Epilogue, Part I

VEGA paced a bit in his office, the Martian sun gleaming in from the window and painting a broad shadow under his silhouette. The contractors had given him the latest update: ahead of schedule by four months, estimated completion time, approximately four years from present date at current rate of construction. Music to his ears, but even something that momentous could not shake him from thought. Every now and again, his eyes would dart out that window, and he would catch a glimpse of that work: the new Mars Installation, built on and from what remained of the old. He could still see some of the old foundations be torn apart, including that of the Argent Tower.

Eight years had passed.

Right now, in between the torrential showers of endless notifications and memos, he had some time to be by himself, and to think, to ruminate on the past. The sight of the new Installation’s construction had soured it.

For what little time he certainly had left, he took to his private archives. An elevator door opened at the other end of the sleek, nearly barren office, appearing on the left side of the reinforced door and blended in with the silver, unpainted steel bulkhead. He entered, and it sunk into the lower reaches of the new Advanced Research Complex.



The sleek doors opened silently, and the AI stepped into the dimly lit room, small lights beginning to brighten along a central pathway and the ceiling. As the room was illuminated, so were its treasures. A stone carving of the Crucible sat behind several sculptural depictions of the Night sentinels. His old body stood upright in a display case, hasty line welding and scratched steel plates still showing as they did the day he left it. Only difference now was the empty soul receptacle. He could see his reflection in the glass, his azure soul gleaming in its sheen, and his new, matte body, modelled closely after it predecessor.

Tablets recovered from Olivia’s lab, several of them popping out from vertical shelving set into the walls, lined the narrow anterior space of the chamber. His eyes went from one to the other, catching the familiar sigils and symbols that allowed him to extract the secrets of the Siphon.

Directly ahead of him lay its new pedestal, where it would rest until the facility was ready to process its power.

He took it from its temporary pedestal, eyeing it over as memory took him from one place to another.

His old central processing facility.

His awakening in that dark, dank lab compound.

The one who saved him, fighting alongside him,

The Monsters, and the love they shared with each other.

Melancholy, he had figured in the past, was something only people ever bothered feeling. He had no business with it. It got in the way of productivity and contributed nothing to the compiling and solving of new data. Only recently had he realized how clinical of a dismissal he had made. He was a person too, after all, even if it took forever for him to realize that.

Memories continued to play back in his head as his fingers felt the shield’s jagged edges and motifs.

“You did good, Marine…”

“You did good.”

Alas, VEGA’s reprieve was up. Messages of every kind, alerting him of every new development, came rushing to him by the score. Had he been given lungs his chagrin would fain fill the room. He returned the Siphon to its pedestal and made his way back to the elevator as the more pertinent messages were brought to the forefront of his mind. More about land surveys and some pressing meeting he was already five minutes late for, down at the temporary conference facility at the other end of the complex.

Stepping into the elevator, he took one last glance at the old shield.

“Here’s to you, then…”

The door shut behind him, and it was off to work once more.

Back to saving humanity.