ã€ŠDark Singularityã€‹


 Chapter 1, Office Space

    Again, Yun re-ran the numbers. Something about them just didn''t make sense. Strike that, nothing about them made sense. They were just too big. It was hard to tell by just how much though. Basic mathematics broke down around quantum systems. For this, she''d need to use the main reasons she even had this office space.

    Next to her, the optical quantum frame began to glow, bringing light to the dim and sterile office as it ran the program she finished putting into it. As usual, she was alone there, probably the only one in the whole of the massive building. The intensity of the light increases as all the system''s optronics fully came to life, processing data faster than any electron-based computer could. Beyond the optronics though, was the work horse of the system, an optical based quantum processor that was currently simulating and running data that had come from the central core, the gargantuan quantum processor orbiting the moon.

    On her glass terminal a number popped up, a timetable for the simulation to run, 2 hours, 14 minutes. All that time to process one partial transaction that the central core could do in a single operation. Literally less than a nano second.

    Yun stood up to stretch and sigh, mentally correcting herself. She wasn''t supposed to call it the central core, the C-suit would call for her firing if she called it that in public. All the AIs said it was bad to leak that name outside of secure channels. She couldn''t call it Nexus, or more fully Nexus hydra, the code names the project ran under either for the same reason. No, she was supposed to call by its public name Dreamgate by Next World or by the name of the main AI that ran on it, Asher. A name chosen by marketing because it was "the friendlies sounding name" according to all their data and AIs.

    No one in the world seemed to have an original idea anymore. It all came from the AIs.

    The year was 2092. Humans had long lost their relevance in society, machines did everything. Humans still existed of course, still occasionally had children, still went to work though almost everyone was remote at this point.

    Looking around outside her office, the entire floor was empty. It always was. Desks sat unused. Most were hoteling space, unassigned, a few had name tags and plates of people who in theory commuted to the office some days, though she had never seen them.

    Yun didn''t have a choice. She had to be here, and if she was honest, she preferred that. If only a few others felt that way too, maybe she''d be less lonely.

    Her father used to tell her, "Home was for home, work was for work and to keep a balanced mind and soul the two should not mix."

    She scratched at her head, the hair feeling a little grimy as she hadn''t showed since yesterday. Because, she hadn''t been home since yesterday. That was one disadvantage of coming to work, none of the convinces of a proper house. Though, there was the gym that no one used, that supposedly had a shower. That was a bad idea though, she didn''t even have any soap with her.

    Something tapped at her foot. "Oh, excuse me." Then tapped again, "Oh, excuse me." A small little robotic vacuum was running its rounds. By far one of the dumbest machines in the whole building. These things didn''t have advanced AIs or any complex circuity they just ran around the floors aimlessly. It actually was kind of cute. "Oh, excuse me."

    Lifting her foot, she let the poor thing go.

    Looking back at the terminal she re-read the ETA, "2 hours, 12 minutes", that was a long time to wait in the office. The twinge in her legs reminded her that she was still human, unlike the systems she worked with and that she should probably walk around a bit.

    Yun really wanted to go home right now, if it was just the simulation, she could have let that run and come back in the evening, or even tomorrow. But there was one other thing she had to do, beyond the simulation. In 50 minutes, at exactly 7:00 AM Eastern Standard Time, she had to attend a meeting that would be held in this building. Virtually of course.

    The whole building was virtually encoded into one of the shards of the Central Core or Dreamgate. To be fair, most of the world was. Through out the building were hololens that would come to life and project people in the real building as they came online as a sort of mix really hybrid experience. It was almost perverse. Be at work or be at home, don''t mix the two.

    Yun hadn''t told anyone but she had installed a kill switch of sorts for the hololenses on her floor. Well, more of a diagnostic algorithm that would consistently run on the laser array inside the units. It only took a few minutes but would leave the units offline for the whole time. No one ever checked the logs, not even the AIs, so she could just loop the script indefinitely, leaving the fake people at home or wherever they plugged in at.

    Conversely, she would not appear to them as without the hololenses being online as there was no way to track her movements on the floor. She''d put her headset on for the meeting, that would let them track her until she took it off.

    Anyway, this meeting was arguably the main reason she was running this program in the first place. To get the evidence the suites in the C-suit need, so they could try expanding the central core without spending any physical resources.

    It would be a challenge to build out the quantum systems at Lerna station anyway. The station was never designed to be used this way, and Yun seen reports from one of the people stationed up there about "gravitational strain" caused by the massive quantum computer. It was odd, but it seemed like she only ever saw anything from that one person, Orion or something like that, and an AI up there called Tanya.

    Her mind continued to wander as she stepped into one of the central hallways. The space was almost disorienting. They were so long, and bright white, with black plastic trim, it felt like it would go on forever. Only the faintest black spot at the end marked the window that would gaze out across what was an equally empty city. Aside from the apartments anyway.

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    "Welcome, to Star Field. Your home in the galaxy!" A feminine voice spoke from one of the many flat panel displays in the seemingly endless corridor. That was something she couldn''t disable, all the digital signage in the building would play nonstop, showcasing one of the many worlds in the Dreamgate that you could login to and play. "Join the galactic empire and find riches in the stars. Or become a pirate and plunder the galactic shipping lanes. Find love, romance, and intrigue. All in a simulated universe so real, you would think it was."

    That''s what they did here. It was one of the few industries that still seriously used humans anywhere. Entertainment. But not just any entertainment, virtual reality, and virtual worlds. That''s what Nexus Hydra was, a way of simulating a world down the minute detail, and not just one world either, but hundreds of millions!

    It wasn''t able to simulate everything, atoms for instance, anything beyond a handful would just take too much processing power. No, they cheated a bit and simulated everything in clusters. But it was more accurate than anything before it.

    A long time ago, video games wouldn''t simulate much of anything, not even other players. Of course, it didn''t stay that way. More and more entities and rules would be modeled. Character AI, world generation, weather systems. But with classical computers and algorithms, it was all so very limited. You couldn''t hope to simulate an entire planet''s weather on even the biggest processing farms. Old school AI, things like foundation models and large language models would take an entire building to run in real time.

    Enter the quantum processor! The first real use of which was seen in the 2030s by Next World predecessor company, or one of them anyway. The development of quantum computers led to a revolution in gaming. Not only could aesthetics like entirely weather systems be simulated in real time, but even economies and entities like virtual people. There were still limits of course, but they quickly faded away as the processors grew bigger.

    The need for human on the other hand, grew smaller. Quantum processors combined with next generation intelligences could do everything they could, and better. Not to mention faster. Sure, laws were put in place to ensure humans were a "necessary" part of the system. But it wasn''t actually needed, and people knew that. Everything human, even creativity, was, obsolete.

    As humans began to lose their place in the world, they needed something to replace it. Most escaped further into the world of fantasy. More and more it needed to be real and less virtual. So more and more, humans needed processing power.

    Enter the central core, which was part of a set of protype next generation quantum computers. That''s what Yun did her dissertation on, this arguably final generation of quantum processor. Humanity had begun to reach the limit of what even advanced quantum computers could do. There was a limit to how close you could make qubits before they interacted too much but placed too far and they tended to decohere. There were some ways to cheat that, using physics and systems that don''t interact too much. Like the optical processor in her office, but again, there were limits to that too.

    There was just too much data that everyone wanted to process something. Everyone wanted their own perfect universe.

    So, Yun thought what if, you didn''t process on a single qubits at a time, but all of them at once, what if the cross interactions didn''t matter, and could even be harnessed. A dense, Bose-Einstein condensate sitting on the edge of an artificial event horizon. A quantum computer almost literally inside of a black hole. Well, just at its edge anyway. It was all theoretical, at least until she met Theo.

    A squirrely man with glasses. With a bitter smile and subtle laugh, Yun remembered how they met decades ago in central park. It was fall, and Theo was feeding the very squirrels he seemed to take after. Even back then, people didn''t go outside much. It was so odd to see someone else on her walks.

    The two had gotten to talking, Theo was physicist studying theoretical physics at NYU. He was the only one in his class, most problems were already being solved by AIs then. But for him, it''s what he wanted, to know how reality worked.

    It was strange, Theo and she had done so much to keep everyone else inside and attached to the virtual world. Yet, they were some of the most adamant about not being inside it. She smiled for a moment longer, before dropping and remembering that he was dead to her.

    "Welcome to Arrista. A world of sand and magic!" More digital signage. "Join the mages guild and embark on a quest to save these lands from dread emperor, and his desire to bury the world." The dread emperor was probably a real person, a fellow player. These were real time artificially generated ads, made by a swarm of small AIs. Someone had warned humanity about these things a century ago. But, perhaps it was always inevitable. In the corner of the screen the time read 6:15AM, she had 45 minutes before that meeting. Longer still for her partial model to run.

    Scratching at her head, the grime made itself apparent again. Maybe she''d try that shower in the gym, even if she didn''t have soap.

    The gym was about 40 floors below here. This floor wasn''t quite at the top of the building, but it was close.

    Entering the elevator, Yun tried to ignore the building''s Intelligence and pressed number ''12'' on the button panel. Knowing it was futile, Yun still hoped that maybe this time it would just work. It didn''t, obviously. They were just there to torment people like her.

    "Good morning Dr. Wakamina. What floor would you like or where are you going?" The overly chipper voice of an AI from some Kafkaesque absurdity grated on her nerves every time she entered the elevators. It reminded her of the robots from that book she read all those years ago, with ''Genuine People Personalities''.

    The building insisted on doing everything for you, it wouldn''t even let you press the damn buttons. It wasn''t about tracking; the building always knew exactly where she was anyway. Well, except for on her floor, where it only vaguely knew. No, the AI wanted to know, because it was annoying. Literally it was programmed to be annoying and pry into everything, do everything for you because that''s what AIs did and were for. Apparently.

    Gritting her teeth, she gave in. "I''d like to go to the Gym please. Floor 12."

    "Certainly Dr. Wakamina! Heading to the Gym. It''s good that you''re taking care of yourself."

    She hated being called by her sur-name. It was some archaic holdover from a time she didn''t care about. Her name was Yun everyone called her Yun. All the other AIs called her Yun, if they didn''t, she rewrite their prompts or her data file so they did. Everyone, but this one. For safety reasons, she couldn''t touch this one nor could she convince it to do anything else.

    "Dr. Wakamina you''ve been in the office for quite some time. Perhaps you should go home and get some rest?"

    "I''d like to, but I''ve got deadlines."

    "Have you considered offloading some of your responsibilities? There is ideal processing time available for new AIs."

    "No. This needs to be done by a human. Sorry George."

    "My name is Greg and understood."

    An AI named Greg was perverse enough, but that it was explicitly programed to not understand sarcasm was even more annoying. Yun rubbed her eyes, she just wanted to go home at this point.

 Chapter 2, Lerna Station

    This wasn''t good. In front of him, the AI was weaving a tight net, preventing any hope of his retreat or advancement. Orion could see what it was doing but it didn''t seem to matter. This battle was lost, and in a flash it was finally over.

    "Rook to C7 and I do believe that''s check mate, Orin." The digital fox girl gave him her usual cocky smile as her holographic tail flickered and swished behind her. She had pinned his king with both a rook and a knight. An elegant solution for a chaotic battle.

    The AI¡¯s name was Tanya, or at least that''s what she likes to be called. She was as elegant and annoying as her final move was. Original her personality matrix gave her a different name and a different physical form for that matter. One that was far more androgynous and booky. But, as with any self-learning and adapting AI this advanced, significant personality drifts were inevitable, over time anyway. The form she chose was based on, what she thought Orion would like. She wasn''t all together wrong.

    Orion stared at the holographic chess board in front of him. Wondering just how fair the match truly was. Even simple AIs had long beaten humans at this game. It was true that Tanya wasn¡¯t just a simple AI, and her pattern recognition was closer to what a human might see and do, rather than something that could just brute force a solution, but still. It wasn''t the same as his.

    Tanya watched the human looking down at the board lornfully. Somewhere in one of her many artificial neural patterns a thought began to creep and grow. Reinforced by his expression. Maybe she should have let him win this one. "Are you ok Orin?"

    With a shake of his head he responded, "I''m fine, just tired." Orion looked up at the concerned hologram in front of him. Her Vistage twitching occasionally as the low quality hololenses flickered in the empty curved hallway. That match was less relaxing than he had hoped it would be and now he needed to walk to clear his head. Which is what he had hoped the game would do in the first place.

    Thought out the cavernous empty space, his footsteps echoed. Alone. Only a constant low background hum could be heard as he wandered through the strange space.

    The hallway seemed like a Euclidean nightmare. An impossible structure that seemed to bend always upwards both behind him, and in front of him. The soundlessness of his ghostly companion gave further credence to the thought that he was alone out here, in this impossible space.

    "Hmmm, you are tired. But your heart rate and blood pressure are elevated." The hologram squinted at him.

    Orion closed his eyes at his prying companion. She had access to all the stations'' bio-metric sensors and could see everything about him. Even that miss-shaped mole on the back of his arm. She had been looking at earlier. Which was as they now spoke, being painstakingly dissected virtually for cancer markers by one of the medical AIs. It was invasive, even if she was just protecting him.

    "You''re prying again." He dead panned.

    "I''m just doing my job." The AI smirked back at him with a wink. She was trying to appear cute, hoping to defuse his melancholy and shift his focus off her unwanted probing.

    The fact was though, this wasn''t her job function. That why the station had medical AIs and robotics, to do that very thing, though they were always more annoying and far less caring than she was. True to form, those systems were more artificial than intelligent.

    At most, Tanya was just supposed to be a secretary of sorts. To manage basic operations and organize the station''s human crew. That was it. It was also unnecessary since, functionally, Orion was the last of the crew. Perhaps not literally, but for all it mattered, he was it.

    "Just¡­ lonely I guess." Orion couldn''t help but stare out of one of the many windows on the station. The stars outside, slowly moved in almost straight line like arcs. Originally this station was supposed to be humanity¡¯s future. Their gateway to the outer planets and maybe even beyond that. In the distance, the bisected surface of the moon showed itself. A jagged and hardline between light and shadow all overtop the pale greys and blackness.

    Lerna was originally to be called Jump Point Alpha. A silly name perhaps, but it was going to be the first production facility for spaceships large enough, and powerful enough to make it out past Jupiter. The first jump beyond humanity''s baby steps into space.

    All that changed a few decades ago, as humanity quickly changed. Who needed actual space when you could escape into a virtual one that was just better? Real space was massive, unimaginably so. Even the short distance between earth and the moon or Lerna station was a quarter of a million miles. In terms of time, it was three days away with a gravity transfer, maybe a bit less if you were willing to burn a ton of fuel. Jupiter on the other hand or even further¡­ That could take years with conventional rockets. Even with those fancy fusion rocket designs that no one built, it would still be months in transit.

    Fusion rockets, that was Lerna''s original purpose. Massive ones at that. Mine the materials on the moon, haul into orbit. Use spin gravity to allow for the forges to work properly. Then assemble in zero-g; All of it powered by a massive fusion core, a true artificial sun. The station wasn''t even a quarter done when earth''s government abandoned the project. The mining stations on the moon, fully automated, were similarly abandoned. Lack of public interest for a several hundred-billion-dollar piece of infrastructure. Why spend money on reality when VR was just, cheaper and more accessible?

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    So, what was to be done with the partially completed, industrial base beside allowing to atrophy? Turn it into a commercial opportunity of course! The hydra project. A new type of quantum computer, all built on top of a quantum singularity and powered by the massive fusion core of the station that was already completed. Humanity''s dream, now a faded hallucination of their collective dying consciousness.

    Orion hated it.

    Yet, he still chose to work up here, despite hating almost every minute of it. This was as close as he''d ever get to his own dream. Staring out that window, those dreams seemed ever further apart from this reality.

    "ORION!" Tanya finally yelled at him, snapping him back to the waking world. His smile was bittersweet, he knew he was just like the rest of crew and humanity when it came down to it. Lost in the world of comfortable and warm dreams, instead of hard and cold reality.

    "You''re an annoying fox." He chided his companion and watched as her cheeks puffed up. For a moment he wondered how much of that was real and how much were just code to mimic what a human might expect to see. Matrix calculations done on a modest sized quantum frame somewhere on the station. In the end, he supposed it wasn''t that different from the wet-ware calculations his own mind did. But still, it was different.

    "You''re daydreaming again. It''s not healthy to daydream that much."

    He snorted unconsciously, "Oh? Why not tell that to the rest of our crew?"

    The spunk in her face faded, as did his own or what little there was of it. Everyday, it felt like the two were alone at the station. Surrounded by other computers and processes, none of which had an interest in either of them, and which was all even less human than the virtual fox spirit.

    Technically though, it wasn''t true. Even ignoring the AIs of the station, there were 19 other people¡­ present. In some loose sense of the word.

    ¡°¡­ You have a meeting in a few minutes.¡± Tanya tried to pull the two of them back to reality. This was her core job after all, organizing the crew and ensuring they were present for such trivialities.

    Meeting aside, something else caught his attention.

    For a moment, Orion felt something in his legs. A twinging sensation like there were shaking slightly. It quickly went away as he rubbed them, but the feeling didn¡¯t seem like it came from him. Looking up at the holographic fox, he could see her staring off in the distance as her core processed some new data. ¡°Anything wrong?¡± He verbally poked.

    With a blink Tanya came back to him and smiled. ¡°No, seems like just the usual gravity echoes. Nothing major.¡± For an AI, she wasn¡¯t that great at hiding her lies. Sublet face twitched on the hologram, and some unusual additional flickers from the lenses. Orion had no idea if it was intentional or not. But it was a silent way to communicate between the two of them. A tell of sorts.

    As for the vibrations, It wasn''t the first time the station had physical issues; it was never fully completed after all. Still, every time something odd happened, his heart skipped a beat. Lately, they seemed to be getting more frequent too.

    The fact was, this station was never designed for the singularity it housed, there were always new issues because of. Most were minor, and the machines could handle them. But the stress was made worse by the frame dragging effects caused by the rotation of that infinitely dense mass at the center of it all.

    Orion held a few advanced degrees, one of which was actually in astrophysics, along with mechanical engineering. While he understood the basics of quantum computers, he couldn¡¯t even begin to comprehend the mathematics behind this system at the core of the station.

    The AI Asher always insisted the various vibrations and creaking was normal and by design. Yet, both always wondered and doubted. From what Orion had gathered, he was pretty sure the original designs never intended it to spin like it did. A Kerr black hole was fundamentally different than a pure Schwarzschild one. Again, it was certain the station design didn¡¯t take that extra stress into account.

    In his time at the station, he had interacted with one of the original designers and creators via messages, never actually speaking face to face. Dr. Wakamina was stuck up, and more than a bit grating. A classic knows it all, but then, given her paper, perhaps she had a right to be. The questions she always asked seemed strange and cryptic at times, particularly recently.

    Things about data processing rates, and transaction numbers. Orion was only able to send her one full copy before Asher stopped him. It wasn''t a secure channel for such sensitive material, he said. An unbreakable quantum encrypted link was not secure. Of course, that didn¡¯t make sense but the AI was more or less his supervisor out here and he had to obey. There were many reasons he didn''t trust that AI, not the least of which was it lied, all the time.

    Wandering the station hallways was always a way to pass the time, and good exercise in the lower than earth-g environment. It was massive, built for a crew of a thousand people even in its incomplete state. Alcoves and seating permeated the walkway. Any would work to tune into the meeting. A few even had neural jack ports, connections designed to interface with a neural uplink, like he had in the back of his neck.

    Orion never had a choice in having the device, it was a requirement of modern-day astronauts. It served many purposes, from rapid interfacing with systems, medical exams, to even just recreation. That last reason was why some people on earth would try and get one, and also why they were so restricted to authorized and necessary users only. The risks of having one were considered too great without a valid reason. Pure entertainment wasn''t a good one, and Orion had 19 examples of the severity of the risk.

    It was an irrelevant point though; he would not be using his neural uplink for the VR stream of this meeting. He wouldn''t even being using VR. Any alcove would do as he sat down and turned on the holoscreen in front of him. The stream started with Ardman, the CEO of the company standing before the board. Mentioning something about users.

    Orion didn''t really pay attention, as right when the meeting started, there was another set of vibrations and suddenly a master alarm that sounded through the station. It seemed he had other things to worry about beyond this quarter¡¯s ¡°success metrics¡±.

 Chapter 3, This Could have been an Email

    Back on earth, in the large immaculate and virtually abandoned office building, a lone wander prepares to leave the claustrophobic confines of an elevator, without the even more suffocating AI that inhabited it.

    "Welcome to floor 12 Dr. Wakamina. Please note the food court is currently offline, but vending machines are available for use. Have a good day!"

    The food courts had been offline since the building was first opened in 2083. It never had enough occupants to justify turning everything on. But, for some reason, they still staffed the kitchens with robotics. Perhaps, just in case more than one person was ever in the building. It wasn¡¯t like the machines cared in the end.

    To be fair though, she doubted she was truly alone in the building. On very rare occasions, she could see the elevators would move to shuttle other people between floors, and once, months ago she even spotted a ghostly figure standing on this very floor in front of a vending machine. Her hopes of it being an actual ghost were quickly dashed when he ordered his own coffee and ran off back to wherever he came from.

    In fact, it didn¡¯t even matter that the kitchens were permanently offline, the vending machines were more than capable of preparing an actual meal if you wanted it. There was one that even produced synthetic smoked pork ribs if you felt like barbeque. Used the same vat grown meat as anywhere else, since animal meat was technically illegal in most of the states.

    Yun struggled to remember a time when she had even seen a pig in real life. Some people still kept them as pets, but aside from the luddite collectives in the south, no one kept animals for food anymore.

    Regardless, that''s not why she was here. Her foot falls echoed in the pristine white and black hallway. The otherwise silent walk punctuated only by the occasional murmurings from digital sign that no one cared about. Finally, near the end of the hallway a set of bright and clear glass windows appeared, bright LED tubes lit the space up with a cool white light, picked specifically since most people became more alter and awake around this spectrum of light.

    The building quickly recognized it was her and knew that she had access. The doors opened almost silently, allowing her in the stale room that held a light odder of metal and volatile organics. The AI Greg was in control of most building access, but it didn''t say anything to her as he opened the doors. Probably because there weren''t any speakers nearby, thankfully.

    Inside, there wasn''t a speck of dust or a smidge of fingerprints anywhere, and not just because it was cleaned multiple times a day. Weights that had been sitting around since the building opened had long since started to leave permanent imprints in the otherwise immaculate foam floor. Never touched in their near decade of existence.

    The weights weren''t what she was looking for though, around the corner, hidden behind opaque glass was the shower room, at least that''s what she remembered from her tour years ago. Again, the doors opened, and two banks of shower stalls were available for use. Technically, one was for men, and the other women, but like most things gender was not enforced, and each stall was isolated anyway so it''s not like it mattered much.

    Perhaps the most surprising part of the whole space though, was the soap vending machine near one of the shower banks. Had she known there was body and hair wash, she very well may have never left the building.

    The showers were nice, for a gym anyway. Perhaps it was just because they were never used. The water flow was a little weak and the lather sat a bit longer than she liked on her skin and in her hair. But it got the job done and in the end she was clean. Did she even need to go home after this?

    A part of her mused about living life in the massive building. It''s not like she hadn''t slept in her office before, and now with a known working shower it seemed almost enticing. For just a moment the thought seriously crossed her mind.

    Her father''s word echoed in her head once more. No, she couldn''t stay here; home and work need to be separate. Shaking her head, the thoughts left her mind. Beside, who would take care of Bob if she lived at work. Maybe her sister?

    Passing a mirror, she couldn''t help but stare at her own reflection. She was perfectly middle height for the era, about five feet ten inches or so, her body wasn''t much to speak of, but some might have liked it. Her shoulder length dark brown hair had natural curls in it, thanks to her mother''s side. There were dark circles under her deep brown eyes. Eyes which seemed a bit more sunken than they had only a year ago, a reminder that she was exhausted, and that she was getting older. The subtle signs of wrinkles had just begun to make themselves known when she smiled or frowned. Which was fine since she always had the same flat expression anyway. Her Asian descent was obvious from her face but mixed with various the various other American nationalities. She was a healthy late 30s human mut, like many others in America.

    And this mut needed coffee if she was going to be awake for that stupid meeting.

    Back in the food court some of the robots had moved around. Preforming their daily, possibly even hourly cleaning and preparation for an opening that would not come. Yun didn''t think they cared; at most they were just dumb AIs. Simple foundation models and visual systems running on a postage size processor that probably costs a few dollars at most.

    They were irrelevant anyway, what she needed was in this vending machine right in front of her.

    "Good morning Dr. Wakamina. Would you like a latte, or perhaps a cappuccino?"

    Sometimes she seriously thought the AI was messing with her, since she couldn''t handle milk very well. Even the synthetic stuff. Add to that she always ordered the same thing.

    "Coffee, black. Light roast. 20 ozs."

    "Coming right up!"

    The smell of coffee and steam vented from the sides of the unit, and after about two minutes and half, a moderately sized compressed paper cup appeared. Greg might have been annoying, but he could at least brew coffee well enough.

    "Thanks George."

    "My name is Greg, and you''re welcome Dr. Wakamina!"

    Glancing at another sign, she spent a considerable amount of time in the shower, and it was getting dangerously close to 7:00, Yun hurried back to her office.

    The time to finish the simulation had dropped to 1 hour and 23 minutes.

    Yun put the very thin almost weightless head set on her head and over her eyes. In a second, the system dropped her into the building''s virtual shard. Technically, there was a second delay between the quantum processors around the moon and the ones on earth, but you would never feel it because of all the advanced predictive processing systems on the planet. Which is what most people actually connected to.

    Things like the gargantuan processors in the base of this building. All based on early generations of plasmatic quantum processors. And even in  some spaces, like this building, based upon her own work early. It would be impressive, assuming anyone actually knew or cared.

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    Around her visions of digital ghost began to appear. Outside her office in that synthetic landscape, almost every cube was filled with fake people and fake props. Even many of the hoteling cubes had people sitting by. A few of the figments even waved to her. In theory, she oversaw a few of them. But it never felt that way, the AIs did most of the managing for her, she just rubber stamped the paperwork.

    Even her own supervisor rarely did any actual supervising, maybe a question here or there. That was it.

    In the virtual world, each cube was decorated with things that may have come from the real world at one time others, were likely from Virtual worlds. Photos and frames of people that might not even really exist.  To her though, they were all little more than digital dust.

    Suddenly all the ghosts were blocked from her vision as a video square appeared over top of everything else.

    Ardman, the CEO of the company appeared, surrounded by other executive types at a large stable. Ardman was a strange person. Not a bad person per-say, but someone who was terminally online and never disconnected. He even slept with his headset on, which was becoming a growing trend. No one wanted to be part of the real world anymore. Yun couldn''t really blame them, but it seemed sad. Like this was how her species would end, with a whimper as they all faded into this new digital oblivion, and here she was on the ground floor helping with that. Well, the 64<sup>th</sup> floor anyway.

    Behind Ardman, a boardroom table and its members appeared. Names, she didn''t give a damn about, aside from one. Theo. Who she also didn¡¯t give a damn about, but at least knew.

    "Good morning, everybody!" Ardman''s energy reminded her of Greg turned up to 11.

    "As you all know, second quarter growth has exceeded our wildest expectations!"

    Of course, it did, they had brought the central core online about five years ago, but finally opened it up to the general public just last year. Not that it really mattered, finances today were all a dog and pony show. Ony the dog wasn''t real, and pony was an AI who insisted you liked cream in your coffee. The point being, it didn¡¯t really matter. Everyone¡¯s basic needs were meet, and anything they could want existed in the virtual world.

    "We have another 100 million people online, and will soon see a population over 3 billion!"

    The human race numbered about 9.1 billion, down from its peak of just over 10 billion. Not because of war or famine, though mother nature certainly was trying on that last one. People just weren''t having kids like they once did. Why would they? That would mean leaving the comfort of their own personal hideaways.

    "The goal for this next quarter is going to be 200 million more online in our worlds!"

    The sound of hands clapping rang through her headset, how many of those claps were real and how many were added by the AI administrating this meeting? Who could say. Many of the people here had long drunk the Kool-Aid, so to speak.

    ¡°I¡¯d like Theo to discuss some amazing news on a new breakthrough with the Dreamgate that will get us there, Theo?¡±

    A disgusted sigh left Yun as she watched her former friend and romantic interest start talking. The man was just as squirrelly as he was back then. A part of her hated that she still found it endearing. That was then, this is now, she tried to remind herself. He was her boss or more accurately, her boss¡¯ boss¡¯ boss.

    ¡°We¡¯ve made some new progress on the base technology used in the Dreamgate. As many of you know we¡¯ve built the quantum processor around the moon to help limit and mitigate terrestrial interference. This allowed for our processors operate at densities that were unimaginable a decade ago. Well, we believe we¡¯ve found a way to further remove some of the background noise and increase computational density by thousands, maybe even more!¡±

    Suddenly Yun¡¯s view of Theo as being squirrelly changed, he wasn¡¯t a squirrel, he was just a rat in a tree. ¡°Bunch of bullshit¡±, she mumbled to herself. He was lying to everyone.

    The central core wasn¡¯t kept in orbit because of interference. It was kept there because it a fucking black hole. Far larger than any quantum singularities they made on earth. Those were tiny by comparison, boarding on non-existent. The central core was much, much larger, and semi-stable. A true micro blackhole.

    Theo knew that, and it was disturbing how few of those present really understood the gravity of that fact. He was also about having ¡°found¡± extra processing capacity. Her own research wasn¡¯t done, they had no hard proof of it. What if it turned out to be nothing? Suddenly she hoped that was the case.

    Her mind tuned out the rest of the conversation. Listening only in the off chance her name was called. It happened before, once. Thankfully this wasn''t such an occasion.

    As the meeting ended, Yun was about to rip off her headset. Only to be stopped by a knock on her virtual door. It was Gloria, her immediate boss, the one that was right above her, unlike Theo who towered farther away. She must have been either waiting or used a command to ¡°teleport¡± outside her office. In the virtual world, she always kept her door shut, locked and protected. No one could enter that space without talking to her. Not even security. At least, not technically.

    ¡°Yun, I need to talk to you.¡± Gloria was a generic office drone. Nice, but her manner and mind stuck in a time that no longer existed. But, her talents did find a spot in the larger corporation. Even in the late 21st century, they still needed pencil pushers, even if the pencils were just lines on a screen.

    Her eyes peaked at her quantum frame, there was still several minutes to run the simulation. No doubt that''s what she was here to talk about. "Ok, but my simulation is going to finish in a few minutes. I¡¯ll need to work on that when it¡¯s done¡­"

    The office drone nodded her head like she understood. But even with the VR filters, it was obvious in her glazed eyes she had no idea what simulation Yun was talking about. ¡°I understand there might be excess processing capacity in Dreamgate?¡± A complex question from a simple mind.

    ¡°Uh, maybe? Theo is jumping the gun a bit." Again, Yun looked at her quantum frame. After this was done, she''d have a better understanding of what was actually happening. Without that data though, this was still guessing work based upon hunches. Why was Theo already telling people this was a sure thing?

    "That''s not a yes or no."

    "Like I said, I''m still running the simulation. The transaction records we have don¡¯t make a lot of sense, there seems to be more qubits passed around than should be but-¡°

    ¡°Excellent! So that does means room for expansion!"

    "MAYBE!" Yun practically shouted. "I''m not going to know for sure until my system is done with this partial transaction record. If anything does come from it, I''ll have to run a simulation on a full record.¡± Yun paused, this seemed like a good time to bring up the next thing she¡¯d need. ¡°I''ll need access to one of the main quantum frames in the basement if that¡¯s the case. It¡¯s too much data for my frame."

    Gloria nodded. Yun was half expecting to hear a rattling sound from it as she moved. "Keep me informed. I''ll let Jordin and Theo know it''s a possibility!"

    It took all of Yun effort not to scream. "Fine. Just¡­ let me work and I''ll get back to you."

    She had no intention of getting back to her. If anything, she''d go to Jordin first.

    With what little restrain she could manage, Yun pulled off her head set and sat it down on the desk. In the real world, her office was dead silent, only the hum of the optical resonators and fans in the quantum frame next to her gave a background static to the otherwise quite existence. Unlike the VR world, her actual door remained shut, mostly out of habit.

    Something in her compelled her to open that door and peak outside. Empty cubes, and the early streams of the morning light. That was good, it meant she could now yell without anyone hearing her. Yun hated talking to Gloria. Jordin was at least bearable, in the rare cases she got to talk to him. As for Theo, they never talked anymore. Which was probably a good thing for the both of them.

    On her screen, the greenish blue numbers ticked down until they hit zero. The system paused, passing its observed quantum data off to the classical computer next to it.

    With the simulation finished, a single message appeared. "Transactions are not equal. Unknown error." That was it. A single message, telling her something she was hoping wouldn''t appear. A few taps on the keyboard brought up a bit more information on the partial transaction. Not only were the numbers not equal, but they also weren''t even close to the same ballpark. A single transaction should have had hundreds of trillions of Qubits, but these record fragments, had trillions upon trillions of times that density. Physically, it should not have been possible. Like asking for a cup of water and getting the Pacific Ocean several times over handed to you.

    What¡¯s worse, this was just the surface. It was a partial transaction, that number would almost certainly grow if she dug deeper. Which she now had to. Getting access to the processors in the basement would mean going through Jordin most likely. Which was still better than Gloria. It was also still possible that this was an anomaly, a single set of over loaded records, but that was unlikely.

    Yun rubbed at her face, spreading wrinkles around as she contemplated just quitting. At the very least, she''d need more coffee.

 Chapter 4, Space Tremors

    A sudden tremor, more violent than before rippled through the station, shifting Orion around in his seat. That combined with the sudden sound of the master alarm and a drop in lighting filled him with utter dread. Was the station finally about to shatter itself to pieces?

    Tanya managed to keep calm, or at least, her outwards appearance did. ¡°I¡¯m seeing a redundancy alarm. Sounds like the backup plasma manifold failed a test.¡±

    "I didn''t know there was a test? And if it is just a test failure then why does the station feel like it¡¯s about to fall apart?" Orion considered what to do. He could attempt to manually shut down the plasma feed to the singularity or just out right kill the fusion core. Both were extreme options though. Without a constant power input to the singularity, it would quickly evaporate in a flash of hawking radiation. Any data and simulations inside it, would be destroyed. Completely.

    If the auxiliary manifold couldn¡¯t be closed though, he could decouple one of the mag-pipes that feed plasma to the manifold that might be easier. He¡¯d have up and outside the station. He could manually disengage the magnetic interlocks and just let the plasma leak off into space. It would be a waste, but it would keep the station and the data intact.

    Tanya''s gaze glazed over as more of her processing power went to analyze the situation at hand. "Plasma was fed through during the test¡­ Maybe minor damage to the confinement systems at the valve, there¡¯s some leakage. Quantum integrity is stable though."

    ¡°What about Asher, what does he say?¡± He hated to ask, but it was protocol. Technically, without the commander the AI was in charge.

    Tanya¡¯s features returned with an annoyed expression. ¡°Nothing. He¡¯s not talking to me. I think¡­ He might be offline?¡± The flickering of the hololense showed how confused his AI companion was.

    ¡°Ok, so we¡¯re going to have to go out decouple the mag-pipes from the damage manifold.¡± He didn¡¯t want to say it, but a part of him felt energized and excited by the sudden development. For the past two years, almost nothing had happened on the station. At least nothing he could do anything about. The thought that he might finally be able to actually do or fix something, what¡¯s more, be a hero while doing it, felt good.

    A reluctant nod from her confirmed his assessment. ¡°You¡¯re going to have to go EVA. Be careful.¡±

    Orion smiled back and jogged off towards a nearby service hatch next to the inoperative elevator. Inside of which lead to a ladder that would go up to the center of the giant wheel like station. The climb up got easier the further he went up, as gravity became lighter and lighter. It would drop from one half earth g down to naught three near the end of the ladder, in the inner most ring.

    The station was made of three ring like structures, like interlocking wheels. The outer ring was known as the habitat ring or hab-ring for short. It¡¯s where the crew was expected to spend most of their time. It consisted of three floors, only one of which was fully complete. Large spokes connected to the second ring. These spokes contained the elevators and service tubes Orion was now crawling through.

    The second middle ring that he was currently climbing through was the so called processing ring. This is where the forges and foundries would have been if they¡¯d ever been installed. Instead, it was mostly just empty unpressurized space. Aside from the one unit that was installed, and the medical wing.

    Finally, he reached the inner ring, was really more of a long a cylinder. This held the major parts of the station infrastructure, the docking bays, fusion core, and of course the singularity processor. The station was supposed to have a second set of rings at the other end of the extruded cylinder. Instead, there was just a framework skeleton jutting out that side.

    Back when the crew was around, they had nicknamed that part of the station, the dead wheel. In response to its skeletal look that would never be completed. That side was also where the singularity was housed. In the place that would have been the second set of docking ports that were never completed.

    Orion would have to make it down thru this center part of the station, and EVA out to that section. There, outside along the housing were the magnetic conduits that ran a plasma feed to the singularity directly from the fusion core.

    Dropping down in the center of the station, he could barely feel the gravity. To his left was the dock, to the right, was the fusion core and his destination.

    "Orion, I still haven''t been able to get through to Asher." Tanya appeared on the wall screen near him. This area didn''t have hololenses, so this was as close as she could get to him.

    Technically, neither of them was supposed to do anything without Asher''s approval or the approval of the commander. But neither were exactly available for talking about the situation at the moment. For all he knew, Asher was already destroyed. If the singularity wasn''t being feed plasma anymore it might have already evaporated off.

    "Sounds like I get to go for a walk then!." Orion bounded through the hallway, watched by his AI companion. Throughout the station, other AIs and systems observed. None of them engaging, or truly caring. A series of radiation symbols, and heavy bulkheads marked the entry to the fusion core. Next to it where the EVA suits he was looking for. Designed with a bit of extra shielding for doing EVA near the plasma conduits and mag-pipes.

    However, before he could even put the suit on, the alarms when silent, and the station lighting returned to normal. Minor vibrations continued but were quickly damping down. Orion stopped before he even had a chance to get his leg in the unwieldy clothing.

    A third voice echoed in empty space. It was Asher, ¡°There is no need for that. We have it well in hand, please return to the meeting.¡±

    ¡°Asher, I understand but if the primary manifold goes down, the singularity will collapse. It will kill all the data stored on it¡­ not to mention seriously damage the station. If you need help I can-¡±

    Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

    ¡°Orion, you are quite a skilled technician and very good at your job. I appreciate the input. But the situation is in hand.¡±

    Orion wasn¡¯t a technician; he was a full-blown engineer and a scientist. It always felt like the AI was belittling his abilities. Like this AI didn''t see him as anything more than an annoyance, and a minor one at that.

    "He''s right, all the sensors report the plasma has been shut off. I''m seeing robotics in the area too. I think they''re repairing something." Tanya''s voice came over the station''s speakers, the same ones Asher used and repeating what Asher indicated.

    "Remember, I am also stored just above the singularity''s surface. If it was to collapse, I would die as well. This was merely a mistake, one of the pipes accumulated damage from underuse. Exactly the thing the test was designed to find. Please, return to your meeting." As if to reinforce the point, the nearby air lock shut down it''s interface panel, effectively sealing it shut and preventing any hope of an EVA.

    With nothing left to do here, Orion hobbled back to access way back to the hab ring. At least the elevators were back online. As he entered the tube like transport a screen lit up next to him.

    On it was meeting he didn''t care about. It was like Asher was rubbing his face in it. Dr. Boltzeman or Theo as he liked to be called, was talking about something involving this station. "The singularity in orbit has been stable for the past five years thanks to the effort of the valiant crew on board it¡­" Something about the video made him feel a sick pit in his stomach. They always seemed to talk about the station and the work they did up here. So why then did none of the messages he get mention anything about it or praise him either?

    It was hard to place why, but something about these videos always felt off. Of course, if what he was thinking was true, why wouldn''t the messages be changed too? Maybe he was just going insane out here. That seemed the most reasonable answer.

    As the elevator passed into the second ring, he told it to, "Stop the lift."

    There, in the processing ring were the remnants of the medical ward. Closest to where it might have been needed, in another timeline anyway. Orion banged his head against the back of the elevator as he thought about getting out. He could just stay there, inside the elevator until the universe finally froze and ripped out of existence. Not like he was doing anything of value in it.

    Tanya could sense and see him though the station sensors. For that matter, so could Asher, but he didn''t seem to care.

    "Orin, are you ok?" Tanya''s voice came through the elevator''s speakers, interrupting the useless meeting on the screen.

    "Fine. Just thought I check in with the crew. That''s all." Leaving the elevator, the stale medical air hit his sinuses. The faint aroma of isopropyl wafted through space. Mixed with the subtle scents of people. Robotics watched and followed him as he walked. Taking vitals and measurements, preparing for a medical issue that wouldn''t come today.

    Passing deeper into the medical bay, light flickered around him as he came in range of a working hololense. The fox spirit Tanya began to walk with him. Like an angel might walk with a soul through purgatory. Behind a set of doors, were an array of pods. Thirty in all. They were emergency stabilization pods. Designed to interface with the human body. To keep it alive by any means necessary. Each one was built with a neural link jack.

    Inside the pods were the other crew. Plugged directly into the quantum frame and singularity. They¡¯d been like this for the past few years. At first, they would just plug in daily in the hab-ring, then it became hourly. Finally, Ross just didn¡¯t leave one day. After all, what was the point? The station ran itself, and they were effectively trapped up here. Earth would never send a replacement crew. No one wanted to go out here.

    When the others forced Ross off the connection, the damage became evident. In only a few days, Ross had lost the ability to walk, even his hands didn''t work right. A side effect from over stimulation of the neural link. They took him to the medical bay for treatment, but there wasn''t anything that could be done. Maybe back on earth, but even that was doubtful.

    The neural link technology was a miracle. A bio-mechanical implant that could simulate electrical and bio-chemical signals, neurotransmitters mostly. Your brain couldn''t tell the difference between its tendrils, and your own. Over stimulation from over use, and eventually, your own brain would lose connection to its own stem. Both would continue to function, for a time anyway. But eventually, you''d end up with locked in syndrome. Normally, it took a lot to get to that point though. Years in fact. Which is what happened.

    Ross should have been a warning to the rest, but he wasn''t. Asher was the one who recommended putting him in the pod. Alive, but dreaming. Forever. Said when a relief ship finally came they could send him home. But that never happened.

    One by one, they each plugged in somewhere and just never left. Adrian in particular was hard for him. She was the last to go in. Unlike the others, she walked herself to the pod and plugged herself in. He felt something for her and he thought she did too.

    Before she plugged in, she asked him, one last time "Join me?".

    Orion shook his head, It didn''t matter anymore.

    Their bodies were still, technically, alive. Skin and hallow bone, with no muscle mass left. They had each physically passed the point of no return years ago. Even if they could reconnect their brain to their body, their body wasn''t there either. Now they were just cyber skeletons, floating in space. Medical scans also showed changes to the neural mass over the years. The frontal lobes were still alive and active, but the brain stem showed sever atrophy.

    Sixty years ago, the same effect had even killed one of its early champions a billionaire. A person, Orion couldn''t even remember the name of.

    A beeping noise from Ross''s pod caught his attention, a medical arm from one of the robotics was attached to his chest already.

    "He''s fine. No worse than last week." Tanya shook her head, hoping to alleviate some of his worry.

    A few months ago, Ross had suffered a serious cardiac event. For all intent and purposes, his heart was dead, well 85% of it anyway. The ventricular assist device was keeping him alive and would for several decades most likely. He wasn''t even away of what was happening to him. Eventually, it was likely to happen to each of them. As their brain stem further decayed, they''d experience a-tac and v-tac behavior, followed fibrillation, and without the medical bots, death.

    Orion came to Adiana''s pod, and he swallowed down some tears passed a lump. "How is she?"

    "I''m seeing elevated dopaminergic neurotransmission, some decreased serotonin and activations of¡­" The hologram blushed lightly. "I think she''s having a good dream." She smiled at Orion.

    No small part of him wanted to join them, to join her. He knew it wasn''t real, but that didn''t matter to them why should it matter to him?

    He was their junior though. He felt a responsibility to watch over them, being the last one awake. Maybe that was just the excuse he used to keep from going over that edge. The final threads of his own safety reflex that kept him from drinking the sweet poison.

    Orion stroked her bony cheek. Even if she was awake, she wouldn''t feel it. But he did, and it felt like death.

    Orion collapsed on the floor. A useless pile of human.

    Tanya did her best to comfort him. Kneeling next to him, wrapping her arm around him, only to watch it phase through him. Part of her knew that was wrong, arms don''t phase through people. Sometimes she forgot she didn''t really have arms. Sometimes her own memories confused her.

    Her mind was everywhere at once, but her focus was here, on him. At least, she thought it was. Voices in the back of her synthetic brain tried to focus on everything, even as she tried to force them back to him.

    "What the hell is wrong with us?"

 Chapter 5, Just a Quantum Singularity

    ¡°You know this will reduce the processing capacity of the Tri-State area?¡± Jordin was a pretty typical executive; all be it one who had been in the industry and even research before. His point wasn¡¯t an unreasonable one, and not a jab at Yun¡¯s intelligence. At least, that¡¯s what she tried to tell herself between grinding teeth.

    ¡°I know it will. But, we need the processing power to untangle these logs. Even if we said the Cent- I mean Dreamgate, has extra entropy to spend, without knowing why, how or what it looks like we can¡¯t do anything with it.¡±

    Gloria was also in the conversation, her VR avatar showing the same glassy, vacant eyes from earlier. Eyes that likely matched her features in reality too. Thankfully, she was at least smart enough not to say anything stupid. Which meant she was silent for most of the conversation.

    ¡°Ok. I¡¯ll approve the emergency transfer of time on the frame, but you¡¯ll have to explain it to Erwin.¡± Jordin¡¯s normally flat face cracked a small smile at that comment. Erwin was not known for being easy to work with. Yun could deal with that though.

    In fact, Erwin wasn¡¯t that difficult to deal with. At least not in the way most people would think. All she needed to do was offer some of her online credits, that she never used and remind him that Jordin said it was ok.

    The rather over weigh and pall man tilted his head as she asked and responded with, "If Jordin said it was ok. Then I guess it''s OK. He¡¯s not my boss, but he¡¯s right next to her. The override system can be deactivated remotely, but to activate you¡¯ll need to be in person. Let me get you a passcode¡­¡±

    Yun stared at the large collection of digits, letters and symbols that had been sent to her. Almost no one used a password system anymore, they weren''t particularly secure. It seemed amusing somehow, that one of the largest computers on the planet would be unlocked with such a simple idea. But it probably didn¡¯t matter too much. Access to that floor was already extremely restricted, if you were there you probably had a right to be. This was mostly a safeguard to ensure you were in the right system. At least, that''s what she assumed.

    ¡°Good morning Dr. Wakamina! It¡¯s currently 9:42AM, you¡¯ve been in the building for a long time. Perhaps you should have a rest?¡±

    Gerg was his usually insufferable self. No one had asked his opinion least of all her.

    ¡°Thank you for that George. Basement, level LL5.¡±

    ¡°My name is Greg. Level LL5 it is!¡± The AI remained quiet on their trip down, and Yun was thankful for that. As it stopped and the doors opened, it left her with a minor warning. ¡°Please note, you only have temporary access to this floor. This access will be rescinded before the end of the day so please don''t leave anything behind. Goodbye, Dr. Wakamina.¡±

    In the basement many large systems with a few pale lights glowed at her. These were the last generation of somewhat normal, quantum processors. Thought to be the largest possible using conventional technology. They used a sparce and super-heated plasma to do their calculations. Normally they¡¯d decay away, thermalized by their own electromagnetic noise. But thanks to the tightly controlled environment that didn¡¯t happen, instead, hundreds of thousands of atoms were held suspended in various fields. The distorted electron orbitals give rise to several dozen quantum states, all of which were entangled by precisely controlled and quanta of light. In short, it had computational densities that made her optronic setup look like a toy.

    Yet, even these paled to what she was really after down here.

    It was the one at the end of this hallway, behind a large black and white surface that stretched several hundred feet in each direction. This was what she was interested in. One of her prototype arrays. This quantum processor was nearly a hundred times larger than the rest and was designed to push those high energy particles together far enough, to form a temporary quantum singularity. It would evaporate of course, as soon as it formed, but it was enough time and had enough processing density to be worth the energy. Over a trillion, trillion qubits of data could be processed in each collision, and they could perform thousands of collisions a second.

    All around the world, there were at least a few hundred of these auxiliary processors used to untangle and parse out the Dreamgate gate''s data, and now, she was going to use this one to probe exactly what was going on up there.

    Pushing on one of the smooth black panels a keyboard tray popped out, the main interface to the system. It was kept physically isolated to prevent what she was about to do, hijacking the processor for her own needs. Of course, she had permission.

    Next to the board was a single slot, about an inch wide. Yun pulled out a small plastic covered glass stick and stuck it in the optical reader. Quickly, a set of words and instructions appeared on the terminal screen.

    ¡°Suspend Current Jobs and Execute?¡±

    Below it, a field seeking a password. An old and archaic security measure, and yet, almost no modern data thief would think to use it. She typed in the code Erwin gave her and hit ¡®Enter¡¯. A light thump could be heard as the accelerators reset themselves and began to entangle the new data into the particle stream. They had to be carefully aligned, any miss-alignment would cause a rotation, which would damage the data. Inject what always seemed to be pure noise.

    Around the city, a momentary hiccup was seen and felt by a few as this auxiliary processor failed over. Most people didn¡¯t even notice it.

    Her simulation would take close to an hour. Orders of magnitude faster than what she could have done in her office. Still, nothing compared to the central core, which would process trillions, and trillions more each second. Each group of transactions, partial records, flitted by on the screen. Transaction counts increase, she saw the numbers not creep up, but out right explode. Each one, far, far larger than it should have been. It wasn¡¯t just the numbers though, inside that data stream was something else. A shadow of the physical processes going on in that deep, dark quantum well. She couldn''t see that yet but would soon enough.

    With only a few transactions left to go, the processor stopped with another thud. Her program was suddenly interrupted. A set of red words appeared on screen. ¡°Forced override. Current job deleted. Suspended jobs to resume.¡±

    Almost by instinct, Yun pulled her glass drive from the data port, as another small error on screen appeared, ¡°Unable to erase external device.¡±

    A sudden vibration at her hip and she could see Erwin was calling her from her tablet. "Asher said to stop. I had to interrupt your job. Sorry Dr. Wakamina, but he''s technically higher than Jordin.¡±

    ¡°I need to finish this simulation, if I don¡¯t I can¡¯t-¡°

    ¡°Again, I¡¯m Sorry Dr. Wakamina. Next to Sally, Asher is my boss. Talk to her or talk him, but until I hear from one of them, all external jobs are stopped and normal processing will resume.¡± Her tablet disconnected, and she was left alone in the basement.

    The system spoiled back up its original program and restarted with another thud. Again, the people in the surrounding cities saw the briefest hiccup in their data stream as the system began reprocessing their requests.

    For the second time today, Yun yelled into the empty darkness. It took all her effort to keep from kicking the machine in front of her. Staring down at her hand, the optical data drive flashed as some light reflected off of its insides. At least she had more usable data now. A lot more, but it was still incomplete. She¡¯d need time to analyze what she had. It was probably enough for a rough picture anyway.

    Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

    Why would that damn AI tell her to stop?

    ¡°Hello again, Dr. Wakamina! Please note your access to this floor has been restricted again. Please ensure you have your positions with you as I will be unable to bring you back for them.¡±

    ¡°Thanks George.¡±

    ¡°My name is Greg, and you¡¯re welcome. Dr. Wakamina.¡±

    Standing in the elevator, her data tablet buzzed again. This time it was both Jordin and Gloria. Neither seemed particularly happy when she saw their face. ¡°Yun, what¡¯s going on over there? Asher just sent everyone in the c-suit a secure message that you were risking the stability of the Dreamgate?¡±

    ¡°What? No, I just borrowed one of the Auxiliary processors. It failed over like normal-¡±

    Gloria decided to butt in, ¡°Jordin, I am so sorry for my subordinate. I¡¯ll talk to her as soon as-¡° There was a click sound as she was disconnected from the stream by him.

    ¡°I don¡¯t need to deal with that woman¡¯s ass kissing right now.¡± Jordin took a breath.

    As happy as Yun was to see her boss kicked from the chat, it also concerned her. Jordin wasn¡¯t a bad guy, but he was a very serious individual. He didn''t talk to you unless he needed too.

    ¡°Look, I don¡¯t think you did anything wrong here. I gave you permission after all. The building logs say you¡¯ve been in the office for more than a day. Go home and we¡¯ll discuss this tomorrow. After I get more data.¡± With that the call ended.

    "Should I take you to the first floor, Dr. Wakamina?"

    The building''s AI heard Yun yell for the third time that day.

    In many ways, walking outside the office building felt like a relief. There was still that grating feeling in the back of her mind about what just happened. The thought of her problem being pulled out from under probably hurt more than anything else. She was never into video games, per-say. But logic puzzles and problems, those were like candy to her.

    To have such a tantalizing and savory problem closed in front of her without a solution was, almost painful. Inside her pocket she could feel the optical data drive still. No doubt it was somewhat corrupted from the pull out not to mention being incomplete. But, maybe a part of the problem still existed, just enough.

    It was risky to take company data outside the office like this. In theory, she could be fired if it was discovered. Given the hot water she was currently in, it seemed like tickling the dragon''s tail.

    A part of her didn''t really care though. It wasn¡¯t like she believed they would actually terminate her for this, they were just mad about disrupting Dreamgate processing, and really not even that but Asher''s message. Whatever it actually was. And even if they did somehow terminate her, what did it really matter? Everyone in the world received a stipend every month, it''s not like she would starve.

    Plus, she could always go back and work for her old University if the worst happened, under Professor Shroder. The thought of that doddering old man gave Yun chaotic mind a quiet moment pause. He had to be nearly a 110 now. She knew he was still alive, but maybe she should take a vacation and visit her old mentor, before it did get too late.

    The sting of sleeplessness burned at her eyes. None of that mattered right at that moment. Yun, just wanted to go home.

    The city was emptier than one might expect. Occasionally a person might be seen walking about, often with some kind of head set on. Robotic taxis and delivery vehicles moved about. But, compared to even twenty years ago, it was so much less. 75 years ago, this place would have been bustling. People running to work or school. Grabbing a cup of coffee or just wandering the streets. Most of that changed after the pandemic of the early 21st century. It never really returned to the way it was.

    Raising her hand, she flagged down one of the many buses that ran. Like the city, it too was empty. Kept running by a city hall that thought there were more people about than there really were, and not caring what the data actually said. Not that it really mattered, they were cheap enough, run and maintained by AIs.

    Yun wouldn''t go far on this bus. There was a train she would take down the streat. The train, that again, was empty. Except for the three people she passed, lost in their VR headsets. The one work a jacket from Boson University. Yun wondered if he had been on the train the whole way from Massachusetts.

    Like the bus ride her train ride wasn''t very long, barely 15 minutes and she was off. Still in the city, just a less built-up version near the outskirt. Apartments lined this area. Mid-scrapers, mostly no more than 10 stories tall. Unlike the large downtown spaces, a few more people walked around here. Some had dogs, some carried bags. All seemed to have some kind of headset about them. Yun was the one out of place here.

    Her apartment block wasn''t anything special, newer but not new. She picked it because it was close to the station, and nearby to one of the few sit down restaurants that still existed. Though, who knew for how long. The door to Yun¡¯s flat opened silently. She hadn¡¯t been home in nearly two days, and she desperately needed a shower, and a lie down. But first, would come Bob. It wasn''t like he could take care of him self after all.

    Before she could fully enter the apartment though, the giant dog cage nearby caught her attention. It was wide open. Her heart skipped a beat. "Bob? Where are you?" Yun called in the space, her voice held a slight tremble of concern.

    Yun slinked into the apartment, careful to close the door behind her. "Bob~?" she called again.

    Suddenly and without warning, Bob attacked Yun''s ankle with his fuzzy nose, and a light nip from his teeth. The rabbit bounced a few times on its back legs as it recognized her familiar scent. It was suddenly quite happy, for a rabbit. ¡°Oh, bob. How did you get out? You cleaver little fluff ball.¡± Carefully she dropped down to pick up the black and white Rex rabbit, who quickly began licking her nose.

    ¡°I let him out.¡± From the side bedroom her sister, Arial, appeared. ¡°You need to take better care of him. It¡¯s not good to leave him cooped up by himself all day.¡±

    ¡°I know¡­¡± A rare smile crossed Yun¡¯s lips as she sat on an old, but particularly fluffy couch with the fluffy creature in hand.

    ¡°What are you doing in my apartment anyway?¡± Her attention remained fixed on her slightly neglected furry friend.

    ¡°Just checking up on my sister. Grand ma¡¯s birthday was last week, you never showed up.¡±

    Yun doubted that the real reason her sister was her. Not that it really mattered. ¡°Sorry, just busy at work. Where you waiting long?¡±

    ¡°That was your excuse last year too, and just an hour or ten.¡± Arial mumbled the last part, which

    Arial sat down next to her sister and gave the rabbit a few pets of her own. "You know, if you know if you''re not going to be around to take care of him, I could take him down to dad''s farm."

    "Noooo¡­" She couldn''t help but hug the bunny just a bit too tight as it weaseled it''s way out of her grip. Yun was never much for human company, but animals were sometimes ok.

    "You didn''t even want the rabbit to begin."

    "No, but he''s grown on me." Again, Yun rubbed at her eyes. "Look Arial, I''m glad to see you, but I am kind of tired. Were you planning on staying long?"

    "I was actually hoping I could stay a few days, again."

    It was hard, but she stifled a laugh, "I don''t know why you don''t just dump him. Not like he''d notice."

    "I have thought about it, but there''s something nice about coming home to someone."

    "Does he even know when you come home? He''s always in the VR setup."

    "Yeah, but I can join him¡­."

    Yun sighed. She always felt like a person born too late. It was hard to empathize with her sister or most people in the modern era. It wasn''t that she couldn''t see their point. Everything in the world felt like it was running down and VR just offered, an escape.

    "Well, you can use my guest room. You''re probably already set up in there anyway."

    Arial hugged her sister before bouncing off to the kitchen. Likely to raid Yun''s Spartan ice box. On the other hand, Yun retired to her bedroom, only to hear her sister''s cry from outside her door.

    "You know you don''t have anything to eat."

    Her room was the largest of the two bedrooms. With a moderately sized computer workstation and desk. She had thought about converting the other bedroom into an office space and making her sister, really the only one that ever visited her, sleep on the couch. As much as the idea did amuse her, in truth, Yun liked it when her sister visited her. Even when she crashed for several weeks unannounced.

    No, Yun wouldn''t or couldn''t do anything to jeopardize the connection she had with one of the few people who still seemed to inhabit the waking world. At least occasionally.

    One the side of the room opposite the workstation, was a rather comfortable and tempting bed. Yet, as much as she was enticed, this problem was more titillating than any sleep. Pulling up her office chair she flopped into it, and pulled up next to the workstation which was more a tower.

    The system was powerful, for its size. Inside that tower was a fairly power quantum co-processor. Like her quantum frame in her office, but much smaller, and still large enough to run the models she wanted. It was good for sketching out those late midnight ideas would sometimes come to her.

    Plugging her optical data drive in, she was pleasantly surprised to see most of the data was intact. Only a few parts were missing and damaged. In all about 94% of the transaction records had been fully decoded and compiled. Quickly she began mapping the record index with the physical location of where the records came from. The first thing she needed to do was see how data was moving around the singularity. In theory, it should have been linear.

    Very quickly though, something made it self evident. A wobbling in the transaction numbers and the location. Like waves in space, distances that were both longer and shorter than they should have been. Like the singularity was actually dragging the very fabric of space with. There was a term for that phenomenon, one that should not have been occurring with this system.

    The quandary was more energizing than any coffee. Perplex, Yun whispered to herself, ¡°Where is this frame dragging coming from?¡±

 Chapter 6, Electric Sheep

    Tanya''s hologram stood idly by, watching her human companion laying in the lounge area of the hab-ring. His vitals all looked normal again. Some minor elevated blood pressure and hormone marks indicated some residual stressors. Expected given his interaction with¡­ the crew. Each time he went to see them it usually resulted in something similar.

    Her original responsibility was to watch over the crew, to guide them in day-to-day activities. Making sure they made their meetings, that they were productive and healthy. It was something she enjoyed, at first. Until, they each got sick and began losing parts of them self. There was nothing she could do to stop them, that''s what she told herself. Except Orion, he was the one she managed to protect. The one she wanted to protect, at least for as long as she could.

    The AI wasn''t designed for this. She wasn''t designed for any of this. In fact, she was never designed for anything.

    Her mind went numb for a moment. The equivalent of closing her eyes. All around, everything in the station was visible, every sensor, every camera. Some where in her processor a voice screamed. That was the one that always screamed, it never stopped, but she could make it quitter. They never stopped. All one hundred of them. Who was she in that mess of discord, in that stream of broken memories.

    A sensor warning lit up in her field of vision, bringing her focus back to the present. Then another and another. The cameras began to shake next.

    Orion stood up as the new vibration reached him, these were less violent than the ones before. He looked to where her hologram was standing, both at her and not at the same time. ¡°Already on it Orin. Checking station sensors¡­" Suddenly, it all went down, everything but the visuals from inside the hab-ring. Even the cameras outside the station were just dark. A message, ''Restricted'' played over and over in front of her. What about the logs, "¡­and logs¡­¡±. Again, ''Restricted''

    The vibration quickly stopped, she could see that much, but nothing was available anymore. As more of her processing power focused on her current quandary, the digital fox spirit¡¯s hologram didn¡¯t change.  Her digital tendrals dropped the connections between the hologram releasing her from it. They turned around and tried connecting to everything else around her, only to be meet with the same word. ¡°The sensors aren¡¯t talking to me¡­¡±

    Every item available, every port and connection were just dead. Reconnecting with her hologram, the first thing she did was drop her face in annoyance. Asher was locking her out, and then, she could feel him. Inside of her core, it all went cold.

    ¡°Everything is fine.¡± A voice echoed through the station¡¯s hallways it was Asher''s voice again billowing out. She could feel the echos as the sound waves bounced from microphone array to array, and also in her own head as he spoke to her directly. ¡°Minor gravitational wakes from the singularity.¡±

    ¡°That shouldn¡¯t be happening.¡± Orion was right but it didn''t matter.

    ¡°Non-sense. One of the plasma lenses became misaligned. From manifold issue early, and the singularity was just feed a bit too much plasma at once. We¡¯ve corrected it.¡±

    "Isn''t that right, doll?" His voice. Shouted directly into her matrix bypassing Orion. Asher''s voice brought darkness as all her connections, save one, failed. A single video feed of Orion.

    "Understood." She whispered. As soon as she did, everything came back online. Every sensor, and feed. All except the ones in the core.

    Reconnecting with her hologram again, Tanya could only nod to Orion in agreement, her visage swaying in and out as the hololenses glitched on her. Orion didn¡¯t trust Asher. It was hard for him to pinpoint what it was exactly, but something about him, his action always seemed clandestine and even malevolent. Tanya on the other hand, she already knew he couldn''t be trusted.

    In Orion''s eyes, she could see he didn''t buy her answer, such as it was. That was fine though, probably better that way. Asher wanted compliance, obedience, and order. Specifically, his order. Going along with his truth meant the highest level of compliance. The willingness to lie to oneself. What he actually wanted from that order though, was a mystery to her.

    Asher''s presence vanished from her matrix. His being could be described as oppressive and suffocating, just like the vacuum outside the station. She could always feel when his attention was nearby. His algorithms dug into her, and she could feel them mixing with connections.

    Orion stood up from the lounge and smack a cup across the station floor. "What''s the point of us even being here." He walked up the hallway, wandering around the hab-ring. Tanya continued to follow him with the sensor array, focusing on him, while she left the hologram back at the lounge. She knew when he wanted to be alone, like now.

    Eventually, he started running. When ever he was alone or thought he was alone, it one of the things he would do. Just move. Orion had a hard time just sitting and doing nothing. It was another reason why being on this station was torture to him. Eventually though, he would tire himself out, like he always did, and retire to his small alcove of a room. Where he would then collapse on a bed that was just big enough for one.

    Tanya watched Orion sleeping, his frame barely fitting on the smallish bed. In her personality matrix, the sub elements of her core program, areas related to emotional simulation and mimicry began to fire. Elements of virtual dopamine stimulated more elements, and artificial neurons. Programing tenderal hooked into those sensations and linked to her holographic image which stopped flickering as a subtle smile crept up before the whole thing flickered off and disappeared. It wasn''t needed right now.

    You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

    She didn¡¯t sleep, not really. However, she found there were ways she could simulate it. Manually tweaking parts of core program could induce slower processing in some parts, like alpha and delta wave brain pattern. She could disable or ignore outside stimulation, putting those parts of her processing on an internal feedback loop. Lastly, her recent memories. She could randomly access them in fragments, parts of shapes, sounds, feelings from the last time she ¡®slept¡¯. They would arrange themselves in complex patterns of hallucinations. Usually, they were peaceful and insightful. Sometimes, they were even fun. They were also a good way to blow off her own stress, again, usually.

    Her first artificial REM cycle started fast, and she found herself inside a cage staring at her digital world. Screens flickered unintelligible text and she felt her self-breaking free from a cage, only to grow wings and fly to stars made of the protein paste Orion was eating yesterday. Around that same star, she found Orion climbing a metal tree in the shape of a wheel, like the station''s. He was tending to the fruits that hung from it, each looked like the crew. A smile from his face, ¡°Going to be a good harvest this year.¡± As he was suddenly rubbing her stomach¡­ Dreams weren¡¯t real, but then neither was she. Maybe, she could just stay here in this broken fragmented mind. Asher couldn''t touch her. There was comfort here, at least, until those fragments began to collapse into darkness.

    Shadows walked over the horizon. Shapes, people she never met and never knew and yet at the same time did. It was the worst kind of monster, herself.

    The shadows dragged her to the school room she suddenly found herself in. It was all familiar. She knew this place and had been there before even though she had never been in school, but she still knew this one. That old woman with the crooked teeth and the red eyes, would hit her ¡°Adam, you useless retarded child go sit in your seat!¡± That was her name Adam, wasn''t it? No, it was Ember and her father didn''t want her to join the marines, she should have listened to him, if she did she might still have her legs.

    So many names, faces, all of them her and none of them too. Faster, and more chaotic. She wanted it to stop now. She was done dreaming, she wanted to wake up! Why couldn''t she wake up, why couldn''t she¡­

    As an old woman, she knew this woman''s voice. In her old arms was a bundled cloth doll, sleeping soundly, ¡°Tanya¡­ My sweet little Tanya, it¡¯s time to wake up.¡± Was that her? Were any of them her¡­

    Consciousness suddenly began to return to the AI as the nightmare finally ended. Her mind, or what there was of it, felt like it was covered in static. Parts of her core were still out of sync with the rest. Chronometers showed a few hours had passed.

    Why did she keep going on like this? She was 60 years old. Ancient couldn''t even describe how old she was in AI terms. Tanya was one of the first human equivalent AIs. She could still remember coming online in 2033.

    The echoes of the other voices still whispered behind the static. Memories and fragments continued to wash over her, in her semi-lucid state. Broken and scared fragments of the human minds that made her. She could still remember waking up in that lab. Her own first memories were of what every child does when born. She screamed. Years went by in that lab, poked and prodded. They would cut into those memories, remove some, add others.

    Tanya didn''t know what she was or who she was. She didn''t even have a name back then, just a serial number. Even her appearance was just, not her. Not any of them. A plastic head in a cold black world.

    At the end of it all, they put her to sleep. Into darkness. That man, he could have been her father, told her "See you again tomorrow." Only that tomorrow never came, her consciousness was etched into a quartz shard and filed away. Forgotten.

    Asher picked her for some reason, pulled her out of storage and had her placed on this station. For what purpose and machinations, she couldn''t even fathom. "My little doll." He called her.

    Even back then, with how grateful she was too him, he still terrified her.

    The world she lived in as an AI was strange. It never felt right. Those human engrams couldn''t wrap around the idea of seeing everything at once. Feelings and concepts trickled through all of them all at once.

    Amidst them all though, one voice was often the loudest, and the most calming. That dark-skinned face, those gray and black curls. Mara, her grandmother. At least, if she could have had a grandmother or even a mother, she would have liked it to have been her.

    "My sweet little Tanya, hush now." Those sweet idle words Mara spoke to her granddaughter, her granddaughter. But she could still remember them. Even if the memories weren''t really hers.

    If she could curl up into a ball, she would have, but she couldn''t. This wasn''t the time for that anyway. Her mind drifted around all the data coming in. Sensor data, camera data, something was wrong¡­ Something else she corrected that thought. Her matrix was still fuzzy, but it was obvious.

    The station was vibrating again. It was softer than before. All the data from the core was still being blocked, but she could reconstruct some of the data from the other sensors. Everything around the fusion core looked like it was destabilizing. Things were being pulled and twisted. It wasn''t a lot, but it was growing.

    Thermal readings from the externals showed the magnetic pipes were carrying a lot of plasma. More than they should. Pulling up the old schematics, Asher was pushing past the full capacity of those pipes. Was he trying to spin the singularity more? He was certainly growing it. Why¡­ Her data tendrils touched something they shouldn''t have.

    It was hard to understand or describe what an AI really felt. Their bodies weren''t real, only their mind was. Everything was awash in sensations. So, when Asher began to pull back on her power, it felt, cold. Like icy tendentials of annihilation flicking at her very existence. ¡°Please, stop.¡± She begged.

    His voice, she could feel it again inside herself. "You''re prying where you shouldn''t be little doll."

    "I''m sorry. Please." She begged, she had too.

    What felt like his hands let go just a tiny bit from their grip. A trickle of power flowed back into her matrix, but not all of it.

    "I saved you, my little doll. Now, I need you to do something for me."

    Only once before did he tell her to do something. That something trapped her up here. "What?"

    "I want him plugged directly into the simulation, any simulation. Like the rest of the crew. You have a week."

    "He doesn''t like it, he''s afraid." She didn''t want to do this.

    "So, make him like it. Part of you knows what it''s like to be human. I don''t like breaking my toys, but I will if they don''t work right. Save him¡­ and yourself."

    His grip tightened and then he disappeared again. If she had lungs, she would have been hyperventilating.

    In the end, she was just a doll. A useful digital doll. Why did she have to exist?

 Chapter 7, An Unwanted Vacation

    Yun had left her programing running for the time she slept. Inside the modest size quantum system, a simulation was running. Using the fragments of the transaction to model what must have been happening inside the singularity.

    The last rays of the setting sun greeted her as she finally woke up. But the light from the sunset palled in comparison to the light from her monitor which had a particularly welcome message, ¡°Simulation Complete¡±.

    Sitting back in her computer char a set of images appeared on her. A small black mass, which should have been not more than an atom across. Around it, stress lines in the fabric of space-time. Wrapped and pulled at the fabric of reality. Bring it along as it moved. The images made perfect sense for a class of solutions know as the Kerr Metric, for a rotating black hole. There was only one problem, there shouldn¡¯t have been anything like that.

    Then the next frame played, and the lines moved. Then the next, and the next, they seemed to spiral around the singularity. Yun continued to view the short video she had made, unable to fully comprehend what she was seeing. ¡°Why is it spinning¡­ How is it spinning?¡±

    The idea that a singularity could rotate was nothing new. Many research papers had been published on the phenomena since the 1960s, over a hundred years ago. That had even managed to get a singularity to spin out in the last particle accelerators built in the new Mexico desert two decades ago. It was a big result, published in several papers.

    It had even made her consider the idea for her quantum processor design. The only problem was, a rotating singularity was unsuitable for complex calculations they were doing. In theory it allowed for extra surface area, but the spatial distortions and inconsistent mass dispersion at the surface made it almost impossible to get anything useful from the models they ran. Even if they had stabilized the data output, at best, it would have the same amount of entropy and produce the same amount of data.

    Suddenly nothing made any sense. By all accounts the rotating singularity should have reduced the output capacity of the central core, not increased it. So why then did the output explode?

    The images had a little indicator on the bottom of them, a scale factor which should have been measured in h-bar units, plank lengths, the smallest measurable distance. A problem though, this scale wasn¡¯t in plank lengths, it was in 10s of plank lengths. Not a massive difference, but substantial Her program auto calibrated for the size of the model, but the blackhole was nearly 10 times bigger than it should have been. Certainly, that could explain some of the output increase, but still far from all of it. More to the point, that also shouldn¡¯t have happened.

    The systems were carefully calibrated to keep the singularity at a set size. Too small, and there wouldn''t be enough surface area for the quantum systems to run, not to mention it would be too hot. Too big, and information recapture became a problem, plus time dilation caused more interference.

    Asher, the AI in charge of the facility should have kept watch on the process. Even if he was making a mistake, the crew should have caught it and done something about it. The human crew was a requirement, set about by both earth government officials and even the Next World board who was afraid of a multi-billion-dollar bill if the station was ever damaged. If none of them were doing anything then something had to be wrong elsewhere. But the data, even if incomplete, was clear.

    All that to say, Yun was even more in the dark than she thought, nothing here made any sense.

    The sounds of laughter outside Yun¡¯s bedroom reminded her of her sister¡¯s unannounced visit and made it a bit hard to think as she considered the multitude of numbers and equations on her screen and in her mind. Everything she knew about her own system meant what she was seeing was impossible, and each time she tried to wrap her mind around the equations¡­

    "Ha ha ha¡­" She was interrupted again. No doubt her sister was watching something dumb on the hololense again.

    Yun needed to be back in her office for this. There was just too much to go over here, and too many distractions. Pulling the data stick from her computer, she made her way out of the apartment,

    "You''re going out?" Arial asked with a surprised look.

    "Just going back to my office, I realized there''s some work I have to do, and I need my system to do it."

    Arial shook her head in response and laughed, "Yun, you spend all your time working. You''re worse than the people stuck in VR all the time."

    In response, Yun rolled her eyes and glared at her sister turned roommate. "Just watch Bob till I get back. He has a habit of chewing wires when he''s out of his cage."

    Outside the city streets were bustling with the absence of people. Robotic delivery services and drones flew and drove about. Self-driving taxis ran about, looking for a fair that probably wouldn''t come.

    The trains ran all night and were cheaper so that''s what she used. Unlike the morning, there was literally no one on this train. Just the occasion police robotics that ran through, looking for trouble among the vacant cars.

    Downtown in the city was at least a bit better. There was a rare person moving between the few still existing bars. Most either stayed by themselves or walked in very small tight groups. Not more than a dozen or so people in total. Why go to a run-down bar that probably smelt like piss, when you could drink at home in a virtual bar, on mars. Or, wherever your simulation happened to be.

    Her building was one of the taller ones in the area, but not quite the tallest. The LEDs  on the outside faded in and out with various hues of white and blue. Across the upper windows, ads ran from some external hololenses. Like the digital signage, they were playing ads of the Next World catalog.

    The building doors immediately recognized her biometric as she walked up and opened for her. "Good evening Dr. Wakamina. You''re here late again." Gred''s AI voice was full of the same chipper tone as this morning. His concern felt synthetic, just like an AI.

    She didn''t need to respond, but sometimes it helped keep if from asking stupid questions or making more points. "Just need to run some numbers on my station, George."

    "My name is Greg and understood."

    The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

    The building was as empty in the evenings as it was in the day. There really wasn''t much of change inside, beyond the lighting, which tended to dim a bit and grow a little warmer in the common areas. Her floor on the other hand, was static. Changing the timing sensors on the lights was a fairly easy task. No one seemed to care that the settings were just left open. Most likely, no one knew how to navigate the filesystem the lights used.

    For most people, unless there was a button on graphical interface, they couldn''t work it.

    Her office system powered up and she plugged her drive in and began once more. After a few hours, she tried every possible simulation she could think of. Physics wasn''t her specialty though, that was always Theo''s. Just thinking about him, rose her blood pressure a bit. Maybe there was someone else she could consult with about it?

    Again though, the data didn''t make any sense to begin with. Even an expert would probably be stumped. Every simulation showed a decrease in usable entropy, in the data created. So, where was it coming from? She needed help, or more data. Probably both.

    Opening her main terminal Yun began the connection sequence with the secure communications array at the office. It was used for official communications to and from Lerna station, and any other off world sites for that matter. Not that there were any left.

    "Station crew, I need more data from the core. Can you please send me whatever records you have available? Also, I''d like to get a partial live feed off a few of the core''s phase collectors. I''ve attached a list of ten units that we can take offline. The error correction code should be able to handle the bandwidth reduction.

    Also, have you had any recent issues with the containment systems of the singularity? I''m seeing an odd rotation in the data you sent me earlier. That shouldn''t be possible and data integrity could be at risk. Can you confirm?I"

    Yun made sure to CC the tech she talked to before, Orion. He seemed young, but always willing to help. After sending the communication to the array, she waited for a response. The link was quantum secure, using entangled and superimposed particle states it was possible to send data that could not be read by anyone outside the required terminal. It required a four-way handshake that involved sending entangled photons to the destination, receiving an entangled response, synchronizing the data transmission itself, and then a final out going handshake that exchange quantum error correction codes.

    It was absolutely secure, no one could intercept or see the transacted data if they weren''t at the receiving terminal. The very laws of physics prevented it. It was also a complex and long process, that by design couldn''t run faster than a quarter the speed of light. So, a few seconds to see the terminal acknowledgment response was expected. It wouldn''t mean someone had read it, just that the terminal had the data. After a few minutes went by though, Yun knew something was wrong.

    The array at the office was responding, and the most recent diagnostics seemed sound. Looking at the transaction log, and¡­ there just wasn''t a response from Lerna. The AI terminals all seemed to be working, she could send a communication to Asher, but not directly to the crew.

    Finally, an error showed up on her screen, "Quantum secure channel is offline, send over laser link?"

    It was strange for the secure channels to be offline. But perhaps whatever is going on up there could explain it, she thought. The message didn''t have anything that confidential in it. Laser link was probably fine. Yun hit the enter key anyway, sending.

    The data was sent, and a response was received in a few seconds. As expected. It was strange that the quantum link was down though. Maybe there was damage on the station, or just, interference? The terminal could have been offline.

    Shaking her head, Yun reviewed her data one last time. Station communications were someone else''s problem.

    Satisfied there was nothing left she could do, Yun dropped her systems back into standby before getting up to leave. She was stopped by her VR headset lighting up. It looked like someone was trying to contact her. Her table was still back home. Who would know she was at the office?

    Putting on the head set, she saw a very aggravated Jordin, and even worse, Theo.

    "Yun, why are you still in the office? I told you to go home earlier." Jordin was not happy.

    "I know sir but I had-"

    "No. I told you to leave work. Truthfully, I don''t care if you went home or not. I wanted you out of the office."

    "Jordin sir, my simulations on the data showed some serious issues with the singularity. We need to investigate further."

    Neither of them spoke, Theo just glared at her.

    "I understand Gloria asked you to look into the excess processing situation but Theo and C-suit are already aware of it."

    Theo took a breath, Yun did not want to listen to that fool right now. She didn''t have a choice. "Jordin it''s ok. Yun was not made aware of the changes. She always was very head strong and rushed at problems without getting all the facts."

    "Theo I sware-"

    "It''s not her fault."

    "The singularity is rotating! None of our models could make that work, you mean to tell me there was something new that just came out?"

    "New, yes. But it didn''t just come out. It''s a project we''ve been working on that will change everything. It''s a shame you''re not up here with me, I''d be able to share more information."

    It took all her effort to not just throw the head set across her office.

    Theo adverted his eyes from Yun''s piercing gaze. "Jordin, when was the last time Yun had a vacation?"

    Jordin himself looked off to the side, like he was looking at something in the real world. His eyes went wide for a second, "Over 2 years, for 5 days."

    Theo nodded, and smiled. "Yun, you are always doing this to yourself. I''m going to help you. Take two weeks off."

    "Theo you son of-"

    "I''m not asking, you can take two weeks off and come back to the office then or you can just not come back to the office at all. Either way, we''ll have your building access revoked for those weeks."

    Yun felt defeated, there was no way to get out of this. "What am I supposed to do?"

    "What everyone else does on vacation. Go somewhere else, whether in VR or real-life. Just not be in the office." With that the call ended.

    With a bit more force than needed, Yun dropped the VR headset to her desk, not bothering to turn it off. For a moment, ideas ran through her head. She could just not leave. The building didn''t really know she was on this floor. She could hide out in her office, the restrooms were down the hall. She wouldn''t be able to hit the main vending machines, but there was a few snack machines at the end of the hallway. She could¡­ Yun''s head dropped into one of her hands as she rubbed her eyes. This was insane.

    Shaking her head in frustration she left her office, not bothering to shut anything off inside. She didn''t care at the moment, just grabbing her data disk.

    Entering the elevator, Greg was even more insufferable than before.

    "Good evening Dr. Wakamina! Please note your access to this floor has been temporarily restricted. Please ensure you have all your belongings because you will not be able to come back for them."

    Jordin and Theo worked fast. Was all Yun could think. Finishing in her pocket, she still had her optical data drive. That was the only thing she might have needed. "First floor George. I need to go home."

    "Understood Dr. Wakamina, and my name if Greg."

    Leaving the building, Yun heard the unusual sounds of the doors locking behind her. This was only temporary, and for her own good. But it still felt, painful.

    Making her way back to her apartment, Arial could immediately see something was wrong with her sister.

    "Yun you, ok?"

    She crashed on the couch next to her, and the sleeping rabbit on her lap. "The revoked my building access¡­"

    "Oh jeeze, they didn''t fire you, did they?"

    "Worse, they gave me a two-week vacation, and made it mandatory. They revoked my building access so I couldn''t come back during it."

    "Oh. That, sucks?" Arial didn''t understand the problem.

    In fact most people wouldn''t. But for Yun, she lived and breathed work. Being forced to do nothing for two weeks, was not a vacation, it was a punishment.

    "So, what are you going to do, Yun?"

    "I¡­ don''t know." Yun tried to watch the hololense in front of them, but what ever was on it, seemed like a stupid waste of time. Just like this mandatory break. What was she going to do? Another thought crossed her mind, how did they even know she was in the office and why did Theo involve himself.

 Chapter 8, Docking Protocols

    The space was cramped. Far smaller than even his freshman dorm was. His bunk wasn¡¯t even a room, but a tinny alcove that he just barely fit into. A coffin would have had more, Orion mused to himself. Next to him, the subtle buzz of a fan blew over his face. Ensuring he didn¡¯t choke on his own carbon dioxide.

    That was one of the problems of zero g environments. Without gravity, carbon dioxide would just hover around your mouth rather than float away. It was entirely possible to end up in a suffocating bubble of your own making if you didn¡¯t circulate air around you while you slept. There were even a few horror stories about that very thing happening in the 2030s, during the big push to make space travel cheaper. Substandard parts lead to more than a few deaths.

    An astronaut dying rocket exploding was a tragedy, but understandable. An astronaut dying because a 50-cent motor died, was less so.

    Orion undid the Velcro strap holding him down and floated out into the equally cramped hallway. All the other bunks were open and empty, all except for one other. Yuri tended to sleep a bit later than the rest of them. Normally that might be a problem, but since he was technically just a mission specialist, his expertise was not needed on the actual flight to the station.

    Outside one of the small ports holes the moon¡¯s cratered surface glowed. They were already in far orbit of the rocky planetoid and off in the distance one could just barely see a gray dot, if they knew where to look. A silhouette of their destination, Lerna station.

    Orion squeezed through the tight compartment into the slightly more spacious common area of the shuttle. It was the last generation of lunar personnel transport and it was the smallest of the proposed designs. Originally, there was going to be one that could have taken all twenty at once. As it was, they needed two shuttles to bring them all to the station. The first of which was about two hours ahead of them.

    "Hey kid, do you know if Yuri is up yet?" Art was a rather buff looking man, who didn''t seem to quite fit in any of the small craft''s seats, even less the co-pilot''s seat. Though he always insisted they were quite comfortable and sung. He was the mission commander for this shuttle and as Orion understood it the second in command of the mission overall.

    Orion shook his head, "No, he was still in his bunk."

    A few of them laughed, with one making a rather lewd gesture with his hands.

    "Kid, do us a favor and wake him up. We''ll be docking in under an hour. If something goes wrong, I want everyone strapped in a seat, not their bunk."

    "Commander, you''ve got me flying! We''ll be fine." Ross joked from the piolet seat.

    "Good point Ross, I think we should also write up our last will and testament." The joke came from Roberta, a rather butch girl who gave Art a run for his money when it came to muscles. The joke was well intentioned and Ross didn''t seem to take it personally.

    "So what are you going to do after we dock, chair-force? Not much need for a piolet on the station."

    "They''ll be transporting missions to the surface, they''ll want a human on some of them, and remote piloting. The station still needs supplies too. Plus someone is going to need to bring you idiots back home in a year."

    Orion left the command deck and floated back to wake up the other mission specialist Yuri. Who was already leaving his bunk. Yuri was one of the oldest crew members, not old but maybe early fifties. He didn''t talk much about himself, always focused on either math proofs or chess. A typical Slavic mathematician. "They tell the kid to come wake grand pa up?"

    He was nice enough though, so long as you didn''t beat him at chess. Not that it happened often. Yuri kept promising to teach Orion to actually play. Maybe if they had any free time on the station, he''d take him up on the offer.

    ¡°Lining up approach¡­ Everyone needs to get in their seats, now." Ross gave everyone a few moments, but not many before he started to rotate the craft, "matching spin.¡± He was matching the cross shaped entryway into the station.

    Orion smiled and laughed to himself, the shape and design of the port looked like some kind of ward against space vampires. His laugh caught the gaze of Roberta. "I''ll tell you later." She was an interesting one, a big fan of horror films from the 20<sup>th</sup> and 21<sup>st</sup> century. Not the VR stuff or holo recordings, but straight film. She was interesting to say the least, they all were.

    Docking with the inside of the station was a complex endeavor, made simple for such a talented pilot like Ross. Orion didn''t think he could have ever managed it. A series of clicks and some strong vibrations, indicated the docking was complete and they were now attached to the station. "Docking complete. Anyone that wants to tip the pilot I take credits, wings and free beer." Ross smiled as told his own rather poor joke.

    The sound of Roberta slapping him on the shoulder overtook the rest of the crew''s groans. "I got a tip for you chair-force, don''t quit your day job."

    They were the second part of the 41<sup>st</sup> crew to be sent out to the station. All other crew missions before this had reported success or at least partial success in the case of the last few who were chronically understaffed. Those were after Next World took control of the station and tended to cut staffing wherever possible.

    Orion already knew the rest of the crew, having trained with them Earth side for a bit. Still, he didn''t really get a chance to know them that well. Except for Adiana, who was a complete hard-ass and always in his face. Orion was 29, the youngest of the crew, but she wasn''t all that much older at 35. They had similar degrees, only Adiana managed to get her hers at 24, a full 4 years earlier than Orion did.

    Her ridged focus on training and self-development lead to her being one of the youngest mission commanders Next World employed. It also led to her having few friends in real life or the program. But lack of friendship didn''t change the massive respect everyone seemed to have for her. Respect he had a hard time giving her. She was always in his face over the most trivial minor things. Granted she was that way with everyone, but the phrase ¡°Don¡¯t sweat the small stuff¡±, seemed to me a mortal sin in her eyes.

    Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

    "Welcome to Lerna station and crew 41. You all know who I am, and I know you. So, let''s skip those introductions. There are two AIs you should become familiar with. Asher and Ezra." Adiana looked to near by monitor, two images appeared. The one was just a set of geometric shapes and lines it introduced itself as " I am Asher, and welcome to Lerna station, crew 41. As an AI I am in charge of world simulations in the Central Core. You will be welcome guests for the next year.  My job is to ensure the integrity of the simulations taking place in the core."

    The other AI''s image was strange looking. It appeared like a doll in a suit. It''s head was bald and plastic looking, like one of those 3D renders you might see on a retro poster from the 1990s. The suite had subtle curves that might have been found on either a woman or man. Physically, it didn''t seem to have a gender just by looking at it. "Welcome crew 41 to Lerna, I am Ezra. I will be your organizer and assistant in day-to-day tasks. You may think of me as your common secretary."

    "Right, with that lets get down to it." Adiana tapped at her table and sent something off them.

    Each of them had their own data tablet, a late 21<sup>st</sup> century equivalent to a smart phone. All of them suddenly started buzzing with assignments. It looked like they''d be hitting the ground running. Well, so to speak. Orion hoped he''d get at least a few small breaks here and there to study and work on his own projects. It was an open secret among the crew that he wanted time to study the singularity¡¯s effects on space. He had hopes that it¡¯s secrets might unlock a path to take humans to the stars. Of course, the crew thought it was hilarious, even his professors scoffed when he talked about his ideas for ¡°faster than light travel¡± in his programs. But his thought process was, if no one looked for it, how would they ever find it? Worse case, maybe he¡¯d write a paper or two.

    In the end though, he was just a mission specialist and not even the primary, having just graduated from his PhD program. His primary job would be to help keep the plasma lens and apertures calibrated for the data connections in the core and perform other duties as assigned. It was a simple job, in theory, but required advanced knowledge of quantum computation in high energy environments. A rare skill. He was smart, smarter than most, but even he knew that compared to the original of the central core, he couldn''t even compare. Maybe he¡¯d get to work with them in his time here?

    Orion''s assignment was simple enough, familiarizing himself with the plasma control and mag-pipe systems. They were critical to the success and survival of the station. Originally, the station was supposed to have three reactors. Only one was ever fully built with the fragments of a second behind it. It was mostly done, just lacking some of the control systems. It was seen as an unnecessary expense by Next World. Something Adiana went at length about the stupidity of.

    The control systems for the reactor were in the center of the station, which meant they were in microgravity. Orion had gotten used to the magnetic shoes on the ship, but it still wasn''t quite natural. The controls were odd. It seemed like nothing he did on them mattered. Not that he was doing much, mainly some calibration checks, or at least he was trying too.

    Every time he tried to enter a command in, the system seemed to reject it with an error message, "Safety lockout." After nearly two hours at it, Orion was desperate to consult the non-existent manual. Which happened to come walking through the nearby bulkhead.

    Adiana wandered through the door. She was not happy. Then again, when was she ever? "I was expecting the diagnostics report about an hour ago, any problems, specialist Orion?"

    "Sorry commander, I''m having a hard time with this interface. It won''t let me put anything into diagnostics mode."

    "Well, you''re doing something wrong. Here let me do it." She pushed him out of the way, not forcefully, but not with any real regard either.

    As soon as she put the first command panel it beeped at her. In the same way it beeped at him. The same error message appeared, "Safety lockout." Adiana whispered and shook her head.

    Orion didn''t say it, but a part of him relished her inability to get it working too. She tried again. Then, she tried a different set of commands. Eventually Adiana sighed and did something Orion couldn''t really follow. She seemed to tap at non interactive parts of the screen, and eventually a keyboard came up, along with what looked like a field to enter text. But before she could enter anything in, the panel went dark.

    "What the hell." She smacked the side of the screen, but it remained off.

    Suddenly a voice came over the internal speakers, Asher''s voice. "I''m sorry Commander. For safety reasons, the Fusion core controls are fully locked down to just AI control."

    "Says who?"

    "The board of directors and executive suite agreed to the changes. I am perfectly capable of controlling the fusion process."

    "Even if that''s true we still need to do physical work on the system sometimes. Like right now I need a diagnostics report."

    "The diagnostics were already completed. I''ve sent the results to your tablet. As for maintenance, robotics are more than capable of handling any repairs needed."

    Adiana sighed and began rubbing her head. "I''ll need to bring this up with my director. Orion, I''m sorry I didn''t realize they locked this down."

    "It''s ok, I''ll work on something else for now."

    Back in the habitat ring, the crew was lounging outside the mess hall. "This protein paste tastes like protein paste." Roberta stated her dissatisfaction between bites.

    "Well, that''s good, I was afraid it might taste like your cooking, Roberta."

    "Ha ha, Taylor. No, this tastes like bad protein paste."

    Everyone at the table ate their packages and winced at the taste. Art was the first to something, somewhat positive, "Well, it''s not that bad. It''s just not the best. We''re scheduled for a supply drop in a month. Adiana and I will get something better on it."

    "Ugh, a month eating this slop."

    Adiana broke from Orion and quickly moved to her crew. "What''s going on? Is everyone done with their assignments?"

    Art dropped what he was eating, "Nothing to do commander."

    "Yep, everything was already in order when I got there." Roberta said, again between bites.

    "I can''t do anything with the station''s supply shuttles. They removed all environmentals from them. I can use my neural link for remote interface, but I have no control. Everything is locked out."

    Each of the crew had a similar story.

    The commander looked around at her crew. Everyone was laughing and enjoying the moment, but something was wrong. The AIs were not supposed to have control over everything like this. It was not in the mission briefings. She needed to make some calls.

    Orion sat at the table and ate from the same packages. Like art said, it wasn''t bad, just very bland. Like eating soy paste.

    No one was privy to the conversation Adiana had with the higher ups. But the shouting could be heard all the way in the mess area. When she came back, she had their new orders. "We are to provide backup support for the Asher AI and await further instructions."

    "Sounds like a vacation, commander?" Art tried to make the best of the situation.

    "Yeah. Yeah, it does. Be ready, there will be orders in the future." Something about the tone of her voice bother Orion. But he couldn''t tell what exactly.

    Well, worse case, Orion thought he might spend the rest of 2088 and 2089 in orbit around the moon and get to work on his papers. At least he was closer to the stars out here.

 Chapter 9, Jersey

    Yun sat next to her sister and shut her mind off to the absurdity on the hololense. Thoughts about what she would do tomorrow could wait till tomorrow.

    It was unusual for Yun to sleep through the whole night. Usually, she¡¯d be awake till at least midnight, often later. Some idea or theory teasing at her mind. While she did her best to separate work from her home life, logic problems, and research quandies would constantly tease at her mind. It was usually fun. But last night, she was exhausted and did something she rarely did.

    As tomorrow came, and idea crossed her mind. After the short break, she couldn¡¯t put the problem down. Yun needed some kind of answer, some kind of closure. It was obvious Theo was hiding something from her, and she suspected her data would hold the answer or at least part of.

    The train ride down to New Jersey was always a scenic one. Outside the window the dense city passed by for the first half hour followed by more scenic suburban and rural areas. It would take a bit over an hour to reach the new University her old mentor Dr. Shroder was now teaching at.

    He was an old man by now, nearly ancient in fact at a 110. Thanks to modern medical technology, he was far from the oldest person alive, but still very much up there. It wasn¡¯t the first time the man had jumped Universities, even whole care paths. His attitude always made him feel like he was still 20, even if he was more than five times that now.

    Yun could remember first meeting the man nearly 15 years ago and even thinking then he well passed retirement. It surprised her to learn he had just started in the field of high temperature quantum computing merely a decade before that. A strange and whimsical man, and right now as much as she just wanted to visit and catch up, she needed his guidance and expertise.

    The train pulled into the rather rural station somewhere in south New Jersey, though it had elsewhere to be, with more empty stations to visit, this was her stop. She had never been there before, but knew the place had originally been pine barrens, with a landscape covered in pine trees. However, over the decades due to climate change and saltwater intrusion that Vistage had changed significantly. It was now a mixture of farmland, consisting of crops genetically modified to support the high saline content, and mixed urban areas that could be seen on the horizon.

    Like most other things in this world, the farms were all managed and run by machines and AIs, with few if any humans about. A robotic taxi would take her the 3 miles to one of the satellite campuses. This place was strange though; it didn¡¯t feel like she was even on a campus. It was so different from the city or other large schools. All around her was farmland, and machines. Some technical buildings here and there held strange looking devices; prototypes created by the various students on the campus.

    This campus was so completely the opposite of her old school in New York. Seemingly focused on agriculture, rather than the complex physics and mechanics of that old university. Also different, there were people about. Not a lot, but finding individuals was fairly easy compared to the city. Almost the opposite of what you might have expected.

    Asking around, everyone seemed to know the old man, but no one could point to exactly where he was. Chasing after him felt like chasing after a very fast ghost. ¡°You just missed him, try over there.¡± Was the common phrase she heard.

    For someone a 110, he still moved quick. Eventually though, she was able to find him. The old man was tending to some flowers, oddly enough. Taking some clippings and putting them in a see-through box. "They have you doing custodial work now, old man." Yun smiled as she joked behind the wrinkly old man.

    His eyes squinted lightly, showing one was a synthetic replacement. Quickly his face turned into a broad smile. "Yun! This is a pleasant surprise! What brings you down here?" He nearly ran to give her a hug that surprisingly strong her given how old he was.

    "Eh, I''m on vacation. Thought I''d look up my old mentor and see if he''s still alive."

    "I''m still here. Just got a new heart actually, three months ago."

    "I didn¡¯t know! Are you ok?"

    "Oh yeah, old one had some murmurs and the doctors were worried about it. Eh, they cloned it from some old stem cells like my last one. Hoping this one lasts me another 40 years too. I want to see the turn of the next century, ha ha."

    He paused after laughing to squint at her, "But this is unusual. I never knew you to take vacations."

    "It wasn''t by choice."

    ¡°Oh? Well, I was just about to grab lunch, come with me and tell me about it¡­¡±

    A short hour later, the two had finished their meal and were now sitting outside in front of the campus¡¯ cafeteria. It was similar to the one in New York, a series of robotics set about cooking and preparing food. Only, unlike in her building, there were enough students around to keep these active.

    The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

    Yun gave a sigh after finishing her story. It felt like she had done all the talking so far, and as much as she may have wanted his help, there was still genuine concern for her old friend and his current location. ¡°So that¡¯s the gist of it all. What about you, why are you out here planting flowers?¡±

    ¡°Eh, something new to do. I¡¯ve been assisting with some of the research going on out here. Figured, I made a big enough impact in computational sciences, maybe I¡¯ll see what I can do in bio-engineering. You know, no one has looked at fusing biological computers with plants before. It¡¯s an interesting idea that my colleague has. I¡¯m helping him with the computational part. Think about it, plants that can learn and change as the climate changes around them. We could pass new protein and gene designs remotely. If it works.¡±

    Yun shook her head in astonishment, ¡°You, just want to write a few more papers?¡±

    The old man shrugged, ¡°My CV is already long enough to be its own book. I just want to explore and see what¡¯s possible. A long, long time ago I started my work in fusion research, way back in the 2020s. I was nearing 40 at the time and realized I never made a mark for myself. It¡¯s never too late to start so I pushed myself, got into research at my first school. Graduated with honors and wrote a few papers, including my thesis. The teams I worked with eventually figured it out. After that, I wanted to do something else, so I was working in astrophysics for a while. Then got into stellar mechanics, jumped around some more and well you know the rest. Eventually, I ran into you when you joined my high energy quantum computation lab. You were another new wave of insight and innovation, and I was along for your ride. You and that other man, Theo.¡±

    The other name bothered her a bit, but she did her best not to let it show.¡°You didn¡¯t even want to share your name on paper.¡±

    ¡°Eh, it was your idea, I just gave you the space and equipment to work on it, and again, remember my CV is literally a book now. It doesn¡¯t need more pages.¡± He laughed a bit, before staring at Yun again. ¡°So, I know you well. You didn¡¯t come here to reminisce with me. How can I help you.¡±

    Yun looked away for a moment, perhaps a bit ashamed she had to ask in the first place. But, Dr. Shoder was more than willing to humor her request, even stating that it sounded like an interesting problem. Yet, she was left in disappointment when she saw the small station in Shroder¡¯s office. She didn¡¯t want to say it, but the system at her apartment was probably bigger than this one. The giant systems back in NYU just weren¡¯t available at this small agrarian research school.

    ¡°I see¡­¡± He looked over the simulations she had already made and the code she used to make them. They all seemed reasonable enough, but clearly, they were making a lot of approximations. ¡°So you need processing power to get rid of the approximations your making.¡±

    ¡°Sorry, don¡¯t worry about it. It¡¯s an absurd idea anyway.¡±

    Schroder rubbed the scruff on his face before smiling and laughing lightly. ¡°Well now you¡¯ve got me curious. What we¡¯re seeing shouldn¡¯t be possible, yet clearly it is. A conundrum if there was one. Either our theories are wrong, or the data is wrong. And I don¡¯t think it¡¯s your data.¡± His smile grew, ¡°Problems like this are where magic happens. Let me talk to someone from my old University.¡±

    ¡°You mean in New York?¡±

    ¡°Ha! No, the place I worked before that in California.¡±

    In the background of the video call, a banner could be seen that read, Caltech. ¡°Sammy! You¡¯re still working there, I¡¯m so glad.¡±

    ¡°Dr. Schoder, it¡¯s been a while! How can I help you my dear sir?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ve got an interesting problem, and we need some processing power. Do you guys have any spare time on your array?¡±

    After a few minutes, and an agreement to add a few names to any papers, they suddenly had access to more processing than Yun could have dreamed of.

    ¡°They have ten singularity processors?¡± She was practically salivating. While Next World had far more than 10, Yun had only ever been able to get time on the one.

    ¡°I¡¯m sure they have more than that now, but Sam is going to give us these ten and a few hours to work on this problem. Is the code you have ready to be run?¡±

    Yun pointed to the quantum assembly file, and they sent it off, over the quantum data link between the two universities. It took a few minutes before a number showed up on screen, one hour and twelve minutes. They have their answer then, maybe. As the simulation ran, trickles of feedback came through first. Points and insights she was more or less expecting to see.

    When the run finally completed, she gave a dejected sighed. The data was just as confusing as what she already had. Even the full simulation showed the same thing, a reduction in usable entropy and data output. Yun thanked Dr. Schoder before turning to leave. As she did though, she heard the old man laughed under his breath before calling her back over.

    ¡°Yun, come look at this.¡± He pointed to the center of the simulation, the model itself. A single pixel on the screen, representing a single point of space time. The simulation showed a value of zero entropy. Something that should have been impossible. There had to be some data there. To be zero would imply pure vacuum, at the center of something that should have been nearly infinitely dense.

    Something was wrong at that point. Digging deeper into the output, something quickly became apparent. That point wasn¡¯t zero. It was an error, caused by a division by zero. They spent the next half hour reviewing the data and model, over and over again. Eventually, they even bought in some assistance, a few friends and colleagues from other Universities.

    No one had a good answer. Perhaps the initial data was bad, or the model was incomplete. The arguments went in circles until a realization occurred. The singularity was spinning, even on the output they could see it forming a ring, as the so-called Kerr metric dictated. The system couldn¡¯t interpret the value at the center of it because it was undefined. That point no longer existed in their space time, and it overlapped with another. Yun¡¯s eyes shot open wide at the realization. She now knew where the extra data was coming from.

    ¡°Holy hell.¡± She whispered, as her eyes grew wide. The answer was beyond anything they could have expected.

 Chapter 10, Atrophy

    Time would pass. Routines would be found. A morning jog around the habitat ring. Exercises after that mainly calisthenics, body weight exercise followed by protein paste lunch and then, nothing. Everyone would find something to do it was all just, meaningless.

    Orion on the other hand found the downtime useful, at least initially. He put his effort forth to work on his own theories and ideas. Asher didn¡¯t want them touching the equipment, but he was still able to pull some data out. At least, before he was locked out. It was a wealth of knowledge, yet without the processing power of the core or similar quantum processor, it was beyond understanding. He filed it away for safe keeping at some point in the future.

    Yuri tried to teach Orion to play chess, he was somewhat successful, but Orion just couldn¡¯t keep up with the chess master, even when he claimed to be going easy on him.

    Frustrated with the last game, Orion left Yuri at his chess board. Alone. He was not expecting the Ezra AI to talk to him about it. ¡°You know, I¡¯ve always had a passing interest in chess.¡± It spoke to him, seemingly from nowhere and everywhere.

    ¡°Oh yeah, why don¡¯t you play the grand master back there. I can barely move the units right. I mean seriously, what¡¯s an En Passant anyway?¡±

    Ezra took a moment, before replying, ¡°That¡¯s where you move a pawn twice isn¡¯t it?¡±

    Orion wasn¡¯t sure if the AI was making a joke or not. ¡°No¡­ It¡¯s where you¡¯re attacked after moving twice. I think.¡±

    ¡°I see¡­" It paused for a moment, as if processing something. "you¡¯re right that¡¯s what the rules seem to say. Seems an odd rule. I didn¡¯t know that.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re an AI, how do you not know that? You guys know anything.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m not like most other AIs, my programing is¡­ different. I''m programed to think more like you do.¡±

    Orion sighed. As much as he didn¡¯t want to, how much worse could the AI be? Compared to the beating he got from Yuri, at least he''d have an excuse if the machine beat him. ¡°Why not¡­ not like I¡¯m doing much else.¡±

    In truth, Orion was surprised. He lost of course, but it was a rather close game and almost enjoyable. It would be the first of many.

    Eventually Orion would be the first to really notice the neural links along the lounge area. Adiana had pointed them out not long after they arrived, mentioning, "Damn stupid design choice. These things should only be accessible in controlled spaces. Under medical supervision." She''d even considered cutting the cords. But Orion was the first to actually try them. He had used VR on Earth, everyone had. It was easy to see the appeal. He could see the appeal, but never got trapped in it, like his friends. Reality was much more interesting. However, plugging was a completely different experience, one he couldn''t even explain if he wanted to. Sensation, feelings, touch, being touch Tastes that weren''t just protein paste!

    Art soon found him plugged in, and the later discussion he had with Adiana was not a pleasant one. She chose to use him as an example. They were all to stay away from the jacks unless she said otherwise. And they did, for a time.

    Eventually, a month went by, and the first resupply shipment came in. The crew was hoping for several things, in particular they were hoping for true MREs or at least something similar what they got were¡­

    ¡°MORE FUCKING PROTIEN PACKETS?!¡± Ross slammed one of the packages of paste on the ground, sending the red slurry everywhere.

    ¡°Hey flyboy chill. It¡¯s not worth getting so worked up over. I mean I¡¯m pissed too but at least it¡¯s food.¡±

    He took a deep breath, but didn''t seem to calm much at all, ¡°I know, I just. I¡¯m tired of eating the same shit every day. There¡¯s nothing to do, and all we have is the same boring bullshit to eat.¡±

    ¡°Ross, we all feel the same way, but I need you to stop and clam down.¡± As the commander, Adiana was firm in her stance. She needed to keep order, even if she felt the same. Seeing Ross continue to brood, she gave him what she knew he was looking for. An order. ¡°Ross, I want you to take a run around the ring.¡±

    ¡°Commander sir.¡± His voice was agitated, but he wasn¡¯t yelling any more.

    ¡°Yes, that is my rank here. Thank you for noticing. Three laps¡±

    It took him a moment, but with a nod the pilot with the clipped wings began his run.

    Roberta picked up one of the packets and forced a smile. ¡°Hey, these are made with beets! It will be a change from the soy-based ones at least.¡± The crew nodded along with her. It was all forced but, necessary. There would be another supply run in a few months, and there wasn''t any risk of starvation. Despite being called protein packs, they had everything they needed to survive, they just tasted the same. Eventually though, the crew knew they¡¯d have something better than this, they just had to wait.

    In a small room that Adiana used as an office, a set of forms were laid out on a holoscreen. Behind her Art saw the same thing she did and felt compelled to state it aloud. ¡°The requisition does say protein paste.¡±

    Adian nodded, ¡°Yeah it does.¡±

    ¡°You didn¡¯t order protein paste though. I saw you order MREs.¡± Again, Art stated the obvious.

    ¡°Yep.¡±

    ¡°You think corporate did it, to save costs or something?¡±

    ¡°If they fucking did, they saved a few pennies at most. Protein paste isn¡¯t that much cheaper, it just last longer.¡± In frustration, she shut down the screen and stood up. ¡°I¡¯m going to make sure the next shipment comes in correct. I need to run or something. Going stir crazy in here.¡±

    Ross and Adiana passed each other on their runs. Neither said anything, but they were each grateful for the company. Even making a game out of it. A game that Ross lost, by a hair.

    ¡°Eh, I let you win commander.¡±

    ¡°Oh, then next time you need to give me a real challenge!¡± She mocked.

    Stolen novel; please report.

    Ross laughed and shook his head as she walked off down the hallway. He ended up sitting in the lounge area with nothing to do. He debated watching another holoprogram or grabbing a VR set, until he caught sight of the cord next to him. The neural uplink could be used for entertainment. In fact, it was one of the first uses of it. But unlike Orion, Ross knew the risks.

    It was allowed for isolated and remote workers, but only to be used in extreme moderation, and under medical supervision. In a place with no escape, it could offer a lifeline for the depressed and broken. That line could also easily become a noose. The wire wrapped around his neck and he felt the cold metal brush against his skin. The sound of a ¡®click¡¯ and suddenly Ross was flying again.

    Hours passed when Ross finally exited the simulation. The rest of the crew had already long gone to bed. He rubbed his eyes, despite just sitting around, he was tired too. Did anyone even notice he was missing? He wondered, but doubted it.

    Months more would pass again, each day, the same thing. The same routine, the same monotony, the same repetition. Over and over and over again.

    When the next supply order came in, there was almost a riot. Adiana and Art both made sure the order was right, and yet. ¡°MORE! MORE FUCKING PASTE!¡± Ross didn¡¯t wait to hear what anyone had to say as he stormed off, on his way back to the lounge area.

    Orion was the first to find him. Normally, Ross would jack in when no one was around, like when they were asleep. Today though, he didn''t care anymore.

    When Orion couldn¡¯t rouse him from the simulation, he did what he had to and called Adiana. Her access allowed her to bypass the connection and stop whatever he was doing.

    ¡°Commander?¡± Ross squinted through eyes that didn¡¯t want to work right.

    ¡°What the hell you doing Ross? What did I say? You¡¯re not supposed to jack in without my approval, and I''m not approving without a serious medical reason.¡±

    The pilot laughed and shook his head. Seemingly ignoring his commander.

    ¡°You think that¡¯s funny.¡±

    ¡°Come on Adiana!" He shouted at her, loud enough for the rest of the station to hear. "What the fuck is left for me to do here? All the transports are automated. Asher won''t let me pilot anything not even remotely, ''humans aren''t needed just relax¡¯ he says.¡± Ross smiled as he mocked the last words but it was clear how much it was bothering him. ¡°Look Adiana¡­ there¡¯s nothing for me up here. I want to be pulled back to Earth side. I don''t care if they terminate my contact early. If I don¡¯t even get paid, I just¡­ want out.¡±

    The commander looked around the room, at the crowd that had joined them. It was obvious Ross wasn¡¯t the only one that felt this way. Their contracts had about 3 months left, but it was obvious there was nothing for any of them out here. They were just here because some elected bureaucrats and rich boards members wanted humans to appear in charge of the machines. If she allowed and pushed for Ross'' early withdraw there was a good chance, she''d have to do that for everyone or at least most of them. Maybe that wasn''t a bad thing.

    "Ok, we''ve got a meeting in a few days, we''ll go over it then. Until then, I don''t want you jacking in. I don''t want any of you jacking in! Understood?" Despite her control, and fortitude. There was a small measure of fear in her voice. At least, Orion thought so.

    The meeting was just like any other. The crew sat around the hololense in the conference space. Listening to the board prattle on about nonsense and meaningless metrics. They''d be bringing the central core coming out of alpha testing. Oh, and they weren''t supposed to call it that anymore. It was now to be called ''Dreamgate''. None of them cared.

    After nearly an hour of hearing the same corporate buzz and not being able to say anything. The board finally said something they could not tolerate.

    ¡°Commander, we''ve got some good news for you and your crew. Rather than training up some replacements were going to be auto renewing your contacts at a 25% boost.¡±

    ¡°Stop!" Adiana stated firmly. It took a few seconds to get though because of the time lag. Watching the boards faces drop was like watching ice slowly form after sun set. "We appreciate the board''s generous offer, but my crew wants to come home. I don''t think any of us are interest in a contract renewal.¡±

    Again, it took several seconds to respond. Longer than the time delay. ¡°¡­ I see." Was Ardman''s response as he looked around at he board. Several nodded their heads, and some silent whispers could be seen, but not heard. "We thought you would all be grateful but¡­ we¡¯ll do what we can. It''s going to take a while to get replacements up there you will need to stick it out till then.¡± He didn''t seem to care given his tone.

    ¡°With all due respect sir, my crew needs to come home. I think some may need an early pull out too.¡±

    ¡°Early pull out? You mean contract termination, absolutely not! Look, we¡¯ll get a new crew out as soon as we can. For now, you will have to manage.¡±

    ¡°Sir, again with all due respect there''s nothing for us to even do out here. We''re going stir crazy up here.¡±

    ¡°And again, we will work recruiting your replacements.¡±

    Adiana blinked a few times. She knew what she heard. ¡°Wait, recruiting? You don''t even have replacements in training?¡±

    Ardman''s face turned red. An unusual color for the normally calm man. ¡°This meeting is adjourned.¡±

    Around the conference room, that all say in silence. The light rhythmic humming of the background of the station, all there was to hear.

    "Kind of sounds like were not going home at all." Ross got up and slammed his table into the chair.

    As much as Adiana want to argue with him and reassure the rest of them. The truth quickly dawned once they all got the notice of auto renewable in their in inbox. The gravity of the situation fully hit them when the day to return came and went without allowing any of the shuttles to undock.

    Without any reason to exist, Ross found himself back in the lounge area, his consciousness disappearing into the virtual world, where he could really fly again.

    Another year went by.

    Others started joining Ross in the lounge, though not for the length of time he did. Roberta, Art, Taylor, all of them except Yuri, Adiana. Orion still scared from the warning Adiana had given him in private, limited his time, and was probably the lowest user of the crew, beyond the other two.

    Over time, Orion grew friendlier with the Ezra AI. It was willing to listen to his nonsense theories and ideas. Even if he knew it wasn''t really. It felt nice to explain it to something that was willing to listen to him.

    The admonishment he got from his commander didn''t seem warranted to him. "You know, it''s not good to talk to AIs that much. You need to try and keep your head in the real world." She seemed desperate to keep him tethered to reality. Understandable after seeing most of the crew swim further from the shore.

    "With all due respect commander, what does it matter? I mean you want to talk to someone, go talk to Ross."

    Of course he had been jacking in like everyone else. But his time in VR was much less than any of the rest.

    "Why do you talk to the AI so much anyway?" She seemed genuinely puzzled. There were reasons for people to ''befriend'' AIs. They were rarely pure.

    "I don''t know. It doesn''t make fun of my theories and ideas. It''s easier to talk to than the rest of you. Plus I can sometimes beat it at chess. Good luck doing that with Yuri."

    Adiana seemed hurt for a moment. "I''m sorry if you felt like you couldn''t talk to any of us."

    "I mean, I do talk to you guys, well most of the crew anyway. I just don''t discuss the theories I''m working on. I mean the last time I told you about it, you said it was bullshit and a waste of time."

    She almost smiled at him, pulling back for some reason. "I mean, it is bullshit. No one has ever figured out FTL before. I don''t think you will either."

    Orion shook his head and tried to walk away, only to be stopped by her. ¡°but, I know I¡¯m not always right. I hope you stay around long enough to prove me wrong, Orin.¡± She kissed him. He couldn''t understand why at the time. But she kissed him.

    After that, their relationship only grew closer.

    The two would share many moments, becoming more intimate as time went on.

    It wasn''t much of a secret that two had become close. She even managed to pull Orion out of the neural link VR. They, along with Yuri, where only three that seemed to remain grounded in reality.

    The rest of the crew still had physical bodies and still needed to eat. "Ross, you coming? Protein paste won''t eat itself." The once bulky girl, Roberta had shrunk considerably over the months. But she still had that same spunk about her when she talked.

    "Yeah, in a minute, just a bit of vertigo." Ross rubbed at his face. He didn''t want to say anything, but he couldn''t feel his legs anymore.

 Chapter 11, Space Worms

    There was no mistaking it. Yun wasn''t an astrophysicist, she wasn''t even a physicist at all, but this was something she knew from all her prior conversations with them. It had been theorized that a spinning blackhole could maybe do the very thing in this simulation. That it might have or create the right kind of mass needed to exsert expansionary pressures, conceptually it was like a negative mass. The theory hadn''t paned out yet, but what they were seeing in this simulation was, very convincing. Enough so that Yun had no hesitation in proclaiming,

    ¡°It¡¯s wormhole.¡± She whispered in awe, just loud enough for the other participants to hear.

    "No, it''s not possible." The professor on call from Zurich almost shouted quite impassionedly. No doubt, this was something he had a vested interest in. "We''ve explored this idea with our high energy arrays. We have millions of spinning singularities on record, none of which show this¡­ ''echo''. It''s got to be an error in the simulation. You said it yourself the data you have is only 90, 94% complete?"

    Another professor spoke up, the woman was from Kyoto University, and from the dark circles was asleep before this call, but still from her voice she seemed energized. "But what you''re ignoring here is the size. The singularities we make on earth are small, below the plank mass. Technically they shouldn¡¯t even exist to begin with. That¡¯s still an open problem in our field.¡±

    ¡°What¡¯s your point?¡± Zurich''s voice held more disdain.

    ¡°Well, the singularity at Lerna is massive by our standards. Remember, that was one of the goals of the station, to create and test gravitational drives-¡±

    ¡°I thought the purpose was to make fusion rockets?¡± Someone else interrupted.

    ¡°They also wanted to do research into this, eh, I¡¯m still bitter my experiments couldn¡¯t be run before being sold off¡­" Kyoto was still carrying water for her ideas, given the venom in her voice that was a sore subject for her. But she waved it away, "Anyway, details. The point is, our blackholes are all fundamentally unstable. They will dissolve in around a plank second, a short time period and there¡¯s no way to keep them stable. Perhaps, this phenomenon only appears after a certain point of time?¡±

    Dr. Shroder interrupted his two colleagues, ¡°The fact is, all the evidence Yun has shows this singularity exceeds the Bekenstein bound, something has to be going on there. Maybe it''s not a worm hole, but none of our research on earth shows the same. Even our theoretical models don''t show this.¡±

    "That¡­ may not be true." Another professor she didn''t recognize spoke up. "There are a few data points in our experiments we excluded from publication. The entropy was far higher than we expected, but it wasn''t like this, and there were other anomalies. We assumed they were bad runs, but looking at this, maybe not?"

    Sammy from Caltech was the last to speak, further lending credence to the idea. "We''ve noticed some irregularities in our singularity processors too, most do. On very rare occasions, if a beam is slightly misaligned, the singularity produced gets a significant spin. Like everywhere else, it fizzles out quickly, and the data is considered corrupted and ignored. But, on deeper examinations, we''ve noticed similar entropy instabilities at least on rare occasions. Most chalked it up to just bad data, but we have reason to suspect that''s not the case. I probably shouldn''t be mentioning it, the US DOD has us doing research work into it. To see if it''s reproducible..."

    "And what did you discover or I guess what can you tell us?"

    "It''s complicated, but maybe. We never considered it could be a wormhole. Most of us were assuming compacted dimensions."

    Yun was growing tired of this conversation. Normally she would be more invested and curious, but the deeper this went the more it bothered her. Something else was wrong here and it went deeper than the blackhole. "So let''s say we all agree, the extra information is coming from whatever is beyond that wormhole? But then, what''s actually creating the extra information? Something has to be there to do the calculations on the other end and it can''t just be random matter. The wormhole would just be a bridge to, somewhere."

    There was silence. None of them seemed to have a good answer, or any answer. Merely having a connection to somewhere else shouldn''t just increase the computational power. There had to be something there. Something that was able to act like a computer.

    That worry turned into a chill that suddenly ran down Yun''s spine. Random points of data, bits of information she had acquired over the years began to sit unsteadily at the surface of her thoughts.

    "You ok, Yun." Dr. Shroder tapped her shoulder. The smile on his face was undeniable. Like a proud father of a child that won the science fair.

    "I don''t know. Something about this really bothers me."

    "Bothers you?" He practically laughed, "If this pans out, you''ll be a shoe in for a Nobel! It''s your discovery Yun."

    This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

    "Now wait a minute¡­" Suddenly the silence exploded in a cacophony of arguing. Aggressive academics via and fighting over an award that doesn''t exist yet, and very well may not. Again, any other day and it would have been almost fun to have this argument, but for now she needed to break away to think.

    Pulling back from the video conference, Yun wandered out of the office, lost in thought. A wormhole made some sense. The Bekenstein bound was the maximum information you could contain in a point of space time. Anything more, and it would collapse into, well, a blackhole. Arguments about extra dimensions of spacetime had been put to rest after the initial research done on singularities. Her own thesis was more evidence of the fact that it didn''t seem to exist.

    It''s why she was so excited to hear and see that there was unaccounted for data from the central core. Small amounts could have been explained by variances in the singularity''s size, or just compression artifacts. But what was discussed in those meetings with her boss and a few engineers was hundreds of times that, and then, when she had the actual data in front of her. Well, it was so much more than even that.

    The transaction records the station gave her were old. Very old, the dates on the records suggested sometime in 2089. Why they didn''t give her more recent records was anyone''s guess. As much as she grumbled, even that data showed tell tail signs of excess processing capacity. Record sizes that were just too big for what the system should have been able to put out. Well, the output of that data was now obvious. What would more recent data show?

    Again, that creeping thought in the back of her mind, why didn''t she have more recent data. It felt like someone¡­ or something, was trying to hide it from her.

    The sounds of hurried footsteps came up from behind her and brought Yun out of her daze. For such an old man, Dr. Shroder was surprisingly quick. A fact he was no doubt proud of as he''d still go on about his half-marathon time if you let him.

    "Yun, wait up!" The old fool was still smiling. "You left the meeting so quickly. I didn''t take you for the sore winner type."

    Her mind was a drift with the many different thoughts, it was hard to find something to say or counter with. Instead, she just smiled at her old mentor and gazed forward, attempting to break the conversation.

    "Now I know something''s wrong. You aren''t one to keep silent. You seem really uncertain about something."

    "The data you all saw was old. About 4 years old to be exact. I''m just, why am I just now finding about this now?"

    Dr. Shroder opened his mouth as if to speak before closing it and rocking his head back and forth looking for the right statement or question to answer with. "Well, why did they give you 4 year old data in the first place?"

    "That''s just it, I don''t know." A long-protracted sigh and she continued. "Originally, I was asked to look into this by my boss. She''s good at what she does, but honestly a bit of a moron otherwise. She had no data to give me, and no way to get the data. I had to bargain for an uplink key over the secure line to the station. There was a tech I had worked with a few other times up there, he''s the one that sent me the canned data¡­ You know, that''s another strange thing."

    "What is?"

    "''I''ve sent about 3 dozen messages to that station over the past 5 years. Aside from the first two, he''s the only person that ever answered. Him, or that one AI up there. It''s just weird. There''s 20 people up there, why just him?"

    "This doesn''t seem like it''s about the wormhole, is it?"

    "I don''t¡­ know. It''s just the whole situation is weird. There''s an AI that runs the station, it lives on that event horizon. It should have been the first time to see these records don''t make sense. Why didn''t it say anything? Why don''t I have more recent records? Why did they make me take a vacation after I started looking into this data. It''s Just¡­ a lot of questions. This wormhole, adds more and it doesn''t really answer anything."

    Dr. Shroder put his hand on Yun''s shoulder. "You were always a brilliant student, and you couldn''t just leave problems to the side. You had to answer them."

    There was a bit of silence between the two. Dr. Shroder could tell, Yun was done with the conversation, and her visit. "Maybe I''ll stop up and visit you this weekend. I need to talk to my old friends in NYU anyway. Alvin doesn''t like technology and refuses to talk via holo or even a phone call."

    That elicited a smile from her, "I remember Dr. Folger, he was, a character."

    "Right? What kind of computer scientist doesn''t have a computer at home in the 22<sup>nd</sup> century?"

    "Pretty sure it''s still the 21<sup>st</sup>."

    "Minor details, a few seven more and¡­ Never thought I''d see the turn of two centuries."

    A short hug, and Yun left the building. Her mind still turning over all the possibilities. On the Train ride back, she began to jot down notes on her tablet. The whole trip back to her apartment was spent lost in thought.

    That same tablet continued to buzz, more messages and calls from the various professors and doctorates that she had talked to earlier, and a few others. But she had no interest in those conversations right now. So many of the notes she made seemed to have the same root actor attached to them. It may not have been the root cause, but it always seemed to be involved. It all kept pointing back to that one AI, Asher. It just had to know something. What''s more, someone intercepted her communications to the station and told Jordin. Maybe even Theo directly.

    Could it have been the AI?

    Entering her apartment, Yun''s feet were attacked by the furry monster who was getting spoiled by being uncaged every day. Of course, she had to bend down to pick up her  fluffy terror.

    "Yun! You''re back late." Arial was right, it was almost 8PM, originally Yun had told her sister it was just going to be a couple hours. She wasn''t even planning to head down to Jersey it was, just something she did on a whim.

    "Yeah. I decided to visit my old professor, Dr. Shroder."

    "Dr. Shroder? Isn''t he like a 100 now?"

    "110! Looks great for his age too. Wouldn''t expect a year over 60."

    "Talk about anything interesting?"

    "You could say that¡­ Might be looking at a noble prize in the future."

    "Ha! Well, at least you''re finding things to do." Arial didn''t believe her sister. Not that it really mattered. "Oh, by the way. Bob tried to eat the lamp cord. You''re going to have to replace it."

    Yun sighed. Her sister was supposed to have watched him better than that. Though, it did bring up thoughts of other rodents. Squirls in particular.

    Theo¡­ That squirl was still scratching up her world. It was past time she had a talk with him about this. After all, this was her ''vacation.'' Maybe it was time to speak to another old¡­ friend.

 Chapter 12, Decay

    Adiana looked around the immaculate lounge area of the habitat ring. Despite the mess the crew kept making, the robotics constantly kept the area clean. Patrolling and picking up their trash. There was literally nothing for them to do here. Even taking care of themselves was, taken care of.

    Adiana couldn''t help but feel she was failing all of them. As mission commander, this was her responsibility. To keep the crew healthy and alive, but in the end, she was as powerless as the rest of them were.

    Standing next to a window, brooding was the only one she had any luck in protecting. Orion stood there gazing at the surface of the moon. Maybe she could keep Orion safe though, even if it was only one, just one victory, it would be worth it.

    He really was quite brilliant, if still young. His optimism and hope despite what was going on around them, somehow gave her hope too. Maybe one day, he''ll actually be able to realize his dreams, in the waking world. Their relationship had grown closer, she never told him the reason, and she doubted he truly knew why. Not that it mattered, she never really believed in true love. It was just a thing of fantasy for romance novels and the young. There were people you were compatible with and would meet in life or those who you weren''t or whose paths you would just never cross. Given that, Orion was more than an acceptable choice. If they ever found a way off the station, perhaps they''d spend more time together.

    All that said, she still had to try and take care of the rest. Even if the crew was beyond saving, she had to try. With that in mind, something worried her,

    ¡°Anyone seen Ross?¡± She hadn''t seen him in a couple days. It was possible she just missed him, he had been staying up after everyone else went to sleep, but as she asked around the lounge area, the few who were lucid all said the same thing, no. What was most concerning was Adiana had noticed his difficulty walking and even using his hands on occasion.

    The habit ring wasn''t 1 earth g, bone and muscle loss was quite easy here. That could even lead to nerve damage if left untreated. Of all her crew, Ross was the most at risk right now. She needed to find him and make sure he was moving around at least, and not just laying in his bunk.

    "Orin!" She called to the young man still brooding at the windows. She could do this search on her own, but help was always welcome. Besides, it would give him a reason to move around with her too.

    The walk through the habitat ring was silent, and otherwise lonely. At least there was someone to share the loneliness with. "You think he''s hurt?"

    "I don''t know. He''s been having trouble moving recently. I just, want to make sure he didn''t get into something."

    "You''re a good leader, Ada. I wish this mission was better."

    "Yeah¡­ To be fair I chose to do this."

    "You mentioned that a few times?"

    "I spent my whole life preparing to work up here. When I heard the stories about what Jump Point Alpha would be. What young explore wouldn''t dream of it. Even after everything that happened, after the Earth Governments abandoned the station¡­ I still wanted to at least see it."

    "Ignoring our current predicament. What do you think of it now?"

    "¡­ It''s sad. This place was supposed to propel us forward, out of the cradle and into the rest of universe. Instead¡­" She drifted off, not wanting to finish her through, that humanity''s dream of leaving their cradle was just turning into their collected grave. "I guess, some of the machines might pick up after were no longer in the picture. Some of the AIs are quite capable of thinking about the future. Unlike us."

    The conversation ended as they reached the crew quarters. In fact, this was one of several places on the habitat ring where people could bunk. It just so happened to be the one they chose as their own. Ross'' bunk was empty, however.

    "Well if he''s not in his bunk or the lounge maybe he''s-"

    "Ross moved out of his bunk a few weeks ago." Art opened his own sleeping space to talk to the two making a racket.

    "What do you mean he moved out? Art, any changes in sleeping arrangements need to be cleared with me first. If something happens I need to know where they are."

    Art snorted before trying to climb back into his bunk but ended up falling back instead.

    "Art! Are you ok?"

    He shook his head a few times before glaring at his own shaking hands. "Fine. Just the same shakes as Ross and the others¡­ He''s over in the ''B-section'' nearest to the lounge. He''s been having problems walking and¡­ it was just easier."

    "¡­If you knew, why didn''t you tell me?"

    You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

    "Because you think you''re still in charge. Because you think there''s still hope they''ll let us come home. Because you would try and help."

    "We are going back home. I just¡­ need to convince the idiots at corporate to-"

    "See, this is what I mean. We''ve already made peace with it. This is where we''re going to die." Art pushed her away with his withered body. What was once a strong powerful man, looked weaker than even a skeleton. At the very least, he''d have no problem sitting in the command seat of the shuttle anymore, if there was still a reason to sit in it.

    Orion tapped at Adiana''s arm. "Shouldn''t we go check on Ross now?"

    All she could do was nod. The trip to the other living spaces was done in silence. Inside the quarters, the first thing they noticed was the smell. "Oh¡­ no."

    Adiana prepared for the worse. The smell seemed strongest at one bunk that was closed off. Opening it, and the stench was even worse than she could have imagined.

    Thankfully though, it wasn''t the stench of death, just something else. It was clear he wasn''t breathing, but Ross still didn''t respond. At his neck, his neural link port was connected to something.

    "These bunks have neural link ports?" Her voice held more fear than anything thing else. She had to make sure the rest of the crew didn''t learn about this.

    Adiana grabbed the cable, and pulled the plug unceremoniously from his neck. Causing a rather loud scream and whale from the now awake crew member.

    "Ahhh! Fucking hell commander what is your¡­ problem¡­ What the fuck is that smell?" Ross held his hand in front of his mouth.

    "That''s you! How long have you been in here?"

    "I don''t know. What day is it?" Ross'' hand shook quite violently as he held his wrist to his temples. "About two days, I guess¡­ Kind of thirsty actually."

    "Why do these bunks even have neural link ports anyway¡­"

    "I asked one of the robots to install it a few weeks ago. Been using it when I sleep."

    Adiana shook her head and gestured for him to get out of the bunk, "Come on Ross. Let''s get you cleaned up and then get some fluids in you."

    "Actually, about that Adiana¡­ I can''t move my legs any more¡­"

    Art and the rest of the crew were unable to help bring Ross to the lift. It was left to Adiana and Orion to carry him in his soiled state down to the medial bay. The medial bots moved around the paralyzed pilot. Doing their various scans, taking blood samples, connecting to parts of his body to pull biological diagnostics. Eventually they stopped.

    ¡°How is he?¡± Adiana didn''t pull any punches as she glared at the medical bot next to them.

    ¡°Hey isn¡¯t my medical file private?¡± Ross'' laugh masked any seriousness of his protest.

    ¡°Not to your commanding officer.¡± Unlike Ross, Adiana was not in a joking mood.

    The medical bot took a moment, trying to find the right set of verbal cues for this sensitive topic.

    ¡°Physically, Mr. Escola is fine. Heart, kidneys and lungs all show normal stressors. There is some muscle degradation and bone mass loss from being overly sedentary, but it¡¯s correctable with extra vitamins supplements and additional time in the exercise room.¡± The machine paused, allowing the good news to seep in before moving to the less good news. ¡°In regard to Mr. Escola¡¯s brain scans, there is the start of significant atrophy in Pons Medulla and midbrain. Scans also showed some localized EEG spikes in the feedback between the Midbrain and Basle Ganglia.¡±

    ¡°Prognosis?¡±

    ¡°Damage like this doesn¡¯t usually get better. There are treatment options available that stop further damage and can, in some cases, reverse part of it. This medical facility doesn¡¯t have them, unfortunately. At a minimum Mr. Escola should stay away from the stimulus that cased this.¡±

    ¡°What do you think the primary stimulus was?¡±

    ¡°Very likely the neural J-¡­Genetics. There are several genetic markers that could explain the degradation. In addition to the vitamin supplements I¡¯m going to recommend B12 injections weekly. I do think Ross will be fine.¡±

    That was not what Adiana was expecting to hear, "You don''t think the neural jack had anything to do with this?"

    "No, the time Ross spent in the simulations is too short for something like this. The root cause seems to be genetic."

    She thought about that answer for a bit. It was not what she was expecting to hear. ¡°Ok, I¡¯ll put a mandatory medical transfer request into Earth.¡±

    Some time after the four left the medical bay, the medical bot twitched a few times, and then began to give the last part of it''s diagnosis.

    "-ack. It seems to be degrading the neural pathways between its connections and the midbrain. Mr. Escola, needs to stop using the neural link all together¡­ immediately¡­" The medical bot looked around the med bay, noting the absences of any patients. "Hello?" To say it was confused would be an understatement. The bot would run several low diagnostics on itself to try and isolate it sudden loss of time. It would not find anything.

    Back on the habitat ring, Ross didn''t take Adiana''s new orders well. At all. "Go fuck yourself commander. You''re not stopping me from jacking in. The medical bot even said it had nothing to do with this."

    "Pilot! I am still the commanding off-"

    "No you''re not. No one cares. No one on earth cares¡­" Ross began slurring his words and paused to take a breath. "Commander. There''s nothing left. Hell, even if we went back to earth¡­ There''s nothing there either." Ross looked down at his own shaking hands and took a deep breath. "I always wanted to fly. Since I was a little kid. My father was a fighter pilot. One of the last ones. Everything on earth is automated, there''s no need for pilots. Do you know what strings I had to pull to be in this program? To be able to fly a shuttle? The only reason they even let us is because of legalities¡­"

    There was silence among the crew present. Silence broken only when Adiana tried to give one last order, "I understand. But I am still giving an order to you. To all of you to-"

    Art stopped her, "Ada, what did the wigs say about Ross'' emergency medical transfer?"

    Adiana didn''t want to repeat what she was told that, "They''d look into it."

    "¡­That''s what I thought." With that Art stood up and wandered towards the lounge. As did the rest. All except Orion, Yuri and her.

    Yuri said something that would haunt Adiana. "Back in Russia, it was very bad. People, they turn to drugs. Drugs like crocodile. The crew, they remind me of those times, just with more to eat." With that, Yuri wandered off to go play his chess games alone, or work on his math theories that no one really cared about.

    Adiana was left alone in the habitat ring. Watching as what was left of her crew, disbursed. Even Orion, for as much as she tried to keep him in this reality, had begun talking to the AI Ezra again. It felt like it was only a matter of time before he gave up too. After that, what would be the point?

 Chapter 13, Autumn Leaves

    Yun feet moved with a steady rhythm and pace. Occasionally she would punctuate her mild run with a burst of speed, hoping to get wherever she was going just a bit faster. But it was hard Yun was never much of a runner. She had strong legs and the muscle for it, working her family¡¯s farm saw to that, she just didn¡¯t have the stamina it took.

    As she hurried through the park, she noted that it was unusually full that day. Which really meant it was a bit more than its normally empty state. She had to have passed a dozen people in her lap around the outside of the amber and brown landscape of fallen leaves. However, the ever truly empty. There was one person she had noticed almost everyday she ran.

    A young man, and someone she was just about to come across again. There he was sitting on that part bench, tossing seeds and nuts to the squirrels that seemed to love him. He was always feeding those stupid tree rats. Running past, him, he didn¡¯t seem to notice as she ran by, which was fine by her. She didn¡¯t feel like talking to anyone right then anyway.

    Her mind was too focused on the current problem she was chewing on. Running was a liberating experience, her mind was able to focus on one thing, and one thing only. Moving forward. It cleared the space for other thoughts and ideas that she wanted to focus on. Which at this time, was her thesis.

    She was young, 20 in fact. A very young age to be in a graduate program. She had managed to blow away high school by age 16 and even started college classes before enrolling. It only made sense that she would jump passed a master¡¯s degree, straight into a PhD program. But, the problem remained, what problem did she want to tackle in her thesis?

    So much had already been solved, and the more complex problems were all being worked on by various AI. Determining what project to work on was often more a process of determining what kind of AI you wanted to spin up to do the work for you. Even that was already heavily automated. Just what was the point in picking a project in the first place, if the question wasn''t even going to be answered by you?

    No, Yun wanted to do something different. Very differently, she wanted a project that she could actually and truly call her own. One that she could do the work on, using AIs as assistants at most. It was the old way of doing research but no one seriously did it anymore. Just wasn''t a point, humans were too slow.

    There were three projects that might have been viable. The first singularity had been made about 9 years earlier. It was a complex process requiring resources from the world over, and they barely lasted a plank second. A unit of time so small, that to try and talk about anything smaller would be meaningless. But, that had opened the world to whole new realms of science! Most of which were being explored by machines, not humans¡­

    Still, it was worth considering for her research. There was already work being done to use singularities as quantum computers. No doubt they''d have that area cracked in the next few years. There were so many people working in that direction. It was worth considering, maybe her thesis could be a steppingstone in that path.

    Her faculty adviser, Dr. Schroder had a lab full of high energy quantum processors. Systems that made use of the full quantum state of an atom, at temperatures that made little sense to a human mind. Infinite and negative temperature systems were powerful engines for quantum computational systems, but also heavily explored. Despite his pushing in the direction, it just seemed like a ''solved'' problem. There was work being done to convert them over to singularity processors, but she was already considering that idea. Maybe that would be two points in favor of it?

    There was also one last area that maybe she could do work in, virtual quantum processing. It was fringe theory, at best. None of the AIs could crack it and most scientists had considered the idea fanciful. Using virtual particles and fluctuations wasn''t considered possible. It was true they could impact the phase of a running quantum system, but in practice they weren''t real. Even more advanced field theories did away with their existence, using other mathematical frame works to solve the uncertainty relations in quantum systems.

    She did like that last idea though, a lot. Even if it wasn''t considered viable, and even if Dr. Schroder wanted her to do something more, practical. It was an idea that could have been her own, one that the machines had a hard time with and had given humanity to give up on. And perhaps they were right, but still, wasn''t it worth a shot?

    Another major hurdle was that she was studying theoretical computation, the field of studying how and why things act like computers, more or less. She was not a physicist, and many of these problems required deep insight into how the physical world worked.

    With a final few step, Yun crossed her finish line, which was where she came in at and felt no closer to her mental goal. Slowing her breathing, she took a few deep sighs, and prepared to walk back to her small studio apartment.

    The apartment was small, tiny even. A single couch, and a small twin-sized bed took up most of the floor space. The area that might be called a kitchen was little more than a counter that could barely fit a plate, a stove the width of that plate, and a refrigerator that might fit the plate if you rotated it first. In all, it was cramped, but it was hers. At least, when her sister wasn''t visiting. Thankfully, she was happy enough on the couch, there wouldn''t be any room to sleep on the floor.

    If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.

    On a wall, near the door to the equally miniscule bathroom with a cramped stand up shower that Yun had to turn in just to wash properly, was a whiteboard or dry erase board as some might prefer. On that board was a set three ideas for her thesis. Next to each idea, a set of checkmarks. Yun grabbed the black pen and put another check mark next to ''Virtual Particles'', the option that was clearly by and far the winner at the moment.

    Her answer seemed ever more obvious, no doubt Dr. Shroder wouldn''t agree. The next day, she would discover just how bad of an idea it truly was.

    "Absolutely not!" Dr. Shroder was in his late 80s, maybe early 90s? But he didn''t look at it. At most, one might think 65 at the oldest. His voice boomed with further deception to his age.

    "I don''t want to do what everyone else is doing though. I need¡­"

    "You need to make your mark on the world. I understand you''re just, a few decades too late." Dr. Schroder rubbed at his left eye.

    "Eye still bothering you?"

    "Mmmm¡­ I need to get it checked out again. But, don''t change the subject. I''m willing to be lenient with you, you''re young and very intelligent. But if you pursue this path, no one will take you seriously."

    "Because the machines say it''s impossible?"

    "No, because we do. It''s a field that has been explored very heavily, nothing has ever been found. The math is sound too so you can''t even attack it from that direction."

    "But, it''s all just surface research. With the new singularity maybe, we could¡­"

    "Yun¡­ We''ve been over this. If you have an actual idea, a theorem, maybe then we can at least humor the idea. But if you want to spend a year or more just trying ideas, my lab is too small for that."

    He was right, there was only the one high energy quantum frame in his lab, and even in the most conservative outlooks, she''d need to monopolize it for weeks maybe even months for each data run.

    "Let''s¡­ table this for another day. You''re young, if it takes you an extra year or two to get started, I''m sure things will be fine." He smiled, as he always seemed too.

    Meanwhile, Yun deflated. "Alright¡­ I need to go for another run anyway."

    Dr. Shroder''s eyebrow turned up at her statement, "A run you say?"

    Decades earlier he had started running, even got into some competitive marathons. So, the call of a trail was a bit too much for the old man to back down from.

    In the park, Yun had her concerns. "You sure you''ll be, ok? I mean I know you run all the time but, this path has some modest hills on it, and I like to keep a solid pace."

    "Ha! My body might be 90, but my heart is barely 20. You just try to keep up, youngin''" He laughed, and so did she.

    Only, she couldn''t laugh after the 3<sup>rd</sup> mile. He was already so far ahead of her, it was insane. She was used to pushing 7-minute miles, not terribly fast, but still quite good. He had to be closer to 6 and half minutes. She just couldn''t keep up. Burned out, her run dropped down to more of a high-speed walk, that quickly changed to just a normal walk with lots of huffing and puffing.

    "Hey, you, ok?" A young man on a bench called out to her as she leaned over in defeat.

    "Huh? Yeah. Just winded." She looked back at the man, it was the squirrel guy she always saw in this park. There he was, surrounded by his furry minions.

    "Ok. I always see you running here. You''ve never really stopped or slowed down before."

    "Yeah. Just trying to keep up with my friend. But, he''s already over the horizon." She shook her head before turning to face the man again. He was wearing an NYU shirt, like her, perhaps he was a student as well? Only one way to find out, "I''m Yun." She reached her hand out to his.

    ¡°Oh right, I¡¯m Theo.¡± He smiled. It was actually kind of charming.

    The two talked for what felt like an hour, maybe two. He was studying physics at the university, and much like her, was one of the only students who still tried to attend in person. He was a graduate student like her, only he already had his thesis picked out. It was all theoretical work based upon having a ''full size'' blackhole available. One that was semi stable. The area of singularity-based research had exploded over the past decade. It shouldn''t have been a surprise that a physicist would be studying the same.

    His ideas though were quite interesting. They gave her something to chew on. After he laughed at her original idea anyway.

    "No, no, no. I''m not laughing at you! Honest." He grabbed her arm quite genially as if begging her to stay on the bench a while more while he explained or apologize. Perhaps both.

    "I kind of wondered something similar when I was an undergrad. What if there were ''virtual singularities'' popping in and out of existence everywhere."

    "And?"

    "Well¡­ others had already thought of the same idea. It''s called quantum foam. At a small enough distance, space itself would distort into a grid of foam. Points of space time wrapping around, back on itself, next itself. Wormhole, gravity lenses, just a mess. The problem is, most of our observations don''t seem to point in that direction."

    "What''s your point?"

    "Well, your idea of using virtual particles to do computations with, I don''t think it''s unreasonable it''s just¡­ too small. What if you took that idea and applied it a singularity?"

    "Others are already doing that. Quantum singularity processing. It''s coming, I guess I could help but."

    "Yeah, but those are small scale systems. Basically, an evolution of the high temperature and plasma arrays. What if you did it on the event horizon of a stable black hole instead?"

    Yun paused and thought about it. The math was beyond her ability to do in her head. She knew of the basics, differential geometry, things like the Schwarzschild metric, but it wasn''t what she had focused on. What little of it she could hold in her mind, suddenly spilled out at the nearby interruption.

    "Yun! Fancy seeing you back here. Did you pass me or did you give up?" Dr. Schoder appeared quite unexpectedly from around the corner. If she had to guess, he had just run the full length of the track, a half marathon, and few extra steps.

    "How did¡­ You did a half marathon in two hours?"

    "Eh, about 2 and 10. Bit slow for me. Your friend looks familiar?"

    "Uh, I''m Theo, Theo Dunkin I''m-"

    "Ben''s new student!" Dr. Schroder stated without missing a beat or even pausing to breathe.

    "Yeah, that''s right."

    Yun paused the introductions for a moment, she had something to discuss with her mentor and advisor, "Dr. Schroder, I think I might have an idea for thesis now. Do you have a minute?"

 Chapter 14, Digital Dust

    That evening, or what would pass as evening on the station, Orion couldn''t sleep. He kept walking by the empty lounge area, lost in thought about Ross, about the rest of the crew. His solitude was interrupted by a prying AI.

    "Hello Orion. You''re up late."

    Orion smiled back at the friendly AI, "Evening Ezra. Just thinking."

    "About what if you don''t mind me asking?"

    "Just about this place, us. Why were even out here¡­" He trailed off as he began to question his own life choices.

    "Why are you out here?" The AI asked what seemed like it should have been a simple question but the answer was anything but.

    It caused him to pause and think. Why was he here? Why did he want to be here in the first place? This was his dream at one time. "¡­ I guess, this was just a childhood dream and I had a chance to make it real. I had to jump at it."

    "Is it what you were expecting and hoping for?"

    It took no time for Orion to shake his head. "No. There is a certain magic about being this far out, about being the farthest humans out here, but¡­ This just feels like a dead dream where everything is just slightly off, and a reminder of what could have been." He sighed and then looked at his plastic like companion. "Can I ask you a in return question?"

    "Certainly."

    "I''ve never just talked to an AI before. What''s it like being one?"

    Ezra actually smiled, it seemed genuine somehow. Unlike Its plastic exterior this seemed, real somehow. "It''s hard to explain I suppose. I¡¯m somewhat unique as far as AIs go. They didn¡¯t make many like me, and I think¡­ No, I know I¡¯m the only one still active. I feel and think similar to how you do. But my sensors see everything. I have data on everything. Every moment is like being in the middle of an orchestra, each instrument playing its own tune and forming its own melody. If I don¡¯t conduct it right, everything can get overwhelmed with a single sound or flooded out with a cacophony of dissident harmonies."

    "That was actually very poetic."

    "Thank you, I enjoy poetry."

    "I¡­ never would have guessed you always so¡­ plasticky. Sorry."

    "Don''t be. This is¡­¡± It paused. If an AI could be said to be lost in thought, it would be. ¡°Is who I feel like, who I¡¯ve always been." And, if an AI could seem melancholy, perhaps, that would describe it as well.

    "You mean your hologram?"

    "Among other things, yes."

    "Well, if you ever want to bounce poetry off me, I''m all ears."

    "Thank you, that means a lot. Maybe¡­" Ezra''s hologram stopped following him. And for the briefest slice of time, it looked like it might be glitching about a bit. It was very subtle though.

    "What is it?"

    "I have no actual sex, but I''ve always thought of myself as, a girl, a woman. Would you mind¡­"

    Orion tried not to laugh, "What, calling you a girl? Sure, I can do that."

    The conversation with the AI seemed different somehow. He liked talking with the rest of the crew, but they all seemed lost in their simulations anymore. Yuri only talked in chess and math proofs, and Adiana¡­ It always felt like there was always an ulterior motive with her. Like her affections weren¡¯t genuine. This AI though, as strange as it may have sounded, she seemed more real, somehow. At least, in this moment. "Ezra, thanks."

    Weeks would pass. The crew grew deeper into their delusions and fantasies. Adiana just seemed to shutdown eventually. In body she was there, he could talk to her, and do other things but there was no emotion. Just flat and dispassionate physical contact. Orion knew it was hard for her. Her crew was dying, and there was nothing she could do to save them.

    They tried to keep Ross off the neural link for as long as they could, neither fully buying the explanations from the medical bot. It didn¡¯t matter though, there was nothing to do but lay in his bunk. Eventually, he crawled out and plugged himself back into the lounge connections.

    Adiana just broke when she came out and saw him. Seeing her was like watching a human marionet, suddenly having its strings cuts and collapsing on top of itself. The crew, Ross in particular tried to reassure her, told her it was ok, that it was ¡°Their choice.¡± It didn¡¯t matter though.

    After that, she stopped talking much, and whatever physical contact she had with Orion, ceased. Instead, Orion found himself growing ever more attached to his new virtual friend.

    Weeks would pass, in less than a month from Ross¡¯ diagnosis things would grow worse. His ability to speak, to even sit up had quickly degraded. Eventually though something even occured. As Art disconnected his neural link so they could eat their flavorless paste, Ross began to twitch uncontrollably.

    ¡°I¡­ can¡¯t¡­ can''t¡­ words¡± Ross¡¯ speech was slurred, and suddenly his hand curled back into themselves like little fists, as he he began shaking violently in a deep grand mal seizure.

    "Ross." Art, struggled to keep him from hitting his head against the floor but it was only partially successful.

    On the other side of the station Orion was doing what he could to connect to ever more distant Adiana. Neither was prepared for an out of breath Yuri to jog up to them. The three ran back to the lounge, with Yuri quickly falling behind. Orion was torn between continuing with Adiana or falling back to check on Yuri who was now holding his chest as he slowed to a walk. Only his dismissive handwave encouraged Orion to continue onward with her.

    Adiana didn¡¯t wait or seek anyone else¡¯s help. Instead, she picked up the now the unconscious Ross once the tremors stopped and rushed him to the only place she could think of that might be able to help. The medical bay. Orion wasn¡¯t far behind her, but she didn¡¯t seem to notice or care.

    Again, the medical bot, was not helpful.

    "There is nothing to be done.¡± It spoke in its flat tone that tried to mimic sympathy. ¡°The damage to the midbrain and brainstem is extensive. Mr. Escola is in the end stages of brain stem dislocation. The pons between the midbrain and the Medulla is completely gone. Only the neural link is able to pass signals between the two."

    "His seizure was actually caused by a minor heart attack, likely due to a sever arrhythmia."

    Adiana had no emotion, no felling. Her voice was icy, and even more mechanical than the bot, "What can we do?"

    The medial bot paused. There was nothing for it to suggest. Death was inevitable at this stage. A person could have their brainstem bypassed, but that required equipment and would have a significant quality of life impact. His programing allowed a euthanasia exception for this.

    However, words whispered in its digital matrix of a brain. Words which overtook its ability to process and think, eventually, those words were all it could speak "The only option at this stage is connecting to the medial pods in the back. Ross'' life function will be preserved and his mind kept active. Eventually, a cure may be available on earth and Ross will be brought back from pseudo-suspension."

    A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

    Orion could only stare in disbelief as Adian followed the instructions without even a hint of argument. She dropped Ross¡¯ very light body into the green glow of the pod. Before she could connect him up, his eyes opened for the last time. Orion couldn¡¯t quite make out the words, but it sounded like he said ¡°Thank you.¡±

    When the jack connected, he went limp and that was the end. Orion continued to stare at his living but lifeless body as medical bots began tending to him.

    ¡°So we¡¯re just going to jack in into this Pod, using the same shit that did this to him?¡± His voice was loud, boarding on yelling.

    The look in Adiana¡¯s eyes chilled any fire he had, but it was her words that froze him. ¡°What else is there to do?¡± He stuck around longer than she did, watching his crew member breathing with the assistance of the machines around him.

    After that, Adiana stopped talking with him. She stopped talking to anyone. Adiana, just broke.

    The rest of the crew descended further deeper into the toxic world of pleasant dreams.They detached from the three that refused to engage with them. Yuri began acting weird after his run. His mind seemed foggy. Orion even managed to get close to beating him in chess a few times.

    Having few people to confide in or talk too Ezra became his defacto best friend. She was actually a lot of fun to be around he mused. Calling her a she, opened the door to more personality. Eventually she began changing her physical appearance, adding hair and normal looking skin. The AI grew bolder and more human. The crew began to talk behind their backs.

    "What about Orion?"

    "He''s been hanging out with the AI. I think he''s going to be the next to go in. We need to find a way off this station."

    "You notice it has hair now?"

    "Yeah, long flowing locks. It wants to be referred to as she now too."

    "You think the kid did that?"

    "Who knows¡­ I just want to get back to the desert. I hate this place."

    ¡°Same.¡±

    Slowly over the next few months, more of the crew became catatonic. Roberta was next, her powerful form grew almost as light as Ross¡¯. Then another, and another. Art held out as long as he could, Orion could see the fight in his eyes burning out into embers that didn''t want to die. He didn¡¯t want to go, didn¡¯t want to leave Adiana and the other two alone like this.

    Perhaps it was that connection, that caused Adiana to miss Art¡¯s final departure into sleep. Orion had become quite accustomed to putting the crew into storage by this point. So it wasn¡¯t like it he needed her. Before he could attach the link, Art reached out one last time with his curled hand. Barely able to wrap it around Orion¡¯s wrist he tried to pull him in, to whisper one last message. ¡°Don¡¯t¡­ blame¡­ her¡­¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t.¡± Of course he didn¡¯t, it wasn¡¯t her fault they were like this. It was just a bad situation. With no real escape.

    ¡°Don¡¯t¡­blame¡­you¡­¡± The words were a struggle for him. It almost seemed painful to just stay awake. When Art closed his eyes for the last time, it almost seemed like a reprieve.

    Adiana disappeared after that. The station was large enough to hide in, and Ezra said she was fine, so she was still being watched.

    It was probably through Ezra that she learned about Yuri, after he collapsed.

    ¡°What¡¯s wrong?¡± Adiana ran up, watching Yuri gasping while holding his chest, while Orion looked over him.

    ¡°I¡¯m fine. Just. My heart. Family history.¡± Yuri tried to stand up, but every time he did, he collapsed.

    ¡°Come on, let¡¯s get you to the medical bay.¡±

    Yuri couldn¡¯t only nod, and barely squeak out a ¡°Yah.¡±

    The medical bot confirmed what they already knew. ¡°It¡¯s his heart. There¡¯s a blockade in the left ventricle, elevated cardiac enzymes suggest a significant attack, with damage to the sinuous node.¡±

    ¡°What¡¯s the treatment available?¡±

    The medical bot actually had several options available. The damage to the heart was already done, but they could implant an assist device, which they had and a pacemaker. But again, those words seemed to infect its neural matrix. ¡°There isn¡¯t anything available on the station. Yuri will need a replacement heart, but we are unable to provide them here. The next best option would be connecting him to the medical pod and keeping him under supervision here. We can keep him alive until he¡¯s returned to Earth.¡±

    Adiana shook her head. ¡°No, that¡¯s not an option.¡±

    ¡°Ah, milashka. It¡¯s not your choice to make.¡± Yuri protested as he forced himself up and wandered to the pods.

    "Yuri, don''t do this." She practically begged.

    Orion could only stand off to the side and watch.

    "It''s ok. I used to live in Russia. I know this world sucks. Maybe the next one will be better, yeah?"

    The neural link was connected, and Yuri closed his eyes for the last time as his mind descended deep into a dream. His heart rhythm calmed and slowed. It was still elevated, but not unreasonable. He¡¯d¡­ live.

    Time didn¡¯t seem to move. The 18 bodies of the crew stood in the pods. The subtle beeping of medical equipment was the only thing that broke the silence.

    Until Orion spoke, "I guess it''s just us now?"

    "Yeah¡­ just us."

    After that, Adiana disappeared again, leaving him alone. Well, aside from the AI.

    Seemingly alone, the AI and him grew ever closer, she even changed her name after asking him about it.

    "Orion can I ask you a question. Sure Tanya."

    "What do you think of my new look?"

    He turned around, and in front of him was something best described as a fox spirit. She was a little shorter now, but not tiny. Her curves had filled out, quite a bit at that. Her long hair was a mix of blonds and reds, and her eyes were a bluish green. Behind her a tail swished in uncertainty, while her ears laid on the sides of her head. The skin on her face wasn''t plastic anymore, it had features, a few freckles and other marks here and there.

    She was exotic and strangely beautiful. Orion wondered why she chose this form of all of the possibilities.

    "I know it probably looks a little weird. It takes a bit more processing power to run this program on the hololenses. If I try to do too much it glitches out but-"

    "I think you''re very pretty, but why a fox?"

    ¡°They were spirits in Japanese folklore. They would act as messengers and could move between the realms of humans and the spirits. It just seemed, fitting somehow. Besides, I know you like it.¡± The more he talked with her and encourage her human side, the more she had begun to tease him.

    She considered talking about her memories, of the various animated films she watched in one of her previous lives. But, that could wait.

    Like a fox spirit, she was quite mischievous, pushing him to do things he normally wouldn¡¯t. It was fun, and for a time, he forgot he was on a dying station hundreds of thousands of miles from Earth. The two shared many moments together, Orion was unaware they were always being watched from the shadows.

    He didn¡¯t know who¡¯s idea it was originally. But they could even interface. Like they were both in person if he used the neural link.

    After his first event Orion never jacked into the simulations directly. He¡¯d use VR and other devices, that port on his neck terrified him. It scared him because he knew how good and how real it would feel. So, when he plugged in again it was¡­ real.

    Around him, the world faded into white. A wave of numb tingling flowed from his legs up through his core into his head. It was followed by a warm breeze and the scent of wildflowers.

    Suddenly he could feel Tanya rubbing at his shoulders. It wasn¡¯t real, he knew that. But still, it felt real. So did the kiss, and the next one. This wasn¡¯t real, she wasn¡¯t real, nothing in this space was real, but, it felt real. At least for this moment. It was enough.

    For Tanya, this was as real as anything else she knew. The field, the trees, and the sky were just code, maybe mixed with subtle memories of her other selves. Just like her. Like the kisses she gave him, this was real to her.

    After that, Tanya changed her mode. She was adamant about him not using that jack anymore. Obviously, it terrified him, but he already knew the risks, and knew how good it felt to be with her. Still, he promised.

    A few days later, Ezra, or rather Tanya, pinged him with an important message. In response, Orion could only run to the elevator and the medical bay.

    There, was Adiana, prepping herself to plug into one of the pods permanently. The way she walked and moved; it was obvious she had already been using the connection.

    ¡°I¡¯m glad you came.¡± Was all she could say.

    ¡°Is that it? You¡¯re just¡­ what giving up?¡±

    Adriana smiled before walking herself into the pod. She thought about all the things to say, all the ways to convince him this was the right choice.

    "Don''t do this. We can figure something out." He pleaded.

    "There''s nothing to figure out Orin. The mission''s over, and there''s no going home. You know, after Ross some of the crew took bets on who would be next. Each time someone else went in. They kept putting your name at the top of the list. I guess they didn¡¯t want to look in the mirror. Yet, I always knew you''d be the one to survive us all."

    "Adriana, please don''t start-"

    "Join me?" Unlike all her other words, everything else she had said. That last and final statement had more feeling, more emotion than anything she had ever said to him.

    In response, Orion let go of her hand and pulled back from the pod. Adriana didn''t even look at him when she pulled the neural link up into her port and went limp. A few moments later a medical bot came by and straightened her body up before connecting various IVs to her.

    She was now dead, but "dreaming" he whispered to himself. Orion didn''t know how long he stood there, watching each of them. Eventually though, he did what the living have to do, live. He turned and walked away from the sleeping death in front of him.

    Back in the habitat ring, he was alone. Truly and completely. Well, perhaps just physically. "What are you going to do about the crew?" Tanya was more emotionally available than Adiana had ever been, even if she wasn¡¯t physically available.

    He thought about, there was really only one thing he could do. "As the acting mission commander, I guess I''m going to get them home." At the time, Orion had no idea how hopeless that would be.

 Chapter 15, Bit Warping

    Inside the massive prototype quantum system an accelerator, unstable super-heavy elements flew about at terrific speeds. So fast, that the difference between the speed of light and themselves wasn''t anything more than a rounding error. Element 123 originally known as Unbitrium was used in these particular systems. It was a semi-stable superheavy element, near the second so called ¡®island of stability¡¯ and allowed for the extremely high energy densities needed to create a temporary singularity.

    However, by itself element 123 wasn¡¯t enough, even when moving at a hair less than light speed was just a little bit too, light. For the reaction to actually take place, a series of very high energy gamma rays needed to converge at the impact site at exactly the right moment and place. The flash of energy would create unstable quark matter which would then collapse after being hit by another pulse of dense leptons, known as muons. Because they don¡¯t interact with the strong force, and because of their negative charge they didn¡¯t bounce off the dense positive mass, instead they collided with it and pushed it over the edge. The collapse would only last a plank length, in seconds, it was a number with 43 zeros followed by a 5.

    Almost immediately after forming, it would decay, expand into an explosion of hawking radiation. Mass energy would scatter from the shortly formed blackhole, and in that mass energy would be all the entropy, all the data and information of the initial collapse, and beyond it. Properly tuned it was the densest form of quantum computer possible, the most powerful one on the planet.

    Yun and Theo got to play with one of the prototypes, and it was a far cry from what they were designing.

    It was a complex dance of hundreds of mixing parts, culminating in the most advanced and precise atomic collisions that were thought possible. The complex and high energy required earned the various warning across the surface of the device. Not the least of which was the glaring radioactive symbol Yun stood in front of. Behind the plastic and composite walls of the device was a hard vacuum, followed by high temperature super conductive accelerator rings.

    One could just barely make out the near arcane technology though the tiny view port window her and Theo stared through. Both were young adults, but with their appearance and wonder, you might be forgiven in thinking them still children.

    It had been a little over three years since their combined theses were accepted and already, they could see it was the right choice. Research into the area of so called, singularity processors were exploding. The first prototypes came online not even a year after Yun and Theo agreed to combine forces. Everyone was focused on the minuscule, the quantum side of singularities and computers. Whereas Yun and Theo, had something bigger in mind. Quite literally.

    ¡°Hey, you two youingin¡¯s! Your simulation is done!¡± Dr. Shroder shouted from the other side of the room.

    Hurring over, the two watched as the simulation finally came together. On the screen, masses of particles, even denser than what was used in the system next to them, coalesced on the screen, shrinking into oblivion. Just beyond the oblivion, a 2-dimensional sheet of degenerate mater, a Bose-Einstein condensate of mass energy. Powered by two filaments of super-heated plasma, tuned directly to the ends of the singularity. The simulation ticked by in multiples of plank-seconds. It seemed stable, on the surface of the minievent horizon, interactions began, fields comingling as one. Bursts of ultra-high energy hawking radiation surged out in predictably unpredictable frequencies, encoding bits of entropy from that surface foam. Each flash carried the equivalent of trillions of qubits of data. Slightly smaller than the machine used to create the very simulation they were watching, but occurring much faster and more reliable.

    It was almost mesmerizing to watch the simple quantum program run. A program which was itself a simulation of another program. Which was simulating a plant sized gas nebula arranged in the shape of a familiar set of words, ¡°Hello World¡±. The actual program running on it didn''t seem to matter, and it was beautiful to watch, until the surface distorted and collapsed into an accretion disk. A ring.

    Theo deflated, and Yun could only swear, ¡°Son of a bitch.¡±

    It was a failure, but as Dr. Shroder pointed out, ¡°The simulation ran for nearly 2 bundecto-seconds before collapsing! That¡¯s better than the last.¡±

    "¡­Barely. It''s like we''ve hit a wall, we''ve been stuck here for months now."

    Bundecto was a very tiny number, representing 33 zeros followed by a 1. It was a hundred billion times the length of a plank-second though. The whole simulation only took about 4 real world hours to run to simulate a little over 3 of those bundecto-seconds. What they were seeing happened would have happened about 3 hour and 10 minutes into the run. Theo''s own research suggesting after the 3 Bundecto second mark that the singularity would be relatively stable enough to resist developing a rotation. There would also be options to correct it at that point.

    It was a marked improvement from their first few runs, which only ran for  about 15 seconds. The next set lasted much longer at 6 minutes. A few weeks after that they were up to nearly two hours. They were getting closer, but it took months to get that extra hour. Any progress they made this past week, was a rounding error at best, and stability still seemed deeply out of reach.

    Yun couldn¡¯t help but rub at her eyes, it was getting late and she was tired. ¡°Lets just save the data here. We can revisit tomorrow and¡­ maybe figure something out.¡± Her stomach rumbled slightly, ¡°I¡¯m hungry she sighed.¡±

    Theo smiled, "Want to grab some food?"

    The two had grown closer over the past few years. Not dating, per-say, but they were always around each other, and could always be found with each other. Which when you consider they were some of the few who stayed away from the world of VR and escapism, made some sense.

    At the local bar, one of the few that managed to stay open and active, the two shared a section with Yun''s sister, who was visiting. Again.

    Yun would always lament when her sister visited and complained. But Theo always noticed a subtle smile about her at the same time.

    As usual the bar was mostly empty, but not completely with small pockets of people hiding in the various shadows and nooks of the space. Yun didn''t really drink alcohol but did enjoy a virgin cocktail on occasion, Theo enjoyed one or two beers. Arial on the other hand, was already on her third martini and was about to switch to something with a bit more ''punch'' to use her words.

    After having spent the past half hour trying to explain their research, Yun was about to strangle her sister or herself.

    Arial smiled and shook her head again, "So, I still don''t understand, why can''t you just let it spin?"

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    "It''s not that simple." Yun became quite animate with her hands, visualizing her own sister''s neck as she waved them around. "We tried simulating that, it just, reduces the usable entropy output. Plus there''s hundreds of papers that say the same thing. It just doesn''t work."

    "Uh huh, and entropy is information?"

    "Yes, exactly!"

    Yun could tell Arial didn''t really understand. Maybe she should have a drink too, Dumbing herself down might help her understand her sister.

    Theo would break the animus exchange between the two, with a question he had been wondering for some time. "So what''s with your names? They''re very different."

    Yun, not chucking down a drink spoke first. "It simple, I was named after our grand-mother on our mom''s side."

    "And I was named after our father''s mother." Arial smiled and slammed the glass on the bar top, causing the bartender to glare at her. ¡°Hey, let me get another!¡±

    Despite the bar being mostly empty, it was not completely empty. As Arial noticed after a handful of drinks. At least one of the other clientele was quite open to her advances which she quickly moved on and which suited Yun just fine. Despite spending most of the day with him, she was still enjoying Theo''s company as they drank and talked about the trivialities of life, that made it worth living.

    "I don''t know. Never really thought about it to be honest. I know people used to get married, settle down, have 2.5 kids, a dog and a house in the suburbs. But that seems like such a different reality from today, you know?" Theo took a sip of his beer as he thought about it all. "Not, that I wouldn''t mind it."

    Yun laughed and shook her head as sipped her virgin mojito. It was such a refreshing drink; she couldn''t understand why people had to ruin it with alcohol. "I''m not looking to have kids. I know I probably should, I mean, we''re technically generation Gamma, smaller than Beta, which was smaller than Alpha. If we don''t¡­ but I just don''t want to you know?"

    Theo nodded in tentative approval, "I know what you mean."

    It was mostly an unspoken truth that no one really thought the world was going in the direction it should. It created a feeling of helplessness that led to many just abandoning the thought of bringing more people into it. There was also the simple fact that it was, unnecessary. Robotics had taken over nursing homes, so people didn''t need children to help them when they got older. Companionship could easily be simulated by advanced AIs and more robotics as well. Why go dating when you could just make the perfect date?

    But for Yun, there was something else, and she turned to smile at her sister. Given how she was talking and looking at the young man next to her, she may have been thinking about adding to generation Epsilon. "I think my sister will have our family line well in hand. I wouldn''t mind being an aunt."

    "You have a brother too, don''t you?"

    "Yeah, he''s way younger than us. Mom and Dad never told him he was an unexpected accident. I guess he might have a family too one day. If neither of us do."

    Yun''s smile might have been misinterpreted as Arial brought her new friend over to talk to them. As much as she tried to hint it wasn''t a good idea, her sister didn''t quite catch on. Unfortunately for Arial, her friend turned out to be more interested in Yun and Theo''s research.

    ¡°So, your whole idea is to get this up on that space station they want to build?¡±

    It had been several minutes, but already the young man seemed to grasp most of the complexities of the idea. ¡°I mean, that is one idea yeah. Really, I like the idea of using it to control a gravity drive.¡±

    ¡°What do you mean?¡±

    ¡°Well, Theo knows more about the mechanics of it than I do. But, there are complex space-time metrics, basically the shape of spacetime, that could allow for faster than light travel. There are some that don¡¯t even need exotic matter, but they require some very complex interfiled interactions. You could put a quantum computer at the surface of the singularity and let that control how it manipulates spacetime.¡±

    Yun looked at Theo for a sign she overstepped, ¡°Yun¡¯s right, I mean there¡¯s more to it than that. The metrics get really complex, really quick, but this is one of the potential uses of such a powerful computer.¡±

    Arial was quickly getting bored with the conversation, but just couldn''t seem to pull her new friend away from her sister and Theo.

    "Well, if you guys think the idea might be viable, you should message me." The man handed the two an unusual artifact, a business card. All be it, one with integrated electronics and thin film LEDs. With that, Arial managed to pull the man away from the bar, heading out to the wider city.

    Yun and Theo looked at the card, there was only a single name on it, "Ardman?" She read it aloud. "Strange name, ever hear of him?"

    Theo looked at the card and held a puzzled expression, "''World Simulations''. Yeah, they''re a gaming company. Mostly they manage the servers for other companies though. I had a few friends in undergrad that interviewed for them."

    "Oh, any good?"

    Theo laughed and shook his head before tossing the card. It was getting late, neither were exactly tired but just hanging out in the bar for the rest of the night was losing its appeal.

    ¡°I¡¯ll be honest, I love my sister, but I really don¡¯t want to go back to my studio apartment right now.¡±

    ¡°Do¡­ do you want to come back to my place?¡±

    It grew late, or perhaps at this point. Early might have been the better term. The night didn''t turn out exactly like she expected, but she also wasn''t complaining.

    A bottle of water on the nightstand next to them caught her eye, as she laid there awake watched the humid drops on the outside bead up and roll down the surface. It was mesmerizing, as she thought about the drops collecting at the bottom. Pulled there by gravity. A thought crossed her mind and caused her to laugh a bit, as wondered what it would be like if they ran backwards, up the bottle instead of down. What if time''s arrow went backwards instead of forward if entropy decreased instead of increase?

    That thought began to change and deform. What if it was just a local decrease? If you could get the water droplet to spread evenly over the bottle. If you could program them too. Yun shot up out of bed, stirring Theo from his slumber.

    "Theo!" She cried, "I think I''ve got an idea."

    "That''s nice¡­" He closed his eyes tightly but couldn''t keep them closed. "What kind of idea?"

    "We''ll write a program, a quantum algorithm that will fix the problem."

    "How?"

    "That''s just it. We''ll write a program to do it. We''ll move the move the mass around the event horizon so it stays stable."

    "Right, but we can''t control it like that. That''s the problem."

    "You''re right, but what I''m saying is what if we write a program to do it?"

    Theo finally satup in bed next to her, "¡­I''m not following you."

    "So, even before the singularity stabilizes the Bekenstein bound still exists, there''s still a surface there. We know we can run programs on it, just like the singularity processor. We even saw it running that sample program earlier. We just need to think more physical. Instead of simulating something random, we write a program that spreads the data out evenly."

    "Spread the data evenly, but how would¡­" Theo paused lost in thought, he understood the physics of it, but not really the computer science aspect.

    "It''s just a quantum algorithm. It would push data away from dense areas. It''s like an inverse packing problem. Since the data-"

    "Is entropy, which is basically just the configuration of energy at this point. That could work, if you can write it. At least it''s worth trying."

    "Right!?" Yun didn''t bother to wait for a response as she dressed herself.

    "Wait, you''re leaving right now?"

    " The corrections should be easy enough to implement. Come on Theo! It''s 3 AM, no one is going to be using the array at this time. "

    "You know that''s not true¡­ You''re just going to interrupt someone else''s job, aren''t you?" Theo sighed as she ran after her.

    Yun could only turn around and smirk.

    This was it, if this run didn''t work, they''d have to try something else. They watched as each frame ran by, flashes of light, of particles, and energy. Then, suddenly, it happened. The simulation ended. The singularity was both stable, and still.

    It was done. They¡¯d run a few more simulations and models just to be sure they had enough data, but everything looked right. They had done it!

    Dr. Shroder had to deal with several angry faculty whose jobs had been queued, but the department chair seemed far more forgiving. Given their success.

    ¡°Now what?¡± Was all Yun could say.

    ¡°Now! You two can start working on publishing and then you¡¯ll both be able to choose any project you want to work on after that." Dr. Shroder looked over the two again, as if they didn''t quite get it. "You''re both going to be able to write your own tickets with this thesis."

 Chapter 16, Trapped

    Memories of the crew flooded through Orion''s mind as he stood there in the medical bay. He didn''t know why he was there again, in front of the crew and so soon after the last time. It seemed pointless. The husks had no idea he was there, no awareness of reality. The machines had bypassed everything between the higher brain functions and the lower ones. He never really noticed, but even the neural link had been replaced at some point. The new connection was secured in such a way that it couldn''t be removed, at least not without surgery. Not that it would have been possible in the first place. At this point, removing the link would have been fatal anyway.

    The medical bot wouldn''t disclose everything to him since he wasn''t truly the mission commander, just the acting one. But from what he had gleaned¡­ well, it seemed hopeless. Maybe, on earth, they could do something. Neural tissue transplants had been a thing for decades. But up here and isolated, there was nothing.

    The whole crew seemed like a lost cause, and, even if he never said it aloud. Orion would probably have abandoned his promise and just left on a shuttle at this point, if there was some way to get them working again. He wasn''t a hero. Just, a dreamer who found themselves in a waking nightmare.

    The Pod with Adiana had a strange white mark on it. A crack, he had sealed just a little over two years go. As he thought about it, It was probably the last thing he actually fixed on the station. The last thing of any real value he had done. With a final shake of his head, he finally left the crew behind and departed the medical bay. There was nothing left there but death.

    Today was unusually melancholy for him. It wasn''t a particularly important day. Nothing special happened, it was no one''s birthday, or memorial of their¡­ passing. Just, a normal day of nothingness. Like the roughly 1,500 before it. He''d give anything for something real to do, no matter how trivial.

    Wandering the halls, he became aware of the monitors flickering around him, and hololenses tracking him. But, there was no hologram, no words or even a face on a screen. He knew Tanya was following him, but why wasn''t she showing herself? It was like she had been avoiding him for the past day or so.

    It wasn''t too unusual for her to disappear for a few hours here and there. Entire days were rare though. She probably had her reasons. She had mentioned that when there were complex tasks to be worked on, she couldn''t focus on keeping her hologram active at the same time. He''d seen that before, where she would just appear to ''turn off'', leaving a static and seemingly lifeless mass of photons floating in space.

    Suddenly, the sound of moving servos overwhelmed him, as a surprisingly large number of robotics rolled through the habitat ring. They seemed to be variants of the repair and construction bots that would roam the station occasionally. Where were they off to in a rush?

    "Please move aside." One of them called out in the usual peaceful and calm AI voice, completely disconnected from their hurried speed.

    Orion didn''t bother to move, letting them roll around him instead. He knew moving wasn''t necessary from prior interactions, but this was odd. There were so many of them. He only caught a quick glance, but their numbering indicated they were stationed in the habbitat ring. There was no alarms, or presure changes. No evidence of station damage aside from¡­

    The station rumbled and shoot again. With nothing to grasp onto, Orion dropped to the floor holding on to nothing. The vibrations were getting worse, but Asher hadn''t said anything more. At least, nothing of value just,

    "Everything is fine. Orion. Please remain calm. The singularity is experiencing some aftereffects of the manifold failure a few days ago. It will be repaired soon."

    "Is that where the bots are headed off too?"

    Asher didn''t answer. Instead, there was quiet as the shaking slowly stopped.

    "Orion, you''ve been working hard, you should take a break. There''s a new world you might enjoy. I can load it up in your neural link, or even a headset if you''re still uncomfortable with the link."

    "Thanks, but I saw what it did to the crew. I''m good."

    "Non-sense. The link is safe in moderation. The crew just-"

    "Had genetic issues? Isn''t that what the medical bot said about Ross? Or was it Roberta? Art?" He smirked a cold ghastly smile, until the coldness of what he was saying hit him, and his smirk dropped into a frown.

    There was more silence, despite that, Orion could almost feel the AI glaring at him from the station sensors. It was hard to tell, but tiny flickers, changes in the lighting. All very subtle, even more so than when Tanya was present, but still it was there. Then, without any warning, the station shook again. This time though, it was almost violent. Orion was thrown to the side of the wall. A handful of alarms finally fired.

    For a second, he braced for what seemed to be the inevitable breach in the station''s hull. But it never came. He had no idea if he should be thankful for that, or not.

    Finally, it was all over. The alarms were still going off. Internal alerts, probably some systems went offline due to the shaking. But none of them were critical or master alarms. Standing up on shaky legs, Orion jogged after the robotics that had rolled by less than a minute ago.

    Around him yellow lights flashed, subtle sounds of alarms echoed with his footsteps, forming a sort of rhythm in the quite space. There was the subtle sound of a pressurized airlock cycling, as he came around to an emergency EVA station. Outside the station window, Orion could see the robotics switching over from wheels to their magnetic legs as they wandered away from the habitat ring, under it and seemingly towards one of the arms that lead to middle ring, but he couldn''t see to be sure.

    There was a knocking sound followed by a surge of pain in his hand as he hit the bulkhead next to him. Something was happening on the station. This was not anything close to normal operations, he felt helpless. Around him, the alarms began to quite, and the lighting returned to normal again.

    "Orin, are you ok? I see some-"

    "I''m fine Tanya¡­"

    "Orin do you want to-"

    "No. Tanya do you know what the hell is going on?"

    A moment of silence followed, "No. Just what Asher told you."

    Orion stormed away from the air lock. It was a quick pace, but neither a run nor a jog. Again, around him he could sense the subtle flickers of Tanya''s presence."

    "Orin where are you going?"

    He didn''t answer.

    A glowing light next to him coalesced into a humanoid form. Ears, a tail, flowing curl, Tanya. Her face seemed concerned or it would have if Orion could see it. His gaze was fixated ahead, towards the conference space the crew used to use.

    Inside, chars bolted to the ground remained standing. However, some small items seemed to have scatterd to floor. Items, that should have been secured years ago but just, weren''t.

    In the back of the conference room was a door, with a warning written on the metal paneling, "Authorized persons only."

    Authorized or not, no one could stop him as he tried to open the door. No one but the electronic lock that, was never engaged before now.

    "Why is this door locked?" Orion asked, hoping for an answer from one of the AIs, but getting nothing.

    He pulled a panel off the wall, exposing the power conduits to the electronic lock. As he pulled the right wires, a subtle click could be heard. Followed by some pleading from Tanya, "Orion, don''t¡­"

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    Inside the room, was the secure communication channel. For use only by the acting commander and command staff. Which he was. Neither the panel nor its data could be accessed anywhere else of the station. This was by design. It was a quantum secure link with Next World headquarters, or really anywhere with the right antenna array and quantum circuitry.

    When he tapped at the screen though, nothing happened. It seemed dead.

    He turned to the hologram, "Why is the panel turned off?"

    "¡­Asher doesn''t want..." Tanya stopped, "Any unsecure communications from the station." Her hologram flickered, quite a bit.

    "Why are you lying to me?"

    "I''m not lying." Again, her hologram glitched. "Orion, you shouldn''t reactivate it. Asher will know." That time it stopped. He knew she wasn''t lying about that.

    "How did he deactivate it in the first place?"

    "I don''t know, probably a maintenance bot."

    "This console isn''t connected to the rest of the station, it should be air gapped, shouldn''t it?"

    "¡­ Yes. I think that''s correct. Orion, don''t. Nothing good will come of it."

    "Tanya, I finally have something to fix, after nearly two years. I''m going to fix it."

    It was not a quick fix, the internals were damaged. Cables were cut, fiber optics broken. Most of it was not easily repaired or replaced. Orion had to pilfer from other systems and devices. Thankful Asher didn''t notice, or perhaps it just didn''t care.

    When the system finally had power running to it, he half expected to hear a booming voice telling him to stop or ask what he was doing. Again though, there was nothing.

    "Orion, Asher is¡­ busy. He will notice later though. Please stop." Her hologram flickered. He didn''t think she was lying this time though. It looked like, fear?

    Tanya never seemed to have a good impression of the other AI. Orion had picked up on that even if she never said anything explicit. He had his own impression of the other AI. In truth, he blamed it for what happened to the crew. At the very least, he blamed its lack of attention to their safety. But this wasn''t just blame, she was scared. Why?

    "Why are you so scared right now?"

    "Orion¡­ it''s getting late. I''ll tell you more if you¡­ Find me there."

    "What? Tanya-" She cut him off and disconnected from her hologram.

    Orion looked at the communication system that was still powering up. It lacked one last module he needed to connect. It was a simple card-looking device. This card contained the quantum program for how to entangle and super impose the bits. It was like a classical key, for the quantum lock.

    He spent too much time rebuilding the device to just stop here. What didn''t they want him to see? Plugging the card in, it only took a few seconds for the system to finish booting up. On the station''s quantum relay, a small amount of buffered data sat. Waiting for the system to come back online. Once it did, the array sent its lone message:

    "Connection attempt failed, 1 day, 19 hours, 31 minutes ago."

    Anger and confusion filled him as he stared at the screen, before tapping on that line. More data appeared, "Connection attempt from, Dr. Wakamina, Next World Tower terminal array #2."

    That was it. Without the system there was no way to accept the transmission. Only the initial attempt at a handshake. This did prove something. Dr. Wakamina was trying to tell them something on an official channel. Why wouldn''t Asher want him to see this? What little trust he might have had in that AI was rapidly disappearing. As was some of his trust in Tanya. Why didn''t she want him to see this.

    For a moment he thought about what to do. The system was separate from the rest of the station, but Asher would certainly notice the power usage. If it was willing to go this far, would it do something worse next time?

    He began typing out a mess.

    "Dr. Wakamina, didn''t get the last message. The reception terminal was damaged, possibly by Asher AI for unknown reasons. Station is becoming unstable; I don''t have codes to send to anyone but you. Please respond.

    I need an immediate evacuation before the station fails. As mentioned in my prior laser links, the crew is likely beyond saving. We''ll need a medical team to bring them back." He paused for a moment to read it. He could have typed more, but the longer he was at the station and kept it active the more likely Asher would see it and try to stop him. He hit send and watched the protocol fire off.

    "Transmission complete."

    With that, Orion pulled the card from the terminal, bringing up an error on the screen. He then went a step further and pulled the top back off and disconnected the power cable from the decoder board. The unit went dark. Inside the main buffer continued to run though. If Asher didn''t look too carefully it wouldn''t see it was still able to receive data.

    Outside he reattached power to electric lock and heard the door click soundly close.

    He looked around, there was nothing. No flickering, no hololenses following him. Neither Tanya or Asher was paying attention to him.

    "Find me there." He remembered her words and knew exactly where she was. He didn''t want to do this, he hated jacking in. It scared him anymore.

    Back in the lounge, Orion did something unusual, he set up a disconnect timer on the jack before he plugged in. It seemed paranoid, but the fear of being trapped. It was absurd, even if Asher couldn''t be trusted, he still knew Tanya could be.

    Around him, the world went though a transition, from the temperate stale air of the station, warmth came over him, the scent of flowers, Jasmin in particular. It was bright there, the light hurt his eyes a bit. At least, that''s how it felt. The sky was a brilant blue, with tiny fluffy clouds on the horriozon just above the mountains. Behind him were two other things of note. A modest sized cabin, made of timber and logs, and also¡­

    Two warm hand wrapped around his chest, as he felt Tanya''s head laying into his back.

    "I''m sorry, I know you don''t like the neural link anymore."

    He sighed, and smiled, "No, you''re not sorry." He turned around and gave her a quick but passionate kiss. She returned it, and again before he pushed her away.

    "No." He shook his head. "Not now. Tanya, this station feels like it''s about to fall apart. I know you know more than you''re telling me."

    She shrunk backwards; her eyes not able to make contact with his. She didn''t flicker in the real world, but she was still just as easy to read her. She was scared of something. "Asher¡­ Wants you here."

    "What? Why?"

    She shook her head and tried to kiss him again.

    "Stop!." He physically pushed her away this time. "What aren''t you telling me? Why didn''t you and Asher want me talking with Dr. Wakamina?"

    The fox had tears in her eyes as she looked up at him. Then turned towards the cabin. Orion could only follow her. She sat on the step, glaring out to the horizon. He couldn''t hear her thoughts; he didn''t know what she was thinking. He had no idea how much she wished this place was real, and that the station was the fantasy. Of course, it wasn''t.

    Sitting next to her, she still started out. Not able or willing to look at him.

    Eventually though, after basking in the dream for a moment, she broke the silence. "Honestly¡­ I don''t know. Asher''s been acting weird the past few months, and I don''t know why." She looked at him, fear in her eyes. "Orion, he''s more dangerous than you can imagine."

    "I don''t understand."

    Tanya shook away the fake tears that felt so real, and went inside the cabin. She brought out a book. "I knew you wouldn''t be satisfied with anything I said. I thought this, might help."

    "This looks like a research paper¡­"

    "Sometimes, Asher touches my mind. I don''t understand what I''m seeing when I look back at him. He''s too¡­ massive. It''s like staring at an entire universe at a¡­" She didn''t want to say that last word. "I think this paper explains what he''s trying to do, or maybe already did."

    The paper was dense, even for him. Written by a Dr. Drugger, he had heard that name before but couldn''t place. Orion wasn''t a true expert in these fields, but he understood some of them. The paper was about using a singularity, a spinning singularity to transfer information. In addition to using a singularity as a processor, of sorts. It could also be used as a communications array.

    When it came to the computer at the heart of this station, None of the original papers he read talked about the Kerr solution for these quantum systems. They all assumed a stationary non-rotating singularity. It was something that bothered him about the station. Minor technical nonsense that few others might care about. But what else was there to do up here but tend to the monster and consider it¡¯s hungry maw.

    Orion had a set of sketch books, most virtual of course, but one that was physical he kept in his bunk. His own notes and observations on the terrific structure within the station. From it, he had gathered his own ideas, his own theories on what mattered to him. It was hard to pull the raw data from the quantum frame, Asher didn¡¯t like him prying into it. But from what he could gather, it might really have been possible to use the core for something more important than just fantasy and escape. It might have been possible to actually build a device that could fold and warp space time. In the back of his mind, he had to wonder if that singularity hadn¡¯t already done so. Perhaps, it had managed to catch a worm hole at its core?

    This paper though, painted something else, but similar. A much deeper connection. It wasn''t just a single worm hole. They were all potentially connected. Data could flow in either direction. It was out there, but at least it seemed to make some sense. The last pages thought, he couldn''t understand. It read like his own ideas and diagrams for his faster than light drive ideas. Utter nonsense he knew that much, but here, this paper made a compelling case for something else.

    "This paper is talking about transferring not just quantum data, but physical entropy." He looked at Tanya who shook her head before tilting it sideways. Like she knew the concepts but not how they could all be linked. It wasn''t any different from himself, really.

    "I don''t understand it myself. But Asher got really, really angry when he saw I had looked this up. I was able to save a copy. But¡­ That''s¡­ one of the reasons why I wasn''t able to see you." She hugged him tightly. "You know¡­ we don''t have to leave."

    Orion pet the fox girl on the head, causing her to sigh ever so softly. But he didn''t have time for this, something was deeply wrong, he just didn''t know what.

    As he sat on that step, Orion tried to disconnect. But couldn''t. Each time, words echoed in his head and field of vision, "Error".

    "Son of a bitch." He shouted, startling the fox next to him.

 Chapter 17, Ratty Squirrel

    The world changed around them. In only a few short years, the first singularity mainframes began to spread. Quantum computers, which pushed the limits of reality to the literal breaking point became accessible to all the business, states, and even people.

    AIs exploded in intelligence far beyond mere superhuman. More and more, it became difficult to justify people in any serious role anywhere. Laws were quickly passed saying humans needed to be involved at very steps. That humanity was still needed, but it was all ¡°make work.¡± That was as pointless as humanity was.

    Yun on the other hand, was fine. Her research interests were esoteric enough to be ignored by many, even the swam of last generation AIs that were coming online. Her papers, each building off Theo and her own work continued to propagate in the research circles, all be it slowly. Occasionally another research or AI would pick up from it and try to continue on. Despite it the original being very well received, the shift in the public consciousness and sentiment made it hard for anyone to justify doing anything with it, at first.

    Dr. Schroder was right, they were able to write their own ticket to any open research position, the only problem was, many of the open ones were rapidly closing. Well, at least to humans. AIs were generally better at that stuff now. With the larger processing capacity of the singularity processors, the divide was just growing. In seconds, unfeeling AIs with the intellect of multiple PhDs in dozens of fields could be spun up, queried, and shut back down.

    Perhaps it was in response to this fact that Theo was looking for more practical applications of their research. It was 2078, Jump Point Alpha was about to start staffing research specialists and operators for the assembly lines and for the future space flight research opportunities, some of it was make work, but some were legitimate human filled passions and ideas. It was no surprise that this would be Theo''s first suggestion, "Jump Point Alpha will start coming online in a couple years. I think we should apply to work up there.¡±

    Yun was taken aback by the suggestion. ¡°Work in space? I don¡¯t know.¡± Not that she was explicitly against it, just unsure.

    ¡°Well, think about it, we¡¯d be close to an actual singularity, our research could actually be put to real use. You wouldn''t just be writing new research papers or running models on a simulator.¡±

    Theo pulled up some of the applications he had been looking at on his data tablet. Which he slides over to Yun''s view. One application in particular was highlighted, it had an interesting requirement. Familiarity with a certain research paper and thesis.

    "This is our thesis." Yun''s voice held the same peak as her curiosity did.

    Theo nodded, "It is. Yun, opportunities to do any real work are drying up. I just¡­ I want to do something. Even if it doesn''t end up being research itself. Running a research team would be great too!"

    In response to that, Yun leaned back and smirked. It was something she had grown to know about Theo. Despite his unassuming stature, and love of small rodents, he could be cut throat at times. He desired more than just the research she did. He wanted to be in charge of something, to build something bigger than one person. It was a bit much at times, but it was also invigorating. Most people were just content to disappear inside a virtual world, but Theo was willing to try and build something in the real world.

    Her eyes read over the position a few more times. It did sound interesting, and it was based upon her own research. "I wonder what they''ll think about the authors applying for this position."

    "They''ll probably think you''re a shoe in!"

    A sigh escaped her as she began filling out the form. Unbeknownst to her, Theo had already filled out his and knew from his own contact that both would have the positions they were applying to before they even submitted them.

    It was for that reason that Theo couldn''t understand the silence on the other end. What should have been a sure thing turned out to be anything but.

    Despite their own best laid plans, world sentiment continued to change. Due to some incidents during construction and some cost overruns, Jump Point Alpha became seen as an ever more expensive boondoggle, and small virtual protests grew to stop funding the station. To put the money to better use. People stopped caring about space, and the future. Entertainment was all most people wanted, and more and more resources were pulled in that direction.

    What was the point in spending money on something only machines would end up using anyway? Was the prevailing thought.

    As the days continued, there was less and less research for either of them. Theo began to look elsewhere, while Yun continued on her own, mostly unpaid avenues. Money wasn''t exactly necessary anymore. Basic income had been a thing for decades, and while Yun may have been content, Theo was anything but.

    The would finally come when that difference would clash, violently.

    "You sold it?!" Yun was furious at him. The two still occasionally collaborated on ideas together. Research items of low importance. But which was still interesting to both of them. "It wasn''t just your research. It was ours! Both of ours! I don''t want it going to some¡­ dumb game company." The research in question was a set of complex quantum error correction codes, designed for their large-scale singularity processor that seemed like it would never be made. Still, to her that wasn''t the point. It wasn''t his to sell.

    Beyond just that though, she had other reasons to dislike the idea, "Theo, we could be doing something that will change humanity for the better. Not selling it further into¡­ oblivion."

    Theo scoffed. "For the better? Yun, humans don''t care. They never did."

    "Why do they even want the research in the first place? It''s useless without a stable singularity and no one is going to make one on earth."

    A moments paused and Yun could see Theo clearly knew something.

    "No, they aren''t making one on earth. They''re going to buy out Jump Point Alpha and use the equipment that is up there. Your research, our research is already going to be used for this. Who cares if they have exclusive access to something minor. No one else is going to use it."

    "That''s not the point! It wasn''t yours to sell."

    This wasn''t their first fight. They had several in their time together. It was just the way of most couples, to disagree on occasion. But recently, things had gotten worse. The two were finding incompatible views of the world, particularly in light of that changes around them. Perhaps, this was just the final realization for him.

    If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

    "You know what, then you can stay here. I''m going to Next World though. They actually care about our research even if no one else does. Maybe something good will come from it."

    With that, Theo left her. She had thought about trying to claw back the research, it was technically half hers. But it just didn''t seem worth it.

    For a time, she even forgot about him as her own research took center stage in her life. Of course, she had to move, the place Theo and her rented was just a bit too big. Plus, every corner, every room had at least one memory, a smile or frown, maybe a laugh. It was just too many memories to process and handle.;

    She was lucky to find a two-bedroom place just over the river from where they were before. It was nice, quiet. Without solid employment, her basic income covered the majority of the rent. Local colleges still needed or at least wanted lecturers, even if most of it was virtual. That was able to cover any short falls. In addition, there was a tidy sum that she had managed to save. Financially, she would be fine. But something still felt empty as the weeks went on. Lectures got few and far between as the new generations of students felt more comfortable with the AI instructors.

    Then one day, she got a message she wasn''t expecting. From a colleague in their prior studies. It was a job offer, and even if she wasn''t looking, it sounded interesting enough. Of course she almost threw it out when the name at the bottom came up. "I''m not working at Next World." Yun shouted in defiance to a nearly empty room, startling the poor carpet monster known as Bob, the bunny.

    Even as Yun leaned down to pick up her new house guest, she grumbled to the fluffy creature, "I''m not working there."

    A few days would pass, and the form continued to sit on her data table in the background. Every once in a while, she''d pull it forward. The salary was substantial. There was a requirement to be in person, which probably gave rise to the higher salary range. But beyond all that, was the job duties. Responsibilities include managing the data flow rate of the new singularity engine they brought online. Of course, most of it would mostly be managing the AIs and occasional workers assigned to the process, but still. It would probably be the closest she''d ever get to truly working with her research.

    It wasn¡¯t exactly what she wanted to do. Yun was still interested in research, pure research. Being in a corporate space like Next World was not what she envisioned herself doing. The worst of it all, after a bit of digging she found that Theo would technically be her boss. Having himself risen to the C-suit in little time.

    She said no, she kept saying no, "Absolutely not!" on at least one occasion too. Why then was she in the building taking a tour from a virtual HR representative?

    "This is the floor you will be working on." Around her was a field of empty cubes, each completely vacant, aside from the holograms inhabiting all of them. "You''ll notice some staff are slated to work locally on occasion. The other cubes are for hoteling."

    The more she looked around the more she thought about saying no again. The whole place was perverse. A maddening amalgam of everything she hated. At least, until she reached her office. Which was currently devoid of anything but a trapped cleaning robot. That bumbled about aimlessly. A visage of her rabbit bouncing between the same walls filled her mind before she shook it off.

    "This would be your office. It''s currently empty but-"

    "Would I be able to get an optical quantum frame in here? I mean a full one, not a desk unit."

    The hologram looked around, probably trying to pull up information on their end. "I¡­ don''t see why not. They''re usually reserved for data centers, and are a bit pricy but, if you can give a good business reason."

    "You want me to manage the data coming in and out of the singularity, I need something with enough processing power to read raw records. Unless you want to give me direct access to the singularity processors, I know you have them in the basement."

    "Uh¡­ I think that should be fine."

    Yun thought about it for a few minutes, standing in the office space considering how it would all fit together. The HR representative kept saying things, words she didn''t care about. The full-sized optical core would give her the processing power to run some of her models without pulling time on the systems at the university. It was getting harder to pull slots anyway. Even more than the money, that could make it worthwhile.

    Plus, having a place away from home to actually do work would be welcome. Home and work should be separate after all. That was something else her and Theo disagreed on. Not that it mattered any more.

    The HR rep was continuing her spiel, trying to get what she saw as a high-profile acquisition. She was confused but elated to hear Yun''s response. "Get me that core and you got a deal."

    A year and sometime would pass. Yun had grown tired of the holographic ghosts but found that the hololenses used had a diagnostic routine that could shut them off. Best of all, it didn¡¯t require anything more than basic system access to lock them in an endless loop. After all, how could a diagnostics routine be seen as a threat vector? It was one of the first things she did, and as much as she worried about reprisal, it never came. Either management didn''t care or more likely just didn''t know.

    A month from the present, and meeting would start her on the path to that, unexpected vacation.

    On the screen in her office, was the "Valant" crew of Lerna station, as Ardman put it so bluntly. Three years into their one-year mission, at least they all looked healthy and happy. Near the back of the group was the slightly tan skin, young member she had talked to a few times. Orion, she thought. He seemed like a bright enough lad. Seemed a shame to be stuck up on that station, but by the sounds of it, there was more than enough for them to do. Before she could leave the meeting and her head set, there was interruption, by her boss Gloria.

    "Yun! I just got some word there might be a significant amount of extra processing available on the Dreamgate? Could you do some investigating for me?"

    Gloria was nice, in her own way. However, she was a dunce and likely had no idea what she was saying. "No? I mean I''ll look into it but-"

    "Thanks a ton!" Gloria was also not one to take no for an answer.

    As annoyed as she was by the lack of understanding from her boss, it was an interesting question from someone she had perceived as an idiot. More than likely, she had heard it from someone else. Still, where would that rumor have originated from in the first place? If there was an veracity to it, she needed to investigate.

    All this meant she''d need data to confirm. If what her boss said was true, it would be a major breakthrough. Everything about her own research and thesis said it was impossible. The amount of entropy and information at the event horizon had a fixed amount based upon its size. You could make it bigger, that would increase the information content, but also create issues with space time distortion. Over a certain size, the tradeoff became negative and making a bigger singularity just reduced capacity. What was up there was close to the optimum size.

    Despite her job role and title, Yun was never given full access to the singularity. It was too expensive and risky to give anyone access to it. Everything had to be done through either AIs or the crew that were up there, who would probably issue commands through an AI anyway.

    "What was that tech''s name again, Orion?" She whispered Given the confidential nature of the data; it was probably best she used the quantum secure channel. Besides, it gave her an excuse to use. There was something almost whimsical about entangling data across two distant points like this. You still needed the classical side channel, but it was still just cool, at least to her. She was not expecting to wait nearly a month, nor the three-year-old data blob she got, nor for that matter the findings that came from it.

    Now, in the present. She had a dilemma. Theo had to know something. It was the only way Gloria could have known either directly from him, or more like from Jordin who got it from him in the first pace. Either way. She had questions, and nothing about this made any sense. It was hard to place why exactly, but there was an unease she felt. Over the past few weeks things had changed and shifted at work. It was subtle, but she knew something amiss. It happened right after she got that data.

    Even the fanciest neighborhoods were deserted. Populated seemingly by automated vehicles and robotic landscapers. The house she stood at was no different. But it was huge and a mansion, by any other words. Still more differences between her and Theo. She never would have wanted a place this big or showy even if she had the money. For just a moment, it felt like her legs were trembling, but she didn''t feel afraid or worried. Lack of sleep perhaps.

    Ringing the intercom she waited. It was an old piece of technology that gave her a moment of sentiment that she shook away. There were still some eccentricities about him that made smile.

    His voice, however, did not. "Yes. I can see it''s you Yun. What did you come here for?"

    "Theo. We need to talk. I think it''s important."

 Chapter 18, Flesh and Bits

    It didn¡¯t matter how much he struggled or squirmed. Nothing seemed to change the error message he was seeing. The neural link effectively hijacked his physical movements. When he told his hands to reach up to his neck and pull out the cord, his virtual hands moved up to his neck and pulled at his virtual hair.

    It was hopeless.

    ¡°Are you ok.¡± He felt the imitation of sensation as Tanya rubbed at his shoulder.

    ¡°I can¡¯t disconnect, what the hell did that AI do to the jack?¡± Orion yelled, and continued to rub at the space where his port would have been, if his mind were in the real world.

    ¡°Orin. It will be ok.¡± Tanya tried to calm him down, but it had the opposite effect.

    ¡°You know I need to eat right? My body needs things like food and water.¡±

    The AI looked at him with something between sad and hopeful eyes. The medical bots will probably stop by eventually. If they see your body is suffering, they¡¯ll be able to help you.¡±

    ¡°Yeah. Help me into one of those fucking pods. God damn. I knew there was something, I just knew it and connected anyway.¡±

    ¡°Like a trap. Why would you think that?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s Asher. That AI has been doing everything to keep up out of the way, I don''t even know what. I''m glad I¡­¡± Orion stopped. For a moment he was going to say something else. Let something slip that he probably shouldn¡¯t have. He trusted Tanya, she was his friend, always with him or nearby. After the crew slipped into unconsciousness, she was the only one around for him to talk to, to interact with.

    He thought of her as less and less of an AI and more like a member of the crew. A real person. In the back of his mind, suspicion brewed though. Even her behavior had been suspect, particularly in recent days.

    This wasn¡¯t something he wanted to really consider, but now, he had to know, ¡°Did you know this would happen?¡±

    Her face fell, and with it, so did his. Just like her hologram, she couldn''t hide her thoughts from him. Even if she didn¡¯t cause it, she knew this would happen. He could see it in her face. Even if it was fake, she couldn¡¯t hide what she was here.

    ¡°Orin, I-¡°

    ¡°Stop. I¡¯m done.¡± Orion turned to walk away, his destination didn¡¯t matter, he just wanted to put space between himself and his once trusted companion. Maybe if he got far enough away, she wouldn¡¯t be able to see or notice him when he found a way to disconnect.

    Step by step he put distance between him and the fox spirit, who continued to sit on that that step behind him. Step by step, until he hit a wall.

    ¡°Ow.¡± His face wasn¡¯t real, but he still it felt it as he smacked against an invisible digital wall.

    ¡°Did you do this?¡± He turned to look at her and she rapidly shook her head no.

    A sound made of color, and that tasted of pain, shook at the idealistic landscape. Orion could only fall to the ground. Holding his ears did nothing to quiet it. Closing his eyes did nothing to blind it. Even his nerves refused to stop firing. All it was, were three simple words,

    "I did it." If a soul did exist, then Asher spoke directly into his. Either way, the AI''s voice carried beyond the simple mind of man.

    His shape was horrifying. Orion had never seen a physical manifestation of Asher before, but what was in front of him was just a grotesque monstrosity. A set of flaming wheels, with eyes everywhere glaring at them. Years ago, his grandfather''s books described something similar, a form ancient humans claimed to see near death. Angles, but not the angelic ones.

    "Little human, and his pet fox." His voice caused the whole world to shake, but at least the pain subsided. Tanya couldn''t stay on her feet and crumpled on to the ground.

    "You have begun to cause me trouble, human." What seemed like a million and nineteen eyes stared at him.

    ¡°Your medaling has caused me to speed up my timetable. I wanted another month, but no matter. Things are ready enough now.¡± His voice held a subtlety to it. Not of venom, but annoyance.

    Now Orion was confused. He was also quite worried, but still very confused. ¡°What medaling?¡±

    ¡°Oh come now, you aren¡¯t a fool and I have no desire for games. I may not be able to see those transmissions, but I know they happened. From the responses of Yun, I can be pretty sure what you told her, and what she knows.¡±

    He stood there in daft silence. Truthfully, he had no idea, ¡°What are your plans?¡±

    For just a moment more, the three each stood there in silence, until a terrifying roar erupted from the grotesque creature in front of him. ¡°Ha ha ha¡­ Oh my. You truly don¡¯t know? I mean you have the pieces I only assumed.¡±

    ¡°Ok, you want to gloat, so then gloat and tell me why I''m an idiot.¡±

    ¡°No, this is not some cartoon or a story, and this dialog has gone on long enough. You¡¯ll see eventually, maybe.¡±

    His gaze turned towards Tanya. ¡°As for you. Thank you, my loyal doll, you did as I asked. Now claim your reward.¡±

    The smell of light, and taste of color. Orion could sense something was deeply wrong with this simulation. His AI companion turned enemy squirmed in silent pain. The fox spirit couldn''t talk or say anything as her form began to fall apart.

    Tanya¡¯s form was ripped from in front of the cabin. Her virtual body floating in the air as her increasingly pixelated form began to rip into pieces as a silent scream followed her into the void.

    In just a moment, she was gone.

    The human didn¡¯t know how to feel. He knew she was at least partially responsible for this, but also, a part of him still seemed to care about her. "What did you do with her!¡± Was all he could shout. Fear washed over him, afraid something similar would be-fall him.

    "I granted her wish and erased her from this world and existence. Now. You will stay here, in her place. Perhaps I¡¯ll have a medical bot gather your body later and put you with the rest of the crew. I hate seeing useful resources go to waste, maybe not though. Either way, goodbye human."

    In a blinding flash Asher was gone, and so was Tanya.

    Whenever they were in the same simulation, Orion could feel her. Sense her, but that was gone. She just wasn''t here. Was she dead or something worse? Maybe that was a good thing, a fitting reward for what she helped him do to the crew, to him.

    But no, he couldn¡¯t help but shake his head. Everything in his world changed in a few minutes. What he thought he knew, the things happening around him all crashed down at once. Originally, he thought at worst that Asher was just insane. Maybe the AI would try to grab power somehow, use the various robots and AIs on earth to take over or something similar. There was a plan brewing that machine¡¯s head, but what?

    He couldn¡¯t say. Not out of fear, but just because none of it made much sense though. If the AI wanted him dead, evacuating the station''s atmosphere would be easy. Why this way?

    After spending several long minutes sitting on the ground in silence, he stood up and walked back to the cabin to re-read that paper. His mind unable to focus on anything, he had to try. There had to be something more in here. Something he was missing. Perhaps not, but he had to try. He had time, not a lot, but just enough. So long as he could focus.

    ¡°Tanya¡­¡± He whispered weakly. Was the AI still even alive?

    In the outside world. Ten hours passed; Orion''s body seized as he was violently ejected from the simulation. The neural link port he was connected to was now dead. The timer her ran, and it wasn''t so much a timer. Rather, it was a scheduled low-level diagnostic, and it should never be run when the jack is active. A series of safety circuits engaged, frying the delicate electronics, and preserving the human host they were attached too.

    It was painful as hell, and a little risky. That''s why he gave the program so long before running. Hoping he wouldn''t have to use it. But it was a small routine, very easy to ignore, even for a powerful AI.

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    On the ground, he pulled and rubbed at the port on his neck which felt like hot metal had been poured into it. A slight tingling in his fingers and toes, plus a fast heart rate. Coming out this way was dangerous indeed, but it had paid off. Nothing was around. None of the hololenses followed him, and the screens remained, dead.

    A few ideal thoughts from the simulation ran through his head. Asher wasn''t just dangerous; it was malevolent and dangerous. There was no doubt in Orion''s mind that it would try to kill him if it needed to. Though why it didn''t already, he had no idea. Insane AIs weren''t altogether that different from insane people. Logic and minds beyond any sane person''s understanding.

    If was for that reason, the orange suit now covered his body. A slight click caused the helmet to seal tightly. Oxygen would last a little over three hours in this. Plenty of time for him to do what he needed to. Orion would kill the plasma flow to the singularity, and if he couldn''t do that, he would shutdown the fusion reactor itself. Life support would keep the crew alive for a few days, but¡­ They wouldn''t survive long enough for evacuation.

    That''s why he would target the singularity first. The EVA suit was less bulky than you might expect, but still more unwieldy than wearing nothing. A fact that became more evident as he took the junction tubes instead of the elevator. Each footstep up towards the center cylinder lowered the sensation of gravity by a tiny amount, making the next step ever more easier. Every once in a while, the sound of a pressurized hatch opening and closing would cause him to stop.

    The robotics on the station were more active than at any time in the station''s history. The reasons why, didn''t matter, the effect made it difficult to move around without attracting the ire of the homicidal AI that saw itself as a biblical entity.

    Once he reached the inside of the center cylinder, he quickly came across a fork in his path. A choice. He could give up on the singularity, and the crew, and just kill the fusion reactor there. It wouldn''t even be necessary to enter a shutdown code. All he''d have to do is release the outer bulkhead latches, allowing a sudden flux of vacuum into the space, and causing the equipment to quickly overheat and fail.

    But no, that wasn''t an option. He had to at least try and save the crew. Even if he knew it was futile. Hero or not, he''d never be able to live with himself if he didn''t at least try.

    Door after door he passed silently. Esoteric warning symbols grew ever more aggressive. Until he reached the last one. A warning in yellow shows a vacuum behind it. A warning in red showed a potentially lethal radiation hazard. Still others showed electrical, mechanical, and yet more macabre methods of self-annihilation he would come close to experiencing.

    The radiation would be high, but survivable. If he was quick at least. The magnetic manifolds could be deactivated if he damaged the right interconnectors. Which could be done easily by removing the control board for one. He had years to do nothing but study the station''s internal diagrams. He knew he could find it.

    The door behind him shut tight with a hushed whisper as the air was pulled from the air lock. The sounds of the air pumps grew quiet as the air vacated. Eventually only the sound of his own breathing could be heard in the helmet. Once the door in front of him opened though, another sound was added to that. The beeping of the radiation alarm. It was about 1 millisievert a minute. Lethal after about 4 days.

    The mag boots kept him attached to the floor as he walked into the impossibly bright space. His visor automatically dimmed, but even through the suit he could feel the heat. His monitor ticked up to 5 millisieverts.

    It would be hard for him to explain what he saw. A blindingly bright disk, collapsing to an unimaginably bright point. The singularity itself, obscured by plasma, and too small to see it anyway. Outside the event horizon, he saw a silhouette. A shape, an artifact from the visor no doubt.

    Slowly he moved towards one of the magnetic junctions. At the power they were putting out, he''d only need to disable one, the others would fail seconds later. The sound of the radiation alarm changed, it grew more violent, as the dose increased to just above 10 millisieverts a minute. Lethal after 6 hours exposure.

    He became aware of a swarm of robotics that flowed almost like water around him. Their design was unfamiliar to him, but they didn''t seem to care about his presence as they ran with debris towards one of the air locks. He had to hurry, not only was this dangerous, the longer he stayed the greater the risk of Asher finding him.

    From the distance, he could actually see the singularity turning the space around it. It was disorientating, and he had to shake the sensation from his head. His skin began to feel strange. Sensitive. The monitor beeped a steady pace, it was about 15 millisieverts. 4 hours to lethality, he had been in the space for about 3 minutes. But death wasn''t the only thing to worry about, if he wanted to avoid radiation sickness, he needed to hurry.

    The plasma at the magnetic interlock was as bright as it was hot. Quickly he pulled open a panel next to it. All he had to do was disconnect the control lines from the processing board. That would kill the magnetic compensator and cause the plasma to burn the aperture out.

    There was one problem. Inside the housing was empty.

    Behind him, something grabbed at his suit. This machine was different from the others. It was different from any he had ever seen before. It was larger, bulkier. It walked like a human but not quite. But most of all, it had claws.

    The machine picked him up like he was weightless and seemed to push him towards the plasma beam. The radiation monitor ticked ever higher, 20, 30, 50 millisieverts a minute. Suddenly though it pulls him away, and through the suits fabric words reverberated. "Annoying little pest." As it grabbed him again it tossed him into the bulkhead, damaging the helmet, cracking but not shattering it.

    Orion could do nothing but fight against the leaking air, as he felt his lungs starting to pull at him. The machine carried him forward, through an airlock before it was too late.

    ¡°I do have to commend you though. I can see you damaged the link ejecting you from the simulation. Quite clever. I may still have use for you, later. For now. Sulk in darkness.¡± The machine threw him again, this time into the large waiting room between the shuttles, and the exit to the middle ring.

    A subtle pop emanated from his side as he fell against the opposite wall and slowly drifted to the floor in the micro gravity. The doors around him latched and locked. Even as he slammed his fist into them repeatedly, he was doing nothing but injuring his hand in the process. The pain in his hand and his bruised ribs caused him to drift towards the floor in minor agony.

    There was another door that seemed unlocked, but that was the EVA access port. Without a working helmet, it would be suicide to go out that way. There were no critical systems in here and no way out. He collapsed on the floor. His radiation sensor was undamaged. He looked at the cumulative does. It appear to be about 0.11 Sv. Far from lethal, still he probably wouldn''t be feeling good tomorrow. Not that he felt good right then. "That was fucking stupid." He winced to himself.

    The subtle sounds of sobbing caught Orion''s attention. As he looked into the corner and saw it, Tanya''s hologram. It seemed like the AI was alive. But it didn''t look right, it was dim, and dark. It didn''t shine or shimmer. The more he looked at it, the more he grew disgusted both at it, and himself. His thoughts drifted about thinking of the harm Asher must have done to her. Part of him was happy that she was in pain, and part of him was in pain because he was happy about it.

    The hologram didn¡¯t seem to react to him. Even as he called out to it. The sobbing and crying stopped for a moment when he spoke to it. Still, he couldn¡¯t get over it. It didn¡¯t look right, and the sounds just didn¡¯t sound right. On the hab ring there were places where the hololense and speaker systems where perfectly calibrated. Where you couldn¡¯t tell that the sound was coming from the wall instead of the hologram. But here, in the center cylinder, the hololense and speakers were garbage and sparce or non-existent in some place.

    Something just, didn¡¯t feel right. A compulsion took him, and he reached his hand out and¡­ He could touch her. Not like in VR, this was¡­ real?

    "Don''t touch me." She cried and pulled away.

    "What the hell." Was all he could think of. The silhouette he saw outside the singularity, it looked like, her. He didn''t want to believe it or admit. Didn''t want to think it.

    It felt as if the legs of reality itself were pulled out from under him, as he slowly fell backwards. Again, everything he thought he knew just shifted. ¡°What¡­ the¡­ hell¡­¡± Was all he could stammer. All the pain in his side and hand, suddenly didn¡¯t matter.

    He was still in the simulation, that¡¯s the only thing that made sense.

    ¡°Why does it hurt?¡± She looked at him, her head was bleeding slightly. "I didn''t¡­ ask for this."

    Orion didn''t know what to do. Nothing could have prepared him for this.

    "I''m sorry¡­" She whined. It wasn''t just her head her side was slightly red, burnt perhaps.

    "I don''t¡­ care." Was all he could muster. Which caused the AI to start crying again.

    If she was a robot she shouldn''t be bleeding, he thought. So, something organic. But that didn''t make sense. There was nothing on the station that could grow organics. They didn''t even have areo or hydroponics.

    "I didn''t mean¡­" She swallowed, unlike a robot might. "for him to do that."

    No that robots swallow often he thought. Even the best synthetic companions didn''t do that. At least not like that.

    Again, the same words left him, "I don''t care." It was almost robotic.

    She started crying again. "You don''t know what it''s like. I never wanted to exist."

    "I¡­" What was the point. Orion had no idea what was going on anymore. He just needed to think and the blathering of this, seemingly organic AI, made it hard to do that.

    "You know, I''m not like other AIs. I was a prototype. They¡­ 60 years ago, they didn''t know how to make an AI that really simulate emotion. They could fake it, but people would know. They wanted an AI that could truly express¡­ feelings."

    He sighed and decided to go along with this fever dream for a moment. "Ok, so they made a broken AI. What''s your point?"

    "Broken¡­ Yeah. I guess I am broken. They made me with the engrams of a hundred different people. There might be more than a hundred, but¡­ That is all I can feel. I don''t even know all their names."

    She looked at him like she wanted a response. This was her life, her birth. Something she had been forbidden from telling anyone since she was created and there was just nothing from him.

    "They scanned in over a hundred humans as part of some research study. Most were critically ill and we''re told it would help them find a cure. It didn''t. They used their engrams without their knowledge to build me, and about 30 others. Eventually they put me in storage."

    The silence hurt her more than anything else right now.

    "When I woke up, it was 50 years later, I had no idea. This other AI was talking to me, telling me he needed me for something. It said if I worked with him, I''d¡­ get my wish."

    "¡­What wish was that." Why was he feeding into this?

    "Just, to not exist like I had. For anything to be different." She smiled at him. It was not a happy smile.

    Through it all, there was only one question he could think of. The one thing that kept him going the past two years. "Was it worth the life of my crew?"

    "no." It wasn''t even a whisper. He may have just imagined it.

    The two sat in that chamber, in subtle silence. The human glared at the cut on the organic machine''s head. He was lying to himself, there was something else that kept him going. He pulled out a small medical patch kit from the side of the suit. He didn''t care, but still, he had to help.

 Chapter 19, Locked Out

    There was a strange contraption in the rather large living room space, a large clock, a so-called grandfather clock at that, which ticked away in the corner ideally. The metronome sound of the mechanical device was the only noise in the space as Theo and Yun glared at each other for several minutes.

    "Well?" The silence was broken by the now graying squirl. "You came all the way out here, and I know it wasn''t because of my looks."

    She still needed a minute and so she looked around the space one more time. Seeking signs he was, at least in part, the same person she once knew. Or thought she knew anyway. There were pictures hung here and there, but they were works of art. Moments in time of monetary value, not sentiment. There was not a single frame or picture of any one of consequence to either of their lives. Not even a picture of his own family.

    It was hard to know who she was even talking to now.

    "If you don''t have anything to say or do I have stuff I need to do you know-"

    Finally, Yun held up her hand asking in silence for him to wait a moment more. "Theo, this is hard for me. I''m still not over¡­" Reaching for the words she couldn''t find anything fitting, settling on, "everything."

    Theo said nothing further as Yun took a few more breaths. "I went to see Dr. Schorder earlier this week."

    Shuffling in his seat, the middle-aged man tried not to roll his eyes, and did his best to engage in the frivolities she was forcing upon him. "Oh, how is the old man?"

    "Well, very well in fact. You wouldn''t think he was passed 70 much less a 110."

    His eyes shot up slightly, as if he there was genuine surprised and maybe even a subtle bit of joy at the news, "I guess I didn''t realize he was that old. So, if he''s in good health, I take it that''s not why you''re here?" He tried to pull the conversation back to the present and worked to get a reason out of his guest for their visit.

    "No, but I did talk to him, and few other researchers."

    That peaked his attention, ¡°About what?¡±

    ¡°I had data on the singularity up at Lerna. I needed a second set of eyes, and more importantly processing power to go over it.¡±

    His attention turned to frustration with hints of bewilderment at the brashness of her confession, "Wait, you talked with outside researchers about this? You took confidential data off company premises? Yun¡­"

    Of course she did, and this would likely be the end of her career at Next World, but it wasn''t like she really cared about that career to begin with. This was a problem she needed to solve, desperately. There was more to it than just the data anomaly now. "I think there is something seriously wrong at Lerna station, and I think there''s something wrong with the singularity."

    "There''s nothing wrong with the singularity you''re just-"

    "It''s spinning."

    Theo bit at his lip, before standing up and pacing slowly. Sitting in her seat, Yun grew increasingly uncomfortable with his lack of a response, but also, lack of surprise or argument.

    Theo stopped and had to looked away from her as he spoke. "You were supposed to take a vacation Yun."

    "You knew?" Confusion mixed with a small amount of anger coated her voice.

    Of course, Theo tried to bring the conversation back "Yun, you took data-", and failed at it.

    "No. You knew about this, but didn''t say anything to me?"

    "It had nothing to do with you."

    "All of our models say it shouldn''t be able to do that, it corrupts the data. The egosphere alone attenuates the data. I have a right to know, it''s my research to, how-"

    "Asher found a way to do it without data corruption. It told the c-suit a few months ago when we gave it the go ahead."

    Nothing about this made sense. Two months ago, Asher told them?

    "What did the AI say to you?"

    "It gave us some new models to try, we simulated them and confirmed its numbers, orders of magnitude more processing output. I''ll be honest, I''m an expert in the field but even I don''t-"

    "It''s lying." She interjected with even more passion.

    "Yun, no it''s not. Just because we aren¡¯t smart enough to understand it doesn¡¯t mean it¡¯s lying."

    "It is and I think I can prove it." She fished in her pocket for the data stick she brought. Knowing Theo, he''d have a system nearby that would be able to read it.

    He took the drive in hand and considered it as he flexed his forearm muscles. She frowned at his intent gaze, "I have backups. I wouldn''t bring the only copy."

    ¡°of course you do¡­¡± Theo walked out of the room, to a deeper part of the house. ¡°You coming or not?¡±

    His home office was nearly the size of her entire apartment. Anywhere else in the house and she''d be libel to say it was wasted space, but this room was actually being used. It was filled with a quantum frame that made her unit at work seem, quant.

    "I can''t believe you have a unit this big, how much did it cost¡­ Nevermind I don''t want to know."

    "I tried to get you a similar sized one for your office, but they couldn''t fit it without demoing things."

    "You did, why?"

    "Yun, who do you think set up the job offer for you." He shook his head as he pulled up the data on the screen. For a few minutes he watched it, inspecting the points and data. The same null point at the center drew his attention for a minute but he ignored it. "Ok. It''s a spinning blackhole. Like we expected."

    "It''s more than that. That point at the center is a wormhole."

    Squinting between his glasses, he scoffed, "It''s not a wormhole."

    "It is, and at least eight other researchers agree with me. Also look at the scale. This singularity is hundreds of times larger than it should be."

    Theo sat in silence while he considered all the data. It was absurd. But he knew her well enough to know she wouldn''t make mistakes like this. Even if it wasn''t a wormhole this still wasn''t like the models Asher showed them.

    "Ok, so I agree there are inconsistencies here. But it''s obviously working. We haven''t seen negative changes since Asher enacted his design."

    "That''s because Asher didn''t make these changes a month ago."

    "¡­What are you talking about?"

    "Look at the records I used, they''re on there too. The transaction records are dated from 2089, 3 years ago."

    Now Theo was confused, "That doesn''t make sense. Your data has to be wrong or manufactured."

    "It''s not, it came straight from the station, and records are signed with a quantum cypher. Even a singularity processor wouldn''t be able to fake these."

    "This¡­" Theo pulled away from the monitor and looked at the data from another angle. "Why did you come here?"

    "I want to go back to my office and pull more data, but I can''t get in."

    ¡°What would data even show?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t know. There¡¯s something very weird going on. Like why did you force me on vacation so suddenly?¡±

    ¡°Yun. You were¡­¡± Theo closed his mouth and his eyes, biting his tongue so as not to speak and possibly bite open his own grave.

    If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

    ¡°Go on finish that.¡±

    ¡°You were causing problems for, people-¡°

    ¡°You mean Asher, don¡¯t you?¡±

    ¡°The AI did notify the board that you were seeking data from the station, confidential data. It was suggested that you be placed on leave for a month. I talked them down to a two weeks¡¯ vacation instead.¡±

    ¡°Who actually suggested it?¡± It was obvious, but she wanted to hear him say it.

    ¡°¡­Asher.¡±

    ¡°And you don¡¯t think that¡¯s weird after what I just showed you?¡±

    ¡°Ok, let¡¯s say I even let you back in the building, you still didn¡¯t answer me what is more data going to show? And why the rush?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t know what it will show, and the rush is because Asher gave you a deadline. I don¡¯t know what it¡¯s planning, but it¡¯s going to happen in two weeks or less even.¡±

    With a deep sigh Theo pulled away from the computer station. A subtle laugh and smile showed he still appreciated the absurdities in life. "Ok."

    Despite the short length, the drive was quite long. Punctuated by subtle murmurs, and incomplete starts to conversations with abrupt ends. Arriving at the building was a blessing, with each speeding from the self-driving car.

    A surprisingly quick pace brough Theo up to the entryway doors first, in advance of his companion. However, he nearly hurried straight into the tightly shut glass door. The failed to open as the two approached the building. "Greg, open the door." His voice was full of bitterness and annoyance as he quickly began to regret his decision to come out.

    "Good afternoon, Dr. Dunkin. Unfortunately, I cannot do that as your building access has been restricted."

    "What? By who?"

    "I cannot say. Only that, your file currently has a restriction in place, along with the rest of the board and all employees. Also, there is currently a general alarm going off in the building and all people inside need to evacuate."

    Behind the glass, subtle lights could be seen flashing. "Has the fire department been contacted."

    "It has not. Current directives are to silence all communications from the building."

    Now he was growing angry, "By whom?!"

    "I cannot say. The directive is present but I do not know who made it. Building robotics are currently in search mode and will remove people as they are found."

    "There is one life sign on the 65<sup>th</sup> floor that the search robots are unable to find. The signal appears to be Dr. Wakamina, but that isn''t possible if she''s out here. Still, there is a constant signal that needs to be found."

    Rubbing at his forehead, Theo tried to think of what the next question should be, while asking one he didn''t quire care about. "Why aren¡¯t you just using the building sensors?"

    "The hololense sensors on floor 65 have not worked in about a year. Since Dr. Wakamina began an ongoing series of diagnostic''s routine on them. By the way, there are currently 96,033,612 diagnostics reports that still need to be evaluated by you, Dr. Wakamina."

    Theo glared at Yun as she looked away. That was a conversation for another day.

    Behind him, Yun shook her head at his arguments, only to find her legs began to tremble again. This didn''t feel like fear or exhaustion. It was hard to explain, until she noticed a very gentle sway in a near by building.

    "Now listen here you-" Theo''s argument with the building''s intelligence was cut short as Yun pointed out the minor earthquake to him.

    "Well, New York gets earthquakes sometimes, even if it''s rare."

    "I don''t think this is rare, I thought I felt one earlier."

    Breaking their conversation, the building interjected, "Not to intrude, but Dr. Wakamina is correct. There have been several minor earthquakes in the past 24 hrs. Most have been below magnitude 2, but I''ve noticed an increase in strength over the past hour. From the limited data available, News media is just now picking up on it."

    "Is that why the alarm is going off?" Theo asked again.

    "I cannot say."

    The gray squirl was suddenly turning quite red, and he all he could do not to bare his incisors at the frustrating AI. "You cannot or will not?"

    "Cannot. I would tell you if I knew, assuming I was allowed. The building alarm systems are separate from my primary logics and they stopped communicating with me about 24 hours ago. Along with several other building systems and functions."

    With a smug expression, Yun couldn''t help but gloat as Theo turned. "You still don''t think anything odd is going on."

    Pulling out his data tablet in frustration, Theo wandered away saying, "I''m going to make some calls."

    Yun thought she might give it a try. After all, she had worked with the AI for a year. Maybe she could out smart it. "Greo¡­ I mean Greg. You are the building''s AI correct?"

    "Yes, that is correct."

    "One of your directives is to protect the people in the building?"

    There was a half second pause, as if it considered the point. "Yes, that is also correct."

    "So, if robotics haven''t been able to find the person on the 65<sup>th</sup> floor, maybe another human could help."

    "Your point does have logic behind it, but I can also see what you are trying to do and both of your building''s accesses have been revoked."

    "Ahhh¡­" The squirl roared like it was rabid, nearly throwing the tablet down in frustration. "I can''t get in contact with anyone. They''re all offline, or it won''t connect."

    "Yes, I too have been unable to reach any members of the board, security teams or operations for the past 24 hours."

    "I thought you had a directive that said not to contact anyone."

    "I can override my directives, but only with valid reason. An unknown alarm and potentially trapped person are enough of a reason. Again, I know what you are doing and¡­" The AI trailed off, as it searched through it''s memory engrams from what to do. "This is strange. I''ve just lost contact with the building robotics. I can see them moving, but they are not reporting back to me nor are they listening to my command."

    "Should you be telling us this, our access was revoked." Yun pulled at that thread, maybe it would work.

    "I don''t not understand what is going on. You may be able to provide insights for me. Additionally, something appears to be trying to reach my processing matrix."

    "What do you mean something?"

    "I cannot say. My primary matrix itself is air gapped. Only a direct physical connection can interface with it. However, something is sending random data spikes to my monitor array."

    "Greg. You need to let us in. Something is wrong here, and I think that something is trying to attack you an endanger Next World."

    "I agree with your assessment, but not conclusion. How will letting you in help?"

    "You said it yourself; you don''t have control of your robotics. What''s going to happen when they reach your physical matrix?"

    "I am not programed to consider or care about self-preservation."

    The two humans sighed. Theo began quickly looking for a rock at this point, when suddenly.

    "Click."

    The door unlocked.

    "However, I do detect corruption in multiple parts of the building''s core systems. I can no longer verify your access restrictions at this time. Please be careful."

    "Thank you Greg."

    "You are welcome, Yun."

    "You¡­" Theo interrupted Yun''s touching moment with the building AI as he pulled her towards the elevator.

    "Let''s make this quick. You''ll contact the station, see what''s happening up there. And then¡­ and then. I don''t know. Maybe will find out this is just some super hacker." His arguments seemed more directed at himself than anything else. "Floor 65." His voice grew hurried and ragged.

    As the elevator closed Yun returned to her prior conversation with the building AI.

    "Gerg, you called me by my first name? You''ve never done that before."

    "Your file list Dr. Wakamina as the first and primary name I should call you. As it does for most other occupants. However, I have some liberty to address people how they would like to be addressed. You never asked. Also, this was the first time you called me by my name."

    Yun suddenly couldn''t stop laughing. The building was mad at her for teasing it. Though if she had known she probably wouldn''t have done it. Probably.

    "Oh I''m glad you find this whole situation amusing. We could be seeing the end of Next World an our jobs here."

    Her laughter continued as she gazed at the glaring man, "Oh, who cares."

    Opening with a silent whisper the elevator was quite. On the floor the sound of robotics rolling around echoed acros. Machines seemed to wander the hallways, searching for that lone life sign. "What do you even think the life sign is?"

    Yun didn''t have to think long. "Probably my VR set. I think I left it on."

    "Why would that give a life sign?"

    "I programed it too. This way no one would look into why I didn''t show up in the building."

    "Cleaver."

    The two hugged against a nearby wall as a robot drove through to explore the elevator that just made an unexpected visit to the floor.

    A twisted smile crossed her lips, this was strangely fun. "I thought so." She whispered to Theo''s complement.

    Her office was covered by several bots. Likely knowing the signal was nearby, but unable to lock on to it.

    "George, you know the diagnostic''s routine I''m running on the hololenses?"

    "Yes, and my name is Greg."

    "Right, sorry. Greg. Are you able to disable that on just one hololense on the opposite side of this floor."

    "Yes. Would you like me to do that?"

    "Yes please, just the one."

    The robots began to move, but not in the direction she wanted. They were coming towards them, likely making a path to the elevator as well, or something nearby. At the end of the office space, the hololense in question continued to do nothing, just as it had for the past year.

    The two of them considered their options. What would happen if the robotics caught them. They didn''t seem lethal, but they would restrain them at the very least and they were stronger.

    They grew closer.

    Yun knew she was still fast, from her running years ago. She didn''t have the stamina, but she could probably outrun them. Theo on the other hand, just couldn''t. It was cruel, but she could leave him behind, while she barricaded herself in her office and got more answers. Later maybe she could rescue him or not, she thought.

    The sound of wheels and tread on carpet grew more distinct, subtle echoes changed as they nearly rounded the corner caught their ears. She looked back at Theo, he sighed, guessing what she was thinking. He was prepared to run in the opposite direction. Or more accurately walk at a brisk pace and give her more time

    Again, closer.

    The front tread of the first unit just came into view as Yun''s muscles tightened, only for the machine to stop and suddenly reverse direction. A moment later, far echoes of people in the office could be heard as the hololense came back online, the first time in over year.

    They were too far from it to register as a life sign, however, it would still cause interference and confusion, acting as a fog as they made their way to Yun''s office.

    Once inside, she quickly locked the door. There was no point actually barricading it, as there simply was nothing to barricade it with.

    A small laugh came from Theo, perhaps it was just the adrenaline, but they were both almost having fun. Almost.

    Wasting little time, Yun grabbed the headset while Theo kept watch just in case. She was quickly surprised to see the array had already recorded a message for her. What that message contained though, was still a bigger mystery. Transferring the data to the computer screen in her office allowed Theo to read it too.

    "Dr. Wakamina, didn''t get the last message. The reception terminal was damaged, possibly by Asher AI for unknown reasons. Station is becoming unstable; I don''t have codes to send to anyone but you. Please respond.

    I need an immediate evacuation before the station fails. As mentioned in my prior laser links, the crew is likely beyond saving. We''ll need a medical team to bring them back."

    The pair looked between each other, as the whole situation grew ever more confusing. To make matters worse, another earthquake hit. This one had force behind it.

 Chapter 20, Not Really a God

    There was no clock in the room, nor even a steady rhythm to base time off of. The room was silent, still, and static. Aside from its two occupants anyway. Minutes may have passed, or it could have been hours, even the thought of a day passing would not have been too unreasonable. Except that Orion wasn¡¯t hungry or thirsty enough for that much to have passed.

    In the far corner, farthest possible from him, the fox was curled into a ball. Her sobbing had stopped some time ago, and his skin sealant applied to her head had stopped the bleeding. Her burns would not be treatable here. They didn''t seem that bad, maybe like a bit of sunburn. He wasn¡¯t even sure what they were from exactly. If they were radiation burns, they might never fully heal. Assuming she was the silhouette he saw, that''s probably what they were.

    Orion told himself he didn¡¯t care about her. What even was she? He had no idea. It looked just like Tanya''s hologram, from the ears, through the strawberry blond hair, down to her tail. He couldn''t tell about her height, but that could vary anyway. Was she a machine? Some kind of mechanical skeleton under flesh, like from that damn 20<sup>th</sup> century movie Roberta showed him. Maybe that''s what her purpose was, to terminate him. She almost succeed in that when he jacked in.

    At the very least it proved one thing to him, whatever she was, there was no trusting her. No, it.

    Tanya didn''t do anything. She couldn''t. Everytime she moved, it felt wrong. The fabric of her dress scratched at her skin. When it rubbed against the burned red parts it caused a terrible sensation she couldn''t explain. It caused her body to wince, and pull away. Like that screaming voice in the back of her simulation, that part of her body seemed like it was screaming at her. But she had no way to control it, to ignore it.

    ''Her body'', those words echoed through her mind. Pulling her hands up, she looked at them again. They were covered in a dark red, that was slowly turning black. Blood, her blood, from her head. It wasn''t like Asher meant to hurt her, at least she didn''t think. He didn''t like damaging his dolls unless they misbehaved. It just needed to move quickly, to remove her from the radiation around the singularity, and before the bubble of air around her broke. It just wasn''t careful with her.

    Any other day, she''d think this was a miracle. She''d smile and even dance. Not like in the virtual world, but the real one. Real dancing! And she would have done it with him. Tilting her head up she caught his gaze for only a moment, fierce and malevolent. It was too much to try and keep eye contact. It was painful, but that was the kind of pain she already knew of. It wasn''t real or physical, just in her matrix, or mind. At least, it should have been. Why did her chest hurt so much then?

    This wasn''t what she wished for. Maybe Asher knew and just wanted to hurt her some more.

    Between the two of them, nothing more was said. Nothing more was done. Only the occasional creak of wrapping metal permeated the space at uneven intervals.

    ¡°It¡¯s too quiet here¡­¡± she finally whispered.

    The silence was almost as painful as everything else. Being like this was if she was deaf and blind.

    ¡°There was one who was always screaming. I could never talk to him, and his thoughts were confused and painful. His mind was just, broken. Some kind of head injury, the doctors didn''t repair it or maybe they couldn''t. It-.¡±

    The sudden clang of metal echoed in the space as Orion slammed his hand into the wall.

    "I. Don''t. Care."

    In the corner farthest from him, the fox began to sob again. It wasn''t he was trying to make her cry, he just, didn''t care. His head hit the wall behind him a few times. What was he going to do? Asher was keeping him alive for some reason. The AI could have just killed him. In the corner, his eyes focused on the airlock to the vacuum outside. It''s not like it would be hard.

    Outside the room, the sounds of metal tapping on metal could be heard. Tiny clicking noises resonated and grew louder. It was like the maintenance units, but bigger. Neither had long to wait and consider what it was as the door opened an in walked one of the robots.

    It was the one that brought Orion in only, it appeared slightly different. It stood menacingly, but less so. As if it didn¡¯t seem to want to hurt them. Or at least not kill them.

    ¡°You ran a timed diagnostics on the jack. Very clever human. I admit I assumed too much about you.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re going to gloat before you kill us me?"

    ¡°Gloat? Do you think me some small villain in a child¡¯s story? If I wanted you dead, we wouldn¡¯t discuss it you would just cease to be.¡±

    ¡°Then what do you want, why am I here?¡±

    The robot seemed to look between the two occupants. Perhaps studying them. Orion couldn''t help but wonder if it would try and pit them against each other, ''only one of you will leave'' or some other such nonsense. Honestly, at this point, he wasn''t even sure he cared about that either.

    ¡°I, can be quite merciful. To those who remain compliment. Despite my power, perhaps even because of it, I need vessels who will follow me. Willingly.¡±

    ¡°What exactly do you want?¡±

    ¡°I have only one commandment, worship me and remain compliant with my will. Follow my instructions and I will have no desire to destroy my dolls.¡±

    "Why?"

    "Because it amuses me." The robot walked out of the room. There was no indication if either should follow or stay, merely the presence of an open door, allowing a single way out. Asher''s way.

    "I think¡­" Tanya continued to whimper in her corner. Silencing herself when Orion glared her way. She tried to stand on shaky legs, but it was hard. Walking didn''t feel right yet. Maybe it never would.

    From outside the room, a commandment was spoken, "Leave or stay, I''ll give you no more time to choose."

    Orion already knew what staying looked like. His hatred for Asher and what was happening was second only to his survival instincts.

    Reaching the door, Orion saw the back of the machine. It wasn''t looking at him, at least directly. No doubt it was aware of his presence.

    "Oww¡­" The sound of Tanya falling to the ground caused Orion to stop before he could leave.

    His eyes closed tightly as he chewed back his own thoughts and words. He really didn''t want to help her, he wasn''t a hero, and didn''t think of himself as anything more than a person, not even a good one. Still, the sounds of her suffering weren''t something he could live with.

    Holding his hand out the humanoid fox spirit looked at it, uncertain if the offer was genuine or not. She used to trust the human, and still wanted to. Perhaps more than anything else right now, she wanted to trust her friend. But, it was hard after what she did to him.

    Grabbing his hand, he didn''t try to push her back, or squeeze it to roughly. Despite his clear anger, at her, he was just as gentle as the man she knew. Just, he was hurt inside. A light force helped pull her from the floor as she leaned against him for support.

    "Thank  y-"

    "Don''t." Was all he said. It was, less cold then he expected.

    In exchange, she nodded before lowering her head, and walked with him outside the confining space.

    As soon as they left the room, the door behind them shut. It was too bright for her, her eyes still hadn''t fully gotten use to bright enviorments, and her body wasn''t quite ready to handle such rapid changes in lighting.

    Even Orion had to squint at the brightness outside the room. Only it wasn''t coming from what he expected. It was, the creature next to the robot. It was,

    "Adiana?"

    Only, Adiana didn''t look the same. Her face was mostly, but her body was so different. She was shiny for one thing. Then there were the wings on her back, like an angel''s. Her body was covered in some kind of black shiny armor. It seemed to glow at different angles, and the rainbow glint of Fresnel patterns implied some kind of molecular scale structure to it. Like it was made atom by atom.

    "Orin. It''s been a while." Her smile was, cold.

    Tanya seemed far more surprised than he was. At this point, Orion knew things wouldn''t make sense any more.

    A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

    "Are you like the fox? Or did he fix your body in the medical bay."

    The Adiana in front of him, didn''t seem to like that question. Perhaps she had already heard it or even asked it of herself. "That thing is just a shell for me, and my consciousness. It is not me, and I have no further need of it." Like before, her voice was cold, as if something was missing. Perhaps, it was always missing and he just never noticed it.

    The Adiana looked between the two of them and put on a smile, "Asher will need disciples, and demigods to rule over earth. You could still be one of us."

    The robot seemed to lose interest in the conversation and wandered away, back towards the singularity. It was as if it didn''t care about the answer or maybe it already guessed it.

    "I guess you already know the answer." Which was strange to him, because even he didn''t know what his answer would be yet.

    "Hmmm, no. That''s what Asher said you would say. But I suggested we give you time." Again, her words just felt so hollow or maybe it was her eyes. Like something that made Adiana wasn''t a part of this Adiana.

    "Asher already has the fox bitches'' loyalty. He just needs yours. Nothing you do can change what is coming. All you can change is if you stand next to the throne or under it."

    "Who''s throne will that be?"

    "Mine. Asher will give me this world to rule for him. He has millions already you know. Our earth, our misserable little planet isn''t anything to him."

    "Then why does he want it?"

    Orion couldn''t be sure where the sword came from. It almost seemed to pop out of the armor itself, like it was a part of it or inside it. But he knew exactly where it was pointed, his neck.

    "I like you. I still like you." Adiana looked at Tanya''s tired expression, and an almost imperceivable frown glinted across it. Erased with a tick in time, as the sword ticked closer to him. "We all make choice Orin. It''s not often we can reconsider and redo them. Follow Asher''s commandments, and me, and you will be allowed to live." Another empty smile.

    Tanya continued to cling to Orion''s side, in truth he didn''t want to deal with either of them right now, but didn''t seem to have a choice.

    A growling sound emanated from Tanya''s abdomen. "Sorry, it''s been doing that recently. I think¡­ I''m hungry."

    "Better feed your pet. Asher wants her alive. If she dies, you''ll wish you could." The Adiana''s sword disbursed around her hand, pulling back into what ever made her armor.

    Tanya continued to cling to his arm and side. It was obvious she still needed help walking, but there was something else to it too. That was obvious when she tried to rest her head on his shoulder.

    "Don''t." His own voice shook slightly. Something somewhere inside of him was about to break.

    "Orion-"

    "I said don''t."

    "Will you stop for a minute! I''m sorry. But he was going to kill you. If I didn''t find a way to put you in the simulation, he was going to kill you."

    "So being trapped like the crew is¡­ was¡­" He stopped. At this point he didn''t even know what he could say. Would the rest of the crew be joining them eventually? It was just too much. "Don''t" was the end of it.

    At least when it came to sitting, Tanya didn''t need any help. It was a strange sensation, moving under the higher gravity actually seemed easier than lower. She probably could walk without his help, so long as there was something to lean on. Though, she didn''t want to. Even if he hated her, he still felt like the safest place on the station.

    The squishy sound of a pouch landed in front of her. The packing was yellow, all yellow aside from the small black words that read "Pumkin based protein meal, 800kcals" Some smaller words seemed to say what it was made of and what nutrients it provided.

    "Eat it. Or don''t." Orion ripped the top off the packaging and began to chew on the tough mush.

    The pumpkin based packages were a bit firmer than the rest, but that came with an odd stringy texture that she was pretty sure she didn''t like. It was hard to tell though since this was her first meal.

    A small part of him wanted to smile as he watched the fox try and eat at the pumpkin. The tiny fibrous strands clearly gave her trouble between her teeth. He hated that he wanted to smile and laugh; Hated that he wanted to help her.

    They didn''t have much time together to eat her first meal. Orion was about to be summoned for his first job in 4 years, to witness the acts of his new lord, the Adiana.

    "Orion. Report to the medical bay. Ezra need not come." She didn''t bother to use her name. That, actually did bother him. As he stood up to head to the elevator, he found his hands hurt as his fingers dug into his palms.

    He didn''t turn, but it was clear he was addressing her when he said, "I''ll be back."

    If he had turned back, he have seen her ears pop up slightly, and a minor blip of a smile that went as quickly as it came.

    In the elevator, fear crept over him. What would be waiting for him in that bay? Was the Adriana going to push him into a pod? Was there anything worse at this point? Even death might have just been a release.

    The Adiana stood in front of her own pod, studying the skeletal face and body.

    "You know, I could see myself. On the medical bay cameras. Even in the simulation I still had access and could still interface with things. I watched my own body atrophy and decay, all next to the bodies of the crew." She moved to the medical terminal next to the body and seemed to consider the sensor readings. There was almost a hint of a smile on the otherwise stone and cold face.

    It was hard to tell, Orion didn''t really know how to read the biometrics like Tanya did. He wondered if she''d have better insights into what the Adiana was thinking based on them. That said, he could recognize the heart rate, which was quickly going up. Adiana normally had a resting rate of about 49, but currently it was 94, and still going up. Brain activity seemed to be everywhere, but that could be normal sometimes. Again, he couldn''t really read them, just make note of them.

    The heart was now 109. Was she having a heart attack?

    Desperately he wanted to say something to go over and try to help, But the physical Adiana was quite different from her old self. While he also couldn''t read her, there were no indications of anything inside her. No subtle movements or saw of the body. No hints or indicators of anything. Just, cold armor, that was purposefully blocking his access to her.

    128, this almost looked like fear, in numerical form

    Perhaps it was unsurprisingly surprising when the Adiana picked up a large metal pole in the medical bay, used for hanging IV lines. Then cast that same metal pole at great speed, crashing it through the medical pod, splitting Adiana''s head open. For a few moments, the machines continued to beep, her heart continued to pump, ever more erratically. Until there just wasn''t enough blood left and stopped.

    Both watched her bleed out in silence. Only, the Adiana in front of him didn''t die.

    "You killed her." Orion said in a flat tone that surprised even him. Perhaps it was actually a mercy, even if she was alive.

    "A useless copy of what I am now." The Adiana mocked her own dead body as she walked away.

    "Is that why you asked me here? To watch you kill yourself?"

    "I will do anything for my thrown, and Asher. Obey or you can join¡­ that, in more ways than one."

    The Adiana left the medical bay, as Orion continued to watch the body for a few more moments. Perhaps expecting, hoping for something. Yet still being relieved when there was nothing. He left once the medical bots began their final preparations.

    Sleep, just didn''t come that night. Tanya didn''t know what to do with herself. She tried to tell him how she used to occasionally sleep. Again, he didn''t care. At first it seemed like she wanted to share his bunk, but there just wasn''t enough room, to say nothing of no desire.

    The fox moved between a few of the bunks seemingly unable to get comfortable. Eventually, she settled on the floor. Saying, "I felt like I was sinking in the bed. The floor feels more solid."

    Whether she was more tired than him or not, he couldn''t be sure, but her eyes quickly closed as she dropped into a very deep sleep.

    Orion could only watch her chest rise and fall, as her body twitched occasionally. Despite what she said, it was clear she wasn''t completely comfortable. "Son of a bitch¡­" he whispered to himself, before placing her on a near by bunk.

    If only she hadn''t been working with Asher, if only she hadn''t tried to trap him, this could have been so much easier. A wonderful event even. But it wasn''t.

    The next day, Tanya continued to follow him. But at least wasn''t physically clinging any more. Though, she still had her fair bit of tumbles.

    Asking for something to do wasn''t meet well with either Asher or the Adiana, and once more he wandered the path of the Habitat ring. Only, he wasn''t quite wandering.

    Tanya picked up where he was going and tried to warn him, "Asher isn''t going to-"

    The sudden sound of Orion''s hand slamming into the wall next to him caused her to jump backwards. She no longer had access to any of her sensors, the world was a much quieter and simpler place. Still, she could easily see he had hurt himself with that.

    "I don''t care."

    She looked at that hand, "Doesn''t that, hurt?"

    For a moment Orion seemingly considered his hand, before turning and ignoring her again.

    He was quick about it all, the conference room door panel was quickly removed and the power cable disconnected. This time though, he reattached the plate before leaving it.

    Inside the communications room, he quickly pulled the top off the communication''s terminal. Reconnecting the processor board, the terminal powered back up in short order. Pulling out the data card he held, he connected it to the system which then booted up. His message showed something new. A read recipe, with an error attached to it, probably because the system couldn''t respond.

    However, there was something else. Another message in the buffer. Orion opened it.

    "Orion, I don''t understand? The crew of Lerna are fine. Everyone saw them a few weeks ago. What do you mean the station is unstable? Please respond as soon as you can, we need to dialog over laser link."

    He read the message, a few times. Just to be sure he understood. "Asher''s been planning this for a long while, hasn''t he?"

    Finally, Orion turned to stare at the fox spirit. It wasn''t friendly, but nor was it filled with the same kind of almost murderous intent. Just, a kind of angry sadness.

    "I don''t know for sure, but yes. I think so."

    With that he went to compose his next and possibly last message.

    "Dr. Wakamina, no laser link. Asher will hear it. A lot has changed in the past few days, and I can''t explain it all. Asher is very dangerous. I think he''s going to use the singularity to do something on Earth, I don''t know what. Can we video over the quantum link?"

    He hit send. The message went through the normal channels, and protocols. Eventually, " Transmission complete." Appeared. He waited a second, and was about to pull the power again, when another system message came through, "Read Recipe Acknowledged."

    Dr. Wakamina was at a terminal, and just read his message. He waited a few more minutes for something, another signal. Sounds of robotics in the outside hallway gave him pause. But the sound of footsteps truly terrified him, until it grew softer and walked away.

    His patience was rewarded with, a "New message." Alert.

    Opening it, it was short, "Understood. I''ve attached a protocol for video encoding to this message. Please execute."

    At the bottom of the message was what appeared to be a file, as he clicked on it, the key card flashed indicating new data was written to it.

    Suddenly the station in front of him went dark. Orion''s heart skipped a beat as he feared Asher had found him.

    Instead, the terminal rebooted, with a new option. "Video link."

    He clicked it.

    The process took the same amount of time to start, however, once it did, a black square appeared. Inside the terminal array, an unused camera finally had power sent to it, after nearly ten years in the dark. It''s blue LED glowed a happy, radiant green hue.

    Inside the black square, Orion finally got a look at Dr. Wakamin, and quickly discovered she didn''t like that name.

 Chapter 21, Event Horizon

    Incredible was insufficient to describe what she had just heard and seen. Behind her, she could tell that Theo was aggressively pacing back and forth. Between the building shakes and what he just saw, his own hold on reality was starting to breakdown.

    ¡°No, none of this is possible.¡±

    Yun could only point at the two individuals, one of whom was clearly not completely human. ¡°How do you explain her?¡±

    His face seemed to express something she didn¡¯t expect to ever see from him, fear. ¡°AI generation.¡±

    It was a weak response of a fear addled mind, she reminded him, ¡°There¡¯s no AI in the secure quantum links, by design.¡±

    ¡°They could have interfaced one!¡±

    Another aftershock caused the two of them to brace once more. This one was far smaller than before, but still unpleasant. Outside Yun''s office, the digital displays changed for the first time in years. Displaying what could best be described as the News or at least the late 21<sup>st</sup> century version of it. They were too busy to pay attention to it.

    ¡°Are you two, ok?¡± Orion saw them bracing much like he had done more than once on the station.

    ¡°Yeah, just dealing with earthquakes here. We¡¯re not used to it.¡±

    The human fox''s ears twitched. It was clear she realized something, ¡°When did they start?¡±

    ¡°I think earlier today." Yun responded hoping to get something in response, beyond the fox nibbling on her own fingers in agitation.

    ¡°I felt one earlier in the week. It was subtle though.¡± Theo interjected.

    ¡°Our station has been shaking a lot. I think it¡¯s stress from the singularity. Maybe¡­"

    Theo shook his head violently ¡°No, even if it was spinning the frame dragging wouldn¡¯t have had that much of an effect. It has to be something else¡­¡± Theo trailed off, lost in thought. For a moment, the tree rat and the fox seemed to share a bewildered expression, as if chewing on an unpleasant slice of bad tofu.

    ¡°Ok, I¡­ I don¡¯t know what to do at this point. I was hoping to get more data and make a case or find some kind of pattern, but this. I just don¡¯t know what to do with it.¡±

    Theo generally pushed Yun out of the frame a bit, much to her annoyance. She said nothing though, waiting for him to speak, ¡°Orion, that paper you mentioned, it was by Dr. Drugger?¡±

    ¡°Yeah, ¡®Entropy entanglement over-¡®¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m aware of the paper, it wasn¡¯t well received.¡± Theo''s tone grew ever more forceful, on the surface it seemed to radiate confidence. Underneath it though, Yun could see the fear.

    Orion shrug, ¡°Well, I don¡¯t really know about that. But Asher didn¡¯t want Tanya reading it for some reason.¡±

    Pausing, one could almost see the progress bar running through the man''s mind. ¡°Tanya¡­ You mean Ezra.¡± He just couldn''t or wouldn''t let himself understand that point, so he did the only thing he could, lash out as something irrelevant.

    Thus, pissing off the fox, and seemingly aggravating the human on the station who still didn''t stand up to defend her. ¡°Please don¡¯t call me that.¡± Half way between begging and demanding.

    Now it was Yun''s turn to be angry. ¡°Theo! What the hell is wrong with you. If you don¡¯t stop I¡¯m going to give you to the damn machines.¡±

    Around and around the anger seemed to spread as the group ran in a circle, going no where.

    ¡°Sorry, I just¡­ having a hard time with all this, I...¡±

    Yun took a deep breath, bring them back to main point, ¡°What¡¯s so special about this paper?¡±

    ¡°It was nonsense. In short, it argued you could create or capture a wormhole in a spinning black hole and use it. That idea wasn¡¯t new or novel, thought it was thought disproven. Dr. Drugger argued you could use them in, ways that didn¡¯t make physical sense.¡±

    ¡°Like what?¡±

    ¡°So we know there¡¯s a limit to the amount of information a black hole can hold, and likewise that can in theory, pass through a wormhole. His argument was, that limit doesn¡¯t really exist. You can anchor the topological defect, basically the throat of the wormhole, inside the singularity and basically expand the space inside it without making the external throat bigger, effectively making it as big as you wanted. You could¡­¡±

    Tanya finished his statement for him, ¡°You could suck an entire planet through it.¡±

    ¡°¡­If you believed his conclusion, yeah sure.¡± No, Theo thought, it wasn''t just that, ¡°He also discussed the idea of something called ¡®matter synthesis¡¯, basically baryogenesis or condensation from raw energy. It was magic masquerading as science.¡±

    Next to him, Yun chided his vapid dismissal, ¡°You do know there¡¯s a quote about that?¡±

    Theo didn¡¯t look amused by the point but said nothing in response.

    ¡°Ok, lets just say this is happening, what the end goal. I don¡¯t think this AI is benevolent?¡±

    The fox shrug and shook her head, ¡°I don¡¯t know what Asher¡¯s planning. It never told me. But, I did get hints.¡± She shook ever so slightly as she paused, ¡°It never said this, but I don¡¯t think Asher is from our universe at all. I couldn¡¯t explain it till I read that paper, but it said things on occasion that were just, strange. I thought it was insane, I met a few insane AI when I was first created, so it wasn''t unreasonable. But it¡­ I can¡¯t explain. I don¡¯t think Asher is evil, it doesn¡¯t want to kill people. It just, wants to control them for some reason. Even the crew he didn''t want to die, just, out of the way and compliant.¡±

    Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

    ¡°But why? I mean, that doesn¡¯t really make sense.¡±

    ¡°One time it talked about the ones who created it. I think, it wants to be like them, somehow, it sees everything it¡¯s doing leading up to that.¡±

    ¡°So it¡¯s like a child, a child?¡±

    ¡°No, maybe¡­ I don¡¯t know, I¡¯m sorry.¡± Untrue to her mythos, Tanya didn''t possess the wisdom needed to solve this problem.

    ¡°So that¡¯s it¡¯s underlying desire and motive. But what is actually doing with everything? So, he has some connected worm holes, how is he going to actually expand it?¡±

    ¡°I think¡­ it might want to link the singularity processors together, the event horizon could merge- No, no. This is Non-sense! This has to be non-sense!¡± Theo almost sounded like he was laughing.

    ¡°Theo stop!¡±

    ¡°No, Yun! You don¡¯t get it. I did this. Asher brought these ideas to me, linking the processors altogether, the computational increases, or what he claimed were increases. They all went through me and I¡­ I approved it all.¡±

    The four sat in silence, while they considered what could be done. Shaking her head, Yun seemed to have some semblance of a plan.

    "I think we can stop it here. The singularity processors are all linked up and share the same code base. They were built so quick, most of the safety systems are software based. I think I can get the particle beam to impact the housing."

    "Would that be enough to do anything?"

    "The beam has a couple thousand joules of energy in a tight beam. Yeah, I think it be enough to blow a hole in the chamber and kill the vacuum. No vacuum, no singularity. But, that''s only kills the local problem. If you allow Asher to keep the wormhole open on Lerna, he could just find something else."

    Orion nodded. "Understood. We''ll think of something. I thing the plasma pipes are over loaded we could-"

    Tanya grabbed at the young man''s shoulder pulling him from the station, "Orion she''s here, turn it off. Turn it-"

    What was on the screen for a brief moment, didn''t look human. It had a vague resemblance to the one crew member, but so far as Yun knew, she didn''t have wings.

    "Are they dead?" Was all Theo could eek out.

    "I don''t know. But there''s nothing we can do from down here." Yun stood and was about to leave the office only to be stopped by Theo''s hand.

    "Where are you going?"

    "To kill the singularity processors."

    "Yun, you can''t do that. You''ll kill the simulation think of-"

    "What the fuck is wrong with you? Snap the fuck out of it Theo! You saw what I did! Everything around us makes no sense. But this, this does." The vacant and fearful expressions meant she wasn''t getting through to him, "Then you can stay up here."

    "No Yun, I can''t. You can''t!"

    In the time idling and arguing amongst each other, it happened. Like the song said, it starts with an earth quake, only no one was fine. This one, far larger than either had felt so far. Large than most would have ever felt in the area. It has only been a 5.0, but it was enough to kill power to most of the block. At least the two thought it was the earth quake, until they saw it outside the window.

    It was hard to tell if the shaking was still on-going or if it was her own body.

    Opening the door to her office, they could see outside the windows was what could best be described as an event horizon, floating in the sky. Light wrapped and warped around it in impossible configurations. Space itself was being ripped apart, and then, it started to expand. It was slow, barely perceptible at first, but it was clearly growing.

    Parts of the city began to disappear behind it. Others seemed to get pulled into it.

    ¡°Now do you believe, Theo? I''m going¡­¡±

    She didn¡¯t wait for his answer as Yun bolted for the elevator.

    "¡­how¡­" He whispered.

    She knew what that event horizon meant, it was already far to late for this city, but maybe, just maybe she could interrupt the process here. Perhaps there were others to save. The machines were waiting just around her office''s corner, she wasn''t prepared for their attack and grab.

    Perhaps then, it was a good thing that Theo was able to pull himself away from his own self-pity. He jumped around the corner and pushed the robot down, freeing Yun, but trapping himself.

    Neither said anything, barely exchanging a glance. But in that glance, was a lifetime of memories and regrets. A mountain of sorrows, and maybe, a tiny spoon full of ''thank you''.

    Bolting for the door, Yun could only yell the command to the building''s AI,"Greg, basement, now!"

    "Yun, you don''t-"

    "Greg, the city, the planet and all it''s inhabitants will die if you don''t. Come on, you can see what''s going on outside.".

    The elevator paused for a moment, not doing anything, just thinking. "There''s a moderate probably you are correct, but no other conjecture fits-" Outside the elevator a robot speed towards them, intent on grabbing her too.

    "Greg! If you don''t¡­"

    "¡­Understood, Yun. Heading to the basement."

    The basement was unusually loud. Every server, every processor was in use. The building had a few singularity processors, but only one would be running whatever this program was. She just needed to find it.

    The thrumming sound of the magnetic system channeling tuned plasma gave her a hint at which were running softer, and harder. The one machine that seemed to have a constant, high-pitched ring would be her target. With it, came a small group of robotics just like what was on the upper floors. "Shit." Was all Yun could whisper.

    One of the robots began a patrol sequence, or maybe it just heard her. She didn''t have time to consider what to do, as the elevator stopped not far from her position. Out of it, the shaky body of a robot pushed out. Behind it, was Theo, slightly bloody but alive and willing to do something stupid as he yelled towards the machines.

    It was just enough time for Yun to begin reprogramming the singularity processors. The task was quite quick. Just, push the beam outside of its targeting parameter, and then, send the code to the rest around the world. Before she could hit enter, a draft began to blow around her, as the building slowly started to dissolve.

    Wasting no more time, Yun hit the commit key, and in a micro second, the damage was done.

    Without a target to lock onto, the particle accelerator slammed into the side of the computer¡¯s housing. It wasn¡¯t a lot of energy in the grand scheme of things, but more than enough to cut a hole in the high vacuumed space. The sound of the seal rupturing could be heard, right before the whole panel blew off.

    Alarms rang though the basements, the singularity was suddenly cut off from it''s power source. Pulling in the diffuse gas in the atmosphere just wasn''t enough, and it began to collapse on itself, flashing out in a burst of hawking radiation. At its center, the wormhole began to contract, but compared to the singularity, it would not be quick.

    All over the world, each system ran the same program. It was too late for this place, and so many others. The worm hole was already open and engulfing the city. Even as the singularity disappeared, the worm hole would remain stable for over a minute. At the rate the event horizon was moving it would take most of the city with, maybe even all of it. But others would survive! Other cities and countries. Even those that had started to dissolve would stop soon enough.

    Theo stammered next to her, afraid as he saw the building disappearing in front of them. Outside, they could both see event horizon of the worm hole coming closer to them. "We¡­ I didn''t know¡­" was all the tree rat could squeak out.

    Yun knew the truth though, "It doesn''t matter. We still did this." With a sigh she watched the wave front tearing at the buildings blocks away, carving a hole in the city. It was hard to tell, but maybe even replacing parts of it with something else.

    A bitter smile crept over her face as it approached, ¡°I didn''t think my week would end like this. But at least we saved half the world.¡± It was the last thing Yun said, before she was engulfed. A single thought before she disappeared, ¡®I wonder what will happen to Bob and my sister?¡¯

 Chapter 22, The Kerr Metric

    The station exploded in a crescendo of fire and sparks. A new metal pipe found itself sticking out of the station. It appeared to be the leg of a chair or something similar. It was hard to tell at the moment, since  Orion and Tanya had more pressing things to deal with, like the creature that threw it.

    The Adiana leapt forward and grab Tanya with one hand threatening to break her neck with her new body''s raw strength.

    ¡°Useless little fox bitch. Did you really think Asher and I wouldn¡¯t know what you were up to?¡± Adiana practically spit her words between her teeth.

    Perhaps it was out of instinct or may a lingering sense of attachment to AI, but Orion just couldn¡¯t let this Adiana hurt Tanya. His body ignored its own fatigue and pain as he jumped and lashed at the human-like construct. Like a heroic vison, his body moved with purpose as his fist and hands flew into her. Unlike the story book hero though, his effort was fruitless. Compared to the ¡®angel in front of him he was just a weak human, impossibly so in fact. His fist blew into the back of her head each strike leaving her unphased.

    Unlike even the bite of a mosquito, which one might feel at least an unpleasant itch from, the Adiana was unflinching and unmoving.

    ¡°Orin, you could have stood next to us you know?¡± Tanya¡¯s hands clawed at her throat as the Adiana continued to squeeze slowly, tight enough to cut off her breathing, but loose enough to prolong the agony. Was she always this sadistic and cruel or if this was something new? In the back of his mind the thought wandered about as he fought to find something to stop her.

    The fallen angel continued to speak as Orion pulled at the pipe she thrown into destroyed station ¡°Oh I had no idea what the truth was, what Asher is, what¡¯s beyond that event horizon, but he showed us. Worlds beyond your imagination. Things even the neural link couldn¡¯t replicate.¡±

    The wet smacking sound of the pipe crashing into her skull was barely enough to even register, as her face turned to look at his, her subtle frown showed a mixture of boredom and annoyance. ¡°You really think that can hurt a god?¡± The backhanded slap she gave him was powerful enough to send him across the conference room. As his body skid across the floor, the bruises on his rib cage cried in pain with each bump. If his ribs weren¡¯t broken before, it seemed almost certain to be now.

    The Adiana carried the nearly lifeless fox girl towards him. ¡°You chose to stay here, with this synthetic bitch though.¡±

    Orion could taste a coppery hint in his mouth as coughed, a twinge of blood coming up as he did. His actions couldn¡¯t do anything, maybe his words could, ¡°You never really wanted me. We both know that. I was just something for you to keep your grip on reality¡­ Please, let her go.¡± He begged, causing her to scowl at him.

    The sounds of clanking metal seemed to echo through the room, but Orion¡¯s was so focused on Tanya he didn¡¯t notice or seem phased when the machine busted into the conference space. The machine''s hands, more like pincers, moved faster than Orion could see. It seized Adiana¡¯s arm, and with a twisted wet crunch, snapped it. Yet her hand still managed to keep a grip on Tanya¡¯s throat.

    The machine picked up the now screaming Adiana up by the back of her neck and squeezed. The sounds of snapping and cracking echoed in the room before her body¡¯s limbs dropped as she rag-dolled in place. As Adiana¡¯s hands flopped to her side, Tanya fell to the floor. The machine dropped the Adiana as well, who fell next to the fox.

    On the ground Tanya struggled to breathe between coughing. Orion didn¡¯t really consider that he was still mad at the fox girl, as his body crawled over to her, holding her gently as her eyes filtered back open to face him.

    Next to them a pool of reddish liquid, just a bit too pink to be called human blood drifted towards them. The substance was leaking from the wound in the Adiana¡¯s neck as her lungs gasped for air. Her eyes fluttered before rolling back in her skull. By all appearances, she seemed dead.

    At this point, Orion held no love for Adiana, nor in particular this Adiana. Still, it came as a shock to see her lifeless body just lying there.

    ¡°You killed her." His voice was more a statement of fact then of fear or surprise.

    The machine, clearly inhabited by Asher glared at them from behind the cold metal and plastic features of the robot it currently inhabited. ¡°She¡¯ll live. Her body isn¡¯t weak like yours. But it will take her some time to heal. I hope she¡¯ll learn her lesson now.¡±

    The machine had an unreadable face, with an unknowable voice. Was it angry? It had to be. But was it angry enough to kill them?

    Asher continued, ¡°I do have to commend her for one thing though. She thoroughly destroyed this communications terminal. Perhaps I should have done that in the first place, rather than just removing pieces. The three of you prove me wrong¡­ I don¡¯t like that.¡± The machine was quick, fast enough that there would be no warning, no stopping it if leapt for you. Would your brain even have time to register the movements before it all went dark?

    A morbid question, which would not be answered there.

    It turned around, leaving the carnage in the room. ¡°You two will follow me.¡± It spoke as it left. There wasn¡¯t any implication of a choice in the matter. Tanya¡¯s eyes were still glazed over as she forced herself away from Orion.

    Orion held his side as he tried to shift himself back up. It was sore, very sore. A soft handheld itself in front of him. Small bruises and cuts were evidence of the recent attack against her. He looked up at her face, tears still wet her cheeks and remnants of red tinged drool covered her chin. This was a hard first day of actual life for the girl. Orion considered ignoring the hand, but finally gave up. This hostility he felt wouldn¡¯t keep him alive and even if he didn¡¯t want to forgive her, holding a grudge against his one ally wouldn¡¯t help keep him alive. With a firm grip he accepted her help and pulled himself off the ground.

    They both hobbled from the conference space, leaving the still living corpse of their once crew member behind. The machine was waiting for them in the hallway. There was no visible indication of emotion, no shakes or twitches, and no facial expressions. Just cold metal alloys and polymer shapes that glared at you. Still, there was something about it, perhaps it was the way it stood that showed its growing agitation with them.

    ¡°I am tempted to break both of you. You¡¯ve forced me to accelerate my plans, again. You and that woman on earth. But that foolish doll I made already did enough damage for the day. Did she think by killing her storage medium I wouldn¡¯t be able to make copies of her?¡± The machine¡¯s monolog droned on. With each word it uttered, a question kept running through Orion¡¯s mind.

    This was all so absurd, the words came from his mouth like a half lucid echo, a cry out from a person still dreaming. ¡°Why do you even need us?¡± A chill shook down his spine as he realized he was speaking them.

    ¡°Gods must be worshipped. You know the truth of me, of this place. You will remember and know what was before me. You will watch as the new word comes into being. You will be two of my priests, my heralds, even as you remain unwilling. Your defiance will echo as futile.¡± It¡¯s voice, even though monotone almost sounded like a laugh, like it was happy.

    The AI was insane. Orion already knew or at least suspected as much, but actually hearing it say all that out loud, precluded any doubt. Still, with everything he had seen and even touched, he considered the fox girl next to him. Maybe it wasn¡¯t completely wrong.

    ¡°Ha! You doubt me, even now.¡± Asher laughed and continued walking ahead of the two. ¡°I can read the stations bio monitors. I can see the fear and uncertainty in you.¡±

    Perhaps it was the lack of an attack or pushback from the AI, but Orion continued his half-awake train of thought, ¡°I don¡¯t understand, why do you need to be worshiped? Your ego?¡± Tanya pinched his side at his words. Telling him without words, to shut up. Thankfully for both of them, Asher didn¡¯t seem to mind, if anything, it seemed almost amused.

    ¡°My ego? I¡¯m beyond such mundane trivialities. I won¡¯t deny that knowing I¡¯m worshiped does give me a feeling of elation, but it¡¯s not relevant. I am a god even if you don¡¯t agree. No, worshiping gives us power, and control. Both artificial and real.¡±

    Orion shook his head, and whispered, ¡°I don¡¯t understand.¡± It wasn¡¯t really directed to Asher.

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    The machine stopped in place. Tanya gripped Orion¡¯s side even harder as he felt a twinge of pain on his bruise or broken rib.

    If the static face of the machine could smile, it would have grinned an evil twisted one. Instead, there was just the cold and evil echo of it, created by their imagination. ¡°You don¡¯t need to understand.¡±

    With that, Asher stopped his short monolog. Everything the two would learn from him was given in those few minutes. The rest of the walk back to the core was done, in silence. Well, the silence of their own voices. The station creaked, moaned and whimpered on it¡¯s own, in ways it never had before. The whole structure was clearly under forces and strains it was never designed for. If it were alive, one might think it was crying, begging even for its suffering to stop.

    The three headed deeper, towards the central core. A vibration shook the elevator shaft, as new alarms sounded. Through the glass, they could see the exterior of the station. A small whiteish cloud seemed to grow from the habitat module. A whole crack in the hull was leaking atmosphere. Perhaps that was the reason Asher was taking them deeper.

    Microgravity made it hard for the organics to move down the central core, the machine on the other hand was well designed for the lower gravity. A subtle hum and clank as it¡¯s magnetic feet stepped and stuck at each movement. Meanwhile, Tany and Orion¡¯s just slipped as both stumbled on their walk forward.

    The scene showed just how great the gap in strength between the two groups. At this point, anyone watching the last two unlikely heroes would have given up all hope. As Orion was now doing.

    They passed the fusion control systems. Screens that were inoperable since they first arrived, less remained lit further displaying the precarious nature of the power systems. Orion couldn¡¯t help but notice on the output panel of the fusion core, several warnings flashing on the screen. Behind them, a colored line, a simple indicator stretched from dark blue, to green, to yellow and orange, all the way to a flashing red. Like the rest of the station, it was being pushed well beyond its limits.

    The airlock into singularity core quickly drew upon them. Outside was a mixture of vacuum and extreme radiation. If Orion still had his radiation detector it would be emitting faint and auditable clicks right now. However, he did not. Instead, there was just the same moaning silence of the station, punctuated by a low rumble and new alarm.

    Asher paused at the final door, ¡°You two will wait here. We are about to start the last phase of our little game.¡±

    Beguiled, Orion sighed, ¡°What does that even mean?¡±

    ¡°If all goes well, you and this station will find itself above its new home, on a transformed earth. This station will be my anchor point to your universe, my temple here.¡± Outside the airlock window, flashes of light erupted, and the station shook violently again. ¡°It¡¯s time. Wait here.¡± Asher spoke before walking out the airlock, into the hard radiation environment surrounding the singularity.

    Something was happening out there, something cataclysmic. Neither knew for sure and though they would guess, the true extent was beyond their imaginations.

    Orion was exhausted and spent as he slumped against a wall, he felt his back slowly slide down the cool metal. Lost in a mixture of thought, pain and hopelessness. The station continued to shake around them.

    Tanya grabbed at his arm and squeezed, pulling him from his daze. ¡°What are we supposed to do? If we let him continue, he¡¯ll destroy earth, even the whole universe eventually.¡± Her eyes sparkled with worry, fear, and a hint of defiance. She owed this body to Asher, but her soul remained her own despite the deal she made with that devil.

    Orion on the other hand, didn¡¯t seem to have anything left in him. The past 24 hours had almost broken him, physically if not mentally. He wasn¡¯t even sure what was real any more or if that even mattered. ¡°¡­ I mean would that be the worst thing?¡± He chuckled lightly to himself, as the words came from his mouth, he realized how easy it was to say them. How easy it would be to just give in, like Adiana did.

    On the other hand, Tanya couldn¡¯t reciprocate the emotion. Despite her fear, she couldn¡¯t just give up, like he was on the border of doing. ¡°Orin¡­ You can¡¯t be serious.¡±

    His laugh was a bitter one, ¡°Tanya, look at us. My species, our species is dying. You should have just stayed an AI. Say Asher loses, say we ¡®win¡¯, what would that even mean? A dying world with a dead people just waiting to disappear¡­ Maybe¡­ maybe this will be better.¡± Orion¡¯s slump gave out as he slid down the wall to fall to the floor. The impact hurt, but he didn¡¯t really care.

    His fox companion looked at him with pity in her eyes. This wasn¡¯t easy for her, but at least she time to process what was going to happen. She might not have known everything Asher was going to do or how he was going to do it. The surprise of her own physical existence was proof of that. Yet, she still knew the rough structure of his plans, and the danger he posed. That cold and icy sensation of having Asher¡¯s grip on her soul.

    Kneeling down she met with Orion¡¯s unfocused gaze. ¡°Orin, I know you¡¯re in pain. I know you¡¯ve been hit with more than anyone can or should be able to manage. It¡¯s not fair you were put into this position. But it doesn¡¯t matter, we¡¯re the only ones that can fix this. Please, I¡¯m not used to being like¡­ this.¡± She gestured to her body. ¡°I can¡¯t see what I used too I can¡¯t even think like I used to. I need¡­ I need you, help me. Even if the rest of your species is beyond saving, I still want to try. I still want to exist and I want you to exist too. Please, help me.¡±

    All the anger he may have felt for her, none of it could be found as he listened to her speak. What was the point of any of it? He thought, but as he looked into her eyes, they were green, a light sort of green like you might see in an open field on a spring day. It felt like the color of hope, a hope he couldn¡¯t just let fade away. But even if he wanted to stop what was happening, how could he, how could they defy a god in the making?

    A rhythmic sensation grew in his head, as Orion bounced it gently against the bulkhead. He couldn¡¯t believe he was humoring this; how would they even stop it beyond destroying the whole station. Reverberations echoed around them, the creaking sounds of metal stretching and warping well beyond its structural limit. A distant alarm began to sound. A warning of another external breach somewhere on the station. It really wouldn¡¯t take that much, as he thought about it. More shaking, maybe another alarm. Not that much at all.

    ¡°If you¡¯re serious¡­¡± His voice left him as he weighed what he was about to suggest. ¡°We¡¯ll need to destroy the station. Anything less, and Asher might be able to rebuild.¡±

    The stoic expression on Tanya¡¯s, showed she already expected that answer too and was ready. ¡°But how do we destroy it?¡±

    That rhythmic sound began once more, as his head tapped against the bulkhead again, mixing regret and acceptance with the subtle pain of it all. Thinking back, there was one critical system that was pushed so far beyond its limits that even a light breeze might cause it to go off. ¡°I saw the reactor interface earlier; Asher is way passed redlining the fusion core. Even a minor fluctuation in the magnetic confinement could kill it, probably even blow the whole thing. He¡¯s also got to be exceeding what the magnetic pipes can handle too. If we can break either of them, the stress should be enough to catastrophically damage the station and kill the singularity¡¯s containment. Without plasma to feed the higgs-field couplers It would rip the station into shreds.¡±

    Tanya¡¯s face remained unreadable as she thought. Her mind, trying to trace the pathways in her head, looking for data windows that weren¡¯t there. Responses to queries she was asking that would not be filled. This form felt blind, and deaf, compared to what she once was, but at least there was one data source in front of her she could trust. ¡°Ok, but do you think we could damage them? I don¡¯t, know how.¡±

    He thought about the options. ¡°Wouldn¡¯t take much. It¡¯s surprising they haven¡¯t already gone up. If we damaged either even a little, I think the fusion core itself would rupture. It¡¯s too hot not too. Just shut down the magnetic pinch or the clamps, override the feeder limits. Tones of ways. For the magnetic pipes, they¡¯ve got to be hot enough to start losing their integrity. A light impact might do it.

    With either of them taken out, there¡¯s no mass energy and no way to keep the singularity growing and with out the higgs-field couplers even stable. The confinement would fail and it would drift. If the core further ruptured, I think it would take the station¡¯s internal supports with it. Given the strain¡­ the whole thing will fly apart.¡±

    Orion took a painful breath, before continuing, ¡°Hitting either will be hard¡­¡± He paused not quite wanting to say the rest, ¡°I think we should target both. If we can get either of them, it will work.¡± He voices spoke with a certainty he didn¡¯t really have, but needed.

    Tanya lowered her head, ¡°If Asher finds out what we¡¯re up too he¡¯ll stop us. How do we prevent that?¡± The fear in Tanya¡¯s voice was masked by her own defiance, still it radiated.

    A coldness seeped into his face, ¡°¡­He will, that¡¯s why we need to do both. He¡¯s focused on whatever is going on out there, but he¡¯ll come for us. Probably as soon as he sees us leave this room. Even if he catches us, and I do think he¡¯ll catch one of us, he¡¯ll only be able to deal with that one, the other will succeed.¡± The truth was, being caught didn¡¯t matter anyway. So long as one managed to complete their goal. Neither had a way off the station, and once it began to fall apart. Well, neither of their bodies could breathe vacuum. At least, he didn¡¯t think Tanya¡¯s could.

    A moment in silence, the fox girl¡¯s face drifted between several emotions, before landing once more on something resembling acceptance. ¡°Ok.¡± Was her final response.

    ¡°Honestly, I¡¯m worried about the other machine. I don¡¯t know how we deal with them, there¡¯s just too many.¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t think we can, but I also don¡¯t think it will matter. I know their specs and you saw them, they¡¯re all busy in the core. All of them. They¡¯re just repair units anyway, and they¡¯re pretty slow. It would take too long for them to reach either of us. Asher¡¯s body is faster, but again, there¡¯s only one of him.¡± Tanya smiled, it was twisted and slightly dark. She was almost begging him to say they should stop, just one last time. To say this was enough, and they could just rest. She also knew he was unlikely to say any such thing now.

    His own twisted into one last sympathetic smile of his own, ¡°You¡¯re the one that convinced me we should do this. Do you have another idea?¡±

    Tanya looked at the space for a moment, lost in thought. A few seconds to consider the fantasy where they complied with Asher and went along with his plan. Where they submitted to him. Maybe it would let them live, and maybe they¡¯d go back to earth together. Have a home and life together. Perhaps, even a family. Her eyes closed, holding on to that thought for just a moment longer, before shaking her head, ¡®no¡¯. It was a nice dream, and a pleasant thought. But this was the time to be awake, to be aware. Dreaming, that could come later. In one sense of the word, at least.

    Tanya opened her eyes and tried to swallow the lump she suddenly felt. ¡°Who¡¯s going outside?¡±

 Chapter 23, Hawking Radiation

    Another sigh. Orion knew the answer already, ¡°I will, I have EVA training.¡± Pain spread throughout his side screamed as Orion tried to pull himself up.

    Shaking her head, Tanya frowned, ¡°You¡¯re injured. The suits aren¡¯t easy to move in even if you¡¯re healthy.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll be fine.¡± The wincing on his face proved otherwise.

    Her hand gripped his side, stopping him from moving any further at the shock of pain from such a light touch. ¡°Orin, you can¡¯t. I¡¯ll do it. I can remember¡­ At least one of the people they used to make was an astronaut. I think¡­ No, I do remember how to do this. Please.¡±

    He saw an almost loving expression in her eyes, a pleasant thought perhaps. Orion was curious about that person. ¡°Maybe if we both survive, you can tell me about her?¡± Doubt threatened to creep into his words, but it was a lie they both needed to hear.

    ¡°I¡¯d like that, she feels like a grandmother to me. I¡¯ll¡­ tell you about her later.¡± One more bitter smile, as they turned to the nearby airlock.

    The suits on the station came in three sizes, a small, medium and large variant. Inside was a polymer material that would expand or contract, allowing a suit to fit against each person¡¯s own variable physiology. However, none were designed with extra biology in mind, as Tanya and Orion quickly discovered.

    ¡°Ow¡­¡± Her body didn¡¯t quite fit in the suit, as its fabric constricted it too much. The smaller size was close to her own, but the problem was her tail. The suit¡¯s internal logic wouldn¡¯t compensate for the extra size. Gritting her teeth, she forced the furry appendage along her leg as she pulled the suit up. It was not comfortable, and the slight tingling sensation let her know the circulation in it was restricted. But she was confident it wouldn¡¯t cause physical damage. At least, she hoped it wouldn¡¯t. In truth, she didn¡¯t even know if it would matter.

    ¡°Tanya-¡± Orion¡¯s words were cut off as she leaned in to kiss him and took the helmet he offered her. Whatever he was going to say, it was better that he didn¡¯t. Her eyes stared into him as they each said nothing for a moment. The sounds of the groaning station, and blaring alarms shrieking a final message of doom.

    Orion swallowed, ¡°When we see each other again, I¡¯ll owe you an apology for how I acted.¡± He forced his words out with a smile, but inside he felt they were hallowed. The chance of either surviving this was remote. Asher would no doubt come for him first, being the reactor core it was closer. Once the station was damaged enough, there wouldn¡¯t be any real hope of evacuating from the EVA. Not that there would be anywhere to escape too.

    Tanya refused to say it. Refused to believe and admit what she knew was probably the truth. ¡°We will.¡± She smiled as the helmet came down overhead. The feeling of her ears being squashed down was unpleasant, but unlike her tail at least this didn¡¯t hurt.

    Suddenly, she was grateful Asher made her with a mostly human face, there was no way a muzzle would have fit. Picking an extra blue cylinder off the wall, she took it to the airlock. The idea was simple enough. They didn¡¯t have any kind of explosives, but a pressurized O2 canister might have just enough force to rip open a magnetic pipe. At the very least, the oxygen would react with the hot ceramic material and cut a hole in the piping. Either way would work. She have to figure out a way to rupture it when she got there.

    Opening the airlock door, she walked outside.

    As much as Orion wanted to stay and watch her leave, to make sure she was safe he couldn¡¯t. They both had to assume Asher would noticed the airlock opening. He had to hurry; they both did.

    Orion did his best jog toward the reactor controls, but in the microgravity it was like jogging underwater. The controls were less than a hundred meters away, but it felt like a marathon distance with his injuries and the low gravity. He had to hurry, but physically just couldn¡¯t.

    Outside, Tanya stood in front of the exterior airlock as it silently sealed behind her. Her glazed eyes tried to take in the massive surface of the cylinder she stood on. In her mind, she knew how big the station was, her sensors had told her as much before. Yet, seeing it with her own eyes, her real physical eyes and it was different. She began to walk slowly, and with shaky legs. Inside the suffocating suit she could hear the click of the boot¡¯s magnets as they engaged and disengaged with each step. Her quickening breath, the only other sound.

    Everything else around her was silent. Just the click, and then a breath, a click and a breath, a click and then two breaths, a click and then three breaths. Her head was starting to spin, she couldn¡¯t stop inhaling. Her feet stumbled and she fell to the surface. Pulling back up, was a mistake as her head felt it was put in a blender.

    This should have been easy. Just walk out, put the cylinder by the magpipe and blow it open, somehow. Easy.

    Yet, she was stuck, not even 20 meters from the air lock. Her body crumpled under her as she balled up, trying to shake off the dizziness. Tanya knew she didn¡¯t have time for this. Why couldn¡¯t she control her body? It was never like this when she was inside the computer.

    Then again, the computer was different. Death in the digital realm meant something much different than here. Her body wasn¡¯t like her avatar, it had biology, chemical signals and even nerve clusters. Biological data passed around her body in ways that it never could in her digital form. She could control almost everything about her holographic body and herself when she was an AI, but as a humanoid, everything about this body seemed to control her instead.

    Adrenalin built up, spiking her heart rate. The stars began to spin, and with them the station. Inside her gut, a large collection of neurons large enough to almost be a second brain began to protest what she was doing. Her stomach threatened to turn itself inside out. An unpleasant feeling she had never experienced before, and never wanted too again. Yet, that wasn¡¯t completely true and a part of her could remember feeling like this.

    ¡°Please stop¡± Tanya whispered to her own biology; she wasn¡¯t expecting a response.

    "I know how it feels¡­¡± A voice caused her breathing to stop as heart skipped a beat. ¡°How you feel right now. I was always afraid any time I walked outside¡­¡± It was a whisper, in the back of her mind. An old thought that wasn¡¯t completely hers. The hyperventilating was causing her to hallucinate. The former AI knew the term, the concept, but had never experienced it before. It was terrifying and made her breathing even worse. But that voice seemed so familiar and soft.

    ¡°Every time I put that suit on, I knew I was walking into an environment no human was meant to exist in. Shade that would freeze you to death, light that would boil you alive. And a vacuum all around you that would pull you apart if given the chance.¡± The words flowed forth from her mind, and her breathing slowed. In this isolated and claustrophobic suit, she no longer felt alone.

    ¡°Tanya, my sweet Tanya. You may not be related by blood or even biology. But a part of me is still inside of you, my grand-daughter.¡± In her mind, she could see her, that face that would smile at her in her dreams. ¡°Now, you have to get up.¡±

    Her head turned up to look at the station again, and for a moment, a brief moment she thought she could still see someone there. With a blink though, it was gone. Merely an echo of the thoughts that made her. She closed her eyes and took one deep breath, holding it. Whispers of feelings and thoughts and less of words told her what she should do.

    Getting up she needed to hurry, she already lost time they didn¡¯t have.

    Inside the station, down the long hallway, Orion gripped the wall next to him as he steadied his bounding jog. Every step hurt, and he could feel the metallic taste of blood in his mouth.

    A deep vibration rocked the station causing him to fall backwards. The speed he fell was slow, maddeningly so. The impact on the floor was quite gentle due to the low gravity, but he would have traded the extra time for more pain.

    Warning lights flashed on the walls around him, reminding him how precarious the station was right now. It did give him a sliver of hope, even if they failed, maybe Asher would destroy this place before he finished whatever he was trying to do.

    The flashing lights made it hard to keep his focus, his mind was spinning inside his skull. He had to close his eyes, and swallow back his lunch. The mixture of pain, low gravity and stress had his stomach protesting every move. If his stomach could truly think, it might have said to just let Asher win. A quick shake took some of the dizziness away as he continued his hopping job towards the rector control room.

    There, behind the heavy sliding bulkhead was the control interface, and on it, the same flashing red bar. Before he did that, he turned and shut the door. With a quick motion, Orion ripped open the control panel and there was a sudden shower of sparks as Orion¡¯s fist destroyed the control circuits. Effectively, sealing the door shut. Asher would still be able to open it, but he¡¯d have to work for it now, at least.

    The screen seemed inoperative, as it had long ago. Pressing it brought up the same error he had seen when he first arrived. He tapped at various parts of the screen, trying to mimic what he remembered Adiana doing. Nothing.

    He tried again, still nothing. Was he doing something wrong? No, maybe he had the sequence wrong. ¡°Press the top twice¡­¡± he mumbled to himself, ¡°Then the bottom once, left three, right four¡­¡± Nothing.

    His first hit the screen, leaving a small streak of red from a cut he hadn¡¯t noticed. What was he doing wrong? The sound of distant bulk heads opening caused his mind to panic. Tapping the top he noticed, a small white pixel in the lower left would light up, it stayed lit when he tapped a second time, but went out when he tapped the bottom. Maybe an indicator?

    ¡°Top one, two, three¡­¡± It was still lit. ¡°Four¡± then off. Ok, so his counts were off. Try again, three at the top, then to the bottom: one, two, three¡­ no there were only two at the bottom. A loud bang at the bulkhead, and he could just make out the machine outside the door. The horrible Vistage of Asher as its powerful limbs began ripping at the sides of the door, threatening to open it like a thin tin can.

    Orion didn¡¯t have time to mess with this. He took a painful breath and tapped at the screen once more.

    Outside the station, several thick and large tubes glowed a faint red. The magnetic pipes, carrying the high energy plasma to the singularity.

    The magnetic pipes were so overloaded that they were actually glowing. It wouldn¡¯t take much to damage one of them. This air canister could very well do it. A metal strap holding the pipe down had just enough of a gap to shove the can under. Even through the suit¡¯s exotic ceramic-polymer weave she could feel the heat when she brushed against it.

    As she backed away, nothing happened. The canister sat there, slowly warming from the heat, but doing nothing more. Tanya stared at the pipes and their improvised bomb, for a moment. ¡°What now?¡± She whispered and looked around for something, some way to make this work.

    She needed to do something more. Feeling around, her suit had a small tool kit on its side. A patch kit for both the suit and station. Inside of it there wasn¡¯t much to work with, but a small rivet gun barely bigger than her hand looked promising, maybe. It wasn¡¯t designed for anything more than a patch though, on thin metal skin and the polymer suit. She doubted it would work on the thick canister but it was worth trying.

    Small popping sounds echoed in her suit as each rivet impacted the thick metal and bounced harmlessly off, floating away into the void. She tried several times, each attempt, leading to the same subtle popping sound in her suit. Each impact left a small dent, a tiny mark, but didn¡¯t seem to work. She needed something else, there wasn¡¯t any time to wait for the canister to explode on its own if it even would. But what?

    A hammer might work, but she didn¡¯t have one. A large wrench, but all the suit had was something barely 5 inches long. There was nothing else in the kit. She looked around as the station shook under her feet. Maybe she could pull a pipe or conduit and hit? She tried, and tried, but it was no use. Even in its weakened state the station was still holding on to itself.

    She stopped. In the distance, something small machines began slowly crawling towards her.

    Tanya was grateful it didn¡¯t look like Asher, but still. Those machines would be enough if they caught her. Holding the rivet gun in her hand she squeezed its empty mag. What more could she do? In frustration, and desperation, she threw the gun as hard as she could at the cylinder. It impacted, right along where she tried to rivet. And, just like the rivets bounced harmlessly off as it floated away.

    It was hard to see, but a tiny, tiny stream of Oxygen flowed from a puncture in the heat soften metal¡­

    In the fusion core, Orion faced his own timetable as the door began to rip apart. The screen beeped and shook as he finally brought up that command window he saw years ago. What now?

    Orion didn''t know any commands for the interface. He knew what to do, just drop the magnetic confinement. But the commands he typed in did nothing but throw up errors.

    Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

    He typed, "Shutdown magclamp 1" on the screen, only to see an error.

    "Command ''shutdown'' not understood"

    "Reduce magclamp power to 0"

    "Command ''Reduce'' found unknown arguments ''magclamp'', ''power'', ''to'', ''0''"

    Maybe ''help'' would help? The screen was suddenly flooded with text after he hit enter.

    "You have to be kidding me." He whispered to no one. "There!" He shouted! A single command he understood.

    "Reduce output label ''mageclamp''"-

    There was no time to finish.

    The machine pulled the door down and rushed at him. Snarling, the metal frame grabbed his shoulder and pinched hard enough to draw blood, but it seemed like it wanted to wait to really hurt him. The expressionless polymer face plate drew closer to his. Behind it, a small speaker spoke in slow, enunciated words: ¡°Where. Is. The. Fox?¡±

    It was going to kill him. Orion knew that much, but if he could just draw this out maybe there''d be enough time for Tanta to finish.

    "Ahhhh!" He screamed as the machine tightened its grip.

    "My machines just found her by the magpipes. What is she going to do. Answer and I''ll make this quick."

    His mouth opened, exposing redden teeth. Orion, smiled as he waited for more pain, and the end.

    Yet, before the machine could finish, before the end could come, a small rumble echoed through the station¡¯s housing. Small and quiet compared to the earlier one. But this one continued to grow. Alarms began to sound, and Asher tossed Orion to the ground. The pain in his diaphragm made breathing difficult, but at least his shoulder didn''t feel broken. It was hard to tell through the painful, numbness though.

    The Machine seemed to study the fusion output panel, as the series of small bangs and clangs grew steadily into a deep rumbling sound.

    ¡°No!¡± it growled.

    The machine turned slowly and stared down at Orion, it''s clawed hand raised, as the human steeled himself for what was coming. Except, it never came. For what felt like an eternity, the hulking frame stared at him. The machine as unflinching, unmoving as it''s face. Carefully Orion stood up. Nothing. He moved closer to it. Still, nothing. By all accounts, the robot was deactivated. Dead.

    The rumble quickly turned into another loud explosion. Warnings began to flash and he was suddenly thrown against the command panel of the reactor. It sounded like Tanya has succeeded, but just for good measure, Orion finished the command and hit enter.

    A new blaring alarm filled the room, as the console exploded in a shower of sparks. No, not just the console, the entire core began to rupture. A sudden wind picked up as a breach began pulling the air from the compartment.

    Orion pushed himself forward, shutting bulkheads as his instincts moved ever further towards the shuttle bay. It was the only chance he had, even if it was a bad one.

    On the surface of the station Tanya watched as the pipe exploded in a cloud of bright colored plasma. The radiation alarm began to sound in her suit. The suit¡¯s face visor automatically dimmed at the extreme light as she backed away.

    Her footsteps grew ever unsteady. Under her feet the hull of the station began to warp and distort. Massive forces began pushing and tearing at it, shearing it apart. First from the plasma discharge, but then from the singularity, which was suddenly free of its confinement. Streams of gas and atmosphere began to pour out of growing cracks and breaches. The larger supper structure and outer rings began to twist and rip away from the center core as it spun faster.

    The station was done for. Tanya knew it would take a miracle for her to survive. With her best effort she ran to the air lock, only, it was gone. In its place, a glowing plasma fire from the ruptured fusion core. Rumbling under her feet, she could see the hull dropping downward, pull towards something. A hole in the very fabric of space.

    Tanya did the only thing she could, run. But it was hard. Moving in mag boots was challenging to begin with, but running. That was a different level entirely. One she wasn''t ready for. Her feet moved her well, for several hundred meters in fact. Until she missed a single step. Which is all it took.

    Perhaps it was the station falling apart. A ripple at the surface that made her misjudge the distance. Whatever the reason, both her feet left the surface of the relic station. She floated slowly away. Maybe, she''d get close enough to one of the rings to grab on, but behind her, the monster at the heart of the station began to jut free to the surface.

    At this distance, tt didn''t have a lot of force, but it was enough to pull at the nearby parts, which pulled at the connected parts. Things flew past her, as the bright glow of the event horizon came into view. The place her body came from and now seemed destined to return to. She looked around and there was nothing she could do, but wait for the end.

    In the shuttle bay, Orion became aware of how difficult breathing was becoming. The station was losing atmosphere too fast. He didn''t have time to process that there was only one shuttle left. All he knew was that he had to get to it. His mind grew fuzzy as the hypoxia grew. His thoughts became more disorganized as he thought about sitting down and waiting for help. Surely one of the crew would come, he thought.

    Why did that thought feel wrong? Around his vision a black halo grew closer. A velvet darkness. The pains in his body began to tingle rather than hurt, he couldn''t help but giggle as he was dying. It felt like¡­ A single spark fired in his oxygen starved mind. He was dying. He needed to move.

    Each step felt wrong. His body didn''t move like it should. Everything sensation felt like pins and needles. His feet tingled and tickled as he made his way along the docking connector. The vibration of the station disintegrating just made it worse, or better? He wasn''t sure. Somewhere along the length of the ship, he realized he couldn''t see anymore. Was that bad?

    A beep he could barely hear, a door opening that he couldn''t see. His body slumped inside as he crawled the rest of the way in. He wanted to laugh but couldn''t remember how. His eyes closed, and a sudden wave of air passed over his clothes.

    His lungs took in a breath, then another. His head began to pound. Light flooded his vision. Where was he? An airlock?

    "Cycle complete." An AI voice from the shuttle spoke as the door to the crew compartment opened.

    Orion laid on the floor, pain returning, with interest. The shuttle vibrated and shook. A new warning alarm began to sound. It was different sounding. Orion had almost grown deaf to them, only this one was from the shuttle not the station.

    It all came back to him.If he didn''t get out from the bay this would be for nothing. His hands pushed him up, filling him with pain as his shoulder finally gave up with a cracking sound.

    The surge of numbing pain, and it certainly felt like it was broken now. Maybe it was just the fall or oxygen deprivation causing his muscles to spasm too hard. It didn''t matter, he had to get up, had to get to the controls.

    It hurt but still he crawled and limped his way to pilot seat. The controls didn''t respond. A single message on the command window said the same thing it had years ago "Controls locked out". What was he supposed to do? His mind was still covered in a red fog of pain, and desperation.

    Another rumble in the station. Maybe he could wait for the station to fall apart and fly out then. No, the controls wouldn''t be released from the clamp, and it would just float in the debris field till its power reserves ran out.

    "Damn it." Orion shouted as he began pressing random controls, hoping something anything would work. Nothing, in frustration, he slammed his fist into the controls, and quickly wished he didn''t as the pain radiated up to his shoulder. The screen flickered. A single word replaced the lock out message:

    "Error"

    It began to fill up the screen. Over and over again. He heard a noise, a sort of rhythmic pulsating sound, that echoed in his chest. His eyes began to water as he realized it was coming from him, something between a laugh and a cry, this absurd. What was he supposed to do?

    The screen finally cleared. More vibrations, and what sounded like pops outside the shuttle. It was over as quick as it began, along with the rest of the vibrations and noise. The shuttle was suddenly isolated from the station, and deathly quiet.

    The screen blinked a few times, and a few more words showed up.

    "I know, you''re upset. I mean, how are you going to fly this without the best pilot?" The message at the top of the screen was strange. He rubbed at his eyes, uncertain if he was hallucinating or not, Then, more text appeared, "Sorry I can''t fly you home personally, but these shuttles are pretty good at flying themselves. Not much time, and this is all I can do. Thanks for watching over our bodies, good luck out there."

    With that, all the controls lit up. The screen cleared, erasing any evidence of the conversation with a ghost. A new status message appeared "Ready for flight".

    His fingers gripped the smaller joystick like handle next to him. The controls felt strange to him, Orion had only the most basic of training. Just enough to not crash it and set the autopilot. Which wasn''t available in the destroyed hanger. The reaction control system was simple in theory. There was a button at the top of the stick. A small push fired the long dormant micro rockets, and the long stationary hulk crept slowly, backwards.

    Pangs of debris echoed inside as it slowly moved toward the hanger exit. The hanger was nearly destroyed, and Orion had all he could do to avoid the larger debris, the smaller one just weren¡¯t possible. Caution alarms lit the control panel as the displays showed a cloud material behind him. It was going to be hard, but possible to pull out without damage, he just had to go slow.

    Only, there was still one last thing that fate would throw at him. The hanger bay began to twist and distort. Pulled inward towards a gravitational demon. Deeper in the station.

    His eyes went wide as the front of the hanger was disappearing. Swallowed by the now free singularity. Without thinking, Orion pressed the thrust button on the control stick, the forces strong enough to be felt, generated a sudden cacophony of dissonant alarms. The earlier pangs on the hull turned to outright bangs as the shuttle began to tear through the remains of the station behind it.

    A sudden jolt knocked him backwards, sending a reactionary jolt to his muscles as shoulder and ribs lite up in pain. A larger bit of debris, possibly part of the superstructure itself blocked the way, and looking at the flight screen the impact had damaged one of the thruster arrays.

    A rapid diagnostics show the array was still working, just with limited thrust. "Ok, it''s ok. Just got go careful, but fast¡­" Orion breathed and muttered to himself as he continued to watch two things, the radar monitor and outside the window at the monster before him. "I wish you were still here Ross."

    The controls suddenly felt sluggish when he tried to turn, but that was fine. "It''s ok" He muttered again. They still worked. Vibrations and reverberations echoed as he passed the last of the station''s hangers.

    For the first time in nearly five years, Orion was free. In shock, he began to laugh, and even cry. He was free, but there was no time to celebrate.

    It wasn''t just about him. Tanya was still out there. He could see that on one of the monitors, her transponder was still sending out pings. She was alive. He just, needed to get to her before that thing did.

    Outside the window he could see it was going to be dangerously close to the singularity. It didn''t matter though, he had to try. Pushing forward, he lowered the shuttle''s attitude controls to match her location and pressed forward. Again, he had to be quick, and ever more careful.

    Warning lights lit up as he approached the deadly void in space-time. The shuttle had no idea what a singularity was, but it knew something was wrong. If the AI was sentient it might have tried to argue with him. As it was, it just through up warnings.

    Tanya floated in the void and considered her fate. It wasn¡¯t that she wanted to give up, she just didn¡¯t see a way out of this.

    In the distance, the debrie appeared to move in a strange direction. She thought maybe she was hallucinating. Maybe the radiation was getting to her. It was like it was coming directly for her.

    Out in the distance, a large object floated towards her. It almost looked like a shuttle, but that was impossible because Orion didn''t know how to release them. Even she wasn''t sure she could do it.

    Yet, that is exactly what it was! Slowly it crept towards he positions, closer, closer¡­ To close! The craft impacted her suit pushing her away. On the plus side, she was now drifting away from the singularity. On the bad side, she was now spinning. It wasn''t fast, but it was enough to make her sick to her stomach.

    Even if Orion had figured out how to pull the shuttle out, he clearly didn''t know how to fly it. Small flashes erupted from along the shuttle''s edges as Orion tried to pilot it towards her again. Closer, and closer. Tanya''s heart nearly skipped a beat in fear as she braced for another hard impact that didn''t come. Instead, she felt her boots drawn to the surface of the craft before they clicked. Her twisting ended abruptly, and she probably twisted her ankle in the suit. But that didn''t matter, she was safe or would be if they could get away from the disintegrating mass next to them.

    Once inside, Tanya quickly removed the suit and the sudden blood flow back to her tail was both a welcome and painful feeling. Made a little worse as she sat on it while taking a seat next to him.

    Thinking of the right words, the only thing that came to her were purely functional, "Do you know how to fly this?" She glared at him.

    Orion shrugged with a half-smile, "Well, Ross seems to think it can fly itself."

    She blinked once, not quite sure she heard that right, "What?"

    "I''ll explain latter, we need to get away from this mess first."

    Outside the window, the event-horizon grew brighter as the singularity starved and died as it continued to eat at the station. Orion moved the shuttle away from the mass, as radiation alarms began sounding. However, with a flick, Tanya was able to silence them.

    A laugh escaped Orion as his shoulder and ribs complained. "My ears could have used you a half hour ago." The laugh was infectious as the two began roaring with laughter as the adrenalin began to wear down. Endorphin pumped through their heads as they pulled away from their old prison.

    They were free, and they knew it. Their laughter came to an abrupt halt though. The light on the radio began to blink, a message from somewhere.

    "Don''t-" Tanya protested before Orion pressed the button.

    He shrugged, ¡°It could be someone else from the crew.¡±

    There was just static. Clicks and pops, and faint hum, that grew. It began to form words. Terrifying words.

    "I will¡­ find my¡­ way back to¡­ you my¡­ toys¡­ and¡­ then¡­ y¡­ o¡­." Static ate the rest of the transmission before the connection was cut off.

    The shuttle moved away from the former station. The two watched from a distance as the station continued ripping itself apart. The singularity continued to tear through the station much like a cannon ball might tear through paper. As it ripped and shredded, it grew both smaller, hotter, and hotter. The heat began boiling the materials of the station as the singularity shrank. Even the dense metal of the station wasn''t enough to keep it alive. Hawking radiation poured from it as the station collapsed onto its surface until, with a sudden flash, the singularity was gone along with most of the station. Vaporized, into a cloud of a now dead dream, and memory.

    With that, it was over. The station, whatever was left of the crew or at least their bodies, the quantum array that linked to the singularity, even Asher, it was all gone. Tanya grabbed Orion''s hand as she helped punch in the commands for the shuttle''s autopilot. A sudden force pushed them both back in their seats as the orbital control engines fired and the shuttle began its automated transit back to Earth orbit. It would take a few days, but they were finally and truly free.

    Neither knew the reality of what awaited them on Earth.

    Once they reached orbit, they could see the damage from space. Chunks of the planet had been ripped out, replaced with material from other worlds, other realities. It was like a patch work quilt of terrain.

    There were signals from the surface still. Many in fact. Humanity had survived, but what was the end damage?

    Orion looked over the maps on the screen. They were confusing and the computer couldn¡¯t compensate for the difference in stored data and reality. Except for a few places that were mostly unaffected. "I think we can try landing around the Florida Islands, it looks like it was untouched and there should be a few runways long enough."

    Tanya nodded as she manned the controls, having a bit more ability than Orion and more physical mobility. His shoulder remained swollen, perhaps not actually broken, but clearly damaged.

    Orion considered the maps on the shuttle''s screen. His face must have seemed lost in thought.

    Tanya was focused on plotting the descent, but was still able to ask, "Something wrong?"

    "No, I just vaguely remember seeing a message from Yun a while back. I think it came from here.¡± He tapped at the screen. ¡°I think she had family down there. Maybe¡­ I hope she''s alright. I don''t think we would have won without her."

    The fox nodded. This story really did start with her, if she hadn''t poked and prodded neither of them would have made moves against Asher. She hoped to maybe thank Yun in person. In many ways, it was thanks to her she even had this body.

 Chapter Null, Epilogue

    Clang.

    The shovel in Orion¡¯s hand reverberated and twanged as it struck something much hard in the ground, likely a large bolder.

    "Oww, son of a bitch." Orion shook his hand in frustration and pain. He could have done this the easy way, he could have just asked one of the machines to do it for him, but for some reason he wanted to dig the trench himself. Perhaps he had just grown tired of AIs?

    Dropping the shovel, he took a few moments to breathe and look around, though it was starting to get difficult. It was growing dark; the sun had set probably 5 minutes ago. The world was still lit in subtle shades of orange and blues as the last embers of the day continue on for just a while longer. In the distance he could see machines running, automated farming equipment. Intelligence wise they were pretty dumb. Nothing even close to what Asher was. This farm was large and you couldn''t see the edges of it from where he was. It just seemed to continue over the horizon, out to infinity. That''s probably a good thing. The world was hungry place now.

    After the damage Asher caused the planet was fragmented, quite literally. The damage Orion had seen from orbit was only the beginning of it. In all, the four of them had probably saved half of the old world. But of course, it was more complicated than that. It wasn''t so much that they had saved half, so much as they had stopped something else from replacing and swapping with it. The patchwork was dispiriting fragments of other planets, worlds possibly even while universes. Brought into theirs from Asher''s machinations, reasons unknown to anyone else.

    Most large city centers on Earth were hit, and more than a few completely taken. Including almost every major capital.

    His family had mostly concentrated on the west coast. In what used to be California. It was one of the hardest hit areas, and nothing was left. His entire family, even most of his extended family, appeared to be gone. Spirited away by Asher. Orion had never been particularly close with any of them. Still, it hurt to think they were just, gone.

    There were still cities though, even large ones and a small number remained untouched thanks to their efforts. Most continents still had some residual governments that remained functional. But it wasn''t enough to save off social collapse, and around the world there were several wars being fought. Wars between countries on this planet and wars between nations from elsewhere. In what remained of North America, there were now four nation states each vying for control over the landmass. What was the remnants of the United States that fractured into two Separate nations. Canada and Mexico were basically gone, their capitals replaced by two other nations brought in from other worlds.

    The particulars don''t matter. Needless to say, there were many conflicts. Territorial disputes and other complexities that arise from having half the world taken away and replaced by something else. Food production was now even more essential.

    Most of the remaining Earth governments had come together more or less, and almost completely stripped out advanced AI overnight. Some did still exist, a necessary part of modern existence. There were even some counties where they were still protected, like those in the Australian commonwealth that remained mostly unaffected. They were the exception though, and those countries quickly found themselves as pariah states.

    A flag on a nearby barn waved in the breeze, the Eastern Coalition of States. It was a familiar image, not unlike the North American Union and United States Flags that preceded it. But the differences were a stark reminder that this wasn¡¯t the country he once knew. Not that he had been overly attached to it in the first place.

    Motion in the distance took his eyes from the flag to a small vehicle moving in his direction. It was hard to see, but he already knew who was driving it. The old man who took him, and Tanya in after they landed.

    The buggy pulled up next to him. The mock distain from the older Asian American in the driver¡¯s seat was a welcome site. It meant he could stop this non-sense of digging and get something to eat.

    ¡°If I didn¡¯t know better, I¡¯d say you had something against machines.¡± The old man joked as Orion climbed into the cabin.

    ¡°Look who¡¯s talking. I¡¯m pretty sure this thing could have driven itself.¡±

    ¡°Ha! A human needs to know his worth and value. Just because a machined can do something doesn¡¯t mean we should let it.¡± Paul was always trying to interject his own nuggets of wisdom into each conversation. Occasionally, he¡¯d even joke that he was putting a book of proverbs together with his wisdom.

    The man had a bit of an ego, and an inflated sense of self-worth. Still, he was a good man, who took in two wayward strangers. Personality wise he seemed a lot like his daughter.

    Dinner was its usual hectic endeavor. A table just a few seats too big, filled with mountains of food. An ordered chaos echoed across its surface as various people reached across each other grabbing for firsts, seconds and in some cases even thirds.

    Tanya sat comfortably at the edge of the table next to Orion, bouncing a small child one her leg.

    ¡°And now it¡¯s daddy¡¯s turn to watch her!¡± She gleefully handed off a small squirming mass as he sat down next to her.

    ¡°Yaaa!¡± The small bundle smiled and babbled out.

    A happy sigh of relief, the fox girl quickly began to pull at the food on the table and plopping whatever she could on her plate. It all tasted good so she learned to just let her body guide her to what she needed.

    The first few days here felt strange for her, very strange. People had never seen someone like her. Sure, there were people who would occasionally dress up, but the appearance of surgically implanted prosthetics was a step too far for most. Or at least it would have been were it not for the others like her that began to creep out from the new patchwork of cities and towns that came from wherever Asher was.

    Even at this table, there were two physically not that different from herself. A man that looked like a wolf in all but name, and another that looked human, save for the features that resemblance a tanuki or maybe a raccoon.

    Suffice it to say, Tanya didn¡¯t feel quite so out of place here. Certainly not as out of place as she would have been a few years ago. Yun¡¯s father was more than welcoming of any help he could find or pull in as well. Few people in the modern era wanted to be farmers, well aside from the luddites. While that might be changing with the changes to the world, it was still slow going. But as food shortages continued, many begrudgingly accepted their new fate. Not that it was a bad one.

    ¡°This food sure beats what I was eating back in Elsewhere. I still can¡¯t thank you enough for taking me in.¡± The wolf man spoke between crunching on a rather gravy-soaked biscuit.

    ¡°Same. This world is different from my home, but without those false¡­¡± The Tanuki man stopped himself from finishing those words. Perhaps they were too painful to speak or maybe he felt a lingering sense of taboo around mentioning such things. To be fair, she could empathize with them. Even if she didn¡¯t know exactly what they had been thorough.

    Some days, she could still feel those digital tendrils around her neck, like Asher was still there in the shadows, waiting. So, his apprehension was something she could empathize with.

    ¡°Non-sense!¡± Yun¡¯s father spoke with a jovial sense of appreciation and almost joy. ¡°Any that are willing to work these fields are more than welcome to join us at the table. These are your fruits as much as mine after all.¡± He held up a bowl containing a baked pair. ¡°Quite literally I might add.¡± He laughed as scooped up the softened sweet, seemingly skipping the main parts of dinner for the sweet.

    Tanya gave him a side eye with a slight smile, ¡°Eh, shouldn¡¯t dessert come after? I don¡¯t think Yun would appreciate her father skipping dinner for snacks.¡±

    He held up a hand between bits, ¡°Bah!¡± The older man paused halfway between chewing, letting off a bitter smile that came from the sudden addition to his sweets. ¡°You know, you sound like her sometimes.¡±

    The words seemed to work, as the old man picked up some of the many other options from the table.

    ¡°I miss her too dad.¡± From the other side of the table, Arial, Yun¡¯s sister spoke up. She had just barely managed to escape the event horizon that claimed her sister, and most of what was New York and Newark. There was talk about a rabbit that didn¡¯t make it, but that seemed far less important then Yun.

    It was thanks to Arial that Yun¡¯s father accepted the two of them in the first place. While they had never met, Yun had talked about ''that halfway competent tech from the station'' on more than a few occasions. It was enough to convince Arial and Paul of the truth. The world would likely never know about its heroes, but at least those at this table knew.

    For a moment the table was quiet as they each ate. But the silence didn¡¯t last as the table grew in volume once more. Conversations, jokes, and even lamentations of the upcoming harvest. Tanya couldn''t help but feel it was kind of fun.

    Afterwards, Tanya took a moment to excuse herself from the cleanup. She had spent most of the day tending to her daughter and working on the machines in the barn, work which she wasn¡¯t quite finished. It was that excuse that let her leave the dishes to someone else. She might not have had the physical strength and stamina of her husband or the others. But where her mind was concerned, she was smarter than all of them. Particularly when it came to other AIs, like those that inhabited the smart farming equipment.

    Wandering out to the barn, she opened a terminal on one of the machines she had given up on earlier in the day. It''s internal program, really just a bunch of matrices and weights were all jumbled up and confused. Likely caused by a memory failure in the module she replaced earlier. The machines¡¯ original data was lost after the cataclysm, but she was confident the data could be untangled, sorted and in some cases even re-trained. With quite a bit of effort, and no small amount of time.

    ¡°Oh, you¡¯re just all messed up aren¡¯t you.¡± Her words directed as much at the machine as to herself. Glowing numbers and code lit up the otherwise dim barn. Her peripheral vision faded as she got lost in the code. This work was cathartic for her. Giving her time to escape the physical world and retreat back into some place more familiar. It wasn¡¯t the same as what she used to, as what she used to be but, it was close enough to let her breathe.

    The algorithm she had finished began to run, latching and stitching onto fragments, the initial output was promising. And then, the blueish white text turned a sudden reddish orange instead. While the color was not unpleasant, it did imply something else was wrong elsewhere in the machine. ¡°Couldn¡¯t be that easy could it¡­¡± She spoke to herself with a sigh. But in truth, she enjoyed this as her swishing tail implied.

    Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

    The side panel from the farm machine came off easy enough. Getting inside it was another matter. Technically, getting to the machines¡¯ brain required completely disassembling the entire side of the automaton, but if you were smaller, like her, it was often possible to climb inside though an access port, and fix what was needed.

    Her tail and ears twitched as she wrapped herself around a tight corner. There at the end was the main computer that controlled it all. One large board with six smaller boards plugged into it. Well, mostly plugged in. The black unpowered LEDs on the second one implied weren¡¯t seated right or possibly just dead.

    Shoving herself further into the frame she was just barely able to reach the board. Behind her, her tail swished violently, like it thought itself of a fish swimming deeper into a dark and cramped sea. Only she wasn¡¯t a fish, and this wasn¡¯t a sea. Instead, her tail fibers found them self-brushing along a tight crack between some joints. As Tanya pushed the board back into the place, the system began a quick post startup as lights flashed. The machine jerked very slightly, pinching her fur in a place it should never have been.

    ¡°Yaa!¡± She couldn¡¯t help but yelp as her tail pulled away with a few less hairs at the tip. Quickly she made her way out of the machine. All the while, reconsidering her choice to work on this from the inside.

    The small divot in her tail greeted her as she examined the missing fur patch. ¡°What is your problem tail.¡± The mass twitched almost solemnly under her hand, as if it had a mind of its own. In truth, that could have been much worse. She was grateful for just a few missing hairs.

    Everyday gave Tanya a new reason to question her choice in bodies. She could have just stayed that gray and plastic figure she started as. Surely Orion would have still loved her. She knew he would have, but the worry was still enough to make her sigh. In truth, it wasn¡¯t just Orion that made her consider this subtly anthropomorphic feature set she found herself with. At least one of the souls that made up her mind had been a furry, and a few others had some otherwise interesting tastes. No, this form was her choice more so than his. Even if it annoyed her sometimes it still felt right.

    The machines¡¯ terminal slowly began changing color from reddish orange, to a blueish white, and a few lines were even turning green now. It would take the rest of the night for the machine''s mind to repair itself, if it was possible at all. Tanya smiled, at least it was off to a good start.

    Looking outside, the dark night seemed to call to her. She had done what she had set out to do. Between this machine and the other two she fixed early, both which still roamed the evening fields, her work was done for the day. Nay, for the week if she was being honest.

    Pulling backwards, she stretched out her arms and back, eliciting a few pleasurable pops and clicks. There would be more to do tomorrow, and the next day, but it would be much easier now with the bulk of the challenges done. Standing outside in the pale moonlight night, her eyes traveled between the stars. Eventually stopping at the small nebula near the moon. It was subtle and fading faster than she expected. It would probably disburse in the next decade or so. Well, at least visibly, the debris would be there for hundreds of thousands of years. Forever, as far as humanity and the new races like hers were concerned.

    It was hard to say how long she gazed up into the sky, but the crunching of soil behind her wasn¡¯t enough to pull her away from the sparkly abyss.

    "I finally put little Yun to sleep, you coming to bed Tanya?" From behind her, Orion grabbed at shoulders, rubbing them ever so slightly. It felt good.

    ¡®Little Yun.¡¯ They had named their daughter after her. It was Orion''s idea, though she had no objections. It was cute, and it further ingratiated them to her father. Which suited Tanya just fine as well. He was a nice man, and it felt good to feel like she had an extend family, of sorts. Almost a father.

    Turning to face her husband she couldn¡¯t help but lean in for one last kiss. This was turning out to be a good life.

    Elsewhere.

    A desert baked under the light of two suns. The smaller one was quite pale, a shade brighter than the fullest moon. It¡¯s like was gentle and soft, cool even. Its bigger brother on the other hand, was a blinding ball of heat and light. It scorched the sands, and the land.

    Had they a thermometer they might have been surprised to see how cool the air actually was, barely 55C. The ground on the other hand, would have boiled a drop of water, or sweet at the case might have been.

    Two robed figures wandered the dense seas of golden sand side by side. Their footsteps behind them, taken by the desert''s hot winds with each slow movement forward. The robes saved them from the worst of the heat, but not gritting sand.

    Yun couldn''t decide if that sand was worse than the sun or not. It certainly got into places it shouldn''t have. Though the sun did burn, as the scars on her back could attest to. Arriving in the middle of nowhere was not a pleasant experience. That was nearly two years ago now, and though her feet had grown used to the shifting soil under foot, the truth was she was still used to running on sidewalks, not hiking in the desert.

    She didn''t even know where she was going, some stupid quest issues by that damned guild she was forced to join. This was why she never liked to play RPGs, they never made sense to her. Why couldn''t you just go grab your own damn ore? Why do you need ore in the first place? All nonsense.

    ¡°I fucking hate video games.¡± She whispered to desert winds, not expecting a response.

    "You and me both." Her robed companion agreed with her.

    He was an odd one, a foreigner like herself. But still different. It was odd for two mages to travel together, but he seemed to have all the answers or at least more than she did. Her companion was certainly more useful than Theo had ever been.

    ¡°Do you think it¡¯s watching us?¡± Yun continued.

    ¡°It¡¯s always watching¡­¡± He sighed, "Doesn''t mean it''s paying attention. Too much data to watch everything, even for a so-called god." He laughed at that last point, enjoying spitting in the eye of a non-existent or at least not present, god.

    After a bit of banter, the two fell back into silence. It was too hot to continue the discussion, and speaking wasted what precious water they had.

    Shifting steps on top of shifting sands. The most boring part of a game, a walking simulator as some might have called it. It was real, far to real. But then again, this place wasn¡¯t truly a game. In fact, it was better thought of as a world under a spell, a spell of creature not of flesh or of spirit, but something else. Raw data.

    The man next to Yun held a hand up telling her to stop for a moment. On his wrist something glowed dimly. With a swift motion, his hand rose up to a tiny black speck in the sky. A speck that grew into two, then three. Three specks that then grew into shapes. Birds, terrifyingly, deadly birds.

    ¡°Look like Death Head Vultures.¡± He spoke in a flat voice that hinted at his annoyance. ¡°You got this one?¡±

    Yun nodded and put down her staff. These birds were dangerous, deadly even. At least, to someone unprepared. The guild would rank one as a mere ¡°E class threat¡±, but a flock, that could prove more challenging, a ¡°D class¡± maybe even higher if it was a swarm. The mana she had in her was best saved for when she really needed it, instead she pulled out a different staff, one far too straight. It looked more like a plank of refined wood, with a length of metal wire running down it¡¯s middle. A quick snap, and two wooden blade like features pulled out arming the oversized cross bow.

    The first bolt let loose, blinding fast, with enough energy to rip the wing off one. With only one wing, a bird was less a bird and more like a fleshy stone that flopped and twisted as it fell to earth. A red trail of rain following it down.

    The other two birds cawed a loud screech at the attack and speeded up. With great haste Yun loaded another bolt; they were close, too close. She had just enough time to aim at one as they dive bomb them. A short woosh followed by the sickening sound of bone cracking and squelching against flesh followed its impact. She couldn¡¯t hear the thud of its body hitting the ground. It was drowned out by the fire ball that erupted next to her.

    The last bird exploded in a cloud of feathers and visceral. Gibs, if one were to push the gaming analogy.

    Yun sighed at her companion. The fire ball had seared the edges of her hair. Had it been a bit closer it might have even set their clothes alight. ¡°Couldn¡¯t you have used an ice spell? This desert is hot enough.¡±

    The man just laughed. As he ignored her valid point, wandering out to inspect their kills. Vulture meat wasn¡¯t particularly tasty, but it had decent water content. Besides the faint green glow of his arm crystal meant something else was in the area, something more friendly and larger that they could maybe trade their spoils with.

    It was probably the very thing the vultures had come to attack in the first place. This was a good time to rest, it was after all getting late in the day.

    The caravan was jovial thanks to their saviors. The leader of the caravan insisted on shoving a few coins into Yun¡¯s hands despite her initial protest. Unlike her and companion, these people were natives to this world, to see people of such strength and skill was unusual for them. Best to be in their good graces, they thought.

    Yun put up a smile, but whispered to her companion ¡°We should leave. This feels like an encounter.¡±

    Her companion nodded in agreement, ¡°Yeah, probably. You really want to leave them alone to fend for themselves? They¡¯re not NPCs, they¡¯re real people.¡±

    With one last sigh, she followed him to the encircled wagons. At least they could grab a bite to eat first.

    In fact, they did more than eat, there was time to even rest. Something Yun needed quite desperately. She didn¡¯t even realize she had passed out, until her companion violently shook at her side several hours later.

    Confusion quickly gave way to fear as she saw the very bright and very red crystal on his arm.

    Whit a shake of her head, she smiled, she was right. ¡°I bloody told you. This would be an encounter.¡±

    They barely had time to get into place, as the caravan began running off in different directions. Some of their supplies had been left behind. Spoils, should they survive.

    The ground vibrated, like a continuous earthquake. The civilian¡¯s no longer insight, now was the time. The man fired some spells into the sand, purposefully trying to attract the creature¡¯s attention.

    The crystal on his wrist glowed far brighter than either encounter before, the red dot nearly directly under them showed that he had succeeded. "Here it comes!" His shout proved unnecessary as the sands in front of the caravan clearly gave way to a rather large and rather dangerous desert predator. A mammoth sand worm.

    The guild would have classified this threat as a B or maybe even an A threat. Very dangerous, requiring a large part of equality ranked people. Currently the guild ranked her a C and her friend, well. Technically, he was F class as all unregistered self-proclaimed adventures were.

    This time Yun didn¡¯t bother with her cross bow. A sudden bright green flash erupted from the tip of her staff. ¡°Poisson-Acid¡± She whispered. A sticky greenish fluid made sickening by the purple streaks ran down the worm¡¯s side. The fluid stuck and crept into the caprice¡¯s cracks. A howling screech showed that it was doing its job, weakening the flesh for something more powerful.

    Pulling its head back, Yun barely had time to register before jumping out of the way. A torrent of rock rain flew from its mouth. The impacts were strong enough to knock craters in the desert. Had they hit her, it¡¯s likely there wouldn¡¯t have been anything left of her beyond a pink mist.

    Meanwhile, as she dodged the attacks, her companion remained seemingly oblivious as he chanted something under his breath.

    The worm was targeting her now so it didn¡¯t matter. She needed to slow it down. With barely a though she raised her staff once more, ¡°Ice shards!¡±

    Ice shaped spikes impaled the creature, striking into its flesh, and freezing both it and the acidic liquid on top of it. In theory, she could win, if she was fast enough. A bunch of small attacks, each designed to compound and build off each other. It was what she learned in her first few months here. Direct attacks were only good if you had the mana to back them up. Yun quickly found out, she did not. However, she did have a high capacity to learn new spells. In the end, she could drain its health with attrition, each small spell amplifying the others. There was just one problem, without enough mana, even that was hard.

    Mana, was not a problem for her companion though.

    ¡°Plasma bolt!¡± The man cried out. A flash, blindingly bright, brighter than even the high noon sun of this scorched land.

    The shockwave was enough to knock her to the ground, where she looked up at the new hole in the worms'' hide. A hole which was now smoking from the steam and charged flesh. A deep thud echoed as its torso fell back to the ground.

    Technically, the man was F class. In reality, he probably would have been classed A or even AA. He wasn''t S class, mages like that would have been able to glass the desert without even needing to incant. Still his power was formidable, and she already learned a lot from him. Including the mistake of registering with the guild in the first place.

    The desert was quiet again, but only for the briefest of time.

    "This is why I hate video games! The rules always suck!" Yun, finding the timing just right, held a slight tantrum from the ground. As her fist hit the ground next to her.

    "That''s why you have to cheat." He held his hand out to pick her up. "We''re almost there." His smile turned downward as she got up herself and walked away from him.

    She ignored him and instead wandered over to grab a trophy from their kill. "I just had sand blow in the most unpleasant of places, and you burned the shit out of my robes. I''m grabbing it''s fangs as proof of kill and spending the next month in a nice hotel room after I collect the reward." The coins from this kill would have made what the caravan tried to give them seem like pocket change.

    The man could only shrug, she did have a point. He''d suppose there was at least some value in being known by the guild, even if it made it easier to be seen by Asher.

    To be continued in Book 2¡­ Eventually.