Chapter 19:

Alice//Turner (Interlude//Light Part_3)

KAIJU//HACKER


I awoke on a bed in some facility, underground. I saw this room before once, but I’m not sure exactly where it is. The feeling of the bedsheets that wreathed around my body was a sensation that felt both nostalgic and alien. My eyes opened. I was laying on my side, facing the door. There was a man in the room, he was much older than me. As I opened my eyes, he wrote down something on his clipboard.

“You’re awake. Can you tell me your name?” He asked. It seemed like a strange question, but I felt obligated to respond.

“My name is…” I paused. What was my name? Had I forgotten it? “I… I don’t know.”

“Interesting,” the man said, seemingly to himself. “Can you tell me who this is?”

He held up a picture of a girl with light brown hair, she looked to be around eight years old. The girl in the photo looked so familiar, but I didn’t recognize her.

“No… I don’t know who that is.”

“Hrm…” The man put away the photo. “Do you remember anything from before today?”

I probed my mind, there were a few things that I had recollection of. I remember voices. Seven of them were inside my mind at some point, one of those seven was mine. I always tried to force the voices out, but they wouldn’t let me. Those voices controlled me, but they were gone now. There were many voices from outside as well, one of them was a young man. I only knew him as my big brother, though I knew that he wasn’t actually related to me for some reason. Another was my sister, who was inside of my mind at one point like the other voices. I tried to talk to her, but the other voices blocked me out. The last voice was another young man, though I didn’t know who he was.

“I don’t remember anything in particular,” I answered. “The only things I can think about right now are the voices.”

“What voices?”

“The ones I heard. One was my brother, the other was my sister. There was also a boy I don’t know.”

“Well, I can tell that your memories are fractured, quite severely at that,” the man stood up. “Is there anything that you remember from a long time ago, even if it's only parts of a memory?”

“I…” There were a few things that lingered in my mind. There was a girl, no, my sister, Lucy. She was with me at the part, but also at the arcade, and again in the main square. The main square, something happened there. I remember something falling, that was where my memory stopped. “I remember something falling,” I said. “It’s all really blurry though.”

“Do you have any compulsion to kill?”

“That’s a weird question,” I said out loud. “No…?”

“I hope you answered honestly,” the man stepped over to the door. “Don’t move.”

He left.

I was alone now.

I decided to crawl my way out of bed. Covering most of my body was some kind of black, skin-tight shell. It was flexible, and I could feel as through it as though it wasn’t there. Attached to my back were around a dozen cables. I didn’t know how to remove them, so I was stuck sitting on top of the bed. Now that I was sitting up, I could see several panels and monitors that were around me. I didn’t understand what any of them meant.

There was a mirror on the far side of the room, nearby the door. I saw my reflection in it. Judging by my appearance, I was somewhere around sixteen years old, and I had light brown hair. My eyes were a light yellow, they almost appeared to glow in the dim chamber that I resided within. That picture I was shown earlier bore a strong resemblance to the face I saw in the mirror, was it me?

“I’m going to need you to come with me,” the man from before hastily opened the door, startling me.

“I… Uh…”

He stepped up to one of the monitors and pressed a few buttons on a nearby keyboard. Instantly, I felt a painful sensation of something being ripped out of my body. I knew that it was the cables, but that didn’t make it hurt any less.

“There are clothes on the end of your bed, I’ll be waiting outside,” The man left the room.

The clothes I was given were pure white, devoid of any color whatsoever. As I stepped off of the bed to put them on, I could feel my legs aching. I guess my muscle structure never developed. I slid the clothes over the layer that encased my body, forming a stark contrast of black and white.

When I stepped outside of the small room I had awoken in, I was guided through the facility by the man who was in the room with me earlier. His name was Dr. Miller, a scientist with DEED. The scientist part made sense, I guess, considering how he was taking notes about me earlier. There weren’t many other scientists wandering the halls of the facility, Dr. Miller said it was because the building was in a lockdown, and that only necessary corridors were even open.

There was a long elevator ride before I was inside of a place called the control room. Right outside of the elevator was a large platform with a central console. The platform overlooked a legion of scientists working at computer stations below. There was a giant screen on the other side of the room that displayed a giant, two-legged machine destroying its way through the city above.

“I can’t believe that moron really told you to use the Simulacrum program,” a woman with long blond hair said. I recognized her for some reason. “First he breaks the suppressor and now he does this?!”

“I don’t think we have much of a choice,” Dr. Miller replied. “Nobody was expecting this kind of situation except for him.”

“What does that mean?” The woman said.

“Gabriel had insight into the future, or at least it seemed that way. For all we knew, he predicted this since the beginning,” Dr. Miller said. “We just have to trust him.”

“He’s in a medically-induced coma right now, I’m in charge!” The woman snapped back. “Don’t make me shove you in a containment cell!”

“Hannah, you have to keep your temper under-“

“Shut up!” The woman, Hannah, turned her attention back to the main screen after locking eyes with Dr. Miller for a decent amount of time.

“Hannah, what are your plans for the Simulacrum?” Dr. Miller asked. “Gabriel told us to create her for a reason.”

“That thing isn’t a person,” Hannah said coldly.

“I never said she was.”

“IT isn’t going to be useful, lock it up somewhere.”

“Hannah, why are you-“

“Because I just watched my brother destroy the device that kept him alive!”

Dr. Miller didn’t reply.

“Hannah, the mk1 is ready for-“ A young man burst through the elevator doors and stopped as soon as he laid eyes on me. His voice was the one I didn’t recognize before. “LUCY! Lucy, I…” He ran up to me and embraced me. “I… I know you’re not… I’m sorry.”

“Dr. Kennedy, I got confirmation from the maintenance team that the mk1 is ready for launch again. I’m awaiting your orders,” the boy leaned back up to face Hannah, his face bore an expression of grief and mild regret.

“Send it in,” Hannah replied. “We don’t have a second to lose.”

“Hannah, that’s Lucy there, we can’t-“ Dr. Miller was interrupted.

“I don’t have time for you right now. Get that thing out of here. Let it roam the halls for all I care,” Hannah shouted.

“At least send her aboard the mk1 with Kaden.”

“And why the hell would I do that? It’s nothing but a nuisance.”

“Her name is Alice,” the boy said as he put his hand on my shoulder. He wasn’t much taller than me.

Hannah’s expression briefly shifted before she returned to her stoic demeanor. “I… Fine, do what you want with her, I don’t care.”

[ cut ]

I was brought into another room, this one housing the mk1, an artificial kaiju. I had seen glimpses of it before, back when Lucy entered my mind, but to see it with a mortal body was much more of a spectacle. Kaden and I climbed up to the cockpit and he engaged the main system. Before long, we were launched into the air to combat the 2nd kaiju.

“Be careful,” Dr. Miller advised through the built-in speakers. “We don’t know what Lucy is capable of anymore. She could be much more powerful than the mk1 by this point.”

“I know,” Kaden replied. “This is our only chance though. If we can take Lucy down, we can fix whatever’s wrong with her.”

“Hopefully,” Hannah sighed. “Just don’t get the mk1 completely destroyed. Even if we succeed, the 2nd kaiju might not be usable again.”

“Understood,” Kaden said.

I was standing behind Kaden’s seat, quietly watching his every move. He controlled the mk1 with enough precision that I could tell he had been training for a long time, much more time than Lucy had.

The mk1 began to approach the rampaging 2nd kaiju. The 2nd kaiju, which I had presumed was being piloted by Lucy, seemed to be searching for something.

“Hey Kaden.”

“Yeah?”

“What’s it doing?”

“We don’t exactly know, but it's probably trying to destroy the Egg of Orphan. Whether Lucy is in control doesn’t matter, it has to be stopped.”

“Don’t you trust Lucy?”

“I… I do… It’s just that she hasn’t been herself. Something took over her body. I don’t care what Gabriel or my dad are saying, that thing isn’t Lucy.”

The mk1 drew its blade.

“Lucy, it’s me, Kaden! Please listen to me and stop this!”

“Why would I do that?” Lucy replied through the speakers. “You’re all just going to let Alice reset everything until the Egg finally bursts, aren’t you?”

“That’s not what we’re going to do! What are you talking about, Lucy?!”

“I’ve had to kill you before, don’t make me do it again!”

Kaden was stunned. He sat unmoving in the cockpit of the Atom-3, staring out at the 2nd kaiju. “You… You’ve killed me before…? Wha- What’s going on?!”

“Alice has been rewriting reality every time I die. I’ve seen it again and again. Every time I’m able to stop it, one of you has to get in my way. This time, I’ll finally be able to stop this hell once and for all.”

“After all we’ve been through, you’d really throw me away just to change what’s already happened?!”

“You caved in the mk1’s cockpit while piloting the 2nd kaiju just to stop me from reaching my goal, do you really think I wouldn’t do that same?!”

“I what?! Lucy, I’d never do that!”

“But you did do it, you have just as much blood on my hands as I do!”

“Lucy, stop!” I cried out. There was something within me that could hold that back, even if it was a mistake. People make mistakes all the time, if we could change the past, we wouldn’t make them.

“Alice?! Who is that?! Where are you?!”

Kaden put his finger up to his lips and signaled for me to be quiet. We watched as the 2nd kaiju raised its arm and swept the surroundings with its vision.

“I’m doing what you want me to do, I promise. This will all be over once I change things. You don’t have to die, Alice!” Lucy said, panicking.

“What do you mean?!” Kaden asked. “How are you going to ‘change things’?!”

“If I hack into the Atom-3, I can reset us back to November 27th, 2029, but keep my memories. If I can do that, I can stop Alice from dying and any of this from ever happening.”

There were eight voices, not seven. There was always one of them that cried out louder than the rest. It told me to turn back time. It forced me to set everything back to the way it was. That voice, was it hers? Was Lucy there with me in the Atom-3 the entire time?

“Lucy, if you do that, you won’t be yourself anymore,” Kaden said. “The way you are now, it’s a result of you not being able to let go of the past. Bad things happen, but that doesn’t mean you have to be so obsessed with them,” Kaden set his hands back on the mk1’s controls. “For the sake of the Lucy that I loved, I’ll stop you. If there’s a chance I get to see her again, I’ll do whatever it takes to do that. I love you, Lucy, but not like this, not when you’re so stuck in the past that you’re willing to sacrifice everything just to stop one tragedy!”

“I’m trying to save my sister!”

“You can’t save her! The Atom-3 can’t bring someone back from the dead! That’s impossible!”

“How come it saved you? You’re still alive, aren’t you? I killed you, why are you still alive?”

“I don’t care!”

Kaden had the mk1 charge using its thrusters and strike at the 2nd kaiju with its sword. The 2nd kaiju dodged out of the way with its own thrusters and punched at the mk1’s cockpit, sending violent tremors into its interior and throwing the mk1 backwards into a building.

“You don’t stand a chance against me; you might as well give up,” Lucy said.

“I have to keep fighting until this is over!”

“You’re pathetic.”

The mk1 made another attack again the 2nd kaiju, but it was outmaneuvered once more.

“What’s going on?!” Kaden asked Hannah through the intercom. “Why can’t I hit this thing?!”

“The mk1 has had limiters place into its code, there’s no way it can keep up with the 2nd kaiju at this rate,” she replied.

“Why?!”

“Because it nearly destroyed Lucy’s body. We can’t have to do something like that again.”

“Alice” I heard another voice from the intercom, it was my big brother, “you need to hack into the mk1’s DCP Core and get rid of the limiters. That’s the only way you can stop Lucy.”

“Gabriel?! What are you doing?!” Hannah shouted. “Shouldn’t you be unconscious?!”

“My body was able to purge the medications you used to knock me out within minutes,” Gabriel replied.

“He’s right though,” Hannah said. “The only way you can take down the 2nd kaiju is if you disable the limiters. Alice, you’re the only one who can do this. You know how, right?”

“I- I think so,” I answered. Kaden took hit after hit from the 2nd kaiju. It was only a matter of time before the mk1’s armor broke. I had to do this, and fast.

I stared into the mk1’s core. It was a lot like the Atom-3, but much more malleable. It was a DCP made by human hands. I focused all of my being onto the DCP and commanded that it bend to my will. I made a request: disable the limiters.

A large red panel formed in front of Kaden’s vision. It read: access denied.

“What are you doing back there?!” He asked.

“Trying to disable the limiters!” I searched around the mk1 to try and find an access point, but the only things connected to it were a set of about a dozen cables.

“Kaden, the mk1 is going to turn off for a bit, can you get us to a safe position?”

“No, not really! I can try!” Kaden pulled the mk1 around to behind one of the buildings and leaned up against it. “What are you going to do?!”

“I’m going to help you!” I started unplugging the cables. “I’m going to replace the mk1’s core unit with myself. I’m technically a DCP, right?”

“You’re insane!” Kaden got up from his seat and helped me remove the cables. “Tell me what I need to do.”

I took off my shirt and showed him the sockets that were in my back. “Plug them in here, hopefully this’ll work.”

Kaden connected the first cable. The pain was excruciating, but I ignored it and kept on going. There was a sensation within my mind of being a part of a greater machine. With the first cable connected, I could see the mk1’s surroundings. With the second, I felt its motors being to move. After each and every connection, more of the mk1’s abilities were opened to my will. Once they were all in, I had full control of the artificial kaiju. I felt the strain on my body, but I knew I would have to endure it.

“Go, let’s finish this!” I said to Kaden.

“Okay!” He climbed back over the command seat. “I’m supposed to connect with you, right? You’re not an artificial DCP, so it’ll be just like when Lucy controls the kaiju.”

“I… I’m not sure. Just go for it!”

Kaden tapped the device in his ear and it opened a new interface. He then held down one of the other buttons on the device as I felt a new passage opening in my mind. He entered into my mind, and I entered his. His body went limp as both of our consciousnesses faded together.

-cut-

Kaden and I stood in a void of pure white before a grand piano. The two of us both sat down as he began to play a melody. I joined in harmony as our minds worked as one.

Slowly, the city began to surround us once more. This time through the mk1’s vision. Kaden, with my help, was able to will the mk1 to move once more, only this time without the interference of controls or displays.

“Lucy, it’s not too late to stop this! I give you one last warning: calm down or I’m going to stop you!” Kaden said. He transmitted his voice directly to her.

“You can’t stop me, no matter how hard you try!”

“Then I’ll just try harder than that! Nobody wants you to destroy yourself like this, not me, not Alice, not Hannah, not Gabriel! You’re not just fighting me; you’re fighting our collective will to stop this madness!”

Kaden made another attack towards Lucy, this time with greater speed than ever before. The strike grazed her armor as the 2nd kaiju recoiled back. The veins that ran between the mk1’s armored plates glowed a golden hue, a shade more red than before. Its blade transformed once again, the parted that surrounded its core of pure energy now falling away to reveal a blade of light.

“What did you do, why is the mk1 able to keep up with me?!” Lucy asked.

“So long as it’s the key to saving you, I’ll destroy the 2nd kaiju a hundred times, no, a thousand times. I’ll overcome this challenge again and again. I won’t lose to you!”

“We’ll see about that!” Lucy fired an attack from the 2nd kaiju’s gauntlets, the data beam. Kaden held the mk1’s sword high and slashed the attack midair, deflecting it. The clash of energy cast a blinding light across the city for every bystander to see.

Kaden charged at the 2nd kaiju and sliced it in half at the waist. The two parts fell to the ground, crushing several small buildings. Kaden raised the sword once more to strike at the 2nd kaiju’s core, until…

“Stop!” I said. “You’ll kill her.”

“Do you see any other solution?”

“I have to try.”

I disconnected Kaden and tried to reach Lucy.

-cut-

-cut-

“Lucy! LUCY!” I cried whilst dashing through the dark abyss of the 2nd kaiju to reach her. Eventually, I came across a train station. I stood on one side, and she on the other. My side had a bench, and hers had a toll booth.

As I approached, Lucy turned her back on me. A train flew between me and her as she walked away.

“Lucy! Don’t leave me!”

“You’re not real. My sister is dead.”

“Maybe that’s true, but if it is, can you change that?”

“I have to try, even if it destroys everything that I am.”

“Is that what she would have wanted?”

“IF YOU LOST SOMEONE CLOSE TO YOU, WOULD YOU BE WILLING TO LET ANOTHER CHANCE SLIP THROUGH YOUR FINGERS?!”

“No… I…”

“Then SHUT UP! You don’t know what it feels like to lose someone! You don’t know that pain at all. You can’t help me, nobody can.”

“Sister, you’re hurting the people around you because of something they didn’t do.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Why?”

“BECAUSE YOU AREN’T MY LITTLE SISTER! You can never replace her, nobody can.”

“You’re right.”

“What?”

The train station disappeared, leaving only a bright void that allowed only two things to exist. Lucy and Alice.

“I’m not your sister, but I’m not a replacement.”

“But you look just like her, and you act like she would. I know my sister, you’re just like her.”

“But you said I can’t replace her. I don’t think I can, really, not unless that’s what you want.”

“You even have her soul, right? That’s what Gabriel told me once, that all of this was because of you.”

“If I have her soul, doesn’t that mean I’m your sister?”

“Technically, but we’ll never know if that’s true.”

“I never assumed that it was. If the Atom-3 works the way we think it does, isn’t the closest thing you can get to your sister an imitation?”

“I don’t want that though; I want my sister back.”

“You can’t change the past…”

“Don’t tell me that! I already know.”

“but you can change the future.” I grabbed my sister’s hand. She looked back at me, tears welling in her eyes.

“It’s too late now. I’ve hurt everyone, right? They’ve all died a thousand times because of me.”

“It’s never too late to forgive yourself.”

The two of us stood still for what felt like an eternity.

“You can move on, right?” I asked.

“I… I don’t know.” Lucy answered.

“I’ve been watching you this whole time; I know what you’ve been through. If you give back this life to the Lucy you replaced, we can start over. I’ll set everything back to when I first gave you back your memories and we’ll let this play out the right way.”

“Isn’t that changing the past?”

“Only if you do things differently.”

Lucy embraced me in a hug. “I think I’d like to do that. I’m sorry that I couldn’t save you this time.”

“This isn’t about saving me. Isn’t it me who’s saving you this time?”

“I guess, yeah.”

-cut-

“Lucy!” Kaden cried out as he tried to dig his friend out from the wreckage of the 2nd kaiju. “Lucy, say something to me!”

“Kaden…?” Lucy was slowly coming back to consciousness. She now saw a dark canopy that covered her being broken as Kaden removed pieces from the 2nd kaiju’s interior.

“Lucy! I found you!” Kaden was overjoyed. “It’s finally over, right?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

[ cut ]

Lucy and Kaden walked up to the roof of Lucy’s apartment where they stood watching the city disappear. Lucy had never seen what happened when the world reset with her own two eyes before. She felt guilt wash over her as she stood next to Kaden.

“You know that I was trying to kill you back there, right?” She said.

“Yeah.”

“You don’t hate me for that.”

“It seems like you’re back to normal now.”

“Nothing’s changed. I was still the one who said all of those horrible things to you.”

“You never killed me before, did you?”

“No… I… How did you know that…”

“I guessed,” Kaden was smiling. “I knew that if it was really you, you wouldn’t have been able to hurt me.”

Tears began to fall from Lucy’s eyes. “Why did you want to save me? I was so horrible to you.”

“I said why. It’s because I love you. You’ve known that for so long, but you chose to forget.”

“I know,” Lucy’s voice was wavering. “I’m sorry.”

Lucy leaned in next to Kaden and kissed him. Kaden was stunned at first, but he reciprocated her affection. After that, there wasn’t much time left. Lucy and Kaden watched as the world became smaller and smaller until it was just the two of them. Eventually, there was nothing.

[ cut ]