System Ascension

by Prax Venter

  Mark felt Roo’s hand close on his, and her unquestioning support through their bond. He gave her a small smile before closing his eyes and clearing his mind. With his other hand, he reached up to the middle of his forehead and mentally pulled the veil from his eyes.

  He was faintly aware of Vale’s panicked shouts, but the swirl of pain and noise assaulting his senses was almost too much to bear. Almost.

  Mark had spent countless years honing his mental fortitude and will. He approached this infinite swirling storm of information the same way he had everything else in his insane existence.

  He would force it to get the fuck out of his way.

  At first, Mark was lost, buffeted and battered by raw inputs, but he hadn’t ripped their custom filter all the way off- just peeked his head out a little and still felt Roo’s hand in his.

  Like an anchor- or a point of reference- Mark focused on her soft touch and saw her glowing core next to his. Ahnix and Vale’s were nearby as well.

  Looking beyond, Mark perceived the twisting madness that was the powerful virus. Feeling it through his high-level digital senses, he noticed that it was exactly like the white noise corruption from before- the tears in the game world. There, they manifested as immovable and inanimate blobs of broken code. This mass of spiteful data was alive… and very much active.

  The pressure and pain in his virtual skull were building quickly, and he realized that he needed to do something or get out. Mark widened his perception in an attempt to locate the function or set of instructions that served as their remote address login interface, and the onslaught of terribly vibrant data consumed him. Barely holding on to his sanity, he got the vague sense that what he was looking for was right in front of him- and for an instant, everything was right in front of him.

  He was looking down at their front yard, the wall, Roo’s giant procedurally generated house… his own body with Ahnix and Vale leaning close.

  A terrible jolt of pain rocked his mind, and Mark knew he had only moments before he would lose himself forever.

  He latched on to the batch of code that he needed and willed a copy into the closest inanimate object he could find, hoping it was enough. Mark then mentally reached up and pulled the blissfully calm perception wrap back over his head.

  It felt like he had been holding his breath way too long, and he gasped for air as his vision faded to a pinpoint with bright points of light swimming on the edges.

  “Mark!” Vale grabbed his arm tightly. “Are you okay?”

  He felt all of his girls close by, and after a few breaths, he started to laugh.

  “I guess I’m not ready to take off the training wheels yet,” he said. But he felt waves of awe and pride coming from his girls- Ahnix especially. He turned his eyes up to the kneeling black and gold cat-girl and saw that she was staring at something over his shoulder.

  “You shouldn’t have been able to do that,” she whispered. He followed her eyes and saw a slightly warped, but seemingly functional, login interface lodged into the bark of the gnarled tree in their front lawn.

  “How?” Vale said, absentmindedly letting her charcoal-colored hand fall from his bicep. The giant naga wove her body close to the tree and inspected his handiwork. “You altered the perception wrap matrix…”

  “Yeah. Hurt like a son-of-a-bitch, though.”

  Ahnix reached her furry hand under his chin and forced him to look into her gorgeously dark eyes.

  “How did you do this?” He could tell she was impressed.

  “Jezebel poked a hole in my wrap briefly when we first met and gave me a glimpse beyond. It was only for an instant, but I guess I remember how she did it.”

  Ahnix sat back down on her muscular legs and unfocused her exotic eyes.

  “This appears to be functional,” Vale said, moving back to the group sitting under the tree. She coiled her bottom half and lowered her womanly body down to rest her head on her elbows in the grass. Her vivid eyes drilled into his.

  “We thought that if one of us left, it would destabilize the code, and it would all come down. You could have lost your mind out there.”

  “I didn’t really leave the wrap,” he said. “Just peeked out for a second.”

  Ahnix stopped her attempts at duplicating his trick and let out a slow sigh. All three of his girls were now staring at him as if he had just invented sliced bread. He focused on their interconnected bond and blasted them each with his own respect and awe for their ingenuity and determination. If it weren’t for them, none of this would have existed in the first place.

  Their mutual devotion initiated a potent feedback loop between them, and Mark, Ahnix, Vale, and Roo all absolutely knew that there was no place, person, or thing that could ever exist that would pull them apart.

  “I love you guys, too,” Mark said, standing up. “But we have a job to do, and the sooner I can spend eternity showing you irreplaceable ladies how much I treasure you- the better.”

  “Right!” Roo said hopping up with him.

  Ahnix and Vale exchanged glances and stood patiently behind him as he walked up to the remote login interface melded with their tree. Mark instantly recalled the name of the place that the badger B-Lox Six had told them to come visit, and he was no longer surprised by this dramatically improved memory for such details.

  With a vibration along their bond, he gave them a warning before willing the interface to connect them with Shyhill Manor. The ground fell away, and they began plummeting to a distant white star.

  He wondered if the deceptively beautiful slime would find a way in while they were gone. Supposedly there were alarms in place for such an occurrence, but he didn’t really know what they would do if it did break through. Mark’s mind slipped back to when he closed that first tear in the desert with Ahnix. The swirling mass of corruption that he had eradicated over and over within The Crystal Heart felt remarkably similar to the Triple-zero virus.

  The shining star became an impossibly white pixel as they approached, and after they collided with the pinpoint, Mark found himself standing in front of vine-covered iron gates.

  He didn’t have to look, he felt them all with him, but his eyes sure did like running over his battle harem every chance they got. They all glanced at him in return.

  “Let’s see what we need to do to acquire a backdoor on our enemy,” he said, inspecting their surroundings further.

  There was a sprawling mansion far down the driveway and massive willows flanked either side of the path up to the distant, red-painted front doors. The grass was tall and infested with weeds, and in the distance, the house itself seemed abandoned. Shutters hung loosely from windows and what once must have been a pure white building was now peeling, exposing gray, rotted wood underneath. Above him, a dim auburn sun hung low in a dusty, brown sky casting everything in deep, mournful shadows. The air was thick with the scent of burning leaves.

  “Gate’s open,” Vale said, pushing the rusty bars open on creaking metal hinges.

  Mark glanced over at a call box near the entry point and found that it was hanging open. Vines had worked their way up and had since died, their dried husks springing outward, imitating the wires that must have been there before.

  “I’m getting a bad vibe here, guys,” he said.

  “We all are,” his cat-girl added. “But I think we should still check it out.”

  “I hope the badger fella is okay,” Roo said.

  They were about to walk into unknown territory with an unknown level of danger, so Commander Vale made her appearance once again. She shoved the gate all the way open, tearing years’ worth of growth, and faced them.

  “Stay behind me and stay tight. This could be how he likes it, but we all know something feels off here.” Her vivid eyes snapped to the velvet-girl. “Roo, keep your finger on that logout button.”

  She nodded meekly and took a step closer to Mark.

  “Good,” he said. “Lead the way, Vale.”

  The giant naga turned and began weavin
g her muscular snake half along the overgrown lawn, and the rest followed just after her the tip of her tail.

  As they approached the massive mansion, it became clear that the smell and the gloomy atmosphere were from a billowing column of black smoke rising from behind the building. Vale angled their trajectory to swing wide, and they all understood their first objective was to inspect the source of this fire.

  The towering willows prevented a clear view of their surroundings, and Mark expected something to jump out at them from behind the thick hanging tangle of leaves. Nothing did, and they had a relatively clear path to the deep shadowy forest that made a solid border around the property.

  His nerves were on edge, and he had a hard time determining where to focus his attention. Should he keep his eyes on the dark and decaying house with its hundreds of broken windows on one side or the dense, eerily silent forest on the other?

  It wasn’t until he saw the perfectly straight column of acrid smoke that Mark realized there was not a mote of disturbed air anywhere. It was as if the very environment was holding its breath.

  They approached the smoldering cause of the smoke, and he noticed part of a chair here and a half-burnt book there. The entire contents of the house must have been collected and burned all at once. All that remained was an enormous pile of ash and smoke.

  “What happened here?” Mark asked, quietly.

  Ahnix’s black tail flicked around behind her. “I don’t know, but the place seems abandoned.”

  A visceral panic emanated from the nearby velvet-girl, and all their eyes snapped to her.

  “We can’t log out!”

  “What!” Vale asked, moving closer to the group and scanning the area. “When?”

  “Just now…”

  The sound of violently splintering wood pulled his attention to the rotted doors of a subterranean cellar just as a squat, vaguely humanoid shape made from mesmerizing goo burst outward.

  Vale wove her powerful tail against the dry grass to meet it head-on. “Destroy it quickly!” she called.

  A ropy tendril of shifting colors shot out at the giant naga, but a Wall appeared to catch the attack.

  Mark and his girls all spread out as one cohesive unit. Roo let the creature move a bit closer and then shot a pure black beam of energy from her eyes. The infinitely-hued creature froze solid, caught in her Paralyze ability.

  Vale held out a hand, and another massive pane of glass appeared behind the creature.

  “Out of the way!” she yelled as she forced the Wall into the back of the Paused virus. Mark had to dive out of the way as the giant naga pushed their enemy directly towards the smoldering pyre. Ahnix danced in front of the creature as Vale shoved it forward and slashed it a dozen times, her Hasted Wind Claws slicing whole chunks off. Mark watched the bits fade into digital nothing as they fell from the thing’s goopy body.

  The moment the virus was inside the ash pile, Mark pulsed out a half-warning, half-request right before he pulled energy from Vale, Ahnix, and himself to pour into Roo’s Firebolt.

  The velvet-girl’s fabric throat tightened as her body spasmed with no less than five simultaneous orgasms. Only a small whimper was able to escape her mouth, but the moment she was able to get a handle of the unfathomable erotic energy and power filling her mind, she launched a six-foot cylinder of compact lava directly into the unfortunate monster’s center.

  The collision and resulting explosion knocked them all to the ground. The unbearable heat washing over Mark was dulled by a pane of magic glass from Vale, but his healing reserve collected some of his giant naga’s file as damage.

  Ahnix used her Wind Claw ability to clear the dust and smoke by repeatedly attacking straight up as Mark hit Vale with his new Flash Restore, topping her off easily. Now that he had a moment and the ability to see, he noticed everyone but his downed giant naga had a wall in front of them.

  He rushed over to her side and helped her back to an upright position.

  “Everyone okay?” she asked. “Is it dead?”

  “We can log out again,” Roo said. “I think we got it.”

  Mark looked over to the crater where the burning ash pile had been and then back to his girls.

  “You guys are amazing.”

  Ahnix crossed her furry arms. “We’ve been over this already,” she said with a small satisfied smile on her lips.

  “That must have been B-Lox,” Vale said, altering their collective mood. “The virus must have got him in the end.”

  Roo laced her arm through Mark’s and pulled him close. “That’s really sad,” she said.

  “It’s also an end for our plan,” Ahnix added.

  Mark’s mind went back to that masked chatroom where they first met the badger who was trying to get it on with a two-headed, three-breasted orangutan. Perhaps they should go back there and-

  “Wait,” he said, remembering the name of another contact. “What about that fox guy we spoke to… Jinxsearch, right? Said he had black market info or something?”

  Vale shrugged. “You’re right. It’s worth a shot at this point.”

  Mark leaned over and kissed Roo’s soft lilac hair. “Take us home, my love?”

  Roo nodded and mentally tapped their logout button. A short while later they arrived back home. Mark and Ahnix walked up the ramp to check on the virus siege while Roo and Vale searched for anything related to Jinxsearch at the new tree terminal.

  As his vision crested the wall, he could clearly see that the pond of hypnotic goo remained.

  “Shit,” he said. “Might be this way forever.”

  The shorter cat-girl’s tail twitched while she spoke. “All the more reason to take this fight to them.” She turned her exotic eyes on his. “There was only one of those infested… things, but our relatively easy fight with something that strikes fear in all entities on the net went well. I have a good feeling about this.”

  Mark pulled her in for a fierce hug, and she pressed her tight, warm body against his. They wordlessly exchanged their confidence in each other and looking out over the rainbow lake of death below- Mark had to believe they would be able to push this garbage off their property.

  “Got it,” Vale called out in a loud voice from the yard below, and they came down to move out. Vale continued. “He runs one shop among many in a place called Venue N74. Not very creative.”

  “We don’t need creativity,” Mark said. “We need a back door to slime land.”

  Vale nodded. “Indeed. Ready?”

  Everyone was, so Vale launched them into the net using the tree-based interface, and they reached their destination in a matter of moments.

  Mark took in his new surroundings and felt an instant sense of vertigo as he peered over the edge of a substantial drop. It was as if a shopping mall was stretched vertically instead of horizontally. Every level contained ten to twelve colorful shops with flashing neon signs all competing for his attention. If he had to guess, there were a hundred floors below and a hundred floors above. There was a bent and greasy railing between him and the seemingly bottomless pit ahead, but its flimsy appearance didn’t inspire confidence.

  He took a step back and noticed that Vale was already a good distance toward the shop behind them. Flowing around her and crawling all over every level were hundreds of AIs, all going about their business. His eyes followed an old rat woman with bags of cabbages and right behind her was a creature made entirely of yellow pencils, his pink eraser face a twist of frustration as he tried to get around the slow-moving rat woman.

  Roo and Ahnix were nearby, and he gave them a grin. The regal cat-girl hid it well, but she loved shopping and perusing stores almost as much as Roo, who was currently spellbound by the sheer number of colorful boutiques within her field of vision.

  Vale was like him though, they both hated shopping. He looked up at the store they were sent to, and his brows came down.

  “Moff and Boff’s Muffin Berries? What the fuck is this?”

  Mark and his girls gathered
a bit off the main thoroughfare and up against the wall between shops.

  “Looks like we made it to Venue N74,” Vale said. “But we still need to find Jinx’s shop.”

  Ahnix had been scanning their surroundings with her sharp eyes and pointed one of her golden-furred fingers to the far corner of the level they were on. He followed her indication and saw two large, clear tubes next to what had to be an information display. He watched as the first person in line (a metallic frog with human legs) stepped into a tube and launched upward.

  Mark nodded and gathered his party with a look. “Let’s check it out.”

  It was a short walk to the black sign with white lettering. At the top and in a stylish font was written: “Welcome to Venue N Seventy-Four ~ Deals, Steals, and More!”

  His eyes quickly scanned the tiny basic text below and discovered they were currently on level 89 and ‘Jinxsearch005’ was on level 7.

  “Looks like we’re taking a tube.”

  He felt Vale’s fear of heights kick in hardcore, and he playfully elbowed her smooth charcoal ribs.

  “Hey!” she said. “What are you doing?”

  “You’ll be fine, you giant baby.”

  “It looks like a big fun drop!” Roo said, leaning over the rickety railing and peering down below. Her perfectly curved velvet ass peeked out from under her skirt, and Mark had a hard time pulling his eyes off her.

  “What if we take my Wall platform down?” the giant naga suggested.

  Ahnix responded quickly, “Too much attention.”

  They all got in line for the downward tube, and Mark made Vale go first. It was a quick wait as the line moved swiftly.

  “Will I even fit?” she asked, still trying to avoid the ride.

  Mark nodded behind her at the hippopotamus woman in a French maid’s outfit holding a cardboard box depicting a vacuum cleaner with one hand. The large woman was shorter than Vale, but more than made up for it in volume. She squeezed through the open arch in the clear tube, said, “Floor 1,” and was sucked downward through the rubber floor with a reverberating ‘thoomp’ sound.

  “You’re up,” Mark said. “You’ve faced a damn dragon, Vale. You can handle this tube.”