Chapter 21: The Cyberway

The rotting ghost city was gone, replaced by… nothing. The two of them rode along an empty road, occasionally crossing with other empty roads and striding through the empty landscape.

Suzuka would occasionally jerk and shift around the motorcycle, whining at him to stay put and not throw her off-balance, but aside from that the trip had been mostly uneventful so far.

Having completely given up on trying to appreciate the sights which weren’t there, Haruto simply settled for keeping his eyes on the path ahead: more straight, empty road. It didn’t seem to bother Suzuka much, though. She was likely already used to it.

“It won’t take much longer until we reach the next town.” the girl suddenly spoke, probably trying to break the silence. That did seem to bother her, on the other hand. “It won’t be hard to spot it, either, since we’re in the eastern corner. It’s mostly just flat land.”

“This world also changes depending on where you are in it, huh? I’m not seeing all that much traffic, though…”

“People around here don’t have much reason to move around very often… Comparing it to the living world, of course. Simply put, most of us in the Cyberway don’t really see much of a reason to stress and rush around like we used to on the… ‘other side’.”

They’d been moving for about twenty minutes now, or at least that was how it felt in his head. It wasn’t like he had a clock or anything with him to properly tell him what time it was. There was no sun despite there being light, so he couldn’t judge that way, either. In any case, things were still bright enough for him to see clearly, and that told him a lot already.

On occasion, a random car or truck or similar would pass by them, moving quickly in the opposite direction or even turning into one of the countless empty turns, eventually vanishing in the distance.

“Naturally, you’ll start to see a bit more movement once we actually get near Kataki town. Even so, it won’t be much compared to other parts of the Cyberway.”

“You mean, like, other parts are messier, or…?” he started, but then quickly stopped himself.

It didn’t really matter for the time being. It wouldn’t do him any good to waste his time asking Suzuka for random tidbits if he didn’t understand what exactly he was dealing with on the grander scale. First and foremost, he needed to be certain what kind of people he’d be interacting with, what rules were in place, how much the Cyberway could differ from Japan, or even the whole of his old world regarding the bigger picture.

Trying to study quantum physics would get you nowhere if you didn’t know how to count to ten to begin with.

“...?”

The girl seemed puzzled at his sudden pause, but he paid it no mind, pushing the conversation to a more manageable place.

“You told me before that this was a place for ‘losers to go after they died’, correct? Meaning, not everyone ends up here after kicking the bucket. If not here, then, where would they go?”

“Hell. Or Heaven. Depends on how kind they were. How fair, altruistic and brave you were in life. How you treated the people around you. If you’re good, you get to spend eternity with the rest of the good guys. If you’re bad, you end up with the degenerates. And then, there’s this place.”

“The Cyberway. And the people in here are losers… how, exactly? Who gets to decide this?”

“The powers that be, I suppose.” she sighed. It seemed he wasn’t the only one bothered by this issue. She didn’t have a clear answer to give him, either. “The point is, you, me, and a couple other people were deemed too unimportant to play a role anywhere, so we were cast aside, thrown in here so we wouldn’t bother anyone.”

“... So, we’re just… nothing? Is that it?”

“That’s the truth. Like I said, true villains, monsters and other scum go to hell, deep below. Heroes, martyrs and lauded protagonists go to heaven. Extras like us? They go to the Cyberway. The most mediocre of the mediocre. Average, utterly irrelevant people. Uninteresting. Forgotten. Not cruel enough to kill anyone. Not virtuous enough to save anyone. Many of us feel we didn’t exactly have a choice. And yet, that’s just how things happened. We simply sat by the sidelines in our old lives and let other people bask in the spotlight, because we had nothing of value to offer. Sound familiar?”

“...”

He felt a painful weight tug at the bottom of his heart. There was no way to deny it. Any of it. Likewise, there was nothing he could say about anything. It wouldn't change what had already happened.

“That’s why someone decided it would be best for us to spend eternity in a world more adequate for the kind of people we are. A place made by no one in particular. A place made for no one in particular.”

“So why are people still fighting? Why is there a whole slave system, and crazy death races going on? What’s even the purpose of that?”

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“Because some idiot decided it would be fun, I guess? If I had to get clinical, it stands to reason that even among the mediocre, some people will naturally be less mediocre than others, either in a good or bad sense. Even here, among the average, there will still be winners and losers, if we start forcing people against each other. A place filled with average people will obviously attract the laziest and least prone to take risks, so if the population wasn’t culled on occasion, the whole place would stagnate, since barely anyone would put in the effort to keep it organized. There are a few exceptions, but not enough to keep the world completely under control. Most regions are poorly managed and territorial borders barely have anyone guarding them. Well, the point is, these kinds of events give people enough incentive to kill and liquidate each other for money and… oth… other things…”

“No, wait. Borders? As in, between countries?”

“The Cyberway is divided into 4 main… let’s say… independent states of sorts. “We're deep inside the easternmost one right now, which is the largest as well.”

“And you call it…?”

“...”

“Doesn’t it have a name or anything?”

“No. The current ruler didn’t bother with that. Neither of them did, actually.”

“And these so-called borders are what keeps them separated, then? If management is really that poor, then, it must be hard not to have people fighting over territory all the time…”

“Bingo. And it's’ not just territory inside the Cyberway… These are just rumors I caught, of course, but I’ve even heard people say the world’s structure itself has been compromised. There have been sightings of very strange things moving around here as of late. People that shouldn’t be here. Dressing and behaving unusually. Speaking in languages no one can recognize or understand. Riding vehicles that should not exist, and doing things that shouldn’t even be possible. Almost like they belong to some other reality, but somehow found their way in. Some have been said to be extremely dangerous.  I don’t completely believe it, myself, but…”

“As in, condemned psychos on the loose, trying to escape from hell? That sort of thing?”

“No. From what I’ve heard, these people… assuming they’re even people… It is said they don’t even look like they came from our own living world to begin with. Earth, I mean. If they’re here, then yes, they’d obviously be dead, but… Dead from where, if so many people seem to agree they don’t belong in our own world? It makes no sense. It’s like they just popped out of nowhere, or even came from… some kind of…”

“... Alternate earth or something? You mean, there really are different worlds aside from ours? And why would these dead people be trying to break and enter into a whole other afterlife they don’t even belong in? How would they even do it? That’s absolutely insane…”

“Look, it’s mostly just crazy hearsay, alright? Thing is, it also used to be just hearsay that abandoned depots like Chariot City were filled to the brim with a bunch of empty vehicles running and ready to chase around after you. And yet, there they were. It was only hearsay that the Cyberway’s two biggest factions would break out into a massive dispute for territory last month, and yet they still did. At this point, I don’t know what to believe anymore.”

“How fantastic… Things in this place just get less and less terrifying every second…” Haruto remarked, laughing weakly to himself.

(What did you get yourself into now, Maekawa?)

Doing his best to shrug off the uneasiness, Haruto brought his focus back to the path ahead, and soon enough he had started being able to make out a few small buildings in the distance, sitting on dark, sprawling green plains, occasionally cut open by roads, crossings and marble squares. The buildings themselves seemed like a messy mix of granite and marble as well, though he couldn’t be absolutely sure from that distance. It had what he could only describe as an old feeling, though not particularly threatening. That was more than he could have said for crazy train city.

“That’s our place, right?”

“Yeah. Kataki town. It’s safe or the most part. Has nice inns you can stay the night at, and a decent carshop. The dealership is a bit less nice, since the owner is a complete tool. Of course, you can still make it work. With the right incentive, of course.”

“Car… dealerships…”

Those two words alone made him tremble in his seat. But he tried not to think about it too much. Sometimes, we need to get things over with, even if we don’t like them. Moving around in the Cyberway would require a decent vehicle, and that would be that.

“In any case,” she said “I know some people in there who might be of help to you. It’ll be a peaceful enough place to stop by and try to figure out… Well… What you want to do next, master. You can settle down and try to enjoy yourself with a simple job, since you’re already dead anyway. Or you can find a way into the inner mercenary world and rise up in the world’s hierarchy. It’s up to you. My career’s already done for, so… I guess I don’t have any reason not to help you out.”

“What I want to do next… Good question.”

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