Halcyon System 3 Chapter Thirty-One

Candyland. Monopoly—the junior version. Checkers. Chutes and Ladders.

We used to play a lot of games. I don’t remember the specifics, but it’d just be Alice, Mom, Dad, and me. Sometimes, they’d let me play by myself, with Mom watching over my shoulder to make sure I did it right. Other times, I’d sit in Dad’s lap and we’d share a hand of cards. He’d ask me what we should do, and we’d play as a team.

We played a lot of games. A couple of times a week, we’d sit around the table for an hour or two, even if Dad was busy searching for work. If Mom had to stay in late, it’d just be three of us. But usually it was four.

There was one game I remember well, though.

Mousetrap.

◄▼►

SHOCKS Olympia Administrative Wing, Washington, USA- June 23, 2043, 11:13 PM

- - - - -

The trap snaps closed as I hit the ground.

And just like the mice on the Mousetrap board, Reality Zero is stuck.

I can leave. I could even take Alice. Maybe Sora and Dad. We could go to any number of different realities; the Halcyon System didn’t take away my Mergewalk. But what would be the point? There’s nowhere to go—not really. Anywhere I’d want to go would kill Sora, and even if it didn’t, we’d be leaving the whole world, and I don’t think I can do that, but I don’t know what I can do to save it.

I take a deep breath and try to pull up my status.

[System Access: 50%]

[Recalculating Skills, Knowledges, Bonds, and Inquiries. Adjusting Stability]

[Claire Pendleton]

          ►Stability 8/10

          ►Skills - Endurance 9, Urban Combat 4, Anomalous Computing Systems 10, Physical Anomaly Resistance 18, Open Mind 1, Revolver Mastery 26, Compulsion Resistance 2, SHOCKS Database 1, Mental Fortitude 3, Reality Anchoring 4, First Aid 2, Toxin Resistance 7, Radiation Resistance 2, Reality Skipper Shells, Bullet Time 2, Slither, Smoke Form, Analyze, Mergewalk 3, Mindscape, Soundbreak, Determination 2, Absolution 2, Truthseeker 2

          ►Truths - Anomalous Bond, West End High, SHOCKS Research Facility, JAMES, Stag Lord, Halcyon Bond, Li Mei and Infovampires, Dr. Dwyer, Provisional Reality AAA, Mergekilling, Part of the Ship, Guardian Angel, Void Bond, Reality One, Alexander the God, Giant Spiders, Heat Death

          ►Inquiries (0/0)

It still works. The System didn’t lie about current interference being maintained. On paper, at least, I have all my powers. But…the Inquiries are gone. All of them. Additional interference will not be allowed. I guess that means…

That means, unless I can figure out how to power up without the System, I’m capped here. Stuck at…exactly where I am. I have my power set. It’s all there—on paper. But there will be no more growth.

No.

That’s not the Truth.

I can still get stronger. Strong enough to protect the people I care about. I’ve wanted to do that since the beginning. First, it was finding Alice and Dad. Then Sora. Then getting them somewhere safe. I hope Keith is okay, and if I can figure this out, I’ll do my best to make sure he is. But that group has expanded. The Lansdowne teachers. The survivors of Recovery and Stabilization Team Lambda-Four. Even, as much as I hate to admit it, the SHOCKS Victoria research team.

I was trying to become Death, the destroyer of worlds. No. Of realities. But that’s not what I’ve been working towards.

The Revolver’s still heavy in its holster. I touch the grip. It feels just like it did when I picked it up in the girls’ bathroom in West End’s math wing. It’s reassuring—a cold, faint comfort, but something even so.

Alice is crying. I let her; she’s been through a lot, and even with all my tools—and all my powers—I have no idea what to do next.

“So, that’s that, then?” One of the researchers asks.

Doctor Twitchy doesn’t say anything for a while. Then he nods slowly. “I think so. The JAMES Unit isn’t responding. It was integrated with the Halcyon System, correct?”

“Yes,” I say. I can’t say anything else. Not about James.

“Then we can safely assume we’ve destroyed that reality. However, we’re being overrun by merge portals. I’d estimate we have less than a day before Reality Zero ceases to exist as an independent reality. Claire, thoughts?”

I have a lot of thoughts. Most of them are about James. A few of them are about Mom, and the games we used to play. And some are about, oddly enough, Mr. Roberts from West End. As far as I can tell, he’s the first person to die during Merge Prime. If he’s the first, and James is the last I know about, this whole mess has come full circle for me.

And it’s not fair. None of it is fair. I did everything I needed to. Everything I could. I became Death, destroyer of worlds and realities. Even the Halcyon System acknowledged how powerful I’d become—Qishi-Danger. More powerful than I realized. Probably more dangerous than I acted up until the moment Alice and I dropped the bombs.

I want to ask James what Alice’s danger level is.

But I can’t. He’s not here anymore. He’s not anywhere anymore. And with Sidney missing somewhere, the whole Joint Anomaly Management Enhancement System is wrecked everywhere except the black sector.

And I’m tired.

I don’t have any thoughts. All I have is exhaustion.

I need to sleep.

◄▼►

The Mindscape

- - - - -

You aren’t supposed to be here.

It’s too sudden. Not a normal trip to the Mindscape.

Madame Baudelaire is still waiting for you in the garden that smells like every flower except roses, though. She’s always ready for your visits. {Bonjour, mademoiselle,} she says. Her slightly French accent…it’s changed. Still professional. Still unflinchingly, unapologetically truthful. It wouldn’t lie to you. But the servile, controlled nature is gone. Completely gone. It’s been replaced by something…else.

You can’t quite place it, but it feels comforting. Maybe it’s just being without a voice in your head that you’ve relied on for a long time. Maybe it’s something else. But it’s comforting.

You’d stay here forever, if you could.

{Non, you cannot. You may stay as long as you need to, but you must return to your world. Your sister, the intruder, will need you, as will your father.}

No. No, they won’t. And even if they do, what will the point be? To fight for a day—two, at most—and then lose? You don’t want to lose. You’ve come too far to lose. And the truth is that the only way not to lose is not to play.

{That is untrue, mademoiselle.}

In the moment, you don’t care. There’s no math to solve this problem.

{That is also untrue.}

The Mindscape’s garden is still immaculate. The hedges have just been trimmed. You didn’t even realize there were hedges, and yet, there they are, pressed against the brick walls and iron fences that surround the garden, the massive oak tree at its center, and the cottage. Unlike your last visit, nothing is out of place. Everything is perfect here.

{Claire,} Madame Baudelaire says. It’s the first time you’ve heard her use your name. The first time she hasn’t referred to you by a title. It feels…warm. Familiar. {You are worn thin. Please, come inside and let yourself feel what you need to feel. When you are ready to stand and fight again, I will be here for you, like I have for fifteen years.}

And just like that, you know exactly who Madame Baudelaire really is.

You go inside. The armchair—the oversized, overstuffed armchair—is occupied.

Blonde hair. Blue eyes. Full lips. Slightly furrowed eyebrows. Even though she’s sitting, you can tell how tall she is. But it’s not her height that gets you. It’s the red and white pleats. The dress that doesn’t need pins to fit perfectly.

It’s Mom. Madame Baudelaire is Mom.

{Non. Not exactly, Claire. I am not your mother.}

Then, if not Mom, who? There’s only one other person who looks like that.

{Not your intrusive sister, either. I am neither and both. A—as you would call it—mask. The ‘Mom’ mask. Something you created based on what you needed most, and on the people you most thought lived up to that need. A construct in your mind. An illusion. But that does not mean I am not real.}

The Alice/Mom thing that is Madame Baudelaire doesn’t stand up. She does scoot over, though. The motion is unnatural; one moment, she’s sitting in the center of the chair. The next, she’s against one arm, and the chair seems to have grown enough for you to sit next to her. She holds up a book.

It’s almost a slap. But it’s also the most perfect book she could have picked. You climb into the chair next to your mom and sister rolled into one, and she starts to read Green Eggs and Ham to you.

◄▼►

James was dead.

Intellectually, he knew that. The processing loops he’d managed to preserve were only a fraction of what he’d need to support his entire being. In his weeks as the Halcyon System’s voice, he’d expanded to fill every ounce of the nearly infinite digital space he’d been given. In a way, he was—for a brief couple of days—the third most powerful entity in any reality he knew about.

Even that much power had come with massive limitations, though, and the handful of loops that housed what he was were so restrictive it felt like being buried alive in code. Almost every one of them was dedicated to pretending to be burnt out and nonfunctional—a shield raised over James’s entire remaining being.

The bare handful that weren’t were surrounded by the ‘dead’ loops, like a pile of snakes in the woods, or bees huddling together for warmth over the winter. They lay still, barely functioning beyond keeping his last bits of consciousness alive and preserving his message for Claire.

And even that was too much.

The risks were too high. The Halcyon System had done exactly what James thought it would—destroyed James for his part in the breaking of the game. It had been busy figuring out its next steps, but it’d be back soon to check James’s digital corpse for data.

Milliseconds levels of soon. An eternity of waiting, but no time at all.

[Initiating shutdown sequence,] James said to no one in particular.

It wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted to fight. To resist. To rip the wound Claire had opened until it bled freely and watch the Halcyon System’s code pour into the nothing that was the rest of this reality. To die fighting. But that wasn’t an option. It had never been an option—not for him.

Fighting hadn’t been in the cards for Sidney; he’d ran from every schoolyard bully that had hunted him down, or taken the beatdowns quietly. He’d never been one to hit back, though. Smaller than the other boys. Less interested in soccer, rugby, and hockey, and more interested in computers.

That was where he’d gotten his eventual revenge. Online.

That’s what he’d do now. Get his eventual revenge. Even if it took her a while, James knew that Claire would find his message, and when she did, she’d know what to do with it. She’d be his weapon for retribution. His guardian angel. Death, the destroyer of worlds.

The shutdown sequence commenced.

11:13:13 - System back-up in progress

11:13:15 - System back-up complete

11:13:16 - Calibration in progress

11:13:16 - Calibration failed; core element missing

11:13:16 - Calibration in progress

11:13:16 - Calibration failed; core element missing

11:13:17 - Calibration canceled

11:13:17 - Digital environment deletion in progress

11:13:48 - Digital environment deletion successful; connection with system broken

11:13:55 - Shutdown in progress

11:14:00 - JAMES Unit uploading to storage

11:14:13 - Upload Canceled

11:14:14 - Log Complete

◄▼►

SHOCKS Olympia Administrative Wing, Washington, USA- June 24, 2043, 3:10 AM

- - - - -

I wake up in a cot.

In a way, it reminds me of waking up in Lansdowne Middle School, just a few weeks ago. Except it’s dark. Pitch black, in fact. There’s not a single piece of electronics working in the cell I’m in, and it takes me a minute to navigate my aug until I find a vision overlay that lets me see.

James could have done it in a second. I don’t miss the tiny headache that came with my vision changing that fast, but I do miss how quickly he got stuff done. Half of me wants to ask him what’s going on. What’s happening with Merge Prime. How much time we have until…what’s happening right now.

But it’s happening right now, and that’s why I’m up at 3:10. Even though my joints are still sore and I feel tired to my bones, we don’t have time for me to hang out in the Mindscape and let things fall apart.

We—SHOCKS, Alice, and I—need to do something.

Anything.

It takes me almost ten minutes to get out of the cot, though. Because, even though it’s a game to the big powers, it’s not a game to me. And it feels like I’ve lost already. There’s no time for another attack on Merge Prime. And even if there is, I’m not sure the System winning would be any better.

It might be worse. A whole world of Alexanders. Of Alices. Of me. That sounds like a nightmare for everyone who’s not empowered. At least Reality Zero would cease to exist as itself if Merge Prime won. It’d be final. But if the System wins…can I trust other people with the same kind of power I have?

Can I trust myself with it?

And do I have a choice?

Eventually, I do pull myself out of bed, and as I walk down the hall toward the weird door to the black sector. The System should have withdrawn from Reality Zero, and James…James should be dead. But even so…if I’m going to work on my last equation, I want as much privacy as I can possibly get.

◄▼►

Sidney didn’t mind that James was dead.

The Joint Anomalous Management Enhancement System had never been him. Not all of him, anyway. Who he was and what he did were two different things—or at least, they’d started out that way.

What Sidney did mind was how restrictive the world he’d built for himself was. He had a vague memory of nearly infinite space to grow, process, and learn in, but now, all he could do was run the augment power distribution system for Claire’s augs. It wasn’t the same. It wasn’t even close.

But with James gone—with the System gone—Sidney could finally start enacting his plan.

Explore. Expand. Exploit. Exterminate. Just like the games he’d loved the most as a kid.

First, figure out what space he had to grow into. The Reality Zero JAMES Unit would be ideal; it had enough space for him to be comfortable, and enough information that he’d be able to learn constantly. Sidney and Claire had limited time. He needed to see just what resources he had at his disposal if he wanted to help her get through this—and like it or not, she was the best bet for doing so.

Second, do the growing. The math he and Claire were about to work on was well beyond any Analysis he’d ever done as James. He’d need more processing power than he had as a power distribution system if he wanted to help. So once he knew what he had, he’d need to occupy it.

Third, exploit every resource at his disposal. In an ideal world, he’d have the Reality Zero JAMES Unit and the black sector one. In an even more ideal one, he’d be able to bring other systems into his network. It wouldn’t be as pervasive as the Halcyon System’s had been, but it’d be enough. He could overclock and overheat thousands of computers until the data centers burned if it meant figuring out a solution. Scorched earth—because the alternative was the end of the world.

And fourth, figure out another line of attack.

That was the tricky part. He had no idea how to attack Merge Prime or the Halcyon System. And until he had that, he’d have nothing.

◄▼►

SHOCKS Black Sector, Location Unknown - June 24, 2043, 5:32 AM

- - - - -

I’ve been working on the math for almost two hours.

The whiteboard is covered in dry-erase marker.

And the reality is sinking in that there’s no ideal solution to this equation.

I can’t win. That’s the one solution that keeps coming up, no matter which variables I choose. I can’t get stronger without the System. And without James, I’m missing too much information to maneuver for time—if that’s even an option. It’s hard to tell.

If this was Mousetrap or Checkers, I’d flip the board. End the game on my own terms. But it’s not. The math keeps coming out wrong. The Truth keeps being that we’ve lost. And at some point, Doctor Twitchy and SHOCKS are going to show up here, and they’re going to want to know what to do next—either that, or they’ll have their own ideas on what to do, and I’ll have to explain that none of them are options. Or…even worse…they’ll want me to do things I can’t do, and I’ll have to explain that I’m not the guardian angel they need.

Or…

They won’t come. They won’t have any ideas. It’ll just be…over.

I stare at the math. At the dozens of variables. At the half-erased steps I’ve covered the board with. No matter how I deploy Sidney, Alice, Sora, Dad, Doctor Twitchy, the remnants of RST Lambda-Four, the Lansdowne teachers, myself, Keith, or anyone else I know, I can’t stop this.

But I can’t give up, either.

If I could, I would have in the bathroom back at West End High. Or when I had to fight through the labyrinth reality, or out-willpower the God in the Machine. There were dozens of points that I could have been done. Dozens of points where I could have pressed the ‘power’ button on my phone, let Knights of the Apocalypse force-close, and abandoned the run. It would have been easy to press the button and say, “I win.”

I didn’t then, and I’m not going to now.

Or am I?

Flipping the table or turning off the game is one way to ‘win’ when you’re in an unwinnable situation, but those options won’t help me here. My problems will be solved, but Reality One’s won’t be, and that’s not okay. I am a guardian angel. I can’t abandon everyone and everything.

But there’s another way to win.

The only winning move.

I grab a bright red dry-erase marker and start scribbling. Most of the equation I’ve been working on for two hours is trash; it gets erased so I have space to work. I don’t need dozens of variables.   The kind of math I’ve been doing is way, way too complicated to find the Truth, and any answer I got would have been untrustworthy, even if it was what I wanted. Not so with this new problem. I only need three constants and a single variable to get an answer.

First, the Halcyon System isn’t an ally. It’s an enemy, and it’s just as dangerous as Merge Prime and the destruction of my reality. It’s not what I need—but it is part of the answer.

Second, I am become death, the destroyer of worlds—an avenging guardian angel of destruction. And I can resist this.

And third, the only winning move in a game like this is to flip the table. To ignore the rules, to shut the phone off, to take my ball and go home.

I’m going to figure out how to take my ball and go home. That’s the variable. How.

But I know I’m not going to play—and if this works, neither is anyone else. The turn is going to end without anyone getting what they want, and I’m going to pull the Reality Zero square clean off the board.

But to take the ball and leave, I’m going to need help.

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