Second Order
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Summary
Marina seems the most bothered by your memory loss. She stares at you when she thinks you aren’t looking, but her eyes are far away. When she explains the simulation, Acht seems to understand, but you don’t. You were a fighter, they tell you, not an engineer. You’re still a fighter. You don’t need memories to know how to use a splattershot or an octobrush.
At this point, there are three Eights: the octoling soldier, the Deepsea Metro escapee, and this new Eight. All three have put their heads down and pushed until they couldn’t anymore. The Eight you are currently is blanketed on all sides by people the previous Eight knew, but at least they make you feel safe when they smile. Maybe, hopefully, you’ll be able to become the person they remember again—or at least a close approximation. Being that Eight seems a lot nicer than the Eight you are now—which is a Nothing Eight.
[Eight climbs and climbs and tries to remember.]
Series
- Part 3 of Climbing(Endlessly)_Tetralogy.Floor
- Part 1 of Second Order
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When you stand from the heap you landed in, in front of the tower, you are Acht. Fragmented, hazy, seen from the outside, but Acht enough. Discombobulated, personality reconfiguring, following the voice calling from the top of the tower, you don’t realize anything is off until you drop from the cage, land solidly on the first floor, spy the fish spilling from the black, oozing geyser, and finally remember that you slacked off during basic training.
[Post #3 - etude Acht reflection]
Series
- Part 2 of Second Order
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Marina groans and rubs a tired hand into her eyes. “Let’s just say that the program had a hard time sorting through which packets of data were Pearl’s soul and which were mine, so it… bungled it.”
“Bungled it.”
“Our minds are connected,” Marina mutters, gritting it out. It sounds a lot like your cranky voice. “We’re in sync, let’s say.”
“More than normal,” you snort. “Marina thinks something, and I think it—”
“And Pearl thinks something and I think it. It’s confusing—”
“Confusing and cool—”
“Are you ever normal?” Acht cuts in, leaning back against the wall.
[Or: how to mind meld with the help of the machines.]
Series
- Part 3 of Second Order
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Summary
Marina Ida has almost everything she wants. Her engineers, however, had conflict—the drive for the surface vs. the familiarity of the underground. This conflict is where Order thrives. Order can offer them peace in the familiar, promise a return to simpler times, when all were in harmony and things were good.
This is what Order offers Marina Ida. A return to before, when things were easier and she wanted for nothing, most of all the love of someone she could never have. The ease of childhood, perhaps, or maybe just the joy of letting go.
The problem, of course, is that Marina Ida has always been ambitious, ruthless, strong willed.
She calls out, she fights for control, she reaches for the knight she has on the ground, she sings—
And that will be Order’s downfall.
[Or: Marina Ida, yearning and grayscaled.]
Series
- Part 4 of Second Order