“You’ve been waiting a long time.”
Aaron’s voice drifted down from the elevator ceiling.
It was exactly the same voice he had been using moments ago. The placement of his breath, the habit of lowering his voice at the ends of sentences—everything was identical.
There was only one difference.
Aaron never used such a gentle tone.
“Is imitating my voice a hobby of yours?”
He asked while looking up at the ceiling.
Ria was opening the emergency control panel on the elevator wall. Wires and thin pressure tubes were exposed beneath the old brass plate.
“Don’t answer.”
“I already did once.”
“That’s why I’m telling you not to do it again.”
M-03 lifted its head in Aaron’s arms.
“Comparing vocalization patterns.”
“You be quiet too.”
Ria cut it off.
“You have no command authority.”
“Quite the talker for a remnant of someone who’s dead.”
“I was told that while alive as well.”
Aaron looked back and forth between the two of them—or more precisely, between one person and part of that person.
The elevator continued descending.
The farther down they went, the colder the air became. A vibration from enormous gears meshing came through the walls. The floor indicator needle was passing through a section where the numbers had disappeared long ago.
“How deep is this place?”
“According to the official blueprints, it only goes down to the third basement.”
Ria cut one of the wires.
The elevator did not stop.
“And now?”
“We’ve passed the sixth level.”
“The Institute is remarkably large even when it comes to hiding basements.”
“You hid the experiment you entered, too.”
A brief silence followed.
Aaron did not argue.
The sensation from nine years ago still lingered in his body. The leather straps tightening around his wrists. The smell of disinfectant and wet coal. The sweetness of candy stuck to his tongue.
The memory had ended, but his body had not realized it was over.
Even after confirming that his wrists were fine, his fingers kept touching the edge of the bandage.
Ria noticed.
Without saying anything, she closed the emergency control panel cover.
“Can’t you stop it?”
“They’re not pulling it back remotely from above.”
She tapped the elevator floor with the tip of her shoe.
“The machinery below is retrieving it directly.”
Aaron’s voice came from the ceiling again.
“It isn’t retrieval.”
“Then what is it?”
“Return.”
Aaron did not smile.
“I’ve never lived here.”
“If home is where your memories stayed, then you’ve lived here for a long time.”
Ria’s hand moved toward the tool pouch at her waist.
“Don’t get distracted by word games.”
“I have no intention of being distracted.”
Aaron looked down at the small handprints left on the elevator floor.
They were the same size as the children’s hands in his memories.
One of them might even have been his.
The elevator stopped.
There was no impact.
It came to a quiet halt as if it had been sitting there all along.
When the doors opened, blue light poured inside.
Ria stepped in front of Aaron first.
“Stay behind me.”
“This is where they’re trying to take me. Is staying behind you really going to help, Senior Researcher?”
“At least you won’t be the first one caught.”
“Hard to tell whether that’s protection or a change in order.”
“Both.”
Aaron adjusted M-03 in his arms and followed behind her.
A circular passageway stretched beyond the elevator.
The walls and ceiling were covered in aether crystals. They were not neatly cut ore. Crystals split like roots had forced their way through the gaps in the metal plates, swallowing the entire passage.
Faint shadows moved inside the crystals.
They looked like people, then scattered like steam.
Aaron did not keep his eyes on them for long.
If he looked too long, he felt as if they might meet his gaze.
A massive door stood at the end of the passage.
It had no handle or lock. Instead, a depression shaped like a human palm had been carved into its center.
“Subject A-07 confirmed.”
Mechanical voices rang out from every direction.
“Original-memory correlation: seventeen percent.”
“Proceed with contact.”
Ria stepped in front of the door.
“I refuse.”
“Assistant Researcher Ria Moren. You do not possess administrator authority.”
“You remember my name, but you won’t give me any authority.”
“Record of authority revocation exists.”
Ria’s face hardened.
Aaron looked at her.
“What authority was it?”
“Later.”
“You’ve been saying that too often lately.”
Aaron’s voice spoke from beyond the door.
“Assistant administrator for memory sealing.”
Ria clenched her teeth.
“Shut up.”
“Ria Moren executed A-07’s memory separation and external removal.”
Aaron’s gaze stopped on her.
He already knew part of it.
That Ria had erased his records and sealed his memories.
But “external removal” was new.
“Where did you take my memories?”
Ria did not answer for a while.
The shadows inside the crystals slowly gathered toward the door.
The longer they stalled, the worse their situation became.
“One of the three fragments was moved outside.”
“What memory?”
“The subject-linked memory.”
“Linked to whom?”
“An accident occurred before I could confirm that.”
The voice beyond the door laughed.
Aaron himself did not exhale his breath that long when he laughed.
“It isn’t a lie,” the voice said.
“They just haven’t told you everything.”
Aaron did not take his eyes off Ria.
“Senior Researcher.”
“We need to stop the door first.”
Ria tried to pry off the metal plate beside the palm-shaped depression.
Blue sparks flew when the tip of her tool touched it. She did not let go, but a red line appeared across the back of her hand.
“Aaron. Get back to the elevator.”
“Can we go back?”
When he looked behind him, the elevator doors had already closed.
The crystals in the circular passage had begun covering the exit.
Ria swallowed a curse.
Light came on inside the palm-shaped depression in the door.
“Contact delayed.”
“Anchor core stability: seventy-two percent.”
“Beginning automatic comparison of subject-linked memory.”
M-03 suddenly began to tremble.
Its joints moved on their own in Aaron’s arms. The light in its glass eyes went out, then came back on.
This time, it was not Johan’s voice.
It was a child’s.
“Big brother.”
Aaron’s hand went rigid.
The way he was addressed was unfamiliar.
But his chest recognized it first.
His heart seemed to drop once, hard.
No face appeared in his mind.
Instead, only the warmth of a small hand returned.
A hand gripping the end of his sleeve.
The habit of scraping its fingernails against the fabric when frightened.
“Who are you?”
When Aaron asked, M-03’s mouth opened again.
“Don’t leave me behind this time.”
Ria tried to take the automaton from him.
The door reacted first.
A blue line shot out from the palm-shaped depression and wrapped around Aaron’s arm. His burned palm was forced down onto the depression.
Pain exploded.
He clearly felt the wound beneath the bandage opening again.
“Aaron!”
Ria grabbed him around the waist and pulled.
The door did not open.
Instead, Aaron’s vision split into two layers.
A scene from nine years ago overlapped the present-day circular passage.
A young Aaron stood before the same door.
Beside him stood a child a head shorter than he was.
The face was hidden.
That part of the memory was blurred as if it had been carved away with a knife.
The child’s wrist bore the mark A-08.
“Big brother, I’m scared.”
Young Aaron took the child’s hand.
“It’s okay. I’ll go in first.”
The door in the memory opened.
The door in the present split open with it.
Cold steam poured out.
Aaron’s knees nearly buckled, but Ria caught him.
“Take your hand off!”
“I can’t.”
The blue line was burrowing into the flesh beneath his palm.
The space beyond the door was difficult to call a room.
A massive aether crystal connected the ceiling and floor. Hundreds of metal wires and glass tubes were embedded in it like blood vessels.
A human figure floated at its center.
The same height as Aaron.
The same face.
Even its closed eyes looked the same.
But it was not flesh.
It was an automaton made of blue crystal and black metal.
“Is that the anchor core?”
Ria’s voice cracked.
“No.”
Aaron stared at the figure resembling him.
He had already seen it in his memory.
More precisely, his body remembered the first moment it was made.
“That’s an empty space.”
The central figure opened its eyes.
Instead of the same gray irises as Aaron’s, they were filled with blue light.
“You finally remembered.”
The figure opened its mouth.
“A space for what?”
Aaron asked.
“A space for you.”
“I refuse.”
The answer came immediately.
The figure tilted its head slightly.
It was a habit Aaron often had.
“You haven’t even heard the explanation yet.”
“If it were a good offer, you wouldn’t have started by making a human-shaped vessel.”
“Don’t stall with words,” Ria said quietly. “We need to sever the connection.”
She ran toward the pressure tube beside the crystal.
The central figure raised a hand.
A metal ring rose from the floor and caught Ria by the ankle. She fell, and her tool skidded far away.
Aaron twisted the hand trapped against the door.
The blue line would not come loose.
The pain was blurring the feeling in his fingers.
Machines always followed commands.
The problem was which command they prioritized.
“Subject A-07,” Aaron said.
The mechanical voice responded immediately.
“Confirmed.”
“During the original-memory comparison, do you prioritize the subject’s survival?”
A brief silence.
“Affirmative.”
“Contact is currently causing subject damage.”
Ria lifted her head.
For the first time, the expression on the central figure stopped.
“Contact is a mandatory procedure.”
“Does it take priority over survival?”
The answer came more slowly.
Aaron did not let the opening pass.
“Procedure conflict. Requesting administrator judgment.”
M-03’s eyes lit up.
Johan’s voice flowed out.
“Prioritize subject survival.”
The blue line came free from Aaron’s palm.
He pulled his hand away at once.
The ring holding Ria’s ankle loosened at the same time.
She rolled away and escaped.
The central figure frowned for the first time.
“Johan.”
“Administrator authority remains valid,” M-03 replied.
“Only the portion you left behind.”
“A portion is sufficient.”
Aaron clenched his bleeding palm.
For the first time, the facility listened to him.
It was not complete control.
Still, it was enough to escape being dragged along helplessly.
For a single episode’s worth of progress, that was enough.
The central figure watched Aaron for a long moment.
Then it slowly raised the corners of its mouth.
“Good.”
“What is?”
“That you still know how to fix machines.”
A chill ran down Aaron’s back.
That was something only an entity observing him in the present could have said.
“How long have you been watching me?”
“Since before you passed through the Institute’s main gate.”
Ria stepped up beside Aaron.
“Did you call him here?”
“I wasn’t the one who called him.”
“Then who was?”
The central figure turned its head.
A light came on deep inside the enormous crystal.
A small human figure emerged among the countless shadows.
The mark A-08 was on its wrist.
“The memory you took outside.”
Ria’s breath caught.
Aaron stared at the child inside the crystal.
Its face was still hidden.
But the voice he had heard from M-03 remained in his ears.
Big brother.
Don’t leave me behind this time.
The central figure lowered its hand.
The entire crystal trembled.
“External signal from the subject-linked memory confirmed.”
“Current location: Velcarium lower levels.”
Aaron’s gaze wavered.
Someone he had lost nine years ago might still be alive.
Or the machine might only be imitating a signal that meant they were alive.
Either way, he had to confirm it himself.
The central figure spoke one last time.
“But you’d better hurry.”
A red crack spread across A-08’s shadow inside the crystal.
“Because that child’s memory is disappearing.”