The Desolate Guardians (10 page)

I sent out the call.

On every single network, in every single
reality, on all the Internets and all the forums I could reach, I
began posting. I was fiction. I was a joke. I was a scary story. I
was an entertaining read. For some, I was nonsense.

But some people would understand. Some people
would see the elements at play, and some people would know I was
serious. With nearly a trillion humans alive in our little walled
city, even a one in a billion chance would net us nearly a thousand
people. With all that just
one
had accomplished, what
couldn't a thousand motivated and capable human beings handle?

I wrote as many posts on as many different
Internets as I could myself, and then made a script to continue
on.

And now… I wait.

I scanned quickly through my messages. I had
more than I could handle. Apparently, a great many people out there
were facing dangers beyond mundane comprehension… and a great many
people simply had active imaginations. It was my task to pick out
the ones I thought were true and serious, and try to help.

First up for the evening was a guy near the
outer shell.

Hey man, I read your stories, and I had a
question for you. I found a pen knife out in the woods, stuck in
the side of a cliff. I pulled it out, and I think it can cut
through anything. Have you ever heard of anything like this? I’m
really scared to tell anyone I have it, cause it’s so weird. I
heard something out in the woods, too… I think somebody might be
looking for it.

I considered his question, but a search
brought up nothing. He didn’t seem to be in immediate danger, and I
had no way of knowing the strange object was real, so I moved on
after noting the location and reality from which the message
originated.

nice story, man. You must be on some pretty
good stuff. Remember that one story about red pills that turned you
into a vampire or something? That was my favorite

Alright… I did remember that story. Was this
a hint at something? Or just a random message? I decided to move on
again.

I really don’t like what I’ve read
here,
the message said.
I have a feeling I’m about to get
sucked back in no matter how hard I resist.

I immediately knew this person was something
special. I wrote back: “Into what?”

I’ve been running into these things my whole
life.

I checked - whoever it was, they were on one
of the rare intact worlds on the outer shell itself.

I don’t know if I make things happen, or
just sense them, but I can literally seek them out and find them.
The fear runs like threads through my awareness.

That sounded like a very useful ability.
Researching more, his world seemed more or less functional
socially. Somehow or another, he’d avoided the fate that had
befallen so many of the other outer shell worlds. Did his
experiences have something to do with that? I asked: “Can you tell
me more?”

He simply linked me to stories he’d already
written about his experiences.

I scanned through them, intrigued. I'd seen
them before, but it was strange to read them with a new
understanding that they'd actually happened. “So you’re really a
horror writer?”

You’ve already read my stories?
he
responded.
But, yes. It was only natural, given the background I
have to work with. I try to stay aware of what’s going on, and
something is very wrong with the world.

"Yes, more than you know," I told him,
sending him a map of the situation and all the information at my
disposal. I was sure it would be some time before he digested it
all and responded.

As I began to move to the next message, an
alert popped up, notifying me that the proximity systems had
detected someone entering the building.

Suddenly torn from my coordination efforts, I
raced through all the files and feeds at my disposal. Who was in
the building? How had they gotten here? I found a security camera,
and saw a dozen humanoid forms moving through darkness.

As they moved under a red EXIT sign, I saw
them more clearly.

They were the children I'd seen, briefly, on
my friend's headset camera.

They were the ones she'd had to leave
behind.

What were they doing here? Were they here to
exact revenge for my role in her disappearance? They were
armed…

No, that didn't seem right. They were a bunch
of kids, and a few teenagers. The oldest boy led at the front, a
baseball bat in hand. It occurred to me that they wouldn't know
anything about her disappearance. To them, she'd just never come
back.

But how had they found
me?
I thought
it over… the dead sentient flame, speaking through the book, had
said that one of
those people
was nearby, and then my friend
had said the people we'd found trapped on the plant-God planet were
beings of light disguised as humans. They'd sensed my activities on
the computer. If she had one of them as an ally, had that ally
followed my interactions with her to… here?

That must have been it. Whoever it was, my
signals to her had been a beacon, and they were coming to look for
their protector.

The eldest boy began hitting something that
had been lying in the hall, and I stared at the security camera
stream.

My head hurt briefly, and my vision
flickered. How long had I been working? I felt floaty and
exhausted.

If they were here, that meant they'd come
through a portal. Was it still open? Of course it was! They
wouldn't be coming in unless they had a way out… excited at the
prospect of rescue, I activated the building's speakers.
"Hello?"

As one, the group of kids jumped.

"Is that you?" the eldest asked, looking up
and around 'til he noticed the security camera. "Where is she?"

"She's gone," I replied sadly. "She didn't
have much choice. There was a reality-fracturing bomb being sent
out through a portal machine, and she had to stop it."

He sighed. "That sounds like her."

A few of the children lowered their heads,
and one began crying.

"Oh, oh no!" I said hurriedly. "She's not
dead.
She just went through another portal."

"What? Where is she?!"

"She said where she was going was… home," I
told them. "That's all I know."

The oldest boy looked around at his armed
companions. "I don't like this. Go get the book."

"What about the portal?" one asked.

"It'll survive one or two transitions. This
is important."

Two kids ran back, and the oldest boy looked
up at the camera again. "What happened here?"

"I don't know," I told him. "I've been
trapped here for weeks now. I'm in the server room right now.
That's usually where I hole up."

"Tell us how to get there."

I gave them directions, and they moved
through the halls, occasionally bashing dark objects strewn about
the floor. I zoomed in on a few of the piles, trying to comprehend
their shapes, but the feed was too fuzzy and the building too dark.
Their flashlights arced around, making contrast higher and vision
difficult.

"Is there still any danger?" one kid asked,
looking up at another camera.

"Only outside," I replied. "Don't break the
windows. There are slimy weird things out there. Don't get too
close, and don't let them see you."

The kids looked around warily, but there were
no windows near them. They proceeded down dark, cramped hallways,
leaving marks on the walls to record their way, and heading toward
my location.

"That's it!" I practically shouted, seeing
them come up to the heavy server room door. They studied the same
odd metal frame that I had studied some weeks before.

"You sure this is safe?"

"Yeah, I go in and out all the time."

The eldest pushed it open with his foot… and
then proceeded into rainbow-lit gloom and heat. I saw him enter
through my security camera feed, but he must have been moving
quietly out of caution. Where was he in the room?

"I'm inside," I heard him shout, through the
camera feed. "I don't see you."

"I'm right here," I replied, looking around.
"Where are you?"

"Dude. There's nobody in here. What are you
doing?"

"I'm
right here!
" I said again, moving
to the server room door. "I -"

Nobody stood outside. The hallway was the
same, but the kids weren't there.

I couldn't see the security camera feed from
here, but I guessed what it might show.

Dejected, I returned to the computer. "It
must be the wrong reality… I was worried that would be the case.
I'm trapped somewhere that's a copy of there."

"That sucks. Hold on." I watched as he
re-entered the hallway to meet two returning kids. In their hands
was an extremely convoluted device that had an enormous number of
metallic moving blades, gears, and pipes.

I zoomed in, curious.

The eldest boy took it from them, holding it
by two pipes, his fingers narrowly avoiding the gears and blades.
He manipulated pieces of it, his eyes blank. "Tell me about the man
in the server room." After a minute or two, he lifted his head, his
breathing ragged with fear. "We have to leave
right
now.
"

"Wait, what?" I asked.

The kids ignored me and bolted back through
the halls, following their marks and jumping over the dark
misshapen piles on the floor. Terrified that I'd lose my only hope
of rescue, I closed an automatic security door in their path. "Come
on! What's going on?"

Instead of answering, most just started
screaming. They began to run, too, but they were stopped by a
thrust-out arm.

The eldest glared up at me. "Let us go."

"Tell me what's happening! I'm stuck here,
please.
What did that weird metal thing tell you?"

"Weird metal thing?" He looked down at the
device in his hands. "The book?"

Confused, I echoed him. "What book?"

He looked back up at me. "You
see
this
thing the way it really is?"

"What does
that
mean?"

"I saw this thing the way it really was, and…
apparently, I started bleeding out the eyes. I don't remember,
because I went into seizures. So how can you look at it and see it
for real?"

I opened the door, not really intent on
scaring or holding the kids. "I don't know…"

They ran further down the hallway, and then
turned into a side room where my cameras could not see.

The eldest remained for a moment longer.
"Man, you gotta wake up. Somethin's wrong with you. I appreciate
what you did with all the help, but I think you gotta help
yourself
now."

Confused and terrified, I watched him go.

I sat for a time, processing. It was true
what he'd said: a great many things about my situation didn't make
sense. I'd always felt a certain logic to my imprisonment, hovering
somewhere outside the grasp of my facts at hand, but I'd always had
an aversion to thinking too deeply about it. What if I found out
something horrible? What if I lost all hope?

While I considered these questions, I looked
at the next message I had.

It was from a man who had a problem with
something dark lurking in his neighborhood… something the people
there had been wary of for a very long time. Just like everyone
else, his problems had been growing worse over the last year, and
now he needed to get inside the dark heart of the place. The
strange thing was, the threat had already been there for quite some
time He, too, was on an outer shell world… most of my most
concerning messages were from out there.

He was also on the same world as the person
who had sent the pen knife message… odd.

"So you can't get inside?" I wrote. "I happen
to have gotten a message from a guy about three hours' drive from
you. He stumbled across a pen knife that seems to be able to cut
through things it shouldn't."

A pen knife?
he asked.

"I can't verify it myself. You'll have to go
in person. Here's the address."

He took it with cautious thanks.

I went through a few more, and then stopped,
feeling a sense of despair overtake my need to help out.

It was surprising how hard it was to do any
work when only one thought dominated my mind: where was I?

I had eyes and ears everywhere, but I
couldn't
get
anywhere at all.

If I was in a very special pocket reality,
one that was important for the running of the vast network, then I
was in serious trouble.

For a time, I wandered around my building,
studying the details. People still screamed when I picked up the
phone, and the electricity still worked, and there was still food
in the fridge to last a while… I stood at the window and gazed out,
risking notice to try to study the slimy creatures out in the fog.
As I watched, I saw one go by with a bear carcass in its grip.

I froze.

One bear carcass had been noteworthy… but
two?

Seized by a sudden suspicion, I ran to a
nearby cubicle, grabbed a metal chair, and smashed it hard against
the window over and over again. A crack formed, and then spread,
urged along by my violent bashings.

Finally, the entire glass pane went opaque.
The next hit shattered it.

I stared beyond - at a rock wall.

I was… underground.

It was all fake.

I was just like that lonely soul whose first
message I'd found. I was underground, and there was no way out.

Running around the office building, which I
now knew to be deep under the earth, I smashed random things into
pieces. My efforts were cathartic, in a way. I'd tried to keep
everything normal and untouched, in some subconscious effort to
continue a feeling of normalcy, but now I knew that nobody was ever
coming back here.