Binah

This section contains spoilers related to the story of Lobotomy Corporation. Read ahead with caution if you want to experience the story for yourself.

## Binah

### Missions

Collecting Extracted Specimens
The Ego’s Accessories
The Ego’s Shells
Abnormality Dissolution

> *"Don't ask for my name. 'Binah' isn't the name of a person. It's a sad name of the place where one finds many graves."*
> - Binah
>
>

**Binah** is one of the Sephirah that works for the Facility in the lower layer, Atziluth, and is the head of the  Extraction Team. The player can meet her from Day 37 to 42, depending if the first expansion is unlocked.

She has asymmetric hair with different lengths on each side. Her hair is mainly black, but also seems to have golden highlights. Her eyes are tired and black, and she has a single golden earring. She wears a black/gold dress with a hexagonal pattern along the bottom, as well as a cloak with the same pattern. The color associated with her text boxes is Black.

Binah's missions focus on the extraction of E.G.O Equipment from Abnormalities, or otherwise raising their observation levels.

## Personality

Binah has a somber and sadistic personality, showing no empathy with her lack of emotions and seeing herself as someone detached from humanity. She enjoys taunting with a condescending expression, adores pain and suffering as her source of satisfaction, and marks that what she does is only business, but all in a calm and eerie speech.

Although she possesses a vast amount of knowledge about E.G.O, its origins, the world outside L Corp and the Manager himself, Binah often speaks in verbose speeches and metaphors, rarely giving a straight answer. Moreover, Binah often twists the morals and objectives that the Manager and A have, such as the sacrifice of Employees and the creation of the Sephirah.

## Story

>     *"I'm the one who draws the water. Why have you come here, and what do you wish for me to draw?"*
> - Binah
>
>

Binah's work focuses on the extraction of E.G.O. from other people's subconscious. A job that, as she explains, no one else could possibly do, as it requires one to withstand the horrors that dwell within the mind. She enjoys the dread that surrounds her work and, ironically, believes she was placed here as a punishment.

### Meeting - Cutscene 1

Binah bluntly greets A in her Department, like seeing an old worker and asking after if he had fun while she was locked there. She states that is not mad at him for being locked in eternity, along a sarcastic sentence explaining that the flow of time in there is hard to measure and therefore that same eternity saved her, before quoting "Oh sorrow, you see, finally I have come to respect you, for I know you will never depart".

Binah then begins with a metaphoric explanation about the "River", dividing it into 'Upstream' and 'Downstream'. This wide River start across a city in the Upstream and goes to the Downstream, which ends in a large meadow. The mud, sand and sludge ends in the downstream. Binah then talks about the "Well", where she draws water from every day. Supposedly this "Well" is located near the River's downstream and no matter how much she draws, the water level of a well never seems to lower. The Manager is given two options to ask about: What is the Well? or What does it mean draw water?

Picking the first option, Binah reveals that the Well is so deep that it's bottom cannot be seen, the water level never overflows but sometimes show ripples from leaves that fall in from the winds. and is the source of "all mankind and their relics from ancient times". With the second choice, Binah responds that is her role to bring water from the Well back to the surface, but you can't never know exactly what it will contain, ending with a warning to not fall into the Well. At the end, she remarks that perhaps the Well warned people of quenching their thirst, but it was the Manager who created the 'Bucket' to draw its water, but he isn't who pours the water drawn.
She says to not ask for her name, as "Binah" is not a name, but the name of the place where many graves are located. She is only the drawer of the Well and asks him why he has come to this place, and what he wants her to draw.

Finishing the scene, the Manager will get his first mission of the  Extraction Team.

### Cutscene 2

After completing the first mission, Binah and The Manager meet again, with her starting by questioning if he is looking at the tombstones of the department; the ominous dark structures with runic writing seen in her Background. Binah says that it's only natural to find them a spectacle to see, and confesses that she used to spend days in reading all the meaningless letters on them. She describes them as coffins, but also as both death itself and the possibilities birth can bring. She says she's been guarding these coffins for countless years, performing consecrations to those confined in them, who in her words, don't even have the privilege to depart for an afterlife. She declares that if you spend enough time near the graves, you can hear the obscure whispers of the dead, black as pitch and which make her feel as if she was full with nebulous, murky water. Binah points out that the Manager might be bored, noticing he's looking around the place. She says she doesn't often have guests, and it would be disrespectful to just show him the tombstones.

An Employee then comes to her, referring to her as "Lady Binah". She says this employee once "had his boundary collapsed", before asking for his name. The Employee pauses for a moment, before answering his name is Nathan. She then explains that he had the task of extracting E.G.O, but during the extraction, he carelessly peeked into the Well, and survived out of luck. To minimize the damage he had taken, he was given the maximum dose of Enkephalin that could be given to him, and so, he could barely return to work, but she adds that once one looks through the crack of the boundary, they can't ever return to the world they once belonged to. Binah asks the manager if he'd like to see something interesting, before asking Nathan to describe what he saw; the scenery he witnessed with his own eyes, but had to forget at all costs.

Nathan's speech stutters, as he speaks that within the tombstones are "those who sleep", sunken deep. Binah calls them "those who are dreaming good dreams", and explains that they're the one she calls the Well. The Employee, still stuttering, further adds that they have to dredge them up and inject them with Cogito, while Binah orders him to keep describing what he saw afterwards. He can only mention a "man in the Well" before falling apart and stuttering into unintelligible sounds before fainting. Binah remarks it in sarcastic pity, and as before in the first scene, the Manager can ask two different things: Why did he pass out or what will happen to him after.

By choosing the first option, Binah replies that the employees, referring to them as "her children", cannot disobey her; that employee pushed himself to the limit to try to finish his sentence and failed in its attempt to obey Binah. Picking the second one will make Binah respond to not worry for him, as he will not last even today with a weak mind, remarking is easier to just watch the sand fall instead of trying to stop a sandcastle of crumbling. After that, she tells the Manager she has already seen what that Employee fainted about thousands of times, which then allows another option to ask, either how is she still fine or if she's alright now.

No matter the choice, Binah sarcastically remarks the way the Manager asks how she's sane enough to have "a little friendly conversation" with him, before giving credit to her mechanical body, calling it the reason why she can barely grasp onto her mind. She asks the Manager, openly naming him as A, if he's forgotten that she's originated from a human mind as well. She keeps silent for a moment, before adding that if there's one thing she could consider fortunate, it's the fact that if she was ever to lose her sanity and run amok through the facility, attempting to bring it down along with him, Angela would turn her off once more. Although Binah adds that if that were to happen, she'd prefer that it was the Manager's own hands that would terminate her, saying it's the least he could do for someone as confined as her.

### Cutscene 3

Binah speaks about the routine of the fierce fights that come with suppressing Abnormalities and how, no matter in how many pieces they're broken into, they will always come back to life. She also points out this is a fact that drove Gebura mad, and how long she took to understand that the Abnormalities are to be exploited, not eliminated, possibly out of holding to the indignation of her past failures, though she also remarks that's none of her concern, and although the only thing she knows is that she will never see her as the one she faced before, she's still astonished by the potential of E.G.O every time Gebura goes on a rampage.

The Manager can ask her to elaborate on "E.G.O's potential" or the reason why Binah was astonished. If the former option is chosen, Binah interjects that he will never know it, as the Manager has never wielded an E.G.O. If the latter option was chosen, Binah mentions that it's only natural that she's drawn to its potential, given how E.G.O extraction is one of her duties. Either way, she moves on to talk about weapons of enormous power besides E.G.O: Artifacts from the Outskirts and the Ruins, the Singularities exploited by the Wings or haphazard devices from the Backstreets, all could fare against Abnormalities, but giving weapons like those to L Corp's employees, who never learned how to fight outside basic training would be like teaching a hatchling to hunt. She contrasts them to the Rabbits, who specialize in killing by spotting their enemies' weaknesses and focus their firepower on them, given that they have enough munitions. Binah notes that combat ability isn't a requirement to get hired by L Corp despite the dangerous environment, but the employees don't have to learn how to use E.G.O. Instead, its power grows along with the employee's spirit, one knows how to use it the moment they wield it. Nevertheless, even though they wield such power, most employees can't control it properly, and barely stand a chance against Abnormalities, further adding that she's never seen someone bring out its true potential besides the Red Mist.

She compares wielding E.G.O to dressing oneself with the shell of someone else's mind, merely imitating it and unable to use its full power, also mentioning that had she known that before being imprisoned within L Corp's facilities, she would've done anything to get her hands on it, as it would've changed the circumstances dramatically. Binah points out the irony of her comments, seeing how now she issues orders to extract E.G.O, forbidden from even touching it herself. With this in mind, she believes the Manager must fear her still, even though her hatred and bloodthirst is now confined to a rusty metal cage. She reassures him, seeing that she "no longer has anything left", but warns him that her yearning for blood could wax once again as it was merely sealed, not uprooted.

### Cutscene 4

Binah describes the surface and the City above, calling it "The world [The Manager] once lived in". She speaks of it as a luminous place, with a sun and moon, clouds and winds floating below them, describing it as a "world of light". She also points out that he couldn't stay there, having been robbed of innumerable things, living with a broken heart and clinging on to the void where the pieces used to be: A pain that no one could understand, and therefore no one could embrace, to the point eternal loss dominated him. She names herself as one of the thieves that robbed him of such things, watching and looking down on his struggle from the top of the top of the world. She adds that he's not the only person she has done this to, describing their struggles as something no less futile than an insect writhing, only needing to be stomped a few times to be dealt with. Still, she remembers a few who would grit their teeth and climb up with broken bodies.

Binah moves on to reminisce about her assignment to wipe out the Outskirts lab, recalling she, at first, thought of it as "another fun little trip", and thus drank a cup of tea before leaving with light steps, but her unexpected encounter with the Red Mist got the best of her. She laughs as she remembers how the Manager tried to inflict as much suffering as Binah did to him, noting how he was familiar with ways of breaking minds without torture or violence. She describes her creation as him gathering every bit of humanity that was left of her and threw it away in the depths of L Corp's facilities until even her spirit soured and rotted away. She also wonders if he thought she deserved worse than that, and therefore thought of himself as an upholder of justice having defeated an icon of evil, to which she asked why would such an upholder would make himself a prisoner just like she was. She also asks about "The coward", who fearfully averted her gaze from her dying eyes, and was also a prisoner along with her suffering the same punishment.

To all this, she only says there can't be a sight more satisfying for her, mocking the Manager by asking if that's all of Carmen's idealism came to be, who was also dragged down to this place by him. She taunts him further by asking if his duty fulfills itself just by shedding tears for the deaths of the innocent, all while he won't even let their bodies rest in peace. She points out that ironically, he's somehow found hope in this misery: Cogito, the raw material of the Bucket, and the path to the River where it's sourced from. Out of Carmen's remains he formed the Bucket, using it to send it down into the Wells of people's minds, rising full of water can only be drawn by that person. She compares these Wells within their minds to an ancient fount flowing within the bottom, even before the birth of the world. Now, this water is simply drawn, regardless of consent from the person, and when the Bucket that holds her faded ideals comes in contact with another person's ego, a certain change occurs.

The Manager can ask about either the Bucket or the change she talked about. No matter which option is chosen, she objects that it's something difficult to understand by only listening. Long strings of glyphs manifest around Binah, saying that albeit taxing, she will show him "one of her miracles". Binah mentions that the people that were selected long ago await their return, and she brings them to her according the register. She brings one employee she calls Nameless, somebody who has nothing left, abandoned all that he was a long time ago. She points out that for him, things like the remnants of the past and the pain of the present no longer matter, only blankly staring into the future. She asks him if he "dreamt well", to no response from the employee. She assures him that now he'll finally dream for as long as he wishes, one that he'll never wake up from, as the Employees will inject him with Cogito soon.

Binah asks the Manager what kind of River flows within him, what world lies within himself. She adds that there are as many worlds as there as people, and thinks of the process of discovering them as fun. As the mindless employee groans, Binah's expression turns dark, remarking that no one must see such things, which is why the Employees adjust the levels of Cogito according to her orders, while they cover their ears and eyes. She stays silent for a couple moments before saying that no one shouldn't make direct eye contact with the people who have been drawn from, but she can't bring herself to look away from him or to close her eyes, no matter how unbearable it could be, how in the eyes of the drawn there are abysses only she could endure, things that shouldn't exist in this world. She names this the punishment the Manager obligated her to endure as her face turns to normal once again; a normal person would've gone mad a thousand times if they were forced to do this, and mentions how thanks to him, Binah couldn't be graced with insanity or losing her mind; the only thing she can do is capture all of it in her sight.

The employee groans again, as Binah wonders if he will rise anew, or will he be stuck in these pillars and spend eternity along with her in this place. She asks the Manager if he now realizes what all these pillars contain, before saying the Manager is lucky today: She speaks of how when Cogito isn't adjusted correctly, things that "shouldn't exist" come up as fragments, as an adverse reaction that has its price for doing something unspeakable to a human being, before laughing at the irony of her comment. She says the Bucket sometimes rises with impurities mixed in, such as the abyss within humanity, the subconscious and all kinds of possibilities, all kinds of beings that have existed and will exist in this world. Given that they're outside their dominion, there's nothing that could be done to control them, floating around aimlessly, resonating with Abnormalities and manifesting themselves when the times comes. She points out how the Manager has named them Ordeals, and how thankfully they react to the Qliphoth Deterrence, so they can be suppressed in the same fashion as Abnormalities, but that's all that can be done.

Binah speaks of how extracting abnormalities is her work, but creating them is Carmen's, who he buried a long time ago. She calls her the mother of all Abnormalities that exist within this facility, and all those that will come to emerge in the future. Binah asks the Manager how does it feel to know that the Abnormalities he's faced above were part of the pillars around them, speaking of it as an agonizing sight, one that surely doesn't matter at all for the Manager, saying erasing his own memories and running away to the beginning as if nothing had ever happened is his specialty.

## Relationships

### The Manager

Binah is one of the few people to acknowledge that A and the Manager are the same person, and as such she believes he still holds a grudge for the massacre of the Outskirts Laboratory. She taunts him by twisting his means to finishing the 50 days, wondering if he truly believes the sacrifices of countless Employees, the Sephirah and even his mentor Carmen will be absolved with his goal.

## Meltdown

 WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING
 MANIFESTATION OF QLIPHA DUE TO SEPHIRAH BREAKDOWN  Suppression of Sephirah’s Core Required  THIS SECTION HAS MAJOR SPOILERS, READ AT YOUR OWN RISK!

Garion

* Garion
* Robot Form

Past Name
Garion

Trauma
Badly wounded by Kali and tortured by A for intel.

Suppression Reward
E.G.O Equipment will no longer be lost upon employee death.Extraction Team will not be affected by the Qliphoth Meltdown.

**Garion** was formerly an Arbiter, a type of elite agent exclusive to the Head. These singularity-infused assassins are capable of decimating entire Wings all by themselves and can easily defeat even Grade 1 Fixers. Under Michelle's intel, the Head sent her to attack the former L Corp, nearly decimating the whole facility. She managed to kill the Red Mist Kali, only to be impaled by her at her last moments, nearly dead. After being captured near-death, her brain was used by A to form the Sephirah "Binah". Her appearance as a Sephirah and as a human are identical: The black, golden-trimmed coat that is the uniform of the Arbiters. After her death, her human appearance was used in the creation of "Binah" utilizing the Cognition Filter.
Once the player completes Binah's Meltdown, the Cognition Filter that hides her true appearance as a robot is lowered. Her robot form is black/gold and rectangular, featuring the same hexagonal pattern that's on her regular outfit as well as a single golden eye. Her robot form features black/gold mechanical arms and legs as well as a smaller version of her cloak.
After revealing her true form, Binah admits how similar she and the Manager are, as both are not distracted by what's before their eyes and keep her sight focused on their ultimate goal, naming themselves mutants this epoch has created. She acknowledges his determination to fight against all odds, and declares she will witness every step he takes until he triumphs.
The reward for defeating Binah's Meltdown is having E.G.O equipment no longer be lost when its current wielder dies, along with giving the  Extraction Team immunity to  Qliphoth Meltdowns.

Backstory
Garion had been assigned to wipe out the Outskirts lab shortly after having wiped out H Corp, having been given intel from Michelle. She managed to wipe out nearly the entirety of the facility, but was mortally wounded by the Red Mist in a Pyrrhic victory. With this, A and B managed to recover her body, probing her brain to obtain information on how to become a Wing. After A extracted information on the head from Garion's brain, he made her the first Sephirah, giving her the "gift" of being unable to succumb to madness and condemning her to forever having to go through the E.G.O. and abnormality extraction process, which would drive any other person insane. This was meant as a form of torture for killing everyone in the company bar himself and Benjamin, but A questioned his decision later.

Pre-Meltdown
A monologues in his own thoughts about how Carmen had asked him to sacrifice her body without hesitation, wondering if she would've still asked for it if she knew it would end like this.
The scene then changes to Binah describing the Extraction Team's department as a No-Man's land, a place of silence, one where most employees that stay lose their minds and embrace oblivion, before noting it's been a while since she had a proper conversation with anyone. She believes that maybe the Manager was confused with the idea that she was the only resident there, but there's someone else that passes eternity along with her. She comments on how he created the Bucket by reconstructing, dividing and proliferating Carmen's remains, from which he managed to extract Cogito, the so-called fluid of life and death. At first, only a small dose could be extracted, but enigmatically, that fluid started to flow infinitely and now has formed a pool.
As both Binah and the Manager looked down into the Bucket, she comments that Carmen is watching them from beneath the spring. She adds that when everything feels burdening, Binah quietly stares into the bottom, feeling as if she and her were the only two in the world, almost as if she was talking directly to her, even though all that's left of her is an amalgamation of flesh, brains, neurons and tendrils, drifting within the Cogito. She comments on how someone injected herself with Cogito following her own principles; how someone else went mad by witnessing what had happened; how another person gave up his own body and ended in a state of Limbo between life and death, and a last person ended up breaking and confessing everything to the Head, which Binah speaks of as the collaboration of despair the Manager and Carmen created.
Binah adds that the Manager still can't look into the bottom of the spring, and how to do so, he must directly look at the path he's taking. She wonders if the Manager is looking for redemption for himself, or for her along with everyone else trapped in the facility. Whatever it is, she guesses that he thinks freeing them from their sins will also absolve him of his own, to which she interjects that even he, who hasn't left this facility in such a long time, is aware that people are being slaughtered by abnormalities in other branches as they speak. Something that's not confined to L Corp, as every other Wing is run by suffering, repeating perpetually, all the same in the Nests, the Backstreets, the Ruins and the Outskirts. A pain much greater than anything he has seen prevails in this world, one that Binah has observed conscientiously, as she, in her own words, didn't obsess herself with with an unreachable ideal, using this to show how different the world she looked down on and the one he looked up to were. Even when he captured Binah and tortured her to his heart's content, his heart was still sunken in despair, all while her place would be taken by another Arbiter of the Head, swinging their claws at people like him.
Binah adds that no matter what he did, the cycle within the City would quietly continue: Broken Wings would stretch out anew, their brief resistance would be forgotten soon, and people would continue living, not out of a purpose or a dream, but simply because they're not dead. Binah points out that even when the Manager thinks he had brought her down, she still looks down on everyone from the heights, watching them as they writhe like insects. She continues taunting him by continuing saying she silently waits for the day despair consumes him after realizing that the cycle the City runs in would never be stopped, when he kneels before destiny and resigns himself to fate.
The screen fades to black as another memory from A appears: the moment they found Binah incapacitated, having been mortally wounded by Kali and their only way out. He comments that it was a miracle they had captured her alive, and how they were all too far down the road filled with remorse and regret to feel any guilt. A few options appear, all to probe her head. A continues talking about the secrets she contained: How to avoid the head's pursuit; the means to become a Wing, and a way for the few remaining left to survive, something that was impossible for them to figure on their own. A talks about how she was hardly breathing, but her brain was still alive, which was all they needed. Probing their brain just as they did with Carmen, they searched for a way out before gathering up her remains. He adds that the sentinel who guards the gates of Hell must always be in despair, to the point that they cannot even fall into its depths.

Post-Meltdown
With the Meltdown finished, a memory of Garion appears, where she tortures the H Corp employee that had helped her bring down the Wing. As the employee begs for their life, Binah asks if they feel anything when the place they belonged to was reduced to ash and dust. She mentions that since childhood, scenery such as the stars in the sky or the sunlight beating down on the earth couldn't impress her one bit. This, however, gave her a thrill, one that made her thirst for more, but still wasn't enough. She asks the employee why are they trembling, and where did the guts they had to betray their own Nest went. While the employee kept pleading, she adds that even though the plan wasn't perfect, thanks to the people that trusted the employee it all went perfectly, further commenting that trust is one of her favorite weapons, as it was one that left a great wound. She mentions that the Sweepers will arrive shortly, and briefly talks about their relationship with the Head: Wherever there is trash, they will come to collect everything the Head was too busy to take care of. Hearing this, the employee panics, begging Garion to spare them from the Sweepers before a roaring sound is heard. Garion delights on the employee's suffering, calling their reaction a testament to life, before speaking to herself about how she enjoys the deathly silence and the metallic scent of her black tea. She moves on the her next assignment, complaining about how she has to rely on intel from a naive orange-haired girl, but thinks about how the weak and vulnerable yield great information, as he wonders what faces will show her the meaning of life next.
The screen fades to black, back to Binah and the Manager, she reminisces about how the only things that excited here were the dying and the crumbling, only satisfied by the sound they made and their faces as they clutched to life. She comments that she realized long ago that she and him were no different: mutants this epoch created, before correcting herself to a new generation of humanity, fit to survive this new age, pointing this out as the reason why he could've planned all this.
Nonetheless, she also adds that no matter what he achieved, nothing would change with the world. With the Wings on the rise, the Syndicates of the Backstreets, the creatures of the Outskirts, the Arbiters, Eyes and Claws of the Head, there was no chance he could succeed against them alone, but simply idling there wouldn't change anything either. Binah declares that she shall witness over every step he took, no matter how tiring or painful was the sight. She tells the Manager to simply proceed as he has always done, then he may just triumph.

* Binah and the Manager look down into the Bucket
* Garion drinking a cup of tea after killing an H Corp. Employee
* Garion's brain being used to create Binah
* Binah's Boss form

## Trivia

* On the Kabbalistic Tree of Life, Binah (meaning "understanding") is the third Sephirah. It gives shape to the spirit of god.
* Binah's quote from Cutscene 1 comes from the poem *Prière pour Aimer la Douleur* (lit. Prayer for Loving Sorrow) by Francis Jammes.