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The cell of processing was less a welcoming environment and more akin to an interrogation room. The furniture was cold steel, its floors and walls made of panels of obsidian oblations, the ceiling nothing but a screen of harsh, unnatural light that gave everything a sickly, pallid hue. Arthur wrapped himself tighter in the recovery blanket they had handed him, the itchy, bland blue-grey jumpsuit underneath one of standard issue to all personnel and lifted most likely from lost property. It was ill-fitting for an ejected user, but then the system had never been designed for such situations. Anybody who went in never came out, that much should have been painfully obvious now.

Fluoroamniotic fluid still dampened his fur into an unbecoming tangle of sodden strands, its distinctive burnt ammonia smell singing the Labrador's sinuses as the liquid dissipated into the surrounding atmosphere. Though the substance was supposedly tasteless, an unusually septic flavour swam in his mouth that seemed impossible to swallow, regardless of how much rationed water he drank. The flask now sat untouched upon the table before him, having lost the appetite for anything to eat or drink. The system had purged such urges and instincts from his brain in lieu of its own coding, and he knew himself it would take time for his body and mind to adjust back to the land of the living. He could still feel the occasional prickle of something missing, like an absent touch or a fleeting sensation that should have been there, like a phantom pain. Remnants of the connecting nodes, it was a novel experience to witness for himself. Up until now much of his work had been vicariously through subjects and specimens looking to reduce their time. He would see for himself what ejected users went through, chief amongst the symptoms was confusion and disorientation that persisted for an unknown length of time after exiting immersion. It took Arthur all of his concentration for his mind not to slip the walls around him and shift him back into the police station interview room, handcuffs magically appearing around his wrists though no such thing existed in reality.

The door opened, and some part of him expected Cheryl or Tyson to enter, but instead he was greeted with a rhino, whose horns split at the base to form a protruding dual spike, shimmering as if made of silver yet distinctly bone or some composite similar. This man was perhaps a towering seven foot, though it hardly mattered when he occupied such a space that seemed unfathomably huge, his uniform tight against his frame, bearing the Terminal's emblazoned logo alongside the League's standard upon his left breast, and holstered at his hip was his firearm. Normal munition supplied to officers was for all personnel to be granted and trained in using an Opus Lancer, a fairly tactile weapon that could accommodate a number of scenarios from heavy use in assault to light training. But this man, whom Arthur could only recognise in his addled mind as Warden#0X had broken protocol and issued himself a Magnus Bombardier. It was a weapon only ever used into heavy breach situations, outlawed in several systems for its senselessly destructive and vicious capacity. Arthur had heard stories of victims of such weapons, barely clinging to life and needing near impossible reconstructive surgery to repair the damage done by just a single glancing shot - for if the wielder were truly aiming at their target, survival would frankly be a miracle, and life afterwards a nightmare.

This thug of a beast pulled out a chair and sat himself down before the Labrador, silent and cold, as perfect for surroundings as anybody could be, and he stared implacably at the canine. He said nothing, for now, as behind him filed in a second individual, clad in a lifeless lab coat and seeming to almost hunch over upon themselves in a scheming disposition. Admin#03 shadowed the rhino, like a tick on his shoulder that sapped off his authority of the room, instilled with a façade of importance granted by company. This male was perhaps the same height as Arthur, though his slouched frame made it difficult to tell, but he was weedy and frail, a reptilian from the Kasparian system, an urban dweller judging by his scale colouration. Bloody greys and bleached blue formed a polluted pattern across his dry, rough hide that made all his clothes seem uncomfortable hung upon his body, like a broken mannequin dressed in everything that was poorly sized.

Warden#0X and Admin#03 stared at him, though unlike the rhino, the lizard seemed to barely contain a sadistic glee behind his lecherous smile, as if he were a child clued in on some giddy secret.

"Doctor Quintos, do you know who I am?" Warden#0X asked, voice suddenly cutting the air as subtly as attempting to cut paper with a hammer. The rhino's dead, golden eyes bore him down as the Labrador shuffled in his seat, the recovery blanket snug around him crinkling ever so softly under the movement.

"Yes," he began slowly, trying to force his mind into one coherent thought, "You're Warden Vance Loxall, you are currently in command of the L.S.S. Terminal." Arthur cast his gaze to the reptile behind him, voice hardened for reasons he couldn't remember, "And you're Doctor Reeko Upsyn, League liaison from the military research and development committee aboard this ship."

"So you're not entirely gone, that's good..." Though his words ought to have been reassuring, they felt anything but. They were sceptical, disapproving, distrustful... "And do you know what the Terminal is and why you are here?"

Arthur breathed, the air feeling tight in his chest and painful, like a thousand pinpricks upon his skin. This was where the absent cracks were beginning to fill with memories and thoughts that couldn't have been his own yet could have belonged to no one else but him. They were his feelings, his words, his ideas, and all felt so alien and strange to him, a life he'd never lived, a life that was over now, a life he had already killed.

Cautiously he nodded, eyes set upon the table as if its mirrored surface could reveal some unspeakable truth for him that he could not say himself,

"The Terminal is an experimental dreadnought class prison starship, its purpose to test and perfect a more efficient and effective containment solution to the League's growing overpopulation of its prison planets. The League approached me and my colleague, Doctor Marina Kestavanna, whilst we were working on applications of virtual simulations through sensory deprivation chambers." He felt his blood running cold, like a glacier was now occupying his veins as he recounted stories of memories he couldn't even believe were his own. He felt sick. "Alongside Dr Upsyn we developed this ship, a virtual prison, as a potential solution without the need for rendering entire planetoids obsolete for enemies of the galaxies. Prisoners are contained in virtual environments befitting for their crimes, without the actual need for physical space to house, feed, and exercise them. Even if any prisoner were to somehow escape, a failsafe would simply deadlock their location and evacuate the air from the room, or failing that simply eject the prisoner into space through an airlock."

The Warden held up a single paw. He commanded silence from the canine,

"That's all I need to hear, doctor."

Arthur went silent, thankful his vomit of the dark truth was staunched by the rhino, but he felt no less sickened. He was a monster, all this time he thought he was just a victim of some cruel, twisted game, but here he was, the mastermind of it all. He was a doctor of neuroscience, an expert in mental states and psychological behaviours of the brain. Marina was more practical than he, her speciality regarding quantum computing and the development of ground-breaking coding. Together they had cracked the living conscience, deconstructing it down to simple code and capable of uploading it into any given parameters, be that a virtual simulation or even a blank android. Together they had built this place, under the watchful control of Reeko and the rest of the League's afforded guards, and constructed a hellhole for the poor convicted souls who were selected for testing this new system. If he thought carefully about it, he was even convinced it had been him who had approached Marina in the first place, keen to see if they could potentially save a mind from the body and upload it into a computer. There was a bounty of applications their work could have been used for, most that came to them being medical, in treating mental disorders or saving sufferers of incurable physical ailments, but then Reeko had come along after reading of their work and he'd sunk his dirty claws into the project. It was warped now, as if he had been a cancer to come along and corrupt it all, and now here Arthur sat, suddenly remembering all this for what felt like the first time.

"Do you remember why you entered the system?" Reeko was suddenly chiming in, words hissing upon softened syllables as if his voice box couldn't quite make the sounds correctly. He cowered at a derisive snort from the rhino, unimpressed the lizard had spoken out of turn, though the Warden made no attempt to cut him off. But he was plucking for something, Arthur could tell. Something in his gut told him not to trust to lizard, why he didn't know, but it was such a strong feeling that it was impossible to put aside.

"I..." Why had he been in the system? That had been the whole conundrum whilst he had been inside, wasn't it? About figuring out what Haven Falls, platform zero, the townsfolk, its bizarre rules and circumstances; that had been his whole mission. Hadn't it?

"Several months back, Captain Phastamene and Lieutenant Barbarot were court-martialled and incarcerated after their attempted coup. Their trial was... problematic, but nevertheless justice was served and a decision made to imprison them in the vessel they had done their best to endanger. A fitting punishment, you would think, only Warden Loxall here decided one day to have me inspect their containment to ensure they were facing justice for their crimes against the League," Reeko clasped his hands, or what could only be described as hands, simply three appendages that ought to have been fingers but manipulated themselves in such alien ways, "After certain... suspicions arose regarding the running of this facility. To our surprise, both traitors were somehow connected to the system but were irretrievable. Further diagnostics revealed that not just them but hundreds of other prisoners were missing from their respective platforms, connected but... missing." Reeko was fully into his dramatic performance now, pacing the room as he delivered his monologue. "I recommended that we should completely reset the system and purge any defunct data that shouldn't be there, but you," he glared at Arthur, with contempt that was thinly veiled, words spat with clear venom, "You suggested that instead we take the opportunity to work out what has happened in order to prevent it from happening again. _You_volunteered to enter the system, anchored to the chamber used for testing, and be sent to wherever this missing people were."

Though he despised the way Reeko talked to him, the reptile was at the very least filling in the blanks of his memory, completing what he couldn't have done on his own. It was true, users had been missing from the system, though to the average eye they seemed connected like any other. Users were divided into platforms to manage data loads, to be able to segregate and isolate any platform that might require maintenance or updates whenever necessary. Platforms could be indefinite, having first began at one and ranged all the way up to thirteen, if Arthur recalled correctly, and could house a multitude of users operating within contained virtual environments.

Then platform zero...

He tried to keep calm and neutralise his expression as the flooding realisation overcame him in a blunt, crushing instant. Haven Falls, the whole town, its people, were all users on a hidden platform of the system, a platform not officially recognised on the mainframe, logged under an ident of zero so that nobody would ever think to search for it. It wasn't some purgatory or a place people go when they die, it wasn't a nightmare or a dream, none of them had been crazy...

It was a virtual platform to house their minds, whilst their physical bodies... All of them, all the townsfolk, Tyson, Cheryl, Grant, even Arthur at one point, all of them were physically on the Terminal, swimming and drifting in chambers filled with fluoroamniotic fluid to instil sensory deprivation and keep them connected to the mainframe. Chamber#0X, that was the adjunct for the chamber that they used for private testing. It wasn't properly designated on the system...

Why then had Arthur volunteered to enter this platform? Why had he stopped Reeko from destroying it? Something was amiss, if he distrusted the reptile now, he was convinced that before he had lost his memory that the lizard was up to something.

"So you entered the platform via one of the test chambers, only we conveniently lost connection with you. I recommended that we use the secondary test chamber but Dr Kestavanna was adamant we shouldn't under fear of similar complications. From there we know nothing of what happened until she finally established a relay with your mind." Reeko returned to the Warden's shoulder like an obedient pet, perched so he could whisper into the rhino's ear like the serpent he was. "We were hoping you would be able to inform us of what you found."

Arthur felt like he shouldn't tell them anything, that his epiphany was best kept secret for as long as it needed to be, but he was stuck before them, faced with the immovable stare of the Warden and the suspicious glower of the reptilian doctor. He needed to tell them something, but the details he would divulge would have to be carefully selected. Instinctively he could feel trouble brewing.

"I entered the platform and found that the environment was a procedurally generated desert, a single, isolated town community had been established with multiple users alre-"

"Prisoners." The Warden interjected, so abruptly and spitefully that it took Arthur off guard. The Labrador frowned,

"I'm sorry?"

"They're not users, we've talked about this before, Doctor Quintos." The Warden leaned forward in his seat, elbows placed against the table, paws folded upon themselves. The small movement seemed to consume all the space between them, as if Loxall was breathing down upon Arthur himself, nostrils flaring in controlled anger, "This is not simply one of your experiments, this is a prison ship. They are prisoners. Enemies of the League. Understand?" Arthur felt the words shunted in his mouth, shocked they would be so candid, revolted there were more so callous. He was recalling his true feelings towards the League.

"Alright... prisoners," he corrected, feeling the word roll in his mouth and taste vulgar, like something rancid, "There were multiple _prisoners_on the platform, all of them completely unaware why they were there or how they got there. Some supposed it was heaven, others hell, purgatory in some instances or a dream-like state they had somehow slipped in to. However most seemed pacified to their situation, accepting the parameters of their containment as insurmountable. As such they had named the town 'Haven Falls' in a bid to normalise their experience. Though it appeared that some of its earliest residents suffered mental distress at being in such an environment through prolonged exposure and near-isolation."

"Haven Falls..." Reeko scoffed, trilling insidiously as he spat the name, "How ironic." Arthur rubbed his face, a dull throb in the back of his head. Was he doing the right thing here? Maybe he had agreed to all of this, allowing higher powers to interfere and reshape his work to suit their needs, but that was how most scientific and technological breakthroughs were achieved. Someone with power and influenced gave momentum to those with the ideas and knowledge. But this felt wrong, it felt like he was doing something sick and twisted by unveiling platform zero to these people. But what was he supposed to do? This was his job..."You were right, they were connected to the system, they were still registered under their serial designations, but they had an adjunct linked, as if they had been allocated from the system unlike how it is on other platforms." He slumped back in his chair, "I won't know the full details as to why and how everything is the way it is without looking at the diagnostics, but as it currently stands, the system does appear to have an isolated, secret sanctuary for a fraction of the users... of the prisoners."

The word still felt so wrong to him. But why? Moral qualm, perhaps, but these people were still criminals...

Right?

"Why did you not try to contact us whilst you were inside?"

"I don't know, like I said, some kind of safeguard maybe? A firewall? I mean, I was only able to finally take control of the system was through a glitch of some kind. I just need to take stock of what happened and then I can tell you more..."

Warden Loxall remained quiet for a moment until he rose from the chair, breathing a stolid huff, clearing his throat,

"Well then it seems obvious that we should purge this platform from the system," he set Arthur with a stern, frost glare, "as Doctor Upsyn first suggested when this matter arose, but I'm not prepared to get into internal disagreements here and now." His mass turned for the door, taking a few steps until its partitions slid apart, exposing the mired corridor beyond. Vance froze there, head cast over a shoulder, "You're dismissed until further notice, Quintos. Recuperate from your ejection and once you've improved we can discuss what happened, what went wrong, and what to do moving forward..."

The rhino turned, making for the exit without so much another word. Arthur considered challenging him on the dismissal, but it felt like an effort too vain to be worth it. Reeko took a moment to fix a stare upon the Labrador, though impassive as the reptile tried to make his expression, there was forever a twinkle of smugness in his gaze, a twitch of his lips, complete with a satisfied cluck under his breath. He followed after the warden like a doting child enamoured by their mentor, and once he had left the room Arthur was left alone to his thoughts. Something was still missing, slippages in his mind that couldn't fit all the pieces together. Why did platform zero exist? How had some of the prisoners wound up there but not all of them? Breathing deep, he closed his eyes and exhaled, wondering what would be the best course of action now. It was clear he couldn't trust Loxall or Reeko, or anybody else associated to them for that matter, especially if the whole facility was nothing but an elaborate advanced prison. But Marina... The name brought him comfort, consolidation, a friend in the storm that was wildly getting more and more out of control. He had thought if he'd solved the mystery of the town from inside the platform it would all make sense, but now that he was out, it had devolved into nothing more than a more exceptionally perplexing case. He shrugged off the blanket, tossing it to the table, rose and made for the door.

As it hissed open, he stepped out into the corridor. It was as anonymous as he expected, nothing but lined lights from the ceiling, a feeling of artificial gravity that made him feel both sticky as he moved but too light upon his footpaws. It was difficult to adjust after having been so used to hot sun, sandy ground, and desert air. Everything felt so unnatural as he moved through the ship, all the metal suddenly surrounding him, the harsh glows of the fluorescent lights, a distinct stagnation to the whole environment that bordered so close to claustrophobic that Arthur was beginning to miss being inside the system.

He froze in his tracks when he came to a window. It wasn't a tremendously big porthole, but it was enough to see outside, the light of a distant star barely a glimmer in the ship's corridor. They were in orbit around a planet, it seemed, a gas giant of staggering size, a sea of swirling fuchsia and ruby. Deep, ugly yellowed spots pocked its surface like craters, only they were contorted by the warping winds of the planet's storms. Slow-moving to his naked eye, Arthur guessed they must have been terrifying fast, strong enough to have torn apart any living thing that entered its wake. Beyond this star, this planet, even its moons that were cresting on its horizon, was nothing but blackness. Arthur stared into it for so long, desperately hoping it would slip away into the void he had become so familiar with and entreat him to contact Tyson. Or maybe it would reveal another layer of the simulation and he would wake to find the Rottweiler again. But nothing happened. No green coding appeared, no system dialogue, just a cold nothingness that ventured on for endless lightyears. He placed his paw against the glass - or whatever material it was composed of - and felt the coldness sap into his arm as it drew away his body heat. Even though it may well have been just a trick of his senses, electrical impulses subverted and controlled, but he missed the feeling of a breeze through his fur, of fresh air, of light warming his face. It may well have been from within a flooded chamber completely unknown to the universe beyond, but it was better than this.

A prison was a prison, either from within the cell itself or left to tend to the cells.

Eventually he came to the hyperlift, as he knew he would do inevitably, somewhere deep inside to the part of him that was now only just waking up. It was like two minds battling to become one, only the intruder seemed to be winning, and alarmingly Arthur found himself struggling to hold onto the memories he had. Tyson remained though, invariably and unwaveringly, he stayed true in the forefront of everything he did. Tyson was in the system, on platform zero, did that mean he was a prisoner? But for what?

The hyperlift doors hissed open, exposing its cubicle of an interior, nothing more than a cell of glass running on hard light rails. For a moment Arthur wondered where to go, if he could indeed go anywhere, but the wallowed defeatist who had allowed all this to come to pass stirred the thoughts from the dredges of his memory,

"Habitat Ring Alpha."

Doors slid shut, fusers purred in whistling delight, and the hyperlift propelled itself upwards. Several seconds of nothing but the washed out glow of the lift's interior. In a rushing sweep however, like a breaching sea creature, a panorama plunged into Arthur's view, and he stared, chilled to his bone, at the sight.

What he was looking at was nothing more than a colossal cavern, hulled out through the core of the ship. At its very centre, standing like a solid pillar through the structure, was an oblate column, comprised of obsidian tech-panels and bright glass, behind which glowed a ferociously eerie swarm of orange and red lights. Power coursed through its thuggish veins of tensile cables that threaded its exterior, the behemoth churning and rotating on its axis. It appeared as if its entire centre was ablaze, an inferno burning so intensely behind its shell that a single crack would burst and explode the station into a supernova. Encircling the column, as if daring its very destruction was impossible, was a system of rafters, platforms from which various individuals, nothing more than ants, insects tending to their hive, milled about on. Some going, others coming, some armed, others in lab coats, many in jumpsuits - most of them would have been androids fashioned to look alive, safer and cheaper a robot dies than a person - all hard at work maintaining the violent storm inside the pillar. It stretched deep below, as much as it stretched far above, as if neither heaven nor hell would ever be punctured by its spires. Surrounding it for yards on end was nothing but empty space, air that must have been pumped through the station, but upon the insides of this cavern's walls... Cells, multitudes of them, lined neatly into rows, divided amongst themselves to maximise their space, humming, bubbling vats of turquoise fluid, tainted with green hues, like wombs nursing their occupants. The fluoroamniotic liquid, filtered and saturated with all the chemicals and substances any physical entity would need to survive indefinitely, glowed like precious gemstones within this artificial geode. Arthur, in his speck of a pod, raced upwards as he traversed this cavern, following the same trajectory as the core, the server that saved and stored all the minds of its unfortunate cargo deep within its databanks. The primary feeds, hanging upon stabilised pylons, fed into the core, it bled the minds of its users and flushed them into its system, incorporating and deciphering the signals of their brains until they had been reduced to nothing but lines of coding. The Labrador swallowed, aghast at the sheer volume of the project, the sheer scale it had become, and felt his stomach clench in a well of fear. He had created all of this, he was to blame. Guilt became him, nothing but a horrid, scornful resentment to the person he was now supposed to be, walking in his body like nothing had changed. Platform zero had changed him, and now all he longed for was to go back.

Tears dripped from his cheek, tears he hadn't realised he had, but they fell freely, silent but painfully loud in his mind. This was monstrous.

A tone chimed from around the canine, his destination had arrived, and as the doors welcomed him to his level, he hastily wiped his shame from his face upon seeing a figure there to seemingly greet him.

Marina, he knew her instantly, though it felt for the first he was meeting her. But he softened in her presence, soaked in the trust she emanated.

Dressed in her lab coat, spectacles perched upon the bridge of her beak, quiet but intense eyes hidden behind their shimmered green lenses. Her natural eye colour was, like most of her species, red, but the glasses smothered them whenever she pushed them further up, something of a habit Arthur had found in working with her. In one of her prosthetic arms, replaced in lieu of her wings, was a tablet, her command to the ship that allowed her on-the-move access to the mainframe. Arthur had rarely seen her without it, even on social occasions. It seemed her need to be within reach of her work took precedence over much else, even when it came to necessities like eating or sleeping. Her legs stuck beneath the bottom of her coat, the tarsus and claws of her feet obstinately visible and greyed in colour, up to the knee before they became shrouded in the plume of black feathers. Her other arm was projecting coded schematics, a layout of the station, something of a blueprint only presented in three dimensions. It was cast from the palm of her hand, a projector built in within refined artificial composilite crystal. Why she was looking at such things though, being more of a computer engineer than anything else, Arthur wouldn't be able to guess. He would never have asked anyway, even when she got the first word in,

"Arthur!" She exclaimed, chirping excitedly, "Oh my god, they finally let you go!"

Immediately she closed the space between them, drawing him in with the soft clink of her arms for a warming hug. The canine found himself burying into the embrace, needing the physical touch to still his spiralling thoughts.

"So, how did it go? Did you have a hard time with the Warden? I bet Reeko was loving it... They wouldn't let me in on the debriefing, said I was compromised, whatever the fuck that's supposed to mean." Arthur went to respond, but she had already rallied on to her next thought, a flurry of activity in her mind all racing at once, "I'm so glad you're okay! I was really worried something was gonna happen... I mean, that whole episode with the test chambers and convincing them to let you go in, just freaked man. Like what happens now, did they say anything to you? What's gonna happen to platform zero?" Her eyes fixed on Arthur, imploring and inquisitive, earnest but unyielding. He found himself at a loss for words, but he fought to find them,

"I... I don't know, said something about a purge..."

"Shit... Not good. What do you suppose we do?" Again the words and thoughts didn't come to the Labrador, his tongue felt heavy in his maw, his throat tight, like somehow he was failing Marina, though in his head they had met mere seconds ago.

"I don't know..." She clucked, something of a sound that felt, to Arthur, like pity, or perhaps understanding, it was so hard to tell. He was busy trying to inform the other half of his mind still rousing itself to judge the sound.

"It's okay, it can take time to acclimate back after ejection, especially in your situation," she uttered the word like it was supposed to mean something, set with a meaningful, intent glare, "I don't want to pressure you though, but I'd get back into gear quickly. Loxall is pushing hard on this, he wants answers, and, more important, he wants people to blame. He's itching to provide his lovely brand of 'justice', and I reckon you've got a target on your head right now... you know he asked me to disable your authority signatures on the system?"

Arthur did not know that, nor did he quite know what that meant, but his immediate reaction was one of bitterness. Loxall did suspect him of something then, even going to the lengths to cripple and staunch his capability of informing himself of his circumstances. The signature, that was his access to the ship's diagnostics and everything beyond, to grant him permission into centre areas of the station, to make orders, he was one of the senior staff, if not its most senior, and to be clipped so bluntly by the warden was a foreboding signal. He was worried, deeply worried.

"Don't worry, at the last minute I swapped out the serial for Reeko's, so you've still got control. They'll both be pissed when they find out... so again, no pressure, but I'd figure out what our next move is before it's too late, yeah?" Arthur nodded, numbly, as if he was supposed to even know what was going on, let alone how to conquer the situation he was rapidly finding himself in. "He's spooked, Arthur, they all are. None of them expected this, and they're looking for blood."

"I'll be careful..."

"Be sure that you are, we've only got so many tricks up our sleeve..." She side-stepped Arthur and entered the hyperlift, the Labrador making his exit simultaneously. "Oh and... I watered your roses for you whilst you were gone."

Arthur's brow furrowed, his head tilted. What an odd statement. Why did that pique his attention so much?

"I'm sorry?" he said, bemused.

"Your roses," Marina replied, with ever more determination, "You'd better check up on them. I'll be down in the lab when you need me..." She let a moment pass to give weight to her words before she cleared her throat, "Laboratory Ring Beta." The doors closed upon her form, Arthur seeing only her eyes last, the look etched into his mind so resolutely. It was an expression of dread, of desperation, of stern, yielding courage that was drummed up from fearing depths of the soul. She was terrified, but she didn't want to show it. She wanted to be strong, he could see that much.

Arthur decided he had best go check on his roses.

He slipped off through the corridors, retracing steps in his memory as if working on autopilot, until he came to his door. Marked by a digitised placard, it read his name in full. Doctor Arthur Quintos... That name felt so strange to him now, was he and the version of himself from Haven Falls even the same man anymore? Though it had been minutes, hours, maybe days, it was a lifetime he didn't want to spend away from where he felt he belonged. Where that was though he was struggling to know.

His was greeted upon his arrival with his doors opening, allowing him into the sterile, functional quarters he had come to call home during his time aboard the Terminal. Dressings of his personality were meek, but he had done the best with what he could. A bed, big enough for himself three times over, or just him alone and Tyson... The sheets were immaculate, perfectly made with reading lamps overhead, which softly brimmed into life upon his entry. Wardrobes occupied the walls near his headboard, framing the bed as if it were a centrepiece to the room, marked with a variety of senseless trinkets he had decided must have been decorative enough. To his left was his work station, a desk polished of his errant papers, most likely swiped by Reeko or some other subordinate to the warden to scour for some kind of proof they were keen to pin him on. He didn't even know himself if he were to be accountable for anything, but from what he had witnessed so far who was to say. An ensuite connected through a threshold to one side, every bit of League-issued living conditions as one could have imagined. Function over anything else, no excess, built and designed to be liveable, not lovable. The farthest wall however had been comprised entirely of screens, which activated to reveal a panoramic scene of fields bursting with long, unkempt grass and wild flowers, all streaming in a wind that would never blow, under a sun that didn't exist. Arthur sighed, taking cautious steps forward into the bleak enclave that was miles away from the breezy summer home of the Rottweiler he yearned for so much right now.

A deep, panging sense of loss spurned his gut until it felt rotten, constricted and sick as he stumbled into the room and collapsed onto the bed. It felt hard and uncomfortable underneath him, the compressed bedding akin to smooth stone. But that didn't matter, nothing mattered, as he fought with the ever increasing inescapable dilemma he was being wound up within. The harder he struggled, the more he tried to answer his confused questions, the more problematic the answer became. He was complicit in Tyson's incarceration, in everyone's imprisonment, and he had subjugated them to an eternity as strings of code in a system, subjecting them to whatever hell those higher up had forced him to implement. Platform zero had been a haven to those people, to the few who had been lucky to escape, randomly selected, and granted a small slither of peace and safety from a nightmare that could have consumed them. When he had gone into the system, why he had chosen to do so, was nothing more than self-destruction on his part. Did he know he was going to fall in love? Did he realise he was going to break his heart all over again? What was he hoping to achieve?

Slowly he stepped over to his desk, seeing what had been left untouched, but all that remained was a single projection slate, nothing more than a photograph. As he picked the slate up however, his heart skipped a beat, shock blunting him as unthinkably he saw himself in the arms of Tyson. But this was not the man he had met in Haven Falls. This was a man who bore the same military suit Loxall had, but that dopey grin, the glinting eyes, even just his face carried such an inviting, loving glow, deep down it was the same Tyson Arthur knew. They were together even before, was that why Arthur had volunteered to go into the system, to find his lover again, to somehow settle for a few moments more with the man he loved. He squeezed the slate so tightly in his paw he worried the glass might crack, such bright, painful rage swelled in his heart, feeling so robbed of his love. Barbarot and Phastamene, those were the names Reeko had said tried to mutiny, and now Arthur knew why those names felt familiar. Tyson and Cheryl, both of them, they had been part of the security detail for the station. Arthur remembered now, hollowed agony finding its home in old wounds, as he had listened to the Rottweiler talk about the injustice, about how he planned to make it better. He wished he had tried to stop him, to not let him become so extreme in his ambition. He remembered hearing the news that he had been sentenced by Loxall to imprisonment in the very station Arthur had built, and that was the knife that cut deepest. Quietly, stoically, he had to watch as both Cheryl and Tyson were shackled and dragged to the cells that would forever contain them without knowing, hiding his distress as he watched the Rottweiler's eyes slip closed, drifting into an interminable, simulated death.

Once more he found himself crying, sobbing openly as he wondered what was happening to his mate right now. Was he afraid? Was he as lonely as Arthur felt? Was he already being purged from the platform and reallocated? Was he even aware of his incarceration? All Arthur wanted to do was find himself buried in the Rottweiler's arms again, to be held and kept safe from the nightmare he'd awoken to. His heart swelled with longing, an insurmountable agony that just wanted to hear his voice again, feel him breathe, his heartbeat, the smell of him, every sense swimming in him until there was no difference, no division between them. They were one.

But they weren't one. They were nothing, zeroes, separated for now, separated forever, so long as Loxall and Reeko had their ways. Never had he felt so weak and vulnerable before. It was like an acid under his skin, burning across every inch until he felt raw, detracted and pathetic. What was he supposed to do?

He turned onto his side, curled into a ball, legs clutched tightly to his chest as he let his face be washed in the harsh glow of the screened wall. A deluded promise of freedom, of escape, projected itself in thousands of pixels, all indiscriminate alone but together generating such beauty. Only it was an image, nothing more, and Arthur longed to feel nature again, simulated or not, the feeling to be free did not have to be completely physical anymore, not after his experience. He wanted to run through those meadows, feel his paws trail through stalks of grass, wind in his fur, to smell the mists of dew and the efferent wildflowers.

Flowers... roses... Marina had said to check the roses.

Clarity suddenly burned in him. He shot upright, staring at the screens, as if their light and their visions had finally allowed the course of his mind to align itself. Rosie, he had forgotten about Rosie, the woman, that voice, the one who called, the one who knew. Who was she? Was she Marina? The voice wasn't right, it couldn't have been, but who? Instinct again came to Arthur like a flash, reflexive as he spoke,

"Mainframe, change window to roses."

There came a tone, then the screen began to flicker, as pixel by pixel the visual dissolved into something new. Fields and flowers disappeared, and rather to be replaced by yet another natural vista, diagrams and documents projected themselves into the room. Arthur rose to his footpaws, stunned, quietly surprised and feeling giddy with discovery, as plans upon plans unveiled themselves to him. He remembered now, he remembered it all. This was all his scheme, all the plans he'd put into effect, the subroutines he'd carefully programmed, the interfaces he'd secretly encoded into the system, every last detail, it had all been him. A smile breached his face, all too happy to finally know himself, to know the truth.

Arthur had created platform zero.

Tyson's rebellion hadn't been his own, it had been Arthur's. From the very beginning, ever since the League had approached him and Marina, he knew the ethical problem their work posed, and the prisoners were not prisoners at all. They were civilians, politicians, relatives of people of power, nothing more than collateral damage in a war of propaganda against their enemies. Nobody would ever dare allow genuinely dangerous criminals to undergo experimental containment that allows them sanctuary. Not unless there was a catch...

Platform zero was a secret platform Arthur had therefore created, hidden under an adjunct where nobody would search for it, never to be discovered. It would trickle out some of the 'prisoners', not all, into a place where they wouldn't be tortured or tormented by ceaseless incarceration. That's what Ro.S.I. was for. It wasn't a woman, not a person, it was a composite, an intelligence designed to factor in variables and statistics to pick and choose when and who gets absorbed into the platform. The Re-organisational System Interface. It was her who kept the system in check, ensured everything ran smoothly, whilst Arthur could tend to other tasks so as to maintain his guise of helpful scientist. Meanwhile the users selected by Ro.S.I. would live out their lives in blissful ignorance, unknowingly imprisoned, but otherwise mentally alive and free in the simulation. They had all adjusted to their lives fairly well, but it was Arthur who knew something more. Entering the system, a safeguard had purged his memory as he had known it would, an insurance of the users entering platform zero to not become aware of their true situation and the town's true nature. But instinctively it had led him down the path, to find the glitch that had started the whole mess. Cheryl and Tyson had only mutinied because Arthur was under threat of exposure. Reeko was already suspicious of the Labrador, looking for any reason to undermine or attack the canine to oust him from his work. A 'hole' in platform zero had formed, one he'd overlooked, and though it went unnoticed for some time, the reptile must have found hints of it. Tyson had tried to protect Arthur, staged the coup in a bid to distract the station away from the platform, and it had worked, for a while... But Reeko kept digging, he found the glitches, realised something was amiss, Arthur was forced to take action...

He had entered the platform to at least buy time. His ruse was that he needed to prevent further situations such as the secret platform from occurring again, but in reality he needed to work out a plan of action. His time inside had been distorted, the system operating faster than real time, but days maybe have been hours, or the other way around, it would be impossible to judge. His experiences inside, connecting to the mainframe, had been them attempting to externally force his ejection, to reach him within the system. The rebooted virtual drive sending him back to the train station, a hard reset, had failed, communications with him had met with little success, but Ro.S.I. had reached out. She too must have realised the system was under threat and guided him as best she could, showing him the first user to have arrived on the platform, though driven mad by witnessing the hard code of the virtual environment in the desert. Grant had seen literally everything, all the coding the setting was made up of, possibly he'd tried to connect it and been purged at the system's firewalls, a 'prisoner' trying to 'escape' and it had fried the legacy of his brain scan. Regardless, it was all done with now, Arthur needed to focus on the present, and he needed to somehow preserve the platform... It was going to be purged either way, Arthur always knew that would be the case once he was rumbled, and now he was fighting with time as he raced against Loxall to save what he could; they were moving fast, he could sense it, they were worried he was going to do something, anything they hadn't yet predicted given how long he had hidden platform zero, but he would just have to be faster.

A chime rang out in his quarters, a burst of static,

"Arthur!" It was Marina, flustered and panic in her voice, "Arthur, they're coming for you, you've got maybe seconds, do what you need to do, and do it fast."

"It's okay," he said aloud, taking a deep breath as he mentally prepared himself for the battle ahead. "It's time for the suicide option." Exhaling, he announced aloud, "Mainframe, delete roses."

A bell indicated its confirmation, and the room slipped into a dulled blue hue as the screens defaulted to their neutral state. All evidence of his work had been scrubbed, lost forever to the digital void of the system. It was no longer necessary now.

Before Arthur had chance to do any more damage, his door slid open, and armed troops swarmed in, already poised to fire, flanking him as he stood there at the centre of the room. The Labrador didn't resist as they encircled him, only breaking to allow their leader to step forward and approach the canine, Magnus Bombardier already primed, fizzing violently with its charge, and aimed directly at his head.

"It's already over." Arthur breathed, staring Loxall dead in the eyes as he looked past the barrel pointed to his forehead, "I know what you've been doing, and I'm putting a stop to it once and for all."

The rhino was silent for a moment, refusing to yield to the Labrador's stare, but in defeat he dropped the hand-cannon, snarling,

"What have you done?!" The man reached for his communications port, "Upsyn! What has he done?"

"Nothing, sir. Nothing has changed."

The Bombardier was aimed once again at the Labrador, its charge surging back to life in an instant. Arthur didn't flinch however, as the rhino's trembling hand, the sheer rage burning through his skull so fierce that it set his eyes ablaze with that of madness, snapped the trigger. It was over in an instant, the canine's body reeling to the floor like a ragdoll, cranium utterly mangled under the point blank blast, leaving nothing to be identified but the grotesque, dripping remains of the body once housing Arthur's mind.

~ ~ ~

Consciousness bolted Arthur awake in a vicious, savage burst, like a splitting cleave to his skull, as he spluttered awake in a frightened start. Lukewarm, slopped fluoroamniotic fluid dislodged from his fur and thumped upon the ground as he scrambled to his footpaws. Nude and wet, he staggered, getting his bearings, as he came to in incredibly unfamiliar surroundings. The room was dark, comprised of nothing but rows of growth vats, filling the shadows with their unearthly bioluminescent cyan glow. The room was like an echo to him, something that felt like he knew what it was, only distorted, confusing, and warped. He coughed, spluttered, as he felt his chest seize with rasps, an expulsion of viscous fluid streaming from his throat as he doubled over.

"It's okay," a voice said faintly, "I know it feels like you're choking, but that's just a reflexive response."

Arthur bolted upright, stumbling, as he spat out the fluid from between his lips. A figure, half-cloaked in the swamping shadows, approached him. Friend or foe, he didn't know, but the voice was feminine, and in his panicked state he thought best to trust anything until he was sure.

"Stay away!" He coughed, feeling his back press up against something. He turned around, face illuminated by the chamber's fluidic luminescence, features frozen into horror as he saw the figure floating within its flooded walls.

It was an abomination, a creature half formed between robotic parts as if slowly evolving, growing, mutating, into something real. Straggling fur had begun to sprout from gel-covered plates inside and the face had already begun to contort along a scaffold of what appeared to be a muzzle, mucus and sinew creeping at a deathly crawl across the thing's whole body as it was in an eventual state of reconstruction. Arthur felt sick, the monstrosity burned into his mind the moment he saw it.

"Just calm down, the synapses take a minute or two to forge the connections, it'll come back to you if you just give it a minute..."

He turned to face the figure, breathing hard as he stared into the blackness between them,

"Rosie?"

Stepping forward into the Labrador's view, Arthur's mind shunted itself into gear, picking the pieces back up of his shattered whole. Marina stood before him, frowning but sympathetic,

"No, Ro.S.I. is a composite we designed to serve as overseer to platform zero," the avian spoke slowly, "Are you with my Arthur, memory lapses are common, but I need you to get it together, please..."

He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and concentrated. Running through the events, he pieced it back together, slowly but surely. Platform zero was a sanctuary for prisoners within the terminal, the platform had been compromised, now the Warden and the rest of the station knew... He exhaled, lifting himself back up to his full height, arm propped against the dimly lit glass of the chamber he was stood beside. Loxall had shot him, killed him even, so how was he alive? A look up to the growing monster within the liquid collected his suspicions,

"These are androids," he said, if only to himself, "You're growing them here, designing them... to be me?"

"It was your idea, actually," Marina began, placing herself alongside the canine, "After Tyson you became paranoid, you didn't want anyone else to suffer because of you, so this became your failsafe. The real you is back in the testing chamber, you've been operating from a surrogate body ever since." Arthur found himself examining his paws, flexing the fingers, feeling the tendons resist and pull with his moments. It all felt so real, yet here he was, exactly like he had been in the platform, exactly like he had been in his quarters. The sensations were indistinguishable between what was simulated and what was truly real, and he wondered what had become of the version of himself that now lay broken and mangled under Loxall's boots, for all intents and purposes 'dead'. The Warden must have soon figured out it was nothing but a duplicate, which didn't leave them with much time. The canine clenched his fists, a swell of one last determined push to save everything he had worked so hard to achieve.

"We need to get to the main laboratory and take control of the station, can you do that from there?" Marina rolled her head, huffing out an uncertain breath,

"Maybe... It may take some time, but I programmed much of the ship myself, I know what I could do." She looked over to Arthur, concern etched into her face, "Why, what are you planning?"

"We only have the suicide option left," he declared, "All we have is the last resort. It's over, Marina. There's nothing else left to do."

The woman was quiet, as they both stared dead ahead into the lifeless eyes of the thing forming before them, as if being birthed in slow motion, a mindless puppet waiting to be commanded by someone's mind. The suicide option was always the last protocol they had put in place together before everything had been official. It had been discussed, albeit briefly, when the platform was first in jeopardy and Tyson had selflessly thrown himself to Loxall's wrath to save Arthur. The Labrador remembered it so fiercely now, their argument as Arthur had been in tears, pleading with the Rottweiler not to sacrifice himself, but the decision had already been made. It was then that Arthur had begun to consider their last resort more seriously, as it had gone from a 'just in case' scenario to something that felt inevitable. It simply consisted of three steps: first to begin compression and upload of not just selected users but all users currently contained on the Terminal. Second to take absolute control of the ship and lock out all other personnel, setting its destination for the closest known location of resistance factions. Third, to open all airlocks on the ship and evacuate everyone, leaving only the users behind in their chambers, alive and safe. From there the prisoners on board could live a peaceful existence, if only in their dreams, whilst in reality they were adrift in space, unknowing where they were being taken, if indeed they were being taken anywhere. It was a gamble, anything could go wrong from not being able to take control of the Terminal to the ship meeting danger whilst nobody was around to pilot it. Arthur and Marina had tried to account for all outcomes, Ro.S.I. being placed in charge of the ship's primary functions and to awaken them when safety could be assured, or that defence measures be enacted if anyone attempted to board the ship. It was a bleak scenario, but it was the best case solution they could form knowing they were only two against an entire station full of guards and other staff.

A jumpsuit was thrust into Arthur's chest, the force catching him off guard as he stumbled,

"Get some clothes on, you nudist," Marina quipped, "If we're doing this and we fuck this up I don't want your junk flapping around as the last thing I see."

Arthur smiled, wryly, but it had a bitter note to it. They really were committed to this, to saving everyone aboard the ship, even if it was at the expense of their own lives. As he scrambled into the uniform, he consoled himself; he was doing this for nobody but Tyson. Everyone else was circumstantial as far as he was concerned. All that mattered was making sure that his lover was safe and well, if only in spirit. There was half of an idea for both Marina and Arthur to begin decompression of the entire ship and to rush themselves into the testing chambers so they too could join the rest of the Terminal's users, but it was half-baked, unformed and more of a hope they held. Both of them new it was beyond a longshot that they too might survive, but it was something to hold on to, if anything at all was left.

He followed behind her as they made for the hyperlift, moving past empty vats that would have once housed various bodies Arthur had been using as decoys or duplicates. None remained now, he must have been the last one, prepared by Marina in the wake of his ejection from the system and under realisation that their ruse was about to cave. They stepped inside, and just as Arthur was about announce the floor he wanted, Marina silenced him,

"Best to try and keep them guessing in case they think you're still dead," he nodded, allowing her to speak, "Laboratory Ring Alpha."

They began their ascent, only a single floor, but for Arthur it felt like an age. He could feel his pulse quickening under his skin, heart pounding at his chest and his mouth dry. Anything could go wrong between here and now, any small detail could ruin everything they had worked for, and worst of all it could all be in vain if they fail to save the people incarcerated on the station. But for Arthur all he wanted was to make sure Tyson was safe, to repay him for the cost he had to suffer for the Labrador's need for justice. It had never always been the Rottweiler's battle, but he had chosen to align himself with Arthur, and he stood beside him in all the darkest hours, consoling him, loving him, ensuring he was always safe. He needed to return the favour as best he could, given the circumstances.

The doors slid open to the main laboratory, and immediately Arthur set them into action,

"You start decoding the security algorithms and take command of the ship, I'll begin to compression and upload sequencers."

Marina rushed to the laboratory's main console, the screens and dials humming into life as she approached. Mindlessly she worked away, driving herself through the ship's codes as she attempted to take control. It wouldn't take a genius to figure out what was happening soon enough, but hopefully by the time anyone realised what was going on it would be too late. Arthur made his way over to the two chambers set up for testing, one empty, the other covered with protective shielding, its occupant obscured, but that didn't matter. Behind them lay the junction to the main core, the servers directly linked to Ring Alpha of the scientific sector. From here there was a perfect view of the cells beyond, nothing but an absolute drop down to the very bottom of the ship, a hollowed tunnel of its hull with nothing but chambers lining its walls. Wind, artificial though it might have been, absently whipped from the ship's turbines that powered the vessel, but fortunately a force field kept anyone from falling to a dreadful death.

Arthur began to process of activating the system, readdressing all the platforms simulations and constituting them under the platform zero paradigm. He began to allocation sequence, linking platform after platform together as had always been intended when they had first designed the core, alleviating the strain on server memory to compensate for the simultaneously virtual worlds it was forced to uphold. Now only one remained, the world of Haven Falls, and the whole planet that would be waiting beyond once all were sequenced. The safeguard of reappearing back at the station was just a precaution, as in reality Arthur and Marina had intended that moving from one platform to the next would be as seamless as stepping a boundary, but with nothing beyond that boundary, all that remained was a procedural wasteland, nothing more but the emptiness of the system. Now there would be a whole world of people, not just a town, and everyone could live their lives in peace. Before him, the core of the ship turned from its enflamed amber to a soothed green, as it began to operate within safer parameters, and its surge, forming of a green pulse, vented out from its centre and to every cell of chambers surrounding it. It started from the top but began to swim downwards, a wave as the system connected, and Arthur felt a swell of pride as the mainframe informed him of one hundred percent consolidation. Everyone was safe, for now...

He prepared the vacant test chamber for a new occupant, uploading its user signatures to the system ready for anybody to be assimilated into the Terminal mainframe.

That was when he felt something blunt, unmistakably a weapon, pressed to the back of his skull,

"Step away..." the wielder dangerously hissed, "Or I will end you."

Arthur's paws froze, mid-typing, and carefully he backed away from the console. Turning around revealed to him his assailant, who likewise had Marina at gun point and together held them hostage.

"Did you really think I was stupid enough to not see your deception?!" Reeko snapped as he backed Arthur to Marina's side, both of them at the mercy of the reptilian, "From the very start, you were trouble. Nothing but traitors to the cause!"

"And what is the cause, Reeko?" Arthur asked, feeling emboldened, "This was never just a simple prison ship, and you know it. It's a concentration camp, a convenient torture chamber and information gold mine for the League." The Labrador reached behind him and brought up the various simulations that were currently being replaced as users were reallocated, awaiting their termination. None of them looked like any kind of prison environment they had been led to believe, even Marina seemed shocked at what she saw. They were just simulations of ordinary life, respective to each user, who lived lives under the guise that they allied themselves to the League. Code and data filtered off from these lingering simulations, collated for transmission, under Reeko's administrative authorisation, kept hidden to the rest of the system. "No wonder you were so eager to support our work, not to solve overpopulation crises but to drain information from political opponents, civilians, anybody who might have known something. Nobody imprisoned on this station has actually committed any crime, have they?" Arthur closed the simulations down, and at the same time he deactivated safety measures for the ring. He took several steps towards Reeko, met with a threatened fizz of energy as the reptile armed his Lancer, "Have they?!"

"They are enemies of the galaxies. Insubordinates to the League."

"That's just bullshit," Arthur growled, "And you know it."

"Why does it matter to you, Doctor Quintos?" Reeko smiled, "We were well aware of your indiscretions for some time, we simply needed to know who else was involved. Let me tell you," his grin turned evil, his eyes filled with nothing but malice, "I took great pleasure in imprisoning your lover... I made sure to keep Barbarot conscious for every second that I could just to savour your pain."

"You bastard..."

The pistol was aimed at his head again, barrel inches away from him. Arthur knew what he had to do, formulating a risky plan. Reeko drew a cackled, rasping laugh as he called for Loxall to come to the laboratory, revealing Marina and Arthur as the traitors, but the Labrador caught him mid-sentence. He swatted aside the Lancer, though Reeko's grip was far stronger than he'd imagined, and a single shot fired off, punching through the main console Marina stood beside. She was showered in sparks, blistering spats of electricity and debris cascading around her, but Arthur was already sprinting full speed into the reptile. He tackled him, arms tightly wrapped around the male's torso, as he pushed them both towards the edge of the laboratory. By the time Reeko knew what he intended to do it, it was too late, even as he tried to dig his claws in and shoot viciously at the canine. Several shots punctured Arthur's body, but he rose above the pain, roaring in one defiant lunge of strength, as he threw them both over the edge, the ground leaving beneath them and sailng through the air.

It was almost a weightless sensation of flying, or drifting, as they descended, hurtling with rampant speed as they reached terminal velocity. Reeko was screaming, rage burning so brightly inside him that he scrambled how best he could with the Labrador to inflict as much damage on him before their inevitable death. Arthur however was resigned to his fate, and closed his eyes as from the distance came the rushing impact of the Terminal's turbines. There was a flash of feeling, something indescribable, before he and Reeko were crushed from their impacts.

There was the sound of rushing water, coldness washing around him, until he felt his body collapse and sink to the floor. Muscles failed him as he spluttered, retching up fluid from his lungs, feeling weak and numb as sensation sliced back into his nerves. Faintly over him he heard someone, panicked and frantic, desperately trying to rouse him back into life.

"Arthur!" Swam the words, muggy as if he were still submerged, brain not quite yet focused, "Arthur please, wake up and focus! There's not much time!"

He was naked, upon the floor, and drenched as he clambered to his footpaws, still unbalanced but aided by Marina who picked him up under his shoulder. Disorientated though he might have been, his memory came back to him quicker, as functional cells and synapses reconnected in a forge of fire. Back in his real body, not an android copy, he breathed raggedly for the first time, surprised at how little difference he felt at the sensation. Everything boiled down to the same components, organic or mechanical, spun on electrical impulses and signals, working through information assimilated and collated... it didn't matter if one breathed or didn't, all that would need to remain is the mind itself.

Together they approached the remains of the main console, its screen cracked but still operating, as it endlessly listed the various failing programs and systems that had been damaged in Reeko's attack.

"Remote activation is no longer possible," Marina announced, a catch in her voice, "Someone will have to manually activate the last step."

"I'll do it," Arthur rasped, wiping his face free of fluid, "I've put everyone in enough danger, I have to end this."

"But how will you..." she began, but she stopped, silenced by the Labrador's cold, determined look. He had already set his mind, the decision was made long ago, and he refused to allow any form of negotiation. "We'll need two-tier authorisation, two admins have to confirm the override..."

"Authorisation admin zero-one, doctor Arthur Quintos, sigma, alpha, five, nine, keter, two." He turned to Marina, offering her turn to speak. She paused for a moment, looking between the broken console and Arthur. This was it, the final stage, it had all finally come to this. She sighed,

"Authorisation admin zero-two, doctor Marina Kestavanna, beta, alpha, eight, eight, signet, six."

A chime cranked from around them, Ro.S.I.'s voice cutting through the shattered sparks that sputtered from overhead,

"Authorisation confirmed, control of Terminal rescinded to the Re-organisational System Interface. Awaiting commands."

"I've primed the other testing chamber, you should upload yourself." Arthur moved back to where fluid pooled on the floor from his ejection, the chamber now open and empty of his body. There were no more androids, none ready to use, it was just him against whatever was left to do. Marina seemed hesitant, but he gave her little choice as he pushed her into the chamber and began connecting the system to her, wires trailing to her limbs, her skull, fusing with the skin and assimilating her consciousness,

"Arthur, please tell me you're coming too..." He didn't respond, guilt wrapping in his gut, she grabbed his arm as he attached the final node, "Arthur." He bit his lip. What response could he give? Little else mattered now but completing the final step and ensuring the safety of the vessel...

"I'm... I'm already there." He slid the chamber's door shut, sealing Marina inside as fluoroamniotic fluid streamed in, "Tell Tyson that I love him and that I'm sorry..."

From inside she pounded on the glass, but it was too late, anaesthetics and synthetic gel had already begun to take control for her, and as her strength and resolve slipped away, she fell quiet, falling into an absent dream, carried away to join the rest of the Terminal in their paradise. Arthur breathed, tears in his eyes, as he was left alone. He moved back to the main console and worked with what he could to put the final stage into effect,

"Evacuate the ship and set a course for the nearest known location of resistance forces."

"Confirmed," sirens began to sound, flaring lights alerting the crew to board the lifeboats, "Plotting now." Trajectories and velocities were calculated as the composite now ran the ship. Arthur watched, hopeful that their trip would not be a long one, begging that their sleep would not have to be forever. But as the numbers rose, he found that hope quickly suffused to the bleak reality, until the last digit was processed and an estimation announced: sixty-four years until resistance intercept. That was even an optimistic prediction, not taking into account the League's countermeasures they might make, anomalous conditions out in space such as dust clouds or meteor fields, comets and planetoid objects, hell even other space farers could impact what will happen. He would just have to hope, for that was all they had left now, a sleeping ship full of lost souls...

"Loxall has entered the hyperlift and is on his way. Unable to disable hyperlift controls."

"That's okay," Arthur responded, taking a long, tired breath, "Let him come."

Seconds went by as Arthur considered his life. Growing up under the League's omnipresent rule, finding his way into the path of science, and witnessing nothing but injustice and persecution all around him as they ruled like tyrants. But who was he to do anything? He was one man, with limited power, only intelligence and spirit on his side to fight against their innumerable forces. But a man working from the inside, allowing them to provide him with the tools to save just a few, a fraction of them all who had suffered under them? That was something he could be proud of. If he could he would save more, he would do better than placing them into an eternal slumber awaiting rescue, but at the very least they wouldn't suffer.

Tyson however had changed him, the Rottweiler was his support, his only true companion in the darkest days when he had questioned his mission. Together they had sacrificed so much, and it seemed the final toll was to be Arthur's, one he would willingly pay for Tyson. As he heard the hyperlift arrive, a thunderous rage greeted with hard boot stomps, he turned to face the murderous warden who once more had his weapon drawn.

"Relinquish control of the ship now." The rhino had spit straggling from his teeth, pure ferocity bristling in every fibre, "Or I swear I will end you."

"What can you truly do to hurt me?" Arthur calmly asked, staring the male down in his stand-off, "It's already over. You should have evacuated the ship like everyone else."

"A captain always goes down with his ship," Loxall spat, each word like acid as he sauntered up to the canine, "But that won't be today."

"Since when were you ever the captain of this ship?" A thin, solemn smile spread on Arthur's face as he took one last moment in, before announcing, "Engage all airlocks and activate protocol void."

There was a flash of defiance on Loxall's face as he made a lunge for the canine, but the instant the airlocks opened all across the ship, they were both lifted from their footpaws. Hurtling winds suddenly coursed around them as gravity was lost, alerts sounding all around them as new warnings began, anybody left aboard now ejected into the void outside. Overhead the hull of the ship split open as the loading bay doors activated, and the vacuum of space hungrily devoured all the air and objects in the room that weren't secured. Both the men were hurtled into space, carried by their unending velocity, as they drifted outside the Terminal. Death would have been instant, but their bodies persisted, Loxall slowly freezing over as he bellowed, Arthur resigned to his fate. From his view, the ship was being abandoned as it slipped into silent running, until his vision burnt into darkness. A few seconds more and he lost consciousness, a smile frozen on his face, until death claimed him, and what was left of his mortal being lost itself in the abyss of space.

~ ~ ~

Marina didn't so much as awaken on the station platform, more that she suddenly came to, as if stirring from an absent waking dream. She ran her fingers over her body, testing the experience of sensation for herself, never before having been inside one of her own simulations, let alone one so complex. It felt so real, more so than she had anticipated, and she sampled as much as she could. The air, drifting with just a hint of desert send, the ground beneath her feet, the sound of the breeze...

The station itself was a quiet hum of activity, various individuals moving around or waiting for the train, as overhead a woman announced that the service running to platform one will shortly be arriving. Marina was marvelled at her own creation, amazed that what Arthur had described had all been true.

Arthur...

"Excuse me, miss?" Somebody placed a paw on her shoulder, and surprised she whirled around. Greeted with the large form of a Rottweiler in police uniform, she smiled, exclaiming,

"Tyson!" Without thinking she hugged him, tightly, nestling her head against his chest, "It's good to see you!" Pulling away, she looked up at him, "Do you remember what happened now? Was Arthur able to restore the users' memories?"

"Some..." Tyson said soberly, "Not all. Where is he?"

Marina fell quiet, as they both looked around. Guilt sat in her gut as her mind began to realise what the Labrador had done.

"Where's Arthur?" Tyson repeated, more broken than the first time, more fearful and desperate, "Where is he?"

There was nothing but silence between them as it confirmed the worst.