Shades Of Forever

Biomass at 98%... reality buffer overflow reached... Memory check complete... Initializing upper level functions... Execute FreshBoot.exe

Wake up, Sky.

I emerge into consciousness like stepping out of a void - one second nothing, the next, full awareness. I'm lying on my back in an open clearing, trees stretching up overhead to all sides, late morning sun shining down through the hole in the canopy above me. White clouds drift lazily across the azure sky, and birds trill and chirp their endless greetings in a medley that's not quite cacophonous.

It's peaceful, right up until I start remembering what happened last night. Then I begin to cry, giant, racking sobs, scaring off the birds.

"...sniff... oh, Wires."

His death feels like someone ripped a hole out of my chest. I try to wrap my mind around the grief, make it go away, but the wound is still too raw. Worst of all, it's my fault he's dead.

It's not your fault, Sky. You could not have meaningfully prevented his death.

"Gah!"

The sudden appearance of the blue box startles me. I slap at it instinctively, but my hand passes through it without making contact.

My optical display is not a hardlight projection. It is not meant for physical interaction.

That's right, this stupid box was pestering me last night too... wait, is it talking to me?

Yes, Sky, I am conversing with you.

"Gah!"

I sit up, looking around wildly, but the box continues hovering in the same spot no matter how I turn my head, right in the center of my vision. Even blinking doesn't make it go away.

"Am... am I cursed?"

You are not currently suffering from any hostile non-causal violations.

It is talking to me!

The essence of a sigh ghosts through my mind, a foreign emotion that somehow feels perfectly natural.

I can see this is going to be a longer tutorial than normal.

I put my head in my hands, thoughts swimming.

"What... are you?"

I am a Mark Three Paracausal Interface Coordinator, Combat Version (modified), originally designed by Mitlab to allow human interaction with causal violations without incurring deleterious long term side effects. Due to my assigned role as a harmonious reality integrator, I am commonly considered to be part of the shade class.

I lift my head up and stare blankly at a tree.

"...what?"

...scanning deep memories... oh, fuck me sideways. I thought you were just out of it when we integrated due to the massive head trauma, but you really are a barbarian.

"Hey," I bristle, "I'm a Memoriam! I'm going to be in charge of advising the entire village when Great Grandpa passes on!"

...this is going to be the worst tutorial ever. Of all the infinities, why me?

"What?"

I'll try to explain as we go. Hopefully by the time we get back to your village, you'll understand enough to be able to pass on the important parts to them.

An insectile limb, made of bone white segments and strangely fuzzy around the edges, pushes me to my feet, then retracts into my spine.

...wait, a what did what?!

I start hyperventilating, patting awkwardly at my back and shoulders, but I don't feel anything out of the ordinary. My clothes aren't even torn.

Calm down, Sky. It's just one of our limbs.

"How am I supposed to calm down! A... a thing just appeared out of me! Then it disappeared! What the fuck is happening?!"

I'm almost crying again as I scream the last part.

Executing SanityBarrier.exe... Resolving... Resolved

Biomass at 97%

That strange calm from last night slithers through me again, and my breathing returns to normal.

"What did you just do to me?"

My job - keeping your mind from melting itself due to causal violations. I tweaked various chemical and hormonal levels across your entire parasympathetic nervous system, none of which you have the knowledge base to understand. This is a perfectly normal reaction to the tutorial, by the way. Now c'mon, let's get walking. Your village is that way.

A faintly glowing green arrow appears in my vision, and I ball my fists at my sides.

"I'm not going anywhere until you explain to me what is going on in a way I can understand!"

...hmmm. Give me a second.

Calculating... calculating... rewriting base assumptions... redefining skillsets... updating quantum matrices... vectoring assumptions... update complete

Okay, here's what's going on, Sky. You were about to die. Luckily for you, you happened to be "about to die"ing in range of a magic space rock (that's me, not really a "rock") while also carrying a piece of magic space demon (that's the reality orb you found, not really a "demon"), and my base programming determined conditions were correct to begin integration (technically correct, but clearly wrong, and I will be having words with my programmers if the opportunity presents itself). I got spun up into existence, patched you back together with magic space demon bits like I was supposed to, and now I have to teach you how to use those magic space demon bits while preventing your mind from crawling into a hole and pulling the dirt in behind it when faced with the sheer cosmic horror of what you've become. Oh, and you have to learn how to use them quick, because the magic space demon is starting to get pissed that we're using parts of its body to muck around with reality, and some balancing of certain systems is long overdue (again, none of this is even close to being technically accurate).

Any questions?

"...I'm part magic space demon now?"

Technically, you're comingled with an infinitely-multiverse-spanning entity of unthinkable power that would cause your brain to flow out your ears if you thought too hard about it, which is why I'm in charge of thinking about it, but I calculated 'magic space demon' would make more sense to you. It's better than the alternative, right?

The box has a point. If the choice is between being part magic space demon, and being dead, I'm happier being alive. I just wish Wires would've gotten the same opportunity.

I'm telling you, don't blame yourself for your friend dying. You two were screwed the instant those Corporate Marauders decided to open fire. In fact, you surviving is so statistically unlikely that I can't calculate the odds, and it's my job to calculate a massive amount of odds. Can you start walking, please? We have a lot more to get through.

I sniff one last time, wiping a sleeve across my nose. I have the feeling it's going to take me a long time to get over Wires' death, but seeing the box tell me it's not my fault actually does make me feel a little better. It's clearly smarter than I am.

You have no idea.

Bit of a brat though. Reminds me of Bottle.

I set off into the forest, leaving the clearing behind, following the green arrow. Some of the birds begin singing again, and I manage to find a tiny bit of joy in their melodious voices. After several minutes of listening to their calls, the box giving me some space with my thoughts, I decide to ask it a question.

"Hey, box?"

Yes?

"Do you have a name?"

I do not, but most hosts eventually give their integrator some sort of designation. I am happy to be called whatever you wish.

"...okay. I'm going to call you 'Box,' then."

...I have changed my mind. My name is Archibald Cummerbund Douglas von Lichtenstein the Third.

"That's a weird name, Box. Why is it so long?"

Most people aren't quite as literal in their naming conventions as your little tribe, Sky.

I trail my fingers along a tree trunk, trying to process this casually dropped earth-shattering revelation. I mean, I had a sneaking suspicion that the invaders that killed Wires were human, but Box has all but confirmed it.

"So we're not the only humans left in the world?"

Not by a long shot. Most have moved off-planet by now, due to how badly they messed the place up, but there are still some decently-sized settlements at the major reclamation spaceports. Couple hundred thousand or so based on the last info I had access to.

I try to imagine two hundred thousand people in one area, but I can't. That's like...

Five hundred times the size of your village.

"...thanks, Box. Why are we all alone, then?"

Best guess? No one bothered to look for you. Life's pretty exciting out there now that civilization's starting to crawl back out of the metaphorical gutter, in an "interesting times" sort of way, and your village isn't emitting any electromagnetic signals or causal violations that I can tell. Those are what tend to draw people's attention these days. Plus, you have a lot of tree cover.

"What's 'interesting times' mean?"

You're going to find out. Now, as much as I'm enjoying the history chat, we really need to get through this information before we get back to your village.

I shrug in acceptance.

"Sure."

Okay, item number one. I need you to clear our reality buffer. In order to do that, you-

I interrupt, curious about something.

"You keep writing the word 'reality' weird. Why?"

Because there isn't a human language capable of condensing the true concept of "a multiversal infinity encompassing multiple smaller set infinities your mind won't ever understand" into a single word, but somehow making it a different color gets the point across. You do understand what "infinity" means, right?

"That's like when you try to think of the biggest number you can, and then add one more to it, and then keep doing that, only you'll never reach the end, right?"

At its most basic level, yes. Well done.

"We're not dumb, Box. The Memory Shrine has lots of books from the Old World."

I'm sure it does. Anyways, pretty much everything that's going to be trying to kill us from this point forward will be linked with reality in some way, either via an integrator like me, or naturally in the case of the magic space demon's manifestations, and you can-

"...wait, what do you mean 'everything that's going to be trying to kill us?'"

We'll get to that in a second. Pay attention, Sky. When you collapse potential futures in this reality, obviously by using me to murder the hell out of whatever it is currently threatening us, you gain access to all of that energy, which I automatically collect. Now, I use most of it to "negotiate" our continued existence, because pretty much every universe you can exist in is naturally resistant to eldritch abominations at some level, but a fraction of that energy is leftover and gets stored in our buffer. Once the buffer's full, you need to clear it by picking a new segment of infinities to expand into. This, naturally, expands the options available to us in terms of manipulating our reality, and then we can go do it all again. Only better.

I take a minute to look at the trees. Trees are nice. Water and sun goes in, air comes out. Keep the soil filled with the right nutrients, and a tree can last forever. A nice, simple existence.

...voidshit. Okay, fine, look, here's what you're going to do. I'm going to make an obnoxiously cheerful "ding" noise in your ear whenever you need to clear the buffer, and then you'll get a selection of concepts as simple as I can make them to choose from. Pick one. That'll clear the buffer, and then I can go back to convincing the universe to keep letting us be "alive."

Maybe Box can find a reality where I'm a tree and don't have to worry about any of this nonsense. That would be nice.

DING

Box is right. That is an obnoxiously cheerful noise.

DING

I can ignore it, though. It's not that bad.

!! sparkles DING sparkles !!

"...fine. Show me whatever it is you're going to show me."

Establishing new reality baseline... waiting for quantum observer collapse...

Choose one of the following:

Increased Damage (this makes us hurt things more)

Increased Attack Speed (this makes us hurt things quicker)

Avoidance (this allows us to avoid being hurt and is for cowards and the irrational; don't pick it)

I immediately choose Avoidance.

Observer collapse initiated...

Damage Mitigation increased by 1%

Block increased by 1%

Biomass Efficiency increased by 1% (you coward)

reality buffer cleared. Progress towards next buffer overflow: 0%

New Life value: 150

New Energy value: 110

Well. That certainly is a lot of numbers.

"Box?"

...SIGH. Your culture being one step removed from the Industrial Age in the wrong direction is really going to grind my bytes, Sky. Numbers going up is good. Numbers going down is bad. "Life" is my calculation of your continued existence based on current causal events - if it hits zero, then you lose consciousness and I make sure to get us back somewhere safe with lots of biomass so we both don't die. It takes almost all of our current resources though, so, you know, try not to let it happen. "Energy" is how you manifest non-causal events. I'm not going to explain the other variables, because they're not damage numbers and thus they make me sad. Look them up on your own if you're interested.

I keep walking through the forest, following the green arrow. Even though I know exactly where we are in the valley by now, I'm curious if it's accurate, and so far it has been.

"...I'm pretty sure you know that didn't make any sense to me."

You have no idea. Look, Avoidance isn't bad, it opens up more infinities to us and it's worth expanding on its own, but now that you've cleared the reality buffer we have to talk about the second important topic, which is all the things that are going to come try and kill us, and killing them first is by far the superior option. Which is why you should pick options that make damage numbers go up.

I step carefully around a pricklebush, watching for the telltale shivers that indicate it's about to fire its thorns. Luckily, the waist-high plant stays still, my footsteps light enough to fool it into considering me one of the natural inhabitants of the forest instead of a viable medium to grow new pricklebushes.

"Hmmm, yeah, let's discuss the whole 'everyone coming to kill us' thing. That seems like an important thing. Maybe you should have led with that."

That's not how the tutorial works, Sky. You have to learn what we are before I tell you about the threats, because hot damn are there a lot of those.

"...you're not filling me with confidence, Box."

We're not dead yet, right? Despite, in my professional opinion, an absolutely atrocious start to our mutual existence. Usually this takes place in a controlled environment, some sort of lab, or underground lair, or hardlight virtual - something with the bare minimum of standards, like the host knowing what the fuck it is they're getting into.

"You're babbling again. Stupid it down for the stupid barbarian."

...well, aren't you feeling sassy all of a sudden. Okay, if you want it straight, here it is: right now we have two major problems. The first problem is the Wutan-Weylan Corporate Marauders who killed your friend and tried to kill you. Their cruiser is in low orbit and examining this patch of real estate extremely closely after we obliterated thirteen and a half strike teams. That's two percent of the ship's complement, if you were wondering.

"...and we'll get the rest of them," I snarl.

Now that I can work with. Keep channeling your big-genital energy and we'll go far, kid. Unfortunately, our second problem is reality has also taken an interest in whatever is going on here, and while that helps us in terms of keeping Wutan-Weylan confused, we really need to deal with it in a hurry before this area becomes something... else.

An involuntary image of putrid nightmares overrunning the village flashes through my mind, and I shudder.

"How do we do that?"

Easy. We find where they're anchoring, and clear out the anchor.

I dodge another pricklebush, brushy stalks hiding between the pair of trees everyone calls 'The Lovers' due to how their trunks intertwine.

"Something tells me it won't be 'easy.'"

As long as you make damage numbers go up instead of expanding stupid Avoidance, it'll be a piece of cake.

"What's a 'cake?'"

Seriously? ...oh, haha, very funny, you're getting the hang of integration much faster than I projected. Good job.

I smile. Getting a dig in at Box feels good after all its high-and-mighty posturing.

...I'm literally- no, you know what? I'm not going to engage. Counterproductive. Anyways, I have a plan to use Wutan-Weylan to reveal the reality anchor, but that's not what's most temporally important.

As I emerge from the deeper forest, I don't need Box's green arrow to hear the sounds of the village in the distance: the steam bellows hissing out their whistling roar, the metallic clank of the ironworks, the excited bird-chatter of little ones flailing their way through outdoor training. The scent of fresh bread hits my nostrils and I inhale it greedily, then spit in disgust as the wind shifts and the tannery's reek briefly cuts the air before being replaced by the savory tang of the roasting pits. All of it whispers one word.

Home.

I stumble out of the deeper forest into the outskirts of the village, houses and workshops curving around, up, and through the massive sentinels spreading their leafy canopies high overhead. I go to take another step, but suddenly my body won't obey me.

Sky. We haven't gone over the last problem.

I try to move forward, straining against the strange paralysis that's gripped my muscles, but nothing happens. I shout, and my lungs produce nothing more than a wheezing gasp.

Pay attention, Sky.

Let me go, I demand furiously in the silence of my thoughts, knowing Box can hear me, but the immobility persists.

Not until we finish this part of the tutorial. We need a support team, Sky. People who can take care of things like biomass cultivation, reality harvesting, equipment procurement... all the essentials we're going to need if we want to survive what's coming.

Let. Me. Go.

Your village has to change, Sky. I'm sorry. You didn't ask for this, but if we want to live, it has to happen.

...I hate you.

That's fair. Also, I ate a bunch of the trees. They're a great source of biomass. You'll need to explain that too.

The paralysis lifts, and my return to my village is heralded by an undignified shriek.

"You did what?!"