<< Return to Chapter 13

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“And there I was, alone on that derelict vessel, power completely dead, life support long since gone. That’s where my so-called comrades left me. Only enough food reserves on our ship to get 4 of us to Ceres alive, I should...

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“The lie was that you only told one lie. The entire story was made up,” you say.

Nezumi sharply turns his gaze to you. “Correct. How did you know?”

“It was all too convenient. Your crew left you alive, throwing away a valuable EVA suit, even knowing...

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Better not waste time when you’re already in enough trouble, you decide. You head for the back end of the academic block, where the elevator waits to take you to the world of engineering.

You step inside. This one is always a rougher ride than the...

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“I kinda like the martian neoZEROwave scene better but Earth-Moon æthercore is pretty good,” you say.

“It’s all kind of overproduced isn’t it? ZERO was always closer to the metal,” 7 says.

“Yeah I’ll give you that, but who among us understands...

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2254-10-06 16:13:15 Aydan > a private ætherspace should be secure enough

2254-10-06 16:13:19 Synthesis-03 > okay, we can establish a VPÆ session

2254-10-06 16:13:30 Aydan > great! so after I finish calibrating every random object on the colony I’m...

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Aydan > I guess it’s only fair to let you decide that for yourself, or else am I any better than the cult?

[ÆON liked that]

ÆON > Decide for myself...then, I want to come with Aydan and confront the unknown myself.

Aydan > okay. from now on it will be...

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You attach your terminal to your arm and mentally reconnect it to your system as you walk. It doesn’t feel any different. You look around, through every corner of every local directory, as you descend back to the wall. You set your familiar...

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2254-10-06 21:00:46 Aydan > unSynthlike of you to be impulsive and deviate from a plan, but I’d love to have them along! as long as they understand what they’re getting into...

2254-10-06 21:00:54 Synthesis-03 > I can be more social than my systers,...

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“Z have I ever told you your avatar is soo cute! Fluffy! Can I um, can I pet it...” you say.

[Zeta liked that]

“Yes...”

You reach and touch its fur above its display screen. It’s soft! Softer than the maximum softness exertable on the surface. And...

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“I’m glad you could finally meet like this, you’re two of my best friends,” you say.

Zeta happy-stims with its hands, leaving a strobe-like afterimage behind their motion in the æther. ÆON glows bright.

A door opens behind you, and a somewhat familiar...

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“Zeta, this is the Electrical System, the enbies I met back on the Moon I told you about,” you say.

“Oh, the one you made out with and started a whole corporate incident,” Zeta says.

“Um yeah, that one...” you say, half-covering your face and glancing...

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“Oh...amazingly good. Our first date, and um, first duel, our first kiss, it’s...really good,” you say.

“Aww that’s great,” Trisha says.

“It was so good I narrowly escaped critical injury,” Zeta says.

“That’s when a date gets fun isn’t it?” Trisha...

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“I dare!” you say.

The visage of Pulse dissolves and the soundscape around you reshapes itself, vibrating to a low droning note. The myriad passageways narrow and close off, leaving just one door ahead.

“Alright, let’s go.” Trisha, oriented nearest...

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“Of course...the Shackleton’s Crater Disaster! Every Lunatic knows that,” you say.

[Electricité liked that]

“A critical moment in Lunar history,” Synth says.

“The moment in history for Arianeville,” Trisha says. “Those Earthling cowards almost gave...

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The chaos of the æthersong is so tranquil--you let go and let it carry you wherever it wants. Deeper into the valley of eternal darkness you descend--falling four kilometers down with the boulders and dust of the broken cliffs. The regolith cloud...

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“It was a snowy night just like this when my little brother disappeared,” you say. “I just remembered, that same night, I ran away from home, out into the cold. I forgot until now...”

“I understand the humanoid brain has a mechanism to hide memories...

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You decide to try something impulsive, drastic, and normally impossible. Nobody could just step backwards in time--except this isn’t normal ætherspace, you’re inside a song. Anyone can turn back time in a song, even a normie can do that. You keep...

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“I almost let us both get isolated there, we can’t let that happen. Take us to Zeta,” you say.

ÆON opens a gate on the surface of the enclosing wall. Looking inside, you see a storm of angular fractal shapes, all black and white, spinning chaotically...

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You dismiss the dialogue program running on the virtual machine running on the pattern of the music and immerse yourself in the song itself. A catchy arpeggio dominates this section, repeating itself a lot. Just as Zeta said, the next part takes...

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You look over the ledge down to the far platform, counting out the number of pixels in between on both axes.

You see the arrangement next to Zeta, an overwhelmingly complicated pile of shapes.

You make a pattern:

▢■■

■■▢

▢▢■

You get to work on your...

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ÆON opens a gate below you, just before you reach the foreboding depths far below the range of humanoid hearing.

You emerge back into Lunar gravity and fall a few meters to a hard printed green tile street. Through curved glass and water you see the...

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“ÆON’s not the only one we haven’t explored, is Æ? What about the soundscape inside YOUR mind, Pulse?!” you say.

Pulse’s image turns and grasps the handle of the door. “As you wish.”

She opens the gate. Darkness spills out and floods the streets of...

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With your æthersense you feel the vast machinescape around you that enables this song to exist. You feel the frequency and amplitude flowing past your ego, adrift on a river, flowing through all of you from the source--the program that conducts this...

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A tough decision, but you can’t resist the call of the theremin. You take the construct and activate it. Its capacitive sense detects your avatar as you bring your hands near its antennæ. Using an instrument to direct your intent gives you tighter...

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“I can’t interfere with your self-determination, ÆON. I trust you, but it’s your choice to make...” you say, readying a command on your internal buffer. “But you also don’t need the help of this glorified chatbot. I’ve had enough of her!”

You catch...