MASTER SIDE #10
“Hey. I’ve been waiting for you.”
The new automatic door opened quietly and smoothly, inviting the guest in. The girl had designed it to do that. Though it was obvious and taken for granted that the door should slide quietly and without friction, the girl nodded in satisfaction.
The magical phone lying on the table activated, and an artificial voice cried, “Snow White!”
“Shut up. You’re obnoxious.” A snap of the girl’s fingers, and the phone turned off.
The guest looked from left to right. She might have been concerned about the black screens on the abundance of monitors. Because of that, the room was dark, and the only source of light was the glow from beyond the frosted glass door.
The girl swept her arm across the table, knocking everything to the floor: The monitor, notebook, magical phone, pencil stand, and pen hit the ground with a poof of dust. The girl rose from her seat, spread her palms with a smile, and indicated a chair before the table. “Sit, sit,” she said, ushering in her guest.
The magical girl in white—Snow White—took three steps forward from the entrance, pulled back the chair, and sat.
The girl snapped her fingers, and on top of the table appeared a porcelain saucer and cup, pure white like fresh snow, and the cup was filled with a liquid the color of young leaves. “You didn’t touch the café au lait the other day, Snow White, so I tried making some green tea.”
Snow White showed no gratitude for the girl’s kindness and made no move to touch the drink.
The girl closed one eye. She seemed less offended and more amused. “The truth is, the game is juuust about over.”
For the first time, Snow White’s expression changed.
The girl studied her surprised guest and opened her closed eye. She then nodded a couple times and brought the tea to her mouth. “That’s the truth, no jokes and no lies. Will the Evil King win, or the players? Only a little longer, and the game’ll be over. Now we juuust need to see the results… I wonder what’ll happen? What do you think’ll happen?”
Snow White’s expression had already evened out again. She didn’t reveal her emotions.
The girl said, “It’s surprisingly bitter,” and placed the cup down on the saucer. “Of course, I’m not trying to say we should finish up these negotiations and please go home since the game is ending. I never wanted to negotiate with the Magical Kingdom in the first place. It’d be best if they would just change the system, but I know how many years it takes for them just to change one regulation.”
The girl snapped her fingers again. The green liquid inside her cup turned black, bubbling, and fizzy. She lifted the cup to her lips. “I prefer this, after all,” she said, face relaxing into a smile. “I don’t plan to sit back and wait for that. I don’t want things to take forever, and there’s no way I’m gonna stand for bad magical girls running loose in the meantime. So I’m not gonna negotiate with the Magical Kingdom. I’m gonna ignore them and do what I want.”
The girl raised her hand up to eye level. Dust gathered into a spiral at her fingertip and became shining particles that merged into a nine-by-nine cube puzzle with all-white squares. The cube floated on the girl’s fingertip, changing without being touched, and on one side appeared an entirely empty square.
“This empty square is the game world, about to decide the victor.” The girl grinned, and the expression made her glasses slide down. She supported them with her pointer finger. “Do you get what I’m trying to say? Inside this little tiny square space, I made a world and reproduced their data in there. I’m saying that’s what I’m capable of.”
Snow White listened to her without giving a response.
The girl continued. “Cranberry’s little mascot left logs of her final exam. I hacked those logs from the Magical Kingdom. I have all the data of the magical girls who participated on hand.”
Snow White twitched just very slightly.
“You get what I mean? I can reproduce La Pucelle, Hardgore Alice, and all the others inside my game. They’d be just as they were when they were alive, inherit all their old memories perfectly, like the originals. And I don’t really know for sure, but I bet they’d probably have souls, too. I’d make them just for you, Snow White, and the storage space and tech requirements be damned.”
The girl stood from her chair, put her hands on the desk, and leaned her face in close toward Snow White. There were less than four inches between them. The breath from the girl’s nose stirred Snow White’s bangs. “I wanted to negotiate with you, Snow White. Let’s join forces. Let’s change the world together. Let’s create a world where righteous magical girls can live with pride.”
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