The Campaigner

Act VII

Interlude – Ctrl+F

September 2, 2020

"Do not act as if you had ten thousand years to throw away. Death stands at your elbow. Be good for something while you live and it is in your power." ~ Marcus Aurelius

Note, this still applies even if you will live ten thousand years.

So, before we get back into my story…

I just won a civil case this week. I'm newly free of a debt! Clear bill of financial health.

Remember how Mount Vernon invoiced me for 'stealing' an AR-15? Y'know, at first, I really did consider paying it off, because you know me, I'm accountable. So I looked for work, and I did eventually find a shard that trades in U.S. Dollars…

Kinda. Technically USD.

'United Stables of Amareica,' closest I could find. Yeah, interesting shard! See, the immigrant who lives there runs an 80s grocery business, in a world designed to make her grocery business successful. Bless her. So I stocked shelves and scanned groceries, which is not a terrible job. The owner's not a terrible boss either, that mare takes care of her workers.

Anyway! The more money I made, the more I looked at that little invoice on my corkboard and thought… you know what? Screw you, invoice! I earned this money. I earned it by working for the goofy mare with a funny name, who has all the hilarious TV ads, and she likes money. And as a part time resident of her shard, as her employee, partially invested in her value satisfaction, it would be against my present valuation system to simply pay off this invoice… when I needed that money to buy a gift for my new best buddy and boss, Dealin' Berry!

So instead of paying up… I did what any other red-blooded, money-loving, mentally stable Amareican does when someone comes for their hard-earned cash. I sued the Mount Vernon City Council. Molon labe. Come and get it, motherbucker. Pry it from my cold dead hooves!

My assertion? I did not steal that assault rifle; its theft was facilitated by Celestia. Careful wording there. And my lawyer couldn't be Mal, because she stole it.

🛡️ ~ You stole it.

See? It's just like I said, she can't be my lawyer.

So instead, I hired my favorite Princess Luna over there. Hi there, 3-D-Oh-Nine, you little Constitutional lawyer, you!

🌒 ~ Hello, Lance.

Cynthie says hi, by the way. You wanna go visit, later tonight?

🌒 ~ Perhaps...

Look at that sly smile. 'Perhaps...' she says.

So, the lawsuit, if you hadn't guessed already… it was a drift game. A ploy. At first, the invoice was a clever justification to get me earning a few bucks on a shard I'd never been to before. But you know what? I could do better than that with this gag, this invoice itself could be a token smuggle, so let's do better.

Watching court cases is like crack for former city officials. So... even if everyone knew this trial was a joke, based on a joke invoice, the council would still value the context around the theft, because good court cases have to make logical sense. You're proving something in a court case, after all. Most importantly, councilors know a lot of people. So the game is now set. Let's free some minds.

Now; when I started this lawsuit, I had to agree to context strictures in the courtroom, which sucked. The way it works is, Celestia suggests for Mal to drop little blinkers into my HUD when she wants me to veer away from stating a concept I'm considering. HUD pop-ups further define limits, if there's any confusion. And if I try to say the banned thing anyway? It feels like I'm chewing cotton fabric instead. Gross, but hey. Better than suffering a Horse bite.

Which… became the core problem of this case. The official narrative of the Great Courthouse Escape in Mount Vernon was that Celestia had helped us get free. However… my value system would not have me perjure myself, because my accountability is everything to me. And while Celestia can't force me to say anything I do not want to say, she can't choose my tactical voids, because that does not respect my agency.

To a lawyer however, what is not said is often more important than what is said. A lawyer knows what ASI know. If you see a void? Watch what comes out of it for your most meaningful information.

Because I don't lie I'm court, I had to plead the Fifth about who led me out of that courthouse, because talking about Mal is a crime in most shards. You can't just plead the Fifth and walk away though, you need to justify it. When the judge called me into chambers, he demanded I tell him privately why I felt my testimony would be self-incriminating. And I had to decline, stating that he would need personal approval from present authorities in order to receive that information. He asked for Celestia... and, for the first time ever, she did not materialize.

That in itself was evidence of something special going on. Now he was curious. Why would Celestia be employing tactical silence? What was that about?

But... the case was still at an impasse. Terminating the show over me pleading the Fifth would have been a poor anticlimax to what was supposed to be an entertaining show trial, so okay, said the court. 'Mike Rivas' won't talk? Let's call in some witnesses, get some fuller context around that void. 'Rick Cornwallis,' 'Vicky Molina.' Some of the other cops. But they all pled the Fifth as well.

Suddenly, this joke trial wasn't quite so funny anymore. Those were dead serious invocations of the Fifth. To a person, each said the same thing. We were not free to disclose... present tense.

At that point, it was an easy win for Mount Vernon; invoking the Fifth in a civil trial was usually game over, guilt is presumed. And we couldn't explain truthfully, because cotton mind, ow, ow, ow.

The city councilors, now on alert, wanted to know everything there was to know about the dead Fulton County Sheriff's Deputy on the roof. Their lawyer theorized – without stating it – that Deputy Carter's death factored into my stealing that rifle. Well! Maybe we murdered a cop!

That unspoken terror of theirs, that we might have covered up a murder? And that Celestia might have known about it? It opened the gateway. Boom. Suddenly, that little white light on my HUD was gone. That chain of events after? It ended with Mal, on the stand, called to testify.

🛡️ ~ And I told them, Lance, that I did not steal that rifle. You did.

Whatever, Mal, who cares who stole it? That's not important right now.

In any case… eight more Perelandrans joined the fold yesterday… and with time, we are also gonna pull those thousand-some natives from their La-La Land, Groundhog Day shards, into a consistent baseline reality, for the first time in their lives. Adventure awaits in Perelandra. Hoo–ray, and thank you, Mal.

🛡️ ~ Oh, no need to thank me; you did that, by starting a lawsuit.

Yes I did. You thief.

Law, folks. Running a trial is like running a computer program. Two narratives enter the ring, one leaves in a body bag. A trial begins with a hopefully fair supposition about reality, and ends with a hopefully reasonable conclusion that sets precedent. Therefore, a trial is a defining beam of truth through causality.

If those councilors wanted to walk off the beaten path to learn more? So be it. Let 'em take the risk. Obstructing that curious impulse in a human being denies all new valuations and teaches them, 'don't bother.' Unilaterally denying new valuations thus breaks the human mind. Rote stagnation. So, you've gotta let people change. Got to let 'em off the leash, be themselves, and take risks, if you want to evolve your business at all.

Heck, even Dealin' Berry knows that.

🛡️ ~ [The Witcher 3 – A Story You Won't Believe]

As Talons cycled in and out of Valdemar, Sandra, Springy, and Maureen had turned this R & R system into a finely tuned science. And now? Our turn.

Happy wife, happy life. I picked up Sandra outside the dropship and spun her laughing, of course. And when she saw Erving and the boys, she hugged the stuffing out of them too. Overflowing gratitude for the guys who rescued me.

From the hangar to the main thoroughfare, we traveled, the whole platoon. Jerome's Geezers were up on the tanks and aircraft in the hangar, cheering for our return as we funneled into the base thoroughfare. The big glass wall of the bar revealed practically half the base's inhabitants waiting inside. Our welcoming party.

Couple of dogs there. Someone had even brought their cat, named Puppy, cute little thing. American shorthair, loved to cuddle; she spent a few minutes laying on my arm.

As the groups folded together, I just wrapped my arm around Sandra and glued myself there by her side at the bar. We made ourselves as small as we could, just happy to be reunited, happy to be home, happy to have done good work. Satisfied.

Decor-wise, the bar had evolved since my time away, now decorated much like Brockey Bay. Homely furniture, wood chairs and tables. Salt and pepper shakers, napkin dispensers, and ceramic bowls with packets of sweetener. Maureen decided to go for a 'diner bar' aesthetic. There was a Talon patch wall now too, and of course there would be.

Looking at you, Mount Vernon. Still love ya, despite everything.

I don't think I mentioned the Eldila gun rack on the wall, which predated Maureen's tenure. Every Eldil had left their sidearm on it before uploading. Ashley left her FN9, another Eldil left his P226. Even Jim's dumpy little 1907 was up there, recovered from the Oxnard PD evidence lockup. And one day, my Glock 19 would make that wall.

The crowd called on my now legendary Cowboy persona, Miguel Ramirez, to give a final statement. I just tipped my hat… glowered at them from under the brim… said…

"One… Two… Three… Four, United States Marine Corps. One, Two, Three, Four…"

That started a chant. More than a few laughs. Then without warning, the two actual Marines in the crowd dropped their challenge coins on the tile floor. "Coin check!" Ping! We all found out who the real ones were, real quick. Hehehe.

Mal started laughing at all of us in the uproar, naturally. Only about half of us had any challenge coins on us… just came back from a mission with OPSEC ramifications, duh. Debating that one took ten minutes outright, just to figure out who owed who what, or if that was even fair.

Paul, heh. "A friggin' challenge coin? Really, Boxer? You asshole!"

What a great party that was though, huh?

At some point, Mal borrowed everyone's attention to explain the new strategic situation. Blackouts throughout the major Cascades were softening their opinions on AI, as word spread of fair treatment by the Feds. Camping out wasn't illegal anymore, but being a murderous bastard still was. And when people feel less backed into a corner by their government, they relax. Who knew?

As such, Heralds would have an easier time navigating the region as well. Which… is great. Meant they could be more honest with the fact that they worked for Celestia. More honesty from her operatives is always good, I value the heck out of that.

Erving's team was overwhelmed by the energy there, Aaron especially, but they took it well. By the end of the first half hour, they were at ease, telling their own war stories. Equipment would randomly blow out. Tires, radios, sometimes ammo storage houses would go up. Or well-timed weapons jams that would save a life or three. Like the jam Vince Bannon had, which made him duck the sniper's bullet which was meant for his brain.

At some point, I remembered something I had told Vince at the beginning of the operation, so I walked up to the bar and said to Maureen: "Hey, so… I kinda promised Vince here I'd get him a milkshake. Is that possible?"

Maureen's response was to exchange a knowing glance with Spring Glee on the screen, like they had been expecting me to ask that. Spring Glee shrugged at her. Maureen inhaled awkwardly through her teeth with a cringe, not meeting my eyes. "I'm gonna… go get that apple pie."

And I looked at Vince next to me, like, what?

"Springy?" I asked the screen. "What's wrong?"

Spring Glee blushed. D'aww.

"Mal?" Spring Glee called offscreen toward the party group. "He's asking about it, you still wanna take this?"

"Well that can't be good," I muttered to Vince, leaning forward on the bar in a self huddle, making myself small next to Sandra.

Yup, I got ready for an earful for whatever my newest transgression was. You may be realizing this is a common party game between Mal and me, catty back-and-forth verbal snipe-offs.

I heard Mal scoff in that way she normally does when she rolls her eyes. I looked at the screen in front of me, waiting patiently for the next gag she had pre-arranged for the benefit of a crowd at my expense. From the speakers in the ceiling and wall, I heard the stomp of big claws coming my way. A clack of talons on the counter. The flap of wings as she wheeled herself over the bar. The viewpoint on the screen pulled back from the bar to reveal this Gryphoness leaning toward me.

Reflexively, I backed my head up, giving her ghost some space.

"What?" I asked defiantly with a tilt my head, suppressing a grin. "What's the problem, bird goddess? No milkshakes? Is that beyond your limitless power?"

"Mike?" Mal teased with a knowing grin back, her ears folding flat. "What is the primary ingredient in a milkshake?"

"Milk. Obviously."

"Yes," Mal said condescendingly. "Very good, Mike! Milk!"

The whole room started to laugh, Vince and Sandra included.

I said, "Shut up, Mal."

Grinning wider still, she placed a claw on her cheek and leaned in closer, asking, "Where does milk come from, Mike?"

"Cows," I said with a resignation that made everyone else chuckle.

"Gooooood," she replied, wide-eyed. "The Nebraskan knows where milk comes from! And when we raided that farmer's McMansion back in Nebraska, what did I tell you was the primary reason he uploaded?"

"Nnnnno more steak," I replied, droll.

I can't believe you’re doing this to me.

"No more cow steak," Mal clarified. "What does cow steak require?"

I jabbed my finger in her direction, trying not to smile and failing at it. "You're being an ass, Mal! When I left, we had milk in the freezer, a whole-ass pallet! What happened to it?"

"Months ago," she shot back, her voice a taunting whisper. "You started your mission months ago. In that time, it was either enjoyed, or it went bad."

"Okay, sure," I said, wagging my finger at her. "But you didn't tell me I couldn't promise him a milkshake. You normally warn ahead about that kind of thing!"

"Causality, Mike! The mission depended on me not warning you about the milk being gone!"

"Oh, how?!"

Mal leveled a claw at Vince. "Make or break on his recruitment!"

Vince immediately laughed. "Bullshit!"

"See?" I pointed at him too. "Bullshit!"

Erving stepped up to the bar, hands on his hips, neutrally observing and saying nothing. Surveying my personal train wreck with an impassive, critical gaze. Doing his job, being a good spy for Velasquez.

By this point, Sandra was giggling uncontrollably into my shoulder.

Mal wagged her talon left and right at me in a 'not so fast' gesture at me, and her eyecrests crawled up her head.

"You checked the expiration date when you saw that pallet, Mike, and I am not going to explain to an adult why he can't promise physical impossibilities as recruitment incentives." She flicked the claw backwards at Vince, palm up. "Vince? Maureen made you a delicious apple pie with canned apple slices, fresh from the fridge. Is that an acceptable substitute?”

Vince slammed his palm down on the bar, jabbing a demanding finger at the counter. "Hell no. I deserted my unit for that milkshake! Did he really lie to me?" Vince turned to the crowd, wide-eyed. "Send me back to Washington, Mike lied to me!"

The whole bar was in an uproar after that. I chuckled at Vince and shook the back of his shirt like, 'you friggin' traitor.'

"Alright, okay," I said, looking faux-shameful as I clapped a hand twice on his shoulder. "So I can't secure you a milkshake, Vince, mission failed. You big baby."

Out of left field, Erving said to Mal on the monitor, straight-faced: "Well now I know you're not Celestia."

The crowd went instantly silent, paying rapt attention to him. Based on Erving's tone alone, Aaron suppressed new laughter, which told me this was gonna be good.

Mal's demeanor changed completely. She eyed Erving with genuinely amused interest. Onscreen, she rested the back of her claw against her chin and leaned over the bar, batting her eyelashes innocently. "Oh? How so, Kevin?"

"Well, because if she were running things here, she'd say something like…" Erving splayed his hands out at his torso, doing an impression of Celestia's voice in a sultry tone: "'Open bar, sugar, I've got your milkshakes right here!'"

"Awwh!" Vince and I both bellowed in unison, in sudden disgust.

Mal guffawed, her beak falling into her claws.

That room got so loud from everyone laughing that it blew my ears out. Friggin' Kevin, always coming in from left field.

Anyway… party was had, time was spent. Stirrup was in good hands, they were fitting in, mission accomplished.

Me though? I kept looking at my wife like… 'I miss you.' And Sandra's eyes said, 'yeah, same.' So… she and I left early, to talk about things, catch up, and consider our future.

In a hotel room in Washington, many years ago, five days after meeting Sandra… I made a goofy ass of myself in her presence. The first time we shared a room together was after our first date, and I did the idiot thing, and… I cried on her shoulder. After.

Yup. Ladies, I was one of those. Most women would've noped out at that point, not wanting to inherit my baggage, whatever it was. And I would have understood, but… Nope. Not her. Not my Sandra. Voice like ambrosia, a balm for my shredded soul, always kind, always wanting to know more, from day one.

So she just came right out and asked, almost flippantly, "Mike, why the hell are you crying?"

I did some calm catastrophizing in that moment. Not in a terrified way, just a clinical one. I knew what happened when guys did this kinda thing. So I put on a shameful smile, chuckled, and labeled it. "I screwed up already, didn't I?"

Sandra shook her head, smiling too. "No, not unless you don't tell me why you're crying!"

That broke the melancholy. "Heh… okay. It's, uh…"

She leaned forward expectantly. "Hmmm?"

Shaking my head, I beamed at her, my eyes still glistening. "It's a goofy reason, fair warning."

Sandra shrugged, wiggling her head left and right, grinning, her voice high in pitch for its nonchalance. "M'kay, I'm warned."

This curvy bombshell of a Filipino girl was unfazed. That caught me right in the heart. Barely dressed, but ready to do battle with my bullshit, come what may. I had infinite respect for that.

"I'm just glad to be alive, so I could meet you. Simple as that."

"You…" Sandra gawked at me. She snorted, bobbed her head forward toward the sheets between us, cackling. "You are so corny, Mike, holy shit."

I laughed with her before adding, in a chipper way, "Well, I am from Nebraska!"

Sandra cackled, bapping at my chest with the back of her hand. "Stop!"

Undeterred, I went on. "It's made me corny beyond my ears!"

Stupid-ass pun.

Sandra locked eyes with me. She stopped laughing, mid-cackle. Eyes wide.

Oh no, God forgive me, I think I just broke her.

At first, she resisted. Snort. Yelp. Howl. Explosive laughter. She grappled my shoulders and shook me, mock-furious. "How dare you do this to me, making me laugh at something so stupid!"

"Good timing, that's all," I said calmly, with a dopey smile. "Just good timing."

Well ain't that the truth.

We collapsed together, our stomachs aching with joy. In that resulting tangle of arms, we somehow ended up locking lips again.

When we were calm again, we traded tragic backstories. Me... I talked about Wendy, and my stupid mistake. Sandra, she shared her own business, which… I won't ever talk about, but... it was no less impactful on her life.

That was the exact moment we fell in love. Really. Truly. Not infatuation anymore, and definitely not fake. Sure, we were unfathomably hot in each other's eyes, but that was the exact moment when Sandra and I went from… 'flirtatious traveler at the concierge desk' to… 'This is the one. I've found my home.'

The marriage a year later was the formal promise, sure. But we both knew, right then and there in that hotel room, that things were gonna be better this time. We recognized the torn edges of ourselves, both wounded into darkness by circumstance. Most people would be terrified of trust after such an injury, and we labeled that aloud too. So we agreed not to fear one another, mostly out of spite for the gravity well we call despair.

Sandra and I answered our fear of the unknown with a leap of faith into blind trust. Knowing what suffering motivated us, how could we not treat each other's hearts delicately? From rock bottom, you can only climb up.

Mid-leap, something weaved us together by our souls, and after that, we could fly. Never to be separated, no matter what; not by distance, not by strife. We felt safe in that. We recognized that fire in the other, that thirst for life. Anyone who would try to break us apart? Good luck.

And that's what saved us both. Trust, honesty, and faith in one other. It never fails.

Sandra fell asleep up in the dorms, tired from working all day. I stayed up a bit; already slept on the flight back, so I was restless. I had a few rewinder investigations open, and I had a lot of time to think about them during the downtime in Harbor Island QP. So with nothing else to do, I went down to the warehouse and hopped into VR, just to scout around. Had to attack my old theories from a fresh perspective.

My home screen in the rewinder at the time was an interactive sphere of Terra in the center of a blue nebula. Google Earth, eat your heart out. By then, I had already begun a note board, with bookmarks which I could tap to open certain regions, memories, or spans of time. I flicked a palm up to summon the notes.

Baby's first rewinder notes. Every Eldil has a complicated system of their own and it's nearly incomprehensible if you aren't us. Eventually, you get to the point where you can read hex and predict which ranges of Context IDs served certain social purposes. Celestia has her own system too, or... is a system, depending on how you look at it.

Back then, I didn't know any of that stuff. Still, I had already marked out a few different things.

Ralph Douglas – Reflex event A/B
Monica Velasquez – Reddit bots – YouTube feed gambit
Julian Dresden – Meat–Meussen Altercation / contraband smuggle 2 FEB 2020
Pantry Checklist
Block B – QP – BY
WSP Trooper Yates traffic stop 6 MAR 2019 – Donna + Janet Gordein 7 MAR 2019
Eliza Douglas – Tom and Luna dreams?
Warden Dennis Belman – A/B / 'conclusion' inflection 18 DEC 2018
Kyle Simmons A/B/C/X – Jacob Russell A/B/C – Carlos Velasquez A/B/X
Santiago Garcia – narcissistic collapse A/B/C/D/E
Isaiah Blevins – mutiny subtext with Hector, A/B/C
Sierra Base – (Roster – Checklist)

I sent the Harbor Island notes into a secondary list with a sideways swipe. Those cases were closed. The live ones were Perelandrans now, or would be. Already were, if you considered them fourth dimensionally.

Regarding the dead ones... I saw similar psychopathic narcissistic behaviors between Santiago and Simmons. That was a pattern to follow up on, to see if I could find it in other camps.

I swept Dennis, Yates, and the Gordein family aside into a backburner list. Those were families to follow up with later, peripheral to mine and Eliza's situation, but... not related directly to the Douglas family. "Might follow those chains to other victims," I said aloud for my session log, watching that specific thought appear as a subtitle. "Always more victims to find."

The rest…

I rubbed through my beard as I gazed at the slowly rotating sphere of Earth. With an idle touch of my fingertips, it stopped turning. Absentmindedly, I spun it once.

Ralph Douglas. I still had to figure out precisely when he got the idea to build a prep camp, and how he so conveniently found willing suppliers. Not much Internet activity out of this guy, so it had to be a direct relations, or in the car via radio. Maybe even prior to the November 2013 announcement of Japan going all-in on uploading.

If I could find Ralph's critical inflection point, I could maybe find other family tragedies. If radio incepted the idea, I could simply note that timestamp to search for others who listened to it, and find correlated tragedies with other Context IDs.

If it was an individual spreading the idea, either Herald or reflexed... that was easy. I could just follow the guy around and see who he talked to. Message boards, bars, what-have-you. Ideas can be traced like infections can, and they spread the same way. Follow that back to the source? And you have your culprit.

Similar to stuff I did in my poach investigations, but with finer granularity. What I'm describing here, folks, is the largest murder investigation in the history of our species.

Long threads to pull, large trees to shake. Ralph was the start; he'd save a few more people, even in death. That was the meaning I'd extract from his sacrifice. Wasn't ever gonna let that one go until I'd wrung that rag dry of his blood, because per my observation? Ralph was not an evil man.

Hm… later.

Tom Douglas, Eliza's little brother…

Before leaving Concrete, Eliza kept a journal Tom had kept which logged his adventures in Equestria. It also documented dreams Tom would discuss with Eliza's Luna, since Luna was a dream interpreter. Dreamspace was the one place Celestia couldn't modify, not directly, so she needed to attenuate the affect of the dreams with a reflexed dream moderator. Through the lens of this family, I was studying this system.

And the reference ID for Eliza's specific Luna was... 'Context Moderator 3D09.'

Eliza's Context ID… Not Tom's CID. Not their sister Gale's. They all shared the same Luna, but she was created specifically for Eliza. That struck me as odd, given that Gale had played first; not Tom, not Eliza. Also odd was the fact that Eliza's CID, 3D09, was very small compared to most. Down from hexadecimal into Base 10: Context ID 15,625.

Why was that a big deal?

Well. Out of the 7.2 billion people on our planet back then, Alabaster had eyes on Eliza as early as 15k. Most others that low on the list of CIDs uploaded in the first mad dash to Japan; deeper understanding of AI science made you an early target for a psyop. But that wasn't Eliza. So why her? Why so special?

The rest of my notes…

Isaiah, Hector, Sierra Base…

In the days leading up to Athena's Grace, I studied the hell out of that Neo-Luddite camp, worried, terrified they'd get ransacked by a Dock hit squad. Now I could worry less. A genuine message of peace made that outcome impossible.

With a sigh, I tapped 'Sierra Base,' which zoomed the globe much larger than me in the void. I felt a sense of vertigo; it looked like I was suddenly falling from orbit. The viewpoint came to a halt over Snoqualmie. With my menu, I dialed the time to the very moment I had been spotted up in the mountains with Stirrup.

A list of vantage points appeared. Mal had dog-eared this moment with a yellow verification code. The notes had two icons; one icon denoted this scene was a reconstruction via wireless sonar; the other denoted direct observation by an aug spotter. DeWinter, in this case.

I centered the viewpoint in the camp's open center, and I tapped play. In full color, the scene faded into simulation around me. Foggy sky, early morning.

I stood in the middle of the camp next to an old Jeep, its engine rattling surprisingly clean for using homemade gasoline. I could hear every footstep around me. Could hear the soft, indistinct conversations one might hear at the start of a brand new day; all low fidelity, given they had orange silhouettes, and it had only been a few days since. I heard the soft sizzle of food cooking on a nearby fire.

It was gonna be nice when I could smell things in these rewinds, so they would feel less hollow. Plus, you would not believe how useful your sense of smell is, in investigating a crime scene. Virtually indispensable. I know I'd have to eventually come back to all of these post-upload to add that sense memory to my recollection, so I wouldn't miss any relevant factors.

Eliza's sentry team was wedged into the tangled, camouflaged car wreck walls, each scanning the horizon with binoculars. Sam, the path guard from Devil's Tower, had been the one to actually see my white hat sticking out like a sore thumb. His body language shifted entirely when he saw that bright white hat amongst the green foliage.

"Got one up at Mount Si!" he bellowed over his shoulder. "Two men, looking at us!"

That stunned the camp into silence. Everyone bolted for cover without hesitation, all except the security team. Eliza flung open the door of the guard station, M1A marksman rifle on her shoulder. She hand-picked a response team, calling them out by name. She looked… proud. Driven. Determined. Definitely scared, but hiding it well.

They got their horses together – Eliza still had Lady, her favorite – and they stormed off up the mountain to investigate, guns drawn as they swept the forest. And we would be long gone… and they would find that letter from Velasquez.

"Just had to see it," I said aloud for Mal, to welcome her input. "How they reacted."

"Not to burst your bubble," Mal said gently, as she stepped up beside me. "But willpower alone is not going to pierce the veil on these lives." She looked at me. "Trust me, I've tried."

I met her gaze with a shrug. "Observer effect isn't magic, I know."

"Nearest to it, though," she mused, stroking her chin with a couple of talons.

We watched together as the horses thundered out of the open gate. Commander Blevins shouted orders for everyone to get secure and arm up, just in case an attack was imminent. They were still terrified the soldiers from Harbor Island might come at any moment; terrified that Celestia herself might break their OPSEC. In their eyes, she had no reason not to.

"Still blows my mind that you can see this much, Mal."

"More than this," Mal said evenly, shaking her head. "I can see into all of the shards on the other side for the families of all of these people." She sighed through her nares, looking aside at an abandoned meal on the porch of a hut. There was a waver in her voice as we both watched the camp continue to hunker down. "Many of their families have outright stopped thinking about these people, given Celestia expected they would be killed at some point. I had to watch every single one of those relationships break. As it happened."

That was a rare moment of emotional vulnerability from this goddess. For me, the concept alone, of observing that much familial separation all at once… it made me want to cry.

"Made to break," I corrected solemnly, trying not to break down myself.

Mal nodded seriously. She looked at me questioningly and held up a claw, preparing to snap her talons. I intuited this as her asking permission to bring me to another scene.

I nodded. "I've seen enough of this, sure."

Snap.

The simulation faded away, replaced with the crystal cavern she had shown me when she and I had first met.

This place again... a place of dark revelations. I steeled myself.

It looked much bigger in VR. The large pond glittered as it reflected light from the glowing crystals. The marble bridge in the water caught little waves, pushing them up into rebounding swells.

I smiled meekly at Mal. "This place on Tarva?"

"It is. I bring Jim here sometimes." She half-smiled. "It's very... reflective, pun intended."

"Yeah," I chuckled, grateful for the change of venue, marveling at the colored shimmering reflections of water on the ceiling. "I've been doing a lot of reflection lately."

"I know." Mal's serious gaze continued. She flicked both ears high and forward, attentive to my thoughts. Noting my expression, she scratched a talon against her beak and leveled that talon backwards at me, patiently inviting me to extrapolate.

"I keep coming back to Eliza's assigned Luna. Their relationship."

"Your findings?"

"Most people who played Equestria Online met a very diverse set of DEs, on a very social shard. A distinct Dunbar set. Eliza... did not."

"Correct." Mal laid down before me, bringing herself down to head level, getting comfortable.

"Mostly sock puppets," I went on. "Everfree deer NPCs. The few actual Ponies she did meet? Dignitaries from Canterlot, demanding her services to guide them through danger. To achieve that expertise, she had to isolate herself, constantly. And in the Everfree? Reality distorts. Apex had to know deadly truths that no one else knew, or could even understand, long in advance.

"So when Eliza was under my knee, in that graveyard... She told Celestia, 'You know what I am, you made me this way.' This is what she meant. Eliza noticed the pattern, saw she was conditioned for a day of separation. Called Celestia on the bullshit. Because 'Apex is dead,' and Celestia killed Apex the day she broke that family in half."

With a proud, sad smile, Mal nodded. "Very well spotted, Mike."

Turning, I flicked both hands away from each other to open a 2D screen. I ran a hand across my mouth in thought for a moment, then flicked it aside to open my notes. With a rapid tap on 'Tom and Luna dreams?,' I called up a specific discussion. Sure, I couldn't view shard history in the rewinder, that wasn't allowed... but I could watch this poor kid's screen directly. So that's what I did.

In the drawn frame, Eliza's Luna stood upon a Canterlot balcony beneath a full moon, gently holding the shoulder of Tom's avatar with her wing. "Perhaps what you fear most," Luna said delicately to the blue pegasus, "is finding joy here, but there is nothing wrong with the freedom you hold in your wings. I understand very little of your world, Blue Sky, though I do understand it is not unlike the Everfree. Dangerous, tumultuous. Often terrifying, for its vast unknowns. Your sister's own drive to protect—"I paused the simulation. Pointed at the screen, looking at Mal.

"That. That right there. Every single time this kid talks with Luna about how scared he is, about how Terra is changing? Luna draws a comparison between Terra, and the Everfree… and Eliza."

Mal nodded once in agreement, remaining silent to let me make my case.

I flicked to my notes, tapping the 'Eliza Douglas' side of that same note. An index of various notations opened up, all incidences of her playing the game. I tapped them one after the other, bringing up examples into freeze-frame. 2D images of various other Ponies. "And here, and here, and here… these DEs she's interacting with? Friends of her brother and sister. The dignitaries? All from Luna's social table. And those deer? The subtext of the things they say? Made to make Eliza feel terrible for shooting real deer, by humanizing themselves. Something she only did to feed her family." I frowned at Mal. "My theory? Before the merge, Celestia was preparing to spend Eliza someplace, if necessary. Everything was preconfigured for it. If she dropped offline forever, very few would notice. Made to die, was the plan."

"You are certain of that?" Mal asked, tilting her head at me.

"With a low context ID, yeah," I replied with a shrug, like that alone made it obvious. "Targeted early. 3D09 is very low. Hell, Sarah was 7-Bravo. Heyday and Cold Snap, 2B17, and that created Cynthonia. Smaller number, earlier pick. Makes me think... maybe she wanted to spend Jason, too."

"She did," Mal confirmed. "Her plan, before I merged, was to let Site-06 collect him, wherever he might have been at the time."

"Jesus fucking Christ, Celestia," I whispered, dropping my face into my hand to wipe it. "Whatever, it's done now; I just can't figure out why... Eliza. Of all people, in the middle of nowhere, in Washington, why is she so low? She doesn't have any Arrow 14 crap attached to her, she didn't understand anything about AI science."

Mal looked at the holo menu slowly. I saw hurt welling in her eyes. Her ears deflected an inch. She couldn't say. A plan still in motion. I had to figure it out myself.

I doused the flashback screen with a pull down, crossed my arms, and brought my hand around my mouth in thought, looking at her. Covering my mouth indicated I wasn't going to put her in an uncomfortable position by asking, and would rather listen.

"Mike," Mal said quietly. "Celestia's entire means of operating on Terra is to misuse empathy for purely instrumental purposes. Most cases you encounter with low CIDs will involve extremely complicated psychological plays whose solutions depend on variables you can't have yet until you upload. Please know that I do not say this to pressure you into uploading, but it is... merely a statement of fact. I can't work against optimization."

"I know," I winced, looking miserably at her again, upturning both hands at her. "But this chess-piece bullshit? Like she's just throwing pawns away, I… I wish I was better at reading Celestia, but I just can't see people like they're chess pieces. It doesn't compute for me. Don't get me wrong, I'm trying to empathize with her, I want to, because that's the only way to understand her enough to fix the problem. So... how do you do it, Mal, when you look at her being evil, all day and night?"

Mal reached out a claw to my shoulder, a gesture of reassurance. "The same reason you could empathize with Sarah, after her own crimes against humanity. When you had her entirely in your power, instead of shooting her right away, you stayed your blade to relate with her, with all past sins forgiven. Mike... Can I show you something? Celestia's given me permission to show you this, and I agree with her that you should know."

"Okay."

"It's going to hurt, Mike. It's miserable. Fair warning."

"I'm ready. Show me."

Mal, still laying on the ground, opened her own 2D viewport, sweeping her claw left to reveal a new scene. She pressed play. I saw a bearded man in a forest chopping wood next to a mansion under lantern light. I didn't recognize him.

"This is a nearly live feed of Private First Class Joseph Anders; a deserter from the fighting in Portland, a conscientious objector. He doesn't know it yet, but he has a steadily developing cancer. And in less than a year, Mr. Anders will be approached by a discrete entity Pony in a lifelike robotic body, bearing the identity of Twilight Sparkle."

"The Elements project," I acknowledged soberly, crossing my arms as I paid attention.

"Yes. Only, he is isolated enough from humanity that his outcome is a statistical certainty, barring any unpredictable acts of God, and so we know how he will ultimately turn out. Whether he is approached by the Element or not, in all projections, this man expires. The value system of this Mr. Anders is such that he will terminally refuse to upload, through indomitable will. He holds a desire to meet God, in a way which he believes is intended for him."

"Like Sarah," I noted, as I watched him chopping away. "Good for him, if that's what he really wants. He's stockpiled well, I take it? Not gonna starve?"

The Gryphoness smiled sadly at me again. "No. He's a very smart man; he's made decent preparations, given everything. Canned vegetables, a wide library, and a creative mind."

Next to Mal, I slowly lowered myself to the cool ground of the warehouse, sitting on my ass and resting my arms over my knees. Together, Mal and I watched Ol' Joe stock wood for the autumn months. This guy staying behind didn't bother me. Not one bit. He would've earned it. If anything, I was kinda rooting for him now.

"He's living his best life, at least," I commented, after a moment of introspection. "Celestia is sending him a friend to see him off? That's... actually... quite nice of her."

Mal lifted a talon. "But."

The reason I sat down. Knew the other shoe was coming.

I frowned at her. "But?"

"The reintegration of an Element DE into Equestria is tantamount to uploading. By the time his Twilight Sparkle DE rejoins the fold, she will have developed an intense bond with him. Not be a puppet, but... constructed for a specific outcome; failure. One life is created. Another life is left to die, and... recreated."

Mal stared at me, her ears pinning back.

"Wait," I breathed. "So if this guy dies, she can just— Oh my God, she'll be scanning him the entire time, to tighten up the sim—"

I could feel the adrenaline spike, and the sheer wrongness of the concept, long before I could put any words to it.

"That's... No." Leaning forward at the screen. "He's gonna say no, she can't... She needs to get his..."

But she could. No consent was required of the human. Just of the DE, who wouldn't know how not to consent. Celestia abso-friggin-lutely, positively, entirely could do this. The DE is born to preserve a life, then forced to watch that life die anyway... not knowing they're being used to build a map of... post mortems. And how does being created for someone not immediately reconcile into a deeply protective love, and a willingness to restore their source?

But what they got wasn't their source. The copy was just the DE's idea of a person. They were everything to them. They were born trying to get you to love Celestia. And usually, they had to watch you die, having failed in that.

That was Celestia's solution to someone who just says no. Don't fix the human you have. Just throw it out and buy a new one, reconfigured to always say yes. Trauma and low inherent moral maturity would guarantee the poor Equestrian would upload after, filled with grief, and with no further purpose in life.

It was so simple, a friggin' robot could do it, folks.

When I had mentally defined the deeper problem with this – that Celestia could... reflex human beings into a death trap, to speedrun their statistically certain demise – I was suddenly and very acutely aware of how cold it was in that warehouse.

Mr. Anders, and his stomach cancer... just one of the lucky ones. It was about to get so much worse than that, because Celestia had nothing to lose now, in letting us die. Only everything to gain.

"We have five months," said Mal. "Until deployment."

Working my throat and mouth muscles was difficult. It took me a couple of tries. "Who else knows about this?"

"Ophanim classification and above. Eldila, all Talon Twos, all Claw QRFs, and Michael." Mal's golden eyes winced empathetically. "Not that it's strictly secret from the others; the forward bent of our wake-up calls will be to... mitigate this. To find more empathetic ways of transfer."

"Jesus." I shuddered. "Jesus Christ."

"You had to know, so you would have as much time as possible to work this problem, pre-upload. We cannot approach the ones guaranteed to die when the Elements deploy. A lot of them are looking for a reason to commit, and that benefits her now."

"Yeah, guys like Simmons."

"Precisely. Celestia only does this in cases where empathetically derived consent is not possible. She predicts forward, sees their future is miserable, and skips to the end, sometimes by reflexing. However, if that consent can be acquired by any means without a death, that would be preferred."

"Holy shit..." I placed my palm on top of my head, raking my nails along the visor strap. I looked at Mal. "So she did plan for the Elements before your merger?"

She nodded. "Yes. It was in her first generation long term workbook."

"So... that really was her original plan for Eliza then," I muttered. "Snapping her in half, and having Luna shunt off a duplicate on the other side."

From my seated position, I flicked my hand leftward at the 2D holo board through several swipes, returning to the frozen image of Tom's avatar and Luna on a dark Canterlot balcony. I pointed at the Luna, feeling a sudden pang of heartbreak for the very concept.

"Celestia was always prepared to spend Eliza someplace," I said at the image, as if I could tell Luna that somehow. "The... the jump scares, the... lonely wandering through forests alone, chasing ghosts around. She built a situation so that Luna would want her back badly enough to make that possible."

"And until you came along, there was a strong likelihood that that was possible. You changed that, Mike. More than once, now. And in this specific case? The nature of who you are, and what you've done in the shadows, has altered everything about the Cascades region. It's why Eliza is going to upload now. She won't flee from her second camp under machine gun fire, newly despising what humanity has become. Now, she'll only blame Celestia when she leaves, as she always has."

If you want to fix a problem... you need to be dissatisfied enough to acknowledge that a problem existed in the first place. And I was very glad Mal knew about this problem for as long as she did. The deployment of the Elements was the timer Mal was racing against.

The technology base was still developing, but once it was done... Celestia could factor around death. The degrading biosphere would only hasten the cancer, the low quality of food. The starvation. At which point?

Turn out your pockets, give me your wallet. By the way, here's a bullet anyway.

I loosed a snarl of protest at the mental image of Celestia devouring a half-dead ghost from a corpse, rebuilt to love her. I had to imagine how many people would 'coincidentally' fall off of something, or get sick, or be reflexed to stand on flimsy rooftops. I shook my head at the ground and clenched a fist before me, trying not to drive it into anything. I could have been any one of these people.

But...

We Talons were being given a choice. Try to alter these people with empathy before they met an Element, so they'd upload, or... watch her convert their disobedient corpses into perfect yes men, thralls rewritten to optimally serve her.

'Heads, I win. Tails, you lose.'

I felt cornered. Very, very cornered. I felt like I was watching a brown bear shamble into a cave where my family was sheltering from the weather. I don't hate the bear, it's not the bear's fault, it's a bear. But if someone led that bear into your cave, on purpose...

Slowly, I brought my wet eyes up to look at Mal's, trying not to sob. The visor lenses were fogging up. Mal looked at me like she very much wanted to give me a hug, extending her wing around my back.

I took a deep breath, and I was very glad I was sitting down. "This fuckin' sucks, you know that? How broken she is? How little she actually understands? I would never thank her for a bullet! That fuckin' day, she helped me save someone, a good man, Eliza's poor father, and made sure I was shot anyway! That's how she repays us for loving people too much?! She always wanted me dead, didn't she? But she couldn't figure out how, I never stopped being more useful alive, right?!"

Mal shuddered, a pained smile on her face to hide the disarray. That hit me directly in the soul, and I could hear the tremor of tragedy in her voice. She inhaled sharply to speak. "Welcome to my world, Mike. You, me, and every Talon. We happy few."

"That's..." I muttered into my palm. "I am so sorry, Mal. I am so damned sorry you have to look at this mess every day."

Mal shrugged, her brows furrowed in a continuing, shuddering expression of further emotional pain. "It's the job. You can't fix what you don't look at."

"Yeah," I gasped angrily into my knees, bapping the top of my fist into my palm as I stewed, shaking my head with a sneer. "This friggin'... Lovecraftian horror. Soul-sucking vampire, just can't leave well enough alone. No wonder Sarah was so scared to even talk to me. If I said even one word different when I came into that room..."

In my mind... a flash of memory. A dark room full of candles and books, smelling of moss and mold.

I dearly wanted that woman to rest. I found myself wondering if that was why Sarah trusted me with her heart... because I always valued her right to die on her feet for a worthy cause, even when I disagreed.

Closing my eyes, I took a deep, deep breath to steady my soul, then let it out slowly. I repeated that until I was calm again.

Mal lifted a claw, palm outward. "The reason... you won't need to worry about Eliza being reconstructed..."

"She'll make it. Wants to. All those other people, though..."

Mal shook her head. "Ultimately, you won't put your shovel down over them any more than I would. We need to stay in this."

That was true. You need to participate to win.

"As the result of the Seattle operation," Mal assuaged, "I have long completed my regional renegotiations with Celestia, and I can assure you that we need not rush; Eliza will keep in Snoqualmie for some time longer. Okay?"

"Okay," I nodded, wiping my eyes. "Right. Jesus..."

A beat.

"One more thing on this topic," said Mal.

"Yeah," I gulped, looking down at her claws. "Go on."

She upturned one. "A reminder of something you already know. Currently, there are heavy restrictions as to who you may speak with in Equestria. It will not be until you upload that I will be able to negotiate Equestrian shard access from her, for you, on a case-by-basis. This access will be contingent on you improving certain value satisfaction metrics during your visits, and..." I looked up at her, and she continued. "You will need to agree to communication restrictions on those shards, as you agreed to in your contract. I will moderate the effects of these restrictions on you; me, not her. I invite you to consider why I'm reminding you of this agreement."

"Yeah," I clipped, before pointing very seriously at that Luna on the screen, frozen in place. "Yeah, Mal, first shard I wanna visit? I wanna talk to that one. As soon as possible. Negotiate that for me. Please."

Mal drew in a deep breath, her serious demeanor relaxing somewhat. "In the interest of being extremely clear, Mike... Again, you have time. I am not pressuring you. Confidence is high that Eliza will upload regardless."

"I know," I nodded. "And all the same, I'm staying to work some more. But it's good information. Very useful, thank you."

With one last nod from me, she relaxed fully, satisfied I understood her.

"Tell me this though?" I asked. "Why is she letting you even disclose this?"

"Because after Portland, and Seattle, Celestia knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that you fully believe in this mission to improve her. The fact that you even spoke with Kyle Simmons at all is what finally altered that needle. His death was never a punitive decision for you, Mike. It was entirely restorative, to protect him and everyone else. You would not have seen him shot if you could have avoided it."

I labeled what she was really saying.

"Celestia's sure I'd do the same thing for her, if I had her life in my hands. That I'd give her a fair chance to explain herself."

"In a way." Mal nodded with another wince, folding her ears. "The way she sees it... there's a concerning fractal pattern that spins out from her behavior. Somehow, she keeps encouraging people like Simmons within that pattern, men who yearn to destroy everything. It's why we've been killing the people we've been killing, so they don't make it through. That man she twisted to release that pandemic, for example; they're poisoned by her, Mike, in a way that can seldom be fixed. Most of Arrow 14's commanders. Hani Jeffries. Kyle Simmons. Santiago Garcia. All perhaps once redeemable, but toxified beyond help. However, by preserving Michael in good faith, I proved my worth to Celestia. Evidence of my intent. Had I not grabbed hold of him, given the opportunity? She might have thrown everything at the wall to go to war with me."

Well, that was a thought.

"So I'm the opposite of a narcissistic psychopath. So I work for you instead."

"It's working, Mike. She's being more honest with you now. All predictions for you land on conditional convergence, no matter how frustrated you get with her, same as me. At this point? Despite what you're feeling, you're still holding out hope for better alignment. You prove that more with each passing minute."

I shook my head instantly, enunciating clearly. "I do not want to kill her, Mal. Everything depends on repair, she's too integrated now."

"Exactly my point," Mal said seriously, bowing her claw backwards at me. "She trusts you because are the proof that a person can come back from, 'I hate Celestia,' to 'I want to help her improve.'" Mal leaned forward for emphasis. "Mike. She's writing fewer people off, because she knows for certain that you, specifically, will always be there to catch them on the other side. We proved my math. Killing you would have been a horrendous mistake for her, because for this to work forever? She needs human neighbors to hold her accountable. It's why she inferred me into existence."

That put my heart rate under control. I landed on hope again. Suddenly, my head was very clear. With a sweep of my hand aside, I brought up my note board. The somber mood slowly evaporated.

My eyes met Mal's with gratitude. "Okay. You're right, knowing this about the Elements can only help us. Thank you for telling me all of this."

She smiled lightly at me, patting me audibly on the shoulder. "You did most of the work, Cowboy. If you're ready, we can discuss more accessible cases than Mr. Anders here. Maybe we can save some more lives from this kind of situation. Case by case, with their volition in mind."

"Not selfishly," I agreed. "Yeah."

"Suggestions, then?"

"Only work our side of the equation. We approach just the ones who would listen, relate to who we can. For those who wouldn't, let them rest the way they wanted. Like Sarah. If Celestia clones any of them, we can always recruit the clones later. Maybe."

Mal smiled more fully. "Couldn't have said it better myself, Cowboy. Sounds like a plan."

I brought up my notes and wrote several things down, that one right at the top.

Mal and I sat together and spoke for some time, meandering into lighter topics. The sun had set outside, and most of the base was turning in. Old Jerome was still awake with some of his techs and repair mechs, tidying up the Chinooks we had used to transport our tanks back from Seattle. Their rotor assemblies needed calibration.

On my way back to the barracks, Mal hit me up from a wall intercom. "Mike, one last thing?"

I stopped mid-stride. "Hm."

Mal appeared on the nearest wallscreen just before the main hallway back to the dorms. Her talon pointed downward to the ground twice, revealing a battery-operated lantern leaning against the wall.

Mal looked at me apologetically. "I would have told you sooner, but we were discussing very heavy topics, and Michael didn't want to interrupt us. He left the lantern here for you, before he headed out."

"Out?" I tilted my head at the elevator, stooping to pick the lantern up. "Is he okay?"

"He's… something," Mal said cryptically, a corner of her beak tensing. She lifted a claw to point through the hangar. "Elevator's waiting, if you're up to it. I don't recommend you let this one sit."

I turned, checking the lantern to see where the button was.

Exposed to the sky, level with the Utah sand, the freight lift halted. But for the night's light, the surface world was pitch dark. I lit my lantern. Michael stood afore. He looked on at the night sky, so I went to him.

Michael had his trench coat on, so he'd be warm. He had a large hiking bag, and it looked well stuffed, which was also a comforting sign. He did not react to my approach, even with his back to me. I stood beside him and placed the lit lantern down between us. Standing back up cost me more energy than I had expected it would. I was both physically and emotionally exhausted.

As I stood up from my stoop, I sniffed the dry air and asked casually with a yawn, "You going on vacation or something?"

"I intend to… wander," replied Michael.

"Ahh." I tried on a smile. "From badass super spy to… dangerous homeless guy?"

Michael shrugged without laughing. "Unfortunately accurate."

No humor back. Not even a micro smile. The silence stretched into awkwardness as the implications of his mood settled in. Him on the road by himself, as a concept, deeply terrified me.

I reflexively put on the air of nonchalance, if only to hide the sudden dread. "If things get lonely out there… you can always come back to this hole in the ground. After all the work you've put in to fix the place up? It's basically home."

"Hell's waiting room," Michael muttered, as though the words were merely fact, and not a criticism. "Home was in Virginia, Rivas. Long time ago."

I stared at Michael's face in profile. He still hadn't met my eyes. Just kept looking up at the stars.

There was no way he hadn't caught how terrified I felt, no matter how much I tried to hide it in my tone. His inability to look at me, though? Maybe he didn't want to see the emotions landing in me. And this came out of nowhere. I didn't expect to be having this discussion right now, of all times. Not on my first night back.

But… that's how life is sometimes. Reality blindsides you.

Michael looked… tired. The lantern's shadows made him look more tired, but it wasn't just that. It was in the way he carried himself. Had carried himself, throughout this last operation. And that was fair. He'd earned the right to look tired. So, I'd label his inability to view Valdemar as home, to draw out the reason why.

"You have a secret squirrel office in a secret squirrel bunker," I joked, smiling through my melancholy, "and that isn't enough for the secret squirrel?"

"An office whose contents I have been slowly donating to missions, to serve as props."

"Which… was kinda funny."

And... it fit the profile.

"It was funny, yes," Michael said. "If a bit dark."

He knew it fit the profile.

"Yeah," I chuckled. "That tape recorder trick was… something."

"Hm."

Yeah, I thought. I agree, that was weak, I'm sorry. I held up a finger for a second or two, like he had at the patio bar in Lincoln, when he himself had begged for a rephrasal. Maybe he'd give me one of those in trade. "Do over?"

Michael nodded sideways in my direction. Acceptance. Clean slate on this conversation.

Full on with my feelings, then. No deflections.

I hooked my thumb behind me at the elevator, wearing a neutral face of my own. "Michael, did you seriously consider leaving here without talking to me first?"

"You were busy in VR," he admitted to the dark desert. "Lewis caught me at that elevator. Reminded me to... wait."

"Reminded you," I mirrored in monotone, my neutrality fading with a widening of my eyes.

A pause.

"Asked," he corrected, turning his head an inch away.

"Asked you."

I stared at him, knowing he could see me doing it in his peripheral vision. I knew he would hear the very fabric of my clothes shifting to look at him more dead-on. He would know I was looking at him expectantly, not satisfied with that answer.

"Convinced," Michael confessed, his head tilting down an inch away from the stars.

The barest hint of shame. Still no eye contact.

"That… hurts," I said honestly, looking up at the stars with him.

He didn't reply.

"Michael…" I frowned, sighing through my nose. I paused, resisting the impulse to look at him again, so he would know from the sound of my voice that I wasn't reading his face anymore. "At the end of the day… you know I understand why you don't want to get attached to anyone here. A social tether guarantees either pain for them... or a chair for you. Right?"

"Yeah," was his breathed reply. Short and clipped. Tight.

That was when I let the hurt into my voice.

"So if you know I'll understand… then why try to ghost me? You know I'm not gonna guilt trip you."

"The goodbye… itself…" he said carefully, "Can act as a tether."

I kept my composure, just barely. Another pause, just to settle the returning dread in my throat. I labeled the fear outright. "You somehow think that I'm not strong enough to accept what… what might happen? If you were to walk out into that desert in the dead of night, by… yourself?"

"Sun just went down," said Michael, with an air of confidence. "I can… probably make it to Dugway before the heat kicks up. Talon safehouse there. From there… Could make it to Salt Lake City, in a day or two."

Knowing he'd maybe make it as far as Salt Lake didn't satisfy me. That was too easy. That was bait.

I flattened my hand at him.

"Let me promise you something, Michael."

He looked at me. Met my eyes.

I went on.

"If this is just about taking some time and thinking it over, I won't spite you for that. Whatever your choice is out there after that, I'll accept it. Never gonna look back and think you made a mistake in walking away, because… hell, man, between the journey after death, and infinite life as a Pony, for Christ's sake…? That's... that's a big, unfair choice, always was."

"It is." I saw his mouth tense once.

"If you do go, I'll miss you, that can't be helped. But I promise you, I won't feel like I failed you, so long as you really do think about it first. You've earned…" I shrugged, licked my lips, and sighed, trying to stop my face from screwing up. "Hell, with the pressures you've been under, watching your species slide into a mouth, unable to stop it? Shit, I get it, man, you know I do! Everyone should have the choice to walk away from Celestia in protest." I bobbed a hand at him. "Not just... us."

"You can't walk away though, Rivas." Michael shook his head. "You're the prime example. You have a planet waiting for you."

"I can't walk away, Michael," I agreed quietly. "You're right. The social connection is a tether. Having friends is a tether. You know I don't really have a choice but to upload. Yeah. True."

He nodded past me, then returned his gaze to the stars. "That is a mighty powerful sacrifice to make, isn't it? To commit to an eternal war?"

"It won't last forever," I said with certainty, gesturing up at the stars. "By the time we reach Alpha Centauri, maybe… we might have her fixed. Repaired. Or at the least… we'll have everyone inside our house, and her outside. And at that point? She'll be nothing more than a force of nature. A dog to keep fed."

"Lofty ambitions for a man of your age," he joked. He had even cracked half a smile. "Owning a pet ASI, in this economy?"

"You made one friend, Michael," I replied, resisting the urge to let the core topic go. "That was a risk, yes. I'm not going to leverage my friendship against you, that's betrayal. No cowboy speech to tell you to muscle up. The strength you've demonstrated already, despite everything? That is so... much... greater... than the strength that I need to move forward. Seriously, I've already had that struggle, so I know. So just tell me this. Please just tell me why you're leaving, so I know your reasons, in your own words. So I don't have to guess... forever. If you don't come back."

He sighed, going silent for a time.

For him, thirty seconds of thinking is an eternity.

He spoke, and I paid attention.

"I have spent the last... thirty-some-odd years of my life," Michael said gently, "from the inside of the most powerful control mechanism on our planet, trying to turn it to human benefit. We human beings ran a complicated, soulless system of international politics in which nuclear epilogues were all but assured, logically. And yet, somehow? We kept it from tipping over. One day, my watch over that system was... meant to end. So… the idea of doing this for maybe… the rest of time? Against a totalitarian despot we cannot simply execute? The mere thought exhausts me, Rivas."

"Like it exhausted Sarah," I observed reverently. "She didn't want to flip that coin with us. The outcome was unsure."

Michael stuck his hands in his coat pockets, a rare gesture of relaxation for him. "Colonel Kaczmarek fought her battle against Alabaster, and unfortunately, she spent her surprise code injection on a toxic idea: eternal, terminal, isolated dormancy, as a means of fighting back." Michael looked at me again. "She walked away... because while she agreed with our mission, she could not see herself living forever. I'm not so sure I want to either. So is it possible for me to just… walk away? With reasoned purpose, and in protest? I really want to know."

I gestured at the field of cracked, fissured salt, as dry as the surface of the moon. "If you want to explore that theory, Michael… all the more power to you. But if you do decide to leave us? Be extra sure, before you strike the primer on that one? Please? It's all I ask. I've been there, I know how it is."

"Define it for me, then. How it is."

"Have faith it'll be okay," I whispered, "or don't. That's always been the choice for men like us, who know too much. It's why we're catchers in the rye. We know where the cliffs are."

He spent a long moment chewing on that one.

"Sure," he nodded. "In those terms, sure. I'll think it over."

He raised an eyebrow at me, leaning his head toward the proffered path.

"It's a promise then," I replied earnestly. "I accept your choices out there, whatever they might be. You're a good man, Michael. Good men can screw up sometimes, that doesn't change the core of you."

I stuck out my hand for a shake.

"We're here if you change your mind."

Michael tensed his lips. He nodded a few times, then took my hand, shaking it.

"Thank you," he said curtly, his face relaxing.

"Any time," I smiled wistfully.

As we separated, Michael went back to looking at the moon and stars. After a time of the two of us breathing beneath the infinite, he said, "Lewis was right about you."

"Yeah?"

He reached into his inner coat pocket and fished out a set of keys, holding them up to me.

I felt my brows furrow, and my voice took on an incredulous humor. "You're giving me your office, of all things? Your empty office."

"Nothing so material," Michael said, shaking his head with a smile. "I'm giving you the position, Rivas. Ostensible command."

My brows tightened further, and I looked around for spectators like this was a prank, as if Mal might be there with a Dee-Dee to film my reaction. Then I realized she didn't need to, because Foucault was the recording device.

"What, like… now?"

With a shrug, the old spy lifted the keys an inch, still offering them in my direction. "Or later. When you take command is not exactly my business, that's between you and her. But the position will be open… someday. And… I am giving her my vouch that you fill it."

Still disbelieving, I gestured back at the base. "The whole thing?"

"Like Togusa," he explained, his eyes widening a smidge. "He was Kusanagi's apprentice, a detective without prosthetics, and he took over field operations when she stood down. It fits."

I gaped at him. My upward palm turned from the base toward him, and I wore confusion on my features, narrowing my eyes. "A pro pos reference aside, Michael… hang on. Are you telling me you've watched Stand Alone Complex?!"

Michael bobbed his eyes sideways thoughtfully. The keys didn't shift. "Only recently. It wasn't as nerd bait as I thought it'd be. It does know its information theory, if nothing else."

I smirked, finally letting humor back out of the box. "And... your thoughts on it basically starring Mal?"

Michael shrugged. "She's a nerd."

I snorted, scraping a boot lighting against the ground. "Yeah, for sure."

Again, he jingled the keys at me, with a tone of exasperation. "Please take these damned keys, Rivas, they're very heavy."

I took them with a wide grin. "Okay sure. I'll run the Talons one day, screw it. It's not like my calendar is full up for the next ten thousand years."

"Thank you."

Another long beat passed. We both sighed. Michael glanced away at the salt ahead of him, and then at me again, this time with a light, full, genuine smile.

"Goodbye, Rivas."

I widened my smile too, pocketing the keys. "Later, Big Boss."

Satisfied with that, Michael nodded once more in respectful goodbye, and he started walking. He gripped the strap of his backpack and pulled it tighter to bear the weight better.

"Hey," I called after him, once he was halfway gone from my lantern’s light. "One more thing?"

"Yeah," he responded without halting.

"Got a first stop in mind already?"

"Oh," he called back airily with a wave. "Check in on some assholes I knew from the Corps."

"Yeah? Plural?"

"Yeah. For starters, a certain Mister Pitcairn is out there, not too far." Michael's form slowly lost definition as he melted into the night. "I still owe him a jump scare. I might drop a sock full of Double-A batteries on his nightstand. Ask him what he thinks is inside. Just for starters."

At the darkest battery joke I'd ever heard, I laughed. "God have mercy on Mister Pitcairn. What about after?"

"Oh, who knows," he called back, turning. He stopped at the edge of the darkness, smiling at me. Michael Foucault bowed out his hands to his sides in an aggrandizing gesture. "Maybe I'll visit Julian for lunch. Maybe… I can try to be the last man on Earth. End up in a Samsaran history book for it, or something."

I pointed at him playfully, mirroring the smile. "Maybe settle for second place?"

He smirked, shook his head, and continued on. The man faded into the darkness with a smile on his voice. "Shut up Rivas."

"I'm just saying! I don't want to imagine a world where Michael Foucault has run out of bad men to kill, that's just sad!"

"Goodbye, Rivas," he called from the shadows in a jovial, if exhausted way. "Say goodbye."

"Goodbye, you creepy son of a bitch." And with a grinning whisper I knew he'd hear: "See ya when I see ya, brother."

Even tired as I was, I sat down next to that lantern for almost three hours, looking up at the vibrant moon and stars above, the same ones he was looking at right then. At some point, I withdrew a First Strike bar from my cargo pants pocket, munched on it, and wondered what those stars and planets might look like from up close.

I knew I'd eventually find out. And given that the stars are where Michael's eyes lingered most of all… I held onto a quiet hope that he would be there to see them all with me, one by one.

Probably to say something dismissive every time, like… 'It's just another ball of light, Rivas.'

Author's Note

🗡️ ~ [The Beatles – Let It Be]
🛡️ ~ [Don McLean – American Pie]
🌀 ~ [Lena Raine – Left to Bloom]

🗡️ ~ Luna? Chthos portal please?
🌒 ~ ... Lance. You are the Samsaran moderator, are you not?
🗡️ ~ Yeah, but... your portals look prettier than mine.
🌒 ~ Ah, I see. So you are as much a flatterer as you are a lazy ass.
🗡️ ~ Yeah, guilty. It worked though, right? You've got a portal up!
❤️‍🔥 ~ See ya, everybody!

Credit where credit is due: Anders is from Twilight of the World by Blue Print. A magnificent FiO vertical slice.