Moho (Part One: Rise of a Symbol) (6 page)

“You noticed that those are all navee emotions. How are they different from human emotions?” I ask Maya.

“Mh… I assume they are mostly violent in nature. But I’m not sure. I have to research that,” Maya responds.

“She can start right here,” Pax says behind my back.

“Oh, don’t worry about it,” I say to Maya. But she looks away, probably ashamed by her uncharacteristic lack of knowledge.

“But you better do worry,” Pax says right into my face, this time loud enough for Maya to hear it. Maya looks over to us and must think Pax means her. She looks hurt. And I don’t like that.

“Shut up!”
It bursts out of me. This is so unfair! Maya was nothing but friendly and supportive the entire time while conniving Pax, in return, runs around my mind and hurts the person I care about the most. I feel my heartbeat accelerating again, pressing blood through my neck up into my head. I feel anger - and then I see anger. A magenta Emotionclone grows in the back of the space behind Maya's back. It’s a version of me I don’t like seeing here at all. Its breaths are loud, its lips pressed together and its eyes squinted. Pax has done it.

“Oh, Moho. I told you not to get angry,” Pax hisses with delight.

I do and I don’t want to be angry but I can’t help but feel more and more hate towards Pax with every moment. And I literally see my hate when a dark-red version of me rises above the crowd of my Emotionclones next to the giant anger Emotionclone. I need to get Maya out of here.

“So, what’s next?” I ask Maya before Pax, or my emotions, can cause any more damage.

“Are you sure? You have barely seen anything,” Maya suggests.

“Oh, I’ve seen more than I wanted,” I assure her.

“Okay. You should probably take a peek behind your Wall of Secrets then,” Maya suggests.

“Sounds great,” I respond. There are certainly a few things to shield from certain eyes.

Next, the space shrinks once more and we leave all my emotions behind us. A short moment of darkness follows but then we find ourselves in another one of those vast spaces. This time, however, there is no bright ceiling. There is no ceiling at all, actually, and no walls either.

We are standing on a mesh similar to the one in all the other spaces but here bright spots are racing through the mesh. They remind me of the Emotionclones and look like tiny balls of pure electricity.

What’s most confusing is the fact that there are neither any Memorybubbles, nor Thoughttrees, nor Emotionclones. There is simply nothing.

“Walk straight ahead. You will see the Wall
of Secrets after a while,” Maya explains.

“Aren’t you coming?” I ask.

“Only you can know your secrets. Otherwise your secrets aren’t secret,” Maya says and smiles. Teaching seems to make her happy.

So I start walking into the darkness. And walk. And walk. I look over my shoulder and see Pax talking to Maya but I’m too far away to hear anything. Pax is up to no good and I'd prefer her to not talk to Maya. Then their heads start to melt into the black background. And I get a bit scared. I keep walking and yet
, I just can’t find this wall. After a while I stop and turn around to see if Maya and Pax are still there, but the darkness has swallowed them completely. I’m alone.

I try to continue walking but immediately bump right into a wall instead. It appeared out of nowhere. I look left, right and up. The wall extends infinitely to all three sides. And there are no secrets anywhere. I touch the wall, searching for some clues. It looks like the floor but it's rock-solid. Then I hear someone who I'd rather forget.

“Hold on!” Pax shouts while she is running towards me. When she reaches the wall, she smiles at me as if nothing had happened between us.

“Don’t set up your password without me,” she says. I simply give her an 'Or what?' look.

“Or I won’t be able to access your secrets,” she explains. That is so delusional that I have to laugh a little.

“What makes you think that I want to share my secrets with you?” I ask.

“They are our secrets, Moho. We both know what’s in there.”

“I don’t know what you are talking about.”

“The anger you felt when Xerxes tested you, the panicked thoughts you had when you took The Vow. And then the Memorybubble in this Thoughttree. We both know what this memory was about. And we both know that we will find it behind your Wall of Secrets."

I open my mouth but I cannot come up with a lie that quickly.

“All I had to do was to tease you a little and your aggressive emotions ran wild.” She pauses for a moment, waiting for a reaction but this time my face is frozen.

“And that stunt you pulled on the tree? When you chose your secret over my well-being and pushed me off that branch? That was smart. Effective. And so quick! I did not see that coming. And then you waited to see if I was okay before you jumped yourself to cover up your assault. You used me. That was just ruthless. You are vicious when threatened. I appreciate that quality.”

I have nothing to say to that and turn away but she is annoyingly persistent.

“Luckily
, I’m just as vicious. Let us be vicious together,” she whispers. She is standing so close behind me that I can feel her breath on my neck. “You and I, we are the same.”

“We couldn't be more different. Go.” I demand clearly, not trying to hide my anger any more. “Now.”

I hear her taking a deep breath of disappointment. Then I wait a moment before I slowly check where she is. She is gone. I fall against the wall and close my eyes. My heart is beating in my throat. She knows. It’s over.

When I walk back towards Maya, she starts apologizing immediately.

“I’m so sorry. I forgot to tell you how the Wall
of Secrets works.”

“It’s fine. My secrets are safe now,” I calm her down. “Where is Pax?”

“She exited CEBOS immediately after you had left. She wasn’t feeling well,” Maya answers. “She sends her regards.”

Right... I bet she did not exit my mind. Well, that’s just great. Now I have an insane person running around in my mind. At least she won’t be able to find what she is looking for any more.

For a split-second, the light in the floor disappears which leaves the two of us in complete darkness. I can’t even see Maya any more who, as I know, is standing right in front of me. Then the spots in the mesh reappear and light up the floor again.

“It’s time for us to follow Pax and leave CEBOS. You are running out of energy,” Maya explains.

“No, I’m fine. I want to see more.”

“You really should not be in your mind when you're tired. Let us leave now before we cause any mental damage. We can come back any time.”

“I don’t feel tired at all. In fact, I feel much better now that we are alone," I assure her. "Why don’t you show me your favorite place in CEBOS?”

She looks away but she is smiling. I realize that she means well and I’m not really doing her a favor by insisting on staying. It’s not her nature to argue her standpoint. But I also sense that she wants to spend more time with me. And so do I. After a moment of silence, she takes a deep breath and gives in with a shrug of her shoulders.

“Well, that would be the Memory Network of Persadia,” she says.

“MNOP? Great, let’s go then.”

We don’t actually walk, of course. Instead the same, by now almost familiar, oddity happens. In the short moment of darkness in which the two of us are squeezed into the tiny space, I feel her body warmth on my skin. She doesn't step back. Then the mesh expands one more time and we find ourselves in MNOP.

This place has a lot in common with the one we've just left. There are no walls, there is no ceiling and we are standing on the same floor that can be found anywhere in CEBOS. But MNOP isn’t dark or empty. It is overflowing with Memorybubbles. They are all I can see and come in all different sizes. Some are as small as a fingernail while others are eight, ten times my height. And they are not neatly organized in a spiral or moving slowly along in a line like in the Memoryspiral. No, they are moving up and down, left and right, back and forth and diagonal. They are not even moving at the same pace. Some seem to almost rest in midair while others are shooting through the air at a frightening speed. It’s
a total mess. We don’t get hit by any bubbles, though, because they all miraculously change direction before they hit us.

Once in a while a Memorybubble gives view of people in the distance before another Memorybubble blocks the view of them again.

“Are all of those people in my mind?” I ask Maya.

“No. MNOP, like all other networks, is public. So you will find other MNOP
users visualized here,” she explains.

Suddenly everything turns dark again. This time it’s dark for several seconds. When MNOP lights up again, Maya is looking at me with deep concern. And in contrast to before, I do have to act a little to hide my exhaustion this time.

“I’m fine. So it’s a network to share memories?” I ask but all I get back from her for a while is a worried look.

“Exactly. Every single memory ever made on Persadia that is not hidden behind someone’s Wall
of Secrets can be found here. It is really convenient.”

I didn’t like the idea of MNOP yesterday when Aziz told me how he watched the private conversation between Maya and I and I don’t like it now. But then I hear something I like even less… so much less.

“If you had known that just a little earlier. You would have cleaned up your CEBOS a bit more carefully,” the voice says. The attitude isn’t helping but just hearing her voice makes my heart beat faster — and it's not out of excitement.

“Oh Pax, good to see you! Are you feeling better?” Maya asks.

“I have never felt better,” Pax responds, her eyes fixed on mine.

“Good. We missed you!” Maya says.

“I knew you would miss me,” Pax says to me and ignores Maya once more. But what is really concerning is the fact that her hands are behind her back. She is holding something… Something is up.

“I don’t know what you are talking about,” I lie to Pax.

“Think again,” Pax says coldly. I try to ignore her and turn around but this time she doesn’t give up and adds, “Look what I was able to secure for the public.”

Pax walks over to me and holds a small Memorybubble in front of my face with her left hand. It shows me looking down at Maya from the treetop and then noticing the Bellybutton Erasure memory in the branch right below me. It ends with me pushing Pax off the branch. My heart sinks.

“Looks familiar, doesn’t it?” Pax asks.

“I didn’t steal anything from your mind,” I argue.

“You’re in luck. I did it for you and… I brought it," she says and shows me the other Memorybubble. This one looks eerily familiar. At first I assume it is my own Bellybutton Erasure memory but the hands in it look much more delicate than Victor's hands. When the person that belongs to the hands is revealed, I relax. It’s a small, elderly woman, not Victor.

I need a moment to understand what this means. Pax
had voluntarily taken her Bellybutton Erasure memory from behind her Wall of Secrets and had brought it into a public space. So she is basically letting everyone know that she is human. She is trying really hard to get darkened. This is so crazy that there is a moment in which I feel the urge to help her but maybe it’s too late for her. Maybe she is past help.

“Have you gone insane?” I yell at her.

“No. I have gone sane. Hiding from yourself is insane,” Pax responds and seems very convinced.

Then the lights go out again for another few seconds. I look over to Maya who signals me it really is time to go now.  She seems to have little interest in my argument with Pax. But who knows, she may simply want to know as little as possible and
had therefore chosen to ignore us. Pax, on the other hand, ignores the flickering and continues.

“But I’m here to help you. I only have your best interest at heart. Look, I will do it for you,” she says and stretches her arms up into the air, one Memorybubble in each hand. Then she takes a deep breath and closes her eyes. She is going to let go. And then everybody will see what I did to her. Everybody will wonder why I did something so violent and then everybody will know who I am. And then The Spring will take my light.  I have to do something.

“Pax, you’re right,” I hear myself saying. That gets her attention. She opens her eyes and looks at me. “But shouldn’t I release my Memorybubble myself? I feel like this would be an important first step for me.”

She just stares at me, her face completely frozen. My heart is beating against my chest. I was trying to sound genuine but I can’t say if I pulled it off. My heart beats faster and faster. Then she lowers her hands. She appears relieved.

“I knew you had it in you,” she says without any hint of what that means. “It will be difficult at first but I'll be with you.” And then she actually hands over my Memorybubble. I grab it immediately.

She takes her Memorybubble in both hands and stretches her arms out over her head, just as she did before. Her raised eyebrows signal me to do the same, and so I do. The excitement of being this dangerously close to having my secret revealed is hard to endure but I hold on tightly to my Memorybubble with my sweaty hands. The light flickers again, leaving us in complete darkness one more time. We both take a deep breath and then she closes her eyes.