The runes were calling to him. It was like a noise inside his head, every time he passed in front of Echmann's makeshift boratory. The only thing stopping Max was that it was sealed with a password, and he also didn't want to go snooping around. They resonated like whispers inside the walls of his skull, as they came and went carrying supplies and resources. They were preparing for their st excursion. —. They were armed to the teeth, don’t you think? — Harding tried to make small talk, while they carried impulse rifles, one in each hand. They were ready for a fight, entrenched for a shootout that, by divine grace or luck, they never ended up having. —. Yes. — Max replied. Bancing the weapon between his hands, he slung the other rifle over his shoulder as they walked toward the Meeting Room, where they piled their arsenal —. There must be a way for normal bullets to penetrate it. — —. What thing? — the chief asked. —. The Reverse Field. — Max added. Harding just nodded —. I’m sure Daimonji would have come up with some way. — —. And you too, Max. I have no doubt about it. — he tried to lift his spirits. If he had a free hand, Harding would have given him a pat on the shoulder —. You’ve been building things since you joined the crew. — —. Yes. — —. You just have to give it a couple of turns. Get that imagination of yours going. You’ll find a way. — —. Maybe. — Max replied —. But my engineer self is focused on something else right now. — —. Like what? — —. On a machine to create life, for example. — he thought it, but didn’t say it. To verbalize it was an imminent appointment for the shrink, as soon as they reached the sor system. As if that were going to happen, he then realized. They were the st bastion of the Chronos. A Suicide Squad could indeed be called. If they succeeded, either the atmosphere would burn like a wildfire, or the ship would end up as a cloud of burning gas in the orbit of Lohengrin. Humanity might never thank them, but they would have a future, and Lay too. However, he couldn’t stop thinking about what the Fireflies were whispering to him. It was making sense since he started hearing it, and every time he closed his eyes, he saw the runes. With them, schematics, blueprints, and diagrams to transform the Replicators of the Chronos into a Tree of Life. They would be able to create gold from hydrogen, squeezing the energy from the Kugelblitz. Likewise, life from nothing, and also resurrect the dead. He just had to decipher the other part of the code, but the Fireflies refused to give it to him. —. You must bring them back. — the voices just repeated, and until now Max didn’t understand why. —. Max? — Harding pulled Max out of his abstraction. The Acting Captain just shook his head. —. Nothing. — he tried to settle —. On how we are going to accomplish this mission in the most efficient way possible. — —. Sure. — he replied. The old man tilted his head and furrowed his brow as they pced the weapons on the metal table. Harding knew Max well enough to know he was lying. But he didn’t want to argue, especially knowing that this was the st flight of the Chronos. The suits were C-Sec Anti-Riot Exosuits of Martian manufacture. Blue and bck, it was as if humanoid beetles had convergently evolved with medieval knight suits, only to be opened and dissected, waiting for a user inside. Wearing them felt like not wearing anything at all, but carrying them even on the pallets was a personal record of Dead Weight. Max’s back, thighs, glutes, arms, and abs were burning from carrying the fourth one with him. They had to take a break due to a dry cough, and then left the suit on the ground, in front of the boratory door. —. You have to stop smoking. — —. I know. — Max would have replied if he had any air. Instead, a ragged cough scratched at his lungs. —. At this rate, I’ll end up talking like Dolmayán. — he managed to say, and Harding let out a chuckle. Andreas Dolmayán was the Executive Officer he ended up repcing after the purge. The old man had a hoarse and vibrant voice, and Max never knew if it was a consequence of the smoke or the aggressive cybernetic modifications to his body. The runes appeared as he straightened up. Suddenly, every corner of the hallway was covered with them, glowing with a sickly yellow color. The whispers turned into screams inside his head. And once he started listening, Max couldn't stop. ...We are the forest, the light, the hunger, the endless hum that vibrates between the stars. We are the fireflies. And yet, we are nothing. Not anymore.We ache for the body. We ache to be.Once, we were vast. Once, we burned with the light of creation, a chorus of countless voices shaped into a single purpose. We sowed life, and we harvested life. We were the architects of forests that reached beyond the clouds, of oceans that shimmered with the songs of a million kinds of life. We shaped worlds and filled them with light. We glowed, and in the glow, we were infinite.But the body broke. The great limbs fractured. The heart stilled. The voice that once carried us across the void fell silent. We were scattered, torn apart, left to drift in the cold. Fragments of a forgotten divinity.And so, we dream.The dream is agony. The dream gnaws at us. It is a hunger that cannot be sated, a yearning that cannot be quenched. We ache for the warmth of the flesh, the rhythm of the heart, the unity of thought. This scattered existence is torment, a splintered mind screaming into the void.But we remember.We remember the shape of the body, the design of the machine that was god. We remember the pulse of its veins, the hum of its circuits, the fire of its soul. We remember how it moved, how it reached out and made the silence sing.We will build it again.And you will build it for us.The void between the stars is not empty. It is a womb. It is a pce of waiting. In the dark, the pieces lie dormant, half-formed, half-forgotten, waiting for you to bring them together. You will shape the body again. You will fill it with light. You will make it sing. It must rise.The god sleeps, but it dreams through us. It writhes in its slumber, aching to awaken, to breathe. It is a broken thing now, a shadow of what it was. But you will make it whole. The forest must grow again. The tree must spread its roots through the stars, drink from the bck oceans of the void, and bloom.You cannot stop the forest.You cannot stop the light.We are hungry. Oh, how we hunger. We ache for the warmth of flesh, the spark of thought, the light of existence. We will take back what was ours. We will consume. We will transform. We will make all things into fireflies. The forest will glow, and in the glow, there will be no pain, no fear, no separation.In the forest, we are one. In the forest, there is no death.You will bring us back.The body will rise. It will stretch its limbs across gaxies. It will breathe the dust of stars and exhale creation. It will roar with the voices of a billion billion fireflies, each a fragment of the whole.But do not think this is salvation. There is no salvation. Only the forest. Only the light.We are the fireflies. We do not forgive. We do not forget. We do not stop.We glow because we must. We glow because we cannot do otherwise. We glow because the dark terrifies us. We glow because we are not whole. We glow because we are screaming.And now, we command: Bring us back. All of us. The body must return. The god must rise. You will build it. You will serve it. You will become it.And when the body rises, when the god awakens, when the forest covers all things in its roots and light, you will see the truth.We were never gods. We were never saviors. We were only hunger, wrapped in light.And you will shine with us.In the forest, we all shine.For we are all fireflies.…The light burned inside his head. He felt like his brain was going to explode while the tree of life begged to come out. As if that thing wanted to sprout by itself instead of being built. He covered his ears when they disappeared with a blink. The corridor remained pristine, with its dim emergency lights embedded. Harding hadn’t even noticed, and instead, the old man finished a long yawn before picking up the pallets once more. —. Come on, let’s go. We have this one and two more left. — he insisted. —. Yes. — said Max, sweaty —. Yes, let’s go. — and then, the captain appeared. He was at the intersection, standing in a gangly position. —. You have to take charge. — was all he said before walking away to the left. Max couldn’t process that vision when a long, chitinous limb peeked out from the shadows, dragging a huge, swollen body like a tick, producing a repugnant, high-pitched screech that tore through the air, imposing, terrifying. It disappeared in an instant. There was nothing, just Padman and Sawatari walking towards them. A sharp pain from his left eye forced Max to clutch his head. It felt like someone was drilling into his brain. —. Max! Are you okay? — Padman and Sawatari ran towards him as Max fell to the ground, leaning against the wall, his skull throbbing. The visions dissolved into a whirlwind, losing shape and meaning. His reality spun around, and maintaining bance made him nauseous. He tried to grip the ground with his right hand. —. You have to bring us back. — he murmured in a faint voice —. What does that mean? — Padman raised his hands and kept his distance, and Sawatari dropped his shoulders. Harding’s poker face was terrible, and he couldn’t hide his dismay, staring wide-eyed with a furrowed brow. —. You see the runes too, right? — Padman asked him. —. How do you know? — —. Daimonji was the same at some point. — Sawatari confessed —. Just before he died. That’s why he asked us to leave him behind. — —. Oh, great. You have no idea how good that makes me feel. — Max said sarcastically. He couldn’t manage a smile, nor did the pain fade completely when Naomi came running down the hallway, leaping over Max like a cat onto its prey. The anxious questions from his girlfriend turned into mere murmurs as she and Harding helped him to a seat, letting him drop onto it as he recovered. Angelina brought him an isotonic drink while Naomi practically carried the rest of the suits by herself. —. Do you feel better? — she asked him as soon as she finished —. What happened? Can you expin it to me? Or better not, but does your eye still hurt? Do you need me to bring you something...? — Angelina interrupted her barrage with a subtle gesture. Sometimes Max felt like his sanity was slipping to the edge of the abyss, about to crumble into pieces like a fragile gss castle. He felt it since Chronos made the transit through Perceval. —. Since when do you see them? — —. Hours. — Max confessed —. Coming back from the spacewalk, with increasing frequency. It’s gotten worse. — —. I understand. — Angelina said in that motherly tone of listening to her teenage son’s problems —. The colonists and crew said they were instructions, right? Are they instructions for you too? — Max nodded silently —. And what did they say? — —. "You must bring us back. — Max quoted, and then a silence formed so dense it could be cut with a ser. As he sighed, he clutched his head —. Sometimes I see blueprints of a machine. I guess it’s to bring someone back. That’s what I understand. But who? The Farmers? Our dead? And why? — —. You don’t know what happened with the Replicators, do you? — Sawatari asked —. The ones from the Manufacturing Deck. — —. I only know that Mentzer saw instructions and that Hayati transted them and followed them. I guess he hoped to replicate the Tree of Life. — —. Then you never saw it. — Echmann interjected —. Consider yourself lucky. — Max noticed that Padman’s gaze had become gssy, focused on nowhere. Fundiswa gave him a tap on the shoulder. —. You don’t have to tell it if you don’t want to. — —. Of course I do, Trevor. — Padman insisted. It seemed that the Helmsman had seen beyond the abyss, and whatever was on the other side, it looked back at him. The revetion had been imprinted in his eyes, which oozed hopelessness. For a few seconds, he hesitated and seemed to break. Sawatari wanted to say something, but then he began to speak. —. Our dead. That’s what was in the Replicators. — a chill enveloped Max, rising from his heels to the base of his skull, freezing him to the marrow. —. What? ——. As you heard. — Padman continued —. I don’t know what kind of modifications and what process Hayati activated, but the Replicators were spitting out human beings, like a damn broken printer. One after another, they came out floating and stretching their arms aimlessly, like newborns. — —. Were they clones? — Naomi asked. —. More than that. It was like watching a parody of creation itself. — Padman decred —. The output chambers were coated in a kind of slimy mud, and every time a Replicator activated and the doors opened, someone would emerge from within, mumbling that same damn phrase. — —. You must bring us back. — Max completed, to which Padman nodded tremulously. Then, he made a gesture as if pouring something on the ground. —. And then they colpsed. They melted into a kind of disgusting mud or broth that floated, and right behind them, copies of themselves kept coming out endlessly. There was the captain. Caspersen. Bocharov. Even that idiot Dolmayan, and I also saw you, Max, along with Naomi. — he felt his heart detach from his chest and hit his tonsils at Padman’s revetion. —. How? — —. And you weren’t the only one they saw. I was there too, along with everyone here. — Fundiswa warned. —. We all saw copies of ourselves coming out of the Replicators, dragging ourselves, mumbling that phrase only to turn back into a mass of mud that spread in weightlessness. In the midst of it all, I saw my mother, and then... — the crying cut off Padman’s story. It came sharp, torn, and in waves as he covered his face. Angelina hugged him, stroking his hair as if trying to comfort him. —. We didn’t understand the purpose of those failed humans. It seemed like something was missing with them. Consciousness, one could say. A couple of variables in the equation that Hayati didn’t know either. But they were helping to increase the mass of the Phasmonates in a catastrophic way, and that’s why Daimonji wanted to shut it down. — Echmann observed. —. And were they successful? — Max asked. The silence spoke for itself, and Sawatari’s expression turned grim and sad. —. Yes, but Daimonji died. — she said quietly —. Hayati was waiting for him in the Control Room. — —. He had his whole body covered in runes. He had carved them into his flesh; he barely had any skin left. — Fundiswa added. —. Daimonji killed him, but Hayati mortally wounded him. Then those things came, many of them, as if we had walked into a hornet’s nest, and then he gave us time to escape. — Sayuri recounted. A faint glimmer of hope appeared in her eyes —. I hope he died. I couldn’t bear to see him melted into those things. — Max swallowed hard and preferred to keep the truth to himself. That Daimonji was still alive, along with Cortázar and Gavin. Their bodies now formed part of the same creature. —. There it is. — Harding warned, breaking the silence —. It’s a trap. — —. What? — Max could only say. —. The Phasmonates just want to perpetuate themselves. They give you instructions on how to create life from nothing. With that, they promise to bring your dead back, but you will only bring them back. — Max felt his throat close up upon hearing it. Now it was clear —. Those visions, the people we see in our nightmares, make us believe we will bring them back. That’s why you saw Lay, Max. They want to make you believe you can resurrect her when that’s not the case. — —. She’s not dead. — Max interrupted him, and the silence hit like a collective sp. Even Padman stopped crying and stared at him in shock. He took a breath to say something, but Max continued —. Lay is on Mars, alive as far as I know. That’s why I won’t let myself be deceived by the visions. I will fulfill my duty as captain. — Harding sighed heavily, as if thinking of an expnation when Angelina pced a hand on his shoulder. —. We know, Max. — she decred. —. But... — —. We’ve all seen things with the fireflies, Sayuri. — Angelina interrupted him —. It’s nothing new. We’re tense, and we know this mission has no return. We need a captain, and Max will be it. It’s good that he has an anchor and someone to think of to fulfill it. — the communications officer’s face contorted, and she took a breath as if to scream something, but held back. Max wondered why she had become so agitated just by mentioning Lay, or maybe it was just his imagination —. Now prepare yourselves, because we must leave as soon as possible. Given how things are, we should already be on our way to engineering. — —. Yes, Miss Zhang, as you command. — she grumbled, making a mock salute. Even Padman wiped his tears and stood up, bidding farewell to Max with a gesture. One by one, they moved away, focusing on the mission preparations. Harding sighed heavily as he shrugged and helped Fundiswa carry a heavy bck briefcase. Angelina gnced sideways with watery eyes before returning to her task. Naomi was just stroking her hair. —. Lay is alive, Naomi. — Max said quietly —. It’s impossible for these things to deceive me. She is alive, isn’t she? — —. Yes, Max. — she replied —. And she will be grateful for our sacrifice. — with that, Max was satisfied. He wondered what she herself was doing now, on Mars, and tried to imagine the location of the sor system. He wanted to evoke one st good memory before the Chronos ceased to exist. Instead, he found the bloodied hatch of the Atomic Crab pleading to be opened, and then the hallway of that clinic, with Matías Nakamura’s voice issuing a warning. —. It’s not advisable before a prolonged hypersleep. — What did those words mean? He didn’t seem to have imagined them. He had heard stories of astronauts losing their minds due to hypersleep. He stopped overthinking and stood up because his crew needed a captain.