If you missed the last chapter of REEF MOB, you can find it [url=https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/221421863/0/0]here[/url], or if you need to find a previous chapter, you can find them all in the [url=https://www.bungie.net/en/Forums/Post/218618986?sort=0&page=0]Table of Contents[/url]. Please give a bump or leave a comment if you enjoy this and any other chapter! ***  I remember what was written: [i]The universe is a beast. The body is made from tiny stuff, from near-nothings. From atoms swimming through a blood of crackling sparks. Simple, eternal Laws shape the beast. The largest galaxy is ruled by principles of mass and motion. Electrons are slaves to charge and to chance. And this is why the universe feels inexhaustible, eternal. No sun complains about its own death. Life is the problem. Life can be woven from flesh or circuit or thoughtful light. Origins don’t matter. But small, half-smart creatures with a fierce talent for denying the inevitable, for balking and complaining about injustices that don’t exist and consequences that should be borne in silence –[/i] “What did you just say?” Nas is asking me again, but the truth lies with the truth-keepers, and I do not have the information he seeks. Yet he still keeps asking, unable to comprehend his unconscious adherence to the universal, immovable laws. Even the Traveler, powerful as it is, is still beholden to the laws: [i]The Traveler moved across the face of the iron world. It opened the earth and stitched shut the sky. It made life possible. In these things there is always symmetry. Do you understand? This is not the beginning but it is the reason. The Garden grows in both directions. It grows into tomorrow and yesterday. The red flowers bloom forever –[/i] “Hello? You listening to me?” I am listening. I’m always listening. It’s just not always the right time to respond. [i]I walked beneath the blossoms. The light came from ahead and the shadows of the flowers were words. They said things but I will not write them here. At the end of the path grew a flower in the shape of a Ghost. I reached out to pluck it and it cut me with a thorn. I bled and the blood was Light. The Ghost said to me: You are a dead thing made by a dead power in the shape of the dead. All you will ever do is kill. You do not belong here. This is a place of life.[/i] “Kenedi!” “Yes, Nas?” I ask cooly. He looks mad. I don’t know why, I told him the truth, I just don’t have the information he seeks. “You knew Ia wasn’t gonna be here?” he asks again, barely keeping the tenor of his voice calm – “Yes,” I repeat. [i]I wonder how many additional things could be accomplished if no one ever had to repeat themselves…[/i] “AND?!” “And Seren wishes to tell you the rest,” I supply, retreating inward again. [i]I was nothingness. If I existed before, I existed as possibility, as potential, stretched thin across the aether. And maybe there was a body that looked like my body, complete with a soul that could be confused for someone rather like me. What I am now was not yet real. And then I was born, and the universe was free to begin –[/i] Nas is shaking me – I wish he wouldn’t, his insistence on answers when I’ve already told him where the answers can be found is irksome and pointless. But Nas is the type to wear what emotions he has on his sleeve – I’ve personally never seen the point of emotions in general. “What do you mean?!” Nas is crying to me, a note of hurt and betrayal in his voice. [i]I didn’t say we [u]wouldn’t[/u] find her[/i], I think clinically, [i]just that we wouldn’t find her here.[/i] “We must return to Seren so that she can tell you everything.” Nas looks like he’s about to punch me. I wonder how long he’d keep punching before he realized it hurt neither him nor I. “So….let me get this straight,” Nas says, barely keeping the exasperation from his voice. “Seren sent us to get Ia back, got us access codes into here, all so that she could have you tell us that Ia’s not here and that we need to go back for her to tell us what’s going on?” “Yes,” I reply. [i]How hard is that to understand?[/i] “That makes no sense,” Nas continues, shaking his head. “Not one damn lick of – “ But then Nas stops, struck by a thought. He turns slowly to the Verge, whom I notice are trying very hard to not meet his gaze. “It was you all along, wasn’t it?” he asks shrewdly, coldly. “YOU were the mission, the surveillance you planted in here. Not Ia. We were just your ride.” “Nas….” Galen starts, but Nas waves his hand dismissively. Solis growls, turning from me to the Verge as Nas rests his head against the bulkhead in defeat. “Easy, Wolf,” Dmitri hisses, tightening his grip on his weapon. “Just following orders.” “Orders?!” Nas barks, looking back to the Verge. “What orders? Who gave you orders?” He advances on the Verge, knocking away the weapon Dmitri aims at him to pin the gangster against the bulkhead menacingly – “WHO ORDERED YOU TO LEAVE MY FRIEND TO DIE?!” “Who do you think?” Dmitri grunts, seething at Nas as he tries to fight back – but Nas keeps him pinned, pointing his standard-issue hand cannon at Galen and Bo warningly. [i]“Do you think,” Duane-McNiadh begins, halting, “that you could use this place to change things? If you regretted something, could you find a way through the Citadel, go back, and change it?” “I wish I could go back and change you into someone else,” Dr. Shim grouses. Chioma’s shaking her head. She knows physics. “Time is self-consistent,” she says. “I think it’s like the story of the merchant and the alchemist. You could go back and watch something, or be part of something, but if you did, then that was the way it always happened.”[/i] I permit myself a brief moment during the kerfuffle to look at our crew and confirm this truth – [i]Why can’t they understand this?[/i] Nas digs the barrel of his gun deeper into Dmitri’s chest, furious. “You played us!” he growls. “You let yourselves be played,” Dmitri grunts in response. “All this just for one person?” Nas loosens his grip, the realization hitting him. I wonder myself why he hadn’t yet come to this conclusion until now – [i]Why would Seren let him use her resources for one person? This was all hers, after all – Ia’s ship, the access codes to the ketch, even us, the crew –[/i] Granted, it is only a few resources and Seren didn’t exactly spell it out for him, but still – [i]Why didn’t he ever suspect that this mission was about something more? But he only wanted to rescue her[/i], I answer myself. [i]He wouldn’t have agreed to or even listened to any other reason. He was only focused on that – to his own detriment.[/i] I look from Nas to Solis, see her ears drooping sadly. If I had a heart, I’d almost feel bad for her – but I can only scan my databanks again for information pertinent to this current moment: [i]I stand here now and now and now many times, this view, this ground… This is where I always choose to stand. I put my feet where I put my feet before and where I will again and I look at the sky. Great things moving, rendered small with distance, lesser things not moving, watching me. I always stand here, resolute. Then fall back to that point, there, where everything shatters…[/i] Nas suddenly hoists his weapon again, aiming it at the Verge – they back away slowly, caught off guard, as Solis growls, waiting for Nas to make the first move – “Whoa, man!” Galen says, slightly panicked. “We were just following – “ “Shut up,” Nas hisses. “You betrayed us…when we needed you most…” “We were just following orders!” Galen shrieks, panicked. “If we don’t do what Rafe says, he – “ “Shut up,” Nas repeats, his eyes distant. “You wasted time and now she might be….might already be….” [i]The silent avalanche begins. Rock and dust. Falling chaos. Machines, as a rule, hate chaos.[/i] Nas’ hand imperceptibly shakes. Dmitri makes a sudden move toward Nas, and Solis seizes him, slamming him to the deck and bringing her shock blade to his throat – [i]Our enemies outflank us from below, above, left, right, before, beyond. The Traveler – shattering.[/i] “So what’s it gonna be, metal man?” Galen asks seriously, resolutely. “You gonna kill us just for doing what we were told?” And I already know what’s going to happen, what’s destined to happen, what’s already happened a thousand times before – I look down to my feet, and shift them to the mark where I know I’ve always stood in this moment – [i]There are always the dead. Their names shift.[/i] Nas sighs, like he has no other choice, and pulls the trigger. [i]Sometimes I think I see myself among the dead.[/i] Dmitri screams as he pushes at Solis, trying to get to Galen – Solis flicks her shock blade to the side, cleanly sweeping Dmitri’s head from his shoulders. [i]But I am resolute.[/i] Nas resolutely points his weapon at Bo as he flees, attempting to escape – two shots echo through the corridor, and Bo falls to the ground, still. In the wake of the attack, Nas and Solis can only stare at each other somberly. “We have to go back,” Nas sighs finally. He looks at me, and I can detect the anger behind his helmet. “But not to Seren. Not to 6 Demeter. We’re going to find out everything, and we’re gonna do it on our own.” Nas glares daggers at me. “And if you don’t help us, don’t do exactly as I tell you, I’ll flush you out the gods damned airlock and you can drift with your secrets forever.” He and Solis turn from me without waiting for a response – I catch up, already searching my databanks again for information relevant to this moment – [i]or is it another moment?[/i] “In fact,” Nas says as he pulls out a pair of cuffs – Solis looks curiously at us as Nas fixes them around my wrist – [i]are they my wrists? Which moment is this?[/i] Even for me, time distortion can get rather complex.