Hmm… I wonder what Variable really is? Perhaps his name has some obvious significance. Also, as my Word file gets bigger and bigger, it seems to have trouble performing real-time spell checking, so I don’t catch most of the typos until I paste it into Firefox. This has become a real burden.

Word Count: 70,083

Into the light Graham stepped; it engulfed him, surrounded him, and once again he felt the strange feeling of freefalling. This blue light, the bulge he had stepped into, reminded him of the eerie blue light he’d seen with Wheat on the day they’d both gone to the Yellow District. The rich man had been attacked by the knight – it was the first time Graham had ever witnessed the horrors of martial law in Lanford City, and was also the first time either he or Wheat saw the advanced technology that the knights were using to intimidate the people of Lanford.

And he remembered that the technology always let out a strange, interactive blue light. This light came in many shapes and forms, and could be physically touched, even used as a makeshift jail cell for some rowdy Lanford citizen. There were infinite possibilities for this solid light, and the police in Lanford had used it to harm their citizens.

But this light was different. This light was calming, it was freely moving, it was not solid. He felt that he could have walked through the light at any point, not just the bulge, and been okay – that he would have gone right through unharmed. As the light consumed him, he felt all of a sudden safe, protected by the cushiony warmth of the bubble of light.

And just as fast as he’d stepped in, he was out – and he was somewhere else, standing next to Variable. Ames followed soon after disoriented.

“What just happened?” she asked.

“You stepped into a light tram,” Variable said, “a method of transportation that works by converting your entire body into electromagnetic waves before jettisoning you across a track of light. Your disassembled body follows the light and is reassembled, piece-by-piece, as you exit the tram. It’s been a while since I’ve told this to any real humans, but you should feel a slight warming sensation stepping in and out of the tram. At any rate, we are where we need to be.”

“The light trams,” Graham said, in awe of their ability to disassemble a entire being so quickly, and reassemble it properly, “they use technology from other devices, don’t they?”

“Well, it is electricity. We get our electricity from multiple sources, but if you want to argue if the light tram is simple another device magnified on a grander scale, that is not the case.”

“No, the blue light specifically. I’ve seen it built into a weapon back on Talos – the light was solid then, it was the strangest thing. Come to think of it, Ames, do you still have the one we got? We might not be weaponless after all.”

Startled, Ames checked her pockets, and sure enough found the device still lingering around. She picked it up and began to examine it. “It seems to be intact,” she said, surprised it had survived the trip through the portal, for she felt that her body had not. There was nothing she could do that would shake the unease she felt from passing through the portal back in Lanford – it was nothing like she had ever experienced before, and she knew if she was to return home to Talos she would have to do it again. Truth be told, she was terrified of that prospect and thought, if for only a moment, of remaining in Cydia, but was beginning to realize that Cydia simply was not for her.

“How did you get one of those?” Variable asked Ames. “That’s impossible.”

“We got it from the world where we came from, from Talos. And it wasn’t easy, I’ll tell you that, but it was certainly possible. They’re recent, I think; they only appeared on Talos in the last few months. Our continental government was sipping these to its police force, and we caught them using it to assault several men and women. This one was taken from a dead man.”

“No, no, that’s impossible. You… ah, never mind. Just follow me, and I will show you to where we live.” Variable began walking briskly again through the new subway station; this one was dark, and even with the enhanced vision of the glasses Ames and Graham both had trouble seeing in such darkness. The only light to be found were glowing spheres akin to what Ames had seen in that red light over the portal, floating at random intervals around the subway station. In this station there was only one bulge of light, in one small room – in fact, it could hardly be called a station, as it was more like a single cylindrical room with a bulge of light in its center.

Nobody was in this room when the three arrived. It looked abandoned; it was covered in graffiti and plant growth, and obviously had not been cleaned in years. Perhaps this was the reason that Variable moved exceptionally fast through this place. The single light tram in the room, whose beam exited through a solid wall, only gave off a soft glow that lit a two-meter radius around its structure. But inside the structure it was blindingly light. How could it contain its light so well? Graham thought, wondering if it had the ability to release its light it might not be able to reassemble the beings passing through the tram.

A single staircase led them to a shady district outside, shrouded in darkness. With the glasses off Graham could see all of the stars surrounding the city, and then some – galaxies off in the distance, and no hint of a sun or star nearby. He figured, from this, that it was late at night for Cydians, and he and Variable and Ames should very well be sleeping – but this was not the case. Cydia has lost its sun long ago, and was artificially warmed with gigantic orbiting heaters. There were no seasons on Cydia, only floating islands, more cities, and those gigantic heaters that kept the entire planet at the perfect operating temperature at all times.

Variable was beginning to walk briskly now, as if he were avoiding something. Graham shouted at him to wait up, but it fell on deaf ears, and so he and Ames had to run to catch up with the man so as not to lose their way in the strange urban setting. Guided by the dim light of the floating spheres around the city, they managed to keep track of Variable, always running behind him. Graham was having second thoughts – Was this man truly the right man to trust? He doubted his logic and reason for blindly following the first man to greet him at the entrance of the portal.

But he knew it had some significance. The man had either been called to the portal, as he said, and this was his job to bring any portal-tourists to this house of his, or he was lying, and he genuinely cared about what was coming out of that black hole in the wall of City Square. Graham’s bet was shifting towards the latter, and he knew that just because Variable cared about what was coming out of the portal did not mean he liked what was coming out.

He felt safer, though, knowing that Ames still had her weapon. He had no weapons himself; he’d dropped the steam gun long ago. And if he could only catch up to Variable, he would ask him a question that would prove his theory that no steam gun in the world could harm that strange, silhouetted man.

Graham sprinted even faster to catch up with the man, but it was difficult to maneuver in the narrow roads. These roads were significantly wider than wherever he’d been before going through the light tram, though, and so his run was slightly more comfortable than it had been. Eventually, he managed to catch up with Variable, but Ames was left further behind. He assured himself that she would catch up eventually.

Out of breath and panting, yet still jogging to keep pace with Variable, Graham asked, “What is a fetch? You never told me after we first met. Someone once asked me if I was in a fetch… President Ford of Lanford, in Talos, thought I was in a fetch…” Graham panted more; he lacked enough oxygen to talk to Variable at the moment.

Variable, on the other hand, had plenty of air – or, as he was about to explain, no air at all. He stopped walking to make his explanation, and asked Ames to catch up. When she had, he explained: “A fetch is, to put it simply, an artificial body. But it is far more complicated than that; oversimplification gets me nowhere, then! Your empty your consciousness and memories into a literal vat inside the fetch, and it operates and allows you control over the mechanical body. Think of it as the next step beyond the glasses; you have separated your mind from your body and become one with the glasses. You now control the glasses, except they are not glasses, they are an entire being, and of any shape and size you choose. I am in one of these right now, and so is everyone else. They are incredibly powerful machines and are made by incredibly powerful, and very wealthy, people.”

“That explains all the strange creatures I saw before, in that crossroads and in the subway.”

“Subway? I’ve never heard of such a thing. But yes, a fetch can be anything, any shape, any object – bipedal or not, as long as the human consciousness can be tweaked sufficiently to use it properly. And so far, not a single tailor has made a design that the consciousness will not adapt to. You will find that as a result there are many more people like me, with the same voice, the same face – or lack thereof, I would suppose – and the same clothes. In my case this is purposeful; I am but one Variable in a large Equation – but other times it is mere coincidence, for there are only so many models of fetches out on the market.“

“You buy new bodies?” Ames asked.

“Certainly. You do not?”

“Not at all. This is my original body, and I don’t intend on leaving it until I’m dead!”

“Interesting. To each her own, I suppose, though I don’t see the benefits of restricting yourselves. I would guess that, being from other planets without the advent of the fetch, you wouldn’t be able to use one anyway – you must be born without a body to use one. Unless you would like to have your mind and body forcibly separated.”

Graham heard those words and fell into slight shock – was this Ford’s true objective? He thought back, remembered Ford’s words about Graham as a supposed Cydian, in a supposed fetch. The most powerful robot in the world, he called it. Wheat and Danil, they were both examples of primitive fetches – the molding of human into machine, and combination of precise technology and human soul. Wheat was experiencing perhaps the closest a natural-born human could to living in a fetch – and suddenly, Graham did not envy Variable. Looking into Ames’s eyes, he could see that she, too, was thinking these same thoughts.

He decided that he would have to stop seeing Variable as a being and start seeing him for the person inside of the fetch, if he was to recognize the man among his friends and colleagues, several of which, Graham thought, might have similar fetches.

They began moving once more, and now even faster, as if they had lost time to cover for. But there was no lost time – they had all the time in the world; only Variable knew what the rush was about. In between streets and buildings they weaved with the speed and grace of three cheetahs, and it was not long before all three were engaged in a full-on sprint following Variable to their destination. Graham and Ames were lucky to be in shape, for it was more than difficult to keep up with a mechanical man of infinite stamina.

Panting and wheezing, their muscles aching all over, they reached an elaborately decorated building that resembled something from Talos. The architecture was incredibly similar, but it was not made of steel, brass or brick. It was some foreign black material, lined with pure gold – Graham touched the gold with his finer, running it along the side of the building. It was soft; he could have removed some of it for himself, but to see soft and pure gold lining an urban mansion only meant that gold was worthless here – Graham now realized that he needed money. He’d only gotten his Gold Pass on Talos by luck. If he had not met Marcus, then he would not be rich in Talos currency.

But all his riches were worthless here. And the more Graham thought of it, the more he thought that it had been worthless on Talos as well. He’d needed it for so few things – expensive train tickets, more train tickets. All his midnight passes had been given to him, and never had a single one been taken – the one time it might have, he’d killed that knight.

A pang of pain shot through his belly. Guilt.

The urban mansion was stuffed between several apartment builds; everything was black with bright lights, and even with these lights it was still incredibly dark. Variable, in this darkness, very nearly looked transparent; his face blended in perfectly with the itch black city background, yet the white of his shirt kept him visible amidst the darkness.

“This is my abode. This is a city, of course, so I do not live alone. Be prepared to meet us. We are one group, but we are individuals within the group, unlike the rest of despicable Cydia. Although we may have similar appearances, do not be fooled! We are all different in the utmost. I, for example, am prided on my devilish wit and handsomely tanned skin.”

“Is that sarcasm, or is there actually tanned skin under there?” Ames asked, smirking at the anomaly in the darkness.

“I can have any type of skin I want! But I won’t be paying my tailor to change this fetch for me, it’s much too expensive and money is far too scarce. There is no reason for me to change my identity. Now, let us all enter post-haste. Everyone is expecting you, I should say, since we were all notified when the portal spat you out.”

“Why did they select you to come get us?”

“Somebody had to go! I was particularly eager. After meeting you, I am still just as eager to learn more about you. But you should be the ones learning, not I. Ah, it’s just been so long since we’ve had visitors from anywhere. Our group praises individuality and difference; you are about as different as it gets! To be from another world, to have the ability to keep your thoughts solely to yourself, must be a grand luxury to have, no? If only I were as fortunate.”

Variable stepped up to the door and turned the knob. “I’m sorry,” he said, “this door is so old fashioned; it is not even electronic.” He sunk his head down into his shoulders, a though he were embarrassed about a normal, everyday door, simply because it did not open for itself. As Ames and Graham entered the abode, he even apologized for forcing them to use up a minuscule amount of strength to hold the metal doors open. Inside, Graham was thoroughly surprised by what he saw.

It was not advanced in the slightest! In fact, it looked like a replica of something from Talos – the lobbies of the locomotives. There was the table at the end, and the slick red carpet, and the ramps that rose up the cylindrical room at either end to a grand wooden double-door. It was magnificent; Graham, for some strange reason, felt at home in this environment, even though Talos was not his home. The change of scenery in Cydia had almost been too much for him, and he found comfort in this retrospective of the old.

But where had the design come from? Talos was not also sharing thing with Cydia – it was only one-way, as far as Graham knew.

The room, however, was indeed quite different from the lobby on the district locomotives back in Lanford. It was laced with high technology – the lamps throughout the room were not kerosene or Lamp Spheres as they had been on Talos, but floating spheres of light as he’d seen around the Cydian city as a result of his glasses. He removed the glasses; the floating balls of light were still there. It must have been a trick! He put the glasses back on; the same image.

He looked at Variable without his glasses. The man appeared to be working on objects in thin air; Graham immediately put his glasses back on to see if anything would appear, and in front of Variable floated several computer terminals and a keyboard made of light. Upon this keyboard Variable tapped rapidly at paced Graham had never dreamed possible by a human being – but he was not a human being! Or, he was, but he was in a fetch – did this give him superhuman abilities? Could fetches be manufactured specifically to give people extra boosts in power?

Variable grabbed one of the floating computer monitors and tossed it aside. Instead of flying across the room and shattering, it faded out of existence right after he tossed it. He reached into the air as if to grab something; another monitor, displaying something entirely different, appeared in his outstretched hand. He began working with this monitor; it was showing several graphs of some sort. The other two monitors displayed control switches.

Variable finished his typing and retracted the monitors and keyboard back into the air. Graham noticed that Ames had been staring at the man the entire time his strangely silhouetted fetch had been working with the computers.

“Did he do all that with the glasses?” Ames asked Graham.

“Yeah, he did. These glasses seem a lot like advanced forms of personal computers. In my world, these sorts of technologies exist – to a point. They create a virtual workspace, and you can place any sort of virtual object in this virtual workspace. These glasses must create an augmented reality, effectively bringing the personal computer to the third dimension. I’ll bet the glasses recognize hand motions, such as tossing things and grabbing things from the air, as commands to bring up and close windows and screens.

“So, if I’m correct, I should be able to pull up a screen by—” Graham reached into the air and grabbed nothing while wearing his glasses – and, sure enough, out of the air he pulled what looked like a glass panel. He released the panel with caution, worried it might fall to the ground and shatter, but it remained in place. He touched the glass panel – nothing happened. After spending a minute fumbling with the panel and being rather unsuccessful in making it display anything of any significance, he picked it up and tossed it aside. It disappeared into thin air as he did so. Through speakers built in to the earpieces of the glasses, he heard the whoosh of the wind suck the glass away.

Ames was in utter bemusement. She attempted it herself and was able to bring down a glass panel of her own but like Graham was unable to activate it. As they fooled around with the glasses, it became clear that Variable had called down the multiple people also living in this house to greet their newfound guests, and within moments Ames and Graham shifted their attention from the amusing glass paneled screens to the sudden influx of silhouetted men, each one the spitting image of Variable, flooding into the room at a rapid pace, filling it with dark faces and unknown expectations.