章節 62: Unexpected Recurrence
And it was no random, thoughtless sketch an employee lacking responsibility and activity might have scrawled to consume the time. She traced the border with a finger, struggling to withstand a round of tremors.
It was a triangle; to call upon the memories of her tribulations within the tunnels wasn't pleasant, but it needed to happen. She referenced what she remembered from the lackluster images ingrained in her head.
The triangle talisman she took from that alcove had water, moss, and a hand. She couldn't summon an exact image of the hand, but she knew enough to piece together that it wouldn't have stuck with her if it were a normal hand. The wrist had broken into the triangle's surface area from one of the vertices, and the water and moss spilled from the palm off the opposite edges of the triangle.
That was the first one she'd seen. The other eight, demolished and wrecked beyond saving or salvaging. She wouldn't have guessed to find another on humanity's turf, of all places. She wouldn't have expected there to be records of the triangle talismans anywhere else, period.
And yet in contradiction to that, she found herself studying what could only be another triangle. It followed the proper design theme of the first, and at the same time, depicted radical changes in imagery.
The triangle's vertices curved instead of pointed, and the borders wobbled, drawn from a shaky or unsure hand. A second triangle emerged from one of the borders, and another triangle was inside that one. Another, another, another.
The pattern repeated as far down into the sketch as she could see, creating a Droste effect. Outside of the original triangle beginning the pattern, the rest of the space inside the largest triangle's borders was a frantic coating of cross-hatching.
Her eyes narrowed, and she noticed something hidden by her thumb. Shifting it revealed a singular line of text, clear to be from the same hand that constructed the sketch. The penmanship held a jagged, uncomfortable posture, and read: "Did she it kill me?"
The writer scratched out "she" as if an afterthought, but it served no purpose aside from raising confusion. Pa-5 lowered the slate, though she didn't dare to think to place it down. She wasn't letting it out of her sight. What was it doing here? No, before that, what was it? What were the triangles from that alcove?
The best she could theorize were symbols, but what did they represent? Or keys? Were they characters of one of humanity's forgotten languages? No, that last thought made less sense than everything that happened to her thus far; that was a tough try to overcome. No language could function with only nine characters.
But then what was the answer? She rubbed her brow, convinced this was something important. She couldn't say how, but she knew it was. That kind of intangible knowledge frightened her more than the memories because she knew less of it than she did the Aud.
Before she could immerse herself in studying the sketch a second time, the serviceman from the information desk returned, carrying in his arms three microchips. His opening statement startled her. "Here you are; everything that held a matching word with the description you gave is here."
She lowered the hand holding the slate and reached for the first. When he grabbed her wrist, she almost flinched. "Before you access the data, some simple procedure to acknowledge: you are not to transmit anything you read from these chips. I will keep communication open between us the entire time and will need permission from you to skim your surface thoughts. You are not to leave with any physical copies of the data. Any questions?"
She shook her head, and he nodded. While he closed his eyes, preparing to initiate a connection, she pushed all the abnormal considerations she'd juggled as far from the forefront of her mind as she could bear, and then further than even that.
The last thing she wanted was to alert the Sixth that she knew of one of their secret projects--again, if the figure was one of them. Plus, she was hardly in an optimal state, between the horror and the mysteries vying for control over her attention. No need to burden him with any of it.
Her HUD alerted her of it, and she accepted the communication. A few seconds later, she heard a voice in her ears without hearing him speak across from her. "You may place the microchips into your reader in any order."
She chose one at random and slotted into the spare port at the base of her skull. The lower one was already filled with her chip, though it was a replacement. Analysts and techs under the First were still scrutinizing every frame and interesting point of data from the old one that accompanied her through her ordeals.
The upper port was for spares or any chips she needed to access in a hurry, like now. It accepted the foreign object, scanned the contents, and sent them to her HUD. It flickered to life before her eyes and displayed diagrams, margin notes, descriptions, and event summaries. This one…immediately, she withheld a sigh.
She could tell at a glance it wasn't what she was looking for. This project desired to combine cybernetic augmentations and replacements with humans to a larger extent than considered normal, resulting in bulky forms that were more metal than flesh. The figure that saved her might have been slimmer than her.
The second looked more exotic, though still off the mark. It showed promising results from combining different drug cocktails in a way that provided the positive effects associated with them while each combating the drawbacks of usage of others.
She could have used this. But the physical benefits a serviceman could derive from this method were minimal, nothing like the feats of athleticism and strength she'd seen the figure use.
The last one--her eyes widened and she closed the screen without a second look. No, no, she wouldn't entertain the idea. Better yet, she would push the images she'd burned into her mind with a single glance away and stuff them with everything else undesirable. Everything else she had no business thinking upon.
"Well?" She only noticed her neck was moving on its own, shaking her head for her, when the desk informant standing across from her spoke. "Did you find what you needed?"
"No." She removed the third microchip from her head and palmed it off, eager to place distance between herself and the data stored on it. "I can't say I did." She crossed her arms and waited in silence while he took the chips back and returned them to their storage. When he returned, she figured it wouldn't hurt to ask about the sketch. "Do you know which person here made this?"
She passed the slate, curious about what the answer would be. The desk informant tilted his head, holding it between both loose hands. "I don't know who would have enough time to make something so…detailed."
She noted he used "detailed", not intricate or meticulous, both words better suited for works that were both complex and neat in appearance. "But you found it here, no?" He pointed with his foot at the desk she leaned on. "This is Wa-5's desk. Let me ask."
He called over one of those rushing by. "Excuse me, did you make this?"
Wa-5 paused long enough to toss a shrug and a "Haven't got the time." at them. The desk informant himself shrugged at the answer. "Sorry, but the ray doesn't have the redundancy for you to stop and question every employee."
"I understand." She thanked him for the help and retraced her steps back to the entry point. She stepped back onto the stairs and began her descent when she pressed down on someone's toes.
"Augh!" There were a few frantic moments between the two of them when it looked like the stepped-on person would tumble back and fall down the stairs. She latched onto the skinsuit and pulled him up. "Watch where you step! Damn!"
"Ni-6?" She recognized that voice, and the small window of hesitation before "damn" slipped free. Spending so much time around Aunt Eight would wear down any person's barring of profanity. "What're you doing up here?"
"Pa-5?" The two paused to steal good glances at the other. "No wonder that hurt so much. I think you broke a toe!" He leaned down, almost spilling the mountain of chips in his arms to poke at his foot. "Sorry, what was that?"
"Do you need help?" She changed the inquiry, the answer to the original delivered under swift strain when she saw how his arms trembled with the weight.
"Yes, please." and "Ow, you really did break something!" and "Why don't I ever grab a cart?" were the responses. He shunted two-thirds of the load to her and resumed the lead. She followed behind, wincing every time he muffled an "ow."
"Sorry about that."
"I appreciate the sentiment, but I don't know if that will fix me. Oh!" he near-shouted as the injured foot smacked against the ridge of a step. The desk informant looked around his screen to see them and their load. His eyes widened, and he rushed to bring a cart to relieve them.
"Again, Ni-6? One of these days you will trip because you can't see where you're going."
Ni-6 waved him off and gestured for her to follow, already turning around and retreating toward the stairs. "We'll see about that."
The desk informant muttered something under his breath Pa-5 chose to purge from memory rather than remember, and chased after Ni-6. He stopped and turned back; it was by a narrow margin that she avoided knocking into him. "Wait, what are you doing here? Weren't you told to rest?"
"I was…checking something."
"'Something'."
"Yes."
Ni-6 offered her a long, hard stare that ended in him further offering a knowing grin. "How about this? You go with me, and I don't tell my superior you're going against medical's orders?"
"I can hardly refuse something so fair." Sarcasm laced her words as she fell in line beside him. "Before we go anywhere, you should get that foot checked."
"It's fine." He waved her off too. "I've experienced worse than a broken toe."
"It may be more than that."
"It doesn't hurt to the point I can't walk."
"Fine." The First's employees all held a tendency to develop chronic stubbornness after a period of service. It could shine through at the best of times, though nothing stopped it from doing so at the worst. "It's your foot."
"It is," he agreed. "Come with me to my residence."
"What?"
He held up a container, and only then did she realize he'd been holding that under the pile of microchips in his arms. It was hardly a wonder how he struggled at that time. "The Prime Beacon was generous; he contracted a funerary memento for my brother."
They lost their familiar smiles at Ra-3's mention. "Do you think he suffered?"
"I don't want to think so," she muttered, "but the Aud rarely give what humanity wants, right?"
"Right." Ni-6 placed a hand on her shoulder. "We're going to miss him. You were the last person to speak with him, so could you come and spend some time with my mother?"
She grasped it in return, wearing a weak smile. "Of course."
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