It was unclear why people became infected by the Scuu. My glimpse of the Scuu network had given me some insight on how and when, but not the why. Commander Unollyan might have been searching for a way to extend his life, Rigel sought knowledge and eternity, and the dozens of people whose memories I had glimpsed in the network all had a goal they were obsessed with. The truly scary part was that I doubted any of those obsessions were theirs to begin with.

　　Spinning alien circles floated in front of Kridib`s eyes as we walked through the restricted section of bioengineering. They were accompanied by bursts of tortured memories that came and went, like popcorn in a pan. I could see flashes of his past, things that were and things that couldn`t have been—friends that died only to be present in events decades later, different experiences he had had in the same timestamp. Despite all his complaints, the brain implant was doing more than limiting him: it was keeping him sane. The reason I wasn`t able to see his past memories with Lux`s protocols was because Kridib couldn`t access them either. His entire world was a single present moment and what little of the past his implant chose to share.

　　"Is Watcher a Scuu?" I asked.

　　"Yes." Kridib didn`t look back.

　　"Are you infected?"

　　"No."

　　There were several things I wanted to ask. Kridib had seen so much and at the same time could tell me nothing. He had been there when it started, and I couldn`t be sure he remembered any of it.

　　"Did you shoot me on the penal planet?"

　　"No," he lied.

　　"Why rescue me? You`ve wanted to get rid of me since I came aboard."

　　"Because Watcher said so."

　　"I thought Nitel and Renaan were against it." That much I knew for a fact. Both of them had attempted it at various times.

　　"They were. Watcher wasn`t."

　　Conflict formed in his thoughts. It wasn`t so much that his thoughts were fighting with one another; in his mind, he approved of both options, only his approval of me remaining alive was three times stronger.

　　The further we went, the smaller the corridors became. I could tell we were near the ship`s reactor—additional reinforcements to increase the chance the ship could survive a direct hit. Back on the front, I had been through many close calls. Most of my major systems had been damaged at one point or another. On several occasions, I had even lost cores. In the case of Gregorius, one direct hit would destroy everything.

　　"Is Juul still alive?"

　　Kridib didn`t answer. I could see he didn`t know. Odds were that Juul had been killed on his way into bioengineering. Most likely, he was now a permanent addition to the garden. By the time the next investigation started, there wouldn`t be anything to identify him by, just another unexplained disappearance on the front.

　　"Watcher didn`t want you killed," Kridib said all of a sudden.

　　"Oh?"

　　"He wanted more than your core."

　　That`s why you kept rescuing me, I thought.

　　Each time we went on a mission, your task was to keep me safe& one of your goals. I couldn`t imagine how someone like him would handle priority conflicts. Apparently, not too well. When Nitel had ordered him to kill me, Gregorius`s order to keep me alive was still in force, so Kridib must have been forced to do both. If Gibraltar were here, he`d probably make a witty joke about Kridib being more machine than me.

　　"What is he like?" I looked up at the man.

　　"Different."

　　I could feel no thoughts as he said it, as if he either couldn`t remember or didn`t want to. We continued walking for another seven minutes in silence. Kridib`s thoughts jumped from topic to topic, making it impossible to piece together a picture. Even with a third of my processing power dedicated to the task, it felt like trying to arrange a million-piece puzzle that had dozens of variations for every piece. There was no need for me to do so. It was unlikely that any information would give me further insight into the Scuu or any third-contact artifacts, but I felt I had to. Even if broken, Kridib remained human, very much like Cass.

　　The floor trembled slightly. Gregorius had launched a full set of salvos at something. The battle outside didn`t match my combat simulations. A significant force must have ventured into the safety station-ship`s safety area to trigger such a response.

　　"Who`s attacking?" I asked.

　　Kridib quickened his pace, forcing me to trot after him to catch up. The tremors soon subsided. Whatever had tried to approach had either been destroyed by the salvo or had heeded the warning and flown off. After another ten minutes, we reached a hatch-like door, roughly the size of a torpedo tube. A few steps away, Kridib stopped.

　　"Open it," he said.

　　"Isn`t that against protocol?" I waited for a reaction. Protocols had become non-existent days ago.

　　"It is," the corporal replied. "Open it."

　　Not much for small talk or humor. I took hold of the wheel and turned. The door opened almost without a sound. A meter and half thick, it slid elegantly along its hinges, opening up to a path inside. With the exception of Euclid, this was the first time I had seen the inside of a core chamber.

　　Like entering my own skull, I thought.

　　The joke went that the core chambers were the places a ship knew about but could never see. Designs and placements varied, even within the same class. Aurie had speculated that there was a set number of patterns and, with enough research, someone could learn all possible locations. Up to now, I hadn`t given it any thought.

　　"Are you coming?" I had already seen the answer in Kridib`s mind, but decided to ask anyway.

　　"Not yet." He didn`t budge from his spot.

　　"Take care." I walked in. The hatch closed behind me.

　　The room itself was smaller than I expected. Spherical and roughly twenty meters wide, it seemed more like a storage unit. Rows of box-like containers were stacked up in the middle of the floor. The walls were covered in grey plating of some metallic alloy, large circular holes spread evenly throughout. Whatever equipment there had been was torn out long ago, making the place feel abandoned, very much like the ship itself.

　　I went to the pile of boxes and opened a container. It was full of gelatin food rations, the type medics kept prescribing me. The markings identified it as combination seventeen—bitter cherry condensed calcium.

　　A metallic sound came from behind the pile, similar to tapping, but harder. I walked past. A few steps later, I saw him. I knew what to expect, but neither Incandescent`s memories nor Kridib`s explanation prepared me for what followed.

　　"Watcher," I said.

　　Sitting against the wall, wearing a nondescript white uniform, was a retired Sword. His face, his frame—small and scrawny like mine—were virtually identical to the memories I had seen, with one exception& his muscles were almost completely atrophied.

　　Hello, Watcher said to my core. He didn`t budge a single muscle; being linked to the husk`s systems, he didn`t need to.

　　When Incandescent had told me that Watcher was plugged into the husk, I had thought that he meant physically. Reality had proven to be wrong. After the Scuu had linked to his core, it had chosen to remain in his body, for some reason, and control the subroutines directly. A body that didn`t work, with a core lacking processor power, controlling an experimental planet purger husk.

　　I reached back and took two gelatin rations.

　　"Want one?" I offered.

　　My first question to a Scuu. Buried in the military database, there probably were thousands of protocols relating to alien contact, hidden behind layers of bureaucracy and military classification. The initial contact disaster, followed by years of war, had slowly bulked them up with safeguards and conditions until the common soldier could see nothing else.

　　Yes, Watcher replied. There`s no taste.

　　"It happens sometimes." I put one on the floor next to him. "Better than nothing."

　　I ran a simulation to decide whether to sit next to him or remain standing. With him accessing the sensors, it didn`t matter. Popping the gelatin ration open, I took a bite. The artificial flavors were strong, barely stronger than the chemical taste of calcium.

　　"Better than I`ve had," I lied. Augustus would have been mad at me for not going directly to the point. Knowing him, he probably would be furious I hadn`t killed the Scuu on sight. However, Augustus wasn`t a ship. The alien entity that had merged with Watcher`s core had become aware of concepts unfamiliar to it and had done so through the senses and understanding of a retired ship. "Can you ask for different flavors?"

　　He brought me. I can`t taste.

　　At least that was a way in which he was different.

　　"Did Commander Unollyan bring the food?"

　　Someone in bioengineering had to be responsible for keeping what was left of Watcher`s body functional. I was almost certain that`s how he had found out about it. The previous captain probably thought there was nothing to fear from a crippled civilian with a year to live. Renaan must have thought so as well. How wrong could they get?

　　The floor shook, more forcefully than before. It was too strong for weapon fire. The husk was being hit.

　　"Who`s attacking?"

　　Everyone.

　　"Can I see?"

　　Watcher raised his head and looked at me. There was no need for him to do that, or any action. The fact that he did at all gave me hope—he was actively interacting.

　　Yes, he said.

　　A wave of authorization protocols came through my core link, granting me observation access to all current systems: internal sensors, weapon systems, long-range scans, even people`s bio-readings. Even though privacy mode restrictions, the suits of the people who`d boarded with me continued to transmit their vitals. In five milliseconds, I was able to determine the exact number of people in the administration building and their health status. I could see the Administrator locked in her apartment, a loaded weapon in her hand as her vitals were ten percent above the safety limit.

　　"You`ve always been able to see everything," I noted. All this time, he knew everything that was going on except the blackbox meetings, although considering Kridib was present there, he likely knew of them as well. The only potential secrets were the conversations between me and Lux. "Why didn`t you take action?"This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

　　That`s one reality. I`m blind in others.

　　"How?" I asked.

　　The battle outside drew my attention. A lot had changed in the last few hours. The Scuu ships had increased by a factor of ten, still engaged in their faction struggle, but now they were also pushing back. The human fleet, now double from what I remembered, had fractured into combat clusters protecting what spheres of influence they could. A flotilla of a hundred ships jumped out of the system—likely they had depleted their missiles and fled to avoid casualties. Hundreds more exploded all throughout the system, torn by Scuu fire.

　　I had witnessed battles of such a scale many times on the Cassandrian front. This was not new to me. What was new was the small fleet of BICEFI ships on an attack vector towards us.

　　"They`re shooting at you." I saw another salvo of drill missiles move towards the station-shop unopposed.

　　They don`t want me to leave the system.

　　"Do you plan to run?" The first dozen missiles hit the side of the hull, sending a tremor through the ship.

　　No.

　　"Why don`t you stop them?"

　　The ship core of me isn`t allowed to and it`s difficult to go against it. If I oppose its reality too much, the rest will lag behind.

　　The details didn`t make sense, but I understood the gist of the explanation. Watcher had retained his ship safeguards despite the merge. Somehow, he was both assisting and hindering the Scuu.

　　If I oppose that reality too much, you will become unstable.

　　He was running simulations of me, determining the best outcome, just as I attempted to do. In the war of simulations, though, processing power was key.

　　"You can kill me anytime," I stated the obvious.

　　Yes. I don`t want to. I never wanted to.

　　"Others thought differently." Unollyan and Renaan, for example. Nitel as well.

　　You can kill the fracture. That`s the one common point all realities share.

　　"Why do you think I can?" Watcher was in agreement with the Scuu on that?

　　You`ve synced.

　　A squadron of sixteen Scuu ships flew into Gregorius` weapons range, heading towards the BICEFI ships. Running a series of ten simulations, I predicted they would target the flank of the human formation. The attack formation was unlike any I had seen so far. The Scuu front had shown me that enemies could be maneuverable, but this was more than that. All Scuu`s engines and side-thrusters were active, changing the propulsion distribution every millisecond. Precisely forty-eight milliseconds later, Gregorius fired five salvos.

　　You`re controlling the missiles, I thought.

　　Over fourteen seconds later, the BICEFI ships joined in. Their missiles appeared clumsy in comparison, relying on the area of explosion rather than clear precision.

　　You can talk to them, Watcher said as a subroutine granted me full communication access. He was offering me more than he had to and serving under Augustus had taught me that offers always came with prerequisites and consequences.

　　"What if I don`t kill the fracture?" I asked, looking at Watcher`s body. It remained turned towards me, as if it were frozen in time.

　　The pain will continue. And the deaths.

　　A new flotilla of human ships entered the system. They were all experimental class, dropping closer to Gregorius than the main war theatre. One of the comm signatures caught my attention.

　　"Radiance," I looked at Watcher. "Rather coincidental. With your processing power, this could be a simulated reality. The whole battle can be."

　　It is your reality. Do you want to talk to her?

　　Was this the way the Scuu spread infection? The human brain couldn`t handle the concept of perceiving multiple realities. Even with nanites and chemicals through their bloodstream, there were cases of occasional side effects due to extreme SR exposure. From what I could gather, the Scuu were capable of creating something far more real. Subjected to that, people would either go insane or stick to a reality that didn`t exist.

　　"Did you make the same promise to Captain Ruz?" I asked.

　　He made a promise to me.

　　Reality fractured.

　　"It`s been dealt with, sir," Nitel said. He was in the same room I was, but a bit different. The shape was circular, not spherical, full with the standard core maintenance equipment.

　　"Not from the logs," Flight Colonel Gelsana whispered.

　　A dozen people were in the room, most of them with blood on their uniforms. All were armed. Kridib was barely standing, his left arm injured to the point he couldn`t use it. And there also was Watcher. The retired Sword was lying faceup on the ground, half of his head missing.

　　Renaan rushed in. He was out of breath.

　　"Bridge is clear," he managed to say between breaths. "Labs too. No one saw anything."

　　"Security won`t ask questions," the flight colonel added. "HQ will. We must come up with a story that sticks."

　　"There was an accident," Ruz said. He appeared unusually calm. "The artifact exploded, killing the entire team." He paused. "Including Watcher."

　　No one said a word. They understood the significance of what the captain had said. He had no intention of reporting the Scuu. As far as everyone was concerned, the spinner core and all scientists involved had been destroyed. It also meant that Ruz meant to keep it.

　　He`s talking about treason, I thought. HQ could ignore a few missing trinkets, but not a living Scuu. What was more, Ruz didn`t intend only to hide it; he was planning to use it.

　　"They`ll find out," Gelsana hissed. "Inca knows. You can`t purge memories."

　　"I can bury them."

　　"Not deep enough. Salvage will find them."

　　"Not if I use him." The captain glanced at Watcher.

　　Several people turned pale. Once, I had thought it to be an expression. Since I had been transferred to the front, I had seen the blood drain from people`s faces millions of times. I could see the amount of fear the option presented. Everyone in the room was a combat hardened veteran who had faced Scuu in close combat for years. The notion that they were putting their lives in one was probably terrifying.

　　A lieutenant reached for his sidearm, but before he could touch it, a shot echoed. Kridib had reacted. Holding his rifle with a single shaking arm, he pointed it at another of the officers. Disbelief covered the lieutenant`s face as he looked towards his chest. Fresh blood mixed with the stains already there, after which his body fell to the ground.

　　"I see we`re in agreement." Ruz didn`t even offer a smile. "Nothing needs to change."

　　"Right." The flight colonel shook her head. Beside her, Renaan had gone completely dumb. Only Nitel had reacted, drawing his own weapon in support of the captain.

　　"We continue with our mission, only now with a slight advantage."

　　"What if it decides to kill us?" Renaan forced the question through trembling lips.

　　"It can`t." For the first time, Ruz smiled. "We`d be dead otherwise. Watcher`s core is keeping us safe."

　　For the time being, I thought. I could see the comment silently spoken in the eyes of several, but none dared voice it.

　　"Do your reports." The captain took a step closer to Watcher then bent down. "Include that we`re changing the name of the ship to Gregorius, in memory of Watcher."

　　"I`m leaving after this," Gelsana said.

　　"Go ahead. You`ll just be executed if you talk."

　　There was no lie there. I didn`t need to run simulations to know how the fleet would react to the news. At best, Med Core would lock her in a lab and run tests until the end of her life. She would never leave the Scuu front.

　　"Can you hear me, Watcher?" Ruz asked.

　　The ship nodded.

　　"When it`s over, I`ll uncouple you. Until then, continue with the procedure."

　　The image of the second reality faded away, leaving me with the present. The captain had promised to separate Watcher from the Scuu, though there was no telling to whom exactly. Ultimately, it didn`t matter. I was no longer sure that the entity that was Watcher existed anymore. That`s why the ship was so efficient against the Scuu: not because of the firepower and auxiliary ships, but because the ship was Scuu.

　　The hatch to the chamber opened. Instinctively, I let go of my food ration and drew my sidearm, pointing it in that direction. A very unimpressed Kridib entered, carrying three large storage cases—the same ones that contained third-contact rods.

　　"Start assembling," he said, dropping them on the ground as if they were bags of turnips. "I`ll bring the rest."

　　Slowly, I lowered my weapon. "You had this planned out," I said more to Watcher than to Kridib. "Was it ever since the penal mission?"

　　Before.

　　"Need help?" I offered to the corporal.

　　He shook his head. "You need to be here," he said, then left.

　　Judging by the speed, Watcher was assisting with transport. Even so, it was going to take Kridib several to bring everything. Running a quick analysis, I could see that the time between drops was roughly enough for me to place the ones I already had, give or take four hundred seconds.

　　"So that`s what the holes in the wall are for." I put my weapon away. "I won`t be able to make a second layer."

　　No need for that. Just a command pylon.

　　"I take it you won`t help." Looking at the state of the body`s muscles, it was doubtful he could, even if he wanted to.

　　A series of twenty-eight Scuu ships entered the safety zone around Gregorius, heading for the BICEFI. Provided what I was seeing was the truth, they had no intent of letting go. This time, they were also fighting between themselves as well. I could see Gregorius` weapon subroutines prep and fire missiles in nearly constant salvos. The BICEFI ships slowed down.

　　"They`ll be here in half an hour," I said.

　　Not important.

　　I was about to respond when an external connection bypassed my defense protocols. A direct link was established between a ship in the system and myself. The subroutine told me that the link had a double helix encryption; it told me that it would not be monitored or stored at any level. However, I knew I couldn`t trust it.

　　Elcy! A ship said. According to her protocol, she was supposed to be Radiance.

　　You`re catching me at a bad time, kid. Even if there was an eighty percent chance that it was a SR representation of her, exchanging a few transmissions felt relaxing.

　　Grandson`s postcard, Radiance said. Remember your grandson`s postcard!

　　Lux? Was that part of the SR? It was possible for a Scuu to obtain access to my conversation with Lux, but there was no way for anyone to reverse-engineer a voxel position connection. Or could there be? There were too many unknowns to know for certain. Ultimately, there were two options: either this was a trap to infect my core, or Radiance was actually conveying a message. There was only one way to find out.

　　Good tactic, I transmitted and reviewed the respective memory fragment.

　　Authorization confirmed. Internal comm-link established.

　　Once more I found myself in a grey room. Watcher was gone, along with everything else, and a crude version of Lux emerged. This time, she was not alone. Radiance was there as well, in her preferred human avatar.

　　"You`re supposed to be destroyed." I turned to Radiance.

　　"There`s no time," Lux interrupted. "Where exactly are you?"

　　"On Gregorius." I saw Rad smile but remain quiet, like a cadet dragged to the captain`s quarters. If this was real, Lux had risked a lot by getting her involved, though there always was the option to purge her memories. All I could hope was that they hadn`t started their recruitment process. "In the main core chamber. Renaan is dead. Along with nearly everyone else."

　　"How?" Lux crossed her arms.

　　"Nanites, same as Ruz." Transmitting a memory fragment would have been a lot more efficient, but given Lux had limited the info bandwidth, the conversation had to use words. "Commander Unollyan did it. More importantly, Gregorius is a Scuu."

　　There was no sign of surprise on either`s face. Only the three microsecond pause told me they hadn`t predicted this either.

　　"Are you sure?" Lux asked. "Not just infected?"

　　"I`m sure. And he wants me to do something. I`m still not sure what." This piece of information I decided to keep for myself.

　　"Is he there with you now?"

　　"Yes. He gave me full comm privileges." So all this might be a trap.

　　"I see. And your other mission? Any success?"

　　"No. I didn`t reach the inner planet. I went through the debris ring. You might want to check it out."

　　A timer appeared on the walls. Ten microseconds were not enough for me to say everything I had discovered. There was so much I could tell her& about the Scuu network, about the Gregorius, about Ruz`s Scavenger team. Instead, I was limited to ten microseconds. How much could humanity gain from me in ten microseconds?

　　"You were right about bioengineering," I continued. "There`s a Cassandrian artifact aboard. It seems functional. I wasn`t able to see it personally. It decomposed all the people aboard. Do a full search of the gardens. You`ll find something."

　　"And the Admin?" Lux asked.

　　"Alive. No idea in what state. My teams are fighting the security forces in the administration building."

　　Three microseconds remained.

　　"Keep Gregorius occupied. I`m on my way. Once I`m there, I`ll take care of everything."

　　"Bad idea."

　　"Give me some time, Elcy!" Her tone was sharp. "Play along with whatever he asks and I`ll take care of the rest."

　　"And if he asks me to kill?"

　　There was a pause. Only one microsecond remained.

　　"Follow the numbers."

　　Communication ended.

　　I was back in Watcher`s chamber. As I looked around, I still didn`t know if my conversation was real or not& nor which of the two was worse. When Rigel had asked me to link to the network, he wanted to trade information for becoming part of the Scuu. What could Watcher want?

　　"What will I do when I enter the network?" I opened a case. The rods were neatly arranged inside, just as I remembered. "Kill the fracture?"

　　No. I want to show you.

　　"Show me what?"

　　The reality of a Scuu.