by Dante Doom
“I can’t…” she whispered as she looked at the Shutdown door. She would always carry the memory of the Machina’s sacrifice in her heart, and she couldn’t betray that. She couldn’t throw Ten-Thirty’s life away. It wouldn’t be right. Suddenly, looking at her options, she realized why it cost so much to reboot the Grind… because sacrifice always costs more.
Taking a deep breath again, Savannah stepped to the right and thrust her arm into the Reboot door, and then watched as thirty million of her precious points evaporated before her eyes. This was it. This was going to be the end of an era. Whatever was going to happen next, she didn’t know, but she knew in her heart that she was making the right decision. At least, she was making the right decision for all of the peasantry in Verre, and not only for herself. Granted, she doubted the Nobles would be pleased with her actions.
The door hissed, and it slid open. Savannah peered inside to see that there was nothing in the room except for a large lever. The word Reset hovered above it. Savannah walked up to the lever and placed her hand on it. “I really hope this works,” she muttered as she pulled the lever down before pushing it back up.
“Reset procedure engaged!” said a voice from all around her. The ground beneath her began to wobble and contort. Flashes of bright lights, streaks of energy, and red and green bars appeared before her vision. She felt her hands grow and then shrink before suddenly everything around her went entirely dark. She gasped for air and felt around, looking to hold onto something, but there was nothing. Darkness overtook her for quite some time, and she felt a variety of strange sensations during. It was as if she was being pushed and pulled at simultaneously. There was heat, then cold, then a lukewarm sensation prickling across her skin.
Eventually, the chaos died down. Savannah blinked, and she was standing back at the very beginning of the game. She was in the Imaren Fields, and she wasn’t alone. Standing amongst the fields of wheat were thousands upon thousands of people.
“Savannah!” Timon shouted as he spied her. He rushed up to her and embraced her tightly. “You reset the game!”
“Yes! I did!” Savannah said as she laughed. The real relief was that she no longer had to carry the weight of making such intense decisions anymore. She slumped into his arms and allowed him to hold her tightly.
“I’m so proud of you,” Timon whispered. “You saved us.”
“What’s going on?” a player asked. “I was fighting in the Krecius Caves; why am I back here?”
“It must have been a glitch,” someone else said. “Which sucks because we were doing an Instance.”
As all the players grumbled and spoke amongst themselves, a large image appeared in the sky. It was a screen, with a vibrant young woman’s face displayed in front of them. She looked identical to Kireen, except in that she wasn’t translucent or yellow.
“Greetings, participants in the Citadel. My name is Chief Science Officer Kireen Solomon. You might not quite understand what this place is yet, but allow me to share with you its secrets.”
“Who’s she?” someone asked.
“Be quiet and listen,” a woman shouted back.
Kireen continued. “We built this Citadel as a means to preserve knowledge. This entire world was designed for one and only one purpose: to ensure that mankind is able to advance, despite the terrible plague that has eradicated most of the population. We created this world to be interactive and to be similar to a video game from my era. There are weapons, ability items, and most importantly, points. These points allow you to increase your rank in the game, so that you can access certain pieces of information from the College of Colossus.”
“What?” a man shouted. “I thought the ranks were for the real world.”
“Each rank will confer different in-game benefits. You will only receive ranks by earning points. The Citadel is a powerful piece of technology, but it isn’t immune to the normal computer problems. There are corruptions in the system that will appear from time to time. These are known as Virals. When you kill a Viral, you are helping keep the Citadel safe and sound. You will be compensated in points, which will allow you to access greater and greater pieces of information. Things like medicine, psychology, agriculture, and literature can be accessed by paying points.”
There was a deathly silence from the entire population listening to the tutorial. Everyone was staring upward, completely absorbed by the woman’s words. It spoke at a length, for perhaps an hour, explaining every little detail about what the Grind had originally been meant for. The people were spellbound by this, listening with patience. No one said a word. The explanation of the ranking system was detailed, and multiple times she explained what the purpose of the ranks were. They were only meant for internal administration and for fun.
Kireen neared the end of her speech and made an impassioned plea. “The health of the Citadel is the most important part. If Virals are allowed to grow unchecked, it will cause severe damage to the system and will begin to erode many parts of the game. If the game becomes too damaged, a server reset will be required. This message is playing because a reset was initiated. We would ask everyone to do their part in maintaining the Citadel, so that all knowledge will be preserved for generations to come. Don’t simply take the knowledge that we have to offer and leave the game. We have a proposed population schedule on the screen to the left. This is how many people should be in the Citadel at all times.”
Another screen arrived, showing a set number of people and ranks. There was a timer, and also a rotation schedule designed to allow people to leave in shifts.
“This will ensure that no one suffers from the undue hardship of being inside the Citadel for any unreasonable period of time,” Kireen said. “This tutorial will play for anyone who enters the Citadel for the first time, or upon a server reset.”
Kireen’s face vanished from the screen and there was a murmur from the crowd.
“What the hell was all that about?” a man screamed as he climbed atop one of the tractors. Savannah recognized him. He was Werth, an elder from her farming community who was probably Grinding for one of his children. Werth was a natural-born troublemaker. “Did you all hear what I heard?”
“Yeah!” the crowd replied.
“This place has knowledge of farming?” Werth cried. “Medicine? Why weren’t we told about this?”
No one answered. They all looked at one another in confusion.
“Oh… I don’t think this is going to turn out well,” Timon whispered. “We need to get out of the Grind quickly.” He pointed to an exit portal that wasn’t too far away.
“Because they lied to us! They lied about what the Grind was for! You heard that woman—the server was reset for some reason.”
“Who lied?” someone asked.
“The Nobles!” Werth shouted. “For decades, we were told that the Grind was for only one purpose, deciding rank in the world. Now we find out this? Did you hear what that woman said? There’s access to information about medicine here! My daughter died two months ago of a pox! What do you think the chances of a cure being in those records are?”
“What if the Nobles didn’t know?” someone in the crowd asked.
“Wouldn’t that be convenient? I’ve been in the Grind plenty of times,” said another man. “I never heard of this tutorial video.”
“Someone must have gone in and turned it off!” a woman replied.
“It was the Nobles! Those damn Kings and Queens, eating their steaks while we starve to death!” Werth shouted. “It’s all a lie!”
“That doesn’t make any sense—why would they lie to us?” A young woman asked.
“Because it keeps them in control!” Werth said. “Enough is enough. Who here is from the peasantry?”
Most of the hands went up. Savannah felt Timon pulling on her, but she was standing her ground. She wanted to watch what was going to happen next.
“There’s thousands of us, and hundreds of them!” Werth shouted. “Here’s what I say—we leave the Grin
d… no, we leave the Citadel!”
“We’ll lose our positions!” someone replied.
“You heard what Kireen said! Positions are only supposed to matter in the game!” Werth cried. “Leave the Citadel and go to your communities. Tell them what you have seen. Then rally up. Grab all that you have—weapons, knives, pitchforks.”
“What are you talking about?” a rather posh-looking man asked.
“We’re going to storm the second wall!” Werth said. “Drag the King and the Nobles before us and demand answers!”
“They’ll kill us before we get into the palace!” a voice from the crowd protested.
“I’m a guard from inside,” a man said. “I came here to increase my rank. I can open up the wall and tell my men to stand down.”
Timon looked at Savannah. “We’ve got to warn the aristocracy, right now!”
“Why? It looks like those jackasses are about to get their just desserts,” Savannah said with a chuckle. “Maybe they’ll put Leopold’s head on a pike.”
“The second wall has maybe five hundred people living inside, all with innocent children!” Timon hissed. “If this mob gets too out of control, they could all be massacred. Remember, Savannah, there are plenty of us who didn’t know the truth about this place.”
Savannah frowned at that. “I guess you’re right—come on then, let’s go.” With that, the two made their way through the agitated crowd toward the portal.
“Let’s go!” Timon said as he pressed his hand against the portal. Savannah complied and, the next thing she knew, she was inside of her pod.
“Arrrrgh,” she groaned as the cables pulled themselves out of her body. The green pod hissed as it swung open. She stumbled out to see that she wasn’t in her family’s basement any longer. “Oh, what the hell?”
“Where are we?” Timon asked as he climbed out, rubbing his head. The floor was smooth cobblestone and there were a few more pods in the area. Savannah could see a wooden door nearby, the sides of it adorned with red ribbons.
“I have no idea,” Savannah said as she looked around. “It’s so warm in here.”
“I think we’re in someone’s estate,” Timon said as he inspected the ground. “This floor is that of a nobleman’s.
The door opened then, and Elanor walked in. She looked more or less the same in the real world, although her silver hair wasn’t nearly as well kept. “Ah, you’re awake. Good. Tell me everything that transpired.”
“Wait, how did we get here?” Savannah asked. “We were in my father’s basement before!”
“When I was kicked out of the game, I sent my men to retrieve your pods from the rubble that I assume was once your house and basement. Leopold’s people were looking for you and I had to be sure that you were safe,” Elanor said. “Transporting the pods wasn’t hard; I have the means to keep a pod system mobile.”
“We don’t have much time,” Timon said. “Elanor, we reset the game.”
Elanor’s face darkened, and she crossed her arms. “You what?”
“We killed Leopold and reset the game; there was a tutorial that told everyone the truth. The people know about the lie,” Timon said. “And there’s a problem.”
“I’m guessing they didn’t like the fact that they have been lied to for the past two hundred years,” Elanor said.
“Precisely. They were talking about revolution when we left. We’re going to have an entire army of peasants coming this way to overtake the walls.”
Elanor gritted her teeth. “This is why I wanted to become Queen and turn the Grind off!” she shouted. “Which one of you wretches is responsible for this?”
“I am,” Savannah said, raising her hand to calm the woman who stood across from them. “It was my choice.”
“Well, thank you for murdering me,” Elanor said. She began to pace back and forth with a frantic energy. Savannah could see the frustration and terror on her face.
“We’ll be fine; we just need to—”
“Need to what?” Elanor shouted. “Need to get our army to protect us? Whose army? Leopold, no doubt, is already ordering his forces to protect his estate, or perhaps he’s going to make a break for it. Either way, he’s going to take his forces with him. That leaves my own force of fifteen personal guards here. Do you know how many peasants are out there? As soon as word spreads, we’re going to have thousands trying to break past the wall!”
“Look, we can talk sense into them,” Savannah replied. “We’ll tell them that the Nobles are willing to surrender and negotiate.”
“Good luck with that.” Elanor shook her head before striding to the door to open it. “Get out. I put my faith in you because I thought you would make the right choice. You could have become the Queen and then shut the Grind down.”
“She made the right choice,” Timon said as he walked up to the exit. “People wouldn’t have liked the Grind being shut down, either. Violence was coming one way or another; at least, this way, we still have the knowledge of the World Before available to us in the Grind.”
“Well, I want nothing to do with either of you,” Elanor said, turning away from them. “You’ve very well condemned me to a brutal death.”
“I’m sorry,” Savannah mumbled. “I really am.”
“Words are cheap,” Elanor growled.
Timon grabbed Savannah by the hand and pulled her out of the pod room. She gasped as they walked out into the hallway. There were bright red roses in a white, ceramic vase sitting on a pedestal nearby. The walls were decorated with brilliant paintings of birds flying through the sky.
“I’ve never seen anything like this before,” she whispered. Her eyes were transfixed on the roses and, for a split second, everything else in the world vanished.
“We don’t have time to admire the roses—let’s move,” Timon said, his hand still firmly around hers.
“What are we supposed to do?” Savannah asked as she snapped out of her daze. The beauty of a Noble’s home should have been on the bottom of her list of concerns right now, but she couldn’t help being distracted by it.
“I would recommend leaving the second wall before the angry mob arrives,” Timon said. “I’ll need to change my clothes, as I’m too conspicuous like this, and then we can make a run for it.”
Savannah agreed, following him out of the luxurious mansion. A few servants caught her eye as they walked to the entrance. Young girls, all of them dressed in fine silks, were busy cleaning the elegant furniture in what she presumed was some sort of sitting or receiving room. “What… what’s going to happen to these people?” she asked as she pointed to the servants.
“I’m not sure,” Timon said. “You saw that mob in the Grind. The rules are about to change severely. Once a servant hears that it’s all a lie, they’ll probably join the mob.”
Savannah nodded halfheartedly, envisioning these young women, probably no older than fourteen, fighting with a mob against the King’s army. There would be a lot of casualties.
“So we’ll stop by my father’s place and tell him what’s coming, and then we’ll get out of here,” Timon said as he continued to pull at Savannah. The grip around her hand wasn’t gentle or loving, but deathly tight. He was afraid, she realized. He was afraid of being killed by the mob that was on its way.
A servant humbly bowed and opened the big red doors leading outside. Savannah gasped as she looked at the many towering houses behind the second wall. Everything was so lush and alive. Plants were everywhere and, in the distance, she could hear rushing water. It was more than she had ever imagined.
“My father’s house isn’t far from here,” Timon said as they walked through the gate of Elanor’s manor and onto the street of the city.
“Something’s wrong,” Savannah whispered as she pried her hand free from Timon’s grasp. “Where is everyone?”
Timon glanced around then, and realized that the opulent district was almost entirely devoid of life. The only sound that could be heard was the rushing of water and wind chimes ge
ntly clinking in the breeze.
“I have no idea,” Timon replied. His hand went down toward his sword. “This isn’t good.”
Four men wearing the insignia of the King came around one of the corners, carrying rifles. “This way,” Timon said as he turned around to run, but there were four more waiting for them in that direction.
“Damn it!” Savannah growled. “Leopold’s going to kill us in real life, isn’t he?”
“Run; I’ll distract them,” Timon said as he pulled his sword free.
“Run where?” Savannah replied as she looked around. “They’re everywhere!” Indeed, the King’s men were pouring out of the woodwork. Doors to houses had opened to reveal weapons, and alleys of escape were shifted closed as men emerged—the only place to run was back into Elanor’s mansion.
“They must have been waiting for us all this time,” Timon mumbled.
“Listen up!” the Captain of the Guard shouted as he raised his rifle high. “In the name of the King, under the legal authorities given to him by powers of old, you are to be arrested for treason! You have sabotaged the Grind, our most esteemed of traditions. We have full authorization to kill you if you resist.”
“Well?” Savannah asked. “Are we doing this or what?” She balled her hands into fists and gritted her teeth.
“Doing what? Fighting back? Those rifles will tear through us and kill us for real.”
“If they have bullets, that is,” Savannah replied.