The Restoration Protocol

33 || en.crypt

The hallway just outside the control room is immediately — and eerily — quiet. From how Kasey acted earlier, Mariko half-expected to walk out into a blaze of flying bullets. But there's no one here. Most importantly, there's no Mono. Evidence of a battle having occurred here lies within the burn and scuff marks on the steel walls. However, whether they came from the hostile androids, or from Mono's own attacks, remains unclear.

"They're...gone?"

Kasey utters this in disbelief as he scans the hall, clutching the shirt over his chest.

"What's gone, Kasey?" Mariko asks.

"The robots." He points to a seemingly random spot on the floor. "The ones me and Mono took care of, they were here. I-...I know they were dead, I shot an arrow through one of their chests and it short-circuited, and Mono ripped the other one's head clean off. So...they should have still been here..."

"Perhaps another of the ship's crew members came by to carry their bodies elsewhere." Soleil follows the path of Kasey's index finger to inspect the area close up. She crouches down and traces her own finger along a small dent in the wall. "This is a ship, after all...I wouldn't be surprised if they have some sort of cleaning crew aboard. Either that, or their methods of self-repair are frighteningly advanced. But that is unlikely. They probably would have returned to their posts, if that were the case. Pursuing Mono wouldn't have benefitted them."

Mariko finds some relief in that thought. But she wants to find him as soon as possible. Before this 'shadowy figure' he was chasing could do any more damage...

"There!! It's right there! The shadow!!"

Not a second after this thought crossed Mariko's mind, Kasey raises his voice. With the abruptness of a fired gun, she and Soleil are urged to direct their full attention to one end of the long hallway. And sure enough, Kasey wasn't just crying wolf. The 'shadow' is there. Hovering above ground like a ghost, first just with its amorphous head and hands peeking around the corner, but soon it inches out to allow its whole body to be seen. Without a doubt, it's the virus from Soleil's concert. And from the graveyard of Wynsmith's former place on the map.

"You! What did you do with Mono?!"

The virus does not react to Kasey's outcry. Nor does it flinch at the arrow he loads swiftly into his bow. It barely moves at all, in fact. Merely a miniscule shift of its faceless head in Soleil's direction. Its body twitches as multicolored pixels blink in and out of existence. A hand extends towards them. Something takes form on the tip of its finger. Something shaped like...a key.

It takes Mariko longer to realize this than the others — well, at least longer than Soleil, seeing as she's bolting down the hall before Mariko can blink.

"Wait! Alias, don't-!!" Kasey's warning and outstretched hand aren't enough to stop her. In a panic, he turns to Mariko, then takes off after making sure she would be following him. They both trailed Soleil with their eyes just a moment ago and saw her chase the virus around the corner. It does appear to be fleeing from her...but from that observation alone, Mariko's stomach churns. Revealing that key at the last second just seemed like a taunt. And if so, then Soleil fell right for it.

She and Kasey round the corner and come to a screeching halt. Just like that, they're gone. Soleil and the virus both. There are no nearby rooms they could have ducked inside. Nothing to explain the irrational. They simply...vanished.

"No...no, no, this is exactly what happened with Mono, too..."

Kasey stops to hold his head in his hands. Clutching his temples, he swings himself around, looking up and down and left and right, desperate to prove wrong what he's already seen with his eyes. His breathing grows ragged again.