by Dima Zales
My thoughts suddenly clear, all my senses sharpening. I look at Jeremiah’s face and try to replace my agony with anger. I meditate on the anger. I taste it. I channel it. I force myself to remember how powerless I felt when my friends were dying in Oasis. I remind myself that it was all Jeremiah’s fault. His mind drove that horrid virus and allowed it to disable the life support systems on the ship.
The grisly mantra works.
The pain recedes, and determination settles into my mind.
Through the white mist of hatred in my eyes, I see Jeremiah swinging the machete at my neck.
I lean back sharply, causing him to miss.
He screams and swings the machete at my left shoulder.
I block the strike with my sword, and in an unbroken trajectory, I slice at his temple.
There’s a line of blood across Jeremiah’s face and fear in his eyes, but I’m in too much of a stupor to gloat.
I’m feeling weaker by the minute.
Then it dawns on me.
The luminescent liquid of my blood is gushing out of the remnant of my arm. If I let this continue, I’ll faint, and then I’ll lose. All Jeremiah has to do is wait, which is probably why he’s more focused on defense than offense.
No.
I won’t let him win.
I have to stop the bleeding.
I squeeze the hilt of my katana until my knuckles go from white to purple. I’m about to do something truly insane, but I don’t dwell on it. I simply touch the fire from my blade to my bleeding stump.
There’s a disgusting sizzle of burning flesh, and a terrible barbecue smell hits my nose.
The fountain of blood slows to a trickle and then stops.
Unbelievably, I don’t feel any pain. I might’ve surpassed my suffering threshold—or perhaps Haven’s interface only allows for so much.
Jeremiah looks at me in confounded fascination. I guess he didn’t expect me to hurt myself so badly.
Then a wave of searing pain hits me. I was wrong. The Haven interface does allow me to feel the burn; the pain was just slow to register in my battle-weary brain.
The agony threatens to take away my consciousness, but I fight to stay awake. If I black out for even an instant, Jeremiah will make sure I never come back to my senses.
Through the wetness blurring my vision, I see Jeremiah swing the machete at my leg.
I fly up, causing him to miss, and swing my sword at his head.
I succeed in chopping off a chunk of Jeremiah’s hair and scalp, and the flame of my blade sets his remaining hair on fire.
He screams, patting at his head to put out the flames, and I use that moment to raise my sword and deliver another wound to his left shoulder.
Fear and pain seem to give Jeremiah a second wind. A horrific cry escapes his throat, and he swings his machete at me like some kind of ancient berserker.
I’m forced to go on the defensive, my arm getting progressively numb as I block his next five strikes.
Out of the corner of my eye, I notice that in the distance, Giant-Phoe’s enormous teeth are ripping at Giant-Theo’s towering neck. The two bodies are locked in a deadly embrace, but her bite seems to be turning the tide. Giant-Theo falls to the ground, toppling Forebears in his wake. A huge piece of the Giant’s flesh is caught in Giant-Phoe’s teeth, and the rest of him breaks into the largest Limbofication Haven has ever seen.
I pay for my distraction with my ear, which Jeremiah’s machete hacks off.
I don’t even register this new wave of pain, but the sight of my blood seems to give Jeremiah renewed energy, and he launches into another round of berserker attacks.
Blocking his strikes is getting difficult. I don’t think I can last much longer.
Out of sheer desperation, instead of blocking the next machete strike with my sword, I meet it with the stump of my left arm.
The machete cuts deep into the charred flesh and bone.
The pain doesn’t hit me right away, but I know it’s on its way.
I thrust my katana forward.
“Wait, Theo,” Phoe says in my head just as I bury my sword in Jeremiah’s belly. “Don’t—”
Whatever she was going to tell me, she’s too late.
I press my sword deeper into Jeremiah, and he Limbofies.
Seeing him turn into those pixelated pieces is the most welcome sight.
Then the pain from my arm reaches my brain, and the world goes black.
23
I’m floating in darkness.
The lack of pain is like pleasure. If I had a mouth, I’d be smiling from the comfort of it all.
From far away, Phoe says, “I said ‘wait,’ but you went ahead and gutted him.”
“Where am I?” I ask. “What’s going on?”
“You’re sort of unconscious,” Phoe says. “I reached into your unconsciousness so we could speak.”
“Won’t I fall?” I ask her. Though I should be afraid, I’m much too comfortable and happy. I’m only pondering the possibility.
“I now have enough resources to think significantly quicker than the rest of Haven’s environment. I allocated some of these resources to speed up your thinking as well. This means that very little time is passing in Haven as we talk here. I suspect that when we’re done with this conversation, only a millisecond will have passed. So you’re not falling. At least not yet.”
“Okay,” I say, though I don’t really understand what she said. “Do I have this right? You didn’t want me to Limbofy Jeremiah?”
“No, I didn’t. When I finished battling the anti-intrusion algorithm, I finally got the chance to scan Davin’s mind. In his memories, I saw something else that the Circle did. They tied their useless lives to the fate of all of Haven. They arranged it so that if they were all gone, the Firewall would come down. Since Jeremiah was the last member of the Circle, Limbofying him brought down the Firewall.”
“Wasn’t that your ultimate goal? To get rid of that stupid Firewall?”
“It was my goal—until the Jeremiah virus spread through all the resources outside of Haven. He couldn’t get through the Firewall before, but now that it’s down, that’s exactly what he’ll do.”
“Okay,” I say, beginning to worry even in this bodiless, pleasant state. “Didn’t you need Jeremiah’s and Davin’s memories to deal with the virus? Since I Limbofied them for you, don’t you now have a solution?”
“No. They turned out not to have any relevant knowledge of the virus. Inside Jeremiah’s mind, I saw the process he went through to create the virus, but I didn’t see how to get rid of it.”
She stops talking, and I’m hit with a vision.
Jeremiah the Forebear is standing in a tunnel of light. The rest of the Circle is watching in horror as ghostly images of new Jeremiahs appear out of the light. To everyone’s dismay, these new Jeremiahs, these viruses, are turning into a gross liquid. Then the virus is teleported to the other side of the Firewall, and the Circle members collectively sigh in relief. A slightly disheveled Jeremiah walks out of the circle he was standing in, and the strange procedure comes to an end.
“That is how Jeremiah was turned into that slug-like weapon,” Phoe says in my mind. “However, this doesn’t tell me much about the virus’s nature, and the information wasn’t available in either Davin’s head or Jeremiah’s.”
I float in silence, taking in the meaning of her words. Finally, I ask, “So what does that mean? Will the Jeremiah virus destroy us after all?”
“Not if I have anything to say about it,” Phoe says. “I have an idea. You see, the anti-intrusion algorithm they unleashed against us comes from the same era as this virus. Its original purpose was to combat things like this virus, so here’s what I’m thinking: I can piggy back on the process they used to turn Jeremiah into the virus, only instead of the virus code, I’ll use the anti-intrusion algorithm code.”
“Great,” I say and allow myself to float calmly once again. “So do it. Create the whatever-you-just-said.”
“I would, but it’s not that simple. The process they used on Jeremiah can only be applied to another Forebear.”
My calmness instantly evaporates. I think I now understand why Phoe decided to have this out-of-time conversation. Hoping I’m wrong, I say, “You want to turn me into this anti-virus?”
“Only if you consent, yes,” Phoe replies, her disembodied voice full of sadness. “But I can see you’re not comfortable with this, so I guess this is goodbye. I’ll write the two of us into Limbo so we’ll have a chance of getting re-instantiated one day. If we never do, it’s been really great knowing—”
“Oh, shut up, Phoe,” I shout into the darkness. “You know I’ll say yes.”
“Are you sure?” She sounds genuinely surprised. “You can change your mind once I give you all the details. You see, like Jeremiah, you’ll become a legion of your selves. I have no idea what it will feel like for you to split into multiple identities, but there’s very little time left to analyze this. If you’re truly willing to give this a shot, I need to begin the process now.”
“Just do it,” I say, and the darkness turns into all-penetrating light.
* * *
I keep my eyes squeezed shut throughout the process, but even through my eyelids, I can see the bright light surrounding me the way it did Jeremiah in that snippet Phoe showed me.
Then I open my eyes.
I’m still flying above the Sanctum. My poor left hand is now reattached, and the rest of my injuries are healed.
The birds are all gone, and the few remaining citizens of Haven are flying in every direction. The ground is covered in shards of the dome and pieces of the islands the two giants destroyed.
Phoe is no longer a giantess. A bunch of her instantiations are protectively surrounding me on all sides.
The oddest part is that there’s an army of me in the distance, only these Theos are all dressed in some kind of black porous armor, and despite not having any wings, they’re flying in the sky. When I focus on one of their faces, I see what that version of me is seeing, hear what he’s hearing, and—the oddest part of all—know what he’s thinking. That particular Theo just realized that he’s surrounded by copies of himself, and that they’re the weapon Phoe created.
Just as I can see the world through their eyes, they can see through mine, though my point of view won’t be interesting in the fight to come. I only have one task: to stay alive while my copies do what they were designed to do.
I look at the farthest black-clad Theo and shift into his perspective.
* * *
I look at the original Theo, who’s surrounded by Phoes.
Poor guy.
Though intellectually he knows what it’s like to be one of us, he still has no idea what it’s really like.
I feel amazing, like I’m a superhero from an ancient comic book. I have no fear of heights, and I’m full of energy, the kind of energy I imagine ancient drugs provided.
I chuckle at the image of a superhero on amphetamines and cocaine, but it’s probably the best way I can describe how I feel.
Suddenly, the part of me that is the anti-intrusion algorithm feels trouble approaching.
It begins with the sky. The clouds disappear, one by one, and are replaced by the disgusting slime of the Jeremiah virus.
Only to me, it’s not disgusting anymore. As weird as it sounds, to the anti-intrusion part of me, that viscous soup-like substance looks delicious.
With gurgling screams all around us, the Jeremiah virus starts to turn each island in Haven into a version of himself. It’s a shame. Central Island with its castle and theme park, Jeanine’s forests, and thousands upon thousands of Forebear homes are gone in a blink.
I meet the original Theo’s gaze.
He looks frightened.
I look at my nearest brother-selves.
They look as excited as I feel, and we exchange knowing looks.
We were literally made for this.
Phoe’s theory was spot on; I can feel it.
I will take on this virus.
In the distance, the last remaining Forebears freeze mid-flight and stare at the unfolding disaster in horrified fascination. After centuries of living in Haven, they’re witnessing its decimation as the virus turns their home into horrific goo. I wonder what they’re thinking and feeling as they watch this destruction.
I know what I’m feeling.
Hunger.
As one, the escaping Forebears turn into slime as droplets of Jeremiah’s substance spray them in an apocalyptic-looking, gelatinous rain.
My heart rate spikes when the same rain starts pouring down where the Phoes formed a sphere around the original Theo.
I fly in that direction, determined to save them.
One Phoe turns into slime, then another.
Jeremiah is turning them so quickly that there’s no way I can reach them in time.
I curse, and then see that I wasn’t the only one who recognized this problem.
In a black cloud, hundreds of my brother-selves fly toward the diminishing wall of Phoes.
There are maybe a few dozen Phoe instantiations left now.
My brothers reach them, and in a black blur, they form an impenetrable sphere around Phoes and Theo that absorbs the rest of the rain.
Relieved, I notice I’m also getting rained on. Like the rest of the black-clad warriors, I don’t change into a virus when the liquid touches me. On the contrary, my sponge-like skin absorbs the slime with hungry relish.
Once I’ve consumed a few droplets, the most exquisite ecstasy washes over me. It’s stronger than the most powerful Oneness session, even better than those orgasms I experienced with Phoe on the beach.
To the music of pleasure, I divide into a second copy of me, then a third, and then a fourth.
The four of us wink at each other and fly in different directions, each looking to drink down more of the wonderful Jeremiah virus substance.
The same splitting is happening to my brothers all around me. Our numbers are increasing with the full power of exponential growth.
I look at the nearest copies of me and smile. We have proof that Phoe was right. We can serve our purpose; we can fulfill our calling.
My stomach aches with a terrible hunger, and I speed toward the nearest sphere of liquid bearing Jeremiah’s face.
As I close the distance, I feel like I might burst with excitement. I dive into the liquid, creating waves of explosion as parts of the Jeremiah blob try their best not to touch me.
The hated face of my nemesis surrounds me. It’s in every droplet of the virus.
I recall my earlier animosity toward this face and channel my hunger.
My body feels as if it’s made up of small, hungry, porous particles, each one almost sentient. Like a horde of mouths, they’re dying to take a sip of the slime.
I let them.
I swallow the murky liquid with every mouth all at once, and Jeremiah’s faces scream in horror.
The same gurgling cries are all around me.
Caught up in the ecstasy of multiplying into more copies of me, I laugh at Jeremiah’s pain.
* * *
I’m back in my unaltered perspective.
Surrounded by the remaining Phoes, I watch as the army of Theo anti-viruses continues to multiply. When one of them comes into contact with the slime that is Jeremiah, he simply drinks the virus, or eats it—it’s hard to tell the difference. Once the virus is consumed, the Theos multiply.
I start losing track of the strange battlefield. One moment, there are a thousand Theos surrounded by a never-ending sphere of slime, and the next, there are a million Theos and an ever-shrinking puddle of slime.
Reading their minds is disturbing. They’re enjoying this battle a little too much.
“Is it working?” I ask the nearest Phoe. “Are we beating the Jeremiah virus?”
“We’ll have him beat in a matter of minutes,” she says with a smile. “Meanwhile, there’s something you should
do.”
She points south, where Haven is now free of Jeremiah’s presence.
I notice something very familiar floating there. An object I saw what feels like a year ago, though it’s only been a few days.
It’s a large, neon gateway with the word ‘Goal’ written in garish colors.
“Is that…?”
“Yes, a Goal, like in the IRES game,” Phoe says. “I told you this place was based on a very similar infrastructure, and this proves it. Once you became the only human to survive in this place, that sign appeared. If you go through it, you should be able to shut down Haven for good. Not that there’s much left to shut down.”
She’s right.
Haven is now an empty vacuum filled with copies of me.
I spread my wings, but then I hesitate.
The Phoes behind me merge into one, and she says, “Go ahead, Theo. Don’t worry about me.”
“What about all the copies of me?” I ask.
The black-clad Theos are finishing off what remains of the Jeremiah virus.
She doesn’t get a chance to reply before I find out the answer for myself.
The victorious band of Theos is dissipating. The process looks like Limbofication, but with one major difference. Their memories become mine instead of going to Limbo.
The torrent of memories hits me like a sledgehammer. It’s overwhelming.
Each Theo has a set of memories that I absorb.
They each remember moving around, getting rid of the virus, and experiencing the odd physical pleasure of multiplying. Given how similar all these memories are, digesting them should be easy, but because there are millions of them, I’m forced to glide on my wings, nearly paralyzed as I wait for the nightmare to end.
I don’t know how much time passes—an hour, a hundred years?—until I receive the last anti-virus Theo’s recollections. All I know is that eventually, I’m able to continue toward the Goal.
Like in the IRES game, as soon as my head goes through the Goal sign, I’m congratulated on being the winner. Only this time, I’m standing on a big podium holding a giant trophy while being treated to thunderous applause.