My eyes fly open at the sound of a knock on the door. I take a deep breath, banishing the last vestiges of sleep from my mind and shoot out of bed, still wearing the clothes from the night before. I take the two steps needed to reach the door, but as I fling it open, all hope is dashed as I see not Ko-lee standing before me, but the asshole priest I'd had the "pleasure" of conversing with nearly a month ago. "Oh," I say, doing my best to appear relaxed in front of the pompous adherent. "I didn't know you knew where I lived." His face has an expression I can't quite place on it; a mixture of disgust and frustration, hidden under a layer of false serenity. "Emotional landlord special." He takes a moment, before speaking. "Miss Nova-" is all he manages to say before I cut off him off with a shake of my head. "Uh uh, it's not miss. It's missus. I'm married," I say, holding up the ring on my left hand.

There's confusion now, flitting across his face, but eventually he just nods. "Alright... Mrs. Nova. The Unum has requested your presence," he says, locking eyes with me. The declaration holds weight to it, and in a different situation I likely would have been more willing to match the vibe he was trying to impart, but having just woke up and having had had an argument the night before with my girlfriend, the best I can manage is frustration. "Now?" I think to myself, trying to outwardly appear thoughtful and not upset. "Of all the god damn times for the Unum to make a demand, she had to pick this exact moment? Can't say it endears me to the damn building. And I still don't have the money. I was gonna pop over to Cetus and talk to Konzu; I never did that." I take a moment to stretch for the door frame, before responding. "What a great turn around on my application. I'll be honest, it was quicker than I thought'd be..." I say, before trailing off.

The frustration from before has returned to the priest's expression, derailing my sentence. "Your application is still... under review, as far as I am aware. This request has come from the Unum herself," he says, doing his best not to grit his teeth. I just raise my eyebrows at the claim. "Well well well, looks like she can send someone on a fetch quest if she gave a fuck. So what's got her panties so twisted she needs to see me right now?" I think. "Well," I say with a yawn, "now really isn't the best time-" But this time I'm the one getting interrupted. "Unfortunately, I will need you to come with me. Right now," he says, his tone sharp. "Fuck, I really wanted to go talk to Ko-lee," I think, quirking an eyebrow at the priest's demand. "Right now? And how much wiggle room do I have on that? Is that a 'no breakfast, in my PJ's' right now, or would I have the opportunity to throw something on before being dragged off?"

I normally try to avoid quipping with (or at) people in positions of power - unless I think I can get away with it - but the priest's demands rub me the wrong way, and I'm still too emotionally drained from the night before to play the game. Luckily, the priest acquiesces to my request for clothes, with only the tiniest huff. "Clothes, but straight to her chambers," he says, as I close the door. "I am aware you have just woken up, but we simply do not have time for you to go through a full morning routine!" he half yells through the obstruction. Mocking him while in my room, I grab a few clothes from the drawer, and quickly change before popping back out into the hall only a few minutes later. He gives me a look like he wants to say something about my attire, but I walk right past him, exclaiming "Onwards!" before he gets a chance to do so.

There's a brief moment as he has to power walk to overtake me, and he awkwardly shimmies past in the small hallway only a step or two before we reach reception. Heya is clearly interested in my travelling companion, and I give her a quick wave before speaking. "Could you let Ko-lee know that I'm getting pulled away by this guy? Turns out the Unum really wants to have a chat and I guess she's got a tight schedule to keep." Her expression morphs into one of shock, but the priest's physical proximity shoves me out the door before she gets a chance to reply. He steps out in front of me, and begins to head off towards the church, taking the same route that I had traveled not that long ago. He's silent the entire time, rebuffing my attempts at conversation, but otherwise the walk is pleasant. I have a chance to wave to a few of the people I'm becoming familiar with as we past them, and eventually, we find ourselves back in the church.

As we arrive, he takes me past the seats towards the back, on the left side of the pulpit, to a door tucked away in the corner. We enter into a hallway; smaller than the main hallways, but bigger than the one found at Goldstone, with a slight curve to it so that I can't see the end. As we walk, my eyes wander around, but beyond the standard Orokin styling on the wall and floor, the hallway is completely unadorned. It also doesn't contain any other doors, lending no clues as to how far along we've traveled, or how far we'd need to go. Suddenly, and without warning, we find ourselves at the end of the hallway, facing a single door. I look at the man, and he takes what looks like a badge out of his pocket, placing it in a socket on the left hand side of the door. It swings open, allowing us to enter, and on the inside is an elevator. He drops his badge into a basket next to the door, containing a multitude of other badges, before giving me a small head movement, indicating that I'm supposed to enter the lift.

"What, you don't wanna come?" I ask, not expecting much a response, but for the first time in nearly half an hour, he speaks. "The chamber is reserved for those who are to hear the Unum's words. Today, that is not me. You are to go, by yourself," he says, gesturing with one hand. "Froo froo ass whatever. You coulda just said no," I think, giving him a small bow. I step onto the light lift, looking identical to the one I've used nearly 50 times before, and find myself at the top before I have any moment to notice. "I wonder if maybe gravity works different in this universe," I muse, stepping out of the incredibly quick elevator. The room I find myself in is unadorned, much like the hallway prior, with another single door. This one, however, is incredibly intricate, and it takes me a moment to realize that it's not elegant filigree, but Orokin script covering nearly every inch. "I wish I was a big enough nerd to know how to translate this," I think, staring at the words, before finally pushing my way through.

The first thing to catch my attention in the circular room I find myself in is a glowing sphere made of some unidentifiable material, floating about a foot below the ceiling. The material - I assume - is made out of some sort of mix between a circuit board and a solid chunk of quartz, while the glow comes from millions of lights tracing across every inch of the 10 foot radius ball. Cabling runs out of the top of the orb and onto the ceiling, where it traces over to columns up against the wall. The columns look more organic than usual (barring something like my worksite) and I can see what appears to be fluids running from tubing in the floor and up into the columns as well. My gaze makes its way to the floor to see what I can best describe as modular; every inch of the floor seems removable, and my brain immediately makes connections to the removable parts of a laptop, or the access panel of a breaker for a house.

"So they're probably not decorative then. This space is like, the brain and the service corridor, all at once," I think. "Correct," says the air. I startle, and at the same time, a part of mind mind twinges at the voice as though it's familiar, although I'm unable to place it. "Ah," I say, my eyes looking around the room. "I sort of forgot you could read my mind. Uhm. Hello." "Hello," responds the voice. It's clear and easy to understand, with a feminine bent to it, but the prosody is neutral, like an early days Siri. "Unfortunately, we can only fully examine a mind if one is connected via our life blood, or if they are within these chambers themselves. Otherwise, I am only able to receive faint impressions," says the Unum. "Oh," I say, examining the empty space. The only door is the one behind me, and beyond that, there's no chairs or anything for me to rest on, so I'm just stood there feeling somewhat silly. "So, you called?"

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I'm unsure of how to interface with the tower, and her ability to manipulate time and read my mind is starting to give me a smidge of anxiety. "Pre-sentient AI tech? Or just more bioengineered stuff? It's giving Torture Nexus either way," I think, my mind trying to find something to latch on to. "I need answers," says the voice. It feels odd, because while my mind is telling me that I can hear the sound, it's clearly not audible, as the resonance is all wrong compared to my voice. "Like noise cancelling headphones." "Well... what sort of answers? I'm not sure if I can help you but... uh... you're sort of like my boss I guess, so... whatever I can help with," I say, tracing a circle in the center of the room. "You are a gap. A tear. A void in the temporal stream," says the Unum. "You are old, and yet not." Another twinge, my mind clearly remembering something, but unwilling or unable to let me know what.

"Well, I'm not old... but I think I might know what you're talking about. Is... is that your question?" I ask, feeling unsure. I have no desire to spill my secrets to the Unum, but as far as I know, she's a force for good in the Warframe universe. "I mean, I don't really know that, to be fair. The lore in game is all over the place; it's hard to know what her deal is. The only time we get to talk to her at all is when she beams us up to a murex after we unstick it from her head. 'Name theory' says she's a friend too," I think, referring to my running theory of whether a character in Warframe was friend or foe based on the color of their name. Still, I plan to keep my cards close to my chest. "My question is simple, traveler," she states, her voice calm and measured.

"Who are you?"

"What?" "What?" I think and speak at the same time. "I've been here for a month and change, surely she knows who I am. Is this some Iro shit?" I wonder, before taking a stab in the dark. "I'm... Antimony?" Silence. All I can hear is the tinnitus in my ear, and I'm about to open my mouth to repeat my words when the Unum speaks again. "That is your name. Who are you?" she asks, this time her question having a tangible weight to it. "Antimony!" I say, getting nervous. "I could just start saying shit? What does she want? I can't... or... she can read minds too but she can't just pull it out of me?? What is she looking for?" My mind spirals for a brief moment, before her words hit me again, this time even harder than before. "WHO?" she asks, and words begin tumbling from my mouth. "I'm from another world! This one, this world! But it's-it's different! In the past, or something, I... I don't know! I don't know how I got here, I'm just trying to get home! That's what I am. Someone far from home."

The pressure eases, and I take a breath, before a flash of rage sweeps through me. "What the fuck was that? Did she just mind fuck me? I folded like a paper napkin! It's like I couldn't help but speak," I think, and I open my mouth to snap at her, when she speaks once more. "You Desire to return home?" "Yes!" I want to snap at her but something stays my tongue. "I... would like to go home," I say, cautiously. "Do you Desire it?" she says, the sharp edge returning. "I don't know why you're phrasing it like that," I say, my eyes flickering towards the door behind me. "Are you a puppet of The Other? That Which Bears No Name? He Who Speaks? The Creator of Angels and Devils?" she asks, each name pounding into my skull like a jackhammer. "Fucking what? God? Or... wait, is she talking about Wally?" I think. I'm about to open my mouth, but it's as though the air leaves my lungs every time she speaks, forcing me to listen.

"You know of him. The one you call... Wally? It is as though... you have seen his face... and yet... what is this...?" she says, her voice having a note of uncharacteristic emotion. "PINKELEPHANTPINKELEPHANTPINKELEPHANT," I repeat in my mind, in a desperate attempt to prevent her from digging too much info out of me. "I'm on your side," I say, trying to impart truthfulness in my words. Part of me worries that my mind will be stripped bare, that I'll be judged not on my actions, but on my thoughts. But another part of me simply doesn't want to lose control of the one thing that can lend me any level of safety in the system. "And one part of you is just desperate to be special," a dark part of my mind whispers. "If you don't have this, you're nothing, just like you were nothing before. You so desperately want to be the main character here, you're fighting against someone who's meant to be on your side." My fingernails dig into my palms, and I'm unsure if the voice is truly me, or the Unum playing tricks.

"You say you are on my side. And yet...," says the Unum, her voice a note lower than before. There's tension in the air, and I can tell that she's made up her mind on whatever verdict she's about to deliver. I'm torn; I want to tell her that I am on her side, to plead, to beg, but the more logical part of me wants to let her speak her piece. "If you speak up, you're just going to make her point for her. Be reasonable," it says. The choice is taken from me as she begins to speak. "Your demeanor is cheerful, but it is a mask. You do not lie, not often, but you obscure, you hide the truth. The words that drip from your mouth are like poisoned honey." I feel lead in my stomach.

"You can not be trusted."

"Well, hold on!" I say, doing my best to salvage the situation with the building. "I'm... hold on! That's not..." I want to deny, to tell her that's she wrong, to push back against her declaration of falsehood, but a quiet part of my mind pierces through the running loop of 'pink elephant' to come forward. "You don't tell the truth though, do you? Who really knows you? All of you? You are bits and pieces, fragments and masks to so many different people..." says my mind. "You're not being fair!" I say, in response to myself and the Unum. "You don't get to make judgement calls on me! You sit here as a powerful bio-engineered building, playing fucking god, while we scrounge around in the dirt?! Who the FUCK ARE YOU TO SAY I CAN'T BE TRUSTED? YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT I'VE BEEN THROUGH."

"But I do, Nova," the voice rings out. "I have seen into your mind. I may know you better than you know yourself. You are a fragmented, facsimile of a person. You think you are 'quirky' or 'interesting', but what you are is broken at your core. Whether you mean to be or not, you are a threat to those under my care, and ultimately, a threat to the future of the system." My mouth is dry, and my vision starts to blur at the edges. I raise my arms, trying to clear away what I assume are tears. Instead, I find my eyes dry, and yet my vision continues to degrade, darkening at the edges. Beyond the haze, I can see humanoid figures dressed in strange outfits; large flat brims on their heads and vertically split masks, like the surface of a grill.

"Oh, cool, it's the Quills," I say in English sarcastically. "I'm about to get iced by Onkko and friends." My head is pounding, and I'm barely able to stand, something quickly remedied by the Unum. "You will be dealt with," she says, her voice knocking me to my knees. Every one of my limbs feels heavy, as though my muscles have been replaced by tungsten. "You don't want to let me die on my feet?" I struggle out, no longer feeling the need to play nice with the murderous skyscraper. There's no response. I struggle to lift my head, to look for the exit, but I'm barely able to see beyond a few feet in front of me, past the death slowly surrounding me.