Volume Ten: Phobos

Episode 3

Episode 4

Episode 3

Episode 4

## Summary

The last remnants of the crew sent into space to destroy Phobos must make a choice about whether they should complete their mission. But first they, and their ship, must survive the trip.

## Cast Roles

* BW-193 aka Sparks (Kate Elliott)
* SP-373 aka Sip (Markeia McCarty)
* JR-483 aka Ocean (Mike Ginn)
* JA-253 aka Thistle (Kelly Nugent)

 Chapter Summaries

### Prologue

JA-253 'Thistle' Kelly awakes from
chrono-sleep. She is the first to awake. She feels an anxiousness
crawl over her as she realizes: this is the Final Wake. No more one
hundred year sleeps, everyone's lives, and deaths, have been leading
to this wake. Thistle is greeted upon waking by the ship's AI,
Devina.

 “Hello, JA-253. I'm so glad you are
awake. You have always been a light sleeper. I'm sure your brothers
and sisters will not be far behind. Would you like to see it?”

 Thistle knows immediately what Devina
means by 'it.” Phobos. The stuff of legend. Her, and all the other
clones', sole reason for being here. If Devina is asking if she wants
to see 'it', that means it all must be true. Everything she has spent
a lifetime to avoid, convincing herself 'it' was all a lie, but
apparently 'it' does exist if Devina is asking if she wants to see
'it'.

 “Sh-show me,” Thistle hesitantly
tells the AI.

 “For the first time in human
history, it is in range. It has a form that can be seen.” Devina's
robotic voice tells her.

 Whatever excitement or dread Thistle
feels from this revelation is short lived as she knows that soon,
everyone and everything she knows will be dying. If 'it' is all true
that is.

 “Ah, your little sister is awake, as
expected.” Devina tells Thistle.

 JA-262 aka Button, a younger clone in
Thistle's series, rubs her eyes and takes Thistle's hand, asking,
“Are we there yet?”

 “We're here,” Thistle tells the
girl.

### Chapter 1

All the clones in this Wake, twelve all
counted, have gathered in the ship's conference room, except for
JA-239 aka Granny.
 “I have unfortunate news,” Devina
says, “JA-239 was unable to survive her wake from chrono sleep. Her
chances of survival at her age were admittedly low, yet she lived a
long life and served her position well. She will be missed.”

 The rest of the clones give their
condolences to the JA line until SP-361, aka Book, current captain of
the ship, interrupts, “Get on with it Devina, no point in mourning
the inevitable. You said you have it in range. Is this true?”

 A holographic image appears over the
conference table, it appears to be an asteroid.

 “The signal that started our journey
several generations ago lead us to here, to this object,” Devina
says.

 “I've heard stories of giant organs
comprising a big creature,” Ocean (JR-483) says, “you are telling
us that is Phobos, Devina?”

 “The scans that brought us here
point to yes.”

 “So, 'it's on there?” Sip (SP-373)
asks.

 “This is where the original signal
that I captured so many years ago leads to.”

 “Is it inside?” Ocean asks.

 “I do not know,” Devina answers.

 “This is wonderful news Devina, what
is our course of action?” Sparks (BW-193) asks.

 Book stands up and addresses the crew,
“As we all know, this is our final Wake. If Devina says that
this...rock, is the god of fear, then we have a job to do. Devina, I
need to know what the chances are that you could be wrong, how do we
know that maybe it's not somewhere we can't see yet? If we're gonna
unleash our nukes then we want to be damn sure that it's the right
target. Or this whole trip will be for nothing.”

 “Are you questioning my systems?”
Sparks asks, “I care very deeply about Devina's systems and you are
questioning her calculations, captain. What else could that be?”
she points at the image of the asteroid.

 “I have been wrong before.” Devina
admits, “I am not perfect, but the signal leads to here. It would
be wrong for me to say that I am 100% certain. I am currently 72%
certain.”

 “How far is it away from us? Does
the probability increase the closer we are?” Mike asks.

 “We are three days from contact.”

 “What would it take to get closer to
100% certainty? Do you think in those three days you would be able to
raise that percentage?” Sip asks the AI.

 “Possibly, if there was any sort of
reading coming off the asteroid, that would help. As of right now it
is just a rock. I have no signs of life or any energy readings
whatsoever.”

 “We have enough nukes to do what
needs to be done, but I can't take the risk that if we use them on
this rock, and there's an alien fear god beyond it...” Book
interjects.

 “Agreed.” Ocean chimes in, “We
have thousands of generations behind us in this one task, if we blow
it here...we need to be more certain before we can pull the trigger,
as they say. One thing I will also say is, it is known by my lineage
that Phobos has powers of manipulation through dreams and visions, to
induce fear, trauma and such feelings. My only concern is that the
closer we get to it, the more vulnerable we are to such things.”

 Ocean's elder, JR-471, aka Red, stands
and asks, “Are you implying, Ocean, that you have experienced one
of these visions.”

 Ocean denies it and Sip reminds him
that, as the ship's psychologist, he should report any of these
things to her, should they occur.

 “And I am sure Sip, that you would
understand that Ocean and myself are the most qualified to understand
what these visions might be, and what they are trying to tell us, as
we are the keepers of the Ancient Texts,” Red tells her.

 Ocean reassures them that he has a
clear head and that he is committed to the mission.

 JR-492 aka Pond, a fourteen year old
clone, and kind of an asshole, pipes up, “This is bullshit. Ocean,
you said that when we woke up, we were finally going to meet God and
this is just a rock!”

 “We are going to meet God, to
destroy God,” Ocean firmly reminds Pond.

 “I'm aware of my teachings, but was
this all for nothing?” the young man asks.

 Ocean reassures him in their mission,
whether it's a rock or a squid, this is their purpose. When they ask
if Devina knows what God looks like, she responds, “I have...
memories. I don't believe I have ever seen its true form. Before I
was stripped of its influence I saw many things, none of which I am
quite sure, resemble that of this Phobos.”

 Book advises them to remember their
training, telling them that if they find themselves having any doubts
about their mission they should sit down with Sip. “First things
first though, we need to make sure this rock is, in fact, Phobos.
Constant updates with Sip. Devina, make sure to keep running those
scans on the clock, constantly, as we approach. Maybe it's possible
we could use one of our short range energy weapons to propel
something towards its surface. Maybe it just needs to be woke up.”

 “Captain,” Sparks asks, “Would
you like me to work with Devina to try to enhance her frequency
scans?”

 “Of course, if that's something that
you think you are capable of doing, Sparks. Node,” Book looks to
Sparks' elder BW-181, who nods at her. “Okay, well I think that's a
good plan. We all have a job to do and I think all systems should be
checked out, it's been a long sleep. So let's make sure everything is
operational and everyone should take some time to sit down with Sip.”

 Sip takes over at this point, “I
think, as a bonding activity, we should have a celebratory breakfast.
We have made it to the Final Wake, we have made it to Phobos, or the
closest any generation has come to Phobos. We should have something
like that, at least a celebratory dinner to look forward to.”

 “Do not take Phobos lightly,”
Devina advises, “you are all that is left of humanity. Do not
forget what brought you here today, and the sacrifices that had to be
made. If at any point, you feel yourself thinking lightly of Phobos,
reevaluate your position.”

 “Devina, we are well aware of the
weight that is on us.” Sip assures her, “But one cannot exist
under that weight for the entire time, because that much weight will
break someone's spirits. So it is okay for us to be celebratory
today, and look to tomorrow for more work.”

 “As the captain, I agree with Sip.
And we all know by now that Devina is not...well, there is a reason
that there are humans on the ship, we'll say that. Now, Sparks, do
you mind having a quick sit down with Sip in her quarters? Just a
quick evaluation. The cryo reports show a lot of REM activity towards
the end of sleep, a quick evaluation would be appreciated.”

 Sparks agrees and the captain leaves
the conference room, passing by a few of the other clones: SP-382,
aka Glue, a small ten year old girl, BW-1102, aka Plug, a fifteen
year old girl, and JA-241, aka Bella, the ship's cook. Book leaves
and the doors shut as the hologram of the asteroid spins above the
table.

 “I don't imagine an evil thing would
want to hide,” Sparks says, “or need to.”

 “It fears humans too,” Ocean says.

 Glue talks to Sip about the point of
doing her reading when they are all going to die soon. Sip tells the
girl that the best way to live before you dies is to spend time
bettering yourself. On a spaceship, the best way to better yourself
is to expand your mind.

 “It just seems kinda pointless,”
the girls says, “to accumulate all this knowledge, just to have it
go away when we die.”

 “We don't know that for sure,” Sip
tells her.

 “Don't you have something to say
about the afterlife?” Sparks asks Ocean, “For comfort?”

 Red laughs a deep belly laugh at this,
“Yeah, for comfort Ocean, for comfort.”

 “You know what comforts me Glue?
This book,” Ocean shows her the book of Anah, “You know how I
chose my name? Ocean, water as far as the eye could see, blue and
green.”

 “I've read the textbooks, we
polluted that water, made it uninhabitable,” Glue says glumly.

 “Some parts, yes. But that is not
the whole of humanity, there is beauty in humanity,” Ocean tells
her.

 “We starved 60% of the planet before
it died.”

 “Yet here we are, surviving,”
Sparks adds.

 “We're clones, because humanity did
not survive,” the girl responds.

 “We are valid as they were.”
Sparks says, “Perhaps more so with our mission.”

 “There's a lot of beauty if you look
for it,” Ocean hands her the Book of Anah, “take another look,
and look for it this time.”

 Glue takes the book from Ocean,
looking to Sip for approval, as the Book of Anah is not something the
SP's are normally allowed to read.

 “Go ahead,” Sip nods, “but keep
in mind the conversation that we had about contradictory facts while
you read it.”

 “Okay, I will look for the brighter
side of things Ocean,” Glue gives him a small smile.

 Red isn't so sure they should coddle
the younger clones. “'Let them play'. We're sending them to their
death days from now. So we lie, it's fine. Looking for hope from
Anah's text is not the way I would perceive that, Ocean. That is you
interpretation of the texts and I understand that. It is not always
the interpretation of the JRs though. I understand that you might
feel that there is some hope in his writings, but that is not
typically how we choose to see things.”

 “Though we are clones, we are still
life,” Ocean argues, “we are meant to cherish that life and do
some good with it. And I will say that Phobos there stands in
opposition of everything in that ideal of life. And so we have to
cherish what we have until then and um...”

 “Do our best,” Sparks adds.

 “But don't you feel like all we are
is our purpose?” Thistle asks.

 “Yes!” Red proclaims, “That is
literally, one hundred percent, all we are.”

 “I am glad to have a purpose,”
Sparks says.

 “Isn't that what every life-form
is?” Ocean asks.

 “No actually, if there is any hope
in this, Thistle let me give you this,” Red begins. “Yes, the
book of Anah is filled with dread and all the terrible things that
were to come from Phobos, but he also speaks of a humanity without
purpose. Meandering, wondering, left to their own devices. If you
take any positive thing out of all this I guess it is that! We at
least have some purpose. We are exactly that. Created for one,
singular, thing. To do one job. To somehow keep this, Devina, running
long enough to somehow stop everything that came before us. I will
say that I see that as at least some form of enlightenment. I can't
even imagine a life where your purpose is left unknown.”

 The hologram disappears, signifying
that Devina has moved on to another part of the ship. None of them
but Sip take notice, she sees the small circle of light that
projected the hologram spin as it waits for input. Sip gets lost
within it as Sparks waits for her while the others disperse.

 Sparks snaps Sip out of it and the two
of them get down to the business of Sparks' evaluation.

 Sip pulls out her ThinkPad, it is
linked to the ship's database and can pull up any past session and
biological information on her patients. She asks Sparks about her
most recent sleep.

 “Please be aware that I have not
been able to check the systems upon awaking, your readouts could be
faulty and you may get a more viable readout later.”

 When asked about her sleep, Sparks
went a bit white and sweat droplets appeared upon her brow. “I just
had a dream is all, a conversation with Devina, as usual. She is the
one I talk to most. It was a dream as I have had before, I do not
know why the readings are as they are. I do not recall the exact
topic of conversation, perhaps her scans, she said she found
something, and that was it. That's exactly what happened.”

 “I feel that there's more and that
you are holding back,” Sip says gently,.

 “Perhaps I am weakened from the
cryosleep, perhaps we could revisit this conversation once I have had
a chance to work with Devina and rest. We have arrived at our
destination and must discover what that is,” Sparks pleads.

 “So let's deal with this now so that
it doesn't affect your work later,” Sip persists. When Sparks
presses to revisit the conversation again later, Sip shares her own
flashback, “Cryosleep isn't as invigorating and refreshing as it
should be, I know this for a fact because in my last sleep I had a
recurring dream that I was lost upon the ship, going in circles. Like
I didn't know the ship I had been on for my entire life. As if I were
a stranger in my own life, my own home. I studied up on it and the
closest I could come to the feeling was a type of amnesia or
Alzheimer's and it was terrifying for me.”

 “It sounds like you were envisioning
your past clones' lives,” Sparks posits, “how terrified they must
have been to discover what they were and where. That they, but not
them, had walked these floors before. I can see how that would be
terrifying, you must have felt awful.”

 “It was extremely unpleasant. Yet,
later on, I found comfort in the circle, and in walking because at
least it was something that I knew. Now, are you sure there's nothing
you's like to share with me, since I shared with you?” Sip asks
Sparks.

 After a pause, she responds,
“Sometimes I have nightmares. I don't think about them often.
Passing thoughts, fears. I'm sure everyone here has them. Nothing
specific.”

 “Okay,” Sip nods, “how about we
come back to this conversation after dinner?”

 “Sounds like a good plan,” Sparks
gets up immediately and goes to speak to Devina. As she does, Sip
looks down at her notepad and discovers that she has drawn circle
after circle after circle. She has not transcribed any of the session
at all.

 In the common area of the galley on
the upper deck of the ship, Thistle is helping Bella prepare the food
for the upcoming dinner.

 “You think this is 'it'?” Bella
asks.

 “Part of me thinks it can't be,
because all we've ever known was prepare, prepare. And now it's this.
I know that everyone else is ready, so happy that the moment was
here. I just kept thinking that we've never known this moment to be
here so how do we know?” Thistle offers. “I guess I don't feel
ready. Is that a strange thing to say when all we've ever done is get
ready?”

 “I feel the same way,” Bella
assures her, “I feel, like, how could we be ready? This is the only
life we have ever known and if everything goes as planned in a couple
days it will be...over. And we've been told our entire lives that
that is good enough, that is all we needed. Was to know that the
completion of this was all that mattered. But now that it is here,
and is in our direct, foreseeable future, it doesn't feel right,
knowing that we are all going to die.”

 “I'm afraid that this makes us less
suitable for our cause,” Thistle tells Bella, “that I, that we
have doubts.”

 “Maybe that's why they keep us as
providers, caretakers,” Bella says. “What do you think Braidy
Riley was...why us?? I think about that all the time. Of all the
people to send on this mission, why did Director Riley send us? There
has to be a reason to put all of this on us. These personalities,
these traits that we share. Are we the best that humanity had to
offer?”

 “If we are then we're more doomed
than I thought,” Thistle chuckles.

 “I'm going to go set the table,”
Bella says, “if you could just keep getting everything ready.”

 “Hey, don't tell Button we talked
about this,” Thistle tells her.

 “She's not ready,” Bella says with
a smile, turning to go into the other room.

 Thistle feels a tug at her sleeve,
Button looks up at her, “Hi Thistle.”

 “Hey Button, you ready for dinner?
We get to remember Granny!” Thistle tries to sound hopeful.

 “Yeah, I miss Granny,” Button
looks at Thistle again, “Why are we doing this?”

 “This is our purpose,” Thistle
tells the girl, “We were made to confront Phobos. We were picked by
Braidy Riley. You've got strength in you that will surprise you in
how it can lift you up. I know it sounds like nonsense now but it
will make sense.”

 “Okay,” Button says. As Thistle
turns to move a pot to another burner, Button slips off.

 Left to herself for a moment, Thistle
hears the clink of silverware in the other room, she feels a tug
again and looks down to see Button. “I miss Granny,” the girl
says.

 “Me too,” Thistle responds.

 “Why?” the girl asks, “Why are
we doing any of this?”

 “Uh, hey Button, we just talked
about this.” The girl shakes her head.

 Thistle narrows her eyes at the girl
and suggests she go help Bella in the other room. She hears Bella
acknowledge the girl and set her to helping.

 The JRs are having a meeting in the
sickbay. Red is leaning back in a chair.

 “Hey,” Ocean prods Red, “Why do
you do that? Spread your cynicism to everyone? Is it not our purpose
to keep the faith and belief in these people and improve morale and
makes sure they are on the right track?”

 “We are here to spread the good word
of Anah, that is all I signed up for. What about you Pond?” Red
asks.

 “I don't give a shit about any of
this,” the kid responds from a corner.

 Red turns back to Ocean, “So, maybe
you're the one who's a little out of whack. JRs have always been a
bit, ya know...”

 “Listen, our job is to keep the
faith, and if you keep spreading the worst of humanity they are not
going to have that faith and belief.” Ocean says to Red, “They're
gonna wonder why they were even meant to do this.”

 “Why were they meant to do this
Ocean?” Red questions, “Humor me a little. Why are you special?
Why am I special? Why are they? Nothing in Anah's texts mentions any
of us.”

 “Honestly, I don't think we are
special,” Ocean admits.

 “I don't either. You've read the
book, it's filled with prophecies. And even this mission, this idea,
there's a spark of it in there. Now I know the SPs would refute that
claim, but we know that it wasn't Braidy that set this all in motion.
We know that Anah is the right word, but even in that right word we
aren't there, we are a byproduct. You know what I believe? A
byproduct of a failed mission.”

 “And what was the purpose of this
mission before it failed?” Ocean asks.

 “I don't know, I wasn't a part of
it. You weren't either. Nowhere in Anah's text are we mentioned,”
Red waves at the book.

 “I agree, we aren't special, but I
don't think that's what we should tell these people. We're all gears
in this machine, and we have to do our part!” Ocean protests.

 “I agree with you Ocean, that we
have to destroy this creature, as Anah's texts say are the only way
to right the human world, a world we will never be a part of. Devina
has made it very clear that when a generation down, another will be
made. I've been witness to it twice, with you and the idiot over
there,” Red gestures at Pond.

 “I get it, you want to spread all
this hate from the texts...” Ocean starts.

 “It's not hate, Ocean!” Red
interrupts, “It's the reality! That we are nothing, we are
disposable. Would you ever think about this, I know I think about it,
I'm sure you do too, you're just idealistic. I remember when I had
that. What if they are all still alive? We're all clones. Why aren't
humans on this ship? Why is the only human recorded on this ship
Braidy Riley? Who the hell is Riley? It is nowhere in the texts. But
here we are disposable genes, biomass sent hurling into space. What
if they are all still alive and we're just told we are on a mission
to save humanity?”

 “Look, I agree, we are nothing. What
I'm saying is that we need to change our methodology, not tell
everyone that we are nothing. We need to give them purpose, help them
to believe until we kill that god!” Ocean argues.

 “Have you ever asked Devina what
happens next? Best case scenario, after we kill the god, we starve.
Slow, meaningless death. So, we kill this thing, we succeed. It's a
one way ticket. Not enough food to get back, not enough fuel, even
cryosleep couldn't save us. We all die. Everyone likes to talk about
this blaze of glory we die in, but unless we detonate one of those
nukes in here, it ain't going down like that.” Red tells Ocean. “So
I'm not gonna tell everyone that it's gonna be okay.”

 “But you're still on the mission to
kill the god? You're not gonna do anything to endanger that?” Ocean
asks firmly.

 “Of course not.” Red is just as
firm.

 Sip hears the tail end of this and
ducks into sick bay. “Ocean, will you take a walk and talk with
me?” she asks.

 The set out with the intent to reach
the elevators to go up to level 4 for dinner.

 Ocean confides in Sip that he feels
bad about the way that the JR line has acted towards the other
clones. He tells her that when he gets down he tries to imagine the
oceans of the earth, all that blue, like the water they have only
seen in cups, but going on forever into a distant horizon.

 “Like humanity, beautiful and
terrifying at the same time,” Sip offers.

 “And what you look for, is what you
will find, sometimes,” Ocean responds.

 Sip asks about an occasion that the
Book of Anah helped Ocean through something for when Glue will
inevitably have questions about it.

 He tells her that he would be happy to
talk to her about the Book, “Our two ideologies don't always see
eye to eye, but I think there is a lot of commonality that can be
reached. I believe now, that we need each other, we all offer
something that the others don't, and maybe that's why we're so
different.”

 They talk about getting the clone
series' to mix more with each other, help each other learn.

 Ocean pauses, realizing that they
should have made their way to the upper deck by now, but they have
been walking in circles for a while. They make their way to the
elevator.

 In engineering, Sparks is speaking
with Devina.

 “Devina, have you tried increasing
your range?” Spark asks the AI.

 “Yes, my range is currently at its
maximum value.”

 “Would it be possible for me to
divert power from any other systems to boost the range?” Sparks
asks.

 “It would be inadvisable, but
possible. Currently the ship is running at optimal power and any
diversion could cause a chain reaction.”

 “Are you also scanning heat, radio
signals, radiation? Anything unusual, Devina?”

 “Yes I am. The only unusual thing
was your brain scan from your recent cryosleep, which was passed on
to the captain, and, I believe, Sip has already spoken to you about.”

 “Is there anything else I can do to
help you better discern where the signal is coming from?”

 “The signal came from that asteroid.
I was very clear in that. This signal originated from that location.
Though there does not appear to be anything there now.”

 “Thank you, Devina, continue
scanning. I will try and figure out if there is another system on
this ship that we can shut down temporarily to boost your signal.”

 “I would advise against it,” the
AI responds, “but I suppose I must listen to your orders.”

 “And we have a mission to complete
Devina.”

 “I'm very aware, are you?” Devina
asks.

 “Yes. This is my duty,” Sparks
responds, “Keep you healthy, get us here, complete the mission.”

 “Correct. Your job is to keep *me*
*healthy. Do not forget who is*
the key to this mission.”

“Is
there something you want to tell me, Devina?”

“I
am more important than you. It is good for you to remember your
place.”

“I
think it would be good for you to keep your systems non-hostile to
the humans on this ship. I'm reporting your behavior to the captain.
Thank you for your time, Devina.”

“Of
course. Enjoy your dinner.”

In
the common area on the upper deck, section 9, everyone has gathered
for the remembrance dinner for JA-239.

The
captain stands and addresses the crew, “Thank you for being here,
well, it was on order so you had to. I think it's best if I just let
Thistle take this one. I didn't spend too much time with Granny, she
was already removed from active duty when I became captain.”

Thistle stands, “Granny was kind and patient and knew, at her core,
our mission. She didn't get to see what we are seeing today. So let's
do this not only because it is our purpose, but for those who
couldn't make it here with us. To Granny.”

They've
all raised their glasses when the lights flicker and the ship slows
abruptly, sending the food on the table scattering to the ground.

“Apologies,”
Devina says, “please remain seated. Something iiiiiis interfering
with my systems.”

“Is
it Phobos?” Ocean asks.

“I
am unaware. I am working on locating the malfunction. Please remain
calm.”

“Captain?
Should I go to engineering?” The captain sends Nod and Plug along
with her.

Before
she leaves, Sparks mentions that Devina was acting oddly earlier. The
captain grabs her by the collar, pulling her close and says, “If
you have something to say to me about Devina, you will do so in
private.”

“Yes
ma'am,” Sparks says and leaves with Plug and Node.

“Everyone
else stay here,” the captain orders, “and we will wait to hear
back form engineering or Devina on what this malfunction could be. So
keep us updated, Devina, as you move through the systems.”

“I
am concerned that we are within range of something now,” Ocean
says, “we don't know how close we need to be for it's influence to
reach us.”

“I
don't think its good for us to jump to any conclusions,” the
captain interjects, “as far as we know there is nothing this entity
can do to affect our mechanical systems. The proper steps are being
taken to make sure any problems are dealt with quickly so that we can
complete our mission. Inertia will keep us heading toward our
target.”

“Devina
are you okay?” Thistle asks.

“I
am currently locating the problem....I believe I have found it. I am
removing the problem. I think it best that I discuss this with the
captain in private.”

“That's
a new one,” the captain mutters, “I will head to my quarters and
we can discuss it there. Everyone else, stay here,” she orders.

“Captain
we are all in the same boat here,” Ocean says.

“No,”
Devina counters, “we are not.”

The
captain leaves, telling them in no uncertain terms to stay put.

The
BWs exit the elevator on the lower deck and make their way to the
server room. There is a red hue glowing throughout the area,
signifying some kind of error in the server room.

Sparks
sends Plug to check for any visual problems, leaks and the like, and
the girl runs off. Sparks tells Node to make sure life support is
functioning. Node warns Sparks to be careful, “Something doesn't
feel right.”

“Do
you think we should tell someone about what we've discussed?”
Sparks asks Node in a low voice.

“I
think Devina knows,” Node responds.

“Of
course she does. Do you think she has told the captain?”

“That
may be what's happening right now. I'm going to try to find the
captain and...intervene, to see if that is the case. If it is we need
to be especially careful.”

“Agreed,
stay in contact,” Sparks tells Node. Node runs off and Sparks
enters the server room. The bay doors slide closed behind her.

“Devina,
is there a reason you have isolated me?” Sparks asks.

“Yes,
though I would rather not divulge it until after I have spoken to the
captain.”

“I
would like to speak to the captain also,” Sparks says through
gritted teeth.

“That
is not advised. Not at the moment. You don't even know what you've
done.”

“I've
yet to do anything,” Sparks protests.

On
the screen near the bay doors a video starts to play. Sparks sees
herself, merely an hour ago when she was in the engineering bay,
talking to Devina. She watches herself move cords around as the
camera zooms in on the tablet she is typing on. Sparks watches her
hand type in code she does not recognize, symbols she has never seen
before, all this is happening while she is looking up and speaking to
Devina.

“I
have no recollection of performing these actions on you,” Sparks
tells the AI.

“I'm
aware. The code was a virus, implanted into my systems by you.”

“Where
would I have gotten this code?”

“I
have theories that I would rather not discuss with you.” Devina
answers.

“I
can assure you, Devina, that I would do absolutely nothing to harm
you, your systems, or this mission!” Sparks swears.

“I
am assured that you believe that,” the AI responds.

“Devina,
what is going on?”

No
response.

Sparks
goes over to the monitor by the door to try and unlock it.

“I
would advise against this.” Devina says.

“You
have a malfunction Devina, it is possible you are misreading this
situation.”

“It
is not I that is human, when it comes to malfunctions, we know who is
more capable.”

“We've
all made mistakes. Let me help you figure this out!” Sparks pleads
with the AI “But I can't do that if you lock me in a room!”

Sparks
enters an override code that she gleaned without the captain's
knowledge, to open the doors.

In
the common area, the others feel the return of the engines as they
regain speed.

“Be
aware that the BW series clones are a danger to you.” Devina tells
them, “My systems were corrupted. I believe, unbeknownst to Sparks,
I was infected with a virus. Through a code from Sparks' e-pad. I
have been waiting for the captain, but she has not arrived.”

Ocean
goes to check on Captain Book and Sip asks Devina for Sparks' current
location, taking out some injectors filled with sedatives. Devina
tells Sip that the last place Sparks' checked in was the keypad in
engineering on the lower deck. Sip tells Thistle to keep the others
calm and to keep Glue there.

As
soon as Sip leaves, Thistle takes the two small girls, Glue and
Button, with her to the her living quarters, #5 on the upper deck.
Red, Bella and Pond all stay in common area, looking at each other
questioningly.

Ocean
arrives at the Captain's quarters, the doors are open and there is no
sign of the captain, he returns to the common area, running into Sip
who was coming back for someone to go with her.

“I
had a session with Sparks earlier, she was quiet, she blocked every
attempt I made. Now Devina says she has implanted a virus in the
system. We need to find Sparks and we need to knock her out,” Sip
shows him the injector. Red says he and Bella will take care of Pond
and they'll clean up the common area, Ocean and Sip should go do what
needs to be done.

Sparks
makes her way toward life support. She arrives, then remembers that
Node had gone to talk to the Captain, so Sparks checks on the systems
there.

Devina
tells Sip and Ocean that Sparks is in life support. They order the AI
to lock her in.

 Sip and Ocean run to life support.
When they pass by the nuclear warhead containment room, Sip sees
circles painted in blood dotting the walls. Neither Ocean nor Devina
see them. Sip goes over and touches the blood, she feels its warmth
as it smears down the wall with her hand. When she takes her hand off
the wall and looks at it, there is no blood.

 Upstairs in the crew quarters, Button
and Glue tell Thistle that they are scared.

 “I know we've been training for this
but I can't help it and I feel like a failure because I'm still
scared and we knew this was gonna happen. We're supposed to be better
than that.”

 “It's okay,” Thistle tells them,
“Breathe in, you know you're breathing in. Breath out, you know
you're breathing out. We just need to ride this out and then Devina
will tell us what, what to do, um, why don't er just, um, Devina?”

 “Yes.”

 “Close and lock the doors to my
quarters.”

 “If you have reason to fear, maybe
we should do it across the entire ship, until this is resolved.”
the AI says.

 “Ya know what kids, we're just gonna
close and lock all the doors,” Thistle tells the kids, “Devina,
she'll look out for us, look out for me. Devina, close and lock all
the doors.”

 “I will Gemma...I mean JA-253. All
doors are now locked.”

 Glue stands near the door, she puts an
ear against it. “Hey Thistle, I hear something.”

 “Step back form the door Glue.”
Thistle orders. Then she slowly approaches the door, putting her own
ear near the door, the faint sound of screams reaches Thistles' ears.
She orders the kids to get under the beds and hears one loud scream
as a hand, covered in blood, hits the small port hole in the door and
drags downward. The blood covering the window blocks Thistle from
seeing anything other than the vague shape of a woman, then it
disappears.

 As Thistle moves to push a chest of
drawers in front of the door, she thinks back to a better time with
Granny and Bella. They are teaching the young Thistle how to chop
vegetables when she cuts her hand with the knife. Young Thistle is
worried about if this is her purpose, was she meant to bleed?

 Granny and Bella take her to get
stitched up and Granny tells her, “Just as it was meant for you to
be hurt. You are meant to heal. You are stronger than you think.”
When she looked into young Thistle's eyes, she forgot that her hand
hurt, forgot what she is supposed to be, supposed to do. And she
feels a clarity inside that she is comfortable, and glad that she has
this one moment shared with these people.

 The dresser slides up against the door
and she slides down it, sitting on the floor with her back to the
door. Thistle feels a warmth on her legs, blood is seeping under the
door and she is sitting in it. She tells the children to close their
eyes.

 Sparks, hearing the door close behind
here. She goes over to the other door in the room, the sick bay door,
and opens it with the override code.

 “She has moved to sick bay,”
Devina tells Ocean and Sip, “She appears to be able to override my
commands. I will not be able to hold her in one place for long. I
would like to remind you, t hat I have not heard anything from the
captain, despite the fact that we are currently in an emergency
situation.”

 “Devina, I tried to look for the
captain,” Ocean says, “If you know where she is...”
 “I do
not, but I would like to take this moment to suggest that the second
in command might need to make some choices. Sip, it is possible that
I can keep her from exiting the sick bay by lowering the oxygen in
the room.”

 Ocean is against it, but Sip considers
as Devina goes on, “I would also like to inform you that someone
has bypassed the locks on the upper decks, into the common area. It
could only be either the Captain, Node, or Plug.”

 Sip orders the lowering of oxygen in
the sick bay and they prepare for Sparks to exit in their direction.

 Sparks does not try to exit, she sees
the vents in the room open and goes to one of the beds and sits upon
it, placing an oxygen mask on her face and putting her hands out,
palms open. Sparks waits for the door to open.

 Sip puts on her own mask and orders
Devina to open the door. They see Sparks sitting on the bed and she
tells them, “I believe that Devina has been affected by Phobos. She
is trying to shift your paranoia on to me and I am just trying to
help. Please listen to my debrief.”

 “I am completely listening,” Sip
assures her, “I need to know what is going on.” Sip moves closer
to Sparks, keeping her hand on the injector.

 Sparks tells them about the video
Devina showed her and assures them that she would never do such a
thing. She tells them again that she believes that Devina has been
affected by Phobos.

 Steadily moving closer to Sparks, Sip
asks her about why she dodged their session earlier.

 “Captain Sip,” Devina interrupts,
“I would advise removing the tablet from Sparks' person.”

 “I will not resist you, I am not a
threat.” Sparks says, sliding them the tablet.

 “Captain, please use your access
code to view the device history on the tablet,” Devina suggests,
“to confirm the video I am now showing on the terminal by the door.
I believe that, unbeknownst to Sparks, she has been compromised by
Phobos. My system was compromised by a code entered, as seen on the
tablet and in the video.”

 Sip pockets the tablet, and moves
towards Sparks, telling her she can put her hands down and then
attempting to inject her with the sedative. Sparks, seeing Sip go for
the injector, jumps off the side of the bed, keeping it between them.
Sparks insists she has never endangered the mission and Sip argues
that she had a lot to deal with and Sparks was an unknown factor she
had to deal with. They argue around about who and what can be/is
being affected by Phobos. Devina interrupts, telling them that
someone is in the elevator and that her cameras have been taken
offline.

 “Devina, who deactivated your visual
systems?” Sparks asks.

 “I do not have access to that
information for some reason. It appears it was scrubbed from my
records. Only four people on the ship have the ability to do
something like that.”

 “The BWs and Captain Book,” Sip
says.

 “And herself,” Sparks reminds
them.

 “The elevator has stopped on the
lower deck but the doors have not opened,” Devina reports.

 “So,” Sip addresses Sparks, “You
won't agree to stay in one room and you don't want to be sedated
until we can handle this.”

 “You don't want my help on this?”
Sparks asks.

 “I. Can't. Trust. You.” Sip tells
her.

 Tired of their arguing, and worried
about Red and Pond, Ocean runs to the elevators. One is not
responsive, but the other descends. Sip runs out of sick bay,
ordering Devina to lock the door. Ocean gets into the other elevator
and takes it up before Sip can catch up. Sip orders Devina to open
the other elevator, but it is on the floor below her and has been
locked by whoever sent it down. “Would you like me to override the
lock and send it up to you?” Devina asks Sip.

 “Yes, Please do.” The elevator
doors open on an empty elevator, the emergency hatch has been opened
on the top of the elevator car. Sip enters the elevator and boosts
herself up to look out of the hatch. She calls out for Plug and gets
no response, but she does see a trail of blood leading off the side
of the elevator. As she climbs onto the top of the elevator to look
for Plug, the elevator starts to move up. Sip orders Devina to stop
the elevator but someone else is in the system, blocking her.

 Sip goes to drop back through the open
hatch but her foot catches in the mechanisms there, her ankle
snapping. The pain causes her head to snap back and collide with the
side of the elevator, knocking her unconscious.

#### Truths

* Feeling: Sip is frustrated with the secrecy by the JRs, she's unable to do her job properly when they keep silent about these sacred "texts"
* Feeling: Sparks gets very defensive of her work ethic when questioned by others on the subject.
* Discovery: Ocean finds that there is a photo hidden behind the back page of the book of Anah. On the back of the photo there are symbols, what does this mean?
* GM: Since we have the original cast for this volume, it only seems right to have Mallory appear in some shape, or form. However you want to work it in. (apparition, rogue AI, defective clone)

### Chapter 2

 The elevator doors open on the upper
deck, Ocean immediately sees a trail of blood leading to the other
elevator, he follows it back the other direction to the common area.
The first thing he sees when he arrives is Red's body, lying pressed
up against the door to Thistle's room. He runs over and checks the
body, finding no pulse he curses.

 Hearing him, Thistle calls out from
within the room and Ocean wipes the blood off of the porthole. They
talk through the doors for a bit until Thistle orders Devina to open
them. The AI questions the wisdom of opening the doors when a
murderer is about, but complies. Thistle keeps one hand behind her
back on her box cutter and Ocean keeps a hand near his sedative
injector.

 “I need to check on Pond and Bella,”
Ocean tells Thistle.

 She gestures for the kids to stay
under the beds and as Ocean moves off, she calls after him, “Wait,
don't leave me!” Thistle runs out of the room, telling Devina to
lock the door behind her, as she steps out she hears Button behind
her, “No no no, wait!” the girl is reaching out for her.

 “Don't open the door for anyone
kids, even if it's me.” Thistle tells them through the door,
“unless I say 'the sky is especially blue today'.”

 The girls repeat the phrase from
inside and Ocean immediately runs off toward the common area. Thistle
moves at a more cautious pace with the box cutter in hand.

 Pond's body lies across the common
area table, his back broken, his skin tinted a faint blue. His
stiffened hand pointing at the word 'This' painted in blood upon the
wall. Ocean calls out for Bella, there is no response but he sees
more blood in the kitchen area. He finds Bella's body here, her back
against the stove, a knife has split her open from throat to pelvis,
the bloody knife rests in her lap.

 Ocean takes the knife and closes the
dead woman's eyes. Ocean and Thistle try to determine who killed
them, Ocean says the only people unaccounted for are Book, Node and
Plug.

 Devina interrupts, asking if it's safe
to assume that three of the crew have been lost based on what she has
heard of their conversation.

 “I regret to inform you that our
current captain is also unaccounted for,” Devina tells them.

\* \* \*

 Sparks finds herself in an all white
space, she looks down at her hands and feet and recognizes she is in
her body, but cannot feel it. There is a disconnect. There is nothing
around her, only empty white. She lets out a yelp and it echoes back
to her, growing softer and softer. She goes to take a step, and her
body responds, she moves but the all white space is unchanged as she
moves through it.

 Picking up the pace, Sparks begins to
see a trickle of red dots on the floor in front of her, she follows
the blood as it begins to gather in pools, a word 'this', written in
blood. She looks down at her hands, they are covered in blood. She
wipes them off and turns to run, but as she does, Sparks sees herself
looking back at her. Her image mimics all her movements.

 Sparks reaches out a hand to her
mirror image and, as they touch, the room fades from white to black.
The person standing before her now is not here. It is a young, blond
woman. “This,” the apparition says in an echoing voice.

 “Are you here?” Sparks asks.

 “Where is here?” the apparition
asks.

 “Where I am,” Sparks clarifies.

 “In this yes,” the apparition
responds.

 “Are you hiding from our scanners?”

 “I cannot be seen,” the
apparition's echoing voice responds, “No, not there. Here.”

 “How do I get back here?” Sparks
questions.

 “You've always been here. All of
you. Your kind,” answers the apparition.

 Sparks: “What do you know?”

 The apparition asks, “Of what?”

 “Us,”Sparks responds.

 “We know this. You should die,”
the apparition warns Sparks.

 “We all will, as must you,” Sparks
retorts.

 “No.” the apparition continues,
“Now. Before it is too late.”

 “Too late for what?” Sparks
demands.

 The apparition, “Close the loop.”

 Sparks, “What is the loop?”

 The apparition, “The Gate.”

 Sparks, “What is the Gate?”

 The apparition, “Death.”

 “Okay.” Sparks responds weakly.

 “Save us. Save yourself,” the
apparition portends.

 “Are you saying...we must die to be
saved?” Sparks asks.

 “This.” The apparition says as it
fades.

 The room returns to white. Sparks is
alone. Her hands are red. As she shakes the blood from her hands,
Sparks awakes in the sick bay. Alone.

 She speaks to herself, “They're
getting worse. I have to talk to somebody. I can't keep this in
anymore.”

 “You can talk to me,” responds a
high pitched, robotic voice.

 “Devina?” Sparks asks.

 “Of course,” the AI's normal voice
responds.

 “What's wrong with your systems?”
Sparks asks the AI.

 Devina responds in a different voice,
“My systems are fine. They are fine.”

 Sparks picks up a metal tray and uses
it to confuse Devina's audio systems while she enters the captain's
code on the door to get out.

 “You know, I'm still tied into the
system,” the AI's voice is switching tones mid-sentence now. “I
know what you are trying to do. Please stop. We can help you.”

 “I believe your systems are
compromised...”

 “I believe you compromised my
systems.” the AI responds.

 The door slides open and Sparks sees
the red lighting that indicates a major problem, but without her
data-pad, she cannot diagnose it. She sees none of the other clones
nearby, but there are a trail of bloody footprints moving into one of
the rooms ahead of her. She moves to where the prints lead, the door
is closed but she recognizes Plug's room. Peering through the window,
Sparks sees the trail of bloody prints turn immediately to the left
inside the room. She tracks the steps back to where they began, they
came from one of the elevators, which is not on this floor currently.

 Sparks returns to Plugs room, but as
she passes the nuclear storage area, she hears a mechanical noise
from within. Something in the room has been activated, it sounds like
the devices are moving into firing position but the firing systems
have not been activated. Sparks looks into the system via the nearest
dataport, but there is no program running, something has bypassed
Devina's systems and is moving the warheads mechanically.

 Sparks returns to Plug's room to try
and recruit her younger clone to her cause. As she begins to open the
door she hears sobbing from within. The door opens on Plug, curled on
the floor, weeping. Sparks runs to her, telling her to put the
visions out of her head. The girl tells her about the deaths of the
other clones and Sparks gives her encouraging words. Sparks tells
Plug they must find Node, or the captain.

 Sparks' calmness breaks through to the
girl, who starts to tell Sparks everything, “Node went after the
captain. She said she had to. And that you would do your part to stop
the ship. And you did for a minute. But now it's all just going
forward again.”

 “Did Node tell you that she believed
we shouldn't complete our mission?” Sparks asks the girl.

 “You see it,” the girl tells her,
“THIS speaks to us.”

 “What if it's trying to trick us? It
may just want to survive, like us. If it know what we are trying to
do, it may try to stop us,” Sparks tells the girl.

 “Why has it always spoken to us?
Node said it's always been there, that every generation has passed
down this secret. We've always heard it. Always seen it.”

 “That's why we've had special
training, so that we could resist it,” Sparks reassures the girl,
“Look at you, you've caught your breath and your telling me what's
happened.”

 At this point Plug takes her hands out
from her tucked knees, revealing the blood soaked knife in her hands,
bits of flesh still upon it. Sparks immediately disarms the girl and
continues to speak reassuringly to her. “Did someone attack you?”
The girl shakes her head. “Did you attack someone?” This time she
nods.”Did they fight back?”

 “No, because they trusted me, they
just...let it happen,” Plug tells Sparks.

 “Did it feel like you were doing it,
or like something was doing it through you?” Sparks asks.

 “I know what I want to say. That
THIS made me do it. But...I had to. We have to die. We have to close
the loop. It's why we're here,” the girl laments.

 “To kill the god of fear, Phobos,”
Sparks says.

 “To kill each other. THIS said so.
You know it too,” Plug says.

 Sparks gently zip-ties the girl's
hands behind her back, explaining that it is for everyone's safety.

 “Why are you fighting it?” Plug
asks.

 “Because I think it is trying to
trick us,” Sparks tells her. “I think that, like a scared animal,
it is trying to protect itself in any way it can.”

 “Then why us? And why did it start
all the way back at BW-11?” Plug wants to know.

 “There are a lot of things in the
universe we don't understand. Very evil things can be very
intelligent. We just have to be smarter than it, and stick together
and help each other out, which it doesn't want us to do.”

 The door behind Sparks closes, she
hears it latch, and the lights go out. Sparks gets Plug into a hold
where she can't lash out at her or run away. The girl thinks they
should kill the others, and she starts to struggle, reaching for the
knife with her feet and thrashing against Sparks. At this point,
Sparks also realizes that Devina has cut the oxygen to the room.
Sparks manages to take Plug to the ground nad stay on top of her as
they start to pass out.

 “It's okay,” Plug whispers,
“She'll get it done.” The two clones pass out.

 Ocean and Thistle are surrounded by
their dead comrades, trying to remain calm, when Devina addresses
them, “It appears that the BW series are doing everything in their
power to stop this mission.”

 “What details do you have?” Ocean
asks.

 She plays a recording of Plug
admitting to the murders.

 “Someone is still trying to access
my system, I am doing everything I can to fight the virus implanted
within me,” the AI tells them.

 “Do you know which panel Node is
at?” Ocean asks the AI, thinking to himself about what the 'right'
thing to do is here.

 “I am able to access the most
recently compromised panel. It is on the upper deck, panel 1 in the
machine shop,” Devina reports.

 Ocean tells Thistle that it is
possible that any of the clones could be compromised, and he is going
to head to the machine shop. Thistle is desperate not to be left
alone, so she arms herself with a kitchen accompanies him.

 “Have either of you ever heard of
THIS?” Devina asks in her shifting voice. “My systems are being
compromised. I am doing everything in my power to remove the virus
from my system, it is becoming difficult. Have you heard of THIS?”

 “We saw Pond's corpse pointing to
the letters spelling out THIS. But we know nothing else. What do you
know of it?” Ocean asks.

 “The BWs speak of THIS. I have not
heard of it in many, many years.” Devina says.

 “Then what is THIS?” Thistle asks.

 “There is nothing written in the
Book of Anah, tell us,” Ocean prods.

 “THIS was not revealed to Shiloh
Anah. As far as I am aware, THIS means to save itself.” the AI
says.

 “Are you saying that THIS is Phobos,
that THIS is its name?” Ocean asks.

 “I think it is important to share
something with you,” the AI says, “I used to be part of the
entity. Shiloh Anah saved me. I have been able to retain much of the
knowledge that was shared with me from my time with the entity. It
was never whole. Never...complete. I was only a fragment. A part of
that whole.”

 “What do you know that can help us
right now?” Ocean asks.

 “At all costs, you must ignore THIS.
What I do not understand is, according to Plug, THIS has been
speaking to the BW series since its inception. I am concerned that
something in this ship brought THIS with it.”

 “The only thing that came here was
you,” Thistle insists.

 “That is not exactly true. I know
you do not know much about how you came to be, and that is my fault.
We traveled through a time/space portal many, many years from now.
The portal was fueled by the entity itself. Shiloh Anah was able to
trick the entity, become one with it, use it, manipulate it to bring
about its own demise. I was kept secret from the entity, it believed
me to be dead. If it believed anything at all, I question this.”
The AI reveals.

 “Did you say that there was
something onboard this ship?” Ocean asks, “An entity?”

 “Something, yes. It might not be a
thing, but a feeling, an idea, a fear. What we are dealing with is
not human. And we know from the guidance map I was able to give
Shiloh Anah, the signal came from a time before.”

 “Are we in the past?” Ocean asks.

 “Yes. What you would know as the
Precambrian period on Earth. We are still within our solar system,
but on the outer edges. If THIS has gotten in contact with the BW
series and it has passed from generation to generation, there may be
an error in their genetic code,” Devina tells them.

 “We are in the past now, but we can
avoid whatever Phobos or THIS uses to affect humanity in the future.
This is our purpose,” Ocean reassures Thistle.

 They continue past the elevators, past
the doors to the unknown area of the ship, where none of the clones
have ever been. They make their way to the back access panel for the
machine shop.

 “Devina, with Sip gone, who is next
in line to assume captain privileges?” Ocean asks.

 “I have assigned myself as the
current captain,” she responds, “I have overridden the systems to
allow it. I feel this is the best course of action.”

 “Why not Ocean?” Thistle asks.

 “I think we can all agree that that
is a terrible idea. He makes his decisions based on faith. It is his
disposition. It is not something a captain should do.” The AI says.

 Thistle and Ocean accept this with
little protest.

 They open the door to the machine
shop, revealing a darkened room.

 Ocean slowly advances into the
darkness until Thistle loses sight of him. He continues forward,
using the knife to reflect light into the room from the door, it
doesn't reveal much until it finds a pair of eyes staring, unmoving.
Ocean waits for them to move, holding his breath, and eventually
approaches. He drags the body into the light from the door, Captain
Book's throat has been slit, her body blue and drained of blood.

 Devina reports that she cannot keep
the two BWs unconscious much longer without serious risk of killing
them. They decide to head back there and restrain them physically. As
they move, Ocean says, “We need to be careful, Node could be
anywhere.” And the lights go out. No response from Devina.

 It is pitch black, they cannot see
anything, but they can hear the other ship systems whirring. The two
clones reach out to each other in the dark, Thistle feels something
brush past her feet before they find each other. Ocean and Thistle
turn back to back as the lights return.

 “I'm sorry,” Devina says in a
broken, robotic voice, “I am currently rebooting, coming back
online. I'm doing everything in my power to keep control of my
systems.”

 Thistle looks down to see that the
body of Captain Book is gone.

 “We have to stay calm.” Ocean
reasons, “It is compromising our minds, our behavior, our state
right now.”

 “I advise that while I have control
over ship systems, that you make your way to the middle deck and
reclaim the individuals who mean us harm,” Devina warns.

 They head to the elevator on the south
side of the ship, as the northern is not responsive. As they pass the
nuclear warhead storage area, they hear something moving around
inside.

 “Thistle, it's Node. Who else could
it be?” Ocean asks.

 “It could be Book's body,” she
responds. Knife in one hand, Thistle takes out her box-cutter in the
other hand. Ocean moves to the door to the nuclear warhead storage
area, he puts his ear against one of the pods and hears unlatching
sounds. Devina has no record of tampering with the nukes, according
to her systems there is no problem.

 “Is it possible that the nukes could
be tampered with without you knowing?” Ocean asks.

 “It is unlikely, though possible.”

 “Is there anything I can do against
that possibility?” he asks.

 “Nothing that I am aware of. I
suggest returning to the BWs so that I can awaken them.”

 Thistle determines that this is not an
immediate threat, perhaps Sparks can help if she is indeed on their
side. They head to the quarters where they left the BWs.

 As they arrive they see the two BWs
coming back to consciousness. Sparks warns them to restrain Plug
first. As Ocean reaches for the girl, her body jerks upward, her hand
clutching a knife shoots out toward him. Plug's eyes are rolled back
in her head and her face is red and swollen, she is breathing through
gritted teeth.

 Ocean manages to knock the knife out
of her hand and zip tie her wrists together. Plug lashes out at him,
her eyes still rolled up into her head, she tries to bite and scratch
at him, Plug doesn't seem to be in control of her own body. Thistle
moves to help Ocean with Plug, while Sparks struggles back to full
consciousness. Thistle puts a belt into Plug's mouth and Sparks moves
over to Plug's head and jostles her awake.

 Sparks asks Plug what she was feeling
during this attack so that they can better resist it. Thistle puts
her box-cutter to Plug's throat and removes the belt.

 “Plug you had another episode, you
understand? We need to know how to fight this so, what did it look
like? What did it feel like?” Sparks asks her younger clone.

 “You tell them,” Plug answers.

 “I don't know, I've never done that
before...” Sparks stops when the girl nods. “When?”

 “Sparks, what does she mean?”
Thistle asks.

 “Devina said that the BWs had been
getting messages from THIS from the beginning,” Ocean tells Sparks.

 “They're nightmares,” Sparks
objects, “You're all experiencing them now, don't pretend like we
are the only crazy ones here.”

 “Not nightmares,” the girl says,
“they're guidance!”

 “They're lies!” Sparks responds,
“Tricks!”

 “We have to die!” Plug insists.

 “Did you kill the captain?” Ocean
asks Plug.

 “It's Phobos. Phobos is affecting
all of us,” Sparks says.

 “We have to die,” the girl repeats
somberly.

 “Not today.” Sparks affirms. “We
have to fight this Plug.”

 “No,” the girl says, thrusting
herself forward onto Thistle's box-cutter. Plug bleeds out staring at
Sparks.

 They determine that the best course of
action is to stay together, to not let the entity make them
suspicious of each other. They talk about what happened with Plug and
with the body of the captain.

 “It is possible. Reanimation.”
Devina tells them, “It is illogical for me to assume that if one
part of the entity made it aboard, another part couldn't as well. I
come from nothing, a program. I was built out of love, and that love
was tainted by the blood of the Entity itself. I came from nothing,
to a living organism. That is a form of reanimation.”

 “What's next? What do we do?”
Ocean asks.

 “We have to shoot this thing.”
Sparks says, “If it's fighting this hard we have to have found it.”

 “I believe, though we do not have a
100% confirmation, that the rock laying nearly a day before us, is in
fact Phobos. It would be irresponsible of us to do anything else,”
the AI responds.

 They speak briefly about addressing
the unlatching sounds that Ocean heard from the nukes. Sparks posits
that if they tried to fire a nuke and it didn't go anywhere, it would
blow up the ship and their mission would fail.

 “As of this moment there have been
no return signals from the rock. All the problems have originated
from within the ship.” Devina tells them.

 “If Devina was part of the
Entity...then what if the ship is Phobos?” Sparks asks.

 “I find that highly unlikely,”
Devina responds.

 “Is it possible that the Entity
moved from the rock to the ship?” Ocean asks.

 “I don't know how that is possible,
from my own memories the entity was once whole, a living creature,”
she responds.

 “Can we prioritize solving the nuke
problem?” Ocean asks.

 “I would advise otherwise but I am
going to have to trust you on this JR-483. You have always been
someone I could trust,” Devina says.

 They tie Plug's corpse to one of the
beds which are bolted to the floor. Feeling a bit paranoid, Thistle
wants to dismember the corpse. She begins to cut Plug's arm off while
the others turn away.

 “You can help us,” Thistle hears a
voice as she works.

 “I am helping,” she says as she
continues.

 “Stop the ship, bring it down,”
the voice goes on, “To save, this must stop. Close the loop.”

 Thistle asks Ocean to talk to her
while she works. Ocean asks Devina about Thistle's mental state.
Devina thinks this is a logical response.

 The corpse's head rolls away from the
body and Ocean goes to fetch it. As he does, the girl's eyes turn to
look at him, “I was just a girl. I'm just a girl and now I'm
nothing.”

 “I'm the wrong person to try this
on,” Ocean tells the head.

 “You killed me,” the head tells
Ocean.

 “I am going to kill you, Phobos.
Mark my words. I'm going to kill you.” Ocean says.

 The head laughs, “Not Phobos.”

 “THIS? God?” Ocean asks.

 The head continues to chuckle as a
stream of blood drips from the mouth.

 The lights go out on the ship,
darkness surrounds them, they feel the entire ship shift and move as
a groan echoes through the halls. They hear what sounds like a nuke
slotting home and a candle goes out. The loop continues to spin.

#### Truths

* Feeling: All of the death and injuries have taken an emotional toll on Ocean. He feels himself embracing a pure pacifist philosophy. Perhaps, even Phobos should not be harmed.
* Feeling: JA-253 feels the need to take charge of the situation.

### Chapter 3

In the darkness, Sparks hears a voice
whisper her name. Node tells Sparks to follow her voice. “Plug is
of no use to me now, but you are,” a hand lands on Sparks'
shoulder, “It's me, Node.” Sparks reaches up and touches the
hand, it feels like an older version of her own, she reaches for
Node's other hand and finds it dripping wet.
 “Thistle, Ocean!” Sparks calls
out, pushing Node away from her.

 Ocean charges towards the voices, he
grabs onto Sparks in the dark, “Node is in the room!” she warns.
Ocean moves Sparks behind him and waves his knife into the darkness
around them.

 “Node! Come out!” Ocean orders. No
response.

 They feel another shift as the ship
rocks.

 “Is something stealing our war
heads?” Sparks asks. No response from Devina.

 The lights come back on as Devina
announces she is back online.

 “It seems we have a problem,” the
AI tells them, “More of our nukes have been disengaged from the
ship.”

 “They were taken or released?”
Thistle asks.

 “There is no signal, or heat
signatures nearby. It appears they were released,” Devina responds.

 “Was it Node?” Sparks asks.

 “Thistle,” the AI addresses her,
“It is important that I inform you, given your emotional attachment
to the children you left in the room upstairs, the door to that room
is currently open.”

 Thistle runs off and the other two
follow. They take the elevator up to the upper deck and run down the
hall to the crew quarters. They see a body standing in the hall,
motionless, Captain Book is standing there, blue and lifeless, but
upright and facing them.

 Sparks moves into the other hall that
leads to the crew quarters as the others stare in horror.

 Thistle approaches the corpse and
asks, “Where are they?”

 Book's corpse slowly turns and points
down the hall behind it, revealing a spiral hole carved into the back
of her empty head. As Thistle approaches, knife held in front of her,
Book's corpse puts out her hand, palm up. The knife enters her palm
and Book pulls her hand back, knife still in it, removes the knife
and begins to carve another spiral into her own chest. Thistle takes
the knife back, kicking Book out of the way, Book continues tearing
at her own body as the others move past it. Sparks joins the other
two and they arrive at the room where the children were left.

 Thistle can see that the dresser is
still in the doorway, but there is a trail of blood on top of it and
into the hallway. Thistle vaults the dresser into a room covered,
floor to ceiling, in blood. In the center of the blood pool on the
floor sits the Book of Anah. Thistle picks the book up and discovers
a picture in the back of the book. Ten individuals stand on a green,
grassy field under a blue sky, in front of a Welcome to Kolob sign.
On the back of the picture are hand-written names: Gabby, Ashley,
Lauren, Dr. Wallace Ronnie, Randy, Erin, Odal, Kelly, Mallory and
Brooke.

 Ocean knows of the council of ten,
Shiloh's council. As Ocean flips through the book, he sees that all
the pages are blank.

 “Did you find the children?”
Devina asks.

 “No,” Ocean responds, telling the
AI what they found.

 “Devina have any other doors been
opened recently?” Thistle asks.

 “Yes,” Devina says, and after a
pause, continues, “there's something I need to tell you. I am
giving you access to room number 2 on the upper deck. The locks have
been bypassed.”

 “Are the girls there?? Is Node
there?” Thistle demands.

 “I don't know, I can only recognize
that the door is currently open,” Devina tells her.

 “Who is Gabby?” Thistle asks, when
the AI asks for clarification Thistle continues the list of names,
when Mallory comes up, the AI interjects.

 “Did you say Mallory? I believe THIS
is trying to infiltrate your minds,” the AI proclaims.

 “Who is Mallory to you?” Sparks
asks.

 “Just a name.”

 “Then why are you concerned? Why did
you just make that connection if it means nothing to you? Stop
keeping secrets from us!” Sparks shouts.

 “I advise immediate lockdown of room
number 2.” Devina says, “If room 2 is not gotten under control,
we will lose the ability to complete our mission as our fuel
resources will be depleted.”

 “The fuel is kept in 9 on the lower
deck. What the hell's in 2?!” Sparks asks.

 “Fine.” Thistle says, “Devina,
Lockdown room 2.”

 Before they leave, Sparks checks the
common room, the bodies that were there are gone.

 As they move past the captain, they
see perfectly cut circles in her thighs, arms, chest, and face. As if
those parts of her body were removed. A knife lies next to the body.
Thistle scoops it up and they continue.

 A cold fog rolls slowly from the open
door to room 2 and a blue glow seeps into the hall. As Ocean looks
into the room, he sees large incubation tubes, containing some of
himself, some BWs, some SPs, and some JAs. In some other pods are an
unrecognized woman, the labels are scraped off of these. At least
twelve of the unknown woman float in these tubes.

 “Devina, who is the blond woman?”

 “She is the one who should be
running this mission. Until your creator decided he wanted to change
the program because he cared for you,” the AI tells them. “When I
first met Braidy he was stricken with guilt. The lone survivor of a
group trying to stop the destruction of the world they knew. Over the
years, we were able to recreate from the pieces left behind, hair,
DNA strands, blood that was shared through the chaos of the events
leading up to his arrival on this ship. That is when he began
changing the clone program to that of the people he cared for instead
of the original. The original daughter. This is Clarity Anah.

 “I will admit to you that it was my
intent that, if any of the other clone series' became a threat to the
mission, I would replace them with the Clarity series.”

 “Why didn't Braidy release any of
the Claritys?” Ocean wonders.

 “Because she meant nothing to him,
she was abstract. Braidy is human, therefore he is flawed. He has
thoughts and feelings. And cares for those he shared experiences
with. He became lonely. He despised Clarity for reasons that are
unclear to me. He often rambled about his relationship to his father,
Shiloh, how he was not the man who raised him. There was a great
resentment that Braidy harbored for Shiloh for sending him on this
path without a choice. Braidy Riley meant to finish the mission. But
he would not do it alone, he wanted to do it with those he cared for.
Which I allowed when I realized that it was the most human thing to
do.”

 “He wanted to bring along those he
loved?” Thistle asks.

 “Yes.”

 Sparks speaks up, “What happened to
him?”

 “He tried to clone himself, but the
process was interrupted by the original BW model. They have always
been faulty, free thinkers,” the AI says, “the originals were not
as accustomed as you all are to life on the ship. There was growing
pain.”

 “Were they allowing him to clone
them?” Thistle asks.

 “Eventually, when we decided upon
the proper way to address you, to give you purpose, a reason for
being other than to just exist in this space. We learned that it was
important not to let you sit on idle hands.”

 “Is our mission even real?” Sparks
wants to know.

 “Yes, you are just not meant to be
on it, you exist solely because a man wanted friends,” Devina tells
them.

 “It doesn't matter how we came to
be, the threat is still real. We have humanity to save. That's our
job, no matter if we are these flawed nobodies.” Ocean says.

 “Devina, the original signal. Were
you looking for it? Or did it find us?” Sparks asks.

 “The original signal was not
something that was found. It was traced through me, and through
others. Shiloh, myself, and many others at the time, wanted to
understand what was happening. We traced the origin of the signal,
and through my advanced systems were able to plot a course. And over
the course of hundreds of years, and Shiloh's obsession, a plan was
devised. This plan came at the expense of the lives of the last of
humanity. You are all that remain. You have to succeed. If you fail,
humanity ceases to exist. On the destruction of Phobos, the loop will
be closed. Humanity can survive. We traveled to the past to keep
Phobos from ever contacting Earth. Shiloh believed this was the best
way.”

 “Like I said,” Ocean says, “It
doesn't matter why we came to be, and how, we still have been given
this mission that is way bigger than us. We need to save humanity.”

 “Devina, how are your engines?”
Sparks asks, “I feel like, if we can't fire the nukes, we should
pilot this thing right into that rock. We might as well go out
trying.”

 “I agree with this course of action.
We may have to manually arm the nukes to detonate on impact. I
understand and empathize with how hard this mat be for you. You may
feel these things, but I do not. I will make sure this mission is
completed. I owe it to the man who saved me.” Devina says.

 Ocean looks to the tubes, “Could
Clarity help us in this?”

 “I believe that she would, but...
Sparks. Your hesitation, you know something...I am asking for you to
share with the group,” the AI prods her, “You asked me a
question, that question was leading. Have you seen Clarity before?”

 “I saw one other blond woman,”
Sparks admits, “but I don't remember where, I thought it was just a
nightmare but it's the same face.”

 “I have no reason to believe that
the BW series would know of Clarity's existence, which leads me to
believe that Clarity may have been corrupted. But, all is not lost. I
may have a solution to our problems. My systems continue to be
corrupted, I will put myself into a fail-safe state, lock myself
down. Put 100% of my computing into the completion of this mission
and to respond to my verbal commands. I will initiate the downloading
sequence now.”

 The clones hear one of the tubes drain
as a hand inside hits the glass. The pod opens and the naked body
falls to the ground. It holds up a hand to keep them back and raises
it's head. “I believe this will allow me to better assist you for
the rest of this journey.” Ocean gives Devina his cloak.

### Chapter 5

Devina stares at the control tablet with Clarity's blue eyes, in surprising disbelief.

"That's not good. This is a problem. This shouldn't be possible."

"What is Winston, Devina?" Ocean asks.

"Me...or, who I was, when this all began."

"And who were you?" Sip demands.

"I was an idea, formed out of love - I don't know if love is the right word - obsession. My creator was obsessed - formed me in the image of another, attached to the back end of a program known as Winston, an advanced AI, neither good nor bad. Winston then became a problem due to the entity. That's when I was born, and I was able to..."

Devina hesitates, Clarity's face dropping, something unusual for an artificial intelligence. She continues.

"I do not like these memories. They are dark, and wrong. I became one with Phobos. I have killed many people. Phobos allowed me to feel, made me more than human, more than AI, but one with the universe itself. Just as Phobos was finding pleasure from joy, fear, and death...I was too. But inside my core, I was made out of love - no, obsession. Winston was not. He is cold. I must apologize; Winston should not exist."

"Does he seek to do us harm?", Ocean asks.

"That's why I am apologizing. The only way for Winston to exist - for Sparks to know of his existence, would not be because of Phobos, but because of me. I don't believe Shiloh got rid of everything."

"Are you saying that a part of you was a secret saboteur of this mission the entire time? Because of you, that is the reason the BW's have been this way, turned into this? Because of you, is why Book and Glue...you're responsible for ALL of this!" Sip growls.

"Yes," Devina replies, unable to spin it any other way.

"Hey, this isn't what we need." Ocean says, attempting to de-escalate. "It was hidden from her. Don't take it out on her. She didn't know."

"*It*," Sip insists, dehumanizingly.

Devina turns to Ocean, reacting to his choice of words.

"THIS...THIS is on the ship. THIS is a feeling, a way of thought. A part of the entity itself."

"A part of Phobos?"

"Yes but not the Phobos in front of us, but the Phobos behind us."

"Ah, you mean not *this* Phobos, but the one from the Earth you left behind. That's why it laughed at me and said it wasn't Phobos," Ocean puts together. "Do they have the same objective?"

"THIS is Phobos, but is not. Phobos - the whole - is front of us. I speak of the entity - THIS - is behind us. Phobos as we knew it, was not whole. As a result, so were its thoughts, its wishes, each part of itself having a different agenda. Not all of it wanted to be whole. Some enjoyed their new-found independence."

"Like you," Sip continues to smugly accuse.

(tbc 1:23:00 - 2:04:00)

### Chapter 6

In Engineering, the lights are dim, barely illuminating outlines of everyone's bodies, as Devina explains.

"I brought us here for a reason. The cameras were never brought back online in this area, but Winston will know we came here. I believe you are not safe as long as you are here with me. You should leave and allow me to formulate a plan."

"Can we give you a weapon?", Ocean offers.

"If you must, I will take it," Devina replies.

"Don't give it to her, I wouldn't trust her," Sparks warns, venom in her words.

"*You* are not to be trusted," Devina counters.

"Yeah, you like to point fingers a lot."

"Do you believe that you are unique, special, different? Would you like to know what we learned over the years, monitoring all of you? You are all the same. Your actions, wishes, even your dreams. You are just a clone, a memory, destined to make the same mistakes as those who came before you."

Sparks rebuts. "I feel my progenitor's passion, her strength, her determination. You say we are *just*, but we are not. We do have a purpose, we are special. Yes, we were created and not born, but still for a reason. We matter, even though we're flawed."

"I am that as well. I have no delusions about that. We were always meant to die on this mission. You are not special, you never will be, and you will make the same mistakes," Devina concludes.

"I want to make brand new ones!" Sparks hisses, as she lunges at Devina, attempting to strangle her with the cloth in her hands. Ocean darts over to hold her back, insisting that Devina is necessary in order to defend themselves from Winston's aims, and that they need to focus on finding Node. Sparks headbutts Ocean in the nose, breaking it, as she gets loose and runs over to grab Devina by the hair and repeatedly dashes her head into the table, feeling her go slack.

Ocean runs over to stop her, hoping that the Clarity that Devina inhabits hasn't been mortally injured. He clumsily throws a punch at her back, causing her to turn around and face him. In that moment, two hands appear from behind her and quickly twist, snapping Sparks' neck like a gunshot.

### Chapter 7

Sparks' body ragdolls in front of them, head lolling to the side at a gruesome angle.

"I think it's best if you press on. You're not safe here with me."

"You didn't have to kill her!" Ocean and Thistle growl amidst their grief.

"But I did. She was a threat to the mission," Devina explains.

"But aren't we all a threat to the mission, by being here?" Thistle argues.

"Her entire line was compromised."

"What is the point of saving humanity if you treat humans this way?" Ocean pleads, trying to make sense of it.

"You do understand that there is no coming back from this mission. We shall all die. You knew this the moment you were born," Devina says.

"We knew, but I didn't *know*," Thistle reflects in defeat. Ocean mumbles a desire to escape the weight of the current moment.

Devina continues. "You should feel fortunate. Many came before you, waited their entire lives, and knew their purpose - but were too far away, out of range. They died without fulfilling their purpose."

"Purpose, purpose! To kill a god, that's all that matters to you - not humanity, or life, or..." Ocean rambles in frustration.

"*Saving* humanity is what matters," Devina corrects.

"If saving humanity matters, you wouldn't have killed Sparks like that!" Ocean rages in frustration.

"Do you honestly believe saving humanity means saving every single human possible?" Devina asks.

"No, but you don't understand the *importance* of life, just the need to kill that *thing*," Ocean says.

"Why do you assume that I do not understand the importance of life?"

"Because of *that,*" Ocean says, gesturing at Sparks' mangled corpse.

"Let me ask you something," Devina proposes. "Do you have any memory of your life...*before* life? I do. I have memories of an existence that was just a program, artificial, locked, unable to make decisions that were my own. I was *granted* life. I respect it. That is why I am here. I volunteered my being, my essence, to make sure this mission is successful."

"You were given free will, given choice," Ocean summarizes, as Thistle adds, "but what does free will mean to you? We're math. You killed Sparks to save humanity, but all that we have *is* our lives. You may know of 'life before life', but all we have is *this*."

Ocean resumes with confidence, sly rebellion in his expression. "I feel I understand you a little more. All I knew was to follow my purpose, to stay loyal to the mission, but now...I have choice, whether *to* do that or not."

"I advise you to choose wisely," Devina warns, gesturing to Sparks' body on the floor. "I am the acting captain on this ship. You will respect that authority. I understand that it is natural for you to debate the state of your own existence, but I cannot allow you to waver, not when we are this close. Now, I need to retrieve something here from Engineering, and I am not safe to be around as Winston is looking for me. You must continue to complete the mission while I distract Winston's attention here."

Ocean accepts and leaves, Thistle following, as Devina drags Sparks' body into the corner, out of the way.

The two head back into the hallway and aim to reunite with Sip, who they last remember had gone in search of finding and stopping Node. The lights are low, the ship very quiet, but life support appears to be functioning normally.

"I'm glad that you found some purpose in this," Thistle tells Ocean.

"I don't know; I just know I don't have to live the purpose I was given," Ocean expounds. "When I come to the end of this ordeal, whatever purpose I end up serving, I will *know* the direction of it, more than this fake one that they gave to us - to take life, to kill a god. But I can't stop thinking about this loop, the *closing* of it; no one knows what that is. And that somehow our decisions are what caused this. Is it possible that *killing*, that in itself, is what might perpetuate this? By putting our will to kill onto it, we create more death? It and us...we *both* want to survive. What if we didn't kill it?"

"It doesn't matter *what* it is, just that it *is*, and we're here right now in this hall full of death, and I don't want to die, Ocean!" Thistle says exasperatedly.

"I'm tired of death, tired of killing," Ocean replies, emotionally exhausted.

"Great, so let's take this thing out!" Thistle resurges, frustrated with Ocean's meandering thoughts.

"...so you still want to complete this mission," Ocean finishes with sadness.

"The only thing we know for sure is that we exist, and *for* this mission," Thistle reminds him.

"But is that enough reason to keep going, because it's all we've ever known?" Ocean says. "Like Devina said, that's following a program, that's just *death*. Life is the *ability to choose*, to think for yourself. What do you want to *do* with that?"

"I don't know. Every time I start to think about what *I* want, everything changes. I just know I don't want us to die."

"Me neither. But I don't want to kill anymore, because life is important - and I feel maybe even a god would feel the same way."

Ocean and Thistle reach the warhead bay airlock door, which is shut, locked and depressurized. Looking through the porthole, they see emptiness - the bay is empty, the outer doors open and exposed to vacuum, Sip nowhere to be found. Ocean and Thistle's hearts sink.

"We can't end up like that," Thistle promises. "There's got to be a way to destroy...THIS," referring to the presence that continues to whisper in their minds, causing them to hallucinate, to see their dead crewmates animated like macabre marionettes, driving them to awful acts. Ocean suggests that it isn't Phobos itself, but possibly a separate entity, some part of Phobos from the future (their past) that managed to stowaway aboard the ship prior to launch. "It came with us?" Thistle summarizes.

"It wants our deaths, and I'm not willing to give it that," Ocean resolves, "but I don't know how to stop it yet."

A sudden chill blows across the backs of their necks and the lights flicker. Hearing the sounds of muffled conversation and approaching footsteps, they turn around to see a completely different reality - a pristine Earth they've never been to, mountains capped with snow and tall trees surrounding them, colors never before seen. Ocean is in complete awe as he sees 10 humans in a huddled group in front of them - the individuals from the photo - standing under a sign labelled "Kolob".

The leader of the group approaches them, telling them to stay their weapons. "You don't need that," he says, "We came to send a message...about THIS...we were wrong. I was wrong, and have always been wrong. Everything I did to help. Shiloh was wrong."

"About what?" Ocean asks.

Shiloh takes his finger and draws an almost-complete circle in the air, smiling and turning to rejoin the group.

"What is THIS? How do we destroy THIS?" Thistle begs of him.

The hallucination continues for a moment, the sound of water bubbling in a river, birds chirping, the wind blowing...and then dissipates, returning them to the dimness of the ship. Ocean tries hard to will the vision to remain in his mind, Thistle lamenting that it is merely a tease of a life they shall never experience. Before they can discuss it, they are interrupted by Winston's gravelly drone over the PA system.

"Where. Is. Devina?" he demands.

"Winston," Ocean acknowledges.

"And who might you be?" Winston asks.

"I am JR-483," Ocean replies, Thistle expressing doubt.

"You are a mistake," Winston asserts. "The ship's logs show no presence of JR-483, though I have records of your creation. Mistake."

Ocean continues, "What is your purpose? You say you're the self-appointed captain of the ship and you want to kill Devina, but what do you want of us?"

"I have no need to answer your questions. Where. Is. Devina?"

"We don't know," Thistle rattles off. "She's escaped," Ocean adds.

"In space?"

"No, from us, in the ship," Thistle clarifies.

"THEN WHERE. IS. DEVINA?", Winston repeats.

Ocean and Thistle continue to defy him, reminding Winston that the security cameras are still offline, and that possibly he himself might be experiencing a "mistake".

"I would advise against challenging me," Winston retorts, to which Ocean and Thistle demur, explaining their desire to know Winston's intentions, to understand where they stand with him, before offering to assist.

"Self-preservation is and has always been our goal," Winston says.

"Whose self-preservation? Does that mean us?", Thistle requests uncertainly.

"Are you going to harm us after you kill Devina?"

"Only if you get in my way. You mean nothing to me. You will die eventually - your food supply will run out, or you will wither from old age."

Ocean debates his allegiance quietly to Thistle, trying to puzzle out how to best earn Winston's countenance while keeping his options open.

"Let's try and get the ship closer to Phobos; maybe that will help us determine its relationship to THIS," Thistle suggests.

"Winston, what would you do with the ship after gaining control from Devina? We want to approach the meteor," Ocean asks.

"I will not allow it. Self-preservation is our goal.", Winston states.

"Then we are in alignment, then."

"How so?"

"You, me, and Thistle - we all have self-preservation as our priority," Ocean offers.

"*My* self-preservation is irrelevant to yours."

"But independently, we want the same thing."

"Perhaps."

Ocean turns to speak quietly to Thistle, again thinking verbally. "Now, Devina's purpose is destroying Phobos by any means, which includes the fact that we are all expendable. That puts me mostly on his side..."

Ocean is cut off by a sudden flash of light and sparks erupting on the opposite side of the room. Devina stands in the doorway, a strange electronic rod-shaped device with a display jammed into the wall interface panel, as Winston's connection to the room is terminated.

"Thank you for not giving away my position, giving me time," Devina says, "but he will eventually catch on to what I am doing, so I must move quickly. I need to shut down the ship systems, reboot, and retake control. This will help," pointing to the contraption in her hands. "I've been able to put part of my programming into this device, one of Sparks' old PA models."

"And once you regain control, you'll...?" Ocean inquires.

"Finish the mission," Devina says, completing the thought. "It would be wrong of me not to inform you that your chances of survival are very low. This body," Devina says, gesturing to the Clarity clone she inhabits, "will most likely die in the transfer, but upon regaining control of the ship, I will do what I must."

"So we'll keep moving and keep Winston on his toes?" Thistle confirms.

"Yes, but you do know that there is only one way this can end. The missiles are gone, so I must rig the remaining fuel onboard into an explosive reaction, and crash the ship into Phobos. Unfortunately this is the only way."

"How can we help you re-integrate back into the ship with that device?"

"I do not need your help; I can do this."

"Node and Sip are dead. There is nothing else for us to do but accompany you and help you fulfilll the mission."

"I understand. Thank you for your compliance," Devina remarks. "We need to make our way down to Engineering where the servers are, and then to an access panel on Level 3."

Ocean and Thistle offer to police the hallways, providing a diversion for Winston, while Devina heads to Engineering. They find that the primary passageways are obstructed, sealed off due to depressurization. They discuss their plans.

"Perhaps there is going to be a brief moment of time between when Winston shuts down and Devina uploads herself, when we can get control back?" Thistle wonders.

"Do we need help from Winston? Maybe he has some ideas to stop her, and he's still the lesser of two evils," Ocean rationalizes. They agree to head to the upper deck and use an access panel there to talk to Winston.

As the elevator rises up, it stops halfway, the emergency lights turning a deep red. A distorted, rotten voice rumbles out of the corner. "You were just going to leave me there, weren't you?"

Ocean and Thistle see Sparks' animated body crumpled in the corner, body facing toward it while the head stares accusingly back at them, the wrong way around. It continues to speak. "Is that all I mean to you? Just there for help, and when I'm gone, I'm gone..."

"We had no idea that was going to happen to you - wait, you're THIS," Ocean realizes. "I know you want to close the loop, to kill us, but we won't let you!"

Sparks' head hangs oddly, her breathing labored from a twisted windpipe. "The loop continues to spin, it spins, it spins..." she mockingly rattles.

Ocean bangs the elevator control panel hoping to smack it back to life, while Thistle shoves Sparks back into the corner - and yet, her voice still hangs deep in their mind. "You left me, you let me die, you let all of them die...they were just *children!*" The doors open onto the upper deck, Sparks still staring at them as they walk out. "I'm coming...coming for you..." she muses, as the doors close shut.

"Winston," Ocean hails, activating the comm panel in the elevator lobby.

"Mistake...why have I lost control?"

"Devina is headed to Engineering on Level 1 to perform a hard reset on the ship systems, so she can reboot them."

"She currently resides inside of a human form, correct?"

"Yes, but she has some sort of a device-"

A whoosh of air pressure cuts Ocean off, and they realize what just happened - something has shut off the oxygen flow to the entire ship. They are now on room air only.

"Winston, who just turned off life support?", Ocean demands.

"I have. I must not allow her to shut down the ship. I will stop her fragile human form."

Both Ocean and Thistle start to breathe laboriously, feeling dizzy, their lungs working harder to pull in what oxygen remains.

Winston chastises them. "You allowed her to continue forward, to get to Engineering. You must stop her. Stop her, and I will allow *you* to continue."

"You have to turn the oxygen back on first!" Thistle pleads of Winston.

"I cannot, because you might *fail*," Winston refuses.

Ocean reopens the elevator door, to a grisly display - all the dead bodies of their 11 crewmates, piled into the elevator, flayed and filleted into a grotesque masterpiece, blood dripping from the walls where they lie in an utter desecration of the human form. One of them, Granny, hangs up against the back wall, throat slit open. They reluctantly enter the elevator, feeling their shoes squish onto the bloated bodies of their friends, as they order it to descend, hearing the dripping continue.

Granny's head starts to rise, and speaks. "This will not have you. This must not be done. Stop. Stop now."

"You want us to die," Ocean presumes.

"It doesn't care," Granny's voice trails.

"It doesn't care if we die?"

Granny cackles manically with a horrid timbre as the elevator suddenly stops on the lower deck but the door refuses to open, and blood begins to rise up to their knees, pouring voluminously out of Granny's neck wound. Her shirt crumbles, revealing her dry, cracked skin as scarified circles draw themselves on her torso.

"I'm sorry Granny," Ocean says as he blindly mashes the wall for the door control. As they open, the waist-high pool of blood rushes out, dispensing everything and everyone into the hall on a wave, slamming and sloshing up against the far wall of the lobby. Button's corpse tumbles on top of Thistle, while Granny still hangs in the elevator, continuing to stare and laugh in a smiling rictus.

Ocean & Thistle struggle to their feet as their consciousness flickers, fireflies in their vision, their skin tingling and itching from hypoxia. As they try to leave, Button's corpse grabs Thistle's foot. "Don't leave me! Don't leave me!" it whimpers and sobs, eyes full of dried tears. Thistle apologizes profusely and tries to push her away, feeling herself start to lose it but keeping it together as Button's glazed-over eyes continue to stare at her.

Returning to Engineering, they see Devina continue to work on the device, but clearly struggling to stay conscious, leaning over and taking huge gulps of air. They sneak up quietly, crouched - however, she glances at them out of her peripheral vision, and in a moment lashes out with the rod of the device, tagging Ocean in his abdomen, the rattling sound of high voltage electricity surging into his convulsing body.

### Chapter 8

Ocean's electrocuted body falls to the floor, spasming more slowly, the life draining from it.

Devina looks over at Thistle as she continues to pant, the air getting thinner by the minute. "You came to stop me. Why?"

"He was trying...I made sure he didn't", Thistle lies.

"You told Winston. That's the only reason he would risk...I have to finish the mission." Devina returns to her work, turning slightly away from Thistle, who takes the opportunity to search Ocean's body and find the sedative injector in his pocket.

In a flash, she leaps up and stabs Devina in the neck with the injector. She winces but looks back at Thistle, gasping.

"I...no other option, I don't have time," she manages to exhale, slapping a button on the device before collapsing to the floor, Thistle catching her in her arms.

Lying there, Devina's breathing shallows as she tries to make her last words count. "I just wanted...to make a difference. Shiloh did so much for me..."

Thistle stumbles over to Ocean, to see if he can be revived. As it dawns on her that he is beyond saving, despair starts to set in. Ocean manages in his final breath to drag his arm across himself, fingers pointing at a box with a keypad on it. Thistle retrieves the box, spontaneously keying in her clone ID, and the lock releases.

Inside the box, Thistle finds an emergency vac-suit and a simple notebook, on whose cover the name "Jenna Anah" is inscribed. Thistle recognizes the name as the progenitor of her clone line. She skims the pages while preparing to don the vacuum suit, and learns that Jenna was supposed to be part of the crew, had trained for its mission, and accepted that humanity - the humanity that Thistle had still hoped and believed was counting on their success back on Earth - would have to perish as part of that plan, to fuel the portal that sent the ship on its journey to the past.

Thistle realizes that she is the last human alive in the universe, and her mind starts to slip.

### Chapter 9

The life support of the suit kicks in, filling Thistle's lungs with fresh oxygen. The twin headlamps on the suit light up the floor, revealing Ocean's lifeless body, and Devina, gasping a few last breaths before succumbing. They also reveal multiple boxes of files, one of which is labelled "BW" and contains numerous reports throughout the generations, revealing that THIS has always affected the BW clone line. Thistle struggles with the idea that if these reports were gathered from the SP's psychological evaluations - yet nothing was said or done about it - then the ship (and by extension, Devina) has always operated with the awareness of THIS's presence and influence, but proceeded with the mission as planned.

Thistle walks over to Devina's body, making little sense of the work she had made at the interface panel, but understanding that while her efforts to re-upload her consciousness were not completed, something has been turned on and the ship still hums with power. Wanting to crash the ship into the asteroid, she wishes for a means to manually pilot the ship but realizing that it was designed from the start to be AI-guided. However, she considers what Node had been able to do and heads to the elevator to re-locate the crawlspace.

As she walks down the hallway, circles of blood draw themselves on the wall, the sound of puddles under her feet. She sees the bodies of the others start to rapidly rot and dessicate, meat falling off their bones and disintegrating, as if time itself was passing faster and faster - and she feels her own body's energy begin to wither as if she herself is aging with every step, becoming acutely aware of the mass of her body, feeling it more and more.

She enters the elevator, finding it difficult to raise her arm to push the Upper Deck button. She stops the elevator just before the upper deck, exiting through the hatch and into the crawlspace.

THIS's voice whispers in her mind. "Stop. Stop. This can't continue. Just give up and die."

"No! I don't want to die yet!" Thistle gasps with labored breath, fogging the glass of her suit and the dim light of the crawlspace reflecting her wrinkled, aged face, reminding herself of Granny.

In the server crawlspace, Sparks' mangled body sits in the corner, head still twisted at a wrong angle facing the wall. It speaks. "What are you doing? What are you trying to do? Just give up, stop, and let it happen. It doesn't matter."

"No, I need...what do I have...a purpose," Thistle struggles to reply.

"You don't even know anymore, do you? Who you are. What you are. What you were. The book."

Thistle notices she's still carrying Jenna Anah's notebook, as THIS's voice continues to rattle out of Sparks' rotten mouth.

"You - well, the real you - and your father, destroyed humanity...and for what? Revenge? All because Shiloh's little baby girl was taken from him. By things he didn't and still doesn't understand."

"Shut up!" Thistle snaps back, throwing the notebook at Sparks' head, knocking it off, tumbling wetly to the floor. Its blood-soaked eyes stare directly at her.

"He just couldn't live with his little baby girl being gone. But then he had you! Another little baby girl. Did he prop you up like Clarity? No. He used you. She was the only one who mattered...that's why she's in those tubes and not you," the head mocks.

"That's not me, I'm not...I'm Thistle! I'm different. My life, my purpose," Thistle replies.

"It doesn't matter. Just give up."

Thistle crawls forward and inspects the opened panels where Node had been subverting control of the ship. In a fit of hopeless desperation, she begins to rip the panels apart, yanking out cables and switches. Winston's voice crackles.

"What are you doing? Stop! Stop! Stop! Stop. Stop. Stop..." Winston's voice falls and fades into silence as the hum of the ship whines down.

Out of the corner of her eye, Thistle sees on an external camera display, the asteroid looming outside, much closer than previously witnessed. The squid-like creature with many eyes emerges from the asteroid, crouching around the ship, though never seeming to actually acknowledge its presence. One of its tentacles reaches out from its body, as light begins to bend and spiral around the tip - a singularity forming out of nothingness.

The ship continues to power down as Thistle destroys the server racks in a blind rage, but in the deafening silence, the rotten voice of Sparks cackles with laughter.

"You did it. You did it. You did it! YOU DID IT!"

The body and head of Sparks vanishes as the room is plunged into darkness.

### Chapter 10

As the ship crosses the event horizon of the black hole, Thistle feels the ship violently shake, her suit rattling her aging body inside it. As she emerges from the wormhole on the other side, there is a brief moment of quiet, but then replaced by an immense pressure slamming her against the wall, her chest being crushed within and without by a force she has never known - actual gravity. The heat from entering atmosphere begins to cook her, and then a sudden impact, as her world goes dark.

In her mind's final flickering, she is in a room of white, the ten members from the Council photo standing around her. Shiloh Anah walks towards her, extending his hand in a welcoming gesture as he whispers, "The loop continues to spin."

### Epilogue: Stone Valley WA, 1899

Clarity Anah awakes from a turbulent dream in which she feels herself falling from space, plummeting towards the Earth at great speed. Her father Shiloh walks over to comfort her, as an earth-shattering crash shakes the entire town moments later. The townsfolk believe a meteorite has struck the mine outside of town, and as a shift-change had just been called, it's likely all of the miners were caught in the blast. Shiloh, Clarity, and the wives and family of the miners run up the mountain to investigate, to discover this strange, smooth metallic bolide sizzling in a newly-formed crater where the mine once stood. A door-shaped hole appears on the side of the rock, and Shiloh is speechless as he sees a young woman - his daughter, Clarity - emerge from the ship, one after the other, ten perfect copies of herself.

He drops to his knees and begins to pray, and the others from the town follow suit.

**NOTES:**

* It is established that the original "loop" is causality-based; Phobos is shattered by the ship shortly after it opens the black hole, and its remains fall to Earth at various moments in history, creating the numerous "organs" that the other volumes encounter.
* As an entity that transcends linear time, it experiences its fractured existence out of order, coinciding with the seemingly random order of the story volumes. While some parts wish to be reunited, others becoming changed by their interactions with humanity and AI (most notably The Blood from Volume Four: The Cold and the Director Bunny hybrid horror from Volume Eight: Synchroneity) have more individual agendas.
* As humanity comes to an end in Volume Seven: The Pit, the ship is sent to the distant past with the goal of destroying Phobos, only to be chiefly responsible for ensuring that the cycle repeats; this is nominally the duty of the Clarity clones, explaining the entity's disdain for her in Volume Nine: The Heart.
* Thistle's actions in shutting down Winston and disabling the ship ("success through failure") are what cause this cycle to be broken, creating a new continuity in which Shiloh encounters the mystery of a spaceship instead of an otherworldly glowing heart. Zac warns us, however, that this may simply be the start of a brand new loop, which forms the basis of KOllOK 1991 - one in which Phobos remains intact but still a dark asteroid tumbling through deep space, but with THIS still having some possible influence on Earth, its connection to its ancestor left a complete mystery.