(This story takes place the same day as the story "Astorian Shade: The Fall," with the immediate aftermath of Dark Astoria's transformation and her reaction to it as a level 25 character with deep ties to Astoria but nowhere near ready to go back there. Right after Issue 22 came out I took Shade through Ouroboros and the Echo of Dark Astoria, and this story emerged naturally from that experience, and from where "The Fall" left things emotionally.
"Survivor's Guilt" is the last story dealing with the day of Mot's awakening, though there's one more story set several weeks later: Astorian Shade: Manifest.)
Astorian Shade: Survivor's Guilt
Through all the phantom possibilities and yawning abysses between them, Mender Lazarus always found ghosts the most unnerving. Living people trace their temporal probabilities into the future, but ghosts just bleed gradually away into their own pasts. No future world lines at all, a presence that can only be inferred from the effect it has on the rest of causality.
Still, an experienced mender can learn to discern such shifting probabilities with hardly more than a moment's thought. As the spirit glided across the the shimmering pool of the courtyard toward him, the translucent afterimage of a pale young woman framed against the perpetually cloudswept sunrise and tranquilly floating islands, he recognized her face in the displacement of air and light and gave the approaching figure a cheerful wave.
"Ah, Astorian Shade! Silos has been asking for you. It seems we're approaching a critical juncture in the time stream and, since history has already recorded your involvement on the side of the Menders, he's hopeful that you'll speak with him about..."
The specter swept right past him to stare into the ornate golden alcove of Ouroboros, her eyes narrowing to focus on the brilliant crimson glow of the Pillar of Ice and Flame.
"I'm going to Dark Astoria."
"Why would you go back there," Lazarus blinked in confusion behind his ocular filters, "after all, you're the one who... oh," and he quickly broke quickly away from his thoughts, his voice softening a little, "from your time frame, the change just happened, didn't it?"
The bobbing outline of a girl gave no reply, but she hadn't move away either. He took that as its own answer and so gave a nod toward the fiery crystal looming before them.
"Well, so long as the Dark Astoria you're looking for is part of your past, the pillar won't have any trouble taking you there. But I should warn you, what's happened in Astoria is now a part of history. We call such regions of time 'echoes.' There's no way to change them."
"I know," she answered quietly as she turned and began her flight toward the crystal pillar, into the crackling glow of its temporal energy, "I just want to see it again."
* * *
Talos Island. The sun's out. Springtime, warm breeze sweeping the grass in front of the sealed security gates to Astoria. The guard stationed at the entrance stands his ground, his gun aimed warily at the others, the shambling figures I've conjured from the cemetery shadows. I'd never really order them to attack, and perhaps the guard sees through the bluff, but he doesn't take the risk. He probably doesn't think he needs to, with the gates sealed so tight.
"Astorian Shade. I know you're still attuned to this phone line, so just listen to me."
Azuria's voice crackles like paper burning to ash. She shouts through the telephones that I whisper to with a thought. I pound my fist against the steel gates, harder this time, and it hurts, like lightning coursing through my arm. Reinforced blast doors as tall as a skyscraper, a meter thick iron wall locked by electromagnetic clamps, threaded with security sensors. They're solid. But they're not supposed to be solid, not to me. They did something else to them.
"Terra Volta's nearly doubled its output to Astoria's war walls in the last hour alone..."
Electricity. Science. That means nothing. I raise the enchanted axe Azuria gave me so many months ago, swinging it hard against the dull gray plates. The blade stops an inch short of the metal, crackling, the razor edge glowing white. It's not just pain. It really is lightning.
"...Vanguard's setting up psionic barriers and every mystical group in the city's casting every seal we can think of. The Midnight Squad, the MAGI department, even the Circle of Thorns, everyone's focusing their efforts on keeping Mot trapped behind those walls."
"Good," I answer her voice with thought and radio waves, "then it's still in there."
"It works both ways. Mot can't get out, but nothing else can get in either. Astoria's sealed off completely, physically and mystically. Even a ghost can't get inside."
"You're lying."
I brace the axe in both hands and draw back, swinging it even harder, hard enough to cleave through that shimmering blanket of magic cloaking the steel, hard enough to bite into the solid doors for a second. And the energy throws me backward again, knocking the axe right out of my hand this time, leaving me bobbing in the air like a dandelion seed.
"You must have agents in there," I hiss aloud, "they must have gotten in somehow!"
"A few," she concedes, "but... I'm sorry, but you're not strong enough yet."
"This isn't about strength," I snarl back at the blue sky and cellular signals.
"Then what is it about? Suicide? We almost lost you last night!"
"...that was different."
"You're right, it was different. You were miles away in Atlas Park, inside MAGI's protective barriers and you still barely held onto yourself. What do you think will happen if you step inside Astoria itself right now? Remember how it felt last night, remember how hard it was breaking free, except now imagine that it never, ever stops. That's what you'd be walking into."
It's useless. The others tumble to the ground with a silent wave of my hand, their withered shapes collapsing into lifeless shadows and dust again. The guard lowers his gun with a sigh of relief and says something to me, something that's meant to be sympathetic, but I don't hear him. The axe lies fallen at my feet, forgotten, and I sink to my knees to join it.
"I thought we were helping," my voice no longer defiant, just a dejected monotone now, "Miriam said if we keep fighting the Pantheon and stopping their plans, then eventually we'd be able to take Astoria back. And maybe then... I just... I wanted to go home..."
"I know," her voice small and far away, and then a long pause.
"There's a voice mail I think you should hear," she suddenly says, "the call came into City Hall a few days ago and somehow it got forwarded to Supergroup Registrations. They sent it back to us yesterday morning, but things have been so busy since... anyway, I'll dial it in."
* * *
"Silos told you the details," Lazarus asked the ghostly girl as she emerged from the shadowy stairwells of the inner sanctum. The trip through the crystal, and her tour of Astoria's fading echo, had taken exactly thirty seconds Ouroboros time, the same as all trips through the Pillar of Ice and Flame. How long the visit had seemed to her, he could only guess.
"A temporal incursion in the near future," she answered in the distant, quiet monotone he'd already grown accustomed to, "the Shivans are attacking Atlas Park. Part of the Coming Storm you speak of. I'm being sent to help a mender who's already there."
"Oh," he replied with a mischievous glint hidden behind his metallic monocles, "be sure to tell the mender assigned there that I said hello. He's something of an old friend."
"I see," she said tonelessly, already starting to turn away toward the crystal pillar.
"Did it help? Visiting the echo of Dark Astoria, I mean?"
"It... it wasn't the same."
"Relative to your time frame," the mender shook his head sadly, "no, it wouldn't be."
After a moment's hesitation, he suddenly spoke again, his voice lowered a little beneath the spring breeze rustling perpetually through the ornately arranged poolside trees.
"Perhaps I could speak with Silos and get his permission for you to go back further, before Astoria ever fell. Of course we can't allow the past to be changed, and I doubt changing its fate would be possible even for us, but if it'd give you a chance to say goodbye..."
"No," she answered quickly, as though she'd already considered and forced herself to reject the idea, "they wouldn't know it's goodbye. And I couldn't leave them again."
The elder mender paused and then opened his mouth, only for her to speak first.
"Tell me. Is this future fixed as well? Can the people there be saved?"
"Oh yes," he nodded quickly, "the events you'll be witnessing were never meant to have happened at all. The more people you save, the better off the future will be for it."
"Then I shouldn't keep them waiting," she said, and so turned and vanished back into the alcove, into the heart of the pillar and its forever shifting veil of future possibilities.
* * *
"This is Detective Matthew Habashy, I'm calling to leave a message at MAGI for Astorian Shade. We just got this week's crime stats: Hellion activity's down another 40%, their recruitment rate's dropped by more than half and crime in Atlas Park's at an all-time low.
"There's a story going around that the Hellions are cursed and any gang member who harms an innocent will find himself haunted by you at midnight. I don't know if that's how you really work, but however you do it, you've made a big difference. Many of the ones you've brought in are swearing off the gang completely. I have a quote from one of them here, hold on...
" 'Yeah, I saw her, and if that's the kind of thing that goes bump in the night then I'm done with this occult stuff. You play with fire, you get burned, you learn to stop playing with it.'
"A few of them are even asking the FBSA about becoming registered heroes. There's no telling how sincere they are, but just having them ask about that at all is unheard of.
"I know it probably feels like the same old grind day in and day out, but you've really helped change things around here. Dana and I are even leaving for a cruise next week, to use up some of the vacation days I've been ignoring and start making up for lost time.
"She wouldn't be here today if it weren't for you, and that's true for more and more people these days. Take care of yourself, and give us a call whenever you get a chance."
(This story takes place the same day as the story "Astorian Shade: The Fall," with the immediate aftermath of Dark Astoria's transformation and her reaction to it as a level 25 character with deep ties to Astoria but nowhere near ready to go back there. Right after Issue 22 came out I took Shade through Ouroboros and the Echo of Dark Astoria, and this story emerged naturally from that experience, and from where "The Fall" left things emotionally.
"Survivor's Guilt" is the last story dealing with the day of Mot's awakening, though there's one more story set several weeks later: Astorian Shade: Manifest.)
Through all the phantom possibilities and yawning abysses between them, Mender Lazarus always found ghosts the most unnerving. Living people trace their temporal probabilities into the future, but ghosts just bleed gradually away into their own pasts. No future world lines at all, a presence that can only be inferred from the effect it has on the rest of causality.
Still, an experienced mender can learn to discern such shifting probabilities with hardly more than a moment's thought. As the spirit glided across the the shimmering pool of the courtyard toward him, the translucent afterimage of a pale young woman framed against the perpetually cloudswept sunrise and tranquilly floating islands, he recognized her face in the displacement of air and light and gave the approaching figure a cheerful wave.
"Ah, Astorian Shade! Silos has been asking for you. It seems we're approaching a critical juncture in the time stream and, since history has already recorded your involvement on the side of the Menders, he's hopeful that you'll speak with him about..."
The specter swept right past him to stare into the ornate golden alcove of Ouroboros, her eyes narrowing to focus on the brilliant crimson glow of the Pillar of Ice and Flame.
"I'm going to Dark Astoria."
"Why would you go back there," Lazarus blinked in confusion behind his ocular filters, "after all, you're the one who... oh," and he quickly broke quickly away from his thoughts, his voice softening a little, "from your time frame, the change just happened, didn't it?"
The bobbing outline of a girl gave no reply, but she hadn't move away either. He took that as its own answer and so gave a nod toward the fiery crystal looming before them.
"Well, so long as the Dark Astoria you're looking for is part of your past, the pillar won't have any trouble taking you there. But I should warn you, what's happened in Astoria is now a part of history. We call such regions of time 'echoes.' There's no way to change them."
"I know," she answered quietly as she turned and began her flight toward the crystal pillar, into the crackling glow of its temporal energy, "I just want to see it again."
Talos Island. The sun's out. Springtime, warm breeze sweeping the grass in front of the sealed security gates to Astoria. The guard stationed at the entrance stands his ground, his gun aimed warily at the others, the shambling figures I've conjured from the cemetery shadows. I'd never really order them to attack, and perhaps the guard sees through the bluff, but he doesn't take the risk. He probably doesn't think he needs to, with the gates sealed so tight.
"Astorian Shade. I know you're still attuned to this phone line, so just listen to me."
Azuria's voice crackles like paper burning to ash. She shouts through the telephones that I whisper to with a thought. I pound my fist against the steel gates, harder this time, and it hurts, like lightning coursing through my arm. Reinforced blast doors as tall as a skyscraper, a meter thick iron wall locked by electromagnetic clamps, threaded with security sensors. They're solid. But they're not supposed to be solid, not to me. They did something else to them.
"Terra Volta's nearly doubled its output to Astoria's war walls in the last hour alone..."
Electricity. Science. That means nothing. I raise the enchanted axe Azuria gave me so many months ago, swinging it hard against the dull gray plates. The blade stops an inch short of the metal, crackling, the razor edge glowing white. It's not just pain. It really is lightning.
"...Vanguard's setting up psionic barriers and every mystical group in the city's casting every seal we can think of. The Midnight Squad, the MAGI department, even the Circle of Thorns, everyone's focusing their efforts on keeping Mot trapped behind those walls."
"Good," I answer her voice with thought and radio waves, "then it's still in there."
"It works both ways. Mot can't get out, but nothing else can get in either. Astoria's sealed off completely, physically and mystically. Even a ghost can't get inside."
"You're lying."
I brace the axe in both hands and draw back, swinging it even harder, hard enough to cleave through that shimmering blanket of magic cloaking the steel, hard enough to bite into the solid doors for a second. And the energy throws me backward again, knocking the axe right out of my hand this time, leaving me bobbing in the air like a dandelion seed.
"You must have agents in there," I hiss aloud, "they must have gotten in somehow!"
"A few," she concedes, "but... I'm sorry, but you're not strong enough yet."
"This isn't about strength," I snarl back at the blue sky and cellular signals.
"Then what is it about? Suicide? We almost lost you last night!"
"...that was different."
"You're right, it was different. You were miles away in Atlas Park, inside MAGI's protective barriers and you still barely held onto yourself. What do you think will happen if you step inside Astoria itself right now? Remember how it felt last night, remember how hard it was breaking free, except now imagine that it never, ever stops. That's what you'd be walking into."
It's useless. The others tumble to the ground with a silent wave of my hand, their withered shapes collapsing into lifeless shadows and dust again. The guard lowers his gun with a sigh of relief and says something to me, something that's meant to be sympathetic, but I don't hear him. The axe lies fallen at my feet, forgotten, and I sink to my knees to join it.
"I thought we were helping," my voice no longer defiant, just a dejected monotone now, "Miriam said if we keep fighting the Pantheon and stopping their plans, then eventually we'd be able to take Astoria back. And maybe then... I just... I wanted to go home..."
"I know," her voice small and far away, and then a long pause.
"There's a voice mail I think you should hear," she suddenly says, "the call came into City Hall a few days ago and somehow it got forwarded to Supergroup Registrations. They sent it back to us yesterday morning, but things have been so busy since... anyway, I'll dial it in."
"Silos told you the details," Lazarus asked the ghostly girl as she emerged from the shadowy stairwells of the inner sanctum. The trip through the crystal, and her tour of Astoria's fading echo, had taken exactly thirty seconds Ouroboros time, the same as all trips through the Pillar of Ice and Flame. How long the visit had seemed to her, he could only guess.
"A temporal incursion in the near future," she answered in the distant, quiet monotone he'd already grown accustomed to, "the Shivans are attacking Atlas Park. Part of the Coming Storm you speak of. I'm being sent to help a mender who's already there."
"Oh," he replied with a mischievous glint hidden behind his metallic monocles, "be sure to tell the mender assigned there that I said hello. He's something of an old friend."
"I see," she said tonelessly, already starting to turn away toward the crystal pillar.
"Did it help? Visiting the echo of Dark Astoria, I mean?"
"It... it wasn't the same."
"Relative to your time frame," the mender shook his head sadly, "no, it wouldn't be."
After a moment's hesitation, he suddenly spoke again, his voice lowered a little beneath the spring breeze rustling perpetually through the ornately arranged poolside trees.
"Perhaps I could speak with Silos and get his permission for you to go back further, before Astoria ever fell. Of course we can't allow the past to be changed, and I doubt changing its fate would be possible even for us, but if it'd give you a chance to say goodbye..."
"No," she answered quickly, as though she'd already considered and forced herself to reject the idea, "they wouldn't know it's goodbye. And I couldn't leave them again."
The elder mender paused and then opened his mouth, only for her to speak first.
"Tell me. Is this future fixed as well? Can the people there be saved?"
"Oh yes," he nodded quickly, "the events you'll be witnessing were never meant to have happened at all. The more people you save, the better off the future will be for it."
"Then I shouldn't keep them waiting," she said, and so turned and vanished back into the alcove, into the heart of the pillar and its forever shifting veil of future possibilities.
"This is Detective Matthew Habashy, I'm calling to leave a message at MAGI for Astorian Shade. We just got this week's crime stats: Hellion activity's down another 40%, their recruitment rate's dropped by more than half and crime in Atlas Park's at an all-time low.
"There's a story going around that the Hellions are cursed and any gang member who harms an innocent will find himself haunted by you at midnight. I don't know if that's how you really work, but however you do it, you've made a big difference. Many of the ones you've brought in are swearing off the gang completely. I have a quote from one of them here, hold on...
" 'Yeah, I saw her, and if that's the kind of thing that goes bump in the night then I'm done with this occult stuff. You play with fire, you get burned, you learn to stop playing with it.'
"A few of them are even asking the FBSA about becoming registered heroes. There's no telling how sincere they are, but just having them ask about that at all is unheard of.
"I know it probably feels like the same old grind day in and day out, but you've really helped change things around here. Dana and I are even leaving for a cruise next week, to use up some of the vacation days I've been ignoring and start making up for lost time.
"She wouldn't be here today if it weren't for you, and that's true for more and more people these days. Take care of yourself, and give us a call whenever you get a chance."
"Now, I'm not saying this guy at Microsoft sees gamers as a bunch of rats in a Skinner box. I'm just saying that he illustrates his theory of game design using pictures of rats in a Skinner box."