~February 25th, 140 MCE~

~Biksuguha, Concert Hall~

Zelen Athelstan awoke upon the leftmost corner of the balcony seats, and saw that he was alone. He was momentarily surprised and disoriented, as something from a half-remembered dream had left him with the lingering sensation of another’s presence. An embrace, one that was at once radiant with tender warmth and fraught with grim determination.

Something within him ached and yearned for this stranger’s embrace, with an intensity that was more alarming than the fact that he’d let himself fall asleep. The yearning soon faded as he readjusted to his own reality, and as he scanned the balcony up and down to confirm that he indeed was alone. No friend to watch over him. No foe to catch him unawares.

Down below on the main floor, the turnout was no less dismal, with no more than a dozen seats occupied by uniformed personnel… half of whom looked to be asleep themselves. Zelen could still remember a time when the concert hall used to be the preeminent place of gathering and mingling—back when the original architects of this facility would’ve been justified in building an entire balcony level. But he was a young man then, and that time was long gone. These days, the concert hall served as no more than a refuge for tired soldiers, a space to while away the dead hours of the day with idle distraction and in the privacy of their own thoughts.

Amidst the apathy, the dancer herself was illuminated under the venue’s single spotlight. The tall wiry figure of Asena Shiranui danced with reckless abandon, clad in a flowing golden dress that whipped and snapped with her every movement. She danced with unflagging energy and unabashed violence, as if to spite her theatre’s state of decline, to fill the empty seats with the imprints of her forceful performance.

No orchestra. Only the single track of garbled music that played on repeat from an ancient cassette tape. No props nor set design. Only the polearm that spun and drifted gracefully across the dancer’s body, as seamless as a natural extension to her anatomy. And no partner. Only the shadows that flitted in and out of the darkness beyond the edges of her spotlight.

For whom was the end of the dancer’s blade intended? What imagined enemy so fuelled her violence? Fully awake now, Zelen sat up and watched Shiranui’s performance, forgetting for a moment his own reason for escaping to the concert hall.

The reason manifested itself not a few minutes later, in the form of a young woman that weaved through the balcony’s empty seats before setting herself upon the one next to Zelen’s.

Dahlia Yarboro was of a much slighter build than Asena Shiranui, but she possessed a quiet energy about her that all but matched the dancer’s ferocity. Dressed in a loose-fitting overcoat and with eyes half-obscured by the glint on her glasses, she now directed this energy toward Zelen, who sighed inwardly before meeting her gaze.

“It’s all in place, I presume?” he asked under his breath, though the effort to lower his voice was likely superfluous.

“Yes,” she replied promptly, a wind-up toy released from its tension. “The cuckoos and their hatchlings have all been activated. Evacuation routes have been secured, with all shepherds on standby. Oh, and we’ve also armed the payload… just in case we need to reach a wider audience.”

“Hm. Who’s manning the comms station tonight?”

“One of the Vakta boys. Can’t remember which one.”

Zelen gave Dahlia a look, to which she merely scoffed.

“Oh, don’t act like it matters. Maybe it did once, but not anymore.”

“You sound as though you’re familiar with the way things used to be.”

“So you have a few decades on me, old man. But just because I’m young, doesn’t mean I’m stupid. Doesn’t mean I can’t see the truths for what they are. And can we not get sidetracked here? The point is, everything and everyone are ready to go. All we’re waiting on is your signal, Zelen.”

Zelen held Dahlia’s fierce gaze for several moments, now captivated by an entirely different sort of performance. But was it performance, or was it reality?

The brutality of Shiranui’s dance. The single-mindedness of Dahlia’s resolve. The manner by which these young women chose to express themselves—chose to fight for their own truths—felt more raw and real than anything else Zelen had experienced in the few decades he had on them. And that rawness and realness only added to his sorrow, stoked his instincts to protect rather than nurture.

He hesitated, unable to bring himself to meet Dahlia’s expectations, to be the steadying force against her ferocious yet anxious energy. He knew not what future awaited her and countless other young people of Biksuguha, and it was this uncertainty—more total and more pressing than at any other time he could recall—that kept him paralyzed with indecision.

After several moments of Zelen’s silence, Dahlia lowered her glasses to reveal eyes that were narrowed in disbelief. She hissed, “Don’t tell me you’re having doubts now. After all we’ve been through. With everything that’s at stake…”

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“I only wonder,” Zelen spoke slowly, trying in vain to convince himself as much as his companion, “if it isn’t too late to seek another way. Let me speak to the Council again. Perhaps there’s a way for us to—”

“Zelen. You’re the goddamned Chancellor. What fucking difference is speaking to your own Council going to make, if it hasn’t the first hundred times you tried?”

“They just need more time,” Zelen pleaded. “More time to sit with the evidence. Make peace with the conclusions they might draw. If we give them—”

“Time we can’t afford,” Dahlia snapped. “You think the cuckoos will wait for you while you twiddle your thumbs? While they risk discovery with every passing hour? You think the Syntropy will wait for humanity to ‘sit with the evidence’ that we’re losing this war? Make up your goddamned mind, old man. Because this is happening. With or without you.”

Just then, a commotion from below broke the pair’s deadlock. They both turned eyes and ears away from each other and onto the main floor.

The music continued to drown out any and all conversation, but the scene itself was plain for all to see. The dancer had stopped her dancing, and she now stood leaning against her weapon as she faced a group of newcomers that had invited themselves onto the stage.

Military police. Dressed in their recently redesigned black uniform. Rifles slung loosely over their shoulders. One among them stood tallest, a giant wraith of a man whose shoulder-length charcoal hair cascaded from the rim of his beret. It was this giant that now took a step forward and appeared to directly address the dancer.

From where Zelen sat, he couldn’t see the man’s face, but there was no mistaking that figure—or at least the family from which it originated. One of the Shiranui boys. He couldn’t remember which one, but as Dahlia might’ve put it, it likely didn’t matter. As brother and sister faced each other under the spotlight, Zelen understood with deepening sorrow that this was no mere family reunion.

“Is Asena Shiranui one of our cuckoos?” he asked Dahlia in a urgent whisper.

“No,” she answered, her own face tense with unease. “We did consider reaching out to her. God knows she would’ve been an invaluable asset. But I always assumed she was a loyalist. Something tells me I assumed wrong…”

Below them, that something hurtled toward its natural conclusion. As Zelen watched on in horror, Shiranui the dancer raised her polearm into a medium stance, while Shiranui the soldier unslung his rifle.

Zelen made to stand, and was held back by a firm hand on his arm. He looked frantically to Dahlia, who only jerked her head once in grim reproach. She was right, of course, as she often was. There was nothing Zelen could’ve done. Not from the balcony, and not with the impotence of a Chancellor only in name.

The report of gunfire echoed across the near-empty concert hall, momentarily deafening its captive audience. When the smoke cleared, the dancer’s lifeless figure lay crumpled in the centre of her spotlight, with pools of lurid red rapidly spreading over her gold dress. And when Zelen’s hearing returned to him, he once more heard the dancer’s music over the ringing in his ears—garbled, out of rhythm, and repeated ad nauseum.

For some time, the black-clad figure of the Shiranui sibling crouched next to his sister’s corpse, pressing one side of his body where the blade of her polearm had nicked him. His gaze appeared to be fixed upon his handiwork, upon the lurid redness that spread from his bullets. Watching this from above, Zelen imagined for a second his own sorrow germinating within the younger man’s chest—sinking, deepening, growing.

But then the soldier stood to his full height—a giant wraith of a man—and when he turned to look up at the balcony, Zelen was forced to readjust to his reality. For there was no sorrow within those charcoal eyes. Only duty. Only the conviction of another man’s truths.

The two men held each other’s gaze for but a fleeting moment, then the soldier, along with his comrades, turned and exited stage left.

Now the spotlight illuminated only the dancer and the redness that pooled beneath her body. No one went to her. Not one of the audience members that had used her show as a convenient form of escape. And not the old man that sat frozen upon the balcony, nor the young woman that gripped his arm with a wrathful ferocity.

“Do you see?” Dahlia spoke through gritted teeth, her eyes red and brimming with tears. “Do you see what’s at stake? What our inaction could cost us? Do you still want to bet on time? When time’s never been on our side to begin with?”

“I’m sorry,” Zelen choked out a whisper, as a tear rolled down his own cheek. “I’m just… I’m so sorry.”

Both of Dahlia’s hands flew to Zelen’s collar, and she shook him bodily.

“We don’t need your sorry, old man! We need you to act! Give us the signal, and we put our plans in motion tonight. Biksuguha will fall, and from its ashes will rise a new city. The most powerful and resilient bastion humanity has ever known. And with a new start, we might even win this godforsaken war—destroy the Syntropy before we can destroy ourselves.”

As he shook limply within Dahlia Yarboro’s grasp, Zelen felt his consciousness fade and clarify in equal measure. Every vibration sent forth another part of him into the universe. Into the Nexus.

Young and old. Past, present, and future. Possibilities that unfolded onto an ever-expanding stage. Inevitabilities that had been written upon stardust since aeons ago.

Carried across the pulsant enmeshment of the Nexus, the young woman’s voice was at once multitudinous and singular. It told another lie, while at the same time, it laid bare an immovable truth.

“You need to do this, Zelen! Break the cycle. Move forward, and never look back.”

~~~

~March 5th, 140 AH~

~The Caverns, Surface~

Zelen Athelstan came to inside his cockpit, and saw that he was alone. He was momentarily surprised and disoriented, as something from a half-remembered dream had left him with the lingering heat of another’s eyes. An unwavering gaze that had captivated him with its performance, with the conviction in its own truth.

Something within him cowered and recoiled under that gaze, only to find that he’d long been released from its hold. His fear soon faded as he readjusted to his own reality, only to be replaced by another fear, one that was far more pressing and in need of redress.

He watched from the desert floor as two dancers—unwilling partners both—flew in the sky above. A crimson centipede and its faded-gold counterpart. And cast upon their metallic frames was, not the glare of a spotlight, but the shadow of death.