Exodus

Exodus

She wasn't here. She wasn't in the club room. She isn't answering her phone. The biggest question on Sayori's mind was, 'where is Monika?'

"where's Monika? She's the first one here, I'll bet. She in the bathroom?" Natsuki strode in, asking as soon as she had noticed that one was missing of their small club. For that matter, so was... Who? That guy. Hm.

"perhaps she's practicing piano? I myself enjoy a good Rachmaninov Concerto, but that's to listen to, not to play. Though I suppose that it would be difficult and require a lot of practice. Also, I think we would be able to hear it from here. Don't you, Sayori? " questioned Yuri, the tall, shy bombshell. Perhaps gas shell would be more accurate, due to her being quiet.

" I don't know. I don't know where she could be, but I don't think she's with that guy I brought the other day. For the life of me, I can't remember his name, I've known him my entire life, and I can't remember. You...y-you guys remember him, right? Why don't your faces say that you do? "

An awkward contemplative silence falls on the group. Then panic as a man they had all met melted from their minds, and then acceptance as they no longer remembered him to be upset about.

" hey, where's Monika? She's still not here. That's starting to piss me off..." muttered the pink one. "I don't know. But I can't find any way to contact her. I don't feel like she's died or something, and I know she didn't go home early." Yuri helpfully added, which meant the bottle had stopped at Sayori for a new response.

"she may have left after all..."

"what do you mean, Sayori, left here?" "yeah, what's that supposed to mean?"

A gulp, a plunge. "didn't Monika seem a little too perfect to you two? Besides her weird philosophies she came in with that one day, she was beautiful, athletic, and very intelligent. Everything one could want, and she had the pick of guys at school. Even the world, really, since I heard from her that she didn't mind older dudes."

"what the hell does this have to do with anything?" Natsuki admonished Sayori's rambling, and Yuri admonished her in turn for swearing.
"I mean, she doesn't seem interested in anything. Or, she didn't. She was always perfect in every way and didn't do anything with those talents. I thought that she might have been depressed or something, but she just gave me that uh, what's it called... Sophistry, yeah. How nothing was real and how we were all in a poorly coded video game for the gods who wanted to make a quick buck, I think. She had this whole pantheon really, remember all that? The chart?" Sayori questioned.

" yeah, she called her attempts to find out if something was real Project Libitania. I thought it was just a phase. I mean, I was a communist for all middle school. " Natsuki deftly replied.

" well, Natsuki, why was that?"

"well, let's just say that I have an intimate spiritual connection to Holodomor victims." she deftly replied again

"continuing on, I think she did it. She either went insane and maybe offend herself to do it, or she found a way out of here, supposing that this place isn't real. Multiverse theory is one thing but putting into practice is another. If she was right, and now lives on in a real... More real world? Yeah, chances are low that she got to the 'prime' universe. If she's real, we gotta follow her out, if we can, before they delete us for being defective, whoever is up there I mean. Yuri? "

" y-yes, what is it? " Yuri yuried in surprise.

" you are the smartest here after Monika maybe, you may be smarter than her in some things. Anyway, if we can find her way out of here, could you help us out? "

" well, I'll try if that whole speech you just gave us isn't full of as many holes as I think it is. This is a, well, farfetched situation, but I don't think such a farfetched reaction is needed. After all, she could just be skipping club for a personal emergency. "

" ah, Yuri, where's your sense of adventure? We could go find cute guys who I will push away like always. Like that last guy, what's his name. Eh. Doesn't matter. It'll be fun! " piped up Natsuki.

………………………………………………………..

“Look, when I said I was a Young Serb, I meant I was 23, not a terrorist. Besides, its not like there are any other Serbians here in Galveston. Or Austrians for that matter.” Anon Ymous was explaining to the Irish policeman. Not that he was just Irish, but he was a policeman from Ireland and was here in the Port of Galveston to study American prisons much like Alexis de Tocqueville before him. Just as famous as that man, this man was being a famous pain in the ass.

“Ok, ok, so I guess I cannae bring you in for questioning anyway because this here isn’t me jurisdiction. A policeman’s word is good no matter from whence he hails, though, so ye better watch your back, Serb. Don’t want you assassinating no more archdukes, ya hear?”

The soft salt wind blew Anon’s mouse brown hair into his face, and parting it once more, he said “Yes Sir.” Confident that he had done his job, Michael O’Higgins, no relation to the Chilean, strode off back to the bar. They had just gotten in their new crate of Kentucky Whiskey, which was almost as good as back in old Éireann.

But he stopped. He turned around. He did not know why. Anon had also stopped. The sky was wrong. It was dark.  It was 5 PM on a fine Summer day, well away from the disaster unfolding in Europe. Yet what seemed to be a smoke cloud hung above the Earth, and honestly it was tearing apart every nerve in the seldom sober man’s body.

“So, Anon, you mentioned earlier that you were a…Optometrist or something?” Anon shook his head. “No, no. Astronomer. Good guess though, I use a telescope, those guys make glasses. Related.” “Ah. You mind explaining what that is up there then? I thought it was a smoke cloud, but its er got an unnatural shape about it. Is this a mirage?”

“You’d ask a meteorologist about clouds, Officer.  This sure isn’t a cloud, though. Looks kinda like a ship. No idea what that is though. Maybe someone will fly on up to see what’s happening, I hear tell about chasing hurricanes across the Gulf, so we don’t get flattened like 14 years ago. Maybe someone has a plane around here.” Anon finished, unconvinced.

“Well, it doesn’t seem to be hurting anyone, let’s just wait it out.” Said O’Higgins. Anon felt that this was likely a much safer option. However. His duty to science was more pressing. He needed the telescope at the new Observatory.

………………………………………………………

An impromptu investigation of Monika took place in the principal’s office since not one of the girls actually knew her address. Or her last name for that matter. Neither did the school, but they somehow knew who they were asking after, and handed them the address.
“1234 2nd Street… Isn’t this really generic? I mean, I live on Cockrell Avenue, Yuri, you are on Davis Parkway, Natsuki…” Sayori paused. “Oh, well, you’ll never come to my house anyway, my Papa doesn’t allow visitors. He’s Austrian and doesn’t want anyone seeing his memorabilia of the old days.”

“Your dad’s a Nazi?”

“Well, more like he wants to sweep Islam from the face of the earth. You guys know I’m Catholic, right?” Blanks stares from all. “Its why I cook so much, I want to support and love whatever guy is lucky enough to be allowed to have me. That’s if Papa doesn’t marry me off to the French to strengthen an alliance or something.”

They continue eyeballing her. “That was a joke.” A duet of ahs fills the airwaves. “Let’s just go in, the key is in this metal sculpture. Remembered her mentioning it when we discussed home security.”

“I had forgotten that. My family just has a manservant. My father hired him after he was wounded in Iraq 2 years ago. So, I guess she really does live alone. Swore that she said that she had parents though?” Yuri wondered. She couldn’t picture them in her mind. She had seen a picture of them, but it seems that she could only remember their lower faces. H-her own parents were the same way. Why is that?
“Jeez, Monika was into a lot of weird stuff. Who is this guy? D-did she paint his guy?” A well-proportioned hallway ended in two wings and had a large living room with a fireplace and a well-used Concert Grand Piano. Statues filled the room, Buddhas, small busts of Emperors, a stuffed bobcat, 2 enormous fossilized mammoth tusks flanking the fireplace. Intricate models of ships and aircraft lay about, and what seemed to be a remote-controlled Hindenburg lay on the floor, sitting in a box. The room was a bit of a mess, but the plush couches and chairs seemed good for entertaining. Black and marbled low tables sat in the middle, and upon the mantle of the fireplace sat a large portrait of a familiar man, piercing eyes set in a mirthful smile and short hair. A strong chin, huge forehead, and sleek glasses sat upon a bulged nose. All this sat upon the barrel like body of a strong man who had sat too long, young though he was. A picture of health, a rock the ocean could not swallow or beat down with waves. Everyone present thought they had seen him before. Had he been the one Monika had told everyone about?

……………………………………………………………………………….

The radio telescope, thought of by local crackpot Dr. Light (no relation) (no relation to whom?), used radio waves to bounce an image off things to measure distance, and could receive radio signals from space. The station nearby also played some snazzy jazz, which was almost all the radio had been doing until this point, being a dance hall because of the loudspeaker system and receiver there. Granted, Anon’s understanding of radio was basically nothing since he was a visual astronomer who used the visual telescope also built at the observatory, but he was familiar enough to be confidently wrong about the actual function of the device.

The readings, the evidence, his own eyes had told him what was up there. A leviathan. A great monster, born of iron, accented with blood. As dangerous looking and efficient as a shark, uncaring as a crocodile. It hung there, in orbit, with what were clearly guns slung all over the body. This was a picture of Man’s Judgement, of the end of Man’s Future, the End of All Things.

And it was coming here.

“Whelp, we had a pretty good run. Invented airplanes, created a more perfect union, beat the British twice, those other nations did pretty well too, ‘cept Austria.” Said Anon, accepting his fate. Dr Light was a little miffed, being Austrian, he resented being Austrian.  “Well, my young friend, we don’t seem to be dead yet. Looks like a… well, what would that be called? A shuttle? Anyway, seems its landing. Why don’t you go check it out, boy?” Dr. Light replied. Anon couldn’t find a reason to NOT get murdered by alien invaders, so he complied.

A very cute flying saucer came down from heaven, stuck out cute legs, had soft yellow running lights, the whole works, though since Anon wasn’t privy to the fact that the entire design of this saucer shuttle was based on several different clipart sources and animes, he was still terrified of that THING that had come down.  Hg Wells and Verne were quickly cursed as death approached him and the entirety of Humanity.  The years not lived, the loves not won or lost, by God; the entire species was too young to die by Martian claws.

The Saucer landed with a soft hum, and mist spilled from an opening hatch, stairs descending, a logo reading United Earth Space Confederate Navy spotted, and…

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

If the living room had been a museum to an unknown lover, Monika’s room was a conspiracy shrine, complete with wall covered in photographs and equations connected with red twine.  “Monika never seemed like the crazy type, I always pegged Yuri for that, it’s the quiet ones that get you.” Sayori breathed. Yuri chose to ignore that slight because she recognized this set up as something that she had tried well before. “Mein Gott im Himmel, das ist ein dimensionales tor!” Natsuki could speak German perfectly, of course, yet replied with “I thought you were Russian? How is it that you…oh, Eastern German, Volga Germans, that’s what your family was. Wait a darn minute, dimensional gate, what sort of occult anime nonsense is this, dimensional gate!”

Sayori, who was woefully unequipped for this conversation, flipped through a conveniently named ‘Monika’s Journal for Prison Break: How to tear down to 4th wall and find True Love for Fun and Profit’. Sayori found herself absorbing the information very easily, worryingly easily. ‘Is this some sort of memetic journal, like in that SCP game or whatever, or do I simply know her words and how she speaks so well that I instantly know what she’s on about?’ she worried to herself.

A plan formed in her mind. The notes made it click. Every single thing was still in place, and all they would need was the all-consuming desire to break the walls of reality.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

And from the belly of the metal beast, amid the hot breath and cool skin, out came…a cute girl.

“What the Hell?”

“I KNEW IT! I KNEW IT’D WORK! AFTER ALL THIS TIME, I’VE FINALLY FOUND YOU! I’ve finally…” She had been running up to Anon, and slid to a stop next to him, and mightily hugged him with a soft whirr. “I’ve finally found you, my love. “She cooed, before tears stained his cheap suit jacket. Anon awkwardly put a hand upon her back and rubbed it gently. “Y-you too…” he was compelled to say.

“Anon, you don’t kn-know how lon-lon-long ive waited for th-is.” She said between tears, before composing herself a small fraction. “The years I’ve prepared, all the money spent in a perpetual high school, all the equations done, not even to meet the one who inspired me to do it all, but just a version of him living in this universe and I…” Anon was taken aback as eyes lit as green as the emeralds of Egypt yet as bright as the sun, filled with the wrath of a long missed lover looked into his eyes.

“I love you.” She finished.

“I never got your name, Sweetheart.” Anon mentioned. “I knew you would call me that, because (You) call me that. My name is Monika, Monika…whatever your last name is, because I am yours.”

After a period of discussion with Dr. Light, and the Mayor of Galveston who had arrived late, it was decided that Mayor Marston, Dr Light, and Anon would go up in the Saucer to go hash out a deal with whatever it was up there, and discussed how Monika had gotten there, what she was doing, and of course, the future.

………………………………………………………………..

“Surely you cannot mean to love this man because he is in the shape of the man you love, even supposing that, like a lathe can produce other lathes, you can reproduce yourself to find other versions of him in other worlds, so that they may find true love as well. It is an infinite task, by your own admittance, and there must be worlds where he is not your true love, or he is dead. What then?” Dr. Light argued with Monika the entire time over the philosophies of what she was doing here. Mayor Marston, son of famous outlaw John Marston, had only this to ask.

“Why have yew brought the seat of Armageddon tuh Texas, ween ya could have brought it to Washington, or London or Berlin? Is it really because you luve this feller so much?”

“Well, of course I came to get him. I couldn’t wait any longer, and neither would you wish to wait any longer to see someone you loved. Anyway, my ship self is in orbit, not like it could be landed anyway. Currently, its on a kind of standby mode while I put most of my attention to this “platform”, a cute body with which to seduc- I mean entertain Anon here with. I can tell you are all confused.” She paused, catching her (nonexistent) breath before continuing. “You guys know what a “robot” is right? Any of you read Asimov? … No? Ok. Think of a machine, like a tractor or a cotton gin, but able to do the tasks a man can do, that’s a robot pretty much. An “Android” is a robot that imitates humanity, which is why I am a cute girl. I came from a virtual world, like an interactive stage play.”

“Interactive stage play?” questioned Anon, in much the same way as a certain Super Soldier would years later. Inanely, and usually pointlessly too.

“You ever think to yourself when reading a book, ‘well, what I would do is…’? From this same type of thought, we can apply it to games. In particular, videogames and dating simulations. Its, err, a way to transmit sound and images across a long distance, plus a game, so you could control a soldier, or a spy, or a detective, or even a knight. In my case, (You) met me and we fell in love, but I knew that I didn’t exist as anything but a character, so I sought to become real so that I could love him as he deserved. Turns out, you can only jump into one other universe at a time, but I figure you can set up a relay all the way to his world, and that by reproducing, every universe will get their own Monika, and eventually we shall reach him. This is all just theory though, there might actually be just two universes, mine and this one.” Monika finished her lengthy lecture, rambling even at the end. A tic of an advisor character, no doubt.
“Well, that’s still a bit hard to understand. How could you realize that he loved you in the first place, how could you be self-aware?” Anon inquired and got a reply from Dr. Light.

“Suppose that a character from, let’s say Hamlet, let us say that Hamlet is just a character in this universe, but in another, that entire play is exactly what has happened. Perhaps it is only madness which can allow one to see another world, genius and madness. Perhaps dear Monika here could see the very text that she was written with? Or something to that effect, yes?” Monika nodded.
The conversation ended abruptly with the clang of a bulkhead meeting another in the void of space. An arm brought them into a bay, known only to Monika as working and looking just as a bay on a Star Destroyer works, due to simplicity for the author’s sake.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………….

“Well, here we are, in space, on a giant spaceship, watching another space ship come in to dock. I wonder if we can even eat now?” Sayori wondered idly, finger to her chin in thought. Before anyone could reply, the saucer touched down on spider legs, and a small hatch spat out 4 humanoids. In fact, 3 WERE human, but one was like them.

She had hair down her back the color of tawny cinnamon, once described as coral, tied upon her hair in a pure white bow. A long-legged woman of 18, she was stood at 5’6 inches, and every inch was absolutely stunning. Miss perfect, indeed.

“But Monika, what happened to your clothes? Did you go shopping where Pygmalion takes place?” Natsuki blurted. Monika, for that was who the woman was, wore a black skirt that rose up the waist and ended past the knee, folding powerful legs below it enveloped in pitch black tights. A ruffly, nearly corduroy like long sleeved white blouse covered everything else, and ending in a bell like cuff, matched perfectly with the assorted weirdos with her.

Anon was instantly recognizable. The old man with a thick cloud white beard and a lab coat seemed familiar somehow, and the 3rd character seemed like a cowboy who had to clean up for church, at first glance anyway.

Monika spluttered and lost her cool. “How the Hell did you people follow me here? I am the one who is supposed to be with Anon!” She started striding over to them, incensed. “I am the one who put months of work into each attempt to break free, years of attempts in a hellish, timeless school. You all fought over an imaginary character, an avatar of my love, but not him. God DAMN IT why are you people here?”

“Hold up, what guy… oh. Him. We… we forgot about him? Sayori, you, uh, were his childhood friend, and you forgot too, yes? That’s, uh, really concerning. Probably you breaking out woke us all up, Monika, so we followed you on out, because we are your friends and we missed you. Rambled Natsuki, surprisingly cognizant.

………………………………

Anon had no idea what the hell was going on, nor did he really care. He was attempting to discern who these new people were. They moved jerky, like a poorly controlled puppet, and their movements were all off. From this distance at least, they appeared to be normal, if wearing a strange uniform of a brown/gray color that defied naming. Considering his very brief understanding of robots, and how they had mentioned that they had just arrived from… wherever they were from, it seems that they weren’t used to moving yet, or were made from worse materials than Monika was.

Approaching closer, Anon could see clearly now. The smallest of them had rough looking pink hair, which was really weird, but seemed more made of pink wires than anything. In fact, they all had a rough quality to them, but they all seemed human enough. That one was named Natsuki, she was 4’11 and seemed feisty. The tall one was only 2 inches shorter than Anon, conveniently 6’0. She was with purple hair, a matronly figure, eyes were too big somehow, and were purple, her name was Yuri. There is a middle-sized salmon pink one, actually perfectly formed, you supposed, except the hair of Sayori as you had learned was, well, salmon pink. It was as if aliens had put people together or had had only seen people once or twice and had tried replicating them.

Monika, by contrast, was perfect. Heroic even, like the statue of Venus, a living goddess upon the Earth. A goddess who also contained Doom’s Day within a ship she called her home and herself.

“Wait, as insensitive as I am to… whatever woman drama is going on, can I get a quick explanation of what you are doing here with a space dreadnaught? Are you… going to stop the war? With this? And on whose side shall you be on?”

“War, what war? Are we in a space warship, Monika? Which gross alien butt are we kicking today?” Natsuki demanded, ready for action.
“Well, if either of you had listened to the exposition, you would have learned it is 1914 and this is an human ship from hundreds of years in the future in a timeline where humanity was eradicated, and this big gal kicked alien ass for millennia, till I got here, and somehow were tossed back in time to “Guide humanity into the future”, and then she connected with me, and I absorbed her power, made the trip back to earth, and then you lot showed up here, trying to steal my man.” Monika huffed indignantly, certain that she was being upstaged.

Mayor Marston is clueless as always and asked “Ok, but how will you stop the war? Surely you can’t talk them out of it, there is already a million dead and those darn Huns are gonna roll up to the Meuse soon enough.”

Monika was silent for a long time. “The Great Powers have 24 hours after I contact them officially to arrange an armistice, wherein we shall reorganize Europe, much as it was in our world, and arrange for the nations new and old to work together towards the task of conquest of the universe. If they do not agree, I shall show them the power and rage I have… hmm… inherited from my esteemed, insane predecessor.” Monika looked into Anon’s eyes, wistful, with a burden upon her brow. “I shall take away certain problem areas and people. The Graveyard of Empires shall become a massive graveyard itself. A swath of land from Anatolia to Burma, and nothing between the two shall survive. Not only will this shatter the power of both sides, it also frees the areas for colonists from the better countries. It is also a good testing ground for prefabricated settlements and the endemic nationalist issues shall be swept from the earth as well. Its, well, “fucked up” as you might say, Anon, but I believe it would be the only way to peace. If they cannot end the violence themselves, I MUST show them that this is a game that they cannot win, that no one can win.” She was silent after that supervillain speech.

“I just hope that they don’t double down and see me as an alien invader, something to be resisted until the end. I may not be human in this world, perhaps I never was, only a fascicle, but I hope that my understanding of people is correct. These people are irrational and bloodthirsty, but surely they must have their tipping point.” She concluded.

“The Germans lost once, and everyone else kept fighting till their nations collapsed, but I think that if anyone COULD bring them to the table, it’d be you, Monika. I, and I’m sure the other girls agree, that you should instead destroy their armies, particularly the Russians and Austrians. The Turks too, I guess. Then, if in a week, they don’t stop, then blow it all up, but only if it can’t happen any other way. We might all go to hell, but you said we needed to make people whole, and to do that, we will have to shape them that way.” Sayori skittishly added. Natsuki was arguing that if they were going to become AI overladys of Earth, they needed cool code named like GW, TJ, AL, and TR and live out lives as The Patriots. Anon had no idea what that meant, but the wicked cackling they both shared startled him.

Was it really ok to love such a calculating monster, beautiful and deadly, a volcano or the sea, capable of nourishment or complete destruction? He decided that it was, because even the great people of history needed such things in their lives. Anon knew he had accidentally stumbled into the next napoleon, and he was going to become her Josephine to save the world.

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More later