Work Text
AuDy is a bottle bobbing in the ocean. They cannot get close to any of the data around them without letting it in, and pouring a bit of themself out, and they can’t reseal the barrier once it’s been sliced open. Mako helped by pulling back the Mesh to let them into this room, but now they’re on their own and nearly overwhelmed. The mechanics of the self do not allow them to panic, but they would certainly hyperventilate if they had lungs. Since they can’t do either of those things they do their job instead and try not to think about it. The space is normal. Comfortable. Nothing to worry about. It would be so easy to believe that this is all there is, but just before they leave AuDy takes one last closer look at what is surely a veneer. And there, just at the edges of vision when they turn their head – rough bare concrete, quickly covered up. Not to say there isn’t beauty in brutalism, but it isn’t exactly in line with the fractal visions and numerous numerators with which the engineers have populated the rest of the place. There is only one hint to its authorship, if only they had the clues to unravel its meaning. There is a rose where there was nothing, redder than red and smaller than small, but somehow detailed enough to draw them in and become Everything and All. AuDy sees every dewdrop, every petal, every edge and curve and cell and blush, in higher definition than possible in physical reality and most emulators. They could look forever and still not see it all. It is unsettling to say the least, but at least there is this: Rigor does not have time to plant a garden, not even as a decoy.