Trailblazer

by Zen DiPietro

  Stepping into the sun made Sally squint, and she looked around for clickers. The ones she saw, like those inside the factory, sat motionless. Funny how she hadn’t been concerned about them while exploring. She felt sorry for the poor things, frozen into idleness, with no ability to do anything for themselves.

  She felt uncomfortable looking at them now. They reminded her of how she used to be, before Essley came along and caused her to start thinking for herself.

  She felt so sad for them.

  Once they got to a safe distance from the factory, Darthrok looked back at it and sighed. “I hope you liked it, Sally. That was the most expensive and least exciting tour I could possibly imagine.”

  What was he talking about? That place had been wildly exciting. How could he not see all the potential and imagine what could be made in there?

  Regardless, he’d sacrificed a lot for her, and from his perspective, for no good reason. As they hiked toward the next town, Sally thought about how best to pay him back for his selflessness.

  3

  The city of Bracket was like nothing Sally could have imagined. She’d vaguely known that other cities didn’t move from place to place like Pivot did, but seeing all of Bracket’s buildings permanently affixed to the ground seemed so limiting.

  They were all larger than those of Pivot, too. Probably because Pivot’s buildings had to travel on wheels, and weight and maneuverability were critical characteristics. An interesting difference.

  “This is a pretty typical town,” Essley told her as they walked through the center of town. “About twice as big as one of Pivot’s medium-sized configurations, and mostly just a waypoint for travelers and mercenaries. A small number of adventurers make it their home base, but mostly it’s occupied by CMs.”

  “Is there a store person like me?” Sally asked.

  “There’s no one like you in all the land,” Darthrok assured her. “But most towns have a shop that’s at least somewhat similar to yours, for the purpose of getting basic goods and selling spare parts.”

  “Let’s go there,” she said. She had a sudden need to see what another storemonger CM looked like. How that person acted. How he or she spoke.

  Would her counterpart in Bracket be half-asleep, like she’d been, before? And if so, could Sally wake that person up? The possibility filled her with excitement.

  She felt a new sense of purpose as they strode down a cobblestone side road. As much as she hoped her friends would walk faster, she had to admire the pathway. By its nature, Pivot had no paths more permanent than trodden grass or drifting sand, and these pretty, patterned roads and sidewalks struck her as wonderfully artistic.

  They stopped in front of a square, inviting-looking building with a sign that said, Ginny’s General.

  The rumble of a steam lorry’s engine made Sally pause. The shiny red vehicle looked wonderfully strong while also being magnificently engineered, to the point that she found it beautiful. Pivot had no vehicular transit, so she had nothing to compare it to, but she knew a fortune when she saw it.

  More impressive than the money it represented, though, was the technology. She really wanted to know how it all worked.

  She watched the vehicle glide away and noticed her friends looking at her curiously.

  “Nice,” she said simply, hurrying up the three stone steps that led to their destination. She took a deep breath as she grasped the door handle and swung it open, causing a gyro above the door to begin spinning and churn out a tinkly little tune.

  In spite of the sound, she felt a heavy stillness inside the store. It wasn’t just the stillness of having no other customers at the moment, but something else. A lack, or a kind of emptiness. Sally couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but then realized that since the shop didn’t have a motor to propel it from place to place, it didn’t need nearly the amount of steam power her own business required. The stillness was the absence of that constant, energetic thrum caused by the boiler and the collection and storage of its energy.

  The sales room was twice the size of Sally’s own. Its configuration was different, but it appeared to have the same general types of goods for sale. She saw clothes on display, along with some basic tools, and if she wasn’t mistaken, she spied scrap metal and parts that had been sold by adventurers.

  She saw no puzzles, though.

  A petite Southerner poked her head around the corner and called, “Be right out! Just finishing a custom dye order.”

  A few moments later, the woman came out, wiping her color-stained hands on the front of an apron that was nothing but stains of color that bled into one another.

  “Sorry about that,” Ginny said, smiling politely. “Now, how can I help you?”

  Essley and Darthrok looked at Sally. She hadn’t thought this far ahead, though, and struggled to find something to say.

  “Do you have puzzles?” she asked.

  “Games?” Ginny asked, surprised. “No, I have no games here. But if you need clothes, I can custom dye them to any color you like. I also have some basic tools, weapons, and supplies. Everything an adventurer needs!”

  Her dialogue was nothing like Sally’s. Ginny reached around her back to untie her apron, then pulled it off.

  Sally stared. Ginny’s dress was just like her original nondescript, red shift. The one she’d worn when she’d woken up. The one she’d left behind and now realized she never, ever wanted to see again.

  “Why do you wear such a boring dress?” Sally asked. Darthrok had asked her a similar question, and Sally had immediately grasped the irony and changed into something that better suited her taste.

  Ginny shrugged and smiled. “Why wear something fancy if I’ll just ruin it with dye?”

  Sally frowned. The answer made sense, but she wanted to see a spark of awareness in Ginny’s eyes. Something that indicated she knew what she was saying. Sally wanted to reach out to Ginny and make a real connection, like Essley had done with her.

  She could repeat what had woken her up! With a burst of inspiration, Sally pulled a puzzle from her backpack and reached for Ginny’s hand.

  Ginny’s fingers slipped through hers like sand. Sally tried again, but couldn’t get a grip. Ginny simply stood there, watching her with a placid expression, waiting for a prompt.

  Disappointment wound itself away around Sally and squeezed, making her breath shallow. This woman, despite her differences, was more like Sally than she was unalike. Yet Sally couldn’t touch her or connect with her, or wake her from her rote responses. She might as well be a piece of scenery.

  “What if my friend took his sword and used it to flay you open from neck to knees?” Sally asked, carefully watching Ginny.

  “Sally!” Essley gasped in shock.

  But Ginny only laughed. “What do you mean?”

  Sally closed her eyes and let out a heavy breath. She recognized that response. Hers had consisted of different words, but she’d had a stock phrase that served the same purpose of dealing with unexpected queries.

  Ginny was not awake, and Sally couldn’t make her that way. They were alike, but they were not alike in the only way that really mattered to Sally.

  “Nothing.” Sally forced a smile. “Sorry to trouble you. We’ll come back later.”

  “No problem,” Ginny answered. “Let me know when you’re ready to order. I have some gorgeous silk I could dye to perfectly match your eyes.”

  Ginny put her apron back on and tied it before going around the corner and disappearing again.

  Sally walked woodenly out of the store.

  “You okay?” Essley asked her.

  “Not like me,” Sally said.

  Essley and Darthrok looked sympathetic.

  “We can try others,” Essley offered.

  Sally had thought that if any other CM would be like her, it would be her own counterpart in another town. Clearly, that wasn’t the case, so she’d have to try elsewhere.

  An hour later, they’d visited a dozen shops. Sally now smelled like
a garden of carnations, wore an incredible outfit with the most amazing pants and boots, and had a backpack full of every candy from the shop so she could sample them all.

  But every time she tried to connect with the CMs, the result was the same as it had been with Ginny. They didn’t know her. They weren’t awake. They were automatons, completing the same actions over and over, without conscious thought.

  Maybe she’d never find another like her. Maybe she was alone in this existence.

  With a lemon drop candy tucked in her cheek, she sighed and squared her shoulders. If she was the only one, then so be it. She’d see the world and have adventures, and do things no other CM could.

  She’d do it for all of them.

  “You know,” Darthrok said as they strolled toward the far end of town. “Being here makes me wonder what’s happening with your store, Sally. I mean, what are people doing for supplies and scrap sales back in Pivot?”

  Startled, Sally stared at him. Before, she’d always been in her shop, available to serve customers whenever she was needed.

  But now…what? She thought of her store and felt a mental weight come down on her. The weight of unsatisfied customers. Why had she not felt this before? She noted fifteen instances of someone coming into her shop in her absence. The notifications glared at her, proof of her negligence.

  She’d been too distracted to even think about it.

  She sucked in a breath. “Let’s go back.”

  “You don’t want to see the last bit of Bracket?” Essley asked. “There’s a community theater. Sometimes they have fun things going on.”

  Sally shook her head adamantly.

  “Are you in a hurry?” Darthrok asked.

  Sally nodded.

  “Okay. There won’t be any public transportation to Pivot because there isn’t any, so I’ll have to run. We’re not far, though, and I can run fast, so it won’t take long. If I lose you, don’t worry. Just don’t move from that spot and I’ll come right back to get you, okay?”

  She wasn’t sure what he meant, but she nodded.

  Darthrok hadn’t been kidding about running. He took off with her and Essley in tow, and all the landscape around them turned into streams of color. Sally couldn’t make out anything solid except for her companions, and had no idea how Darthrok knew where he was much less where he intended to go.

  But on they went. She had a vague sense of her geographical location shifting eastward, but other than that, she felt disoriented.

  A hand closed around her wrist and the color-blur stopped immediately, leaving her swaying in a sudden shift to stillness.

  “Sally? Sally Streetmonger?”

  She blinked to clear both her view and her thoughts. Not a single person had recognized her as a CM during her adventuring, so why now?

  The lean-built Westerner in front of her was a stranger. Sure, he was plain-looking, as Westerners usually were, but his average looks and average height didn’t cause so much mediocrity that she’d fail to remember him if she’d met him before.

  Strangely, she could see no information for him. A hazy mystique hid his name and attributes from her.

  “Who are you?” she asked.

  She’d never witnessed such a thing. Perhaps he was using some invention that allowed him to go incognito. Or maybe he had special skills she’d never seen.

  He muttered something she couldn’t quite hear, then let out a breath in an apparent attempt to calm himself. He asked, “What are you doing out here?”

  “Why?” she asked.

  He blinked. “Why what?”

  “Why ask?”

  “Well…” His eyes made tiny movements left and right as he thought about his response. “Because I’m concerned. You shouldn’t be out here.”

  “Why?” she asked again. She liked this question. It was just a single word, but it was the gateway to all information. She decided then and there to use the wonderful why question a whole lot more, along with the no word. These were good, powerful words.

  “Because you should be in your shop. How are you even out here? It shouldn’t be possible.”

  Sally stared at him because he had just solved his own puzzle. His words implied that he knew about her inner workings, and if he knew that, then he couldn’t be an adventurer.

  “Are you one of them?” she asked in a quiet voice. She didn’t have the vocabulary to call him what she suspected him of being. Besides, she didn’t want to say something whackadoo crazy if he wasn’t one of the GMs that adventurers only ever mentioned in whispers.

  He looked around, as if she might be talking to someone behind him. “One of who?”

  “Them,” she repeated. “Not adventurer. Not CM.”

  He tugged at his earlobe nervously. “Sally, do you remember me?”

  Sally narrowed her eyes at him. She didn’t know him, but he knew her. Somehow, they’d met without her knowledge. But if running her own store had taught her anything, it was that you never let someone you’re bargaining with know how much you know—or don’t know. In order to learn his secret, she needed to pretend to already know it.

  She said, “It’s guaranteed.”

  He chewed his lip, studying her. “Did someone accidentally restore your original programming? Is that why you’re out here?”

  “I’m new,” she said. “Don’t tell your friends.”

  He sighed. “I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean. I need to expand your vocabulary.”

  He must be a GM! He seemed to have knowledge about her that even she didn’t have, and he claimed to be capable of doing fantastical things.

  Was this incredibly boring man really a god of Everternia?

  She would have expected him to be taller. And to wear nicer pants.

  “Anyway, let’s get you back to your store. I’ll restore you to a backup to get rid of the extra code.” He reached for her hand.

  Sally ducked out of his reach. “No!”

  He grabbed for her again. “You have to get back to your store before something bad happens.”

  “No, the other thing!” She darted away each time he made a grab for her.

  He stopped. “What other thing? What are you doing? You’ve never been like this.”

  “I’m new!” she shouted, frightened. “No back up!”

  “You…” He stared at her with an expression of confusion that would have been funny in other circumstances. “You seem like you’re really responding. Weird.”

  “I’m five,” she insisted. “I’m doing my best.”

  “Well, something’s clearly wrong. I don’t want you getting hurt out here. You’re so far out of your designated loops that you could get corrupted.” He sighed. “Look, I know you don’t understand this, but you don’t run on the same system as the rest of this place. Your base code is more complicated, but older. If you wander into one of the newest areas, you could have a critical failure.”

  Sally hesitated. She thought she heard sincerity in his voice. Still, she didn’t like the things he’d said about giving her some kind of do-over. That didn’t sound like it would be good for her.

  “I’m doing my best,” she repeated.

  “Okay. Sure. So am I,” he agreed. “Even though…well, never mind my problems. But even if your code doesn’t get damaged by being out in the world, someone else might recognize you and reset you, and they wouldn’t know about your old code, and you might have a fatal exception. Do you know what that means?”

  She had a pretty good idea. “Poor luck.”

  “Yeah, very poor. So will you come with me? Let me get you sorted?”

  Did he need her cooperation? If so, why? Wasn’t he a god? Maybe GMs had limits, too. But regardless of what he’d said about risks in doing what she was doing, she’d rather take those risks than go back to being Sally Streetmonger. She was Sally Adventurer now. Sally Make-Her-Own-Choices.

  Well, Sally something or other, anyway. She hadn’t yet thought of a new name to suit her new status.

  Sh
e pointed to something behind the guy. “What’s that?”

  “What?” He turned.

  Sally ran as fast as she could in the direction Darthrok and Essley had gone.

  4

  The funny thing about running in a random direction, in an unknown place, with no intended destination, is that it’s impossible to get more lost than one already is.

  When Sally felt certain she’d lost Somewhat Threatening Guy, she slowed down and observed her surroundings. She’d already gone far from the spot that Darthrok had lost her, and wandering, in her opinion, would neither help nor hurt her. Curious about absolutely everything, she chose to see whatever she could as long as she happened to be there.

  She wished she had one of those voice transmitters that allowed for communicating over long distances. Maybe she could find one, and contact her friends that way. She’d have to watch for a place to buy a communicator.

  She appeared to be in a little hamlet, or maybe she was just on the outskirts of a town. Pink, yellow, and blue streamers fluttered in the wind, drawing her attention. They’d been attached to a large lattice with a door-sized shape cut out of it.

  Why would there be such an opening, fluttering with decoration, if not to invite her to step through?

  She planted her pretty leather boot in the dirt and pushed her way in.

  A glance over her shoulder satisfied her that Somewhat Threatening Guy hadn’t followed her, which gave her the luxury of being able to take in the scene before her.

  Balloons.

  Balloons everywhere.

  A heart-shaped one bonked her in the face, bouncing off her nose with an interesting, hollow sound and rolling several times as it drifted to the ground.

  “Sorry!” a little girl called, running up and ducking her head, looking abashed.

  Sally smiled. “It’s okay. Didn’t hurt.”

  The little girl would be ideal to ask questions of, since she’d be unlikely to become suspicious if Sally said anything really strange. Frustratingly, Sally’s words, even the ones she was really good at, had a way of receding away from her when she got excited.