My perfect, stupid sister.
My protector and caregiver.
My idol.
And now, my responsibility in every way.
We’ve come a long way from waking her up in the morning. And we’re not done yet—not until this problem is solved. She was always what—who—she needed to be for everyone else. This is my chance to return the favor.
I’m going to make this right, and that’s the truth.
Hong Kong Walled City, People’s Republic of China - January 12, 2013, 9:15 PM
- - - - -
I feel dirty—like I’m violating something Li Mei desperately wants to protect.
But also, I don’t care. She’s in my sister’s body. She’s kicked my sister out of her body. So being polite or giving her her space doesn’t apply to her, and there are no rules. Only winning.
The only other time I’ve been this close to someone’s Truth was in the God in the Machine’s memory; that time, he’d been forcing me to see them to break me. That didn’t work then, and I’m stronger now.
This time, Li Mei doesn’t want me there. Neither of them do.
One Li Mei is in Alice’s body, still wearing tattered, shredded pajamas. They hang loose in the rainy night, but the water goes right through her—and through me. Our clothes stay dry. She’s standing with me, and I can tell she wants nothing more than to rip me apart, but she can’t. Not here, at least.
The other’s dressed for a deep winter. It’s warm here—not uncomfortably hot, but hot enough that the bulky jacket, gloves, and hood all look out of place. She’s riding on the back of a motorcycle; compared to the one I just ‘rode,’ it’s underpowered. The reason for her outfit is immediately obvious. She’s got her arms wrapped around a man’s waist, and he’s speeding through the crowded streets like all hell’s about to break loose behind him. If she wasn’t covered up, she’d probably kill him.
The signs on the streets and businesses are blank—all of them.
“How are you in here, bestie?” Li Mei asks.
“Why do I need to leave?” the other Li Mei shouts over the revving engine.
I ignore her. The man doesn’t. “You know exactly why. The suited men are closing in on you. They’ve almost solved the maze, and when they do, they’ll put a bag over your head and shove you into an airplane. You’ll live your life in a box.”
“I’ve lived my life in a box already, and aren’t you doing the same thing?” the other Li Mei asks. Her cheeks shine with tears in the evening’s neon light. Or maybe it’s rain.
“This is different. It’s necessary. You’ve had twenty good years here, but you need to move on. I’ve got a ticket for Rio De Janeiro. You go there. You make a new life for yourself. And be careful this time.”
“You’re not coming with me?” The other Li Mei’s voice wavers. “You’re abandoning me?”
The motorcycle roars for a minute, and there’s no other sound save the rain falling on the narrow street and an occasional horn honking as a vehicle tries to move. Then he says, “This is what’s best for us all. We—I—will meet you there as soon as I can.”
That’s a lie. Li Mei knows it now, but the other Li Mei wants to believe it. She wants to believe it more than she’s believed anything. She clings to the man, and they ride for what feels like forever—until the towering slums give way to a single wide road. Then they ride some more.
The bike stops outside the airport, and the other Li Mei gets off. She wraps the man in a hug that lasts far too long. The Li Mei in Alice’s body looks away, staring back at the crowded streets. I’ve seen that look. She’s refusing to watch.
When the other Li Mei disappears into the airport, the man on the bike sits there.
And sits there.
It takes almost ten minutes for someone to realize he’s not breathing anymore.
Changi Airport, Singapore - January 14, 2013, 11:58 AM
- - - - -
She didn’t get on the plane to Rio.
Instead, she flew to Singapore. She’s been here for two days, and in that time, the Changi Airport has gone from a wonder to decidedly mundane. Even a stunning paradise like this gets boring, and that’s the truth.
The other Li Mei’s been busy, though. Screens all over the building aren’t working anymore, and just an hour ago, the police cordoned off a men’s restroom. I think she killed someone, but the Li Mei I know went absolutely ballistic when I tried to find out. It was like investigating a brick wall that hissed and spat like a cat.
The point is that the other Li Mei isn’t following the plan. She’s also not trying to be subtle.
And she’s boarding a plane heading back to Hong Kong.
“What were you thinking?” I ask out loud, not expecting a response.
But I get one. “I wasn’t. I didn’t mean to kill him—I loved him. But he was dead all the same. I knew it before I let him go and disappeared into the airport. The cult wouldn’t have minded. He wasn’t the first person I killed on accident. But he was the last.”
Hong Kong Walled City, People’s Republic of China - January 17, 2013, 7:12 AM
- - - - -
The bogeymen are out in force. They’re tearing apart the city, searching for Li Mei, and they’ve given up being subtle. Guns out, warning shots fired, shouted orders and handcuffs—this feels more like a military operation than a shadow agency trying to keep from being noticed. There are even tanks. A dozen of them that I’ve seen. They’re blocking the roads, engines idling and turrets trained on the narrow streets as if daring someone to try them.
The other Li Mei—the one from the past—is already past them. She’s watching from a safe distance away. So are we.
Li Mei clears her throat. “I shouldn’t be telling you any of this.”
“Yes, you should,” I say.
She snorts. “No, bestie, I shouldn’t. This is the moment, right here. The cult wasn’t happy to see me back. They thought I’d disappeared to somewhere safe, and Jun’s death had meant something. SHOCKS Beijing was waiting for me, though. This was only hours after I landed. Someone betrayed me. Someone always betrays me.”
I keep quiet. My hand reaches for the Revolver that’s not there in this memory.
“That’s my problem. I’m too trusting,” Li Mei says. She stares at the tanks as they slowly roll down the street while men and women in black body armor drag people out of the ramshackle buildings. I’m glad I can’t smell this place; the basic living buildings are already a lot of people close together, but this? This is too much.
“I wanted to believe that SHOCKS would take care of me after they caught me flying into Vancouver. They said they would, and they did for thirty years. It wasn’t luxury, but it was comfortable. Once I made myself useful, I had more freedom than I ever had in Hong Kong—or in the airport in Singapore. But then you showed up.” Her vitriol hits me like a club.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“You were supposed to be my bestie! I could tell. That’s what I wanted—a friend. I hadn’t had a friend in such a long time. And after you betrayed me, your sister could have been that friend. Instead, she put me in a box. I’ve spent every moment I’ve been alive with people trying to put me in a box, and whenever I trust someone, they’ve got a new one waiting!”
I almost feel sorry for her. Almost.
But there’s a kernel of Truth—the capitalized kind, the kind I’ve been seeking—in what she’s saying, and I don’t think she hears it.
She’s spent her whole life being put in a box. By people she trusts. Where did it start?
I mull that over as we watch the tanks roll. The other Li Mei heads across the bridge toward the airport. I already know what’s about to happen; she’ll get on a plane, and SHOCKS will be waiting for her on the other side. Li Mei’s told me, and it’s inevitable.
The box, though. That’s the answer. If I can find the right box, I can put Li Mei in it, and Alice will be free.
Sort of.
SHOCKS Headquarters, Victoria, British Columbia - June 17, 2043, 7:34 AM
- - - - -
Li Mei screams.
It’s not a scream of rage. It’s pure agony. I’ve hurt her—and hurt her badly. More importantly, I know she’s got a weakness.
The right box. It’s gotta be a big one, though. And it’s gotta be strong.
She disappears in a cloud of smoke, and I get ready for another attack. It doesn’t happen. She doesn’t try to swarm me again. I’m alone in the Director’s office.
Except for James. [Claire, she’s heading for the basement. Two possible reasons. First, she’s going to kill the power again. If she does that, I won’t be able to help you. I’m trying to block her progress—running fans and closing doors—but short of tricking her into a Qishi-Danger cell that’s cut off from the outside completely, she’s going to get there before you.]
“And the other reason?” I head for the door; the Director’s computer is slag now, and there’s nothing I could possibly get from it anyway.
[The on-side self-destruct. She may try to activate it and time her Smoke Form to survive the explosion. I’m not sure she can. But…I’m also not sure she can’t. I’m locking down the room and disabling remote detonation.]
That’s not a box. That’s the end of all boxes for her. I don’t have the math for it, but I know SHOCKS Victoria and Vancouver Island’s the best chance for containing her. And I know how to get Alice to safety after we get Li Mei into her box. It won’t be control of her body—not yet—but at least it’ll be safe for us to figure something out. Right now, that’s the best I can do.
But if the building explodes, Alice’s body’s gone forever—even if it still exists. I need SHOCKS Headquarters intact. More importantly, I need James’s tank intact—but not to put Li Mei in again. This time, it’s for Alice.
The infovampire has a head start. She knows the building. But I’ve got James, and he is the building.
I dive down an elevator shaft the moment the elevator itself passes, heading up. Smoke Form and Slither punches me through a door at the bottom, and I’m in the maintenance hallways. I’ve never been down this low; nothing interesting happens down here, and I was too busy.
[Left, then right. She’s heading for the power—I just saw her for a second.]
With James’s guidance, the hallway’s almost familiar. Doors flash by: closets, custodial rooms, and a furnace the size of the soccer field at West End High. I ignore them, even as James helpfully labels them in my aug. Even the one he labels ‘Nuclear Failsafe’ doesn’t matter yet, but I remember where it is, just in case—
[She’s killing the power,] James says. [I’m unlocking all doors so you can move. I’ll do what I can, but the whole building’s shiel—]
His voice cuts off as I reach the generator room. So does the power, but I’ve got my night vision running. The door crashes open as my foot slams into the bolt and tears it free from the wall. The Revolver’s up. The room’s pitch black; I manually cycle through different settings until I start seeing more than just the hulking, silent generators.
She’s in here.
Li Mei might not have heat, but Alice does. She springs out of the background yellows as a girl-shaped orange and red. I’ve got three reality skippers, a Bullet Time, and another three in the air before she even knows I see her. Something hits in the moment before she turns to smoke. Warm blood hits the cool floor, the dots burning yellow-orange. I’ve shot Alice.
No. I’ve shot Li Mei.
[Skill Learned: Revolver Mastery 21]
Destroying Alice’s body is an acceptable outcome if I also kill the infovampire.
But it’s not the one I want.
She screams. It’s rage as much as pain. “Why aren’t you dead?” she howls as she lunges my way. “No one’s looked inside my mind and lived before!”
I don’t have an answer. All I have is the Revolver and Soundbreak. The wave of sound slams into her body and throws it aside in a perfect harmony with her howl of anger. I reload the gravity shells and fire them in a wall between Li Mei and the door, sealing us both in for a few seconds.
Li Mei ripples toward me, a wall of shadow smoke. I use my own Smoke Form, and she drifts through me. We both form again. I reload and duck behind one of the generators. It idles, not quite fully dead yet but unable to keep up with SHOCKS Headquarters’ massive power needs. Then I pop up and start shooting. Seven shots, evenly spaced. Fire covers the room. It sparks off the walls and ignites the petroleum pipes feeding the massive machines.
Everything explodes.
The sound hits first. I Smoke Form again to try to dodge it, then Slither through it. It’s like a tsunami roaring at my ears. The roaring boom echoes off the walls, back and forth, and I have to Soundbreak to punch a gap through it. Li Mei’s out in the storm, but she’s still smoke; Alice’s body isn’t getting pummeled like I am.
Then the heat fills the room—the kind of heat you can smell, like brimstone and oil and hatred. It feels like the burning man or the magma anomaly that, even now, is probably consuming Provisional Reality ARC. My hoodie smolders as sparks hit it, and I have to beat the flames out.
The generator room burns for a few seconds before it sucks the air out of the hallway, out of the whole maintenance sector—out of my lungs. I try to scream, but there’s nothing but burning where there should have been air.
I open my eyes. They’d been closed for I don’t know how long. The room’s dark and my heat vision’s nothing but orange, red, and white. Li Mei could be anywhere. But she’ll only be in one place.
I brace myself as she leaps toward me. Then I use Truthseeker again.
This time, I know what’s coming, and I put every scrap of will into the power. So does she.
She fights back. The void wings behind me unfurl and join me in pushing against Li Mei’s will—against the grasp that’s tearing against my mind and body. We struggle for a long time.
But it’s inevitable. I’m going to win.
And eventually, I do.
Location Unknown, Location Unknown, Time Unknown
- - - - -
The first thing I need to know is where Li Mei’s from, because it’s not R-0.
The second thing I need to know is something I wouldn’t have even thought about before this morning. Before the ongoing thinning where Merge Prime started. And before I spent time looking the Revolver over in excruciating detail while I walked to the bird sanctuary’s wave barrier.
This is going to work. But I need to know for sure before I take the shot.
So. Here I am. Here we are. In a reality that’s nothing. It reminds me of the not-gray void between my Mindscape and here, or the nothing abyss below the sands on that beach. Li Mei and I stand, watching.
She’s seething. She can’t even speak; if she was Alice, she’d be in agony from how tightly she’s clamped her jaw shut. She’s tried to attack me a dozen times, but it’s like we’re both made of nothing but air. While we’re here, we’re nothing. Without form. Void.
The only thing we can do is watch as a half-dozen clouds of smoke converge on one larger cloud. They wrestle it to the not-ground, forcing it lower and lower until it’s at the same level we are.
The biggest of the attackers breaks free. It seems to speak, but I can’t hear anything. There’s nothing to hear.
Li Mei fills in. “I did nothing wrong. Everything I did was well within the bounds of what our reality could handle, and they changed the rules after I did it.” She doesn’t want to talk; it’s less a conversation than a series of growls and grunts between Alice’s teeth.
But with what I’m seeing, it’s enough. A thinning appears. It opens slowly, and the smaller shadow smokes force the big one through.
We follow not of our own accord, but as if dragged by the sun’s gravity.
We came out in Hong Kong—before it was a walled city, but after the original one was destroyed. The shadow smoke Li Mei doesn’t actively feed right away, but even so, signs start losing letters all around her. It takes her almost five minutes to form a body, and she moves shakily. It’s a teenage girl’s body, but her skin’s jet-black. The only part of her that’s not sits in her stomach a shimmering, pulsing core that makes my ears ring.
A thinning.
That’s all I need to know, but I wait the memory out. The Truth Li Mei believes about herself, that everyone will eventually betray her, is backed by evidence; even before she existed in our reality, everyone she knew did betray her.
It’s not enough to solve the Inquiry, and I know it. That’s okay. I’ll find out soon enough. I don’t need to know every Truth Li Mei believes.
I only need to know the one she’s trying to hide. What she is. Where she’s from.
And I already do, now.
SHOCKS Headquarters, Victoria, British Columbia - June 17, 2043, 7:41 AM
- - - - -
When we break free from her memories, Li Mei vanishes. She turns to smoke and disappears. I’m not worried about where she’s going, though. I think I know exactly what her plan is now.
More importantly, I know how to stop her.
I load the Mergebreakers; the Revolver glows a deep purple as I hurry down the hall, letting my night vision aug guide me. She’s in the Nuclear Failsafe room.
The door opens without a fight. The room’s tiny, only a little bigger than the basic living apartment I grew up in. The bomb’s in the middle of the room.
I expected a round tube, like a missile. Or maybe a giant sphere with a control panel. But this bomb looks nothing like one. It’s a bunch of wires around a shockingly thin metal tube, with a tiny sphere on one end and what looks like a gray mass stuck to the other side. The control panel’s on the far side of the room, connected by the rat’s nest of wires. And Li Mei is over there, too.
The Revolver goes up. She whirls, screaming and spitting like a cat. Her black-and-red eyes glow so bright they’re pink-white. I start firing.
Li Mei turns to shadow smoke.
I don’t care. I use Bullet Time. She freezes in place, and I put three shots into her stomach, where the shimmering, pulsing thinning should be.
Then I wait.
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