“Isn’t it obvious?” he said acidly when they wouldn’t stop staring. “I thought you’d figured it out. It would be a masterful plan if it wasn’t so obviously a complete accident. Oh, gosh, look … giant tentacles! We must all work together to defeat the scary monster! And gee willikers, wouldn’t it just be easier if we let him tell us how the story was supposed to go? Like, I don’t know, we were characters?”
He scowled blackly at the tentacles writhing overhead. “In case you hadn’t noticed, we’re in his world now … first the pleasure-dome, then the slimy sea. This is what the choice is for: convincing Three he doesn’t have access to this kind of control. When he brought Leggy there into existence, he pulled us right inside his story. It’s like being caught in a tightening noose, isn’t it?”
“I don’t see—” started Mel.
“The story tells us what we have to do,” Josiah said. He turned furiously to Freddy. “It’s like time travel! That moaning you did about fate. Well, being trapped in someone else’s story is worse. You don’t think for yourself. You don’t think at all. You do what the story tells you … what the author makes you. That’s what the tentacles are for.”
The tentacles were beginning to curl down towards them. They were so dense that it almost seemed as if night had fallen.
“He’s right,” said Cuerva Lachance, “unfortunately. Three’s already started writing us again.”
Freddy thought she saw. The story Roland had created was herding them all in one direction: they had to fight the tentacles. They had to do it his way. Mel and Freddy did, too, but they weren’t fictional; it didn’t mean the same thing to them. The story was in control now. Cuerva Lachance and Josiah were being shoved back into it.
She should have felt glad about that. She wasn’t sure she did. She remembered what the time travel had been like.
“So we’ve won,” said Mel.
“I don’t care,” said Josiah.
Mel opened her mouth but didn’t speak. Freddy felt her throat constrict. Abruptly, she knew what was coming.
Josiah shrugged, his eyes hard and cold. “I don’t care how the story goes. I won’t go back to being … that. Fight the damn squid monster yourself. I’m done.”
“It’s going to squash us all,” said Freddy.
“I’ve lived for thousands of years,” said Josiah. “I’ve never been squashed before. Bring it on.”
“I’ve got to agree,” said Cuerva Lachance. “Better horrible mangled death than mindless puppetdom. Or was that the other way around?”
“Roland,” said Freddy.
He was white and clenched. “I can’t stop the story. It’s a story. It … I tried just to wish us out of here, and I couldn’t. We have to follow the rules if we want to get to the end.”
“Not all stories have happy endings,” said Mel. “Josiah—”
“No,” he said. “If I’m going to be killed, I’m going to be real and killed. And the story will end my way.”
He meant it. Freddy had never seen him mean something so completely.
The tentacles were twisting down towards them, probably quite quickly, but the world had again gone slow. Freddy thought of how she had always known Josiah had been hiding something from her. She thought of how frightened he had seemed in the future when he couldn’t find his other self. She thought of Roland feeling hemmed in and trapped … of herself feeling hemmed in and trapped. Of, now, Josiah and Cuerva Lachance feeling the same way. She thought of Ban. Ban had said everything was backwards, but she hadn’t been a puppet; she had been just as much a real person as Cuerva Lachance was now.
“I don’t know what to do, Freddy!” Roland nearly wailed.
It had to be possible for Three to keep the power and Cuerva Lachance and Josiah to stay real. In the best stories, the characters aren’t predictable. They do unexpected things. They defy the author. They seem alive …
Freddy thought about stories. She thought about the kind of stories Roland told.
“PCs,” said Freddy, and signed it.
Roland said, “What?”
“Your kind of stories. That game. The story doesn’t always go the way you want,” said Freddy, “since other people are writing it with you. Like Mel and me now. Do they have to be NPCs?”
Roland’s eyes were widening. “But if I lose control of them again…”
“No, she’s right. You still control the story,” said Mel, “mostly. Let them be PCs.”
“Now,” said Freddy. “Roland, now!”
A tentacle thrice the width of her body was scything through the air towards them.
“PCs, then,” said Roland, and turned to Cuerva Lachance. “Okay?”
Josiah said, “What—”
“Do try to keep up, Josie, dear.” Cuerva Lachance turned on her heel and leapt for the tentacle.
She changed as she went. Freddy saw a blurred mass of black feathers and talons connect with the tentacle, then continue to transform, shredding itself into a sucking, twirling hole in space. Roland and Mel hadn’t been expecting that. Both of them stepped back, and Mel clapped her hands over her mouth. “She does things. Just let her,” said Freddy.
Mel shook her head. “You’re in the story, too. Freddy, stop forgetting about that gun thing.”
“Good point,” said Freddy. She squeezed a bolt at the next descending tentacle. Lightning crackled up its length; it whirled away from the boat and plunged into the water. Belatedly, Freddy wondered if it was really a good idea to use an electricity-based weapon on a boat in the sea. “Don’t worry about it. Way ahead of you,” panted Mel, whose fingers were glowing. “Protection spell. Keep firing.”
Freddy glanced at Roland. He was cringing on the deck, completely helpless. “You’re writing the story,” she screamed at him. “Do something!”
“I’m not a character,” he screamed back. He tucked his arms over his head.
Josiah, in the meantime, had mostly been standing there looking stunned. Freddy tapped him on the back of the head with the base of the gun. “PC. Player character. You’re not a mindless puppet. Will you please do something now?”
He locked eyes with her. She held his gaze as firmly as she could. She saw suspicion give way to a grudging, reluctant belief. They trusted each other sometimes. They had bounced through history together, over and over. He knew how she felt about time travel.
“Player character,” said Josiah, “fine,” and went to work on one of the tentacles in his own way.
“You can’t exist,” he told it drily. “Obey the law of gravity, won’t you? I tolerate this kind of thing from Cuerva Lachance, but from you, it’s absurd. Pull yourself together and start taking physics into account.”
“You’re going to make it fall on us. You’re insane,” said Mel as Freddy squeezed off another bolt.
Josiah’s tentacle was trembling. Cuerva Lachance’s had vanished into some sort of vortex. Flowers were growing on another one. “One at a time isn’t good enough,” said Mel. “There are a hundred of the things. He does this in every game. It’s all one creature. We need to aim for the head.”
“Classic zombie tactics,” said Josiah, “got you. Cuerva Lachance!”