Actual Draft Update, 1/2/21 (Patreon)

(Phew. Alright, here's the finished update, finally. Dialogue expanded a bit, plus the resolution of the scene. I'm sorry again about letting that get out of my hands. As I said, they'll be a week off unless I can get the next chapter 100% ready by the time this one is due to go out on RR, to make absolutely sure that doesn't happen again.

This version of the chapter is slightly different from the RR one on account of incorporating an intro scene I actually ended up putting at the end of the previous one instead. Otherwise, the content will be the same.)

Research Tower | 1:42 PM | Second Day

The room was, as a matter of fact, a laboratory. And quite a sophisticated-looking one at that. There were dozens of all bookshelves, incantation plates stacked high, and a variety of experiments (or possibly just test subjects) were held in suspension fields and tanks around the room, most of them looking like they were sampled or something to do with the human nervous system, which was expected considering the chamber's owner. 

What I expected less was the convention furnaces, great oval-shaped things of titanium and stone, and the tall bronze pylons attached to them all around the room. Intermittently, charges of bright light would silently blast between them overhead. It looked, to say the least, spectacularly dangerous. 

Funnily, though this area had been shaded from the exterior, I could see perfectly through all the walls now that I was inside. This offered a good view of both the headquarters bioenclosure, the arboretum, and even the Everblossom, some way in the distance. It glowed ominously.

There was no clear sign of Zeno in the vicinity, so I cautiously stepped forward towards the other end of the room - if it connected to the other doors as well, like Balthazar had explained, then the place had to be bigger than it looked, once I got past all the clutter.

As I moved, I noticed that the energy from the pylons all seemed to be flowing to, or perhaps from, the same place; a biological logic engine, right up against the window. It was only made up of about ten segments, making it far smaller than Sekhmet, but looked even more cutting-edge in design, the folds of neural tissue denser and more obviously interlinked. 

For a moment, I forgot my objective, and instead moved to examine the thing closer. I began to notice something. The charges weren't just flowing into the machine, they were interfacing with it. Whenever one arrived at the connected pylon, the tissue folds would shudder, then... Shift, subtly, the subtle lines and creases on their surface flowing as if becoming liquid. Then they'd sharply stop, a few moments would pass, and the process would repeat.

What is it doing?

"In infant human beings, the mind forms roughly one-and-a-half million new synapses every second," a voice said from behind me, making me jump. "But as impressive as this may sound, it is far from exceptional. Lesser mammals, such as rodents, not only enjoy proportionally greater degrees of neuroplasticity, but continue to experience high degrees of neurogenesis well into physical and mental maturity. We are creatures built to climb to great heights quickly, and then to stagnate and die. In attaining the wisdom denied to our genetic predecessors, we surrender their dynamism. Their adaptability."

The voice was feminine and childish, but with neither the attempt at grace and pretense that characterized Kamrusepa, nor the brusqueness of Lilith - only a flat confidence, with a note of conceit. I turned to my left, and saw that the speaker, who'd been out of sight behind one of the bookshelves. She was clad in a stark white stola with a tyrian purple sash, and was extremely pale, with straight hair that was an unnaturally vivid violet. She looked...

Actually, it was hard to say what party she was from. It wasn't just that she looked mixed, as anima scribes sometimes aimed for when that was appropriate for the parents, but that her face possessed a configuration of very party-distinctive features mashed strangely together. A defined but elegant Inotian nose, a Saoic looking forehead and cheekbones, the kind of very large, soulful eyes you normally only saw on Mekhians. Carefully chosen, yet not softened or adapted to one another, as you would've expected to see naturally in the old world.

The effect was strikingly beautiful if you looked at it as a mathematician, but unnerving if you did as a human. 

"And yet," she continued, "imagine if we could possess both simultaneously! The infinite curiosity and capacity for perspective expansion of a child, combined with the learned insight of an adult! We could overturn the entire discipline of psychology, redeem every maldeveloped or backwards imbecile, reformat our entire culture as circumstance demanded. Evolve beyond the base tenancies our species." I noticed she was holding a scepter, which she begun to toss idly from hand-to-hand. "But such a feat is not easily accomplished, not with follies of the Ironworkers hanging over our heads, and especially not under the cumbersome restrictions of the Covenant. So what you are witnessing represents the latest of many of my attempts to sidestep the issue through human-machine integration. A mixed success, so far, but the work is ongoing." She smirked. "Though, I expect you know this much already."

I admit, I wasn't feeling at my intellectual best after the conversation with Balthazar, and even though she wasn't saying anything spectacularly complicated, a lot of it went completely over my head. I'd also failed to jump to several other retrospectively obvious conclusions. Instead I stared, deer-like, for several moments. 

"Uh," I said. "I'm sorry, what...?"

Her brow immediately flattened. "Really? That's what we're doing? If you want to commit to this out-of-your depth child roleplay even in my company, then I can't prevent it-- Shit, I could even understand the motive." She narrowed her eyes. "But at least engage with the conversation I'm trying to have. Don't be fucking patronizing."

What the hell is she talking about?

Quick, try to ask a smarter question, a different part of my brain said. This might be Zeno's assistant, or part of some kind of weird test.

"I--" I hesitated, then gathered my thoughts, clearing my throat, "If this is an experiment to do with the human-machine interfacing... Then what are those for?" I pointed to one of the pylons. "It looks like they're just channeling in pure energy, not thoughts."

She gave me a critical look, her lips tightening. "Hmmm. Somewhat on the rudimentary side, but I'll accept it." She gestured to one of the structures with her forefinger. "Right now, we're at the stage of the research where I'm trying to optimize the logic engines capacity for rapid adaption. I already succeeded in creating a neurochemical feedback loop between the auditory cortex and one in an earlier endeavor, so what needs to happen now is creating a machine capable of first giving up, then surpassing human cognitive potential. The energy you is feeding an incantation that produces huge amounts of junk sensory data, then attempts to reformat the synapses as quickly as possible in line with it. At the moment, the amount of processing power far exceeds what would ever be reasonable for practical application, but the results are promising."

Oh god. I'd only understood about 50% of that. This was not the kind of interaction I was in the market for right after nearly surrendering my breakfast for the tilework not five minutes ealier.

Ask another question so she doesn't notice!

"B-But if it's only there as a power supply, then why is it such an elaborate setup? You could just be using the sanctuary's eris bank."

"Hah!" She made an immature huff. "As if that sorry excuse doesn't shit itself with even a little pressure put on it. But it is a valid question, I suppose - it's sort of a side-experiment I'm running at the same time. Contactless, easy-setup eris transfer, which I'm researching as favor to an associative to assist him with a military contract. Though you should know that too-- Gods, you are committed to this, aren't you?"

I blinked. "C... Committed to what, exactly...?"

"I hope you don't think it's cute." She went on, rolling her eyes. "Well, that's enough foreplay. Let me get a better look at you."

I opened my mouth to say something, but she advanced quickly very quickly to where I was standing, looking at me up and down with a discretionary look. It was deeply uncomfortable, though not exactly sexual in nature. It was reminded me more of the of the expression my mother made when she was really focused on gardening.

At this distance, I had a better look at the woman's eyes, and what I quickly observed was that they were profoundly inhuman. The iris's looked broken into segments of contrasting colors, vivid blue and red, and their fundamental texture looked wrong. Like something between crystal and flesh.

After a few moments, she let out an idle snort. "I suppose it's not bad, as scripting goes, especially for trying to salvage the essence of some half-corrupted mess of genetic code. There's subtle asymmetry on the browline, the cheeks take too much fact, and the hyperopia is a bizarre element that I assume has only been kept out of some misguided dedication to sentiment." She sniffed. "But it's not unpleasant to look at. I could have done better, of course. Or even Durvasa, and he's barely qualified to be a family doctor."

She's criticizing your anima scripting, one of the components of my deductive reasoning skills that was still functioning said. Also, she seems to have some knowledge about the circumstances of your birth. Probably through your grandfather, of course.

She's also criticizing you still wearing glasses, the minuscule voice that was my sense of fashion pointed out. How rude! They're pretty!

"Uhhh..." I said, craning my body backwards a little. "Sorry, I think there might've been a misunderstan--" 

"--misunderstanding, because you're here to see Zeno of Apocyrion, are you his assistant, etcetera etcetera. I'm happy to indulge this, but let's skip all of that garbage, thank you very much." She turned away from me suddenly and stepped to the side, opening up the inside of the logic engine and speaking an incantation. I noted now that her scepter was crowned with an owl of diamond, its wings spread aloft. This was the Owl of Providence, the single most prestigious symbol an arcanist could attain within the Grand Alliance outside of the government itself, awarded directly by the First Administrator. "𒀭𒅎𒌔𒂊𒄷𒈾𒊺, 𒄿𒍝𒍝𒋫𒊹."

Suddenly, the pulses between the pylons stopped, and the logic engine reset, folding all of the trays of tissue together, before quickly snapping them back to their original positions. Then, it started again, but at a slightly - and only slightly - different tempo. The tank of calorie fluid bubbled slightly.

"This body is one of several proxies that I currently have in use," she said as she finished. Her hand twitched, and she floated off the ground, gliding up to one of the nearby pylons and fiddling with a few dials. "You would think that with our stated mission and all their esteemed accolades, my associates would take their mortality seriously, but no-- They're lumbering around, exposing the parts of their bodies which can't be substituted to the elements. The old witch in particular seems to have a death wish."

"Uh, wait," I said, the other shoe finally dropping. "You mean, you are Zeno?"

"I'm going to assume that you're asking that literally, and not as a lead-in to a dialogue on the contextual nature of self-identity," she said, sounding disappointed. "This is rapidly turning into a very tedious conversation Yes. I am Zeno of Apocyrion. This is a body I artificed for my personal use, which I control remotely, while my 'real' one is preserved in the safest environment possible within this sanctuary. An advanced application of my Impulse-Transmitting Arcana, sadly as yet unviable for laymen and most of the so-called practitioners of my discipline." She snorted immaturely, with a wheezing sound. "Not that that's much of a surprise. Most of the piss-brained professors in Altaia I tried to impart it onto couldn't incant creatively if you held a hot knife to their testicles."

"But, your body, it's, er..." I trailed off, waving into conversational waters suddenly deep enough to demand swimming. This exchange really wasn't going anything close to like I'd mentally prepared for it, even after having widened my expectations. "I mean, you know..."

She turned to regard me with an exhaustedly bored expression, like I was a book she was about to throw under the bed. "Really? You're seeing a demonstration of one of the most promising avenues for the expansion and subversion of the human condition, and your first thoughts are of something as pedestrian as sex?"

This was, in a sense, a good point. I'd heard of techniques like this used before (though largely in a military context, not a casual one like this) so I should probably have been in some appropriate amount of awe about seeing it used, and used so indistinguishably.

Still, my own life experience had led me to hold certain preoccupations.

"No, I-- That's not what I mean," I said, my face growing flushed. "Rather, well... I'm just surprised. No one said anything about this."

She raised an eyebrow. "Said anything about what, exactly?."

"Uh..."

I stopped, first out of self-consciousness, then out of doubt that I actually even knew what I had been trying to get at. I felt terminally awkward all of a sudden, and broke eye contact, scratching at my scalp. Eventually, I stammered out: "Well, what I mean is... I've read a lot of your interviews, and you never... Rather, you don't ever discuss, um..."

"Fucking hell, little girl. You're acting like a mouse that's been dropped in a bucket." She shook her head, then turned and shot back into the air, levitating to another pylon. "If it helps restore your constitution to some level of functionality, then you're probably reading too much into the situation. As I said, this is one of several proxies I make use of, all of them with different properties. I have no particular sentiment about it."

"Oh," I said, not sure what to make of this. I paused, and then continued, "by different properties, you mean..."

"Sex, cosmetic traits, functional traits - smell, hearing, touch, sight. There is incredible diversity possible within the spectrum of human experience, in the latter respects."

I frowned. "Why, though?"

"Spoke Epimetheus to Prometheus," she said sardonically. "Because it pleases me, and is interesting. Diversity of morphological experience; feeling different sensations, performing different roles, stretching the range of ones essential nature-- That is the essence of mankind's intellectual gnosis, of cultural and technological actualization. The better question is not 'why a woman', but rather 'why not a giant lizard'? To which the only non-imbecilic reply would be 'because I haven't figured it out,' of course." She paused. "Well, that, and because it probably wouldn't fit in the building."

I scratched at my head. "You mean, this is just something you do for fun?"

She rolled her eyes. "Sure. If it will keep this moving, then yes, that's what I  mean."

I nodded, slowly. 

Funnily, I suddenly felt a pang of envy, followed by a more general bitterness, somewhere in the back of my mind. I made the executive decision not to examine this emotion in any depth. 

"So..." I said, following after her on the ground, still having a little trouble navigating this intellectually. "Is, um. Is there a specific way you'd prefer for me to refer to you?"

She tilted her head in my direction, smirking . "How about 'your majesty'? I've always wished I'd born early enough to get a noble title."

"That's not what I--" 

"Yes, I know what you meant," she said tiredly, this time gliding directly over to another pylon. "I'm most used to 'sir', but you can 'refer to me' as anything that stimulates your passions. Beyond what might interfere with enabling my research, it literally could not make less of a difference to me what socio-cultural phantom individuals opt to haunt their mental impression of my personhood."

I bit the edge of my lip, starting to feel a little annoyed. At first, the relentless condescension had sort of faded into the background by virtue of my sheer confusion, but now it felt like she - or they, rather - seemed to be acting deliberately abrasive.

"Uh, well... I'm sorry," I said, reserved. "I was just trying to be considerate. You're really not what I expected at all." 

"Somehow, I doubt that," she said, giving me a skeptical look. "You know, I really do despair at the younger generations. More open-minded than any since the Interluminary Strife shot our culture in the foot, and yet determined to focus on errata rather pursuing truly revolutionary ambition. Becoming make-up artists for the human condition, rather than the surgeons they ought to be."

That's easy to say when you have access to all these resources, I thought. "I don't really know what to say to that, sir."

"It seems like you don't know what to say to much at all," she said, then snickered to herself. "Ah, incidentally, did you spot Bal on the way in? I told him he needed to stay put until the golems finished lugging my equipment out of the east wing so that I can put him up in there, but he's prone to wandering off. Sometimes I think he enjoys pissing me off."

"I did, yes," I said, my tone a little terse. "He was just sitting around in the lounge you have set up."

"Good, good. You know, I think sometimes that boy is cursed." Stopping what she was doing for a moment, she fished around in the pockets of her stola, taking out a bag of chocolates truffles and munching on a few as she worked. "I'll tell you, the others threw a fucking fit over what happened this morning. Durvasa in particular was practically running a witch hunt against me, although I suppose that's no surprise. Going on about I was lazy, irresponsible..."

Why were they telling me this? "The prosognostic event was quite serious, sir. Ophelia could have died."

"Well, she didn't," she said, her mouth still full of candy. (The dissonance from the fact I was talking to someone over 500 years old was, to say the least, striking.)  "And it was stretch to call it my fault, anyway. I filled out the forms with his seed key and dumped them off at the security office. If no one bothered to tell one of the stewards to actually check there was no overlap, then it's hardly my responsibility." She swallowed, wiping flecks of colored sugar from her mouth. "This is why I always say that we ought to have actual employees here, instead of a bunch of aspirants we're paying off with vague promises."

I frowned in confusion. "I thought the stewards were employees. Sacnicte said that it's contract work."

For a moment, she looked strangely put off by these words, but then broke back into a smirk. "Heh, that doesn't surprise me. That girl is always trying to make herself come across as adult as she can get away with, even if it's half of what she says is bullshit." She touched the pouch back away. "It's technically freelance employment from a legal perspective - but more like charity work than anything. The stewards are either neophytes in the order willing to do a tedious job to climb the ranks faster, or younger magi looking for help getting into decent work. It's not a bad deal, since they get this whole place to themselves most of the time... I'd been planning to encourage Bal to apply himself, though fat chance of that happening now."

"I see... If you don't mind me asking, what exactly is your relationship with Balthazar? He's been pretty vague about it."

"Our relationship..." She thought about this for a moment, idly tapping her scepter into her palm. "Didn't he tell you himself? I saw a paper of his that was interesting."

"Well, he did," I said hesitantly. "But it seemed like there might be more to it."

"So now you're coming out swinging with the critical thinking," she said dryly. She seemed to have stopped her work for the time being simply looking down at me from overhead. "Very well: You could say I'm a... Patron, of his? No, benefactor is probably more accurate. He's a relation of an old friend of mine who regrettably passed away recently. I promised them that I'd do what I could to take care of him."

Oh, so it's just more nepotism. Great.  "That makes sense, I suppose."

"Well, that, and he's a passably decent fuck. Good quality to keep someone around for."

I flinched in shock, my face going red. "W-What?"

Zeno burst out laughing, losing her concentration a little bit and swaying slightly in the air. "Ahahahah! Oh, shit! That was even better then I'd hoped for." She rubbed her eyes, taking a few deep breaths as she tried to calm down. "Seriously, though, I was just screwing around. I may pride myself on my open-mindedness, but even I'm not the type to get into a sexual relationship with someone with less digits in their age than mine."

My lips curled in a distinctly unhappy expression.

"Anyway, once again, you ought to be well-aware of all this already," she went on. "If this is an act, I have to at least give you points for commitment. Even if it is kind of pissing me off."

"I--" I frowned. "I'm going to be honest, I think you might have some kind of misunderstanding about me," I said, my tone careful. "You keep acting like I'm feigning ignorance about something or lying to you, and making references over my head."

I spoke these words confidently. This wasn't like with Balthazar, where he'd alluded to something he definitely had no business knowing - even if that had just been him doing some weird guesswork - and I'd had that funny feeling I couldn't shake. I was certain that this was a person whom I'd never met before. Not in any memory I possessed.

Still, she didn't seem to take them particularly seriously. "Misunderstanding? I doubt it." She hovered through the air back in my direction, and slowly descended to my level, looking down from overhead. "You are Utsushikome of Fusai. Born in Oreskios, graded as a student of exceptional intellect during your Adolescent General Assesment, a high-ranking graduate of Entropic Thanatomancy in the House of Resurrection in Tem-Aphat... And granddaughter to █ █ █ █ █ of Fusai." She looked at me closely, those unnatural eyes glittering in the sharp, shifting lights of the pylons. "That's all correct, isn't it?"

"Well... Yes, it is," I said. But somehow, that doesn't seem like what you're actually asking. 

"Good," she, stepping back with a self-satisfied expression. "Anything else, I'm sure is best to leave unspoken. I'm sure you'll agree."

"No-- I mean, really, I'm not trying to be coy in some wink-wink, nudge-nudge way," I insisted. "I genuinely have no idea what you're talking about. What do I think I know? If this is something to do with my grandfather, then you've definitely made some kind of mistake. I barely knew him. We met like, six times."

"On the off-chance you're not fucking with me - which would be a hilarious way for this to all have turned out, incidentally - then it would be better not to be explicit regardless," she said, turning her back to me again and heading towards one of the bookshelves. "Besides, it doesn't matter. Even if you really are as you seem, Utsushikome of Fusai, then your role here will remain the same. Someone told you I wanted to speak with you, yes?"

"Uh, that's right," I said, a little frustration slipping into my tone. "Linos said you asked him to pass on the message."

"Linos? Odd, I would've expected him to be... Well, never mind." She traced a finger down through the tomes. "How much did he tell you?"

"Uh, nothing specific," I said.

"Good. In that case, he must not know what I'm up to." She let out a little simper of laughter. "I'm sure you've been hearing all sorts of abysmal-sounding things about me, especially from that sneaky cunt who's gone and positioned herself as your mentor. Pretending I am incorrect in my fundamental assumptions, then you're likely predisposed to distrust me." I opened my mouth to interject, but she cut me off. "And I have no intention of trying to disabuse you of such a notion! Everything I am about to say is something that will soon be vindicated by your own two eyes. However, there remains a concern that said attitude might lead you to fail to absorb this information outright out of pigheadedness. So I must insist that you pay attention. I am not a teacher, and it repulses me to repeat myself. Am I clear?"

"Neferuaten hasn't said anything to make me distrust you--"

"A binary response will suffice, thank you. Yes or no?"

Gods, she won't even let me get a word in. My frown deepened, and I fiddled with my glasses. "...yes."

"Good. Now listen closely." Her hand stopped at a heavy book near the bottom, and she withdrew it was the shelf before shaking it. To my mild surprise, a key fell out from between the pages, which she kneeled down to pick up. "After the public conference this afternoon, you will receive an invitation to take up an honorary position in the order. This much I know you have been told already. I'm guessing you're going to tell me that you hadn't planned to accept."

She was right, but I didn't want to offer the satisfaction of just saying it. "I hadn't really made a decision yet."

Holding the key in her hand, she walked over to one of the nearby walls. It was one of the only ones that wasn't comprised of the glass that made up the rest of the tower, but rather was built out of pure white marble. She pressed a segment of it and, in a swift motion that honestly didn't even surprise me at this point, a hidden hatch opened up in it about two feet square. 

"Well, regardless," she went on, sticking the key in the lock and fiddling with it, "it is in your best interests to accept, for reasons which I will now explain." It clicked open, and she begun to root around in side - depositing a spare scepter and several very old-looking books on the floor in the process. "By this point, you must have inferred that this sanctuary is more than it appears." 

I blinked. "What do you mean?"

"Spare me that. Regardless of his strange habits, █ █ █ █ █  would not be responsible for spawning an imbecile." She scoffed. "In the study of reverse-engineering, there is a simple principle - economy of functionality. Even if you believe you fully understand the function of a machine and can apparently replicate it, if a component yet remains for which the purpose is ambiguous, that means you do not, in fact, fully understand it."

She's right, my brain chimed in. You've had this thought countless times already. This whole place is full of things which have no real explanation given it's stated purpose. This tower, the sheer size of the bioenclosures relative to their actual purpose, the entire location at the bottom of the ocean on another plane. Even little things, like the greenhouse, seem off.

"You've no doubt seen that eyesore outside," she went on. "The thing that looks half way between a plant and something you'd seen growing in the armpit of someone who's missed one too many anima integrity tests."

"The Nittaimalaru, you mean?" I scratched the side of my head. "Neferuaten told me that it was an attempt to create an undying life form, one that could survive in any condition--"

"Little girl, if you believe that projects of that scope are ever conducted for some vanity-project motive outside of government work, then I have a bridge in Babylonia to sell you," she said, looking at me like I was a complete idiot. She finally withdrew what it seemed she was looking for from the safe. It was a tiny wooden box, small enough to fit on your hand - the sort you'd usually imagine holding a necklace or bracelet. "There is work afoot here of a nature most could never conceive of. We are closing our fingers around a prize so spectacular that it will make the world shudder as it hasn't since the Iron Epoch."

My eyes widened a bit. "You mean... You've actually found a way to attain it?" I asked, hesitant. "Immortality?"

She approached me, the object in hand, saying nothing for a moment. Once again, she came very close, to the point that she had to crane her neck slightly upwards to make up for the slight height difference.

She smirked wide enough to bear her teeth. They looked sharp. Hungry.

"Utsushikome of Fusai," she said, her tone suddenly very soft. "Immortality is the least of it. There is a power which sleeps here which will remake the world. That will fold mankind as iron in a furnace, and usher in an age of glory. That will grant our species unfathomable and beautiful dignity, and liberate us from this decomposing corpse of a brane."

That's the archaic word for plane, I recalled.

Putting aside how harrowing this moment was, I was starting to notice a pattern in Zeno's manner of speech, and their use of poetic reference, that was drawing me to certain assumptions.

"You look doubtful," she said, craning her neck to the side. 

"Well... It does all sound pretty hard to believe," I said. "This place is more than I'd ever expected before coming, but. Even with all I've seen, it's still just a research facility."

She thought about this for a moment, then glanced to the side, making a 'that's fair' sort of fold with her lips and nodding. "Skepticism is a virtue, even if it's a fucking moment-killer," she said, and stepped backwards. "But as I said. Very soon, likely before our invitation to you takes place, you will see firsthand proof. And that is why you must accept it. "

"Why would that even make a difference?" 

"Because there are rules to this place," she said, her lips slowly falling into a more serious position. "Ones which none of the sorry excuses for arcanists here possess the talents to defy. You have a legacy here that confers an entitlement to the bounty which is about to be unearthed. But first you must claim that legacy. Otherwise, you'll be like the rest of your class."

I felt a chill run through me. "Something isn't... Going to happen to them, is there?"

Her face flinched in annoyance. "Don't be ridiculous. I just mean that you'll end up a bystander... Which would be a tremendous pity, if you ask me." She held out of the box. "Now, take this. Its yours."

I blinked. "What is it?"

"Your inheritance," she said. "Don't open it here-- I don't want to answer any of the stupid questions you'll have. But don't open it in public, either. Take it back to your room. This belongs to you, but there are many here who would be eager to deny your right to its possession, and would say anything to make that happen."

"But not you," I said.

"But not me," she echoed, with a hint of pride. "Unlike most of the others, I still retain something of a sense of personal loyalty. Even when it's obviously against my better sense."

I frowned in confusion. "Loyalty to what?"

She clicked her tongue. "You really are determined to make this as awkward as possible, aren't you?" She pinched my wrist between her thumb and two more fingers, pulled up my hand, and stuck the object on my palm herself. "Just take it."

Once she removed her hand, I found the box was heftier than I'd expected. Whatever was inside was not, in fact, jewelry. That much was certain.

"If, like you're saying, this is something that will affect all of humanity, then I don't understand why it would even matter if I was 'entitled' to it or not," I said, still not sure if I even wanted to take this back with me and get involved, even abstractly, in whatever all this was. "It's not like I could take any credit for it just by having some loose association with your organization."

"It's understandable, but you've failed to grasp the scope of what we're truly talking about," she said. "We're not talking about some petty scientific discovery that will win us a bunch of honors from the convention. When mankind has taken its greatest leaps - the taming of the horse, the smeltling of iron, the carving of the atom - the people first to ride those currents have reshaped the world in their image."

"Everything you just listed were innovations used for violence, not healing," I said, stating the obvious. "I don't understand how a situation like this would even translate, unless you've literally discovered how to turn people into gods."

"As I said: It will become extremely clear before you need to make an actual decision." She moved back over towards the logic engine, shaking her head in the process. "Anyway, I've done my part, and need to shut down this iteration of the experiment before leaving the building. If you wouldn't mind, please show yourself out of the laboratory."

"Besides," I said, not knowing when to just shut up and leave, "I don't want a legacy that belongs to my grandfather, even if it's something that would benefit me. I'd rather just forget about him, to be honest."

"Heh, you're certainly ungrateful," she said, already seeming more preoccupied with the work again than my continuing presence. "Reminds me why I never had children."

I stiffened. "You don't know anything about the situation," I said, coldly. "Whatever you might believe otherwise."

"Then throw it out," she said bluntly. "But don't come crying to me if you change your mind later. Now, please, some privacy?" 

I really didn't want to leave it at that. It seemed like Zeno was one of the inner circle members who'd had a positive relationship with my grandfather, and the idea of letting them keep believing that I was some arrogant child with some petty sense of resentment for him made me feel viscerally annoyed. The lack of understanding, the lack of care.

But the rational part of me knew it would come to nothing. So, after a few moments, I pushed my feelings down, biting my tongue.

I departed the laboratory, deliberately avoiding slowing or even looking at Balthazar as I went. He made no acknowledgement himself as I passed. 

Ungrateful. Gods, both of them can go straight to hell.

I went back to the elevator, glancing downwards as I begun to descend...

...and noticed something I hadn't on the way in, that was only really visible when seen from above. The it'd looked like a solid color at the angle of the entranceway, the bottom floor was actually partially transparent itself. Beneath it, I could faintly see what looked like an expansive basement. 

On a whim, and trying to shake off the bad mood the two interactions I'd just been through had imposed on me, once I'd made it back to the ground floor, I tried interfacing with the logic bridge again. Sublevel, I thought.

Understand that I cannot comply with this request, it communicated.

Well, I guess it would figure that it was off limits. I wondered if it was where they kept defunct or our-of-use experiment components, but looking as best as I could, it didn't look like there was anything at all. Just an open chamber, lined with grey concrete.

No, wait. There was one thing.

If I squinted, looking at it from a careful angle, I could see the walls of the room, not just the floor directly below them. And on one of them, was a door.

Though, 'door' might have been the wrong word. It looked similar to the seals they used disconnect the bioenclosures from one another, circular and partially metallic, but much, much larger, almost running from the floor to the ceiling. Further, there were several huge metal bars to the side of it, positioned and connected in such a way that it looked like they were intended to fall across the passageway before jamming in place. It was a pretty elaborate setup.

It reminded me, suddenly, of the heavy doors I'd seen going too and from Aetherbridge the previous day. Designed to prevent the escape of any amount of air into the vacuum.

Maybe it leads out into the water? I speculated to myself. Just in case they need to access the exterior of the sanctuary for repairs. So the whole lower floor is designed to flood.

...But no, surely the pressure would be far too great for that to be the case. At this depth, once you let even a little in, it would be impossible to shut it again conventionally, and even a large room like the one below me would fill up in seconds. And if you were willing to use the power, there had to be better and safer ways to do it, like short-distance teleportation. 

So there wasn't really an obvious explanation at all. 

Perhaps it's sealing away a super-dangerous experiment! Now that the rational options had failed, more infantile voices were starting to prevail. Like a giant monster they gave immortality, but became *too* immortal, and never stops growing while being impossible to kill! That would be be pretty cool!

Geez. All it took me was a little stress, and I was right back to thinking like a 13 year old who read too many graphic novels.

I stared at it for a few more moments, trying to see if there was anything I missed, until the strangeness of standing around in the empty hall struck me, and I quickly hurried back out the door.