Chapter Text
It is quiet in the Bracket Towers reception hall. The tiled floor is white and teal shining underneath, the high ceilings ornate. No one around, no one at the desk.
Maybe the defeat of the spine has given Dorothea some respite in fending off smaller process creatures.
There are a few OVC terminals to Dorothea’s left. She goes to one of them and logs on even if chances are it’s offline.
Looks like these ones are online. Says it’s routed through the Fairview server. Elites and their resources . . . She skips the evacuation order. There’s a message from Felix. It’s timestamped to this morning. Hm. Must not have gotten through to the offline terminals in Highrise.
[7.21 am] It’s getting worse, Dorothea. I don’t know what you want with the transistor, but if you don’t bring it to Dimitri, you won’t have a city left in which to enjoy whatever you’ve got planned. I can’t leave Bracket Towers right now, or I would. Bring the transistor here.
It’s 9:45 am now.
Felix’s voice sounds even more taut in the next recording.
[8.58 am] You know it’s going to be your fault, don’t you? Are you running the other way?
There’s an amount of background noise in this message, crashing, yelling.
Look I don’t know what you want but -- stop being stupid and bring us the transistor, we’ll work something -- DIMITRI! No -- get -- Dimitri stay, stay, she’ll --
Dorothea shivers a bit. That’s the end of the messages.
She drags the transistor to the exit double doors that go to the concourse. Usually, she would have to ping a resident to get past the doors; that’s how a lot of the higher up elites live. Securely, more for the poshness of it all than an actual need for safety. But it looks like the doors are unlocked.
They’re letting us in?
Dorothea pushes the doors open and heads up the concourse. Each short flight of stairs leads to a right-angled hall with doors to the (evacuated) residences of those who live in Bracket. At the end of every hall is another set of secured doors which glows around the edges to show that someone has preempted their arrival and unlocked it.
She’s on-edge for any process creatures that might spawn, but none interrupt her. They pass the 100-row, the 200-row.
Maybe they’ll be cordial. Here’s your voice back, here’s your body. Have a nice day, see you in the ring next week when all of this is cleared up.
Really, Sylvain’s taking up the mantle of over-optimist now? Dorothea laughs silently to herself, feeling a bit steadier.
Soon enough they’re at the penthouse landing. The organic carvings in the smooth floor have been half-taken over by process white. Dorothea looks up at the metal double doors blocking her way to the penthouse suite. Each has a glowing red symbol inset. The white of the process seems to be leaking out, sheets and squares of blankness, from underneath the doors, and from the small gap between them, spreading slowly out. Muffled noise comes from behind the barriers.
Security firewall’s active.
Looks like Felix didn’t unlock the final doors. And why not? This also seems a bit excessive protection for a penthouse suite -- unless there’s more in here than a simple residence. Dorothea goes to the panel outside and presses the ping. There’s no response. Hallway to the right are the Tower Archives, left is maintenance.
The firewall bypasses might be in maintenance --
Please. Dorothea may be a little shaken, but she did just kill a spine. Surely she can kill a door . She draws herself up, calls turn(), and plans as many breach()es as she can against those firewalled doors.
Whoa whoa whoa --
Resuming the flow of time, she slams the transistor again and again into the ground as planned, each arc of the blade releasing a pointed beam of blue energy. When the beams crash against the doors, the imposing metal slabs both flash red, firewall rippling. Reflected energy scatters back towards Dorothea in slow-motion, multiplying as she unleashes breach() after breach().
You should probably get out -- Sylvain starts, panicked.
As soon as the transistor’s boost to her actions starts slipping, she jaunt()s out of the way, avoiding most of the ricocheting breach()es. A few hit her, nerves momentarily on fire, but soon she scrambles up to inspect the headway she’s made.
-- of the way.
Not much damage done. Dorothea pushes a few free strands of hair back from her face as she waits for the transistor to recharge.
We could just go look for the security overrides in maintenance.
From the sounds of it, something is happening beyond the doors, and Dorothea would like to know sooner than later. She calls turn() again and repeats the planning from her last onslaught. Releasing her hold on the clock, she goes into motion, lighting up the doors again with the transistor’s lances of blue energy.
One, two, three - and on the fourth breach() the whole surface of the doors light up in a sheet of red which then shatters. The metal bursts open from the inside, sending blocks of process white flying and evaporating, more physical shards and slabs of the broken door hurtling out. Dorothea can’t stop what she’s planned and a chunk of metal comes towards her in slow motion -- the transistor throws up the last-resort shield and blasts the projectile away in a seizure of blue.
Overload, breach() lost!
Her vision now clear from door debris as it scatters to the ground, she gets a good look at what broke apart the doors from inside.
The creature appears to be both human and beast. Its torso is plated in armor, lined black and red, giving way to black texture that seems like fur around its calves, reminding Dorothea of the Hairballs that the process spawns. Its heavy statue-like head is white with unmoving features except for its right eye, which is scarred and bubbling with shining red, red like the spine’s head or younglady’s eyes. Bristling white and black springs from its chest and around its arms and continues over and down its neck and back, giving it a hulking form. It is maybe 15 feet tall.
The way the world passes by slowly during the execution of her turn() thankfully loosens with the end of her plans, giving her enough certainty as she jaunt()s away from the reach of the jab of the rod-like weapon in the beast’s claws. This weapon has a red bauble smoking with a crimson wisp set in the bones at the end of the long bar, the bones like carpals and metacarpals stuck together, reminding Dorothea of the bony parts of the transistor’s structure.
She does not want to fight this thing. She can only hope it does not want to fight her --
But it turns its statuesque head, asymmetrical gaze towards her, rotating. Wait -- is it looking at her, or the transistor she holds out in front of her, as she calls bounce()?
Oh no.
No sooner does Sylvain let loose the ball of yellow-gold light from the eye of sword than the beast retracts its bony lance and lunges forward, reaching farther than Dorothea thought. She frantically calls turn() a moment before the lance pierces Sylvain -- her surroundings go dark, contrast highlighting the mere inches between the beast’s weapon and the sword’s surface. Onslaught stalled, Dorothea draws the transistor close to her, shock making her knees momentarily weak.
Gazing over her enemy’s form, she thinks -- is this like Edelgard, is this --
Yeah. I think it’s Dimitri. Sylvain’s tone is damp, stony. Wonder where Felix is.
Dorothea recalls the ruckus from the recordings and from behind the previously closed doors. If Felix was in there with this creature, she’d bet he’s not coming out.
And now Dimitri . . . whatever he’s turned into -- he’s aiming for me.
Surely he can’t break the transistor. Nothing’s left a scratch so far. But if it was possible to break the transistor -- what would happen to Sylvain? Dorothea shudders.
I’d probably vanish into thin air. Didn’t you just call me data not so long ago? Sylvain’s trying to joke, from his tone. But it’s not funny. She won’t let this corrupted thing take Sylvain from her. She starts building a strategy; she’ll need to time attacks perfectly, in the small space move in circumference around Dimitri to avoid his lance. Or move locations . . . Thea, Sylvain says in a warning, anxious tone that makes her preempt what he might say next. If he’s going to tell her to disengage that might be the stupidest thing he’s said. Doesn’t he know she’s dead without the sword, without him, as well? I’m not saying you shouldn’t fight him, I’m saying -- look. I’m saying don’t you dare get yourself killed protecting me. ‘Cause you’re you , and I’m just hardware and data now.
No. He’s still her Sylvain.
She plans exactly what she’ll do, not quite using all of her turn(), predicting she’ll benefit from a shorter recharge time. Every move counts. She has to be more careful, especially with one function overloaded. In her battle with Edelgard, she’d thought herself quite the victor; now, with the sobering taste of reality, she knows she’d been closer to defeat than she’d boasted to the empty opera hall. She’ll not make such a careless judgement again.
Time’s flow begins again, slow motion as she carries out her plan. She gets off a crash() and a bounce(), then jaunt()s out of range. Dimitri’s corrupted form tracks Dorothea as she drags the transistor around the edges of the room. Something tells her it’s not a good idea to go into the maintenance wing where she could easily back herself into a dead end; perhaps the archives are a better choice.
With a speed that shouldn’t be possible for a creature its size, the beast jabs its lance towards the transistor again. Dorothea jaunt()s out of the line of fire at an angle, the path of the weapon scorching the air behind her, only just missing contact.
She calls turn(). There’s enough planning to jaunt() toward and down the hall to the archives. She’s been there once; it’s guaranteed to be a more open space than maintenance. She could gain some ground there, more things to hide behind. In quick fashion she dashes there when time resumes, far enough she’s likely out of the reach of the lance.
She is, for the beast drops its weapon and instead lunges, pushing through its hindquarters, claws extended. Dorothea screams silently as the pinky claw catches the edge of her overcoat, pinning it to the ground. She only tightens her grip on the hilt of the transistor and holds on for dear life. Dimitri’s other claws wrap quickly around the transistor blade; Sylvain starts fizzing and sparking. The beast raises the sword off the ground but Dorothea refuses to let go, her overcoat ripping as she’s hauled up along with the transistor. She calls turn(), but no sooner have her surroundings gone black than they flash red and her planning potential shatters apart into realtime. Disrupted.
Dimitri lifts them to the level of his face, his wrecked right eye bubbling red, white process flocking in cubes at the edges.
His claws tighten, applying pressure around the sword, Dorothea’s upper body from where she half-dangles in his grip.
Swallowing a scream, Dorothea squints her eyes, calling bounce(). Sylvain crackles and ejects sparks in protest, in Dimitri’s deathgrip. Sylvain come on don’t get us both killed --
The ball of golden light forms at the eye of the sword, looking more frazzled and less collected than usual. It expands quickly, out of control, spitting red - and when Sylvain releases it a half-second later, it explodes more than travels, blasting them out of Dimitri’s grip -- through the break in the doors through which the beast escaped.
Dorothea hits the floor luckily at a direction more parallel than perpendicular, the ragged remains of her overcoat sleeve snagging on something and the transistor slinging past her with its momentum, out of her grip. Behind her, the beast roars, stunned momentarily by the small explosion. Dorothea’s dragged a couple more feet before the knockback from bounce() is finally spent.
She tries to get up, but her balance isn’t there. Her breath isn’t either -- what’s wrong? She can’t breathe?
Wind’s knocked out of you, Sylvain groans, voice fizzling around the vowels. Aaaaugh . . . I think I overdid myself with that bounce() . . .
The penthouse is dim inside, much larger than a simple residence, domed roof, furnished like a study with glowing specimen chambers and blackboards. That’s about as much as Dorothea can grasp in the moment. She tries again, and fails, to get to her feet. The corrupted creature fills the gap in the doors as it enters, shaking off the transistor’s attack. White, processed flesh creeps in waves, growing and diminishing from the blast impact in its armor, as if trying to repair the damage. Despite the wound, the beast has picked up its lance once again.
Dorothea wills her body to rise, but she only gets to her knees before she topples, head swimming, her lungs only just starting to expand again. Where’s Sylvain? Still glowing, a few feet away. The floor is a mess, books and papers, broken screens and shattered items and upturned desks -- and a body? Felix’s. Not as important as the oncoming beast.
Dorothea sees Dimitri preparing to lunge with his lance. With a desperate effort, she turns away from the creature and towards Sylvain, dragging herself to the transistor and practically falling on top of it.
THEA!
The blue shield goes up, rebuffing the lance, sending it violently back, burst of sparks. The beast grumbles a roar in protest. Dorothea remains clutching the sword, head still swimming.
Thea get up -- we’re 50% down --
She tries. She tries calling turn(), but the stillness is only there for a moment again before her haven falls apart in red disruption. Dimitri’s on them now, a claw slamming down.
Blue shield up. Bursts under the impact, breaks, overloads the 3rd function.
Thea --
She’s somehow on her feet. She tries turn() again. Again, disrupted. She hauls the sword up, up -- Dimitri slams his claw down on them again. Sylvain throws up the shield, breaks with an electric crash.
Thea that was our last chance --
The Dimitri-beast, yet injured from bounce(), spits a lightning strike of energy at the sword. Dorothea turns her back to the attack, shielding the transistor in time to absorb the hit. She screams soundlessly as the shock rips through her, knocking her down flat on the ground.
THEA!
It was a stupid decision, yes. But she was glad to make it. Selfish, really - if Sylvain protects them one last time it’ll cost her everything, and she’d rather not be conscious of losing him if that’s the fate. Suppose after all she is only delaying the inevitable. Her body is totally scrambled; she’s got no chance of coherently wielding the sword in this condition.
If this is the final curtain, she has put on a decent show.
But death does not come. Dimitri does not finish them off. Her system shakes out the nervous brunt of the electric shock, and trembling, she manages to prop herself up on hands and knees.
The Dimitri-beast has turned its attention to Felix, who is apparently not dead and has gotten to his feet, clutching something that looks much like a simpler version of the very weapon Dorothea holds now. His hair is a mess, only half tied-back, looking like he’s been through a fight himself.
Still shaking, Dorothea clutches the hilt of the transistor. However, her muscles are still fried to do anything else; everything smells strange and burnt. Sylvain seems thick and far away, muffled.
Thea, do something - wait -- I can -- he’s calling through his copy --
Dorothea watches, without the present ability to do anything else, as bounce() forms at her transistor’s eye. This energy does not collect itself into a sphere. Instead it streams true and bright to the half-built eye of Felix’s copy-sword. The beast lets out an offensive cry and retracts its lance, long arm and clawed grip tensed.
With a yell Felix heaves his copy-sword ahead and plants it into the floor with a crash. The energy collecting at its unfinished eye grows out of control, rapidly expanding and then unleashing towards the corrupted beast which simultaneously lunges forward in its own attack, lance hungry.
The light from the blast of the streamed bounce() as it impacts its target at such close range nearly blinds Dorothea. A great human and yet animal cry sounds amid garbled arcing of energy.
The hulking creature collapses, that much Dorothea can tell, spawning tens of cells that scatter around the room, toppling before they hover.
When all is quiet again and Dorothea’s eyes have adjusted once more to the dim room, the beast’s form has been reduced in size and shape to a white mass vaguely resembling a man, like the integrated citizens of Cloudbank they’ve passed on their way here. He lies there on the ground, partially encased in that bristling white and black of the beast, one eye still shimmering a scarred red.
His trace floats above him, an innocuous marker of death.
Felix staggers forward a few steps to kneel over the still form of what was once Dimitri. Dorothea sees Felix’s chest ripples white with twisting red veins spreading out from where the beast’s lance ran him through.
Still trembling, she crawls feebly out to a cell, absorbing it. With that, she’s able to push up the transistor enough to hobble forward. She makes eye contact with Felix, his gaze suddenly jerking to her.
Dorothea’s not seen this look on him before, in the brawling rings. Then again, she’s only ever seen him win a fight, and this seems more of a loss.
“For someone Sylvain’s managed to charm . . . you’re pretty strong. But you were too late,” he says, like his mouth is dry. “He was . . . dead before we killed him.”
She looks at Dimitri lying there; seems as if the hard-won victory has also sealed the fate of her voice and Sylvain’s body. But Dimitri and Felix were together, surely Felix knows how to work the transistor as well? She hauls herself up again, vaguely intending on getting closer in an effort to help Felix. The process claws at his chest, white spreading. Maybe they can fix this; maybe he knows how to get the transistor to fix him and then he can --
Felix, if you know how to use this thing, we need you around and not part of the process, Sylvain says, and a very strange, robotic echo of his voice emanates from Felix’s copy-transistor.
“I . . . can call existing functions, as you saw.” Felix blinks a couple times. “Sylvain.” Like this form of Sylvain is an oddity - which it certainly is. “And Dorothea?”
Dorothea opens her mouth to speak and angrily shuts it, remembering she cannot. She reaches for the nearest good cell, pushing it to Felix, not shaking as much now.
“I see.” Felix takes the cell; it clips down into his hand but the process continues eating at his chest. He glances down. It’s not that kind of wound, is it? His eyes go back to Dorothea. “I wrote the seek file to keep your voice, you know . . . you can blame Edelgard for how things went wrong.”
Blame Edelgard? Oh really? Again, Sylvain’s voice comes through warped from Felix’s sword. We had a chat, her trace and I. She wanted me dead. You know, I really can’t fathom why you two would agree --
“Oh, we never agreed to this,” Felix laughs shortly. He lets go of his transistor with a cough, the blankness left in his chest crawling to his shoulders. “Edelgard went rogue and changed the target. The rest of us wanted Dorothea.”
Dorothea? So she was the one you were trying to kill? How -- how could you -- Sylvain’s anger makes the transistor flash and spark. Dorothea draws it back to herself as if it might move of its own will. Felix saved them, he must have had a change of heart.
“Sylvain . . . you’ve always been a skirt-chaser. Maybe you found true love, how were we to tell? Sorry.” Felix blinks quickly, swaying as he falls forward to support himself on a hand, dim blue light from Dimitri’s trace falling upon his tense expression. “So you want Sylvain’s body back… your voice….” He glances at Dorothea. “That’s too bad. You sing well.”
Wait. Did Dimitri even know how to fix her and Sylvain, in the first place? Sylvain verbalizes her unheard question.
“Tch,” Felix says. “Maybe. Dimitri . . . we needed the sword . . . for him . . . After, we could have tried fixing you. Or not.” So Felix lied? So he outright lied? He baited her here? She must look furious, because he bares his teeth weakly in something of a grin. It fades quickly. “But you’re late anyways. Maybe if Dimitri was -- but I couldn’t let him out, not -- not with his eye, with the process --. And once you took the sword, he got worse. I tried, but I couldn’t -- once he was this thing -- not Dimitri. Just a creature to put down.”
So maybe Felix hasn’t had a change of heart. Maybe he’s just lost hope.
Like it or not, you’re still going to have to try to fix this. The process is taking you. Can we stop it with the transistor?
Felix lets out a huff of a laugh. “I don’t know. We had ideas, scattered here in this room. How to do this for Dimitri. You know how long science takes? Tch, longer than I’ve got.”
You’re going to die, Felix. It’s your life on the line. We can try.
“I already said you’re too late,” he replies bitterly. Process white continues consuming Felix, up to his neck, down to his knees, ripping away his definite human form. Red crawls from the wound in his chest, anchoring him down beside Dimitri. “You should know. Everything Dimitri did -- that we did -- was for Cloudbank. This damn city’s been stuck. He cared enough to fix it. Though when we first saw with Edelgard what the Process actually does, what it’s doing now -- I thought we should stop. Should never touch it again. Dimitri disagreed. He was no longer seeing straight. But I couldn’t bring myself to . . . stop him. And how was I to,” Felix chokes, “leave him?”
Dorothea realizes she’s just looking at another person who’s lost the thing they love the most. Isn’t this all of them, now? Fighting to hold on what they still have?
But maybe Felix has stopped fighting.
You’ve got seconds left. Tell us now how to help you or you’re gone --
Sylvain, Felix isn’t fighting anymore. No. If he has time for one more truth, it has to be: why her? Why Dorothea?
Felix trembles, swaying in place. “You were incidental. Part of the inventory.” He takes a shuddering breath. A hand goes to hover over Dimitri’s chest. “But I stopped him for you now. So maybe you can do what . . . I didn’t. Claude is our last. Von Riegan. The -- archive will tell you -- take my -- trace.”
Your trace? Hold on. Not getting out of it that easy. Thea. Thea c’mon --
Dorothea holds her place. She watches Felix. He gazes into Dimitri’s trace.
“I couldn’t save you,” Felix says hoarsely to Dimitri’s processed form, Dorothea and Sylvain totally ignored. He grabs feebly at Dimitri’s immaterial trace, and then plunges his hands into the mass of bristling process white-and-black as if to cradle Dimitri’s face. The process greedily spreads up his arms, joining with the white unfolding from his chest, and it takes him down to lie with Dimitri.
A moment of silence.
Fully integrated, Sylvain reports. Sure enough, a twin trace materializes above Felix’s form. It pulls together with Dimitri’s, like two magnets, whirring and somewhat overlapping.
They tried to kill you, Sylvain says in summary, anger an edge of disbelief. I just . . . I feel like I’ve known them for so long, I didn’t think . . . how could they. How could -- why. What did he mean, incidental? Inventory? To trap you in here like I am? How’s that going to ‘fix the city’?
If Felix was telling the truth this time, they’ll just need the elite he’s named - Claude von Riegan - or the data stored in the traces to figure the rest of this out. Maybe both.
Dorothea slowly gathers the cells hovering around the messy room, feeling a little better with each one. After that’s done, she approaches Dimitri and Felix, a little trepidatious, and absorbs their bonded traces into the transistor.
She waits a while for Sylvain to give his report.
It’s all scrambled. Dimitri’s is bad. They’re . . . entangled. We’ll need an access point.
Dorothea takes a last scan around the room. The large blackboard has a bunch of chalk scrawls on it and a wide crack down the middle. Some of the plans scattered around look like they contain designs for parts of the transistor. The specimen chambers contain shivering masses of white and red, indeterminate process creatures. There’s a door on the far side of the room to what must be a balcony, from the early morning light coming through the glass, and another door to the left, perhaps to a living space, partially blocked by an upended desk and chair.
To the archives then.
Down the hall she finds a door to a break room. No process spawning yet. Still, she takes Sylvain inside.
Pretend I’m not even here.
Water still runs at the taps; thank goodness utilities are online. When she looks at herself in the mirror she pauses in horror.
She looks beat up. Her hair is a mess, some ends burnt and frayed; she finger-combs through and winces at the rough texture. There are branching lines on her chest from the beast’s lightning; she struggles out of the remnants of her overcoat and peels back her short dress to look at the damage.
It appears that most of the angry red lines have been lessened by absorbing cells. She gingerly touches the epicenter of the strike on her side. It’s not too bad.
What else? Well, the back of her head still hurts from the fall to the floor. Her shoulders and upper arms are still aching and sore. She shakes out each leg; one ankle isn’t exactly sprained but it feels funny when she puts weight on it.
Can’t remember the last time she was in such bad shape. And she still may have to talk to Claude, Cloudbank’s architect himself! Looking like this?
Don’t kid yourself, you’re still a 10, Thea. Kinda sexy on you. The whole roughed-up-from-a-fight look.
Dorothea shoots the sword a glare, pulling her short dress back in place. There’s a tear in her leggings too. Well, cells won’t heal her clothes, but they will remedy her physical pain to some extent. She fixes her hair as best as she can, and then it’s time to go hunt the archives for the process and whatever Felix is hiding.
***
Due to Dorothea’s less-than-healthy state and the fact that they’ve got only bounce() left, the first several encounters with the usual creeps, cluckers and fetches are slow and taxing. Thankfully, by then she’s scavenged enough cells from their remains that the going gets a little easier.
The archives are a warm and usually comforting place, brown paneled flooring and shelves of books along with digital records organized neatly in box-like chambers, with some open areas for congregating. However, the way the furnishings dampen sound is nerve-wracking today. The three floors of the archives are connected by flights of dark, flat steps. Dorothea goes up, stopping to eliminate the process along the way.
On the uppermost floor, they make it to an access point. Dorothea plunges the transistor in. Diagnostics display, no red flashing at her.
Good. We’ll have the other functions back soon. And . . . let’s see what we can decrypt out of these traces. Wait.
The diagnostic screen flashes with a message: “UPLOADING”. Uploading what?
A media file to the Cloudbank server -- the permissions in here are huge. This -- I think it was coded into the final bounce() that streamed through Felix’s assist transistor.
OK, back up please. What exactly did happen with that bounce() back there?
Felix called bounce() from me through his sword. His copy wasn’t anything like me, though, just some kind of proxy or amplifier.
Dorothea wrinkles her face. She doesn’t like that someone else was able to call a function from her Sylvain.
I think I could’ve firewalled it, but I didn’t want us to go out over my pride. Thought you’d approve. The file’s uploaded, anyways. Check the OVC.
Beside the access point is a terminal. Like the others in Bracket Towers, this OVC is still online, showing it’s routed through Fairview as Dorothea logs in. Fairview . . . Dorothea’s done a few shows in the Empty Set there. There was recently a vote for a bridge from Fairview to the mainland which would make the opera house an easy walk from the Empty Set. She swipes out of the evacuation order.
The news channel next displays a reminder that the game between the Lions and the Eagles supposed to be happening in Gronder Arena tomorrow is cancelled. However, that display blinks away quickly and is replaced by a message screen reading To the People of Cloudbank: We Did This [EMERGENCY BROADCAST].
Felix’s audio streams from the OVC terminal to all Cloudbank residents who are left to hear. The face of a man flickers on the right-hand side of the screen, changing back and forth from Felix’s angular face and sharp amber eyes to Dimitri’s visage; not the beast, but as seriously handsome as Dorothea remembers him, blonde with his left eye blue and his right eye patched.
The audio echoes too loudly in the space empty of all but Dorothea and the transistor, sometimes glitching to a barely comprehensible garble, the voice at one time seeming to be Felix’s hard-edged cadence, at others the warmer, deeper tone of Dimitri.
“This is a formal admission of guilt. I, Felix Blaiddyd, solemnly swear everything written h̸e̶r̸e̵ ̴i̷s̷ ̴t̸r̷u̶e̴. Know that we the Camerata are responsible for these acts ̵p̸e̶r̴p̵e̶t̸r̸a̸t̴e̷d̸ ̴a̸g̷a̸i̴n̷s̵t̸ ̶t̴h̴e̶ city of Cloudbank. My a̸c̶c̶o̵m̶p̸̣̿͑ḻ̴̅i̸̡̒c̷̩̅e̵̤͎͊͌ś̸̮͘ a̸̬̕͘͝r̶̳̠͎̫͌ë̸̢̫̲́̉̒ ̵͕͒Ę̶͐d̵͈͗ë̸̝́l̴̨̚g̶͙͠a̷̛̻r̷̫̓d̴͎̋ v̴o̶n̵ ̴H̵r̶e̴s̶v̴e̴l̵g̷, Claude von Riegan, and . . . Dimitri Blaiddyd. We alone are to blame. Perhaps o̵̠̚u̸̠̇r̶̙̒ ̸̩̊w̶̧̭͎̞͉̿̈̚͝ö̵̫͎͎̘́̋́̑r̶̖̺͊̽̂̋̔s̴̛̝͈̎̌͜t̶͓̼͓͝ ̷̗̱͔̰͒͋͌́̕͘ͅś̸͉̯̎̓͒i̴͇͆̌̕͘n̸̢̟͓͓̦̾͛̓̂̍ ̵̠̑i̶̤͊š̸͈ ̵̡͛y̸̫̿o̵̩͒u̵͎͌ will get no justice. For now, we all ̵s̵h̸a̴r̸e̸ ̷t̵̽͊ͅh̸͈̰̋ĕ̸̩̓ ̸͈̯̅͒s̵͕̈́̓̿a̴͎̪͛͗͠m̸̤͖̟̩̐͑e̶̤̼͕̚ s̷̛̩̜͖̪͉̲͝ẻ̴̱͙̭̟n̴͈͔̘̥̝̆̽̾͊̈́͌͜ẗ̸̥́̑̍̀͘è̶̯̹̥̹̘̮̾͠n̸͙̦͎̦͑̿̽͛c̶̺̮̆͒̓͛e̵̝̰͉̋̚.”
The Camerata, huh. Pretentious sounding name.
Dorothea is less concerned with the name a bunch of elites gave to themselves and more concerned with von Riegan. Claude is a fairly big name in Cloudbank, though the amount of socializing Dorothea’s seen him do is not proportional to his reputation. He’s the city architect; no one really knows exactly what that job entails, but someone they enact the voted will of the public (road here, bridge there, bring down that avenue, re-landscape the park, expand the dock, etc.). Recently he did some work on the Empty Set for the Battle of the Voices (Dorothea slated to perform yesterday). His usual residence would likely be Fairview, where the city offices are. But Fairview is in northernmost Cloudbank, a good 14-hour trek by the scenic route and honestly, given the state of everything now, probably the same even if going by more efficient modes of transport. And Dorothea can’t afford to be late again.
It’s done decrypting what it can. You’ll need archive 191.
Let’s hope the archive details how to solve their problems and they don’t need to solve the problem of getting to Claude before the process does.
Dorothea removes the transistor from the access point and retraces her steps to digital shelf 191. The transistor flashes and the long gold bars on the digital shelf light up in reply at the designated archive.
The stored data is a log of communications.
Yesterday. Bracket Towers to Fairview Heights.
The process isn’t answering to us anymore. I don’t think we can stop it without the transistor. We’re still trying. But Dimitri’s eye is not looking good. He is not acting well. The target’s bringing the transistor to us, and hopefully it will be in time. I trust your limiter work is going better than ours.
Fairview Heights to Bracket Towers, same day. Claude’s messages are encrypted with something I can’t decode completely. He must be a key player.
emergency transport to Fairview if you free the 501 sample. It’s perfectly safe. But don’t bother coming without the sword, or you’ll be killed anyways. How
From Claude, to the rest of the Camerata. Stamped 04-30-66. That’s -- that’s last year. These messages are even more fragmented.
found it. 100% certain
exciting times. Soon we will celebrate!
The next several messages lack a lot of context, difficult to interpret. Timestamps jump around. Dorothea does see some names she recognizes as she scrolls. One is a social scientist who went missing earlier this year. Another - Lorenz Gloucester.
Have they been purposefully targeting, taking out individuals? Wait. Could Sylvain cross-reference any names mentioned in the archive with the traces in the transistor?
That’s pretty technical, but I’ll give it a shot. Just let me communicate with the archive.
Dorothea continues reading. The archive’s gold bars glow dimmer and brighter in a steady cycle. All these file storage systems must be routed through Fairview as well, seeing as they should really be offline along with the OVC terminals.
Wait. Does that mean they’re being spied on?
If Claude is watching, he’s not stopping them.
A log from 08-21-66: Claude again.
subjects of a certain status, whose utter disappearance could be explained away
live a little, commit
Felix to the rest, around the same time:
I’ll say to you what I said to Dimitri. We could get ourselves killed. We could get every thing killed.
Claude:
or, we could fix everything
you no longer in the same
Felix:
I never said that. I’m just telling you what I see.
Dimitri:
Felix is with us.
Dorothea checks on Sylvain’s progress. The transistor blinks and flashes rapidly, as if calculating. Alright. I’ve got an 84% match between the names between the logs and in here, Sylvain reports.
So it seems the Camerata has been targeting people and storing their traces in the sword.
When Dorothea’s exhausted the fragmented conversations, she’s gleaned the following: the Camerata definitely wanted to fix the city. Apparently there is, or they think there is, something wrong with it. Stuck, something wrong with all the minute day-to-day changes. It seems they were using the transistor to try to remedy this, and they needed to collect specific people, specific types of people, to enhance the transistor’s effect.
And suppose Dorothea was on the list, along with Lorenz and all the others.
Who wouldn’t want you, Thea. For your charm. For how easily others are drawn to you. For how you’re a little headstrong, willing to take a risk. For your optimism.
Oh, is this a compliment battle she’s been challenged to? They should have targeted Sylvain in the first place. He’s a good fighter. Also somewhat charming. A fast thinker. He’s enthusiastic, and cares more than his lightheartedness lets on. Committed. Dangerously committed.
Committed, only once I’ve found the one.
And they’ve found a decent explanation of why the Camerata is doing what they are doing. However, there’s still nothing specific enough to explain how to recoup her voice or Sylvain back in his body.
She’s done doing research. Better spend her effort getting to Claude now. The transistor is going to be the key bargaining item.
Alright, I agree, Claude’s the new target, but, uh, Fairview?
Well, if Claude purportedly knows things, then suppose they should try this sample 501 he mentioned in the logs of his conversation with the rest of the so-called ‘Camerata’.
Dorothea turns her back on the archive. The gold power indicators flash respectfully off, closing the connection.
***
Dorothea doesn’t have any existing conversation with Claude von Riegan. She’s not high enough in Cloudbank to circulate there. She still sends a message, should he receive it.
I’m coming for you. Don’t try to stop me if you want your precious transistor back. - D.
Back in the destroyed penthouse study, Dorothea walks the circumference of three samples before finding the one labelled 501.
‘Perfectly safe’ -- alright. They’ll know soon enough whether those communication logs were honest. The swarming process inside could be let loose by a clearly labelled ‘eject’ lever. Does Sylvain have any idea whether it’s going to be hostile?
Can’t tell. If they turn out to be, add that to the list of major trust issues I’ll have when this is all over.
Dorothea pulls the lever.
The fluttering clump of process white streams out as the top portion of the chamber clicks unlocked and opens. It blows open and through the doors to outside, not paying any heed to Dorothea. Raising an eyebrow to herself, she follows them out to the edge of the balcony. The mass of white roils with bits of white fins and red eyes, flowing over the railing and waiting there like an extension of the balcony floor. Waiting for her to get on? Really? Really?
She calls the reloaded breach() and blasts a gap through the railing, the energy leaving in its wake ragged edges of metal hot and glowing.
This could be a ploy to kill her . . . take the transistor . . .
But just as with Felix, she hasn’t much other choice than to trust this undulating, hovering mass made up of the thing that’s been trying to get rid of her so far.
Adding to the list of ridiculous things she’s had to do in the past couple of days, she steps off the balcony, onto her unconventional ride.
**
The process moves fast, airspeed blowing her hair streaming out of her face, her grip on the transistor’s hilt white-knuckled as ever.
The skyline is mostly covered in white as they head north. Distantly it seems like east Cloudbank is still partially unaffected, blue and gold lights studded among the dark buildings. However, the process has blanketed the nearby skyscrapers and towers and residences they zoom by, morphing whole districts and neighbourhoods, some at the point of geometrical abstraction.
Here, she is finally glad for the wordless way in which she and Sylvain must communicate. There’s no chance they’d hear each other over the wind.
So I guess Felix lied to you. To me.
Yes, Sylvain, that’s quite obvious.
I just -- knew him. I thought. I should’ve picked up that something was off.
Dorothea sighs to herself, thinking of Edelgard. She can commiserate. But even if they had thought Felix was hiding something, would it have changed anything?
. . . Thea. Why me, though. Why still trust me. I could be lying to you. We’ve only been together for several months. How do you know I didn’t go in here and find something else I wanna do with my life?
Sylvain sounds genuinely concerned. Dorothea laughs without sound. Isn’t it obvious? He sacrificed his own life to save hers. That’s something you don’t retract. That’s a sign you’re, well, you’re in it till death, not just until you get your consciousness stuck in an incredibly powerful broadsword. If there was anything worthy of trust, wouldn’t that be it?
I -- well. I thought you thought that was just stupid.
It was.
Then so were you, taking that lightning strike to protect the sword. Not even me. The sword!
He is the sword now. The transistor is Sylvain’s and he’s hers, and she’s not going to let him go until she can be with him in person again.
They’re out of Highrise now, approaching Terminal district, getting closer. The process swarms hums under them and Dorothea tries to not to look down or think of what she’s riding on. It should be bright blue midday but the white fog of the process dims everything, setting even the sky in an unreal cast.
Hey, something I’ve been meaning to tell you. When this is over, let’s skip town. Go to a beach. Spend some real time together. Where we’re not fighting for our lives, where you’re not fighting for our lives. After the city’s back together.
Who says she wants to put the city back together?
Something tells me that’s going to be part of getting yours truly back in his body.
Hopefully not. That sounds like way too much work.
Dorothea gets a bit bolder and looks around her a bit. She almost panics when she glimpses something that looks like a spine off to the west. She’d better not have to fight a spine from the back of a process swarm she doesn’t even know how to steer.
It’s ok. It’s far away. I’m still doing ok. If I start spouting nonsense . . . then you’ll know.
The memory of what it was like trying to keep them alive while Sylvain was spine-drunk, sword-drunk, still makes Dorothea’s insides knot. It reminds her she’s upset, so incredibly upset at everything. Why did it have to be her? Why does the world have to crumble around her, why is there nobody to help? She’s tried so desperately hard to make it this far and there’s still no rest, no resolution. She has to go again, another unknown situation, to challenge someone else above her. She’s just a vocalist. She’s not prepared. Her eyes spark angry tears.
Cloudbank citizens have a say in everything that happens, from the sky above their heads to the ground beneath their feet. She may have criticized some of the more contradictory aspects of their total democracy in song before, but what she wouldn’t give now to just vote her problems away. To have Sylvain back at her side, in their study or indulging her as she goes looking for her outfit for the upcoming Battle of the Voices. To see his face, wrap her arms around him, dance together to their favorite songs . . . .But it’s not enough to want it. She is going to have to go to the very end for what she wants now, and she might not get it.
The air coming bitingly at them whisks away Dorothea’s tears quickly as they collect at the edges of her eyes.
Sylvain has no response to this torrent of thoughts and anger and fear and even preemptive grief, for some moments. Maybe they’ll be in the Country soon enough. (The Country, that unverified place-after-death.) What is there even left to say?
Apparently, one more thing: I love you so much, Thea. You know that, right? It’s true.
This only stops her tears for a moment before they flow again. She squeezes her eyes shut and clutches the sword, huddling inward as the process carries them on.
It’s true. It’s true.
He’s all she has.
***
They fly over the opera house. Cluckers sit in rows, gather on the tops of surrounding shops which are covered otherwise in process white. It looks like the bridge to Fairview is half-built, or maybe was built, but now choked off by the blank prisms of the process, only extending halfway over the waters.
The swarm lets them down on the outskirts of Fairview, the 14th street walkway, and disperses.
They were programmed to do that. Must’ve been.
Dorothea checks the OVC terminal here. Still working. She’s in the news. Reported dead.
[Popular Musician Dorothea Arnault Mourned as ‘Process’ Toll Climbs
One of Cloudbank’s most influential voices has gone silent amid the ‘Process’ epidemic, spreading through the city unchecked. Dorothea became active as a musician from a young age, rising from obscurity to surge to the top tenth percentile of Cloudbank-wide charts during the past five years . . . .]
Whatever.
Something looks different about this terminal though. It has an orange interface instead of the light green. She swipes to the voting page for the weather. There is no vote, only a filepath at the top of the screen and a . . . choice? As if she can select whichever she wants. Light precipitation? Placid snowfall? She would normally vote for the snow, so she selects that.
[Verified State. Placid snowfall Activated.]
No sooner as she logged off than small snowflakes start to fall, through the cloud of process fog.
Is this how architects control things around here, or is it something to do with the transistor?
I do feel a little different here.
Good or bad?
I don’t know.
The ground underneath is a greyish-white, dimmer due to the fog cover. Buildings are losing their definition, red windows studded strangely on their faces, as she starts down 14th street. She knows the architect offices are more central, the Almyra building across the street from the Empty Set in fact.
The process leaps up to impede her way. Familiar white walls and a Man 2.0, ghostly figure spawning hairballs. Tiredly, Dorothea calls her turn and plots her offense.
That enemy eliminated, she drags the transistor around the next corner. Waiting for them is not a process creature but a proxy. Common enough at events for those elites who can’t attend in-person.
Dorothea peers at the screen. She recognizes the face. It’s Claude. He has tanned skin, green eyes neither warm nor cold, roguish brown hair, wearing a formal architect’s jacket.
“Begin. This is Claude von Riegan of the Camerata communicating via proxy. I am calling for a truce.” His voice is warm as he speaks in a cadence that seems tired yet thoughtful. “See I’d very much like for the process to, well, stop doing what it’s doing. My conjecture is that you’d very much like that too, especially since it may involve getting your friend unstuck from the sword. So, assuming I’m right, come along and we’ll sort things out.”
The image is fuzzy, somewhat laggy, but it’s the image of Cloudbank’s architect alright.
No choice but to trust him, for now. Dorothea silently follows the proxy down the white streets, nondescript white pillars of the process taking over the storefronts and uniqueness of buildings that used to flank the roads.
The proxy only pauses once and rotates back towards its small procession. “A priceless artifact . . . and you’ve been dragging it . . . like that, on the ground.”
I don’t see him helping. Though I gotta say, again, stairs are the worst. The worst.
Until the process grows her a third arm, this is Sylvain’s mode of transportation. Dorothea continues dragging him along.
They come upon an intersection where several creatures spawn. The proxy appears to have no offensive function, floating by as Dorothea moves through attack patterns once more. One of the Man 2.0s vanishes and gets her good when it reappears. Not quite enough to overload anything. She jaunt()s away and bounce()s it apart, sending cells flying.
The next road is not looking well at all. The process is reshaping the orderly landscape into something with just as many or more edges, but the arrays are nonsensical. Open streets become more maze-like; Dorothea maneuvers around nondescript white blocks stacked and growing haphazardly around.
Claude drawls on as they go, leading them through a doorway, the proxy zipping conveniently out of the way as she has to take down a few cluckers and men 2.0.
“You must be wondering what exactly the process is. Let me put it simply . . . whenever people vote in a change, the Process is the thing that enacts the change. The process is Cloudbank’s engine. Reality engine, I like to call it. It’s out of control now, clearly. But it will always be in the background, working away.”
Dorothea unleashes a bounce() at the three Man 2.0s gathered. The energy ricochets from one to the next to the next.
“We the Camerata have a saying: when everything changes, nothing changes. The process - it’s just trying to do its job. But it got stuck, some time ago. Somewhere between the start and the finish. There is a start and a finish.” Claude chuckles electronically from the proxy, circling in place as Dorothea calls her turn() and plans a series of attacks. “You wouldn’t think so, but Cloudbank does have a start and a finish. You wouldn’t think so, because we’re stuck. Stuck in the while .”
Upon resumption of real action, Dorothea jaunt()s out of range of the Man that can vanish and lets off another bounce(), destroying the two hairballs sent for her. These explode with a glitching net of black. She unleashes two aimed breaches at two of the Man 2.0s then has to run and hide behind the process until her turn()’s recharged.
Rinse and repeat. Eventually these too are destroyed.
Would be nice if mister floating TV there could give us a hand.
“You know, it’s not me who’s been sending these things after you. They’re coming for me, too. That’s just how the process is reacting. Developing. Without proper direction. Trying times, very trying times these days. Dimitri, the others, they’ve gone ahead without me. Just you and me and the transistor now.”
He leads them to a bare edge. A bare edge where a roadway should be. White lines stream underneath.
It’s a current, Sylvain says.
Dorothea steps on. It’s strange, like floating, but fast. Delivers her and the transistor to a landing. Is this what used to be the Almyra building? Not sure. Some of the architecture does look like the pointed, decorative hallmarks of the Almyra building, but it’s covered in white and grey-white.
Three more Man 2.0s spawn in the torturous passage the proxy leads her through. Dorothea takes a couple of hairballs exploding to the back, chest. Each of the Man 2.0s have a different strength. Speed. Masking. Healing. Dorothea’s learning, slowly. Doggedly, she continues, the hope of beating some more useful information out of Claude in person the main thing keeping her going at this point.
“So we’ve established Cloudbank’s stuck. Has been, for some time. As architect, it was my responsibility to understand this condition of ours as fully as I could. I did a lot of studying, searching, geometry, math. Lots of math.”
They ride another current, to another similarly garbled landscape, scattered with blocks and pillars. The proxy leads them through a gateway, flipping them upside-down onto a kind of upside-down walkway that nearly makes Dorothea hurl. She tries not to think about how everything is inverted as she walks there.
“And then I found the transistor. Or perhaps the other way around, if you know what I mean.”
Claude’s proxy leads them through another gateway and thankfully everything is right-side-up again. Dorothea navigates a series of rough terrain, mere platforms of blank white held up by spindly pillars. Over the mostly unguarded edges there is an abyss of grey, larger rectangular surfaces indistinct below, like the very earth is falling away underneath them.
“The transistor -- what a marvelous thing. A tool. A tool through which you could compel the Process to do as you please, if you knew how to use it.”
She doesn’t have time to look any further. Three more Man 2.0s spawn, jump her from behind a grid-like support structure that surely once held up a building but now has been mostly converted by the process.
Call turn(). Plan. Just enough, not too much. Hide. Watch. Wait for turn(). Jaunt() out of reach. Repeat, repeat. She’s getting sloppier; the sword overloads crash() to protect them.
“This isn’t what we had in mind, though. It started as soon as Edelgard changed the target without changing the script,” Claude drawls as Dorothea fights on, only half-listening. “She let you take ownership of a thing you don’t know how to use. We lost our connection. Our control. Like any tool, the transistor has no inherent morality. It can be used for bad, or good. And you don’t really know how to use it at all, not for its intended purpose.”
The last Man 2.0 shatters into a bunch of cells which Dorothea collects.
I’d say you’re using it pretty well, intended purpose be damned.
The proxy leads them onward.
“You know the traces inside the transistor were everyday people, once upon a time. They’re trapped. No walls in there, mind you. You won’t be able to hear them no matter how hard you try. Just as well. I see you’ve lost your voice. I’m sure we can fix that, anyway.”
Clearly doesn’t know exactly what he’s talking about.
Yeah. She’ll keep their communication to herself, not that she has much of an option.
They find an access point, and Dorothea docks the transistor there to reload crash().
“Almost here,” the proxy informs them, leading them on, down an inconspicuous side passageway into what appears at first to be a dark red gloom. “Oh, I’m excited now.” Dorothea takes a cautious first couple of steps.
A two-dimensional wall shimmers with fiery energy, blocking their way, but the proxy floats overhead as the wall slowly fades. When it’s gone, Dorothea drags Sylvain after her. They’re on the main aisle into the Empty Set, Dorothea realizes, but it’s been rearranged. There is just this dark platform extending into the gloom, still lined by the twinkling potlights that would usually herald a dramatic entrance to the stage she’s done a handful of times before.
“Welcome, come in, come on in inside my studio. I’m unarmed as you’ll see. It’s safe. At least for now. Alright. You’ve almost made it to the cradle, which is right up here.”
There is just this one path to follow. Dorothea proceeds with caution. At least she has a rest from the continual onslaught of the process in here. Another firewall disintegrates slowly before her.
“I’ve seen your messages to my old friends, I know you want your voice back, and your friend back. So here’s how it works. The transistor goes back in its cradle, it resets to null state. You get your voice back, the process stops its slow march over Cloudbank, the transistor finishes doing what it’s meant to do, and then it can let go of the things it’s been holding onto, including your friend.”
She’s approaching center stage, which has been reduced to a triangular platform, the edge of which burns with golden flames, spitting sparks, like a warmer, livelier access point. Beyond that, dim glinting parallelograms stream upward, like a vertical river. Beside the cradle -- this must be the cradle -- stands Claude. He closes the proxy streamer he has in one hand. He is dressed as if this is another day at work, looking rather unperturbed, at ease.
“All it takes is the cradle,” Claude continues, in person, his voice reaching a shorter distance than it had via the proxy, seeming more real and honest. “Now please, don’t let any of my good work go to waste. I’m 100, one HUNDRED percent, positively certain this will work.” He gives her an encouraging nod.
We’ll see about that.
Dorothea nails Claude with the sharpest stare she can muster. His demeanor doesn’t change. “You think I’m up to something. I can’t blame you, really. But if I was lying, if this was all a ruse on my part, why would I lead you all this way? Let me level with you. I would very much like the transistor back, but I would settle for not being wiped out of existence. So, whenever you’re ready.”
She doesn’t want to, but what choice does she have?
So, she stands by the cradle and raises the transistor above it. The golden flames lick her feet but are not hot. This could easily be the end of them, and she’s walking right into it.
I love you. You know that right. Dorothea doesn’t miss the strain in Sylvain’s voice. Stay with me.
Dorothea clutches the hilt as she slides the sword into the cradle. Then everything goes a burning, flaming gold: the transistor, her, and Claude.
///
[ A long time ago, there was a woman who held the flow of time in her hands.
She found despite this power, the world always met an end, a horrible calamity. She tried many times but could not prevent the outcome. Eventually, she realized this was because she could not plan for all the possible actions of others, which skewed her best-laid plans each time destruction approached. As she brought them back from catastrophe again and again, it wore on her, and she feared that soon she would find herself unable to save humanity.
So, with a little help, she crafted a space where the world could live while they slept, families together, lovers hand-in-hand, as much as possible. She would give the illusion of change, so as not to remove the balm that humanity tends to apply to the wound of boredom. And she would speed the iterations of their lives there, slowing the approach of the End outside, allowing her to learn from the experiment how to win without the exacting effort of living each and every failure. Winning was a set of conditions to be met. Winning was an ideal. In their minds, it was called the Country.
So they lived while they dreamed, and she learned while they lived. Sometimes, watching, she sank into the dream. She stayed the experiment’s progression, she put the win conditions out of her mind just to lengthen their mostly untroubled lives in the bank. Was this not a welcome gift, even if she did not receive it herself?
The cost of the gift was a slowed path to convergence. Did the endpoint yet stretch beyond the real End? She found herself less and less caring about reality.
But she had loved someone before. And, some time ago, he’d found her just beyond the borders of the simulation.
If there is one thing learned from the experiments so far, it is that love is perhaps the most unchanging thing, isn’t it?]
///
Dorothea is still alive. Or at least conscious.
Did Claude kill her? Is this the Country?
Claude’s easy tone fades into clarity. Ugh. Can’t be the Country if he’s still here. “Well. Well, the good news is we got the process. Cradle put it back in place. Transistor’s not yours anymore, not making the process go haywire. I really can’t blame you for not knowing how to use it. But the important thing is I know how to use it.”
Dorothea looks around her, somewhat dazed, as her vision returns. They are in a field, surrounding light harsh in its warmth. The grass underneath is soft. In the far distance, mirages that look something like the transistor wobble and shine. The Country would be better than this, wouldn’t it? The sky, colours of a harsh sunset, lacks a proper gradient to make it feel really real.
Dotting the field are a bunch of bauble-like canisters. Set orderly, in an array. Lights at their base, either illuminated red or cyan or not at all.
“What is this,” Dorothea says.
Dorothea says.
Your voice! Sylvain cheers.
Claude gives her a quirky little smile. “She speaks! I guess that was part of the ownership deal we broke just now.”
But -- “But how about Sylvain?”
“Your friend? Oh. Well. You see. The transistor can let go of everyone in there when its job is done, I didn’t lie. But its job is not quite done.”
Dorothea only clutches the sword tighter. “Then tell me how to finish this so-called job.” And just because she can speak again: “You pretentious, babbling bureaucrat.”
“Bureaucrat? I’m offended. I consider myself more in-tune with the real nature of this world. Dorothea, isn’t it? I know more than you about this. Maybe about everything.” He still has that easy, smiling expression. “Maybe I wasn’t clear. You won’t be finishing the job; it’ll be me.”
“You’re delusional if you think I’m handing Sylvain over,” Dorothea says sharply, drawing the transistor close to her side. Claude only holds out a hand and a transistor materializes there, right into his grip. It is all electronic at first, but soon grows edges of bone, similar in material but not in arrangement to Dorothea’s own weapon. The bone segments the blade and decorates the ends of the guard in outward-facing crescents. Claude closes his eyes a moment, looking relaxed, assured. “Impressive, right? I could declare any number of these into existence, here. Unfortunately, the process only lets one transistor exist at a time in our lovely city. And although I’ve never been in this exact predicament, I think I know enough about the laws of the land to guess what needs to be done.”
Really? Really? Only one of them gets out? Fine. “More fighting,” Dorothea sighs, hauling herself and Sylvain up.
“The painful way it is.” Claude dips his head in agreement. “Still a viable way to get things done. But I’m not sure how much fighting you’ll be doing. See, you’re no longer owner of that sword, and they really only follow the inputs of their known users. Or proxy users.” There’s a flash of a triumphant grin on his face.
Sylvain can still hear her, right?
Your beautiful voice is music to my ears, Thea. Loud and clear.
Alright. How about turn()? . . . Nothing happens. Breach()?
. . . Oh I see. Claude’s partly right. Your function calls are coming through like requests now, not commands.
Well, Sylvain? Now’s not the time to be arguing.
I happen to agree. One breach(), coming right up. Only for you, Thea.
Dorothea strains the sword up as Claude gives her a quizzical look. “For supposedly knowing more than me . . . do you know how to dodge this?” she taunts him.
She slams the transistor into the ground. The lance of blue energy rushes ahead and hits Claude fair and square in the chest. He stumbles back with a yell of pain. “What?!” he coughs, staggering to recover. “Impossible!”
“Well, known user or not, I can still talk to Sylvain in here. Actually, I think our communication has improved since he’s been in the sword,” Dorothea retorts.
“You can -- you can talk to him? Oh. Oh, now that is unfair,” Claude bemoans.
This is the gang leader of the Camerata, right? Tell him I said go to hell.
“He says go to hell,” Dorothea says politely, and calls turn() - mentally, as she always has.
A split second where nothing happens.
“Let’s test your processing speed, hm?” Claude continues, unfazed by the cussing.
Oh right I have to accept the call --
Before Sylvain can, Claude calls his turn().
Perhaps Dorothea has fought too harshly, she thinks. The terror she feels, frozen in place, makes her think she’s been numb since the start of this nightmare, in comparison. Claude plans a few smart attacks and a dash that will take him out of range, a projectile -- she wants to study the plan longer, come up with something better, but he’s the one who gets to end his turn, not her. She’s helpless as he pulls off his attacks, and for the first time in a couple days, she hears herself yell audibly in pain and she absorbs the energy from the foe transistor.
Then everything is real time again and she urges Sylvain to call turn(), despite the burning in her chest and limbs.
Bad news, Thea. Only his sword can use turn(), stop time, here. I think -- I think it’s been on loan to me, while we were in Cloudbank. This transistor, Thea, it’s more than I am. I -- maybe I’m just a copy of whatever his transistor is. Maybe I’m the proxy. Maybe I’ve been the proxy all along, a test, a trial, something they took out of Here and put into Cloudbank to see --
Sylvain needs to stop babbling and put through her multiple requests for bounce().
Right. Right. Coming right up.
Dorothea aims for Claude. If she can get him off his sword, they’ll be fine, but her being unable to call turn() is a huge disadvantage. Sylvain fires off bounce() after bounce() at her request. Three land and shock Claude, but he still has a solid grasp on his transistor and calls turn() again.
Oh shit. I don’t like this, Sylvain says as they watch Claude plan out his series of attacks. You’re going to get hurt.
She is. But all they need is one good hit, separate him from the sword.
You planning to kill him?
At least immobilize him, if not kill him. It’s him or us.
Good. Just so we’re on the same page.
Hm. He’s planning attacks in a methodical fashion. Seems to be more fond of ranged attacks than Dorothea is. He murmurs to himself while Dorothea is frozen. “Let’s see. . . how about we start here, then here, then maybe here. Right in the back.”
Claude releases the flow of time, unleashing his planned onslaught. At least Dorothea’s a little more prepared for the pain this time. She takes a significant amount of damage, crying out as her nerves burn from her chest to her fingertips.
Time speeds up coming out of Claude’s turn. He lets loose a strange, watery spherical projectile that wobbles towards them. Sylvain throws up their shield, overloading a function, jaunt().
“No!” Dorothea screams. Oh, is that how she’s been silently screaming through all the fighting so far? Not really the warrior’s cry she’d hoped for.
Claude circles around from behind one of the canisters. He goes in for another distanced sparking attack in real-time, his easy expression looking more serious and confident. Maybe he’s getting cocky. Good. Dorothea remains in the line of fire and asks Sylvain for as many breach()es as he can muster. She somehow powers through the pain of the sparking attacks, trembling as she slams Sylvain into the ground for breach().
“Allow me to demonstrate,” Claude announces, as he calls his own turn() and plans a dash away, projectile attacks.
She’s got no hope of out-damaging him. It’s going to be baiting him in and trying to do a point-blank bounce() in his face. She’s going to bait the elite in him, the elite who thinks he can do whatever the hell he wants and win every time. Can Sylvain boost a bounce()? Could he overload a function to make it a little stronger?
I’ll try.
So she takes his hits. Lets off a few of breach()es. Claude gradually moves in closer during his attacks. Dorothea stumbles to a knee in pain, absorbing a flood() to the back. Her coherent mind starts to go. It’s going to have to be Sylvain. She puts in requests. He’ll have to time them. It’s up to him.
I’ll do it Thea, I’ll do it for us.
Sylvain spends another shield, and breach() overloads.
“Oh, there goes breach(). How embarrassing.” Claude gets closer. The sparking attack is more powerful at close range. Dorothea’s ears fill with gunfire electric bursts as they rain on her violently. Her head spins, body burning.
“Remember what I said about the painful way?” Claude says. He sounds close. Close enough? Dorothea tries to hold her trembling body stable just so she can support the transistor.
Overloading bounce().
Dorothea hears the familiar static sound of the glowing gold ball of energy gathering at the eye of the transistor. The racket grows quickly and releases with a feathery bang. Shortly after, a yell from Claude, crackling, the falling pitch of a function overloading, but not theirs this time.
Oh shit. She didn’t think of him having four functions as well. And they only have crash() left.
Unless -- she’s frightened enough to call jaunt(). Sylvain reacts immediately. Her lame attempt at crawling boosts into a slide over to where Claude writhes on the ground, his sword lying on the grass out of his grip.
He’s still moving too much for her liking. What does she need? She needs to do something, what’s left --
Crash() Thea, c’mon, c’mon, you gotta call it -- right, crash(). Crash()!
Barely managing to stand, Dorothea slings the tip of the transistor just off the ground and brings it down towards Claude, golden waves of energy slamming into his lower body. He screams. Better him than her. They carry out the function twice more, and then Dorothea scrabbles for Claude’s sword hilt and struggles both weapons away from her enemy. They’re so heavy and she’s so fried she only makes it a few meters before she flops backwards hard, keeping her hold on only Sylvain.
Panting for breath, she watches Claude’s yells fade into groans of pain. He pushes himself up on his elbows, expression twitching, but his lower body unmoving. Claude’s noises fade into laughing coughs. “Alright. Alright, you win, I lose, imp-impressive.”
Dorothea scuttles sideways overtop his transistor, as if a predator guarding its prey, still holding Sylvain.
“I, I destroy the sword, then, if that doesn’t work to get us back, I destroy you,” Dorothea pants. “That right? Don’t move any closer.”
“That’s-that’s right. No need to destroy me.”
She relaxes a bit, only a bit. “I will if you don’t answer my questions. Sylvain comes back after I do this job you speak of, yes or no?”
Claude coughs again, still trembling, immobile from waist-down. “You can let him go, you can let them all go. But -- but where will they go? Can you make something better for them out there than inside that thing? I’ve tried. I’ve spent every waking moment tr-trying.”
“His body’s still on the goldwalk.”
“And y-you want to put him back? I promised you you could free him, only that,” Claude says with a wild laugh, flopping down on the grass.
Before she knows what she’s doing, Dorothea is scrambling over to him and grabbing him by his ostentatious collar and forcefully slamming him back down into the earth. “You liar, you’re all liars, you bastards, you Camerata --”
“Oh, oh, ouch,” Claude complains through choking laughter, “Aha, oh, love is so insistent, isn’t it! Who is he? Who is your lover, then? Sylvain, right?”
Dorothea is disgusted. She holds him down. “You incredible bastard.”
Thea, don’t waste your time on him. If he’s right, I’ll be fine in the sword. I’m used to it.
But he tricked her.
“Dorothea, don’t -- don’t be so upset, now.” Claude’s expression, wild from hiccupping laughs, is morphing to something more intent. He’s lost his composure. “See, see I have one too. I found her here. She knows me. She’s right -- right over there. But she doesn’t talk to me anymore.” There’s tension in his jaw, his green eyes wildly sad. “I’m the user, I’m her last from someplace I don’t even remember -- but she left me.” He is earnest. “All I hear are her sighs, like she’s buried somewhere deep in this place itself. I never told the others, but I would remake Cloudbank a thousand times to bring her back. Just let me try. Let me see if she’ll come back. She didn’t last time. She didn’t the time before that. But this is different! Let me try. Let me try ,” Claude half-laughs, half-cries.
Whoever’s in that sword, in this place . . . they’ve got some control on time itself. Through turn(). If he takes his transistor back he -- I don’t know what will happen.
Probably nothing good. Oh, she’s not about to let him. Dorothea bites her lip critically. “Trying means destroying my transistor, my Sylvain, doesn’t it.”
Claude rolls his head to the side, wincing. “Yes. Augh. Look. You and I both want the same thing for ourselves. I’m not the bad guy. You’re just as desperate to get your person out of the transistor as I am. Why should you get what you want and I don’t? I’ve been trying for longer.”
Dorothea lets him go and backs away, back to Sylvain, resuming her protective crouch over Claude’s transistor. “I beat you, we beat you, so I get what I want. That’s life.” In the ring, in the climb up the social ladder, that’s life. “And maybe your girl is happy where she is, if she doesn’t want to talk to you.” Dorothea shrugs.
“Ah.” Claude props himself up on an elbow again, seeming to regain some control over himself. “That’s a terrible thing for you to say. Luckily, I don’t care for your opinion.”
“And I don’t care for yours.”
“That doesn’t matter as long as I’m right. Look. Go back, go back to Cloudbank, rebuild the city, build weird statues, go wild. Spend your miserable life with Sylvain in the sword. Remember. When everything changes, nothing changes. Cloudbank has a finish.” Claude settles back in the ochre grass weakly. “And if you don’t finish well . . . then you have to start over. I’ve done it before. Enjoy your first time. Enjoy failing. Enjoy the end.”
“Enjoy being trapped here, or whatever happens to you now.” Dorothea gets to her feet. Sylvain, how about a breach()?
Let’s go back.
Blue light gathers at the tip of the transistor as Dorothea raises it. Aims towards the other transistor.
I guess if anything can break a transistor, it’s gotta be another transistor.
Dorothea slams the sword into the soft ground. The breaching energy slices through and into the other transistor.
Everything goes white.
///
They are back in Cloudbank.
Dorothea’s kneeling on process white, catching her breath.
“Sylvain?”
Uhhhh . . . present. I’m still here. We got away . . . !
She gets back to her feet. They’re on the bridge from Fairview to the opera house and its surrounding district, the one that’s half eaten away by the process.
I think we have turn() back. And you’re user again. Thank goodness, our communication is good but not that good. And . . .
Dorothea stares at the ground underneath and the white pillars on each side of the bridge, blunted by the process. She grips the transistor tighter.
. . . something else? I . . . read/write access?
There is something new she understands about the process now. Something the cradle and the strange place they’ve just returned from imparted to Sylvain, and thus her. She starts to hum. Paper Boats. The song she’d planned for the first night of Battle of the Voices. Transitions into an [a] vowel.
White glows and burns away into sparks, shedding from the bridge, revealing finished metal structure free from any touch of the process. Dorothea turns to one of the midway pillars; the blank block burns away into an elegant figure, arm bridged half over the width of the walkway. She rotates to face the pillar on the other side, transitioning into the lyrics of the song.
“The river always finds the sea . . .”
A smile grows unbidden on her face. She's missed singing. The pillar she’s focusing on soon changes shape, mirroring the one on the other side.
Look at this. You can do anything you want now. Claude was right. Cloudbank’s a blank canvas, and I’m the brush. What next? Fix up the opera house? Maybe pay a visit to Junction Jan's, or MacNeary's and the rest on the canals? What are you thinking?
The rest of the bridge synthesizes in front of Dorothea and she paces forward, limping a bit, exhausted but managing to keep a firm handle on the transistor and her breath support strong.
“ Paper boats floating on a stream . . .”
Actually, it seems like you’re gonna need to find some cells first.
Soon, but she has more pressing matters to attend to now. She's seen the plans, the design for the bridge, but never thought she'd be the one to make it. She reaches the edge of the promenade, the last metal and stone falling into place. Everything is covered in process white, still, eaten away into cubes and rectangles, but the white fog has lifted, and light streams down. A strange light, suggesting they've been gone longer than Dorothea thinks.
To the foyer, to where she lost Sylvain. She rounds the corner. Where his body should be is just a mound of white, dappled albeit in colours from the stained glass windows on the opposite wall.
" I will always find you . . . "
All she has to do is look at the white mass and think of what she wants, and feel what she wants, keeping her hold on the transistor. The process relinquishes Sylvain's body, fading into embers that float upwards into the air.
You’re still gonna try? Think Claude could be wrong? Let me see.
She stands in front of Sylvain’s slumped form, transistor planted firmly. Red light circles around its eye. The blade flashes. She finishes off the chorus of Paper Boats, imagining the chordal backing in her head.
All falls silent in time for Sylvain to deliver his verdict.
Claude was right. That’s not me anymore. I’m not going back in there. I’m sorry, Thea. You could let me loose from here, but then . . . the transistor’s defunct.
Dorothea sighs. She draws the sword up so the flat of the blade faces her and hugs it to herself, carefully, her muscles aching, legs still trembling a bit with the residual hurt from Claude’s attacks. She leaves the sword planted there and slowly sits down beside Sylvain’s still form. Somehow everything hurts more when she’s not in motion.
Hey. I’m getting used to being in here. It has its perks. Dorothea still hears the tight sadness behind his words. She hums the next verse of Paper Boats a little. At least I’m still with you.
She leans her head on the shoulder of Sylvain’s still body.
Thea . . . . what are you doing?
Dorothea is a little scared, but she’s seen enough. She’s seen enough to admit that maybe every one of those damned Camerata fools were right in the end. Whether they knew it or not, their actions proved their true intent. Saving Cloudbank? Fixing Cloudbank? Did that lofty goal matter when you were left with the one you loved the most out of reach?
She hums, willing the transistor up, hovering. This must have been how they sent it to kill Sylvain in the first place. It rotates to float at a slight angle down from the horizontal, stained glass light painting it in lovely saturated hues. It is lined up on a trajectory for her chest. The bones on the sides wiggle.
Thea -- oh no no no. Don’t you do it. Don’t you dare. Thea, if you do this --
“I should’ve asked you a long time ago what it’s like in there, but I’ll find out myself.”
Thea, no! Thea --
Sylvain sounds truly panicked. He shouldn’t be.
Wait -- Thea. THEA!
With a simple desire, the transistor jolts into action. It cleanly travels into and through Dorothea.
This isn’t as bad as she thought it would be. Sylvain’s voice fades in her ears.
Oh no. Thea. No . . .
///
It’s not quite like Cloudbank.
It’s not quite like that too-warm place where she left Claude.
The first thing she sees, anyways, is him.
Brown eyes glinting, flush of life in his cheeks, mussed red hair.
“Hey,” Sylvain says, the words from his lips, physically speaking, physically there with her. “Don’t you lecture me about recklessly throwing my life away after that.”
The sky is blue, and they’re standing in tall golden wheat. Dorothea puts her hand in his. She only laughs with relief as he pulls her in.
///
[ The finish criteria are far from complete.
But this iteration, two more have converged. Two more paths closer to victory’s formula.
And as for her beloved, well, he’s just relentless, isn’t he?]