Archive of Our Own ^beta

You wake up cold. That much you know. As for everything else: where you are, who you are, even when you are, all unknowns. But as to what you are - you are cold.

It is light where you are, even though you still have your eyes shut. The lids feel like leaden weights, but a bit seeps in regardless. You run yours hands down your body blindly, reassuring yourself that you are whole in body, if not mind.

Instead of the softness of skin, all you feel is metal, smooth with disuse. The thin material encases you, a feeling that seems right and familiar even in the midst of all this uncertainty. You can't decide whether or not to be happy that you know more about it than you do about yourself, details pulled up from who knows where.

It is a suit, for exploration perhaps. Your faulty memory is not specific. You do not think you are an explorer, though how you know that is a mystery. The only bits of memory seeping through whatever barrier holds them back are little details. You try to reason with your own mind; make it reveal you to yourself. But all that come up are practicalities, hard-coded muscle memories.

You stretch your arms out and make an accounting of the various aches and pains through your body. You slowly stand up; careful as your eyes still don't want to obey you and open. You reach with your hands in front of you and walk tentatively forward until they slap into a solid surface. Testing it, you run your hands over it as far as you can reach in each direction. Finding it solid, you rest your weight upon it - leaning your head against the surface and simply breathing until you can will your eyes to open.

While you rest there you think, or try to. You sift through the darkness of your mind. You know you should be panicking, flailing about in terror. Maybe you would be, if not for the leaden weights that seem to run through all your bones, making every movement difficult.

But beyond the stupor, you know this is wrong. You must have a name, a past. You must have a existence beyond this moment. You need to find out what it is; who you are. You grimace with the effort it takes to open your eyes, but you need to do this. You need to know where you are, because maybe that can help answer who. You need a name.

You're in a wood-paneled room. It is terribly or wonderfully familiar. You aren't sure which one. Maybe both. You know with every fiber of your being that you have been here before, and you need to get out. You stand still for a moment, willing more knowledge to come back to you. Nothing comes. You give into the instinct and try to leave.

You take a decisive first step towards one of the doors. Gray dust falls from your boot. It is loose, fresh. You have not been here long. Moving as quickly as you can when your body feels like it has recently been hooked to a live wire, you start to methodically go through the rooms, searching.

You get increasingly desperate as you go. There is no clear exit. You are imprisoned here. That instinct to flee is getting louder. You consider breaking down a wall, but they seem thick, and your body is weary. You kick out, hurting your foot more than the wall.

You huff out a disgruntled sigh at yourself before setting out to find - or create, if need be - an exit. You refuse to accept that this is all there is, that you must remain here unknowing. You start to look around with more care. Maybe you have missed something.

While reaching behind you to put a valve in the pack on the back of the suit, you notice insignia on the shoulder of your suit. A long eared creature (bunny... the word floats our from your veiled memory) is depicted against a yellow sun. There is a 17 written beneath. Does it mean anything? You check, but your other arm is bare, with just a rectangular space lighter than the rest, where some hint to your identity might have once been.

There are far too many uncertainties here. You set out again in search of answers.

You find one lying on the floor, a page from a diary. It is obviously only a tiny part of a whole, ripped and torn. The text is still legible though, and it sparks a sense of memory more complete than even the picture of the lighthouse hanging on a wall. It flashes before you.

Murtaugh is lying in his hospital bed, his left arm extended out beside him by a sling, exposing long cuts where veins should run. Pooled on a table beneath it are the long spools of nanowire, crimped and scratched. They look fragile, almost delicate, when cut out of flesh.

"You have to believe me. I saw what happened." Murtaugh's voice isn't pleading. It is fervent, demanding. Crazy, you remind yourself, no matter how well you might have known him, all that remains now is madness.

You sigh and shift your wait around, feeling uncomfortable in the confinement of civilian clothing. But this can't be an official visit, no matter how naked you feel out of a suit. You are already risking too much just speaking with him. You didn't even tell Josef, who you have been partnered with for two cycles.

Murtaugh left the company. He refused help for his arm. He will be sent away now, everyone knows it. You don't want to risk that fate.

Murtaugh's eyes don't seem to be focused on anything. His remaining fingers dance like he is playing with one of the puzzle games he loved so much, twitching this way and that. For a second your eyes meet and he smiles. He beckons you closer.

You lean in and hear him whisper. "I know how to kill the machine."

You pull back as quickly as you can, using so much force you bang you head against the bed post.

You wake up from the memory. You jerk your head, trying to jog more memories out, like your head is a piggy bank that you need to shake just so get it to disgorge its contents. Nothing comes, and it just serves to exacerbate the ache in your head.

No matter what you do or don't remember, you can't stand here withering between the endless copse of wooden walls. You need to move on, to work your way out. Murtaugh likes puzzles. You remember that clearly now, and this place seems his, on some level. You just need to think of this place like a puzzle, and then you will be able to make your way out.

You begin working through the rooms with intent now, in search of both clues and memories. You only succeed in the former. You stare at the picture of the lighthouse on the wall. It should mean something. It is something. Your rusty mind knows that much. But no matter how you wrench, it remains stuck to the wall, nothing but a picture.

The only time you even get a hint at what lies in your mind is a keen sense of green and joy when you turn a radio dial and hear a song. It makes you think of sunlight, and you smile. But you don't linger long, focused on getting out. You can't think of anything else.

By the time you slot the final piece into the wall, and the door appears, your body is shaking with tension. That drumbeat of deep-rooted familiarity and trepidation pounding through your skull keeps getting louder, telling you to move forward. You need this to end, even though you aren't sure what you mean by 'this.' This puzzle? This room? This dream?

Maybe that is what this is, some twisted nightmare. And maybe you will step through that door and be jolted awake. You will know yourself again.

There is color at the end of the corridor now, bright splashes of it. You try to convince yourself it must be sky, maybe fresh grass beneath your feet. You are not successful. The dread still lingers on. You force your feet to walk you forward, down the corridor, towards the bright colors.

As you get closer to the end, you realize that is all it is, color. It isn't an exit, just an image on the wall. The faint bit of movement isn't wind through trees, but lines of static rippling up through the pixels.

You want to scream out, to curse whomever or whatever put your there, the puzzle-maker, the mysterious Murtaugh. You channel your frustration, balling up your hand into a tight fist. Bracing yourself for impact, you swing out at the image.

The expected thwack of your fist against a surface never comes. You had put all your power into that swing, expecting resistance. Instead, you fall forward. Sharp prickles of electricity dance along your skin as you pass through the image (screen? you wonder to yourself).

You have escaped.

When you hit the ground, it is hard and rough, with rocks poking up and pressing against the sensitive skin of your suit. The light is darker here and your eyes take a moment to adjust to the dimness.

Once your eyes are adjusted you wish, for just one moment, you had kept them closed. Because in front of you is the same image, still streaked with static, on the screen of an arcade game. You reach forward, sinking one finger into the screen, feeling the popping of electricity, pressing forward until you hit something solid.

So, you are here, so this is real. Or maybe the game was the reality and this is the game. Is this just another puzzle, a new level to beat? Can you beat it?

You don't dwell on these questions. You probably should be panicking now, but you feel like all the terror has been pumped out of you. Instead of being frightened, you are resigned. Time to beat this level of whatever twisted game you are playing.

And play you do.

You began examining the new surroundings, poking at each brick. You go upstairs and find a small red circle. There is a flash of recognition. "Someone's secret," you mutter to yourself. You don't remember what it is, really, but you know they are important. It goes into the sack with the rest of your hoarded tools and treasures. You find more and more of the secrets as you go. You carefully place each one into an inner compartment. Hearing them all clink together is reassuring in ways you can't quite explain.

The sewers must be real. The scent, so visceral, could not be contained in mere pixels. You bang your knee while ascending the ladder. The blow is cushioned by your suit, but you welcome the sting of pain. You want it, want the proof. You poke at your arm where the suit is still wet from the leaking pipe in the last place.

"See," you tell no one. (Or everyone, as you are the only one here.) "This is real. That other place was real, too. I am real."

It would have been nice to just find a door that lead outside, maybe even helpfully labeled. Maybe even another person would be there, who would give you clear explanations that contained actual logic. They would give you real food, as opposed to the regurgitated crap the suit produces, as well as a warm place to sleep. You would rest and wake up with a clear mind full of memories.

You laugh at yourself for indulging in such as fanciful daydream. So far all you have encountered has been dark and isolation, and the little voice in the back of your mind still won't stop its cry of 'keep moving forward, not safe yet.'

But all you find are cut-off exits. Drawn by the glinting of a secret in the rubble; you walk past a row of brouchures. You grab one. Your eyes linger on the mention of ruins below. You know that they are dark.

Your lungs are rebelling. You hate it down here in the dark, walls looming over you. You know there is not the faintest hope of sunlight reaching for you. You cough even as you keep running, legs pounding against the uneven ground, kicking up clods of brown earth.

Josef and Murtagh are up ahead, debating where you all should go. You don't have breath to spare to tell them to shut up. You have to keep running. If you are stopped now you will be killed. People are actually listening to you know, trusting you rather than the company. That makes you dangerous.

The memory of terror sends you fleeing back down to the sewers, fighting against the smell that lingers still, after what must be years of disuse. While you can and do crawl through them, determined, every bit of you hates it.

The small diameter means you are on your hands and knees. The curvature makes it seem like the walls are crashing down on you. You find a key, solve a puzzle. These things have to be worth something, must mean something. They have to be worth crawling down here in the pipes.

You get a brief respite from when you crawl up into a brick room, the bright red out of place among the silvery pipes. There a few secrets glinting from among the bricks that you slip into your pack before grabbing the paper lying on the ground.

It is a letter addressed to an Elizabeth. You get stuck on the name, turning it around in your head. Are you an Elizabeth? You don't think so, but you try the name on, whispering it to yourself, "Elizabeth."

"Elizabeth! Josef! Murtaugh!" The people's cries are echoing around the room at an almost deafening level. The crowds are oppressive in their attention. Their yells and screams, no matter how sincere, grate on you. You don't like them knowing your names. Even worse are the portraits you have seen circulated through residences. It is easier to change a name than a face. And with this many people, someone is going to talk, especially with what Murtaugh is about to announce.

"All of you, shut your mouths!" You raise your voice loud enough to carry, then wait for the squabbling to quiet down before urging Mur forward, pushing on his sole elbow. You hope he stays on target this time.

"You have all seen the fading. We have known it was happening and now you believe me when I tell you why." Murtaugh is pontificating, probably building up to his idea. You would be more confident if he, and it, were a little more sane. "And more than that, I can tell you how to fight it."

"When they sent me away, they didn't realize what they were doing. They locked me away in that lighthouse, away from everyone, including Liz. She thought I was crazy, staying there, didn't believe I could do it. But I showed her, just as I am going to show you.

"They gave me enough time and distance from the machine to discover their secret. I can manipulate the dimensions, create crossings between them using their own portals. We can beat them at their own game, and get back what we need."

You try to school your expression into one of support. You are here because something has to be done. If all these people insist on following Mur, believing in him, someone has to make sure things actually get done.

You sit down for a minute to digest the memory. You breathe heavily. The sound echoes around the small enclosure like the thunder of an ungreased engine. You lean against the wall and count the bricks opposite until you are in control of your lungs once more.

As you stand up, the urgency hits you. If this letter was enough to spark such a vivid memory, there might be more keys to your locked mind back up in the lighthouse. And Murtuagh spoke like there was an endgame, some finish line that you could obtain. You will obtain it.

You had been skeptical then, you felt it in the memory, but the crossing of dimensions he talked about had to be real. They explained your strange adventure from that locked basement to here. Those places had both felt real because they both were, one dimension tapping into another through the pixels on the screen.

You surge out of the room, full of enthusiasm before clanging into the sewer pipe wall. You sink back down into a crawl. Your back aches at the return to the uncomfortable position. But the fire powering you to move forward continues burning. You can do this.

You return up into the lighthouse to continue your explorations. You find another note in the study upstairs. The letter is brittle, but after reading it you stroke the page anyway, remembering Einstein's fur, the luxury of contact when not encased in a suit. You only allow yourself a moment, though.

You know there is a reachable goal now, a way out. There is a portal here, and you will find it, escape. The little skeptical voice in your mind points out that you didn't use a portal to arrive here, but the hope that has been entangling you since you read the letter drowns you out. Maybe the portals manipulate the images, maybe they are the way out.

When you find the movie memory you know you have a chance to test this theory. You put the light bulb in place on the movie player, feel it begin to heat as the electricity streams in. You sidle around the camera and look into the screen. It is only one frame. But maybe...

You reach into the screen.

There it is again, the tingling sensation you felt when you fell through the screen into the lighthouse basement. You don't like the feeling, like invisible ants crawling along your arm. You stretch your arm out, but the edge of the frame is like a wall, solid. This is not the exit.

Regretfully you grab a card, which might be useful, and remove your hand. It is an I.D. card, faded black and white. The ink is smudged, obscuring the name and most of the picture. All you can make out an outline of a woman with dark hair.

You twist it back and forth. You hold it in close to the light bulb in hopes of deciphering the name. It might start with an 'E', but you can't be sure. There is a barcode strip on the back that still looks good, so in it goes with the rest of your accumulated treasures. Time to continue on.

You find the portal at the top of the lighthouse. It looms above your head. You look at it for a moment, hoping for once this will be easy, but is still missing something. It does not whisk you away to freedom. You still have work to do.

You are not surprised to find a tunnel when you open the lock on the wall. You picture, maybe remember, the woman from your memory, Liz, tunneling out day by day, not trusting Murtaugh to solve her problems. Her aching back did not stop her from creating an exit. But wait - Liz wasn't in here when the lighthouse was covered up. That vision wasn't a memory then. No surprise, your mind is still in some ways your enemy, holding your memories hostage.

You shake the vision from your head and continue on until you have fixed the portal. Even from a few paces back you feel the power radiating off it. You shut your eyes, click the button and are encased in it. When you had come here you had felt electricity dancing along your skin. This power is much more ferocious; rather than pinpricks you feel shark bites of electric charge biting into you.

The pain is overwhelming, but it dies down to the now-familiar pin prickling, which fails to abate. You open your eyes and watch as blocky shapes float down. The shapes look like words. No, they are words. They mention a game and computers, but it makes no sense. None of this makes sense. This is all too much, the confusion, the pain from the portal, the fact that you still don't know your own name.

You let out a howl of frustration. You are too angry and anxious to pay attention to the text flying down around you with the snow. You crunch forward through the static and the snow until you reach the pole standing tall and bright among the ice. You touch it and the world falls.

You are standing still; you know you are. You can feel a solid base pushing up on the soles of your suit. But all around you is movement, a blurring of the landscape. You get the impression of darkness crisscrossed with stripes of light before your vision is overwhelmed by another set of text.

This dimension is a game. You correct yourself: another game. You try to wrangle up some anger at the prospect but none comes. All your frustration has been drained dry, leaving only your determination. So this is a game, which means you can beat it. And anyway, at least this time you know it is just a game. You know what is going on. This is a discrete dimension, which you can and will leave.

Even though this is a game, when the movement slows you find yourself in a place just as real as any you have been. There is a dark gloom, but the walls are solid and the air carries a dusty disused scent. You can hear a faint hum of electricity running through the walls.

You pick up the goggles lying on the ground. You would marvel at the convenience of their appearance, but this is a game after all, and you have to play.

And you play and play and play, working through puzzle after puzzle, an unending chain of tasks to complete. Every time you press that green button you expect to be taken somewhere else, or to find a portal.

When the note comes it is almost a relief, proof that there is an end somewhere. Murtaugh again, telling you that this dimension isn't a game but a trap. Is he the only other person wandering through the dimensions, as ghostly forerunner? Or did he create this dimension as a test?

But the important question here is: do you trust him? Before you can ponder that question your suit beeps at you. Your water levels are getting low, too much expended and lost. You have to make your choice quickly.

You start to look for the leaf.

When you place it on the pedestal you know you made the right choice. The world is moving up this time, and you are ready for the words appearing in front of you.

They are trying to tell you that you have not won, but all you take away from them before the screen goes back is the name of this place.

You are in the Submachine.

Your new location is outside. You're balanced precariously on some kind of roof, but you barely notice that for the fact that there are no walls around you. If you had the space you would pirouette with glee. Instead you satisfy yourself by punching both arms up into the sky. The sky!

There is no sun shining. Instead a thick blue gray haze coats the sky; for some reason that doesn't surprise you. But at this point space is enough to content you.

You are powered for a few minutes by giddy euphoria before you realize you are still trapped. There is no way off of the roof from the outside. There are only steep drops into the unknown, at a height you know you could not survive, even with your suit. You have to go back down between walls in order to move forward.

Before you do go inside you spend a few more minutes of perching among the shingles, not quite ready yet to surround yourself by walls voluntarily. When you do enter the building you find a shabby wooden room. There is a lab coat hanging on a hook, and you know you have not yet escaped from the games. The floating message had mentioned a lab.

You are still in the game. You are sure of it when you test the only door - locked. You find blue secrets hidden in crannies. Having a secret grounds you in a strange way. You keep one in your hands, rolling it in your palm while searching through the upstairs before carefully stowing it away. You have work to do.

There is a computer downstairs. You don't see a keypad, but you press the button a few times, willing it to do something. For once, that actually seems to work.

Someone replies. Not just someone, Mur, Murtaugh, the one-armed creator of portals whose traces you have been following for who knows how long. The elation you felt on the rooftop is back. Human contact! You have been solitary for so long that you hardly can comprehend the notion any more. This time you do spin - quickly, just in case a new message appears.

A small part of you remains skeptical. The message could have been automatic, programmed years ago to answer anyone. While you manage to drown out that voice, it does balance out your joy enough for you to actually pay attention to the contents of the message, rather than just its existence.

He must know the sequence of the links between these places (dimensions?) as he mentions an escape from The Loop. You think back to the endless rounds of puzzles. The name is fitting. He tells you that there is a portal here, one that could take you to more than one place, even.

You giggle at the idea of choosing your own destination. It has been so long since that has even been a possibility, the whole of your memory, even. You grab the printout of known locations and scan over it. You only mean to get an idea of where you could go, but get stuck on the last line: "four teams are exploring the unknown connections."

You are not alone with the specter of the omnipresent Murtaugh. No, there are others here, somewhere. See, you tell your inner skeptic, here is another reason to believe this world, you, are real.

"Will you just shut up now?" you tell it, aloud now. The words feel strange in your throat, harsh. You can't remember the last time you spoke, forced syllables out into the air. But you need to exercise your neglected vocal cords now, to prepare for actual conversation. Determination floods through you, carried in on the wave of glee. Time to find that portal and find people. Time to move forward.

Finding running water in the bathroom barely distracts you. Instead it bolsters your confidence. The pipes are not dry. Someone must have been maintaining them. You fill up your water tank impatiently, wanting to be moving on, thinking about the letters you found on the table.

The words they contain: subnet, karma portal, greatest puzzle, echo familiarly in your mind. You prod them over and over, trying to provoke another memory flash. You don't succeed, but have a hard time regretting it. Soon enough you will find someone else, and they will be able to answer your questions.

There is a mirror in the bathroom. You watch your reflection; concerned for the first time in a long while about how others might perceive you.

Your enthusiasm propels you until you actually stand in front of the portal. All the options you have are freeing but terrifying. This could be it. You might enter a code and find someone, anyone. You might find answers.

Your joy is not diminished, but tempered with terror, an unholy amalgamation of the two that stops you cold. You have been moving on, forward and forward. Maybe somewhere in this journey you gave up the belief that it would end. But an ending has moved from improbable to possible, and that scares you as much as anything has thus far.

When you pull out the printout with the coordinates from your pack your hands are shaking. Maybe you can't do this. Maybe you shouldn't do it. After all, this is one of the known coordinates; someone might come back. Plus, here you have water, light. Maybe you could rig a keyboard and contact someone using the computer.

No. That is not you. You haven't gotten this far by sitting still. You move forward, decisively plugging the coordinates for the ancient section. You feel the expected press of electricity across your skin.

It is dark but open. You can live with that. Hard rock and grayish dust prevail. You wait, silent, for one moment. You are listening for movement, people. You don't stay still for long. You seem incapable of it now, jittering with nervous energy. Like everything you find, you use that energy. You turn jitters into movement, start exploring the ancient stones.

Something about the architecture tickles your mind. After plucking a secret from its eye you stroke the head of the stone dog, tracing its features. You will it to tell you what it knows, what it has seen. As expected, it doesn't work. You scramble up to the upper platform. You find a note among electrical wreckage.

The team that was here has moved on, and so shall you. You grab their now-useless coil, an offering for when you find them. As you climb down to the portal you try to boost your spirits back up. There are still so many combinations left. You cannot fail to find someone.

Any uplift from the internal pep talk fades as soon as you reach your destination. It is darker, enclosed and far too familiar considering your limited memory span. You are back in the loop, or at last an echo of it. This place has the same long rows of rooms linked together into a monotonous chain. You kick at a wall, just because, before calling out a few times. Only echoes answer.

But you escaped from this place before. You know what to do. You solve the puzzle, grab the prize, some kind of blue orb, and get out as quickly as you can. You have no desire to remain in that loop.

After you input the next coordinates you find yourself with another sense of deja-vu. There are light wooden walls, ladders and thin rusted pipes. It is eerily similar to the first dimension you remember. You huff out an exasperated sigh before beginning to work your way through the rooms. You gut is getting heavy, weighted down by growing disappointment, worse for your elevated expectations.

You keep calling out as you wander through the warren of rooms. Your voice is cracking, and you are straining to hear if another soul answers. You beat the walls and wonder. This place is so similar to the one you woke up in, yet not the same as all. You wonder what time and date it is now, and what it was then. Did this place come before or after the first?

You find another note, an assurance you are not alone. But if you are not alone, why is no one answering you? You head downstairs, inspecting the machine, and find a second note. You laugh at the way it echoes your thoughts, the despair radiating off it. It lightens your mind knowing someone out there felt like you, trite as the sentiment might be.

You continue through to the next location, almost frantic now. You are gathering up items, important not just for their help moving on, but as proof: yes, someone else was here. "Move, move move." You keep saying it, an improvised mantra. You need to keep moving, need to find someone. Your voice comes smoothly now, used to the crying out in search. "Move, move, move," you whisper.

The mantra sustains you until you reach a brick room, enclosed. You can't remember the last time you felt the sun shine. You stop moving because you find a note from yourself that you can't remember leaving.

It must be from you. You pick up the paper and flash back to pure despair. Fear and loneliness, so intense you can barely breath, rips through you. Your eyes start to sting with tears. You remember it. It was so dark and enclosed. You were so alone. You ripped a bit of paper off, wrote a missive and signed it, willing anyone to come and help you. The words were a trail, aimed at only those who knew enough to find you.

And you signed it, sunshine_bunnygirl_17. You look at your shoulder, the insignia. It is right there. It might not be your name, but it is you. You say it out loud, "I am sunshine_bunnygirl_17."

It sounds nonsensical. This is not your name, but a title, a rank that falls around you, but does not define you. So why didn't you sign your actual name? After all, you must have a name. You root through your small cache of memories, trying to find it.

"Who am I?" you scream out.

You storm back to the portal, punching in the next coordinates. As you wait for it to pull you through to the next location you will yourself out of that memory.

It is strange, but beyond the moment of despair all you can think about is how young you must have been. In comparison all your emotions have been worn down like the ancient stones of the ruins. The note was left by someone vital, vibrant, someone who thought and felt too deeply. That was you?

Maybe it was you, but it is not you now. You only spare one moment for mourning that past you. Sometime in the intervening time you learned to keep moving. An evil thought strikes you: how long must have it taken you learn to do that? Have you been here all that time?

And if you left that note, how many of the previous had come from yourself as well? You've seen references to four other teams down here, but no other real signs of presence. Could this all just be someone, either Murtaugh or the mysterious company, pulling the strings in an endless torture puzzle?

You shake the thoughts out and use your new skills. You have them now. No matter how you acquired them you can't regret having them to help you survive. You keep going. You have to. By now it is compulsion, a driving force that burns out all other thoughts and emotions. The once small voice in your head has given birth to a cacophony screaming in your head to move.

So you do, purposely voiding out the questions in your mind. You will think about them when you win this puzzle. Right after you punch whoever designed it in the face, be it Murtaugh or the company.

You are uneasy from the moment you enter the ship. You find out why when you touch the note and are overwhelmed by memory.

"This was wrong." Josef's voice is strained. Everyone's is right now. He is standing in your office. He sends anxious glances at the corner where Murtaugh sits tinkering with a machine, wires spread about him like tentacles.

"Just come with me, you need to see what happened. We need you both there now." Josef's voice modulates into pleading. You glance at Murtaugh, take in his studied indifference. You had sided with him on this one, this trial run, or so he called it.

You did it to save lives, you tell yourself. You made sure people could be sent somewhere safe. You nod at Josef and walk to the portal. Neither of you speak. His silence seems pointed as he punches in the ship's coordinates, accompanied by glances that try to be significant. Yours is merely to forestall any more fingerpointing.

It has only been 5 years since you told each other everything. But then you introduced him to Murtaugh, let him into the conspiracy. Now you both have grown too suspicious, too used to running.

Besides, he must be exaggerating about the ship. It had just been a test run, as safe as you could make it with your limited resources. You send a smile to Josef, but he still looks on the verge tears. This life has broken him.

But you get to the ship and realize the tears are warranted. The crew members are frantically racing around, or at least, the crew members who are alive. You step over a severed arm and try to find some order to this madness.

You can hear the echoes of screams from down in the hold. Children's high pitched cries are echoed by the sobs of the adults. "They were supposed to be asleep," you whisper to yourself.

The life support was supposed to be autonomous. They should have woken up on the new planet, free of the machine. You had chosen this ship as a demonstration as well as a test, to show people they could survive on their own. You glance down at the display, clearly showing how they have been cut off from everything, including the air supply. The machine did not give up easily.

Josef is directing the remains of the crew, frantically trying to find a way to blast in. But below, the cries are already turning to harsh gasps. You do not see a way for this to end well.

You feel someone step up beside you. You glance over and see Murtaugh. His face is schooled into a studied expression of horror. But when you look at his eyes, you see them smiling.

"It worked. The machine stopped."

You look around at the tattered remains of the ship in horror; the memory superimposed across the current reality. You try to forget it. While you want, need, your memory back, this, this can stay locked away.

You move forward, play the game. You do not think about the screams, do not hear them echo off the walls whenever you close your eyes. You focus on the game, finding some with answers. You keep going.

When you place the scepter in the statue's hand you can see the electricity building. You had thought this was just another puzzle, not a portal itself. You try to back away. You haven't explored enough yet, you haven't found anyone yet. You are not ready to move on. You try to run back across the platform to reach the portal, but the licks of electricity begin sliding up your ankle and you are pulled in. You struggle, pulling against it.

Words fly by. This time they talk not of puzzle and of games but of tests, initiations. As if making it through these twisted traps was some kind of qualification. You don't want to work at the lab. You might not know much about yourself, but that you are sure of. You wouldn't subject yourself to this for a job. You keep moving, thrashing against the power of the Submachine, uselessly tangled in the electric tentacles. You throw yourself on the ground. Maybe you can ground the power, keep it from pulling you through.

You fail. You are in darkness again. You spin wheels as you pass them by, grasping at them, trying to covert your momentum, throwing your whole body into it.

As the world around you begins to move, you keep fighting. You throw your body about, this way and that, trying to exert your force on the environment. Because you are real. You have this choice and this force, and right now you choose not to go along.

It doesn't work. You are jolted against the floor you land on. Your head thumps down with a decisive crack. The fizzle of electricity dies down until all you feel is the pounding ache of your skull. You creak up to your feet, muscles still twitching. When you go to move forward, you knees give out and you topple to the ground. You don't get up.

For the first time in your short memory, you just stay down on the ground and cry. Tears wash through the dried sweat that has accumulated on your face, streaking the face plate of your suit. You cry for your memory, for the despair of your younger self - reaching out for someone - anyone - to come save her. You cry for the fact that no one rescued you.

You cry for the exploration teams wandering just as you did, the crew of the ship, blown up after a failed attempt to fight the power of the Submachine, or maybe a successful one, the passengers killed cleanly before they could die of thirst. You cry, thinking about the shrieking children as the blast ripped the hole in the hold, and remember the way Josef never came back, even though his suit would have let him survive.

You cry as you think about walls closing in, about going into the machine in search of answers. You cry as you remember the warmth of sun on your face, so long ago that it seems more like a fairytale than anything else.

You cry yourself out. All the sadness leeches out of your body. When your sobs have stilled, and you cease gulping in hoarse breaths of air, you say it.

"My name is Elizabeth Cuttle."

You don't remember much more than that. Your access to your memory is still more veiled glimpses than clear vistas. Still, you know that much. You aren't sure if it is the tears that jogged your memory. It might have simply been the knock of your head against the ground, or the way you struggled to fight the portal. But in the end, it doesn't matter. You know enough.

You hug your arms against your chest, clutching the name tight. You remember your mother holding you, her arms around you. Your mouth stretches into a smile so wide you think your brittle face might shatter.

"Liz, Liz, Liz," you say to yourself. It is a benediction as well as a seal locking it into place. You need it to be reality. You know your name now.

You try to slot this memory into what you already know, reconcile it with your still small cache of self-knowledge. You are not sure why it fell into place now, what barrier was washed away by your tears. Was it as simple as accumulation, each bit of knowledge coming together as a key? Or was it only chance, the knock of your head against the ground jolting your brain in just the right way?

It doesn't matter, you tell yourself, Liz!, sternly. You know it know now. And that knowledge doesn't stop you from needing to move forward. In fact, it makes it even more of an imperative.

You glance around the room and realize you even know where you are, if not when. Time is just as mutable as space when it comes to dimension skipping. This is one of the interim personal units attached to the lab on P456. You remember the wallpaper, the blue sheen had always made you happy. It always shone in the sunlight. Of course, that doesn't happen anymore, not since the machine stole the light away.

You pick up a pencil and paper. You prepare to take notes, not only on what you find, but on who you are. Bits of your memory are still a blur, refusing to divulge information in any logical fashion. But you know your name now. All the rest can come as it wills.

You call out "Hello, anyone around?" you are not sure why you bother. P456 was abandoned in 2397, one of the first. But there still might be someone here. After all, you are. You glance around the living room, check the bathroom for signs of life before opening the hatch to the lower levels.

On the computer screen is a mission is described. The syntax is familiar and the purpose clear. You look at it closer as you note down the details. Did you write part of this? You plan things, the practical and level-headed one. You think back to your recent bout of tears. At least usually you are level-headed. Whomever's quarters these are, they must have been part of the league. You would have known it even if Mur's name wasn't attached, as you know the Wisdom Gems are important.

Thinking of them brings up layers of memories. You think about the gem left in the bowels of the lighthouse. That memory is crystal clear. But behind it are other memories as well, of Murtaugh's searches, of plans needing an an answer. An image of a ship floats forward in your mind. You wrack through your brain for more details and curse its feebleness when you find none. All you know is that they are important, needed urgently.

You try to reason with yourself. This mission might have already been accomplished, the gems found. It could be a needless distraction from working towards escape, finding the rest of yourself.

You shake that thought off. The voice that has been urging you to move continually forward has not steered you off course, and right now it is telling you that you must do the mission. You have gotten this far. You have a name now. You look at the computer screen again. You have a purpose now too.

You will be going down into the root. Have you been there before? Your memory doesn't oblige you with a clear answer. At this point that is no surprise. But you do dredge up up a memory of someone telling you a story. You were so little, so in awe of him - a company man. He told all you children, sitting breathless at attention, about a woman. Eons before she discovered a way for humans to expand beyond the limits of one small planet. She showed people how to create the roots, how to link them.

"The mother of the machine," you whisper along with the man in your memory. You wonder if she realized what she did. You hope not. No one should carry that burden.

Now a root is planted on every planet, each dimension, buried beneath the ground, ready to change and mold worlds to the company's bidding. You had always avoided them, you think, - no - remember. You gave excuses for not going down below, hating being enclosed underground. You release a huff of laughter as you plug the coordinates in. You hadn't avoided it forever.

It is as dark and cold down there as you expected. You decide on a plan of attack. You will find these crystals, make sure that mission was accomplished. And if it was, you will find the exit, keep moving forward. If not, you will at least have gotten one thing done amidst this endless wandering.

You find the ciphers, remember them. They were Murtaugh's first fumbling ideas put into place before his banishment and subsequent invention of the portals. Their presence means this root is not only old and deep, but linked up to others. There might be someone else down here. If you find an exit there would likely be a civilization outside. (You don't think of the ruins, of the people who fled.) It is possible that wouldn't be a wise theory to test. You remember being hunted. Some people still trust the company.

No, you will find the crystals, and you will get through this. You might even find someone on your way. You work methodically. You take the time to note down details, prepared for thoroughness now that your movements have purpose beyond survival, beyond the simple act of moving onward.

You pause when you find the second wisdom gem. It hangs just where you left it next, suspended on the stand next to the gramophone. You wonder how much control the game has over your actions, how maybe no one else had gotten past this point until you instigated its movements. How did they plan for that? No programmer could be prescient enough to account for free will.

You rub a hand to your forehead. Mur was always better than you at working out the logic of causality involved in portal travel. You shake your head, ignoring the questions. What happened happened, and you have a job to do now. The though steadies you.

When you have all three crystals you consider going back to the dorm, resting for a bit, make sure you are in peak condition for what fresh challenges might come. You are so worn down. But no, you have been remembering more and the voice in your head telling you to move forward keeps increasing in volume.

Instead, you reach back into your pack, pull out one of the secrets to roll in your palm. These are red, which means they are Murtaugh's, a contingency you remember insisting upon. He was not allowed to be indispensable, none of you were. You had to drop them as you went, little revelations for whomever followed, as long as they had access to a reader. You don't, so they are useless to you. But still, it makes you happy to have it. You put it back carefully, before heading to the portal.

When it deposits you in a new dimension, you find a cubeship. You look at it, assessing the controls with worry. You haven't ever piloted one. By the time you were trained up, they had been synced up, along with everything else. Why train pilots for ships the machine would control? You guess the passengers of the escape vessel you visited earlier would have an answer for that.

You place the crystals in the slots and close your eyes. You press the switch. You now know why they were so necessary. The crystals are mid-gen tech, made at just the right time. They work with the ship's tech, but were never built to sync up with rest of the Submachine. They are autonomous, safe. Theoretically at least.

You whisper a prayer your mother taught you under your breath. The words are pulled up by reflex rather than thought. You hear the raw grating slide of the undocking. You did it. You know you should be looking at the screen, reading the dials for hints of how long you will travel, or any other pertinent intel.

But all you can do is look out at the sky. It seems like ages since you last saw it, though you know it was not so long ago you sat on the roof of the lab, and longer since you saw a sky containing light. You press a palm against the window and wait.

Soon enough you see the mammoth shape of the machine approaching, blocks upon blocks. The genius is in the monotony, everything compatible, everything working together. You tap your fingers on your right shoulder, a instinctual action, reminding yourself of your status, and of the reason you are doing this.

You joined the company while the suns were only dimming, when the icon on your shoulder meant something. The company was the monolith then. They were the all-powerful overseers of the machine, monopolizing so assiduously that the populace didn't realize they had no choice, not until Murtaugh showed them. He revealed how the Submachine was killing you all, slowly but with frightening surety.

You are tractored in, no need for fancy piloting. You would be relieved, but you are too worried about what comes next. You start trying to access the cube's computer. All you need to know is the date. You need to know if you will be killed on sight.

When you leave your shipcube you are scanned. You stay standing through it by sheer force of will, determined to not die on the ground.

When nothing happens your hands start trembling lightly. You look around your surroundings while you wait for them to subside, try to figure out what you need to do. Because while you are glad to be living, oh so very glad, you do not want to remain locked in here.

You find the answer. Regretfully you toss the contents of your pack down the trash chute. You submit yourself to be scanned once again, tell yourself that you can survive it twice. You hear the soft whoosh of the movement. It is so much smoother up here than the rough rigged mechanics of down below.

When the door opens you see rock and stone rather than gleaming metal walls. It has deposited you down planetside. Because you were safe? Or because it would be the easiest way to get rid of you? There are still so many unknowns here. You have been rolling onwards without any knowledge or answers for so long, it should be instinctive. But you know enough now to realize what dangers you could face.

You walk out past a busted portal. There will be no easy escape, then, but you are still happy to see it. This place had people once. Some could still remain.

As you explore the warren carved into the cliff, you get more and more uneasy. The letters are so bleak. They blame Murtaugh, speak of being stranded, betrayed. Is this some kind of dumping ground? You try to reassure yourself. You know Murtaugh. He features in so many of your memories. He would not do that. This place might just be another loyalty test, an initiation for the league.

You know you are wrong after turning the block. You head outside, wanting to escape the stench of despair that lingered in the caves. You try to escape their bitterness, make sense of it. Instead, you see the carvings of Thoth and are jolted back into another memory.

"I didn't expect it to be beautiful, you know. The machine. So simple."

"What, so now you are going to change your mind, going to go back to the company?" You keep your voice light, insinuating a joke. With Murtaugh you never know.

"Have you ever heard of Thoth, a god from ancient Earth?" He is playing with his new toy again. You shake your head, keeping your eyes trained on his face. You don't want to think about what that toy caused on the ship.

"He was made up all of words, but still he is a god. A moon god, too. Moons take light from the sun. Maybe things would be different if he were a sun god." He keeps his eyes locked on yours. You try not to react to the madness of his words. He keeps speaking.

"We need to break the moon." He pointedly lowerd his eyes to the machine next to him. You remember that he is not insane. Murtaugh just likes to play games. That is how he figured out the twists of the Submachine in the first place, discovered how it stole the energy from every sun it could reach, draining light, life.

You don't speak in riddles and hate puzzles. You speak your mind clearly. You have no need for tricks, you have logic on your side.

"No. Murtaugh, the ship showed us we can't yet. We need a plan in place first, for what to do when all the machine stop working at once. And who will you send to pull the trigger?
He simply waves off your concerns, "There are safeguards in place."

"No."

But he actually did it. He sent people here to destroy the Submachine where it began, the tattered remains of Earth. You lash out at the carved walls, the nanofabric of your suit scratching ineffectually at the stone images. You think about the crying children on the ship and start cursing out loud, invectives falling from your lips in a steady stream until you run out of breath.

What do you do now? Do you keep moving, work your way up to the nexus of the subnet, bring it down? Or do you try to find another, any other way out? You don't know.

You stay. You don't move at all, just remain where you are, inactive. This has been the last indignity, the twist that breaks you. Why did you keep moving forward, just to get to here? You stay out there at least a full day drawing stick figures in the grey dust that coats the planet. You judge time by the movement of the faint stars.

In the end, you miss the sun. You go back inside and continue your exploration.

You laugh when you find the note that mentions you. Oh yes, you are the woman who knows what to do. So many plans created, but not enough; not to stop this madness. You stop laughing when you realize you can't remember anyone finding you with that information. You let out a silent prayer and hope that it is just due to your holey memory.

Going back onto the ship voluntarily seems unnecessarily cruel. You keep one hand pressed against the wall, feel the silent tremors of electricity running through them, remind yourself that it is still moving. You are not trapped forever.

But you will not leave this ship, except for the planet if you are exceedingly lucky. At least not alive. You realize it when you see the messages from Murtaugh pinging across the screen. The fool ignored you. There were no safeguards put in place. You will be destroyed along with the subnet.

Unless... You start running. "Move, move, move," you chant to yourself as you run. You have to move forward. You need to get to the upper level portal - then maybe you could reach freedom. You kick up clods of dust as you skid to a stop.

As you frantically plug in coordinates, you notice it. The particle wave reaches you. The energy crashes against you, pushing you backwards, even as the portal begins to take hold. Every bone in your body aches from the pressure.

Then it stops.

The wave begins moving backwards, - no - not turning, reverting. An unknown defense? Is it resetting to the time before you lowered the defenses. You feel the pull of the portal and scream as you realize what is happening. A time dilation field, it has to be. You've know for years that the Submachine could manipulate time. Why didn't you realize it could use it as a defense?

Then it all starts slipping backwards. You are forgetting, recent memories sliding backwards even as your body is being drawn forward by the portal. Wait, what were you doing here? There is a portal - wait is that what that thing is called? You hear the crackling electricity a moment before you are struck by it.

Everything goes dark.

You wake up cold. That much you know. As for everything else: where you are, who you are, even when you are, all unknowns. But as to what you are - you are cold.

It is light where you are, even though you still have your eyes shut...