A bop to the head brought Umji back to meatspace, or as Sowon liked to put it, ‘the real world’. Umji didn’t agree though, the Matrix was just as real to her as the things she could touch in the physical plane. It wasn’t her fault Sowon-unnie was an antique, as much as she loved the woman.

“Did you sleep?” As always, Sowon was being a mother hen. Umji rubbed at her eyes, hiding a yawn with her wrists. Stims kept her going far beyond normal physical endurance limits, and she had nicked a sizable supply from SinB previously. She hadn’t expected to be using it for something as serious as this though; it had mostly been in anticipation of data jams with her community, where they could go as long as 72 hours with no sleep trying to outdo each other with the coolest new Complex Forms they could dream up in the Resonance Realms.

“Some.” The technomancer left it vague, toying nervously with a half-built droid out of habit. Sowon sighed.

“I guess that’s a no then.”

Umji grinned weakly. “I got distracted trying to track down a clue.”

“What have you got then?” Sowon pulled up a stool and parked herself next to Umji’s workstation. It was a neatly organized mess of electronics. Some were even labeled. Sowon managed to resist the urge to put things away. Umji didn’t like it when her things were moved.

“Well since you mentioned Mireu the other day I started looking them up, and cross-referenced them to any dragon related things just in case. They’re pretty much right-wing nutcases and I think they’re in bed with the Central Busan Republic. Hyeongdae also seems to allow them free movement around Ulsan, from what I found of their recruitment drives.” Umji paused to take a sip of her very spiked energy drink. Her eyelids fluttered, and her toes started tapping against the floor unconsciously. A firm hand removed the bottle from her twitchy hands, and Sowon’s scowling face was very much disapproving as she unscrewed the lid and sniffed its contents.

“What did I tell you about stims, young lady?”

Umji giggled, the effects of the drug starting to kick in.

“That you’ll cut me off from the Matrix if I went longer than 48 hours without sleep but unnie I still have 2 hours before that deadline.”

Sowon resisted the urge to smack the girl. Trust Umji to really cut it close. Then again, from what she had heard from Yuju earlier, time was indeed of the essence, and Umji had done a great deal of research on Yuju’s behalf while the shaman was modelling algorithms for some kind of ritual. Apparently magic and math were somehow related. It hadn’t escaped Sowon how gleeful Umji had been at learning that. The blonde fully anticipated more experiment-related explosions once the current crisis was over.

“Right, tell me what you’ve got, and then I’m knocking you out for at least 6 hours.” Sowon folded her arms calmly. She had tranquilizers for this purpose. Do not ask her when or why she prepared it. It was difficult to make sure a technomancer like Umji was actually asleep short of knocking them out cold completely, since they did not require any equipment to interface with the Matrix. It was almost like a form of magic, except digital. Sowon had had to resort to extreme measures to keep teenage Umji out of trouble, and she would not hesitate to bring those out again to make sure her baby stayed in line.

Umji made a face, then started tapping a beat on the table of her workstation almost involuntarily. Stims did that sometimes.

“So yes. Mireu. Bad people. Dragon cult. No one knows how they really got started but all their origin myths come from that dragon from the Gyeongju incident.” Umji cocked her head. “Funny thing, that. All we got was a 10 second blurry clip of some snakey thing flying into the air and getting bombed. I tracked the digital footprint of that clip but it’s been pretty well masked. Led me interesting places though, I still can’t crack through that secure datavault. I’ll do that later.”

“Umji…” Sowon started, but the hacker held up a hand.

“I know I know gimme a sec…” The young technomancer screwed her face together tightly, as if reordering her thoughts.

“Their higher ranks are called the Chosen, elite circle, don’t think you can just get promoted into it. Some kind of ritual implied from the rumors I skimmed off DarkNet. They’ve been after dragon-related paraphernalia for the last 40 years or so, even clashed with the Spartans a few times over some of it. Spartans really don’t like Mireu, by the way. ‘splains why Mireu never made it much further than Daegu really.” Umji took a breath after her stream of consciousness rant. Her eyes were bloodshot. Sowon frowned, about to interrupt, but Umji was already moving on.

“So like, huge dragon worship going on. Rankers get dragon tattoos to show off their status. Mid level guys at most get that medallion thing you found. Their religious tenets are a bit weird, something like a living God?” Umji paused thoughtfully, then shook her head. “I don’t know, they speak of their Dragon in present tense. I’ll figure it out after I crack that node, something something Operation Snakehunt, had to jump through so many hoops to even get that name.”

Sowon caught Umji as she shimmied a little too far off her chair in her rant, and then calmly jammed a tranq into the side of the younger’s neck at the same time. Umji flopped instantly. The older woman sighed, lifting the young hacker in her arms as if she weighed nothing, creaking as she stood.

“You’ve done well, now rest.”

SinB slipped back in without a sound, expecting to be unnoticed. That part went pretty well, considering her favorite way in came up inside her own room. She hit a snag pretty quickly when she decided to tiptoe over to check on Eunha though.

The lights in the hallway were off. It was late, and she had been out since the afternoon. It was quiet in the base, but for the distinct hum of machines coming from Umji’s room. SinB was expecting to just slip over to the doorway and take a look at Eunha before going to wash up, but she didn’t count on nearly tripping over a very silent Yuju sitting by the doorway.

“Ffff…what are you doing?” SinB caught herself before she stepped on the shaman.

Yuju didn’t respond, still facing inwards into Eunha’s room. It was the third day since they had brought Eunha back in her comatose state, and SinB had seen how Yuju, and to a lesser extent, Umji, had run themselves down to the bone in their efforts to bring her back. If not for Yerin and Sowon making sure the two got some sort of rest in between, it was entirely likely that they would simply force themselves past their limits.

SinB felt guilty, as one of the only ones to know exactly why those two were working round the clock. She had done what she could, doing resupply runs for them in the meantime, as well as getting the increasing esoteric materials Yuju started requesting. SinB didn’t know why Yuju asked her to get it, because Yerin would have been a better choice for it, but the shaman had simply given her a Look.

SinB understood that look. It was the kind of look they exchanged before one of them did something that could be seen either as recklessly stupid or completely brilliant, possibly both at the same time. The last time that look happened, SinB had dived off the roof of a 30^th floor building without knowing exactly how she was going to land. Good thing Yuju understood that look, otherwise she would have been a very inglorious splat on the street.

So SinB got Yuju her toys without asking what they were for. Creepy magical was creepy, but SinB understood some of what she was being asked to get thanks to hanging out with Eunha. A lot of it was stuff to replenish mana, as well as a few other potentially dangerous drugs that allowed a mage to function above capacity for a short time. She didn’t recognize a good half of the rest of the items, and some of it had had to be sealed in special cases before transport. And no, she had not felt comfortable holding those even with gloves on. It was a miracle they managed to sneak it past Yerin’s watchful eye in the first place.

“You smell of blood.”

SinB twitched, quickly checking her hands. She was so sure she hadn’t gotten anything on herself earlier…

Yuju’s gaze flicked upwards at last, a hint of red in her irises. SinB took a step back. The shaman closed her eyes, the muscles of her jaw rippling faintly before she relaxed. She was breathing shallowly, her nose crinkling as if the scent made her ill.

“You must have gotten quite a few.”

SinB twitched harder. Was this a dog shaman thing? She hadn’t expected Yuju’s nose to be that keen. She backed up a bit more to give the other girl some space. Yuju looked pale even in the dark. SinB didn’t quite have night vision, but she could see better than mundanes in low light.

“You can’t possibly know that.” SinB replied defensively. She was definitely sure she hadn’t gotten any blood splashed onto her. Strangling someone was usually relatively bloodless, though a few had necessitated a little knife work. SinB had been a busy little bee for the last couple of days. Since she couldn’t help with any of the research or the magic, she had decided to take more direct steps.

Hunting down Mireu operatives in the upper city, as well as the few that had infiltrated the Underground, had been a satisfying pastime. It felt good to be the hunter for once, on home territory. She had grown up under their terrifying aegis, been too small and powerless to do anything when others were beaten and murdered for the sin of being different. She knew how their people looked like, how they moved and talked, and she knew their habits. It hadn’t been too difficult to track them once she had known what to look for. Mireu was a childhood terror she felt a need to conquer. That they were definitely the enemy this time was a great excuse. She didn’t feel like examining her own personal reasons any further.

A hint of a smile crooked Yuju’s lips. The shaman shifted, then rose fluidly off the ground, dusting herself off almost absently.

“Playtime’s over SinB, I’m almost ready.”

A flash of hope rose in SinB’s eyes. Yuju nodded, turning back to look at Eunha.

“I’ll bring her back for sure.” She paused. “But I’ll need all of you to be ready.”

“Ready for what?” SinB couldn’t help herself, stepping closer. Yuju moved away, her nose crinkling again. The fighter mouthed a quick sorry and moved backwards again. She hadn’t thought that Yuju would be this sensitive over the smell of blood.

“Once I remove the ruby from the statue, it won’t be contained anymore. If someone’s tracking its magical signature, we can expect company before long.”

“There aren’t any of them left nearby though.” SinB blurted impulsively. Yuju raised an eyebrow. The gunslinger grinned sheepishly. “I may have uh, taken care of things.”

“The ritual will take hours. That’s more than enough time for reinforcements to come in.” Yuju sighed, rubbing at her temples. “I can’t stop once it starts. No interruptions. If something goes wrong, Eunha might die. I might die.”

SinB straightened, looking the weary Yuju in the eye.

“Count on us. We won’t fail you.”

Yuju smiled wanly. “Didn’t think you would. We move once Yerin comes back with the last thing I need.”

SinB saluted smartly, coaxing a short bark of laughter from the shaman.

“Go shower, you stink. Don’t worry, I won’t tell Sowon what you’ve done.”

SinB stuck her tongue out impudently before skipping off. Eunha was going to be fine. They were going to get her back, then kick Mireu’s for getting them in trouble in the first place.

Everything was going to work out just fine.

It felt like a very long dream, wandering on the edge of wakefulness. A whole lifetime through the eyes of another, in vague flashes and skipped sequences. A story already written, and her a passenger along for the ride.

The skin off a scraped knee, the thrill of a swing into the sky. The loss of a dear friend, and the joy of reunion. Falling in love with kind eyes and a gentle smile, laughing and crying with the ones dear to her heart. Whispers of voices and fears, fingers entwined across tangled sheets as they sought comfort in a dark time. Time and again, through fire and flame. Smoothing away the tears of her lover, with soft touches and murmured promises.

She got to know every last one of them, friends and family to her and yet wasn’t. Learned to love them all over again, through the life of the her that wasn’t her. For all that they shared the same face, they were not quite the same. Similar, but just different enough for her to remember it was a life that didn’t belong to her.

She felt like she might sleep forever in that waking dream, but was brought to sharp clarity as her view its axis, so close to the surface that she felt like she could reach out and touch the familiar face before her. She could not speak, trapped behind the glass of awareness, even as events played out as they should. Could not warn clearly of the growing danger she felt running up the arms of not-her, though their souls resonated ever more with her distress.

The other her knew, somehow. They were one, but not the same. But it was too little, too late. Fire, it was always fire. Of course it had to be. The fire she so feared, for good reason.

She couldn’t be dead. Couldn’t be. In this both her and other-her were in agreement, synchronized in grief and denial. They spoke together, in madness and fury and pain. A portrait painted in red.

The darkness threatened to swallow her whole. It was like being caught in a howling maelstrom as the fury from within tore itself apart, for all that she was still behind the looking glass. And yet, at the eye of the storm, a single determined girl, who could have been her, striving for the impossible. And it was impossible, should have been impossible, and yet…

The dragon had to be lying. But she wanted to believe. Or was it the other her that did? She was finding it hard to tell the difference. The deep red of the orb winked at her, almost knowingly. If she had a voice with which to scream, she would.

Contact, and a familiar rush of power. Once again, we meet. An instant that lasted forever; trapped in the blink of an eye, between heartbeats, before a breath sharply taken. A moment, that was waiting, but for what?

Someone was calling for her. Who was it? Who was she? She had almost forgotten, trapped in another life that could have been hers.

Eunha…

Is that who she was?

Come back…

I...who am I?