✴

To freeze time for a moment may give you an advantage--but Anko would know you’re capable of that and be ready for it. A spark of ambitious inspiration strikes you--memories of the deep æther--past, present, and future are one. Everything that happens in this server is logged--every state the machine has ever been in can be recreated.

Isolating lines in the log pertaining to you and Anko, your focus can’t hold too many--you load what you can in your memory. Just like stopping the flow of time, you grasp the fabric of the æther--but instead of holding it still, you invert it on itself. The æthereal fog around you flashes bright blue as you turn the expanding chaos of the ætherglow back into its ordered state.

You find yourself mentally at the instant Anko executed his texture attack. You hadn’t thought this far ahead--or behind--but your system launches a program, as if by instinct. Synth’s reflective shield covers your avatar skin, tuned exactly to the attack you’re about to receive.

Though you feel Anko’s confusion at the order of events, you release your grasp on the flow of time after he’s already launched the attack. It rebounds off of your nerves, reflected back on its user. Anko releases you, recoiling from the horrific texture covering his body.

“Akiko!” you say, in feelings beyond words. “I know you’re in there! I know you can feel my words! Now’s your chance!”

Anko shields himself--midway through your communication, your words no longer reached his system. At least he seems preoccupied for the moment, and you can reorient yourself.

The shield program functioned perfectly--but you don’t remember launching it. You look in on your system log: it was activated by...Synth? You glance up at the battle above you--Synthesis-06 fires relentlessly on Admin Crypta. Her defenses hold them off, but even the Admin is struggling to keep up with the pace of this thought-accelerated technopath. In that state, under Admin Vanitas’s control, how could they have helped you, let alone launched a program from within your own system?

Your system manifests another program--a thought-projection, a kind of SysTech you haven’t even learned. It takes a familiar shape, like Synth, but smaller, younger. The plate on their forehead forms--Synthesis-04.

“You?” you say. “What’s going on?!”

“I don’t really understand...but my systers said they didn’t want me to have to experience Zero Six, and suddenly sent me to your system instead,” says Zero Four.

“I didn’t know they could even do that!” you say.

“Aydan! Watch out!” Zero Four takes hold of your head and turns your perception around behind you--there Admin Vanitas manifests again in the æther, pulling the red veins of her aura back out of your subconscious, where she failed to find what she came for.

“Disobeying an Admin’s order, Synthesis?” Vanitas says.

Zero Four climbs up onto the back of your avatar, resting their arms on your head, and responds to her directly: “No! I’m obeying Admin Crypta’s order, you can’t countermand another Admin’s order! The Academy regulations--”

Admin Vanitas’s red aura flares bright, casting a long shadow on the blue fog around her--she seems to tower over you without changing her size at all. A chill of fear runs through you--an emotion she radiates.

“I am the Academy regulations, petulant child!” she says.

“You can boss Zero Six around because you have her auth code, but not me! I always remember that I’m free of that place!” Zero Four says.

Something about these words strikes you--maybe Synth had a purpose in sending you this enigmatic headmate, but what? Glancing up to the near-surface, you can feel Zeta getting closer to its target. If you can keep her preoccupied for just a few surface-seconds... But a few surface-seconds can feel like an eternity, especially here in the center of the core processor array where seconds must be vast. Maybe there’s something you can do for Akiko, struggling internally against her brother, or maybe Synth wanted your help themself, or maybe there’s yet another way to use this new resource...

Without knowing Synth’s intentions, the decision is yours.