The Simulacrum

~Chapter 143~ Part 2

It was on days like this that I really, really hated the fact that I couldn't sleep. It would've been so nice to just fall into bed and push all of today's problems aside for eight-or-so hours, but nope. Despite being tired like a sleight-dog, I wasn't sleepy at all, so I just had to keep paddling.

I really wished I could at least head home and grab a hot cup of tea, but there were still cleaning up to do and debriefings to give, so even that was out of the question for the time being. Like that, I left the Elysium and Phased to the underground base with a heavy sigh.

"Brother! What happened? Are you all right? Is Snowy all right? She's not picking up her phone! I've heard you found Uncle Percy, and that there was a battle, but nobody's telling me anything! Brother, are you listening? Brother!"

And then I immediately got verbally deluged by my sister the moment I stepped out of the teleport closet. Go figure. She must've been pestering my dear assistant until I came back, since it was only the two of them in the reception room.

In any case, I undid my Leoformer transformation and returned to my street clothes before placing a palm on Penny's head.

"Don't worry, kiddo. Snowy's all right; she just turned off her phone to take a nap. It's been a long night." After a long beat, my own words sank in and I added, "Speaking of which, it's pretty late. What are you still doing here?"

"You can't expect me to just go home and go to bed when nobody's telling me what's going on!"

"Everything's fine. You'll learn everything during the debriefing tomorrow anyway."

"Today," Judy noted, and showed me her phone, with the numbers 00:13 on the screen.

"Later today," I corrected myself and jerked my head towards the teleport closet. "Come on, kiddo. I'll ferry you home, and if you're still curious, you can get some of the details from Snowy when she gets home. Or, you know, get some shuteye. You must be tired."

"I'm not!" my knightly sister protested with a pout, but then she froze up, and despite trying her best, she had to hastily cover her mouth to hide a yawn. "A-Awawa! T-That means nothing! It's just, um, mirror neurons and stuff! We learned all about that in school!"

"Yes, yes," I said a touch noncommittally while gently pushing her towards the closet, and after a quick trip home, I deposited her in the living room.

"Oh, I didn't expect you to arrive this way," Roland noted in a low voice when we appeared. He was sitting on the couch, and when he spoke, the woman sleeping by his side stirred from her slumber.

"Ish mah Laady home?"

"No, not yet. You can go back to sleep," he told Tajana, and she casually accepted it and did just that.

Roland carefully rose to his feet and walked over to our side. In the meantime, Penny kept yawning, so I shooed her towards the stairs. Before long, it was only the two of us left in the back of the living room.

"Anything to report?" I asked, just to be sure. He shook his head.

"Nothing in particular. There weren't any suspicious movements around the household." He apparently considered the topic concluded with that and raised a brow at me. I knew what he wanted, but I didn't have time for a full breakdown of the events, so I just gave him a quick recap of the most important highlights. Attack on the hideout, assassination attempt, Percival, Colossi, dumb Celestial plots, et cetera. He listened to me attentively, and when I finished, he exhaled a soft hum and relaxed his shoulders a bit. "You had a busy night."

"Tell me about it." I glanced at the Abyssal spymaster still sleeping on the couch, and then back at him. "I don't think we have to worry about her getting loose today, so you can go home and get some rest. Tomorrow's gearing up to be as tiresome as today."

Surprisingly enough, he shook his head.

"You said Neige is on her way back." To be sure, I gave her a quick Far Glance, and she was still napping while sitting in the back of the Dracis's limo, and since I couldn't see Emese by her side anymore, I figured my in-laws had already gotten off and the car was bringing her home. All in all, I nodded, and Roland let out a thoughtful hum. "In that case, I'll wait until she's here. I listened to Tajana's worries about Neige all night long, so I feel I should stay until then. A few more minutes don't make much of a difference."

"Your call." With a shrug, I turned around and opened the door of the teleport closet. "I still have things to take care of. Let's have a proper talk tomorrow."

His agreement came in the form of a solemn nod, and with that, I closed the door behind me and reappeared near Judy, back in the base.

"Sorry about the sidetrack," I spoke automatically as I walked over to her side and sat down.

She didn't respond right away; since she still had her communication glasses on, she was probably in contact with someone, but after a few soft grunts, she pulled it down her nose and turned her full attention to me.

"Don't even mention it. So? How did things go in the Elysium?"

"Mostly okay," I responded off-handedly, busy rolling my shoulders to get the tension out of them. "Civil war averted, directors in house arrest, communism thwarted. All in a day's work."

"… You have to elaborate a bit on that last one, but later. What about Joshua and Angeline?"

"They're fine. I left them in my apartment over there before coming over. I'll pick them up tomorrow… I mean, later today." I paused, and after some consideration, shook my head. "Actually, maybe not. Having Angie around in the Elysium for a few days should help stabilize things faster. Maybe I should tell Lord Grandpa to shut down Blue Cherry High for the week, or something."

"Chief, you can't just cancel school for everyone whenever it's inconvenient," Judy chided me, but I wasn't ready to give up just yet.

"I don't really see any other option. We already played the 'we got the flu' card this year, and in my case, trying to use hospitalization as an excuse will only lead to the rumour mill getting a second wind, and that's just annoying."

"Speak for yourself. I personally found collecting those rumours rather amusing. Did you know that seven-point-two percent of the school still thinks that you were in a submarine accident?"

"… How does that even work? Logistically speaking, I mean?"

"I don't know, and that's why it's so fascinating," my dear assistant concluded with a shrug, but then her eyes opened imperceptibly wider as she recalled something and tried to snap her fingers. As usual, she had trouble with it, so I supplied the sound effects myself. "Thank you. More importantly, according to the school rules, parents can vouch and account for up to five missed days on the student's attendance record each school year."

"And how does that help…?" Half the sentence already slipped through my mouth by the time I realized what she meant. "Oh, right. Now I have parents. At least on paper."

"Yes. You can ask Sir Arnwald to do it for you. The same goes for Neige and Penelope."

"That could work for us, but still doesn't fix the issue for Angie and Josh."

"Baby steps, Chief. Baby steps. With this, you no longer have any reason to shut down the school. We'll figure out the rest later."

"… Fair enough."

With the preambles done, Judy let out a satisfied hum and took out her phone, only to stare at it and put it away.

"I'm under ten percent battery power. I'll take notes tomorrow."

"Good idea. It's pretty late, and you should also go to bed."

"Not before we discuss some crucial details first," she declared firmly and shifted in her seat to make it easier to face me. "I'll start. I questioned everyone about the events to see what your retcon changed. I made it into an easy-to-parse flowchart, but I already turned on the battery-saver mode on my phone, so I'll send it over to you in the morning."

"Sounds good. I already got a vague idea from context clues, but I'll listen to the results of your investigation first."

Nodding, she took a shallow breath to collect her thoughts, and began with, "According to what the others said, in this new continuity, Angie had always shared her body with Deus, who acted as a second consciousness that could take control of her body when under duress."

"That seems more or less in line with what I've seen," I agreed in a contemplative tone.

"Does that make Deus her 'Superpowered Evil Side' or 'Superpowered Alter-Ego'?"

"… Probably neither? I mean, Deus is kind of annoying, but not Evil per se… at least I don't think this version is, and he's not a split-personality of her either. It's probably closer to just classic Body Sharing, with Deus drawing out more of her power."

"That brings up another point I was meaning to ask," Judy interjected before I could continue on that line of thought. "Have you changed Deus's personality?"

"… Maybe?" Silently I tried to recall whatever I could of the retconning experience, but it was still way too vague. Then, I considered my exchanges with Angie/Deus before the retcon, and what I knew about what her role in the plot should've been from other-me's knowledge, and I hesitantly whispered, "I probably did." After another pause, I centered myself and reiterated, this time with a stronger voice. "No, I almost certainly did. Original Deus was kind of an unsavoury, execute-first-ask-questions-later dictator type, while the current one is a bit more mellow, for the lack of better words. Knowing myself, even if I can't clearly remember what I did during the retcon, I can guarantee my primary concern was preserving Angie, so if Deus had to be altered to better fit the new scenario, then I absolutely did it."

"I have also seen that Angeline can now freely let Deus use her body, and then take back control. We should probably take the opportunity to interview Deus. He should be an invaluable source of information about the lore of the setting."

"You mean the history of the Elysium and Celestials."

"Yes, that's what I just said," Judy stated in a deadpan voice, and after a long beat, she continued like the previous exchange never happened. "On a related note, I have also built a provisional timeline of the night's events. Site A and Site C were unaffected by the retcon, while the incident at Site B played out closely to how I remember them."

"Please do elaborate."

Following my prompting, Judy let out a soft hum and closed her eyes for a second. Probably to collect her thoughts.

"The assassination attempt proceeded as in the previous continuity, except that Joshua was hit on the shoulder. Due to the shock, Angeline wasn't able to respond well, so Deus wrestled control of her body. Events from this point happened similarly to how I remember them, with her getting locked in a Restricted Space with the arch-mages, but according to witnesses, instead of her breaking out, Deus soon ran out of steam and Angeline asserted control. Then, Bel of the Abyss showed up and menaced her, while Joshua and Elly did their best to protect her until he, aka you, left the scene. From this point onwards, it's the current continuity. I also tried to look into whether the changes had any older or retro-casual effects on the timeline, but so far, I don't have enough data points."

"Don't put yourself down, Dormouse. I'm impressed you managed to figure out this much while also acting as mission control for multiple fronts at the same time. You're amazing, as usual."

"Mm."

She nodded, poker-faced as ever, but I could tell from her small gestures that she was secretly quite happy about getting casually praised like that. But back to the conversation.

"Hopefully I didn't do a slapdash job, and there won't be any dangerous unforeseen consequences of my actions. We're probably going to have our hands full with the dangerous foreseen consequences already."

"Ominous," Judy stated with just a bit of a pout, probably none too happy about ruining her mood right away with those foreboding words. I wasn't kidding though.

"Yep, but also true. Listen up, Dormouse. Remember how I told you about how I'm the Narrative?"

"Yes."

"I've managed to sort out a lot of the information in my head, and I think it might be more literal than I thought. As in, I, Leonard S. Dunning wasn't the actual, capital-N Narrative, but because I unwittingly shattered the plot of the current scenario and merged with other-me, it kinda-sorta broke the Narrative, and as the next most complete 'me', now I'm the Narrative."

"… You were right when you said it's all very esoteric," Judy noted with just a hint of a frown. "Does that mean there are even more versions of you out there?"

"Not quite? I mean, I'm me, and other-me was also me, and the Narrative was also me until I accidentally broke it, but all of that is part of something like a big me that's diffused into the Simulacrum…" Seeing that my explanation didn't exactly light the fire of understanding in her eyes, I switched my approach. "Okay, let's try it this way: you know the Freudian model of the mind, right?"

"Yes. The Id, the Ego, and the Superego."

"Exactly that. All of those are part of a single being, but they have different goals and purposes. It's like that with me; I'm kind of part of a bigger whole, but that bigger whole is still intrinsically 'me'. Does that make sense?"

"Some," she stated, though she didn't sound very certain of that. However, she soon shifted the conversation, making my analogy fall to the wayside. "I'm more curious about something else: you said you are the Narrative. Does that make you have reality-warping powers?"

"… I'd say that the ability to retcon things already counts as that, but I think I know what you mean." I recalled the moment I ordered the Colossi to stand down, and not only did I manage to sprout wings out of nowhere, but I also invented a random code phrase that got accepted on the spot. That was some prime evidence if there ever was any. "If we are talking about Narrative Influence, I think I can kind of do it, but… it's more like a strong self-suggestion? As in, if I insist that something should happen, and I genuinely believe that it should happen one way or another, then I can kind of will it into existence. Sorta."

"Can you do it accidentally?"

"Nah. It requires a lot of concentration, and…" I paused to mull over the best way to explain this to her, settling on, "It ultimately has to make sense to me, I guess. Like, if I sit down and convince myself that the forecast said there would be rain tomorrow, I could probably do that, but if I tried to convince myself that burning pigs would start falling from the sky, it would never work, because that's just stupid."

"So we don't have to worry about you accidentally creating a time loop that lasts for way too long and completely plummets our ratings."

"Probably not." Judy was looking at me like she was expecting something more. "What?"

"That was a reference."

"I know."

She gave me an icy stare, as if I just ruined the setup of her joke, but she quickly thawed out and linked her hands in her lap.

"Fine. One last question: Does being the Narrative mean that you have to continue the plot?"

"Unironically yes," I answered, though it sounded more like a groan in retrospect.

"And what's the plot?"

"I'll be damned if I know. The original was about Deus overwriting Angie, but then Josh reviving her with the power of love and banishing Deus or something. I have no idea what I was supposed to be doing during all of this, but it's a moot point because the whole thing is FUBAR at the moment."

"Does that mean you have to invent a new one?" I nodded without putting much thought into it. "Why?"

"Because… Because if I don't, then there's no drama, and this whole Simulacrum session will just completely decohere."

"Meaning, it's the end of the world as we know it."

"Pretty much."

"Then what happens if you do invent a new plot?"

"Well, I guess I will just have to do the same thing as when I tried to derail the tournament arc, just with more options in my toolkit."

"And then?"

I felt that Judy was trying to lead me to some kind of realization, so I played along.

"And then… I guess we'll have to write a new scenario, with all the rising action and interpersonal drama, and then conclude it with a climactic ending."

"And then?" she echoed herself, staring into my eyes without blinking.

"Then we'll have our ending and… erm…" Pausing, I scratched my head. "Honestly, I don't really know what comes after that."

"So, in theory, we could be trapped between a rock and a hard place," Judy posited solemnly. "If the plot doesn't continue, the world ends, but if the plot reaches its conclusion, the world also ends."

"Hold on!" Raising a palm, I cut in as firmly as I could. "Calm down, Dormouse. Don't go all class rep on me just yet. Remember that Narrative-me was working towards concluding the plot with a big, dramatic ending, which means it was the goal of pan-Simulacrum-me as well. Me is me is me, and since I definitely wouldn't do anything that would wilfully endanger your lives, let alone every living being in the Simulacrum, it logically follows that reaching an ending is not the end of the world."

"That's a semantically wonky argument, but I'm inclined to trust your judgement," Judy concluded, and after a few seconds of silence, she added, "Does that mean we'll have to invent our plot to replace the Angeline Route's ending right away?"

"Hell no. Things were more than dramatic enough to provide stimulus to the Submerged Ones for a while. We're going to coast on slice-of-life until today's mess gets sorted out, and then we can start worrying about climaxes once everything is stable."

"Understood."

Judy nodded, and I couldn't help but notice that her head was a bit unsteady, as if she had to catch herself from dozing off. It made sense; we were getting close to one in the morning, and that was way past her usual bedtime. As such, I decided to cut the discussion here, before she could bring up a new topic.

"It's getting really late. Come, Dormouse. I'll take you home, and then we'll give all of this another look tomorrow with fresh eyes."

"Sounds good to me."

As if to prove my point, the universal rules of timing made her stifle a long yawn and rub her eyes. A drowsy Dormouse was cute too, so I helped her get up, and only when I had already wrapped my phantom limbs around her did something occur to me. I said 'the universal rules of timing', but I always kind of thought it was just another facet of the Narrative. Like how jinxing things or my phone ringing to interrupt certain discussions happened because of the Narrative's meddling, but… I was the Narrative. Did this mean that I did all of those things, or were they completely unrelated to me, and I just had a way too active sense of pattern-recognition?

"Questions for later," I whispered as I hugged my girlfriend, and we disappeared, effectively serving as the curtain call for this hectic day. At least for her.