The sound of my boots on the marble floor echo down the hallway. I’m planet-side for the first time in years. The central command council resides in the middle of some remarkable architecture. The compound’s overall esthetic is somewhere between an extravagant palace and a military bunker. Huge, manicured gardens and sprawling reflective pools form a kaleidoscopic view from the air above. The residencies and social rooms forming a ring around the edges of the compound are intricately designed, with murals and carvings adorning all the structures. All the buildings, pillars, bridges, and raised walkways that run and intertwine with the gardens tell the stories of the eon, with artisans adding new proposed artwork all the time. As you walk towards the center of the compound, the intricate gothic architecture gives way to simpler more plain and open designs as the use case of the buildings shift towards amphitheaters and auditoriums for educational purposes. Travel further still, and the style changes yet again to a more monolithic style with flat stone walls and long uninterrupted straight edges, simple yet strong. The transition is meant to be symbolic, representing entropy, with chaos and creativity at the edges and solid, unmoving simplicity at the core. I am walking in the centermost part of the compound, the housing for Sequel’s central council, the source of a great many changes in the universe. I have an audience with the council to discuss the ongoing hunt for Evelyn, our little lost science project.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

I arrive at the end of the hallway. There are two stone doors at the entrance to the council room, counterbalanced so that when I put my hands on either door and spread them apart, the friction between my hands and the stone is enough to easily move the doors into their pockets in the walls. They’re all waiting for me, sitting in a semicircle, faces young and old stare down at me. Though some of the faces appear young, I have no illusions as to believe the minds behind those faces are any less than thousands of years old. Much to my detriment, those new bodies do little to sway the opinions of their hosts.

“We’ve heard what happened, and we know what you’re here to say, we’ve heard it before, and we will not hear it again. You may not circumvent any government directives. However, we understand your plea, you have plenty of reason to think the way you do, the bleak nature of your quest notwithstanding. We know better than most what your mission means to Sequel, we remember times before these restrictions were imposed on us. We see our company slowly drifting, fragmenting away from the rest of humanity. Do not assume we do not believe in the importance of what you’re doing. We have arranged you some long overdue assistance.”