Narrator S: (Cleo) “Here’s another one! Looks like a suck-hole– I, I mean a Delta-type hole this time. Mark it down, Biological Man?” 

Narrator M: The Biological Man marks his map with another circle. The map is already peppered with many such circles, some of which are filled in to denote Deltas, and some of which are empty outlines to denote Founts. The Man colors this most recent circle in. 

Narrator X: The rest of the map is a jumble of interlocking lines, like one of those maze placemats you might have gotten at a restaurant when you were a kid, except much, much harder to solve. There are no other landmarks other than circles. Occasional handwritten guesses like: Amphitheater? Storage building? Jungle gym-type thing?? Such annotations as these crowd the map’s margins. 

S: The Biological Man has very neat handwriting, and, under Tzila’s artistic tutelage, has proven to be quite the competent mapper, too. 

X: And that’s why Cleo and Dot are leaving the mapping part of the mapping to him, while the three of them are out and about here today on their survey excursion. 

S: Merlin’s voice comes crackling in over the teletheric that hangs around the Biological Man’s neck.

M: (Merlin) “Hello? Hello. This is your hourly check-in. Or what feels like an hour, anyway. Felix still refuses to cooperate. How’s it going? You’re working on section E-42 today, right?”

(Biological Man) “Yes, Merlin. But Merlin, you are supposed to be resting. Don’t run your bocs down without good reason.” 

S: Fresh bocs are in very short supply now. This is why our search party here is on foot today. Gotta save the hosses’ dwindling energy reserves for when they really need them. 

M: (Merlin) “This IS good reason. There are seven of us left, Biological Man.”

(Biological Man) “What about Steve and Omelet?”

(Merlin) “Don’t interrupt me, please. As important as this mapping effort is, it is crucial that we don’t lose track of one another.” 

S: Cleo makes a face at the Biological Man which, he has come to learn, means “just tell Merlin what he wants to know so he doesn’t get all stressed out.”

X: The Biological Man has been learning that a lot of biological communication takes place nonverbally, using the squishy face-parts. Cleo is very skilled at using her squishy face-parts to avoid conflict and help others avoid conflict as well. 

M: (Biological Man) “Yes, Merlin. Ah, it’s going well. We have found one new aperture: a Delta. We are following the prescribed route and have encountered nothing unexpected. No Sentinel sightings. We did observe the sun go dark a few times, but the beam was pointed out somewhere else, all the other way on the other side of the cosmos.” 

(Merlin) “Yes, I saw that too. Hard to miss. Well, good, good. Talk to you in another hour, or something like that. Don’t forget to drink water. But only if you really NEED it.” 

X: And the Biological Man sighs as the call cuts out. 

S: (Cleo) “Kind of unusual that Merlin even let you come out today without him, isn’t it?” 

M: (Biological Man) “Yes. He appears willing to relinquish his supervision if it means that the mapping can continue. The mapping effort is very important.”

S: (Cleo) “Yes, the mapping is very important.” 

X: There are several other things Cleo would like to say about the mapping, but she doesn’t really enjoy saying things out loud that don’t accomplish anything except making others feel bad. 

S: Things like: IS the mapping really that important, or is it just the only concrete objective we have right now, the only thing that lets us feel like we’re making measurable progress on some task? We don’t even really know what we’re mapping, what any of this means, or how to use this information to get out of this place. Say we did it – say we mapped the entire outer shell of this cosmos, a task which would surely take uncountable years – then what? Would we actually be any closer to getting out of here? 

X: What she does say is: 

S: (Cleo) “Well, it sure is nice to get out on a walk! I wonder what all this used to look like when people lived here?” 

X: The Granddaughter is moon-bouncing slowly in step alongside Cleo, peering around them with their prescription heart shades, taking in the eerie city-like scene. (Dot) “We don’t know that people did live here, or that they were even anything like people in our sense of the word.”

S: (Cleo) “Well, we don’t know that they weren’t, or that they didn’t! I mean, look at THIS thing over here.” 

X: In low gravity, Cleo bounds over to a structure like a low banquet table, 

M: except for its bizarre placement in the middle of a wide, dark, eerie, black, haunted, stark, alien boulevard, and the way every other leg curves up like an elephant tusk.

S: (Cleo) “Doesn’t this look like somewhere people might have sat down to eat a meal?”

X: The Biological Man perks up, hopeful. 

M: (Biological Man) “Is it time for a meal now?” 

S: Cleo smiles regretfully. (Cleo) “We should probably keep going. The sooner we finish our assigned section, the sooner we can return to camp. You wouldn’t want to make Merlin worry, would you?”

[Whistling wind]

X: The apocalyptic orange light of the sun brightens as Cleo says this, as another brief sun surge takes place. 

S: A wave of heat. 

M: The three of them, gathered as they are around the surreal banquet table – Cleo, Dot, and the Biological Man – watch pensively as the blob belt in the sky accelerates, whirling with a more rapid solar orbit. 

S: The vast pit they recently added to the map begins to suction fold into its depths with momentarily increased force, like water swirling into a drain. 

X: A spiraling channel of fold is summoned from the blob belt like smoke drawn toward a vent, inhaled into the chasm. 

S: The fold billows, torrents, down and away into that bottomless oubliette, whisked away to some inconceivable destination. 

M: At about the same time, the ground tremors. Parts of the city structure crack and crumble, plummeting toward the yawning pit,

X: and as chunks of bedrock disconnect, shattering, they re-liquify into a silty powder, gradually becoming one with the flow of the fold, whispering down into the chasm. Indeed, it continues to appear that this bedrock is, as Steve suggested, a form of fold,

M: and seeing it crumble and whisper away as that dark fog once again reaffirms that belief.

S: They have all seen this numerous times by now. They observe with solemn attention, keeping well back from the activity, 

M: the edges of their clothing whisking in the direction of that inexorable pull.

X: And the flare dies down as it always does, and the cosmos returns to its standard creepy amber mood lighting. 

S: The stream of fold globs is once again gentle and sparse, swirling down into the pit’s depths like a slow-motion whirlpool. 

X: And they turn away and walk a while longer into the darkness. In the weak gravity of this place, their every step is a slow and gentle bound,

M: taking them deeper and deeper into the monochromatic city that surrounds them,

S: a vast sculpture carved from a single unbroken expanse of cosmic bedrock. 

M: Time and familiarity have dulled the shock slightly, but the discomfiting feeling of wrongness is still there, always there, hovering just out of perception, ready to rise up and become all-consumingly disturbing if you pay just a little bit of attention to it. 

S: Just walking around in the cosmos’s exposed tooth socket, no biggie.

X: Walking beside Cleo, the Granddaughter, with their new prescription hearts, is curiously eyeballing Cleo’s backpack as they walk. 

S: A yellowed pulpy webbing is fermenting upon it, bulging between seams, glue-ily obscuring the big cheerful Princess Shiny face beaming from the back of the pack. 

M: It is a fantastically grotesque spectacle, and Dot’s new eyeglasses afford them a dizzyingly bizarre image of every last fabulously pestilential detail. 

X: This is the grossest thing they have ever seen, and they are both repelled and delighted by the clarity of the sight. 

S: Cleo notices Dot’s enraptured attentions, and looks a little alarmed. (Cleo) “What? Is something wrong with Omelet? 

X: Dot shrugs. (Dot) “I don’t know. Is this normal? What is he doing in there?” 

S: Cleo hefts her backpack. (Cleo) “Well, he’s just doing his thing. The cocoon’s gotten a little bigger, maybe, but other than that not much has changed. He’s totally ruining my backpack. Can’t blame him, though. It would be nice to turn into a pupa and come out when this is all over. This is all so depressing.” 

X: (Dot) “Yes. It is taking a toll on everyone.” 

S: (Cleo) “Hmm. You know who doesn’t seem to be depressed, though? Steve!” 

M: (Biological Man) “Yes!” The Biological Man’s eyes widen again. “Steve is a very friendly person. He has been in extremely high spirits the entire time we’ve known him.”

X: (Dot) “I suppose it makes sense. He has been without companionship for so long, stranded in a strange place with no hope of escape. And I know that he is sympathetic to the pain and fear that we are all experiencing, but… it doesn’t change the fact that our being here is the best thing that has happened to him, probably in a very long time.”

M: (Biological Man) “He has also expressed great curiosity in everyone’s unique story, which is a nice thing to do when you’re making friends.” 

S: (Cleo) “Yeah, he was asking me all about Ebonreef and my family and our, shall we say, ‘colorful’ nuptial traditions. He was fascinated with Tzila’s stories about Verdure. Sounds like they don’t really have zoological gardens where he comes from.” 

M: (Biological Man) “And he smells nice.”

S: (Cleo) “He– he does! Oh my god, yes, he smells like fresh-baked cookies or something! Isn’t that crazy? Maybe that’s just his B.O. [sigh] Jealous.”

X: Cleo dolefully fidgets with her lank, greasy braid and her sweat-stained dress. 

S: She yearns for her chests full of clothes up there on the Ship. If she knew she was going to be stuck in this one dress for weeks, maybe she would’ve worn something slightly more rugged for the occasion of getting whisked into an alien cosmos. (Cleo) “What I wouldn’t give for a bath.” 

M: The Biological Man nods. (Biological Man) “It is necessary to douse the body in water. I used to be confused by this, but now that I haven’t had the opportunity to do so for so long, I understand. I have been experiencing many disagreeable odors and sensations.” 

S: (Cleo) “Heh. Me too, Biological Man. Me too. But we gotta save our water for… surviving.” 

X: She sighs longingly.

[A whimsical synth melody.]

S: (Cleo) “There was this one waterfall a few hours away from home where Granny used to take me to swim sometimes. The water was full of bioluminescent thingies that glowed purple and red when you splashed around. It was so pretty. I would play for hours and hours and just get so exhausted and cranky, but I never wanted to come out of the water. Granny practically had to force me to eat. She always brought these wonderful picnic baskets full of fruits and veggies from her garden…” 

M: (Biological Man) “Oh! Is it time for a meal now?”

S: (Cleo) [laughs] “No, but look, if you need a bite of food to keep upright, we do have some of yesterday’s beans in the backpack. They’re not in the Omelet pocket. If you want?”

M: (Biological Man) “Oh. Uh, I hoped it might be something different. Never mind.” 

X: Dot continues to peer about the dark city as their stroll continues. (Dot) “You’ve mentioned your grandma’s garden a few times. Did she garden a lot?” 

S: (Cleo) “Garden a lot? Oh, that was her whole thing! Her Fold gift, I mean. We spent so much time together in that garden. It was my favorite place in the whole estate. She could make plants grow basically instantly, and make them any color, any size, even make hybrids.” 

X: Dot watches Cleo with their corrected eyesight as she tells this gardening story, and Dot still is not used to what they see – the expressions on Cleo’s face, the depth and detail of them, how they shift with every recollection, turning from pride to affection to longing. 

S: (Cleo) “It’s… it’s funny, though. She almost never used her gift. She just… gardened. Like, normally. With time and dirt and water. It drove the rest of the family crazy. I guess that’s kind of why we got close. I was giftless, and she had a gift that she barely used. I didn’t understand until I got older, but the family was kind of embarrassed about her. Not just for the gardening thing. She did a lot of things they didn’t like, mostly before I was born, like during the Unification Wars and stuff. Stuff that went counter to the family reputation.” 

X: She swallows hard at this, her eyes misty. 

S: (Cleo) “She never let it bother her, though. She had so much confidence in herself. She taught me so much, but I never figured out how she did that.” 

M: The three of them pause at a sort of intersection, giving the Biological Man a moment to catch up with the map. 

S: Mysterious bulging structures like giant flower vases loom around them, their bases merging seamlessly with the featureless ground, their towering curved walls dented with shallow semi-circular niches as though someone had obsessively taken a melon baller to them. (Cleo) “Well, enough about me. Biological Man, what do YOU remember? About before? Like, do you remember being a Bocular Man? What do you remember about when you and Merlin encasement-exchanged?” 

M: The Biological Man’s brow knits for a moment. 

X: He looks up from his mapping as he considers the question.

[A wooden block melody.]

M: (Biological Man) “Hmm. Well, Merlin built me with the ability to remember, and I remember Merlin. I remember the Uppermost Outpost where I was built. I had observational records, history logs. I can recall those things, sure. But they feel different from the memories I have formed since inhabiting this body.”

S: He pauses for a moment, thinking. 

M: (Biological Man) “When I hear people talk about experiences that they have had, I feel as though I can understand them better, now. I have a frame of reference for the things they describe. How Everett feels cold without Micky. How Tzila sees colors. Why it feels bad to experience food tasting backwards.” 

S: (Cleo) “What? You mean throwing up?” 

M: (Biological Man) “Yes.” 

X: The Biological Man nods and takes a slow, deliberate swallow, the taste of a recent depression-powered bean chili of Everett’s all too easy to recall to his mind. 

M: (Biological Man) “Merlin calls it a better ‘sense of context’ since the encasement exchange. Context is hard to understand, but as time has passed, that has been getting easier as well. S-sometimes, I… even remember things from before I was built, though, and that’s… that’s a little strange.” 

[A contemplative bell soundscape.]

S: (Cleo) “Huh.” 

X: Dot and Cleo are watching the Biological Man intently now, as they turn down yet another wonky boulevard. 

S: He makes a little note about the turn on the map. 

X: (Dot) “Before you were built? But how is that possible?”

M: (Biological Man) “I don’t know. It is usually little moments. Ripley giving me a hard time about drinking so much coffee, or classroom lectures that went off the rails into embarrassing conversations but nonetheless worked their way back around to the main topic. When I remember these things, it… helps? It makes me feel as though I am learning more about myself, and the way that my self is the same and different from other selfs.”

X: (Dot) “These sound like, perhaps, Merlin’s memories. Have you spoken about this to Merlin?”

M: (Biological Man) “N-no, not directly. Right now, Merlin is only receptive to information that answers questions. I am trying to be subtle and hint at it only occasionally so as not to alarm him, but he continues to demonstrate a fierce distinction that he is a different self from me, and has intimated that his preference would be to experience the encasement exchange again. I sense that it might…” He shakes his head. “…upset him, to know that I can recall the memories inside of this body along with inhabiting the body itself. He is very… protective.” 

S: (Cleo) “Do you miss your old body?” 

M: (Biological Man) “Not really, no. I’ve been enjoying this one and the experience I’ve had, but because of his behavior, I believe Merlin is not happy. That makes it very difficult to fully enjoy, and hard to talk to him about these topics without depleting his limited bocular supply.” 

S: (Cleo) “Ugh, I feel that. You know, I… I kind of do miss MY old body. I mean, like, it’s the same body, obviously, but… Just the way it was before. It almost feels like I’m a different person now.”

X: The trio clamber up an oversized flight of… stairs, sort of? They’re huge – 

S: Sure, we’ll call them stairs.

X: – and kind of diagonal and pretty weird, but they’re stair-like, and they bound up them three or four at a time in their slow moon-bouncing way, stopping to catch their breath for a moment at the top before moving on to – you guessed it – another dark alleyway.

M: (Biological Man) “What about you, Granddaughter?” the Biological Man asks. “What is your origin, your past, your memory?” 

S: Ooh. Cleo is grateful that he asked. She turns to Dot with hopeful expectation. This is a story she’s been hoping to get out of them for a long time, but, for various reasons, has not pushed them on it. 

[A pensive guitar melody.]

X: (Dot) “I… am… from… Grendellieanne,” the Granddaughter says, quite slowly. 

S: (Cleo) “Grend– oh, no! Isn’t that place supposed to be, like, pretty bad?” 

X: The Granddaughter nods. (Dot) “I was the youngest in a family of eight, and I escaped Grendellieanne, fleeing from the Creep with an older sibling of mine. They fled with me and took me to see the Mothers, and the Mothers took me in, and turned away my sibling, who they could not help, who was far too infected.” They are gazing neutrally ahead down the dark boulevard as they all stroll together, reflecting. “The Lazaretto where they treated me became my new home, and the Mothers became my only family. And I asked them if I could become one of them. And, though they refused my requests for many years, they finally, finally, did relent.”

M: (Biological Man) “I am sorry, I do not know – what is the Creep?” 

S: Cleo is looking at Dot with inexpressible sadness. 

X: (Dot) “The Creep is a wasting sickness that afflicts many islets in the territory of Grendellieanne. It is one of the rare things that the Mothers cannot treat, especially if it becomes too severe. But I was young enough at the time that it had not taken hold of me, not fully. But my sibling, the rest of my family, though… They were not so fortunate.”

S: (Cleo) “Oh god, I… I’m so sorry, Dot.”

X: They are all quiet for a moment as the trio pass now into a kind of plaza spanned by numerous soaring archways, vaguely reminiscent of an ancient Roman arcade, except that the effect is somewhat ruined by solid horizontal beams of haunting dark city matter crisscrossing the space at wild angles, an overgrown thicket of forms.

M: Slices of spooky orange sunlight are scattered across the ground. 

X: (Dot) “It’s all right, Cleo. It was a long time ago.” 

S: (Cleo) “Well… what about after they finally accepted you as a Daughter? What about the Coenobium? Now listen, I’m not asking for any Mothers trade secrets or anything, just… What was your life like down there? Can you please tell me something, anything? I’m just so curious.”

X: They walk slowly, passing between light and shadow, light and shadow. (Dot) “The Coenobium is dark. Very, very dark. Never once has a single light or candle flame ever illuminated any chamber or passageway of the Coenobium. And it is so quiet. A silent, reflective place. Most often there I was alone, sometimes encountering other Daughters in the darkness, occasionally some Mothers, exploring the experience of thought, or learning how to silence it.” 

S: (Cleo) “Does everyone there whisper like you?” 

X: (Dot) “Yes. Even a whisper sounds like a shout in the Coenobium. You get used to it. It is so dark and silent. It is… very peaceful. Among my studies, I had some chores, and every day I would wash bowls in our refectory after our meals. It was very calm and meditative. In fact, doing those dishes was my very favorite meditation. And I… had one friend, who I used to do dishes with. We were chore partners.” 

S: Cleo, with the most innocent delicacy she can muster, asks (Cleo) “Oh! Um. What was… what was your friend like?” 

X: Dot blinks, gaze distant behind their pink heart shades, their face underlit by a soft blue-green glow, and before they can answer…

M: (Biological Man) “Excuse me, Cleo. I’m sorry to interrupt the conversation, but I thought you might like to know that your bioluminescence has returned.”

[A whimsical synth melody returns.]

S: She immediately stops in the middle of the plaza thicket under an archway’s sliver of shade from the grim orange sun. Mind blank, Cleo looks down at her arms. 

M: Dim but undeniable, like flickers of candlelight seen through the windows of a house at night, light is twinkling from within Cleophee’s skin, 

S: glimmering through her freckles – not all of them, and not as bright as it used to be, but it’s there. A few strands of her hair, too, are shimmering with a dim pink light, 

X: and the Granddaughter’s heart-shaped shades reflect the luminance.

S: (Cleo) [Inarticulate sounds of shock, excitement, uncertainty]

M: (Biological Man) “Another observation, if I may. The lights appear directional. They stay fixed in position as you move around.” 

S: (Cleo) “They do? They are?!” 

M: (Biological Man) “This is not how they used to behave.”

X: Cleo is pirouetting on the spot, trying to see what the Biological Man is talking about. 

M: No matter which way she turns, the side of her body facing the distant end of the plaza is the side that remains dimly illuminated.

S: (Cleo) “Ooh, ooh. Okay. Um…” Cleo takes a few exploratory steps in that direction. Her light gets slightly brighter, and as she backs off, it gets dimmer. 

X: She stares off in that direction in bewilderment, straining to see anything of note in the vast hollow orb of the cityscape, but it looks the same as everywhere else: dark, meaningless, strange, geometric.

S: (Cleo) “Why? Why? What does it mean? Why are they acting like this? Am I sick? Should we, should we go look in that direction?” 

M: (Biological Man) “No!” 

X: The Biological Man holds up a hand authoritatively, almost Merlin-like for a moment. 

M: (Biological Man) “Wait.”

S: (Cleo) “Okay. Oh…”

M: (Biological Man) “It is a waste of time and resources to go running off in some new direction. But, this IS the first new thing that’s happened in quite some time! I’m sure everyone will want to know. Maybe it will improve morale,” 

X: he says, thinking specifically of Merlin. 

S: (Cleo) “Ohhh. Okay. Okay.” 

X: Cleo is hyperventilating, pacing, and Dot places a steadying hand on Cleo’s re-illuminated shoulder. (Dot) “It’s all right, Cleo. You’re not alone.” They gaze at Cleo reassuringly, their eyes glimmering behind pink hearts. The Biological Man raises his teletheric. 

M: (Biological Man) “Merlin, are you there?” 

(Merlin) “Yes?! What? What? What’s wrong?”

(Biological Man) “N-nothing is wrong. I know I told you to rest earlier, but there is something happening over here, something very interesting, that I think you and the others might want to see.”