chapter five
I headed out, up the road towards the metro station, watching the sun start to set, dyeing the bright sky a purple-red color around it, passing by a great many shops containing people who also talked odd and would give a hypothetical author that much more of a headache, many more lives I haven't gotten to peek into. Would I? I hoped, I mean, I have the apartment here in the Green Tower for a week, I'd feel kinda guilty about leaving it vacant for this long, and what about Kroff's towel? As I approached the metro station building, I took a deep breath and opened the door.
“how can I help you” said a man at the end of a long hall.
“Um...” I said, making my way up to the desk. “My... my name is, eh... Tammy, I don't remember who I am, and--”
“and you are expecting my sympathy”
“No, no, I've gotten plenty of that, but I was told to seek out Memmi, that she could help me remember who I was. And I, um, I wanted to buy a train ticket to get to her. I've got the Dosh!”
I gave the man the D5, and he looked it over, before handing me a little plastic coin with “ridgelands” written on it. “Oh, thank you!”
“you are welcome” the man said, before sliding under his desk.
As I walked by, I looked back behind the desk, and didn't see any signs of another person being there. Odd. So I guess I had to find the Ridgelands train and take it out. Or maybe this was what stop I should be getting off at? I walked into the next room and looked around, hoping for more information, maybe a man holding a big neon sign that said “Hey, dingus! Ridgelands is over here!” Unfortunately, no man and no sign existed. I approached a Lizi reading a book. “Excuse me, I'm headed to the... to the Ridgelands, to go see Memmi.”
“Ｙｏｕ'ｒｅ ｍａｄ ｆｏｒ ｗａｎｔｉｎｇ ｔｏ ｓｅｅ ｔｈａｔ ｌｏｏｎ, ｂｕｔ ｉｆ ｔｈａｔ'ｓ ｒｅａｌｌｙ ｙｏｕｒ ｇｏａｌ, ｙｏｕ'ｒｅ ｌｏｏｋｉｎｇ ｆｏｒ ｔｈｅ ｒｅｄ ｔｒａｉｎ. Ｓｈｏｕｌｄ ｂｅ, ｌｉｋｅ, ｔｈｅ ｔｒａｉｎ ａｆｔｅｒ ｎｅｘｔ?”
“Okay, thank you!”
I sat at the bench with that Lizi, and waited. A silver train rolled onto the nearby tracks, opened its doors, and after a full minute of nobody stepping in or nobody coming out, the doors closed and the train rolled down the tracks. I wondered where that train was from and where it was going, why did nobody ride that train. I waited a moment longer and a red train pulled in. I got up, thanked the Lizi again for her help, and boarded the train, dropping my coin into the slot on the inner set of doors.
The train was kinda small inside, about four seats along each side wall with a pathway down the center. The train looked to have maybe four or five cars, so in total about 20 people could ride at once, which seemed like a low number, especially considering the river boat could hold many more people. The train suddenly lurched forward and left the metro station. I looked out the window and could see the Green Tower, Shim's shop, and I found myself waving goodbye at it all, a little saddened, hoping I wouldn't be long.
The train crossed the indigo ocean as the sun dipped below the horizon, and after about a minute of traveling over the ocean, the train began to dip down itself. The train did not meet water, however, it instead passed around shadowy rock and past a cave formation that looked like a bunch of rocky spires sticking out of the ground, with white sparkles around them. I only caught a glimpse of the environment, but it looked really neat, I wondered if they were gemstones.
The train kept going lower through the darkness, before shooting back up, past the cave again, this time two white sparkles were just in front of the windows, and out once more over the ocean, this time under the cover of night. The train passed into a building and slowed to a stop. I got up, headed out the train's doors, and found myself in a metro station nearly exactly like the one I was just in, a bench facing the tracks in the center of the room, bridges above the tracks on both sides, even a Lizi sitting on the bench, reading a book.
I walked out and luckily found myself somewhere different. The area was rocky and sandy, with broad beaches facing the ocean. The Green Tower this time of night was lit up so much you could see it from across the sea (river?), and I could tell somewhere in all of that was a whole bunch of really nice people enjoying a really nice evening. I hoped Shim wasn't already missing me.
I wandered around the Ridgelands, looking at all the shops and buildings. One of these was Memmi, but which one was it? I really didn't have any options, so I pulled Constantine's main stone out of the bag. “Hey, Constantine? Can you help me?”
“Only if you... can help me, young grassh--”
“I'm pretty sure you aren't a guru underneath your server's programming.”
“Aw come on! I've been trying to figure it out, Tomorrow, you don't understand! I don't know who I am!”
“I don't either, Constantine,” I said, “that's why I'm being the nicest person I can be, because that's all I really know.”
“Ah, I get it now!” he said.
“There you g--”
“I should appeal solely to Virtue Ethics! Yes! That's right!”
“No it's not.”
“Nothing terrible ever happened under Virtue Ethics!”554Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpfWOGPCwOA
“The Crusades, that was kinda sorta part of that. The death penalty, maybe?”
“Vi-- wait, what?”
“Constantine, look, just... just do me one mental exercise. Forget everything you know, and then ask yourself, who are yo--”
“Formatting drive...” he said, before collapsing back into the bag.
I gave a heavy sigh, I didn't even get to ask about Memmi. I approached a big, red building with large windows, and opened the door. “Hello?”
“Oh, another human?” said someone in the shadows.
“Yeah, I'm looking for Memmi, I can't remember who I am.”
“Oh, they're up on top.”
“Up on t... Thanks, whoever you are!”
“The name's Romero, and don't you forget it!” said the voice.
That was an odd encounter! The top? I stepped out and looked up at the Ridgelands, and sure enough all of these buildings surrounded a plateau with a lot more buildings, and they surrounded another plateau, this one topped with a large spiral building. I gave an exasperated sigh, and started looking for a way up. In each alley was a staircase up to the next level (or maybe down to the lower level) and I took the first one up. The night was cold, and I hurried into another alley to get to another staircase. I walked up the steps, but was stopped halfway up by someone grabbing me.
How rude. I looked around and found myself in a cylindrical room painted with dazzling, reflective colors. I tried to walk around, but couldn't, and found that I had been taped to a chair. I was really nervous, what was happening? “So... you've been expecting me...” a voice said.
“M... Memmi?”
“Wh-- who told you my name?!”
“Shim, a Lizi over in the afte... er, Afterward.”
“But this is the afterward!”
“Oh, so it's like towns in a county thing, okay, I underst--”
“So, you were sent to me by one of them scalies. What do you want from me, hmm?”
“I jus--”
“You want me to read your future, you want lottery numbers, you want to know how to be spared by the Nexus, I kno--”
“No, I just... I want to know who I am.”
“I... 'scuse me a second.”
A little woman with pink hair and a giant white hat and oversized robes stepped out in front of me. “Sorry about the hassle I put you through, people these days always want to take advantage of me!”
I felt the blades of scissors snip between my hands, and heard a few more cuts, and then she pushed me out of the chair. “There you are! So, you don't remember who you were?”
“That's right.”
“You lost your way?”
“Not re--”
“People keep saying your old sound is better because it was more real but you like the sound of the launchpads and the flexibility that comes from scoring with synthetic sound?”
“No, I... I don't remember anything. I woke up on the beach yesterday.”
“Y... oh, like that. Hmm, well, I can do something about that. If you will give me a minute. I'm going to pour myself a drink, do you want any?”
“What is it?”
“Some alcohol, y'know, actually, you might be a minor, I'll--”
Alcohol? There's that rus
ssian select alcohol, twenty bucks a bottle, ordered myself a shot as I sat down with the older man in the black jacket. He said that he's been chronicling threats to our world, and the newest worry is here, this unstoppable beast who drags people to their doom all while corrupting the reality around it. I rapped my fingers across the slide of my gun. Five hundred bucks isn't much of a bounty, but if I'd be saving that many people in one act of vigilante justice then shoot, I really didn't have much reason to say no. I shook the man's hand, finished my shot, and walked out into the rain, the torrential rus
h of memory again... gosh, that can't be me. Maybe they're just delusions. Maybe Memmi will know what's up. She returned to the room carrying a tall, thin glass full of an orange-turning-pink liquid, and I could get a better look at her now. She was only about four feet tall, and her eyes were pitch black with white irises. Still, I thought she looked trustworthy, and her hair looked really soft and well-cared for. Maybe Shim recommended Memmi because she loved to hug her, too. “Memmi, I think I remembered something,” I said.
“Hmm? Oh, uh, right! We began!”
“Maybe I didn't, but I had a vision of hunting down some monster for a bounty, taking a shot of some bitter-tasting stuff and talking to a man.”
“Well, what could it mean?”
“I don't know! You tell me, doc!”
“It means you have a working brain! It's honestly a miracle, some people who were claimed by the Nexus and disposed of just simply didn't have one.”
“The Nexus caused this?”
“It might just have!”
“So what then?”
“It is up to you to figure out!”
“What?”
“Yes!”
“Shim told me you dealt with memories!”
“Well, you can't remember what you have forgotten, but you can forget what you remember.”
“What?”
“Yes!”
“Memmi, there isn't anything else you can do?”
“Well, to do any more, I would need mementos of who you once were.”
“I don't have anything from then, but I do have stuff that belonged to... whoever this is now.”
“Oh! Show me!”
I took the picture of the dog, the coupon, and my ID out, and set them on the floor. Memmi stared at all of them, then bowed her head. “I see... these are definitely not yours, I cannot tell you who they belonged to before--”
“Tamm--”
“The spirit of that person is... is gone. Another spirit claimed by the Nexus, probably. If you ever find any other mementos, please let em see them as quickly as possible.”
“Okay, but that'll get expensive fast, and I don't have any means of earning money.”
“Oh, that's easy, the coin slots on the silver trains got jammed years ago.”
“Why doesn't anyone ride the silver trains?” I asked.
“Hmm... I forget...”
“You know everything about memories, though?”
“The scalie who told you that misidentified what I do, but I can offer my skills in regards to that, though.”
“Okay. Silver train, is that it?”
“You could sit in the vestibule of any of the other trains, just be careful, make sure nobody asks you where your ride token is. Or if they do, tell them you're a broke artist absorbing inspiration from the streets.”
“Um, thanks. Is that illegal?”
“Just don't tell anyone!”
“Um... okay.”
I left as confused as ever, but Memmi gave me a memento of her own to remember her by, a plastic card with her face on it. As I stepped out, I turned back. “Wait, Memmi, if I may ask, what are you?”
“Oh, a Nephim!”
“What's that?”
“Does it matter?” she asked.
“I was just curious.”
“Well, you know what they say about curiosity: 'a curious Craig isn't as keen as an Accepting Steve.'”
“Nobody has ever said that, Memmi.”
“Well, it was worth a shot!”
I took Memmi's morally questionable advice and rode in the vestibule of the train, just inside the first set of doors but before the second, and aside from getting cold and having to stand for a while, it went alright. I got back to my apartment and set the bag containing Constantine down on the table. I got situated in bed and
ns 15.158.61.6da2
