The thing people called a "miracle"...
Tavis Spelmin had seen one with his own eyes long ago, on the day Ophelia died.
The elevator hummed to life. The low vibration of its metal shell traveled up through his feet, a route he had taken on countless ordinary mornings before.
Through the transparent glass, the Atlantic Eye was nothing more than a gray-white arc stretching endlessly across the ocean.
The travel brochures had given it many grand titles: a wonder of human engineering, the heart of the Transatlantic Economic Community, the current control system...
Once, it had also been called an "engineering miracle."
The elevator descended slowly. Warning lights and mechanical structures cast flickering shadows across his vision, briefly obscuring the view.
Then a thriving metropolis came into sight.
In those days, the four great families were ambitious, determined to push the boundaries of human life further beneath the ocean.
The city's simulated nightscape, rendered through seawater itself, was somehow more magnificent than any city in the Transatlantic Economic Community.
It was a sight that belonged only to the Golden Age.
The elevator continued downward. When it stopped again, the view had changed entirely.
This was the engineering zone controlled by the Spelmin family.
Workers in dark blue or olive green uniforms moved through the corridors.
Pipelines, cryogenic units, deep-sea operation chambers, hull welding. Behind every hallway, someone was on shift.
Researchers rotated through their routines. They ate, napped, ran experiments until dawn, then went to the upper level for black coffee before returning to their stations.
Tavis' laboratory lay deeper still within this zone.
He walked along the corridor, never thinking this day would be any different from the last.
Morning.
Morning... geez, you pulled an all-nighter and still made it on time? I'm impressed.
Project's not exactly going great. Arius just cleared out a whole tier of management. Aren't you worried he'll come for you next?
At my pay grade? Please. I'm not even on his radar.
If he wants to clean house, that's his business. Not like he'd go after Tavis, right?
So, how far did you get last night?
We need to boost Understanding's extraction efficiency, but this is all the computing power we got approved. And the tidal window's only so wide.
Only thing left is to push the sampling rate and squeeze out a little more data flow. Hope for the best.
Arius said today's the deadline.
Parsing anything out of the Consciousness Tide is like finding a needle in a haystack. I tweaked the algorithm last night. Helped a bit, but not much.
Sigh, did you catch any issues in the data? I went through the reports on the desk. Couldn't figure out which parameter was throwing things off.
Everything looks fine on paper. That's almost worse.
It could be the whole approach... Maybe we're targeting the wrong block?
But we're using the block the boss assigned us. I filtered out all the junk from the old human data archives. Memes, stuff like that.
What kind of nonsense...
Tavis walked into the lab in a daze, still unable to gather himself.
Oh, there he is! You're late, boss. That's not like you.
If even the boss is running late... heh, think you could wipe my tardiness while you're at it?
...Nadia? Arben?
His gaze drifted from one face to the other.
You're... both here?
What do you mean? You promised to take us out after the weekly meeting. No way anyone's calling in sick today!
The white overhead lights. The reports spread across the desks. The test diagrams still glowing on the terminals. The familiar scent of disinfectant mixed with the residual warmth of metal.
He knew everything here all too well.
Weekly meeting...?
Please tell me you didn't mess up the reservation. Boss, I've been talking up that restaurant for weeks!
On the day of the Atlantic Calamity... his subordinates had been waiting in the lab, expecting him to fulfill his promise.
But Port Podesta's business had him trapped. There was barely a moment to get away.
Boss? You look terrible today. Pulled another all-nighter?
Don't tell me you stayed up working at home again. Seriously, you really need to rest once in a while.
Everything felt more real than reality itself.
The Understanding project... what's its... current status?
I can only see the extraction efficiency from here. You know that...
Everyone. Stop what you're doing. Get out of the Atlantic Eye. Now. Go!
The office went quiet for half a second.
Nadia's pen froze over her report. A beat later, Arben raised his head from behind his screen.
Boss? You okay? What's happening?
What's this about? Did you pick up another prank somewhere?
The "Understanding" Sefirah extraction will blow the entire dam! You have to run, now!
Alarms blared across the entire floor at once.
The glass screamed under the high-frequency tremors. Someone swore. Someone ran for the exit. No one could tell who moved first.
...Boss, what is going on?
Tavis fell silent.
He knew running was pointless.
Not a single researcher in that office survived the day.
Something closed around his throat. He could not push out a single word.
I...
The next second, blue light swallowed everything. The explosion was silent.
The world crumpled as if crushed by a giant hand.
He saw the lab bench flip through the air. He saw the alarm lights trace strange, impossible arcs.
Blue light swept across everything first. Desk edges. Pen tips. The rim of a screen. Sheets of paper suspended in the air.
Then the laws of physics began to come undone.
Matter shifted, splintered, and tore apart in impossible ways. The blue turbulence ground the world into unrecognizable debris.
Steel frames melted and hardened again. The researchers' bodies stretched into elongated shapes that no longer belonged to them.
Then everything went white.
Nothing remained. Nothing had been saved.
When he opened his eyes again, an officer from the Control Court sat before him.
Tavis Spelmin. Based on the Court's investigation into your communications records and experimental findings, you had no direct involvement in the Atlantic Calamity perpetrated by Arius Erhorn. You're free to go.
No... that's not right. I was the lead on the Consciousness Tide project as well!
And?
The project I led killed all those people, and you're telling me I had nothing to do with it?
I knew what Arius was planning. When he framed the Copperfield family, when he and Dominik turned against each other... I knew about all of it.
Mr. Spelmin, the Court bases its rulings on evidence. Not on the subjective beliefs of the parties involved.
The officer did not even look up. He simply scratched a few signatures across the paperwork.
By your standard... should everyone who survived be judged guilty?
I was the project lead. My name was right there, under Dominik and Arius.
Leading a project does not make you an accomplice.
You were not present at the Atlantic Eye on the day of the incident. All communications between you and Arius Erhorn were strictly technical in nature.
By the Court's standard, you are not culpable.
I designed the Iso-Device. My department was responsible for energy-level control... And the Sefirah...
The Control Court officer's eyelid twitched, barely noticeable.
...That's quite enough, Mr. Spelmin.
The Control Court respects your integrity as a researcher. I ask you to respect our professional judgment in return.
If you feel the need to atone for something, we can arrange a therapist. There's no need to be this hard on yourself.
That technology was never meant to cause this! No one wanted this from the beginning!
The Consciousness Tide, humanity's collective consciousness... If we had succeeded, there would be no barriers left between people! Maybe then everyone could truly reach one another. "Understand" one another.
And Construct Tech... Humanity could finally shed the weight of flesh and bone... maybe even break past the limits of the Tantalum copolymer! We could have entered an age without conflict, without constraint!
Do you know what else we did? We applied this to medicine. We tried to restore consciousness in the dying!
We explored cloning. We tried to preserve the dead as pure information... Maybe one day humanity could overcome even death itself!
I believed in that future! That's why I did all of this... And I knew the risks. I knew them from the very beginning!
He heard his own voice, quickening and rising with every word.
The man wanted to trade the truth he spoke for a share of the blame.
...
I knew from the start. What Dominik and Arius were hiding beneath that dam. But I never imagined... I never thought M.I.N.D. research could lead to a catastrophe like this.
If I had just paid closer attention. If I had cared more... All those people. So many brilliant people. They'd still be alive...!
The man seated opposite gave the table a soft, deliberate knock.
Mr. Spelmin.
Remember the Court's ruling. Obsessing over the past won't help you, not in your current state.
...So you won't even give me a trial?
He shot to his feet. Files, a terminal, and an unfinished glass of water were sent crashing off the desk by one sweep of his hand.
Papers scattered through the air. The glass hit the floor and split in two.
As the sound died, the Control Court officer's silhouette began to drain of color.
The office walls pulled back, like a backdrop being rolled away.
When he came back to himself, everything was gone.
He was on his knees.
Only an endless, impossibly clean whiteness remained.
...Why?
Why won't a single person look me in the eye and say it? Tell me that this is my fault?
The Atlantic Calamity... I'm a culprit too.
Why? Why did no one come to condemn him?
Night after night, the dead spoke to Tavis in his sleep.
"Dad, are you coming home tonight?"
"Mr. Spelmin, about Port Podesta's next quarter..."
"Mom, can we buy this Huhu...? Please? Pretty please?"
"Don't you think the Atlantic Eye is a miracle? How could you ever be tired working on something like that?"
"Don't work so much. Take care of yourself. When are you coming back up from the Atlantic Eye?"
As Port Podesta's highest administrator, he heard everything.
The days he should have safeguarded now lay in ashes, burned away by his own doing.
The lives that should have carried on vanished without a trace beneath the shadow of the disaster.
The week Arius pushed to remove Understanding's energy limiters, I knew. I knew something would happen.
I could have saved them... If the technology had just been a little further along... if I had just tried harder...
Every time, the man told himself to observe a little longer.
"Keep monitoring for now."
"Not enough data."
"It's too early to speak up."
He knew better than anyone whose fault it was. He had witnessed everything Arius had done, and he had remained unmoved from start to finish.
The escalating experiments. The expulsion of the Copperfield family. His arguments with Dominik...
In the white void, blurred shapes began to solidify at the edges of his vision.
A pair of shoes. Then the hem of a coat, an ID badge, a coffee stain on a lab coat sleeve, the cold gleam of a terminal reflected on glasses before it could be turned off.
The pieces assembled themselves into faces he knew too well.
Arben.
Nadia.
And so many others who had once worked beside him, sharing jokes, complaints, late nights, and heated debates.
They stood there watching him, as if this were just another morning after a long night of overtime.
Boss, don't beat yourself up. You did everything you could.
Boss, I didn't know you could cry. Come on, don't. No one blames you. Really.
It's alright, sir.
The dead only stood there, an unbroken wall he could never cross.
Their words of comfort did nothing to ease the guilt tearing through him. He grew hysterical, shouting in anguish.
More and more of the dead gathered around him. Their reassurances blended together, but they did not grow gentler. Instead, they swelled into an overwhelming noise.
His head dropped.
...I should've said something sooner.
A week earlier, or even a day earlier.
The crowd's reassurances drowned out his soundless crying.
Slowly, he raised his head.
His lips parted, grasping for words.
But something stopped him cold before a single syllable escaped.
A dark stain spread from Arben's collar, bleeding through the white of his coat.
Nadia's smile held, even as blood welled at the edges of her eyes and ran from her lips.
From Cassie's slack fingers, blood began to fall in thin lines.
And still, their faces did not change.
Boss, it actually doesn't hurt.
We're okay, really...
Nadia lifted a hand to wipe the blood from her chin, but as her sleeve rose, more crimson flooded out from beneath it.
Blood ran down her wrist and dripped onto the white floor, the first red drop spreading against the pale surface.
Every word was spoken gently. Every person who spoke was drenched in blood.
Still, the voices kept coming, pouring in from every side.
Tavis watched everything unfold before him.
<color=ff4e4eff>I have no direct involvement in the Atlantic Calamity perpetrated by Arius.
I'm... free to go?
STOP!!
His scream nearly ripped through his own throat, and the figures before him shattered.
Yet the footsteps came again.
Someone he knew even better walked up and stood before him.
Father.
O... Ophelia?
Why... it's you...
I've come to say goodbye.
Why? Did it fail?
Yeah... you could say that.
I've already... found a way to stop Understanding's anomaly. You don't have to worry anymore.
Ophelia...
You asked me before if there was anything I wanted to say to you... Well... I thought about it a lot later, on the operating table.
I guess I do have things I want to say, Dad. A lot of them.
When you first brought up the surgery, I'd already made up my mind right then.
Dad, does that meet your expectations? This test you gave me... did I get it right?
I... That's not...
Dad, can't an ordinary person still be good? Can't they live a life that's theirs?
Please don't dismiss this. It's the best choice I could make, as just an ordinary person.
I know how hard you've tried, Father. So please... let me go. Let me leave, Father.
I'm not afraid of death, and I don't blame anyone. It's just...
After I'm gone, remember to keep the fridge stocked with macarons. The ones from that pastry shop on the street by our old elementary school. Helentine's always loved them.
Oh, and make sure Helentine cleans up around the house once in a while.
Whenever I'm not there, both your rooms turn into a disaster.
And...
No... please...
Ophelia's voice faded. A hair ribbon and her earring settled softly onto the spreading blood.
Tavis knelt on the ground, clutching the blood-soaked ribbon in both hands.
<color=000000ff>He had made too many wrong choices in his life.
<color=000000ff>Each time, he had believed it was the best option available.
But the answers always came too late.
If only he could make a different choice this time.
<color=ff4e4eff>Could the extinguished lights of Port Podesta shine again?
Could those empty houses be filled once more?
Could his life, his family, his happiness, and his pride all come back to him?
"If only I could stop losing everything."
"If only I could make everything right."
If only miracles really existed...
Port Podesta
Tidal Hub
...So he actually believed it? That you could use the Sefirah to translate the Punishing Virus?
Heh... in his current state, he'll cling to whatever he wants to believe.
I'll keep the Punishing Virus concentration in check. The tragedy won't unfold too quickly, Yan Zhen.
That's not what I meant. The test subjects... that one called Cassie, and all those random data samples. There's also this reporter who crawled out the other day.
Are you questioning their integrity?
Don't worry. There's some rejection between the Sefirah and the Punishing Virus, true...
But they can hold a human shape. For a little while, at least.
And when that runs out?
In the end, it's just a shell. Given time, it breaks down on its own.
Their speech patterns will start to glitch. Their nature as the Red Tide Projections will show through. And there will be occasional severe nerve pain...
But they'll last long enough to bring Tavis around. Time is not a concern.
Besides... I am curious to see what the Sefirah is truly capable of.
Consider it part of the experiment. And while we're at it... we might as well grant Tavis a past dream of reunion.
A miracle... will occur.
