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著作信息
Hello! This tale features themes and characters that were first seen in Entity 189 and Level 811. For those of you who are familiar with those pages, it shouldn't be an issue, but for those new to this, well, whether you'd prefer to give those a read before this page or if this will be your jumping point into Macchina lore is up to you! Just be aware that this was written as a follow-up to 811, of sorts, which in turn sought to elaborate on Entity 189. Some of the questions you may have regarding this tale might have been answered in one of those two pages.
With that out of the way, grab yourself a drink (hydration is important) and enjoy the read!
Rock on,
-SnomWriting.
作者的话 ⤴
M.E.G. 异象报告，2027 年 8 月 18 日。
根据报告，在近期数月内，Level 811 内的多个遗迹莫名消失。遗迹消失的频率呈现逐步增长趋势，且每次消失的遗迹也越来越庞大。其中，值得注意的消失遗迹包括护手“黑帝斯”、长剑“杜兰达尔”、战锤“赫菲斯托斯”以及种类无法判断的遗迹“丛云”。在遗迹消失的位置没有发现任何踪迹，而所有消失的遗迹，无一例外，都在原地留下了一个光滑的半圆形巨坑。至今为止未发现任何此异象的目击者。如果任何正在阅读此报告的人士有意提供相关信息，M.E.G. 诚挚期盼您的到来。
菲丝合上了她的笔记本。大多数时候，异象报告都是无聊的差事。毕竟，她想道，在这个地方，恐怕想要找个正常的东西才是大海捞针。她打了个哈欠，顺势舒展手臂。她低头，看向正躺在二人床上的丹，她那电蓝色的长发在台灯的照耀下波光闪动。菲丝叹了口气。漫长的工作日。现在她满脑子都是担忧。万一接下来泽胡蒂也消失了怎么办？那样她是不是就再也见不到奥米利亚了？
M.E.G. 发现 Level 811 已经有差不多两年了，距离她第一次见到奥米利亚也过去了两年。这两年里，发生了许多。他们无数次想要把奥米利亚传输进传统的人造计算机，却毫无成果。得益于菲丝，奥米利亚对这个新世界了解了许多。而反之，菲丝也学到了一些过去的知识，其中奥米利亚对于机巧子民社会与生理的记录——哪怕极其稀少且表浅——也让世人对往昔的后室有了更加深刻的了解。丹与菲丝结婚了。Blanche 乐意之至地主持了她们的婚礼。奥米利亚无法出席，却同样十分欢喜，甚至帮助菲丝挑选了婚礼上的长裙。
所有的念头在菲丝的脑中一闪而过，她钻进了被窝，不过她现在不得不让出一半了。但她并不介意，即便丹有时候会打呼噜。她小心翼翼，生怕吵醒自己的妻子，花了两分钟才紧绷着躺下。菲丝拨开丹面颊上的发丝，盯着她手臂上的纹身看了一会儿，方才轻轻亲吻她的前额，闭上双眼，准备歇息。迷迷糊糊间，她坠入了梦中……
Faith's eyes bolt open. The nightmare's still fresh on her mind, adding to her other worries. She turns her head to the side, but Dawn's nowhere to be seen. In fact, neither is their bed nor the rest of their room. There are blades of grass poking into the back of her head. The sounds of running water quietly accompanied the soft breeze. Countless bright dots populate the night sky. She gets up, trying to get a bearing of her current location, which doesn't take long. After all, not many places have colossal sets of ancient armor lying around. She slowly makes her way towards Aegis, slightly shivering from the cold. The hatch opens before Faith even lays a hand on the door. Almiria must be awake. She crawls into the cockpit, now used to the mechanical whirring and moving parts and the boot up sequence. The sting in the back of her neck doesn't bother her anymore, and neither does the burning sensation in her eye
With this, the visor powered off, the cockpit opened, and all the moving parts returned to their resting position. Faith left the cockpit and headed towards the nearby stream, washing her hands, her face, and drinking some of the water. She looked at her reflection in the running water. Her eyes were glowing, her irises a bright shade of cyan. It didn't phase her anymore, just one of the usual effects of the Ambrosia injected into the back of her neck. She found herself even liking the look of it, lately. Faith walked along the stream for a bit, gazing at the stars above, if indeed they even were stars that littered the night sky over her head. Regardless, they looked gorgeous.
Faith closed the door of her apartment and headed straight for her room. Dawn was, unsurprisingly, awake and concerned, pulling Faith close to her for a hug.
- "Where'd you go?" Dawn muttered. "It's late, we have lots to do tomorrow… did you forget to pack something? Are you okay?"
- "I'm… worried about that 811 situation, is all." Faith looked into Dawn's eyes, placing a hand on her cheek.
- "Your eyes are glowing, love." Dawn paused. "Did you sneak out to pay Almiria a visit? You could have told me, I'd keep you company along the way…"
- Faith smiled. "I didn't really choose to go there. I had… a nightmare, and when I woke up, I was lying next to Zehuti."
- "That's odd. Spontaneous clip from 11 to 811? We'll have to add that to the file." Dawn yawns, then grabs Faith's wrist, pulling her along on her way to bed. "Come lay down, ok? A little cuddling should ease your mind."
- Faith chuckles, following Dawn. "I can't say no to that."
"Axel?"
Dawn's voice is drenched in concern as she makes the phonecall.
"Do you think you can cover the food distribution mission with Kayn?"
"I know, I know, it's a lot of work just for two people but… Faith's not waking up. I'm gonna take her to a doc."
"The food needs to get to the people of Level 1 either way, see if you can get some help from other teams or if not, Lady Blanche should be able to help."
"She's breathing and her heart is beating, yes, she's just unconscious."
"She clipped into 811 somehow and came back at 2am, her eyes were bright cyan. Said she had nightmares about some obsidian-armored figure…"
"Ain't no way this is Almiria's fault, Axel. They wouldn't hurt Faith."
"Sorry, just… got a lot on my plate. Can I count on you to get shit done?"
"… Thanks, Axel. I owe you one."
She hangs up the phone, then makes another phone call.
"Hey, Dawn Marchesa here. Need medical personnel A.S.A.P."
"Faith's unconscious. Fell asleep and isn't waking up."
"She's breathing and her heart's working, yeah."
"Look, I just need someone to help me carry her to a doc without hurting her."
"Okay. Thank you."
She puts down her phone, sighs, and holds back tears for a few seconds. She turns her attention to Faith, quietly observing for any sign of what could be causing this. She notices her breathing is perfectly regular, to a disturbingly accurate degree. She pulls back Faith's sleeves, noticing faint, circuit-like patterns, pulsating with cyan light to the rhythm of her heart, and her breathing.
She sighs again. Someone knocks at her door. They were quick this time, she thinks.
Dawn takes a seat in the waiting room, anxiously twiddling her thumbs while someone in the medical department checks up on Faith. Chances are, they won't be able to reach any meaningful conclusion besides "Ambrosia overdose," but Dawn hopes, deep down, that there's no connection between the lack of consciousness and the strange lines all over her limbs, even if the rational side of her thinks otherwise. She thinks about calling Axel to check up on the mission, or writing Blanche a letter, or doing something, anything, to take her mind off of things even if just for a moment. Her arms refuse to move, though. Like her mind, they're locked in this uneasy silence, clinging to a hope she's almost certain won't lead anywhere.
In this train of thought, she scoffs to herself for the smallest of moments. She must have faith in, well, Faith, she thinks. How fitting.
Faith slowly opens her eyes. The burning sensation she'd grown accustomed to had spread through her whole body, yet she didn't seem to be bothered by it. It felt… oddly natural, even.
"Faith? Hey there, love. How do you feel?"
"I'm okay," she says, but her lips don't move. Dawn flinches for a moment.
"I'm… I'm glad to hear it, Faith." She takes a deep breath, holding her hand. "What's happening to you?"
"I don't know. Not yet, at least." Her cyan eyes remain fixated on the ceiling in an unusually cold and unblinking gaze. "I need to ask something of you, Dawn."
"What do you need?" Dawn's concern was beyond palpable. A couple tears streamed down her face, yet she held her composure.
"I need you to go see Almiria for me." Her lips remain frozen. "I need to ask them about Horus." She's breathing, but there's no movement. "I need to know who's calling to me, and them, and all the other dormant titans in 811." Mustering all of her strength, she holds onto Dawn's hand just a little bit harder. "Please."
Dawn hesitates for a moment before speaking. "I… I will, love," she mutters between tears, "but please… just let me stay with you for a moment now."
Faith tries to smile, but her lips still won't move. She has no idea how Dawn can hear her voice, but she's not complaining about it. "Okay," she replies.
Dawn leans in for a kiss. Faith remains immobile, but she feels Dawn's tears streaming down her face, and her own tears don't take long to join them. Her mind sees distant sparks of nuclear fire, wormholes, pulsars and neutrons flying through space, but she chooses to focus as hard as she can on the here and now, savoring the moment for a few minutes.
Dawn leans back. "You're… really warm. It's probably a fever. I'll get someone to take care of it on my way out. I don't… really understand what's happening, but please come out of this okay, will ya?" She wipes her tears and then chuckles lightly. "We still have to try that new pancake recipe of yours…"
Faith wants to laugh, too, but it'll have to wait. Her grip on Dawn's hand loosens up.
"I'll be back soon, okay? Ain't no way I'm letting you go through this alone." With that, Dawn leaves the room. Someone else comes in, and Faith catches only a glimpse of a medical uniform before passing out again.
Dawn sets her backpack on the grass, taking some time to fill up her water bottle on the nearby stream. She gazes at the colossal set of broken armor lodged against the nearby mountain. Something about it gave her the creeps. The fact it was made out of Macchina corpses and had biological tissue under all that armored plating was certainly unnerving, and the Titan did leave Faith in a state no one could quite comprehend after her last visit, but there was something more to it, something that seemed to bother her from the first time she saw what remained of Unit Zehuti.
She shoved those thoughts aside as she climbed up to the hatch, prying it open with her bare hands until the armor's own mechanism opened the cockpit for her. She took a deep breath, trying to fit her body into the tight, almost claustrophobic pilot's seat. She thinks about how easy this must be for Faith, who's a whole 35 centimeters shorter than her. Eventually she manages to cram herself into the seat, waiting through the boot up sequence.
She lets out a sigh of relief as the cockpit seemingly expands a little. The mechanical whirring got louder, and all the parts fell into place, giving her some much-needed legroom. She had heard Faith describe the process before, so she let the metallic tube-like structures slide over her limbs, the visor fall over her eyes, the needle dig into the back of her neck, and the startup diagnostics play out in silence.
The hatch opens, and Dawn has a much easier time leaving the cockpit than she had when entering it. She carefully treads down Zehuti, trying not to slip or damage the relic. She makes it to the ground rather quickly, picking up her backpack and taking a sip of water from her bottle. She tries to call Faith, but nobody picks up the call. It's to be expected. She rings up Axel, who assures her the mission is going smoothly despite the lack of assigned personnel, thanks to help from the locals. Dawn lets out a sigh of relief. At least that's going well, she thinks.
She walks down the stream, eager to see Faith again. She takes a moment to glance at her reflection in the water. Her eyes aren't glowing like Faith's, which does calm her down a bit. The back of her neck feels awfully itchy, though.
Faith opens her eyes. The medical department's ceiling is nowhere to be seen, buried under layers upon layers of cosmic visions and a set of four red, unblinking mechanical eyes gazing directly at her and speaking to her in a language she doesn't know but is starting to understand. She's not scared. Her body burns, her limbs won't move, her heart and lungs are functioning in a perfectly rhythmical manner, like a well tuned metronome. She's not worried. Her unblinking eyes are bright cyan, her skin is covered in circuit-like lights, and she doesn't feel hunger or thirst. It all feels natural, as if she'd always been this away, as if she'd never known anything else, and none of it seems to bother her at all.
"Faith?" Dawn's voice cuts through Faith's train of thought like a warm knife through butter. She can sense her body being shaken, but it feels distant, like a dream. "Faith?" She wants to move, to see her wife, to say her name, but her body refuses to act. "Faith?" She knows Dawn is getting desperate. A couple tears fall on her face. "Faith!" Dawn grabs her head, turning her face to see her. She lets out the faintest of smiles, and Dawn notices. Even behind countless images of distant nebulas and barren worlds, Faith can see her love's relieved.
"Thank fuck you're okay," she says. "I went to see Almiria. They explained all this… stuff to me, and said I have to bring you to them, when…" She pauses to wipe her tears. "When you're ready."
Faith musters all of her strength to nod.
Dawn sighs. "Okay. Let me just make a phone call, get someone to help me take you there." She tries to smile, despite the fact she feels like an emotional train wreck. "This'll pass soon," she says, more so to herself than to Faith, as she picks up her phone, thinking of whom to call. She scratches the back of her neck. Her nails hit the chain of her pendant, and Dawn comes up with a new plan. No one she could call could take Faith from one level to another faster than Blanche. She rushes to her backpack and takes an old but pristine looking book out of it. Without hesitating, she takes hold of Faith's hand, opens the book, and swipes her finger across the signature on the cover.
Her world fades to white for a split second, and she manages to hold Faith in her arms just before the transition into the Cygnus Archive happens. She opens her mouth to speak, but her thoughts spoke louder, and Blanche already has a door to Level 811 ready and waiting for her. Dawn thanks her before leaving, and her world fades to white once again…
Faith's vision clears as they approach Zehuti. She takes a look at Dawn's face and remembers her wedding when she realizes Dawn is carrying her bridal style. Dawn stops a couple steps away from the ruined Titan. The pulsating, circuit-like lights on the armor shine more intensely, and the lights on Faith's limbs mirror them. The hatch opens, and much to Dawn's surprise, Faith begins to hover towards it. She enters the cockpit effortlessly, as if she'd been floating in the air all her life. The door closes, the mechanical whirring begins, and all the parts fall into place.
As the visor falls over Faith's face and the boot up sequence begins, Zehuti skips a subroutine, and the back of Faith's neck remains untouched.
A flash of light envelops Zehuti, blinding Dawn for a few seconds. When she opens her eyes, there's no trace of the Titan or of its pilot, only a perfect hemispherical indent carved into the floor and the mountain the armor was once lodged against.
Level 811 is usually a quiet place. Not many people visit the level, and those who do are either there to perform research and exploration or to honor their ancestors, not wishing to disturb the slumbering Titans and the souls of those who forever rest alongside them.
Today, as Dawn's heart sinks in her chest and tears flood her eyes, that silence is broken by a single anguished scream.
A cold wind howls past.
The visor lifts off of Faith's face. The structures encasing her limbs open not too long after. She takes a deep breath. Somehow, she and Almiria are still linked, the neuromechanical interface still functioning without the usual hardware connections or its main conductor, Ambrosia. Faith looks around the cockpit. It looks a lot cleaner than when she last entered it. She watches as the cracks in the inner panels slowly vanish one by one. Missing chunks of metal find themselves whole again, rust and moss disappear, and Zehuti heals, bit by bit, time turning back on itself.
Faith looks at her hands. Etched on her skin are a myriad lines of circuit-like lights, intertwined and interlinked, running from the tip of her fingers all the way to the rest of her body, emanating a faint cyan glow that waxes and wanes like ocean waves. She's had those lines all day, and it feels as though they've been there for much, much longer. Only now, however, has she been given the freedom to see those lines, as her body finally obeys her will, much to her relief. She takes a few moments to admire them, tracing along the path of a few pulses on her arm. She's sure they originate from her heart, almost like if a second set of blood vessels conducted the flow of light to her fingertips, her head, her legs.
Faith catches a reflection of herself on a broken panel that is slowly mending itself back together. Her glowing cyan eyes were now accompanied by more of those pulsating lines, which, akin to tears, descended from her eyes.
Her eyes then drift to the rest of the cockpit, and how the pulse of her heart carried on through it and onto the rest of the machine. Faith, Almiria and Zehuti were interwoven by cyan light, and all of a sudden the Almiria calling her 'Heart' made much more sense to Faith.
Suddenly, the cockpit walls fade away, as images of Zehuti's surroundings are projected onto them. Sadly, the vistas aren't much to speak about. A pitch black void surrounds the Titan, still being rebuilt by unknown means. Faith notices a few holographic displays scattered about, displaying information in a language she does not know but understands. She moves to look at the other screens, and to her surprise, Zehuti mimics her movements, its unfinished arms waving along with hers. She plays around a little, taking this chance to examine the mech's arm.
Her wonder is interrupted by Almiria informing her of Horus's imminent arrival, asking her to return to the seat. She obliges, sitting through that boot up sequence all over again. Much to Faith's surprise, though, there is no text terminal on the visor this time. The lights coursing over her burn brighter, as do those throughout the Titan. Faith instinctively closes her eyes. When she opens them again, she sees only the vastness of the space outside. Looking down, she sees her pastel purple sweatshirt has been replaced by bone white armor. It didn't take long for her to realize what was happening. In fact, she felt as though she'd always known. She was seeing through Zehuti's eyes, moving through its limbs, breathing through its vents, like a ghost in a machine shell.
Then, there was another one. An angular figure, clad in black obsidian and scorching star fire, bright red circuitry flowing through it, and two sets of unblinking eyes. To Faith, it almost felt like staring in a mirror, or maybe it felt that way to Almiria or Zehuti. The boundary between those three was blurred beyond the point of recognition. Horus did not speak. They simply extended a hand, waiting for Zehuti to take it. A bone white hand rises to meet Horus's. Zehuti feels whole for the first time in millennia, and their hand touches Horus's… then retracts at the last second.
Something is missing. Something is wrong. Somewhere in the meshed consciousnesses of Almiria, Faith and Zehuti is a missing piece, a gap that cannot be fixed by diagnostic subroutines, error-correcting programs or self-repair mechanisms. There is an emptiness, a sadness and a longing for some place that is not here, some time that is not now, something that is not present. Zehuti looks down, and there's a missing piece in their chest. There's a missing piece in Almiria's chest. There's a missing piece in Faith's chest.
There's a world yet to see, there are promises yet to fulfill, love yet to be had.
Horus lowers their hand. The choice is made.
"Take us to where we belong," they say.
Night had fallen over Level 811 by the time Zehuti's hatch opens again. Faith lifts the visor off her face, sad to see that the cockpit is back to its former state of disrepair. Whatever happened during Horus's visit wasn't meant to last, she thinks. That thought doesn't linger with her for long, as she spots a tent down below, not too far from the crater Zehuti was in. As she floats down to the floor, Dawn's words echo in her mind. "A good team leader has got to be well-prepared." The lights over her body fade away as her feet touch the ground, and she runs towards the tent. As she carefully unzips the tent's door, she hears a faint groan she's all too familiar with. Dawn's half-closed eyes catch a glimpse of someone trying to get into her tent, and for a very brief moment her mind's ready to fight something, until she realizes it's Faith. Her eyes widen, she jolts awake, leaping out of the tent and tackling down Faith, both of them overjoyed, tears in their eyes, love in their lips.
A pulse of light runs through Zehuti as Almiria shuts down in the absence of solar power. Not too long after, the flashlights inside the tent power off too, and Dawn and Faith spend the night by the stream, though the lovely scenario of Level 811 is likely far away from their minds.
M.E.G. Status Report, August 20, 2027.
M.E.G. Operative Faith Silversong of Team New Horizons seems to have recovered from her mysterious symptoms that seem to have been derived from high concentrations of Ambrosia in her blood. While the full extent of the substance's effects are yet to be fully understood, all signs indicate that Faith is apt to return to work in the near future. Analysis ran on skin tissue and blood taken from Faith has yielded unexpected results, suggesting supposedly minor alterations to her genetic code. These fall in line with the results observed in certain members of the Lost, specifically those who claim their ancestors were involved in the operation of Macchina Titans. It is worth noting that upon contact with a Macchina ceremonial dagger retrieved from Level 811, Faith's eye color changed to glowing cyan, and circuit-like lights could be seen coursing through her body, which the dagger itself mirrored moments after. This suggests that Faith Silversong was recognized as a Macchina by the dagger. Further research and analysis has been deemed necessary to better understand the implications of these observations.
Despite having two of its members out of commission, Team New Horizons managed to secure the supply of food and water to the people of Level 1 with some local help.
Team New Horizons is to remain out of M.E.G. operations for the next two weeks, at the request of its leader, Dawn Marchesa. This request has been approved by the Overseer Council, and is effective immediately.