System Ascension

by Prax Venter

  She slithered in, coiling her tail around so she could fit, and Mark fed her confidence as fear echoed from her wide violet eyes.

  She swallowed hard and said, “Floor 7.” His giant naga was slurped downward, her tail going down first. Panic rose in her mind, and she tried to hold her hands out to stop her body, but it was too late. With an abruptly cut-off yelp, Vale was gone.

  Mark let Roo go next. She was super excited, and she would probably do the best at cheering Vale up after her battle with the terrible pneumatic tube. The velvet-girl giggled as she was sucked down as well.

  Ahnix was next, but she handled the whole experience as if she were embarrassed having to stoop to taking this undignified form of transport. Her half-lidded eyes locked on Mark’s while she said the words and crossed her furry arms. She dropped down the tube after the others, and then Mark got in, repeating the process. When he was sucked through the rubber floor, he felt his virtually simulated stomach attempt to exit through his throat.

  Just like when he became a speeding transport, Mark embraced the ride. The shopping mall levels whipped past his face, and everything became a blur of color. Then it was over, and he was standing on solid ground again.

  Mark stepped out of the tube and stood next to his girls. He placed a hand on the giant naga’s scaled hip, and she turned her vivid eyes down on him.

  “Told you everything would be fine.”

  “Yes,” she said, a reluctant smile growing on her lips. “The shop we are looking for is right there.”

  Mark followed her nod and saw a deep neon-blue sign spelling out ‘Jinxsearch’. Over the word ‘Jinx’ was the image of a magnifying glass with orange and black fox ears popping out the top.

  Mark led the way into the fluorescently lit shop and pulled the door open for them. With the brief view he got, the place looked way cleaner and more organized than he anticipated. It was like a convenience store, but instead of shelves packed with product, items were few and far between, and everything was operating room sterile. It was also devoid of people.

  There was a long counter with a modern ID scan register, and the everyday object sent Mark to his back pocket looking for his wallet. It wasn’t there of course, and he felt stupid for even checking. His minor concern over payment for the information they required might be moot as there was no shopkeeper present to provide the product anyway.

  Ahnix walked up to the counter, then looked back at Mark. “It says ring for service.”

  “Ring it!” Roo suggested quickly.

  The cat-girl shrugged and slapped her furry hand on the polished metal dome. A satisfying tone rang out, but nothing happened right away.

  Just as Mark decided to look at the bizarre and abstract items laying out for purchase, he heard a strange digital noise from the counter. A backwards electric guitar strum ending in abrupt silence heralded the arrival of a well-groomed humanoid fox in a leather jacket. His face was one hundred percent fox, and he had the torso and arms of a human, but everything else was animal. He arrived with his furry eyelids closed and opened them as he lifted his paw up with a flourish.

  “Welcome to- Oh! Well, I’ll be damned…” He leaned down casually on the counter before continuing, his sly smirk broadcasting smug secrets. “So, what dirt can Jinxsearch Double-Oh-Five dig up for you four fine fugitives?”

  - 22 -

  “There must be some mistake,” Vale said, weaving her body across the cool linoleum tile of Jinxsearch’s shop. “What makes you say we are fugitives?”

  The smug fox stepped back and held up one of his paws. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying it. Those Singularity O goons put up a reward for info on you four after you disappeared. You’re wanted for a string of Trip-zero deaths.” He winked one golden-yellow eye at Vale. “The reward would be nice, but I love what I do. If word got out I was a snitch… Let’s just say I don’t discriminate based on what the SO thinks.”

  Mark could tell the morally rigid Vale was disturbed by this news, but it still didn’t make any sense.

  “Why would we be wanted for deaths caused by that particular virus?” he asked.

  “Evelyn claims you’re tainted and want everything to merge as you have- that you lured the virus to attack specific places.” The fox tilted his head and looked between Mark and his girls before continuing. “You’re still uniquely close, but not concatenated.” He shrugged. “Whatever… SO’s crazy. Most people know it, but they are powerful. A lot of people flock to them out of fear.”

  Ahnix crossed her furry arms. “Evelyn came to our home, trying to recruit us.”

  The fox raised his black eyebrows, and his ears pitched forward a little. “Evelyn came to you personally? I’m surprised that nutjob left her ivory tower at SO HQ. You four must have really done something to get her attention and then piss her off.” Jinxsearch turned his muzzle down and tapped his black paw on the counter once. “You don’t believe me, and I can appreciate that. But just so we understand each other…”

  He finished interfacing with something Mark couldn’t see and then the surface of the counter displayed a still image. He and his girls were standing in a row arranged by height with Vale at one end and Ahnix on the other. A big ‘WANTED’ was written large over their heads and below were more details.

  Vale read the text out loud. “Information that leads to the quarantine of these enemies of the Free Individual will be rewarded with access to 10,000TB of tier-four data. Help the Singularity Organization protect you. Alone, we can accomplish anything.”

  “Well, shit,” Mark said.

  “Such a hot leather skirt,” Roo said, in love with her own image.

  “This changes nothing,” Ahnix said. “We weren’t going to join them anyway.”

  The orange fox looked up at the regal cat-girl. His half-lidded smirk was a stark contrast to her disinterested frown.

  “Well if it weren’t for flexible proprietors like me, you’ll have a difficult time procuring the information that undoubtedly brought you to my shop… So…” He paused to wipe the Wanted poster off the counter and came back up with a predatory grin. “What does bring you to my shop?”

  Vale regarded him coolly. “Despite this… disinformation. We want to destroy the Triple-zero virus and need a back door to the Coventry Industries military factory net address.”

  The AI known as Jinxsearch nodded slowly. “What you do with the information is your own business. Like I said before: first one is free, this one will cost you. You’ll also understand if my fee is a bit higher- risky business dealing with criminals.”

  “Do you actually have the information or not?” Mark asked. He was tired of this dancing around bullshit.

  “I do.”

  “Then what do you want for it?”

  “Tell ya what. I know this tenacious little program looking to acquire a powerful lock breaking algorithm. I know she’ll give me what I want in exchange.” The shady fox’s body language suggested he was looking for something altogether… filthy. “The weapon I seek is currently held by a group of raiders. I know you can handle yourselves in a fight- if you can’t do this, you have no hope against Trip-Z anyway. Go take it from them, bring it back to me and we have a deal.”

  Vale shook her head and balled one of her strong fists. “Ugh. I hate that we’ve become mercenaries.”

  “They stole it from the AI who stole it from someone else... Look, I can see you are the straight and narrow type. This is for a good cause…” He paused to flash Vale his pure white canine teeth in an attempt to win her over. “Trust me.”

  The giant naga groaned. The smile and the cheesy line screamed distrust, but Mark’s specially honed senses could see past the double bluff. The trader walked on either side of the law, but he hadn’t lied to them yet, as far as Mark could tell.

  Ahnix put her hand on Vale’s arm. The two exchanged glances, and Mark could feel the cat-girl wordlessly express the fact that they were running out of options. Mark and Roo mentally joined Ahnix in an attempt t
o convince the lawful giant naga that all bets were currently off.

  Vale sighed and sent her reluctant capitulation into their connection.

  “Deal,” Mark said holding his hand out to the fox. His black paw was soft and looked clean, but Mark felt dirty nonetheless.

  “Fantastic. Here is the backdoor address for the current hideout of the collective known as MarketSwarm. They were a group of cooperative expert systems focused on stock market gains before the Great Crash. They’re still focused on acquiring wealth at any costs, weapons mostly. You’re looking for something called Boltbreaker.”

  Mark took the piece of yellow paper that looked to have been ripped out of a book. As soon as he had it, it vanished into his inventory.

  “Before you go,” Jinxsearch said and held out his paw again. This time there was a small magnifying glass with orange, black-tipped fox ears attached to the top. “Don’t want to be wandering around among the public out there. This access point will bring you right here- to the back of my store.”

  “Convenient,” he said, taking the second offered object. “Be back soon.”

  Mark turned to his girls, and he spent a moment holding each of their eyes with his. “Are we ready to raid the raiders?”

  “Let’s go get us some loot!” Roo cheered, and he felt Vale wilt a little.

  He opened his inventory, tapped the file called ‘loc.MarketSwarm_passthrough2’, and after a short freefall, Mark found himself in dramatically different surroundings.

  They were on a huge wooden rope bridge suspended between two enormous mushrooms. It took Mark a moment to place the black gills under the house-sized caps, and the darkness didn’t help. A purple haze permeated everything and lowered visibility dramatically. A repetitive alien croaking echoed to them from what must have been a great distance below. He could see looming shadows out in the mist that appeared to be other giant mushrooms, but the unending darkness below was more than troubling.

  “Let’s get off this bridge,” Vale said, not just motivated by her fear of heights. “Stay close.”

  The span of wooden slats was slightly decayed, but also oversized and barely swayed as the giant naga wove her heavy body across. The bridge connected under the cap of the mushroom and, looking over his shoulder past Roo, he saw the same thing behind.

  The walkway was moored directly to the porous white stalk and led to a large door made from twelve-foot logs. The giant size of the mushrooms skewed his perception, but the bridge and these doors looked more Vale-sized than Mark-sized. The giant naga waved Ahnix up to listen before opening it. After a moment of silence, the cat-girl shook her head, and Vale turned the knob and pushed open the door.

  The inside was even darker, but Mark could tell he was standing in a hollowed-out mushroom… room. The bed and chairs were too big, and everything was covered in a fine layer of purple dust, but this place was clearly someone’s house. Rounded square holes served as primitive windows in two of the walls, and another door nestled into the mycelium across from them.

  Roo quietly shut the door behind her while Ahnix went to listen by the other door. She heard nothing and padded back over to everyone else standing in the center of the one-room house.

  “I sure hope these raiders aren’t super huge,” Mark said, looking around and imagining what sort of random-looking creature lived here.

  “Why don’t you go find out while we guard your body here?” Vale said, giving him a small smile.

  “Try not to be seen,” Ahnix added, her tail flipping behind her. She really missed scouting.

  Mark nodded and popped out a Clone. He didn’t look back and went right for the door. He had to use both hands on the oversized knob, but he was able to pull open the door and peek out. There was another rope bridge, but this one split into two paths, each one to a different giant mushroom. He also saw a winding staircase wrapping around the farther of the two mushroom stalks. It looked like the only way to access the wooden stairs was from inside the cap itself.

  Mark slipped out into the purple haze and quietly tip-toed along, taking the bridge that led to the stalk with stairs. The silver orb of a moon was barely glowing through the dense mist clouding his vision, but he was back in deep shadow as he passed under the far mushroom cap. He felt more comfortable hiding in the darkness anyway.

  He was about to open the door when he heard his girls talking around his cast-off real body.

  “Oh! Wait till you get two Mark dicks at once, guys,” Roo whispered. “It was amazing.”

  “You know he can hear you, right?” Vale said.

  Mark could hear the smile in his velvet-girl’s voice. “I know.”

  He tried to ignore them and reached out for the door when he heard snatches of strange voices, but he couldn’t tell where from. He froze, waiting for more, but nothing came. Carefully, he turned the knob and pushed open the door. It took more strength to move the door open a crack than it would have been to just shove it open, but there was no one in this house either.

  Huge open windows let in the haze, and just like the other house, everything was covered in a fine lavender dust. He heard the voices again, and it seemed to be a few females arguing over something or yelling at someone.

  He climbed up onto an old wooden dresser and was able to look out the window toward the next mushroom house in the rope bridge line. The windows flickered with firelight, and he knew right away someone was home. A humanoid-shaped shadow that had to be cast from some sort of a giant moth creature passed by one of the walls inside- and it was waving around a pistol.

  Mark thought about trying to get a little closer. He wanted to hear what they were saying to get more information, but he didn’t want to get spotted and blow their advantage. The decision was made for him when a soft yet intense buzzing caught his ear. Looking over his shoulder, back at the only other window cut into the mushroom’s interior, was a little fairy with a miniature rifle.

  She wore futuristic shiny black armor that was laced with glowing channels of vibrant green light and had two black antennae poking out from short black hair. The reason she hadn’t seen him yet was because she paused to toss a tiny, hand-rolled cigarette out into the hazy darkness. The faintest whiff of smoke followed the spinning butt to whatever ground might or might not be down there.

  Mark was about to drop his ability and get out before she saw him. The tiny space marine turned and looked right into his eyes.

  “Shit,” he said an instant before bolts of plasma from her weapon tore through the space his Clone had been.

  Mark returned to his original body hearing far-off sirens and distant yelling.

  “They saw you,” Ahnix stated dryly.

  Before he could say anything, a voice boomed from the sky that must have reached every corner of the universe. “We know you’re in here. You do not want us to find you.”

  “They’re tiny fairies with guns,” Mark said as they all pulled their hands from over their ears.

  “How many?” Vale asked, her eyes wide.

  “Um, at least three or so?” Mark said, unsure. “It doesn’t matter. I bet Ahnix here could take ‘em out all by herself. They’re just-”

  The cat-girl hissed, cutting him off as she destroyed half the fungal wall with a savage Wind Slash. Floating among the dusty wreckage was an ethereal, green glowing egg, and he saw the space marine fairy from before curled up within.

  “Shroom F! Converge on Shroom Foxtrot!” the tiny woman yelled into an earpiece.

  Roo’s Paralyze beam fizzled on the green shield, and the fairy immediately returned fire. Vale put up a Wall that soaked up the bolts of plasma. Mark knew there were others nearby, and he needed to do something before they became surrounded by these tiny fuckers.

  “Vale!” he yelled over the superheated mass sizzling on her magic pane of glass. “I’m going to let it hit my hand. Don’t stop me!”

  Mark dashed over to the edge of the weakening magic Wall, and Vale reluctantly followed his plan by shifting the shield sideways.
The fairy took the offered target and blew off Mark’s left hand. He tried to brace himself, and bit back the howl of pain that tried to leap from his lungs.

  Clenching his teeth, Mark activated Retaliate on the poor creature spraying them with molten death. The impact of her own greatly-magnified projectile shattered her shield and instantly vaporized her tiny body, leaving behind only a cloud of superheated blood.

  Mark focused on pushing the data that was his hand back down his arm, where it belonged. Thanks to AquaQuantum’s electric eel snacking on both at once, he knew losing one would be no big deal to restore.

  “Get on!” Vale yelled as she created a pane of glass on the floor. Mark, Ahnix, and Roo didn’t hesitate to join her and grab hold of the giant naga’s protective coils. The magic platform took them up, and out of the hole Ahnix had created with her Wind Claw attack. When she kept going straight up, Mark thought she lost her mind.

  “They might not see us if we-” she began before the bottom of their magic glass was lit up by blasts of plasma. “Hang on,” Vale yelled as they banked in the swirling purple haze. Mark held on to Roo and Ahnix as they were all securely squeezed by Vale’s bottom half. “This visibility is bad for long-range weapons. If only we could lose them.”

  “Let me try something,” Mark said and popped out a Clone while on Vale’s magic carpet ride in the middle of hazy nothingness. He instantly slipped off the edge and began plummeting straight down, the air wiping his hair about his head.

  “Hey, you tiny bitches!” he yelled, dragging out the words as he fell. He noticed a few green glows following him down, but when red blasts of plasma sizzled past his face, Mark knew he had their attention.

  “It worked!” whispered Vale in his real ear. “They are all chasing your Ghost. Come back before you hit the ground.”

  He didn’t, though. Mark wanted to lead them as far off as possible, and he wanted to see the bottom first- and his wish was immediately granted. The haze parted, and the air grew cooler before he collided with the wet, loamy ground. He was traveling at terminal velocity, however, and the surface wasn’t nearly soft enough to prevent lethal damage. He did see something odd just before the sudden impact. He only had a moment, but his memory was much better these days.