This game has OBSESSED me. I haven’t even finished Recursion mode yet (trying to beat Performance Test 7 and also play with all limiters on – kinda hard XD ). But… I needed to write this, to look at Red and her man in happier times. I’ve chosen the name John for my boxer, though I tried not to use it too much. (I realized after I started using it regularly that his haircut suggests he’s a bit of a Mark, tho : P ) I adore these two; they are my new OTP for all time or something. At least until I find my next OTP.

I also tried not to explain the songs too much from my point of view; just like the rest of the game, everyone has their own meanings. Hopefully you can catch the gist of my interpretations without overriding your own, if you know what I mean. Except for that one song, I had to go into detail there because I really didn’t get it. (Still don’t get The Spine, though… post theories in the comments? XD ) Also a big exercise in “show-don’t-tell”, thank you to my main beta reader who always pushes me to do better there (and who helped me brainstorm big chunks of setting here). Keep letting me know what I missed, you’re awesome.

There is a bit of musician real-talk in this fic. (I’m so happy, a protagonist I can write realistic details for without doing piles of research!) If it’s about music and in here, it’s probably true. Cool, huh?

Essentially this is a giant piece of fluff, even the serious parts, so if you like fluff, super fluff, all the fluff, READ ON

If you haven’t played Transistor, DO THAT FIRST OR ELSE THIS WON’T MAKE SENSE AND ALSO COLOSSAL SPOILERS AND ALSO IT’S AN AMAZING GAME

COMMENTS GREATLY APPRECIATED

 

And Just Like That, They’re Gone – Transistor Vignettes

 

I looked up at the concert posters plastered liberally against the wall of the building. Tickets to the Empty Set were expensive, but I’d been enticed into going to hear the young singer whose face shone like a star from every sheet of coloured paper, scarlet hair brushing her cheekbones, earnest blue eyes so vivid they were almost glowing.
Even if she wasn’t as good as everyone said, she would be nice to look at.

The seats were comfortable, the lighting dim, and the crowd whispering in hushed excitement as they waited. The band was finishing tuning in the orchestra pit beneath the stage… and there she was, a small, slim figure wrapped in baby-blue silk, illuminated by a single spotlight falling onto her red hair. The audience erupted in joyful applause, and she smiled serenely.
When they had fallen silent, she stepped up to the microphone.
And I fell in love.
“I see the lights… dance on the bay…”
Not with her, I knew that. I wasn’t so foolish as to think I could fall in love with a person from a song. But her music… her music was easy to love.
Everything else became a blur, indistinct in the darkness outside the spotlight – all I could see was her, Red, her eyes closed, swaying in the throes of the music, at the mercy of a force greater than she was. All I could hear was that gorgeous sound flowing smoothly from her red lips, and my heartbeat echoing the bass. I had been completely wrong. I might have been a dunce at music, but she was as good as everyone said. Better.
“When she shines for me at night, and her skies show green and white…”
When I could bear to tear my eyes away from her, I saw almost every other face in the theatre as enraptured as mine.

Red stood at the stage door as she often did, greeting her fans, smiling and nodding and accepting compliments. Her manager stood at her side, accepting the flowers some of them offered, and Sybil – Sybil was backstage.
She had only been singing professionally for three years, even before she graduated from Traverson Hall, and it still amazed her, the enormous crowds that came to see her. It was all thanks to Sybil, really, although Sybil herself would give her an arch look and deny it if Red mentioned it.
Last of all tonight was a young man, hanging back shyly; she almost didn’t see him at first, half-hidden in the shadows of the stage-door hall, and her manager had already turned to go back to the dressing room. But Red saw him and smiled at him. He blushed but walked forward with an upright, easy carriage, his hands in his pockets.
“Hi,” he said softly, and offered a hand to shake.
She didn’t normally shake hands – too easy to catch a cold from a careless person – but it happened so suddenly she didn’t even think about it before reaching out to take his large, rough hand with her own carefully manicured one. He shook it gently. “Hello,” she said, smiling.
“That was… really something,” he mumbled, blushing even harder. She took a moment to really look at him – deep-set, dark eyes that, for all his shyness, had a twinkle in them, a shaggy mop of dark hair that could really use trimming, dark-tanned skin, a square, cleanshaven jaw, broad shoulders, dark coat rolled up to the elbows, no tie. He was kind of cute. Although he was also very tall.
“I’m glad you liked it,” she said. “Will you come again?”
“Would you like to see me again?” he asked, and winked, and she laughed.
It was only when she had gone back to her dressing room that she realized she really should have gotten his name.

She saw him again at her next concert, and the next one after that. If she was performing, she grew to keep an eye out for that one dark-haired young man. She had many admirers who stared at her as if she were an angel, or who spoke bashfully to her and flirted with her, or who came to all her concerts. There were plenty of handsome young men or women, and she really couldn’t say what was different about this particular person. She didn’t even know his name.
Eventually he came to meet her again, once again the last in line, hands in pockets, this time with boxing wraps still on his arms, and she remembered.
“Hi again, Red,” he said, a little less bashful than before.
“Hello,” she said. “I’ve been seeing you a lot recently.”
His eyes opened a little wider. “You noticed? You always seem so caught up in the music…”
“Sometimes I am, sometimes I look at the audience,” she said. “I’m not singing just for myself, you know.”
He took a moment to process that. “Oh.”
“W-what was your name?” Oh, wonderful, now she was stammering.
He seemed surprised. “Oh. Ah. John.”
“It’s nice to meet you, John,” she said. “I hope I see you again.”
Her manager was calling her, trying to hurry her inside, and she hardly heard his affirmative.

After the first time I heard her, I went out and bought one of her records. After the second time I heard her, I went out and bought the other two. But I listened to those records until my crappy old player’s needle wore out. My folk-country-rock records collected dust on the shelf next to the old empty bottles from Cloud Alley I really needed to throw out someday. All her songs were melancholy and dreamy, some kind of jazz, easy to listen to but difficult to understand.
I looked her up on the OVC terminals and found her almost as mysterious as before. There were many interviews archived from over the past year, ever since Sybil Reisz had set her on her path to stardom, but they were all very short. She deftly deflected all questions about her past and influences, although she had nothing but praise for her teachers at Traverson. I supposed the mystery only added to her allure, and she drew in the rest with the sheer power of her voice.
In any case, I bought a ticket for her next performance before signing off again.

She had finished a grueling evening, where the lights had been out of sync, the bassist had been sick and although he tried, poor man, his groove was off, her vibrato had refused to cooperate, she had almost missed three entries, and she stabbed herself in the eye with a mascara wand during intermission. But she had to hide all that when she met fans at the stage door.
Unfortunately, her fans were under no obligation to be equally gracious, and tonight they were rowdy in their affection, unwilling to take turns. They pressed forward until her manager had to duck inside the hallway, but Red was trapped, her five-feet-and-three-inches feeling quite small against all the people and the faces and the hands reaching out to her, though she tried not to show it. If they turned violent… her self-defence classes wouldn’t work on so many… it could start a riot… if she could just manoeuvre around that one plump lady, she could also get to the hallway…
“Easy there,” a vaguely familiar voice called above the din of the people, “don’t crowd the lady, now.” A set of broad shoulders breached the tide of the crowd and interposed between her and the crush on one side, and although he was technically also part of the crowd, she felt like she had some room to breathe now, guarded by the gleaming yellow triangle on the back of his jacket.
The people fell back a bit, and he stayed there until they dispersed, guarding her, and she allowed him to shield her.
She turned to him when it was over. “Thank you. They were getting a little pushy, there.”
“You’re welcome,” he said, smiling shyly. Now that the tension of the moment was gone, he was himself again, as far as she knew him, soft-spoken and private.
“I was wondering if you would like to meet for coffee sometime?” she asked, and surprised both of them in the asking.
His eyebrows raised.
“It’s my treat,” she said hurriedly, before he could say anything. He didn’t look terribly well-off, and she would hate to ask him out and then strain his wallet.
His eyebrows were still raised, but he began to smile. “How could I refuse? I can get any time off work. You must be busy, though.”
“I am, but I can reschedule some small things. There’s a little café in Floating Point I like… Thursday at 2:30?”
He nodded. “See you there.”
And suddenly the evening didn’t seem quite as awful as it had before.

He was there before she was, perusing the menu with a look of concentration. The waitress cast a look askance at both of them – no, mostly just at him – as Red took the seat across from him with a smile. She ignored the waitress. “I hope you haven’t been waiting long.” At least it was a nice day with mild breezes, golden sunshine blocked by the café’s parasols.
“No, no, not long. How’s your day been so far, Miss Red?”
“Pleasant enough. It’s been a long time since I took a break like this.” Actually, she had been jittery all morning, and spent most of her lunch hour trying to decide what to wear. It was ridiculous. She wasn’t dating him. She just thought he was interesting. That was all. Really.
“It’s hard to make new friends, especially if you’re famous, I imagine,” he said shrewdly.
She shrugged without making eye contact. “It doesn’t really bother me. I have my music.”
He nodded, dark eyes fixed on her. “I know you don’t like discussing it, but I’ve been listening to your records a lot at home and they’re really interesting.”
She smirked. “I might not like talking about it, but I don’t mind hearing your opinions.”
“All right, then…”
They sipped coffee and she listened to him puzzle out the messages of her lyrics, and she was impressed. He’d even listened to Apex Beat, one of her stranger, more disturbing songs, even by her own opinion. She did confirm a couple of his guesses that were correct; he didn’t seem the sort to spread around ‘the key to Red’s songs’ on the OVC terminals or anything.
Eventually the conversation drifted away from music and more on to what she was interested in. “So what are your Selections? I picked music and linguistics, obviously. What about you?”
“I… didn’t pick any. The linguistics is for your lyrics?”
She looked at him curiously. “I didn’t know you were allowed to do that.”
He shrugged. “Well, I managed it.”
“Why did you choose not to?”
“I’m still figuring things out, I guess.”
She fixed him with a stare over the rim of her coffee cup. “You’re older than me.”
“So?” He grinned. “That doesn’t mean I have answers, even to my own life. Everyone’s different, you know that, probably better than I do with all your poetry.”
“But my Selections helped me choose my career. You must work somewhere.”
“I do. But I don’t need Selections to work there. And maybe next year I’ll work somewhere else. It’s not a big deal.”
“I see… I never thought of it that way.”
“Not many people do, I think.”
Her gaze fell to his hands, still taped up as if for fighting. “You’re a boxer?”
“Right now, yeah, I guess.”
He seemed to be about to say something else, but suddenly she checked her watch. She was going to be late to her next engagement if she didn’t leave right away, and she rose with an apologetic look. “I’m terribly sorry, I have to go. It’s been very interesting talking with you. Would you like to meet again next week?”
“I’d like that very much. Would you like to take a walk by the canals or something?”
“Sounds lovely. Same time?”
“Same time.”

She wrote her first song for him two years later; it was called Old Friends. She felt it was a pretty good musical portrait of him, straightforward, laidback, introverted, but honest, dark but vivid if you knew where to look, “like the city lights the night, leaves trails on my sight, in the slowly falling rain”.
He protested when she told him. “We haven’t been friends that long.”
“It feels like we’ve been friends for ages,” she said. “And you’re one of my closest friends.”
“It’s… too much, Red.”
“It’s not too much. Relax.”
He laughed. “If you insist. I certainly can’t stop you.” His face was alight with the same kind of awe that Sybil’d had when she’d presented Interlace to her, although, like Sybil, he was trying to hide it.
“Of course you can’t.” She smirked. “But anyway, you are one of my closest friends, and I’m glad circumstances caused us to meet.”
“I was just a crazy fanboy back then, blown away by something I’d never heard before. I guess you’re lucky I managed to muster the courage to talk to you, eh?”
“However did you do it?” she asked, eyebrows pert.
He didn’t take the bait this time. “All your other fans just see you as an angel, a goddess, even. I know I can’t compare to you, you’re intelligent and artistic and beautiful-”
“Not the point I was getting at,” she said hastily. If he was comparing himself to her, she had a thing or two to say about that-
“Me either. Hang on. I look at you and I see a woman, a person, a very beautiful woman with a rare set of talents, but you’re a person just like me. Sometimes I have to remind myself of it, but it’s true. Aren’t we all people, in the end, like that one song?” And with a slow smile spreading over his face, he drawled: “Maybe it’s just because I’m tall. You don’t scare me.”
She huffed, turning away from him with a roll of her eyes and folding her arms, then flicking a gaze back towards him. The sly smile hadn’t gone, and she had to smile in return. “Well, that’s good, I suppose,” she teased.
He winked.
“Although you’re not so bad-looking yourself,” she went on. In fact, he was rather delicious, with that thick dark hair, those sparkling dark eyes, his stature so tall and broad and muscular, and that jawline… facts that she tried not to think about. Much. They weren’t dating, after all. “In a scruffy, ragamuffin kind of way.”
“Aw, c’mon, Red, I’m trying to be a gentleman here.” They laughed, but he went on more seriously. “I mean… ever since I came here, you’re the only person to look at me like I was…”
“…a crazy fanboy?”
“…Normal.”
She linked her arm with his as they continued walking, allowing him to be a gentleman. “No one’s normal. Half of my songs explore that very theme.”
“But no one’s truly a freak, either,” he said in a low voice.
“No,” she agreed quietly. “And certainly not you, my friend.”
He squeezed her arm gently.

She got me a backstage pass around the same time as she wrote that amazing song for me, so now I could hang around with her before, during, or after her shows, or all three, if I chose. I’d show up and bring her a travel mug of her favourite tea, or help keep the fans under control when they got to meet her. Mostly they were good if I was around, although I got a lot of dirty looks when I was around, believe me, but once in a while she’d take shelter behind me against their storm, leaning against my back with full trust and confidence.
Though, really, she didn’t need my help. She could always take care of herself, always poised and graceful, always thinking two steps ahead.
It was a much different experience being backstage during a show; I might not get the full effect of the concert standing back there in the wings, but by this point I knew all her songs backwards and forwards anyway. It was worth it to see her smile in greeting when she came off stage.
Her manager, Eloise, tolerated me. Sybil Reisz, though, she didn’t like me for some reason. Could be because she was the foremost civic events and entertainment organizer in Cloudbank, and I was some nobody taking up an increasing amount of Red’s time and attention. She never told me, so I was guessing. It was fine that she didn’t like me; I didn’t care. And I didn’t much like her either; her smile never reached her eyes, when she smiled at all.
Outside of backstage, we met on a regular basis. We each had our own work; I had my various part-time jobs, whether boxing in the ring or working the bar at the same joints I liked to drink at; she had her rehearsals and practice time and networking to do when she wasn’t performing. And I learned that she took very strict care of her health, it was nuts.
But several times a week, without even needing an invite anymore, I’d hike up to Highrise from where I lived near the Bay, over to her stylish little apartment in Terrace Apartments. She had the best view in town, I always said. Much better than the view from my place, which was of… the wall of the adjacent building. Someone dropped the ball there.
By the time I got there, she’d been for her early morning run and gotten in hours, multiple, of practice already, yet she never looked tired. We used to engage in heated discussions about philosophy and poetry – nothing that she was currently writing, she was very secretive about it, but other things, other artists, other writers. Great fun. We’d sit on the floor, not even on the sofa, piles of records and books scattered around us, lots of books. She had a lot of dictionaries for various purposes, let alone poetry collections, song collections, books about the most random non-fiction subjects, and of course novels. Girl liked her novels. Made sense to me.
Over time, our discussions grew quieter, more like normal conversation about any old topics, or we wouldn’t even talk at all, just be in the same room together. I’d read – trying to keep up with her, a bit – or watch sports with the volume down low, while she scribbled down bits of lyrics on scraps of paper, picking at her ukulele or her guitar with her perfectly manicured fingers, depending how far along her current song was, or network on her personal OVC terminal. She didn’t use commas much, either in her lyrics – when I could snatch a glimpse of them – or in her comments online. For how calm she seemed in performing, she was a bit breathless when she let her guard down.
If I stayed over for dinner, we’d get flatbreads from Junction Jan’s, Sea Monster for me, Harvest Garden for her, unless she was feeling like splurging, in which case she’d go straight for the Supremo Deluxe. And she’d tell me about things going on in the Cloudbank music scene, how there was a new singer stagenamed Facsimile on the up-and-up, or how so-and-so was thinking of retiring. Never with the slightest bit of ill-will; I learned that some of them had lives as dramatic and full of rivalry as any sports team, real catfighters, but Red seemed to be above it all, living as she did for her art first and foremost, and most of the others were good people, supporting each other in the industry, which sounded a lot harder to work in than I’d thought a couple years ago. I’d just complain about Tennegan’s radio show or tell her about the game scores. She listened patiently.
And it turned out she didn’t just drink tea. Half the time, she’d have a beer and invite me to have one with her. I was all right if it was just one. Or maybe two. Didn’t want to get plastered at her house and not have the legs to walk home. Would be rude. But although she sometimes jokingly called it her little vice, that little imperfection just made her seem more perfect.
Once, it did happen – she’d just received an award the night before, and while she celebrated formally with Eloise and Sybil that night, the next night it was just her and me and a bottle of wine, and I happened to… accidentally finish it. And maybe a glass of whiskey, too. And a couple of beers. I’m not sure how much she had, but I was sliding off the couch and onto the carpet of her living room, slurring happy things at the ceiling. From what I remember, she chuckled and said it was cute. Said I could sleep it off on the couch, but I decided it was very important that I go home before I fell asleep. Getting home that night was interesting.
But she didn’t know. She still didn’t know how she had convinced me to clean up my act even before we became friends. I was only half as pathetic now as I used to be.

That year she asked if I’d be her escort to Fashion Week, which I thought was an insane idea, even though it was only two days, kind of a weekend thing, not a whole week. Talk about false advertising. But anyway, as if I knew or cared anything about fashion. Red could make anything look good, and I didn’t care what I wore – I was just a brick, anyway.
That, and I didn’t want her reputation to suffer from bringing me out in public. Everyone could tell I was different, except, apparently, for her, and when we were just being friends it didn’t matter so much to the outside world… but bringing me to a big, public event like this, to mix and mingle with the upper crust of Cloudbank society… it would be forcing the world to acknowledge me, something that neither they nor I wanted.
She overrode all my protests. “It doesn’t matter what they think of you. Or what you think of them. Maybe if you talked to each other, you’d realize there isn’t this great divide. Remember?” And she’d start humming, using her music as shorthand for discussions we’d had before. “It’s not like there’s going to be a spotlight on you the whole time.”
“No, it’s going to be on you, and I’m going to be next to you,” I grumbled, but the battle was already lost, and next week I consented to have my hair cut and some kind of outfit put on me; blessedly not an uncomfortable one as I was expecting, but dark, and square, and I could move both my arms and my legs. Red was both thoughtful and had good taste, I had to admit.
She was stunning in forest green with glittering gold accents, and I was hard pressed not to stare. She was my friend, not my girlfriend, and I didn’t feel like it was allowed, especially not the way it draped over her hips, swooping down her neckline…
I offered her my arm, trying to hide my nervousness, and she slipped her arm around it. “You clean up good,” she murmured to me. “Although don’t worry. You look fine normally, too.”
“Good, because this is a once-a-lifetime thing,” I murmured back. “You look amazing.” Really, in spite of her efforts, I was a lump of basalt next to her shining diamond. Which was how it ought to be, actually.
Her eyes were devilish. “Not a once-a-year thing?”
“For heaven’s sake, Red…”
She laughed. “Oh, look, Preston Moyle. He looks dashing. But he always looks dashing.”
“Always is dashing about,” I muttered, and she laughed again, her face lighting up and pretty much making it worth it to be there.
There were speeches from people like Niola Chein, Lillian Platt, and of course Sybil Reisz. We went to Max Darzi’s fashion show; apparently he was The Guy for haute couture clothing in Cloudbank. The closest I really got to caring was wondering how many of Red’s stage dresses he designed. He came to speak to her at some point, of course, and oddly, the look he gave me was not hostile, but more speculative.
Which of course also made me nervous. No way was I becoming a giant doll to be dressed up, certainly not in some of the weird stuff I saw up there on the catwalk.
Fortunately, I managed to escape becoming a stuffed shirt, and we managed to survive Fashion Week. I was glad it was only two days. Didn’t think I could stand too much more polite society than that.
We weren’t entirely able to escape the paparazzi, who flashed way too many cameras at us and asked a lot of leading, nosy questions about our private life. She never gave them a straight answer, responding to them in her usual deflective way, which was good because neither of us really had a straight answer. We were friends, despite our very different backgrounds and worlds. I liked her, certainly. More than that… it didn’t matter.

A year had gone by, more or less, since she’d written me that song. She was on the top of her game, professionally, singing sometimes every night for a week, always to sold-out crowds. Me, I was getting by, enough to pay the bills and keep hanging out with Red, which was the important thing.
And then one night it all went to hell.
I don’t know what set them off. She hadn’t even gotten off-stage yet. The last notes of Heightmap were still echoing through the speakers, she was bowing to the usual thunderous applause, when I started to hear yelling in the audience instead of cheering. I hastily came to the edge of the wings and looked out, only to see a large portion of the audience had gotten up and was running towards the stage. Audience? No, they were a mob now. I don’t know what they wanted. I saw the band run, abandoning the drum kit and then the double bass in their panic.
Red stood alone, frozen, on the stage, staring at them in incomprehension. Eloise was wringing her hands beside me. They were getting close to her.
I ran.
“Red,” I said as I moved past her, getting in fighting stance, “get off the stage.”
“I-”
“Go!”
She fled, and I settled to my work. I wouldn’t be able to keep them back for long. If Red were able to barricade herself in an inner room until… someone would have to call the Admins. “Eloise!” I yelled back. “Call the Admins!” Eloise squeaked, which I took for an affirmative. “Get her somewhere safe!”
I had to back up; they were starting to get around me. And once I started, I had to back up all the way – the stage was a great place for them to surround me and beat me into a pulp, which I had no intention of allowing to happen either. Although, I began to notice that not everyone on the stage was there to attack me or Red. Some other people from the audience were fighting back.
It wasn’t long afterward that Admins began to show up, freezing the fighting and separating everyone from each other. Red hadn’t gone far, and she re-emerged from the wings in the middle of everything, her face white as paper. I tried to smile at her reassuringly from where I was held, though I’d failed to block at least one punch and had a split lip now, blood dripping down onto my white shirt.
One of the men who’d been attacking me tried to struggle away from the Admin taking him into custody. “Her! Her! She’s the instigator!”
“What?” Red asked in a tiny voice.
“She’s a provocateur! You should arrest her, not us!”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” the Admin told him. “She was singing, not throwing punches at you. You’re banned from this venue for life. Come along.”
They let me go when Eloise and Red vouched for me, and when we were alone, we took stock of the damage. The drum kit was wrecked, the bass smashed. The bass player actually sat down and cried.
“I’m so sorry,” Red whispered.
“Red,” Eloise said, trying to maintain her usual poise and failing miserably. “Sybil is here. Let’s talk about what we’re going to do next.”
Sybil appeared, as emotionless as ever, and held out her arms. To my surprise, Red accepted the hug from the taller woman, although she seemed to be moving as if in a dream.
After a moment, they separated again and we gathered in a circle, Red, Eloise and Sybil in the centre, and me and the band on the outside.
“So. What to do next,” Sybil said.
“I don’t think I can do another season of performances without a break,” Red said immediately.
“What about tomorrow?” Eloise said. “It’s the last one in your current run. Just one more, Red, and then you can take all the time you need.”
“I’ll do tomorrow,” Red said, although she hesitated first. “I… I shouldn’t. But I will. …What happened?”
“I don’t know,” Eloise said.
“Your music is incredibly charged emotionally,” Sybil said. “It’s possible that certain parties were overwhelmed and felt the need to act out somehow. It’s not acceptable. There will be repercussions.”
Red stifled a sob.
“Not repercussions for you,” Sybil added hastily, actual emotion crossing her face. “Cloudbank can’t have its best artist – artists – attacked for doing their job. Those rioters will be examples to other would-be troublemakers. It will not happen again.”
“I can’t just dumb down my music,” Red said. “I’m not going to c-compromise.”
“No one’s suggesting you compromise,” Eloise said. “Yet.”
“How long are you going to take off?” Sybil asked.
“I don’t know,” Red said. “Six months, a year… I just need to get away.” And I saw she needed to get away now, or she was going to break down completely in front of them all.
I shouldered in beside her. “Begging your pardon, but I think it’s time Miss Red got on home to rest. She’ll be in touch with you all tomorrow, if that’s quite all right with you.”
Eloise and the band nodded, but I didn’t miss the absolutely venomous glance Sybil gave me before she returned to her usual blank expression and nodded. “Go rest, Red. Sleep well. We’ll be in touch.”
I shepherded Red back to her room long enough for her to grab her coat, and then I walked her home, my arm around her, not letting go of her for a moment. “I don’t understand,” she said when we were halfway there, the first thing she’d said since she’d left the Empty Set.
“Me either,” I said. “It’s gonna be okay, though. It’s gonna be okay.”
She swallowed. “I don’t know. How can I put myself into my songs if this is what happens from it? I… I never intended…”
“You were probably right, what you said back there. They just need a reset. Some time apart from you. It’s not you, Red, honest.”
“I said I needed a reset,” she said, a little snappish, and I hugged her closer.
“Everyone needs a reset. It’s gonna be okay, Red.”
She looked up at me. “You’re going to need an ice pack.” I thought I’d wiped all the blood off my face with what was left of my shirt, but I guess the bruising was going to stay.
“I’ll get it later. You just think about home. Nice warm bath, nice warm bed, maybe a glass of white…”
She sniffled. “You’re so good to me.”
I shrugged. “Least I can do.” We made it to her door. “You sleep well now, okay?”
“Okay.” She went inside and shut it, light streaming through the yellow glass, warm and safe.

She finished the next day’s performance, although she was missing her spirit in it, and immediately withdrew to her home. For a week, she was a recluse, although she went on her daily run and discussed the situation seriously with Eloise and Sybil. I don’t know what else she did during that time.
For a few days, she didn’t even see me.
After that week had passed, she began to interact with people again, and I learned she had written the draft of a new song and was letting it simmer before completing it. A few weeks later, she said it was done and sang it for me, accompanying herself on piano; she called it In Circles and it sounded… peculiar, off-kilter somehow. It was a soulful, haunting reaction to public perception of her. I think. In any event, it echoed in my ears long after I’d gone home. I couldn’t wait to hear her perform it on the stage with the band.
She didn’t write anything else for a while, choosing instead, she told me, to just let life happen, absorb it, regather her strength and inspirations for her next endeavour. It was fine by me, although I still had to keep my own work going.
We did spend a lot of time together, walking around the city. I knew it better than she did, I think, although I mostly knew the canals and the Bay, where the best pubs were, the stadiums, where the rings were… now we got to discover the parks, the galleries, the rooftop pools. She didn’t own her own transportation, neither a car nor a motorcycle, although she knew how to operate both, so we mostly walked or took public transportation. Sometimes she got accosted by reporters or fans, though none of them threatened violence, not with me looming protectively over her. She sometimes answered a few interview questions, mostly about the incident.
It was a cool day, under a violet sky, when we went to the biggest park in Sunset. An artificial stream ran through it, between grassy hills, with a baseball diamond on one side and a skate park on the other. School had just gotten out, and while we ate sandwiches on the hill, children swarmed around the stream, setting little paper boats afloat and watching how far they got. …Some of the kids threw pebbles at the boats, the little jerks.
“That looks fun,” she said. “I’m going to do that.” She stood, my jacket still hanging from her shoulders.
I leaned back on my hands and looked up at her. “Are you?”
“You come too,” she ordered cheerfully.
“Yes’m.” I brushed grass from my trousers and followed her down to the water.
The kids had plenty of paper, and she selected a yellow square, and I a red one, and we crouched beside a pair of blonde pig-tailed girls who were more than willing to show us grown-ups how it was done, even me, though they looked at me funny first. It made me strangely nervous, working with this little bit of coloured paper, folding it this way and that on the tiles of the path, our heads close together. But, our boats looked pretty similar when we were done. We brought them to the water and set sail, and they immediately pulled together like magnets from surface tension. Together, they floated pretty well, bobbing down the stream towards the bottom end of the park, where there was a pool that was dotted with the things by now.
Then some brat threw a pebble at ours, and while it missed, mine got splashed. I snorted, and Red rolled her eyes.

She wrote a bunch of new songs over the next month; one of them was called The Spine, related, I guess, to that sculpture on top of Highrise. Her most incomprehensible song yet, I couldn’t make head or tails of it, and as usual, she refused to explain it, even to me. Another was called Water Wall, a slow, elegant tango about the canals, and another one Gateless, which actually sounded kind of like the stuff I used to listen to. I’d shared my musical tastes with her a long time ago, and I wondered if she’d actually used them for inspiration. Couldn’t imagine it seriously, though.
Another of them was called Signals. I caught a glimpse of the lyrics one night and felt my heart constrict. “Um, Red?”
“Mmhmm?” She was across the room on her terminal.
“You doing all right?”
“Yeah, why?”
“You’re not still upset about those fellas wrecking your show, are you?”
She turned to face me, frowning. “No, why?”
I tapped the paper. “This doesn’t sound very cheerful.”
She smiled and shrugged. “None of my songs sound cheerful, except maybe Coasting. That’s not the tone I’m going for. If you want cheerful, you can listen to Sixth String.” And I did listen to Sixth String, sometimes, when I wanted a change. That wasn’t the point.
I came over to kneel beside her chair. “Okay, look, listen, Red… please tell me… you’re not thinking of going to the Country, right?”
Her smile faded from her face. “No. Oh. Oh, I see. No. No, don’t worry.”
“Really? Because- if there’s anything I can do-”
“I’m fine. Really.”
So she said, but I still worried.
I worried more when I heard her working out the tune and chords on guitar a day or two later. It was low, slow, and dirge-like. “Okay, so Red-”
“I’m not suicidal!” she snapped, muting the strings with a slap. “It’s not about me!”
I took a step back. “You know I… never mind.”
Her face softened. “Sorry. I’m just not used to… sorry.”
“It’s okay,” I mumbled, and plopped down on the couch. “So, uh, would you explain this one to me, so I can stop worrying?”
She grimaced, red lips pressed into a line. “I suppose I can make an exception. This once.” She turned to me head-on. “Do you ever feel trapped in this city?”
“No? What do you mean?”
She gestured vaguely to the window, through which the vivid orange sky could be seen. “We all do what we do, just trying to get by, shaping the city to our designs, everyone doing the same thing over and over and over. How do you do something different?”
“Ummm… art?”
She smiled wryly. “Even the artists follow a pattern.”
“Sounds like life. Wouldn’t life outside the city be cyclical, too?”
“Maybe, but sometimes everyone needs a break?”
I sat back and tilted my head, considering. “So you’re saying all this stuff that’s obviously about jumping off buildings is actually about not becoming a number in the system?”
She nodded. “Essentially. Non-conformity. Individualism. People calling for help all over, but no one knows how to read between the lines.”
I made a face. “I got a few problems with that.” Her perfect eyebrow raised. “One, I know that everything in your songs comes from a personal place, that’s how it speaks to people, so you can’t blame me for getting a little concerned. Two, isn’t this going to sound like you’re encouraging other people to head to the Country, even if you’re not planning to? Some people might just be affected for the duration of the concert, but a lot of people, it follows them around. Not everyone’s as stable as you, y’know.”
Her gaze was cool. “So you’re saying it would be irresponsible of me to release this particular song on society?”
“I think so, yes.”
Her eyes suddenly focused on me. “All right, so why are you still worried about me?”
My throat tightened. “Red…”
“Something in this spoke to you, didn’t it?”
I swallowed and looked out the window. “Those first couple lines… There was a time when I felt like that.”
She nodded solemnly. “Me too.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Second year of study at Traverson; my grades were fine, although not spectacular, they weren’t affected much, but because of… I felt…” She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter why, anymore. I was just using an old memory as inspiration.” She sought out my gaze again, unwillingly though I gave it. “Guess I used it a little too much. You don’t feel like that anymore, either, right?”
“No.” I managed to smile. “Got a proper friend now. My life is in balance.” I considered that, then waggled my hand. “More or less. You have no idea how much less pathetic I am now than five years ago.”
She chuckled. “Same here.”
“So we’re good?”
“We’re good.” She hesitated. “Maybe I won’t perform this one, at least not very often. It’ll just be an exercise.”
“I’d be okay with that. …I mean, the tune is nice?”
She smiled ruefully. “I try.”

I bought her tickets to the big game coming up between the Highrise Hammers and their rivals, the Sunset Clientele. She was mildly supportive of the Hammers, not to the extent that I was, but she had some loyalty for her home turf, anyway.
Given the occasion, and the fact that we won – thanks largely to our star quarterfielder, Olmarq – we both drank quite a bit, and were both more than a bit tipsy when it came time to walk her home. I won’t say there was staggering, but there might have been a bit of staggering. We were certainly leaning on each other; you wouldn’t think a woman more than a foot shorter than me would help me keep my balance, huh? Stronger than her slight frame suggested, she was.
I was doing my best impression of She Shines, only partly aware of my deficiencies as a singer in my current state, when a few equally drunk gentlemen came up opposite us. “Bloody Hammerheads,” one of them snarled.
“Hey, hey, hey, hey… hey, not in front of the lady,” I chided them, wondering if I had enough feet to take care of them if they turned belligerent.
“Pfft, ain’t a lady if she’s a Hammerhead like you, jackass-”
“You lookin’ for a fight or something?” I asked mildly. “Because there ain’t one here. Ain’t that right, Red?”
“Fights are silly,” Red cooed from under my arm. “Be good, boys.”
“You got somethin’ to say ’bout my profession?” I asked her, teasingly.
“No, dear,” she teased back.
“You assholes-” One of the men started forwards. He stopped abruptly as I pulled myself carefully to my full height and began shucking my jacket, draping it over Red’s shoulders. “’Course, if you’re really looking for one, we’re both more than a match for you. Even ine- ineb – drunk.”
His gaze wavered from me to Red, who was observing him with narrowed eyes. I hoped she was calculating and not just squinting.
“Well?” I asked. My hands were still at my sides, nonthreatening.
“Nah.” He waved to his buddies and carried on.
I turned to her. “No problem.”
She nodded in an exaggeratedly solemn way. “Didn’t think so.”
And I noticed that her expression was sincerely calm. My girl had nerves of steel, it seemed. Nice.
I guess she’d seen worse at her own concerts.
I saw her home and had a rest on her couch before I could set off to my own place. She was sick in the restroom and I held her hair… held her. I got her water for her eventual hangover and she curled up beside me on the couch, under my arm. Neither of us said anything.

Dinner. She wasn’t actually very good at cooking – one reason she ate so often from Junction Jan’s – and now he frequently made himself busy in her little kitchen, and she would wash up afterwards. Unless it was her birthday, then he cooked and washed. He was very good, at least compared to her, and she appreciated this gift he so often made her.
Tonight he’d made pasta in some kind of cream sauce, a delicious end to a fairly ordinary day. The rain fell grey and quiet outside, but in the kitchen everything was light and cozy. They’d actually finished eating a while ago, but they were still talking, and she was finishing her wine.
“Did you hear about Niola’s new project?” she asked, leaning her chin on her hand and looking at him fondly, rolling the stem of her wineglass between the fingers of her other hand.
“Not really, what is it?”
“A gallery for those pursuing non-traditional vocations, I think was how she put it.”
“So a place to put all your golden records and old concert posters?” He winked, and she laughed.
“No, no, more for modernist visual art like paintings and statues,” she scolded. “I’m already famous for some reason, I don’t need Niola’s help to get exposure.”
“’For some reason’,” he muttered teasingly. “As if you don’t know that you have the most beautiful voice in Cloudbank.”
“At least according to you,” she teased back gently.
He chuckled and followed it up with a quiet “I love you.”
She had known it for a long time, but she hadn’t expected him to say it just then, so she couldn’t help a mild jolt that shot through her. She grinned widely at him. “I love you too.”
He laughed again, the slightest hint of apprehension melting away, his dark eyes sparkling with joy, and she knew hers were the same. Their hands met and joined, his fingers dark and rough against her pale smooth ones.
Eventually she rose and gathered the dishes, and he let her. But when she took them to the sink to wash them, he rose and stood behind her, holding her the entire time, even though it got a little awkward at times. When she was done, she dried her hands on the dishtowel, removed her apron, and turned in his arms to face him, rising on her toes and lifting her face to his.
He took the hint and leaned down for a kiss, a long, sweet kiss, their first kiss.
“You should stay over tonight,” she said.
“All right,” he said.

I opened my eyes and saw a ceiling that was not mine. I could feel her small slim body was missing from the bed beside me, but I could hear her humming softly to herself somewhere else in the apartment, so she hadn’t gone far.
But how far we had gone since yesterday, just with that one quiet exchange.
I got up and began to dress, in a leisurely way, not bothering to button up my shirt or comb my hair. I snuck through the apartment as silently as I could to the kitchen, where I found water already heating up for tea. In a few moments it was boiling, and I prepared two cups before setting off in search of Red.
She was in the living room at her desk in a loose summer dress, the sun streaming through the windows and making her hair shine like fire. She was still humming contentedly to herself, her chin resting on her hand as she worked with a pencil and paper, and I thought maybe I would surprise her as I padded up behind her in bare feet on the carpet.
I placed one cup in front of her. “Tea?”
“Mm, thank you,” she said absently. “Good morning.”
“Good morning,” I said, taking the seat across from her, studying her face, just as beautiful without make-up, the pale slope of her nose, her large, luminous eyes framed with long lashes pale without mascara or eyeliner, the narrow point of her chin. I’d kissed her all over that face, and by heaven, I’d do it again. “Sleep well?”
“Very well, thank you,” she said, with a huge involuntary grin. “You?”
“Mm.” I leaned forward. “What are you writing?”
“Song. For you.” She covered it. “You can’t see it yet.”
My gaze flicked up to hers. “Can I hear it?”
She smiled bashfully. “Um.”
“Please?”
She took a deep breath, sitting up a little in what I knew now was proper singing posture, though still covering the lyric sheet, and she looked away. “It’s not done yet.” But she wanted to sing it for me, or else she wouldn’t have sat up.
“I know.”
“I haven’t nailed down the tune or the chords yet.”
“That’s okay.”
“My voice isn’t warmed up.”
“Sounds gorgeous to me.”
She laughed. “All right, then.” She paused, then looked straight at me. “Seconds march into the past… moments pass… and just like that, they’re gone…”
I was transfixed.
“The river always finds the sea… so helplessly, like you find me – we are paper boats, floating on a stream, and it would seem, we’ll never be apart…”
I finally remembered to close my mouth. “Wow.”
“That’s verse one,” she mumbled, returning her blue-eyed gaze to her paper, but she seemed pleased with my reaction. “I don’t have the chorus yet.”
“Red.”
“Hmm?”
I stood and moved over to her, and she rose to meet me, drifting into my arms as I drifted into hers. I had nothing to say, no way to properly thank her… “’s a wonderful song,” I said between kisses.
I felt rather than heard her laugh, and then she pushed my shirt and coat back off my shoulders.

I escorted her from her dressing room to the wings; I could hear the audience outside buzzing with excitement, just the way it had when I first heard her sing four years ago. The band had finished tuning. Everything was ready.
“Nervous?” I teased her, a hand on the small of her back, leaning down to murmur into her ear.
She laughed. “A little.”
“You’ll knock ’em dead.”
“Most likely. Still, it’s been a while.”
“You’re beautiful.” She was radiant in a long yellow gown, a fringe of white feathers framing her red hair framing her blue eyes.
She glanced up at me, her red lips curving into a smile. “Thank you. I should start.”
“Just a moment.”
“Is something wrong? Is there something on my face-”
I tugged gently on her elbow, drawing her effortlessly towards me, and she tilted her face up towards mine. “Kiss for luck,” I mumbled after I kissed her, and she nodded, feathers bobbing, before she turned towards the lights.

“Staying late to practice tonight?” Eloise asked her, keys in hand.
“Yes,” she said. “You can lock me in. I’ll lock up when I leave. Thank you, Eloise.”
Her manager nodded and headed for the exit.
She turned to the wings of stage left and smiled at him. “Your own private concert.”
“My favourite.” He smiled back and leaned against the wall in the shadows, hands in pockets. “Don’t let me disturb you.”
“You never do.” She tapped the mic to make sure it was still on and began, picking apart the places where she had not been satisfied with her performance a couple hours ago. Her first two concerts had been fine, and the reviews had been mostly complimentary, but while she was glad to be back in her usual hall, she was still re-settling in and wanted to try some things.
She was in the middle of We All Become when she saw movement and squinted towards the entrance through the still-active stage lights, then relaxed. It was Sybil, and some of her friends. “Hello, Sybil! I was just practicing.”
“I know,” Sybil said, and she seemed disquiet. “Red…”
“Red, I’d like to introduce our little group to you,” Grant Kendrell said. “We are the Camerata, and we are devoted to bringing about lasting change in Cloudbank. You see, when everything changes, nothing changes. We’d like you to join us. Your talents would help us greatly in furthering our cause. The Transistor will see to it.”
“I see…” she said, wondering why she hadn’t heard of the Camerata before when she knew everyone apparently in it – Sybil Reisz, Grant and Asher Kendrell, Royce Brackett…
There was motion at Grant’s side, and a long, gleaming teal object appeared, seemingly out of nowhere. She stared at it in incomprehension, and then it suddenly translated itself for her.
It was a sword, and it was pointed at her.
She stumbled backwards in shock, a frightened squeak bursting from her throat, flinging her arms up uselessly in front of her wide, terrified eyes as the sword shot towards her telekinetically.

I frowned at Sybil’s little gang as they invaded Red’s practice time. Didn’t they know any better, this ‘Camerata’? Red wasn’t going to get involved in politics. Her music wasn’t a social commentary. It was a commentary on life itself. It was art. To ask that it serve their purposes was selfishness in the extreme-
Then there was a teal technosword – the Transistor? – aimed at her, flying at her, and I didn’t even have to order my body to move.

Someone suddenly pushed her roughly to the side, and she gasped as she felt the impact of the sword in his body. Before she could react further, there was a blink, and the stage of the Empty Set disappeared to be replaced by the overlook near Fairview.
How he had gotten to her side so fast, how they had seemingly teleported away, she would never know, but now he was nowhere in sight, and she was freezing in the cold night air. She was in shock, her breath coming in quick gasps, her eyes still wide as saucers.
“J-” she began, and the name would not come. No words would come. She had no voice! No voice! She began to hyperventilate, but then she heard a voice calling her. His voice. He was all right!
“Hey… Red… Where are you? …Where are you? Where are you?” She still couldn’t see him but she could shuffle in his direction. “Don’t be gone, please don’t be gone… I can’t… I’m here. I’m over here, I’m over here, I’m… still here.” He sounded as dazed as she felt, trying to reassure himself rather than her. He didn’t normally talk this much. He’d been badly hurt, she had felt that much, and she wanted to tell him to stop talking rather than risk hurting himself further, but without his voice to guide her… she didn’t think she would be able to continue.
“Look, if she’s hurt, if she’s hurt, I’ll… I’ll what… I’ll what? I’ll nothing. Stuck. I’m stuck, inside, am I, inside… that thing. What is all this, inside there’s nothing… nothing… He~ey!” The last word was overflowing with compassion, interrupting the bitter monologue and she saw him the same moment he apparently saw her.
Her breath heaved in a shuddering gasp as she saw him. Slumped against a fence, with the gently-glowing Transistor impaling his gut, unmoving. He looked like…
“That you?” he asked, and the Transistor flickered. “Oh, look at you.” He sighed in relief as she stumbled closer, but he still wasn’t moving. What was…? “Thank goodness you’re safe. I… I saved you, right? It’s all right now. Could use your help, I know this looks bad… Just take your time.”
She felt all the blood drain from her face as she knelt down beside him. He was dead, his eyes closed, his mouth closed. She almost collapsed right there with the weight of the ice in her heart, but she had heard his voice, she knew she had! She wasn’t crazy!
“Hey… say something, already.” The Transistor flickered again. Her eyes went to it and her mouth fell open. He- he-
“Say something, will you?”
She tried to speak, but nothing came out.
“Oh no.” He sounded devastated.
After a pause, he continued, his voice almost breaking. “I’m so sorry, Red. They took your voice. I couldn’t stop them.”
She almost felt angry. He had died for her, and he was worried about her voice? True, losing her voice felt like losing half of herself, but she could live without it. He was her other half, and losing him…
She wanted to break down in sobs, wanted to fling herself against his body in the hopes that he would magically heal and awaken and hold her. She did neither.
For a long moment they stared at each other. Well, she stared at his body, and the Transistor stared at her from the single red eye in the centre of the blade, red as her hair.
Eventually she slapped her cheeks with a sharp exhalation, and began to move. She found one of the seams in the overlapping horizontal panels of her long yellow silk dress, and gave a sharp tug.
“Wait, what are you-”
She didn’t hesitate but tore all the way around until she was left with a short skirt instead of a gown, something she could move in. His jacket lay nearby, somehow, and she pulled it over her slim shoulders. It was far too big for her, but it was cool in Cloudbank at night, her own jacket was somewhere backstage at the Empty Set, and she wasn’t going to leave him behind entirely.
It smelled like him and she had to close her eyes briefly in exquisite pain.
He guessed what she was doing. “We got four problems. We saw their faces. We know their names. We know what they’re capable of. They’ll find us again. They’ll find you and finish the job. Unless you find them first. You always have a plan. And now you have something more.”
She nodded firmly and reached out.
“Hey, Red. We’re not going to get away with this, are we.”
She took hold of the hilt of the Transistor and braced herself.

She swung astride Preston Moyle’s abandoned but pristine motorcycle, hauling the Transistor into a relatively secure spot on her lap, and started the engine. She hummed as she did so, the only thing that was left to her now of her voice.
As she crossed the bridge back towards the city centre, the Transistor lit up. “Hi, you turned left.” He had specifically told her not to, even after he had told her to go find the Camerata before they found her, but she had other plans. “Thought we were going to skip town. …You met these things. They do not have a sense of humour. They will track you down, wipe you out, and take whatever’s left of me…” Her grip tightened on the handlebars as her gaze hardened. As if she would let that happen. But someone needed to answer for his death. Someone needed to answer for the Process machines that now ran amok in the city.
“Look, whatever you’re thinking… Do me a favour. Don’t let me go.”
She let go of the handlebars with one hand, wrapped it around the hilt of the Transistor, and squeezed. Never.

I didn’t feel so good. I didn’t know why, and I couldn’t focus enough to figure out why. All I could see was her, above me, dragging me down the once-familiar streets… and it was very important that I tell her. “Think anybody else… is in here… besides me? I’ve seen… no one.” It was… empty, in here, in this thing, even though I knew, I knew there were other Traces of people, I remembered meeting them… right? Actually it was kind of trippy in here. Couldn’t describe it, not even to her. Wasn’t important, anyway.
“But when I look up… to where the sky should be… I see you… and I know… you can hear me. …You… can hear me, right?”
She paused and knelt down beside me, and even in my delirious state I could see the concern on her face that said she could hear me.
That was all that mattered.
“Know where you’re going? Because I do not. At this time.”
She gave me a look that was half amusement, and half the disappointed look that she gave me whenever I was around her while being too drunk to function. But it wasn’t my, wasn’t my fault this time! It was… the flying thing! The Spine of the World, that giant tacky sculpture on one of the tallest buildings in Highrise, it was flying around and doing this to me. Man, I sounded high.
She stood and kept going, kept dragging me behind her. Good thing I didn’t feel much in here, else I’m sure my ass would be raw by now. Or my heels, whatever. Whatever human part of me matched the end of the Transistor. But hey, she was doing a great job dragging me through town, fighting the bad guys… even without my dubious moral support. “That’s my star. …Could always handle yourself… Just fine.”
She glanced down at me with a shadowy half-smile and began to hum, as she had been doing off and on when there weren’t things to fight. And I remembered what had been so important to tell her.
“I love you so much, Red. You know that, right? It’s true. It’s true. …It’s true.”
She stopped dead, looking down at me, a crease between her eyebrows. She looked like she was going to cry. Or kiss me. What was left of me in here. I’ll get you out of there, her face said.
I believed her face.
Not much else I could do in here.

She found a terminal and typed rapidly. >Hey. It’s me. It’s me. Are you still there? Answer me. He’d made comments about the content of the terminals before, hopefully he wouldn’t have stopped now just because he was… ill. He’d tried to tell her a joke a few minutes ago, he was trying to keep her spirits up, but his efforts to keep it together had been abysmal under whatever influence was corrupting him. She desperately hoped it wasn’t permanent.
He answered, though he still sounded completely out of it. “Red, I… what…?”
She breathed a sigh of relief anyway, although she was still terrified. >Look we’re going to get ourselves out of this OK?
“Okay… Okay… I… yeah.”
>Hold on you just try to hold on all right?
His voice was strained. “I’m trying… I’m trying…”
>Hold on, you have to hold on, I’m going to…….. She forgot what she was going to say. No one did this to her man. No one.
“Go get ’em…” he said weakly.
Her heart and jaw clenched. >I’m going to find the thing that’s doing this and I’m going to break its heart.
“I believe you…”

And she did.

She stepped onto the rooftop cautiously, fully expecting another attack, from either of the Kendrells, but silence and stillness met her. To her right, the terminal blinked obnoxiously. Another message to her? But where were they?
“What!?”
They were there, in the corner, Grant sprawled motionless, Asher curled up beside him. Above them, Asher’s black cat crouched, guarding them, apparently.
The two men were dead.
“Cowards,” John muttered, and she went to the terminal, hoping to find anything that would explain… anything, really.
A message from Asher, dated fifteen minutes ago. She glanced over at the bodies. He probably wasn’t even cold. She had been so close and so far.
She pressed play.
“I couldn’t stay,” Asher’s low monotone murmured from the speakers. “To meet with you in person. Grant, he couldn’t wait any longer.” His voice was on the edge of breaking. “Why he would leave me… I’d sooner take an eternity in the Transistor.” A pause, as he regained control of himself. “But, he was no longer seeing straight. Or, perhaps he decided he’d seen enough. We knew the stakes of what we wanted to accomplish.” He sounded tired, resigned. “And we knew that if we were to fail, we would do so together. As one.” Another pause. “See you in the Country.”
The message ended.
She paused, then typed out a response that he would never see. >See you in the Country. -R
She gave them another look, pained contempt mixed with regretful compassion, and went to see if they had anything about Royce Bracket’s whereabouts.

“Hey, back at Bracket Towers, I never told you that joke, you ready?”
She lazily opened one eye and gave him a little half-smirk.
“What’s the difference between an administrator and a drunk?”
Her eyebrow raised.
“I’ve never been an administrator.”
She snorted and her head fell back into the hammock in exasperation, but she was wearing a wide and genuine smile. Without looking, she reached out and patted the hilt of the Transistor. Oh you.
He chuckled.

They’d found their way back to the Empty Set again, which was turning from a stage of shadows and dark, vibrant colours into blank white walls and squares and blocks. She’d found a terminal that still worked and read with a heavy heart the last moments of the last people of Cloudbank.
There was nothing left in this city, nothing but the Transistor, her, and the shadowy promise that Royce Bracket was still in Fairview.
For a moment, Signals flitted through her head, the melancholy dirge unsettlingly fitting. She pushed it away.
She opened a comment. >None of this is coming through anymore is it…
“I think you’re right,” he said softly from where he leaned against her helplessly.
>Though you still hear me don’t you… She wasn’t lonely, would never be lonely with him around, but she felt so… so impotent without her voice.
“Of course. Of course I do.” He was quick to reassure her, his voice soft with earnest affection.
It made her feel weak; she longed to return it properly. >You’re all I have.
“Red…”
>There has to be
>There has to be a way to get you out of there.
“We’ll figure it out when we get there.”
>Yes we will.

He was drunk again. Or, more accurately, another massive Process beast was around, turning him into a slurring shell of himself.
“Red… will I ever… see you again?”
She kept trotting down the mostly-Processed corridors that had once been the streets of Goldwalk.
“I mean… face to face. I like to wonder… about that.”
She did, too.
“Like, maybe you could get me out of here or something. Then! Then we could watch… everything around us… wash away… hand in hand.”
Words from one of her songs, slightly adapted. She squeezed the hilt of the Transistor and braced herself as she saw Process spawning ahead of her.

“Uh. Hi.” And he was himself again. The creature was gone. She hadn’t even killed this one. “…What I said back there… about wanting to see you again. Face to face.”
She glanced down.
“I want you to know… I meant it.”
She wished so badly she could answer.

She made a right turn down into darkness, red-firewalled darkness, the only bridge through nothingness lit by dim lights, some red, some orange, some blue. “Welcome!” Royce’s nasal, dreamy voice drifted to her from somewhere ahead of her. “Welcome, welcome. Well, come in, come on inside my studio. I’m quite unarmed, as you can see… and it’s safe in here here, relatively… safe. At least, for now.” The first firewall came down ahead of her, and as she walked forward, it came back up before the next one went down. The soft strumming of a double bass on a record and the hum of technology made a soft foundation for his words.
As her eyes began to adjust to the dark, she became more aware of the dim green light of a terminal somewhere high up in the dark space, a light that barely illuminated the slight form of the engineer. He was typing away busily as he droned at her, much as he had been through all of Fairview.
“Doesn’t get a lot of visitors, huh,” John murmured to her from her side, and she nodded as she waited impatiently for the next firewall to come down.
“Here’s the thing, now,” Royce meandered on, not hearing him, “if the Transistor doesn’t go back in its Cradle, then, why, you and I both… Well, we just won’t be anything anymore in a little while. You, me, and the rest of this town. So, please, don’t let my work go to waste. I’m being reasonable.”
She gritted her teeth a little as she trotted along between more firewalls, hoping the ground didn’t suddenly vanish from under her. In her experience, people who said they were being reasonable, even in such a reasonable tone as Royce’s, were often asking for something unreasonable anyway. But she couldn’t tell him to go to hell. Probably wouldn’t have even if she could. Royce was her only way to fixing anything anymore.
“Now, full disclosure… full disclosure, here, which is… I am… positively certain one hundred percent that this will work. Which is, Transistor plus Cradle equals no more Process.” What was this Cradle he was going on about? She’d better find out soon, or else… “No funny business, okay? We’ll just take it one thing at a time. One topic at a time.”
Another firewall, and she hesitated before stepping through. He noticed. “Look. If this was… if this was all just some kind of ruse… on my part, I mean, how… base… Why would I lead you all this way? I’ll level with you, yes, I would like it back. I’d very much, if you must know, but… You know what? At this point I would settle for not being wiped out of existence. I would happily settle for that.”
“I get what he’s saying, for once,” John said to her grimly. “Hope he’s right about this one hundred percent thing.”
Royce finally fell silent – she’d had to endure his voice for the last two hours through Fairview, talking to her by proxy, and she was grateful for the quiet, but also she dreaded it, because…
The end of her journey lay ahead of her.
A glowing, crimson slot in a pillar that was shaped like the Transistor’s blade but much, much bigger, stretching for stories under her feet, casting a bright light that illuminated nothing; a technological stone for her technological sword.
She swallowed and gripped the hilt tighter.
“This is it, then,” he said to her in a low voice. “You know what you have to do.”
This was all so big, too big for them, a singer and a boxer, intelligent, thoughtful people but still just two simple people… on the brink of the unknown…
“…What’ve we got to lose. It’s why we’re here.”
Still she hesitated, clinging to his low, rough voice. Even Royce’s music had faded out, leaving only the hum of the Cradle… and him. Slowly, she brought the sword up and wrapped her arms tightly around it, squeezing it will all her might, willing him to feel her one last time. Yes, he would be always with her in spirit, even if she let go of the sword. Yes, this was as scary for him as it was for her, and he was so brave for her. But… she couldn’t… yet…
“Look, no matter what happens, just…”
“I love you.”
She felt her heart crack.
“You know that, right?”
She let the sword go, and it began to float to the slot, the golden pieces along the bottom and sides hovering clear of it, disassembling. She wrapped her empty arms around herself, pulling his coat tighter around herself, willing herself not to cry. He could see her pain on her face as plain as day anyway.
“It’s time,” he said, static beginning to blur the edges of his voice, the Transistor itself beginning to dissolve into thin air as it slotted itself into the Cradle. “Bye for now.”
Bursts of orange-red light, spiraling and circling her, everything growing dark…
“…But I will see you again. I will see you again.”

Everything was white…
“I know you can hear me. I won’t let you go. Stay with me. Stay with me.”

She regained consciousness and felt the hilt of the Transistor under her hand. She seized it and scrambled to her feet, looking around.
Royce Bracket was standing near her, looking out at the horizon, a Transistor in his hand too. She looked out and saw a city built of Transistors. There were trees closer by, farmlands, a farmhouse, but they seemed vague and indistinct, as if they weren’t really there, or there was some veil between her and them.
She tried to ask where they were, what was going on, but her voice refused to cooperate still.
Royce heard her stand, and turned to her, a strangely exultant and yet mystified look on his intense face. “Let’s see, the good news… Well, the Process, I think we got it. Contained it, so the town is going to be all right.”
That was definitely good news, but she was hoping for more than that.
“It’s just, well, someone’s going to have to rebuild. But, we flew a little close to the flame there, so…”
What was he going on about? Rebuilding could wait. What about the people? What about John?
The Transistor in her hand was silent.
“Now… we’re here, not there. We’re stuck.”
What?
“And unfortunately, the only way back that I’m aware of, is, well… unpleasant.” He swung his Transistor up onto his shoulder meaningfully. “So… let’s get this over with.”
Her face hardened and she brought her own Transistor up, ready to fight.
“Who gets to go first?” Royce asked, a sardonic smile touching his lips. “How about… me.”
A moment later she staggered back, reeling from a series of blows too fast to see, too fast to Jaunt() from. So that was what it felt like to get attacked with the Transistor’s Turn() function… But now it was her Turn().
She was angry. Furious. Asher had promised answers. Royce had promised help. Asher had killed himself, she’d lost John, and Royce was trying to kill her.
She would do her damnedest to kill him if that’s what it took.
After a few moments of fighting, one thing became clear.
She was better at this than him.
True, he seemed to know the Transistor very well, certainly carried it more easily than she did, over his shoulder, and he knew how to use all its skills, with much more finesse than she did, but he used them as an engineer, methodically but not very effectively for the purpose he needed right now. She’d been fighting for her life for the last twelve hours. She knew how to kick his ass. Had he ever fought before?
“Why are you smiling, Red?”
She hit him with a triple Void() and a barrage of backstabbing Crash()es and Tap()s in response, then darted away before he could catch her, forcing him to waste valuable seconds chasing her. When time returned to normal she had the satisfaction of seeing his Transistor spark and smoke, and he hissed in pain.
“How are you doing this, Red? Are you reading my mind?”
She sped back and forth in a zig-zag, leaving behind a trail of clones to confuse and dismay him. He ignored them – they only served to confuse the Process, who couldn’t tell the difference – but he was frowning in concentration and anxiety. He could tell as well as she could that she was winning.
She Crash()ed into him and his Transistor exploded in his hand.
“Impossible!” His sparking Transistor floated away from him, and he reached for it, desperately, straining with every fibre of his body. “No, no it can’t, it can’t be gone, please don’t be gone, please don’t-”
It dissolved under his fingertips and he fell to his knees with a cry of despair.
She fainted.

She came to, kneeling on white blocks, a gently glowing Transistor in her hand. She gasped for air.
“We got away,” he said, the glow flickering in time to his words. “Red, we got away. …Now you’re here. And me. …And that’s it.”
She pulled herself to her feet and looked around. Everything was white. White sky, white blocks as far as she could see, except for dark, dark water, far below the platform on which she stood. The world was completely silent.
She looked at the Transistor in her hand. A brush, Royce had called it, and Cloudbank a canvas…
She closed her eyes and began to hum, channeling what she could of her thoughts, her intent, her will… Her teachers at Traverson had always told her the reason her music reached people was because she sang with intention. Because every nuance of every note and word had deep, rich meaning.
She had no words now, but she had never meant anything so much in her life.
Just enough to find out where she was, in relation to…

“Look at this… this whole town.” As she hummed gently from above me, the white blocks flickered and rolled back to reveal parts of the bridge she had built to Fairview. “I guess… it’s yours now. A blank canvas. And you still have the brush.” That being me, of course. I was… kind of excited for her, actually. She had always been the consummate artist. With a whole city, what would she do?
“Better you than the Camerata.”
She kept humming, and I began to feel I recognised the tune. Couldn’t quite place it yet, though.
“So where d’you want to start? Head back to your place in Highrise… Fix up Goldwalk… Junction Jan’s, all the drinking joints in the canals…” There was so much here for her, for us, to explore and discover together, even if we never found a way to bring everyone back online. “What’re you thinking?”
She began to move down the bridge, without fixing the rest of it. She had an idea, moving more and more quickly. She had a destination in mind. “Hey.”
She came to where… my body had been. “…Oh…” And she began to hum.
And I finally recognised the tune. It was Paper Boats. The song she had written for me. For us.
My body coalesced out of the blocks, dark, empty, meaningless. “Look. That’s not me. Not anymore.” I tried to reassure her. “I’m still with you. But I’m not getting out of here.”
For answer, she picked me up and embraced me with all her might, as tightly as she had done before the Cradle. I began to be afraid. “…Red? Hey, what are you doing?”
She gave a sigh and planted the Transistor firmly in the ground. “Wait, wait wait, what’re- What are you doing?”
She had a peaceful look on her face as she slowly, wearily sat down beside my human body, leaning her red head against my shoulder comfortably. “Red?” She wrapped one of his- my- arms around her, and the fear I had turned into terror. “Don’t you do it. Don’t you dare.” She reached out and telekinetically plucked the Transistor from the ground, holding it out away from her, aimed at herself.
And I was helpless to stop her. She had lost her voice; all I had was mine, and my pleading had no power over her. “Don’t do this. Please.”
She waited.
“If you do this… Red, please don’t.”

She knew what he meant. If she did this, Cloudbank would vanish forever. Last user log out, delete program, server wipe. Throw the hard drive in the ocean and watch it sink…
And who knew what would happen to her, really? Leap of faith, into the Country, via the Transistor…
But what good was having an entire city to herself if the only person in the world to her was trapped on the other side?
They’d had good times here, yes. Her entire life had been spent here. He’d come here, of his own free will, and they both loved this place.
But didn’t he realize she loved him more?
She smiled – “Wait!!” – and gave a twitch of her fingers.

“Red!! Red… no, Red… What did you do, what did you do… No no no no no… No, Red, no. No…”

She was… warm. She frowned and opened her eyes.
She was lying in a soft bed in a pale, homey room. Her body felt… light, her arms and shoulders and feet didn’t hurt, the scratches and burns she’d received from the Process nowhere to be found.
Slowly, she sat up and climbed out of bed; she was wearing her yellow gown, floor-length and untorn, but without the feather collar. She went to the window and looked out; the sky was as blue as any of Farrah Yon-Dale’s sky-paintings, with wind-whipped clouds gathering on the horizon. Outside of the house was a seemingly-never-ending expanse of golden wheat, dazzling in the light.
She began to hum, then stopped. She… she could speak. She could sing.
She was in the Country.
“Seconds march into the past… moments pass… and just like that, they’re gone…”
Was it her imagination, or did she hear a rough baritone in distant answer to her rich mezzo?
“The river always finds the sea, so helplessly, like you find me…”
It was gone now, that deeper echo – or was it? – but she kept singing, her heart beating faster and faster, hope surging wildly within her as she walked through the house, looking for the door. “We are paper boats, floating on a stream, and it would seem, we’ll never be apart…” There was the door; she pushed it open and stepped out among the wheat, into the blinding sunshine. “I will always find you, like it’s written in the stars… You can run but you can’t hide, try…” Her own little joke, he would never run from her, or from their love.
There was a dark-haired, dark-skinned figure in a dark jacket with a gleaming golden triangle on the back, standing off in the distance with his back to her. For a moment she couldn’t breathe.
Then she found her voice again. “John!” She was running, as fast as her feet would carry her, and he was turning, his face lit up in incredulous joy, running to meet her.
They met halfway, and she stopped, panting, grinning up at him, laughing breathlessly.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hey.”

 

 

---

 

Have I mentioned this game is a masterpiece yet? <3

* I subscribe to the “Country=Real World” theory. Hopefully that’s come across, but not too strongly. And that Cloudbank is some kind of VR-MMO/Matrix deal. And I don’t fully think that John is a ‘hacker’, but sure, he’s from outside the system somehow. And it’s not really important how, just like many other things about this world, things that just are, and that’s okay.

Also, do I think John and Red are married? I think it would be nice; they certainly act like it, but on the other hand, it’s not necessary. They love each other, and that’s enough for them. Although they might have had a quiet ceremony with just the two of them at some point. Maybe he moved in permanently. Probably he didn’t; he still refers to her apartment as ‘your place’. I don’t know. Same deal as above – it’s not important, and that’s okay.

It’s taken me like a week and a half to realize that the male voice (probably Darren Korb) that comes in for “The river always finds the sea” keeps going through almost the entire rest of the song, just very faintly. Silly me. Of course John’s going to keep singing along.