To be honest, I can't really remember much of what I was thinking while the conversation was actually happening. Once it became clear how serious it was, I spent pretty much the whole time scared shitless. What if Samium checked who else was attuned? What would he do to me? I struggled desperately not to move, or to even breathe loudly.

Though the specifics of what they were planning were lost on me - I didn't even know what Induction was, let alone concepts like assimilation failure and the ability of Neuromancy to regulate its occurrence - I got the gist of it: They were planning, or at least had been planning, to somehow brainwash Shiko or have someone else take her place. It was like something out of a horror story, and surely phenomenally illegal.

I can't imagine what conclusion I reached with the 'Asphodeloi' stuff, though; even now, where I realize they were probably using the word to differentiate between assimilation failures and people born into the Remaining World, there are fuzzy details and moments where it feels like there was context lost on me. I wouldn't be surprised if I thought they were extraterrestrials.

"It would have ended in a wash anyway, or an outright disaster," Shiko's grandfather continued, after Samium didn't say anything for a while. "My condition is getting worse by the month at this point-- On the bad days, I sometimes even forget where I live. Slim chance I'd have the sense to keep my distance, if I even remembered who she was at all."

"Would that have been so terrible?" Samium said, now seeming resigned.

"It would have," Shiko's grandfather spoke confidently. "Not just for her own safety, but... Well, the last I'd ever want would be for her to see me as I am now. Distorted..." He hesitated, cutting himself off. "It's for the best."

"What about the pneuma?" the other man asked. "What should be done with it?"

He paused for a long moment, considering the question. "...at this point," he said, "even if I asked you to attempt the project again after my death, the outcome would be far less precarious. There won't be another circumstance to give her a similar body with the plausible deniability I stumbled into with Kataoka. Nor will there be another family I'd trust to take care of her. And, well..." He made a flat smile. "Even if you're in better shape than I am at this point, you're not exactly a spring chicken. We can't be certain you'd even be there if any complications arose over her early life."

"There's things we could do," he said. "We could set up a trust for her. I could call in my contacts at Citizen Oversight and get her documented, we could reach out to some of our old colleagues to see if they could act as foster parents in exchange for some property, or else simply pay carers directly-- I don't know. My point is, we're not out of options."

"Well, we wouldn't be in quite this position if the silent integration technique had already been perfected," Shiko's grandfather replied. "How long do they expect it to be, at this stage?"

"They say any day now," Samium told him. "I'm not in the loop at this point."

"They've been saying 'any day' for years." He shook his head. "Even if they get the process working as planned before it's too late for us both, what you're suggesting would be like a signal flare for the Censors, or worse, the Inner Guard. You know they watch me, and your position couldn't keep her safe from that much."

"So what, then?" he asked. "Just let it go?"

"It's as I said," Shiko's grandfather stated. "The original Wen's life ended a long time ago. Setting aside my feelings, there's no value in creating a simulacra of her for its own sake." He nodded sadly. "So yes. We let it go. ...and leave her to rest in peace."

Samium stared downwards. "It's just not right," he objected. "It's not right to let it end like this."

"It's life," he replied, "sad as that may be. At the end of the day, the universe doesn't care about our little stories."

"It was all that mattered to you," Samium continued. "To save her. For you to both have lives where you wouldn't have to be afraid of anything-- Even death."

Shiko's grandfather winced, wrinkling his nose as he smiled. "Fuck me, Sam, don't phrase it so melodramatically. You're going to make me so embarrassed I'll have an aneurysm."

"Are you absolutely, completely certain about this?" Samium asked insistently, ignoring the old man's attempt at humor. "That this is really what you want?"

"Certain? Absolutely not. In fact, I'd wager it's more likely than not that I'll regret it later." He crossed his arms, shaking his head. "But all the same, it's the decision I've made."

Samium, as he appeared within the logic engine's artificed reality, grew very still. But in the world, he started to make a heaving sound. I didn't understand what it was at first, since I couldn't see what was going on.

"...you're not crying, are you?" Shiko's grandfather asked him.

"No," Samium bluntly denied. He didn't even manage to sound sincere there.

"You absolutely are," Shiko's grandfather retorted, chuckling to himself. "Whenever you go still like that over the logic sea, that always means you're crying. You're so obvious, it's almost endearing."

Samium frowned at him, while in the real world I heard him sniff and shuffle around, probably wiping his face.

"Come on. It's not so bad," he went on, smiling almost brightly. "I've still got a few decent years left, and we'll have more time to spend together now that we're not trying to push forward with this. You're practically retired at this point-- Nothing stopping you from sitting around reminiscing with me until my brain starts really starts seeping out my ears. Then you can shove me out of a window before being around me gets too depressing, eh?"

Shiko's grandfather laughed, but Samium just looked even more sad.

"Sorry," Shiko's grandfather said, frowning. "That was probably too much."

"It's just not fair," Samium said, letting his voice crack as his eyes bored into the ground.

"The way you're talking, it's like you're the one who's dying," the other man told him, his tone growing sentimental.

"Even if this was wrong," Samium went on, "even if this was evil... Or you had asked me for even more... I would have done it, gladly. After everything that's happened, after all of it-- For just a few years of peace, I would have followed you through the very gates of hell."

Shiko's grandfather looked like he wanted to laugh, but restrained himself, shaking his head. "I'm truly grateful to you, Sam. Not only for having indulged me in this insane pursuit from the beginning, but for more things than I could possibly name." He breathed deeply. "I might not have achieved everything I wanted in this life, but at the very least, I can console myself with the fact that I couldn't have asked for a better friend.

Samium was silent.

"And you never know," Utsushikome's grandfather added hopefully. "Someone might pick up my work. Perhaps a miracle might happen, eh?"

Again, Samium was silent.

Probably sensing the atmosphere, the other man sighed and digressed. "Now, I think we should both head to bed. This is, after all, a terribly unseemly hour for people our age to be awake." He clasped his hands together. "When you get back to Old Yru, let's meet up. I'll be there for a few months finishing some business with the academy."

His friend nodded, his expression growing distant. "What should I do with it?" he asked.

Shiko's grandfather blinked. "With what?" Recognition flickered in his eyes. "Oh. ...I don't know. It's probably best that it's destroyed, I suppose."

"Mm."

"I'll leave it up to you, since you were the one who obtained it," he added. "Have a good night, Sam."

"Yes," he replied, very quiet. "Goodnight, █ █ █ █ █."

The communication channel closed, leaving only the basic interface of the logic engine before me.

Once the call was over, Samium stopped holding anything back. His body craned over, and he wept openly for several minutes. His sobs were pitiful, more defeated and exhausted than anguished. He sounded like a dying animal.

And sweating so heavily in that little closet, I felt like I was halfway to feeling like one myself. My heart was racing as I tried to process the implications of what I'd just heard, and I longed desperately for Samium to just leave so I could just relax, and hopefully sneak back to my guest room. The closet, which had seemed so cozy and inviting just a few earlier, was starting to feel so musty that I felt like I was being buried alive.

Unfortunately, my hopes were not to come to fruition for a little longer. Once Samium had managed to calm down, the living room fell deadly quiet for some time-- Probably close to five minutes. I started to become worried that he'd snuck off very quietly without me noticing and had simply maintained his connection to the logic engine outside of the normal distance somehow or, worse, that he'd noticed I was connected and was now very quietly scanning the room for the interloper responsible.

In reality, neither of these were even possible - the distance limit on a logic engine is a product of the laws of the Mimikos itself and can't be subverted, and since I was seeing everything he was seeing, I would have noticed if he'd brought up the interface for attunement - but I was a child and not very well-informed on the specifics of how the technology worked. The only logic bridges I'd used were communal, for my class and all the kids at home respectively. I'd never had the chance to poke around and discover all the little quirks and nuances of the system like Utushikome had.

Nevertheless, my fears were dispelled when abruptly, Samium made another outgoing connection.

This time, the response came extremely quickly; they'd obviously been expecting the summons. However, it took me until they spoke to even realize, since this time, there was no visual component to their transmission at all. It was an effect you rarely saw and young people were often altogether unfamilar with, since even if you wanted to remain anonymous (even to an illegal degree, considering the Covenant's outlook on unwholesome communication) you'd still generally use some sort visual avatar regardless. Nothing being there usually signified that the sender was using an extremely old logic engine, from before the replication boom allowed the creation of the diamond lattice they used to perform acts of spectacular parallel processing.

"...you can't just call me and then say nothing, Samium," the voice - feminine, but flat and subdued, sort of like a softer version of Ran - spoke after a while, taking me by surprise. "It's rather awkward."

"Mm," he spoke gruffly. "Sorry. Got caught up in my thoughts."

"This is earlier than I'd expected," she said. "I thought you wouldn't contact me until the morning, when everything was going ahead."

He snorted. "And yet, you were right here waiting for me." His voice was distant.

"Because I was on my logic engine already. Not exactly an abundance of things to do in this place, as I'm sure you recall." She was silent for a moment. "You're calling because something has gone wrong."

Samium let out a long sigh. "Yes," he said.

"Tell me," she instructed.

"...█ █ █ █ █has cold feet," he told her, his eyes narrowed. "He's called off the plan."

"Oh." She didn't sound particularly affected. "What for?"

"I--I don't know. I don't understand, Autonoe." He paused, rubbing his brow. "Well, rather... He seems to have had a moral crisis about it, I suppose. He doesn't think it's appropriate to go through with it, since the girl has already developed an identity. And because the integration process is still crude, and it's dangerous." He hung his shoulders. "That's what he said, at least..."

"I see," she replied. She was silent for a moment. "...well, that's good news."

Samium frowned. "What do you mean, 'good news'?"

"I mean, isn't it?" she said."Now there's no need to risk anything. You needn't endanger your career, and we needn't gamble on the Induction process succeeding as planned. It's a win-win scenario."

"It's not a win at all!" Samium hissed back, or maybe 'whined' is the better word. It seemed like his passion was exhausted, and even frustration sounded more depressed than angry. "Now he's going to live out his last days with nothing of himself to cling to, until the memories of that body are all that's left! It's everything he ever feared happening!"

"You're being melodramatic," she said tiredly.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

"We failed him!" he insisted. "Completely and utterly!"

"That happened well prior to this point," Autonoe replied flatly. "We failed to locate the sequence in the Tower of Asphodel. You should be glad that this awkward solution I managed to cobble together doesn't have to be tested."

"We went through this together," he said, with gritted teeth. "I thought you'd understand."

"I'm not trying to be flippant, Samium," she said. "I know how much it's meant to you, to be able to bring him some peace in the wake of the diagnosis. That's why I went along with this, even after his effective expulsion." She spoke sternly. "But you have to understand that this has always been a gamble. And without that women's sequence, it was a dangerous one. What do you think would have happened if there'd been a problem with the integration process? Or if the donor we found refused to play nicely once they were in her body?"

Wait, I thought, as my struggling mind seized on this detail. What are they saying?

The donor? Her... Body?

"This whole process has been reckless," she continued, "I've said that from the start."

"It was worth the cost!" Samium objected. "For his sake!"

"Obviously, he doesn't think so," the woman retorted. "And again, he doesn't even know--"

Abruptly, Samium cut the connection to her, and then from the logic bridge altogether-- The transition was so sudden it made me jolt a little bit, and my arm almost bumped against the side of the wall. He stood up sharply and, with heavy breaths, stormed out of the room, his footsteps growing distant as he walked down the corridor.

I only let myself relax a little, breathing properly for the first time in what felt like hours, about a minute or two later. Even then, I remained in that closet for probably another twenty, maybe thirty minutes, terrified of the idea that he'd suddenly return to finish the conversation once he'd calmed down. It was only when I started to hear birds distantly chirping that I began to finally relax.

During that time, the details of what I'd heard were still swirling in my mind. It had all been so out there that I quickly started doubting it had even happened. That I must have dozed off and had some bizarre dream, my thoughts blurring with recollective fantasies of the mystery drama that Shiko and I had been watching, and I'd been reliving in my head prior to Samium's arrival. That was the sensible explanation. Things like this just didn't happen, least of all to me.

But then I looked at the records on the logic engine, and the records of the summons were there, clear as day-- Samium had been so upset he hadn't even tried to cover his tracks. But then a couple minutes would pass, and I'd convince myself that what I'd just checked was part of the dream, too.

Still in that state of partial disbelief. I tried, as best I could, to piece together an understanding of what I'd just heard being discussed.

Shiko's grandfather and Samium had been... Conspiring to do something to Utsushikome. I didn't know what a 'pneuma' was, but based on the context, it sounded like it was something like a person's.... Soul? Mind? Maybe it was a fancy academic word for 'brain' that I just didn't know... But they were planning to transplant someone else's into her. It had sounded like Shiko had, in secret, been originally concieved as some kind of clone of this Wen person, who had some relation to her grandfather (perhaps another daughter, born when he and Samium had still been young?) and that she'd been intended to act as some kind of surrogate body for this person, who was presumably long dead. It sounded like the circumstances were tragic; maybe something that had happened in the Tricenturial War, since they'd both been involved it in their youth.

From what they'd said, it sounded like there was some technique they'd planned to use to have her memory be suppressed - since she'd be, well, a literal baby - but come back to her as she'd grown up. It sounded... I didn't know the right word for it. Some kind of cross between romantic and fucking bizarre.

No, bizarre doesn't even cover it. It was gross. Horrifying, even.

The thought that they'd been intending to do something like that to my friend... And that I might not ever have even known... The thought was enough to make a shiver run down my spine.

Those creepy old men... Talking about her like she was some object that they owned. That they even had the right to consider something so abominable!

But then, was something like this even possible? I knew that incredible feats of esoteric medicine were within the grasp with modern technology, and especially with the Power - this was around the time that the first whole-body transplant was performed, and it had been all over the news - and that Shiko's grandfather had some kind of job in the field. But I could barely even parse this. It was like something else. Wasn't the mind immutable to the Power...?

Well, whatever. Regardless of what they'd intended, Shiko's grandfather had ended up calling the whole thing off. And then Samium had reached out to someone else... And the way they'd talked made it sound like they hadn't even had Wen's... Well, her whatever-it-was, in the first place.

So what the hell was going on? And what had they meant by a 'donor'?

...

No, I thought to myself. Don't make weird assumptions. You've probably taken all of this wildly out of context.

When I eventually slipped out of the closet, I should - if I'd had any good sense whatsoever - have gone straight back to my room. After all, I wasn't out of the woods; Samium could still have come back, or someone else could decide to have a midnight stroll, leading him to discover that I'd been here indirectly.

Even now, mostly bereft of childish paranoia, I'm still half-convinced that Samium would have killed me if he'd found out back then. As gentle and mild-mannered as he'd come across in every interaction I'd had with him since that night - even in situations where by all rights he should have been furious - and as awkward and buffoonish he portrayed himself as in stories, I feel what that the man I saw in those few minutes of conversation was his true self. Filled with a passionate fire that could turn, at a second's notice, to utterly frigid determination.

But evidently, I didn't have good sense. Because instead, I remembered the sound I'd heard when he'd first entered the room-- That of something thumping to the floor. And that he'd left so quickly...

And I was curious.

Or, no... Maybe curious is the wrong word for it.

I crept towards the logic engine, and looked around the side of the sofa. Sure enough, as I'd suspected, there was a heavy leather bag there, left sitting on the wooden floor. I reached down, and pulled loose the straps.

I think part of me had been expecting something fantastical, like a scepter, or even some inscrutable mechanical device through which to enact their plan on Shiko - maybe a weird helmet covered in runes and metal protrusions, the kind of thing that one imagines when you think of a concept as out there as a mind transplant. But to my disappointment, it was just a bunch of documents and files, most of which - from what I could tell without messing up their ordering and giving myself away - didn't seem related to all this at all, but rather about random political and legal stuff. It was probably just where he kept all his work.

Eventually, though, I found a notebook tucked away in a separate compartment which was considerably more suspect in content. On the front page, I saw stuff he'd jotted down recently about Shiko and her day-to-day life. Her schedule. Where she went to school. Even that she'd had dinner with me, and a couple superficial details about myself I'd mentioned in front of him.

That was enough to make me glance around nervously. Seeing it laid out like this was somehow even scarier than hearing him talk about it.

And then, deeper, notes about some kind of technique involving the Power. And an address in town that he'd labelled 'Induction bed'...

It was around this point that I started to wonder what exactly I ought to do next. The idealistic side of me - the part of me that cared deeply about my friend, and also watched too many crime dramas - felt like the best thing to do would be to tell Shiko about all this right away, and show her this evidence if she didn't believe me. Even if it seemed like the plan had been called off, that didn't ensure her safety, and regardless, even going this far meant Samium was an extremely dangerous man. We needed to go to the police.

...but on the other, the cynical side of me felt it might be better to just put everything back where I'd left it, and delete any records the logic engine might have made that I was ever here. After all, from what I'd heard at dinner, it sounded like he was a very important person. And some like me couldn't afford to get into any trouble; I could lose my home.

I couldn't choose; my feet felt frozen to the floor, and my hands to that notebook. And the longer I stood there, the more I felt scared.

...yet, as I kept reading...

Another impulse came to me. A third one, from a place in my mind I hadn't thought was there. Ever so quiet, like it was nothing more than a whisper. A twinging of something inside me that had previously been inert. A phantom limb curling a finger...

Yes. That was the moment.

Something I think back to sometimes was how, on that night, I'd misunderstood Samium as a person. Through my child eyes, hearing him try to insist on going ahead with his insane, murderous plan at Shiko's expense even as her grandfather - the person it was ostensibly for in the first place - rejected it had come across as merely deranged. Through my whole life as that person, I had this impression of him as something like a mad scientist. Stubborn. I didn't understand why he was so desperate for approval from this man that he seemed in a state of outright grief over an insane plan it was clear no one even really wanted.

Like a neanderthal staring at an open flame, I didn't understand what I was seeing.

The obvious truth, that any well-adjusted person would have noticed, was that Samium loved his friend selflessly, or at least with selfless selfishness. He was willing to do this abominable act simply because it was, in his eyes, the only way he could see to soothe the pain of his tragic situation; to go some way to correcting a visceral injustice that had taken place. He wanted him, sincerely, to be happy, even as he chose to deny himself that happiness out of good moral sense.

I couldn't perceive that. I thought of myself as being close friends with Shiko, but I didn't even really understand what 'close friends' meant. I was so used to being alone that I thought of love as a resource, like air or water. I wanted it, and I believed that the start and end of a relationship was to mutually provide for that need. It's like I said a little while ago. Relationships are founded on the fulfillment of needs.

Founded on them. What I'd failed to grasp was that, once that fulfillment has been achieved, and time passes... Something else can blossom.

Or, well. So I understand.

𒊹

Even now, I'm still softening things. Trimming down, glossing over, and flourishing the raw facts of my life to sell it to you as some elegant high drama. Telling a story rather than telling the truth.

The truth is, from as early a point as I can remember, I fucking despised my life. I was lonely, and scared, and no one was there to comfort me. No one truly cared whether I lived or died. I despised the Isiyahlas, who affected warmness as they provided the basic necessities for my survival, only to turn cold as ice the second I wanted more, like they were running some sick parental roleplay-themed business and I'd just broken character. I despised their old, musty house, with its shoddy pale green paint job both inside and out, its stink of rotting wood, and its air that managed to never be comfortable; only oppressively hot in the summer and dismally cold in the winter. I despised the chafing wool chitons they bought for us to wear. I despised the other children, not one of whom even tried to befriend me and fill those empty days.

But most of all, I despised the world itself. For forcing me to exist, when existence seemed to be nothing but crushing, unchanging loneliness. To mock me with a world full of happy people, healthy people, and beautiful stories which had no place for me at all.

Hate. That's the first emotion I remember feeling, when my self was still raw and freshly formed. I hated everything. I wished I could turn my body into a bomb and smash everything and everyone in that house into a trillion pieces. I wished I'd never been born.

I'm still holding back on details. But this is enough for you, isn't it?

It must be enough. You're not stupid.

I don't even want to talk about when I started going to school. You've seen enough already; you know the broad strokes of what I'd say, and it's not like anything that happened was particularly exceptional. I was bullied - mocked in various novel ways, had my things vandalized, got beaten up a few times - and the teachers were too preoccupied to be of any help because it wasn't a great school. You don't need to know the names of the kids who did it, or the color of the drapes in the classrooms where I sat hiding at the back day after day, hoping no one would pay attention to me. You don't need to know the results of every math test I took.

It goes against every instinct in me to talk like this. I want to try and make this graceful. I want to tell you stories about moments of kindness people showed me and the hope it inspired in my heart, moments that sting with poignant tragedy when juxtaposed with the sheer shittiness of my circumstances. I want to tell you about how I'd hike up into the hills at night and stare at the stars while dreaming in vain of a better future, where someone would come along to sweep me off my feet like a princess. Basically, I want to come across like the protagonist of a pretentious coming-of-age drama.

But that's not how it works. Have you ever heard someone describe going completely blind? Where at first, they see nothing but total darkness every day, but eventually a switch in their mind flicks, and they stop 'seeing' altogether? The human mind is adaptive; if something isn't working - even something as important as one of the 5 senses - it eventually cuts its losses and cleans out its office.

When you're so alone you lose all context for yourself, it's the same way. You become something like a spider; a biological machine that exists only to prolong its own survival. You don't think about hope, or the future, or other people. I couldn't even tell many specific details about my childhood, my mind having discarded them in favor of the plots of the books I was reading at the time. I barely had a sense of 'self' at all.

I walked. I spoke to people. I ate food and drunk water. But no part of me was alive. The world was cold, grey and empty; my spirit was inert, and nothing breached the haze of dust which encrusted it.

I know what you're thinking. Wasn't I just talking a minute ago about how I imagined myself as being special, and having some greater destiny? Aren't I contradicting myself?

To tell the truth, I don't fully understand it either. All I can say is that optimism isn't the same thing as hope. Hope is inherently emotional; a sort of gambling, where you invest a piece of yourself into the future to grant you strength and energy in the present. The word itself originates from Hellenike, the old Inotian tongue - Kúptō, meaning a stance where you're reaching forward. Even if it makes you vulnerable to being knocked into the dirt.

Optimism, on the other hand, is functional; a survival strategy. It's a way of conceptualizing reality, like belief in an afterlife. And it's perfectly capable of coexisting with utter despair. I didn't act, or think, in a way indicative of belief that anything would change. I just 'believed' it. It was a mantra I spoke to myself when I needed to suppress pain.

And in a way, that was a good thing. Because again, hope is a gamble. If you trade the beets in your field for corn and the harvest fails, you're fucking dead.

That's the cold reality that many people who preach 'growth' and 'moving forward' above all else will never say openly. Sometimes, trying to climb out of your rut can destroy you, without knowing you tried even granting you catharsis. Sometimes it is better to have never loved at all. Sometimes it's better to remain a spider.

No. I only really begun to hope on that day.

When I met her.

You've heard the story several times now. I was digging around for my logic engine and some sentimental items after some bullies buried them (or at least, claimed to have buried them - I never saw them again, so for all I know they pawned the logic engine off for some tobacco and dumped the rest in the trash) in the rocky beach not far from my school. My hands and knees were wet and cut up, my eyes were swollen and tearful, when I heard her soft voice behind me.

I downplayed the weight of the event to Ran - along with everything about my feelings and our relationship - as well as omitting the part where I'd offered an incredibly embarrassing excuse to her initial question.

I mean... My initial question.

"H-Help...?" I stammered, flabbergasted.

"Uh," I said, smiling awkwardly as I pushed aside my veil to look at them directly. "With the sandcastle, I mean. It doesn't really seem like you've managed to get much done..." I pointed at the heap of rocks by the side of myself.

"Oh..." I replied, my face flushing. "Yeah."

"Sorry, I'm just kidding around," I said. "You're looking for something, aren't you?"

It's interesting to think back on that moment, now that I can see both perspectives. Well, I suppose it's more accurate to say that it's of interesting and upsetting.

As Utsushikome, it wasn't that big a deal; just a confluence of a few odd factors. I'd been been trying to reinvent myself as a bit more of a social and friendly person to get to know more people on the island. I'd had a strange day at school, where I got into a petty fight with a classmate that had left me self-conscious about my own selfishness. And, while waiting for my grandma to pick me up, I'd seen someone my age in a uniform from a neighboring academy doing something very odd and obviously uncomfortable. So I'd thought, why not see what was going on, and maybe help them out? There was nothing more to it than that.

But as my real self, to whom any amount of kindness felt as rare as a pink sky, that moment felt like something very, very different indeed.