Upload

by Matthew Siege

  "Fascinating," I lied, stepping toward the stream.

  "Not again, Adam..."

  I waved him into silence. I could see the spot where the attack had happened. The powdery sand on the other side had been churned up, and now that I knew what I was looking at I could see where my blood had seeped into it. Here and there lay grisly tidbits the fish had left behind.

  "Toot?"

  "Yes?"

  "I'm going to ask you the same question again. If you brush me off with that 'first floor of the Citadel' nonsense, I'm going to chuck you in the stream and let the puddle piranhas break their teeth on you. Where am I?"

  "I'm not allowed to give an exact location. Even if I did, it wouldn't mean anything to you."

  "What about the scientists and technicians back at the station? Would they be able to use the information to pinpoint the Citadel?"

  He paused for a moment, lost in thought. "The consensus amongst my people is that the outcome you describe is remotely possible, though very highly unlikely. Even if they could, it would be generations before your race harnessed the power and crafted a ship to hold it that was capable of making the journey."

  "Okay. How about a new question, then? Is the Citadel running a simulation?"

  "Yes."

  "A virtual one?"

  "No."

  "Then it's like a dream, or an upload of my consciousness?"

  "The Citadel builds bodies. Your mind is here. The physical things that happen to you within this place have no bearing on the tangible frame that you left behind on your station. In that way, it is a simulation. When your allotted time here is through, your mind will be allowed to return to whence you came."

  "So my old body got eaten over there for real, and now I'm in a new one."

  "Yes."

  "And the suit? It's new, too?" I patted it with my palms, unable to find any holes or tears."

  "Correct."

  "Wait a second..." I looked down at my feet. Sure enough, the helmet was gone. "What about the visor I was wearing?"

  "You didn't have it with you when you died. Something must have taken it, in the last hour."

  "Something? Is that the best you can do?"

  Toot paused. I was beginning to understand that he wasn't thinking so much as he was conferring with the Hive Mind about what he should and shouldn't say. "None of my people are aware of where your helmet went."

  I took a deep breath, trying to convince myself that what he was telling me was the truth. "The real me, the body I lived in for all but the last few hours, is back in the middle of the Labyrinth."

  “With any luck, yes," he said, though the way the word came out sounded like he immediately regretted it.

  "What's that supposed to mean?"

  "I can't say any more regarding the purpose of the Labyrinth."

  I made a face. Did it really matter if I was riding around in a flesh and blood reproduction, as opposed to a virtual simulation like I'd assumed? Probably not, though it was going to take some getting used to.

  "Adam?"

  I shook myself out of the depths of my own thoughts. "Yeah?"

  "Be more careful. Learn what you can here, and save your questions about the station for the people that operate it. You have a whole world to adapt to, and splitting your focus will not be to your benefit."

  I nodded slowly. "Thanks," I told him. "I mean it. That's some damn good advice."

  "You are very welcome."

  I felt a little closer to Toot, and I wanted to end the conversation by asking him something about himself. It'd been way too long since I cared about anything outside of my own skin, and I wanted to prove to him that I could be something other than acerbic. "What is the name of your Faction?"

  "We are the Yvarre'en."

  "Yvarre'en," I repeated. "Am I completely butchering that?"

  I could hear a smile in his response. "It was remarkably close, actually."

  "Have you always guided people through the Citadel?"

  "No. The Yvarre'en challenged the Evvex for control of the Citadel's top floor and lost. Our penalty was the position we currently hold, bonded to these globes and sworn to increase the abilities and knowledge base of existing players, all the while no longer able to partake in a game we came so close to winning."

  Shit. I knew firsthand how hard it was when I was forced to watch someone fuck up something I was good at. This must be torture. "When do you get to play again?"

  "When the Evvex are driven from the top floor."

  "Um... Is it..." How should I put this? "Is it any fun, being a guide?"

  He paused, once more consulting the groupthink. "I am told that it depends on who you are guiding."

  "Right. I get that. I meant for you, Toot. Are you having any fun?"

  "When your name was put on the list and you were assigned to me, I prepared for a grueling mission from which I would never recover."

  I winced. "And were you right about how shitty it would be?"

  "Almost. Now go. You are squandering your time. And watch your step, Adam. That first one's a doozy..."

  CHAPTER TEN

  I gave Toot a wave and got on with it. Now that I was taking the time to be more careful, I saw that the stream was much narrower a little ways up from where I'd attempted to cross it last time. Not wanting a repeat performance, I got up some speed and jumped it like I was trying out for the Olympics.

  I landed high up on the sand and looked back to make sure that I wasn't being stalked by something else that wanted to make me lunch. I didn't see anything hostile. Toot was gone, returning to wherever it was he spent the majority of his time.

  Citadel

  Floor 1

  Area 1

  The Swathe

  The words skipped through my mind before allowing me to focus on the field of flowers ahead. I took a few steps in amongst the wild spray of swaying petals, my nostrils tickled by the overwhelming smell of burnt sugar. I strode through them, and along the way they painted my shins with bright lumps of sticky red, green, and blue pollen.

  A quick glance over my shoulder reassured me that the glade hadn't vanished. It was still there, a place of minor familiarity and questionable safety.

  Even though I'd met my first of possibly many ends beside the stream, I breathed easier knowing that the places I left didn't vanish in the mist. Judging by how quickly I'd burnt my first life, retreat may well often prove to be the wisest course available.

  The clouds overhead still weren't moving, even though the breeze was starting to get gusty. Now and then the wind would build, flattening the flowers to the ground for a moment before they bounced back upright in an act of floral defiance.

  I shielded my eyes with one hand as fat dollops of windborne pollen splatted across both my skin and my clothing. I didn't want to get any in my mouth, but it turned out that was unavoidable. All three colors merged in a prismatic smear that fought past my lips despite my best efforts.

  At least it tasted good...

  Better than good, actually. An electric sort of tingle buzzed beneath the sharp aftertaste of the pollen. I'd been hoping the flowers could be a supplementary food source, but perhaps I'd stumbled onto something more.

  I turned my back on the wind and yanked a few of the plants up, trying to be careful to preserve their pollen content as I twisted the stems around each other. I was happily surprised to find the suit had zippered pockets, and I stored what I'd acquired there.

  Skill: Gather

  The ability to find and secure an organic item. Gather is a prerequisite of Reap.

  Base score - Zero

  New score - One

  That was encouraging. I couldn't help but notice that the prompt had been very careful not to give away whether or not the stuff I was gathering was palatable, though. I might well be knee deep in something that would happily kill me in higher doses.

  But skill progression was skill progression, and I put my head down and got to it. The gains came quickly at first and then slowed
down. I quit when I had a pile of flowers that would've put any florist in the world to shame. I'd raised Gather to Ten, though it'd been at least five minutes since I'd seen any further improvement.

  "If I die," I told myself, "at least I learned something. That's already more than I can say about life back on Earth."

  The wind had started to slow by the time I stepped back and put my hands on my hips, staring down at the piles of flowers I'd separated into each of the three colors. I'd been concentrating so much on increasing my Gather ability that I'd harvested far more than I was going to be able to carry.

  I wasn't sure if I was game enough to eat them just yet, but it'd be a mistake to leave the field without finding out how edible they really were. If only one of them ended up being any good, it was better to find out now so that I could leave the rest behind.

  As I contemplated doing this, I could feel the authors of every survivalist book I'd ever read having a collective heart attack. Screw them. They had a lot of things to worry about that I didn't, death being first and foremost. If the petals ended up killing me, the only thing I'd lose was ten hours.

  "Let's do this," I said under my breath, trying to get my nerve up. I was annoyed at myself for being so chickenshit about it. The pollen had tasted good before. If that wasn't a sign, what was?

  Decision made, I looked over the flowers again. For some reason, the blue ones seemed the safest to eat. Before I could debate the pros and cons any further, I tore a handful of their petals off, stuffing them in my mouth and furiously chewing. A crisp, clean blast that reminded me of mouthwash hit my tongue hard.

  You feel your innate defenses withdraw. Magic has a slightly greater chance to impact you and Magical Status Effects will last 15% longer.

  Okay... That was something. It wasn't exactly what I would have picked for it to do, but I was pleased to find that the flowers did something. A quick glance at my stats revealed an addendum to what I couldn't help but think of as a character sheet.

  Mental Ward *1

  *Normally 2, currently voluntarily reduced by 1

  I guess nobody had put a gun to my head and forced me to eat the flower, so the word voluntarily was technically appropriate.

  There would certainly be cases where I might want magic to be more effective on me. Since that sort of thing might come in handy and I didn't know how plentiful the flowers were in other parts of the Citadel, I made sure to store more of the blue petals in one of my pockets. Despite the negative impact on my statistics, I had to admit that it felt good to know that I could manipulate my statistics a little without having to earn a new level.

  Was it wise to try another color, now that my Mental Ward was lower? Probably not. If the next flower was some sort of magical poison, it'd be more effective than it should be. But, the reason I was trying these in the first place was that I needed information. The first flowers could have killed me. If the green ones did instead, I wouldn't be any more dead...

  Before I could waste any more time flipping mental coins, I tore the head off a green flower and popped it in my mouth. It tasted dark and earthy, like mint leaves marinated in mud.

  You feel rested.

  Seriously? There was no denying that the Citadel version of a nap would come in handy, but it was far from the dramatic effect I'd been hoping for.

  I checked my character sheet again and didn't see any associated changes or notifications. At least I wasn't coughing up my lungs.

  That was better than nothing.

  Next came the red ones. I didn't bother to play the 'should I or shouldn't I?' game this time, though these were going to be harder to eat because of how brittle they'd already become. When I'd picked them they'd been as lush and supple as all the rest, but now the petals were crumbling to a flaky powder.

  I had to shield the handful of red flecks from the wind as I poured it into my mouth. The taste was far spicier than I was expecting, made worse by its dryness. The stuff stuck to my tongue and I started to wonder what the fuck I was going to do if my mouth caught on fire.

  You feel warmer.

  No shit. A pulse of subdued heat bled out from my spine, swirling along my limbs and then lazily circulating through the rest of my system.

  "Toot?" I called, hoping he'd been lying when he'd said he wouldn't be a constant source of advice. I wanted to ask him if he had a recipe book for combining the flowers or a backpack I could buy or borrow to store them in.

  He didn't show up.

  "Thanks for nothing, by the way..."

  I heard a noise behind me and rolled my eyes. It figured that he'd give me a hard time answering my call, especially after I'd been too headstrong to get a full rundown of the Citadel before heading off. "You were right and I was wrong. I should have asked you a lot more questions before I began. That's what you want to hear, right?"

  No response. I'd only known Toot for a short time. Sarcasm and blunt observations were certainly key components of his personality, but this sulky, school-yard bitchiness was new.

  Without warning, the hair on the back of my neck stood up a little.

  Species Specific Skill: Scopaesthesia

  Some members of the Human Faction have the innate ability to know when another creature is watching them. You are one of them.

  Base score - Five

  New score - Six

  I spun around and dropped into as near a fighting stance as I could muster. I'd done some martial arts training when I was a teenager and muscle memory brought a little of it to the forefront. It probably wouldn't do much for me, but it was all that I had.

  Sixty yards of flowers swayed between me and the thing staring at me. Its big body was stocky and utilitarian, the blunt head almost exactly as wide as its broad shoulders. I couldn't make out from here how many pairs of eyes it had, but it looked like a lot.

  The strangest thing about it was its arms. Only two of them suited its frame, muscular and so short that the stubby-fingered hands didn't even reach its waist. They weren't able to do much more for it than hold open a roughly fashioned burlap sack.

  That didn't matter though, since the other four arms it owned were spindly and spider-like. They were fast too, constant industrious blurs that easily stretched from its back to snip the heads off of flowers with chitinous claws.

  It was difficult to say at this distance exactly how big or heavy the being was, but it looked like it weighed as much as a car. Even from here I felt the ground rumble ever so slightly when it took a step toward me.

  I really, really needed to get my head out of my ass and start paying attention. If a thing that ponderous could sneak up on me, I was going to be spending a lot of my thirteen days waiting to respawn after a litany of very messy and utterly avoidable demises.

  Not for the first time, I looked around for a weapon and came up empty. If it charged me, I'd better concentrate on getting out of the way and ditch any thoughts of a counterattack.

  "I come in peace," I told it, trying to wave in as non-threatening a manner as possible. I looked past it. I was relieved when I didn't see any more of them in the distance, not that I could see very much in the bright haze that swallowed the horizon.

  As near as I could tell, we were alone.

  It let out a deep, rolling grunt at me. I waited for a prompt telling me that my ability to communicate with alien beings had increased, but I was out of luck.

  I was about to say 'Let's be friends', but I cut to the chase and went with, "Don't kill me, okay?" instead.

  Apparently grunting was as non-committal a response up here as it was back on Earth, because all it did was grunt in my direction again.

  I nodded. "If it's between that and getting mauled, you've got my permission to grunt away."

  Unwilling to change our dynamic too much, I went back to gathering flowers. I'd worry about moving on once I had a feel for it. Until then, the best thing for me to do was to mind my own business and appear as non-threatening as I could.

  To pass the time, I picked up and at
e one of the stems from the blue flowers. It tasted bitter, but I didn't get any inkling that it temporarily changed me the way the petals had. Once I'd swallowed the last of it though, I was rewarded with more information.

  Skill: Organic Scrutiny

  The ability to investigate and identify the effects of an organic item.

  Base score - Twenty-Five

  New score - Twenty-Six

  Organic Scrutiny only applies once all of an item's core components have been investigated.

  Item: Blue Sky Blossom

  Blue Sky Blossoms bring clarity. They can be eaten raw, boiled into a tea or ground into a poultice.

  Item: Blue Sky Petal

  Effect: Mental Ward lowered by 1

  Effect: Magical Status changes will last 15% longer

  Item: Sky Blossom Tea

  Effect: Mental Ward lowered to 0

  Effect: Magical Status Effects will last 30% longer

  Item: Sky Poultice

  Effect: Dream State

  I wrinkled my nose at that last one. What the fuck was a Dream State?

  Whatever it was, I was going to have to make sure to bring enough petals with me to make a poultice if I wanted to find out. Right now I just wanted to repeat the process with the other flowers to see what I could learn.

  The green petal's stem was dark and far coarser than that of the Blue Sky Blossom, but I choked it down anyway.

  Skill: Organic Scrutiny

  The ability to investigate and identify the effects of an organic item.

  Base score - Twenty-Six

  New score - Twenty-Seven

  Organic Scrutiny only applies once all of an item's core components have been investigated.