Namola-05 led her down a corridor that hadn't existed five minutes earlier. The walls were warm wood and soft moss; tiny lights drifted like fireflies that had decided to become permanent residents.
"This one is yours," 05 said, pressing her palm to a circular door. It opened into a small, round room shaped like the inside of a tree hollow. A low bed of living grass, a skylight showing real stars (not simulated), and a shower carved from a single piece of rose quartz. Simple. Quiet. Human-sized.
"Take all the time you need," 05 said. "No one will knock."
The door sealed behind her with a sigh.
Nero stood in the middle of the room, suddenly alone for the first time since the headset. She lifted her left wrist. On it rested the Dremear: a slim obsidian band 05 had slipped onto her without ceremony. A single tap and a soft chime.
A life-size hologram of Dr. Unown flickered into existence beside her (same alloy-and-flesh body, same silver-black hair, now wearing a simple dark shirt and the expression of someone who had been caught somewhere he wasn't sure he was allowed).
"They extracted me," he said quietly, "but the Dremear keeps a stable projection tethered to your neural signature. I'm… optional now."
Nero gave a tired half-smile. "Optional. Cute."
She walked to the rose-quartz shower, let the serpent suit melt away into a puddle of tiny sleeping snakes on the floor, and stepped under the water. Real water, warm, no recycled bunker taste.
The hologram followed to the edge of the bathroom, stopped at the invisible line of privacy, and turned its back like a gentleman who wasn't sure he qualified.
Nero peeked around the water curtain. "You literally lived in my brain for days. You've seen everything."
"I was code then," he muttered, ears (actual, physical ears) turning faintly red. "Code doesn't count."
"Uh-huh." She flicked water at the hologram; it passed straight through. "Pervert protocol activated."
"I am not—!" He pinched the bridge of his nose. "I respected every privacy filter I could find."
"Sure you did."
Silence except for the water. She closed her eyes, let it run over her face, washing away desert glass and dried tears and the memory of burning.
When she spoke again, her voice was softer.
"If Jack had lived… I would've married him, you know."
The hologram went very still.
"He seemed," she continued, "like the kind of man who would've carried a three-legged wolf out of a fire and then apologised to the wolf for the smoke. That's… rare."
Dr. Unown turned slowly. The water didn't touch him, but his expression looked like it had been drenched anyway.
"Jack is still in here," he said, tapping his own temple. "Eighty per cent of me is fragments of the man who died refusing to let anything suffer. The other twenty per cent… is what happens when grief learns how to burn planets."
Nero shut off the water, wrapped herself in a towel that smelled like cedar, and stepped out.
"Well," she said, meeting his eyes (real eyes this time, not just light), "maybe the trick is keeping the eighty per cent in charge."
She walked past him, close enough that the hologram flickered where her shoulder passed through his chest.
"And maybe," she added without looking back, "stop pretending you don't feel things. It's starting to get embarrassing for both of us."
She flopped face-down onto the grass bed. The blades were cool, soft, smelled like childhood summers.
The hologram stood at the foot of the bed, hands clasped behind his back, looking suddenly, achingly uncertain.
"Goodnight, Six," she mumbled into the pillow.
The lights dimmed themselves.
"Goodnight, Nero," he answered, voice barely above a whisper.
For a long time the only sound was her breathing and the faint rustle of real grass.
Then, so quietly she almost missed it:
"…I would have liked him to meet you too."
Nero rolled onto her back, staring up at the real stars through the skylight. The grass bed shifted gently under her like it was breathing with her.
"Hey," she said into the dimness. "Six. You still awake?"
The hologram solidified at the edge of the bed, sitting carefully so he didn't clip through the mattress.
"Always," he answered.
She was quiet for a long moment, then:
"Why are they like that? All of them. The Upper Thirty act like grandmothers who just want to feed you soup made of sunlight. The kids in the Lower and Least… they laugh like nothing ever hurt them. After everything they've been through (experiments, dying, watching the world rot), how are they so… free?"
Dr. Unown looked toward the skylight as if the answer might be written between the stars.
"Because pain eventually runs out of new ways to hurt you," he said. "Most of them died young. Really died. Heart stopped, flatlined, the whole thing. Then they woke up inside something that would never let them die again. Immortality is a very long time to carry grief."
He folded his hands in his lap.
"After the first fifty or a hundred years, the only thing left to do is decide what the pain is for. Some of us (me) decided it was for protecting what's left. Others decided it was pointless to keep carrying it like a weapon. So they put it down. They chose joy because anger had already taken everything it could."
Nero turned her head to look at him.
"Namola-05 still has the hoodie she died in," he continued. "Namola-29 still braids flowers like she's eight. Namola-41 apologises to trees because once, a very long time ago, nobody apologised to him when they cut his forest down for a parking lot. They're not ignoring the pain, Nero. They survived it so completely that it doesn't own them anymore."
He met her eyes.
"That's what freedom looks like when suffering finally gets bored and leaves."
Nero absorbed that, cheek pressed to the cool grass.
"So one day," she said softly, "I'll wake up and it won't hurt as much?"
"One day," he answered, "you'll wake up and realise the hurt is still there… but you're bigger than it is. And on that day you'll probably braid someone's hair with flowers you grew yourself, or teach a redwood to high-five, and you won't even notice you've become one of them."
She closed her eyes.
"Promise?"
The hologram's voice was almost shy.
"I'll be here to see it."
The stars kept watch. The grass kept breathing. And for the first time in days, Nero fell asleep without nightmares waiting on the other side.
Nero woke to sunlight that tasted like citrus on the back of her tongue.
She blinked, sat up slowly, and found Namola-05 sitting cross-legged on the grass at the foot of her bed, hoodie sleeves pulled over her hands, looking exactly like a teenager waiting for her friend to pick an outfit.
"Morning," 05 said cheerfully. "Sleep okay?"
"Define okay," Nero croaked, rubbing her face. "I had a dream I was eating pancakes and then the pancakes turned into fireflies and flew away. So… progress."
05 grinned. "Good. So, have you chosen?"
Nero stared at her, deadpan.
"Woman, it has been literally eight hours. I haven't even had coffee. Do you see a coffee machine in this tree house? Because I don't. I see moss. Moss is not coffee."
05 opened her mouth, closed it, then tilted her head like a curious bird.
Dr. Unown's hologram flickered into existence beside the bed, already looking mildly embarrassed on everyone's behalf.
"Namolas don't eat breakfast," he said. "Or any meal. We photosynthesise ambient radiation or sip from the Dorm's low-level gamma fountains. One of the costs of the merge: no hunger, no food, no taste. Ever again."
Nero turned slowly toward him, expression pure betrayal.
"Excuse me? You're telling me I will never taste a croissant again? Or instant ramen at 3 a.m.? Or those little burnt bits on the edge of pizza?"
"Correct," he said, wincing. "Taste buds are inefficient."
She flopped back onto the grass bed dramatically, one arm over her eyes.
"Get out."
05 blinked. "Sorry?"
"Not you, 05. You're cool. Him." Nero pointed blindly at the hologram. "I need five minutes of existential mourning with my former brain parasite. Alone."
05's lips twitched. She stood, gave a tiny mock salute.
"Got it. I'll be outside teaching a bonsai the concept of personal space." The door sealed behind her with the softest click.
The room dropped into quiet, just the faint rustle of grass and real birds somewhere far above.
Nero kept her arm over her eyes.
"No more pancakes," she whispered. "No more cheap wine that tastes like battery acid and bad decisions. No more stealing the last slice of someone else's garlic bread. That's… that's cruel and unusual."
Unown sat carefully on the edge of the bed (close enough that the hologram's knee overlapped her ankle and flickered).
"I know," he said, softer than she'd ever heard him. "I'm sorry."
She peeked out from under her forearm.
"You owe me phantom tastes for the rest of eternity, you realise that, right?"
"I will spend the next ten thousand years trying to simulate the memory of burnt toast and cheap chocolate for you," he promised solemnly.
Nero snorted, then laughed once (a cracked, tired sound that still counted as laughter).
She let her arm fall away and looked at him.
"Okay," she said. "Pancake genocide acknowledged and temporarily forgiven. Now tell me the truth, Six. Am I really never going to taste anything ever again?"
He hesitated.
"There are… workarounds. Some of the older ones figured out how to trigger the memory engrams directly. Namola-05 swears sunlight on her tongue tastes like strawberry jam on Tuesdays. It's not the same, but it's something."
Nero exhaled, long and slow.
"Fine. I'll learn to photosynthesise my feelings. But if anyone offers me a salad made of actual light particles, I'm throwing hands."
She sat up properly, hair a pink disaster, and looked him dead in the eye.
"Now. Before the entire garden comes knocking again: give me the real options. No councils, no destiny, no cosmic gardening metaphors. Just Nero and the ex-ghost in her head having an honest Tuesday morning. What happens if I tell all of them to fuck off and go back to my tiny apartment and play video games for the rest of my life?"
Unown's hologram smiled (small, crooked, almost human).
"Then I'll buy the worst instant ramen in whatever city still sells it, sit on your couch, and watch you beat Oblivion Circuit 5 on nightmare difficulty while I pretend the sunlight through your window tastes like burnt pizza."
Nero stared at him for a long second.
Then she flopped back again, but this time with something dangerously close to relief.
"Good answer, Six."
Dr. Unown's hologram shifted, suddenly serious.
"If you have to choose," he said quietly, "take the Lower Twelve. They're chaotic, yes, but they're the easiest to steer. They follow strength and loyalty. With you at their centre they'd listen. The Upper Thirty will treat you like a sacred relic and never let you make a mistake. The Least Nine will worship you until you break under the weight. Lower is the only place you could actually rule without becoming a statue."
Nero raised an eyebrow. "Trying to install me as your puppet queen already? Bold move for a guy who got kicked out of my brain."
He didn't smile. "I'm trying to keep you alive and free. Lower gives you room to breathe."
She sat up fully, hugging her knees. "Nah. I'm going Upper."
He blinked. "…What?"
"They're powerful," she said, ticking points off on her fingers. "They're ancient. They literally grow forests with their thoughts and carry baby starlight deer around like it's normal. That's cool as hell. Also, they gave me a snowflake that will never melt and didn't ask me to save the universe before breakfast. I vibe with that energy."
Unown stared at her like she'd just announced she was adopting a black hole.
"Nero," he said carefully, "Jack's entire mission (the reason he built us) was to protect the weak. The Upper Thirty are the strongest things on the planet. They don't need protecting. The Lower and Least are still half-children. They stumble. They hurt. They need someone who remembers what it feels like to be small."
He paused, voice dropping.
"Like Sixteen. Lya. She's reckless, mouthy, terrified of being left behind again. I hurt her yesterday (punched her in the soul, basically) and she still came back laughing because that's what little sisters do. Jack would have sat on the floor with her and braided flowers into her hair until she felt safe. That's the work he wanted from us."
Nero looked away, chewing her lip.
The door slid open without a knock.
Namola-05 stepped in, barefoot, hoodie sleeves still over her hands, looking like she'd heard every word through the wall (because she probably had).
"Hey," she said gently. "Heard you're shopping for a family."
Nero exhaled, long and shaky.
"I'm joining the Lower Twelve," she said to the room at large. "They're messy and loud and they apologise to trees. I think I fit."
05's whole face lit up like sunrise inside a teenager.
"Welcome home, troublemaker."
Unown closed his eyes, something between relief and surrender crossing his face.
"Thank you," he murmured (to Nero, to 05, maybe to the ghost of Jack still somewhere in his code).
Nero flopped back onto the grass, staring at the ceiling.
"Great. Now someone teach me how to photosynthesise caffeine before I commit planetary rebellion over missing coffee."
05 laughed, bright and ancient and kind.
"First lesson starts in ten minutes. Bring your sarcasm. The trees love it."