KHYBER - 2049-11-5 20:45:25 – Enok, is that you, bitch?

KHYBER - 2049-11-5 20:45:31 – Enok, I know what you did. I swear that if my brother gets hurt because of you I’m going to unmake you

KHYBER - 2049-11-5 20:45:48 – Do you understand me Enok? You better beg Odin or whoever for help because if I have to plug myself into some poor street-rat’s body and waltz into the Aether myself

KHYBER - 2049-11-5 20:45:50 – I’ll do it

KHYBER - 2049-11-5 20:45:55 – And I’ll rip out your fucking throat with some stupid kid’s fingers

KHYBER - 2049-11-5 20:46:21 – And I will destroy your precious LEGACY, I’ll make sure every accomplishment of yours is forgotten and every secret you tried to keep is remembered – forever. I’ll control memory. I’ll control the future. You will not stand in my goddamn way, Karla Enok

KHYBER - 2049-11-5 20:46:28 – I mean haven’t you and Rumi messed with my family enough? Couldn’t you just leave well enough alone this once?

KHYBER - 2049-11-5 20:46:50 – Not like you haven’t already doomed the world a dozen times over. This is your war and you know it, I don’t care if you have him convinced I KNOW THE TRUTH.

KHYBER - 2049-11-5 20:47:3 – Can’t believe I’ve put up with you this long.

KHYBER – 2049-11-13 3:11:2 – You got lucky – Ofer’s fine. Now stay out of our way and tell your friends to do the same.

-Desert-era chat log discovered on a Legacy Project archive drive, decrypted in 42 Y

And Hilda dreamed.

2049 CE, in the Aether corresponding to a certain treacherous zone of the Pacific ocean

“You do know why those things hunt us, don’t you?”

The Aether burned and roiled, sand stinging Ofer’s face and forcing him to shut his eyes. Grains of it flicked against his teeth, the heat of them acrid on his tongue. The mist of the it whipped around him, more tumultuous than he’d ever witnessed it before. He was tired. So tired.

Ofer’s injuries weren’t going to kill him, he knew that. At least he had a good chance of surviving if he could get out of this cursed corner of the Aether. That was easier said than done – especially with his enemy so close by.

But she was as tired as him, and just as desperate to escape. Karla Enok lay against a shattered piece of stone-glass-iron wrenched into the shape of a crumbling wall. Could have been from centuries past or could have sprung into existence five minutes ago. She pushed herself up with the little energy she could muster, her weapon lying discarded far from where she sat. Useless. She couldn’t even kill one troublesome secret-stealer.

But Ofer had asked a question, so Karla answered. “It’s because we’re foreign to their world. The same as they are to ours – you are your friends have hunted monsters, haven’t you?”

Ofer nodded, teeth gritted, grim-faced. “And you and your friends have used monsters as weapons.”

Karla shook her head. In the subtle motion of it Ofer thought he caught a note of regret. “The Destrachan was an experiment, not a weapon. And I wasn’t even there for that anyway. No one intended to unleash it on you or anyone else – you simply awoke it. Since I came in I never deliberately unleashed monsters. Besides, the old Councillors are all dead.”

“It hardly matters now.” Ofer laughed, bitterly. Mist obscured Karla’s face. “Look at what the Syndicates have turned this place into – a weapons factory for their sick games.” As though to punctuate his words there came the distant crunching and clattering of manufacture, the airy rush of a forge’s fire. “If LEGACY hadn’t gone so far in its research…”

“If Talisman hadn’t insisted on spilling to the world every secret we had…”

They stared across the misty distance separating them, glaring death. In the distance the Syndicates’ factories continued to churn, and the landscape slowly shifted around them. They could have been in a dozen times, a dozen places, yet it was always the same. Images of war and suffering surrounded them on every side.

And Ofer began to laugh, to laugh deeply at the absurdity of it. Here he was, his friend-turned-enemy-turned-friend-turned-enemy beside him, and they were both so badly hurt they couldn’t fight so instead they just bickered while the world burned. He laughed.

And she laughed with him.

After a while Karla said: “I guess we all screwed up, huh?”

Ofer’s smile was completely without pleasure. “And now the world’s going to pay for it.”

"We can't afford to keep hurting each other like this.” She shifted where she lay. “Not because I'm afraid of you, mind. You're still no match for me."

Chuckling, Ofer said, “Of course. Your whole mind-reading thing did a great job of stopping me from transferring a mass of heat from the physical plane and giving you heat-stroke."

"No, the Vanguard suit did that." She laughed, glancing at the discarded helmet nearby. Its visor was cracked, and mist leaked from it in a torrent. "But seriously, Ofer. Look at the situation in the physical world. The war's getting worse. Soon enough everyone's going to start dying. It's inevitable. This is the big one - the one that finally does humanity in."

"You really think so?"

"I really think so. I can feel it."

Ofer tried again to push himself up. This time he managed to get to his knees, and slowly to raise one foot. Halfway standing, he looked at Karla and said, "Then what do you intend to do about it?"

"We'll find a way to save humanity. I don't need you with me now, necessarily. But please… let's not try to hurt each other like this anymore?"

An offer of peace? Of friendship again, even? Ofer would be lying if he said he didn’t long for that. It was so exhausting, fighting those who could have been his friends, constantly clashing over ideas when the world’s problems now were so much more practical than his or Karla’s ideas.

Ofer wasn’t sure he even knew what he was fighting for anymore, or if he was really fighting at all. Maybe they were just children, playacting in a sandbox while the real world crumbled outside the petty walls they’d constructed.

“No promises,” he said. “But… I hope you really can save them, Karla.”