Rising Shards

I didn’t have time to debate it much. If anyone back home noticed I was in the void, I was on borrowed time to get what I needed.

“Sorry Kiki, this has to be a short visit,” I said. “But I’ll try to visit again soon!”

Kiki nodded. “If you see Arctus, tell him we all miss him greatly here.”

“I will.” I said.

After we left the village, 09 reconfigured her traversal bowl to Aira and Laenie’s location by clicking that disk Caya gave her onto it.

“Now, this is a dangerous spot,” 09 said, her irises glowing in blinks as she scanned information. “Aira and Laenie have been there all week.”

I hadn’t heard anything from Aira and Laenie in the group chat for a while. The longest I’d spent in the void was most of a day. But a whole week there sounded like a lot.

“Is this the first time you’ve been there?” I asked.

“No, I’ve been scouting all week,” 09 said. “Sticking close to the group but not too close. Spero’s kind of an outlaw city in the void, lots of crimes and such going on there. Aira and Laenie have been trying to get information leading them forward on their mission, without much luck. Also, my aunt has been hounding them, so I guess I’m not surprised they’re not making progress.”

“Kitty?” I asked. I fortunately hadn’t had to run into Kitty Kilander since her grand debut during Fang Moon Web.

“Uh huh.” 09 said. “I’m pretty good at staying out of sight, so I’ll make sure she doesn’t spot you either.”

“Good, good,” I said.

“You ready?" 09 asked. "I have waypoints set for the source of the retention sprite’s maker and Aira and Laenie’s group ready. So I can take you right to where you have to go.”

“I um,” I said as my voice failed me. “I’m…I’m ready.”

09 grabbed my wrist and scraped one of her fangs on her rosin before dropping it in the bowl. We lurched to a new place.

When we came to, we stood on a bustling, grim city street. It must have just stopped raining, as the sidewalk was drenched. Everything was incredibly loud, from the sounds of pedestrians walking around, loud cars, loud music, and loud bright neon lights that seemed to cover every building. Things even smelled loud somehow. It was immediate sensory overload.

“So this is—” I started before a speeding vehicle almost immediately ran me over. It was moving so fast it looked like it was flying. Once I got myself calmed down from that, 09 brought up her waypoints.

“I guess it’s not the most inconceivable thing, but…” 09 started. The two dots were in the same building, but on separate floors. She pointed to the end of the block, towards a bleak looking skyscraper. “This is one of the hotels here. Aira said they’ve been mostly just hanging out in there. And then the other spot a few floors up…”

A tiny blinking dot was the source of the retention sprite that reached out to me. According to it, the real Arctus sent it to find me. My real parents were maybe just a block away. I didn’t know what to say, so I followed 09 down the street, fortunately not getting nearly run over again. Everyone around us was a Cani, Kanibari, or mostly robotic like the Exumi. There were probably other groups (species I guess?) as well that I didn’t notice, but the ones familiar to me jumped out to me. I noticed that past the neon signs on everything, a weird sludgy substance coated the buildings.

“It’s fruit,” 09 explained. “For some reason they mash up fruit and put it on all the outside walls here.”

“Makes sense,” I said, even though that made no sense.

The hotel was just as loud inside as the city outside. Nobody paid much attention to us as we walked to the elevators.

“So is this Spero station like a space station?” I asked as we got inside. Elevators in Spero looked like regular elevators, mercifully without the big neon lights from outside. “Are we like floating in void space right now?”

“Yep,” 09 said.

“Hm, hm, that’s weird,” I said. I was mostly just babbling because I was maybe about to meet my parents, and it was starting to sink in how far I’d gone in just a few minutes. “Weird that void stations are even a thing. We maybe learned about that in class, I’m not sure.”

“Are you nervous?” 09 asked.

“Very.” I said.

“I wouldn’t be,” 09 said. “I have a really good feeling about this for you.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I hope…I just. I’m hopeful, too. I guess. I don’t know what I’m saying.”

“Get it out of your system now,” 09 said as she pressed the floor buttons. “Or not, I’m sure they won’t get on your case if you’re a little nervous seeing them.”

“Which floor…are we going to first?” I asked as we started to go up. “I mean, I’m fine with whatever. But if you need to check on the others before my thing…”

“I’ll get you to where you need to go, then I’ll go take care of my business.” 09 said.

“OK,” I said. “Thank you. You don’t know how much this means to me.” The elevator moved quickly to my floor. “This is happening so fast, I’m not dreaming, am I?”

“No, unless we’re in a shared dream.” 09 said. “But clybrid dreams usually involve us subconsciously pulling in a lot of social media feeds so they’re kind of a mess and involve a lot of text."

I followed 09 as she brought me to the waypoint marker she got from the retention sprite. I barely noticed anything about the halls as we walked through them. I just stared at the carpet as 09 led me to to a room with symbols on it I didn’t recognize. It took me until then to realize that Spero probably had different languages for everything. While I was pondering that, 09 just up and knocked on the door.

“Hey, wait!” I said. “I’m not ready!”

“Sorry, I have to go,” 09 said. “Good luck with your parents, Zeta.”

“Wait, wait,” I said. “Can’t you stay to just make sure…”

“I really have to go,” 09 said. “I’m running a bit late already.” She patted my shoulders. “It’ll be fine. It’d be better if I’m not there.”

“But…” I said, suddenly not wanting to be alone for this. I didn’t have the brain capacity to form a good argument for why though, so 09 took off. I heard rustling within the room. “Wait, this really is happening way too fast, I didn’t have time to rehearse anything! OK, maybe they didn’t hear that. Maybe they can’t hear me talking to myself right now…then if they don’t answer, that will give me time to—"

The door opened.