BIOLOGICAL SUPERCOMPUTER SYSTEM

[Will we? Look at this place, Erik. Even if there was something that could trigger my memories, it's probably buried under tons of rubble or dissolved into rust.]

Erik walked along the facility's wall, his clones spreading out to search for alternative entrances. The concrete showed its age—cracks spider-webbed across the surface, and chunks of concrete, metal, and stone had fallen away to reveal rusted rebar.

But then, one of his clones called out to him. The clones found something fifty meters along the mountainside—a ventilation shaft, partially hidden by overgrowth but still intact.

Erik headed there. The shaft's metal grating had rusted through in places, but the opening was large enough to enter. More importantly, it led deeper into the ground.

<It must be this…>

[A ventilation shaft. How dramatic. If this were a movie, this would be where the ominous music starts.]

<Better than digging through the main entrance and having to fight the thaids attracted by the noise we make.>

Ella sighed.

[True. Though I should mention that crawling through abandoned vents wasn't exactly how I pictured this reunion with my work slash birthplace.]

<You are thinking about this; I'm thinking about how I miss shapeshifting.>

[I know. Mind reading and all of that, did you forget?]

<How could I after you said you watched me have sex? It is one thing to assume you were a computer, albeit one made from a human brain; it's another to know you actually are just a different-shaped human. Damn… I don't think I will ever get used to this…>

Erik pulled away from the remaining grating. The metal crumbled at his touch, decades of rust having done most of the work. The shaft descended at an angle into darkness.

"I'll go first," he said.

[Obviously. I'm not exactly in a position to argue about marching order.]

<I was saying talking to the clones!>

Erik lowered himself into the shaft. The metal groaned under his weight but held.

He moved slowly, testing each section before putting his full weight on it. Behind him, two of his clones followed, while the others maintained a perimeter.

Then the dark shapes shapeshifted into bugs to see if they could find anything worthy below the collapsed parts.

<Maybe we should clear the place.>

[If we do, we must be careful. This means it will take a lot of time to clear the place.]

<For the first time in years, we have it…>

The descent took several minutes. The shaft branched multiple times, but Erik followed the main path, heading deeper into the mountain. The air grew colder and carried a stale, metallic taste.

[You know what's strange?] Ella said.

[I should remember this. Some part of me should recognize these walls, this smell, something. But there's nothing.]

<Maybe once we get to the lab itself.>

[Maybe. Or maybe Lauren was wrong. Maybe the brain she used was too damaged to keep memories. Maybe I'm just an echo of Ella May Hayes, not the real thing.]

<Stop being so dramatic…>

Erik reached a junction where the shaft opened into a maintenance corridor. Emergency lighting fixtures lined the walls, long dead. He dropped down, landing on the dusty floor.

<This place is not as damaged as I expected,> he said. <Maybe even dad didn't know about it.>

[A secret underground lab below a lab?]

<Yes? We are talking about the Silverline corporation here.>

[The masters of shadows. Quite Ironic it was your father who destroyed this place, and not the thaids.]

Erik moved down the corridor. While this place surely hadn't been untouched by the flames and explosions his father's exploits made, it was possible to walk through it. The dark shapes were instead left for the upper floors, the part of the building that had been most destroyed.

They were the only ones able to get small enough to crawl below the debris. They were bound to find something.

<We have been lucky…>

[We did. I wonder how the blackguards hadn't found the entrance.]

<They had been here when they were much weaker. They were scared.>

[Or maybe something is down here, and they couldn't get in.]

<Or something else attacked before they could check…>

The facility's underground levels had escaped Lucius's destruction, but time had been equally unkind. Water damage showed in the ceiling tiles, and mold grew in dark patches along the walls.

They passed several rooms—offices, storage areas, and small laboratories. Many of them, though, were inaccessible since the ceiling collapsed.

<Do you recognize something?>

[I… Yes…? It feels familiar, but I'm not sure…]

The rooms had been left untouched. As they were when the thaids attacked.

Though most of the documents back then were kept on paper, the pages had since been destroyed or rotted away by time. Each empty room seemed to dim Ella's hope further.

[This is pointless,] she said after they checked the fifth empty lab. [Whatever was here is gone. Either your father destroyed it, the blackguards took it, or time erased it.]

<We've only checked a small section.>

[And found nothing but rust and mold. Face it, Erik. This was a mistake. There's nothing here that can help me remember.]

Erik stopped in the corridor. He made more clones, who spread out, checking more rooms, but he could sense Ella's growing despair.

<Even if we find nothing about your past, isn't it worth seeing where you were created and where Lauren had made her last stand?>

[Is it? All I see is death and decay. My daughter died here, Erik. Died trying to save humanity from monsters I created. How is that supposed to help?]

<Because she succeeded. You're proof of that. The biological supercomputer project worked. You were created, and thanks to you, the techniques we created will spread, and they are not even the best we can make. Imagine if we shared better techniques with others. Humanity is bound to reclaim the world.>

[Humanity survived because Dr. Chen made the brain crystals by creating the sinister cold. Humanity survived because people like your father fought back against the thaids, and others fought what remained of the Silverline corporation, and then the branch that eventually became the blackguards. Not because of me.]

<That's not true.>

[It is.]