"It is calling to me from below
the song of a god
that whispers to the sleeping.
A dark sun setting
Over black ocean
a red eye in the sky
staring, unblinking, forever
and deep below the earth
await answers to questions
yet unasked"
"A Dream about Dreaming"
-
“Incredible.”
A land of red skies. An ocean of crimson sand. Pass a vast gate of obsidian black, the Grand Empress bore witness to a world never meant to be seen by human eyes.
She was so close. A single step, and she would instantly traverse an unfathomable distance. Into a realm that had been untouched by any living creatures for aeons.
To think that the Red Gate had been hidden deep beneath a mere moon within Leng’s orbit all these centuries. The secret scholars and truth-seekers of the Empire had always firmly believed the holy portal to be within Buyan, somewhere deep beneath the poisonous clouds and the rotting, flesh-like ground of the living planet where the Grand Empress was born.
It made the most sense that the gateway to the Gods would be found within the birth planet of the most potent Bioresonant creature ever conceived. Even she never believed otherwise.
But they were wrong.
The Gate wasn’t even close to the centre of their system, but rather located at its far fringes instead. Near a remote planet deemed of little worth, and deep within a moon judged of even less value. For its destined fate to be stumbled upon by the rebel Nation first, and by a mere mining contingent…
The woman stepped away from the entrance. Her poise was impeccable, her countenance impossibly immaculate. But when her fingers stroke the obsidian gate again, her fingers tremble with the slightest twitch—the most minute lapse of control.
The Grand Empress of the Eusan Empire, revered Mother of all Replikas and the Esteemed Ruler of Gestalt Humanity, could not remember the last time she had ever suffered even the smallest involuntary slip of dominion over herself.
Since birth, her powers have bestowed upon herself a flawless mastery over her body and environment. Everything, from the most insignificant of metabolic reactions within her biological frame to the very gravity of the planet she stood on, was within her infinite awareness and control. Their continuance was an allowance she afforded, rather than a natural phenomenon that persisted in baseline reality. She was the most powerful being within their solar system, this little cradle that humanity called home.
And right now, she was very afraid.
There was excitement too, of course. She was, after all, standing upon the foundation of all theorised explanations on the nature of Bioresonance and the observable cosmos. She could hear the Song more clearly then than at any other point in her existence. The very fabric of reality felt ready to come undone at the merest application of her will.
A single step, and she would be past the Gate, and into the realm she had been seeking relentlessly for an eternity.
Carcosa. Lost Carcosa. Dim Carcosa. The Cradle of the Gods. Her body almost moved like it had a mind of its own, inching closer to the Gate even as she tried to pull herself away…
“Incredible is not the word I would use.”
Another voice interrupted her thoughts, severing the Song’s connection within her head and breaking her free of its influence. The Empress had never felt a clearer projected thought, even among the rare instances when she communicated with her artificial Daughters.
Free of the Song’s subtle sway, the Empress took a deep breath and stepped away from the obsidian stones, before nodding gratefully at the wraith-like figure that stood by her side.
She was tiny, at least when compared to herself. The Empress towered over most other humans. Standing at nearly two and a half metres and absolutely saturated in overwhelming Bioresonant might, it was no wonder that all fell to their knees in her presence, daring not even to glimpse at her while she floated above them.
The waif beside her was barely even half her height, standing almost a full metre shorter. Her face was covered in thin band-aids. Her strange white hair fell behind her to the middle of her back. Combined with her snow-pale skin, it made her look even more like a ghost.
Their clothing likewise indicated a significant distinction in status. The waif was barefooted, and dressed in a thin nightgown that looked drastically out of place amidst the freezing, dark mines of S-23 Sierpinski. In contrast, the Empress was dressed from head to toe in ornate royal regalia and embroidered silk.
The Empress will not deny that her existence was greater than that of any mere Gestalt or Replika; it would be foolish to compare the majesty of an ocean to a mere drop of rain in a storm. None would deny that she was the most significant entity within their system, even among those in the rebel Eusan Nation.
Within the wraith’s presence, however, the Empress didn’t feel very significant.
It didn’t matter that she was taller than her, or better dressed, or possessing of more Imperial authority. All the girl had to do was stare at the Empress with her blood-drenched eyes, and the Empress would instantly know.
Bioresonance doesn’t lie. The difference between their existence was a thousand times greater than that between an ocean and a drop of rain.
And yet, despite their physical difference… Despite the overwhelming contrast in the weight of their existences…
Their faces mirrored each other's almost perfectly. By facial appearance alone, they almost looked like sisters. The same features, the same bone-white hair, the same blood-red eyes.
“Is it always this strong?” The Empress asked, turning her gaze away from the wraith and into the lands beyond the Gate. Even as the Song assailed her senses again, she still preferred gazing into that abyss to staring into the girl’s red eyes again. “I have never sensed a presence this potent since…”
Since the day the wraith first appeared in her personal chambers without warning. She was alone one second, and not the next. The immense pressure of her materialising so suddenly had nearly stopped the Empress’s heart.
The Empress resisted the urge to laugh at the memory. How arrogant she had been, thinking herself strong. She was merely a fish within a pond, when far greater monsters swam in oceans vast beyond reckoning.
To witness such power, to be so utterly dwarfed by another entity. It was a novel experience.
“It’s worse once you step in. The planet is not kind to those that it perceives to have stolen its power. You may find your mind lost after a few seconds, should you let it influence you. I recommend preparing yourself well if you still choose to step through the gate.”
“I am not that foolish, dear Emissary,” the Empress replied. “Merely seeing the Gate is enough for me today. To finally find proof of the Gods’ existence, after all this time… It is truly a feat I would have never thought to see.”
The Empress steeled herself as she continued to study the lands beyond the portal, uncaring even as the vicious symphonies of the Song clawed savagely against her mind. The crimson sands of the foreign planet bared some passing similarities to the red deserts of Kitezh, but the countless pillars of jagged black monoliths that broke through the ground dissuaded any possibility of mistaking the place as such. The Song particularly saturated the air, its melody purer and more twisted than any she had ever experienced.
The Planet called for her, beckoned her to take the final steps through. The Matriarch of Humanity knew did if she did, there may be no going back. The Powers beyond the gate were ravenous. They longed for a mind to control.
Within humanity’s solar system, her might knew no limits. For all the strength of the Imperial Navy and their weapons, they were but toys to her Bioresonance. With a flick of her finger, she could send Imperial ships spiralling out of orbit, and cause great storms to wreck the surface of any planet. She could have ended the rebellion in a day, if she ignored the devastating cost to lives and infrastructure. The Empress had spent her entire life assured of her infallibility, in the truth that she had no equal within the system, be they of Nation or Empire born.
She would have no such assurance in that foreign land. Even if Carcosa was dead, the corpses of the Gods still dreamt and sang. As the Emissary had said, her ambitions paled before that which could not rest until it had seized the minds of mortals and controlled even their unborn thoughts.
“If I stepped through the gate, would returning to our world be as simple as taking a step back?” the Empress asked.
“To come is easy and takes seconds. To go is different, and may take centuries.”
The Empress tilted her head. The wraith returned her unamused stare with a steady gaze. “A simple no would have sufficed.”
The lips of the wraith quirked in amusement.
“Yes, but that would be boring.”
The Empress gave an uncharacteristic snicker. Such unladylike behaviour would have sent her retainers into a fit, but they weren’t around. Save for her and the wraith that was invisible to all but herself, they were alone.
Or, perhaps more accurately, invisible to all but her and one other.
“I am conflicted. I suppose I should thank you. After all, you did help me achieve a lifelong aspiration, one that has weighed on me since the very inception of my consciousness. On the other hand, the headaches and humiliations you made me suffer through trying to end the war between the Empire and the Nation and get to this point is something I can never forgive you for.”
“You did eventually manage to get S-23 Sierpinski, however. One could argue that all the concessions you made were worth it to obtain unrestricted access to the Red Gate.”
“To me, perhaps, but not to the Empire as a whole! To them, I’ve just traded near-certain victory for the Empire to obtain a chunk of worthless rock that even the rebels didn't care about.”
The only consolation she had was that her choices baffled the Eusan Nation to no end, either. The rebels didn't even know about the Red Gate when they traded over the moon. Thankfully, the penal mining colony on board had yet to dig too deep beneath the surface. According to the Emissary, it would have taken them but another few more months before they accidentally stumbled upon the alien structure. It made the rush to end the war and secure the moon from the Nation all the more perilous and hurried.
“The war would not have ended as easily as you think. It would take the Nation only another month to rebuild the Generation Six brain scans that they lost in the bombing of Vineta and restart the FKLR Replika models production line. The new batch would have rendered your Imperial Fleet’s orbital superiority useless and forced you into a strategy of attrition that would see tens of millions starved to death over the next few months.”
“Yes, I am well aware of that. You already implied as much in our previous conversations. But, and I stress this again, the Empire as a whole could not possibly know that, and it’s not like I could have used your words as proof!”
The wraith shuffled awkwardly.
“Couldn’t you have just, I don’t know, tell them you divined it with your powers somehow? I mean, you are the most powerful living Bioresonant in the world.”
“That’s not how Bioresonance works! You should know that better than anyone!”
“Going to be honest here. I’m still not really sure how any of my powers work. I’m mostly just winging it at this point.”
A sense of exasperation took over the Empress. It was a sensation that she had become distressingly familiar with ever since she met the wraith.
“Do you have any idea how hard it was to justify to the council not only that the Empire had to end the war immediately, but that we had to give up countless concessions as well just to trade for a moon that held no strategic importance or resources?”
She couldn't even blame them for expressing their doubts and pushing back against her decision that, by ancient law, should be unquestionable. Their uncertainty and confusion were more than understandable, given the ludicrous orders she was making after a lifetime of rational rule and sound judgment.
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Dealing with the bureaucracy to achieve the necessary support for her proposal and handling the peace talks with the rebel Nation, and all this within a ticking deadline of a few months, had been nothing short of hellish, even for someone with her superhuman level of political acumen and intellect.
If nothing else, the nightmarish experience taught her that her authority as Empress and Supreme ruler of Humanity did, in fact, have limits, and they reasonably drew the line at demanding her faction’s total and immediate capitulation to the rebel’s demands when the Empire was on the winning side.
“It is difficult for me to relate. After all, when I was alive, I joined the Penrose Program to run away from my worries. Now, I have not a care of my own, but I am more restless than if I had.”
The Empress’s eyebrow twitched.
“If you’re going to keep quoting lines from that stupid book, I’m going to find it myself just so I can throttle you with it.”
“That would be helpful, actually. I still can’t find the original manuscript, even after I scoured Itou’s bookshop thrice over.”
“Does that not worry you?”
“It will show up eventually. If nothing else, with the war ended and the risk of Erika dying in the conflict removed, Isolde should have no reason to find or use it to try and get her sister back. The fact that you are still alive as well might also be affecting when the Book will show up in this timeline.”
“And with S23 Sierpinski under the Empire’s control before the Nation accidentally opened the Red Gate, the odds of the King exerting his influence into our system is reduced. What about the Penrose Program?”
“If all goes well, that should take care of itself in time. With the Nation’s resource needs secured thanks to the Empire’s concessions, it shouldn’t need to keep pushing for obsolete methods like deep-space exploration.”
The Empress raised an eyebrow. “Perhaps I am being too judgemental, but your government doesn’t strike me as composed of the most rational of individuals.”
Intelligent, yes. They had to be to create the Generation 6 Bioresonant Replika models. But given how inept and heavy-handed they had been governing themselves thus far, it was hard to trust their competence.
“More than that, given how much capital they had already invested in the idea, they may push for the Penrose launch regardless.”
“If they still insist on going through with that cruel and pointless experiment, I have one more card left to play with S23’s FKLR Commander. But no matter what happens, I will not allow this world’s Ariane Yeong or Elster to step foot into that accursed ship.”
The anger rolling off the wraith caused the very air to shift unnaturally. Dark illusions and nightmarish visions of ghoulish figures danced in her perception, but the Empress ignored them with ease. She had been with the wraith long enough to become accustomed to her unique quirks and occasional lapse of control.
“Let me know if you need assistance,” the Empress offered. “As much trouble as you have brought me, you have also given me much, and I will not see my debt unpaid. Never let it be said that the Empress of Mankind is not generous.”
“No, she’s just a little girl who gets scared when someone says hello from behind her.”
“You know damn well that’s because I have never been caught off guard by anything in my entire life! I am the most powerful Bioresonant in the system. I could sense every single lifeform within a planet-wide radius and control the tiniest of biological processes down to the very molecule in my room, and you think it’s unreasonable to be surprised when someone just appeared behind me and announced ‘Hi! I think I’m from the future and I need your help’ without a care for propriety or decency?!”
“Hee. That was a funny memory. The illustrious Empress fallen over, screaming at the sight of little old me.”
The two of them kept bickering for a moment, finding solace in their peculiar brand of friendship. One that formed over their many private interactions in the past months. For the Empress, it was a foreign and welcomed experience, as she had been isolated without peers to call her own since the day she was born. And as for the wraith, the Empress was the only one she could interact with. No one else, not the staff within the palace or even the Bioresonant-gifted secret seers of the Empress, could see her. It was no wonder they grew close, as she was the sole person the wraith could talk to.
Well, the only one she chose to talk to. There was one other that the Empress knew that the wraith could speak with and desperately wanted to see, but hadn’t done so yet.
The both of them stared through the portal, into the land of the Gods. The Song still assaulted her in full, but the Empress found the vast presence bearable as long as the wraith existed in proximity.
It took a long moment before the Empress finally found the will to ask.
“Are you not going to at least see her?”
Silence. The Empress was aware she had breached upon a sensitive matter, but it was one that needed to be addressed. They did not have much time left.
Eventually, the wraith spoke.
“It’s likely not even her any more. We don’t know if the memories came back to LSTR units as well as some of the others on S23, since her production line was effectively defunct by the date of her creation in my original timeline. She won’t know me, even if she could likely see me.”
“I won’t be too sure about that,” the Empress said. “If the Falke’s lovestruck reaction when I met her a month ago were any indication, I would say that she would be the one most likely to remember.”
And wasn’t that just the most uncomfortable thing? The serious and stoic FKLR Commander that had met with them to oversee S-23’s transfer to the Empire was all emotionless professionalism, right until the wraith requested the Empress to pass on some cryptic message of thanks from her to the Replika. They hadn’t anticipated that the station Commander would fully grasp the meaning behind the words, nor that the FKLR would react so passionately or tearfully.
“That’s different. We didn't have a choice. Time was running out, and we desperately needed someone on the inside who could influence the Nation’s decisions. Besides, Falke wasn’t the one who saved me. Even if she did love me.”
The Empress gave the wraith a sidelong grin. “And you to her as well, if the words you had me pass to her were any indication. I swear, acting as an impromptu messenger between you two was giving me second-hand toothache with how sweet the words were.”
It was an amusing, albeit awkward affair. The FKLR couldn’t see nor hear the wraith, but desperately wanted to talk to her. The Empress couldn’t find the heart to deny the tearful Replika’s heartfelt pleas, even if the entire conversation left her embarrassed.
The wraith looked away. “That’s… different. And very complicated.”
“Fine. But we are not talking about the Falke's unrequited affection. Or how you plan to cruelly abandon her after she all but professed her undying love for you.” The wraith winced, guilt filling her face, but the Empress pushed forth. “We are talking about the one who saved you after three hundred thousand cycles of suffering and death.”
The wraith was silent, so the Empress continued. “I profess, part of me wants to meet this gallant warrior who someone managed to slaughter her way through countless hordes and iterations of nightmares just so she could reach you. That she still remained sane enough to fulfil her Promise to you even after 700 years worth of failures and deaths is even more impressive. However, the rest of me simply wishes for you to at least meet her before you go through with your decision to end your existence.”
The wraith narrowed her eyes.
“You already have the Red Gate. You don’t have to concern yourself with my affairs.”
The Empress exhaled, before tapping her feet twice. A Bioresonant wave of power ballooned from her feet and smashed itself against the wraith. The attack roared through the cavern and shook its very foundation. Large rents were carved onto the ground and walls by the tidal surge of eldritch energy.
All that, and she only managed to make the wraith lightly stumble, as if she was pushed against with merely a mild breeze. It was still enough to shake her out of her self-deprecating slump and look at the Empress with wide eyes.
The Grand Empress smiled sadly at her only friend.
“Idiot. You may have come from a far-flung reality where I died, and you may be more powerful than I might ever become, but you were still once human and a citizen within my system. That you were born under the Nation’s rule doesn’t matter. As the Empress of Mankind, you are my subject and responsibility, and God or not, your happiness is something I concern myself with. More than that, you are my friend. So you don’t get to act all mopey about me trying to help you.”
The wraith lowered her gaze, her earlier anger folding away before the Empress’s words.
“It would also be troublesome for me if my only friend and tolerable conversation partner killed herself, so if that lover of yours could convince you otherwise, all the better.”
The wraith huffed. “We already talked enough about this. It’s for the best if I do not linger in this reality, and you are not changing my mind. And besides, I’m already long dead. It doesn’t matter if I disappear.”
“You don’t get to say that after haunting my personal quarters for the last six months, you midget. You don’t get to say you don’t matter after making me, the Eusan Empress, actually tolerate your company.”
The wraith laughed. “And to think you hated me so much when we first met. All those tirades about my ‘disrespect’ or my ‘lack of propriety’ in the presence of the Empress. I grew on you quite quickly.”
“Like fungus.” The Empress shook her head in amusement. How could she not hate her at first? It was either that or submitting fully to fear as the wraith’s power overwhelmed her. Even after six months of tutoring her on the basics of Bioresonance control, the wraith’s powers were still spilling forth like a ruptured dam. It was the first time the Empress faced something more powerful than her, and it was by a magnitude she could not even imagine. Of course she had been afraid and angry.
But it was also the first time she found someone who treated her like a peer, rather than a figure to be deified and worshipped. There was fear, yes, but it eventually gave way to genuine friendship the longer the two spent time together. The days and nights were spent together in equal parts over important affairs and random mundane indulgences that the Empress never experienced.
Between the time spent carefully training the wraith’s powers and tearing her hair out scheming an increasingly convoluted web of plots that spanned over the entire system, the two had also wasted hours together watching random Empire films (at the wraith’s eager insistence as she claimed to have never seen any within the Eusan Nation when she was alive) and painting elaborate works of art over grand canvases.
She had lived a long life and experienced things that no other human would ever be able to, but those short months made her feel more alive than she had ever been. Fear, anxiety, frustration, curiosity, excitement, joy. All these new emotions and more.
And then another when the wraith announced her plans to kill herself after her goal’s fruition. Despair.
She did not want her new and only friend to go.
“You need to go see her.”
The Empress will not beg, nor will she hinder her friend’s wishes. She may argue and protest over the wraith’s decision, but if she still chooses to proceed in the end, she will not stop her. No matter how much it would hurt her.
But it was still unbearable to do nothing and simply wait for the end.
Which was why she wanted the wraith to meet her lover. The wraith claimed that the Elster would not remember, that though she was the exact same model and number, the memories of her alternate self from the future would not be present within her. Even the Falke earlier, for all her declaration of love, had not remembered the wraith until she had shown her mind a glimpse of her alternate self.
But even so, the Empress did not believe that a love that endured for seven hundred years and through countless painful deaths would be lost so easily. The wraith did not know this, but the materialisation of her power could not be the product of a single will alone, not even one as gifted as her.
“She deserves a better life than I can give her. The only thing I gave her was madness and death. Three hundred thousand cycles of death, pain, and insanity.”
“And before those cycles of death, you gave her three thousand cycles of love and happiness. It was the memories of those times that pushed her forward even through that hell.”
“She gave me happiness, not the other way around. And in the end, what does that matter in the face of the suffering I made her endure? No more. More than anyone, she deserves a mundane, happy life.”
“Even more than you? You, who arguably suffered as much, if not more?”
“Especially more than a monster like me.”
The Empress didn’t know whether to laugh or scream at her.
“You owe her more than that. If you’re wrong, and she does remember, you would be dooming her to a fate worse than death. How long do you think she can hold herself together without knowing of your final fate? How long before she tries to look for you, only to be driven mad once again by futility?”
“Then what would you have me do?” The wraith snapped.
“Tell her you are leaving. You owe her, and yourself, that much. At least then, if she remembers you, she will have closure. And if she doesn’t…”
The Empress hesitated, before sighing and finishing her words. “Then at least you will, before you leave.”
The two of them fell silent. The Empress waited for the wraith’s reply with a hammering heart. Even the humming of the Gate felt quieter, as if it was waiting for the Emissary’s response as well.
Finally, the wraith spoke, her words barely audible. “Just one time. To see her again. Then I’ll go.”
With that, a glimmer of hope. “That’s all I ask.”
It wasn’t a victory, not yet anyway. This meeting was just as much for her sake as for the wraith’s and her lover's. The Empress hoped the Elster was as impressive as the stories she was told.
Idly, she wondered if she would ever meet this Replika. The one whose mind survived three hundred thousand deaths, and the one that defied the Yellow King’s apotheosis.
All to fulfil a Promise.
-
Six months later
“C’mon! You can bring our stuff up later. I want to see our room!”
Elster grunted as she hefted another trio of boxes up the porch stairs, while the Eule rushed ahead with an excited grin. The ash piles of Rotfront made walking back and forth between their AEON hover transport and the front of their new apartment a pain. The planet was such a drastic change of environment from her previous outpost on Vineta, the world where she was ‘born’ a mere few months ago. She was already missing the sea-salted air and the soothing sound of waves.
She set the boxes down and looked around. For a recently Kilmaformed world, Rotfront was not too bad, but the constant ash rain was an unavoidable annoyance. It also made the place look horribly lifeless and deary—nothing but grey, grey, and grey.
Despite the Eule’s earlier words, Elster stacked up as many boxes as she could carry before lifting them up. The tower of items blocked her view, but it was a relatively straight sheltered pathway down the open hall to the elevator, so she was not too worried.
“Elsterrr!” She heard the overly excited Eule whine from down the corridor. “Don’t just keep me waiting! You have the keys, and I want to see our apartment!”
The Eule could complain all she liked, but she wasn’t the one who had to bring all their belongings to their new shared accommodations.
Their own personal apartments. The thought beggared belief. The events that brought her from her base’s LSTR dormitory to this strange, Gestalt-like living arrangement still felt like a fever dream, even if the rationale behind it was already explained clearly by her superiors.
With the view in front blocked by the tower of boxes she was carrying, Elster turned to stare out the open corridor and into the streets of Rotfront. The ashen skies, the towering buildings, the metros running systematically between stops. Grey, grey, grey-
White.
Someone bumped into her when she passed a hallway intersection. The push barely jousted her, even with her arms full. Balancing servos kicked in as Elster steadied both herself and the person who accidentally rushed into her. Something fell from the Replika’s pocket and clinked onto the floor.
“Ah! Sorry!” The human girl flinched away from Elster, head lowering in fear when she realised she had stumbled into a Replika. Elster didn’t even manage to get a look at her face before the Gestalt began cowering.
“It’s fine.” Her eyes turned to the pair of apartment keys that fell to the ground. After suppressing a groan, she turned back to the Gestalt. “Can you pick those up for me?”
The Gestalt froze. Her words came out in a tremble. “W-What?”
Elster frowned. How skittish was this girl? Were the Gestalts of Rotfront that afraid of Replikas? Elster supposed that wasn’t surprising, given that the revolt suppressions were mere months ago, but the LSTR models were hardly public figures nor possessing the intimidating stature of the AEON Protektor models like the STAR or STCR, so she had no idea why the girl was reacting this way. “I need my keys. They fell from my pocket.”
The girl was still for a few seconds, and just when Elster was about to repeat her request, the white-haired girl cautiously bent down and picked them up. She looked over Elster preoccupied arms holding the crates. “Um, where do I…?”
“Just place them on my forearms. I can balance it,” the Elster said, shrugging. She could ask the girl to place them into her pockets or pass them to the Eule in the elevator, but she looked scared enough as is.
The girl gingerly placed them on the Replika’s black-metal arms. Elster nodded. “Thank you. I’m sorry for bumping into you.”
“No, it’s my fault,” the girl hurriedly replied, before wincing at her awkwardness. “I wasn’t looking. I’m sorry. I don’t… I’m not good around Replikas. Not that I mean anything bad by that! It’s just… I–”
“It’s fine,” Elster interrupted, not unkindly. “The AEON public suppressions, right? I understand.”
The poor girl had probably witnessed something harsh, like a STAR brutally beating up rioting citizens, or had her room ransacked by AEON Replika sedition investigators. Elster didn’t blame her for her fear. If the rest of Rotfront citizens were this equally afraid, it made sense now why she was chosen for this mission and not a STAR or KLBR unit.
The two of them stood there awkwardly for a few seconds before Elster shuffled impatiently. “I should go.”
“Ah! Yes, I’ll get out of your way.” The girl finally raised her head. “Again, I’m sorry.”
Elster resisted the urge to sigh before turning to face her. “Really, it’s fine-”
White. Red.
The Replika’s voice caught in her throat.
And in those days, the people will seek death and not find it
She could not move. The girl looked at her, confused.
The mystery of this god is finished, as she announced it to her servants, the prophets
Red eyes. Eyes of blood. Her hands wrapped around her throat as she smiled.
Remember our Promise.
Her face. She… she was…she needed to…
Wake Up.
FATAL ERROR
A FATAL EXCEPTION HAS OCCURRED AT 0023:512606400360A
IN LSTR-SYS-000000FF. THIS MAY BE CAUSED BY A HARDWARE FAILURE.
IF THIS PROBLEM PERSISTS, CONTACT A REPLIKA TECHNICAL SERVICE.
ERROR CODE ***STOP: 0X000000E [LSTR-512]
PRESS ANY KEY TO REBOOT REPLIKA LOGIC
The girl said something that Elster didn’t hear, before she hurriedly sprinted away.
Elster stood still for a few seconds, before the strange vertigo vanished as abruptly as it came. The Replika blinked a few times, frowning.
A glitch? What unfortunate timing. Elster hoped the girl did not report it. Such a thing could result in AEON suspecting her of persona degradation and affect her stellar performance review.
Elster walked to the elevator, where the Eule waited. The other Replika looked at her curiously. “Did you know that girl? You were looking at her really intently just now.”
Was she? Elster tried to recall if she found anything strange about the girl’s face, but then realised couldn’t remember what the Gestalt had looked like at all. Her systems had seemly fried the memory of it.
Worrying, but it was unlikely to be important. She was overdue for a calibration due to her hectic work schedule recently. The lack of rest could easily explain the glitch. The Replika shook her head. “No. Just another Gestalt. Here, take the keys off my hands. I can’t open the door while I carry this.”
The Eule excitedly picked the keys off her forearm before she pushed the elevator button. “Sorry about making you do all the work, by the way. Us Eules are not really made for hard labour. I’ll help unpack the stuff while you bring the rest up.”
“It’s no problem.” Elster took a glance at the metal tag on the key.
Key Room 0512.
A pair mirrored.
Her thoughts flashed back to the strange girl earlier, wondering if she would see her again.
Just before the elevator doors were sealed shut, she thought she saw a flash of white amidst the sea of grey.
And a pair of blood-red eyes staring right at her.