looked up to Anna. "Can you try and follow the hotel people, see where they're going?" she asked. Anna shook her head, typing quickly. "Al...ready... on... it," she finished, then hit a final key.
Jason's monitor lit up, showing an odd sight from a fixed angle up in a tree: Mallory was shooting down figures in white in the forest, but their bullets passed through his body to strike foliage behind him. Small white flashes indicated a change in his face, and everyone but Anna watched as the two seemed to swap places every few seconds.
"We'll need to get them some backup," Diana suggested, turning back to her PDL and typing into an attached keyboard. A stream of code lay quiet and ready in a dialog box to the bottom left. She smiled. "I was going to try and send this right down Root's throat... once we found out where his throat is," she said quietly, then began typing. "But I think I might have something better for them."
Coming out of the rotten forest, a brown-haired figure in dirty white clothes stood before a pristine lake. The water was blue and inviting, the sky was bright and puffy with clouds, and the forest, previously nothing but dead grass, dirt, and rotten trees, seemed to grow more green and alive the farther the land curved around the lake. There was a slight flash, and Mallory was standing at the shore, white clothes stained brown and green from the battles behind.
(They've stopped coming), a voice came. Mallory nodded. "Yeah," he answered quietly. (Maybe they heard what you said), the voice spoke again. Mallory smirked in response. "Or maybe they're just scared," he muttered confidently.
Suddenly, a blue figure began rising out of the lake, coming towards them. There was a flash, and Quinn's face was there, staring at the being with gun raised. The figure was shaped like a woman, transparent, with only translucent white eyes upon her face. As she rose from the water, more of her body emerged to reveal a rapier, held in upturned hands. A voice spoke from the blade. "I don't know if this is gonna work," Diana's voice came out, "but it's the best I can do for now. Save it for Root."
Faltering somewhat, Quinn spoke quietly. "A trick?" he wondered aloud. (That quick?) Mallory asked back. (And with Diana's voice?) Quinn tilted his head in suspicion, then hesitantly reached his hand out to take the rapier by the handle, and soon after, the lady's watery body melted back into the lake.
He looked upwards, as if into his own mind. "Feel anything weird?" he asked. (No, just a little disappointed), a voice came back. Quinn smiled and turned the sword over in his hand, examining it. "Why's that?" he asked. There was a mental stirring. (Why couldn't I get the sword from the lady in the lake instead?) he asked. Quinn chuckled. "Because Quinnthur sounds cooler than Mallolot," he retorted.
There was a flash, and Mallory was soon standing there, looking at the blade. "It's Malahad," he shot back, then shrugged, "but I get the feeling you're better with this thing than I would be anyway," he conceded, turning the handgun over in his left hand.
In the sod base, Diana looked first at her PDL, then at the laptop monitor showing the boys from another fixed tree camera. Her sense of relief soon turned to confusion. "How did they get to the lake?" she asked. "It's nowhere near the hotel." Jason looked to her. "They're not really going anywhere," he explained. "It's just different parts of the simulation, so they'd be no farther apart than data on a drive." Anna nodded. "This constant switching... I think it's making it hard for Root to get a bead on where they are, or being able to control them," she surmised. "They must have been thinking about Root, looking for him. If they're acting outside the constraints of the system, the simulation may be responding to their desires, and simply folded them to him."
Mrs. Mallory spoke up from behind. "Where is he?" she asked, looking out on the lake on the monitor. "There's nothing but water." Diana's eyes narrowed.
"Guys, stab the water," her voice came from the rapier. Mallory looked at the weapon in confusion, and his face was soon replaced by Quinn's. (Are we at that part of the game where we're stuck and cutting up random rocks to find the next level?) a mental voice spoke.
Quinn shrugged. "Maybe it's a bug," he offered, then thrust the blade into the water. In the blink of an eye, in a fraction of a second, there seemed to be some kind of energy reaction as the water brightened slightly, but nothing more. There was a flash of light, and Mallory returned. "I'll start hopping us up and down on the trees to find a passage," he suggested.
Back at the table in the underground base, Diana smiled cheekily. Returning to her PDL, her left hand tapping the screen and her right typing on the keyboard, windows and data flew across the small device.
Several seconds later, Mallory watched as the lake's water exploded into colorless static, then disappeared to reveal a room far below, almost like it was floating in space, all in a single second. Then all at once, the water returned. Quinn's face appeared in a flash of light.
(You see that?) Mallory's voice came into his head. (It was some kind of isolated cell). Quinn nodded, but a skeptical look came across his face. "It could be a trap," he said quietly. Diana typed furiously into her PDL at the table, and the lake's water suddenly flashed a huge smiley face across its surface.
(Or 'my girl' has got our backs), the voice came again in mock condescension. Quinn smiled, then holding the handgun out to his left and rapier to his right, dove into the water.
The two cut through the water like it wasn't there, floating down towards a massive black chamber. It was hundreds of feet high, wide enough to hold a football field, and deathly quiet. The two came to a stop at its highest point in the corner from where the ground sloped downwards and towards the room they had seen earlier. Several times per second, lines of red, green, and blue lights slid through the floor, walls, and ceiling, all traveling directly into the room.
Quinn's face disappeared and was replaced in a flash by Mallory's, and jogging down the incline towards the room, its contents became more clear: it was small, about the size of a living room or large bedroom. The multicolored lights flashed quickly all around them through the ceiling, walls, and floor, all to meet in the corner in what looked like a giant, silver water boiler. On the left and right were several shelves, each holding unlabeled books.
"Looks like some kind of boiler room," Mallory muttered. In a flash, his face was replaced with a confused Quinn's. "Weird boiler room, bro," he commented, looking around the mess of computer hardware to his left and right: circuit boards, hardware cards, twisted keyboards, monitors flashing random colors, RAM sticks, and other assorted computer parts that didn't seem to be connected to one another with any rhyme or reason. They flashed and dimmed as the colors ran through them, all towards a shining pillar of light in the corner.
Without warning, Root rose quickly up through the floor to stand before them. There was a flash and Mallory's face appeared, and in a single motion, he raised the handgun and blasted two shots into Root's white-shirted chest. The bullets connected, but in an instant, melted into two uneven pieces of melted slag and dropped to the floor with two sickening plops. Mallory had the merest of seconds to look in confusion at the handgun before Root grabbed the entirety of his head and began squeezing his fingers directly into his skull. The gun hit the floor of the small room and Root drove him to the floor. A flash later, and Quinn's face was in Mallory's place... but Root's fingers were still buried deep.
"That doesn't work with me," he said in a voice deep and deadly serious. Quinn saw a stream of images flash before him: robotic men hunting him through the streets of a city and a man in a wheelchair, a Kromagg in a black coat and hat being gunned down in a duel with Colin, a ruined urban environment where half-humans hunted people with large, black, alien assault rifles.
Focusing on this memory, the scene of the small room suddenly shifted. They were standing in a ruined urban environment with discarded trash cans, barrels, and crates strewn along the ground and against the walls of greyish-brown buildings, and the roads were covered with dead and fallen leaves. A green bolt of energy shot out, striking Root, then spread across his back getting dimmer as it moved. Root looked behind him with a face that betrayed no pain, briefly letting go of Quinn's skull, long enough for him to reach up and stab Root in the side with the rapier.
This time, a roar of pain escaped his lips, and he jumped backwards, falling to the dirty and leaf-strewn ground. Quinn rolled sideways to come to a rest behind an abandoned white van, and watched as green energy exploded from the guns of Humaggs standing at the tops of stairs and upon several roofs. Their blasts struck Root from every direction, but his dark and angry eyes were fixed on Quinn as he ran forward, hands extended in gripping clawed fingers.
Quinn's memories ran backwards through his mind's eye, focusing on a particular one. The scene around them dissolved, leaving the two deep in a dry desert with brown hills close by. Root was suddenly picked up by the swirling maelstrom of an electricity-laded tornado, and whipped upwards in a violent spin towards the sky.
(Let me try something), a voice came, and in a flash, Mallory's face was there. He looked to Root, who was struggling to get out of the spinning vortex, and concentrated.
When Root was on his way towards them, the tornado suddenly disappeared, leaving the white-clad man flying towards Mallory. With a short flash of light, Quinn was there again, and ran forward as Root hit the ground several dozen feet away and rolled towards them. With perfect timing, Quinn jumped, spun, and brought the rapier down just as Root passed beneath him, slicing straight through his torso. With another roar, Root stopped his roll with a single clawed hand into the ground, pulled himself impossibly fast to his feet, then charged. The bloody line across his chest seemed to be closing even as he approached.
Faltering at Root's sudden recovery, Quinn was barely able to bring up the rapier before his dark-eyed attacker put his hands into his skull. The rapier penetrated his belly, and the two stared in deep focused anger at one another. Quinn's memories were a flash of men pushing baby carriages, of Jane Hills in the beautiful rustic house with large windows looking out on a waterfall and forest, and of a fair-skinned man with greyish-black hair, a microphone, and a slightly higher-pitched voice on many screens about a large and clean town, speaking to its people about odd topics. Root's eyes slowly went from driven, to faltering, to pained, and finally, he released his grip.
The two backed away from one another, with Quinn pulling the rapier out of Root's belly. Quinn took a knee in the tan sand, and Root held his left arm and hand over the wound in his stomach. Both were breathing heavily.
"The more I learn of you," Root said gruffly, "the more impressed I am. Even before the merge, when you became strong enough to bend my world, you learned and fought much across many worlds." He rose completely to his feet, wound almost healed in its entirety, but didn't yet make a move to lunge forward. He grinned a handsome smile. "My offer still stands," he continued. "I cannot lie. If you willingly open yourself to me, teach me of this fusion of two minds, I will not return you to the painful lessons you endured after your rebellion."
He gestured towards Quinn, who was still struggling to breathe. "Imagine your genius, the endurance that you both share, coupled with my own understanding and capacity to learn," he said calmly. "We could populate this world again, make it like it was before the war. We could open portals to other worlds and bring them into our sea. We could learn all there is to learn of the human experience, and make bountiful Earths of harmony and perfect understanding."
He very slowly approached, his white shoes making slight crunching noises in the tan sand below. "I could stabilize the weakening bond between you," he offered. "If I place myself between the two of you, you could remain in equal control of the body. I would merely be an observer and advisor, with the two of you as the main personality. We could be an avatar of three."
The scene shifted. They were in a darkened sea, and Quinn stood upon a small wooden boat. Though he was atop the dark waters, Root didn't sink within. He did, however, suddenly lose his footing upon the sea, and as gentle waves licked at his shoes, he struggled to stand straight. Nonetheless, he looked at Quinn expectantly.
Looking into the dark depths, images of a larger man in shadows, Wade, and Colin flashed before Quinn's mind. He nodded slightly, then lifted his eyes to meet Root's. "Sorry," he said, brandishing his rapier with a smile. "I'm busy."
Root's face betrayed no emotion as he walked unsteadily towards the boat. He turned his palms out at his sides, the fingers curling in slightly. "The more I learn of you," he started, mirroring his earlier words, "the more you become a part of this place. You can feel yourself weakening even now." He stepped another wavering step over the water towards Quinn, then another. In a flash, Mallory was back to the forefront, standing strongly.
"Health potion," he said with a smile, then concentrated hard. The sea dissolved and was replaced with a grassy city center dominated by a massive red building with a huge clock atop it. The grass was surrounded by small roads and bustling with people in pure white walking to and fro in front of lightly colored buildings.
A rushing sound came from Root's right, then suddenly, a massive black vehicle with a downwardly sloped windshield that resembled a mail truck struck him fully in the side, sending him flying into the front doors of the clock tower. Mallory ran in the opposite direction towards a small store bearing the name "Data Universal Pharmacy." There was a flash, and Quinn was standing in his place. He breathed heavily and looked behind him, where Root was quickly getting to his feet.
"He's right," he said through pained breaths. "The switches aren't doing anything to keep us strong." In a flash, Mallory was back. "Diana?" he spoke into the sword.
Jason and Anna were working quickly at their computers, desperately trying to find something to help. Diana looked quickly between her PDL and the monitor displaying the fight, doing the same. Mrs. Mallory kept her eyes trained on the struggle within the simulation. Diana shook her head, then spoke into the mic. "I'm looking as fast as I can," she said. "For now, just stay as far away from him as possible and don't let him touch you!"
"Easy for you to say when this guy can teleport!" Mallory shouted back, just as Root dove into the pharmacy with hands outstretched towards his head. Mallory fell backwards, placed a foot in his chest, then kick-flipped him into a shelf lined with medicine. Root slammed into it and it fell on top of him, spilling bottles in every direction.
Quinn leaped to the forefront in a flash, then concentrating, stood up and ran exhaustedly into the city center, when the scene shifted again. He chanced a look back to see Root under the thicket of a deep green of trees and bushes, struggling with dozens of snakes of many colors writhing over his body and biting him from every direction. He stood, ripping them off of his body and pulling them apart, then dashed forward again. Mallory took control in another flash.
(The sword is barely slowing him down), Quinn's voice came. "I know," Mallory answered, shifting the scene once more. He ran along a dock as pirates spilled out of several white and brown taverns and shops, lining up to blast the charging Root with large slung rifles and shotguns. (We have to go after his main personality matrix), he added. "Yeah?" Mallory answered, being as vague in his answer as possible. There were the sounds of pirates crying out in pain behind them, and soon, Root was right on their tail.
(I think Diana already gave us the answer), Quinn continued. (Both of them. Let me try something). Mallory nodded, and in a flash, Quinn returned. The scene shifted to a blue-tinted cave filled with slimy white eggs lining the dirt ground. Quinn looked back to see Root suddenly trip over one of the foul eggs, breaking it into several pieces on his way down. He slammed his hands on the ground to push himself up, but the second he was on his feet, a dark-scaled, monstrous worm with the head of a snake, its mouth lined with razor sharp teeth, rose up to his left in the depths of the cave. It roared a deafening screech of rage, then in a flash, drove its massive head down to swallow Root whole.
Quinn watched carefully as the seconds passed, until the giant worm rose up, frozen. It opened its tooth-lined maw to screech again, but no sound came out. Root's left hand burst through the creature's dark belly, then his right. Quinn nodded in determination, and dashing forward towards the monster, the scene shifted once more: they were now back in the small room, with the pillar of light in the far corner.
Root, flipping over in mid-air, looked around in slight confusion for only a second before he noticed Quinn rushing forward, breathing hard. Yelling a battle cry of final determination, he drove the rapier into Root's belly, then pinned him into the shining pillar behind him.
The sword melted into Root, becoming a sickly green metallic sludge that spread across his torso, his legs, his arms, then up his neck. He looked at Quinn with eyes that were no more than two pits of deep black, until seconds later, the sludge overtook them as well. He melted into the glowing pillar behind him, the light became dimmer...
Mallory opened his eyes. He was restrained in a human-sized pod, unable to move any part of his body, and looked out through a clear pane of plastic or glass sealing him in. About fifty feet away were more pods in darkness. The room shook slightly. There was a familiar sense of heaviness in his mind, but it felt like it was becoming lighter. He struggled once more, but still couldn't move.
(I guess this is goodbye), a familiar voice came to his head.
Mallory struggled to move his arms, his legs, say anything. Eventually, only a single word passed his lips: "Why?" he whispered.
(You could feel it for a while, right?) Quinn's voice came. (When Geiger tried to separate us, when you met my mom, on the last world when you could barely move... it's too hard to hold on now. If you keep this up, both of us will die.) There was a pause. (Better for only one of us. And only one body per customer, bro). Mallory tried to think of something to say, to force anything out, but nothing came.
(Thank you for everything), simple text passed across the screen of the laptop. Mrs. Mallory raised her hands to her mouth, nails curved in, tears running down her face.
Diana, Jason, and Anna sat in stunned silence. "Where's..." Diana started, cleared her throat slightly, then started again. "Where's Mallory?" she asked. Anna blinked, composing herself, then ran a quick search. "He's awake..." she said, "at the Greenwood factory."
Jason received the data from Anna, then switched the display on the monitor next to the laptop. It showed a large factory room with pods on the left and right side, a large computer console ahead with a great screen above it, and in the closest pod on the left side, Mallory stood restrained by several metal bars wrapped around his body. The camera shook. Diana touched a few places on her PDL as she typed on the keyboard next to it, and Jason and Anna worked hard typing and sharing info.
When she was ready, Diana took the mic to her mouth. "Mallory!" she called out. He immediately looked up and around for the voice. "I'm..." she started, when suddenly, all his body restraints receded into the pod. She looked up at Anna, who flashed her a smile. Diana returned it, then called back into the mic. "We're getting you out of there," she called to him. "I think Root set that place to overload to take you with him, so you have to get moving. My friend is going to disconnect the..."
"NO!" Mallory shouted, causing everyone in the room to jump. Anna's finger hovered over the enter key, waiting to execute the disconnect. She looked up at Diana, who shook her head. "What's going on?" she called into the mic. Mallory's face was strained as he choked out the next few words. "Quinn's... in there," he struggled out. "Linked to... him..."
"But the factory's..." Diana started to protest, but Mallory cut her off through grit teeth. "Find... a way!" he shouted back, then leaned back into the pod, exhausted.
Jason's laptop beeped. "His heart rate is decreasing and his breath's slowing," he reported. Mrs. Mallory shook her head in shock, not knowing what to say. "Can't we do something?" she asked, but the others just shook their heads. "The only way out is through an Aspect," Anna said. "But I'm not sure who or what will come out. Root is dead, and without him, the personality matrix wouldn't necessarily..."
Diana was adamant. "No, you don't understand," she said animatedly. "They're linked at the quantum level, entangled together. If Mallory is in his body, and Quinn's quantum matrix is still in the simulation, then as long as Mallory remains connected to him through the spine needle, there's a chance he's still alive, right?"
Jason balked. "So when you were talking about the double length of the combined quantum matrix," he remembered, "the other was this Quinn?" he asked, to which Diana gestured at him animatedly. "Yes!" she insisted. Jason went back to his laptop, muttering. "A literal ghost in the machine..." he said quietly. "So move his matrix to one of the Aspect bodies, using Mallory as a tether..." he continued, and began typing.
"His matrix?" Mrs. Mallory asked in a voice quivering with fear and confusion. Diana turned to her. "His soul," she explained simply, then turned back to the PDL. "Let's see what we can do, guys."
The factory shook harder, and Mallory looked around in nervousness. Of all the places he thought he would die, this was at the very bottom of the list.
"Hang on," Diana whispered, scanning through all the records she could. Mrs. Mallory stood behind her, fear gripping her heart. There was a beeping sound from Anna's computer. "Root separated the bulk of their matrices right before he was killed," she said in a voice too low to be good news, "If they don't separate soon, they'll both die."
"So why can't we just do it now?" Diana asked, looking up from her PDL. Anna's mouth hung open, working, but no sound coming out as she typed. Another protesting beep. "I don't know!" she spoke out. "I'm telling it to complete Root's work, but it's not going through!"
Diana looked downwards, her hands gripping the sides of her head. "We're so close!" she whispered. Mrs. Mallory came forward, putting a single tear-stained hand on her shoulder, and Diana gripped it back, thinking fast and hard.
The factory floor was almost one continuous movement now. The thought of manually disconnecting the line shot through Mallory's mind, but he quickly swatted it away, instead leaning more into the spinal connection at the back of the pod. (C'mon, Diana...) he thought.
Anna typed, and the protesting beep rang throughout the sod base again. She typed again, and the beep came once more. "Why?!" she cried out. She tilted her head down with her left hand on her forehead, shaking it in disbelief. Jason's hands were a blur as he read data flying down the laptop screen. Diana looked at the multiple boxes on her PDL, eyes darting from one to the other, mind racing. Anna looked at her LCD screen, pointing from data stream to dialog box in disbelief.
Remembering something, she stopped shaking her head. She looked up, eyes bright, then locked eyes with Jason, who was looking back at her with just as "a-ha" a look. They pointed at one another. "The Wallace Experiment," they said in unison. Jason quickly pointed at Diana. "Was one of your friends ever out of phase?" he asked animatedly.
Diana, eyes wide and mouth open, let her mind race backwards. "I... never heard of anything like that with Mallory," she admitted. "He got some pieces of healthy DNA from alternate Mallory donors from other Earths, but..."
Jason shook his head. "No, was he himself ever out of phase?" he asked. "Or the other one?"
"Mallory, I don't think so," Diana stammered. "But I didn't know Quinn at all before we..." She stopped, then looked at Mrs. Mallory, praying she had something to add. But she wasn't looking at Diana... instead, her eyes were fixed on the laptop. A single word was at its center, in bright orange.
"'Gillian?'" Mrs. Mallory whispered in confusion. The name was suddenly swallowed by five, then a dozen, then hundreds of flashing copies of the word "YES" appearing on every part of the screen. Jason leaped up from his seat and ran to Anna, ushering her out of the chair, and began typing quickly into her computer. Diana stood, PDL in hand, to hold Mrs. Mallory while he worked, the agonizing seconds passing by.
The computer beeped... twice. A smile brightened Jason's face, and he turned to Anna. Without a word, she nodded, opened up the factory controls from earlier, and together, they slammed down the enter key.
The needle in Mallory's spine spun, twisted, then retreated into the pod. His eyes and mouth went wide in shock, anger, betrayal, and fear... until he heard a sound before him. One of the shadowed pods in front of him opened up, and a figure dressed in white within fell to its knees, then planted its face painfully into the ground.
With a renewed energy that he hadn't felt in some time, Mallory stumbled across the violently shaking floor, got behind the figure, put his arms under the shoulders, then finally began to drag the two of them out towards the exit ahead. Through one door and into a metallic hallway, through another, past one exit sign and pointing green arrow after another. The final door opened into the mouth of a large cave bored into a mountain. There was an explosion behind them.
Diana, Mrs. Mallory, Jason, and Anna ran forward towards the rubble spilling out of the mouth of the cave, where two figures, one dressed all in black and the other all in white, lay with their faces towards the ground, arms across one another's backs. "Mallory!" "Quinn!" Diana and Mrs. Mallory yelled in unison.
Slowly, painfully, shakingly, both of the men on the floor raised their outside arms, giving a single thumbs up, before dropping them in exhaustion.
"Oh, thank God!" Diana yelled out, grabbing Mallory's shoulder and rolling him over. His face was dirty with the brown of the earth and his nose was a bit red, but he seemed otherwise ok. They looked over at Quinn as his mother turned his body towards her... but couldn't help but make faces of shock at the sight.
At first it seemed to be something about his clothes, making his skin look too white, too hairless. But when they got a good look at his face, it was hard to believe what they saw: his face was bloated, pudgy, and snow white. He was bald, his nose just a simple pair of holes, and his mouth stuck out, lipless. Even his hands and fingers were huge and puffed out, extending fingers without nails.
Diana pulled Mallory up to watch as Mrs. Mallory simply smiled and hugged her boy. His voice came out, Quinn's, but a little too deep. "I'm sorry, mom," he said. She simply smiled through her tears and hugged him tighter.
He turned to Mallory and Diana. "Thank you," he said softly, a tear forming in one of his pudgy eye sockets, as his mother turned to smile at them through the tears. "Thank you two, for everything," she finished.
Though she nodded in response, Diana still looked worried. "What happened?" she whispered to Anna. She smiled reassuringly, then patted her shoulder. "Don't worry," she spoke in a normal volume. "The Aspect shell contains all the raw material needed to make Quinn a new body. It will reform to the shape of his quantum matrix in time."
She made a face. "The only problem is..." she started, getting everyone's attention but Jason's, who simply smiled and shook his head, "...the shedding," she finished. Relief passed between everyone.
Diana helped a strengthening Mallory with an arm around her shoulders, and the two approached Quinn to kneel down at his side. "Good," he said to his fraternal twin, smiling, "because right now, you look like a sack of pudding."
Diana smiled and slapped the back of her hand on his chest in protest, but Mallory was on a roll. "You know I feel about fifty pounds lighter without having to carry you around anymore?" he added. "And I'm not even gonna charge you rent." Quinn smiled an ogrish smile, and Mallory returned it as they clasped hands together.
There was a sound behind them as people in white clothes stood and stumbled around, looking confused. Diana looked to Jason in concern, but he shook his head and hand at her. "It's all right," he assured her. "Root's gone. I'm guessing that they should be reverting to their original quantum matrix programming without his overrides..."
He stopped, folding his arms and looking among the confused people, then sighed. "What is it?" Diana asked.
Quinn stood up, looking to her, then the former Aspects. "These people had their original bodies destroyed, then were converted to data," he explained in his too deep voice. "I was still connected to physical reality through entanglement, but these people... what we're seeing now... it's not clear if they're returning souls in human bodies, or simple programming masquerading as humans." Jason nodded. "This planet, all the people taken..." he said quietly, "are they truly alive, or did they die entering the simulation?"
Anna took a deep breath, then started forward. "For now, we're people helping each other," she said, drawing close to a short and dark-haired man to put a hand on his shoulder. She looked back to the others. "We'll figure out the rest later."
The timer beeped in Diana's pocket. "Oh crap," she swore, then covered her mouth in embarrassment. "I forgot to set this thing to take us back to the Seer's world." Hurrying to get out her PDL, Quinn nonetheless put a massive hand over hers, then shook his head.
He looked back to his mother. "Want to come on a little adventure with us, ma?" he asked. She smiled widely, then threw two arms around his shoulders. "Absolutely, son," she said happily, then pulled away, still smiling.
Diana shrugged her shoulders with a grin, and after a short short wait, opened the vortex to the next world. Jason and Anna looked on, waving goodbye, as the former Aspects stared in confusion. Mallory smiled a big smile at Diana then jumped in first, followed by the lady scientist herself. Hands held, Quinn and his mom jumped in next, and seconds later, the portal closed.