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Description
I only vaguely remember how those first few moments in the Smog Realm went. I came to, took a deep breath, and immediately regretted it. My lungs filled with a bitter, acidic gas, and I started to cough uncontrollably. I couldn’t breathe, and I blacked out again, noticing the Materas Laboratories building in the distance, beyond the thick, poisonous smoke.
“Greetings,” said a girl as I woke up again. I was lying on a small cot in the very same storage room I had hidden in, in what seemed like just a few minutes ago. I looked over to the source of the voice, and was taken aback at what I saw. The right side of the girl’s face was covered in a metallic plate, and where one of her eyes should have been, there was a camera-like aperture. Her other eye was wide and bright blue, covered slightly by her auburn hair. It fell into two long, braided pigtails on either side of her head, which when combined with her green frilled dress and striped stockings, gave her a very childlike appearance, though she must have been close to my age, judging by her height.
What really surprised me was her right arm: it was metal as well, though it was more decorative than the metal plate on her face. It moved much more fluidly than any prosthetic limb I had ever seen before. Had it been covered in an artificial skin, I would have thought it to be real. The arm was attached to a bulge at the girl’s shoulder where the Materas Laboratories logo was printed.
“Sir, are you alright?” she asked in a monotone voice. She smiled at me, though it was an empty one, with no real emotion that I could sense. I nodded, though it caused my head to start spinning. “Very good,” she said. “I have treated your injuries, and you should be alright. You should be on your feet within minutes, if I haven’t erred in my diagnosis of you. However, I cannot let you leave at the moment. We are awaiting further instructions from Father, so please be patient.”
My mind went to the others who had followed me into the abyss of P.ENE.LO.P.E. “Where are Anemonae and Manfred?” I asked.
“Subjects Anemonae and Manfred not found in May OS database. Next scheduled update is in… Error Three Seven Nine Six. Update schedule not found.”
“So… you didn’t find anyone with me?”
“Oh,” she said, not sounding surprised in the least. “I am sorry for the misunderstanding. The others that were with you are being held in a separate room. They have not awoken yet. Apologies.” She sat down on a chair next to the cot and stared at me.
“Uh, what are you-“
“If you could please refrain from facial movement, sir, I can record you into the database. In the meantime, could you please tell me your name?”
I didn’t respond for a moment, being so confused at the situation.
“Your name, please,” she said flatly.
“Weiss… Wakefield.”
“Thank you. Could you please tell me what you were doing out in the Smog, Mr. Wakefield?”
I shook my head. I had a headache and was sore all over, and I didn’t want to think too hard. “What?”
“Sir, are you not aware of the potentially deadly effects of the Smog outside of the city?”
“No?” I asked more than said.
“Your age indicates that you would have been taught about the dangers of leaving the city, yet you do not seem to know of them. Furthermore, a spatial anomaly was detected near where you and the others were recovered. Further evidence is needed to make a proper hypothesis, but I will ask you: did you enter this world from another?”
I thought hard about the question. We had jumped into P.ENE.LO.P.E. and had gone… somewhere, yet here I was, sitting in the storage room of the Materas Laboratories. It had a different atmosphere, though: dirtier, smellier, and generally more run down than most of the clean, untouched laboratory of before. “Yeah, I think so,” I finally replied.
“And subjects Anemonae and Manfred?” she asked, moving right along. “Did they accompany you?”
“Yeah,” I answered.
She nodded stiffly. “Please follow me, Mr. Wakefield.” As the girl stood, I got to my feet as well, slightly wobbly but otherwise fine. I followed her down the hall and into a break room where Anemonae and Manfred slept on a pair of couches.
“Excuse me,” the girl said as she shook the two of them awake. “Could I please ask you to get up for just a moment?” They sat up, Manfred grumbling like a kid who didn’t want to go to school.
“Who are you?” Anemonae asked, rubbing her eyes.
“Please, ma’am, if I could have your silence while the three of you stand over there?” She pointed to a wall on the far side of the room.
I’m not sure why we agreed to follow her instructions so readily. Maybe it was because it’s hard to refuse a cute girl with such good manners, or perhaps she had some sort of voice program that made her especially persuasive. Either way, we lined up against the wall, still confused and drowsy.

Her intentions became clear along with our heads at the moment she pulled the pistol out from underneath her dress.

“H-hey!” Manfred yelped. “Girls shouldn’t play with guns, you know? Put that down!”
“Many apologies,” the girl said, her face as cold and expressionless as the gun pointed at me, “but I have received execution orders from Father. If you would kindly hold still, I can calculate the precise trajectory to make this as painless as possible-“
“Anemonae!” I barked as a plan began to take shape in my head. “The gun! Disarm her!”
She nodded. “Got it.” She thrust her hands towards the girl as she fired the gun, missing. A flash of light from Anemonae’s hands knocked the weapon out of the girl’s.
I took that as my cue. I lunged at the girl, pinning her to the floor. She was strong, especially the mechanical arm, so there wasn’t a lot of time to act. I looked her over as she struggled beneath me, noticing something. There was a metal bulge on the side of her head. My vision, sharper than normal because of the adrenaline flowing through me, let me read small text printed on the side of the machine.
Compliance Assurance Device, it was labeled. Was it some sort of brainwashing device? That would explain her emotionless speech… I had an idea that seemed worth a shot. “Manfred!” I yelled, pointing to the lump of metal with antennae sticking out of it. “Get rid of that thing, while I can still hold her down!”
“Yes sir,” he said sarcastically. He bounded over to me, drawing those strange energy blades of his. He was surprisingly careful as he cleanly separated the device from the side of the girl’s head. She gasped, her eyes widening in shock as she stopped trying to escape my grip.
“Wh… Who are you?” Her vice had fallen to nearly a whisper, and the calm confidence she had spoken with earlier had disappeared. “And why are you holding me down like this?”
I didn’t let go. “I already told you my name, and you were about to kill me just now, that’s why I’m doing this.”
“Oh no,” she sighed. “Automatic Execution Orders… They’ve been going out ever since Father disappeared. We’re supposed to kill anyone new, I’m sorry-“ She stopped abruptly, shocked. “Wait! You got rid of it, didn’t you? The CAD?” She felt the side of her head where the device had been, smiling widely as she felt the empty space. “Oh, thank you!” She looked straight at me for the first time since her change, and her face went slack while her artificial eye widened completely.
“Subject: Weiss,” she said, her voice almost robotic. “Potential Compatibility: Ninety-Five Percent. No previous bond detected. Subject has been assigned to project S.B. point Three Seven Five Beta. Mr. Wakefield, you are now responsible for my complete well being.”
The girl smiled again, her face regaining its normal composure. “Now we can start getting people out of here…” She chattered away, apparently completely oblivious to what she just said while we stared at her, confused. She laughed. “But first, could you get off of me?”
“Oh,” I said, getting back to my feet. “Sorry.” I helped her up, and she smiled at the three of us.
“It’s no problem,” she said. “Could I ask to whom I owe my freedom to?”
“But, you already asked us,” I said.
The girl tapped the metal plate on her face. “Temporary CAD-accessed flash memory. When the CAD is activated, I can’t remember anything from when it isn’t, and vice versa… get it?”
“I guess so,” I said. “In that case, my name is Weiss Wakefield.” I pointed to the others. “That’s Anemonae, and the creep over there is Manfred.”
She giggled. “It’s very nice to meet the three of you. I’m-“ A siren sounded, cutting her off. “Oh no… May. She’s so paranoid these days, I don’t know what-“
“What!?” My heart leapt at the name. “May?”
The girl looked surprised at my shock. “May is short for Materas Analysis Yoke, the computer system that runs the place, now that Father’s gone.” She gestured towards the door. “I’ll tell you more, but we should probably get out of here, eh?” We left the room, running through the emergency doors that the girl was easily able to disable. “May… She’s probably the one that issued your execution order. She hates change, so she activates our CADs all the time and sets off red alerts whenever the smallest things happen… but I guess it’s kind of warranted this time, huh?” She laughed.
“Who’s this Father you keep talking about?” asked Manfred.
“You… don’t know? Father is what we Children call Edaniel Materas…” She paused, looking at us curiously. “Really? You don’t know about Doctor Materas? Where’d you come from, anyway?
“It’s a long story,” I said.
“Ah, you’re right. We’ll have plenty of time to talk later, once we get to a Shelter. Here we are.” We had come to a large, ornate door, the lab’s exit. The girl punched a number into a keypad and gasped as the huge doors slid open.
A pair of gigantic black serpentine creatures with massive fangs snarled at us and blocked our way from just beyond the doors.
“Oh no,” whispered the girl. “Worms…”
“I’ll take care of this!” cried Manfred. He took off the jacket he was wearing, revealing a white T-shirt with a bright red H printed on it. He reached into his pocket and dramatically pulled out…
“A Hot Pocket?! Manfred, what the hell are you doing?!”
He ignored my cries of disbelief, frantically waving the sandwich back and forth in front of the Worms. “Now,” he said in the voice of a lion tamer or something, “Move aside, foul beasts, or taste hot, cheesy death!”
I put my head in my hands, simultaneously terrified and embarrassed. After a few seconds of silence, I opened my eyes, wondering why we weren’t dead yet. To my surprise, the creatures had actually moved over, letting us through. Anemonae, the girl, and I exchanged an amazed glance, and we kept on moving. The doors had opened into a massive cave, and on the other side was a small tram. We ran to it, stuffing ourselves into the little train, catching our breaths as it started to move.
“Well, that was exciting for a minute, wasn’t it?” The girl was panting while grinning wildly. “You were great!” she said to Manfred, who was smiling just as widely as she was. “By the way,” she said as our train emerged from underground, revealing a completely ruined city. “My name’s Penelope. Penelope Materas.”

Description
I only vaguely remember how those first few moments in the Smog Realm went. I came to, took a deep breath, and immediately regretted it. My lungs filled with a bitter, acidic gas, and I started to cough uncontrollably. I couldn’t breathe, and I blacked out again, noticing the Materas Laboratories building in the distance, beyond the thick, poisonous smoke.
“Greetings,” said a girl as I woke up again. I was lying on a small cot in the very same storage room I had hidden in, in what seemed like just a few minutes ago. I looked over to the source of the voice, and was taken aback at what I saw. The right side of the girl’s face was covered in a metallic plate, and where one of her eyes should have been, there was a camera-like aperture. Her other eye was wide and bright blue, covered slightly by her auburn hair. It fell into two long, braided pigtails on either side of her head, which when combined with her green frilled dress and striped stockings, gave her a very childlike appearance, though she must have been close to my age, judging by her height.
What really surprised me was her right arm: it was metal as well, though it was more decorative than the metal plate on her face. It moved much more fluidly than any prosthetic limb I had ever seen before. Had it been covered in an artificial skin, I would have thought it to be real. The arm was attached to a bulge at the girl’s shoulder where the Materas Laboratories logo was printed.
“Sir, are you alright?” she asked in a monotone voice. She smiled at me, though it was an empty one, with no real emotion that I could sense. I nodded, though it caused my head to start spinning. “Very good,” she said. “I have treated your injuries, and you should be alright. You should be on your feet within minutes, if I haven’t erred in my diagnosis of you. However, I cannot let you leave at the moment. We are awaiting further instructions from Father, so please be patient.”
My mind went to the others who had followed me into the abyss of P.ENE.LO.P.E. “Where are Anemonae and Manfred?” I asked.
“Subjects Anemonae and Manfred not found in May OS database. Next scheduled update is in… Error Three Seven Nine Six. Update schedule not found.”
“So… you didn’t find anyone with me?”
“Oh,” she said, not sounding surprised in the least. “I am sorry for the misunderstanding. The others that were with you are being held in a separate room. They have not awoken yet. Apologies.” She sat down on a chair next to the cot and stared at me.
“Uh, what are you-“
“If you could please refrain from facial movement, sir, I can record you into the database. In the meantime, could you please tell me your name?”
I didn’t respond for a moment, being so confused at the situation.
“Your name, please,” she said flatly.
“Weiss… Wakefield.”
“Thank you. Could you please tell me what you were doing out in the Smog, Mr. Wakefield?”
I shook my head. I had a headache and was sore all over, and I didn’t want to think too hard. “What?”
“Sir, are you not aware of the potentially deadly effects of the Smog outside of the city?”
“No?” I asked more than said.
“Your age indicates that you would have been taught about the dangers of leaving the city, yet you do not seem to know of them. Furthermore, a spatial anomaly was detected near where you and the others were recovered. Further evidence is needed to make a proper hypothesis, but I will ask you: did you enter this world from another?”
I thought hard about the question. We had jumped into P.ENE.LO.P.E. and had gone… somewhere, yet here I was, sitting in the storage room of the Materas Laboratories. It had a different atmosphere, though: dirtier, smellier, and generally more run down than most of the clean, untouched laboratory of before. “Yeah, I think so,” I finally replied.
“And subjects Anemonae and Manfred?” she asked, moving right along. “Did they accompany you?”
“Yeah,” I answered.
She nodded stiffly. “Please follow me, Mr. Wakefield.” As the girl stood, I got to my feet as well, slightly wobbly but otherwise fine. I followed her down the hall and into a break room where Anemonae and Manfred slept on a pair of couches.
“Excuse me,” the girl said as she shook the two of them awake. “Could I please ask you to get up for just a moment?” They sat up, Manfred grumbling like a kid who didn’t want to go to school.
“Who are you?” Anemonae asked, rubbing her eyes.
“Please, ma’am, if I could have your silence while the three of you stand over there?” She pointed to a wall on the far side of the room.
I’m not sure why we agreed to follow her instructions so readily. Maybe it was because it’s hard to refuse a cute girl with such good manners, or perhaps she had some sort of voice program that made her especially persuasive. Either way, we lined up against the wall, still confused and drowsy.

Her intentions became clear along with our heads at the moment she pulled the pistol out from underneath her dress.

“H-hey!” Manfred yelped. “Girls shouldn’t play with guns, you know? Put that down!”
“Many apologies,” the girl said, her face as cold and expressionless as the gun pointed at me, “but I have received execution orders from Father. If you would kindly hold still, I can calculate the precise trajectory to make this as painless as possible-“
“Anemonae!” I barked as a plan began to take shape in my head. “The gun! Disarm her!”
She nodded. “Got it.” She thrust her hands towards the girl as she fired the gun, missing. A flash of light from Anemonae’s hands knocked the weapon out of the girl’s.
I took that as my cue. I lunged at the girl, pinning her to the floor. She was strong, especially the mechanical arm, so there wasn’t a lot of time to act. I looked her over as she struggled beneath me, noticing something. There was a metal bulge on the side of her head. My vision, sharper than normal because of the adrenaline flowing through me, let me read small text printed on the side of the machine.
Compliance Assurance Device, it was labeled. Was it some sort of brainwashing device? That would explain her emotionless speech… I had an idea that seemed worth a shot. “Manfred!” I yelled, pointing to the lump of metal with antennae sticking out of it. “Get rid of that thing, while I can still hold her down!”
“Yes sir,” he said sarcastically. He bounded over to me, drawing those strange energy blades of his. He was surprisingly careful as he cleanly separated the device from the side of the girl’s head. She gasped, her eyes widening in shock as she stopped trying to escape my grip.
“Wh… Who are you?” Her vice had fallen to nearly a whisper, and the calm confidence she had spoken with earlier had disappeared. “And why are you holding me down like this?”
I didn’t let go. “I already told you my name, and you were about to kill me just now, that’s why I’m doing this.”
“Oh no,” she sighed. “Automatic Execution Orders… They’ve been going out ever since Father disappeared. We’re supposed to kill anyone new, I’m sorry-“ She stopped abruptly, shocked. “Wait! You got rid of it, didn’t you? The CAD?” She felt the side of her head where the device had been, smiling widely as she felt the empty space. “Oh, thank you!” She looked straight at me for the first time since her change, and her face went slack while her artificial eye widened completely.
“Subject: Weiss,” she said, her voice almost robotic. “Potential Compatibility: Ninety-Five Percent. No previous bond detected. Subject has been assigned to project S.B. point Three Seven Five Beta. Mr. Wakefield, you are now responsible for my complete well being.”
The girl smiled again, her face regaining its normal composure. “Now we can start getting people out of here…” She chattered away, apparently completely oblivious to what she just said while we stared at her, confused. She laughed. “But first, could you get off of me?”
“Oh,” I said, getting back to my feet. “Sorry.” I helped her up, and she smiled at the three of us.
“It’s no problem,” she said. “Could I ask to whom I owe my freedom to?”
“But, you already asked us,” I said.
The girl tapped the metal plate on her face. “Temporary CAD-accessed flash memory. When the CAD is activated, I can’t remember anything from when it isn’t, and vice versa… get it?”
“I guess so,” I said. “In that case, my name is Weiss Wakefield.” I pointed to the others. “That’s Anemonae, and the creep over there is Manfred.”
She giggled. “It’s very nice to meet the three of you. I’m-“ A siren sounded, cutting her off. “Oh no… May. She’s so paranoid these days, I don’t know what-“
“What!?” My heart leapt at the name. “May?”
The girl looked surprised at my shock. “May is short for Materas Analysis Yoke, the computer system that runs the place, now that Father’s gone.” She gestured towards the door. “I’ll tell you more, but we should probably get out of here, eh?” We left the room, running through the emergency doors that the girl was easily able to disable. “May… She’s probably the one that issued your execution order. She hates change, so she activates our CADs all the time and sets off red alerts whenever the smallest things happen… but I guess it’s kind of warranted this time, huh?” She laughed.
“Who’s this Father you keep talking about?” asked Manfred.
“You… don’t know? Father is what we Children call Edaniel Materas…” She paused, looking at us curiously. “Really? You don’t know about Doctor Materas? Where’d you come from, anyway?
“It’s a long story,” I said.
“Ah, you’re right. We’ll have plenty of time to talk later, once we get to a Shelter. Here we are.” We had come to a large, ornate door, the lab’s exit. The girl punched a number into a keypad and gasped as the huge doors slid open.
A pair of gigantic black serpentine creatures with massive fangs snarled at us and blocked our way from just beyond the doors.
“Oh no,” whispered the girl. “Worms…”
“I’ll take care of this!” cried Manfred. He took off the jacket he was wearing, revealing a white T-shirt with a bright red H printed on it. He reached into his pocket and dramatically pulled out…
“A Hot Pocket?! Manfred, what the hell are you doing?!”
He ignored my cries of disbelief, frantically waving the sandwich back and forth in front of the Worms. “Now,” he said in the voice of a lion tamer or something, “Move aside, foul beasts, or taste hot, cheesy death!”
I put my head in my hands, simultaneously terrified and embarrassed. After a few seconds of silence, I opened my eyes, wondering why we weren’t dead yet. To my surprise, the creatures had actually moved over, letting us through. Anemonae, the girl, and I exchanged an amazed glance, and we kept on moving. The doors had opened into a massive cave, and on the other side was a small tram. We ran to it, stuffing ourselves into the little train, catching our breaths as it started to move.
“Well, that was exciting for a minute, wasn’t it?” The girl was panting while grinning wildly. “You were great!” she said to Manfred, who was smiling just as widely as she was. “By the way,” she said as our train emerged from underground, revealing a completely ruined city. “My name’s Penelope. Penelope Materas.”