Chapter Text
“Entry number One Trillion, Nine Hundred Sixteen Billion, One Hundred Thirteen Million, Two Hundred One Thousand, Five Hundred Fourteen. Marked. ”
Darkness. Noun.
Definition. A partial or total lack of light within a given space.
Use in a sentence. To many, darkness was emptiness, inactivity, a lack of vibrancy, color, and life. The unknown. The void. Even computers, ever reliable and devoid of true independent thought, categorized darkness as a null point. A hex code of zeros. But to the gentleman typing diligently at his desk, it was simply a matter of his existence. A state of time and energy. Perhaps a little difficult to navigate for those inexperienced with walking through the dark, but no better or worse than the light.
It was where he did his best work, after all.
“Progress Report. Date: Unknown. Time: Also Unknown. Planar Realm: Prime .”
He’d categorized all of his entries by the energy fluctuations of the darkness based on a numerical coding of his own devising, as chronology had no meaning to him within his… dwelling? State of matter? State of dark matter? Hmm. Regardless. He was very thorough about keeping track of his entries. The endless ribbon within his tape recorder assured that.
“CORE Temperature appears to be stable within all Ninety Three planes. Energy Levels are nominal as well. The three Salvageable Planes seem to be converging. Just as we’d hoped. Excellent. ”
If he could still smile, he would. Or was he always smiling? Perhaps it didn’t matter.
“Truly excellent. ”
Fingers flew across a panel. Quadratic readings, barometric scans, and all conceivable algorithms shot to life and fled across an impossibly advanced, inconceivably ancient monitor. His formulas and equations shifted, died, reformed with swipes of his fingers, shifts in his thoughts, the numbers shone in a stark bone white against the vibrant black of the screen and everything else around him. With a final keystroke, every equation vanished, and in its place sat a single window, displaying…
Time.
All of it.
Every catalogued plane of existence in all its winding, weaving, temporary glory.
The idea of it was almost too novel when he’d first compiled it into a quantitative format. Framed in a gridwork of green and black, a large, vibrantly green, completely inorganic tree-like structure filled the screen. Fanning branch-like lines reached up endlessly, disappearing off of the monitor to an unknown destination. They wove amongst themselves, forming, reforming, tangling together and freeing themselves in complicated patterns until they all met in the middle and vanished to an non-perceivable point, forming a thick trunk-like convergence, and then re-inverted outwards and downward into root-like structures. The roots, too, seemed to re-converge into a single point, and finally stopped, just above the bottom of the screen. It would be horrific if it were not so beautiful.
Everything within its proper place. Everything according to The Plan.
Not His Plan, mind you. The Plan.
The Big One. The End of Resets.
The End.
“It won’t be long now, ” He sighed heavily into the tape recorder. His voice was tired in his ears. Did he still have ears? It did not matter. Regardless of how the outcome was reached, it would all be the same. He could feel satisfied with that. He could feel something, finally. “Everything is proceeding as hypothesized based upon the vessel. Soon, now. Very soon.
“End log. ”
His work would be finished. He could finally... He could finally --
WARNING: ANOMALOUS THREAD DETECTED
The weariest of world weary sighs escaped him. Ah, so he did still have a mouth. Good. Here he was, beginning to think that his recordings had been leaving him telepathically.
Admittedly, to say that this formula of his own devising was One Hundred Percent free of error was a true test of his calculations. More accurately, it was a mere Ninety-Nine Point Nine Nine Nine Eight Seven Five Three Percent free of error. Occasionally, as it was wont to do, the threads of time would detangle in a sorry attempt to derail the entirety of existence. In a fruitless venture to derail The Plan. It was sad, really.
“A simple fix,” he muttered, fingers gliding across the keys, calculations circling the anomalous thread like a circle of flame. “Isolate the source. Cut the cord. Burn the spool.”
ERROR: SOURCE NOT FOUND
Hmm. Perhaps he missed a key.
“Preposterous.” He tried again, minding the algorithm with a second check. “Everything has a source.”
ERROR: SOURCE NOT FOUND
He tried a third time. Then a fourth. Then a fifth. And every answer from the monitor the same.
ERROR: SOURCE NOT FOUND
ERROR: SOURCE NOT FOUND
ERROR: SOURCE NOT FOUND
“Impossible,” he almost raised his voice after the fifteenth message detailing his apparent failure in capturing the anomaly. Almost hissed. Almost … annoyed. “Simply impossible.”
It was then that he noted just how different the anomaly truly was to previous instances of the timelines trying to fight his formulas. Most time streams that put up a struggle against his will still passed through the tree-like algorithm. These thin, frail anomalies were irritating in their loosened, unwoven state, but ultimately easy to tame, like pruning a growth on a stubborn old bramble bush or trimming one’s hair. But this pathway wasn’t like the others. Unlike the bright neon green pathways, this path… was a solid, sturdy pale blue, so pale it was almost white. What was worse, the more the man tried to isolate the timeline, the brighter the blue became, until the unthinkable happened.
UNABLE TO CONNECT
“Determined little parasite, aren’t you?”
The anomalous timeline simply glowed back at him. A lesser man would have almost called this poor excuse of a timeline… triumphant against his will, as it sat steadfast on the screen, now encased in a petulant, faintly humming halo of red that pulsed around it protectively. Shielding it.
The man chuckled. Ah. It had been so long since he’d had a good laugh. Or a challenge. If the color red were involved, it could only mean one thing: his little vessel had found a loophole in their contract. What fun.
“Careful now. I happen to be quite an authority on determination.”
Sure, ultimately this meant that The Plan would have to go on hold for a little while longer. But in darkness, there was no need to worry about time. He was the master of time. He had all the time in the world, mapped out neatly in front of him in fact-- if one did not count the single blue outlier of course. And it had been so long since he’d found a problem that he could not easily solve. What was the harm in taking matters into his own hands?
“What shall I name this parasite?” It was always more fun to end something that had a name. Higher FUN Levels. Higher LV. “It won’t do to give you the name of whom you involve. That puppet account outlived his usefulness long ago… Ah. I’ve got it”
Tck tck tck went the keyboard. The man grabbed his tape recorder, his one companion in the vacant space, and pressed record.
“Addendum to previous entry. An anomaly has transpired on the grand Timeline and seems to be… quite resilient against my efforts to contain it. I know not the source, nor can I extract the code without further… experimentation. I will be naming this Anomaly 00000081C9F9.tl for the time being. Further studies seem…”
He chuckled once more, relishing the feeling like one would blow dust from a knickknack while spelunking through forgotten boxes in one’s attic.
“Very interesting. End log.”
And so the man continued to work endlessly on his ageless computer, not desperate in his attempts to rid himself of the anomaly, nor passive in his desire to seek the truth behind the setback. His imposing form sat shrouded in darkness, exuding an otherworldly energy that would have made even the deepest, darkest, cleverest of cave dwellers crawl under their rocks with their tails between their legs. He was not angry, nor happy, nor sad by this development. No. He was merely, as he was with everything else in his field of work, intrigued. He was more than willing to pursue his investigation until he either expired or the rest of the world expired around him.
After all, he always did his best work in the dark.
—000000—
Cyber City was never quiet.
Everywhere you turned there was something happening. Virovirokuns on the lamb from Ambyu-Lances. Mauses skittering to hide from Tasques. Werewires and Plugboys alike shuffling past rows and rows of shouting street vendors. Cars big and small shuffling in droves between towering, shining buildings to make it to Kindercarten. Roller Coasters and Ferris Wheels mingled with sky laces pets in garish pinks and greens and blues. Everything was bright, loud, so in your face, it was almost impossible to think with the noise and lights.
All of this only made the Trash Zone feel that much grayer, that much colder and quieter by comparison. It was like having your head dunked into murky water, colors and sounds muffled amidst the glitches and discarded eggplant emojis.
None of them could say why they met at the dump that day. Not out loud.
Addisons, whether by choice or simply because their existence centered around the cutthroat capitalist clickhole of online marketing, were not known for being close knit. They were hardly found in groups larger than two or three at a time. Sure, they pitched projects together, raised shops together, and sometimes, in dire straits, they even advertised products together. It was rare to find a lone Addison popping up on a website without another close nearby, ready to swoop in if a patron ever clicked out of an ad. But could they truly call each other friends? Would you call a coworker your friend after you clocked out at the end of the day? They all tread a fine line between sociable comrades and brothers-in-arms in a world of commerce, related by corporate branding and network connections instead of blood.
But when a name starts to become a fairly common entry around the old search engine enough—especially from a blank-faced, yet persistent Lightner—Addisons do what they do best. They follow trends.
Which was why today, of all days, every Addison and their Grandaddison in all of Cyber City had conglomerated at the Trash Zone. A pop-up of Addisons, quietly chatting amongst themselves or loitering near trash cans, sniffing the air dubiously. They all seemed more like a group of entrepreneurs who got lost on their way to a business convention, rather than a wake.
It made Banner’s pixels crawl.
Bannerson S. Addison, a large blue Addison with hunched shoulders and gloomy air about him, struggled to keep his eyes up as he shuffled amidst the crowd, doing his best not to look too out of place in the crowd of faces that looked almost identical to his own. Although he was otherwise fairly average an Addison, he tended to tower a full head over the others if he stood to his full height, sticking out like a sore blue thumb.
One would think that a being dedicated to advertising would take advantage of his height and slightly broader physique, but all Banner wanted to do right now was find a dark alley and hide in it. Or maybe he could crawl into a dumpster. It was certainly a better use of his time than just staring at the empty shop at the end of the alleyway.
A shop that only earlier today, he could have found someone working in it. Living in it. Alive.
But not anymore.
A day late and a dollar short. Just like always.
He turned away, wishing for the pavement to swallow him whole, and tried to keep his eyes busier with searching the crowd for his few friends. Unlike most Addisons, who liked to mingle and stay at arms length, Banner had a brood of friends he kept close and wished desperately to hang on to. As if he kept them out of his sight for too long, they’d disappear, just like…
“How long do we have to stand around here for the whole…Spamton thing?” said an unfamiliar fellow blue Addison, tone reflecting a lack of patience, checking their wrist for a watch they did not wear.
“Who knows. As long as what seems appropriate, I suppose,” shrugged an orange Addison, a smidge too tall, too baritone, too cold to be his friend, Button. “Hopefully not too long. I heard from a Swatchling that Queen was hosting a big event downtown later today, and I gotta make my quota before I have to close up shop.”
“Maybe… maybe we should head to O’Binary’s afterwards. Hold a toast maybe,” said a yellow figure. Banner recognized him with a wash of relief. It was Buzz, one of the twins he regularly socialed with, his usual happy-go-lucky demeanor turned sour and dim. He too seemed to be scanning the small crowd, possibly looking for his missing sister. “Once we’re all done paying respects.”
Buzzin and Quizenne Z. Addison. No one… quite knew what the twins were all about, honestly. It wasn’t rare to find an Addison that shared a color with another, but that didn’t technically equate those Addisons being related. The Twins were the one outlier of that rule. Buzz and Quiz, a brother and sister who hardly left each other’s side, were constantly up to no good. Were it not for Quiz’s bullhorn, used to advertise her and her brother’s sudden Flash Sales, and Buzz’s trusty Price Gun, Banner would have assumed they were professional pranksters first and business owners second.
“Not like the little creep deserves it,” grumbled the impatient blue salesman, nose upturned. “For all the trouble he caused. I still can’t visit my cousins in Cyber Fields because of his damned lobbying against that rollercoaster transit project. Useless lil shit.”
It took every ounce of Banner’s immeasurable patience to not to stand his full height and tower over the other blue Addison. That, and his head just felt too heavy to lift, his chest too tight.
Thankfully, a fluorescent pink hand grasped the chattier blue’s shoulder and squeezed. Tightly.
“Don’t speak ill of the dead, mon ami ,” said the pink Addison, their voice brimming with all the warmth of customer satisfaction guaranteed. However, if you worked in as many service industries as the lone pink Addison had, you’d know that warmth didn’t even amount to enough heat to light a match. “Bad for business, after all.”
Cookington C. Addison. A jack of all trades and a wonder in their own right. There wasn’t another Addison quite like them in all of Cyber City. They’d cornered several markets across the business districts, from baking to jewelry to dating profiles. Many lesser advertisers assumed Cookie was part of a trio, one selling candy, one selling rings, and one secreting user data off to the dark web in broad daylight. But no. It was all Cookie. Although a far cry from a network executive, it was no secret that held quite a bit of sway amongst other Addisons. Not a day went by that Banner wasn’t grateful to have a best friend so confident and affluent. Everything he wasn’t.
Banner felt no small sense of satisfaction as the unfamiliar orange and blue Addisons shuffled away, and gravitated towards his two friends.
“Out of everyone here, you were the last one I expected to stand up for the ol’ big shot, Cookie,” said Buzz, chuckling.
“Well, whatever my feelings for the little crétin ,” said Cookie, flipping their pink ponytail over their shoulder. “I can at least show a little class, non ?”
“Class?” Another voice chirped. “I didn’t know this was a class! I thought it was a funer-”
“It was a figure of speech, Button,” whispered another new voice.
Buzz’s face burst into his usual trademark grin, a bit of color brightening his yellow pallor. “Sis! You found Button!”
“Was no small feat,” quipped the identical yellow Addison, her arm draped around a slight, bright-faced orange Addison. “Found her wandering around the Etsy Department store again.”
“They were having a sale on yarn code!”
“Classic B,” Cookie sighed, shaking their head.
Buttonbon B. Addison. Were it not for the Addisons’ natural tendency to not form tight knit groups--he and his other cohorts notwithstanding--Banner would question night and day how Button wasn’t already friends with all of the Addisons. Nay, all of Cyber City. She was just so immediately likable, bubblier and perkier than any other salesman. Sure, her sales often tanked when she accidentally sewed her wares onto her mannequins, leading her to sell her mannequins with the dresses, but she had so much joy inside her that it was hard to imagine anything bad ever happening to her. Even when she accidentally wandered into traffic.
Banner allowed himself to smile his salesman smile, relieved to be surrounded by the only Addisons in all of Cyber City who could stand being around him.
“Well,” Cookie sighed. “Here we are.”
“Gang’s all here,” said Buzz.
“All of us together,” muttered Button, poking her fingers together.
“...Almost all of us,” said Banner.
The silence that fell over the group was so thick, Cookie could have stuck a paper cone into it and sold it as Muffle Candy. Everyone was staring at Banner, no one sure what to say. Cookie took his limp hand and squeezed it. Buzz and Quiz leaned on his opposite side. Button outright hugged him, her arms not reaching across his wide torso. He could tell from the way their ever-present smiles were fading that he must have looked as terrible as he felt. He squeezed Cookie’s hand back, trying to smother the ache in his chest.
“Are you gonna be ok, Banny?” said Cookie, dropping the faux sophisticated accent that was practically second nature.
“I don’t know,” said Banner, half truthfully.
“We don’t have to stay—”
“No, no I want to be here. I gotta be here,” Banner sighed, ducking his head down lower, squeezing Cookie’s hand. “Make up for when I wasn’t there for him before.”
“Banny, you know that’s not—”
“It is true, Cook,” Banner said, feeling his chest twist and his color fade to a greyer, sickly blue. Cookie squeezed his hand all the tighter, everyone leaning closer in turn. He sighed, guilty for raising his voice. “I’m sorry. It’s just… it was bad enough when he disappeared twenty years ago. Finding out he’s been alive all this time… and then he’s just gone again…Why didn’t I know? Why didn’t I just… I didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye... ”
On a rational level, Banner knew that he was being very melodramatic. Addisons were not meant to care so deeply about anything beyond the next sale . They weren’t meant to be so heartbroken over the loss of another Addison, let alone one who abandoned his friends for fortune and fame, to become a Big Shot on the word of some stranger on the other end of the phone. Spamton G. Spamton’s overnight rise to glory, his decade long streak of wealth and political notreity, and his sudden but abrupt fall into obscurity; it was all a part of the Rat—err—Maus Race. It was normal. It was fair—more than that, it was laissez faire.
So why did he still feel like a tiny, sad part of him had been ripped from his chest?
Somewhere deep, deeper than deep within Banner’s mind, a phone rang off a hook, filling his ears with nothing but static. It was just like that night, those twenty years ago. An ransacked room in the Queen’s mansion, empty and dark despite the millions of lights flooding the illustrious estate. Spamton’s ancient rotary phone, framed in the light of the open door, ringing endlessly.
Ringing, ringing, ringing.
“Excuse me.”
Banner felt himself crash back to reality with a jolt and turned to the voice, thinking it was another Addison. He yelped when Cookie and the others grabbed his shoulders and roughly turned him back around in the other direction, the group forming a perfectly straight series of lines along with all the others. The word Customer! Customer! whisked across the crowd, snapping Banner to full awareness. A customer had come to the Trash Zone? Was it because all of the Addisons had vanished? No time to think! He had to be professional. They all had to be professional.
And then Banner’s whole world, for the second time that day, got turned upside down.
“Do you know a guy named Spamton?”
—000000—
Kris was, to put it mildly, not a stupid kid.
Despite what some of their classmates liked to believe, or what some of their less-than-stellar report cards might have had their mother pulling her fur out over, Kris was…
Well. “Smart” wasn’t exactly the right word. They weren’t Berdly, after all. They might not know the definition of frenetic, or know how to build fancy models of robots in fancy dress attire, or ever learned how to spell worstestch… worsheshte… spell weird names for gross sauces. But there were some things that Kris had a sixth sense in. Like playing piano. Or finding the best places to grab a bite of moss.
Or knowing when something forms a pattern.
Why does Kris get to decide? Susie had said, dragging Ralsei away with her and eliminating the Soul’s choice.
Why is Kris the only one who gets to act? Susie had said, immediately unlocking new ways for her and Ralsei to help Kris acquire Recruits.
Kris, are you ok? Susie had asked.
And the Soul had made the grave mistake of letting Kris say—scream— No.
Kris had some control back. Not complete control. They could still feel them moving their legs, resetting the day to replay the entirety of it over again, changing Kris’s choices, playing the piano wrong, worming around in Kris’s chest like a parasite.
But still. Kris finally found a way to fight it.
When the choice was partially put in the hands of Susie or Noelle or Ralsei—or anyone else other than Kris— they could feel a part of themself return to them. They could breathe without feeling like someone else was squeezing and unclenching their lungs. They could taste the cocoa from the Bunny who worked at the diner. They could even move if they worked fast enough. They found a way to loosen the strings around their neck.
But it wasn’t enough. There had to be a way to undo them completely. To be free of their strings. To create a new path. Kris did not need context clues to be any clearer when he saw how another Darkner struggled with the same woes beset upon them. Of all the places to find answers, Kris never expected to find it in an egomaniac puppet, but one doesn’t get to choose one’s secret bosses with personal issues that hit far too close to home for comfort. Apparently.
“It seems that after all I couldn’t be anything more than a simple puppet.”
So Kris found their chance. They used every last bit of strength they had...
“But you three… you’re strong. With a power like that… maybe you can break your own strings. Let me be your strength—”
...They formed the sharpest words they could speak, and cut the cord.
“No.”
The quiet that followed Kris’s decision was all they needed to know they made the right one. The Soul was quiet within them, as were their comrades and the puppet hanging limply on the wall. This was it. This was the change. This was their chance. They needed to take it, and fast.
“What—”
“K-Kris, what are you—”
“H-hey Kris, are—”
“Not my deal to make.”
Already things felt different. This felt right. This felt lighter than air and already it was easier to breathe. Kris relished in seeing their breath fog in front of them in the crisp city air. They almost laughed when they realized that they were running, no longer jogging or shambling, Kris and Ralsei struggling to keep up with them.
“Kris, will you slow down already?!”
“I-indeed! Kris, th-this isn’t supposed to be happening!”
And that was exactly the point, wasn’t it?
“I know what I’m doing,” they said, despite their cohorts’ grousing.
All they needed to do was find the right person to give the choice to. The right hand to pass the baton. The right track to switch to and derail.
They found him in the Trash Zone.
“Excuse me.”
He wasn’t hard to spot in a crowd, even with his and all the other Addison’s backs to them and their panting, flabbergasted friends. Kris remembered him clearly from nearly every Reset after they defeated Spamton. He was a touch grayer than Kris recalled from previous times the Soul brought them to Cyber City, but he was taller than the others, and had a definite air of loss about him. He kind of reminded Kris of… someone.
“Do you know a guy named Spamton?” said Kris. Not the Soul. Kris.
“H-how do you—” the blue Addison’s chipper customer service voice choked. He cleared his throat, shoulders hunching imperceptibly. It took him quite a long pause to collect his words before he was able to continue. “W-we all knew him. We all came here to pay respects.”
“But you knew him best. You tried to help him.”
It was clear that Kris had touched the right nerve when the Addison suddenly turned to them, poised like a deer in the headlights. That was who he reminded them of, he reminded them of Noelle. Unlike all of his counterparts, he wasn’t smiling, and his eyes were wide open. The tiny dot eyes were not as big a surprise as Kris thought they would be. He looked miserable. He looked lonely. He was the one that needed to make The Choice.
“What do you want, customer? ” said the Addison, all pretense gone. The other Addisons around him looked visibly uncomfortable, even with their backs to Kris, but refused to turn around as well. Kris found the odd man out. Their heart was racing. Not their Soul, but their heart was beating hard enough to burst from their chest. This was it. This was the moment everything could change.
“I have something for you.”
Without any further fanfare, Kris held out the item and dropped them into the Addison’s hands. It felt so good to grin of their own free will as he fumbled with them. Such a nervous, jumpy guy for someone so burly.
“What…” The blue Addison’s voice hardly rose above a whisper. “What is this?”
“A choice.”
Kris couldn’t help but feel like they were laying it on thick now, but it was the truth. This item was given to Kris as a means of striking a deal. To make a choice. And now Kris was giving this choice to someone else. Maybe things would change. Maybe they wouldn’t. All Kris had left to go on, aside from the help of their confused companions, was the feeling of the chain around their heart finally coming undone. Even if it was at the cost of putting the shackles on their soul onto another.
“Go to Queen’s Mansion and find her basement,” Kris shrugged. “Or stay here.”
The Addison stared at the battered pink and yellow lensed glasses in his hands, face drawn in such an expression that Kris had never seen on the other salesmen before as they stared reverently at the Dealmaker. Somewhere between upper hopelessness and unbridled hope. He looked up at Kris, dot eyes so wide they formed rings around themselves.
“Why… why would I need to go to Queen’s Mansion’s… basement?”
Kris smirked and turned to leave the foul-smelling alley, a bemused Ralsei and Susie in tow. They waved over their shoulder, internally wishing the blue Addison the best in the storm to come.
“Where else are you gonna find him?”