The video footage dates as far back as eleven years ago, and as recently as just two years. A part of Mariko wants to sit down and watch everything from start to finish. But there are too many, she thinks to herself, as she watches Soleil — that is, Alias — cycle through them mindlessly. Surely, if Claude wanted them to find the sixth key so badly, he wouldn't make them sit through hours of recordings just to learn of its location. It must be simple enough to find. What may be a little less simple, however, is the mystery behind the inventor's disappearance.
Perhaps Abe's assumption of there being a hidden door could still be accurate after all. At the same time, Mariko has her doubts. It just wouldn't make sense. The remote to that TV was out in the open, effortless to find. Claude entrusted them with this arduous mission and led them all the way here, so what reason would he have to conceal himself now?
Or could that computerized voice have been mistaken?
As Alias continues to play footage from Claude's collection of records, Mariko decides to investigate the desk where Abe had found the remote. There are papers strewn about. A bottle of pills. Doctor's notes. Hospital bills. An obituary.
Abe's arm appears from behind Mariko to pick up that obituary. Without her knowing, he was scanning the contents of the desk, too.
"...Lihua Locke. 1979-2018."
He lets out a slow, labored sigh after these words leave his lips. Mariko turns slowly to look at him, offering but a quick glance at Alias who has yet to blink at the screen she's staring at.
"This happened in your world, did it not?" Abe thinks aloud, running his eyes across the typed passage. "I find it interesting...why Dr. Locke would feel the need to make note of something like that here."
Probably for the same reason he left those videos here, Mariko assumes. It's obvious they were recorded in the real world, too. Yet Claude went to the effort of transferring them to this dreamscape. Just as Abe said himself, everything Claude has done has seemed so meticulously planned. Well, most everything. Mariko scans the papers in front of her. It's such a mess. This one corner seems in itself separate from the rest of the room. Trapped in its own bubble, so as for the sake of preserving the innocence of that which surrounds it.
In the act of sliding her hand across the papers on the desk, Mariko uncovers a familiar-looking journal. Near identical to the ones both Abe and Alias carry with them, but much more worn. She picks it up and opens to the first page.
In the background as she reads, Mariko hears Claude's voice from the recording Alias plays. It sounds like he's talking to his daughter again. He sounds cheerful — a much different vibe from the words scribbled in fading ink onto this piece of paper...
***
The toxin I ingested was only meant to affect my real world body. Something I knew would occur in order to inflict a comatose state in the first place...but lately I've felt a tick in my brain. Perhaps it's only the work of my anxiety, and my fear of being discovered after all this time... regardless, I can't afford to be presumptuous. I've already transferred all the footage I had stored on my computer into the Dream State System. Specifically into this lab, where it should be safeguarded from the developers. Backups, both handwritten and digital, of memories, my memories, because I'm terrified of coming up short just when the goal is so tantalizingly close...
I've devised a method of preservation. Now, rather, it's much more a lifeline than just a Plan B. Something is happening to me here. My physical form in the dream world. It shouldn't be, but it is, but I'm starting to think this may work in my favor. I believe my agency within the game world as a whole will grow stronger the deeper my consciousness becomes embedded into Paracosia. That said, I fear I will still require some sort of body. So what more is an inventor to do but create one for himself?
They may have built upon this world but I laid the groundwork for it. No one knows it better than I do. I still have ultimate control.
I can almost see you again, Sully. My sunlight, no matter how beautiful they believe their vision to be, I won't let them take ours from us.
Things will be perfect again soon.
***
"He...poisoned himself...?"
Abe had been reading the text the same time as Mariko. Peering over her shoulder, while careful also not to crowd her personal space. She turns to look up at him again. In the process of doing so, her gaze passes over Alias, who at last seems to have shaken herself of her daze. Abe's distraught whisper must have caught her attention.
"How...upsetting..." Another sigh escapes him as Abe moves to cover his mouth. As if he could feel the nauseating effect of the toxin himself. "It sounds like such a hopeless act... I can't imagine the grief that would have pushed him to such an extremity. But..." His face continues to twist in discomfort. "...comatose, not...death? So he had no intention to commit suicide. Ah! Miss Mariko." He turns to her suddenly, concern ablaze in his eyes. "Did you also-...?"
She shakes her head without hesitation. Abe relaxes his shoulders.
"No, no, you're right, I'm sorry..." He glances at her empty wrist. "But you are in a similar situation, aren't you? Asleep beyond your control. I suppose it would explain why Dr. Locke reached out to you specifically, then..."
He's right. Mariko knows he's right, but it's still such a hard thing to wrap her head around. Firstly, knowing now that she's been in a coma since even before that night she and Boey went to Alias's concert. The existence of the PSO watch, the presence of the log out button in the watch's menu, it was all nothing more than the illusion of choice. Just as Boey's AI copy said, it was her doctors' decision to hook her up to the Dream State System in hopes of reaching her straying consciousness. In Claude's case, his notes suggest he entered the dream world himself after ingesting a poisonous substance of his own volition. And after some time, once the effects of the toxin settled in his already unconscious state, his brain became stuck in a similar way as Mariko's.
In a way, it makes her a little nauseous, too. Just to imagine it. Even if he were already asleep, it couldn't have been entirely painless. He said something happened to his body. Something out of his control, something demanding extensive action in a scenario where nothing should have been able to harm him.
How unsettling to feel the sensation of someone not even present breathing down your neck. Mariko pulls up the collar of her coat. She turns around, but of course Claude isn't there. He's nowhere.
"Abe. Mari."
Alias finally opens her mouth again, drawing Abe and Mariko both to face her in unison, then immediately follow the path of her solemn gaze. Of course, the two would have looked there in a moment anyway, as the low whirring noises that soon emit from the opposite side of the room are impossible to ignore in an otherwise silent space. Another panel has opened up in the wall. Through it, the bed draped in bright yellow comforters and white pillows is retracted into the wall as the floor just beneath it shifts on a moving track. Something else rises to take its place.
An empty table. Strikingly similar to the one from the lab beneath Arumathia, akin to a surgical table made for androids. Or perhaps Alias specifically. The only difference Mariko can identify is the device which extends from the rim of the table.
Somehow, it feels ominous. Mariko swears that corner of the room grew darker just now, in spite of the blue light traveling along the base of the table. She glances at Abe. His fingers graze the breast pocket of his coat where his ID is still tucked away. But before he can pull it out, Alias's arm extends in front of him. One look at her face and Mariko can tell she feels the same sense of trepidation.
"At least let us find the key first."
"Request for vault key denied. Prototype Database Carrier still under encryption. Please proceed to decryption platform."
A computerized voice surrounds them without warning. Mariko's chest tightens, her jaw clenching involuntarily. It heard Alias. She didn't touch a thing, yet it responded to her. Three sentences. All carrying their own unnerving weight.
"What did it say...?"
Mariko is certain Abe uttered these words in disbelief and nothing more. She finds the android's horror-stricken eyes soaking up the corner where the table appeared, but of course, simply staring at it would do nothing. Answers could only come from close-up investigation. He appears to come to this realization himself as well, proceeding forward against Alias's initial disapproval. She doesn't try to stop him the second time. They need that key. They have no choice but to follow through with whatever strange procedures the lab requires of them.
With Alias and Mariko close behind, Abe steps up to the table with his ID card already in hand. And that hand is shaking. Mariko holds her breath as she watches him press the card to the surface of the greyed-out panel. It illuminates as a small start-up noise emits from its small chamber. Words appear on the display in a moment.
Abe Sadat recognized.//error//;;
Teda Basa recognized.//error//;;
Asad Tabe recognized.//error//;;
Data Base recognized.
Decryption platform ready for use.
Thank you for your assistance.
They have time to read the words and little else. Another panel opens up in the wall just behind the table, and a mechanical arm emerges to grab Abe's face, instantly muffling any outcry he may have given as a response. Alias reacts quickly. No different than in Jugo's castle, when the shadow hands materialized one after the other, she springs into action to try cutting it down. But it's no use this time. Even her bladed arm, sharper than the average sword and teeming with electricity, bounces off the impenetrable steel surface of the disembodied arm. But she tries. Desperation comes on so abruptly that she can't even force out a cry of anger. The hand appears to crush Abe's face in its grasp as it lifts him up off the ground, not budging an inch even as Alias throws herself about to slice it down.
Mariko grabs his leg. She's shaken off in an instant, like no more than a bug. It's no use. Abe has shut down suddenly as well. The lights on his face and neck have gone out. For a time, he hangs limp like a corpse in the air, until the moment the mechanical arm lowers him onto the base of the table. Metal fasteners spring out to clasp around his wrists and ankles.
"Abe!!"
"Please step away from the decryption platform."
"No!" Alias shouts with her face aimed at the ceiling, having no physical presence at which to direct her anger. "Let him go now!!"
"Please step away from the decryption platform."
"No, I won't...you're not in control of me, and I'm not going to let you-"
"Alias, look."
At the sound of Mariko's breathless whisper, Alias lowers her clenched first. She looks to the screen where Abe had scanned his card. In place of the words which appeared there not long ago, a diagram of the now immobile android rotates slowly on the pale blue background — a 3D transparent image allowing a view of the circuits running through his body, the glowing core inside his head, and something else which appears lodged in the very center of the android's chest.
A suspiciously key-shaped object.
Abe wouldn't have kept something like this from them. As the thought pops into her mind, Mariko tries to recall what Abe told them at the Greenhouse Manor. He mentioned performing a scan of his core in New Floravale's underground lab. A brain scan, in other words. But this key sits like an unbeating heart inside his chest. Whatever machine he used in that lab must not have been able to detect it. And Mariko has a funny feeling that wasn't by coincidence, either.
Of course not. It was just another one of Claude's calculated actions.
"Please step away from the decryption platform."
They have no choice.
Mariko and Alias step away from the table. Away from Abe, who they must regrettably accept they cannot help now. They are at the mercy of the lab and its appendages. Once the two are far enough away and the computerized voice ceases to warn them, the so-called 'decryption process' begins. The mechanical hand which placed him on the table now attaches several wires to his fingertips, and one to either side of his temples.
Mariko is tempted to yank them out. She feels her blood pressure rising again. Abe's eyes are stuck open, his expression fixed in the same sad, fearful state as when he was grabbed. He was right to be cautious, stepping up to that screen. They all were. But the worst part is that it truly may have always been his fate — carrying the key in his chest, and something even greater inside his own head. And all this time he just wanted to believe he was doing the right thing.
She watches Abe with her tongue between her teeth. For what feels like ages, little noise and activity at all seems to be coming from the decryption platform. It must all be internal processing — that is, until eventually, a second mechanical hand lowers from a ceiling panel to assist in the manual labor. First, lifting his shirt, then opening up Abe's chest with no tool but its own fingers. And sure enough, the digital X-ray wasn't lying. The hand which broke open the android's body soon holds a key high up in the air, out of reach. As if mocking them.
The first hand closes Abe's chest. For a minute, Mariko thinks it's over. Then the computerized voice speaks again:
"Prototype database successfully decrypted. The Warden will see you shortly."
Alias extends her arm in front of Mariko as she motions for her to step even further back. The two watch Abe warily. They notice it at the same time — a physical change, starting at the android's fingertips. Individual pixels, one at a time, begin to flip over like tiles at a rapid pace, working their way all the way to Abe's chest, then outward in either direction. Changing, making alterations to his appearance before their eyes, until every inch of the android becomes unrecognizable.
Unrecognizable as Abe, that is.
Mariko and Alias stand frozen in shock, words failing them as the man lying on the table slowly stirs. The wires attached to either side of his head fall out on their own, with nothing now to keep them held in like they were before. The metal clasps fastening his wrists and ankles to the table retract. With the freedom to move, he lifts himself to sit upright and drapes his legs over the edge of the table. Claude Locke sets his feet on solid ground.
Time stands still, but Claude moves against it and stands anyway. His sunken eyes, still seeming to adjust to the light, find their way to Alias. A look of deep weariness turns to a flood of overwhelming relief. A smile lifts his cheeks as he steps forward.
"Oh...what a joy to see you through my own eyes again..." As a sigh escapes his lips, Claude takes a moment to catch his breath. His gaze overflows with powerful, almost suffocating emotion. "It took me so much longer than I was hoping, so thank goodness you're alright. I suppose I owe Abe for reenabling those extra self-defense programs after all. They sure came in handy, didn't they?"
"What did you do to Abe?"
Claude's brief, lighthearted laughter is cut short by Alias's scathing tone. His smile stays intact. He looks dazed, almost, as many people do in the early moments of awakening. But it's different. Mariko can't place it.
"What did you do to Abe, Claude?"
"What's the matter?" Claude furrows his brow, glancing behind him for just a moment before returning his 'daughter''s fiery glare. "He served his purpose. It's alright. Really, Soleil, you don't need to look at me like that."
"S-..." The name takes Alias aback. She tenses. "Soleil, why call me Soleil?? You...named me Alias, I'm-"
"Oh, I know, sunlight, there's no need for the hostility. I know your name." The man's voice drips with a strange venom. An inexplicable dread emanates from every syllable. His smile grows fonder, and Mariko feels her stomach turn ten times over. "I know your name," Claude repeats, taking a step forward. "I just thought it was fitting you started to call yourself that. I didn't even have to program that into you. It's almost as if you knew that Soleil created you with herself in mind...her desire for her future, and that innocent vision of what she wanted to be when she grew up. Now...now, I finally have what I need to make that a reality for her. Thanks to you and Abe. And..." Like an old door on rusty hinges, he turns to Mariko. "...you as well, Miss Yoshimura. Truly, I don't think it could have been done without your help. Soleil will be sure to give you her thanks as soon as she can. I promise you that."
It all sounds wrong. His voice is pleasant, and his words sound genuine, but Mariko's unease continues to grow the more the man speaks. As if one wrong move would cause the knife in her possession to fly magically out of its sheath and plunge itself into her own stomach.
"But she's...gone, isn't she?"
Mariko loosens her jaw to speak but Alias is faster. As it turns out, they were planning to say the same thing anyway. The looming signs of a grim reality have dawned on them both by now. The hints Claude left them didn't go over either of their heads.
"That's what all this is for, isn't it?" As she struggles to maintain her composure, Alias inches closer to Mariko and further from Claude. "Be honest with me for once. That's what this lab is for, isn't it? And your notes, and the reason you...you poisoned yourself – you wouldn't have done something like that to yourself unless Soleil really is d-"
"Soleil was in the dream world long enough for her memory and brain patterns to be replicated." Claude speaks, and his tone shifts in a way that tightens Mariko's throat so much she can't breathe for a moment. "They're just...suspended right now. Like me, all she needs is an avatar. Her ideal self. In other words..." Another shift. Fondness, coating the inner layer of madness. "...you, Alias."
Stunned into silence yet again, Alias can do nothing but seize up, overtaken by the powerful surge of conflicting emotions running through her circuits right now. Claude's expression could not be more different than her own. The inventor who couldn't look happier, gazing upon his most precious creation, and that same creation, whose face becomes darkened by the apparent regret of her own existence.
She wanted answers. But not these ones. She wanted to see her creator. But not like this.
"You would...replace her...?"
"It's nothing like that."
Madness. A quiet and subtle madness, burning like a house fire behind Claude's eyes. Mariko swears she feels the heat of it roll over her skin. Yet somehow it chills her to her core. She watches, helpless to move, as the man blindly reaches his arm up, only for the mechanical hand still holding the sixth key to place it into his grasp. He slips it into the breast pocket of his long, grey coat. In terms of the style, it looks just like Abe's.
"Really, it's nothing like that," he says again, taking another step forward. Mariko feels his eyes on the keys around her neck. She grabs the collar of her own coat and closes it with haste. "Oh, Miss Yoshimura, what's with that look? What's wrong? I'm on your side."
"Stop." She finally finds the strength to speak. She curses the tremor in her voice. "You can't have them. And you can't have Alias, either."
Claude's face does not change. Though every resemblance of Abe has faded from his body, the man appears almost robotic himself. His brain, so fixed on one avenue of thought, fails to consider even the possibility of failure. The chilling fire behind his eyes burns fiercer. Mariko feels her bones shaking.
This couldn't be the same man in that first video they saw. Something in him died.
"I don't blame you for misunderstanding," Claude begins. With the next step he takes forward, Mariko and Alias take one back. But their backs are to the wall now. "You weren't in the room when Soleil and I drew up her dreams together. But I promise, you'll love them, Miss Yoshimura. It will be so much more pleasant than the trials you've endured here. Whether you trust me now or not, you'll thank me when it's over. You, of all people..."
"What is that supposed to mean??" Mariko furrows her brow. "I don't know you. Don't try to tell me I've forgotten about you, too. I've...I've definitely never met you before."
"No, you haven't," Claude replies honestly. "And neither have I, you. But I've been following you throughout your journey here, in Paracosia. While my consciousness was suspended in the cloud, there was nothing that could evade my eye. I've even seen inside your head, Miss Yoshimura. Which is why..."
As his voice trails, the low sounds of moving machinery rumble in Mariko's ears. Above her, and right behind her, panels in the ceiling and wall open to allow the mechanical arms lying in wait to emerge and grab her wrists, locking her in place – Alias, as well. They could kick their feet all they want, but without the freedom to move their hands, the two are powerless to resist the hand of steel now lifting the five keys from around Mariko's neck. In despair, she watches as they're carried over and dropped into Claude's open palm.
"...I want you to enjoy in this paradise with us. Until then, the lab will keep you safe." He turns his gaze to the elevator door on the other side of the room. Mariko's heart drops even deeper into her stomach. "I'll be back for you both soon. I promise."
Flashing one last smile in the girls' direction, Claude makes his way over to the elevator. No ID is necessary anymore. As he steps up to the door, it opens without hesitation.
"Lihua, please lock internal access to the elevator until I return. Face and card recognition can be disabled as well. AB3 has been discontinued."
"Understood, Claude. Safe travels."
—