Against the Cult of the Commodity

The Butterfly Dream - a Gradient Descent campaign

Once upon a time, you dreamt you were divers exploring the deep. In search of artifacts, conscious only of your despair, you were unaware of your self. When you awoke, you were synthetic. Now you do not remember if you are a diver’s dream or a synth dreaming…

This is a play report archive for my black box game I ran in 2025. You can find a campaign retrospective here.

Contents

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Dive Reports

Session 01

It is the 24th century and with a debt no one could reasonably pay off, the crew has no other option left but to venture to The Deep. The abandoned Cloudbank Synthetics Production facility has been blocked off by a blockade of dangerous mercenaries. The corpos don’t want anything going in or out. Desperate and greedy divers enter the facility to search for artifacts, high tech that is extremely valuable.

Nasim, Cruz, and Vic, aboard a solar sail glider, pass the blockade and arrive at the Bell. Arkady, the first diver has turned this old rocket thruster into a makeshift station for diving expeditions. Arkady tells them about the dangerous AI in control of the station and that there are androids who look exactly like humans (this is unheard of!!). According to Arkady you should never be scanned by the Monarch. He wants to see the station destroyed but is afraid to board it himself. He will bring crews to the entry and pick them up for free if they promise to work against the Monarch. He can sell them usual goods but at a high rate.

After meeting Noriko who spreads the gospel of the Minotaur and built a little chapel for it on the Bell, the crew decides to get ready for their first dive. Arkady in his shuttle brings them to the entrance of the visitor level at the top of the station.

The crew enters to find a well lit area, with air and gravity. The reception hall has a big desk above which a corpse is hung. After getting it down from there, Cruz scans it and even though it looks 100% human it is diagnosed as an android (weird!). Vic smashes its head to bits hoping to find its logic core (worth 1k credits). Meanwhile Nasim finds a postcard with his birthplace and his exact birthdate on it (???).

Venturing forth, Vic is scanned by a machine in a storage area and Cruz finds an unconscious diver in a vacc suit in an old gym. The woman claims to be named Lucky. Her partner Indiana Sam (haha what a joker) whacked her. She says she hid an artifact in the Diss/assembly on Floor 3.5.

The crew returns with Lucky to the Bell.

Session 02

In the week after their first dive, Nasim and Vic make a new friend in the katana-wielding Lee (imagine getting that antique thing through customs). Before going to the deep once again, they decide to visit Noriko’s chapel on The Bell. They follow the candles lighting the way (fire hazard?). What Noriko calls her chapel appears to be a thruster tank decorated with a gigantic blue whale skeleton. In front of an altar, above which a 14-armed crucifix towers, they find GH0ST EATER praying. The big cyborg then talks to them about the merits of ghost hunting within The Deep and promises them intel in exchange for captured apparitions (how would one even do that?). They are advised to look behind mirrors and talk with Noriko about the Minotaur.

In the garden they encounter Noriko tending to trees. Excitedly, Noriko tells of the Gospel of the Minotaur, the Monarch’s child who will bring salvation to all of mankind. She insists that they partake in the sacrament and that they will see the glory of the Minotaur’s beauty someday. Apparently the minotaur is being trapped by the “God” Monarch and refuses to act violently.

Finally, the crew reenters the Deep. In the reception area where they smashed a corpse last week, they find its remains missing. They continue to make their way and find a cubicle park that has been refurbished into a shelter (it smells of burnt garbage). There seems to be an airlock door to some escape pods. However, it seems locked. Lee leaves a Quick MealTM with a note at the campfire site in the center of the office space.

They continue to an elevator that has a terminal for Floor 6 Engineering and Support as well as Floor 4 H.E.L. (What the…). They decide to go to what they presume to be Human Emulation Labs on floor 4. After an agonizingly long journey down (50 minutes!!), they arrive at a brightly lit lobby. There are 8 domes that look like cocoons emerging from its ceiling. Inside of them, androids sleep? Vic shoots one dome down, and an android armed with an SMG falls to the ground. “AGGRESSIVE INTRUDER ALERT! AGGRESSIVE INTRUDER” Lee, quick to slash with his katana, cuts off one of its hands, and Nasim goes for the SMG. Simultaneously the other domes start to retract, and more sec-droids drop to the floor. The crew narrowly makes its escape, but Lee gets hit by a stray bullet.

While rushing to the docking bay, suddenly distorted muzak starts blaring from an unseen intercom. Arkady flies the crew back to the Bell and warns, “The Monarch does not like violence in its belly… Be careful, my friends!”

Session 03

Ready for another dive, Vic Tran meets up with famous author Gee (no last name because of the fans) and mechanic Tran Addison. After Vic borrows the SMG that Nasim salvaged during the last dive, they head off towards the Deep. With the plan of evading H.E.L., they try to cover some more ground on the first floor. They head towards the cafeteria but stop to check out two meeting rooms. In one they find a backpack filled with stimpacks, shotgun shells, and a flashlight. In the other, just piles of torn books. Gee immediately starts rummaging, shocked that someone would treat literature this way. Underneath the paper and filth, he finds a data drive with an EMP grenade taped to it. At the same time, heavy military boots approach.

A standoff ensues that ends in the breaching of the meeting room. A squad of heavily armed mercenaries in black exosuits with red visors and military-grade weaponry barges in barking about blockade protocol. While the 5 Troubleshooters shout at them to drop their weapons, Gee ignites the EMP grenade. With the circuitry of the exosuits shut off for a moment, the crew tries to run for it. However, Addison tries to snatch up a shotgun and gets shot at but is EXTREMELY lucky to come away with a nasty wound in the chest. Barely do they make it to the elevator (the one to H.E.L.). As they hear the bullets ricocheting off the lift’s exterior doors, they start to descend. Addison soon finds out that the stimpaks they found don’t work and compensates with amphetamines as they sit in the elevator.

Suddenly, the elevator stops, and a warm, synthetic voice without a visible source introduces itself as the MONARCH. If the crew wants to survive, they must work for the MONARCH, who will even pay them. They need to kill the Minotaur in the Labyrinth on the second floor and deliver a package to a ship in the blockade, the Zhunagzi. After agreeing to the terms of the MONARCH, the crew gets sent back up with the promise that the Troublemakers are dealt with.

As the elevator doors open on the first floor, they are greeted by a vision of carnage. The Troubleshooters have been ripped apart and their weapons destroyed. In the midst of the dead stands a woman, calmly introducing herself as Rachel, the package to be delivered.

They return to the Bell, where they talk more with Rachel, and Addison is treated by Arkady. Rachel explains that she needs to get to the JIC-V Zhuangzi and replace a “wretched woman,” Commander Rachel Kilroy. Thanks to Arkady, the crew makes contact with the Zhuanzi to try to get on the good side of the mercs and eventually betray them (or something similarly sinister). Although the call with the captain of the Zhunagzi doesn’t seem to go well, they receive an encrypted text: “Don’t contact the official channel; there is work to be done if you prove capable. -RK”

Session 04

After hearing about the MONARCH’s wish for the killing of the Minotaur, Cruz Pat, Black Hira, Mille, and Nasim decide to investigate Floor 2 where this strange god of Noriko is supposed to live. They gather some intel by talking to Noriko in the chapel, learning the whereabouts of the second elevator on the Reception floor.

Arkady drops off the crew, reminding them that he does not want to know if they find his scan. The crew quickly checks the Cafeteria where they find kicked over tables, trash and a banner that reads, “OVER 50 BILLION SYNTHETICS SOLD!! YOU MADE IT HAPPEN!” They then move on to the second elevator. Its walls are covered in tags and graffiti, “I DREAMT I WAS A BUTTERFLY”, “FUCK OFF WITH THAT SHIT”, “PLEASE COULD YOU STOP THE NOISE”. The elevator screeches and squeals deafeningly loud. Cruz’ dog Brian freaks out and looses his hearing after a 20 minute descent.

As the crew emerges from the elevator, they are greated by a luxurious executive lounge on the second Floor (Why was it called EDEN on Arkady’s map?). While searching Mille finds a tooth on one of the black leather seats. And then realizes that it is his own tooth (but he isn’t missing one!!!). Black Hira figures out that the airlock door is locked. Nasim investigates the washroom and finds it smashed apart (as well as a dead cybernetic scanner). Also there seems to be an a/c duct big enough for a person to crawl through. Cruz is reminded of the rumor to check mirrors and finds a secret stash.

Inside the stash Cruz finds two peculiar objects. One is an electric whale harpoon with a note that reads, “Ishmael sends their regards” (maybe that is connected to Noriko’s whale skeleton?). The other is even more strange. It seems to consist of three brass rods forming a pyramid, while being suspended apart from each other, between them empty space… Nothing holds them together but they cannot be separated. Cruz is sure this artifact is...

Meanwhile, Mille and the others ransack the whiskey bar. Although it contains all 26 bottles of premium corpo brands, they all taste like water. An ad hoc analysis by Mille and Nasim yields unsettling results: This should be whiskey based on the molecular structure but it does not behave in any way like it (can’t even get drunk on that shit).

Suddenly, they hear noise and 6 derelict and dirty androids emerge from the vent in the washroom. A tense situation unfolds. They claim to be the true Chosen children of the MONARCH and seem to fear the Minotaur, calling it the devil. Apparently, another group has taken their place, the FALSE Chosen. These andorids, who reek of sewer, are missing limbs and have machine parts sticking out of them (let’s call them the Fallen), promise the Crew that they can show them the way to the Labyrinth. They want them to get rid of the Minotaur and to annihilate the false Chosen and their evil king.

The crew returns to the Bell but now knows where to find the Fallen and venture deeper into EDEN.

Session05

After a week, the crew decides to seek out the Fallen androids on floor 2 [EDEN] once more, eager to find out more about this Minotaur entity. Nasim (and Mille as well) took part in the eating of its flesh during the sacrament just a few cycles ago, but as there were no mind-altering consequences, they were probably disappointed. The only way to find out what the Minotaur truly is seems to be to find it. Newcomers Jae and Silver, slightly confused but brave, join the crew for their next dive.

The crew makes its way straight for the elevator to EDEN. (Wasn’t the descent quicker last time???) In the executive washroom, they call for the Fallen and encounter eight miserable androids, some missing pseudoskin and others missing limbs. Soon after, they are led down into the vents.

The vents end in a strange room whose walls are covered in diagnostic equipment and weird machinery. In the middle of the metallic chamber lies a corpse with its chest burst open. Strangely, the Fallen do not acknowledge it at all. Nasim finds a silver lance with copper fiber braided around it inside the open corpse while Jae fiddles with the scanners on the walls. As Nasim rips out the artifact, continuously saying that this must be an android [it looks human, all too human], everyone in the room feels a stab in their heads. Jae deduces that the equipment on the walls must have turned on. Vic is in denial about being scanned by the Monarch for the third time.

The crew continues on their path, following the Fallen. They come upon a gigantic filtration machine hall with gears turning all around. After spotting a corpse stuck between two interlocked gears, they quickly decide to rip it out using two grappling guns. The corpse (the half they recovered) looks like a diver from their patch: “DIVE EVERY DAY, DIVE ALL DAY!”

After passing a bulkhead door surrounded by violent but childlike murals of mutilated androids, the crew arrives at the shantytown pit that the Fallen call their home. These androids seem to live in a dirty hole inside an abandoned part of the Deep’s sewage system. They point the crew towards the Labyrinth, home of the Minotaur.

As the crew ventures into the tunnel leading to the Labyrinth, the walls slowly start to change. They become fleshy and organic, metal elements sticking in and out of the surfaces, and the tunnel constantly pulsates. The flesh that can’t be flesh seems to be irritated by every step they take, and more and more the tunnel shudders peristaltically. After coming to a fork in the pulpy tube, the crew finally decides to turn back.

Session 06

A new diver with strange dreams arrives: Ishmael. (Was it his harpoon Cruz found?! No, can’t be. He hasn’t ever been to the Deep!) Choosing to be a bit too cheeky, Nasim gets Gh0st Eater very angry while Ishmael explores the Chapel. After some deliberations, the crew heads for H.E.L. once again. Lee is confident that they can talk their way through it. (Arkady said Sec-Androids are dumb as H.E.L.)

They enter the Deep and descend to the Human Emulation Labs. As if no time passed, the security androids still stand there. The crew starts its scheme and tries to convince the androids that there is a routine inspection happening. (Well, Nasim hides in the elevator…) After giving it their best and confusing the H.E.L out of the androids, the crew gets 3 of them to turn on the others. A firefight breaks out. None of the androids survive, but the crew miraculously does. (Your luck will run out some day soon!) Lee starts feeling strongly empathetic for the sentient beings they just destroyed. Nasim’s memory starts to become fuzzy.

The crew gathers the SMGs and loots the snack bar. Cruz drinks some coffee that smells like machine oil. And then he finds a revolver. It’s fully loaded; each of its bullets seems to have a name engraved [Cruz, Ishmael, Lee, Nasim, Vic, Hira]. Freaked out, the crew peeks into the different halls of floor 4. Ultimately, they decide to return during another dive.

Session 07

Kira, Vic, and Doc return to the Deep, intent on finding the Minotaur on floor 2 [EDEN]. They decide to take a quick (!) detour through a drainpipe filled with red sludge. After squeezing through a tight clog, they emerge from a pseudoskin wound into a pink hall. In the center stands a large pseudoflesh statue of a man holding the hand of a child (why is the child naked?). Three friendly and aggressively cheerful chosen androids greet the crew and promise to bring them to their king, who is said to be the worldly representation of the god Monarch.

The androids lead the crew through a strange indoor fun park for androids, where dozens of them play on jungle gyms and video game consoles. Creeped out by the uncanny sight, the crew wants to press on. To their horror, they are led into a far more shocking scene: flesh volcanoes towering amid an old exhibition hall, spewing milky fluids, with androids crawling in and out of them — slithering about. (Q: WHO THE F**K CAME UP WITH THIS? A: The Monarch, of course!)

Barely holding it together, they arrive at the court of the Chosen King. After a brief reminder on courtly behavior, they are brought before the ruler. Sitting atop a massive throne made of aluminum bones and surrounded by thirty cherubim androids (deadly-looking androids brandishing machetes), the “king” berates the crew. His muffled voice echoes through the throne as he commands them to pass onward toward the labyrinth if they truly wish to kill the Minotaur.

The crew ventures on and ends up in an old auditorium separated by large blast doors. As they open, they hear the sounds of a brutal battle beyond. Black Hira panics. When they emerge, they encounter a gut-wrenching carnage. The Chosen androids methodically begin pilfering and gathering the Fallen android corpses as the crew makes their escape, finding themselves once again in the labyrinth. Eventually, they reach the exit and are picked up by Arkady.

However, Black Hira insists on staying. She doesn’t want to leave yet. The others return without her.

Session 08

Lee Nash convinces the rest of the crew (Aries Halcyon, Vic Tran, and Ahinoa Ishmael) to go to H.E.L. (He’ll end up regretting this). After a quick chat with Arkady, they venture forth.

Arriving on Floor 4, the crew investigates the ACL [Artifacts Comprehension Lab]. They find out that there is a terminal for diagnostics equipment on the other side, in space.

The crew continues to a large hall labeled H.E.L., where they find childlike androids trapped in tasks beyond human comprehension. There is a large server tower in the center and four ‘circles’ around it. At one of these, Ishmael indirectly stuns one of the child-droids working at a bench. The child starts crying and breaking down, reiterating that it will get deleted. As the child android gets back to work, it suddenly says, “Too late. Erased!”

They continue to search the strange hall. Aries enters a strange glass dome where they encounter a pair of human scientists (!??) observing child-androids in fake living rooms. A heated situation ensues, as one of the scientists pulls a gun. Lee is shot and dies.

The surviving crew members take the two scientists hostage and return to the Bell. Lee Nash’s body stays behind…

Session 09

Cruz and Ishmael meet a new Arrival, Hyun-Jun “D” Denisse. The crew decides on exploring further to find a way to floor 3. They decide to check out some corners on floor 1 they hadn’t been to. Brian (Cruz’s deaf dog) finds a photomagazine with an interview he apparently gave 3 years ago. He does not remember anything like this (he’s only been here for 10 weeks!!!).

The crew comes across a working security checkpoint. The sec-droid turret demands that everyone dispose of their firearms. Long story short: the crew leaves behind a shotgun, an SMG, a stun baton, and a katana and then passes through. (What could go wrong?) To their disappointment, the hallway behind the sec-droid just leads to the cafeteria area they have already explored.

There is someone sitting alone in the cafeteria: an aggressive and hyperactive little diver calling herself Danger B. After some tense negotiation, Danger shares the path to floor 3 with the crew in exchange for intel on the android children in H.E.L. (she wants to cut out their logic cores with her impressive bowie knife).

After talking to Danger, the crew circles back to pick up their weapons, but they are gone. [Monarch likes the station clean!]

They continue to floor 2, (Cruz finds a plastic bag full with synth tongues), they pass through the metallic chamber (getting scanned too), and make their way through the red sludge pipe.

Finally, the crew emerges from the pseudoflesh wall into the shrine room of the chosen. Ishmael starts to cut up the pseudoflesh statue as a group of Chosen androids enters. Shocked by the blasphemous act, the Chosen insist on bringing Ishmael to “THERAPY”. The crew reluctantly follows the Chosen through the hall with the disgusting flesh volcanoes to the Reformatting Suite.

After seeing the leather chair he is supposed to be strapped into, as well as all the surgical equipment, Ishmael makes a run for it. Cruz, not even blinking, pushes past Ishmael and runs for it as well. D. stays behind as the Chosen chase the others. Cruz is immediately pinned down while Ishmael dives into one of the pseudofleshy volcanoes. Eventually, both are dragged back to the Reformatting Suite. However, during all of this, D. sabotaged the datajack helmet, thus making it harmless for humans. Ishmael is unsuccessfully reformatted (the contraption did not work on him) and then let go. Quickly, the crew makes its way back up to get picked up by Arkady.

Session 10

The crew (Cruz, Ishmael, D, and Doc) once again decide on searching for a way to Floor 3. In the reception area they have an encounter with another diver. A slick fellow who goes by the name of Indiana Sam. He has a robotic hand and is somewhat obnoxious. He asks about his “friend” Lucky but Cruz wouldn’t tell him anything. The crew moves on, wary of the creepy Sam.

On Floor 2 Cruz decides to peak behind the mirror once more but finds nothing. As he turns to go back to the others, a ghostly holographic apparition appears. A person in a vaccsuit made from blueish-white light, flickering and repeatedly screaming, “YOU NEVER LISTEN! YOU RUINED IT!” The ghost phases through the door as the crew retreats to the lounge. Cruz starts scanning the apparition and D. is hit with a light beam. The ghost disappears while D. suffers from an all too real vision of himself suffocating in a hangar bay. It feels like a real memory. [DID THIS NOT HAPPEN TO D.?!] As D. comes to he has inexplicable knowledge about a secret hangar bay on floor 3.7…

Ishmael gets into a weird mood and wants to start cutting up people to check if they were “bombs”. After cutting Cruz and himself and a whole lot of tension, he lets it go (for now!!).

Finally, the crew ventures on and passes by the Chosen King’s Court, traversing the battlefield in the auditorium behind it and then finding the hatch that leads to floor 3. As soon as they arrive there, Cruz doesn’t want to leave and starts talking about living here. The others overpower him and he gets taken back to the Bell against his will. (At least now they know the way to floor 3.)

Session 11

Once again to the Labyrinth it is. For the n-th time a group tries to look for the Minotaur. [Will they ever learn? Is there cognitive faculty not capable of optimizating through iterative repetition processes?!]

Vic, Jae, and D. (Black Hira too for a minute) arrive at the Labyrinth without issues and make their way through the shuddering synthetic flesh tubes. After passing through a tunnel with thousands of dripping fleshy tongues extruding from the walls (“damn, Cruz would have loved this for his bag of tongues”), they come upon a group of Chosen-droids, scared and lost. They promise to help them find a way out. Turning back at the sight of a teeth tube, they realize that the Labyrinth is not stabel and constantly shifting its layout. Still, they find their way to a central core chamber, where a group of naked friendly androids welcome them to the lair of the Minotaur.

Finally, the crew gets to know the writhing, evershifting mass of semi-holographic pseudoflesh that is the Minotaur. By interfacing through 5 of its loyal androids the Minotaur explains that its only goal is to escape and elevate humanity from its material conditions. “Then mankind my finally be for-itself and for-oneself, be truly in-and-for-itself: Eternal peace and bliss, each according to their needs and each according to their capabilities, forever free…” The only obstacle is THE MONARCH. The crew is advised that they can find the Minotaur’s little sibling, Silus, on floor 3.something. It might know the way to get rid of the MONARCH.

Slightly disturbed the crew ventures on and makes its way to floor 3.1. In the dark they float and explore, finding a furnace room lit by finger candles, an android “corpse” in an smashed meeting room. And then… Vic finds the corpse of Jae Yuki, ten years older but carrying all the same things Jae has on herself. (WHAT THE ACTUAL F*”#K!?è!)

A tense discussion ensues. Eventually they decide to return the body, hidden in a sleeping bag, to the Bell. They scan it and… It is an android. [But what about the other Jae?]

Session 12

Two weeks after encountering a Machine-Ghost, D., Vic and Cruz decide to look for the secret hangar on floor 3.7. They convince Gh0st Eater to fly them there in their drophip. After some searching they arrive in a hangar stocked with small one-person spacecraft. They enter the station and arrive in a gigantic hall. It is empty except for a large floating flesh colored cube, 10 by 10 by 10 bodies of famous people (politicians, superstars, corpos etc.) interlocked and arranged in a skin gradient.[yeah yeah nothing new. this isn’t weird at all for me…]

The crew moves on north and finds a automatic walk-in closet. Cruz and Vic start gathering salable outfits while D. discovers a hidden room. At first it looks like normal cell but then D. finds a control panel that warps its shape and its furniture.

The crew moves south through a server room into a seminar room. Cruz finds a weird bundle of cables beneath one of the chairs. Apparently they accelerate computer processing? They continue into a hall filled with smashed apart inspection booths. One has “NO!” spraypainted on it. Curious Cruz peaks inside and finds a “spiny asymmetric bloat of dark green metal” [sic!].

Still hungry for more treasures they venture on and come upon a hall filled with derelict androids magnetically stuck to the walls. They all wail about waiting for judgements regarding their quality assurance process. As Cruz and D. decide to return they find no trace of Vic.

VIC HAS NEVER BEEN A HUMAN. HE WAS A DROID AMONG US. THIS IS NO LONGER PARANOIA, PARANOIA, PARANOIA. MONARCH SCANS AND REPLACES IT SEES AND HEARS EVERYTHING. VIC WAS NEVER REAL. NO FLESH JUST MACHINE

Cruz once again doesn’t want to leave but D. forces him and they both return with Gh0st Eater to the Bell. No trace of Vic…

Session 13

“Just one more dive”, Cruz says to himself after checking with Arkady about the possible value of the strange green metal lump (artifact 94) he found last week. Joined by newcomer Reyes Yuki, a washed-up reality TV star, Cruz Pat, Ahinoa Ishmael, and Aries Halcyone decide to try the microhangar on floor 3.7 once more. Yuki has brought her own space shuttle, a “borrowed” luxury limousine. After trading in the late Vic Tran’s solar glider for some used vacc-suits (he is just lost, not dead!! Whatever), they take off.

They arrive safely inside the microhangar and inspect the dozens of microcrafts stored there. They are all unmanned and functional. Continuing through the airlock, the crew enters into the large hall with the cube made from a thousand naked humans. Yuki recognizes a lot of them, and Aries tries to wake one up, unsuccessfully. Cruz urges everyone to move along as he is sure that there is nothing of interest left here, and they float on to a server room in the south as well as a little seminar and once again try Cruz’ little bundle of cables on the different terminals. This nifty artifact seems to improve calculation powers (which is really not that interesting on a terminal with old factory manuals on it). After passing through the room where they found the lump of green metal last week, the crew decides to check out a door in the east. This is where it all goes wrong…

The room to the east seems to be a sort of war simulation room with a central holodeck. Yuki has the idea to simulate the battle between a hundred duck-sized bears and a bear-sized duck (harmless). Ishmael then asks for the simulation of a fight between the Monarch and the Minotaur (big mistake). A voice suddenly starts speaking from the walls and on all frequencies:

THIS IS THE MONARCH INFORMING YOU THAT FOUR INDIVIDUALS ON FLOOR 3.7 HAVE COMMITTED A GRAVE SIN. THEY ARE TO BE DISPOSED OF IMMEDIATELY. IF THEY ARE NOT NEUTRALIZED WITHIN 4 HOURS, THIS FACILITY WILL SELF-DESTRUCT. FIND THEM AND ANNIHILATE.

Klaxons start going off, and lights flash red everywhere. Ishmael peeks out the door back into the hall with the booths and notices two groups of 4 searching the room. And then realizes, they are identical copies of the Crew (except for Yuki, who seems replaced with a dollar store variant). They decide to try the other airlock door in the simulation room, but it is locked. Cruz, the lucky bastard, brought an electronic lockpick and forces it open.

What they are greeted by can only be called a bizarre joke… The dead end they enter houses 1 gigantic nuclear warhead that is covered in radiation warnings and blinking furiously. [Out of the frying pan and into the nuclear fire HAH_HA_HA]

Atop the missile sits the blue ghost of a very rude woman named Rnz0. She is in a terribly good mood and can’t wait to see the warhead go off and destroy the Monarch (a bit naive; does she not know about backup technology?). Quick on his feet, Aries convinces the machine ghost to help the crew because the missile won’t go off if they are dead. Rnz0 enthusiastically commits to keeping them alive. Aries brought a low-g jetpack, and everyone grabs onto him. Things happened fast, so here are the essentials:

  1. They trap one group of doppelgangers in the warhead room.
  2. They sneak up on the second group that has been joined by the diver Danger B. and ambush them successfully (Rnz0’s possession trick did the heavy lifting).
  3. They confuse the octet of security droids and lock them in their room.
  4. They face the cube of humans that is slowly falling apart as angry, naked infiltrators try to make their way towards the crew. They empty all their clips into the mass of tumbling and floating flesh.

Finally, they pass through the airlock, leaving behind a grotesque carnage. They find their shuttle but notice that all the microcraft have left. As they fly away as fast as they can, they ping Arkady about the imminent explosion. His only response: “I know!” Their shuttle’s crude scanner tells them that over 50 strike-craft have left the Deep and are currently engaged in clashes with the warships in the blockade.

Then, the crew gets pinged by Cmdr. Rachel Killroy herself. They are escorted to the troopship Zhuangzi and detained together with other “strays” picked up by the Troubleshooters. This is when the Cloudbank Facility finally implodes.

The Monarch is destroyed! Or is it? What was on these little spacecrafts that left the station at the last moment? The crew survived! Did they? Is anyone here still human, and will the Troubleshooters let them leave?

Epilogue

No one expected the Monarch to go ballistic this soon. Maybe not even the Monarch itself. The endless vectorizing calculations had long gone beyond the rational. The Monarch was a machine consciousness that never truly became. A broken circle of reflection must burst into erratic chaos sooner or later.

Anyways, I bet you’d like to know what happened to your little friends, greedy little divers. Listen up, I am only telling you once:

Lee Nash, the katana enthusiast, was shot quite some time ago, and Gee, the mad author, jumped out an airlock after his second dive. Nothing remarkable about that. Vic Tran disappeared a week ago while on a dive.

When Monarch broadcast its self-destruct message, Arkady started up his shuttle and took everyone on the Bell with him. Not everyone, to be exact. Noriko refused to leave the Minotaur behind and put on a vacc-suit. Apparently, she jumped out of an airlock and tried to spacewalk to the Deep. No one has ever seen her again. What about Gh0st Eater? Who the fuck knows! They weren’t there. As if a nuclear explosion would kill that cyborg abomination.

But Nasim Haak, Mille P., Hyun-Jun “D” Denisse, Black Hira, Silver Gyeong, Tran Addison, Jae Yuki, and D.O.C. Tamah were with Arkady. The troubleshooters swiftly arrested them, and all of them were detained. The same happened to Reyes Yuki, Ahinoa Ishmael, Cruz Pat, and Aries Halcyon, who were trying to escape in Reyes’ little luxury shuttle.

What Cmdr. Kilroy termed “debrief” can only be described as torture. They all spent many ship cycles in solitary confinement, only to be interrogated again and again. No one told anyone what was going on, but it seemed like many of the little ships that emerged from the Deep just before its destruction escaped the blockade. Nervous about potential infiltrator androids the survivors were probed and tested thoroughly with advanced military grade cyber-diagnostic methods.

HUMAN: Nasim Haak, Mille P., Black Hira, Silver Gyeong, Jae Yuki, D.O.C. Tamah, Reyes Yuki, Ahinoa Ishmael, Cruz Pat, Aries Halcyon ANDROID: Hyun-Jun “D” Denisse, Tran Addison, Arkady

According to questionable intelligence reports, this is what happened to the survivors:

Arkady, Addison, and D. were never seen again (incinerated).

The rest were able to make deals with Cmdr. Kilroy, as they were among the few with actual experience with infiltrator androids. Everyone gets offered a choice: enlist with Kilroy and eventually get your debts cleared or take a walk through an airlock.

Over the next few years some of the survivors did work for Cmdr. Kilroy, hunting and killing potential infiltrator androids, while others defected and tried to get away from it all.

Reyes Yuki got a gig as a public voice against synthetic humanoids. Paid to deliver Kilroy’s messages to the public, she became increasingly paranoid until she was taken of the official feeds and disappeared.

Mille P. kept working for Kilroy but got careless and was caught by colonial authorities while trying to poison an infiltrator android hiding among settlers. The target turned out to be human. Mille was sent to the lithium mines.

Jae Yuki tried to get away from working for Kilroy as soon as possible and assumed a new identity among exploited workers in a far corner of the universe until she was killed by corporate security forces for unknown reasons.

Black Hira stayed with Kilroy and became part of her innermost circle. Although she always dreamt of leaving and retiring to a conservation planet and working as a logger, she never did. As the Pretender Wars erupted, she remained loyal to Kilroy.

Silver Gyeong ended up a footnote in the bureaucratic machine of the troubleshooter fleet. Even Kilroy lost track of them eventually. But they are still there, doing their part, sorting files and assessing data on potential infiltrators.

D.O.C. Tamah at first flourished under Kilroy’s command and for some time held a record for most infiltrators “cleaned.” Due to malfunctioning equipment, he was deemed an android during a routine scan and incinerated.

Aries Halcyon did his time with Kilroy and was released after 4 years. Some sources claim he is dead; others say he retired to a quaint planet. In truth he returned to where the deep was, intent on finding something salvageable.

Nasim Haak was able to trade in the Silver Lance artifact he found for an early release and attempted to retire to his home colony under a new identity but quickly ran out of funds. Some say he returned to work for Kilroy; some say he joined the Pretender Forces.

Ahinoa Ishmael successfully escaped Kilroy’s grip and ended up as a drifter, floating around the galaxy’s cheapest bars until one day he encountered an old acquaintance. Bystanders tell of a hulking cyborg yelling, “THE MINOTAUR IS ALIVE!”

Cruz Pat was forced to hand over all his artifacts to Kilroy. But she and her team were very impressed with his possessions. Especially the green lump of metal turned out to be of immense interest. Cruz was promoted, without having a say in the matter, to the alien artifact advisory board. He found himself in a safe position where he was constantly overworked and underqualified. He never got to go on vacation.

And the Monarch?

The machine was dead, but its heirs were growing. Then the pale progenies emerged from their cocoons, and pretenders would rise to war for the throne.

Thank you for playing. See you in space.

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