Ophelia is gone, and it feels like all the good things in the world went with her.
Not long after that, a virus called the "Punishing Virus" suddenly broke out.
Communications went down first. The transoceanic lines, then the intercontinental ones. Just like that, Port Podesta became an island unto itself.
I remember sitting in the evacuation transport as it pulled away from our house. Father was sitting beside me, his hands clenched on his knees, saying nothing at all.
At the time, I didn't know what he wanted to go back for.
I only found out later that it was Ophelia's things. Her old records. The fresh flowers she kept on her desk. Those boxes of macarons she'd given me, still sitting in the refrigerator.
But that night, the Punishing Virus didn't allow anyone to take anything with them.
The World Government sent rescue teams. Under their protection, we evacuated to a shelter outside the city.
Three thousand people packed into a space meant for far fewer. The registration forms only covered two thousand.
People held their children. Others carried the wounded. Some just sat on the ground, staring at nothing. I don't think they could comprehend how everything had collapsed in a single night. None of us expected that winter to last so long.
The food rations shrank day by day. Amidst the hunger and the cold, people kept dying.
What I found hard to understand was how people still tried to burden their already fragile lives with something more.
There was a young man, terminally ill. He gave all his ration tickets to his mother. With his last two, he traded for a pack of cigarettes, smoked them by the door, and then walked out into the snow.
The signal tower around the shelter had long since failed. Still, every day, a man in coveralls went out to repair them.
"What if there's a signal?" he'd say, heading off as calmly as if he were simply going to work. On the tenth day, he didn't come back.
An old woman waited outside every day for her husband, the one who never showed up. A mother used the last scraps of fabric she had to knit clothes for her child not yet born...
And there was a little girl who kept secretly saving half her meal tickets. Even as her body grew thinner, she refused to trade them for more food.
"I'm saving them for my sister. She'll come find me."
It was because of Captain Mira that I made up my mind.
She fought her way here all the way from the European continent. With her rescue team and the countless scars they carry, she threw herself into Port Podesta's relief efforts without a moment's hesitation.
The Spelmin evacuation convoy only made it out safely because she protected us.
Her own home was in City 015. Her family remains there forever, buried in a city that fell before ours.
I asked her once, why would rescue teams who still have homes of their own reach out to help other places?
She was by the campfire then. I remember the flames catching her face, and her bitter smile.
She said they knew their loved ones were never coming back.
"But there are people here in Port Podesta who still have a chance."
If humans don't reach out to each other in times like this, then there really will be nothing left.
I submitted my application to the rescue team that night.
The rescue team didn't belong to Port Podesta.
They were part of a hastily assembled auxiliary organization under the World Government. They didn't have an official designation; their supplies came almost entirely from outside aid, donated by whoever was willing.
But they kept going. They used whatever strength they had left to pull survivors from death's door. They defended the water pipeline, the lifeline nearly everyone depended on.
They also defended the port's signal tower. For years to come, it would be the only one capable of sending signals to the outside world.
Every person still alive in Port Podesta during those days owed them their life.
No one would admit it, but that's just how it was.
Thinking of how desperately Father wanted Ophelia's things back, I returned to the Spelmin estate during one mission.
I sorted through the old records she always listened to before bed, the flowers still sitting on her desk, those last few boxes of macarons she'd left for me in the refrigerator... It almost felt like she was still there. Like everything could go back to the way it was before.
On the way back, I found the older sister that little girl had been waiting for. She was in a collapsed section of the city.
I remember thinking, "Perfect. I still have the macarons with me. She can share them with her little sister, just like Ophelia and I used to." I had such naive thoughts then.
When I finally cleared away all the rubble, I found she had already died from blood loss.
More and more of us were sent out on rescue missions, but fewer and fewer made it back. As one of the rare Constructs at the time, I was always the one who survived. The lucky one.
I began to lose track. Who died first. Who died later... Who died because I couldn't hold on tight enough. Who died because I wasn't there.
Mira died on the thirty-seventh day.
That day, the mission was to rescue a worker's family trapped in a house in the port district. The roof collapsed when she went in.
In her final moments, she was still murmuring something. "Don't let another mother lose her child."
That night, I picked up Mira's radio. The captain's radio.
The rescue team members all accepted it without a word. I think they believed the same thing... that only a Construct like me could last until the end.
That only I... could carry the curse that belonged only to the living.
I've long lost count of the days.
It was a cold, wet night when Father returned to Port Podesta with a CPF filter element. I didn't know where he got it.
But Port Podesta's defense could finally be rebuilt around that filter element. That much I understood at the time.
Later, I found out that during those days, Father had met with many people... People he'd refused to see before.
Like the "dirty" Kurono he despised when he was young, exiled members of our family, and middlemen with no loyalties to anyone.
He traded the Spelmin shipping charts for medicine. He exchanged his most precious research assets for intelligence on supply routes. And then... through means I still don't fully know, he acquired what was needed.
I couldn't stop him... I had no right to stop him. Not then. Not when I had no grounds to prevent anything that might keep people alive.
Night after night, he stayed in the command center. Always calculating the same thing: how long Port Podesta's resources would last.
To keep Port Podesta alive, he became someone else. Someone a little mad, I think. Someone willing to use any means necessary... I only realized it much later.
After so many failures and so many losses, the TEC finally established its defense lines.
Supplies have to be controlled. Food has to be rationed. Everything has changed.
Port Podesta now stands on a foundation of mourning. Everyone is lost.
No one knows which way to turn. No one can say where the future leads. We just cling to the remnants of the Golden Age, scraping by on borrowed time.
But life goes on. Somehow, it does. Sometimes I open the fridge without thinking, and I find that the macarons stored inside are all gone. Not a single one left.
I can't help it. I just feel... hollow.
As the Spelmin family's representative, I've been helping Father manage Port Podesta's post-disaster reconstruction.
There's no end to the work.
Rebuilding structures. Food rationing. Utilities management.
Commerce has been disrupted, facilities abandoned, and even the most basic water purification has become a problem.
Port Podesta's resource reserves weren't abundant to begin with. Whether building materials or food supplies, nearly everything has to be rationed now.
With Ophelia gone, there's no music in the evenings anymore. I've never gotten used to the silence. So I turn on the radio while I work.
Day after day, the broadcasts carry nothing but reports of humanity's defeats. All over the world, the same story.
That's when I began to seriously consider my plans for the future.
If it were the old Helentine, faced with a world like this, what would she do?
I used to believe that after everything we'd been through... life would finally start getting better.
It didn't take long for that hope to fall apart. New orders began pouring out of Father's office, one after another without pause.
Outbound vessels, approval required. Relief supplies, impounded. Medical fleet, stand by.
After the Punishing Virus outbreak, Port Podesta became one of the few ports in the TEC that could still function.
Ships rushed in from all over. Passing through Port Podesta, they were meant to head for the front lines deeper in the TEC.
But Father held them all at the docks.
The first to sense something was wrong were a few of the old dispatchers at the port.
Miss Helentine, this is the fourth one this week.
The White Gull filed for departure three days ago. She only stopped at Port Podesta to refuel and resupply, but she still hasn't been cleared.
What's the reason? Contraband?
No... Though all relief supplies have now been classified as "pending review."
They've already been moved into our warehouses.
He slid the list across the table toward me. The edges of the paper were worn soft from being turned over too many times.
I looked at what was written there: weapons, emergency rations, bandages, painkillers.
These were things meant to save people's lives.
I'll find out what's going on.
The next day, during the handover, Father was sitting at the other end of the table.
I slid the list across to him.
Father, none of these ships were bound for Port Podesta.
Father raised his weary eyes a little. He did not speak.
They're carrying relief to other cities across the Atlantic. People are still waiting for rescue out there. If these ships are even a day late—
I know perfectly well.
Then why...?
He raised his head. His eyes were weary, but there was no trace of yielding in them.
Our industrial production is offline. Port Podesta's medical supplies will run dry in three weeks. Construction materials, at current consumption, will last two months at most.
And I haven't even mentioned food. Right now, every person in Port Podesta is on fifteen hundred calories a day.
Do you understand where this is heading?
He tapped the list with his finger.
These ships pass through Port Podesta. We have the authority to inspect, audit, and requisition.
...It's always been the rule.
But none of this belongs to Port Podesta!
They're meant to save other people's lives. Rescue teams are depending on them. How can you justify this? Our own production will be back online soon.
Where are these "other people"?
Drowning in the Punishing Virus. Buried in rubble we will never lay eyes on.
People are dying everywhere, Helentine. Morality is a luxury we don't have in wartime.
They need Port Podesta, not the other way around. Understand where the leverage lies.
Tavis let out a sigh.
Rather than watch the entire TEC collapse, I choose to protect the lives we still can.
Port Podesta's safety has already been confirmed.
These rescue teams came together on their own. They're not here for politics. They just want to help.
The other places are running out of time.
I've worked alongside rescue teams before. I understand what drives them. You saw what Port Podesta was like back then...
And Port Podesta is running out of time, too. Has anyone stopped to consider what we need? I understand you want to save everyone in front of you.
But it isn't possible. The Punishing Virus is spreading across the water. Those ships won't get far before they're destroyed. It's suicide, and a waste of resources.
...If we refuse to let even one ship through today, no one will ever trust Port Podesta again.
Trust is a problem for another day.
Trust is a luxury. Survival is the only necessity. On the brink of extinction, diplomacy and reputation are worth nothing.
He pinned the list down with two fingers and slid it back across the desk to me.
This discussion is over.
Next thing to go over.
......
I didn't argue further. He was already convinced his decision was the right one.
It was the first time I'd wanted to do something as myself.
And the first time I realized...
That Tavis and I weren't walking the same path.
Dock 3, Port Podesta
3:00 AM
Thick fog rolled in from the sea, swallowing the searchlights into blurred halos.
Using the temporary clearance I had over Port Podesta's resource coordination, I stamped the release approvals for every ship that had been held this week.
Ms. Spelmin...?
The guards will look the other way. Don't worry.
Take your things and go.
On the dock, the rescue teams were checking supplies against the manifest, item by item.
There were shouts from the workers aboard the ships, hushed murmurs among the rescue crews, and the sound of wind and waves filling the spaces in between.
In that moment, I think I began to understand what the old Helentine must have felt.
The White Gull, the Plame, and the other ships that had been held at the docks had all raised their flags for departure.
Ms. Spelmin, inventory's complete. The last of the filters and bandages are loaded onto the White Gull.
Are you... really coming with us?
I've made up my mind. I'm just doing what I can.
I'll go with you into the Atlantic. As far as we can get.
And try to save people... as many as we can.
...Thank you.
Through the thick fog, engines were already rumbling low.
Just as I turned to step onto the boarding ramp, a headlight cut through the distance.
Father got out of the car alone. No attendants with him.
Helentine Spelmin!
His voice carried the weight of exhaustion.
Have you lost your mind? I made myself perfectly clear!
I know.
You're not saving anyone. You're stealing Port Podesta's future to feed some fantasy of playing the hero!
Something bought with other people's lives... is that what you call future? Father?
My voice grew louder before I could stop it. It was the first time I'd ever raised my voice at him.
You think one ship's worth of supplies will save a single life out there?
Helentine, you don't even know if the White Gull can make it past Port Podesta's fog!
Right now, there are people who need me. People waiting for help. That's why I have to go.
Every pill you give away tonight, every crate of food, it could kill someone in Port Podesta tomorrow!
Father took a few steps closer. In the dark, I could barely make out his face.
Helentine. Come back.
If you come back now, we can pretend this never happened.
Come back with me!
Before this, I had never once questioned anything Father asked of me.
But this time, I chose to stand here in the cold sea wind.
Father, the ship is ready to sail.
You're leaving with them? At a time like this, you're abandoning Port Podesta?
A trace of scorn showed in Father's tone.
The port is falling apart, and you, a Spelmin—
It will be fine.
Port Podesta has you, Father.
"Vision beyond all. Duty above all." I will offer my hand to anyone in need. That's the simplest lesson Port Podesta and F.O.S. ever taught me.
F.O.S...?
Father paused for a moment, then laughed.
You dare talk about F.O.S.? You're not Helentine. You're not her at all!
The old Helentine listened to her father. She would never spout this nonsense, these delusions!
This is my decision.
It's what I, Helentine Spelmin, want to do.
Father opened his mouth, but no words came.
I turned away and stepped onto the White Gull's gangplank.
It swayed gently under my feet. I didn't look back.
...Set sail.
The mooring lines dropped into the sea one by one. Through the thick fog, the dock slowly began to recede.
Father just stood there. He didn't call out to me again, and he didn't send anyone to stop me.
Until the fog swallowed him whole.
The sea wind was cold and sharp with salt.
Your heavy consciousness surges through the young woman's memories.
The last images before the M.I.N.D. connection broke still cling to your vision. The Red Tide. The crumbling streets. Leia's light whip cutting through. And Helentine, her face turned back, just before the crimson light swallowed her whole.
Your nerves burn.
Port Podesta... on the Punishing Virus...
Father's plan...
A cough tears up from deep in your throat, tugging at the dull pain in your ribs and dragging your mind back to the present.
Gray Raven Commandant!
Oh, thank goodness! You're okay!
The familiar girl leans over the bedside, her face caught between relief and lingering alarm.
This is not any place you recognize from the streets of Port Podesta. The room is unfamiliar. The curtains are drawn shut, sealing out the light.
You turn your head. The other two stop talking and look your way.
One is Wynne, her recording gear clutched in her hands, her face still pale.
The other gives you pause.
Ophelia.
The face you glimpsed through the M.I.N.D. connection is right here before you, alive and real.
On the other side of the bed, Helentine lies still. The gashes across her synthetic skin stand out starkly in the low light. Her brow is lightly creased, her lips shifting now and then as if forming words, but no sound comes.
The same safe house as before. It's still secure, for now.
Your thoughts begin to clear. In the battle earlier, Leia had arrived just in time to help you both.
Hey, none of that right now. We're way past "thank you."
I'd just pulled you two out when we ran into Ophelia and Wynne... We all made our way back here together.
Wynne is by the window, her head turning toward you.
As the haze lifts, your mind slowly begins to take in the situation.
She... hasn't woken up yet.
The young woman lies still, her chest rising and falling almost imperceptibly. Now and then she murmurs something too faint to catch. The damage to her M.I.N.D. cannot be judged from the outside, but looking at her is enough to make your chest tighten.
She was muttering nonstop a while ago... Serious M.I.N.D. deviation. She's a little more stable now, but... she'll probably need time.
The M.I.N.D. connection barely initiates before a sharp, searing pain detonates inside your skull.
Chaotic noise floods in, like countless shattered voices forcing their way into the depths of your consciousness all at once.
The intensity of the pain forces you to break the M.I.N.D. connection.
[player name]! You're barely back on your feet yourself. Don't push it!
It's hard to describe... This isn't like anything we've seen before.
On the way here, we ran into all kinds of strange things. They looked like Punishing Virus manifestations, but... not like the Red Tide Projections we're used to. These ones barely showed any aggression.
Actually, it wasn't like they were attacking at all. More like they were searching for something... That's the only reason I managed to get to you in time...
But it's gotten worse since then...
The geography of Port Podesta has gone completely insane...
Tavis lost his mind. He started shouting some kind of cryptic proclamation that nobody could understand, and after that, the whole city just... it just...
Look... I think it'll make more sense if you just see it for yourself.
The city's entire layout is shifting, its blocks undergoing massive transformation.
Old buildings are being replaced by structures from an uncertain time. The new and the decayed collide in harsh dissonance, like a puzzle forced together with pieces that do not match.
An eerie blue light seeps through the discordant seams, glowing like inflamed sutures holding a wound together.
This is my father's... Tavis' doing.
Ophelia crosses the room and comes to your side.
While you were unconscious, Wynne and Leia filled me in on what's happened. I have the broad picture now, Gray Raven Commandant.
And I may be able to offer some answers.
Yes. I shouldn't be standing here. I'm aware.
My sister may not know the full truth yet, and our father would never give her that. But I do know, or at least, I have my theories. I'll keep it brief.
My father, Tavis, holds half of the "Understanding" Sefirah. That is what truly caused the Atlantic Calamity all those years ago.
A chill climbs your spine.
Sefirah. Just hearing the word is enough to put your nerves on high alert.
From what I know... the Sefirah has already been integrated into the Punishing Virus.
The Red Tide has consumed vast amounts of information. The Understanding Sefirah can compile that data, process it, and even... alter parts of it.
He's always been trying to prove that the Understanding Sefirah can reassemble information that's already been lost.
Memories, emotions, residual impressions left in the minds of others... According to his framework, if you collect enough of it, you can reconstruct a person's outline.
The Punishing Virus holds exactly that kind of information. All he has to do is use the Sefirah to materialize it...
Perhaps... whether a single person, or an entire city... the Sefirah can rebuild it all.
A stillness fills the room. Beyond the glass, the rain keeps falling.
...
......
Wynne drops her gaze to her hands, resting still on her knees.
A price...
Another tremor ripples through.
Metal struts along the walls twist and lengthen, like bones long asleep beginning to grow again.
Shattered roads drift toward one another. Port overpasses and old city streets overlap and merge. Electronic billboards blink on one after another, displaying commercials that went silent years ago.
In the fog, lights glimmer. Voices cry out. Familiar names are called over and over.
Wait... Wynne, don't!
Glancing back, you see the room that was intact moments ago now slipping between the real and the unreal.
A deep blue glow seeps through the cracks in the walls, pulsing in and out of sight, slowly gathering into floating bubbles.
Wynne...
The instant Wynne makes contact with the projection, she appears to drift into the illusion as well.
Wynne! Wynne, snap out of it!
The room's structure collapses and contorts at an alarming speed, cutting Wynne off from the rest of you until it consumes her entirely.
Across the city, people sink into these embraces one after another, as though sinking into warm water.
The Punishing Virus no longer arrives as monsters.
It comes as the light above the front door, the food kept warm on the stove, and the cry of a child who should be dead.
And with these illusions, the city holds on to everyone still breathing.
Deep within Port Podesta's Hub
Meanwhile
The place no longer looks like a research facility. Light leaking from the Understanding Sefirah passes through walls and conduits, stretching and folding corridors at random.
Alarm lights spin across scenes belonging to different decades, their red beams sweeping in circles, like a vigil held over a grave that has lost its date.
A man in a cloak stands at the center of the corridor.
Found you. The little rat skulking through the hub.
Sharp instincts, for a "newly appointed" agent.
The man does not turn around, but his voice carries the tone of someone who has been expecting this greeting all along.
I am curious... your predecessor, the one who held Regret before you. Where exactly has he gone?
Mister has already made his own choice.
And I'm completing the work he left unfinished.
A soft laugh escapes from beneath the hood.
The Punishing Virus is devouring this city, and you're the one who set it all in motion. Don't you want to see your handiwork firsthand?
I've watched that particular show play out more times than I can count. It holds no novelty for me anymore.
So that's why you brought the Red Tide here? You let it swallow these people, devour every memory they held of the dead, and then used the Understanding Sefirah to spit it all back out.
Crude, even for you.
Even when the Punishing Virus destroys the flesh, consciousness persists within the Red Tide. Death ceases to be an ending. It becomes a form of propagation.
The lives civilization discards will find a new order within the Punishing Virus.
I hardly think you're in any position to judge me...
Lithos reads the data streaming through the Ascension-Network and finally confirms who stands before him.
Just as I thought. You're "the thing" that vanished from beneath the tombstone.
A ghost of the Erhorn family. Arius Erhorn.
Aisling unearthed you from the Golden Age's grave and raised you as an Ascendant... How did she manage that?
The words have barely settled when Lithos lifts a hand.
Dozens of paper cranes detach from his punishment chair, unfolding in midair into blades as thin as gossamer. They cut toward the back of the cloaked man's neck in near silence.
Heh. Impudent brat.
The man finally turns.
The first paper crane halts before his eyes and snaps in two, broken by some unseen force.
The rest follow, plunging into invisible fissures in the air and disappearing like sparks swallowed by an old photograph before they can touch the ground.
Much like your answers, I've no intention of revealing the nature of my authority.
The shockwave blasts backward, ripping his hood away. Red light floods his smiling face and catches the flicker of recognition in Lithos' eyes.
Lithos does not let him breathe. The paper cranes twist into jagged spikes and shriek toward Arius, their scream tearing through the alarm-filled air.
Arius lifts his hand. White, neuron-like rifts split open around him. The cranes are dragged into their rings and launched back out from behind Lithos.
Arius then presses his palm downward. A tremendous force detonates, swallowing the corridor in dust and smoke.
But in the next heartbeat, countless paper cranes catch the newly ascended agent of Regret before he can fall.
No wonder the Understanding Sefirah has been acting up.
Some of the information slipped out. Besides Dominik... you're the only one who could have managed that.
You mean... "Ophelia"?
I merely exercised some old clearances and released her from the Sefirah. If anything, Professor Tavis should be thanking me.
A reunion that bridges life and death... surely one of the most poignant scenes this world has to offer.
What is it you're after?
I'm simply here to reclaim what's rightfully mine.
Lithos glances briefly toward the hub where the "Understanding" Sefirah is stored.
It should never have fallen into Tavis' hands. Much less into the hands of someone who turns graveyards into nurseries.
The Golden Age you shared with Dominik is long dead, Arius. Your arrogance makes me sick.
And yet, from what I gather, you've climbed to where you are by stepping over corpses as well.
A paper crane glides past Arius' face.
Tavis has his work to complete. Don't disturb him.
Poor professor. Even now, he believes he's saving someone.
Lithos snaps his fingers. The Punishing Virus oozes from the cracks in the walls, and the whole space begins to distort again.
A cage of red prisms crystallizes around the pair, hoisting them up and drawing them away from the Sefirah, receding into the distance.
Stay. Watch this clinical trial to its end.
Yan Zhen, I found... our little rat.
The two figures crash into each other again. Paper cranes, Red Tide, and the city's twisting architecture tear into one another deep inside the hub.
Projections still drift through the streets.
In the fog, the dead linger, reaching for the living with clumsy, tender calls.
The city quiets, settling into a reunion long overdue.
The streets heave upward as if something immense has pushed from below. The ground tilts sharply.
Red light bleeds from the eyes of the colossal mechanical creature.
The shattered overpasses scream with the sound of tearing metal. In the distance, buildings sway, and glass falls like rain.
And from somewhere deep in the city's belly, a long, mournful note sounds.
Outside the window, the colossal bionic narwhal rises slowly from beneath the port city, like a mountain range submerged for ages breaking back to the surface.
The sea splits around its enormous body. Dark crimson waves churn outward on either side.
Buildings sway. Rail lines buckle. The debris of the port is dragged into the ocean and crushed beneath the monster's surging wake.
—?
In the distance, rusted armor plates are caked with decades of barnacles and seaweed. Seawater pours through the gaps in the deck, then vanishes beneath the climbing waves.
Wh-what the hell is happening now?!
That direction... it's heading for the land!
The building clusters sway with every push of the creature's movement, like toy blocks set on the deck of a massive ship.
The red mist churns. The veil of rain falls. The dead stand beside the living, like shadows the world has permitted to return.
And Port Podesta, laden with Red Tide, advances toward the land.
A calamity prayed into being by countless voices.
