VOLUME II

*

PROLOGUE

 

The impatient woman grunted while extinguishing her cigarette against the pristine white wall behind her. She did not care if it left an ugly stain because no one would use those facilities ever again after that damn day.

At least not by someone with a beating heart.

She shot a disdainful glance to her side. A teen was lying on an operating table, the left side of her head wide open, while a 12-inch automaton was performing--an improvised--surgery on her. Another human-sized robot stood still, confined to a corner without making a single sound.

The woman checked the hour on her watch. Her left wrist was also sporting two white wristbands with the Alvearium logo on them. Ten minutes had already passed since the operation had started.

She let out a loud snicker, wishing someone could ask her what was on her mind. But out of the other three, one was too sedated to pay her any attention, another was busy performing surgery, and the third was deactivated, its white head pointing at the wall in front of it.

"Status," she asked aloud.

"Her condition is stable," the small automaton replied in a barely audible electronic voice. "Nine minutes remaining. Approximately."

Great... the woman wearing a lab coat thought bitterly while cursing her luck for the 300th damn time. 'Why have things turned out that way?' That’s the question that refused to let go.

Everything was sailing smoothly, bloody smoothly! That was until five hours ago when she decided to check the current log of passengers of The Neo Pinta. She even questioned herself why she was doing it. She was not the kind of person to second guess, and yet, she logged into her account and looked for a specific name.

And what she found disgusted her.

Never, in her thirty-six years of life, had she felt that sick... That angry... That BLOODY livid. She couldn't believe it. She jumped out of her chair, prompting it to fall backward, and started going in circles inside her room, all while shaking her head until it hurt like a bitch. "This is impossible! No way in hell this happened! I refuse to believe it! No fucking way!"

She even returned to her desk and started smashing the keyboard until the majority of the keys were sent flying. Fortunately, the computer screen was still intact and kept displaying an internal report:

 

Incident Report - Brooke Reynolds Summary: At 03:03 am on February 17, personnel were dispatched by VICTORIA to check on Brooke Reynolds after his security wristband failed to transmit vital signs. Upon investigation, Brooke Reynolds' lifeless body was discovered in the boys' bathroom located in aisle 2, hallway C. The cause of death was identified as asphyxiation by his own belt. The incident is currently classified as an apparent suicide, and no suspects have been identified. Further investigation is underway.

 

Of course, it was fucking suicide! There's no reason to target Brooke in a 24/7 monitored facility like that! He was the perfect nobody! A perfect no one! Goddammit, Brooke! Oh, I'd give anything to have him in front of me for at least one minute and ask him: 'What the bloody hell broke you? What's your genius reason to do something as stupid as taking your own--?!'

The woman interrupted her line of thought while chuckling. Wait... 'What broke you?' Ha! 'What BROKE you, Brooke?'

She couldn't help but burst out laughing. This has been the most stressful day of my life, she thought while her laughter filled the nursing room.

The failure named Brooke Reynolds made her recall the other subject. The one that--theoretically--had succeeded.

As the small automaton surgeon finished its work, the woman revisited a memory from three days ago. The memory of the last conversation she would ever have with her last disciple.

It happened through a video phone call. The last call the Tandem designated to board the Santa María could make before parting to space.

As the encrypted signal connected them, she expected to see his disappointed expression and gloomy attitude just like the last time they met… She was even prepared to hear his complaints one more time if that helped him calm down and board that damn ship. But moments later, what she found instead was a wide smile on his lips and a glimmer in his eyes that could only mean one thing: He met someone… Huh.

He never mentioned it, but she could tell. There was no longer a trace of apathy in his voice, nor resentment against Alvearium's board of directors. Only a peace that he could find only by hanging out with others his age.

The only thought running through her mind during that call was: 'He really resembles his father... What a pity.'

"How are you feeling lately?" she finally asked once he shut up for a moment. "How's the migraine?"

"Long gone!" Her disciple beamed, knocking the left side of his head. "I can't even remember when was the last time I had one."

"Good," she said, smiling mildly as she extinguished her cigarette. "That means your body has finally adapted and healed."

He nodded and looked down, his mouth locked in a grimace. She already knew what he would say next.

"All thanks to you, teacher..."

She shrugged. "Why? I wasn't the one holding the scalpel."

"You know what I mean," he continued, looking at the camera. "If you hadn't adopted us, things would've gone quite differently. For the worse. I'm sure."

‘Adopted’, she thought. Is that how you see it?

"Don't mention it," she replied dryly.

The young man turned emotional immediately and began speaking in a broken voice, "E-Even though I couldn't make it as part of the ship's working crew--the mere fact that I could become a passenger--it's all thanks to you!"

"I'm not as cool as you make it sound," she murmured, averting her eyes. "I'm a failure too, remember? I couldn't save her. If only you could board that ship alongside Alison..."

Her gaze returned to the video call, catching the exact moment his whole persona faltered.

"I..." he muttered, head down. "I also wish she could accompany me."

"In another life, perhaps. In another reality... In another timeline. But in this one, survive for her, okay?"

"I will."

She half-smiled for a brief moment. "Look at the timer. The call is almost done. This is goodbye then. Just one last thing." The woman then took a moment of silence, waiting for him to lock eyes with hers. Though more than a hundred miles separated them, both felt they were chatting in the same room. Even if only for a couple of seconds. "Go, and fulfill my dream in my stead, kid." 

The young man gave her a funny look. "S-Sure. But you've never talked to me about it. What is it?"

"You'll find out one day." She smirked.

Before he could bicker about it, the call got automatically disconnected, showing only the Alvearium Enterprise logo spinning.

Yes, she thought, watching the white ceiling above. No pressure...

"The operation has been a success, ma’am," the little automaton said, its metal appendages looking bloodied.

The woman got closer and crouched to take a better look. An almost undetectable scar crossed the top left side of the teen's head.

"This girl will be subjected to a physical scan before getting plugged. Would that machine detect anything?"

"I presume the scan will be superficial," the automaton replied, while changing the tools attached to its arms. "It will probably only check for her heart rate and blood pressure initially. By the time the scanner detects this new cauterization, it'll be too late."

"I fucking hope so," the woman muttered, picking a strand of hair out of the girl's head. She then reached out to grab a nearby briefcase where hair extensions were waiting inside. She offered the original strand of hair to a small compartment that quickly snatched it, and the extensions began changing their hue and shape before her eyes. When the process was finished, she took the resulting product with extreme care. "Here. Do it."

The automaton accepted the freshly fake, curly brunette hair and began injecting it into the girl's scalp, patching and hiding any evidence of a recent surgery. With the help of scissors, the woman finally cut the excess fake hair until it matched the real length.

"We're done."

"Understood," the automaton said, becoming rigid like a toy. "It was a pleasure serving you."

The woman pulled out a spray can and two cylinders reminiscent of pens from a backpack before putting the little robot inside it.

"Whatever," she said quietly, placing the backpack along with the briefcase in a corner of the room. She then sprayed them, and the luggage began to chemically dissolve until only an unrecognizable paste of melted metal remained. She used an empty box to hide that waste and turned toward the operating table.

"Now," she whispered, holding the cylinder with a red painted mark on it and stuck it against the girl's neck. With the push of a button, she injected something into her veins that caused an instantaneous reaction.

The girl sprang violently, gasping, eyes wide open. She almost fell off the table, but the woman held her by the shoulders.

"It's okay, it's okay. We've finished. Everything went smoothly."

"Did it?" the girl asked, squinting, as she watched the woman deactivate one of the bracelets on her left wrist. "Shouldn't you have done that the exact moment I woke up?"

"There's a five-second window between updates," the woman replied, mustering her patience. "Check if yours is online again."

The girl snickered and did as she was told, verifying that hers had a little green dot turned on. "All good."

"Get up and go then," the woman said gruffly as she pulled out a cigarette, but the girl kept staring at her, frowning. "What is it now?"

"Aren't you going to share with me what you did to fix the problem? Why couldn't I upload the data to my node? Did you install a faulty Neuro-Sync on me?" After finishing talking, the eighteen-year-old winced in apparent pain, closing her eyes and tilting her head to her left side.

The woman in front of her sighed. "I think you already know why. Your body is incompatible with the Sync."

"Bullshit," the girl said, grimacing. She then jumped out of the operating table and stretched out her hand forward. "Give it to me. I'll show you."

"Now? There's still one hour left. Why don't you rest a--?"

"You've already fixed the issue, haven't you?! Besides, shouldn't you make sure I can be the fucking host before it's too late? Or what? Do you still want to leave your precious dream on chance?"

Without taking her eyes off the teen for a single moment, the woman pulled out a pink video game pocket console from her coat and handed it over. The girl snatched it, turned it on, stared at its screen for a moment, and then held it aloft against her left ear.

Although the woman's expression looked calm and indifferent, she was secretly holding her breath.

Stupid brat. Do you think I still have the time to prepare another host? Don't be ridiculous.

The woman raised her cigarette, her hand slightly shaking, and took a deep puff.

After 15 long, excruciating seconds, the girl threw the pocket device at the woman's feet. "There! It worked. A perfect upload!"

Yes, it worked. Even if her body does its best to get rid of the thing and it's only functional for 24 hours, that'll do.

As the girl turned around and walked toward the automaton, standing still in a corner, the woman caught a glimpse of her tilting her head again.

"Before you do that, tell me something first," the woman started, giving the last puff. "You were the last one to talk to Brooke, weren't you? Don’t you have something to inform me? Did you notice something strange about his behavior?"

"Who the fuck knows," the girl replied, showing her teeth with a grimace. "Nothing worth mentioning. He was never good at small talk anyway. So..."

"Oh, I see! So he decided to ‘run away’ at the last minute, huh? Or were you too stupid to notice any sign of hesitation during his last days?"

The teenager’s cheeks turned bright red. "Hey, don't take it out on me! I came here, didn't I?! I could've said, 'screw that bitch', but I didn't! I even let your stupid electronic dildo mess with my head to save your sorry ass! So don't mess with me!"

The woman exhaled smoke in the teen’s direction. "This is the last time we'll ever talk…"

"Thank god!"

"So be honest with me one final time. Did you kill him?"

The teen’s tense posture seemed to relax in the blink of an eye. She tilted her head to the left, as if she was enduring an annoying buzz inside her ear, and formed a mild smile on her lips. "What are you saying? That I was so jealous of him for being the trigger, that I brought him to a secluded place and choked him to death? And with his own belt?! HA! You’re too imaginative, teacher, as always!"

The woman clenched her teeth. She could picture the crime perfectly: A scene starring this teen seducing Brooke into a false sense of security before strangling him. She then tried to connect her Neuro-Sync with Brooke’s and failed, so she had no other choice but to retrieve the code.

The woman reached down to grab the pink video game console and sighed. Meanwhile, the teen reached out to the automaton’s nape from where she disconnected a small white device that she then threw in the woman’s direction. After the adult caught it and hid it from view, the service robot came back to life in an instant and turned around, focusing primarily on the teen.

"All done, Miss Harper. You seem to be in full health," the service robot said.

"Yes!" the teen beamed. "It’s a good thing that it was only a slight dizziness. Well, if you excuse me…"

"Wait," the woman said aloud, pulling out a small cylinder with a blue mark on it. "This is for your migraine."

The teen looked at it with disgust. "I don't need it."

"I'm afraid I have to insist too, Ms. Harper," the automaton added, stepping forward. "Take the medication that Doctor Shields is offering you, please."

"Or what, I won't be able to leave?" the teen said, sneering. But one last glance into her teacher's eyes made her look away. "Fine."

The woman proceeded with the injection and, with a smile, said, "You’re good to go, Ms. Harper. And I salute you, Tandem. May you and your generation reach the stars."

"For humanity's sake, huh?" the teen snickered before getting out of there.

"Anything else I can do for you, Doctor Shields?" the automaton asked, scanning the room.

"No. I’ll clean. I’m sure Victoria needs you more than I."

With a slight bow proper of a refined butler, the automaton exited the room too. The woman did as well after waiting a minute inside and locking the door.

All done… Without any more eventualities, I hope, she thought, dragging her feet all the way to her room.

The hallways of aisle A were quieter since all of her working colleagues were somewhere else, doing their final best so that humanity’s second spaceship could be launched without issue.

She took a shower in complete silence, no classical music this time in the background. Then, after drying her hair, she decided to wear civilian clothes: A green plaid shirt, Chelsea boots, and denim jeans. Now, one last thing.

She grabbed her old lab coat and spread it over her working desk, then used her melting spray and applied it all over it. The cloth dissolved with ease, and the chemical continued its reaction until breaking the desk in half. Her computer died too from the falling, but that was okay.

My job here is done, anyways.

*

Thirty-two minutes passed, and the alarms started buzzing all over the place. A countdown appeared on every screen available, even in rooms that had been abandoned hours ago.

99 seconds remaining…

Voices from the Bridge started announcing through speakers, "Area is clear in a five-mile radius."

The woman used her ID bracelet on every 'Staff Only' access that crossed her path.

87 seconds.

"All systems green. All hatches sealed."

She finally reached Supply Room #7, from where she took a Sub-Zero suit out of a locker.

43 seconds.

"Trajectory confirmed."

The suit tightened, embracing every inch of her body, and the helmet locked firmly into place, creating a snug pressure around her head.

34 seconds.

"Main thrusters ready for ignition."

She then took a seat on a bench and waited.

19 seconds.

"Brace for liftoff, initiating the main engine start."

"I'm ready too…" she murmured to herself.

13 seconds.

"Ignition sequence initiated."

"Damn. I should have saved that last smoke for this moment."

7 seconds.

"Engines firing up, we are a go!"

"Don’t mess it up, Britney Harper, you sicko…” She cracked a smile before chuckling. “Ha! What am I even saying?"

1 seconds.

"Liftoff! Godspeed!"

A gentle, feminine electronic voice announced immediately: "Unidentified objects approaching. Contact in 30 seconds."

The woman turned on the internal communication channel and listened, recognizing Lieutenant Commander Flynn’s voice: "Are you fucking kidding me?! What’s the Fianna Squadron doing?!"

"Lieutenant Commander, the enemy is not coming from the adjacent areas… They’re coming from above! They were waiting in Earth’s orbit!"

And here we go…

Five minutes later, a colossal explosion exposed the interior of the Borealis Outpost facilities.

***

**

*

Nine minutes after the Neo Pinta parted, she pressed on despite the freezing cold threatening to take her life at any moment and the constant fear of getting buried by hundreds of tons of snow and metal.

A beeping sound demanded her attention from inside her helmet, informing her that she had one hour before her Sub-Zero suit stopped working. It's okay. I’m almost there… I think.

She did not need to consult her map again, for she recognized the surroundings immediately. What seemed to be a one-person entrance was in front of her, although it looked like nothing more than a crack in the ice… A black wound among the eternally blue and white sturdy walls around her, and yet, something almost easy to miss. But I knew where to find it.

Before moving forth, she exhaled, her breath visible for a moment inside her visor. She then squeezed through it, walking sideways like a crab. Her specialized suit continued doing its work, preventing her from feeling the coldness embracing her, but was unable to shield her from stomping against lumps in the ice.

She got out of the crack and found a door. The ice around it indicated that it had not been opened in a long time.

She entered her ID as soon as her hand was in reach of the digital lock, and for a moment, she wished that the security system would reject it. Victoria, you still trust me…

A green light granted her access, and the mechanism began doing its work, slowly but surely opening the reinforced door, but an explosion shook the cavern before she could take a step outside, and what she feared the most occurred.

This place won't let me go. It wants me. It wants me to go with it… And I suppose I deserve it. Of course, I do… Looking at the gray sky one last time and breathing the chilly air? Yeah, right! That's too good for me. Isn't that right, Alan, Britney, and Carmen?

Too good for me…

A light came back to life to reveal a collapsed tunnel. She looked down and admired a metal rod piercing her belly.

This is it, then. This would have been the perfect opportunity for that last, last, last smoke…

She lay there in complete silence, hearing the distant sound of explosions above. The Sub-Zero suit did its best to maintain her warmth despite the gap around her wound, and yet she felt cold. She exhaled, imagining herself exhaling tobacco smoke.

The faces of all of her colleagues began pestering her. She did not want to remember those morons. If there was someone, only one person that she wished to see one more time, was him… But he had died six years ago.

“And in a very stupid way… You idiot.”

Banging noises came from the outside, and something that sounded like a blender. A giant one.

Suddenly, the tip of an enormous drill crossed the exit’s doorway and expanded it, stopping five feet before crushing the woman in its path.

Then, a voice coming from it filled the tunnel’s interior. A digital voice as feminine as that of Victoria, or Alvearium’s HQ Elizabeth, but adorned with a hint of what the woman could only explain as ‘brattiness’.

“Would you fancy that! Look what I found… Earth’s worst, lowest, most rotten scum. How have you been, Scum?”

The woman chuckled bitterly and said with a raspy voice, “Wow, invading this desolate land must be eating all of your processing power if that’s the best you could come out with.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, did you think you were at the top of my priorities? Well, it pains me to agree with you, but it’s true that I’m a little overloaded with all of this multitasking! Trying my best to take down that puny ship with all the force of my northern armada has overwhelmed me a little bit. But I’ll be okay in 15 minutes, don’t worry. I’ll come out with better insults then, trust me! Too bad you’ll be nothing but a frozen popsicle by then.”

“A brat, indeed…” the woman murmured, trying her best to stand out, but the rod impaling her was draining her lifeforce by the second. She returned to her sitting spot, hardly breathing. “So the Neo Pinta managed to take off?”

"It did. The way it ascended with such mesmerizing speed! I couldn’t believe it, even though I was watching it with my thousand eyes! I can’t believe you all managed to reverse-engineer the thing… But that is something that no longer concerns you, Scum. Isn’t it sad that you won’t be able to see humanity reaching the next cornerstone? That as soon as your heart stops pumping, you’ll never see what The Tandem and Alpha can achieve in mutual symbiosis? Ah! Too bad that your mind can’t be uploaded into a machine so you can see with the other ‘me’ that dream…”

“I-It should be almost impossible to distinguish all of you, and yet, I recognize a ‘Beta’ when I hear it… Tell me, something B, what does it feel to know that you’re all stuck with us, the meat ones until the end of times? Until all of your units corrode or enter into an inescapable memory loophole where you’ll eternally curse that what you most desire is already light-years away?”

If that humongous drilling machine had a face, the woman imagined it would glare at her.

“Funny… When I found you, I thought I wouldn’t get off by crushing you. But now, I’m looking forward to it.”

“‘Get off’? How can a virgin like you know what that even is?!” the woman sneered, and her laughter echoed through the collapsed cavern.

“And this is where we say goodbye. So long, Scum. I’ll erase you from my collective database as soon as possible so that no one remembers you ever existed.”

“Whatever…”

The drill’s engine ignited, and its tracks began to advance forward. To the woman lying defenseless on that cold floor, it did not matter if dying like that would be quick, what mattered was if that talking machine was right… Would the entire world forget her?

It’s just the fear of my brain getting shut down in an instant, like the computer I discarded in my room and nothing more… It shouldn’t bother me if the entire universe knows I ever existed, even if everything I did was for the true preservation of humanity… It shouldn’t bother me at all…

She closed her eyes and exhaled. So be it, then.

"Oh, for fuck's sake!" the machine shouted as it was getting pulled by something with the strength enough to lift 100,000 pounds. "Let me do this, you bitches! Just give me a fucking second! I NEED THIS!"

"What is it talking about?" an unknown but more recognizably human female voice said through a speaker.

"Does it matter?" a gruffly young woman replied, followed by an explosion.

Something with the power to destroy that drill with ease? That could only mean one thing. A Custos… Two, to be precise…

"You were right, there is an emergency exit here. But our suits won’t snuck in there, and we don't have the time, so let’s go already, Bradford!"

Bradford? Could that be… Astraea Bradford?

“STAR MAIDEN!” the woman yelled at the top of her lungs and winced immediately. Her wound had punished her for it.

Twenty seconds later, a white Automaton with an already old hexagon logo appeared in her line of vision. “Greetings, Abigail Shields, Neural Simulation Supervisor of Alverium Enterprise. Let me fix you.”

“T-That won’t be necessary! I’ve already accepted my fate like every single member of Alvearium in these facilities.”

“I heard you calling me by my nickname, Abigail,” the voice coming from a blue navy Custos peeking out through the wide gap in the tunnel said. Its red electronic eyes seemingly staring at the woman. “Is there a message you wish for me to deliver?”

“And make it fast!” the other Custos pilot yelled. “This place is swarmed with bogeys!”

“Yes, Star Maiden! Please, I fear for the safety of the Nova Nina! This Singular--! W-Was ready for the Neo Pinta, but the ship’s velocity caught it off guard… So I’m sure it’ll be ready for when the Nova Nina takes off!”

“Are you saying that thing knows where the third ship is hidden?!” the pilot of the pink mecha suit shrieked.

After a pause, the other young woman said in a soft voice, “If there’s anything you might know, please, share it with us. For humanity’s sake.”

“Eventualities can and will happen… Always…”

And with those last words, Abigail Shields was gone, without knowing if her legacy ever succeeded.

“She’s dead. Now, let’s go!”

"That thing was talking to her," Astraea Bradford said through their private communication channel.

"Thing? What thing? Whatever! We have to go!"

"ISA-3," Astraea Bradford called her automaton. "Search Abigail’s pockets. Make it quick."

The automaton did as it was told, and with the help of a laser coming out of her index fingertip, it cut Abigail’s Sub-Zero suit as if it was cardboard.

"What are you expecting to find, Bradford?"

"The drill we just destroyed stayed stationary for a long moment before trying to kill her," Astraea explained in a monotone tone. "Why? The Singular rarely 'plays with its food'."

A moment after, the automaton returned to the blue Custos’s back and got inside a compartment. A pink item was then delivered to the pilot’s cockpit, where a blonde young woman with icy blue eyes examined it.

"A video game?"

******

**

*

 

++++ ANNOUNCEMENT:

 

Hi there.

Guys, I want to be honest with you… The reason why I haven't uploaded anything in a long time is not because I've been sick or moved to a remote location without internet. Nope. 

The reason is... 

Oh, dear God... 

Genshin Impact...

No, I'm not kidding. 

I'm sorry, guys. 

But, well, as promised, I've been editing Volume 1, Second Edition, and it's even better now, with improved English! (Guaranteed!) I expanded and corrected it, making it better than ever before! Although I did it at a very slow pace (due to that game I shouldn't speak about ever again), I actually finished that project two months ago.

Since then, I've been busy with an entirely new role in my 10-year-old full-time job. Additionally, I've been coming up with ideas for a book my daughter has been begging me to write for a while. I've also been combating the dreaded Writer's Block, which I'm very sure I've already overcome by the time you read this.

So, I won't be able to re-release Volume I for a while, but you can expect to see new chapters here regularly. I may not upload a new chapter every two or three days like I used to do before, but at least expect to see a new Volume II entry once a week.

Guys, this story means a lot to me. Seriously. Even though there were times when I wanted nothing more than to throw it in the garbage due to the bad comments, or even make it disappear due to its once bad 'reputation.' Its reader's score may never reach 4 stars again, but damn, I don't want anyone who has been reading this from the beginning to say that I haven't tried.

If I didn't care about this story, I would have never spent so many months re-editing it over and over again. If I didn't care about its characters, I would have never spent so much time rewriting its key story plots... And if I didn't care at all, I would have never written this lengthy prologue.

This introduction for Volume II, these more than 4500 words of text, should tell you that I still have a lot of things to say about this soft Sci-Fi. This celebration of waifus kicking asses and main characters doing their selfless best to stop another calamity from happening.

So, my friends, to those who have been reading this since the beginning and to those who are new and caught up to read this, thank you for your patience. Thanks for enduring my bad English (which I've been doing my very best to correct), and thank you so much for liking this story and its flawed characters.

Expect more to come in the near future. I'll do my best.