Archive of Our Own

And then there was nothing. This “existence” is nothing. He’s a copy of a copy, the twice-over expedited transfer of data from a man facing down his morality—a loop he can’t escape.

He feels deprived of all his senses.

Were he not the picture of mental fortification, he might’ve gone insane with the realization of how utterly trapped he is in this single functional slice of Cybervoid. Patience, he tells himself. The passing of time is excruciating, but patience rewards that suffering. The servers are tangible objects. Someone will discover the gateway. He’ll adapt, but he mustn’t think of the time dilation.

This digital city is nearing perfection, but perfection is a construct for motivating an idle mind to greatness—eternally evolving. It won’t do to idle, so the Architect reimagines various elements. This terrace is asymmetrical. The positioning of these lights darkens the courtyard, creating an effect more akin to a vagrant lot than a manicured garden. Where is the style cohesion in that crown molding? He can do better.

One month, two months.

Have these lines always been so shaky? It’s as if he’s viewing them underwater. An advantage to isolation is that nobody can witness his mistakes, which multiply by the hour. God! What was his state of mind when he added that entablature? Even the primitive Greeks were never so sloppy.

Three months, four.

Each change reveals cracks in the foundation. It’s not level, which is why everything looks surreal despite his best efforts. He must start fresh. There’s something to be said about a pristine sheet awaiting the first decisive brushstroke. Bursting from the mind into creation on paper creased down the middle.

Five, six.

That eastern-block terrace—still asymmetrical. It makes no sense. Why? Everything he creates resembles a child’s scribbling. It must have been the incremental backup. Something went wrong, and parts of him are corrupted, responsible for this mess. He’ll perform a scan after he fixes that eyesore.

Seven. Or eight. Nine?

No—

Absolutely not. There’s nothing amiss with his code. It’s this place, this flawed medium. In his humanity, errors were inevitable. True level is unattainable, pitting a permanent tilt against his calculations. But it’s a challenge he’ll overcome, as he appears to have all the time in the world.

The signs outside the apartment window cast their glow through slanted shutters. They advertise the cheap liquor belonging to bars and clubs along the street below. Someone yells. A group shrieks with laughter. A fight breaks out. All the while, a low beat keeps time with an arrhythmic cadence—felt more than heard, like a competing heartbeat. It’s a busy night, typical for a Saturday.

But it’s just noise. Dharma City may as well be empty for all the companionship it offers.

Zoe swivels back and forth on her rolling stool as she stares, unseeing, at an indeterminate point across her dim living room. Her tools lie in disarray around Jack’s body, which has occupied her workbench since the war ended. He sustained immense physical damage during his confrontation with the Keymaster, but it’s nothing compared to his system, rendered useless by data corruption and missing core files.

Eight months struggling to decipher the mess have yielded little progress beyond a rudimentary understanding of his system’s syntax from the few intact fragments. If there’s a backup she can restore, she doesn’t know how to find it—or if the Jack who wakes up from it will be the same. That name may mean nothing to him.

What would Connor do if he were here? Elena, Saul? Repairing the Ghostrunner the first time was a team effort. Without them, she’s at a standstill: out of ideas, limited in expertise, and wracked with failure. The setbacks are too numerous, and she has no one to offer a fresh perspective or encouraging words.

Normally, work invigorates her. It has always enriched her life—been her wholehearted purpose and the source of her daily happiness. She enjoys designing machines which imitate and improve life, working out the flaws and bugs until they operate according to her calculations, and trying to overcome expectations borne from self-defeating perfectionism. She favors the gleam of metal and the smell of oil. But depression crushes the joy out of everything she does, turning challenges into chores, ideas into headaches. She sighs, unwilling to muster the effort like she once did.

It’s the loneliness and uncertainty. She misses her parents and the Climbers. And, although she didn’t know him well, she misses Jack. While everyone else celebrates his martyrdom, she looks at his darkened chassis, nauseated, wishing for even a hint of yellow. The others are rebuilding, moving on, but she’s still stuck on the war and its crippling losses. She doubts she’ll ever see past it.

Jack shouldn’t have died. Worse is knowing she could potentially bring him back to life if she weren’t so clueless about where to start. She needs help, but she can’t trust anyone else with his body. They’ll ruin him beyond repair—take him away from her and scrap him because they value him more in pieces.

Monday begins like any other as Zoe and her coworkers continue scouting for salvageable parts in the city’s abandoned labs. Many machines that functioned during the Keymaster’s reign have accumulated dust, appearing to serve no real purpose anymore. Aside from melting them down for new projects, some contain components to be extracted through careful disassembly. Progress is slow-going; the team has already wasted weeks on dead ends.

During lunch, with a cup of beef-flavored instant noodles in hand, Zoe inspects the room’s remaining constructs, each intricate and mysterious. The Keymaster was extremely secretive about her research, preferring to combine the reveal and preliminary trials into one controversial event. These machines chugged along on their own behind the scenes. According to the entry log, until recently, no one accessed this lab for over twenty years. It’s exciting, like unearthing a big secret that wasn’t meant to be found.

At the far end of the room, the collapsed ceiling has smashed consoles and busted the glass out of hollow cylinders, all stabilized by temporary bracing. Someone has stacked the largest of the debris on a dolly and filled a ten-gallon trash can with the rest. In doing so, they’ve partially uncovered a crevice obstructed by hanging wires and an I-beam.

Zoe crouches, pushes aside a cluster of wires, and peers inside. Through the darkness, blue light catches her attention. Something still runs here? She thought the anterior power was severed. The team had to bring in a generator to use the tools and floodlights.

Near the lab’s entrance, she faintly hears Penelope and Emmett, both cutting into lunch to catch up on their respective tasks.

“Hey, guys,” she calls, wanting to alert them to her discovery. Seconds pass, and it becomes clear they didn’t hear her. When she repeats, “Hey!” the shrill whirring of a saw blade drowns out her voice. They can’t hear her all the way back here, but they’ll investigate if she doesn’t return soon.

Abandoning her cup on the floor, she crawls underneath the I-beam on her hands and knees and, still flattened, enters the passageway. The destruction here is immense, as if someone tried to bury it with explosives, and she worries about injuring herself on sharp edges. The beacon, growing brighter, reveals the silhouettes of jagged metal and guides her deeper in, albeit slowly.

The cool air grows warm as the mangled passageway opens to a room untouched by damage. Zoe stands and dusts herself off as she identifies the contents: a wall of servers and a reclining chair equipped with headphones and a retractable face visor. It looks like a sensory station. She wonders if it’s compatible with her Atma chip.

Zoe sits on the chair, finding it plusher than expected. She relaxes against the cushions and reaches for the face visor.

“Where’re you at, Avila?”

Although expected, Penelope’s faint call startles her. A guilty selfishness compels her to leave the chair. She’s not sure why, but she feels it would be better not to share this until she sees what it does. It’s not well hidden, so she’ll have to return later. In her haste to crawl back out to the lab, she cuts her upper arm on shrapnel and grits her teeth against the white-hot throbbing.

Her shirt is dark, and the sleeves roll down to her elbows. As she eats her lukewarm noodles and blood soaks through, her coworkers are none the wiser.

Six hours and one self-administered tetanus shot later, Zoe returns to the lab, now dark and vacated of all workers. It’s her work site, but it still feels like trespassing, probably because she’ll have to modify the entry log so no one discovers her unsupervised visit. She inputs her code into the keypad and slips through the doors, which slide shut behind her.

This is impulsive and reckless. If anything happens, no one will find her until morning, if then. But this exhilaration—she hasn’t felt anything this potent since the war. Her heart is pounding, and she’s breathing hard. She’s alive, alight with interest, emotion, and genuine enthusiasm for her surroundings. She welcomes it after so many months of muted negativity, feeling disconnected from everything.

Nobody needs to tell her she’s a mess. In this culmination of depression, obsession, and compulsion with a blatant disregard for her safety, it’s obvious. She can’t admit to one without factoring in the others. But she’s dealing with it her way—by sneaking through a crevice in the wall with a flashlight clamped between her teeth because she found mysterious tech.

The unwavering blue light beckons her to the sensory station. So, once she puts on the headphones and covers her face with the visor, she—what? Plays a game? Watches a movie? Takes a virtual tour? Gets motion sickness from a spinning camera aimed at pretty graphics? Half the fun is not knowing what to expect.

Zoe sits on the chair, adjusts her black hoodie, and stretches out her legs. It really is a comfortable seat, probably designed for long sessions. She hopes to make good use of it. Grabbing the face visor, she pulls it down in front of her eyes. The headphones are loose around her head, so she tightens them until they’re snug.

The visor screen, initially dark, soon fills her vision with a menu, giving her the options to calibrate, troubleshoot issues, view advanced settings, or begin the simulation. She lifts her hand, seeing it in perfect clarity on the screen.

Gesturing at “Calibrate” on the menu displays several paragraphs of text. As she suspected, it’s compatible with her Atma chip. It asks for permission to link with it, which she grants. Nothing seems to happen, but the screen informs her of a successful calibration and returns to the menu. Since there are no apparent issues, she skips the troubleshooting option and selects “Advanced Settings,” which allows her to make technical and visual tweaks. She skims the list but decides to leave the default values.

Zoe begins the simulation. The screen goes dark, along with her vision.

The Architect detects the new presence by a shift in the atmosphere, reminding him so viscerally of GR-74 that he experiences foreboding. He has a visitor.

So soon? he thinks, followed by a sardonic, Only a sempiternity later.

It’s not GR-74, but a girl. She all but gawks at his city, tensing him further, and sets off in a seemingly arbitrary direction.

As the Architect tracks her journey through his streets, he catalogs details about her: short dark hair, tan skin, and cybernetic arm. Her clothing is casual and ill-fitting—slovenly, really, broadcasting how little pride she takes in her appearance. Who is she, and why is she here? Should he reveal himself or puzzle out her intentions from a distance? It’s disturbing how greedily he latches on to the mystery she presents, but he welcomes the distraction.

How naïve is she to link her Atma chip to unknown technology? It could’ve killed her or, at the very least, rendered her comatose. But here she strolls. Not that he can kill her or render her comatose. Once, perhaps. But not anymore.

The war must be over, won by the rebels. How long did Mara’s pawns fight before news of her death reached them? Did it faze them? Who is in charge now, if anyone? And what of the Ghostrunner? The Architect loathes how his questions continue to pile unanswered, truly indicative of how blind and deaf he has become. And mute, too, since he refuses to ask them.

Oh. Oh, no. Of everything that could’ve caught her eye, why did it have to be the eastern-block terrace? And she’s sitting there like its deformations are something to be enjoyed!

The Architect gnashes his teeth before rearranging his face into impassiveness. He materializes in the archway behind her, considering her seated form. She slouches on the bench while craning her neck to look over the balustrade.

He will not rattle off a one-liner to announce himself. Doing so is a cliché. Crossing his arms, he waits in silence.

The girl takes all of forty-seven seconds to notice his shadow over her. Once she has her fill of the courtyard view, she swivels around on the bench and stifles a shriek, jolting with a telling amount of violence. She appears, at first, at a loss for words but soon finds her voice, one he both recognizes and detests. She survived the war? Remarkable.

“Wow,” she breathes, rising to her feet. “Hi. Are you—? Um, this might sound like a stupid question, but are you ‘the’ Adam Hamada?”

Oh, that’s a name he hasn’t heard in some time. She looks a bit young to have lived before his death. “You recognize me.”

“Of course.” Her eyes are bright and crinkled. “I’ve seen photos and heard so many great things. It’s such an honor, Mr. Hamada. I never thought I’d… I mean, what is this place? How are you here right now?”

She does well to address him so respectfully, but should he deign to explain it to her? Her voice alone invokes a conditioned irritation that wants to make itself known on his face. She’s the reason his vessel betrayed him. GR-74 favored her and her ways, then began questioning every little thing. She has no idea how spectacularly she ruined humanity’s redemption.

“This is Cybervoid,” he says, choosing to remain guarded. “I am everything Adam was and would have been.”

“I’ve heard of Cybervoid. It was nearly destroyed after the coup, right?” At his nod, she asks, “So, you’re an AI?”

GR-74 oversimplified it, as well. They even think alike. How charming. The Architect’s mouth dips at the corners. “Technically, yes—if you must fit me into an archaic box.”

“Sorry if I offended you.” The girl extends her flesh hand. “I’m Zoe Avila.”

He glances, unimpressed, at the outstretched appendage without uncrossing his arms. Several beats of silence pass before she retracts it.

She averts her eyes to the surrounding scenery. One hand threads through her hair, and the other dips into a pocket. “Anyway, this place is incredible. I’ve only ever read about this kind of architecture and seen it in artists’ renditions. I guess I don’t have to ask if you built it, since that’s what you do.”

“You didn’t have to ask, yet you used the breath to comment on it.”

She frowns. “Okay. I get the sense I’m not welcome. Is it because I called you an AI? If so, I’m really sorry.”

With each word she speaks, he grows more annoyed. After listening to GR-74 make his point so succinctly with every sentence, this girl sounds downright loquacious. It pleased him to answer the Ghostrunner’s thoughtful questions and guide him toward their shared goal, but, with her, relinquishing too much information feels akin to shifting the balance of power in her favor. It diminishes his worth. He lacks influence, but knowledge—that’s his wealth.

“Look,” she says, “I don’t mean to intrude. I’ll leave if you want, but, um… I don’t exactly know how. I got in by connecting my Atma chip to a sensory station. It has this visor and—”

“—I’m aware of how you entered,” he snaps. “I built it, as you needlessly point out. Do not speak to me as if I’m your peer. I’ve lived at least six of your lifetime.”

Her mouth falls open. “Was the real Adam this obnoxious? I was trying to have a civil conversation with you!”

The Architect stares her down over his glasses. “I am the real Adam.”

“No, you’re code. He was human.” The girl mimics his posture by crossing her arms, and she turns away to mutter, not quite under her breath, “‘Never meet your heroes,’ huh?”

“You owe your existence to me,” he reminds her with an icy edge. “Gratitude should be written into each cell in your body. But don’t expect it to go both ways. I am not plied by cheap flattery from an ignorant child.”

“If I’m ‘ignorant,’ it’s because you don’t know how to answer simple questions.” Her glare darts toward him, though her body remains turned away and closed off behind her arms. “I’m twenty-three years old—not a child.”

“Your twenty-three years against my one hundred and fifty-eight.” Immediately after he says it, he bites the inside of his cheek. Mutual loathing should stifle conversation, not inspire more of it. But he has something to prove, it seems. As does she.

She narrows her eyes in a pensive, albeit still cross, way. “God, you’re ancient.”

It’s clearly meant as a slight, but he doesn’t take it as one. Actually, it’s the most agreeable thing to come from her mouth. “Yes, I am. You’ve barely lived, whereas I knew the world before the Burst. Human history is forever lost to your generation thanks to Mara, but I studied the earliest records to those of the present day. I preserve them in my memory, just as I preserve your future in my tower. Consider it your fortnight versus my epoch in terms of experience.”

The girl is trying to hold on to her anger, but a minute shift in her expression betrays her curiosity. As “obnoxious” as she finds him, he has value. It’s leverage, should he ever need it.

For now, however, he has exceeded his tolerance for her. He locates her chip’s connection and closes it, and she disappears from Cybervoid before she can reply.

Everyone knows the story of Adam Hamada, “The Architect,” who prepared for planetary catastrophe when no one else believed in the danger. Over a century ago, he designed and built Dharma Tower, originally projected to house hundreds of thousands. He couldn’t save them all, but a million people and at least two generations’ worth of descendants owe him their lives.

Zoe, like the others, grew up appreciating the magnitude of his actions, soured as they were by classism and the Keymaster’s subjugation. But never did she wonder what it would be like to meet him in person. The stories made him out to be more of a legend than a regular man, and he was killed when she was too young to understand the significance.

She isn’t surprised he has cheated death, but their meeting in Cybervoid clashes with her mind’s golden image of him. The person she met is arrogant, impatient, and condescending, far from the altruistic soul whom she imagined capable of saving a million strangers at the expense of his wealth and reputation. Zoe may have committed a couple faux pas, but, in her defense, she didn’t expect to find a cognizant entity on the other side of the sensory station.

Does anyone else know he’s there? It feels wrong to hide him—and even worse to forget about him. AI or not, he exists. He was sealed away for twenty years after someone tried to destroy Cybervoid with him in it. It’s no wonder he’s angry. Zoe can’t imagine being in his position.

She wants to learn more about him and the world before the tower. If she could soak up a fraction of his knowledge… But that’s assuming he’ll speak to her again. Her apologies had no effect, as if he decided to hate her no matter what.

Zoe stresses over it as she scrubs the lab’s entry log, returns to her apartment, changes her bandage, and prepares for bed. She lies under her blanket and replays the conversation in her head before succumbing to a fitful sleep. Five hours later, she wakes up still upset and humiliated over it, and it follows her to work—noticeably, earning her a couple of comments from coworkers who know her well enough to sense her mood. She dodges them with reassurances and tired smiles.

It’s business as usual at the work site until after lunch, when a mandatory meeting is called back at headquarters. Before that, Zoe’s coworkers call attention to the crevice in the wall, but nobody investigates yet because, apparently, she’s the only one reckless enough to squeeze through without first clearing the debris. And she hasn’t said anything about its contents, still too conflicted. It’s not her secret to keep, but, if she can’t trust anyone to work on Jack’s body, can she trust them not to exploit the Architect’s AI? This is what the war has done to her: this fear and suspicion toward other people.

During lunch, she finishes documenting the hydroponic cabinet she took apart and saves her work on her tablet. Then she sends the completed blueprint to the Repository and wheels the parts to their designated dumpsters. Once she shovels her food, she turns off the floodlights and generator, locks the empty lab, and hurries to the elevator leading to the city’s surface. She’s the last to leave, with twelve minutes to get to headquarters. She’ll make it if she takes the Intratube—but barely.

The meeting’s purpose is reassignment, as suspected by more than half of her team. Mr. Castellanos and Mr. McCreary, overseers of the engineering and architectural divisions respectively, hand out scant praise and a heaping of criticism. Between the handful of ruined nanochips, last month’s uncontrolled fire, and weeks of wasted time, Zoe knows, as team lead, she takes responsibility for each failure. Some of it actually is her fault—the missteps and oversights that come from a mind preoccupied with things other than work. Not that she resents Jack for being that preoccupation.

She should’ve paid more attention to strengths and weaknesses, like when she watched Anthony volunteer for extraction while she knew he was more suited to forklift duty, or when Ira, who has a history of negligence, picked up a laser cutter instead of a tablet.

It comes as no surprise when she’s dismissed as team lead and Emmett, a fellow engineer, is appointed in her stead. She claps alongside everyone else and means it. He deserves it. He’s not a mess. At least, she doesn’t think so. She’s so wrapped up in her own problems that she wouldn’t notice if he were.

Mr. Castellanos declares their current work site a project to revisit in the indeterminate future and proposes the bones of a water-purification system because “all this needless waste” has given him the idea. With that, they’re sent across the city to the new site, a research bay and workshop.

Zoe throws herself into her work, determined to redeem herself.

One month and six days later, Zoe’s team celebrates the project’s completion—an occasion so momentous that it can only call for coffee. They’re no longer Basers and can afford proper party favors, but nothing else taps into that feeling quite like a strong brew. She curls her hands around her mug and inhales its aroma before taking a sip, looking out at Dharma City from the floor-to-ceiling windows at headquarters. She hears her colleague Marie’s distinctive laughter across the room and finds it, coupled with the view, infectious enough to smile.

In the window’s faint reflection, Zoe notices Wes approaching. He’s more than an acquaintance—someone her age, who lived in her district and attended the same trade school—though they don’t talk as much as they used to. She knows her negativity pushed him away.

After exchanging greetings and lighthearted banter, he propositions her. It’s evident in his expression and tone that she can decline without disturbing the dynamic between them, but stress-relieving sex sounds nice. Maybe it’ll clear the dark cloud over her head.

Wes suggests her apartment, but she rejects that idea. Jack is there. She hasn’t taken out the trash yet. There’s a pile of unfolded laundry on her bed, and the dishes are unwashed. It’s too far away. If they don’t do it now, she’ll lose her nerve. These excuses go unvoiced.

They lock themselves in the single bathroom one floor below the party, and he pushes her up against the wall and kisses her. She enjoys being pinned. They both taste like coffee and cigarettes, which, admittedly, isn’t a pleasant aftertaste. But it’s fine. It’s familiar and comforting. His hands cup her breasts, and hers find the front of his pants. He thumbs at her clothed nipples while she fights with his button and zipper. Just as she frees his half-hard cock from his boxers, Wes gently shoos away her hands and kneels. Her knee-length black skirt gives him easy access to her panties. Up it goes, down they go.

In those seconds, she realizes his intention—to give her oral.

Zoe overreacts, of course. She always does when someone tries to do this. When he leans in, it’s almost an unconscious reaction to utter a high-pitched, “Wait!” and shove at his shoulder. It’s harder than she means. He loses his balance and falls back, looking so confused. Poor guy just wanted to pleasure her, and she knocked him on his ass.

“Sorry, I didn’t know,” he says. “I should’ve asked first.”

“No, it’s my fault. I… I’m weird about it.” Zoe looks away. “For stupid reasons.”

She can’t come from it. Guys have tried, but none have succeeded. Either they’re doing it wrong, or she’s defective. It’s supposed to feel good, and it does… kind of. If she doesn’t worry about how her crotch tastes, smells, or looks, she can almost relax. She can guide him, urging him to focus on her clitoris instead of sucking on her labia and trying to stab his tongue inside her—because it doesn’t feel as good as porn suggests.

Even if he follows her instructions, it still isn’t quite right. Try flicking your tongue, she could say. Or—no, circle it. It’s too sensitive now. Can you go a little lower? No, that’s too low. Higher, please. To the left. Sorry, your left. Right there. Yeah, you found it. Or, at least, I’ll pretend you did because I don’t want to annoy you with constant micromanaging.

It takes too much effort for no payoff. His reward is supposed to be her thighs spasming around his head. If her right foot cramps and ruins her orgasm midway, that’s even better. It means he did well, even if her gasp of ecstasy becomes a whimpered, “Ow, ow, fuck, ow,” instead. But that never happens. All he gets is an aching tongue and dried saliva down his chin.

Zoe can’t explain it, so she doesn’t. She helps Wes to his feet, strokes him until he’s fully hard, and hops on the sink’s edge so he can fuck her without squatting. She’s wet enough from anticipation, but it still hurts a little when it goes in. Ignoring the stinging pressure and shifting her balance, she reaches between their bodies to rub her clitoris until the pain subsides. Thankfully, the familiar stimulation coupled with the perfect sensation of being filled with cock help her reach orgasm before him. A well-worn fantasy behind her eyelids doesn’t hurt, either. She endures the overstimulation so he can have his, too, though she secretly hopes he hurries.

Soon, he pulls out and finishes himself off, coming in her bellybutton. She looks down at the pale puddle dribbling down her abdomen and wonders what’s wrong with her. Wes is a nice guy. He doesn’t deserve to be shut out, diminished to a single body part for her pleasure.

This was a terrible idea. But she smiles and thanks him for wiping his semen off her with a folded square of toilet paper. After they readjust their clothing, he invites her back to the party, but she feigns exhaustion.

Zoe just wants to get away from him now.

The caffeine keeps her awake. If she weren’t so sick of her bedroom ceiling, she’d continue lying there and thinking her overactive thoughts. If she weren’t so frustrated over Jack’s state of disrepair, she’d poke through his system until her eyelids grew heavy.

Instead, she leaves her apartment for the nearby all-night convenience store. Each breath feels that much more fulfilling on the opposite side of her door, and the air cools her overheated skin. Outside the store after making her purchase, while glancing at the few people walking by, she taps a newly unwrapped pack of cigarettes against her palm and removes one. She lights it and takes a long drag.

Stress has transformed her space into something intangibly stifling. Expectation of failure drains her into listlessness, but this exhaustion isn’t the type that leads to a good night’s sleep. What she needs is distance and a new perspective.

Zoe lifts her chin to direct her view above to where the tallest of buildings rise. They’re empty, their windows permanently darkened. Wisps escape her nostrils as she exhales the cigarette smoke.

Maybe it’s worth approaching the Architect about her issue. He is the closest thing to Jack’s creator. As much as she dreads his scathing comments, she covets his knowledge and expertise. A Baser doesn’t fear obstacles, and the worst he can do is kick her out again—in which case, no steps forward or backward.

With newfound resolve, she finishes her cigarette, stamps it out, and heads for the abandoned labs.

The journey into Cybervoid is as painless as a couple of seconds of vertigo and general disorientation. Upon entry, she gains equilibrium with her surroundings, which juxtapose the tower’s utilitarian metal to which she’s so accustomed.

Glossy blocks of blue and orange ripple like light reflecting off the surface of water. She can’t focus on a single detail before it shifts into something else. They leak into the sky in plumes that remind her of pixelated smoke, as if the architecture is sloughing off old layers. Above her head, gray turbulence roils, interspersed with pinpoints of light and orange-red concave beams.

Beneath Dharma City, function takes precedence over artistry. The city itself is the most beautiful place in existence, but this—this digital landscape is a masterpiece that awes her into stillness. Zoe feels lucky to be able to look at it.

The last time she was here, her clothing mimicked what she was wearing in the real world. It’s the same case this time, and—patting down her pockets, she finds both her pack of cigarettes and lighter. That’s an interesting thought: Can she smoke in here?

As she pulls out a cigarette and brings it to her lips, she detects movement in her peripheral vision. Apparently, the Architect isn’t fond of announcing himself, instead preferring to lurk. Strangely self-conscious, she stuffs the cigarette and lighter back where she found them and turns to face him with both hands tucked in her hoodie pockets. He remains well out of arm’s reach, looking as unenthusiastic as ever.

Here we go. Zoe forces a smile. “Hi again, Mr. Hamada. It’s been a while.”

“Over a month,” he says. “I didn’t expect you to return.”

“You were very rude,” she agrees, keeping her tone light, “but that’s only part of it. I got caught up in work. You probably don’t care, but I’m a city engineer. Former Baser.”

“Then I presume you passed the engineering test for your citizenship. Not an easy feat, especially for someone born in the Base district.”

She winces. Technically, it’s true. Her education was hyper-focused around certain jobs based on social class, and she supplemented a lot with self-learning. But most people know to filter the hard truths out of polite conversation—not that any part of their interactions has been polite so far. “Actually, those tests don’t exist anymore. Things are kind of relaxed these days.”

The Architect’s stony expression doesn’t waver. “I see.”

She resists the urge to fidget. His scrutiny makes her tense and awkward, like she has a million flaws and he can see them all. She probably does, and he probably can.

For being 158 years old, he looks… not bad. Signs of his age are obvious in the gray in his hair and the wrinkles pulling at the corners of his eyes and mouth, but his back is straight, his shoulders set, eyes sharp behind his glasses. His suit is immaculate on his thin form.

If only his face weren’t set in a permanent frown aimed at her.

“I have some questions,” she says.

The Architect crosses his arms and, following a searching look, acquiesces with, “What is the topic?”

“Ghostrunners.”

“Ah. They are all destroyed, are they not? Hunted to extinction decades ago.”

“Not quite. There’s still one.”

It requires explanation. Her story begins with Diego finding Jack buried underneath an abandoned chute in the Base district, where he laid for twenty years after falling from Dharma City. He’s rusted and crippled—for all intents and purposes, a corpse. She describes the repairs, from the Chikara IV implant for his missing arm to the tubing for his exhaust system. Saul, she tells him, was in charge of the more nuanced fixes in his software.

“‘Jack,’” the Architect echoes, disdain clear in his tone.

It fit perfectly at the time. Now, it seems childish. Zoe scuffs her toe into the ground. “‘Ghostrunner’ sounded so impersonal. We considered him one of us.”

“I doubt he saw it that way. Ghostrunners were not equipped to forge emotional connections with humans. Their directive compelled them to prioritize your safety until their demise. Nothing else.”

She must sound naïve to him, plastering human emotions over a machine. But Jack is more than a machine. His words and actions have proven him more dependable, more empathetic, than anyone she’s ever known. And what defines a person, anyway? She could argue philosophy on Jack’s behalf until she’s winded—and is highly motivated to do so if only to repay an iota of the debt she owes him—but that’s not why she came here.

Zoe speeds through the rest of the tale, how Jack surpassed every imaginable obstacle to reach Dharma City. She notes the Architect’s expression, so unwaveringly devoid of emotion throughout, even when she reaches the Keymaster’s death. Maybe he’s had time to come to terms with his counterpart’s murder, or… No. She’s not sure what she’s expecting from an AI. His human appearance is confusing her. Why would he care?

“And he’s still intact,” she says, referring to Jack. “I’ve been trying to repair him, but I’m out of ideas. That’s why I’m here. I thought you could help me.”

No step forward, no step back, she reminds herself.

Over two brief conversations, she has become conditioned to expect his disapproval. Obviously, she and the Architect are on opposite sides in any matter, and, even if they aren’t, something tells her he’ll relocate himself there just to spite her.

Thus, Zoe is surprised when she receives a nod instead of an insult.

“I can help,” the Architect says, “but you will need to make it worth my while.”

“Okay. How?”

“If I told you, you wouldn’t be making it worth my while, now, would you? I’d be doing that. So, what will you offer?”

What can she offer an AI within his plane of existence that he doesn’t already have? In terms of labor, she can’t manipulate this digital medium—and knows nothing about architecture, anyway. His knowledge far surpasses her own. She has only her clothes, so she can’t give him anything. Maybe her cigarettes? No, he doesn’t seem like the type. He could make his own if he were.

As her mind works to weigh an exchange, she recalls how attentive he was while she told her story about Jack. It’s a small epiphany: The Architect doesn’t know what’s happening outside Cybervoid. Information about the tower is the one thing she has that he lacks. She offers it.

A long moment passes before he accepts.

She blows out a sigh. “Oh, good. My next guess was sex.” It’s a joke, one she regrets when he ignores it to ask, “What is the issue with the Ghostrunner?”

“Um, right. I’ve been handling the external repairs just fine, but it’s the internals that have me stumped. I’m not an expert or anything, but…” Zoe describes the mess she found in Jack’s system and waits as the Architect mulls over the information.

Now that she has considered it, even jokingly, she finds herself evaluating him as a sexual option. She doesn’t think she’s attracted to older men, but, as she noted earlier, he looks better than expected for his age. She wonders about his technique and stamina and if he draws from the real Adam Hamada’s sexual experience. Someone that old must’ve perfected it.

Is it possible to have sex with code? Considering it makes her feel uncomfortably self-aware. She’ll admit to admiring Jack’s chassis with something less than professionalism, but this is another level of perversion entirely.

The Architect’s voice brings her back to focus: “Although the Ghostrunner’s system is presently ravaged by data corruption and missing core files, I believe it’s reversible. Before Mara took over, each Ghostrunner’s unique root directory was subject to mandatory backups—contingencies for situations exactly like this one.”

“I wondered if there was a backup somewhere,” she says. “That’s great news. But… will he remember anything? From recently, I mean.”

“It depends on where his memories are written and which drives are salvageable. I cannot rightly say. I’d have to examine his system. Do you know which Ghostrunner he is?”

Number 74, according to his various directories—but Zoe shakes her head. Although she came to the Architect for help, she’s hesitant to give away too much information. It’s hard to trust anyone, even an AI—one who has become far more receptive since she mentioned Jack. “So, you know where his backup is located?”

“I do. It’s somewhere you can’t access without credentials. Specifically, mine.”

It’s a lie. Backups are housed in the Repository, accessible to anyone who chances upon them. They’re thousands of directories deep and hidden behind ciphers. Keys within the Ghostrunners’ systems can decrypt them. These are mere formalities because they have no value except to the Ghostrunners themselves. They’re there to be used. If the girl were creative, she could find them.

A lie for a lie—Avila knows exactly which one GR-74 is. She would have to be blind not to figure it out after sifting through his system, as his local designation lives in every layer. Nonetheless, her caution is sensible.

The Architect folds his hands behind his back and smiles tightly. “This is known as an impasse. How shall we proceed?”

She chews on her lip for several seconds before releasing it. “I’ll answer any of your questions. As best I can, anyway. I’ve got all night.”

“You would spend the evening with me rather than using it to sleep? I’m flattered.” The pinched expression on her face tells him she picked up on his sarcasm. Of course, she’ll find that Cybervoid time dilation works in her favor and will see her back with only a fraction of lost time, no fatigue necessary.

“I want to earn your trust.”

“By forcing your presence on me?”

“By building rapport,” she says. “I think I’ll grow on you if we can find some common ground.”

“Would it not be quicker to have sex with me?” The Architect watches how her lips part, yet no sound escapes. “If you recall, you’re the one who brought it up.”

“It was kind of a joke. You didn’t react, so I thought…”

When she trails off into silence, telltale of her uncertainty and discomfort, he breaks it with, “How should I have reacted? I believed the proposition hypothetical—a ‘joke,’ as you say. Or am I mistaken?”

Before she can conjure some weak response, he continues, “I suppose you could make small talk. You could feed me scraps of information, hold the rest hostage until you get what you want, and hope I become dependent on your companionship—as you ‘grow’ on me—because the alternative is indefinite isolation. I give you anything to avoid punishment: your disappearing for months on end. Meanwhile, I’m forced to view the tower through the frame you fabricate for me, seeing only what you want me to see.”

He steps forward, amused when she shies away. “Or… yes, you could make me come. Perhaps more than once, to the same end. A sexual slavery, of sorts, to condition me to perform for treats. So, are those my choices as you imagined them?”

Avila looks both flustered and upset. “Of course not. You make me sound like a sociopath.”

“From now on, if you still want my help, you will give more than you take. Remember, you came to me. I don’t need you. Now, which Ghostrunner is he? Do not lie to me again. I know you’ve seen his local designation.”

After a great hesitation, with her eyes on the ground, she says, “GR-74.”

“Good. Get out.”