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Elise follows Miracle through the rows and rows of casting chambers. They’re
here to recruit an old friend of the latter’s, though she won’t say exactly
who it is, or why they would be here. The Terminal is just where you come
out of when you cast your consciousness from somewhere else, and presumably
where you come back to when you want to leave. Elise has never actually
heard of anyone leaving Castlebourne, but it probably happens every once in
a while. Either way, it’s not residential, so no one should be living here.
They seem to be in a rather remote part of it too, which is ominous.
Miracle stops and looks around like she’s worried they’ve been followed, but
it’s still just the two of them. She pulls the brainscanner out of its
pocket on the side and lowers it over her head. The chamber door unlocks and
opens for her. She almost roughly takes Elise by the arm, and shoves her
inside with her.
“What is the deal?” Elise looks around. “Is there a trap door, or
something?”
Miracle opens the casting pod hatch, but instead of the normal chair, it’s
some kind of computer. She extends the keyboard, and starts typing on it.
The ambient lights shift colors in a pattern. Miracle periodically looks up,
apparently when one of the colors stays on too long. “Blasted thing.” She
smacks the side of the machine, which triggers the color to change again.
“Okay. I’ve recalibrated it for two people. This should work.”
“What will work?” Elise questions. “You’ve still not said what we’re doing
here.”
“I told you, we’re here to meet a friend,” Miracle answers as if that’s
enough.
“I don’t see anyone else here, so where exactly are they?” Elise presses.
Miracle points to the screen, which is showing an image of the stars. “This
is where we’re going. You don’t need any more detailed information than
that. Just focus on transporting there. We just need to aim close enough for
the relay to detect us.”
“I don’t know much about this teleportation stuff,” Elise begins, “but I
can’t imagine that I can jump that far. I won’t even be able to breathe.”
Miracle shakes her head. “We’ll end up in a ship. You’re right, you probably
don’t have that wide a range, but don’t worry, the machine is boosting your
power.”
“All right,” Elise agrees. “I’m trusting you.”
Miracle turns it on, Elise focuses on her destination, and they both jump.
They appear in a luxurious stateroom. Massive viewscreens are showing them
that same image of the stars. A shirtless man, having likely heard them,
runs out of the bathroom. He reaches out and presumably magnetically summons
his sidearm, which was sitting on the bed. He points it at the two of them.
“Report.”
“Relax, Reagan, it’s me, Small Miracle,” she claims.
“You changed your face.” The man doesn’t relax. He still might shoot them.
“It was getting confusing for people,” Miracle explains, “looking like
Romana.”
“I’ll need to verify,” Reagan insists. “Stay still, don’t try
anything...either of you.”
The two of them gently press their foreheads together for several seconds.
“Neural handshake complete; identity confirmed.” Reagan tosses his gun back
on the bed. “Are you someone I should know as well, or have we never met?”
“I’m new, I’m Elise.” She offers her hand so they can do a normal handshake.
Reagan nods and looks back over at Miracle. “I’m preparing for battle, I
don’t have time to go on another one of your little side missions. I barely
have time for tea.”
“I need you,” Miracle contends. “This one won’t take long. Our friend is at
risk of being replaced by an out-of-date version of herself. We need to know
where her body is so we can halt the reactivation protocol. That will give
me the time I need to fix it.”
“Like I said, I’m preparing for battle,” Reagan insists. “I can’t abandon
ship.”
“If we don’t do this in the next couple of hours,” Miracle tries to clarify,
“it won’t matter anyway. You can delay your battle. You’re the frickin’
admiral.”
“Yeah, and I earned that by being a good leader, and being present,”
Reagan argues. He shakes his head. “You saved my life, and I appreciate
that, but that was in Underbelly, and I’m in the Outer System program now. I
don’t know if you remember, but I don’t do these simulations for fun. I am
this close to feeling ready.”
Miracle nods. “Rae, you’ve been ready for decades, but you will never go
through with it, because you’re afraid of what it will do to you. Killing
NPCs and backed up people is a far cry from permanent murder.”
“Hey!” he interrupts. “Your moth friend doesn’t need to know anything about
it.”
“I don’t know what you’ve been through, man,” Elise says, “but Mir has been
extremely helpful, especially to me in understanding my new powers. If you
need to kill someone, that’s none of my business. I just want my friend
back, with her memories.”
Reagan looks at Elise sadly. “I’m sorry. You should have come this morning.”
“Well, just give me the neurospoofing device, and I’ll handle it myself,”
Miracle compromises.
Reagan chuckles. “I can’t trust you with that. We may have been on the
same—”
“I will give you teleportation,” Miracle interrupts. “You always wanted it.”
Reagan narrows his eyes on Miracle. “You always said I was too
reckless for it; that a big, bad prison was gonna come and lock me up for
risking their secrets.”
“Eh,” Miracle replies. “I just don’t like to give everybody powers.
It’s...too easy.”
Reagan takes a breath and puts on a poker face. “I also want access to the
afterlife simulation. You give me that, I’ll resign my post right now, and
help you in person.”
“Rae, that’s asking too much. I mean, the afterlife is Fort Knox on
steroids.”
He frowns. “Killing the Oaksent won’t do a damn bit of good if he can just
come back. We still don’t know if the decoherence gun destroys
all quantum connections, or if he’ll still survive it. I at
least need to study the specs so I can know for sure what will happen
when I try. I will only get one shot at this. I need this more than I need
teleportation. I came up with a workaround for being in multiple places at
once.”
Miracle sighs, and looks over at Elise, who looks back, trying to convey the
importance of this situation while trying to look past all of this talk
about assassination and afterlife simulations. “Okay, I’ll get you into the
sim,” Miracle says. “I don’t wanna know who your test subject is, though,
and you won’t also get teleportation.”
Reagan shrugs. “Fine. You have a deal. Let’s do another handshake on it.”
They tap their foreheads together, then Reagan asks to do the same with
Elise. That way, if they ever run into each other later with different
substrates, they will be able to confirm each other’s identities based on
their respective neural patterns.
“So,” Reagan says. “I’ll need to know whose neural patterns to spoof, and
what part of Castlebourne you’ll need access to. I designed other gadgets
which may help.”
“We need access to Castledome,” Miracle answers before pausing, either to
build suspense, or to work up the courage. “And we need to impersonate
Hrockas Steward.”
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