Descent of Nightmare (Chapter Forty-Six)
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saladloveChapter list: https://tanadin.dreamwidth.org/650.html
Map of Kaldriel: https://i.gyazo.com/332b0c0172dcc60acb46
Rough map of Hatu: https://i.gyazo.com/ea4f9f51b9dc7b9d8b86
Chapter Forty-Six
Biotic Component
Mainframe, Kaldriel. November 19, 2277. Time instance 842N.
Neves wasn’t sure if he was grateful or not for the trip to be over when he stepped off the train. On one hand, he didn’t have to deal with Sheva existing four feet away, with how her face just looked judgemental at all times. On the other hand, he was at the Mainframe, and he didn’t particularly like that.
He didn’t recognize the nine thousand unit stationed outside, but it took Tanadin’s reassurance and some messages back and forth with Nine to get him to let Sheva in. He barely even looked twice at Neves, giving him his visitor’s badge and letting him and Tanadin in without incident.
Tanadin informed them that neither would likely be allowed inside the first ring, to which Sheva replied, in Allvaer-speak, that she frankly didn’t give a damn and was going in whether the cyborgs liked it or not. Neves had started translating everything Seven said long ago into something actually recognizable as human speech, and he found himself doing it to Sheva too, which was amusing if a bit weird.
Fortunately, they ran into Hazon in the middle of the second ring and he went with them to clear their entry into the first ring, although he mentioned the fact that Seven was gone, again.
“It’s weird,” he mumbled as they moved into the lower floor of the first ring, where it was quiet except for the mumbling of the nine thousands, the clicking of a keyboard or two upstairs, and the whirring and humming of the terminals. “He vanishes into the primary terminal room and disappears for hours. I’ve never gone in after him but I can tell he’s left the room. I don’t know what he’s doing, but he must be leaving out the stairs on the roof. I don’t know why he’d do that, though, unless he wanted to sneak out, but I don’t really see the point. He wouldn’t have anything he’d want to do and even if he did he could just leave normally and nobody would even question him.”
“We’ll just have to investigate, then,” Sheva said, making Tanadin nod and Neves wish that he didn’t know these people. He didn’t really care what Seven was sneaking out to do, he just wanted to know why he’d been called here and why it was so important that he had to leave his patients in the hands of Scara and Devan.
Hazon led the way up the stairs into the terminal room, where two nine thousands were playing chess and a one thousand was growling in frustration at one of the terminals, clicking buttons and tapping her feet on the floor. She looked hopefully at Hazon as he approached but he shook his head, stepping up to the door that led into the room that housed the primary terminal.
Neves glanced over at Tanadin, who had subconsciously tensed. The last time she’d been in that room, it had been when the Mainframe was shut down, moments before M revealed what he was. Neves wasn’t sure what to expect when Hazon slowly opened the door, pushing his way inside, the others not far behind.
“Don’t touch anything,” one of the nine thousand units called. “Seven doesn’t want people messing with the primary terminal.”
“I’m not people,” Hazon fired back, and the nine thousand unit nodded, placated.
The room was surprisingly empty. There was a single simple terminal against the wall, its screen dark but lighting up as they approached. A staircase to the roof was to the right, although the door was sealed shut and blocked with several sensors and alarms. To the left, the room was conspicuously empty, as if something had been there but had been removed.
Hazon raised an eyebrow. “He went in here about an hour ago, and that door up there clearly isn’t opening.”
“There’s a whole lot of nothing to the left,” Neves pointed out. “Maybe there’s a hidden door?”
“I’d bet on it.” Sheva stepped up to the terminal and read the screen, narrowing her eyes. She tilted her head a few times before looking back at them. “It’s in raptor script,” she said finally. “I can’t read this.”
“It’s just asking for a command,” Hazon mumbled, looking at the screen and frowning. “Hmm.” He typed something in and scrolled through a list. “A command was entered about an hour ago. Let’s see if I- there!”
He pushed a button and a panel on the floor slid open with a hiss, revealing a staircase on the left going down.
“Well, shit,” Tanadin mumbled. “I didn’t know Seven had a secret basement.”
Hazon frowned. “I didn’t either, and I know everything that happens in the Mainframe.” He set off down the stairs, the others not far behind. The stairs were metal and there were no lights, leaving the place in near-darkness except for the room at the bottom of the stairs.
They had barely reached the bottom and looked up when Seven’s voice barked, “Not another step.”
Neves glanced at him and he froze. Seven had his gun pointed right at them, eyes narrowed in determination and stance showing that he was ready to fight. Behind him, a pillar rose in the center of the room, mostly mechanical bits and wires and buttons that Neves didn’t particularly understand because he was a bit more focused on the brain in a jar.
Partway up the pillar, at about eye level, was a tank filled with a thick green liquid. Inside the tank was a brain- a human brain, or something close to it- with wires and needles and lights stuck to it that connected it to the pillar. Behind the pillar hid a humanoid metal figure, peering out at them with glowing robotic eyes.
Seven growled and lowered his gun. “Darn. I can’t just shoot you.”
“Seven,” Hazon whispered, stepping forward into the room that was bare except for the pillar. “What is this place?”
Seven sighed, his left hand reverting to normal. “Come on out, Minerva. I guess it’s time for you to actually meet people.”
The metal figure stepped out from behind the pillar.
She was a robot, or at least looked like it, with no living components whatsoever. She had a fairly basic structure although her personality was clearly developed as she tilted her head at them and flickered the lights in her eyes a few times to simulate blinking.
“This is...different,” she mumbled, and as she did lights on the pillar flickered and shifted.
Neves had a sudden terrible suspicion.
“What...who…” Tanadin managed. Neves could feel her shaking beside him, confused and scared and slightly overwhelmed.
Sheva only narrowed her eyes, trying to work out this puzzle herself.
“This,” Seven sighed, “is Minerva. She’s the biotic component of the Mainframe.”
Biotic component of the Mainframe.
Of course. Of course the aliens wouldn’t be able to run something this complex without a biotic component. They couldn’t with the cyborgs, could they? It made sense, it made horrific sense, and based on Tanadin’s increased shaking she had the same feeling.
Neves stepped closer and let her lean on him, her tremors not helping his own stability any. Since when was he shaking? He couldn’t recall feeling like this since...ever, he couldn’t ever remember feeling almost nauseous, as if he still had the capacity to-
“This is horrific,” Hazon whispered. “It makes awful sense. Of course they had a biotic component, but it’s...this is…”
“Morally dubious?” Minerva suggested. “Disgusting? Wrong on more levels than you can count?”
“I- yes. How did you-”
“I’ve watched you through the security cameras,” she said simply. “I’m hooked up to every camera in the facility. You know the roomba that goes around cleaning the third ring?”
“Yes?”
“I’m that too.” She smiled awkwardly. “Hi. Nice to actually meet you all.” She glanced at Sheva. “I’ve never seen you before, though.”
Seven groaned. “How did you find your way down here, Hazon?”
“You’re shitty at hiding your tracks. I just re-entered the last command on the primary terminal.”
Seven narrowed his eyes. “I told the nine thousand units not to let anyone touch that.”
“I’m not just anyone. Why didn’t you tell us about this...this!”
“Do you understand what kind of reaction people would have had?” Seven demanded. “She was even more messed up than we were- she didn’t know what she was until I told her. People would want her destroyed. It was safer for everyone to believe that the Mainframe never had a biotic component.”
“It makes sense,” Sheva agreed, “but you probably should have told someone.”
“I told the nine thou- hey, wait a minute!” Seven seemed to notice her for the first time, his robotic eye spinning and clicking back into focus. “What- what!”
“I was going to tell you but you disappeared,” Hazon said mildly. “Sheva’s back. Cataclysm and Geek took down Archangel Hau’rah, then Lucy and Cap did something to Sheva to make her capable of seizing the core and becoming Archangel before anyone else could.”
Seven blinked several times. “Oh.”
There was a beat of silence before Minerva said, “It’s nice to get a better look at you, Tanadin. Seven talks about you a lot.”
“Minerva!”
“You do!”
Tanadin smiled weakly, clearly still feeling sick at the idea of a biotic component to the Mainframe but slowly coming to terms with the person in front of her. “It’s good to know that he remembers I exist. He hasn’t left the Mainframe in years.”
Minerva looked guilty. “That...might be partly my fault.” She kicked at the floor. “I… I get lonely.”
Seven finally shook himself slightly and pointed at Hazon, then Neves. “You two. You have something to be doing.”
“Do I? You called me here with no explanation.” Neves crossed his arms.
“Yes. You’re getting every piece of metal in your body replaced with the more magic-compatible substance, obtained from the panels of E’s ship. Hazon will be handling this as, apparently, something else has come up.” Seven returned his gaze to Sheva.
“What about me?” Tanadin asked.
“You can do whatever you’d like.”
“Cool. I’m staying here to watch the sibling reunion and if you get too weird I can talk to Minerva.”
“I’d like to talk to someone other than Seven,” Minerva put in. “Oh, wow. The idea of multiple friends will take some getting used to.”
Hazon shook his head slowly. “Nine will be hearing about this,” he warned Seven, “but I won’t tell anyone else.”
“Good.”
“Don’t keep something like this from me.” He shot Seven a final glare before heading back up the stairs.
Neves reluctantly pulled away from the group, turning and following Hazon up the stairs. Trepidation settled in his stomach and he pushed the matter of Minerva from his mind, focusing instead on the fact that he was going to get better.
Hopefully. If this didn’t kill him.
~~~
“You can’t be here just for a social visit.” Seven’s voice was flat, stating a fact that everyone in the room knew to be true. Sheva nodded, slightly, stepping further into the room instead of continuing to linger in the doorway. Tanadin followed shortly behind, moving to stand next to Seven and look between Sheva and Minerva occasionally.
“You’re right. There’s too much for me to do for me to linger here long- truthfully I shouldn’t have left at all but I knew we’d never get you out of here.”
Seven raised an eyebrow. “What is this about?”
“Well, for one, I wanted to see you with living eyes again. What haziness remained in my memory is now gone and I can more clearly see the differences in you.” She narrowed her eyes slightly. “And the similarities are striking. Some things never change.”
“Good gods,” Minerva muttered. “It’s bad enough with one of them going on and on in some way I don’t understand. Two is way too many.”
“Welcome to my world,” Tanadin said, rolling her eyes. “I don’t know how you ended up more human than him and all you are is a brain.”
Minerva smiled sweetly, an unsettling expression on a purely metal face. “Cameras. Watching people. I’ve seen some things I don’t want to see.”
Sheva cleared her throat. “Continuing on, angels have memory-sharing abilities. I could transfer all of my memories of our lives before I was...lost, if you would like, but something else brought me here. We know that the cyborgs haven’t lost their memories entirely. This should have been fairly clear just through Corvus and myself regaining our memories when we became ghosts, but it’s been further proven in Fall’s case. They’re just locked away somewhere.
“Between angel memory sharing, visper mental connections, bizarre twin frequencies, and some pressing on your mind, we may be able to unlock your memories.”
Sheva felt a small victory when Seven froze, even if it was momentary and not enough for most people to notice. She shot a glance at Tanadin, whose eyebrows were raised as high as they would go.
“Do you think that would really work?” Seven asked, regaining his focus in record time.
“It’s definitely worth a try. I doubt this method could be used on anyone else unless they have an archangel visper-hybrid twin that spent an abnormal amount of time with them during the period of memories they’re trying to restore, but it could work here.”
“You do run on similar…” Tanadin made a hand gesture. “It’s… frequencies is the closest word I have, but that’s not quite right. You… you two give off the same kind of aura. There’s slight differences but they’re close enough and familiar enough with each other that they mesh without any problem.” She hesitated. “I think you should try it.”
Seven nodded, a quick and sharp motion, and stepped forward. “I’m willing to try this. How long do you think it will take?”
Sheva shook her head. “I don’t know. It’s probably best to find somewhere to sit down for at least an hour or two in case things go...awry.”
“Awry.”
“Yes.”
“What does that mean?”
“I have no idea.” Sheva smiled crookedly. “We’ll just have to wait and see.”
“Or, preferably, everything goes off without a hitch and we don’t find out what could possibly go wrong,” Tanadin put in.
“I like things going right,” Minerva added.
“Sometimes errors are unavoidable. Tanadin, will you be staying here with Minerva? We can close the door behind us and there’s a panel by the stairs that can be used to open it. Just press the green button.”
“I…” Tanadin glanced at Minerva, who looked at her hopefully. “Yeah. I’ll stay awhile. You two go catch up.”
“Sweet! New person to talk to!”
“Since you’ve been… discovered… I suspect you’ll be able to talk to more people in the future,” Seven added.
Minerva whooped.
“Don’t think this means you can leave the room safely, though. Not even with just your robotic body.”
Minerva made a face. “Okay, dad.”
Seven shook his head and turned back to Sheva. “Let’s go.”
Sheva nodded as well, shuffling her wings into a more comfortable position and spinning around to lead the way up the stairs.
