After dinner, the tables were pushed to one side to turn the dining room into a dance hall. A troupe of Lower Akra musicians (and one very drunk Vakta man) filed onto a stage in the back of the room and played a downtempo rendition of the Heritage Suite.

Music was a rarity in this part of Akropolis, mainly because it was considered beneath any of the Tetrarch children to take up. But of course, that didn’t stop someone like an inebriated Ghata Vakta, fresh off retirement from active combat, from getting up on stage to make an ass of himself and ruin what otherwise could’ve been a valuable and edifying performance. Anyone present who might’ve wanted to stop him wouldn’t dare cross the newly promoted Colonel from the Reiter Regiment. And anyone who might’ve dared didn’t care to.

The troupe forged ahead, however, doing their best to incorporate or at least ignore Colonel Vakta’s contributions. The piece itself was another annual tradition of sorts, a holdover from pre-settlement times where nearly every form of digital media had been lost, leaving the survivor colony with whatever physical copies of art and culture they could scrounge together before holing up inside what later became Akropolis. The Heritage Suite, in particular, was said to have retained most of its ‘Bohemian’ trappings despite getting passed along generations after generations of musicians.

The dinner guests, to their credit, matched the troupe in their dogged pursuit of order and tradition. One by one, the couples paired off and danced in time with the music: all brave smiles and nary a complaint about the man currently rattling off an off-key flute solo.

Once again, the Athelstans proved to be the most miserable bunch. All five of them sat on the sidelines, each oddly justified in their passivity.

Gerech had likely never engaged in a moment of gaiety in his life. Tiamat sat dutifully with her husband, but she at least had enough spirit to smile and clap along with the dancers. And it seemed that Bannan and Irena, who by rights should’ve been up there mixing with the other young couples, could barely stand the sight of each other.

At least Asena had her solitude as a ready-made excuse. She thought she didn’t particularly mind, just as she hadn’t the last however many years she’d come here without Zelen.

But this year, something had shifted. And as she watched her own parents—gangling Yuito and diminutive Tamamo—stumble through a whole routine despite their severe physical mismatch, the chasm within her chest widened some more.

The song ended, the troupe bowed (Colonel Vakta deeper than anyone), and the dinner guests applauded. As Asena too clapped absent-mindedly, she vaguely wondered if anyone might seek her out for a change of partners. She’d just decided that the sheer melancholy exuded by her corner of the room would be enough to dissuade all comers, when one figure did break from the crowd to extend a hand in her direction.

Her heart simultaneously sank and rocketed to her throat upon seeing who it was.

“Corporal Shiranui, may I have this dance?”

The General’s outfit for the night was surprisingly fashion-forward: a navy-blue collarless suit with simple white trims, a design that was said to have been popularized by the latest batch of newly elevated Sehermensch youth. As he approached, he performed an exaggerated bow for the benefit of his sister and her Chancellor husband (to predictably mixed reception), before turning the fullness of his roguish grin on Asena herself.

This of course wouldn’t be the first time she’d danced with Fenix Duodecim—something of an uncle figure to all Tetrarchs of her generation—but she couldn’t recall another time where it felt as though something was at stake. Even so, she only hesitated for a second. Refusing the General in such a public setting simply wasn’t an option.

The troupe (now minus a snoring Colonel Vakta) began a slightly more modern and higher tempo song. And as the newly mixed couples broke formation and settled into their routines, Asena’s forebodings were soon proven prescient.

“I read the most recent report, Corporal,” Fenix spoke quickly yet carefully, choosing swells within the music to ensure his words reached only his partner’s ears. “I can’t say I’m surprised, yet I’m also somewhat disappointed.”

“Sir, I’m merely—doing what’s best—for the subject—” Asena was a diligent enough Tetrarch to know the songs and their associated dances well, but she wasn’t so dexterous as her partner to engage in a lively debate at the same time. “It’s my professional opinion—as a Kurator that—”

“You weren’t selected for this mission on the basis of your two years of Kuratorial experience,” the General smoothly rebuffed her, keeping an avuncular smile all the while. “We chose you because of [EVOCATION], and if you won’t [EVOKE], there’s nothing to recommend you over a more seasoned Kurator. Say, your father, for example. After all, no one knows the subject better than Yuito Shiranui.”

Even a few weeks ago, Asena would’ve full-heartedly agreed with that assessment. Who better to restore a Reiter’s combat readiness than the Kurator that had managed him for four years? But now, nothing could horrify her more.

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“What of Delta-Upsilon?” she exclaimed, louder than she’d intended. “I was given to understand—the subject had been nonresponsive to all forms of communication—until I came along.”

“It’s true that, in the interest of compassion, we kept him bubble-wrapped and pampered all this time. Perhaps for far too long. I’m beginning to think that approach may have run its course. He’s a soldier, first and foremost, and he serves no one while cooped up inside a cell and chatting to his girlfriend for days on end. Besides, you’ve at least played your part in restoring some of his sociability. I daresay a Kurator of your father’s expertise should be able to take up the torch competently enough.”

“But… what can he do? Zelen is still so… so incomplete. What could my father achieve that I couldn’t after weeks of [EVOCATION]?”

Even as she asked, Asena knew—and dreaded—the answer.

“Shock therapy,” Fenix spoke breezily, still in time with the music, still smiling. “You Kurators have a third core skill, do you not? One that’s rarely taught, and only to the brightest—and most dedicated—among you. I don’t know the full details myself, but Yuito has assured me that Lieutenant Athelstan is a suitable candidate for it.”

If that’s all my father told you, you don’t know the half of it. But Asena knew the whole of it, and as the full import of the General’s sit rep—of his threat—hit her, she stopped dancing altogether.

Her eyes instinctively sought out those of her father’s. Both Yuito and Tamamo had sat this song out, and the Shiranui patriarch’s bespectacled eyes betrayed nothing as they met his daughter’s anguished gaze.

The General was right. After [UNRAVEL] and [CONSOLIDATE], all Kurators—at least in theory—were capable of attempting [REWIRE]. By shocking the subject’s Psyche into a heightened state of flux, they could allow extraneous information to flow in from the Nexus itself, thereby potentially overwriting the pre-existing network of memories.

It came at great personal risk to both the subject and the Kurator, with both susceptible to having their Psyches fried beyond all recognition or repair. Not only that, it also wasn’t all that effective most of the time. Very little about [REWIRE] had been empirically delineated, but the theory was that extraneous memories had a very low chance of taking root within infrastructures of sound and uniform integrity.

Due to its high risk and low efficacy—as well as the rather gruesome act of discombobulating someone’s mind to the point it could be entirely rewritten—the ‘third core skill’ had received a well-deserved taboo status. As the General said, only the most committed of proto-Kurators were given the chance to learn it: an exclusive group that included Yuito—and Asena. Yet despite being among a select few that had been licensed to [REWIRE], Asena had never heard of a non-experimental case where its use had been prescribed.

Until tonight.

Even as she reeled from the news, Asena could admit to seeing a throughline of logic behind the proposed plan.

[REWIRE] had a vanishingly low success rate because nearly all subjects Kurators worked with, no matter what ailed them, did possess a solid foundation of pre-existing memories: an idea and history of self that were consistent and robust. But what of Zelen? Wasn’t his exactly the kind of patchy and meandering mindscape that was an ideal testing ground for [REWIRE]?

Wouldn’t his idea and history of self—so full of pain, failure, loss, and death—be screaming out for a complete reset, so an entirely new person could rise from the ashes of what used to be Zelen Athelstan? Whole and ready to take up the fight again?

The song mercifully ended, and the hall filled with applause and idle chatter once more. There was no longer music to mask his voice, but that didn’t stop General Duodecim from leaning in close to leave a final warning.

“Two weeks. Or more accurately, thirteen days now. You have thirteen days to cure Lieutenant Athelstan using your methods. If you fall short, I’m handing over the reins to your father. Believe me when I say that I sincerely hope it doesn’t come to that. But we’re at war, Corporal, and our enemies have never waited for us to get our house in order.”

The General abruptly turned and left, no doubt to scout for his next dance partner.

Asena stood rooted to the spot, until she felt more bodies and voices closing in. She panicked. I can’t be here right now. She was in no state to even pretend to be antisocial. She needed to escape, and she needed to do it now.

Outside, night had well and truly fallen, though it didn’t provide the cover of darkness Asena had hoped for. Whoever had designed the Athelstans’ outdoor areas shared her mother’s love for Nexa-Lamps, and the ghostly blue from these light fixtures imbued the air with a paradoxically disorienting smog.

Which was rather fitting, considering how jumbled her mind was. Yet, as she stumbled through the half-darkness half-blueness, one word kept hammering at the fore of her consciousness.

Sacrifice.

Not long ago, she’d scoffed when the feckless Bannan Athelstan had thrown that word at her face. And throughout her sessions with Zelen, she’d seen and felt and relived her fiancé’s sacrifice, on too many occasions to count now, with her heart aching for him anew each time.

All this time, she thought she’d known what the word meant. As it turned out, she—like Bannan—knew nothing.

What was Asena willing to put on the line for the war? For Akropolis? She now knew what her father would answer: everything.

And Zelen Athelstan—the man she’d coddled and mothered and tortured for days on end—didn’t even need to answer. For he had given everything, again and again and again. And after all that, Akropolis still asked more of him.

What was Asena Shiranui willing to put on the line? She still didn’t have a clear answer, but she knew one thing. She wouldn’t sit idly by as the possibility that the two men she most cared about in the world might destroy each other became a reality.

She lost track of time. And of space. If this were day—and if her head had been clearer—she’d have no trouble navigating the Athelstan estate. But she’d been completely turned around within the half-dark half-blue smog, and she knew not how to find her way again.

That was when she heard the music.

It wasn’t the measured craftsmanship of the dance hall music she’d left behind. It was less precise, more circuitous, but also… more passionate.

And its passion called to Asena, beckoned her, until her shuffling feet and wandering eyes had settled onto one dimly lit path.