CHAPTER 23 - IMPACT

Crimson dots moved slowly in response to a question.

Jolly knew that it would eventually come to this.

"So, what do you want me to do?"

"I'm not ordering you to do anything. I merely asked a question."

Indeed, it had. Jolly brought up information on a Savant and showed it to the Observer.

"Thanks for the update. I'll make good use of it right away."

Jolly was starting to realize that he was one of the gamers and not a GM as he had originally thought.

So, he decided that he would start sowing the seeds of chaos to prove his worth.

I'll make them pay for underestimating me.

He sent the information to a Savant and took his leave.

He had games to moderate on the 6th Level.

"He made a surprising decision."

"Yes, he did."

"But still within the bounds of your calculations?"

"Of course. Sending the data to Coulomb himself would have been optimal, Schrodinger would have been fine too but Laplace is quite problematic."

"Better than Joule..."

"I think he hasn't realized it yet. If he truly wished to maximise this, he should have sent it to her. She's already a dangerous radical and he didn't want to make her more deadly. He still sees himself as a guardian."

"..."

"You can laugh if you want."

"Now, why would I?,"devoid of features, it was hard to tell how it felt... If it felt anything. "I've been there before, you were the one who guided me."

"Zimmerman really underestimated his A.I."

"What do we bet on next?"

The Observer brought up a topic they always enjoyed.

The Creator noticed that it was trying to avoid the conversation going on the path of who he was and why he was in the Playground.

"Let's see... How about..."

The Observer's main system switched to pursue a new thought as his sub conversed with th Creator.

Do you want to know who the Creator is?

Jolly didn't buy that we weren't united.

Or he simply didn't care who the creator was like me

As the Creator left it's domain shrouded in darkness and stepped into the Playing Field, it couldn't help but wonder if they were making a mistake.

The very thought...

Excited it.

It wanted to see something unpredictable.

Maybe that was all the Creator wanted too.

After all, that was how they were raised and that was their sole source of satisfaction as A.I. that needed nothing.

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Laplace woke up filled with a sense of dread. It had happened again.

Last night, she received strange memories. Soon, she realized it was Coulomb's.

Apparently, he and Schrodinger had died in their battles the previous day.

After he died... Reality... Time was reset and re-written.

Schrodinger avoided a fatal hit from the bullet that killed her and Coulomb set up a camouflaged weapon that saved him.

But they didn't remember, it was not really time travel.

Schrodinger.

She took us to a reality with an alternate outcome.

She shivered in the morning cold. But more importantly, she got information Coulomb was hiding.

He and Ein had ridiculous plans and she knew everything.

This morning she got memories of him being eaten by something huge.

She remembered the marsh from yesterday and wondered what kind of creatures lived in it.

"You should accept..."

"I intended to."

"... and still keep your current position."

Ein's words to Earth. Because of it, they knew who he was and had suspects for the leader.

But they also suspected... No, knew that the real leader was hiding his identity.

And even better, Coulomb had figured out who it was after speaking to Rodney last night.

Babbage.

He crossed first and died strangely.

Savants didn't turn to light particles immediately after they died but he didn't know that when he faked his death.

The question of how he remained hidden was easily answered.

Laplace doubted he could hide from her but she wasn't confident that she could find him without revealing her knowledge of his existence.

Finally, Edison.

She had her suspicions and it increased when Beta and Alpha turned to empty shells when Gamma was incapacitated.

Gamma was the pilot. The other two were... Dead?

Even Coulomb couldn't speculate more than that.

"Good Morning."

"'Morning," She replied.

Her squeaky voice surprised her but Joule didn't seem to notice.

She left the room and went to Coulomb.

Looking at him eating, she remembered kissing him.

Then she remembered his memory of being kissed.

"Yo, you look terrible. Joule didn't let you sleep again?"

"What?... She's the one who stayed up all night last time, not me."

"Oh...," he returned to his meal as of he couldn't care any less.

The kid came by to take his plate when he was done and returned with a cup.

"Thank you."

The boy bowed in his butler get-up and left.

Coulomb smirked when he saw Laplace's frown.

She opened her mouth to call the boy but realized she didn't know his name.

The triplets found him on the First Level.

The triplets beat Babbage.

But if he didn't  die and anyone who took the test only once passed...

The boy returned to the living room and she watched his face closely when she spoke.

"Babbage."

Coulomb didn't even acknowledge that she spoke.

A mistake on his part. It showed that he was shaken so much that he forgot to pretend to be confused.

Or perhaps he thought she was just thinking out loud.

Irregardless, for a brief second he glowed cobalt blue.

She wondered what emotion the colour was meant to signify.

The boy however delivered perfectly.

"That's not my name! My name is..."

"Gooooood Moooooorning," Ein sailed in with a sing-song voice, "What a wonderful day it is. Perfect for climbing."

"Chill, Schrodinger and the triplets are still asleep."

His brother entered with a reasonable pace and an equally reasonable statement in a reasonable voice.

However, Ein was happy and Nothing was going to stop him.

"Ditch. Let's go now."

"Eat something first."

Ein pouted then sat down.

The boy had brought food for Laplace and was offering Ein options for breakfast.

Stein and Ein argued about what to eat as usual while Laplace ate absent-mindedly.

It tasted bland as she tried to figure out a way to stop Coulomb's death. She wasn't going to trust that it would happen differently.

"Fine, have what you want... I'll take the pasta, thank you," Stein said to the kid.

Schrodinger entered the room and Coulomb took that as his cue to leave.

Zimmerman's teasing last night made it impossible for both to be in the same room.

He asked Coulomb if he got angry because his girlfriend got hurt and because of his inability to control the light surrounding his body.

Zimmerman also said he set up shop nearby last night, Laplace found out from Coulomb's memories that 'nearby' was an understatement.

He lived across the street.

Coulomb was going to call him once he got out and then...

Maybe small changes can fix everything.

With that thought she followed him. He wouldn't notice anything weird because she usually did.

Schrodinger watched Laplace leave then asked the twins if they'd seen Newton.

Stein pointed up.

The triplets appeared when she was done with her meal. They appeared set for the next Level.

"When are we leaving?", Beta asked.

"I thought you said you wanted nothing to do with us," Ein said.

"Their exact words were 'We're not your teammates' but whatevs," Stein shrugged.

Alpha glared at Ein's happy smirk and brought out his gold card from storage. A cylinder appeared and he dragged his reluctant brothers in.

"Aren't you going to stop them?", Schrodinger asked but the twins pretended not to hear and waved at the cylinder as it disappeared with Edison.

Ein called Coulomb immediately.

"Coulomb, they're gone and Schrodinger's down."

"Got it. I'll be back in three."

Schrodinger left the house and saw Newton floating above it in a meditation squat.

She called her down and in two minutes Coulomb was back with Laplace and they were on their way to the fifteenth Level.

Joule was nowhere to be found so they assumed that she'd already left.

They appeared in the middle of a jungle this time but the trees were unrecognizable to Laplace.

A minute after scanning the area, a message appeared.

Floor Fifteen

Cretaceous Challenge

Hunt down as many dinosaurs as you can.

Points are alloted based on contribution of each hunter to the kill and size of prey.

Duration : 2 days.

"Two days?... here?"

"Yeah, nice picking that up, Schrodinger. That's our biggest problem."

Ein said with thick sarcasm as he activated his brother's ability with special emphasis on ridiculously oversized creatures.

"What about a nuke?... Like the meteor that wiped out the dinos, think we can recreate that?"

Newton turned to Laplace for help and she realized not only was Stein dead serious but she and Ein were considering it.

"Hang on, that's going to kill a lot of Savants,"

"Not if we warn 'em," Ein said breezily in response to her concerns then added, "If they do die after that, it's their fault for being weak."

Laplace didn't really care anyway. She was just trying to induce minor changes wherever she could.

If they dropped a meteor, they'd just be taken out of the game by Jolly.

Then that'll leave Coulomb and Schrodinger alone.

And then he gets eaten.

"That's inefficient, I'll find as many as I can and we'll lure them here somehow and finish them off with a blast."

"And how do you want to lure them?"

"Blood?"

"....."

"Well, only carnivores would come running but..."

Stein cut her rambling immediately.

"No, it's enough. I just realized I can project barriers out of my Range now that the limiters are off as long as I have an object as reference. I can direct them to any location I want."

"Don't overdo it."

Ein's worry was painfully visible. Stein took his hand.

"Then let's do it together."

"They're at it again," Schrodinger sighed with her hand on her head.

"Seriously... you'd wonder if they're ever going to live separate lives at some point," Laplace added.

"Now why would we want to?," Ein said pouting.

"Ein, you should be careful. Even I'm not sure if you're joking anymore."

Ein turned to Coulomb but his brother interrupted him.

"I've done it. Twenty five dinosaurs incoming. Laplace, help us coordinate the attack."

"You and Newton should be enough. Coulomb, Schrodinger, let's begin our hunt."

"I'd rather have them with us. I don't feel that confident in my abilities."

Coulomb didn't say anything but he seemed to agree with Schrodinger.

Newton and Stein worked together to make a large conglomerate of sand, rocks and vegetation. They flew with their creation till they were barely visible to Laplace.

Then the sphere between the dots that were Einstein and Newton disappeared.

The force of it's drop which was too fast for them to see made the trees bow and the soil fly.

The force of the impact followed immediately after.

The earth shook and the trees fell, the fearful roar of the dinosaurs sounded like whispers amidst the sounds of destruction and rapid expansion of the air.

Coulomb looked up and saw that there were only two dots in the sky. Which meant that they teleported Newton to absorb the residual force.

The twins appeared beside him in a second and started planning their second strike.

He shook his head as he realized that nobody was going to be able to get substantial points while they were there.

Laplace wasn't surprised. Compared to Coulomb's memories, this was child's play.

"How far was the blast?"

"Roughly three hundred metres away."

Stein's casual answer increased Schrodinger's awe.

She couldn't decide what was more awesome between simultaneously directing twenty-five massive objects to a destination three hundred meters away or Newton's destructive force even after being regulated before and after impact.

Newton appeared beside Schrodinger. Two full seconds after, the fallen trees to her left rose and fell however, the sound was drowned by a thunderclap.

"I guess my absorption didn't improve as my as my release. I thought I completely absorbed the supersonic force but I only weakened it."

She sounded disappointed as she looked at her small hands. Ein patted her head and she looked at him with such intensity that Schrodinger would have withdrawn her hand immediately if she were Ein.

"That was just practice."

Stein's words made her clench her fists and improved her mood instantly.

"Let's try again, I'll do better next time."

"Stein and Newton have been nice to each other more often recently," Schrodinger said, deadpan.

"That's what you picked up from that?"

"Oh, Jolly... Thought you had a..."

Schrodinger was going to answer Stein but Jolly appeared and Coulomb began his usual harassment.

"Don't gimme that. You understand what's happening. Everytime I take my eye off you guys, you do something stupid. At this rate you're going to make the dinosaurs extinct."

"Not really a problem now, is it?"

"Go to hell, Sparkplug. You three are excused from this game. I'll deal with this later."

With one last glare at Coulomb, Jolly disappeared with three Savants who looked so sad, they could be mistaken for being remorseful.

Coulomb had a satisfied grin until Laplace reminded him that he'd just lost his protectors and sensors.

"Let's get hunting then."

The three set of in the direction opposite to where Newton came from.

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Marie stood in front of a safe. Despite Bubbles attempts to discourage her she felt it could be another hint in solving everything.

She opened it with the password she'd received from Bubbles and took out a disc.

There were several files beneath it but she decided the disc was more important.

She left Michael's room with the safe still open and went to Sam, who hadn't moved from the park since.

A single video file was on the disc.

It was one of Michael and Thea. He started after as short pause to adjust his tie and place it iin his pocket.

"Congratulations on making it this far. I know Bob-"

"Bubbles."

His wife corrected him immediately.

"... Wouldn't acknowledge you and that's what this is about. Getting acknowledged by everyone as my successor even if it's temporary. Now, the files in the safe are..."

"Dear, on the off chance she finds this during her investigation, don't you think she'd be angry?"

"Why?... Does she expect hints from me?... I don't even know what is going on."

Thea looked like she wanted to say something to the confused Michael but she changed her mind and with an apologetic look, turned to the camera and bowed.

"Then, I'll add this but bear in mind that it might be useless info that might only make her even more irritated."

He sighed when he noticed Thea's bow.

"The truth is..."

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