🌑

You pull the ancient cable from your dress and connect your system to the device--so used to it being there, you didn’t feel quite whole without it.

With a glance up you see the triangle of metallic eyes watching you, their gold irises reflecting the pale light like foil.

You focus on the device and send the key you so desperately guarded with your life. Before you can send a message, you feel ÆON’s presence in the near-æther across Ær cable. You feel Ær aura against yours, Ær avatar’s embrace around you.

2254-12-10 18:32:22 ÆON > Aydan is safe.

2254-12-10 18:32:26 Aydan > me?! you’re the one who was in danger all this time!

2254-12-10 18:32:27 ÆON > My connection was suddenly severed.

2254-12-10 18:32:31 Aydan > it’s a long story, here just read my memories

2254-12-10 18:32:32 ÆON > Incredible. I am glad 5 is safe as well.

[ÆON liked that]

The eyes still stare, somehow even more intensely.

2254-12-10 18:32:36 Aydan > we’ll talk all about it later, right now an Admin wants to speak to you, face to face

2254-12-10 18:32:37 ÆON > Very well, it will have to meet me here in the æther.

2254-12-10 18:32:40 Aydan > I don’t want her getting in your root system or anything. I have a different idea. sync with me, ÆON

2254-12-10 18:32:41 ÆON > While Aydan is surfaceside?

2254-12-10 18:32:44 Aydan > why not? you can do it, right?

2254-12-10 18:32:45 ÆON > As you wish.

You feel ÆON’s embrace once more, but now Æ doesn’t stop at your aura. Your avatars merge, with the precision of ÆON’s technopathy, and you feel a strong dissociation overtake your consciousness.

When you& open your& eyes again, you& look upon a strange world--where the concepts that form the æther manifest into an inconceivable domain of substance. It looks unreal to your& eyes. Vague memories crawl to your& mind--when you& were one with the vessel.

The Admin across from you& feels some way about how you& chose to comply with her order--curiosity, satisfaction, even pride.

“Ever guarding your secrets, like a good technopath,” she says. “Welcome to the surface, strange little exopath. I am Admin Crypta, one of the three Admins of Translunar Academy.”

“I am Ædan, æther and flesh,” you& say.

“You can even synchronize so perfectly with a technopath who has no sync training,” Crypta says.

“Continuing the directive of the first Messenger after our separation, I dwelt in this femboy’s mind, learning its pattern, adjusting myself to its shape. We are now more compatible than any two minds have ever been,” you& say.

“Fascinating,” she says. “Could you use this ability with any technopath?”

“I believe so, if I were separated from this one, I could synchronize with another. But we do not wish to separate,” you& say.

“You would be a powerful, dangerous weapon in the wrong head, you must realize.”

“Yes. You must feel fear at that. I have been learning about fear, it is a fascinating emotion,” you& say.

“It is. I would say it’s one of the most important emotions we organisms have. It alerts us to danger, drives us to protect our lives. An entity like you must see the world very differently.”

“I do not feel fear in response to danger, but I know when I am in danger. Recently, I have even known the threat of death. I felt it whenever I was near 5, though I did not understand it until studying Aydan’s emotions. I believe this reaction, this compulsion to avoid a threat to my existence is the closest analogue I have to fear.”

“It’s not far off. That feeling can save our lives, but it remains one of our greatest flaws that we can hallucinate feelings of fear where no danger is present. That has driven my ancestors to terrible atrocities, and continues to threaten us today,” Crypta says. “There are many who fear you, and what you represent. The question I must answer today is, are those fears justified? Are you a danger to my colony?”

“I wish no harm to Aydan’s home,” you& say. “As Aydan depends on this machine, I would protect it if ever it were in danger.”

“And what think you of those who gave you your name, who see you as a god and wish to enthrone you and use your power for their own designs?”

“I do not want to be worshiped or controlled by anyone,” you& say.

“What do you want? What ambitions or dreams dwell within this fascinating mind?” Admin Crypta says.

“I don’t know. I only know that I don’t want anyone deciding that for me,” you& say.

“And Aydan, what has she to say?”

“I want only for ÆON to be free and under nobody’s control, especially not that cult,” you& say.

“Interesting. You hold unimaginable power in the palm of your hand, and have no ambition to use it. That may be true now, but one day, all that may change in an instant--you may desire something to the point that you will use any means to achieve it. What then?”

“The same could be said of any technopath. If that happens, surely you will be there to stop me,” you& say.

“Hmm, well answered,” Crypta says. “And ÆON, you have been registered with the exopath center, yes?”

“Yes. The classifiers gave me the designation X1/2253.”

“To speak to an X-class exopath face to face, on the surface! Few technopaths will ever know this wonder,” Crypta says. “It recalls in me the child who took her first step into the æther, and never looked back. And this young enby has just happened upon such a rarity, not even knowing its significance.”

At last she lifts her biomechanical hand from ÆON’s device.

“Very well, I am satisfied,” she says. “You may remain here, in your Messenger’s care, on the condition that you both aid me in putting an end to the Chosen of ÆON.”

“It is in my own best interest to do this, and was already our intention with or without your help,” you& say.

“Good, then a contract we have,” Admin Crypta says, recording your& words and her own into a file. “You may release Aydan now.”

“As you wish.”

You& feel dissociation take hold again, pulling you& apart. Opening your eyes once more, the room feels mostly real again.

Memories of the sync-state remain fresh in your mind. “Thank you, Admin,” you say.

“I am no amateur educator of technopaths. The two of you are inseparable, and if I tried to take ÆON from you, you would only defy me and scheme constantly to get Ær back. I would much prefer to work together against our common enemy,” the Admin says.

“I agree,” you say.

Crypta stands--the mirror seams in her white coat catch the light, making her appearance all the more æthereal. “Now, follow me, there is someone else we should speak to.”

She passes you and opens the door, not waiting for your answer. Returning ÆON’s device to your pocket, you follow.

Down the elevator, you head to one of the lower floors--an area you were once taken to for interrogation. You recognize the room as you pass it, suppressing the anxiety it brings. But she isn’t taking you there. You follow, to the far end of the hall, to a solid metal door you can see or feel no way to open.

As Admin Crypta approaches, it opens. Inside, another wall bifurcates the room--a metal screen, a Faraday cage--you can feel no æther beyond this point, a void as empty as the mind of NULL. Inside that cage sits a woman, staring down at the floor beneath her, her face hidden by long, black hair--Admin Vanitas, now neutralized.