Dad always kept his drinks wherever they were handy.

  Under the counter. In the fridge. Where Alice and I could get to them without any trouble. He told us not to take them. He threatened us, and for a while, we listened.

  But I had my first beer at nine.

  It was also my last one, because even though it felt very mature and adult and stuff, the pale yellow stuff tasted bitter and sour and like the second most disgusting thing I’d ever drank.

  The worst was expired cough medicine the year before.

  So, after Alice and I drank those warm, disgusting beers, I swore off them. So did Alice. We both had better things to do.

  I realized later she’d picked the worst possible flavor for me. It was a trick to get me to hate beer.

  Outside Hurricane Ridge Visitor’s Center, Washington, USA - June 19, 2043, 4:36 AM

  - - - - -

  It’s cold up here.

  There’s not a lot of tree cover this high up in the Olympics, and the wind coming off the Pacific feels like daggers of ice. James says it’s the Jet Stream. I don’t care. I’d rather have stayed in the sleeping bag I got from the supply room, but James is right. I don’t have time, so even though the sun’s barely coming up, I’m freezing my scrawny butt off on the alpine and trying to catch up to Sora and Dad.

  I’ve got a few tricks to cut the distance, but I’m waiting for the best possible terrain for them since they’ll be expensive.

  Speaking of tricks and James, though, I know how to handle this whole situation with Sidney and him.

  I’m not going to lie to James. But I am going to lie to myself. Sidney was never in my Mindscape, and James is on my side. The Halcyon System definitely, absolutely, wants us to win—and if it doesn’t, it’s because we definitely, absolutely can’t. They’re lies, and if I actually tried to balance an equation with these variables, there’s no way I’d get an accurate answer. The thing is, by messing up this problem, I set myself up to solve the one I care about.

  So I’ll lie to myself instead of lying to James; if I can convince myself, it’ll be like lying to him.

  There’s a big hill in front of me; when I finally get to the top, there’s a moment where my stomach drops. Mount Olympus is still miles and miles away, and there’s a huge valley between what I hope are its slopes and me. That means going down—and going down always means going back up.

  It’s time for my trick. “James, can you tell me how far it is to the other side of the valley?”

  [Yes. It’s a little over five miles to the mountain you’re looking at, but that’s not Mount Olympus. That’s Mount Carrie. Olympus is behind it. What are you thinking about?]

  “Saving some time.” I pull the Revolver and fire it, aiming well above the mountain’s peak. There’s no way the reality skipper’s going to make it that far. But if it gets a mile, that’s a good twenty to thirty minutes—maybe more—that I don’t have to walk.

  [Stability 7/10]

  A moment later, I’m sucked through the straw and deposited on the forest floor somewhere. The moss and pine needles squish under my boots and the one hand I’ve got down to stabilize myself like a superhero. I’ve covered some serious ground. The slope’s changed directions, and now I’m facing up the slope of what I think is Mount Carrie.

  “That worked really well,” I say.

  [Calculating your likely position. There are no trails up Mount Carrie. It’s unlikely that the SHOCKS Victoria survivors came this way; they most likely either planned to route north or south around the mountain. There’s a likely entrance point into SHOCKS Olympia on the northeast side of the mountain, near Glacial Meadows Campground. My Analysis says they’re heading there.]

  “Thanks, James. Can you put a likely route on the—“ Before I can finish talking, a map appears, covering my vision. I’m a blinking, bright green dot on it, and a red trail snakes around the mountain to my north. It looks like those old archaeology movies with Harrison Ford. Dad used to love them. “Thanks again,” I say.

  Then I start walking, alternating between a light jog until my Endurance wears out and a quick walk until I have the energy to keep pushing. If I push hard, I might be able to catch up with Dad and Sora. The fastest way would be to gain a bunch of height and use the reality skippers again. But there’s a big problem with that plan.

  I don’t want to climb Mount Carrie.

  I don’t want to climb Mount Carrie, but Mount Carrie clearly wants me.

  It’s been an hour, and I should be further north than I am. According to James, I’m moving in the right direction, but my spot on the map only seems to change when I aim southwest. He’s pretty sure it’s a spatial anomaly—a lot like the one in the Language Arts department in West End High, but more directional and less replicating.

  That’s a problem. I definitely can’t push through it, and I also can’t escape it with a reality skipper. I tried, and it didn’t exactly do nothing, but it also didn’t really move me. The bullet part worked just fine, but I couldn’t leave. The micromerge refused to work.

  So instead of trekking north across the mountain’s slope and trying to catch up to where James thinks the people I’m chasing are, I’m climbing this stupid mountain. It’s tall, and it’s covered in snow and sharp rocks that make me slip and cut at my hands, and I hate it. But I don’t have a choice. Whatever’s going on with this spatial anomaly, it’s centered near the summit of Mount Carrie.

  James thinks it’s at the top of the glacier between it and the mountain next to it. He also thinks that when I get there, I’ll be able to handle it. I’m not sure about the first, but pretty confident in the second.

  I’m less confident about the glacier itself.

  I’ve only seen it from the side, and only for a moment from the ridge I crossed, but there’s something wrong with it. It’s hard to explain, but it feels a lot like the burning man did. Not human, and not sentient—at least, not the way I think that word means—but there’s a hunger in that glacier, and it’s uncomfortable. Creepy. Wrong.

  If that’s what’s causing the spatial anomaly, I’m not so sure I have the equipment to handle it.

  James is also convinced that this isn’t the end of the world. The mountain-climbing, I mean. Merge Prime is definitely the end of the world. [There used to be an entryway to one of SHOCKS Olympia’s Geren-Danger wings on the slopes of Mount Carrie. It’s possible that we could get in there and take the tramway. If I could get access to the wing’s power and computer systems, I could take control—and even if that’s not an option, it’d be a straight line instead of mountains and forests.]

  [I’m not sure we should. There are probably…distractions…in there. It’ll be painful. But it would be a lot simpler than going cross-country, and we know where Director Ramirez is heading.]

  That would be easier. “So, we keep climbing?” I ask.

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  [Yes. I know you want to find Director Ramirez, but you’re a bit behind him, and you’re trapped in this anomaly. You either need to destroy it, disable it, or circumvent it.] James makes a new spot on my map. This one’s between Mount Carrie and Mount Fairchild—which is what I’ve been thinking is the mountain I wanted to climb this whole time. Mountains sure are confusing. [Go there if you can. That’s the emergency entrance. I’ll help breach it once you’ve got contact.]

  I’m not thrilled, but as far as I can tell, our only options are to push up the mountains or leave Reality Zero and hope we return somewhere better. That’s unlikely. According to James, they’re a good twelve hours ahead of me, and it’s pretty likely that they’re close to reaching SHOCKS Olympia. Any landing spot that’s not there is just a waste of time.

  “So, we keep climbing.” This time, it’s not a question. It’s an acknowledgment that this is the best path forward.

  It takes another hour before the spacial anomaly changes.

  That happens almost as soon as I see the glacier below me again. I’m near the top of Mount Fairchild—we don’t have to summit it, thank god—but I’m pretty high up. Well above the last few scraggly-looking trees, in a place where there’s only rocks and snow. So much snow. I’m glad for the SHOCKS-issue boots I’ve got on, even if they’re a little melted. Otherwise, my feet would be freezing.

  Focus. The spacial anomaly. Yeah. It’s changed. Instead of pulling me toward the top of Mount Fairchild, it’s definitely pulling me right toward the spot James marked on the map where he says there’s an entrance to SHOCKS Olympia. It’s at the top of the glacier, just above a wall of ice that’s got to be thirty feet tall. “There’s no way that’s a coincidence, right?” I ask.

  [Highly unlikely.]

  I secure the Revolver in my pocket and start climbing down.

  It’s a slow, slow descent. Every step is either snow and ice or tiny rocks that feel more like ball bearings under my boots. The few places where there’s solid rock—or, even better, a few plants holding the ground together are a welcome relief from the constant slipping and scrambling. I’d give almost anything for a distraction. Something to fight would be good. Maybe the spatial anomaly will turn into a monster, and I can shoot it.

  That doesn’t happen. In fact, there’s no sign that it’s reacting to me other than the passive pull toward the place on the ridge in front of me and my inability to go anywhere else. And that’s so much worse than the knowledge that there’s an enemy actively trying to kill me.

  Eventually, I hit the ridge. The ice cliff’s perched ominously over the long, thin glacier to one side, while a sheer drop a hundred feet greets me on the other. The ridge itself is ten feet wide at its narrowest; it’s not exactly a razor’s edge, but there’s not much space, either.

  “Why would they put an emergency exit here?” I ask.

  [Helicopter access,] James says. [It’s not as clean as the Olympia landing pad, but there’s enough space for quick escapes from here, and a good choke point in case there’s a mass breach inside. It’s just a Geren-Danger wing, so massive security redundancies weren’t as necessary.]

  “So why is there no helicopter landing pad here?”

  [Snow.]

  Obviously, that makes sense. That makes so much sense.

  I step out onto the saddle between Mount Fairchild and Mount Carrie. And a moment later, I’m at the concrete and steel structure. It’s disguised with rocks and stuff, but only from above. Once I’m next to it, it’s painfully obvious what it is. “They didn’t care much about getting discovered, huh?”

  [SHOCKS Olympia is protected by an Atero-Danger memetic anomaly. Your Mental Fortitude is strong enough to see through it, and most SHOCKS personnel here have been treated with an antimemetic explicitly targeting it.]

  “So it’s a magic castle you can only see if you know where it is?”

  [Basically.]

  The door’s open. I step inside, and the smell of dirt and frigid air is replaced with something else almost immediately. It’s overwhelming. Sterile and nose-burningly acidic. The scent of industrial-strength cleaning supplies and hopelessness.

  The smell of basic living.

  “James, what is this place?” I ask.

  I need the truth because what I’ve gotten so far is only half of it. This is definitely a Geren-Danger containment wing. It’s almost identical to the one I lived in at SHOCKS Victoria/Vancouver Island—or at least the first few cells where the mountain light reaches are. But something about this one has me on edge. I don’t know why. Until I know why, I can’t act the way I need to in order to survive this.

  More importantly, the smell of basic living just hit me like a truck, and the aura of hopelessness here is every bit as bad as it ever was at home. Maybe worse. There’s something wrong here, and even my Skills can’t completely mitigate that feeling.

  [This is the SHOCKS Olympia Affected Humanoid Containment Sector,] James says. [Geren-Danger wing. Do you want the whole history, or will a short version work?]

  “Do we have time?”

  [Good point.] James starts talking. [SHOCKS has thousands of anomalies in containment, Claire. Most of them are from other realities, like we’ve been visiting. But there are some that aren’t. Some are home-grown, Reality Zero anomalies, and some are people whose existence has been fundamentally changed by a merge or contact with the anomalous. SHOCKS tries to return the ones it can to a normal life when it can. But sometimes, it can’t. Sometimes, the circumstances don’t allow it.]

  [A decade or so back, SHOCKS decided it—we, that is—needed a long-term solution to the overpopulation occurring in many SHOCKS Control Zones’ containment units. Simply killing anomalous people or destroying anomalous entities wasn’t an option. That’s a great way to destroy potential knowledge, and to reduce our ability to react to other problems.]

  [The solution was SHOCKS Control Zone Olympia. A place for long-term anomalous material and entity containment.]

  “So this is a…” There’s a word for what this place is. Something medieval. A hole in the ground where you put people when you couldn’t kill them but wanted them to suffer. A forget-me-not. “An oubliette?”

  James is quiet for a minute as I walk down the hall and into the belly of the beast. The feeling of hopelessness doesn’t go away, but the scent changes. It’s a little less chemical cleaner and a lot more spit and saliva. More organic.

  I’ve still got the Revolver out. My vision flickers to let me see in the dark a little better, and details start popping out. There are no door handles or locks on the welded-shut, rusted steel doors. The layer of dust on the floor is too deep to have happened in just a few weeks. This wing was abandoned a long time ago, but there are still the sounds of movement in some of the cells. “James?”

  When he finally speaks, his voice is the most begrudging and frustrated I’ve ever heard him.

  [Yes. An oubliette.]

  [I didn’t want to bring you here,] James said, [but we didn’t have a choice.]

  It was true. He hadn’t. This specific wing of SHOCKS Olympia was the one place that was most likely to set Claire off because, as much as James didn’t want to admit it, there was a chance that this would have been her long-term destination if not for Merge Prime.

  [Can you connect me with this area’s systems?] he asked. He’d repaired enough of his fried processing loops to be able to run the SHOCKS Olympia Affected Humanoid Containment Sector’s lights and fans, although he had a feeling that the local security network was probably fried.

  “Why am I here?” Claire asked.

  [Because the spatial anomaly forced it.] That wasn’t an answer, and James knew it. He also knew that as furious as he’d been when Claire threw him into Reality 404, that was nothing compared to what she had to be feeling right now. The truth was more complicated, but he needed a few extra milliseconds to figure out how best to phrase it. Every bit of nonessential processing was on Claire.

  She was usually his main focus, but this was different. This was hypervigilance to the extreme.

  Any wrong answer could set Claire off, and both he and the Halcyon System had spent far too long building trust with her to ruin it now. He needed her. Not just as the System, but as James.

  [Since we’re here, I need your help. I have a guess about who Alexander is, and if I’m right, he’s not done with us yet.] James paused for a moment. It was funny that the man’s name was the same as his last one. But unlike the spatial anomaly pulling Claire to the exact same place as the entrance to the SHOCKS Olympia Affected Humanoid Containment Sector, that was just a coincidence.

  James had Analyzed it. He was pretty sure he was right.

  “So, you had nothing to do with this?”

  James couldn’t help but hear the accusation in Claire’s tone. All that work had already been damaged, and James couldn’t figure out how.

  Somewhere in Olympic National Park, Washington, USA - June 19, 2043, 6:54 AM

  - - - - -

  Sora did not want to climb Mount Carrie.

  She didn’t want to be anywhere near the mountain. The glacier running down its side gave her the heebie jeebies. There was something wrong about it. She couldn’t place it, but it reminded her of a dream she’d had when she was little. A nightmare, really.

  It looked like it was moving.

  Glaciers did move. According to her Geophysical Science class in eighth grade, they flowed really slowly. Glacially slowly. Big rivers of extremely slow-moving ice that scraped rocks and picked them up and put them back down when the weather finally got too hot at their bottom ends.

  But the textbook said that most glaciers only moved a foot or two a day. That wasn’t enough to really be noticable.

  The snow under her feet cracked, and another wave of vertigo hit her. She held her hands out, trying to stay balanced until the snow settled again. It wasn’t just that it looked like the glacier was moving. It was moving. In fact—and Sora knew this was crazy, but even so, she couldn’t help but think it—it felt like the glacier was waking up. The cracking moved on behind her, but Sora didn’t feel relieved. If anything, the quieter, fainter sounds only felt more ominous.

  When it finally went silent, she kept moving. Director Ramirez looked even more nervous than she did, but it wasn’t like he’d listen to her anyway.

  Sora didn’t want to climb Mount Carrie, but Director Ramirez needed to.

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