It was weird, they had
been moving since well before sunrise, and now it was well after
sunset and Deborah still wasn't tired. She should have been
exhausted. Between the long walk and her own emotional trauma, her
mind and body should have had it, but they were fine, energized a bit
in fact. What's more, it didn't feel like she was being pushed to
keep going, it felt, well, natural. The whole trip, L’lorne never
prodded her to keep moving, yet Deborah always felt that she was,
somehow. Now, that was gone. They walked side by side most of the
trip, and now it was time to rest.
“We're about five
hours out,” L’lorne said as she gathered up some dried branches
for a fire. Deborah nodded as she brushed up some dry pine needles
from a nearby tree into the makeshift fire pit. “I think we should
both get a good night's sleep tonight, tomorrow will be a busy day.”
L’lorne stacked the
branches on the needles, and Deborah pulled out her father's lighter
and lit the stack. “Have you slept at all since I met you?” she
asked.
“Ah, you've
noticed,” L’lorne said. “Aside from the motel I stayed in
before we started this trip, no not really.” She settled down on
the ground across from Deborah and the fire. “Not really necessary
either, nor is eating for that matter, which I also haven't done any
of.”
“Oh, so you were lying about sneaking food from me?”
“Would you feel
better if I had let you think you had been eating like a pig?”
Deborah frowned, causing L’lorne to laugh. The two then shared a
bit of laughter.
The evening was cooler
than it had been, so Deborah pulled her coat closed around her. “Do
you get cold too?”
“I do, but usually I
try to find ways to keep it from happening in the first place.”
Deborah nodded and
watched the fire for a while. Her mind was dancing with thoughts and
questions, and she decided it was time to answer some of them. “Why
are you going to kill your boyfriend? I mean, it's not just for my
mama, is it?”
“No, it's not just for that,” L’lorne said.
“Honestly, I really don't know.”
“You don't know?
That's stupid. If you're going to kill someone, I would think you
would know why.”
L’lorne chuckled,
not that knowing chuckle, but just a regular chuckle. “Well, it's
a bit more complicated than that. I actually do know why, I just
can't remember it.”
“Uh.”
L’lorne straightened
up and took a deep breath. “I blocked the memory of the event from
my conscious mind. Whatever it was that made me want to kill Ritch
'arrd was so terrible that simply remembering it made it impossible
to think clearly.”
“But if you can't
remember what it was, how can you be sure you want to kill him?”
“The block isn't
perfect,” L’lorne said. “Emotions still get through sometimes,
some stronger than others. Certain events and thoughts make it leak
through even stronger.” She looked down into the fire and took a
few deep breaths. “When your mother, well, died, it nearly tore
the entire block apart in the process. I had to throw a few more
layers of protection on just to stay in control.”
“Oh,” Deborah
hadn't forgotten her mother was dead, but hearing L’lorne say it
reminded her a bit of the horrible truth, and she teared up a bit at
the thought. She wiped them away a bit and took a few deep breaths,
trying to shuffle the pain away. Still, some memory of the events
bounced around. “So Richard is an alien?”
“Ritch 'arrd,”
L’lorne pronounced. “And yes, he is. The last of his people in
fact. They've all been dead for a very long time.” Suddenly
L’lorne yawned, something that caught Deborah a bit off guard.
“Damn, more tired than I thought I was.”
“I thought you
didn't need to sleep.”
“I don't need to,”
L’lorne said. “But it's still good to get some once in a while.”
L’lorne laid down on the ground, a pillow made of dirt and moss
her own support. “I haven't slept under the stars like this in a
long time.”
Deborah said nothing,
choosing to watch the leaping flames of the fire, adding another
thick branch after a few moments. “So when was the last time you
slept under the stars?” L’lorne didn't respond. Deborah
shuffled up a bit, only to see that her black haired companion was
sound asleep. “Good night,” she whispered.
She still wasn't
sleepy though. The fire, while fascinating and beautiful, was slowly
becoming boring, and she wanted to ask more questions of L’lorne.
No answers would be coming, so Deborah did the next best thing and
pulled out the glasses and brought up some music she had found while
walking earlier. The bands had been recommended in the articles
about Art Flexible as possible inspirations and related music, and
while Deborah didn't think they were nearly as good, they were still
pretty good.
Passively she began
looking up information about the other bands. Phillip's Racing Cups,
Her/She/Me, and Skattered Brains, among others. Biographies and
other things filled her vision, overlapping the roaring fire before
her. So much information, she could learn the entire past of every
member of every band on Earth if she wanted. Of every person even.
Of Lcorn L’lorne.
Deborah sat up at the
idea and cleared the screen with a simple thought. “Where is Lcorn
L’lorne from?” she asked quietly, hoping not to awaken L’lorne
with the exchange.
The screen filled with
the map she had seen so long ago when L’lorne had first given her
the glasses. She now made the connection she had tried to make
before: the weather map. That location was near one of the larger
cities out west, and while it didn't explain everything, it did mean,
for sure, L’lorne wasn't an alien or anything that bizarre.
10 1 DDEFQ 99221
66345.88991.
That number still sat
at the top of the image, and it looked so odd. L’lorne had said it
was a reference number, which was odd as nothing else Deborah had
seen with the glasses had displayed any reference numbers. “I
wonder what that is supposed to mean anyway.”
“It's universe
reference.”
Deborah looked up
across the fire, but found L’lorne was still fast asleep. She
glanced around quickly, trying to find the source of the voice that
she had heard. “Who said that?” she asked sternly.
“I'm sorry, I did
not mean to startle you.” The voice was almost feminine, but not
quite. Certainly motherly, Deborah felt almost like she was at home
again with the tone, but the voice was not her mother's, or
L’lorne's, or anyone else's she had heard before.
“Who are you?”
The image the glasses
displayed cleared, and the stylized word “Delphi” reappeared, as
it did whenever she accessed the database. “Does that answer your
question?”
“And creates new
ones,” Deborah said absently. “I didn't know you could talk.”
“You never asked, or
thought to ask. And I probably would not have, but explaining
certain things with plain text often doesn't get the message across
as well as a voice does.” There was a pause. “Incidentally, if
you do not wish to wake L’lorne, you can simply think your
responses to me, I can translate them quite well now.”
Deborah thought hard.
“Can you hear me?”
“Quite clearly. I
doubt L’lorne would be awoken if you screamed out your questions,
but would I think the chances are significant enough to warrant it.”
“I see,” Deborah
thought. It was weird, but it felt oddly comfortable. After all,
she had been accessing the database like this for a while now, so why
not talk to the database directly? “So what's a universe
reference?”
“It is a code I use
for referencing specific universes. This makes it easier for
locating events and locations across the multi-verse.”
“Multi-verse? You
mean there's more than one universe?”
“Infinitely more.
Every possible outcome of every decision and event is played out in
another universe. The laws governing it are a bit complicated, but I
can go through them if you would like.”
“No, that's alright,
I guess I understand, sort of,” not at all. She didn't think this
at Delphi, but she was positive the machine heard it anyway. It
didn't respond like it did, though. Perhaps it was simply being
polite, after all it had suggested not speaking in case they
accidentally awakened L’lorne, and even offered to explain
everything without hesitation.
“In any case, the
universe reference code you see on the top of that map,” which
promptly was redisplayed. “Indicates which universe L’lorne was
born in, and the location on that version of Earth she came from.”
“Wait, that version
of Earth?”
“Yes. The reason
you did not see a reference code with anything else you accessed was
because it was all from this universe. This location is not from
this universe, so it has a code.”
The line of thought
that started to come up with that revelation nearly knocked Deborah
over. “L’lorne is from another universe,” she concluded.
“Correct,” Delphi
said. “The previous universe, by her and my reckoning.”
Deborah took a deep
breath and gulped part of it down. “Previous universe. Meaning
that she came into this universe. . .”
“By way of the end
of the previous universe.”
“Whoa,” she said
aloud. Older than the universe. She wasn't sure exactly how long
that was, but it meant L’lorne was very, very old indeed. “I
didn't think she was much older than my mama.”
“Her body's clock
was stopped at about that age, but no, she is much older.”
“Alright then,”
Deborah said, then thought. “Tell me about L’lorne.”
There wasn't an
immediate reply. When it came, there was a sense of caution in the
voice. “I am not sure you really want to know.”
“I do,” Deborah
protested. “I wouldn't have asked if I didn't want to know.”
“True, but there is
much to know about her, and while I could summarize it in a few short
paragraphs, I doubt you would get much from it, or understand it
completely.” Another pause. “Perhaps I could simply show you a
few important events, would that suffice?”
“Show me?”
Before she could ask
Delphi to clarify the view before her went black and was replaced
with a field in the evening. Stars hung in the sky high above and in
the distance she could just see the line of a great river. Deborah
turned and found a young girl, not much older than herself, but with
long black hair and dark skin, laying in the grass, staring upwards
into the sky. Instantly she knew it was L’lorne, the same eyes
were there, if younger, the same line of the jaw and curve of the
cheek.
"They are quite
pretty, aren't they?” a voice said. Both Deborah and the young
L’lorne looked up to see a rather handsome man standing there,
looking up at the same batch of stars. Before Deborah could ask, a
white text label appeared next to him, indicating that he was “The
Ritch 'arrd.”
"What do you
want?" L’lorne asked with a huff. Deborah settled back and
listened carefully.
---------
Questions 1. What kind of person is Lcorn Llorne? What does she look like (in your mind)?
2. What kind of person is the Deborah Ignigus? What does she look like (in your mind)?
3. Does the setting seem fitting? Would you like to know more?
4. Does Delphi's explanation make sense without overdoing it?
