Never End

Sumiko looked back at the stunned Yumi, bemused by her expression. “You look like it’s your first time seeing a hole in the fabric of reality.”

Realizing how much she was staring in awe of what she saw, Yumi promptly closed her mouth trying to restore some part of her composure. She tried to look away, not pleased to have slipped at such a moment.

“Relax, everyone reacts the same way the first time. I’d be more bothered if you had no reaction.”

“But a tear in space-time…”

“Yes, purely theoretical, at least, until now.” She went over to Yumi’s side and coaxed her forward. “Unfortunately, we don’t have a lot of time and this sort of technology is bleeding edge. So I’m going to need your head in the game.”

“But I’ve never worked or even studied something like this before!”

“Then it’s a good time to learn!” Sumiko declared with confidence as she pushed Yumi forward. “The worst that happens is that the event horizon destabilizes and the whole Ark is pulled into a void of unknown space and physics. Sounds like fun, right?”

“Fun…” Yumi couldn’t understand where the woman got her confidence from. She was clearly far more knowledgeable about such things and yet made it seem like it was possible for Yumi to be of help for them. Once she saw what she was dealing with she knew immediately that she was out of her depth. This was what she needed to know, but she didn’t have this sort of understanding. The book learning that she gained only took her so far.

Yumi pounded her head against the problem with the rest of the crew, but she couldn’t get her thoughts around it. ‘Everything that I’m seeing completely goes against what I’ve learned…I can’t use any of it. There’s a logic here that just doesn’t make any sense!’

“You’ve got the same confused expression as the last time.”

“I feel like everything I know is meaningless. It’s frustrating…”

“New things are like that.”

“No, I understand the things, but I don’t understand why they work. It shouldn’t with everything that I know, but it does…you’re better off without me here.”

Sumiko stepped over to the panel that Yumi rested at, completely stalled on her attempt to find a stabilization point within the reactor. “Giving up isn’t an option.” She stared down, connecting with Yumi through their eyes. The fire that burned strongly with Sumiko became visible for Yumi. “This is our hope. And it might seem impossible right now, but we’ll find a way. I’ve…we’ve made it this far being told it’s all impossible and that we should accept the inevitability with grace and dignity. But Yumi, it's far better to be ugly and foolish believing in the future than surrendering.”

Hearing her speech spurred Yumi back to her feet with renewed energy. The same drive and passion that she plunged herself into for the sake of survival and understanding were flashed before her eyes as a reminder. She still had a goal, solving the puzzle of this world, which remained a mystery to her still. “You’re right, ma’am. I’m sorry I let my fatigue get to me.”

“You’ll be fine, Yumi. Hitting a wall is natural, means you’ve still got things to learn and grow. Nothing is more exciting than knowing you’ve got more ahead of it. Closing yourself off and remaining stagnant is what it means to die.”

Yumi nodded to her, surprised with how empowering her words had been. It gave her all of the energy she needed to get back into the work. They were short on time and she had made no progress. But she still had a future ahead of her. Even with failure in the future, she could see the path that Sumiko spoke to her. “Thank you. I’ll make sure to see things to the end!”

Chapter 486 – Never End

An undefined period of time passed, one completely opaque to Yuki. Due to the complete loss of narrative perspective by way of Yumi, it defaulted back to him. A voice of the narrative had to remain, things couldn’t just be omniscient that would just be silly. Clearly that wasn’t how things worked for this story.

Wandering the halls, Yuki stumbled around, not completely clear on the direction. ‘Yumi seemed pretty distant and empty. Wish I could have talked to her sooner, but with all of the repairs I didn’t get a chance.’ She rescued him, but he hadn’t been able to save anyone else. Even his rescue felt a little secondary like it was a habit, though even that felt maybe too intentional. Perhaps more like it was capriciousness instead. That bit of doubt and confusion made him worry for Yumi.

The whole station gave him an unbearable amount of excitement that only the somber and grim atmosphere of everyone managed to temper enough that he wasn’t acting like a child everywhere. In private, away from everyone was a completely different story. Yuki walked a tenuous balance of glee and forced soberness. It made it difficult to truly enjoy the scenery as he would have wanted. If measured his body would have looked like it was emitting an ever so slight hum from his subtle restrained jitteriness.

With the down time he had, the search for Yumi continued through the large station. He finished another floor with no success continuing to the next by way of the lift. ‘If only the computer search turned up something…either they’re really incompetent or Yumi’s somehow managed to hack into their system and go invisible. Which shouldn’t be possible…’

He hadn’t given the situation with Yumi a lot of thought up until now, since they didn’t really let him. So Yuki hadn’t formed any sort of theory about what was going on with Yumi. He had some completely absurd possibilities, given that he ran with very few facts. “Hopefully Yumi will save me from the trouble and just explain what’s happening.”

In the end, half of the day was spent and he had to take a break in the cafeteria to get some food. He dropped his head against the table knowing that he hadn’t even managed to search a tenth of the station so far. ‘I’m going to be lucky if I find her before the place explodes…’

“Not hungry?” a voice from above softly asked.

Yuki peeked his eyes out of his cross arms to see that Karen was standing across from him at the table. “Not so much…”

She set down her plate of food to pause and listen. “Something wrong? I’m sorry you can’t help out with more things, but you don’t have an engineering background.”

“No, that's fine. That’s out of my control.”

“So it’s something else?”

“Yeah, something more complicated, most likely.”

“Hmm?” The woman thought for a bit on what information that Yuki offered up in not being so clear. She then remembered something about him. “Is it about your friend that you asked me to search for?”

A slowly raised eyebrow gave away his surprise that she still remembered that with everything that happened. Given that she had already figured it out, he had little reason to remain dodgy with her. “That’s right. I’m looking for her. She came with me.”

Karen pushed around her plate with words that she didn’t want to say. It took her several delaying seconds to get around to saying what she wanted. “Have you considered the reason that we can’t find her is because she’s…”

“I’m sorry I can’t explain it more to you. But I just know that she’s still alive.” She looked at him with sympathy for someone unable to properly grieve and move on. His brow pinched as he struggled to find a way to explain it to her that didn’t sound suspicious. “It’s just a feeling I have. I know I’ll find her.” Yuki slid back against his seat as Karen's expression changed again to a sweet one that seemed to have melted. ‘Now I made Yumi sound like she’s my lover…’

Placing her hand on his, she tried to give him support that she previously lacked to encourage his search. “You should eat up then. You can’t search on an empty stomach.” Karen stood up and picked up her tray to continue her walk back to her station.

Yumi stood up quickly with something striking him. “What did you say?” He hurried over to Karen to stop her.

The surprise movement startled and drew out her insecure side as she recoiled. “W-what?”

“What was it that you said to me?”

“I just said you should eat.”

“Right, food!” He turned around consumed in his thoughts. “Damnit, I can’t believe I didn’t think of it sooner. Those five years really must have let me go…”

“U-um, what?”

Yuki flipped back around to Karen grabbing her plate seeing it nearly drop. “You’ve got to eat!”

“Y-you’re not making any sense.”

“Oh sorry, my thoughts are ahead of my words.” He secured the plate for her making sure that she had a firm grasp on it. “I need your help, if you’re willing.”

“U-um sure…”

“Great! Let’s head back to your station!” With Yuki doing a little more of the pushing, though Karen mostly walking on her own, they made it back to the command room and up to her terminal. She still didn’t know what he had planned. Her plate of food rested on the flat surface of her terminal over to the side.

Access cleared quickly for her and she looked up at Yuki wanting some sort of explanation for all of his burst of excitement. “What did you need me to do? You haven’t explained anything to me.”

“Can you track supplies from here around the station?”

“Facility and yes, what sort of supplies?”

“Food. I want to know if there are any mysterious disappearances of food.”

She stared at the screen for a moment as everything processed. Then everything clicked for her. “If your girlfriend is still alive, she’s got to be stealing food.”

“Friend and yes. How long do you think it’ll take?”

“It won’t be long. Everything is logged, so I just need to run a check and map it out.” Karen’s fingers slid over the panel quickly navigating menus that Yuki could barely even read. And true to her word, it wasn’t even a minute before she had her results. “There’s food stores missing on floor 56-60. The computer estimates that she’s located about here.”

“Guide me there!” Yuki jumped down half the flight of the ramp and paused back to her. “Thank you, Karen!”

“Good luck, Yuki!”

Floor 58 proved to be a miss for his search, but 59 turned out to be right on the mark. Two rooms into his search, he heard muttering faintly as he approached. “Yumi?” He slowly approached the door, ajar or ignored. Tilting his head around, he saw in the dark Yumi intensely staring at a screen of things he couldn’t even comprehend. “Yumi?”

She didn’t acknowledge his voice like he figured it would. Even in the deepest concentration, his voice had been something that he could rely on snapping her out, but it failed. “Yumi?” It started to feel a little like a horror movie with him not seeing some horrific sight that her turned away figure concealed until he was in front of her.

Fortunately, there was no blood sprayed everywhere or a hidden murder weapon embedded in her chest. But something still nearly as disturbing to see was the bloodshot eyes with an almost ghostly undead light to them like she ceased to exist months ago. Heavy lines wrapped around her eyes and darkness covered every corner of her face with only the eerie whites of her eyes visible. “What’s happened to you, Yumi?!”