Goal of the day: 1411 words. Written: 904.
"Sit down," she said, and I sat down as obediently as I could, looking at the door.
Antonio, who had been sitting by these, got up and stood up just in time, for a new burst of fire burst through them, seeming to be directed precisely within. After exclaiming that there was trouble at the door, he carefully put the remains of his guitar back on his back as if he valued and loved them very much and took a few crystals from his pocket and carefully shone them through the gap. Explosions flashed from behind the door and the flames stopped for a while.
"I've never done this before," Rūta continued without reassuring me at all, placing the pot on my head and pulling the wires out of her backpack, "but I hope it will work."
“Wow, great. I will be an experimental rabbit.”
"Shishka, your pulse is very high - I can feel all your pulsating arteries even through the material," Naoki said quietly.
And I really realized that I was really very excited - I even felt a few drops of sweat roll down my armpit, causing a big rush.
I tried to watch my breathing while watching Ruta leaning on the panel. Inspire. To support. Exhale. Inspire. To support. Exhale. Repeat.
Ruth, leaning with some other device of hers, peeled back the panel's door and, putting her hands in there, pulled out its red, cocoon-colored outgrowth. Then she attached the wire to my head and held it near the red one.
I tried to steady my breathing, but the excitement still took over. No matter how hard I try.
- I remind you. Your memory, Mieta, YYY, it doesn't matter - that's it. Search. Don't forget what you're looking for, okay? Ruta asked and repeated.
I nodded my head without saying a word.
"Calm down, calm down, I'm with you," Naoki said.
Naoki's words, frankly, helped even more than Ruth's. And I put my wounded hand into the basket - my pocket and took the Stone in my hand. It didn't get very calm, but it got calmer.
"Go ahead".
"Then go ahead," said Rūta, already using her usual phrase, and connected the two wires.
"I hope it doesn't fry your brain," I heard her mutter before everything faded into darkness.
* * *
„…”
"If you want to discover your future, you must first discover your past," said one of the many voices heard.
Several faces flashed in front of me in notebooks with the inscriptions "Rebel, death" at the bottom.
There was a cat crouching in some house and it started meowing and snuggling up to my bare hairy, manly legs.
- So let's make it simple - let's throw Acorn into the Arena - it will still be entertainment for the citizens of our Great City, - said a male voice to a group of faceless people at an oval table in some metal-colored hall.
A dozen smaller images of animal testing laboratories, or perhaps more meat factories, in the City Zoo flew by.
"Pala! Back, back, back. Mentioned me!"
I gathered all my strength and tried to return the image. Not butchered animals and their preserved parts, but that conversation of people in a metal hall.
Man. Hall. Council. City Council. All kinds of information and knowledge flowed into my mind - this is a conversation of the City Council, one of its members is speaking... I don't know what, because the security systems specially hide all the members of the Council...
"Memory. What about memory? My memory??”
The images have changed, but nothing about the memory - just more documents, records, photos, people's faces, stories and other hell.
"We can create an Internet connection for all the people of the world," one man said solemnly in the center of the light-lit hall on a round red carpet, "but instead we're building weapons."
Some bunch of documentation and facts about some big country in the east of some other country.
“Memory, memory… I… City…”
"Acorn found out too much," said one woman to her interlocutor, from where I could see the view, "she found out how…"
But here the memory stopped and everything suddenly split and began to flutter in a rainbow of colors.
"What's going on here??"
And everything went dark.
* * *
- Gil, wake up! – Ruta's worried face appeared in front of me.
I would get wet and realize I was back in my own world. From the chaos and incomprehensible world of Server, to something more comprehensible. Although maybe not much.
- There you are! - she was happy and immediately turned around and disconnected the wires separately. These even sparked red bursts when unplugged.
"What..." I started to ask, trying to understand why she was behaving so strangely.
And then, glancing at the door, I understood. These were completely destroyed, and Antonio was standing in front of them, strumming just one note with his guitar and creating a shield, barely fending off some of the automatons' blows and attempts to press down with simple blunt force.
- We were pressed! - shouted Ruta, turning away. She seems to have lost her cool because she said it in a really scared way.
- Pressed? - I shook my head without understanding. Only Ruth stopped her head and took off her helmet. My hair was electrified and attached to it, so it stood up like a pestle after me.
- Get up, faster! - she shouted, tucking her helmet under her side, stretching out her hand.
I gathered my strength and jumped out of the chair. My legs were like wood, and my head was still as dull as a sponge.
"If you need me, feel free to drop me," Naoki said.
I pulled it out of my pocket as I remembered. It glowed bright green, and my hand was even white.
"I must have pressed him a lot when I was Inside..."
- Damn it, Gil, hurry up! - Rūta shouted as she turned away from the steps of the lady. Her uniform was partially burnt and most of her pockets were already open and probably empty.
Rubbing my eyes and temple, I climbed after her, but I still fell behind.
"Hurry up, dammit!" she cried again.
"Where faster? Why faster? From what to go faster?? How long was I even in there??”
Still, I ran after her with wooden legs. She was standing near Antonio and after throwing the crystal pot that was on my head and was now purple, no longer gray, she placed something on the ground in a circle.
The automatons behind Antonio's shield rumbled and slammed into him, striking his shield with bursts of all kinds of colors.
Antonio was standing there in a faded suit and an almost completely blown guitar. And it seemed that only one string was playing. Sweat glistened on his temples and you could see it even walking towards him from behind.
"Here, here," Rūta called to the circle of small pointed violet crystals placed on the floor.
I climbed over one of them and stopped. My head wasn't working at all, I wasn't sure what to do, talk to Antonio, use Naoki or what to do…
- What's now? – I shook my head, waiting for Ruta's commands.