Kadria Backstory Pt1

“So that’s it? After all these years, you’re dropping me as a student?” Kadria asked, fists clenched beneath the café table.

“I just said it’s not like that.” Her PhD supervisor, Stanton, sighed and ran a hand through his thinning gray hair. “The budget cuts this year are immense. Half of the physics faculty just lost their jobs. I’ve been told that I’ll go back to teaching college undergrads or I’ll join them.”

Kadria grit her teeth and looked away. Frustration welled up within herself and she felt tears sting her eyes, but she fought them with everything she had.

Like hell she would allow years of her life to be wasted like this.

The two of them sat in a quiet café on the outskirts of the university campus. Given it was late summer, most of the people here were the professors and post-graduate students puttering about the research facilities. The looks thrown at her and Stanton suggested that the café staff wanted to close for the day, but knew better than to interrupt.

Kadria wasn’t much to look at, at least in her own eyes. Lanky, a little pudgy, and with a muddy complexion due to her parents’ differing birthplaces. She had lived her whole life on the east coast of the States, but her father was the only child of war refugees and her mother had moved from Japan for her career. While she tried to offset her own appearance with sharper clothes, there was only so much she could do.

“What about the facilities? Are the particle accelerators just going to rust away?” she asked.

“I imagine they’ll be dismantled and sold off.”

She stared at her supervisor, who shrugged.

“This has been coming for a while now. PhD enrolments have been down for a decade. Everybody is going private, but they’re hiring engineers and applied scientists, not academics. Our facilities are out-of-date. Even your father’s government contract is done at a specialized facility,” Stanton said. “Have you thought about going private? You’d be snatched up in a heartbeat.”

“No.”

“You should.”

“I want to…” Kadria trailed off, unwilling to speak her true thoughts. Once she recomposed herself, she continued. “I want to finish what I started. I’ve nearly finished my thesis. Are you sure there’s noone else who could take me on?”

“It wouldn’t matter even if there was. Without the facilities, your thesis is unlikely to meet any committee’s requirements. You’ll need to transfer. I’ll support you and your father’s name should get you in anywhere you want, but you’ll need to get your family’s financial support.”

And that was the kicker.

Kadria left the café. Stanton offered her a lift, but she refused out of politeness and sheer stubbornness. Taking one of the self-driving taxis back home was too expensive, and the buses barely ran at this time of year. She took the slow, meandering route back into the suburbs.

Her house sat nestled between dozens of eerily similar copycats, as though a child had slapped down the entire suburb with a copy-paste tool. Small differences existed between each building, but the tiny yards and frontages meant that her street was visual proof that she lived in a simulation, if one was inclined to believe in such nonsense.

Inside, her mother sat in the living room with the TV lighting up an otherwise dark room. The curtains were drawn and the house shut up tight. Not a sound could be heard. The TV played business news, as was typical for her mother to watch.

When she spotted Kadria, Mom gestured to the earbuds jammed in her ears. Kadria rolled her eyes and went upstairs to her bedroom. Mom’s voice trailed after her, pausing every so often to give room for the other side of the conversation to exist.

Kadria flopped onto her bed. With her door closed, her mother’s natter was shut out. Hours passed as she mindlessly scrolled through universities, dorm fees, PhD requirements, transfer forms, and a dozen other satellite issues. A vice-like pressure began to build up in her head and she began to feel nauseous with each passing minute.

The sun began to set, but there was no sign of Dad returning home. Another late night she supposed.

On social media, her pages were full of friends who had either been affected by the budget cuts, heard about them, or worried they would be next. Physics was far from the only science faculty being savaged. Looking further afield, other universities and colleges had been hit. Research-focused universities were scrambling. Rumors were circling regarding the reasons.

Kadria did her best to stay away from those threads of online conversation. She felt bad enough as is and didn’t need to amplify her negativity through an echo chamber of conspiracy. Instead, she distracted herself with research.

A scream split the air. Kadria fumbled her phone and cursed. A second later, she processed whose scream it was.

Mom.

“Fuck,” she swore, snatching her phone off the floor and racing out the door.

As she clattered down the stairs, the house seemed the same as before. The door remained locked and the windows shut up.

Then Kadria entered the living room. Mom stared at the TV with her hands over her mouth, eyes wide and fearful. No sound played, only the visuals of a news broadcast.

Buildings burned on the TV. Oddly familiar ones within a large complex in the city. The camera feed was from a circling helicopter which was trying to get a good view despite the plumes of smoke rising from the blaze. Mobs of people massed below.

Sirens flashed atop huge SUVs and armored vehicles while crowds of riot police and soldiers closed in on the blaze. The edge of the camera showed the exterior road and outer wall of the complex, and even larger crowds amassed there.

The news ticker told Kadria what little she hadn’t realized.

“Armed rioters breach government research facility on fourth day of riots. Governor deploys National Guard,” the ticker read.

“Dad,” Kadria muttered, hearing the utter despair in her voice.

Those buildings were familiar because they belonged to the research lab that her father worked at.

Automatically, she pulled her mother into her arms. Kadria switched off the TV. They sat together, feeling numb. Kadria’s phone vibrated repeatedly in her pocket, but she ignored it at first.

After what felt like hours, she pulled her own phone out and dared to look at the messages. Then she winced and stopped. There was even more panic blasting across her feed than she had felt when she saw the news report.

Somebody would contact them, surely?

As it turned out, the answer was yes.

Mom’s phone went off despite the earbuds in the woman’s ears. The ring tone was obnoxiously loud and Kadria snatched it up instantly. The caller ID was private, but she answered anyway.

“Kaede’s phone. This is her daughter, Kadria,” she said.

The person on the other end explained things abruptly. Kadria found him hard to hear, but that was due to the chaos in the background of his end of the call.

“I understand,” she said. “Thank you. We’ll be there very soon.”

She hang up and gave the phone back to Mom, who winced and pocketed it.

“Dad’s in hospital,” Kadria said. “We need to go now if we want to see him. They’re placing the building not lockdown shortly and the city will be going into curfew until the riots are resolved.”

“I’ll grab a bag,” Mom said, then ducked off.

Kadria didn’t bother. She’d slept in her clothes at the campus many times before. Instead, she called up a taxi. Fuck the expense. They needed to get to the hospital as fast as possible.

They weren’t the only people who had the same idea, it seemed. Fortunately, everyone else focused on shopping. They pulled up to the hospital fast enough.

As they approached, the robotic voice of the self-driving taxi chimed out a warning, “Police checkpoint ahead. Please follow all instructions given by law enforcement. Coverage is not provided for incidents with law enforcement. All damage sustained—”

Kadria pressed the mute button on the interior screen to turn off the corporate bullshit.

The taxi slowed to a crawl. Barricades and a thick wall of vehicles prevented anyone from turning around, while the flashing lights of police vehicles ahead were a warning of what was to come. By the time they reached the checkpoint, the street and exterior lighting had flickered on.

When it was their turn, an officer wandered up to the taxi. He wore a thick ballistic vest and had an assault rifle swinging from his neck. Kadria lowered the window, as it didn’t happen automatically. They must be too far from from the designated checkpoint for the taxi to realize.

“You look fine,” the officer grunted out, eying both of them. “Whacha here for?”

Mom cowered when looked at, so Kadria leaned over to respond.

“My father was one of those hurt at the lab. Dr. Ario Miura,” she said.

The officer grunted, then pulled out his own phone. After he jabbed at it for close to a minute, he held it up as if taking photos of them. Kadria assumed he was using some sort of facial recognition.

Just like magic, the officer’s face softened as he nodded. “You’re cleared for entry. Head to the main entrance. There’ll be somebody there to take you to him. They’ll approach you and identify themselves. Don’t go anywhere else or with anyone else,” the man said. “We’re here for a reason.”

He slapped the hood of the taxi, which caused it to beep angrily. Then it slowly made its way to the hospital proper and let them out.

A mixture of police, private security, and soldiers loomed out from every corner of the building as they approached the entrance. There wasn’t much foot traffic, but what little there was received thorough grilling from security.

However, they left Kadria and her mother alone after a quick against their phones. The two of them ducked inside. The same check took place inside, before they were ushered in.

Far too many people crowded at the hospital entrance, given this wasn’t the ER. More than a few stared at them and Kadria felt her muscles tighten in anxiety.

“The Miuras?” a female soldier asked, openly wearing government agency insignias and a uniform that was radically different from those of the others. “I’ll guide you to Dr. Miura. Follow me and—”

“Doctor?” one of the random bystanders shouted out. “Hey, everyone, they’re—”

Whatever was planned wasn’t for Kadria to find out. The security and police inside the entrance surged forward with shouts. They tackled the man to the ground. The escorting soldier put herself between Kadria and the crowd.

Before anyone else got ideas, armed soldiers burst into the room. The metal detectors blared loudly.

“Down! Get down!” the soldiers screamed, screening for Kadria’s escort.

“Let’s go,” the female escort said, pulling Kadria and her mother into the hospital.

They left the chaos behind. Kadria took cold comfort in the fact she didn’t hear gunfire.

“What the fuck?” she gasped out.

“The ward we’re going to is secure. You won’t need to worry about them there. But you’ll need to stay the night here. The city will be too dangerous for anyone to be on the streets tonight,” the escort said.

Soon enough, they found the ward in question. Even more soldiers stood guard around it. Inside, they found Kadria’s father. He looked far better than she expected, but also worse than she hoped.

“You’re alive,” Mom gasped out, tentatively hugging her husband.

“Yes,” he said, unable to return it. One of his arms was in a cast, and the other bandages and wrappings indicated that he had been scarred or burned.

A few other families were inside, but most hadn’t made it in the chaos. Some people looked far worse off. Kadria imagined not everyone had survived.

“What happened?” she found herself asking, unable to believe her father had nearly died simply for doing his job.

“Stupidity,” Dad said, but fear filled his eyes. “We’ve been ignoring them for years but this time… I don’t know. I’ve never seen anything like this. Maybe in my parents’ stories, back in the old country.”

That fear bothered Kadria, but she couldn’t put her finger on why.

Over the next few hours, they mostly busied themselves with idle conversation. Kadria’s stomach began to churn due to a lack of food, however.

“Why don’t you get something to eat?” Dad said. “Security mentioned we have access to a lot of the nearby facilities in the hospital. Taxpayer money at work.” He winked.

Kadria punched him in the arm for such an awful joke, but took him up on the offer. She’d bring back something for Mom.

Rather than try to track down a cafeteria, she instead poked at the raft of meal vending machines in a corridor. The one time she’d spent any serious time in hospital, she had discovered that the food from these tended to be better than what the hospital cafeteria had.

After buying a teriyaki bento and a soda, she settled into a corner to eat. A patrolling soldier kept an eye on her but otherwise ignored her.

“Ah, Miss Miura. I saw your mother with Ario and wondered if you were here,” a smooth, cultured male voice said from above her.

Kadria froze, then looked up. Fortunately, she’d chosen a clean meal to eat.

An impeccably dressed man in his sixties stood in front of her. His neatly trimmed hair seemed to gleam silver, and looked almost metallic. His dark brown eyes seemed almost black, and his face was the definition of a man who had aged gracefully, with a strong jaw and an angular look. Kadria wasn’t familiar with men’s fashion, but she knew his tailored charcoal suit was a brand name.

“Mr. Black,” she greeted. “Is that really your name?”

“It’s what my government ID says, as I’ve told you before.” Despite his words, Black’s eyes gleamed with mischief.

Kadria knew very little about this man, but they had met several times on campus. He was the director of a major research project that, so far as Kadria knew, was associated with the Department of Defense. More specifically, with their Advanced Researched Projects Agency. But given Black had almost no public footprint, he remained an enigma.

Her father worked for him. In fact, the lab that had just been attacked was his.

“How bad is it?” Kadria asked, fishing for information.

“Like much news in my field of late, bad. But it can always be worse. Trust me. One cannot comprehend how much worse things might become,” Black said. “Regardless, my field of work requires me to continue pushing forward. I’ve heard that you have been affected by the recent research cuts across the tertiary education sector.”

She grimaced. “Yes. I’ll need to transfer, but that’s hardly as important as—”

“Never neglect your future, no matter how dark the present is,” Black said, his tone slightly chiding. He took a few steps back and leaned against the far wall. “You may feel this is too soon, but today’s circumstances leave me with openings. I’ve seen your thesis. You—”

“I want to finish my PhD, Mr. Black,” Kadria said firmly.

“That can be arranged. There is considerably alignment between the topic of your thesis and the work I need you for. With my connections, I can easily put you in front of an examination committee in any Ivy League university you desire.” Black snapped his fingers. “I just need you to work for me.”

She stared at him. Her bento lay in her lap, swiftly growing cold as she forgot about it.

“Why me? I’m still only a student. And Dad—”

“You will understand the situation with your father in time,” Black said. “But I’m offering this to you because I feel you can help. You’re far sharper than you give yourself credit for. In two years, you won’t merely have your PhD, but your name attached to one of the most important research projects this country has ever completed.”

“Which is?”

She had a pretty good idea. Although her father never spoke of his work, she had read all of his papers and knew the reason the military might hire him. Kadria wanted to become an academic in the same field.

It was, in short, about the perfect storage and replication of the human mind at all levels, but particularly the quantum level.

“You will be testing and refining an artificial model against a real one. I’m sure I don’t need to explain what that artificial model is, or how you’ll be improving it,” Black said.

Bingo.

“This is a military project,” she said flatly.

“Many great scientific advancements have relied on military funding. Radar, for one. Without it, the modern world would be drastically different. You can serve progress and your country at the same time.”

Easy words to believe.

But Kadria wanted to believe them. Her father had.

More importantly, this represented the easiest way out for her. Take this job, get paid, avoid the huge financial implications of transferring, and still get her PhD. It sounded too good to be true.

Maybe it was.

“I’ll take it,” she said.

Black held out his hand and she shook it.

The next day, she started work at a different facility than the one shown on the news. It sat a dozen miles past the city limits, surrounded by a huge electric fence. The complex looked empty save. Black met her outside with a cheery wave.

“You’ll be nearly alone today. Relocation will take a few weeks, I imagine,” he explained as they wandered over to a hidden bunker entrance in a hill. “This facility is our data center, but I’ve repurposed it. I’ll likely need to investigate the university facilities as well. Although it’s outdated, they do have the necessary equipment for research into quantum physics.”

“This is a literal bunker, isn’t it?” Kadria asked, trying to appear and sound professional.

She had spruced up once they returned home. Soldiers openly patrolled the streets, but most shops remained open. A quick visit to the mall had allowed her to snatch up some work attire for her first professional job. Scientists or not, she wanted to give off a good impression.

“It was. This one was retrofitted for general data center purposes back in the 2010s. Cooling is easier down here, even if other maintenance can be higher. Government contracts make it both cheaper and more frustrating, I’m afraid. An outage on a weekend can be quite painful,” Black said.

When the elevator finally reached the bottom, it disgorged them into a surprisingly ordinary office building. Albeit one without windows. The décor was a sleek silver and black, updated to match current trends. Bulky cameras blinked near security doors on either side of the elevator.

“Your biometrics should already be in the system,” he explained. “If the cameras don’t open the door for you, use the retinal scanner.”

The interior seemed to be empty. No security. No assistants.

No scientists.

“You said I’d be nearly alone,” she said.

“I did. I’m here,” Black said as he trotted up to a sleek coffee machine.

The room they were in contained dozens of monitors separated into separate bays. All of them were off.

“All logins are biometric and the computers use virtualized instances on a quantum computing mainframe. Nothing can go in or out of the facility except through me,” Black explained. “Other than that, go nuts. You should find all of your research documentation and university files in your profile instance.”

With those words, the enigmatic man vanished around a corner.

Kadria spent much of her first day exploring. The building looked like an amalgam between the offices at her university and the labs there. Some of the rooms made little sense to her, but she was careful not to touch anything.

Over the next few days, other staff trickled in. Her father remained at the hospital. Mom spent almost every waking hour there as well. Kadria visited some mornings and nights, but found it difficult. Her mind buzzed with the possibilities she found at her new workplace.

Instead of a thesis, she was developing the real thing. Initially, she only found the AI models of human brains on the machines. Batteries of tests had already been devised for what appeared to be thousands of iterations of these AI brains. Kadria could poke and prod at fake minds, and confirm her thesis for herself.

In her second week, a colleague showed her the artificial brain they were working on. When she saw it, something in her mind told her there might be a reason for the protests. She suppressed the thought and continued working.

The “real thing” showed behaviors far different to the AI model. This was the heart of her father’s theory—that true intelligence wasn’t deterministic. If humanity wanted to understand itself, and to replicate its decisions with computers, it needed to understand that decisions were made at a more complicated level than previously thought.

Finally, in the third week, Kadria returned home late one night to find her family. They were in the kitchen, and her mother was preparing home-made ice cream.

“Dad, you’re back!” she shouted, nearly tackling him in a hug. She held back, noting his burn scars and cast. “I’ve missed you.”

“I know,” he said. “Where were you? I called Nick, but he said you haven’t been at the university for weeks.”

Nick was her former supervisor’s first name. Naturally, he and her father were good friends.

“I, uh, was doing some work,” she said.

“But not for your thesis?”

“No, it is,” she said. “Um, when are you heading back to work, anyway? Or do you need more time to recupate?”

“I’m not going back,” Dad said, his expression darkening.

Mom stared at him, a strange expression on her face.

“Then what are you going to do?” Kadria asked. “I thought this was—”

“I don’t know. But I’m not doing that. You weren’t there. The attack was…” Dad trailed off and ran a hand down his face. “I’ll reach out to some friends and see if they know any simpler contracts. I don’t want to work in a space that gets guns shoved in my face.”

Kadria stared at him. She felt as though a piece of her world had crumbled away.

That night, she didn’t sleep.

“Your father handed in his resignation this morning,” Black told her the next morning.

The two of them were in his office, in the bunker. For whatever reason, the man had converted an entire wall of it into a display of a huge void. No stars, asteroids, or anything of interest occupied it.

For some reason, Kadria found it deeply unsettling to stare at it. It was only a big black TV on the wall, she told herself.

“He told me last night,” she said.

“And?”

“And nothing. He has his own reasons for leaving the field.”

“Yet you remain. How resilient. Do you not fear the same thing happening?” Black asked.

“I’ve devoted my life to this. My undergrad, my PhD… and now my professional career,” she said.

Her professional career of three weeks, she noted wryly.

“Good.” Black slapped his fingers against his desk, causing her to jump. “He’s far from the only person to second-guess matters. As you’ve seen, we’re close. In fact, in a few months, we’ll be undertaking a specialized test down in Texas. The university was unwilling to grant us access to their facilities so we’re going further afield. I’ll pay for all travel. You need to be there.”

Kadria stared at him. “My family—”

“Can take of themselves. They have a few months. The city will settle down by then. This will be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Quite literally, if it succeeds.”

Despite her misgivings, she found herself dragged along. The experiments and research drove her. Whenever she wasn’t working in the lab, she built out her thesis.

However, things didn’t improve at home while she was busy. In the month before she left, security informed that she would be escorted to and from the facility. An armored car came to pick her up one morning.

That was the last straw for her father.

“I knew it,” he spat bitterly, staring out the window at the car with its suited driver. “That asshole recruited you.”

“He’s not—”

“Don’t pretend you know anything about the director. Nobody does. Even my contacts elsewhere in DARPA and the DoD know nothing about him. The man’s life is so highly classified that I’m pretty sure asking questions about him gets you visited by the CIA,” Dad said. “You should quit.”

“I won’t.”

He glared at her. She glared back.

Her mother’s voice filtered out of the living room as she held a conversation that only she cared about.

“I’ll be heading to New York to see a friend in a week. We’ll talk when I get back,” Dad said.

He didn’t return before she left for Texas.

The trip was far from the success that Black wanted. Despite working day and night, they failed to produce the results they wanted. Kadria felt she made a breakthrough on the final night, and sent it through to Black.

“This might work,” he mused. “I’ll see if our contractor can build a new prototype using this.”

“It’s only an idea,” she hedged.

“We’ve hit a wall. We’re still unable to replicate decisions by human actors.”

“Isn’t that the point? If decisions are non-deterministic, we can’t replicate them.”

He shook his head. “You misunderstand. On the individual level, a decision can’t be predicted. But what about the grand scheme of things? If there is a desirable result, then surely it exists in one of a myriad of possibilities. What if we could choose that path, or understand what path we are on?”

She stared at him.

What Black was talking about was so far beyond the idea of replicating a human mind that it became absolute nonsense. She knew enough about the philosophical side of matters to understand what he was referring to: a Laplace’s Demon, of sorts.

Ultimately, that’s what the military wanted. Not an understanding of the human mind, but the ability to predict what people would do with almost absolute certainty.

When she returned home, it was with some level of despair. She had spent nearly two months in Texas. Overall, nearly six months had passed under Black. She already questioned what she was doing.

The front door was locked. When she unlocked it, the lights were off. Nobody appeared to be home.

In fact, nobody appeared to have been home for some time.

“Mom? Dad?” she called out, rushing around the rooms.

No notes had been left behind. But her mother’s clothes had been packed up, as if this had been planned.

She called both of their phones. Dad’s went straight to voice mail. Mom’s phone was disconnected.

A lump formed in her throat. Terrified, she called Stanton.

“Kadria, it’s nearly nine—Are you crying?” he asked.

“Have… Have you seen Dad recently?” she asked, trying to push down her tears.

“We spoke last week over the phone.” Stanton paused. “Isn’t he with you?”

“No. I haven’t…” She paused.

Had he come back from New York at all? Or had he come back and found her missing? What the hell had happened?

“Hold on, I’ll call the bastard,” Stanton growled. “Give me a few minutes.”

He hung up.

Kadria curled up on the floor of her parent’s bedroom for nearly fifteen minutes, waiting for a call back.

Eventually, it arrived.

But not from Stanton.

“I need you at the lab,” Black said, his voice tight. “We might have a breakthrough, but I need somebody who understands what’s happening.”

“I—”

Her voice beeped to let her know Stanton was calling.

“Black, I need to go,” she said, then hung up and answered. “Stanton?”

“He’s still in New York,” Stanton said. “I know where he’s working, even if I don’t have his address. He’s clammed up, but you should go see him anyway. Family should stick together.”

She noted down the workplace on her phone.

“Thanks, Nick,” she muttered.

“Anytime. Let me know if I can help in any other way.”

Afterward, she saw a message from Black. It reminded her to come in ASAP. A car would be outside to collect her momentarily.

For several minutes, she sat paralyzed.

Family or her research?

Everything felt like it was falling apart. Probably because it was.

A knock at the door broke her out of her stupor. She was still in her work attire, even if she smelt a bit. Good enough, she supposed.

The bodyguard greeted her. “Ma’am.”

Autopilot kicked in. Was there any way to say no at this point?

She got in the armored vehicle. As she did, she noticed that there was more than one. In fact, a pair of armored SUVs flanked her vehicle.

The blaring sirens and patrolling soldiers seemed more obvious than ever as they rolled through the city to the outskirts. Mobs of people gathered in the streets. She caught glimpses of smoke and gas.

The convoy took her to the complex using a different path. Apparently there was an underground entrance.

“Ah, you’re here,” Black said, greeting her in this heretofore unknown underground carpark. “Things are becoming restless once again. Come along. I’m afraid they’re going to ruin all the data.”

“How can there already be a breakthrough?” she asked, mind switching gears to work.

“My contractor is efficient. They sent through a new prototype, even if it’s rough. So far, it’s beyond your wildest dreams.”

But not beyond Black’s wildest dreams.

Kadria didn’t miss the sudden security presence inside the facility.

“Is something wrong?” she asked.

“As I said, things are becoming restless. There’s been another wave of… hmm, sentiment, shall we say. The dice have been rolled and I imagine some may come up the wrong way.” Black shrugged after speaking his ominous words. “However, if tonight goes well, I’ll arrange leave for you. A long break in which you can work on your thesis and spend time with your parents.”

“I’d like that,” she said, voice cracking as she thought of her empty home.

Where the hell was Mom?

Kadria forced her mind back to the present.

The night passed in a blur of caffeine and hard work as she and the other scientists did everything they could. No rioters breached the facility. Nobody died or got sent to hospital.

To Kadria, the worst passed. The data recovered seemed to justify her decision. She left it with her colleagues, then visited Black.

“I need that break,” she said. “My parents—”

Black cut her off with a solemn look. “You haven’t seen the news.”

She felt her world fall out from under her at those words and his expression. Somehow, she already knew what he was going to say before he said.

“There was another incident. This one was more widespread. Your father—”

The words didn’t penetrate her mind. She knew she screamed and sobbed.

By the time she remembered anything, she was in her bed back at home. Nobody was there.

She realized nobody would be there. Sobs erupted from her.

“Woah, you’re awake up there?” Stanton’s voice said.

He burst into the room a moment later, then winced.

Once Kadria calmed down, she listened to what he had to say.

“Director Black had you dropped off here and contacted me. Told me that your mother had left the country,” Stanton said. “I saw what happened with Ario last night.” His face tightened. “What the fuck is the world coming to?”

She didn’t know. She didn’t want to know.

“Left the country?” she asked.

“Back to Japan. She hasn’t had a job for over a decade, so I guess…” Stanton trailed off, realizing there was no good way to phrase what he was about to say.

“We left her,” Kadria muttered. “She’s lost everything when her old company went under, and we’ve done nothing for her. Then I just… left.”

Silence.

“Black said to call him once you get the chance. He seems to really care about you.” Stanton sighed. “I know things suck, Kadria, but there’s always a light on the horizon. Remember that I’m here for you. You have friends at the university. Black’s supporting you. Ario has tons of friends who can help you as well. You won’t be alone.”

She felt alone.

After Stanton left, she lay in her bed for what felt like days. Eventually, her phone buzzed.

Black.

She didn’t pick up.

Instead, she slept. And slept.

When she woke up, it wasn’t in her bedroom. It was Black’s office.

This time, all the walls were the void. There appeared to be no door. Only a desk, Black, and Kadria’s bed occupied the room.

“Ah, you’re awake. My apologies for the abruptness, but I felt that allowing you to wallow in despair any longer would be counterproductive,” Black said, leaning on his steel desk with steepled fingers.

“This is a dream.”

“Existence is a dream, in a matter of speaking. A collective dream that shapes matter, time, and space to bring about a result that is otherwise impossible,” Black said. “But no, this isn’t a dream. Not in the way you mean. This is very real. If I kill you here, you will not wake up.”

Kadria stared at Black.

Had that been a threat?

She sat up in her bed. Suddenly, it transformed into one of the plush chairs that usually belonged in his office.

“If this isn’t a dream, then what the fuck is this?” she asked, looking around herself.

“The true shape of reality,” Black said. “This place exists outside of time and space. It is an extension of my will, and bends to my thoughts. A place of nothingness that I give life. A place where life only exists because I allow it to.”

As Kadria stared into Black’s eyes, she finally saw the abyss in them. They weren’t dark brown. They were black—the same color as the void surrounding her. In fact, his usually charcoal suit was pitch black.

The longer she stared at him, the more unsettled she became.

No, not unsettled. Disquieted. Black was a deeply unnatural being. Everything about him and this place scratched at her mind.

“What do you want with me?” she asked quietly, trying to keep the fear out of her voice.

“I want you to make a decision.”

She stared at him silently.

He smiled back. “Do you want to remain in your broken world, with its broken values and destroyed future, or do you want something more? Because I can grant that to you. Power beyond your wildest dreams. The chance to change yourself from the very foundation of your being. Anything and everything you want.”

“I want Dad back,” she choked out.

“Ah. I’m afraid that’s… difficult.” Black leaned back. “I can give you an Ario back. But he isn’t your father. Rather, he’s an Ario from a neighboring universe. One in which different decisions were made. Perhaps you never worked for me. Perhaps he never worked for me. Or he never went to New York. Whatever the case, he avoided his fate.”

Slowly, she realized what he meant.

“You’re talking about alternate realities.”

“Indeed. I have the power to walk between them at will. I can grant that to you.” He snapped his fingers. “But I believe we should talk price. Like my earlier contract with you, this is a job offer, not altruism. The difference is that I’m not offering you this deal as Director Black, but as my true self.”

“Which is?”

“My true name has been lost to time. I have a friend who claims to know it, but I disagree with him.” Black laughed. “In your world, there are many amusing stories that I feel some attachment to. Consider me the Crawling Chaos, if you will. Names are utterly meaningless for the most part, however, and you will be better off not using them once you say yes.”

The Crawling Chaos.

Kadria spent little time on fiction or the like, but she had ran into that name before. If Black was telling the truth, he was claiming to be a Lovecraftian entity.

Looking around herself, she found herself able to believe it.

“What happens if I go back?” she asked.

“I leave your life forever.”

“So… that’s it? I lose everything?” She closed her eyes. “Mom’s finally left, after so many years of stress. Dad’s dead. I’ve lost my job and PhD. The world is falling apart. What the fuck is there to go back to?”

Black said nothing.

“Fine. I accept.”

“As expected,” he said smoothly. “Now, what is your price? I am willing to offer you whatever you like. There are many aspects to your choice, of course. Your powers will be shaped by—”

“I want to escape. To leave. To never come back and look at this horrid hellscape again,” Kadria spat, tears welling up in her eyes. “I want to become something that is so different to what I am right now, because I’ve fucked everything up so badly I can’t imagine improving things.”

Black raised an eyebrow. “Really? Escape? You don’t want the power to destroy the movement that killed Ario? Or perhaps to strike back at those who were behind all the research cuts? That would be trivial. I could grant you all that information. The power to crush them or do worse. Maybe you have some sort of list of people you wish to—”

“No. I want out, Black. Or Chaos. Or whatever the fuck you are. I guess you’re my boss now.” She shrugged. “My… extradimensional monster boss. If you’re so powerful, do something.”

“Oh, I will. In fact, if you want to change so much, there’s the perfect option that fulfills your desires.”

Once again he snapped his fingers.

This time, Kadria felt her body change. She grew, and grew. Pain lanced in her every part of her body for a second. But by the time she looked at herself, she felt fantastic.

“Uh, what?” she asked, staring down at the massive pair of bronzed tits that had emerged from her chest.

When she looked around, she saw that the void had changed into a mirror. She frowned.

Her muddy complexion had transformed into a deep bronzed skin color. A pair of curly goat horns sprouted from her head. Her eyes were violet with red pupils. More importantly, her body was that of a genuine supermodel, with legs, hips, and breasts that looked right out of a magazine.

“This is too much,” Kadria said.

Black nodded and she warped again. She winced and held her head.

This time, she looked more like her old self, but… better. She still had the bronzed skin, but only the bottom half looked like a supermodel. This upper half looked like herself.

Albeit, a demonic version of herself.

“Different,” she said, tugging at her lips and checking for fangs. None, she found out.

“You can make minor adjustments yourself. But the more time that passes, the harder you will find it to change your overall appearance,” Black explained. “And I recommend that you stop thinking of me as ‘Black.’ That name holds power, because it is one of my identities. You are now Kadria, one of my extradimensional Messengers. You hold power, and through extension, what you know and think is given power.”

That made little sense to her, but she filed away the idea.

Black stood and his office vanished. Instead, it became like some sort of demonic lair.

“Now, let’s talk about your first job for me. I believe in on-the-job learning, so I’ll keep this brief.” He grinned at her. “You see, there’s a quaint little world with some pesky heroes that need taming. An easy enough first mission.”

As absurd as everything sounded, Kadria found herself becoming lost in it. Her mind focused on the strangeness of what she saw and heard. She didn’t think of what she had lost or what her life had been like hours ago.

Instead, she focused on the tasks she planned to do for the devil she had made a deal with. That handshake she made with him had sealed her fate long ago, it seemed.

- - - - - - - - 

Commentary: I'll likely add future parts in the next month or two. Elaborating on Kadria's backstory as a Messenger, rather than as a human, will give some fairly strong clues for future books.

This story actually was supposed to include part of the Messenger section. The human part ran away with itself, so I split it up. There's probably three parts all up: the human part, the part before coming to Doumahr, and then the early Doumahr stuff (which can't be released before Book 5 due to spoilers).

Writing this ended up being fairly hard because it's both a darker story and IRL-based, rather than the more fantastical version I imagined. I decided to keep it as is (although I did cut some of the stuff with the mother), for those who wanted to see Kadria as she was, as it makes for a strong contrast to who she is and provides some explanation for some of her behavior and knowledge.

For reference, Kadria has been a really bright physics student whose life burned down for a long time.

Anyway, hope you enjoyed it, for some level of the word "enjoy." This is a huge loredump short story for Kadria, after all.