Forget Me Not
By Karen Hart
Disclaimer: The Xenosaga series is the property of Monolith Software Inc. and Namco Bandai. I write these fanfictions for love of the game(s) and make no profit off of them.
For Tylida Doradelo.
For the first time in quite a while Ziggy wondered where he was.
Appalled though he was to have been modified into a cyborg, he was practical enough to admit that there were advantages to his new body. Strength. Resilience. Improved cognition. Absolute position.
The last had failed him.
He didn't recognize the ruined city he was standing in. There were collapsed and crumbling buildings all around him, covered by a thick coating of dust and grit. He stood in a clearing, and just visible under the dust he could see a pattern of crisscrossing lines. A parking lot. Cars rusted where they sat.
More disturbing was the lack of life, and the silence. No grass grew in the cracked sidewalks. No trees lined the streets. No wildlife nested in the abandoned vehicles. No insects buzzed or crawled.
The only sign of life was the city itself, built by human hands, and they were long gone.
One building to Ziggy's right seemed in better repair than the others. The top seven floors had been sheared off and laid crumbling amid the wreckage of another property, but other than that it appeared sound. He began walking toward it.
At first he hadn't bothered to wonder why he was there, or how he'd arrived. Some form of abduction, he presumed, though by whom, or for what reason, he couldn't say.
He accessed his logs, and realized that more had been compromised than his positioning system. His time axis claimed it was 14:22 on 18 November, 4767—but at that time, on that date, he'd been stationed on the Kukai Foundation flagship Durandal. Not in this wasteland.
So he didn't know where he was, or when he was, or why he was there.
The entrance to the building he'd chosen was locked, but that made little difference, as the doors' glass had been shattered. He stepped through.
It looked like a lobby of some kind. A receptionist's counter that took up one corner not too far from the doors; the remains of a sofa near a wall of windows; a directory screen across from the entrance; a large concrete planter box that held nothing more than dry soil.
Further inspection revealed an alcove with two elevators and a door leading to an emergency stairwell.
Ziggy stood paralyzed for a few seconds, gripped by an eerie familiarity. Something about the arrangement of the furnishings spoke to him.
He accessed the directory, and found it largely corrupted, too many names scrambled or missing. There wasn't much he could do with "—nrich" or "—ukushi—" or "—zas."
The question of why he was there resurfaced, but with a slight twist. What had it been about this building that called to him? There had been no clear signs to identify it as special among all the other ruined structures.
This wasn't right.
Evidently persons unknown had managed to transport Ziggy, unaware, to this wrecked city. He should have been searching for a working UMN terminal or a spaceport. He should have been trying to uncover the reason for his apparent abduction. Yet he couldn't put aside the feeling that the city itself was important in some way.
He took the stairs.
The more he thought about it, the less real everything seemed, as if the city were less a part of a wider universe and more like a complicated movie set. This might have been an elaborate hoax or illusion. He didn't bother to imagine why.
The higher he climbed, the stranger he felt, as though his processors were beginning to lag. Had he been damaged in transit? Could he be repaired?
The stairs ended at the 27th floor.
When Ziggy pushed the door open, he was hit by a scent of faded decay that told him this was no movie set. Someone had lived here, and they had died here, as well.
The stairs had let out onto a long hallway with doors lining either side, one open. What light there was came from a tall window at the far end. There were shallow depressions in the wall that might have been display niches.
And there were corpses. They were two skeletons, one much smaller than the other, bones intermingling. Between them they took up the most of the width of the hallway.
Ziggy stopped.
He'd seen death and decomposition before, and had been the cause of it on multiple occasions. He'd stepped over corpses to reach his objectives without giving it much thought. He could be callous when it was necessary.
Somehow these sad skeletons were different. They were a barrier.
He knelt beside them.
Time had robbed them of flesh and identity, though some clues remained. Their clothing had deteriorated to rags, but there was a tarnished silver bracelet circling the larger skeleton's left arm, and bands that might once have been knee and elbow pads around the smaller limbs.
A woman and her child? Ziggy noticed the larger skeleton's right finger bones in a pile by the smaller's left forearm. He imagined her squeezing her son's arm as they died together. It was a guess that that was her son. It might have been her daughter. A neighbor. They had been reduced from people to question marks.
"I'm sorry."
Ziggy's voice boomed in the silence, and whatever else he might have added died in his throat. He felt more than a little stupid apologizing to the anonymous dead. There was nothing he could do for them or their memory. They had no survivors for him to help.
They were nothing but bones. He stepped over them.
A sudden fatigue settled over him as he stepped through the open doorway. He could guess what he'd find. Molding furniture. Rusted appliances. Keepsakes bereft of meaning. He doubted there'd be answers here.
When he'd arrived—or awoken—he'd been curious about his surroundings, if a bit disturbed. Now that curiosity was fading, to be replaced by a sense of despair.
His being there seemed like little more than a cruel joke.
He thought he'd known what to expect upon entry, and it turned out he was wrong. Though he did know this place.
Unlike everything else he'd seen, this apartment was pristine. The wall of windows showed a splendid view of Planet Abraxas's Archon Zone, not the deteriorating city outside. The living room smelled of herbs, fresh and welcoming.
There was the couch where he and Sharon would sit to talk about work, and about them. There was Joaquin's desk piled with sports flimsies and bits of homework. There was the table they ate at together. There was Nex's bed, a chew toy in one corner.
Sharon Rozas's apartment. Sharon Sauer's apartment, though the paperwork still hadn't gone through when—
Ziggy felt cold.
He sank down on the couch, and something inside sank lower when there was no second weight depressing the couch cushions. He looked around again.
This time he saw the things that were wrong. The view out the window was too still. The herb-scent was thyme, which Sharon hated. Nex's preferred sleeping spot had been on one of Joaquin's jackets, not his bed.
"This is pointless."
When he'd apologized to the skeletons, the sheer foolishness had briefly freed him from the horror of the moment. He hoped it would work again.
Except that now he wasn't alone. A man stood in the open doorway.
He was pale, bald, with red eyes, and his skin seemed too tight on his skull. He wore a Federation Police officer's uniform.
Ziggy knew him. "Erich."
But that name wasn't right anymore. The man in the doorway had stopped being Erich Weber—being human—a century before. Now there was only the entity known as Voyager.
The chill spread throughout Ziggy's body. He stood. His focus wasn't on Voyager's face, but the uniform. Erich had worn that uniform. So had Ziggy, back when he'd still been Jan Sauer, Captain.
Erich had been an ally, a subordinate, even a friend, up to the point where it'd turned out he'd been none of those things. Erich had been the monster that Jan had pursued.
Erich was the reason Jan's wife and stepson were dead. Erich was the reason Ziggy had spent a hundred years trying to die.
No. Not Erich. He was gone. Only this monster called Voyager remained. Voyager had been the one to murder all those people, including Jan's family. Erich had died in the line of duty, and Voyager had taken up residence in the shell.
This was the second time in recent memory that the two of them had crossed paths. The last time had ended with Ziggy being heavily damaged. He was at a disadvantage.
So Ziggy forced himself to keep his eyes on Voyager's face. It took less effort to keep his distance.
Voyager smiled, a slow pulling of his lips. "Jan Sauer." He moved further into the room, and turned slightly, leaving a clear path to the hall. Flee, he clearly wished. "Our last reunion was too short."
Ziggy ignored the invitation. "Tell me what this is."
Voyager started circling around the room's perimeter. "I've been told my days of waiting are almost over. He says he needs you for something. He said to keep my distance."
Ziggy didn't ask who "he" was.
Voyager reached the shelf where Sharon had kept pictures of her family and her friends. "The boy's father is still here." He pushed that frame facedown. "Better."
"I'm not here for games." There had to be a way out of this.
"Of course you are. You're here because I brought you here. For me, it's been too long. Did you enjoy seeing them again?"
"Enj—" It took Ziggy a moment to understand that Voyager meant the bodies in the hall. Sharon and Joaquin, oh God. He shook his head. "That's not them. That's not how they died."
"No. But those are their bodies. My last, before my efforts were deemed unsatisfactory." Voyager resumed his leisurely pacing. "At least they bind us together."
The hall was starting to look appealing. Ziggy eyed the doorway, and weighed his chances.
They turned out to be nonexistent. Pain exploded along Ziggy's spinal column, making his muscles spasm and his limbs freeze up. Without movement Voyager was there, behind him, a hand flat on Ziggy's back.
Ziggy would have liked to scream, but even that was too painful. Why weren't his suppressors working? The space between his shoulder blades clenched, and he smelled something charring.
Voyager leaned forward, to speak directly in Ziggy's ear. "I have always been the one who affected you most. Not that doctor or her boy. Not that police chief you took for a surrogate father. Not that Realian girl and the woman she calls 'Mommy.'"
It took Ziggy a few tries before he could speak. "The . . . point," he choked out. He had low-yield missiles, thermal weapons, good God, he was a combat cyborg, why couldn't he access his weapons array?
"I was delighted when you chased me. You spent so much effort chasing my shadow. We were linked. Then you stopped. A century, and have you given any real thought to our bond? Or has it been all for those bones outside?"
Ziggy tried to regain control of his body. His fingertips flexed. "I never—forgot—"
As quickly as it began the agony stopped. Ziggy crumpled forward, his right arm almost crushed under the weight of his body. He got a leg under himself and straightened, though he didn't rise. He looked around at Voyager, who must have been amused to see Ziggy on one knee before him. "I've wanted to forget."
Voyager wasn't looking at him. "Patience is ridiculous. I was made to wait for too long. But he says I won't need to be patient for much longer. You've still to be useful."
Ziggy tried to think of things outside this building. His quarters on the Durandal. The Contact Subcommittee headquarters. MOMO. Juli. The books Jr. lent him that he still hadn't read. They all felt too distant, too unreal.
This place, too, was unreal, but it held the inescapability of a prison. Flight was impossible. Voyager wanted to talk. Fine. "Useful how?"
"He knows. Were you thinking you'd gotten free of me?"
"I told you: I wanted to forget." Ziggy stood. He looked away from Voyager, and away from the door. "Is this what you're reduced to?"
"It is. The others I took have become so dull over the years. You could see them again, you know. My offer still stands. You could never be dull."
"I don't feel flattered. Whatever you've brought me here for, there's no point."
There was Voyager's hand on Ziggy's back again. Ziggy flinched, but this time there was no pain. Voyager laughed briefly. "Jan Sauer. I can reach you wherever you are. I've only restrained myself because he said it was necessary. But a time is coming where I won't have to be patient anymore."
Ziggy felt Voyager's fingertips wrapping gently around his neck, and for the second time he felt Voyager's breath on his ear as Voyager said, "Farewell for now. Keep failing to forget me."
Around them Sharon Rozas's apartment grew bright, colors smearing and shapes beginning to blur. They blended into a red-and-yellow-edged white that consumed everything before condensing to a pinprick, taking everything with it, including perception.
There was an expanded moment before awareness reasserted itself. There was pressure, which was his body held up by something. There were sharp aromas that offered no threat. There was dark, that could be fixed by opening his eyes.
Ziggy stared blandly at a woman in medical scrubs. He was recumbent on a maintenance chair. His head ached.
The woman nodded at him. "Ziggurat 8. Good to see you're conscious."
His mouth was dry. "'Ziggy' is fine."
"The headache will persist for another day, even with suppressants. You left off life extension for so long the procedure almost failed. Don't take so long next time, huh?"
Ziggy nodded, but only once. There'd been something he wanted to think about, if he could just remember what it was. "I don't think that will be a problem."
If he could just remember.