“...Whitefield?”

Hearing Ai’s explanation, Seven’s head burst with uncontrollable pain. He held his heads with strength as if he wanted to squash it, kill away the annoyance coursing through his brain, enough to detach his link to his legs and fall helplessly to the ground.

Others quickly helped him up, mistaking his reaction for fright of the revelation, but their bewilderment obfuscated one crucial and quite obvious piece of information: if the kid who died was the Seven they knew, how is it possible that he was alive in front of them?

Memories flashed upon him as cutoff images of a movie flick, most of which he already recognized as St. Claire’s Hospital, with all the faces of the nurses and doctors that frequently visited the ward, but the faces of the children were obfuscated, and so were the face of his parents, which he never once questioned why he couldn’t remember. Whitefield? Was this his real surname? Why did no one question the origin of his name, but didn’t think it strange he didn’t have a surname? Why couldn’t he remember or suspect this piece of information?

Amidst his hazy memories, one face appeared as clear as day: that of sweet, hazel colored eyes on a pure childish face, the forming of freckles spreading on it. He did remember the existence of Kate, the only friend he ever had in his life, and the details of a gruesome conversation concerning his life, which ultimately must’ve led to his death at the hands of the girl. But whenever it reached that part, the white and blue colors of the walls would convulse and distort in a dangerous red light, as if turning into monsters of flesh and blood, pulsing in waves like veins and crashing down with new levels of pain that he could not bear.

Unbeknownst to him, tears flowed past his eyes and they carried feelings he could not attribute to anything other than that headache, but there lied emotions he considered to be lacking on him, and secrets unspeakable to his soul.

“... Who is Seven Whitefield? Who am I?”, the one question he did not think to ask before, suddenly acquired enormous importance.

“...Out of all the people here who didn’t know each other before, what is with this unprecedented link between me and Kate? And most important... Why am I still alive?”

As the minutes passed, the headache gradually subsided, but the punishment game was still going, and he barely recovered once Ai called for him.

-Next subject, number 19th.

He would need to question the validity of his death, and possibly of Ai’s information, later on. For now, it was his time to go up.

Ai did the scan with the hologram surging from her retinae, but unlike what happened with previous numbers, the color quickly turned into a red hue with flickering white lights and disappearing pixels, like falling electrical cubes of data. One by one, windows of a same red frame surged with the message “Access denied”, quickly covering his whole body and ultimately forcing the hologram to retract in her eyes, hollowed of all traces of light.

Ai dropped her head down slowly, her shoulders drooping and her limbs losing all semblance of movement. She was reclined in her chair with both arms flailing until a complete halt, her legs slightly bent forward with the knees touching, reclining one upon the other.

[A critical error has occurred. A system reboot is taking place, wait a few minutes]

-Hmmm... Interesting – Kyel feigned a whisper – our friend Seven there possesses mysteries even Ai can’t find out. Convenient, isn’t it?

-What are you implying? - someone asked.

-Oh, come on – he rolled his eyes – this is screaming “SUSPICIOUS”! He's like a password-protected file. Someone deliberately doesn’t want anyone to find out more about Seven, and who here is more powerful than Ai? Wouldn’t it be the perpetrator himself?

Egged by Kyel’s words, people turned on Seven and asked him about the information he couldn’t disclose.

-Stop asking me, I don’t know anything.

-Bullshit! You’re behind everything, aren’t you?

-I don’t think he’s behind it all, but there’s something he’s not telling us.

-This is all Ai’s plan to make us go against each other.

-But what if it isn’t and it’s a double trap, just to amuse her? - Kyel added.

The discussion went on in tangents, making Seven’s subsided headache grow heavier. The questions they directed towards him, he wanted to know himself.

-It’s barely half an hour since I’ve left and things are already like this – Arthur's voice resounded in the hut, silencing all.

-Hey, little Bell. A little late to the party, ain'tcha?

-I received Ai’s notification and returned to see what happened... But you guys... Heh. Sure learned your lesson with Kyel – he said, sarcastically.

-Blasphemy, I say! - Kyel protested.

-You shut up for a second. I heard most of it. Do you really think that if the mastermind is behind Seven, that he would let him go unrecognized by Ai’s scan? Does it sound realistic to you?

-But, a double trap...

-You may as well say that everything up to now has been part of a reality show. It is as convincing an argument and will lead us nowhere. Do you even know how Ai’s scan works? You don’t. Then how can you say it’s infallible?

-That is so. Even if we go with the theory that Seven is the mastermind or someone on his side, what will you do about it? Torture him for information? I will let you in a piece of advice: the ones who have the capacity have no interest in doing so. Kill him? The same as I mentioned earlier, and even then, this game is unlikely to end. On the off chance he is the mastermind himself, he wouldn’t die so easily. Isolate him? He already does a good job. – Nathan pinched in, earning a reproving glare from Kyel, to which he shook his head in annoyance. “Enough of your antics”.

What was left of this bickering was Arthur’s pitying glare on his former comrades. He pitied them, for they weren’t strong enough to face these trials, but he also felt like reprimanding himself. “I got what I deserved. My approach was wrong, to begin with”. The biggest difference between Arthur and most people with the same mentality as his, was that he was not afraid to face his failures, and learn from his mistakes.

[System initiated, restoring data... Proceeding from the last saved point]

-Sorry for the inconvenience, everyone - Ai resumed working – there has been an unusual circumstance due to a response from Seven’s body, but this is unrelated to you all. The punishment game will go on, number 20, step forward.

-What? Just like that?

[Number 20, step forward!]

Ai’s voice ringed on their heads, almost shattering their brains. It was an unprecedented, aggressive response that they haven’t seen yet. Ai had never been so blatant about hiding information, and they had no choice but to comply, like always.

The ceremony proceeded awkwardly till the last number, 21. It was Nathan’s call. He had a calm countenance with a hint of impatience as Ai’s hologram encompassed him.

-Data retrieved: The Dying World of Alice. Personal Secret: SIU’s Top Agent. Explanation required.

Nathan scratched his head and sighed with a defeated expression.

-I would have to reveal it sooner or later, so it doesn’t matter anyway. I will start with explaining SIU, or Supernatural Investigation Unit. It is an international organization with branches in the major countries back on Earth, and as the name implies, we are responsible for investigating and dealing with paranormal phenomena. We have many different assignments, but my major role was conducting field tests and abduction, mostly of scientists. Maybe the name Nathan da Guereo rings a bell, but my contractors did a superb job in erasing my existence before I had any work to do.

-Don’t lie! Guereo died twenty years ago in his mansion, at the side of his family!

-Or so the story goes. I am glad there is still someone who remembers me, though – he smiled – anyway, The Dying World of Alice is one of our scientists’ theories to explain a peculiar supernatural event... This is before I got in SIU, but there is information about a “gate” to another world, that appeared over seventy years ago, and similar gates reappeared thirty and forty years after, which is around the time I was invited, though I didn’t get to work in such a high profile investigation due to my identity being worked on.

Nathan took the opportunity to pop a glass of wine and serve himself a cup, letting the aged smell reach his nose and taking a sip. This was done with such naturality that no one questioned his actions the six days prior, and it was just as he intended. From his actor days, he had this habit of molding the mood according to the circumstances, especially since he was so often asked for anecdotes and interesting stories in social events and such. Unknown to him, though, his discourse was now impregnated by the enthusiasm of the scientists he worked alongside with.

-A common trait of these worlds beyond the gate was the completely illogic concepts that governed them. One would think that different worlds can work under different mechanics, but they are inherently flawed and fated to destruction, as it indeed happened time and time again. The Dying World of Alice is a theory that explains how those worlds continue to function despite their paradoxical existence, and it also states that the rate of their disappearance is directly influenced by how often those flaws are employed or exploited. Whenever they occur, the world generates “patches” that temporarily fix those mistakes, but once they become too large to contain, the world “shatters”, and this gives rise to radical changes in the environment and eventually its disappearance. Some of our scientists went as far as to consider that if the flaws are small enough, the patches will be effective and definitive. The repercussion would be that our reality is also a dying World, which could explain a few strange phenomena, but this is another story... 1

He gave another long sip of the cup, confronted with the astounded and utterly shocked gazes of even Kyel.

-You must have many questions – Nathan smiled, putting away the glass – but I assure you that all I am telling is the absolute truth. It goes without saying that, as with many theories, the scientific community is split between acceptance and rejection, and this one, in particular, has a fair share of rejection. The greatest argument against it is that we had too little time to investigate these foreign worlds to conclude they are flawed, and the breach of rules described are, ironically, regulated by their own rules, so the choice of words is wrong, and the flaw is nothing but an intrinsic mechanic which we got right.

Seven was still recovering from his splitting headache to think too deeply on the matter, but the same couldn’t be said about everyone else. This revelation was so foreign and outside of their realm of comprehension that they couldn’t get to accept it so easily – and for those that eventually came to terms with this, it did not hold much meaning except for one simple question, which they promptly dared to ask.

-If that is true... Is this also it? A World of Alice?

-This, my friend, I cannot answer. But out of all the classified information I have here – he pointed to his head – some already proved and even more disturbing than the other, Ai brought this one specifically. You can conclude that it holds some significance, and the theory might not be all that wrong...

-And if that’s true... We’re walking on a timed bomb – Arthur finished everyone’s thoughts.

Nathan caught his eye on Natalya in a cursory glance around the room. He expected there would be people indifferent to this revelation, but something about her kept his agent sense, honed over years of fieldwork, tingling.

He didn’t dally in his thoughts.

-Lass, have you heard of this before?

Raising her head, Natalya opened her lips for a moment, thinking whether or not she should disclose it. “Either way, I’ve already spoken of it. It matters little”.

-No, but I believe it. The endgame scenario I spoke of earlier, would be like an ultimate patch in this theory. Once it’s reached, either this world perishes immediately, or it is rid of all the “flaws”, born anew.