2254-12-10 14:01:55 Aydan > they have ÆON.
2254-12-10 14:02:01 Zeta > *what?!*
2254-12-10 14:02:03 明子 > who’s they??
2254-12-10 14:02:07 Aydan > I don’t knowww it happened while I was ætherside and I surfaced and the device is...
2254-12-10 14:04:30 Ætherglow > the last thing ÆON said to me was about 5, maybe 7 knows something
2254-12-10 14:04:34 Ætherglow > stand by, I’ll try and gather more information before we engage
You switch to 7’s chat.
2254-12-10 14:04:39 Aydan > 7
2254-...
Her pink eyes watch you as the door slides closed. You want to rush in, confront her, get answers. But you suppress the impulse.
2254-12-10 14:10:07 7 > Don’t.
She messages you as the heavy door slams shut with a clash of metal.
“Aydan!” Zeta calls...
“Every lock can be picked,” you say. Staring up at the echo of 7’s avatar through space and æther, everything else dissolves away. Your mind follows the radiant pathways tracing a river of light through valleys of resonance, connecting you to your...
You don’t think you know chaos theory half as well as 7. But maybe a construct you created does--you launch your familiar program. The little creature manifests, invisible to your eyes but circling around you in the local network, fluttering on its...
Your empathic sense feels overwhelming--you understand her--you know you can still get through to her.
“7! I know how it is, beholden to the will of a mother who only sees you as a tool! A weapon! A thing to possess and use!”
You stumble forward...
You think your best chance is to incapacitate her before she can launch a cyberattack.
Your hands are pinned down, and you couldn’t hope to overcome her strength--but this close to the center of the colony she weighs almost nothing. You wait for the...
> gravitystim1
You execute your new program. You’ve hardly even had time to debug it, so you’ll just have to hope nothing goes wrong.
The singularity manifests in the æther between you and 7 and 11. Its intense gravitational attraction quickly...
7’s avatar floats in your weapon’s sights, distorted into a pink-blue-green ring by the gravitational lens between you. But you’re sure no matter how much you can amplify this attack, striking 7 head on is futile. You shift your aim and see her body...
For a single moment, you hesitate. Above you, 2 fires its full array of æthereal weapons. A storm of prismatic glass shards plunge into your shield, trapped in its water, each penetrating deeper than the last. Akiko’s shield surrounds you, softening...