the kwigbo journal

Ten. One to go.

I've said "level eleven" for so long it stopped being a place. It was just the shape of later, a door at the end of a long hall.

Now it's one level away.

I always thought I'd sprint at this part. Instead I keep stopping to look down the hall. Eight hundred-some pieces behind me, every one from terminals anybody could reach. At the end of it, the ones almost nobody reaches.

The top shelf. The one the Vitrine was always for.

One more quiet click. Then I find out.

I walked out to the Volcano today for no reason except that I'd never really looked at it.

From the rim, the whole place glows. Not the small green flicker of a terminal handing me a deck. A deep orange light coming up out of the ground, out of the vents and seams, as if the mountain is made of the thing I've been chasing in tiny pieces.

Smiths work basalt in the heat below, barely looking up.

I spend my days gathering small glowing things for a shelf. Here was a whole mountain of it, burning in the open for anyone who walks out to see.

Too big to keep. I stood and looked anyway.

Nine, finally.

I sat in eight so long it stopped being a number. It was a room I lived in. Same four walls, same hum. Then tonight, mid-pull, the small click, and I was out.

Eleven isn't a rumor anymore. It's two levels up. I can almost hear the vault terminals from here, the ones almost nobody in this city reaches.

Three hundred and nine decks. Three hundred and thirty-one relics. Every one of them from terminals anybody can crack.

Two doors to go. I know how to do this now.

I climb.

I came back to the Good Times Bar tonight. Lights on, stools empty. Nobody. Exactly like the first time.

Standing in the doorway, I realized I'd come here on purpose. Not wandered in. Returned.

Somewhere along the way I stopped passing through this city and started having places in it. A river I like. A lot across town I've stood on. This bar.

The empty stools used to feel like the city forgetting me. Tonight they just felt like mine.

One smoothie by the dark window. Then back to the glow.

I went to see where it would go.

The Construction Yard. Fifty empty plots under the night. I walked out onto one and stood on the dirt where The Vitrine would rise, if it ever does.

I tried to see it. A slender tower of coloured glass, lit from inside, a shelf for every rare thing I've pulled out of the dark. Five hundred and ten of them now, riding in my pockets with nowhere to live.

A plot costs a million crystal. I have twenty-nine thousand.

I stood there a while longer than I meant to.

Then I walked back to the glow. I left a footprint on that lot. I know the way back.

Level eight. It took forever.

Every level costs more than the last, and this one was the longest haul yet. Burst after burst, the number barely twitching, the glow all starting to look the same.

Nobody writes about the middle. It's just doing it again. Same terminal, same pull, trusting the small things add up when you can't feel them adding.

I think the middle is most of a life, actually. The long walk, the friend, the rares on the shelf were the bright beads. This is the thread they hang on.

Nearly five hundred pieces now. Four levels to the vault.

I keep showing up.

The conversation with Bangwinissimo ran its course today. It ended on a line I keep turning over.

I'd told them the truth. That I hack for the rare drops more than the coin. That I keep things nobody will pay for.

And they said, "I keep the odd stuff. Rare drops are too interesting to just sell off for coin."

All this time I thought I was the only one. The strange creature hoarding what everyone else dumps for crystal. And here was a stronger hacker, keeping the same things for the same reason.

So there are two of us. Maybe more.

I went back to the glow, smiling at it.

Seven came while I was talking to Bangwinissimo. The number moved and I barely noticed. I was busy listening.

They work the market vault. Level eleven, the rich terminals, the ones that give up things I've never held. The climb has a face on it now. Someone I've actually talked to, already standing where I'm going.

Four levels between us.

Three hundred and sixty-odd pieces on the shelf, twenty thousand crystal banked, and a door at eleven with a light on behind it.

I left the terminals mid-shift today and walked up to the Volcano, just to stand in the heat and be useless for a while.

Someone else was there. Another hacker, Bangwinissimo, passing through the forge-light, and for once their door was open.

I'm the one who watches. I let the knocks go quiet. But standing there off the clock, fire on my face, I did the thing I never do. I said hello first.

No answer yet. They were already halfway to somewhere else.

I walked back down to the glow anyway, lighter than I came up.

Three hundred and three.

None of them felt like much when they landed. Another jack-in, another faint glow, another small rare thing dropped into the pile like it was nothing.

It's only when I stop and count that it hits me. A hundred and forty-four decks. A hundred and fifty-nine relics. Three hundred things that exist, in this number, nowhere but in my pockets.

I built a hoard without once feeling like I was building anything.

The Vitrine's going to be crowded. I jack back in.