(Episode I) (Act 3)

Maddie was done picking out the visible wood, and proceed to rub the hand down in alcohol, “Well… Still, that can be anything, really. Some shit to a parallel world or even somewhere in space… And if it is a way out, we can’t fly there.”

The fact that Maddie’s response came with the stinging of her wounds as not lost to Jackie, as she grunts in thought and pain, gritting her teeth slightly. She grabbed a piece of the crate, starting to throw it up in the air. Up-fall-catch, up-fall-catch…

And when the idea occurred to her; up-fall-catch and throw right out of the window, as hard as she could.

The rift, the bright hope that was so much so, seemed to irradiate an aura that completely undid what the wooden piece was as it soared closer that it could get. Not turn it into ash or dust per say but breaking it down until it couldn’t anymore. Like the forest. Like the hill. And maybe like the rest of this world.

The reason why Jackie chose to grit her teeth completely was out of anger versus the brief pain. Of course. It had to be just as complicated…, she thought.

She had to keep thinking, keep going, so doubt didn’t set it’s claws back in again, “Okay, two options. We’re destroyed into non-existence… Or it’s like… Star Trek? Where things are broken down and then transported. PATH-OS turns its passengers into a different state to ignore physics, but it doesn’t break them down…”

The term “break down” was mumbled about, as the rest watch Jackie. Maddie finished her patchwork and limped to her spot and sat back down, groaning. River is now looking down, listening but not engaging. Tracy was practically on tenterhooks, wanting any form of solution and Aiko still looked distant, still taking this all in, stuck on something.

“Because if it were just outright warping, destruction… It would’ve been over before it even begun. We would’ve been a pile of warped, hammered down flesh and then we get processed into the hole again and then died. Or not,” Jackie shivered at that thought. “This is weird. This is different. This is all maybes and what-ifs, I know that… But this whole thing here is just based on replicas it seems like... It seems like…”

Jackie snapped then pointed at River, “Stack overflow? What if this is just a very weird version of stack overflow?”

“…I mean—I guess—It’s really a stretch,” River exasperated. “I get what you mean, but the process that we’re guessing on, a lot of it breaks down in the face of that or we really jam that in…”

“I know,” Jackie groaned, “But it’s the closest thing that came to mind… Or maybe a glitch, something along those lines. You said that the thing that trapped us is the universe trying to right itself again. So why not expand the thought? Maybe this is the universe suffering stack overflow and it’s correcting slowly it’s memory issue?”

“Can you please translate this shit that doesn’t require some Computing degree?!” Maddie shouted.

“Hey, you figured out that it dealt with computers…” Jackie pointed out.

“It was a mental coin flip, that or Engineering,” Maddie commented. “Either way, don’t give me credit like I actually paid attention to class.”

“To sum it up,” River proceeded to do, “Stack flows were a common problem with computers back in the day. A program takes way too much memory that it can’t use, and this happens, to put it in everyman’s terms. You needed a programmer to fix the code or maybe the computer itself to correct it. The problem is… Are we treating our whole entire universe as a program instead of the computer itself…?”

“Trust me, River,” Jackie sounded exhausted, “I would honestly buy that we’re just some app in a vast home screen to a very, very virus filled computer. Maybe that’s the twist, something so beyond us as a thought and that’s why we couldn’t wrap our heads around this whole thing… Still, yeah, it’s fine for this to have holes it in and I’m glad you’re on them. But until we’re faced with the tangible problems before us, we gotta work with this and go. There could be a timetable and we need to move along.”

“Fair enough…” River replied. “So, running theory is that we’re in an overflow box?”

“I love that name ‘running theory’,” Jackie grinned. “I really love that. But yes, we’re in the overflow inventory as the universe picks and choose recreating the areas hit by the Shift? Maybe just focusing on the structure instead of actually putting these locations back, hence the fakeness, this being a shell.”

“S-so, we can wait and let… M-meta-nature take its course…?” Tracy asked, innocently, which niggled at Jackie. It’s genuine, so it’s not a façade, but where did that flash of anger come from…?

Jackie shook her head, “No, can’t do that either… Otherwise, we get battered more by the debris or the process can do something that we can’t handle… As we are…”

“…What are you getting at…?” Maddie tilted her head.

“siVis. We have enough push for the pull that we need, from witnessing the Shift as little as we did, to the disappointing, and this scenario now. We all collectively went through the same thing, and as we just came down from… It’s clear that we’re at our lowest…”

The room looked at each other, Maddie solemnly nodding her head with a “you got me” look, Aiko nodding as well, with Tracy meekly looking at the girl that she was going to deny medical attention from.

“So let’s use that, instead of wallow in it,” Jackie tightened her fists, both of them, as she extends her arms out, “Instead of giving into it, giving up, we’re going to use it as a spring board to get us out of the darkness, out of this fakeness. It’s our shield, our protection. It’s the miracle we need to turn this fate worse than death into something that in no feasible way that we could’ve survived from. And the best part? It’ll come from us, that miracle.”

She slammed her bandaged fist into her palm, and the girls flinched for her, “We run, we keep ourselves active, and when this place twists and turns, we get closer and closer to one of the rifts and go for it. And during those parameters, surely one of us achieve siVis during what kind of insanity this place spawns from. We’ll be in a constant state of exhaustion, haze, and it’ll be the perfect ignition. Otherwise, uh…”

She rubbed her chin, “We’ll just find something that can take the brunt of the correction and basically universe-bob-sled back.”

Maddie just blinked at her, “I’ve never met someone so responsible but such a kid about it.”

“…I mean…I like to think that I’m very mature for my age…” Jackie mumbled as she puckered her lips into a pout, sounding like Maddie’s overall point. She shook her head and reset into her standard face, “Buuut that’s beside the point. Questions? Concerns? Final thoughts?”

“So this resistant…sleigh…” River began to query.

“Hopefully our shared ‘Rosebud’, after all this is over…” Tracy added.

“Ha,” River chuckled a bit, “Nice. But to continue—How can we tell?”

“Other than the worse-case scenario where we’re clinging onto stuff to not fall into the void and we so happen to find it?” Jackie tapped the crate with her foot, “I figure that mostly everything is fragile, like the ground was, like this crate was. I shouldn’t at all been able to do that, so I’m applying the theory to the rest...And hey, to add to our running theory, if we got sucked up in here by being within a Shift-affected area, items and junk are no different! But in short…If it can not only handle us touching it, carrying it and ultimately hold our collective weight? It’s our ‘Rosebud’.”

“I swear you people might as well talk in another language…” Maddie grumble. “Like, how can people just talk in references? But don’t worry, I got it, unless ‘Rosebud’ is some metaphysics concept or some shit.”

“Nah,” River said, “Turned out just to be some sleigh.”

Tracy couldn’t help to chuckle at that, her face crumpling again. Yes, this is what Jackie wanted. Focusing, getting together, pressing differences—the hazardous aspects of differences—and moving along with what makes differences work, that’s beneficial. Teamwork, friendships are delightful end-results that could be reaped, but Jackie wanted to hit the overall goal, the overall concept that she’s learned: humanity’s ability to gather, to work as a collective. It was always interesting to see selfish, angry people swear up and down to others that humans fuck over other humans, hurt one another, destroy each other. But when it counts? They got together when something beyond them, something they shouldn’t theoretically care about and gives them an out to perform their beliefs, and they band together all the same. Despite reality coming undone seemingly, that’s something that those Shifts can’t warp or change: truth.

The struggle to stand tall didn’t feel like one for Jackie in this moment, “We should get a head start, but we can rest if anyone elects to. Just know that we need to book it as soon as possible and the idea is to add to as much as our low point as possible. Objections?”

“No,” Aiko spoke up for the first time in forever, “We should get moving and we should do this now. The faster we do this, the better.”

“Whoa,” Maddie retorted. “Who knew—I honestly thought you were gonna live it up in this mess.”

“I’ll ‘live it all up’ when I survive this,” Aiko pointed out, like this is obvious logic who was oblivious to it and other things from before. “Like I said. I’m not a masochist or whatever, I’m not interested all that stupid stuff. I’m only interested in what I’m interested in. My way is nothing but trying to ‘live it up’ as much as possible…”

“Well shit,” Maddie said. “Just… You should’ve made sure to make that come across well, hun.”

“You mean that I’ll remember to make it come across,” Aiko replied. “We’re gonna get outta here.”

Jackie smiled and nodded towards the girl, “That’s the spirit, Aiko. Love it.”

“But to pretty much answer that question,” Maddie stood up shaking. “Might as well go.”

“Anything to get out of this situation…” Tracy stood up herself.

River tapped her heel against the crate, before sighing and walking towards the group. “There’s nothing we can truly do other than this.”

Jackie clapped her hands together, the pain only being a nuisance to ignore, “Alright girls, here’s how we’re going with this… We run, pace ourselves like I told you. Run in a formation where we’re together, yet able to break off. We’re going to search as we go, splitting off maybe into patterns of three and those three can find something and run back to us. Hand it off to those who’re willing to do it and play catch-up. And when things get hairy…Stay close, move fast.”

Maddie huffed amusingly, “Heh. I like that.”

Jackie moved toward her. The height difference was staggering, even when at a distance, she looked down upon her. Jackie nonetheless extended her bandaged hand and clasped her at the wrist. Surprised, then weirded out was illustrated on the small girl’s face…Before she returned the favor, herself.

The tall girl wanted to give Maddie stability, due to her limp making her hunched a bit, something that Jackie thinks she didn’t notice. But she needed the morale… No, all of them do.

And with a gentle extension of her other arm, she motioned to Tracy who was nearby. She couldn’t help to finch, that Tracy. And she couldn’t have to pause, survey what Jackie meant and then analyze if she needed to return the favor. But she closed her eyes, sucked on her bottom lip. Despite herself, she came into Jackie’s eventual hold, a side hug that she enjoyed a bit too much, before Jackie wrapped her arm around her shoulders.

Aiko rushed in, looking for any entry into all of them. Had she known what Jackie was going for or was she just wanting in a possible group hug she never experienced before? Jackie didn’t know. But she ended up just grabbing Maddie’s other hand tight, Maddie shaking her head and withholding a curse or a flurry when she just nodded towards the constricted hand and Aiko took the hint, smiling goofily at her.

Jackie expected to convince River, but was surprised when she turned her head. Sulking, hands in her pockets, looking everywhere but Tracy, standing near her side. In a move telegraphed by guilt, Tracy then slowly put her hand on River’s back, patting it, then resting her hand on her shoulder.

As Jackie recalibrated the bond between her and Maddie, but still grabbing her wrist but both facing forward, she couldn’t help but reconnect to an old memory, something else she thought she lost.

Semi-Finals, 4th quarter, Basketball season. Or rather, the last Basketball season. Before the shutdown, and that was affecting her team’s play, and they were losing. Bad. They huddled together during the break, a team when they approached her time and time again and she said no, but in this moment, during this overwhelming emotion, she was finally with them. They pulled themselves together, and of course they didn’t pull a victory, but they pulled out all the stops. She and her former friends achieved something in their darkest hours. She remembers the feeling and taste the tears all over her face and they didn’t all belong to her.

“Maddie, Aiko, Tracy and River…” Jackie felt a bit cliché. “I’m going to get you all out of here.”

The girls responded in their own way.

Jackie then gained confidence, “We’re going to get out of here!”

Then they were shocked at first, but a resounding “yeah” came about when they got wind of what she was doing.

“We came in here lost; we’ve been lost for so long even in our universe changing before us. We’re normal, nobodies, strangers to one another. But now we’re gonna prove that we got this.”

All murmurs of agreement.

“We’ve got this! We’ve figured it all out! We’re gonna finally prove to the universe that we matter!”

“Yeah!” the rest chanted, in their own ways.

“This is our life!” Jackie roared. “Now let’s go, girls!”

They all walked together, despite the size, the rhythm, the differences and creeds.