Hollow #2 - Chapter 55 (Patreon)

Chapter 55 - Continuity

The Flow

Demi – Watching Re-Runs

“Wow, no matter how many times I watch this old footage, it still hits hard,” Emporos muttered, suddenly standing at my shoulder.  “Anyway, that was the fun bit.  The rest is mostly just Nyx killing everyone,” he added, tapping my tablet.

The viewing portal before us whizzed forward.  Showing Nyx draining the demon dry of nimbus, then the gate, then he apparently collected enough nimbus to have his own mass – his own gravity, if you will.  Because the Flow connected to him directly.  And then everything went sideways – or, well, even more sideways than normal.

The forge lit up.  The machinery buried beneath the earth began to pump and churn and grind.  Lava flowed through cold, empty troughs.  The furnaces reignited.  And the structure began to build again.  Monstrosities of metal.  Sapian.  Tavros.  Elf.   Vulpin.  They looked eerily like our main cast.  Except these didn’t vomit blood or sing.  They were also loaded with weapons.  So many weapons.  So, basically, death murder robots—

Which was redundant and definitely didn’t need to be written on the robots!

The view shifted.  Now showing the pit – the entrance to the forge.

The ground trembled and bucked and then split, massive fissures forming in the earth. And from those gashes emerged Nyx’s army.  A rolling wave of death that butchered everyone in sight.  Tore down the buildings and reduced them to scrapmetal before shoving it all into the pit – to be smelted down, reforged, and built into an endless army of death.

“What… what am I watching?” I muttered, my painted eyes round and horrified.  My hands subconsciously worrying at my ears, rubbing off the bandage and more paint.

“A man with an eating disorder,” Emporos replied somberly, his devil mask serious for once.  “Mental health is no joke.  People need to take it more seriously.”

“No, I mean, what was the plan here?”  I muttered.  I couldn’t look away, peaking at the screen through my fingers.  Especially since Emporos had removed the gore filter.

Oh, my gods.  Those bodies definitely weren’t full of rainbows—

“Psychic damage,” Emporos replied somberly.  “It’s the Flow’s only option when dealing with Nyx.  Direct attacks don’t work.  Especially when he’s wearing an impenetrable battle onesie.  Emotional ones are much, much harder for him to dodge.”

“Yeah, no… I get that.  But is this better?  He was mostly killing stuff by accident before.  Or just because he had to.  Now it’s definitely intentional.”

“Hmm, I guess that depends on your point of view,” Emporos offered, eyes glued to the screen.  Nyx’s madness was spreading north like a dark plague, leaving a bloody trail in its wake.  “I mean, this looks bad now, but if Nyx tries to kill everyone, then he creates a common enemy – one the entire Five Rivers can unite against.”

Which was one approach… I guess.

After that whole thing with the meteor and the emergency miracle and everything, well… I’d taken Emporos up on his offer – thinking that the Cheater’s case file might include hints.  Tips.  Tricks.  Some sort of strategy to defeat him, but this—this was just insane.  Frankly, I could barely follow what was happening.

And I had so many questions.  Stuff like—

“What is going on?” I muttered as the Other-Nyx brutally murdered another village onscreen.  “Wasn’t this supposed to be footage?  Of another Nyx?  A past Nyx.  Except didn’t he remember my Nyx?”  Those stories had seemed awfully close.

Emporos cocked an eyebrow, but never looked away from the screen, just munching on that delicious looking popcorn.  “Yup, obviously,” he said.  That was it.

My eye was twitching.  I could feel it.

What was obvious about any of that!?

“Why… how…”  Whew, I was breathing really fast.

I took a deep breath.  Or a ‘deeper’ one anyway.

SLURP.  And a small sip, of course.

Then I tried again – calmer this time.  Polite even.  “How is this possible?  How does Nyx remember all that stuff?  Things that never happened?  Other lives?  Future lives?  Other people’s memories?  And then that whole thing with Fang… he—he really killed him?”

Honestly, I was more upset about that than I expected.

Fang and I had history.  A strained relationship, if you will.  Mostly because he hadn’t killed Nyx already.  Including his many, many opportunities in the forge.  And I knew this wasn’t real – not exactly.  But it still didn’t sit well with me.

 I mean… Nyx wasn’t supposed to kill Fang.

 It was supposed to be the other way around!

“Right, about that…” Emporos trailed, still watching the portal in fascination.  The Cheater was currently building a super robot out of the smaller robots.  To fight the fleet of dragons, of course.  The ones recruited and trained by the several Orders now unified against him.  Emporos waved at the screen.  “See what I mean about psychic damage, though?  Now he has to fight everyone by himself.”

I did.  Sort of.  Although, the Flow had definitely created that problem, hadn’t it?

Although, that was sounding suspiciously like sympathy for the Cheater…

“My question,” I repeated through clenched teeth.

“Ahh, right.  So, obviously, there’s more than one Nyx.”

“Yeah—yeah, I caught that,” I replied in a clipped voice.

“Ahh, right.  Well, the first one had an interesting idea.  Kind of brilliant actually.  It started with a question. What if he recorded his memories and threw them into the Flow – you know, where time is more malleable?”  Emporos waved at the screen.  “Except that has some interesting effects on causation.  Most creatures can’t see in four dimensions, so they probably don’t know this, but time isn’t really linear.

“It’s more like a circle?  You can even travel backward and forward.  Of course, we make choices – create possibilities – so it also has depth.  Not unlike a ring.  Normally, that works out fine.  The Flow can predict an individual’s actions with remarkable precision since the possible choices are bounded by other causal variables – other people, objects, time itself.  They’re technically finite, it’s just a really big number.  So, lots of math.”

He glanced away from the screen.  “Charon mention this right?”

He had… sort of.  But not quite like this. 

Not that I was going to admit that.  So, I nodded anyway.

“Okay, so time is a ring.  Why does Nyx remember other lives?  Shouldn’t they be like… separate rings?”  Not my best question, but my head was starting to hurt.

Emporos nodded.  “I can see why you’d think that, but no.”

Then he stuffed a handful of popcorn in his mouth and kept watching.

Yep, my eye was definitely twitching now.

SLURP.  And the nimbus wasn’t helping anymore.

“Why not?” I ground out.

He looked at me like I was stupid – like I was a living, possibly-breathing A-.  “You took temporal mechanics during orientation right?”

I nodded again, reluctantly.  “Yeah, but it’s been ages.”

“Ha, good one.”  He shot me a finger gun.

He got a sickly smile in return.

Not that he noticed.  His eyes were already back on the screen.

“So, you must have covered the effects of intentional causation on basic time travel,” Emporos continued in a distracted voice.  “Considering a possibility is enough to make it real – to create another of those ring layers we were talking about.  For example, if a time traveler intended to go back and fix a mistake… then in at least one layer, he already has.  And in every one of Nyx’s layers, he always intends to send his memories back again – I mean, he always remembers the first Nyx’s plan right?  Even subconsciously?”

Emporos was looking at me like he’d answered my question.

But I was still lost.  So very lost.

Not that I was going to say that – not, exactly…

“Suuuuure.  But how do the other Cheaters know what my Cheater has done—”

I froze.  “Wait… are you saying that just sending his memories back one time means he sent his memories back every time?  Which means every Nyx—”

“Holds the memories of all possible Nyxs,” Emporos confirmed with a nod.  “Clearly.  Why else do you think his mind is splintering?”

Like it was fucking normal!  Like that made any sense!

My head definitely hurt, which is why I took another super small sip.

SLUUUUUUUUUURP.

And when I came up for air, I had another dreadful thought.

“Fine, but… but doesn’t that assume then that all the Cheaters exist at the same—”

I couldn’t finish.  Because the conclusion was absolutely, mind-numbingly terrifying.  Although, it did explain the continuity errors.  That twisted, corrupted corkscrew that Charon had shown me.  Why the Flow was having trouble fighting the Cheater – trouble predicting his actions.  Why my boss had looked so harried and tired.  And why he still hadn’t shown up even though it felt like I’d pulled the emergency lever ages ago…

Although, as Emporos had pointed out, maybe that last one wasn’t proof.  After all, time didn’t act normally here.  Not inside the Flow – not where time was meaningless, where it looped back on itself infinitely.  Which meant all those estimates on the Tutorials… I got it now.  They were a super funny joke.  One Emporos was playing on all of the skafos.

A manic giggle bubbled from my chest before I could help it.

Apparently, Emporos noticed.  When I looked up, he was watching me.  His devil mask painted in a broad, almost-feral grin, his eyes smoldering embers.

He’d finally found something more interesting than the show.  The re-runs, he called them.  “Hmm, you don’t believe me, do you?”

“No.  No, it isn’t possible!”  I snapped at him, hugging my precious mug of nimbus and sinking as far back into the comforting embrace of my Floaty Couch as I could.

His smile just got a bit wider.  “What if I could show you the truth?”

I hesitated.  I couldn’t.  I shouldn’t.  But I was still curious…

“Don’t you want to see what’s outside your cubicle?” Emporos offered, his voice suddenly behind me.  I flinched as those dark hands slid across my shoulders.

Right now, it looked like an endless white expanse that stretched out toward the horizon.  A limitless, perpetually damp spirit world full of twinkling rainbow lights.  But I’d also seen what happened when I threw my tablet.  How it had once stuck in the wall of my cubicle.  How I was bound and restrained by that watery floor and five invisible walls.

And isn’t this exactly what I’d wanted?  A corner office with a view?

“Show… show me,” I squeaked finally.

So, Emporos did.  It didn’t even take him long.

He just tapped at my tablet and then…

Those walls disappeared.  And, for the first time, I saw the office where I worked.

One that stretched up, down, left, right, and slantways.  A hundred thousand layers all stacked on top of one another.  A spiritual office building made of an infinite number of floors.   All filled with the same wet ground, the same puffy clouds, the same lack of furniture, and the same petite occupant.  All filled with the same chorus of voices—

“Hey, I’m Demi.  Divine vessel for Charon’s—”

“Hey, I’m Demi.  Divine vessel for Charon’s—"

“Hey, I’m Demi.  Divine vessel for Charon’s—"

I swallowed hard.  Not that I was sure I had a throat.  Or a stomach.  That any of us did.  All of those other versions of me.  The same ones that were watching a viewing portal.  Fiddling with their tablet.  Screaming and raging about the tutorial.  Tweaking a gate.  All of them keeping an eye on their passengers – a billion versions of the Cheater.

“This… this isn’t real.  It can’t be,” I croaked.

But it could be.  It had to be.

Emporos’ explanation made no sense…

Yet it was also the only thing that made sense.  After all, if there were infinite Nyxs, wouldn’t they need an infinite number of Skafos?

“Amazing, isn’t it?” Emporos sighed, a smile on his painted lips, as though he was enjoying this?  As though anyone could enjoy this?

That wasn’t the word I’d use.  Concerning maybe?  Horrifying also sounded good.  But I was going to go with mind-numbing existential nightmare – one far worse than whether I had organs.  Because there were questions.  Obviously.  Impossible questions.

The same questions the Cheater would ask…

Like had I ever really met my classmates during orientation?  Or had I just taken the class remotely?  Using my tablet?  And did that mean… did that mean, I’d always been competing against myself?  And then, the worst one—

“Is the A+… meaningless?”

Emporos’ hand landed on my shoulder, awkwardly patting.  I was too numb to flinch this time.  “Yep.  It always was.  Probably a lesson in there somewhere.”  He hummed in thought.  “Maybe, we can only strive to be a better version of ourselves – never the best.”

He cocked his head.  “Well, unless you’re Nyx.”

Mentioning the Cheater only made it worse.

Because, right now, I—I definitely sympathized with him!  How he had been forced to watch his reality crumble down around him.  How he’d begun to question his own sanity.  Just like I was doing right now.  Especially since there was still another question waiting.

Emporos had explained how Nyx remembered his other selves, but what about the others.  Horus?  Eris?  Danae?  Even… even me?  He would need to store those memories, right?  But how would he—

I froze, my eyes watching another me watching another Eris.  The elf twist, twist, twisting at that fucking ring she always wore.  A divine memory crystal.

And if Nyx had my memories, that must mean I—

“I helped him… or I will help him?” I muttered.

I looked up to find Emporos watching.  That same smile.  Those smoldering eyes.

“I wouldn’t!  I would never—” I began, raising my tablet like a shield.

“Betray an organization that cloned an infinite number of you and imprisoned you all in these cubicles built inside an eternal time prison without food or furniture?” Emporos offered dryly.  “The same organization that lied to you.  Intentionally made you believe you were special.  Unique.  The best.  The A+ employee of the millennium.  Which, you are.  I mean, they don’t even have to pay you.”

That… that was all… sort of true.

But he could still be tricking me.  I didn’t have to help the Cheater for him to get my memories.  He could have, uh, forced me somehow.

“Or I could do something different.  I could tell Charon—” I began.

Emporos just raised an eyebrow.  Ahh, but then… another me already had, hadn’t she?  Just like Nyx.  Intentional causation.  And I was stuck in the same loop with him.  Which meant it hadn’t mattered.  It hadn’t changed anything.  Hadn’t stopped this madness.

Because I saw the truth now.  I was stuck.  This was a prison – one with invisible walls.  I might be the warden, one of them anyway, but I couldn’t leave until this was over.  Until either the Cheater finally died – finally failed.  Or… until he won.

 But was that even possible?  If it was, wouldn’t it have already—

The crackle of static suddenly interrupted my thoughts.

White noise played across the viewing portal, the footage finished.

“That’s the thing about causation.  It’s supposed to be predictable.  Finite, even if the number of variables are enormous,” Emporos said as he stared into that static, as if he could see some pattern amid all that noise.  “Ball A hits Ball B.  Ball B hits Ball C.  And this works well with objects.  With things.  Without intention.  But what if—what if the ball could decide to hit a different ball?  Or veer off the table entirely?  Probability instead of certainty?

“Even then, like I said, there are limits.  Other balls.  Its own experience.  Pressures and needs and wants and the constraints of limited resources.  Time.  Food.  Health.  A thousand events all flowing around the ball – like a river forcing it downstream.  Not always the exact same way, but always in the same direction.  Again and again and again.”

Another scene popped up onscreen.

One that showed a familiar sight. A dysfunctional family.

One on vacation.  One on an underground tour of a Hellforge.

“But what if the ball could remember?” Emporos murmured, his eyes ablaze – filled with frustration and fear and… hope.  “Well, maybe it would be possible to create its own river.  Its own destiny.  Its own will.  A free will.  Maybe not the first time.  Or the first thousand or million or even billion.  But eventually—

“Well, eventually, it might find a way to escape.  To adapt.”

I swallowed, staring at the screen.  I understood what Emporos was trying to say.  This future – the Cheater’s future wasn’t certain.  Otherwise, there would be no need for all of this – for all of those other-mes.  And maybe we couldn’t end this, but perhaps he could.

Which was unfortunate.  Because I’d already powered up the gate.  Already fed it far more nimbus than the first and removed all limits on its power.  I’d even left a special surprise for the Cheater – more psychic damage, if you will.  Had already locked in those changes.

And, suddenly, I wished I could take it back.

Because, for the first time ever, well…

Maybe I was starting to root for Nyx.

 [TB1]Need to mention that the other races combine forces to stop Nyx – this version sucks.  But it unifies the five Rivers against Nyx.