Sublife Crisis - Chapter 18 (Patreon)

“So, what did you spend your life doing?”  I ask Six.

It’s fun to play games with small stories as wagers, teasing out memories and moments from our lives.  It’s fun to sit around and make a production out of some of our proudest actions and harshest follies.  The theater of it all, and the company, and the shared feeling of preserving within each other bits of lives that we’ll never get back, never see again, and never remember forever; it’s all a small island of comfort and sanity in the endless roil of forever that we exist within.

But sometimes it’s just nice to sit with a friend and talk about things.  And since I don’t want to dig into my notifications from the between yet, talking to Six is an excellent distraction.  Though nothing is stopping him from going through his own list of winnings from his last life, flicking fingers through the air with precise and measured strikes as he dismisses small bonuses.

“Many things.”  Six says, which is a strange thing to hear from him.  The golem is normally focused on singular ideas that catch his attention in each world; multitasking just isn’t his interest.  “After you left the between last cycle, I took some time to decide how I wanted to approach your puzzle.”

I cock an eyebrow at him, pulling my tail up into my lap as I try to make the chair comfortable.  We need better chairs up here.  Or a couch!  “It wasn’t a puzzle, Six, I just wanted…” I trail off.

What did I want?  It’s not even clear to me, and not just because my recovery modifications aren’t fully worn off.

The last few lives have been hard.  I’m not sure why, but at the same time, I know exactly what’s wrong.  I don’t have a clear picture of what I want; all I know is that there’s some things that scare me, that I never want to become, and that I cannot tolerate.

And I’ve been lumping those things mostly under the banner of ‘optimizers’.  But that’s a loose philosophy that has acted as a stretchy buffer against any hard questions, and that simply does not let me cope with harder questions about how I actually want to live.  My last words here, last time around, were grasping at something I didn’t have the picture of yet.

You’d think that after a few lives, you’d have all the answers.  But it turns out, when you get past the major problem of death, you just end up with a new problem.  And it’s kind of hard to answer the question of what you want to do with your forever.  Though as soon as I dredge up the thoughts, the answer seems so easy.  I wanted to live a powerful and dynamic life, and make use of my upgrades to do so, because I wanted more heartbeats here.  Because what I’ve chosen to value is my freedom with the people who are close to me.  And even when we’re separated by centuries, they’re still the closest thing I’ll ever have to a family again.

“I just wanted to have more time.”  I shrug, keeping most of the thought private.

“How long have we known each other?”  Six asks abruptly.

I have to think about it.  Tracking actual numbers in the between is hard when it’s not something attached to a reward, because you can’t really write anything down.  The last time Mark tried to use napkins to make a catalog of his perks, someone accidentally bumped the table and erased a thousand heartbeats worth of his work.  It’s not worth the anxiety to try to keep things unmoving.

But also remembering across lives gets jumbled.  When I’m here, after a little while, things blur.  I may as well have always been here; the lonely lives become distant, and the last day of the previous cycle feels like it runs into the first day of this one.  So giving Six a real answer is tricky.

Still gonna try though.  “Forty lives?”  I ask.  “Fifty?  The math isn’t too hard, hang on…” I average out how many heartbeats I usually end up with, how much overlap there is, and the apply a standard pessimism filter.  “Probably a bit over a thousand days, subjective.”

Six’s steady and uninflected voice is at odds with the tiny smile that cracks his grey face.  “If I had not learned charity across a dozen worlds, I would be offended that you are close to correct when I know every part of your thinking was a guess.”  The golem says.

“I love you too!”  I cheerfully deflect.

“Luri, for a thousand days, I have watched you struggle to piece together who you are.  You do it so poorly, compared to our companions.”  I know Six isn’t trying to offend me, but that stings to hear.  “Some of us are making a performance of it, some of us are just building bit by bit on the self that we started with.  But you?  I’ve watched you try to jump to the perfect version of Luri three times, and after each failure, you fall into despondency.”

“I don’t do that.”  I mutter, pulling my tail against my chest, feeling the long muscle stretch almost painfully as I hug myself in this least comfortable chair that Bastion’s has.

“You do exactly that.”  Six firmly corrects me.  “Your last words were a puzzle to me, not because I believed you were trying to offer a question, but because I wish to understand my friend.”  His eyes meet mine, and I see the sharp and deep intelligence there that Six has always had, and only ever worked to add to from life to life.  “And if there is some answer that I could offer to help you avoid another period of hopelessness, I would offer it.”

It would be cowardice of me to blame the tears welling in the corners of my eyes on backlash from my modifications.  Same for saying that I spent a whole lifetime in stable happiness and am now unused to this sharp stabbing in my chest.  “What did you come up with?”  I half choke out, a few drops of hot liquid spilling from my face into nothingness before they even hit the table.

“That a thousand days isn’t enough.”  Six says, still watching me.  “That the easiest answer, then, is to do what you said.  Live well, live brilliantly, and then celebrate here after.”  A thin line of passion slips into Six’s voice, an affectation I know is intentional.  “And then try again, and be marginally better.”

“I don’t want to be better at the things the between wants to see.”  I counter in a bitter tongue.

Six shrugs at me.  “Then don’t be.  Be better at being Luri.”  He speaks like that’s easy.  “I do know you will say it isn’t that simple.  But you’ve always been a good friend to all of us.  I think that person is a good version of Luri.  So be them.”

The way Six talks always makes it catch me off guard when he hits me with things like this.  Even knowing him for subjective years, it’s still wild to me that someone with such a flat voice, who keeps around a lack of expression as a reminder of his origin as an unfeeling creation, can display the kind of considered compassion that he does.

“I thought I was doing that.”  I hear myself saying.  But I already know I’m lying.  “Well.  Here at least.  Last life I… might have… been someone else.”  I shake my head.  “Also none of this tells me what you were up to!  Stop making things about me, Six!”

His mouth twitches upward slightly at me as he raises his cup of rice wine and takes a perfectly measured sip.  I drink as well, but with a less refined motion, just seeking a small spread of warmth through my throat as the alcohol fills me before the between beats back the outside influence.  “You are simply upset I am better at the game than you.”

I glower at him, though there’s no anger in it, and my face is scrunched up in a way that never stops being amusing even after hundreds of years.  “Tell me what you did last liiiiiife.”  I draw out the word for emphasis, and to show my dedication to prying his secrets from his stoic mouth.

There is a thump from the newly instantiated hallway underneath our little library, and both Six and I look down in concern as the sound vibrates through the wood under our feet.  But before he can say anything, I refocus on his eyes and insist with the most powerful look I can manage that he satisfy my curiosity.  We can worry about Molly and Jules later.

Eventually, Six relents with what I think is concealed amusement.  “Well, as we have some time…”

“It’s either talk and drink, or I go join them.”  I suggest to him luridly.  Six is no prude, and I’m certainly not either, as the flat look he gives me says that he knows my threat isn’t hollow.  But also, we’re having a nice conversation, and interruptions bother Six more than anything.

“Gnoll base form body, finite energy era civilization, sixty eight subjective years.”  He states rapidly, making the decision for me.  “The world was almost an ecumneopolis, though I think I’ll save the details of that for the others.  Ellin and Molly especially will appreciate the details.  What’s you care about is what I was doing, which was, bluntly, more things than I have kept track of.”

I offer a comfortable smile as I refill our cups, even though my words are more rueful.  “Oof, I know that feeling.  Busy lives get messy.”

“Yet satisfying.  When I was in my early adulthood, before the time when I began a new fashion trend among my district that interacted with the gendered normative styles of clothing-“

“You cannot say that and then not explain that.”

Six continues, doing exactly what I have ordered him not to.  Despite being a golem, Six is very good at deliberately ignoring commands.  I think he takes pride in it.  Which is good!  I know I would.  “I had established myself as one of the early adopters of a new form of entertainment.  The world did not quite have networked information sharing, but they had a form of long distance communications that relied on dolllike spiritual receivers tuned to each other.  Myself and several other students found a way to make the broadcasts wider, rather than tuned.”

I raise my eyebrows.  “Radio.”

“Just so.”  Six nods.  “We were not the first to attempt to use the connection in a non-personal way.  But we were the first to figure out how to let people tune to us, instead of creating invasive emotional attacks.  We were also not the first to discern how to use umbrim infusions to change the dolls, though we adopted that tactic as well to portray characters.”  The golem tilts his head up at the slanted ceiling of Bastion’s library, giving the closest thing to a sigh he ever emotes.  “I stole proudly from a score of lives to build a library of stories.  And we found success and fame, which others mimicked.  Half the district tuned their receivers to us to see our final performance, and the trend swept out into the broader population.”  He looks back at me.  “I keep this body here, because it is easier to manage my emotions, but Luri, I am certain you know the elation of that kind of riotous success.”

“Absolutely.”  I mutter.  A little shrug, and the thwap of my tail on the floor as I stretch out.  “There’s something about reaching people that’s atheric, even without the between shoving its rewards down at you.  It sounds like you had fun!”

Six nods, a precise up and down like he’s trained for centuries to get the most efficient nod possible. “I did.”  He says.  “And it was just a part of that life.  I have been considering… changing myself, here, in the between.”  The words seem like an abrupt shift.

I cock an eyebrow, leaning forward, reminded briefly of the pilot’s suit I’m wearing when my elbows don’t feel right on the table surface.  But I shake that off.  “Why?”  I ask him softly.  “Not because of any of us?”

“No.  Never.”  Emotionless words, still spoken so quickly I automatically know what he’s putting behind them.  “There is a difference.”  Six says more slowly, back to being measured and calm.  “I go out, and I live, and every time it feels different.  But it is always a struggle for me, to adapt to those emotions.  The rest of you slide into lives so easily and earnestly.  If I practice, here, it could make it easier for me.”

And at that, I cannot help but puff out my cheeks with barely contained laughter.  Six gives me a stare, and slowly sips his wine as he waits for me to compose myself, but I only barely manage before I start rambling.  “You think we’re good at this?!”  I explode.  “Six I just came back from brainwashing a whole world cause I don’t know what happiness is!  You’re the most mature person here!”

“Failing to connect with others when I am required to contend with fear and lust is not ‘maturity’, Luri.”  Six says, refilling his own cup and setting the bottle back down with a hollow thump that indicates we are nearing the need to return to the bar.

“We’re not good at this.”  I restate.  “But also, if you want to change… just in case you’re thinking it?… everyone here will still be your friend.”

“I’m not proposing I make myself erratic.”  Six stresses the word.

I chuckle at him over the rim of the clay cup I’m holding to my lips.  “Oh, yeah, that would make you fail to fit with us for sure.”  My sarcasm goes unappreciated.  “I’m still glad you had fun.  What kind of stuff were you doing with the whole setup, anyway?”

Six relaxes ever so slightly, and I wonder if he’s already started letting tiny edges of emotions creep in.  Not that he doesn’t feel to begin with, but more that he’s expressing it, which is novel.  But not unwelcome.  I’m good at reading Six, but he’s still a black box to a lot of people.  Though I should warn him to maybe keep his expressions on a toggle so that he can keep duping Ellin in bluffing games.

“The majority of our performances were single act monologues in the Hygorian style.”  Six starts, and is already expanding on that before I can get a good flat stare going.  “The Hygorian were an ancient people from a prior life of mine who used a form of refraction and echo technology.  Copying their monologue style worked well for the format of dolling, as it was focused around anticipating and addressing statements from a potential audience without ever seeing them.  Building on this style, my cadre and I wrote new monologues based off of other stories.  We worked in the realm of fiction, though I am aware that others were using the style we pioneered for political and social purposes as well.”  I still love Six’s history lessons.

“One man plays, sort of.”  I muse, leaning back and letting the feel of the between version of alcohol stir in my chest.  “Except prepped for audience interaction.  Educated guesses, or did you find a way to cheat?”

“Cheat, naturally.  I have no compunction about fairness in art.”  Now I know Six sounds smug.  “By the nature of the pseudo-network, anyone tuned to our broadcasts was in some way sending back.  We created an admittedly rough method to collect statements spoken at the performance, and collate them in written form.  Over time, many of our stories would shift and change as we improvised answers to questions or responses to criticisms in real time, and the game of back and forth became known to the audience, who took it as a form of engaging challenge.”

“And then you stopped?”  I ask.  I know that I probably wouldn’t have stopped, and Six is a far more focused and goal oriented person than I am.  “Out of character for you.”

“Oh.  No.”  He looks away from me, before standing and moving to lean on the library’s wooden railing.  “When our time of youth studies ended, my cadre and I mostly broke apart.  But I continued.  Experimenting, iterating, trying new things.  You are familiar with the feeling of security we have in knowing that death does not hold us.”

I absolutely am.  It’s sometimes frightening, to have that power, and see how fragile everyone else is when we’re alive in the worlds.  I rise to my feet and tip heavily onto my tail as I push the chair away and move to join Six, bumping my slim shoulder into his thicker grey flesh.  “Course.”  I offer.  “It’s a weirdly shaped sword.”

“That is not what that saying means.”  Six doesn’t delve into that, instead pivoting back to his original point.  “There is a similar feeling that came with anonymity.  Hundreds or thousands of dolls looked like… not me, but the me that I crafted for them.  Moved to my movements, spoke my words.  But no one would ever know who I was.  I was free to live a double life.  On the one side I was a respectable academic.  On the other, I spent my evenings provoking self-exploration and inciting changes in fashion and sexuality among the district’s interested populace.”

The words bring a bright smile to my face, and I tilt my head sideways to lean it on Six’s shoulder.  “Oh, so that’s what you meant earlier!  I wondered where the lust part came from.”

“It is embarrassing now, in retrospect.  The truth, Luri, is that I felt embarrassed by it even when I was alive there and growing older.  But I never regretted it.  The embarrassment was simply lack of experience.”  Six shakes his head.  “Most of them would never have the chance I do.  To learn from so many lives and years.  And I am wasting it. It is inefficient.”

The noise that comes out of my mouth is as dismissive as seventy lifetimes have let me learn, and I have been perfecting it.  “I know I need to actually focus down my philosophy about optimization.”  I offer a qualifier before I speak my real point.  “But Six, here’s something I know, in whatever heart I happen to be wearing at the time.  Efficiency doesn’t mean anything to any of us anymore.  It can’t.”

Six lets out a sad little breath.  “On a long enough timeline…”

“…we’ll get around to everything eventually.”  I finish with a soft smile.

After a while of staring down at the empty floor of Bastion’s, and my own personal thoughts turning to the fact that I really do want to rearrange those tables at some point, Six speaks again.  “I know that you mean to offer me positive thoughts, but I am not currently ready to accept that I should live undirected lives.”

“That’s because we ran out of rice wine.”  I counter.  “Somehow.  I could have sworn that was one of the endless bottles.  Want to go down and… actually, wait, the barrels!”

“Ah, yes.”  Six nods.  “I have low quality beer to share.”

Well that’s hardly being kind to his craft.  Though he did sort of imply that he spent half his life invested in something that wasn’t brewing related.

I’m right behind Six, the two of us halfway down the extended metal steps that we use as a staircase, when a door opens just ahead of our path.  The noise of slamming cuts over the steps as someone walks through, and between one blink and another, I find myself looking at Mark as he walks in with his arms stretched back over his head and a cocky grin on his face.

He’s changed a little.  A small mark on one of his arms, almost like a tattoo, poking out from just under his favorite between fashion of his dragonfeather toga.  Part of my thoughts scream that things are changing and people are changing and soon I won’t recognize my friends, but the rest of me, and the part I actually listen to, says the same thing that I say out loud.

“Mark!”  I throw my arms open, offering a hug that cannot happen until Six gets out of my way.  “You’re here!”

“Luri!  You’re dressed!  I had a new teasing joke ready and everything!”  He counters.  “Also hey Six.  Oh, it’s so good to see both of you.”  Mark falls on us as we reach the bottom of the stairs, his thick arms wrapping the two of us in a crushing hug that I really should have expected, but still catches me off guard anyway.  Next to me, Six goes limp as he gives up on resisting being smushed by our friend.  “Am I late to the party?”

After making some strangled noises to indicate that I actually need to breathe to speak, even here in the between, I return a much softer hug and give him an answer.  “You’re fifth.  Only Ellin left now, unless we have more guests.  Or depending on how into conversation with that art critic orc Jules got last time.”

“Very.”  Mark answers with an overdramatic expression on his face.  “Wait, fifth.  Does that mean that-“

He is cut off as a blurred form hits the side of the bar we’re approaching, and then kicks off in a twist that defies biological laws.  Molly slams into Mark with the force of a sledgehammer, squealing in glee at his return.  And to his credit, Mark recovers almost right away, spinning her around in a wide arc before returning the crushing hug right back to her small form, both of them laughing with delight at what many lesser forms might classify as ‘assault with a deadly body’ but they just think of as a casual greeting.

“Oh, fuck, it’s so good to see you again.”  Mark breathes out, pulling Molly against his chest.  Then he looks around Bastion’s, the expression of someone who’s been away for a long time and is seeing an achingly familiar and nostalgic thing for the first time in a whole life.  “It’s good to…” his mask of joy slips a bit as his voice wavers.  “I mean.  It’s… I…”

Molly comes to his rescue in the only way we really know how; providing a distraction until we can ease into our emotional breakdowns.  “So I’ve been missing stuff.”  She declares.  “And Luri says you found some drink recipe that kills people.  And I want to try!”

“It doesn’t kill people.”  I start to protest, but Mark is back to laughing, and so I drop the complaint.

“It was meant to get Six drunk though.”  He comments, trying to set Molly down and finding that the kobold simply won’t allow it, instead crawling across one of his arms and wrapping herself around his back.  “But sure.  It’s been a couple lives, but I think I remember the recipe.  I’ll mix a pitcher up.”

“And then we can sit, and drink something that I seem to remember being acidic, and talk about everything and nothing.”  I say with a smile, already edging toward my favorite chair as Mark heads back around the counter, maneuvering so he doesn’t crack Molly’s skull on any of the hanging odds and ends around the bar.  “And hopefully, Ellin shows up!”

“Oh yeah, where’s Jules anyway?”  Mark asks.

Six and I just point toward the recently created arch that leads to the ‘outside’ environment of the new hallway.  Mark glances at it, and then tries to crane his neck up to look at Molly, who is starting to give a suggestive cackle.

“Ah, right.”  He snorts a laugh.  “So I missed exactly enough then!  I’m so good at dying on schedule that my timing is perfect.”

I can’t help it.  This time, I do laugh.  A long and giggly burst that feels more real than anything else in the between, and that gets picked up by the others as they share the moment with me, and we all settle in to wait for our last friend, and turn what is otherwise a few oddly connected rooms into a home.