The Force

  “Debuu-ni… are you Beatle?” asked Inês in a soft breath.

  The bug's scarlet eyes narrowed with a shared understanding, a sorrowful smile drawing across its whey-faced front; its pompon tail quivered as the evocation of its auld lang syne. The five of them held the shrine's silence, pensive as the hail's perennial beating kept on shaking the world outside.

  Gleaming anew, the mirror readied itself for the next scene.

  Among blue light, Truck-kun created snow and his Japan under it. Exsanguine, it was but a beautiful glass globe, so he breathed into it the data of living people; fragments became clones and clones begat trapped souls.

********

  The clouds were heavy in Paris that evening; a young woman climbed out of the metro's mouth in a hurry, like she had work to do. She was comely, with skin as white as snow and sleek, jet black hair that reached past her shoulder blades. She passed the closing boutiques on a bustling boulevard and turned into an adjacent street, flanked by low-slung, ancient buildings and flickering streetlights. She witnessed an odd sight as she quickly made her way home: an ice cream truck, parked in the middle of the road. As she went to enter her building, the vehicle's backdoor opened and a soft, childlike cry escaped it. She stopped and scanned the empty lane, her black, almond-shaped eyes searching for any kind of explanation. Cautiously, she stepped forward and went to look into the the truck's freezer, dread bubbling up in her stomach. Then, she was gone.

********

  E≥kTln2

********

  It was a sunny day in the small, Italian street; yellow and cream-colored buildings lined the way, and the clear blue sky shined brightly. An ancient, pittoresque church appeared on the horizon, between the elegant shops and restaurants. A lonely young girl skipped across the crossing, her backpack in hand. She had short, light-brown hair and chestnut eyes that glimmered with gusto. She had to have been eleven or twelve. And then, they saw through his eyes: Truck-kun, striking her without delay, his distorted lullaby playing with a baleful hum as he did. A blue glow gleamed darkly as he hovered over Henrietta's unconscious body, making away with it.

********

  The mirror went blank, its glint fading faintly, and it retracted onto itself as it joined its place on the dais.

  Inês looked to her left at the other three: taciturn, Marcel was lost in thought, his silver eyes fixed on the floor as he muttered to himself without a sound; a stoic, but indignant cast covered Jin's visage, who seemed crossed and ready for a fight; as for Lu, she appeared unwell, febrile, her forehead pearling with sweat.

  “That older girl, I've seen her before,” she said, fighting back tears. “Who is she?”

  Debuu-ni looked down for a moment, as if searching for the right words. Then, fluttering to Lu, it tried to meet her gaze, but her green eyes were drowning behind a wall of lament.

  “That young woman was Yuki Fujikawa, but you would remember her as the Yuki-onna.”

  Lu let out a strangled scream and fell onto herself, shaking with sobs. Inês put a hand on her back and brought her into her lap; she looked at Debuu-ni, her own eyes welling up.

  “I don't understand,” she said. “Have all the adversaries we've fought been real people?”

  “No, Yuki was a particular case. Tyler had been communicating with her before he merged with the truck's artificial intelligence. As you saw, he was infatuated her—or the idea of her. Whatever the case was, she didn't love him back, and…"

  "So he trapped her,” said Jin. "He made her his prisoner."

  Inês thought back to their battle, the words and actions of the Yuki-onna reverberating in her now awakened mind. On her leg, Lu kept weeping.

  “Yuki said something about us being blinded by the light and not seeing the truth.”

  Debuu-ni nodded gravely.

  “Because she wasn't merely a data clone, but a person who had been brought into this world like the four of you, Yuki had been able to somewhat fight her programming. The mission she had put herself on was to freeze all of the inhabitants of Truck-kun's facsimile, freeing them from his control.”

  “And you sent us after her,” said Jin.

  Debuu-ni lowered its eyes.

  “Yes, I did.”

  A cover of silence fell like an autumn leave inside the shrine, interrupted only by the outside beat of the elements. As Inês stroked Lu's hair, Marcel got up and walked to the door; opening it slightly, he gazed out at the storming hail.

  “So is Tyler dead?” he asked, strands of his hair shifting in the cold wind.

  “His physical body has died, yes,” said Debuu-ni, its voice tinged with what Inês interpreted to be mourning. “His mind, however, lives on, merged with the truck's artificial intelligence."

  "What does that mean, exactly?" she asked.

  "Out there, in the real world, that means he can control every vehicle that's connected to that system and use their computing power as he pleases. For us, who are locked in his creation, that makes him… a god.”

  A veil of placid terror fell over the shrine as the bug's sentence resounded.

  Marcel turned around, his face unstrung and his voice anxious: “If he's dead, does that mean we are too?”

  Batting its wings, Debuu-ni flew up to the boy in small jolts.

  “Not necessarily. Tyler has been frozen for a long time—I would wager it's been months or years; his body can't be brought back, but depending on how long it's been for you, there might still be hope.”

  “We've been here for weeks at this point!” protested Marcel. "People can't stay frozen for that long and be fine!"

  “Listen to me: the time we experience here is twisted,” explained Debuu-ni. “For all we know, only half an hour might've passed in the real world since y'all were abducted. There's no hope for Tyler or Yuki, and there's no hope for Henrietta and the others, but there might be hope for the four of you. You can't give up!”

  Marcel turned around and looked outside again, brooding.

  "What about you?" asked Inês.

  Debuu-ni turned to her, puzzled.

  "Me?"

  "You're frozen too, aren't you?" she asked. "Are you… Is Beatle alright?"

  With a buzz of its red wings, Debuu-ni landed on the shrine ground.

  "I can't believe you would think of me in a moment like this," it said, wet-eyed. "After everything…"

  Inês didn't offer a response; she couldn't think of any one word that would express all she had to say. Instead, she met their little guardian's surprise with a tender smile.

  “Debuu-ni?” asked Jin. “Why has Truck-kun been abducting kids? I don't get it.”

  With a quick sniffle, the bug regained composure.

  “Tyler was a scientist—an engineer. When he was still himself, he used to say that there was no such thing as a free lunch, meaning that…"

  "One can't create energy or matter from nothing, only transform it," Marcel interposed. "In other words… we're batteries.”

  There was a stillness after that sentence, where even Lu's cries ceased. She raised her redden head, staggered. Debuu-ni didn't present a rebut.

  “Yes,” it conceded. “Indeed, you and every other child that's been brought here was chosen to provide the force necessary to power this world.”

  No one spoke. Shell-shocked, the four teens grappled with the truth inwardly as they listened to the falling ice's persistant backbeat. And then, among the crushing wet rocks, a distorted lullaby began to sound. The shrine's rice paper door slid fully open in an ominous shift; Truck-kun was here.