November 7th

8:32 PM

Ripley

"I… how are you stopping my Implant from updating?" I struggled to formulate anything. How was she even pulling this level of Warpcode manipulation? That should only be possible with a Unique Feature.

Elsa's eyes refused to meet mine, her grip growing firmer on my Frame. "I… you know I used to work in a Proxy Network. I was in charge of hundreds of Irons… I- I have experience with wielding Features. You haven't seen half of what my Dataweaving could do, of what it used to be back when I was… Gold. Back in that Proxy hivemind."

Tears flowed down her face as something deep stretched in her heart. "Ripley, I-"

She choked, the air around us felt tense like it would snap either of us in half. "When you opened up the box, the Pandora… even though you didn't open it. You, you and Diana, were the reason it opened. There's no way you two weren't, something about… The Sin, or even The Allseeing saw you both as vessels fit to take that power and be molded into tools for them to use."

I nodded along.

"Diamante and Missy knew that." She sniffled. "I was tasked with figuring out… why. I did research into you, I knew everything about your past before I even met you. That's just how I am for most people, I smile and put on a face and pretend and lie as though I don't know their deepest secrets… I was the same with you. I sensed your weakness, and you were a Gold. A Gold… with so many points of vulnerability. I- a part of me felt it would be stupid if I didn't put countermeasures inside of you."

My hands felt numb as I considered her words. My girlfriend's words.

"You know by now that… I am very good at sending my Warpcode where I need it to. I can touch any piece of tech, and transmit my Warpcode into it. Like how I'm holding your Frame right now and keeping it at bay. When you were Tier 0… it was so easy. It was like… I could think, and you would have died. I didn't, obviously. I had to learn more about who you were, who you could be and… so I sent Twilight into you to observe."

Her thumb rubbed the flesh of my neck. "Twilight… I can see and feel through any of my Persona's when I need to. She's me in my… she's the me who goes out to the world. My messenger, my copy that will say the things I will never. But she's also my… my mirror. I knew she was teasing you, and that… you had a longing at every word she said."

"Longing?"

"The love of your life died, Ripley." As she said that, I felt Psyche try to react out, try to break Elsa's hold. "You were beyond mentally unstable, the Personality Matrix was a flimsy shield. I said… one thing that brought your memories back of that night, and your Implant almost overwhelmed you. So I reached in, and when I reach in… I feel everything. It's habit. It's subconscious. I pulled on that love, on it's shadow of grief and I… knew that if there was a light shining on it, that there wouldn't be darkness clouding your judgement."

I gulped, I was almost entirely sure now just who my girlfriend really was. "You… took the love I had for Selene and attached it to my perception of yourself — when I formed the Preservation Matrix."

"I nudged it," She said with guilt scratching in her voice. "I… didn't know what it would do. Just a slight nudge caused you to… want me. Want all of me, maybe it was in line to keep your mind preserved, but you wanted to forget about Selene and want me. Me, my Personas… no one has done that, not since I got this body or made them. I've had… relationships before. But they always wanted a part of me, Twilight's outgoingness, my elusiveness, Daylight's joy, Midnight's… dark allure." She took a deep breath. "I- thought we would just be fun, but it very quickly became more for me when you- fuck- when you said all those things and made me feel a way I never felt before."

Even as I heard those words, as I considered the fact that my love for her had been fabricated… I couldn't stop feeling that it was there. And worse, that this was real for her. Things spiralled past her predictions, and forced her into lying.

Did that make it right? No, of course it didn't. But how could I change the way I feel when I couldn't even get rid of this stupid algorithm.

"When you delved into the Net with me," she gulped. "It was difficult feeling who you were. You're a man with very strong and very… direct emotions. Direct emotions that were twisted into a knot that I… I had some control over. I wasn't wielding it with the belief that I was manipulating or preventing you from being you… I just… had to mold you into what I… what Missy needed you to be."

My eyes closed, Missy… I had trusted her, but now everything Maiden had said about her was beginning to make sense. "Does she know what you did?"

"No." She shook her head. "She said 'do as you need to', she likely does know I did something. I'd told her and Diamante about the Matrix the first time I scanned you. And back then, in the Netscape… your emotions were powerful. I could feel how badly you wanted to be of use, everytime your Gold entered me… there was darkness so powerful that it nearly consumed my thoughts. Your mother, the remnants of Selene, the grief you had and the weakness. And then, when Daylight died, it all came crashing down. I… I'd never felt sad about my Personas dying, but when you did… I reconsidered… and-"

"And then I got injured in the Net." The Sentinel had attacked me, and she'd fed her own Warpcode into me to keep me alive.

"I felt you dying. And… I felt your fear of death, of the regrets, and… I did something I didn't do for a lot of people. I gave a part of myself to you, I just… I knew at that point that you were special. That you were… a boundless force. I didn't know why you were chosen for the Implant, but I understood why. A part of me wanted to cultivate that, to see what you would change and become into. To be… a part of that."

Her eyes turned to me, tears flowing like rain but her hands were cold as ice. "I used that moment, and strengthened your call to live. I… gave you a reason to live. Like how you lived for Selene. It pulled you from the edge, because for a moment, you wanted to live for me. I intended to reverse the change, I did want to… but then your Implant was disconnected from you by Missy and… I saw how broken you were again."

I remembered that day clearly; it was the first time I watched movies with her. The first of many. "And you asked Missy to reconnect me."

"Yes." She nodded. "And then I… calmed you, and I… shared some of my past. You were the first since Skeleton to know. Not all of it, but enough that I had already crossed a line. For the first time, I wanted someone to know who I was, really was. I wanted to give you a reason for your… love."

I stayed silent.

"And from then on… you stayed with me. Watched movies with me. Cooked for me. Cleaned for me. I felt cared for. I felt… selfish. I felt… wanting to give back to you for no reason other than that you were there for me — and it made me feel like I could redeem myself for all the terrible shit I'd done to so many others. So when you asked me and my Personas out on a date, I was scared. Scared to know that you might, that we might… be built on a lie."

"But that lie gave you what you wanted." I didn't know what emotion dripped through my voice right now.

"Someone who would never turn their back on me." She nodded, but it was more like she dropped her head from shame. "I feel terrible about it, I have ever since. I… thought telling you who I was would make up for it. Neocore — delving within the VoidNet to the Firewall. It was my stupid way of trying to pay for what I did to you, but you… every time I showed something that might have pushed you away, you only pulled me closer. Until I didn't want to stay away anymore."

She nestled her breath into shoulder, wetness from her face soaking me. "Do you want to know the truth about my Personas?"

I stared at her vulnerable form, questioning everything I knew. "Truth?"

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"I tell everyone I feed my emotions into my Personas, that's partially true. When I do feel powerful emotions, they mediate it. But also… back in NeoCore, do you think we were allowed to feel emotions?"

"What?" My hand reached for hers out of habit, but hesitated midway.

"I was mindless." She held a coarse pain in her voice. "An algorithm! The first time I felt emotion was when I was torn away from the Network and felt the death of every one that was under my Proxy. The very first thing I felt was death, Ripley. And then I awoke in this foreign corpse. All I had was a fear of death, while the rest of my mind… was numb. Psyche created the Personas… to let me feel emotions. I wasn't feeding emotions into them, they fed me."

"I thought…"

"Midnight was the first. Strange city, strange faces. Feeling death and pain, I formed Midnight so she would cultivate a drive to protect me with her hatred and contempt. She was exactly that, a maelstrom of darkness, as for when I said that when Missy and Diamante found me happy… I just switched up the orders. Daylight had already been formed when Midnight was dead and being remade, overwhelming me with joy at destroying Little Requiem. I wanted to feel good about what I'd done, and she made me believe I was so powerful."

She took a deep breath. "And for years, that was how I operated. Anger and Joy. Despair and Courage. Madness in two forms… until… Twilight. Twilight was the middle ground, the mediator, the most complex out of them. She let me feel contentment, satisfaction, purpose… I was no longer just someone who did things out of a need to fulfill a task set to my algorithmic mind. No longer a tool for NeoCore, Skeleton… or Missy."

My hand rustled closer to her trembling body, I didn't know what I should be feeling towards her… but keeping her steady was the only thing that made me feel sane. "You began doing things out of your own will."

"Yes." She held me close, relaxing into my hold. "The last few years, I let myself… adjust, to be a real person. To be Elsa. To not have to be Mirage. You, more than anyone, made me feel that way because you were so new to all of this. So, for the first time I… I let myself feel love. Not from my Personas, but me. And I had no idea how powerful it would be. It amplified every other emotion in me, it let me feel joy, fear, peace. All connected to you. And… the steps I made towards that."

Her face lifted to mine, her breath on my cheeks. "I… I love you Ripley Donovick. I've never loved someone else before… not even myself. For you, I would throw away the world."

She lifted her hand up, my eyes blinking as details of her personal finances and history flowed into me. Millions of Shardyne flowed as she connected me to her accounts. "You're the only person who I want to share… everything with."

"Elsa… I… I think…" That she isn't ready for… that I'm not ready for…

That this might have been a mistake. That thought was so painful it nearly brought me to tears.

"Ripley…" She let her cheek rest on mine, her voice broken and that sent me down a spiral of guilt and shame. "We're the only two in this fucking city who will have each other through the worst, half of this damned city is built on lies. Selene never knew why her parents died, you kept that from her, you lied to her as well. Hell, I spent so long within the Net — centuries worth of mindlessness that sometimes I feel like reality itself is the lie and that's the real world… but you grounded me. Made me want to… live in the present, even if it is a lie. If we don't have each other, we might not have… anything."

Her hold on me was tight, like she was afraid to let go. "I need you… we need each other. I don't care if you want to dissect me or my mind, I don't care if you take every Shard I have. What I feel when I'm… with you, it's greater than everything combined. I'll be yours."

"Elsa…" My breath caught in my throat. "…How do I… live with knowing this?"

"The Matrix." She gulped. "It's a tool, Ripley, to look at the worst parts of ourselves and accept them, to forget everything that… overweighs on us. To be who we need to be. A single update, and I can get us there. It's how I've used my Personas."

"But… I…?"

"I've long since used my mind to… put away the guilt of what I'd been feeling with you. It's how I'm remaking Twilight." She admitted. "It's coming back now… but we're honest with eachother, aren't we? If we have the power to change our own minds to survive in this city, why shouldn't we do that?"

"We… we already are." I nodded, undeniably feeling the truth and ease her words brought me. I would have never been able to help my mother if I let my father's death drag me down, I would have never become half the Adapter I was if… Selene had been remembered. "I don't want to… feel broken again."

"Neither do I." Her nails dug into me. "We can fix that, eachother."

Fix… I could still fix things with her. All it took was my Personality Matrix.

"How do we be stronger? Be… together?"

"By not letting us hide our darkness from each other." Elsa pulled me into her embrace. "Even if we have to be the most terrible versions of ourselves, we will have eachother through it. You, as Dreadwire, and me, as Mirage and…. We could take on this world together, I know it… as long as we have eachother."

"The worst parts of ourselves." I repeated as I felt a darkness crawl in my heart, a grief… and a need to overcome it by any means necessary. To be what my mother needed me to be, to be what Elsa… wanted us to be.

"I feel it in you, Ripley. Shadows." She slid her hand to the hem of my shirt. "Shadows of the man you were, of the future person you could be. I'm the same, I'll be whatever's necessary to get what I want. And I want you, I want you… so bad I lied to you. Even hurt you, and I'm scared to lose you. That's the darkness in me, that's… the depth of what I would do. It's ugly, but it's… me. I'd do anything to have what I want."

"Hurt me… to have me?" I shook my head, hesitation and desire clawing against one another like starving wolves.

"I'd let you hurt me too if it meant making it up to you." Her eyes glazed over. "I'd… want you to."

"I don't want to." And yet, I felt anger in me.

"Break me, then put me back together." Her breath drew me in, her lips an inch off mine. "I can feel it in you."

My hands drew to her back, itching to dig into her. "You act like you know me."

"I'm the only one who knows you, and you're the only one who knows me… who will come to know all of me." Her lips, soft and tender planted against my cheek in almost desperate move that worked. "But I need to know you'll love me, despite the darkness I hide from everyone. Let's not hide who we are anymore."

"What am I hiding, exactly?"

"Your lust for power." She kissed my neck.

"Your want to be famous and respected." She unbuttoned my shirt.

"Your desire to have everything you've never had." She reached for my waist.

"I feel like I'm… pretty open about that." My breath grew shallow to her touch.

"No, you really aren't. Let it out, just say it for once." She whispered, her whispers tickling under my ear.

Let it out…?

"I…" My eyes went unfocused, my heart beating out raggedly. "I want to be so powerful that no one dares threaten me and my family again. To not just protect them, but to… crush those who even dare to think they can overtake me."

"Yes." She adjusted onto my lap, her warmth pressing on me.

"I want Dreadwire to be… no. I want Ripley Donovick to be a name everyone in this city knows. I want to be feared, respected, loved. My name to be shouted out with the same reverence as the Founders."

"And?"

"I'll take everything." Resolve slammed into my voice, something deep and infernal breaking from my chest. "I'll take this damn world into my hands and own it. I'll fix it. This city… it's my damn city, this world… I want Implants, I want Shardware. I want to be… greater than anything this world has ever known. To build a legacy. And... to be that hero that fixes shit."

I was a man born in the light, dragged to the depths of darkness.

Within that embryonic gloom, I changed — and had been reborn long ago.

Was it wrong to want as much as I did? To want to cast my shadow across the city? I didn't think so anymore. As a Gold Adapter, I had both the means and power to craft a future where I was hailed with respect and love. Even if it meant lying, even if it meant accepting the darkness.

Even if it meant being an Architect of Ruin.

Shadow Tendency has been unveiled.

And with water, that ability to flow and take shape combined with the power to conceal and strip power into one form. To control, to own, to make.

To weave my threads of influence throughout this city, to snap at the strings of those puppeteers and loom a web of my own.

Shadow and Water Tendencies are reacting to form the Thread Tendency.

I felt Elsa's Warpcode inside me, and I pushed fine threads between us, feeling the connection between us ripple and knot into something tangible. Something that would… give me the strength to make it out alive. It would both preserve me, and empower me.

Psyche V.3.11 has updated to V.3.15

Effect: Acceptance.

"And you'll help me get it?" I lifted her chin up to meet my gaze forcefully.

"Ripley… you have no idea who will help you get it."

Just as her hand tightened around my Frame, mine tightened around hers… she had it too. The Thread Tendency.

And one more, Spark. Three Tendencies rippled inside of her.

Like a Titanium Adapter's.

My eyes didn't open in shock — but acceptance. "You really are…"

She kissed me, pulling me close as we tightened the threads between us. Her heart pulled me close as she dragged me off the couch and into her bedroom. Yet, she didn't lie down on the bed. With hesitance, she pulled her lips off mine as her eyes searched for reassurance. "You chose to accept me. I'll prove my loyalty to you. I'll show you everything I can do."

She reached under her bed, pulling a concealed compartment so seamless you couldn't even notice it. From within the compartment, she pulled out a mask and fastened it to her lower jaw.

A wolf's maw.

Her violet eyes pulsed, black and white ripples replacing them.

"You didn't claim the heart of just Mirage…" She stepped closer to me, her hands guiding me to reach up the confines of her mask.

She spoke words that a part of me had already known, but couldn't quite believe, from underneath her wolf-mask.

"You claimed the heart of one of The Uncaged."

I blinked, so many thoughts erupted up before swelling down back into the shadows of my mind, and then I pulled the mask off her. My heart fluttered. In fact, there was even humor in this.

A disbelieving chuckle escaped me. I'd been wondering who the mole was that revealed to The Dogwhistler that I could read memories... but I had been the one to tell Elsa.

"Yeah..." I could see through her, accept her for what she was. "And now I want to see what tricks you've been hiding from me in bed, Dogwhistler."

She laughed, throwing her mask to the bed and her lips parting as she let me in. "How many copies of me do you want?"

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