The coordinates led Shoremont to a place that clearly did not want visitors.
It rose out of the fog like a bad decision given architecture. Tall iron ribs, crooked smokestacks, and gates lined with barbs sharp enough to have opinions. Pipes ran along its sides in tangled loops, pulsing and sighing like veins that had learned to complain. Chuffspatter and hisscrank and whirr-splutter.
Sho stopped at the edge of the muddy slope, staring up at it.
"…that is not a building," he said quietly. "That is a problem!"
The facility loomed, breathing slow clouds of steam into the drizzle. Greasy green towers blinked with dim yellow lantern-eyes. Somewhere inside, metal clanged in a steady, deliberate rhythm, like a heart that had chosen industry over kindness.
Sho checked the bracelet.
"…yes," he muttered. "Coordinates confirmed."
A patrol marched past the front gate. Boots in sync. Rifles straight. Entirely too competent. Sho nodded, as if this were helpful information.
"Right. So I will… not go there."
He turned. Immediately slipped on the mud. Windmilled his arms. Grabbed the nearest thing to stabilise himself…
… which turned out to be a loose maintenance lever.
There was a pause. A mechanical click.
He froze. Closed eyes.
The ground beside him shifted with a reluctant grrrr-clank, and a narrow side panel slid open in the wall, releasing a puff of warm steam.
Sho blinked at it. He looked around. No one shouted. No alarms. Just the steady, indifferent breathing of the place.
Sho straightened slightly, brushing himself off with what dignity remained.
"Yeah, I meant to do that."
He stepped inside. The panel hissed shut behind him, flinched him.
"…and now I am trapped," he added.
…
Inside, the air was warmer. Thicker. It smelled of oil, metal, and something faintly… wrong.
The corridor stretched long and dim, lined with pipes that pulsed softly with hiss and fuzz and crank.
Sho tiptoed forward. This time, the tiptoeing was slightly more successful. He ducked behind a crate when footsteps echoed nearby. Held his breath. Waited.
The footsteps passed.
And exhaled. "…I am remarkably stealthy under very specific, accidental conditions."
He crept onward. A door creaked open ahead. No one came out.
"…inviting," he whispered before he slipped through.
The next section of the facility was… excessive.
Doors. So many doors!
Tall doors. Small doors. Doors with wheels. Doors with handles that looked like puzzles. Doors that seemed to exist purely to look pretty.
Sho stood in the middle of it, turning slowly.
"…how many rooms does one need," he murmured, "to do something extremely suspicious?"
He picked the furthest one, big one. It opened with a soft click.
Tall chambers lined the walls, each filled with faintly glowing liquid. Tubes snaked between them like a nest of transparent serpents. Wires hung in careful bundles, humming with quiet intent.
Inside the tanks were shapes. Not clear. Not fully formed. But human enough to be uncomfortable.
Sho stepped in slowly. "…I don't like this," he said, with impressive understatement. "Not at all."
Labels covered the glass panes. Lines of tight, clinical writing. Codes. Numbers.
Sho leaned closer to one.
"Subject… replication… variance… that's… that's not good words."
He turned,
And saw her.
She sat on the floor beside one of the chambers. Small. Still. Wearing a simple white crumpling dressing gown that pooled softly around her, bare feet tucked beneath her. Her hair fell in silvery strands, catching the low light like something that didn't belong to the same world as the pipes and metal.
The glass chamber behind her stood open. Its door slightly ajar. Tubes lay scattered on the floor, disconnected.
The girl looked at him. Not startled. Not afraid. Just… aware. Her eyes were wide, a strange, quiet blue that seemed to look through things instead of at them.
Sho swallowed. "…hello," he said gently.
No response.
He took a small step closer.
"What's your name?" he added, then paused. "Why are you here?"
The girl tilted her head slightly. Still silent.
Sho crouched a little, trying to appear less like a threat and more like… whatever he was.
"My name is Shoremont," he said. "You can call me Sho. Today has been confusing."
Nothing.
He glanced at the open chamber. At the tubes. Then back at her.
"…did you come out of that?"
The girl didn't answer. But she didn't look away either. She looked more confused than he was.
Sho hesitated. Then, slowly, curiosity did what fear could not. He stepped closer.
"…right," he murmured. "We are investigating."
He glanced at the glass beside her. A label. Clearer than the others.
EIDOLON BLOOM
Sho blinked.
"…well," he said softly, "that sounds important."
He looked at the unnamed girl again. Then gave a small, uncertain smile.
"Eidola."
The girl watched him. No objection. And he took that as success.
His bracelet then crackled, "Status report."
Sho jumped slightly. "Yes! Hello. I have… found something."
"What is it?"
"There is a girl."
Silence.
"… what?"
"There is a girl!" Sho said, more carefully. "Quiet. Calm. Possibly recently removed from a… glowing tank situation."
A longer silence. Then, sharply, "Describe surroundings."
Sho glanced around. "Glass chambers. Tubes. Wires. Labels. A general atmosphere of extremely poor decision-making."
"Access a control panel. Gather data immediately."
Sho turned. There was, unfortunately, a panel. Blinking. Inviting.
"…I will touch it," he said, with the tone of a man accepting consequences. He pressed a button.
Beep.
Another.
Boop.
Lights flickered. A low hum deepened. Eidola flinched slightly to the sound.
Sho winced. "Ah."
The machines responded with increasing beep-beep then whirr then click then hiss.
Eidola stood. Slowly. She stepped toward him. Quiet. Eyes wide.
Sho backed up a step.
She kept coming. Closer, and then closer.
Until she stood just inches away, looking up at him up and down left and right with that same calm, searching gaze, as if studying his face.
Sho froze. "…this is a comfortable distance," he whispered. "We can stop here."
Sho leaned back. And his heel caught a loose pipe. Balance abandoned him entirely and he fell backward. Hard. Straight into a cluster of machinery. Something gave way with a clankle crash. Light flared.
The world… split as he fell.
…
Sho hit the floor on the other side of the machinery. He groaned.
Another familiar voice groaned beside him. "What was that?"
Sho blinked. He turned his head.
There was another Sho on the floor next to him! Looking just as confused.
Then another groan. A third Sho sat up, clutching his head. "My head..."
Then a fourth Sho blinked awake nearby.
They all stared at each other.
Silence first. Then,
"AAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!"
Four identical voices echoed through the chamber in perfect, horrified harmony! They scrambled back, pointing at each other.
"You are me!"
"No, you are me!"
"That is highly unlikely!"
"I refuse to be that face!"
Eidola watched. Calm. Unbothered. Head slightly tilted to each and all four of them.
Then,
BWAAANG.
A clatterblast and hisscrank siren erupted through the facility. Red lights flooded the room.
"Containment breach detected! Unauthorised replication event! All units respond!"
The four Shoremonts froze. Slowly turned toward the door. Footsteps! Many footsteps and they were coming fast!
One Sho looked at his wrist. The bracelet fell off and broke. Cracked clean through on the floor where he fell on.
They all looked at each other again.
"…this is worse," one said.
"so much worse!" another agreed.
"…we should leave," a third added.
"And immediately!" the fourth finished.
They all nodded, and immediately tried to run in the same direction, and collided, and tripped.
Eidola stepped lightly past them, already moving toward the exit. The Shos scrambled after her in a clumsy, echoing mess of boots and panic.
Behind them, the chamber howled with alarms and ahead were unknown corridors approaching soldiers and absolutely no plan!
Sho… well, the original, carried Eidola as they ran towards the door.