{Enki}

Remorse stepped Para’s graceful and deadly body into a black tactical suit. In the mirror, her black eyes stared back with her thin fingers smearing black paint all over her gray skin. Careful with slipping on the fingerless gloves with gold set in the knuckles. More on the elbow and knee pads. They capped the boots with the metal, making it hazardous to tie them lest Remorse risk zapping Para and rendering her nacre useless.

“It may shock her nacre enough to wake her,” Celindria had warned an hour prior.

It prompted a hopeful gasp from the distraught Valkyrie inside Remorse’s mind.

He shook a finger at her. “Ah ah. Too much excitement over that, and I’ll introduce you to the shield.” The virus Dr. Pablo Suarez created to lock nacres against tampering. Ever. It was permanent, with no way to reverse it. At least not the last time Remorse heard news of it.

Para knew what he meant and deflated by lowering her head back to the floor.

“That’s right, child.”

Since then, he’d prepared her and Karter in separate spaces. They never let them near each other for long. Sadistic and cruel, but it served a practical purpose. Para gained a wealth of confidence in Karter’s presence, and that was simply not allowed.

Meanwhile, Remorse tried his best to concentrate on anything other than Silence. Curse that Icarus for aptly naming her so. How often had Elden felt the ice of her quiet deliberation? That woman analyzed in a tundra—a vacuum.

Silence—Surra—read the entirety of Remorse’s worst deeds against her family and…

Set it aside.

Compartmentalized it and saved it for later. Dangerous apathy, that.

The anxiety left him focused on these menial tasks and performing as many at once to produce a halfway decent distraction.

It wasn’t enough.

Maybe he could entertain himself by beating Abresson senseless at Karter’s hands. That should amuse for a time—

Why?!

Why didn’t Remorse kill Silence the moment he first laid eyes on her?!

{Enki | 150,000,000 Years Ago}

“I call her Surra. Is she not the most beautiful creature to ever exist?”

Quet made for quite the impressive figure at fifteen feet, maximum decompression. He was the largest of the Gargantuan Tritan. Not only of the remaining, but of all that ever existed. To match his impressive size, a glow beamed from him. The pride of fatherhood.

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Remorse, at thirteen feet, gaped at the swaddled bundle in his comrade’s bed, overlooking the lake of Cascading Light supplied by a geyser of the black flame. The baby was a tiny thing with soft black fuzz from her gray-skinned head and peered at them with gray eyes that pierced with intellect contained within a reduced form.

Surra.

She kicked hard enough from her blanketed confines to loose a tiny foot with five toes. Something the toe-less Tritans knew nothing about.

“This…” Remorse struggled to meet Quet’s beaming voids without exposing the incredulity in his own eyes. “This is the Project you’ve discussed with us the last two million years?” All their work to unseat the Aegis—weapons, strategies, traps, and learning to run the Dyson’s Sphere—and this is what his brother wasted his time on?! Replacing the female population?!

“Fyyeeeooo,” Surra managed as if answering Remorse’s inner monologue.

He should kill her now—

A pulse surged under her skin, and her eyes changed to a blue that matched the singular patch of fuzz on her head. An intriguing change to her physiology.

“How many base pairs are in her DNA?”

Quet chuckled, and the deep sound thundered in his chest. “I knew you would come around. She has three trillion.”

That was it. That was more than enough to seed the planets protected by the Aegis. Two already within their possession. Remorse smiled down at Project Surra and asked, “Is she programmed to consent?”

“There is no need. She was born for this.”

{Enki | Now}

Indeed, Surra was, and she fulfilled her purpose. The body Remorse inhabited was proof of that. Everything about the Project ran smoothly until she escaped—

“What atrocity will you have me commit this time?” Para asked on a whisper.

Why were these women so fucking insufferable?! “Keep your mouth shut, Para. Or I’ll force you to watch Karter perform on Abresson again. Will that render your obedience?”

Para seethed, but looked away, defeated. She was nothing like his Vi. Karter lacked in this as well.

No. Not since Savis had Remorse met a woman with the regal carriage of a true predator. Lethal only when intended, only after careful cunning, and only on her terms. Savis was an exceptional beauty with all the clever malice of a Tritan female.

Perfection.

At a high cost.

How terribly would Silence kill him for taking her daughter against her will at such a tender age? Tormented her grandson with malignant machinations? Ruined the fate of the Icari and veered them off their evolutionary path?

To that, Vi would say to Remorse, “You brought this on yourself. Now dig the hole deep enough to bury you both.”

Yes, that was the way.

{Enki | Now}

Replenished with resolve, Remorse walked his body into Celindria’s lab. He found the ethereal beauty with an intelligent mind gone rabid with power, admiring Karter’s upgrades.

“So fascinating how the nacre glass and Pil platinum fibers blend with your skin. Aegis technology, you see? It’s perfect,” she said into Karter’s face with Remorse looking back while Chris watched on.

This was quite a dizzying circus.

“Is the last one prepared, Celindria?” Remorse would never push her. She reacted negatively to pressure and often shut him out. As she was the only one left with enough ability to stand against Silence, he needed to repair the remnants of their relationship. “I sent Abresson ahead to the Queen’s Fare to keep him occupied.”

Celindria held out Chris’ arms so she could slip a dinner jacket around him. The young human male cleaned up nicely. “Yes. Prepared. T.a.o. is also rested and dressed for the occasion. The Shadow anticipate retaliation.”

Remorse inspected their soldiers with a glance in Celindria’s direction. “Won’t they be surprised when they receive something else entirely.” He walked Para into the lab and lined her up with the rest.

Celindria loaded them up with rifles and capsules. “For all the Shadow knick away at our stone, they’ve yet to see the art within.”

Her choice of words struck Remorse. Yes. The Vast Collective was his art. The Shadow thought they stood in the way without realizing their blood formed the palette from which he painted. “They will see it on the verge, at the brink, when nothing else can be done. They will see, they will understand, and they will cease.”

“Remember what’s mine.”

How could Remorse ever forget? A soul wasn’t something easily misplaced from his mind.