Chapter Text
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kinger@circus:~$ sudo mount /dev/sdc /mnt
Kinger@circus:~$ mount | grep /mnt
# /dev/sdc on /mnt type fat32 (rw)
Kinger@circus:~$ BCIDiff "/secured/[Queenie].dat" "/dev/sdc/CANDA/CA_NeuralScans (Obsolete)/DestinyBest.dat"
# 57 variations identified
# Report saved to /home/WC-EKUT/BCIdiff_verbose.log
Kinger@circus:~$ emacs /home/WC-EKUT/BCIdiff_verbose.log
# Opening in new terminal
Kinger@circus:~$ mv "/secured/[Queenie].dat" "/secured/[Queenie].world"
# WARNING: If you change a file's type, it might behave unexpectedly.
# Are you sure you want to change it?
# Enter Y to confirm, N to cancel
Kinger@circus:~$ |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kinger woke with a start.
After losing the pillowfort to Jax's gazebo, Kinger had struggled to adapt to his old room. Too many bad memories. Since they'd built the Aquarium he'd spent more and more nights there instead. Tonight he'd fallen asleep in the corner, his back to the glass.
The chesspiece clambered to what passed for his feet, his 'spine' cracking with a sound like balsawood. His technicolor shadow told him without looking that an Abstraction slept behind him.
Two feet, ten years, a glass pane, and a mental breakdown away.
But Queenie always recognized him. She'd recognized him there in the dark a decade ago. She'd recognized him in the cellar when they went with Caine to retrieve the Abstractions. Even now, deep as she slept, he knew if he went too far she'd wake and look for him. She'd miss him.
He understood.
He missed her too.
There's an old saying that a bit of you lives in your partner and vice-versa; Kinger believed it. He knew a piece of himself was in her care. Still in her care, to this day - it's why he needed the dark himself. Why he needed to go back to that place, to that time, to be himself again.
It was why his memories felt more his when he was here. With her.
"Dark thoughts time?" came a voice from somewhere off to his right. Pomni. The dim light of the Tent's foyer ringed her as she descended the ramp to the Aquarium's main tunnel.
"Heh, yeah." he admitted, hand cupping the back of his head. He leaned backwards just enough for his wooden dome to 'clunk' on the glass pane. "Dark thoughts time." He felt Queenie stir, but not rouse.
A few moments passed as Pomni groped her way to a bench. Her eyes hadn't had as long as Kinger's to adjust to the dark… and it didn't help that he was blocking the closest source of light. Technicolor though it-- she-- was.
"How are you holding up..?" she ventured, folding her hands in her lap. "You've… spent a lot of nights down here."
"I have." There was no challenge in the admission, no discomfort, no emotion at all. A simple statement of fact. He knew she, of all people, would understand why.
"Everything ok?"
"I've been dreaming, lately." That made Pomni sit up straighter. They'd talked enough for her to know that Kinger rarely dreamed, and even more rarely remembered them.
"Memory dreams?" she offered, concern writ plain on her face. What a luxury. It'd been twenty years since he'd had a mouth… and ten since he remembered it.
Why was this bothering him now?
"I don't know," he admitted, getting back on track through truly herculean effort. This was important to Pomni; he had to meet her halfway. "I can't tell. I don't think so, though. They seem… wrong. Different."
"Who's in them?"
"Nobody," he laughed, "unless you count a computer screen. That old terminal has been haunting me."
"The one that fell into the void? From when… Caine?" Pomni trailed off meaningfully. They both knew what she meant.
"The very same."
A few moments passed in silence before Kinger spoke again.
"It's not about Caine, though. I don't see his code in my dreams."
"What do you see?" Pomni would've had a promising career as a therapist, in another life. All these guiding questions.
"Mostly?" He shuffles a bit to the side, letting the sleeping shape behind him loom into view.
"Her. Files about her. I'm… looking for something. In those dreams. And I feel like I get closer every time."
Pomni froze. Kinger remembering one dream was already a lot. Kinger remembering enough dreams to see a pattern… and seeing the pattern?
"This most recent one… it ended early," Kinger continued, deep in thought. "And I don't understand what I was trying to do. It almost… looked like I was trying to turn her into… a place. Somewhere I could go."
Pomni almost missed the whisper under Kinger's breath. "…again."
Now it was her turn to flash through unpleasant memories - but she wouldn't let herself stay distracted.
"Kinger," she ventured, hopping to her feet. "Do you remember when you all pulled me off of Jax? After he…"
"After he Abstracted?" Kinger nodded, pantomiming throwing a lasso. "I remember. Gave us quite the scare."
"You told me something, back in Mildenhall Manor." Pomni was treading carefully, here. "When you told me how the darkness soothes the Abstractions. You said she was calm enough for you to touch, one last time."
"When you touched her… did you…"
"…go somewhere..?"
Kinger raised a hand to respond… and didn't. Not for a long time.
Pomni couldn't be sure - the lighting wasn't exactly stellar - but she could swear his eyes slowly dilated as he stood there, silent in the dark. Eventually Kinger raised himself up off the glass, turned to look at his sleeping wife, then looked back at Pomni again.
"…I did," they both said as one.