Abandon All Hope

Abandon all hope.

It felt a little shameless to say it myself, but my performance was downright ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠broken.

I was nothing more than a thick metal plate mixed with some coating, and yet I could fight mutants, generate oxygen, and even produce food. I was basically one of those kitchen gadgets they hawk on Sunday afternoon TV home shopping — the kind with every feature under the sun bolted on for good measure.

The perfect item for the end-times prepper in your life! Order now and we'll throw in a poor soul from another dimension free of charge!

Slap a line like that on the pitch and the thing would sell like crazy.

Of course, there was a catch that would make anyone hesitate before dialing the number after the host's sugary sales pitch. Every action I took required power, and to get that power I needed a mysterious energy that came from the human body.

The red-blinking power residual dropped from nine percent to eight, and at the same moment a hose not unlike a mechanical arm shot out from the back of my neck.

Having already been through this once when her wounds were treated, Sera didn't flinch this time.

"What is this?"

The thing looked like a USB-C charging cable scaled up several times over. The only real difference was that everything but the tip had been finished in something resembling ivory-colored silicone.

I'd been about to call it a system for sustaining a survivor's life, but I put a little more care into the message this time.

"Are you treating me like a fool, or do you actually believe I am one? I am neither a cyborg nor an android."

I'd concentrated and it had come out even shorter. Still unused to this method of communication, I found myself thinking I needed to raise the sync rate as soon as possible. They'd said the options could reappear, so once I could actually speak, this whole ordeal would be over.

"Liquid food...? Nothing is coming out."

Yeah? Why isn't it coming out?

Sera gripped the cable and gave it a few sharp shakes downward, but nothing showed any sign of emerging. She peered into the dark hole at the tip, then her eyes narrowed slightly as she caught a scent of something. After a moment of deep consideration, she brought her mouth to the outlet — and milky-white liquid came gushing out all at once.

"Ulp— koff, cough! Cough……!!"

What she failed to swallow ran down her chin and throat and into the interior of the suit. I absorbed it the way I always did, and the moment the taste and smell hit me I nearly retched, spitting a string of curses on the inside.

Fuck — this is liquid food?!

Sera, for her part, cupped her chin with one hand and gathered what was left so she could swallow it. A moment later she wiped away the tears that had come from choking, put on a complicated expression, and said:

"Ahem… well. It's salty and bitter, and fishy on top of that, but it's edible. Whether it helps the body or causes problems remains to be seen, but it isn't bad."

Her reaction was so completely oblivious that I felt a measure of relief — and at the same time the growing sense that we were crossing a river we could never come back from. Suddenly I was certain that never revealing I was human at all, never mind getting a voice, would be better for both of us.

"There are two objectives. One is securing supplies. The other is finding a candidate for a safe residence."

"Well… the odds are slim to begin with, and running around on foot through a place this vast is inefficient in itself."

Faced with Sera's skepticism, I didn't push the point any further. When it came to the condition of the ship, she knew far more than I did anyway.

The list of needed supplies, spare oxygen tanks, the plasma sword she'd used to put down mutants, and a change of clothes — opening the suit mid-operation was too dangerous, so I carried most of it myself as we set out.

"The place we've been staying until now is a goods warehouse on the outermost edge of the commercial district called Evon Square. It's a zone for bringing cargo in from outside or storing unused items, but after the rebellion most of it was looted or the hatches were locked down by the system, so exploring it yields nothing."

So finding JIN was pure luck, she added, and went on laying out the plan, carefully walking me through a hand-drawn structural diagram of Hermes on the back of the supply list.

"Which is why we're heading for the center of the sector. The bridge we'll cross on the way is the largest span connecting to the ship's midsection. The gate is broken, so it won't stop us from passing, but the environment itself is extremely dangerous — best to be careful."

The entire time we walked the dark corridor she kept drilling search routes and precautions into me, but none of it stuck. It wasn't because I lacked knowledge of spaceships, or because of the tension that a mutant might burst out at any second.

"Once we reach the center of the Evon Square sector, we need to move as stealthily as possible. If any still-active security program goes off, we're in serious trouble, so first the industrial workshop I already confirmed was safe— JIN, are you listening?"

"Excuse me?"

It was because the drawing Sera had made was so chaotic and abstract that I couldn't make sense of it at all. Even though I was automatically logging the path we'd taken and building a map in my head as we went, not a single part of her sketch matched.

"What…!"

"Ah— no! It's true my art-related exam scores were close to failing, but…!"

The moment I projected her own drawing in 3D onto the display and spun it around, her body temperature spiked from her earlobes all the way to the crown of her head. Just watching her tremble was enough to tell how thoroughly embarrassed she was.

"Th-the drawing is… right! I drew it not right after launch, but after the accident — a relatively recent state of things! And th-there were limits to the tools and the time!"

Given how desperate the situation was, keeping her emotions in working order like this was probably important too. I swallowed a laugh and just watched her reaction, which only seemed to make her feel more wronged — she stomped off toward the broken gate visible in the distance.

Once we crossed the steel door crumpled into a shape no human strength could have managed, a vast thoroughfare opened up before us, wide enough for several tanks to pass abreast. Unlike the cramped corridors we'd been through so far, traces of the crowds that had once moved through here were stamped everywhere.

"W-whether my drawing is strange or not is something you can confirm for yourself…!"

Sera pointed at an intermittently flickering information board and raised her voice for emphasis. On the still-powered panel, an explanation of the ship ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was displayed alongside a current-location marker, just like in a shopping mall.

"Look at this! It's the same, isn't it? Well?!"

It certainly wasn't the shape of a typical spaceship as I remembered them. A geometric ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠structure of multiple pillars branching out from the center, splitting again at the tips to wrap around the hull as they rotated. From bow to stern, six sectors were clearly labeled with the name of each section.

Where we stood was only the entrance to the passage leading toward the center. It was a ship on the scale of a small city, and the sheer size of it drove that fact into my skull like a hammer. Put another way — nearly every human who had lived on this vast vessel was either dead, or had become a mutant.

"Go on, then. Tell me. I want to hear an honest evaluation from an AI that can't lie!"

"What?"

It was genuine praise. She'd survived alone in this hell for over a year? I would have lost my mind a long time ago.

Maybe because I'd opened up to her a little more, the sync-rate message appeared again along with two choices. But as I read through them, something felt off.

I still didn't know the exact conditions, but if you chewed on the meaning of the word sync rate, the requirement for raising the rank was easy enough to guess. Build a close bond with the wearer. That much was clear.

But what direction were the options following?

If they were random, it didn't fit — every additional function the suit had offered so far was something Sera desperately needed. She'd needed connection with another person, so language. She'd been starving herself into frailty, so food. Even the drawing option, random as it seemed, made a kind of sense — getting her art up to merely ordinary would take a serious leap in skill.

But this one…

I remembered every reaction she'd ever shown on the subject of other survivors. Sera had desperately wanted to talk with me — but from the start, she'd never expected anyone else to still be alive.

And yet the option had been offered. Which meant this function was something she needed right now.

It's not like I'd pick a drawing class unless I'd completely lost my mind anyway.

Unlike last time, I didn't hesitate. I selected the second algorithm.

In an instant my awareness expanded, and things my vision alone could never have caught began latching onto my senses.

Holy shit…!!

Countless mutants clung to the walls and ceiling, every one of them locked onto us.