Car alarms blared in the distance.
Echoing in the still air between buildings.
Acrid tire smoke filled the air
Kent moved the unconscious homeless clear of his path
He was hunched over the rolling bed, using his leg to adjust the bodies below
He pulled the bed forward out of the alley
Clearing a path through the alley was easier to do from the front.
Bodies below lay at unnatural angles.
Clearly by having fell the wrong way.
The chemist lay unconscious on top of the bed
The chemist rolled over, falling into the railing
A few uneven surfaces would have been troublesome without the bed's side guards
Kent Barbado
'They said you were in over your head, Kent...'
Kent exited the alley approaching the street.
Then he saw the fires.
Cars were still running, but most had crashed.
Many had turned over on the sides of streets
Kent Barbado
'They were fucking right!'
Kent walked down the sidewalk, pushing the bed
He listened.
There was no sound of life.
No screams, no yelling - no footfalls in the distance
Kent Barbado
'An air-raid siren would be appropriate...'
He passed a wreck - a car rolled upside down after some impact.
They were dead, he knew: the cabin had been crushed below human capacity.
It was a family, he saw that much before he looked away
It was screaming into the wind, but maybe.
Kent was only around the first corner - he continued on.
Behind him there was a whistle, loud and sharp: calling
Kent turned around
He didn't see the source
He called out again
A flowerpot burst through a window of a steakhouse.
Kent ducked behind a line of parked cars
Felix Danabrus
"Over here!"
He waited and saw Felix poke his head out of the broken window
Kent Barbado
'Why is he awake?'
Then a sinking feeling in his stomach appeared
Kent Barbado
'Did he cause this?'
He decided that it couldn't have been solely Felix
Kent Barbado
'No: to many people affected...'
Kent Barbado
"What the hell is going on?"
Felix Danabrus
"No idea!"
Kent pushed the bed towards the steakhouse
Felix was at a window seat, eating a steak
Felix Danabrus
"Get some nice beauty sleep, did you?"
Felix pointed at the bed with is fork
Felix Danabrus
"Making friends?"
Kent shook his head
Kent Barbado
"Why aren't you asleep?"
Felix took another bite of steak
Felix Danabrus
"Disconnected - as much as one can be: I assume you are as well."
Kent Barbado
"Disconnected... from?"
Felix Danabrus
"The link."
Kent waited
Kent Barbado
'The fuck is the link?'
Kent Barbado
"So what happened to the link?"
He wanted to ask what it was, though felt that unwise
Felix shrugged
Felix Danabrus
"Don't know, Flanagan said to disconnect."
Kent Barbado
'Flanagan is a person, good to know.'
Kent Barbado
"Are they going to wake up?"
Felix Danabrus
"How should I know?"
Kent parked the bed next to the door and entered the steakhouse
Little locking wheels on a hospital bed were useful
Kent Barbado
'At least the Chemist will stay put.'
Kent Barbado
"Who would know?"
Felix Danabrus
"Flanagan, either this is him or that Al-tok thing."
Kent sat at the seat across from Felix
Kent Barbado
"Al-tok, is that an app?"
Felix Danabrus
"Did Martha tell you anything?"
Kent shook his head
Felix sighed and spend the next several minutes catching Kent up to speed
Kent Barbado
"So this Al-tok this is an idea?"
Felix twisted his hand out noncommittally
Felix Danabrus
"It isn't human, or a human thought... well, not a natural human thought..."
Felix held out a syringe
Felix Danabrus
"Takes something like this to make anyone think that."
Kent had a vial of that same liquid - hidden now in his pocket
Felix Danabrus
"Impossible chemicals, for impossible thoughts."
Kent Barbado
"That sounds like bullshit, I can think anything I want to right now."
Felix shook his head
Felix Danabrus
"No, you can't think any thought you want.
You can't.
I can't.
We can only think the thoughts our brains allow."
Felix took another bite of his steak
Felix Danabrus
"You should eat - if they stay asleep - food won't keep forever."
Kent Barbado
"What you don't believe in free will?"
Kent sat down at the table across from Felix
Kent just watched him eat
Felix Danabrus
"I do, I just don't think free means unrestricted."
Kent Barbado
"That's generally what free means."
Felix Danabrus
"Generally..."
Felix took another mouthful of steak
Kent Barbado
"Chew you goddamn food, people choke on that stuff!"
Felix Danabrus
"Aren't you going to eat?"
Kent Barbado
"I'll wait.
Shouldn't we be going?"
Felix continued to talk around mouthfuls of meat
Felix Danabrus
"Yes, but calories first."
Kent heard screaming in the distance
Felix turned his head
Listening.
Kent felt something hit his leg by the ankle.
Felix had knocked over some people sitting together to get at their food
Kent stood up.
He dodged a twitch of a fallen patron's leg
Kent Barbado
'People are waking up...'
Kent looked around the room
He found movement everywhere
Kent Barbado
'All of them.'
Kent turn to Felix
Felix was choking on his food
Kent could hear the lack of breathing.
Felix was unnaturally still, his body on automatic
Kent Barbado
"Hey, you there?"
Felix did not respond
Kent moved in and applied the heimlich
Around him patrons had started to stand up
Felix spat up some steak
He was still unresponsive but breathing clearly
Kent Barbado
'The bed has room for two.'
Kent snapped his fingers in front of Felix
And when no answer was forthcoming
Kent picked up Felix, and carried him to the bed outside
Around him the patrons were confused.
Some were looking at him and the damage caused.
Others were looking at their own hands
Kent put Felix on the bed
Next to the chemist.
He heard a commotion inside
He rolled them down the street
Kent Barbado
'Away from the broken glass.'
He took in a few breaths.
Around him people were examining the car crashes.
But there were others: roaming groups descending on the unsuspecting.
It wasn't with guns, or knives or sticks: but words and pictures
He pushed the bed down the street
It wasn't just one group absorbing another, but multiple each clawing for control of the people of the others.
Together it was a chaos
Kent looked around himself
He was at an intersection touching the park
Kent Barbado
'Okay Kent, where to?'
He kept an eye out for anyone, any group, approaching him
Kent Barbado
'Where did Felix come from, Where did you first see him.'
He remembered seeing Felix walking in the park.
It was a guess, but...
Kent Barbado
'If Felix (and who he was) with was making a bee-line...'
Kent turned left
Kent Barbado
'Eh, close enough - he can tell me different when he wakes up.'
Kent looked down at Felix
He was not moving
Kent Barbado
'If he wakes up...
Shit is he still...'
Felix started coughing
%%%%
It was cramped with seven people in the bubble.
Martha held tightly to the chair in the center.
They all were, due to the turbulence.
Martha didn't see anything outside the bubble, a blank void.
The bubble was shaking, as if unsure of it's position without any other points of reference.
A shaky memory, shifting every time it was examined
Gerald Whitewater
"I have some bad news, it's worse than we thought."
Gerald pulled a lever up.
The ship calmed
Gerald Whitewater
"There's nothing out there, no where to go."
A silence fell over them
Martha Crisp
"I might have a way."
Everyone turned their head to Martha, besides Wilbert, whose eye was already on her
Alacira gestured for her to continue
Martha Crisp
"Well, Flanagan did: The way we came into the link, we should be able to get out the same way."
Gerald Whitewater
"Martha - when I say there's nothing out there, there is nothing, even if we have a way back we wouldn't be able to get to it right now."
Navigator
"👈ðŸ§ðŸ‘‰?"
Martha Crisp
"Through me, through that thing in my head..."
Alacira leaned over and looked at the unconscious Flanagan
Gerald Whitewater
"She'd have to go outside the bubble for that."
Lana Alacira
"That's the easy part!"
Sonny was still weaving webs, the glowing sacks stuck to the walls.
Every addition making the bubble smaller - hotter
Martha Crisp
"Does anyone have a better idea?"
Gerald Whitewater
"Waiting it out is less than ideal: we don't know how long this will be..."
Martha looked around the room
Gerald Whitewater
"And There is nothing out there."
Lana Alacira
"If there was nothing out there we wouldn't be here in this bubble."
Alacira was staring out the bubble
Lana Alacira
"I don't think that nothing out there is nothing.
Just nothing we can use."
Alacira turned to Gerald and Martha
Lana Alacira
"She's offering to act like rudolph - light our way home.
A single light in a dark forest attracts the wrong kind of attention."
She turned to Sonny
Lana Alacira
"Smaller: marble sized - give them a seam to break at."
Sonny chittered at the spiders above.
Lana Alacira
"And a harness for her!"
Alacira pointed at Martha
Lana Alacira
"What are we looking for?"
Martha took a moment to think
Martha Crisp
"A recent memory, outside of a mansion."
Martha blew out her breath
Martha Crisp
"Then from there - we go into that hollow, fractal, echo of me.
Up the rabbit hole to the real world."
Martha Crisp
'Yes, saying out loud, it sounded crazy.'
Alacira only nodded
Sonny walked up to her and handed her a vest
It was made of webs and attached to a rope in the center
Martha put it on
Martha securing herself, she looked out into that nothing
She stepped out of the bubble
Her self ripped open, like a ballon with suddenly no pressure
%%%%
Ada walked through the halls of Șolomanță.
The palace she was in, had a particular quality:.
Everyone saw their own version of it.
Everyone knew it was underground the Romanian countryside, but....
Were the walls red, or green, or plum?.
There were details rendered individually by the brains that saw it
looser details
Though many details were indeterminate there were some commonalities.
The floor was shades of copper, steel, iron, coal, tiled in a dragon curve, for one.
And rooms were all the same...
Well: mostly
Ada Lovelace
'What a golden opportunity.'
If she wanted she could peruse the library of memetic info-hazards.
It was to her left as she walked down the hall.
Her heels clacked on the floor and echoed down an otherwise eerie silence.
Above hung a sign, not of wood, or iron, as most chose to see it, but of fact
Dangerous!
Ada Lovelace
'Dangerous for a reason.'
The doors had been opened
Ada Lovelace
'As long as I use the right filters.'
She looked in.
Naked facts hung everywhere
Facts dangerous to understand, facts that could destroy minds.
But with the right filters of perception - looked at from only a particular viewpoint - they were safe to consume
Ada Lovelace
'Well...
Safe-ish...'
She continued on
Part of her wanted to know - things other's have tried to understand only to have been brought to madness.
But she walked on, content in her brief encounter
Ada Lovelace
'At least I get to enjoy this silence.'
She stepped over another body
All of which occasionally spasmed
Ada Lovelace
'Which way...'
To the vault of infectious memes.
The McCollough effect got out a few decades ago...
Ada Lovelace
'Or was it a few scores now...'
Time flew by so quickly the longer you lived.
It had led to some tools to make someone who was aware (but not awakened) very rich
Ada Lovelace
'If I cared about making money, or if any of my friends did.'
No, she decided - up the stairs
Ada Lovelace
'Onwards to the prize.'
She climbed them
Upstairs was the sovereign's personal development environment.
Even most people at the gathering didn't know about this room
Ada Lovelace
'Hell, most people who did know about this chose to forget.'
Not her though, she had to know, this and more
She entered a room
A bedroom - the bed was surrounded by a lake of water lined with mirror.
And another door: behind which was the most dangerous place in this reality.
As it edited this reality.
The truth she knew and chose to remember was that this reality was just a dream in the link.
A dream made solid by everyone's participation.
That there was nothing but the link.
That 'objective' reality was only a narrow part of the link.
Special, yes, but small.
And that narrow part kept minds bound to it.
And that room would edit not just that... but the link entire.
So of course she had to at least look inside.
She had to know.
She heard footsteps from below
The voice of a gruff carriage driver, one she didn't recognized
Ada Lovelace
'Quick peek, then get out of here.'
She walked to and opened the door
Beyond the door was a dark empty space, and in the center a flashing cursor
Ada Lovelace
"Password: well, of course..."
She heard footsteps on the stairs, more than one
Ada Lovelace
'Time to go.'
Jochek
"Ada - are you awake?"
A voice that sounded like guitars broken in glass and tar
-relux sampoa.verify(Self)
Ada paused, a particular link formed from a command line interface...
true
It was for emergencies - she kept enabled despite being told to server all open connections.
That was near impossible, to server all ties to the links.
But besides that one she had gotten close
She closed the doors, and exited the room
Out in the hallway stood two people, old and frail and lumpy
Jochek
"Awake, I win.
Come on darling, much to catch up."
Lenny
"We got to get The Way Out: and get out of here, sooner the better."
Ada walked toward them
Ada Lovelace
"Is the link safe?"
Jochek and Lenny shook their heads
Jochek embraced her, and Lenny shortly after
Their bodies unaccustomed to hard riding; they were in need of a bath.
Still: Ada embraced them back
Jochek
"Physical link is fine."
And shorter than a heartbeat later Ada was one of three.
She felt the loss of self, to bring something greater into being
Lenny broke the embrace and moved to the stairs
Ada Lovelace
'The Way Out is downstairs.
What gives with the unconscious?'
Footsteps fell on the stairs behind them
Understanding flooded Ada - sharing a mind, sharing memories with the others she was both herself and not herself.
She was part of the egregore the Relux
The Relux
'Someone is awake!'
Lenny, at the stairs, heard multiple sets of feet below
The Relux
'Hiding would be prudent.'
They weren't supposed to be on this floor: none of the guests were
Ada led them towards a door across the hall
It led to a library for old dusty books.
Shelves lined the wall extending into the ceiling
Lenny locked the door
They took a moment to rejoice: in their reunion ; their being one again.
A moment cut short by banging on the door