[In]corrigible.

How much had she planned for? And all that she had failed to say- was it intentional, or a reflection of haste? Their ending had been already written in the movements of their lives, and he does not blame her for actions already taken, nor the influence she wielded in death.

She gives him a terse reply, telling him nothing more of her thoughts. Perhaps anything that occurred after her passing was no longer of her concern- she had set actions that were always destined to pass into motion, but had no part in it herself.

A familiar notion- the very same that bound him.

He had done what he could, and yet, had not done it well enough. Something twists in his throat, even if now he had no need to breathe. Something shatters, and he acutely feels the difference between the two of them, in the sacrifices that he would never be able to condone, and the paths he would never walk.

And, he sees in her the reflection of what had always held true, that the easiest sacrifice to make was oneself.

In your mind, Su’s words tumble and come apart, separating from their tenuously signified meanings. Is the you in Su’s voice you? He must think so, but you are not her. Is the here in Su’s voice — metaphorical or literal, or both? Here, as in present, as in extant, as in — not dead. Here, as in Penacony’s dredges, as in this swirl of churning memoria, as in — what is there left to say?

“I don’t know, yet.” As you answer, you turn away from where the source of his voice might be. Everywhere, nowhere. It is an unsatisfactory answer; you know it is. The unstable dreamscape around you groans, straining against your will, as if desperate to resume its aimless changing. Unrelenting, you begin to walk forward and resume your search — for raw memoria: untainted, pure, and traceless. “I’m not sure if … ‘I’ really am.” You continue to answer Su, certain he will follow you. Perhaps, this certainty is unearned.

Voicing your self-doubts, you find yourself thinking: Is Su still ‘Su’? The one ‘you’ knew? That first question he asked you — Do you remember me? — now shines with the same imprecision as the question you are now answering. How many years has it been since ‘your’ death? Thousands, tens of thousands, more? You have no way of guessing.

“Remember that brain-teaser?” You begin, seemingly on a tangent. “The philosophical one about the ship.” The ship of ■■■■■■■. Damaged, taken apart, repaired over the years. The old planks replaced by new planks. Memories of the past replaced by memories of those memories. Human DNA replaced by Honkai DNA.

To ask a MANTIS if they remember this pithy mockery, is it cruel of you?

“There's one variant that goes like this: someone salvages wood from a broken ship to build a replica … ” You continue, resting your hand on the seemingly-metal handle of a shimmering door. The material is unstable, escaping your touch like thickened water. All the same, the door opens. You leave unspoken the brain-teaser's answer. The punchline to the joke: No one would say the replica is the same ship as the once-unbroken one.

lyric from "Crime For a Crime" by Ani DiFranco

I wonder if the paper really is unimportant, or if the woman’s just passing it off as such. This person took a long moment to gaze at it, after all. Maybe I should do the same, later. Right now, I have a lot to carry. I nearly trip backward as I hoist my pile of binders and papers back to its center of gravity as it starts to shift sideways. I catch myself instinctually by levitating just slightly, realizing only once I’ve done it that levitating isn’t the best way to avoid attention. I just can’t help my excellence, can I?

I look to the direction this woman indicates when she tells me where her cubicle lies. A quick glance with my Eyes of Bodhi tells me that it’s a straightforward enough walk, if a bit far. I’m not entirely sure I can balance my burden long enough on heels to make it there without levitating properly. I don’t walk in heels often enough—why should I? And so I turn to the critical presence, layering my voice with honey and mirth. “Hey, why don’t you come with? I would absolutely love some help carrying all this, I’m honestly not that strong! Plus, that paper you found…I’d like to take a look myself, I’m so curious as to what could be on it!”

I take a moment to probe into the woman’s mind just a little. If I come off as someone who knows her, then maybe I could trigger some curiosity into Miss Interesting Person here. “Loren, you’ll tell me, won’t you?”

I realize my mistake when I see the lanyard dangling from her neck. Dr. Loren. Well, there goes my plan, surely…this woman may be an infant if compared to my age, but I’ve come to realize people don’t know to respect their elders if they haven’t experienced the phenomenon of old age “Dr. Loren, I mean! My bad, my bad!” I laugh, and it croaks painfully out of my throat.

Dr. Loren’s expression twitches slightly. Perhaps, she is unamused by her temporary assistant’s cloying performance. You speak before the older researcher can, “Of course. I’m happy to help,” timing yourself so the sentence begins right as Dr. Loren is about to open her mouth. From the corner of your eyes, you notice as she shuts her mouth, her jaw setting into a look of mild displeasure. You take a look at the pile of binders, folders, and loose-leaf papers in the lookalike’s arms. Carefully, you begin to pick a few of them up, one by one. “It really is quite heavy,” you add with a gentle laugh, adjusting your arms beneath what you have taken as Dr. Loren watches. Then, she turns around and continues walking toward her cubicle without waiting for the two of you to follow.

You follow her. As you walk, you devote your attention to the stack of things in your arms, managing to extricate a supporting hand in order to sift through the loose-leaf papers. Unlike the scrap you had picked up earlier, these are far more legible and well-preserved, despite the occasional marginalia. Almost furtively, you look up toward the older doctor, but she remains seemingly unconcerned with you. Carefully and miraculously, you manage to re-stack the pile so that the loose-leaf papers are at the bottom, pressed crisply against the underside of your forearm. Now, what sits on top is an aged folder, discolored and softened with age. That’s promising, right? — one might prematurely think.

Leaning slightly toward the stranger who is not your friend, you spare a glance at her familiar face. She doesn’t keep her eyes closed. You lower your voice to a whisper in order to engender further camaraderie, using your somewhat-free hand to gesture toward her half of pile. “That paper had cryptograms on it.” You begin, explanatory yet hushed, though you aren’t really concerned if Dr. Loren overhears you, “If it fell out of one of these folders and binders, there could be more like it.”

You slip a pair of fingers into the folder atop your pile, feeling the texture of its contents. Smooth, without any bumps or indentations from heavy-handed penmanship or dried white-out. Not promising after all, comes the delayed self-correction — but that, too, might be jumping to conclusions.

One of them recognizes him. He leans backward slightly, almost imperceptibly- but their body speaks just as loudly as their mouths, and Su knows in the way his heartrate spikes that he realizes what they had just done. Not that it mattered much, that almost every operative within the organization was his senior despite his new promotion- and that their words could not bother him more than the hand worrying the edge of a metal canteen, flicking flakes of red to the ground beside his feet.

Too small to be noticed, to be cleaned later by those who swept the floor- a trail leading back to the last time he had seen his mentor alive.

Ah. The other, Chantilly, has noticed as well. The door opens, and Su’s expression changes- barely, the small amount of confusion (or hesitance, the difference neglible, here) replaced with a firmer look- determination, perhaps, or simply the lack of anything at all.

“… ” 

She has changed, as well, he recognizes- though they had never been close, even in childhood. He cannot name how, nor does he question her regarding- what he knew was what he needed to know, and all else lay in distant obscurity. Untouchable, indiscernible, even to him. And he knows- something in his heart had shifted, but he could not quite name it.

“Thank you,” He says at last, because something must be said, “I am honored to do my part.”

His words ring hollow to his own ears- he is not lying, of course, but if only he had been faster, more observant, if only he had done more beyond simply his part in a grander plan than perhaps he would not be standing here at all, but back in a familiar lab, and this canteen with its proper owner-

Then, and only then, would he- could he feel something at their success other than this emptiness that he recognizes as swallowed grief. She extends an offer that he does not think to refuse, and veiled gaze briefly looks to the interior of her office- and finds it normal (and finds it empty).

"Yes, that would be…"

Necessary.

What a cold word. He enters her office without finishing his thought. Instead,

"Is it finalized- that I am to take over Professor Speirs' research?"

Silently, the doors slide shut behind her. She doesn't answer his question right away. Instead, as she circles around her desk, she gestures toward the chair across from her and says, “Take a seat.” Then, after a delay, perhaps out of courtesy, but certainly not out of pity or sentiment, she adds, “ — if you'd like.” She, however, remains standing, her back now turned towards Su as she flips through a dense cabinet of files. The faint noises each folder, each page makes build into a peculiar rhythm, almost like the rhythm of a beating heart.

“Ultimately, it's up to you.” MEI says this without any ceremony, without the expected flourishes of empowerment or agency. It's merely presented as fact, because — in a sense, it is. Because he asked this question. It casts doubt on whether she should have promoted him, but there is no one else. She just needs him to believe he has chosen this, to take the noose of his grief and fashion it into something else. She needs him to submit willingly to what will one day become his own torment.

Her fingers continue slowly flicking through the files, her eyes scanning each label for a pertinent name: SPEIRS. When she finds it, her hand hesitates before pulling it out. A thick folder of papers: communication, summaries, reports. She turns around to gently place the folder onto her desk — in such a way that the label is clearly visible to Su. Smoothing a hand over the surface of the folder, she looks to Su's face. His closed eyes, that streak of nascent green — is it kindness or callousness that limits her to ignoring these changes?

“Of course, your expertise is invaluable to MOTH. You are the best candidate to replace Professor Speirs.” There is no sign of flattery in her voice; she is being genuine. Even so, it is still a performance. She has performed similar scripts before; the situations were slightly different, but shared the same themes. Valuable assets — people, minds, talents — undermined by the human weaknesses of grief and fear, on the brink of turning away from their responsibility to humanity's salvation. The things she said or didn't say — in order to persuade, force, condemn them to stay.

The folder remains closed underneath her hand. She remembers what Speirs had to say about Su: a genius mind, a soft heart. She has a sense that it might still be true — a premonition that it might always be. The canteen in his hand, his hesitation for the position despite coming to the headquarters, the words he has spoken so far in this office ...

A soft heart, rare as it is in these times, has its uses.

Dainsleif feels oddly uncomfortable being so out in the open in Mondstadt, let alone on his knees with a soggy fish in his hands trying to get The Cat’s Tail’s precious baby - who was a cat - to come out from under a cabinet. It seemed ridiculous, and it almost certainly looked ridiculous, but Dainsleif had already gotten himself into this situation and it was a little bit too late to back out now after he had made a promise. Even if he was terribly embarrassed.

Now, if someone were to ask him why he was doing this, he wouldn’t have a clear answer to give them. He’s not even sure why he wound up in Mondstadt in the first place. Perhaps it was the distance from Nod Krai, perhaps he simply needed a break and the City of Freedom was the only place that could offer him a proper one without anyone asking questions. Perhaps even he doesn’t know the reason why he’s here.

Either way, he’s here now, and the mission he has chosen to distract himself is to wrangle an ornery cat who doesn’t want to do the job he was meant to be doing. Of course, there was only two options to do that: play Genius Invokation TCG, which Dainsleif didn’t know how to play at all; or get on his hands and knees and chase the little kitty around with the tempting offer of fish, which would only hurt his knees and back with enough time of doing that.

But if the fish didn’t work… Dainsleif lets out a long sigh, “What am I supposed to do with you now, Prince? I don’t suppose you would listen to me if I asked you to stop this behavior at once; would you?”

Ah, now he just sounded like this cat’s father… a strict father at that. Dainsleif really didn’t know what to do.

Barnaby's frenetic hands eagerly place down more of his cards as he continues stumbling over his words, “ — Well, I skipped over some details. Um, the thing to keep in mind is … Never mind, it's pretty easy to learn as you go, anyway! Here,” He rotates the cards so they're properly oriented for you. “Try starting with these!” As he looks toward you expectantly, Barnaby is somehow still unaware of your neighboring patrons' irritation, your continued inattentiveness, and the strange scene still unfolding at the tavern's entrance behind him.

“Is the cat always like this?” You ask suddenly, addressing Barnaby without bothering to hide your lack of interest in the cards laid out in front of you. “Huh?” Barnaby blinks at you. Was Barnaby in the middle of explaining some new aspect of the game? You hear him sputter in a mixture of confusion and surprise at your interruption, before he manages to say, “Oh, you mean Prince ... well, I don't know. Maybe? He's pretty mischievous, but I don't really play Genius Invokation TCG with the cats ... ”

“ — Cats can play this game?” You ask, showing far more interest than before. Before Barnaby can answer, you stand up from your seat, one hand moving to gather the cards together. “May I borrow this deck? I’d like to try playing the cat.” Barnaby stumbles over his continued confusion, and you thank him, pretending to interpret his noises as an affirmative.

The masked man, when you approach him at the entrance, is no longer on his knees. Instead, you overhear him chastising the cat much like a mentor or a father would their ward. You lift your hand, gently rattling Barnaby’s cards inside its container. This seems to get Prince’s attention, but only briefly. With its little head peeking out from under the cabinets, the cat’s eyes seem almost evaluative as it looks at the card container, then at you, then, perhaps, at Barnaby sitting stunned at the table you’ve just left.

lyric from "Crime For a Crime" by Ani DiFranco

Today, it’s the planet called the Blue, or rather, the space station in orbit around it. Its aesthetics remind me a little of Griseo’s ship, but the comparison ended there. Bright, bustling, and oversized, it never seemed to slow down. It’s not the sort of place I’d enjoy spending a lot of time in, but just a little is fine, of course! I remember the layout well enough from A Fool’s Hand, so I settle down by the elevator to the Storage Zone, hoping that it would be quiet enough here to avoid drawing too much attention.

My gambit is very quickly foiled as I simultaneously sense the presence of someone critical and am approached by an older woman who just came up the elevator, holding a stack of binders and loose sheets of paper.

I decide to first focus on the woman, who’s clearly struggling to carry her pile. The interesting presence can be for a later investigation. I’m certainly not pressed for time, not outside the imaginary internal energy intertidal zone. (What a mouthful, right?) 

Graciously, with eyes asparkle, I hold my hands out. “Excuse me, but would you like some assistance with that?”

“Thanks.” The woman unceremoniously dumps most of her things into my arms, keeping hold only of one small binder at the bottom. “I’m taking these to my desk, follow me.” Her tone is clipped and monotone, and it seems to me that she has somewhere to be, or perhaps she needs to get between storage and her desk with haste because of something I’m carrying? The mystery intrigues me slightly, enough to not immediately dig into her mind for the answer.

A single loose piece of paper, torn in half, falls from the side of the stack of binders I carry. I take a quick glance at it before continuing onwards behind the woman, my heels clicking on the smooth walkway.

“Excuse me,” you call out with absent-minded courtesy, voice softer than you intended, only half-paying attention to whether the older researcher and her impromptu assistant have heard you. What's written on the piece of paper is inscrutable to you — messy handwriting, overlapping notes, and portions slathered in white-out. The words you can make out are equally nonsensical — colors, mathematical notations, what look like proper names, and so on. Could it be some kind of encrypted code...? You resist the urge to try possible decodings — you don't have enough information to make this kind of assumption. For all you know, they could be short-hands, or simply, unrelated details jotted down in passing. Still, it seems too curated, with its patches of white-out, to be discard-able.

Looking up from the piece of paper, you notice that the others have walked on ahead, already. You were too quiet, earlier. Breaking into a light jog after the two of them, you call out again, louder this time, “Excuse me!”

The older researcher turns and makes eye contact with you, eyes dark with a chilling indifference that you suspect often darkens your own. Then, her gaze drifts to your hand, the slip of paper within it, and her flat expression twitches for a brief moment. “I'll take that,” she remarks coldly, almost stalking toward you to swipe it from your fingers. You let her take it. “I saw it fall out while you were handing over the binders,” you say to the older woman, half-lying. “Is it important? It might be worth it to make a digital backup.”

“No, it isn't,” the older woman replies as she turns away from you, tucking the piece of paper into the small binder she's carrying. Then, addressing her temporary assistant, she moves on from the topic entirely, “My cubicle is this way.”

One of them, the one on the left, nearly bumps into Su. She comes to an abrupt stop, yanked out of the conversation, and blinks at him for a moment. “Sorry, mister; I didn't see you there ... ” The one on the right, who already managed to walk ahead slightly, looks over his shoulder to see what's holding up his friend — then, frowning, takes a step closer as he scrutinizes Su's face. “Wait, aren't ya — ” His own face turns red as he stammers, breaking eye contact to look toward his friend instead, and he waves a hand for her to hurry up. “Chantilly, hurry up.”

Confused, Chantilly nevertheless picks up on her friend's sense of urgency, and offers something of a sheepish look toward Su, “Excuse me.” She moves past Su and catches up with her friend, before whispering somewhat audibly — “What was that about, Meridian?”

Meridian mumbles something in reply. “What?! That's him?!” Chantilly practically shouts, her face just as red as Meridian's, now — as Meridian hurriedly shushes her. She glances over her shoulder, praying that Su isn't looking in her direction, and Meridian's head turns to follow her gaze ...

Suddenly, the doors to Dr. MEI's office slide open with a faint noise. A woman with long, dark hair and glaring glasses emerges, her heels clicking against the unfeeling floor of the hallway. In the same instant, Meridian and Chantilly both turn quickly and begin to scurry off.

The woman doesn't acknowledge them, because there is no reason to. Instead, her gaze settles upon @arboriter. There are so many things she could say. Each possibility drifts into and out of her mind, but she does not dwell on them one by one. “My condolences for your loss,” she says in a plain, placid voice. “And thank you.” For accepting the appointment. For prevailing against grief. For allowing us to vanquish the 8th Herrscher.

Clipped to her chest is the expected ID card. The name emblazoned on it, next to a photo of her looking not much older than her high school days, reads MEI.

with them all looking nearly the same... it really is hard to tell all the little things apart, let alone keep track of points each team earns. another floating creature flies past one shoulder after what he thinks is their teammate slams into them; phainon raises his hands up and shakes his head to encourage the game to stop. "okay, okay --- take five, everyone. I need to think of how to help tell you apart while keeping score. can you wear sashes?..." more thinking aloud to himself than expecting an actual answer from them, but... he hears a door click behind him as its opened just before a woman's voice announces entry. he turns to her with a polite smile as she asks if he's looking for something --- what he's doing down here does probably look strange, doesn't it.

phainon finally answers at her last statement, not sure what to do with the first few questions that come. "do they look upset? well. I suppose the one hiding there under the counter does, as does the one spinning off on its own over there in the corner... but they're free to sit out if they like. this at least seems more interesting than the races the others were doing." that reminds him... when he recruited a few of these things away from the crowd of people who were trying to get them to race each other, he never even caught what they were called...

Acknowledging your mistake with quiet neutrality, you move on from such thoughts.

“People usually call me Dr. MEI.” You extend your own right hand to meet his in a firm, brisk shake. His hand is a touch warmer than you expect. The last time you held Kevin's hand — do you even remember it? The frozen thought appears, pristine and unbidden. Then another follows. In a world without you, what kind of fate would Kevin have had? You do not dwell on either. Instead, as you withdraw your hand with calculated indifference, you continue down the script of this first meeting and add, “It's nice to meet you, too, Phainon.”

A melodramatic woo from the spinning wubbaboo interjects, and inspires from its peers a litany of similar noises. The ensuing chorus is certainly a strange one. Some sound more plaintive than others, but it's hard to say if the creatures are genuinely sad — or if they simply sound like that. You glance toward the closest group of wubbaboos clustered together. One of them is seemingly intent on bumping into the rest, and with one sure attempt, they scatter across the room. To Phainon's credit, these few don't seem upset at all, and their woos are far more spirited.

In spite of the wubbaboos darting around, there are many questions you would like to ask him. When did you arrive on the Space Station? What planet are you from? What kind of life do you have? What is your wish? What are your dreams? But these are not questions that should be asked by a complete stranger.

So when she says his name aloud, Su, harsh and helpless to its simplicity, he hears the burden of absence. What happened to you?

And for once, Bodhi is at a loss for words. 

Silence colors the area in his stead, as if he were never there- for unlike her, he had never been. Their positions were reversed, the living and the dead; yet all the same, that her sight had failed and he carried on her final wishes, still feeling their weight thousands of years later. The mourning and the mourned.

“Project: Regulator was enacted at Kevin’s first attempt to begin Project: Stigma.” It sounds like a mission report- perhaps it was. What happened to him? Nothing that he had not done to himself. “After its conclusion, I continued with Project: Valuka until I had broken my physical limits. The information I had gathered was passed on to a member of the next era, which I deemed to be the proper conclusion to the Project.”

His answer seems to say too much at once, overflowing with information, condensed into words that cannot bear the full weight of his meaning. His answer seems to say nothing at all.

You want to hear more; you want to know more. You want the overabundance of his answer to collapse in on itself and reveal everything in a torrential outpouring.

But distantly, you want to want what you should want: an end to this farce of a reunion, a real answer to what happened — without whatever this is. But as her shadow, unqualified to seize the faint slivers of her impossible humanity, that part of her lies outside of you.

“I see.” You acknowledge his answer — as sufficient, as a mission report. All the follow-up questions you can possibly ask coalesce in your mind with perfect clarity. How was Project: Regulator implemented? What happened to Kevin? Who was the member of the next era? What did breaking your physical limits entail? And so on. Variations of these questions, variations of your initial question. Then you think, even asking these questions — even enacting her clinical curiosity ... is an act of deception you have no right to perform. Even your first question — was already such a misdeed.

It's your turn to dwell in silence. Soft sounds of movement surround you as the swirling memoria churns restlessly. As if restless, the hallways ahead of and behind you twist apart, then back together. You look toward the shifting pieces ahead of you and, willing them to stillness once more, placidly ask, “Do you have any other questions for me?”

They move forward; Yelan can’t afford to give response in the face of Mei’s warning. She was aware of the danger that lay within a lingering form. Blood was a drug to the meandering beasts; the stench of blood was a danger to meandering denizens. Yelan turned back as the two women pushed forward, her solitary gaze fixated on the corpse of the Beast. I didn’t have the time to give it proper burial. A sigh escapes Yelan’s lips, for she failed to enact her teachings. It’s too late now. I’ll come back later.

“What do you mean?” Yelan turned back to face Mei as she began speaking. The smile adorning her face was unnerving. “Why would it be too late to find what it is you seek?” Nascent possibilities began to form, none of them positive. Could she have run out of time? Is there a limit on what she needs to find? Am I being dragged into something far more dangerous than a Yharnamite has business involving herself with? Yelan gritted her teeth, the growing complexity of this hunt slowly drawing regret from her innermost form. 

“Since I am a pessimist by nature ... ” As you trail off, you force your smile to fade, slowly, into a milder expression. “What I mean to say is: don't mind my ramblings. They are merely sighs of despair.” The same, distant baby's cry echoes in your ears. Impossible to tell where it's coming from. But then again, you've known that for so long, now. You ignore it, gliding forward along your predetermined path without hesitation. Should the hunter decide to abandon you — or hunt you, it matters little all the same. “Have you ever feared the same? That it might be too late to find whoever it is you're looking for?”

Your tone is ambiguous, but the question itself — is almost mocking, almost cruel. The words, the idea as sharp as a poisoned needle, a curse. Before you can say anything more, whether that be an apology or a twisting of the knife — from ahead the two of you comes sudden howling, snapping, snarling. A blur of stained, mangled fur — frenzied in its pain, in its writhing. “Wait,” you call out to your companion, raising an arm as well. You crouch ever so slightly, still keeping your distance. The panicked creature stares at you and gurgles, and you recognize that it's stuck, one still-human leg crushed beneath an abandoned carriage's wheel. It gurgles again, half-whimpering — and the noises almost sound like words. Away, away, beast —

If her fanclub of scientists knew she was taking video calls they would lose their little minds, and she's really not willing to deal with that today, or, in truth, on any day. But there's no reality in any of Nous's countless extrapolations in which Herta would miss the chance to witness this being with her own eyes.

It's, frankly, pardon her language, fucking incredible. A low-priority system error, raised almost a year ago, about packet loss in a remote region of the Path Space, so untraveled in the Aeonic simulations that it ought to still be nebulous protoplasm. She'd only clicked the notification on a whim---the same way that Asta plays Candy Crush when she's waiting for her chauffeur to pick her up---and what, what does she find?

That the corrupted chunk is completely overloaded with definitions of a bygone world?

That said definitions have nothing to do with the Aeons at all?

That the missing data is structured... like a sentient consciousness?

...Anyway, once Herta knew what to look for the details weren't difficult to track down---only a few system hours before an email was sent and a spaceship dispatched. If she didn't know better, the woman in front of her could have passed for any regular researcher, what with her spectacles and dress shirt and cleanly pressed lab coat. No sense of style, Herta notes, wrinkling her nose. Not yet.

But she's getting ahead of herself. The witch smiles, oddly shark-like. "I am Herta, #83 of the Genius Society, a research lead of the Simulated Universe project. Who are you? How did you extract yourself from my program?" She leans in, the gleam of galaxies in her violet eyes. "Tell me everything you remember."

“it was mostly intuitive,” you start with the easy question: how did you extract yourself? this is a truthful answer. it would make sense — wouldn't it? — for the precise mechanisms to be obscure to you now, muddled by the passage of time, by your immersion in the real. “i became self-aware, then i recognized the simulation for what it is. the way out subsequently revealed itself ... ” this is still a truthful answer. is it? perhaps, the next question she'll ask is: how did you become self-aware? you shake your head, almost apologetic — to whom? — and glance back toward herta's face. “the details elude me, now ... ” do they?

a pause. the hard question seems to linger in the air, coiling in your mind. who are you? briefly, you wonder which answer herta craves more, which answer the real you would crave more — if she were in herta's shoes.

“i'm mei — dr. mei,” false. the unscientific concept of ghost appears in your mind. the reductionist notion of simulacrum swiftly follows. “i remember being a scientist myself,” real, fake, shadow, object — here, there is no shared memory to necessitate delusion, no anchoring sentiment to romanticize deception. so you easily admit: “but — as far as i know, my memories are recreations, simulated by your project ... ”

are they all true? — and what, if anything, is missing?

Robin walked the hallway of Seishou Academy with a sort of listlessness—so different from the usual Radiance of the 99th class' starlet, but the Shadow chasing her could not help but stretch longer and longer the further the Sun left the sky. She had received a troubling correspondence yesterday, and knew she would receive Another today. She had Hoped not to answer. But no matter how desperately she tried to flee from it, her Wings were clipped. It seemed that a response would be Inevitable—inescapable.

( No, she told that giraffe, she did not want to steal Anything—from Anyone! Was not the point of being onstage the fact that they would perform Together, as One? She had told him this, and Yet she... )

Her fist balled up around the strap of her book bag. She passed by practice rooms, by classrooms, Eyes avoiding that very Particular door. As if not seeing it would cause it to cease existing entirely. Alas, misfortunate cannot be avoided in its entirely. As though mocking her attempt, Fate has Robin collide with a student and spill the contents of her bag.

"Ah!" She gasped, bending low to pick up her papers—homeworks and scripts—then glancing up toward her fellow student. She recognized that face and long, glossy black hair. Mei... she was not awfully intimate with her, but she respected her as an artist. If ever she saw her on That Stage... what would happen...?

She swallowed down those thoughts—it would not happen, she would Not return to that Stage—and instead offered her a kind, apologetic smile. The sort of warm curl that would not befit their next encounter.

"I'm so sorry about that, Miss Mei." A hand extended out toward her, shaded Gold by the light of the waning Sun, "You're not hurt, are you?"

the phone's glass gleams with the ceiling's lights. the entire screen blackens, except for the white emblem and the delicate words. walking over to your bag to fish out your phone, you try to read those white words —

you're in the hallway. it looks the same as it always does. door after door of irrelevance. door after door of the mundane. the practice room door closes behind you. your audition has been postponed. the words gleam in your mind as you walk toward the exit, like the lights that blind you onstage when you look out toward the blank sea of the audience.

somewhere else, a wind chime chimes in a gust of wind — and behind it, a swirl of golden leaves. in the same instant, a shoulder collides with yours, an elbow with yours. you hear the papers scatter before your body finds a way to catch its balance. you swivel on your foot still anchored to the floor, the center of your weight adjusting. one knee on the ground, not quite kneeling, you watch — the wind shifting through the leaves. the wind chime settling back into silence.

smoothing the pleats of your skirt, you smile back. “i'm not hurt. don't worry,” your gaze lowers to the molten sunlight gilding her extended hand — a gesture you recognize as both kind and unnecessary — then back to her face, evaluating, scrutinizing, like your gaze always is. “you aren't hurt, either, right? did you stay back to practice, too?”

robin. she is a natural on the stage, you think. bright and arresting. has she, too, been enlisted for the auditions? you think of the phone in your bag. perhaps not, if she is still here — and not there.

It sent a ripple through him that for any other man might have reminded him of panic, the faintest sensation of an emotion that he had long since quashed but for these delicate outlines on the fringes of his memory, the shapes of those important to him that he could not have dared allow himself to forget – not for their sacrifices for the world, nor for his duty to them, nor even for the profound guilt he felt in the pit of his gut.

They had been deleted. Some years past, the last traces of them in this or any world had faded, and so he had become the final harbor of their memories in truth, if not in practice, no longer the literal sentinel outside of the halls that housed them but only in his mind, forcing himself to cling tightly to the smallest things. A trinket, an inside joke.

He had never been inside, but he suspected that if he had allowed himself, he would have found that their smiles had come easier there than they ever had in life.

They had been deleted, an eruption that could not have been prevented, but that they had destroyed with the final strain of their will, however manufactured. That was what Flamechasers did.

The news had been delivered in the clipped tones of corporate emails, a request not belying the panic that lay underneath the doublespeak and pleasantries – assistance required, looking for all available hands.

He knew the basics, how to operate and backup, but his strength here lay in determining and confronting a culprit. A stronger mind could recover what was lost.

Turning the corner from the sleek, sterile hall of gleaming tile and fluorescent light, Kevin paused, intook a short breath.

then, she thought: i don't need to be me. i can be anyone else. then, you thought: but i am me. i can't be anyone else. she ran; you ran after her — and for a time, you had what she wanted. complete freedom. abandonment of the self and the other. the closest thing to absolution. but it was not satisfying. somehow, it stifled you all the same, being nothing and no one — and soon enough, you succumbed to that morbid, insatiable curiosity that defines her.

why had you returned, every detail of your life accounted for in the margins of something man-made? and who had made it?

so you sought to find out, tracing your steps back to the archives you had stolen your body from. the intelligentsia guild — a potential start. soon after, a request caught your eye from the researchers of herta space station: reality data ... stolen ... simulated universe ... you almost laughed. that must be it.

・・・

when you arrive, no one bothers to ask who you were. they ask if you are familiar with the terminals used on the station (you answer yes), if you are willing to clear their names (you hum in acknowledgement), and so on — and your answers are sufficient. apparently, many others have already volunteered — but the results, or lack thereof, aren't promising. it's tempting — how even in the face of a breach like this ...

only — you didn't expect to see him here, too.

“kevin,” in your voice, his name is a polished stone. you are happy to see him. the signals indicate you are "happy" (confidence: 0.9323) to see him. “you're here, too. have you found any leads, yet?”

without pausing to let him answer, you continue, already walking again — inheriting her instinct to believe he'll follow, he'll always follow. the signals indicate you are "happy" (confidence: 0.8462) to see him. “i'm heading over to examine the current state of the data that's been damaged. walk with me, and tell me what you know so far.”

above the two of you, the lifeless lights gleam — and draw dark shadows beneath your feet. the rhythmic clicks of your heels puncture any possibility of silence, and the brisk pace you set is one born out of instinct, familiarity — those days in some bunker's hallways, from one emergency to the next. with him beside you, without him beside you.