Raine VS The End of the World (14 page)

“Are you lonely, mister?” Raine yelled. “Or miss!” she added, hoping the creature wasn’t touchy over its gender. Chance played copycat with a resounding meow.

She considered whether the golem could even hear her at all, or if her cries more closely resembled the squealing of a mouse.
Perhaps if mice spoke slower
, Raine thought,
people might eventually understand their language.
The same principle could help the golem to hear her.

“AAAREEE YOUUUU LOOOONELEEEEEEEEEY?” she echoed in an attempt to mimic the thundering boom of an avalanche. Her voice swept the entire valley, through the cleft between plateaus in the distance, past the borders where grasslands turned to desert, and caused ripples in a far-off lake. Even she was impressed; her surprise doubled when she heard a response.

“Not particularly,” announced a bubbly voice behind her. “According to peer-reviewed studies, it won’t do talking to the likes of her. She’s been asleep for quite some time now.”

“Geez! Don’t scare me like that!” she gasped.

Raine regarded the man who addressed her with bewilderment. He brought to mind a twisted mixture of Santa Claus and Willy Wonka, except maybe something hadn’t gone right in his programming. Or he was a messed-up dream artifact.

“You’re to blame, little miss. It’s not wise to let your guard down out here in the wild.”

There was definitely something cartoonish about him, draped as he was in several coats of varying colors and materials, with his outermost cloak covered with so many shiny, laminated patches, she couldn’t even tell what color it was.

“That’s a pretty awesome coat. What color is it?” Raine asked, despite herself.

“Wrong question.”

“Then why-” she began, before realizing this man was trying to test her. “Why do you have… so many patches on your coat?” she tried.

“W-w-wrong again!” he giggled with delight, and spun around.

“Aww, quit icing my grill, man!” argued Raine. “Could you at least toss me a hint?”

“You lose! That was three whole questions.”

“Wait. It’s over? But my last question was completely unrelated!”

The odd man danced around.

“I wouldn’t say that! It was related insomuch that the rules of the game were made quite clear and you rushed into your answer without a thought!”

“Except they weren’t clear. I didn’t even know we were playing a game!” Raine protested.

“Then I’m afraid you failed to read the End User License Agreement, and are therefore a rather special child,” he said, slipping over and shining a flashlight into her ear. “I’ll have to hand you over to Reconditioning. They’ll make quick work of this mess.”

She broke away. “Are you mental? You’re not sending me anywhere!”

“One might be surprised. I’m a scholar, see, and I work closely with the Developers, programming edutainment lectures and classes and so on. So naturally, I know a great many things. You, on the other hand, are a youngster with much to learn. I see you haven’t even reported to the Academy for your assignments. You don’t even know how to speak, or the right kinds of questions to ask.”

“Well,” Raine began indignantly, quite fed up with the programs in this dream world, “I don’t care who you work for or what kind of professional you think you are, you’re just plain rude. There’s nothing wrong with asking questions, and I’m perfectly fine with my ability to speak and act without the help of some ‘Academy’, thank you.”

“Ah, but you would be, wouldn’t you? You have no qualifications to legitimately understand how little you know.”

He’s trying to get me to appeal to his authority: a logical fallacy.

“I don’t need some degree to be happy, or to know what’s best for me.”

“Oh? Then prove it.”

Is this guy for real?

“I’ll have you know I’m a very capable young woman.”

“V-v-very good. Enlighten me,” the scholar said, stroking his goatee.

“School-wise, I’m at the top of the track team,” Raine called out. “I’m Secretary of the Painting club, and I used to be in the Robotics club. Last semester, I got the second-highest marks in Math, and the fourth-highest marks in World History. This year, not so much, but… but… I’m also a video arcade champion! I’ve won regional tourneys. Even made the scoreboard in Nintendo Power once!”

At this the man was mortified.

“W-what was that you got the fourth-highest marks in?” he asked cautiously.

It took Raine a second to recall. “World History.”

“Who’s story?”

“You know, Joan of Arc? Genghis Khan? Cleopatra? Copernicus? Shakespeare? Marie Antoinette? James Bond? Michael Jackson? Sliced bread? Is
anything
ringing a bell?”

Upon absorbing all this, the scholar winced and nearly keeled over, prompting a snicker from Chance. It seemed the man’s irises were rapidly changing in size. His limbs twitched in small bursts.

“Whoa! Hey, chill out! Are you all right, Mr. Scholar?”

“This conversation is over! Stay away from me!” he cried. “Just stay away! I don’t want to learn anything from you!”

Clutching his hair violently, the man backed off. Raine scratched her head – his startled reaction recalled the surprise of the odd fellow working on the wall. It didn’t make a lick of sense.

Why are these programs reeling as if they’re in pain? They don’t have nerves or organs, and if they’re anything like programs in my world, they’re all run by the same operating system.

It must all be an elaborate act – a test of my wits, and my will. Well, two can play at that game.

“You, learn from
me
? I don’t think so. You said you’re working for the Developers. There’s no way they don’t know about World History; I spy mixed influences from Earthly cultures everywhere. But here’s what I really don’t get: why are people kept from knowing certain things? And if this is really just a game, how come there’s no option to return to Earth?”

With that, the scholar’s eyes suddenly turned bright red. Although it came from his mouth, the voice that responded was not his. It belonged to a very angry woman.

“I told you no more questions, you pathetic girl!”

And then, without warning, he slammed his head violently and repeatedly on the old temple.

“Stop!” Raine screamed. “Please! You’re going to hurt yourself!”

She ran over and put a hand on his shoulder. A powerful static shock jolted Raine and sent the scholar flying several feet back into a column. He hit the back of his skull and fell flat on his face, his body twitching as if an electric current were surging through it.

What have I done?
Terrified, Raine leaned over the pitiable program, but didn’t dare lay another finger on him. “Hey! Step away from the light! Wake up! Talk to me!”

Maybe these programs aren’t all centralized. Could it be that I was really causing pain to an artificial intelligence?

She poured some lemonade on her fingertips and sprinkled it on the guy’s face, which set the man shaking like a wet dog.

“Hmm? I’m all right,” the scholar chirped as if nothing at all had happened, though he was still twitching. His voice had returned to normal, but Raine’s hypothesis remained untested.

She offered her hand, and the scholar took it this time, letting her pull him up off the floor.

“Of all the wacked-out people or programs I’ve seen here, you are by far the wacked-out-i-est,” Raine muttered. Lily was right about one thing – insanity appeared to be a common
Metaverse
trait.

“You d-d-didn’t need to help me,” the scholar said miserably.

“It’s cool. I’m thankful you told me about the, um, large rock thingy. The golem. And I’d like it if you told me more about her.”

“Colossus,” he corrected her. “She is one of the last ones, as far as we know. Once protectors of this realm, loved by many.”

“A Colossus,” she repeated.

“So y-y-you do think I’m smart?” the man asked with all the intensity of a five-year-old. “I’m a p-p-proud product of adaptive learning. I may have a few b-b-bugs, but these days, who doesn’t? And it’s not my fault that you didn’t understand what I was trying to do, right?”

He looked incredibly distressed.

Raine couldn’t possibly deny the scholar this small happiness.

“Well, hey. It’s not necessarily anyone’s fault, it’s more like a mis-”

“G-g-good! Well, I’m off then, l-little one. Got a rep-report to make about you.”

“WAIT!” cried Raine. “I want to know more about the Colossus!”

But the scholar had already twisted a couple of knobs on his boots. He knocked his heels together, which seemed to kick-start some sort of engine. Raine fell into a bit of a slump; strange as he was, she’d enjoyed the strange scholar’s company.

“Goodbye, I guess,” she managed, hoping his report would be a positive one.

“It was most certainly a pleasure. My name is Stephen Seele, and I’m sure we’ll see each other s-s-soon! Oh, and my topmost coat is white!
Au revoir!
”

He shot up into the air, and from a distance, the patches on his coat shimmered like crystals.

∩

Queen Lorelei watched carefully from the holo-map in her private office as Stephen sped off. This child was an absolute anomaly. She was smart, sincere, maddeningly curious, and downright naïve. It’s as if she were engineered to be the most annoying girl imaginable.

Even worse, she was plugged into the Network from a third-party source, one whose remote signal was completely untraceable, and drove her scanners ballistic. What’s more, the game’s source code seemed to be warping around the girl’s form. This sick being’s very presence was rewriting her beloved
Metaverse
, destroying elaborate settings that the Queen and her digital double had carefully calibrated over the course of decades.

It was time to draw out Lillian’s defense.

The Queen gave her maniacal laugh a good, long practice run. She had been waiting for this day for far too long. She scrolled through her list of exploits. “Guided Seismic Disturbance” was always a fun one.

▬

Almost as soon as the scholar was out of her field of vision, Raine felt a rumbling in the ground. A fissure formed suddenly in the distance, dividing the carpet in two and closing in on her.

Thinking quickly, she scooped up Chance, instinctively placed him in her messenger bag’s pet compartment, and ran off the path. She bolted away towards the desert, but the crack in the ground turned ninety degrees and caught up with her.

“No way!” Raine cried as the crevice opened up right under her feet. She jumped aside once more, but the ground on which she was expecting to land split open as easily as an orange peel and before the poor girl knew it she was freefalling into the center of the Earth.

The fissure expanded until she could barely see the walls anymore, and it was so dark and cold and infinite she couldn’t help but scream. She yelled and yelled and suddenly beside her, a gauntlet tapped on her arm.

To Raine’s immense surprise, it belonged to none other than Gerrit, falling down alongside her with a backpack that she hoped housed a parachute.

Raine grabbed onto him for dear life, and he wrapped an arm around her waist. With his free hand, he gripped the pull-string, nodding to her for recognition. She signaled an OK, prepared for the very worst.

Gerrit yanked on the string. With a forceful tug his parachute shot right out.

They jerked to a relative standstill. Gerrit guided the pair in a descending spiral towards an island far below; the light from above cast their shadows onto a dimly lit subterranean sea.

“What just happened?” said Raine, her voice hoarse from all the screaming.

“I don’t know, but I’m glad I showed up in time.”

“How in the world did you get here?”

“Oh, my dragon dropped me off.”

He pointed skyward. Sure enough, through the canvas, Raine could see the tiny silhouette of a winged beast flying circles above the fissure.

“
Your
dragon?”

“Kinda. I mean, no one owns him, per se. He’s more like a time-share dragon.”

“Well, why didn’t you just have him fly down and pick me up?”

Gerrit gave an awkward laugh.

“You’d be cut to ribbons if you caught on his scales or spikes. Plus, I knew I could catch you. Sorry this is so awkward.”

Raine turned away, unsure what to say or do.

“Also, he gets nervous flying underground. It’s kind of a touchy subject.”

They were both quiet for a while as they circled the island, popping in and out of complete darkness.

“Gerrit?”

“Yes?”

“Were you following me just now?”

“Kind of. I actually used a tracking plug-in, since we’re friends now and all.”

“Still. That’s a bit weird.”

“I’m sorry. I just wanted to make sure you were doing all right out here, so far from civilization.”