Zero Crossing

Run like hell. That’s what her body told her. Run like hell and never look back!

Mercy crouched on the stairs with her left hand on her heart and her whole body shaking. Her eyes were wide and scanning, out and away. She had finally broken free and could go, so why wasn’t she moving? Going? Getting the f…?

She knew protocol.

The code.

Focus. This domain was different, yes.

Focus. It looked to be an old amusement park, overgrown with trees and brush. She was on stadium-like bleachers, and bushes and shrubs poked through everywhere. Decades of growth.

Focus. A place forgotten.

But ever since they lost Carter, ever since his cache out, things had been different. Forgotten.

This time: the decoys stood in a line in front of giant rusty clown statue next to the broken swings of an old carousel.

Focus. This time the decoys wore long black robes and hoods, appearing more like Grim Reapers than Ninjas.

And this time, focus, at the feet of the old giant clown, the entire team was faced down in a perfect row, shoulders extended, with their hands behind their backs, tied up. Each member was motionless—breathless.

Focus. 6 bodies. 6 pools of blood.

Audits complete. Exploits recorded, copied, and transported. Run.

Southeast. Mercy had to go southeast. And now…a storm was raging.

Dark clouds were not only upon her, they looked monstrous, as if alive up there, rolling around and over, mushrooming like the tone, the swelling cry of it, rupturing inside her head.

The clown’s rusty face smiled. The decoys stood above the motionless team on the ground. Blood ran into the cracks of the concrete. The mix of it. Going around and around and around. The tone mixed with the blood mixed with the smile mixed with the sound of breathing that wasn’t her own.

Voss.

Crouched on same metal stairs, Voss was a few steps up and to the left. His hands were pressing against his ears, and he was squeezing, grimacing hard. He was rocking. She was rocking. He was rocking. Grimacing hard.

Something was dead wrong.

Unstable domain.

The ground rumbled, and everything shook. Mercy clenched the railing, steadying her footing, trying to remain down.

Right then, one of the team members tied up on the ground, the last body on the farthest end, twitched around and then lifted her head, spitting out blood.

Seeing the black hair, long braids, and the blue beads, Auntie Maja’s blue beads, Mercy knew.

The nearest decoy dressed as Death came and raised a large axe, executioner style, over her tied-up body, positioning it with precision above her head.

And Mercy gasped, jerking upright.

Arms came and pulled her down. “No,” Ellsworth whispered sharply. “Don’t.”

But as the axe swung down, Mercy flew up and out. She couldn’t just sit and do nothing. Despite her training, despite all the sworn-in policies and protocols that mandated otherwise, she had to stop them. This need burned inside her as if instinctual, chemical, and deeper still. An overwrite. She had to stop them, save her…but strong hands shoved on her, knocking her flat onto the steps.

“Fall back,” Gage whispered harshly. She saw fear in his eyes. “Do you want to fucking die?”

“Southeast.” Sterling descended the stairs with Voss. His hands were still covering his ears. He was still rocking. Grimacing hard.

“The wall’s southeast.” Sterling pointed.

“Where’s Dee?” asked Ellsworth.

Mercy saw the team come together, heard them talking. She understood the words. Understood everyone was counted for except for Dee. Having five of the six was surely familiar. She understood that they needed to run southeast, and now. But her stare remained on the head on the ground, severed from her lifeless body.

The long braids. Auntie Maja’s blue beads. The blood...how red it was.

How unfamiliar.

Initiates only upon termination. Run.

The tone grew louder, and the frequency altered, pitched and piercing, It was as if someone or something was ripping her mind into two, and two, and two again, tearing up her being, piece by piece.

Each of the five pressed on their ears, grimacing. It was too much. The pressure, the pulling, the pain. It streamed into blackness, and Mercy cried out. As she did, the surge immediately dropped off, as quickly as it had come, returning back to that tone, sounding like children crying.

Or dying.

The decoys were coming.

The ground quaked, and the stairs shook. Swings on the carousel banged around, and cables popped and snapped. The domain was collapsing. Wires and piping and boards came crumbling down. The cracks in the concrete grew wider, deeper, extending like a hand reaching out.

They ran.

Down the steps, jumping over a growing cleft, Mercy didn’t know what came first—the boom or the gust. But it sent a storm of metal and wood at their backs. The giant clown toppled over and smashed onto the ground, shattering into shrapnel, sending silvers flying, striking Mercy.

Clutching the top of her head, feeling it burn, she ran into the woods with debris falling and falling.

And falling.

“What the…?” Ellsworth slowed and the rest slowed as well.

Huge trees grew up through a wooden roller coaster, which was falling a part, section by section. It looked like a colossal snake winding in and out the woods, and it was coming right for them.

“My god!” Sterling pointed.

Massive boards, planks, and rails thundered down, smashing into trees, and the debris and branches crashed behind them.

They ran.

Mercy kept her hands over her head as objects kept coming and coming.

“Where is it?” Gage vaulted out of the way of a wooden dragon’s head that crashed down just a few feet in front of him, sending boulders of debris everywhere. “Where’s the fucking wall?”

Water.

She could hear it rushing.

It was the wall.

“This way!” Mercy gestured as did Sterling, and the five fled toward the sound.

Hearing that familiar rush gave Mercy newfound speed. With her braids smacking her cheeks, she dodged right and left and right again, and when there was no time to sidestep or double back, she jumped.

Each successful pass fueled her.

Her feet were as if wings, the ground was a cloud, and it seemed to have the same effect on the others as Gage and Voss blew by her.

“Showoffs!”

The water fell as a straight spray from the sky to the ground, glistening as far and wide as the eyes could see.

Mercy slowed, catching her breath. They had made it.

Voss sprinted towards the water and sprung into the air, arms straight out as always. As he did, a decoy leapt from behind a tree and knocked him back. Voss slammed onto the ground and gasped, clutching his arm.

The decoy’s grid-like face was glowing red, and it growled and raised its blade. The metal gleamed. In one motion, Gage took a plank from the ground and wacked it. As he did, a thick cloud of black smoke rolled and cleared.

It was gone.

“Are you all right?” Mercy helped Voss to his feet. Voss nodded, and the five ran towards the water, jumping through.

Like falling up.

That’s what Mercy always thought of it. It was like falling up. A rush. A drug. Meaning and being at the same time. It was cold but not cold. Hot but not hot. But this time, crossing the wall felt like being born and dying all at once.

Zero Crossing.

A place forgotten.

“So.” Dee was sitting at the table, candles lit and twinkling, wearing her hair up, dangly earrings, favorite pink dress and black boots when the five others rolled on the ground before her. “What took you people so long?”

“Long?” Voss mocked, sitting up, holding his arm. “At least we’re in one piece.”

“Easy for you, Dimple.” Gage smirked and pointed his fingers at her like a gun. “At least we weren’t the first kill again. What? Is this six for six?”

Everyone laughed.

“Go ahead and joke.” Dee batted her long blonde eyelashes. “But admin sent the preliminary, and whelp, one of us has a bit of a problem.”

“Don’t say,” Sterling said, already on her feet. “Corrupt payload?”

Dee shook her head. “Worse.”

“Fucking unbelievable.” Gage plucked a chunk of wood from his hand. “Gator Executable.”

Dee shook her head. “Worse.”

“What possibly could be worse…” Ellsworth started and broke off.

“Bingo.” Dee nodded with a smile. It was the kind of smile that she wore when the registry told them her brother had died. “D.R.A.”

Everyone looked down.

Dormant Remote Access.

One of them was not who they thought they were anymore. Without knowing it, one of them was working for the other side and would do whatever the rewrite directed, whenever and whatever, even if that meant killing every man, woman, and child. It was the name of the anti-viral game, and they all knew the risk.

That’s why Mercy signed up.

“So they know which of us got fucked during repro? Or are they wiping us all?”

“IDS says one...just one. But we’re quarantined until they recheck the honeypot.” Dee lifted up a basket of bread rolls from the table. “Anyone hungry? I could eat a horse.”

Blood ran from a cut on Mercy’s forehead and dripped onto her hand. The blood. How red it was. More than anything, she had wanted to see her, know her, to save her. Thirty-three copies and this was the first time that she watched, witnessed her own... How was that even possible?

Regeneration initiates only upon termination.

“Hey,” Ellsworth said, moving the braids back from Mercy’s forehead. “That looks really bad.”

As he spoke, she heard it again. It was faint but still there—the tone, children were crying.

And dying.

Instinctively, she put her hand over her heart and felt around. Carter had made his beacon into a shark’s tooth, and that had suited him. He always claimed to be made of oceans, which he had only seen in domains and, of course, those films when they were kids. But hers, he had made into a locket in the shape of a heart.

“What the…” Mercy, at the time, had been far from pleased.

“Because your lover not a fighter,” he teased.

At that, she swept his legs, taking him to the ground. “I’m not a lover.”

He laughed and pulled her on top of him “What are you then?”

“I’m Mercy.”

After his cache out, she had cut his picture in the shape of a heart and tucked it inside there. His eyes had been blue, true blue like the supposed seas. But just like Carter, the heart-shaped locket was gone.

“Merc,” Ellsworth came closer, “you okay?”

Regeneration initiates only upon termination.

“No.” She shook her head, realizing. “I’m not.”

They were staring at her. All five. Eyes wide and knowing.

In one motion, she grabbed the knife from the bread bowl on the table and put it to Ellsworth’s throat.

“Don’t.” Gage moved slowly to them with his hand out. “You don’t have to do this, Merc.”

A rush. A drug. Meaning and being at the same time. It was cold but not cold. Hot but not hot. As she slid the serrated edge across Ellsworth’s throat, it felt like being born and dying all at once.

Zero Crossing.

Like falling up.

Ellsworth sunk to the floor, and the others were upon him, crying out.

She ran, her blood, his blood on her hands, she ran towards the wall, the water, glistening as far as the eyes could see… she was running towards her. She had watched herself die and now understood what this was and what she had to do.

As a virus, Mercy was a forgotten place. And no matter the cost, she had to get to that beacon, had to get back to her and to her heart.