She didn’t believe me when I presented the cheque. Fifteen thousand on a commemorative yellow crystal slip may as well have been scrap glass to anybody unacquainted to the Nexus system, but I did my research. I ordered two cheap ampules of g-mycin, an antibiotic, and allowed the delivery to take place: a fifteen minute wait brought the tiny clear glass vials tumbling out of a small, bluish tear in the fabric of space-time.

Out here, in the hinterlands of the Frontier, the antibiotic was worth more than all of our lives, our very existences combined.

Cassandra looked at me and Owl, who were dressed and geared for a fight to the death. We had prepared for an expedition; the initial rendezvous point was the carcass of an automobile factory. Then she looked over at Vera, who was sheltering gift bags under her shield. The poor girl’s blush intensified to a shameful crimson.

“You told me to go spend some money on myself,” Vera muttered, hiding her mouth. She looked very much like a child encouraged to steal a cookie after being caught with her hand in the jar, precariously juggling bashfulness and a certain innocent giddiness across her sharp features. “I bought some stuff for the others…”

We marched through a machine graveyard. At a tarnished metal gate that once barred entrance to a loading deck, Cassandra made a call. Within a minute, a solid wall of grey fog formed a second doorway superimposed over the initial setting; a little rift that led some place far away from the ruins of Granport. Our group of four hopped through.

The crisp, biting air gave way to a damp draft. A sudden blast of harsh sunlight caused my sensors to blink; I slowly took in what looked to be a well-constructed cove with my disembodied perception.

Tall metal trusses held up the roof of what was an otherwise plain warehouse. Empty and damaged wooden crates lay stacked in small pyramids between watery isles filled with interception vehicles — some I recognized, like jet skis and sleek black boats shaped like elongated darts, but the majority of the vehicles were windowless black rhombuses with no evident way in or out. Cassandra stopped by the closest mystery vehicle and tenderly placed her palm on the smooth, shiny surface. “We’ll be staying here for a few days, Vera. Take the scary black mist lady to one of the guest rooms and let her recuperate — don’t bother her too much.”

Owl furrowed her brows behind her concealing mask. She looked at me, still questioning my plan.

I waved her off. “Please go. I’ll relay everything to you.”

Vera didn’t look too happy about her dismissal either, but she grabbed Owl by the wrist and tried dragging her off. Just like when they were fighting, Owl broke the grab and decided to walk on her own; Cassandra and I watched them retreat to a door opposite the vehicles.

“Underlings can be a real handful,” she said, releasing a short huff. “I’m practically babysitting that girl. I’m bloody old enough to be her grandmother, these days.” She looked at me and frowned. “Sorry. I talk to myself sometimes, bad habit.”

Cassandra got to work. Using a nearby crate as a table, her fingers flew across my Nexus Unit. I suppressed the faintest twinge of greed as I saw the numbers in my bank account crumble; I wondered if I should’ve spent more time purchasing personal knickknacks and comfort items instead of throwing money at this cause.

Now that I thought of it, I didn’t know exactly how much Nia's robotic body cost for me. Hopefully I had enough money left over to buy some silicone to cover up all the ugliness that I was.

The first boxes came in a matter of minutes. Cassandra took a crowbar to one of them, verified its contents, and invited me to look.

“The real deal,” she said, nodding gravely.

I didn’t quite believe what my perception was seeing. Cautiously, I hopped up to peer in with my camera sensors — only to confirm what I had just spent fifteen thousand dollars on.

The purchase was lumpy and brown, misshapen and dotted with little green leafs and specks of dirt. Deep inside my mind, the lingering part of me that understood economics recoiled in horror and revulsion.

“...Potatoes?”

“Beat ‘em, mash ‘em,” Cassandra said, entering numbers into a spreadsheet. “Those are definitely potatoes. And now that you’ve held up your end of the deal, I’ll talk.”

One by one, the boxes piled up around us. I counted ten, twenty, nearly fifty boxes of potatoes before crates of other crops showed up.

“Shouldn’t you be buying, I don’t know… weapons? Bombs? Equipment for war?”

“I’m getting to that part,” Cassandra said. “Gotta cover your bases first. But I’ll work and chat, sure.”

Carrots. Leaks. Parsnips. Even more potatoes. I waved my leg in front of Cassandra to get her attention, but she was much more focused on the screen than maintaining eye contact with me.

“You were there for the Arlequins job, I remember you. There are lots of places like that one, where the people abandoned by the world live like rats. Somebody has to do something about it.”

The gnawing sensation of hunger was engraved in Owl’s jumbled memories. How many people lived like her in the Frontier…?

Cassandra’s fingers froze over the keyboard. “You asked me why I fight and do the things I do. Hate to disappoint, but I do it because there are those who can’t fight for themselves. But as soon as you fix one problem, then comes another, bigger one… it’s such a pain. It really is.”

Countless lives, erased. Was it for justice? Revenge? Those pale eyes of hers refused to tell me more.

“I suppose it doesn’t mean much now, but I’m sorry about earlier. I let my nerves get the best of me and, well, you know the rest.”

Three spears through his chest, a disemboweling crescent arc swing.

My mind trembled with the memory of crimson. “What do you mean, ‘sorry’? If I wasn’t there, then...”

If I hadn’t saved them with my power, their corpses would’ve been frozen solid before anybody found them. Then again, If I hadn’t agreed to embark on the initial expedition, Owl and Tapio may never have encountered Cassandra. Was I at fault?

What would’ve happened if I simply stayed underground and accepted my fate? Tapio accelerated his plans when Jaxl arrived with me in tow; me and my relatively unknown powers played some factor in their decision making. The only thing I managed was to exacerbate their suffering: Tapio lost his ability to fight, and Owl took her own life in an episode of extreme mental duress.

If I hadn’t appeared, would Samson have held out for rescue? Would Lyra still be waiting in her underground bunker with hopes of rescue? After seeing Jaxl in action, I’m sure he would’ve been fine: a tough bastard like him was probably holding back against the Princess for Lyra’s sake. I remember his words: he expressed amazement that she was willing to end her own existence, as though killing that monstrosity was a chore, not an ordeal.

I tried to read her eyes, her soul, to see what she was expecting from me. But I couldn’t see anything.

Eventually, her eyes softened. “You really don’t know anything, do you?”

Did I even know who I was yet? More and more people, facts — things piled on me before I could process them. The other self referred to me as a child, mentally. Did I even have the ability to interact with anything beyond meaningless anxiety?

“Shit. Now I feel extra bad.” She closed my Nexus unit. “Know what, this is all a little over the line. You’re a bystander.” Genuine guilt glimmered in her eyes. “I can’t offer much, but we have a way of getting around. I know a place in the south, far in the Wilds... Amitayus. Designated neutral territory. You can start a new life there, Husk, Hunter, rock, robot, relics… whatever you are. Though it’s a little cold outside over there.”

Amitayus, the name of a celestial being and a realm of kindness.

Escape. Run away from all this and start a new life, a kind life with no pain or bloodshed. A slow life with no responsibility and no unwelcome surprises. I think I fantasized about that kind of life, once.

“—I can’t go.”

I denied it. I had to. I knew what I would’ve done had I considered the offer a second longer.

If there was any salvation left in this world for me, I’d have to repay Lyra and Samson by passing it on to at least one more person. I had to save Owl — that was what I had to do before I could run away and forget anything at all.

Because of me. It was all because of me. The whirring of clockwork, the whispers of a storm. From the very beginning to the very end, it was all my fault.

“Keep the money. Tell me as much as you’re willing,” I said, fighting against my cowardly nature. “Don’t just apologize. Explain yourself. I… I want to understand you. If I understand you, then maybe… maybe I can stop being afraid of you.”

I haven’t intended for that last part to slip out. The Husks I’ve faced were terrifying in their own way, yes, but Cassandra brought out a different horror, something subtle and caustic; it was a festering infection stemming from a single well-placed cut, a cascade of maggots and old milk where my blood should’ve been. I wanted to find out why she had left such an impression on me.

If I knew, perhaps I could unlock my psyche without breaking the seal that held the current me together.

“You’re afraid of me.” Cassandra said the words slow, confirming them. Then she repeated it to herself quietly, as if processing the fact that she was actually a terrifying individual. “Back on that day, I thought you and the girl were agents of the Oracles. Not their Hunters, but the hand picked elites. Almost thought I had to face down two Judges along with… him at once, so I had to strike first.”

Judges. Another term I’ve never seen or heard before. “Him? What do you mean by that?”

“Tapio Alexia Ibragimov. You could say he was a bit famous. We were actually acquainted twenty, thirty-some some years ago, when the Seven Arcs were at the peak of their power.”

Is that why they had their conversation about coffee? Was it a test to see if Tapio still knew her?

“I guess you wouldn’t know that either, if you’re as new as I think you are. To existing, I guess.” She pulled a bent laminated business card from her back pocket and placed it on the counter. There was no address, no phone number, no mailing list or any text; I struggled to parse the seven symbols scattered across a black background.

A grey sword through the scales of justice. A golden dragon and carp. A blue Oni’s mask crossed with a rose. Red lightning, a violet river. A green feather. An orange sun split by twinned scythes. If they got away with a business card that just had their symbols, they must’ve been a big deal.

“Tapio was the one behind the equipment of the Seven Arcs, a group of seven elite Hunters the likes the world has never before seen. He was never on the frontlines himself, but he was a genius, somebody sought after for his invincible gear that was vastly better than any Relics — until his sudden retirement.” She glanced at the way Owl and Vera left. “Might want to ask him yourself about the specifics.”

I stared at the sword and scale, recalling a similar symbol on Sier’s shoulder.

“The Grey Scholar,” I recalled. “Her daughter’s with us, trying to figure out the circumstances of her mother’s death.”

Cassandra frowned. “Felice might already know. That’s always been a sore spot for him. He told me that he’d come back and tell Sier everything once we were done being part of the Four Rings.”

A brother and sister, split apart by the fates and furies. A situation as cruel as they come.

Cassandra knew as much as Jaxl and Tapio, if not more. I had plenty of assorted questions about the crew I was running with and the Four Rings themselves, but I realized this was a chance to blow open a bigger mystery: depending on how old she really was, she might have the ability to explain the nature of my strange existence.

“Elias told me about you and what you did,” I ventured. “Why did you kill so many people? Why did you run away and join the Four Rings?”

“I didn’t join the Four Rings,” she said, smiling faintly. “I’m one of the four original founders.”

She was one of the people Jaxl was after. Would he kill me if she knew I was fraternizing with the target of his vengeance?

“The short-hand version is that a few of us learned the truth about the Frontier. About the Qliphoth incident to come, and we decided to fight. Even if we’re three hundred years too late to make any real difference.”

My mind quickened. “Three hundred years?”

That was when I first woke up. Don’t tell me…

“There were several secret research facilities which conducted experiments. Human experiments.” Cassandra summoned a blood lance into her palm and stared at it. “They made many breakthroughs in the Sage Arts, yet they violated everything we knew about Qi. They were heresy in the purest sense of the word; these techniques, technologies… these phenomena violated the world and science as we knew it. My powers were infused into my body by Sorabune’s Emperor; that immortal vampire bastard’s been clinging onto those sins for a long time now.”

Samson and Operation Starfall were not just a failure: they were an astounding, resounding failure. Not only had they failed to stop an apocalypse from befalling what would eventually become the Frontier, the surviving members of his team distributed the pilfered technology to the world’s governments. That much was evident by the strange technology in the hands of other nations.

Samson indirectly caused Lyra’s corruption and following death. I really should’ve beat his ass when I had the chance.

Three hundred years ago, I first woke up under the same building Lyra was working in. Discarded were four animals with supernatural abilities: the first evidence of Stigmata-like abilities. “At those facilities… what were they researching?”

“I don’t have the notes on hand, but… from what I managed to learn through various sources, they were looking to create, for the lack of a better term, a god.”

The urge to vomit. To scream, to bury my head until I stopped thinking. They were signs that I was getting close to the truth.

“How?” I asked.

Cassandra looked at me. “What?”

“A god. How were they trying to do it?”

“Erm. I’ll just send you the notes when we go our own way so you can read them in your free time, but shorthand, they were researching Relics.” She blew a breath through her nose. “The conclusion only makes sense in hindsight, but the only difference between a Relic and a Stigmata is that the Stigmata’s bearer is still alive.”

Tears. A cobalt blade embedded in my very soul.

“How many Stigmata can a person manifest?” I asked, through my pain.

“One. Relics are items that carry their owners' will after their death; Stigmata are the crystallization of a person’s trauma, hopes, and dreams. There’s a saying, over in Sorabune. That if a person gives their all towards a single conclusion, everything else be damned, they’ll make it — even if they crash and burn in the end.” She sighed. “Guess they were right, technically.”

Crack. Through an imaginary mirror, fragments of the other self stared at me: her scowling eyes accused me between shadows and light.

Was she me? Was I her? I manifested my winds after an untold period of time, yet time still passed; how long had the cobalt blade been hidden inside me? It must’ve been there from the beginning.

After Lyra passed, I inherited her aqueous greatsword. Did I receive the cobalt blade the same way?

How did it all begin?

My subconscious threatened to overwhelm the present. I—

The wind. So many memories. I could regurgitate so much information, yet knew so little. Biology, algorithms, engineering. Did I kill them with my own hands? I killed Lyra. Those two girls from long ago — did I kill them and steal their memories too? How many more would I doom?

I knew how to use the cobalt blade when pushed far enough, yet refused to think about why. There were multiple aspects of Grimm and Lyra running around; why did I assume I was different? We all played by the same rules.

I’m sorry.

Please forgive me. Punish me. Help me. Somebody, anybody.

Was there anyone listening? Was there anybody willing to hear me?

I lied. I can’t be forgiven.

I couldn’t forget anything. Why couldn’t I forget? Was this my punishment for being a sinner? No, yes, I had to be a sinner. The gravest, dirtiest, vilest of all sinners: a sinner who saw how vile the world was, and a sinner who took no action against it. A willing bystander. Scum of the earth. Waste. Nothing but a waste of space. I was an emotional leech; just look at me. I was using Owl for my own gain, trying to feel human through her. Using her for my own devices. Did I really care what she thought? No, I didn’t. That’s what I was.

Scum you are, preening and pecking over troubles like a hen and her eggs. That was no way for a human to act. Could’ve done so much more with your power, your life, your years, yet you refused; you were too scared to face yourself. Always searching, never reaching a destination.

Stop pretending to be human. You aren’t.

Throw away this shell and become what you really are.

It can’t be helped, really. Nothing changes. Why not just accept that and move forward? It is, of course, better to make your own mistakes than follow somebody else’s wisdom. You believed that, didn’t you?

I couldn’t even handle this tiny truth; how did I expect to handle the future? How broken was I inside to allow a few words to shatter what was left of my fragile psyche, it’s almost laughable.

If this is how humans are, then let someone else less temperamental take over. We don’t deserve to be here.

“—I don’t think it matters.”

In the vortex of my reeling, broken mind, I heard Cassandra — my enemy, my murderer, the object of my fear and hatred.

“Don’t get me wrong, I piled on sin after sin… telling myself it’ll be alright. But just like you, I’m sure, I also have a dream. A dream I’m willing to kill and die for.” She closed her eyes. “I’m not exactly going to tell you everything we’re going to do. I can’t be bought off. But I wouldn’t mind chatting like this in the future. My shoulders feel a little lighter...”

That weight was transferred directly to mine. Knowing Cassandra wasn’t a completely terrible person would only make it harder to fight her in the future, the opposite of what I intended… but I could admire that brash arrogance.

So what if I’m a broken, shambling abomination? Humans have abominable hearts, for the most part. I should have no problem fitting in.

“I haven’t said much,” I said, unsure of how much of my inner turmoil she glimpsed. But I truly, truly meant what I said next: “Thank you for the guidance. I think… I think a lot of things are clear now.”

There was a chain of events connecting everything I had experienced so far, the twisting vine of karma. I was one step closer to the truth; the next thing I’d have to decipher was the source of the ancient memories and the true identity of my other current self.

But that could wait, if only for a day.

“No problem,” Cassandra said. She got back to work spending my money; I interposed myself at the edge of my own computer and looked up at her.

“There’s still a few things I want to know about,” I said. “Think there’s enough left in the bank for some more?”

Out here in the middle of nowhere, there was nothing to remind us of the attractions of the Frontier: no Relics, no Hunters, no monsters. The waves lapped at concrete and metal and the sky, though slightly fractured, resembled something like an ordinary blue day.

Cassandra was a human too, for better or for worse. She looked at me, and, perhaps glad to see that a stranger wasn't trying to kill her for once, offered a gentle smile. “Let’s talk, then. I’ve got a few free days.”