“I don’t think I am. I think I’m… all of the parts that didn’t break in trying to make other people, well, me. I think you should try to find other girls that are, um, in the middle of becoming like me? And see if the pieces there remember some of the holes I don’t.”

“Right. Quest to find other victims to steal their pieces and see about putting this puzzle together. Straightforward enough. Which is admittedly surprising, but I’m not complaining. Do you think it’s this machine that’s, um, doing the thing?” She motions to the big machine that terrifies the ghost.

“I… don’t know. It’s just terrifying. I don’t remember why.”

“Damn. My plan to blow it up if we don’t have any better ideas will be tabled for now, then.”

WE COULD BLOW IT UP we might die NOT IF WE DO HER PLAN OF MAKING US IMMORTAL ......also acceptable WE MAKE MANY ACCEPTABLE PLANS that is not the achievement you think it is

Her mouth twitches a little, but she doesn't comment on the nano peanut gallery.

"I guess that's... all we need to do in here, then. Related to this, anyway. Do you, er, want anything in here to make your stay more comfortable?"

"Like what?"

"... Like, uh. Cards or a training dummy or blank journals or something. To keep from getting bored."

"..... I don't think there's enough of me to get bored."

"O....kay. Then we'll just, uh, let you hang out here, I guess. Maybe try to remember more of yourself."

ARE WE DONE HERE we think we are DID WE SAVE THE GIRL we did not save the girl WHAT WAS THE POINT THEN

"Information-gathering, my artificial buddies."

THAT SOUNDED FANCY it sounded like excuses ADVENTURES HAVE INFORMATION GATHERING on the whole anticlimactic

"Should we try poking the mental construct of the machine over there and see if it is informative?"

    "That sounds like needless danger," opines Theboros.

"Probably less danger than the actual machine that we're probably going to go poke eventually! So I vote yes poking. And there's also the whole thing of, while we're here, in a bar of psychics and with people guarding our meat bodies, we go poke the mysterious fourth person apparently contained in my head. Which is a thing I think we should do once we're done here. If Theboros is up for it."

    He sighs. "I'm here, might as well."

"Machine first, though, I'm curious."

WE ARE TOO ...we must admit to that also

"Yeah, definitely." She takes a step towards the representation of the machine....

... then stops, frowning.

Why... is it so terrifying? Why does she feel like she can't get any closer to it, like it's too big for her, like she couldn't ever possibly understand or touch it??

"Are you having a castoff moment, should I be the one to touch the machine instead?"

sounds dangerous SOUND EXCITING potayto, potahto

".... I'm absolutely having a castoff moment, yep. Damn my sire to the deepest pits of multidimensional hell, by the way."

"Roger that, on my way," Tahir says, cheerfully, and skips over to the machine. Theboros hangs back, watching, ready to... do something... in case something needs to be done.

The device is large, and giving off a faint hum. It looks like it was once part of a larger device, or perhaps a network of devices, embedded in the rock beneath the city. Thick cables disappear into the void beyond. A glowing blue interface floats above the etched surface.

Unfortunately for Tahir, his hands pass right through it.

"Oh bugger," says Tahir, while his quiet nanites swear profusely and his loud nanites whine.

    "You can't interact with the machine and probably only the castoff can, but the castoff is having issues with mental blocks placed here by the Changing God preventing her from actually doing that," drawls Theboros as if he sees this kind of stuff happen every other Tuesday.

"That's my guess!"

"Of course that's the sort of 'solution' my sire would come up with," sighs Vetmera, irritated. "Fortunately there's an obvious workaround. Grab my hand and make me poke it?"

"Yes, ma'am!" 

IS THIS IT is this what THE MOMENT WHEN WE FINALLY HOLD THE LOVE INTEREST'S HAND AND— she is not the true love interest

"Man y'all are really poorly socialised, huh?" He walks over to Vetmera to lead her to the machine.

    "Who programmed nanobots with romantic feelings," Theboros mutters.

"I think they're just moved by the drama of the story this tells," Tahir replies.

NO WE ARE NOT THIS IS TRUE LOVE true hatred

She's perfectly pliant at first, keeping her eyes (well, mental representation of eyes) closed and trying to think about something else. But as she gets closer, she begins trembling, and then eventually trying to squirm away from the machine.

"I'm, fine, actually," she whines, high pitched and unhappy. "You, can, fuck I can't even say it out loud, I hate my sire so much!"

Fortunately, Tahir is significantly stronger than she is, even in a mindscape. He can, for the briefest of moments, force her hand onto the interface. It flashes affirmative, and some of its interface changes to display what looks like a network of some kind...

... And then Vetmera whimpers. Something around her twists, and she flickers away and is several feet away from the machine, and Tahir himself.

There's a burst of psychic energy as she does that, expanding outwards in all directions and of course most relevantly in Tahir's direction—

—she didn't flicker away, her mindscape itself moved, and everyone else with it, while she stayed still, and that created something like the mental equivalent of a gravitational wave—

—and then it's gone, or neutralised, or something, and Theboros is holding his palm up with a frown of concentration on his face.

...perhaps you are onto something YES WE ARE WAIT WHAT ARE WE ONTO her having potential

"Did you guys already forget about the 'both' part?"

oh right OH RIGHT

    "This is getting ridiculous," says Theboros after he's made sure that the place isn't about to collapse in on itself. He looks at Vetmera to ask: "How are you feeling?"

"Mmmnnnnrghhh," she enunciates hoarsely. "S-sorry! I'm sorry, I didn't, uh, even know I could do that, I definitely didn't mean to, um. I, fine, I guess, terrified and dizzy and sick and, again so incredibly sorry."