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to: @morphogenetlc
from: @4ourleafclover
so I’m not your santa but I was going through the prompt list for writing ideas, and one thing led to the next and I wrote about 6000 words for the left clone carlos au.
(i swear i don’t have a problem)I may do more individual drabbles for each C-team segment as well, this was so much fun to write.it ended up focused more on pre-ZTD carlos but this au is a good idea??? i like it a lot omg
‘Carlos’.
That’s what they’d told him his ‘codename’ was, and at the time he’d only been able to give a dull nod. They’d explained a lot of things, about a ‘true name’ and about his ‘greater purpose’, however he hadn’t really understood. It was his first day after all, and despite the knowledge that he came with there was a lot he just didn’t understand.
Everyone here had the same face, with no exception. Oh, there were differences- some would do their hair up, or let it grow long, but their faces all matched perfectly. He didn’t exactly understand why it was important, but from the way the others spoke it was what made them special.
What exactly was ‘special’?
He’d been told that he was special, that he’d been chosen for a very special mission. That he’d be getting special training, but he first needed to meet Brother. Once he met Brother, they said, He would understand.
He still didn’t, really.
‘Carlos’ found that he was a very good actor, however. He’d learned the lines he was supposed to say to fit in with all of the others, he knew the mantras and doctrines and rules well as the rest, but none of them held any real meaning to him. Hell, half of the words that he knew he didn’t even know what context they were supposed to be used in.
Brother had told him that as a special exception, he would be allowed outside. He was told that if he kept his ‘purity’, didn’t defile himself with the impure people outside the facility, that he would be allowed to go on the most important of missions, to the most holy site in the world. ‘Carlos’ didn’t understand what he meant, but agreed anyways.
They’d dropped him off at a park, leaving him entirely alone, and far too unprepared for everything around him. The first thing he’d seen were the faces- they were incredible. Each one of them was distinct, and it didn’t just stop there. People had different colours of hair, skin, eyes, everything! And all of their bodies were shaped differently as well- were these people really supposed to be ‘impure’? It didn’t make sense to him, but Brother wouldn’t lie. He could trust Brother.
Right?
He’d decided to simply sit on a bench, watching people with a somewhat bewildered expression, when a person walked up to him. They had blonde hair and blue eyes like him, but the body was shaped differently, and they were wearing some clothes that he’d never seen before. It was like the robes sometimes given for ceremonial purposes, but these were white, and looked flowing. The person reminded him of a bird, in a strange way.
“Are you ok, sir? You’ve been staring out there like that for a while…”
And they spoke, in a tone of voice that Carlos had never heard before. It was soft and light, different from the voices he’d listened to for all of his short life.
“Oh, um… yes. I’m fine.”
It was hard to speak to them- what was he supposed to say? He didn’t have a script to follow, not like before, so he floundered around with his words for a while before finally settling on just pointing at the clothes on their body and asking.
“What do you call that? I’ve never seen one before.”
The person laughed- it was almost musical, a vast contrast to the laughs he’d heard. This one felt… genuine. More alive.
“It’s a dress, silly. Are you serious, are or you just that bad at talking to girls?”
Girl- was that what this person was? He had the word, but he’d never had a reference before- ok, this was making a bit more sense now. So that must explain those differently-shaped people, then.
“Well, I’ve never met one before. Isn’t that normal?”
She laughed again, sitting down beside him.
“You’re weird. My name’s Maria- who’re you?”
Weird- wasn’t that normally an insult? And yet, the way she said it, it felt closer to the roughhousing he would see back where he came from- something familial. Was that ‘friendship’?
“They called me Carlos.”
“They did, did they?”
“Yes.”
“Who is they, then?”
“Brother, and the others.”
“That’s a pretty vague answer, but ok.”
Carlos didn’t think it was- the only ones he knew were Brother, and the others. There were no differences between them all- they were all Left, after all. So they were all the ‘others’.
“Well then, what’s your brother like?”
“I’m not too sure.”
“You’re not? How come?”
“We’ve only spoken once. He didn’t make a lot of sense to me.”
“Sounds rough… I don’t have any siblings, so I wouldn’t really know.”
Sibling- Carlos knew what that was, it was what Brother was supposed to be to them. They said Brother had lost his brother Left, which was why they were given the name. Were there really people with no siblings, then? It was a hard thing for Carlos to understand.
“I have a lot. I don’t think I could count them all.”
She laughed again.
“I thought you said you only had a brother?”
“And the others. There’s a lot of them.”
“That’s some pretty preferential treatment there, huh?”
“No, we don’t have preferences. We’re supposed to be equal.”
That was what they always said- they were a pure race, they were equal, there would be no discrimination (whatever that was) because they were better than the rest. Carlos didn’t get it.
Maria gave him an odd look, one that Carlos had never seen before. He couldn’t really describe it- it was perhaps a mix between the face you’d give it you were stuck on a puzzle, but had thought of a good joke. A sort of… confused, but amused face.
“Carlos, what sort of place are you from?”
“I’m not really sure.”
“Really? You can’t tell me anything about it?”
“This is my first time out, so yes.”
The confusion on her face seemed to double, along with a bit of surprise mixed in.
“Are you serious? But you look like you’ve got to be… what, twenty? No way you’ve never left before!”
“I’m not that old- maybe a month or two.”
“What?!”
It was pure surprise on her face, and Carlos wondered if he had maybe said the wrong thing. Was that not normal? He hadn’t been told what to say, or what not to say, so he was mostly running on his scripts, that were failing harder and harder by the second.
“Are you like, a tube kid then or something?”
“…Tube kid?”
“You know, like a clone! You hear about them in scifi all the time, but I didn’t know that science had gotten that far yet!”
“Yes, I am a clone- but what’s a ‘scifi’? I’ve never heard of that before.”
“It’s like, a fiction genre- Science fiction is what it’s shorthand for.”
“Science fiction?”
“You… you really don’t know?”
Carlos shook his head. Maria seemed to have had enough by this point, huffing and grabbing his arm.
“Ok, you’re coming with me. You’re either a crazy LARPer or the real deal, but either way I’m giving you some education.”
Maria had dragged Carlos along to an old brick building- she called it a ‘library’, but it looked incredibly different from the one where he was from- and pulled him up to the top floor, where the walls had been painted in bright colours and swirling patterns. A sign reading kidz corner had hung over the entrance when they walked in, and Maria led him along to a shelf labelled ‘science fiction’. She pulled a few books off the shelves- ones he’d never seen before- and handed them to him, before pointing at a couple of brightly shaped chairs that were too small for either of them to sit in.
He sat anyways, and so did she.
They spent the next hour or so going through picture books of space battles, and once Maria felt his ‘education’ was sufficient they’d moved onto fantasy, then mystery, then action. Carlos decided that the action books- ‘Comic Books’- were his favourite. They were all about saving innocent people, making the world a better place.
Wasn’t that what he’d been made to do? Make the world a better place?
It was past the time he was supposed to have been back in the park for pick up, but Carlos didn’t really mind. Maria was interesting, and she taught him about other humans- despite what he’d been told was a ‘brother’, Maria felt much closer to the real description than his Brother. He’d told her as much, and she’d laughed.
“Well then, I’ll be your sister now. I’ve always wanted a brother anyways, so welcome to the family, Carlos!”
Carlos smiled, but he found that it was a different smile than the one he was used to. It wasn’t something ‘default’, but rather it forced its way onto his face whether he wanted it to or not. It was a strange, forceful feeling, and he quite liked it- this must be what they’d described as ‘happy’.
“I’d like that.”
The smile stayed on his face even when he told her he had to go, and even after being picked up and going back to where he was from. Nobody payed him much attention anyways, so nobody noticed that anything was happening- but Carlos had changed. Perhaps most drastically, was the fact that he’d started sneaking out. That was expressly forbidden by their laws, and he knew it, but surely the outside world couldn’t be all that bad, right? It had all sorts of incredible things- birds, frogs, cats and dogs- and the people were nice as well. He’d tried speaking to others in that park as well, after meeting Maria. Some of them wouldn’t respond, or they’d run off, but others loved to talk to him. A girl he’d met- she looked wrinkled, like Brother did- loved to sit by the pond in the park, and talk about things. She’d chat about her ‘knitting’, about her ‘grandchildren’, about news and weather and anything that she wanted to, and Carlos found it fascinating.
But the best of all, was meeting his sister. Sometimes Maria would come and talk with him and the other girl (her name was Nancy), sometimes she’d take him back to the library to read more comics and joke about what was going on in them, and she’d even just taken him to all sorts of places around the city. There was a history ‘museum’ that explained all sorts of things about the past, events he’d never even heard off, an ‘art gallery’ that housed all sorts of beautiful paintings and sculptures that the place he came from could never hope to match, and there were many more parks- Carlos’s favourite places to go.
It was in one of these parks that Maria brought up the subject that would permanently change Carlos’s life.
“Hey Carlos, what would you think of coming to my place next time? I was serious when I said you could be my brother- and I’ve spoken to mom and dad too, they don’t mind. You always seem so lonely when you get here, and I know I’ve never been there, so I probably don’t have a say on it- but the place you’re from.. doesn’t seem healthy.”
Carlos could only blink. Did she mean for him to actually become ‘family’? He understood what a family was, but he’d never had one- and in the past month he’d stopped considering Brother as family. He would have to leave everything he’d known, everyone he’d known, but… that didn’t bother him. They shared a face, but not a mind- and besides, who would notice one less face in the crowd? Surely, nobody would.
And so, he agreed.
They decided to meet up in two days time, at Maria’s place this time. Carlos was incredibly exited to meet Maria’s (and who knew, maybe his too) parents for the first time, and it was increasingly hard to pretend that he’d never snuck out. The waiting was perhaps the hardest thing Carlos had ever been through in his life, but by the time he got out, he was convinced- he was leaving the place he came from for good this time, he’d have a chance to really understand humanity, and who knew? Maybe, if he put in enough time, he’d be able to do good just like those heroes from the comics.
Life was simply unfair.
When Carlos reached the scene, the only word that came to mind was ‘fire’. He’d seen it in the comic books, and he’d heard it described, but he’d never seen it before in person. The heat was so intense that it felt like he was burning, but nobody seemed to be noticing…. Until, Carlos noticed someone who shouldn’t be there. Someone who couldn’t be there.
“B-Brother…”
Horror drained all the colour from Carlos’s face as Brother simply watched the flames, face showing no emotion towards the people who were still inside.
“Wh-why….”
“They were impure. This is your punishment.”
“H-how did you-“
“I know everything.”
Carlos couldn’t say anything more. What was there to say? He should have known, after all- Brother knew everything, he was their leader. O holy Brother…
No, Carlos wouldn’t stand for it. He began to move towards the fire, only momentarily frozen once more by Brother’s voice.
“You’ll die.”
“I don’t care.”
What use was a hero who couldn’t even save one family? He had to try, dammit! Nobody was coming, nobody was here to save them, so he had to at least try. And it he couldn’t get Maria and her parents out, then that’d be proper punishment- what he deserved for letting his only chance at a family be killed because of his selfishness.
The heat was a million times more intense when he was inside the building- everything was loud, everything hurt, the smoke got in his lungs and it stung to breath, but he had to keep moving. He had to save them, he had to save them….
“Carlos! Over here!”
Him being able to hear her made no sense- some logical part of his brain knew that, but he wasn’t running on logic at this point. He was purely human instinct and a desperation to save his family, his real family, from the murderer standing outside the door.
Murderer.
No, no, now wasn’t the time to get caught up in those thoughts. He could deal with the confusion and betrayal after he saved them. Thoughts propelling him forwards, he eventually broke the door down to a small room, one person lying alone on the ground, unconscious.
“Maria!!”
Carlos’s scream was loud enough to be head even above the roaring of the flames, but still she didn’t move. There was no time to waste, no time for thinking, he just picked her up, and started running- he had to get her outside, get her to good clean air that wasn’t smoke and didn’t hurt to breath, they were so close…
He ran outside just as the fire fighters were arriving, collapsing to his knees and coughing after depositing Maria gently on the ground. The firemen were talking to him, but his hearing was still dulled after the incredible noise of the fire- and with the smoke in his lungs, it was all he could do to keep talking at all.
“P-parents… inside… s-save them…”
A coughing fit overtook his body by this point, he couldn’t see Maria anymore (some paramedics had hooked her up to an oxygen tank, but their faces were grim) and the firefighters weren’t going inside. Why weren’t they going in? Maria’s parents were in there! They had to save them!
Carlos tried to get up, to run back inside, but someone help him back.
“Are you crazy, Son? It’s too dangerous by now, that house is going to collapse any second now!”
“But.. her parents! You have to save them!”
“I’m sorry kid… but it’s too late.”
Carlos could feel his world breaking down. Something just broke inside of him, and he crumpled to the ground, tears streaming down his face.
He’d been too late.
He couldn’t save them.
It was his fault.
They’d died because of him.
He was the murderer.
He looked up at the paramedic with empty, heartbroken eyes, almost unwilling to ask his next question.
“M-Maria… is she ok?”
“She’s got a case of Carbon Monoxide poisoning- it’s not good, but she was lucky to have you. I can’t promise you anything, but without you, she would have been a goner. You gave your sister a chance, son.”
It wasn’t much, but it was enough for him. Maria had a chance to live, a chance to survive- Carlos swore in that instant that he’d do whatever anyone said just to ensure that she’d live. Even if he had to die a hundred times, so long as she could live… maybe that would make up for his sin, just a little bit.
“There is one thing you can do.”
The voice made his skin crawl. It was Brother, likely here to taunt him once more.
“I will see to it that little Maria has the best health care that she could be afforded. She’ll be allowed to live the rest of her life peacefully, and healthily. You don’t need to worry about her at all. However, in return, you must come to work on one of my projects- the Dcom project. You’ll probably be required to die, but you said you were willing to face that, weren’t you?”
Carlos turned to look at Brother, nothing but determination on his face.
“I don’t say things that I don’t mean. I’ll do whatever it takes, just don’t let her die.”
There was an unspoken threat to his words- perhaps it was foolish of a mere clone to honestly think he could actually threaten his ‘creator’, but he meant it. If anything happened to Maria, Carlos would not rest until Brother was dead- even if that meant taking every single person in the place he came from with them.
Carlos underwent intensive training for the next year. There was a lot of stuff to learn, before Dcom- he was supposed to be Carlos, a firefighter, who was there to pay for Maria’s treatment. Truthful enough, but that meant he had to learn what being a firefighter entailed. The physical training was intense, but the mental training was just as tough- he was constantly being drilled about every tiniest thing a firefighter could know, as well as the ‘backstory’ that had been made for him. He had to have it picture perfect after all, or the others would know something was up.
However, time eventually came, and Carlos arrived at the test facility. There were the seven others he’d been told would be there- but perhaps the most shocking, was the inclusion of Brother himself. He’d called himself Q for some reason, he even claimed he couldn’t walk, see, or hear- but Carlos knew better. Brother was watching, always watching, and always plotting.
That became incredibly obvious when they woke up in the containment rooms, locked inside, with a stranger in a strange outfit walking around- no, it wasn’t a stranger, it had to be Brother. Carlos couldn’t say it, that was the one thing he’d been absolutely forbidden from revealing, but that much he knew for sure.
The coin flip was naturally on him, as Brother surely wanted to torture Carlos just a little bit more, and naturally he got it wrong. Carlos would have already forgotten that though, but the time he next woke.
It was time for the decision game.
Waking up in a bomb shelter was perhaps the strangest part of what was going on, even more than the way Junpei and Akane talked. It was clear they’d both been in something like this before, but from the way Junpei spoke it had been more than that. Just what had gone between them?
He’d had his scripts prepared for any possible questions they could ask him, and now that there was only three people to talk with instead of 8 he found them asking a lot more about himself, along with the questions he asked them. The way they spoke reminded him a lot of Maria, actually- they were spontaneous, and he could never predict their next move. Despite their situation, despite everything, if he hadn’t been here to save her… maybe being with them could have actually been fun,
With the vote at 13:30, he’d gone to press the button as intended- he’d tried, he’d honestly truly tried, and yet, no matter how hard he struggled, his body had forced itself over the wrong button. Akane had yelled at him, but he could only stare dumbfounded.
“…How?”
“It’s simple- you just wanted an easy way out. I mean, it’s not like I can blame you.”
It was Junpei talking this time, his typically unimpressed nature not having changed, even with the circumstances.
“N-No, I’d never- My body just moved on its own!”
“You sure about that?”
“Yeah! I dedicated my life to helping people, there’s no possible way I’d do something that selfish!”
“Whatever you say, then. In the end, it’s probably not gonna be our heads on the chopping block regardless, so I can’t really be mad at you.”
Carlos looked down as Junpei spoke- it was true, yes, but it made him feel horrible. He’d already caused the deaths of two people, had he… had he really just killed three more? No, he had to believe that he hadn’t. Something had happened. Something. He just… didn’t know what.
He didn’t have much time to ponder on it, before he blacked out.
Carlos woke up again many more times, each time to make a choice, and each time the choice was forgotten. Sometimes he’d die, sometimes he was killed- there was even the time he’d killed himself (it was only right, if he’d really killed Junpei). As far as he was aware, things were getting reset each time- until finally, he could remember. He’d remembered a way to prevent the injections, to save them all, and to deal with that Force Quit Box- but he’d need a way to tell Akane and Junpei, subtly.
The method came so naturally to Carlos, that it almost sickened him. All he had to do was copy ‘Left’.
“Y’know, Akane… you’re really hot.”
The blush on her face was immediate, as was the confusion from both her and Junpei. He’d… probably have to apologize for this later. Like, a lot. Well, too late for regrets now- it didn’t matter if they hated him, he just needed to save them. He felt incredibly guilty when he pushed her down on the couch, and it took all his will to prevent the horrendously embarrassed blush from showing itself, and even more to keep his voice a steady whisper when he told Akane where to go to get the cards from the transporter room.
Akane pushed him off with all her might, like he’d asked her too, but that didn’t stop the burning hatred in Junpei’s eyes. Carlos was… definitely going to deserve what happened next. However, Brother would be watching, so Carlos needed to move. He ‘cleverly’ taunted Junpei some more, leading him out of the room, and really didn’t fight back as much as he could have when Junpei started beating him. In fact, he ended up just egging Junpei on more- he needed to remind himself to never try to channel this part of his memories ever again, because man did he feel like a dick.
After things cooled down a bit (and he had two generous black eyes and various other bruises, courtesy of Junpei), they finally made their way back to the lounge, where Akane was waiting. His plan had worked, they were finally going to avoid the injections and maybe now, finally, they could get out. They could meet with everyone, and figure things out… but he should have known better. Even with everyone showing up, even with them all trying to figure out how to solve this mess, Brother was there. He was always there.
Carlos felt his blood boil after Phi activated the force quit box, and Brother- no, Delta, told them all what it meant.
“Is this just a fucking joke to you?!”
He couldn’t stop the rage boiling over, as he screamed at the old man.
“Everyone here has died, multiple times! Do you not care at all? What the fuck is wrong with you?!”
He could feel everyone’s eyes burning into him, at the seemingly out of character outburst- but he’d had enough. Delta was convinced he could play god, convinced that nothing would go wrong, and Carlos was done.
“Amusing that you would say that, Carlos. Or should I say, Left?”
“I don’t fucking care anymore! Tell them whatever you want, but if you do, be sure to tell them everything! How many people have you killed, Delta? How fucking many?!”
“Raaagh, shut up!”
The yelling came from Eric this time- but from the look on his face, it was clear that it wasn’t really him. Delta was cheating, but wasn’t that to be expected? Carlos felt numb as the gunshot rang out and Delta died in front of him. Everyone was talking, yelling over each other about what to do. It seemed Junpei and Sigma really had it out for him now that they knew who (or rather, what) he was, but he could deal with that later.
“We need to SHIFT.”
“But that’s no different than killing those other, unsuspecting versions of ourselves! All they did wrong was win a coin toss!”
“Yeah, well all we did was lose a coin toss! Why are we worth any less than them?”
Carlos broke into the group discussion, face set with determination.
“You all need to live. You have to live.”
He needed there to be one- just one timeline where they could all make it out, where everyone could be safe, and know all that had really happened- he would do whatever it took to ensure it, even if they’d only see him as the bad guy. Even if he had to force their hands, he’d make sure they made it out.
Some hero he was, huh?
However, in the end, they’d done what he’d hoped. They shifted and things went white, before finally realizing where they were.
“We made it…”
Carlos wasn’t paying attention to who’d said that- no, there was only one person who he needed to find.
Brother.
Delta.
The person who’d given him life.
The person who’d ruined his life.
He found Delta simply standing there, A revolver resting in his hands. The old man apathetically tossed the gun to the ground at Carlos’s feet, waiting for him to pick it up before saying anything.
“You know, I must say that you quite exceeded my expectations. For a failed clone, you performed admirably.”
“I don’t care about what you say any more, Delta. I did my part- I took part in your little experiment, I didn’t tell anyone who you were, so you’re keeping your half of the deal.”
“But of course. Little Maria will likely have recovered by now- lucky, aren’t you? And now, thanks to everything that’s happened here, the world will be saved.”
“Saved? What the hell are you talking about?”
It was Junpei speaking up again, disgust on his face.
“The only reason the world is saved is because we prevented you from ruining it!”
“Those lives were necessary to prevent the deaths of th-“
“The rest of humanity. You said as much. But we’re not going to just take what you say at face value. You’re insane enough to create and release radical-6, I doubt it’d be much of a stretch for you to make up a lie about a terrorist.”
Sigma this time, his face completely and utterly cold as he looked at Delta.
“Well, you can think of me what you will. But for now, we still have one more, final decision game to play.”
“What are you talking about? Isn’t the game over?”
Diana’s voice was soft but stern, a carefully guarded worry in her words.
“Almost. Carlos, the gun you’re holding right now is fully loaded. I won’t use mind hacking on you, so you’re free to do as you choose. But, do pick carefully- the lives of me, you, and the entire human race hang in the balance.”
Carlos took a breath, raised the revolver, and fired.
The bullet whizzed past Delta’s head, missing easily.
“Don’t think you’re getting out of this that easily. You’re going to jail for all this.”
“But, there’s nothing to convict. I already explained, did I not?”
“Arson, and two counts of manslaughter.”
It was the first time Carlos had ever seen surprise on Delta’s face.
“That was you. You set their house on fire, knowing they were inside. Then, you let me believe it was all my fault, just so you could set all of this up. Not to mention, you’ve lied to, tricked, and manipulated who knows how many people. You aren’t getting off easy, Delta. You’re going to pay for your crimes for the rest of however long you have left.”
“Do you hate me?”
“You’re pathetic.”
It was strange, but Carlos really didn’t hate Delta. He looked at the person before him now, and all he could feel was pity. Pity for sad, sad old man who’d never been able to do something right, and maybe would never even have the chance.
Things after that happened pretty quickly- they’d managed to contact Dcom staff and get rescue squads sent, and not even Delta’s mind reading had given him the foresight needed to know that his getaway vans, with all the traps of the decision game, had been intercepted. He’d be going to jail for the rest of his life, however long that was going to be.
Now that everything was over, he finally turned to Junpei and Akane. The rest of the group had broken up into smaller clumps, talking about everything that had happened, but they’d stayed there, silent behind him. He didn’t really know how to talk to them- even if he’d joined the experiment to save Maria, he was still technically a Myrmidon. One of the very people Akane and Junpei had spent endless timelines trying to defeat.
“Left, huh?”
Carlos looked down, ashamed of the name but no longer able or willing to hide anything from them.
“Yeah.”
“Honestly, I didn’t even recognize ya. The other ones like you have blue eyes, not green.”
“What?”
Junpei crossed his arms, and Akane giggled a bit, despite herself, before answering for Junpei.
“Did you not know, Carlos? You have green eyes, not blue.”
“W-wait, are you serious?”
“What, have you never looked in a mirror or something?”
“No!”
Junpei and Akane were both laughing now, and Carlos feeling increasingly flustered- that must have been what Delta meant by a ‘failed clone’- so he had been different, all along. Weird.
The laugh had cleared up the tension in the air, but Carlos still felt like he needed to talk a bit more.
“Look, I… I know I lied to you guys, but I just want you to at least let me explain. Everything I told you about Maria, about coming here to save her- that was all true. She’s not my biological sister, but she’s still my sister, even if only in spirit. Delta said that if I joined the Dcom project, he’d ensure that she was safe for life. I.. I didn’t have much of a choice…”
Carlos was surprised that it was Junpei who spoke up, hiding just the faintest hint of an embarrassed blush from his face.
“Yeah, we get it. I mean, You’re not actually that bad of a guy, Carlos… You really wanted to save all of us. You’re a dumbass for thinking you couldn’t trust us, even after we all died that many times- but you’re not actually a bad person.”
“Junpei… Thanks for understanding.”
Junpei looked away to hide the increasingly red blush on his face, and Akane giggled- a familiar girlish laugh that reminded him a lot of Maria’s, in some ways. It was a happy sound, and he liked hearing it.
“Well, we should be heading back, shouldn’t we? We’ve all got a lot of things to sort out.”
Carlos and Junpei nodded, and they started heading towards the nearest of the emergency vans. It’d be a long ride back, but they deserved the rest.
Carlos was almost too nervous to enter the hospital room.
Junpei and Akane were there with him, trying to convince him to just go, but he’d been struck with a case of the nerves.
“But- what if she can’t forgive me? What if she hates me for everything? She was in a coma for a year, she’s probably-“
“Oh, just go in already!”
Junpei was having no more of Carlos’s nerves, and he pushed the taller boy inside the room. A very shocked, but very excited looking girl sat on the lone hospital bed, eyes shining when she saw who had come to visit.
“Carlos? Carlos, is it really you?”
“Um… yeah. Hi, Maria.”
He’d gone over to the side of the bed, not really knowing what to do, but he was quite surprised when she practically jumped from the bed with far too much energy for someone who’d been in a coma for a year, clinging to him in a bear hug that was impressively strong.
“I missed you!”
“…I missed you too, Maria.”
There was a sad smile on his face as he helped her back down onto the bed, with a moment’s pause before he spoke again.
“Look, Maria… there’s something I need to tell you.. about the arson.”
“I know.”
“Huh?”
“I… I saw it all, Carlos. When I was in the coma, my mind couldn’t stop jumping. It was only bits and pieces, but… after a whole years worth, I managed to piece together most of what happened back then.”
Carlos looked down, fists clenched.
“Well, I… I just wanted to tell you that he’s in Jail now. He’s already pleaded guilty, but he’s not going to be getting out for a long time. So, uh, I don’t blame you if you don’t ever want to see me again- I’ll get out of your life now.”
Maria only looked at him, with an almost disappointed look on her face, before it broke into a smile.
“You dummy, do you honestly think I would have hugged you like that if I wanted you out of my life? You’re my brother, so you’re stuck with me. You’re the only family I have left, now.”
Carlos felt tears prick at the corners of his eyes, and he had to swallow to keep them from spilling over.
“Maria… thank you… I-I.. I’ll be the best big brother you could wish for.”
“Hold on, big brother? Aren’t you only like, two years old right now? I don’t care what you are physically, you’re my little brother. So you can depend on your big sister, alright?”
Carlos smiled, nodding as tears started to stream down his face.
“Alright.”
It was a fairly touching moment- but it was ruined by the sound of laughter from the back of the room, coming from Junpei. Maria blinked a moment in confusion, looking at Carlos to explain.
“Oh, uh, right. This is Akane, and Mr. Moment Ruiner there is Junpei. They’ve both helped me out a lot.”
“It’s wonderful to finally meet you, Maria!”
“Yeah, nice to meet ya.”
They came further into the room to talk more to Maria, and Carlos stood back a bit to watch. It was funny, he’d hardly really known them, but being here, all of them laughing together like this… it felt natural. It felt like a family, a real family just like he’d been chasing after a year ago. Life was hard sometimes, he was painfully aware of that, but nothing was hopeless. Together, they’d be sure to make the best future for everyone- he was sure of that.
to: @electric016
from: @4ourleafclover
i’m not your santa, but i’m a million percent down for anything where Quark gets to live in any non-apocalyptic world, so i saw this prompt and all i could think was “one million percent yes”
Junpei glanced around the area, doing his best to look relatively indifferent to the circumstances. It was true- this was probably the best possible ending, and he was going to spend longer thinking on that, when he noticed something- or rather, someone that he was pretty sure shouldn’t be there. A little kid had just wandered out of the shelter they’d all just been trapped in. He looked like he was probably no more than ten, with blond hair, brown eyes, and a very odd hat… and after a moment’s eye contact, the kid ran up to him, and gave him a gigantic hug.
“Grandpa!”
Junpei could only blink in confusion, momentarily stuck in place, while everyone else present turned to look. (Was that Sigma snickering in the background? Real rich coming from you, old man.) However, the kid seemed undisturbed by the circumstances, released the hug, and looked up at Junpei with bright, excited eyes.
“So Mr. Sigma really was right! I never thought that thing would actually work…”
The child had crossed his arms, apparently quite deep in thought, and Junpei shot a look at Sigma- who only gave a shrug and a smirk that said he knew exactly what was going on but wasn’t planning on telling Junpei. Finally, Junpei couldn’t take it anymore.
“Uh, sorry kid, but… who are you?”
The child blinked, before realization hit him. “Oh, that’s right! My name’s Quark- we lived together on a different timeline.”
While that still didn’t do much to help his very obvious confusion, it at least cleared up why Quark had called him grandpa- but how old must Junpei have been on that timeline for the kid to call him that? Jeez! Eventually, it was Akane who spoke up to clear things out.
“Junpei, you remember the timeline where Radical-6 escapes, right? After many years, you eventually met and adopted Quark, and roughly ten years after that you both arrive at Rhizome-9 to play a nonary game.”
A hint of a frown made its way onto Junpei’s face at Akane’s description. He had his memories from that timeline back, just like everyone else, but it was quite possibly his least favourite of all the ones he’d had to endure. He’d have to try harder later to see if he could remember things from further down the line, but the thought of this little kid having to live in a world like that… Junpei didn’t like it at all.
“So, why exactly did you come back here, then?”
“It was grandpa’s- er, your idea. Once Mr. Sigma told us about the transporter, you said that you wanted me to have a chance to see the world before Radical-6 got out. So Mr. Sigma helped us send me here! I had to hide for a while because there were some people who were moving things, but once they were all gone I just got up and left.”
Quark looked proud of himself for his daring escape, and Junpei couldn’t help but give the kid a pat on the head and a smile. He didn’t really have the memories of that point from the other timeline, and yet he already felt that Quark was incredibly familiar. Those memories would probably come with time, if he really tried, but for now he’d just have to stick with figuring out what to do next.
“Well, considering you’re going to need a place to live, do you mind if you have to stick with me for a bit longer? My place isn’t that big, but it’s livable.”
Quark gave a vigorous nod, and Akane laughed softly from behind him.
“Junpei, if you need space, you can always come move with me to the Crash Keys HQ. We’re all going to be working together for a while now anyways, aren’t we?”
Junpei blushed, looking to the side as quickly as possible to hide it from view of anyone looking (but when you’re in the middle of a desert, that’s unfortunately hard to do).
“Oh, um, right. I guess you’re already getting a housing upgrade then, Quark.”
That was quite possibly for the best- the longer he thought about it, the more he was pretty sure that his little apartment wasn’t child-safe at all. Or clean. Maybe he should be more worried about how not-clean it was.
_____
Conversation continued on for a while, eventually devolving into random small talk. Sean and Quark seemed to hit it off instantly, talking about all sorts of things, and Phi and Akane had explained a few more things to Junpei about the radical-6 timeline, clearing up more of his lingering confusion. Things were overall fairly calm, despite being stranded in the center of a desert, when he heard the sound of a horn honking.
Looking up, Junpei saw two incredibly familiar faces- Aoi, driving a minivan, and Light, in the passenger’s seat. They explained that they’d used Crash Key’s resources to set up a perimeter around the area and had intercepted Free the Soul’s escape. Then it had only been a matter of using satellite imaging to find the shelter, getting a minivan large enough for everyone to drive back in. It would be tight, yeah, but it was at least better than being squished between Seven and Light in a car.
The drive back was lighthearted- Quark only asked once why there was an old man tied up in the back, but after explaining that he was Brother, Quark didn’t seem to mind much anymore. Delta was a much nicer passenger than Hongou had been, far less noisy- although that could have been due to the large amounts of soporil Diana had been kind enough to administer.
Their arrival back at civilization was confusing and hurried, many quick goodbyes in succession while everyone split up their separate ways. Eric and Mira were taking Sean with them, who was happy to oblige, Carlos had to go back to find Maria and help her get her esper abilities under control, and Diana had things to get sorted out back home; which meant Phi and Sigma were going with her to help. They’d all be meeting up again soon enough- they had a terrorist to catch, after all, and although Junpei wasn’t quite ready admit it out loud, he was quite happy about it. He was especially looking forwards to spending more time with Akane and Carlos- they both meant a lot to him by now.
However, for now, the only people left were Junpei, Aoi, Light, Akane, and Quark, who were all heading back to Crash Keys HQ. Light was going to wake up Clover and Alice, and the rest of them wanted simply to go home and rest.
Junpei had found himself watching Quark most of the drive, both amused and saddened by the kid’s fascination at everything going by. The world he’d grown up in had been completely devastated, but this one was still new and shiny… Junpei found himself more determined than ever that he’d be sure to protect this timeline. The plane ride had been pretty fun too- Quark had explained that he’d taken a space shuttle in his timeline, but nobody really flew planes anymore. The experience was pretty novel to the kid, and eventually the excitement had caught up to him and he fell asleep in his seat.
Junpei ended up carrying Quark inside their new little apartment; two rooms with a living room/kitchen and a bathroom. It wasn’t much, but it was still a million times nicer and newer than where he’d lived last, so it was quite an upgrade. He laid him down on a bed in one of the rooms, taking off his hat and tucking him into the covers, about to leave the kid to get some sleep himself, when he felt a hand grabbing onto his shirt.
“mnnn…. g’night, grandpa…”
Junpei smiled to himself, patting Quark’s back.
“Goodnight, Quark.”
from: @4ourleafclover
i’m not your santa, but the idea of Aoi helping Junpei right as he’s starting to slip into his ZTD mindspace just really spoke to me and I had to write something for it, i did my best to put a bit of soft fluff in because they need happiness in their lives
Junpei shivered, rubbing his hands together for a moment before shoving them back into his pockets. It was late, too late to be out and about, but he didn’t want to go back home. The apartment was a constant lonely reminder of just where he was in life- alone, lost, and hopeless. Returning to that cold apartment would just mean that he’d have no choice but to put up with all that again, so maybe for tonight he’d just stay here, outside.
He kept walking down the sidewalks in town, no real set destination or pattern, just wandering aimlessly in a coat that was probably too thin and a hat that was too old to do much good. Reasonably he knew that it was only going to get colder, but he still didn’t seem to mind. Maybe it’d be better to stay out in the cold? He wouldn’t be thinking about his job or anything like that then, at the very least… he was allowing himself to get too caught up in his thoughts, to a point that he almost missed the voice calling out to him.
“…pei? Junpei? Get a fuckin’ grip, man!”
When his thoughts came back to the present, he realized he was somewhere completely different, with a shockingly familiar face staring down at him. There was a blanket wrapped around him and he was placed directly beside a heater, warming up his still somewhat-numb body.
“Finally, you’re awake. The fuck were you thinking, wandering outside like that? You want to catch hypothermia and die or something? And I’ll have you know you’re pretty damn heavy, I had one hell of a time carrying you back here.”
“Santa- no, Aoi?”
Junpei was hardly able to form the proper words, but the person standing in front of him was indeed Aoi Kurashiki, looking hardly any different from the last time Junpei had seen him. The other only shrugged, as if it was obvious.
“Yeah. But were you listening to me at all? Seriously, you could have died Junpei.”
“…”
Junpei was silent, looking down at his knees. In all honesty, he wasn’t sure how to respond to that- it was horribly ironic coming from one of the people who’d previously kidnapped him and forced him to play the nonary game, after all. But beyond that, he really wasn’t sure what he’d been thinking, outside like that. He’d just felt…. Gray.
“…do you know where Akane is?”
Perhaps that was a touch cold to say to the person who’d saved your life, but Junpei had to know. However, Aoi only shook his head.
“Nah. We split up after leaving the desert- she’s got some stuff to take care of with our organization, and I haven’t seen her since.” Aoi sighed- it seemed almost uncharacteristic of him, but there was a distant, almost sad look on his face. “But that’s beside the point, Junpei. I’m not kidding around man, what were you thinking?”
“I… I just….” A pause. “I didn’t want to go home, tonight.”
Aoi scratched the back of his head, visibly frustrated. “Then next time, get a damn hotel room. You’re lucky I found you, nobody else was even out at that time.”
Junpei looked away, trying to hide the guilt on his face. Aoi was right, of course, but the berating didn’t exactly make him feel any better about himself. However, Aoi still had saved Junpei’s life, so something was in order, at least…
“..Look, I’m sorry. But… thanks. For picking me up.”
Again Aoi sighed, but this time he turned towards the table behind him, picked up a mug, and handed it over to Junpei.
“Just drink this and get better. You can sleep on the couch, I’d offer a bed but I don’t have a spare.”
Cautiously, Junpei took a sip. After determining that it wasn’t scalding hot he took another drink, bigger this time, discovering that it was hot chocolate- and it was incredibly good.
“Whoa, did you make this? It doesn’t taste like a mix or anything, it’s great!”
A light blush covered Aoi’s cheeks at Junpei’s praise, shaking his head as if to shake off the embarrassment.
“I-It’s nothing, really. I just had to learn because Akane didn’t like the mixes when we were kids. That’s all.”
There was a beat of silence after that, the only noise coming from the low hum of the heater and Junpei sipping at the hot chocolate. Junpei took the moment to look around the apartment, only now really able to take in where he was. The place looked incredibly modern and well decorated- it suited Aoi quite well, in Junpei’s mind. He’d figured the Kurashikis would need to have a decent chunk of cash to pull off the nonary game, but this living space confirmed it; and it was definitely a nice change of pace compared to Junpei’s old apartment with too-thin walls and a baseboard heater that only worked 50% of the time.
Only now did Junpei hear movement again, and he looked over to see Aoi reappearing from the kitchen area with two plates, forks, and knifes, along with a small white box.
“If you think you can get yourself up, then get over to the table.”
Junpei found that he was smiling despite himself, and got up (still wrapped in a blanket, holding onto the hot chocolate) to move to the table. He sat himself down opposite where Aoi was standing, a bit surprised to find a cute looking strawberry shortcake inside the box. Once again, a light blush was covering Aoi’s face, but he continued to speak as if nothing was wrong.
“I get one of these every year, and seeing as you’re here, you might as well have some too. There’s more hot chocolate as well, so if you’re thirsty just ask.”
“You’re being… really nice, you know that?”
“Just shut up and eat.”
For the first time all evening, and maybe even since he’d left the Nevada desert, Junpei found himself laughing. And not something forced and shallow, it was a real, genuine laugh. The smile that had worked its way onto Junpei’s face got a bit stronger, and he looked up at Aoi.
“Thanks. For everything, Aoi.”
The other boy didn’t respond, choosing instead to dig furiously into his slice of cake- maybe he hoped the icing would hide the growing blush on his face? Well, it didn’t, but Junpei wouldn’t tease him over that.
They continued their late-night snack in relative silence, nothing but the occasional comment on the food, but they found that conversation just wasn’t really needed. Being in each other’s company was just… nice. It was genuinely fun, and Junpei felt as if a little bit of weight had lifted from his shoulders- sure, things weren’t all sunshine and roses for him, but at the very least he was having one good night.
After they’d finished eating, Junpei was surprised that it was him who suggested they watch something on TV. They’d sat down next to each other on the couch, both covered in the blankets that had previously only been covering Junpei, and just channel surfed until they found something. They’d ended up on what appeared to be a 24 hour Christmas movie marathon, showing only the best of low-budget made-for-TV movies that cheap cable could offer you.
He wasn’t quite sure when Aoi fell asleep, but he was sort of glad that he’d fallen asleep first- it gave Junpei a chance to whisper ‘merry Christmas’ into the other’s ear, before he snuggled up beside Aoi, falling asleep as well.
From: @chessanator
A bonus gift for TheFireInTheWire, because you asked a question that needs an answer. It’s also an exercise in seeing how much I can write without mentioning the subject of the prompt (3440 words, as it turns out!).
Third in The Firetruck Trilogy (along with my other two gifts): Ao3 Link. I love trilogies!
Carlos looked down at the gun in his hand. He rested his finger against the trigger. Then, he raised his arm and steeled his nerves.
Black anger swept across his eyes.
A shot rang out.
And then, silence. Ten heartbeats passed.
“Your choice is made,” Zero – Delta – intoned. He grimaced. “Though, Carlos, I wish you had chosen to show mercy without wasting a bullet. In this unfair world, such careless decisions rarely pass lightly.”
The gun slipped from Carlos’ fingers and fell to the sand with a thud. He was sure – absolutely sure! – that he had aimed the gun straight at Delta’s heart. But it had gone wide: very far wide. It was like an entire moment was missing from the world, during which it had changed – if only slightly – without Carlos’ understanding or consent.
Delta continued speaking to the group of players, ignoring Carlos’ confusion. “I will be leaving now. You should do so as well. After all, you have a world to save. I wish you the best of luck.” Delta turned away and retreated through the entrance of D-Com, though Carlos barely saw him move before he was gone.
“So, what do we do now?” Mira asked.
Akane took charge, striding into the centre of the gathered group of players and turning to face them. “For now, we should just take care of our immediate needs. There’s no way we can consider what we’ve been told to do until they’re dealt with. Do we even know when we last ate?” After a pause, punctuated by shaking heads, Akane continued. “People from my organisation, Crash Keys, will be here shortly to pick us up. Until then…”
Akane’s voice trailed off into silence. Or rather, Carlos’ hearing of it did, for Akane’s lips were still moving. Gradually, new sounds started to pierce through Carlos’ sudden deafness. He heard the rumble of tires on gravel. He heard the crackle of an untuned radio. He heard a siren.
Lost in the noise, Carlos nearly jumped when someone squeezed his arm. It was Diana. “Carlos… You spaced out for a moment there. Are you alright?” she asked. The way she asked it made it seem like she done so several times.
“Yeah,” Carlos replied, “It’s nothing. Just some buzzing in my ears. I’ll be fine.” A sudden flash to a vehicle speeding down a rough track quickly proved those statements false.
But when Carlos’ eyes cleared, he continued to act as though nothing had happened, looking around at the others to try to catch up on what he had missed. It looked like Akane, Sigma and Phi had agreed on a plan of action, despite Junpei’s persistent attempts to monopolise Akane’s attention. On the other side of them were Eric and Mira, tentatively intertwining their hands. That left one other person, but Carlos didn’t see him immediately.
That was because Sean had wandered away from the group, looking out over the desert. “Hey! Do you guys hear that?” he asked, jumping up and down as he tried to increase his line of sight.
Eric grunted. “Geez. Of course we don’t, Sean. We’re not robots like you. There’s no way we’d be…”
Mira suddenly shushed Eric, pulling him back to face her and placing her hand over his chest. “Wait, Eric. I think he’s right. I hear something too.”
Carlos turned to face the direction that Sean was looking in, trying to hear the sound. He didn’t find it as difficult to hear as the others. It pounded in his ears as though it came from right in front of him. The siren.
Gradually, a red speck appeared on the horizon. It shot towards them, kicking up a cloud of sand behind it. After only a few seconds, a fire-engine skidded to a halt in front of them. A figure stepped from the driver’s seat, wearing full turnout gear, the helmet of which obscured their face.
The figure’s voice, muffled by the breathing equipment, called out. “I promised, didn’t I? That I’d come back for you… what? You’re… already out?” The person in the protective suit trailed off in confusion, then stumbled backwards.
Carlos stumbled as well. His vision shifted, and for a moment he found himself looking out through the visor, his body feeling like it was floating inside the suit. He saw all the players of the Decision Game from across the distance: all of them, including himself. When his sight snapped back into his own head, Carlos yelled, “Who are you?
As the figure flailed for balance against the side of the fire-truck, they answered. “I’m… I’m… Who are… you?” Eventually, they caught something to hold onto and, with their other hand free, ripped off the helmet. Carlos was able to see the man’s face for the first time.
The face was his own.
“No!” Carlos yelled. Thoughts and memories rushed chaotically into his mind: memories of a ten-month-long past that couldn’t possibly be his own. The views from both sides crossed over each other until nothing could be perceived in either of them. And his consciousness was pulled between both of the bodies, stretched to the point where it almost belonged to neither.
With mutual agonising screams, both Carlos and Carlos collapsed into the sand.
Carlos woke. He opened his eyes.
He found himself lying in a hard lumpy bed beneath a dim light that hung from a rust-covered ceiling. Out of the corner of his eyes, he could see that his bed was just one of a row of many. His bed – no, the entire room – was swaying beneath him. Carlos tried to crane his neck to look around.
A beam of bright light suddenly shot into his right eye. A second later, it darted over to his left. “He’s awake. His reactions are good.” Diana’s voice, calm and professional.
Excited, bounding footsteps clanged against the metal floor to Carlos’ left. Their owner skidded to a halt leaning above Carlos. Long blonde hair tickled his cheek. “Good morning, Big Bro! I guess I get to look after you this time.”
“Hey… Maria,” Carlos said to his sister, his voice still achingly weak, “Good to… see you.”
Maria opened her mouth to speak again but was cut off by a curt voice from somewhere behind her. “Please step back, Maria. You’ll have time to talk to your brother later.”
As Maria stepped back, Carlos levered himself up the backrest of the bed until he could look out across the rest of the wide chamber that was the room he’d woken in. It had been Akane who had interrupted Maria, and she stood a couple of metres away past the far left corner of the bed, Junpei alongside her. To Carlos’ immediate right was Diana, wearing her nurse’s uniform and testing the IV that had been inserted into Carlos’ right arm. Finally, Sigma stood on the other side of room, half in shadow and with his arms folded solemnly – though he kept taking peeks at Diana’s back when he thought she wasn’t looking.
“Hey, everyone,” Carlos said, “Where am I?”
Junpei stepped forward, shoving another bed aside to clear a path. “You’re gonna have to answer our question first. Which one are you, Carlos? The one who was with us the entire time? Or the one who showed up at the end in the fire-truck?”
Carlos squinted his eyes quizzically. “‘Which one?’ What: did you manage to mix us up?”
“Please, Carlos, answer the question.” Sigma’s voice was filled with stern paternal authority, carrying across the room from where he stood without him having to raise his voice at all.
“Alright. I drove the fire-truck back to D-Com.”
Junpei frowned.
“Junpei. That there’s a coherent answer to that question is a miracle beyond our wildest hopes.” Akane stepped forward, placing a hand on Junpei’s arm before walking past him and all the way up to Carlos’ bed. “Carlos, perhaps you can explain to us how everything happened from your perspective.”
Carlos recounted how he had been prevented from transporting with Akane and Junpei to the new timeline, and how he’d realised that they would have both found themselves trapped in the bunker once they arrived. He then explained how he’d shifted to a third timeline where the transporter was still usable, jumping back ten months so that the transporter would be powered again by the time the Decision Game started.
“You still should have tried to stop Zero’s plan,” Junpei muttered under his breath.
“And once the Decision Game started, I came back to help both of you get out,” Carlos concluded. He paused. “But… you were already out. That’s what I don’t get. How had you already escaped? And… how on Earth was there another me there?”
“Carlos,” Akane said with an almost patronising weariness, “You went back in time ten months. You went back to before the game had even begun. All of its possibilities were still open, including this one, and you thus ended up in all the possible timelines that resulted from the game. Every single possible Decision Game had a Carlos waiting outside it. In another timeline, you did find Junpei and me trapped there, and saved us. But in this timeline, we were set free by Zero right at the very beginning. When you arrived, that is what you saw.”
There was a long pause as Carlos processed that news. “So… that’s where the other me came from. He was the one originally from this timeline.”
“You could say that,” Akane replied.
Maria leapt forward again. “Yay! I have two Big Bros now!” She wrapped her hands around Carlos’ shoulders and hugged him tightly. “Isn’t that great!”
Carlos stroked the back of his sister’s hair. “That’s right, Maria. We’re together again. Both… All three of us.” Placing his hand firmly against the mattress, he began to rise from the bed.
Diana’s hand planted itself firmly against Carlos’ right shoulder. With surprising strength, she forced Carlos to lie back down.
“Diana!” Carlos yelped with alarm, “What are you…?”
“I’m sorry, Carlos,” Diana said, “I can’t let you get up yet. Doctor’s orders.”
“But I’m fine!” Carlos exclaimed, “I’m better now! I’m as fit and healthy as I’ve ever been. I feel great!”
Diana closed her eyes, clearly holding back tears. She stammered as she spoke “Carlos… I never thought I’d have to tell anyone something as difficult as this. Please, ready yourself.”
Carlos did so.
“Carlos… you’ve been effectively brain-dead. For nine months.”
“What?” Carlos shivered. His right hand moved to cradle his head by pure reflex. “How can… What happened to me?”
“I don’t know,” Diana said sorrowfully, “I’m sorry, but I just don’t know.”
Akane’s voice cut across the room. “For lack of a better way to describe it,” she said, “this is Reverie Syndrome.”
“I thought that all cleared up,” Diana replied, tilting her head, “when we finished the game.”
Maria nodded, then pointed an accusing finger at Akane. “Yeah! That’s right! I’m awake, aren’t I? That’s because Reverie Syndrome’s gone for good.”
“In general, yes. But Carlos’ case is more… specific.” Akane looked at Diana and bowed her head. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier, but I wanted to be absolutely sure about the details first.”
“What Akane means by that,” Junpei interrupted, “is that she gets a perverse pleasure from knowing things that other people don’t, and wanted to drag that out as long as possible. Seriously, the first time we got a room to ourselves, she…”
“Shush, Junpei.” Once Junpei was quiet, Akane turned back towards Carlos, Maria and Diana. “Where the original Reverie Syndrome was caused by the looming threat of the end of the world, and therefore affected many people to varying but lesser degrees, the problem we have here only affects Carlos and does so totally. Simply put, Carlos’ Reverie Syndrome is caused by the fact that there are two of him in this world.”
Sigma stepped forward across the room, out of the half-shadow he had stood in. “You know, I have been wondering about something. Every time we used the transporter, those people found themselves in a timeline where they were already dead. I thought it was just coincidence, but… there never are any coincidences with this, are there? It must have been a safety feature of the transporter itself, to prevent this from ever happening. Carlos seems to have found the only way to force it to break.”
Akane nodded. “It’s likely that sharing the Morphogenetic field with another version of yourself is dangerous to everyone. But when that person is a powerful esper – one who has recently undergone a Unison Event, at that – the results were catastrophic.”
Carlos clenched his fists. That the abilities he had only just developed could harm him – nearly kill him – was sickening. He knew how to fight a fire. Fighting the Morphogenetic field couldn’t possibly be done. “If that’s what happened… How am I even awake right now?”
“You asked earlier where we are,” Akane replied. She gestured around the plain white walls of the hospital bay, her arm swaying as the room continued to rock. “Welcome to the Gigantic. She’s a sister-ship to the Titanic, and was used as a hospital ship by the British during World War One. We have her sailing in the Pacific Ocean, only a few hundred miles from the coast of Japan. The other version of you is in a facility with a replica of this room back in the Nevada desert.”
“I’m sorry to interrupt,” Junpei said, “but when Hongou set up both the boat and that building, wasn’t the entire point of it that esper abilities still worked over that distance?”
Akane blushed. “Well, um… yes.” She pointed at Carlos. “It worked, didn’t it?! At the very least, we got the two of them on different day-night cycles. And I’m sure that keeping them in identical conditions helped stabilise the fluctuations in Morphogenetic field. See? I was thinking about this.”
“I’ve been flying back and forth since I woke up,” Maria explained, “I wanted to be able to say ‘Good Morning,’ and ‘Goodnight,’ to both of you, just like you did.”
There was a short pause. Then, Diana sighed. “If what you’re telling us is true,” Diana said, “then… We can’t keep this up. We can’t just keep Carlos here forever. He could relapse at any moment… or worse.”
The room fell into silence. In that deafening silence, Carlos realised what had to be done.
“If the reason I’m sick is because there are two of me, then…” Carlos said unsteadily, “one of us has to die.”
Both Diana and Maria gasped. Maria squeezed him tighter. “No! Big Bro! Carlos!”
Carlos patted her on the head; his hand gently guided her away. “It’s okay, Maria.” Then he raised his voice so that what he said next was announced to everyone. “If one of us has to die, then it should be me.”
“The other Carlos volunteered as well,” Akane said, “during his brief moment of lucidity.”
Sigma clasped his hand and pursed his lips. “You know… they both agreed to this very quickly. Far too quickly.” He paused for a few moments, frowning. “We should all get ourselves checked. There’s still a chance that…”
“Goddamnit, Sigma!” Junpei interrupted, “Not everything is about Radical-6! Look, I get it. Your Nonary Game was all about the stuff, so I can understand why you’d get a little obsessed. But seriously, Carlos is just like that. A one-hundred-percent self-sacrificing hero.”
“Thanks, Junpei.” After nodding to Junpei, Carlos held out his hand to Maria. “Don’t worry, Maria. It’s not the end. When I’m gone, the other me will wake up. You’ll still have your Big Bro.” After gently caressing Maria’s hand, Carlos let go and turned his head towards Diana. “Diana, can you take Maria away now, please? She shouldn’t have to…”
“No!” Maria cried out. Tears crashed down her cheeks. “I won’t leave you! I have to be brave like you are, so I have to stay!”
“Maria,” Carlos interrupted sternly but gently, “I know you are brave. But you have to think about the other me as well. He won’t know anything about this. You have to be able to look at his face – my face – without thinking about someone who’s died. Can you do that, Maria? For me?”
Maria averted her eyes. “You’re right, Big Bro. I should go.” She turned, took one step away, then turned back. “I love you, Carlos.”
“Thank you, Maria. It was good to see you awake again,” Carlos replied.
When Maria had left the hospital room, it fell mournfully silent. Four pairs of grieving, conflicted eyes burned into Carlos. Eventually, he felt forced to speak.
“So… How are we going to do this?” Carlos asked.
After a couple of seconds, Akane drew a syringe filled with a clear white liquid from her pocket. “This is Soporil Beta. It’s an anaesthetic. That way, you’ll go without any pain.”
“That makes sense,” Carlos replied.
Akane passed the syringe to Diana. Diana carefully examined the liquid inside, then squirted a little out the end. Even when satisfied, she didn’t use it immediately. Instead, she asked Carlos, “Is there anything you’d like to say, before…”
“Last words, huh? I hadn’t thought of it like that.” Carlos’ forehead scrunched up as he considered. Eventually, he shook his head. “No. I think I’ll leave that for the me who’ll carry one living. Go ahead, Diana. I’m ready.”
Diana nodded, then placed the tip of the needle against the IV. She took a deep breath, and then pierced the tube. With her hands steady only because of years of training, she placed her thumb on the plunger. “Goodbye, Carlos.”
And then, at that moment, Sigma leapt forward. “Stop!”
Diana had frozen in place. She hadn’t injected the Soporil. “S-Sigma?” she stammered.
“We can’t do this!” Sigma shouted.
Akane sighed. “It’s terrible, I know. But unless we do this, Carlos will never have a proper life. It’s a tough decision, but one that has to be taken, just like the Nonary Game you had to run to get here.”
“There’s another way!” Sigma strode towards Diana. “Diana, please. If you trust me, take that thing out of there. Please.”
Diana did so, instantly.
Akane’s voice took on a curious lilt. “Explain, Sigma.”
“You said that the cause of Carlos’ illness was that there are two of him in this timeline,” Sigma said.
Junpei snorted. “We’ve been over this, Sigma.”
“Yes, but we didn’t talk about the key point!” Sigma exclaimed, “The problem isn’t anything to do with Carlos’ body. The problem is Carlos’ mind. Our only problem is that Carlos’ mind is in this world.”
“Sigma, what are you…?” Akane paused. She smiled. “Of course…”
Carlos wriggled in the bed. “Can someone explain to me what you’re talking about?”
“We don’t have to kill you,” Sigma said, “All we have to do is shift your mind out of this world.”
Carlos gasped, then groaned. “Would that even help? All that’d happen is that world’s version of me would take my place, and then they’d be in the same situation I am. I couldn’t do that to them.”
“Yes. There are a lot of constraints here,” Akane said, stroking her chin, “As Carlos says, we can’t just switch him with another version of himself. We’d have to find a way to shift him into the body of an entirely different person, if that’s even possible.”
“It is,” Sigma stated firmly.
“We’d have to ensure Carlos didn’t exist in that world. Then person who Carlos swaps with would have to be a powerful esper, or it wouldn’t work. And then we’d need to be absolutely certain that person doesn’t exist in this world either. Sigma… Can you be sure that this shift will fulfil all that at once? Because if you fail, you’ll only make the problem far worse.”
Sigma nodded confidently. “I’m certain. I know just the person it’ll work with.” He trailed off, mumbling, “Someone I haven’t seen for a good long time.”
“Spit it out, Sigma,” Junpei said, “I don’t want to die of old age before finding out what your crazy plan is.”
Sigma stepped forward once more until he was right beside Diana at the edge of Carlos’ bed. “Carlos, I believe I remember telling you, back when we first met in D-Com, that I was from the future. Forty-five years in the future. You didn’t believe me then, of course, but after what we all experienced in the Decision Game I hope you’ll believe me now.”
Carlos nodded.
“During that time,” Sigma continued, “I had a son. His name is Kyle. If there is one thing I regret, about jumping back in time and preventing the Radical-6 outbreak, it is that I had to leave Kyle behind to do it. At the time, there was no other way. But… if there was any chance I could see my son again…” Sigma fell silent, gazing pleadingly into Carlos’ eyes.
“Of course!” Carlos’ mouth burst into a broad smile. “I’d already agreed to die. Now I get to keep on going, and do some good at the same time.”
“Are you sure?” Sigma asked nervously, “The future I’m talking about is the one where we failed to stop the outbreak. Civilisation has ended, there. I wouldn’t say life there is meaningless, but it is rarely comfortable.”
“Sigma, I’m a firefighter. Diving into dangerous places to save lives is my job. There’s no way I’d ever refuse.”
“Thank you, Carlos. Thank you so very much.” Sigma’s voice stayed quiet; his vocal chords couldn’t believe, even as his conscious mind knew that Carlos had agreed.
“So how do we do this?” Carlos asked.
Sigma pondered. “I’ve never done anything like this before, but… I should be able to guide you there. Kyle is my son, so I should be able to use that bond to direct your mind into his body and bring Kyle safely back here.” He placed one knee on the edge of the mattress and reached his hand out towards Carlos
Carlos took a deep breath. He steadied himself and concentrated, preparing for the biggest shift he would ever take. Finally, he took Sigma’s hand. “Go ahead, Sigma. I’m ready.”
“Goodbye, Carlos.”
The mind in Carlos’ body woke. He opened his eyes.
He found himself lying in a hard lumpy bed beneath a dim light that hung from a rust-covered ceiling. Out of the corner of his eyes, he could see that his bed was just one of a row of many. His bed – no, the entire room – was swaying beneath him.
Someone was standing in front of him and just to his right, half-leaning on the bed. A man. The mind in Carlos’ body craned his neck up and was able to see the man’s face for the first time.
The face was his own.
Suddenly the man’s phone rang. He awkwardly drew it from his pocket and placed it against his ear. The call connected, and a voice started coming through the phone, loud enough to hear.
“Did you feel that?” The voice seemed very familiar, though he couldn’t quite place where he had heard it before. Phi: was that her name? Phi continued speaking. “That ripple in the Morphogenetic field was massive. You have to have felt it! What could have caused…?” Phi cut off sharply. When she spoke again, she only had a single question. “Where is Kyle Klim, Sigma?”
Sigma. That name was familiar too. Impossible as it seemed, there could be no doubt about the identity of the man standing by the bed. “Father?” Kyle asked.
Sigma looked down at Kyle. He beamed proudly. A single tear rolled down his cheek. “He’s here,” Sigma answered into the phone, “Kyle’s finally here.”
On Christmas day, 2029, the doorbell rang: a single solid buzz, followed seconds later by an excited melody as the button was pressed again. Kyle answered. He looked out through the opened door at the two people who stood there. “Ah, hello. Carlos and… Maria, right?”
Maria’s mouth dropped open as she pointed straight at Kyle’s new face. “Whoa! T-That’s so… weird! It’s like you’re nearly Big Bro, but not quite. So weird!”
“Maria…” Carlos interrupted awkwardly.
“Sorry, Big Bro,” Maria said sheepishly.
“Still, it is strange,” Carlos murmured, studying Kyle intensely, “It’s not just the hair…”
Kyle’s hand reached up automatically and stroked through his hair, which he had let grow untidily out of Carlos’ crew-cut and then dyed jet-black.
“It’s everything,” Carlos continued, “The entire way you hold yourself. From your posture, it’s clear you’ve never been down a pole in your life. Akane and Junpei told me what had happened, but actually seeing you… It’s something different.”
“I’m glad I have been able to differentiate myself from you enough,” Kyle replied. He stroked his hair again. “I felt that you had, ah, priority on your original appearance.”
A voice called from deeper inside the house. “Kyle! Are you going to invite them in yet?” Phi strode up and peeked past Kyle and through the open door.
“Ah, Phi!” Kyle exclaimed, “We were just talking about how I’ve started dying my hair since I got back. I’ve yet to properly thank you for getting it for me.”
“Well…” Phi shrugged. “I was already buying all my white hair dye from them; with yours as well I qualify for the bulk discount. And…” Phi tilted her head. “It suits you a lot better this way.”
Phi and Kyle led Maria and Carlos through to the spacious lounge. Sigma and Diana were already there, cuddling on the long sofa by the fire, watching the Christmas movie that played on the television. As everyone entered Sigma and Diana turned to greet them.
“Hey, Carlos, Maria!” Sigma exclaimed, “Come on in!”
Carlos sat down in the armchair closest to the sofa and replied to Sigma. “Thanks for having us. It’s a shame Akane and Junpei couldn’t come with us, but they’re still on their honeymoon. They sent me Christmas cards to pass on to you, though.” Carlos took the cards from inside his coat and added them to the large pile on top of the coffee table.
Maria bounded over to the window on the other side of the lounge and stared out into the garden beyond. “Whoa! This place is huge.”
Diana shrugged. “We never know when we might need the room.”
“That’s right,” Phi said as she strode over to the other armchair and flopped down into it, “When things go down, they go down in the Nevada desert. We need all the space we can to prepare for that stuff. Plus, we’re a big family.” Phi glanced over at Kyle, still hovering by the doorway, and smiled.
Carlos gazed around the room. “The mortgage on a place like this has to be pretty hefty, though.”
“Well, that’s the thing,” Sigma said, “We didn’t need one in the end. We’d managed to scrape together the down-payment between Diana’s promotion and my new job…” Indeed, Sigma had finally managed to officially become Dr. Klim, forty-five years after he had first been called that.
“And that’s when Phi dropped two hundred thousand dollars on the table and bought the whole place outright,” Diana explained. She paused. “Phi… where did you…?”
“Nope,” Phi interrupted, “Not talking about it, no matter how much you ask me.”
Maria skipped back over and sat down, perching keenly on the armrest of Carlos’ chair. “So, you’re loaded, Phi?”
“Yeah. I guess you could say that,” Phi replied.
Kyle watched from the door as the others began to open the Christmas cards, one by one. One came from Diana’s colleagues, congratulating her for finally moving on from her ex-husband. Another came from Sigma’s doctoral supervisor, rather meekly apologising for keeping Sigma at the office the year before. And, of course, there were cards from the many people they had met due to the Nonary Games.
“Ooh! Here’s one from Delta,” Diana exclaimed, fishing that card from the pile. “Let’s see… ‘To Mom and Dad and Sister and Brother’… How does Delta know about…?”
Phi plucked the Christmas card from Diana’s fingers and flicked it into the fire. “Ignore it,” she said, “That old bastard never misses a chance to be creepy.”
They were about halfway through the pile of envelopes when the television screen flickered and the face of a young boy replaced the movie. It took Kyle a moment to recognise that face, but it belonged to the boy that the robot named Sean was based on. When Sigma had offered to make Sean a more human-like head, that was the face Sean had chosen.
“Hey, everyone. Merry Christmas!” Sean said, his voice playing through the television’s speakers.
“Hi, Sean,” Diana replied, “What brings you here?”
“Um… Eric’s visiting Mira in jail right now. I wanted to connect you both together so we could have a really big Christmas thing together. Is that okay?”
“Of course,” Sigma replied.
“You can do that?” Carlos asked, “Show Eric and Mira everything that’s happening here, and the other way round?”
“I’m in the big powerful computer now. I can see everything!” Sean explained, “I’ll bring them up on the screen now.”
The image on the screen changed again. Everyone looked at it, just for a second. They quickly averted their eyes.
“Sean, dear…” Diana started to say.
“Yeah, Diana?” Sean’s face – smiling innocently – reappeared on the screen, covering a rather fortunate patch of it.
“I think Eric and Mira want a little private time,” Diana explained.
“Oh! Okay.” The image went black for a second and then the movie started playing again, though Sean’s face remained in the top left corner. “You were opening Christmas cards earlier, right? Do you want to carry on? Can I watch?”
“Of course.” With that, Sigma reached back down towards the pile.
“Wait, Sigma,” Phi said.
“Huh?”
“There’s one card in there that definitely has to be opened next.” Phi leaned across and shuffled the envelopes around. “This one. The one addressed specifically to Kyle.”
Kyle stepped forward unsurely. “Phi. It’s, ah, okay…”
“No, Kyle. You’ve been standing over there for, what, half an hour? This is your Christmas, too,” Phi said.
Sigma looked over towards Kyle. Kyle saw in his father’s eyes something he hadn’t seen for a long time. Shame, and guilt.
“Don’t worry, Father, I’m…” Kyle started to say.
“I have not been the best father for you,” Sigma stated, his voice filled with a solemn weight, “I have too often been distracted by other things. But everything is supposed to be over now, and I am still missing things I should be noticing. I’m sorry.” Sigma shuffled closer to Diana, so there was space on the sofa next to him. “Come over here and tell me what’s wrong.”
“No, Father, it’s okay. I wouldn’t want to, ah, ruin everyone’s Christmas,” Kyle said. With a deep sigh, he turned around and left the lounge.
By one minute later, Phi had dragged Kyle back into the room and placed him onto the sofa next to Sigma.
Leaning out so she could look at Kyle past Sigma, Diana said, “It’s okay to talk about whatever it is that’s worrying you. It doesn’t mean that anyone’s done anything bad, just that there’s something we can do better at. And it’s better than letting it fester: that’s something I learned very well over the past few years.”
Kyle took a deep breath, trying to put his unease into words. “I’m grateful that you found a way for me to come to this timeline. And I’m grateful to all three of you that you have allowed me to live in your home. It’s more than I could possibly deserve. All of you were the ones who saved the world from Radical-6. I merely showed up after the end: a, ah, hanger-on. I am out of place, here.”
Phi snorted. “I don’t think there’s such a thing as being in place or being out of place. There’s no-one who can tell you that you don’t belong somewhere; you can take whatever destiny you choose for yourself. And if you asked any of us, we’d tell you that you belong here.”
Kyle shook his head. “I tell myself that I do not belong. I feel it. This…” Kyle patted his chest, “This is not my body. I stole it from someone else.”
Carlos replied, “I can’t be certain what the other me was thinking, back then, but I’d have made the same decision.”
“Being in Big Bro’s body just make you that much more huggable!” Maria exclaimed. She then demonstrated, first around Carlos’ shoulders before dancing over to cuddle Kyle as well.
Sean piped up from where he was in the television as well. “I don’t know much about you, Kyle, so I’m sorry if this is completely wrong. Um… it probably will be. But Sigma and Phi told me a little bit about what happened to you, and I think it was kind of like what happened to me at the end of our game. It felt really weird, the helmet and the not-having-memories-of-things. I spent a lot of time thinking I was the odd one out. But if you want to like people and they want to like you back, everything just sort of works out okay.”
Even surrounded by the encouragement of family and friends, Kyle struggled: deep down, he was unconvinced. “I thank you all. But… I have done nothing to deserve this.”
Phi interrupted. “Tell you what, Kyle. Take a look at that Christmas card I pointed out. Talk afterwards.”
Gingerly, Kyle removed that envelope from among the other and turned it between his fingers, inspecting it. Within the gold trimmed border, drawn so that it was crossing the sealed flap, was a picture of a rabbit.”
“Huh? Isn’t that one of the ones that Akane asked us to bring?” Maria asked.
“Yes, I think it was,” Carlos replied, “Get it open, Kyle. I want to hear what Akane has to say.”
Kyle carefully opened the envelope. Inside, he did not only find a Christmas card. He found an entire letter with it. Kyle unfolded the sheet of paper and began to read aloud.
“Dear Kyle,
“As this timeline drifts from the one in which you were born, I become less and less able to connect with it. I will now never be the Akane Kurashiki that you knew. But I do still know that you once called that Akane ‘Mother.’
“I also know that there is much she wished to tell you before you left, but was unable to because you left that timeline because you woke up. That is the reason I decided to tell you this through a letter rather in person: the rest of this letter is her final message to you. She should say it, not me.
“Kyle. The mind that has replaced you in your body has just awoken here, and it has already become clear that he is not you. I can only hope that means you have safely made it back to some point in the past. Which past, and which version of that past, we do not know.
“It is entirely possible that you did not arrive in the timeline we would have hoped for. If that is so, then I wish you the best of luck. Though any future with Radical-6 in it is dire, it is clear that you have the skill and determination to survive there.
“I believe, though, your father succeeded: both in preventing the outbreak and in reuniting with you. In which case, you are now living in a world with a golden future, surrounded by a loving family, where every possible threat has been ended and every possible problem has been fixed. And, if I know you as well as I think I do, you are feeling that something is wrong.
“There is a reasoning that is obvious, but mistaken. Having woken up in another man’s body with this feeling, you perhaps started to wonder if that was what was troubling you. But if there is one thing I have learned from my four Nonary Games, it is that minds are far more important than bodies. In time, you will learn that too. Instead, I want to focus on the root cause of your unease.
“Most likely, you are feeling frustrated by inaction. Just as likely, Sigma hasn’t realised.”
Akane’s writing became a bit untidy there, but Kyle quickly interpreted it and carried on reading.
“It is understandable. After Sigma was first ripped from his everyday life, he has spent forty-five years trying to create the world where everything was back to normal. He has finally achieved all his dreams. It is not a surprise, then, that he would expect everyone else to be happy as well as he finally settles down.
“But that is not you, Kyle. You were born to help save the world. You grew up knowing that you would play a pivotal role in the AB Project: maybe even lead it if Sigma failed. And then, when the time came, you played that Nonary Game only as an amnesiac; in the key timeline you did not play it at all. If you feel as though you have been wasted – as though you have been written out of the story of your life – that feeling is justified.
“But know this, Kyle. The world will always need espers. Your day will come sooner than you think.
“With Love,
“Akane.”
Kyle tremored slightly as he folded up the letter and placed it back on the table. His deepest feelings had been laid bare. With nervous eyes, he looked around the room, waiting for everyone’s reactions.
To Kyle’s surprise, Maria was the first to speak. “Hey. Carlos,” she said.
“Yeah?” Carlos replied.
“Kyle looks a lot more like you, now.” Maria tilted her head to the side and squinted and Kyle and Carlos in turn. “Not, like, normal you. More like you when you first joined the Firefighter’s Academy. Or when you saved me as our house burned down. Like that.”
Carlos nodded and grinned. “I think you’re right about that.”
As the immediate jolt of reading Akane’s letter faded away, Kyle realised that the response of only one person mattered. He turned his head to the side and looked directly at Sigma. “Father.”
Tears glistened in Sigma’s eyes. “I only wanted to keep you safe, Kyle.”
“I know, Father. You’ve kept me safe my entire life. But, ah…” Kyle shivered. He forced himself to say the words. “I cannot stay cooped up any longer. Either in Rhizome 9 or here.”
“Okay.” Sigma let out a deep breath. Through Sigma’s eyes Kyle could see a weight being lifted from his heart. Suddenly, Sigma spoke to the entire room. “I know we weren’t planning on doing it ’til later, but is it okay if I start on the presents now?”
When he had everyone’s assent, he stood up and left the room, returning almost immediately with an envelope. He sat down next to Kyle again and opened it up, taking two pieces of paper from inside. He presented them to Kyle: one in each hand.
Kyle peered at them. “Plane tickets? To Helsinki?”
“The people at Crash Keys located a community of espers in Lapland. Northern Finland. There’s a chance a human-trafficking ring is moving to exploit them, so they wanted a two us to go there and check it out. I’d intended on taking Phi with me, but… Now, the decision seems obvious. Kyle?”
“Of course!” Kyle exclaimed. Then, he paused. “If that’s okay with you, Phi?” he asked meekly.
“Hmm…” Phi scratched her chin. “Well, I wouldn’t have minded going with you, Kyle, but… ah, what the hell: get the father-son-bonding-thing out the way. There’ll always be another time.”
“Thank you, Phi.” Kyle turned back to Sigma and held out his hand. “Merry Christmas, Father.”
Sigma placed one of the tickets in Kyle’s hand. It took a second for them to properly connect, but then Sigma’s hand grasped Kyle’s firmly; the paper of the plane ticket in between was a resounding connection, not a barrier.
“Merry Christmas, Son,” Sigma replied.
? wandered through the corridors of Rhizome 9. His head ached with confusion. Akane had just told him that he was not Kyle Klim, even though that was the body he occupied. Though ? knew that was the undeniable truth, he still couldn’t comprehend why he only had memories of Kyle’s past and the Nonary Game Kyle had played a role in, rather than memories of his own.
The thoughts of that Nonary Game directed ? towards the one last place where he might find the answers he needed to understand his identity. The last puzzle room that Sigma and Phi had needed to solve was the Q room – the home of the quantum computer – and the mysteries of their game had finally started to reveal themselves there. Maybe the same would happen for ?.
He made his way there; he knew where it was, just as he knew everything else about the Rhizome 9 facility. As he entered the Q room ? was momentarily blinded by the sheer uniform whiteness, but then he saw a figure he did not expect the see.
It was Dr. Klim.
“Doctor?” ? asked, stumbling back with surprise. “I thought you were supposed to be sleeping.”
The Doctor turned around, spreading his arms; a welcoming gesture turned sour by his actions as Zero Sr. and the imposing silhouette it cast. “I was, for a time. But I was kept awake. You see, I was thinking about the nature of perception.”
“Hell of a thing to keep you awake. I think Akane has been rubbing off on you,” ? replied.
“That is exactly what I am talking about,” Doctor Klim said, “You see me acting in certain ways or others, but perceive Akane rather than myself. There are more extreme examples, of course. From the inside, a person may see themselves as the centre of everything that happens around them. But when they finally get the chance to see themselves from the outside, not only do they see themselves entirely differently – that is, as others see them – but they also see themselves as only half-there, a mere projection as it were, compared to the vibrancy of their inner life. Perhaps it is only by moving to another medium that a person like that can be entirely present, their true selves, even when perceived by the third person.”
? fidgeted. “That’s very interesting, Doctor,” he said, trying to prevent his impolite frown from forming, “but… I came here looking for a way to find out who I am. I don’t think I’ll be able to really appreciate any philosophy until then.”
Doctor Klim smiled, faintly. “I am beginning to believe that the thoughts that kept me awake are entirely related to your situation. After all, your presence here has everything to do with the abilities of espers and the morphogenetic field. There never are any coincidences with this, are there?” Doctor Klim paused for a second, thought deeply, then continued. “You have spoken to many people within this facility since you awoke. All of them had at least some inclination that you were not Kyle Klim, and Phi and Akane knew outright. I suspect Luna did as well. You must have noticed that none of them ventured to ask where you had come from, only discussing your past in the vaguest terms possible.”
“That’s right!” ? exclaimed, “Why wouldn’t they…”
“They were worried about perception,” the Doctor interrupted, “They have only known the one timeline resulting from the Mars Mission test of 2028: that of Radical-6. From your perspective, you have one specific history, which is either from that timeline or not. From ours, we have been constantly afraid, from the moment you woke, that our knowledge of the timeline of the outbreak would guarantee that past for you. The future affecting the past.”
“You’re worrying about Kyle, right? You’re worrying about where he’s gone to?”
“Always,” Doctor Klim replied.
“But… But, but, but!” ? spluttered, “Even I don’t know where I came from! I don’t have any memories of any Radical-6 outbreak, or anything else! I don’t have a past!”
Doctor Klim bowed his head. “Exactly. Your uncertain history makes our perceptions all the more dangerous.” For a moment, the Doctor clasped his hands together, moving them from side to side uncertainly. Then, he came to a conclusion. “Perhaps a different model is necessary. Consider, for instance… the termite.”
Doctor Klim swept his arm around, gesturing at the wall. Where his palm passed over them, the white panels rippled and unfolded, opening up the compartments within. ? knew about the puzzle components that they had previously contained, but this time they revealed something different: an entire termite farm extending into the room. As the termites that had been on the surface of the five towers of the mound scattered, fleeing the light, ? peered in curiously.
“I know you like these things: after all, you used them to give that lecture to your younger self. But what do they have to do with me?”
“Everything. At least, I think so.” Doctor Klim pointed towards the bottom of the mound, at a termite that had been sluggish in retreating back inside. “Each individual termite knows very little of the situation that surrounds the mound it lives in. It obeys its genetic programming and the chemical signals laid down by the rest of its colony. That is the lowest possible level of knowledge. That termite knows less than you, who has lost his memory entirely.
“That the individual termite knows little does not prevent the colony as a whole from knowing much more. It is clear that the colony is able to react to information from its surroundings, detailing soldier termites to respond to threats and worker termites to harvest sources of food. For its limited cognitive capabilities, the ability of a colony to build its mound, nourish and defend it is quite impressive.
“But outside of the termite farm, our knowledge and understanding is infinitely greater than that of the colony, never mind the individual termite. I believe that it is that greater understanding, that Third View, that will save you.”
? snorted. “That was very impressive, Doctor, but I think you are going to have to explain it a bit more straightforwardly.”
“Very well.” Doctor Klim pointed straight at ?. “You have lost your memories, and know only about the situation you are in and nothing about your past. Your view, the First View, is unfortunately limited.”
Then, the Doctor reversed his finger, pointing at himself. “We, the residents of Rhizome 9, know some things about the timelines that possibly followed that Mars Mission and to your history. We have a limited ability to react to your condition and make choices that will prevent the worst case scenario, just as a termite colony is capable of defending itself. Indeed, that is what everyone has been doing from the moment you arrived here. But the full, true nature of the situation eludes us; we cannot act outside our bounds.”
“And the Third View?” ? asked.
“It is possible that there is a viewpoint that has seen everything leading up to this moment.” The Doctor gestured again, reaching out his palm in a direction that seemed to ? to be completely at random. “For this Third View, my worries are a trivial epilogue to a completed story; Kyle is already safe in the timeline I never got to see. And, just as these termites have relied on me for the past forty-five years to provide food and shelter to keep the colony alive and stable, so I must place my absolute trust in this Third View. As such, I have decided that it is time for me to finally tell you who I think you are.”
“Finally!” ? exclaimed, “Please, tell me!”
Doctor Klim took a deep breath. “First, remember everything you have been told so far. It was all true, from a certain point of view, and thus entirely necessary to understanding your situation. You were, indeed, an extra variable in the scenario of the Mars Mission test site. Though it seemed that everyone had accounted for your presence, you turned up where no-one had expected you and changed everything, again and again and again.
“Akane must also have told you that the rules do not apply to you. I’m not entirely sure exactly what she meant by that, but it is clear that in reaching this place, you have faced and then broken out of the restrictions that bind most espers. One in particular should have brought you to death’s door and yet here you are, entirely healthy.
“And finally, the most important thing of all. Akane told you that you were the only one who could save the world. That is entirely true. After all, we would have had no chance at all of preventing the outbreak without you… Carlos.”
Memories rushed into ?’s mind. ‘Carlos’. That… that was his name. And that name came with a past: several pasts, in fact, linked by an inextricable web of time-travel. But only one of them applied to the Carlos that had arrived in Kyle’s body; once that one was locked down in his memory, Carlos’ turmoil was over. “How did you know?” Carlos asked.
As Carlos watched the man in front of him, a wide, beaming grin appeared on his face: one alien to the solemn and seemingly cruel Zero Sr., but entirely suited to Sigma. “I know myself,” Sigma replied, chuckling, “and I know you. There was no other way this could have happened.” For a moment, Sigma shivered, his internal conflict controlled in his remaining natural eye but unambiguously conveyed by the swivels of the replacement right eye. “I have to ask, now… Which timeline did you come from? Where did Kyle go to? Did Radical-6…?”
“It was contained,” Carlos replied, “Destroyed, even. Radical-6 won’t be infecting anyone, ever again.”
Sigma exhaled, pressing his right arm against his chest as though to keep his heart from exploding. “Thank you, Carlos. I never quite believed… that we’d ever succeed in defeating the virus, in any timeline. I guess my perceptions are as wrong as everyone else’s. I’m glad of that.”
Sigma and Carlos just stood with each other for a while. Mutual relief made it unnecessary to say anything at all; they just soaked up the moment and everything it meant. But eventually, even that moment passed.
Sigma sighed. “Carlos. I guess it’s finally time for you to decide what you are going to do now you are here. After all, this is an entirely new timeline for you. You could choose to stay here, on the Moon, in Rhizome 9. You’d be welcome, here.”
“Hmm…” Carlos murmured, “I’m grateful, but it doesn’t sound… right. You know?”
“I figured you’d say that,” Sigma replied, “There’s an entire world down there teetering on the edge but ready to finally start thriving once more. I wouldn’t say life down there is comfortable, but for someone like you… what you do down there will be incredibly meaningful.”
“You do know me,” Carlos said, chuckling, “So, where should I start? Any fires really need putting out?”
“Steady up there, Carlos! A fireman needs a fire-station to start from, after all. And I know just the place.”
Sigma waved at the other wall of the Q room, where the panels slipped aside to reveal a large screen. A map of the world appeared there, before it started the zoom in, first on the United States and then on the southern half of it. As Carlos blinked, the map was colour-coded: a swath of vibrant green cutting across the murky red along the banks of the Colorado river.
“That’s one of the largest communities to have formed since humanity recovered from the outbreak and the nuclear winter that followed. At its centre is a town named Fire’s End. Not many people know it, but the version of you from this timeline was one of the founders.”
“That sounds interesting,” Carlos replied. He was still uncertain, and it showed through in his voice.
“There’s something else,” Sigma said, “There are two people who live there. I’m sure they’ll be able to convince you to go. Two people who I’m certain you’d want to see again.” Two portraits appeared, superimposed across the map. Both showed faces that Carlos recognised very well.
“Tenmyouji… and Quark?”
“You’d know Tenmyouji better by his first name. He’s aged a lot since then, but Junpei is still basically the same person you knew in D-Com,” Sigma explained, “Quark’s actually a relative of yours: a great-nephew.”
Eagerness rose in Carlos’ chest, followed by panic. “They’ve just left! How am I…”
“You’ve got time,” Sigma interrupted, “They’re still getting on the shuttle that will take them home. If you hurry, you’ll make it. And don’t worry: the shuttle has three seats. I checked it myself.”
Carlos ran. He ran all the way to the pressure exchange chamber that led to the shuttle bay. His pace was nowhere close to what he wanted it to be – the weak gravity kept interfering with his stride, and his new body was a lot weaker than the one he was used to – but his intense determination carried him along. Eventually, he arrived in the PEC.
He needed to put on a protective suit to go further. Fortunately, Carlos had years of experience in using even the most bulky and complicated of firemen’s turnout gear: the space-suit was not that much harder to use. Carlos had it on and completely sealed within moments. With that, he could pass through the airlock and into the shuttle bay.
As Carlos entered, he could see the shuttle towering above him. Its door, close to the ground, was open with steps leading down. And of the two other suited figures in the shuttle bay, one was already climbing those stairs and almost inside the passenger compartment.
“Junpei! Quark! Wait!” Carlos cried out.
Both figures turned towards Carlos. His desperate plea must have carried to them across the radio. Carlos bounded forward, stopping only when he was close enough to see inside their helmets. It was Quark who had been climbing the stairs; the taller figure, just behind his grandson, was Tenmyouji.
As Carlos saw their faces, both Tenmyouji and Quark saw his. “Look, Kyle,” Tenmyouji said bitterly, “I already told you. We’re not staying here. There’s nothing for us, and there’s no way I’m sucking up to the bastard who forced us through that.”
“Wait, Grandpa,” Quark interrupted, using the extra height the steps gave him to place his hand on Tenmyouji’s shoulder, “I… I don’t think that’s Kyle. There’s something different. Like, in his eyes.”
Tenmyouji leaned forward, his helmet shifting on his suit so that the visor continued looking forward. Carlos stepped forward to meet him, and soon their helmets were an inch apart. They could see each other clearly as though there was nothing in between. In that moment, their eyes met.
“Carlos?!” Tenmyouji exclaimed, “How is that possible? How the hell are you even here?”
“It’s a long story, Junpei,” Carlos said. He gazed upwards at the magnificent spacecraft that towered above them, reaching onwards towards Earth. “Junpei, Quark. I think it’s time for us to go home.”
From: @chessanator
A bonus gift for Pomegranate-Belle, because there’s a ZTD timeline in need of a fix-fic and only Carlos is badass enough to save the day.
Sorry if it’s a bit on the subtle side: it took a bit of work making all my gifts consistent with each other. In any case, a few unanswered questions fits this story thematicallySecond in The Firetruck Trilogy (My official gift was the first): Ao3 link
“Fuck the Anthropic Principle,” Junpei spat. His stinging cheek gave extra weight to his anger. The ring that lay like lead against his fingers made that pain even sharper. The sight of Akane walking away sealed the grievance inside Junpei’s heart.
“Junpei…?” Carlos started to say. He hesitantly placed his hand on Junpei’s shoulder.
Junpei shrugged Carlos off. “I’m fine,” he lied. He walked back over to the table at the centre of the lounge where he had left his bottle of beer. “I just want to have a little bit more of my drink. That’s all.”
Carlos frowned. “I thought you didn’t feel like drinking anymore. Isn’t that what you said earlier?”
“Hmph.” Junpei shook his head. “I guess things change quickly. Isn’t that right, Carlos?”
“Whatever you say, Junpei. I’m not up for an argument right now.” Carlos turned to walk away.
“Thanks, Carlos,” Junpei said bitterly. He picked the bottle up from the table and swirled it around gently, listening to the satisfying gurgle of the liquid that remained at the bottom. Then he lifted the bottle up, the pleasurable coolness of the glass tingling his lips. “Seriously, fuck the Anthropic Principle.” With that epithet, Junpei drank deeply from the bottle.
As he swallowed the alcohol, his vision went black.
Junpei’s mind swirled, just as his beer had. For a moment he found himself kneeling in a fireplace, screaming as hot flying bullets tore his spine apart. Before the pain caused him to pass out entirely, Junpei’s mind was ripped away again. He tumbled through the Morphogenetic field for what seemed like hours until he finally came to rest.
Junpei stirred to find himself sprawled on the hard metal floor of the power room. A thin layer of water shimmered on the metal and soaked into Junpei’s shirt. Despite having trickled from the slab of ice that blocked the channel running through the centre of the room, the water was in no way cold. The sheer sweltering heat in the room that had warmed up the water quickly roused Junpei into full wakefulness.
The screeching alarm and the unnaturally bright light shooting through the blast window may have had something to do with that as well.
As Junpei clambered to his feet he saw Akane and Carlos on either side of him; once they had stood up as well he yelled at them, raising his voice above the noise. “Where the hell are we?!”
Carlos looked around. “It looks like the power room. We must have been knocked out by our bracelets again, then brought here.”
“That can’t be right,” Junpei snapped, “We had at least forty minutes to go!”
“More importantly,” Akane said, “we remember that. We can’t have been knocked out, or we would have lost our memories as well.” Akane just stood there for a moment, thinking. “I believe we may have shifted.”
“‘Shifted’?” Carlos asked.
“We’ve had our consciousnesses thrown into another time – maybe even another timeline – and occupied our bodies here. It’s hardly unprecedented. Right Junpei?”
“I should have known all this esper bullshit was going to show up again.” As Junpei scowled, something struck him. “Wasn’t it supposed to be the case that esper abilities only activated when someone was in great danger? Whatever you say about it, we’d just won the fucking lottery. Why would we jump out of that?”
Akane raised her hand to her chin nervously. “I think… I think it might have been the other way round. We weren’t the ones who chose to shift. The versions of us here were. They jumped to our timeline and we… we were forced back.”
“I’m not entirely sure what you are talking about, Akane,” Carlos stated, “but if you’re saying we’re now in danger, I don’t suppose it could be because of that?” Carlos pointed at the blast window. Inside, the glowing orb began to spin faster, sparks of energy leaping off it and crashing against the walls of the reactor.
If that wasn’t enough, an announcement soon conclusively answered Carlos’ question. “Countdown over. Detonation is now unstoppable. Please evacuate.”
“‘Evacuate’?!” Junpei gasped, “We can’t, Goddamnit! The door’s still locked!” His chest constricted his breath; panic took him. “Hey, Anthropic Principle? What I said earlier… I was just kidding okay? No need to do this to us, so we can go back, right? Let us back! Let us back, damnit!”
Akane reached out towards Junpei. She patted his shoulder and caressed it gently, until Junpei’s shivering died down.
“Akane…” Junpei whispered. The rest of the strength of his voice wouldn’t come. “We can get back, right? We’re the ones in danger now. That means we can shift back to the timeline we were in, and force those bastards to deal with the shit they left for us.”
Akane sighed sympathetically. “‘Those bastards’ are just us, Junpei. No more, no less.”
“Well, if one of them’s me, then he’s definitely a bastard.” Junpei turned squared on to Akane and clenched both her shoulders desperately. “Can we go back?”
Akane bowed her head. “I’m sorry, Junpei. I think there was… somewhere in between, when we shifted here. I might be able to make it back but” – the agony of a million bullets piercing his back flashed through Junpei’s mind again – “You and Carlos wouldn’t.”
Carlos started a methodical pace around the room. “There’s got to be a more mundane way out of here, guys! If we look for it, we’ll find it.” Carlos’ search took him to the other door out of the power room – this one had been opened – and into the small room inside. “Huh? Junpei! Akane! Have a look at this!”
Junpei and Akane joined Carlos to see him standing at one end of a pair of linked consoles. Junpei made his way over to the other; as he looked at the screen Akane peered over his shoulder. The words on the screen read, ‘Rules of the AB Game.’
“‘AB Game’?” Akane murmured, “I’ve heard of that.”
Suddenly she reached past Junpei, tapping the screen multiple times in rapid succession with her index finger. Several screen’s worth of text blinked past without stopping. Junpei squinted, trying to read what he could, but it was hopeless. From Carlos’ frustrated expression, it was clear that the instructions had flown by too quickly on his screen as well.
“Junpei, Carlos,” Akane said, her voice full of authority, “All you have to do is press ‘Ally’. Try to do it at the same time: I’ll give you a countdown. Are you ready?”
Junpei and Carlos both nodded.
“Okay. Three… Two… One.”
Two rounds of the Ambidex Game later and the door out of the power room had opened. “Let’s go!” Carlos shouted as he led the way down the short corridor beyond. The floor and walls trembled around them as they ran but the three of them still made it, bursting into the lounge and gathering in front of the X-door.
“Well? Can we get out or not?” Junpei asked, his question yelled fruitlessly at the X-door itself.
Somehow, the question was answered. “Now announcing the current casualties. Q-team: Q, Mira, Eric. These three are now deceased.” Three unusable X-passes were then released.
“Goddamnit!” Junpei roared, “What was the point of that? We’re still gonna die from that reactor, only now we’re doing it a few metres further away. Great job!” Junpei curled his hand into a tight fist and hammered it against the X-door.
The door shuddered slightly. So did the entire room.
As the tremors from whatever was happening in the power room reverberated throughout the facility, the walls of the lounge shifted; a wave of change rippled outwards from the frame X-door. Where it passed, the mottled brown of the walls and every feature on them vanished entirely, to be replaced only by a uniform whiteness. Where the ripple hit the floor it spread into that as well, removing all texture and colour from the carpet.
When the lounge had finally settled, Carlos gazed disbelievingly around. “The walls were just… holograms?”
“It seems so,” Akane replied, “I don’t know why Zero would go to this much trouble, but he must have had some reason behind it.”
As Junpei looked around as well, he noticed that something had been added when every other detail had been removed. He had noticed the doors. The two doors that had led into the rest of ward C were still there, but two other doors had appeared alongside: one exactly in the centre of the wall opposite the X-door and one tucked in the far right corner.
Junpei pointed them out to Akane and Carlos. “We should check them out,” he said, “There’s got to be something here that’ll help us, and since it wasn’t in the parts of ward C that we already explored it’d damn well better be in these new parts. I’m not gonna just lay down and die.”
“That’s the spirit, Junpei.” Carlos put on a grin that was only somewhat forced. “I’ll take that middle door. You two take the other one, and we’ll meet back here when we’re done. We can do this! We have to.”
Once Carlos had left, Junpei and Akane headed through their door. Beyond was a long corridor – one which looked much like the ones they had previously been through in C-ward – with a sharp bend to the left at the end. Junpei had only taken a few steps along when Akane stopped him, placing a hand nervously on his shoulder.
“Junpei…” Akane only got that name out before falling silent.
Junpei turned around. “Yeah, Akane?”
Though her voice remained quiet, Akane managed to say what she wanted to say. “Junpei… I’m sorry about what I said earlier. You know… back in the timeline we came from. I wish I had been able to celebrate with you, back when we had the chance. It’s… That’s just not how I am, anymore.”
Hearing Akane’s voice like that, Junpei’s hand dived instinctively into his pocket. To his relief, the ring was still there, even in this new unfamiliar timeline. Still, even as he fondled the ring, Junpei knew that it wasn’t the right time. He forlornly withdrew his hand. “It’s okay, Akane,” he said, wincing inside at how bland his words were. “There’ll always be time later. We can celebrate once we’re out of here.”
Junpei’s thoughts were interrupted by a faint groan that came from the far end of the corridor. By the way Akane’s eyes darted up, she had heard it as well. Without needing to say anything, both Akane and Junpei started sprinting towards the source of the sound.
As they reached the end of the corridor they found the room that the groans originated from. The label on its door read ‘Pod Room’. They burst in. The first thing Junpei noticed about the pod room were the thick green lines that ran in parallel along the floor, belonging far more to a sports pitch than to an underground bunker. The second thing Junpei noticed was the extensive bloodstain that covered one of the walls, marring a faded and battered portrait of a family that had been mounted there. The third thing that Junpei noticed…
“If this is the pod room… where the hell are the pods?!”
When Junpei looked over, Akane had gone unusually still. Even so, Junpei could see her perfectly focused will: the slightest tension in her poised body revealed her intentions. “Shush, Junpei.” That was all Akane said.
Junpei did as she asked. When he did so, he heard the groan again, though it was much fainter than he expected given that he was sure it was in the same room as the source of it. He glanced at Akane again, making sure that she saw his quizzical expression.
Akane pursed her lips. “I think it’s coming from below us.”
With that explanation Junpei started examining the pod room again; this time he had a specific goal in mind. After first noticing what looked like retractable panels in the floor on each side of the room, he found what he was looking for when he looked back towards the door they had entered by: a button whose label read ‘Pod’. Junpei reached out to press it, but a glass panel barred his way.
Junpei knew that he couldn’t break the glass with his bare hands. He’d need something to help get through: something hard, something that would fit stably and ergonomically in his hand. The item came to mind immediately, but this time that instinctive thought brought with it a dreadful guilt. Even so, Junpei had no other options.
He placed the ring on his hand – the right hand, since the thought of that ring on a left hand was too poignant – and threw his fist towards the glass. It shattered. The jewel pierced the glass as it struck, and Junpei’s hand continued through to push down the button.
When Junpei turned back around, he saw the pods rising from beneath the floor panels he had noticed before. He was grateful for that, because while Akane was distracted by them he was able to slip the ring off his finger. Before he placed it back in his pocket, Junpei inspected the ring.
His heart fell. The top facet of the ring had chipped: only slightly, but enough to ruin it. Junpei hid it as quickly as possible. He couldn’t let Akane see it.
Once the ring was safely back in his pocket and the pods had finished their circuit around the arc of the room, Junpei rejoined Akane. She had been standing closest to the pods on the left hand wall, so they naturally turned their attention to those first. One of the pods was just slightly higher than Akane could comfortably see inside, so Junpei rose on his tiptoes and wrest open the pod’s lid.
Sigma was inside.
The slight flutters of his eyeballs beneath their lids were the sole sign of any level of consciousness from Sigma. Still, it was clear that the groans that had drawn Akane and Junpei to the pod room had come from Sigma: those rough vocalisations were much more audible once the pod had been open. Junpei looked down at Sigma – still clearly on the far side of consciousness despite those fits and starts – and an idea formed in Junpei’s mind. Without any conscious direction, Junpei’s hand reached out towards Sigma’s neck. If he just… they could escape.
Junpei’s cheek stung. There was no reason for it, save that thought and memories of all-too-similar thoughts. Junpei’s arms fell back to his side.
Within a few seconds of Junpei’s decision, Sigma recovered. He opened his eyes. “Akane? Junpei? How did you get here? Argh: my ears are still ringing. Why are they ringing? Wait… This isn’t D-ward.”
Akane pulled Sigma’s pod down – all the other pods rotated with it – until it was low enough for her to help Sigma out of it. “When you put it like that, Sigma,” she said as he let go of her offered hand, “I’m beginning to wonder if the wards have any meaning at all. After all, this isn’t C-ward, either.”
Back on solid ground, Sigma used the space to stretch his limbs. “Phi and Diana are around here as well, right?”
“We’ll just have to look in the other pods,” Akane replied.
They did so. Rotating the pods around their rail first brought Phi’s pod into reachable range. Phi climbed out quite eagerly, once she was awake, and hurriedly dusted herself off. “I’m okay, I’m okay!” she snapped. Once she had recovered enough to observe the other players around her, Phi asked, “What about Diana?”
“I guess that she’s in the very next pod,” Sigma said, “It would make sense.” He strode forward and guided the pods onwards with a strong but smooth movement. When the pod he was looking for was level with his chest he pried open the lid. Diana was inside.
Diana was only halfway out of her pod when the distant power room boomed once again.
The next few seconds passed with lightning speed, almost too quickly for Junpei to follow. In the first second, the shockwave rushed through the ground, horizontal cracks appearing at regular intervals as the floor rose and fell on either side. As the next second passed, Sigma threw Diana towards the door with a desperate swing of his arm. Then the third second struck.
An entire segment of the room began to revolve. Sigma’s right foot gave way as the floor moved beneath it; what had been the wall slammed into Sigma as he fell and catapulted him backwards. Junpei – not just Junpei, but everyone else – could only watch as Sigma was tossed brutally about by the rampaging segments of the pod room.
For a moment, a different terror entered Junpei’s heart. He became certain – a certainty he hadn’t felt since the Sudoku that had saved Akane’s life – that Carlos had been caught by the power room’s emanation.
But then the terror that was right in front of Junpei’s eyes took precedence, and the vision faded to the back of Junpei’s mind. When the segments of the pod room finally slowed to a halt, Sigma’s bruised body fell limply into the corner that had become the bottom of the room. Diana took a fearful step forward.
Phi reached out towards her. “Diana! Don’t go! It’s not safe!”
“I have to!” Diana cried back as she broke free of Phi’s grasp, “I can’t watch if Sigma is this close to death again.” Then, Diana paused in mid-stride. “Again?” she muttered, her trembling voice recalling a half-gone memory. Even so, it was only a brief pause before Diana rushed to Sigma’s side.
When Diana helped Sigma up Junpei finally got a look at what had happened to him. Blood was streaming down the right side of his face from where his head had been battered. His right arm dangled limply at his side. Junpei realised that it had been the sickening crunch – which had heard for a millisecond of that devastating whirl – that had mangled Sigma’s arm. Junpei was surprised that Sigma could stand at all, even with Diana’s help; he was even more surprised that Sigma could climb back up to the only fixed platform of the pod room.
Sigma put on a brave face: the half of his face that could be seen past the blood.. “Hmm… I guess I’m still one arm up over last time.” He waved his left hand freely to demonstrate.
Sigma’s gesture was punctuated by the sound of another explosion. Junpei braced himself for another disaster, but he soon realised that this explosion was of another nature entirely. For one thing, it sounded completely different: a brief – almost purposeful – bang rather than the crackling and drawn-out roars that emanated from the power room’s core. For another, it came only from the direction of the lounge.
That realisation came with another. With exactly the same amount of certainty that Carlos had been imperilled by the previous eruption, Junpei was now sure that Carlos was alright. He couldn’t explain. He just knew that when they returned to the lounge, they’d find Carlos safe and sound.
Following that intuition, Junpei announced, “Let’s go! We need to get out of here before it starts spinning again. Diana: patch Sigma up as we go, but move!”
Junpei led the others back down the corridor and into the lounge. When they entered, a storm dust was swirling in the air; it obscured Junpei’s vision and choked his breath. Waving his hands before his eyes to clear them, Junpei staggered towards the one detail he could perceive.
It was Carlos’ face. Carlos was safe, just as Junpei had predicted.
Carlos noticed Junpei only moments after Junpei noticed him. “Sorry about the wait. I promised, didn’t I? That I’d come back for you.”
Junpei shrugged. “Well, we did agree to meet back here.”
Carlos beamed. “Yeah. I guess we did. And it worked out okay, too.” He peered over Junpei’s shoulder; his eyes widened as he saw Phi and Diana helping Sigma along. “Sigma! Diana! Phi! You’re here too?”
“We are,” Phi replied, “Akane and Junpei found us in these pods. We must have been placed there after our bracelets last knocked us out. By Zero, I guess.”
“I’m glad the three of you are okay,” Carlos said, nodding. He swept his gaze around the dusty crumbling lounge. “What happened here?”
The room fell into silence, save for the creaking of the walls, the tremors of the floor, and the omnipresent thundering from the power room. His heart sinking, Junpei realised that Akane had fallen most silent of all; she had failed to explain to Carlos everything she knew that he didn’t, in an opportunity Junpei knew she shouldn’t have been able to resist. Junpei turned to look at Akane and see what was wrong.
Akane’s face had gone pale, completely white. “I…” she muttered under her breath. As sweat glistened on her forehead, Akane forced her voice louder. “I think I remember what I – what the other me – did, back in the power room. That machine there: it’s the reactor that powers the entire bunker. I think I blocked the control mechanism and forced it to overload. Because of me… this entire bunker, and all of us with it, will be obliterated.”
“But we can get out, right?” Diana asked. She pointed, vaguely towards the X-door. Junpei’s eyes followed the direction of Diana’s finger and noted that, despite the mounds of rubble that would hinder progress in that direction, the X-door itself had vanished, leaving a gaping hole out of the bunker.
Akane just shook her head mournfully. “We could, but it won’t be enough. If that reactor is as powerful as I think it is then the explosion won’t be limited to the bunker. There’s no way we could get far enough to survive.”
“That’s not true,” Sigma stated, firmly despite his pain, “I’ve lived for forty-five years with something much more dangerous than that reactor never more than a hundred metres from me. There are always ways to contain the damage. By this point, it’s too late to stop the meltdown from happening, but I think I know how we can vent enough of the energy, shrinking the explosion’s radius enough to allow us to escape.” Sigma paused, frowning. “The problem is that someone will have to stay behind and operate the controls to let the others escape. I’d do it myself, but with my arm like this…” Sigma shifted his right shoulder slightly, grimacing.
“I’ll do it.” Carlos had gone just as pale as Akane, but his tone brooked no argument. He reached into his pocket and drew out a set of keys; after a quick look round, he decided to pass them to Phi. “There’s a fire-truck at the surface. You’ll be able to escape in it.” With that said, Carlos turned to Sigma and nodded. “Sigma. Tell me what I have to do.”
Solemnly, Sigma did so.
With forced, purposeful strides, Carlos made his to the door that led back to the power room. But before he went through he turned around, looking Junpei and Akane squarely in the eyes in turn. “Junpei… Akane… It’s my fault that you were dragged here from that safe timeline.”
Junpei didn’t understand what Carlos was saying. As he tried to parse Carlos’ words, he noticed that the dust had settled enough that he was able, for the first time since they had reunited in the lounge, to see Carlos’ clothes. They seemed to radiate a celestial golden aura; strange, since Carlos had only worn a muted pink earlier. Taken together, Carlos’ bearing and announcement were something Junpei could not ignore.
“To think all that would happen and then I’d end up right back here,” Carlos continued, “I guess the universe wants me to remedy my sins. Well, I guess that’s what I’m going to do. Goodbye Junpei, Akane. I’m glad I got the chance to know you.”
Before Junpei could respond, Carlos backed out of the lounge and disappeared.
“Come on! Let’s go!” Phi commanded.
She led the way, helping Diana manoeuvre Sigma over the debris that obstructed the way out. Akane followed, still slowed by the memory and understanding of what her other self had done. Finally, Junpei joined them, clambering up the fallen rubble and stepping through the hole where the X-door had been breached.
The moment he crossed the threshold the knowledge that Carlos was in danger returned as a crashing wave. More details filled in that intuition: Junpei knew that the danger Carlos faced was not that of the sacrifice he had freely chosen. It had been sudden, meaningless and violent. Something was horribly wrong.
Without even thinking about it, Junpei swivelled around and dived back into the bunker. He ignored Akane’s calls after him, instead leaping off the rubble to land in the centre of the lounge. Coughing through the ever-rising levels of dust, Junpei scanned the room for any sign of Carlos. Junpei found him quickly but not where he expected. Carlos wasn’t close to the door towards the power room; instead he had collapsed only just on the other side of the middle door which he had searched earlier.
Junpei rushed over. As he got closer, he saw that the top of that door’s frame had collapsed; by the way Carlos was partially concealed beneath, it had fallen right onto his head. Junpei didn’t have time to wonder how it had happened. He shook Carlos awake.
“Huh? Junpei?” Carlos slurred, his eyes rolling lazily in their sockets.
“What are you doing here?” Junpei asked, his tone laden with frustration, “You were supposed to be…” Before he could finish that sentence, Junpei cut himself off. Even he wasn’t rude enough to complain like that.
Carlos slowly tilted his head to look at Junpei. “There wasn’t anything useful,” he mumbled, “There was this manufacturing bay, but none of the tools there would be strong enough to cut through the door. I made my way back, there was this quake, and…”
There was nothing for it: Carlos was too confused to offer a coherent answer – perhaps even more confused than his injuries accounted for. The only thing Junpei could do was help Carlos out of the bunker along with the others. Part of Carlos’ pink shirt had been pinned to the ground by some of the fallen debris so Junpei ripped it off, leaving only Carlos’ vest. With Carlos able to stand, Junpei led him across the lounge and towards the way out.
Glass rained down around them as the fake skylight warped and ruptured. The entire structure of the bunker creaked and groaned behind them as the reactor at its core began to force the walls outwards. And the ceaselessly vibrating floor made Carlos’ already-unsteady steps even harder to manage. Eventually though, they made it out, finding the others, along with Gab, gathered on an elevator platform in the space beyond.
Their reaction to Junpei’s return was momentary relief, followed by despair. Diana was the first to voice that despair. “Carlos? That would mean…”
“Yes. The meltdown will not be stopped,” Akane stated. Her lip trembled. “My actions have doomed us all.” Junpei had only heard Akane’s voice become that monotone once before: back in D-Com, when he had pressed her to talk about their previous Nonary Game.
Sigma stumbled forward. “There’s still a chance,” he gasped, “I can still…”
“It’s too late,” Phi interrupted, “You’ll never make it in your condition, old man. I’m not going to let you throw your life away for nothing.” Before Sigma could take another step Phi slammed her palm onto a button on the elevator’s control panel.
The elevator began to rise, carrying the six surviving players towards an uncertain freedom.
The fire-engine was parked in the desert outside, just as Carlos had promised. As Phi ran for the driver’s compartment, bearing the keys like a dagger, Junpei, Akane and Diana helped Sigma, Carlos and Gab into the back. Once Diana had joined them – it had to be her; she was the only one who could tend to them – there was no room for Akane and Junpei, so they stood on the platform on the right-hand side, clinging to the railing.
“Listen up, everyone!” Phi announced, her voice projected from the fire-truck’s speaker system, “We’re going to have to outrun this thing. Hold on tight, because here we go!”
Before the sound of Phi’s voice had faded away, the vehicle lurched forwards with sirens blaring. They rapidly picked up speed and for a few brief moments, Junpei’s hope bloomed. He almost convinced himself that they would escape the blast unscathed.
They were five hundred metres away when the first beam of light lanced out of the bunker and straight into the sky.
That tower of unleashed energy was quickly joined by three or four others, then by so many that it was impossible to count. The fire-truck began to swerve as the sand shifted beneath it; even from his limited vantage point Junpei could feel Phi fighting to keep the vehicle under control. And then an ominous boom sounded deep beneath the ground, the sound carried to Junpei’s ears by a suddenly-rushing wind.
“Junpei…” Akane whispered beside him. Her voice was weak and hesitant.
Junpei frantically pre-empted what she was going to say. “It’s not your fault!” he yelled, “You didn’t do this. Even if you had, I’d forgive you.”
“Of course you would. You’ve already forgiven much worse things I’ve done.” For a moment, Junpei thought he saw a faint smile on Akane’s face. But then it faded. “I’m not sure I can forgive myself any longer. The detonation of a reactor of that size won’t just kill us. It will destroy everything for miles around. This is a universe that God abandoned, a universe of the sort I thought I’d dedicated my life to preventing, and the other me created it just to give herself the slightest advantage. ‘Those bastards are just us, Junpei. No more, no less.’ I have to accept that this is what I’m capable of. And if so… I’m not sure I… deserve…”
Akane turned her face away. Her right hand shifted along the hand rail as though reaching out to Junpei. But then her grip loosened and her hand began to fall.
“No!” Junpei lashed out, snatching Akane’s right hand with his left and forcing it against the rail. He squeezed without restraint, just to make sure he could hold on. “I’m not letting you go! Goddamnit, I’m not letting you go!”
At that moment the sound intensified. A shockwave raced over the fire-truck: a terrible wall of wind carrying a storm of sand that cut through every piece of exposed skin. Junpei closed his eyes, sure that everything was over.
And it was.
Only a second after the shockwave had hit, the winds died and the cloud of sand dispersed. Looking back along the route they had come, Junpei saw the beams of light which had broken out of the bunker fade harmlessly back into the natural night sky. Once everything had calmed, Phi gradually slowed the fire-engine to a halt.
Only then did Junpei release Akane’s hand.
She looked at her hand, turning it over and over as if she wasn’t sure it was real. “You were right, Junpei,” she murmured, “You were right.” Her strength failed her and she fell off the fire-truck’s platform, cushioned safely by the dune. “This really is the universe that God has blessed.”
It took all the survivors several minutes to recover – Sigma was so brutally injured that even after being patched up by Diana he could hardly be said to have ‘recovered’ – but they eventually they steadied themselves to the point where they could talk about what had happened. Carlos had healed particularly well, showing no sign that he had been completely delirious only a while back.
“What was that stuff you were talking about back there, Carlos?” Junpei asked.
“What stuff?”
Junpei sighed. “You know. ‘To think all that would happen and then I’d end up right back here,’ and stuff like that.”
Carlos laughed awkwardly. “Did I really say that? I must’ve been right out of it, because I don’t remember that at all.”
Junpei’s questioning was interrupted when Diana spoke up. “So… Is this really the end?”
“I believe it is,” Akane replied. She gazed pensively across the horizon back towards the bunker, her eyes betraying fear that the explosion would restart at any moment, but eventually satisfied herself. “The reactor’s meltdown has stopped, at least. But… that shouldn’t be possible. There’s no way it could have…”
“There’s always a way,” Sigma stated, “Just because we don’t know what it was doesn’t mean it wasn’t possible.”
Diana tilted her head to one side. “Um… That’s kind of why I asked it was really the end. It doesn’t feel like a proper ending. There’s still so much stuff we don’t know.”
“We can make educated guesses about a lot of what we don’t know,” Phi said, “Like, for example, Radical-6. Akane?”
“Definitely eradicated,” Akane answered, “If Free the Soul had any stocks of it elsewhere, thus entire mission would have been pointless. Of course, there’s no way the Radical-6 stored in the bunker survived that.”
“Zero?” Phi asked.
“To call yourself ‘Zero’ is to put your own life on the line,” Akane explained.
Phi glanced at Sigma, who nodded.
“Whoever he was, this Zero understood that. He didn’t escape with us, so…” Akane finished by merely nodding.
“And Q-team didn’t survive,” Junpei said, “We know that.” He grunted bitterly, before glancing at Diana. “I see what you mean, Diana, about this not being a proper ending. I thought everybody was supposed to get out at the end of these things. ‘Happily ever after.’”
“It’s not perfect,” Akane admitted, “But it’s still good.” A playful grin spread across Akane’s lips, which Junpei hadn’t seen for a decade. “Just like that ring you’ve got.”
Junpei gasped. “You saw?” He clumsily fished it out of his pocket. “But it’s chipped. Right there.”
Akane’s grin just broadened. “I saw how it got that chip, too. Only three people were ever supposed to leave the Decision Game alive. That was Zero’s plan. Thanks in part to that ring and what you did with it, six of us escaped. Six! That ring’s not ‘perfect’, not any more. But it’s still good.”
“I-Is that… a ‘Yes’?” Junpei stammered. He stood there for a few seconds before remembering to drop to one knee.
“Yes. Yes. Of course, yes.”
By Christmas day of 2029, the former site of the Decision Game bunker was declared safe for entry. Junpei and Akane returned, hoping to find any clues to the miracle that had stopped the reactor’s explosion. Only one awaited them, hidden among the ash. It was the visor of a fireman’s helmet: scorched and cracked, warped and melted, and stalwart to the end.
To: @choco-maize
From: @interabangs
This is a treat for choco-maize, who gave the genius prompt of Sigma and Carlos in a cat café. Hope it’s all right that I made Junpei the POV character, and I hope you enjoy reading!
Junpei stormed down the busy sidewalk, hands shoved into his jacket pockets as he scanned the area for two tall, muscle-bound idiots. Finally, after crossing a narrow side road, his eyes fell upon a tiny shop with a sign that made his blood run cold: “Purrsonal Space: the best café in town for cat lovers.”
No, he thought, whipping his phone out of his black leather jacket to confirm that this is where his GPS app confirmed their location.
A big red dot on top of the building in front of him blinked at him, and he shoved his phone back in his pocket.
Oh no they fucking didn’t.
Junpei opened the door to the tiny cat café, and heard them before he even got a good look at the place.
“This is great, man.”
“Yeah, meow that we know about this place, we could come here every day!”
“Haha, that’s funny, Sigma.”
“No, fur real, I’m not kitten around.”
“Sir,” a woman at the cash register said to Junpei as he honed his attention on two grown men sitting in the center of the room, playing with cats, “Did you make a reservation?”
“This is business. Even though it feels more like a terrible joke,” Junpei muttered the last part as he took out his wallet and flipped open his detective ID. She opened her mouth to say something, but he blew past her, stuffing his wallet back in his pants pocket.
He slammed the narrow gate all the way open as he barged into the café, stomping toward the center of the room. A grey and white tabby tried to slink out through the gap between the swiftly closing gate, but the attendant at the front grabbed her from around the middle, glaring at Junpei as he came to a stop in front of Sigma and Carlos at the far end of the room.
“Fucking Christ, you two!” Junpei shouted. “Enough is enough!”
“What? Feels like we just got here,” Sigma asked, sitting cross-legged on the floor and dangling a feather on a string in front of a black cat. Its large yellow eyes followed the feather as it lied sprawled out two feet from Sigma, but didn’t budge.
“You two have been here for four hours. Aren’t you sick of this by now?”
“What’s to get sick about?” Carlos asked, shaking some cat treats out onto his open palm. The black cat jumped up and padded over to him.
Junpei slapped his face across his forehead, dragging it down his face as he squeezed his eyes shut. “This is hell. I’m literally in the deepest circle of hell right now.”
“Don’t hissen to him,” Sigma told Carlos, watching with a faint bit of envy as the black cat rubbed up against Carlos’s leg. “He’s exapurrating.”
“They’re not even doing anything,” Junpei said, gesturing around at the other handful of cats in the vicinity. Two of them were lying on shelves, sleeping, and a ginger kitten was struggling to climb up Sigma’s back.
“Cats don’t have to do anything for you to appreciate them,” Carlos pointed out, feeding the black cat treats one by one.
“Okay, fine,” Junpei snapped, balling his hand into a fist when the kitten heroically reached the top of Sigma’s shoulder and gently headbutted his cheek. “Whatever, but we’ve got an important trip to go on.”
“Where mew?” Sigma asked.
“Japan. So put the damn cats down and let’s get going.”
“Aw, can’t you give us five more minutes?”
“Yeah! Paw-leeze?”
Junpei resisted the urge not to seize both of them by the scruff of their necks and drag them outside. “You dumbasses, we’re trying to save the world, here!”
Carlos sighed, petting the black cat on his shoulder before gently scooping him up and placing him down and getting to his feet. “He’s right, you know. We can always come back later, Sigma, once we’ve stopped the religious fanatic.”
“I’m starting to think that guy’s got more sense than the two of you put together,” Junpei muttered, keeping a watchful eye on both of them as they slowly, reluctantly, parted from their furry friends.
———
Six hours into the flight from Tokyo to Narita, Junpei regretted picking the seat in front of Carlos since he was still comparing hundreds of cat selfies with Sigma and arguing about who had a better – sigh – hisstory with cats: Carlos taking pictures and slow dancing with his cat at Prom, or Sigma insisting he could still understand what they were saying, which was likely a result of one too many childhood sugar rushes.
Junpei crossed his arms and fumed silently as he listened to them go on and on about their dumb fixation. He’d tried sleeping, but no dice. He tried watching a movie, but it didn’t distract him from the two bastards behind him. He didn’t drink anymore, and there was literally nothing else on the ride to distract him.
“You know, at this point, you’re being obvious to the point of obnoxious.”
He turned his head to the left, glancing at Phi. She turned the page of a magazine idly, and Junpei huffed loudly.
“Oh, give it a break, already,” she said, rolling her eyes. “We get it: you’re jealous.”
He shook his head, snorting incredulously. “What, me?”
“They have something in common. You don’t like it. It makes you feel left out, doesn’t it?”
“What?” Junpei nearly shouted, then lowered his voice. “No, I am not jealous!”
Phi turned her head away from her magazine, looking straight at him until he started to fidget nervously, and then she pronounced very slowly as she glanced back down at her magazine. “No. Of course you’re not.”
At that moment, Carlos said, “Aww, look at this little guy and his little paws.”
Junpei wanted to grab Carlos’s phone from him, run to the bathroom and try to flush it down the toilet, but he made do with pressing the button to push his chair all the way back.
———
The lead turns out to be a bust, so the four of them agreed to sleep at a hotel for the night and head back to California the next day. Phi went off to a bar, and Sigma and Carlos chose adjoining rooms across the half from Junpei and Phi’s separate ones, which only made Junpei more frustrated. He took an angry shower, then sat on his bed in his towel, texting Akane about how their lead was a dead end – literally. She was disappointed, but understood. Junpei briefly considered getting something for Akane at one of the shops, but decided to bring her back to Japan after they stopped the terrorist from blowing up the world, so Junpei and Akane could fully appreciate visiting their home country, and there was that whole wedding thing he kinda wanted to do. He got dressed, then started pacing back and forth, seething about how Carlos started doing the stupid cat pun thing on the plane ride to Tokyo, and it was really getting on his last nerve.
He called Phi and could almost see her rolling her eyes when he launched into his rant about Carlos’s newly acquired cat tic.
“Oh, give it a rest, already,” she said. “Hey, maybe if you lock them in a room with fifty cats and leave them there all day, eventually they’ll get sick of them. Or end up choking on a hairball. It’s win-win.”
Junpei, who had been lying flat on his back on his bed, bolted straight up and said, “That’s it! Thanks, Phi!”
“You’re all a bunch of weirdos,” she muttered, and he heard her slam down a shot glass before she hung up the phone.
When Carlos let Junpei into his room, Junpei was a little relieved to see Carlos actually talking to another person, without saying anything cat-related.
“Just chatting with Maria,” Carlos said, holding up his phone to show Maria’s beaming face on the other end.
“Hi, Junpei!” she said, and he waved back at her, then asked Carlos where Sigma was.
Carlos’s eyes darted over to the door joining his room with Sigma’s. “He’s, uh, talking with Diana in the other room.”
Junpei headed over to the door, putting his hand on the doorknob, but Carlos called out, “Uh, better not go in there. I think he’s having a… pretty private conversation.”
Maria giggled from the other end of the phone as Junpei jerked his hand away from the knob, taking several long, quick steps backward. “Then why are you here? Listening in on them like some kind of creep?”
Carlos walked over to the side of his bed and plugged a cord into his phone. “No! I needed to charge my battery. Used it all up on the plane ride here.”
“Yeah,” Junpei said, refraining from grinding his teeth, “about that. Can I talk to you about something?”
Carlos wrapped up his conversation with Maria and they did their silly ‘I’m hugging you through the phone’ routine before Carlos ended the video chat and put his phone on the night stand. “What’s up?”
“Let’s stay here another day,” Junpei suggested.
Carlos furrowed his brow in confusion. “But I thought we were done here.”
“Okay, look.” Junpei began pacing back and forth in front of Carlos. “If I take you and Sigma to the best cat café in the entire world, you both have to promise you’ll stop going to them in the States.”
“All right,” Carlos said, and Junpei screeched to a halt in his tracks, nearly leaving skid marks on the carpet.
“’All right?’” Junpei echoed, staring at Carlos. “That’s it?”
Carlos put his hands on his hips. “On the condition that it really is the best cat café in the world.”
“Oh, it is,” Junpei said. “Deal.”
They shook hands, and started hearing muffled noises coming from Sigma’s adjoining room.
Carlos said, very quickly, “Hey, uh, weren’t you at a bar with Phi?”
“O-oh, yeah,” Junpei said, “she’s probably still there. Let’s go, right now.”
And they both left in record time, just as the sounds were starting to get louder.
———
Sigma and Carlos gasped as Junpei looked on, sipping coffee as he leaned against a scratching post that was taller than him.
“It’s purrfect!”
“Litterally heaven!” Carlos said.
“Cats!”
“They’re everywhere!”
“I’m not even lion, this puts the other place to shame!”
“Where have mew been all my life?”
“Look at all the types there are! They’re so purr-ecious!”
“Yeah, I see a Maine Coon!”
“There’s a Bengal!”
“A Siberian!”
“Carlos,” Sigma said, very seriously, “I think I’m going to faint right meow.”
Carlos put his hand on Sigma’s shoulder to steady him. “No, don’t! You’ll hiss out on all the fun!”
Junpei didn’t say it out loud, but he was also kind of impressed. Japan had always been famous for its cat cafes, but this one took the cake. The building wasn’t some rinky-dink one-story box with eight or nine cats. No, this place was as big as a warehouse, huge enough to house at least fifty felines, and Junpei looked on as Carlos and Sigma petted cats, fed a few of them treats, and followed others that were idly padding around. The two big lugs carefully weaved in and out of makeshift trees and caves that were spacious enough for them to stretch up on their toes and pet cats that walked on balance beams, which were interconnected all over the place, halfway between the ceiling and the ground.
It actually wasn’t that bad, watching all the different types of cats hang out with human visitors. A few of them slept, but most of them were eager to approach people, looking for a treat or a friendly scratch behind the ears.
Almost as if she sensed Junpei via homing beacon, a large fluffy cat with light and dark brown patches sniffed him for a bit before rubbing her side against his legs, and he tried twisting away, but Carlos caught him doing that and walked up to him, murmuring, “Don’t worry, she won’t bite.”
Junpei knew she wouldn’t, but he was fine just staying in one spot as Sigma and Carlos disappeared at random intervals, then came back juggling their phones, cat treat bags, and a different kitty to dump their phone in Junpei’s hands and instruct him on taking a picture of them with their new furr-end.
Friend. Junpei shook his head. What was happening to him?
He went to the bathroom while the cat fiends busied themselves elsewhere, figuring he’d give them about five more minutes before they left to meet Phi and head to the airport.
When he came back, however, it took him a few minutes to locate both Sigma and Carlos. He finally found them in a dimly lit side room, a cavelike structure with a ledge propped up against the wall, covered in cushions for people to sit and cats to sleep. There were about eight of them crawling all over both of the other men, who looked more like blissfully overgrown children.
Junpei sighed, kind of bummed that he had to tell them to leave their furry sanctuary. He looked at Sigma, who was holding an orange tabby and saying he would take her home and name her Luna if he and Diana didn’t already pick a name for their future child. Junpei then looked at Carlos, who was serenely petting both a cat with flattened ears and letting two blue-grey cats gently headbutt his arms.
“See?” Junpei said, “What did I tell you?”
“Okay, Junpei, you win,” Carlos said. “But before we go, why don’t you join us fur a moment? Sit down, pet a cat, relax a little.”
“I don’t know,” Junpei said, but Sigma and Carlos both set down the meowing cats they were holding and dragged Junpei over to an empty spot on the ledge.
“Guys,” he said, “It’s okay, really.”
“You’re not allergic,” Carlos pointed out, “and I can tail you’ve been wanting to pet one since we got here.”
“Right,” Sigma agreed. “We’re not coming back for a while, so how about we make the most of this before we head back home, nya?”
Before Junpei could protest, Carlos put a sleek, black kitten with large yellow eyes in Junpei’s lap. The kitten had large yellow eyes and stared up at Junpei for a moment, before she started to lick his hand and then burrowed herself into the crook of Junpei’s arm.
Junpei’s heart truly melted as the kitten started to purr.
“Oh, no,” Junpei said.
“Oh, yeah,” Carlos said. “Meow this is purrfect.”
“What did I tail you?” Sigma said, nudging Carlos with his elbow as he scratched the top of a majestic Persian’s head with his free hand. “He’s one of us meow.”
“Am not.” Junpei said, tears welling in his eyes as the kitten slowly kneaded his arms, then looked up at Junpei, meowing plaintively.
“Don’t worry. I’m not budging from this spot,” he whispered, kissing the top of the kitten’s head. “Nothing and no one can make me, nya.”
———
“Junpei,” Akane said, hands on her hips.
“Oh shit – I mean, hey!” Junpei whirled around to look up at her as the Scottish Fold that had been resting in his lap leapt to the ground and bounded out of the small cave. “Akane! I didn’t think you were going to come all the way over here.”
“I had to!” Akane said. Sigma laughed until she turned her wrathful gaze upon him, making him freeze up. “Diana said that although she likes the two hundred Snap… cat pictures you’ve sent her — ” Sigma grinned proudly at that, puffing his chest out a bit, “— she’s starting to get a little worried.”
He visibly deflated. “She is?”
“And Phi has been pestering me all weekend to make you fly back. I think she’s also worried about you two – don’t tell Phi I told you that – and more importantly, we all need to find out who that religious fanatic is and stop him before he destroys the human race! But instead of coming back to help search for him after the trail went cold here, the three of you stayed clear across the ocean to play with cats?” Akane was nearly shaking with disbelief and rage.
“Hey, not just any cats!” Carlos protested, gently putting his hands around the ears of the striped gray kitten in his lap. “They’re purrfect!”
“Yeah!” Sigma said indignantly, “they’re the most ameowsing cats in the world!”
“You two haven’t seen the island full of cats, either,” Junpei said, a devious smirk on his face.
Sigma gasped, pressing a fist against his chest. “That’s still around?” Tears sprang to his eyes. “Oh man, we knead to go there right away!”
“No! No, we don’t! Junpei!” Akane stomped her foot in frustration.
“It could just be for a day. Then we could go to Rabbit Island,” Junpei said, winking at Akane. Her expression didn’t change much, but Junpei could see a muscles in her jaw twitch.
“Fine,” she said after about a minute of silence passed. “Then we’re going back and saving the world.”
“Of course,” Carlos said, “we don’t want this to turn into Apocalypse Meow.”
“Yes,” Sigma agreed, nodding sagely. “That would be clawful.”
Junpei managed to not burst out laughing and instead picked up a sleek-looking Abyssian Gray that had paused – pawsed, he corrected himself – to rub up against his legs. He held the cat up toward Akane and the cat sniffed at her, then started purring.
She sighed and said, “Damn you all,” and took the happy cat, cradling it in her arms.
“What a wonfurful day, Carlos said.
“Simply pawsome,” Sigma said, and they both beamed as the rest of the cats in the café joined them, merrily meowing.
To: @midlangley
From: @eatingfireflies
Happy holidays, midlangley! I loved your prompts and I hope you don’t mind having some Junpei/Akanes with a bit of Kurashiki siblings bonding! ^^ (Some warnings for #body horror maybe? Oops.)
i.
In the dream he was in an unfamiliar room. On the shelves were boxes and cans of food; the kind that people stored for the winter back before the advent of supermarkets and online shops. He knew people still did this in places where sheep and dogs outnumbered the people, but he’d always made a point not to experience it first-hand.
He was looking for something. A clue, perhaps? He was peering inside boxes. In one of them there were potatoes cut in half and resting in a row. They spoke to him in riddles. Another box contained a leg nestled on top of more potatoes. Skinny leg that surely belonged to a mannequin. It looked so lifelike but there was no blood, the cut below the knee too clean, and he could hear his companion’s voice telling him it wasn’t. Wasn’t real. Still his heart pounded against his rib cage until it was the only thing he could hear. He could hardly breath.
Other body parts were scattered around the room. Arms, torso. All neat and cold to the touch; the niggling suspicion at the back of his mind screaming now. He needed to get out of there. A key. He was looking for the key. In the enormous freezer, the mannequin’s first uncurled to reveal a small man. He cupped his hands so the man could jump onto his palms.
‘That’s the key,’ said his companion. ‘Let’s get out of here and look for Junpei.’
Junpei. The name filled him with dread. Where the fuck was Junpei? His hands were shaking and he almost dropped the small man on the floor.
‘Careful. Just slide him into the lock, right there.’
He did. The door opened. And inside–
The scream was so loud he wasn’t sure if it was still part of the dream. Was it him screaming? The floor was slippery with blood. Whose blood? His blood?
’Junpei!’
Aoi’s eyes flew open, his consciousness tearing itself away from the heavy coldness of sleep. Reality crashing down that was almost a physical pain. A dream, he thought. Just another fucking dream.
In another history, he knew it was real.
ii.
In the bed she shared with Junpei, Akane slept on. A fitful sleep.
iii.
In the dream he was in the pantry. He remembered it from their brief tour of Ward C; marking the rooms in the map that Zero had provided them. They’d looked around, had taken note of the boxes and cans of food in preparation for whatever nuclear disaster the bunker has been made for, and had gone on to the next room.
This time they were locked inside. This history not part of his memories; featuring puzzles he didn’t remember solving. They were easy, followed steps like in a recipe. Was Zero having a laugh at their expense? The bastard even thought to include body parts. He couldn’t be sure, even though Carlos kept reassuring him they weren’t real, but they looked so lifelike, if a bit cold to the touch. They were cut cleanly at the joints and quite bloodless. Surely they were just from a super realistic doll? What sort of hobbies did this second Zero even have?
In the end they had to put one of the arms inside the microwave. A tight fit, even though the arm was pretty skinny. Whole arms weren’t supposed to go inside microwaves, no matter how fake they were.
All warmed up the hand was now soft and pliant; he noticed Carlos playing rock-paper-scissors with it. He couldn’t say he didn’t do the same. It was an unsettling thing to have on one’s person, might as well make full use of it.
He could swear he could feel bones inside the flesh.
The hand was callused and there was a scar near the elbow; a thin silvery line against the pale skin of the mannequin. He remembered having slipped while crossing a shallow creek as a kid. His mother had scolded him for coming home dripping wet and with his shirt torn at the elbows.
‘Let’s get out of here and look for Junpei,’ said Carlos.
Junpei. The name filled him with dread. Hang on, he thought. I am Junpei; the fuck are you talking about, man?
They placed the hand against the palm-print recognition device. The door opened. And inside–
He was screaming, running away from the freezer and almost slipping. There was blood all over the floor. An axe and a chainsaw. So much fucking blood.
‘Jumpy!’
Junpei woke up with a start. Beside him he could feel Akane stirring, hear her soft sobs.
He reached out for her, slender shoulder pale in the darkness of their room, light from the moon enough for him to see her face and the tears on her cheeks. Another dream. Another one of those fucking dreams.
‘Akane!’ he said. ‘Kanny?’
iv.
In her dreams she kept seeing him dying.
Shot full of holes, his face smudged with the ashes from the fireplace and the smell of gunpowder temporarily masking the coppery scent of blood.
Unable to breathe and reassuring her between gasps that everything would be fine. Twenty minutes in a room of poisoned air and she had to see the light leaving his eyes; feel the warmth fading from his body.
And this. Most nights this was the dream that haunted her sleep, made her wake up and reach out for him, fingertips tracing an invisible line across his neck.
Whole. He was whole; her brave and beautiful boy.
‘Kanny, wake up!’
v.
In the room she shared with Junpei since Dcom–she and Aoi putting their feet down when Junpei suggested maybe he should go back to his own place; they had enough room and Junpei barely took up space–and on the bed next to him, Akane woke up.
Junpei was holding her close; she could feel him rubbing her back, feel his breath warm against her neck.
‘It’s all right, Kanny,’ he said. ‘I’m here.’
Someone was knocking on the door, perfunctory knock and then the soft thuds of bare feet on the wooden floor.
‘We’re here,’ said Aoi. His voice was soft, not the cranky growling he does in the mornings when he wakes up too early. He’d been awake for a while; back when they were kids he would always make her tea or hot chocolate whenever she had bad dreams. He’d started doing it again recently. ‘Now someone take these fucking mugs from me before I spill eggnog all over your boy.’
Junpei made an indignant sound as Akane started to giggle. They both sat up on the bed, reaching out for the mugs Aoi had brought in a small tray.
‘Did you put alcohol in these?’ said Akane, sniffing at her mug.
‘Hey, it’s Christmas,’ said Aoi, grinning. He nudged Akane closer to Junpei so he can sit on the bed beside her. ‘A few drops of brandy won’t kill him.’
Junpei reached behind Akane to pinch Aoi’s arm. ‘Don’t joke about that now.’
‘Don’t spill the drinks!’ said Aoi. ‘Can someone turn the lights on in this godforsaken place?’
The eggnog was liberally laced with brandy, definitely more than ‘a drop’ but it did lots of wonders to soothe Akane’s nerves. Warm and comforted, with her boys bickering by her side, she raised her mug to her lips to hide a grin.
vi.
‘You’re not doing this alone any more,’ said Junpei. They’ve all settled back to bed, with Akane in the middle. Her bed was big enough for the three of them, although she and Junpei had to share a pillow since Aoi stole all the others.
‘Excuse me?’ said Aoi.
‘Neither of you,’ said Junpei, grudgingly. ‘I’m here and no amount of that super spicy curry your brother keeps on making is going to chase me away.’
‘Oh damn,’ said Aoi. Akane reached out to poke him in the ribs.
‘It is very spicy,’ she said.
‘Curry’s supposed to be spicy. Fucking heathens, the both of you,’ said Aoi, throwing a pillow at Akane and Junpei. ‘Now go back to sleep.’
Akane laughed. It’s only been five minutes and she’d rescued one of her pillows already.
‘It’s three in the morning,’ she said, scooting closer to Junpei. ‘Merry Christmas, Jumpy!’
‘So it is,’ he said, craning his neck to look at the digital clock on the table behind Aoi. ‘About that. Presents, I mean. Because you know. What with all the investigating and stuff, I er. Hmm.’
‘This is already the best present I could have,’ said Akane, humming happily as Junpei started rubbing her back again.
Beside her, Aoi groaned. ‘Are you serious? I want the receipt.’
To: @tachibanging
From: @electric016
Merry Christmas Tachibanging! I loved your prompt! I hope this is okay! ❤
Grocery Run
Carlos would be lying if he said he wasn’t a little worried. He knew Akane had total faith in them but somehow that didn’t really help. But unfortunately when it came to potential terrorist plots, alien tech, and things that were severely ‘Classified,’ Akane was the only woman for the job. Which meant Akane had been called away to some Crash Keys emergency, and Carlos and Junpei were left alone with Quark and a grocery list.
This wouldn’t be a problem, except Quark had only come through the transporter two days ago and was still very much adjusting. He had taken to Akane immediately, and Carlos wasn’t really sure if that was down to Akane’s warm personality or the fact that she had been the first person that he had met in this world.
On the other hand, his relationship with Junpei seemed to be off to a rocky start. Neither Junpei nor Quark really seemed to know what to make of one another, giving each other a wide birth and furtive looks when they thought the other wasn’t looking.
“Are you sure you can’t get out of it?” Carlos had asked Akane when she’d announced she was heading into Crash Keys for the day.
“Nope. I’m sorry, Carlos. But you’re going to have to make do without me.”
“What about Quark though?” Carlos asked scratching the back of his head. “Do you think he’ll be okay without you?”
“Of course he will.” She’d said with a smile. “I know you’ll both be great.”
“But Junpei…”
“Quark is Junpei’s responsibility. They just need time to get used to each other. Why don’t you all go out together somewhere. I noticed you’re out of milk. I’m sure the grocery store will be quite the adventure for Quark.”
So here they were. Walking through the parking lot of an out of the way grocery store not too far from their house. They’d picked this one hoping it would be less crowded than the others as Quark found the sheer number of people in their world rather overwhelming. As it was he was keeping very close to Junpei, while his attention was pulled in about a million different directions.
Carlos watched as his eyes flicked from mothers pushing children in shopping carts, to cars weaving up and down through the parking lot, to Carlos to make sure he was still following them before returning to the sky. The kid was fascinated by it. For all the distractions of the world, it seemed the sky most firmly held his attention.
“Carlos, do you have the list?” Junpei asked.
“Yes,” Carlos said, and Quark jumped as the doors opened automatically.
“Wow! You have automatic doors at the market?” Quark asked looking them up and down.
“We sure do.” Carlos replied, pulling a cart free. “Did you have automatic doors in 2074?”
“Yeah. They have them on the moon. But we didn’t have any in our town I don’t think.”
“I see.” Carlos said, as if this were a completely normal thing for a child to have said.
“What kind of fruit do you like?” Junpei asked as they approached the produce section, but Quark didn’t answer. He had frozen in place, staring mouth agape.
“Is it… all real?” He finally managed, looking up at Junpei.
“Well, yeah.”
“And you can buy it all?”
“Well, not all of it. That might get expensive but…” Junpei trailed off when he noticed that Quark had started to cry. “Whoa, hey there. It’s okay.” Junpei awkwardly rubbed the back of his head, not sure what to do.
Quark sniffed loudly. “I know. It’s just. I can’t believe it. I…”
“Here,” Carlos said gently handing him a tissue he pulled from his pocket, and rubbing his back gently. “It’s okay, just take deep breaths. In and out.”
Junpei watched Carlos as Quark took a few shaky breaths.
“There. Better?”
Quark nodded.
“Good. Now you’ve eaten potatoes before, right?”
“Yeah. Of course.” Quark said wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. “Make sure you get the biggest ones.”
“Yeah?”
“Yup! And you should give them a squeeze to make sure they’re not mushy.”
“How many do you think we need?” Carlos asked.
“Hmm. Just one each I should think.” Junpei said.
“But what about dinner tomorrow? They have so many! We should get more just incase.”
Junpei and Carlos exchanged another look. Junpei said “Hey, Quark. You know, you don’t have to worry about that anymore. All of this food will be here tomorrow as well.”
Quark looked a little startled by this. “Really?” He asked sounding on certain.
“Absolutely.” Carlos said. “But why don’t we get two each. That way we can have baked potatoes for lunch tomorrow.
“Okay.” Quark agreed.
“Hmm.” Murmured to himself looking over the list. “We need more fruit. Quark, what kind of fruit do you like?”
“Tomatoes!” Quark responded immediately. “And apples, as long as they’re not too sour. Oh and those little oranges–but Grandpa says they’re not really oranges. You know like mikan?”
“Mikan?” Carlos asked, looking over at Junpei.
“He means like a tangerine.”
“Oh, well we can get some of those.” Carlos said, pushing the cart towards the fruit.
“Also, Quark. Tomatoes aren’t fruit.”
Quark laughed, “That’s what Grandpa says too. But they’re sweet and juicy like fruit.”
“Juicy, yes. But sweet? Where did you get such terrible taste?”
“I think tomatoes are sweet. And they are technically fruit.” Carlos said.
“Maybe in the wasteland apocalypse future, but no kid of mine is going to have to go about pretending tomatoes are fruit. Hey Quark, do you know what these are?”
“Of course I do! Those are bananas. Monkeys eat them.”
“Monkeys and Junpei.”
Quark laughed and turned to Junpei. “What do they taste like?”
“Hmm. Banana-y, I guess. It’s kind of hard to explain. Do you want to try one?”
“Can I?”
“I don’t see why not. Why don’t you pick out a bunch.”
After produce it was onto the meat. Quark had never seen so much before.
“You know, Grandpa and I had chickens?”
“Junpei with chickens? Now that I’d love to see.” said Carlos.
“Yeah, well I took care of them mostly. But they were good because they’d lay eggs. And they were pretty easy to take care of. I could feed them before we went to work…I’m glad there’s another me still in 2074. I’d worry Grandpa might forget to feed them otherwise.”
“Yeah, I’m sure he’s glad you’re there too.” Junpei said, then grinned at Quark, “I know I’d forget to feed chickens. I can barely remember to feed Carlos.”
“You never feed me.” Carlos said. “I do most of the cooking.” Carlos told Quark conspiratorially. “If it were up to Junpei, we’d be having instant ramen and take out food every night.”
“That’s not true.” Junpei said. “We might also have frozen dinners if it were a special occasion.” Which made Quark laugh.
As they continued up and down the aisles Quark seemed to be warming up to Junpei and Carlos. On the cereal aisle he asked about every different kind of cereal, pointing to the boxes and asking if they’d tried it before.
“You’ve only tried three of them?” Quark asked sounding disapproving. “But there are so many different kinds!”
“You’re right.” Junpei said ruffling Quark’s hair. “We’ve obviously not been taking our cereal seriously.” Carlos groaned at that but Junpei continued, “I think we’ll have to try a different cereal each week until we’ve tried all of them.”
“Oh man, that’s a great idea.” Quark said, scanning the aisle for his first choice. “Can we try this one first?”
“No.” Carlos said firmly at the exact same time Junpei said, “Yes.”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea to start with Cinnamon Toast Crunch.” Carlos said. “The kid might end up in a sugar coma. Let’s start with something like this.” Carlos handed Quark a box of Kix.
“Are they any good?”
“I think so. It’s one of my sister’s favorites.”
“Okay,” Quark agreed adding them to the cart.
When it was finally time to check out they decided to use the self-checkout, because Quark wanted to try using the scanner.
“Ugh your touch screen is so sloooow.”
“Yeah, I imagine stuff like this is faster in the future.”
“So much faster.” Said Quark. “I could probably take it apart and try to fix it.”
“I think the grocery store wouldn’t be too happy if we did that.”
“I guess.” Quark said with a big sigh.
“You know Quark, our printer at the house is so slow and always jamming.” Junpei said. “If you’d like maybe you could take a look at it and try to fix it?”
“Yeah? Sure. Sounds pretty easy.”
“Yes.” Carlos agreed. “That would be a big help. Thank you Quark.”
And as they left the grocery store, laden with shopping bags. Carlos watched Junpei and Quark laughing and joking with each other, Carlos realized that maybe Akane was right. They could handle this. Things were going to be just fine.
ZEcret Santa 