The Foundry | Part Two | Chapter Seventeen
the next chapter of my forthcoming novel
Content Warning: UNFATHOMABLY FUCKED
The Foundry
by Daphne Garrido
Part Two | Rebuilt; Refound; Reclaimed
Part Three | Dominion
Chapter Seventeen
Echo realized immediately that it wasn’t Queen of the Hill she’d been loaded into. Some buried awareness existed within deeper meaning of the simple discovery. Still, she’d have trouble believing it possible. She knew Rory was capable of planning something like this, that most intelligent woman she was, but also how it would prove most difficult to execute within this container of higher learning their administration fostered here at The Foundry.
In reaction to her compartmentalized knowing, before anything happened other than realizing she’d been sent to the wrong place, Echo found herself urged to exit the simulation. She’d just wanted to go back, immediately.
The panic she’d felt at that moment came from two things most apparent. Firstly, the complete absence of some means to exit the simulation; a feature which would always be present via accessible sub-menus, with the same schemes of control every time, forming consistent means of pulling oneself out if things went too far. To not find that where she’d expect, was building the anxiety of being trapped.
It felt claustrophobic to be in the wrong simulation without a clear path free.
That other thing she’d noticed had been the bigger one. Her physical body didn’t feel present at all in this highly immersive simulation, and the one she wore was most concerning. Whatever would happen here, especially if it was leading where she’d begun to expect — Echo would need to be very careful in protecting her state of mind.
Living as a boy had been an awful experience for Echo. Being back in that form again, let alone, within a sim where such efforts had clearly been made to capture the nuances of those bodily sensations — along with the fact it was a carbon copy of that body she’d been bound within so long ago — was a nightmare of the highest order.
He’d grown older now, like she had. Echo was trying to look away from the mirror in that bathroom she’d awoken in, but she couldn’t.
Echo spent a great deal of time considering how this had been done at all. She knew there were completely digitized copies of her former body in databases of her home system, thousands of pictures, and the technology would be available to fill in the blanks — but still — this felt like an awful lot of effort for someone to go through just to torture her.
She was trying not to think about all the things which felt so wrong again, but it was the hair on his arms which created the unavoidable sensations sticking out most. It made Echo feel nauseous every time she’d consciously notice it.
Suffering through testosterone, the effects it had on her body and psychology, for such a dreadful amount of time — always feeling it most-off to what existed inside, yet, never fully believing why until she’d was blessed to live without it — was the deepest held trauma of Echo’s lifetime.
Rory would know that.
This was her doing. She’d obviously thought of the absolute worst thing, and Echo knew it a response to her posting that video. Spite broiled within, an anger unmatched, indignance to this horrendousness thrust upon her by the one her heart would not allow escape from loving most deeply. She wouldn’t let them defeat her spirit.
This wasn’t going to kill Echo. No part of the woman she’d become. She would walk forward stronger.
A terrifying discovery found light, shifting from some hidden compartment of her memory — one she’d regret not having thought of before loading-in. Ekara Oaksmith; tech admin, sim creator, and leader at The Foundry, was an oldest friend to Rory Tyrell.
Despite that body being of her former self, and it having aged. He was frail and weak — absurdly so. She could walk him around without much effort, his legs had strength for that. But she’d not be able to lift anything in the little hut she found him inside. Some kind of bespoke bungalow; it was actually quite cute.
There was a door which took far too much effort to turn the handle of. Even with the biceps on that boy, and despite his thickest neck and shoulders, alongside that stiffness their bulk bore into his movement, she could barely open it at all.
Weakness was clearly a curse upon him, and it birthed fear of what would come.
Crashing waves were breaking as he’d walked from the door. That boy’s form pacing out to find she’d been inside a cabin on a beach. Chiron was covering half the sky behind it, and there was a storm brewing out over the sea.
Atreya should have been a most beautiful sight in this detail. Especially now, having stepped free of those parts unable witness the divine grandeur of its fathering gas giant, and that newfound affection for the ways she’d grown before its presence. It would have been a most peaceful vision.
To be in this body tainted it. She’d wish there some way to remove the memory later. Not because she’d be too hurt by remembering what it felt like to live in the body of a boy, or sense again how she’d felt brutalized by testosterone, nor the horrors which were to come. It was only how this wasted her first shot at being on Atreya.
It hadn’t been the real her — what a shame that would always feel.
While those loading screens of The Foundry’s simulations would often feature Atreya’s ocean, this hadn’t been like that at all. The sand beneath his disturbingly hairy feet was felt most completely, getting caught in those outgrown nails which he wouldn’t find the will to take care of, untouched by a brush or lotion in years. She figured that part had just been a lucky guess.
Echo wouldn’t have believed what the worst thing was about being in that body. She just never realized how far she’d come, until having it all revert back. Echo had become incredibly flexible, and soft. It felt most right. Overtaken again by that stiffness of muscle, the roughness of her former body’s skin, and the tightness in his joints made her want to leave as soon possible.
“There they are,” she’d said aloud, wondering if they’d hear through some means of the simulation, witnessing Rory and Cameron walking the beach towards her from the distance.
The boy’s voice was shocking. Nothing had ever changed about Echo’s vocal cords. She’d just learned to speak from her heart, and the way which felt right. Yet, this simulation was somehow forcing her to speak in those tones of crassness she’d once been smothered beneath.
It made her not want to speak at all as they gotten close. Both Cameron and Rory were spitting images of themselves in the physical. Echo was betting they were both very strong here too.
Whatever simulation this was, whoever had made this, no one else would load-into it again. Echo realized here, seeing them approach and feeling the intent behind the energy — a part of her already knowing where it would lead, still praying she was wrong — this had been made just for her. Nobody was going to care either, and she’d just have to bear it. Alan wouldn’t know what to do. This was out of his depth.
Cameron shouted as they’d neared, “That’s the worst thing anybody has ever done to me, Echo!”
Echo wanted to speak in her own defense, hearing the implication of their word’s subtext; all of it. Cameron must have known they were making that video, and Rory was lying to them about how Echo came into possession of it. However, she’d found the voice of that boy dry up completely, nothing to emerge but little exhalative gasps on her attempts to wield it.
“You’re the most terrible person I’ve ever met. And you deserve so much worse than we could ever give you. I’ve never met a shittier person. You’re such a fucking man.”
If the words had come from Rory, that would’ve been one thing. Echo anticipated that kind of sentiment held towards her after the way she acted in their falling apart, having shown such shades of the broken boy she’d been.
To hear them from Cameron’s mouth was a crueler notion to Echo’s heart than she’d steeled herself to face. It cracked her open, and she wanted to cry, only to hear tiny whimpering sounds coming from that boy, and his deepest voice.
She couldn’t believe they’d gotten that part right too, but apparently, she’d not be able to shed a tear. There was such restriction around her feelings again, some muting by a shroud of inauthenticity and simulated body hormones which conflicted with the way her mind and spirit worked. She’d not be able to let her feelings flow, and they would just lock inside that boy’s body she was wearing.
Rory hadn’t looked at her once, not in the eyes, deferring the whole time to Cameron as if this was some gift to her. No doubt, what they’d let her believe as they’d crafted the cruelest punishment possible for Echo, to win new heights of victory in this feud which now felt as if it would never end.
‘I’m sorry!’ Is what she’d been trying to shout, only hearing some gargled-male groan come out.
She wasn’t sorry to anyone but Cameron. The darkness Echo could see coming from them wasn’t their own. It wasn’t hers or Rory’s either. There wasn’t one of them who owned this evil which was becoming them all. Fate seemed to be playing sick games to teach its harshest lessons.
“We’re never going to be friends again,” Cameron said, a clear response to those messages Echo had been sending.
“I’m never going to speak another word to you after this.”
Cameron turned, beginning to prove her point, and just walked away, down the beachfront. Rory sure hadn’t. They’d let her get to some distance, before watching Cameron phase out of the simulation entirely.
It was only the two of them left, and Echo knew this wasn’t being recorded, nor watched by anyone; their own private moment.
Rory approached most quickly, and Echo chose not to resist. She’d known his weakest body wouldn’t do a thing, but that wasn’t why. It was because she’d found herself without the will to continue fighting. Echo was officially over this.
They’d drug him towards the water line, and the boy’s voice could speak once more — a mechanism of that restriction clearly having been within Rory’s control — only allowed with Cameron now gone, when there would be no chance for Echo to speak of truth.
“Don’t do this,” is all he’d pled before it began.
Rory was holding so tightly, a first since they’d said their goodbyes — that last time Echo had seen her as a friend, unknowing there would be no other chance to squeeze her. It had been a horrible place to end what was the most rewarding friendship of Echo’s life.
She’d dissociated before Rory really got going. Despite how deeply she’d felt shackled inside this simulation, it was too wrong of a form for her to identify with, and there was an ease to the process of release she’d felt grateful for.
“You’re not welcome here, Daniel.” Is what they’d finally said. Rory’s first words to Echo in a longest time, after the last breath of air they’d given him.
Rory’s voice had always been the most beautiful sound Echo could hear, and she’d only now realized that was what she missed most of all. To hear it corrupted by such darkness, and speaking that name her parent’s had given, made even that boy begin to cry.
“No!” He’d shouted as the ocean of Atreya took his tears, in that very place Echo had wished to find her peace.
He was held beneath the waves. They killed that boy which Echo had once been, just like they’d done before. As Echo drowned in realization of this happening, and its reflection of what passed before between them, she’d finally realized why she would never stop loving Rory.
They’d set the woman inside her free.
