The Simulacrum - Chapter 141 - Part 2 (Patreon)

Okay, so maybe I went in there a bit too hard.

This, and many other considerations ran through my mind as I was buffeted by the fractal oceans of Angies raging around me, shifting from branches to trees to waves to kaleidoscopic abstract forms before snapping back to branching shapes and silent colours to start the process all over again. Retconning something (even the simpler, temporal variety) was a complex affair I more often than not winged through intuition, but this… this was something else entirely.

The experience was, for lack of better words, mind-melting. Infinite waters of potential Angies churned and thundered around me, solidifying for momentary aeons before turning and twisting into impossible shapes and possibilities and then popping like giant soap bubbles, each one creating more and more recursive fractal vortexes spiralling out into infinitude before collapsing as another unimaginably huge wave of similar formless probabilities swallowed them whole.

I said I would damn the consequences, but it wasn't an option. Not really. We weren't talking about a mug, or a wrench, or a pen here. This was a living, breathing person, with all the countless infinities contained within them. A careless move could've caused magnitudes greater damage to her, and by proxy, everyone and everything in the Simulacrum than the one I was trying to mitigate. I had to be careful, but I had no idea where to even begin, and even though I had firmly anchored myself into the non-Euclidian space enveloping my disembodied consciousness, I felt like a paper boat in a hurricane.

Yet, that wasn't the real problem. It was little more than a mild discomfort, really. No, the true issue lay in the thing I already mentioned: I had no idea where to even begin changing the fate of the girl whose literally countless iterations were forming a small, infinitely recusing universe around me. Actually, that was the thing that sent me on a loop: infinity.

When I was doing this to an inanimate object, the potential variations were, while technically infinite, practically comprehensible. A mug is a mug is a mug, and there's a limit to how much the concept can be stretched before it would no longer be itself. But what about a person? Is the child the same as the teenager the same as the adult? Every minute change would open and close an immeasurable number of paths, echoing into the future, but that was just the tip of the iceberg. Unlike a simple item, she had a soul.

All my analogies of yarn balls and threads stretching out into infinity? As limited as a visualization it was, it wasn't strictly inaccurate; each such thread was connected to other souls, affecting them either directly or indirectly. Altering just one thing would be no different than trying to change the image on a tapestry without disturbing the rest of the strands in the process. Not completely impossible, but prohibitively time-consuming to the point one might as well just make a different tapestry from scratch.

Of course, that wasn't an option here, and I had to work with what I had. But… how?

Where to begin? That was the million Jen question here, and I would've loved to ask someone, but I was all alone. Despite my expectations, the usually quite loud and insistent part of my mind, the one that was much more informed than I was, fell completely dead silent the moment I entered this fractal sea of boundless trees made of waves encompassing infinite potential Angies. I could try calling out to it, like the last time I attempted something like this, but I somehow felt that it would be meaningless. Because I was alone, with all the metaphysical weight that word could hold.

There was no alternative. I had to figure this out on my own. I'd come this far, and trying to back out at this point was… not implausible. I could do it, but I wouldn't. Because that would've meant I was admitting defeat, and I wasn't just going to do that. Not without exhausting all possibilities first.

Speaking of which, to find those possibilities, I had to start somewhere, and I still had no idea how to do that. Or where. But I wasn't deterred. I just needed time to figure that out, and if I knew one thing, it was that the concept of time had little meaning here.

First, I had to conceptualize a beginning. Like a zero on a number line. There were infinite positive and negative numbers, but once the number zero was designated, they could be visually represented on the line by their distance from this 'zero point'. In my case, that was the 'current' Angie, as much as that concept applied here, and it took me quite an effort to find her. Unlike with the mug, or the wrench, the fractal sea didn't branch out from one point; instead, she was just a single iteration of endless varieties represented in front of me. Yet, without this 'zero Angie' on my imaginary number line, I couldn't move either forward or backwards.

This first step was already quite time-consuming, from a certain point of view. Since time had no meaning, the hours of the days of the years of the centuries spent on this task were just as long as a blink of an eye, leaving me with just a strange sense that what I instantly did was also long and arduous. Fortunately, thanks to my regular interactions with enchantments, during which I worked in non-spaces that operated under very similar rules and principles, I was already used to these incongruous sensations.

Anyhow, once that infinite yet short task was complete, came an even more infinite task: I had to find the right Angie to replace the current one. One that wasn't completely subsumed by Deus. And to do that, I didn't have to look to the present, but to the past.

How should I put this? So, let's start with a previous instance: I took a fractaled potential mug saying 'I Heart Tea', and overlaid it on my ironic 'I Heart Coffee' mug. That made it so that my mug always said 'I Heart Tea' in the past. It was a fairly simple and straightforward operation, where I didn't take any of the ramifications it would have on the past and future into account. Or more accurately, I was completely unaware of such ramifications, but let's not split hairs over this.

In any case, this time I was doing something entirely different. To stay with the mathematical analogies, changing the mug was taking an equation in a textbook, and changing the numbers. It originally said, 'two plus two equals four', and I changed it to 'two plus three equals five'. Both equations are entirely correct, and changing them is mostly meaningless, because I wasn't invested in either the changed number or the result of the equation.

What I was doing right now would be closer to multivariable calculus, where I had an equation with multiple unknown numbers, and I had to figure out how to get the result I wanted on the other side of the equation mark. Which brought me to the next issue: what was the result I wanted to achieve?

'An Angie who wasn't overtaken by Deus' was the simple answer, but needless to say, it wasn't that simple, because there were literally countless variations of that concept in here. Was it an Angie who wasn't Deus at all? One who was only temporarily controlled? One who was still in control? One who merged with Deus? To what degree? Where did I draw the line?

That was the next thing to figure out, and to do so, I had to work backwards. It was almost like pruning a ridiculously complex overgrown tree. First, I discarded all the potential results that didn't fit the simple criteria. Then, I started limiting the scope, by eliminating all potential answers that would've required me to reach back too far in the timeline. For example, fully removing Deus from the equation would have resulted in obscenely enormous changes in the past, and therefore the present. If Angie wasn't Deus, then she wouldn't have acted out when they were kidnapped, I wouldn't have realized she and Josh were taken, the directors wouldn't have shifted their attention to her, she wouldn't have forced them to let her come back to Timaeus, and then none of today's events would've happened. That wasn't just a butterfly effect, that was the whole bloody monarch migration!

So yeah, something like that was obviously out of the question. In conclusion, the retcon had to start as recently as possible and make small yet effective changes that wouldn't cause any unforeseen mixups in the future. That was a tall order, because it meant I had to look into the immediate prospects of my machinations, which was insanely time-consuming due to the whole iteration-explosion aspect that came with these kinds of things. Still, time remained as meaningless as before, and I continued my work in what felt like eternal silence.

Take a potential past. Check its pre-requisites. Does it mess up the past? If it does, snip it. If it doesn't, does it result in a desirable outcome in the present? If it doesn't, snip it. If it does, what kind of potential ramifications does it have? Do the bad outcomes outweigh the good ones? Snip. Snip. Snip.

This process was repeated thousands, millions, billions of times. My perception narrowed, and my mind grew hazy as I became little more than a machine. A sorting algorithm dedicated to this single task, going through the motions over and over again, without the need to rest or even pause. All for the sake of the perfect equation, where all the variables were just right, and the result was flawless.

With time, the potential options slowly narrowed down into more manageable lines. While they were still infinite, courtesy of the way these things worked, it was at least an infinite variation of a tightly detailed set of variables, resulting in an even tighter distribution of final results. How should I put it…? It was like trying to look for a green T-shirt in an endless warehouse full of clothes. When I started out, I would find skirts and jeans and winter coats and shoes, all of which had to be thrown aside. Then, as options became more limited, I would encounter green socks, white shirts, and black T-shirts. Closer to what I wanted, but still no cigar.

By this point, I was shifting through T-shirts only. All of them in different shades of green, from mint to feldgrau, and in different styles, from polo necks to cap sleeves. They still had effectively infinite variations, but all of them fell within a tight band of potential outcomes. I just had to find the perfect one. It had to be perfect.

Or so I thought for the first million or so iterations. Or was it a trillion? Maybe seven. Just like time, repetition also lost its meaning after a while, and I looked at the latest 'equation' I solved. It was entirely satisfactory. Great, even. But I could do better. It was only a question of time and effort, but I had both of those in spades. Yet… would I think the same if I found something better than this? And what about after that? The scary thing about 'infinity' is that there was always more of it out there. I could repeat this process eternally, and keep finding more and more ideal results, but… would it matter?

Sometimes, good enough was good enough, and this was one of those times. Or so I felt at the moment. Maybe I was just getting impatient, or homesick after spending several eternities on this task. Not that I could remember any of it; even as I grabbed the 'good enough Angie' with my phantom limbs, everything I've experienced, including the endless repetition, crumbled away from my memories like a building made of dust. It was sort of like a defence mechanism. Human minds weren't meant to experience such time scales, and at the end of the day, I was also human… right?

Existential musings aside, the already chaotic sea of possibilities roiled even harder around me, as if my actions were kicking up a storm over the already churning waters. I vaguely understood that it was just the way my mind conceptualized the process, but it didn't make the final step of my task any less arduous.

Anchored by the rest of my Phantom Limbs, I very, very slowly shifted the desired present onto the 'zero Angie' I designated on my imaginary number line. As I pulled, it was dragging along all the past links and effects that gave birth to this particular iteration, like a spider-web stretching and deforming as I pulled on one of its stings. Thanks to my relentless efforts, the distortion was comparatively small and contained in the recent past, yet it still caused the whole fractal world to shake and buckle as all other possibilities were denied, and the sea of possibilities was quickly and mercilessly sucked into the present, as if emptied by the vortex of an enormous drainage hole at the bottom.

Then, at last, the present that 'had been' got perfectly overlayed by the present that 'was', and with a deafening silence, my universe shrank into a pinpoint of light, like a single star of the night sky, before I was suddenly and violently thrown out of this space between spaces and back into my body.

Disoriented, I blinked repeatedly as the whole world was undulating around me and flashing with all kinds of strange and indescribable colours, as if I was experiencing an especially clichéd depiction of an acid trip. However, before I could fully gather my bearings, my danger sense suddenly signalled me to move, and while my addled mind was slow on the uptake, my body acted without delay and I stepped back, just in time to avoid a hand-blade slashing at my chest. However, this one had a different colour from Angie/Deus's, and when my eyes finally adjusted…

"Get away from her, you bastard!" Josh roared at me as he stood in front of his girlfriend, his right arm glowing with the aforementioned magical energy construct extending well past his fingers.

Angie, behind him, looked unsteady, but to my surprise, while she was certainly glowing bright, it was nothing compared to her previous golden brilliance. Not only that, but her wings were intact, and her eyes were no longer burning with golden fire.

"W-Wait, you dummy!" She tried to get hold of Josh's shoulder while holding her head in her other hand. "I-I'm fine! You need to get away! Grandpa Deus says he's dangerous!"

"I know! That's why I can't leave you behind!" Even while saying that, Josh didn't take his eyes off me, and he pointed his blade at my face. "I won't let you touch her!"

My confusion was palpable, my legs unsteady, and my headache bad enough to knock out a horse, so for the moment, I ignored the change in the childhood friend couple and glanced around to reorient myself. I could clearly remember that this place was in much, much worse shape just a few moments ago, but the most of the craters were gone, and as for the rest…

"We hae th' upper haun! Push thae bastards back!" Duncan yelled in the back, the squires under his command locked in battle with a group of Celestials.

"You are our backup, so act like it!" Midriff woman argued with the leader of the first bunch of Celestials, trying to organize a common front along with armour guy.

"W-What happened?" Elly yelped in the back. "Things weren't like this just a moment ago—!" She wanted to say something else, but then a random Celestial grunt shot at her, and she let out her frustration in the form of a burst of deep bred dragon fire. "Cut it out!"

"{Chief.}" Then, my dear assistant's calm yet immensely disapproving voice sounded through the communication array. "{What did you just do?}"

"I…" I wanted to tell her that I wasn't entirely sure either, because I couldn't remember much. I could recall interacting with Angie's soul, but everything after that was a blur. Something about number lines, equations, and green T-shirts? It didn't make much sense, honestly.

However, based on the context, I was pretty sure that I just retconned something. Let's organize the evidence.

Clue number one: My head was killing me. I mean, if I wasn't in the middle of a situation right now, just the headache alone would've been enough to make me lie down on the ground in the fetal position, and that was usually the result of trying to retcon stuff.

Clue number two: The situation obviously changed in a major way that would've been hard to explain any other way.

Clue number three: While I didn't count yet, I could feel that I had a bunch of new phantom limbs, and those always seemed to multiply whenever I mucked with the fundamental reality of the Simulacrum.

Clue number four: The only ones aware of the change were the girls and I. As for why; the incident with the mug already showed that I was immune to the mind-alteration of my own retcons, while the girls had their engagement rings. While it wasn't their core purpose, I designed them to embed Judy's and Elly's existence into the deepest layer of the Simulacrum, to make sure they could survive, in a sense of the word, even if the upper layers with the island and magic and everything else were erased. I theorized that doing so would give them resistance to retcons as well, and by the looks of it, I was right on the money. Good job, me.

In conclusion, I have retconned Angie. That was kind of a monumental occurrence, but there was no time to ruminate over that, because we were still in the middle of a situation. Before anything else, I had to check Angie's soul again, to see if she was all right now, but Josh obviously wouldn't let me do so without a fight. Or so I thought, but then I noticed that he was standing stock still. I mean, really still, to the point I wasn't even sure he was breathing.

"A-Awawa! What's going on now!?" my draconic girlfriend yelped in the back, clearly panicked as she rapidly turned her head left and right. "Why did everyone stop?"

I also looked around, and she was right. Everyone was completely motionless, including the Celestials hanging in the air mid-flight. Even more alarmingly, the colour has drained from the world around us, with only the princess being an exception.

"{Chief?! What. Did. You. Do?!}"

"Nothing that would result in something like this!" I shouted back, but I couldn't elaborate, because without warning, I was startled by a distant yet clearly audible voice.

"Found you."

It was like a thousand chittering insects mixed with the high-pitched tone of nails on a blackboard formed into words, and when I turned to its source, the sight froze the blood in my veins. A humanoid figure. A crude facsimile formed from countless chalk-white fangs, claws, and bones. It was walking towards me at a leisurely pace, its featureless face lacking eyes and yet staring at me, unblinking.

"Leo! Look out—!"

"No! Stay ba—!"

However, before I could complete my warning, the whole world was swallowed up by an inky whiteness. It was like everything and everyone was blotted out by a flood of correction fluid until there were only two things left in the universe: me, and the man made of bones. The Predator Moon.

"What have you done!?" I yelled at him in a panic, my voice shaking the fabric of this white space, yet to my immense shock, he looked just as confused as I felt.

"I… have yet to do anything," he answered in a low voice, and his expressionless visage suddenly snapped towards the sky. "What is—?"

My eyes followed his line of sight, and while at first there didn't seem to be anything there, the next time I blinked, the sky shattered, and there was an enormous black fissure with jagged edges opening into a void filled with stars. Then, the whole white space trembled as something descended through the tear. On second thought, 'descent' might've been the wrong word. It was only a gaze, like the one I felt from the bone-man's eyeless face, except magnitudes more oppressive, and it originated from an enormous red star.

Its crimson light streamed through the hole in the sky and painted the white world with its colour, trapping the breath in my throat as I beheld its form. Surrounding the red sun were countless, immense black tentacles, spotted with twinkling white lights like stars in the night sky, and while its radiance was the colour of blood, at its center, I could see a different light; as if under the surface, there was a smaller, yellow sun the red one devoured in the past. Or was it still in the process of devouring?

I had no idea, nor could I understand what was happening. I wasn't alone in that, as the Predator Moon seemed just as confused as I was, if not even more so. However, that was nothing compared to what happened next.

Without as much as making a sound, countless starry tendrils extended through the fissure. They were enormous and unyielding, yet as they stretched through the distance, they also felt thin and flexible, and the second impression was further reinforced when they were suddenly wrapped around the body of the man of bones and fangs. I say 'were wrapped around', because I couldn't see them doing so. One moment, they weren't there, and the next, he was gone under the star-speckled mass of tendrils. Yet, before I could even comprehend what just happened, the feelers moved in unison, and like the crack of a whip, they flung the Predator Moon hard enough to make the space tremble.

There was an ear-piercing noise, and then silence, with the only trace of the terrifying creature being a new, rapidly mending crack in the firmament of this white world. Then, as if satisfied with a job done, the starry tentacles retreated through the fissure, leaving me all alone. Though not for long.

"Aaaargh!"

Once again, I was startled by the loud groan coming from my side, and when I turned to face its source, I found a familiar black hole in reality itself. The visual representation of the more knowledgeable part of my mind. And it was quaking with barely restrained rage that radiated off it like heat from a bonfire.

"Am I out of my mind?!"

Following his yell, I couldn't help but slowly nod, and then whisper, "It certainly feels so, doesn't it…?"