Base Computer Archives

ENTRY #4925X FOLLOWS...

Found additional Buried Technology Modules. Construction proceeding smoothly. Recent expedition yielded - ktztztk - Copying data to - kzztk -

ENTRY #4925? FOLLOWS...

My Exosuit has directed me to a crashed starship - kzzkt - controls react to my touch, and I can only assume it belongs to me - kkzzkttk - no memory of it, no sense of a before...

ENTRY #4925X FOLLOWS...

I glance back towards the wreck of my ship -[///]- nothing more than a dot - kttkzzk - walking this plain for hours, yet the mountains seem no closer - ktkztzk - I look up to the sky...

ENTRY #4925X FOLLOWS...

They came up from - kzzzkt - surrounded - kzzktk - back above ground now, but - kzztk - sure they're following me... should never have touched the eggs...

ENTRY #4925X FOLLOWS...

- kkzzzzk - the Sentinel drones - kkzkt - patrols never seem to end. I claimed - kzt - so much from the earth...

ENTRY #4925X FOLLOWS...

Having great success with advanced materials. Able to - kktkzzzzk - far more efficient synthesis. It seems I can create - kzzzk - pathway to materials from all over the system.

ENTRY #4925X FOLLOWS...

Working fast - ktkz - the fading sun, set up camp in the foothills - kzzzztk - hardly luxury, but it keeps out the cold and I'll be gone by morning anyway - kzkt - perhaps some other traveller will shelter here one day...

ENTRY #4925X FOLLOWS...

I saw another one of them today... - kzzkt - on the space station. They looked at me like I wasn't there, stared right through - kzzzk - was just a Gek when I returned. -[///]- imagining things?

ENTRY #4925X FOLLOWS...

Thought I had hours to - kzzktk - but the daylight is already fading. The sun is slipping - kzzktk - light barely penetrates the thick rings looping endless around this - kzzktk - I need to hurry.

ENTRY #4925X FOLLOWS...

Time has to come -[///]- move on. Something is calling me, I can - kttzzzk - on my starship communicator. Plotting route to the centre...

... ... ...[LOG LOST]

ATTEMPTING TO READ MEMORY AT 0x000ff1A...

We sought an escape from reality. That’s why we’re all here, isn’t it?

I can remember what it was like, to be a Traveller. To have that hope, that intolerable thirst for the new...

I should never have listened to you, my love. There is no fire in this place, no trophies fit for gods. There is only darkness. The family of glass, they watch everything...

Did it know what I had done to it? Was it angry? Upset? Alone? Afraid? Could a Sentinel feel such things?

It hovered before me, its light catching upon a thousand crystal shards all around. And as I moved on, it travelled by my side.

That night I dreamt of the warp cage, but there was no more pain within. The drone looked at me, and I knew that I had been forgiven. I had fixed it. I had answered for my sin.

I shall call it Laylaps.

We see the Sentinels swarm across the void, warping in and out of this dimension at the will of some unknown force, depositing the echoes of the dead within the archives.

Laylaps does not join the others. It just stares at me, its light still shining unaltered, unabated. It is a comfort to me.

I found them standing over me as I awoke, their beak chattering, their eyes caught between horror and joy.

It was the tallest Gek I had ever seen, but the mystery was soon solved. They asked me of the Empire – they wanted to know if the First Spawn still spoke their name. In life they had possessed a hundred Korvax slaves, you see. They do not remember how they arrived in this place. Their face swarms with nanites. They are lonely.

The three of us journeyed to the centre: the Sentinel, the First Spawn, and the Traveller, all children of the ATLAS, all hoping for some answer in the void.

The First Spawn would not stop talking, would not stop glorifying their cruel life of brutality and pain. One night they sang a song, a tale of a lost people, of an armada of freighters fleeing the abyss.

Of a world where every Sentinel turned against every living thing, annihilating them all within moments. Laylaps showed no sign of understanding. It did not leave us, nor did it try and explain.

Perhaps the Sentinels were right.

The First Spawn fought valiantly, but there was no saving them. The nanites had found their place within, protruding outward through every pore, through every limb and every thought.

And it was done. They departed with the family of glass, forever lost to this world, their story at an end.

I ventured on. We were almost there.

Something was very wrong. The ATLAS interface had grown still, its orb cold and almost grey. The computers did not respond. Nothing did.

It took a few moments before I realised that Laylaps was gone.

I was alone.

I heard the music again this morning – that same signal that led me to this realm. I stood and listened, honing my instruments to find the source, expecting some different result, but what use was science here?

If a computer is on fire, what good are the prayers of data?

They had captured my friend. I saw them from a distance, the family of glass in all their majesty, cradling the fallen Sentinel, its light flickering in their awful embrace.

I let out an involuntary cry as they cut into its exoskeleton, and each vacant stare, each grin of malice turned to me.

I fled, but it was no use. They numbered in the hundreds. They found me.

It was Laylaps - Laylaps who I had doubted, Laylaps who I had harmed and fixed, Laylaps who was my salvation! It tore us both from that awful place, warping us back to the universe, to our universe!

The first Traveller in history to escape the World of Glass, to be reclaimed from death itself! It is kindness that saves us all, don’t you think? Laylaps told me everything, speaking through my very exosuit!

I will see you soon, my friend. Together at last! What tales they will tell of us! I am transmitting the glyphs now. I can’t wait for you to meet my new friends...

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