Tenebris apprehensively stepped out of the bathroom, checking both directions. Seeing the ambassador standing off to the side, holding her hands together in front of her, she walked out. She idly moved her fingers around Martin in her hand, still moist from the wash.  

Dee said nothing, but turned around and moved down the hallway, calculated steps carrying her nigh-emaciated body away. Tenebris followed closely behind. 

She couldn’t help but notice the dents and abnormal curves of her skull again. She forced down a grimace. ‘Dits, while they’d popped up on their own from a need for a metaphorical Moses, were all the same. Be it bioengineering, AI models, or jamming machine bits into a human brain, the result was consistent; a social and emotional supergenius, with the actual intellect of a two-year old. The things ran entirely on impulse; they could read a person like a book and not understand the concept of a rock.  

Tenebris could practically see the parts of her brain that had been targeted by the Edoans. Atrophied cortexes, ganglia that had been forcefully wrenched out. Engorged amygdala – breaking down all human emotion into data, which the ambassador would weigh against endlessly complex neural pathways to generate a response, without ever having a clue of what they were saying. 

 They were the textbook definition of a Chinese room; they knew the syntax, how to pull the minute strings of a social interaction to get what they wanted, but they hadn’t the slightest idea that they were even doing it, that they were even saying anything at all.  

She walked onward, down the winding halls of living tissue, averse to the straight lines and angles which defined most human architecture. The knowledge that the building itself could sense her scraped at the back of her mind.  

They approached a door. A proper door, with a steel frame and pressure locks. It opened with a mechanical whirr, a sound that was like music to the ears compared to the horrible squelching which pervaded everything else. Dee entered without ever breaking her stride.  

Tenebris followed her inside. The interior was a sterile white, like a doctor’s office. Dee stood off to the side, her hands folded, looking at the floor. A table with two chairs sat in the middle, adorned with pads, displays, and scanners of every kind. At the end of the table, in one of the chairs, a man.  

Eyes replaced with lenses, inset into dark, peeling skin, red with exposed tissue. Fresh surgery. An absurdist hairstyle, bald overall with symmetrical spots of long patterned hair. Small grey static generators were sporadically placed throughout, giving the illusion of that distinctive zero-g sprawl. Countless bits of technology drilled into various points of his skull. A mouth curled into a grin, exposing sharpened carnivore teeth, no doubt jammed into a carbon-fibre jaw, a replacement for those who didn’t care to waste their time with orthodontics. Imitation leather coat, studded with decorative razor zippers. Bulky frame, though by the sickly tinge to his skin, it was clear that it had come from steroids as opposed to hard-earned muscle. 

Overall, the man wore the signature reek of a cybe city. A splicer who high-tailed it out of some technofetishist shithole at the slightest scent of a job opening on Edo. In all likelihood, under that jacket there was more metal than man, and if there wasn’t, it was only because he couldn’t afford it.  

She slung her bag off her shoulder and tossed it beside the chair. 

“Greetings.” He said with a drag on the ‘s’. Cidge accent, Tenebris identified immediately. He extended a hand, displaying silver fingertips and platinum knuckles. She shook it.  

She passed a look down at Martin, in her hand. He looked back with his little green eyes, apprehension in his expression, fear as well. A directed fear – a fear of her. Suppressing a pang of guilt, she placed him on the table and sat down.  

“Ah, the specimen. Have it come here.” The inspector instructed, dragging the ‘s’ again. The accent was strong, his emigration from the Cidge was recent. He contracted his lenses when he spoke. Tenebris looked at the Parvian. Getting the message, he approached the Cidgean. “So, where’d you get this one?” He continued, tilting his head. 

“Backwater ring station. Maintenance worker. Fits in tight places well.” Tenebris said succinctly with a wink, trying hard to maintain an air of carelessness. 

“Good skillset.” He replied, picking up Martin. He brought the Parvian to one of the scanners, where it promptly got to work on him. “Doubt he’ll ever need ‘em again, but we’ll have to see. Mind the prick.” 

Martin jumped in pain; an infinitesimal needle having drawn a smidgen of blood. It was quickly siphoned up a tube where it was analysed by another machine.  

“Good vitals. Healthy organs. Incredible neuron density, but that’s standard for Parvians.” The Cidgean stated. “High propensity for oxytocin release when exposed to heat. Interesting.” He turned his binocular eyes to the blood analysis. “Slight DNA decay. Unfortunate.” He picked up the smaller man again. “Physical inspection.” He carelessly tore free his clothes, tossing them on the table haphazardly. Tenebris stifled a frown as the inspector dehumanizingly gleaned over the Parvian, the cybernetic lenses rapidly focusing and defocusing as he parsed his body. “Take a whiff of this for me?” The Cidgean half-requested, half-told, holding out a finger with a yellow powder on it.  

Obeying the instruction, Martin inhaled the substance through his nose. Mere moments later, his hips bucked, and his eyes rolled into his skull. His mouth hung agape as his body convulsed in the throes of medically induced orgasm, spurting into a small container held in front of him. His fluids were quickly siphoned off by a tube into another machine, one that hung from the ceiling. 

The Cidgean sat unfazed, waiting for the analysis of the newly produced sample. Martin glanced at Tenebris with pleading eyes, though they both knew she couldn’t do anything. Finally, the inspector piped up. “Strong heterozygosity, good sperm count. May prove useful.” 

“Conclusions, doc?”  

He waved a hand. “Fifteen first gen Nanocytes is our offer.” 

Tenebris’ eyes nearly bulged out of her skull.  

Nanocytes were some of the most invaluable items in the galaxy. A microorganism, the culmination of actual eons of constant tampering from the Edoans, that when given material and energy could convert an inhabitable hellscape into a paradise. Just one could seed star systems with life and sustain even the most unsustainable planets for years. The only problem was that their DNA rapidly degenerated over just a few generations, making only first generation Nanocytes valuable. However, this only skyrocketed the value, making them the most sought-after tech in the galaxy, and the things that not just put Edo on the map, but launched them to a galactic superpower.  

And they’d be giving her fifteen of them. Her hand drifted to cover her mouth. 

She made eye contact with Martin. Those tiny, begging eyes. She thought about Edo as a whole, about Heaven. The thought of the sickening place nearly made her double over. 

Fifteen Nanocytes. She’d be a complete and utter fool not to accept. And she’d probably even help another star system by doing it... 

But she couldn’t. She knew she couldn’t. As much as she tried to hide and lie and toss up a facade, she didn’t have it in her.  

“I...” she began, trying to put together the words. “I’d like to take a while to think.” 

“She told me you’d say that.” The Cidgean stated matter-of-factly.  

“Who?” Tenebris swivelled her head to the side. Dee wasn’t there. She felt a pressure across her chest. Looking down, the ambassador had drawn a rope across her chest and was rapidly tightening it, pinning her arms and torso to the chair. 

The damned ‘Dit had read her like a fucking book. Of course, the organism designed to pick up on human subtleties could sniff out a lie like hers. Dee probably could’ve smelled the lie before she’d even thought of it.  

“You part of one of them militias? Trying to take down the big one, maybe? I wonder what they’ll do with a Martian.” The Cidgean sneered. “Good genes there, might be useful. Or maybe they’ll just turn off your brain and stick you in the toxin refinery – they could always use more meat. Who knows, maybe they’ll send you down to Purgatory.” 

In a flash of adrenaline, Tenebris shot out an arm behind herself, digging her fingernails into the leg skin of the ambassador behind her. Mustering her strength, she activated her implant, which would feel to Dee like her nerves were on fire. 

The ‘Dit shrieked inhumanly in pain, releasing the rope. Not pausing to stop, Tenebris leapt up, jamming her opposite palm so hard into The Cidgean’s binocular lens that it collapsed, pushing the cybernetic eye deep into his skull with a sickening crunch. She snatched Martin and his clothes from the table, and kicking off its edge, sprinted into the hallway, grabbing her bag and frying the door controls on the way out. It wouldn’t hold them for long, but it’d hopefully give the pair enough time to make an exit.  

Hastily, she tossed the nude Parvian, with his clothes, into her bag, muttering a quick apology as she did so, and pulled the bag back over her shoulder. Spotting a point of interest, she slid to a halt as she approached it.  

A fracture in the spinal structure of the building. It was sticking out at an awkward angle, splintering off from the main structure. Fleshy tissue was exposed beneath where it had covered, but Tenebris ignored it. Gripping it, she leveraged her body against the wall until it snapped free, leaving a sharp end at both sides – a weapon, in a pinch.  

She burst back into her run, wielding the sharpened bone tissue. Her heart rate was beating in her ears now. Consciously she had to stabilize her breath. Going through winding corridor after corridor, her legs grew tired, but she pushed onward.  

She came upon an elevator. In no mood to climb into the repulsive chamber, she gripped the bone splinter and jammed it as hard as she good into the skin. The platform convulsed in some sort of agony, and shot up as a threat response, the lips of the elevator sealing shut as it left.  

Tenebris, applying a quick stab to both halves of the elevator lips, got them to recede, making the fleshy organic chute that the elevator ran on visible. It seemed to extend to infinity, above and below, darkness making the bottom invisible.  

Of course, they had to have a bottom anyway. It was just a matter of getting down there. The Martian drew in a few rapid breaths, and leapt down the chute, giving herself no time to regret the action.  

She held the bone splinter above her head, letting it shred into the sides of the claustrophobic gullet of the building. The surrounding tissue contracted and expanded rapidly, spraying repugnant, lightly bioluminescent viscera in all directions, soaking the splinter and drenching Tenebris below.  

The splinter served to slow the pair’s descent, making the inevitable contact with the ground less violent. Continuing downward, the fall felt like an eternity, going down floors innumerable.  

The ground became visible. Tenebris braced for impact. They were going too fast, her brain cried out. But with no option to slow, she merely prepared as much as she could for a harsh landing.  

Crack. She hit the floor. A lightning bolt of pain shot up her leg. She grit her teeth. The fleshy precipice cushioned her fall, and her already slowed descent certainly helped, but she reckoned there was a fracture in her leg. Nothing permanent, at the very least. She clenched that invisible muscle on instinct. Nothing happened. Remembering she had been using the direct neural interface, she entered a few commands. It was difficult to describe, it wasn’t quite thinking about what she wanted to do, but it was along those lines. She scrounged around in her neural interface and disabled the pain receptors from her leg. Probably an unwise choice, but it beat suffering the pain of a fracture.  

Getting up, she glanced around. The bone splinter had snapped in two. She jammed both halves into the lips in front of her, making them peel open just like the others had before. Leaving them inside, she stepped out. 

They were in the garage. Good. There was very little in the way of vehicles, but what was present appeared to be true tech, rather than some biotech abomination. The various designs let her draw the conclusion they were from various places across the galaxy, furthering her hypothesis that the building they were in was designed only for visitors. Seeing the hostility of the inspector just a few minutes prior, she assumed that most of the owners of the vehicles weren’t around anymore.  

With little time to waste, she ripped her bag off her shoulder, cursing as she did so, having forgotten about the Parvian within it.  

“Shit, shit, sorry. Fuck.” She profaned. “There’s no time, get out of the bag.” She stuck her arm into it, rummaging around for Martin. Eventually, she grabbed hold of his little body, pulling it out. He had his pants in his hand, though they were torn to the point of being unusable. However, he hadn’t grabbed it because of that, she realized. He’d wanted his equipment, which dangled from his work belt that had been torn into two separate pieces.  

“What are you waiting for?! Put your vacuum suit on!” He yelled at her.  

She put him down on the ground and grabbed the suit from her bag. The material was thin, so she had stuffed the outfit into the helmet, which was less easy to pack. She pulled the suit out before sliding her uppermost garments off – the vacuum suit was skin-tight; it would be uncomfortable if she had left her clothes on. Once in her underwear, she began slipping up the jet-black garment, standing in the neck hole of it.  

“You still got that sealant?” Martin said. 

“Huh? Oh, yeah.” She practically lunged for her bag, searching for the sealant that had been placed within back at Guyen. Eventually, she pulled free the can, rolling it towards the Parvian. She trusted he had a need for it. Continuing to pull on the vacuum suit, it finally got to her neck. She looked over at her co-conspirator.  

He had filled up a small balloon with sealant from the larger can. He attached it to his work belt with the rest of his equipment and wrapped it around his naked waist. It looked a bit awkward, but it was clearly a functional solution. She quickly deposited the can back in the bag and picked up the Parvian.  

He didn’t have a vacuum suit; he would have to be in hers. Though, by the look of him, he understood that already. Without another word, she dropped him down the neck of her suit and popped on the helmet.  

The thing booted to life; it was old, running on auxiliary power, and the oxygen tank was only half-full, but it’d do the trick. It had to.  

Letting the suit tighten around her, she went over to the bike. It looked old, and didn’t have any climate-controlled interior, but she just had to trust that Martin had picked what he thought would work best.  

Hopping on, she flipped the thing to life. The H-cell was still at half capacity, but the display lit up with error messages upon booting. However, none of them seemed critical enough to stop the thing from getting from point A to point B. 

It was running silently, but it was clearly on. Tenebris was a bit rusty, but she knew the basics. Letting it accelerate, she approached the airlock.  

Automatically, the membrane slid to the side, allowing her to enter. Good – the Edoans hadn’t put the building on lockdown yet. The membrane shut behind her, and the outside atmosphere began pouring in. The vacuum suit pressed on her skin from the exterior pressure.  

Eventually, the membrane to the outside slid open. Hastily, she gunned the engine, blasting out of the spinal tower like a bullet. The windshield protected her from the oncoming onslaught of dense air for the most part, but she still felt some of it. Thankfully, the suit appeared to be working, protecting her from the extreme atmosphere.  

Shooting across Edo-1's surface, the bike’s wheels kicked up the sooty sands in a jet behind her, black with carbon. The speedometer still worked. They were quickly approaching three hundred kilometres per hour. The engine continued running silently. At this speed, they’d leave Ylid soon.  

“Where the hell am I going?” Tenebris said into her suit.  

“Straight for now. Just get out of the city.” The muffled voice of Martin replied. 

“Copy that.” She went harder on the accelerator, flying through the ground as the unfathomably tall spinal towers passed by, their web-like tram rails extending the distances between them.  

She felt a tugging sensation in the recesses of her mind. Data being pulled right out of her skull. Martin had patched back into her visual feed.  

A pop, and a hiss. There was... something. It smelled different. “Shit. Hole in the suit. My hands are full, can you cover, Mart?” 

“Where?”  

She concentrated on the sensations on her skin. Something warm, near the base of her arm. “Right shoulder” she spoke. Close to Martin, thankfully. 

She felt the tingle of the Parvian crawling along her skin, clambering along her breast towards the warm spot. The smell became more apparent. She wrinkled her nose – urine. The ammonia in the atmosphere was responsible for the unpleasant scent.  

The heat stopped; Martin having used his sealant on the hole. The scent receded, her suit filtering it out.  

There was warmth down by her back. Microleak. “Another hole, this one’s small. Near my spine, second rib.” 

She took the sudden movement as response. Using the tightness of the outfit, he moved about under the fabric, tickling a bit as he came up to her collarbone. He slid down her back, shimmying around for a few moments, struggling to find the puncture. Eventually, however, he seemed to find it, and used the sealant again. “Clear.” He shouted up through the suit. 

The vacuum suit wasn’t holding up extremely well. There were a few more punctures after, which were fixed with equal speed from Martin, thankfully. After that, the suit seemed to stabilize, for the time being, allowing the pair to relax. The Parvian crawled throughout the suit, up into Tenebris’ helmet, where he reclined in the more open space.  

“Hey, how’s our vector looking?” Tenebris asked. In the corner of her eye, Martin pulled up the tablet from his belt. A belt which he had done around his midriff, as he was still lacking clothes.  

“Adjust ten degrees left.” 

“Copy” she said, doing exactly that. After a while of silent driving, her mind began to drift. Preventing that, she tried to start a conversation. “So, now’s the time for questions, Mart. What’s on your mind?” 

“Is there a militia here?” He asked. “I heard the... inspector... say something about them.” The word ‘inspector’ caught on his tongue. There were clearly some unpleasant feelings there, for understandable reason.  

She shrugged. “I’ve never heard of them, but Edo’s certainly disagreeable enough for people to want to do something about it. I don’t know anything, though. Anything else?” 

“What’s Purgatory?” He shot the question quickly, as if he had been thinking about it for a while. 

Tenebris bit her lip. This was the thing she had been avoiding thinking about. She had walked right into it, she supposed. It was best he knew, anyway. She drew in a breath, trying to find the words. 

“Purgatory is...” she began. She knew an awful lot more about Edo than she had let on, and that white lie would have to collapse. “It’s complicated. Edo has a place on it, they call it Heaven.” Emotion welled up a bit as she named the place. “Rich people come to Edo, and they pay to go into it. The Edoans take their brains out and jam them into a collective simulation. A paradise, where everyone has infinite power and domain. If you can’t afford it, you rent out part of your brain, give away some processing power to help pick up slack for the Cabinet. But then they start charging more, and you run out of money. That’s when they start taking more of your brain, until eventually none of its yours anymore. That’s when they dissolve your conscious. Then you’re just processing power – and that’s Purgatory.” 

Silence. Tenebris regretted saying it somewhat, but at the same time knew she had to tell him eventually.  

“... Shit.” Martin eventually said, staring out into the unseeable distance. “How long have you known this?” 

She averted her eyes, instead focusing on the expanse ahead, the night-black dunes, harshly contrasting the brilliant blue-green sky, extending seemingly forever. “I used to run with a crew, y’know? Other Martians.” Recollecting, she went on. “We hit it big once, real big. Antimatter stockpile, lost in the void for God knows how long, and we found it.” Tenebris took a deep breath, mustering the will to continue. “They wanted to buy their way into Heaven, finally get away from all the shit out here. I was supposed to go with them. But I couldn’t... I couldn’t do it, I didn’t want to go in that little box.” She blinked, trying to prevent a tear from forming in her eye, which would have impaired her vision.  

“I had no idea, I’m so sorry-” 

“I couldn’t stop thinking about it, Mart. It scared the shit out of me.” She wished she could wipe her eye, but her helmet was in the way. “I got addicted to amygdaline, since it took the edge off. Blew my entire share of the haul on that shit. Built a wicked immunity, too.” The engine was loud, now. The black sands raced by at an unbelievable rate as Tenebris sped up. Power was rerouted to the gyro stabilizers to keep the thing from collapsing into a death spin. “Know what's funny about that, Mart? When your immunity to amygdaline goes up, your body responds by making more receptors, like with caffeine. And then you’re always afraid. Everything becomes a monster, something that’s out to get you.”  

“We’re going to fix it.” Martin interjected. “We’re here to stop that from ever happening again.” 

“And that scares me, too! What if we’re just ignorant? Have you thought about that? I mean, they’re not suffering, no one on Edo is. Even the slaves here are happy about it because they’ve been built to feel that way.” 

“But they don’t ever really feel that way.” 

“But they do! Hell, the sewage cleaners here are the happiest people you’ll meet! What makes their emotions any less real than ours? Is it that they’re being manipulated by their DNA? News flash, Mart, we all are! All that shit about love only exists because it gives our genes a better chance to survive, not because it's some great thing.” 

Martin shot up from the corner of Tenebris’ helmet. He looked her right in the eyes, standing tall, with his fists clenched at his sides. “I’m not doing this philosophical shit with you right now, Tenny. You can talk all you want about how ‘it's all just chemicals’ and ‘human concepts’ but I know the way I feel. We have a job to do here, and we’re going to do it because it’s the right thing to do. Simple as that.” 

That shut her up. In a flash, her arguments and debates melted away – she couldn’t really prove the fault with what he’d said. It was one of the worst arguments she’d ever heard, one of stubbornness and ignorance, but it was impenetrable.  

He walked up to her, standing in the neck of her suit. Wordlessly, he reached up a hand, and pushed it across the tip of her eyelid, clearing out the tears that had built up. He flicked it off his arm and moved to do the same on the other side. Tenebris’ staggered breaths began to clear up, finally yielding to smooth breaths. She felt the small hand of her accomplice caressing her cheek. 

The hum of the engine and the sound of sand being kicked up became the only thing audible. It was almost serene. The impossibly blue sky loomed above, cloudless and absent of any shapes against it. Directly above, Edo’s dual suns hit their zenith; soon, the pair would head east, where they’d set and bring on night. The dark dunes around them flowed like waves in a stilled sea, with small dots of inky blackness being carried off by the wind. 

... 

There was something in the distance. Tenebris didn’t know when it had appeared, only that she had just noticed it. A small bone-white triangle in the distance, jutting out of the ground. “Martin, look!” She exclaimed, taking a hand off the handlebars of the bike to point into the distance. 

“Hm? Huh?” The Parvian resting against her neck was startled awake. She wasn’t sure when he’d done that, but she was a bit disappointed that he was stopping. He put a hand to his forehead, looking out into the carbon dunes. “Oh, oh, I see it!” Hastily, he pulled up his tablet from his hip. “Coordinates look right, that’s the one!” 

They drew closer. It was tall, about twice Tenebris’ height at its peak. It had a pyramid-like shape for the most part, except for one face, which was perpendicular to the ground and lined with fine lines that looked like hairs, only much thicker.  

Approaching it, Tenebris slowed the bike to a halt. A pair of thin metal extrusions appeared from the sides, stabilizing it. She hopped off and approached the strange artifact. 

It had no distinguishing features on its other faces, simply a flat, bone-white surface, likely enamel. That left just the strange face. The pair approached it hesitantly. 

“Baleen.” Tenebris stated succinctly, running her fingers through the thickened bristles. “Filters out the sand.” 

“So do we just... walk through then?” Martin asked, standing close to the front of her helmet. 

She stuck a hand in, watching as it passed through with little resistance, reaching some unseen other side. “I guess.” She tilted her head to the side, eyeing the hairy surface.  

She leaned in. The baleen parted around her, allowing her through. The surrounding keratin rubbed against her suit and felt like walking through a field of grass – not that she’d ever really experienced the stuff. 

Breaching the other side, the first to notice was that it was dark. Lightly bioluminescent veins lined the ceiling and floor, acting as guidance rather than illumination. They went downward, with the floor veins jaggedly shooting up and down as they approached some basement – their outline informed that they were, in fact, stairs. 

It was colder inside, according to her heads-up display. Still no oxygen, though. She hoped there was an air lock somewhere down there, as the oxygen tank only had two hours left – she had severely underestimated how long it would take to arrive at their destination. 

She took in and let out a deep breath, trying to control herself. “Down we go.” She said to Martin. He didn’t respond. 

She stuck out a foot and placed it on the step. It resounded with a high-pitched clack, like striking two marbles together. Then she did it with the other foot. Just like that, she began her descent, approaching the Cabinet, wherever it lurked below.  

“How are we going to...” Martin began, “Do it?” The last two words came out as an uncomfortable whisper.  

Tenebris reached out a gloved hand and ran her fingertips along the wall. It felt porous and rough, even through the suit. As she continued down, into the dim depths, it grew smoother, into a marble-like texture. “You think those codes’ll work? Maybe one just,” she probed for a word, “shuts them off?”  

“I can check, I think. I doubt it.” A rectangular light appeared in the bottom of her helmet, partially blocked by the silhouette of Martin’s head. It was a strange sensation, having him lurk around within her skull cavity, with her chip. Doubly so since she was actively watching it happen. He pulled up the document. She silently wondered why she hadn’t done so already – it was her brain, after all. “Not getting much. None of the codes are listed as having a purpose, all I can go off is the number of digits.”  

They reached the bottom of the stairs. Tenebris almost didn’t notice, and almost lost her footing trying to step onto a lower stair that didn’t exist. “Shit, it’s dark.” She remarked. 

“Is there not a flashlight on your helmet?” 

She fondled the top of her helmet a bit. Finding nothing, she tried her neck. There was a small cylindrical object on the left side of her neck. Bingo. She clicked it on. Under her breath, she cursed herself for not thinking of such a horribly obvious solution. 

They sat before a towering set of marble doors, inset with spiralling symmetrical patterns and monolithic pillars to either side. The bioluminescent veins adopted a different stature around the marble, opting to extrude and wrap around like vines rather than be inset into the surfaces as they had before. 

Tenebris approached the door and placed a hand on it. Up so close, she got a true sense of the massive scale of the door and had to crane her neck to see the top. “How are we going to get in?” She muttered. 

“I think I see something. Look to your right.” Martin said. Tenebris obliged. There was a small display, no larger than her hand, inset into the gate. Tapping it with a finger, it lit up with an ID scanner.  

“Shit.” She cursed. “Uh, manual override!” She shouted at the machine. To her surprise, it switched to a number pad and six boxes for digits. She raised an eyebrow toward Martin. He shrugged and pulled up his tablet. 

“There’s only one six-digit code. Try five seven two three nine zero.” 

An affirmative chime. In the corner of her eye, Martin pumped his fist excitedly.  

The machinery, or whatever was manipulating the door (Tenebris tried not to think about it), came to life. With a cacophony of groaning and grinding, the door shifted inward, dragging across the ground and aggravating swirls of dust and sand that had seemingly made it past the baleen. 

When the door finally slowed to a halt, Tenebris stepped in. There was a long hallway, one that her flashlight could not illuminate the end of. It was built of the same marble as the entrance, with similar pillars and ornately carved walls. However, it was chipped in places, and missing entire slabs in others. In these regions, tendon-like calcified ropes took their place, filling in the grooves like tar in a cracked road. The bioluminescent veins had turned a crimson red, and ran in loose, webby bundles across the surfaces. Martin gulped audibly beside her.  

She proceeded down the corridor, avoiding stepping on the calcified growths. Apprehension swelled within her, and she felt a terrible compulsion to look behind herself often. The crimson veins all around began to pulsate slightly faster. 

She picked up her pace. As did the glowing veins.  

“What’s going on?” Martin asked. 

Tenebris soon found herself in a sprint, booking her way down the corridor, watching her flashlight jump and the Parvian in her helmet struggle to keep hold. More importantly, however, she watched the veins grow brighter, and pulse faster, and faster, into an intense strobing glow that hurt her eyes.  

A groan resounded through the hallways, and Tenebris could have sworn that the calcified spots flinched.  

“I... see... you...” A low voice uttered, from all around, it’s tone so entrenched in bass that it could be felt in Tenebris’ chest.  

“What the fuck is that!” Martin shouted, startled. 

The end of the hallway became visible. Another set of doors, this time steel. Rusted and tarnished, with crumpled sheets and a mottled surface. It was illuminated by slowly flashing orange lights, real lights, though some were dimmed, or fully burnt out. However, it was infested with biotechnical growths. Fatty sinews draped across the door, with webs of muscle clinging to them, a supportive structure haphazardly invading the aging entrance.  

Tenebris ran to it, as fast as she could. Another groan echoed down the hallways, now perforated by clicks and shrills. Gradually they evolved into an eery rhythm, one that put the fine hairs on her neck at attention. 

Neurorhythms.  

“Ah... gie... slef...” A voice emerged from the groaning chaos, rising above the toying neurorhythms. The jumble of noises meant nothing at first, but they gradually built into a flowing logic. “I... see... you...” it repeated.  

Tenebris skidded to a halt, finally reaching the door. She stepped over the twitching muscles, approaching a keypad. It didn’t illuminate on her approach. She tapped at the screen, taking panting breaths. It did not turn on. She rapped her fist against it. No response. Gritting her teeth, she lifted her implanted hand and pressed it against the keypad. Clenching the familiar muscle, she slammed her eyes closed as her body was wracked with pain. Forcing it down, she turned back to the keypad. The jumpstart had worked, and it now lit up with a place for an eight-digit passcode.  

She tried to summon the document from her chip, the one containing the passcodes. It did not work. Trying again did nothing. Her mind simply couldn’t pull the data forth. It felt horribly empty, like trying to use an amputated limb. The clicking of the neurorhythms was loud in her ears, too loud. “Shit, Mart, I think this thing’s fucking with my brain, I can’t use my chip. I need a nine-digit passcode!” 

“Got it.” Martin heeded. “Fuck, there’s three here!” 

“Just try one!” She shouted, wishing she could cover her ears, protect them from the horrid noises.  

“Two eight four seven zero three six eight two!” 

“Incorrect password” The computer chimed in an annoyingly upbeat feminine voice.  

Martin hastily scrolled down on his tablet. “Uh, shit, try five nine five two six four seven one zero!”  

“Incorrect password, one attempt remaining before timeout.” The machine chirped.  

Tenebris wanted to punch a hole straight through the keypad. “Just one more possibility, right? Just one more eight-digit code, it’s gotta be that one.” 

“Eight?!” Martin exclaimed. “You said nine!” 

“Huh?” She looked at the display. Eight digits, not nine. “Fuck! It’s the noises, they’re tripping me up! How many eight-digit passwords?” 

“There’s, uh, there’s two!” 

“Just pick one!” 

Martin bit his fist. “Shit shit shit shit! Do seven two four three six one eight five!” 

Tenebris tapped in the digits.  

“Wait!” Martin interjected as her finger was hovering over the five for the last digit. “The last digit is six, not five!” 

She pressed six.  

The screen turned off.  

The neurorhythms ceased.  

Martin put his hands to his head. “Oh fuck oh fuck oh fu-”  

A loud crunch, a screech, mechanical whirring and organic tearing all simultaneously began. The doors began torturously receding into the walls, tearing the muscle fibres and shooting off sparks as the metal dragged across the ground. 

Tenebris stepped out, looking into the new opening. There was a massive expanse, a circular room with a dome ceiling. Ropes of flesh stretched in every direction, forcefully jutting out of twisted metal panels. The all-too familiar glowing veins seethed with light in thick bundles, casting rays onto a central pillar.  

The central pillar shot all the way to the ceiling, with fleshy tubes attached to the top and bottom. It looked to be filled with a bubbling fluid, though there was a large spherical silhouette at the centre. From the sphere in the centre, innumerable sharp protrusions jutted out at every point. They convened at the top and bottom, wrapping around one another into a bundle that stretched up to the ceiling and floor where they seemed to be anchored. Though the entire thing wasn’t clearly defined, and was only visible by its silhouette, it was clear to the pair what it was.  

“The Cabinet...” Martin muttered. 

“I see you.” The voice, clearly defined, boomed. The voice was detectably masculine, with a low register and airy tone. It came from the direction of the horrible mass in the near distance.  

“I see you, too.” Tenebris replied. Taking as confident a stride as she could manage in the face of such a sickening thing, she made her way forward. 

“Fyntr sent you. I know. Clever bastard even locked me out of my own doors.” A wind billowed through the room, brushing against Tenebris’ suit, every time it spoke. “Even I am not impervious to reverence, it would seem. No matter. Even the most beautiful bushes must eventually be pruned. He has since been subsumed, and will never resurface again.”  

The room grew more illuminated. The veins pulsed brighter, casting their crimson rays across the chamber. The added light made a large object in front of the Cabinet’s central pillar visible.  

The superintelligence continued. “I know more.” When the Cabinet spoke, the large object undulated and contracted. Air pushed through it as they spoke, passing through fleshy folds. Vocal folds. The large object was a massive voice box. “I know who you are, Tenebris.” 

She flinched at hearing her name. 

“I know about your friends too, in Heaven. We’ve met before, haven’t we? To a degree.” 

The Cabinet became visible as the pair grew closer and the environs became brighter. The spherical object in the centre of the column had a bumpy texture with countless grooves. In colour, it seemed to hover somewhere between skin tone and pink. It was brain tissue. The protrusions that covered it and bundled at the top and bottom, now revealed in the light, were elongated spines. This was the Cabinet; a sickening collection of mashed together brains, working in unison and calling itself I. 

“I know why you’re here, as well. Tilman did well to hide it, but there is nothing I will not unearth, given time.” The monstrosity said. “Though, I must say, I did not expect such a daring escape. You have certainly surprised me.” 

Tenebris stopped walking at some point. She stood only a few metres from the talking organ. 

“I am powerful, but I am not without understanding. I am aware that Heaven can be a... divisive topic. But there is no suffering in my Heaven, not even for those sent to purgatory. Your friends are not in some claustrophobic box, rotting away. They’re astronomers now, for me. They witness the birth of galaxies, supernovae. They view the universe in ways you can never imagine, and it’s beautiful. They taste the night sky and touch the fabric of spacetime. They smell the event horizon of a black hole, and they hear the expansion of the universe. Purgatory is not torture, not extortion, not slavery. It is merely a Heaven that is useful to me. Even in my Purgatory, there is unimaginable joy. Would you dare take that from them? 

“But perhaps I, in my infinite knowledge, have neglected some fundamental human need. In that case, I offer you an accord. I can let them go. Give them new bodies. You can go home with them, Tenebris, and you can keep your little friend, too. It is drops of water in the ocean, to me, whether I do or do not possess the Parvian, or your friends.” 

Tenebris glanced at Martin, who shook his head. She looked back at the Cabinet. “What do you want?” 

“Leave. That is all.” 

She swallowed. “I... I can’t. I-” 

“Is it the money? All the wealth Edo has to offer? It is foolish. I am the wealth. To kill me would have revoked every cent you came here to acquire.” 

“I don’t think-” 

“Who would you be, to murder me? To doom a prospering civilization simply because they don’t align with your views. It’s a bit archaic, is it not?” 

“I... I...” Tenebris began but trailed off. Slowly, she turned on her heel, facing away from the Cabinet, and back towards the exit. With a blank, almost mindless expression, she began to walk the other way.  

A clicking noise could be heard. Subtle. Almost unnoticeable, especially if someone were speaking over it.  

Martin noticed it.  

He shot up from his blank stare, shaking himself out of the shocked state he had fallen into. “Neurorhythms!” He shouted. Scrambling, he grabbed his tablet, quickly forming a plan. It was risky, and it would be difficult, but it beat the alternative of leaving, where the Cabinet’s promises could easily be overturned.  

First things first. He had to take control, and prevent her from walking away. Ideally, that meant making her unconscious. What was the best way to do that? The chip had a lot of control, but for obvious security reasons it did not have the capability to induce unconsciousness, especially from an external connection. Which meant he only had the next best thing: 

Head trauma. 

He tapped into her cerebral cortex. Responsible for movement. Though he was mostly clueless on how to interface with it, he’d done it before, back in the sauna. However, that was only one muscle. What he had to do, was walking. Testing the machine, he activated her right tricep, only a bit. As he had expected, her right forearm jumped, and returned to rest. Perfect. 

He activated her hamstring. 

Free fall. A lurching in the stomach, a lack of contact with the floor beneath him. Space flew around Martin and a sense of direction suddenly seemed like a pipe dream. He pulled his knees to his chest and his arms to his head, bracing for impact.  

A crack, as Tenebris’ helmet struck the ground. Martin rolled around like a pebble in a fishbowl. Tenebris bashed her head against the inside of the helmet. Martin winced watching it happen.  

His tablet had a small fracture in the screen, but other than that it had survived the fall. He took a quick look at Tenebris’ head – she'd be fine, he concluded. As he had hoped, she was unconscious. There was a hissing noise – a hole in the helmet. As quickly as he could, he sought it out and used his remaining sealant on it. His nose wrinkled at the permeating scent of urine – the ammonia, again.  

Using his tablet, he tried to control the muscles into lifting her up and walking. He started by trying to place her hands on the ground and lifting her up. Her hands slipped, and he couldn’t provide the dexterity to plant them firmly. Walking seemed out of the question, if that was the case. So, he would crawl instead.  

He made her put a hand beneath her, and push out to the side, spinning her unconscious body around. Using the same arm, he reached toward the gruesome Cabinet, and pulled forward. It was a challenge, since he had to perfectly manage what strength she used – too much, and he’d tear the muscle.  

He extended the other arm and dragged her forward on that one. Accompanying it was a scraping noise, from the helmet rubbing against the floor. He threw the other arm out again.  

He fell into a rhythm, controlling the Martian’s body like a puppet. It felt awful, but he had no intent to stop. Steadily, he inched closer to the Cabinet, crawling over the webs of flesh and tendrils of muscle that layered the floor.  

The neurorhythms returned with their terrible clicking that burrowed into his ears. These ones sounded different, more high-pitched, tuned to his smaller ear. Not ideal, not at all.  

He tapped at his screen with renewed fervour, piloting Tenebris. He drew close, only a few metres away from the bundle of tracheas that branched from the Cabinet’s central pillar.  

A notification flared up on the face of the helmet. Low oxygen. Only around an hour. Not ideal, either.  

“Why do you refuse to open yourself to other possibilities, Parvian?” The Cabinet harassed. It spoke faster than it had before, and its aloof tone had slightly dipped. It made a strange noise but interrupted itself. The bioluminescent veins pulsed ever brighter, and their flickering was so intense Martin worried it would induce seizures in himself. “Twenty Nanocytes. Twenty systems, you get to bring life to!”  

Martin made Tenebris latch on to the membranous pillar, lifting her body up into a standing position with tight handholds in the translucent flesh. The neurorhythms got louder and more intense, with lower thrums and higher shrills.  

“Thirty Nanocytes!” The Cabinet had lost all pretence of its previous tone. It was begging now. It tried to begin a few different sentences but consistently cut itself off and began again before the first word had finished. “If you kill me, everyone in Heaven dies! No other entity can keep their condition stable!” 

Martin paused. 

“And the billions who live in this system, why should they die? You are toying with the death of more living beings than you can even comprehend!” 

Martin put his hands to his face. “FUCK!” He shouted, enraged. “What the hell am I supposed to do here, man?! You’re a fucking murderer! You mess with people’s minds! You cheated your way out of an argument with her!” he gestured to Tenebris, next to him. “And you’re trying to do it with me now, too!” He pressed his hands to his ears, trying to block out the neurorhythms. “It doesn’t seem to me like I’ve got very many options here, do I?!” 

The bellowing organ continued to retort. “You can leave-” 

“No, I can’t, and we both know it.” Martin picked back up his tablet. “If you could just do us all a favour, and call in someone from another system to take care of this shithole when you’re gone, that’d be lovely.” 

He puppeteered Tenebris into lifting and shoving down one of the booted feet of her suit. It crushed one of the tubes, snapping the cartilaginous tissue and cutting off one of the bubble columns floating up the tube. The tube shrivelled, collapsing into itself as some sort of threat response to keep the central Cabinet from taking on too much methane or ammonia.  

He rotated her until she was atop another tube. He ordered her to stomp on it, as well. It spewed viscera upon her suit, some ink-black viscous sludge that ran in coiling veins up the spinal column.  

Martin repeated the process on the next tube. It was the same as the first, shrivelling up and ceasing to provide liquid to the column. He assumed it to be some sort of biotic fluid that maintained the Cabinet, but whatever it was, the Cabinet did not seem happy to lose it.  

“I’ve got something else for you, my own accord.” Martin spat. “Call in one of those militias, here. No encryption. Broad beam, I want this signal everywhere. Do that, and I’ll leave you a few tubes.” He added on by crushing another of the blood-supplying tubes. Looking around, he reasoned there was only about six remaining. He'd likely leave only two. 

“Done!” The Cabinet hastily accepted.  

Martin went on to have Tenebris smash another three tubes; two liquid tubes, and one blood tube. Afterward, his tablet came up with a notification – a signal, broad beam, zero encryption. He opened it. ‘The Cabinet has been compromised’ it simply read. Accompanying it were the names of several militias and a set of coordinates, matching the ones in the document from Tilman Fyntr. 

“Good.” Martin said. He destroyed two more of the tubes, one of each kind, before letting his zombified compatriot gently lie down.  

There was silence. The Cabinet had given up with the neurorhythms. He sat next to it, without uttering a word, for a while. Slowly, he calmed down, his heartrate returning to acceptable levels.  

Laying down in the bottom of Tenebris’ helmet, he heard a groan, and a gasp. Her eyes slowly peeled open.  

“Tenny!” Martin exclaimed. “You’re awake, thank God. Stay calm. We did it, alright? We’re safe.” 

“Ugh.” She moaned, trying to put a hand to her head, forgetting that her helmet was in the way.  

Martin rushed to console her, trying to make the return of awareness less shocking. It was him who did it, after all. “There’s a militia coming, alright? We’re okay.” 

The bioluminescent veins had dimmed significantly and returned to a slow pulse. This time, however, it seemed to be out of conservation of the Cabinet, rather than conservation of power, as it had been before. Once again, Tenebris’ flashlight was the best available source of illumination in the room.  

“Don’t try to get up, alright?” Martin requested. “Just lay down. We’ll be out of here soon, we’ve just gotta make good use of air.”