You Have Come
"We have arrived. This is TERA headquarters."
The hatch opened onto an airfield both grand and immaculately kept. Planes and helicopters stood in a precise row, and crews moved among them, tending equipment worth tens of millions.
"What land did you build a base like this on?"
Dan Miryu was openly stunned by a facility beyond anything he had imagined. The sealed ceiling left no doubt they were underground, and yet it rose as high as a five-story building.
"I'm sorry, but regulations require that remain secret. I hope you'll understand."
Queen Knight started down from the hatch with Tough Guy beside her, her steps steady. We climbed out of the aircraft—shut tight on every side—and followed.
She must have stationed people in advance. An agent was already there, snapping a salute the moment he saw her.
"...The Doctor?"
"Yes. He threw a fit about having to see their faces himself..."
"Hah. Fine. I'll handle the Doctor. You're dismissed."
"Yes, ma'am!"
The agent gave a crisp, disciplined salute and withdrew.
Queen Knight rubbed the skin just beneath her nose. When she turned to us, her voice was tired.
"I'm sorry. It seems you'll have to suffer an unpleasant meeting on the way. Will that be all right?"
"You mean that Doctor kid? The one who threw a fit at the Arctic about handing Scientist over?"
"That's correct."
Embarrassment drew a dry little cough from her.
"I don't know how he found out, but he's waiting where we're headed."
"Can't we just turn around?"
"The Doctor is that child's attending physician. I'm afraid the meeting can't be avoided. This is our failure. If it troubles you, I'll have him removed at once."
At her earnest plea, Pele looked to Dan Miryu.
"Perhaps we should speak of that later. If he is the attending physician, he has every reason to be nearby. One never knows what might happen."
"Thank you for the consideration. I'll guide you, then."
Queen Knight took the lead, and we followed her through a base that surpassed the fruits of modern science, taking it in only from the outside as we went. A dozen secret security systems, a winding maze of corridors—only at the end of all that did we reach the person TERA was so determined to protect.
And there, just as Queen Knight had warned, was the Doctor, eyes wide and glaring.
"Auntie's here?"
A brown-haired boy with his hair tied up in a bun, swallowed by a white coat that dragged along the floor, both wrists shoved into pockets far bigger than his hands. His brows twitched; he was thoroughly put out. This boy was the one who carried TERA's science—the researcher whose mind stood second only to Scientist.
"Mind your words, Doctor. We are in the presence of guests."
Being called auntie clearly did not sit well with her. Her reaction was unusually sharp, though even then it amounted to little more than raising her voice.
"If you're an auntie, I call you auntie. What else should I say? You know it's lame to keep swapping what you call people just because someone's watching."
"It is basic courtesy between people. You are a hero yourself. Please conduct yourself with a hero's dignity."
"Nag, nag, nag. Just move! I'm busy. I only came because of them."
The Doctor shoved past Queen Knight without listening to a word of it. Tough Guy reached out and barred him.
"Out of the way, Tough Guy. Before I start steaming."
"I can't allow that, Doctor. If you wish to speak, speak from there. No farther."
"Damn it—you think a delicate little runt like me is dangerous?!"
Veins stood out across his forehead as he screamed.
"Doctor, do not drag up a matter that is already finished. These people have entered an alliance with TERA as equals. Show some courtesy."
"Alliance? That's a nice word. Hey, head of the Dan Clan!"
He jabbed a finger at Dan Miryu.
"Hand Scientist over, and I'll share every bit of his research and mine! That's not all! I'll let you use me personally!"
At that sudden bombshell, Queen Knight seized his shoulder.
"Am I to take what you're saying as rebellion against TERA?!"
"Shut up! Do you have any idea how many years I poured into you people! Do you know what it feels like to watch all of that blow apart in midair!"
In the middle of that almost-schism, Dan Miryu leaned toward me and whispered.
"For a man thinking of his colleagues, the reaction is excessive. Why is he like this?"
"Because among those colleagues was family he loved. There was even a lover he'd promised a future."
"Ah..."
Dan Miryu nodded as if that were enough.
"One moment. He looks terribly young..."
"Don't be fooled. Inside, he's a grown man. Like Scientist, he artificially adjusted his physical age. The side effect is that his mind conformed to the body. And the longer time passes, the further his intelligence deteriorates. Without TERA's machines, the Doctor would have been an imbecile long ago."
He had done it out of a hunger for revenge on Scientist. That hunger was so fierce he had laid hands on his own body, on the logic that he absolutely could not grow old and die before Scientist did. This was the result. Unlike Scientist, who had recovered a perfect youth, his rejuvenation overflowed with side effects—and still, he was unmistakably a genius of the age.
"That's... extraordinary."
Dan Miryu gave a bitter little smile and murmured it almost to himself.
"To think the previous head never noticed that someone who had achieved the immortality he wanted so badly was right beside him. And not one such person, but two. Truly. I'm embarrassed on his behalf."
"If he'd been sharp enough to notice, do you think Scientist would ever have approached him?"
"Ugh. That one cuts surprisingly deep."
Abashed, Dan Miryu rubbed the back of his neck.
"Doctor. Go back this instant. This is your final warning."
"And if I don't? What are you gonna do? What can you even do? Stop acting so high and mighty with me and get your own shit together! Fuck. How incompetent do you have to be to keep me from avenging the dead! Was my love that much of a joke to you!"
The higher his agitation climbed, the more fine cracks began to spider across his skin.
"Doctor. You..."
Queen Knight understood then. He was not simply being emotional. He had not been normal from the start.
Tough Guy put a hand to his ear at once.
"Emergency. Emergency. The Doctor's condition is critical. Get here immediately!"
"Fuck. This one, that one—all of you. Fucking useless. How many years did I invest, how many years did I wait... and I can't even take revenge with my own hands... Fuck, this is just—!"
"You're worked up. Sleep it off."
A light tap.
Pele struck the Doctor's forehead with a fingertip. His eyes rolled white, and he collapsed. She laid him out neatly on the floor.
"Child of Heaven. Guardian. Come and look at him."
"Yes."
"Hm."
Dan Miryu opened Life a fraction, and Hong Yumin drew a talisman from the fold of her robes.
"What are you—"
"Stay still. It's first aid."
With Pele's palm held out before them, Queen Knight and Tough Guy could only frown, caught between stepping in and standing aside.
"How does he look to you, Pele?"
"That kid? A walking corpse, that's what. He wrecked his body and soul nice and systematically. I've no idea how he managed it."
Pele clicked her tongue.
"I can't even get a sense of how long he's got. What a twisted fate."
"Can he be treated?"
In the original he drops dead from the side effects. That's what worries me.
"You're really asking me that?"
"Well, of course."
With a god, an immortal, and resurrection besides, the notion that they could not mend what human science had broken was absurd.
"But that kid doesn't particularly seem to want it. Just leave him be."
"Understood."
While they spoke, Dan Miryu and Hong Yumin finished a simple emergency treatment. A talisman holding the light of Life was pressed to the Doctor's forehead.
"He should be all right for the time being."
"Good work."
Agents came running and carried the Doctor away.
"Hah. Thank you. I don't know how I ought to repay this..."
"We didn't save him looking for repayment. Please don't trouble yourself."
"Thank you."
In that brief span, Queen Knight seemed to have aged ten years.
"Then we'll go in. Please keep secret everything you see and hear beyond this point."
An inscrutably complex password went into the protective door. It opened, and several physicians and agents who seemed to be standing watch greeted Queen Knight.
All vital signs normal. Condition stable.
"Understood. Everyone, out."
"Yes."
She cleared the room of everyone inside it, and we arrived at the sterile chamber where the Prophet slept.
In a world of pure white, a pure-white girl lay asleep, breathing in soft little sighs.
"A real prophet? And a proper one, at that."
Pele's admiration was quiet.
"Is the child all right?"
"She's fine. Open the door. We're all going in."
"That's a sterile room..."
"She won't die of illness. And didn't you see just now? Us treating the Doctor? If something goes wrong, I'll take responsibility in the name of a god. Leave it to me."
Queen Knight worked her lips, then flicked a look at Tough Guy.
We laid color over that pure-white world.
"All right, let's see. When is our Sleeping Beauty going to wake, I wonder?"
Humming under her breath, Pele sat in the nurse's chair, laid a palm over the girl's forehead, and closed her eyes.
I watched the Prophet without a word. She had appeared only briefly in the original, but she was a girl who had left a real mark. What prophecy, I wondered, had she spoken in this world?
Pele's eyes flew open.
"Until she wakes..."
The rest of us went still as one. Someone swallowed.
"In... five."
Five months? Five weeks? Five days?
"Four."
Fifty-four days?
"Three."
...?
"Two."
One.
The Prophet shot upright.
"She's up."
Pele dusted off her hands as if the work were finished.
"Ah."
The Prophet opened her mouth. The voice that came out was entirely hoarse.
I have been waiting.