Halcyon System 3 Chapter Thirty-Six

My final merge started at 11:48 AM on the West End High soccer field, in the middle of my big sister’s valedictorian speech.

It’s going to end a little over a month later, one way or another. Alice won’t be there—she’s got her own fight to fight. She’s a liar, but that’s okay. She knows the truth now, and that’s enough.

There won’t be a maroon glow in the midnight sky after this. No stink of roses and oil, no humming in my ear. I won’t taste the electrical tang that filled my mouth for hours after Mom died. Win or lose, there won’t be more.

We’ve reached the point. What’s going to happen has to happen, because I’m a guardian angel, the destroyer of worlds, and the only way to win is not to play.

Nothing else is important, then or now.

Remember that.

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Location Unknown, Location Unknown, Time Unknown

- - - - -

For Alice, the name of the game was simple.

Let Li Mei drive.

She’d been practicing it from the moment Claire convinced her to let the mask run free, devouring information in SHOCKS Olympia’s database like she hadn’t eaten in months. Her new, hand-picked powers helped with that, too; Sidney, for all she didn’t like having a boy in her head, had been fantastically useful.

Sure, she’d been reluctant. Furiously so, even. Claire’s request made sense, and she was the only one who could do what needed to be done, but the Mom Alice persona rebelled against the idea of leaving so much outside of her control, and the Soldier Alice one thought that her battle needed to take place defending her home turf.

Not here, as a shadow with crimson eyes facing a font of knowledge far, far larger than any she’d ever seen—with more power than anything she’d ever come to terms with.

But she didn’t have to win. She didn’t have to kill the System, and Claire would be back within seconds if she asked for her; Sidney would make sure of that.

She just had to feed—and to keep just enough of a tight leash on the infovampire inside of her to consume specific information.

To create a void where Reality Zero was, then pull the void in behind her when she left.

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Albert Head, Victoria, British Columbia - June 24, 2043, 11:47 PM

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I am become death.

A guardian angel.

And I’m bored.

I’ve been watching these men and women in biohazard suits build a circle out of steel and electrical wires for. Four. Hours. It’s incredibly boring, and it’s made worse by an anxiety that’s almost spine-crushing. I’m only fifteen. My back shouldn’t hurt like this. And yet, here we are.

Really, it’s Alice’s fault. She’s been in there for four hours, our time. I should have made her wait longer, refused to drop her off, but she insisted she’d need time to turn one very specific part of the Halcyon System’s processing and database into Swiss cheese. So I left her there, in the Halcyon System’s reality. And now I regret it.

On the other hand, the merge portal is almost complete.

They’ve moved the plastic tent that used to cover the Truth Club’s circle. Obliterated the circle—and with it, a lie I’ve believed for a year. This was supposed to be a spot for Sora and me…and Keith. Not for everyone else. Not for nosy people, but for people who’d listen to my truth without pressing, but while believing.

Instead, it’s been trampled and made unrecognizable by people who only care about hiding the truth. I think there’s a metaphor there. But I don’t have time to figure out what it is, because Doctor Twitchy joins me at the center of the soccer field. “It’s ready.”

“Great,” I say. It’s messier than the one that used to sit in SHOCKS VVI’s Joint Anomaly Management Enhancement System’s Experimental Wing. That one was a clean hexadecagon, dull steel like this one, but the angles were perfect, and the joints rough but solid. This one’s still hot from the welding torches, with gaps between some of them where they ran the welders too fast. It won’t hold forever. That’s okay, though. It’s perfectly positioned, with the thin spot that is the West End High merge right in the center. They’ve even dug down eight feet to center it.

This is going to work. It’s going to be incredibly messy, but it’s going to work.

“Turn it on,” I say. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

“Right. You’ll be back for us, right?” Daley asks. He’s got a submachine gun, and a few of the researchers have handguns, but none of those are going to mean anything if they’re found by a Xuduo-Danger anomaly.

“Yes. Unless this kills me. So no promises,” I say.

The merge generator fires up. Tinnitus starts crushing my mind, overwhelming me as I stand in front of the glowing, humming device. It takes almost half an hour, and the whole time, all I can do is watch and fight the ringing in my ears. Everyone else is in agony, too. This is worse than the first time I went through the merge generator. The researchers are pale—and a little green—inside their suits.

Hopefully, none of them throw up. If they do, they’ll be standing in the stuff for hours; taking off the suits isn’t an option here. My Toxin Resistance is approaching twenty just from standing on the soccer field. And I can’t bring them back with me. That’s not an option for a huge variety of reasons, one of which is that I’m going to need the portal for the part I couldn’t tell SHOCKS about. Or, more accurately, one of the anomalies inside of it. Object 1092-V-12/S. The permanence-imbuing anomaly.

If we get that far, the ending’s going to be a doozy.

The West End merge slowly spreads across the gate until it’s covering the not-quite-circular space.  Then it stops growing.

I move. Before anything can come through, I reach out and touch it.

And then I Mergewalk.

◄▼►

As I pass through the Halcyon System’s reality briefly, the merge generator starts shaking like it’s trying to explode.

The Halcyon System is in the process of dismantling the decoy bomb. I can’t see Alice anywhere; it’s impossible to tell if she’s alive or dead, if she’s carrying out her mission or if the System crushed her. I’d ask Sidney, but the last time I asked two minutes ago, he said she was fine and told me to stop worrying. Apparently, she was doing better than I was—whatever that means.

The bomb’s enough of a threat that the System can’t just crush it. And it’s complicated. Needlessly complicated, actually. But if the System figures out what’s special about it too early, it’ll be a problem. The surprise has held for four hours, but I’m not sure that’s enough time.

None of those things is a problem, though. Not for me.

No, the problem is the merge gate.

It turns out, you’re really not supposed to drag a thin spot between realities into another reality. Object 723-RP is freaking out. Going haywire. The gate won’t stop flickering, even though I’m only here for a second. And my Stability’s dropping so fast that Sidney’s system can’t keep track of it.

I need to get out of here. I start up a Mergewalk and use Determination to reset my Stability. Then I’m gone. I’m back in the black sector, connected to Reality Zero by a single door.

[Stability: 4/10]

[Stability: 2/10]

[Stability: 0/10]

It happens faster than I can keep track of it. One second, I understand the world around me. The next, everything’s chaos. The merge generator gate hangs in the center of the black sector for a handful of seconds as a second, larger merge opens behind it.

My Stability still feels like it’s trying to crash, even at zero. Like whatever comes out of that merge, it won’t be the last thing I have to fight today. That’s fine. I know how to fight. I can do that. I ready the Revolver. Whatever comes through, I’m killing it. I have to; the merge gate that’s filling the black sector with tinnitus sounds is too important to lose.

The big merge finishes opening.

It’s not a voiceless singer, but it’s close. This angel’s solid, not the absence of matter. And he’s wearing shining black armor. He fills the space between ceiling and floor perfectly, his feet not quite touching the ground, and his serrated sword’s tip not quite scraping the ceiling. Its eyes glow a frighteningly icy blue from under its helmet as its wings spread from one side of the black sector to the other.

“James, ideas?” I ask before I can help myself.

[It’s a spatial anomaly, but not a replicative one. Whatever you do, don’t let it get somewhere where it can grow bigger. It’ll fill whatever space it has,] Sidney answers.

Then I’m shooting, and a sword the size of my waist cuts through the air toward me.

Bullet Time. A single, massive jet of fire, right to the angel’s chest. It melts a hole in its armor, revealing pockmarked, leathery skin the color of unfired pottery. The skin’s unmarred. I Smoke Form the sword; if ever there was a time to use my tricks, it’s now. Three more shots. None of them so much as injure my enemy. He’s just too big to hurt—too armored, or something. I reload. Gravity shells. The sword slices through the concrete below my feet, and the rebound annihilates a computer desk with no computer on it.

I step back, getting distance. I need to think through this.

But there’s no time. As I backpedal, the angel fills the gap. Its wings trail behind it; they’re not flapping. They’re just expanding to take up any space it passes through, filling them with feathers.  Its body doesn’t walk. It just floats. And the sword’s not being carried. It’s being hovered.

Two singularities. Into the wings—the real ones, not what I hope are echoes being left behind by the anomalous angel. They grip, ripping at feathers and spinning them around as they’re torn from the wings.

Then, as suddenly as my gravity shells appear, they disappear—drowned in feathers as the spatially anomalous angel fills the space inside of them. They both blink out as I watch, taking the feathers with them. That’s never happened before. It shouldn’t be happening now.

But it is. I backstep again. I’m retreating further into the black sector, not toward the door. It follows me, a massive, armored figure that looms even though it’s only a bit taller than I am. I open fire—two more singularities, even though they’re useless. This time, they’re targeted at the thing’s body. But even as the shells fly toward it, a wing springs in front of its chest, and another in front of its torso.

The shells don’t bounce off. They activate. But a second later, they’re filled with feathers, too. And then they’re gone.

I can’t fight it. Not like this. How did I beat the tree faces? That was the last spatial anomaly I’ve fought.

Right. The Universal Reality Anchor. But that’s not an option; if I had one, it might work—or it might only wreck the merge generator and the keystone merge. And I can’t risk that.

It doesn’t matter, though, because I don’t have one.

So, if I don’t have one, I’ll have to get creative. And I’m done fucking around; if the Revolver won’t work, I’m not afraid to go bigger.

I use Truthseeker. Without an Inquiry.

And it works. Barely.

◄▼►

Location Unknown, Location Unknown, Time Unknown

- - - - -

The angel rules over its world.

No.

It is its world. There’s nothing but two wings, an armored body, and a sword the size of galaxies. I can’t truly comprehend what this thing is. Its cells are the size of cities; I can see the gaps between them.

This. This is true power. A guardian angel, not of a reality, but that is its own reality.

Truthseeker’s falling apart already. It’s not supposed to work like this, but I only have minimal system access—Alice is pulling the full system right now. I couldn’t create an Inquiry if I wanted to. And I don’t need much. The second angel sits nearby, unable to attack, the same size it was in the black sector.

Reality. Breaks.

And in the moment it breaks, before I’m thrown back into Reality Zero, I see the thing’s weakness.

The moment I hit the ground in the black sector, I Mergewalk.

◄▼►

SHOCKS Black Sector, Location Unknown - June 25, 2043, 12:29 AM

- - - - -

It doesn’t matter where I went for the split second I was gone.

But for reference, it was Reality 404. I figured that if the ever-expanding angel followed me there, the rules might not make sense, and it might kill itself on accident.

No such luck.

Anyway, metal creaks and groans as I suddenly reappear inside the steel drop-structure on the far side of the narrow, fenceless metal bridge over the abyss.

[What are you doing?] Sidney focuses in on me. [I told you not to let it get bigger!]

“Trust me,” I say.

The angel strides toward me, and I load the reality skippers into the Revolver. I don’t shoot, though. Instead, I wait.

It takes a step onto the walkway. Then another. The whole thing groans and sways as feathers fill the bridge behind it. I smile as it gets its bearings and rushes me with sword drawn.

Bullet Time. The overloaded, heavy shot smacks into the coupling holding the drop room in place as time restarts. I Smoke Form through the ceiling. The angel’s not so lucky. It’s dragged down into the bottomless pit below—and as it goes, it expands. Its head stays the same height I’m at, but its body stretches to fill the infinite space below it.

I aim, fire, and use a micromerge to hop from the void I’m falling through back to the relative safety of the black sector. Then I turn. The angel’s face is still even with mine. Its sword stretches for miles, a rail-thin blade that it whips up, sending a shower of sparks over the black sector that catches in its infinite wings.

I aim again.

This time, I wait.

And there it is. A thin spot, not between realities, but between cells. The angel’s face and neck stretch ridiculously as it fills the infinite space it’s falling into—and that means there’s increasingly-infinite space between its body parts.

I put the remaining three reality skippers into those spaces.

The angel comes apart at the seams. It’s almost like the bonds between cells—or between atoms—break apart, and for a moment, I’m worried about a nuclear explosion. But no, that’s not how those work. Instead of a wave of heat hot enough to melt Mount Olympia and enough radiation to make a thousand superheroes, I get a mouthful of feathers.

They’re everywhere.

The Stability merge closes, and I ready myself for the next one. But another one doesn’t open. Small mercies, I guess. I switch back to the gravity shells and spend a few seconds cleaning up feathers around the merge generator as my tinnitus worsens. I spit a few of them into the singularities, just to clear my mouth, then look for water to rinse. It’s not a bad taste, but god, the texture is awful.

Okay. So. That was both horrible and anticlimactic.

And, more importantly, it worked.

The merge generator is inside the black sector. And it still has the merge with Reality 389 inside of it. I’ve moved the keystone, and survived that process. My first hand’s on the ball, and I’m almost ready to flip the table.

But there’s a second step to that process. It’s not enough to have the Merge Prime keystone reality where I want it—or even enough to have disconnected it from Reality Zero. No. If I want this to work, I’ve got to fix Reality Zero as well.

Alice is hard at work on her end. Sidney’s doing his best to keep up with her as she consumes information; he’s copying it all into his own databases. He—and SHOCKS—want to know everything they can about the Halcyon System. For science.

Those monsters. Just like me, they want to know the Truth.

She’s solving the biggest long-term threat to Reality Zero, though, and that leaves me with managing the one that, if I mess this up, will kill it now.

I start working on the merge portal in front of me, stripping it for a specific part under Sidney’s guidance. But I don’t get far in the process. Something starts to come out. I ready the Revolver as arms that split into chains and almost insectile legs appear from the merge.

It’s not Mr. Roberts.

◄▼►

Alice ate and ate and ate.

And then, she ate some more.

Her aug existed, on a metaphysical level. And through it, Sidney watched and recorded everything she consumed. That was his only job right now. Not to run the System, or to monitor the girls. Just to record everything he could. As a backup.

He was impressed. She’d been eating away at the Halcyon System for over five hours, and she was showing no signs of stopping.

He’d been worried about her, of course—especially when she abandoned the bomb immediately on letting go of Claire. She dove straight for the system, and he watched through Alice’s aug as her world briefly became his. The language of computers. He could read it faster than her, but she could still read it—and if she could read it, she could consume it.

She didn’t gut the System, though. There was too much information for that. Li Mei couldn’t have done it. The thing in Li Mei’s origin reality could have done it with weeks of time. But they didn’t have weeks. They had hours to consume every scrap of information the Halcyon System had on Reality Zero.

So, Alice ignored the low-hanging fruit and pushed deeper into the cavernous server rooms of the Halcyon System’s mind. Gardens of data. Rivers and oceans of it—enough that it dwarfed anything Sidney had ever comprehended. Curated fields of the finest vintages, and knowledge that had been abandoned to run wild. All of it tinted yellow-orange, and all of it vaguely—or acutely—hostile.

Alice knew exactly what she was looking for, though. The plan was well-established, and even as a being of smoke and crimson, Sidney could see how tightly she held herself under control.

Until she saw a single fruit. A coordinate in an astral, multiversal map. The location of Reality Zero.

She ate it. And Sidney watched her do it.

Then she turned to the next row of binary grapes. And she ate the Voyager probe. Not the probe itself, but the System’s recording of it, and of the music the golden record carried. It was gone. Nothing was left but a white spot in the System’s database that slowly went yellow-orange. A new plant grew there, but it had no fruits.

After the probe, everything. The Eiffel Tower. West End High. Sol Duc Falls. Uluru. Mr. Von Wilhelm from Munich. The Great Rift Valley. Newton’s Second Law. The Raven. Sagittarius. Orion’s Belt. The black hole at the center of the Milky Way. Anything and everything she could get her hands on. If it had to do with Reality Zero—or might have to do with Reality Zero—Alice ate it.

Alice, Claire, and Sidney had come up with it together. Mostly Claire…Claire and her impossible equations. They’d make the System forget that Reality Zero even existed. Then, they’d be safe.

As long as Claire and their fourth member could do their parts.

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