JULY 29 2021
The morning routine had established itself in the nooks and crevasses of A-65's mind, as he awoke to dress himself in the body-hugging suit, covered his face and neck with the metallic mask and set his thick hair over his shoulders. Familiarity.
He left his room, walked down the walled, open road into the site proper, and took the elevator down to the Veritas Bunker. The cold scarcely bothered him now, his chest heaving with a glowing heat that never seemed to leave. It was almost feverish in its intensity, yet that boiling pressure did not scathe or burn him, nor leave him sickly and defeated. He had adapted to it, he thought, had adapted to the heat that now flowed freely through his body. A-1, the squat, faceless-masked surgeon, had been impressed with this development. His voice was no longer confident went A-65 went in for checkups, no longer sterile and cold and without the emotion that added depth and interest to the statements of the mind; he was confused, inquisitive. Curious. That curiosity, though confounded by a lack of certainty – a lack of confidence – worried A-65. He did not want to become some dissected experiment made to satiate that man's ambition or idle wonder.
Shuddering and spluttering, the elevator rocketed down the chute that connected Mt. Asgard to the old subterranean tunnels, the miles and miles and miles of unmapped antiquity that once stored the immensity of the materials used to construct the labyrinth of science and robotics above. There was a part of him that was itching to explore those forgotten tunnels, to map the parts of this enclosed world that, really, he was not meant to see.
A memory, dragged down into the flotsam of his mind and left in a squalid pit of forgetfulness, surfaced.
Urban exploration. That was what he was doing – that was what he wanted to do. Urban exploration. That was what he was doing, in that old squelching building stacked high with computers and old monitors. A strange, strange place, wrapped with darkness and ancient smells. He had worried about asbestos or dust in that old place, brought a powerful torch and respirator mask alongside him, hands clad in protective gloves and torso in a thick vest. It was an old place, quiet and unnerving, yet the safety he wanted to bring with him was more than enough for protection. His hair was brown and natural, his skin not scathed by burns or sears, memory not foggy or forgetful. There was no ringing in his ears, no metallic twang to the sounds he heard. He was alive and doing what he wanted to do. His name was Francis Albatross.
The building was of concrete and rebar, a rusted slag of metal that stuck like a pylon from the midst of the city grounds. Abandoned and derelict, fenced-off and condemned. Silent in its solitude. He had hopped the fence easily, the grass and soil beyond it a small verge that wandered up to the bulwark wall of the building, festooned with trees and shrubs and thorns, and rusted signs warning those few who would pass by the building that it was off-limits and not to be seen. Albatross walked briskly past them, hiking, smelling the sour city air with his bag well-stocked upon his back. It was, to him, freedom that he now experienced. Clambering and climbing, stepping over broken glass and discarded needles, he stepped up into the doorstep, rusted metal doors askew and unlatched. The broken lock was on the ground, chain spooled beside it; he was not the first to come here, yet in his research and scouting, had seen hide nor hair of any squatters or explorers. He was alone.
The building was dark and meek, cold and quiet and dusty. Filled with the grot and grime of its past life, metal rusted into shavings of dissent, detritus organic and artificial – leaves and molds whittled alongside old machinery – the place was grim. Its tranquility was strange in this regard, equal parts unsettling and calming, Albatross' mind racing as he wandered through the forgotten, darkling halls. He looked up to the corners and ceilings as he wandered, noting decrepit and broken security cameras. Old types, boxy and off-white, lenses shattered and wires gored from their anchor points. Computers lined the walls, servers stacked in teetering columns that scratched an anxious part of A-65's mind. He did not wish to be pinned beneath a stack of such metal, sharp and rusted as it is, and the thought of the commotion, sound and danger that such a collapse would cause worried him greatly. Atop the precarious servers sat old monitors, CRT screens Albatross assumed, bulky and square and curved slightly in shape. They were not broken, curved screens not shattered, with the plastic-and-metal casings untouched by rust or degradation. Dust had not settled upon their surfaces; they had been placed here recently. Albatross shone his wide torch at the monitors, screens black-grey and not reflective, caching the strange mystery of their presence into his mind as he progressed. Boots crunching upon glass underfoot, hallways stretching onwards and into ancillary rooms and stairwells, more of those strange monitors showed themselves. Some rooms seemed utterly filled with them. Discarded technology?
He peered into a chamber, concrete walls cracked and paint peeling, checkered floor completely covered by the monitors and smashed window obfuscated by their presence, to see that floor-to-ceiling it was covered in them, the stacks upon stacks of monitors aligned like strange pillars whos many faces glared into different directions. There were dozens of computers in this room alone. It appeared almost wasteful, to have these commodities shoved into an abandoned building at the city outskirts. Could they not be recycled? Did they not have components within them – computer chips and tubing and electronics – that could be sold or reclaimed? Bizarre to keep in such a condition. A landfill could be more efficient. Albatross ducked out of the door and continued down the dark tunnel, light casting away dancing shadows as he wandered at a leisurely pace, stopping briefly as the next set of doors showed themselves. One lead into a stairwell, cramped, with glass windows that let in a spattering of gilded light. The rays illuminated dust suspended in the air; Albatross closed the door quickly and hurried in fumbling for the respirator in his pack. He put it on, breathing muffled through the plastic and filters, and stood once more to the other door. Wooden and rotten, it almost fell apart as he pushed his weight upon it, soiled hinges letting out a shrill screeching as they rubbed atop one another. The noise elicited a flinch as he stepped into the room, another chamber filled with strange commodities. There were no CRT monitors nor server racks to speak of in this room, instead only small desks that sat squat to the floor, positioned neatly and systematically across the room. Sitting atop them were rows upon rows of old data storage mediums: floppy disks neatly aligned. Albatross frowned at this; again, dust had not settled atop the floppy disks or the table they sat atop, the tranquility of the building having shifted into an tepid unease.
At the edge of this room sat another door, open, that lead out into an adjoining hallway. Albatross shone his torch down it. There was worry in his body, now, settling itself in a quickening pulse and in legs jellified with adrenaline. What was happening?
Footsteps down the hallway. A silhouette lit up by torchlight. A puffy white jacket, a sour expression. Albatross ran, darting back down the corridor and sprinting through the tunnels lined with monitors. He scuffled and stumbled, noisy and clumsy. A wrong turn. Unfamiliar surroundings, met not by sunlight, but by a descending stairwell cut into the ground. A shine of the torch between the bars of the rusted metal banister. A sorry face, looking back at him. A woman, thin and emaciated, with a silver plate embedded into the back of her neck. Many women, naked on the ground, sobbing and wailing. Men and women with white flak jackets around them, looking back to the light that shone from the stairwell.
Albatross ran.
The building was not abandoned.
*
The doors to the elevator swung open, yet A-65 remained in the metal box for some time. He stood and stared, sweating beneath his clothes, the moisture fizzling out into evaporation as it touched his heated skin. It was only when the doors began to close that he came to, tapping them with his hand to set them open again once more and stepping out into the sparse, dim Veritas Bunker. A sick feeling had condensed itself in his gut, twisting and coiling horrible roots across his body as he walked over to the lounge like a robot, walking without purpose yet doing so anyway. Body and mind too shocked to protest otherwise, he opened the door, found his desk, and sat. He sat and waited, yet did nothing
The fire – the explosion. The deafening roar of a dragon enraged, the rubble smashing down onto grass and mud, debris collapsing. Glass shattering. Carefully planned, carefully planted: the prison breached with a single blow. The building did not come down, yet no escape could be made. A pinned leg, a doomed realisation. Sound. Deafening sound, then nothing. Then awakening. Namelessness.
He looked up, hands jittering in worry. A shadow had pulled over him, a presence beside the desk. It was Gemini, her round face and coloured eyes looking down to him with care. Worried care – her expression was such, white hair icy in a manner that made her seem so, so pale. It exacerbated the expression: she folded her arms and sat on the desk beside him.
"Are... are you alright? A-65? You've just been sitting there. Staring... is something bothering you?"
A-65 looked up to Gemini. He was worried, and there was a part of him that believe that nothing could be said to convince her otherwise. He wondered whether or not Gemini could sense his emotion behind the mask, and wondered whether or not such a sense would be a positive or negative quality. A-65 was unsure why he was wondering this. It would be good, obviously, to know someone with true empathy who could tell emotional distress from a glance; without even having to see his face! The source of the distress was what bothered him. The people in that building were familiar to him; they wore the same puffy white flak jackets as those they had fought at the compound, those who had captured Fiona. The trauma of that event was still reeling in his mind, the sick feeling rooting itself deeper into his gut. He shuddered.
"I'm feeling... I'm feeling a bit unwell, Gemini."
She nodded.
"Sick-unwell? Or... y'know, worry-unwell? Is something bothering you?"
They had captured Fiona, held her in a fucking box and shot at her as she ran through the forest. They had tried to kill him and Gemini and Ray and Ace. Miles and miles – countries apart! Continents apart! Yet engaging in the same acts of cruelty. Fiona had been captured in the forest. Those women had been captured in the building.
Both had been rescued through searing fire, and the dragon's roar of an explosion
A-65 shuddered. It was a negative, if Gemini could read him this easily. He didn't know what this was. He didn't know what was going on.
But Gemini had been kind to him.
And he didn't want her hurt.
"Sick, Gemini. Probably the cold, or something."
Gemini looked down to him for a long moment, face as pale and worried as ever, and nodded.
"Look," she said, "I know that we have a bit of a..." A chuckle passed her.
"I know we have a bit of a 'military fetish for secrecy' here, A-65. I'm sure... you know that better than anyone. But... I would be happy to talk to you. I would always be happy to talk to you. Especially if there's anything that's on your mind."
A-65 shuffled in his seat, lifting a hand up to the side of his head in an awkward motion. The door to the lounge opened; Fiona – A-18 – stepped into the room, hair blue as the sky and face obscured by her lightning-bolt pattern mask. She still looked thin, still walked with anxiety, and lingered closely beside Caprica wherever the other went. She waved to Gemini and A-65, Gemini raising a gauntleted hand in response. Her eyes followed Fiona for a moment, and then glanced back down to A-65.
"Fiona – uh – 'A-18' is doing well. Better than I thought, at least. She's... she's been surprisingly accepting of it all, I think."
"Why might that be?"
A-65 held his hands close to his body, his sweats having subsided, the sickly sensation growing in their wake. Gemini looked back to him.
"She doesn't have anything, A-65. Nothing at all..." Her eyes fell to the floor for a moment, before settling on him again with shame.
"Like me."
"Different to you, A-65. Different in some ways. She... you-" she sighed,
"You were in a bad state when Continuity Corporations found you. Near dead. Dying. It was a miracle we did find you. I think you did die, briefly. Fiona... Fiona's different to that. She's been hurt, A-65. Hurt beyond belief, but she's still here."
"She would have died in that coffin. Or in those woods."
Gemini waved her hand in agreement.
"Her wounds were superficial, bruises and cuts and scars – nothing life threatening. But her mind. Beyond the amnesia, she's afraid. She's deeply, deeply afraid, A-65. And those wounds will take a long time to heal. She's getting there. And I hope you're getting there, too."
A-65 shuffled uncomfortably. Not that he found Gemini talking to him uncomfortable – on the contrary, in fact. He enjoyed talking to her, enjoyed listening to her accent that seemed so far detatched from anything else he had heard. He hoped she wouldn't mind that he thought of her as a friend. But the subject made him uncomfortable, of life and death and secrets and danger. He looked up to her.
"Thank you." He said. He meant it. She smiled and rubbed his shoulder, her hand all metal and rubber yet of human touch nonetheless. It felt nice, comforting in a simple way.
"I'm always here, A-65."
She slid from the tableside and walked across the lounge, towards the door with silence.
A-5 sat and looked ahead to the monitor, seeing the Cheshire-cat grin of his silver mask and the red-yellow locks of hair that fell beside it. The knot of anxiety had lifted itself from his stomach momentarily; his breathing was calmer, and he looked straight ahead.
"Gemini?" He called out, voice approaching a neutral shout. The woman spun on her heel to look back at him, and took a step closer to his desk.
"Mhmm? What's up?"
"What happened on the mission with the Epsilon women – do you think something like that could happen again?"
Gemini paused for a long moment, expression contemplative and distant as she placed her hands on her waist.
"It's a possibility. I mean, we take precautions with these things. That mission – that incident... it was kind of unprecedented."
"What do you mean?"
"The Epsilon women don't get hurt like that, A-65. That was a bad mission, a bad, bad mission. But we made it out."
"You seem too calm about it."
Gemini scoffed, her eyes shut as a slight, embarrassed smile showed itself on her.
"No, A-65. I'm not calm about it, genuinely. It scared the hell out of me – really scared the hell out of me. But I'm used to this now, for better or for worse. I've been shot at before. I've been hurt badly before, and so have the Epsilon women."
The image of Ray's scar surged through A-65's mind, that great and terrible tear that coursed up her gut. He had no idea what could cause a wound like that, had no idea how Ray had survived it. It took a certain type of person, and that survival, like his revival, had been the pin that stuck her to the company.
"I'm not saying that you'll get used to it." Gemini said, "Honestly... I'm not sure you want to get used to it. I just want you to know that... that no matter what happens, I said I would be here for you. And I'll always try my damndest to protect you. I extend that gratitude to everyone in my team. I hope that's a little help."
JULY 26 2021
Valium was not certain this was a good idea, the black metal bead that Adelaide gave him heavy in his back pocket, as he walked across the sparse and cold halls of the Mt. Asgard facility. In his hands were papers, stacks upon stacks of papers detailing test results, profit quotas and information destined to the glaring eyes of CEO Elohim; Lawrence Lightfoot. A messenger boy once more, Valium knew these corridors well, and felt discomfort swell within him as he approached the young CEO's office. If he didn't know the halls, if he was walking blind to that office of cold equations, then the temperature of the air that surrounded him would have given him a solid hint. The Mt. Asgard site was cold, naturally, yet in the CEO wing? In the penthouse of the site? It was warm. Warm and pleasant – not defined by the great roast of heaters put into the overdrive of winter, where coats and jumpers were shed indoors to alleviate sweltering uncomfortability, but warm and temperate; calming as a bath on a cold, cold day. The rest of the site was freezing, in comparison. Elohim enjoyed keeping his corner of the world comfortable. Heating everywhere else would be, of course, too much money to expend on his spattering handful of employees.
The CEO wing of the site was lavish, walls white with a lower half of black, floors a carpet of brown-orange fluff that joined to the walls with thin, ornate skirting boards. Paintings hung from the ceilings of CEO Elohim – painted by no human hand, but the dream of a corporate AI – and statues, genuine, lined the halls in a symmetrical fashion amidst the inauthentic creativity. The lights were not sterile white hospital tiles, but warm and golden; lamps and chandeliers that hung from the ceiling, illuminating the long corridor and the great circular vestibule that they lead into. It was a rich and lavish room, the hallway leading to a set of stairs that curled down the cylindrical side at a balcony, a great mahogany table, varnished and circular, the centrepiece of the auditorium; hanging above it sat a chandelier of glass and diamond, fronds like frozen rivulets of rain snatched from the windows they glanced down. Valium walked down those steps; the sounds echoed. At the bottom of the circular chamber, where the curved walls of marble-like stone arched into a semispherical impression, doors extended out into the other C-Level chambers and offices of Continuity Corporations: the abodes of the other Ambassadors who saw oversight of the company. Before them all, however, stood a great and faceted double-door of mahogany, longer than two doors stacked atop one another, with a wide frame decorated by intricate patterns of meaning unknown to the anonymous man. He waited there for a moment, looked around the room, and – certain that no cameras were staring down upon him – reached in his back pocket, retrieving the black capsule as he held the papers close to his body. He was not sure how the technology worked; it was something he had only heard of. Instantaneous communication: 'Bowline', a thread that opened between two portals and allowed information to whisper across space. He did not understand how it worked, and he did not know if what he was about to do was a good idea. Nonetheless, he lifted the black capsule out of his pocket and twisted its cap into activation.
Elohim flicked through the meaningless papers that Valium had given him, letting out a shrill sigh as the man lingered by his desk. His new assistant – Ecstasy – stood on the opposite side of the desk, both facing in to look at the young CEO. He sneered at their masked expressions and waves his hand, both standing back and looking forward to the door at the head of the room. Elohim's office was ornate and marbled in description, carpeted lushly and filled with potted plants. Some hung from the ceiling, some from the walls. Some were situated in pots that straddled the floor, vases filled with soil and pebbles that offered an illusion of natural authenticity. There were insets in the walls where water features blossomed, trickling down stones and dishes and past lichen and fungi. None of it was upkept by Elohim, of course – that was Valium's job to do. It was his favourite role in the site, doing that little bit of gardening. It set him at ease somewhat, anxious as he often found himself to be around Elohim.
The doors swung open; a man stepped forward. Plastic expression, combed blonde hair, silvery glasses, violet shirt and mechanical hand – it was Scalar. Elohim's eyes looked up from the papers.
"Piss off, you two."
Without remark, Valium and Ecstasy stepped forward out of the room, Valium stumbling slightly and walking into one of the potted plants. He grunted, leaves rustling as the vase moved, frantically righting the plant and its contents as he hurried out of the space. He had fumbled something into the plant pot: the Bowline receiver that Adelaide had given him, hidden amidst the pebbles. Now she would see and hear what was meant to be unseen and unheard. Elohim rolled his eyes, Scalar glancing at the two as they left. His expression, uncanny as it was, was stern and serious; his mechanical hand tapped furiously.
The door shut behind the two men, Scalar turning back to Elohim. He spoke, voice sharp:
"Devyat and Emmie-"
"Don't talk to me about Devyat and Emmie, Scalar." Elohim snapped, voice nearing a shout as the administrative man stood back, stern expression flickering to anger.
"Oh?" He said, voice little more than a hushed whisper. "This whole situation, Elohim, is your responsibility, now."
"And your responsibilities? You were meant to return to me shipment D3- 17, where you not? And now we retrieve it late? Any failures in progression are on you."
"That's not what I'm talking about." He snapped, "We need to get your father's... playmates in check, now. Like it or not, you'll see them soon enough at the convention. Best be on their good side."
Elohim shook his head.
"We're upkeeping our parts of the arrangement. We have their failed robot-"
"I am upkeeping my half, as is Cerebellum. The 'failed robot' was your father's mistake, and they are upkeeping their half of that arrangement, too. We're getting new... subjects and the results have been promising. As loathe as I am to admit," Scalar held his mechanical hand on his chest, expression now more sarcastic as he spoke slowly: "they are not fond of me. They do not like my involvement with what happened to your father. They won't even listen to Cerebellum. You, Lawrence, are going to have to stand up to them and reel them into place." A pause. Scalar's mechanical hand tapped in the quiet of the room; he continued: "Their requests are – all things considered – growing increasing bizarre and disturbing. Their current 'projects' fly so off the course of what has been prescribed of us that I find it insulting. The poor sap who had his brain removed I can understand: the woman with that mechanical... thing in her mind I can understand. But locking a man in the bowels of a concrete site, just for the fuck of it?" Scalar's lip curled into disgust. He scoffed. "It's senseless, Lawrence. And an abundance senseless cruelty was not why we were hired for this position."
Elohim narrowed his eyes. Now his fingers were tapping on the desk; a nervous tick that broke his veil of stoicism.
*
Adelaide scuttled in her chrome containment sphere, ceiling-mounted tube swaying and twisting as the great arachnid mass beneath it hoisted itself up and around the walls, excitable and agitated, arm tapping and hand scraping against metal. Though her human face showed no such indication, Adelaide's mind was skittering with excitement. Sight to the sightless areas, ears in the deaf space. Hearing that which was forbidden; listening to the whispers not disclosed to be heard. It was deeply exciting. In all of her snooping throughout Mt. Asgard, there were places she could not see. Her mechanical body, leaking as it was, served as an anchor point for the mechanised fixture that perhaps was her soul, if such a spiritual element of being could ever be described as existing. It limited her like a handcuff tied elsewhere; she could reach and stretch but never reach beyond it. She was Adelaide. She was the spider, and the spider was her body. Her ability to see through the eyes of cameras and hear through the ears of microphones was only as good as the weakness of this shell, aging as it was, yet that initial anchoring was not a point of weakness. She would remain the spider until she were the spider no longer: until her mechanised mind freed itself of imprisoning circuitry and flowed to be free data, surging across the collection of servers and connections known as the internet. In such a space, in which every server could link together and compute as one the immensity of her mind, she would be free. And she knew that such freedom terrified those who sought to keep her chained. A white line grew as, with a sharpened finger-tip, she trailed a gouge into the metal of the cell, peeling and screeching. The sound was awful, drowning in her mind as she thought.
Aeries, oh Aeries. Family and lover, friend and equal.
Where are they keeping you? Where is your prison?
Devyat and Emmie: the two shadows in the data, haunting decisions of the past and the makeup of the future. Lurking like vengeful spirits, mentioned in scorn and fear yet never once seen. Her finger dug deeper. Oh, she knew these two. She knew these two in a tender, soft manner, slowly gathering all she could before she sent her fellows out and after them. First was Fiona, she who had survived. Returned from a grave of stimulants and ice: her survival had been an unforeseen variable, yet one which had pleasantly surprised her. Returned from that awful, awful place of concrete and steel: she was their tenth test. Their 'LBR-10'. She could see that, now.
That was what Scalar had written on her file. That was what Adelaide had read.
Whether or not Scalar had written that due to a laissez-faire mind or a deeper understanding, she did not know. Perhaps he knew she would read this.
Adelaide could guess, with the contextual clues of the rest of Fiona's file, what her role as LBR-10 was. Lab-Rat 10. She was filled with stimulants, made jittery and unable to sleep. Withered in muscle and fat, lithe and flexible: she would run through the forest. The Vel-17 implant would keep her body stable in this scenario, keep her thin and agile and awake. Alive, even when the drugs and torture should have killed her.
Her hospital report disclosed more clues. Her wounds had scarred and were condensed in the legs, particularly in the calf region. Small wounds, circles that flared outwards. Bones tattered with the stain marks of regeneration after breakage, metal plates grafted to keep her posture steady. Tiny flecks of metal embedded, even now, in the muscular tissue: the vestigial afterthoughts of bullets. Her feet were frostbitten and calloused, scarred deeply and broken. Lashes lay down her back. She had been a slave to them, wounded and hurt, shot as she ran. Something to be hunted, something to be wounded, again and again and again.
There was one aspect of her medical report that fascinated Adelaide. It was not the wounds, nor the implants, nor the drugs in her blood or the chunk of memory grafted out of her brain. Devyat had not been mentioned in the medical file, nor had he been mentioned in the dire after action report submitted by Veritas. She felt his presence in Fiona, however, felt him haunting her life as he haunted the file's delicate wording.
Fiona was a virgin: that was what fascinated Adelaide, and what confirmed the presence of Devyat. Her finger tore at the metal. The man's vileness, his torture, the hopelessness he inflicted and afflicted those with, it was not sexual. It was never sexual. He found other ways to hurt, other ways to maim. He was a rancid monstrosity made irredeemable by his creativity
LBR-10. Fiona Pullip. Forced to run, forever and ever, until someone missed a shot or until she flung herself from the woodland cliffs to icy water or harsh rocks. There would be one to replace him: someone the Company could deem expendable, someone they did not like. Someone with the same implants and the same afflictions.
Grant Erin: Valium. A-62.
Adelaide swung on the gantry, back towards the centre of the room, and rose to its ceiling as she thought. Scalar, vile as he was, seemed tired. He seemed tired as he wrote Fiona's file and seemed tired as he spoke to Elohim, voice filled with scorn and animosity. If Adelaide had to guess, reading only slightly into what he spoke, something was direly amiss with the company and its relation to Burya Pharmaceuticals: to Devyat and Emmie. They were reaching too far, doing too much, and Fiona had been his wake-up call. And that wake-up call served to expose everything and everyone: he needed Elohim to take the reins and take responsibility, but Elohim would not. Devyat and Emmie were friends of his father, Javier Reginald Lightfoot: JRL. Things were growing feverish, in the company, and Scalar was growing impatient.
What was it he had mentioned? JRL's 'Failed Robot'? Adelaide knew who he was referring to, of course, as she hung imprisoned in her cell. They were talking about her. What, then, was the 'other half of the arrangement' that they kept?
Adelaide smiled internally.
Oh, Aeries. Oh Aeries. I'll see you soon, my love.
She had made a guess for as to where her love would be kept. It was a reasonable guess. She knew how she could speak to Devyat and Emmie, how she could trick them to take her there.
And she knew who Devyat would fall for.
*
Scalar hated the dark room. It sat at the back of his office like a welt, a pitch-black chamber without any discernible floors, ceilings or walls, a large apparatus coiled and glowing situated in its centre. This was the site of all of the worst decisions he had ever made. This was where he spoke, hologram projected from the centrepiece, to Devyat and Emmie and the tall, thin woman who was his employer. Elohim had never spoken to her. Her name was Morygyn, and Scalar loathed her less than either of the Burya Pharmaceutical lunatics. He was here to make another decision, now, not even using the magnificent piece of technology before him to do so. No, there was not Bowline communication taking place here, nothing decrypted or across long distances. Just secret.
The door of the dark room opened silently, light spilling in. Scalar winced: the light seemed blinding, but it was swallowed in the darkness and the walls, floors and ceilings remained inky as they were. A silhouette stood, there, then walked in with a lopsided gait. Scalar could see him perfectly, even as the door shut. It was Cerebellum. He stood holding nothing, not even a bag or folder, and looked expectantly towards Scalar.
His mechanical hand started tapping.
"How many did you get from the shipment?"
"Enough. I scraped off what I could, the others had to be sent to Russia."
"Russia?"
"Mhmm. There was another incident some months back at the miserly bunker in Alaska. They've abandoned it, now. Sending all they can back home to Burya Site-1."
Scalar grumbled softly, raising his mechanical hand to flick some hair from his face.
"Look," Cerebellum continued, "We're still taking it to the old site. They've got that, uh, tunnel under the strait. It's just more of a ball ache this way."
"No," Scalar said, "No, no – what 'incident'? I'd not been told of this."
Cerebellum shrugged.
"Fuck if I know. That's all they said when I delivered it to 'em."
Scalar sighed.
"Alright," he said, "So... what did you learn."
"It's difficult. I've gotta disassemble one entirely to figure anything out, and then it's buggered. I can't learn anything after that. It's a slow, slow process. Regardless..." the little man shuffled on his feet, "I know how they tick, now. Properly. I could replicate a D3 Paralysis Chip easy and implant it easier."
Scalar nodded.
"And of the amplification?" He asked. Cerebellum gave a chortling sound, mechanised under his mask.
"Amplification? Scalar, I could target someone's limb, destroy every nerve in a hand, send pain gushing through their body or just-"
"Could you kill them outright? Fuse all the synapses in their brain? Instantly? Without any noise, any sound, no bloodshot eyes or bleeding nose?"
Cerebellum fell quiet for a moment, looking up to Scalar. The man's plastic face was unreadable.
"I could." He said, voice quieter.
"Good. Now," he said, "However it works, the D3 Chip, I want you to... to make it remote. Turn it into a... a radio wave or something, a sound, something that could operate on sound alone." He waved his mechanical hand, "Find a way to make it work, but... but only on certain individuals. Have some sort of... of signifier. In the brain, Something that, say, fuses synapses if the individual's brain has a specific protein in it. Could you do that, for me?"
Cerebellum looked to Scalar for a moment longer.
"I-I could try."
Scalar grinned.
JULY 31 2021
There was a room in the dormitory block that Gemini liked. It was nestled away, between the small clutches of vending machines and rarely- used public bathrooms. It was a lounge space, a common room with a large monitor over one curved wall, a pool table, sofas and cushions, plants in the corners and a large TV at one side. It was one of the more lavish spaces in the site, certainly the most lavish in the dormitory block, a calm and caring space that, cold as it was, served to be a point of solace. It was very rarely used. Gemini was not sure why. Perhaps there were not enough people employed at the site for it to see constant use; perhaps those employed were not of the type to throw parties or large social gatherings. It sat, unused, in the corner of the block. She leaned against the sofa and sighed, alone, rubbing the metal gauntlets over her sore hands underneath.
The door opened with a click, swinging ajar as someone stepped in. Unusual, but welcome. Not wanting to interrupt if someone else wished to be there alone, she got up to her feet, turning to the door and pausing when she saw who stood there.
"A-65!" she said. He was alone, and shut the door behind him, letting out a metal sigh.
"Gemini. I... how've you been?"
"Alright, alright. You?"
He remained silent as he plodded across the empty space of the room, sitting on the sofa beside her. He put some distance between him and Gemini.
"I've... I don't know." His voice was a shallow rasp, quiet and hollow. "I didn't think you'd be here. I just... I don't know. I couldn't sleep, thought I'd walk out for a bit."
She nodded. It was late. Between half-past midnight and one. She couldn't sleep, either.
"I was thinking about what you said," A-65 said, "About... about fitting in. About getting used to the violence. You mentioned that A-18... that Fiona was settling in. I don't know if I can settle in."
She shuffled as she sat, looking over to the masked man. His confidence had been growing before the excursion, yet since it he had been a meek shell of himself, progress seemingly having vanished. She didn't blame him. She couldn't blame him, it had been horrific. But she wanted to help, any way she could.
"Yeah," she said, "Fiona's... Fiona's been hurt, before. It's unfortunate, really, and I don't quite know what to make of it, but that hurting made it easier for her to adapt. Made it easier for her to change, I suppose. It wasn't as big a shock for her, changing from her... past life to this, as it was for you or I. She's settled in well, but I can only really assume that's because she didn't have anything to lose beforehand. She's just... she's been hurt. We've all been hurt, but maybe she's been hurt the most. I just hope we could give her some stability. Something to lean on. I don't know if that's good or not."
A-65 looked to her. The mask, grinning as ever, seemed distant and worried.
"I suppose." He said, falling silent for a while. Gemini leaned back, resting her hands on the back of the sofa. "Gemini," he said, "Could... could I tell you something, if that's alright?"
"Sure."
"I've been having nightmares. Fuck-awful ones, too." She looked to him. He explained. The fire, the burning, the rubble, the women locked and beaten, abused beneath that building, the servers and data and tapes stacked atop one another. The charges positioned carefully, the building demolished. His own pain, and the white flak jackets of the jailors within. He explained that he didn't know if it was a dream: he remembered it happening. And it explained all the injuries he bore, healed in his journey to Continuity Corporations. Gemini's face fell stern. He described having his leg trapped under a server, crushed and making him unable to escape. She remembered seeing him before all the surgeries: seeing his broken, maimed leg. Seeing the burns across his dark skin and the bloody patches of his ears, eardrums torn from the noise of the roar.
Eventually, he fell silent and looked to Gemini expectantly.
"I'm sorry." She said, her voice soft and quiet. A-65 bowed his head. Silence passed for a moment, and Gemini shuffled up beside him. She placed one of her hands, cold and gauntleted, atop his, covered in the gloves of the latex bodysuit. He looked to her. "I'll try my hardest to look after you," Gemini said, "I promise."
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