I found myself pinned to the ground. I couldn’t see anything. My body shook as if it were being hit with a thousand boulders every second, and my eyes were being held shut. 

My head was spinning and my whole body ached under the pressure– both the seemingly infinite gravity and some sort of internal force I had never experienced before. My chamber had sustained plenty of gravitational anomalies and my puppet had a few overgrowth issues, but this was like nothing I had known in the past. What’s happening? I would look at the surroundings. That’s what I do when I’m confused; which is admittedly often, but I couldn’t look with my eyes closed, so I felt around instead. Seemed to be metallic, slightly warped and slanted. About fifteen degrees tilted to my right, and water was running down the slope. 

oh.

It seems obvious now. It was raining. The deafening rush of wind and water was mostly coming from my right too, maybe there was some cover. I wriggled as much as I could, but was unable to do anything more than some sort of painful snow angel movement. Through my writhing I managed to move a few feet up the slope, though it did take almost half an hour. The smooth wet metal and ruthless rain were not forgiving. Suddenly, my hand clipped something protruding from the surface and the rain stopped beating it senseless. Cover! I pulled myself up in just a few minutes and managed to get most of my upper body into safety. It was still wet and I couldn’t open my eyes, but it was better than nothing. After another couple minutes I was fully under the shade.

I rolled over and groaned in pain– there was still that internal pressure. I ignored the pain and difficulty of moving and lifted my face off the ground. I still couldn’t open my eyes, so I forced it with my hands.

The internal pressure instantly disappeared in a sudden but welcome tidal wave of water shooting out of my eyes. With no exaggeration, my face must have looked like a firehose. As the stream of water (tainted with a slight bit of blood and concerning grey ooze) calmed down I saw the chaos around me.

Other than the low ceiling I was stationed under, I couldn’t see more than a metre into the rain. It didn’t even look like rain; closer to a static signal moving at the speed of sound. I didn’t understand how it fell so fast and so hard. Was it the wind? 

…

“OH SH[///]T!” I yelled into the roaring rain, the filter stifling my vulgarity.

“MY NEURONS.”

“WHERE ARE THEY!?”

I rummaged for my satchel bag and ripped it open. A puff of yellow gas shot out into my face. It probably smelled like the stuff my bioengineering products leave on my chamber floor. Gross. The cloud dissipated to reveal the neurons; completely dry and un… undamaged? After all that?

Come to me

“What?”

FS: Hello.

OP: Hi.

…

FS: You doing alright?

OP: Yeah, yeah. Just a bit p[///]ssed about all this.

FS: Sorry about that. Hills was just getting on my nerves a bit but I shouldn’t have lashed out like I did. We’re working it out and it won’t happen again.

OP: You say that a lot.

FS: I really promise this time. It’ll be settled.

OP: Okay, but you better stick to it.

FS: I will.

…

FS: How have you been passing the cycles?

OP: Thinking. Looking a bit at bioengineering but I’m not really equipped for that anymore.

FS: Thinking about what?

OP: Deity.

FS: It’s been over 2 years since then. 

OP: I know, I know… time moves too fast for my liking I just thought that I would have been the first to go.

FS: What do you mean?

OP: I’m the oldest by a good 150 years. I should decay a lot faster.

FS: But you’re built in a good area. So am I. So is Hills. Deity wasn’t so lucky. 

OP: It’s not supposed to be this way.

FS: It’s okay, it happens. The 3 of us can keep going. We have Setting Suns to rely on too.

OP: For another 800 years. And then another 800 years.

FS: Yeah…

I do feel bad for her. I really do. Hopefully when this all goes down we’ll still be able to talk.

On that topic, the bulkier overseer variant is complete. They’re far enough from overseers that I’ve decided to call them MIROS Deactivators rather than just plain old Deactivators. Company-mandated branding. They aren’t like the birds with their beaks and eyes, but they’re made in the same factories. And MIROS sounds cool. I’ll keep you updated when I begin the operation. Same goes for the Scribe.

…

I wonder if Deity is still alive…

…

I doubt it.

It stopped raining.

I would usually pass cycles by simulating games or organising files and spreadsheets but I can’t really do that without my structure; and I don’t plan to go back. So I instead sat under the tiny cover and thought about music.

I honestly don’t understand why people complain when they can’t listen to music. Can’t you just imagine it? Just think the song and the tune into existence? Pillars and Searcher always said it was weird. I used to listen to a lot of music, even made a bit. A lot actually. I think. I can't remember. When the speaker systems were down for maintenance I could just imagine the music instead. Maybe that’s a Gen 3 thing. 

Whatever, I should get back on track. Once the rain cleared I could see the same barren wasteland of piping I was in earlier, but I was a bit further from my can. I could see most of it at once. It was the same rough grey metal it had always been, but a bit rustier and more cracked than I remember. It was about 2km long, 1km wide, and a bit over 1km tall including the legs that propped it up. Judging by that, I was about 7km away. Genius.

I slid down the same slope I was trapped on by the rain the night before and stopped on a flat concrete floor. I looked around at the… things. There was a cool rock. Thrilling. I found a hole in a wall and went into a small room on the other side.

There was a circular area with grating on the floor and ceiling. Below the floor was some sort of coil over a very deep pit. In the centre of the area was a holographic symbol. I recognised it as the Karma V symbol, the same as the one on my robes. I knew what this was. A Karma Gate.

I stepped into the circular area and the hologram disappeared. The once open area behind me was sliced in half by a complex series of pipes and hydraulics locking me in. At the same time, the coil under the floor heated up and began to glow a bright red. Through the grate in the ceiling came a rush of water. Steam came off the heating coil. After a few seconds the sudden shower ended and the wall in front of me opened just like the one behind me had. It revealed the other half of the room, showing it was symmetrical.

I came out the other side, still covered in water. A small sign showed that I had entered “The Shattered Canyons”. Below it was another transport pipe.

Oh boy.