September 12023 SC

  ***

  A creak and low, metallic groan went through the empty alloy hallways, echoing for a long time before the sounds died down, only to pick up again in semi-regular intervals. Aside from the occasional sounds of the surrounding construction being strained, it was eerily quiet. A thin layer of dust covered everything: discarded bags, chairs and tables next to abandoned food courts and even a few skeletons, still clothed in overalls with reflective stripes that shone in the endless, yet dim light of the few still working neon tubes lining the corridors.

  Mana stepped out of her portal and had a long look around before Marisa joined her; The ceiling looked like it was made from glass – or a similarly transparent yet sturdy material. She could see the stars from here – brightly glowing clusters that formed beautiful blue and dark orange glowing patterns covered most of what she could see from the glass canopy. The corridor ahead appeared like a shopping street. Abandoned stores were all around them, their windowfronts smashed and merchandise strewn about. Places marked as bakeries or grocery stores were emptied out entirely, while those dealing in luxury items or electronics were only partially looted.

  Marisa knelt next to one of the corpses, inspecting it before she pulled out one of her tomes, summoning her homunculus to her side. The small, featureless humanoid stepped out of a magic circle and looked around.

  “I forgot you could do that,” Mana commented with slight disgust.

  “There’s dead people around, it would be bad if what killed them was invisible.”

  Just as she finished her explanation, she found a hole in the skeleton’s overalls and poked her finger inside – the skeleton shifted, and a metallic rattle sounded through the corridor as a deformed bullet fell on the ground. Marisa’s face shifted a little bit towards the red, then she cleared her throat.

  “It’s still good to be cautious!”

  “Yeah, maybe someone’s still hiding around here with a gun.” Mana said with a grin as she walked along the abandoned shopping street and took in the sights. She must have triggered something, as a few of the shops lit up and multiple of the screens covering the walls turned on.

  Mechanical-looking wings appeared on a field of yellow, spinning around a vertical axis – as they came to rest in their mirrored position the logo was completed with big bold letters scrolling along the screen.

  ‘Icarus Station – Svarog Sector – Shopping Center’

  “Station? Wait, are we in space, Mana?” Marisa hurried to Mana’s side with wide eyes as she stared at the large screen, then she pondered the words they were reading some more.

  “Isn’t ‘Icarus’ a concept from Earth?”

  “You’re right,” Mana agreed with a nod, then she turned towards Marisa.

  “Madame Bille told me recently: since our multiverse is infinite, there are worlds that are simply variations of existing ones, too. This could very well be a world that developed like mine but is… way more advanced right now.”

  Marisa nodded along to the explanation, walking through the abandoned shopping street by Mana’s side.

  “What happened to this place, though?”

  “Who knows? Maybe it was invaded. Maybe they even had a civil war or something. Maybe a sickness spread fast, and people killed those they thought were infected.”

  Mana simply listed off what she saw in sci-fi movies and anime, looking around until she finally found a floor plan. It was huge, covering roughly ten meters from side to side and covering the entire height of the wall Mana was facing – and still it wasn’t complete, from what she could see – it was a cross-section, like the plans for ships, showing around two hundred floors from top to bottom, with the sides cutting off where ‘Svarog Sector’ ended. If what the map told her was true, Svarog Sector was two hundred kilometers long – and wide, for that matter.

  “This place is huge!” she commented with wide eyes and traced her finger along the strange map. The topmost level was a commercial district and even featured a space port for arriving and departing spaceships. One level below was an administrative district, and the next hundred levels below were living quarters. Further below she could only see ‘forges’ – a large elevator shaft went from the spaceport directly to those forges while smaller elevators for personnel were spread out across the entire sector, spanning the entire height of the sector, all the way from the shopping center to the lowest level of the forges.

  “Where do you want to go first, Marisa?” Mana asked nonchalantly.

  “It would be best to work our way from the top to the bottom, yes?” Marisa answered, walking along the large map until she found the indicator for where the two were standing.

  “Ugh… the spaceport is really far away. I wanted to see it…! Can’t we teleport there?”

  Mana pondered and looked into her sleeve.

  “Portal, can we go, uh… a hundred and fifty kilometers towards…” she turned around and pointed down the hallway. “…that way?”

  Portal appeared like it was thinking her request over.

  “We don’t know much about our destination, Mana. Anything could be there. Do you still want to go ahead?”

  Mana nodded. “Yes. Let’s go to the spaceport!”

  “Opening a gate to the spaceport!” Portal announced and the blue ring opened right in front of Mana. That was a mistake, she quickly realized. Suddenly, the air in the corridor started to move for the first time in a decade – it rushed towards the ring-shaped opening. Mana’s eyes widened and she instinctively grabbed her hat before it could fly off – which was the entirely wrong thing to focus on, as she found out shortly after. Her way too large witch robes acted like a kite suit, catching the air and dragging her towards the gaping wound in reality.

  “P-portal! Close! Close!!” she shouted, just as she lost her footing and sailed towards the opening. Then pain radiated through her face as it flattened against the invisible barrier Marisa put up, plugging the hole and calming the air inside the corridor.

  Mana could see a large metal hall on the other side – with a ceiling that looked like it was supposed to be able to open and close on command, but was bent outwards right now, exposing the giant hangar to the stars. As far as she could tell there weren’t any spaceships left inside – none in one piece at least. An explosion tore through the hangar gates and the vessels both.

  All this was over in the fraction of a second as the portal closed itself and Mana slid down the barrier, leaving a small trail of blood on the invisible wall from her nose.

  “I told you!”, Portal chastised her.

  “Are you alright?!” Marisa asked her with a bit of panic in her voice as she hastily cast her healing spell on Mana’s bleeding nose. Thankfully it wasn’t broken – even with Marisa’s healing spell that would have certainly been a painful experience.

  “I was careless,” Mana admitted her mistake – she’d been doing that a lot, recently. She got up and straightened her robes before she cleared her throat and looked back at the floor plan.

  “Let’s not use any more portals in here, you never know which of these areas are actually spaced,” Mana concluded, and her eyes scanned the floor plan again until they found the nearest elevator.

  “Well, this one is just around the corner. Want to go to the forge?”

  Mana grinned at Marisa who nodded enthusiastically.

  ***

  The elevator on the map was in fact a large installation of at least two hundred elevators growing out of the ground like a forest of metal tubes. After leaving the shopping street, they were greeted by this army of three-meter-tall chrome-colored cylinders and displays that went around the entire circumference of the tubes informed them whether the elevators they belonged to were in use or not. As it happened, none of them were. There were, however, no few elevators that were out of order due to damage.

  “We’re at the very top and supposedly these go all the way to the bottom. I wonder how fast they go?” Marisa asked as she stepped closer to one of the elevators and pushed one of the buttons. “Actually, why is the power still on if everyone is gone and a skeleton?” she now asked and looked around. Mana shrugged.

  “Who knows, we’re far in the future compared to my world. Maybe it’s solar, maybe some rare mineral that creates infinite energy…”

  The tube in front of them started to glow in a green light and the door opened with a gentle ‘ding’, exposing a smooth chrome interior matching its exterior perfectly.

  Mana and Marisa entered the tube, with the small homunculus waddling in behind them.

  The tube closed and the three of them were illuminated in the gentle white glow of the interior. The logo of the station spun on an internal monitor and a voice greeted them in a sterile, expectant tone.

  “Floor?”

  The two exchanged looks and Marisa answered.

  “Forge! Lowest level!”

  There was a short moment of quiet after Marisa’s command, but the elevator gave its confirmation soon after.

  “Understood. Forge, lowest level. No other passengers waiting for transport were detected. Departure is imminent.”

  A little shake went through the elevator cabin, but then Mana didn’t feel any movement at all – and then a mere moment later, the voice spoke again.

  “Svarog Sector. Forge. Level 1. Careful, the air is quite hot.”

  “Wait, already?”

  “Our sophisticated vacuum tube and magnetic rails-based elevator system is capable of transporting the station’s workers near-instantly to wherever they are needed, while our state-of-the art inertia-nullifying systems make sure that it remains a smooth ride. Have a nice day!”

  The elevator doors opened, and Mana got blasted in the face by a searing hot wind, like she just stepped out of an air-conditioned plane in the middle of the desert. The entire level was tinted in a red light, and huge machinery filled the expansive area in front of them. Mana could see what she assumed to be smelters and forges, spreading an intense yellow glow from their openings. Large displays were hanging in the middle of the halls, blinking in red, with messages scrolling across their surfaces to inform the nonexistent workers of various problems.

  Metal Press 1 has been idle for 3723 days. No raw materials!

  Metal Press 2 has been idle for 3723 days. No raw materials!

  Metal Press 3 has been idle for 3723 days. No raw materials!

  Smelter 1 has been idle for 3723 days. No raw materials!

  Smelter 2 has been idle for 3723 days. No raw materials!

  The messages kept going and Mana felt a strange sense of unease – which Marisa obviously shared. Before they could sort out their thoughts about the area, a hovering robot approached them. It looked like a disc with spindly arms coming from its bottom – a single camera was embedded in its front, serving as an eye.

  “Visitors can’t be found in employee database. Accessing tour reservations… error… can’t access HQ’s visitor registration. Switching to honor system.”

  There was a brief pause before the robot addressed them directly.

  “Welcome to Svarog sector’s forge! You must be the visitors who were scheduled for a visit before that regretful union strike, yes?”

  Mana exchanged a quick glance with Marisa, who nodded and spoke up.

  “That’s right! We’re here for the tour!”

  The robot almost looked happy.

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  “Oh, wonderful! I’ve been waiting for so long to welcome representatives of the Free Trade Collective’s generals. May I ask how the war against the Inner Systems Alliance is going?”

  Mana and Marisa exchanged more looks, then Mana cleared her throats.

  “It’s going well. But it could always be better! That’s why we’re here, isn’t that so?” Mana simply gave a non-answer, and the robot appeared happy with it.

  “Ah, yes, of course! Even when you’re completely dominating your enemies, you always want to be able to build more spaceships, don’t you? Icarus Station has over nine thousand forge complexes like this one, creating armor plating and finer assembly pieces to be delivered to the orbital shipyard! But… currently we are low on raw materials. We hoped that our esteemed guests could tell us when this issue is going to be resolved?”

  Marisa was the one who spoke up this time.

  “Oh, don’t worry! We just have… trouble with the supply lines. Yes… it will be all better in a month!”

  “Ohhh wonderful! These halls need to be filled with the sound of pounding hammers, of fizzling and bubbling molten metal running into molds, and the loud shouting of workers! But enough talk, you are here to inspect the premises!”

  ***

  The robot led them through the giant complex of machinery. Industrial, cylindrical hammers, as big as houses on Earth, were raised about anvils of the same size. As the robot told it, this was where armor plates for spaceships were being forged.

  “Svarog Sector was the first part of Icarus Station to be completed. The plans were clear: a forge needed to be created locally, and with a steady stream of raw materials, which were much faster to transport than giant plates and beams of alloy, the rest of Icarus gradually took shape. With an overabundance of energy, this became the most cost-effective way to continue construction!”

  Mana looked around as they walked past workstations, giant control boards full of monitors and buttons meant to operate the machinery around them and also posters. There were a lot of the latter, in fact. Every few meters a red poster with big bold letters appeared, with a serious-looking man pointing at the viewer.

  ‘Remember, joining a union is illegal in the Free Trade Collective!’

  ‘Know a secret union member? Call security!’

  ‘To be a union member is to be a leeching parasite in this time of war!’

  Mana furrowed her brow, but didn’t comment – not while there was a robot firmly on the side of whoever put up those posters.

  “As you can see, our forge features state of the art technology to make the process fast and efficient! No second is wasted, with motivated workers keeping careful watch over the machinery!” the robot kept its tour routine up as they walked through the jungle of smelters, molds, grinding wheels, blow torches and other instruments Mana could only guess the use case of.

  They arrived in front of a door – a single skeleton was slumped against the wall next to it, with a red stain on the wall – it held a gun in one hand, and some kind of device in the other. The robot ignored the corpse and turned around towards its visitors.

  “And now the highlight of our tour! A look at where we get the stupendous amounts of energy from. Of course, you already know! You’ve seen Icarus station’s magnificence on approach! But nothing beats the view from the observation deck to drive home what overwhelming forces of the cosmos we are taming to forge the Collective’s mighty war fleet!”

  The door opened, and the robot floated inside. “Now, follow me and let me show you!”

  Marisa immediately wanted to follow, but Mana pulled her back out of the room and shook her head. She smelled ashes and felt that this room was bad news.

  “What is the holdup, dear visitors? Let us take in the magnificence of Icarus Station together!”

  ***

  Two homunculi stepped into the chamber, and the robot seemed satisfied. The door closed behind it, and the two witches outside observed what was happening on the inside through a magic circle which transferred one of the homunculi’s fields of vision.

  The robot floated all the way to the end of the room, inviting its guests to stand in the middle.

  “Now, without further ado! I present to you: the nigh limitless source of power, used by Icarus station!”

  The floor was a transparent material, Mana realized. The steel she assumed the floor was made of instead turned out to be a metal plate below the actual ground, which now moved to allow the visitors to see. A bright, yellow shine broke through a crack which formed under the robot – it bucked a little, its sensors confused by what was happening as it simply continued its tour speech.

  “How strange, the filters seem to have weakened! But the maintenance team’s job is to ensure that this observation room is completely safe, so there is nothing to worry about, dear visitors!”

  Mana could see the metal of the robot’s frame deform and drip over its optical sensor as the intense light got ever closer to the homunculi. The one through which the witches were observing briefly looked at its own hands, now covered in burns, which only got worse as time went on.

  “I present to you: The virtually endless source of energy we draw from!”

  Mana could see now – the endless ocean of fire below with large tongues of glowing plasma lashing out at the station, yet unable to reach it. This could be nothing other than a star.

  “A burning sun! A hearth worthy of a station carrying the name of an old god of the forge and fire! As the first complete Dyson sphere in the galaxy, Icarus Station will ensure everlasting prosperity for the Free Trade Colle- bzzz…”

  The robot finally gave out. It crashed down on the floor and turned into nothing more than a puddle of metal, while the homunculi burned and gradually turned to ashes. The creatures were unbothered by their fate, but the transmission of their vision cut off shortly after.

  “…I almost stepped in there!” Marisa shouted, grabbing her arms and rubbing them as discomfort visibly spread through her body. Mana got up and gently patted her shoulder.

  “But you didn’t. That’s what matters.”

  She looked to the skeleton again. This one wore a uniform with ‘Security’ written on it, and as Mana expected, there was a hole in the top of its skull under its hat. She grabbed the strange device it held, which still held a charge, doubtlessly powered by a high-quality futuristic battery, or maybe a mechanism that charged the device passively when it wasn’t in use. She saw what looked like the interface of an audio player and pushed the playback button.

  “I did it, boss. I removed the filters to turn the observation deck into a quick incineration chamber. Every last one of the union prisoners was turned into ash, just as you wanted. But is that really going to get us out of our situation? We crush the union, then we wait for HQ to acknowledge us again? Hope that we get food, raw materials and new workers delivered? No. I think they abandoned us – even though it doesn’t make sense! They spent more credits on this station than the entire Norma Arm combined makes in ten years! Why is no one coming?!”

  Mana looked at the corpse with a furrowed brow as the recording continued.

  “I’ve had enough. Enough of the rationing of food and water. Enough of stinking from my own sweat with no showers to wash it off! I’ll see you in hell, boss! If you haven’t already been dragged out of your office and beaten to death.”

  Marisa stared at the dead man with some disgust, then she looked to Mana.

  “Mana… let’s leave this place! Something terrible happened, and I don’t want to be involved! We’re not here on an errand anyway, but just to explore, but this isn’t a fun adventure, right?”

  Mana looked past Marisa towards the corpse and stared at the device in her hand. There was this feeling in the back of her mind again – despite her acute awareness that this place was dangerous, her thirst for adventure came back. Bonnie’s influence on her personality made itself known by the way if pushed her towards one specific goal.

  “I want to know what exactly happened on this station,” she heard herself say.

  The halls before them were dark, with only marginal lighting. The worker’s quarters, at least that’s what the elevator told them. There were large communal areas with tables on which there were still decks of cards, some of them scattered in a chaotic manner. These areas were boxed in what looked like sleeping niches with a single drawer under them each – half of them had curtains drawn in front of them, the other half was lying open. They went four levels high, six sleeping niches wide with two more on each side completing the open ‘box’ of each area – meaning every communal space was shared by forty people when there was still life on this station. What was more disturbing was the bullet holes in various walls.

  Mana wanted to go straight to the administrative level to try and find out what happened to this ‘boss’ mentioned in the audio tape, but the elevator they picked to go back up informed them that there was damage preventing it from opening on that level – it would bet better for them to get out on the workers’ quarters level and walk for a kilometer to get another elevator.

  Marisa stepped closer to one of the sleeping niches and found a piece of paper under the pillow, inspecting it.

  “Mana, I think this tells us a little more about what happened here.”

  She turned around and handed Mana the slip of paper. It was a picture of a man in work overalls raising his fist, in red, less than professionally drawn, with big bold letters making a declaration.

  ‘THEIR war effort depends on US! Demand fair wages and better accommodations NOW! JOIN THE UNION!’

  Mana thought back to the posters in the forge and put the piece of paper down, then she inspected the bullet holes all over the place.

  “They wanted something better and were murdered for it. But that doesn’t tell me why the security guy was so desperate that he killed himself.”

  Marisa shrugged and looked around some more, tracing some of the bullet holes with her fingers – she finally turned around to face Mana.

  “There’s nothing more on this level. Let’s hurry to the elevator… please.”

  ***

  They arrived at the administrative level a short while later. On this end the elevators weren’t blocked by damage, but Mana saw the cause for what could have blocked the other one.

  Originally this must have been a magnificent recreation of a modern town on Earth – the ceiling depicted a blue sky, at least the few dozen screen panels that still worked and weren’t glitching or shut off entirely. The buildings around them were office buildings and single-family homes, but the facades were torn down entirely by explosions, filling the once beautiful buildings with their own rubble. Metal barriers stood in the middle of the narrow roads, with mounted machine guns on top and piles of spent bullet casings all around them. Skeletons were all around them, wearing both security uniforms and worker’s overalls – and every one of them was armed, some even carrying grenades. The barricades appeared to secure one of the few still pristine buildings on the level, and Mana and Marisa approached it now. The doors were broken down, so entry was no issue.

  The hallways were littered with more skeletons and the pair of witches simply followed the carnage to wherever it may lead.

  As it turned out, it led to the top level. A pristine office was at the end of the hallway, but it was empty. A single skeleton in a security uniform was lying in front of the door, with its skull shattered and various other bones broken.

  On the desk was another one of those audio devices, apparently discarded by whoever found it. Mana didn’t hesitate to push the playback button.

  The recording opened with screams and gunfire as background noise, with a heavy sigh from whoever was recording.

  “Well, in a way this was my fault. Who in their right mind tries to suppress people with access to a goddamn weapons factory, am I right?”

  There was a short break before the narrator continued.

  “It’s all going to be for nothing once these fools break in here, though. The war out there is lost. I told the other loyalist fools that HQ simply stopped deliveries until we got things under control, but the simple truth is this: The Collective lost the war. The Inner Systems Alliance overwhelmed them, and while the existence of this station was never a secret, its exact location was. I’m sure they scuttled every transport which had the encrypted coordinates in its navigation computer to attempt and stop their enemies from capturing this place and putting it to use – but all it amounted to was that no one knows that a billion workers are going to slowly starve to death.”

  Another heavy sigh as the sound of gunfire drew closer.

  “It will be another hundred years until the dimming of this star can be observed on the nearest planet and people know we are here. It will be too late.”

  Now there was the sound of banging on a door on the recording – which culminated in a loud crashing sound.

  “Prosperity to the Free Trade Colle-“

  The recording cut off – and with a glance towards the skeleton outside of the door, Mana had a good idea what happened after. She exchanged a look with Marisa, whose mood seemed gloomy now.

  “Alright, let’s get out of here, Marisa.”

  Period of Calm Seas, 1477 in the Era of Plunder

  ***

  Mana and Marisa came back to their little hideout from the portal – Marisa was clinging to Mana’s sleeve, while the latter gently ran her hand through the girl’s hair. She was surprisingly sensitive to places with a grim past like the one they just witnessed, as opposed to Doppelg?nger’s nonchalant threat to destroy the legacy of the Aranon – Mana was happy that the real Marisa turned out to be a sensitive girl like that, and that all the cruelty she initially exhibited was merely a result of the book influencing her. She held her in her arms and calmed her as she looked at the ocean.

  These past few weeks the two of them have been going on adventures just for their own sake – they’ve seen strange, beautiful and horrifying places, all thanks to the power of the world coordinates found within the library. Mana wanted to explore them all – in part driven by the small piece of her which still contained Bonnie’s desires, and because she was aware that Bonnie was still watching over her from within. She wanted to grant her the lifetime of adventure she dreamed of during her own life, and her own curiosity could never be sated, either.

  “Do we have to stay in those depressing worlds, Mana?” Marisa complained now, looking at her with a pout – Mana couldn’t help but laugh a little at how adorable Marisa looked doing that.

  “If we left earlier, it would just eat at us and our fantasy would run wild with all the possibilities of what happened, right? It’s better to know for certain.”

  Marisa let out a long sigh, turning her head away.

  “I suppose!”

  Mana patted her head, walking over to the beach and sitting down to watch the sunset.

  “Good. Now stop pouting and let us enjoy our evening together, hm?”

  Marisa hesitated, looking away a few more times – but she couldn’t resist long, grinning and sitting down next to Mana to cuddle up to her. Mana wished that things could go on like this forever, but she knew better than that. She knew that the hard times were about to start.

  September 2024

  ***

  Mana stood in front of the Tokyo Dome, with two tickets in her hand. She was going on a date with Marisa today, and they were going to watch the grand Celestial Sisters concert.

  “Take them, and take your girlfriend, Mana! Even if you’re not going to introduce us just yet, I want you to know that we support you.”

  The words of her father echoed in her mind, and she looked at the tickets with a little smile. She even bought some regular clothes and gifted them to Marisa, just for today – and now she waited at the designated spot.

  She checked her phone and the time on it, seeing that it was still two minutes until they were supposed to meet up. She shifted in place, clearing her throat and looking around anxiously.

  Strangers would just assume we’re twins, right? What if someone from school sees me, though?

  Mana entertained those sorts of thoughts a little longer until she had a strange feeling. She checked the time on her phone again, and surely enough, it was now five minutes past their meetup time.

  Strange. Being late isn’t like her.

  “She’s not coming,” she heard a voice saying from the side. Her own voice.

  Mana closed her eyes and gritted her teeth, suppressing the tears that welled up as she realized what this meant – she told herself that she made peace with it, but right now she didn’t even want to look at her own self from the future.

  “It’s okay. You can cry, Mana,” another voice said.

  She felt a hand on her shoulder as tears streamed down her face and she still kept her eyes closed. She slowly opened them and saw Arisu’s face in front of her – she kept her crystalline eye under her eyepatch and still wore the same school uniform she wore during their first and second meeting – for her it must have been mere minutes or even seconds apart, but still she said:

  “It’s been a while, Mana. Hello.”

  She just nodded Arisu’s way – the way of that stranger who was supposed to become so important to her – and everyone else. Then she turned to face her own future self, who looked at her with an apologetic expression.

  “If it’s any consolation… there’s not going to be a concert today, anyway. A lot of things are happening these next few days.”

  Older Mana stepped aside to reveal the portal they came out of – it showed the same white desert her self from twenty-two years in the future vanished inside of.

  “We’re ready whenever you are,” said older Mana – and Mana didn’t hesitate long. She stepped towards the portal to that strange place and entered. She’d see things through, even if she didn’t understand why they were happening.