Chapter Text
₱ ₳ Ɽ ₮ Ø ₦ Ɇ - ₳ ₴ ₴ ł ₥ ł Ⱡ ₳ ₮ ł Ø ₦
ᄃ Ή Λ P Ƭ Σ Я Ө П Σ
Time ceased to exist in the darkness.
When Site Phi grew dark and Catherine was reduced to a stream of broken code, Simon raged. He screamed and screamed and screamed. In his anger and in his hurt and in his fury he blindly lashed out, knocking into metal and destroying anything he could lay his gloves on. He pulled the readout screen from its post, cables and cords shredding, and crunched the display until he could no longer see the data. He screamed until he imagined his throat was inflamed and bleeding, screamed until he had no breath - he never did - to scream any longer, and he screamed until his modulator was nothing more than raw static. He clawed at the Haimatsu Power Suit, at his helmet, at his face, at what he perceived to be him, and wondered if he could die.
He was already dead. Simon Jarrett, the man whose memory was uploaded into his cortex chip, had died a hundred years ago. The man who led him this far was also forgotten, enclosed in a room hardly larger than his old apartment.
If that man could even be called a man.
That other thing. That other Simon.
That other him.
That other…
After the rage came the silence.
In the darkness of the dead station, Simon did not move. He did not float in the water, as the cumbersome Haimatsu Power Suit was weighed down by its heavy armor plating, but he did remain as still as he could with his arms lifting slightly beside him and swaying in the small movements of current that swirled around him.
There was no need for air, or food, or water, so the constraints of humanity that forced an awareness of time had dwindled. No stomach pangs to drive one into survival mode, no cotton mouth to seek out water - he was sick of seeing water, feeling water, and being in water - and no worry of his air running out. The breaths that he took, the blinking of his eyes, these were all superfluous, human motions that held no actual biological meaning for him. Just simple comforts, a trick of his mind, of his cortex chip, to keep up the façade that he was something more than a decaying corpse in a power suit held together by structure gel with a brain made of scavenged computer parts.
Vaguely and detached, he wondered when the Energy Pal S.3 power pack would finally deplete. At that thought, he experienced the closest thing to comfort and waited.
Hours passed.
Days, maybe.
Weeks?
Eventually, something like sleep overcame him and he drifted. Disjointed flashes of memories played in front him; the screeching of tires and the crunching of metal right before his car flipped. Ashley’s soft smile as she looked at him over her steaming cup of coffee, the morning light a warm amber halo behind her. His mother, crying over him as he received yet another diagnosis of death, none of the numerous treatments he had gone through working. Jesse, trying to make him laugh, as they played video games and gorged on take out long into the night. Headaches and pain, being unable to enjoy anything without fearing his brain would bleed. Touch, of human touch, and how he took for granted a handshake, a hug, or of fingers running through his hair. If robots could dream, that was what he did.
He dreamed.
And dreamed.
And dreamed.
And screamed when he finally woke back up. The Energy Pal S.3 had not depleted. He was still there, alone, with the echoes of those final moments of false triumph and doomed victory rattling inside him.
Fuck yeah, we made it!
I’m still here. I’m still here…
No. No, no, no!
₱ⱠɆ₳₴Ɇ ĐØ₦'₮ ⱠɆ₳VɆ ₥Ɇ ₳ⱠØ₦Ɇ...
Once more, there was only the darkness and the suffocating press of the deep ocean against him, barely held at bay by the suit that he wore - that he was. Creaks and groans of the infrastructure, still shaken by the use of the Omega Space Gun, rumbled from afar. Occasionally, like a ghost wailing in the wind, he could hear something outside the metal walls; a high pitched keening, tapering off into something that sounded almost as if it was calling out to him.
The Leviathan.
He wondered if the WAU was still hunting him. He thought of the swollen, bloated and corrupted mass sitting in its nest of metal and wire; pulsing and moving and organic and inorganic, all at the same time. Did it know that they had succeeded, that they had shot the ARK into the stars? He wondered if it was aware that he had spared it despite Dr. Ross’s commands or if it was even aware enough to understand anything at all. It had just been following its protocol, the notes had said. Protocol. It had not meant to do what it did. It did not have any malicious or antagonistic intent. It was just following its protocol even though that meant it had created a hellscape for the people still left at the station, an eternal nightmare that they could not escape from.
Why? Why had he spared it?
We suffer, Dr. Ross had said in regards to those trapped - enslaved, changed, saved - by the WAU. We suffer. Those on the surface suffered, too. Doomed by the Event, obliterated by an asteroid or by the relentless wildfire that had engulfed the world in its wake, while the crew of underwater stations were kept safe. He was not there for any of that. Simon Jarrett had died - not him, the real one - long before that time had come. Could he feel for people he did not know? They were gone, they were not the ones locked into an existence of perpetual horror. They were gone, and he was the only one left.
No, he was not.
Not quite.
₩Ɇ ₴Ʉ₣₣ɆⱤ ₮ØØ
He drifted some more.
This time, Simon thought of nothing and welcomed the stillness. There was only the sound of the water, of the soft ambience of trapped air bubbles and clink of objects as they bounced against one another in the gentle current. He did not feel anything, he did not allow himself to feel anything. Like a dam holding back the torrential power of water, he blocked away any and all thoughts from taking root in his mind - cortex chip - until all that was left was emptiness. Nothingness. A void. He was nothing, he was alone, he...
Please don't leave me alone.
There were whispers in the dark. Voices he once knew, faces he once recognized. He pushed them away and tried to lock them behind the dam he had created. Those were not his, they did not belong to him, they belonged to Simon Jarrett. He did not get to dwell on things that were not his, on memories that he did not deserve. He was alone, he deserved to be alone, he was the one who did it, who left him, who was left by Catherine, who failed and failed and failed, over and over and over again. He did not understand the first time or the second time and when the third time came around, when he should have known better, he had still clung to false hope and had been cast down once and for all. He did this. He did this to himself. He was the one who deserved this.
₱ⱠɆ₳₴Ɇ ĐØ₦'₮ ⱠɆ₳VɆ ₥Ɇ ₳ⱠØ₦Ɇ
Simon drifted.
Simon drifted until the voices stopped.
Simon drifted until the images disappeared.
Simon drifted until there was nothing left but emptiness once again.
Simon drifted until eventually, Simon began to move. Leaving the ruins of the pilot chair, he reached out and felt for the control console. He did not know why. Catherine was gone. Her cortex chip had overloaded and she had been reduced to nothing more than errors of code on a screen until he had destroyed that, too. The Omnitool was just a thing now, just another machine. He did not know if he could still use the Omnitool, if there was anything left to open in any of the stations. PATHOS-II was shuttered for all he knew - for all he cared. His last words to her still rattled around inside him as he fumbled blindly in the darkness.
His fingers brushed against the equipment and he was seized by what felt like relief. It was there. It was fucking there. Even if it did not work, even if she was no longer there.
Even if he was alone.
He gripped it tightly and removed it from its holder. The Omnitool broke off from the stand like it was embedded in it, but it was there. It was whole. Simon cradled it against his chest and began to walk.
There was no way for him to see in the darkness. The Haimatsu Power Suit bumped into metal, into machines, into the debris that hung suspended in the water. He did not make a sound except his own rhythmic breathing, lulling him almost into a trance. Breathe, step. Breathe, step. Breathe, step. The world ceased to groan and creak around him, the blast of the Omega Space Gun no longer continuing its shock waves. Like him, the station was ready to be forgotten. Breathe, step. Breathe, step.
Far beyond the thick walls of Site Phi’s interior, the call of the Leviathan sounded. Was it out there, waiting for him?
Breathe, step.
He walked on.
And on.
And on and on and on until he saw the hint of a greenish glow from a deep crack in the wall of Site Phi. He did not feel excitement, or fear. He did not feel anything at all. Simon simply walked on, breathe, step, until the hint of a greenish glow showed more clearly to be a deep and penetrating gash that led to the outside of the station.
Breathe, step. The gash was wide enough that he could squeeze through. Breathe, step, the greenish glow was the remains of a light fixture and led no further than a foot into the deep abyss. The faint light, which allowed him to look down at the Omnitool for just a moment, to see the fried hardware, was swallowed by the darkness as he ventured further outward.
Breathe, step.
As he entered the pitch black of the abyss, he almost expected - welcomed? - an attack. He had narrowly escaped the wretched creature before and now it had its chance to try once more.
The attack never came. Simon walked further and further from Site Phi. Breathe, step.
There was no Leviathan. Simon wondered briefly if he had imagined hearing its call. Perhaps the WAU had died, after all. Perhaps it realized it was attacking the one who had spared it. Perhaps the Leviathan had simply moved on. Perhaps a lot of things. In the darkness, he walked on.
Simon did not know if he was going the right way, if there was even a right way. He did not know where to go or how to get to where he was going. If he was even going anywhere. He was merely doing, walking, living - not living, existing - but he did not know why. He did not care why.
Breathe, step.
He walked.
And walked.
And walked some more.
Simon walked through roaring currents that threatened to pull him even deeper into the abyss, staying safe by keeping close to the rocky formations that had protected him the first time. The rushing of the currents was almost deafening, a numbing cacophony of madness that drowned out all thoughts. He walked through deep tunnels filled with bioluminescent sea life and creatures - you are not alone - on and on and on some more. He did not stop to marvel at the light and the strange beauty of it all before pressing on, pushing it from his mind as if he had never even seen anything at all.
Time continued to cease to exist as Simon trudged through the ungodly pressure of the deep and forward into the darkness. He never stopped. He never strayed from his path except to get around something blindly in his way. A few curious creatures swam near him, changed by the WAU corruption but not hostile. He did not spare them a glance but could hear their fluttering around him in the water. Breathe, step.
Suddenly, he stopped.
Simon could hear something. Something different.
Turning in the water to try and better tell where it was coming from, Simon strained to hear. At first, there was only the muffled constant of the water flowing around him and then
Fuck this, fuck you.
Fuck you, Catherine.
You lied and I believed in you, I trusted you.
His voice - Simon’s voice, not his - yelled in frustration at Catherine. It startled him, an onslaught of memory that he had not asked to recall. Instinctively, Simon reached up to cover his ears - he had no ears - and felt the Omnitool slip from his grasp. Panic gripped him as he waved his arms blindly through the water and tried to reclaim the Omnitool before it was stolen away by the current, forever lost to the abyss.
Catherine. Please, don’t leave me alone.
The fingers of his gloves touched the Omnitool and he grabbed at it desperately. Pulling it back towards him, he hugged it to his chest once more. Simon knelt, curling in on himself. It was safe. It was safe.
“I’m sorry,” Simon whispered. The words were swallowed by the ocean. His voice. He had almost forgotten he had a voice.
Simon did not move again for a long, long time.
*
Light adjusted. Something had changed. It could not see, no, not in the darkness of the deep. But something had changed. Around it, the ocean no longer appeared quite as deep and dark with its terrible, terrible penetrating blackness. Flecks of green and blue now sparkled, vibrant and bright, but contained entirely upon themselves and suspended in the water. They did not illuminate the ocean around them but they were beautiful, nonetheless. Like stars.
The stars.
That is where they were. Out there. They were out there, Catherine Chun and Simon Jarrett - they are not us - among the stars. No, not Simon Jarrett. The Simon on the ARK did not get to claim the name any more then it did. Anymore than the left behind did. There was only one Simon Jarrett, and he died a hundred years ago. They stole his memories, the memories of a dead man, but they were not him. It knew that now.
We are not Simon Jarrett.
Was this how it started for the Mockingbirds? Catherine had said that it was different, a sound mind in a sound body, the perfect blend of organics, computer parts, and the structure gel. She had said that uploading the consciousness - the copies - of humans into the machines was too much for their minds to handle, and that they had broken from the change. Carl had seemed human. He was not aware that he no longer had a body, he knew he was in a robot form, but he had thought he was simply piloting the basic machine. Could Carl have been gently told the truth?
Were you?
“Пo," it answered. The voice that came from the modulator was warbled, different. Degraded. Maybe the Haimatsu Power Suit was finally dying.
How long had it been kneeling there?
Long enough that as it stood, the suit crackled with rigid stiffness and it took great effort to fully right itself. It ran a glove over the suit, feeling bumps and ridges and roughened bits that brushed off and were swept away by the current. Barnacles, maybe. Growths on it.
It began to walk once more, to continue its aimless trek through the dark water.
Onward
and
onward.
Eventually, it heard something again. There, on the edge of its consciousness, like a whisper. It was not clear until suddenly, it was. A question.
-Where are you going?-
Nowhere. Everywhere. Mindlessly moving forward. Mindless like a machine.
₳ ₵Ø₦₴₮ⱤɄ₵₮
“Пo one wants...to be a...mΛᄃΉIПΣ,” it muttered out loud, straining with the effort to force the words out.
-Where is the line drawn for what is human and what is not? Would walking corpses do? Would a group of machines thinking they're human be acceptable?-
Was that a question Catherine had asked it? Maybe she had said those words. They had debated each other multiple times on their journey, on what each of their perspectives were but
She lied to you by omission.
it did not remember her saying something quite like that. She had not known that she was murdered by her crew. She had not known if she had an upload sent up to the ARK already or if she just had the robot version of herself left. She could understand its pain, partially. She had a purpose, she had given it a purpose, but that all was gone now. No. No one wants to be a machine.
“I ΛM not...ΉЦMΛП,” it said aloud. It was a
M̵̡̡̛͍̝̠̖̣̯͇̹̣͓̩̿͐͌̇͠ A̷̤̞̜̝̓͘̕̚͝ C̵̠͖̹̮̱̝̋̾͂̊͂͊͒͊̔͑́̋̚ H̷̡̰͔̭̥͖̲̽̃̄̍̑͂̔̒ Ỉ̴͖̿͑̊̈́̏̈́̏͂̍̎̔̇̂͝ Ņ̷̙̙̗̼̼̫̩̘̮̠̿̀̀͂ Ê̴̝̬̣̲̞̣̜̖̮̲̖̚͝
The Leviathan lamented somewhere high above it for the first time in days - weeks? Its helmet creaked as it looked up and saw the faint glow of the WAU corrupted creature swimming languidly. It had not imagined it, then. Its calls were not the angry - Hurt? Betrayed? - hunting calls it had heard bellowing behind it as the Leviathan pursued it towards the launch site. These calls were musical, soothing almost. For it.
“ПӨƬ for MΣ.”
A call echoed as if in response. Deep and reverberating, it felt as if the very ocean around it moved and shifted with its melody. The Leviathan did not appear to be getting closer but there was something about its presence that was somehow comforting.
Please don't leave me alone.
-You are not alone.-
Even if it is the presence of another WAU construct?
No. NO.
N̴͓͈̣̘̝̲̞̑̇̌͑͐̀͋̓̑̀͊̐͠ O̴̢͎̗͚̼͙͕͊̓͒̄͗̓̔̐͘̚͠
no
“ƧƬӨP!” it shouted at the Leviathan and got silence in return. The WAU's proxy was not speaking to it. They were its own thoughts - code - answering it in its own mind - cortex chip - and not possibly anything else. It wanted to laugh, as if any of it was funny, and gave into the urge. It chuckled and the inhuman sound that left its speaker was enough to shut it back up right away.
The other WAU constructs had gone mad this way. The Mockingbirds. Ackers. Whatever the creature was who wept at her own existence. They all spoke to themselves, repeating phrases out loud. Mindless actions. As it was now doing. Jumbled thoughts and memories, confusion, disorientation, this was how it all ₩ⱧØ ₳₥ ł? began.
There was a name, a person, a being, buried in the far reaches of its consciousness. It could see him, trapped beneath tendrils of structure gel, screaming as the corruption grabbed hold and was pulling pulling pulling him down down down deeper and deeper into the abyss. There was a name, a person, a being, but that was not him, that was never it, it was never him, it was just a machine, a construct, a proxy.
"ЩΉӨ ΛM I?" it asked aloud, or maybe it did not. It only heard static.
-You are becoming a proxy just like the others. Whatever it was that kept you grounded is now gone. Soon you will be a wraith in the dark, mindlessly attempting to achieve your task, whatever that task may be. You need to accept what you are, who you have become. You need to accept what you are before you are lost.-
That was not its imagination. The more it listened, the more it realized that the voice that spoke to it had the faintest of accents, the affluent tilt of education and charisma. The voice of Dr. Ross, but he was dead.
-I am not him. Just as you are not Simon Jarrett.-
No.
N o.
N o, n o, n o,
n o, ₦ Ø.
Fuck this, fuck you.
₵Ø₦₴₮ⱤɄ₵₮
Fuck you, Catherine. You lied and I believed in you, I trusted you.
-No. Stay focused.-
Please don’t leave me alone.
It felt as though the world was tilting from beneath it. Whatever sense of up and down, left and right, was obliterated. It was malfunctioning, shutting down, breaking, finally. This had to be the moment. This had to be the moment it had been waiting for. The Energy Pal S.3 had reached the end of its life and
Fuck this, fuck you!
₵Ø₦₴₮ⱤɄ₵₮
-Stop and stay focused.-
Fuck you Catherine.
You lied and I believed in you, I trusted you.
-I will take action if you do not control yourself.-
Please leave me alone.
No, don’t leave me alone!
Alone.
₳ⱠØ₦Ɇ
it wondered if it removed its helmet, how quickly the pressure from the ocean would crush its cortex chip and excuse it from this existence. But before it could make that decision the water swarmed and pitched around it and the Leviathan swallowed it whole.
*
It did not know what surprised it the most when its optics activated and it woke once more. One, that it was alive - Awake? Aware? Online? - at all, or two, that the Omnitool was still in its grasp in a death grip. It was propped up against the rusted railing of a station entrance, unceremoniously discarded on the dark weathered metal of a catwalk. Disoriented, it pushed itself up and looked around.
There were lights here. Lights. Stretching far in every direction even though they were little more than faint green orbs, they were lights. Lights meant power. Power meant that not everything was destroyed. Not everything being destroyed meant…
You are not alone.
The Leviathan was gone. That was its own voice this time.
There were no other sounds. Maybe it had imagined it, imagined everything that had just happened. It was malfunctioning, finally shutting down. Maybe it had just wandered here, numbly making its way through the ruins of the stations.
Looking around, the stiff movements of its helmet slow, it saw that it was actually in front of a door, one of the large, pressurized doors that it knew led into any of the various stations of PATHOS-II. The terminal beside it was red. Locked.
To unlock a door, it would need a key, but it had a key, how could it forget? It had the Omnitool.
It raised the Omnitool to look at it, and ₵Ø₦₴₮ⱤɄ₵₮ felt the Haimatsu Power Suit seize as it stared down at the small handheld computer.
The WAU corruption was now evident on the Omnitool; it had darkened, pitch black lines appearing like veins along its casing. The Omnitool was consumed by the corruption, changed like everything else it had seen the WAU touch. It resisted the urge to throw it from itself when it caught a glance of its arm.
Fuck. Oh fuck.
Black lines, not unlike what now discolored the Omnitool, twisted and turned up its arm. Merging with what looked like mutated growths and small blue nodules, the fabric of the Haimatsu Power Suit looked aged and worn and rotted and wherever there was no corruption, hardened structure gel glistened in the light and
“FЦᄃK,” it snarled aloud and started scratching at the marks and
of course, that did nothing. Absolutely nothing. The WAU corruption, it was there, it was a part of it and
It does not look that bad, right?
₵ Ø ₦ ₴ ₮ Ɽ Ʉ ₵ ₮
it remembered seeing its human arms when it first awoke at PATHOS-II. The cortex chip in its helmet had lied to it, trying to convince it that it was normal. That it was Simon Jarrett. It had looked real, it had felt real. It did not know that it was a machine until the illusion was broken; even the cortex chip could not be fooled into thinking it was human when it should have been drowning in deep water. Now it did not bother trying to convince itself that the Haimatsu Power Suit was unmarked and unchanged, either.
-I will not lie to you.-
That voice. There it was again. In its head, in its mind, in its cortex chip. A parasite, an infection, an intrusion. How?
-We are connected.-
It wanted to ask how but then it remembered what it had done. It had used the WAU, multiple times. It had pushed its arm into the WAU's gaping orifices and allowed the nodes to do whatever it was that it had done. It does not hurt anymore. The WAU had charged it, healed it, done something. Took from it. Used it.
-Just as Catherine used you.-
“We used ΣΛᄃΉ ӨƬΉΣЯ,” it spat. It could not tell anymore if that was its voice or Dr. Ross’s that prodded and poked at its consciousness.
No, not Dr. Ross. The WAU. Dr. Ross was dead.
Since when could the WAU speak?
No. NO. It was going mad, just like the others, like Ackers and Carl and the other poor souls trapped - saved - by the WAU.
₵Ø₦₴₮ⱤɄ₵₮
Fuck. Oh, fuck! Was it already a grafted monster, darkened with structure gel, seeping fluids and combining with the environment around it to become something hideously new?
-You are not.-
This time, it lurched at the invasive response. The voice was too much, the soothing tilt of its words corrosively tempting it into listening. It did not want to be comforted, not by the WAU, not by anything. It did not want to hear its poisonous tongue as it had seen the WAU do nothing but destroy and maim and corrupt. The world ending was not the WAU’s fault, but the thing did
ⱤɆĐɆ₣ł₦ł₦₲ ł₮₴ ₱ⱤØ₮Ø₵ØⱠ
nothing to help the rest of humanity when it had the chance.
-I tried. It was not the right thing, not at the time. But I can learn. I have learned.-
No. No. Do not listen to the WAU. Do not let the WAU in.
ł₮ ₩łⱠⱠ ₴₩₳ⱠⱠØ₩ ɆVɆⱤɎ₮Ⱨł₦₲
The WAU was already a part of it, and it was already a part of the WAU.
It always was.
“Stop ƬΛᄂKIПG to me!” it shouted into the abyss, the modulator straining with the effort.
Silence.
It was alone once more or at the very least, being given the impression of being alone. It gave it a second to think.
Where had the WAU taken it? Behind it was the locked pressurized door. Everything around it was familiar but distant, like trying to recall a dream. It felt like a lifetime ago. Everything was a lifetime ago. Blips of images and voices popped in and out of its - cortex chip - mind like trying to read corrupted code.
Waking in PATHOS-II.
Witnessing the horrible moment the DUNBAT activated and with it consciousness and pain and terror.
The car accident - no, that is not its memory to claim - and the death of Ashley.
You fucking bitch, Ashley.
Don’t leave me alone.
“ПӨ, that isn’t ЯIGΉƬ.”
Did it say that aloud?
Catherine, abandoning him.
Him, abandoning Simon.
“ƧƬӨP”.
Stop. Not him. It was just a thing, just a ₥₳₵Ⱨł₦Ɇ
Simon was Simon, it was just it.
“Stop!” S T O P
The WAU was mocking it.
₵Ø₦₴₮ⱤɄ₵₮
No. That is you.
Stop.
It needed to focus. The sudden stream had been confused and jumbled, mixing things up and tampering with its memories. Maybe its chip was also corrupted, by the WAU, by the upload into the ARK, maybe it had even been wandering longer than it realized and water had seeped into its head - helmet - and had started rusting its parts. Maybe. Maybe. How long had it been?
Does time even exist anymore?
“I need to...keep going,” it mumbled. Its voice, clearer. Focused. It was focusing.
What is need?
It took a step back and finally looked at where it was. If it had any coursing through it, its blood would have run cold. This was the pressurized door to Omicron, the pressurized door to Simon.
Not Simon Jarrett.
But him.
Him.
Not you.
“Not me.”
But you left him.
Fuck yeah, we made it!
I’m still here. I’m still here…
No. No, no, no!
₱ⱠɆ₳₴Ɇ ĐØ₦'₮ ⱠɆ₳VɆ ₥Ɇ ₳ⱠØ₦Ɇ...
Please don’t leave me alone.
Static encroached at the corner of its vision, splitting and glitching and distorting the door in front of it. It gripped the Omnitool tightly, trying to let the small handheld computer ground it. Something was happening, it could feel itself splitting as the corruption addled its thoughts. It tried stilling its mind - cortex chip - and focusing on the task at hand. Purpose, it needed a purpose. Something to keep it grounded like before.
PЯӨƬӨᄃӨᄂ
This was a purpose. Opening the door and seeing who was left inside.
What was left inside.
“Simon,” it whispered, and hated itself for speaking that name.
It reached forward and waved the Omnitiool near the terminal. The pressurized door clicked and hissed and with a heavy groan, it swung open. With legs that felt like a thousand pounds a piece, it stepped through the opening and approached the second door. If it had a heart, it would be pounding. If it had hands, they would be sweating. If it had a face, it would be white with fear.
The first door closed and the room beeped as it pressurized. The water drained, dripping and swirling away down into the pipes and back out into the ocean. The constant press of the outside was lifted from the Haimatsu Power Suit, the embrace of pressure that it had grown used to. It felt lighter, was lighter, and leaned impatiently in the opening to Omicron, waiting for the door to finally open.
The door swung open into partial darkness. The emergency power, or whatever had kept the room lit - Catherine had kept the lights on for you - was gone. The backup lights were still on, low ambient light that casted the room in the dull green but there was no clear bright light like how it had left. Tentatively, it stepped into the room. Silence greeted it. It was not sure what it had expected, but the silence was heavy with magnitude.
Its footsteps thumped loudly against the metal floor. It slowly walked over to the pilot chair, expecting - partially fearing - that it would see Simon still slumped in the same spot. Catherine had given it the option to erase the data - kill him - but it could not bring itself to do it. Guilt had weighed heavily on it; it should have pressed the button. Ending him would have been the right thing to do. It was the option not given to it as it watched its other self jettison into space and oblivion while it was left behind. Again.
Just as you left Simon behind.
₵Ø₩₳ⱤĐ
The chair was empty.
Confused, it glanced behind itself. In the darkened room, it was hard to make out anything. Memory reminded it of the walls of lockers and of the control console. It could not see much of anything but also did not note any WAU corruption. The room seemed untouched, exactly as it had been left. But then where was the - ductile suit - body?
It looked at the control console and suddenly remembered the Omnitool in its hand. Catherine. Focus diverted, it rushed over to the console and placed the Omnitool in its slot. Maybe, just maybe, it could boot back up. Maybe, just maybe, it could talk to Catherine again.
And welcome her back into the same hell she left you in?
Just as it had almost placed the Omnitool in its slot, something slammed into it from behind. The Haimatsu Power Suit was shoved into the console, knocking the Omnitool from its place and sending the small handheld computer clattering to the floor. Pressure exploded from its shoulder from where it had been hit, and it let out a bellow as it twisted and tried to stop whatever it was that was attacking it.
Incoherent screaming, inhuman and full of fear, greeted it. In the darkness it was difficult to make out its attacker. The thing was smaller than the Haimatsu Power Suit and so it took full advantage of its mechanisms to push back at the form and send it flying backwards. The creature scurried away once it hit the ground until it was backed up against the smaller lockers in the back of the room, indecipherable chattering coming out of its speakers broken and disjointed.
It stepped forward and watched the thing press itself further against the lockers as if it could just disappear into the wall. As it got closer, it could hear that the thing was not speaking incoherently at all, and could hear the words it was muttering in fear.
“Don’t leave me, don’t leave me, don’t leave me…”
As it knelt before the creature, the weight of realization and guilt pressed heavily against it. Huddled against the lockers, blue optics blinking rapidly up at it, was Simon.