Chapter 44: Uncertainties

  I tried to tune out the conversation around me, letting the other commuters’ voices fade into the background as I turned to look out the window.

  Yes, they were talking about Valdemar – someone I was supposed to stop.

  No, they didn’t know a damn thing about him or Libra. Just a bunch of grown adults, slogging through their harsh, uneventful lives, getting a thrill by tossing around guesses like they were seasoned experts.

  I focused instead on the passing scenery, letting the rhythm of the tram lull the noise away as I still had around two hours before I had to switch lines.

  Out of the window, behind the endless clouds of smoke, the sight of narrow rowhouses clinging to each other greeted us through most of the way.

  We passed through Steeler Street – a well-known stretch on this side of Orlinth where every shop belonged to the same family: the Steelers. There was a proper workshop, a metal engraving shop, a prosthetics shop, a repair shop, and even a laundromat. Each storefront bore the same warning in bold lettering: ‘NO TRADES OR REFUNDS!’

  Men in oil-stained aprons, cracked goggles, and Kinetra’s magic rolled carts piled with different metals – shipments from the Foundry – followed by armed Ironwatch Enforcers. They moved them toward the shops that had won the parts in the weekly lottery.

  The lotteries were a spectacle…in the worst meaning of the word.

  With so many inventors in Orlinth – a natural outcome, given how Orlinth had to constantly innovate just to prove its usefulness and survive – there simply weren’t enough materials to go around. So the great minds of House Innovation came up with a system: every workshop, guild, or registered independent inventor would receive a lottery ticket for a chance to win a portion of that week’s supplies.

  It could’ve been a decent idea – if they hadn’t allowed people to buy additional tickets.

  That “loophole” created a world where the richer and more established inventors or the larger guilds just bought up dozens of entries – sometimes hundreds – nearly guaranteeing a win every time.

  That’s why it was so hard for someone like me to ever shine through. Especially after I was flagged for that incident and all the larger guilds refused to take me in.

  Eventually, as a countermeasure to battle this trend, House Innovation introduced ‘Golden Ticket’ – a form of compensation granted to anyone who hadn’t won even a single cog in the recent forty lotteries. These had higher draw rate, regardless of how many tickets the wealthier competitors had purchased.

  And still, forty lotteries meant forty weeks. And by then, most inventors would’ve gone bankrupt, sold their tools, descended to the Foundry to look for work there, or maybe even quietly died in some alley.

  Everyone on the platform got food rations twice a week for a single Steamcrown, but they were small and scarce – especially for larger families who had no choice but to spend extra just to eat.

  I never really understood how my father – a low-tier inventor himself – managed to survive within this system as a single father to boot. Even today, I lived under his roof, used his tools, his materials, but I never seemed to suffer the shortages other did. I knew he had some connections with the bigger guilds, but there’s was no way they were that deep.

  I asked him once. He never answered. I pushed once. He got mad. I never pushed again.

  The shopfronts kept rolling past – each with rotating mechanical signs inviting customers in: ‘Stockton & Sons Innovation’, ‘Rowan’s Medical – Private Clinic’, ‘Taylor the Tailor – Fashion Boutique’.

  Here and there were more official institutions – the most were still located in Skyhaven – like DGO-run COG repair stations, and the ration dispensaries already forming long lines.

  Grimmer sights of the platform were also on display: people fainting on the streets – from exhaustion or starvation. Some just passed them around - the amount of people on the streets and constant movement sometimes made it hard to halt completely without causing an actual trampling accident. Others stopped what they were doing to pull the weakened to the side and help. Meanwhile, the alleys had gang members hiding behind some of the infrastructure, waiting for the poor sods that would decide that today was a good day to take a shortcut through there.

  Eventually, as we reached the southernmost bend of the SJ-line – just before it veered north – I caught a glimpse of the Census Archives: a large, intimidating, stone-gray building. The second-largest structure on the platform, only surpassed by the tall radio tower in Central-East – near my home.

  The tram made its slow, groaning turn, completing the J’s final curve. Then it straightened out and rumbled northward in a steady line.

  That was when my COG beeped, notifying me of a message.

  [13:11]

  [You Received a Private Message]

  The sender was labeled simply as ‘Unknown’.

  I didn’t think that was even possible. The COG or terminal they were using had to be rigged.

  A shiver ran down my spine. I already suspected who it was thanks to Déjà vu.

  I opened the message.

  [“Home sweet home, huh?”]

  The shiver deepened.

  BEEP. BEEP.

  [“Wait. I forgot you can’t remember our last talk.”]

  [“So just in case you hadn’t done 1+1 in your head already, then yeah, it's me – Dolos’ Champion.”]

  If I had doubts – which I hadn’t – they were definitely gone now.

  I wished I could reply. Just tell this smug bastard what I thought of him and his master. But I couldn’t.

  BEEP. BEEP.

  [“I liked your tactic to throw Erebus off.”]

  [“Mine’s better, though. Didn’t have to burn loops for nothing.”]

  My anger flared as I snapped my head around, feeling like someone was watching me.

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  BEEP.

  [“Perhaps I’ll explain it to you. When we meet, that is.”]

  When we meet?

  When we meet, I’ll make sure you’re rotting in a cell. For plotting the end of the world. For being a fucking anarchist!

  BEEP. BEEP.

  [“Do you at least remember what you learned about the Aetherprint?”]

  [“I even made sure you had the key to Stanford’s again.”]

  What?

  Aehterprint? Key to Stanford’s?

  What in the world have I done in my past loops?

  BEEP.

  [“You don’t need to answer. I know you don’t remember.”]

  I nearly cursed out loud.

  BEEP.

  [“Luckily for you, I’m a generous soul.”]

  BEEP.

  [“It won’t be fun for me if you’re too far behind.”]

  BEEP.

  [“Don’t ask questions. Just enjoy the read on the way to your sister.”]

  Another chill ran down my back.

  How did he know I was looking for my sister?!

  He has to be following me. There’s no way he could’ve known.

  Then came one last BEEP, and with it, a long message. It dove deep into the concept of Aetherprint, unravelling it fully – what it was, how it worked. It shed light onto what SKO-03543 was - an Aetherprint sequence.

  But did it belong to someone – hopefully, to Thea.

  Or maybe…it was a machine’s.

  I barely finished when the car’s phonotube creaked and reminded me I had to get off. I've been reading the message for nearly two hours.

  “This is the SJ-Line, northbound. Final stop: Station One-Zero-Nine. Next Stop: Station One-Zero-One.”

  I approached the exit and hopped off the tram, my mind still reeling as I waited at the station for the P-line to arrive.

  Even if I took everything I’d just read in their message at face value – if every word of that smug bastard’s was the truth – the real question still remained:

  Why share this with me? What was their gain? Their angle? Was this really just a game for them?! I couldn’t understand it.

  As I looked around, still waiting for the tram, it different realization hit me.

  I’d definitely been in the area before.

  But…when?

  Quickly, the second tram arrived and I boarded it without delay thanks to my Day Pass.

  I watched the streets as we rode to the eastern area of north Orlinth. Street after street, old shop after forgotten monument – with each one we passed, the feeling grew stronger. Clearer.

  It was a déjà vu, I guess. But not the skill. Just the feeling the skill described.

  By the time I got off, just half a mile from the Aetherprint signal in my COG, I already knew what I was about to see.

  And there it was, not-so-distantly, a place I knew.

  A narrow, five stories building. There was no doubt – the Aetherprint signal was coming from inside.

  I approached it slowly, the area mostly abandoned.

  The structure itself must’ve once been white, long ago – was before my birth. But time had visibly stripped that away, leaving behind a nasty yellow-gray that matched the rest of Orlinth’s colors.

  Nailed beside the door, half-splintered and weather-worn, hung a small wooden sign.

  It said: Northern Orlinth Mental Asylum.

  ***

  I’d visited this place once before.

  After I was arrested.

  Before the court could deliver a death sentence.

  After the people from the pub that night testified in my defense.

  They sent me here for an initial mental evaluation – more a bureaucratic formality than anything else. Dad’s – and consequently my – lawyer told me they’d already agreed to charge me with Disproportionate Retaliation and give me two months of civic labor and two years of mandatory sessions with a state-approved psychiatrist.

  After that initial meeting here, I got assigned to my psychiatrist – Dr. Gina Aresa.

  I could’ve kept coming here for the weekly meetings as well – get assigned to someone here – but…come one. Just look at this place.

  The tiled floor was cracked and uneven. The pipe heating inside the walls barely worked - it was freezing. The walls themselves were flaking, corners spotted with mold. The stench was unbearable – a combination of rot, rust, and medicine. And from deeper within the building – through the wall behind the reception desk ahead – I could hear the screams.

  Patients. The actual ones. The ones who got locked away here so no one would ever see them again.

  There was no doubt in my mind back then. I picked a private psychiatrist – no matter who. Didn’t even care that Dr. Aresa’s office was further away from home than this hole. Anything to avoid it again.

  But now…now I was back. And as I approached the reception desk, another, deeper realization sank in.

  My sister – the sister I’d never met. The sister who had been kidnapped by the Primarch. She might’ve been held here all this time.

  Here. In this forsaken building.

  It made sense in a sick and twisted way. Of course the Primarch put her somewhere like this – a place no one would even bother checking.

  And if that was the case, how long had she been here?

  The Memory Fragment I saw – the one with her being taken – had happened while Mother was still alive. So at least a year ago. But what if it was longer?

  Was it possible…that she’d already been here, two years ago?

  That the day I came in for that bullshit evaluation – when I sat in one of the moldy waiting chairs that were now missing – she was here too? Maybe even just a few walls away?

  I mean, I never even knew she existed back then, so I couldn’t exactly blame myself. And yet hearing the patients’ cries again…it made me sick. It made me ashamed of something I had no actual control over.

  But maybe, just maybe, I was to blame.

  Maybe instead of obsessing over my petty revenge against Mother…I should’ve done something else with my life. Found out the truth sooner – before the world was caught in an End of the World predicament.

  Maybe I could’ve found Thea long ago.

  But then another thought clawed its way forward: relax, Detective Halegrim. You don’t even know if the signal belongs to her.

  That's right...why am I always overthinking things?

  The SKO-03543 – the signal – it might be her. But it might not.

  Who knows where my past selves had sent me with this signal?

  Mother was killed a year ago. Dalton Rose could’ve released Thea around the same time. He only ever took her to make sure Stanford doesn’t intervene before he ordered the kill on Mother.

  The signal – the odds are that it belonged to someone else.

  Except…

  I remembered my conversation with Balthor. We’d spoke about Thea like she was still captive. Like she needed saving. And I likely found other evidence that supported that theory but couldn’t store it in the Inventory because of the restrictions.

  Thinking of it now, shouldn’t Chronos had deleted this conversation with Balthor from my memory…?

  Maybe in exchange for burning eight of my loops by accepting his suggestion, he decided to let me keep some additional memories.

  Well, never mind that. Finally, something worked in my favor.

  There was also the other looper. If I could trust his words– crazy, I know – he said the same thing: that I was on the way to my sister.

  I shook my head in frustration.

  Whatever – whoever – SKO-03543 was. I’d find out. But until then, I should keep myself ready and open for anything.

  I took a breath, pushed the thoughts down, and stepped up to the unmanned desk.

  The wooden thing in front of me served as the entrance checkpoint to the asylum. You had to pass through it unless you wanted to hang out in this corridor.

  It looked just as terrible as the rest of the place – warped wood and half-rotted corners.

  “Is anyone here?” I called out, hoping they could hear me beyond the locked doors.

  Silence.

  I pressed the bell on the desk. It didn’t ring – just snapped at the base and clattered uselessly onto the countertop.

  Great…

  I called again, a little louder this time. Still no answer.

  Fine. I was done waiting.

  I hopped over the desk.

  The door into the asylum proper was sealed, with a mounted access terminal on the wall beside it. Naturally. This place was a prison disguised as a clinic.

  I turned to the terminal embedded to the desk instead, hoping I could pull something from it.

  But the glass screen was shattered beyond recognition – a spiderweb of cracks and deep gouges.

  Even if it was open with the receptionist’s clearance, I couldn’t see shit.

  I brought my COG closer for a scan – to see if it even worked to begin with – but there was nothing.

  No beeps. No lights. No changes in the cracked screen.

  Then came the footsteps. Sharp. Getting closer. Behind me.

  I sprang over the desk just in time, landing quietly and pretending like nothing happened.

  The locked door beeped, then opened.

  A lanky man stepped out in a long white medical coat – the same man I’d seen that one time when I was here, two years ago – Dr. Emmerick Skarn.

  Hard to forget someone like him.

  He was bald, his scalp carrying two scars that looked like they were made purposefully to be parallel. A pair of wire-rimmed spectacles sat perched on top of his head, covering them slightly. His eyes were wide, unblinking. Wild. And his smile stretched too far, revealing a mouth missing all two of its front teeth, one on each jaw.

  But the creepiest part was his left arm.

  A full prosthetic – brass and clunky – bolted into his shoulder. The fingers twitched and spasmed constantly, whirring and rotating like they couldn’t stop moving. And his COG wasn’t even worn on it's wrist – it was embedded inside the prosthetic, fused directly into the brass plating.

  He held a syringe in his other hand.

  When he saw me, his grin stretched even wider – somehow.

  “Mr. Halegrim,” he said, his voice giving me goosebumps. “Back so soon?”

  For some reason…he remembered me too.