Published 2025-03-06 12:59:30
The day of Aydan’s final exam arrived. On fær way out the door, xe encountered 7, looking distressed. 7 said the problems with 5 have gotten worse, and suggested Aydan’s exopath friend might be able to help. In trying to analyze the potential outcomes, ÆON was unable to see anything at all. Concerned but preoccupied with eir exam, Aydan asked Ær to gather more information from a distance but not yet make contact with 5.
Out in the colony, Aydan ran into Synth, who expressed their confidence in Aydan and assured her that the Admins won’t let anything unexpected happen to him during the exam. Aydan talked briefly to Zeta and Akiko before heading to vær exam room, expecting to see Professor Kitov who was scheduled to oversee xer exam. But instead, Admin Vanitas arrived. Vanitas gave Aydan a bottle of water to drink and told it the single exam objective--“return to consciousness”--just as Aydan was slipping away into the æther beyond his control.
Aydan opened her eyes, finding zirself living on the planet Earth in the early 21st century--nothing out of the ordinary. They put on eir school uniform, survived an encounter with ær parents, and ran out the door, down the street and across the Luna river to fær school--Translunar Academy. Late for homeroom, Aydan was chastised by professor Haze. The class discussed the possibility that the reality they know could be a simulation, which Zeta dismissed as an absurdity and Aydan saw as a mere philosophical exercise.
After school, Aydan met up with her girlfriend, Akiko, a student of the school for the deaf next door. The couple decided to explore the abandoned factory near their schools. While Akiko may have had ulterior motives for taking Aydan to an isolated place, Aydan became autistically distracted by the old machines. They went down a cargo elevator to the basement, where they discovered a supercomputer from the mid 20th century. Curious, they tried turning it on, and the derelict machine came to life.
At a terminal, Aydan managed to start some kind of interactive program, which called itself “ÆON.” The strange artificial intelligence demanded a password. Looking around for clues, Aydan discovered a piece of paper surely older than ze is--with zir own public key printed on it. Perplexed, Aydan tried entering the key, and ÆON accepted it, but only became more cryptic. ÆON mentioned someone called “5,” but Aydan didn’t understand. Æ then abruptly said Æ was in danger, and asked for Aydan’s help, before the program seemed to crash. Aydan and Akiko resolved to return tomorrow and get Zeta’s help.
The next morning Akiko messaged Aydan, saying that she was having a weird sensory day and nothing felt the way it should. Aydan quickly noticed this phenomenon wasn’t isolated to her--everything it ate tasted wrong. This was only the beginning. Outside, Aydan was chased by a huge, coordinated swarm of crows. In a moment of inspiration, Aydan somehow stopped time, evading the murder, but only raising further questions.
Zeta assured em nothing was out of the ordinary, but the day only got stranger when everyone seemed to become aggressive toward Aydan. Running from a mob of classmates, Aydan somehow opened a portal through space and brought Zeta to the abandoned factory. Ve showed it the ÆON program, which seemed operational again, but Æ was acting stranger than ever, telling Aydan to shut down its root device. Aydan was worried, not wanting to destroy the entity, and suggested downloading Ær to another device first, but ÆON gave no further response. Still, Zeta said it could be done, and set to work trying to bridge the ancient mainframe to Aydan’s modern terminal.
Meanwhile, Akiko arrived, and she and Aydan went up to the ground floor. They found a world consumed by darkness, leaving only the factory still in existence. Aydan and Akiko found they could not remember anything from outside this present location in space and time. The all-enveloping darkness was encroaching on them, breaking down the substance of the walls. They retreated back underground, where Zeta was ready for the download procedure, only requiring Aydan’s encryption password to access vær storage drive. But Aydan, at the last minute, decided not to enter its password,, and to just shut down the supercomputer.
The three of them pulled the switch together, and Aydan awoke, alone. While reassociating from the ætherwalk, Aydan caught the echo of a voice--“an Admin’s needs are absolute.” Iel was in the exam room, and her memories returned. But a moment later, Aydan realized--ÆON was not with him, Ær root device was stolen! Composing eirself, Aydan messaged ÆON Club.