The clamps holding Altopereh in place lowered slowly, hydraulics hissing in the cold air of the gallery, and the massive Orbiton shifted its stance as its cockpit hatch began to open with a groan of old metal. Youri looked up at the machine towering in front of him. It had been some time since he'd last stood this close to it, and whatever it wanted to say to him now, he was already fairly certain it wasn't going to be pleasant.
Leonora stepped in front of him, her eyes fixed on his as she worked the remaining shackles free from his wrists and ankles, her hands steadier than her expression let on. She didn't seem to know what to say to him — nothing about her face suggested she'd found the right words yet, and she'd clearly been searching for them the entire walk down. But as the last restraint fell away, she leaned in close and whispered against his ear.
"This is the only way now. I'm sorry."
She returned to the main hall once Youri was unshackled, rejoining the others gathered along the gallery's edge as he began his slow climb toward the cockpit, each rung of the access ladder groaning faintly under his weight. She took her place in line beside them, arms crossed tight against herself.
"Is the link to the core fully under our control?" Alan asked, not taking his eyes off the machine.
Mikali turned toward him, already anticipating the question. "Of course, sir. We've made certain that the moment the situation shows any sign of escalating, we can sever the connection between pilot and core immediately — no delay, no override required on our end."
Alan's gaze drifted back to Altopereh, something almost contemplative in it. "There's no need to worry, Prime Minister. I don't believe he has the slightest intention of rebelling at this stage." Adin's eyes narrowed as he studied the cockpit from a distance, arms folded across his chest. "I can see it in his eyes, even from here. He doesn't have a purpose anymore. Doesn't even have a goal left worth fighting for."
Youri settled into the cockpit and looked over the controls in front of him. The last time he'd seen this station, it had been slicked in blood, most of its instruments barely functioning at all, sparking and dark where they should have glowed steady. He leaned back into the chair, resting his hands against the commands out of some old, worn-in muscle memory, and let his eyes fall shut.
He found himself, almost immediately, somewhere he'd learned to drift toward every time life threw something unbearable at him — a place with no name he'd ever managed to give it, only the shape of a memory worn smooth from returning to it so often. Beams of light pierced down through a surface far above his head, refracting through water that had no bottom he'd ever found. Something vast stirred beneath him — a massive dark shape, releasing a low, faint growl that he felt more than heard — until, just behind him, two enormous eyes flared open in the dark.
"So you finally came back."
Youri turned toward the voice, meeting that impossible gaze without flinching, the way he'd long ago stopped flinching at anything this creature could throw at him, and let out a low chuckle. "I see you haven't changed a bit."
Altopereh let out a roar as it drew closer, its bulk pressing in around him. "Simpleton. Letting yourself get caught, and you still had my full power at your disposal."
"I got the impression you ran out of time, back then," Youri said, unbothered.
The creature growled, low and slow. "I ran out of time because of you. If you'd had one more ounce of will in you, this thing you call an empire would have stopped existing a long time ago."
"I don't care anymore. Didn't care much back then either, if we're being honest with each other for once." Youri's voice stayed flat, unbothered. "I'm only here because I was brought here — didn't have much say in the matter, same as always. So cut the theatrics. What do you actually want from me?"
Altopereh laughed at that, a sound like grinding stone, low and ancient. "So you still haven't woken up from that day, back on the banished realm. I suspected as much the last few times you sat in that chair, but I wasn't certain until now — now it's written all over you. You never truly made it back from Tartarus, did you? You simply scattered whatever was left of yourself across that little group of friends you've collected since, hoping to finally seize the one thing you've been craving this whole time without ever admitting it out loud. You're nothing but a walking corpse, Youri. You have been for a long time."
Youri's smile was faint, almost peaceful. "In the end, it was always going to be you and me. It had to be. You're the only thing left in this entire forsaken world that ever truly knew who I was — and what I wanted."
"Pitiful human. I thought we made our deal a long time ago." The creature's voice dropped lower still, something almost gentle bleeding into it despite everything, despite the size and weight of what it was. "But I understand. Even if I'm nothing but a monster to you, I know exactly what this is. So I'll grant you your wish, as promised. You wanted death." A pause, heavy with something like inevitability, like a door closing somewhere far off. "And death is exactly what you'll receive."
The watery abyss shook violently the instant the words landed, cracking apart around him like glass under pressure, and Youri jolted forward inside the cockpit, his eyes snapping open. He looked around, disoriented, breath coming too fast, before his gaze finally settled on the controls in front of him — where a single line of text sat blinking, cold and final.
Error: incompatible host.