uh?

Outer Rim can be divided into four main sections: The Throne (to the far West), a western Desert, an eastern City, and a Starcatcher to the far East.

The East and West halves are more or less mirrors of each other. They could be two separate Starcatchers, or two mirrored walls of one larger Starcatcher.

I’ve highlighted the different parts of the region below (taking some liberties, assuming that there are some parts of the Starcatcher superstructures which are inaccessible to the player).

The rooms to the east are mostly named some variation of “Starcatcher”, so we can assume that at least that part of the region is confirmed to be part of the Starcatcher superstructure.

To the far west is the Throne, which shares some structural similarities with the Starcatcher to the East, albeit distorted by the rot. I think it’s safe to assume that this used to be another part of a Starcatcher.

In the center of the region are two towers: one in the western desert, and one in the eastern city. These structures might be disconnected from the Starcatcher(s), or they could be just another wall, connected to the Starcatcher “bowl”. I’ve roughly laid out what this might look like below.

Though, I think it’s more likely that these are disconnected towers, as many solitary towers like these can be seen by the other Starcatchers in the distance.

So, because the two halves of Outer Rim are mirror images, these are either two mirrored Starcatcher “bowls” with two towers between them, or are the walls of one large Starcatcher, with both the city and desert inside the “bowl”.

If the east and west ends of Outer Rim are the walls of one singular Starcatcher, the "bowl" might span the entire region, which I've highlighted roughly below:

It's hard to tell which is the case. However, the name "Outer Rim" brings to mind the idea of traversing the rim of one of these Starcatcher "bowls". There's also an image in the Watcher game files called "otr_bigtube", presumably meant to be the inner wall of one of these Starcatcher bowls.

This post also shows what this was roughly meant to look like in-game:

Evidently this was scrapped during production, but it does suggest that at least part of Outer Rim is meant to be the inside of one of the Starcatchers. Whether this was meant to span the entire region, or just the Eastern Starcatcher portion, is unclear.

In addition Watcher 1.5 added some new rooms to Outer Rim. Previously, the easternmost room only showed the "inner" side of one of these Starcatcher walls, but more rooms were added showing the "outer" side, facing a large chasm.

To me this reinforces the idea that the eastern Starcatcher rooms are an eastern wall, especially given the lighting changes between the two sides. The "inner" side is a bit dimmer with a notable lack of stardust, while the "outer" side is lighter and stardust can be seen blowing in the distance.

Regardless of whether or not Outer Rim represents one Starcatcher or two smaller ones, we can still make inferences about the general structure of Starcatchers.

The main part of the structure, which I've been calling the "bowl", is a large, hollow cylinder which sits atop a mess of mechanical shapes. I assume this is where the "city" rooms of Outer Rim are located.

In the distant Starcatcher sprites, there are vague vertical columns which appear to support the bowl, and this column motif can be found throughout Outer Rim's "city" rooms.

There are also horizontal "bridges" jutting out from the sides of the city portion, which I believe are reflected by a few of Outer Rim's rooms on both the east and west sides.

Finally, there are tall towers found both around the Starcatchers and on their rims, which support large rectangular structures.

Both the towers and the inner walls of the Starcatchers have circular windows. WORA_STARCATCHER07 in particular has slowly rotating fan blades in these windows, so I've taken to calling them turbines.

I've made a (VERY rough) map of what I think typical Starcatchers look like on the inside. There is a long bridge which spans the length of the bowl, while the inner part of the bowl contains many turbines, which spin as stardust and wind passes through them.

The various towers scattered around might also house turbines, but some of them have inner "funnel" structures which possibly exist to collect and filter captured stardust.

So, finally, the reason why I have done all this thinking. What the hell are Starcatchers even built to do? They catch stars, obviously, with the assumption that the dust and falling lights in the distance are these "stars".

I've talked in the past about why Rain World's stars are green. Whether or not the falling stars in Outer Rim are the same ones which can be seen atop The Wall in vanilla is unknown, but the parallels seem intentional to me. I have my own ideas about what Outer Rim's stars might be, but that is a post for a different time. Let's just assume that they're something worth collecting.

The Cold Storage pearl makes mention of something called "Star Energies":

... and as Thought-Leader of this Most Righteous Congregation of Minds and Souls, it humbly falls to me to present these concerns before you regarding the curious plan for the harvesting of so-called Star Energies. The dimming pallor of our own dear star does concern, yes, and some solution must be found. But many say this is simply the result of Dust --yes the most natural of all things!-- which appears to precipitate increasingly these recent cycles. To trust our Blessed Future to esoteric Energies and Fields and yet again more inscrutable Calculations and Resonances seems reckless! Do we even know wherefore this energy comes? And what Else may come with it? Further datum is needed before such drastic measures are taken! Many even say the falling Dust may yet decrease on its own! I, One Glass Cylinder, Perpetual Servant Elect of Knowledge and Resources, propose to form a committee to study...

TEXT_STARDUST

At least at the time of this pearl's writing, it seems that these "star energies" are poorly understood, but there is some interest in harvesting it.

I don't think "star energies" were viewed as a potential power source, because Benefactor society already has access to Void Fluid. The concerns in this pearl seem to be about the Sun ("our own dear star") and its decreasing brightness. Perhaps the "star energies" are being viewed as a replacement for some other resource which is obtained from the Sun.

The author attributes the Sun's dimming to an increase in dustfall, which is a known natural process.

If you leave a stone on the ground, and come back some time later, it's covered in dust. This happens everywhere, and over several lifetimes of creatures such as you, the ground slowly builds upwards.

-Looks to the Moon (SB_Filtration)

It's unclear if this dust is the same dust which falls in Outer Rim. I'm inclined to say no, because the dust seen atop Five Pebbles is lacking the distinct green flecks seen in Outer Rim's dust.

We don't know if anything came of this committee proposed to study "star energies", but a pearl can be found in Outer Rim which contains an image:

It's unclear what this is, but its placement in Outer Rim leads me to believe that it has something to do with the Starcatchers.

It appears to be some sort of "arm" connecting to one of the falling stars. I personally think it resembles a lightning rod; maybe this is the way these "star energies" are harvested?

(The arm also appears to resemble an iterator puppet arm. I don't think this one is iterator-related, but maybe it's a similar technology?)

I will note that the player doesn't have access to any Outer Rim structures like the "arm" seen in this pearl, so perhaps it isn't Starcatcher related... but its placement inside of one of Outer Rim's towers feels deliberate to me.

At the end of all of this, I'm afraid that I still can't answer the question of what Stardust and Falling Stars are and why the Benefactors might want to harvest them, but at least after 1.5 we have a bit more information about their connection to the Starcatchers.

I've also completely glazed over the fact that Outer Rim appears to be a mirror image of the vanilla world, which the Outer Rim towers being parallels to the Filtration System drills reaching down into the Void. They're both reaching into the "void" to harvest something, in a way. One up and one down.

TL;DR: I believe the Starcatchers and the towers surrounding them were built by the benefactors to collect, harvest, and filter both Stardust and larger Falling Stars for some unknown reason, but it may or may not have to do with the Sun and it's apparent dimming brightness.

Across the table: X. Coat spotless, the big embroidered butterfly smug as sin, heterochromia like a prism split. He’s here. And he’s acting like last night didn’t bend spacetime—like nothing changed, like they didn’t melt each other’s frontal lobes in a quiet lab while a kid napped three meters away. He smiles when Lucy speaks. He takes notes. He nods to Mesmer. Business as usual. Meanwhile, Medicine Pocket’s limbic system is attempting interpretive dance inside their ribcage.

Lucy’s mouth tilts. “Noted. Kindly refrain from masticating museum assets.” She lets that land, then (because she can’t help herself), adds: “That includes stress balls, signage, and any future enrichment toys I requisition for you.”

A couple of restrained snickers skitter across the table. Mesmer Jr., for one, doesn’t look up from her folder, but her mouth curves. John Titor emits a low “4C4F4C” like a suppressed barcode laugh. Ulrich’s tank (gold, matte, menacing) tilts by a degree, which for him is a smothered cackle.

Medicine Pocket can feel heat pooling treacherously under the skin (vasodilation: rude). “Proceed, Lucy,” they demand, strangled. “Before I test your drag coefficient.”

Lucy moves on with imperial calm. “As I was saying: Laplace expands.” She gestures; the screen wipes to a clean deck. “Please welcome our new colleagues. Windsong. Ley Lines, Transnistrian origin.” A tall woman with wavy, flaxen hair inclines her head; she looks like she could shoulder a seismograph and a revolution. “Kiperina—astronaut, apprentice to Windsong, Ley-line topology.” The braided blonde at Windsong’s right bounces a little, scope still in her posture. “Hissabeth: Aerospace Engineering, materials emphasis. Pointer: Aerospace Engineering, structures.” Teal hair, crisp notes; yet another blonde, sharper pencil. The pair radiates delta-V.

“Most hail from space,” Lucy adds, “with the honorable exception of Windsong, who hails from geography.”

Urbane applause ripples; Medicine Pocket contributes two hygienic claps. Opposite them, 37 perches with their long seashell-blue hair, iridescent intensity, counting primes on her knuckles without being asked. Ezra, Director of this museum, despite looking like a cherub someone misplaced at a conference, sits with his legs not quite touching the floor, a mycology field guide peeking from his blazer. He gives Medicine Pocket a small, conspiratorial smile. Damn child knows too much.

“Appointments,” Lucy says, iris diaphragm of the projector clicking wider. Names and titles blossom in a serifed parade.

“Researcher Medicine Pocket,” she reads, and turns the warm gun of her gaze. “Head of the Biological Pharmaceuticals Department. Leader, Biological Team. Researcher Level II.”

Something pleased and feral scurries up Medicine Pocket’s spine and sits there, panting. Pride is a confounder, so they scowl. They manage: “Finally.”

“Ulrich—Co-Head, Research Department; Leader, Cryptography.” Tank Guy nods, a ripple of black ink sloshing inside like a decimal moved to just so. “Adler Hofmann—Substitute Director; Co-Head, Research.” Enigma lifts an eyebrow a micron: for him, applause. “Mesmer Jr.—Leader, Artificial Somnambulism Therapy; Researcher Level I; Therapist Level II.” Mesmer makes a lazy V with her fingers. “X—Leader, Mechanical Research Team; Researcher Level II.”

The clap this time is unambiguous. X ducks his head, startled honor bright as magnesium. Medicine Pocket claps three times despite themself and (curse it) X looks over. An ultra-fine, private smile: you okay? The question deposits in Medpoc’s chest like a syringe’s plunger: click, flood. They look away so hard their neck complains.

Lucy lets the noise settle. “Org chart syncs to your devices. Do not chew those either,” she says, almost playful, eyes flicking to Medicine Pocket. That’s the second call-out. Enough to leave teeth marks, not enough to bruise.

Windsong raises a hand, repose as ballast. “Ley-line variance has been destabilizing instruments along the south arcade. We’ll retune the field after mapping. Kiperina will lead a night pass.”

“Map away,” Ulrich drawls, voice filtered and sardonic through hull. “Cryptography would like its entropy back.”

Hissabeth taps a pen against a neat grid. “We’re logging fatigue cycles on airframe mockups for dream-state harnesses. Mesmer, I’ll need load tolerances for your therapy rigs.”

Mesmer’s smile is thin and pleased. “Send me your worst.”

“John,” Lucy says, “compile the integration constraints into hexadecimal for the archive.”

“496E2070726F6772657373,” John intones, deadpan, and resumes disassembling an orange with infallible neatness.

Medicine Pocket clears their throat before Lucy remembers any more ‘behavioral datasets.’ “Biopharm has three billets,” they say, brisk to cover the throb under their sternum. “I want a materials liaison who thinks past tensile strength, a wet-lab tech who doesn’t faint at blood, and a statistician who won’t talk to me about p-values like I’m a hedge fund. If Ley garbage hums my incubators, I’ll throw a centrifuge.”

Windsong’s mouth tips. “I’ll detune your nodes,” she says in a voice like wind over wire. “If the lines sing, we’ll make them whisper.”

Medicine Pocket points two fingers, approval like a click. Potential friend, the primitive brain notes, surprised.

Across the table, 37 has stopped counting and started talking—fast, bright, delighted. “Also thirty-seven isn’t just prime, it’s a hex-cycle sweet spot, did you know the repeating decimal of one over twenty-seven looks like a rotating symmetry if you tilt the paper and—”

“Thank you, 37,” Lucy says, gentle for a machine. “You will terrify our enemies and possibly our board.” 37 beams; Mesmer hides a grin in her teacup.

“Scope,” Lucy resumes. “Hissabeth, Pointer—coordinate with Mechanical on materials for the crawler platforms. X, do not design a device that pours tea unless it also wins a war.”

X turns a tragic shade of pink and presses his lips together to keep a smile prisoned. Medicine Pocket’s chest does something stupid and mammalian. They adopt a face like a closed autoclave and stare at the wood grain until the urge to chew something passes.

“Ezra,” Lucy says, “continue curation. Also, supervise any fungus that Medicine Pocket attempts to domesticate. Or eat. We will minimize spore incidents.”

Ezra sits taller, angelic and indefatigable. “Yes, Madam Lucy!”

A small, bashful hand goes up—this time, Kiperina. “Uh. Question for Head of Biopharm,” she says, reluctantly. “How tolerant are your incubators to micro-g jitter? If our field rigs live in your wing, we should share vibration budgets.”

Medicine Pocket blinks, impressed even with the day. “±0.02 g without phase slip if my staff remembers to lock casters. Which they forget. Often.” They cut a look at Trina, not present and therefore blamed in absentia. “Bring me your plot. We’ll make them play nice.”

“Done,” Windsong says for both of them. Efficient. Good.

Lucy plants metal fingertips on the table, and the museum seems to lean in with her. “Laplace remains a cathedral to rigor. We will aim it into the Storm.” Her gaze lands lightly—fondly?—on Medicine Pocket. “Head of Biological Pharmaceuticals, please also aim future projectiles away from priceless artifacts. The astrolabe predates your bite habit.”

Low, collective laughter. Kind, even. Medicine Pocket bares a disinclined, canine curve of teeth. “Get me something with better rebound,” they say.

“I have already placed a requisition for bite-resistant enrichment devices under Wellness,” Lucy replies, eyes glinting. “Motion carried.”

Regulus (inevitably) claps like a drum. “Bravissima. Now, someone show Space Crew the coffee that doesn’t taste like oxidized despair.”

“After closing remarks,” Lucy says. “Any further questions?”

Ezra’s hand again, earnest. “Does the Head of Biological Pharmaceuticals get a lab assistant?”

Four dozen heads swivel. Medicine Pocket feels the blush approach from a different zip code. “Maybe,” they hedge. “If the assistant can keep up and doesn’t lecture me about gloves.”

X coughs into his fist, smiling down at his notes, pretending to be Switzerland. “Mechanical can loan someone with… exteroception,” he says, then stops himself, face coloring in a way that detonates last night’s reel again in Medicine Pocket’s skull. He recovers: “—protocol.”

“Interdepartmental collaborations anticipated,” Lucy says, satisfied.

“Over my dead centrifuge,” Medicine Pocket mutters, but the room has re-phased into something almost congenial. Less grind, more mesh. They can breathe again.

Lucy raps the table once. “Welcome, new researchers. Congratulations, promoted staff. We’ll do a ten-minute cross-pollination interval—please mingle now while the agenda continues in parallel.” Her gaze clicks to Medicine Pocket. “And, Researcher Medicine Pocket—I appreciate your restraint.” A beat. “Minimal restraint remains acceptable.”

“Proceed,” Medicine Pocket snaps, because any other syllable might combust.

Badges chime; chairs half-scrape; the long table becomes a living circuit—clusters forming, breaking, recombining as nameplates and disciplines trade charge. Side screens keep sliding through org diagrams and timelines, Lucy narrating in a ground-level, even thread for those still listening. At intervals, micro-conversations bloom: Ley-lines with cryptography, aerospace with somnambulism, mycology with biopharm.

Medicine Pocket stands too fast, pockets the disgraced stress ball like contraband, and lectures their own nervous system: awkwardness is a transient artifact of a reinforced loop; plot its decay, starve its inputs. They will not watch X getting along with new members, such as Hissabeth and Kiperina, sketching invisible mechanisms as if nothing…important occurred last night. Absolutely not.

They last exactly six seconds.

They turn, fix their scowl to “indiscriminate hazard,” and angle toward the periphery—Windsong in their sights, a towering isobar of composure worth befriending—anything to keep their mouth off museum property and their brain off the one variable in Laplace that refuses to fit a model.

⋆₊ ⊹★ 🧪⭑⋆｡˚

The mingle window ends; Lucy closes her remarks, and the meeting formally adjourns. Chairs finally screech in zealous, badges chirp confirmations, subcommittees shear into tidy vortices of chatter.

Medicine Pocket yawns for the ninth time—logged, lamentable. The hinge-click of their jaw sends solvent-bright fatigue down the belly. Zero REM last night; the cortex insisted on replaying an event with the obstinacy of a broken oscilloscope: mouth on mouth, shock voltage, the droll, perfect coupling coefficient of lips.

They bite their lower lip now, annoyed at the reflex. Is Alphabet Boy similarly voltage-sick? Tripping over his sodium channels? Glymphatic system petitioning for mercy because kissing has colonized his working memory like a runaway process?

They chance a look. Across the hall, post-adjournment, X is now folded into a more intricate conversation with the space faction itself, with the ease of a well-lubricated bearing. Hands grid arcs and levers; hysterics arrive in puny, spasmodic eruptions; he sketches ascents in the air as if annular inclination were a tame bird. Kiperina beams; Hissabeth’s pen races, snakes on her, hissing and blabbering all the same.

No visible arrhythmia. No smallish flinch. Not an air-hungry swallow in sight to betray a similarly unruly tegmental incurvate.

Of course. He’s probably experienced. On the other hand, Medicine Pocket’s first kiss is not yet twenty-four hours old and has somehow reprogrammed celerity initiation. Perfect.

An ugly hypothesis elbows forward—very suddenly: Has he kissed others? The… Fog Boy? Their stomach answers with a dwarfish, corrosive twist—jealousy, a nauseant reagent they detest. It tastes like oxidized copper. They squeeze down on it, roll their eyes at themself, and haul their gaze away from X’s animated compass perspective and those infuriating dimples.

Enough. Sleep is a ripper; rumination is rust. They avert from the museum, past the credenzas of chronometers and sextants, past Lucy’s lingering halo of amusement, and head for the elevators. Someone offers a “Congratulations, Head of Bio-Pharm”; they answer with a grunt that could be gratitude or a threat (threat), then step into the elevator and stab 16 with unnecessary (necessary) force.

The sleep quarters. Communal. Undesirable. The doors open onto a corridor of sound-damp panels and standardized serenity, the air conditioned to within an inch of upset. They are mildly disgusted that they’re choosing a bunk here when they have a private bolt-hole curated by Bucket Head herself. But their assigned room is a behavioral trap—the place where thoughts of Alphabet Boy bounce off the walls with sublime fidelity. They need oblivion, not a resonance chamber.

Inside: a reticulum of bunks welded like ship racks, linen bleached into humility, a throb of HVAC as methodical as a sundial. “At least it’s a controlled environment,” they reason under their breath, claiming a corner cot with the persistence of a dog stealing a chair.

Regimen first, or the body will file a complaint.

They shoulder through the adjacent comfort room. Fluorescents buzz, tile shines. The scissors leave their post, plucked from the knot at the back of their head with the adroit zip of a surgeon unseating a clamp. Their hair falls, platinum curtain down the spine, static whispering. They stare at the mirror. A face stares back: light-toned, serrated, pupils still a shade dilated; a mouth that remembers pressure as if it were specifics; an off-balance, traitorous rubescent across the zygomatic arches.

“How does he see this?” they ask the reflection, as though the dielectric might clap back. “Unsentimentally interesting? Sloppy appealing? Or just… inane?” The mirror is politic.

Lab coat off. The avoirdupois leaves their shoulders, and with it the institutional exoskeleton. Underneath, they don a rustic gray shirt, soft from too many washes, then a pair of plaid boxer shorts that qualify as anti-ceremony. The ensemble appears to be a failed hypothesis in human presentation. They snort at their own reflection, then snag a towel and scrub the day from their face with brusque, serialized strokes. Hands rinse. A peek at the clock ticks a rebuke. Done.

Back in the dormitory proper, they pocket the scissors (habit) and apparate to their chosen bunk. Boots off, one whump then another. They fold the lab coat with the care they never grant paper, slide it under the mattress edge, and lie down with the gracelessness of a felled tree. Whatever.

The ceiling consists only of acoustic foam and a faint seam where the two panels meet. Their mind tries one last seditious loop—X’s mouth, the line he made afterward, that look—but sleep finally brings a blunt contraption. The autonomic takes command. Breath finds its parasympathetic frequency. Muscles unspool, one fascicle at a time.

For once, the brain obeys. They go under fast, like induction, sheared hair fanned across the pillow, a new title folded under the mattress, and a kiss still ringing somewhere in the deeper layers, waiting for the next time someone dares to peg it.

⋆₊ ⊹★ 🧪⭑⋆｡˚

A week or so is an eternity when your hypothalamus system won’t stop filing FOIA requests on a solo evocation.

That moment they shared with X is as good as history, one for the books. Medicine Pocket has tried to starve the helix, but the flashbulb keeps kindling—high-speed replay of lip contact, the abstinent conductivity step, that ridiculous, elegant cascade you could draft on a whiteboard: dopamine crest, noradrenergic flare, parasympathetic stutter, a neat little LTP imprint that laughs at extinction trials. They did, moreover, say a thing with their actual mouth: that the boy was compelling. Who admits to something like that and then vanishes into their own schedule like a cowardly particle? Apparently, them.

So they keep moving. Fieldwork with Ezra (who works like a honeycomb and smiles like an apology), logistics for the Uluru revival, two nights sleeping on lab benches, three injections of their own questionable clarity tonic, and an industrious habit of swerving whenever the corridor ahead smells a wee bit of espresso and clean soap. Cafeteria: hear him before the threshold—light shoes, mannerly titter—pivot, elevator, fifth floor detour, chew the inside of the cheek to drown the olfactory recall. Library: that same frangible aftershave note around the stacks—press forearm to nose, reverse course, pretend the book you needed never existed. The heart tugs on its leash; the brain yanks back and mumbles about stimulus control. Drag, drag, drag.

Today: Lucy’s director’s lab. High ceilings, light like distilled water, everything forensic to make your worst impulses stand at attention. On the main island, a project blooms in components: reinforced mouthguards, elastic wrist wraps whose fibers glitter with Arcanum-reactive threads, a baseplate for a portable “sacred flame” monitor that refuses to stop tripping thermal protection. The Uluru Games are waking up—rite plus risk, history braided to physiology—and Laplace gets to be both chaperone and paramedic.

Ulrich is already there, a tank for a head, glass walls humming to a degree, the ink-dark mass within sloshing like sarcasm with surface tension. Exclamation points, dots, ellipses, dots. Enigma (Adler, if you want the personnel file, or simply to piss him off) stands opposite, forearms scuddy, expression that professional shade of unimpressed that doubles as praise around here. Medicine Pocket shoulders in, drops a tray of vials that clink like chimes, and refuses to greet either of them because greetings might open the door to small talk and small talk might let a certain letter of the alphabet into the room.

“Biopharm shows at last,” Ulrich deadpans, the speaker grill on his hull giving the irony a warm metallic grain. “We were about to add a fourth failure mode just to feel your presence.”

“Add a fifth,” Medicine Pocket says, snapping on gloves. “Failure to understand what you’re doing without me.”

Enigma chucks in a glance at the stanchion. “Your ‘sacred-flame’ sensor saturates at eighty-seven Celsius in mock trials. Did you intentionally regulate for soup?”

“It’s a damn flame, Adler,” they bite, tearing open a foil pouch already to swap in a different thermistor. “Try believing in heat. The initial spec came from a priest-ghost with strong opinions about ‘living fire’ and no opinions about Kelvin.”

“Living fire,” Ulrich repeats, as if taste-testing a phrase and finding it under-salted. “And our athlete.”

“Spathodea,” Enigma states, the name landing carefully. “Brown hair, sea-blue eyes, fists like a timepiece. Sunny as a summer day and faster than an angry postulation.”

“Boxer,” Medicine Pocket mutters, pleased despite themselves. “She wraps her hands like she means it. Ezra says she runs stairs when the world sleeps. Good resting HR, neat orthostatic response, calcium handling like a show-off. We keep her joints intact, we keep her brain inside the skull, we keep the pain scale below melodrama.”

Enigma’s mouth tilts—Adler for I approve, grudgingly. “Hence your toys.”

“They’re tools,” Medicine Pocket corrects, setting the mouthguard into a cradle. “Polymer blend reinforced with a piezo layer to log impact vectors. If she takes a right cross, I want to know whether her occlusion bore the load or her brainstem. The wraps have microfilament weft that fluoresces under strain; real-time readout will tell us before ligaments reach their personal apocalypse.”

Ulrich hums. “And if she insists on the apocalypse.”

“Then we—” Medicine Pocket pulls a face, reaches for a fine-tip iron, and plows on a lead, practically about performing an exorcism— “—convince her that living to fight tomorrow is the more interesting experiment. Painkillers on board, but we bias toward peripheral modulation. No fogging the cortex. The Games are a multiplex, we won’t make it an opiate haze.”

“Spoken like a Head of Biological Pharmaceuticals,” Ulrich says, dry as a scrubland. “Congratulations on your promotion, by the way. We would have brought flowers, but the last bouquet you received ended up hematocrit.”

“It deserved it,” they say, checking continuity. “The hydrangeas were smug.”

Enigma sets a small pelican case on the worktop, flips it open. Inside, there are three glossy coins the size of thumbnails. “Prototypes from Cryptography. For the Games perimeter. We suspect ley-line turbulence generates a low-frequency drift in keyed incantations. These hold a counter-temporal checksum. If the field starts sliding, they squeal.”

Ulrich’s tank leans, as if smell-testing. “We call them canaries.”

“Ugly canaries,” Medicine Pocket interjects, approvingly. “Good. Put them around the ring. If the ancient magic starts singing off-key, we pull the plug before anybody’s soul decides to go free-range.”

“Lucy approved the plug?” Enigma asks.

“Bucket Head approved the concept of the plug,” Medicine Pocket retorts. “Actual authorization is a state function dependent on her mood, the coffee machine, the number of things I haven’t bitten today.”

Enigma runs a fingertip along a schematic, eyes hooded. “You’ve been very… quiet this week.”

“Lie,” Medicine Pocket denies, immediate. “You just can’t hear me over your own ennui.”

“Hmm.” Enigma’s voice is all silk and no friction. “Curious phenomena cluster. Novel projects. Novel staff. Novel titles. And then a sudden decrease in uttered insults per hour, accompanied by an increase in completed checklists. Ulrich, would you consider that a meaningful correlation?”

Ulrich makes a contemplative blorp. “Could be a pre-seizure calm. Could be guilt. Could be love.”

Medicine Pocket nearly drops the iron. “Could be you both shut up.”

Enigma doesn’t smile; his boredom purely acquires an extra decimal of exactitude. “We’re modeling inputs, not reading diaries. Though if I were to guess, I’d say a certain someone from the adjacent lab has driven your system into avoidance yo-yoing. Alphabet, for instance. After all—”

“Do not say his letter like a crossword clue,” Medicine Pocket warns, solder smoke curling. A warning.

“—after all,” Enigma continues mildly, “our newest mechanical lead does have a way of increasing throughput in his collaborators. Or decreasing speech in them. Either seems… statistically present.”

Ulrich’s tank lights a lazy pulse, amusement traveling like a jellyfish. “I observed Biopharm turning on their heel in a hallway yesterday with no apparent predator in sight. Unless one counts the faint trace of high-end coffee.”

Medicine Pocket stares at the board, declines to concede an iota. “Fieldwork,” they grit, terse. “Uluru prep. Ezra and I took soil cores near the stadium, eighty centimeters down. The mycelial mat is a gossip network; it told him three secrets and a joke.”

“Did it tell you to bolt when you heard a certain voice?” Ulrich inquires, mock-consulting a textbook.

“They’re confounding adaptables,” Medicine Pocket growls. “Smell, sound, stupid human memory. I have a job. We have a job. Sacred flame, athletic liability, reagent shortages, Lucy’s insufferable dashboards. Jeez.” They set the mouthguard down too hard, take a breath that is almost a swear, then choose competence instead. “Where are we on the headgear?”

Enigma slides over a rig: sleek shell, foam lattice, a halo of tiny sensing nodes like a crown for a very practical ruler. “Accelerometers in triad. Gyros with redundancy. PPG at the temple; SpO₂ on the ear. We’ll catch microconcussions before they stand up and announce themselves.”

Medicine Pocket’s hands move before their brain can find a reason to sabotage them: re-seating a connector, nudging a cable run with forceps, taping down a sensor line as tenderly as if it were a pulse. “Good. What about the flame monitor? If the sacred fire does its temperamental act, I want the meter to step up, not melt.”

“Lucy’s requisition arrived,” Ulrich says, gesturing with the elegant drift of a discretion he’s borrowing for effect. “Heat shields. Ceramic composite. Also, two new fans that claim to ‘whisper.’”

“They’ll scream like the rest once the dust finds them,” Medicine Pocket mutters, but they take the box, carve it open, and slot the shield in with brutal postponement. The readout sustains, numbers marching left to right like they’ve decided life is tolerable after all. “There. See? We can do civilization.”

Enigma folds his arms. “We should brief Spathodea before fitting. She trusts cheer and clarity. Ezra seems to translate both.”

“Ezra translates anything into patience,” Medicine Pocket drones, and the admission slides out before they can fake a cough. “She thinks he’s a girl, by the way. Calls him ‘Miss’ when she’s sleepy. Even Bunny Bunny and that other one, Desert Flannel. Either he hasn’t corrected them, or he refuses to when the kid’s heart rate spikes. Adaptive lying—medically indicated.”

Ulrich’s speaker softens. “She’s confined?”

“Infirmary, sure, confined? No,” Medicine Pocket shakes their head. “Just observation for a day to bring the nerves down and rehydrate a child who forgets water is not merely for plants. Ezra’s in there with a book about glowing mushrooms and a cup of broth that smells like honesty.” They strip their gloves, toss them into the burn bin. “I’m going now. You two can stay here and court each other with spreadsheets.”

Clear of throats erupt; Medicine Pocket ignores it. Then, “Bring her the wraps,” Enigma says, tapping the labeled box. “And the canary coins. We’ll install stadium perimeter tomorrow.”

Ulrich lowers his hull fractionally in a motion that reads, somehow, like a bow. “If the flame sings off-key, call. I prefer rescue to autopsy.”

“Funny,” Medicine Pocket utters, snatching the boxes. “I prefer neither. Try to keep your tank out of doorways now, I like my elbows unbroken.”

And with that, they turn to go. Enigma lets the silence hold just long enough to function as a prod. “Medicine Pocket.”

“What,” they snap without turning.

“Your avoidance,” he says, tone composed as graphite. “It’s an unstable strategy. In cryptography we call it a transposition—letters out of order until the message is unreadable. Sometimes the quickest way to regain legibility is to set them in line and read out loud.”

Ulrich makes a small approving noise. “Even I understood that one.”

Medicine Pocket’s shoulders creep up toward their ears. “Thank you for the lecture, Professor Cipher,” they say, aiming for scathing and hitting somewhere nearer to tired. “I’ll add it to my bedtime story. Right after ‘Don’t get punched in the cerebellum.’”

They push out into the corridor where the air tastes like coolant and policy. The boxes are balmy against their palms, and the hallway is long and white and much too honest. Two interns pass with a gurney and a sense of doom, then a drone sprints by with syringes like little silver birds. Medicine Pocket counts their steps because counting is a leash.

Lifts. Mirror-bright doors. For one feral second, they picture pressing a different floor—the one where a certain lab hums next to a sign that says KEEP OUT in a language their teeth know by heart. They picture walking in, the smell of tea and affix, the bewildered gladness on his face. They imagine the thing they said and the way he answered with his mouth instead of grammar.

They jab the button for the infirmary.

Hospital wing. Slushy lighting, soundless machines expelling meaningful sighs. On the second door to the right, a little paper star dangles on tape because Ezra cannot help himself—he believes in labeling reality with gentleness. Inside, Spathodea is a spill of brown hair on a pillow, aqua eyes bright even under drudgery. She sits cross-legged, pugilist turned patient, which is to say: impatient. Her right hand is already half-wrapped because she started without permission. Ezra occupies a chair like a tiny, lily-white sentinel, mustard gloves on, hat on the hook, a mycology text open to a luminous plate. He looks up first, and his smile is automatic and annoyingly medicinal.

“Medpoc,” he says softly, like the word is a cup of cozy water. “You’re just in time.”

“Of course I am,” they answer, setting the boxes down with ceremonial thumps. “I bring presents and a low tolerance for heroics.”

Spathodea beams. “Hi, Doc! Miss Ezra said you’d come back.”

Medicine Pocket’s mouth twitches. They flick a glance at Ezra; he shrugs infinitesimally—not the fight to pick today. Well, alright. Medicine Pocket pops the first lid, spreads the wraps like a magician showing both hands. “Rules: you let me fit these, you don’t argue with the mouthguard, and you drink whatever that broth is. If you complain about taste, I will add mushrooms and make it pedagogical.”

Spathodea giggles. Ezra glows—not literally, but close. The monitor by the bed throws back a gentle tide of numbers: HR steady, SpO₂ excellent, BP slightly cocky, the sort that needs a bedtime. Medicine Pocket’s world narrows to useful radii: measure, trim, fit, explain, praise. The girl is brave, the kid is kind, the gear is good. The Games are a prospect; the work is a counter-spell. It helps.

Only once does the week intrude: a breath, a pocket of quiet when Ezra leans forward to blow on the broth and Spathodea leans into the steam and Medicine Pocket, traitor to their own edicts, thinks of aftershave and laughter and a lab bench and the sound one makes when one decides to be brave with one’s mouth.

They tape the last edge down, check the strain sensor LEDs—clean green across the knuckles, warm amber at the wrist. “There,” they say, and it comes out forgiving than they meant. “When you punch, the wrap tells me the truth even if you don’t.”

Spathodea flexes, awed. “It glows.”

“It reports,” Medicine Pocket amends, because hiding love in pedantry is a time-honored tradition. “And if you overdo it, it tattles.”

Ezra laughs—bells in a library. “She’ll behave. Right, Miss Spathodea?”

The girl salutes with a wrapped fist. “Right, Miss Ezra.”

Medicine Pocket snorts, defeated by the universe’s appetite for comedy. “Drink,” they order, nodding at the cup. “Tomorrow we fit the headgear. Day after, we make a sacred flame behave like an adult. If either of you decides to be brave in a way that endangers neurons, I will file paperwork so dense it will bend light.”

They turn to the door, because staying feels like a dare they are not ready to accept. Ezra’s voice follows, inaudible but pointed. “Medpoc?”

They half-glance back. “What.”

“Thank you,” he says. “For coming even when you’re… busy.”

A beat too long. “I’m not busy,” they lie. “I’m working.”

In the corridor again, the hospital smell is replaced by the lab’s cleaner astringency. Medicine Pocket presses the elevator call and watches the digital floor count strolling toward them. One week and some days of dodging, one mouthful of honesty, a stadium waking up like a dragon being courteous about it. They inhale, hold, exhale—a consummated little square that calms dogs and surgeons alike.

The doors open. The variable persists. The model doesn’t converge. Fine. Tomorrow they’ll try a new algorithm. Tonight, they’ll sleep in a room that doesn’t evoke memories of him and hope the brain forgets how to swerve before the heart forgets how to run.

⋆₊ ⊹★ 🧪⭑⋆｡˚

Medicine Pocket is five minutes from surrendering to bed when the cursor on their workstation seduces them into one last bad decision. They tab away from datasets and open the LSCC intranet—Laplace Scientific Computing Center, cathedral of anonymous bravado and very public mistakes. The forum loads with its beige bureaucracy: a search bar that promises answers it cannot possibly deliver, a “Hot Topics” rail arguing about poisonous basement mushrooms (again), and a queue of threads begging for attention like starving ferrets.

They log in as they always do: Budget Buster, pixelated dog icon exposing comic fangs. The handle pre-dates the candy fiasco; the icon is aspirational. Somewhere out there, the other regulars—Substantial Intelligence, Tabletop Cleanup Master, the ever-pious [DM Disabled]—are already gnawing the day’s bait.

A Tender Invitation post sits up top:

[Tender Invitation] Charging Station Installation in Timekeeper’s Suitcase To ensure Madam Lucy’s comfortable retirement, the Timekeeper has tasked me to revamp the charging station in her suitcase…

“Comfortable retirement,” Medicine Pocket mutters, clicking through. “She’s a robot, not a beagle on a porch swing.”

They scroll to the replies and find a familiar signature:

Next-Gen Gadget Developer: Complete circuit diagram of the suitcase?! Ahem, the Timekeeper should have appointed someone more suited to this task, not putting it out to tender!

The avatar is X’s face, open and unguarded, as if the camera apologized after taking it. Of course, he uses a real portrait. Of course, he signs his work with a friendly target.

Medicine Pocket’s heart does that unhelpful hop it learned last week. They set their jaw and reply before prudence can chew through the leash.

Budget Buster: It’s not a chewing cardboard box we’re talking about, my munchy-crunchy friend. Also, the suitcase runs non-Euclidean fault lines; a complete diagram is a metaphysical joke.

X answers within seconds—he’s either already online or the site pings him like Pavlov.

Next-Gen Gadget Developer: I agree about the topology. I’m thinking a leg-mounted umbrella stand for the Equilibrium Umbrella would reduce the footprint. And yes, we’re talking active stabilization, not prayer. Anyone want to co-design?

Co-design. Medicine Pocket’s molars grind. He solicits collaboration like it’s a public good. Which, fine, academic praxis, open science, blah blah. But something petty and mammalian crawls out from under their gut anyway: What about us? The laboratory hours, the jokes, the spoon, the kiss. Not sacred? Not even… rare?

They answer too fast, fingers going at a clip that would make Trina scold about typos.

Budget Buster: Sounds like a toy. Stick to chopsticks. Leave the non-Euclidics to the grownups.

A beat. The page ticks. X replies, unfailingly nice, unforgivably nice.

Next-Gen Gadget Developer: I respect the grownups! If you’re serious about the topology critique, DM me specs? (Forum DMs are disabled, I know.) We could meet. Coffee? I’m collecting ideas for the mechanical team.

Meet. Coffee. Mechanical team. Medicine Pocket’s spine floods with fuzz. He doesn’t know he’s talking to them; that much is obvious. He’s just… networking. But the sentence lands like a pebble in a dog bowl: too loud for its size.

They stab back:

Budget Buster: Coffee is a solvent for cowardice. File a proper request through LSCC. Also, your umbrella concept needs a torque-limiting clutch, or it’ll break ankles.

And then, because staying means saying something they’ll want to eat later, they click Log out with finality.

Silence avalanches. The lab recovers its usual noises—fans ventilating, a bioreactor cooling two rooms away, the soft nocturne of Laplace after hours. On the workbench, the Laplace communicator blinks a patient amber, the way it did the night X called and the world decided it had more states than “before” and “after.” One press and they could demand explanations. What are we? Why did you act like last week was a lab safety drill and not… They push air out through their nose instead, pocket the device, and head for the staff washrooms before sentiment wins.

The corridor is midnight-clean, the type of sterile hush that turns footsteps into Morse. They shoulder the bathroom door and throw the latch. Routine saves them from thinking: tap on, cold first to shock the sullen capillaries awake; antiseptic soap, two pumps; face splash until skin spicules; toothbrush out of coat pocket (yes, they carry it), paste, brace. They scrub like a disgruntled chemist decontaminating glassware—merely transitory, structured strokes, no indulgent circles. A face in the mirror looks back, with hair unpinned, platinum and soil waterfall without the snips; eyes ringed in the day’s fuel, lips that did something they will not stop replaying. They lift the scissors, slide them back through the knot until the mass sits the way strangers recognize them. Armor on. Dog back in its crate.

They step into the hall—and collide with the exact Gizmo Guy they have been avoiding all week.

Warm fabric, a shoulder, a scent: black tea breathed through clean wool, and underneath it the cool bite of aftershave he’s too young to pull off and somehow does. The communicator in their pocket chirps as it knocks their hip, all while their balance goes weird. A hand steadies their elbow with reflexes they have cataloged in other contexts.

“Medpoc—” “X,” they say together, friction-lit. They both stop, as if a third party has ordered freeze.

Medicine Pocket primes a barb, ticked-off—Why are you loitering in hallways like a cognizant parasol stand?—but X’s hand closes around their wrist, gentle and non-negotiable, a clasp more question than command. He tugs, not far, just enough to swivel them into the adjacent service corridor that dead-ends at a fire door. The world narrows: concrete, red EXIT letters, a humming pipe, the sound of their breath doing dumb arithmetic.

“Where are you taking me?” Medicine Pocket demands, because questions keep the adrenaline honest.

“Here,” he says, scanning the corridor like he expects the concept of witnesses to materialize. His eyes are bright in the ugly light, heterochromia burning like a calibration scatterplot. “No one comes by after eleven. I checked.”

So he did. So he thought about where before he thought about what to say. It would be adorable if it weren’t doing homicide on their heart rate. They open their mouth to make something safe and caustic—and X moves.

He lifts one palm, not to their bottom lip but to their left cheek, a snug bracket that short-circuits the clever part of their brain. He leans in, slow enough to veto. “Wait—again?” Medicine Pocket blurts, hand flying up to his chest, stopping him a centimeter early. “Really? And then what?”

“And then—” He swallows, rallying, the bravado of planning meeting the sheer cliff of saying. “And then we do it again. And again.”

They raise a brow, not moving their hand from his chest. “That’s it? Then we both walk away and log this under what? Anomalous lab behavior? Pretend nothing’s happening? Because I’m not—” the word punches like a confession they didn’t sign, “—I’m not built for pretending, X.”

“No,” he says, fast, honest. “I don’t want that. I want… more.” The word hangs there like a kaleidoscope without units, and he gives a helpless half-laugh at his own lack of jargon. “I didn’t know how to ask you.”

“How to ask me what?” They tilt their chin, trying not to notice how careful his hand is on their face, like they’re breakable; they loathe and love it. “And anyway—how come you keep kissing me like you’ve got reps? Is there a training manual I missed?”

His ears pink. He manages a crooked, treacherously charming smile, a flash of confidence that looks like it knows how to take a machine apart and put it back together better. “I don’t,” he says, voice low and maddeningly composed. “You’re the only experience I have.”

The blush ignites in Medicine Pocket’s traitor skin before they can finesse a reply. They hear themself scoff to buy time. “Then how come—”

“How come?” He steps the missing centimeter, and now the hand at their cheek slides to the hinge of their jaw, thumb feather-light. “Are you saying I kiss good?”

The question is illegal. It unlocks a laugh that cheats them, and the last functional defense skitters under the fire door and leaves the building. “Shut up,” they whisper, which is an invitation.

He doesn’t waste it. The kiss that follows is not the tentative, stunned physics experiment of last week; it’s a solved equation. He draws them in by the waist with a pressure that says I learned your center of mass, aligns his mouth with theirs like he’s docking two clean parts, and takes. The flow’s tenacious and dead set, a voltage curve that rises, holds, rises again. They rise with it, which is the horrible, beautiful truth. Their hands find his lab coat, then his shoulders, then the back of his neck where heat lives; he makes a sound into their mouth that registers somewhere between pleased and mine and every catecholamine they own throws confetti.

He leads; they let him. He angles, and the world rotates obediently; he tastes like tea and the sweet afterburn of coffee; when his teeth barely catch their lower lip, precision of a cut too pristine to sting, they gasp, and he swallows it, smug and unbelievably considerate. The corridor becomes a tunneling microscope—nothing exists except contact and the information it gives. They learn he likes it when their fingers slide under his collar; he comprehends they go weak if he presses them briefly to the wall and steals their balance along with their breath. There is nothing analytic about it, and yet they are taking notes with their whole body.

When he finally eases back, it’s stately, like the cool-down on delicate instrumentation. They’re both breathing hard in the quiet, foreheads almost touching, laboratory oxygen suddenly insufficient for mammalian needs. Medicine Pocket’s lips quiver, swollen in a way that will ruin their poker face for an hour; X’s are wrecked too, rosy and shining, eyes dark with that dangerous clarity the good experiments award you.

He licks his lower lip (curse him), and the motion kicks their pulse again. He smiles, shy triumph dismantling the earlier swagger, and asks, voice a little wrecked, “This means we’re something now, right?”

The exit sign buzzes. A pipe ticks. Medicine Pocket’s answer queues on their tongue like a parameter they know will change everything the instant they declare it.