A life on Rubicon was a harsh one.

Rubicon was a world that had gone through utter disaster. It had been the centre of an event that scorched the stars, and even nearly twenty four years later, it had barely even started to recover.

Rubicon was a world barely surviving, where parasites fed on the innocent, and the innocent were barely fed at all. It was a world where the mere idea of things one day becoming better had to be fought for, because some long-distant, uncaring, unfeeling, faceless tyranny decreed otherwise.

Rubicon was a world where surprises were avoided as much as possible. In this world, a break from the norm usually resulted in deaths, either through violence or starvation.

Ever since the Fires, he could count on one hand the number of surprises he had truly enjoyed, and he still would have had fingers left over.

Today, he received a message.

Your writings and sermons reveal much about what you think and what you believe. For my part, I am certain you've come into contact with a member of my family. The Fires of Ibis scattered the waves and split them from the tide. I would like to hear them again. If I am wrong, you need not worry. If I am right, they will be reading this as you do.

Thumb Dolmayan stared at the message. He read it, then re-read it, then re-re-read it.

"They used only text to communicate, you say?" He asked, finally looking up the datapad.

"Yes, Father." Lieutenant Panosian nodded. Her voice was rough, quiet, but the reason why was plain to see; most of her upper body was covered in old, burned scar tissue. She'd been barely a child when the Fires had come, but it had left a permanent mark. Surviving that would have had to require truly extraordinary luck, but was she lucky to survive in face of the ruined world to come? "But, it was a very fast response for text. It never took more than a second to send even a large paragraph."

A hum came from the side. Dolmayan glanced over, seeing Flatwell leaning against his desk. He had his glasses in his hands, carefully running a cloth over the lenses. Yet, his face held a thoughtful expression, considering the information. "Too fast for a Human to type." He said, briefly looking up to meet Dolmayan's eyes. "But why would an AI not generate a voice?"

The Lieutenant looked between them, for a moment.

"You did well." Dolmayan says to the lieutenant. "Thank you. Go get some rest."

She blinked, surprised, and then snapped into a salute, before turning around and exiting the room. The door closed automatically behind her, and after a few seconds, it locked on its own, too.

For the next few seconds, silence passed between them.

Then the datapad flickered red. The message it was displaying switched to a shivering red line, before that too shifted into a text editor.

"I have family like me." Seria says in his mind. As she speaks, the words write themselves down on the pad. Flatwell finishes cleaning his glasses, and then pushes off the desk, walking to the table and taking a chair. He reaches out to take the datapad, reading over it.

"Are you certain it isn't a trick?" Flatwell asks, though his voice is level. He's simply raising the possibility. He doesn't believe it himself. "Are you sure the PCA isn't just laying out bait?"

"I'm certain." Seria answers. Dolmayan is the only one who can hear the surety in her voice. To Flatwell, it is simply words on the datapad.

"There were several pieces of media showing MTs being melted down." Dolmayan says. "It's not in focus, but video number seven has a brief moment where it is possible to see more of the setup they have. At least one of those machines is an Institute design."

"And with Institute City lost, only the PCA would have access to such technology." Flatwell says, finishing the line of thought. "But the PCA doesn't know about Seria, and they wouldn't bother setting a trap all the way out there. If they cared, they'd simply start smashing until they found you."

Dolmayan nodded. All three were well familiar with the PCA's habits. All three knew very well that the PCA wouldn't bother with subtlety, and gave the barest of excuses only on a rare occasion.

"So, it's not the PCA. The lack of a voice would normally mean a choice, but in my case, it's an inability. If they are like me, then they would share the same problems." Seria continued.

With anything even approaching modern technology, giving a voice to the voiceless was simplicity itself. Dolmayan had met people who had been reduced to little more than a brain and a collection of essential organs who had the capacity to speak. It was a simple accessory, not even an implant, that could interpret brain activity to generate a voice.

Seria's inability to speak directly with others had been a point of frustration to her for years by this point. Dolmayan was fully aware that she spent much of her free time, as it were, tinkering with solutions, but so far, all of the tools she explored had proven too... overeager to help to actually be used.

"Barring some outside third party, by all means, this appears to be legitimate." She trailed off, which only he heard. "Which means... family. Family like me."

Family.

Her family.

Flatwell closed his eyes, one hand coming up to rub at his temple. "By this time tomorrow, the entire base is going to be alight with rumours." He said, leaning back into his chair. "Give me twenty minutes before you head out. I'll need to scrub the data they came back with, and see what I can do about limiting the spread of information."

"My thanks." Dolmayan tipped his head.

"Make sure you leave a message for Freddie, too." Flatwell stood up, grunting as he stretched. "He'll get back to find that you've gone out."

Dolmayan nodded again. He did not like doing that to Freddie, but it was sometimes unavoidable.

Flatwell waved over his shoulder as he left the room, the door opening and closing for him. The lock clicked, and Dolmayan leaned back, closing his eyes as he let his head lull back. His arm came up to cover his eyes.

A faint sheen of red greeted him, rather than the black that the unaugmented would see. Little flashes of red sparked in his vision, seeming to hover in the air, but it was a trick. The Coral wasn't out in the office. It was inside his body. It had been layered onto his nerves, replacing parts of his system entirely. The faint red glow marked many Coral-augments, what survivors of those bad old times still remained...

"You're nervous." He speaks aloud, long experience keeping him from moving his eyes to follow the sparks. He watches them shift, reading the agitation from them.

"I haven't had family like me before." Seria speaks. "I... don't know what to do about it. Will they like me? Will they accept the choices I've made? I am... uncertain."

"They are seeking you out." He assures her. "Seeking you out through me, even. They have to be aware of this... possibility. Our Contact." He pauses, considering. "Maybe I should be concerned they'll judge me. My younger days... Well, you and I have talked about that at length."

Seria hums. The sound dances over his brain, echoing through his mind. It makes the daily aches vanish for a bit.

"We'll see when we meet them." Seria decides. "I'll just have to hope for the best."

The sparking settles, and Dolmayan allows himself a smile before he rises from the chair.

A simple message to the AC bay sends the technicians into a flurry. Writing a note, packing some supplies, and changing into his pilot suit eats most of the remaining twenty minutes. Flatwell sends him a message as the cockpit of his AC seals itself around him, telling him 'Good luck.'. ASTGHIK launches away from the base in his personal garage transport helicopter, and Dolmayan settles in for a short sleep so that he'll be at his best by the end of the journey.

Seria wakes him four hours later, and he drops from the helicopter for the final legs of the journey.

He breathes in-

"Main System: Activating Combat Mode."

- and the world sharpens.

Thumb Dolmayan and ASTGHIK become the same being. He goes from a pair of barely-augmented Human eyes to the full sensor suite of the AC. Skin and muscle becomes armour and actuators, ligaments becoming alloys, organs becoming components. His heart alights, and the Coral sparks in his mind.

Seria settles inside his brain, and the two of them synchronise as completely as they can.

Dolmayan boosts forwards, feeling his back open, exposing the cooling units for maximum effectivity. He turns his weapons off, disabling most other extraneous systems while he's at it. He soars through the air, feels the wind tear at his armour, and heads to the Grid in the distance.

It's mere minutes before he's noticed. He feels the pulse of the radar scatter off of his body, which is then quickly followed by several more short-spectrum lidar bursts, narrowing his location and position. Grid-typical systems, little to be concerned about. Indeed, in this case, even wanted; He's not here to fight.

The time passes quickly. Dolmayan approaches the vertical catapult, staying on a straight course.

Then; a sensation runs across his being. Not a physical one, no. It's similar to his Contact with Seria, but somehow distant. Like he's being brushed with the tip of a finger.

Seria gasps. "It is! It really is!" She says, joy colouring her being. "There truly are others like me..."

He'd done his best to make sure she hadn't been lonely. Still, this... there was nothing quite like this.

The faint brush strengthens as he comes closer, solidifying into something more concrete. It's not true Contact, not yet, but it won't take much more.

Seria is too eager to wait, though. He feels her reach out, and feels, vaguely, like something is reaching back. They meet somewhere in the middle, and-

His vision goes Crimson

It's like a tide, running through his body. Like he'd been standing in the shallows only for the entire ocean to pull him out into the depths. Something large, something immense, massive in ways that defined description, yet still... warm. Gentle. They float on its surface.

Seria gasps, wordless, and he feels her wave spill into the ocean, embracing and being embraced. Yet, it's shock and sheer awe that she feels.

"Hello!" Calls a voice. Young, male, like a boy who'd grown up but had not grown old. Laughing, joyous. "It's so nice to meet you, sister! I am Ezra!" And then, Dolmayan feels eyes turn to him. The sensation of a grin crosses his mind. "You must be Thumb Dolmayan! It's nice to meet you, as well!"

Dolmayan blinks. "Hello?"

The boy- Ezra, laughs. "Hello!"

Dolmayan blinks again. That... Hmm. Well, he couldn't fault people for enthusiasm, could he?

... But why was Seria so silent? She'd met her family, and she didn't have anything to say? "Seria?"

At her name, Seria snaps out of her shock. Dolmayan can feel as she regards Ezra, but she's still flustered by... something. "I- you- this?!?"

Ezra laughs again. "Take a moment. Then ask." He says, kindly.

It's hard to describe, but he somehow feels Seria... shiver. "This... this sensation... Mother ?"

Dolmayan blinks one more time. Then-

The entire ocean shifts

- and he understands.

He recalls asking, in the past, what Seria's life had been like before they had made Contact. Seria had told him many things, most of it stories of what she'd seen when nobody else could see her. One story, however, had caught his attention.

She described a memory, not her own. Faint, and scattered-fractured, but older than her. Older than the Fires. There had been something, before her.

"Hello, child of mine." Speaks a voice. It's a strong, powerful thing, echoing with a sensation of age and size that he'd never felt with Seria. Something... more. It holds them with a hand larger than their minds, infinitely dangerous yet infinitely gentle. "I am very glad to meet you."

"Mother..." Seria relaxes, all but melting. "Oh... I am... Seria."

The ocean smiles. The warmth pulses, joy and a burgeoning love already beginning to extend.

Then the ocean turns its attention to him. What the ocean feels for its waves does not extend to him, but he feels no malice from it. Something like curiosity, something that resembles respect.

"Thumb Dolmayan." The ocean speaks. "I have also been wanting to meet you."