Phantasm

I knew that I’d made a mistake the second I stepped through the portal. I fell to my knees and would have fallen further if Felicia, right behind me, hadn’t rushed forward to catch me. I wasn’t sick or injured, I was just stunned by the memory I’d just received. This one wasn’t like the others.

It started with Reggie turning up the volume on the presentation.

“—founder of Binary Nexus Technologies. We stand at the dawn of a new era in computing, where the boundaries of artificial intelligence and data processing are constantly being redefined. Our mission at Binary Nexus is to lead this charge, creating solutions that are not merely cutting-edge but also transformative in their potential to revolutionize the data processing industry. Today, I am thrilled to share our vision, our groundbreaking technology, and the remarkable opportunities that lie ahead for us all.”

Past me had relaxed, letting the familiar flow of words rush past me. I might not have heard this speech a hundred times, but I was still new.

“But before we begin, I’d like to present our team. Liam Johnson, our chief financial officer, Trica Maynard, our—”

“Hold it,” Fyskal said.

Everything froze, except for me. And Fyskal who was suddenly standing by my side.

“What’s going on? What are you doing?” I asked. I felt a headache starting to form. I hadn’t asked this before, but I now remembered doing so… this wasn’t how memory was supposed to work.

“Curse this HDMI resolution,” the god said. “Why couldn’t you have attended in person?”

“Where were you when this started?” I countered. “You’ve been awfully silent in the face of recent revelations.”

Fyskal shrugged. “We didn’t know about the memories,” he said. “They were… outside our purview, so to speak. And they didn’t seem to have anything to do with your task here. So, we kept quiet.”

“So what, again, are you doing in my memories?”

Fyskal shook his head. “I need confirmation,” he said.

“Well, of course, I don’t believe you,” Ashmor said. He was here now too, still in his snazzy red suit. He gave me a sardonic bow.

“Nice place you’ve got here,” he said.

“I don’t recall inviting either of you into it,” I replied testily.

“I suppose not,” Ashmor agreed. He glanced over at the monitor and became just as intent on it as Fyskal had. “This is fresh? Untouched? I can’t see any way that you might have modified it.”

“It’s just as you see,” Fyskal said. “I haven’t changed a thing.”

“Oi!” I yelled. “Either explain yourselves or get out!”

“We, too would like an explanation,” a new voice said. I whirled around to see not one new god, but a bunch of them. All seven of them, if my quick count was right.

I may have made some kind of a yeep sound, but they ignored me.

“Fyskel, what do you think you are doing, inviting Ashmor into the mind of my Champion?” one of the women asked. I gave her a closer look.

I guess the whole Patron/Champion mystery is old news now, I thought.

Whoever she was, she had long, flowing black hair, streaked with silver. Actual silver, not the light grey that people called silver. Crystalline blue eyes were giving Fyskal a glare so pure that I bet it would hurt if it was directed at me.

She was dressed in something like modern clothing. A deep emerald-green blouse, subtly patterned in a way that I couldn’t make out from here. Black pants. The shawl she was wearing was a bit of a giveaway though. I don’t think modern fabrics boasted anything quite so shimmery.

“Hold on,” was all that Fyskal said. It didn’t seem to assuage her.

“There are enough of us to evict you—forcefully— from this mind, Fyskal,” she said coldly.

“I know, I know, just—”

“It’s her,” Ashmor stated with flat finality. “It’s Ix.”

“No, it’s not,” another god said. This one had midnight black skin and pure white hair. “That is an image, taken from a memory, of a human. Not our predecessor.”

“It is, though,” Fyskal said. “I don’t know how, or why… but it is. You never knew her like we did.”

“Nobody knew her at all, except for you two!” my Patron yelled. I was pretty sure that she matched up with descriptions I’d read of Toraio. Gods could appear in any way they wanted, but they did have preferences.

“The least trustworthy of any of us,” another god continued. From the way that her hair and clothes appeared to be made of lushly growing plants, I was going to assume that was Naldyna. “The two who killed her.”

“It took three of us to do that,” Fyskal said. “But yes, we knew her, you didn’t. So believe me when I tell you: that is her!”

“So what?” another god asked. This one looked like the Old Testament god. White hair, flowing beard, still hale and vigorous despite his age. There was a blue tinge to his hair and skin that made him look otherworldly.

“Say we believed you— which we don’t—” he continued. “It’s only a memory. How does that affect the game we’re playing right now? A game, I remind you, that countless mortals have a stake in.”

Fyskal glared back at the icy old man, but it was Ashmor who answered.

“It does not,” he said. “Its importance is far beyond your petty plaything, or the lives of the mortals that you hold so dear.”

The old man glared at Ashmor. Mist seemed to be forming around him. Icy crystals started falling at his feet like snow.

“You’re not welcome here, Ashmor,” the old man said. “If we have to start a new round because we destroyed Toriao’s pawn fighting to get you out of here, then so be it.”

“I wouldn’t dream of putting you to such lengths,” Ashmor said urbanely. “After all, it wouldn’t do to destroy the source of such revelations before she’s done revealing them, would it?”

He winked at me and then winked out.

“Fyskal,” Toriao said warningly. Fyskal held up a hand in surrender.

“Fine, fine,” Fyskal said. “I got what I needed. I’ll go.” He looked over at me like he was going to say something but just vanished instead. When I looked back at the others, they were gone too.

Time restarted and I doubled over, dizzy and nauseous.

“Are you all right?” Reggie asked.

I shook my head. He hadn’t said that before. My memory was changing underneath me again.

“I’ll be fine,” I said. “Just a little queasy.” I needed to get the memory back on track or this headache would keep up. I leaned back in my seat and tried to pay attention to the presentation, but the words just merged into babel.

Did this mean that my memory was corrupted? What happened to the information I learned when this memory occurred?

Once Reggie’s attention turned back to the screen, I could feel that the dissonance was reduced. Words started making sense again, and I could follow the speech. At least the words. Malcolm was about to start the simulation and I was missing the context to understand what he was about to do. I winced at the thought, but I needed to do it.

“Sorry, I zoned out. What kind of simulation is he going to run?”

Reggie looked at me in surprise, but I suppose my earlier queasiness was excuse enough.

“Oh, we’re going to connect to a universe very similar to ours! So similar in fact that it has another version of this startup! Having an investor meeting!”

I immediately felt my headache return, and I wasn’t sure if it was from the memory dissonance.

“You mean you’re going to talk to…”

“Yes!” Reggie said eagerly. “We’re going to convince their investors, and they’re going to convince ours!”

“That’s messed up,” Dace murmured. “Are you sure it’s just a simulation?”

“Oh yes,” Reggie said. “Nothing but numbers. We spent a week testing for gravity fluctuations, just to be sure! Even when we generate a universe where something physical comes through the wormhole, it just becomes a part of the existing simulation.”

With a flourish, Malcolm pressed the enter key on his ceremonial keyboard. There was a hushed pause, that extended while the simulation booted up. The monitor went to a split screen, half showing the presentation room, and the other showing the screen of Malcolm’s computer.

The techs had no doubt worried about keeping the money’s attention during this phase, so they had made some reassuring status messages to show their progress. “Initialising variables”, “Starting core processing”, that sort of thing. It was all pretty normal until the last two.

“Signal detected.”

“Opening video stream.”

The text messages disappeared, replaced by a video feed of… another investor meeting. Not our meeting, though there were some similarities. Malcolm was at both of them, and the pair gave each other a wink. Our team had been replaced by what looked like a Japanese delegation. We all looked at each other in shock.

The Malcolms opened their mouths to say something, and that was when everything went wrong.

At first, I thought that Fyskal had frozen the memory again, but this was not that. Pieces of the memory, pieces of the world, were freezing. There wasn’t any kind of order to it, random chunks of the world were just starting and stopping.

I saw half of my boss freeze. He started at his frozen half in shock and jumped away from his frozen self. Or, at least, half of him did. The rest of him stayed right where he was. Like a road runner cartoon, for a brief instant, it seemed like his half-body would just keep going like that. Then the blood started to burst out.

The feed cut out.

The memory ended.

I was back in the dungeon. Felica was holding me.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Just— just a memory,” I replied. “And the gods, shitting all over my head.”

Borys looked at me curiously. “I look forward to hearing about it,” he said. “But it can probably wait until we find out what sort of madness we’ve stepped into.”

He pointed, and I looked around. We were in an underground bunker, or at least that was what it looked like. No windows, concrete walls, and metal support beams were visible. Borys was pointing to a metal door with a wheel that you turned to open.

“Nice of Axel to give us a fortified starting position,” I said.

“Our phones still work,” Borys said. “Axel isn’t talking, he doesn’t want to spoil our reaction, he said. The guns still work, but I doubt we’ll be able to recharge them.”

“Right,” I said. I took a deep breath and stood. “Let’s see what we’ve got.”

Kyle opened the door, while Borys and Cloirdan stood guard. I was going to send out a phantasmal emissary to scout. It took a few turns, but then there was a clank as the bolts came free.

As soon as the door cracked open, we could hear the sounds of gunfire and explosions.

“More guns,” Borys said, “Maybe we will be able to recharge them after all.”

He was really getting attached to the things. I had to admit to liking them myself. We pulled the door open enough for me to cast through the gap. Leaning against the wall, I focussed on my other self, climbing up the short flight of stairs to see what was going on. The gunfire hadn’t stopped.

Looking around, I mostly saw rubble. The sky was lit like it was an overcast day, grey clouds scudding by, not far off the ground. The buildings around me looked to have been three to five stories high before being partially destroyed.

“This… doesn’t look great,” I said to the group inside the bunker with me.

A grinding sound came from around the corner, and I crept my Emissary over to take a look.

“Oh, no,” I said.

[Identification]: - Panzer II - Threat: 24 - Properties: Armored, Ranged Attack

“It’s a World War Two simulation,” I told the others. Well, Borys was the only one who understood me. “And the tanks are monsters.”