03042091 EOD B-Papa

*Onward* *does the carcass of Soviet drudgery stand still and decrepit in the southern reaches of Kholat Syakhl, the old warehouse in which Dr. Peterson keeps his laboratory discreetly under. Rather than a stealth operation after hours of snow travel Kari and her bound companion Sweet Dreams Requiem make their way through to find a more welcoming entrance.*

*Waiting at the door for the laboratory, not the rusted exterior door, is not a mechanical lock on the door but a strange panel to the right of the doorway with a thinner panel flush above it both at about shoulder height. While the rusted door was left unlocked this strange panel attracts Kari's attention. While she cautiously approaches it SDR rushes towards it, face inches away. She notices a faint red glow from the thinner panel and suddenly the glow becomes more intense. SDR backs away from the panels towards Kari.*

[SP]: I am pleased to bear witness to your eventual return, as I personally have expected you for many a time now.

[KF]: Nice to know we were expected. I came to return your lent article.

[SP]: As among other things, please by all means do indulge me.

*The door opens, having not actually seen it for herself open yet Kari is startled at just how thick and heavily bolted the door really is at a sturdy foot's depth inward. With four bolts that lock into the ceiling, floor, and two into the wall to its right, the door opens inward and to the left slowly. As Kari enters it proceeds in its slow process to close behind her and she proceeds down the corridor further, now being reacquainted with familiar scenery per her last visit. At the laboratory entrance itself past all obstacles deactivated for her presence awaits Dr. Peterson who stands in the open with his arms behind his back.*

[KF]: Need more than a secondary opinion on your Gran Turismo S, I take it?

[SP]: Charming as ever, miss Frost. Might I inquire the outcome of Operation Black Light from your perspective rather than my surveilling results?

[KF]: Eclipse Research Group is finished. Whether or not their facility is done for is out of the question but they don't have the means to use it for what it was any more.

[SP]: As I am aware, gladly do I hear it directly from the operation's squad lead herself. As I must assess this mustn't be all you might provide by reporting to me, a dreadful demeanor catches itself in your words as you speak.

[KF]: That obvious, huh?

[SP]: I dare ask what must burden you, a task that I provided you with returns to me with such sorrow.

[KF]: Nate's, well, gone.

[SP]: Gone, you say? And how might have this occurred?

[KF]: He sacrificed himself to close the dimensional portal that FFG managed to get up and running, all because I told him I encountered him in another dimension but didn't know how he was brought there.

[SP]: Ah by further deduction this mustn't be the whole story.

[KF]: That's all, right there.

[SP]: Let me allow myself to proclaim this to your common understanding as I say, "Objection, there's a contradiction in your testimony"!

[KF]: Very funny. I take it that my delay to returning to you is a part of this suspicion?

[SP]: No that hadn't occurred to me until your mentioning of it at this moment, is that so?

[KF]: It is, because another issue rose from this problem about Nate and that specific dimension. One you and you only might have an understanding of.

[SP]: Then perhaps we may discuss this further in a more comfortable environment.

[KF]: First, your AK-5.

*Kari, holding Dr. Peterson's AK-5 on a sling over her shoulder, now hands it back. He takes it and holds it over his shoulder until reaching a lab desk in the main room, setting it down there. The two begin to walk towards the elevator and down the hall to the common area. Finding themselves at a L-shaped couch surrounding half the perimeter of a coffee table the two sit on respective ends of the couch.*

[SP]: If I may ask of all things, why may I be one of few to understand this dimensional predicament?

[KF]: I don't understand any of what happened, but I'll do what I can. Around February or so I had a sudden shock in the middle of my day, up until I brought myself here to you today I had been depressingly wasting days away in an empty home. It came to me suddenly and left me with a new crisis in my history, in that I had a sudden realization like I had never even been capable of traveling dimensions. This is untrue as I used an ability of SDR to get to where my son lives. But, this made me think, how exactly did I manage to get to the dimension Nate's supposedly stuck in if I didn't even have SDR back then? At that moment any memories I had of those I was with, friends and events I encountered there in that dimension, ceased to progress.

[SP]: Fascinating at least, intriguing at most. And you claim this dimension came to be how you found yourself with SDR at all, and the magic behind Animas of any kind whatsoever?

[KF]: Yeah, at this point it's like an off switch was flipped on my memories there. Then that night I struggled to sleep trying to remember what the last thing I did in that dimension was. I couldn't and when I passed out exhausted the memory must have come to me in a dream.

[SP]: And what might this peculiar cinema in your brain pertain to?

[KF]: I won't explain in detail, but the conclusion was this: whoever I was in that dimension was not me, but some person grown in a lab. The Nate that's there is fake, and so is the Katya there too. The last moments were me executing a doppelgänger wearing the outfit I wear to Ferox, then turning the gun on Katya, and then myself. As I shot myself I woke up that morning in a cold sweat, sun bright outside.

[SP]: Very fascinating indeed! So might this mean-

[KF]: Whoever I am in that dimension, the "Aether", is not me and never was. Any connection I had there was replicated and some poor lab-grown homunculus was eliminated of their free choice by being force-fed my past to convince themselves they were me.

[SP]: A complicated means to a defeated end.

[KF]: I feel so bad for that woman, my conscience isn't unburdened by knowing that thought drove her to kill herself.

[SP]: This truly must weight heavy on your soul, knowing that you couldn't save "yourself".

[KF]: There's so much I would've wanted to say to her. So many things I would've wanted to help her with.

[SP]: There is no helping such damnation now, as it is beyond even your trans-dimensional reach. Dead is dead.

[KF]: I can go back there, to the "Aether".

[SP]: Perhaps for the sake of your friends there you shouldn't.

[KF]: I suppose so, in all dynamic consideration.

[SP]: Ah but I do hope such troubling matters and the disappearance of your lover and my good acquaintance won't discourage you from assisting anyone further, more so towards someone such as myself.

[KF]: Not anymore, no. I would have turned down any other requests of me up until this point since the beginning of this year.

[SP]: That's excellent to hear. I have no need to burden you further with any requests at the moment but I will always have the means to contact you myself as now that I have my rifle returned to me these contacts mustn't always be in person.

[KF]: I'll take my leave for now, then. There's not a whole lot I can say on the matter.

[SP]: If there must be any consolation for your time other than returning me my personal rifle then let it be that I will take what you've said today in consideration. As time finds itself bending to a mortal's will so too will I research this phenomena.

[KF]: Farewell, then.

[SP]: I bid you safe travels.

*Kari leaves, just as depressed as she entered. Dr. Peterson returns to the front laboratory and picks up his AK-5 rifle from the desk, taking it with him to the elevator. Hyun-Ae emerges from her bedroom as he passes the door to it and follows after him. Just as he enters the elevator and turns around to press the button to signal it downward Hyun-Ae runs up to him before the doors close and open-arm hugs him tightly.*

[SP]: Why, good afternoon to you, dear.

[HA]: Was that Kari I heard?

[SP]: Indeed so.

[HA]: Oh, she gave you back your rifle.

[SP]: If it weren't for sentimental value I wouldn't have missed it even slightly, rifles are easily replaceable.

[HA]: Well, what did she have to say?

[SP]: A rather inquisitive conversation, if I must say, severance of a trans-dimensional connection. Supposedly the being she knew herself to be in another dimension was someone else entirely, grown and groomed to believe she was Kari Frost but was someone else entirely. Made in a lab to be her.

[HA]: Scary. I wonder if they'll ever meet?

[SP]: Tragically, this individual turned her gun on herself. That might not be the end of the story but it very well seems as such.

[HA]: That's depressing. I don't really know if that would be, well, a big loss to her or not. It's a weird situation.

[SP]: Truly so, and until there is conclusive evidence otherwise it may not be the end.

[HA]: How will you even know? You haven't created dimensional travel and kept it a secret from everyone, have you?

[SP]: Oh no, my I haven't. I very much would if that were the case.

*The elevator reaches the bottom and the doors open. Dr. Peterson makes his way towards the armory to stow away the AK-5 and Hyun-Ae follows with him.*

[SP]: Though the idea, and the whole predicament, have me lost in thought.

[HA]: Oh, it sounds like someone's being a little adventurous!

*After stowing the AK-5 in its shelf slot the two leave the armory and close it off behind them. The two stand in the lobby room next to the elevator door with its doors open.*

[SP]: Perhaps so. It might be time to go and see the sights once more.

[HA]: I don't know how you're not as pale as a ghost, being in here for years at a time.

[SP]: A ghost, I may vary well be at times.

[HA]: So what are you planning on doing?

[SP]: For the time being, I may begin to follow my curiosity to its end down here for some time. Kari's whole predicament has some stirring inquiries building up within my head.

[HA]: Oh, okay. Don't spend all day and all night days on end straight putting those thoughts into action, or I'll come back down here myself!

[SP]: As we both might already expect unsurprisingly, count on it.

**End**