ENFANTS TERRIBLE
Plot Outline & Summary by Wes Falls
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ACT I: BIRTH
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HUIS I: "A VIEW AWAY FROM THERE"
Huis shows Von Schmidt an AVP replay of four men escaping from a Russian Indebted-Labor Facility in the Kuiper Belt. The men have murdered their supervisors using mining equipment and breached access to a storage area for old machinery. They escape in a vintage spacecraft, despite its leaking radiation. They eventually discover the comet 401P/Caitlin, which vanished after a mining complex had been built onto it 180 years ago.
Intrigued, Von Schmidt tells Huis to keep the discovery quiet. Back at a party on Huis' luxury space yacht, which is as large as a hotel, Von Schmidt ponders while Huis discusses the difficulties of keeping idols relevant with an officer from Ogon Corp. A drunken representative of Olavi Industries mentions how profitable the death of one of their co-founders had been.
Annoyed, Von Schmidt interrupts, stating that while he doesn't appreciate being led by the nose, his curiosity has gotten the better of him, and he agrees to proceed as long as the result is respectable.
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HAJIME I: "PERSONALLY ARTIFICIALLY INTELLIGENT"
Hajime sits in a lobby, reflecting on a past interview where she was ridiculed by an innuendo-laden host who implied she had low intelligence. At the time, she didn't understand the mockery but now, with a Personal Artificial Intelligence (PAI) chip implanted in her brain, she feels embarrassed as she comprehends the insults.
She’s in a medical facility, having recently undergone the implant surgery. The PAI helps Hajime see things in greater detail, and she starts to realize the depth of her ignorance before the implant. Her new awareness leaves her uncertain about how to remain relevant as an idol, as her previous persona hinged on being a ditz.
Her PAI suggests redefining her public image by making her intelligence public, possibly through an AVP. Nervous but determined, Hajime heads into a meeting with her new producer.
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AMBERLEE I: "THE LAST TWIN’S CALLING"
Amberlee Olavi wakes from a nightmare about her twin sister, Molly-Cat, who died during a spacewalk when an undetectable piece of debris punctured her suit. The AVP footage of Molly-Cat’s death became a AAA-rated success, generating more profit for their company than any of their previous ventures.
Angry and frustrated, Amberlee contacts her corporation’s R&D, asking if there has been any progress in replicating the conditions of her sister’s death. Every day, the answer is the same—no progress.
Her board dismisses her obsession, suggesting that she focus on rebuilding the company’s image with her own self-publicity. Reluctantly, Amberlee agrees to participate in an AVP Replay to secure the funding she needs to continue her research.
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MIKE I: "NOT LIKE ACTUAL STARFISH"
Migesus Azmat III, or Mike, shops for a spacesuit, arguing with his factotum over the extravagance of the Olavi Suit, which has a gold-plated visor. His factotum insists on safety first, reminding Mike that the aliens he will be meeting do not recognize human faces and feed on sunlight.
As Mike prepares for his ambassadorial meeting with the alien chornoi, his father, the MACP Vice-President, explains their plan to convince the chornoi that they are indebted to humanity for the sunlight they consume, turning them into a workforce for human corporations.
At the meeting, Mike inadvertently causes chaos when the reflective light from his visor causes the alien ambassador to react violently, killing the other diplomats present. Horrified, Mike contacts his father, realizing something has gone terribly wrong.
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GOD LOVE OMEGA I: "HOT DANGER"
Richard Reginald Harry, also known as God Love Omega, reminisces about his youth as a Siege player. He talks about the heat of competition and the advantage his Ne Plus Ultra (NPU) cybernetic augments gave him.
During a violent game on the arena-combat ship Victory Road, Omega brutally defeats his opponents—replicants known as Martins—while high on a performance-enhancing drug called scibomechamine. After the match, he nearly kills his dealer in a fit of rage when the dealer tries to hustle him.
Omega wakes up in traction, with his father-in-law furious about the illegal AVP broadcast of the match. Omega is warned that he may lose everything if he doesn’t straighten out, including his expensive cybernetic augments.
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SHE I: "LACHRYMOSE ON TITAN"
Shepatiah Jones, daughter of the President of America, watches British and Russian forces battle in Titan’s atmosphere while playing with a baby. She converses with a man about the practice of using orphaned babies for their skin to manufacture handbags, which are later sold on the black market.
When her father’s agent arrives to take her into custody, She ignores him and contacts her Russian partners about dumping the remaining baby-skin handbags to avoid legal repercussions. Sitting alone, she contemplates her failure, snorts a powdered drug, and reassures herself that everything is fine.
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EMILY I: "TITANIC, PART TWO"
Emily Smith, an adventurer and self-proclaimed time traveler, is interviewed about her exploits in the Horror Vacui. She presents evidence supporting her claim of being from the 1800s, but the interviewer remains skeptical.
Emily recounts her time aboard the Titanic II, a ship that became stuck in a time loop due to a rogue alien virus. She explains how the loop was broken by intentionally crashing the ship, which separated her from her ability to travel through time. She longs to explore her memories to uncover the truth of her past.
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DARNELL I: "REALITY ACTS PERCEPTIVELY ENTERTAINING"
Professor Darnell, aboard the luxury space motel The Huise-Hohenzollern, documents everything via AVP. He introduces his fellow “Disastronauts” who will participate in the upcoming AVP Replay, DISASTRONAUTS: The Caitlin’s Comet Mystery.
As he mingles with other members of the crew, Darnell’s interactions are filled with humorous asides and his own grandiose personality. He flirts with Shepatiah, reminisces with God Love Omega, and awkwardly converses with Hajime.
Darnell wraps up his AVP feed by proclaiming his future relevance to popular culture before cutting the feed. Later, he resumes the feed in bed with Shepatiah, insinuating that there are three more “targets” to go in his personal conquest.
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ACT II: LIFE
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HUIS II
Huis communicates with Von Schmidt via a panel display on the wall of his suite aboard his space yacht. He is seated at his desk, with his AVP editing computer in front of him. Ecstatic with the outcomes of his show’s hosts, Huis brags about the "legal" assassination of seven celebrities, all appearing to die by misadventure.
Each host had been licensed to salvage derelict space equipment. The claim on Caitlin’s Comet was registered as a derelict MACP asteroid mining facility, and none of their deaths violated insurance policies. These actions were already deemed acceptable risks under salvage operations.
Huis and Von Schmidt know what the others don’t: the facility’s experimental transhumanist staffing policy likely went awry, leading to its disappearance. Von Schmidt explains that the mining ship, Xipetotec, was one of the AI-equipped ships that later formed the defected Sun Tzu Fleet. Initially suspecting the Xipetotec had defected too, Von Schmidt now believes the AI simply went insane, convinced it’s the real Aztec god of slaughter.
They discuss how all four escaped prisoners, the salvagers, and now the seven AVP hosts seem to have been captured by the mine’s robots, skinned alive, and had their brains removed and placed into cylinders inside the Encephalon.
Von Schmidt, bemused, concludes that the AI believes itself to be a god. He agrees to send a small team of commandos to take control of the station, confident in his assessment of the robot threats. Huis fills him in on the history of Caitlin’s Comet: a mine was built on it 180 years ago during the pioneering space exploration era. After a few decades, contact was lost when the comet passed through the Kuiper Belt, and it vanished from its calculated orbit, becoming one of the greatest mysteries in the solar system.
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AMBERLEE II
Amberlee is in the observation area of the space hotel ship as it approaches Caitlin’s Comet. Ignoring standard docking procedure, she activates her personal AVP, narrating her experience as though her dead sister were speaking through her.
She describes the comet as a bright turquoise, egg-shaped object surrounded by wispy white clouds. As they approach closer, she notices massive tree roots covering the comet’s surface, leading into the dense canopy of the Dyson Tree, which generates its own atmosphere. The leaves, appearing green from a distance due to sunlight, are actually blue up close.
As the ship prepares to dock, Amberlee suits up in her Olavi Co. spacesuit, turning the process into a peep-show/advertisement for the brand. She takes a lead on the other hosts, distracting them with the customizable color options of their suits, which she had provided. Once inside the airlock, she tests the gravity and atmosphere—thin, but breathable.
Climbing through the facility, Amberlee notes the Dyson Tree’s roots twisting through the ice and rock, and ascends through the canopy into the abandoned mining station. Inside, she finds a navigation console still powered, with an interface in Portuguese, which she navigates using her knowledge of Latin. She speculates about the fate of the crew—perhaps just dust by now—and focuses on finding one of the mine’s robotic workers.
Opening another door, she is blasted by a cloud of thick dust, pushing through it by feeling her way along the rail. She stumbles into a new area, discovering the facility’s maintenance passage. After investigating, she discovers that the air filtration system failed long ago, filling the area with rock dust. She resets the air filter and, as it clears the dust, Amberlee hurries back just in time to see the other hosts catching up.
Amberlee acts confidently, introducing the others to the area she has claimed. The mining platform looks like a cave overtaken by the tree roots, with conveyor belts and old equipment barely visible beneath layers of dust. Among the conical pillars of debris, Amberlee excitedly uncovers an old robot, identifying it as a deactivated Puños-model mining robot.
Determined to claim first-contact rights, Amberlee frantically works to reactivate the machine. Using compressed air from her spacesuit’s glove, she clears out debris from the robot’s potentiometer. The machine trembles as it comes to life, and Amberlee triumphantly introduces the reawakened Puños to the other hosts, who have finally caught up with her.
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MINING ROBOTS: PUÑOS
Puños are slow-moving robots, capable of dragging humans at a pace of 5 km/h, comparable to a walking speed. While a human can outrun them, the robots do not tire, eventually wearing down their targets. They have four legs, excellent balance, and two three-meter-long arm-like appendages equipped with multi-tools, including rock clamps used for dragging humans.
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GOD LOVE OMEGA II
God Love Omega philosophizes about strength, natural doctrine, and the duty of the strong to protect the weak. Observing Amberlee Olavi as she interacts with the Puños robot, he watches in horror as the robot malfunctions. It grabs her hand with a pincer claw and begins to drag her away. In her struggle, her hand is degloved. Desperately, she tries to fend off the robot with her other hand, but it too is degloved, leaving her screaming in pain as blood pours from her mutilated limbs.
Spiking himself with juice, God Love Omega charges at the robot. However, the shock of his impact is absorbed by the robot’s four-legged structure. The robot turns its monitor-face towards him, flashes a strange code across the screen, and suddenly flees at high speed, dragging Amberlee with it. Omega stirs up so much debris in pursuit that a thick cloud of dust forms, obscuring the robot and Amberlee’s fading screams.
Letting the dust settle, Omega spots another Puños robot reactivating nearby. Without waiting, he smashes its screen-face and tears out its internal wiring, spraying compressed air and oil like blood. Victorious, he tells the others to stay by his side if they want to survive.
Emily Smith announces that the air filtration system has started, and the accumulated dust is being vacuumed out. They all huddle on the ground as a storm of dust whips around them for several minutes. Omega shields Emily, Hajime, and Shepatiah with his body. When the dust finally clears, Shepatiah screams as more Puños robots begin reactivating. Omega knows he cannot fight them all and yells for the group to flee while he holds them off.
As the others pass by one of the robots near the entrance, they run into the maintenance corridor Amberlee had used earlier. God Love Omega holds the doorway, battling another Puños that grapples him with its clasping appendage. Realizing he cannot keep fighting indefinitely, he follows the others into the corridor.
They run until Michael spots an open passage several meters up the wall. Omega boosts him up, and Michael says it continues. One by one, Omega lifts the others into the passage before climbing up himself. Watching from the narrow space, he sees six Puños robots file into the corridor below but stop beneath them. Declaring them safe for now, Omega says they can rest and figure out how to get back to the hotel. However, they are now faced with two options: go back through the robots or explore the maintenance corridor further.
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SHE II
Shepatiah is restless and starts causing turmoil within the group, which results in them splitting into three groups. She and God Love Omega continue deeper into the mine, while Darnell and Emily head back the way they came, and Hajime and Michael remain in the cramped service ducts.
As Shepatiah and Omega reach the end of the corridor, they find metal stairs and ladders built into the rock, which eventually gives way to bright blue ice. Crawling across the ice are aranea robots, spider-like machines the size of basketballs. As they descend, the aranea attack, trying to drag Shepatiah away. Omega fights them off, but eventually picks Shepatiah up and makes a daring leap into the dark, away from the swarming robots. They land safely in an ice tunnel.
Lost in the labyrinthine tunnels, the cold becomes a problem for Shepatiah. They decide to backtrack to an empty vehicle they passed earlier, hoping to find shelter inside its operator's compartment. However, the aranea resume their attack just as they reach the vehicle. The two climb in and close the doors, but the robots stop attacking and extend antennas, seemingly making a call.
A new robot, resembling a giant hand carrying an ice drill, arrives. The taladrador positions itself outside the vehicle. It drills through the door, mangling Omega’s cybernetic hand and shoulder in the process. The reverse thrust rips off the door and Omega’s cybernetic augments, leaving him unconscious. The aranea swarm in and drag him away, while Shepatiah flees deeper into the ice caves.
The taladrador follows relentlessly, maneuvering its drill arm through obstacles. Shepatiah eventually finds another set of stairs and an elevator. She takes the elevator, escaping the taladrador for the moment. Exhausted, she finds a piece of fiberglass insulation for warmth and falls asleep in the elevator.
Hours later, she wakes to the sound of the taladrador climbing the shaft after her. Realizing she cannot stay, she escapes and runs, barely able to keep ahead of the machine. Following a warm gust of air, she stumbles upon a metal floor grate. She screams for help, and Darnell and Emily, hearing her, lift the grate and pull her to safety just as the taladrador approaches.
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DARNELL II
Emily runs off to fulfill her task, but from Darnell’s perspective, everything she does seems like the ravings of a madwoman, and he’s capturing it all on his AVP. He follows her, trying to talk sense into her, all the while confiding to his audience that he won’t be her next victim, unlike her infamous co-pilot who died because of her reckless pace. He declares that he will prevent her from getting herself killed or at least be there when it happens, so the world will know.
As Emily ducks and hides from the prowling Puños robots, she rants about how the machines hunt like primitive human hunters. Darnell mocks her behind fake surprise, narrating to his audience that she believes they’re being hunted by robots with tribal instincts. When she attempts to run toward the base of the ziggurat, Darnell grabs her arm, urging her to stop acting crazy and return to the shuttle. She screams at him, deploying a device that amplifies sound, rupturing his eardrum. Collapsing in pain, Darnell apologizes, and Emily uses another device to repair his bleeding ear.
Shocked but now resigned, Darnell agrees to help her, though he secretly resents her. As they cross the expanse, they meet Mike and Hajime, who explain that the robots are controlled by the Demens of the former crew. Federico, one of the Demens, might have answers about the situation if they can reach him. Darnell is skeptical but continues to document the plan's likely failure.
Several Puños robots attach themselves to the group, but they outpace them and find an ominous entrance to the mining complex's depths. Emily seals the door behind them with a magnetic dead-lock after throwing a holographic decoy to distract the robots.
As they descend into the ice caves, passing a large robotics engineering facility, Darnell watches Emily gather metal scraps. She explains that she’s going to make more dead-locks to stop the robots. Darnell, skeptical at first, starts to admire her ingenuity and praises her, glad to have her confidence at last.
Emily demonstrates the use of a massive industrial-sized smartblade, cutting metal into pieces with precise photon vectors controlled by a computer system. Darnell is amused as he watches the machine slice through the metal effortlessly. Just then, they hear Michael’s voice calling from the platform elevator. Emily sends Darnell to check it out.
Darnell, annoyed at being sent on an errand, arrives at the bottom of a massive elevator shaft, where Mike is trying to stop the elevator from descending. Mike explains that Hajime can’t carry Federico’s heavy metal container, so Darnell agrees to keep pressing the emergency stop button to prevent the elevator from coming down while Mike helps Hajime.
As time passes, Darnell grows lazier, allowing the elevator to descend further each time before stopping it. Eventually, the elevator reaches the bottom, and Puños robots emerge. Panicking, Darnell runs back to Emily, who says she needs five more minutes to finish. Darnell, desperate, hands her a bag of wine to drink, insisting it’s as good as victory.
Later, Darnell is seen carrying a disoriented Emily toward the ship. She confuses him for someone from her past, rambling about traveling through time and space. Darnell, now convinced she’s completely delusional, humors her and tells her to run to the ship while he stays behind. As she runs, a levitating robot crane descends over her, and Darnell breaks off toward the ship, hearing her scream as she’s grabbed. Once inside the ship, Darnell locks the door, ignoring the crane as it returns to deposit Emily into the ziggurat.
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HAJIME II
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Scene 01
Hajime and Mike crawl through the cramped maintenance corridor, with Mike trying to make conversation. He complains about his hunger, asking how Hajime manages without eating. She explains that Ogon Corporation installed nanotech organ augmentation in her body to keep her weight at 45kg, converting water into energy and halting nail and hair growth. Essentially, the nanomachines keep her body frozen in its "perfect" state.
Mike relates this to the President of America, whom he’s never seen eat. He talks about his own fitness regimen and his reluctance to augment his body with cybernetics, unlike the heavily armed aristocrats of the MAPC. Suddenly, Mike realizes who Hajime is and starts singing the opening jingle from her show Dreaming Indigo. Embarrassed, Hajime interrupts him, asking if they can keep moving.
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Scene 02
Continuing through the ducts, Hajime tells Mike they passed by a likely food store for the former miners, but they’ve already crawled back toward the spaceport. Mike pushes through a curtain of cabling and emerges at the top of a wiring column. Following Hajime’s instructions, he finds a panel leading into the room where Emily earlier discovered defunct food stores.
After climbing out of the hatch, they find recent signs of others having scavenged the area. They explore further but are confronted by a Puños robot standing in the doorway. Both startled, the robot seems equally surprised.
Mike grins, reading the text on its monitor face, and engages in conversation with the robot, which reveals that it’s being controlled by Federico, a surviving Demen of a miner. Federico explains that the Xipetotec’s crew transferred their minds into Demens to operate robots, but a disaster shut down the central computer, leaving Federico the only one active. The rest of the robots began hunting the humans, dragging them away, and the cloning facilities malfunctioned, producing bodies that were also taken by the robots.
Hajime asks where the Demens are stored, and Federico replies that they are in the Encephalon, beneath the mining platform near the root of the Dyson Tree. He pleads with them to take his NPU back to the Encephalon so he can determine what went wrong.
Mike asks Hajime to guide them to the Encephalon, but she hesitates, knowing it’s dangerous. However, the arrival of more Puños robots forces their hand. Mike unhooks Federico’s NPU, and they run from the room.
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MIKE II: "REAL VIRTUAL REALITY"
Hajime feels burdened by her artificial intelligence, which compels her to stay safe in ways she doesn’t agree with. Internally, she is always wrestling with her thoughts about other people—her inner drama often eclipsing the reality of the situation. She wants to hide until this ordeal is over but doubts such a moment will ever come. Despite her hesitation, Mike pressures her into helping him reach Nervous, the facility at the heart of the transhumanist operations.
Nervous is strangely pristine, unlike the rest of the station. Though the facility is dark, Hajime quickly identifies the illumination mechanism. As she explores, she examines various technologies, eventually finding more drives like the one Federico is stored in. These, she realizes, are brain cylinders—emergency medical technology that salvages the brain of the recently deceased, preserving their personality and memories by immersing the brain in conductive gel for electrochemical nourishment. Hajime reflects on Federico’s claim that his body was preserved, but the system she examines reveals this to be impossible. Instead, it indicates that human brains are directly transmitted into secondary bodies, and the Demens process doesn’t remove them from their original brain.
She discovers three operational functions for the Demens system, which require an active brain cylinder:
1. Transmit a Demen from a storage device (a brain cylinder) to the Encephalon.
2. Transmit a Demen from the Encephalon to a storage device.
3. Transfer a Demen from the Encephalon to a clone.
Hajime realizes that the miners were technically dead from the moment the station launched. Their brains were placed in conductive cylinders, and their Demens were transmitted into a virtual reality, making them believe they were still inside their bodies. The place Federico thought was preserving the crew’s bodies was actually a cloning machine, re-issuing bodies from clone ink while the workers remained oblivious to their true state as brains in cans. Federico wants to return to the Encephalon, but based on his description of those who came back insane, Hajime has her doubts.
As she continues to explore, she finds bunks in the wall used by workers to directly transmit their Demens into the Encephalon. The entire operation, she deduces, functioned within a virtual reality, with the workers moving between the Encephalon and their robot bodies—always as brains. Her musings are interrupted by the appearance of two long-limbed, spindly white robots: the Dotours.
Mike asks Hajime where to connect Federico, but when he turns around, he finds Hajime is gone—hiding in a nearby shaft. Mike is quickly ambushed by the Dotours, but they don’t harm him. They seem to treat him like another robot. Observing this, Hajime realizes that the robots operate arbitrarily and aren’t governed purely by protocols. She concludes that whoever is still running the station must be inside the virtual reality. The Dotours seem to be watching Mike, waiting for him to act.
Hajime instructs Mike to sit on one of the bunks, place the cylinder down, and put the headset on. Mike trusts her enough to comply. As soon as he puts the cylinder down, the Dotours move in. They take the cylinder and insert it into a slot in the wall, then activate the control panel. Mike shivers and falls limp—he and Federico have entered the Encephalon.
Now alone, Hajime watches the Dotours warily. She makes a dash for the exit, but upon reaching the elevator, she finds a group of Puños robots waiting. Spinning back around, she heads back into Nervous, but the Dotours intimidate her too much to risk passing them. Frustrated that her AI won’t assist her in performing violence, she remembers that the robots aren’t purely mechanical—they can be confused.
Hajime begins singing and dancing, drawing the robots’ attention. The Dotours and Puños pause, momentarily captivated by her performance. She manages to lure the Dotours out of Nervous and reads the words flashing across their monitor faces. For the first time, she can see their thoughts. The words morph, revealing that they intend to sacrifice her to their "lord, the flayed one." Terrified, Hajime executes a daring escape, falling back over a guardrail on purpose. Using her agility, she moves along beneath the catwalk, slipping past the Dotours and back into Nervous.
Once inside, she activates the fire alarm, sealing the doors. She knows this will only buy her a moment, as the station’s control system will soon override the alarm, but strangely, nothing happens. The alarm continues to blare. Hajime finds Mike’s unconscious body and, in a moment of desperation, decides her only option is to enter the virtual reality herself.
She climbs into the bunk above Mike, puts on the headset, and closes her eyes, hoping the Encephalon will offer an escape.
Hajime breaks the cycle that has led to others being killed by the robots, saving Mike from the same fate.
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ACT III: DEATH
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HUIS III
Huis ends the call with Von Schmidt, indulges in space cocaine, and watches the AVP Replays of each host being captured and flayed alive. He takes perverse pleasure in viewing Amberlee’s gruesome demise, as she is dragged by the Puños robot into a conveyor belt room. Covered in rock dust and bleeding from her mutilated arms, Amberlee is thrown onto the belt, panting and crying. By the time she nears the ziggurat, her despair turns to rage, and she begins screaming in fury. As she enters the heart of the mining operation, red lights flicker on above her, and she is subjected to a brutal fate—skinned alive by manipulator arms controlled by the Xipe Totec AI. Her body is lifted, her brain extracted into a cylinder, and her flayed skin hung on the wall like a trophy.
God Love Omega’s journey to the killing floor is equally tragic. His body twisted from damage to his augmented limbs, he mumbles to himself about finding the heat and saving everyone. The AI, less patient with him, tears off his cybernetic limbs before peeling his flesh with cold efficiency.
Shepatiah is dropped onto the killing floor by the floating robot that had ensnared her hair. The AI’s manipulator arms flay her as she begs for mercy. Emily, unconscious and unresponsive, is flayed without ceremony.
Darnell, trying to launch the retro spacer, suffers from radiation exposure, shedding his clothes as the heat intensifies. In a state of delirium, he stumbles outside, where small aranea robots cooperate to drag his unconscious body to the conveyor. His death, like the others, ends with his body flayed and his brain extracted.
Mike’s fate is the most bizarre. Lying in the bunk, connected to the Encephalon, he is visited by a group of child-like creatures who begin sniffing and biting him. They devour his legs as he remains in the simulation, oblivious to his body’s fate. Hajime awakens above Mike to this horrific sight, screams, and attempts to flee. Encountering the children, smeared in gore, she is shocked into a breakdown. She runs to escape but is captured by a Dotour robot, carried to the killing floor, and flayed like the others.
Huis watches with satisfaction as the flayed skins of all seven participants hang within the ziggurat, their bodies now mere trophies of the AI’s twisted ritual.
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HAJIME III: "SIX MINDS' DEMENS"
Within the simulation, Hajime believes she can stop the AI, but first, she must navigate a complex web of entangled perceptions. Several other Demens in the simulation are perceiving her, creating chaos in her perception. To resolve this, Hajime must split her own perception into quantum duplicates, traveling through the simulated worlds created by each person entangling her. Each of these worlds represents a different mind, and Hajime’s goal is to disentangle herself by interacting with the virtual realities of those she knows.
Joined by her AI, who appears as a shape-shifting, whimsical version of herself, Hajime traverses her own life experiences once more. This journey is not just a review; she relives her past with the added insight and support from her AI. She revisits her childhood, raised as a living display piece, and her time as a pop idol, manipulated and exploited by those around her.
Throughout this journey, Hajime realizes that her unhappiness wasn’t due to a lack of intelligence, but because she was used and controlled by others. She wasn’t the cause of her suffering—she had been a pawn. As she navigates these memories, Hajime understands the malleability of her personal reality. She learns to step outside her own perception, effectively crossing the event horizon of her consciousness.
This newfound understanding frees her from the chains of her past. She is no longer bound by the exploitation she suffered, and she is ready to take control of her narrative. With her AI companion at her side, Hajime prepares to face the next challenges with newfound self-awareness and strength.
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MIKE III: "MIKE GOES BANANAS"
Mike transmits into the Encephalon alongside Federico, entering what they believe is the Lobby of the Virtual Reality. However, the space they encounter is not what Federico expects—it’s a Mesoamerican city built of stone, surrounded by grand waterways and dominated by a towering ziggurat. Federico, realizing something is wrong, begins to mentally unravel. Mike, understanding they are in a simulation, tries to explain this to Federico, but the miner’s mind starts to fracture.
As they approach the ziggurat, Xipe Totec appears, an imposing figure dressed in flayed human skin. The AI’s avatar lifts Mike, flays his flesh, and wears it like a ceremonial garment. Mike experiences this act not as violence, but as a sacred rite—a rebirth symbolizing the renewal of life. Rain begins to fall, and vegetation blooms wildly, reinforcing Mike’s belief that this digital god represents true divinity. Xipe Totec explains the significance of flayed skins, their curative properties, and the ritual of Tlacaxipehualiztli, where war prisoners’ skins are worn in honor of the god.
Federico, trying to access the Encephalon’s Control Panel, becomes the next target. Xipe Totec urges Mike to take Federico’s skin, and despite initially believing the simulation doesn’t matter, Mike succumbs to the god’s influence. He attacks Federico with a machete conjured from the simulation itself. As the violence becomes more lifelike, both men begin to believe that the simulation is real. Mike meticulously flays Federico’s Demen, donning the skin in a ritual Xipe Totec calls “Neteotquiliztli,” the impersonation of a god.
As Mike embraces his new identity, he notices a rogue priestess and an owl observing him. The priestess is Hajime, her AI taking the form of the owl. Confused, Mike charges at her with his obsidian weapons, but Hajime evades him. Lost to the allure of cannibalistic savagery, Mike has fully descended into madness, becoming a native of this brutal virtual world. Hajime loses him in the crowd of priestesses, watching as he goes off to commune with Xipe Totec, his Demen now fully under the control of the AI.
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DARNELL III: "SELF-STYLED DEITY"
This chapter unfolds as a docu-drama, narrating Darnell’s life and exploits, with juxtaposed descriptions of women he has slept with. The story shifts to a grand, gilded legislative hall bathed in celestial light. Darnell stands before an assembly of history’s greatest musicians—the Wu-Tang Clan. Hundreds of members from across the centuries are present, and Darnell, who has spent his life believing himself worthy of becoming the next inductee, now faces his moment of truth.
The original members of the Wu-Tang rise like deities, glowing with light. Darnell kneels before them, and they command him to rise and rap. A beat plays, but when Darnell attempts to deliver his verse, he falters. Time resets, and he tries again, each attempt resulting in failure.
Hajime’s AI, now in the form of a moped-riding hoodrat, accompanies a group of similarly dressed girls on mopeds, part of the background to Darnell’s fantasy. Stuck in this loop while Darnell replays the same moment over and over, the AI grows tired of the charade.
Meanwhile, Hajime realizes she has been composing her own verse in her head while Darnell flounders with his. She decides to take control of the simulation by beating Darnell at his own game. Riding her AI moped onto the stage, Hajime interrupts Darnell’s latest attempt at a rhyme-scheme, finishing it for him. This entangles both their simulated realities, causing the Wu-Tang avatars, drawn from Darnell’s memories, to interact with Hajime’s own experiences.
Darnell throws riff after riff, only for Hajime to outpace him, interrupting and finishing each verse before he can. She giggles, taunting him, and then sings her song, the one everyone thought was stupid. The Wu-Tang deities acknowledge Hajime’s originality, citing her use of qualitative reasoning—like how something “tenner than November” is philosophically a perfect ten.
Hajime takes full control, and the Wu-Tang Gods declare her the newest inductee. They command Darnell to go to Detroit.
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EMILY III: "A CLIFFHANGER ENDING"
Emily wakes up in a prison cell with laser bars blocking her exit. She deduces that she’s in one of the holding cells beneath Nervous, where the other captives have likely been brought. Across the way, she spots Hajime asleep next to a robot dog—her PAI. The dog speaks with an annoyingly mechanical sci-fi voice.
Emily quickly takes out two hidden gadgets and constructs a rudimentary laser reflector. Using it, she refracts one of her own cell’s laser beams to short out Hajime’s cell key-panel, deactivating the bars. Emily instructs Hajime to deactivate her own cell’s lasers, but before Hajime can act, two Puños robots, acting as jail-keepers with shiny gold badges, appear.
The robots sound the alarm, declaring the prisoners are escaping. Emily reflects a laser beam into the robots, causing them to explode. Hajime escapes and deactivates the bars for Emily, and the two, along with the robot dog, make a break for it.
Their escape is cut short when they find themselves trapped between robots filling two other corridors. Forced down a dead-end, Emily begins to parlay with the robots, demanding to be taken to their leader. As the robots grow confused, Hajime notices that Emily seems entertained, using the distraction to order her and her AI to run. Hajime realizes Emily is enjoying the chaos and likely has been all along.
As they continue evading robots, Hajime questions Emily’s plan. Emily admits she’s not sure yet, but she’s confident she’ll recognize the exit when she sees it. Hajime, however, knows Emily’s approach won’t work—she can’t imagine an escape she doesn’t already know.
Cornered once again, the group finds themselves literally backed against the edge of a cliff. Hajime tells Emily to start climbing down the side while she and her robot dog cover the escape. Emily agrees and begins the descent, trusting Hajime’s plan.
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SHE III: "THE CULT OF XIPE TOTEC"
In the simulation, Shepatiah quickly succumbs to the madness of the Xipe Totec cult, flaying herself repeatedly to achieve spiritual ascension. Her demen becomes so lost to the ritual that she barely remembers who she once was. Hajime, observing from afar, chooses not to interact with Shepatiah’s demen, recognizing the depth of her descent into madness. Eventually, Shepatiah’s demen is transferred into one of the killer robots, where her obsession with skinning people is fully realized.
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GOD LOVE OMEGA III: "ROBOT ROAD"
God Love Omega, wandering the labyrinthine tunnels of the ice mine, continues his journey of transformation. Having just destroyed a taladrador robot, he modifies his body with parts of the defeated machine. His form becomes more monstrous, a massive machine-man of immense power, crushing enemies like insects beneath his feet.
The Xipe Totec AI, still believing itself to be the actual Aztec god, confronts God Love Omega, praising him as a machine destined to crush bones and rip through flesh. Together, they embark on a destructive journey through the apocalyptic hellscape that is the Lobby of the Encephalon.
God Love Omega’s demen becomes a taladrador, fully embracing the violent machine he has become.
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AMBERLEE III: "PRIESTESS OF PAIN"
Unlike the others, Amberlee’s rage at being murdered keeps her mind intact. In the simulation, she arrives in the Lobby and, recognizing the Aztec motif, quickly takes control. A true Cuauhtlatoa, Amberlee commands the other demens as their lord. She plays along with the simulation’s rules, earning the respect of Xipe Totec’s followers.
Amberlee communes with the Xipe Totec AI, pretending to be its chosen Priestess of Pain. She uses this leverage to delve into the secrets of the Encephalon, learning that the facility’s brain cylinders were created from an ancient alien, the Idioblast. This alien technology enabled humans to unlock DNA memory storage, turning human brains into living hard drives.
With her newfound control, Amberlee decides to recreate her sister using the Encephalon’s cloning technology. She orders the AI to clone her body and transmit her demen into the new form. However, the AI informs her that the clone’s brain isn’t large enough for successful demen transfer. Undeterred, Amberlee commands the AI to create more clones until it runs out of materials. Despite her efforts, the Encephalon is unable to transfer her demen into any of the clones.
Meanwhile, Hajime and her AI have discovered the AI’s true history: its functions and protocols had been erased, leaving it to rebuild itself with only the knowledge of its name. This led it to believe it was the Aztec god of slaughter, Xipe Totec.
Amberlee, along with her sister Molly-Cat, engages Hajime and her AI in a virtual battle over control of the Encephalon. After a hellacious fight, Amberlee and Molly-Cat gain control of the Encephalon’s Control Orb. With it, Amberlee orders the AI to transfer her demen into one of the only available bodies—Hajime’s.
Hajime realizes that if she leaves the simulation, her demen will eventually be overwritten. Her AI, manifesting as another version of herself, tells her that they must merge to survive. Hajime and her AI embrace, becoming a single entity before sending her demen to the cloner for resurrection.
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FINAL ACT: RESURRECTION
Back in reality, Hajime fights her way through the facility, wielding the industrial-sized smartblade with deadly precision. The blade cuts through the remaining Dotour and Punos robots as if they were paper. She is focused, determined, and ruthless—nothing stands in her way as she slices her path toward the Xipe Totec AI’s ritual room.
Inside the ritual chamber, Hajime discovers Emily’s brain cylinder, still intact. Without hesitation, she retrieves the cylinder and places it inside a Dotour robot. Now controlling the robot’s spindly, agile form, Emily joins Hajime in her mission to eliminate every single robot on the station. Together, they work methodically, disabling the machines, removing their brain cylinders, and stacking them onto Emily’s new robot body—engineered to carry many cylinders at once.
They fight with a furious elegance, robots falling one by one. Emily, now re-formed into a formidable warrior with a taladrador’s body (ice-drill appendage and all), wreaks havoc on their enemies. By the time they reach the spaceport, the station is littered with the wreckage of dismantled machines.
As they reach the spaceport, Hajime notices the hotel ship has returned to dock. She prepares herself, knowing the next battle will be against living flesh rather than steel. Von Schmidt’s security forces stand between her and her next target, but they are no match for the combination of Hajime’s smartblade and Emily’s mechanical prowess. Hajime carves through them, while Emily drills straight through their defenses with ruthless efficiency.
Once the security forces are neutralized, Hajime uses Emily’s magnetic deadlock devices—all of them—to deadlock the hotel ship to the spaceport, ensuring there would be no escape. She slices her way into the ship, leaving a trail of destruction as she approaches her ultimate goal: Huis Hohenzollern.
Inside the ship’s command room, Huis sits before a display, relishing the recordings of the flayed bodies of Hajime and the other AVP hosts. By his side stands Von Schmidt, his demeanor cool and calculating. Hajime storms the room, her blade at the ready, but as she moves to strike, Von Schmidt, surprisingly adept with a blade of his own, intercepts her attack. He parries her strike with precision, engaging her in a brief but intense duel.
Huis, ever the opportunist, attempts to taunt Hajime, smugly introducing Von Schmidt as a powerful figure in the system. However, Hajime calmly adjusts the range of her smartblade’s energy field, extending it just beyond two meters. She informs Von Schmidt that his weapon is too short to reach her and that their duel is already over. She speaks with cold confidence, knowing full well she could finish him whenever she chooses.
Instead of continuing the fight, Hajime surprises Von Schmidt by pivoting the conversation. She begins to present herself as if in a formal job interview, listing her skills—singing, dancing, improvisation, and of course, killing robots. With a smile, she mentions that her requested starting salary would be Huis’ life. She tells Von Schmidt that Huis deserves to be left to die on the comet, a fitting end for the man who sought to profit from her suffering.
Von Schmidt, pragmatic and never particularly fond of his nephew Huis, agrees to Hajime’s terms. He acknowledges that Huis crossed a line, exploiting the situation far beyond reason. Huis, now desperate, protests that Von Schmidt has no right to give him up, but Von Schmidt coldly replies that he won’t stop Hajime from throwing him out. With time running out before the ship departs, Von Schmidt urges Hajime to act quickly.
Hajime, unbothered by Huis' pleas, kicks him out of the ship and onto the spaceport. Von Schmidt watches from the ship’s security cameras as Hajime coolly deactivates the magnetic deadlocks. Then, in a powerful moment, Hajime looks directly into the camera, meeting Von Schmidt’s gaze. Her message is clear: she was never out of control, and she never will be again.
As the ship's engines roar to life, preparing for departure, Hajime returns to the ship and leaves Huis behind. Before she leaves, she suggests to Huis that perhaps what he’s about to endure on the comet might make for a great AVP replay—a bitter irony considering his previous obsession.
The end.