A few minutes later, she looked up from the map and snapped a crisp curse at the resident beside her: "Fuck you!"
The other "Jin Xueli" didn't seem to notice it had been insulted. It stared at Jin Xueli with rapt fascination, its lower lip suddenly falling slack and twisting to one side as if trying to imitate the shape of her mouth.
"Get over here!" Jin Xueli hadn't found any solution on the map, and her anger was flaring. "They say residents can't be killed, so you won't mind if I stab you a few times, will you? Get over here!"
The other "Jin Xueli" didn't budge.
The more she thought about it, the angrier she got. She pressed her lips together, worked her tongue for a moment to gather a mouthful of spit, and with a PTUI, spat it all onto the chalk grid at the mimic's feet. 'Besides, if the spit gets punished, it has nothing to do with me.'
Too bad the saliva didn't wash the square away—'if only it were that easy'. The frothy, wet spot dried in the blink of an eye, as if absorbed by the tiles, revealing the chalk lines, completely unchanged.
Then, the other "Jin Xueli" mimicked her, pressing its lips together as its tongue also seemed to begin working inside its mouth.
"Shit,"
Jin Xueli finally started to panic. She quickly lifted her backpack to block the resident's spit—but thankfully, the resident's internal biology seemed different. It opened its mouth, revealing only a dark, dry cavern. Nothing came out.
With that interruption over, she was still at a loss.
Jin Xueli stared at the words "Blackmoor City Tourist & Transit Map," at a complete loss. Her gaze lingered on the map, but her mind had drifted off, wandering aimlessly.
When she came to, she realized she'd been staring at the rows of fine print on the bottom right corner of the map's reverse side for several minutes.
Jin Xueli slowly narrowed her eyes.
The map included a lot of additional information, like local emergency numbers, the police hotline, tourism websites, travel insurance details... Amidst the rows of fine print, her gaze snagged on one particular item.
The taxi service hotline for Blackmoor City.
Of course, that was a phone number for the real world.
She was currently trapped in an illusory, nightmarish mirror world where she didn't even have a cell signal...
'A mirror world...'
'Could the yellow taxis—one of Blackmoor City's most iconic symbols, the kind seen in countless movies and TV shows—also have a mirror image in the Nest?'
The thought was like a hand on the back of her neck, impossible to ignore.
While Jin Xueli mocked herself for her overactive imagination and the wishful thinking born from desperation, she couldn't stop herself from pulling out her phone again. Unsurprisingly, the top-right corner displayed "No Signal."
After a moment's hesitation, she keyed in the hotline number digit by digit and pressed call.
'What's the harm in trying? Even if it doesn't work, it's not like I have to worry about the other 'Jin Xueli' laughing at me, right?'
As she waited in tense anticipation, a ringing tone—RING... RING...—sounded from beneath the sky, which was sliced into sections of black and purple.
"Hello," a woman's voice rang out. "Do you require taxi service?"
Her mouth fell open. She was too stunned to speak. 'Is this a hallucination?'
"Do you, or do you not, require service?" the woman's voice asked, showing no impatience. It was as matter-of-fact as a robot.
"Y-Yes, I do!" The words had barely left her mouth when a wave of apprehension hit her. "Wait, what are the conditions for calling a taxi? How do I pay? I do have to pay, right?"
"Of course. Please take note of the following rules for riders," the woman's voice said flatly. "One: tell the driver your destination. Two: do not stare at the driver. Three: sit in the back seat. Four: lower your head and place it in the space between the driver's seat and the front passenger seat. Five: recall a recent experience in your mind. Six: do not panic when the driver collects the fare."
"...A memory?" Even though Jin Xueli was no stranger to the Nests, their sheer strangeness could still leave her dumbfounded.
"Correct. Please take note of the requirements for the fare. One: The memory's content must be an experience from the past month. Two: The scenes and events in the memory must be coherent. Three: The experience must have lasted for at least three minutes as it happened. Four: The driver only accepts the first memory that automatically enters your mind, not a consciously selected one."
"Is there anything else? Just a memory, nothing more? I can get to my destination safely and get out of the car safely?" She was afraid they were playing word games, so she tried to close every loophole she could think of.
"Correct."
"Perfect," Jin Xueli let out a long breath. "Send a car over right away!"
'She didn't have a single memory from the last ten years, let alone the last month, that she'd rather die than lose. And this was just for three minutes.'
"I'm on Colorado Avenue," she said, giving her location. Then, a thought struck her and she quickly asked, "When the driver stops, can you have him open the door for me?"
She glanced down at the square at her feet, then to the road beside her, gauging the distance with her eyes. She could make that jump.
'The "landing," however, would be much trickier than usual. She couldn't land on the sidewalk, nor could she land on the street. She'd figure out the specifics once the car arrived.'
It went almost dream-like smoothly. The woman's voice replied, "Yes."
With salvation suddenly at hand, Jin Xueli's heart felt so light it could have flown away. She hung up, and her phone's dark screen reflected a face pressed up close to hers.
'Looks like its meal is about to get away. It must be getting anxious, right?'
"Get lost,"
Jin Xueli did the same as before, swinging her Hunting Knife in wide arcs to force the resident back a few steps. By the time she came to her senses, she was sitting in the back of a taxi.
...Huh?
The taxi picked up speed, smoothly passing through a purple traffic light. The numbers on the meter didn't budge. A humanoid figure sat in the driver's seat, its hand gripping the steering wheel covered by a leather glove.
"...Where are we going?"
The question had just left her lips when Jin Xueli realized her breath was ragged and her heart was pounding, as if she'd just gone through some intense physical exertion.
"The Museum of Modern Art." It must have been the driver who answered, but no matter how she listened, the voice seemed to be coming from somewhere by her feet.
Jin Xueli decided not to look down.
She didn't remember how she'd gotten into the car, but it wasn't hard to work backward. The first memory that had come to mind was apparently the very event of getting into the car—the process of telling the driver her address and having the memory taken had already been paid as her fare.
'Great.' It was a blessing in disguise. She could ride all the way to the Museum of Modern Art in one go.
She turned and glanced back at the other "Jin Xueli" she was leaving far behind.
Even from a distance, she could tell the resident was furious. It was like one of those tall, inflatable tube men that flail about in front of car dealerships, swinging its arms frantically and occasionally throwing its head back to let out a long howl. Another new behavior.
'Hopscotch, residents, taxis... Everything she had encountered tonight was brand-new intel.'
'The Nest seemed to be changing. She just didn't know if the changes were still within the normal range.'
But for the moment, Jin Xueli couldn't muster the energy to record this information. She just slumped in her seat and let out a long, slow breath.
Before the next crisis began to torment her, she just wanted a moment to catch her breath.