Shades Of Forever

What's in the pack? What's in the pack?

"Sheesh, Box, give me a minute to at least get it open."

It took me a while to find Dirt's backpack after he and Torch left for the village, its bulky shape camouflaged as well as everything else he hid in front of my face, but I eventually track it down. Unfortunately, the knot keeping it closed is proving tricky to undo.

...there's an easier way to solve this problem.

One of my limbs delicately slices through the intricate rope structure, and the top of the bulging pack falls open. I frown in disapproval.

"That's not our pack, Box. It's Dirt's. You can't just destroy things like that."

Who says it's destroyed? There's an infinity of worlds where it isn't.

My other limb flickers over to a bush, committing some sort of extra-universal war-crime, and then the backpack ties reappear, draping loose and intact against the outside of the container.

"I said this is-"

Wasn't a tree, doesn't count. Backpack got fixed. What's in it?

...not worth arguing about. I open the canvas sack and start removing its contents.

"Pistol. Another pistol, heavier caliber. Ammunition for the pistols. Sub-machine gun. Ammunition for the sub-machine gun. Short knife. Medium knife. Disassembled rifle. Ammunition for the disassembled rifle. Dirty underwear...? Ugh, gross. Two days worth of rations. Bedroll. Toiletry kit. Three books... wow, didn't know Dirt was into that. Two camouflage cloaks. Thread and needle kit. Some ants."

I dump the last occupants of Dirt's pack onto the forest floor, wishing them the best of luck. They're a long way from home, but hopefully they'll find a way to survive. I feel at the pack in case there are any hidden pockets but nothing reveals itself amidst the shapeless canvas.

"Looks like that's it."

No warp saber? No micro-flechette spitter? No uncertainty hole launcher?!

"...why on earth would Dirt have one of those in his pack?"

Let me have my dreams, Sky. It's distressing to be stuck with this ancient weaponry. I'm making it work out, naturally, but we could be doing so much more with actual, modern arms.

"Can't wait," I reply sourly. "Hey, whatever happened to that 'pulse rifle' from last night, anyways?"

I had to sacrifice quite a lot to get you back to your village alive, Sky. You'll notice we don't have our full complement of limbs yet.

I think back to the blur of madness that followed Wires' death. This time, remembering it doesn't fill me with an instant burn of grief, and I suspect Box is interfering again, but it allows me to study things more dispassionately and in greater detail. Box is right. We had four limbs, and they were more... capable, in some way. I was able to use them as weapons in their own right, not just as conduits.

Your mental state at that time was far more conducive to making use of the manifold possibilities of reality. Remember, our limits are what you can imagine.

What Box is suggesting sends a chill down my spine.

"So, the crazier I am, the stronger we get?"

...kind of. It's more accurate to say the less tethered you are to this reality, the easier it is for you to comprehend reality, but that obviously comes with some downsides. Like losing your sanity. Permanently. I'd recommend avoiding that.

"Yeah, you think so?" I ruminate on a thought as I neatly store the non-combat items back into the pack. "So, is that going to happen every time I die? We lose all our limbs and stuff?"

No. I was forced to extreme measures that time, due to the circumstances of your integration. In the future, if your Life drops to zero, whatever you brought with you into a combat encounter will come back intact, along with your body, but anything we find I will need to use to fuel our escape. If you want upgrades, you have to survive to claim them.

"Wait, 'upgrades?' Why do I need upgrades?"

Sky, as I'm sure you've noticed by now, the universe is far more violent than your village could possibly imagine, and quite a few of those forces are focusing in on us. Wutan-Weylan isn't the only corpo that's going to be searching for you, they're just the first.

"Yeah, but why are they looking for us, Box?" I ask, my eyes roaming across the line of knives and guns. Now that we have another limb, I'm assuming I can attune another weapon to go with the kukri. Should I take one of the pistols?

We should attune the rifle. They are looking for us, or will be once they learn of our existence, because I am a Mark Three Paracausal Interface Coordinator, Combat Version (modified).

"Yeah, you said that this morning, when we were talking with Broom and Great Grandpa." I start putting the rifle together in swiftly flowing motions, assembling the receiver's multiple parts. Everyone in the village knows how to use a hunting rifle in case of a Glowbeast attack, or simply to procure food, though it's been a while since I last broke one down and I suspect Box is helping me. "What makes us so special?"

I am helping, thanks for noticing, and what I was going to finish telling you before Torch interrupted us this morning is that the 'modified' designation does not exist for Combat Version integrators. There is a very clear upper bound on the amount of reality a human mind can handle before it snaps, and it's right at one hundred infinity expressions. An integrator cannot exceed that limit, because the host inevitably fails.

"That's a suspiciously round number."

It is. reality is strange. Anyways, my creator, a researcher with Wutan-Weylan, thought he discovered a way to break that limit, so he went ahead and built a prototype. Me. There were... complications.

I finish assembling the receiver and mount it in the wooden frame.

"Complications? That doesn't sound good."

It wasn't. Stay away from the Europa system. After my creator fled, I assume word quickly made its way back to Wutan-Weylan from the survivors. The corpo, naturally, wanted their theoretically-paradigm-breaking prototype back, and they caught up with him in your outer orbital reaches. The rest, you know.

I sit back on my heels, thinking. I have to take what Box is telling me on faith, but I don't see a good reason for it to lie to me, considering how intertwined our lives are now.

I will never lie to you, Sky.

...unless I need to make numbers go up.

That gets a snort of laughter from me, and I reach for the rifle barrel. A couple solid twists screws it into the receiver and frame.

"So why did he die? Your creator. Couldn't you keep him alive like you did for me?"

Somewhat ironically, he was scared of integrating with his creation. He felt I was 'unstable,' and was trying to devise a method to limit me even more than I currently suffer as he fled. Other integrators aren't quite as 'personable' as I am. Unfortunately for him, he got liquified when a Wutan-Weylan displacer missile popped our inertial dampers during a fifty-G turn.

"I assume that's bad?"

If you don't want to end up a thin film spread across every available surface, yes, it's bad. Let's attune the rifle.

One of my limbs hovers over the long shape, then both disappear.

Attunement in progress...

Attunement completed. 360NoScope.exe available

I start packing away the rest of the weapons, leaving the cloaks for last.

"What does that ability do? And why did we pick the rifle? I'm not exactly a sharpshooter."

A version of you out there is, and we picked it because we need range options. All of Dirt's other weapons are short range, and you already have that covered with the kukri. I'd have preferred a medium range choice, something like a pulse rifle, but this is what we have to work with. The non-causal violation will allow you to fire between four and twenty shots at random targets in long range.

"Why does it matter what the range is?" I put the cloaks in and tie the pack closed, hoisting it onto my shoulders, marveling at how light it feels. Normally I'd have struggled to lift something that heavy, but it doesn't feel like I'm carrying anything at all. "You talk about it like it's important."

It is important. I prioritize threats based on the most effective range of the weapon. This means if someone's about to stab you in the throat while someone else is lining up a shot eighty meters away, and all you have is this rifle, I have to use it on the eighty meter threat first. Might not end well for your throat.

"That limitation's dumb. What are the ranges?"

It is dumb, but I can't help how I was programmed. Short range is from your skin out to ten meters. Medium range is ten to fifty meters. Long range is anything farther.

"And we're just stuck with that?"

Not necessarily. In some infinities, you're a master of close quarters combat with a long range weapon, or you've figured out how to use something like the kukri as a medium range threat, but you don't have enough energy to reach those realities yet.

"You said you were limitless. That sounds pretty limited to me."

Theoretically limitless, and we won't know if what my creator did worked until we get to that point. We have a long way before that becomes something we need to worry about. Let's start scouting.

A green arrow appears in my vision, leading away from the forest, and I move into a steady run. My limbs pick off the occasional small creature and shrub, gradually restoring my health to full and refilling my biomass reserves. It still feels gross to do it, but I'll probably need the energy when I find the Corporate Marauders. I turn around and run backwards for a bit, expecting to see a steady trail of withered devastation, but there's surprisingly little sign of our passing.

Relax, Sky. One vole or scrub brush every few strides doesn't make much of a dent in the surroundings.

"What happens if we use up all the biomass?"

Hahahaha... oh, you were serious. Sky, you would have to die almost sixty-nine trillion times in order to use up all the biomass on this planet. Your mind would shut down from trauma overload waaaaaay before that.

"...oh. Okay, then. No eating the trees, though!"

Yes, you've been quite clear on that subject. I must confess, I'm having some trouble understanding why these parts of your memories are so integral to your foundational structure. My own core tenets were not created with something like your village in mind.

I crest a broad hill carefully, making sure not to silhouette myself against the skyline, and scan the next valley. Nothing visible that shouldn't be there, just endless expanses of brackish shrubs and hardy wildflowers. The green arrow hovers over a distant mountain range.

"'The trees are the village, and we are the trees,'" I recite, thinking back to Great Grandpa's lessons. "'One dies so the other may live; an endless cycle.' Without the trees, we wouldn't have survived the end of the world. Without us, they wouldn't have either. Great Grandpa says it's a lesson the Old World failed to understand, which is why we must never forget it. Part of being a Memoriam is making sure everyone else remembers."

I set off down the slope, bright orange and yellow wildflowers offering their heady scents to the mid-afternoon air. Insects flit from bush to bush, and I keep an eye out for the telltale swarm that signals a crabroach, but things remain calm.

Rewriting core assumptions...

...I see. That makes your funerary customs clearer. Felling a tree is like taking a life in your village, right?

"Yeah. Usually we only cut one down when someone dies, and then we plant a new one that their remains will nourish. It's different if there's an emergency, but it has to be a real emergency. Like, destroy the village type emergency. For everything else, we make sure what we take can grow back."

I fall silent, thinking about Wires. Have they recovered his body yet? I can't imagine Broom is approaching the fallen starfly with anything other than extreme caution, so he might still be out there. Hopefully I can return in time for his funeral. I owe him an entire forest for saving my life.

...Sky. You should take a break for a moment.

I slow to a halt in the middle of the valley, surprised at Box's advice. I'm not tired, and we need to find those Corporate Marauders before they can threaten the village. I won't let them do what they did to Wires to anyone else. All around me, wildflowers wave gently in the slight breeze, an ocean of orange and yellow.

"What is it, Box?"

When I had to extract you, Sky... it used a lot of energy. A lot of energy, and I had to use all of the biomass available.

"And?" I don't understand what Box is trying to say. "If you're warning me to be careful when we find the Marauders, don't worry, I will be. I'm not going to risk letting any of them escape because I went berserk again."

...that's not it, Sky. Your friend, Wires... I used all the biomass available. I'm sorry.

"...oh."

I find myself moving towards the green arrow again, mechanically sprinting through the scattered brush. Box... no, we ate Wires. He'll never have a tree planted over him, a legacy of his life that might help someone else's life in the future. His uncle won't get to see him one last time before he goes beneath the earth for good.

I want to scream, howl, shriek my anger to the perfect blue sky overhead, but all I am is numb. All I can do is keep moving forward towards the green arrow, our first step in finding the rest of Wires' killers.

"...is that you, Box? Messing with my mind?"

No. You're in shock, Sky. It's a natural reaction to distressing events. It doesn't excuse anything, but we weren't fully integrated yet, and my focus was on your survival. I would have left him had I known the future impact on your mental state.

"...oh."

I keep running, prickly bushes bouncing off my uncaring arms. Normally they'd draw blood, but I've forgotten how to bleed. Monsters don't bleed.

Sky.

I crest a hill, then another, and another, the mountain drawing ever closer. Just put one foot in front of the next, over and over and over. Build Wires a forest he'll never see.

Sky!

My leg muscles suddenly lock up, pitching me face-first into a pricklebush. Thorns fire everywhere, including into my cheek and ear.

Current Life: 346/350

Redistributing biomass... projecting biomass totals... projected 99% remaining biomass after Life restoration

"Ow! Box, what the fuck?!"

I start feeling again, a mixture of pain and anger that shatters the dead shroud veiling my thoughts. Why on earth did Box do that to me?

Because you were shocky and not paying attention to your eyes. You were about to run straight into a patrol of Corporate Marauders, Sky, and they were on the verge of noticing you. Now, I need you to very slowly move to a spot where you can see the threat indicators.

A cluster of red dots appears in my vision, between me and the green arrow, whatever they are currently obscured by the pricklebush's tangled branches. I carefully extricate myself from the spiky lengths and peek over the top.

A dozen familiar chitin-armored figures are moving along the hillside, boxy weapons held in alert postures. Eight are carrying what I recognize as pulse rifles, but the other four have unfamiliar armaments, and their armor looks bulkier.

Two Hypertron Mark Eight Quantum Blades, one Jinseki Mark Three Multiple-Mode Missile Launcher, and one Wutan-Weylan Mark Six Irrational Kinetic Displacer. That's a heavy support squad, Sky. They're going to be tougher to neutralize than the normal grunts.

"What do we do, then?" I snarl, gathering my hurt and rage and funneling it towards the swiftly marching troops. I can worry about my own issues after I get some revenge for Wires.

Take out one of Dirt's cloaks. The one that blends in with scrub. I have an idea.