Returning to the real world was even tougher than usual. The sucker-punch of disconnecting from a hardpoint made her head spin and she could feel a part of herself slipping away, colour draining from the world. Her vision swam in and out of focus, and she staggered a little as she stood, pushing herself off her stool and onto legs that trembled uncontrollably.

“Where’s Eu?” she asked, shaking herself and forcing the effects, if not away, then at least deeper down to a place she could ignore them.

Her sudden question took the others by surprise.

“You should rest a few minutes,” said the Programmer. “Returning from a hypercognitive state[1] exacts a toll no matter how many times you do it.”

Keri ignored him and looked towards Cassandra.

“Is she still outside?” she asked.

Cassandra nodded.

“But why..?”

“Later,” interrupted Keri. “Programmer, find her for me. Where do I go?”

The Programmer picked up the stickscreen that lay on his lap, and through its transparent back she could see the image of the Butcher, position unchanged since the last time she had seen him. Keri watched the Programmer minimize the feed to one corner and start flipping through screen after screen of security imagery.

“You didn't sing,” said Cassandra.

“What?” said Keri, caught off guard.

“You didn't sing. Whilst you were connected through the hardpoint; you were totally silent. I wonder why that is?”

The Programmer spoke up before Keri could work out how to reply.

“The last time she appeared on the facility’s cameras was about an hour ago, on the other side of the Terminal. She was still outside, but close to the walls. It could be that she’s trying to walk the entire thing,” he said.

“Can you work out whereabouts she’ll be by now?”

The Programmer nodded.

“If she keeps to the same pace. You can catch up with her if you cut through the facility. I’ll have to take you, though. It’s a fairly winding route.”

He paused, looking up at the screen that showed the Butcher, still unmoved.

“I don’t like being distracted from this guy, though. You,” he said, pointing to Andreas. “Keep an eye on it. If it moves, if it even looks like it’s going to move, hit the button and fry it.”

Andreas nodded and moved over to where the Programmer sat, moving his hand to sit close beside a single screen devoted to a large, blinking red icon.

It took some time to make their way across the Terminal, moving through room after room of glowing displays and equipment Keri found hard to identify. They didn’t speak as they went except to confirm which way they would go.

“So, uh, in the spheres… did you find...”

Keri could tell from the Programmer’s stuttered, quickly cut off questions that he was having difficulty controlling his curiosity, but she was quick to shut down any thread before it got started. All he got in reply to anything was an irritated look.

It was at least ten minutes before the Programmer signaled a stop. They were stood at a patch of featureless corridor the same as any other Keri had yet seen.

“Here?” she asked.

“Here.”

The two of them looked up towards different patches of the ceiling, unsure where the camera graft would be. The others back in the observation room must have been watching, though, because with a hiss the wall began to slide across itself, a thin shaft of light widening steadily on the opposite wall where the beams from the widening opening fell.

“She should be around here somewhere,” said the Programmer, starting to step through the door.

“Ah…” said Keri, barring him from stepping out with a raised hand. “I'm going alone. Thanks.”

She didn't pause to listen to the man’s protestations, nor did she turn around as the wall slid closed behind her.

The sun was low on the horizon, shining through the trees in front and half blinding her, and a cool breeze carried a hint of the ending of the day. The sounds of the forest were different from earlier, as every evening sounded different to the morning in the wild. She had discovered this during their journey here, another thing she had learned since the night, long ago, when she had unknowingly taken the data sphere from a dying man’s hands.

Eu wasn't difficult to find, once Keri had explored a while. She was sat upon a fallen tree trunk that lay across a small clearing a short way into the forest, staring out into the trees in silence. Sunlight dappled the ground in front of her, gradually fading into darkness where the trees thickened once more. Keri walked softly over and sat beside her. Eu didn't seem surprised.

“I didn't realise,” said Keri, softly.

Something rustled in the undergrowth ahead of them, startled by even this low sound.

“Not many do. Not many want to,” Eu replied.

“Did you ever try to tell anyone?”

“You can't make people see what they don't want to see. And you certainly can't make them remember what they don't want to remember.”

Eu turned to Keri, a tired smile on her lips. She looked exhausted.

“They were supposed to be monsters,” said Keri.

“And some of them became monsters,” Eu replied. “By the end. But monsters aren't real. Monsters are always… human.”

“But we slaughtered them!” shouted Keri, suddenly unable to keep buried the anger and confusion swirling in her chest. “We exterminated them because, what? Because we were scared?”

“And the harder they fought back, the more scared we became. Ha,” Eu chuckled, staring out into the woods again. “I don't even know who we mean when we use the word ‘we’ anymore. No one’s left who was truly a part of it. Well, except the one we've got trapped in that room, wherever he came from.”

Keri stared at the scars at the sides of the older woman’s temple. The hardened notches of flesh were dull and faded with age, but still obvious.

“When did they..?”

Eu followed Keri’s gaze, putting a hand to the side of her head and lightly touching one of the scars.

“I was eight,” Eu said, eyes glossing over in memory. “I remember when the mob came, I remember my parents telling me everything would be alright. I remember my parents shaking as they said it, Dad doing his best not to show that he didn’t know what to do. I heard them smash the door of our hab to get in, and my father left us one more time to… I don't know. Stop them, however he could. That was the last time I saw him alive.”

Keri waited whilst Eu took a shaky breath, eyes glistening in the evening light.

“I guess he took a few of them with him. He must have; his augs were all for heavy construction. My mother, on the other hand, only had augs for fine control, though as her limbs were completely artificial she looked closer to how the vids portray them than dad ever did. She was a doctor, you see, she gave her own limbs for ones that would help far more people. Not that it mattered. By the time they got into the room where we hid… ha, my room, I just remembered… they were in a frenzy. All I could do was cover my eyes, as mum screamed at me to look away.”

Still Keri didn't speak. She could see Eu was not finished.

“But you know, it feels awful to say but that's still not the part that really hurts, now. That came afterwards, when the strange adults came and took me away, stroking my hand and telling me they had rescued me. They took me to a bare, white room and told me to be strong. I was a child who had just seen my parents murdered, and they told me to be strong! I didn't know what they were doing until the pain started.”

“Eu, you don't have to…” Keri said, unable to stop herself biting her tongue at the obvious pain Eu was in.

“No! Let me get it out all at once. It was a long time ago; let me talk about it one more time, then seal it up again.”

Keri fell back and allowed her to continue.

“I had the neural implants placed in my skull at birth. I grew up with them. They were a part of me, growing with my brain. I could link into machines by the time I could walk. I had created mindscapes before I could write. It's strange: I can remember memories of what it felt like to have the implant, but I can't remember the actual feeling. I just know that a… a part of me is gone. Like someone has taken one of my eyes. No, like someone has taken my heart. Like… like the me that has been left here isn't really me, you know.”

Keri remembered how it had felt to disconnect from the hardpoint.

“I’ve felt like a ghost most of my life,” Eu continued, “ever since that moment. Even though, afterwards, I was raised by a genuinely caring couple who truly believed it when they were told the child they volunteered to care for had been saved from the monsters. From the Butchers.”

They sat in silence for a while, listening to the wind. It was Keri who eventually spoke.

“It's all there. All of it. It's so obvious.”

“Obvious to us. Now. As I said, I was raised by those who believed what they had done was right. They believed they had saved me until the very day they died, and I cried when they did. They were good parents, but they hated the augmented. Never even got a corps, despite the Manual allowing it.”

Eu spat the words ‘the Manual,’ contempt strong in her voice.

“But they didn't need to be afraid!” said Keri “The Butchers had sacrificed for them, had built a world for them to live in. That we still live in! You know about Triton, don't you?”

Eu nodded.

“They knew the facility couldn't be maintained without augmented help, but they still chased them out! Stupid. There's hundreds of vids of the unaugmented trying to fix failing equipment despite it being obvious they couldn’t. Report after report that the facility would fail without augmentations to maintain it. The fault in the pressure control system was caused by their makeshift repairs! Yet all anyone remembers is that the Butchers left, and Triton fell.”

“That's all anyone wants to know. We live in a world of selective truth.”

“But people shouldn’t get to choose what they believe on the basis of convenience!”

“And who's going to stop them?” Eu sighed. “You're at the point of realisation, at the moment of discovery when everything you learn and every injustice you uncover lights a fire in your chest. That fades, over time. It always does. The world is a flood of facts and injustices and inconceivable amounts of horror, and you get pulled along the data stream with it. People cling to whatever will keep them afloat. To whatever lets them sleep at night.”

Keri searched her companion’s face for an answer to questions she did not yet fully know.

“So what do you think we should do?” she said, eventually.

“About what? The Butcher? The AI? The whole damned folly of the human race?”

Eu stood. The light was beginning to fade now, the sun lost behind the forest.

“Damned if I know. That's why I've been happy to tag along with you. That fire may not burn long, but at least it's burning in you now. You were put or you put yourself in the centre of things, it doesn't matter which, and the decision is yours. The others will go along with whatever you decide, too. I know them well enough to know that.”

She turned back towards the Terminal, its white walls visible through the forest only so long as you knew they were there.

“Come on,” she said. “You've got a monster to talk to.”

[1] Ah, so that’s what it’s called, Keri thought.