Narrator M: Merlin has been pondering the orb so hard, you guys.

[A contemplative bell and wood block melody.]

Narrator S: While the ground team has been searching the cosmos for the way home, Merlin has been orb-pondering as he has never orb-pondered before. 

M: The sun has proven to be a compelling research subject, and with any luck, this sunular sabbatical is reaching its end. The more Merlin has gleaned about the sun and this realm, the more he is impressed by it. Here, at long last, is something he can understand and explain.

S: Sort of. 

M: Here is something logical and elegant with clear purpose, cause, and effect. He has been absolutely desperate for something he can understand in its totality. That used to be the cosmos – or at least, one of them –and now it will be this sun. Assuming he’s right about any of it, of course. 

Narrator X: And acting on just such an assumption, he’s very much got that “geology professor on a field trip day” energy going on right now. He has been exceedingly chipper, exploring the outermost layer of the sun, developing his hypotheses. 

S: But as with any scientific undertaking, solitary theorizing can only get you so far. If you actually want to get anything done, you’ve got to convince other people that you’re right.

M: So, to that end, Merlin has called for a seminar of the whole crew: the sun team, inclusive of Guy, Rawfield, Hambing, Micky, Tzila, Felix – and the ground team, attending remotely via teletheric.

X: They are on the air with him right now, as he, Merlin, straightens his turtleneck with bocular hands. 

S: And heckin’ dang it, Merlin gets down to arguably his most famous and legendary skill: lecturing. 

M: (Merlin) “All right, we’re all here. Ground team, are you receiving me as well?” 

(Biological Man) “Yes, Merlin. We’re all present.” 

S: (Steve) “And Guy is still with you?” 

X: (Guy) “Yes, I’m here, with the others on the sun. Hello, Steve.” 

S: (Steve) “Ah, uh, wonderful! I’m so glad. Ours will be a glorious reunion indeed, Guy, my friend.” 

X: (Guy) “Indeed, it will. Indeed, it will.”

M: (Merlin) “All right. Then, let us attempt to facilitate such a reunion for us all. I propose: the minds that built this place used the sun to manipulate their reality.” 

S: Felix has taken a seat on the polished sunstone floor, assuming that they’re gonna be here for a while. 

(Felix) “Okay, but how–” 

M: (Merlin) “How, you may ask? Here’s what we’ve observed. By and large, there are three main features of this cosmos: the city enclosing the expanse, the circulatory fold network, and the sun itself. I think, to understand the whole system, we need to understand each part and how they are connected. The city appears, from our perspective, to be a ruin. It is devoid of anything – objects, creatures, even sense, logic, or discrete functions that we can discern. Perhaps most fascinating of all is the material that the city is made of. Hambing, I invite your prevailing theory at this time.”

X: (Hambing) “Uh, yeah! We have determined for sure that the city material is definitely a kind of fold concentrate. According to the ground team’s info, solar flares result in tremors, during which parts of the city slough off and revert back into what we think of as ‘normal’ fold – fluid or gaseous. Fold that enters this realm via those blow holes – sorry, I mean those Founts. It’s catchy, okay? Um, that fold is pulled up into the fold belt circling the sun. And the fold belt seems to gradually siphon back down into those Delta holes, one of which we now know that Cleo’s bioluminescence is pointing at. A constant in and out circulation of the fold at a slow cosmic speed – except for when the sun flares, in which case everything seems to flow pretty fast.”

M: (Merlin) “Exactly. The sun is the focal point around which this cosmos’s entire flow of fold circulates. And the sun’s luminance seems to affect the intensity of that flow. Steve, you said this sun is dim compared to the sun of your homeland?” 

S: (Steve) “Very dim,” Steve confirms over the teletheric. “Almost certainly dying.”

M: (Merlin) “Then I posit that in a more functional state long ago, this sun might once have had far greater influence, compelling the Fold with far greater effect. To see this cosmos in its golden era would have been a marvelous thing indeed. As a Foldlight influences its own fold with a language of light, this sun might once have commanded its own cosmic circulation of fold with incredible power.”

X: Tzila is nodding along, sitting on the floor here in the sun beside Felix. “And the Sentinel is commanded by the sun as well?” 

M: (Merlin) “I believe so. If we will allow that the sun is exhibiting intent through the Sentinel, I would say that we can reasonably assume this entire cosmos to be a kind of Foldlight-esque system, interacting with and controlling the Fold throughout with light, with intention, with its Sentinel. Is this a reasonable assumption?”

X: (Guy) “What you continue to describe as a Foldlight,”

S: Guy says weakly, his fold amalgam head-liquid darting and quivering through a Christmas-tree-like thicket of flickering neuronal fibers,

X: (Guy) “I would describe as a brain. That is how brains work. My brain, at least.”

M: Merlin nods. (Merlin) “My point stands. Be this a brain or mind or Foldlight, these are things we know to possess intent. And here we are, inside such an object!”

X: Hmmm! The team here on the sun, and the team on the ground, are each beginning to understand their own part in what Merlin is building here. Everyone is increasingly on the same page. Many of them are emphatically – some of them contemplatively – all nodding along. 

S: But plenty of them still have questions. Everett’s voice comes in over the teletheric now. 

X: (Everett) “Okay, but where did all this ‘intent’ come from? If somebody built this place, or they built the sun, did they, like… teach the sun its intentions? Were there ever even people here at all?”

M: (Merlin) “I would continue to suspect there were, once, people of some kind… but we could make inductions about their presumed way of life all day long and never even brush the truth. What we have seen at work here is a kind of operationalization of the Fold at a scale and level vastly beyond our own. Clearly, we’ve only begun to conceive of this kind of reality manipulation in our home cosmos, and are nowhere near what they appear to have been capable of here. If you think about it, the sun is the perfect control point. What a great way to survey reality – being able to see everything all at once! Nothing hidden, no secrets, no messy inconsistencies! Could such a thing be built in OUR home cosmos? Who can say?” 

S: Tzila gets to her feet. 

X: (Tzila) “Well, OUR intention is to get out of here. And Cleo’s lights are showing us the way – right, Cleo?”

S: (Cleo) “I think so, yes. It’s hard to explain, but everything is telling me this Delta-pit we found is the way home.” 

X: (Steve) “Especially if we can sail out of here on a robust current of fold – yes, yes, very likely!”

M: (Merlin) “Very well! Then we here on the sun may be able to trigger a flare to enliven the circulation of fold. The Sentinel seems to fuel the sun’s flares by incinerating matter. If we could somehow induce the Sentinel to find and incinerate the right thing…” 

X: (Guy) “Those flares are brief, though. You are going to need time to make your escape.”

S: Guy raises a good point.

X: (Guy) “You will need a flare of great intensity and duration.” 

M: (Merlin) “Yes. Perhaps we can identify more potent samples of tearror matter which would fuel the sun with greater force.” 

X: Guy is getting painfully, weakly, to his feet. He liquidly looks around at them all, slowly – with intent.

S: Rawfield’s eyes widen, then narrow. (Rawfield) “No. Guy, no. You–”

X: (Guy) “I already know how to trigger a flare such as you have never seen.” 

M: (Merlin) “Guy, no, that’s really not–” 

S: (Rawfield) “No, Guy. You’re coming with us. There are other options.”

X: (Guy) “Are there, Ripley Doctor? We both know I’m dying. This sun has devoured most of me already. In our short time together, you have shown me kindness such as I have never known. If I can help you with what little I have left, it would be my honor.”

M: (Merlin) “Absolutely not! It’s very valiant and sacrificial of you, but we will find another way.”

S: (Rawfield) “I can give you proper medical care back on our ship, Guy! You could still have years left!”

X: Guy shakes his head-stalk gravely at Rawfield, but he falls silent. His condition has deteriorated quite a bit ever since their trek up from the jungle level. He is weak and faded, and he simply doesn’t have the energy to argue. 

(Everett) “Well, how do we get you all OUT of the sun, though?” Everett comes in. “Can we come get you with the Stagecoach? Does the sun have a hangar?”

M: (Merlin) “I don’t think so. None that we have found,” Merlin says. “But hopefully that won’t be necessary. As we’ve seen, there IS a way for things to get to and from the sun – very, very quickly.” 

X: There is a silence, both in the sun room and on the line, but then: 

S: (Felix) “Oh hell no, not again!” 

X: Felix looks very tired of this crap.

S: (Felix) “YOU might not be able to feel pain, Merlin, but that shit–” 

M: (Merlin) “We don’t even know if we can! I’m just saying.” 

X: Everett cuts in. (Everett) “Wait, wait, wait, you – hang on, you want the Sentinel to come get us??”

M: (Merlin) “No.” Merlin interrupts Everett now. “Quite the opposite. I mean, perhaps, we here on the sun could sunbeam ourselves back to–” 

S: Felix flops on the floor like a petulant child. (Felix) “My skin is going to peel off my body if I do that again!” 

M: (Merlin) “Oh, well, whatever! None of this is real anyway without a means to interface with the sun’s functions, and I have yet to find any punch-discs laying around here.” 

X: It sorta sounds like maybe Dot says something on the teletheric, but it is naturally so quiet that it does not come through. 

M: (Biological Man) “One more time, Dot,”

X: says the Biological Man.

M: (Biological Man) “A bit louder, please.”

X: (Dot) “You may not need discs. If the sun really is like a Foldlight, there may be other ways to engage with it.”

M: (Merlin) “Oh? But– but I don’t have you or Artifice here. Or Steve.” 

X: (Dot) “No, you don’t. But you do have Guy.” 

X: Ooh! At this, Steve comes in. 

S: (Steve) “Yes! Guy, I have successfully interfaced with this crew’s, uh, light bulb device aboard their ship, and if the sun is similar, you should be able to engage with it. Oh, I envy you! What a grand consciousness it must be.”

X: (Guy) “None grander than yours, my prophet. Oh, how I have missed talking with you, your wisdom, your guidance.” 

M: Guy waves at his solar companions, shushing them, dissuading their incredulous looks. 

X: He’s clearly up to something here. (Guy) “It is my fondest wish to once again know the light of your intentions, Steve.” 

S: (Steve) “Oh, uh, goodness! Th-that’s not necessary– I mean, if you wish. I… Uh, anyway, ha ha– Do you really– Uh, first things first. The sun. Yes.”

M: (Merlin) “Ah… yes. Normally I would interact with our Foldlight system via a punch-disc interface, but our fold expert Mother Artifice could simply lay his hands upon the Foldlight and commune with it directly.” 

X: (Guy) “Very well, Merlin,” says Guy weakly. “Then let us see what we can see.”

S: Guy weakly approaches one of the glowing glass columns here, spanning floor to ceiling in the vast glassy outer hall of the sun, and lays a gecko-esque appendage upon it. 

M: Merlin does the same with a jointed mechanical hand, placing it against the hot lava-filled glass of the pillar with a delicate clink.

X: No one moves. 

S: No one speaks.

M: Nothing happens. 

X: (Guy) “Huh. Strange,” says Guy.

M: (Merlin) “What’s happening? Is it working?” 

X: (Guy) “Uh… This sun may not be exactly like your lamp,”

S: Guy says weakly.

X: (Guy) “I think… it may be inaccessible this way?” 

(Dot) “You ‘think?’” 

S: Dot’s voice hisses from Merlin’s teletheric chest grille. 

X: (Dot) “That is your problem. Stop thinking.” 

(Guy) “Oh,” says Guy. “Okay.”

[Anticipatory silence.] 

S: And his brain-bulb goes dark.

M: On the other side of the glass, emerging from within the lava, black tendrils of fold bloom in the blink of an eye, as though drawn magnetically to Guy’s four-digit handprint. 

S: Merlin sees a dark mirror of his own mechanical handprint appear as well. 

M: (Merlin) “Hmmm!” he says. 

[Intense, rapturous choral ambience.]

Transcendence. Awash with sensations, Merlin can suddenly see it ALL. The entire spherical cosmos from city to sun to city is just THERE, visible at a glance in a crazy fish-eye lensing sort of way throughout his entire perception, as though he is in the center of a panopticon. He can still feel his metal feet standing upon the polished sunstone floor, his hand against the hot glass pillar, and yet it is as though his head, his mind, IS the sun – like the biggest, hottest, most powerful VR headset ever. 

S: It is seeing the matrix. It is hearing the voices of a symphonic choir. Is this what Foldlight technology is capable of? Is this what it could someday become in their own cosmos? 

X: In spite of the fact that it was designed for presumably alien minds, there is an intuitive sense of ease, accessible to even a novice.

M: It is beyond language. It is so functional and easy. Merlin is blasted– stunned– stupefied– with the sheer potential of what he could accomplish here. 

S: If this were a 90’s action movie where Merlin was playing the part of a hacker, what he would say now is: “I’m in.” In fact, he does say that.

M: (Merlin) “I’m in.” 

S: This is not cringy or overdone. This is actually a very cool thing to say. 

M: This is simply what you SHOULD say when you successfully gain access to something that the plot of the story has been ramping up to. The secret is revealed. 

S: The password passed. 

M: The login established. 

S: Access granted.

M: It’s just what you say. 

X: (Guy) “Ah! Thank you, The Granddaughter, for that suggestion. We are in.”

S: Merlin boggles as hard as he has ever boggled before, and the man has done some boggling. 

M: It reminds him in some ways of his first moments of consciousness inside of the Bocular Man: unfamiliar senses, new capabilities, all of it strange and unexpected and bewildering, yet somehow usable through mere intuition. 

S: But this is on another level. The enormity of this is absolutely stunning. The literal and actual brilliance of it all is simply… 

X: (Guy) “Merlin, please focus!”

M: Awash in untold stories and facts and knowledge. Merlin somehow hears Guy through all the noise, communicating with him on a level beyond verbal. 

X: (Guy) “You must quickly learn how to operate this device without my help. I can only temporarily hold the brunt of it at bay.” 

M: (Merlin) “Ah! Yes, yes. We must induce a sun flare.” And he directs his focus toward the intention: brighten, flare, awaken. 

X: But he is met with an immediate obstacle: the sun does not have enough fuel. 

S: In fact, power reserves are critical. The sun is on the brink of starvation, the one remaining spark of life in a cosmos scraped entirely clean of resources. It has been living on scraps, kept barely alive by its one remaining caretaker. Everything is coming to an end. Evacuate. Evacuate. 

M: (Merlin) “No!! There’s not enough power for us to do that!”

X: (Guy) “What did I tell you, Merlin? We cannot ask this of a dying sun. Not without feeding it.” 

M: And it is just then, while Guy and Merlin are engaged in their solar communion, that the Sentinel materializes directly beside them.

[Menacing Sentinel sounds.]

S: A flash. A blast of heat. A huge maelstrom of dark appendages scrambling across polished sunstone, whipping toward everyone in the room. 

X: And Guy and Merlin regard each other, their awarenesses meeting in a disembodied moment. It’s almost like the rest of reality is frozen. 

S: But even as he forms the question, he feels the answer: asking the sun to stop the Sentinel would be like asking the Foldlight to neutralize its own fold, or asking a person to chop off their own hand or stop their own heartbeat. It is a crucial part of the system.

X: (Guy) “That won’t work, Merlin. But this will.” 

M: (Merlin) “Guy, no!”

X: (Guy) “I admire the way that you and your friends strive to keep one another alive. I have never known such generosity, only a pale facsimile. That alone is a shockingly precious thing, but it holds barely a candle to the way they regard you in particular, Merlin – the way they listen to you, the way they go where you lead. It reminds me of someone. Treat your disciples better than he did his.” 

M: Merlin is speechless. 

X: (Guy) “Goodbye, Merlin.”

S: Guy withdraws his touch from the column, leaving Merlin to grapple with the sun alone. 

X: And Guy turns to face the Sentinel. His fold pupil spasms, his twinkling brain-bulb sparks and flickers, and then Guy… lights up. 

S: A flash, a brilliance, a disco-ball of light and color as Guy unsuppresses himself. His brain-bulb illuminates fully, awash with churning fold and fireworks of twinkling neurons. He hovers into the air, frog limbs swirling. 

M: And the Sentinel, as though drawn to a fully-powered Foldlight, forgets about everyone else and singlemindedly lunges for him. 

X: And Rawfield lunges for Guy. 

S: (Rawfield) “Guy, NO!!”

X: Guy is levitating into the air, head strobing, drawing the Sentinel away from the rest of the team. (Guy) “Get them out, Merlin! Hurry!!” 

M: But Merlin is reeling. If communing with the sun was intense before, now, in the absence of Guy’s grounding cooperation, it is overwhelming – a cacophonous fever-dream of blinding omniscience. 

S: Power reserves are critical. This environment has been depleted. 

M: The dwindling sunstenance recycling system is already stretched to the breaking point, and the Sentinel, whatever it is, seems to be the last remaining incumbent of the role.

S: This system is unsustainable. Evacuate. Evacuate. 

M: Unsustainable as it may be, in this moment, Merlin is as a god. The magnitude of an entire sun is at his command: an inscrutable, deeply alien, yet astonishingly advanced system, answerable to him. The sheer power at his fingertips – intoxicating! This is how cosmology should be done – how it COULD be done!

X: Sunbeaming to and fro is just the tip of the sunberg. What else could he accomplish here? 

S: Could he simply reprogram the Sentinel to serve HIS goals? Why not transport everyone here and on the ground directly to the Ship and send it whizzing back home through the correct Delta in the blink of an eye?

M: Could he heal Guy’s illness? Access informational records? Understand the entire history of this cosmos and the mysterious beings that maybe dwelt here? Learn how they built this incredible machine? Could he… transfer his consciousness back to his original body? Perhaps he could – in another era, under other circumstances, with Guy’s help. But this sun is a shadow of its former self, Merlin is a novice, and there is no time. 

X: The Sentinel seizes Guy with singular determination. Black bedrock limbs envelop him, fastening around his head, grappling around his vibrant light. (Guy) “GO! GO HOME!”

S: The dark spidering form is turning in the air, Guy’s body helpless in its grasp. 

X: Hambing is backpedaling. (Hambing) “Merlin!!” 

S: Black limbs gathering, turning toward the crew now. 

M: And with agonizing reluctance, as though ripping himself away from the very Holy Grail itself, Merlin frantically redirects his focus outward, scanning the bedrock city, searching for the ground crew- 

S: And before Merlin’s intention is even finished forming, his focus snaps like a magnet, transposing instantly to the edge of a dark city Delta-pit, where the Biological Man, Cleo, Dot, Everett, and Steve appear to him in dizzyingly clear resolution, huddled around the teletheric. 

M: His attention is a beam of light which he directs, and he sees the faces of his companions suddenly awash in intensifying golden radiance. 

X: The crew on the ground recoil, reflexively shouting, diving for cover, as the sun irises onto them, sunbeaming, brightening–

S: There is a flash of light, a gust of heat. But this time, it’s not the Sentinel that materializes.

M: As the sun de-irises, the entire surviving crew – both teams of them – are standing here, together, in the city. 

X: A moment of disbelief, a second of stillness, as everybody just kinda looks at each other, like seeing ghosts. 

M: Ghosts with yet another round of nasty sunburns.

S: (Felix) [pained groan] “That better be the last fucking time,” 

M: Felix moans.

X: And then Micky is the first to move, vaulting a low wall of bedrock, colliding with Everett, almost knocking her off her feet. A hug to end all hugs. 

S: And the entire collected crew is surging toward one another, opening their mouths in a flood of exclamations, but then… 

M: In the sky above, the sun flares. 

X: In fact, it more than flares: it blazes.

S: It ignites in a glorious brilliance, the magnitude of which they’ve never seen before. 

X: Nearby, the column of downward-flowing fold accelerates from a trickle to a torrent, pouring out of the heavens like a dark waterfall, as all across the cosmos, the circulatory system of intakes and outtakes, the orbiting blob belt, surges to vigorous life. 

M: And still the sun brightens, transforming from dark sunset red-orange to brilliant sunrise gold – enlivened, it would seem, by a very singular specimen of fuel. 

S: Rawfield lets out a hoarse, anguished cry, crumpling to her knees, as the star shines with celestial radiance… with life. 

X: And this time, it does not fade.