Zelda : 404 File Not Found [8/?]
After the crowd departed, they dragged him through their compound and navigated a confusing network of tunnels, false exits, dead ends, and sleeping quarters. Link had never felt so entirely lost and suffocated before-or, at least, not both at the same time. But Navi still functioned and a tiny, incomplete map had formed. Sure, anyone with even the most basic net access could retrieve a crude map of the Goron interior. The problem was that down here he didn’t have access.
Eventually they dumped him into a room with another massive half-iron giant, its chin feathered with thin hanging veins of granite. Link wondered how they managed to trim that beard. The beginnings of a hysterical chuckle escaped his mouth before he managed to clamp down on his tongue and shut his trap.
“Give me a sec,” Link grunted to the perplexed Gorons as he hauled his ass off the ground. His lungs choked on the unfiltered air as he forced gulp after gulp down into his lungs, but through the series of hacking coughs, he successfully reined his emotions in and locked them away. Once calm, he wrapped his arms around his abused torso.
“Okay, brothers,” a cold, mechanical voice that resembled his own left his lips as his eyes opened. “What do you want?”
“Brother Link,” the Goron with the beard on half his face near-shouted as he rose from the crouched position on the floor of the empty room. Joints whispered as they unhinged, a sign that they’ve been kept well oiled for some time. Steam left in tiny spurts from the Goron’s angular left shoulder, the iron and tainted steel glinting in the poor LED torchlight. “We need your help.”
Link pondered this momentarily. Three big fucking greased up iron giants that could squish him with their pinky fingers needed his help? Then with a wave of his hand, the bearded Goron dismissed the guards situated behind Link. As if the giant needed them in the first place, he thought.
“You killed Cyprus and cleaned out his gang-our rivals!” The Goron announced suddenly, breaking the silence with a fleshy hand that slammed against Link’s back and sent him right across the room.
Link cursed incoherently as he peeled his face off the wall. “I did… what?”
“Don’t act modest in the presence of family, brother.” A mechanical whine pierced the air, followed closely by velvet coughs. Was he laughing? “Word on the street is you’re out of hiding. Slaughtered Cyprus and all. Half of Section Oh One Oh is just gone, and they say it’s all you.”
What was this feeling in his bones? Like something he wasn’t familiar with. Something called dread.
“So brother, is a revolution coming?”
Link stared at his red and blue stained hands with his mind spinning, stuck like a broken loop revolving around the first fucking cycle. “I did what?”
“Enough modesty, Brother! We, too, live, breathe, and eat REVOLUTION!” The last word bellowed out and shook the walls. Cement crumbled, dust fell from cracks in the metal.
For a brief, insane moment, Link wanted to tear out the Goron’s eyes with his hands and scream the revolution devours its children. The revolution devours its children. But then he took another lung full of dust and rust and smoke and other shit and coughed up the last of his anger, and then banished the memories from his mind.
“But first, we need your help.” The Goron continued, completely unaware of the teen’s temporary breach of reality.
Link coughed and spat a black globule of spit and mucus and blood on the floor, then arched his neck in an exceptionally uncomfortable angle to look at the Goron. His logical mind processed data, numbers, and information to crunch out a probability of survival in the event he denied the request and took a beating. It soon became apparent the odds were not in his favor.
“The firewall covering our Safe Box units failed several days ago.” The bearded giant spoke again, as though Link had answered in the positive instead of not answered at all. “You were a legend. You are a legend. We are forever in your debt if you will, Brother.”
For some absurd reason beyond his grasp, Link could not find a suitable excuse to just say no to the black, beady eyed, grotesque, half-iron, smiling face. And he wanted to. He really, really wanted to.
Sooner than he could even think to change his mind, Link found himself transported-dropped, fucking dropped-through a trap door into a room so different from every other part of the complex. Plastic lined the walls, cooling devices kept the room at perfect temperature, while an advanced ventilation system filtered the air. Several dozen networks connected via a jungle of wireless devices, wires, and coiled cables. He could feel the electric hum in the air-the setting stirred almost nostalgic memories, yet he was still hesitant.
“You’re all set, Brother!” The Goron called down from above. The trap door slide shut with a resounding click. It should have comforted him, but instead the sound only emphasized his inability to escape the situation.
“Navi,” he whispered, his voice inexplicably rough. “Run-”
“Guardian Program. Check,” she interrupted.
Despite the glaringly bad choices that led him up to this moment-the worst choice so far-he smirked. His boots thumped heavily as Link shambled across the clean floor to a bare corner, isolated from the tech in the room. He slipped his hands under the hem of his dirt stained wife-beater, ignored the aches in his bones, and yanked the shirt over his head. It floated for half a second before suddenly catching weight and dropping straight to the floor like a stick of lead.
Link sifted through his pockets, pulled out a small rubber-band, and snapped the stray strands of his shaggy hair at the base of his neck. Soft cracks echoed in his ears as he slowly rolled his head from one shoulder to the other, loosening up his joints. The dull ache in his bones served as a reminder that he was tired. But he ignored it to drag his feet over to a terminal, one shaped to fit a body of his size.
The metal chair called to him, though it looked incredibly uncomfortable. With a straight back and perfectly flat seat, it was not the model of relaxation. Along the backing, tiny wires stuck out at a ninety degree angle, as well as two per arm rest at the wrist’s general area.
Blood pumped in his ears and in his veins as he stared blankly at the steel. Then he collapsed into the chair. Goosebumps erupted all over his skin as he sat up, rigidly straight, and shifted a few times to align the ports along his spine, upper shoulders, and wrists with the ones in the chair.
“Welcome.” A woman’s voice echoed throughout the room.
Electricity close to the amount of a lightning strike pulsed through the chair, and by connection, through him. His body jumped, or would have jumped, if the automatic restraints hadn’t hissed and bound him tightly to the terminal. He gasped. His head snapped to the left, to the right. His back arched violently. His wrists rubbed raw and bled from the tight metal binds. Another pulse. Another jerk. He screamed.
And then he saw it.
Code. Numbers. Basic. Lines and lines and lines of everything he ever needed to know and never needed to see and he was online. He was online.
He was online and he needed to fix the fucking fire wall and get the fuck off the net before they fucking found him. They never stopped searching. They never stop. But. But four years. After four long fucking years, he was online.
It was euphoric.
(Previous) | (Next)