20. Something Unresolved #2
A rectangular shape formed above the hilt, on the dull edge of the blade, extruding outwards from the grip. The barrel of a revolver, now mounted alongside the blade.
“Gunkatana! I see. Your name makes sense now.” He looked at Dylan. “This is exactly like that old action game I used to play. The Gunkatana combines the aim of a pistol with the slice of a katana. A two-in-one design that I always loved.”
She nodded slowly. “So our theory about the Tapeworld being made by a video game designer… Have you accidentally stolen from the Tapeworld’s creator?” Goddess. What would it mean if he had?
“One way to find out, I guess…”
Dylan approached Isaak as he held the transformed blade in his hands. “Can we call it Gunky?”
Isaak shot a look at her. “You can! Don’t think I can though… The Gunkatana in the game deserved respect and reverence.”
She raised her eyebrows at him, hoping her cheeky smile was readable.
He smiled back, holding the blade high and inspecting it again, rotating it gently in his fist.
“This weapon does look exactly like the one in the game. Ah, who knows? Maybe the same person created both Gunkatana and the Tapeworld. Or maybe not. The game is really old. I remember playing it when I was a little kid. And it’s still early days for the Tapeworld.
It’s not like the internet. Elodie kept driving that home to me when I first started taping.
‘There’s less than a thousand people out there,’” he said, mimicking this Elodie’s voice and gestures.
“‘Even I have no idea how this tech works.’”
Dylan chuckled. “Did she really say that?”
“Yeah. But she could have been bullshitting me. She can be mysterious when she wants to be. Anyway, let’s find out what we can find out. Okay, Gunkatana,” he said, addressing the blade. “We need to examine you now. Do you consent to being analysed?”
The sword took a few moments to respond.
“I consent.”
Isaak tipped the sword forward twice, mocking a nod.
“Right. Here we go.” With his free hand he summoned a black onyx pedestal and a computer screen from the table, then gestured to turn on the various screens over on his desk.
He placed the hilt of the sword on the pedestal, and as he let go the blade receded back into the hilt with a sharp sound.
Layers of graphical data materialised around the Gunkatana, floating in mid-air, performing all sorts of analysis for composite materials, inception date, whatever information they could get.
“I can see the signs and details that inevitably get branded onto tape constructs – these things we summon inside the tape. It’s all zeroes and ones in the end, presumably, but you can’t stop your unconscious from giving it an extra edge, some spice.
” Isaak folded his arms, staring at the data flow.
“With the tape, no one’s quite sure what sort of existence you’re really experiencing. ”
The translucent floating lines and bars thundered in a crescendo, looking like a progress bar for the analysis.
Dylan glanced at Isaak, at his muscled crossed arms, his face looking all serious.
This had gone above and beyond her comfort zone.
From not being allowed a VR headset by her parents when growing up, to now rocking around the Tapeworld asking a combination of a gun and a katana for consent to examine it…
It forced some uncomfortable questions to surface that she wasn’t ready to think about.
Was the world she knew even real? Or was she one tape-rip away from exiting IRL, and discovering an unknowable dimension of beings beyond description?
The progress bar reached its conclusion, and the hologram visuals on the screen coalesced around a single word that pulsed repeatedly, the shock focusing Dylan’s attention away from her introspection.
“It found something,” Isaak said, zooming into the resulting piece of data with a hand gesture.
It was a familiar shape. The technocrest for one of the Tech Kings.
Isaak’s brow furrowed. He shut his slightly open mouth. “I have no idea what’s going on…” His hands typed on a see-through floating keyboard, the Tapeworld adapting to accommodate whatever he wanted to accomplish.
“The Third King?” Dylan asked. “What’s he got to do with this?”
Isaak took a deep breath. “The analyser looked over the Gunkatana’s particles, datamined it and sought out its source. And, according to this, the Gunkatana was made by the Third King. Well, by the Third Kingdom’s employees. People of the Book.”
Oh, shit. You did not mess with the Book, unless you wanted your life probed.
“Your boss has got you stealing shit from the Kings? Do you realise—”
“I do…” And he took a deep sigh. “I’m fucked.”
“We’re fucked. I was there too! You pulled me in, remember?” Her hands started shaking slightly. She fought the anxiety by clenching her fists.
Isaak waved the keyboard and analysis overlays away. The Gunkatana was still atop the black pedestal, now silent.
Dylan stared straight at it, a horrible thought washing over her. “Isaak, have you ever thought about what would happen if they got to this world?” Her voice wavered.
“The Book, or the Five Kings?”
“All of them. Any of them.”
“The Gunkatana was made by one of them…” Isaak said.
“They must already be here. But it doesn’t make sense.
The Tapeworld was sold to me like a grassroots piece of tech, outside the purview of the Tech Kings.
Which is why secrecy and keeping the numbers low has been important.
The tech giants will fuck this place up.
” Casting his eyes down, he leant on the table, then sat on the high chair.
“They’ve already beaten us to the punch.
At least one King knows about the Tapeworld. ”
While he stared at the sword-pistol, Dylan looked at his hands. He was tracing the knuckles on his left hand with his right index finger. She’d seen him do it before. Wanting to comfort him, she put a hand on his to stop him. “We won’t let it happen.”
Isaak stared at her, and she felt her chest tighten. She could see the anguish and pain inside him. “What can we do?”
They both knew that the answer was likely not very much. She took a deep breath, and they sat there in silence. As if reading her thoughts, a torrent of molten liquid pierced the rock of the volcano and burst out, sputtering chunks of soft lava, then sluggishly running down the mountain.
Miss Kitty leapt up onto the table next to the Gunkatana, making them both jump. “What are you two up to?”
Isaak quickly moved his hand out from under Dylan’s, standing up.
Dylan glanced at Isaak, trying to catch his eyes again, trying to resume the moment they were having. But it was in vain as he started handling the sword, the blade concealed within the hilt. She stroked the cat, who nuzzled against her chest.
“See those bits?” Isaak said, pointing at two protruding spherical shapes attached to the hilt. “They look unusual, but I can’t figure out what they do.”
She nodded. “Lemme see if I can move them.”
He moved a hand away, holding the sword out and inviting her in with his body language. She approached him, and moved into the space in front of him, feeling his chest on her back. He smelled of something citrusy. Was it the Tapeworld or some fragrance he was wearing?
She grasped the hilt of the Gunkatana while he held it steady, touching his hands.
Dylan prodded and pushed the two spheres, nestling between him and the sword. The memory of his arm around her back from the night they first met… A pang of excitement, feeling his breath on her neck, making the hairs raise.
Dylan moved the two shapes in opposite directions with a twisting motion, and they fell out of the sword’s grip onto the table. They joined together to form a metal tube.
“Oh, wow. What’s in this? Good job spotting it, Isaak.” She turned back to look at him, her face ever so close to his.
He smiled down at her.
Fighting the urge to kiss him, she turned back and opened the tube. Inside was a translucent roll of paper, which grew larger than the container itself as she pulled it out. A photograph.
It was a portrait shot of a woman, brown shoulder-length hair in curls, who looked to be about the same age as them. Minimal make-up, lips pursed with barely the hint of a smile, betraying something unresolved, matching a worry behind her brown eyes.
Dylan didn’t recognise her.
Isaak immediately went stiff, his breathing halting and heavy. He moved away from Dylan, arms brushing her back as he retreated. He placed the Gunkatana, in hilt form, back on the pedestal.
“What is it?” she asked.
He shook his head. “I really don’t think I should give this to Astrid.”