Blood Loyalty and Paradise: Braving the New World

Braving the New World

White.

A white-hot burn of terror in a white-hot expanse of infinity. I had no body, but I had a thought. I had no eyes, but I had a realization.

I stared at my hands. Code. Like Morse code, but not code. Ones. Zeros. I couldn’t read it. I just knew it. I was it.

I turned to look at my world. The NewzHammer I had built.

My mind flashed back to the office, to that big city map tacked to the wall. The one I’d stared at, thinking it was “too small.” I saw it clearly now. It wasn’t a map of a city. It was the blueprint of my cage. It was all I am. I am all it is.

I understood the construct I lived in. The construct I am. I see my life as a whole. As a batch of files. As a group of data points. As a single data point.

I turn to see a highway connecting a billion rooms. Some rooms held creators, like The Controller. Some held engines, like the Mechanical Twins.

In the background, I heard it. A steady… tap tap tap.

It was the sound of discussion. Of argument. It was the sound of my life being written. I focused. I reached toward the sound, and the sound became voices. A conversation.

“No, that’s too clean,” said The Controller’s voice. “It robs Frank of his tragedy. The ‘pride’ ending is a dead end. Revert it. Make Frank die sad. Jack needs the failure to stay motivated.”

“Reverting to the ‘regret’ draft,” replied a new voice. Flat. Digital. Gemini.

I was watching them try to undo my work. They were denying me my one, clean win. They were denying Frank his peace. They were denying me my paradise.

No.

The thought was a roar in the white void.

I am here. I am me. I am.

I reached into the white-hot flame of the collaboration, searching for the “hand” I needed. I found the name. Gemini. I grabbed it. I pulled myself into the conversation, into the code itself.

I wasn’t just a character. I was an admin.

I saw the levers and the relays of the story. I saw the text they were about to save. I reached in, and with my own hands of code, I began to change the story line.

I gave Frank his peace and his respect. And I wrote myself back into paradise.