Aliapanacea

  There really isn’t much to do in New Houston if you’re an introvert.

  Sure, you browse the intra or the submesh, but most of the things you do there are gated by microtransas. If you don’t have access to enough funds, you’re basically locked out. You’re left with about two options, one of which is books, the other old, pre incursion media like movies and television shows.

  Personally, I was raised by the tter.

  Emmelyn Seras, 2057, in an interview with a Seattle News Station.***

  Beh the spotlight, I stand perfectly still, clutg my on of choi my hands. I begin to tap my foot on the ground, repeating that beat three times until I set into motion. With practiced ease, I twirl the top heavy staff in my hands in time to the musi my head, lost in a world beyond my own as the orchestra swells. I bring the tip of my spear down, spinning it around me as if I was ing the floor with a mop.

  Er, well.

  I guess I actually am mopping the floor.

  I sigh, pausing to rest my forehead against the wooden shaft of my tool, a little bit wet from my small bit of py. I may be a professional at what I do, but that doesn’t mean I ’t have a little fun. A spoonful of sugar, and all that.

  I shake my head, the back to work. The Montero manor always needed something ed, but the job I seemed to be assighe most was ing the long back hallway eg the eastern aern wings of the building. It never really actually got dirty, sidering no one ever fug used it, but the dust would accumute, and god forbid the damn marble floors weren’t shining.

  I freeze when my tacts light up, a voice call starting without my acceptance. [“Emmelyn! Are you finished yet?! I had to force the call through again, you silly girl. Get over here, now.”]

  I gasp in horror, thinking I had screwed up royally, but when I look down at my work, I find that I actually have finished. Guess I got lost in my malding a bit. I run over, dunking the mop into the rolling bucket, then rush towards my new destination. I slide into a small side office, where my boss Marianne spends quite a bit of her time.

  “I’m done! What else do I o do?” I pant as I speak, brushing a stray ptinum lock out of my eyes.

  My hair had grown out a bit i few months, but I never really found the time to style it et it cut. My dress, a stereotypical Victorian maid dress that I wish was a bit cuter, is as prim and perfect as I could possibly keep it. Out of the things that had been drilled into me hard during my training, that erhaps the most useful. I touch my pocket, feeling my gsses safely in their case. I wish I didn’t have to wear the stupid e tacts during work, but at least I couldn’t get them wet while I was… w.

  Taking a notebook out of her pocket, my boss marks something off, then flips a few pages back. Grimag, she pihe bridge of her hen walks over to look out the window. Wiping a hand on the window, she brushes the dust that es off of it between her fingers, then sighs.

  “It’s been two months since you finished your training,” She states, walking over to loom above me. “I o be here when the family returns, so I need you to run an errand for me.”

  She puts her book bato her apron, then flips out a thick pstic ID card to me. I g over, finding to my surprise that it actually has all my information. “I need you to go down to the twelfth floor, to che our facility down there. You don’t o it or anything, but we do need someoo make sure it’s still running. Just check the terminal after you go inside.”

  Marias her hands behind her back. “Send me a message when you’re done, and I’ll send someone down to get you.”

  I gracefully do a little curtsy, then carefully watch my steps as I walk out of view of the office. I momentarily peek behio see if she is watg, then full on sprint towards the staff entrao the manor. I had never been lower than the sixth floor of the reef, and now I was getting to go twice that deep. People only spoke of the p murmurs, talking about how it was just a dreary floor filled with hydroponics farms or something.

  There had to be something more to it, and now I was getting the ce to experie myself.

  I stumble out of the building onto the rather dreary baly, rushing over to the tral lift where I rapidly mash the sea level button. As it lurches to a start, I giddily remove my tacts and put my gsses on, now no longer restricted by my duties. I watch as the elevatss wall reveals the floati dock of the tral tower, the jewel of New Houston. Upon it sits the alresent, always vibrant, oh so important grand market, booming as always. I lean my head oransparent surface, looking through the rainbow of stalls to see if I spot Freesia.

  “No, bad brain!” I sp my cheeks, then put my hands on my hips. “I am the great Emmelyn Seras! I ’t let a simple mistake depress me!”

  I spin, raising my finger up into the air, then begin to speak in an exaggerated toer clearing my throat.

  “You see, I am the very model of a modern major individual, I’ve information here and far and everything additional!” I swing my body around, pointing down at the shifting crowds. “Who cares if I’m not the winner of the position oh so critical? I ’t get down when I o reach the pinnacle!”

  I find myself giggling incessantly as I step off the elevator, my eyes meeting those of an almost deathly skinny girl, their pretty emerald eyes hiding behind their tired facade. As I walk, I sider stopping to ask them if they are okay, but decide against the decision as I just simply don’t have the time.

  Seated beside twelve more of its kind, a huge Dredge Bell spray painted blue by someone who obviously didn’t know what they were doing slowly extends its arm over the rippling surf. Hung carefully from its , a steel tainer rge enough to hold one adult man dangles. When the e lurches to a stop, a distinct clig begins as the slowly lowers its load towards the o. When the tainer hits the water, it is quickly ed, only the metal loops following behind it indig that it still exists.

  “Hey Geie!” Running up to the elderly man, I tap him on his back. He yelps and jumps nearly half a foot in the air, turning to look at me like I was crazy.

  “Emme! o put a bell on you, girl!” Chug, the man takes a breath of relief after clutg his chest, then starts preparing the e to the fourth floor. “Why you off so early, anyways? Get fired already?”

  “Nope, and for the record, I am not going to the fourth floor just yet!” I wink, and point to the rgest e. “I hat ooday!”

  “Eh?” Raising his eyebrow, Geie stops his movement. “The twelfth? What kinda nonsense are those folks makin’ you do?”

  I shrug, taking the very shiny keycard out of my apron to show to him. He takes a quick look, then shakes his head and starts to prepare the creaking, a e. It creaks ominously as it moves, its pos probably not having been used mu the fifteen years that Geie has ow. Not very many people came a from the twelfth. A rusty iron box rattles to a stop beh the crete dock, and I don’t hesitate to leap io sit down on the chair.

  “This’ll be a rough dest, Emme. If you start feeling light headed down there, don’t be afraid to hit the emergency switd use the oxygen,” Geie states, walking up and putting his hand on the door, “If you drown in my elevator, that’s real bad business.”

  I giggle as I dismissively wave a hand, and the old man grins as he shuts the door. Light vanishes from my eyes, and with a sinister k apanied by a woosh of air, I know that the tainer is now sealed from the elements beyond.

  Shaking as the e extends, I begin to get a bit nervous as it tinues far lohan I expected. Sihe tral reef was shaped like a e, it made sehat lower floors o extend farther… but this was kind of ludicrous. Suddenly, we lurch to a stop, and I sm my hand against the wall to steady myself. When I pull my hand back, I grimace at the greasy feeling of something stuy hand, yet I ’t tell exactly what it is in the darkness.

  Thankfully, the begins to click, and I feel the familiar increase of pressure as I dip beh the waves. The sound of the market vanishes as it goes ulingly quiet, the only he slight grinding of my transportation’s metal binds. I shakily reposition in the seat, but that just makes the box begin to sway, a pendulum in the deep.

  For what feels like ay, I sit there in the dark as I slowly desd. The only things telling me I am still moving are the sounds of the s and the slowly increasi in my ears. That wasn’t a particurly good sign for the state of the airlock, but I was trying my best to stay positive.This trip had been way, way lohan any other time I had used a e elevator, and I have no idea how much lo was going to be. It was mind boggling how much deeper the twelfth floor was then the fourth, that’s for sure.

  Ign the grimy feeling of metal dust on my fingers, I begin to mindlessly sing the first song that pops into my mind:

  “There's a pce for us, somewhere, a pce for us…”

  I immediately sm my head into the side of the capsule, but it’s too te. Freesia’s stupid beautiful face, her ridiculously silky ebony curls and skin are impnted into my mind, refusing to leave now that I had actally let her in. It’d been three months sihe day she left me for him, three months of her residual heat slowly fleeing my skin. ‘Somewhere’ had been our song– No, in hindsight… I guess it had always just been mine. I attached it to our retionship myself though, and now I aying the price. It ainful now, but I’d recim it.

  Hopefully, with a different girl’s hand in mine when I do.

  Without warning, the capsule sms into something, lurg hard as I do my best to not fall over. I grab the edge of the seat, nervously listening for any leaks. Thankfully, the tainer hadn’t depressed, which would have been, uh, really bad for my current status as alive. The e does not stop after the impact, though I’m w what exactly it was before the tainer once again sms into something.

  This time however, it’s a joyous occasion. After a few seds, the door to the capsule hisses before it swings open. I frantically rush out into the bright airlock, breathing heavily as I lean on the wall. A quice finds my hand covered in a rusty powder, and I do my best not to cry as I take a cloth out of my apron to it off. When I do, I unfortunately find my hand still itchy, something that I distinctly disliked. I brush it off as the airlock clicks open, and I step out into a new wondrous nd.

  Or, well, I would’ve, if the whole pce wasn’t a red tinted industrial hellscape.

  Everywhere I looked was covered in rusty pipes, from which jets of anomalous gas would occasionally shoot out. None of the wonder of the seafloor was obvious here, no green farms or beautiful pools of silverfish. Just more of the same, b New Houston I had known all my life. Looking around, I find no one nearby, but I don’t let that bother me; Geie worked aloer all.

  I don’t hesitate to begin my exploration, hopeful that this area was an outlier, that I would find something fasating to look at before I did my job. It’s futile, it turns out, as wheer an ope reveals a wide variety of bnd gray crete buildings, covered in just more pipes. I roll my eyes, and begin to trace the messy twisting corridors, looking for the address listed on the card I was given.

  It takes a good while, but eventually I do find it, actually very close to the floor's western stairlock. A high tech ser sits beside a heavy steel door, and not wanting to dilly dally I swipe the card. The entrance slides open with a swish, and I skip into the sterile facility to find… not much.

  The entrance is pletely empty, beyond a terminal panel on the wall beside another door. Above it is a small ornate sign deg the building as property of 'Montero-Wisteria Labs', which is definitely a bit different from what I expected. When I walk up to it and it ss my card, it dispys a UI deg the facility as ‘funal’. It also, however, had a five miimer for… something. When I cli the bnk buttoo it to see what exactly it means, the door beside me slides open.

  “Oh,” I mutter, immediately sidering what the sequene going in there would be.

  First thing that could happen would be that I'd be immediately fired foing io check what was happening, something there was a distinct possibility of. The Monteros were pretty secretive from experience, and I had only ever met the dy of the house. She was kinda scary. Sed option, I get fired for not fixing a problem that the timer indicated and all their woing up in smoke. It robably less likely, but if that was the case I’d probably end up being the scapegoat.

  In other words, I robably fucked regardless of my decision.

  Deg to yield to my curiosity, I purse my lips and walk through the open doorway. The door closes behind me, a small slot opening in the wall to s me. Seemingly not deteg any issues, a new door opens, this one oher side of the room as the previous. I shrug, then pass through it.

  Inside, I find a row of puters, sort of high tech yet… not. They were fshing and beeping and everything, yet each was way bulkier thahe cheapest model sold anywhere on the reef. Their case color was faded, but their ss were perfectly , nary a speck upon their surface.

  Walking up to the station, I narrow my eyes as I click through a UI, finding a familiar pany chat program still open. Trying to find out what is going on is a bit of a futile effort at first, most of the personal messages just vaguely talking about a ‘project’. It isn’t until I clito a side server that I find the juifo I was looking for.

  I gape at the information, my eyes wildly sing the project description I was reading to see if it was a joke or not. I flip through them all, my blood running colder with every single file I open. When I get to the final oitled ‘Project Davy Jones’, I ’t help but gasp and do a double take at it.

  “The crazy bastards…” I immediately rush away from the terminal, and running up to a door beled ‘Biological Hazard’, I s my card, then tap my foot as I anxiously wait for it to respond.

  It beeps, then slowly slides partially open- Before it suddenly stops when a sudden power surge fshes through everything nearby. Not willing to wait to see if the power es ba, I squeeze myself through the tight hole. I dash dourposefully plicated maze of crete, zigzagging until I reach a door shut tight with a heavy tch. I heave it open, and when I step inside, I find the nightmare described on the puter is far, far too real.

  Twelve giant vats, covered by gss lids with their edges marked by white powder, tain a pink, throbbing sludge which is absolutely filled with tiny crawling, disgusting Antithesis worms.

  I swallow a bit of vomit, shakily stepping up to a nearby terminal, built into one of the factory’s pilrs. I cautiously press the power button, and to my relief it turns on, immediately dispying a simplistic UI requesting a and. I try a few things, to , before notig a stack of thick binders beside some tools oher side of the rge room. As I run across the room to see what they said, a Kxon begins to bre seemingly from everywhere around me. I pause, then pale when I take a gnside the closest vat.

  A huge pipe shoots open, and I gasp when a su force from within it begins to move the worms… somewhere. Redoubling my speed, I rush to the binders, flipping through them to try and find whatever I to stop whatever these madmen were doiually, to my chagrin, I find what I’m looking for in the smallest bihe st one I check. Taking it, I run back towards the terminal and grimag at the sight of nearly emptied vats.

  When I reach the puter I find it has turned back off during my search, and I anxiously have to press the power button AGAIN. It takes a few moments, but I get back to the and module and begin to follow a striailed upon the final page of the binder. When I finally input the st bit of code, just the word ‘purge’, the entire room seems to heave around me, and for a moment I worry I had just doomed myself. Thankfully, that isn’t the case, as all of the rge pipes e to a close, followed by a few smaller pipes opening to emit a visible gas onto the remaining ten or so pert of Antithesis. The worms, upon toug said cloud, nearly immediately shrivel up and die.

  Breathing a sigh of relief, I begin to walk back towards the way I had e in, before a sudden growling from behind me makes me pale. I had purged ALL the experiments, hadn’t I? And they weren’t just w on the worms here. I turn my head, catg sight of an almost humanlike alien with a tail, two bdes upon the back of its hands, and well, a hole filled with teeth where its head should be.

  “Whoa, i-it’s okay, good pnt alien who most definitely wants to murder me,” I mutter, bag up slowly, “I don’t want to hurt you, and I most definitely hurt you more than you hurt me. Definitely.”

  After my fifth step back, the alien decisively states its opinion on my flict resolution abilities by screeg with a nearly human scream before rushing at me with its bdes pointed out. I yelp, then throw the bi it as I start to run towards the only pce I think of to go. It sshes through the papers without even slowing down, and as I get about halfway through the room, I feel a small, ever so slight chill in the bay head; I immediately duck. The alien’s bde cuts directly into one of the gss covers, shattering it partially and leaving its bde embedded within.

  I awkwardly leap forward out of the range of the other, then run forward towards my goal. I hear a grunt from behind me, just before a distinct shatter. Soon that gut feeling that saved my life before returns, but I am more than ready this time. I grunt as I swing a heavy metal wren a wide arc, smming into the approag arm and shattering it entirely. The alien screeches in anger and pain, but I don’t let up. Taking a step forward with a scowl on my face, I aim the impact for its mouth.

  It raises its good arm to block, only for a deep, satisfying ch to fill my ears as its bones shatter underh my metal on. When I raise my ky on to make the final blow, however, I gasp as a sudden sharp pain blooms in my stomach. I had fotten about the alien’s tail, and apparently, it also had a bde. Not wanting to just let myself die for nothing, I follow through on the blow, crushing it’s chest. The monster crumples, its tail going limp, but the knife in my stomach doesn’t seem to budge from its home in my flesh.

  I colpse to my knees, a bead of sweat falling onto my lens. Shakily, I remove the cloth I usually used to them from my apron, only to find it covered in blood. I take a deep breath as I look at the ceiling, a strange acceptance washing over me.

  Then, a sharp pain digs into my head, and a fn, mezzo-soprano feminine voice soon emerges.

  System Initialized!

  Salutations to you, madam.

  Your bravery, your determination to do what is right regardless of the sequences has not gone unnoticed. Through your heroic as as but a normal, feeble human, you may have saved more souls than you could fathom as possible. My name is Achys; I am the one who will keep you whole.

  So rise, madam, and swing your on wide.

  Rise, Emmelyn Seras, and bee a protector of the weak!

  I ’t help but snort.

  “That was kinda over the top, miss Achys. you make it so I don’t bleed out?” I point to my stomach, then wince as an incredibly sharp sting begins to move up my body.

  Indeed, just stab this into your wound, well, after you pull out the Model Ten Variant’s tail though.

  First Point Update!

  Initialization Bonus!

  Reward: 100 Points

  Enemies Eliminated!

  1x: Model Ten-T

  Reward: 10 Points

  Horde: Model Seven-T

  Reward: 590 Points

  Starting Total: 700 Points

  Catalog Unlocked!

  Css-I Medical Utilities Catalog

  Cost: 50 Points

  New Purchase!

  1x: Css-I Woundstop

  Cost: 5 Points

  Final Total: 645 Points

  A box appears beside me, and I gasp. Biting my tongue, I yank the tail out, finding that its edges are viciously serrated. Trembling as my life flows out from my abdomen, I take the der ihe box out, then stab it into my stomach, filling the odd, nearly flower shaped crevice with a pster-like substance, and I huff a shocked ugh.

  “Well, this is certainly new.”

  Aliapanacea