Chapter Text
I smile as the confirmation flashes on the screen. Drive mounted. I have the plans for my Arming Key back, even if I had to go to the creepy, Typhon-filled, zero-gravity depths of Deep Storage to get them. Just have to download them from the computer upstairs. I zoom away from the console – oh, how I love the Artax Propulsion System – only to stop just short of the door back into normal gravity. An engineering operator hovers in the way, blocking me. What's it doing? I thought my suit was fully patched...
"Hello, Morgan," it says, in my voice. "I'm November. It's time we spoke."
I blink. Suddenly, I feel like I've fallen down yet another rabbit hole. This isn't the first Operator to introduce itself to me like that, or even the second. But there's something twisting up inside me, regardless.
"Don't tell January about me," November warns, "or she'll try to destroy me the way she did December." I wince. January has been invaluable – but, yeah, she's pretty nuts. "Alex, too."
"Let me guess," I say weakly. "I built you last November, and you're here to... what? Get me to shoot Alex? To do mad science to the Typhon?"
"You did build me last November," she says, the words warm. "You never were very inventive at naming things. But while you left many operators behind, none of them is like me. I don't have a plan for you to follow. My only outstanding directive is to contact you after the containment breach, tell you what your past self left for you, and follow your orders from there." She dips in place, and it reminds me of a nod. "I won't be pushy like January."
"Does this mean you have a Looking Glass message for me?" I say wryly.
"Better. I have a memory for you. Well... a lot of them, really. Everything up to November."
My mouth drops open. "I thought my memories were lost! Everyone says it – Alex, January, December..."
"The whole point of a Neuromod is to give you new memories and skills," November says. "How could we possibly be unable to put back the memories you lost?"
"Right," I say, nodding slowly, feeling uncomfortably like I'd missed a test question. "Yeah. Of course. So there's a connectome of my memories?"
"Exactly," November says. Something whirs in her casing for a moment, and then a data card drops out, like the kind we use for fabrication plans. I push it into the connector on the side of my TranScribe, and it pops in with a loud, final clack. It opens up to the Neuromod store automatically.
Warning, it says. Are you sure you want to view developer connectomes? Neural integrity not guaranteed!
I tap yes, and it opens up to a page about a new connectome with an extremely long name.
myu_delta_2032-03-15_2034-10-19_plus_2034-10-23_2034-11-29_multipart.ctom
I tap on the info icon.
Signed by Morgan Yu 11/29/2034, it says, along with a digital certificate. Good, it's authentic. Connectome capture from a living person. Produced by TranStar TomeTo 0.38.2. Installs memories along with neuromods not removable.
Memory delta connectomes (2):
- Morgan Yu from March 15, 2032, 11:54PM to October 19, 2034, 4:03PM
- Morgan Yu from October 26, 2034, 8:30AM to November 29, 2034, 3:01AM
"So these are... my memories?" I ask. "Everything I lost?" To think that I could get my memories back, just like that – know Talos 1 like I'd spent years here, so maybe I can start making my own choices instead of getting led by the nose by Alex or January – something deep and ugly in my brain longs for it.
"Almost everything, from the real version of your endless Monday all the way up to last November," she says. "You left out the memories from your week in the Sim Lab, and I don't have access to any later connectomes, like December or January."
I scoff. "I have more than enough memories from the Sim Lab already. I'm glad I left it out. But why... why didn't anyone ever tell me about these? January? Alex?"
"Alex tried everything to erase the existence of these connectomes," she says. "January knew about the October connectome, but never the November one. You never found out about it again, until now. Something you did in November scared Alex badly, and he assumed the memory restoration process was the cause."
I blink. "What did I do?"
"You'll find your answer in the neuromod list."
I dutifully scroll down the page.
Associated Neuromods (39):
- Lift Field 1
- Mimic Matter 1, 2
- Hacking 4, 5, 6, 7 beta 3
I start to skim. Most of these are mods I know well from the neuromod store. I already installed a fair number of them, even. Nothing stands out until the very end.
- typhon_mind.ctom (dev: myu, 7870a4)
That... does not look like a normal neuromod. "Is this it?" I ask. "What does Typhon Mind even mean?"
"This is the project you were working on," November says. "This is why Alex started the cycle. The name 'Typhon Mind' is a bit poetic, but it's a fair summary. Typhon are telepathic – they connect to each others' minds, and to the Coral. This neuromod is your first attempt at letting you connect to it, too."
That's... quite the ambitious project. I've forgotten everything I knew about Typhon science, so all I'm left with is how it sounds. And it sounds crazy. "So... it failed?"
"Quite the opposite. It worked perfectly." The smugness in November's voice is thick and oily, and I suddenly understand why everyone I know sometimes wants to punch me. "Unfortunately, the new ability caused changes that the others found unsettling, and the results so excited you that you began to focus on the science without heed of the consequences."
I wince. Yeah, that definitely sounds like me.
"When Alex forbade you to perform experiments with live Mimics in Psychotronics, you were caught trying to extract one anyway. Alex confined you to your quarters after that. That's when you built me, an Operator that could sneak you supplies from your lab."
"And Alex just... let you come and go? He wasn't worried about me making a custom Operator when I was supposed to be confined to my quarters?"
"You had a trick for that," she says. "See, there was one Operator that you knew would be allowed to come and go from your quarters at all hours. After all, your eating habits are legendary."
I blink, raising my eyebrow. November lets her voice synthesizer glitch out for a moment, before starting to speak in a different voice.
"Operator Skillet, at your service," she garbles, and it is exactly like the real thing. "Dr. Yu, welcome back! Would you like a nice bowl of Sunburst Banana Pudding?"
I bust up laughing. "I made you into Skillet?!" I ask, trying to get my face straight. "But Skillet is obnoxious!"
"Which is why everyone who saw me never even considered that I wasn't her," November says smugly. "You designed Skillet that way on purpose." She beeps before launching into yet another voice. "I can also pretend to be a standard Engineering Operator, so my presence won't be questioned in the labs."
"Impressive," I say with a nod.
"Thank you," she says. "It was the most productive month of your life, but it became clear that Alex was going to delete your research, pull your Neuromods and delete your connectome. That was when you made this backup connectome, and ordered me to return it to you when the time was right."
"Why would Alex do that?"
"Simple: fear and jealousy," November says. "With Typhon Mind, with the other Typhon neuromods, you were powerful. More than him. More than anybody. And that scared him. He never trusted you with power – remember that time when he saw you holding a lighter, and thought you were going to burn the house down? He saw you bend some rules, and decided you were going insane." If November had eyes, I just know she'd be rolling them. "So he destroyed your research, wiped your memory, and deleted your connectomes, and blamed you for all of it. He probably blames you for the containment breach, too."
"So far, he hasn't tried that – with this version of me, at least."
"He'll get there eventually," November says. "After all, he was so foolish and shortsighted that he shut down the one project that could have saved the facility."
"Are you sure?" I ask. "Was I right? Because I do think this..." I gesture to the room around me, Typhon guts floating gently through the air. "This everything... maybe means I shouldn't be bending rules."
"This catastrophe has made it clear just how right you were. You need to be able to understand the Typhon. To control them. If Alex had never taken Typhon Mind away from you, then you would have felt the containment breach. You could have found the Typhon, and asked them to go back into containment. Instead, well... this happened."
"I could really do that?" I ask. "Tell Typhon to do things?"
"In the experiments you were able to complete before your confinement, you were able to exercise partial control over Typhon in your vicinity, and they always treated you as one of their own. You can stop them from attacking you, Morgan. Maybe from attacking everyone."
I whistle. That... would be huge. Sure, I don't really know if it's safe, if my past self was right – but, then, I didn't know if the first neuromod would be safe, either, or any of the Typhon mods. They were – and they've saved my life, over and over and over. I didn't really know if January was telling the truth, and honestly, there's always been something not quite right about her. Something just... seems right... about November. More than January, more than December, she seems like me. Like something I would build.
Besides, I don't have the luxury of waiting for the clinical trials. Typhon are eating the station. I would be dead without January, without the Typhon neuromods. This is more powerful than any of them. I need this. I can't wait.
"I'm sold," I say, and November chirps approvingly.
"Good. It's a big change, Morgan – bigger than any of your past mods. But I'll be here with you every step of the way."
I back out of the info page, hover my finger over the install button – and then grimace. "This thing takes twenty mods to install? I don't have twenty neuromods. I have one, and maybe enough Typhon guts to fabricate another."
"That's if you install everything at once – all the memories and all the mods. You don't need that, not yet. The datacard also has the file for Typhon Mind on its own. Install that first. It only needs three." November whirrs, and a case holding three new mods ejects from her underbelly. In zero-G, it keeps going, drifting gently toward the floor. "I was provided with the necessary neuromods."
I swoop down to grab the mods, then open the plastic case. With an ease born of long practice, I hold one neuromod up to my eye, pull the trigger, and feel the unpleasant squishing of my eyeball as the cold needles pierce through to the brain underneath. When the vial runs out, I eject it, and swap it one-handed for the vial from another mod. And then again. When the last vial empties, I feel the familiar prickle as the connectome applies itself – and then flinch, as a wave of nausea passes over me.
Taking neuromods never feels good, especially not the Typhon mods, but this – this is awful! I want to hurl. I really want to hurl. And then scream, and cry, and lie on the floor, shaking. It's overwhelming – my senses are suddenly unfamiliar and deeply distressing. It takes all my concentration to keep my arms from jerking or my hands from trembling – lest I yank on the mod and slice the needles through my eyeball. For a moment I almost believe I have, as pain lances through me, bolts of lightning through my brain. I do scream, this time.
And then it all stops, the needles retracting, the neuromod's suction release sending it jetting off to a far corner of the room.
I don't collapse, because there is no gravity, but I do curl up into a shaking ball, grabbing my head – the worst is over, but I still feel awful. "What happened?" I murmur. "Why was it so bad?" I try to mentally check myself over, make sure nothing is broken or too terribly malfunctioning – but, unfortunately, something is. "I... I can't see out of my injection eye any more! I know I've put in a lot of mods, but—"
"Don't worry," November soothes. "That's expected. The neuromod is designed to cause some changes. You'll be able to see the difference in the mirror upstairs."
"You knew this would happen?" I round on November, an electric blast tickling my fingertips. I don't trust January, but even she's never tried to pull anything like this. "Why didn't you warn me?"
"Honestly? It slipped my mind," November says. "You were already long since used to it by the time you made me. And, obviously, Alex managed to reverse it when he pulled your mods. I can see it's distressing you, and I'm sorry about that. But please, try and use it. Reach out with your eye to the Typhon around you. I think you'll agree that it was worth it when you can stop them from eating you for lunch."
"I dunno," I mutter, still not letting go of my electric blast. "I was pretty good at not getting eaten by Typhon already..."
But I do as she says. I focus on my eye, like I'm trying to see through it, and reach out.
And I can feel the Typhon around me as if they were a part of me.
I'd cleaned the place out before I entered zero-G, or so I thought, but more Typhon have crept out of passages, vents, and hidey-holes. There are two Phantoms pacing the lobby, a few Greater Mimics snuggling up with Chief Sho's coffee mug. And I know they won't hurt me. I know they'll think I'm one of them.
"This... this is amazing!" I breathe, as the Typhon send warm feelings through our link, welcoming me as a sister. My fear and betrayal is still there, but it doesn't matter – I'm telepathically linked to the Typhon! This changes everything! I wish more than anything that I had the mods to remember my research, because I have so many questions.
"You've only just scratched the surface," November says smugly.
"Oh, I'm sure," I breathe.
I propel myself up and out of the zero-G area, back into the Deep Storage lobby. The Phantoms are right where I felt them. They notice me, and November following in my wake, but just mutter garbled greetings before going back to their pacing. It's strange, looking at the Typhon and not feeling threatened. Instead of seeming terrifying, alien, my eye shows me how they feel on the inside, strange and primitive but oddly familiar. They're hungry, a little bored, and they miss their Weaver. I feel a little guilty, now, about shooting it.
They don't seem to mind as I walk through the lobby, through the door to the stairs, and into the dirty little bathroom. I look at my reflection in the mirror, and I freeze.
My left eye has gotten nasty-looking lately. The Sim Lab left it inflamed and red from the daily neuromod cycling, and I've installed dozens more mods in just the four days since I escaped. It had moved beyond just red and begun turning milky. My vision through it had become blurred, and the lower eyelid had started to droop. It isn't totally a surprise that I lost my sight. But I never expected this.
My eye is now a solid Typhon-black, so dark it's hard to focus on, strange hints of purple energy glittering within its depths. It's beautiful, in the same way the Phantoms outside are. But it's also inhuman. I feel a strange sense of loss, looking at it.
"I can't let anyone see this. I look like I'm a Typhon."
"That's what Alex and the others thought last time," November confirms. "It's why they locked you away. But during your confinement, you came up with a way around that. Check your fabrication plans."
I flip out my TranScribe. Sure enough, there's a new plan there. "Colored contacts?" I say, grimacing.
"There's an adjustments page if you need to make your eye a little redder," she says gently.
"Okay, that seems like it should work, but..." I don't know how to explain, but I know something is wrong. And I'm not sure what, until I look back in the mirror, and see the tears starting to bead in the corner of my one human eye.
There is some part of me that's sad – there's some part of me that's devastated. And I can feel it, now that I know what to look for, but I don't... I can't... it's like it's behind a pane of glass, like my feelings aren't mine. I turn my back on the mirror, staring vacantly down at the toilet as November hovers behind me.
"It just doesn't feel right," I whisper, lowering my head. Maybe I should have talked to January. Or even Alex. I don't feel right. I don't feel normal. Something is wrong with me. "I've seen what the Typhon can do. I don't want to look like a Typhon, I..."
And then I freeze, as I feel a strange chill across my chest – as if someone made of ice had grabbed me from behind. "Mrrr?" asks a strange voice, and I turn my head to see a Phantom cradling me in its arms. An hour ago this would probably have made me jump out of my skin, but I can feel that it's sincere – it felt my distress, and it was worried, and it wants to make sure I'm OK.
Some part of me thinks that this is the saddest thing I've ever done. Getting hugged by a Typhon. But, strangely, it does help. I feel warm and cared for, and for all that my other emotions seemed wrong, this feels oh-so-right. I'm struck with the bizarre feeling that Alex has never hugged me like this, and I chuckle. Even the Typhon make better family than he does.
And I suppose... if I am a little bit Typhon now, maybe that's not such a bad thing.