To the readers

I appreciate any comments on the story.

Notes

[] are used to indicate stage directions

All dialogue follows a "Speaker: dialogue" format

{} are used for author comments.

CONTINUE

[Inès and Axel appear in the gym. They look at each other from across the gym. Each on their own mat with their own drill partner holding Escrima sticks. Inès looks around confused.]

Axel: [raises his hand] I'm going to use the bathroom.

[They both duck into the adjoining hallway with the locker rooms.]

[Ethan is back in the Home Economics class. He's in the middle of prepping his ingredients. Stops mid motion.]

Ethan: Guess it worked.

[When Nia tries to steal his vegetables when his back is turned, he slams a rolling pin down, startling her. Vincient goes to swipe the cutting board. Ethan stabs down his own knife on the cutting board with a smirk on his face. Ethan's phone starts ringing. He phases out his microphone near his mouth and speaker on his ear.]

Ai: It's morning for you right?

Ethan: Yeah, why the RTTP? Were we under attack?

[Cut to Axel and Inès also in the group call]

Axel: That was a Return to the Past.

Ai: Who triggered it?

[Ethan phases out his phone screen on his arm while he waits for his Silk Pie to bake. He's playing a phone game while they are having a conference call.]

Inès: What was everyone doing when the RTTP happened? I was eating lunch.

Axel: Ai and I were on the Annex training.

Inès: I am seeing the downsides of that name now.

Ethan: I was getting chewed out in the principal's office.

Axel: Something's wrong. Everyone meets up at the lab.

Axel: Okay, before we go, tell the teacher I'll be in the bathroom for a while.

Inès: Why can't you tell them?

Axel: Well I can't lie to Zama's face. [Inès gives him a questioning look.] No literally I cannot lie to him. Look at him.

Zama: Where do you think you two are going?

Inès: Bathroom.

Zama: At the same time, after you started talking about something?

[Inès gestures for Zama to come over.]

Axel: What are you doing?

Inès: Sir, Axel has a medical emergency and didn't want to make a big deal.

Zama: Oh. [to Axel] did you step on your leg wrong again? Is that why you need help walking?

Axel: Something is wrong, I need to check to make sure it doesn't get worse.

Zama: Okay, go on. I handle this quietly.

[As they are walking away as Axel pretends to be hurt.]

Axel: How did you know that would work? Zama is uncompromising. He never allows anyone to leave, no matter what their excuse.

Inès: School policy. He may be our drill instructor, but he's still a teacher. They have to let the students leave if it's medical.

[Ai is still streaming from the tower. Turns the camera back on.]

Ai: Hey everybody. Ai back here! [BING notification of chat donation] Do I have a moniker? No. [BING] Yes I do have some nicknames from Obelisk, but you don't want to hear them. [BING] "I" don't want you to hear them.

[Ethan reabsorbs his phone screen. Looks down at his arm at where it was split by the plastic and glass a second ago.]

Ethan: Huh

[Takes a knife he was using to cut vegetables. Slices and draws blood on forearm. Turns around and when Ruslan passes him, he "accidently" crashes into him.]

Ethan: OW, what was that for? You cut me!

[Mrs. Vangalder comes over.]

Mrs. Vangalder: What's the prob- oh Ethan get to the nurse's office immediately.

Ethan: He cut me.

Ruslan: I did NOT. I didn't even have a knife.

Mrs. Vangalder: Ethan get that treated. [Hands him to a towel to wrap his arm in.] Ruslan we need to talk.

[Ethan winks at Ruslan as he's out the door. Ethan inspects his arm, then covers it with red circuits and phases out metal from the knife he absorbed. It covers his arm in strips. Another flash and the metal is reabsorbed and the arm underneath is perfectly smooth skin.]

[Inès and Axel are walking in the lab. Axel sits down at the computer terminal.]

Inès: I don't think either of you have it completely right.

Axel: Hmm?

Inès: At the end of the day, you want to hang with someone because you like them. You can't force yourself to like people you dislike. And it won't end well if you join a group just for status.

Axel: [doesn't take his eyes off the screen] Yeah the talk from before.

Inès: A group can help someone gain a following. And the people inside those groups can help make them bigger by attracting people. And the bigger groups have the popular label attached to them which makes people want to join just to not "miss out".

Axel: Oh, to put it simply, being in a group doesn't make you popular, popular people determine what groups are popular.

Inès: No that's not the point. It's a phenomenon. You can't simplify it down.

Axel: [looks at her] A popular group can affect your opinion or interests. And influential people can affect a group's popularity. It's not cause and effect. It's more like…

Ai: A math equation with multiple unknown variables. Or "reading the flow".

Inès: Right. You can read the flow of things, pull on the strings, but you can't control the large picture. At least not at once and without a lot of work. Did you understand that "expert"?

Axel: [Doesn't pick up the sass] I think I need more observational data. [Turns back to the monitor.] Speaking of pulling on strings, while he's making us wait, I can at least whip up some payback to take him down a peg.

[Ethan arrives at the lab for a second time.]

Ethan: Why is it so dark in here.

[The stairs rotate around to reveal Axel sitting there with his fingers laced together with a ball of white stuffing from one of the old couches on his lap.]

Axel: This is the closest I could find to a swivel chair. [Tosses away the fluffball.]

[The purple and orange outfit appears as a translucent hologram beside Ethan.]

Ethan: If you're trying to be menacing, those colors aren't exactly helping.

Ombret: I'm not trying to be. Inès knows I'm the one for this conversation.

Ethan: Oh, Jebus Lorenzo not another one. [Axel looks confused at that] I'm not dealing with another mercurial mugwump.

Ombret: This isn't about me. Ethan where were you in the last version of today?

Ethan: In the principal's office.

Ombret: Why?

Ethan: I forked up, Rook was being a dunce in the cafeteria. Things got complicated, there was some knife and blood, and I got sent out of class. One trip to the principal's office and somehow, despite what shouldn't been a regular visit she suddenly is gun-ho to expel me. [looks at Axel accusingly] Know anything about that?

Axel: [confused] Should I?

Ombret: Nothing explicitly untrue there.

[beat]

Ombret: But you're hiding something. What's your secret agenda?

Axel: You're being paranoid.

Ethan: So are we done with me?

Axel: Oh no, we know you betrayed us.

[Ombret's hologram in the real world is distracted by something. Back in the tower, she turns to face the "door" to the tower. The lights of the cube of screens showing the real world around her turning transparent.

WRRHMM

The ripple effect on the tower wall fades, a black avatar has finished stepping in and draws its weapon.]

Ombret: Intruder. Bad guys! In the tower!

[On the top level, Ai stops singing the anime OP she was performing on stream, peaks over the side and sees the black avatar standing on the door walkway.

Ombret's purple glowing widgets around her head projecting the real world to her breaks as she dodges the agent's slash.

Ombret disappears from in front of Axel.]

Axel: DMG! What's happening?

Axel immediately dashes up the stairs to the terminal and pulls up the map.

[There are two sets of dots on the map. Inside the wireframe of the tower are one green and one yellow dot for Ombret and Ai, one red dot, and slightly just outside the tower is a ring of red dots surrounding it.

Axel: When did they get there!? Damn it, Bixby add "create enemy alarm system" to Annex programs list.

Axel's phone: Got it adding "create N Me sister to-

Ethan: Have you actually finished anything yet?

Axel: NOPE. Still need to learn!

Ombret: [splaying her cards from his sleeves] Ai run aw-

[Ai dives off the second level and swishes past Ombret into the void below. Ombret turns to follow her only to halt in place. She flung a few cards into the face of the white eyed figure to get it to release her and jumped off the tower disc. Snapped her fingers as she fell and heard a series of explosions above.

Fell into a sideways flowing stream of numbers and letters, bits of code stream flew by her, and floated there for a bit before she felt herself shift from sideways to vertical and she was floating up toward an identical disc she just leapt from.

Ai catches her hand as she passes and helps her land early.]

Ai: We've got to go. They might know how all the towers are connected.

Axel: [from above] Doesn't matter. They have the numbers to try all the wire paths on the fast travel network. You've escaped them surrounding you, just run before they find-

[The same avatar from before floats up, pushes off the wall and tackles Ombret.]

Ombret: I exploded your face!?

Ai: The tower heals everyone. You can't damage each other in here. Knock them off or throw them out!

[Ombret hoists and swings with her guillotine. The agent blurs, shifts and appears behind her swing. Elbow jab her in the head as it controls her arm. Rapid series of knee to the gut, snap kick to the head jerking her head back, leg lock and hip throw Ombret to the tower floor.]

Ombret: [dizzy][pulls out a deck of cards from her sleeve] Fifty two pick up.

[Bridges the cards and they spray out in a fountain around the three of them.]

Ombret: You said we're immortal in here right?

[The tower's interior turns orange as all the cards detonate, launching Ai and Ombret out the tower from two different points. They land on the side of the valley of pillars in the inner zone.

The black avatar jerks as its body shifts and bends back from the edge of the explosion.

They both get up and run away to where one of the bridges in the inner zone leads to the elevator platform plateau.]

[As they board the elevator, Ombret aims the EMP back on the bridge.]

Ombret: Better get rid of the junk now.

FUMP

[EMP cap goes flying back onto the bridge where it sticks.]

Ombret: Wait, if they can enter towers, that means they aren't monsters right?

Ai: Yeah.

Ombret: Then they are actual people. Can't we do a time iteration and just undo all of this?

Ai: Okay, I understand this science goes over your head-

Ombret: It could be on another planet.

Ai: -but Ethan already triggered 1 "today" so we can't do it again until we reach the point in time he triggered it from. It's 12:30 now so we can't until 2:40. Since Ethan took it upon himself to violate the boundaries of space-time, he's screwed us literally and quantifiably.

Ombret: [pauses to think about what Ai just said] You just made up a word.

KEEP READING. NEXT PAGE.