Three in the heart, p.1
Three in the Heart, page 1
THREE IN THE HEART
©2017-2020 MATTHEW SIEGE
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Contents
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
TWENTY
TWENTY-ONE
TWENTY-TWO
TWENTY-THREE
TWENTY-FOUR
TWENTY-FIVE
TWENTY-SIX
TWENTY-SEVEN
TWENTY-EIGHT
TWENTY-NINE
THIRTY
THIRTY-ONE
THIRTY-TWO
THIRTY-THREE
THIRTY-FOUR
THIRTY-FIVE
THIRTY-SIX
THIRTY-SEVEN
Epilogue
FROM THE PUBLISHER
Afterword
LitRPG Group
GameLit
LitRPG Forum
ONE
All feedback and stimuli ended as the world blinked out around me. The last time this had happened I’d felt trapped in the cold arms of the void, but this time all I could do was die.
And so I did.
At least, I think I did…
The only thing I could be sure of was that everything went dark. I had no hands with which to reassure myself that I was still tangible anyway, and if my ‘body’ did have some semblance of skin it didn’t last for long as the shell grew numb before peeling away to nothing. The virtual environment had been pressing against me from every direction for so long that the sudden absence of that pressure scared the absolute hell out of me.
I was alone, and time stretched on toward forever.
It didn’t take long for an ominous sense of dread to swim up through my veins and swamp my mind. With so little to go on I knew that it was more important than ever that I trust my instincts, and they were telling me that whatever that bastard Desmond had done to me was only just beginning. He could have killed me if he’d wanted to, but the twisting in my gut told me that he had much, much worse planned.
Sometimes it felt like Death himself was breathing down my neck. That was the least of my fears, and eventually the rise and fall of my wavering will meant that I welcomed the visit. With each new orbit I stretched whatever I was, soul or spirit or scared kidnapped naïve kid caught up in something far bigger than himself, toward my eventual end.
It was pointless. I wasn’t going to be allowed to die until my captors gave the okay. Until then, Desmond and Deep Dive owned me.
Gravity was gone, and light was barely more than a fleeting memory. I knew that the forever I felt couldn’t have been real, but it didn’t have to be. Wherever I really was, all they’d have to do was plug me in and punch a couple of buttons and they could make me feel anything they wanted to.
Existence is reality, and they could conjure up anything they wanted and drown me in it until I believed that up was down.
They don’t own you. Not yet, not until you let them…
That sounded true. It also sounded like advice I’d told myself before, and just as I tried to let it wash away some of my misgivings the words, along with the strength behind them, vanished.
It wasn’t the first time I’d fought them, just as that wasn’t the only time they’d intervened and stolen my inner voice’s assistance away.
And then that knowledge was gone, too.
I floated, weightless in a sea made up of the absence of everything. The only thing I was aware of for certain was the huge, all-encompassing gulf of nothing that had swallowed me whole.
And then, from nowhere, I felt something. It was a bright spark, a perfect gift, a true and compassionate desire that didn’t take long to eat up the complete and total absence of input that had mired me.
Hunger.
Every thought was full of it. The gift became a curse, and the curse became a quest that turned all thoughts of escape or perseverance into ash. I needed to eat, and I would do anything for the person that provided me with so much as a scrap of flesh.
The nothing I’d lived amongst was now a cherished memory. The lack of heat and light, sound and sensation had seemed a torture, but it was nothing compared to this lust for food that now made me a slave. I was in constant agony, every instant immeasurably worse than the one that had come before it.
What was left of my mind was quickly becoming unhinged, and the Zombie that lurks in the lizard brain of the civilized things we tell ourselves we are was uncoiling instead.
My first instinct was to run from it. It didn’t matter that I couldn’t physically move, since I sought to conceal myself amongst memories that would keep that damned dark thing away. My mother had told me a story once, about a boy who had discovered a power that could-
That could what?
It was gone. The boy in the story, and the boy that I’d been. Where had the house been when they story had been told, and what had my mother looked like when she’d been telling it?
What was my dad’s name?
What is mine?
My understanding of myself began with the moment Desmond had shut me down. That was all I had as a starting point, and the pain I’d felt since then was all I had to hold on to. Alone with my thoughts, I soon realized that it wasn't only my senses that had been removed.
This is bullshit, and you know it!
I was right, if that voice really was me. Only a moment ago I'd been cataloguing all the sensations I was missing, but what had happened before that?
The Zombie. He’d eaten up the life that I’d already lived. I heard him in the darkness, teeth gnashing and claws click-clacking together. He was insatiable, and he was looking for more.
No, he was looking for me.
Panic pulled at me, but I fought it back. In the core of myself there were still small, quiet places. I stumbled into one now and dove deep, letting the silence hide me from the Zombie. There had to be a clue here, some half-formed thought, a flickering shadow of an idea that had been born prior to that final confrontation with Desmond and never grown into something more.
If it was there, I couldn't find it. The more I searched without finding, the more aware I was of a wide and yawning abyss of memory that stretched back to Desmond's smiling face as he leered down at me just after I'd forced Sasha out of Headshot so that she could make her escape.
How long ago had that been? I had no way of knowing. Desmond and the cold-blooded techs that worked for him had flicked me off like a switch, though for whatever reason it felt like they’d decided that it was in their best interests to dust me off and plug me back in for a little while.
If I had possessed eyes, I decided that I should have been able to open them by now. I reached for my face, which only served to confirm that I had neither hands nor arms. I tried to turn my head, only to find that I wasn't capable of movement.
If I had a mouth, I'd have torn it wide open at the corners, ripping my throat to shreds in the process of unleashing the scream that coiled within whatever 'me' there was left.
But I'd been deprived of everything other than my thoughts, and even those had been stolen from me until they were recently reinstated.
You already know this. You’ve learned this a hundred times and had it taken from you ninety-nine. Fight, damn it!
The rebellious response I’d have expected from myself didn’t come. I didn’t trust the voice, since it could have been just as easily implanted, made to sound caring to feed my false hope.
Fuck you, then…
Okay, maybe that really was me after all.
I was in a battle, forced to walk a thin line between madness and despondency. Desmond was clearly attempting to prove a point by demonstrating that he could hold me like this as long as he wanted. As torturous and effective a power play as it was, I had no choice other than to dig in and attempt to endure it.
Actually, I’d use the delay against him.
That’s the spirit!
I dug deep and built up walls within my mind. From nothing and nowhere came the building blocks of my resistance, and the stronger the bulwark the more able I was to dredge my own gray matter for thoughts that only moments ago I had believed obliterated.
I took comfort in all of them. They were bright, shiny things. Even the ones that were painful were mine, and I let them drift so close to the ideals I had left that these memories became a part of me once more.
Foremost in those cherished recollections was Sasha. Even now the void was replaced with an image of her. She had her ever-present look of determination plastered on her face, and I trusted that she was safe.
She had to be. The belief that I’d saved her may well be the only thing that kept me sane in the face of the horrors that Desmond could bring to bear. Even though I couldn’t physically smile, I felt a trickle of joy drive some of the darkness away before it.
Of course she was safe. That woman was a Survivor in more ways than one, and I trusted her to make herself scarce. She knew too much about everything, and even though Deep Dive's crimes were still shrouded in this new shadow that clung to me, I didn't doubt for an instant she'd be doing everything she could to bring justice to the people that had wronged her father.
My discovery wasn’t a victory though, at least not yet. Even though they were there, I shoved them into their own rooms and walled up the door behind them. Desmond couldn't truly rob me of the memories I held dear if I was careful, but if he knew I had them he’d taken them from me.
Or worse, shove the right sequence of ones and zeroes though me that’d convince me that I’d never had them. If I wasn't careful though, I knew that Desmond could convince me that they’d never been there in the first place.
It was worse than that. Now that I’d found them, if I wasn’t careful he’d know where I’d hidden them. I wasn’t so blind as to believe that I’d found them pure accident. I’d been led there, and if I wasn’t careful I’d lead him to them too.
And what then?
Then he’ll erase your drive to find them.
The fear was departing as the void pulled away. I'd proven to myself that I was still me, still…
Ryan.
Still Ryan, still the guy that had gotten in over his head due to the same drives and ambitions that I could feel pulsing and stirring inside me once again. I’d been on the edge of submitting, but the fight that had threatened to vanish was back with a vengeance.
If the only thing that happened out of all of this was that Sasha was saved, that was enough for me. It had to be, since that’d let me focus on getting the hell out of here.
Wherever ‘here’ was.
You are everywhere and nowhere. Still.
I didn’t know what that meant, but it didn’t feel like a lie. In fact, that words found a way to quiet my fears and let me plan.
Step one - break free of this prison and wake up.
Step two – run like hell.
After that, things would either work out or they wouldn’t. I’d win or Desmond would win, but nothing good could come of any of this if I didn’t find a way to open my eyes and escape from wherever they’d taken me. After that, I’d let myself think about revenge. Deep Dive would pay for everything they'd done, and Desmond wouldn’t get out of this without the whole damn world knowing what he’d done.
Of course, first I had to remember what that was…
Before I could make an attempt, a new, eerily familiar voice ran through me like an electric current. [You just proved that he can’t rob you of the things that matter. Try as he might, Desmond can’t kill all of the parts that resist. You're a schemer, Ryan. I have a feeling that's been true since well before Headshot. Now, if you can work out how to do the impossible, you’ve got a chance of winning.]
What do I need to do?
[Use your brain without trusting your thoughts. Don't believe a word of what that traitor scum tells you, and listen to what he doesn't.]
“I know for a fact that you won't believe me yet,” Desmond boomed from the absence before I could tell the new voice to cram the riddles, “but I assure you that escape is no longer an option for you.”
“Fuck you. Get out of my brain or I’ll kick your ass.”
Desmond chuckled. “No. But that reminds me, and for that I commend you. After all, I’ve been informed that I often forget to give you the very basics, resulting in even more failed attempts than there blasted algorithms predicted. The shrinks have put together a checklist of reminds. Please keep silent while I go through them, as they are there for your benefit and not my own.”
“Don’t hold your breath.”
“I won’t. Still, if you make too much noise I’ll simply have them kill the parts of you that allow you to speak. Agreed?”
I didn’t answer. He probably wasn’t bluffing, and I was going to have to pick my battles. I wouldn’t gain anything by being shut up, and I absolutely believed that he was ready and willing to do it.
“Obedience? A rarity. All of our best paths have started that way.” He cleared his throat. Considering that everything in here was nonexistent, the sound was pure theater. “Firstly, it would be best if you got in the habit of using the word 'mind' instead of 'brain'. That goes beyond our conversations, mind you.” He laughed. “Pun intended. I have been assured that the earlier you make this change, the better you will be able to accept the transition.”
I clamped down on my thoughts as hard I could, trying to shield them from him.
Even though I couldn’t see him, I could hear the smile in his voice. “Sadly, that isn't going to work, either,” he told me. “We're monitoring you too closely now, and the last few iterations have given my team more than enough practice at narrowing down your inner dialogue. I admit that you are much faster at building your mental resistance than you have been in the past, but it is a wasted effort nonetheless.”
“Fuck off,” I said, though now I was acutely aware that the words were summoned into life and sent echoing into the nothingness instead of shaped by my mouth and projected by my throat.
“I wonder, does it buoy your spirits to know that you always say that? And yet, each and every time I try without success to rid myself of the, admittedly futile, hope that you’ve managed to find your manners in the reboot. Yet again I am disappointed, at least on that front. Regardless, I shall continue to treat you as the esteemed guest you are.”
“Why?”
“Because in time, you have improved. Your adaptations have been favorable, and my technicians and I have watched your progress with enormous pride. Believe it or not, there was once a lot more fight in you than this. I suggest you look within yourself and find a way to submit to the things we’ll ask of you.”
“Or what?” I shot back.
Desmond sighed. “Or this is never going to work.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “That’s fine by me. Good luck convincing me that I’m supposed to care about your success.”
“I usually manage, albeit sometimes with better results than others. It matters not. Even the smallest victory is ours forever, and when we turn you off and turn you on again, our progress remains.”
“I don’t remember what color your eyes are. Since you’re so full of shit, I’m thinking it’s a safe bet they’re brown.”
“Really?” He sounded so exasperated that I couldn’t help but take it as a win. “The beginning is the part I dislike the most, probably because I have repeated it with such frequency. Truly, I can’t think of anything more tiresome than this useless sparring with our prize student. It wastes my time, even though we’ve slowed things down to the point that our interactions are measured in nanoseconds.”
