Deleted

by Phoenix Ward

  A dull red light washed over the area as a loud electronic pang emanated from speakers throughout the room. Someone triggered the alarm. The two bodyshells waved their firearms over the room, checking for any stragglers.

  “See anyone else?” Gauge asked.

  “Negative,” Tera replied, her police training kicking in. “All targets neutralized.”

  The rebel I.I. smirked.

  “Good,” he said. He looked up at one of the signs over the nearest doorway. “They’ve got to be close.”

  He beckoned for Tera to follow him as he went through the entrance to the next chamber. She took one last look over her shoulder to make sure she hadn’t missed anyone, then made her way after him.

  The next room was even darker than the entrance chamber they deactivated the bodyshells in. There was a dim green glow radiating from the wall opposite the doorway they walked through.

  “Whoa,” Tera said, stopping as she took a look at the room.

  It was no larger than a loading dock, but it still housed a considerable number of simpods. The coffin-sized containers lined the wall in short rows, extending up to the ceiling. Almost all of the pods were empty, the interior lights long extinguished. Two were still illuminated, however. They sat on the lowest level, near the center of the row. It was clear they had been placed here for ease of access.

  “There they are,” Gauge said. He checked the corners of the room for any remaining guards, but they were alone.

  Tera took a step forward and saw the humans within their simpods. She recognized them almost immediately. King Hum and Ethan had their eyes closed as they floated in the snot-green fluid. They were curled up like fetuses in the womb, connected to the contraption by dozens of black wires. If she had flesh-and-blood limbs, they would surely be going cold with horrible anger as she looked at the prisoners. She wanted to go back to the hologram of Councilman Harring and smash the room apart. To find where he was stored and burn the building down around him.

  “How do we get them out?” she asked. Her tone was seething.

  “We’re gonna need some tools,” Gauge said.

  “So, what do we do?” Tera was starting to feel powerless.

  “Well, the bad news is that the equipment we need is back at the Furnace and we’re going to have to take the whole simpods there,” Gauge replied.

  After a moment of silence, Tera asked, “And the good news?”

  Gauge pointed at the wall beside Ethan and King Hum, where a large cluster of deactivated simpods were connected. Tera squinted in the direction of Gauge’s finger, trying to see what he was talking about when she noticed a low hiss coming from behind the wall. Then, with a sudden roar, blue cones of flame melted their way through the thick structure, kicking up white sparks. Tera took a step back as she watched the torches cut a long, jagged line through the wall, tracing out the shape of a large rectangle. Through the glowing hot wounds in the wall, Tera could see the light of day. Someone was cutting through the building from the outside.

  “That’s the good news,” Gauge replied.

  The flames retreated and vanished. A quiet moment passed before a loud rumble shook the building. With a terrible shriek of metal and concrete, the wall was torn from its frame and the world outside washed into the chamber. Tera needed a moment to adjust to the new light, shielding her eyes from the sun when she saw the figures pouring in through the new opening. As her optical receptors corrected themselves, she realized she recognized the newcomers. It was the men and women of the People’s Union — but they weren’t alone. The loyal soldiers of the Holy Kingdom of Opes were among them. Together, the rebels and Opesians gathered around the simpods and started to unhook them.

  Just behind them, a small gunship hovered just above the streets of the Pavilion. Large bolts of green and blue light erupted from it as it opened fire on the Council soldiers, who had just started converging on the building.

  41

  Gaslit

  Ethan and Taylor’s nineteenth birthday came again — for what felt like the second time to the honored birthday boy. They had perused the massive catalog of online game modes and maps, but nothing they came across gave Ethan that Last Stand vibe he was looking for. Taylor managed to find an impressive looking pirate adventure, however. As the guests of honor, Taylor and Ethan would play the role of pirate captains competing over a golden treasure chest.

  Each of them got to design and outfit their own sea-faring vessels. Ethan made his a high-speed junk with fiery orange sails and cannons loaded with grappling hooks. They each made their ships in private, so he had no idea what Taylor was working with. She could be captaining a Man-o-war for all he knew.

  Whatever tricks she might have up her sleeve, Ethan still felt confident he had the advantage. He had Sharpe as his right-hand man. He’d take that over any number of cannon decks. Together, Ethan and Sharpe covered the ship in a neon paint job depicting dragons and fire. It looked terrible, like a crayon factory had exploded nearby, but it was certainly distinct.

  The goal of the game was to seize control of a golden treasure chest placed at the heart of a small island in the middle of the bay. They were able to choose between a rainy, stormy environment or a clear, sunny day, and they opted for the smooth sailing. They were given the option to change it on the fly if they decided it was too boring, but Ethan hoped they stayed in the warmth. He knew it was all simulated, but it still felt nice on his skin.

  A bird flew by as Ethan gripped the ship’s steering wheel. Sharpe was just off to his left, watching the gentle waves with his hands folded behind his back.

  Something caught Ethan’s eye as they sailed toward the treasure island, which sat on the horizon faded with distance. At first, he thought it was a bit of generic debris floating in the ocean. An odd barrel or net-covered box the map’s designer had put in for detail’s sake. When he centered his vision on the object, however, he thought he saw some motion not unlike an arm flailing. It was a person.

  The junk was cutting through the waves too fast for Ethan to make the figure out, but he saw a distinct head of red hair. It was hard to tell through all the frothing sea foam, but he thought he also saw a beard to match.

  Ethan blinked rapidly, shook his head, then looked back at the spot. He didn’t see the floating man. It was just a torn bit of sail, churning around in the waves. The motion must have fooled Ethan into thinking it was an arm or something.

  Strange, he thought.

  He thought about bringing it up to Sharpe, seeing if his friend could see what he saw, but the moment passed. The debris was long gone, so he’d have nothing to point out.

  Before he even had the moment to bring it up, there was a cry from the crow’s nest.

  “Enemy ship!” one of their crewmates called. He peered out at the horizon with a spyglass. “It’s Taylor! Looks like she’s got a galleon!”

  Ethan and Sharpe both peered just starboard of the bow. They could see the other ship zipping toward them over the calm waters. It was almost as far as the island was, but the distance was shrinking by the moment. If Ethan didn’t know better, he’d say Taylor outfitted her vessel with a power motor.

  “What’s she doing?” Sharpe asked, squinting at the horizon line. “She’s not trying to line up her cannons with us.”

  “No,” Ethan said. “She’s trying to ram us.”

  Sharpe’s eyes went wide. He went the banister of the steering deck and shouted out to the sailors, “Brace for impact! Load up the grappling hooks!” He turned to Ethan. “If she’s going to hit us head first, we’ll use it against her.”

  Ethan nodded to his first mate.

  Though it was a perfect, cloudless afternoon, it was like Taylor had snuck up on them. Her vessel was so fast that it basically used the curve of the small planet to ambush them. At least, it seemed that way to Ethan.

  Perhaps the game loaded her in there, he thought. Or maybe she just moved within visible range — the limitations of a computer program.

  Befo
re long, Taylor’s ship was within a stone’s throw. The men and women on the top decks shouted at each other, brandishing their swords and pistols and rifles. They exchanged taunts for a few moments before the first burst of gunpowder was ignited. In an instant, every flintlock firearm went off. Little puffs of white smoke rose into the afternoon air as bits of wood splinters went flying and some of the sailors started to drop. People bent low as they tried to reload their troublesome weapons. Luckily for everyone involved, the program simplified the process for the sake of enjoyability.

  “Fire!” Ethan could hear Taylor shout from her own ship.

  “Light ‘em up!” Sharpe barked back.

  The cannons started to explode. Which each shot, Ethan could feel the cannons below roll back. The ship even seemed to leap back a few inches with each concussion. Large holes started to appear in Ethan’s ship as Taylor’s cannonballs ate huge chunks out of it. He ducked low as one projectile whistled over his head. He watched another crewmate have worse luck with a cannonball. The lead sphere sent his body flying over the railing and into the sea.

  Gauge was shouting something as he peeked over cover, firing at Taylor’s crew with his rifle. Ethan couldn’t quite make out his words as the combat drowned out all other sounds.

  Finally, the loudest noise of all shattered the atmosphere as the two ships collided. The splintering of wood, the tearing of metal bolts — it was all too much. Ethan was almost stunned by the wall of sound like he had run into it physically. He shook his head and regained his senses. With the snap of his wrist, he pulled his own flintlock pistol from his long coat and shot a hole through one of the enemy sailors’ forehead.

  As the man dropped, Ethan could have sworn he saw the same red hair and beard.

  Gauge? he wondered. The face was so familiar, so alike the I.I. rebel, but also not quite. It was enough to make him wonder if he had seen his kill right, or if he was just imagining faces.

  Ethan’s ship returned fire, the chains of the grappling hooks tinkling as they crashed through their prey. Some of the hooks fell loose through the same hole they punched in the galleon, but most of them found a place to sink their hooks in.

  “There she is!” Sharpe shouted, raising his rifle and firing again.

  Ethan followed his friend’s aim and saw Taylor blast away one of his men. She wore an extravagant swashbuckler’s hat, complete with an enormous pink plume that stuck out from the brim.

  They locked eyes for a moment. Taylor smirked, then raised her pistol and took a shot at Ethan. He ducked just in time for the bullet to tear a little line along the brim of his own hat.

  “Board them!” he could hear the other captain shout.

  The roars rose up to nearly match the gunfire in volume. People started laying down gangplanks and attaching ropes to the other ship, swinging aboard. Ethan finished reloading his pistol just in time to shoot one of the boarding pirates out of the air. The body whipped around like a pinwheel and tumbled into the water below.

  “Reload!” Sharpe yelled to the people down on the cannon deck. Ethan started to do the same with his own firearm when he heard footsteps coming up toward the wheel. Sharpe readied his saber and waited at the top of the stairs for the intruders.

  Ethan was about to draw his own blade when the sound suddenly ceased. Even the howl of the breeze was gone; he was left with just the creaking of the damaged ship floating in the water.

  He touched his ears while wondering if he had been deafened all of a sudden. Maybe something broke within the game, he thought.

  He looked up, expecting to see the battle raging on in silence, like someone hit mute on a video. Instead, he saw nothing but the ship and the sea it rocked along. He furrowed his brow as he looked around for the sailors who had just been fighting.

  The treasure island was still visible in the distance, but it looked like the trees had been picked from it by the roots. Aside from that, there was nothing else in the water. Just Ethan’s junk and the foam each wave produced.

  “Hello?” Ethan asked.

  Maybe everyone got disconnected, he thought. Like a service interruption. Or maybe I’m the one having network issues.

  As he spun around one more time to make sure that Sharpe and Taylor weren’t just hiding someplace to pull a prank on him, he saw a form. He wasn’t alone. Raising his gaze, he saw the redheaded man standing on the deck.

  “Hello, Ethan,” Gauge said.

  The voice became tiny in Ethan’s head as he tried to understand what was happening.

  “Gauge?” he asked.

  The redhead nodded.

  “I don’t — you’re not real,” Ethan stammered.

  Gauge sighed a little, as if Ethan had found him out and he could drop the charade.

  “That’s what they want you to think,” the I.I. — or computer character — or whatever he was — said. “I’m going to put it plainly: you’ve been brainwashed.”

  Ethan smiled for a second as he watched the redheaded man attempt to stay steady as the ship was bombarded with the waves. He started to chuckle, expecting the rebel to start glitching out again at any moment.

  “I know you don’t believe me,” Gauge continued. “That’s the whole point. They’ve been gaslighting you. Trying to make you doubt the authenticity of everything you see and hear.”

  “Why?” Ethan asked. He kept a lookout in the corner of his vision for Sharpe or Taylor. He half expected them to emerge from some concealed corner to ask him how his third run through Rebels was.

  “To confuse you, to make you resist us if and when we tried to rescue you,” Gauge replied. “Most importantly, though, to get you to disclose everything you know about the People’s Union. They wanted you to drop your guard and sell us out. Speaking of which, did you — ?”

  “No,” Ethan said. He became aware that he was still holding onto his sword. “I didn’t say anything.”

  Was this another prelude to the adventure? Ethan wondered. Am I about to be taken for another ride?

  “You’re sure?”

  Ethan nodded.

  “Good,” Gauge said, sighing a little. “We might just be able to bounce back from this.”

  “From what?” Ethan asked.

  Gauge’s face contorted with confusion. “From their interference with the whole Opes operation,” he replied like the fact should be common knowledge. “They kidnapped you and Tera after your autocar went down in the desert. They’ve had you plugged into your own isolated program ever since. Sometime after you two were snagged, they went after King Hum.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Ethan replied, avoiding Gauge’s eyes. “This is just another adventure for you, isn’t it?”

  “No, Ethan,” Gauge replied. “It doesn’t matter, though. We don’t need you to believe us just yet. Right now, I just want you to hold on.”

  Ethan cocked an eyebrow. “Hold on?”

  “You’re still in a simpod, but we’re trying to get you out,” Gauge explained. “First, we have to get you somewhere…safer. It’s going to get a little loud.”

  As the words left his lips, a crack of thunder split the air. The sky, once blue and cloudless, transitioned to a dark blanket of storm clouds, casting the whole map into darkness. The waves started growing in height and frequency, rocking the ship more and more with each collision. Staring at the sky, Ethan became convinced a hurricane was coming to destroy them where they floated.

  “Hold on!” Gauge repeated.

  Ethan did so, clutching onto the captain’s wheel. He pulled his body close so he could support his full weight on the mechanism. The waves came bigger and bigger, slapping into the damaged hull of Ethan’s ship.

  It’s not real, the young man said to himself. None of it is real. You can pull yourself out if you try. Come on.

  He couldn’t shake the illusion. Another bolt of lightning ripped through the atmosphere, hitting close enough to the boat for Ethan to see a cloud of steam erupt from where it hit the sea.

  “Alright, here
comes the worst part,” Gauge said.

  A shadow crossed Ethan’s face, blotting out the sun from the sky. He looked up and saw a wall of water looming over them. The enormous wave started to tip over at its crest, pouring thousands of gallons of water down its front side as the wave started to swallow the ship.

  “Hold one!” Gauge shouted once more.

  Ethan took in a deep breath and held it as the tsunami engulfed them.

  42

  Free

  The wind rushed beneath King Hum’s arms as he drifted through the air. Rather, it whipped past the spot where his arms had been mere moments ago. As far as he could tell, he had no arms or legs. In fact, his entire body seemed to be replaced by a brilliant glimmer of light. It was like he had become a cloud of stardust and was drifting on the warm currents above the valley.

  Hum couldn’t begin to describe the sensations that engulfed his mind — he couldn’t even understand it. It was like he was in terrible pain his entire life and had just felt the first ounce of relief he’d ever experienced. All he could feel was pure euphoria, like his soul itself was taking a nice hot bath. He chuckled a little, the vibrations delighting every nerve in his brain. It was almost like being tickled, but without the desire to make it stop.

  The trees rolled slowly down King Hum’s range of vision, occasionally obscured by the soft wisp of a cloud. He cast no shadow — the sunlight ran right through him. A sweet aroma met his senses, wafting up gently from the fertile earth and the plants that grew in it. He’d never smelled something so clear, so fresh — so right.

  A glitter caught his attention. The young king looked over to his left and saw another cloud of stardust flying at the same pace he did.

  “Magnificent, isn’t it?” the other cloud asked. “To be so free?”

  King Hum recognized the voice, despite it being devoid of character. It was God again. They drifted through the air together like a pair of ethereal kites.