Simulated Reality Sucks

"You come near me with that and I will shoot at you, Kyarah,” Emily remarked coldly, lifting her eyes from her knees and unclasping her hands - so resolute, that anyone but Kyarah could well have backed off. “I couldn’t stop you doing anything to Marlene...but I can save myself soon enough to save her.” Her grip on the gun tightened, relaxed, tightened, relaxed, heart rate racing quicker than it ever had.

“Don’t try to fool me, Beilschmidt,” Kyarah snapped back, “you couldn’t kill anyone. Not when your girlfriend is so...disposable.” Her smirk returns to her face as she rests her elbow on her knee, twirling the truth serum teasingly in her left hand. A scowl came to Emily’s, purely because she was right. “And by disposable, I mean that I can have her killed as I lie dying if I wish to. You would be able to do...let me think...nothing about it.”

“I will, and have,” Emily tried to retort, but her voice - and her hands - were shaking violently. “You...how did you...you made her...hit me.” Emily’s fingers trace the bruise on her jaw, tears pricking at her eyes like needles, like fire, but she refused to let it out. “You could do that to me too, but I won’t - I won’t let you.”

“You won’t,” Kyarah repeated again, crossing one leg over the other in utter boredom, and letting out a sigh as if she were talking to a child. “And science, Beilschmidt, science. You know as well as most the amount that science can achieve if put to the right amount of genius - for example, getting you here in the first place. Love, love, love, eh Beilschmidt? We could have had so much.”

“Science? Science? You call this sadism science?” Emily looks at Kyarah, incredulous. “You’re no genius, Kyarah, you’re a bloody psycho. Your fellow Erudites might worship you, but I wouldn’t be surprised if you were controlling them, and I won’t be joining them at your feet. Never, and I hope you can get that through your head.”

“Well, that all depends on how you look at it, and whether I have anything to do with it.” Kyarah drums her nails on the table beside her. “Oh, please, Beilschmidt, humour me a while. Boredom is exhausting, for a girl who got a Fervor result you should know that, after all.” Her eyes are teasing and filled with intent, so Emily averts hers before she answers.

“You have nothing to do with it, Mansfield,” she mutters bitterly. “You won’t make me hurt Marlene, and that is final. I will shoot you. I will. Don’t misunderstand me. I won’t humour you, because you don’t deserve to be humoured. I’ll never be your circus act, or your lab rat, ever again. A true Erudite learns her lessons.” Emily looks back at her knees and traces the bruises, the marks, the wounds, with another finger.

Kyarah laughs, grinning quite a lot like the Cheshire cat as she rests her head on her shoulder to look at Emily from another angle. “I think you’ll find I do what I want and I’ve done what I want. Everyone needs a little humour...and I’m not asking you to dance for me or anything.” Her eyebrow is raised as she observes Emily, still smirking in the triumphant way she had before. “No!” Emily exclaimed, rising to her feet and pushing Kyarah to the wall, who proceeded to throw a punch that hit Emily square in the cheek. Reeling backwards, the resentful glare returns. “A fight, Mansfield? A fight?” She tries not to pale, because Marlene was better than her at this. “I do logistics, not fisticuffs,” she snarls, blocking one of Kyarah’s shots with a little difficulty.

“Don’t you think that’s why?” Kyarah points out, and she’s right. Emily frowns, somewhat in anger, somewhat in conclusion. Kyarah is smaller by about an inch and she doesn’t see how she can - fuck, that’s the arm. What would Marlene do, what would Marlene do? Shit, where is her girlfriend’s conscience when she needs it? Your voice is always there when I don’t need it, she thinks, blocking another shot.

And then, Kyarah has the gun. Fuck. Can she fire it….shit, she has a Dauntless boy-toy, doesn’t she? Emily sits down, and the hand with the gun follows her - of course it would. “I’m not even going to say you’re above killing people, because you aren’t and I know that. But you won’t ever know anything if you shoot me.”

The arm doesn’t falter for a moment. Emily lets out a sigh but does nothing except look at the glass, at Marlene. Bitterness rises behind the knowledge that it's not Marlene's fault - was she watching her die? Her eyes are pleading even if she knows she's powerless, and she can't watch Marlene's unfaltering expression.

"What are you waiting for?" Emily whispers, her eyes flicking down to Kyarah. "The apocalypse? You're just wasting time playing with me, so just do it." Her tone is as matter-of-fact as it had ever been. "I'd rather die as myself than live as someone else."

Emily doesn't look at Kyarah, but at the injuries again. "Toy soldiers marching round and round," she mutters, just watching them as if they were to move. "That's what we all are, toy soldiers." She feels the needle sharp pain and her head snaps up before she blacks out, looking right at Marlene. "Mar! Remember Paris!" she calls into the ever approaching nothingness.

Is this death? Is this death? Emily wonders, hanging in nothingness - a hazy white place, that the more she looks at it, the more it starts to look like...Berlin? Emily blinks...what? Wandering down the streets, everything as it was, she smiles. "I'm home," she whispers, the smell of wurst in the morning so warm, so familiar. Feeling so young, so free...

"Welcome to Berlin..." Her footsteps quicken, faster and faster, the grin spreading across her face. "Fabelhaft!" She yells, running down the street and whooping. She couldn't believe she was home, this was where she wanted to be all this time. Rubble fixed, vengeance gone...happiness. This was what it felt like, right? A warm rush that felt like flying; heart racing and the lukewarm winds brushing her hair as the Berlin sun shone...happiness. Home.

Marlene sat on the edge of the chair Emily had been not five minutes before. "You made me hit her?" She felt sickened, and if it weren't for the fact Emily was right there on the medical bed she'd have done something drastic. Instead she just watched, glancing at the puncture wound in her arm. She'd hit Emily. "You bitch." She muttered. "What did you do to me, and what did you do to Emily?"

Kyarah remained impassive. "I found old initiation records. One of your sister's many pieces of work showed up, she appears to have taken the rest. It showed a very interesting approach to the simulation serum based on aptitude test results and brain scans from each faction, which she theorized quite cleverly was how they got the German experiment's children onto the plane. That was what I did to you, so you should thank your sister for dropping it on her way to Fervor HQ years ago."

"What about Emily?" Marlene pressed, glaring and folding her arms. "I want to know what you fucking did, Mansfield." When Kyarah says nothing, she repeats it. "Tell me what you fucking did."

"It was simple really," she begins, waving a hand. "This one centres on memories, you can do what you need with the memories as long as they remember it. Including merging one piece of a memory into another. It's reversible afterwards, as soon as they become conscious it's reset to normal. Unfortunately it still induces comatose."

"Comatose? You put Emily in a fucking coma?!" As the screen in the room turns on, the image of Emily running through Berlin came up and it wasn't a place she could put a name to. "Is that..."

"That's the city of Berlin, yes," Kyarah looks thoughtful, but then looks at Marlene. "But I want to know some things, that I know you know. So you will tell me, and I'll work on getting your sister out of this comatose. Begin."

"No." Marlene refuses blatantly, watching Emily playing the violin again. I Dreamed A Dream again, of course. Marlene smiles at how happy she looks, wondering why Kyarah thought this was a threat.

Kyarah grins. "Oh, well then." She pauses, pressing a few keys that Marlene wasn't fast enough to track. "There's another verse to that song she missed out, which is interesting. 'There was a time when love was blind, and the world was a song, and the song was exciting. There was a time, then it all went wrong."

"How is this relevant?" Marlene asks with a raised eyebrow. "You aren't a very musical person...!" She's alarmed as Kyarah's grin merely grows a little as she pressed the Enter key. "The fuck?"

"No!" Emily yells. Berlin was falling, the hovercrafts were coming, not again, not again, not again! "Everybody fucking run!" she screams, jumping a firebomb that had been dead for her. "Screw off!" She yells at the plane, beginning to hyperventilate as tears blurred her vision, her grip on her violin vice-like. Wurst smells replaced by smoke, as buildings behind her erupt into flames, exploding, screams and yells for people they care about...

The sobs come as rocks clip her legs and arms and her muscles are raw from movement. Putting out the ends of her hair she sobs, looking at the ruins of Berlin - and the scream of pure terror comes out as the hovercraft lands. "Fuck off, fuckers," she tells them. "Vater!" she pleaded, trying to locate her house. "Mein bruder? Mutti? Schwester?" And there it was - she could just about identify it. Climbing the stairs two at a time, they're too far gone by the time she gets there.

"Friedrich?" She sits on her brother's bed, and he's obviously dragged himself onto what's left of it. There's light in his eyes, just, and he tries to crack a smile. "You'll be okay, right?"

It takes a lot of energy for her younger brother to shake his head. "You're alive," he gets out, and then he looks at her. "Emily..."

"Yeah?"

"Stay with me?" His voice is too quiet, and she squeezes his hand.

"Okay." She lies there next to him until he stops breathing, her hand wrapped around his. Kissing him on the cheek as she always has, she tries to find her sister's room.

"Lucia?" she calls, and runs in as she hears a small cry from inside a pile of rubble. A cry of her name, and she knew yet again she'd come too late from the dent in her skull as she pulled her sister's broken shape from it. It must have fallen in on her.

"Emily...I feel dizzy..." Lucia cries, yelling in pain and clutching desperately at her sister's leg. "Emily, help me! Make it stop! Make it -" The light dies while Lucia is still in Emily's arms.

Emily can't locate her parents, so she picks up the bodies of her younger siblings, holding them close with her violin slung over her back. Hyperventilating, it stung, it pierced as she left the city boundaries, picking up her father's garden spade with her pinky finger, a few scattered roses between her teeth, slightly burned.

Emily sets them down and digs fast, setting Lucia in one and Friedrich in another. "Ich liebe dich, mein bruder und mein schwester," she whispers as she covers them. Laying a rose over each she runs to hide as she hears people coming. Someone is waiting. An English greeting, almost sadistically polite, she screams as the butt of the gun collides with her head.

Back in reality... ...as Marlene provokes a fight, she freezes and screams in unison.

The heart monitor is not beeping.

Marlene sits there, staring at it a few moments. Blankly, as if unable to comprehend what just happened. The screen is blank, until about a second after.

It's typing. "Simulated reality sucks, you know."

Both Marlene and Kyarah stare. "Put the wires back together,"

Kyarah bites her lip. "We can't do that. AI."

Something comes to Kyarah's head and she looks ready to faint as Marlene connects the wires. "Fuck."

"What?"

"It doesn't..." Kyarah begins.

"It doesn't what?"

"It has the new memories of Berlin. She...died, which means, well...She doesn't know who the fuck you are." Kyarah swallows. "Well, shit, fatal comatose that results in computerised AI. Didn't see that coming, shit, sorry for your loss, bye." She ducks out of the door and locks it behind her

Emily looks confused. "This isn't Berlin." She says, as the face actually returns rather than writing, which Marlene smiles a little at. "Where the fuck even am I...? Friedrich? Lucia? You there? Is Vater home from work yet?"

And then she remembers what happened to them. "Well, fuck, I'm alone," she mutters, sighing. "Ich..."

"No, you aren't." Marlene mutters, and Emily appears to try to remember. "Ich...Ich brauch 'n Wildes Ding...?"

"Herz, Kopf, Arsch und Pepp...ein Prinzessen und ein Freak in meinem Bett..." Emily looks up.

"Ein klein bisschen Lady..."

"Ein klein bisschen Gaga...Mar?" Emily looks at Marlene. "Is that...ach, I..."

Marlene sprints over to the body. "Mouth to mouth, duh."

Emily laughs. "I thought of that five minutes ago."

"Should have told me," Marlene told her, starting. Five minutes later, Emily takes one breath, and the computer disappears. Blinking, she grins.

"Simulated reality sucks, you know."