Rummaging in our souls, 
            we often dig up something that ought to have lain there unnoticed.
                                          - Leo Tolstoy



The interior of The Andromeda, with all it's soothing colors and ever changing accommodations had started
to feel like a mainstay of Dylan's life. Understandable, seeing as he never was granted a chance to settle 
since leaving Tarn-Vedra behind. Under the Highguard, you were constantly on the move- being ushered
in from one galaxy to another. The world was your oyster, just not one that ever developed a pearl. 
Granted, in his older age, he was grateful for the lack of movement. Actually being able to own a decent 
amount of clothes had never been a concern until he found himself no longer wearing the same uniform day in and day out. 
Not that he had decided it was time to retire- far from it- he simply enjoyed the stillness of the moments where 
it had been allowed to him. That said, it was time for a change of scenery. One that called for a newly 
upgraded piloting system. 


Reading and rereading over the list of changes The Andromeda would be forgoing, Harper finally slid the 
page back to Dylan, unmarred. Over the past few days, they had some...unpleasant meetings over what operations would remain
and which ones would be retooled for better optimization. Here, we should note that the idea was truly
Harper's from the beginning, but, every suggested alteration Dylan had batted his way had been met with at best, a 
short refusal. At worst, an entire theoretical explanation as to how long it would take to uplink their 
systems with a proper variation of his translator. It made him almost regret giving him permission to approve of anything
in the first place. Not that it wasn't Andromeda's final decision in the end, anyway. She just refused to be a part of the 
ongoing debate. Whether or not they needed to modify their munitions in order to better accompany long-ranged projectiles
was irrelevant. She'd work with what she had.  
That said, she decided to choose Harper as her representative deeming him the only other person who knew her limitations. 
Though, an inkling at the back of Dylan's head told him that she was deliberately punishing him for the outcome of their last 'mission'. 
"Not bad." Harper remarked, his hand still placed over the page, tapping his fingernails against it. He was anticipating something. 
"I think this is the first time you asked for something doable." As if asking for a denser ray-shield was beyond the 
realm of human comprehension. "You do know we'd have to shut down the ship just to load half these programs, right? Not to 
mention the work that'd have to be done replacing all these parts. I'd give it two-three days tops." 
Again, Dylan was struck with an uncanny feeling like he had just fallen into the web of some grander scheme. Lately, everything 
had started to feel this way. Like they were players on a board anticipating their opponent's next move. 
"I suppose you already have some idea of what we're supposed to do in the meantime?"  












"And you approved of this?" Tyr's sidelong glare began to stew into something rotten. The repairs had already begun which
resulted in everyone onboard having to shout over each other any time they had a thought that needed to be
expressed. Unfortunately for Dylan, this happened every time anyone had a thought to begin with. 
"I did." He reasoned, folding his arms behind his back as a way to steady himself against whatever criticism might
be flung his way. "It has been some time since we've had a moment of reprieve and I figured-"
"You've gone too long without luxury and now you desire it." In Tyr-speak, this was his way of calling him soft. 
"Okay, let's consider it this way: when was the last time you got to take a hot bath?"
Immediately, Tyr perked up, his mind desperately trying to remember what it was like to feel something that
wasn't temperature-regulated showers.
"I think might see your point." 

At least Beka had no reservations about their trip. Seeing as she had already packed for it by the time Dylan
had come to deliver the news, he had an inclination that word got around quick. That, or she and Harper had been 
co-conspiring this thing from the start. He almost had to wonder if Harper only now agreed to his list as a way 
to deter him from figuring it out. Regardless, they did need a break. This crew worked hard under his command despite 
the ever-growing rift that had been splitting them apart. Between the new accommodations and this trip, he figured that 
greasing a few palms never harmed anyone. Especially when it came to certain...experts in the art. 


That led to the inevitability of giving the news to Trance. He wasn't sure if she even wanted to be included
in anything anymore as she had slowly begun to blend into the background of daily life aboard ship. What was
concerning was that she wasn't doing anything out of the ordinary. He checked. All the security footage on the
ship showed her going about her day just as she always had. By now, she should be in her garden.

Reaching the entryway, Dylan overheard what sounded like a conversation between two people; only there was just 
the one voice doing all the work. Leaning just close enough to the door to slide it open, he peered across the 
terrarium to Trance, kneeling over a plant she had been nursing back to health since their last stop
on Avalon VI. Something about it had drawn her to it but she didn't say what. The price tag had been far too heavy 
for what Dylan would consider a nonessential but, suspiciously, Harper was happy to cover the fee. Something about
having some 'spare pocket change'. In some cases, Dylan felt better being left in the dark.
"I never took you for the spiritual type." He spoke up, regarding her surprise as something
a little left of genuine. Something in her posture showed she had anticipated his arrival. 
"I'm not praying." She corrected him, dodging the question just as she dodged every other question that had ever been 
sent her way. If she had ever made a solid statement in her life, he wasn't entirely sure if he'd notice. 
Whether she was pink and playfully diverting the conversation or gold and ruefully recounting something
no one could either confirm nor deny; she didn't seem as comfortable with lying as the others did. She didn't 
seem too fond of telling the truth, either. 
"Do you ever get tired?" He asked out of genuine curiosity, perching himself on a nearby stump that seemed to house the 
various insect life that kept her garden alive. He wondered if there was a metaphor to be seen there
but he was never really all that good at metaphors. All fancy prose, nothing straightforward or real. 
"There's more than one way to be exhausted." She answered in a way that told him absolutely nothing. 
"So you're exhausted, then?" He asked.
She wiped the dirt from her hands and settled them, perched, upon her lap. 
Sliding his knees apart, Dylan leaned in to catch a good look at her face. "Restless? Worn out? Under the weather? 
I can do this all day if you want." 
Turning, she met him with no opposition. "Why are you here?"










As the ship touched down on Eden XII, Rommie already had reservations about the trip. Not because she 
wouldn't be allowed to go, she had no way to participate in anything the resort had to offer anyway; she
just did not want them to go. Somehow, Harper had picked up on this seeing as he hadn't left her 
side in the past two days. For him, it was probably some noble cause. For her, it was...
"You remember what I said about stranger danger, right?" He asked, sitting curled against their only working
heat generator. "If any of these guys offer you anything-"
"Punch them in the face?"
"Exactly!" The cheeky grin on his face seemed to indicate she had nothing to worry about. He installed tech
barriers in all the less-than-secure areas on the ship and didn't even call it a chastity belt...to her face,
anyway.
For that, she was grateful. 
"You could've waited before dressing down." She remarked as another chill whisked through his body. 
"Are you kidding me?" He laughed through chattering teeth, "The second we hit the beach, I'm going surfing!"
A dreamlike haze seemed to pull over his face. Usually, this sort of reaction happened whenever someone's 
mind began to weave into their own personal fantasy world. Generally, this is where Harper stayed. "I can already 
feel the tide..." 
"Is she slapping you around?" She asked to which his smile grew broader.
"Like a drunk afterthought." 









The layout of the resort looked like something out of an old myth with it's carved stone pillars surrounding the
large expanse of land. An ancient foundation, surrounded by the sea on all sides, you could see where bruises 
had formed in it's structure from the constant lapping of waves. Beka had never seen anything like it. Something so
decadent usually had rules to keep out the riff raff and, if she was anything, she was certainly riff. For good measure
too, seeing as she was already trying to place her finger on a good limit to how much she could take before anyone noticed. 
As for the raff, well, Harper was already whizzing by, cackling down the beach with his surfboard in tow. Following him up 
to a point, Trance had slowed to a walk, stopping to watch him run to the coast. 
"He sure knows how to pick 'em, huh?" She smiled only for Trance to turn away without an answer. So much for girl-time. 
"Are we entertaining our vices this evening?" Asked Tyr from behind her, watching as Harper's attention was stolen
from the waves to a pair of sunbathers untying their bikini tops. 
"What? I can't case the place for fun?" She asked, jokingly, as she watched him turn his head disapprovingly at her. 
"Besides, I thought you were the one who needs a chaperone."
He then looked away, "It depends..." For a moment, she wondered if her teasing had hit a nerve. Following his gaze, she saw
that Tyr had been watching Dylan head into the resort. No roundup, no meetings, nothing. Typical. Regimented 
fun for the regimented man. As he turned back, she waited for Tyr to finish his thought but he didn't. Instead, they had
been interrupted by Harper sprinting back up the beach to shove his board into her hands. "Wha-" 
"Bathroom!" He shouted, zipping past them and into the building. 
Blinking, Beka held the board at arm's length, "What am I, his maid?" She then tried to push the thing off on Tyr who 
silently crossed his arms, declining to even touch it. 
Not that that stopped her. In fact, if anything, it made her more adamant. Pushing it against him firm enough to get
her point across, she smiled. "Come on, he's going to make you carry it around all day anyway." Still, he said nothing so she 
applied just a bit more pressure until he grabbed it by the tip, pulling it away. 
In lieu of asking, he stated, "You think this is cute." The sound of his voice made it clear she had clearly gotten
his goat. Good. Kept him on his toes. 
"Embarrassed?" She teased as he smiled back at her, pulling the board back as if he intended to snap it like a rubber
band if either of them let go. "Really? What are you, five?" She scoffed, tightening her grip on her end as they wrenched it
back and fourth in a tug of war that lasted far too long than it should have. Once the initial fun of it had dissolved, things
started to get serious. Ready to take him on, Beka took a good step back before letting go. The only problem was that Tyr had 
also let go at the same time, sending the thing flying a good few yards before crashing into a nearby patron. 
Exchanging looks, they began mentally batting the blame back and fourth, already formulating their stories in case anyone asked.
"Well?" Tyr resigned, nodding towards the board as if he was commanding a dog, "Go get it."
Giving him a look, Beka realized there was probably nothing she could say to get him to do it, instead. "Fine." Rolling her
eyes, she jogged over to the woman, full apologetic charade on display. "Hey sorry about that, my friend-" Peeling Harper's
gaudy surfboard off of her, she saw that the woman was wearing a uniform and immediately, Beka could hear the flush
of her vacation going down the commode. 
"It seems I don't look out for myself very well." She apologized, trying to find her footing again. 
Beka blinked, her mouth falling into a thin line. "I...uh-" She then stole a quick look back at Tyr who was trying to absolve
himself of the whole thing. Now seated at a nearby stand, he only gave a quick glance back at her and paused. 
"Are you enjoying your time at Eden?" The woman asked, whipping her attention back to the situation at hand. 
"Oh, yeah." She nodded, unconvincingly. In most cases, Beka was used to being kicked out of places less fancy than this for
nothing. Maybe she was just overthinking things. After all, it was an accident and- 
"Oh good." The woman spoke, brushing the sand off her skirt. "After all, your happiness is our top priority."





 

As bright and warm as the beach was, there was something weird about the inside of this place. The lighting was dim,
the floors were hard, and the toilet seats were freezing. You'd think with how much money they had, they'd come up with something
fancier. Maybe install a bunch of hardware in the walls to regulate temperature. Of course, then, they'd have to dig up all
these murals. See, this is why you don't make a ship with specific designs based around aesthetics. Once it needed repairs,
you'd have to end up tearing them up just to reattach a loose cable. The same should be said for buildings. No telling how 
many temples fell into disrepair because the artistic integrity overshadowed it's structural integrity. As far as Harper was
concerned, the whole thing was a zoning nightmare. Not everything needed to be pretty, just reliable.
Unless, of course, you were a cute girl with a bob, in which, hello unreliability! 
Taking a quick b-line towards her, he was suddenly intercepted by Tyr who slid into a conversation without so much as breaking
a sweat. Ugh, the confidence of this guy! 
With no time to waste, Harper forced his way into their little talk with a smile so cheeky it could
make your face hurt. "Say, I've got a proposition." He announced, beaming with the lovability of a 
stuffed animal, "How about before you start in on the main course, you sneak in a little snack cake first?" 
Craning his neck in a way that read off with utter embarrassment, Tyr slapped him with a look that people who 
still had a sense of shame tended to carry around whenever he opened his big mouth in public. Surprisingly,
it didn't happen quite as often as you'd think.
"Cute." Their equal opportunity object of desire laughed, nearly knocking them both on their ass with that one word alone. Weird girl.
Thankfully, he liked weird.
Not so thankfully, he didn't like the look Tyr was giving him and with a sway of his head, gave him the 
go to get the hell out of there while he still had his dignity in tact. Looking back, he watched as Tyr nodded a few times and
just left. It's like he wasn't even trying! 







"See what I mean?" Beka joined Tyr as soon as he had rounded the corner. He didn't seem half as darkly amused as she had 
been. "Creepy isn't it?"
"I will admit there is a deeply unsettling quality to this..." He moved his jaw in silence, not quite grinding his teeth 
but lapping at them with the edge of his tongue, "...Establishment." 
"Maybe it's just us." She theorized, but she'd spent her fair share of time in seedy little holes in the wall around the 
kind of guys who hid their dealings not just behind closed doors but so far out of the public eye that if you even spoke 
about the kind of things you saw, you'd be dead within the week. Even then, the people there, no matter how much work they put
in to try to seem at ease, they couldn't hide that sense of fear. Sure, you'd play along but it was an unspoken understanding
that everyone saw them for what they were. A smile was a method of survival.
She knew Tyr must've had a similar experience. 
"Subservience with a smile." He regarded, deep in thought. Something told her that there was a connotation tethered
to that phrase that was best left untouched. "I think we should pay a visit to those in charge..."








As much as he hated to admit it, Dylan did enjoy the solitude this vacation granted him. It wasn't that he didn't enjoy
his duties to his Commonwealth or his crew, he just didn't exactly want to be on-call for them every waking hour of the
day. It had been a while since he could enjoy sitting alone with his thoughts. Maybe he could even catch up on reading
something that wasn't a political document that had to be assessed and signed with notes on how to appeal to a 
wider audience. Maybe he could get back to talking to his crewmembers like people again. The residual guilt that hung
in his mind still weighed heavy. Even as Tyr was no longer their prisoner, he still hadn't exactly 
settled back in and he had no reason to since his Captain saw him as nothing more than a walking scar, incapable of healing.
No, no, he was being too hard on himself. They were on better terms than they were, but, there was still that distance 
that made Dylan wonder if he truly had gone too far. 
Then, of course, there was Trance. She still hadn't spoken a word to the crew and yet she's stayed. Unlike Tyr who has
been somewhat defiant at the idea of taking up residence with them again, Trance hasn't budged an inch. He wondered if,
given the circumstances, she had anywhere to go at all. 
In the grand scheme of whatever it was she had been caught in- that they were all caught in- she seemed to keep mostly to 
herself lately. No warnings, no guidance, nothing. At least he had Rommie. For some reason, he felt like she 
was truly the only person who could understand his motivations which was probably why she was the first to forgive him.
Well, not forgive, exactly, but the discomfort had faded quickly. Even if he hadn't been absolved, she seemed sympathetic
at the least. 
As for Harper and Beka...

The door to the steam room budged an inch sending Dylan sitting up, his body firmly held in a mess of right angles. So
much for peace and quiet. 
Just as he was about to lose his patience, the person at the door finally peeked their head inside and Dylan found himself
staring up at the side of Beka's face. Well, at least it was someone friendly. 
Patting his leg, Dylan gave her one of his best smiles, something pleasant and disarming. Something that didn't remind her that
he was her boss. "C'mon in, the water's fine." He joked, watching as she moved to sit right where he had placed his hand.
He swallowed. 
"Okay, okay, I get it." Sweeping her off of his lap, Dylan could feel the stress of work overriding his sense of humor.
"Get what?" She asked, innocently, like she wasn't always up to something. 
"Me. I've never had fun a day in my life and I just can't wait to make sure no one else does, either, right?" He tossed a hand 
towards the door, "What do I bet Harper's waiting just outside the door waiting to hit record?"
Staring back at him was the most genuine expression Beka had ever worn on her face. It was so unfitting of her, it was almost
unsettling.  
"You think you're not fun?" She asked, drawing closer to him again as he started to consider it was, in part, her idea to 
go on vacation in the first place. Maybe to escape the uniform. Maybe to see him escape the uniform. 
"You should know it's unethical to sleep with a commanding officer." He noted as if two adults needed a disclaimer for anything
more than a sense of civility. 
"Are you my commanding officer right now?" She asked and immediately he swept her back onto his lap with a smile.

Suddenly, the door whipped open and in burst Harper. No recording equipment, no keen smile; only anger simmering just under the surface.
"You!" He shouted, jamming his finger their way as it made it's way to his face. "The second I heard she was heading here, I knew
you'd-" He then removed Dylan's hand from her hip, "Don't do that." The grimace across his face shifted from anger to disgust.
Taking the most firm but gentle tone, Dylan felt himself tamping down the harsh buzz of annoyance under his tongue. "Harper, 
what do you think you're doing?" 
"Me!?" He choked, "You've gotta be delusional if you think Beka-" 
"Can make her own decisions?" He cut in only to watch him practically swallow his own tongue.
"You don't get it, she's-!" 
He couldn't believe the handwringing over this. 
"There's nothing wrong here, Harper." He reasoned, sensing that maybe there had been a spark of jealousy that had ignited 
somewhere between realizing that perhaps his personal failure regarding women had to be in partial blame for those around him.
"Wanna bet?" Harper pulled Beka off his lap and tugged her down to whisper in her ear and, for the first
time all evening, something inside Dylan's stomach began to sour. He didn't exactly catch every word of it, but, enough had slipped
out to make him flinch. Concluding his barrage of indecencies pulled from every disgusting thought he'd ever had, Harper pulled away 
concluding aloud with the most damning evidence of all, "Isn't that right, Vanessa?" 
Putting a hand over her mouth, she giggled. 
Well, the evidence was certainly overwhelming. "Alright so there might be something wrong with-" He stopped mid thought- "Vanessa!?" 
"Yeah, they'll respond to any name you call 'em."
"But why Vanessa?"
"First name that came to mind." Harper shrugged, "She was an old friend of mine back on Earth. We were fourteen. She let me touch her boob." 
Well that was certainly an answer. 

"So what do you think it is?" With the warm buzz under his skin now gone, Dylan searched Beka's face for some remnant of her personality 
only to find it's absence. "Mind control?" 
"Nah, trust me, mind control's not exactly as cut and dry as people make it out to be."
He found the wording of that statement troubling. 
"It's not a full wipe either. You can do that, but it just turns the recipient into a vegetable." 
"Really?" He asked, oddly curious in regards to how he seemed to know this information but far too disturbed to ask anything too in-depth. 
"Steamed, sliced, and ready to be served."
"So what do you think it is?"
"That..." Harper pointed both his index fingers at Beka with a lack of enthusiasm he wasn't used to seeing. "...I don't know." Shaking his 
head, he reached out to pull her along, "But I'm not leaving her alone like this." There was something in this voice that sounded almost 
accusatory.
"If I had known I wouldn't have-"
"Yeah well you should've known. With Tyr it took me like two seconds!"
A shock sent a wave through Dylan's system.
"Tyr!?"



For all the unsettling things Dylan had seen in his life, nothing could prepare him for this. 



Posture unguarded, Tyr's shoulders lacked their usual heaviness, his features were relaxed, his hair was pushed out of his face. 
"I asked him to wait here and he hasn't moved an inch!" Harper explained without anything even resembling a whisper. It was enough 
proof for Dylan to realize how bad the situation was.  
Trailing down the beach, Harper approached Tyr with his usual jaunt. "Hey I'm back." He announced
as he turned to him and held up a hand in assistance so he could plop down at his side.
Following shortly behind, Dylan found himself leading Beka as if she had been programmed to only
move when commanded. Despite their healthy demeanor, it was clear they had been altered in some
way that had damaged them further. Of all the times he had seen them break, nothing could compare to how
much worse this felt if given the alternative. 
Worst of all, he didn't know why.

Hovering just close enough to be involved but too far to actually join them, Trance began to pace. 
"You okay buddy?" Harper asked only for Tyr to give him a gentle, pliant, smile. 
"Of course." 
"How do you feel?"
At this, he laughed, softly, "Why do you ask?"
Now it was Dylan's turn. 
"Just humor us for a second." 
"I feel fine." 
"You don't think it's too hot? Too wet? Too noisy? What about all these people running around? Don't you find their 
lack of control irritating?" 
Without an ounce of consideration Tyr seemed to bypass the question entirely, "Do they bother you?"
"See!" Harper blurted out with his usual brand of personality. It would've been grating had things not been so dire. "It's 
maddening!! They just circle the drain answering questions with even more questions until you wanna rip your own hair out! 
It never ends!" 
"Have I done something to upset you?" Tyr interrupted, the question, itself, even by being asked, seemed to send a shockwave 
through them. 
"No, no, you're fine I'm just trying to figure out what's wrong."
He then turned to Dylan, which somehow made things feel even more grotesque. 
"Is there something wrong?" 
Harper held his breath, watching Dylan try to fight every facet of his own personality to come
up with an answer. Thankfully, for everyone involved, he decided the best route was to avoid answering him, altogether.
"We should finish this conversation somewhere else." He stated, holding a hand against Beka as she and Tyr tried to follow suit. 
"I meant Harper, Trance, and I."










"It's not that they don't remember anything they can still walk and talk, they just don't seem
to carry anything personal. It's like there's a suppression there."
"Maybe that's why they found their way to us." Dylan explained, "Even without any solid memory 
tying them down, they still do have a familiarity with us." 
"So you're saying it could be a subconscious thing?"
"I'm saying no specific parts of their brains seem to have been altered. Their minds, however..." 
"I don't know who'd do it or why." Harper posited, his hand wrenching at his own face as he tried
to solve a puzzle with far too many missing pieces. "But they seem so...happy? I almost wish it was me over there."
"No you don't." Trance spoke up, finally breaking the vow of silence she'd seemed to have been holding
against everyone lately. Even with all the attempts at peace, there seemed to be something she wasn't letting
go of. Odd that she was the one holding a grudge and not the other way around. "Your personhood is built up out of experiences. 
Without them, you'd continue to exist but you would be lacking entirely of what makes you, you." 
That was way too many uses for the word 'you' but he figured he got the picture. 
"Well I'm not losing them."
"Good." Dylan nodded, agreeing to something he already decided in his own mind, "Then you'll watch over them while 
Trance and I investigate." 
"Are you kidding me!?" He argued, taking a quick look back at them, "What am I supposed to do!?"
"Keep them out of trouble." Dylan suggested. 
"How!?" 
"I'm sure you'll think of something."











Holding the comm in his hands, Harper stared at the screen for what felt like years. He was never really that big on
check-ins but today was an exception. It was an exception for a lot of things. "C'mon Rom, pick up..." Just as he 
blasted the signal into the stratosphere, there was a brief moment where he feared the ship was too far out of range
for his shoddy little signal to pull through. He flicked the device on and off again. Not that it gave him any sense 
of fixing it, just that the feeling relieved that little bit of tension in the back of his mind. He had never been in
charge of anyone before; more or less, over the people who usually were in control. Everybody could easily be separated
into two categories; leaders and followers and, as much as he hated to admit it, he was no leader.  
The comm in his hands beeped. It's frequency was a bit off(probably from how many satellites it had to bounce off of just
to stay in tact) but her voice came in loud and clear.
"Let me guess, your vacation isn't going as planned?" She asked, all too ready to give him the rundown. 
"You don't know the half of it!" 
One of the fun little things about being in a more 'civilized' part of the galaxy was that communication links were
commonplace. Whether it was a ship hail or an audio channel, these things tended to be gifted with the highest
level of technological access...and, with that, the highest level of technological surveillance. 
"No, really, just thought I'd check in and see how things were going." 
By the sound she made on the other side, Harper was at least twelve percent sure she bought it. 
"Why are you calling, really?" 
"Can't a guy just want to talk to their best friend in the whole wide world?" He asked. Wow, he was really spreading it on 
thick this time.
"No." She spat. "Don't you have enough people to talk to down there?" 
He glanced back at Tyr and Beka, biting his lip. "Not...exactly..."
From here, she sort of got quiet which probably meant she was loading up some kind of new defense system and not imagining
herself tearing his head off his shoulders.
"Are you okay?" 
Granted, by 'you' she meant all of them but Harper had an itch that he couldn't quite scratch about their conversation 
being recorded for 'legal purposes' so he decided to back off. 
"Oh, yeah, just..." He watched Beka sitting there, so very still that it pulled at this part of his brain that made him
queasy. "...Just a little lonely is all." He leaned into the wall at his side until he was practically hugging it, "Hey,
did you get those new seat warmers installed?"












"No dice." Dylan lamented at the locked door in front of him. It had been a minute since he'd been in a public
building that he'd forgotten people tend to lock their offices when they were away. Funny, he should try doing
the same once in a while. Not that he had anything particularly damning to find, 
he just found it healthy to give everyone a little reminder of your status. Keep people in check. 
"Got any ideas?" He asked Trance as she met him with a look that made him almost 
regret not bringing Harper, along. For all the cons his company brought, the pros always had a way of outweighing
them where it really counted. Like when it came to breaking and entering. 
"One." She grimaced, "But, I might be a little rusty." Whatever that meant, she seemed at least confident in her ability 
to look unsuspecting. 
Gathering herself, Trance took a deep, regrettable, sigh and immediately perked up, wide eyed and nervous. Scrambling to
the nearest door, she gave it a few quick knocks before entering anyway, peeking her head inside. "Sorry about 
this, I was looking for Francis, he's not in his office and, well I..." Immediately, she opened the door wide and inside 
was a group of well dressed men in the midst of a meeting. Peeking in, Dylan counted six heads in total which all seemed to
take a sweeping observation at the way Trance pulled herself into the room. "I can't really call it an early birthday present 
but, I think he'd like the surprise I have for him." 
One man, around his mid forties, leaned over the edge of his chair to get a better look at their guest. "He went out to 
lunch with his wife an hour ago." 
Clenching his jaw, Dylan was already planning their escape route when Trance let out a groan so loud, it reminded him of
the last time he'd heard her complain. Years. It had been years. 
"See, I knew this would happen!" She whined and, against his better judgement, actually continued with her facade, strong
arming it to it's furthest conclusion. "This is why I knew surprising him would be a bad idea." She then turned back to him
and let out a bereaved laugh, "I guess you were right after all." 
Now he was in on it. Wonderful. Unlike the rest of his crew, he didn't exactly have a history of acting up his sleeve. "Oh, 
well, you know how it is..." He nervously tried to avoid saying anything damning altogether. "Married men." He shrugged. Already,
he could tell this was not his best work. 
"If I could just have a minute with him..." Trance pushed and immediately Dylan caught up to her line of thinking. 
"Let's just wait for him to get back." 
"You could wait in his office." Another executive offered, a smile creeping on his upper lip as he slipped a ring of keys from
his pocket into Trance's hand, holding it there for a moment too long. "And if you can't get him to cooperate, well, just
bring your troubles back to me, alright?" He gave her a firm pat on her arm which she swayed with, "I'll know how to treat
you right." 
Slipping out of the office, Trance's doe-like expression fell away almost mechanically as she quickly darted back to the locked
office. 
"That was pretty daring of you." 
"I've done much better under worse circumstances." She admitted, trying out each key, "They were easy. If I went into a smuggling
operation like that, things would've ended up much worse." She then paused. "For the both of us." Swinging open the door, Dylan
followed her path through the office as she began to comb over odd corners of the room. "Typically, when someone has something
to hide, they all seem to use the same three places." She felt around the bottom lip of the desk and deepened her frown. 
"Not very creative I'm guessing?" Dylan asked, watching her then feel around the bottom of his bookshelves. 
Her head raised against his question, hesitating, considering the implications of his words and dashed their whole 
conversation to the rocks with a simple, "No." 
Ah, damn, right when he thought he was starting to get through to her...
Scanning the walls, Trance knocked against the space next to every painting she could find and still found nothing worth noting. If
anything, the office seemed barren. For one of the head executives of the resort, he didn't seem to have a single slip of
paperwork pertaining to their operation here. Maybe, he was in a position of authority, old in his years and close to retirement,
weening out his last few paychecks by performing petty duties just to keep face. Or maybe he had too much to hide so that
anything you could possibly find in his office was only just a surface level mask of his position. Usually, here Dylan would
have to remind himself that he was dealing with suits and not any actual criminal organization but with what happened to Tyr 
and Beka...something must be happening under the surface. Maybe that was the genius of it. Convincing the whole galaxy that everything
had been working exactly as it should and any slight veer from the norm that had breached the surface was just a fluke of the 
system and not a fully working inner part of the system, itself. 
"Trance, what are you?" The question was blunt, but, it felt like it had been pulling at the edges of his mind for far too 
long. "What are we even doing? What's the point in any of this?" 
"Why do you want to know?" Vague questions seemed to serve to give you a vague result. 
"Because I'm sick of playing these games with you. You've given me barely anything to work with and now you've taken the reigns
away from everyone on my ship just to play your little game." She was still avoiding him at this point, placing her hands along a
filing cabinet to check for a hollow bottom, ignoring him like what he said didn't matter. To her, nothing seemed to matter unless
it affected her plans and he had grown sick of it.
Pulling her up by the arm, he turned her so she would have no choice but to look him in the face. "I'm not your pawn and you're not
in control here." 
She glanced at his hand around her arm and decidedly, looked him in the eye. "Then who is?" The question felt like a clamp held tightly
to the back of his mind; all of that anger and resentment bubbling back to the surface. "When you submit yourself, aren't you willingly 
giving yourself up?" 
By definition, he assumed she was right but there was more than one way to bring someone to their knees whether it was through prostration or prayer. 
"Can I assume you're talking from experience?"
"You can assume whatever you want." 
"Okay, then I'm asking you." He leaned in towards her and realized that's what each of
their conversations had rounded off to. An unspoken language that revolved around trying to bring
each other to their knees. "You miss it." Here she froze, wide eyed, at the insinuation.
"I felt it when you took hold over me. It was..." He couldn't even begin to grasp the words that beckoned
to his lips. "Like being fed for the first time in ages." It seemed to mirror her condition well. "Something inside you is starving 
and yet you refuse to feed it so you fed it to me instead."
"You don't eat like that when you're well fed." 
This conversation had been so thoroughly constructed out of subtext he was sure he had been trapped within the pages
of 1984. Neither of them said anything that actually meant anything to an outsider but it meant everything to those who could read beyond the lines. 
"So, what, you've never had a hunger like this before?"
"I'm saying maybe you're not the only one who's fallen from grace."


Grace?


Just then, their little spat had been interrupted by a ring of keys jingling at the door. Immediately, they broke free of each other and 
formulated a silent plan, Dylan sliding to the window, trying to unlatch it while Trance held herself firmly at the base of the ledge.
Ladies first, he assumed. 
She had maybe gotten halfway through the window, her palms steadying herself on the ledge when the door opened. Swiveling 
around, Dylan stared wide-eyed at a man maybe half his age, dressed firmly in clothes that were cut and fit in a way that
boasted his salary. "Uh." He blinked, trying to come up with an excuse- something good, something clever like- "The door
was locked." 
Having managed to wrap his hand around what was happening the Administrator...smiled? "I see that." He observed. "You should
know my doors and, ah, windows are always open to the public." 
From behind him, Trance wriggled back into the room, her shoes hitting the tiled floors with a firm kick. "Uh." For all
intents and purposes, Dylan had expected to be dragged out by security by now but the man at the door held himself in a
relaxed stance. Nothing betrayed it as a front, he was legitimately fine with all of this. Blinking, Dylan wondered if he could
say anything to this man and be believed. So he tried it. "We need to take a look at your security logs." He demanded. Sure, 
assuming he had any power in this situation was a dicey measure, but, with the way this guy was acting, he had a feeling it
wouldn't matter in the slightest. "Something happened involving a couple of friends of ours and we need to look over any 
video logs that might tell us what happened." 
"Oh, well there's no way I can help you there." He smiled, glancing between the two of them. "You see, we refrain from recording 
our guests here. After all, no one can really relax when there's a camera pinned on them for hours at a time, right?" Either he
was incredibly naive or up to something. 
"Really?" Dylan asked, his left eye squeezed shut to cut off a quickly forming a headache. "So you see no use in surveillance? None
at all?" From behind him, Trance placed a firm hand between his shoulders, indicating that he should back off and, begrudgingly, 
he did. 
"I'm sorry, but if you'd like, you could bring your case to our attention by filing a complaint." A man in a suit was trying
to sell him paperwork in lieu of a solution. Looks like civilized society really had returned. With it, so did Dylan's 
desire for something more reasonable, more solid. He almost wished for the violent option. At least then, you knew who your
enemies were and where lines were drawn. 
"No, we're fine." He smiled, pleasantly, drawing on all that was left of his old charms as Trance led him out the door from
behind. The walk down the hallway began to wane on the both of them. The silent decay of their motivations weighed heavily on their
shoulders as they finally passed a good distance away from it all. 
"He was just like them." Trance spoke, reaching up to grab at a lock of her hair and pull it straight, raking her thumb nail
down to flatten it as it fell back over her shoulders. 
Dylan silently watched her do this as he realized how withdrawn she had been. For something so big, everything she did was so
small, so passive. It was like she was trying to divert their eyes from what they were actually looking at. 
"So were the others. This whole place it's...it's like it's run by people on autopilot." Her eyes seemed to focus, finally, 
turning to him with a look of genuine fear, "Everyone here is real, but, they seem to have less personhood than your average
android. Like they've been programmed." Her brows knitted together, "Reprogrammed."  
Dylan had seen people reprogrammed before. It was a form of torture to the mind, usually requiring hideously long hours of
work on one subject, alone. To be able to create the same effect in such a quick, efficient way...the thought, alone, sank 
to the bottom of his stomach like a stone. 













Maneuvering them around the resort made Harper feel more on par with a sheepdog than a babysitter. Only, sheep seemed to have
a better sense of self preservation than these two did. 
Stopping dead in his tracks, Tyr watched as a group of tourists passed by with a stare. 
"That's the kind of stuff that'll get you killed." Harper protested, "Don't go starting fights if you can't back 'em up." 
Moving his hands in Tyr's periphery, he was hoping to snatch away his attention by snapping his fingers next to his ear. 
Now this seemed to get a reaction out of the guy. Nothing fancy, just the discreet ire of his eye crinkling right along
the edge. To anyone else, this would've been a warning sign; to Harper, it meant progress. 
"You hungry? Tired? What?" 
"Present." 
What a load. "Gotta go to the little boy's room? I can escort you-" 
"That won't be necessary." Ah, an interruption. Now that was something. 
"You know, I bet if I annoyed you enough, your brain would snap back to normal just so you could throttle me into next week." 
To this Tyr only pulled back and resumed his passive stare. "You don't annoy me." Notice he didn't say he wasn't annoyed.
"Ah, I annoy everyone." He waved his hand like a lackluster shrug; no effort, all honesty. "I mean, look at you and Beka;
you're like talking to two brick walls and I'm still the most obtuse guy in the room." Now that he thought 
about it, he hadn't seen Beka in a hot minute...
Hopping out of his seat with his drink in tow, Harper made a quick dash for the bar where- lo and behold- Beka was doing
some pretty spectacular numbers with the other guests. Turns out all those one liners about liking women for their
personality started to lose all meaning when you see a bunch of guys swarm around someone who couldn't form an opinion
to save her life. For some reason, all those little things that made him feel shallow started to show their ugly face. It 
made him wonder if there really was a difference between affection and attention. I mean, whatever people thought love 
brought to the table had nothing on an audience. Captive or not. 
Stretching his arm over Beka's shoulder he tried to corner her in a way that made him out to seem like the controlling
boyfriend type. The kind she's used to pulling. "So you finished ordering our drinks or what?" He asked, full
of confidence that could only come from one of those troglodytes that she dated. He even pulled her in close enough to get
the message across.
"You want another drink?" She asked, staring at the one in his hands and, damn it, he was already starting to look like a chump.
See, this was his brain on responsibility! Scrambled underneath a frying pan and served up in front of a crowd of jocks. 
"You two know each other?" Asked the guy on her left as he dropped the butt of a cigarette into what was left of his drink.
"Well, you know, it's on again-off again; kinda depends on the time of day, really."
"And what time of day is it now?"
Time to get lost. "Time for a full round of drinks." He swallowed. "On me!"
The guy then leaned back on his stool as if he was riding it, letting the seat swing side to side all slow-like between his 
heels. He then leaned over to get a good eyeful of Beka's face. "You know him?"  
A single, sweeping siren went off in Harper's brain, pummeling his eardrums as he watched Beka give him a passive
smile. "Should I know him?"
It felt like getting shot in the foot. Worse yet, she couldn't stop smiling which, in turn, made everything look
like a big disgusting mistake. Or, at least it did to their 'friend' here. 
Pulling away from the bar, he left his perch, lifting up to about, say, a foot taller compared to wherever Harper had stopped
growing. "Looks like your company isn't welcome here." He rolled his neck in a long stretch, "But, if you want
I can buy you a drink and we can laugh this whole thing off." A hand then clasped Beka's arm, pulling her up from her seat. 
"Don't worry, I'll treat her real gentle. Won't scuff the paint or anything." 
One thing was for certain; this was the coolest guy Harper had ever met. Which was probably a bad thing, considering. 
"Uhhh..." He let his mouth hang open like the guy that sat way too close to the tv as a kid and ended up with permeant slack jaw. Step one on
asserting dominance was to assume you were always right. Which he was, but, he sure didn't want to be. "Sidebar." Pulling Beka's 
other arm, he managed to wheel her around the corner before things could get any worse.  

"Look, I don't wanna get my ass kicked here so why don't you do us a favor and take one for the team, okay?" Admittingly, every word
that fell out of his mouth should've resulted in him getting his teeth knocked out. 
Instead, she decidedly saved him a lifetime warranty on straws and simply went, "Okay." 
"Woah, hey!" Grabbing her arm as she turned, Harper reeled her back into the conversation. At this point, he could feel himself 
backpedaling so hard, he could feel a cramp coming on. "You can't just let me cop out of this! C'mon, tell me I'm slime! Call me
a coward! Make a whole scene about it!" He handed her his drink, "Throw this in my face!" Now, that she could comply with. 
Somewhere between the cold trail of booze dripping down his nose and the feeling of impending doom in his gut, Harper felt like he'd 
cracked some kind of code. 
"Feel good?" He asked.
"Yeah." She replied, still holding the drink in her hand, not exactly sure what to do with it anymore.
"I'm gonna get my ass kicked aren't I?"
"...Yeah." 
Well it was good to know honesty was still on the table!
Swinging back to the bar, Harper noticed that Tyr had begun to loom nearby and, while he knew he couldn't do anything, the
thought that he could at least look ominous was enough for Harper to feel a little less like a man without a country. Even if
said country consisted of two brick walls, one bad omen, and Dylan. 
Splitting the biggest smile he could, Harper gave the guy one big sleazy shrug, "Turns out, she changed her mind." He lowered his 
hands, tilting his head to where Beka was quietly watching, "Women, right?" 
Yeah, he should've expected that he'd decked right then and there. Still, it was surprising the amount of fountains they'd put in a
functioning bar especially ones that were floor height where any typical guy could, say, get knocked into. The stone paneling was the
first thing to catch his fall which was good seeing as he landed head-first. 
Dizzy now, the weight of his clothes started to drag him down as he tried to grasp for the edge of the small pool. Thankfully, a 
large hand wrapped around his wrist and fished him up onto dry land like he was the catch of the day. On his back, Harper watched
the room around him spin as Tyr tried to get him back on his feet right as his new 'buddy' started to catch up to him. 
"You want in on it too?" He spat as Tyr locked in place like a statue; unmoving and unfaltering. 
"He was going to drown." 
"No, he is going to drown!" 
Dragged back into the pool by his ankles, Harper stared up at the blurred images of Beka and Tyr watching as he fought against
three hundred pounds of drunken rage. It was like having a cinderblock pinned to his chest, only cinderblocks didn't really
curse and spit and punch you in the neck for trying to move them. At least, not the ones he'd met anyway. Ugh, this sucked. He 
was going to drown like a loser in front of his two best friends in a bar. And it wasn't even a cool bar! This place served 
fruity drinks with little umbrellas and had lame security guards who only intervened when someone was about to die. 
Being pinned by a massive wall of rage was one thing, but, being rescued by two goons in polos was another. 
Through the haze of brain fog and a little bit of a concussion, Harper was hoisted to his feet only to stumble and slink to
the floor, limp as a corpse. "Should've just let me drown." He complained right as his vision faded out. 
 







"Seems we hit a dead end." Dylan lamented as yet another set of empty offices hailed nothing. "You think they even care
about being stuck that way?" He asked, virtually ready to give up the ghost. "They seem happy. Happier than they've ever been." 
It's not that he was thinking about abandoning them, he'd just much rather get off this planet and find a solution elsewhere. 
The longer they stayed here, the more he was set on edge.
"Just because someone seems happy doesn't mean they are." Trance reasoned. "People are more complicated than we give them credit for.
You're not just simply evolved animals, you're beings with unusual brain patterns. Where some thrive, others revolt." She paused. "Did
you really think you were going to enjoy time away from work?" 
He took a step back, pinned under her observation. Maybe she was right, it didn't seem to matter where he was in life as long as he had a job
to do. Maybe that's why the black hole aliens failed to trap him in his own mind. Retired. Settled down. Just the perfect storm to drive him
through the wringer of madness. If they had given him someone who relied on him, a sense of purpose maybe, he could've spent ages withering away 
in that fantasy before noticing anything was wrong. He was a busybody with a restless heart. One that had never properly been patched.
Maybe that was why...well, you know what they say about work and pleasure. No matter how many women he took to bed, he was still lonely
in the end. A man without a mentor, a mother, or a mate constantly on the search for more work to do.
Arguably, there was no reason to improve if there was nothing to improve for. So he stayed stuck, trapped, 
in this stagnation until it made him irritating and off-putting to those around him. 

Swallowing his pride, Dylan decided to take a leap of faith.
"I've never shared this with anyone." He forewarned, watching Trance's eyes widen with discomfort, "And if you bring it up I will 
deny it but...A part of me is happy I ended up here. This time, this place." He scowled, "Everything is such a mess and I have what 
it takes to fix it. The fact that people look to me as a symbol of hope and leadership gives me more than I had ever gotten out of any 
of the Highguard's achievements."
"Are you saying the fall was worth it?"
Was she referring to him or The Commonwealth?"
"I don't have to make myself into anything anymore. I have others who do that for me." He drummed his fingernails across 
a nearby table, "Does that make me evil? Misguided? Selfish?"
"I think it makes you human." 
Human. How neutral. She never regarded his actions as anything moral, just, an effect to a cause which made the word 'human' about as 
much of a descriptor as 'interesting'. 
"What do you think, really?" 
She paused on that, her face betraying her by sliding itself into this relayed expression of nostalgia that she didn't 
even bother to hide. Drawing closer, her eyes seemed to pull him into her just enough to get a sense of something he 
desperately didn't want to see. Still, he found he could no longer look away. 
"Do you think The Divine feels the same?"








Strapped to an operating table like a frog ready for dissection, Harper had to fight off his newly formed headache without
the help of a good stretch. "I gotta stop waking up like this." Fussing at the cuff around his wrist, he surmised he'd 
be able to slip out of it with a good yank so long as he didn't end up degloving himself in the process. 
"You might not want to try that." Said a man in a doctor's coat hovering just in his periphery. "If I were you, I'd avoid
any unpleasantness in this situation." 
'Unpleasantness'? Are you kidding me? "Oh, great, an evil scientist. This place really does have everything." 
Immediately, the doctor pulled into his field of vision, hanging over him with a deep frown. "Do you think I'm going to hurt you?"
The way he talked sounded so...gentle? Like he was talking to a patient and not- 
"And the straps are for...?" Harper closed one eye, straining his jaw against saying anything that might piss this guy
off. "Convenience?"
"They're for your safety." He admitted, dragging a machine to his side, "You're unwell and you don't even know it. Most in
your condition fight their treatment." Gee, wonder why. Pulling a part of the machine from it's holster, he held it firmly
in his palms, his thumbs laying flat as he stared down at Harper, a look of pity in his eyes. "Are you happy?"
His brain stalled at that. "You mean right now?" 
This guy seemed to be commiserating with the wrong audience here. "...Misanthropes." He regarded Harper with narrowed eyes, 
"You can't find the good in anything. You're always starving for something else, something better. You have a deep hole inside
of you and nothing will ever fill it." 
"Maybe it's because everything sucks?" He argued despite knowing he deservedly fit the bill.
The doctor slid close enough for Harper to read off his name tag. Kleist. Ugly name. Ugly guy, too. "Don't you ever get 
sick of seeing all the faults in the world? Don't you find pain in such an empty life?" 
Not more of this 'inner peace' crap. He could take it from the Rev just fine but once people started preaching to
him in droves, he was ready to start chasing them off. "Oh, come on, you don't want me to be happy, you're just
pissed off because somebody figured out your little operation here." 
"But aren't they so peaceful now?"
"Who?"
"Your friends. The ones who thought they had everything figured out. They didn't know the extent of my work. They didn't know I 
could help them too." 
A metallic rod had been placed at the edge of his temple and immediately Harper tensed getting ready for pain when, instead,
his vision started to darken around the edges, every individual thought he had became too heavy for his brain to grasp. It was
like someone had taken his head and dunked it into water, holding it there. His mind was drowning and there was no air to breathe
as he sunk deeper into the abyss of nothingness. 
Gasping, Harper felt himself yanked back up into the light, letting out a loud, nauseated, gag that sent a shiver down his body. 
"That really sucked!!" He snapped, now fighting his stomach against the sour, metallic, taste on his tongue. 
Drawn back, Kleist eyed him with a sense of suspicion, "How-!?"
"Kinda tastes like the fluid inside a power transceiver." He paused, "Don't ask me how I know that."
As a likely response, the 'good doctor' activated the process again, wrapping Harper's brain in what felt like a warm, damp, 
blanket. Muffled and exhausted, Harper's thoughts began to swirl around in a tidal wave of darkness before being ripped back out
again.
"Can you stop doing that!?" He shouted.
"I don't understand, you're supposed to be cured!"
"Yeah, uh, about that..." Harper tilted his head just enough to show off his dataport. "You see, this baby
comes with an operating system that's connected to my brain stem. When I got it, it wasn't really all up to snuff." 
That's one way of putting it. "...Let's just say it wasn't the most expensive or, uh, legal, thing on the market. So 
I had to do a little modifications of my own to run it's systems on my own terms. One being it's centralized backup line." 
There was no way he was gonna have some faulty piece of equipment scramble his brain.
"Inquiry."
"Shoot."
"How many times do you think it's software will be able to sustain itself before degradation kicks in?" 
Suddenly, Harper realized his upper hand wasn't so handy when he was still strapped to a table. "Um...A lot?"
"Would you like to find out?" 







As miserable as their situation was, it clearly wasn't half as miserable as whatever Tyr and 
Beka were going through under Harper's care. 
They seemed to have been blundering around on autopilot; unattended and unencumbered. 
"He hasn't been with us for quite some time." Tyr said in a dreamlike manner that 
made it too hard to decipher if this meant he went to the bathroom, abandoned them, or died. 
Knowing Harper, it might've been all three. 
"He wasn't feeling well so he had to go get fixed up." Beka offered him a drink, "Blue sunset?" 
Trance stared at it, daring him to take it under the threat of life and limb. Tragically, the
allure of anything blue that was served under an umbrella was decidedly what won out in the end. 
"You alright?" Dylan asked.
"Never better." Beka responded in what was the most dishonest combination of words in the human language.
Here, they both started to notice the threads of communication that were being laid out before them. 
"Perhaps you should take a seat." Tyr inclined, his expression relaxed but blank. "Harper will most likely
be joining us shortly." Just hearing Tyr call him by name felt wrong. Usually it was something personal, affectionate. 
Like whoever he was now referring to wouldn't have anything that could carry any previous term of endearment. 
"Is he in trouble?"
"Of course not!" Beka attested, "There's no need for trouble here." She then perched a gentle hand 
on his chest. "Sit, drink up; you have nothing to worry about." 
Nauseated, Dylan put his drink down. It was one thing to be wiped into a blank slate. It was another to be still 
somewhat trapped underneath. Buried. 
Cutting to the heart of things, Trance took command of the conversation. "Would you mind taking me to him?" The request
was just what they needed to get this case back on it's legs.



At first glance, you'd think the resort worked like any other building, stretching out on a large expanse of land,
using width over height the main building boasted two main floors. The first was for guests and the general public 
while the second was for general executives and 'staff'. Granted, if everyone here was being controlled, that meant
they had to keep their workers under constant surveillance. When they had passed by a door marked 'Staff Quarters' 
Dylan could feel a subtle chill roll down his spine. 
Following along the hand-crafted carvings along the walls, Tyr pressed his hand against them to guide their trail before
stopping at the face of a large mural. His hands then smoothed over the paint and began playing against the artwork 
like he was checking for a false wall. Trance was right, they weren't very creative, were they? Of course, when no 
one is allowed to question anything, any obvious signs around you become quieted, unable to be addressed or acknowledged.
Just a passing flaw to ignore in hopes that nothing will come of it. 
Under their influence, Tyr didn't seem to make any acknowledgement to what he was doing as if it was far too taboo to 
even make an observation. Instead, he pulled his thumb against a small portion of the mural that depicted a bird caught
mid-flight, running it down it's wing to the third feather down, he pushed firmly into the wall, popping the mechanism 
underneath. 
It was a good thing Dylan was far too paranoid or he'd have followed the resort's policy keeping weapons off of it's 
grounds. Reaching into his shoe, he pulled a small breaker device Harper had invented as a universal emergency key
in case they came across something they'd need to 'borrow'. He never really had use for it as a key, but, 
it made good as a taser; giving off enough of a shock to get the upper hand on someone without knocking them flat on
their back.  
Pushing forward, he slipped his fingers through the small opening in the wall. Pulling, pushing, and finally sliding it to
the side, he cautiously tried to keep it from making too much noise. "Anyone want to go in first?" He offered as a joke, 
only for Trance to actually take it. Pulling her shoulders back and slipping through the small passageway, she quickly stole
a glance at him that said more than any words could convey. It was the first time he had ever seen her frustrated. A sense
of defeat marred her usual passive demeanor. Odd coming from someone who usually knew what lay ahead. 
Letting Beka and Tyr move into the corridor next, he shimmied in behind them only to find himself staring into the pitch
black hall before them. "Wanna give us one of your predictions, here, Trance?" He asked out of curiosity as he felt something 
slip by his side.
"I think we better keep moving." She spoke, firmly placing herself at his left. Outside the arc of his arm in case of
a struggle but close enough to use him for cover in an oncoming attack. Tactical. Methodical. It reminded him of Rhade's 
old tactics when they had played Go together. 'You focus too much on the enemy you see, not the enemy you know.' Sound advice
coming from the one who'd eventually come to betray him. He stole a glance at Tyr in the dark and wondered how long it'd be
before it would happen again. 
Closing his eyes, Dylan hushed the others with two fingers over his mouth, letting his arm pull out and stretch until he
felt the wall, cold, cupped in the warmth of his palm. As the other held the key firmly between his thumb and index finger, 
he followed along the wall, listening for the sound of breathing. Despite everything, Beka and Tyr seemed to have theirs
regulated; deep calming breaths at a resting heart rate. He assumed it was more from their state than their actual wellbeing
and chalked it up to another symptom of this condition. Even in danger, they weren't allowed to react. 
The next was Trance whose breathing had seemed personally regulated. Stressed, but, perfectly aligned with someone who had 
no actual setback to being under duress. More than anything, her panic was probably due to everyone else's situation over
her own. Pushing forward, he listened in on everyone's footsteps and stopped. He then moved again and stopped. Even as
uncoordinated they were, he could still tell there was one pair of footsteps too many. 
Not wanting to reveal it quite yet, he pulled back heard a pair of footsteps that moved without breath. Quickly twisting
the key in his hands in their direction, he gave off a shock that lit up the room in a flash; creating a small, short-lived
pool of light that revealed everyone around him. A small shock struck it's target- too fast for him to pull back as Trance 
jolted, letting out a pained gasp as Dylan realized he'd misaimed. Behind him, he turned to see an armored guard clamp a 
hand onto Tyr's shoulder and whisper something into the dark. 
Pressing the key's ignition again, Dylan held onto it for just long enough to see that Beka and Tyr had moved in his path.
"May I suggest you go on ahead?" Tyr offered, the shadows pouring over his face just as the light flickered out again. 
"Uh-" Dylan started just as he felt a heavy fist connect with his stomach. 
"You should be going." A hand pulled at the back of his neck, sending his head against something hard, knocking him 
straight to the floor. "Now." His demeanor hadn't changed. Whether he was giving the same circular questions instead 
of answers or he was pinning him to the floor by the press of a hand to his trachea. 
Rolling his fingers in his palm, Dylan cursed himself for dropping the key as he watched it's light flash across his 
vision with Beka looming over it's glow. Choking against the weight on his throat, Dylan tried to grab at her ankles
as a way to offset her balance but quickly scrambled to try to peel himself free of Tyr's grip. 
"Maybe we shouldn't have come along." She lamented in an unemotional daze, drawing the key close enough to his face
that Dylan could feel the edge of it's electrical pulse twitch against his eye.
Out of the darkness, he saw a golden hand reach out to pull her wrist away. "Beka, stop it!!" Trance snapped at her
watching the key slip from her fingers and clatter to the floor. Grabbing it, Dylan held it firmly in his hand, igniting
the pulse long enough to catch a glimpse of Tyr's face. If he had ever had any doubts about where they stood, he immediately
had his answer. The strain in his jaw, the way his teeth stayed locked and knitted together to create this press of pain
against his own strength. Loosening his grip on the key, Dylan let it's light die out once again. He couldn't bring himself
to attack Tyr like this. Not when there were other options. 
Clasping his hands around Tyr's Dylan pushed up off the floor to knock them loose for just long enough to swallow a gasp of
air and push against them with his own strength. With the floor at his back, he was better able to leverage himself against
Tyr but not by much. Gravity was still working against him and the longer they strained against each other, the closer he
was to snapping his arms backwards. He had to think fast. Glancing up at Beka, he saw her still held in Trance's grasp,
staring down at him like she had been stuck in a stasis, all hostility gone. 
He wondered... 
"Let go!" 
The strain against his palms eased, no longer trembling with adrenaline but gently splayed in his hand as they slipped
from his grasp and to Tyr's sides. He then sat, catching his breath as he swallowed against a hard knot in his throat.
He then spoke, "Go." This seemed to be the only word he could manage of his own will. 
With his ear pressed to the stone, Dylan heard a figure move towards them in the dark. Probably the guard coming to 
finish the job. "Tyr." He wondered if doing this would give him any residual feelings of guilt, but, he decided to
take an opportunity for what it was before someone else took it from him. "Looks like we've got a problem here, think
you can take care of it?" 
At first, Dylan worried his request was far too vague to register when Tyr gave him a look, not of resentment, but,
of relief. The moment he was relieved of Tyr's weight, Dylan rolled to the side and pulled himself to his feet. 
No time to waste. 
Grabbing Trance by her free hand, he pulled her along, leaving her to let go of Beka and run with him down the 
darkened halls.

Racing through to the other side, Dylan slammed the door behind them as they both piled against it to keep it closed.
Trance had laid up against the door on her side, her hands pressed flat against it's frame. "I don't think we have 
much time." She spoke to herself, pressing her cheek against it's surface. She then perked up at the sound of metal
scraping against metal. Twisting around, they both found themselves facing the foot of an operating table where Harper
had been kept, strapped to it's surface as a man in a lab coat held a tool to his dataport. 
"Hey guys..." Harper greeted them, weakly, "...Welcome to the party." 
The 'doctor' pulled the tool in his hands towards them, but, before he could say anything Trance was up upon him, 
eyes wide as she drew out her arms to grab the sides of his face. "Don't look away from me." She commanded and he 
obeyed, staring her in the eyes as she backed him away from the table, whispering something under her breath that
left them backing up together- coordinated like a dance- to the far corner of the room. 
Watching the scene unfold, Harper blinked like he was sure he had been dreaming, "Trance..?" 
Pulling astride to the table, Dylan began immediately working to free him when he stopped to consider something,
"Harper?" He asked, knuckles held firm against the buckle.
"Huh?"
"You're still you."
"Yeah."
"How?"
"Oh." He flattened against the table like it was a bed, practically melting into it. Turning his head, he then
let Dylan get a good look at his dataport. It looked...rough. Were they trying to remove it? "Backup software." He
smiled, weakly, "Everybody's all 'hooking your brain up to a computer is bad for you' these days so I had one put 
in. Sexy, right?"
"No."
"Yeah." 
"Harper!" Dylan snapped his fingers in his face to keep him from passing out, "Tell me how your backup software works."
His eyes lolled around, sickly, as he tried to make sense of the question at hand. "Dude, I don't even think I could tie
my shoes right now!" 
Grabbing him by the shirt, Dylan gave him a quick shake, "Focus!!" 
Snaking a hand between then, Trance pulled Dylan back and cupped Harper's face in her palms. "We need you to give us an answer."
Too late, his eyes were already wandering to the doctor on the floor. Trance's handiwork had reduced the man to a catatonic stage,
staring blankly at the wall before him. 
"What did you do to that guy?"  
"Harper-"
"Did you do that to us?" 
"You need to-"
"Did you do that to me?" 
Something that had been mounting inside of her for longer than any one of them could possibly know finally reached it's head
and sent tremors through her body. "Yes I did!!" She exploded, in tears, weeping at the look of fear that dawned
on his face. "I've done it to all of you! I've done it so many times I've lost count! I don't- I can't even keep 
track of what you remember anymore!!" She backed away, removing herself from them, entirely.
"Sometimes I don't even remember what version of you I'm talking to until you say exactly
what you're supposed to say when you're supposed to say it." The look she gave him twisted into a mix of 
concern and disgust. Like he had a condition she never could find the cure to. "You're repetitive!!"
Deciding it was his time to intervene, Dylan moved in but, as he spoke, she also spoke. 
""Enough."" With the exact same cadence at the exact same time, they both spoke in unison. ""You're only
making this situation worse."" 
She then turned to Dylan apologetically, "I haven't even been through these events before and yet you're
still so-" Clawing at a word that could define what she truly thought seemed to be a dying cause. "-Redundant!!"

"Think you can you do it again?" Harper asked, clearing the room with one question, alone. With a look of horror 
he couldn't bear to look at, Trance gravitated back towards him as he tried to avoid eye contact. "Not to me." He 
then melted exhaustively into the table he had been strapped into for hours. "Turns out Mister Perfection over there 
has been wiping people left and right for a while now." 
"That means..." Dylan began.
"Everybody who works here. And I mean everybody. From top to bottom. I'm talking wide-scale Stepford apocalypse here."
He then turned to Trance, finally, giving her a smile that was far from comfortable but told her everything she needed
to know, regardless. "So, you up for it?" 
She hesitated, "What about Beka and Tyr?" 
"They've only been under for a few hours. If I can get access to the hard drive here, I'll be able to reverse the effects 
using my own backup." 
"Think you have it in you?" She asked to which he looked a little less than confident in his position.
"No. But I don't care." He then pressed a hand to a mark in his dataport, "Hey, when you tell Rommie about all this, would
you mind leaving out a few details?"














Returning the favor of being babysat, Beka and Tyr decided to wait with Harper while Trance and Dylan's little 
'recovery mission' rolled into it's tenth hour. 

Peering down at him, Beka watched Harper sleep exhaustively, arms tucked up under his head for support
"Poor guy." She lamented, "Never even got to taste the waves." Except, of course, that whole drowning thing, that is. 
With his arms crossed over his chest, Tyr loomed over him with a carefully calculated eye, "It never occurred to 
me that he could sleep so heavily." He was right. By all regards, he was so still it almost brought a whole new
meaning to the phrase 'dead to the world'. 
Beka shifted, uncomfortably, in her seat. 

They both then jumped to check his pulse, immediately falling back with a sigh of relief as he swatted them away.
"I can't believe I'm about to say this..." Beka posited, "...but I think I can't wait to get back to work."