Raine VS The End of the World (37 page)

In the far distance beckoned the loveliest mirage: a homely hilltop cottage surrounded by a diverse garden, a small pond, and by a cliff edge, a statue looking dramatically off into the distance. A fenced path snaked down the terraced hill to an old carpet road.

When smoke trickling out from the dwelling’s brick chimney caught her eyes, she quickly realized it wasn’t just a mirage.

Raine rocked back and forth on the Chance-hammock, intrigued. The cabin looked safe, like a good place to stop and ask for directions.
Almost too safe for comfort
, she reasoned on second thought, but as an expert gamer she’d learned to trust her first instinct. She gave his tail three tugs and was soon descending the skies towards the homestead.

The country house glimmered in the moonlight. Raine stopped to admire the neon flowers surrounding the fence, dripping with dew. A blue jay greeted her with a song, and then escorted the girl up the path. She had a warm feeling that she was far, far away from the prying eyes of Mister Senior and his ilk.

She nervously rang the doorbell.

Her heart nearly stopped when the door opened.

“Why, hello,” Super BlastBoy said in a comforting voice. He looked to be in his early forties, older and calmer than she ever would have imagined, wearing an apron and accompanied by the warm smell of freshly baked dough, stirring up the beginnings of sweet memories she didn’t yet know she possessed.

His jovial face melded around a gentle grin.

“Hello,” Raine replied, stunned.

∩

A coolant-lined cloak draped around her lithe frame and her ID chip’s signal blocked by a lead-lined armband, the newly promoted Dr. Karuishi perched on the highest pile in the junkyard, hidden in the shadow of the Network tower, and waited a good three minutes, checking her heat levels periodically.

The unfortunate Dr. Hoshua had been frozen, but it wasn’t as if the old codger had much to hide. He wasn’t one of
them
. Still, she empathized; Al had always been very professional.

The
Spire
’s long shadow at dusk hid her position perfectly; the coast was as clear as it was ever going to get. She unfolded her Holo-Lens CPU tablet, encryptions already running, and plugged it into the abandoned satellite radio antenna to establish long-range contact with the Sky Admiral’s wing.

The new briefs were straight to the point, and for the first time in a long time, they came with some helpful information. The Overseer’s Helmet Defense Protocol operated from Chamber 50B – a room that, if it existed, lay deep within the lower
Spire’s
heavily guarded Central Asset Control. And there was time for some gorier news, too. General Lacie was dead.
Did she brief Beech on our older plan? Without a doubt.

Lily’s orders were to cripple the entire system. Not the easiest of assignments, but then, it wasn’t her job to pull off. Poor old Holdfast and Zarifian would be in the thick of this mess, when they were needed the most on the floor. That’d mean she was tasked with keeping Her Queenliness in check.

Still, at least the centralized HDP was dependent on the
Metaverse’s
servers, and the Overseer’s lone chamber. It seemed an ultimate irony to Ayumi that in the event of the
Metaverse’s
failure, a single room held the key to scuttling
Neo Eden’s
global
infantry forces.

Pocketing the tablet, Dr. Karuishi skipped down the junk pile, folded up the cloak, bagged it, and pretended like she was simply out for a summer stroll.

She hadn’t expected to hear the unfettered weeping of a hopelessly lost soul. It was the same sort of sob her mother made when she revealed that she would be heading to
Neo Eden
to do some undercover work – the cry of a woman mourning the death of their beloved.

Thanks for the warm blessings, Mom,
Ayumi considered.
By hook or by crook, I’m getting out of this one alive, if only just to prove you wrong.

With a delightful puppy in her lap, Claire Belmont Alexandria sat on the precipitous edge of the upper level’s wall, staring thousands of feet down at
Neo Eden’s
lower districts. Ayumi knew that look all too well – she’d seen her share of world-weary mugs wracked with survivor’s guilt, the faces of Developers who envied the ignorance of the enslaved, or the quiet of the dead, and had chosen suicide as an end to their troubles.

Their eyes met once Claire’s puppy took note of the slender figure. As much as initiating contact with Ms. Alexandria could be a dangerous proposition, Ayumi couldn’t leave her in this perilous state.

“Excuse me, miss?” she began, gently closing the distance between them.

Claire shrunk into herself, but little Archie whimpered and tried to scamper out of her lap.

“Doctor Karuishi, correct? We met at my cousin’s wedding. You’re probably thinking, ‘what’s she doing?’ ‘Does she have a death wish?’” mumbled Claire. “’But no. She shouldn’t do it. There’s so much for her to live for.’ You might think that, but you’d be wrong. I’m a selfish woman. All I ever had in life that mattered, all I ever cared for… my efforts were all for
her
… for
us.
You see, she found me here… seven years ago. Right here, on the edge.”

“I-I’m sorry,” Ayumi started. “I… I wish to hear your story. Maybe there’s something I can do.”

“Huh. I get it. You’re probably too busy to read the tabloids,” Claire admitted. “My name is Claire Alexandria. I am of the House of Morgana, and General Lacie’s mistress. Though she named me her fiancée, it’s never been made public.”

Ayumi fell into a bow. “Apologies, milady, I did not recognize you in such common attire.”

“It’s all right. Soon none will remember me anyhow. Not that anyone’s said anything, but perhaps that’s just it. Something’s not right. The
Raven
docked yesterday. She should have been back by now. There are whispers that Lacie has fallen in battle. The Queen is to visit the mausoleum on the mount tonight. And she is to take only android escorts.”

Dr. Karuishi’s heart sank for the poor woman. If anyone in the
Spire
knew what was going on, they hadn’t the heart to tell her.

“The Queen could be paying tribute to her ancestors,” Ayumi posited. “Or asking questions of her forebears. She could even be inspecting the geothermal generator. It’s no guarantee that the General is involved. Please, Lady Claire, take my hand. Back away from the ledge.”

Claire shook her head. “My Lacie vowed to return ere two days. It’s been three, and she never breaks a promise. War comes from the East, and the Queen does nothing. She could meet the Admiral in full-scale conflict, yet for whatever reason she risks the enemy’s advance, putting her own sister in harm’s way! If my Lacie were victorious in battle, or had even returned, we would be flying banners. No, I do not think that I shall see her again. I would have you back away. If you’re fond of dogs, Archibald might use a good home. I can have it done immediately.”

She tapped her bracelet communicator to make an audio call. With a quick gesture, Ayumi flung her coat around Claire and Archie and pulled them off the edge. Claire fell down onto her; the pup ran away to watch the spectacle from a distance, blissfully unaware of the situation’s gravity.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Claire cried.

Ayumi held her close. “Milady, I cannot allow you to end your life.”

Claire fought against Ayumi, but the latter had more martial arts training. She hugged Claire tightly until she stopped resisting.

“I can’t say that I know how you must feel,” Ayumi stated. “Even so, supposing it is true that she has passed on, the General would not have wanted this to be your fate. Your life has worth; there’s much left to live for.”

Her words appeared to ring true to young Claire, who fell silent and remained that way for some time.

“There’s nothing for me, or for anyone but
her
. Who can prosper in an age where all are but pieces on a board to a power-hungry Queen?”

This open admission of dissent towards the World Leader was extremely rare, the sign of a true sovereign individual. Still, as a noble, Ms. Alexandria would not be sympathetic to the cause.

“You can think of yourself as a piece on a board, or you can think of yourself as a rational, intelligent, and fully capable human being. No one is telling you that you cannot or should not think and act of your own accord.”

Claire digested this statement. “That’s not what Lacie believed. She believed in loyalty at all costs.”

“Then maybe she was wrong,” Ayumi replied, drawing a wrathful look from the girl, who pushed her away and stood back up on her feet. At least now she seemed to have no intention of returning to the edge.

“My Lacie was never wrong!”

“If you trust her so much, then why are you so quick to give up hope for yourself?”

There was no answer to this; Claire simply walked over, picked up Archie, and stroked his fur in silence.

“Milady,” Ayumi started up again, “I didn’t mean to speak out of turn. I am only trying to help you. I’ve been haunted too many times by those I couldn’t save.”

Claire nodded in understanding, neglecting the tears of newfound courage streaming down her cheeks.

“Thank you, Dr. Karuishi,” she replied. “Thank you so much. Would you like to join me for dinner?”

Ayumi adjusted her glasses and dusted off her skirt.

“I’d love to, but I have a prior engagement. But please, call me before you sleep tonight, so I know you’re safe and sound, all right?”

“I will,” she nodded. “I… I really appreciate that. Thank you.”

Ayumi tapped her bracelet against Claire’s to exchange contact details. After giving Claire her cloak to keep, the two women parted ways, and Ayumi tried to make it back to her own room without breaking down herself.

That poor woman
, she thought.
If only I could tell her that her love is dead, and that my boss is to blame… I want to help her; only, there’s nothing I can do.

When she looked at the door she was standing in front of, it wasn’t her own.

She gave a few short knocks.

“Henry? Henry, I know it’s an odd time, but--”

Mr. Holdfast opened the door, a concerned look in his eyes.

“Ayu-chan?”

He actually called me ‘Ayu-chan?’ Only Mom has ever addressed me by that name…

“What?”

“It’s a pet name I’m trying out, I-I thought you’d like it… wait… are you all right?”

She shook her head. Even Henry was quick enough on the uptake.

“Please, come in.”

Ayumi fell into an embrace.

“Ayu, is everything cool? Please, if there’s something I can do--”

Her arms wrapped around his neck as she leaned her head against his chest to feel his strong heartbeat.

“You’re doing it. Don’t move,
baka
. Just order us some dinner. Computer, play us Prokofiev’s ‘Cinderella Waltz’.”

Despite all that talk, maybe Claire’s right. We’re all pieces on a board.

Tomorrow, the world is going to change, for better or for worse. And we’re all powerless to stop it. The enormity of it all makes me feel so weak. So tonight, mama, I’m going to enjoy myself. This way, if I die, I will have died with no regrets.

As the music started, Ayumi led Henry onto the living room carpet to dance the last night away.

“Reality is frequently inaccurate.” – Douglas Adams

“Do come in,” SBB said, seeing Raine inside. “Have a seat by the fireplace; it’ll just take a minute to get the cookies out of the oven. Your timing is impeccable.”

She nodded. As the door closed behind her, Raine felt an odd sense of being compressed into a much more efficient space. Chance unfurled from her neck and made himself at home playing with a strangely flat-looking ball of yarn.

Indeed the entire house, while three-dimensional, seemed a little off. As she looked at each piece of furniture, it curved towards her in turn. Everything was hand-painted and pastel-colored and not exactly ‘real’.

She checked out a table lamp from each angle. It was thatched together, but surrounded by black tracing lines, as a cartoon might be. The shadows it cast on the table looked affixed by hand, dancing in the furnace’s firelight.

“It’s cel-shaded, all of it,” he replied, setting the tray of baked goods onto the table and taking a seat across from Raine. She saw now that he was just as two-dimensional as his house, and was rendered speechless.

“I’m very glad you like it,” he said, as if reading her mind. “Designed this interchangeable skin myself. Never could get into polygons. The later games don’t count. Have a cookie, please. It’s not every day I receive such happening guests.”

Raine took a seat and did so, still more than a little star-struck.

“Thanks, Mr. BlastBoy.”

“Please, call me Tony.”

“S-sure. Ah! A-Anthony Kon was your real name, right? That is, before you joined the Universe Corps’ experimental warfare division and became a hero.”

He nodded. “Interesting choice of words. Though there are obviously exceptions, I think of ‘heroes’ as little more than ideological and political symbols. Mine isn’t much of a backstory, but at least it’s something to go by; that’s way more than most of my kind ever get. Now, this may seem a bit weird.”

Tony snapped his fingers. The house seemed to fold up even more.

“Sorry about that,” he said. “Some visitors get queasy. I just wanted to make sure that if by some miracle of computer science one of the Temps detects activity, they’ll see nothing but the old statue. You and I are hidden, protected by some of the most immovable code in the
‘Verse
. This conversation is in secret as well. You’re patched in through my bubble now. From here I can travel to any
EM
server, except the mainframe, of course. My personal door functions as a port to any hub I can squeeze myself into. Surprising how easy it is to live outside the system, isn’t it?”

“Not really, actually. I mean, no offense! Your bachelor pad is totally sweet. I guess it’s just hard to surprise me; I’ve learned to take things in stride over here,” Raine said. “But this is all totally confusing. It’s much, much bigger than I am.”

“You’ve done very well for someone in your situation,” he said softly. “I can imagine you have many questions.”

She nodded, taking another cookie.

“I’m quite ready to answer them. Be warned, this information is taboo, and as such, it may hurt a little. Where shall we begin?”

“Let’s start with Lily.”

“Lillian Hermes is a time traveler. Her goal is to save the world from a solar flare that will wipe out all life on Earth in the year 2212, twenty-five years, eleven months, and twenty-two days from the present time.”

“All life on Earth?”

“Yes.”

“Plants, trees, animals, everything?”

“Every last thing. There might be a few microscopic bacteria left, but--”

“That’s ridiculous!”

“Yes, it is. She’s been going back and forth in time, changing history in order to try and build a Noah’s Ark of sorts to transport everyone safely into space and preserve most forms of life, but she finds that her efforts almost always fail. Lily has succeeded mostly in creating new wars and starting again from scratch with detailed reports sent back to her nine-year-old self, stationed on her space fortress in prehistoric times, on how not to do it. She set up an entire year’s worth of time dedicated just to receiving these messages, so she carefully sends new envelopes thirty seconds after the previous ones, and after the year is over, she acts on the latest info.”

“Wow.”

“So from there on, she starts again, learning from her future self’s mistakes, trying to guide the world towards adapting inter-space technology; that is, eventually colonizing further reaches of our solar system and beyond. Do you follow?”

“Mostly. This is fascinating, but… what does it have to do with
Endless Metaverse
?”

“Getting to that. Now, this is all very difficult to believe, but after the first five failures, Lily created clones of herself. Three of them, to help with this difficult task.”

“Wait. Sorry. What? Clones?”

“As I’ve mentioned, Lily operates from the
Belladonna,
a space station orbiting Earth. A very high-tech creation. Onboard the ship was a Remediator, a unique device for advanced physical therapy that can synthesize human stem cells from a sample of genetic material. Quite handy, mind. It can do amazing things like re-grow missing limbs and cleanse a human body of radiation. Because the
Belladonna
operates in a high solar radioactivity zone, the Remediator was essential for periodically cleansing the bodies of its inhabitants. Only, Lily modified the device in order to clone herself. Even in their incubation, the clones were placed into rigorous virtual education, training, and muscle therapy programs.”

“Go on,” she pressed.

“Their names were Lorelei, Lucille, and Laramie, who changed her name to Lacie. Each one had a specialty: Lorelei came out of the chamber with cybernetic implants, designed to be a master tactician and programmer. Lucille was a doctor and geneticist, not to mention an expert historian and logician. Lacie was not just an astrophysicist and chief engineer. She was also a skilled martial artist. All were incredibly agile, excepting Lucy. An error on Lily’s part. Together they attempted to change the course of history. Using the vast libraries of knowledge Lily’s parents left behind regarding the chronicles of the United Amero Alliance, an empire that won World War Three at the expense of billions of lives and policed the globe’s dwindling resources, preventing anyone from constructing anything close to Lily’s Ark, they backtracked to and from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in attempts to prevent the formation of the Alliance.

“After multiple efforts, a few of which ended in disaster or failed in the early stages, they were eventually on track to their goal. By this time, effectively, Lily and her team had become the most powerful humans on Earth. As you can see, Raine, this all gets rather complicated at the micro stage. Suffice it to say that it’s a rather epic chronicle. Ultimately their endgame plan was to use the booming finance of the industrial era to accelerate research and development for advanced twenty-first century space travel.

“Under Lucille’s stewardship, by the early twentieth century, the internal combustion engine was quickly developed to its zenith and enhanced by hydrogen and electrical power. The quartet was working fantastically and rather marvelously. It was to be a world in which business was absolutely devoted to science and sustainability, and not the other way around.”

“That sounds amazing. What happened?”

“Tragedy struck Lorelei. After suffering a cybernetic short circuit in the shower that left her unconscious for days, she went into a lengthy fever dream. In this dream, she had a vision. She began to see each of their journeys through time as effectively splitting the universe. What if, she argued, every time they traveled back to the past, the world line they left behind became a separate, fully formed universe that continued on to its inevitable end? Wouldn’t that mean that anyone who broke the natural flow of time was responsible for the lives and deaths of quadrillions upon quadrillions of beings?”

Raine was on the edge of her seat.

“Was she right?”

“If anyone knew that, Raine, there would be no war. No fighting. No
Endless Metaverse
. Lily and her clones would have come to an agreement. Of course, neither one of us would be here speaking, either,” he laughed. “It’s an un-provable hypothesis. Once one travels from the future to the past, one immediately changes the past. Even without doing anything, just by being there, everything will diverge. Entire species may go extinct or a rogue gene may flourish. The compounding nature of the Butterfly Effect makes it impossible to revisit the same future that you came from. According to Lily, that future may very well cease to exist. It becomes a tangent universe that inevitably folds in on itself and disappears. That’s why after sending her past self messages and giving the mission one last go, any iterations of Lily from future timelines would terminate her own life function.”

“So… I didn’t get most of that, but if I’m understanding you correctly, Lily believes in the existence of one universe, but Lorelei doesn’t,” Raine observed.

“Correct.” Tony dipped a cookie into a small bowl of milk. He gestured at the ripples. “Although Lillian also believes one or more of the Multiverse models to be a possibility, she has no hard evidence to support the theory. The way Lily sees it, changes in the natural flow of spacetime are like waves on an ocean. The person with the time machine holds the future of the universe in their hands like clay on a pottery wheel; multiple temporal travelers can be thought of as another potter’s pair of hands. According to Lily’s parents’ Causality Theory, there is only one world line running across the conceivable cosmos, and as space and time are inextricably linked, and space can be warped by means of wormholes, for instance, then what we think of as
time
is really a dimension as malleable as it is paradoxical. Lily claims evidence for this theory in the fact that the original
Belladonna
never disappears, even after severe time alterations. Since she is operating from information gathered in prehistoric times, Lily believes that it is solely her perception and actions that shape the future.”

He took a break to munch on the pastry. “Whereas to Lorelei, the only truth she could see is that they were the four horsemen of the apocalypse, causing massive amounts of death in their attempts to save the human race. To her, the numbers simply didn’t add up.”

“What happened then?”

“A series of heated debates and arguments. Lorelei had no evidence for her theory but her vision and conjecture, and Lillian wouldn’t budge. She was as stubborn then as she is now. To even consider Lorelei’s hypothesis would mean that her parents’ goal was completely destructive. In the following stand-off, Lorelei’s untimely refusal to use the Warp Initiator at a crucial moment led to an error that botched an important operation, with the result of global instability and, instead of the First World War, Earth was besieged by the Greatest War; fueled by technology its participants barely understood, it became a drawn-out conflict more terrible and violent than anything that had come before.”

“Frustrated, Lily came up with a plan to salvage the attempt by proposing a truce between the world powers in exchange for development of sustainable farming tech to address the global hunger crisis. Lorelei was severely reprimanded. This was the last straw. The tension between the two could not go on indefinitely. It would be easier to show you than to explain what happened next,” Tony said. “In any case, we have a little time, and I think both of them would want you to know the truth.”

Tony snapped again, and this time his fireplace morphed into a television screen. It played video footage from a space station. The many cameras were dynamic, and the footage was well edited – as a result, it looked like a science fiction movie.

It was the strangest display. Three fifteen-year-old versions of Lily gathered in the kitchen, drinking hot cocoa. Neither one spoke. The only ways to tell them apart were their hairstyles and space suits; each girl wore a different primary color.

A girl in blue adjusted her glasses as she peered into her mug, deep in thought.

“That’s Lucille,” he explained. “She could see both Lily and Lorelei’s points of view clearly and was caught in the middle of their debate. This video was taken twelve hours before they were supposed to return to Earth and proceed with the next phase of their plan.”

The girl dressed in fiery red with her hair in twin-tails paced back and forth across the floor. Tony pointed out that this was Lorelei, and that the girl in the yellow suit nursing the topmost layer of piping hot cocoa was Lacie.

“I’m not going to do it,” Lorelei said at last. “I absolutely refuse to sacrifice any more innocent lives.”

“She expects us to all do our part,” Lacie said.

When Lacie placed her cocoa down on the counter, it was with the utmost care. But Lorelei slammed her fist on the surface, spilling the drink all over the table and startling her sisters.

“Well, count me out!”

“Don’t tell us this!” protested Lucy. “Bring it up with her.”

“You know as well as anyone else here she’s stopped listening to me!” Lorelei yelled. “Whose side are you on, anyway?”

Lucille stood from her chair.