Binary Systems [Complete, Slice-of-Life Sci-Fi Romance]

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Marie: (photo of freshly showered Marie, grinning in a bath towel) Look, I'm human again! (contrast picture of Marie ten minutes earlier colored a dull orange color with circles of clear skin around just her eyes and mouth). Did I ever tell you about percholoride safety?

Gordon: Did you mean perchlorate?

Marie: Typo. You know what I meant.

Gordon: You look better orange. Give me swamp thing Marie back.

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November 15th, 2090, about 8:30 pm MST, Ghostlands, Ruined Keep (1,400 viewing)

It was a large structure—imagine a shoebox-shaped building with towers at all four corners. The roof was constructed from wooden fences raised on posts, designed to overlook the ground below while staying hidden from enemy archers. The shape of the roof was pointed, much like a traditional Midwestern gabled house.

At intervals along the walls, cruciform windows let in light, allowed air to circulate, and could potentially offer overwatch positions for defenders—everywhere except the east wall.

The east wall was something else entirely. Imagine someone taking a cathedral—with flying buttresses, arched ceilings, and hundred-foot stained-glass windows—and transplanting it straight from Hogwarts. From the inside, it was undoubtedly beautiful. Even from outside in the fading light, the windows glowed warmly in a variety of rainbow hues.

This cathedral portion, along with the rest of the manor, formed the largest wing of the castle. The whole thing was shaped like a giant capital "E"—with the cathedral forming the vertical spine and three massive protruding wings extending from it. These wings were linked to concentric sets of curtain walls, likely once housing servants, guardsmen, stables, and storage.

But that was then. Now, the keep didn't even have a name.

During world generation in Ghost Lands, the place had unfortunately fallen to the dead—along with practically everything else. Fifty years of rot, weather, and collapse had ruined most of it. And yet the stained-glass chapel stood untouched. Gordon figured the developers probably made it indestructible. He couldn't blame them—it was beautiful.

He was doing things a little differently tonight. He wasn't in the mood to talk, so he muted chat and hadn't told anyone he was logging in. But it didn't really matter. He'd just died recently and lost all his progress toward the next level. He'd been reset. This run was practically a freebie.

He had no expensive equipment on him—just the practice sword he'd used for training. Not a real "practice" sword; the game didn't have those. Just a level-one steel blade, functional but basic. No cowboy leathers either—he hadn't replaced them yet—so he wore the commoner outfit his character had spawned in. Just a tunic and pants, each cinched with drawstrings and held together by a little wooden toggle. It was overly appropriate and immersive.

He wasn't in the mood to enjoy it. What he was in the mood for was kicking some ass.

Now that the Matrons were no longer immortal, he could blow off some steam. And maybe—just maybe—if he got a solo clear, that would be cool enough to lift his mood.

He was frustrated.

He didn't understand. Marie had never had a problem with Karen before, and now? Now, she seemed to. And the thing was—there was nothing legitimate for her to be upset about.

Well… okay. Karen had done something stupid. But that didn't mean Marie knew Karen had done something wrong. She was just acting like Karen had done something wrong, and that felt unfair.

Gordon felt defensive. Protective.

Even knowing Karen had messed up, he still felt protective of her. And he hadn't told Marie what had happened. He felt guilty about that.

But things were just going to go back to the way they were… so why should he have to jeopardize that?

He decided it wasn't like he'd really done anything wrong. Hadn't really done anything at all. And yet he'd felt awful about it all day.

Not only had he possibly jeopardized his relationship with Marie by not telling her what happened, but he might've also jeopardized his relationship with Karen—because he didn't know how to follow up. He'd drafted a variety of texts. They all started along the lines of "I value our friendship and I don't know where to go from here, but I don't want you to feel like you can't still be my friend." But he hadn't sent any of them.

He didn't know what to think.

And in thinking about all of it, he realized he was blushing. His face went hot. His stomach twisted, and he felt himself squirm—awkwardness creeping in from somewhere deep and raw. He even caught himself irrationally projecting that discomfort onto his father. Which was stupid. His father had no way of knowing. Even if, sometimes, Gordon loved the man, that wasn't the way his father would've handled things. Not if he'd had all the facts.

No, this wasn't about his dad. This was about humiliation. About stepping into uncharted waters. About uncertainty in what had once been one of the most stable, secure parts of his life.

She'd been a constant.

And now she was a variable.

He wondered how much he might have hurt her, over the years, without realizing. Talking about his love life. Missing subtext. Laughing off things she'd maybe said with double meanings. It was something else entirely to have to second-guess years of your life like that. But then—what must she be feeling?

To work up the courage to make some kind of grand gesture, only to get… radio silence.

Could he have handled that?

Claire had talked about them—the group: him, Harry, Karen, herself—using the term "found family." It had been one of her rare, tender moments, late at night, and more than a little drunk. Gordon had been touched by the idea. He'd believed in it.

Now he wondered if he was too afraid to risk it.

Paralyzed by indecision.

Because he didn't trust the people in his life to understand.

And he wondered if that was unfair of him.

They had always been loners in his family—not on purpose, necessarily, but by default. Their father kept few friends, and the ones he did keep were cut from the same cloth: eccentrics driven by work, or wealth, or duty, or ego. Whatever their motive, they were the most "adult" adults Gordon had ever known. Even in his twenties, an adult himself, he still thought of them that way—people whose lives consisted entirely of adult stuff. Not even the fun kind.

He hoped he'd never age quite that far, mentally. It seemed like a terrible way to go.

Gordon had been relatively well-liked in school. He was tall and athletic, which probably helped offset how quiet he was in class. There had always been people willing to talk to him or share notes. He drove a nice car—a very nice car—and sometime in late high school, he started to understand what that meant. Given who his father was, and how little effort people made to get to know him before wanting to hang out, the amount of trust he could afford to give anyone was… low.

It was one of the "perks" of the family business.

"You are the keeper of secrets," his father had told him. Not back in high school—later.

"The project is too vast. No one knows how the whole thing works. A nuclear engine bonded to another nuclear engine, no less. Balanced by AI. Built right here in Montana. That little building over there? Some of the smartest people in the United States work in it. But if they left us, none of them could give meaningful information to our competitors. You know why?"

Gordon had known.

"Compartmentalization," he said.

His father nodded. "Except you. And Claire."

He'd said her name like an afterthought.

"We're on top. We have to know the business. We have to make sure everyone's doing their bit. And when they are—when the engines are being made properly—our oversight is invisible. People don't realize how much we know. But over time, as we're forced to step in and resolve issues in one department or another, we learn. Because we must. The details. The broad strokes. Enough to know how to get the job done."

His father's voice had lowered.

"And there are people in our own company who will be able to tell. They'll realize we have the background now. We've gained the knowledge. And that makes us juicy targets for corporate espionage. Very juicy."

He paused.

"It would be child's play to pick you up off the street, take you back to a hotel room, and beat the information out of you."

That had been the talk. The one that led to Gordon realizing he needed to carry a firearm.

That talk was the origin point.

That talk had led—directly—to where he was now.

Quickdraw.

It hadn't started as fun.

It hadn't been fun, at first.

By the time he was old enough to truly appreciate what he'd missed out on—friends, a real social life—it already felt too late to build one from scratch.

He was lucky to have met Harry.

They'd been lab partners. Harry hadn't had a clue who Gordon was, didn't know the car he drove was expensive—the door panels barely worked, actually. He used to tease Gordon about it. Didn't know his last name, didn't care.

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

That had surprised Gordon. A good surprise.

It had surprised him just as much when Claire took a liking to Harry—and then, more incredibly, had permitted him to ask her to marry him after only a year of dating. Lots of good surprises there.

But Gordon was feeling alone.

No—that wasn't quite right. Gordon was feeling like he couldn't afford to be alone. He had everything. And risk, now, could only bring him downward.

He wasn't thinking clearly. And he knew it.

But knowing didn't help.

Knowing never helped.

He thought about Marie's warm brown eyes. Then Karen's tearful blue ones. Then the looming weight of his trip to Mars. And he told himself: maybe it would be easier to decide after the move. After he knew for certain that he wasn't just giving up one pillar of his life for nothing.

He was being dramatic. He knew that too.

But some things were dramatic. This was real drama—the kind he'd spent his whole life trying to avoid.

Oh well.

Gordon was committing one of the cardinal sins of reasoning, according to his tutors: procrastination.

The rule he'd been taught was this—if the only thing stopping you from making a decision is missing information, and you know how you'd choose depending on what the answer is, then you've already made up your mind.

If you didn't know whether the moon was made of rock or cheese, but you did know that if it were cheese, you'd eat it—well, then you already knew what you wanted to do. Sight unseen. The unknown didn't matter anymore. The desire did.

But Gordon wasn't thinking straight.

That thought—that rule—sat somewhere in the back of his mind, angrily ranting but distant and ignored.

Up front, all he was thinking about was his frustration, the grip of his sword, his newfound drama, and the ruined castle grounds ahead.

Ghouls slept most of the time. One might stay alert for a while, then slip into torpor. Slowly, then suddenly, they would collapse—draped over rubble or furniture, always in that uncanny, twisted posture. If it was cold, they'd try to wedge themselves into cracks, or cover themselves in debris like rats nesting.

They would lie there. Waiting.

Waiting for the smell of blood.
Or the sound of another ghoul's scream.
Or for someone to touch them.

There were ghouls everywhere.

In the game, they would come all at once—a solid wall of once-living flesh reshaped into abominations. And if nothing else, it would make for very difficult footing. So it was worth it to him: every little bit of energy he saved could matter.

He suspected he probably could kill them all. But could he kill them as easily if they stood between him and where he wanted to go? Maybe not.

Castles were designed so defenders had every advantage. Winding staircases favored someone striking downward with the right hand against an attacker climbing up with the left. That sort of thing. If he had the height advantage, the ghouls had to climb slick stone walls. But if they had the high ground, they could just jump on his head.

No. He was being stealthy. And it pained him to do it without his moccasins.

They hadn't been the grippiest shoes in the world, but they had been enchanted to give him silent footfalls. Surprisingly handy when you do parkour regularly—or sneak as much as he did. Now, clear-headed, he realized he'd always been a fan of the floor is lava.

They'd had one of those smart floors growing up. He'd been almost too old to enjoy it, but she was right in the sweet spot—just the right age to be utterly enchanted by a floor that turned into simulated grass, lava, or ocean on command. She played with her Barbies and RC cars. He didn't remember what all. She'd had parties, probably, and multiple screaming, giggling little girls.

One of them was Karen, making pillow forts.

The memory just… sat there. Idle. Gordon's home had never really felt like a home. It had always been more of a mansion. Each room had a purpose. You didn't bring food into the playroom—that was for toys. You didn't bring toys into the TV room—that was for movies. A home theater, really.

And as they'd grown up, more and more of the rooms had become offices. With dedicated employees assigned to work from them, as the company grew. And Gordon's dad became less and less invested in the life part of home life.

The home part of home life, really, just got checked out.

Weird thoughts. Uncomfortable thoughts.

She had loved that lava floor. And now she had a game where she could summon lava at will.

And then he lost his favorite shoes.

In many ways, it was a lot easier to enter a ghoul-infested castle than it would've been to handle a heavily reinforced human fortress. The drawbridge, for example, was down—but in disrepair. It was just sufficient to squeeze through. Possibly, a number of ghouls had made their own entrance. Or, if not, his plan wasn't elaborate: he would make it as far as a kid sneaking through a school.

His levels of preparation were fair, but if it failed him, he had a backup strategy—hit things until he wasn't upset anymore. Or until he cleared the fortress. Or until his arms hurt.

One of the benefits of VR over traditional gaming was that it enforced a certain amount of physical activity—if you purchased the slightly more expensive haptic suit, rather than opting for NeuroLink. The NeuroLink, which he had been disappointed to discover was the only option available for Martians, lacked the health benefits. There was no way to step away, no way to do wall runs, jump kicks, log rolls—all the different acrobatics to which he was accustomed.

He could barely imagine being constrained to a normal movement set. At least, not fully. His usual setup gave him more options. It enabled him to cut corners and expend less effort—but he didn't rely on that. Sure, there were a lot of things that were inconvenient to do on his omnidirectional treadmill. The cuplike basin wasn't great for log rolls or flips. It was decent for kicks, though. So if he decided he wanted to get out of the way of something quickly, a stored animation of a log roll—used when he didn't feel like pausing and actually performing one—saved time and effort.

Games are all about saving time and effort. Not working too hard.

Rather, games aren't about hard work generally. But that's a far cry from saying hard work was forbidden. For Gordon, having the option in his quiver was an absolute necessity. He wouldn't have made it as far as he had without it.

Still, one of the benefits of the NeuroLink was immersion. He suspected he wouldn't have been quite so quick to turn on the NeuroLink suit and go out to get beaten and clawed by hundreds of zombies—not when the sensations were relatively realistic. As it was, his haptics could shock him, and the tungsten-tipped NeuroLink that came with it could deliver significant discomfort. He wouldn't rate it more than a 3 on the pain scale—but it hurt.

He picked his way around rubble, held his breath, and stepped over the ghoul hidden behind it. Ghouls didn't bleed. They weren't really alive. In game terms, they were some sort of construct. And he could safely dispatch them as he went, slitting their throats.

In fact, that was the reason for the torpor—he was pretty sure ghouls, like other undead creatures, didn't have critical weaknesses. And how else was a rogue supposed to maintain damage output?

But he wasn't far enough in yet—merely the first courtyard of the first set of walls. No sense taking a risk.

Curtain walls, Gordon now realized, weren't really designed with the idea that people would be hitting them. There was a façade of rock—usually a fairly substantial one—but people weren't expected to have the time to sit down, chip away at the mortar, and pry out the core blocks. Or dig through the earth, reach the interior of the wall, and knock out the mortar plugs holding the structural blocks in place.

Not when you were shooting arrows at them. Not when you were pouring oil on their heads.

But if they were zombies—and they were asleep?

If they were zombies, that changed the calculus of castles a little bit.

He hadn't been thinking about that when he set out. If he'd had a motive shovel…

Still, the footwork was very appealing for some reason. Maybe because it was contrary. It went so hard against what people expected. A different approach to sieging was a time-honored tradition in militaries everywhere—but sappers didn't get the glory.

So he shrugged. Next time.

Instead, he climbed the wall.

Climbing a wall dressed like a medieval peasant, while carrying a greatsword, is a lot easier than you'd think—because of the greatsword.

People think about swords like they think about knives. Which is sort of true—they're sharp, they're metal—but knives are too small for you to grip the sides of the blade effectively without cutting yourself. You try to half-sword a steak knife and you're probably just going to bleed.

Half-swording a sword, though, is a little different.

The blade is significantly thicker—maybe an eighth of an inch, even a tenth. Like a metal ruler. That gives you some surface to grip. And greatswords are better still. Greatswords were made with half-swording in mind. They often—even if not always—come with a ricasso, an unsharpened portion near the base of the blade that you're not expected to strike with. It's there to be grabbed, to give you leverage, to let you shorten your reach and put the point of the blade exactly where you want it.

That portion is perfectly safe to hold. And you can usually get a good grip on the rest of the blade too—so long as you know what you're doing and take your time.

The hilt of a greatsword, too, tends to be much longer—maybe a little more ornate, but mostly longer. The crossguard can start to resemble two hooks set back-to-back. And when you've got what is effectively a four-and-a-half- or five-foot-long hook in your hand, gripping the top of a wall and pulling yourself over becomes a lot more doable.

People imagine medieval castles as having forty-foot walls. That's not usually the case. Most castle doors aren't more than twice the height of a man. And most curtain walls aren't more than half again the height of those doors.

So we can conclude most castle walls are something like fifteen to twenty feet tall.

A reasonably athletic man—with a running start—can plant both feet in a wall run, and gain two or three feet of height over his normal vertical jump.

Gordon, for whom parkour was an obsessive dedication rather than just a hobby, could gain even more than that.

And with a hook in hand, extending his reach?

He found that a fifteen-foot wall was not a substantial problem.

–––❖–––

His HUD pinged—text message.

[8:52] Harry: Why are you online this late?

[8:52] Harry : You do realize you're still streaming, right?

Gordon blinked.
He'd forgotten. Or—no, not forgotten. Just... hadn't thought about it.

[8:53] Gordon: Can't turn it off. Contract.

There was a pause.

[8:55] Harry: Ah. Well, I guess we're taking down some ghoulies, then. Be right there.

[8:55] Gordon: Wait—Why?

Too late. A flash of golden light flared at the edge of the ruined grounds. Harry's avatar shimmered into view, fully loaded in his ridiculous artifact gear—shields humming, sword glowing with some kind of holy fire effect, his helmet throwing soft light like a goddamn beacon.

Gordon sighed.

"You weren't supposed to be here," he muttered into proximity chat. "You brought gear!"

"I'm here," Harry said, cheerfully. "Guess we'd better not die."

They moved in silence for a few minutes, weaving between collapsed beams and the slow-twitching limbs of torpid ghouls. Gordon led the way, sword low, eyes scanning for signs of sudden movement.

Behind him, Harry's voice came over comms—casual, offhand. "This is going to be great for the channel."

Gordon didn't reply.

Harry continued, "Clearing out a Matron solo? Brutal. Moody. Cinematic. Claire will salivate."

"You don't have to make it weird," Gordon muttered.

Harry grinned. "Should have thought of that."

They kept moving. Another ghoul lay draped over a shattered altar, ribs flexing subtly. Gordon adjusted his grip.

"Seriously, though," Harry said, more gently this time, "this was a good call. I'm glad you came up with it. Pity the others couldn't make it—but it'll give the fans something different. Raw. Intense."

Gordon frowned.

It took him a moment to realize what Harry was doing.

He hadn't said anything about Gordon sulking. But somehow, in that easy tone of his, Harry had held up a mirror and politely suggested Gordon think about who else might be watching.

Karen.
Marie.
Everyone.

And then he'd handed Gordon an out—made it seem like the whole thing had been Gordon's brilliant idea all along. For the stream. For the brand.

He wasn't just being nice.

Gordon narrowed his eyes slightly as they crouched near the next turn.

Harry had more political acumen than Gordon had ever given him credit for.

"Guess we better make it look good," Gordon said.

"It's me," Harry replied, raising his shield with a grin, "I always look good."