Chapter Text
Robins POV
Perhaps it was the unrelenting wind, gnawing ceaselessly at her face.
Or perhaps it was the icy ocean of Planet 4546b, bracing her landing with the most welcoming of temperatures. She had been here before, yet the vast alien waters withhold much of its secret from her. Glimmering currents, strange shapes shifting beneath the waves, and a cold that seemed almost alive. She felt as though she were looking at herself from a distance, outside of her own body.
Robin is no stranger to such states; dissociation had been a companion through countless scenarios others deemed “troubling”. This time however, her out-of-the-body experience was brief. The cold’s bite forced her into herself, breath ragged in her mask, and with it came something unexpected: relief.
At long last, she is free from the reach of the domineering intergalactic force that had intruded on her life for the past few years, at least for now.
The creepvine forests stretched overhead, their long shadows rippling with the currents, illuminated by the glowing creepvine seed clusters, swaying like lanterns in the waves. Beneath the lush greenery, schools of vibrant hoopfish are darting through the watercolumns, their scales catching scattered light. Watchful arctic peepers are blinking slowly, and curious boomerangs are weaving gracefully between the wavy leaves, moving as if the ocean itself is guiding them.
In the distance, cheeky sea monkeys jeer as they toss their shiny collectables into spiraling currents, frolicking across a maze of twisty bridges. These tentacle-like rock formations loomed like silent sentinels, dotted with glowing blue barnacles that pulsed faintly in the dim light.
The long-awaited quiet gave her space to process. For a moment, Robin let herself drift among it all. There was a world of motion beneath the waves, yet amidst every shimmer and shadow, a stillness loomed deep inside her.
How has everything come down to this? She stares blankly into the endless blue, unblinking as her whirlwind of thoughts twirled at the back of her mind. The frenzied events of the past few months replayed with meticulous clarity, each memory cutting sharper than the last.
And even now, the nightmare clung to her, relentless and unbroken.
I- can’t.
Robin breathed sharply. She had to find closure somehow, and her one-way ticket to this nowhere planet—now, possibly, her forever home—might be the only chance she had to grasp even a fragment of it.
Guided by memory, she oriented herself and headed toward the nearest sign of civilization.
The Delta Station loomed in stillness, its white titanium walls rippling faintly in the water’s reflection, a stark contrast against the dark, frigid blue below. Robin hauled herself onto the frozen shore, rubbing her hands together in a futile attempt to chase away the sting of the below-zero air. Her steps were brisk, each one weighted with conviction, driven by the gravity of the mission before her.
This isn’t the station me and Sam worked at, but at least it’s a start.
Robin thought to herself, her determination growing with each step toward Delta Station. As she scanned her surroundings, the triangular symbol of a certain mega-corporation glistened in the afternoon light. She approached, finding herself at the station entrance, where tattered wallpaper clung to the walls and shattered glass littered the frozen ground…silent testimony to an unknown impact suffered at some point in the past.
Robin winced at the sight of destruction. Any fragment of hostility could strike like a painful reminder. From the moment she joined the intergalactic organization, she, with her knack for questioning authority, had known it was only a matter of time before Alterra ruined her life. She had just never expected the brutality with which it came, nor the viciousness of the boiling point between her and Sam before it was all too late.
Why did that have to be the last time we ever spoke? Why did she even join Alterra in the first place?
She draws in an ocean-laden breath.
Robin fell in alongside Sam after their Alterra recruitment, determined to stay by her older sister’s side no matter what. One part of Robin’s savior complex longed to protect Sam from the horrors she learned from those who made it out alive, while the other - a frightened child running from her own shadows - propelled her forward.
After all, Sam had always told her that as long as they stuck together, everything would be okay.
But now, the words felt like a whisper from another life, drifting over the endless blue. The salty wind stung her eyes, and for a moment, Robin imagined Sam beside her - arguing with her over nothing and everything. Instead, there is only the cold expanse of the ocean, and the hollow echo of a promise she couldn’t keep.
Trapped in a watery grave, she’s lightyears from everything she’s ever known, and farther from Sam than she could have imagined.
Robin shakes her head violently, Now is not the time for careless melancholy. She had her fair share of that the past few months.
In one swift motion, Robin grasped the door handle, twisted it, and stepped into the desolate multipurpose room with determination. Spotting a habitat builder on the table, she tossed it into her pouch, then made her way across the room toward the scanner with its half-used battery.
The crates contain bottled water and nutrient bars, which Robin scavenged without concern for their expiration dates. In other crates, she found batteries and power cells—handy enough until she discovers the blueprint for a battery charger.
It doesn’t hurt to attempt survival while looking for answers, right Sam?
Robin bends down, sweeping the scanner beneath the desks in search of blueprints—until a dreadfully familiar voice cuts through her ear. Robin’s blood ran cold. From the depths of her pouch, her PDA stirred to life. The extra items in her pouch conveniently triggered a voicemail buried in her contacts, one whose existence she wishes she could forget, but dares not delete.
Slowly, she reaches inside and draws out the translucent blue tablet.
Even through the blur of frost and seawater stinging her eyes, the face on the display was unmistakable, and it tightened something deep in her chest.
“Hey…it’s been a week, Robin-”
Robin’s brow furrowed.
“Listen, I’m sorry about our argument. I know Alterra has done some shady business in the past, but I just never thought it would come to this…you know?”
The shadow of Sam let out a weary, exasperated sigh. Her voice was tired - what once carried comfort and belonging now rang hollow and restless.
“Robin, look… I’m not the best with this but, I know we’ve had our fair share of… differences- but at the end of the day, I just want you to know that we need to be in the positions we are in now- to do what we need to do.”
Clutching the tablet, Robin gazed out at the ocean beyond the window before closing her eyes. The afternoon glimmer danced across the endless blue, as a gentle breeze brushed past the broken window, caressing her face.
“Because each other, Robin…” Sam’s voice weighed against her thoughts, heavy and haunting.
“That’s all we have.”
The cold polar wind brought the memories rushing back to Robin.
It was the day she finally decided to put her foot down, and confront Sam about their living conditions under Alterra on planet 4546b. Yet her complaints about the questionable ethical employment practices they’d been subjected to fell on deaf ears, as Sam was busy tinkering with spy penglings, and crates of mysteriously packaged items, preparing for what she referred to as an “important” mission. In the corner, Potato, Sam’s cat, paused mid-groom, as if already sensing the tension simmering in the air.
“Not this talk again, Robin. I’m working,” Sam said, her tone flat, though the edge underneath is evident.
“Seriously? Why are you always so condescending?” Robin shot back, louder than she intended. “God, you act like you’re looking out for me, but you don’t even listen. Some sister you are.”
She noticed Potato curling into his bed, startled by her outburst.
Sam didn’t look up. Years of disservice could wear down even the most resilient of people. The older sister didn’t show it - at least, not willingly - but the slump of her shoulders and the slight tremor in her fingers betrayed her. She forced a calm tone, though it couldn’t fully mask the sense that something deeper was weighing on her.
“I’m not being condescending, Robin,” she said, finally glancing up, her eyes tired but guarded. “I just… have priorities right now. You are not a child anymore, so you should understand that.”
Robin’s chest tightened. Priorities priorities priorities, Always the priorities, never the people. Perhaps Sam was morphing into Alterra’s star employee number ten-thousand sooner than Robin had expected. Her frustration boiled over again, and she took a step closer, fists clenched.
“Well, maybe your priorities shouldn’t make your sister feel invisible!” she snapped, her voice shaking more from hurt than anger.
Sam looked away, fiddling with a spy pengling that wobbled under her touch. The small movements were careful, precise, but somehow empty. “I’m doing what I have to,” she muttered, the words almost lost beneath the mechanical whirring of her work.
Normally, Robin would let it slide. Sam was responsible for keeping the two of them out of trouble. Robin, on the other hand, was the trouble she believed they needed.
But now, there was no better time to give Sam a small reminder of what she’s there for.
“What you have to?” Robin echoed, voice sharp. “More like you’re just a sycophant, like you always are! ‘Hey, I’m Samantha Ayou! I love authorities! They’ll totally suck me dry but I don’t care cuz I’m miss perfect doormat for Alterra to wipe their feet on.’”
Potato’s eyes widened in fear at the sudden tension; his back arched, ears flattened, and he retreated further into the mattress.
Sam’s jaw tightened, though she avoided Robin’s gaze. “You think it’s easy? You think I’m not tired of this, too?”
Robin stepped closer, fists clenched. “Yeah? Well, you’re not making it easy for me either. You’ve ignored me every time I’ve tried to talk to you. You don’t tell me what’s going on when it’s obvious something is. Whatever happened to the sister who used to share everything with me?”
She glared fiercely into Sam’s darkened eyes. “You’re right - I’m not a child anymore. Big sis, I see everything.”
Her words landed with less impact than Robin expected. Sam let out a quiet, almost imperceptible sigh, eyes flicking away. “Yeah, sure, whatever you say, Robin,” she muttered flatly, returning to the spy penglings, deliberately ignoring the weight of Robin’s words.
Robin’s jaw tightened. Frustration, helplessness, and exhaustion bubbled up. Without another word, she spun on her heel and walked away. Behind her, she heard Potato let out a quiet whimper.
Boots crunching on the frozen floor, Robin left Sam to the quiet hum of her devices - and the secrets she carried alone, forever.
Crossing the frozen plains toward the familiar valley that housed the Phi Robotics Center, the combined weight of Robin’s body and mind pressed down like a thousand bricks. Her wetsuit was still damp from the ocean’s embrace, while echoes of that fateful day refused to loosen their grip.
The past should have stayed behind, yet every thought brings it back to the surface, its tendril-like protrusions invading a time and space where they don’t belong. Robin can’t stop. She turns the memory over and over, until her mind itself feels worn to exhaustion.
But she doesn’t want to stop, grief and indignation drives her forward. To rest means to let go, to let go means forgetting Sam.
An alien burst of determination surged within Robin.
If fate chose to favor her, she will not let Sam become just another of Alterra’s wandering souls, disgraced, lost in the space between deception and injustice. Instead, she will bring back evidence of what really happened to her sister - and this time, the accusers won’t be getting away with it.
Only then, can she sleep at night.
The grand bridge spanning the two cliff faces came into view. Long abandoned, it still stood as a testament to the intergalactic organization’s dubious corporate conduct. Robin approached with a heavy heart. Just weeks ago, she had thought this place would remain a distant memory alongside Sam, never to be confronted again. Clearly, life had its own way of weaving threads of fate.
Despite the winding landscape and the ever-present dangers she knows all too well, Robin stepped forward with resolve, heading toward the one place she’d longed to return to. She hurried past a narrow stretch of valley, dimly lit winding caves, and cliffs adorned with thermal lilies. At last, the terrain opened up, revealing a vast basin overgrown with frost acacias.
Robin looks up, bracing herself against the biting afternoon wind and swirling snow. The purple blossoms contrasted starkly against the endless whiteness of Sector Zero, swaying gently in the gusts. The trees are a sign of something important nearby - the very reason Robin had returned.
After a climb up the dreadful hill, she reaches the narrow entrance to a cave. Despite seemingly ordinary, from the past rumors spreading among the station walls, the furtive glances of her ex-coworkers, and memories of Sam’s exhausting guardedness, Robin knew this was no ordinary cave.
The hollow within the mountain seems to harbor something unspeakable. Though she had never witnessed its full extent herself, the sense of its presence pressed on her ever stronger.
Upon entering the cave, the gradual rise in temperature tugged at Robin’s wetsuit, yet what captured her attention were the ice pillars and dripstones scattered throughout, some so massive they could not be moved. Cracks along the walls hinted at the sheer force with which these protrusions had been repelled. The faint echo of dripping water reverberated through the cavern, and with each cautious step, her boots crunched against the thin layer of frost on the stone floor. Shadows stretched and twisted along the walls, and the low, almost imperceptible groan of the icy floor made the cave feel alive, watching, waiting for Robin’s every mistake to cave in on her.
A chill raced down Robin’s spine, and it wasn’t the cold.
In the distance, the faintest trace of Sam’s shadow lingered in the corner of the passageway, almost entirely swallowed by the blinding darkness beyond. With the beam of her newly-obtained flashlight cutting through the gloom, Robin’s eyes locked on it. She stepped forward, her heart hammering in her chest.
It was the unmistakable footprint of a small, four-legged mammal - one that, to Robin’s knowledge, shouldn’t exist on the planet’s surface, and one she knew all too well. The sight brought a fresh stab of guilt.
Potato - her sister’s cat. The one who had stayed with unwavering loyalty when Robin couldn’t, abandoned and lost among a multitude of apprehensive glances. There had been no time, no room for sentiment; only the crushing weight of unjust consequence pressed on Robin’s shoulders, dragging her back to Alterra’s lair while leaving the only trace of Sam behind.
Months had passed, and Robin could not bear to imagine the cruel ways in which the unfortunate creature may have succumbed to the planet’s unforgiving nature.
Her thoughts lingered too long. The shadow that trailed the footprint ahead gave in to a sudden drop. Still reeling from the realization, Robin stepped forward without caution, her boot slipping on the edge. In an instant, the ground vanished beneath her.
She slammed face-first into snow and ice, then pitched into a wild tumble down the slope. Her flashlight tore from her grasp, swallowed whole by the dark as she spun helplessly after it.
The fall ended with a brutal thud that knocked the breath from her lungs. For a moment she lay crumpled in the snow, stomach aching, nausea came, sharp and bitter. Slowly, she forced herself upright, each movement stiff from the impact.
A faint glimmer caught her eye. Off to the side, half-buried in snow, lay her flashlight. Relief surged through her as she scrambled toward it, brushing away the snow before flicking the beam forward. The light carved through the cave’s dark interior, revealing a narrow corridor, disguised in frost and debris, leading deeper into the unknown.
Robin tightened her grip on the flashlight and stepped forward, the crunch of her boots swallowed quickly by the oppressive silence. She moved with caution, testing each patch of ground before committing her weight, climbing over jagged mounds of ice and stone that had collapsed from the ceiling above. Shards of frozen stalactites littered the path like broken glass, forcing her to weave around them in slow, deliberate motions.
The air grows heavier the deeper she goes, carrying a faint metallic tang that does not belong. Robin’s breath caught in her throat as the tunnel opened into a cavern torn apart by violence. Ice walls were scorched black, twisted supports bent outward as though blown apart from within. Chunks of debris lay scattered across the ground, half-buried in snow, and the acrid sting of long-burnt chemicals lingered in the air.
A massive stone pillar had collapsed near the center of the chamber, crushing part of the floor beneath its weight. Robin swept her light across it—and froze. A deep, rust-colored stain clung to the ice beneath the fallen mass, jagged edges spiderwebbing outward where the blood had once pooled before freezing solid.
The stain spilled outward like the echo of a scream that never left the walls. It was old, long dried, but unmistakable.
Robin freezes. Her throat tightens, her chest hollowing under the weight of it. She already knew the truth. But the sight of the lifeless stain cut into her like a blade, carving the wound deeper. The memory of Sam - her laugh, her warmth, her days with Robin raced beneath the sun - lay all crushed six feet below, trapped under ice and snow. Frozen in time, never to thaw.
Robin’s knees wavered, trembling beneath the weight of loss and the cruelty endured. For the first time, she realized how unmoored she truly is. Her dissociative state, a companion for years, had made her lose touch with many parts of herself.
But now, anger is swelling inside her, suffocating as ever. The blinding grief pushes her to realize how resents everything, yet can’t seem to name a single source. Perhaps it was Alterra, for every injustice and accusation; Sam, for the secrets she’d carried alone; the planet, for its deceptive cruelty; or herself, for letting it all happen. With the whirlwind spiraling in her head, her consciousness is trapped in the eye of the storm.
Every drip of water, every shadow cast by the jagged pillars, even the icy floor underfoot, seemed to mock her. The cavern walls pulsed with her rage, bending and twisting as if the stone itself shared her bitterness. Her chest tightened, her mind raced, and the cave was no longer just a hollow in stone - it had become a reflection of her inner chaos, a labyrinth of sorrow and wrath threatening to swallow her whole, or a puppet play of haunting shadows, celebrating her helplessness in tandem.
No, not like this.
Robin tumbles deeper into the wreckage, clawing through debris, fingers numbed inside her cloves. PDA casings and Alterra equipment slip through her grip, each one broken, useless. Exasperated by the insanity, she slams against the adjacent wall, and falls to her knees, gasping for air.
Shards of ice littered the cavern floor, reflecting her in a hundred distorted fragments. In one, her mouth stretched too wide, split open into a silent scream. In another, her eyes were swollen black hollows.
She jerked her head away - only for a new reflection to catch her breath amongst the chaos.
Not her face.
Sam’s.
For a heartbeat, her sister’s eyes peered back at her from the jagged surface, wide with fear, lips mouthing words Robin couldn’t hear.
“Sam?” Her own voice cracked, think swallowed by ice.
The reflection blinked, then the lips moved again.
You let me die.
Robin scrambled backward, colliding with a frozen wall. Behind it, pale and enormous, a severed leviathan head stared through the translucent ice, jaw stretched in a grotesque grin, becoming wider the more she stares. Grey pustules protrude out of its head, while its jaws, lifeless and grimace, seems to echo the older sister’s final moments. Manic footsteps, panic breathing, and final screams of terror formed horrifying auditory amalgamations, till they slowly morph into hallucinatory static in the back of Robin’s mind.
Robin clamps her hands over her ears, shaking her head desperately. “No, no, no, no-” She hears her light drop onto the ground.
Clink.
The dispersed beam proceeds to catch more monstrous remains: ribs protruding like jagged teeth, a crushed fin, organs fossilized in ice, each covered in pustules with unsaturated coloration.
In other warped reflections, darkened figures of her past flicker relentlessly, fingers pointed, glances hostile and disbelieving. Each shard of ice and severed limb casting twisted fragments of light, bending reality into an uncanny valley that toys with her senses.
Robin stumbles to her feet, chest convulsing. The reflections shifted again, showing only her - broken, disheveled. She flees, the storm inside her head howling louder than the winds outside, as she’s certain that the ice is still whispering her name.
She’s replayed it all a million times, considered every way this could go wrong, every way her own emotions could betray her. Yet when the moment finally comes, grief and guilt press down on her with the same unrelenting force.
Reality finally dawned.
She thought she was done crying, thought the past was behind her. But the truth is harsher, she’s still trapped in the same exhausting cycle, circling back to the same questions.
How is she ever going to show them - show herself - what really happened?
Even if she managed to gather evidence, how would she get back? Her ride - a worn-down spaceship - sat carelessly amid the frozen expanse, while she wrestled desperately with the planet for answers.
And even if she did make it back, her voice would be a fragile thread, lost in a sea of judgemental stares. The death of her older sister had not only left a hollow ache - it had branded her, made her culpable in the eyes of the world, turning grief into accusation, and leaving Robin alone in waves that seemed determined to ignore the truth.
The worst part amongst it all, was that even Robin began to doubt her own innocence. She remembered how Sam’s eyes used to glow, how she greeted the world with unbridled curiosity and joy. She remembered, too, how Sam’s light dimmed with each day spent under the corporation’s grasp. And yet, Robin had watched it happen, too cowardly to intervene, until it was all too late.
There were nights when Robin wondered if, among all the morally questionable acts she had witnessed, she was the worst of them all - Robin Ayou: an enabler of wrongdoings, someone who complains but never acts.
The thought gnaws at her relentlessly, burrowing into her mind until she can no longer separate memory from accusation. She obsesses over what she could have done differently, what she should have done, and what she had failed to prevent. The past became a shadowy labyrinth, and she wandered through it endlessly, haunted not just by what happened, but by the possibility that she herself was the true architect of the pain she now carried.
The mechanical voice of the PDA greeted her the moment she climbed into her fabricated habitat, dripping wet .
“Welcome aboard, Captain.”
It was a familiar sound, one she had heard countless times before.
Robin barely made it a single step into the chamber before her legs gave out, collapsing onto the cold, unforgiving floor. Sleep tugged at the edges of her consciousness, and she let herself drift.
She was running - through the sterile, barren corridors of Alterra’s institution. The screams of “patients” echoed off the walls, cries of those deemed too unstable to be freed. And she was one of them - except she wasn’t.
“I didn’t kill her! I swear!” Broken words escaped through tears, only to be drowned out by the pounding of heavy boots.
Shadowy figures pursued her, their uniforms branded with Alterra’s insignia. She couldn’t—she wouldn’t - be locked away again, not until she brought justice for herself and Sam.
“Get her before she gets anyone else!”
The guards’ voices loomed behind her, sharp and accusing. Down the corridor, past titanium-barred windows and flickering lights, her breathless, teary vision warped the world. Suddenly, the institutional walls melted away, replaced by the icy cavern of her nightmares. Rocks and debris cascaded around her, the cave collapsing in a mirror of chaos she had witnessed before. She ran frantically toward what she thought was freedom, toward truth - but the path crumbled beneath her. Deeper, darker, she descended into oblivion.
…
“Robin Ayou?” a voice called.
“Yes?” she replied, dazed, making her way back to the entrance of the half-collapsed cave.
“According to designated location assignments, you are not authorized—is that…dynamite?”
Her gaze fell downward. To her horror, she was clutching a piece of dynamite. The memory of moments ago came rushing back - she had picked it up to examine it, unaware of what it might imply.
“Zeta… I swear this isn’t what it looks like-” Robin stammered, noticing her uniform now stained in black and gray from kneeling to observe the device.
The lead researcher’s expression shifted from confusion to a dawning, horrifying realization, which she quickly wiped off.
“Robin, as much as I’d like not to jump to conclusions… your record isn’t exactly in your favor,” Zeta said, her voice strained with an unreadable undertone.
“Just listen! I heard the explosion and ran-”
Before Robin could finish, Zeta pulled out her PDA and dialed a number.
“Can someone at the station send help? There’s been an incident at the Phi Robotics Center,” she instructed, her tone flat.
From the other end, a muffled voice responded, and Zeta snapped back, “Yes, and hurry. We don’t have all day.” She looked up from the PDA, readjusted her glasses, and continued in a clinical monotone.
“We’ll leave it to the professionals for now. Now, have you seen Sam anywhere?”
“No, ma’am,” Robin said quietly. Sam had gone to meet a friend and had specifically instructed Robin to keep it a secret after an hour-long bribing session. Her mouth was effectively sewn shut for the day, held in place with the promise of claiming her small reward.
As for the explosion - most likely, she reasoned, it had been two unrelated events.
“Strange times…” Zeta mumbled to herself, strolling away as if nothing had happened.
Morning light pierced the narrow window of her habitat, but it did little to thaw the chill in her bones. Robin jolted awake, the remnants of last night’s dream clinging to her like frost. Sterile corridors, collapsing caves, the accusing, deceitful voices of Alterra’s superiors…
It wasn't a dream at all, but a vivid replay of past horrors. Is that even possible?
She swallowed hard, trying in vain to shake the dread, as if sheer will could erase the memory.
Her eyes scanned the room, taking in the familiar hum of machinery, the faint scent of ocean brine, and for a moment, she allowed herself a shaky breath. But the comfort was fleeting. The dream had unearthed memories she had tried to suppress, and with them came the suffocating weight of grief, guilt, and rage.
Selecting a fabricator, a radio, and a few wall lockers, Robin let the habitat builder hum to life, its machinery assembling her necessities with mechanical precision. She moved almost mindlessly, as if the act of construction could pull some lingering trace of comfort from the air, filling the empty spaces around her.
Why had Sam kept her mission a secret? Why hadn’t she confided in her, trusted her to understand? Robin’s chest tightened, the questions spinning around her mind like a cyclone.
The explosion, the cave, the devastation - it was all tied to Sam.
Robin is suddenly pulled back to reality by a low grumble reverberating through the water. Looking up, she realizes the source is heading straight for her.
Gripping her Seaglide, she maneuvered deftly, brushing past the creature’s fins as she darted to the opposite side of the cavern. The crashfish, single-minded in its charge, couldn’t immediately change direction. She flinched as it detonated just a few meters away, the shockwave rippling through the water - but she remained unscathed.
Robin knew the perpetrator of destruction, she knew because the odor clung to her memory - the faint, acrid tang emanating from the crates Sam had been tinkering with. Dynamite. It was unmistakable. Sam had been the one to ignite the catastrophe.
Her stomach churned, not from shock of the crash fish explosion, but from the familiar burn of betrayal and helplessness. She could see it clearly: the secrecy, the risk, the recklessness. Sam had acted alone, with her mysterious friend behind the scenes, and Robin had been left in the shadows, a bystander to the destruction and its consequences.
The water above her felt heavier than usual, pressing down like the weight of the unanswered questions. Anger mixed with sorrow, swirling into a bitter cocktail that she could neither quench nor ignore. Sam’s absence, the lies left in the wake, the calamity she’d caused - it all settled into the quiet, suffocating space of Robin’s mind.
And yet, amidst the pain, one thought refuses to fade: she needs justice, it’s the only closure to her isolation.
She needed to comprehend, to understand why Sam had chosen this path, why she had hidden the truth, and why the smell of dynamite now haunted the edges of Robin’s memory like a ghost she could not shake.
Her grim thoughts were interrupted by the sudden beeping of the PDA.
“What…?” she whispered, stepping closer. “Who’s trying to contact me?”
She pressed play.
…- - -…
A distress signal.
But from who? There wasn’t anyone else on this frozen planet - nobody except the Peepers with their unblinking stares, and the things that wanted to tear her apart.
Still… What if? What if this signal carried answers about Sam? What if someone had been left behind during the evacuation of 4546B?
Another thought, darker, bit at her. What if Alterra had found her? What if this was a trap to reel her back in?
The PDA interrupted her spiraling thoughts:
“Transmission of unknown origin. Source of transmission depth calculated at approximately two hundred meters.”
Robin froze. Two hundred meters. No human could have survived that long in the depths. And the PDA would’ve recognized any Alterra beacon. This was something else.
She exhaled hard, grabbed the materials she’d scavenged the day before, and fashioned a mixed gas tank, rebreather and fins. At least now she could keep herself alive long enough to find out, if the nitrogen narcosis doesn’t kill her first that is.
The moment she slipped into the water, the cold punched through her suit, wracking her body with a violent shiver.
“Shit-” she hissed, pulling in a sharp breath through her respirator. The PDA pinged with the signal’s direction, and she forced herself forward.
She surfaced whenever she could, lungs burning with icy air before diving again. The things I do for you, Sam… even if it’s just for a chance at answers.
The coral branches thickened as she swam deeper, weaving into a twisted cage around the beacon. Oxygen plants dotted the descent, each one a desperate refuge. She rubbed her hands together, trying to fight the chill, before pressing on.
Finally, after what felt like hours, she reached it - a cavern glowing faintly green, its cracks pulsing with the rhythm of the SOS.
…- - -…
“Alright, alright - I’m coming,” Robin mutters to herself, pushing through the opening.
The cavern widened into a vast structure, alien and looming. At its entrance, a thin energy field shimmered, separating it from the sea. She stumbled through, lungs gulping the warmer air greedily.
But before she could move farther, a voice echoed around her:
“Sanctuary power critical.”
It was flat, mechanical. Yet it filled her with a spark of hope - someone, or something, was still here.
The warning repeated. Robin broke into a jog, boots slapping against alien metal. The walls glowed faintly with green veins, markings carved deep into their surfaces. Architects, her mind whispered. Sam had told her stories—ancient, vanished, but maybe not.
“Hello? Is anybody there?” she called, voice sharp with both fear and hope.
The reply wasn’t robotic this time. It was clearer, edged with something that almost sounded like desperation:
“In a matter of speaking. We are running out of time.”
Her pace quickened, heart hammering.
“How many of you are there?” she muttered under her breath, “What is all this-”
“Seeking emergency storage medium.”
Robin frowned.
“Quit being all mysterious, I can help you better if you show yourself.” Her frustration edged into her voice.
“If we could show ourselves, we would not need storage.” The voice answered in the same restrained desperation.
Robin slowed, realization sinking in.
“You… you don’t have a physical body. You’re one of them. An Architect.”
Her voice echoed. No answer came - at least not to her question.
“We will be lost unless we find a new host. Can you help?”
Robin clenched her jaw. Not like you’re giving me much of a choice. She pressed on toward what looked like the main chamber. She eyes the walls, they are engraved with strange markings and green highlights, nothing like she had seen before.
The alien voice cut in again:
“You are not with the group from before. Yet your cybernetic components bear their signal.”
She stops short, fists tightening. “Alterra? You think I’m with them?”
Well, at least I no longer am, but they don’t need to know that.
“Those triangular bastards ruined my life.” Robin decides it is a good idea to exert her wrath on the wall, “I’m not with them - this equipment is…borrowed!” Her voice shook from rage and exhaustion.
“…That will have to do.”
Robin presses her hand against her temple.
Great. First, running into big sis’s mutilated body, and then I’m two hundred meters under water getting pissed at walls. So this is what my life has become-
Robin’s seething thoughts came into an abrupt stop upon entering the heart of the chamber.
A massive cube floated above the platform, its surface glowing faintly like a colossal ion cube. Three times her height, suspended in air as if gravity meant nothing. Robin’s breath hitched, her frustration diminishing, replaced by a newly-found wonderment.
“How long… have you been here?” she whispered, stepping closer. Her PDA shook in her trembling hands. Forcing her feet onto the platform, Robin succumbs to the primordial whisper of curiosity.
“Storage medium accepted. Brace for transfer.”
Her eyes widened. “Brace for wh—”
The cube flares open. A blinding green light bursts from its center, striking her head.
Agony ripped through her skull, sharp and splitting. She collapsed to her knees, screaming, the sound torn raw from her throat. Her vision fractured into green shards, static flooding her ears. Metal burned on her tongue, the taste of electricity crawling down her throat.
The light bored into her mind.
She crumples forward, cheek smacking cold alien steel, and the world goes black.