"Forsaken"

What am I supposed to do? Let darkness come and take you away?
--VNV Nation, "Forsaken"

"KOS-MOS! KOS-MOS, where are you?!"

The vast hallways of the Song of Nephilim swallowed up the tiny sound of Shion's voice as she called for her daughter. She shivered unhappily. I don't like this place. She didn't. It was cold, it was silent--if she didn't count the Song that she, of all people, could hear--and it was the lair of a madman who had stolen someone precious to her. Who had stolen a friend from her. She didn't like it, and now she was alone, isolated from KOS-MOS, her protector. Even when the android's motives seemed ambiguous--even to Shion, her creator, her MOTHER--KOS-MOS was staunch in one thing, and that was protecting Chief Uzuki, whether it was from herself or from the world. A world that was growing increasingly hostile every day, a world that was descending into madness, like they said the Song...

Shion cupped her hands around her mouth to amplify her voice, shouting, "KOS-MOS! Can you hear me? Where are you?!" It had seemed like such a good idea to split up at the time. The Song of Nephilim was enormous; and with such a small number of people, it might be quicker to search the vast ship if they worked in pairs. Granted, none of them were thinking quite straight--except KOS-MOS, as usual. Ziggy, poor man, had been half out of his wits with worry for MOMO. Even if he pretended not to care, Shion's years of experience with Realians let her read the cyborg like an open book. Junior knew the madman they were chasing more intimately than anyone ever should have. Even stoic chaos seemed gloomier than usual, and Shion knew--just knew--they needed to find MOMO and get her out of this hellish place as fast as they could.

She couldn't've said whether that was her own worry or the Song speaking, though. The noise grated on her nerves, eating away at her self-control and making the rational seem irrational, and the insane perfectly plausible... No wonder Albedo went mad. Poor man. Shion shivered again.

A transient scuffing sound--there and gone again, like someone dragging a foot on the floor--echoed out of the dark behind Shion. She froze, every nerve screaming alarm, yelling at her to run and not worry where KOS-MOS was. But she couldn't run, she couldn't--she'd faced Gnosis before, both on foot and in an AGWS, but the fear of fighting the abominations was nothing like this terror. At least the Gnosis were a known threat, even if no one understood them. At least, with the Hilbert effect, you had a chance in hell of beating one--but you couldn't kill noises in the dark, no, little girl--you can't kill the monsters that hide in the closet, not even with the MWS...you can't kill what killed your parents, you can't kill what killed Febronia...

"...KOS-MOS...?" Her voice came out funny, too high-pitched, on the verge of breaking. "...Please tell me--that's you..." Only the echoes of her own words came back to Shion. She hugged herself, squeezing her eyes shut. Turn around and look at it, Shion. Turn around and look. The monsters are never monsters when you see them--

Suppressing the need to scream, Shion turned and looked. There was nothing there. Then she DID scream, more out of frustrated terror than anything else. She didn't want to be here! She didn't want to be light-years away from her home and her dumb brother, with a friend missing and noises in the dark that seemed calculated just to eat at her precious remaining sanity! What dark god had she angered that her entire world had fallen apart in such a short time? Where had the safe life she built gone? She stopped screaming, panting for breath and glaring at the darkness. Joachim Mizrahi, you were a twisted man, and your work only bred monsters--I hope you burn in hell. She immediately regretted the thought for MOMO's sake--MOMO, certainly, was no monster--, but it felt good for a moment.

"It did, you know. Even ma pêche is a cadaverous bloom--a monstrous flower growing from the corpses of her sisters."

This time Shion turned to face the source of the voice immediately, pressing the back of one hand to her mouth to stifle another shriek. There was a man standing there in the darkness, holding the broken body of a girl in his arms. She couldn't see much of him in the gloom; her two lingering impressions of him were white hair--and violet eyes, an unnatural purple that seemed to glow there in the dark. She let her hand drop to her side, stepping back from the specter standing there. "Wh--who are you?" she stammered.

He smiled at her. It was a smile that matched his voice; silken and smooth, but somehow oily and denigrating. It made Shion feel unsafe--feel violated, to see someone smiling at her like that. She was reminded of how some kinds of animal--the predators--could smell fear on humans, and some of them were even driven to attack by it. She firmed her resolve, hands tightening into fists. Even if he could smell her fear, she resolved, she'd make him work for it. "Who are you? What are you doing here!" she demanded again.

"Me?" He stepped forward, the body in his arms twitching grotesquely at the motion. Shion cringed back, moving away. Something in her cried that she needed to stay as far from him as she could, that she needed to start running. But she did not. She would not let him drive her, and she wasn't going to run off and get herself more lost than she already was. "I am the captain of this ship. I think it's only right that I'd come looking for would-be boarders."

Only a madman would so lightly call the Song a ship, and presume to be its captain. And he looks so much like Gaignun, Shion realized, new terror surging through her. This was Albedo ("that bastard", the eternal rider), the man who had stolen MOMO and done God only knew what with her. Once more, she suppressed the urge to run, drawing herself up and squaring her shoulders. "So you're Albedo," she said, hating the quaver in her voice.

There was that cruel smile again. "Why yes. That's very observant of you. Is that all you're here for?" He took another step, the body in his arms twitching again. With horror, Shion noted its fingers curl slightly--the girl wasn't dead, but near it. What had he done to her?

"I'm--I'm here to find a friend!" Shion snapped back. No use in telling this monster who it was. He either knew already, or he'd be forcing her into giving what she knew away. (Damn him! Now she knew why Junior had called him "that bastard"!) "That's all. It's none of your concern!"

He stopped a foot from her, tipping his head slightly to one side, regarding her as a scientist might a specimen writhing on a pin. "What a STRANGE place to come looking for your missing friend," he said, voice all mock innocence. Mock and mocking. "That's so very--loyal of you. To sacrifice everything and come HERE, looking for her--wither she goes, thou goest...hm?" He trailed off.

Shion continued to back away, not wanting to meet his eyes, trying not to listen to what he was saying. One part of her was saying that as long as she didn't tell him about MOMO, or the others who had come on board with her, everything would be all right. If she didn't meet his eyes, and didn't listen to what he had to say, and above all, she started RUNNING when she got the chance, it would be all right. All she had to do with find KOS-MOS, and the monster would go away.

The more cynical part of her remarked that he already knew very well about MOMO, had probably killed the others, and was taking his dear sweet time with her; after all, as we all know, Ms. Uzuki, the monsters never go away in real life.

"Are you afraid of me?"

She couldn't help it. She looked up, meeting those mad violet eyes straight on. Run! "No! I think you're an evil man who's taken a friend of mine against her will! Get AWAY from me!" she snarled, balling her hands into fists. She wasn't going to let her fear control her this way. She wasn't going to let this MADMAN control her this way.

His eyes widened slightly and he drew back as if she had slapped him. That same mocking smile remained on his face, now all the more arch for all she had gone from fear to anger. "So you DO have teeth!" he crowed. "And here all I thought you could do was hide behind your android, whimpering for the monsters to go away! What a WOMAN you are, Shion!"

The name struck her like a blow, derailing her anger for a moment. "How do you know my name?!"

"'And a white stone is given to each of those who come into the celestial kingdom, whereon a new name is written,'" he quoted, grinning at her. "Come on--don't you think I can't READ it in your heart?" He paused, the smile fading to be replaced by a look of concentration. "You're only thinking it--and what else is there...?" he murmured.

Shion had been sure up until that moment that she would not miss that smile. The way he was staring at her made her very much wish he'd start smiling again, if only because it gave him an air of grotesque humor. Now all she saw in him was some nameless purpose, something she was certain she didn't like at all. She took another step away from him, running her back into the wall. For a moment, she froze--then began sliding along the wall, trying her best to get away while he seemed distracted.

It was a bad move. He shook his head slightly, waking from whatever eyes-open trance he'd been in--and fixed his gaze on her, smiling once more. "Don't leave," he said. "I haven't finished--"

She didn't let him. Shion turned and broke into a run down the hall, back the way she came. All she heard for a moment was the pounding of her heart in her ears, the dull rasp of her breath--then a thump (the body dropping), and the thud of running feet. For a moment, she thought she might be free. Maybe--

Or maybe not. A hand clamped down on her shoulder, talon-like fingernails digging into it as she jerked to a stop. With brutal efficiency, he spun her around, using his greater strength to shove her up against the wall. Now there was mad triumph in those eyes, as he leaned down to look her in the face. He was close enough she could feel the fever heat of his body, smell the musk of old blood and sweet lily-like scent of decay that clung to his skin like it clung to the entire ship. She screamed, lashing out with a knee for his gut, crooking her fingers into claws and going for his eyes.

The violence only seemed to encourage him. He laughed, leaning into her and trapping her against the wall with his weight. Almost casually, he grabbed her wrists, pinning them down at her sides--before bending down to press his mouth against hers. Now, a thought that wasn't her own echoed inside Shion's skull. I don't want you hurting yourself TOO much--is that so much to ask? All I want to do is have a look--a little look--at what you're keeping in here-- The laughing mental voice was followed suddenly by the sense of some unkind, unclean THING putting its hands on all Shion's thoughts, prying open her secrets and walled-off traumas, making her relive them as it roughly turned them over to inspect them from every angle.

Shion gave another muffled scream, shoving back against the presence in her mind. Unconsciously, she braced her back against the wall, grabbing at his shoulders, trying to push him off of her. He chuckled mentally, pushing back and deepening the unwanted kiss; she bit his lip. Her mouth was met with no salt taste of blood, her ears with no cry of pain; instead, the body pressed against hers shivered, as with a paroxysm of pleasure. Yessss. You still have some fight left in you. But for how much longer? What if I do--this?

The mental claws tore at something hidden deep in Shion's mind. Her whole world turned inside out, blurring the lines between memory and reality as the past rose up and swallowed her. She was crushed against the bulkhead of a ship that God forgot by a psychopath who wanted to kill her--She was standing with Kevin over KOS-MOS's maintenance pod--She was on Old Miltia visiting her mother--She was joining Vector--She was meeting MOMO--She was on the Elsa--She was in a place she didn't recognize, fighting a monster Gnosis--She was--Her mind vibrating like a plucked string between the present and the past and the future, Shion sagged against her tormentor, pawing weakly at him and sobbing. Stop it! STOP IT! Let me go! Let me go and leave me alone!

Albedo sank to his knees as Shion crumpled, supporting her against his body. Shion, my Shion, he purred. Truly a gem among women. He raised a hand, brushing her bangs away from her face with surprising tenderness, then removed her glasses--she tried to shove his hand away, but he wouldn't let her--and wiped her tears away with a clawed thumb. But there are things you're still hiding from me. His tone became chiding now, as he reached behind him to toss her glasses away--then hooked an arm around her shoulders, pulling her close again. There should be no secrets between us, my Shion! Man and his woman were meant to be as--one--flesh, and you will cleave only to me...so show me! Everything, my Shion--

With a last desperate surge of strength--did he intend to rape her? Was that the point of this madman's ranting? Though she didn't think it could be worse than the mental violation she'd already suffered--she grabbed for his throat, striking with a speed born of panic. Cartilage crunched under her questing fingers; the madman's grip on her slackened for just a second. She got her feet under her, trying to tear away again.

NO! Albedo grabbed her by the arm, bringing her roughly down to the floor. You are MINE! Shion's head hit the deckplates hard enough that her vision filled with stars--before she mercifully lost consciousness. The last image she had was of a great white shape looming over her, violet eyes sparkling with predatory hunger.

---

"Shion! Shion, are you all right? --Tim, go get one of the medics. Quickly! She hit her head pretty hard when the pod rolled."

Shion's eyes felt gluey, her head aching as if she'd been on an all-night drinking binge. She tried to get an eye open, failed, then managed to blink on her second try--and immediately regretted it, as the overhead light came stabbing in. Dim though it was, it was like a dagger to the cortex. "...awgh..." she moaned.

"She's coming around! Shion, can you hear me?"

She recognized that voice, even though she hadn't heard it in two years. Panic surged through Shion; her breathing quickened. She tried to sit up, only to have someone put a hand on her chest, to keep her down. "Easy--easy. You're okay, it's okay, everything's all right now, Shion. Shhh. Just lie back down and wait for the medics, okay?"

"K-Kevin?" she stammered, afraid that he'd disappear if she named him. She managed to crack an eye, daring the pain to stare up into a familiar pair of blue eyes. It WAS Kevin! He was alive! She held her breath, for a moment afraid that it couldn't be true--that it was just another nightmare. "Kevin! Y-you're alive?"

He smiled, relieved. "Yeah, I'm okay. I know--it was pretty touch and go back there." He faltered a little; her confusion (and no small relief) at him being alive must have shown on her face. "I--guess you hit your head pretty hard. KOS-MOS got out of her pod somehow. She tried to jump me, and ended up rolling the pod into you. You fell down and cracked your head on one of the tables. We managed to put her down again with one of the Connection Gears, but it was pretty chancy."

By now, Shion was gaping, trying to comprehend the enormity of this. Could it be possible? Had the last two years really been--just a dream, as she was passed out on the floor of her lab, from a near miss...? A near miss that had turned into a horrible nightmare in her concussed mind? She shook her head, mutely, unable to understand. "...you're alive?" she squeaked again. Kevin's expression softened into one of concern, and he reached to brush her bangs away from her face.

"I know," he said. "Like I said. It was a really close thing. But it's okay now--KOS-MOS is back in her pod. Everything's really okay. Just lie still and wait for the medics to come." Shion was all too happy to comply. Maybe it was true--maybe he was alive! It had all been just a horrible vision, one that hadn't come true. It was all okay. She relaxed against the floor, seeing only Kevin smiling at her as her peripheral vision began to clear. It really was all right--she wasn't on some far-ranging spaceship controlled by a madman. Kevin was alive! Everything was going to be perfect...

Kevin leaned back a little, resting on his heels now that she seemed to be okay. It occurred to Shion that the room around them was awfully gray and dim for her lab, but KOS-MOS had probably just destroyed some of the lighting controls. The wall next to her didn't look too much like Vector standard, but she was sure it was some lingering effect on her vision from the crack to the head. "K-Kevin? The headache's getting better--I'd like to sit up now, if it's okay...is KOS-MOS all right?" The part about the pain was a lie, of course--her head still felt like it was going to split. But she wanted to drink in all she could of Kevin, to reassure herself that it really was him, that he really was alive.

He peered at her, then laughed a little. "All right. But if the medics get on my case, I'm telling them it's your fault," he joked, reaching down to take her hand with his hands--his hands! Warm! Not cold, like she remembered them last, at the funeral!--and help her to a sitting position. He put an arm around her shoulders as her vision dissolved into dizzy swirls again, and she nearly fell backwards. "Whoa, easy there. Sat up a little too fast, huh?" She nodded. "Do you want your glasses back?" She shook her head.

"N-no," she continued aloud. "It's okay."

He shook his head. "My Shion, always so stubborn. All right." He leaned back, so he could look her in the eyes once more. "You don't look concussed," he muttered to himself, then cleared his throat. "KOS-MOS...well, we may be set back a little. The Gear damaged some of her core programming, but it was the only way we--Shion? Helloooo, Fifth Jerusalem to Shion, are you still with me, Shion?"

Shion blinked rapidly, realizing only then she'd been staring into his eyes. Just staring, soaking up the warmth of his soul she could see in them. "Ah! Ha! Sorry, Kevin. Just drifted off a little there. Guess I really did crack my head pretty hard." Her cheeks burned, and she ducked her head slightly. He laughed again, snugging his arm around her shoulders.

"It's all right. Look, are you okay? Is there anything I can do for you?"

Shion raised her head a little. Was there anything? Well, there had been something she'd been meaning to ask--the pain in her head was beginning to recede, and the joy of seeing him alive was making her a little giddy. "Actually, there was one thing..." She trailed off, feeling the burning in her cheeks get worse.

"What is it, Shion?" Kevin prompted, curious and a little worried.

She cleared her throat, looking him straight in the eyes. "Kevin--could you--maybe--kiss me? Please?"

Kevin blinked, then smiled. "Actually, I've been wanting to do that for a--for a very long time, Shion. So, uh--" He trailed off, and Shion ducked her head again. "--Hey, don't do that. Here," he reached to take her chin in his hand, looking her in the eyes again. He paused; Shion thought, somehow, he could read all her thoughts about him, could see the horror she'd been in that other world, without him. For a moment, it looked like he was going to turn away--and then he smiled once more. "--All right, Shion. I'll kiss you."

He leaned in, pressing his lips against hers. She put arm around his shoulders, eyes closing again as she relaxed into the sweetness of the kiss. She--

Her eyes snapped open as a shadow fell across them. A pair of red eyes flashed just behind Kevin's shoulder. Shion pulled back from the kiss, trying to see what it was. Kevin sat up, startled. "Shion? Is something--"

KOS-MOS lunged out of the shadows behind Kevin, one hand raised, fingers pressed together into a blade. Shion barely had time to scream. "KEVIN! LOOK O--"

The sick snap of shattering bone cut her off, voice dying in her throat. Kevin looked down at the gloved fingers protruding from his chest, soaked in his own blood--then looked back up at her, the look one of terrible shock and betrayal. "Sh...Sh..." he tried to say, using up his last breath.

KOS-MOS pulled her hand from his back with a wet slurping noise. Kevin's eyes rolled back in his head, and he collapsed in Shion's lap, not breathing. Even with shock and pain ringing through her head, Shion moved numbly to put an arm across his back. Blood from the wound there spattered her arm, staining her coat and hands with sticky red. KOS-MOS straightened, her own arm similarly stained, and stared down at Shion.

For all Shion claimed to see signs of emotion in her android daughter, she could see none now. For the first time since she had begun work on KOS-MOS, Shion could honestly claim she saw nothing human in those bright red eyes. "KOS-MOS..." she began, voice breaking. "Why did you...?"

As if her name had been a trigger, KOS-MOS stepped back, raising her arm and morphing it into the RCANNON. In her state of shock, Shion could see the individual particles of light that swirled in the mouth of the cannon as it gathered a charge, preparing to bark forth energy in a shot that would send Shion to join Kevin. There was no gun now. There was no running. There was only her dead love on her lap, her daughter--would-be matricide--before her, and the shadows all around them. Tears gathered in Shion's eyes.

She closed them. The entirity of her shock claimed her, and she fainted.

---

KOS-MOS let the RCANNON's charge dissipate harmlessly as Shion slumped to the floor again. It dissolved back into her frame a moment later, and she lowered her arm. "Albedo," she said, flatly. "Your part is done here."

The "body" on Shion's lap stirred, shimmering with light as it shifted from the form of a dead Vector scientist to a very live white-haired URTV. He straightened from his dead posture, carefully gathering Shion up so she didn't fall to the floor again as he did so. "I HOPE that was sufficient," he said wryly to the android. "Or did I go too far with the melodrama--hm?"

"It does not matter. If she remembers, then that is all that was required."

Albedo stood, cradling Shion in his arms much as he had the comatose Kirschwasser. His back was to KOS-MOS, but he had no reason to fear her. She knew it; he knew it. They were in perfect accord; so much so that the words between them were unnecessary. "When the time is right, she'll remember," he murmured to the shadows of the Song. "She's been given to know with a perfect knowledge of the truth--been blessed...to see...what I saw...in her..." He looked down at the woman in his arms, then turned to face KOS-MOS, raising his head and smirking. "So. So--"

KOS-MOS cut him off before he could begin ranting. "You have your price. I trust you remember mine?"

The retrovirus laughed, his voice bouncing off the walls. "Ahh yess. A hard bargainer, this android! Shion, truly you built a worldly daughter. Not one to rejoice--are you, o daughter of Shion?" KOS-MOS stared at him obdurately, waiting for him to sober back into sanity. Albedo shook his head slightly, still smiling. "Ma pêche will be returned to you intact. Once I have the Y Data, she's in your care once more. Now--" He held Shion out to her. "Come. Take your blood price, android. Or do you not care anymore...?"

A frisson of blue rippled through KOS-MOS's eyes. Her face softened, then hardened with rage--then those eyes went red once more, and she stepped forward mechanically. "I am doing my duty," she said, taking Shion from Albedo's arms. "You are doing yours. She will remember."

"But you won't." Albedo's voice had gone chill, his smile disappearing as he locked eyes with KOS-MOS. He cleared his throat, then spoke once more in a borrowed voice:

"KPX-00-00-00-01, designation 'KOS-MOS'. Memory override activated, password: 'Ye shall be as gods.'

"Authorization: Kevin Winnicot."