Luna stepped through the door into the sheer white light of the Q room. The man who had summoned her there was standing, grey-blue great-coat flowing down his back, over one of the computer terminals that protruded from the wall. He barely even turned his head to acknowledge as Luna arrived. Instead his artificial eye was focused entirely on the shining computer screen embedded in the block, and his hands reached down to the holographic keyboard that stuck out below the screen, fingers tapping energetically against the keys.
Luna opened her mouth to speak out, then hesitated. "D-Doctor?" This was the man who, just a week ago, she had warmly addressed as 'Sigma'. But events and unfathomable time had put distance between them. "Can I ask what you're doing?"
"You may," Sigma replied. He entered a few more lines of programming code into the terminal, then turned to face Luna. "You are aware, of course, that the quantum computer of this facility is located just behind this wall."
It was unusual, almost disconcerting, for Luna to be this close to where her mind was located. There wasn't any rule against it; she just didn't like entering this room. But the Doctor had asked her to come, and she had.
"The events of the Nevada Test Site also featured a quantum computer, as we found out only in the aftermath. The computer used by Brother had certain… enhancements, compared to our own." Here Sigma paused, gazing into Luna's eyes with a strange expression on his face. "It irked me. To be surpassed by that man in something I thought I had been at the forefront of developing. So I'm trying to implement the same improvements to our own quantum computer. Just as termites consistently work to expand their mounds, so too must we be diligent in making improvements to our environs."
Luna just nodded to that. Sigma had said before, just a random comment, that this was all the purpose his life had left after the end of the AB Project. She could only reply, "How can I help?"
"I want to monitor the effects of the adjustments I make to the quantum computer. Can you report on how each change affects your mental processes, please?"
"I'll do my best."
o-0-o
It was tricky to explain, to put into words that a human could understand, Luna's experience of the improvements being made to the quantum computer. There was something more there, certainly. Some well of potential that hadn't been part of the computer's processing power until now. But it wasn't, as far as she could tell, something Luna could access at will. Perhaps it was a routine that Lagomorph, as the chief AI, had restricted her and the other Gaulems from. It didn't feel like Sigma had done anything that would change who Luna was, herself.
Would she have been able to tell, if he had?
Sigma hadn't given any explanation at all about what he was trying to accomplish. What exactly the enhancements to the Nevada quantum computer had been. So Luna wasn't sure if what was happening was the result she was supposed to expect. She wasn't sure what she was supposed to expect, at all.
"Um, Doctor?" she asked, clasping her hands together in front of her deep-purple dress. "Are you sure that this is a good idea? I've got doubts about using something made by Brother. Isn't there a chance it could be something dangerous? Or, well… evil?"
Sigma sighed deeply. "That shouldn't be the case. I know, now, exactly what purpose he had created this advanced quantum computer for. Despite the incredible malice of Free the Soul's other goals, this particular device had nothing to do with them. It is safe, Luna."
Luna decided to put her trust in the Doctor, even if she still didn't know how he could be sure.
Sigma's expression softened. "For all his faults, the man who would become Brother had great potential. He's driven, intelligent, and extremely talented. As this augmentation of the quantum computer so clearly shows. If only he hadn't directed his talents towards such monstrous ends."
Luna shook her head gently. "Do you think that would have been possible?" She remembered the man called Dio, and his unthinking, callous fanaticism. "Brother was single-minded in his goal to destroy the past world and create his…" She couldn't bring herself to call it something so false as a utopia, or a perfect society, though that's what Brother intended it to be. "Do you think he could have been persuaded otherwise?"
"In this timeline, no. He was already who he was by the time I'd even heard of him. But…" There was something in Sigma's eyes that Luna couldn't understand, didn't have the context to make sense of. "Perhaps in another world, if I'd met him earlier in his life. Early enough to take his desire to improve the world and stop it from being corrupted into the tenets of Free the Soul. If it was possible… I believe I would have the obligation to try."
Would something like that be possible? In a world where Sigma had met Brother early enough in his life would Free the Soul have never existed? Radical-6 would have never been released to scour the Earth of human civilisation. In such a timeline the Nonary Game would never have been necessary, sparing all the blood that had indirectly landed on Luna's hands.
Luna opened her mouth to reply. But as she did so Sigma glanced back over at the computer screen; his back snapped ramrod-straight and he spun round to face the terminal.
"Doctor?" Luna asked. "What's –"
Sigma hushed her with one hasty wave of his hand. Then it went back to the keyboard, typing across it at a frantic rhythm. "Where is this coming from?" he muttered harshly. He tapped in another command; the lines of code continued streaming across the screen regardless.
"What's happening?" Luna asked, her voice rising with alarm. She could feel… something, happening in the mainframe, something which was unlike anything that had run on it before. "Doctor?" she asked. "What's going on?"
Sigma turned his face towards her, his expression tense and unreadable. "The module I installed activated itself. It's running, out of my control. I don't know what it's doing, and I –" He let out a sharp gasp, and fell silent.
Luna reached out a hand towards him. "What's wrong? What's going to happen to us?" If she'd been human her heart would have been racing. "Please!" she cried out. "Sigma! Please, tell me!"
Sigma stood up and turned away from the computer terminal. When he faced Luna head on his breathing was shallow and laboured, a hint of abject surrender in his eyes.
"Luna…" His voice came out as little more than a whisper. "Stop…"
And then everything went white.