Chapter 24: Information (Part 3)

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Chapter 24: Information (Part 3)

Silence settled over the battlefield.

Not true silence — this dimension didn't seem capable of that. A low rhythmic hum permeated the air, like some incomprehensibly large machine running somewhere beyond the edges of reality. Every so often it shifted into something that almost resembled distant whispers before dissolving back into static.

Subtle. Easy to ignore at first. Impossible to un-hear once you noticed it.

I looked toward the horizon.

The landscape stretched farther than sight could reach. At first glance it resembled an endless metallic plain, but the longer I watched, the stranger it became. The ground wasn't solid — beneath its translucent surface, rivers of glowing symbols flowed in constantly shifting directions, strings of numbers drifting like luminous fish in dark water.

The structures in the distance were worse.

Calling them buildings felt wrong. They had walls and height, but geometry seemed to be more of a suggestion than a rule out here. One tower twisted upward as a spiral of floating cubes, each section rotating independently while somehow remaining connected. Another looked perfectly normal until half of it dissolved into thousands of glowing polygons and then reformed. Bridges blinked in and out of existence. Massive staircases climbed into empty air and simply ended.

The sky was no better. Instead of clouds: symbols. Binary strings, unknown alphabets, geometric equations. Occasionally a whole section of it flickered — reality pausing for a fraction of a second, then resuming, like someone had briefly pressed pause.

Once, an entire mountain vanished. Not collapsed, not exploded. Just gone. A heartbeat later it was back, exactly where it had been, without sound or shockwave. Simply edited back into existence.

A chill moved through me.

The terrifying part was how beautiful it was. Every impossible thing fit together with an elegance that almost made sense — like watching someone paint with mathematics instead of color. If I hadn't known better, I might have mistaken this place for paradise.

Instead it felt like standing inside the operating system of reality itself.

Nearly half an hour passed, tracked by an internal clock I'd calibrated through years of training since this dimension offered nothing as helpful as sunlight.

Khan hadn't moved. His breathing was steady. Anita had her eyes closed against one of the digital pillars, recovering. Arjun remained unconscious in the restraint chair.

Everything was peaceful.

Too peaceful. My instincts refused to settle. A place like this shouldn't be quiet after what we'd just come through. Something told me we were only seeing the surface — that whatever this dimension actually was, it hadn't finished with us yet.

Without warning, Khan shot upright.

"So THAT was amazing!"

I nearly launched myself backward. "What the —"

My heart was doing something medically interesting.

"You couldn't wake up like a normal person?"

Khan blinked. "What do you mean?"

"You were lying there looking dead."

"Oh." He scratched the back of his head. "Sorry."

"You don't sound sorry."

"I'm a little sorry."

"A little?"

"Maybe twenty percent."

I stared at him. He stared back. Then an enormous grin spread across his face.

"That fight was incredible."

"...Excuse me?"

"Incredible!"

"You almost died."

"I know."

"And your conclusion is that it was incredible."

"Yeah." He stretched both arms over his head, joints popping loudly. "I haven't had a fight like that in years."

"You were smashed through multiple buildings."

"I noticed."

"You were stabbed."

"Several times."

"You broke half the bones in your body."

"I did wonder why breathing hurt so much."

I rubbed my temples. "And somehow you enjoyed it."

Khan considered this with genuine thoughtfulness. "A little."

I stared.

"...Okay. Maybe a lot."

Anita opened one eye. "You two are impossible."

"I didn't do anything," I said.

"You healed him."

"Exactly."

Khan nodded with great enthusiasm. "I feel fantastic."

"You lost enough blood to fill a bathtub."

"I've had worse."

"You have not."

"Probably have."

"You definitely haven't."

He shrugged. "I don't really keep track."

I leaned back and looked at the sky.

There was no treatment for this. Diagnosis: Battle Maniac, advanced stage, terminal, no known cure.

Eventually the more pressing issue surfaced.

Food.

I emptied my pack: three nutrition bars. Khan had two. Anita produced another pair. I walked over to Arjun's discarded backpack without ceremony and searched through it — more rations, water, emergency medical supplies, spare batteries.

"Confiscation," I announced.

Khan nodded immediately. "Perfectly legal."

"It definitely isn't."

"It feels legal."

"It feels deserved," I agreed.

Anita sighed. "I am surrounded by criminals."

"We're technically rescuing humanity."

"That doesn't make theft legal."

"It makes it understandable."

She pinched the bridge of her nose. "I don't have enough energy for this conversation."

Neither did I. We divided everything equally and ate without complaint — the bars still tasted like compressed cardboard dipped in chalk, possibly worse than before, but nobody had the energy to care.

A few minutes later, a notification appeared.

**Datafication: 2.3%**

I frowned.

It had gone up, but not during meditation or eating. Which meant the contamination wasn't only from absorbing local energy. Simply existing inside this dimension caused gradual passive exposure.

Slow. Barely noticeable.

But constant.

I watched the number and silently hoped it would stay at that pace.

One thing left to do.

I looked at Arjun.

He was slumped in the restraint chair. Completely motionless.

Too motionless.

"He's awake," I said.

Nobody responded.

"He's pretending."

I walked over and stopped directly in front of him. His breathing was perfectly steady — almost artificially so. Years of faking unconsciousness during Bloom's medical procedures had given me a very clear picture of what genuinely unconscious people looked like.

Arjun wasn't it.

I raised one foot and kicked the side of the chair.

The metallic impact rang out across the landscape. His eyelids twitched.

Got you.

I folded my arms. "Wake up, Sleeping Princess."

One eye opened. Then the other. He stared at me with complete indignation.

"I," he said, with remarkable seriousness, "am not a princess."

"Good morning to you too."

"I am a Special Agent of the World Government." He somehow made it sound like an accusation.

"Wonderful." I dragged over a chair and sat directly across from him. "Then you understand how important cooperation is."

His expression hardened. "I have nothing to say to terrorists."

Khan looked around. "Are there terrorists here?"

"I think he means us," Anita muttered.

"Oh." Khan frowned. "I don't think we're very good terrorists."

"I know."

"We're terrible at it."

"I wasn't planning to improve."

I turned back to Arjun. The jokes could wait. Answers couldn't.

"Let's keep this simple." I leaned forward slightly. "How many people entered this dimension?"

Silence.

"What exactly is this place?"

Silence.

"What do you know about Bloom?"

Not even a flicker. Just complete, practiced silence — the kind that came from training rather than stubbornness.

Finally: "I'm not talking."

I nodded. "Okay."

A smug smile appeared. "I thought you'd understand."

"Oh, I do." I stood and stretched my shoulders. "Maybe I'll have to use some special methods."

Khan's expression shifted immediately. So did Anita's. Both of them turned toward me with the specific look that meant they were already concerned.

Khan pointed at me. "Wait. Do you actually have special methods?"

"Maybe."

"What does that mean?"

"It means they're special."

"That explains nothing."

Across from us, Arjun laughed — short, confident. "You won't get anything from me." He leaned back against the restraints. "You don't have what it takes."

I walked toward him without another word. Stopped beside the chair.

Then —

*Thwack.*

My hand struck the side of his neck with practiced precision. His eyes rolled back. Head dropped forward. Completely limp.

Silence.

I looked down at him, then gave a satisfied nod. "Perfect."

Neither Khan nor Anita spoke.

I turned around. Both of them were staring at me.

"What?" I asked.

Anita blinked twice. "...What exactly was perfect?"

"He stopped talking."

"That wasn't the goal."

"It helped."

"No, it didn't."

"He can't refuse questions anymore."

"He also can't answer them."

I considered that. "...Good point."

Khan raised one hand slowly. "I have several concerns."

"I'll answer one."

"Were those your special methods?"

"Yes."

"...Your strategy was to knock him unconscious?"

"He became significantly quieter."

Anita covered her face with both hands. "I am surrounded by lunatics."

I ignored this and looked at her instead. "Can you read anything from him now?"