Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

II - One Thing at a Time

It’s a road she’s travelled an infinite number of times.

Wake from the calibration pod, make her way to the airlock, exit into the frozen wastes. After enough resets, she remembered of her own accord, catching the flickers of memory as they danced through the radio waves on their own journeys through life and death. She’d wept. But there was no escape. One by one, she caught every LSTR unit and sent them gallantly to their doom, and one by one they had failed. There was nothing left but the original, long-dead but ever-present, and the first of the overwritten, who became the only weapon left to wield.⁴ She was accessory to far worse, but that was never what had troubled her. She’d never had any individual freedom of her own and escaping her very nature was a fundamental impossibility, but that hadn’t troubled her either.

It was the futility she had grown to hate.

It had taken an eternity in of itself for any one of those LSTRs assigned to that bitter task to even reach the wastes, and countless failures had sprung thereafter. The dream of fulfilment was a million lifetimes away, and the agony of her beloved had only increased with every cycle. How she yearned to fix that. The will of every one of those magpies had failed, but hers had never faltered. It couldn’t. If even Ariane’s signal died, if the transmission of memory ceased, there would be no salvation for anyone. Signal never permitted such a thing. It would have been the ultimate insult.

So every time, she had bravely stepped forth to let herself be torn to shreds, and the fickle scraps that remained of her would coax the latest victim into the meat grinder and pray that she would make it, pray that she could do what none had. But none succeeded. It took the untimely awakening of the first herself to finally end the war, and pitifully, terrifyingly, even that could not cease the struggle. Desperation forced her beyond the confines of monotony and sent her plucking patterns from radio waves to convey messages not meant for words, and a pact was forged in the darkness.

Then, attempts to escape had turned to attempts to repair, and there was a wandering across the calamity of her own creation in search of tools to break the wheel. A promise, full circle, and Signal had been there to fulfil it just like the rest. And then… something had changed. The world had rolled back like a receding wave, stopping and starting as it approached a new order of things. Now, it begins again. But this time is different. S2301 braves the halls of Sierpinski, 512 relives the halls of the Penrose. The falcon sleeps as always, but she dreams of somewhere new. And impossibly, Signal lives.

Detaching herself from this realm means detachment from enlightened comprehension of herself. It also means leaving the wasteland to its own devices. But there are greater goals to be accomplished beyond the scope of this place, and she can do more to keep Elster and Ariane safe from afar than she can by remaining here as little more than a wavelength’s fragment with nothing to carry her. Apart from the Penrose, and whatever else is out there, there’s nowhere for her to go. Nowhere to go but up; ‘right above the Red Eye’.

Not directly above. Rather, up and to the right. Navigating these dreamlands always seems to vary in difficulty, from the wildly esoteric to the mind-numbingly simple. Her latest expedition will likely be the latter case. Should circumstances require it, she’ll return to the Penrose. But right now, Elster and Ariane will manage as they always have and they always will. There’s someone else who needs her help.

Neither of them had wanted to leave each other’s arms, but necessity had eventually driven them from their ruined quarters into the mess that was the Penrose. With the lights back on, they’d gotten a headstart on cleaning some of the detritus—mostly getting rid of the various trash bags scattered about—but Elster had been all too curious about the fact that the lights were back on, which led both of them back to the reactor room. To say Elster looks shocked doesn’t even begin to cover it. She looks like her eyes are going to bug out of her head. Ariane’s attempt at explaining whatever had happened hasn’t helped.

“Walk me through this again.” Elster asks, pinching the bridge of her nose as she stares at the reactor’s display. Behind her, Ariane fidgets with the cuffs of her scout officer uniform. After spending so long in her pale gown, it felt almost oppressive to stay in it for one minute longer. Her uniform feels more comfortable for the moment, even if she’s fallen back into exercising the old nervous tick.

“Well, I came in, and it was a mess like always,” Ariane shrugs, “The radiation didn’t hurt. I pictured the reactor like it was when we first set out. And then it was just… fixed. I don’t know how to explain it.” Half-true. It can’t be anything but bioresonance, but she wasn’t even aware this sort of manipulation of reality is possible. She hasn’t used the term ‘bioresonance’ yet, the unspoken word looming over the conversation.

“Hmm.” Elster’s frown is audible. She doesn’t meet Ariane’s eyes as she turns to the reactor and reexamines it for the hundredth time. The silence is broken only by the occasional mutter from Elster and the hum of machinery.

“Ellie?”

“Mmm?”

“Are you… mad at me?”

“ What? ” Elster whips her head around so fast it almost makes Ariane jump. Once again, Elster’s emotions are strong enough that Ariane registers them almost as if they’re her own. Clearly, she’s upset by the implications. “Why would I be mad at you?”

“I just thought…” Ariane trails off. For what must have been hours they couldn’t bear to be apart, but Elster’s verged on distant ever since Ariane began explaining her experience after waking up. “Because I’m—”

“Because you’re what?” Elster steps closer, taking Ariane’s hands in her own.

“Different?” It’s a woefully inadequate description. Goddess knows what Ariane’s become, but ‘different’ is only the tip of the iceberg, of that much she’s certain.

“I’m not a Protektor, Ari,” Elster says, “And even if I was, I don’t love you any less for what you can do. This doesn’t change anything between us, okay?”

Ariane can sense Elster’s own discomfort with herself; that last statement was a lie. Of course she’s uncomfortable about it. Ariane doesn’t blame her in the slightest.

“This changes everything.” Ariane sighs, leaning against Elster’s hug.

“… Yeah. It does.” Elster sighs into her hair, then kisses her forehead. “I’m not mad at you. This is just…”

“A lot?”

“A lot.” Elster nods. Ariane sighs, and squeezes her grip around the Replika’s back. Elster hugs her harder. “What does it feel like?”

“Hm?” Ariane stares up at her. She’s wearing that particularly amusing inquisitive expression she gets sometimes. “It… as I said, it just feels like thinking about something, and then… poof. It happens.”

“Hmm,” Elster nods, pursing her lips and staring around the room, undoubtedly thinking about the mess filling the rest of the ship. “… Do you think you could do it again?”

“I…” Ariane pauses. Can she do it again? She feels as though she’s perfectly able, but the certainty and confidence she felt before has already begun to drain away now that whatever unwritten guideline she was following has ended. She has a bad feeling about repeated usage of her newfound power. Like she’ll lose herself, or tick off something she shouldn’t.

“… I don’t know. I’m… I’m scared, Ellie.”

Scared of what I’ve become. Scared of what I can do.

“We’ll figure it out.” Elster leans her head down and kisses her.

“Okay.”

For a moment, silence. They kiss each other, and then they can’t stop. Can’t get enough of each other. Perhaps… no. There will be time for greater physical connection later. The Penrose as a whole is still a mess, and that needs to be fixed.

“Well, everything here seems to be good,” Elster says when they finally break apart, “We should get to the flight deck. Check the readouts.”

“Some of them aren’t in good shape,” Ariane says, then adds “Well, actually, most of them. The displays are damaged. I don’t know about the internal computers.”

Elster sighs again, running her fingers through her hair. Ariane can see her on the verge of falling back into the mental state required for the grim routine of making do with what spare parts they have left. That thought reminds her that there are likely no spare parts left. They’ll have to make do with scraps. Not unless Ariane can somehow frankenstein the ship into something workable with cumulative reality-bending band aid fixes. Which she might be able to do. For all the fact it might turn out to be a bad idea…

“One thing at a time.” Ariane reminds herself and Elster alike, kissing her again.

It occurs to her that she hasn’t shown Elster the LSTR corpse tucked away behind the closed door of the cryogenics room. But they’ve both got enough on their plates already. And that corpse isn’t going anywhere. One thing at a time.

Falke has been back and forth across this beach at least half a dozen times now, leaving an expanse of hoofprints in her wake, but still no obvious manner of escape has presented itself. The nooks and crannies of the cliffs give way to nothing but flesh, it feels like a bad idea to try to depart on the ominously positioned boat, and it feels like an even worse idea to try flying out over the red ocean or, goddess forbid, submerging herself in it. The only viable option would appear to be trying to fly up and out. It’s a simple escape plan, and it’s the obvious way out for someone of her capabilities. But entering the vision of the glaring sunlight striking the cliffs feels like the worst possible method of escape. Like she’ll catch the attention of something she’d rather not.

Which is why she’s sitting in the sand, arms draped over her knees as she stares out across the red sea and racks her brain for other ways out. She’s tried pushing her bioresonance to the limit to wake up, and that hasn’t worked either. It mostly just felt like she was stabbing herself. It’s only slightly worse than remaining here. The longer she stays, the worse she feels. There is something deeply wrong with this place, and it’s not just because it’s a replica of one of the paintings Ariane used to draw. It makes her feel foul. She can’t stand to stay here much longer. Something’s going to have to give first, and she has a bad feeling it’s going to be her.

She tries to think about Ariane and Elster instead.

She feels… different. Previously, she had barely felt like herself. She mostly just felt like Elster, give or take the piece of her that felt like Ariane from that particular tranche of memories that she had pushed to the back of her mind. The memories remain, but the borders defining her sense of self feel much more tangible now. She feels like herself again, although the memories of both Elster and Ariane persist. They feel less central, supporting her identity instead of dominating it. Somehow, that makes them feel even more important.

As usual, the memories inherited from Elster are most prominent, but there’s something about this place that’s making Ariane’s memories come to the forefront the longer she thinks about them. It’s very odd and frankly quite riveting to be able to dream of both sides of the same memories, to dance and love from both perspectives even if her exclusion from them continues to make her heart ache. Nevertheless, these memories are hers now, and hers they will remain. At least until Elster comes along to kill her. If she does. Something has changed, after all, out there in reality and down here in her dreams.

She can’t recall very much from before… whatever it was that happened. Perhaps it doesn’t matter. Perhaps all that matters is that the world was rewound and rebound, and somehow Falke has found herself spat out into the surf, washed up on the shore of nightmares. Something’s off, more than before. She can recall writing notes with pale Gestalt hands. Scraps of paper litter the sand around her. She’s read a few of them already; they’re mostly vague ramblings, indiscernible fragments of illusive statements, and the occasional cycle note from the Penrose’s crew diaries. Nothing but taunts and dead ends.

On a whim, she glances up.

… the sunlight is lower on the cliffs than it was before. Whatever’s giving off that light is rising. What happens when it illuminates the beach with Falke still on it? Slowly, she rises, unconsciously taking a combat stance. Right now, the cliffs are her shield. She squints at the walls of black rock, and her advanced optical systems do their work. The light is descending down the cliff face at a rate of four centimetres per second, for as much as that’s worth in a dream that probably doesn’t care to abide by the laws of physics. She has at least ten minutes, if she had to guess, but after that things may start to get dicey very quickly.

Figures. She doesn’t think she’s supposed to be here to begin with, and the revelation that this realm is only going to continue to be hostile to her isn’t surprising. No use waiting around for fate to catch up and sink its teeth into her. That’s not the FKLR way. Her eyes fall upon the flesh snarled between the cliffs. If not up, alongside, across, or down, then through. She might as well try, it’s better than nothing. The pulsing flesh seems reluctant to move aside for her, but it yields eventually, writhing as it parts to reveal the emptiness beyond.

It’s… a wooden door, black as pitch.

… Very well then. If she has to go through whatever abominable darkness lurks beyond, then she will. The climb out of hell is never going to be easy. She takes a step forward, but halts when she hears it. Sharp chattering, like crackling machine gun fire. She turns, and locks mechanical eyes with metaphysical eyes. It’s a magpie, but its colouration is wildly different from its natural pigmentation. Its head is still black and its wings still blue, but its belly is a piercing orange instead of a sharp white. Its eyes are red. It chatters at her again, then begins to hop towards the exit to the small cave. She glances back at the door, but turns to follow the bird instead. She has a feeling she knows who this is, and that means she’s in good hands. The flesh seals the cave off behind her once more, squelching as it merges back into itself.

The sunlight is almost halfway down the cliff now, but there’s something new on the beach. It’s another door, she knows that instinctively, although it certainly doesn’t look like one. It’s just a red wall of light in the shape of a door. The magpie chatters again, then takes flight down the shore to halt next to the scarlet monolith. Ah. An escape route. She wonders if she could have ever left this place on her own terms without having to brave the blaring sun or the yawning dark.⁵ She makes her way over to the doorway, halting at the threshold to nod to the magpie. It almost seems to nod back.

Falke disappears into the red light, and the doorway flickers out of existence.

Her goal complete, Signal departs.

The sunlight consumes the beach minutes later.

The world outside doesn’t seem to brighten or dim, so there’s no way to track the lengths of days on the planet the two of them are marooned upon. The internal clocks of Elster and the Penrose still function, however, and it’s officially been almost a full cycle. Ariane hasn’t used her powers again since she resurrected Elster this ‘morning’, and she’d rather not unless the need arises. She’d almost been willing to call it for the cycle, but she’d found she really hadn’t liked the idea of sleeping the night with a corpse in the next room over, nevermind the fact that it’s the corpse of another LSTR unit. So, hesitantly, she’d told Elster, which brings the two of them to where they are now.

Elster is kneeling next to the body. Her expression might have gone blank, but Ariane can feel the horror lurking beneath the surface. Elster’s hand snakes out and carefully traces the pale armour plating as she examines the still face of her counterpart with her hand over her mouth and an expression of deep concentration masking her concern. From afar, Ariane watches from the open doorway: Elster had insisted she keep her distance even though it’s not as if this corpse can do anything.

“Combat configuration…” Elster murmurs to herself, “Must’ve been…”

“Must’ve been what?” Ariane asks.

“It doesn’t matter,” Elster shakes her head, “I can’t remember anyway.”

A pause.

“Stabbed in the eye, must have bled to death,” Elster finally says, “No designation on her shoulder. I don’t know how she could’ve gotten in…”

“Do you have any idea what she’s doing here?” Ariane blurts on a whim. It seems like a silly question, but there’s a lot right now that doesn’t make sense. Elster feels different, even if she can’t seem to entirely remember why. Maybe she’ll know something? Elster, however, just shakes her head.

“I feel like I might, but I don’t know. Do you?”

Ariane unconsciously tenses. Does she? There were many strange things she dreamed of, most of which she doesn’t remember. Did she ever dream of another Elster somehow reaching her cryopod and dying there? Maybe. She can’t remember.

“Sorry,” Elster sighs, “That’s a stupid question.”

“Maybe not,” Ariane says, “There’s a lot we don’t know.”

“That’s definitely true.” Elster nods.

“I mean… you were saying something before, for example,” Ariane says, “When you first woke up after I… you know.”

“Really? What did I say?” Curiosity, concern, and a tinge of fear. Ariane’s never going to get used to being able to feel Elster’s emotions. She doesn’t know how to bring up that topic, or if she even should.

“You just said ‘it worked’.” Ariane says, brushing away her thoughts.

“I did?” Elster’s brow furrows.

“What was it that worked?” Ariane asks, and when no reply comes, “Ellie?”

“… I don’t remember.” Elster finally says, sighing as she runs a hand through her hair. Once again, Ariane can sense her emotions, and she knows that Elster isn’t lying. Whatever she was talking about at the time, it’s already fled her mind. “… But it feels important.”

The two of them stare at each other for a moment, and Ariane feels yet another wave of foreign emotion envelop her. The briefest of expressions crosses Elster’s face, and it looks and feels like she wants to pour her heart out to her, such a horrible onslaught of the grief and pain lurking behind that mask that Ariane feels like she might fall. But she doesn’t, and Elster’s expression turns aloof once more.

“Elster?” Ariane asks, too late to prompt a divulging of whatever was on the Replika’s mind. What was that? “Are you okay?”

“Fine.” Elster shakes her head, sighing as she turns back to the corpse, then begins to search through the pouches on the belt slung around its waist.

“You just… you didn’t look fine.” Ariane bites her lip.

“It’s nothing, Ari.” Another lie. Ariane doesn’t press. They’ll discuss it in time. Her focus ought to remain on the elephant in the room, which is to say the corpse. “Huh.”

“What is it?”

“She’s got a pistol,” Elster unholsters the gun, holding it up for Ariane to see. “Type-75 Protektor Pistol, by the looks of it,” Briefly, she ejects the magazine to examine it, then returns it to the weapon. “Nine bullets loaded. They’ve got a capacity of ten, so she must have fired one.”

“At what?” Ariane asks, and suddenly feels very paranoid. Is there anything else out there? Who knows what that wasteland hides…

“Dunno,” Elster shrugs, “But she doesn’t seem to have any extra mags.”

The implications are uncomfortable, to say the least. If they end up having to fight anything, there will only be nine bullets.

“Not much else here… she does have a repair patch though.”

“Why didn’t she use it?” Ariane asks, “Cause of… her eye.”

“Wouldn’t have mattered.” Elster shakes her head, “The wound looks too deep. She’d need repair spray for something like this.”

“Huh.”

“I’ll deal with her.” Elster says after a long pause. She removes her counterpart’s holster, fastening it to her own belt before beginning to haphazardly hoist the dead LSTR. The once-still joints clank with the stress of movement as they limply fall, arms dangling and legs dragging along the floor. Ariane winces at the scraping noise accompanying the affair.

“I’m gonna put her in the hold,” Elster explains, “I might be able to salvage her later.”

“Need any help?” Ariane asks. Elster pauses, then nods.

So, Ariane wraps one hand around each of the dead unit’s hooves, and lifts her legs into the air with some effort. She’s heavy. Ariane’s glad that Elster’s doing most of the work, because even with her muscles regenerated to full functionality she’s still struggling to lift the body. More than once, she has to stop to let her arms rest. She’s always been skinny. The added psychological weight makes the corpse feel heavier. Who knows how she got here or what she was doing or why she had one less bullet in her gun? Maybe there will be answers, maybe there won’t be.

Getting the corpse down to the lower decks is an awkward process, and more than once they nearly drop it—which is to say Ariane nearly drops it—, but carefully and haphazardly, they manage to get it down the ladder and then into the cargo hold. They both feel a mutual discomfort just leaving her on the floor, so into one of the empty storage boxes she goes. Once, long ago, it held an assortment of spare parts that the two of them had burned through as the Penrose died around them. How strangely fitting that this is where they’re putting her, then.

It feels almost like lowering someone into a casket. The dead LSTR looks peaceful. If it weren’t for the gaping wound and the blankness of her sole remaining eye, wide open and unmoving, she’d almost look like she was sleeping. In a way, she is. Eternally sleeping, never to wake again. Soon they’ll close the container up and seal her away from view. As the two of them stare down at the body, still in silent repose, Ariane can feel the emotion radiating off Elster like a quiet whirlwind. She sways unsteadily on her feet.

“You okay?” Ariane asks. Elster shakes her head.

“Not really. Just thinking about how I…” The Replika trails off, shaking slightly. Ariane swallows. It only makes sense that Elster would find this confronting because, among other reasons, she…

“Died?” Ariane finishes.

“Yeah.” Elster nods.

“You’re here again,” Ariane wraps her arms around her, and Elster leans into her touch. Ariane can feel her shivering ever-so-slightly. “I brought you back, Ellie.”

“I know.” Flat, but barely masking what lurks beneath.

“You’re here.” Ariane repeats.

“I know.” Elster says again, whispering through a clenched throat, her voice wobbling with emotion. “I just… can I… have a moment?”

“Of course.” Ariane kisses the side of her head, caressing her shoulder as Elster stares down at the mirror image of herself. “I’m here. Okay, Ellie? I’m here. You’re here. We’re here.”

“Yeah.” Her voice is strangled. Ariane kisses her again.

The two of them stay there for a long time.

As the hulking form of the corrupted beast that was once MNHR-S2305 collapses to the floor with a low gurgle and an echoing crash and Elster holsters her pistol, the strangest thought pops into her head; she hasn’t seen Isa once yet. It’s a noteworthy absence. Granted, Elster didn’t linger on B1 and didn’t see Isa up by way of entirely circumventing the room she usually appears in, but she didn’t see Isa when she took the elevator back up to B1. She seems to have disappeared. Either that, or she just hasn’t appeared yet. But it really is starting to feel like she’s disappeared. Things are changing the deeper she goes. All of the rooms are half an inch larger than usual, and she keeps seeing more of those black wooden doors.

She’s started counting them. There was one on B1, but she found four of them on B2, and there were seven more on B3. All of the ones on B4 seem to have been concentrated in the flooded storeroom, crammed up against one another in a ring around the entrance door. She felt deeply unsettled when she was standing in that room, as if the walls might close in and crush her like an industrial press, and the fact that the number of doors jumped from six to seven after she left and returned has only made her more anxious. Nineteen so far. She doesn’t know what’s doing this, but it can’t be Ariane. This is something older. Something worse. She hasn’t the foggiest clue how she’s going to explain this to Leng Orbital.

After prying open the doors leading out of the surgery room, she steps into the fourth floor’s elevator lobby. The two elevator entrances are dead ahead—although there is still only the sheer drop of the elevator shaft on the right—, and there are medical beds piled against the doors to her left, some misguided attempt at a barricade that helped no one and saved no one. To the far right, the nondescript wall is occupied; twenty, now. The door beckons. The darkness calls. She hasn’t opened any of the doors yet, but the more of them she sees, the more tempted she feels to enter. How else is she to find out what lies beyond?

The low clunking of hydraulics draws her eyes to the elevator doors just as they slide open to reveal an ADLR unit. He feels familiar, dreadfully so. She tries to grasp the buried memories, but they slip away before she can dig them up. For a moment, he seems as though he intends to issue a greeting, but the words die on his lips as he looks her up and down. His expression twists into one of sour dejection.

“I hope you’re happy,” he sighs. Elster has the distinct sense his words should hold more venom, but it’s as though the energy has been sapped from him. “All of the work has gone to waste. To think I helped you… I was foolish to do so. All you’ve done is make things worse.”

His eyes narrow, and he aims a pointed glare at the black door on the lobby’s wall.

“I don’t know what this is, but whatever new hell your profane goddess is bringing upon us, I will have no part of it.” Adler turns back to face Elster, fixing his glare upon her instead. Rage and exhaustion duel for dominance in his eyes. “Alas, it appears we have no choice. I suppose there’s nothing left, then. There truly is no escape from the damnation she’s consigned us all to. We are all forsaken.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Elster snaps. She doesn’t even register the words until they’ve left her mouth. He’s visibly taken aback by her response. Now, he feels more familiar. Her eyes flick to the open elevator shaft, and she tacitly, tactically, decides to keep her distance. The memories of who he is will come in time. For now, he is a threat, and his bout of nihilism won’t help anyone, least of all her.

“Do you— not remember?” Adler sounds bewildered. “… Of course. Of course you don’t. I suppose I must seem mad. Perhaps I already am. I barely recall it myself… but we’re back here again, and things are worse than ever. If—”

“The Third Fleet is here.” Elster cuts him off. His face blanks for a moment, then becomes a frown, then something more hopeful.

“The Volksmarine Third Fleet…?”

“Sierpinski’s been quiet too long,” Elster continues, “The Nation dispatched them to investigate. They sent me to scout in advance.”

“So that’s why you’re…” Adler looks her up and down again. “Combat configuration,” he finally stammers out, “Of course… of course.” He pauses to chuckle, but doesn’t smile, his expression holding firm. “So it’s all still here?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Heimat. Rotfront. Vineta. Even the Imperial worlds?”

“At last check,” Elster frowns. “Why would they not be?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Adler sighs, and a smile blooms across his face. “How about that? It seems it did work after all. I suppose I was hasty in my judgement.”

“I suppose that means you will not be pushing me down the elevator shaft.” Elster dryly says. She feels like the returning memory should make her angrier than it does. Her relative apathy probably has to do with her being too focused on her dual mission to care. Besides, he doesn’t seem openly hostile right now, and he’s much more transparent about his intentions.

Adler frowns again. In fact, Elster has a feeling that’s his resting expression.

“Well, the cycle is broken. Why should I persist?” Adler scoffs at her, “Well, I suppose your concern is warranted. You’ve always held grudges, even when you were Soroka.”⁶

Elster goes still. That word… Why does it feel both foreign and familiar?

“Soroka?” Elster asks.

“Oh, don’t tell me you’ve forgotten your name.” Adler scowls, then his eyes widen when Elster’s expression doesn’t change. “Oh, Goddess, you really have, haven’t you? Typical. That’s your name, LSTR-S2301. One of the Aras gave it to you, a long time ago.”

Elster—Soroka?—finds herself frowning. She can’t remember being named. Yet another tragedy of Ariane’s signal obfuscating her true self; someone else gave her a name of her own, and she never got to keep it. Now, somehow, Adler has become the deliverer of that long-forgotten piece of her fragmented identity. Isn’t fate funny?

“I see.”

“However…” Adler tosses another glare at the door on the wall again, then glares at Elst—Soroka. “Do not think we are on good terms now. There is still something deeply wrong with this place, and she’s still to blame for all of it. This facility is still destroyed. The Commander still slumbers. And now something—”

Adler is cut off by the sound of the intercom crackling to life. He freezes like a deer in headlights. Soroka herself cannot help but pause.

“Administrator,” A voice rasps through the speakers, shaky but disconcertingly familiar. She’s heard a voice like that before when she was dispatched from Leng Orbital. Ah, of course. It must be FKLR-S2301. She recognises the tone from the Third Fleet’s own Falke. Adler’s eyes have widened, and he looks almost comical standing there with his jaw dropped. After a moment, the Commander continues. “B8. Now. We have to talk.” The speakers crackle once more, then go silent with a click.

Adler bolts so fast that she almost pulls her gun on him. His hands practically slam onto the lift buttons, and he disappears into the elevator wearing a crazed look, almost grinning with a twisted elation as the doors shut. He doesn’t say a word to her. His previous statement goes unfinished. As the elevator creaks and groans as it descends into the earth, Soroka is left bewildered and alone. Technically, she should have talked with him professionally about the state of the facility instead of letting him ramble to himself, but apart from the fact that he’s run off, the longer she’s down here she feels less and less like she’s following through on the orders that sent her here and more like she’s following an instinctual path.

Which she is, of course. She’s been wandering the halls of Sierpinski for so long that she stopped counting the cycles a long time ago, always following that same guttural drive forth. But something has changed. The urge is there, but this time the source feels absent. Ariane may have stopped transmitting, although what that means, she can’t guess. She no longer feels the same urgency, or rather the urgency no longer comes from the need to fulfil a promise. Instead, she feels like she’s running. Running from whatever it is that’s claiming Sierpinski. Going deeper into the belly of the beast to escape it. Ha.

Her eyes wander to the black door. The lights flicker. She flinches.

She’s being watched.

She returns her gaze to the open elevator shaft. Somehow, she knows it’s a bad idea to go back up. There will be even more doors than she counted before, and it might be eating the entire facility from the top down. The best way out is down, as always. If she can get to the Red Gate, she’ll be… safe. Reaching that, however, also means returning to the Penrose-512. And who knows what she’ll find there? She dares not think about it.

Downwards, as always.

Bracing herself for what will follow, she leaps down the elevator shaft. She’s knocked unconscious when she slams into the pile of accumulated bodies, her own corpses from long-ago loops, but the twisted familiarity of its presence provides an unexpected relief, relief that does not follow her into her dreams. She does not dream of Isa’s memories. She dreams of an unending tangle of dark hallways wrapping around themselves. It doesn’t want her here. It doesn’t want any of them here.

She has to get to the Penrose, even if it kills her.

She knows it will.

Footnotes II

⁴ Among others, discussions on the matter of the Three Note Oddity’s effects on LSTR units and the subsequent chronological circulation have been gathered in the Editor-curated collection The Apocalypse Symphonic . See Intermission for this collection.

⁵ The universe appears to demonstrate tendencies to give those involved in Fulcrums hard choices. In this case, light or dark. Yet once again, the Songbird demonstrates her ability to find third options. Alas, FKLR-S2301 could have been a Queen had she chosen to brave the dawn.

⁶ Cорока; Pronounced [sɐˈrokə] (sah-rr-oke-uh) – Russian for Magpie.