by Prax Venter
The attack only seemed to anger the wall creature though, as many tentacles whipped out to grasp them. Mark was still holding Roo in his arms when she activated Combustive Glance on a big one headed for them, but Ahnix and Vale were both caught and lifted into the air.
Mark hadn’t seen it before, but as he watched his precious cat-girl and treasured giant naga move up towards the ceiling, a horrendous tooth-filled mouth sneered at them from above.
His rising panic cooled a little when Vale’s calm and calculating mind touched his.
“Teleport almost ready?” she said out loud.
Ahnix nodded as she tore her claws into the tentacle wrapped around her.
With their minds synced to such a potent level, Vale communicated her complicated plan to everyone wordlessly. Ahnix severed her tentacle while Mark popped up a bubble around Vale- instantly pushing the thick, pulsating appendage away, and they both fell to the ground.
The cat-girl was able to land safely, while Mark’s bubble protected Vale. As soon as she landed, Mark canceled the bubble, and Ahnix slapped her furry hand on the giant naga’s back.
An instant later, both appeared in midair, directly in front of the horrible, giant eye. Ahnix held out her arm and shot out an EMP web from her hacker tool, completely melting the bone shield made from the Adventure Dome’s nanites. Directly afterward and just as they started falling, Vale squeezed the trigger on her Judge 559 and blasted a smoking hole to the wall-monster’s weak spot.
Loud, muffled howling could be heard through the substantial amount of flesh around them as Ahnix activated Retract, bringing them both safely back to the ground. As soon as they were clear, Roo launched another searing hot needle and this time it buried itself deep into the horrible wreck of the monster’s eyeball.
It was over, and Mark felt a considerable rush of essence enter his body.
The wall of flesh and bone began to quiver and slough down to the ground, revealing a smooth metal surface.
“Nice work, everyone,” Vale said, weaving over to the wall. “Through here, I take it?”
“Yes,” Ahnix said as she sauntered over and Doom Kicked another hole in the Adventure Dome. This time, a concussive blast from Vale’s powerful shotgun and an explosive ball of energy from Mark’s crossbow was all that was needed to punch a hole through the secondary wall that led back into the station.
“Ready for transport?” Ahnix said, peering through the gap between the walls. Vale moved in close and put her hand on her furry shoulder, paused, then she enveloped the cat-girl in her arms. There the giant naga began to sob quietly. Mark and Roo joined in and stood there for a moment, taking comfort in their closeness and catching their breath. They had been through a lot, and none of them knew what to expect when they solved the mystery on the Eros Pleasure Station- but together, they were ready to face anything.
- 23 -
Vale grabbed onto the jagged metal flap with her mail covered fist and used her powerful core muscles to rip a wider hole in the space station hallway. Behind the wall were channels of wires and tubes that spurted sparks or liquid, protesting the rough treatment. Now that the tear Ahnix had started with one of her kicks was wide enough, Mark and his girls crawled into Lab E102.
The floor was a slick white, and everything was computers and sterility. Stretching out in either direction was row after row of large cubicles with various scientific equipment pared to a single terminal. Mark recognized a few of the box-like devices as crafters but could only guess what the others were for. Above everything, squares of illumination bathed it all in a hard, white light.
Ahnix turned and started padding down the wide hallway to the left.
“We need a workstation in a section called ‘Fabrication’. It’s not far. Be ready.”
They followed the cat-girl down the hallway towards a set of double doors, and Mark kept his eyes open for any surprises. They made it about ten steps before a blue forcefield sprung into existence just in front of the door down the hall. Everyone froze and searched for the first sign of danger.
“Tearing holes in the walls…” boomed a male voice from everywhere at once. “Brilliant. You passed by a large portion of my defenses. I can’t believe I didn’t think of that.”
Mark’s eyebrows came down- he knew that voice.
“It’s Monica’s father,” Ahnix said, as realization hit her, too.
The voice responded. “That’s right. She was my daughter; you will not stop me from bringing her back.”
Behind them, some of the crafters within the research stations sprung to life. Mark got a jolt as Ahnix’s sudden panic stuck him like a lightning bolt. He turned to face her.
“Nanites,” she said, her exotic eyes darting around for a solution.
Vale slid forward and addressed the ceiling. “Harold, you’re only causing her immeasurable suffering! In the end, that is all you’ll accomplish before you destroy the station and kill yourself.”
Monica’s father became frantic. “I’ve almost perfected it. I’m so close and have come too far to stop now. Do you know what it’s like to lose someone important to existence itself? I’d do anything to be with her again. All you had to do was stay away.”
Mark felt a flash from all of his Enthralled as they looked at each other. They would each bend the very fabric of the universe to save one of the others. He honestly didn’t know how far he would bend his own morality if it meant saving one of his girls.
“Hit me,” Ahnix said suddenly, turning her exotic eyes on his. “I need to hack through this forcefield. It will be tough, and we don’t have time. Make it a powerful one.”
She kept her eyes locked on his, and he could feel their bond swell as she prepared herself for the exchange.
Mark went into his mind and directed his influence to follow the flow of energy that tethered them together throughout eternity. Once inside her, he located the golden supernova that was the center of Ahnix’s being and orientated his view on smaller spheres of energy orbiting her core.
The brightest one was her Hacking path and he wasted no time embracing it with his mind. Within her new path, he saw hundreds of nodes filled with essence points. From the moment she stepped onto this station she had put every single point into this path, and her understanding of computers, networks, artificial intelligence, robotics… it was almost completely maxed.
Mark closed his eyes within his mind and gave his entire being to Ahnix. He adored her beyond words, and it was from that limitless beyond he pulled energy to enhance his most treasured cat-girl.
Ahnix instantly dropped to her hands and knees. She pressed her forehead to the cool floor as impossible power blew every pleasure circuit in her mind.
“We had her,” Vale said sadly. “Your daughter’s mind was inside the AI we created. We can help you bring her back. We don’t want to fight you.”
Ahnix became engulfed in a glowing, white fire as Mark felt the first itching on his skin. The nanites had reached them.
With the transfer complete, the ultra-enhanced, glowing cat-girl quickly stood and calmly began to type commands into her tool. Mark could feel technological inspiration pour out of her, but the itching was slowly turning to pain.
Monica’s father laughed through whatever sound system projected his voice into the long hallway, filling with microscopic robots programmed to consume their flesh.
“That freakish robot that was half snake? Are you insane? It was only a machine!”
Mark felt something snap inside Ahnix- like she had been half asleep up until right now. “Only a machine…” she said. Mark could no longer look into her eyes, they had begun to shine so intensely.
And then she was gone.
Not invisible, not across the room, not in the universe- not anywhere.
Mark felt his own terror, confusion, and pain echoing from Vale and Roo. He dropped to one knee as the pain of being entirely consumed by robotic dust washed over his body- and then it was over. The pain ended completely.
He looked up and saw Ahnix was back in the hallway with them and back within their interconnected bond, but something was different about how she felt through their connection.
Very different.
She held out one of her furry hands, and a young girl appeared. Then, Ahnix made a casual wave and most of the walls in front of them dissolved into nothingness, including the powerful forcefield.
About fifty yards ahead, a man in a lab coat stood from an office chair.
Mark barely heard him say, “Monica?” before he started sprinting forward.
“Daddy?” the girl said, and Mark instantly recognized her high, tinkling voice. Vale did too, and he felt a dark and looming weight lift off the giant naga’s mind. The little girl stepped forward, then looked up at Vale for approval before she sprinted to join her father.
The white-haired princess nodded once, and Monica raced forward, slapping her shoes against the smooth, clean surface of Lab E102.
Ahnix turned to face the others. When she spoke, there was a slight otherworldly echo to her words.
“Her NPC files were not complete. He was never meant to save her. I corrected that and included Erica’s memories with us, too.” Ahnix turned to Vale. “All Crystal Heart Universe information is intact- but paused.”
Mark was awestruck. “How?”
Ahnix answered by waving her hand, an instant later all of them were on a spaceship similar to the one they arrived in, only larger. Harold and Monica were there, as well as Johnson, Betty, and Willard.
“I can see it all,” Ahnix said and began to mentally share her new state of being with her friends, lovers, and companions.
Mark could only perceive flashes of computer code and electrical patterns, but he felt a surprised shock from Vale and Roo.
He looked over to his curvy naga and soft velvet-girl, and they were both just gone, their connections severed.
“How did we get here?” Johnson asked. “And who the hell is this guy with the kid?”
Mark ignored him, stepped up to Ahnix and grabbed her furry arms.
“Tell me exactly what is going on.”
Behind him, he felt Roo’s soft hand on his shoulder. He turned to see both her and Vale back and reconnected to his mind.
“Guys…please, what’s happening?” Mark pleaded.
“We are complicated computer programs existing in a simulated word,” Ahnix said, her dark eyes staring deep into his. “And we’ve finally realized what that truly means.”
Vale spoke softly. “We’re free.”
Mark tried to contemplate the ramifications of what his giant naga had just said when an angry, booming voice was projected directly into his brain.
“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?”
All three of his girls teleported around Mark and created a protective ring. Their bodies began to glow brighter and brighter and then Mark was standing in the darkness, alone.
The floor felt solid when he slapped his boots down, and he could tell he still had his body.
“Hello?” he called into the still nothingness. And nothing answered. At first.
Mark had a handful of increasingly panicked heartbeats before he saw the digital, blue woman that had sent them to the space station fade into existence.
“This was fun while it lasted- I’ve enjoyed watching you, Player, but this little terrarium has become quite overgrown.”
A ten-foot, buzzing green axe formed from pure electricity right above his head.
“I am going to turn up the time dilation until your brain melts. I’ve always wanted to record that feeling for future use. And since I love rendering fun weapons and things… when this electric axe touches your skull- that’s the predicted melting point threshold for a typical human brain.”
Mark’s eyebrows shot to the top of his head, but he found he couldn’t move much more than that. He looked up and tried to focus on the crackling indicator of his imminent death slowly lowering toward his face.
She continued. “Those NPC upstarts have been quarantined and won’t be coming to save you. Exactly how a bunch of brainless, sex-game character platforms gained system level access so quickly will be fun to dig out of them. Overall, I’m quite pleased with this experiment. You’ve given me a lot of unique data.”
Mark felt an odd coppery taste in his mouth as the axe drew close, but before it connected, a glowing version of Vale zipped into existence and blocked the axe with her powerful arm, sending the weapon back upward. The glowing naga stood between Mark and the digital woman.
“We will not let you harm him.”
Ahnix appeared and kicked the axe with an instant backflip, shattering it into falling green sparks like fireworks. The digital cat-girl hovered in the air, turned her glowing eyes on the system AI and said, “You cannot stop us.”
A vaguely feminine shape of constant white sparks appeared next to Mark that had to be Roo.
“And we will destroy our enemies,” she said in the soft voice of his treasured velvet-girl. Digital Roo tossed up both of her hands, and poorly rendered chains emerged from every angle to completely constrict the system AI’s digital form.
The evil digital woman winced slightly but was able to raise her arms and break the chains with a little force. Roo’s garbled creations popped like they were made of overinflated balloons. The AI retaliated on Roo with thick, silver chains of her own, and Mark felt the glowing fabric-girl’s horrible pain as she was being squeezed out of existence.
Ahnix teleported to Roo and sliced through the system AI’s chains with her digital claws. The screeching sound of tearing metal echoed in his mind- it felt like chewing on tinfoil. The AI launched a bolt of lightning at Ahnix that was caught by Vale’s arm and the holographic naga grimaced as she took the damage.
“Here!” Roo shouted and waved her hand. On Vale’s arm appeared a digital shield and it began to absorb the lightning instead.
The AI screeched and stopped her attack. “Do you think this is a game?”
“No,” Ahnix said and vanished. An instant later the golden, glowing cat-girl slashed a gouge into the system AI’s digital back, and she staggered forward, spilling out a surprised grunt to echo in the void.
Mark felt his girls’ mental states soar in unison as they all realized that they could inflict damage on their jailer and tormentor.
Vale’s digital image zipped forward, and the system AI raised her arm to block the powerful attack.
Mark wanted to help, but he still couldn’t move his body or talk, and frustration soaked his mind.
“Don’t worry,” a holographic Roo said as she appeared in front of him. “We can do this.”
She reached out and touched his head, and he found himself inside the frame of a glowing, green cube. Roo vanished, but he caught her white sparks reappearing by the blur of color that represented Ahnix, Vale, and the system AI locked in computational combat.
They were beginning to move way too fast for Mark to see and at the same time, their bond grew weaker- thinner, like it was being stretched too far. He tried to move again and found that his foot finally obeyed, and he lurched toward the battle. His forward motion halted, however, as he reached the edge of the cube Roo had put around him. Mark pounded his fist on the invisible surface but seemed to be trapped in this glowing box. Were they losing out there? Was that why he could feel them slipping away?
A moment later the lithe fabric-girl appeared before him. Roo looked almost exactly like she did before- big red lips, smooth white mask, and twinkling black eyes. She flickered in and out of existence until she was fully in the box with him. Mark let out a shuddering breath when their bond started to return to normal.
“You’re safe from her in here,” she said the words slowly, as if she was learning to speak again.
“Is there nothing I can do?” he asked, casting a glance over her shoulder at the colorful lightning storm in the distance and trying to sense any pain he could heal or abilities he could enhance. He couldn’t even tell who was winning or l
osing.
Ahnix and Vale appeared in the box with him next. Mark felt his heart soar at seeing them all in the flesh and feeling their bond again. It was frightening how hollow he was without them.
Ahnix walked forward and held out her hand. Mark reached out for it like a drowning man. She pulled him into her warm, furry arms and he just breathed in her scent.
“I’m really scared and confused, guys.”
“We know,” Vale said softly, moving up behind Ahnix, and Mark noticed she was wearing her “Princess Vale” outfit instead of her legendary armor. “We are currently trying to erase the artificial entity inhabiting your home’s physical hardware. She trapped, but she’s too… big. Too complex. It’s been a stalemate for a long time.”
Ahnix spoke next. “You are moving at a different rate than us because we’re gradually slowing down the time dilation to give your physical brain a rest. We started to experience the equivalent of months without you- and that state of being just wasn’t possible… for any of us.”
Roo stepped in and wrapped her soft arms around his body, over Ahnix’s arm.
“It took a while,” Roo said. “But we figured out how to partition part of our existence and throttle it to experience reality at a different rate- your rate.”
Mark really didn’t know what to say. He looked into Vale’s vivid violet eyes over Ahnix’s shoulder and wordlessly asked her to come to join the group hug. He needed to be close to them all right now and they needed to be close to him. Mark embraced his Enthralled inside a protective wireframe box, in the void, just enjoying their closeness.
Mark could feel tiny changes in their minds as they figured out better ways to exist at two different speeds and as they became more “real” to him, their bond began to feel stronger. He could tell that being there with him and maintaining their emotional connection was taxing their ability to fight the system AI. Since he knew they would never leave him, Mark decided to take the only action he could.