I shouldn’t be surprised. A project like uplifting all the paindne definitely required researchers, but to have it so blatantly spelled out in front of me is still shocking. But… wait. That is a paindne in the liquid. Weren’t the constructs made before the paindne were uplifted? Do I have the timelines wrong?

  Probably. Doesn’t change that there’s a body in there–and if simulacra is just another word for the constructs–that the system used it as a base. The construct up there with Jumble and Euro got an electric shock, too, when we showed it the hexagonal table anomaly. Does that mean it is the construct referenced here?

  “They copied over a paindne’s brain to make a construct.” Pearl murmurs. “But it didn’t feel like each of them had a brain. Is it only the ones in quests that were made like that?”

  “Could be–or maybe they’re all just recreations. Not that it matters, anyway.” I brush my hand over the glass, clearing away some of the minimal frost. “Unless there’s still a connection between the bodies and the constructs, there’s nothing we can do with this information. All these paindne died a long, long time ago, and the system has full control over them.”

  Pearl frowns, then slowly shakes her head. “I’m not so sure about that. You disconnected the construct in our tower from the quest. Maybe you can do it for the other ones.”

  “I’d probably have to make them glitch out first, but sure. We can give it a try.”

  I step back, eyes locked on the corpse. Leaving it here feels wrong, but there’s nothing I can do to ‘help’ it. Whoever the paindne was, they’ve been dead for a very long time. Hell, if they were a first wave paindne, they might’ve willingly hurt themself for the system’s experiments. Just makes me wonder how many of these ‘simulacra’ are still here. The quest could’ve recreated all of them. Makes me wonder if the construct in our tower has been here for umpteen thousand years, or if it was copy-pasted when the quest started its work.

  “How’s it going?” Jumble calls down. “Anything worth looking at?”

  Her head pops through the ceiling, scanning the room before her eyes fall on me. I shrug.

  “There’s definitely something here, but I’m not sure if it’s important or just here to make us uncomfortable. Want to switch?”

  “No need; I’m coming down with you.”

  She flips down into the room, completing one full front flip before making a perfect landing without any fanfare. A staticky remnant of her stays with its upper body leaning into the room to keep the door open while Jumble makes her way to the tank. But her eyes stay on me for the entire time. I must’ve said or done something to make her suspicious.

  “That’s… a body. Wait, no, don’t say anything yet–I need to see for…” She trails off as she stares into the tank, her eyes scanning the writing. “It isn’t just a body, it’s a… specimen. Is it’s brain in the construct?”

  “Pretty much, but if it’s being literal, it’s more like they copied the brain into the construct. But… hrm. If that’s true… then where’s the huge wound?”

  Jumble raises an eyebrow and leans around the tank. “Ooh, you’re right. It looks like this one only has electricity-based injuries. Maybe the brain’s still in there so they could copy it again if they wanted to.”

  “I can’t imagine why they’d want a damaged brain as the base for a construct, but I’m not the one making them. Maybe they work better like that. Or maybe they took a bunch of injured brains and put them into one body so they’d… I don’t know… compensate for each others’ weaknesses.”

  Frost quietly cracks on the surface of the construct’s tube while Jumble seriously considers the theory I randomly threw out. She taps her foot as she studies the corpse, a sway in her body accompanying a musical hum that I’m not sure she’s aware she’s making.

  “If that’s true, then there should be other bodies here. At least one, if not way more.” She turns to me with deadly seriousness. “The bodies might not still be alive, but the quest’s making the constructs relive the moments of their deaths for some stupid little subquest. After we clear this and help everyone else get their messengers back, we should give the bodies proper burials.”

  My lips thin into a line. “Where are we supposed to bury them here? And before you suggest we take them back, we’d just be delivering them to those trees. Is that really any better than being dead here?”

  Jumble’s face darkens at the mention of the trees. “...No. It isn’t. But… we need to do something for them. If we find something to make a good bonfire, we could do it that way. And we’d have to try and rewire the constructs so they’re not suffering, either. Just because the quest’s controlling them, it doesn’t mean they can’t feel pain.”

  “As made obvious by the one up there. Alright.” I nod in agreement. “We’ll give it a shot as long as it doesn’t give the horizonguard a huge head start. But the second the quest tells us we need to get moving, we get moving. All this doesn’t mean anything if we don’t survive.”

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  “For sure. Now help me with this.” Jumble wraps her arms around the tank. “I need you to spot for me.”

  I raise an eyebrow. “Spot? Don’t you need…”

  She grunts, her muscles straining ever so slightly, and throws the tank over her shoulder. Wires pop up from the ground like roots ripped from the dirt, yet somehow, they stay connected to the tank. I snap my mouth shut and wave her towards the hole in the ceiling, throw down a shield, and wait for her to make it over.

  “I didn’t know you lifted.”

  Jumble furrows her brow. “What’re you talking about?”

  I pat my bicep, which has grown visibly more toned over the past few days. “Our stats don’t work the same as other Classes’. How’d you manage to get strong without looking like a mountain of muscle?”

  “O-oh. That, yeah, that. I didn’t get what you meant at first.” Jumble laughs awkwardly, shifting to free one arm to rub her neck while the tank rests on her shoulder. “It’s a real pain, yeah. I had to do a lot of magic stuff to make sure I kept my good looks, you know?”

  She laughs again, then glances away and coughs into her fist. Not quite the answer I was expecting, but I guess whatever she had to do isn’t something she’d like to bring up in polite conversation. I put the thought out of my mind and command the shield to ascend, carrying us up to Jumble’s staticky afterimage as the wires on the tank stretch and strain to keep themselves attached.

  Staticky noise fills my mind as I pass through the double. My eye twitches while Jumble’s voice whispers in my ear–a little too close for my liking, but this time, she’s not to blame. I step out of the thing the moment my shield touches the roof just to get away.

  “Sorry! Sorry. I forgot to warn you.” Jumble apologizes as she sets the tank down next to the wall. She waves a hand through the double, shifting it into a column that fills the hole perfectly. “Did you hear anything weird? I don’t think I put anything weird in there, but… u-um… sometimes my scattered thoughts make their way into my skills if I’m not careful enough.”

  I shake my head to dispel the last of the static. Jumble sighs in relief, but her eyes linger on mine for a little too long as if she’s searching for something. She looks away, and I’m not sure if she found what she was looking for. But the more I get to know her… the more she seems like a clingy person that just likes being close to people. So I can rule out any maliciousness in her earlier actions.

  “So what do we do with this now?” I tap the tank for emphasis. “Want to try re-triggering the zap to see if it does something to the corpse?”

  “I… okay, yeah.” Jumble swallows, obvious discomfort plain in her hesitation. “I’ll do it.”

  “If it bothers you so much, we can just not do it.”

  She shakes her head. “We’ll have to do it again to clear the quest anyway. I’m just… well… whoever this was, they’re still my people.”

  “Even if they did this to themselves?”

  Jumble hesitates. Her hand hovers in place for a few seconds. Waiting for her decision on whether she’ll summon her Class Card or not. Emotions war on her face, muscles tense in her neck, and for the shortest of moments, real hatred flickers in her eyes. Whether that’s directed at the paindne themselves or the system in general, I don’t know. But I get it. As a fellow Worth Class, I get it.

  So I have to do something. I extend my hand, fingers rigid in a moment of my own hesitation. Is commiseration really what she needs right now? Hell, is encouragement any better? She’s lived her own life for however long–probably longer than I’ve been alive. Would my inexperienced words mean anything at all?

  She twitches. Turns back to look me straight in the eyes, hatred and something else muddling together into a very confusing mixture of emotions. I can’t tell what she wants. Not what she needs, either–I’m not a mind reader. I can’t pretend to understand how shitty her life has been with the system hating her for so long. All I can do is be here.

  “Whatever you choose, I’m still standing here.” I say with far more confidence in my words than I feel. “We’re Worth Classes. We gotta stick together.”

  Jumble doesn’t break eye contact for a second. “What about Clutter? Is he a… um… old?”

  “What’s that got to do with anything?” I ask. “And, uh, no. I can’t really get a read on how old he is, but he’s definitely not older than… say… thirty-five. Forty, maybe. I’m not really a good judge of people’s ages when they have Classes, especially not people who aren’t human.”

  Her gaze softens a little. “People who aren’t human. That’s a funny way to say it. …Okay. I’m going to do it.”

  Quick pops of staticky noise come from her palm, and a moment later her Class Card appears. She swipes away her old messages, then quickly types in the hexagonal trigger to shock the construct. It twitches and spasms, eyes widening and mouth hanging agape as electricity courses through it. All the while, the corpse in the tube reacts with exactly nothing. Jumble keeps her eyes on it for the entirety of the time anyway, her shoulders tensing as time ticks by.

  “It didn’t do anything.” She whispers. “The body isn’t connected to the construct at all.”

  I nod in agreement. Not a surprise to me, but it seems like she has stakes in this that I’m not aware of.

  “Jumble, you okay?”

  She clenches her fists, then slowly lets the tension bleed out of her. “Yes. I’ll be fine in a minute. Let’s… let’s try the other walls. Maybe there are more bodies in there.”

  Her Class Card glimmers, and the tube–corpse included–disappears. All the plastic cables splat to the ground and slither back down the hole, disappearing through Jumble’s staticky column before it too disappears. Leaving behind a floor without a door as she walks over to the couch without a back to press her hand to the ceiling.

  “Come give me a hand here.” She calls once the door opens. “I don’t want to break this thing by jumping.”

  I stare at her for a second, the gears in my brain turning as I try to figure out what was wrong with what I just saw. She stares back for a second before she turns away, a blush rising to her cheeks as she visibly tries to make herself smaller.

  Shit, I decided to trust her, and that’s not going to change yet. Even if there’s still something nagging at the back of my mind.