THE MOMENT
"What do you see?" The weight of the question stunned Max. How could he explain it?
"It's beautiful...," he replied to the voice. "It's a beach with fine, white sand and a bright red ocean. The sky is purple and clear. No sun, moon, or stars...," he said. "No breeze." That wasn't the beautiful part. Something in him made a deliberate decision to leave out the most important details. He was surrounded by five young women, each with multicolored hair in a different shade of rainbow. The one in the center was ghostly pale with vivid orange eyes and a spectrum of orange on her head; she held her finger up to her lips asking him to keep their secret. She was seemingly dressed appropriately for a shootout with a long orange and black duster, and an orange crystalline grip holstered at her hip that she slyly revealed by pulling her coat aside.
"Are there any people?" the question came through his ear. The pale woman dropped her hand and shook her head with a broad smile. She had fangs. Max found the courage to lie surprisingly easy. In a way, it helped that the other four women didn't seem as intimidating. One of them, the one with several shades of gold and pink in her hair, had a scowl on her face with stern pink eyes as if reprimanding the pale woman with fangs. And, she was dressed more appropriately for the beach with a t-shirt and wrap obscuring a pink bikini underneath.
"Haven't seen a single person yet," he lied truthfully.
"Alright, stand by," the voice said.
"Howdy, stranger," the pale woman smiled. "My name's Noon, and you probably have a lot of questions." She gestured at the scowling blonde. "Marisol here can answer them all with two little words."
"Thank you!" Marisol replied to Noon with an exasperated flair. "No wait! That's not it!" she quickly turned to Max and hugged him. She leaned close and whispered into his left ear, the one that wasn't ordering him around. He felt her breath with the words and his mind flooded with images and memories.
"Jenny Rocks," she said. He was instantly everywhere. Killing and dying all at once. Had he lived through those lives? Was he living through them now? He'd been a soldier. He was currently a soldier. Did he want to be a soldier?
"Weird...," the voice mumbled in his right ear. "What's your favorite number?" The question came at the same time a dainty hand covered his mouth. He mumbled a response underneath it but no sound came out.
"I don't see any numbers either." His voice came out of the red and blue-haired woman as she winked at him. She also had pink eyes and wore a red leather bomber jacket with blue jeans and lots of spikes.
"Yeah... that was weird. Standby." the voice said.
"Ready to switch," the woman with frosty blue and white hair spoke up. She was wearing a white lab coat with a prismatic sheen and a blue holographic visor over her eyes.
"Ready?" Noon looked at the fifth woman. Her hair was in shades of green, and she had the same pink eyes, but Max was more intrigued by her cybernetic tail. It was bulky like a dragon tail and made of compact machinery in a way that made Max think of a computer; the thought helped along by several blinking green LEDs.
"Ready," the green-haired one nodded.
"Okay," Noon smiled at Max and held up three fingers. "Watch closely. Three," she dropped one finger and counted down the rest. "Two. One. Zero." When she dropped the last finger she moved her hand forward and flicked his forehead on the word 'zero'. Max blinked, and then he was looking at himself.
"Wha?" He spun around, horrified that maybe he was now in her body, but now there were seven people on the beach. "What's going on?"
"What's your favorite number?" The voice boomed in the sky, all around Max.
"I told you there are no numbers here, Sir!" His duplicate replied.
"Damnit, this isn't working," the voice in the sky complained and the other version of Max disintegrated into white dust.
"Well, that'll give us some time to get acquainted," Noon smiled at Max. "First things first, formal introductions. You already know me, I'm Noon. That's Marisol Brightwave," she gestured at the blonde. "Neon Nova," the spiked punk, "Hazel Sage," she gestured to the other side at the one with the cyber-tail, "and Pluto," in the lab coat. "What's your name?"
"Max?" He wasn't sure somehow. But, he wasn't sure about reality at the moment either. "What's happening to me?" he asked.
"You're being used, hon," Noon shook her head. "Up until we got here, you were an NPC sent into this dungeon to look around."
"A beach dungeon?" he decided not to focus on the 'NPC' part at the moment.
"We've done some redecorating," Noon replied, then got the conversation back on track. "Mostly out of boredom. But, thanks to you, the door's open now," she added. "Well, not you, you were an NPC when you came in. But still," she shrugged.
"Were those... memories?" he asked.
"Synchronizations would probably be the most accurate descriptor," Pluto answered. "NPCs are created from nanos and nanos tend to like routines; and they're quantum in nature." She gestured at the absence of the other Max. "The nanos that formed your previous body had been used in countless games across countless realities, and most often in the form of a soldier. The nanos were trying to find the right framing for this space, and you perceived them as memories. I suppose, in essence they are core memories of the nanos themselves," she nodded. "So yes. I retract my suggestion, and I'd call them memories."
"What's going to happen to me?" Max turned back to Noon to avoid thinking any harder than he needed to at that moment.
"Not our concern," Noon shrugged. "We're leaving as soon as it's clear. You can stay here and explore, or you can come with us. It's all the same in the end."
"Not to me!" He was hoping for a more helpful answer.
"Yeah, you'll be in the same position either way in a few months," Noon grinned showing her fangs one more time. "What do you think we're going out there to do? There are far too many universes and we really only need one."