Chapter Text
As long as the Drifter could remember, she could just barely make out a thin red line of energy stretching out about a foot from her chest. If she looked directly at it, it would disappear, but when she wasn’t paying attention she could just see it at the edge of her vision, like an ethereal tether connecting to nothing. It had been there so long she couldn’t quite recall if it was there on the Zariman, or if it had manifested with the rest of Duviri, but it was so much a part of her that, much like the nose on her face, she paid it no mind and it soon faded into normalcy.
After leaving Duviri and joining the fight against the sentients, it disappeared entirely. For a time.
Then she shook her own hand in a paradoxical deal with the devil and gained access to her void power and transference. That’s when the thin red tether came back. Still mostly ethereal, but if she concentrated on it, she could see it clearly, still fading to nothing about a foot from her chest. She got the feeling it was always there, but without Duviri and without void power, it was merely invisible to her. It was comforting to have it back.
Something about being in the Sanctum Anatomica made it faintly glow, and she spent a fair bit of time with Loid and the Cavia trying to figure out what it might be, but none of them had any concrete ideas. Tagfer thought it could be leading her somewhere, and the glow meant they were getting warmer. It was as good a thought as any. It was nice to think she might be on the right path.
She’d had her void power a couple years by then and had gotten pretty good at using it, though by no means was she as good with it as the kid. She once asked the kid if she also had the tether. As far as they could tell, she didn’t. Strange. Was it just this instance of her existence that had it, or was it just that instance of her that didn’t ? She hoped she didn’t meet any other instances of herself to find out. The kid was weird enough.
The Drifter spent as much time in the Sanctum Anatomica and Entrati’s labs as possible, trying to figure out what he had been doing, where he had gone, how to follow him. The thin red tether once again faded into the everyday, easier to see but still easy to ignore.
One day, weeks, months after helping the Cavia find their voices, after helping Drusus Leverian find some of Entrati’s artifacts, the Drifter heard a familiar voice singing. She followed the sound behind the defeated vessel of the Man in the Wall. Lotus was standing at the edge of the Sanctum, holding a small beeping device.
“Oh. It’s you,” she said. The Drifter noticed movement next to her and saw that the kid had also shown up. Unsurprising, she’s terribly protective of Lotus. Though, on second thought, it was odd that the two of them could co-exist outside of the Zariman. She’d have to think about that later.
“Are you okay?” the kid asked. “This isn’t just a bad memory, is it? This is new?”
“Easy,” said the Drifter. “You’re scaring the kid.” And the Drifter, to be honest, but she didn't say it.
Lotus shook her head and turned around, addressing the kid. “You, my child. The Great Indifference wants to take. I want to let it. I feel only the call.” A sense of dread filled the Drifter’s stomach at that, and she was sure the kid felt it too. Lotus never wanted anything to happen to the kid. That was the whole point of her.
Then she turned to the Drifter. “You, my champion. Please. Drown out that noise that beckons. If any other answers that call…no. It has to be you. Our paradox.” She held out the small device, allowing the Drifter to take it. She hesitated for but a moment, glancing at the kid, who nodded. Once she laid a hand on it, she was ripped from her place and thrown into a dimly lit, dirty building with foreign architecture and scattered furniture. Kalymos was there to lead her where she was supposed to go, but she noticed the thin red tether was different. It reached further than it ever had, about three feet out now. The ephemeral glow was slightly brighter, as well. The Drifter turned about in a circle, and it led in the direction Kalymos was attempting to take her, so she followed, senses on high alert.
Kalymos led her through whatever building she’d landed in to a small alcove with another of those strange beeping devices. Assuming this was the call she was supposed to answer, the Drifter attempted to pick it up, only to be thrown back to the Lotus and the Sanctum. The thin red tether was back to its one-foot, ethereal faint glow and the Drifter felt a sense of disappointment at the reversion. Wherever she’d ended up, it had felt…right. Maybe Tagfer wasn’t far off.
“Do you hear it?” Lotus asked. “The calls of angels, devils, life itself? It’s grown so loud. It tries to follow in his footsteps through time. You must find him first.” She assumed this was about Entrati and nodded. She was doing that anyway. And now she had even more reason to find him. Maybe she’s tethered to Entrati for some reason? Like the void is telling her ‘This is who you need to fight the Man in the Wall.’
Loid contacts her at her camp on Earth later to tell her that none in the Sanctum could hear the device, but they could hear Lotus. She had been singing to drown out the call. Apparently, the Drifter had been tossed into the plague year 1999 and made contact with a separate instance of the same device, and when she touched it, it formed a connection, much like with herself and the kid. Loid could exploit that connection to triangulate a way to send her there and then to find Entrati, even going so far as to bring a warframe with her.