Arboretum | 1:33 PM | Second Day

I didn't know too much about Zeno of Apocyrion compared to some people in the class. Kamrusepa and Ezekiel, in particular, were known fans who probably could have rattled off countless facts. But he was a difficult man to not know something about. As came up earlier, being the creator of not just a school of the Power, but an entire discipline, he was one of the most famous scholars in the Remaining World.

Hundreds, possibly even thousands of incantations could be traced back to his work on using arcana to manipulate the human nervous system, and subverting the restriction on employing it on the human mind by establishing a chemical interface through the bloodstream instead of targeting the brain or the pneumaic nexus. Combine that with his work for the order in combating associative-collapse dementia, and he'd arguably done more to raise lifespans and improve the quality of life of the elderly than anyone else still living. If you measured the weight of his soul against the good he'd done in a purely utilitarian sense, he was objectively a saint.

But from everything I'd heard from Neferuaten and elsewhere, he sounded like an utterly insufferable person. Self-assured, entitled, judgemental but relentlessly hypocritical - the sort of individual who'd steal food from your pantry without asking, leave the wrappings on the floor, and then throw a fit when they found out you'd borrowed their logic engine while they were in the kitchen. Selfish in a petty, childish way.

Of course, this was all second hand information. Based purely on what I'd read in interviews, he came across as immensely typical for someone of his position. Professional, austere... Polite, if slightly conceited. The kind of figure you visualize when someone says 'famous scholar', probably sitting at a desk with a well-trimmed white beard.

However, after Linos's warning... Well, I wasn't sure what to expect. And the idea of meeting someone so important one-on-one, and having to make an impression to that effect, had started to rattle me a little.

Nevertheless. A little over 5 minutes later, I was at the rear end of the arboretum bioenclosure, facing one of the the entrances, the tower, uh, towering overhead.

As a structure, it was radically out of place with the rest of the sanctuary. While all the other bioenclosures held both outdoor and indoor environments, the tower was just the building, making it by far the smallest of the three - although judging it as a building, it was easily larger than both the abbey and the order's headquarters put together. It was only about half as wide as the latter if you were to round it out, but was much, much taller, coming to ten stories at minimum... And that was assuming it also had the strangely tall ceilings I'd seen elsewhere. It was massive; the size of an office complex.

It was also distinct by virtue of looking unambiguously modern - to the point I would have guessed it had probably been built within the past few decades. The whole thing was made out of glass, but this was something more sophisticated than the sort all over the place. Most of it was shaded dark, to the point that it left only a vague impression of the light beyond, but the parts which weren't were so clear that it didn't look like anything was there at all. This included the bottom floor, giving the impression I was stepping right out onto the sea bed.

My guess from seeing this, and the irregularity in the disparity, was that the transparency could be manipulated on a room-by-room basis, allowing either total visibility or utter privacy. I didn't have a clue how this could work. Maybe it was an artifice, or just some advanced, responsive alloy...? I didn't know enough about specialized materials to be certain.

This impression of technological sophistication was strengthened further when I headed down the connective tunnel and approached the door to the structure proper. Unlike the cumbersome seals that separated the other bioenclosures from one another, this gateway, at first, looked like solid metal covered in an intricate pattern of curved lines, reminiscent of a fractal, though less detailed. But as I approached, segments begun to slide away in fluid motions, scythe-like, into the surrounding wall, until a passage had formed for me.

That went past modern into futuristic. As for the interior, the central chamber, perfectly round, had an illuminated floor that was a purer white than even marble, without a visible blemish to to be seen. My eyes turning upwards, I could see all the way to the top of the building. Each floor seemed to be identical, with an open middle, and a loop around the periphery connected to four doorways, each akin to the one I'd just passed through. But there was one thing that struck me. Though the effect hadn't been visible from the exterior at all, the lighting on each floor had a subtly different hue, going from warmer tones at the nadir to cooler ones at the apex, but with a difference so slight you couldn't even notice it between two connected floors.

Although it had nothing on the shocking strangeness of the main headquarters exterior, or the sheer bizarre appearance of the Everblossom, it was all still something else to look at. And once again, probably catastrophically expensive to put together. I'd almost never seen an environment so pristine outside of an echo construct. It was one of those places that made you feel vaguely ashamed just to stand around in, like you weren't clean/wealthy/important enough for it to be appropriate. There was even the intimidating, hyper-sterile smell.

Ran would probably think it was creepy. Kam, on the other hand, would love it.

Up ahead, in the center of the chamber, was a raised platform with a logic bridge on the far side. Presumably, this was the elevator that Linos mentioned. I stepped over to it and pressed my hand against the surface.

Understand that you must select a floor, it communicated.

Four, I thought.

There was no mechanism to speak of. It simply began to rise, without so much as a lurch, upwards in total silence. The pace was so even that it didn't even feel like movement at all if I closed my eyes.

I wasn't sure this had the effect they desired, as the dissonance made the process almost more uncomfortable than just ascending a normal elevator. Like my brain didn't quite understand what was happening from the mismatch of sensory data.

Soon enough, it came to my destination. I'd been wondering for a moment if it might be a little tough to find the right room, but as soon as the ascent was complete and I got a clear look at one of the doors, I realized that I needn't have worried. The numerals were clearly marked above each, engraved on simple silver plaques that glimmered in the light.

I headed for room four, which was on the left, since they seemed to be numbered clockwise. This time, the door didn't open for me automatically, but there was a little oval-shaped protrusion a the side that I assumed to be some kind of doorbell. I pressed my hand into it, and a moment later, the metal slid away once again.

I passed into some kind of antechamber; too small and hallway-like to be the laboratory itself. There were three further doorwards, in addition to a small table with a couple of sofas, set up like a waiting area. On one of them, legs crossed, casually reading a copy of Parmenides' Aletheia, was Balthazar.

He looked in a similar state to Ophelia, with darkened eyes and a paled complexion, but his manner was exactly the same as it had been this morning. Calm, casual, constant of expression. Smiling just a little as he looked up at my arrival.

Immediately, I felt the sense of placeless irritation I had earlier. Linos had told me to look for him, but despite that, I couldn't help but wish that he'd been somewhere else.

"Ah, I was wondering when you'd get here," he said, setting the book down on the fabric beside him. It was a copy of New Historia, a history journal designed to be accessible to laymen. "Hey there."

"Uh, hi," I said, trying to stop my feelings from showing on my face. "I'm here to see Zeno. Can you point me in the right direction?"

"Sure thing. All the doors feed into the same place, but the one straight ahead goes right into his main laboratory, so that's your best bet," he said, gesturing towards the one behind the couch. "That said, they haven't opened yet, so he's probably not ready. He always does his meetings that way-- Doesn't even acknowledge you exist until it's time." He laughed softly. "As passive-aggressive as you can get, huh?"

"Oh..."

That's kind of annoying, I thought to myself. He's going to make me wait, even though he was the one who asked me to come in the first place?

"It probably won't be long, so I wouldn't worry too much," Balthazar said, as if he'd read my train of thought. "From my experience, he likes to keep people waiting a little as a matter of habit. A way to set the power dynamic in his favor." He smiled. "He has that sort of unwholesome personality, I'm afraid. Kept me standing at the outer door not too long ago, even though my back was aching from the stretcher."

I blinked. "That's a pretty forward way to talk about your mentor."

"'Mentor'?" He shook his head. "Someone's been giving you funny ideas."

'Someone' in this case was Neferuaten. She'd called him his protégé.

"He isn't...?" I asked.

"Not in the least. As I believe I said this morning, he merely took an interest in some of my work. I wouldn't say we have much of a relationship at all, really. To think, I went along with a such a ridiculous request, only for it to turn out like this..." He sighed to himself. "In any case, take a seat, if you like. Plenty of room." He gestured to his side.

I hesitated for a moment. "No thanks," I said. "I don't want to get comfortable if I'll just have to get up again in a minute or two."

"Suit yourself," he said, with a shrug. His gaze wandered off to the east, towards the other bioenclosures, still visible through the glass. "I should thank you for saving my life, by the way."

"Saving your li--" I blinked.

Right, right. I'd been the one to treat him after the prosognostic event had happened. Gods, the fact that something like that had whole scene had managed to slip out of my head certainly illustrated what a morning it had been.

"Oh... It was nothing," I said, after a few moments. "You weren't in too serious a condition, so all I really did was stop the bleeding."

"Still, without you, I have the sense I might've been left to expire with my back against that tree, with everyone else focusing on their friend. So, please know that I appreciate it."

He smiled, but something about it felt far ingenuine, without warmth. Like he wasn't actually thanking me at all, but instead making a little joke to himself at my expense.

I didn't care for it. Not in the least.

"Talk about a disaster, though," he said, turning to face the ground as he digressed. "It's hard to fathom the extent of the bad luck, or that something like that could be permitted to happen at all, in a place like this."

"Yeah," I said. "We all said the same thing, afterwards."

"I guess it just goes to show that you're never truly safe from the phenomenon," he said. "Given time, the debased can begin to feel natural, but it only takes a little push to remind you of the position you're in." His eyes flickered up to mine. "In terms of our culture, I mean."

"Right... Yeah, I guess," I said.

"To think it would be a girl, too. I suppose I ought to be embarrassed." He left out a soft snort, "Tell me, that girl-- Gods, what was her name..."

"Ophelia," I said. The word came out cold. Part of me was blaming him for what happened, even though that wasn't really fair.

He snapped his fingers. "Mm, that's right, Ophelia. Was she alright? I've been here since they finished getting me back on my feet over in the main building, for obvious reasons. Suffice it to say, my welcome seems to have worn out faster than a Paritist in Rhunbard."

"She's okay," I told him. His concern for her sounded genuine, but I still wasn't sure that I bought it. "The others managed to stabilize her pretty quickly. She was unconscious for a few hours, but from the state she was in when it happened, I'd say it was a-- Well, it was a pretty lucky outcome."

"Ah, that that's a relief, then," he said softly. "I'd hate to responsible for any more mischief in this place than I have to be."

I furrowed my brow. "Then you have to be?"

"Just a turn of phrase. Though I don't expect I'd be allowed to do anything exciting now, whether I wished to or not," he said, showing no visible reaction to my confrontational tone. "You look a little tense. Had a rough morning?"

"Uh, yeah," I said, folding my arms together. "A little bit."

"I'm sorry to hear that," he said sympathetically. "I hope things turn around for you soon."

I mumbled some kind of affirming reply, looking away.

Why did I feel so hostile to this guy? It was strange. As much as I came across as kind of a delicate person and was good at spiraling into personal crises if left to my own devices, I was usually pretty good at handling unpleasant people and not getting worked up; a product of when I'd been bullied as a child. I usually stayed among the calmest whenever Kamrusepa got into one of her obnoxious moods, and even Ezekiel had trouble getting a rise out of me.

But just having this casual conversation was making me... Not just anxious, but annoyed. In a way that was unlike myself.

Was it the fact he had that vague resemblance to Ophelia that was unsettling to me? No-- I'd dealt with prosognostic overlap between people I knew before, and it'd only made me mildly uncomfortable. Was it his calm tone of voice? The way he barely made eye contact?

I was having the feeling again, for the first time in a while. The sense that there was something clawing at the corners of my mind, like I'd left the stove on and some tiny part of my brain was screaming to grab a bucket of water and run back down the street. But before, it'd felt ominous, filled with dread. This feeling just made me want to punch someone.

As I was dwelling on this, some neuron fired in the back of my head, and I remembered something.

"Hey," I said. "There was something I wanted to ask you."

He looked up again. "Oh?"

"This morning..." I said, suddenly wondering if this was a stupid idea. "After I'd treated you out in the garden and Durvasa turned up to carry you off for further treatment... You said something."

He raised an eyebrow. "Did I?" He was silent for a moment, looking at me closely. "To be honest, I don't recall much of what happened after your friend came down the stairs. I remember that red-head giving her apology to the Mekhian - Seth, I think - the others having a back and forth about it... But everything after that point is a blur." He tilted his head very slightly. "Is this something I said to you? Or just something embarrassing I blurted out."

"I think it was meant for me," I said.

"Indeed?"

"Yeah, or at least... In regard to me, I suppose." I frowned. "I'm pretty sure you said, 'I kept my promise'."

There was a moment of silence.

His expression didn't change, though his eyes wandered upwards thoughtfully. "Hm, I was hoping something would come to me, but now that I think about it, I'm not sure I remember anything at all after the start of the event." He shrugged. "Sorry."

I frowned. "...that's not true, though."

He blinked, his expression becoming idly curious. "It isn't?"

"Earlier, you said 'I might've been left to expire with my back against that tree'," I quoted. "So you must remember at least a little about what happened afterward."

His eyes widened in gentle surprise for a moment, but his smile didn't waver. "You really are quite a determined interrogator when you have a mind for it. It's a strong quality, for better or worse." He hunched over a bit, leaning forward. "I think you might be reading a little too much into things, though. I just heard people talking about what happened after the fact."

"You must have heard a lot," I said, inexplicably dying on this hill. I didn't know why, but all my usual embarrassment and shyness seemed to have left me. "You mentioned that your back ached from being carried on the stretcher earlier, too."

He stared at me for another few moments. In the silence, I noticed there was actually quite a loud ticking coming from somewhere higher in the building, like you'd hear in a clock tower. Clunk, clunk.

...but then, suddenly, he started to laugh. It was high, surprisingly melodic for a man, but colored with a strange sort of fatigue. It lasted for several moments, the sound echoing up and down the walls of the tower.

"...what's so funny?" I asked.

"Dying Gods, you really are an unfair person, aren't you?" He said, ignoring my question and narrowing his eyes. " Right to the bitter end."

My frown turned to confusion. "'Unfair person?'" Bitter end?

"I don't like to think of myself as the resentful type," he said, now not seeming to be looking at me at all, "but I have to admit, I can't help but feel a little cheated. To struggle for such a long time, just to be saddled with a role like this, and left to-- Well, to be given to choice to either suck it up, or make the situation even worse. And to not even be allowed a few moments of catharsis as a consolation prize... It's cruel. There's no other word for it."

I stared at him, completely baffled. "What are you talking about?"

"Pardon me, I'm being overly verbose," he said, and looked at me head on again. "What I mean is, I hope you'll forgive me if I act a little immature this time, ...Shiko."

At that word, I twitched sharply.

My body stiffened, my chest going tight, and whatever train of thought I had going to try and decipher what the hell was happening in this conversation derailed sharply. My mouth felt dry, and I looked away, removing my glasses to rub my eyes.

"What's the matter?" he asked. "You look distressed. There's a sink over in the corner if you need something to drink, Shiko."

There was a twinge of malice in his voice that hadn't been present before. Suddenly, I felt deeply uncomfortable. I didn't want to be here. I wanted to be anywhere else.

"I--" I hesitated. "I don't know what you're trying to say to me, but... Please don't call me that."

"Why not?" he asked. He lowered his head, but his gaze stayed level, focused on me intently. "It's just a contraction of your name. It's cute, isn't it?" He enunciated the tones more deliberately, coming closer to the proper Saoic pronunciation. "Shii-ko."

I started sweating, my heartbeat speeding up quickly, feeling pulses of fear and dread amidst the irrational sense that my body was drifting away from me, becoming something more peripheral. Had I brought my medication? It was probably in my bag, but it was dangerous to take without water. He'd-- He'd said there was a sink. My eyes disengaged from him, trying to see where in the room it was, but no matter where I looked, it wasn't there.

Had he been lying? No, you idiot, you're just panicking over nothing. Calm down. But them, him saying it like that, didn't that mean--

Suddenly, the metal door straight ahead began to open, the strips of metal slithering away quickly, and a path was opened up ahead. It took me by such surprise that I almost jumped backwards.

By the time I got my bearings, Balthazar was back to reading his book. "Good timing," he said. "Well, I'm sure you don't want to spend any more time here. Go on ahead."

I turned sharply back to him, still breathless. A little panic, not yet refined into anything coherent, came out as I spoke, eyes wide. "I... Do you--"

"Know something? Not really. The fact that I'm still basically operating off context clues is what makes this so situation so funny." Despite saying that, he didn't look particularly amused. "Still, that might've been a little much. For both of our sakes, let's avoid speaking again until everything starts."

I stared at him, at a loss for words. Eyes wide, mouth slightly agape.

"What are you waiting for?" he asked. "You have an appointment."

I stood there for another few moments, feeling paralyzed right down to my eyeballs. Then, as if some invisible force had suddenly granted me permission, I turned and rushed through the door, not looking back.

Mercifully, it shut behind me. You have some water with you, remember? You brought the bigger bag with you for your presentation. I leaned against the side of the wall and reached downward into it, grasping around around for something oblong and heavy, until eventually my fingers found purchase on a flask, which had sunk to the bottom. Then, I reached to withdraw my bottle of medication from its usual pouch, my free hand scratching harshly at my scalp in a gesture of neurotic hysteria.

Before I could get it out, though, I felt my body grow chilly, and a sicking shiver rise up from my gut, accompanied by goosebumps. I felt like I was going to throw up, and my upper body lurched at an angle, my chest heaving up and down.

No, not here! Something in me yelled. Have you seen how clean they keep this place? They'll hang you from the fucking rafters!

My eyes widened in panic, and I inhaled sharply, throwing myself backwards. For a moment, I felt abyssmal, and could barely stand. But slowly, it seemed pass, my gut calming, if only a little bit.

Mercifully, my fingers had managed to find the bottle, the colored fluid swirling as I fumbled and let my bag fall to the floor. I couldn't exactly mix it normally without a glass, so instead, I crudely let a couple of droplets fall on to my tongue, then quickly gulped from the bottle and sloshed it the liquid around on the inside of my mouth. Once I was satisfied everything had blended together, I gulped, and then took another drink for good measure.

Technically, it was supposed to take at least five minutes for you to start feeling any effects, but I usually found it easier to calm down almost right away. Maybe it was just a placebo, but I had enough problems without psychoanalyzing out new ways to suffer.

Gradually, my breathing slowed. My heart began to pace itself. And I begun to process the events that had just taken place. A lot of manic, conspiratorial ideas rushed into my mind. Does he know something? Oh god, oh fuck.

I focused, trying my best to squash them. I let uncontroversially pleasant thoughts flow through my mind. Talking at the tram stop with Ran. Having my first meal with Neferuaten in Tem-Aphat. Being at home in my room, wrapped up in my sheets, in a state where I could almost forget myself.

Eventually, more rational voices began to win out.

Relax, a part of me said. What happened doesn't mean anything. He's probably just tied up in some drama involving Zeno and your grandfather that you're not aware of, and is holding a grudge against you for something to do with it. He admitted himself that the only reason he said that was context clues. He probably just saw you react badly to the name this morning, and then decided to use it to cut off your line of questioning.

That was logical, or felt logical. But as usual, it wasn't as reassuring as I hoped. I had a sense of deep dread hanging over me, like I was failing to understand something vitally important about what had just taken place. It felt like he'd been implying something about me.

But then... We'd never met. Had we?

You don't have the stamina to worry about this right now, I told myself. That, at least, was certain. I'd known even before I came here that there would be things going on regarding the politics of the order and my relation to it that I'd have to suffer through being ignorant of - my meeting with the class coordinator had made that much clear. It wasn't any of my business.

I just needed to do what I was here for. The presentation, the meeting with Samium. That was it. Everything else was peripheral.

I sighed, and did my best to gather myself together.

I turned upwards, taking a look at the room around me.

It was, as a matter of fact, a laboratory. And quite a sophisticated-looking one at that. There were dozens of all bookshelves, incantation plates stacked high, and a variety of experiments (or possibly just test subjects) were held in suspension fields and tanks around the room, most of them looking like they were sampled or something to do with the human nervous system, which was expected considering the chamber's owner.

What I expected less was the convention furnaces, great oval-shaped things of titanium and stone, and the tall bronze pylons attached to them all around the room. Intermittently, charges of bright light would silently blast between them overhead. It looked, to say the least, spectacularly dangerous.

Funnily, though this area had been shaded from the exterior, I could see perfectly through all the walls now that I was inside. This offered a good view of both the headquarters bioenclosure, the arboretum, and even the Everblossom, some way in the distance. It glowed ominously.

There was no clear sign of Zeno in the vicinity, so I cautiously stepped forward towards the other end of the room - if it connected to the other doors as well, like Balthazar had explained, then the place had to be bigger than it looked, once I got past all the clutter.

As I moved, I noticed that the energy from the pylons all seemed to be flowing to, or perhaps from, the same place; a biological logic engine, right up against the window. It was only made up of about ten segments, making it far smaller than Sekhmet, but looked even more cutting-edge in design, the folds of neural tissue denser and more obviously interlinked.

For a moment, I forgot my objective, and instead moved to examine the thing closer. I began to notice something. The charges weren't just flowing into the machine, they were interfacing with it. Whenever one arrived at the connected pylon, the tissue folds would shudder, then... Shift, subtly, the lines and creases on their surface flowing as if becoming liquid. Then they'd sharply stop, a few moments would pass, and the process would repeat.

Watching it was strangely hypnotic. I leaned my head in closer, trying to get a better idea of what it could be doing--

"Admiring my work, are you?"

--and literally jumped, as I turned to face the voice.

But when I did, I was immediately very confused.