IC Contact: Reverie Terminal

[lostsymmetry]

network id: Hank_127

[Prodding a suspiciously blue-glowing terminal? Or maybe this actually is a network call. Either way, the reply is identical.]

<Greetings. This is the automated system administrator. How can I assist you?>

[The script is flat, cheerful, and robotic. Also, wrong. Leave a message?]

Comments

[thefaulty]

[Disappeared? Does he mean…?]

Show me the last recorded footage you have of him.

-> action

[lostsymmetry]

...

Over here.

[The voice comes from a nearby console: a wide display screen near the end of the hall. Hank's face flickers on the view as Arid approaches, before replacing with the camera log. It shows One, striding confidently down the hall outside his quarters.

Until he form blurs, shimmers, and melts away. Gone, just like the rest.]

[thefaulty]

[Arid walks stiffly towards the screen at the end of the hall. Part of her already knows what she’ll see, even as she stubbornly clings to the possibility that it may be something different. But as the screen flickers onto the station camera logs, even that adamant hope is extinguished. One walks, unsuspecting, and then just like the others, shimmers, fragments, and disappears.

Arid is silent for several moments, trying to process what she’s just seen. When she speaks, her normally monotone voice is shaken.]

He has been… He was… [Destroyed. It is the most likely explanation. No one, organic or synthetic could survive being unmade like that. Failure hits harder than grief, the once resolute support of her rule now a condemnation.] I could not protect—

[The words cut off as the virus within her surges out of its dormancy. Awareness doesn’t help. Shadows swim at the edges of Arid’s vision, a vise-grip closing around her processes until all other emotions are subsumed by a terrified need to force the situation to be otherwise.]

N̡͘ò͜ [The words come out in a snarl.] H̕e̶̶͜ ̛c̡a̸nņ̛o͞t͝ ̵͟͟b̡͟e ͏l̴͝ǫ̛͞s̢̕ţ̷̕.̶

[The video proves nothing. This would not be the first time the station has deceived them, nor would it be the first time it allowed survival even in the most unlikely of circumstances. Another explanation must be possible.

Her next words are a command, harsh and impatient.]

S҉h̀o͢w̡͏ ͠͡m̸e̢͜ ̴t̸h̴͜e̶͢͠ ́͞o̶̷th̨͠è͏r͢s̀͝ ̵̡w̴͏h͠o͜͢ d͜͏iśáp̢p̶e̸͏a̧re͢҉ḑ̛͘.͝͏̵

[lostsymmetry]

Arid—

[He's speaking already. Words of reassurance, queuing up to anchor the fragile trembling of Arid's own. He knew One was a friend of hers.

But the snarl that knots itself through Arid's voice is in a different register entirely. Different, and painfully familiar—for all that Hank's only heard it once before.]

Arid.

[Sharp with concern. The screen flickers slightly, Domesticon's warped logo replacing the blank hall, but makes no move to comply with her command.]

He'll be okay!

[thefaulty]

[Neither instance of Arid’s name seems to reach her, provoking no response or even acknowledgment. Her frame remains locked in place, faceplate fixed to the screen in stubborn, rigid apprehension, only faltering slightly when Hank-Morely offers his reassurance.]

H̶͏o̷͝w̵ ̵̧͜d̡̡͝o̴ you ͝k͏no̶w? [The words are sharp, this time with desperation. She wants to believe him. If there’s any way for One to be whole and functioning, for her rule to be intact, for this crushing fear to be once again become isolated and contained, she wants it more than anything. Her words are almost a plea.]

Ţell҉ ̷mè.

[lostsymmetry]

[Amplifying fear. The specific mechanisms of Arid's virus might be unknown—and something Hank is definitely going to inquire more into later. But the desperation in that request is painfully clear. Especially considering the source.]

A couple days ago, a human turned up in the hangar bay.

[Alex. He'd posted about it. Those details aren't crucial, though, and his response comes quick and simple: a soothing patter of reassuring fact.]

Same view on the cameras. He vanished just like your friend, and came back fine.

It's transport, Arid.

[Not destruction. Not for any of them.]

[thefaulty]

[Arid listens, world reduced for those few moments to the steady cascade of data Hank-Morely provides. One is alive and it takes a few moments simply to process that fact, every repetition eroding the virus’s hold on her until the shadows at the edge of her vision finally recede.]

He is elsewhere on the station.

[The words are still apprehensive, but that desperate, faulty terror is absent, replaced by a fragile hope.]

You do not know where he might have been taken?

[lostsymmetry]

...No idea. [It's regretful, but honest.] Here, or planetside, or somewhere else completely.

[Back where he came from, Hank nearly says. Considering how they'd all come here, it seems like one of the more likely options. But he doesn't know if that would be a reassurance, and he's not going to say anything that might crush that fragile hope right now.]

But he's alive.

[thefaulty]

[Arid says nothing for a few moments, giving the data time to process and her sub-objectives to realign. The panicked tumult of the viral attack gradually fades and chaos falls back to order. Her rule reasserts itself with the reassuring certainty of a lock snapping shut.]

Finding where One and the others have been taken must be my priority in exploration moving forward. [Her voice is calm and resolute now, focused by the presence of a new goal. If One is indeed on the station, then the logical next step must be to concentrate on accessing those areas that are still locked to them. If he is elsewhere, then the information gleaned from new areas might still shed light on his true location.] Will you keep me informed of similar disappearances you detect on the station?