Book Eight, Chapter 53: Backtracking

I hated being this far into a storyline and still not even knowing who the principal antagonist was. We had some ideas, of course. Anna’s daydream interactions with a kindly older woman told us a little bit, but I really wanted to lay eyes on the big bad. I wanted to know what they were and figure out how they worked.

But all I could do was sit and listen as Cassie talked about the stories in the fairy tale book she had acquired.

“That’s will o’ the wisps,” she said as she held the book open to an illustration, fresh from reading through it. “They trick travelers on the road, making them think that they’re following torches or lanterns, but in reality they’re being led off into the middle of nowhere.”

“I haven’t seen any torches or lanterns,” Antoine said. “We are where we are because it is where we were instructed to be, until we decided to go chasing after some monster or whatever that was that took Camden.”

“I’m not saying that it’s literally a will o’ the wisp,” she said. “Look at this, another one. Sirens. They’re like mermaids, but they sing to lure in sailors so that they smash their ships against the rocks. Don’t you see what I’m saying?”

We knew a bit about sirens.

“I haven’t heard any singing,” Antoine said.

I gave him a quick glare, trying to warn him off the heavy skepticism that had been Camden’s role until he was taken, because I worried it might have been what got him targeted, if not his savvy.

Antoine seemed to understand my meaning.

“Look, I’m open to the idea that there is something out there, but unless you can look inside of that book and tell me that there is some creature that sends Morse code through the airwaves or that can control radios or whatever we’re saying is happening, then I don’t see how a fairy tale book is useful here.”

Cassie rolled her eyes. She was doing her best to make up for the last storyline where her contributions were cut short. In this story, psychics had real power, and she intended to take a bit of the spotlight.

“Here’s another one,” she said as she flipped through the pages. “It’s about fairies who lure in travelers just as it’s about to rain, promising them shelter, but then they get trapped in other worlds and can never go home. Look, I’m not saying that any of these creatures are what’s to blame. I just think it’s awfully interesting that our ancestors were so afraid of monsters trying to lure them away from their campfires at night.”

Antoine didn’t have a response. Neither did Anna, who had spent much of her time On-Screen with a face of longing. Whatever it was that was calling to us was promising her a reunion with her character’s parents, from what I understood. She had to play the part, although I wasn’t sure exactly which direction she could take that. Was it a flaw that she so desperately wanted to find a place where she belonged?

“The dark forest, the distant seas, caves, twisting back roads. I see a theme here,” I said. “You’re saying that our ancestors were afraid of the unknown, of places that hadn’t been mapped or populated. But we do have maps, right? Tons of them. And back at headquarters, they have satellite images. I hear they even have images from before the war.”

“You heard wrong,” Cassie said. “They don’t know any more than we do. They’re not just keeping us in the dark about things for fun. They do it so that we never realize exactly how little we know about the outside world. Dozens of maps that contradict each other. Satellite images with huge pieces censored, all of it locked away behind passwords that have long been forgotten. Nobody knows what’s out there, and pretending like people at headquarters do is foolish.”

She slammed the book shut and then rolled over under her thin survival blanket, hugging the book like it was a pillow.

“It’s going to be morning in a few hours,” Antoine said. “We need to get some sleep, and then we need to decide what we do next.”

I thought for a moment as I lay on my back and stared up at the roof of the tent.

“We can’t go back. I wouldn’t even know how to find the way,” I said. That was good in a way. It meant our characters couldn’t just walk away from the danger. It was also a bad thing because it meant our characters were being passive, that they had no choice but to carry on.

“We can’t stay here,” Anna said. “Whatever it was that took Camden could take us.”

“That’s not exactly an argument for moving forward either,” I said.

How familiar was it that we were once again in a position where there were no right moves, no intelligent play, no obvious choice. The only question was which wrong choice we wanted to make.

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Once we went Off-Screen, we had a few hours to rest before we had to start filming again, and we took advantage of it. I really didn’t like the narrative position we were in, being pushed by forces on one end and pulled by forces on the other. The Arbiter wanted us to go on this journey so that he could get credit for establishing contact with another terradome. His career was on the line. On the other side, whatever mystical force pulled us forward, it clearly wanted the worst for us, too.

If we continued down this path as sheep, there was no way we could survive. We needed to find a way to choose to move forward instead of being manipulated.

I thought about this for hours before I finally fell asleep, and when I awoke, I was already On-Screen.

Say what you will about the future communist scientists of this storyline, but they did know how to make an automatically deploying tent. That thing was hardly bigger than a bedroll, and it could extend itself up to a medium-sized tent in seconds, and then shrink back down just as fast.

I wondered if we could take it with us after this storyline.

Morning came, and with it came new pathing data. I wasn’t sure whether these armbands of ours worked on GPS or pinging off radio towers, but they seemed to know where we were and quickly got us back on the main road. An hour later, they led us off the main road and sent us on a multi-hour journey until we eventually found ourselves back on that very same road. We had once again walked in a big half circle. We had been On and Off-Screen the whole time.

Now that we were back, we were solidly On-Screen.

“That’s it,” I said.

“What’s it?” Antoine asked.

“Look down at your feet,” I said. “This is that same black asphalt we were just on, not two hours ago. It sent us out into the boonies and then back to this road again.”

Antoine made an exaggerated display of looking at the road and sizing it up to confirm my conclusion.