Save State Hero 3 - ch16-

Chapter 16

Edmund groaned, leaned away from the pad of paper and closed his eyes. Not even hesitating, he simply pulled his helmet off and set it to the side. Then began scrubbing at his face with both hands.

The computer that’d been playing some stream immediately went from understandable to nonsense in a flash. Farady’s sentence had stopped right in the middle from discussing having made a bet on some type of sport thing, to gibberish to him.

Yet Edmund didn’t care.

He was tired.

Bone weary, in fact.

He’d been on the move for a long time, crossed multiple Save-states, several of them that seemed to be massive loop-holes in the time-line itself, and ended up here, in a Zeus world.

Without any sleep.

Admittedly Save-state hopping tended to reset him to a degree since he often ended up in places that he had slept recently, but not always. Right now, he was at the tail end of multiple Save-states of exhaustion.

Or at least, that’s how he felt.

“Worn out?” Harper asked from across the table.

“Yeah,” Edmund muttered. “I can usually go for a long while before I have to stop. It’s a weird quick of what happens but… not at the moment. I’m just wrung out.”

“I definitely get that. I can only imagine how rough it is to be going around multiple Save-states, let alone trying to figure out how to sleep or… eat, even,” murmured Harper. “When was the last time you ate?”

Edmund stopped dead and thought about that.

Truly, though about that.

He genuinely couldn’t remember eating in perhaps the last day or so, but he couldn’t be sure.

The situation with Australia, and the start of time, had left him feeling very confused. Confused and unsure of what all was going on around him.

“A day? I think? It’s… weird,” answered Edmund with a slow shake of his head. “If I end up in a Save-state where I’ve eaten it’s all kinda just off. Off is the best way I can say it.

“Because I’m moving around from Save-state, yeah, with my brain and… whatever I am. But my body is that body? Like, when I went to the one where I got turned into a hotdog put in a microwave for five minutes, it wasn’t like I was suddenly fine. I was burned to shit every time I came back.

“But… food and water… is… eh… it doesn’t make sense. None of it makes sense. Another one that chews at me a lot is my Shadow-states.”

“What about them?” asked Harper curiously. She was always rather invested in his Shadow-states since she’d been saved through one. Her current life wasn’t her original trajectory in any way shape or form.

“I’ve been told by a lot of powerful and dangerous people that I’m the only me. Ever. There’s only one me at any point in time,” Edmund stated, then shrugged. “So how the hell do I equate that with my Shadow-states? It doesn’t make sense.

“If the Shadow-states exist, that means I was someone else? Someone else was me? They existed but I also existed? But I don’t have those memories. At all. It’s as if I’m looking at someone who wasn’t me.

“They had entire lives in some instances that existed well beyond anything I’ve personally gotten to. Yet they technically were me, right? Because there’s only one of me. At any time. Only one of me and that’s the end.

“So… how did those Shadow-states exist then? How the hell did they live a life with memories that I don’t have? I mean, I guess I could delve into their memories but you get my meaning.

“I mean, hell, there’s even some Edmund’s that apparently were on the verge of death and yet here I am. Because if they had died, I’d be dead.”

“If there’s technically only one of you, yet there’s multiple iterations of you, that only leaves time-travel, does it not?” Harper asked, tilting her head to one side as she said it. “Only time travel would fit that because it’s the only thing that would allow a single person to exist in multiple locations at the same time.

“I can’t really think of any other way that you’d end up with another Teddy running around though. It doesn’t really seem possible with everything else you’ve said.”

“Time travel,” Edmund mumbled, thinking on that. He’d actually been attempting just that in a way. Where there would’ve been two of himself in the world, just one of them stuck in Australia at the same time that he was out somewhere lse in the continent.

In fact, the entire premise behind it was that if you traveled to a point in time where you were already there, you would just assume that version of yourselve’s mind and live them.

But does that mean you’d even know you’d done it? Would you just walk through the portal, pop out the other side, and pick up where you left off as if nothing happened?

I mean, that’d be a hell of a way to reset your mind if that’s what happened.

You’d just… go back in… in time and… live… a new life.

Oh shit that’s what I did isn’t it?

Previous iterations of me figured out they could just go walk into the past, jump back into themselves, and wipe out all their memories.

Except that I can access it because of my super power.

Because I can actually get a hold of their Save-states, I can see into their lives and experience them as if they were mine, because they were me.

Once upon a time.

Given that you can go backward in time, you could theoretically plan out an entire expedition to end up at one exact point in time. To go back to a point where you wanted to give yourself the chance to start over again.

But that would… would… oh.

Ellie.

Ellie and Oz.

If I went backward, Ellie would still know because her tree would go back, but she wouldn’t. Oz would know about it, too. That means that Ellie is doing the same thing I am in a way.

She’s compartamentalizing her memories of all that so she doesn’t cross them up with who I was.

Or who she was.

Instead of using Australia, she’s using her seed. Her tree. To lock herself out of her own memories and to remain who she was with me as I move around.

Because she didn’t know who I was either every time.

She really is my giving tree.

That means the only live witness to it all is Oz.

But… when would the Australia backward walking have occurred?

Probably after I killed Zeus the first time. That’d be the most likely place for it to start. Where I would’ve started wandering around, living lives, and experiencing things. Going backward and trying things… like… oh… like getting… Ryker to kill Dot’s uncle, rather than forgiving him.

Oz already told me I was experimenting and how I even did it.

Well shit.

“I think you’re right,” Edmund admitted with an explosive sigh. “I think I’ve been using Australia as a time machine. I bet that every time I go back into my own head, in a timeline, I lose my awareness of that life and just… step back into myself.

“I think Ellie wipes out her memories whenever I do it so she just moves along with me and never knows about it. In fact, I bet Oz is the only one who has any idea of what I’ve been doing at all. It explains a lot.”

“But you haven’t really grown any more Shadow-states since you… saved me, right?” Harper asked.

“Not that I know of,” confirmed Edmund.

“Then what changed you? What caused you to stop… time-walking?” Harper asked.

Doesn’t matter,” he muttered followed by a shrug.

Edmund rubbed at his face some more, then stood up and moved away from the ‘master plan’ they’d been creating. He went to the sink, stuck his head into it, and started drinking straight from the tap.

It didn’t actually matter what had caused him to stop time-walking.

All that mattered was that he did stop at some point and decided to start pushing forward again.

He could ask Oz about it at some point in the future.

Should ask Oz about it in the future, that is.

Because Oz seemed like he was the key to understanding the Shadow-states existence, rather than their use. The proper usage of them had all been through Adeena but in the same breath she hadn’t exactly elected to tell him how they were made.

Which meant she wasn’t going to even if he asked. For one reason or another, she didn’t want to talk about it so she hadn’t led the conversation there.

“Mmm, I suppose you’re right about that. It doesn’t matter at all in the en. Only that it happened,” Harper murmured, watching him. All three Dragons were currently watching whatever was on TV. To Edmund it looked almost like some sort of race, but it involved Dragons of all things.

Flying through the air with a camera person who was either a Dragon, or riding a Dragon.

Walking back to the table he looked over what they’d assembled.

“To be fair, it doesn’t seem like we’re going to get anything more out of this,” Harper murmured, looking to the table as well. “The Log just keeps answering with similar things and giving the same information in a different way.”

Since getting here, Edmund had been trying to get answers from the Log on how to break into Zeus vault, more or less. Because in that vault was an object that the Log called the ‘Horse’ that apparently would let Edmund get into the location Nadine was in.

From there, it’d been an endless series of questions to determine where the vault was, questions about it’s security, what might work to get into it, and what would happen once they did.

They’d managed to get the location easily enough, as well as what they could expect for defenses, but after that the answers got strange. Strange and looping as if it weren’t able to answer any further.

“I wonder if it’s Skipper,” Edmund muttered, rubbing at his chin and then looking to Harper. “We were getting answers on things that were fairly static and wouldn’t be changing. Once we started pushing on things that were active or would be active, that’s where it went sideways.”

“That’d explain a lot,” Harper agreed. “I thought you were trying to avoid Skipper.”

Edmund nodded his head at that because he was trying to avoid Skipper. Except now it seemed as if he didn’t have the luxury of that.

It seemed now he would have to directly engage with her and try to take her out of this equation as it were. The biggest problem he had with that was that the last time he’d fought Skipper, he’d been able to use his Shadow-states to effectively curb her ability. Letting him more or less foresee what she was going to do before she did it.

“I think,” he began and sighed. “I think I need to finally test to see if my Save-states are working again. See if I can get over to Adeena as well and figure out how to call up my Shadow-states. Because if I’m going after Skipper, I’m going to need them.

“When I beat her, I had been using them to see into the future. To see what was coming next, almost in a way that she does, I guess. Like two equal opposing forces that could do the same thing. I nullified a lot of what she could do.”

Harper nodded her head then glanced to the Dragons, then back to Edmund.

“Teddy, they were betting on these races,” Harper began. “Maybe it’d be a good idea to figure out who won and give the information back to them earlier in the Save-state? We’ll probably need money and… we don’t even have identification paperwork here.

“As well as the fact that we’re definitely going to need help. Physical help. Because that vault that Zeus holds… that’s a lot of active defenses. A lot of fighting and probably people dying.”

Edmund sighed and looked over the plans they’d drawn out based on the log.

Zeus vault was located at 0, 0, 0. Which he had no idea how to interpret other than being at some relational reference to Zeus only. When translated to a GPS coordinate that they could trace, it’d ended up falling into a location that’d been somewhere in what Edmund understood to be Austria.

As well as partially underground by several hundred feet.

“I fucking hated Journey to the Center of the Earth,” Edmund muttered, looking at Harper. “Now we have to do something similar I guess and I really am not looking forward to it.”

“You just didn’t like it that the rich bastard ate Gertrude,” Harper said with a grin.

“The count, ugh. He deserved such a worse fate than what he got. Should’ve been eaten by the lizards,” grumbled Edmund. He picked up the helmet, stuffed it back onto his head, and then looked to the trio of Dragons.

“Okay Dragons. Tell me who won, in what way, so I can help you become Biff Tannen,” Edmund said.

Ten minutes later and several names in his head that felt more like they belonged to dog or horse racing, Edmudn opened up his Save-state powers.

He quickly pulled himself into the wide tunnel of Save-states that he could access as easily as breathing now. That it was just a secondary point to his power and wasn’t actually separate.

“Yeah, I don’t understand my own power half as well as I should,” Edmund muttered as he began sorting through the sea of red Save-states. “Adeena my love, I owe you several kisses since I moved about. Would you like to appear and collect them, or are you hiding from me so I don’t ask you questions.”

“Hiding,” said Adeena from nowhere, yet somewhere.

“Alright then. You do realize by admitting you’re hiding, you’re not hiding?” Edmund asked with a grin as he began following the line of Iren’s Save-states back to the point just before Australia.

“I… yes? Yes. I know, Teddy-Eddy, my love. I know, I know. But I missed you and you have figured out so much that I only now realize we’re moving to the end,” Adeena whispered. “The end is coming and I can see it, I think, but I’m not sure. So I’m scared. So yes, I’m hiding so I don’t answer questions, but I miss you.”

Edmund blew out a breath as she said that.

He’d been feeling as if things were slowly closing in around him. That things were moving to their penultimate conclusion and soon it would only be a matter of time.

That it wouldn’t be long at all before he had to make some ugly and nasty choices.

“You know, this was always easier in the damn anime and manga versions,” Edmund mumbled as he followed Iren’s Save-state through the sea of red. He was now swimming through the strange Save-states that were all regarding Australia. “Just kill yourself and start over. That one fricking main character whined and cried over every death and I was sitting there trying to figure out what would be the easiest way to kill myself so I could start over again.”

“Yes, I was peeking through your life and I saw that, my Eddy-Teddy. And yes, this is real life, not fantasy,” Adeena said with a sigh. “If you could just kill yourself to start over, it wouldn’t be very hard to win. It would never be a question of If. Just when.”

Edmund grunted at that then shrugged.

“What’s life without conflict then I guess. Anyways. Any hints, my dear Fates-fate? My end? My darling Adeena? And are you coming here for your kisses or not,” Edmund demanded as he finally got back to the Save-states he was more comfortable with. He started looking through them and found the one he wanted.

Then he paused.

Moving backward, as if he were walking away from it, Edmund wanted to get a full of it all. He’d probably lose his place and have to trace a bunch of Save-states to find what he wanted again, but that was fine.

Looking at the whole of it, he saw that There was three trees.

One red, one blue, and one stunted.

The red and the blue one were clearly in sync with one another. That the Zeus world was running in parallel to the blue ones. That if he were to try he could probably find two Save-states that were the same moment in time from two different places.

The third was the start of the universe that he’d hijacked and ruined when he met Runner and Ryker there. A world that would never actually move forward because Edmund didn’t have the time or luxury to die of old age in that place.

“Adeena,” Edmund murmured, looking at the three of them. “I’ve made a nightmare mess of the current world. That’s not going to cause any long term problems, is it? I feel like me going all over creation in the universe might’ve caused issues.

“Like wearing out a section of carpet from pacing endlessly across it. That I’ve tramped it down and definitely broken some of it.”

“Yes,” Answered Adeena without any sort of softening. “Oz would remind you of how many people have been lost in the Save-state resets, the worlds, animals, bugs. All of it, my Teddy-Eddy. He would tell you exactly what’s been lost.”

Edmund winced at that, looking at the Save-states, then looked to the stunted world.

A stupid idea began to take form there, but he already doubted it being the right direction.

“Adeena. If I was to run back the unvierse to the start and let it roll out, it wouldn’t be the same, would it,” he said with a shake of his head. “Edge cases would cause it to spiral out wildly from where it was and never be quite the same.”

“Hum ho hum hum hum,” Adeena grumbled, sounding like she really didn’t want to answer him. Then she huffed. “Ninety-five percent of the world would play out exactly the same and you’ll realize why in a few minutes if I don’t point it out to you. Much of the minutia of the world would change though. People wouldn’t marry, other champions would win the grand ‘I get to be born’ swimming competitions.

“But by and large the world would remain the same for you. The things around you most especially would remain the same. But not everything.

“But… that’s also not what you’re asking. Is it.”

Edmund was staring at the three Save-state lines and he finally realized what Adeena had meant.

It wasn’t actually the question he was asking at all.

She was right.

He was looking at this wrong. Shifting his view again, Edmund changed it.

Instead of looking at the wild Save-state mess that he’d made of the universe, he instead looked to the countless Save-states that would exist because of him.

Because for those Save-states to exist, there must be worlds to support them. They wouldn’t exist on their own like strange branches off a main tree.

These would all exist as their own independent trees now, especially those created by Shadow-states.

As he shifted, he suddenly saw it.

An endless line of Save-state trees spanning out more like a forest.

A countless innumerable number of worlds that spanned outward from him.

In those, there were even some that were different colors. Several were red, a handful were green oddly enough.

“There’s more than one version of the world,” Edmund deadpanned now that he truly understood it all. Why he was the only Edmund. His universe was the main one, because he was born into it, and he was the only one.

The reason why Adeena said everything would be mostly the same around him, was because he only existed in one world. If he started the world over again, he would end up not being born in it.

“I didn’t create these,” Edmund whispered.

“No, you didn’t Eddy-Teddy, my lovely love. Dearest dear. My end,” Adeena confirmed. “You’ve accessed many of these worlds to forge your current universe though. Many of these were created from Save-states that you’ve made, it’s why they look odd from a certain perspective. Everything below the point that you entered isn’t quite… solid.

“Yet everything after is perfectly true and balanced.

“And yes, those other trees were made by Ryker. Ryker the Architect of all. The mad-man builder who pushed a universe into creation through the power of his mind and spanned it all out with infinite care and precision. Testing endless edge cases across the eons in a way that would fracture any mind.

“Though his was only sharpened by it. Ryker is… beyond my understanding and I don’t think I would ever wish to sit down with him and get a glimpse of his mind.”

Edmund noted that were a handful of strange locations in the universe as he stared at it.

Locations that were so far off the beaten track that they had only a handful of save-states attached to them.

He was here to test if his Save-state powers worked after all. So why not explore a bit, he figured.