SHOCKS Headquarters, Victoria, British Columbia - June 15, 2043, 9:41 PM
- - - - -
Alice pulled on her pajamas in Claire’s bathroom, even though the night was still young. It wasn’t like she had anything else to do here. She could stay up and argue with Li Mei or go to sleep and try whatever Claire wouldn’t tell her about.
The choice was easy, even if she was second-guessing it now.
The sleeping pills she’d gotten from Itsuki were long gone; SHOCKS had replaced them with something both more potent and less illicit. She dry-swallowed one, finished brushing her teeth, and stared at her mismatched eyes in the mirror. Li Mei stared back at her through one of them.
She swallowed. The pill tasted like bitter chalk, but her sister insisted that this would work. Alice wasn’t so sure.
Honestly, it all seemed like bullshit. Claire wouldn’t—or couldn’t—tell her what was going on. She sat on the bed, talking animatedly with James, her brow in a scowl. Alice watched her lips move faster and faster. Claire had never been good at concealing how she really felt, and right now, she was furious with the not-quite artificial intelligence in her head.
This wouldn’t work. Claire was just being a weirdo again.
Alice strolled to the bed and crawled under the covers, being sure to sleep entirely on her side of the full mattress and let Claire have her own space. But to her surprise, Claire’s hand slipped around hers. She turned her head to look; her little sister stared straight up at the ceiling. “I don’t know if we have to touch to make this work. I’ve never done it before, but anything that lets Madame Baudelaire know you’re with me will help. I hope.”
“Whatever,” Alice said. The SHOCKS-approved sleeping pill hit her like a truck, and she was out within five minutes, Claire’s fingers still entwined with her own.
She didn’t catch Claire continuing to stare at the ceiling for what felt like an eternity before sleep finally took her, too.
The Mindscape
- - - - -
You wake up.
The garden’s the same as you left it. It’s been a long time since you visited; days, or maybe even a week. But nothing’s changed. It’s almost like the world in your head stops worlding the moment you leave. This place isn’t real, and the brick wall around it doesn’t block off a busy city street or tranquil forest. It blocks off the not-gray void.
But…no. Something has changed. There’s a gate—a wrought-iron gate perhaps six feet tall—in the wall. It’s rusted but not ugly. Someone rusted it on purpose. Mme. Baudelaire rusted it on purpose.
And outside the garden, looking in, is a person.
The figure’s hooded and robed, but this could be only one person. You’ve only ever invited one person into your Mindscape because even though she’s a liar and a fake, you trust her. You had no choice when you were a kid, and you have no choice now.
You reach for the gate. The keyhole isn’t rusted, but the handle won’t turn. It’s locked, and your sister’s outside of your little sanctuary.
{Mademoiselle, I have taken security measures in order to keep an interloper out,} Mme. Baudelaire says in her servile yet in-control French accent. {The visitor cannot come inside.}
You shake your head. You go to argue with the woman running your deepest, safest sanctum. This isn’t an interloper—Alice didn’t break into your mind. She’s a guest, and one of the few people you trust.
Even when you don’t want to. Even when she doesn’t deserve it.
{Oui, mademoiselle, that is the problem. The Mindscape matches your needs, your comforts, and this person, this interloper, does many things. However, none of them are comfortable for you. If she is here, you will find that she is more of a burden than a relief, and you already carry so many of them. Let her find her own place of refuge., mademoiselle.}
Madame Baudelaire is right. You know she’s right. And bringing Alice here is a decision with a thousand risks. Li Mei would kill to have access to this space. SHOCKS, and the System would, too. They can never know about it—ever. Even leaving your sister outside the walls is a risk almost too dangerous to contemplate.
But leaving her in the cold void isn’t acceptable, and you’re already this far in. You have the Mindscape. You have James. Surely, you can share some of that.
{You can. In the end, the sanctum you have created is yours. I facilitated it, and I will guard it for you until it cannot be guarded. However, the interloper is too much of a risk. I urge you not to open the gate for her.}
She speaks the words, but at the same time, a silver key appears on the bench. Its bow is shaped like the Revolver’s cylinder, precisely the same size as the gun you left behind when you drifted off to sleep. It’s warm, and it glows with a faint orange light. It, like this world, is an illusion. It’s something you created in your mind.
You pick up the key. It’s warm—almost too warm. As you roll it back and forth between your fingers, you think about the gate and the hooded and robed figure on the far side. Is Mme. Baudelaire right to keep her out? Who might be a better guest than your sister?
Sora? She’s the only person you trust absolutely. But no. Sora doesn’t need this. She needs to remain your friend, and that means boundaries—for her sake more than yours. If you want to be friends on the other side, the equation is clear. Sora shouldn’t be allowed in.
James, then? He needs this. A place where he could be James without the System. No, a place where he could be Sidney. Where he could abandon his responsibilities for a while. But your boundaries are there for a reason; you can’t trust the System. It doesn’t care about your best interests. If you can’t trust the System, you can’t trust James. Not as far as you can throw him.
Alice needs to come in.
You walk to the gate. The key fits perfectly. It turns without any effort on your part at all, and the rusty gate swings open.
The hooded figure stands outside. Rain pours off of her in sheets, and you realize two things.
First, she’s not wearing a robe. It’s a yellow raincoat—the kind that has its own hood and goes down to her ankles. The pink rain boots look ridiculous underneath, with the flowers and rainbows all over them. She’s covered them with stickers.
And second, she’s not even five feet tall.
You stare at your sister, mind racing. What are you supposed to do now? The seconds pass, and your face flushes. She goes to say something. To turn around and disappear into the not-black emptiness.
Instead, you step aside, put a hand around her tiny shoulders, and lead her into the sunny, late-spring garden.
She stares at the flowers and the bench, enthralled. When you shut the gate behind her, it creaks loudly, and turning the key takes more effort than it should. It clicks shut. Then the Mindscape’s secure again, and you leave the key on the bench. It disappears a moment later.
The raincoat comes off. Alice is wearing denim shorts and a pink T-shirt that looks like it’s almost too small for her. It’s almost time for it to be handed down to her little sister. To you. She wanders the garden for a while, quietly smelling the flowers and watching the gentle afternoon breeze rustle the giant oaks’ leaves. She doesn’t say anything; she just smiles.
And the whole time, you stare. She’s eight years old. Why is she eight years old here? You go to ask Mme. Baudelaire.
This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
{je suis désolé, mademoiselle. I apologize, but she is not something I made, and she was not brought here to comfort you but to be a burden. I did warn you.} That isn’t an answer, but she says nothing more.
The answer comes slowly, but without an equation. She’s eight. You were five. Not four, and not six. Five. The moment’s burned into your mind so intensely that, when given an opportunity to relive your ideal moment, you picked the last day. Twice. That says something about you. And it says something about Alice, because that day changed her, too.
There’s only one answer.
This is Alice. Not Soldier Alice or Valedictorian Alice, and certainly not Soccer Star Alice. Just Alice.
Your little big sister reaches out and puts her hand in yours. She asks you about the house. You hesitate. Mme. Baudelaire was right. Of course she was right. Alice will be a burden—one that’s more crushing than any you’ve carried to this place.
But your sister needs you.
You invite her inside. She curls up in your high-backed armchair, looking at you and waiting. And in that moment, you know what you have to do.
You find a book. It’s about an elephant and a piglet. It’s too young for your sister—too easy. But that’s not the point. The point is that Alice—this Alice—had to set these moments aside when she was eight.
You push her out of the way, making room for yourself. Then, as she melts into your lap, you read your sister a story.
SHOCKS Headquarters, Victoria, British Columbia - June 16, 2043, 6:13 AM
- - - - -
I wake up.
It’s been a long night; Alice doesn’t sleep like a princess—unless you count that one from Frozen—and I ended up in one corner of the bed. Worse, she’s still got my hand in a death grip. But even though I didn’t sleep much, and I need the bathroom bad, I feel really well-rested.
I extricate myself from my sister’s grasp—she’s like a god-damned Pacific Octopus, with what feels like too many fingers that just. Won’t. Stop. Holding. My. Hand. Then I stand and head for the bathroom.
The computer beeps. I close my eyes and take a deep breath. It’s time.
Alice gets five more minutes of sleep, but when she fights me, I pull the blankets off her and push her off the bed. That Alice might have needed a big sister she never had, but this one? This one needs to wake up before we’re late. She fights me on it, then drags her bed-head ass to the bathroom while I get dressed out here. It takes her a minute since this isn’t her usual space.
Then, suddenly, she’s gone. I nod knowingly. Last night was the first time anyone’s seen her without some sort of mask on in a decade. She needs to put on a new one.
I wait ten minutes—ten long, agonizing minutes—then grab her from her room and drag her to the operational planning room.
[Good morning, Claire and Alice,] James says on the way there. [I was right.]
“About what?”
[The Voiceless Singers’ language. There are two separate ones—possibly more, but two we care about. One is the songs and visions. It’s an informal way for them to communicate quickly. Think of how you talk to your friends and stuff. But the other way is much more interesting. Instead of using written language, they use chemical compounds to communicate big ideas and then ingest them. It creates perfect clarity of understanding—something we lack. Well, they did.]
“Did?” I ask.
[Did. Both my Analysis and SHOCKS’s observations point toward that city having been abandoned at least a decade ago. We’ll be the first to turn on those computers in at least that long. Hopefully, they’re worth the effort.]
My sister walks quietly. Her hand’s in mine again, and she smiles shyly. There’s something—a hint of the real Alice. Then her hand’s gone, and she’s serious, and I can’t help but think about the hours we spent on my chair in my Mindscape, and how that’s the real Alice, and how she hasn’t let herself be that person because she couldn’t and she still can’t. And how it’s just not fair. But what’s fair doesn’t matter here. What’s happening does.
We reach the operational planning room, and I open the door. Alice doesn’t let go of my hand.
Lambda-Four’s there—Strauss, Daley, and Lieutenant Rodriguez. So is all of Lambda-Five. They’re intact, and they look both more and less nervous than Lambda-Four. The rest of the room is packed; there are a dozen researchers, a handful of agents, and, of course, Director Ramirez. He’s up front.
We’re the last to arrive.
“Thank you for joining us, ladies,” Ramirez says. “Let’s begin.”
He introduces the teams first. I already know Strauss, Daley, and Rodriguez, and I don’t bother learning the Lambda-Five guys’ names. They’re pretty similar to Lambda-Four, except instead of Strauss—who specializes in R-0 tech solutions to problems—they’ve got L5-4. She’s an anomalous tech expert.
Maybe she’s going to eat the weird…whatever it is that James cooked up last night. He hasn’t said a word about it this morning, so I know it’s gonna be bad.
“The current situation is as follows. Yesterday, scouting elements of Lambda-Four discovered a number of computers in Provisional Reality ARC. On further examination, they determined its method of activation and retreated to…” blah, blah, blah. On and on Ramirez goes. He’s reading from typed notes, but I already know everything he’s saying.
As I tune him out, I watch Alice. She’s nervous. She’s trying not to be, and to anyone but me, she’d look like an island in a sea of chaos and confusion, but she’s on the edge of freaking out. She hasn’t said anything about my Mindscape, either, but she reaches out, grabs my hand, and squeezes. Then she lets go.
Ramirez keeps going, but now he’s getting into some new stuff. “Our next window to enter Provisional Reality ARC is in one hour, twenty-one minutes. We’re sending both Lambda-Four—minus L4-2, who is out of commission—and Lambda-Five. Alice Pendleton will be serving as L5-6, with the goal of interfacing with the anomalous computer and finding a way to gain non-anomalous control over its information.”
“Sir,” Daley says, raising his hand. “She’s got the infovampire inside her, right? How can we be sure the information on the far side will be safe?”
[I believe with eighty-five percent certainty that Alice Pendleton has complete control over Li Mei at this time, and with ninety-seven percent certainty that she could prevent said infovampire from destroying any vital intelligence in any situation,] James answers before Ramirez can.
“As the JAMES Unit said, we’ve been deploying L5-6 into combat situations and informational recovery missions for the last week, and Li Mei hasn’t been able to so much as try to assert control. Correct, Alice?”
“Yes,” she says, her words clipped. She’s got a new mask on. She’s faking like she’s a trooper. I try hard not to roll my eyes.
I fail.
“While L5-4 and L5-6 work on extracting any usable data, the rest of Lambda-Five will create a secured beachhead in the skyscraper. Lambda-Four has its own task, and in order to secure our foothold, theirs must succeed.” Director Ramirez says.
“There is an unknown entity in Provisional Reality ARC. We have been unable to determine any of said entity’s properties, including size, shape, anomaly or anomalies, and so on. We’re assuming it has a powerful antimemetic. Our team’s task is to study, engage, and either contain or neutralize it.”
Daley interrupts again. This time, he doesn’t raise his hand. “How?”
That’s an excellent question. According to James, there could be as many as twenty to thirty antimemetic anomalies on Earth right now. It’s almost impossible to contain them, and unless they’re an aggressive, predatory threat, SHOCKS rarely even tries. Even when SHOCKS succeeds at containment, all it takes is one mistake to lose track of an antimeme.
It’s happened before, but no one’s really sure how many times.
“We’ve gone through our records, and Command Two and Command Two A will be running your side of the operation once the room’s secure and Lambda-Five is working on the computer. Command Two A’s strategy is as follows: they will only have voice communications with your team. They will not be able to see, listen to, or react to your actions. Their job is to remind you that you’re hunting an antimemetic anomaly every fifteen seconds unless Command Two informs them that your mission is complete, you re-enter R-0, or you lose vitals.”
“That’s insane,” Strauss whispers. Alice raises an eyebrow and gives him a look that screams, ‘don’t talk in class.’ I roll my eyes at her, this time on purpose. “The more variables, the worse outcomes. This mission’s too complicated already.”
Director Ramirez stares at Strauss. “Do you have better suggestions?”
Strauss goes quiet.
“Remember, our mission isn’t to take the skyscraper or fight this antimemetic. It’s to capture a Voiceless Singer. These are preliminary steps on that mission,” Ramirez says. He steps back from the podium. “You have an hour and fifteen minutes. Be ready to go.”
I’m already ready.
Alice is, too. Neither of us has anything special we need to bring, and no matter what, the mission will only last a few hours. That’s as long as we can be on the ARC side of the merge portal. So, while SHOCKS troopers run around gathering their stuff, we’re in the SHOCKS shooting range.
“I see your problem, Alice. It’s in the trigger. The way you pull it is wrong. Use the pad of your finger, not the crease in your joint. Like this.” I’m showing her how to shoot because even though she’s been out there and shot at monsters, she’s godawful at it. What she really needs is to keep shooting and shooting—with a professional coaching her. What she’s going to do is correct this issue and then jump into another reality.
“Shit,” she says as she misses for the fiftieth time.
“Alright. Stop for now. We’ll keep working on it.” I take my gigantic earmuffs off, and so does she. The room’s quiet except for the ringing in my ears. This time, I’m pretty sure it’s from the guns.
“Thanks,” Alice says. She doesn’t snap at me for trying to show her what to do or get embarrassed that she’s not perfect at shooting already. In fact, I get the feeling that she’s not thanking me for helping her with her form at all—at least, not really.
I do the math. Then I feel my ears getting red.
Shit.
“Is Mergewalking like going to your Mindscape?” she asks. Shit.
“No. It’s a lot different. You’ll probably puke, and it won’t be as simple as waiting at the gate for me to let you in. We’ll land in another reality, and if we’re lucky, Ramirez will have us on target. But that…doesn’t always happen.”
“Oh.”
Alice’s single word hangs in the air as she holsters her gun. For a second, she reaches out to take my hand. Then she thinks better of it. A moment passes, the mask goes back up, and Soldier Alice is back in the driver’s seat. “Come on. We’ve got ten minutes. Just enough time to get there and make sure our gear’s together.”
She leaves, and I follow her. But as she goes, her hand reaches back for a second as if to grab mine.
It’s weird being the big sister, but sometimes, you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do.
Patreon has one advanced chapter available for free members, and seven advanced chapters ahead of Royal Road for $5.00. Come check it out!
