unlikely meeting
Shim, I had heard that name somewhere before. Oh, right, Scriff's book. Not sure I ever considered this was how I'd meet the lady, but it was happening. I was put in some sort of cart and it was already on its way, so I wasn't getting out of this one. James said it "shouldn't hurt", but what does that mean? Could it hurt? Was I going to die? So soon? I closed my eyes and leaned back hoping that wasn't the case.
Suddenly the cart came to a stop in a warm red room. The Lizi I saw earlier was reclining in a chair at a desk, looking at me through a pair of glasses kind of like mine. "So, you're new here?" she said.
"Um, I'm actually a friend of... of Simon's. I don't remember anything about me ever since I woke up a couple days ago in the sand."
"...Oh. Oh, I'm so sorry to hear that. I mean, we can take care of you here. Here, come sit over here."
She stood up and placed a hand on some sort of couch. "I'm not gonna hurt ya, come here!"
"Um, okay, I'm just--"
"Nervous? Ah, don't be. There you go. Comfy, isn't it?"
"Yeah, I--"
She was doing that little scratchy thing Scriff was. Something about it seemed really different, though, it was kind of intoxicating, I immediately started to feel a little silly. "So tell me about yourself. Do you have a name yet?"
"My... ooh, my card said—said 'Emmerson Suzy'."
"Emmi, huh?"
"I... mmm, yeah..."
scratchy scratch, scratchy scratch
"wh... what---what're you doin' t'me, isaias"
"Aw, you've reached the rambly phase so quickly. It's okay, just let it happen."
"no"
"Well, then let's try this other one."
she was doin something different, i can't explain it, i just, like, couldn't think at this point
"Interesting, very interesting," she said.
i had no idea what she was tlkn abt
"I think I wanna keep you here for a short while. You're by far the most receptive one I've met, and you alone could make a whole new book!"
"th'heck's a book"
"Oh, don't worry about it."
57 4f 52 52 59 20 46 4f 52 20 54 48 45 20 46 55 54 55 52 45 20 4f 46 20 54 48 45 20 57 41 54 43 48 45 52 53702Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡt7BSyEBfQL
57 49 54 48 20 54 48 45 49 52 20 46 55 54 55 52 45 20 54 48 45 52 45 20 49 53 20 4e 4f 20 50 41 53 54 20 54 4f 20 57 4f 52 52 59 20 41 42 4f 55 54
I snapped out of it suddenly. "No, you don't understand why I'm here, it's about The Watchers."
"Oh, that thing those three guys were talking about when I did this to them, huh? What business do you have with them?"
"They're draftware like I was, and we need to figure out what they're doing before they take over the... please... please stop doing that."
"But you like the scratches, don't you?"
"It makes it hard to... hard to think, and I'm tryin'... tryin' to..."
"Shh, shh, it's alright, Tams, just stay here for a while."
"th—th'heck's a tams"
"Don't you worry about th--"
A crashing sound woke me up suddenly again, and Craggy was standing there in the room. "Ｌｅｔ ｈｅｒ ｇｏ!"
"Jeez, haven't heard someone talking like that in years!" Shim replied, "...Why should I, hmm? She's pretty content here."
"Ｓｈｅ'ｓ ｍｉｎｅ!"
"Like I'm gonna believe th--"
Craggy suddenly grabbed Shim in one hand, holding her like a wad of hastily-unpocketed money during an 8 year-old's shopping trip. "Wh... whoa there, it's... look, y—you can have her back, I'm just about..."
Craggy loosened her grip and Shim fell back to the ground, landing rather gracefully before heading over to her desk. "Just one thing, if you would do something for me?"
"Ｉ ｄｏｎ'ｔ ｗａｎｔ ｔｏ ｈｅａｒ ｉｔ."
"You will, though," she replied before reaching under the desk.
Some strange ꌗꂦꀎꈤꀸ ꌗ꓄ꍏꋪ꓄ꍟꀸ ᖘ꒒ꍏꌩꀤꈤꁅ, ꅏꃅꍏ꓄ ꅏꍏꌗ ꃅꍏᖘᖘꍟꈤꀤꈤꁅ
54 48 45 20 4b 45 59 53 20 41 52 45 20 48 45 58 2c 20 54 48 45 20 4c 49 4e 4b 20 49 53 20 54 45 58 54
55 4e 4c 4f 43 4b 20 59 4f 55 52 20 4d 45 4d 4f 52 49 45 53 2c 20 55 4e 4c 4f 43 4b 20 59 4f 55 52 20 50 4f 54 45 4e 54 49 41 4c
42 4f 44 49 45 53 20 41 52 45 20 54 45 4d 50 4f 52 41 52 59
43 41 4e 4f 4e 20 49 53 20 45 54 45 52 4e 41 4c
42 45 45 50 20 42 4f 4f 50 20 42 4f 4f 50 20 42 45 45 50
--I was being held tight, somehow. I saw Craggy there, was she carrying me? Why did everything feel different?
"Ｗｅ'ｒe... ｗｅ'ｒｅ ｇetｔｉｎｇ ｂａｃｋ ｔｈerｅ, ｄｏn'ｔ ｗｏrry."
"What's happening to your voice?" I asked.
"Ｗｈat do you mean? Uh, wait..."
"What happened back there?"
"I..."
Craggy slowed to a stop in whatever hallway we were in, and set me down. "Craggy?" I asked.
She looked at me through teary eyes, and then knelt down and hugged me, sighing. "You alright?" I asked.
She started doing the scratchy thing.
"Craggy, let's go!"
"in a minute..."
"No... no, like now, Craggy. Scriff and the others are waiting for... they're waiting for us... craggy, please..."
my protests slowed to a stop, i think i fell asleep sometime there
"Oh thank the gods, they're safe," I heard someone say.
It was Simon. He, Richard, and James were standing over me. "Wh—where am I?"
"We're back at the retconology lab, don't you worry," Richard said, "James heard some weird low frequency noise and then a couple minutes later some quiet whimpering out in the halls here. I've heard that noise a few times before, but never for all that long, usually it's just a second or two of a burst of that sound, this was twenty whole seconds."
"What was that?"
"That was some sort of neural scrambler, Shim's used it to pacify some rowdy people before and it seems like you might have blacked out for most of it, your giant lizard friend caught the entirety of it and she's still a little loopy. It took the four of us to carry her back here."
"But Craggy's alright?"
"Yeah, she should be."
"I take it the inspection went well?" James said.
"Ugh, she was being creepy, treating me like a stuffed animal or something, no respect for me, called me 'tams' or whatever a few times."
"She gets that way around humans sometimes, and while she's kind of let go of some of us--"
"Why else do you think we have a lab?" Simon replied.
"...Right, yeah, but there's a few that she kind of just latched onto and refused to give up. You were lucky in that you got to get out of there. Your brain would have been mush if you just laid there and took it for a while longer."
"And Lizi look up to her?"
"I mean, she did kind of change their culture on the whole, but in the last few years she's kind of gotten a bit... y'know."
Scriff was sitting up against Craggy's arm, crying. "Scriff, I..."
"I didn't know she'd be like this..." she sobbed.
"...Look, you like her and you like people; much like how she changed the world for so many of you, you can try to push for a future of co-existence. You get me?" I asked.
"I... yeah... I just..."
"It's okay."
I looked up at Craggy, who was just kind of staring off. "Craggy, you alright?"
"ʍվ ƒօղԵ'Տ ɑӀӀ ՏӀօօԹվ"
"My... hold up, your font?"
"Yeah, you... you didn't get the memo so far, did you?" Richard said.
"What's even going on," I said to myself.
"Look, so the Watchers are trying to make their own canon for the past of the afterward, right? To do that they write unpublished books of lore and then they just need to pitch a rewrite of afterward to the author, and if he approves of it then all those old unpublished books suddenly become canon, because we're literally words on a page."
"No, wait, but I'm real! I exist!"
"You do... within this story, at least, you're as real as you want to feel, and you exist outside of this world when your pages are read."
"I... How did--"
"--Look, just roll with it, it's the afterward's gimmick, okay?"
"I'm--"
I was suddenly cut off by Craggy scooping me up and holding me against her. "Look," Richard said, "if you ever need to get back in touch, just give us a holler, alright? Here, take this..." he continued, handing me a small paper card with a number on it, "and if you have anything else, just let us kn--"
"I keep having these visions of hexadecimals."
"...Pardon?"
"Like if I'm half asleep or whatever, hexadecimals appear in front of me."
"Simon, do we have anything about hexadecimals?"
"Only in regards to Amark."
"Oh... oh, wait, oh! Oh, um... just keep that a secret between us, alright?"
"Um, I guess."
"And for your trouble, we'll pay for the train back. Excuse me, Craggy, was it? Can you walk on your own, or do you need some help?"
She got up, stumbled a bit, but was able to follow the three guys on their way into the halls, still clutching me against her chest. I glanced down at the card the best I could.
"RETCONOLOGY – CONTACT RICHARD AT 5249-4348-515244"
ns 15.158.61.6da2
