Narrator M: Through weightless darkness, lit by dim and eerie sunshine, there glides a Stagecoach. It flies directly away from the sun, heading straight into the shadow beyond, towards the “something” out there in space, a flat blackness right now, ostensibly nothing. 

Narrator S: Inside the Stagecoach’s upper cockpit – 

Narrator X: This one is for navigation. There is a second lower cockpit for piloting. 

S: – Tzila is buckled into the navigator’s chair, surrounded by a dizzying array of instruments, gauges, meters, levers, switches, and little lights.

X: Redlight mode is active, affording the crew their most intact night vision as they squint out of the cockpit canopy into the night, seeing nothing at all, but looking for signs of change.

M: Micky floats weightlessly beside Tzila, gesturing to a bank of incomprehensible navigation instruments.

S: (Micky) “Now, autopitch and roll sync aren’t working without gravity, so you can just ignore all the yaw and heading alerts. The horizontal situation indicator here as well as this ‘turn and slip’ meter are more trustworthy right now, so you can refer to those if the pilot calls for corrections.”

M: A little red light starts blinking beside the stuff that Micky is explaining. 

X: (Tzila) “Oh god, what’s that?” Tzila yells. 

S: Everett’s voice comes over the intercom, hollering up from the pilot cockpit below.

X: (Everett) “What’s what? What’d you break? What’d she bust, Micky?”

S: (Micky) “Uh, that’s no big deal, that’s the lateral deviation alert. Just subtract the degrees shown on the ticker there from the main course angle, and Everett can trim to starboard to correct.” 

M: Tzila tentatively twists some knobs, and the little number tickers spin and whir.

X: (Tzila) “Uh, minus seventeen, eighteen?” she asks.

S: (Micky) “Exactly. Just keep doing that whenever it drifts. Normally, the flight calculator is in magnetic deviation mode and takes care of it automatically, but without gravity it’s all screwed up. So just keep an eye on it.” 

X: Behind Tzila’s shoulder, Micky flips over a navigational chart, exposing a totally blank page to start a new map on. 

S: She quickly sketches points for the sun, the Ship, the blob belt, Steve’s homestead blob, and starts drawing a dotted line of the Stagecoach’s course so far. 

M: (Micky) “No gravity, no Un, no Mediun,” 

S: Micky says. 

M: (Micky) “Guess we’ll have to get our bearings by good old-fashioned observation.”

X: Tzila is still taking in all the controls, shaking her head. (Tzila) “I am never gonna remember all this.”

(Everett) “It’s really pretty simple, Tzila, just listen carefully to your hot teacher. Do not make any mistakes or we’ll all die.” 

S: Micky smiles affectionately. 

M: (Micky) “And don’t listen to the attractive but poorly-behaved pilot. You’re doing great for a beginner understudy, Tzila. And you can always refer to the manual in case of an emergency. See?” 

X: She extracts a vast, battered, phonebook-like tome from under the jumpseat. 

S: She pages through it to the homing and navigation section, and Tzila catches a glimpse of dense handwritten annotations, technical information, acronyms, and electronics cutaways that make a Jod rulebook look like a children’s picturebook in comparison.

X: (Tzila) “Oh jeez, oh crap. And I thought regular standard boc maintenance on my dad’s old monocycle was tricky.” 

M: Over Everett’s laughter, Felix’s unmistakable apathetic drawl comes through the intercom. 

S: (Felix) “It only looks intimidating at a glance, Tzila. Most of this is redundant and is really pretty straightforward, especially the wayfinding stuff. We’ve got most of the same telemetry down here, too, so you can just check our math. This is nothing compared to–”

X: (Everett) “–compared to some of your clocks, right, you’ve said that before. Well, Felix, since it’s so simple, you should pick this up in no time, yeah? In fact, why don’t you show me how it’s done, Felix. Here, take the wheel.”

S: (Felix) “Oh. Uh, all right, but I–” 

X: (Everett) “It’s all yours, boss. I gotta pee anyway.”

S: (Felix) “Wait, wait. Don’t leave.”

M: Down in the main cockpit, Everett unbelts from the pilot’s seat and does a smooth zero-g backflip out of her chair, gesturing to Felix to take over.

S: (Felix) “Help…”

M: And she goes hovering past Cleo, who is herself drifting into the cockpit hatchway.

X: The Granddaughter is glued to a nearby porthole, peering calmly into the void through their pink heart shades.

S: Everett gives Cleo a chummy little bam on the shoulder and nods towards Felix. 

X: (Everett) “He’s doing pretty good for a guy who’s never flown a long-range aeroamphibious multipurpose payload transport delivery platform before, but do not tell him that.” 

S: (Felix) “Everett!”

X: (Everett) “Anyway, learning how to fly with no gravity is basically like training wheels. We can’t even fall outta the sky if he screws up. He’ll be fine. Don’t tell him that, though.” 

M: Oh, yeah. The Stagcoach isn’t designed to fly in zero-g.

S: How could it be? That’s not a thing that exists.

M: Why would anyone design a ship for such a environment as a zero gravity one?

X: Nevertheless, Everett and Micky themselves have quickly gotten the hang of it, and it is a great time to train a few folks on rudiments of emergency handling in case of… oh… emergency. 

S: Indeed, this is much easier than gravity-based flying, but non-Newtonian movement and how you drift forever unless you counteract it, is a whole new can of worms. 

M: One huge advantage, though, is that they are going to be able to conserve the Stagecoach’s power for a longer time, since they only need tiny gusts of thrust to propel the craft. 

X: The Stagecoach’s main engines aren’t even in use, just humming at bare minimum idle. 

S: They’re using their little air jets, normally designed for foldmersible mode, as their entire propulsion system right now. Efficient!

X: With Everett off to the tiny bathroom closet in the back of the Stagecoach’s main hold, Cleo drifts into the piloting cockpit now to watch Felix buckle in and try to come to grips with the eleven billion controls now at his fingertips. 

S: (Cleo) “Wow, it looks absolutely crazy in here. Are you getting the hang of it?” 

M: Cleo eyeballs all the dials and gauges and switches with bewilderment.

S: (Felix) “Oh, yeah. I’ll have all the basic operations memorized in just a few days. Not that I really have a way to calculate what a ‘day’ is, here…”

X: He seems to pause at the precipice of a vast mental conundrum, gauging his willingness to engage with it, and then he seems to come to some kind of decision, and he shrugs. 

S: (Felix) “Eh, you know, it’s been a while since I had a vacation. Don’t look a gift-grub in the mouth.” 

M: And he smiles. 

S: (Cleo) “Oh, um, speaking of grubs…” 

X: Cleo starts opening her backpack. 

S: (Cleo) “I’m just going around and letting everybody know…” 

X: And Felix’s exclamation is heard all throughout the Stagecoach. (Felix) “Omelet is fucking what?!” 

S: (Cleo) “I… sorry? I thought you’d be happy to know he’s not lost!”

(Felix) “That’s gross.” 

(Cleo) “It’s normal! He’s a cat. You’re so mean!”

X: (Hambing) “At least we don’t have to worry about feeding him for a while.” 

M: Hambing floats into the flight cockpit as well now, and perches weightlessly on top of the guidance and test control panel like a dashboard bobblehead. 

S: He looks up from the one ‘noc of the bocnoculars he’s been peering through, scanning into the void ahead. 

X: (Hambing) “As for feeding ourselves, I wish we knew how long we’ll have to make our rations last. Steve seems to be doing okay on this cosmos’s resources, but we don’t really know how different our biology is from his.”

(Everett) “And we’re getting a little low on water,” Everett says, floating back in from the bathroom. “Speaking of which, we’re probably gonna have to find some way to refill the Stagecoach’s waste–” 

M: But she doesn’t finish her sentence, because the sunlight goes dark. 

S: Everyone tenses up. 

X: The Granddaughter jerks back from their porthole. (Dot) “Uh, the, um…” 

S: Shit. What’s happening? Is the Sentinel triggered by the Stagecoach’s engines? Why wasn’t it before? Felix twists in the pilot’s chair. (Felix) “Uh, Everett?!” 

M: (Merlin) “What’s going on, Steve?” 

S: (Steve) “It’s okay! It’s okay. It’s not aimed at us.” 

X: Steve breaks away from an aft porthole where he, Merlin, and the Biological Man have been gazing out into space, conversing academically about the sun. 

S: Merlin and Steve, at least. The Biological Man has just been listening politely.

M: Steve’s rhinoceros-sized form goes geckoing through the cargo hold. 

S: That’s not a sight you see every day. 

M: And he raises a placatingly sticky limb, ferrofluid eyeball darting in his disco-light jello-sack head. 

S: (Steve) “This happens regularly. It’s not pointing at us. It’s not pointing at your big ship, either. We’re okay. It’s okay.” 

M: Out in the void, a very vast distance away, the sun sunbeams. 

S: It is impossible to miss. Everyone can see the shaft of hot radiance lock in like a long-range flashlight, pointing somewhere out there in the void. 

M: There is a dim and distant flash, and then the beam is gone, and the sun re-illuminates, and the cosmic darkness once again shines with that eerie golden sunlight. 

S: Micky and Tzila float down the ladder from the navigation cockpit above. 

X: (Tzila) “Oh, I nearly had a heart attack,” Tzila is panting. 

S: (Micky) “Should we turn around or kill the engines?” 

X: Micky asks urgently. 

M: Steve’s gel appendage bobbles on its stalk. 

X: (Steve) “We’re fine. It’s not looking for us. We can keep moving.”

S: Everyone is breathing hard in the dim red-lit Stagecoach hold. 

M: (Merlin) “Steve, you said you think the sun – the Sentinel – is targeting tearrors?” Merlin peers out that aft porthole, back towards the receding sun. “It was drawn to our ship’s Foldlight last time. Are there other powerful tearrors occurring in this place?”

S: Steve sticks himself to the ceiling of the hold, his froggy gelatinous abdomen bobbing gently. 

X: (Steve) “Yes, there must be. The Sentinel unfortunately reacted very fast to Guy and Barbara when we first arrived, before we learned to rein in our cognitions. The sun is spotlighting tearrors around this realm, and the Sentinel is addressing them. Well, that’s – that’s my best theory, at least. It holds up so far.” 

S: From the cockpit, Felix’s voice: (Felix) “Uh, Everett, you wanna come take a look–?” 

X: (Everettt) “Nah, you got this, Felix. Just don’t pull that big ejection seat lever.” 

S: (Felix) “No! Everett! You want to take a look at this.” 

X: Everett turns to look through the cockpit hatchway. Felix has, as well, turned in his chair, gazing back at her wide-eyed. (Everett) “Uh, yeah,” Everett says, beginning to now drift toward the hatch. “Maybe I do.”

M: Through the cockpit canopy, something is beginning to coalesce out of the darkness ahead of them as they fly directly away from the sun. It’s solid. It has shape. It has texture. 

S: It’s like Everett said. It’s not the dark of emptiness out here. There is a solid something, and it very slowly begins to take the shape of an immensely vast dark concave curve out there, dead ahead. 

X: Everyone gathers, crowding into the flight cockpit hatch, piling against the nearest side portholes. (Hambing) “It IS a sphere.” 

S: This alone would be plenty fascinating, but there’s more to it.

M: Tzila, adjusting her glasses as the shadowy curvature begins to take shape, mutters,

X: (Tzila) “It’s… a city.”

[Mysterious music.]

S: Spires, domes, avenues, all composed of the same indistinguishable dark matter, a matter so dark that the glow of the blazing sun behind them seems to get swallowed up in it, absorbed, negated.

M: But nevertheless, the closer they get, the more obvious it becomes: this cosmos doesn’t stretch out into endless nothingness. Quite the opposite. The darkness increasingly terminates in a vast, solid, physical wall – a wall which curves subtly inward, stretching out and over and under them like a colossally immense bowl, every visible inch of its surface textured with an endless subtractive cityscape, devoid of light and activity, encircling them – the inside of a vast sphere encircling the sun. 

S: (Steve) “This is incredible!” 

X: Although his senses work differently from the rest of the human crew, Steve is apparently having no trouble perceiving this spectacular vista. 

S: Everyone else is definitely seeing it, discussing it. Except Dot. 

X: (Dot) “What– Where– What– Where are you seeing this?”

S: they ask, craning their neck to squint out a porthole beside the Biological Man. 

M: (Biological Man) “It is just there, Granddaughter.” The Biological Man points out of the window, unhelpfully. 

S: Tzila looks out Dot’s porthole too, at the very obvious shadowy cityscape looming distinctly at the edges of the dark. She peers at Dot, who peers back at her. 

X: (Tzila) “Wait a second,” 

S: Tzila says. 

X: (Tzila) “Try these.” 

S: And Tzila hands Dot her glasses. 

X: Dot bemusedly takes off the heart shades, and puts on Tzila’s tortoiseshell specs. The vast concavity of a huge dark city looms, encompasses, with silent limitless clarity – stark, distinct, immense. The Granddaughter’s breath catches in their throat. It was not there, and now it is. And furthermore, it is there with a clear, indescribably detailed, impossible hyperrealism that is almost beyond the Granddaughter’s comprehension, or maybe actually beyond it. It is the realest thing they have ever seen. Everything else has been a distant dream.

M: (Merlin) “Dot?” Merlin asks from behind them. 

S: Tzila is beginning to smile knowingly. (Tzila) “You see it now?”

X: (Dot) “I, I, I…” 

S: Others are smiling too, exchanging glances. 

X: The Granddaughter turns from the porthole, from the immense dark vista, absolutely speechless. The inside of the cargo hold is just as jaw-dropping as the outside view. Every single tiny rivet, every wire, every weathered metal panel of the Stagecoach’s redlight-lit interior almost leaps from the walls with crippling detail and depth, and, hovering in the zero gravity of the hold, all beginning to smile knowingly, looking back at their bespectacled companion.

M: (Merlin) “Hello, Granddaughter,” says Merlin, his bocular gaze agleam. 

X: Dot is trembling, eyes welling with tears, their breath coming short as they turn, taking in the crew. (Dot) “Oh,” they say, “Oh, no.” 

S: Micky can’t help but chuckle. (Micky) “Oh, yes. Oh, yeah.” 

M: The way the sunlight cuts through the portholes, contouring all of their faces, the unlimited detail of shadow on every surface and pore of their skin, or the intricate mechanical details of Merlin’s hands, 

S: the depth and complexity of their expressions, the impossible realness of their eyes – Dot’s companions are beyond human, beyond imagination, and Steve is a startling entity of light and liquid and gel and jiggly muscular legs. 

X:  (Dot) “Oh no. Oh no,” the Granddaughter whispers, zero-gravity tears drifting like tiny soap bubbles. And then they see Cleo. For real. For the first time.

S: Cleo is staring back, innocently bewildered, amazed to see Dot so openly emotional out of nowhere, pushed over the edge by such a seemingly insignificant thing. And now they’re looking at her like she’s done something impossible, and she doesn’t really understand why, she only knows that it’s making her heart hammer hard enough to propel her into the ceiling.

X: The Granddaughter always thought Cleo was pretty. You will remember this, you know this. But Cleo was pretty like an impressionistic painting is pretty: a blurry halo of complimentary colors. This is different. Even without her bioluminescence, even sapped by fatigue and grief, Cleo still seems to glow, in a way. Her freckles are still constellations. There is a cosmos in her eyes, a fathomless level of depth in her every microexpression, telling stories of weariness, fear, affection, and wonder. She is human such as the Granddaughter did not know a human could be. And yet Dot knows in their heart that Cleo must have always been this way, but they simply could not see it. Even on the rare occasions that Dot had gotten very close to Cleo, something had held them back from looking too obviously. And to see her now, to see them ALL now, and all of THIS… is a shattering, an unmaking, a discovery, maybe even a Realization. It is not subtle, but is it clear?

M: (Biological Man) “I don’t understand. What’s happening?”

S: asks the Biological Man. 

X: (Steve) “I also do not understand,” says Steve. 

S: (Tzila) “Buddy, you’re nearsighted!” Tzila laughs,

X: looking at the Granddaughter, and they all laugh, and then the Granddaughter involuntarily laughs too, hoarse and unpracticed. 

S: Cleo gasps. 

M: It’s a shocking, unfamiliar sound to everyone’s ears, most of all the Granddaughter’s ears. 

X: And then they realize what they’ve done. Everyone is looking at them with surprise, and a huge upwelling of feeling crests upon the Granddaughter – wonder and sorrow and amazement and loss and fear – and they just lose all grip on their emotions, and instantly they just sob. 

S: The crew exchange looks of astonishment. Everett, floating in from the cockpit at this moment to see what all the commotion is about, sees the monk-like Granddaughter overcome with emotion – the very same person she was so jealous of for having attained total mastery of self – and she stops short, slightly slack-jawed, a curious expression on her face. 

M: Dot tries to hide it. But everyone’s seen it now. 

X: (Dot) “I’m sorry, I, I…” 

M: And they just can’t keep it together.

X: Somehow the most overpowering feeling in their body at being seen this way by everyone is not guilt. It is relief. The putting-down of a mask that had grown so very, very heavy. 

S: Didn’t Mother Artifice tell them to RELEASE CONTROL in his final moments? 

M: The group’s astonishment is quickly supplanted with a murmur of knowing chuckles and coos of affection.

S: Tzila and Micky converge, coming toward the Granddaughter in a zero-gravity group hug, 

M: as Hambing sproings in and gives Dot’s upper arm a big squeeze like he’s hugging a tree. 

S: The Biological Man, studying this “group hug” with wonder, joins in a moment later, once he’s sure he’s gotten the hang of it. 

X: Dot just weeps. They shake. 

M: Merlin pats their back gently. (Merlin) “There, there.”

S: Cleo clasps her hands tightly, yearning to join in, but also hesitant for some reason. She just watches, paralyzed by a potent cocktail of emotions. 

X: Felix is cranking himself around in the cockpit chair, peering back at them, all looking gobsmacked. 

S: (Felix) “You have feelings? So you’re just a normal person?”

X: (Dot) “I, I’m not supposed to–”

M: (Micky) “It’s okay.” 

X: Micky is smiling. 

M: (Micky) “Feelings are good. Feelings are cool.” 

S: Dot stares at them all, tearful, wide-eyed, through the tortoiseshell glasses. 

X: (Dot) “Is this real? You see all these things? Is this the way it is for all of you, all the time?”

S: (Tzila) “Yeah!” Tzila says “It’s real, and you’re not even wearing your own prescription. My glasses are probably only sorta right for you.” 

X: Steve is totally stumped by all of this. (Steve) “Your optical senses are improved by a piece of glass?” 

M: (Merlin) “Well, you see the eyeball is based on a sort of lens shape, and it is through these lenses that we can augment and change our own visual perception of things–”

S: Merlin goes on, attempting to explain eyeballs and lenses to Steve. 

X: (Dot) “This whole time, everything has really looked this way? This entire voyage? My whole life?” 

S: Everett is looking at Dot with a strange faraway expression, eyes dewy. 

X: (Everett) “Yeah, it has.” 

M: Everett takes Micky’s hand, opalescent fold scar shining in the sunlight.

X: (Everett) “It really has. You just couldn’t see it.”

(Dot) “I’ve missed everything! I haven’t seen any of it! I missed the entire journey! I had no idea, I had no idea, I had no idea…” 

M: (Merlin) “All that time spent in the pitch-dark Coenobium – of course your vision has atrophied considerably. I should have known! I should have helped you sooner. I’ll mill you some glasses of your own straight away. If I could build a Bocular Man in a remote outpost, I’m sure I can scrounge the necessary materials to make a simple pair of prescription lenses right here on the Stagecoach. There’s so much for you to discover, Granddaughter! There’s so much for you to see.”

X: (Dot) “There is more for me to see? There’s more?”

M: (Merlin) “You will see everything! Every moment will be a discovery. You’ll see it all! There is indeed, so very, very much, much more.” 

S: Dot looks to Cleo. Their eyes meet, the Granddaughter’s dark, almost black, 

X: Cleo’s pink, like strawberry jello, like translucent gemstones. As extraordinary and unsubtle as this revelation is, the Granddaughter knows the answer when they ask the question, and the answer is as clear now as their eyesight is in this moment. This is incredible, and this is heart-stopping, and this is transcendental… but this is not Realization. This is just wearing glasses for the first time. 

S: And speaking of remarkable sensory discoveries… 

M: A unique feeling is beginning to whisper at the edges of the crew’s awareness – a familiar sensation, in fact, as the group-hug gaggle begins to drift in midair, very slowly, slowly, in the direction of the cockpit hatch, 

S: toward the front of the Stagecoach, toward the looming city dead ahead. 

M: Everett breaks free from the group. 

X: (Everett) “If I’m not mistaken, that’s, uh… that’s gravity.” 

S: Yes, indeed. The vast city is increasingly not ahead so much as it is becoming below, and the Stagecoach is beginning to accelerate toward it, nosediving. 

M: Gravity is pulling them in. 

S: (Felix) “Uh, Everett?!” 

X: From the cockpit comes Felix’s urgent voice, and Everett and Micky hurriedly clamber to his aid, and the Stagecoach maneuvers in space, reorienting in response to what is increasingly “down” now. 

S: The main engines begin to spool up as thrust is directed to counteract the pull of gravity. 

M: You know that feeling when you arrive at a particularly momentous location, made so because of its placement in the geography it sits in or on? These sites are sometimes accompanied by a biological experience – the way that your ears pop as you first start to ascend Stationary Hill, or when you catch that first rosy-scented gust of wind from the opening door of a Verdure tram. It sends that prickle of excitement, like static electricity across your skin. 

S: This place feels important, yes, but wrong, somehow, too. If the Delta had the quality of a nauseating smear full of nightmarish garbage, looking at this place is… Well, it’s kind of like your eyes keep sliding off it. Not that they actually are, but it gives a primal feeling to behold.

X: The Stagecoach descends, beginning to glide over the strange alleyways and boulevards. There are definitely structures down there: round towers, buttressed steeples, low flat warehouse-like shapes, walls, doorways, repeating forms. A peculiar diorama of shapes. 

M: (Merlin) “Everett, can we please land here? I would like to take a look around.” 

S: Steve is beside himself, jiggling with excitement. (Steve) “This is incredible. You are all geniuses! I can’t tell you how amazing it is to experience this discovery with you all! I am so glad you’re here!”

X: The Stagecoach deploys landing gear, and Everett guides the ship into a cautious hover above a sprawling, silent, dark courtyard, and up in the navigation cockpit, Micky throws on a pair of headphones, listening carefully to some echo-feedbacking, frowning. 

S: (Micky) “Sounds stable. Dense ground, no hollows or cavities. Should hold our weight.”

M: Merlin is bustling around the hold, pulling on some adapted mica-resistant boots. He’s gathering a couple of different pokers of various scientific types – 

S: That one’s a bocumeter, for sure – 

X: And with a gusting of wind, of thrusters, the Stagecoach touches down in the dark city.

S: There is gravity again, yes, but it is strangely low. 

X: Micky is climbing down the ladder from her cockpit in a drifting slow-motion kind of way, as though moving underwater.

M: Holding his miscellaneous scientific appliances, Merlin turns to the crew. (Merlin) “Don’t worry, I’ll be the first one to do it. To go out there.”

S: Felix scoffs. (Felix) “Yeah, yeah. You just want to be able to put it in your autobiography that you were the first one to set foot in the Super Far Delta, or this other cosmos, whichever it is.” 

M: (Merlin) “I’m sorry, do YOU want to be the first one out the door?”

S: (Felix) “No.” 

X: The Biological Man smiles. 

M: (Biological Man) “I’d be happy to do it, Merlin!” 

(Merlin) “No!” says Merlin, 

S: lunging for him. 

M: (Merlin) “Don’t forget, your body is fragile now. Be careful, and don’t unnecessarily put yourself in harm’s way. I built you – I mean me – for exactly this kind of thing. Now let me do it.” 

X: The cargo hatch opens, and a small pool of red light illuminates a spooky, shadowy, midnight zone, the sun a distant pinprick of light.

S: There is no movement. A deadness. A tomblike, ancient stillness. 

M: Merlin goes down the cargo ramp and tentatively extends a digitigrade leg. The boot contacts the surface.

S: Nothing happens. 

M: He takes another step, and then another. He looks around. He uses his pokers 

S: to poke the ground. 

X: In the cargo hatchway, the entire assembled crew is watching him, 

S: holding their breath.

M: (Merlin) “From what I can tell… The air isn’t poison. The floor isn’t lava. There aren’t wild beasts leaping out to kill me.” 

S: He beckons welcomingly to the crew. 

M: (Merlin) “Come on in! The dark interdimensional city is just fine!”