The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere

M-Imyrakat: It's impossible to verify without the ability to perform an external test, but I believe that Poriyalar and I have finally created a theory that explains the problem.

Y-Serdar: Well, don't keep us in the dark.

M-Imyrakat: I'm... afraid it's not good news.

M-Imyrakat: As you all know, we've been operating on the assumption that the properties of a brane are dictated by the relationship between objects at the 10-dimensional level. And of course, that hasn't changed.

M-Imyrakat: But we've also been assuming that constructing a brane - or rather, replicating its properties using the matter within the tower - is simply a matter of replicating chord oscillation.

M-Imyrakat: However, even though we can make individual particles behave according to archimedean principles in our experiments, and of course for the purposes of our computing, their oscillation is lost and they fail to create worldsheets in open space. And we've eliminated the possibility that anything is compromising the integrity of our cavity, or that there's any abnormal forces being exerted from the tower itself.

M-Imyrakat: That means that the source of the issue must be something at the higher dimensional level, that's forcefully applying a sort of 'resetting' force which isn't present in the normal universe.

Y-Serdar: We've discussed this possibility already. If something about the conditions we've created were flawed, if we weren't emulating any force present in the Milky Way, we'd be able to discern it with our sensors.

M-Imyrakat: That's what we've been assuming, yes.

M-Imyrakat: But even though we never encountered evidence to contradict it prior to the vacuum decay event, this entire project has been rooted in the notion that all 10-dimensional objects exert predictable influence on chord oscillation under all circumstances.

M-Imyrakat: Or, to put it another way, that everything which creates physics is necessarily involved in physics.

M-Imyrakat: But what if that wasn't the case? What if there were 'phantom objects' that exerted no influence under ordinary circumstances, but under select conditions sprung to life to impose new tenets on reality?

Y-Serdar: Imyrakat, that's absurd.

R-Asandula: What exactly is absurd about what she's suggesting? You'll forgive me if some of this is going over my head.

Y-Serdar: She's essentially saying there's some kind of higher dimensional agent - or 11-dimensional principle, I suppose - that it's impossible to detect the presence of in any way, but is now actively sabotaging our work.

Y-Serdar: It's no different to claiming the existence of a god or a demon. It's utterly unverifiable.

M-Imyrakat: Please don't be patronizing about something outside of your area of expertise, Serdar...

M-Imyrakat: The idea hardly requires a god. It's long been theorized that there could be entire dimensional paradigms within timeless space that have no impact on our reality. An unexpected intersection in a niche circumstance-- It's not out of the question.

M-Imyrakat: Or, perhaps alternatively... we know it's possible to exert influence on higher dimensions from within lower ones. Perhaps another civilization, one far more advanced than our own, might have created a 10-dimensional object devoted to performing this function at some point in the distant past.

(Y, I checked the records, and she's actually talking about the membrane we were discussing earlier here. You're right that it's definitely not related directly to the entity, but interestingly, it seems as though its effects aren't just limited to string neutralization in pocket planes; it has a selective impact on vibrations in other spatial environments as well, correlating with the progression of the entropic cycle. I'm probably getting overexcited, but combined with that gravity anomaly that's been bothering the Sibyl's astronomers, I'm really starting to reconsider my original assumption that this was something unique. Could we be looking at something like an entire 'ecosystem' (pantheon? I jest) of simple organisms at the foundations of reality? I'll send along the data, so let me know what you think. --Nef)

Y-Serdar: First gods, now aliens.

R-Asandula: No, the idea makes sense to me, at least in principle.

R-Asandula: If you discount the circumstances that drove us to doing this, what we've created here, more or less, is the ultimate impenetrable fortress.

R-Asandula: We can send and receive information and make limited connections to higher dimensions on our own terms, but otherwise, we're completely and irrevocably cut off from the outside world.

R-Asandula: Even from what we've already accomplished, there are a lot of military applications for that. Obviously, one of the most foundational elements to logistical dominance is securing the command structure. If a small group of commanders decided to sacrifice themselves like this, it would create a stellar navy immune to decapitation strikes.

R-Asandula: And if they actually succeeded, well - they'd be able to wage war entirely one-sidedly with an autonomous fleet, with their entire population safely enclosed.

M-Imyrakat: What would be the point in that? If you can't conquer or be conquered, waging war would be absurd.

R-Asandula: I don't know. Spite? I'm only speaking hypothetically.

R-Asandula: My point is, there would be a big incentive for any power at a certain degree of development to make doing such a thing impossible.

R-Asandula: And what you're describing sounds like the perfect means to accomplish that. To preemptively counter the threat.

Y-Serdar: This is nothing but guesswork. Complete stabs in the dark based on nothing but unexamined priors.

Y-Serdar: We're scientists. We're supposed to be better than this.

M-Imyrakat: I don't wish to offend you, Serdar, but again: This is not your area of expertise. I really don't think you're qualified to be speaking as to what is or is not likely.

M-Imyrakat: We've been investigating this issue for... no, I don't even want to know how long it's been now.

R-Asandula: One of my coterie celebrated her subjective 1000th birthday recently.

M-Imyrakat: Even though we've been making adjustments to the brane support protocol for almost that entire time, we still haven't seen a single result, not even a tangibly bad one. Just the same total complete lack of responsiveness.

M-Imyrakat: Believe me, this isn't a conclusion we've drawn lightly. But the fact remains that it's the only one left to draw. Poriyalar has been convinced of it for our last eight sessions.

Y-Serdar: That doesn't surprise me. He's always been defeatist.

Y-Serdar: Where is he?

M-Imyrakat: He's... resting.

Y-Serdar: That sounds like a euphemism for having another nihilistic meltdown.

M-Imyrakat: The lion's share of this has fallen on the shoulders of him and his team. In light of that, I really don't think it's fair to be critical of his mental state.

R-Asandula: You're always so diplomatic, Imyrakat.

M-Imyrakat: Thank you, Asandula.

R-Asandula: I'm not sure I meant that as a compliment.

Y-Serdar: So what, then. Even if we accept this is the reason for the problem, where does that leave us? What is the actual solution to pursue.

Y-Serdar: How is it not tantamount to throwing our hands in the air and accepting our fate?

M-Imyrakat: Well... if the problem is something in the higher dimensions which we can't detect by conventional methods, then in order to address it, we need a means of observing and correcting the problem directly.

M-Imyrakat: That would mean constructing some sort of device that operated on that level ourselves.

Y-Serdar: But that's impossible. We're cut off from the physical, and even if we weren't, the outside world no longer exists in any meaningful sense.

Y-Serdar: If the Hypogeans really had survived in some form, instead of just leaving behind a tiny data center to act as their collective tombstone, perhaps we could have made contact with them and enlisted their aid.

Y-Serdar: But there's nothing. Just dead void where solid matter cannot even form across the entire galaxy.

M-Imyrakat: Yes, that's true.

Y-Serdar: So, again: What's the solution?

M-Imyrakat: Well, the one thing we have in abundance is time.

M-Imyrakat: Perhaps, before heat death, other forms of life might emerge within the lower energy minimum. And perhaps eventually we might be able to communicate with them.

Y-Serdar: Are you seriously suggesting we wait for evolution to save us? In a cosmos still principally composed of subatomic particles?

M-Imyrakat: Obviously we'd be making liberal use of hibernation in this scenario. It's not as if any harm could come from trying.

M-Imyrakat: Alternatively, it's hypothetically possible that such a device - or at least, a phenomenon that could be exploited for that purpose - already exists. If that's the case, all we'd need to develop would be the observational component. Theoretically, there may be ways to make inferences about this 'ghost object' by more closely studying the negating effect itself, or perhaps even about higher dimensional space more broadly in ways that haven't yet been discovered.

M-Imyrakat: We still have a deluge of data from before the collapse and Nakom's observations. There might be some detail hidden within them, if we spend enough time reviewing their contents.

Y-Serdar: These are closer to prayers than solutions. Just a high-minded way of saying 'maybe if we wait long enough or try enough things randomly, a solution will fall right into our lap by magic'.

M-Imyrakat: I think you're being hyperbolic. At this stage, our ignorance of the task ahead is almost cause for optimism. We're effectively in the same position as scholars were in the transition from classical physics to quantum mechanics. There could be possibilities we don't even yet have the frame of reference to consider.

M-Imyrakat: Though, I will admit that it does feel unlikely to me, in this moment.

M-Imyrakat: Of course, the other option is that, well... We do as you said. Accept that it cannot be done.

Y-Serdar: No.

M-Imyrakat: We're still alive, in a sense.

M-Imyrakat: We could focus on optimizing our simulated space... we might never get anywhere close to what the Princes achieved in terms of fidelity with how our hardware is specialized, but there's certainly room for improvement.

M-Imyrakat: If we stopped running our experiments and most of the sensors, we'd probably have enough processing power to get taste and smell working to a degree, if only through memory reference.

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

M-Imyrakat: By far the most common complaint in my coterie is missing the taste of food... improvements in that regard may also stave off neural drift, for a time.

M-Imyrakat: We could also pull some of the copies from the data ark and reconstruct some of their loved ones. Make as much of a life here as feasible.

Y-Serdar: 'Make a life'? You're talking about the few thousand of us persisting as little more than electric ghosts. That's a total betrayal of our mission.

M-Imyrakat: I'm not saying it has to be one or the other. Another possibility is that we could phase out some elements of our work. Focus on preserving our stamina for a much longer mission...

Y-Serdar: We're lucky that Kuberna and Chaski aren't here. They'd be outraged to even hear you make the suggestion.

Y-Serdar: Let alone some of my coterie.

R-Asandula: Have you spoken with them much recently, Serdar? Your coterie.

Y-Serdar: Of course I have.

R-Asandula: Because I feel like you're radically misjudging the general mood.

R-Asandula: You're talking about 'giving up', but the truth is that most people I speak to lost hope that we were going to fix this a long time ago.

R-Asandula: You're not even listening to what Imyrakat is saying.

Y-Serdar: I am listening. I didn't get a chance to say so a moment ago, but if we do arrive at a consensus that we need a more foundational approach to this issue, then so be it.

Y-Serdar: But any abdication of our responsibilities is utterly unacceptable. End of.

R-Asandula: I wonder if the reason you're acting this way is because of what happened before we left the solar system. Since you made the decision to leave so many people behind, it must be impossible for you to accept that it was all for nothing.

R-Asandula: That, beyond protecting a tiny group in a technically more sustainable way than the Singularists and the Egressites, the project is a failure. That we betrayed our friends and families for no cause whatsoever.

Y-Serdar: Ridiculous.

Y-Serdar: You're obsessed.

R-Asandula: I for one think it's a perfectly reasonable idea to pivot to giving the people who have placed their faith in us something resembling a normal life, at least for a while.

R-Asandula: And even if they're not the same people as their originals, using the copies to bring them some peace about what happened on Luna might go some way towards redeeming us in their eyes.

R-Asandula: If humanity is going to go extinct, what's the better ending for the species? For the final generation to toil in misery for thousands of years until we all become closer to machines than people? Even closer than we already are, I mean.

R-Asandula: Or for us to all to have a few good decades, or centuries, or however long people want to have - then... wind down.

Y-Serdar: 'Wind down'? Meaning what, exactly?

R-Asandula: Don't be obtuse. I mean deactivate.

R-Asandula: Hibernate. Permanently.

M-Imyrakat: That's... not what I was trying to suggest, Asandula. I wouldn't have gone that far.

R-Asandula: Well, I'm going 'that far'. It's only rational to consider at this stage.

Y-Serdar: That's impossible.

R-Asandula: What makes you think you have the authority to say so? You've spent longer dormant than any of us.

R-Asandula: Do you think you can rest on your laurels in judgement, while your skill set has barely even been necessary?

Y-Serdar: No, I'm saying that it's literally impossible.

R-Asandula: ...what?

𒊹

7:39 PM | The Ninsirsir, Deck 3 | December 31st | 1608 COVENANT

After that, time almost seemed to stop for Lamu. Utsushikome appeared to cease speaking - she thought she could hear her slurping her soup behind her, but couldn't be sure - and even the others at her table grew quieter, focusing on eating for a few minutes. The woman in the jazz band switched to singing a faster and more upbeat tune that seemed to be about someone losing everything at the stock market and shooting themselves, which caused Malko to go on a brief tangent about how the decline of modern culture could be traced back to an obscure pop music trend from 150 years earlier. (In response, Gudrun claimed to have played guitar in a band, though this was instantly thrown into question by her misusing the term 'fret' and not seeming to fully understand chord progression. However, Malko appeared not to notice, also stating that he 'dabbled' in guitar.)

But in general, a strange quiet seemed to fall, at least in her mind, during which she continued to sit very still. Almost like a statue. As if reality itself would forget she existed so long as she refused to interact with it in any way.

It was only once they seemed to be finishing up that this hope was proven incorrect. Gudrun, rubbing crumbs off her lips with her napkin, looked towards her with raised eyebrows. "You good, Lamu? You've barely touched your bread." She glanced down at them, then spoke in a lower, almost conspiratorial tone. "If you're not feeling it, I could eat it. Just, y'know. Putting that option on the table."

Lamu heard these words, since if anything she was hyper-alert. However, she felt unable to respond, as if bound in place by a magic spell.

"Lamu? You with me?" Gudrun held a hand in front of her face, snapping her fingers.

Suddenly, without even having planned to do it, her hand flew into the air and snatched the other woman's sharply, pulling it down to the table with a thud. Theodoros looked up, spoonful of soup halfway to his mouth, raising an eyebrow.

"Ow! W-Watch it, the nerves in this thing are still sensitive."

"I need to use the lavatory," Lamu stated, slightly louder than she intended. "Gudrun and I. Need to use the lavatory. Is what I meant."

"I don't need to pee," Gudrun said confused. "I've barely drunk anything."

"Where is the lavatory?" Lamu managed to ask.

"Mm? Oh, there's a set just back there." Malko pointed towards the bottom right corner of the room as he sipped from his wine glass, where there was a small wooden door marked 'RESTROOMS' "Another advantage of sitting all the way here at the back. Or, well, it would be, but I can't bear to use public ones, personally. I'll have to stumble back to Theo and I's chambers when I'm inevitably rendered incapable half way through the night."

Theodoros frowned. "Mal, that's too much information."

Malko chuckled. "Better they learn about it now than when I become a public spectacle on the approach to the new year, mm?"

"Thank you," Lamu said stiltedly, almost glancing nervously behind her but stopping herself. "We'll be back in a minute."

"But I don't need to pee," Gudrun repeated. "Lemme go."

"Uhh." Theodoros looked puzzled. "Is something wrong?"

"No," Lamu replied. "We'll just-- We'll just be a minute."

She heard Theo question if everything was alright as she turned her back (and Malko attempting to dissuade him from getting involved with some remark about women going to bathrooms in groups) but paid this no heed, dragging Gudrun quickly several tables down towards the doorway. She looked back for the briefest of moments, catching another glimpse of her enemy; only the side of the woman's face was visible, seemingly expressionless, despite the strength of the words that had been leaving her mouth just a few moments earlier.

Suppressing an anxious shudder, she shoved the door open, then advanced into womens area on the left. As one might have expected for such a venue, it turned out to have a rather unusual and pretentious setup: a linear corridor full of private, lockable rooms without even a communal sink. Lamu saw that the fourth along was unoccupied.

"Lamu what are we doing," Gudrun complained.

"Not yet."

She opened the doorway. The chamber within - patterned walls, faux-marble floors, air freshened to the point of being vaguely disgusting - was small, though still oversized for a single-use public lavatory, with enough space for two people to stand relatively comfortably in front of the actual toilet.

Once she locked the door and made absolutely certain it was secure, she turned to Gudrun sharply. Oddly, there was a mirror both over the sink and the toilet itself, with the angle such that one could be seen in the corner of the other. This created a constant sense of there being something moving just out of sight, which did not help the mood of the moment.

"Okay," Lamu said, her words quick and hushed. "Now we can talk."

"What the hell, bro." Gudrun gave her an exasperated frown. "I was getting in with those guys. That Malko dude was spilling his whole-ass philosophy to me! Another fuckin' five minutes and we'd probably have been talking nepo jobs, bringing me into his crew. Now he probably thinks he pissed you off, or that we're dykes!" Her eyes flickered, and her expression shifted towards the contemplative. "Wait, no, wouldn't that be good? Like, then we could play the solidarity angle. Tch, but he seems like old money, so he probably thinks that shit is passy or whatever. Too close to home-- Fuck, man, I don't know how to work this! I should have eaten more cunt when I was in the army!"

As was ever the case when Gudrun was able to talk for more than a few seconds without any filters, this rant raised a litany of questions (what did she mean by 'passy'? Was she trying to say passé? Had she never heard anyone say it out loud before...?), but Lamu had to suppress them and stay focused. She took a breath, leveling her gaze at the other woman.

"Gudrun," she spoke in a hopefully-calm tone. "Something is wrong here." No, that wasn't right: She needed to just say it bluntly, however absurd it sounded. "I think someone is planning to kill me."

This statement seemed to throw Gudrun off almost as much herself. She blinked in confusion. "I-- Okay." She paused. "On what like. Basis though."

"You said you have good eyes."

"Well duh."

"Did you see that woman sitting on the table behind me?"

"What, the skinny Saoic one in the white dress? Yeah, I saw her."

"That's-- She's--" Lamu fumbled over her words as she tried to decide where to even begin. "A few minutes ago, she was openly saying that was her plan. That she intends to murder me and several other people aboard this ship."

"O... kay," Gudrun sounded skeptical. "I was wondering why you were whispering to yourself back then. But, uh, are you sure? I didn't hear anything."

"She was talking very quietly. The only reason I could hear her was that she was right behind me."

Gudrun bit her lip. "Lamu, I'm really trying to think of a way to say this without seeming like an asshole, but like. Are you sure you're not having a schizo moment right now."

Lamu once again suppressed the urge to comment on the obvious contradiction between saying she was 'trying not to seem like an asshole' and immediate use of a slur. "No, Gudrun."

"'cause like. You can tell you seem kinda unhinged, right? 'I'm the only one who could hear her because reasons'?"

Lamu let out a long sigh, then spoke flatly. "I'm not hallucinating," she insisted. "That's not one of the problems I have. And it was definitely her speaking-- I could feel her breath in the air a few times."

"Maybe you took it out of context?" she suggested. "Like, this lady was just having a meltdown about something personal, and it only seemed like a serious threat 'cause you didn't know what was going on?" She glanced to the side, causing her gaze to flicker 90 degrees in both the mirrors as well. "Like, sometimes when I'm sitting on my own, I'll mutter something like, 'I'm gonna kill all these fuckers' to myself. But that doesn't mean I'm actually gonna kill anybody. I mean. Not necessarily."

"The threat was extremely long, personal, and specific," Lamu assured her, her teeth gritting unintentionally as her jaw tightened with anxiety. "We had a conversation. It's not something that would have been possible to misinterpret."

Gudrun shifted uneasily. "Okay, but even so, this is just like. Some bitch." She shrugged. "She's probably just crazy or on something. I mean, this is a rich people party-- I bet every other asshole out there snorted a line or two after lunch just to get warmed up for this dogshit. We'll just let the guys running things know she's being a freak, and if she tries anything the defenses they have set up will frag her faster than a Viraaki retreat. There's no reason to get this fucked up about it."

Lamu looked down at the floor for a moment. She'd brought Gudrun here under the assumption that she wouldn't have to go into the situation in any depth, but now that she had a moment to think about it, obviously that wouldn't be the case. Gudrun was extremely intelligent when it came to matters of life and death, but that intelligence manifested as ruthless cunning, not strategic intuition; she was a soldier, not an assassin. She wouldn't do anything proactive unless the entire picture was painted for her.

"She's not just 'some bitch'," Lamu eventually corrected her. "I... know her."

Gudrun frowned. "From where?"

Lamu sighed, rubbing her eyes. "She's an old schoolmate of mine. Her name is Utsushikome of Fusai." She gathered her thoughts, working out exactly how much she wanted to say. It was regrettable, but at this point revealing her identity was probably impossible to avoid. "We were in this class together in the early 1400s, when we were both young-- It was called the Exemplary Acolyte's Program, based in Old Yru. It was supposed to collect some of the most promising talent in the world of arcane healing and have them work together and go on a bunch of special trips. It was a publicity thing, mostly."

"Wait, you were training to be a healer? I thought you always did data and military shit."

Lamu found her face flushing with embarrassment for some reason. "I-- It's complicated. I was planning to specialize in medical scripting at the time, for arcane logic engines."

"Arcane logic engines-- Wait, this class was for arcanists?" Realization struck Gudrun's face like a brick. "Are you an arcanist?"

Lamu hesitated for several moments, but then nodded stiffly, looking away from her for a moment.

"Fuck, that would have been good to know back when we were delving." She looked annoyed, but not furious. "Gods. I should have known, too. You were always going on about shit to do with the Power and enchantments and all that kinda crap. Why did you never tell us?"

"Because it would have compromised my identity," she replied bluntly. "My specialization is already rare to begin with. Combine that with the fact that I have mixed-Party distinction therapy and was trained in the era where indexes were still grafted, and there's nowhere I'd be able to hide without a target on my head."

Gudrun pulled back a little bit, almost warily. "So you're like. Not just an arcanist, but a serious arcanist. A-league. World class."

Lamu shook her head sharply. "No. I was only on that level when I was a child."

"But like, you were still up there, right? Nobody goes from being one of the best to a nobody tweaking the guidance scripts for refractor cannons."

She hesitated. "My role was... significant, yes."

The other woman's eyes widened. "Oh my god, Lamu. What the fuck did you do? What kind of secrets did you leak? Were you developing superweapons or some shit?!"

Lamu was silent, biting her lip.

Gudrun ran a hand over her face, looking away for a moment "Fuuuuuck. I was kidding when I thought you were a spy, but somehow this is even nutsier than that!" She looked back-- Lamu's eyes flinched as she also turned in the mirror. "They have a team for people like you, dude. They don't even try to take you in-- You're too much of a risk. They won't even shoot you! Once they're sure they've got all your dead man's switches, they just send in a microgolem with a casting bridge and some asshole in the Locked Tower deletes your ass from the other side of the continent!"

"I wouldn't know," Lamu offered quietly.

"How are you still alive?"

"I'm very good with data. Including data pertaining to myself." She narrowed her eyes. "...though even then, you were right when you guessed that I'm in a... fortunate position, in some regards. That's why that didn't happen when they found me, I suppose."

Gudrun was rendered speechless, shaking her head.

"Back to the point," Lamu digressed, seizing the chance to get away from her present-day personal affairs. "This class I was in. Something... happened, and it had to be broken up. Since then, I've barely interacted with any of them. Or-- No, that doesn't fully capture it. It might be more appropriate to say we've all avoided each other. But do the know the man who was giving the introductory address? Bardiya of Tuon?"

"The guy who was talking about turning all the poor people into compliant zombies, right?"

Lamu nodded, although she still couldn't quite believe it herself. "He was in our class too. And according to Utsushikome, everyone who was in it - or at least everyone who is still alive - is on this ship. To be frank, even the three of us is already too many to be a coincidence."

Gudrun stammered. "S-So like, what are you saying? That she set this whole thing up?"

"I don't know," Lamu said. "I don't know how that would even be possible. But what she said after that was that she was planning to murder every single one of us in one fell swoop."

"Why?"

Lamu hesitated. She considered saying that she didn't know-- Treat her like she was just some former friend with an obsession of unknown or inscrutably misguided nature. (She was misguided, just not inscrutably.) And that would make the threat too easy to dismiss, or worse, misunderstand.

Her hands felt very still, almost mechanical. These social calculations took a great deal out of her. She took a breath, and said:

"Revenge."