memshares

[engineers]

⭐️ PRE SERIES
- No wonder I'm different from everyone else. Everyone like me is here.
- In all the years I lived there, it only snowed once.

⭐️ BOOK ONE
- The destruction of Beijing Beta

⭐️ BOOK TWO
Encouraging HJS - "What makes you think you can decide what's defective and what's correct?" (CH 29) combine with her operating the mech ("My old man was humoring me. Here. A noise filter. Try it." CH 41) + ("Girl, clear out slowly. Slow down, don't be nervous. You're the most talented student I've ever seen.. JSH stops the mech, CH 41)

"Young man, can you fix that screen?" (CH32 -33)

Stopping the riot with the sight of Beijng-B. "Listen to me. Listen. To. Me."
"Sc...scan for me." (CH48) + "Stars can be reborn, but what about you?" (CH 49)

⭐️ BOOK THREE
Conversation with Foucalt - Don't try and fool me with those words of yours. (CH 61, P19 - P20)
The Space Station funeral (CH 65:57)

"Rescuing" LJH from the city ladies (Ch69:84) + Fortune Telling

"Are we just animals in your eyes?!" - William Yu, the Rainbow Virus (72:102)
"Zhanlu... give LBX full administrative access." (78:144)

"Lin Jingheng, did you know you're a heartless piece of garbage?" (79:154)

⭐️ BOOK FOUR
- Turan and the sedative / the death of Lin Jingheng

⭐️ BOOK FIVE

Comments

BOOK 5

[engineers]

LU BIXING | Six Hatch Marks | cw: suicidal ideations, self harm

[engineers]

[ after lin jingheng and monoeye hawk die, you spend one hundred days locked in your house.

you're working. the eighth is a mess in an aftermath of the battle with the seventh galaxy, and zhanlu has been destroyed. you have to fix him. you spend one hundred days in your house, alone, sending out missives. speaking to prime minister edward, too sickly to do much, taking over his duties where you can. you try and fix zhanlu.

five hundred days into your restart of life, prime minister edward passes away, of sickness, of old age, and you officially take his spot. you, as the new prime minister, host the state affair of his funeral. there was a eulogy. you think you remember people looking at you. staring. watching. you remember the caskets of nothing and the tombstones and now... you're home.

home. for five hundred days, this is where you've spent all your time. five hundred days ago, monoeye hawk and lin jingheng perished, in the battle for the seventh galaxy. five hundred days ago, your entire world ended.

there were no funerals, then.

when you first arrive at the home of engineer 001 and commander lin, as the sign cheerfully reminds you, hanging over the door, you make it all the way inside. you go to the kitchen. the ai of zhanlu, in butler mode, greets you, you think, but it sounds like it comes from underwater. you go to the refrigerator. you think - a drink. i need a drink. and you open the fridge. there's hardly anything in it - supplies in the eighth galaxy are heavily rationed, right now, and alcohol is no exception - but at the back, an unopened bottle of beer, and as your hand curls around the neck, you remember -

you see the mental image, of lin jingheng in his pajamas, bedhead, staring at the beer bottle like it personally wounded him for being so disgusting, and putting it back, and sulking to the kitchen table to a cup of cold tea, instead, and for some reason, the grief and the memory snaps the last remaining piece of your stability in two.

you scream. you just scream, at the top of your lungs, as the image vanishes, the bellow of a miserable animal, and the whole world goes dark as you stagger to the area of the house where the medical capsule is, you bang your fist on the edge of it in your frustration and start asking it, i need a hallucinogen, i need an opiate, i need drugs, give them to me, i need it, i don't want to be awake, i need it, i need it - and the capsule doesn't respond. you're shaking too hard to do anything or type anything and your fingers claw in desperation at the metal. you scream, again, despairing, drowning, miserable, slam your fist against the capsule again.

zhanlu's voice comes over your head. soft, quiet, concerned - you scream at him, too, the AI unable to do anything but warn you. "Headmaster Lu, I can't accept those requests right now, you're too unstable. Headmaster Lu, this is your first warning."

he's an AI. he has to listen to you. you ignore him, shaking, almost hyperventilating, and after the second warning, you snarl - ] Zhanlu, give me a gun.

[ because you've lost everything. in one fell swoop, in one moment, you've lost everything and you can only run from it for so long. you've worked so hard. you've done so much, to not look it in the eye, but the grief is a monster that lives under your bed and in your brain and today it rips you in two. it's all-consuming, like it was when you were a child, and zhanlu can't ignore you, and as the gun is placed into your hands, you start to bring it up, to your head, start to --

then

zhanlu projects footage on the wall in front of your head.

A 14-year-old Lin Jingheng was attending the opening ceremony of the Black Orchid Academy. The ceremonial hall was decorated with heroic histories of the Union since its founding, motivational and inspiring. The young boy sat in the corner with his attention being pulled away occasionally. But even then, he still wanted to act cool, and pretended to look around in boredom whenever he remembered he was still in the middle of a ceremony. He then accidentally noticed the small camera beside him that was recording his every move; his face reddened in embarrassment and anger as he slapped his hand down and turned off the recording.

you forget everything.

you sink down to the floor, and you watch the clip again. you watch it again. you watch it again. you watch that clip hundreds of times and you don't sleep, and the next morning, you drag yourself to your desk, grab a pocket knife, and carve a single hatch mark on your desk. you push yourself to standing. you turn off zhanlu's automation function, so he can make conscious decisions, because you - you can't be trusted with yourself, all the time. you know that, now you've fallen and burnt to ashes, and now you have to rebuild yourself. one scratch mark says i fell, and i nearly quit, but i dragged myself to standing.

--

three years pass in the new independent era in the eighth galaxy. you are their leader, the face of their revolution and their prime minister, and no one outside of your home knows the turmoil that you go through. they can't see you that way. in those three years, a group of pirates and black market illegal merchants reemerged, emboldened by the chance to disrupt the economy you've worked so hard to build. it launches the galaxy into a war that lasts three long years, and you command your military forces and your political forces like an expert. you are an expert, you're the prime minister lu bixing. you can do anything.

five more scratch marks are carved into your desk.

you promised prime minister edward before he died this - if you fell seven times, you'd get up eight. these are your falls. these are your dips into despair that are so deep that you want to die. you want to die. locked into the misery of your ruthless job, alone, you want to die. you want to die, you want to die, you want to die.

you can't die. the eighth needs you.

after the first one hundred days on your own, your house is invaded by other engineers who come to help you work on zhanlu so he's no longer just in emergency mode. it takes you all a total of four hundred days to get him online, but the other engineers are so crowded and messy that you force them out, and you need to move things to the attic. the attic is untouched and filled with lin jingheng's things. you could almost see him next to you. you could almost have him there.

you light up a cigarette. you inhale, just for the sake of the familiarity. to feel like he's there, that you could see him, that he's not gone and you were just delusional the whole time, stupid -

- the smoke burns your lungs, and you start to cough, violently, violently, and you take the cigarette and you smash the burning end into your arm until the pain is so bright and smart that it forces you to come back to your senses. he's dead. lin jingheng is dead. nothing will bring him back and he is dead.

two hatch marks.

another day, you find yourself trembling as you inject a biochip in your arm. it's an opium biochip - the kind being used to create 'perfect humans', though the data is incomplete. it won't be, for you. it becomes your pet project. you work. you experiment on yourself. you inject yourself, over and over again. you work. you work. you don't sleep. you rule the eighth galaxy, you unite its forces through carrot and through stick, monitoring public executions and supply rations and economic growth and population happiness all at once, and you pull an entire galaxy to its feet while you tremble on your knees in the dark.

three hatch marks. four. five.

(you download all of the video data of lin jingheng in zhanlu's system. you watch every single part of it. you work. you work, you work, you work, you throw yourself into your duties and at night you take drugs and force yourself to sleep only when you need to, or when zhanlu forces you to, like a tiny hand tugging at your pinky finger when you're about to let loose on the world.)

--

in the seventh year of the new era, one of your students, brilliant, brilliant mint, pilots the first program to travel through the heart of the rose, the wormhole at the edge of your galaxy, your natural barrier. you are told not to go, but you go, anyway. what's the worst that could happen? you'll die? you don't care. you go on your own.

the people in the eighth praise your courage when you return with fresh research for mint's project. you didn't die. instead, you gathered data, and from the inside of the wormhole, the data gathered gets you the visuals on what happened when the seventh and the eighth galaxy fleets, respectively, were destroyed. your father's ship. lin's. gone. destroyed, in the blink of an eye.

you come home from your trip. you order captain turan to station patrols around the wormhole, now that it's active. you lock yourself in your lab. you take a strand of lin's hair you extracted from the couch and you open a breeding tank in a fit of madness nad you think, i could just reconstruct him, because you could, you're a genius, it would be easy, it would be so easy, and zhanlu blows up the breeding tank.

you stay in the dark lab for three days afterwards, but when you emerge, the knife comes out, and you scratch the sixth mark into the wood of your desk.

--

the final hatch mark is the product of your research, nine years into the new era of the Eighth Galaxy.

you stand there on the precipice. you stand there, with your completed opiate biochip research. with this completed project, with all the tests you ran on yourself, you've given yourself those abilities. you are fast. you are strong, you are, in essence, the perfect human, and you've found a way you could transplant it into anyone. tested on mice, tested on yourself. you have learned that the rainbow virus can be used to break humanity down to ashes, and rebuild them as something greater. you know, now, why you lived through that first outbreak.

you could have an army of superhumans, you could take over the IUS. you could take over the entire universe. it has taken you nine years to prove this scientific theory, and you found out that it's true.

(you could wreak destruction, on the people who took your father and lin jingheng from you.)

you stare at the papers in your hands. they tremble.

this time, you don't call captain turan. this time, you don't call the engineering department. this time you don't deliver the research. you go to your office. you work, all day long. you come home, and you stare at the papers.

you walk to your lab, where you've secretly kept those strains of the rainbow virus, papers in hand.

and you set the sample and every single paper ablaze, and destroy it for good.

when you return to your desk, you mark the final hatch mark.

if you fall seven times, you have to rise eight.

with a storm in your heart, you turn away from destruction.

with a storm in your heart, you rise. ]

prime minister lu bixing | see you all next time.

[engineers]

[ at the edge of your beloved eighth galaxy, you wonder if perhaps you're going insane.

two fleets have descended upon the eighth galaxy, two massively powered, heavily armored fleets of mechs ready to destroy your beloved homeland for its insurrection. it's been seventeen years since the rebellion - seventeen years since your entire world was turned upside down, and you have worked far too hard to fix the broken pieces of the galaxy into a unified whole for this to happen.

to your left is the fleet of the Interstellar Union System - the government you once belonged to. led by chief woolf, archtect of so many of your despairs, of your system's suffering, who calmly informs you that you must return to the union or face consequences. you would politely love to tell him to kiss your ass.

to the right, the fleet of the freedom corps. led by lin jingshu, lin jingheng's sister, hellbent on destroying the IUS and taking over the galaxy. hellbent on destroying everything. they launched a missile at one of your planets, earlier, and while the missile defenses held up, it could have been catastrophic.

they're holding that entire planet hostage, at the moment - planet serbia, just on the outskirts of the heart of the rose, the wormhole that connects you directly to the first galaxy, and a tiny civilian ship of refugees. that's just fine - you were aware of this, and you were aware of the fact that the central IUS troops are here to fight, too. in fact, you open the door and let them, moving your wormhole troops to manipulate the very space and time fabric to give them same passage through the dangerous heart of the rose. they may just destroy each other. you're going to give them the stage to do it.

you sit back in your chair, and then, your entire life changes, because a battered fleet of mechs appears, before the two forces can even think about trying to destroy each other, and cuts through them both like butter and creates a route for the civilian ship to zip to safety, out of the middle of a chaotic, three way battlefield. you're stunned, in the moment, staring, watching, because you don't recognize any of the mechs that are there, but a voice cuts ito the opening of your communication channel that you created to talk to lin jingshu and chief woolf, and you realize in stunning shock that the voice belongs to a ghost.

a voice you've only heard in your dreams, for the past seventeen years.

“Long time no see, everyone." says the long dead commander of the Silver Ten, Lin Jingheng. "It’s been sixteen years, but it seems like none of you have grown up even a bit.”

--

that was about ten minutes ago, and it's turned into chaos. you've lost track of all conversation as your scramble desperately for zhanlu, because you think your heart is going to explode if you have to process this and this isn't the time. you think, i've finally lost my mind. you stare at the projection, of the man with his hair just slightly grown out, skinnier than you've ever seen him but with his eyes the same fearsome gray you fell in love with twenty years ago, and you get a relaxant. the strongest one you can. the drug seeps into your system, and you take it for clarity in the insanity of this moment. chief woolf begins to argue, that the silver ten belongs to the ius. You have no right to fight against us, Lin Jingheng. Turn your weapons on the Freedom Corps and rejoin us, and we won't have you executed."

lin jingheng scoffs and starts to sail through the battlefield, not intending to help either side, why would he? he's coming back. he's coming back to the eighth. he's alive. you let the relaxant flush the nuclear explosion in your heart.

calmly. too calmly. you stand up.

you signal your fleets to move through the wormhole, and you break into the communications channel, with your voice as calm as the ocean. ]

The Silver Ninth Squadron isn’t absent today, Commander. [ the silver ninth, of course, is elizabeth turan - she's piloting your fleet. you lock your eyes onto lin jingheng's as your image appears in the communication feed, and your fleet melts out of the wormhole completely undetected. ] The Silver Ten belongs to the Union? Sorry, but I also have an objection.

[ lin jingheng looks utterly stunned. you give him a calm, gentle smile. ] Welcome back, my commander.

[ and then turn your attention like the point of a knife to chief woolf and lin jingshu. ]

My apologies, I haven’t introduced myself yet. [ courteous. diplomatic. genial. ] I am the Executive Prime Minister of the Eighth Galaxy, Lu Bixing. Our galaxy’s Galactic Expedition Team was initially exploring a newfound territory in space when we suddenly discovered the existence of an active wormhole area. We naturally passed through it and didn’t expect to arrive in the First Galaxy; we had no intention of interrupting everyone’s meeting here today. However, because our men happened to pass by and were blocked by our fellow galactic fleets here, we had to make our appearance out of courtesy to retrieve them.

[ the second in command of the IUS fleet flaps his mouth before he introduces himself in return, and you tilt your head as you explain the situation. oh, yes. we cut ourselves off from the IUS because we no longer need you. in our isolation, we created our own government. the man stammers that you can't do that, and you smile as you remind him of a lesson as you'd school a child. ]

I'm sorry, General. The meaning of an ‘Independent Government’ is that we have full sovereignty as a governing body in a fully-recognized territory. We hold equal governing rights as the Interstellar Union and are not an autonomous region within the Union. We do not recognize the legal and governing system of the Interstellar Union, nor do we need the recognition of the Union.”

[ silence. you have ten minutes until this drug wears off.

you decide to drop the metaphorical bomb. ]

Our poor rural lands in the Eighth have a population made up of vaccuocerebrals -- nobody’s even seen what Eden looks like in their lives, including myself. We’ve never been through higher education like everyone else here and were isolated from civilization for hundreds of years; these are facts that still remain relevant today. And for the Eighth Galaxy to obtain equal rights was the greatest wish of that Commander when he was alive. For me, this was the will of my father. Commander Lu Xin.

[ and just like that, you inform chief woolf with a smile on your face that not only is your revolution complete, but it comes with the legitimacy of the very commander the union betrayed years ago. you are the son of your father, commander lu xin, as you have just learned, and you are carrying on his dream, and you will not ever return to a state where anyone can take advantage of you, ever again.

you continue to speak, as calm as can be. ]

In that regard, the Silver Ten belongs to me. If you'll excuse us, I'll be taking my men, the Silver Ten, and my Commander back to the Eighth Galaxy. The wormhole is quite unstable, and we can't stay for long.

[ your fleet hums as they connect to the mechs of the silver ten, including lin's. he hasn't stopped staring at you. the drug is about to wear off, but you've almost finished, the little feral child who swept in and defied the union like it was a casual conversation.

you flick your hands over your keyboard, absently. ]

Oh right. [ as if you forgot, you add, lightly: ] Here’s a parting gift for you all.

[ and then, you hit a button.

a missile launches from your mech - it exceeds the range of an IUS missile because your engineers are the best in the world, and with no fanfare or warning, it slams directly into a freedom corps ship. there's no time for them to react, or defend themselves. not a single missile warning. the ship explodes into a fireball, sending a ricochet of chaos through the entire battlefield as it scatters the ships around it.

you speak one last time into the communication channel, once again, like you're delivering a basic lesson to a stupid child. ]

According to my observations, this particular pilot had bad aim and seemed to have misfired toward my men earlier. We may be poor, but we don’t like to also owe others, so here’s a missile in return. See you all next time.

[ Click.

and with that, you turn your fleet and proudly sail away with the entire world's jaws hanging wide open at your back. ]

PRIME MINISTER EDWARD | "What have you done to yourself?"

[engineers]

[ it's only been two years since the eighth galaxy officially separated from the union - since you lost lin jingheng and monoeye hawk. you spent the first hundred days in isolation, working, working, working, but the world never stopped turning, and prime minister edward has finally stepped down. you've taken his position - the new prime minister of the entire eighth galaxy.

truthfully, it wasn't a position you ever really wanted. especially not now, but you know why it needs to be yours. the prime minister is nearly ancient, even for your kind - edging on 250, he's close to the end, and the hospice report given to you on your way to visit him at his home makes that even more brutally clear. he's on an intense amount of painkillers, he can't eat on his own, can barely sleep on his own. most people, at that age, in that much pain, would take a lethal injection to end their lives peacefully, but the former prime minister is refusing. he's stubborn; you like that about him, though.

right now, it feels far away, disassociative like everything does, after lin and your father died. as you approach the hospice center, you see a few doctors wheeling out the former prime minister's massive wheelchair - it's the size of a small car, and you see the wheels get stuck. the doctors start to fus sover it, as four or five more come over to attempt to move the thing with teamwork, but for you, now? now, it's easy. you wave them off, and come over - and with both hands on the wheelchair, you yank the small car sized thing right out of the mud, bare handed.

the doctors look at you, surprised. "...Prime Minister Lu, you've been working out, lately."

you give them a little smile. prime minister edward opens his eyes, and he looks at you. this is routine, now - you two take these walks together, because this old man does love this galaxy, and you want to try and help him enjoy it in his final days, even in your miserable state. (after all, you know what it's like, to be confined like that. to be unable to use your body. how demoralizing it is. how cruel.)

so. you escort him every day from the hospital and take him around the military command post, and you two catch up and talk. you trudge through the mud, peaceful and quiet, the very picture of dependability, holding the eighth's moral heart in your hands. today, your four former students run up to see you and the prime minister on your walk - they're lively and squabble, the bright young stars of the winked out starry sea academy.

you talk about the future. the prime minister asks you about the military training program.

"Bixing... Military supplies, production, and large-scale industries are getting too much funding and planning. What do you plan on turning the Eighth Galaxy into...a super fortress where all citizens are soldiers?"

your four students look at you. you're careful, when you respond - that you want to protect the future of the eighth galaxy. that you want to make sure no one intends to impress a fake utopia on you the way they impressed it on the other seven. that you're going to make sure your galaxy is safe. that no one ever tries to take advantage of you again. for a peaceful future. a safe one.

edward falls silent. the kids ask you a question about rebuilding starry sea academy, and it makes something tiny and bitter in your heart twist into pieces - you ask them where they're going to come up with six million credits to pay for it, and they laugh, and they run off. bright and happy as they talk, share old memories - you shoo them off, reminding them not to bother the tired old prime minister, and you hear them arguing about the old school motto. how you told them once, not to be discouraged if they sink into the dark waters of their lives. in times of strife and trouble, don't bury yourself in the mud or the sand; remember the foundation the starry sea academy built for you.

in the darkest mud of your own life, pulled under the riptide of despair, you can't help but take it with a touch of something bitter. how shameless. how foolish that had been. how far away it seemed, now.

prime minister edward snaps you out of it. you're about to turn his wheelchair around when his ancient, frail hand comes out and presses lightly against your wrist. you look down at him, and there's something in his eyes that reminds of the first time you met him, a fire that was impossible to extinguish in sickness and old age.

he says, in this soft, creaking voice, "My wheelchair weighs almost a whole ton, yet you can still lift it up with your bare hands. I’ve also heard that you even sleep for less than three hours a day, but you don’t look a bit tired at all."

you have an excuse ready immediately. ] I'm still young -

[ but the prime minister doesn't fall for it. he looks you cold in the eyes and asks - "What did you do to yourself?"

... you close your mouth. in your herat, you can almost feel the biochip. you decide, clinically, that the old prime minister is close to death, anyway, and too sick to stop your experiments. why hide it? you keep your voice calm. ] ...Just a small experiment. There are still a lot of unknown factors. I can't exactly share details right now, but if it succeeds, I could potentially build a fleet of extremely high mental strength soldiers.

[ the track mark on your arm hurts, a little.

prime minister edward's voice sharpens. "Like those half human, half monsters fleets of the Freedom Corps?"

no. ] Of course not. If AIs could completely replace humans, modern warfare would’ve already been a war of robots by now. The AI fleet of the Silver Fortress wouldn’t fall so easily either, we have a failed example before us already. [ and that's the truth. what you're creating is better - you, as the first experiment, could lead the way. the prime minister's voice carries so much strength, for someone so frail, when he responds to you.

"You know I'm not asking you what type of soldiers are better. Do you know the dangers of this? If - "

but you cut him off, as calm as can be. you remember, in the back of your mind, the soldiers who eliminated such a large chunk of the eighth's fleet. who killed lin. who killed monoeye hawk. you have sharpened, from soft to steel. from idealist to leader. to the prime minister lu bixing.

you are perfectly calm. ] If this kills me, then my job ends here. But for as long as I’m alive, I will no longer return back to the state where others can take advantage of me.

[ never again. you will make the IUS pay. you will make the Freedom Corps pay. you will annihilate them, if you have to. you will make them understand that the eighth is not their plaything and their toy.

the prime minister tries to plead with you. "“Listen to what you’re saying, isn’t this contradicting what you said before? You really plan on opening a new Era with this mentality? A whole new era of exploration?” and you retort - ] What new era? Those are just pretty words.

[ he looks like he wants to say something else - a gust of wind, blows, though, and the prime minister convulses, letting out a horrible, wracking cough. it's moments like these when you remember that he's so frail, a stark reminder to the fierce words he gave you a moment before, and you shift the wheelchair to block the wind until he's able to catch his breath. and when he does - you expect nothing, but he looks you dead in the eye.

“Bixing, there will be nobody who can pull you back from the wrong path when I leave one day.”

the wheelchair's handle cracks under your palm.

(because you know. you know, you know you know you shouldn't - you know this is a bad idea, you know you shouldn't experiment on yourself, you know you shouldn't stoop to the level of the union, but you're grieving and you're so fucking angry and you have a chance and you have to take it - ) ]

Why won't you sign the papers to be put to sleep? [ you ask, changing the question, because you have to, voice soft to keep yourself from shattering to pieces. not like this. he looks at you again, trembling with the strength it must take him to stay like this.

"“Being put to sleep can end pain and give the patient honor and peace in the final moment of their life. I voluntarily give up my honor and peace until the very last second, so that I can struggle and fight with this galaxy until the last moment. I…"

you try to stop him, because you don't want to hear it, because you can't, ] - Let me give you a shot of anesthetics. Can I send you back so you can get some sleep?

[ but he grabs your sleeve even tighter, rasping, shaking "I...I... resigned seven times...in the Eighth Galaxy’s government...and came back an eighth time....so that I could take the position of Prime Minister...during the toughest times…" ]

Okay - okay, I know, Edward - [ you can't stand to see him like this, really, even beyond your own guilt, because he is in so much pain, because you saw the rainbow virus nearly consume this man alive and you're using the exact same virus to experiment on yourself, and your face crumples as you cover his hand with yours, and he continues.

“I...I couldn’t do anything on my own...until...until I met you guys...I finally saw a bit of hope...Bixing, can you also give yourself a chance to stand up again...after perishing into ashes seven times? The words you’ve spoon-fed the kids...are...are…”

finally, he trails off, there, into a coughing fit. you're so shaken that you take the chance to bring him back inside to the hospital, and when you return him to your doctors, the words repeat over and over in your mind.

Could you give yourself a chance to stand up again after perishing into ashes seven times?

could you?

forty five days later, the prime minister finally passes away in his sleep. for you, it was the beginning of a nightmarish ten years of suffering and pain. for you, it was the beginning of your falls - of the seven tiny hatch marks carved into your desk with a knife, in the present day. ]

STARRY SEA ACADEMY | "We're here."

[engineers]

[ 100 days into your self imposed isolation, you find a black hair on the couch.

it's not anything special. in any other situation, this would be something you'd laugh about as you were cleaning, if that. but today, one hundred days into your self isolation, it's yet another reminder that lin jingheng is dead.

you're not okay, and you haven't been okay, despite the facade that you put on for everyone around you to see. you stare at that tiny piece of hair held in your palm, such a dark brown it looks black, for three hours. you stare at it for so long that the home medical capsule gives you a warning, unsure if you're evne conscious. that snaps you out of it enough that you walk mechanically to your lab, and you seal it under a microscopic glass slide.

that's not enough - no. you pull out your 3D printer, and you take the hair out of the slide with tweezers and create a perfect ball of resin around it.

that's better. (it's not.) it goes in your pocket, and you get up to start your day.

as you read through your personal device's notes from the day before and brush your teeth, mechanically, you realize none of your notes make sense - just senseless, shapeless babblings of a madman. detached, you think, that's unfortunate, and you delete them. one hundred days of notes, and one hundred days in a row that you delete them.

like coming out of a daydream, you realize you've splashed some cold water on your face, and you look at yourself in the mirror. you are a mess - your hair has grown long enough that it's almost touching your shoulders, snarled and curly and ugly. you have stubble and five o clock shadow on your chin. your clothes are wrinkled, there's a stain on your shirt - when was the last time you even changed your clothes - and you can see that your cheeks are sunken in. you look awful. you used to care so much about your appearance. do you care about anything anymore? you should -

... you can't. you can't bring yourself to do anything about it, so you knock your hand against the mirror until it turns away, and you think you might be losing your mind (if it's not already gone) when you hear another knock. you blink. the default AI in your house says, tonelessly:

"Visitor: Mint. Identity has been set to: Your student. Do you wish to answer the door?”

you sigh. ] No.

[ it's not her fault. you don't have anything against her, of course. but the idea of interacting with a single human being makes you want to throw up. you start to turn away, but your personal device starts to yell at you, beeping over and over, and saying, in that same robotic voice: "Legal Guardian obligation."

...right. mint wasn't quite an adult yet - she'd be twenty in just a few months. under the union laws, she wasn't old enough to be alone. the minor protection law keeps children from fully cutting off any communication with their legal guardian, at least in the union. you don't live in the union anymore - you laugh, a little, almost mocking, just sad, and go into your system to delete all records of that law. the beeping silences. you stand there.

...you take a deep breath, and you go to open the door.

facing you is not just mint, but all four of your students. beyond them, you realize dimly, that your front garden has been restored. all the weeds that had grown to the height of the window, the rusted, destroyed robots tha tonce held the sign that greeted home of engineer 001 and commander lin have been repaired and shined to their original condition. the sun is coming through your windows for the first time in one hundred days.

the entire garden is filled with flowers.

your gaze flits across your students. mint hiccups. "Professor Lu," she starts, and you feel something swell in your heart that's so heavy you almost can't breathe around it. something in you like a pilot light sputters. ]

Don't cry. [ you say, softly. you want to smile for them. you can't get yourself to smile. you feel ashamed and guilty and horrible and - touched, and so touched you almost can't believe it. ] Did you all clean up the garden?

[ white interrupts you. he also looks like he's going to cry, but he says, "Professor, we’re here to help you, is that ok? We’ll help you fix Zhanlu’s system.".

now that's kind of funny. that's what you've been trying to do for the past hundred days. zhanlu is the most complex piece of machinery arguably in any of the eight galaxies, and it's your system to fix, and the idea of them being able to fix it - they could barely do math, when you first met them, all the way back on beijing beta, twenty years ago.

how could you guys fix anything with your little brains? All you guys can do is fix up some smaller robots and serve some tea, what else can you all even do? you think, to yourself.

rickhead interrupts you. he has never been good at any kind of mechanical work no matter how many times you teach him and he is blatantly aware of it. his face and his eyes are bright red, and he is sniffling, and before you can kindly reject their ridiculous offer, he says, "I can't do anything...Professor Lu, at least let me serve you some coffee..."

these four kids are the only survivors of beijing beta being blown up. they'd wandered around the galaxy under your wing, and grown up faster than any kid deserved to have to grow up. when they gather around you like this, they're like a pack of tiny, lost stray animals, staring at you with their eyes so hopeful that it could be a commercial. you don't know whether to laugh or to cry, something thick in your throat.

because this is the thing. you aren't like lin. you can't just get up every day before sunrise to train even if the world ended. your world has ended, but you have this, this pilot light, this guiding moral that makes you to your core. you would rather die than break the hearts of your students.

you swallow, hard. and softly, you nod, and you agree: ] ....Okay. I'll let you handle the coffee from now on.

[ what you didn't realize then is that this moment single handedly ripped open the crack in your isolated, miserable life and brought the light back in. your students visit you every single day, to make coffee and clean the house and decorate and try and help (badly) (they're so bad at it, even now). you start to put yourself together. you shave. you cut your hair. you take a fucking shower.

and day by day, bit by bit, a tiny part of you starts to heal. ]