4. Nuclear Family in the Light Era #2
Denji nodded. “While that might be helpful, I think he is right. Understanding the enemy’s tools is secondary to finding the Correction.
If you can’t inform the world about what is actually happening, we won’t be able to stop the Gongtide from feeding their god.
The world will break again, despite our best efforts to preserve it, and Gong will continue to consume worlds. ”
Boyband groaned. “Yeah, yeah, I get it.”
“Do you? You’re brushing this off like I’m some annoying preacher.
I’m wasting away extracting every day to hold back a literal god.
” He laughed. His face winced with a shadow of repressed pain.
“Even if my efforts give this world a single second longer, it’s worth it.
It’s not easy. Spending every zegging day extracting while the world sees me as nothing but a sheep to some Arabasian cult.
I’m giving this my all, but what kind of monk complains this zegging much?
Curses in a holy place? I just… I’m sorry.
Sorry to throw this on all of you when you know well how I feel.
Look at you, defying the world and the lucre it lives for.
Fighting the world’s destruction just like me while everyone out there scorns you like some crazed… Nuwa forgive me.”
“I’m sorry,” Boyband said. “I didn’t mean to–”
“No.” Denji sighed and laughed it off. “I’m being dramatic.”
“We know how it feels to fight an uphill battle,” I said. “Each day the hill gets steeper and like you said, the world is scorning us for it.”
“But it will get easier with more people to keep you going,” Denji said.
“Look, I understand that this is important. You shouldn’t just push off some assassination attempt.
Call it blind trust, but I think you’ll find your answers as you go.
Enemies won’t stop coming at you until this is truly done.
They’ll come in greater numbers and with new abilities just like the therapist the closer you get to victory.
You’re not going to reach it without some help.
Let me and the other Luxists around the world worry about keeping Gong’s growth back.
Leave the existential problems and world-shattering consequences to us.
This has been our battle for far too long.
We just need you to let the world know. Proselyting won’t do it.
You need to get to the moon. You’re not going to get there without focusing. Let’s start now.”
“But what will we do when we get to the moon?” Akna asked.
“The planetary ship that has become the moon serves as the epicenter of all of the Correction’s labor.
If there is a way to reveal the truth of the world, you’ll find it there.
I know it sounds like a longshot, but the world’s data and informatics are connected to Dokkaebi’s moon.
It’s a lot to take in. A lot that I don’t understand.
I’m just telling you my best guesses, but we have to start somewhere.
I do know that as long as Dokkaebi is on the moon, there is no hope of changing this world’s narrative. ”
Everyone nodded, letting silence marinate their thoughts for a moment until Boyband spoke.
“Are we sure there is nothing left at my parents’ place?”
Denji nodded. “Now you truly know why Deleon wiped them out.”
“To Water Hills, then?”
“But we can’t just all storm in,” Akna said.
Boyband laughed. “Zeg, I love this.”
“What?” I said, hesitant to hear.
“Akna, Abbas, and Ral can stay behind–”
“No,” Ralia interrupted. “You need my prowess.”
“I thought your Bite mod wasn’t working?”
“First of all, that is not why I couldn’t find anything about the therapist. Without the mod I am just fine. I don’t need that crutch all the time. I’m–”
“Rest up, girl. I have my coercion mod–”
“Which is also buggy, right?”
“Fine. Oldschool interrogation, it is.”
“Just say what you were going to say,” I said. “Ral, if we need anything from you, we’ll be in touch. I’m sure we can link you up to any database we need through the neuroset you have to someone else, right?”
“It’s not the same.”
“Tell me, how much can you do right now without that mod?” Boyband asked.
“I didn’t lose my knowledge, only my personal touch.”
“You can just touch yourself into the neuronet?“ Denji asked.
“Kinda, but it’s more… intimate. My mod lets me… it’s like being able to move your hand in water to reach a rock where most people are using chopsticks. Intimate precision.”
“But you don’t have your mod,” Boyband said, “so you’re just as good remote as in person?”
She glared at Boyband.
He smirked. “Trust me. The numbers matter.”
“How so?”
“You want to march a bunch of freaks into a school? Let alone an uptight private school? I had to fight my parents when they tried to send me there with the uniforms and mod regulations. They had to prove their worth with everyone still looking down on us for being SocStans, but that’s beside the point.
Everyone there has a skyscraper up their ass and the school administration has zero toleration for loitering.
The only way we’re getting in is by having a successful graduate—me—show a pair of young parents and their son what the school has to offer before committing.
Ral, you good to work their application into the system? ”
“Shouldn’t be too hard to crack.”
“Great!” Boyband clapped. “Kuni, you’ve just arrived from Arabasia–”
“Yes.” The boy nodded. “This is true.”
“No, I mean, you have to act the part.”
“Why act it when it is already true?”
“Because Petya and Naoma aren’t your parents! Look, kid…”
Naoma looked at me as Boyband continued to argue with Kuni.
“Should be fun, huh?” Naoma asked.
I smirked. “I guess so.” I almost asked her about her school years. Keeping that back, I found it hard to maintain a smile. My school years weren’t the best of my childhood memories, but I looked back on them with fondness. Pain and joy, they were foundational to who I had become.
What was Naoma’s foundation?
“You good?” she asked.
“Yeah, it’s a lot to take in.”
“Need a longer rest?”
I shook my head. None of us had the time. Each moment wasted the Luxists extraction efforts.
“What are we going to do?” Abbas asked.
“Captain?” Boyband looked at me.
I scowled and shook my head. “Denji? What do you want the others to do?”
“You’re still in with Haven Health?” Denji asked Abbas.
He nodded.
“See how they are combating the election contention. Naoma, should we be worried about Reef and 3Rochi now that you’re back in the Republic?”
“Why?” Boyband asked. “Do you think they’re connected to Gongtide?”
She shook her head. “I mean, there’s always a chance, but they’re a threat regardless.
If I’m out in the public image, they’ll see me as a threat, especially noting how I left Reef.
I hate to say it but help Haven best them if you can.
I’m not all that matters here, but they’re a danger to anyone, especially if Reef becomes more politically relevant. ”
“But you’re not going back to being the Neon Idol, right?” Boyband asked.
“I mean… I can’t abandon it all, right? Even if they target me, it will only add to the names of everyone else with us on their hit list. Look, I’m not saying I jump right back in, but if we need to influence people, I still have a hold on plenty of hearts.”
“You still want to perform, right?” Ralia asked.
“Without a past to remember, it’s all I’ve ever known. I don’t care if it was forced upon me. It’s what I know, who I am… Call me vain, but I savor the love they give me.”
Boyband eyed me. I was quick to avoid his gaze.
I was the same as Naoma. Once I had tasted that attention, I couldn’t let it go.
My era of media influence had long since passed with my departure from Medislavia, but the hunger remained.
It remained because I continued to feed it despite the atrophy.
I wanted a socitab. For all the bliss they had given me, I could never wish such an addiction upon Naoma but wondered if she had succumbed. If not, when. We were all victims of our pride. That sin, ever growing like a cancer, though I wished more than anything to end it.
I hadn’t used a fix in a week, but the option on my neurospace interface called out in every moment of silence.
I had forgotten how to be bored. How to rely solely upon human interactions in the flesh.
Every day when the world defeated me and Gongtide threatened to end me, I knew that dopamine could be found in a quick socitab.
But that is what it was. Quick. Artificial and effective.
I was learning to be human again the more I resisted.
Our relationship was young, but my desire for Naoma went beyond attraction. She was a human who understood me. Our circumstances were wildly different, but similar in spirit.
In her was hope.
I hoped I could provide the same for her.
A worrisome gaze my way left me to believe that it might be true. If she didn’t want anything more than friendship, that was fine. It would ache, but that was my problem. I had sinned enough against the world. I owed it some good.
While in my reverie, she continued speaking with the others, but I had missed the conversation.
“All good ideas,” Denji said, “but we’ll see what Abbas learns.”
“And me!” Akna was sure to include herself. “Oh, and Ralia, of course.”
“Of course,” Ralia said.
“Pulse,” Boyband said. “We’ll rest up, then hit the city in the morning. Y’all plug?”
“After we feed,” Abbas said. “I’m going to need some before the night is over.”
Every Imp agreed. Before I could ask Naoma, she said, “I’ll keep an eye on Kuni. Acquaint myself with our ‘son’ before tomorrow. You like that idea, Kuni?”
“Can you act out the Red Geisha for me?”
She battled between smiling and disgust. I felt the same. I couldn’t be angry and his adoration for her, but I suppose I had forgotten why he was with us. Why he had been kidnapped, enslaved, changed into a shape-shifting eel-child.
Why Ai had died.