The Restoration Protocol

48 || mars and the sun

Soleil disappears again. And she leaves in her absence a trail of light. A parting gift. Mariko reaches inside to sweep her hand gently through it — like warm water to soothe her burns. Somehow, she knows Soleil won't be coming back. Whether she used up the last of her strength, or simply because she's accomplished all she came here to do. From the day she disrupted Alias's concert, Mariko believed the virus was working against her. And perhaps it was, once upon a time, working alongside Claude for the sake of his goal, yet under the radar enough that Claude himself never realized what she really was — the very data emulation he planned to place inside Alias. What worries Mariko the most now is that Soleil vanishing could mean that very thing had been accomplished.

She tries to strike down the thought. With her parting words, Soleil placed a key of her own into Mariko's hands. Her trust, in its intangible form. No physical key, but a key nonetheless. And Mariko feels it stirring in her chest even now.

Her gaze lingers on the chair where she watched Sebastian sit moments ago. Though his image has faded entirely from the kitchen scene, the room still stands around her. Bits and pieces of Sebastian's life, all remaining in a snapshot for her to take in. She sees him in those cigarettes, though he never smoked them around her; in the retro game design of the dish towels hanging from the oven door; the photographs of his family pinned by magnets to the fridge. Even in that empty chair. Knowing now that he sat there, crying alone. She knew that he lived alone. He told her before, mentioning in a joking manner how a convenient relation to a real estate owner landed him an affordable place his college buddies would kill him for. But she wonders if that bit of laughter was just an attempt to mask his loneliness.

Mariko makes her way cautiously over to the table. Something new has appeared. She's sure it wasn't there when the rest of the memory came into view. As she grows closer, as it's just within reach, she hesitates to grab it.

It's a piece of cake – strawberry short cake, to be specific. The very same one Sebastian made for her the day after she told him it was her favorite kind.

He really has...always considered her.

Struggling to hold her tears at bay, Mariko reaches out to tap the plastic wrap covering the slice of cake. It responds to her touch. It would seem she can interact with this part of the world after all. Who knows, maybe she could even sit down and enjoy it like she did then. She can't remember how it tasted. Her gratitude overpowered all of her senses at the time, and all she could think about as she ate it was the next chance she could see Sebastian and thank him again.

Nothing has changed on that front. She still holds that desire, that innocent excitement just to see him again, to thank him, because no matter how many times she has already, it would never feel like enough for all he's done for her. How stupid of her, she thinks to herself, to have believed even for a moment that she could ever run from that.

In the midst of her reminiscing, Mariko's train of thought is interrupted by a jarring sound. A loud and muffled rumbling, like that which surfaced when Claude had spoken to her earlier in the dream. And she knows it's no coincidence, either. As she yanks her arm back to hold close to her chest, the world around her begins to tremble, dust and plaster falling from the ceiling and walls. Mariko cowers and covers her head. Her muscles seize up.

Simply the thought of being in Sebastian's home, surrounded by things that remind her of him, caused her to forget something very crucial. So long as she is in Paracosia, she cannot fully escape the eye of the Warden. Soleil disappeared and the temporary peace went with her.

The firewall she put up must finally have come down.

" M A R I K O . . . "

Claude's voice has become distorted. But she can still recognize it. As though the man speaks from the deepest chasm in all of Paracosia, and through the densest of storm clouds he bellows out in an agonized fury. But it's only an act. Mariko is certain of this, deep in her heart and underneath the instinct to fear the man in control of her fate. Rather, she has to convince herself of the opposite – that in this dream, her dream, she pulls the strings. Just as Claude pulls the strings to his own. He's only painting himself as a monster because he believes that he is one.