Ripley

Lying down on the bed, exhausted and tired next to her… I lifted Elsa's mask up to look at it for myself. A wolf's maw, clean and without misunderstanding about who she was. "You're really her. The Dogwhistler. I… for some reason, I'm not surprised. Separating a part of your mind and putting it into Implants, it's like an alternate use of your Persona Protocol."

"That's exactly it. You would have figured it out sooner or later." She nestled into my neck, a proud grin biting lightly at my skin. "You have no idea how much I panicked inside when you told me what that fucking Bishop told you."

"Stokry…" I leaned into her on the bed, the sheets ruffling beneath me. "What did you do with him?"

"Reprimanded him — sent him away from this city to work in unclaimed America for a Warp Material mining operation." Her voice darkened while her fingers idly drew patterns on my chest. "Suffice to say, he won't be doing anything without me knowing ever again."

"Huh, you're not as omniscient as I thought you were. I'm almost disappointed." I snickered, staring closer into the wolf's maw.

"I'm still… unstable." She admitted with a blush. "My mind, my whole mind, would have shattered the nervous system of this body I took — a majority of it is still technically in the VoidNet — asleep and dreaming. I wasn't Gold when I was with Neocore. I was... top of their food chain. Titanium. When we were attacked, it wasn't the Allseeing… it was…"

"Amaterasu?" I vaguely remembered seeing memories from Twilight, of a great flaming woman tearing into everything she knew.

"That bitch." Elsa hissed. "She's been tracking me down ever since, hunting me. Toying with me. When I broke off from them and entered a Datasurge to escape, I was… aimlessly floating around currents that tore my mind apart. I was saved by The Sin. He's… an enigmatic figure, but he gave me three things: insight into The Allseeing's knowledge, a Fragment of the Source-Shard of The Past, and provided me passage into this body. It's been a pain, bringing it up to be able to use the power of my true self, but for moments I can withstand a little bit of Titanium. But I have to be careful with its usage, if I wake up… all of my mind at once, it would tear this body apart. This… identity I've built for myself. Elsa. Mirage."

She raised her hands into the air, and a black energy weaved out.

Unique Feature Identified: Dreamweaving

"Those homeless people…" Elsa bit her lip. "At a time, I really didn't care less, like how I was with you. They were a means to an end, I offered them nice dreams when I took control by rewriting their memories… gave them meaning, and I… had what was once an untraceable information network."

"Until me?" I shrugged. "That explains why reading their memories felt so… off."

"Until you, you fucking asshole." She smirked humorously. "When you told Missy, she probably told Diamante, and then he routed them all to Maiden."

She sighed. "I won't be using them anymore — it was a stupid idea anyway and… I do feel guilty. Skeleton will do ten times as much work as Maiden will at dismantling them. I really didn't know about Maiden, or what she was doing. Seraphim's a powerful AI capable of even resisting me. Under all of The Dogwhistler's mystery, I guess it's sort of anticlimactic for you to learn she's just… me."

"I guess." I shrugged. "So The Sin put you into a new body… why'd he do that?"

"He wanted me alive, he's… a strange guy. Powerful beyond imagination, old and the only one capable of conversing with the Allseeing without breaking apart, as for his purpose of keeping me alive. It's strange, I know I met him, but I don't have any memory of his appearance… not even his words, really. He's like a void in reality itself, and… I'm supposed to be strong enough to fight the Allseeing one day. Just because there's an alliance between them doesn't make them friends."

"A damn MALtitan? Seems like everyone I know wants a piece of them." I joked.

She kissed my neck. "Honestly, they'll be pieces to our world-conquering masterpiece."

"You're treating the MALtitans like stepping stones?" I chuckled.

"Why not?" She embraced me. "Compared to what we could be, we'll dwarf them one day. We just need to beat everyone who stands in our path. Do you want to see what I really am?"

I nodded, and she adjusted as she raised her hand and produced a holographic glow within our lenses, manifesting a transverse section of a sphere that was gray on its most outer layer, then Bronze, then Silver, then Gold and Titanium before a layer of red blazed between the darkness and the white of Platinum core where a MALtitan resided. The anatomy of the Net.

She pointed at the layer of Titanium. "The VoidNet, that's where I used to work in during my stint at NeoCore, before we attracted Himiko's attention and she attacked us. I was scattered into a Data Surge that put me eye-to-eye with The Allseeing before The Sin bargained my life to be used. By the time I was within New California's Network, my real physical body was dead… but my mind lived on."

She pinched her fingers, zooming into the VoidNet layer and sweeping her hand to reveal a sphere of shadows pulsing with a violet glow. "Naturally, I couldn't manifest all of myself into my new body, so my conscious mind was separated from my original Titanium Avatar. That's my Titanium Core. It's… power personified, but not exactly a thinking being. Unstable. It technically has a personality of its own, but muted… That's The Dogwhistler. A numbness that infects me if I get too close. I draw from it occasionally, let it watch the Net and decipher it's meaning, but I don't control it, not entirely possible with a Silver... and it's limited."

"Limited?" I asked.

"I have no way to restore the Titanium I use." She took a deep breath. "My physical body with the Titanium Implant is dead, and I can't take from the Net's Framework unless I want NeoCore returning to finish the job with their Sentinels. But back then, I was Tier IV. I'm technically an Evolved human, that Core is what I really am. I transcended humanity into becoming a sort of… Artificial Intelligence. The body I inhabit now… this life I live with you is like my dreaming state. A year in the VoidNet can be a minute here."

"Is it lonely? When you try and control that Titanium?" I held her, the steel in my arms felt tender against her rising breath.

"That's the price for power. When I submerge my conscious mind back into the Titanium… for moments, it's like I'm invincible. At my full power, a thought from me could send thousands of Tier Is into killing themselves, I can collapse the power grid, control corpses, rewrite memories… Soul Killer thought they were sneaky. If I wanted to, I could have an army raise up in a minute. Anyone connected to the Net would become mine…"

"That's how you took over Little Requiem?" I let my gaze softly brush against her.

"It was child's play, the difficult part was controlling Midnight when she drank a sip of Titanium. Since then, I don't let any of my Personas draw power from the Core." She nestled closer to me as she erased the image infront of her. A shudder of relief spilled from her against me, as though the pulsing black Core had been haunting her. "Once I have more power to control it, we can start making a real difference. Skeleton, Soul Killer… everyone else. They won't know what hit them."

A sadness weighed on my eyes. "What about Missy and Diamante? Topaz, Quartz?"

"They obviously don't know about me. I suspect they are getting close, though, when the time comes… they'll make their choice. I'm not with Skeleton anymore, never was with Soul Killer. They're both… weird. Sure, the same guy put us into power, but ultimately… it was always our choice to do what we want with it. That's the only thing in common with us, other than that we don't like The Founders."

I slid a white lock out of her eyes, those black and white circles looking deep within me. "Starlight?"

"She's… complicated. Not bad, but worrying due to her relationship with Amaterasu. She could feasibly resist me, since Amaterasu made her, but so did Twilight. There will be… parts of her that I can look past, look into. Just... we'll need to keep her away from the true nature of this affair. I can accept her once I know she won't turn against me."

"I think… I'll keep all of this hidden deep in my private folders for a while." I gulped. "She's her own person, she gets along with Diana and… I don't think Diana would feel very positive about me dating one of The Uncaged."

"Ah, by the way… we can actually kill one of you now." She chuckled nonchalantly. "We're actually supposed to. A few weeks ago, we got a message from The Sin, he can sort of link into the Fragments of Becoming he put inside of us. Told us… there can only be one."

"One Uncaged." My eyes opened in realization. "One Adapter of Change."

"Exactly." She yawned. "I'm keeping you alive, obviously."

"So then…" I met her eyes, needing reassurance.

"I won't kill her, not directly… but if she gets in our way, then things might change." Elsa let out a dark whisper.

"If she…" I took a deep breath. "She's useful right now."

"I know. We'll be making damn good use of her as long as she provides us access into the police's activities." She kissed my neck. "One of you will die, though. So, uh, I'll make sure her Implant gets to you."

I stayed quiet for a thought, I… didn't want Diana to die. Not when we'd finally put our differences aside.

Putting my thoughts down, I gave a deep and knowing gaze into my girlfriend's eyes. "So… what can I do with the Dogwhistler on my side?"

"What can't you do? Ask away what you want to know." She laughed.

I thought about it. "What's up with Anabelle Grazhe?"

"Ah, that." She gave a humorous chuckle. "Guess you saw Juliet's memories so… did you see her wake me up?"

"Wake you up?"

"When the Allseeing had control of her, she should have unplugged someone's life support. That was so my mind could get in."

"Huh, god damn is everything connected." I rasped.

"As for Anabelle, she's sort of an anomaly to Soul Killer. In my conversations with that entity… they have a certain disdain since she's separated. They believe she can be used against them, but also acknowledge that she's useful. She's effectively in the middle ground between the police and Soul Killer, a threat to both of them but invaluable when it comes to information. There's an agreement Omen has with Soul Killer and Skeleton about her, not privy to the details… but let's say, I'm not sure how much she's needed now that Skeleton's proving himself too good to pass up."

"I see… what about Soul Killer and Skeleton in general?"

"Soul Killer… comes from Florida, some sort of project of SynTec's that got broken apart when The Infinite attacked. Other than their ability to create clones of Kaisel that have Mutations despite a lack of Implants, I have no clue as to what that bastard is actually thinking. Skeleton, on the other hand, was a part of Missy's group twenty-something years ago, apprentice to your grandfather before he decided to focus himself on raising your mother. Some girl named Seraphina joined the group, a DataDelver like me, it… drew a rift between Diamante and Skeleton."

"A love triangle?"

"I don't exactly know. She was powerful enough that she might as well not exist, double-crossed SynTec and had a Unique Feature that Skeleton… took for himself. Allows him to instantly absorb information, a hyper-charged Analyze Feature that's since combined with his ability to imprint his consciousness into tech. It ended up with Missy 'killing' him. Really fucked up him and his Implant, forced him to use Diamante's tech to keep his brain in a robot suit… except, well… Soul Killer's the reason why he's alive. Slowly, he's been working to untangle the Sword of Damocles that The Revenant has over him."

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

"I have no idea what that means… but it makes sense why the bastard is making so many moves now. What about my Implant?"

"Ah, yeah… The Sin dropped it off to me, just appeared in my house one day and explained it was important for his plans but gave no reason as to why, and I had it delivered to Missy. She went around and gave it to the Snake Fangs while I kept watch… but I never opened the box while you were tinkering with it. The Allseeing did... I think?" She said, as though that wasn't a crazed revelation.

"Excuse me?!"

She shrugged. "A MALtitan overridded my controls, saw something in the future of you and Diana, maybe planned to have you both there all along. Then it opened that box."

"That's… freaky."

"It is, you can see why I always had to watch you. You're part of a MALtitan's plan and everyone else's now, it hasn't been easy considering how mentally deranged you are."

"Well, I'm working on it."

"That, you are." She snuggled closer, before piping up with excitement. "Oh, you want to know the secret to Tier IVs?!"

"Hit me."

"Fragments of the Source Shards, Unique Features and Deviant Mutations, can't get to Tier IV without them." She revealed. "It's a necessary piece to break out of the human species, literally need something to rewrite your genetic Source Code. Otherwise, Diamante would have been one a long time ago."

"Fascinating." I thought to myself about how that explained the sheer drop in numbers between Tier IIIs and IVs beyond just general Compatibility requirements. "And your Dogwhistler Core is technically Tier IV too?"

"Yeah, if I assimilate with it… I'd instantly be back to my old strength. But also my old self is just a thoughtless drone ready to take orders. That's why I need to get power in this body before committing myself to truly become the Dogwhistler. Otherwise, I'd just be an algorithm again."

"That makes a lot of sense."

"I'm close to Gold, actually. I think a single Implant could get me there."

"Well, let's hope your boss arranges another Gold Implant deal."

She gave a wised smile to that. "Let's say that… an opportunity is coming soon, but it's going to be tough to get. I'll let you in on it soon as it's confirmed… but also, can't deny the risk my other two coworkers won't get involved."

"A free-for-all?"

She sighed. "Yeah. Honestly, my biggest issue, unlike the other two Uncaged, I don't have muscle unless I'm active. Half of Metal Heavens adores me, but… they're not the most dependable when it comes to stability or professionalism. But with you as Dreadwire, this city… we'll consume it. Silvers, Golds… we'll have it all until we're Platinum."

"No." I locked my gaze with her, letting shadows deepen in my eyes. "Platinum. And beyond."

Her eyes dipped at that saying, her hand on my waist clenching harder. "Do you… want to remember Selene again?"

A coldness hardened in my bones, a reluctance and longing simultaneously reacting with each other to drain me. "The Personality Matrix… would it let me?"

"My power, Dreamweaving, is all about memory." Elsa cast her gaze aside, before it fixed on me as purple turned black-and-white. "The Matrix is… there's a way to keep it from changing you. As long as feelings aren't attached, you could view and remember her."

To remember Selene, but not feel any sentiment to a person who meant so much. "I think… I'd still want to know what happened."

She nodded, and she shuddered as the Silver flakes of code around her darkened into the dark shadows of Titanium. She drew my head into her lap, as her gaze distanced itself from reality, a hollowness building inside of them that was The Dogwhistler. "I'll be putting you to sleep then."

I nodded, as a stream of Titanium Warpcode entered my Frame. It was… soothing, a reprieve from the chaotic ripples of the world as my mind stilled like an ocean with no wind, no current, no waves. Only an endless sea of Gold that allowed bubbles of thought to resurface from depths and crevices that had never seen the light.

Her darkness permeated my mind, like ink spilling through water, and it reached for those bubbles as it poked and revealed their true nature. As my eyes went heavier as my mind slipped away into a dream.

A dream woven by The Dogwhistler.

———

"Be a hero, dad." My younger self said that so confidently to my father, unknowing of the consequences those words would bring. I could faintly make out his face now, probably a result of my sessions with Crimson Heart. He was still so young, so… strong to me. I could see my smile in him, my eyebrows, and the life he wanted for me.

"Thanks, Rip." He hugged me, and I hugged back, before it got a bit too long and I felt flustered so my counterpart pulled away. My dad laughed, patting my head as he nudged his head to the doorway. "Alright, now go treat your girlfriend nicely.

"She's not my girlfriend, dad!" I said, cheeks getting red.

"She better not be." My mom wandered into the room, but her eyes were focused on my father as she snapped her fingers to call him to her. "Now, Dom, help me out in the kitchen! For someone who wants to impress their friends, you sure rely on me to do it!"

"How can I not flaunt a beautiful, sexy-" His words were interrupted by my mom grabbing his ear and dragging him away. I laughed, both me and my younger self as my mom berated my father. "You have to watch what you say in front of him! Founders know your dad didn't!"

My younger self left the room, opening up to the quaint hallway leading to the living room where a pink-haired girl sat on the sofa, playing some holo-games that projected into the air from a console on the table. I looked at her, studying her form… she was very close in appearance to Starlight, except real.

Bright blue eyes reached for me, her voice chirping out as she tossed another controller out to me. "Finally! You've been making me play against bots for so long!"

Younger me fumbled as I caught the controller, only making her laugh, until I scowled. "You'll be needing the practice."

I sneered, pulling up a chip from my pocket as I plopped on the seat next to her. From the corner of my eye, I saw Selene's parents in the kitchen with my own, all four of them laughing away like old friends. My younger self plugged in the chip, Shard Fighter VI glitching on it's character select screen as a new character loaded in.

I, my older self, laughed.

The new character was Dreadwire…

"Be prepared to get owned, noob." I selected the character named 'Dreadweaver' as six spider arms launched out from his back, two guns forming from his arms, and rocket thrusters pushed from his joints.

Selene dead-panned me. "Did you mod a whole new character just to beat me?"

"No." Younger me peeped, embarrassed at being caught. "I just… let's fight!"

She blew from her lips, a competitive glare growing in her as she selected NeoCore Herald Sapphire and the match began. As soon as it started, my character's ultimate charged up as I activated it's Dreadcore ability, flew into the air with rocket thrusters as all six arachnid limbs activated into a combo that led into said ultimate where I whacked her around, webbed her up, and sent violent electric shocks into her. Then he threw a grenade at Sapphire's bound form, as a disintegrating explosion erased her.

I won.

She looked at my younger self, mouth agape, as he tossed the controller behind him and put his feet on the table and smiled proudly. "You lost, Sel."

"You cheater!" She grabbed my collar, shaking me as she demanded another round where I played a 'real' character. Her mother called her out for being rough, telling her to play nice while my father said to make sure I learn my lesson. That instigated an argument between both parents until my mother and Selene's father defused it. Then they laughed about it before giving me and Selene sly looks.

My younger self didn't like that many eyes on him, so he stood up and flicked a nervous gaze to Selene. "Um… there's something I want to show you."

Selene stood up, excited. I understood, that between them, it meant I wanted to show off a new project I'd been making. She followed me impatiently, one step ahead of me, as she walked over to my bedroom.

"Not there." I said, my counterpart pointing to my mother's office. "It's in here."

"Um, Ripper… we're not supposed to be in there. Your mom said so." Selene shook her head.

"It'll only be a minute." My younger self quietly tinkered with the lock using tools he stashed in his pocket, until it clicked upon and he motioned with his hand to enter.

Selene's gaze widened at the clutter of machine parts and architectural frameworks of anatomical cybernetics to more austere creations my mom was required to build for her degree. "Woah… this is cool."

My younger voice held the awe of the stars. "I know, right! But… here, I wanted to show you this!"

I pointed to a contraption on a table, it was integrated into the workbench itself as six-arm length limbs of steel with sharp tips meant for intricate Shardware operations. "My mom made this, it's a scaled down version of what we Operators call an Arachne."

"Oooh." Selene looked intently upon the machine, but was a bit confused. "So… uh… what does it do?"

"It like… helps you with building things!"

"Yeah, but doesn't your mom's claw do that too?" Selene frowned.

"Yeah…" My younger self struggled to formulate his words. "But it's cooler! It's like, a spider, you know?"

"Ohhhh." Selene's eyes flickered with a teasing edge. "You made Dreadweaver by looking at this?"

"Yeah!" I folded my arms.

"But spiders have eight arms, yours technically had ten." Selene pointed out. "Doesn't that make you a uh… like a shrimp?"

"I'm not a shrimp!" My younger self was about to lightly smack her, but decided to not do so… mostly because I didn't to risk messing something up here. My mom was strict.

"Shrimpy shrimp, you're not Ripper anymore… you're Shrimper." Selene teased, making me consider that maybe I could handle the punishment from my mother. She laughed the teasing away, her hands clasping around younger me's which led a warm fluster up his cheeks as she egged him on. "So… that guy? You want to be him?"

"I… it was just an idea. No one ever's figured out how to put an Arachne on a person's back… there's no need to anyway. There are other mobile Shard Operating tools out there that aren't so complicated and costly to make."

"But it's cool." She knew my reasoning immediately.

"Super cool!" I laughed.

"Then make it, you can make anything Ripper." Her hands held me tighter, those pink eyes emitting a warmth that spread through my younger body.

But not through me, not as I witnessed this. All my feelings only came through as an observer of the memory, not as… a part of it. I could feel mirth and joy, but it was comparable to watching a movie, and it only unsettled me to know that I was an actor in this.

Selene's grip remained on my hand as she led me away, her voice demanding yet so sweet to my counterpart's ears. "Alright, now you're going to make me a new character, too! I want wings, and energy blades, and oh- if you're a spider, I get to be a butterfly! We can match!"

"Match?" My voice cracked out.

"Yeah, just like a-" Selene disappeared as the world glitched into a new scene, I was pulling back from the metallic hand holding mine. My mother's.

"I don't want to leave!" I screamed from my throat, but my mother's gentle eyes were lost in their own thoughts. She looked defeated, the door opening up to reveal SynTec officers with my father in their grasp…

"Mirage." I whispered as I witnessed this moment where we lost it all, everything from this moment onwards had been the subject of my sessions with Crimson Heart. "Skip ahead…"

I saw my life flash in front of my eyes, the truth of it all… my father succumbing to addiction and his death, my grief taken advantage of by Hoaqin, my mother's deterioration and my growing numbness — the day my right hand blew up from opening a bombed package. My harrowed fear at the day she took out her own eye, the countless panicked talks and stubborn pleading with my mom to let go off her Implant before it killed her.

How alone I felt, just seven months ago when I first donned my mom's arm. I was a droplet suspended in the air, one destined to fall down and splat on the ground where the world's constant eroding and stagnant air would evaporate my will to live. I'd forgotten just how bleak everything seemed then, the crushing responsibility I hadn't quite come to understand back then, only the pain of knowing that soon I'd have no one.

It was March when I was mindlessly scrolling the Net when Selene's Hotgram account appeared in my recommendations, it hadn't been the first time, but I'd always been too ashamed to send her a friend request… maybe it was my desperation, but that time, I did. She accepted minutes later.

In our midnight talks, it turned out she was just as ashamed. There had been years of distance between us, and we'd both fallen from our grace. She told me how her parents had hired a private investigator to confirm my father's findings and get him back into his position and how… months later, they died in a car crash.

How a crippling debt fell into her hands, how she spent her life far from the dreams we'd envisioned as a server at a restaurant. And it was so easy to talk to her every night, how I wanted to continue living on just for her next response, each second a heartful pain when she was silent.

Until she sent the message I'd been fearing in early April.

[Want to meet?]

Back then, it seemed like the most difficult thing to do, for her to witness just how far I'd fallen. But the spring air swelled to life as I saw her pink hair flowing in the wind, even in this stagnant city devoid of life, she blossomed with starlight in her eyes.

That was how I knew I saw her seven months ago, but to my own witness, it was like I was being told how to feel. That didn't stop some twisted sentiment from building in my chest as she hugged me, drowning herself in tears and sobs as I broke down too. We spent so long talking, so long laughing and remembering the kids we used to be.

And forgetting the adults we had grown into, I pushed her on a swing and she cheered as she arced higher and higher. But like all things that rose, we had to come down from the joy we shared that day, to return into the life we were forced into…

Except, I didn't. She held my hand, her voice becoming unnaturally tense as her vulnerability breached through. "I… missed you."

"I missed you too, Selene." I choked, in my rush to not let her go… to see a future with her, I said words I wished I could regret. "Come with me to… to the club."

Hoaqin took a liking to her immediately but backed from his usual antics due to my obvious feelings. Lucille was even more happy to see her, appraising her in a way that disgusted me, but as zeroes dropped from her mouth and the mention of healthy tips wormed into Selene's ears… I saw the same desperation I'd given into myself grow inside her.

Maybe I wanted her in my life, maybe I wanted to push her away, but it was always her decision. I sat there that night, telling her about the Personality Matrices I put inside the workers… but not about the one in my head. That, I was too scared to admit to. I expected her to hate me, to see me in disgust, but all she had was empathy for the things I'd gone through.

In my loneliness, in my self-hatred, it felt so nice to be seen and loved. So nice that I dragged her down with me and disguised it as help. And it killed her. All that guilt was why my Personality Matrix… why Elsa refused to let me see her.

"You've changed a lot." Selene whispered as she rested her head on my shoulder in a taxi.

"I know."

"But you're still that same kid." She chuckled, pointing to an open hologram on my laptop. It was of an Arachne model, and a human right besides it. "And I love that."

She held my hand, and the second stretched for an eternity. I searched in my throat for words to respond to her. "You still want energy blades?"

Her smile could brighten the entirety of this dour city. "If you're up to the task."

"Might need to get out of the club first." I said it like it was a joke, because back then I had to make light of what amounted as my prison.

"You will. You'll soar higher than anyone in this city… Shrimp." She tapped my forehead, before relaxing as my arm went around her shoulder. "If anyone can fix this city… it's a guy like you who doesn't know his limits."Blind hope, that's what she was to me. That's what she held in her voice when I put a Neuroframe on her. It's what she had as she screamed out my name in the middle of the MAL attack on the club. But I knew that she was confused and fearful of what was to come, even behind that happy smile she wore all the time.

Her body may have been covered by layers of muck and dust, but her beauty shined through it. How many times had her warmth been the strength I needed?

Why then, were they not attached? Her head rolled away, while her body remained still.

As that scene played in my head, as I saw my prior self with a broken leg and a detached look in his eyes… I knew I'd seen enough.

The memories faded, and my eyelids felt heavy as they opened to see Elsa's violet gaze twitching down on me… scared, scared that by seeing the past I'd forgotten, I'd change and reject her—The Dogwhistler. But I chose to accept this darkness. In reality, I was no different from her, someone who lied to get what they wanted.

That web of lies bound us together — fragile, treacherous, and still… unshakable. Neither of us fell for the truth. We fell for the lies we both needed to believe in.

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