Episode 20, Part I: Researchers

"Mikomi?"

I stare at him for what seems like an eternity. He looks so... different. So old. He's hunched over, and his hair is thin and white. His eyes look in different directions - the left one is clouded over with cataracts.

Finally, I find my voice. "... It's Rei now," I say.

He blinks, and looks at me closely, his caratact-covered eye rotating almost independently of his healthy one. "Rei? That doesn't make any sense."

I shrug. I'm not sure what to say. What to do. Strange children wander all around us, and every one of them looked a little bit like him. "So you're him? ... You're Inase Spark?"

"That's me," he says.

I swallow. I haven't felt nervous in a long time. Not since the day I first met Una, Kiyoshi, High Dive, and Moses. There's so much I want to say. So much I want to ask. What is a person supposed to do in a situation like this?

Kiyoshi would know. Moses would know. Una would know. Even Mokuzai would know.
Now, what would High Dive do?
...
The ensuing mental image makes me try to forget that I ever wondered that.

"I've been looking for you for a long time," I say.

He nods. "Oh yes. For at least fourteen..." he looks at me again, studying me, "Well, probably more like eighteen years."

I'm not sure how to respond to that. "I found your journal. It's what led me here. I have questions..." I hold up my portable computer, with his journal still plugged in.

His face lights up at that. "Aaah, I haven't seen one of these in ages!" He takes it from my hands, and I let him. He walks over to a terminal near the wall, and I follow him. His mind is utterly silent. I wonder whether I could push through his mental shielding if I wanted, but decide not to test it. He plugs the computer into the terminal and presses a few buttons.

A vast holographic display pops into existence for a moment, and I have the briefest glimpse of a fractal-filled screen. Then there is a loud pop, then two softer pops, and blue smoke flows out from the sides of my portable computer.

I stare. "... You... BROKE my computer?"

"Oh yeah," he said. "Now I remember why I haven't used one of these in years."

I snatch the machine back from him and clip it back against my belt. For the briefest moment, I consider killing him. Then a stab of guilt washes the thought away, and I look up, hoping he hadn't sensed that. I don't even know what kind of telepathic ability he has, but he has impressive shielding, at least.

I'm annoyed, and irritation looses the dam that had held back my questions. "Why did you come here? Why did you make me? What did you hope to accomplish with Project Scion? How long have you been here?"

"You talk a lot," he says.

My jaw snaps shut with an audible click, and I stare at him incredulously. I talk a lot?

"Well, come along. My kids have made us some dinner. It's time to eat."

I glance at one of the children, taking in his clubbed foot, then another who was putting a steel bowl filled with... something, on the table - Lysa. "What's wrong with them?" I ask.

Spark shrugs as he sits down at the table. "Flawed. Imperfect. My mistake."

The children gather around the table. I don't catch all of their names, but the boy with the club-foot is named Clubber, and there's a boy named Dany and a girl named Gina. Their minds are very simple. Very easy to assume as my own. I shake my head. Easy or not, I know that they are not me. Lysa serves up a dish made from some sort of plant matter mixed with rodent flesh. They offer it to me, and I decline, saying, "I can't digest meat."

"Huh. That's a new one," Spark says. "All my children were flawed in some way. I guess you got off pretty easy." He sends Dany off to bring their other guest, and I don't think much of it.

We talk, then, and he is not what I expected, not what I'd hoped he would be. I wanted someone with all the answers. I wanted him to explain Project Scion to me. What I found was a man who had given up.

Here he was, Inase Spark, the genius of Project Scion, my own creator, trying to engineer fertile children with enough genetic viability to produce a stable population, hoping that maybe they'll go unnoticed by the Cataclysm that's coming. Mikomi. He'd named me 'Mikomi.' Hope. But he'd lost it. I try to show him that he hasn't failed. I try to show him the Kata Kariana. It doesn't help. Seeing me shrouded in darkness, a vaguely me-like silhouette of darkest night... well, maybe it sent the wrong message. I want to tell him what he told me. I want to tell him how we are fighting for each other's sake. How we have to be willing to sacrifice ourselves by the hundreds - by the millions - for one another. That nothing will be left for him and his new family if all the world falls around them. Instead what I say is, "This isn't what I expected."

"What did you expect, dear sister?" Nero asks as Dany leads him into the room. My eyes widen.

Before I even know what I'm doing, I'm on my feet, and my psychic knife is burning a bright blue on my gauntlet. "What are you doing here?"

He slips in past my mental shielding as easily as if I were nothing more than a child. I feel a faint mental nudge, and my psychic knife flickers out. "Now, now, we wouldn't want to spoil this reunion with violence, would we?"

Spark nods. "You are both welcome here only so long as you behave yourselves. I won't have squabbling children at my table."

I stare at Spark, then at Nero, and then at last, reluctantly, sink back into my seat.

Nero sits down and helps himself to a bowl of glop, though he doesn't seem interesting in eating it. "What am I doing here?" He asks, addressing my question at last, "The same thing you're doing here, I expect: getting information."

I let that sink in for a moment, then my gaze travels down towards his arm. The arm Una destroyed. "How's the arm?" I ask belligerently.

He holds up a gloved hand, and gently pulls the glove off, revealing a solid silver hand beneath. "Much better."

I smile unkindly, and the image of his flesh being flayed from his bones replays itself in my memory. "Una has that effect on people," I say. And then, "What do you want, Nero?"

"What do you want, sister?" he shot back.

The question. The Question. It rings through my brain as if it were a tolling bell. "I..." I look up. "That's one of the Questions, isn't it? The Questions that define us? 'Who are you?' 'What do you want?'"

"You don't know the answers to either one, do you?"

"I want to stop this... this cataclysm," I say.

"And the other?" he asks.

"... at least I'm trying," I say.

He rolls his eyes. "I know why you came here. You came here in hopes of recapturing the childhood you never had, didn't you? You thought you could come in here and your daddy would make it all better. Pathetic."

Hatred. Hurt. I glare at him. "You don't know me," I snap.

"I've known you longer than you have, Rei. I knew you when you were nothing more than a quivering mass of telepathic tissue strapped to your bed back Home. Did you know that Aimi wanted to call you 'Nee-chan?' 'Dear older sister?'" He shook his head dismissively. "I thought 'nothing' was a much better name. And it is much better, don't you think? Even now, you don't really know who you are. I bet you have trouble telling the difference between yourself and Clubby over there in the corner."

Hatred. Hurt. Shame. I want him dead. I want him DEAD.

When I don't refute his assertion, Inase Spark looks visibly disappointed, and my sense of shame becomes intense.

"I know what you want, at least," I snap. "The same thing you've always wanted: power."

Nero nods. "That's true, I do want power. But that's only part of it."

"Why do all this? Why steal memories from me? Why attack Lord Tsuchinaga? Why try to steal the files from beneath his mansion?"

Nero looks to Spark. "Why don't you tell her the truth?" He directed his eyes back my way, and every time my gaze met his, new hatred rose up within me. "You should already know this. The pieces are already there. You know what the White-Rock summons. You know that we were made with the White-Rock."

I blink. "I know that Silex Niveus is a conduit that draws energy here from 'elsewhere,'" I say cautiously.

"Where do you think it draws that energy from, sister?" He smiles, and I hate him for it. "From the Enemy. We are half-Enemy."

Shock. Surprise. Disbelief. "You're a liar. Project Scion doesn't have to end in the same place as the DisLocator experiments. None of us has become Eyeless."

"No," he says, "The Eyeless and the Oni they summon are beautiful, but we can be so much more."

I stare at him. I feel a sense of horror rising up within my stomach. An awful, quivering sort of feeling. I see again Garandu-Oni. I see again Asamu-Oni. I remember the love I felt for each of them, even amidst the horror and the bloodshed.

The hour when death is like a light, and blood is like a rose;
You never loved your friends, my friends, as I have loved my foes.

"The Oni are... magnificent," I concede, "But I think the word you're looking for is 'horrific,' not 'beautiful.'"

He looks visibly disappointed. "Sister, sister, sister, you can't fight what you are. Who you are. You can either embrace it, or be miserable."

I look to Spark, and when he doesn't deny Nero's statement, my heart sinks. Why would someone like me be chosen by... Karia? I liked her pain. I reveled in it. I felt the whole of it and longed only for more.

No. No. I won't. It's not about what you feel. It's about what you choose. "Is that all you came here to do? To taunt me with this?"

Nero smiles a sunny smile. "No. I also wanted to see the look on your face when I did this."

That sinking feeling? It's quickly becoming my closest companion. And it's proved right when all sixteen people at the table rise to their feet and attack me.

The next few minutes are a flurry of hatred and violence. The Fire rises up all around me, but I dare not let it loose. Not here, where it might burn my creator to a cinder. I twist it sideways and pull out three threads, and three of me leap out across the room even as I retreat to a better fighting position. Two go down almost immediately as energy pistols are fired into them. They break apart like smoke, and are gone.

"Why would someone want to create clones that are Half-Enemy? Why would someone DO THAT?" the surviving simulacra shouts into Nero's face.

He twists to the side to avoid its attack, and it bursts into smoke against the overturned table.

I know when I am over-matched. If I stay here, I will die.
I can't afford to die. Not when living might allow me to stop Nero. Somehow.

I swallow my pride. I run.
As I flee, I hear Nero's voice behind me saying, "Damnit. ... Kill each other."

The sound of knives hacking into flesh fills the corridor. I turn around in horror just in time to see Inase Spark take a blast of energy to the face. Light pours out of his eyes, and he falls, dead.

...

The next thing I remember, a voice calls out to me. His voice. Spark's voice. I am injured, though I don't remember being injured. A knife wound, and several nasty burns. I grimace.
I look to the source of the voice.

"Identify yourself," he says. His image is young, and translucent, and alive.

I stare.

A hum begins to build. "Subject 'Rei' not recognized," he says, and I realize with a start that I must have given my name.

"... I was named Mikomi," I say.

The hum ceases. "Mikomi recognized."

"Who are you?" I ask. I feel distant. Faint. I...

"I am Inase Spark," he replies.

I stare. "... I just saw you die," I say.

He looks uncomfortable. "I'm sorry to hear that. I am here to help you if I can."

"... How can you help me?"

"What do you want to do?" he asks.

"Find my friends. Una. High-Dive. Mokuzai. Moses." I think about it for a moment, "Maybe Kiyoshi, too."

I do have access to the mainframe."

"The Mainframe?" I ask.

"The ship's mainframe. If you can provide sufficient power, I can activate the sensors if that is your wish."

I spend the next several minutes dragging generators over to the terminal and plugging them in. When I am done, the holograph asks, "What shall I scan for?"

I think for a moment. I remember distantly how the KyoTeeshee said that the Enemy will follow us wherever we go. It helps to think about something other than Inase Spark. "Scan for the Enemy," I say.

"Within what range?"

"Planetary, including orbit," I say.

A three dimensional representation of the planet Karia snaps into being above the projector. Red dots begin appearing scattered across the it. Most of them are within Geneva Prime, but there are some scattered here and there, a large group in the woods outside of the Grand Chantry, and a few in the other cities.

... There is something in orbit. Something filled with so many of the Enemy that the scanners could not identify the individual signals.

A thought strikes me, then. I zoom in the display on the wreck of the Bosphorus.
Two Enemy signals radiate there.

I zoom it in on my specific location.
Enemy.
I am the Enemy.

All the horror stories I ever heard are true, and they're about ME?
I stare at the screen for a long moment.

"Energy reserves are running low," Spark reports. "Do you wish anything else?"

"... Scan for unique energy sources that correspond to my... non-enemy energy source?"

"Processing."

It is 45 seconds later that concentrations of unique energy sources begin to appear on the globe. Much is concentrated around the Grand Chantry. Absurd amounts lie on the western continent. Lines of it flow across the globe in a strange, regular pattern, like a spiderweb across the whole world.

"Filtering..." Spark reports.

The other sources fade, and I see where my companions are.
One in the jungles southwest of Matamos.
One off the coast from Omexon.
Two in the ocean north of Geneva Prime, moving west.

I ask the computer to extrapolate a possible destination for the two on the ocean, and it reports that the likely targets are Marina or Omexon.

... Omexon.
Looks like I know where I have to go.

Even as the computer powers down behind me, I leave the ruined ship, my heart sunken down into my shoes.

Inase Spark is dead.
I am the Enemy we fight.

Two thoughts prevent me from sinking into despair:
The first is the thought of seeing my friends again.
The second is the knowledge that I can't let Nero get away with what he's done. What he chooses to be.

... I swear by all the First Minds, I will kill Nero for what he's done.