I return to my messy laboratory workshop with Ruby lying on a gurney, her head resting, her face up, looking peaceful yet nervous. Sticker probes attached to parts of Ruby's body continue to monitor her vitals. So far, everything looks stable. Just to the side, I spot Ms. Kelshar placing the passed-out Milani on the black leather couch near the entrance to my workshop. The wealthy boy is waking up, his eyelids struggling to open.
"Mr. Sorsha," Ms. Kelshar asks, "would you like something to drink?"
"Coffee is fine," Milani mumbles while orienting himself upright on the couch. "One cup of nondairy creamer, no sugar, please. Thank you." After he receives his coffee, he lumbers towards the other side of the workshop table. "Cithara, how are things?" he greets, followed by a quick sip of his coffee. "Oh! This is some strong stuff."
"It's how I prefer my coffee," I say, glancing at his white porcelain cup. "Strong and black. Anyway, Ruby seems okay. Her vitals are stabilizing, but I need to see what she's dreaming about." I pull out a key from a hidden compartment on my desk and use the key to open a safe box on the wall. Inside, I pull out a visor-like gadget resembling a virtual reality headset. It's called a Dream Recorder, a device capable of analyzing brain waves to recreate the dreams of the wearer into a three-dimensional virtual recording. I invented this five years ago when I became curious about Ari's dreams. It analyzes brainwaves and eye movement; and then recreates those images in real-time using advanced AI imaging. So far, I've been having some great success with it.
"So, what's the news about Ruby?" Milani asks.
"I'm recording her dreams now," I answer, adjusting the visor over Ruby's eyes. "I theorize her nightmares are becoming more rampant. Previously, the recordings would show Ruby surrounded by dark, shadowy beasts and white, angelic warriors. Occasionally, a figure in a blue cloak would appear, though that person's significance is unknown to me."
Milani scratches his chin. "Can you hook that device to a projector? Is it possible to see the dream in real-time?"
"Of course." I press a button on the side of the visor and an image forms above the holographic projector on my workbench. The workshop's lights dim and my room instantly fills with four-legged beasts with sharp teeth and unnatural growls. Some black like the shadows, others white like monsters from a holy land. Monsters from an unknown world. Above us are a mix of white owls, black ravens, and winged warriors of both shades.
"I never thought I'd see a world where angels and demons can get along," Milani says, letting out a gasp. "Ravens and owls are rivals in nature. Here? That seems to be the opposite."
"I actually never knew that," I say, regarding owls and ravens. "I thought it was a WarGames thing between The Monument City Ravenwolves and The Emerald City Owlbears, a rivalry dating back since the first season. Didn't think the rabbit hole went that deep."
"It's true. It's a random fact I learned at the academy. With that aside, I wonder what's going on in this picture."
"Let's figure out where Ruby is in this scenario." I swipe my hand, rotating the scene, attempting to get a complete picture of the scenario.
"How do we find Ruby in this desolate wasteland of black and white demons?"
"Easy," I answer. "We are actually in the point-of-view of Ruby. What we're seeing around us is what Ruby is looking at right now. So far, these strange creatures are not pursuing Ruby."
"Well, this is an interesting and captivating experience. I wonder what makes her dream about these things," Milani says, pointing at a black-winged, gargoyle-like creature.
"I'm not sure what influences this, but these black and white creatures are a common theme. They exist in every single dream I recorded from Ruby."
Milani waves a hand at a nearby angel-beast. However, the holy monster does not notice him. Instead, his hand simply clips through the monster.
"You know it's just a hologram, right?" I say.
"These creatures look realistic — not gonna to lie — and that visor thing reproduced them?"
"Indeed. The Dream Recorder is in its fifth major revision. The picture is more detailed, and it now picks up sound using a sophisticated AI chip. Don't take my word for it, though. My colleagues can tell you all about the results from this wonderful device." I swipe my hand across, getting a wider view of Ruby's surroundings.
Milani points at the distant figure. "Who's that in the blue cloak?"
I let out a gasp. It's her! That woman. A slight chill of intimidation runs through my spine. "That is—" I quickly regain my composure, realizing it's just a hologram and this woman can't do anything to me. "Ruby calls her Mother. Though her followers refer to her as Usurper."
"Does she have a name?" Milani asks, furrowing a brow.
"I'll have to look through my notes, but I don't recall Ruby calling her by any other name besides Mother."
The Usurper appears closer and confronts us, or rather, Ruby, whose focal point is at the center of the holographic projector. This strange woman has a white owl perched on her right shoulder and a black raven on her left. She appears much taller than Milani, standing at exactly 193 centimeters, according to my tablet's holographic measuring tool. The woman undoes her hood, revealing a golden toned face littered with small battle scars. Her eyes are a vibrant green and cybernetic, her pupils shuttering like camera lenses. Her hair, long and wavy, flowing to the side with the breeze, and platinum white.
"Mother," Ruby gasps.
"Mathilde, no need to run, my child." The woman in the blue cloak extends a hand, appearing to caress the side of Ruby's cheek.
"Mathilde?" Milani questions.
"I think that is Ruby's real name," I say. "However, when I call her that while she's awake, she does not respond to it. I'm not sure why."
"Mother, I'm afraid. Where is Ah-ree-zona? Where is my sister?"
"You do not have a sister," the woman answers. "Why does it matter to you? She's nothing more than a hollow vessel. Barbelo has no use for people like her."
"No!" Ruby cries. "What have you done to my sister?"
"Ah-ree-zona?" Milani inquires. "Barbelo?"
"Yes," I say. "Like Ari, but with 'zona' at the end. It's spelled like the US state, but with a different pronunciation."
"Arizona," Ruby mutters and cries. "Where are you? Please help me."
Holographic images shift one direction, showing Ruby's attempt to escape from her mother. However, the shift comes to an abrupt stop upon confronting a hulking white bear-like beast and two black wolves flanking the sides of the ursine menace.
The cloaked woman levitates a few centimeters from the ground and hovers towards Ruby's position. "You should not run, Mathilde. You should not be afraid of The Truth beyond the web of lies." The woman extends her cold pale hand, reaching for Ruby's face.
"Get away from me!" Ruby shrieks.
"We need to wake her up," Milani demands. "This nightmare is too real."
"Agreed," I say, pointing at a tube-shaped injector device on my task. "Milani, hand me that thing."
Milani grabs the injector and hands it to me.
I take the injector and, with brute force, jab the pointed side on to Ruby's arm. The pump mechanism pushes in, injecting Ruby with an adrenaline-based serum.
In a split second, Ruby gasps and wakes up.
I remove the dream recorder and place it back in the wall-mounted safe box.
The projector stops recording the images, and the nightmarish beasts fade into a fizzle of voxels and pixels. The workshop's lights brighten to its original setting.
"Ruby, you're having those nightmares again," I say calmly.
"Will Mother ever go away?" Ruby weeps.
"I don't know, but we'll find a way."
Milani scratches his chin and raises a brow. He mutters aside, "Mathilde. Arizona."
"Is something wrong, Milani?" I ask.
Milani says, "There's something about these names that bugs me. Mathilde and Arizona have been recurring names in some of my project files, but I never quite figured out if there was a hidden meaning behind them. I've always assumed they were insider code names, but perhaps there's a deep rabbit hole that needs investigating."
"So, do you think Ruby is involved with projects going on at The Aether Dome?"
"Could very well be. Normally, company policy restricts me from sharing information regarding those projects, but —"
"You don't need to risk your career for this," I interrupt.
"True, but after what I've seen here. I feel that something isn't right. This is not what I signed up for. I don't feel right performing diabolical experiments on children, especially on someone like Ruby, who appears traumatized by her nightmares. We need to do something."
"That's the thing." I sigh. "I don't know what to do to stop this from happening to Ruby."
"That mask she wears," Milani says. "I suppose it does more than just conceal her face, does it?"
"It's supposed to regulate her powers, but I think the intensity of her abilities is overpowering the regulator modules in the mask."
"Also, when she refers to Arizona, does she mean Ari Kagura? Has she seen Ari before?"
"Only during The WarGames events, and when she does, Ruby is always wearing that porcelain mask, which now I'm thinking about it—" I scrummage through my workshop for a prototype mask. I pull a mask from a storage bin in the closet and hand it to Milani. "What do you think? Also, if Ari is short for Arizona — when I asked Ari about, she told me Ari is not short for anything."
Milani hovers the mask over his face, inspecting it. "First, I wonder how Ruby sees through this thing. It's dark."
"The two eye sockets are actually monitors," I say, pointing at the mask. "The mask has an AI chip that projects certain kinds of images to the wearer based on certain preferences. Meaning that if you were to wear that and stare at me, instead of me wearing my usual lab coat, you would see me as something else." It wouldn't surprise me if Milani saw me wearing something inappropriate. If he told me that, I would smack him with a three-quarters torque wrench — all 400 Newton-meters of it.
"I wonder if Ruby is seeing the WarGames participants as monsters or other strange beings when wearing the mask. Is there a way to record that?"
"Not with this design," I say, shaking my head, "but I suppose it wouldn't hurt to implement that feature in the next revision."
"If you can do that and share me the results, I would appreciate it. In fact, check your email tomorrow morning. I will send you some of my findings from The Aether Dome. Perhaps we can rid Ruby of her nightmares for good."
"That's kind of you, Milani, but I'm sure the security at The Aether Dome will make transmitting those project files a challenge."
"Well, I have this." Milani pulls something out of his pocket and hands it to me. It appears to be a black stick-shaped device about the size of a standard USB flash drive. "That is a security key. You need that to decrypt the email attachments I will send you tomorrow."
Hardware keys are often the best forms of security, though I'll have to scan the key itself for any hidden networking capabilities before I can trust it. Last thing I need is to have the thing function like a back door for intruders. It wouldn't be the first time an inside-job happened at the corporation using a spoofed hardware key.
"For now, I need to depart. I have some business meetings to attend to tomorrow. Hopefully, we can figure something out."
"Of course," I say. "I'll keep a lookout for your emails."
And then Milani departs.
Speaking of emails, I pull out my tablet and check that right now. There are two new messages marked at high priority. The first one is from Dr. Kari. She kept her word and forwarded a batch of photos from her past investigations comprising broken surveillance drones, underwater vessels, and satellite images. The satellite imagery looks no different from the pictures I have now — just a plain island with nothing out of the ordinary.
However, a few drones returned with strange markings. Some have an intricate branding or engraving resembling a stylized R4. I'm not sure what R4 stands for, or if it actually says R4 or some strange alien language, but it has to be an insignia.
Yet, there is one photo displaying an underwater mini-sub with different markings, a phrase crudely spray painted on the side saying: FEAR THE RABBIT AND THE GOAT. I wonder if that has anything to do with those two fae misfits who invaded the WarGames championship. After all, a girl with bunny ears and a boy with curly goat horns invaded the scene and abducted Ari.
I check the date-stamp on the photo. June 18, 2051. I gasp. That is exactly one week after Dr. Williams disappeared from her business trip to the Enehana Bio-Cybernetical Institute of Honolulu. No one was sure what happened to her. In fact, CrystalCorp security personnel questioned Dr. Williams's extended family in Oahu, thinking The Doc's disappearance may have been a family emergency, but nothing materialized from the investigation.
Still, that quote: FEAR THE RABBIT AND THE GOAT. I continue to investigate the photos of the same mini-sub, looking for other peculiar features. On the other side of the sub, there appears a spray painted stencil of two insignias. One is a long-eared rabbit skull with crossed wrenches below it. Next to it is a similar styled insignia of a goat's skull with an opened book underneath it.
I perform a reversed image search, but nothing comes up. However, the phrase FEAR THE RABBIT AND THE GOAT reveals assorted YouTube and TikTok videos of conspiracy theories, alternate reality games, and unsolved mysteries. Nothing conclusive. As much as I would love a mildly entertaining video about conspiracies, I don't have the time to watch these movies. Instead, I store the photos on an encrypted cold storage drive and open the second email.
The second email is from an individual simply known as Samzanonymous. There are no words. Just an attached video file of a classic non-holographic TikTok video that starts off with a young black boy wearing a t-shirt, showing the word PRIMITIVE, and a baseball cap worn backwards on his head. Next to the boy is a face of a white rabbit whose mouth is gaping open, looking shocked. The boy is speaking on to a hilariously small microphone. He says, "Someone said if I could ruin rabbits, they'll get me to a hundred counts on Instagram. So now y'all gotta feel pain."
However, the video stops and glitches. The boy's eyes turn pitch black and pixilated blood droops from his eye sockets and mouth. Pixels distort into a reddish hue and guitar strings rev. A hellish chant murmurs from the video, and then an agonizing scream wails from a small unseen crowd. The video goes black, the screams fade, and the music mutes seconds later.
After a brief quiet, a jingle plays and a holographic music box appears. From a distance, a combustion engine revs and, zooming into the scene, a purple Dodge Challenger Demon with yellow guards on the front lip arrives. On the rear fenders of the Challenger are panel-sized stencils of the rabbit skull insignia, the same one present on the photo of the mini-sub. The car stops with just a few centimeters away from crushing the music box. The door opens and a pale-skinned girl with white hair and rabbit ears hops out. She's wearing an untucked white buttoned shirt, a red sloppy loose necktie around her neck, black slacks, and black sneakers.
The camera pans to her face, displaying her wide grin to me. "Hey there, friend," the rabbit-eared girl greets with a wide smile. "My name is Samza." She points to herself, her thumb pointing to the side of her face, like the always-happy hosts of a YouTube Kids channel. Her fingers shift and points at me. "I heard you're looking for someone. Well, I think I have an idea where she might be." Samza swings her arm, motioning a follow. "Would you like to come along for a ride?" The last sentence sends a certain unnerving chill, prodding my curiosity, wondering where she could take me if this was a real confrontation and not a recorded video.
"My friend, Mr. Westfall, here has the power of over 800 buff horses and lots of torque from the factory." The girl slaps the hood of her Dodge Challenger. "Those Mopar folks are crazy! You know what Mopar means? It means Mo powah baby!" The girl yells.
"Still, I'm in no rush," she says with a cheery smile.
The camera pans out, displaying a cartoon-drawn breezy countryside with blooming trees, grazing cattle, and a barn with lively farm animals. The sun has a wide cheery smile, bobbing from side to side. An old woman sits on a rocking chair in the front patio of her wooden house, weaving something with multi-colored yarn. Looks like a pattern displaying feathered wings. Birds chirp their songs and a green cartoon cobra speaks: "This is everything you need to know to get up to speed on—"
Lightning cracks. A cartoon buff horse with black fur and hellish red eyes finishes, yelling a devilish bellowing roar, "The Mind of Samza Súilleabháin!"
The rabbit-girl's smile fades and her eyes glow a blood red. Her voices deepen and begin reverberating, sounding demonic. "That's right, my friend." The scene shifts from its cheery tone to shades of red and fire. Samza opens her mouth and starts spitting as a ripping guitar riff starts:
Ari Kagura is her name, yeah?
Well, she's waiting for you, girl. Let me show ya!
Just hop on in, and I'll bring you right there, ya.
That's right, bitch. Time to catch a ride, fellas!
She lets out the sign of devil horns with both hands, her index and pinky fingers straight and sharp, while cymbals crash hard. She repeats: "Yeah! Time to catch a ride, fellas!" The camera zooms into her mouth and a loud agonizing scream mixed with a tire squeal noise blares. The serene countryside is now a desolate desert wasteland, still cartoon-drawn, full of bandits, mutant animals, and explosions. Yet, the old woman remains undisturbed, continuing her tapestry project.
Samza's guitar riff escalates to include an orchestral accompaniment of wicked fast strings, a cultish gothic choir, and violent record scratches. Somehow, it reminds me of the trend of female-fronted symphonic metal bands from Europe during the 1990s to 2020s, but with a rapper instead of a classical opera singer. I'm not sure how to feel about it, but it's different.
It's a fantasy land from this point.
Gotta bring your swords, axes, gun, and them arrow points.
Gonna get crazy where the bigass dragon wakes.
That's when I crash my Chally and make the beast break.
Yeah! That's right, bitch. It's time to catch a ride! (Yup! Yup!)
Samza continues to spit bars, but I try not to let her hellish fire-spitting distract me. For now, I suppose that solves Ari's whereabouts. Sort of. This Samza Súilleabháin girl knows what I'm doing and responded with a prologue to a creepypasta along with fierce symphonic metal mashed with loud hip-hop. Heavy and chaotic.
Still, I guess this one way to ruin rabbits. Now I wonder if this hood fellow is going to ruin goats in the same way.