middleofsomewhere | Conclusion

Conclusion

Thank you.

For those inside the system the voices of the Great-Seasons ring out around them once the red mass has vanished and the blue plinth it was smothering is freed once more. They don't have all that much time to reflect on that before they find themselves waking up once more in their bodies around the tree trunks.

Or at least, around the tube that is the Great-Season they entered through. All illusions have vanished now, all that is left are pipes and metal.

The Great-Seasons allow them passage out from the centre, no sentries or pipes attack them this time. Everything seems to have been put to rights, the walls in the Autumn sector have stopped moving, there is no strange weather effects in the Summer Sector, no engineering problems in Winter and all the camaloid creatures in Spring are calm. Any Helpmates they come across are doing their jobs and no longer malfunctioning.

After a small amount of time, enough to check that all is well, their SCA's light up. All Passengers are to return to the Voidtrecker Express.

Considering the vast distances involved it is probably best that they use the evacuation function to return to the Luggage carriage.

Once all Voidtreckers have returned the train returns to the Void once more.

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They took a look around on their first day here, but hadn't actually realized how many tools are in here. That's good to know-- maybe they're free for anyone to use. "Hope there's stuff small enough," they comment, and ease down onto a seat on Devero's right (so he can work on their left arm, of course), setting the lantern at their feet.

They're nervous, but it's not as bad as it could be.

With the door shut, it's safe enough to share. "So. I'm dead. Technically. I died a year and a half ago. And a scientist from a dead world stole my life. What was left of it. Stuck it in that lantern."

"Me too," Devero says wryly. Time to rummage and see what he has to work with.

He listens while he rummages, managing to keep his face pretty impassive while he does. "My boyfriend died on his world, before he was brought here," he says-- so that part, at least, he's able to take in stride. He does pause to glance down at the lantern, then back up at Soldat.

"...You're not the first person I've heard something like that from recently," he says thoughtfully, recalling the sad blond girl he'd spoken with in the greenhouse car. He thinks about the other bits and pieces he's picked up of Soldat's history before saying, "That's how you ended up at Beacon, isn't it?"

"Yeah. The scientist was the last living person on Beacon. Sort of living. She was trying to get people to save her world for her." They nudge the lantern very gently with one foot, then curl said foot around it to bring it safely between them. "If anything happens to it. I die. If it's damaged, I am damaged. In body or mind."

(Fuck it, in for a penny, might as well go the whole dollar.) They lean down to scoop it up again, propping it onto their lap, and unlatch the metal shutters shielding the light. Most of it is warm and golden, but one pane of glass has a crack in it, and from the crack leaks green light. "Like this. This affects my mind."

Devero leaves aside his search for a moment to turn and watch the lantern as Soldat picks it up. That warm golden light illuminates his face and the interest in his eyes. He bends down a little to peer at the crack, then looks back up.

"Affects your mind... how?" he asks hesitantly.

They're silent a moment, feeling the fear distantly, but they already started, might as well finish it up. They tap their temple. "There's four of us in here. Technically. The Asset came from that crack. The Bottomless Pit came from some scuffs on the base. Sarge just showed up a couple weeks after I died, he's not the lantern's fault." And Soldat, of course, makes four.

It's safe to say that Devero knows more about mental health than the average person. Between his society being more open and accommodating of neurodiversity than most, and his first responder training including emotional de-escalation techniques, he's got a decent baseline knowledge of things like anxiety and depression, and panic attacks, and ADHD symptoms, and things like that.

Dissociative disorders... not so much.

It's his turn to be silent, staring at the lantern and thinking about that. Finally, after that long moment, what he says as he looks up again at Soldat is, "Thank you for telling me." And speaking of the way his society handles neurodiversity-- "Are there any accommodations you need because of this that you haven't been getting?"

All of Soldat's knowledge of mental health has been patched together from their own frankly highly unusual experienced, and a single book about PTSD. Devero's probably still got a leg up on them.

The question, point in fact, takes them entirely by surprise, not helped by the long pause where they wanted badly to fidget but didn't quite dare. "I don't think there are any to take. I'm fine. I only wanted you to know. In case. Other damage might do other things to me, like make me see time differently, or lose my balance, or. One time the metal arm. Grew." They gesture vaguely at it with the flesh hand, like something had literally grown out of the plates.

They hesitate again, then add, "And the Asset. Is not always safe. It tried to hurt one of my friends, once. That was a long time ago and. We get along better now. But it's still possible."

"It grew?" The mercenary little hitek in his brain wishes he could have seen that, but he squashes that greedy little part of him back down again. Not the time.

Especially when Soldat continues, warning him about the Asset. He listens, intent and serious as he's ever been, and nods. "Thanks for telling me that, too," he says.

There are a number of threads here that he really wants to untangle and pursue, but he limits himself to only two, pressing and practical: "If anything happens to it, can it be repaired?" He nods at the lantern. "Or anything else we might need to know about it that would keep from making things worse, if something happens?"

He pauses before the next question, grappling uncertainly with how to... address it. "Same question about the Asset, really, if there's anything-- either of you?-- would be okay sharing. Anything to watch out for, or that might help if there's a... a crisis of some kind?"

"The lantern can heal. From some things." They clearly remember the malfunctions and how it literally repaired itself in moments... if only the stupid death change would repair itself, ugh. (~~I came from stupid humans remaking it, it can't fix that.~~) Soldat gives themselves a little shake. "And if I die or it's destroyed, pretty sure the train will bring it back with the rest of me. I don't... think there's anything to actually be done to fix it. Without the lab equipment. And I never saw that."

They never could make themselves actually go into the labs. Now they wish they'd tried a little harder-- but they never really did expect to survive past saving the world anyway, so it never seemed pressing.

The Asset bit is... even more difficult to come up with something to help. "I. Really don't know. Most people in Beacon didn't even know about them. The Asset doesn't come out much, usually only for threats or. Panic, I guess. You're more likely to see Sarge, who is. He's fine. Not more dangerous than I am. Not even that likely to see him."

"And we don't even have a proper lab space to house the equipment even if you'd seen it and could tell us what it was." He huffs a breath between his teeth, more forceful than a sigh but not quite a groan. "All right."

He nods and says it again. "All right. Good to be aware regardless, even if none of them happen to, er, come out."

He turns back to the assortment of tools, starting to pick through the paltry selection again. "I assume you want to keep this on the down-low here, as well?"

That seems like what's likely to be the last of the questions on this topic, so they let out some tension with a little sigh and a few whirring gears in the arm. "Yeah, if you don't mind." They bump their head back against the seat. "Prisoner knows, I told him about the lantern when we were practicing together. But I'm. Working on who else it's best to tell the whole story to. For their safety and mine." They have to balance the need to keep their lantern safe against the need for help when it malfunctions, their need to protect themselves from the look of mistrust in friends' faces against their need to protect others from the Asset.

"'Course I don't mind," Devero says. "That changes, you feel free to let me know; until then, the file's encrypted."

He's picked out about all the things he thinks might be useful at this scale by this point, and takes up one of the tools as he turns his attention briskly to Soldat's arm. "All right," he says, "you still ready to let me see what's inside this bad boy?"

Soldat obediently flares the plates, so Devero can see the parts inside. Lots of circuitry, some slightly less than professional sautering jobs, thick cables making up the inner structure, and the struts holding the plates in place on the edges. There's a few unhappy gears, some grit, and a couple bent support struts, particularly in the hand region, but it's also clear the thing has been lovingly cared for, first by techs who appreciated its technical advancement, and then by a guy who literally sees it as part of their own body.

Devero reaches up to his Interface and triggers the camera to record, then leans in for a look. That is an incredible build in there, and he whistles low and impressed as he inspects it. Limb prosthetics where he comes from still have to balance weight with functionality; even despite advances in materials technology, there's still an upper limit on how much you can pack into an augment arm.

But as he'd said to Soldat not even a week ago, weight obviously hadn't been a design constraint in this thing at all. It shows in the complexity of the internal mechanics.

"This is a work of art," he can't help but murmur as he delves into it, picking up a-- paintbrush, actually, to start with clearing out the grit.

It's fine, Soldat used a toothbrush back in Beacon. And something that might once have been a dental pick from a long-deserted dentist's shop. "It's useful," they say, tone sounding like they'd shrug if they weren't keeping their arm very still for him. "Bulletproof. Can jam the fingers into concrete to make handholds. Not stone, though, unless it's sandstone or something."

They pause. "That's why I need the tune-up, really. That and the hologram things shorting it out a couple times."

"This is the kind of augment we want to be producing," Devero says as he works. "Not a lot of people where I come from are interested in the possibilities of tech like this, though. Say that augment hardware shouldn't ever outstrip the wetware." He huffs a breath out of the corner of his mouth that's vehement enough to ruffle his bangs. "I say, if you've already lost the wetware, why not replace it with something better?"

He's got a lot of opinions on this topic.

He seems to recall his current audience only then, glancing up at Soldat for a moment. "Know things are really different for you, though. Sorry. I shouldn't bang on about it."

"I don't know if I'd call it better," Soldat says, voice calm. Carefully so. Not because of the subject matter, just because they have a large human-shaped person fucking around in the arm. "It doesn't feel the same way as my other arm. More precise, but less sensation. It is bulletproof but it's. Easily shorted out. And it's very heavy." They feel almost bad, though, talking like that, so they add, "But it's a good arm. It's protected me and others. It does what I ask it to. It's mine."

(Careful, treatin' it like a thing that might have feelings. That's how you wind up with me. Shut up, Sarge.) Sarge laughs somewhere in the back of his mind.

"There's always going to be a trade-off," Devero says. "All technology has limits somewhere."

He glances up at Soldat and smiles a little. "It is a good arm," he affirms, "and it is yours." To him that's perfectly natural, though he's been around on the train long enough to realize how unique his outlook on technology is. But this thing is irrevocably a part of them; he's aware that it's important that Soldat is claiming it, instead of regarding it as some alien thing attached to themself.

"And if I can help you keep it in working order while we're both here, well, that would be an honor."

Considering it came from the person they hate most in all the worlds in all the universes, having positive feelings about their metal arm is a huge deal, frankly. They look at Devero out of the corner of their eye, without moving their head-- they can only just barely see him, but it's easier that way. Then (hopefully) they can't obsess over every little thing he's doing.

"You're safer than anybody else, so." Despite the explosion before, they think they've worked it out, and Devero at least knows how to keep himself non-threatening. "Yeah. When I can't do it myself, you're who I'll come to."

Devero glances up at him again, then away. Does a little color maybe some into his cheeks when Soldat identifies him as safer than? (Yes.) "Sounds good," he says, because he doesn't want to make a big deal out of it. Ducking his head, he focuses in on his work. He's gotta make a good impression now, after all, lest Soldat change their mind.

Soldat breathes out slow and just lets him work. No violence. They can do this.

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Conclusion

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Good to wrap here?

yes!