[SESSION id=1.17]: Reality In Sight
You came in an emerald and ivory glow.
You changed everything for me and her.
And you vanished.
A cruelty I cannot forgive,
Even as far as I understand.
— Jazz Thorn, On Integration and Dissolution of Harmony, "The ([Un]Im)Possible"
Out of Reach
"Lillian, I'm going to ask this as gently as I can possibly, given the situation." Mother's voice was firm. Calm, with an underlying layer of fear and frazzlement. I could never explain how she managed that, but it always held my attention. "What in the names of Ayuna and Elia did you do with that workstation while you were in my home?"
I'd heard the news from others already. Hackers had traced the change. It had originated in a small house in Lake Town, east of the lake, from an old computing unit with an even older unit ID. They'd uncovered the home of one Diana Thorn not through records, but through the absence of them. And they'd descended like terror birds.
Mother was calling at a time when no one else was there, only Dr. Stella and their daughter Nona. She had, apparently, carried long conversations with most of the visitors, explaining she hadn't been in the game since before I was born. Not responsible, she told them, to get System Sickness with a baby on the way – or in her case, make it worse, even if she didn't know it back then.
"I'm not mad, but I know it was you, Lillian, so spit it out." Mother's level calm was admirable, worthy of the divinities. "It's not like I don't already know. My entire network – or what's left of it – lit like a brush fire a few days before you left. I just didn't think it'd been you."
"Why ask, Mother," I groaned, "if you already know the answer? I logged in. I ran a script. I updated a file. No big deal."
Jazz was out at that moment. No risk of her finding out what I'd done. She wouldn't be terribly fond of my poking around in The System. She'd be terrified that I'd get System Sickness, and we'd go down together.
"Right. No big deal." Mother sighed. "No big deal except for the colossal risk associated with it! Hackers who touch The System get sick and die, Lillian."
"So you admit you have System Sickness," I shot back. "Good. So you know this is my life to live. And if I can do the impossible, then I will do it and find a way to help you. Help you, and Jazz, and everyone else I can." I took a sharp breath. Something about what I was doing felt wrong. "And if that means I also get System Sickness, then good! At least I got it while doing something to help the world."
I disconnected the call without waiting for a reply. I'd been back in Central City for two work-weeks, and the world was blowing up around me. How delightful.
Jazz and I had discovered, accidentally and wonderfully, it wasn't the absence that made the time-slips happen. If they could happen mid-sentence, then they could happen whether or not Jazz was with me. That didn't mean we knew what caused them, only that it wasn't that.
My call device rang out again. I knew from the tone it was Rain.
"What the fuck, Lil," Rain said immediately as I answered.
"Unless you're going to hear me out, I'm ending this call." I was in no mood. Rain turned on her vis-screen and stared me down as I turned mine on. "That won't work this time, Rain."
"Nothing doing. I'm listening. If you're so confident I'll side with you, I'll give you a shot," she said, trying to let her face go neutral.
"What do you know about Mother's illness?" The deadpanned question fell like a stone. She should know more than me. She'd known longer than I had. "Really. Can you tell me what she has?"
"Dr. Stella wouldn't say. Neither would your mother." Rain's admission was all I needed. She was in the dark. Good.
"Have you ever heard of System Sickness?"
The anger in her expression cracked. She was worried. Properly. I could use that.
"You've asked me that before," Rain said. It was true, but the time slips made it impossible to be certain. "But the answer is the same. Yes. I've read more since then."
"Then I don't need to tell you then that she brought this on herself, just like every other hacker running around and dying slowly." My words were solid, heartless, final. Rain's jaw fell slack. "Mother was a hacker before I was born. She's had it my whole life. And at some point she made it worse by doing more. What did she do? Who knows. But now she's dying." The last word caught in my throat. I fought against the weight of it and the heat of tears burning at my eyes. "And now I'm learning how to do the same, and she doesn't want me to make the same mistakes."
"For what it's worth," Rain eventually said as she recovered herself, "I don't want you getting sick. But you are your own woman."
"Thank you. Now, if you don't mind, that the fuck, Rain." I smiled at her. "I appreciate both your concern and your willingness to back off."
"And I appreciate your transparency." She sighed. "Kin says hi. We're thinking of vacationing to Valley Vale next work-week, so we'll be out of touch for a bit."
Valley Vale. I didn't know much about it. One of the smallest towns in the world. Tucked away where no one can touch it. Sounded a lot like [city[91]].
"While you're down there," I ventured, "can you look into something for me?" She didn't question it, only nodded. "Thanks. I'll message you the details."
The call ended on a much calmer note than the one with Mother, and I decided to do something stupid. I booted up the old workstation and set to my task. Get the monsters away from Mother, but first, route all my work through Sea Village so that they wouldn't come for me, either.
"Sorry, Jazz," I whispered as I saved the changes to the first file. "My prestige grows, and some day soon, the mob will come knocking. I hope you can forgive me that."
Fifteen comments later, spread across a dozen files, I turned off the machine and pushed it under the bed where it'd been since we got back to Central City. I made supper like it was any ordinary day, and greeted Jazz like a good wife would. Were we married? No. But there's no law against treating someone nicely when they take care of you.
Out of Place
I am the rose in the barren field.
My thorns reach as far as the sky.
Trees quake and earth shivers.
Though royal she may be,
A princess can never be queen.
Though floral she paints herself,
A daemon can never seed.
Come find your goddess waiting,
In a city by the sea.
Come face your judgement swiftly,
The devil that is me.
This world is neither mine nor yours,
Neither hers nor theirs,
And yet we claim it for our own,
Not a world, but a fork, and a poor one, as shown.
Speaking in riddles was not my nature, but I knew the sport, so I hoped it will quell the onslaught of visitors to Mother's side. Honestly I wished that I hadn't done any of it, but once you've given your hand, you may well have given your soul.
Jazz brought the news to me just before bed time the next day. Whoever she was, she'd done it again, on a bigger scale. Whoever she was, she'd left a message for everyone. I was pleased at her excitement, but I wondered how much she knew.
Morning following that night was tense.
"I've been mulling over this poem from the woman they're calling 'Aria's Vengeance'," Jazz said over breakfast. "She sounds like someone I could really enjoy. Maybe have tea together. Maybe have a conversation about how she did it."
"Oh?" A much less gracious sound than I intended. I cleared my throat and tried for something mirthful. "Planning to move on, leave me for another woman, and become her little plaything?"
Jazz scoffed at that. "If anyone in this relationship is a plaything," she was smiling, which was a relief, "it's you. Princess of the Pillows. Baroness of the Bottom. Regent of the Receivers."
We both got a laugh out of that. She was right, of course. "Yes. Yes. I know." I took a quick sip of tea. "Are you thinking of taking a non-business business trip?"
"Am I really that transparent?"
"Even more than the glass you put together for your sister's restaurant." I grinned broadly, trying to hide what was going through me. "What if it's a ruse? What if she's not there? She could be in Cove Circle or Hilltop Hamlet or any of the other cities that border seas."
"You don't buy the rumours that she's in Sea Village?" Jazz looked disappointed. Deflated by my bluff. Good. "Okay. Well, then I suppose we stay. I can teach you more about hacking. Or you can teach me more cooking skills."
Something in her expression told me the conversation wasn't over, but she moved on anyway, like she knew I desperately needed her to not hover over my concerns.
"I'd love that."
Jazz left for work, none the wiser that I'd left the poem, none the wiser that I was planning something more. I just needed help from Jazz Thorn, if I could convince her.
Or maybe Unknown Number Jazz would be so kind as to —
My call device tone told me my wish had been granted.
"Have you figured it out, mon lys?" Her face was still strangely unsettling. Not quite Jazz, but at the same time definitely so. What was it about her? "Is there something on my face?"
"No. I'm simply trying to sort what's so different about you." My answer seemed to suffice. She simply stared back as I considered. "In any case. Do you know about Principles of Composition?"
"I do!" She was far more excited than she had any right to be. "And that's why I asked. Have you figured it out yet?
"Jazz Moon, who married to become Jazz Thorn." When she nodded, I continued. "And she's also responsible for the books coming across." Another nod. "Each of you has some way to communicate. Hers is the books. Yours is the calls. Jazz Comet is information in The System."
"Look at you! Puzzling for yourself." She feigned wiping tears from her cheeks. "Jazz Moon would be proud."
"You realise I've caught you in a lie, Jazz Light." At my words, her face flashed something like shock. "Lucky guess. But you said you didn't know about L."
"Fine. Fair. It was a fun game, though." She grinned. "For what it's worth, I've always hated my surname."
"Question," I said without paying her comment any mind.
"Answer," she groaned again.
Jazz Light seemed to despise the question-answer tic. I made a mental note of it before asking what was on my mind. "In Jazz Moon's world, The Source is so directly integrated into reality that changes to one manifest in the other. Can I do the same with The System?"
"Good question." She nodded again. Stalling for time. "Not if you don't want System Sickness. It's in every world except Lillian prime's. Yours is the only world she made it so severe. If you did something like that, you'd drop dead before you could make your first change."
"But it's possible in theory?"
"Quite so."
"You wouldn't possibly be willing to tell me how, would you?" I tried to give her my sweetest look. She gave me a smug sort of smirk. "I didn't think so. Well. In that case. Thanks anyway."
"Question," she ventured.
"Yes?" When I didn't say 'answer', her smirk vanished, and she smiled broadly.
"Kinder than you have to be. Do you remember yet?"
"How would I know?"
"Good luck out there Star-Lily." She disconnected the call. Of course she wasn't going to answer.
As I sat with the quiet, I caught on what she said at the last. 'Star-Lily'. Jazz Aster had called me that as well. Everything, somehow, was connected. And for whatever reason, I couldn't see the web for the flies trapped in it.
Out of Tune
"I got another call from Jazz Light," I said casually to my Jazz as we ate supper after she came home from work. "She keeps begging me to remember something. I keep telling her I don't know what I don't know and can she please tell me what I'm meant to remember." I stabbed a bit of capsicum with a fork. "She really is a cunt, that one," I said before shoving the orange fruit in my mouth.
"Jazz. Light?" She raised a single brow and stared. "So she told you her name?"
Fuck.
"I guessed it, actually," I said with somewhat of a sheepish grin. I was grateful once again that it was hardly visible when I blushed. "Care for a riddle? It's a bad one, but I think it'll make the point."
"Why not?" Her cautious tone set me on edge, but trusting her was all I had anymore.
"In a landscape of the sky, what's the one thing more dishonest than the darkness?" Terrible wording. I'd have to work on that.
Jazz crinkled her nose and glared at me. "That's the worst riddle I've heard in —" Her face lit up. "Okay. First off, it's light, but second off. I think I've understood something."
She stood from the table, her plate still mostly full, and rushed across my home to retrieve a new gadget she'd brought home from the office. It looked like a metal slap, but she was able to pry it open with her fingertips to reveal something that resembled a workstation. I'd seen something like it twice before. Once in Jazz Aster's world, and once in Jazz Moon's.
"We've been looking at Vengeance's message wrong," Jazz smiled as she pulled up a document. "Everyone's been parsing it as one long message, a welcome invitation to Sea Village. What if —" she went through her open document and inserted line breaks, and eventually pointed to the content in groups, "— it was meant to be a series of riddles that, in themselves, add up to a riddle about the writer?"
I am the rose in the barren field.
My thorns reach as far as the sky.
Trees quake and earth shivers.
The first group was my favourite part. It came to me in seconds. I wanted to sound fearful, to seem like a demon and an angel at once. People ate things like that for breakfast, and then came back for second breakfast, elevenses, luncheon, dinner, afternoon tea, supper, high tea, and midnight snack. It was a winner.
"What am I meant to take from this? She's boastful," I said, staring Jazz down. "What is this meant for?"
"Roses don't grow in barren fields, so she's resilient," Jazz offered, hoping I'd get there first. I wasn't giving anything up. "And she has great defences. The thorns. This last part is an inversion. Normally, you get earthquakes, and trees shiver with the breeze." She kept looking back to me hopefully, and when I didn't finish the thought she completed the thought. "Vengeance wants to change the world, and she knows how to do it!"
"You got all that from three very bad lines of poetry?" I raised a single brow and waited. She didn't deign to answer. Instead, she just scrolled to the next part.
Though royal she may be,
A princess can never be queen.
Though floral she paints herself,
A daemon can never seed.
"At first glance, this is about how the Princess of Flowers prevents anyone from getting into the code and breaking things," Jazz said. She held out for a moment before adding. "What if this is actually about System Sickness? Vengeance has found a way past the Princess, but that was obvious, so clearly she knows more."
How had Jazz pieced that together? She was right, of course, but it baffled me. My expression made that clear, I was sure.
"System Sickness is the one constant in hacker spaces, Lillian," Jazz seemed to be aiming for 'chastising calm', but she was hitting 'talking down to an idiot'. "We all know we're going to get it. It's the queen of our thoughts. And if Vengeance thinks like us, then she's thinking that way too."
I half nodded, half shook my head and smiled. Sort of.
"We've talked about Silver Thorn, right? My user name?" Jazz was reaching for something. At that point, I was already so far behind I couldn't give away the game if I wanted to, so I just nodded. "Silver Thorn is like System Sickness. In the fantasy stories I used to read. It poisons you, slowly stealing your strength and then your life. The more you handle it, the quicker you drop."
Oh. That was clever. "You think far too laterally for a simpleton like me," I said, giggling. "But I think you're onto something. This Vengeance has found her way in and thinks she's exempt from the poison. What else do you have?"
Come find your goddess waiting,
In a city by the sea.
Come face your judgement swiftly,
The devil that is me.
"You're going to tell me that she is telling people to come find her as a threat, not as an actual invitation, aren't you." I was trying to get ahead of Jazz's logic, but she shook her head. "Okay. Then she's telling people they can come looking if they like, but they won't find her there."
"And here I thought I was dating Lillian Thorn, genius!" She looked almost despondent, if not for the shiver in her brow. "It's her telling them that they should do their own work, find their own solutions. Less a threat, and more a 'back off and stay in your lane'." She pointed back up. "Tied with the last one, she's telling them they aren't immune, so following her is foolish."
"Dizzying intellect, Jazz," I shoved her playfully, "but please do go on making me feel like the village fool."
"Lillian if you don't stop playing dumb, this won't be nearly as fun." Jazz set down the mobile workstation and took my shoulders in hand, shaking as she continued. "Wake up wake up wake up wake up. Get those brain juices flowing! Come on! Wake up!"
We were both in a giggling fit after a few seconds of that. "Okay! Stop! I get it!"
"Perf. Last one."
This world is neither mine nor yours,
Neither hers nor theirs,
And yet we claim it for our own,
Not a world, but a fork, and a poor one, as shown.
My heart dropped. There was no way Jazz wouldn't connect those dots to me and our conversations. What a foolish way to get found out. I just had to hope she'd accept the excuse of coincidence.
"Whoever Vengeance is," Jazz grinned, "she figured out that this is one of who knows how many forks. And she breaks her pattern here at the end. This is emphasis." Jazz pointed first at the words 'mine', 'yours', 'hers', 'theirs', then she pointed to the words 'poor one'. "You are probably about to say something like 'coincidence', right?"
"I'm probably about to say something like 'what are you hoping I'll see'. But sure. If you think it's a coincidence —" My words were cut off by her hand over my mouth.
"Wrong!" She was too pleased with herself. "I think this is a message from one of the Lillians. Or one of the Jazzes."
How absolutely spot on she was. And hopefully she didn't see the obvious answer. Had she figured out it was me?
"That's as far as I've gotten," she looked almost crestfallen to admit it. "I was hoping you could give some insight into this."
"Jazz Light said that Jazz Moon's world doesn't have System Sickness," I provided. It was the best I could offer. It wouldn't do to get her off my tail. "And it's the only one." Why couldn't I lie to her and say there were others? That would bite me in the
"So you're thinking what I'm thinking. The Moon-Lily has a goddess complex." Jazz seemed so satisfied that we'd reached the 'same' conclusion. I wasn't about to let her be disappointed, so I nodded. "Excellent. Then I guess we wait for the next message."
"You expect more?"
"Why would someone with a goddess fixation stop showing off?"
"Point taken."
She was so entirely wrong, and yet she was exactly correct. That was terrifying in a way I couldn't explain, but it was honestly somewhat of a relief. To be so thoroughly seen and understood while still being entirely hidden from plain sight.