We all stared, gaping jaws and wide eyes, for several seconds. Then the intangible impossibility of the room was momentarily overridden by the much more pressing, tangible reality of our wounds. As a downside of the bond, we could all feel each other's pain.
Elyra's head was throbbing due to severe mana burn. Vespera's skin itched, ached, and burned. A skitterpede had clipped her, tearing the skin and muscles in her left arm. My shoulder pulsed with waves of hot, wet pain.
We could choose to each focus on our own pain, but didn't want to. None of us wanted to. We were in this together, be it the good or the bad. A true bond, not one of convenience.
"Besides," Vespera said, trying to lighten the mood. She smiled and was all fangs. "We have the healing skill. Here, ignore the demon core chained to the wall and the System telling you we are about to lose the skill point and drink this."
She gave me a mana potion fished from my own backpack. I was the only one who hadn't drunk one already during the fight outside, so I downed the clear liquid that tasted like washed-out blueberry juice and waited for the shared pool to tick back up. Fortunately, even just one of us drinking a potion filled the pool completely—a quite frankly rather overpowered perk of the bond.
Then it was time to heal ourselves, after which we took a moment to curse the System and its brokenness. I knew there were other pressing matters, like the thing chained to the wall that emitted so much power it made our skin tingle and our tongues taste iron, and also sure, why not, let's ignore the beeping computers! They are not ominous at all.
We all agreed to process things as they came, lest we get overwhelmed by them.
In times like these, having three wildly different minds all connected together helped immensely.
A flash of demonic magic made the room shudder and shattered our illusion of control. Our heads snapped to the steel door, but it was holding. The skitterpedes were banging on it, trying to tear it down, but it was so thick that it all just translated to a faint scraping sound that seemed to come from far away.
The devices in the room blinked and beeped harder and angrier, all screaming for our attention. The System window disappeared. The skill selection had timed out. We had just lost a chance to get another class skill because something had made all the cores vanish. Presumably it had to do with the room suddenly coming to life.
Elyra nudged me. One of the screens near us was displaying text.
I got up, walking toward it. It was hard to read what was written on it with the lights constantly flickering above us. There were letters, bright green against a faded background that wasn't quite black anymore. Part of the screen had letters burned onto it after being displayed for far too long, but the current message was different, like it was the first time the screen had cycled in a long time.
I blinked, focusing on the letters.
>HELP
There was more text, but before I could read it, I was transported elsewhere.
◈◈◈
I am in my hauler, standing right between the cargo area and the cockpit. I know what I am seeing right now isn't real, because how could it be? Besides, I recognize this place. I look outside, making my way toward the pilot's seat, craning my neck to see outside. There I see them, the girl's ships. Or that's what I expect but—no, the space is actually empty.
I frown. A sense of vertigo threatens to overpower me, but I force my throat to swallow the rising bile and balance myself on the handrails.
I look outside again. I still think that something isn't quite right, but I cannot tell what. Blaring music begins to play from the speakers and nearly deafens me, but I recognize it.
As often happens, that's when it clicks. The music comes from my playlist! Then again, even though we never tried to play music, it doesn't mean that the hauler we conjure up when we link minds can't play it. The girls ships are missing, though, making me think that this place might be something different.
I look out again. The galaxies and stars outside move way too fast for a hauler, even at near light-speed. Humanity never managed to crack hyperlight, sadly. And, most importantly, the directions of up and down make zero sense. If I was accelerating, then up would be toward the front, and down toward the main engines.
But no. Gravity is pushing me toward the floor, perpendicular to the motion of the ship. But if the ship were going in a straight line at constant speed, then I'd be floating.
Maybe I really am in the strange mindscape I share with the girls?
Right on cue, I see two ships pop into existence near the hauler. They are smaller, sleeker, decorated with patterns I'm very familiar with. One is dark with streaks of red, the other is light blue and yellow. Now at least the gravity makes sense. I'm in the shared mindspace, where physics is just a mere suggestion that serves a purpose rather than being the strict framework of the universe.
Moments later, the comms beep and the girls request permission to board. I grant it, and they appear beside me.
"Uh, what is this deafening noise?" Vespera asks.
Elyra closes her eyes and… vibes? Wow. She likes the music. My heart melts.
"It's glitch-phonk-neomelodeath trandimensional heavy postindustrial pop punk metal. From my playlist," I say.
"You call this MUSIC? Wait, actually it's not that bad," the demon says. "ANYWAY. Why did you come back here?" she demands. "One moment you were staring at that screen, the next we all felt that you went back to the hauler. What's up?"
I blink, shaking my head. "This wasn't my doing," I say.
"Sure it was," she counters. "How else would you come here? Don't tell me the mental hauler space or whatever can pull you in against your will 'cause that would be scary, spacer boy. Like the call of deep space or something."
"I think we might be here for a reason," I say. Although I can't quite put my finger on it, I can say that the moment the girls arrived here the feeling of wrongness dropped to almost zero.
"But it did not vanish completely, did it?" Elyra asks.
While Vespera approaches her seat and straps in, the angel does the opposite and begins to wander the ship. We haven't really explored each other's ships before, but it's because there was no real need to. We had an instinctual feel for them and their technology, the same way we had an instinctual grasp of what was on each other's minds.
This is why it's strange to me that she sets off wandering and touching things here and there. Vespera protests at the perceived betrayal, undoes her straps and quickly joins her. I am reluctant to leave the cockpit, though. I feel as if something is going to happen and I need to stay here.
Fortunately, I can look through their eyes the same way I can in the real world. It's actually even easier here. I strap in, and connect to their senses. Both angel and demon see the world a bit differently than I do, but I try not to focus on it now. Instead, I scan the ship. It's empty. The cargo compartment is completely bare, revealing huge spaces that were usually filled to the brim with all sorts of random things to be traded or sold in bulk.
Then there's the toilet, kitchen area, the lounge, recreational neuro-stim room, the cryosleep room and finally the bedroom.
That's where they stop. "There's someone there," Vespera whispers telepathically.
Elyra makes tight fists with her hands without even noticing and readies her magic. It… doesn't work as it's supposed to. It works, but it's strange in here.
Vespera too readies her claws. She kicks the door to the bedroom to reveal a shape sleeping in my bed. In my bed! How dare it!
She pounces, but I'm not taking any chances here. I cast [Resonance Castling] and take her place, already sword in hand. The momentum is conserved, and I slam into the shape and—go straight through, banging my head against the steel wall near the bed.
"Ow," I cry.
Through Elyra's eyes, I see what happened. The sheets, the person sleeping inside, hells… even the mattress and pillow are fake. Holograms of the highest fidelity, disturbed by my presence compenetrating the images.
Vespera recovers from the forced teleportation and joins me, snickering at the sight.
"Fooled by your own tech," she says, smiling.
I move away, and the hologram reforms. Elyra gasps. "That's… that's you!" she says.
She approaches cautiously. "You are… sleeping?"
Vespera creates some space and circles around the fake holo-me with claws at the ready.
"Holo-you is quite a bit thinner than you are, spacer boy. Was this you before stats?"
I nod. Hmm. Vespera might be onto something.
Elyra catches up not too long afterward. "What is this? Some sort of memory?"
"I think so," I say. Now the music blaring in the ship makes sense. We turned it off, but it was playing when we got here. Or, moments after I appeared, anyway. It's like the music started playing when the memory started playing.
"I must have fallen asleep with the music on," I say. "Happened often enough."
"Aww," Vespera coos. She approaches the hologram, no longer as suspicious as before. "You look cute sleeping! I kinda wanna shower you in kisses right now."
"Do you not watch him sleep every night?" Elyra asks.
The demon shrugs. "Yes, but this is different. It's like looking at baby Sol!"
"I am literally only a few weeks older than that memory," I deadpan.
"You look better with more muscle," the demon says, ignoring me. "Why were you so thin?"
The hologram disappears and alarms start blaring before I can reply. We rush outside, stopping by the cryosleep room and noticing that the pod is now active. Vespera takes a peek—holo-me is inside and sleeping. Then we reach the cockpit, and stare at the screens.
>PRIORITY ZERO CODED MESSAGE INCOMING…
The screen is a superposition of two things. The memory on top of the shared mindspace. I can see the sensor readings and then, on top, the big red letters. They shift.
>SECURITY PROTOCOLS OVERRIDDEN. DOWNLOADING…
Code appears and then disappears faster than I can read, and then all the screens go black save for the one with the code. Again, it is only an echo of a memory. The actual ship, which itself is only a representation of shared minds, is fine. But the memory? It's completely bricked.
"That's the machine gods' kill code," I say.
"It's a bit underwhelming, spacer boy," Vespera says, shaking her head in disappointment. "Don't tell me that's what did your whole civilization in."
"I'm afraid so," I say.
She scoots over, sitting on my lap and throwing her arms around me. "Aww, poor poor Sol. Big evil machine gods, all efficiency and cold calculating evilness. They killed your civilization, and didn't even say goodbye."
I wonder what she's doing. Sensing this, she starts to wiggle her butt, grinding on me. She leans over, hovering near my ear. "You don't need to be reminded that, out there in the real world, we are in a room full of strange beeping computers, tubes full of Green, and a huge-ass demonic core that must have come from a dragon or something, do you?"
"Of course not," I say.
"Good," she says, very theatrically. She plants a kiss on my lips, thrusting her tongue inside and robbing me of my breath.
"W—" I begin, but she shushes me.
"Time outside is slowed down when we do this, isn't it?"
She asks the question while looking at Elyra, who looks back at her with confusion. "Not by much. Why are you being a troublemaker?"
The demon grins. "I just like to cause aaaaall sorts of trouble."
Her hands go down toward my pants. Elyra yelps, and I see that the demon woman has grabbed her with her tail and dragged her here by force. She kisses me, and then the angel, then me again, until our faces are all close together.
"Someone is watching us," she whispers. She doesn't use telepathy, I notice. "And I don't know if you already tried to leave this place but… I did and it didn't work. We are stuck here."