Soulless Beauty Aorta

PINK, PRECONVENTIONAL MORALITY

The lift came to a sudden stop in a pure white room. "MARY!"

It was a massive chamber, with rows of elaborate columns lining the walls and going down the center of the room. Beautifully crafted sconces, resembling faces, adorned the walls, halfway up between the floor and the impossibly high ceiling. The sound of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition - Promenade being played on an ancient pipe organ echoed through the ghostly hall.

With a disturbed and disgusted look on her face, Rose cautiously proceeded deeper into the room, staining the floor with the blood dripping from the remains of her left arm. After a moment of walking, she came to what looked like a throne, with holographic screens floating in front of it. They showed the upside-down form of a woman, with her arms outstretched to the sides, a diagram of a brain and spinal column next to it. Both images had sections highlighted red, with endless error messages scrawling across all the other screens, moving too quick to read.

With only a bit more looking and walking, she found the source of the now deafening music: A sole white Aorta sat at a stained brown wooden pipe organ, a massive and terrifying analog machine seemingly growing out of the wall and floor, She sat upright, small and thin and almost ghostlike, a stark contrast to the multi-story-building-sized instrument before her, moving both her hands on the keys and her feet on the rows of pedals below, playing without a single mistake as she forced air through the pipes weaving in and out of the walls, spiraling around each other, and protruding from the pillars holding up the ceiling. When the mysterious figure reached the final note, she held it out far longer than she needed to, the room shaking until the organ's massive air reservoir, near empty from hundreds of years of use, finally ran out, leaving the two in silence as her fingers trembled against the keys, the pipes emitting a subtle wheezing as they gasped for the ancient air no longer afforded to them. She was putting off the inevitable.

The figure sat up and brought her hands down to the bench she sat on."It's quite poetic, yes?" She spoke. "The thought that the simple vibrations from such an archaic machine, can bring such power as to revitalize something as mysterious and complex as the human soul. Rose... I've missed you." Rose replied with confused revulsion, "What the hell are you talking about? I don't remember you at all."

Mary slowly turned around on the bench, tears forming at the edges of her eyes. "You... don't?" Rose screamed in fury, "Don't try to fucking guilt trip me! YOU'RE the reason we're here, the reason I'M stuck in this goddamned shell! Gardenia, Heather, Hyacinth, they all died- because of you!" "I... I know... I'm sorry-" "SHUT UP, just shut the hell up!"

Mary turned back towards the organ, closing her eyes. "...Humans. We're such selfish creatures. For so many trillions of years of life on Earth to end with us, the supposed 'pinnacle of evolution'... so disappointing. I know you don't remember anything. You probably have countless questions. I can at least explain things- that's all I can do for you." Rose decided to let her speak, rage burning in her eyes.

"Following World War Final, hardly any life remained on Earth. Massive, radiation-soaked deserts made up the bulk of our desecrated planet, thanks to the twisted discovery of another scientist who died far before I was born. In my own naivete as a young adult I thought humanity was worth saving, and as such, founded MANNA. The world's remaining leaders took interest in our research. Biomechanics, quantum and theoretical physics, the many worlds interpretation. We were contracted under an oath of secrecy, and vanished from the public eye. They... had us carry out horrible experiments, to the point I wanted to give up and leave many, many times. But I kept pushing, and the investors kept pushing me. We eventually pushed too hard, as was bound to happen due to our innate human instincts. We captured God himself, can you believe that? In a supercomputer. How horrible of us, of me. I-... I think I've become an Antichrist..." Rose's expression stubbornly refused to change.

"In electronic chains, our imprisoned creator performed various tasks for us. Humanity prospered like never before. We were able to recover from the war, and all was returning to stability within our home, Ptolomea, the largest remaining human city. Our divine prisoner eventually predicted a disaster known as the Perfect Storm, a solar event that would annihilate the two planets between us and the sun, melt all the ice on Mars and Saturn, roast every dwarf planet in the Kuiper Belt, and, of course, end all life on Earth- for good this time. The Perfect Storm was going to finish what the war had started.

"Once the news broke, all society crumbled, the world returned to anarchy. MANNA began contracting and employing anyone with a steady mindset and any scientific knowledge at all, and bumping up all interns to official employee status. That initiative included a strange girl named Inri. To escape the fate laid out before us, we built these shells- the Aorta units- and we transferred our souls into them. We were fools to do so. When we awoke, still on Earth, all was ash, with a titanic steel ceiling above our heads, separating us from the still intact sun. We had somehow been played, an act of vengeance from the creator who we infuriated.

"Inri, Unit X, was slowly growing, gathering her strength as she slept, with the planet encapsulated in her womb. Somat, Pathos, Lascera, and I, your 'Quadrant Authority', climbed up into her innards. We used our combined power as Aortae to form a psychic link with her, forcing sleep mode. When my three comrades perished, the link died as well- I had given up trying to restrain Inri decades ago, so after the other Quadrant members were gone, Inri awoke.

"I'm sorry about your arm", Mary turned back to the girl. "I didn't anticipate-" she had to look away and cover her mouth to avoid gagging, before continuing in a muffled voice, "I didn't anticipate these bodies growing their own organic tissue. We're more organic than mechanical at this point." Rose kept her stony expression.

"Rose... you can't go back." Rose's face, twisted in inconsolable rage and anguish, briefly changed to one of confusion before returning to a display of pure hatred. "What do you mean?" "... There's nothing left." "LIAR!" Her eyelids could dam them no more, and the tears slid down Mary's smooth platinum face. "I thought this might happen, that you'd someday wake up and find me, Rose. My plan- sniff, was to use the Ego Death Protocol to save at least our minds, our consciousnesses-""Ego Death," Rose spoke, shocked, "I do remember that. You told me about it when I was just a little girl- a top secret plan to save humanity in case of a worldwide catastrophe, by removing and fusing our souls... this would include those who were comatose, and souls without bodies." The room was silent.

Rose's words shattered the frozen atmosphere, "I didn't need to be electrocuted on the surface. I didn't need to regain my sentience and feel more scared than I ever felt as a human, I- I didn't need to lose my friends, to watch the horrible shit that happened to them!" Rose was crying now too. "You could have done it- You could have destroyed all the ego boundaries instantaneously and saved us all, but you didn't!""Rose-""You didn't even take the chance! We're already fucking dead, what does it even matter anymore?! You're so scared that your hellish life could change, even for the better, so you- you sit here and you do fucking nothing!!" Mary finally raised her voice, "Yes I did! I stagnated because I was TERRIFIED to make a single move, because I had ruined so much already! You inconsiderate, selfish child! I love you Rose, you're the best thing that ever happened to me! You're why I saw beauty in humanity, in all life, why I wanted to protect us! MANNA was founded because of you!""NONE OF IT MATTERS, NONE OF IT FUCKING MATTERS NOW, YOU STUPID BITCH!!" Mary gasped and stepped back. Her voice returned to normal volume, shaking.

"Please, you have to trust me- I think we might be able to fix it if you'll just- I-" Mary dropped her head. "I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry. Please listen to me, I'll go ahead and activate Ego Death now and we can..."

Rose spoke. "No... you don't get to be the hero."

All color drained from Rose's body, as her small frame reverted to the size and proportions of a default Aorta, save for the horns on her back, which rotated out to the sides of her body and bloomed into full, elegant wings. Her left arm regenerated, now made of pure light, and her body turned a pure, jet black, with a deep purple aura surrounding her. An intricate, thorned glowing halo spread over her head.

[BLACK ROSE]

An alarm rang out from above, the same sound that resonated in Rose's synthesized ear tubes in the seconds before Mary let Hyacinth fall to her death. A computer voice from the ceiling spewed garbled nonsense. The walls of the room crumbled, the supports audibly cracking and bursting in the wall as debris fell around them. The entire floor broke free of the inside of The Shell, and began to plummet toward the planet below, triggered by the awakening of Rose's destrudo.